they say that kid he's got

I had so many dreams, I had so many breakthroughs

2009-11-10T10:11:21Z

Today when I went to school eklectique was telling about her dream.

eklectique: And I dreamt the paper said, 'How many window panes are there in this school?' so cheronl and I got up and looked! We counted all the window panes but when we got back the invigilator was like, 'What are you doing?' and wanted to give us a 'T', only we kept begging her until she was like, okay, just sit down and do the paper.

Well, they didn't make us count the window panes.

Throughout the paper I kept thinking... I can't believe they are sending this crap to the UK. I mean, if you think about it it's just maths, and not very hard maths at that! Any local teaching syndicate would be more than up to the task of marking the scripts, so... one of the ridiculities a post-colonial education system occasionally encounters, I believe.

(So, like. What if everything got lost in the post? Would they a) randomly assign us a grade b) based on predicted scores or c) make us take the exam again?)

I couldn't do the question on functions, but besides that everything went quite swimmingly (although I may have to eat my words on this one, you never know). Certainly better than any maths exam I've taken in school! Besides that I had Time from Aladdin Sane stuck in my head, but that's neither here nor there. And I managed to concentrate on the paper for a surprising amount of time (who knew!).

After the exam the invigilator didn't let us go out because apparently the entire school had to be released simultaneously or something. She reminded me of Khoo Lilin, who invigilated us for a math exam once (circularity!). She said, "We can't go out now" and snapped on this alarming smile, "So! How was the exam?"

Whether it was a release of the pent-up tension or the incongruity of the smile after three hours of clear your calculator memory and pens down or just plain silence, I'll never know, but the entire room burst into laughter and I found myself laughing along in ugly gasps too. I wonder if this happens every year.

After that everyone started discussing the paper and for a while I sat in my seat looking at people's faces while they talked. (O this is creepy but I liked it.) Then soon after we all started talking the volume in the room climbed so high that I opened my mouth and sang a little and wasn't noticed.

So... yes! Half of maths is over, after Friday I won't have to do any more mathematics ever (strange thought), and I got off to what may reasonably be called a flying start. Hopefully this streak continues!

"Do we have maths or KI first on Friday?" eklectique asked, and I said "maths", and she laughed at me and said, "On your birthday!" and actually cackled, it was quite impressive -- the extent of evil conveyed through that cackle.

Then the invigilator said, you are free to go, and we whooped because we could go back home now, please. "More studying! Yeah!!" I said, with an edge of hysteria (although the entire day has been pretty hysterical, I won't deny), but oh well! More studying! This can't be denied. Actually I do feel like it. A second (third, fourth, fifth, last) wind, perhaps?

They got a message from the action man -- I'm happy, hope you're happy too

2009-11-07T14:50:39Z

Live by request!

"Hi, David Bowie!"
"Hi, George!"
"Could you play Ashes to Ashes for me?"
"Ohhh, I'd love to! George?"
"What?" (music starts)
"Oh, never mind. I'll call you later."

Original!

PIERROT COSTUME, oh man.

I never knew his last name and we never had no fun.

2009-11-06T12:08:02Z

I feel restless and angry and dirty tonight:

Myth

Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the
wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what
made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said.
"When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman."
"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women
too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what
you think."

Muriel Rukeyser

Words are never just words.

Scream like a baby -- I never knew his name and we never had no fun

2009-11-03T10:39:56Z

Yesterday was another low point. I always get this way every month and think, oh no, this is it, there's genuinely something wrong with me, and the next day I get up and feel the start of cramp and think, oh, it's just that. Pain should not be this reassuring, to whoever has the power to decide such things. I am just saying.

Today I like these things:

01. O Sister, Where Art Thou?

In the early forties, eight inmates of the Goree prison unit formed one of the first all-female country and western acts in the country, capturing the hearts of millions of radio listeners. Then they nearly all vanished forever.

