Expiry

by jon laa on May 31st, 2009

There’s expiry date to almost everything.

Like my library loan, the two discs are expiring today.

Gah.

And friendships. Maybe just communication.

But somehow, after all these years, I know you will start talking to me once you are over done with whatever is occupying you. I hope this is not an illusion on my part. But I will like to have hope, and to believe in you.

It is not exactly uncommon we stop talking and meeting up for months or half a year or so. Not uncommon to have my msn messages un-replied too.

I did notice, but I hope you wouldn’t let what we have slipped away.

Because at the end of the day, I know you love me. And you should also know I love you for all that you are, and all that you are not.

I still remember that you asked me not to change during those terrible times. I am glad you did appreciate me for who I was.

My point is, it is difficult. And there’s an expiry, which probably can be extended if we put in some effort.

p.s. you know you are reading this. But please don’t apologise if you ever want to, or feel like. I have this feeling you may feel obligated to.

Bitch

by jon laa on May 28th, 2009

I was having the most awesome conversation with shak last night, with lots of exchanges in racism. It is amazing how creative we can get if we allow ourselves to be mocked at because of our skin colour, culture and lifestyle. Of course there was no offense taken. The last time I checked, she literally laughed-out-loud for being mocked at.

Really, we need more of such people.

And she said so much rubbish that I could threaten her with a screen shot of the conversation. I just need to mail it to the relevant authorities and they may classify her as a threat to national security - whatever that means.

Of course there are other conversations that we fairly funny without having to breach national security. Like coming out with an idea to bring a menstruating dog out for a walk. And staying alone in an island with a giraffe or an ostrich. I’d imagine it to be cool to ride an ostrich.

In hindsight, I appreciate the people I worked with for the past half a decade or so. Most of the time, they have excellent time management and meeting up outside of school hours was almost absent besides for that occasional few unavoidable ones. Uh, of course time wastage get on me like how doomsday get to people but at least work was done in time.

And having the honour of doing editing means you get to tell people off for their -insert noun- in your own right. Isn’t that awesome?

Because I thought then that I had to work with the worst breed of inhumane human on planet, I realise that is not true.

There are actually people who prefer to watch movies between breaks and leave work till later.

Er, I’d prefer to do work first so I can watch movies in the comfort of home with desirable company, if any, then to entertain myself in school which, as it suggests, is not that entertaining anymore.

/end bitch.

ETA: I also hate have little liking towards people who request for help from you yet not appreciate it - like by shoving you away - when you offer them help.

Like shak very adequate put it, “who is he again?”

Detachment

by jon laa on May 27th, 2009

There’s so much unhappiness at home, between the siblings. The perpetual bickering, argument, loud lopsided arguments gets on me. There barely any agreement, lots of personal attacks. That is what the family is built on, what I never got used to. Full of love of course, but I loathed the degree of compromise and forgiveness the love has to embrace.

I still cannot decide if the folks’ actions are motivated by money. There’s an obsession over it though, obsession over reaping profits and future investment. Both of which are fine, until it boils over.

The emphasis on having money, having enough to tide through life puts me off. For a better life, to completely eradicate poverty, I know already. But when does self actually comes in?

Or is happiness directly proportional to wealth?

One of the downside of being the only child is the difficulty of having to decide if I am the one precious son or the unfortunate accident of the one night when technology failed. And I will like to think myself as the latter, so I have no expectations from whom I was born.

I would also like to think I am contented with what I have. Because we are talking about a family who adequately loves, though highly obsessive and insecure over the certainty of tomorrow, life and death, and a family whose obsession over money and the sufficiency to tide themselves till their last breath is my huge assurance that my downfall or failure in life will never translate to their death or hunger.

The liberating thought that those whom I am born of are by no means dependent on me frees me from the pursuit of material security that binds, and perhaps blinds, them to the delusion of that it is never enough.

I will one day walk out, to find myself in life, perhaps poverty or hunger, because I know I have lived, lived a life worthy of myself and a life worth living. Then by no means can anybody call me an unit of the economy, enslaved by life to the treasury’s figures, or an epsilon proliferated through the bokanovsky process to a non-existent utopia or the utopia never to come.

Nonetheless, through faith, a little imagination and self-comfort, I look beyond these days, weeks, times and difficult days to come into my self-created helm of ideals and perfection because I know God never fails. And when the days of poverty beckons, I shall always be reminded that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Protected: Dumb-ass

by jon laa on May 27th, 2009

Odour

by jon laa on May 26th, 2009

“It takes a lot of courage not to try to repeat what you did yesterday knowing it was successful.” - daniel barenboim

Okay, I know the above definitely cannot be applied to me given I was not successful yesterday and I can’t remember myself being successful.

