I've been way in over my head these few weeks that I hardly had time to brood over the miserable that is my life. But I guess that that's something which I can benefit from. In any case, Thursday cannot come any sooner for me because I'd very much like to bid fare-good riddance-well to cohesion.
Seriously though, after playing my part in the above-mentioned activity, I can tell that the desk-bound really deserves more appreciation, if only for the sheer brain-wreck which their job entails. Nevermind that there is a lack of grime involved in their work process. Paperwork is a bitch, especially in The Organisation. Anyway, without these people, whatever that is done in the workshop counts for little because, well, it really isn't accounted for, is it?
Clerks ftw!
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Because epiphany is too strong a word//
Regardless of the outcome;
When I joined the organisation, I was an idealist wanting to be the best at everything, wanting to give the most for anything.
Half of the dog years of my life is almost over and where do I see myself now?
Many a times I am humbled by how insignificant I am to the natural order of things. Circumstances saw to it that I am where I am now, for better or for worse. But it has come to a point in which I simply grit my teeth, day in and day out, and hope for a better tomorrow. But where I am now, what is tomorrow that isn't today?
Only more of the same.
Is what I'm feeling now what everyone else calls the strong desire to keep still, serve and fuck off?
021210. It begins.
When I joined the organisation, I was an idealist wanting to be the best at everything, wanting to give the most for anything.
Half of the dog years of my life is almost over and where do I see myself now?
Many a times I am humbled by how insignificant I am to the natural order of things. Circumstances saw to it that I am where I am now, for better or for worse. But it has come to a point in which I simply grit my teeth, day in and day out, and hope for a better tomorrow. But where I am now, what is tomorrow that isn't today?
Only more of the same.
Is what I'm feeling now what everyone else calls the strong desire to keep still, serve and fuck off?
021210. It begins.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Throw caution and myself into the wind//
Parody of an angel
Miles above the sea
I hear the voice of reason
Screaming after me
"You've flown too high boy, now you're too close to the sun,
Soon your makeshift wings will come undone"
But how will I know limits from lies if I never try?
There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings
But I'm willing to find out what impossible means
I'll climb to the heavens on feathers and dreams
Because the melting point of wax means nothing to me.
A leap of faith.
Miles above the sea
I hear the voice of reason
Screaming after me
"You've flown too high boy, now you're too close to the sun,
Soon your makeshift wings will come undone"
But how will I know limits from lies if I never try?
There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings
But I'm willing to find out what impossible means
I'll climb to the heavens on feathers and dreams
Because the melting point of wax means nothing to me.
A leap of faith.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Prefrontal Cortex//
A full day of recuperation does wonders to the human body. Now, I feel fully invigorated, energized and with a cup of coffee in hand, ready to take on what ever the world's got to throw at me.
World history, to be exact.
All these at 2100hrs.
Olivejuice//
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Doublespeak//
I was browsing around The Online Citizen and came across this rather old article by Alfian Saat. Taken somewhat out of context but i couldn't have phrased it any better myself.
"I can only speak of the circle of Malay friends that I have, although I suspect that our numbers are growing. We’re a product of Singapore’s bilingual education system, and many of us come from lower-middle-to-middle-class backgrounds. We all received decent grades for our Malay in school, even though in Malay class, we’d probably put our hands up and ask, ‘Cikgu, ‘imagination’ cakap Melayu apa?’ (How do you say ‘imagination’ in Malay?)
Our mothers are prone to melodramatic meltdowns and our fathers watch too much Malaysian news on TV. We think a ‘lepak’ (idling) place like Simpang Bedok possesses its charms because they have Malaysian stall assistants who hand you money with their right hand, their left hand respectfully clasping their right wrist. We like hanging out at the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station because it’s on Malaysian land and we can smoke to our hearts’ content–although we’ll also admit that the whole idea of being in a place where the railway is called Keretapi Tanah Melayu (literally ‘Train Running On Malay Soil’) does warm and fuzzy things to our self-worth.
