Chapter 151: A Pack Of Cocaine For Worries

A pack of cocaine to forget,
A pack of cigarettes to beget my cathartic,
A pack of wolves to claw at my door,
A pack of cards- aces, jacks, fools and kings.

You
    The pack of Cocaine for worries.

/

Life will start picking up pace and then chug up and then down, back and forth or something that Law would classify as the vicissitudes of life. LTC was really awesome and the second night was so pleasant, talks like those should be made mandatory for anyone in a junior college because words should flow as if Robert Frost’s ink to paper.

Looking back at my past, looking now towards my present and the not so distant future, I wonder if I should do anything about it or leave it is. Ignorance is bliss but is inaction something detrimental?

2/10 girls have the special friend in a male counterpart and I can only begin to weep for that male specimen. Been in that position before, done that, got a t-shirt and absconded into reality. Maybe I was weak, maybe too insecure, too wanting to deserve attention that I sought refuge for my heart in the one closest to me- maybe that’s why our relationship failed.

It takes a strong man to be in a relationship but as for the male counterpart, not being able to fall in love with that best girl friend would make him a stronger man in my opinion. Or maybe, they all just love them enough to shut up about ho they feel.

This reminded me of Made Of Honour starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan whereby Mr Dreamy played Michelle’s best friend who loves her and wants to stop her marriage and then he ends up marrying her. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but balked at the possibility of such a thing happening in real life.

I remember they carried a commentary on movies such as Made of Honour which seemed to mock what reality and what marriages were about: the realization of commitment and love. But then again, we should take such movies with a pinch of salt.

And Donna and I hate such movies, because it gives us hope of such a warped reality. aye, if only.

/

I also liked how Sarah described how people took on double roles in life on Femmedansieur, like her dad who served as a brother as well. You serve as a good friend to a friend, a son to your mother, a brother to your brother, all this roles decree a certain commitment and along with it worries and doubts.

Being able to balance this roles perfectly on the teetering pole of calamity is what makes human nature. But never never a best friend and a lover- never. Not for me.

/

Yes, somehow love is about silly smiles, quiet eyes, and poetic verses that are unintelligible or try to be.

Chapter 150: Update on schedule

Just in case, oh, some other form of communication in my life fails…

Anyway, my sim card is spoilt, I have to go get another one from starhub and till then I’m uncontactable…which sucks because I now have no way of knowing what’s going on. Meetings, birthdays, extra lessons all gone because of my phone. Urgh, this sucks. Today would not have been such a bad week if my phone was working.

LTC is from 5-7th. CCA briefing on tuesday. Open House briefing on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday would have some form of calamity coming up. David’s on Saturday. Boo, just give me back my results and bring me down further than Zakiah’s sarcasms have, Edwin’s taunting has, and Irsyad’s remarks have.

Chapter 149: A day of lessons not in education

/

Today was a good day of learning about people. More on that later but I’ve been running so very hard this week, I forgot to bring my pe attire for today which means i have to come in the morning tomorrow to attend a PE sessin. Urgh, no less than 4 PE teachers recognized me and asked why I didn’t bring my clothes.

From this week onwards, life is going to be too busy what with Funfestique, LTC, ODAC trip and whatnots, it’s going to be hectic but I’ll survive through it because I’ve survived alot of things.

Had a good ride home with Rachel after what felt like forever not talking to a good friend, I had gotten my chance to talk to her and as I left the bus, I felt something no form of drug could give, nor love could ever give, I felt closure.

What haunts us now, is the fact that whatever in the past catches up to us somehow and has a way of finding its way back into your heart. Until you finally accept truth and its honest lies, you truly have never moved on. Whatever is in my past is now finally, yes finally, have been answered truthfully and I am content…for the few times in my life.

The love, the truth, the way is buried.