Instead (of being successful), I am so unsuccessful at being successful that I would like to twist the neck of my violin off still. That is a little depressing. Probably means I am annoyed and that I am not getting anything right and am not in the right state of mind to do it and am probably never going to get it right if this persists - vicious cycle.

F***!

Going for another break (when life screws up, run away).

Given my compulsion, I will actually have another go before leaving. Either get there or die trying, so as long as I am alive you know what I am doing. No, not dying yet.

Gotta go off now before school ends and everybody floods the neighbourhood gym. The good thing about going to the gym after practice is that I already stink (yes, practice is actually physically, and emotionally, demanding) and it makes sense to go to a stinky place so shower once instead of twice. Conservation.

Rats. I am suppose to be writing about my angst this entry and my unexpected encounter in the gym yesterday yesterday. Maybe the ns bug is getting to me before I am there. First step to prepare for ns, turn blond.

By the way, my co is lum hon yuen. Not excited, really.

Neck

by jon laa on May 25th, 2009

Feeling ill and feeling unhappy. The dog barks non stop because she is stuck outside, because she is menstruating and you can imagine. Problem is that she didn’t menstruate that much the last time and I am still living in denial that it will be over soon (so I don’t have to do anything about it but leave the maid to clean up).

In many sense, I’m a jerk. But having a maid has its perks, like having things that you don’t want to do done. That can be in the case of cooking, vegetables washed and cut, meat thawed and marinated, dishes wash after you are done. I’ll do the glorious cooking of course and smearing the kitchen with dirt in the process, which I know doesn’t matter because it would be cleaned.

Isn’t the power of words amazing? I just made myself a jerk in two paragraphs. The best part is I don’t care if I am one. And in three paragraphs I’ve probably convinced you.

Extremely annoyed with the violin and bow, I have no idea whose fault is it. I was extremely tempted to twist the neck of the violin off, if not because I am not ready to spend money on a new one yet. And so I ended up venting with the bow, slammed it against the violin a few times and, uh, one of the few remaining horse hair fell off. Beijing 101 will be expecting my bow’s patronage.

Deleted the next few paragraphs because I think I tried too hard, which is always not a good sign.

I had something about God to say but I forgot, actually it’s something damn old but I always forgot. Maybe God wants me to forget it every time I blog so I can be saved from blasphemy. Don’t think God sues for slander or libel, which you have to say very gracious of Him because He probably will be rich if He did.

Oh yea, I wanted to say that I am quite thankful for everything I have. I had to use the word quite so that you don’t think I am absolutely thankful so that you wouldn’t think I have low expectations of life. The truth is, fortunately or not, I am absolutely contented and thankful for everything I have, and unfortunately it could be better. That will be, uh, dividends I suppose.

Like how everybody asked how I managed my exorbitant high music fees (subscription, singing, theory, violin lessons) myself and I tend to reply, “oh, God provides.” And everybody goes, “BUT HOW?” Be it christian or not, I don’t know why is that so unbelievable for christians, no I am not judging.

I remembered a somewhat similar encounter not too long ago with mr b., who paid for my meal even though he wasn’t entirely rich. To be exact, his finances are on the tight side, and I casually with a little mockery asked, “too rich is it?” To which he replied, “it’s better to give than to receive.”

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have been experiencing plenty of those. I gotta thank mr b. for that even though he is no longer part of my life. (Being a jerk and all, it’s not that surprising. Now I got a case study to back up my first three paragraphs.) If not because of him and his confidence, I wouldn’t have tried and wouldn’t have experience how, uh, “God provides”.

And so my bank account has its ups and downs, but always enough until now.

Probably means my recent splurge on a totally unnecessary expensive and geeky technology was a wrong choice. If I haven’t did splurge, I would have enough. And it didn’t help God, uh, didn’t provide this time round, which I suppose is a sign.

Of which I am not worried about, and not fretting, because God made parents and made me under-21 without income and interdependency for a reason.

Fault

by jon laa on May 24th, 2009

Didn’t run at the intended pace because of some error in configuration, that’s dumb but lesson learnt.

Nonetheless, ran well. Under 60 though I should be doing better than that. Feet isn’t well, gotta give and take.

Next run is mf run, and I can’t decide if I should be doing it leisurely or going all out again. Going with luke and his friends, I shouldn’t leave them behind. Okay, that’s presumptuous on my part but luke says they can’t run better than him, and he can’t run better than me. Pfft.

My awesome adios racers did me proud, again.

