Those punctured eyes will take it over
Bouquet scent of chimney-odour
Sweating molecules slide over-under
Press-pull glass-cut knotted fingers,
Non-kiss meet of breathing colours
Sabbath of ice invigorator
Drink hysteria, pulsing dancer
Move the body, sway the rafters
Bubble-scene, but flail no higher
Darkness lover, lidded end here.
------------------
Cooking-smoke rise. Water-wall
Becomes iron curtain, all will fall.
Slamming sea-door that will know
Holes of size of which will grow.
Men's violence within deadly silence
Which breaks to roar, downpour,
Solid hysteria, cruel dancer
Away the body, race your shelter
Thunder-fear, but flail no longer
Breathing lover, tears beyond here.

One thing for the new year - there is no need to create your own chaos. It is a mockery of the peace some have never had.
Take care for now and always.

I'm typing this in the relatively early morning, which feels very odd, as if I'm getting over a jetlag. There is an unusual quality to the 6am-kind of morning - dark, strange and full of airy possibility. I've been missing it, not having to wake up before 9 for a whole month now. I ate breakfast at the market, which is a place I first met in aural-exam pictures. I smell grapes, juice, fish, cats.
I still can't get used to ticking 'unemployed' and not 'student' on survey/application forms. It again puts your life in limbo. I think that if I was employed, I would have nothing to tick. There is nothing invigorating about lolling about. Despite the fact that it's only been a month, a break is no longer a break because it is no longer enjoyable. A couple of nights ago my parents threw one of their gatherings and dismayed us all by deciding to try out their tentative yoga moves together. A roomful of adults contorting themselves in strange positions, punctuated by shrieks of laughter, reminded me strongly of Finding Cassie Crazy. So never think your parents aren't crazy enough.
I'm also itchy with sunburn because the rain has decided to go on its own Christmas vacation. Went to Escape on such a day and only truly enjoyed the water ride if it meant being soaked through. It's LOVELY being so wet. I only wonder if anyone has died from rollercoaster-shock yet. Perhaps not; I realize I have below-average stomach for such rides and it sucks, especially with Huiqian and Clara dashing happily for every upside-downer. But at least I have lost that fear of Viking ships.
I also never want to go to town during the holiday season ever again, especially all the people on the street have decided to smoke like chimnies every time they walk out of an air-conditioned building. Plus it's so stuffed it's like being packed into a jam jar with a too-small opening. And one of those taglines really piss me off - "Give and it will be given to you" has to be the nastiest usage of a biblical quote in a departmental store, it's so ridiculously in-your-face.
I miss last year because it was a busy in an all-purpose sort of way, and now... independence. And whether I am making use of it. Please do. Merry Christmas.

We've got a couple of pens in both the shape and form of fish, with shiny eyes and frozen expression and all. I don't know why anybody would want to use a pen that's the tail of a fish. It's creative but not in the least practical. People might shriek if it falls out of your purse, for example.
I've done a lot of celebrating over the week by whizzing around town with Mel back, and decorating the house for the Christmas party today/yesterday. It was amusing hanging snowflakes from the ceiling and arranging fake holly - as if to show our actual sentiments we had no Christmas tree. We haven't had one for years. This is perhaps the first time we're actually bothering to decorate the house. It takes an event to have a reason. Today I have to get up really early and go to church and celebrate properly, and it's difficult to have to have a holiday season so rich and green and blank sometimes.
(I suddenly thought of my mum accidentally seeing someone's blog and criticizing his propensity to whine. I wonder if she would find my blog as such, and if she would see the reason for it at all. I don't think I would be able to explain it in words, either. Which just sounds as if I cannot explain anything.)
We drank in Cheek's not-so-horror army stories, ate a lot of pasta, salad, mashed potatoes, and various meats (turkey actually is just salty chicken), and had a fun gift exchange. I hope we did not encourage Yu-Hsin to smoke. I was a bit worried about clashes in the various groups of friends a la Cheek's description of secret-society glares, but it went smoothly enough. It was great to see the guitar people again; the last meeting was perhaps way back in August. My mum lit a zillion candles around the house, which was lovely, although I with my wu-ya zhui insisted we'd have a fire, and we almost did after knocking over one.
Right now I'm thinking about eating ice-cream at Serene Centre and going home as the Umbrella Guard.

Our ideals resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly reach their goal.
- Carl Schurz

So after being bitten by the dancing bug, I have several plans to go on for forever.
I watched Chocolat yesterday. It was gorgeously shot, but there is one problem: once you read the back of the DVD case you no longer need to watch the movie. It gives you exactly what you expect and narrates when there is no need to because it's already shown. Even Johnny. And you know what, the audience likes to be surprised.
I'm trying to complete my 2nd-last application now, but I don't feel like writing about an ethical dilemma or setback, because right now I don't feel a need to rehash whining when that stage is over. Prom night showed me that a person spends a lot of his life sleeping. Perhaps people would live longer if they didn't need to sleep. When Monday gradually turned into Tuesday, and actually became one day in itself, I no longer feel like sleeping.
My mum is sick so I gotta make her go to bed so she gets well before Saturday, when my family will jet off for our own retreat. I am looking forward to playing badminton on a hill-top.

Well, the SPH interview was loads better than I expected. Although I wish they had not asked me, while staring beadily, about PW and group dynamics, people we interviewed, etc. I did not say, "No one would take IPW seriously if it wasn't an examination subject." I did not say, "Please tell me how this is relevant." I did, however, throw in semi-criticisms of the New Paper - I don't know what got into me to forget that TNP is under SPH.
I've completed 3 out of 5 university applications but am 'plumb tuckered out' in terms of essays, I'm sick of trying to sound smart and enthusiastic.
There are so many things to quietly appreciate in this somewhat limbo season - listening to The Thrills and Joni Mitchell, preparing for prom, and catching gems on HBO (highly recommend About Schmidt and Sense and Sensibility; you may have seen the awesome Emma Thompson & Alan Rickman combo in Love Actually, they still are).
I think if you know what you want, you get it. But most of the time, people don't know. Who can blame them?