What's in a number?

Well, I've been feeling rather indifferent about the recent tsunami tragedy - I'll bet 1/2 the number of uncultured Sgreans (and that's more than 1/2 the no. of Sgreans here) didn't even know how to spell it or what that word actually means prior to the incident - so here's my self attempt of grappling with the situation here.

114000 people. That's like TWICE the no. of people packed in the National Stadium. Sitting down. Maybe if they're all lying down on the benches we'd need 3. Now imagine you are the only soccer player to come onto the field and all these ppl surrounding you is DEAD. All is quiet except for the rustling of grass on your boots, the silence of the wind and the stench of death coming out from those corpses. And lots and lots of water. The pitch is muddy and the stadium is drenched.

114000. Imagine a standard 50m 8-lane swimming pool. Assuming each person standing side by side in the pool - lengthwise. That would be about 50 Times 2 - assuming each person has a shoulder width of 1m. We'd thus be able to fit about 800 people. Now imagine them all floating. And dead. Now imagine about 142 swimming pools like that, and you're the lifeguard sitting atop your tall chair looking for who to save. 142. I can't even VISUALISE how many swimming pools is that. I think my mind just stopped multiplying the visual image after 8.

So it doesn't mean that I don't care because I'm not really bothered by all these death toll numbers and impact of this calamity. Because the sheer magnitude of it all is simply incomprehensible. I simply don't get it, not because I don't want to, but because I can't. Nobody can. To even call them 'so poor thing' would simply be trivialising the situation. And that would be such an insult.

And the point is, so what? People die all the time. To adopt a deterministic point of view, if it's their time, it's their time. Until everyone accepts the fact that they're pledging their measely bottle of mineral water bottle to the red cross is more for self comfort than refugee comfort can the world actually be a better place. Cos that's when they're being true to themselves. I mean if you can say to yourself "so what if i'm only doing all that to make myself feel better rather than really wanting to helping all these people? I just feel like doing it and that's that,"

then you've really 'got it'.

Somehow, I think this post would be better suited if it's in chinese even though the conversation that actually took place on the train was in broken colloquial English. I dunno. In unicode as usual.

“别弄我了！”
“我喜欢怎样弄就怎样弄！”

“就算你将来50岁了，你还是我的儿子！”

旅程就在这嬉笑辱骂声中结束了。

*****

《天伦》

严母

降子责之切
忠言逆耳严厉行

慈母之心皆有知
成龙年迈终究

子

Yes I'm a cheenafart. Yes I've resorted to composing poetry in chinese. Yes if u'd actually review it from a chinese perspective it sucks. But somehow it just don't quite cut it right had I'd done it any other way.

In unicode, as usual. By Eason Chan in mandarin and cantonese. I can't decide which version is sadder though. Xmas sucks cos I've been moulding it that way. Merry Xmas you fucking piece of shit.

Parson Brown the Yuletide Man

Well ok.

I couldn't resist and finally went to check out wtf 'Yuletide' means. I mean I've been singing carols for well over 6 years now and I've never once understood what or who 'Yuletide' is. It could jolly well be closet racism at it's most covert form, being a mispelling of the chinese pronounciation of 'Jews' (you2 tai4 for the uninitiated), and hence the song "Have yourself a merry little xmas, make the 'yuletide' gay..."

So with the convenience of the google deskbar, by Merrim Webster's dictionary definition, 'Yuletide' means 'Christmastide' - sounds like 'Christmakah if you ask me, so Seth wasn't really being original - which is just 'the festival season from Christmas Eve till after New Year's Day or especially in England till Epiphany'. Not really interested in the season of Epiphany yet, so didn't bother finding out.

Well then, wtf is Parson Brown then? You know the song,

"In the meadow we can build a snowman,
the pretend that he is Parson Brown

He's say 'Are you married?'
We'll say 'no man'
For you can do the job when you're in town"

Apparently, I'm not the only boh-liao person in town.

So anyway, a less tongue-in-cheek explanation for it would be that 'parson' simply just means 'pastor', and that whoever's singing the tune's just pretending the clumps of snow to be some priest askin if the presumably happy couple if they're married and stuff, etc etc.

And that's the trivia for the day!

It's cut and pasting time once again!

Read the article last Sunday when I felt totally incapacitated cos the net was down and I was all alone cooped up in my room. So then I took my radio out to the 'balcony patio', blasted Olstead and reclined myself against the green plastic, occasionally blowing my bubbles out the railing to infinity.