Also, it was good talking to my Callisto (what a dumb name) captain Zakiah (dumber name) as we finished packing up the tents. Talks with people should be free and easy and the ones I like the most is the one where the most honesty lies in and the ones that talk about life. That’s why i enjoy talking to people like Terence Foo (hello, how are you?) , Irsyad, David Foo, Loretta, Roderick,  Zakiah, Ms Lim and the ole bunch of nette, donna and cliffton.

As young as these people are or as old as they are, they offer invaluable advices to me and I’ve learnt too much to be listed here. Those are the people I could live with on a deserted island and have too many things to talk about and not be finished by the time the rescue plane comes in. Call me shallow and thinking that oh, “i’m-the-deepest-and-most-mature-thinking-dude-in-the-room” but there’s more to life than education.

I was proving my case to Zakiah about how life and love are death are inextricably linked whereby in my opinion, a person will never grow up properly or mature enough until he/she gets a nasty shock in their life. And until that nasty shock arrives, they will be stagnant in their maturity.

I’ve received a couple of knocks, here and there, and big and small ones so yes, I’ve never grown up. I mean you can count a break up as a jolt but don’t be so shallow. Breakups are ephemeral, lessons taken away from that break up last for ever.

Sometimes, I don’t know if I’m being hypocritical when I’m answering a person’s questions but I always take a woman’s side in things although very well knowing that I had done it in the past. See the first step to recovery, is recognition of the matter. Zakiah was talking about boys being possessive and stuff and how more can anyone agree?

As much as you like it or not, although oh, relationship is about trust, oh, it’s about freedom, oh it’s about love, we all know ideals are just ideals that don’t exist naturally. They are mere plots formulated in our heads and are waiting to be transferred into our actions soon enough.

And I also believe that sometimes the start of relationships should be a tad awkward because if everything were comfortable, one wouldn’t know the boundary between a friend and someone whom you love. And relationships thus evolve from that into something that becomes casual, free and easy going, such relationships will then last till it lasts. And such relationships are the best relationships. Oh, note relationship in this sense is of matters of the heart.

And it’s easy to get into a relationship, easier to sustain it, and easiest to get out of one.

So many lessons digested but nothing ever materializes, and goodbyes are more than goodbyes. They’re final words for a day that you say to a person, that’s why goodbyes are so important. Because you’re saying hello to a farewell heart.

just a friend.

 

 

We laughed so much then we cried all night
And you left your shoes in the tree with me
Ill wear them to your house tonight
Magic in the air tonight

And if you should lose me
You will track me down again
Before the summer ends.

 

 

 

Chapter 148: Viva La Vida! Or Death and All His Friends

This is soo overdue but better late than never. As you all know Coldplay has released their long awaited follow up to X&Y on June 16 or somewhere in June, and anyway I bought the album instead of downloading it free because I figured that a band that good deserves to have profits.

Coldplay’s meteoric rise to rock band success has often been characterized by their first few albums, Yellow, A Rush Of Blood To The Head, Parachutes where their sound was honed and shaped over the years emoting love so much so that the Britons voted Coldplay the “Band That Would Most Likely Put You To Sleep”. How ironic of a rock band huh.

Since then, they’ve moved on in the direction so many of us wanted them to and not wanted them to, into Radiohead-esque territory, this effort epitomized by X&Y. The critics hated X&Y as it represented an all together new direction of the band and I didn’t exactly hate it but I didn’t like it either because I found that it was a rather forced and weak attempt at emulating Radiohead and no one has managed thus far to cast themselves out of Thom Yorke’s shadow.

Viva La Vida represents everything after that. This album is nothing as what you would hear on mainstream radio although the most popular songs from the album Viva La Vida and Violet Hill were played endlessly on radio resulting in so many fools, pretending that they were Coldplay’s biggest fans when in actual reality, they had only listened to those two songs. LOSErrrx

Anyway, in my opinion this album comes pretty close to Radiohead sublimity. They’ve come so close that I hope that they reach that destination eventually.

The album opens off with a effects distorted song that has few lyrics but rather a bouncy acoustic guitar and Will Champion’s drums playing and Chris Martin’s trademark Oooh-ohhs, which I find rather irritating. The first song sets the mood for the starting of the album which evolves with each song in the rather short 10 tracklist.

