hmm today was a pretty hectic day, had to go down for a few interviews. so came back home really shagged and thus i took a nap on a sofa, and now i’m super awake. durr. not good. cos i’m supposed to rest for tomorrow. 

anyway i’ve suddenly gotten this end-of-year blues. like the feeling that, omg, another year has ended! i’m only 2 years away from the second decade in my life (sounds weird, what i mean is that i’m 2 years from 20). looking back on these past 18 years, i’ve got to say this year and the last probably played the biggest role in making me grow up. i can’t say how or why, but it just did, and it can’t be put down in words because i don’t know how to explain it. all those days working under pressure to finish eetokia, pulling all-nighters, getting blasted by teachers for no reason and the like. these reasons sound superficial, but i think ib really made me a more resilient person. that’s not to metion friends and the good company. :) thank you everything who’ve made a difference in my life, and have made it better. you may not see this, but i really appreciate all the times and the little things! point 12, guitar, babes and everyone else. thank you! without you i would’ve been stuck in at the bottom of a pit of depression still. words can’t express how grateful i am. sometimes all it took was someone to talk to help me out of my stupid fits. i feel really blessed to be alive and kicking, with friends and family all around me. i really am. and i’m not saying this just because it’s the new year and it’s time for saying thank you and writing resolutions and stuff. yup. and i wanted to write this because i’m not sure if i can blog again until 2jan the earliest.

hope tmr night will be fun! CHEERS EVERY ONE AND HAVE A NICE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR!!

my plan today to do update my scrapbook, clean and reorganise my room, go downstairs to jog off the fats acquired, look for a job online… failed. computers and technology is going to be my downfall. :( i’m half-way a slug already.

in other news i went to watch avatar yesterday. the plot was slightly formulaic but the cgi was too good to be true! possibly one of the best movie’s i’ve seen so far. then at night ate takoyaki and noodles, and chilled out at clarke quay with pamster. i think they should put ladders on the ledge of the bridge there for unatheletic people like me. oh well better rest now cos next week is gonna be busy

sigh and life is full of regrets and irreversible decisions. sometimes when you wanna change something, you gotta go back all the way to the beginning and start from the top down. when faced with a decision with equal pros and cons you just have to go with your gut feeling. and with that said i knew i shouldn’t have chosen chimchar at the start. darn it

fermented tofu… you can almost smell it through the screen!

the first night there i had a room with an attached living room (and a king-sized bed)!! that was the best

the towns nestled on the slopes of the mountains, shrouded in clouds

we took the train to kaohsiung and travelled through tunnels that led straight though the heart of the mountains, and past long stretches of abandoned beaches that led to the pacific ocean. and at that moment the sunlight filtered through the clouds onto the sea, and it looked as if it had taken on a sparkling, greyish-lavender colour with the consistency of silk. i couldn’t explain it, and as weird as this sounds, i felt like reaching out through the window to pluck it out of the distance and feel it in my hands. plus the wild grass and flowers in the foreground was silhouetted against the sea, the sky and ground. it was that pretty.

we went to this aboriginal culture theme park, which was quite sad because they had to build cheesy theme park attractions which had nothing to do with aboriginal culture to attract people to come. and we went into this indoor place with so many kiddy rides, like the space adventure roller coaster that a lot of elderly queued up for without knowing what it was, only to back out at the last moment because the operators had to explain to them in hokkien what the ride was, only to go on the milder rides… like the merry-go-round. with such i caught the weird sight of ah-peks ridding the wooden horses and ah-mahs sitting on the adjacent carriages, all painted in garish high gloss paint and covered in spinning, flashing lights. what to say, as we get older we get, the more child-like we become.

on the last day we had time to kill before leaving, so we went to check out the chiang kai-shek memorial (which had its own mrt station named after it) there was this huge wide plaza surrounded by 2 temples facing each other, the gate and the memorial. the weirdest thing was, there was this bunch of cheerleaders practicing right in front of the memorial at the park attached. and other groups of people practicing hiphop. idk the plaza was prolly built to let people exercise but it seemed so incongruous to me. then we ate at dingtaifeng at sogo, which my gran and parents thought was the best meal of the trip. i beg to differ. i thought the street food was the best. especially the smelly tofu and the barbecued eel.