When I look back at 2004, I would remember,
a) My 1st A+
b) My Thailand trip
c) My Infatuation
d) My Depressive streak.

Mostly out of the mundane routine.

My AGAIG moment came when I was FIVE. So I guess this article came 18 years too late. I've been appreciating the simplicities of life for as long as I can remember, but well - 'appreciative' is a dirty word.

Still, it's a beautiful story.

As good as it gets
It's not just the high points in one's life that are worth treasuring. Sometimes, mundane moments are what truly matter
Sumiko Tan, ST Sunday Dec 5, 2004

A YEAR or so before my father died, I remember I was in his bedroom one afternoon.

Unable to walk because of a stroke a few years before, he spent his days on a special hospital bed which we'd got to help us help him move around better.

My sister and two-year-old niece had come from the United States to visit at the time.

My mother and niece were also in the room. The little girl was amusing herself with her toys.

My parents looked on. The TV played.

My sister was in another room, at the computer.

My dogs were somewhere in the house, probably asleep.

I was sprawled on my mother's bed, my feet propped against a cupboard next to it, staring out of the window into a tree outside, the chatter of my niece and the whirr of the TV in the background.

It was just another ordinary sleepy day, no different from the many hundred uneventful ones that had passed me by.

Nothing special had happened that day, or was likely to.

Yet I remember thinking to myself: This is as good as it gets.

My family are here with me. They are safe. My father is sick but still breathing and able to smile. Everyone else is healthy. There is peace.

And, I remember thinking, this is a moment I should hold on to. This is a moment I will remember and treasure.

True enough, I often find myself going back to that day, even though my life has since changed in myriad ways, some for the better, some not.

My father is gone, the hospital bed has been given away, my niece is all of seven years old, I even have a nephew now and my life has ventured off in ways I did not quite expect.

But if I close my eyes, I can still feel my feet rubbing against the grain of the wood of the cupboard.

I can still see the tree outside and the cloudless sky, and I can still remember that weird mix of gratitude I felt for what I had, and fear of how it wasn't going to last, and how I'd better grasp that moment forever.

The memory of that day makes me happy, yet inexplicably sad.

IT USED to be that it was only the high points of my life that I lived for, to cherish and preserve.

High points like being on a fabulously exciting date.

Or sitting in a dream car.

Travelling to an exciting destination.

Celebrating a big day in style and with beautiful and important people.

Achieving a career goal - getting a promotion, earning more money, being recognised for doing a job well.

Life had meaning only if there was frisson and there was glory, if there was something significant happening and I was in the thick of it and I felt special.

These days, I find myself thinking that it's not just the peaks in one's life that are worth measuring and treasuring.

Sometimes, mundane moments matter and, perhaps, matter more.

Perhaps it is a result of growing older and realising the fragility of life and how there may not be a tomorrow.

Or the recognition that, really, just how many high points can a life have?

Rather, it's the small and ordinary moments that string together to make up a meaningful existence. And instead of just tolerating them and living in hope for the Next Big Thing to unfold, why not make the small things count?

Why not be grateful for them?

In April this year, my mother and I went to my sister's home in the US to celebrate my nephew's first birthday.

My sister baked a tiny cake, my brother-in-law came back from work early, and we all headed for a roller-skating rink.

Two of my sister's friends joined us with their young sons and we went for pancakes at a small eatery later.

Then it was back home, a quick dinner and an early night.

It wasn't a big celebration. In fact, some would remark at the sheer ordinariness of what should have been a special day. Where was the fanciful party? The presents?

But for me, it was one of the happiest days of my life.

Everyone I cared about was with me. We got through the day safely.

It was as good as it got.

A FRIEND SMSed me the other night to say, arrgh, Dec 1 is already here.

I asked: Why don't you like Dec 1?

The year passed too quickly, he said. It's gone before you know it.

I see.

When you look back at 2004, what do you remember?

I think the tendency is to scan the past 12 months for the peaks and troughs.

What did I achieve? Where did I fail?

And when you look ahead at 2005, what do you want to see?

Achievements to be had? Failures to avoid? Big, happy, glorious moments?

Perhaps it is better that I aim to live for each moment, to make the most of it, and count my blessings.

After all, what's past cannot be undone, what's ahead is unknown but what I can shape is my here and now.

Things could change in a day, a minute and a second - and they do.

Isn't it safer to stick to the small stuff, to put your faith in the fragility of the moment and not expect too much?

I'm not saying that I should be so intent on appreciating the smallness of life that I denounce all dreams of bigger things.

But to bask in the ordinariness of the day is something I resolve to do.

