Wednesday, April 26, 2006

impending arrival, stressed.

Back from Old Trafford FA Cup semi-finals, where we had front-row seats, thanks to Jeremiah. I learned a few Chelsea cheers, which goes something like:

"Hello, hello, we are the Chelsea Boys!"

"You are my Chelsea, my only Chelsea,
You make me happy when skies are grey,
You'll never notice how much I love you,
Please don't take my Chelsea away!"

"Chelsea... CHELSEA! Chelsea... CHELSEA!"

Etc etc etc. I'm not sure, but I think I heard "Liverpool, shit!" as well, if not, it's probably "XXXX, shit!" - I should clarify with Jo. Disclaimer for all Liverpool fans like Jess - I'm NOT SURE! No offence meant, okay? You guys won after all!

Anyway, the Mother is arriving a day earlier - TOMORROW. In exactly 12 hours. This means I have to hide all my bank statements, my phone bills, my library fine receipts, my (very few, I assure you) recent shopping purchases, my mountains of books/CDs/scores, my emergency stash of junk food and many other items that cannot be named. Oh, the pain!

Have I mentioned? She's staying for an entire week. And she also fervently promised that she'd follow me wherever I go.

It'd be fine, I'm sure, but I can't stop my eyelid from twitching.

she procrastinated @ 00:54 |

Thursday, April 20, 2006

i'm feeling whimsical.

  • Jing has come and gone, leaving me behind with an unrecognizable bedroom in a highly meticulous state. I can actually see the floor - it's unnatural, so unnatural that it's making me all queasy inside. Anyway, she's back to the land of sleepy sheep where it's so.. (I hereby pause theatrically and think of a diplomatic word).. preserved, quiet and quaint. (Sorry babe, couldn't resist that dig!) Met up with Jess for dinner, and it was like old times again (Abby, you're sorely missed!) and it was good, all was good.
  • I've just been informed by Dominic that I have exactly 150days to complete 7 essays and write 40,000 words. This means I have 150 days left in London This means writing at least 40,000 words in 100 days and spending the next 50 days re-writing all my essays. I need to revert to geek status starting from today, but it's incredibly difficult to swot in such lovely weather, and I still have my mountain of storybooks which I want to read! But even Yang'en has started work [Traitor!] so I think I'd better start deciding on my essay topics.
  • Going up to Manchester with Jo and FF this weekend to watch the FA Cup semis between Chelsea and Liverpool at Old Trafford! I've already decided what to wear, and I'll be decked in dazzling blue from head to toe. Can you feel my excitement?
  • It's the return of the cranky old neighbour who is extremely partial towards Vincent (it must be the bulging biceps), where she insists that our vibrating washing machine is "compromising the integrity of the building structure" and threatened to file a complaint to the town council within two weeks if we don't replace it with a new one. Seriously. I love old people, they're so steeped in a past that will forever remain incomprehensible to me, and therefore, tantalizingly mysterious. Because of that, I can't help but be intrigued more often than not, but they can be annoyingly paranoid.
  • The Mother is coming up to visit for an entire week. This means proper home-cooked meals for Vincent and me, hurray. And lots of "Lynnnnneee Lynnnnne!!" and "Lynnnnneee Lynnnnne!!" and "Lynnnnneee Lynnnnne!!" I might actually get sick of hearing my name, maybe I should change it for a week, just for variety. What do you think of "Maria"? And please, no more muggings this time round.
  • As you can tell, I'm in a strangely frivolous mood. It's the lethal combination of procrastination sleep deprivation, lots of coffee and chocolate, and the unfamiliar zest of the crisp morning air. I swear I'm allergic to coursework the morning sun - my pupils start to dilate and I can see blue cornflowers and edible blades of grass in front of me, and I find myself sprawled on a white beach with modulations of gold reflected from the waters. If I close my eyes, I can feel the the sun's warm benediction on the back of my eyelids.
  • Who said happiness wasn't easy? It's all in your head, just stand precariously on your toes and stick it up above the grey clouds. At the same time, you also need to accept the fact that like all other things, it will always be transient and fleeting, and that makes it even more precious, no?
  • Behold! I believe I've typed at least 1000 words in this blog post alone. Now, if only I can be this productive when it comes to coursework. There is always hope at the bottom of Pandora's Box, or so I will continue to delude myself. It's more fun this way, don't you think? Superimposing your own little utopia onto what you see around you - trees become pink, clouds become green, and everyone's deliriously happy. After all, what have we left if you take away the little deceitful joys out of life? So leave me my marshmallow castles, and I promise to leave yours alone.
  • she procrastinated @ 17:37 |

    Tuesday, April 18, 2006

    updated reading list for easter part deux.