yup that basically sums up my trip. and as you can see it did not involve much shopping even though my hotel on the first and last night was right next to ximending, which is like this uber trendy shopping district, because i travelled with my family. end of explanation.

and as to why i’m sleeping so late, that’s because recently i’ve been waking up intermittently in my sleep due to dreams that disturb me, but whose content i cannot recall once i wake up. well some i do… for a moment and then try desperately to remember because once of twice i came upon a revelation, but then couldn’t because i fell back into an uneasy sleep. and there was one night i was awake, unable to fall asleep, staring at my ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars. times like this i wonder… wouldn’t it be nice to actually sleep under real stars? like while camping, or in a field. not inside a huge yellow box of a room.

i’m in a real down mood right now. which is ironic because a few hours ago when i stepped out of the shower i felt really good about life and actually wanted to write about optimism here. sucks how life suddenly seems different within a span of a few hours for no reason. maybe it’s just the time; it’s 3am already. maybe i should sleep earlier. it’s time to meet the sandman.

and it hit me

poetry and all its associated froufrou only comes when you’re down, or lonely, or dejected, or feeling shitty. like when you wake up from the wrong side of bed and feel like the whole world is against you when it really isn’t

and never when there’s sunshine and rainbows and unicorns (at least for normal people… sans when you’re on drugs because i think when you’re happy and on a trip you might actually make something good… like walt disney)

because the best form of art comes when you’re struggling with something*

think owen facing war and death, soyinka facing racial discrimination, woolf battling depression…

rarely do you get a poet or artist who gets famous because he/she makes happy art

and i look at my xanga and think

wow, i can’t even remember what half of this is about! (but i guess i must’ve been really depressed when i wrote these)

i guess my life must’ve been more dramatic and exciting when it’s viewed through rain clouds.

and in other words

strike when the iron is hot, or protect your ego and retreat back to ground zero

god i need a magic 8 ball to answer all my questions

and random, but i think zune is killing my laptop. that lousy piece of junk! it’s been whirring non-stop for the past hour. or maybe it’s just because i’ve been on for 12 hours. bleh.

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*quote courtesy lady gaga

it’s 1.34 am
i’m alone by myself in the living room
and all i can hear is the the bubbling of the fish tank
the whirr of air-conditioning from under the neighbours’ windows
the cpu buzzing away
the laguid tick-tock of the clock
people returning from where ever they were, car doors slamming downstairs
and the occassional person in his car speeding along the road outside

it’s times like this, all these combination of sounds that make me think the city is sleeping, like a giant in slumber. it’s funny how in other places, like while vacationing in hk or staying at my aunt’s place in shanghai, the traffic never seems to stop in the middle of the night, and people are honking away randomly like nobody’s business. it’s barely 2 and everybody’s all sleeping! even the neighbour who screams at her children late at night sleeps at 11, haha.

anyway and it’s the first time in a while i’m not in bed by 1. heh. that’s cos was trying to finish an essay! my shoulders feel cramped and sore from being hunched over fore the past 2 hours from doing them on the comp. :( i needs a massage guys, i feel like the hunchback of notre dam with a right big lump on my shoulders now.

hmm i saw the paranormal activity trailer on youtube! well, technically speaking i saw it but didn’t watch it because i didn’t dare to, LOL. if not i wouldn’t be sitting here calmly typing this – i’d probably be hiding under my covers in bed and listening to the radio to block out the sounds of the room creaking and all that jazz, which seem more frightening when you’re in that heightened state of paranoia for some reason. heh. gosh i hate the after effects of getting spooked out. that’s why i stick to watching b-grade, retrotastic b-grade horror films: because their “horror” is a bunch of zombies that look like they came from the set of Thriller, moaning ‘brains!’ and staggering around town, and ain’t no scary dead girl coming out of a tv screen or a stupid well, haha. and above all b-grade horror films are super funny, especially when the protagonists are all scared shitless and running away from zombies and you’re laughing your ass off at the one dressed like a character from Dynasty circa 1980, complete with ugly pearl necklace, shoulder pads and shoes to match. (not that i watch Dynasty though, soz for the stereotype) with that said i caught a bit of return of the dead on max before i was chased back to my room and i laughed more than i was scared (which was none). wish i could’ve finished watching it though, i wonder what happened to all those zombies…

right better go sleep now, toodles!