In “Cemeteries Of London”, Chris Martin’s obsession with death is something pretty creepy but this is a rather pleasant song, and represents a sort of gradual progression of coldplay’s song as the trademark guitar effects are still present…for now. “Lost!” follows and its sing-along-y-ness (haha, wtf) makes it sure to be a live staple in years to come, with its music being sung by the masses.

“42″ is my favourite off the entire album, besides “Chinese Sleeping Chant”. Blame me for my rather biased music favouritism but I prefer slower songs than faster ones. “Those who are dead/are not dead/they’re just living in my head/And since I fell/for that spell/I am living in this well” are the starting lyrics of the entire song which effortlessly moves from melancholic undertones to a gypsey-esque violins and then moving into a major key, such a move can only be supported by Will Champion’s prodigous drums. Effortless and absolutely wonderful work by Brian Eno, man responsible for U2s greatest The Joshua Tree.

One wonders what the song is about and many theories have come up such as the song being about death. I think it’s about the devil though, the devil in his kingdom of hell where people are not dead but suffering there, and how hell is a pit you can never get out of.

From the onset of this song, the album steadily moves into a happier stance with more poppy numbers that are supported by violins, making it not all poppy but delightful listens. “Strawberry Swing” starts off with a delayed guitar riff but tells of a nostalgic tale of the past, the present, the future.

The album then comes to an almost definite close with Death And All His Friends, a trip down memory lane as the sound becomes so reminescent of the older Coldplay. Finally, it closes off with slow organs that relate back to the start of the album.

This album is almost absolutely perfect (I’m disagreeing with pitchfork, yes), just that it was marred by the few pop songs and be sure this band is on its way to radiohead sublimity. Just you wait and see.

Chapter 147: Pig-nic

So the following are the picnic pictures! We ate, we laughed, we screamed sexual innuendos in ECP (ok me) and life was all good.

/

I dunno, zakiah was complaining that a (as quoted), “a fucking ah lian trimmed my hair and now I got fucking bangs!” well said callisto captain.

You think I wanted to come to a picnic dressed like that? I was from a wedding but got out early from there and ended up waiting for the rest for an hour or so. That’s me wanting to kill Zakiah.

And Zakiah wanting to kill me.

Anyway, it was Edwina’s birthday so I got him a slice of chocobanana cake from Chocz( halal or not? who cares). We had trouble lighting the damn candle so heck, we sang him a 3 second song without the flame.

The three of them!

The couple.

Trying very hard to blur our faces but apparently failing. Those specs are mine and I look like an old grandpa trying to do the robot. Zakiah’s just trapped in the 60s.

You can guess who took this picture.

And who took this too.

Zakiah and Loretta.

: D

This is the reason why I love Edwin very much.

The couple, I told you.

And the infamous heart-shaped specs.

I looked like a doctor on sunday!

/

I remember David saying something else that day on the bus ride, something about falling in love.

Falling in love is tiring. He was saying that if he ever did break it off with that shy girl of his (I hope they never), the whole problem and solution of falling in love would be something tiring because you would have to go through the process of wanting to fall in love, the girl has to fall in love and staying in love as well.

Chapter 146: By the river Piedra

Picnics are not educational. Taboo is not educational. A toy dog is not educational. Miami Ink 3 is not educational.

Today marks reality.

I had such a wonderful time yesterday and with me, Taboo becomes sexually charged and loretta and I make the perfect team so suck on that zakiah and edwin, you guys suck at the game. See, it’s not called cheating when you don’t read the rulebook.

Mondays are always the longest day but thank god the day starts with PE. Looking forward to school

David made a very good point yesterday.

The people who were legal for drinking or smoking yesterday were not drinking or smoking (all 5 don’t smoke) but it were those who were underage who were doing such things. How ironic. One day it will enter your conscience that thinking you are older isn’t something that means you grow up.

