My Version of Enlightenment.

Hello.

Update, update. TGIF.

It is said that how long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.

True, true. Very true. Everyday, I wake up at six in the morning with the eagerness of removing the morning stars on my eyes, with the eagerness of filling my empty stomach, and with the anticipation of an empty, available shower room which I share with Niko, John, Bradian, and Christopher. No, it’s not what you think of. We don’t bathe together. Okay maybe you didn’t think of it. Now you are.

Never mind.

It is almost impossible for me to get ahead of the toilet since Bradian wakes up unbelievably early in the wee hours of morning, when the security guards are sleeping in the middle of their night duties, the poor nurses tending to dextrosed patients, the prostitutes covered under the littlest amount of clothing possible, on the loose in the streets of Geylang and somewhere else who knows where. Waiting for someone to get out of the toilet somehow makes you feel that he’s taking too long and you’re running out of time. It also makes you feel like you’re going to shit on your pants before you even reach the depository. Okay, that was gross.

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photos taken during our thursday run

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Anyway, that’s not really the main idea. I was just wondering how time has been so slow this week, how it has made my June holidays feel like a second instead of a lifetime; how it has made me tired and yet happy at the same time, that upon the gradual slowing of time, I have begun to realise that to live in haste is not a requirement to live a life. I have noticed that for the past few months I’ve been stressing myself to do this and do that, finish up work and stuff asap, as if they are a bunch of popcorn that you must consume immediately, or the crunchiness will fade away along with the sweetness and the warmness when it was still served fresh. But, no, I think I have learnt something new. I think I have learnt to slow myself down, to take time to reflect and think, to wait, to lengthen the ephemeral days through slow breathing paces and unhurried strolls along the sidewalk, contemplating about life, the future that lies ahead, people, love, peace, war, even thoughts unconscionable and short of moral scruples, to immerse myself in the chlorinated blue of the swimming pool when I feel stressed, to play my favourite songs over and over to give myself a sense of consistency in life.

Life has been simple this week, amidst the complexity of life itself.

I’ve learnt it from the woods. From the quiet, unhurried life of the trees and the rocks and the soil and the fallen leaves on the ground.

This sounds like Siddhartha.

I have been gradually realising that there is no need to rush to the shower every morning. Time is not selfish; it’s not it’s fault that it can neither reverse nor stop itself.

Heh.

It’s always been a wonder how her small body can accommodate such a huge vital capacity of air, how her diaphragm can contract so powerfully, and how her larynx can manipulate the pitch and the volume to generate a stream of jaw-dropping, beautiful melodies. However, she has amazed me not mainly because she sings as if she’s been singing for for 48 years, but because of the way she has stunned her audiences; the way she leaves them speechless at the moment she begins to sing; the way her very last high note pulls their bums out from the seats to give her a standing ovation.

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I only have a few days left here in the Philippines. Believe it or not, the desire to go back to Singapore has been building up pretty fast. I guess I’m not really used to slacking any more! \:D/ Which is kinda good, I think? For the past two years and eight months, I have been constantly bombarded with so much work that, without much realizing, it has become the quintessence of everyday life. It’s like rice. That white rice you keep on eating everyday. You don’t really like it since it’s hardly got any taste, but you keep on eating it everyday, and after getting used to it, when you have the yummy viand on your plate but you don’t have that tasteless rice in front of you, your lunches and dinners don’t feel like lunches and dinners at all. And I must admit. I have been enjoying doing work this year. There isn’t much of a pakyu-gaddamet-this-life!!! rantings this year; stress has been more of a consolation, actually. Heh. With a multitude of adolescent emotional outrages here and there, doing homework has been my sort of diversion from all of them.

I miss those long, frustrating journeys from sjii to de casalle at the end of every day. Those moments when I have to choose between the Old Police Academy and Trellis Towers bus stops. Those moments when I fall asleep on the bus and miss the After Still Road bus stop. Those long, obliterating processions along the stretch of Lor N Telok Kurau Road. All those ordeals which I have to do while carrying a hippopotamus bag on my back. And I miss that crazy hill. And that effing overhead bridge. And most of all, I miss being broke.

Imaginations.

Okay, today was quite a boring day. At three in the morning I finally finished my HL Economics commentary.

here’s one of the graphs I included for the commentary. After that, I slept all the way up to 12 noon, and in the afternoon I just spent most of my time watching tv and reviewing the work I did earlier dawn. Now, I only have one subject that I really need to worry about. English. Doing an English essay is simply one of the most frustrating things in the world, especially if it involves literature. Nevertheless, I’m happy that I have finished most all my homework (except English), and now I have to start listening to French.

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I’ve been reading Jodi Picoult’s Harvesting the Heart, and there was one line which caught my attention:

You don’t plan life, you just do it.

Suddenly an image of the Nike logo diverts all my attention away from the story, that famous white check spiraling, zooming into me, like a shuriken on its way to strike me down.

The check disappears along with the story plot, and my imagination begins to overtake me.

The whole house begins to melt, like the paraffin wax beneath the glowing yellow, orange, red and on some occasions blue;

the chair where I sit is shaping itself into a boat, floating above the melted house, traveling so fast as if it possesses numerous propellers on the underside.

I cross the vast sea, and beneath the sea lies my photo albums, their pages seeming to turn more and more yellow with every passing second.

I hear the honks of cars, I taste vanilla in the air, and I smell the aroma of fried noodles.

The sun in front, in its orangest appearance, begins to drown behind the horizon.

And before darkness swallows the last ray of light, I see my own naked body, another woman’s naked body, two men wearing white suits, a woman wearing an angel costume, children, a house, a pen, a bible, a dove or a chicken, I’m not sure, two orchids, a computer, and some other things I cannot remember.

+ 1 or 2 kg.

Hello.

There has been an emanating desire to do all my assignments and projects before the June holiday comes to its most undesired culmination, but the bed is simply so inviting. For the past few days I have been waking up only to find out that lunch is getting cold on the dining table, and all I have to do is to get up, wash up, gargle, brush my teeth, and eat my BRunch. And after that I find myself lying down on the couch in the living room, twice immersed in the weirdest and most hallucinating dreams.

And there’s the computer which does nothing but open up the same websites for me over and over again: friendster, facebook, multiply, blogger, wordpress, deviantart, maxim (:<, youtube, hotmail, yahoo and google. And for once this year I have drastically lost interest in MSN, yay! which is a very good thing – hopefully I’ll finally abstain from it.

But there’s yahoo! messenger which lets me play pool with Eunice, but it’s ok ’cause I’ve been getting some winning streaks for the past few days.

And my NatGeo and Discovery Channel marathons, particularly my Mythbusters marathons, are driving me crazy!

It’s a happy life. I think I’m gaining some weight! \:D/