    Ignore the date above, I just tweaked it up there so that this post will always be on top:

  • Henry James - The Turn Of The Screw

  • Nietzsche - Why I Am So Wise

  • Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

  • Thomas Mann - Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend [I FOUND IT!]

  • Jack Kerouac - On the Road [In process]

  • Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting

  • Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus

  • William Hazlitt - On the Pleasure of Hating

  • Schopenhauer - On the Suffering of the World

  • Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions (have not purchased)

  • Margeret Atwood - The Robber Bride (have not purchased)
  • I'm going deaf by the way, I can't hear anything out of my left ear, and it's driving me ballistic, as if a leprechaun has burrowed itself deep into my ear canal and called it home, and no amount of gold can lure it out. I swear I'm going to start crying, my ear is swollen red from my fingernails, do you have any idea how traumatic it is to walk around with an invisible earplug, hearing an echo of what it must be, and have the madness of the muted world descend upon you, juxtaposed with the crippled awareness that this is not the way things should be, oh someone, anyone, please put me out of my misery.

    she procrastinated @ 03:56 |

    Monday, April 17, 2006

    wales and an indulgent easter weekend.

    I've been MIA, I know I know. Was down in Wales last weekend, and haven't been home for the past few days. So I'm really not on MSN, okay?

    Wales has been quite eventful, despite its sleepy reputation. All of us climbed a mountain, so I reckon that makes it pretty eventful, yeah? Really, really - we scaled Mount Snowdon in worn sneakers and clothes that could blend into the high street on any normal day. A real snow-capped mountain, 1085m I believe. Trust me, the view from the mountain was amazing, absolutely breath-taking. You feel so small, so insignificant, and you learn anew that you are nobody, you are but one, a statistical figure amongst the millions. I don't think I've ever felt so awed and helpless, at Nature's mercy we all were. The cold, the cold! Go take a look at the photos here, they're gorgeous.

    Moments that I would keep close to me for a lifetime, and I never want to let them go. These, I will guard jealously till the end of days, and may the wicked wind of my impending amnesia never steal them away from me.

    she procrastinated @ 01:49 |

    Tuesday, April 04, 2006

    reading list for easter, and delightfully cryptic matters.

    In order of preference:

  • Henry James - The Turn Of The Screw

  • Nietzsche - Why I Am So Wise

  • Thomas Mann - Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend

  • Jack Kerouac - On the Road

  • Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions

  • Margeret Atwood - The Robber Bride
  • You won't believe how hard it is to obtain Doctor Faustus, I've been everywhere searching for this elusive book, and it's nowhere to be found. Damn, I hate playing hide-and-seek. I suppose I can always order it online, but I don't like doing that, I'm old-fashioned in that way - I prefer to buy it from a bookstore. There's nothing like the thrill of walking into Foyles/Borders, breathing in the smell that only new books can have, and leaving with a Cheshire grin, armed with more books than I can carry, and many pounds poorer.

    And I'm waiting impatiently for Murakami's novel Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman which is due in August. And God knows when the next installment of Harry Potter will be out. Oh, so many books to read, and so little time! And you'd think I'd spend my time more wisely, where I believe I have to churn out 5000words per week just to keep up with my coursework.

    The days are getting longer and warmer, the long-awaited sunshine is confusing my senses, with a cool breeze that hints at the subdued promise of fliched strawberries and pink cheesecakes and purple chocolate and all things tender and sweet. Languorous days lie ahead in wait, or maybe they are already upon me, so deceptive they are, like the calm before the storm, like the red sky in the morning that the sailors so fear, for anything that is good and kind eventually comes to an end. But that's the cynic pessimist in me talking, who never dares to believe, who fears the undeserved and unwarranted, and must savagely embrace the foreshadowing of the looming threats, which must rest upon your shoulder in time to come, in a bid to cling on to the person who you think you are.

    I apologize for the gloomy turn of my recent posts, and the very long and unwieldy sentences, but all things haven't exactly been bright and beautiful lately, and I can only tell myself lies up to a certain point. The problem with lying to yourself, is that you know that they are untrue. I'd rather have other people fabricate falsehoods to me, and lie so brilliantly well, that I'd never be able to find out. Sometimes, the truth isn't worth the finding out, you know?

    But that's fine, part of the learning curve, part of growing up, part of life, which is of very little comfort to be honest, but you stop quibbling about such meagre details when you know it's all of your own making, with no vestiges to lean upon, and nothing left to hold onto.

    she procrastinated @ 20:05 |

    Saturday, April 01, 2006

    happy april's fool, and now the joke is on me.