But only last summer, two years after Reable's death, did Gayle realize that her mother hadn't tried to wipe all of her history away. I had flown to see Gayle at her home in Virginia so that we could talk about Reable. Late in the day, just before I was about to leave, Gayle pulled out a box of her mother's old papers. I saw what looked like blank stationery of W. Frank Renfrow, the Houston doctor Reable had worked for in the sixties, twenty years after she had left prison. Then I noticed that on the back of each page were the typed lyrics of songs. The first page I studied contained the lyrics to "Blue Moon," which begins "Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, / Without a dream in my heart, / Without a love of my own."

They're making a movie of this, with Jennifer Aniston in. I hope you don't fuck it up, Jennifer Aniston. What are you doing today? Wa-hey!

02. 300 Love Letters

So I'm telling this boy, one of the boys that lots of these love letters are to, about this project. "I'm writing three hundred love letters and sending them to strangers. The letters are going to be glued to the outside of the envelopes, so that the mailman, and presumably whoever the recipient lives with, will be able to see and read them. The letters aren't to the strangers, they're to people I know." The boy looks at me. We're walking around, after work, deserted streets. He says, "I don't understand. Why are you doing this?", and I answer vaguely, talking about crossing space and the kind of intimacy that I believe is lacking from our society. And I'm left thinking: Is this project complicated or simple, idiotic or interesting?

This is attention-seeking, I hear you say. Perhaps she never really loved them if she wrote them those letters and gave them to strangers, or displayed them on the Internet, I hear you say. This is a clever hipster thing, but ultimately superficial and too self-referential, I hear you say. An artefact of the Internet age. It's worn, it's tired. It's not great art. It's not even art. This person suffers from self-absorbedness. S/he is a monster of incuriosity.

And I say: what is it to you? Love is precisely something which happens in the imagination. Shakespeare knew this, and set his only original tale (a love story) in a fairytale forest. Titania thought she loved Bottom. Then she repudiated him. Who are you to say that thing was not real, I say. The essence of love is to seek performance; turn it into something visceral. Hence the existence of love-fantasies about jumping into the river to save one's beloved, etc... and the essence of performance is seeking attention and being one who attention-seeks. One performs to the masses, and thinks about the effect of every nuanced action on a single person. What are you thinking, upon reading this? If I put up the letter I delivered to a stranger (and never to you) on a public platform, how would you feel? I want to find out, and I always want to know. It's you, and it's me, and it's an unknown number of readers out there, and I always want to know.

03. Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.

04. Star

Hammering piano (that fucking manic piano) and air-siren vocals. I could do with the money, you know that I--! I'm so wiped out with things as they are, you know that!

megaton_souffle @ 2009-11-01T08:30:00

2009-11-01T00:32:07Z

I don't think I get megaton_souffle

I could do with the money/I'm so wiped out with things as they are

2009-10-30T11:44:33Z

Things:

1. withoutart's eighteenth. Happy Birthday, Eeyore!

2. I'm sorry, it's now officially true: The Island Creamery and associated subsidies now fulfills all given dietary requirements. Burgers and ice cream! Now all that's missing is the Fifties-style diner with the bopping waitress and a stray barman singing about his blue-eyed baby.

3. Market structures.

4. Today we laughed so much I don't even remember what we laughed about but it owned.

5. David Bowie: the Complete Guide owns!

6. Am listening in on the Korean drama my mum is watching next door... I can't believe I actually watched it yesterday.

7. Today I made a list of all the Straits Times journalists I couldn't stand, but couldn't remember the name of the one I found the most offensive... possibly this is for the best.

8. I've heard of On the Road described as both a) a sexist, vacuous pile of antelope droppings and b) one of the most brilliant works of the Beat generation, and have not myself read a single word of it. Is it either? Can it be both?! Should I bother reading it at all?

9. I enjoyed this poem very much. It popped up on one of the JCs' lit prelims:

(from Mother any Distance)

My father thought it bloody queer,
the day I rolled home with a ring of silver in my ear
half hidden by a mop of hair. 'You've lost your head.
If that's how easily you're led
you should've had it through your nose instead.'

And even then I hadn't had the nerve to numb
the lobe with ice, then drive a needle through the skin,
then wear a safety-pin. It took a jeweller's gun
to pierce the flesh, and then a friend
to thread a sleeper in, and where it slept
the hole became a sore, became a wound, and wept.