We’ve had our individual encounters with service staff from China who spoke to us in Mandarin, and our coping strategies included advice from religion: ‘kesabaran itu sebahagian daripada iman’ (patience is part of faith), our mothers’ sayings: ‘biar orang buat kita, jangan kita yang buat orang’ (let others do unto us, but never should we do unto others), and of course the wisdom of P. Ramlee movies: the ‘cubaan…’ (this is just a trial) lament from the movie ‘Pendekar Bujang Lapok’.
We think the Chinese can’t sing or dance as well as us because they all ‘takde soul’. Indians, on the other hand, have both soul and rhythm. We have at least one friend who jams in a band.
We love our slang, much of which consists of distorted English loan-words: ‘over’ (excessive), ‘potong steam’ (to interrupt something abruptly, causing one to lose momentum) and ‘tangkap feel’ (to be inspired). Once in a while, we’ll invent our own: the affectionate ‘Mintod’ (Minah + Tudung) and ’sentimentel’ (sentimental + mentel, or ‘coy’), although we know that when it comes to neologistic invention we’re way behind the good people of Jakarta.
We think Malay MP’s are handsomely paid mouthpieces for the State, a sentiment we sometimes share with our parents, who’d instead use the phrase ‘Pak Turut’ (Mr Yes-man). We think the ‘drug problem’ shouldn’t be handled on a community level, like how nobody insists that the Chinese Development Assistance Council should be tackling the ‘gambling problem’ or that the Singapore Indian Development Association should be dealing with the ‘alcoholism problem’. We know how difficult it is to talk about Malay marginality in Singapore–the Malays who do it are accused of a ‘victim mentality’, and the non-Malays who do it tend to be opposition politicians (like Chiam See Tong who spoke about Malays and the army in Parliament, or Chee Soon Juan who spoke about the tudung issue at Speaker’s Corner), and they get accused of ‘politicking’.
We think Berita Harian gets carried away with their ‘Anak Melayu’ stories, of the ‘Anak Melayu Mengharumkan Nama Bangsa’ (literally—‘Malay Child Adds Fragrance to the Community’s Name’) variety. We think that images of a Malay graduate wearing his or her convocation gown belongs to the category of images on laminated motivational posters–inspirational, but in the cheesiest way possible (caption: ‘if they can do it, you can do it too!’). We’re sick and tired of watching English TV shows where a Malay lead (Aaron Aziz, Suhaimi Yusof) plays a policeman. We watch Singapore films like ‘12 Storeys’, where a Malay man asks a lead character for free tuition for his son (which means his son’s not good at his studies, and also, that he’s cheap) and ‘Money No Enough’, where a Malay man plays a TV salesman (a pushover who gets bullied by Jack Neo and Mark Lee into giving them free gifts) and wonder when the parade of humiliating stereotypes will end."
In any case, LAB this week. Intense.
Olivejuice//
"I can only speak of the circle of Malay friends that I have, although I suspect that our numbers are growing. We’re a product of Singapore’s bilingual education system, and many of us come from lower-middle-to-middle-class backgrounds. We all received decent grades for our Malay in school, even though in Malay class, we’d probably put our hands up and ask, ‘Cikgu, ‘imagination’ cakap Melayu apa?’ (How do you say ‘imagination’ in Malay?)
Our mothers are prone to melodramatic meltdowns and our fathers watch too much Malaysian news on TV. We think a ‘lepak’ (idling) place like Simpang Bedok possesses its charms because they have Malaysian stall assistants who hand you money with their right hand, their left hand respectfully clasping their right wrist. We like hanging out at the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station because it’s on Malaysian land and we can smoke to our hearts’ content–although we’ll also admit that the whole idea of being in a place where the railway is called Keretapi Tanah Melayu (literally ‘Train Running On Malay Soil’) does warm and fuzzy things to our self-worth.
