The Write-Up

I'm so glad it's the weekend! I just got back a while ago from the Esplanade. I went there after work to meet my sis and cous to check out this live performance at the Esplanade Bay. It happened to be a friend of my sis' colleague so we went there just to lend a support. The band was really, really good, I have to say!

Anyway, after being so down yesterday, I managed to pick myself up and just be positive today, and I'm pleased with how I handled things at work. Maybe there's a hope for me after all. ;)

So. My friend was kind enough to ask if he could read my book review (I'm surprised someone actually gives a rat's tootsie.) But for that, thank you lah dude.

Here goes. Hope you can read it this time.

Alright, does that work at all? I think if you're half-flinching, half-grimacing, half-pinching your eyes, you can sort of read it. Heee.

Speaking of write-up, I sent a short opinion letter and it made it to the local paper. It was a few years ago though. I just came across it again so I thought I'd put it here too.

One thing I'd like to say about this one was the fact that when I wrote the word 'damn' in the last paragraph, I thought it would have somehow been edited out. But it wasn't! Hahaha. It's kinda funny actually.

ramblings about writing

I have dreamed of being a writer ever since I was 7. Lack of resources and (real) creativity, my sister and I published our own newsletter to be read by the people in our household (including, my maids and driver. Of course, we forced them to read it.) Some people may argue and call our lame attempt ‘creative’, but who am I kidding? You got to a certain age when you should just stop living in denial.

I guess I was quite an artsy kid, because I loved language and arts growing up. English course never felt like an obligation to me, I loved learning new words, composing essays and talking in some language other than my mother tongue, and English was the first foreign language I studied. I wonder if I would share the same passion had my mom enrolled me in Chinese class instead. In my free time, my sisters and I liked drawing and making stories too; we had this erasable drawing pad where we would draw on while creating storyline on the spot. I loved drawing class at school, and I enjoyed designing letters and decorating pages. During my elementary years, my mom put me in drawing course and I remembered being so excited, we learned things like how to combine colors and create more natural, flawless color transformation. It may sound silly, but I actually think even that drawing class has helped transform me into the kind of person I am today. In a way that I can't really describe.

I started writing short stories for kid magazines too. I remember making so many stories and putting them in envelopes to be sent to the magazine, but I don’t remember ever really sending them. Maybe because I never really thought I would win, and I got embarrassed from the idea that someone else might actually read them. But in the comfort of my own home, my short stories were read by my sisters.

As time went by, my passion of becoming a writer had both its ups and downs. There were periods when I intensely wrote in my journal every day. It was almost like an itch, as if I couldn’t be content if I haven’t come up with any posts in a day. On the other hand, I had some hibernating moments too, vacuums in my life where I stopped writing altogether. During these times, a thought of just having a regular job crossed my mind, the kind of job where I shouldn't need to constantly think or be creative because I didn't know if I could handle that kind of pressure. Pressure of having to constantly come up with good, innovative pieces no one else has ever thought of before.

I saw myself being engrossed in one thing after another. Somehow I couldn’t stick to one thing in a long period of time, and it was frustrating at times, not knowing what I really wanted to do. Loving something now didn’t mean that I would still love it the next day. It all seemed too dangerous, almost just like a gamble.

But thinking about it, even though I had my moments of intense productivity when it comes to writing, I seemed to always go back. After some 15 years of writing on and off, I could still say that for the most part, I really enjoyed expressing myself in words, and I couldn’t imagine not being able to do so.

At the end of the day, maybe having passion about something doesn’t necessarily mean you have to feel so strongly about it all the time. Or, hey, maybe this just applies to me because I have such a short attention span.

For the past years, I thought to myself that sure, it would be so sweet if I could write for a living, but the act of writing itself is therapheutical enough that I would merely be content with doing it as a past-time. Or, having to do it as a part of job, not necessarily all of it.

When I was interning at a PR company last year, my colleague told me this valuable piece of advice. “You don’t have to work in a publication to be able to write,” she said. “Starting out in PR is a terrific way to build contacts, get to know the business, and hey, there are lots of opportunities for you to write here in PR. You may not be in the frontline just yet, but everyone starts from somewhere.”

I guess I had this obsession of seeing my name in print that I focused on the ‘official position’ than in the act of writing itself.

But isn’t it funny how when you stop wanting something, you get it? Okay, it’s not like I’ve stopped wanting to write for a living, but I’ve developed a more reasonable idea of my so-called-dream job. I went from being ‘I’d write a regular column for a magazine like Carrie Bradshaw’ to ‘Who am I kidding? I have no experience, who would hire me? And even if they would, who cares about what I think of guys in skinny jeans’?

