this is it.
21 months all gone down in 137 pages of words
the hum of the photocopier sounds like a chior of angels
it's done and dusted
may angels lead me in.

hindsight

it's one of those pensive nights again
sitting in my room, yes my very own room now that i am back in SG
just lulling about how far time has elapsed
lots of shit have happened since the last post but as i note,
this blog is just a fragment of nothingness meant to leave behind
a fragment of something.
memories.
the mark of the true essence of existence
coming back home this time round was slightly different
as my brother had a fall and had to (and still is) warded in the hospital.
it was also a time of realization.
so much has changed too ever since i left barely a year ago.
for the worse
it still make me wonder how can we every survive the impending doom that will engulf us in the years to come.
things used to be so much better the last time.

during my time here i decided to do a bit of home improvement projects for dad and mum as they were faithfully at the hospital most of their waking hours looking after my bro
thre out alot of redundant trash and reorganised the house, i seriously have never been so neat in my life. and then i stumbled upon my childhood toys which comprised of:

a sega megadrive with all the games, still fully working, my starcom, m.a.s.k, silverhawk, and one more series of toys which i forgot the name. those brought back memories which were but a grey area before i saw them. truly, the gift of sight does wonders to memory. not forgetting the countless mcdonalds happy meal toys which my mum had bought and kept aside for me.

it suddenly dawned on me... where did the time go? those happy times, of carefree-ness. where did they go. countless evenings of cartoons and tom & jerry...all gone with the wid. if i were to step into a toy store now, people would say i'm crazy. sigh. somewhere along the way i guess the joy just faded away. moving on to bigger things in life i guess. have you ever noticed how nice people treat kids compared to adults? makes me wonder if the pretence is worth it when the kids eventually find out that the world isn't Neverland after all. (but this is just me thinking out loud)

the buildings seemed to have changed too, construction everywhere, long-time shops being replaced by 1 hit wonders and the shallow tinge of fashion scents. the kids hold more PSPs that i have ever seen in my life and the drivers have become more retarded. what's up with that?

also got the opportunity to meet up with some poly friends... though the time was short, i did have a great time hanging out with them. looking back, it's been what...5 years since i last saw them and we still managed to meet up! indeed they were not just names on MSN.

i'm still enjoying my time here...but i am thinking hard this time. is the sacrifice well worth it?

pensive

for the past 3 weeks i was lost
transition from concrete jungle to
subterranean rainforest
waylaid by the elder
and robbed of my identity
there was no time for despair
no time for tears
just time for endless voiceless struggle
i lost myself
in the abyss of realism
and the gap between idealism
headaches on the
hard bed tossing and turning
until daybreak greets me in my
lucid state
trying to correlate
i can see anything in the dark
but then what is there which darkness hides?
half empty boxes strewn across the room
in this place i now call home
some day they will see
when my body turns to dust that my life was not what they imagined to be
forced and concealed to be hidden in earth
the spirit overcomes and flies away

One step at a time

i guess every research student would have probably felt the same way as the lyrics of this song...by Jordin Sparks

Hurry up and wait
So close, but so far away
Everything that you've always dreamed of
Close enough for you to taste
But you just can't touch

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
And you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

We live and we learn to take
One step at a time
There's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly
Or falling in love
It's gonna happen and it's
Supposed to happen that we
Find the reasons why
One step at a time

You believe and you doubt
You're confused, you got it all figured out
Everything that you always wished for
Could be yours, should be yours, would be yours
If they only knew

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
And you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

When you can't wait any longer
But there's no end in sight
when you need to find the strength
It's the faith that makes you stronger
The only way you get there
Is one step at a time

W.H.Y - The mother of all questions

Ok so i've been tagged. But i've got to say i'm breaking the rules with the number of friends thing cos most of my friends don't blog but hey this is still quite fun though.

Instructions: Remove 1 question from below, and add in your personal question, make it a total of 20 questions, then tag 8 people in your list, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged.