At twenty-nine, it comes as no surprise to hear
my own voice breaking like a tear, released like water,
cried from way back in the spiral of the ear. If I were you,
I'd take it out and leave it out next year.

Simon Armitage

Strange games they would play then (no death for the perfect men)

2009-10-29T14:31:12Z

PIXEL DEATH

I (or, my ipod has) have it, and it's spreading. Is there any way to stop this?

In the immortal words of like one hundred million Internet help-requesters, pls help!!!

I live in Georgia and I dont see no tanks

I'm an alligator! I'm a mama-papa comin' for you!

2009-10-23T11:55:49Z

1. Mr. Burge liked Mr. Pip! I'm very glad. He called it a "wonderful little book", which from anyone else might sound vaguely condescending but as it transpires, he really was impressed by the way it managed to "squeeze so many ideas into such a thin volume" (although when I read it, I didn't find it all that remarkable... perhaps he is too used to Victorian verbosity). I like it a lot, though. He said it would make us very confused about Great Expectations (ahaha, oops) and so not to read it until after the A levels.

But the point is, you should read it. The ending still makes me shake (and if that cryptic endorsement isn't enough for you, well... read the first sentence again).

2. His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms

I was very amused by this passage today and eklectique and I spent the next hour alternately making cat- and vomit-noises at each other. "Miao! eurgh! miao! eurgh!" You could interpret this as a sign of our respective juvenilities, or our comic genius. (Growing up's for lo-sers!)

3. Computer woes really suck. Ergh!

4. Once again, graduation doesn't exactly feel like graduation... I think school didn't so much end as it was slowly phased out: the last day of school, the passing up of our IS/H3s, last prelim paper, the A levels... these are all tiny milestones. It's good, in a way. And after this our education in Singapore will (hopefully) have come to an end.

5. Pretty much. Although the review is factually wrong; the Thin White Duke persona came after this album, not before.

6. I have been neglecting every subject except for KI lately, okay back to work. I WILL NOT SCREW UP MY LIFE.

It's easy!

2009-10-22T23:59:25Z

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Do you dislike explaining yourself?

2009-10-16T09:13:34Z

From my previous entry:

Put out the torches!
Hide the moon!
Hide the stars!

is from Velvet Goldmine, although possibly they could have been using a quotation from some other place. They stole from Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde! And the seventies, obviously.

"Now, Peter!"

is from Peter Pan.

The two quotations are not related.

Well you're the grand one

2009-10-14T11:59:10Z

Put out the torches!
Hide the moon!
Hide the stars!

"Now, Peter!"

All I have is my love of love - and love is not loving

2009-10-11T10:30:55Z

Oh god can't stop listening to David Bowie /o\

It's like a disease /o\

Essentially, I am withoutart only with less Korean and more glitter.

Starman is my favourite.

And according to this dude, Life on Mars is the best song of all time!

Well, it is a nice song.

megaton_souffle @ 2009-10-10T20:48:00

2009-10-10T12:50:37Z

Give me your hands because you're wonderful

!

Selfish and unknowable and radiant -- round here, we stay up very very late

2009-10-06T13:44:07Z

Last Monday I was in Kinokuniya reading The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas when a woman in her fifties asked me for help. She said, "You like books, right?" and I said, yeah. So she asked me to help her find local literature "with a family theme" and I darted over to the information section and asked them for the local literature shelf, and then I led her over, saw that most of it was poetry and said, "Are you interested in poetry, or prose?"

"Stories," she said, "with a family theme", I think she was starting to regret her foray already (the selection they did have looked very unpromising for her needs) but was determined to persevere, so I picked out Christine Suchen Lim's The Lies That Build A Marriage (pro: contains word "marriage", con: contains word "lies") and presented it to her.

"They don't have any Goh Sin Tub," I observed, "But if you go to other bookstores you can keep an eye out for him."

"Okay," she said, "I really want those books with a family theme."