We’ve had our individual encounters with service staff from China who spoke to us in Mandarin, and our coping strategies included advice from religion: ‘kesabaran itu sebahagian daripada iman’ (patience is part of faith), our mothers’ sayings: ‘biar orang buat kita, jangan kita yang buat orang’ (let others do unto us, but never should we do unto others), and of course the wisdom of P. Ramlee movies: the ‘cubaan…’ (this is just a trial) lament from the movie ‘Pendekar Bujang Lapok’.
We think the Chinese can’t sing or dance as well as us because they all ‘takde soul’. Indians, on the other hand, have both soul and rhythm. We have at least one friend who jams in a band.
We love our slang, much of which consists of distorted English loan-words: ‘over’ (excessive), ‘potong steam’ (to interrupt something abruptly, causing one to lose momentum) and ‘tangkap feel’ (to be inspired). Once in a while, we’ll invent our own: the affectionate ‘Mintod’ (Minah + Tudung) and ’sentimentel’ (sentimental + mentel, or ‘coy’), although we know that when it comes to neologistic invention we’re way behind the good people of Jakarta.
We think Malay MP’s are handsomely paid mouthpieces for the State, a sentiment we sometimes share with our parents, who’d instead use the phrase ‘Pak Turut’ (Mr Yes-man). We think the ‘drug problem’ shouldn’t be handled on a community level, like how nobody insists that the Chinese Development Assistance Council should be tackling the ‘gambling problem’ or that the Singapore Indian Development Association should be dealing with the ‘alcoholism problem’. We know how difficult it is to talk about Malay marginality in Singapore–the Malays who do it are accused of a ‘victim mentality’, and the non-Malays who do it tend to be opposition politicians (like Chiam See Tong who spoke about Malays and the army in Parliament, or Chee Soon Juan who spoke about the tudung issue at Speaker’s Corner), and they get accused of ‘politicking’.
We think Berita Harian gets carried away with their ‘Anak Melayu’ stories, of the ‘Anak Melayu Mengharumkan Nama Bangsa’ (literally—‘Malay Child Adds Fragrance to the Community’s Name’) variety. We think that images of a Malay graduate wearing his or her convocation gown belongs to the category of images on laminated motivational posters–inspirational, but in the cheesiest way possible (caption: ‘if they can do it, you can do it too!’). We’re sick and tired of watching English TV shows where a Malay lead (Aaron Aziz, Suhaimi Yusof) plays a policeman. We watch Singapore films like ‘12 Storeys’, where a Malay man asks a lead character for free tuition for his son (which means his son’s not good at his studies, and also, that he’s cheap) and ‘Money No Enough’, where a Malay man plays a TV salesman (a pushover who gets bullied by Jack Neo and Mark Lee into giving them free gifts) and wonder when the parade of humiliating stereotypes will end."
In any case, LAB this week. Intense.
Olivejuice//
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Between the river and raven, I'm fit//
Blueprint
Amazing how it takes the smallest things, like a bus ride,
to transport you to the important issues, such as death
and all its different manifestations. Approaching 7pm,
shadows are already climbing out of the sky to put out
the skyscrapers like candles, ink a river under the highway
to black opacity. You wonder about the years you have
emptied into your present job, the sameness of expression
with which your wife greets you in the evenings, sullen
face of your son at the dinner table, the taste of food
reduced to blandness on your tongue, while the television
in the hall blares forth winners of another game show.
You gaze out the bus window at the moon's half-grin
and remember that film your colleagues hated, which
wounded you in some deep, unspeakable way, like
the scene when the male lead hesitated for more than
what was only a minute before pushing a knife's edge
against the taut curve of his wrist, with that sharply
held breath before every attempt, its quivering release
upon failure. This process you are so familiar with,
each hesitation recurring to a lullaby of the same,
these repetitions the invisible blueprint of a life. Stars
perforate the sky, like the eyes of dead people
suspended outside of time peering in, the place where
your soul must have come from, yanked down by ropes
of pure longing. You wonder at the history of mankind,
calculating the sum total of your consequence in relation
to its yet interminable drama. Quickly, you drift on
to happier subjects, like your son, who pointed one day
at clouds rising into houses, pillars, collapsible cities.
