are not red herrings but i suppose they do take on a life of their own. it is 12.18 a.m. now and i’m in the airport typing this continuing from a line that i started at 10 am in the morning but which i never completed. the last day as usual has been a maelstorm of emotions, but i guess this time round i’m actually leaving singapore contentedly as opposed to dreams of could haves and maybes and i suppose maybe this time, this year, will be a much better time.
to jianyang, all the best and fulfil your promise. to the j2s, all the best for the prelims and the A’s; to waikit, may your business bloom; to andi, for stupidly sending me off; to people who have made this 10 week holiday so completely worthwhile, thank you all so much.
if this sounds like an utterly jarring entry, it’s because it is; i think the flight announcer’s calling my name so i’m gonna run; the next worded press will be 2000 metres above sea level where i may be slightly panting; but maybe i’ll be fitter this time round so there wont be a noticable impact.
funny how life turns out innit; that it is only when you are on the verge of losing something important that you realize just how much it means to you. these are trite, cliched, clumsily strung words but there’s no way else to quite put it and it is time for you to learn these, and more, dear pak.
it didn’t rain in the evening today and i am grateful. to the seventy year old uncle whose name i never quite found out, 我们明年肯定会有机会再次竞争! but i played decently this evening, and at least i ended my last game with the uncles with a bang. these are salient salad days, and i am glad.
Life
and because that’s how it is, and has been. young kids i’ve been playing with since i was 18 have become 18 themselves and i suppose this is how time flows fluidly, cyclically.
not that many more games in the near future, and for the first time in a long time i pray for rain not to fall; i need to have this last game with the uncles because i need to say goodbye to them.
and the first two lines are dactyls; wikipedia tells me this.
doctor hoh, oh doctor hoh, you’ve been a good tiny friend and i hope for more days like mondays, for more two hours of basketballing, for more games where we are together because games played in teams are infinitely better than those played as an individual.
this i say, as a proud tracker who would give many things up for his ability to sprint again.
——————————
28th/29th august will be the day i will bear 11 seconds of pain; calvin we will run together, we shall fly again.
——————————
i will miss sleeping on the floor of waikit’s room; one day old friend, we will do this again.
——————————
r.i.p eddie griffin, i’ve always hoped that you would have been able to quit your addictions and excessiveness, that one day the good bloke in you would have been able to triumph but sometimes things don’t quite work out the way they ought to.
all the best big guy, i hope you find peace.
——————————
debbie, so sorry, sorry or please.
there is something about the mornings between the transition from night to day that appeals to me; there is absolute greyness, silence, just you, your friends and yourself in honest unpretentious times. this morning it rained and stained the sky grey; this morning two weeks from now i will be halfway across asia on a yearly journey which i will only return from eleven months later; this morning two weeks from now marks the closure of another chapter of my life that i once emotionally blogged about. it is no longer the 10th August, and that’s it i guess, and i suppose the old friend was right when he said that it would be a brilliant present only when i received it.
it’s not just the promises, it’s the steadfastness.
but these are honest times; singapore remains as humid as ever but some words sweep past you with refreshing clarity of self and purpose. these are magnolia days, and not many of them will be left unless you try hard enough, dream relentlessly enough, remain indefatigable enough.
sometimes there exists an incongruity with the songs i’m listening to and my current state of mind but really, more often than not it just happens to be on my itunes so i claim no responsibility on my part.
——————-
today (yesterday) marked my country’s 42nd birthday and despite what everyone says about singapore, i’m just glad that i was born here because there are not many cities such as this, with its stability, compactness and vibrancy. perhaps i say this with youthful (albeit) fecklessness and because all my friends and family are here and maybe in the future they will not matter so much to me as they do now but for the time being, i’m just glad to be home to celebrate national day.
it’s late to say this now, but happy belated birthday singapore.
——————–
i don’t think i will ever get bored playing basketball with mingmao and waikit because it has been 6 years of perspiration and camaradrie and there’s almost nothing in this world that can surpass that; i wished today’s session could have lasted much longer but wanjun, i’m terribly sorry for over renting the tall bastard.
——————–
perhaps one characteristic of love is dissatisfaction/which makes me think of the opposite of dissatisfaction: apathy. if so many people today are apathetic, this lack of care must mean an absence of love. i hope i never will, or have not driven anyone to apathy.
-dawn
and maybe that’s why i feel so little joy these days; yanying asked me on tuesday if i were truly happy and i looked at her quizzically; i couldn’t answer her that events in 2005 taught me to stop loving so ferociously when i had to learn how to protect myself because that is a fact that i do not tell most people. but dawn knows, she does in her own prescient way.
not about me of course, but life in its own microscopic way.
——————
i guess my itunes do read my mind; love will keep us alive. but these days i can’t love anymore, so.
stop this nonsense, you don’t deserve anything and you never will so stop expecting from everyone because it simply places an uneccesary burden on all parties involved. gym, ball, cook, sleep as much as you can for the next 24 days; go back to school, study, organize a fantastic banquet, get a fucking awesome internship, work, make money, let be.
stop loving.
and then it was august and the holidays that i was looking forwards to for the better part of a year is coming to an end. there hasn’t been much regrets i guess, and i should be happy, but two more holidays like this and the grind of working life will set in and maybe things will be different then, but cross the bridge only when you have to innit.
at any rate, it’s time to stop procrastinating and start revising my french; to meet people i haven’t really met yet; to cook for people i’ve promised for and really matter and to play more ball on a daily basis. it’s not good enough, it never was but might as well make it better while i can eh. these have been incandescent days, but for some reason digital soulblood coming out from my fingers isn’t, and i suppose that’s how it is these days, stagnant, stale, tepid.