The silence is deafening.

And so very telling.

Communication. It’s the first thing we really learn in life. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking the harder it becomes to know what to say. Or how to ask for what we really need.

grey’s anatomy

the 5 stages of grief

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us. And sometimes, they win.

Stephen King

need a drink, stat.

once i loved
damien rice

once i loved
and i gave so much love to this love
It was the world to me

once i cried
at the thought i was foolish and proud and let you say goodbye

then one day
from my infinite sadness you came and brought me love again
now, now i know
that no matter whatever befalls
i’ll never let you go
i will hold you close, night and day
because love is the saddest thing when it goes away

remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. live it, feel it, cling to it. i want to become acutely aware of all i’ve taken for granted.

sylvia plath

It still amazes me how you can get an ache from anything. From listening to the beginning note to what used to be your favorite song, or a line from a new one that just hits a nerve you never knew you had. From seeing just a flicker of a 3 second clip of a movie you watched with certain someone while in the middle of flipping through the channels searching for something to watch. Reading one word or one single phrase that you were used to hearing a lot but now haven’t heard in a long time. From the scent of some nobody you pass by on the street that only reminds you of somebody you used to know, somebody you wish you still knew. From being within the location of where you had your happiest moments. From suddenly remembering a memory that somehow spiraled from a thought so unrelated, but somehow still found a way to connect, that your thoughts always seem to go back to. From anything and everything that was considered *ours* — not yours or mine, but ours — all the things we had together. From seeing someone who looks exactly like him or her but isn’t exactly him or her but just some beautiful stranger. And it’s an ache that both hurts, yet yearns for something more — whether it’s be to be healed, or to go back in time and redo what can’t be redone. It’s an ache you can only hope will go away, but sometimes it never does. And all it becomes is a smaller ache, a pinch so minuscule, the feeling is fleeting — or maybe it just becomes something you’ve gotten used to living with, like a permanent scar across your heart.

Barney: Hey.
Robin: Hey. Um.. when we were dating, did.. did I make you feel needed?
Barney: No, I didn’t feel like you needed me at all.
Robin: That’s what I thought. I’m sorry.. [starts to leave]
Barney: Wait, where are you.. that’s a compliment. You’re the least needy woman I’ve ever met, that’s awesome. I mean, no guy’s going to say ‘who’s your daddy?’ to Robin Scherbatsky, you’re your own daddy. And mommy. And weird survivalist uncle who lives in a cabin with a shotgun, blaming stuff on the government. And that’s what makes you the most amazing, strong, independent woman I’ve ever banged.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Jonathan Safran Foer

I’m not the sweetest girl out there. I’m rude, inconsiderate and ignoring. I’m misunderstood most of the time and i don’t appreciate it when others claim they know me. I’m blunt and brutally honest. I’ll tell you how i feel, no working my way around it. But just because I may act that way doesn’t mean I don’t feel certain things. I do get that gut feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see someone less fortunate. I do take things for granted, but that doesn’t mean in the bottom of my heart I don’t appreciate them.

letter to my best friend

Dear A,

Thank you for being you.

I remember the first time I spoke to you, and you actually intimidated me cos you were just… honest and brash and in-your-face. It was hard for people to accept your rather brutal honesty but I loved it, and I secretly wished I could be that way too. I can’t even count the number of friends I made by proxy in JC with you around cos you have this amazing ability to sit down and make conversation with everyone and anyone. Fast forward a year later and we had that silly little fight that made us not talk for 6 months. Looking back now it all seemed so silly, but I guess at that time after losing you-know-who it was too hard to see you happy. It was selfish and stupid and I will always be sorry for being such a pissy, petty retard and for that 6 months that we lost but what matters is that when we really needed each other, it was like we never stopped talking at all and picked up right where we left off.

I doubt I would be the person I am without you. I doubt I would be half as strong as I am now without you. I doubt I would have survived any of that shit that was the past 3 years without you. Every difficult decision I have made with my life, with my career, with stupid boys who are stupid, you have been there every step of the day, picking up the phone at ridiculous hours to listen to me whine and rant and mope about my pathetic life, sob about how much I miss so and so, encouraging me and telling me to be strong and that I am worth so much more, I can do so much better, and keeping my spirits up and the faith strong. Even when you were down and out and I was too selfish to realise that, you gave whatever you had to me even if you didn’t have enough faith in life for yourself anyway.

