i don’t think many days could have come better than yesterday; after a terrific battle with my luggage, which had a wheel broken off, i reached my new apartment at 1 in the afternoon with terrific internet access speed and nothing else really. so i called my boss to inform her of how things were like and she brought me to ikea where i spent the single largest sum of money in my life in switzerland, but it was worth it i guess, considering the items i got. a pillow, a lamp, a foldable bed/chair, a table/cupboard and i guess i was pretty lucky, considering everything. the apartment has almost anything you could ask for, including a foosball table and most importantly, a kitchen so really, what else can i say.

now, all i need to do is to find a gym and all will be brilliant.

“I’m not Peter, he’s Peter”

– Alfred Thomas Highmore, pointing at Johnny Depp

i don’t think there’s a more poignant scene than that in the whole of Finding Neverland because it is so happifying, initially, that an adult who refused to grow up would be able to fashion a character based on his own life but chose to give it away to another person so that no one would be able to find out about the truth but that’s just how the way it is in the movie. wikipedia said that Peter Llewelyn-Davies grew to resent J.M.Barrie for his fame and subsequently committed suicide because of it and there’s a certain sort of sadness to it, because the boy who was never supposed to grow up did, and died that way.

tomorrow i move to a flat with no wardrobes nor beds, but let’s hope that the internet exists there, so it’s goodbye to caux for now, goodbye to the lakes and the frenchy people and goodbye to everything i brought forth from singapore, it’s finally time to leave everything behind.

i don’t think many days come worse than this, the day beginning at 6 am when i couldn’t get to sleep thinking of the impending luggage i have to pack; finding a way to squeeze half a year’s life into three bags; sending people whom you may probably never see again and there is much maudliness and melancholy in these sequence of events. flights and departures are never easy, but when everything falls upon itself in a swirling twirl of hours, some things just compound upon each other in a sequence of unforgettable events.

to gary, the taiwanese point guard and language teacher, bao3 zhong4, to tamara, tough russian sentimental chick, pedruska, yixin, fellow singaporean who has helped me from the very beginning, all the best, you will get your honours this time. and to many other people too, except that to recount them individually would be far too agonizing. this is the end of a semester, the end of a chapter, and now i have to tell myself not to make the same mistakes as i did in timbre.
——————

yesterday i overslept on the train and missed the last train up to school and i had to take a taxi up. the ticker was amazingly efficient, clocking 20 cents per 5 seconds and i was like wtf! lesson of the day: walk up instead of taking a friggin taxi.
——————

there s so many things to say, and yet so little. i think i m fortunate in more ways than one, but i miss certain people terribly, and i cannot wait for the 30th of june to arrive. maybe there will be recounciliation with past and present lives, maybe there will be a new story.

it began snowing 2 days ago and today when i finished my paper, i walked out and saw glass petals float across the sky in a remarkably surreal and beautiful manner; it’s my last paper for the next 9 months and i hope i can pass with honours, because if anything it would probably be because of abysmal mid term results for wine and bar, which was a damned group assignment which i got jacked by a groupmate for. i’ve recounted this story many times, but i swear if i don’t get it, i will very possibly strangle her.

i went to my room in a daze, because that is what 6 papers in 3 days will do to you and slept peacefully for two hours.

i woke up and i saw scatterings of people packing their bags and leaving, some of whom i will never see again.
———–

these days i feel like a nomad, packing and moving, packing and moving; you settle for 5 months, you leave for holidays in between, and then you move elsewhere for another 5 months before you return home for 2 months; how much of home will remain the same to you, how much of home will remain important to you? things always change and with the momentum of the world coaslescing around you, i have no idea how long i can remain a constant for; who will remain a constant for me?

questions and answers that will never be resolved.

it is the vingt et un janvier, deux mille sept and in my mind this is a remarkable date because it simply is; it has been days since i last had a whimsical thought sweep through my mind and i am glad, glad because at the grand old age of 21 i still have some semblance as that of a child. these days have been pseudo examination cramming days, sleeping at 4 ams, waking at 12 noon, attempting vaguely to study before lapsing into the terribly habit of just bumming online; in two weeks time i will be in basel, in a flat which i will have to find by next thursday, and a small voice tells me that if there isn’t any internet connectivity i am more or less SCREWED but, but i hope it won’t be so.