1. At what age do you wish to marry?
30
2. What is your most favorite thing to do?
dreaming. Both in wakefulness and in sleep
3. If you have a close close close friend since childhood who loves to take away whatever you like, including guys/girls, and he/she always wins, will you still consider him/her your friend?
nope. I’ll disown him from the beginning.
4. If you could change your sex for one day, would you want to? who would you call up and tell first?
nooo. to spare me the agony of thinking who will i call up
5. If you can have 1 dream to come true, what would it be?
to be able to wake up from it.
6. Do you believe you can survive without money?
as long as I am able bodied, yes
7. If you could turn back time, what would you have done differently?
I would not have taken a masters. Probably would have taken an honours or gone to work first.
8. You say "I love you" to your other half; describe your feelings for your partner right then in more words than one when you said it?
calm and flustered
9. If there's someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
yesh.
10. List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.
warm, charming and funny
11. What are the requirements that you wish from your other half?
to not be untidy and forgetful because I am untidy and forgetful and if she is untidy and forgetful we both end up self destructing….
12. What is the thing that will make you think he/she is bad?
being untidy and forgetful
13. What is your ambition?
I don’t know…seriously
14. Is anyone really perfect?
no. I am a misanthrope
15. If you had a choice to be rich or happy, which one would you pick ?
to be happy of course. There is no price u can pay for happiness (and convenience..but that it out of the topic)
16. If you have a chance, which part of your character you would like to change?
my apathetic-ness
17. Who is the person that you can share all your problems with?
Jess
18. How do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Stable corporate job maybe? With a family and a menagerie of animals, maybe a few kids and one badass wolf-dog!
19. If someone had found a path to immortality to be bestowed upon you in exchange for one of your abilities, would you take it, and what would you sacrifice for it?
no. immortality would be useless if all my friends and family are dead
20. Which do you think marks more of sincerity? Blood or tears?
Tears. Its easy to shed blood.

Erina
Fabian
Lyly
Sam woo
Amias
Haoki
James Lucas Scott
Peyton Sawyer

reprise

big words little action
the endless grind for quest perfection
undaunted bated kicked in the face
tired of running this silly little race
wasted time once was mine a priceless
prize for Miss Realise
the streets are filled with memories and music of the day
which used to play,
now ring in ghostly disarray
these scars will stay forever
like removed nails in a fence
just like tears are worth
more than blood
are silent cries of the heart
an even though She flies so high
She knows she'll never die

lamentations

Sadness is an emotion characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, and helplessness. When sad, people often become quiet, less energetic, and withdrawn. - wikipedia

i'm plagued.
plagued with the unending weight of my damn literature review
and thesis
somehow there's this feeling that i've not done enough. it's still incomplete
which makes me want to sit down properly and improve it
but when that time come
fatigue kicks in
and then hopes of how wonderful it would be to finally hand in the damn thesis
false tears of joy will then well up
and this cycles goes on an on
but of course no one knows it
except my God and blogger
where did the time go
it's never too late for remorse i guess

restraint

have you ever had moments when you wanted to scream
but had no voice
or when you are feeling chatty like the world's #1 friendliest human
but have a recurring whooping cough which prevents you from saying a complete sentence
or when the speed limit of the road is 110km/h
but there is a road hogger in every lane of the expressway travelling at 20km/h
preventing you from overtaking
still can't relate?
how about adding stuff to a lit review by summarrising a 200-page report?
still can't?
it must be me then.
*grumbles*

Like a knife

I dream a lot,
I know you say
I've got to get away.
"The world is not yours for the taking"
Is all you ever say.
I know I'm not the best for you,
But promise that you'll stay.
Cause if I watch you go,
You'll see me wasting,
you'll see me wasting away

Cause today, you walked out of my life
Cause today, your words felt like a knife
I'm not living this life.

Goodbyes are meant for lonely people standing in the rain
And no matter where I go it's always pouring all the same.
These streets are filled with memories
Both perfect and in pain
And all I wanna do is love you
But I'm the only one to blame.

Cause today, you walked out of my life
Cause today, your words felt like a knife
I'm not living this life.