I know that you’re hurting and I know it’s hard, but I am so so proud of you for finally taking that step and I just hope you know that. Someone like you deserves so much better and you know it and you will find it. And when that day comes I hope I’ll still be around to celebrate with you. I’m not good with comforting words and I can be pretty shitty at trying to be optimistic cos I’ll probably just wind up telling you to kill yourself, but I’m a pretty mean listener and I have a hell of a hug and a shoulder and you know I am always just a phone call and a cab ride away if you need me (even if it means traveling down to Pulau NTU). And I will always be here. Because when I was at a point of my life where I felt like I had lost everything, all I had left was you, and it was more than enough.

I love you tons and tons.

Love, me.

spent

I don’t even feel anything anymore. No love, no hate. Just emptiness.

i am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, i am not sad. as if he might one day convince himself. or fool himself. or convince others.

everything is illuminated - jonathan safran foer

radiate me
subjugate me
incubate me
recreate me
demarcate me
educate me
punctuate me
evaluate me
conjugate me
impregnate me
designate me
humiliate me
segregate me
opiate me
calibrate me
replicate me

And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they’re nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. but that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we’d be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.

Haruki Murakami

I don't know whether to laugh or cry sometimes.

Joy is misconstrued as sarcasm, sadness misinterpreted as tiredness and anger mistaken for pride.

People read me so wrongly I don't even know what to say.

There's so much about me that people have yet to learn.

We fake the thoughts, and fracture the times
We go blind when we’ve needed to see
And it leans on me
Like a rootless tree

so, this is my life. and i want you to know that i am both happy and sad and i’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

the perks of being a wallflower - steven chbosky

the diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. you lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as heine’s atlas, whose shoulders support all the world’s puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies.

herman hesse

they say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at ease with life they are.

paulo coelho - the witch of portobello

Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Your Protector- Fleet Foxes

As you lay to die beside me, baby
I’m the one in the shootin’ game
Would you wait for me,
the other one,
would you wait for me?

I just got off the phone with B. He randomly called exactly when I had just woken up from knocking out after taking my medication. Just like that, right on cue. So I decided to pick up, and we wound up chatting for an hour. The scary part? It didn't feel like an hour. At all. What the fuck, Sylvia. What. the. fuck.

it's been a bizarre week.

I haven't told anyone any of this, simply cos I don't know who to tell. Or how to tell it. Or even find time to sit down over coffee with someone to tell it.

I dated B in 2007-2008. He cheated on me, and there I had it- my first real heartbreak. We were friends after the break-up, simply because I didn't know he cheated on me and dumped me for her. When I found out I refused to love again, refused to get over him until one day anger replaced sadness and I claimed my life back. I haven't even caught a glimpse of him, much less heard from him since we graduated from JC. A week ago, he resurfaced. He called me, and we spoke for a bit. The next day, and the days after that, he called and texted repeatedly, making small talk and mindless chatter. Eventually he admitted it- I miss you, let's meet up.

I dated S in 2009. He too cheated on me, and convinced me that I'm doomed with a lifelong curse of being cheated on. Our break-up was a difficult, long-drawn process that took everything I had. After the breakup, I went on a path of complete self-destruction. I got over him within a week because I simply didn't feel anything at all. I became numb. This morning, S called. He went straight to the point- it's been a while since we've spoken to each other, I miss you.

F was a whirlwind fling that happened in the months after S. We 'went out', but never quite made it to the dating stage. He called me a million times a day, he said the sweetest things and did the sweetest things. Then I found out that he was married. On Tuesday, I bumped into F at the Esplanade while taking site recce for F1. We chatted for a bit and he gave me the tightest hug as we parted. That same night he texted, asking me to call him after I finished for the day.

I didn't agree to meet any of them. It wasn't because of the potential temptation that stopped me- I could never bring myself to cheat. It was because I didn't see a point.

The three of them are three people from my past I really don't have the strength to be mad at anymore. And all three came back in a week. In the same week. All three missing what I had with each of them, all three wanting a piece of me back. All three only reciprocating and giving that little bit I asked for way back then, at a point of time when I am finally so loved by and so happily with someone else.

This is what I don't understand. With all three of them, I didn't even ask much. Back when I was a different girl, all I wanted from each one of them was their love, and their undivided attention. And all of them couldn't give me that. Years and many more expectations later, they suddenly find themselves capable for giving me that little bit of attention and initiative, which is really all that I needed all along. But now, it's no longer enough.

I don't understand. If they had been this way when I was with them, if they had this type of initiative to tell me they missed me and wanted me back then, they would have had my complete devotion. But they only choose to miss me now, to express it now, when my heart belongs to someone else, and when I've already given up all hope on either one of them.