Gotta expand on that 5-minute pace. I know I can sustain 2.4 with it and I should be expanding to at least five and eventually 10. Once I can hit 10, I can start working on my 20, and 42, then 82 and finally 102. I am kidding, not serious of course.

No, I should be running at 5.7-minute pace and bring it down to 5-minute pace. Maybe 0.1-minute each week? That’s 6 seconds a week over 7 weeks, reasonable. Probably good for my single-long run training. I ought to be doing more intervals to prepare to gold my ippt. I want the money, if not the ego booster.

Got stung by a lost bee in the bus. The bee should be dead by now, I don’t know if I should feel sorry for myself or the bee. But you know, it’s quite amazing to be stung by the bee. The whole human reflex action, brain thinking process. For that, I am thankful for. That God made man quite beyond my imagination, maybe you could understand or comprehend but I cannot.

And some people may think I am not-so-christian because I don’t talk about God and you don’t see me saying grace for my food all the time. I believe you are entitled to your opinion. Like how some church elites, so they are labeled by others, think gay christians are not so christians after all. But I will like to think of christian as an absolute term, either you are or not. I will also like to think that no man can judge one’s faith and salvation in place of God, in fact, I wouldn’t think you are entitled to share your opinion to if a christian is christian enough or not.

If you have issues with that, try calling up my God and question Him. I am not sure if yours is the same as mine, but I don’t have a number to spare in case it differs.

If you are wondering why being stung by a bee reminds me of God, you should try youtubing some videos on bees attacking other animals. It is actually quite depressing because they are almost immediately helpless and eventually left to die. Uh, I am glad I didn’t go into fit and die on the bus. Or look like pathetic and helpless, ego issues I know.

Back to reading sun tse art of war, because the first time I read it I didn’t really quite see a greater picture in his ideology. But I think I am in a better state of mind, and perhaps may have grown more *ahem* mature to understand his art. It is pretty interesting actually. The book reflects a lot about the chinese civilisation, the values and the heritage, lifestyle. More than what it meets the eye.

Besides reading so that I can shoot people more effectively in my oh-so-often arguments - it’s always easier to win when you have a big name to quote - I think people who don’t know the few famous quotations of sun tse are quite loserish. If you don’t already know, and care to be deemed not/less loserish in my eyes, you can go to wikipedia and do some easy reading. Be grateful for internet privacy, I wouldn’t be able to trace who you are.

Grins.

Maybe I will be able to put it to good use when I am in the military? Perhaps I can shoot the commanding officer, or get into a art of war combat with him. Er, we still exercise freedom of speech right?

Okay lah, tired already. Didn’t manage to practise today, slept the entire day away to make up for the loss of sleep last night. Going to chiong tomorrow. I have a list of things to do.

On a straying note, I really dislike dumb people. Okay, I know, love your enemies, love your neighbours, wife, husband, brothers.

Unanswered

by jon laa on May 23rd, 2009

I really don’t like it when people can’t confirm any shit and will let me know again, like the day before. Because, it gets on me. And I am sure it gets on meow too, so I am not alone. I’d like to have some consistency, certainty in my life, thank you.

Unless I know you damn well, I don’t think I deserved to be put on your waiting list especially when your schedule is tentatively empty, because that is just unfair to me.

Because you are expecting me to be free/keeping that slot free for you without making any commitment yourself - selfish.

For that, I will deliberately occupy myself. I do have things to do and I will plan my life so I can achieve my certainties and consistencies, with or without you. I can’t possibly wait for you to have the items in my to-do-list struck off, it doesn’t make sense.

The above is a rant, and I am shameless about it.

Back to which, if I were to go out of my comfort zone to make arrangements for you so that you can join me for some fun I expect you to appreciate it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t thank me, because that can/may be a little too much to ask for. But if you are apathetic towards what I have done for you, then I must as well have not done it. Doesn’t make sense for me to go an extra mile to another’s benefit without being appreciated. Because, that is for you and not me. Most importantly, life goes on, with all the fun I can/will have, without you too.

Unfortunately, I am not god/God. I am neither gracious, slow-to-anger nor forgiving.

For the least, I love.

And I realised not everybody takes being loved positively. In that sense whereby they can neither love nor be loved, or in the sense they love but cannot be loved. Both of which is depressing.

Back to practice, rant again later.

Defiance

by jon laa on May 22nd, 2009

In the midst of talking to another kayaker about the cost of rental of boats, we have decided it will be quite a good idea to borrow boats for free. But we’ll have to transfer them from one side of the island to another, and the problem is, we will have quite a lot of boats to transport and the only vehicle that can fit any slalmon is a lorry.