But what do I know, if you're leaving
All you did was stop the bleeding.
But these scars will stay forever,
These scars will stay forever
And these words they have no meaning
If we cannot find the feeling
That we held on to together
Try your hardest to remember

Stay with me,Or watch me bleed,
I need you just to breathe.

break me

1 presentation down, 1 final to go
1 thesis to complete, 8 days to bleed
somehow a part of me wants to just hand it up while another says to make it an uber one. i can see the finishing line but somehow its fading back into the distance. my minds a warp right now. i'm in a state of transition, ending but not finishing, to choose between working and living, is IT for me or what i thought was for me? as the days pass i begin to wonder if i've wasted 1.5 years doing nothing. i dont feel wiser, same distance from home. standing between continents. neither son nor friend. my friends used to know me personally, but now i am just a name, the skies are clearer here but i don't see the sun. is that what i am, searching for identity, a classification in this messy world?

i wait in the same spot
brain like a parking lot
with this traffic in my head
won't you kick me hard instead?


thank you August, for waking me up.

a reminder to self

You called my name
Reached out Your hand
Restored my life
And I was redeemed
The moment You entered my life

Amazing grace
Christ gave that day
My life was changed
When from my shoulders
Fell the weight of my sin

So it’s with everything I am
I reach out for Your hand
The hope for change
The second chance I’ve gained

On You I throw my life
Casting all my fears aside
How could greater love than this
Ever possibly exist

Consume my thoughts
As I rest in You
I’m now in love
With a Saviour
Bearing the marks of His love

So I’ll wait upon You now
With my hands released to You
Where a little faith’s enough
To see mountains lift and move
And I’ll wait upon You now
Dedicated to Your will
To this love that will remain
A love that never fails

Data analysis

hot water
OSK green tea
IKEA lamp
Saitek Eclipse II keyboard
hp laptop

just add magic

staying green

what's with the sudden craze of being green all of a sudden? over the past 3 days i have read and come across at least 3 articles about tips to stay green and calculate your carbon footprint. has the world finally realised that we've been harming Mother Earth? it's sad really; that only until now we are trying to make an effort to stay green. i used to remember collecting rough paper as a kid and eagerly wanting to throw them into the green recycling bins under my void deck (or were it yellow? one was for plastics and the other's for paper either way) thinking that i could make a difference until one day i realised i could not. how many apathetic souls can they convince in their bid to stay green right now?

realisation.

Shakespeare once wrote:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

i wondered if i missed my tide. suddenly all those months of sleepwalking through my life's endeavour have paid off. I've got less than a month to my oral presentaion and my thesis is to be submitted a month after. somehow a part of me believes that i can pull off this stunt of creating a thesis of sufficient value within such a short period, whereas another part of me says that i am truly dead. so many things are hitting me right now, the masters, housing, the future. is my life as a student finally over? it kind of grieves me and i don't know why (actually i do it just seemed so cliche to add it in). they say you won't know how much something means to you until you lose it. how divinely true that is. no use crying now i guess. when a dog is desperate, it can jump over the wall. i guess my time is up, this is probably the part in a student's life where he realises there is just so much work to do that there is nothing else to do.

maybe i'll catch the next tide. after all, it comes in intervals of 12 hours.
SPARTANS! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty.
For tonight. WE DINE IN HELL

i write sins, not tragedies

the sins of m transgressions have
finally caught up with me
the time is
now
now
nOW.

melancholic

the beauty of words
and splendour of thoughts
what could have been
what might have been
impression upon impression
just a mere impressions
perceptions, conjured up by
melecholic feelings
wanting to release wanting to escape
but alas, like dreams
life goes on
irregardless of feelings.

famous last words

"i'm not ready yet"
"i won't be gone a minute"
"i'll do it later"
"i feel so tired right now"
"after this nap"
"sian ahhhh"
"i've got no inspiration"
"maybe tomorrow"

self disappointment (again!)

very smart jonathan.
you spent the whole night with the initial intention of doing research and ended up reading blogs and doing other non-research stuff on the Internet.
Now the sky's turning to light and you haven't slept.
well done.

waking up.

referring to my previous post; after sitting at my desk for approximately 15 minutes.

i think i have to fucking wake up my idea right now.

so much have been said
so little done.
the price has been paid
but nothing's been won.

somehow or other i don't know why the hell am i so restless.
maybe the lights went out after the first 3 months
maybe i saw the aimlessness of it all
but why did i hold on? and continue to do so
for love for hope for glory or soul
either one i have not behold.