It's especially hard for me when it comes to B. Whatever it is, he has always been and will always be my first love. No matter how big of an asshole he is, I still find myself laugh when I talk to him. But at the end of the day, no matter how much affection I have for him, I will never be able to love him again.

We could have had a chance, but they didn't reciprocate the effort that I put in. We could have had a second chance, had they come back earlier, when I was still forgiving enough to have wanted to take them back and then it would have made all the pain worth it. And now that I've stopped harbouring any hope, stopped harbouring even the secretest, slightest knowledge that I'd take them back in an instant, they do.

I don't get it.

I attribute most of my good days to a couple of people with voodoo dolls cancelling each other out.

meow

the last time he saw dorie
copeland

he's in love with tragedy
he's in love with tragedy
she was a wreck but he loved her
she was a wreck but so was he

live live live, live because you
love love love, and love will make you
give give give, and give in until you
break break break, but you just want to
fix yourself just to break again

A month ago, I sat in bed watching Crazy/Beautiful with a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, feeling sorry for myself and wondering when I would find happiness again.

A month later, I sit in bed, still with a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, but no longer feeling sorry for myself.

It doesn't matter if I'm with someone or if I'm alone, I can always be happy. I have friends who want me around enough to ask me out for retail therapy when they get their heart broken. I have friends who mercilessly make fun of me. I have friends who entertain me on IM in the middle of the night. Recently, more and more so, I'm finding myself loved, and pampered, and I laugh almost all the time.

I'll never be happy enough. I'll always be on the pursuit of happiness.

But right now, I'm happier than I've been in a very, very long while.

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

- captain corelli's mandolin

I don't understand why I constantly worry about being sensitive, about trying to keep things from people to prolong their joy, to keep them from being upset. I don't know why I feel the constant need to protect, and shield people from information. At the end of the day it's all going to come out, everything's going to blow up, and people are going to find out and judge. And it's not like I really give a shit what they think, cos the people who matter to me would've been the first few to know.

I don't know why I bother trying to be sensitive and be tactful, when other people aren't.

It doesn't make sense to be nice anymore.

So forget it; people can judge all the want.

I know who I care about, I am constantly surrounded by people who love me, and all they want from me is to be happy.

And I am. With the people I love, I am.

ONE. Mouthing off about me to someone I just met and whom I actually would have liked to be friends with, especially in front of my friends, who will obviously come and tell me what you said, is not cool. At all. Especially after all the shit I went through for you, the amount of your shit I had to clear up. Since it's apparent that you don't think enough of what I've done for you to consider that as being a friend, from now on you're dead to me (:

TWO. Mouthing off about your friends to me, however good the intentions are, especially when they've managed to understand me in a way you haven't, just makes you look like a jealous, bitter mofo. Considering the amount of respect he has for you and your friendship and the fact that you could say shit like that in spite of that... I really have nothing left to say.

Other than that, life has been absolutely peachy ;)

"Not a fan of surprises?"

"On the contrary actually. I am very much a surprises kind of girl."

definitions

Divorce: Future tense of marriage.
Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end & a fool on the other.
Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through the minds of either.
Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.
Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.
Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water power
Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.
Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.
Classic: A book which people praise, but do not read.
Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.
Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.
Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.
Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.
Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.
Atomic Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.
Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.
Diplomat: A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
Opportunist: A person who starts taking bath if he accident all falls into a river.
Optimist: A person who while falling from Eiffel tower says in midway “See I am not injured yet.”
Miser: A person who lives poor so that he can die rich.
Father: A banker provided by nature.
Criminal: A guy no different from the rest….except that he got caught.
Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.
Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your confidence after.
Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills. ..

Why is it so difficult to find something in life to be happy about, when nothing in your life is a complete disaster beyond redemption?

Why do we always want more and we can never settle for less?

Why is it that the things we want the most, we can never have?

Why is it that we can have everyone else but not the one we truly want?

Somedays I feel like absolute shit- like I suck at my job, that I'm inefficient and awkward and retarded and generally a mess to be around and some days I'm so on top of my game I feel so awesome like nothing can ever bring me down and I'd be undefeatable forever and ever and ever and then there are the days where I just want to hide in a hole and let everything engulf me and wash over me and pray that I drown so I don't have to watch the fallout and then there are those where I feel all warm and fuzzy and full of love and laughter and joy for everyone around me and those where I just want to be left alone with nothing but my thoughts and-

then there are days where you feel like you're all of the above and you don't really know what you are. It gets really, really confusing.