As dorky as it sounds, I have a thought that maybe, I do have a point of view, that I have opinion that may not change the state of living in Africa , but at least can entertain a person or two. If I could write something that can be read by other people, then I’m happy. I guess that’s why I have a blog in the first place, because yeah, I do like writing journals for my personal pleasure, but I like the idea that I get to share my experiences with others too.

Now, I’m just taking each day as it goes by, enjoying the process and not thinking too much about the details.

I can safely say that I’m pretty happy with where I am right now. I see platform for me to grow, learn, and inevitably, make mistakes. And that's alright.

Today, our latest magazine is officially out, and I got to see my name there, in real print. And I feel lamely, dorkily proud. I don't really know about later, but I believe that only we ourselves have the ability to shape our future.

The good things (and everything else) that happened to me recently

The amazing cookies and cream milkshake at Cafe Galilee that has become a solace in my day-to-day routine. What's great about it, is that it's there all the time, always satisfying, and requires no effort on your part whatsoever to enjoy it, contrary to other things in life. Now every morning, as I sit in the library writing chinese characters (and attempting not to slaughter it at the same time), this milkshake is what keeps me going. Seems to me that this might be the most altruistic thing in life.

As a result of this, I'm now relatively well-known in the cafe as the 'cookies and cream gal'. This would be a great fact if, I'm given discount every now and then, for instance. But despite my continuous generousity in keeping the sales going, the only recognition I'm getting from these friendly waitresses is a question whether my eyes are real.

I finally caught up with a dear friend of mine whom I haven't seen in weeks, and I enjoyed our dinner tremendously. It involved fried calamari, fish and chips and catch of the day in peri-peri sauce and ridiculous amount of delicious garlic. The garlic itself might have sounded unappetizing, but let me tell you that the garlic is simply magic. It's like the sizzle that makes Robert Pattinson so sexy, if you get what I mean.

I got a free haircut a few days ago. All thanks to this really nice auntie who did my hair and insisted that she would waive my fee because I'm simply too beautiful. No, she didn't really say that. Actually, I've been a regular in the salon (maybe the only one), so perhaps she just wanted to show a token of appreciation. It wasn't an appreciation more than it was a threat, or a bribe to lure me come back and spend a ridiculous amount of money next time. It worked. I was so touched by her generousity that I almost gave her the money anyway, and when I was outside, I felt like a child having just stolen a pen from a store.

I'm making progress on my chinese class and both my teachers flattered me for being a 'fast learner'. I was so smug that I almost blurted, “Tell me something I haven't known.” But after that, I made a fool out of myself by saying 'women' out loud, when it's supposed to be 'wo men'. “This is chinese, not english!” my teacher said in exasperation.

I completed my yoga 10-weeks yoga program and now I'm as flexible as Mr. Fantastic. Maybe.

I've been reading good books and I found this to be very pleasurable. I finished Ryu Murakami's '69' in one and a half day and I'm currently hooked on Curtis Sittenfeld. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel so happy being engrossed in a good read, and although I may not get particularly smarter by reading endless amount of fiction, I think the experience of seeing the world from the perspective of different characters, and understanding them, is very exciting.

Overall, it's been a good week! I'm sorry for not updating and writing more often, but blogger is acting up. Actually, that's not all. I have been waiting for a spectacular experience I can share before writing again, but it's like waiting for a rocket to come. If I wait 'til a spectacular incident happens, you will have been over forty. This blog will have been moul-dy. They will have probably invented flying cars. Okay, I get the picture.

Invisible intruder

There are definitely perks of living on your own. Meaning, with no actual roommates and a whole bag of privacy. My sister is living with me, but she has her own room and we spend a huge portion of our time doing our own things, especially her being busy and all that. I like this sleeping arrangement better than the old times when we used to share a bed, a quilt, bathroom and sometimes even pillows (when we were wild in our sleep, we could accidentally steal each other's immunities.)

But, like any other things in life, there is a minor problem in this living situation too. Sure, it's great that now I don't have to wear a headphone when I watch movie at night on my laptop, and my sister doesn't have to suffer anymore from my various weird quirks and idiosyncrasies. But, sometimes living on your own may not be always ideal as well.

Like, I can drop dead in my room and nobody would find my body, until maybe 10 days later and the neighbours just started complaining about some weird smell. Or, they could find me with half my face gone already. Eew.

And not just that. A week ago I was home alone when my sister and cousin were out for a salsa class. Now this wasn't an uncommon occurance, and I was just minding my own business, browsing away and watching american soaps on the net when I suddenly heard a noise.