You wonder what you were like at that age. In school,
a teacher commented that you had a talent for stories,
a startling gift for description. You recollect the praises
scribbled in blue across the bottom of a report card
that dad signed, then handed back to you without a word
of compliment. You tell yourself you are better towards
your own son: more tender, more inclined to praise.
None of you can account for the exact moment when
that cynicism flew into his face to lock itself in.
You attribute rudeness to his friends, your wife blames
you for spoiling him from the very beginning. You
glare helplessly at desert maps of your palms, at the
paperweights of whitened knuckles pinning you down
to the world. A poet said that all of us are searching
ultimately for our graves. You think about graves, how
your wife was a hole in the ground you crawled into
and remained for so long you forgot what love was.
You complain to yourself about how this bus is taking
too long to bring you home. The road stretches out
like your father on his bed the morning he did not wake.
He looked no different, and religion made you believe
another sort of wakefulness was prepared for him. You
stood there observing him, dwelling upon decomposition,
how the air would dissolve his body, reclaim the space
it once occupied. You glimpse at your watch, this gift
from your son for Father's Day you found out was really
bought by your wife; this watch that never slows down
for the ecstatic instant, but for boredom's uniformity.
Last week, you went grocery shopping with your family
at the supermarket around your block, and discovered
you had lost your wallet, or maybe dropped it somewhere
between the vegetables and the dairy section. You heard,
on the intercom, the voice of the one who had found it,
a girl mispronouncing your name again and again. And
you left your wife, your son by the trolley, both turning
to strangers with their unison expression of puzzlement
and mild irritation. You hurried down aisle after aisle,
so eager to retrieve the little you could have lost,
realizing instead you were unable to find the counter.
You kept walking and walking alongside rows and rows
of shampoo bottles pasted with women's faces cracked
wide open by smiles and that barely audible laughter.
You became convinced there was no counter. That bitch
repeated again what was once your name. You halted,
much to the approval of tin cans of baby powder, images
of babies so cute you could smash a fist into every tin.
Fluorescent lights swelled inside your head to blossom
into a panic: at once unbearable, yet oddly calming,
as you never felt so close to alive, so potentially free.
-Cyril Wong.
Amazing how it takes the smallest things, like a bus ride,
to transport you to the important issues, such as death
and all its different manifestations. Approaching 7pm,
shadows are already climbing out of the sky to put out
the skyscrapers like candles, ink a river under the highway
to black opacity. You wonder about the years you have
emptied into your present job, the sameness of expression
with which your wife greets you in the evenings, sullen
face of your son at the dinner table, the taste of food
reduced to blandness on your tongue, while the television
in the hall blares forth winners of another game show.
You gaze out the bus window at the moon's half-grin
and remember that film your colleagues hated, which
wounded you in some deep, unspeakable way, like
the scene when the male lead hesitated for more than
what was only a minute before pushing a knife's edge
against the taut curve of his wrist, with that sharply
held breath before every attempt, its quivering release
upon failure. This process you are so familiar with,
each hesitation recurring to a lullaby of the same,
these repetitions the invisible blueprint of a life. Stars
perforate the sky, like the eyes of dead people
suspended outside of time peering in, the place where
your soul must have come from, yanked down by ropes
of pure longing. You wonder at the history of mankind,
calculating the sum total of your consequence in relation
to its yet interminable drama. Quickly, you drift on
to happier subjects, like your son, who pointed one day
at clouds rising into houses, pillars, collapsible cities.
You wonder what you were like at that age. In school,
a teacher commented that you had a talent for stories,
a startling gift for description. You recollect the praises
scribbled in blue across the bottom of a report card
that dad signed, then handed back to you without a word
of compliment. You tell yourself you are better towards
your own son: more tender, more inclined to praise.