I've only just realised recently that my perception of myself as a rather social person is completely flawed. I'm eloquent around people I'm familiar with and I can talk extensively on many topics if I know that certain people are used to the way I speak, but when it come to dealing with people in social situations and meeting people for the first time and getting to know people, I start stuttering and making stupid remarks and mumbling and I'm just generally so bad at making conversation and pitching ideas and thoughts to people that it's not even funny. It's things like these that convince me that I'm really not cut out for producing at all, and that maybe I should just stick to SM roles where I can be a hermit to the world but still maintain social interactions with a substantial number of people in the theatre.

After so long I still can't figure out what I really want.

a case of you
joni mitchell

just before our love got lost you said
“i am as constant as a northern star”
and i said “constantly in the darkness"

dear Jon M.

You'll find someone... just not me.

"love never dies a natural death. it dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. it dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. it dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."

- anais nin

Secret thoughts

"What if I told you I felt the exact same way you do about her? That I love him more than anything. That despite knowing him for only such a while, I love him. Would that remind you of yourself? Would you understand the endless longing I have for him, the same way you long for her? Would you think that was the most hopelessly romantic thing that could possibly happen to a boy like you, to a girl like me? Would you ache to possess the love being showered upon him, and crave such affection in return?"

And then what if I told you that that him was you?

You want some honesty? Here's some.

Every day is a struggle to get through. Every single bloody day. I am exhausted and I don't even know why I want to exhaust myself when I'm supposed to be having my holidays but I feel so bloody empty if I don't fill every waking moment of my time. Even when I was in love and happy I still had this gnawing urge to fill up every second, every moment of my day and I am impossible to please because no matter what I do there's always this ache in me, the ache of something missing. It's not career, it's not God, it's not love, and I have no clue what it is but it's a struggle to get through every day completely dissatisfied with life and not knowing why. It's painful, and it's a struggle.

I am terrible with emotions. My emotions are completely inappropriate for social situations. I want to laugh in solemn situations, when I'm having a genuinely heart-warming friend bonding moment I find myself suddenly overcome with an overwhelming need to fall in love with a friend I normally would never ever consider dating, I start getting drowsy when there's a ton of work to do, I cry in horror movies and scream in chick flicks. And I am completely incapable of dating anyone without falling in love with him, without feeling like I am falling in love and ending up realising what I thought was love really isn't and feeling like a complete asshole. I am so bad at flings I don't know why I even pretend to have them, and wind up falling for every other asshole who walks into my life.

I am not as strong as I would like myself to think. As unlikely as it seems beneath this armoured vehicle exterior lies a completely emotionally unstable, mentally somewhat unsound and totally paranoid and slightly schizophrenic soul. I anchor crisis management and fix problems, and then fall apart only in the privacy of my own room under the covers where I am longing, dying for someone to come and give me a hug or stroke my hair but being too proud and too 'strong' to admit it.

And above everything, I am lonely. I am loud, and constantly in good company, and extroverted and well-loved. But at the end of the day all I return to, all I fall asleep to is this aching, aching loneliness that tells me I'm going to end up all alone.

sylvia is:

1. single again, alone again, lonely again.
2. exploited, overworked, under-rested.
3. in desperate need of a holiday.
4. going to be out of a paying job in 2 weeks.
5. craving company
6. having the stupidest crush of her life
7. tired of life.
8. a fabulous pretender.
9. not okay
10. eventually going to be okay.

contentment

You make my heart beat a little faster every time you look at me.
You make me forget what I want to say when you smile at me.
The world vanishes when you kiss me.

I could do nothing but sit and talk to you all day,
& still feel like I could fall in love over and over again.

I am so, so, so happy.

I have an sudden insane craving for hot chocolate with pretty fluffy marshmallows in them but I can't make hot chocolate with pretty marshmallows in them because despite the fact that I have the most awesome strawberry-flavoured dark chocolate hot chocolate mix, not only do I not have pretty fluffy marshmallows, but drinking a cup of hot chocolate right now will turn my semi-cold into a full-blown flu and I don't have time to be sick right now.

Yes yes I know my Livejournal has been nothing but emo and angst ridden but it's generally cos I tend to update only when I'm in a bad mood. No worries though for those of you who have been asking, yes I really am fine.

I realise that the older I get the less reliant I am on my Livejournal, and even when I find that I do need to write to release some sort of tension, I watch my words more closely. I guess it's the combination that maturity and the experience that being fucked over repeatedly brings, but I find that these days, I guard my thoughts and my feelings a lot closer than I used to.

