About Books.

She stopped typing. If she'd been using pen and paper, she would have screwed the paper up in disgust, but there wasn't a satisfying equivalent with email. Seeing that everything was designed to stop you making a mistake. She needed a fuck-it key, something that made a satisfying ka-boom noise when you thumped it.

If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say, 'you're a piece of a phone booth, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that.

I just finished reading Nick Horbny's "Juliet, Naked" and I loved it. Reading Nick Hornby is like reading into someone's head, understanding the character's perspective, rationale and thoughts, that are both believable and endearing in their own ways although they are not always likeable. The topics he covers are not at all groundbreaking, but they are dramatic in a way that each of us think that our own problems are dramatic. It's day-to-day life in all its simplicity yet extreme, because the main character is always a bit neurotic.

I'm going to visit the library tomorrow to look at some more books to borrow. I've enjoyed reading Tom Perrotta and Curtis Sittenfeld too, so maybe I'll check out their other books. Has anyone read David Mitchell?

Oh, by the way, those were two of my favorite quotes from "Juliet, Naked". There are many more, I'm sure. Sometimes I wonder, how do good authors get to come up with beautiful sentences like that? We are given the same words, yet some of us just have the talent to impeccably string them together 'til we hardly know where it came from.

Hi, Books

Hi internet!

Again, I'm late in posting, I know, blah blah. I was just back from Jakarta last night with my sister, and what a great weekend it has been! We made it there especially to 'rescue' our beloved books, 'cos well, okay, if you've been to my house back in Jakarta, you'd know we have an entire room for library where we keep all of our books, comics, magazines, encyclopedias and everything readable ever since we were, 2 years old. Surely right around that.

So, you could probably imagine how massive the amounts are. Yeah, 'cos we're proud nerds, that's why. Most of our books are in top-notch condition, because aside from yeah, we're nerds that way, we're very protective of our books especially. We treat them with such gentleness and affection like they're real people. And we didn't manage to bring them all the way here to Singapore when we first moved because there wasn't enough space here. Besides, we would still be able to read them every time we go back.

But now, well, we're planning to sell our old house. Planning being the emphasized word as it will take a long time to really make it happen, I think. The house holds a very sentimental value to us, and there are still so many things there we have to sort through and it has yet to happen since we're away. But either way, since we definitely wanna keep our books anyway, it's better to slowly bring them here to our apartment in Singapore. And boy, don't we have tons of 'em!

I was shocked to find our luggage which we have filled with our best books and comics weighed 40 kg at the airport! And it was just our first choice. Afraid it might have been too much, we sorted our books into the first and second priority and decided to just bring the second priority books at a later time when we go home next! I really didn't think we carried that much, but apparently books are heavy, geez.

Yeah, but that said, we still do have more books back home we'd hope to bring next time around. Although now, I'm pretty darn happy and giddy already with getting my hands on these books again. Nerd alert!

Sis and I at our living room back home.

This weekend we're gonna head to IKEA to shop for bookcases because now our precious books are still safely tucked in the luggage since we have nowhere to put 'em....yet!

Oh! Don't you just love shopping for bookcases?!! So happy!

Test, The Fountainhead

Today two things happened.

I passed a dustbin on my way to class, and it was yellow.

Oh no, they weren't the things that I'd like to say here. I thought that was a good build-up? Okay, sorry.

As you know, I had my first chinese test last Friday. Everyone's supposed to take the test when they have been in the school for a month, and I guess I fit in to that particular category. The day before, one of my classmate approached me during break.

“Look. Here's what you got to study,” she began, flipping my book. “Here, here. Here. Oh, and here too. You'll be given pictures and you should know the chinese words and the right quantifier for each object.”

I quickly took notes, a rise of panic started building up. I thought it's gonna be all written? All multiple choice questions? My voice was nothing more than a silent muffle in defeat.

“Of course not. There are listening and speaking test also,” she said. I thought I noticed a pleasure in her voice, but I must have been imagining it. When I looked at her again, she almost looked radiant. Gloating.

“Oh, don't forget to learn these and these too. Memorize all the words. You also should know how to ask for price and bargain in conversation.”

I jotted everything down helplessly, there was so much to learn in just a day. It's official, I suck at this. I should just stick to what I know best, like posing or something. Chinese? What was I thinking?

After class, I took my baby sister to Holland Village for dinner so it was safe to say that I didn't do any studying at all that day. The exam was less in 6 hours away when I woke up on Friday morning. Scrambling, I just tried to memorize everything I could, to not much avail. I guess I just had to bullshit my way to the test again, like any other tests I've ever done before. It gave me a little comfort.

Of course, I was in denial.

Anyway, to make long story short, the exam turned out to be all so very easy. Even at the rate that I studied (if you could call it studying at all), I felt like I've overstudied!

So today I got the result, and I got a perfect score. “Very good!” my teacher wrote it at the front page of my paper, she was grinning broadly, expecting me to scream, shriek, cry, laugh, and possibly faint. Well, of course I was delighted, but I almost felt as if I cheated. As if someone's gonna come out from under the desk and yell, “GOTCHA! That was a fake paper! Now HERE is your real exam! You don't think for a second that the exam's gonna be THAT easy, do you?! DO YOU!”

The other thing is this: this afternoon I finally finished The Fountainhead. I was on the bus, and I wish I were at home, because then I could probably let out a big, loud, happy sigh. The fact is, I'm utterly satisfied by this book. It's an experience in itself. The part when I simply couldn't stop reading it during the first chapter, how I was almost scared to continue because I knew something big was gonna happen in the story, how I consciously slowing the speed at which I was reading because I didn't want it to end, and that it was just like everything I wished it would be during the climax. Overall, it's been more than enjoyable, engrossing, and stimulating.

Was I just being a complete nerd for 3 seconds there? I'm serious, don't you just love it when a book can make you feel that much emotions?

The next book that I'm gonna read is so gonna fall short in comparison. I don't like it, but at the same time, I hope nothing else would come remotely close. I realize the irony in that. But we don't have to be logical all the time, do we?