For, more often than not, that moment of your life is as good as it will ever get.

Depression

Everyone's a wannabe depressive nowadays. I mean just look at me. Even I'M depressed. Well I should know since I've read Wurtzel and I study psychology. Plus further introspection would reveal a totally new dimension of self that's previously unencountered before.

Let me look at the symptoms:
I no longer wanna make everyone happy.
I no longer wanna make ME happy.
Suddenly, I revere being alone.
Suddenly, I can't stand my wishy washy brothers - and they've been like that for years. why wait until now?
And wallowing in self pity because of that.
And enjoying that personal independent moment.

I lost interest in singing.
I no longer feel for anything anymore.
Neither can I be bothered over anything.

So YUP. I think I'm depressed.

And the best remedy I can get is to just SNAP OUT OF IT. Because seriously, it's simply THAT simple. Just commit to that decision at the snap of your fingers and that's it. Kinda like falling in love too, ain't it? And precisely because of that, some people refuse to snap INTO it and end up being in moratorium instead.

Do I really love him? Do I really wanna get involved in a relationship right now? Do I. Do I.
Do YOU.

And herein lies the beauty of depression. It can be ALL about you because it's just you. A total self-absorbtion of negativity that no one can take away from. The misery's all mine and mine to keep since most of it is self fabricated and reinforced. Unlike love. Where I wait for you and you wait for me. Where all the negativity that I'm feeling is because of you, and all the happiness I get I get from you too. Nothing is ever yours until you've given them away. Then they become things you HAD.

A Contemporary Fable

Once upon a time there lived a knight -

Not very bright and a tad
lazy
Not very handsome and a tad
sloppy

His armour wasn't shining and
His stead not withstanding

And however you see it
He wasn't a knight
But deep down he was

For he knew he was and that was it.

Once upon a time there lived a princess -

Not in the least bit plain and that bit
ravishing
Not in the least bit unpopular but that bit
lonely

She lived in her tower
High up in her fortress
Her garden of protection
Within the clouds

Of secrecy and mystique
she is,
Away from doubts and hurt
she sits,

waiting for the day her real prince arrives.

Days and Nights the heroes came
and went
To chance upon her beauty and ask for
her hand

But however hard they tried
the story was always the same
Her sad sorry tale
Of love lost and given away

"Years ago I fell in love,
To a monster that I thought
would bring me mirth

I gave him my heart
but he ate it up
Gnashed by his glistening fangs
and spliced apart

So no matter what
I'd never be swayed
For no man can touch
what's gone in the first place."

Years passed and
she stayed the same
But along came the knight
And things started to change

Said the knight
who wasn't really a knight,

"I'd fill your void
with warmth and cheer
If you ever cry
it would only be of happy tears."

But why should she believe her
When he's not a prince
Not even a proper knight
with a kingdom to please

"You're not the first,
and definitely not the last.
Why I don't know you,
so how can I trust?

You're first in the line now,
for I am intrigued
Your efforts are appreciated,
but for now
the void remains empty."

Nobody knows
If the knight was real
For how could he be the one
If you're not willing?

Just like poor Rapunzel
Up in the witch's lair
The prince would have come and gone
had she not let down her hair

Relentlessly the knight waited
and waited he did
But alas he was a mortal
and even his stead

grew tired.

Dejected and self-defeated
He rode off into the sunset
"Things may not turn out
even if we tried,

If things remain the same
at least
we'd both still have our pride."

This is where
the story supposedly ends
But since there's not really any beginning
So there won't really be an end

Years passed
And her prince eventually came
Real or not
(it does not matter, for)
she's now his dame

And the knight - that wasn't really a knight
He married a commoner
became a father
(and to him)
that was quite alright

Sometimes in her tower
when she looks back in reminiscence
of an era of youth
and a time of yonder

She'd think about him
the knight that wasn't a knight
And think maybe
just maybe

Then her kids would come running
Or the kettle would be boiling

And that fleeting thought
Like the steam from the snout
would be gone with the wind
Not that it meant anything

anyway

And sometimes with his stead
as he rode past that fortress
He'd go back to the time
when he was crazily smitten

He'd think about her
The princess and her monster
And think maybe
just maybe

If he'd gone the distance
If he'd not grew weary and impatient...

Now if fate was cruel
He'd be lost in his thoughts
Off his stead he'd fall
He'd die and get trampled

But life is never
what it seems to be
A stage it is not
Nor a theatre of dreams

It's just life
and we all move on eventually

The knight
to his wife and kids
And us
back to reality

and that's it.