6 papers in three days, a day in basel, a day of graduation service, a day of clearing 5 months of stuff, and a day of leaving before meeting fuzzy; that’s my schedule for this week and damned if i survive it. at the very least they could give us a week to rest before sending us packing innit, bloody business oriented school. gee wheez bobeep.

once upon a time during primary school days when i was in the morning session, i watched a sbc show in the afternoon where huang wenyong had his ear accidentally snipped while having a hair cut; he subsequently cheated on his wife and his business went bankrupt in the same episode and at that moment, that was probably the first time i ever felt depressed in the dark curtain-shadowed humidity of singapore.

today while having my hair cut, the razor went over the back of my ear and that was the only thing i could think of.
——————-

next sunday, everything changes again and then it will just be five more months

there is no future in nostalgia
Sor Fern called me up on Tuesday, to tell me that Arthur Yap had passed away. Apparently when Heng Siok Tian and Ho Poh Fun had visited him, he had enquired about the younger poets, like Hsien Min and myself.

I told Jack: ‘I feel terrible’.

And Jack said: ‘Don’t Alfie.’

And I said: ‘But what if he had a message for me?’

Jack said: ‘He’d always have something to tell you won’t he?’

And I scan Arthur’s words now, and some of his poems I read like prayers.

- Alfian Sa’at

reading this i invariably wonder that with so many of the younger generation slipping through the cracks, stopping to write because they can no longer find the motivation to, what our elders would think of us, not in a form of deluded grandoise, but more in the vein of what would happen if we continued to write. i suppose the writing circle in singapore, partly due to size, partly due to the energy shown by the older generation to help younger, aspiring writers is a tightly knitted one, because every voice is a representation of a facet of the singapore in which we live in, and everyone of us who is capable of telling our story should actually step up and do it, because we owe it to people who believe in us, and we owe it to ourselves to maintain a soul which actually sings. there has been too much jadedness going on, too much apathy and ennui but we should never let it consume us because we are living people with voices, we are people who should continue to speak while we are still able to.

i think i need to sit at a desk again, with nothing but a pen and a blank piece of paper, piecing lyrics words together and not revulsing anyone in the process.

it is four thirty in the morning on a sunday, and i’m currently in montreux, typing on an increasingly irritating tailbone because clearly pain accumulates and i can’t possibly lie down on a table and use my laptop that way. maybe it’s a sign for me to start studying, so rawr.

it has been an eventful vacation, and many things were resolved because sometimes that’s how things should be like. there is closure of sorts, and beginning of another and this is probably how a new chapter begins, sadly, inevitably, and cyclically; 7 hours ago i reached geneva airport and i saw the mac that i once typed on and i realised with certainty that everything’s over.

elliot smith speaks much truth sometimes.

Hi there,
How are ‘ya?
it’s been a long time
Seems like we’ve come a long way
My, but we learn so slow
and heroes, they come
and they go
and leave us behind as if
we’re s’pposed to know why
Why do we give up our hearts to the past?
and why must we grow up so fast?

And all you wishing well fools
with your fortunes
someone should send you a rose with
love from a friend,
it’s nice to here from you
again
And the storybook comes to a close
Gone are the ribbons and bows
Things to remember places to go
Pretty Maids all in a Row
Oh, oh oh, oh……

Pretty Maids All In A Row – The Eagles

today marks the second last day i will spend in london and there is a certain sense of closure as i prepare to return to switzerland where i will see nary a singaporean for the next 7 months; this vacation has been absolutely brilliant, meeting and talking to people who are on the same wavelength as you does a person a world of good where he has been silent for the past four months and it is here where i would like to thank calvin, kai, shujun, yip, justin, ailin, louis and enqi for helping me out with so much during my stay here. one can friendly and helpful, but the above mentioned few have been so utterly generous that words cannot quite describe them, and it is here on one of the few times in my life where words have completely failed me.

today i met up with jocelyne and there has been much laughter and embarassment as we talked over a splendid meal at this belgian cafe called biero; we missed 2 168s, took photos, and i generally screamed when i heard she was going for her second muse concert in wembley; some things, like semi colons, never change and much solace can be sought in that. so ms wu, here’s to more shopping and dining in august later in the year, eight months from now.

it is seven am now, i am spamming the eagles as i never had before and somehow there’s much truth in the tune that they sing.

Its another tequila sunrise
Starin slowly cross the sky, said goodbye
He was just a hired hand
Workin on the dreams he planned to try
The days go by

Evry night when the sun goes down
Just another lonely boy in town
And shes out runnin round

She wasnt just another woman
And I couldnt keep from comin on
Its been so long
Oh, and its a hollow feelin when
It comes down to dealin friends
It never ends

Take another shot of courage
Wonder why the right words never come
You just get numb
Its another tequila sunrise,this old world
Still looks the same,
Another frame, mm.

Tequila Sunrise – The Eagles