It's so much easier to guard your heart and not let anyone in as opposed to opening yourself up to trusting people and being hurt over and over and over again. And when it comes to the point where you've been hurt over and over, it takes so much less effort to just shut people out then to actually invest your energies into facing these issues.

Call me a coward, but I choose escapism. Reliving all that for that tiny little extra bit of long-term strength you gain by facing fears and insecurities? It's not worth it.

I don't like the way things are now. I'm taking on bigger and bigger projects and I don't have anything to anchor me. I don't like working with people whose methods I don't agree with. I don't like that my ideas, and my ideals are being taken from me by someone I do not enjoy working with. I do not like X didn't even bother consulting me before bringing Y into this project. I don't like that my ass is on the line when I have barely been established in the industry. This is not what I expected.

I feel incompetent.

My impatience is reaching an all time high. I get irritated when people don't understand what I'm talking about when it's obvious to me. How much clearer do you need me to put it? Stupidity annoys me. Lack of initiative pisses me off. It's okay to be stupid and clueless if you're actively trying to improve yourself but when you have all the time in the world and all you do it waste it and not spend it improving yourself? Then you ought to be shot for how un-street smart you are.

Cluelessness annoys me.

Just when I thought I found Sylvia back again, I feel like I lost myself again just when I was so close to getting it back. I don't know who I am, I don't like all these conflicting emotions I'm feeling. I feel like I'm floating around and going with the flow and I have no clue what the fuck I want to do with my life. It's like I have my life so perfectly mapped out for me, but I suddenly feel like it's not something I can achieve. Not good enough. Plus my parents are starting to pay for my education so that I don't have to work anymore but I'm not sure I can deal with having so much time on my hands to be on my own. And I'm not sure I can deal with not having the financial freedom to do anything I want whenever I want cos I can afford to anymore.

I am insecure, and unstable, and I am scared.

But it's time to shove these feelings aside, grit my teeth and get back to work cos seriously? No one gives a shit about how I feel. They just want their deadlines.

fields of gold
eva cassidy

you'll remember me when the west wind moves
upon the fields of barley
you'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
as we walk in the fields of gold

so she took her love
for to gaze awhile
upon the fields of barley
in his arms she fell as her hair came down
among the fields of gold

will you stay with me, will you be my love
among the fields of barley
we'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
as we lie in the fields of gold

see the west wind move like a lover so
upon the fields of barley
feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
among the fields of gold
i never made promises lightly
and there have been some that i've broken
but i swear in the days still left
we'll walk in the fields of gold

many years have passed since those summer days
among the fields of barley
see the children run as the sun goes down
among the fields of gold
you'll remember me when the west wind moves
upon the fields of barley
you can tell the sun in his jealous sky
when we walked in the fields of gold

it's 3am in the morning and having been lying on my bed for all of 3 days looking like death (think 39.4 deg c at it's peak), I really can't sleep anymore.

Of all things, I'm thinking of the great number of things in life I have missed out on.

Things that I've missed out on because of well, theatre. Theatre is a passion and it's something I take pride in doing well in. I have sacrificed a lot in life to get to where I am right now and I am willing to make even more sacrifices to get even further. But it makes me sad and guilty to recognize the price I have paid to be atypical and selfish and do what I really like instead of taking a typical business degree and having a 9-5 job. And lately I've found myself apologizing more and more when people ask me to hang out or ask me to celebrate someone's birthday and I can't because I have a show.

People have been nothing but understanding about how I put theatre above everything else (well, all except my parents, anyway) but it's not right. I should not be missing out on family dinners and birthdays, my closest friends' birthdays, engagements, weddings- milestones in their lives. I hate making it to only half of birthday parties or family dinners and having to rush off halfway. I hate how my best friends call me at night in a mess, needing someone to talk to and I have to whisper an apology and hang up on them because I'm in the middle of a show. I hate not being there for them and not being able to ease the burden.

I am not begrudging my sacrifices or regretting my choices in life; I am nothing but grateful for where these sacrifices has led me but I cannot help but wonder- how much more will theatre take from me before I say enough?

I'm tired.

I'm not physically tired, everyday I'm still running around being hyper and busy but at the end of the day when I come home I always feel this inexplicable sadness no matter how good a day I had.

I don't want to believe it's because of something else, so tiredness it shall be.