    Because I said it when it's obviously past noon! And because I often create situations of my own making, where I find myself to be a willing sitting duck of clay. But anyway.

    It's holidays now, and spring is in the air. This means that it's going to rain every single day, and that I'd probably lose my brolly within the next couple of weeks. A fiver on it, anyone?

    It's been dawning upon me since the last day of term (yes, I have no more academic classes till September, isn't it ridiculous?) that the sunny island is beckoning, and I start getting a cockroach of a headache. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't love the sunny island, I miss my family and friends, you guys know who you are. But, it's just going to be different. And suddenly, I'm filled with such immense grief, for the imagined loss of all the good friends I've made here, the academic lifestyle, simply living in London, and I have in me so many unspoken and acknowledged fears, about leaving the place I've come to call home for the past four years, and returning to a land which is now foreign to me, it is so extremely daunting and heartbreaking on my part.

    Memories are no longer nostalgic pictures of time, but a perverse reminder of what it had been and what it could have had been. Momentos and keepsakes? A poor consolation of a epoch that has ended its time. Distance and Circumstances will have the last laugh, as usual. I've already suffered once at their hands, and it seems as if there is no escaping Fate once more.

    For all my whinging though, I do know that I've been more fortunate than most, so I'll take the memories, knowledge and experience anyway. Better than nothing, better than forgetting, that the awareness of a shiny golden time which I had would always remain in me, and even if that means tainting everything that I do from now on, so be it. Maybe the day will come, where I will be mature (or apathetic or overly-heartbroken) enough to handle my own memories, instead of them provoking a sense of loss and tears in me, I can actually smile a beautific smile, and say it no longer hurts,and that I'm happy.

    she procrastinated @ 15:39 |

    blueprint

    I will like to spend my days, as though they are my own, which I mostly end up doing in halves, for duty beckons, and I am answering its clarion call. Soon enough! I am also a veteran procrastinator.

    fresh monodies

    Old wounds hurt most, I learned this today, becaus...
    She speaks, repeating the old litanies, of worn ac...
    time skips
    and it all comes together!
    beethoven's symphony no.7 2nd mvt
    again,
    towards that something
    In the alley of shadows and death
    Masking Tape
    another end of the world

    previous rants

    August 2004
    September 2004
    October 2004
    November 2004
    December 2004
    January 2005
    February 2005
    March 2005
    April 2005
    May 2005
    June 2005
    July 2005
    August 2005
    September 2005
    October 2005
    November 2005
    December 2005
    January 2006
    February 2006
    March 2006
    April 2006
    May 2006
    June 2006
    July 2006
    August 2006
    September 2006
    October 2006
    November 2006
    December 2006
    January 2007
    February 2007
    April 2007
    May 2007
    June 2007
    July 2007
    August 2007
    September 2007
    October 2007
    November 2007
    December 2007
    January 2008
    February 2008
    March 2008
    April 2008
    May 2008
    June 2008
    July 2008
    August 2008
    September 2008
    October 2008
    November 2008
    December 2008
    January 2009
    February 2009
    March 2009
    April 2009
    May 2009
    June 2009
    July 2009
    August 2009
    September 2009
    October 2009
    November 2009
    December 2009
    November 2010
    January 2011
    February 2011
    August 2011
    October 2011
    May 2013

    treatises on life

    arty jen
    betty boop
    carmentica
    charming-linn
    chasing snowy cars
    cheeky lynn
    cheryliciously glam
    clean and cute
    cyclist-mad bass
    darling dominic
    feisty jing
    fellow ditz-sista/porkSTAR
    hail mary!
    hell's kitchen
    hero on the beach
    h-Euge heart
    hunky lenny
    lipgloss queen
    little cheryl
    live n learn, baby
    lolita lou
    loony loon
    mr popular
    musically dan
    m y s t j
    phringe
    princess tania
    roger smurf
    runaway pigeon
    sabotage king jeremiah
    sibling angst1
    sibling angst2
    spector dan
    spunky tian
    steffy bunny
    sun-sunzzz
    teeny wee-nee
    weeeee, leonard!
    yangtze yang'en

    frivolous pursuits

    for shallow ppl
    for very geeky ppl
    for the truly bored
    spun prose
    binary thoughts
    past imprints
    some stamps
    montage of images
    other memories

    mulling over

    "One is wicked, because one see things clearly." - Beaumarchais's Le nozze di Figaro.

    And there were phlegmatic souls.