I tried searching for more books for her but they only really stocked Christine Suchen Lim's book so I gave it to her and went back to reading. I hope she manages to find more books that she wants, haha. So this is the second time someone's approached me in a bookstore and gone, "Recommend me a book"? Which is p cool, I won't deny. Self-aggrandising as it sounds, I like helping people, especially when it's at things like these where I am slightly less than useless! Perhaps I should consider a career in retail on the strength of these two incidents alone, only I suspect my job in Borders/Kinokuniya/Times would involve considerably more stocking and rearranging books than actual telling customers what they should read, sooo.

--

And all things considered, I think I'm doing pretty well for myself, yeah. I'm happy, hope you're happy too. (Mama said, if you want to get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom.) (Round here we stay up very, very, very, very, very late.)

Sailors fighting in the dancehall

2009-10-05T08:58:13Z

Life on Mars is still easily one of the best TV shows I've ever watched.

Really? Really? My default icon has never been so appropriate.

2009-10-04T02:23:08Z

I gasped at how many names there were.

Fuck you, Hollywood.

Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child.

I'm pretty sure this makes you a fucking scumbag.

Mama said, to get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom

2009-09-29T14:24:12Z

I watched Velvet Goldmine yesterday.

.
.
.

Gosh, David Bowie had some really weird costumes going on, didn't he?? But his music owns, it owns

Also reading You Shall Know Our Velocity for the second time made me so annoyed with, like ALL THE CHARACTERS all of a sudden. Stfu, everyone!! This is so distressing, this is so distressing.

I don't know why everyone can someone just tell me, just tell me

I seem to be repeating things a lot recently

other things that own include this:

Listen to the song first before watching the video, because the music video doesn't actually match up with the way the song goes in my head??? That happens a lot though and mostly the song just owns

yeah

p.s. Waris Dirie is not dead -- person who told me that you have been SADLY MISINFORMED (Y)

megaton_souffle @ 2009-09-28T09:36:00

2009-09-28T01:37:34Z

View Poll: so that guy

megaton_souffle @ 2009-09-28T07:27:00

2009-09-27T23:28:51Z

Wuthering Heights is such a disturbing book, everyone. It is so disturbing. Kate Bush does not show the full extent of its disturbingness. It is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read.

... SOMEONE TALK TO ME ABOUT IT PLEASE.

Mr. Uef! I represent a civilised planet and demand you to watch your lexicon!

2009-09-26T04:22:49Z

1. Watching Kin Dza Dza now!

'Minuma verishvilli' is my favourite insult of the moment. I don't even know what it means, it wasn't even subtitled so possibly it isn't even Russian. I don't know, man. MINUMA VERISHVILLI.

Seriously, you all should check it out. Low budget cult Soviet sci-fi, need I say more??

2. Yesterday we watched: The Science of Sleep (which is not a documentary), The Mummy 3 (appropriately terrible) and half an episode of Growing Up. (Man I miss that show.) A good time was had by all.

3. And the Central library is closed for F1, WHAT IS THIS. Tourism over education, o icwudt.

megaton_souffle @ 2009-09-20T11:52:00

2009-09-20T03:53:52Z

I kick Microsoft Word's ass because I know how to do selective pagination. \o/

:D

I just don't want to die anymore.

2009-09-18T15:02:39Z

1. Long consultation for IS today, things in IS need to be Fixed. SIGH SIGH SIGH, guess that's what my Saturday is going to be all about. But things aren't so bad, though! In the sense that I know they have to be Fixed, and I know how to Fix them, and that it probably goes a long way towards alleviating my anxiety about it. (A couple of weeks ago I dreamt I got an F on my IS. WHAT IS THIS I NEVER GET SCHOOL ANXIETY DREAMS. Then I texted interpunct and she told me it was a lame dream [well, it was] and that she'd dreamt about Up. I do not feel that the universe is being fair here to be honest.)

2. asdfghjkl I got a copy of Crush in the mail you guys. LET US TALK IN THE MANY WAYS THAT THIS IS JUST: a) copy of Crush b) in the mail~~ and c) for ME! I am making my way through it very, very slowly -- gosh, Richard Siken can write. You know how things are, when there has been a sort of generalised buzz about how good some dude is and you've gotten sick of the hype already without checking it out and also slightly cynical and disinclined to believe it? (Oh, wait, maybe that's just me...) and then you DO check it out, and then you realise it's just as good as everyone has told you. Jeez. It's kind of unfair that I've been reduced to monotones and admiring noises, really, because his words. Also, look! He's actually funny -- sad and funny? Funny and sad.

