gong xi fa cai!

it's an odd feeling to be the only member of my immediate family back in sunny singapore for chinese new year. visiting friends is fine, but visiting the rellies can get slightly daunting.

as a kid, morbid though this is, i used to imagine what would happen if my whole family got killed in a plane crash - the immediate consequences as well as the emotional aftermath i'd have to deal with. somehow, the thought of being alone among the relatives ranks pretty close to feeling orphaned. it dawns on me just how much i've taken my parents for granted. being able to hide in the shadow of their conversation with the 'aunties and uncles', the importance of my presence has traditionally been relegated to questions of school/work.

this year, visiting them alone, or playing the host for visits from my grandpa's old friends, i feel like an individual. with my own feet to stand on, and my part to play in contributing to the 'entertaining' of the guests. perhaps it's all part of the growing-up process.

friends are nothing

and everything. the same difference, really.

when the decision to use the dragnet in the pool of acquaintances for real friends is made, i find i have, perhaps, a handful. inversely related to the number of passing years, the numbers reflect an arrogant insistence that my life can be handled more or less on my own.

the strength of this shrinking facade lies in a stubborn reassurance that only i can fully empathise enough to help myself. a deepseated mistrust in the human condition reveals the hypocrisy of the people-i-once-counted-as-friends. ironically, this fuels the need not for closer friends, but for isolation.

in isolation, there is no one to blame but yourself. but perhaps you have no qualms dismissing the lack of justifications. but that's just me, i shrug. when the mirror is turned toward the self, i find myself guilty of the same hypocrisy.

it is easier to live with the plank in my own eye than to tediously nitpick at splinters elsewhere. at least i can feel my way around.

maybe it all boils down to my atrocious friend-making/friendship-maintaining skills. maybe friendships are deplorable existences when dependability and mutual obligation are not part of the equation. a kind gesture becomes a bonus when it is not expected.

that meme thing you do

the fantastic 4.

tagged by tym about 4 days ago.

ain't it weird how tagging people works only if the person being tagged visits the tagger's site? kind of like a paying-it-forward, but with a check-back function attached. that way, you also get to know who [almost] religiously follows your site/blog, and the rest who get tagged but think it's cool to pretend not to bother.

either way, i'm interested to find out how this word is pronouced: mem-me, right? it certainly cannot be me-me, eh? that would sound quite stupid.

does it have roots in the word memento, as in, a 'reminder of the past' (via thefreedictionary)? and i have recently discovered: a definition of MOmento does not exist. funny how i have always used 'momento' while referring mentally/subconsciously/ignorantly to 'memento'.

that movie rocked, by the way. memento. it made tattoos and polaroids suddenly desirable. it screwed my mind.

so. the fantastic 4.

4 jobs you've had in your life
magazine/book layout designer at a big publishing firm
sex-hotel operator
designer at the interior design section over at IKEA
playing in a gamelan ensemble. (the pay was good!)

4 movies you could watch over and over
spirited away
immortal beloved
kill bill vol 1+2
kung fu hustle

4 TV shows you love(d) to watch
buffy the vampire slayer
music videos (yay channel 20 and 51 on cable!)
a cook's tour
party of five

4 places you've lived
france
singapore
taipei
melbourne

4 places you've been on vacation to
brussels
amsterdam
hawai'i
japan

4 places you would rather be
soaking up the uv rays and sizzling at the beach
the great aussie outback, sans the flies
canada
finland

4 of your favourite foods
fried tofu
cheesy, thick-crusted hawaiian pizza
roast chicken with roast pork rice from pow sing
herbal chicken + soup

4 websites you visit daily
gmail
google
uh... neopets
... blogger? not daily, though.

4 tagged
one little twit
fat fingers
kitty
s

the thing i hate about travelling

each night, each taiwanese stallholder prepares enough food in anticipation for at least a hundred servings. sales is brisk. there is a cuh-ray-zee amount of food consumed at the 廟口夜市. and i thought, naively, that only singaporeans ate *that* much at any given time.

in 2 nights' time, i'll leave taipei. though i can't deny thoroughly enjoying my month-long stay here, i look forward to being back in singas. but the final week of being in a place always makes me reluctant to leave it.

i'm afraid i have to blame my parents. they started me on this whole travel thing way too early. there ought to be personality tests performed before they determine the minimum age for an individual to start travelling. perhaps they could group this test with the application for passports. with different temperaments, unprepared individuals having a taste of the divine enjoyment of travelling prematurely could experience severe repurcussions later in life. the mind is unable to process the novelty of each new experience. it begins to assimilate new experiences and equate them as staples, and the individual begins to live on a diet of change. barely past my first birthday, i had acquired the [un]fortunate taste for airplanes, foreign lands and unfamiliar encounters. this is perhaps a good excuse for my incurable wanderlust.