without passion we would all truly be dead.
but can we force passion to revive
like a pheonix in the sky
arising from its ashes?
an optimist always looks at the pheonix in that majestic light
but have they ever wondered that it has been cursed with the process
of repetition.
dying and arising till the end of time

the emerald dream

its been yet a while since i last updated my blog.
somehow blogging seems to have lost all meaning to me
penning down ponders and bitching seems to have taken its toll on my
yet already demented mind
May is finally here and hell, its 5 months more till my thesis submission
And i have done jack squat
well done johnny
although somehow there is this voice in me which tells me that
everything would be alright in the end
i somehow sense that deep shit will come flooding my way.
deadline after deadline seems to pass me by
which moron told me that "as a postgraduate you will never have to chase deadlines"
he probably majored in marketing i guess.
am i in oblivion
or have i gone numb

what if i

in this distant land on this distant day
thoughts of homecoming seem to fade away
sleeping within boarded walls
life seems to be so apt
made of empty and hollow halls
ghosting thru life so aimlessly
goal in mind but flesh behind
what utter dismay is the spirit within
is greatness that hard to hold
and kindess so hard to bear
sanity is but just a word
and deadlines such a reality
what is the value of success
and success of having value
in this world of grey this day
i would be better off with
artificial intelligence

hands of time

it's been a while since i last had such a night
alone in the study, lights out with the iridescent glow of pixels on my skin
after being back for 4 weeks it is only at this moment where that sense of familiarity returns to me
somehow so much has changed over the span of 10 months that it's really hard to swallow it all
people change i guess, moral values, opinions and lifestyles
and sometimes holding on to the past doesn't seem to aid in anything at all
i can't help but be sad.
tirisfal cries for me.

on a lighter note 2008 has started off pretty well; i hope it stays that way although looking back, i seriously do not feel that i have grown. i should be worrying indeed. i guess it's a motivation issue after all. it's depressing really with only 10 days left.

once upon a time
i had half the mind
to ease their miseries
until that day i died
i have always tried
to stand on the bright side
i can see now
why people eat and die alone
living souls which
were never whole
it's all about lifestream.

welcome to the new world

it's been ages since i last made a entry..so this will probably be an uber epic post of to kick of the nu year. hmm lets see. i stopped at 16 Nov. Lotsa shit went by since then. like.. i got a new pet..maxy so there's like 2 of them right now. amazing how i can't remember what else happened. oh there was a conference which i attended which further made me sympathise with the state of the world. Towards Christmas there was this 36 hr long extended shopping hours at chermside shopping centre where for the first time in my life i actually saw life outside the usual sleeping hours of Australia. it was a powerful revelation indeed. After that it was back to Singapore to spend the actual Christmas. But, as usual i had to meet retards... this time in the plane when the person sitting in front of me had to recline his seat to the max to piss me off. not forgetting the customs who made me fill up 4 ziplock bags with fish oil capsules....i personally felt that the instructions werent clear, they said no liquids or gels. but didn't say gels in medication or supplements. anyway i thought medication was allowed? what aout creams? Are they considered gels as well or are they just creams? they arent really liquid ..semi solid. they ought to be more specific and include more retard-proof incidents from happenning. i'm a retard yeah. so explain to me. sadness. well i landed on the night of 21st dec and had to immediately rush back home, separate some gifts and head down to tras street to meet the NS guys for a quick Christmas gift exchange. by that time someone had already got wasted and was lying on the couch...i'm sorry i took 2 mins to recognise who he was whahaha but anyways, it was great seeing them after 10 mths of isolation down under. Christmas also came and went like nothing last year... it's quite depressing really...cos after waiting for 364 days all i got was a a crappy family dinner and another less crappy dinner at my uncle's new place. lotsa shit had happened to everyone this year...mos tof them too depressing to even remember. so that was it..Christmas gone in 2 days. wtf. memories. are they worth keeping when there is an impending possibility of new memories being formed being disappointing? what have we become now. junkies of temporal pleasures or self indulgement so much that we have lost our soul?

2007 was a shit year for me. hopefully 2008 would be kind-er and piss me off less. although 2007 was a fucked up year, it did give me some new found friends. but then again nothin lasts forever. looking back, i feel that i have not grown one bit last year. which is kinda pathetic knowing that i have wasted a year doing squat and wading in oblivion.

may 2008 be legendary then. may it be so.