On the bright and adventurous side, some of us will have our driving license. I think renting a lorry shouldn’t be that difficult.

And if we were to steal our own boats, we can then drag some one-star kayakers along!

In many sense, that is awesome. I suppose teaching those one-star kayakers how to do a bow rescue shouldn’t be too difficult. No plans to endanger my own life or others, yet.

I love bizarre ideas, really. Especially feasible, bizarre ideas. It keeps me going.

Backdate

by jon laa on May 21st, 2009

I just realised the adventure camp of sorts I had in primary school was actually kinda fun. The only problem was that I don’t think I spoke to any single soul and was pretty much by myself through the entire camp.

In fact, I don’t even remembered if I did smile. But it was actually rather interesting, like new exposure.

The best part was I don’t remember how I ended up going for it. Didn’t remember signing up, or agreeing to go. I just ended up being in school that one day and realise I didn’t have the camp tee, which I am suppose to collect during a briefing I know not of. That is very typical me, if you think about it.

My mother thinks that one of the headmasters (?) was her chinese teacher, and he took me for either chinese or physical education - I can’t remember. But I know he looks almost identical to my uncle. And one of the other headmasters (?) stays two doors away from me.

Uh, the point of the above paragraph was that I am well taken care of. I remembered being asked to eat real often, I suppose I looked like I was in terrible shock since I was absolutely clueless of what is going on. Every adult was highly concerned about my welfare, which is strange. That was probably the only time in primary school I ever felt that somebody cares.

And um, I guess I had no friends. Really.

To put you in some shock, I actually adored soccer in my primary one, two and perhaps three years. I remembered playing with some malay dude and this chinese classmate who stays, um, a few houses away.

During those days, catching tadpole was actually kinda fun. Never saw any of them through the transformation cycle though.

And thanks to the awesome patches of greenery I have at home, I get to catch the most funky spiders. Okay, my aunt’s student taught me where in the greenery to find them. They were black with glittery, shiny bits of green on their backs. The best of all is that they fight real well. None of those I caught died in a fight, and I don’t remember engaging them in a fight anyways. Those my classmates and schoolmates caught under the bushes were all brown, obviously not appealing.

I remembered finding a clutch of eggs and I remembered them hatching into tiny, transparent little dots. Uh, I don’t think any survived. In fact, they were so tiny and so transparent I had no idea what happened to them. There were probably over ten creatures coming out from this flat round hard thing the size of a pimple. I was told the eggs are in it.

Then I remembered having fighting fishes that mated and laid eggs. The eggs hatched but I was totally clueless until that student of my aunt came to have a look. The fries are about the size of the full stops of the blog entry, they are apparently the eyes. None survived.

On a depressing note, he-whom-I-remembered as my best friend turned out to be somebody else’s best friend. I did remember spending nearly all my time with him, but I don’t know how he ended up being somebody else’s best friend. But having a self-proclaimed best friend is actually depressing.

On a brighter side, one of the girls thought I was drop dead cute and ogled over me then. Of course I only found out last year, more than a decade later, and realise I’m not anything close to cute now.

LOL, life is such a joke.

p.s. I once had a pet lizard. My maid caught a few of them (you see, they do escape now and then but I only had one at any point in time) from the mango tree that no longer exists. And mind you, they do change colours to adapt to the surroundings. But from what I read up, they aren’t chameleons but some colour-changing lizard. They are about 20cm long, not those small little pest you get on your celling.

p.s.s. my cousin kept chicks which grew into chickens for her science project. Uh, she freed them when she was done and I suppose they all became food for cats.

p.s.s.s. my cousin (another one, not the same as the above) bought quails for me and I kept two of them for some time. I remembered letting them out for walks and runs, no they can’t really fly that high and far at will. But when they get into their fits, they can really fly. And that sent me knocking on the doors of my neighbours to get them back. The maid next door actually caught one of them and returned me a few days later when she saw me. Then they died and my mother got me another pair and the last pair died after one fell into the sewage pipe. It took forever before we could reach it and bring it up. Didn’t manage to clean the feathers completely and it died later, I suppose from the exposure to water. The other bird died a day later, maybe poisoned by whatever not you have the feathers. Uh, I think I kept more than four. I remembered some escaped and was never found again, and I remembered some committed suicide by flying vertically up and smashing themselves against the roof of the cage.

p.s.s.s.s. I had frogs for pets too.

p.s.s.s.s.s. I had crayfishes, those red ones people kept as pets. Then later on, we bought one grey crayfish from the supermarket. It was doing fine until I decided to cut a portion of its feelers off in the name of experiment, it died the next day.

LOL!