Growing up means being able to rationalize and give logical reasons for all your actions, and obviously their actions didn’t suffice as an explanation for their age. But I had fun. kaylie so horny.

/

Although the leadership briefing was ultimately just a briefing lasting only 2.5 hours, it left on me more than its fair share of lessons. Like how he showed us the clip from Facing The Giants about not quitting. That left me thinking about the effects of influence, leadership and the needing of someone.

I’ve had the privilege of being in teams and have seen myself grow up ever since joining the rugby team back in primary school. A team is really a group of people with the same common goal, working together towards it. In the words of the soviets, “affirmative, comrade”

From that team, to the choir, to the house I have with me now. From smaller to bigger things, I always wanted to affect change as much as possible but never really got down to doing so. Sometimes, being a leader, you have to recognize the feasibility of the architecture of your plans and maintain that fine balance between practicality and theory.

Each house roughly compromises of 200 kids and that was twice the choirs size and I want to know everyone in it. Hard I know but I want to be there for the house. I want to be the one, not leading them in the cheers, but shouting with them. I want to be the ones passing, failing with them, lugging my back to school with them, celebrating, playing with them and be the one at every step of the way.

I want them to look back and think of someone who helped facilitate the idea of a school identity, and then they’ll think about me. I want people to know me and I want to know these people.

There are about 3 tritons in my LTC group and they are very friendly! I mean quiet but friendly. Maybe my definition of friendly is a bit loose because I count it as being able to carry out a few sentence conversation even though they do not know me personally just as, “You’re the house captain right?”

Then I’ll smile and nod when actually in my mind I’ll be saying “What the fuck have you been doing, of course!”

I have a feeling i’m just one step on the long long journey of house unity. I’ve got roughly a month to do so but I know that the best in the kids can be brought out. Even though my heart is discontent right now, there are times when I think about triton and the people inside the house.

How the house comm I have with me has ultimately proved me wrong about science students because they are an excellent bunch to be around. My vice captain, my secretary, sports and non sports games ic, logistic ic and publicity ic are the people I will be growing my 2 year jc life with and everyday I will find out more about them and I will learn more about the house and the people inside it. God will guide me on this journey, I feel I will have an ultimate goal just waiting for me.

 

Chapter 144: Evoking dreams of sunlight, sunbeams and death

/

Conscience: What part do you play? What part do you want to play? Who do you want to play it for?

You think you are everything now that she speaks of you but you aren’t nothing, just something. Some form of fodder for the mind but besides that, you preoccupy her thoughts only for few seconds, few minutes that are too uncountable. The world is larger than you think Amirul, and her heart even more.

As you digest her words, you sit on your covered bed with a pen in hand, penning down words, unencumbered words, stringing into a rhyme that falters but a poem that exists. You morose fool. Is she the one who has evoked your dreams?

Dreams of sunlight, sunbeams and death?

Chapter 143: This is our 5th and final reminder

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Ok well, I’ve been getting myself into a spot of bother and may end up in the Small Claims Tribunal at the Subordinate Courts soon. Why because I have not returned a DVD at a DVD kiosk for a month or so because I’ve been overseas (that’s my purpoted reason) and urgh, I don’t have the money to pay back the company. The Company. This is so dastardly stupid and yet it’s making me so bothered because I thought that this world lived perfectly such that just like a school library, you can steal the DVDs. Not that that was my intention though.

Edit: Hahaha, the office called me and said they would halve the amount after I e-mailed the PLAY team, hahahahahahahahhaa

Malay today was surprisingly manageable but we all know the last time I said that for anything ended in disaster so…yeah. Econs was ok too, I was proud of writing on ten sheets of paper structured question after structured question, essays.

I might have this double thinking (doublespeak in 1984) ability where I can continue writing whatever I want to write and yet think about it at the same time and well as I was writing, i was thinking…how much of this bullshit written on paper are we going to look back and remember what we wrote. Why did I think so? Because you know for the few times in life, I was proud of what I have written mainly because it looked presentable but not necessarily mark assuring. As usual, I think I wrote what I wanted to write inside but I don’t think I scored the points.