You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room. Phone's for you, Jeff says. Hey! It's Uncle Jeff, who isn't really your uncle, but you can't talk right now, one of the Jeffs has put his tongue in your mouth. Please let it be the right one.

... sometimes he's just funny without being sad, of course. :)

3. Today it was raining by the time I went home and I stopped in Borders (I didn't mean to; got sucked down by a book which wasn't really very good) and got stopped by a boy who was holding a Haruki Murakami (whom I have never read) cluelessly. He gave the impression that he'd never been in a bookstore. He said, "Can you recommend me something to read please?"

Me: ...

Apparently he was from ACS(I), we made small talk about TV shows (and my lack thereof) and exams and "you're from Hwa Chong, right?" while I was sekritly giving mental shrugs because, awkward. Maybe the situation was awkward, or I was. I have never been very good at making small talk with strangers, but it was okay I guess. Eventually I introduced him to Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief, which is funny and also sort of really, really good. So hey, random AC boy! On the very, very slight off-chance that you're reading this, I hope you liked that story about that middle-aged dude who writes a diary under the persona of his twenty-four year old co-worker and thought it was a little bit funny. Also I don't remember what T-shirt you were wearing, but I remember it being sort of colourful and kind of stupid. It's all good, though. Bold fashion choices ftw :)

4. I went home and slept forever, and by the time I'd awoken it was time for dinner.

ETA oh my god ahahaha

rainbow rainbow rainbow

2009-09-13T11:42:15Z

Things I would like to do after the Prelims:

1) Watch Kin-Dza-Dza properly
2) Rewatch Amelie
3) Watch Sympathy For Lady Vengeance
4) Reread You Shall Know Our Velocity
5) Read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (... it's really long maybe I won't have enough time)
6) Post-Prelims Party (by invitation only!!)

1) Studying

2) Practical biology

3) Making rainbows

ECONOMICS = DEATH

the bones of you

2009-09-11T14:23:36Z

Man, you know you're just tired and grumpy when even finishing up the last of the black sesame ice-cream (it even came in a small paper carton with a plastic lid, so I didn't even have to dig any out and put it in a mug) doesn't really cheer you up.

Today was kind of hilarious and same-ish, in the sense that we... went to school and studied? I mean, WHAT ELSE IS EVERYONE DOING NOWADAYS anyway. Today interpunct stood on her chair and bobbled up and down (it was an adjustable desk chair), and also tried to revolve on it by making some weird arm motions that made it look like she was swimming in air.

So, to sum up:

Things that should be made into a .gif #1: interpunct bobbing up and down on her chair
Things that should be made into a .gif #2: eklectique's eyeroll at her

We had lunch, which was (for me) potato chips, sushi and grapes. And then I reread a book with large print (look, it was on offer! and anyway large print is relaxing for the eyes!) while people played Quoridor, and then we discussed Economicz questions. I kind of like these days -- not as intense as they should be, perhaps, but nice all the same. It's kind of a shadow existence, a half-limbo. I go through the motions of studying, but none of it goes into my brain. Possibly I should be PANICKING more over this HORRENDOUS state of affairs, but. Meh. :/

Another "interesting" thing that happened today (I use the apostrophes advisedly): I scalded my hand today! While preparing Instant Miso Soup, I am truly the most accident-prone of all creatures.

megaton_souffle @ 2009-09-09T08:59:00

2009-09-09T01:15:39Z

Something's moving in the dark. It might be spring; or a bigger genesis.

There is no way to describe this song but sweeping, sweeping, SWEEPING. Epic doesn't begin to cover it, no; it's massive and difficult and sprawls and unsunny.

For I do believe that everyone
Has one chance to fuck up their lives
Like a cut down tree I will rise up again
And I'll be bigger and stronger than ever before

Noah & The Whale - The First Days of Spring