None of you can account for the exact moment when
that cynicism flew into his face to lock itself in.
You attribute rudeness to his friends, your wife blames
you for spoiling him from the very beginning. You
glare helplessly at desert maps of your palms, at the
paperweights of whitened knuckles pinning you down
to the world. A poet said that all of us are searching
ultimately for our graves. You think about graves, how
your wife was a hole in the ground you crawled into
and remained for so long you forgot what love was.
You complain to yourself about how this bus is taking
too long to bring you home. The road stretches out
like your father on his bed the morning he did not wake.
He looked no different, and religion made you believe
another sort of wakefulness was prepared for him. You
stood there observing him, dwelling upon decomposition,
how the air would dissolve his body, reclaim the space
it once occupied. You glimpse at your watch, this gift
from your son for Father's Day you found out was really
bought by your wife; this watch that never slows down
for the ecstatic instant, but for boredom's uniformity.
Last week, you went grocery shopping with your family
at the supermarket around your block, and discovered
you had lost your wallet, or maybe dropped it somewhere
between the vegetables and the dairy section. You heard,
on the intercom, the voice of the one who had found it,
a girl mispronouncing your name again and again. And
you left your wife, your son by the trolley, both turning
to strangers with their unison expression of puzzlement
and mild irritation. You hurried down aisle after aisle,
so eager to retrieve the little you could have lost,
realizing instead you were unable to find the counter.
You kept walking and walking alongside rows and rows
of shampoo bottles pasted with women's faces cracked
wide open by smiles and that barely audible laughter.
You became convinced there was no counter. That bitch
repeated again what was once your name. You halted,
much to the approval of tin cans of baby powder, images
of babies so cute you could smash a fist into every tin.
Fluorescent lights swelled inside your head to blossom
into a panic: at once unbearable, yet oddly calming,
as you never felt so close to alive, so potentially free.
-Cyril Wong.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Stacks//
The vast dichotomy between most of my thoughts and actions recently struck me like an anvil to the head. I'd like to think that it's one of those bad things that comes along with being stuck in a(nother) routine, really.
Don't get me wrong. Where job satisfaction is concerned, I must say that I'm getting the better deal compared to my counterparts elsewhere. But "work" being a multiplication of force and distance, along with all the unaccounted for "wants" being swept under the carpet of "To Be Reviewed At A Later Date", there's really a lack of personal fulfilment here.
A rat race, really.
At first, I always thought that I could be so much more. But looking at me now, I really am quite the sad product of all the opportunities long foregone, aren't I?
On hindsight, I've been living a life of wanting to prove myself to the world for so long (without really proving anything) that I'm quite unfamiliar with otherwise. I admit to having crossed the fine line between optimism and delusion for far so many times, mistaking denial for a positive disposition and honestly not batting an eyelid in the face of my own flippancy.
If self-acceptance is the first step to recovery, then I'm resigned to thinking that things won't improve for me anytime forever.
//
Don't get me wrong. Where job satisfaction is concerned, I must say that I'm getting the better deal compared to my counterparts elsewhere. But "work" being a multiplication of force and distance, along with all the unaccounted for "wants" being swept under the carpet of "To Be Reviewed At A Later Date", there's really a lack of personal fulfilment here.
A rat race, really.
At first, I always thought that I could be so much more. But looking at me now, I really am quite the sad product of all the opportunities long foregone, aren't I?
On hindsight, I've been living a life of wanting to prove myself to the world for so long (without really proving anything) that I'm quite unfamiliar with otherwise. I admit to having crossed the fine line between optimism and delusion for far so many times, mistaking denial for a positive disposition and honestly not batting an eyelid in the face of my own flippancy.
If self-acceptance is the first step to recovery, then I'm resigned to thinking that things won't improve for me anytime forever.
//
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