the night before actually leaving a current location is usually, for me, fraught with last-minute packing, and an odd pang of yearning for a place i have not actually left. even an eagerly anticipated trip is no exception: i can't put a finger on the exact reason for feeling like i don't want to leave.

it must be a punishment for not being able to stay put. the need to move is overcompensated by a wistful tug at the heartstrings to stay. not content to live with a mere memory of a place, i crave a constant [tangible] connection with a space i have gradually become comfortable with.

perhaps the constant in the equation is, simply, the travelling.

jack of all trades...

doesn't the cat look vaguely japanese-y? it ran away shortly after i snapped this shot. funny how cats are such habitually uncommunicative animals - makes you want to love them even more, eh? first they bait you with coy glances, then they snub you by running off. even stray cats think they are above all else.

back in jc, a friend of mine would compare the process of getting to know girls to that of cats. we'd laugh about how impossible it was to coax a cat back out from its hiding spot under the car - they can be so patient. it would be easier to attract a girl than a cat! funny how playing hard-to-get can work for and against you. all a matter of preference, i suppose.

changing one's mind could signal one's loss of interest, or could be an admission of defeat in disguise. as a gemini (again, an excuse), i'm guilty of both. classical commonsense points to the streamlining of an area of specialisation as a surer way to success. as yet i remain a master at none.

chanced upon this hilarious blog. kept me laughing for awhile, but its novelty reaches a plateau. as the gradient grows more gradual, i wonder if there is anything (anymore) that will capture my attention span for long enough.

i just need enough perseverence to find my magic beans for that beanstalk.

i look just like buddy holly

as a young impressionable kid, i worried frequently about what others thought of me. whether i was with the cool gang (i wasn't). whether i knew the 'in' songs (i only started listening to perfect10 on my handy portable radio/cassette player when i was 14). whether i had loads and loads of friends (i'd compare with my cousin, a year younger than myself, and i'd count any person i was merely even acquainted with as a 'friend' to increase the number). whether i'd passed my grade 3 piano exam or not (apparently, everyone played the piano back in primary school).

with age comes maturity (i hope), and with maturity comes a sense of indifference to others' opinions. in my case, at least. perhaps it develops in contrast to my pre-maturity mentality.

so.



though this sounds magnificently grand, sadly, my integrity forbids me to brag about my geekiness.

--
i try again.



nah. not even this.

--


i am 8.09% geek, and, according to the geek test, a poser. via LMD and tym. at least i know enough. my geekiness level manifests itself in my photoshop skills and the masterly ability to tweak some html.

ah well.

i don't care about that. it mayn't be such a bad thing.

after all, i've always hated those weird-looking people on star trek.

goin' places

every now and then, i get hit by an incredible urge to be somewhere - somewhere specific. right now (and for the past month or so), it's sri lanka. i've never been there.

and while channel surfing this evening, i chanced upon majestic, historic Scotland on discovery's travel and living channel. for an hour or so, i was captivated. never been there either. so that's going to be my next destination, after sri lanka.

sometime this year, whilst stuck in melbs, i started having this craving to get myself pleasantly lost wandering down the endless aisles of chatuchak weekend market. it's been a year since i've been to bangkok now. the last time i went, it was my first ever trip with a budget airline.

there are some japanese travel-shows that let you visit, albeit vicariously, hot springs surrounded by a blanket of snow, fish markets at ungodly hours to watch buyers bidding for the day's catch, and old family-run businesses where candy is meticulously hand-made and packaged lovingly in rice paper with such pretty drawings that you can't bear to tear it open. i have since formed a love-hate relationship with such programmes that make me insanely jealous of the hosts. japan's a place i'd like to re-visit, and stay for more than 1 month at a go.

finland's a place i've long harboured a terrible need to visit - but have yet to properly address the matter. it's always been a secret fantasy of mine (not so secret now i've disclosed it, i suppose) to live in a little wooden hut with a fire crackling merrily in the grate, and the smell of baking permeating the house. i'd step outside after dinner, huddled in a rug to see the northern lights in their celestial dance, shimmering in their surreal manner. then i'd come back in for my mug of hot chocolate. there'd be lots of central heating in my little hut, of course.

and france! my resolution to learn french in 2005 has come to naught! but i need to get there again soon. the people aren't exactly the friendliest, so i suppose france possesses its own magnetism. in its own way.

i hate myself for the frequent bouts of wanderlust - when you've got commitments in melbs, you can't just go off on a whim. but this year, i resolve to drive around more and see more of the great land mass that australia is. maybe visit wilson's prom again, or fly down to tassie (again), or go north to kakadu (ditto adinahaes), or to uluru. and i might jet down south to kiwi-land too: it's been 15 years since i was last there.

i wish i could learn to Apparate.

being able to fly on a broomstick would be fine too.

or a sugar daddy. or a money tree. or winning at tatts/toto/4D.