Anyway, nawal mentioned to me today something about being the playful ones who can score at the end of the day and being the “irritating-type”. Now, I can be called short, annoying, timid, loud and whatever but I don’t want to be typecasted as such.

Sure, I take things easy (hang loose!) but I think at the end of the day hard work gets you to where you are, not the sole fact that you are intelligent. Well, some, like my brother survive solely on that ideal but I don’t have THAT good a brain in there and seriously…I only play around because I believe that it’s important to balance your humour and your brains. See, that’s why there exist comedians, because they balance both.

Met some kids from the old choir (congratulations on the 2 golds guys) who came to MJ for a DSA form and I guess nothing good was impressed on them the whole time. First thing they came in, a lady insisted they fill in the form, then they said the school was cheena then they proceeded to check my hairline if it receeded.

The concept of a conformist school has not escaped the minds of anyone outside MJ and as much as I would like to agree, I would also like to say that as the same thing goes in TK (then), the people in MJ more than make up for it. We have the coolest house captains and council president and team captains and even more people ever.

We are so cool that we step out of the classroom after econs and ask, “Eh, what the hell is PPC? You know a not.”

Aye,  I love economics and the human race.

 

sepuluh sen biru

Chapter 142: Just like the Os!

The atmosphere now is so familiar like the O levels. I have no idea if this is a good or bad thing but today was a good exam day although the classroom was especially stuffy because maybe Arts students have this phobia of opening windows in exams and have to survive off ventilation from four fans and two doors. Even worse, i was sitting at the back. I don’t think I did really well for Geog, being an atypical product of the TK system whereby I was trained to pour out facts and information but was not trained to think so the answers aren’t very developed for the essays.

But I’m glad they changed the geography syllabus such that it requires more argumentative proposals of facts in geography whether human or physical but undoubtedly being linked to the impact of humans on the environment. I loved the physical question about the impact of population and government on the effects of a volcanic hazard but alas I didn’t read up on my Wikipedia the night before and thus…yeah, I thought it would have been answered better if it were about the EQs.

See this is why geography is lovely. It’s earth science. You don’t only learn what’s in the earth, but you learn what’s on it (us and other spatterings of the animal kingdom and structures) and this is what interests me the most. The gaining of knowledge about how the political system in various countries work, the legislation practiced here and there, the influence of mass media, human consumerism issues all make up the important facts that we in life have to understand.

This is where human diversity plays a role which makes each individual unique yet contribute cohesively towards the betterment of humankind and also the destruction of it ironically- something highlighted in paper 2 of the GP paper. Twas a good passage that my PW group was familiar with about mcdonaldization and globalisation and its dicontents but I think it would not help at all at the atrocity of my marks. I have a chronic problem with comprehensions and changing words.

The questions for the essays were relatively simple to comprehend and I would have liked more of a challenge, something about homosexuality or capital punishment but we have not breached that subject in GP. Anyway, I think I put out an ok piece of work and my question was something about “There is no joy in growing up today. Discuss in reference to Singapore”.

Then I thought of all the dreadful thing Singapore is known for- capital punishment for drug posession, a government puppeteered by a Mr. LKY,  300% tax on cigarettes, ERP then….I realised they weren’t that relevant so I dumbed it down. I think I was bordering on anti-establishment sentiments about the government grip on society inside so, I hope the karma police don’t come. Talking about gahmen, the following is something that happened in Australia, an innocent conversation between cousin and uncle:

R:Why can’t we take the helicpoter down the mountain?

T: Because this isn’t Singapore, my helicopter’s there.

R: Why Papa?

T: Because I’m Singaporean.

R: Why are there no helicopters in Australia?

T: Because this isn’t my government?

R: Papa what’s gah- ler- men?

T: Lee Kuan Yew.

/

Cheers to the curves