It didn't register at first, but then I heard it again, like a creaking sound. I stopped dead, and I turned down the volume of my laptop. My flat is in the second floor, so maybe it was just some noise from a Sunday's crowd outside. But the voice wasn't a kid's laughter or water splashing or anything these Sunday's crowd might make. The creaking noise sounds like a door opening, and then there was another noise of someone's movement.

I was freaking out on the inside by this time, but shockingly I was dead calm. I didn't scream or try to climb downstairs through my window. (To think of it, why didn't I?!! If there were an axe murderer in the house, I should have climbed down, heck, or jumped through the window, otherwise we would be talking about the half-face gone scenario.)

But I didn't do any of those things. I just sat there with my heart beating 100 times per second, if that's even possible. I knew it wasn't my sister because she would have called out my name, and I tried not make a sound, as it would give away my location to the intruder because well, he might have brought an axe and I would have made it too easy for him to use it!

['Ah, maybe there's noone in this flat afterall, let me just go out and try another floor. OH WAIT! There's a hopeless girl's voice from the BEDROOM over there!']

I mean, here's the thing. A girl of a certain age, living on her own...with no protection, not even a lock to the door! And no sharp object in sight! The only thing in my room I could probably use as a weapon was..I don't know, my bedside lamp? I foresee that wouldn't do much damage to Mr. Axe at all. Maybe my hair curler? Yeah, turn it on full heat and smack him with it right on his face.

However, I thought none of this at that time, and I did nothing, I probably even held my breath. I was sure the intruder could smell my presence (and fear) and pop his head sometime soon. I was mortified! After a minute (although it seemed like an eternity and more), there was still nothing happening, and I braved myself, tiptoeing outside and checking every room in the house. Noone. Mr. Axe slash Intruder was just all in my head, but holy cow, it scared the living shite out of me I almost wetted my pants.

After the incident, or rather, the non-existent incident, I mentally reminded myself to always open my bedroom door, at least during the day, so I wouldn't totally shut myself out from the outside world, and my sister would find me before half my face is gone.

I'm amused, that's the morale of the story? Shouldn't I be thinking about using a lock?? Getting something more useful than...a curling iron??

Or maybe I should check myself to a clinic, because I'm sure 'hallucinating', and 'paranoia' are not good. In whichever universe.

Close to Swine Flu

How do you guys feel about swine flu?

Well, it's a retarded question, 'cos any pandemic diseases are terrible things. I actually just wanna talk about it in a more personal level.

In news gathering class, we learn that proximity is as an important factor in news writing as prominence, or even timeliness. Although, yes, there is a term, 'news is new', and no such thing like 'it's only newsworthy when it's close to you', but that it true. Of course we are proned to be more affected when something occurs nearby, rather than if it happens in Timbuktu, or somewhere far away.

Well, anyway, I'm kinda rambling here. The relation between these all with my first question about swine flu is that, yes, WHO has upped the pandemic alert to 6, and hundreds of people have died because of it, and not one day passes by without a mention of swine flu in the news. Of course this is an enough reason for everybody to freak out and feel scared.

But, I haven't been really thinking about it, or allowing myself to be worried. It's like those things when you're almost certain it won't ever happen to you, because, well, just because. I'm relatively a boring person, and nothing ever really happens to me. I have never witnessed anything particularly exciting, like one time in Oklahoma, two of my classmates ran back to class, all sweaty and breathless, and they were like, "Oh my god, we just saw a chase between a police car and some bad guy and there were guns!" See, I have never been in that situation, even a minor one. My sister was once in the taxi and it hit another car, so there was this major fight drama, involving both drivers yelling and cursing at each other. Nothing ever happened to me, that the thought of swine flu doesn't even affect me anymore.

The possibility of me actually catching swine flu is even more unlikely than having pigs shooting out of my arse.

So this morning I was browsing news in the internet and read that there were another 16 new cases of swine flu in the island. Normally, I would have known that the victims must have been like, foreign students who just came back from US, and their friends, or their relatives. But these last few days, the pattern has been slightly inconsistent, because cases were found locally. It's like, having set up a parameter to protect a country from the outside, and suddenly finding out that there's a mole inside, and that sort of just changes everything. (Have I been seeing too much '24'?)

Anyway, this is what I came across:

A third cluster of locally—infected cases has also been identified at popular nightclub Butter Factory at One Fullerton.

The new case is a 19—year—old Singaporean female student. She visited the
club on June 17 when three previously reported cases were also there.

The Health Ministry has advised all those who had visited Butter Factory on
June 17 to monitor their health and seek medical attention if they feel
unwell.

At first I thought it was funny, 'cos hey, I went to Butter Factory just last week. And then I checked the date, and oh shit! It was Wednesday, the same night I was in the club.

Actually, we were planning to check out the new branch of the club in Fullerton, and we were already there, trying to get in. But the queue was ridiculously long, which we didn't expect at all. We sort of hung around and said hi to a couple of friends we accidentally met there, but later decided to just leave to another place.

Was the poor swine-flu victim there among the crowd when we were there? Or has she perhaps, gone inside? Only then did it hit me, how close we were, are, to everything. And I don't know, maybe it's not such a crazy idea to think that it could happen to me, to all of us.

I'm not gonna start freaking out or anything, but just a kind reminder to everyone, I think it won't hurt to pay more attention to our health, to take care of ourselves a little better. We will be fine as long as our immune system is good, and that means, don't let yourself get too tired, never miss a meal, drink a lot of water, and rest enough.

And, good luck to us.

character

He's her seasonal listening ear, her occassional supper friend, and she's perfectly happy with the arrangement. She likes it that way; that she doesn't need to see him on regular basis, that both of them know they will be there for each other whenever any needs arise, that there is never any pressure in their friendship.

That night they were out on their usual spontaneous feast because he was craving stingray fish and char kwetiau. He brought along another friend she doesn't particularly like. His friend was snobbish, how he could be friends with him remains a mystery to her.

They talked normally in the car, but when they were walking to the eating place he was suddenly beside her, his arms reaching for her shoulder. Spontaneously she drifted away, not because she was upset, but more so appalled of the sudden gesture. It was her fight-or-flee reaction. His expression didn't change, so she tried to ignore it.

After the food came, they started eating. He ordered her favorite food, although he himself didn't like it. She's frustrated because she would end up eating the whole thing alone. Well, at least now his friend could be useful in a way.

But then he carefully took the fish for her, opened the cockles from the shells and dipped them in sauce before laying them down on her plate. She stared in disbelief, what has gotten into him? Why was he being so nice and....manly? She simply has never seen him in that light before.

It's like his friend's presence changed something, although she had no idea what, or why.

Suddenly once again, she wanted to just flee. She wanted to scold him for being so uncharacteristically him, she wanted to wipe his friend's teasing-look off his face. But more than anything, at that precise moment, she wanted her normal friend back.

"Project: Writing" underway!

Well, so I was on the chat with [caud], and he was complaining about the numerous things he wanted to do, but hasn't gotten around to actually putting words into action. [boy, don't I know it.] Learning spanish and chinese was one, [or two], and at the time we were actually thinking of learning it together. [Chinese, not spanish! Que pasa?] Already picked up a book, even.

Well, add that up to the list of 'my unaccomplished plans'! Tell you, that list is getting way too long!

As pathetic as it might sound, we decided that learning another foreign language may not be as easy as we initially hoped for [yeah, we were young and naive then.] We simply lack the motivation and commitment. Ha! I know that's my problem!

So moving along from the mission impossible, we tried to come up with a more realistic plan, one which we can actually do, for starters. "I really need to start writing again," he mentioned casually during our last conversation.

And that's it! Writing! I mean, it's not much hassle, it doesn't require a text book and it's actually enjoyable! Besides, 'writing more' has been on top of my to-do list since I thought more seriously about becoming a writer. Which must have been a few years now. Unfortunately, aside from filling up this blog with insignificant craps of my daily mundane life, I haven't been honing my writing skill much. [wrote a few short stories here and there but they were still left unfinished.]

So it's nothing fancy, this plan hopefully would fuel our motivation to write more, and with different topics regularly. He wants to start literaturing again [I'm pretty sure that word doesn't exist], and I need to un-laze myself [that, too], so it seemed equally beneficial for the both of us. We'll set up a domain where both of us can easily submit our writings every week, and we get to read, comment, mock, bitch and pity each other's essays. [Kidding, we're civilised people.]

As for the topics, we may decide on it together, or maybe we'll take alternate turn choosing it. Either way, we'll have different topics every week and we can't miss the deadline, otherwise some heads will roll. No! We'll keep counts for the appropriate punishment! Not like we intend to slack! We're commited!

We'll start this project soon, 'cos he's in the process of moving out so we'll wait 'til he gets settled in his new place and everything. I'll give some updates on this and you're much welcomed to be a part of it! Afterall, sharing is good, right? :)

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On my last interview, I was asked whether I've written something from another person's shoes. The question startled me, but what's even more unnerving is the fact that I suddenly realized that no, I have not. At least, not entirely. It's not that I'm way too self-centered, but I don't know, just like Ethan Hawke said in Before Sunset, "Isn't everything autobiographical?"

I found that there is always a part of you in every writing, no matter how fictional the 'story' is. Or maybe I haven't been putting myself out there enough, you know?