I'm just tired.

dear bitch from hell,

I have 630 contacts in my phone.
I have 831 friends on Facebook.
I have 152 people watching my Livejournal.
I have 108 followers on Twitter.

I don't randomly give people access to my online life. These people are people I actually know in real life and not people who just want to up their friend count. Judge all you want but I know I can name every single one of my 831 friends on my Facebook and where and how I met them.

When I'm alone and I'm down, I don't call anyone not because I don't have anyone to call, but because I don't want to talk about it. I don't call anyone not because no one will understand but because I don't like to talk about myself. I don't call anyone not because no one will listen but because I don't want to make people as down as I feel with my pessimism.

I know at least 5 people whom I can trust to take a bullet for me.

You know nothing about me so don't act like you know me based on what little information you have about me.

Unlike you, when I'm upset I avoid people because I try my hardest not to take it out on people. Least of all someone I don't even know, and hate for no reason.

Unlike you, I actually care about the people around me, and I show it by not trying to destroy their lives.

I was never a part of your life. You made me an obsession. I've been out of his life for a while, a life that has nothing to do with yours anyway so go get one of your own. Stop saying untrue things about me, even if it is to someone who probably cares about me more than he does you. Stop trying to get me riled up about the things you are saying because you are never going to make me angry anymore because I don't care. Stop trying to make me emotional because I have zero feelings left for him, and you. Stop talking to me, and leave me alone.

I suddenly really really miss my terrapins.

Back in secondary school, ditching homework to let them crawl all over my hands used to be the highlight of my day.

fast car
tracy chapman

i remember we were driving driving in your car
the speed so fast i felt like i was drunk
city lights lay out before us
and your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
and i had a feeling that i belonged
and i had a feeling i could be someone, be someone, be someone

I had a really good day.

+ Woke up half an hour late but the bus-gods aligned and I managed to make it to rehearsal 10 minutes early

+ S managed to kope a Big Night Out lanyard & pass for me, SO DOPE

+ BT was being a bitch at rehearsal today but our first full run was so hilarious I loved it

+ CHIPPY'S BEER BATTERED FRIES WITH MALT VINEGAR (Y) (Y) (Y) (Y)

+ Laughing my ass off with R the entire day

+ Met J and P at Starbucks for some Iced Zen Tea awesomeness

+ KL WITH AM4A TOMORROW WHAT UP BITCHESSSSSSS

Okay I should really go pack and get my ass to bed cos I need to be up at 5am. I haven't been this happy in agessssss.

undisclosed desire
muse

i know you've suffered
but I don't want you to hide.
it's cold and loveless
i won't let you be denied

soothing
i'll make you feel pure
trust me
you can be sure

i want to reconcile the violence in your heart
i want to recognise your beauty's not just a mask
i want to exorcise the demons from your past
i want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

you trick your lovers
that you're wicked and divine
you may be a sinner
but your innocence is mine

please me, show me how it's done
tease me, you are the one

oh, love.

Today, I realised that I don't think I've ever really loved a boy in my life.

Despite what I think I feel, what I'm convinced I feel and how I think I know what love is; despite my relationships and all the dramatics and pain and heartache that I've been through in the name of love, I really think I don't know anything about it at all.

If you love someone, or if you have ever loved someone, you would want to know how that person is doing. If he/she is well, if he/she is doing well in his/her career. You would want to be in touch with the person, because you genuinely care about the person and you give a shit about his/her life. Even if you are no longer in a relationship with the person, even if you no longer share the affection and intimacy you once shared, you would still care enough about the person to be his/her friend. But the very fact that I am not a believer in being friends with exes; and not only do I believe in it, but I find myself perfectly capable of shutting them out of my life, completely cutting them off and deleting all texts and emails and shoving all their gifts into some box without even feeling a twinge of heartache upon their sight- does this make me an unemotional, heartless bitch? Or does it just mean that I know not how to love?

But I find myself completely unable to stay in touch with exes without feeling annoyed, without feeling like they are trying to one-up me, without feeling resentful. And if I ever really loved them, little things like this shouldn't annoy me. Which just makes me think- maybe that funny little feeling I've been feeling isn't actually love. Is it possible to have been cheated by yourself based on what you think you know? I'm beginning to think that it is. I do not know how to love. I'm not talking about love per se because I definitely love my friends. I know if anyone of them died or something now I would be destroyed. But how much do I know of romantic love? Real, solid, I-want-to-marry-you kind of love?

Today I was talking to R about love, and ex-boyfriends, and there was something about the way she spoke, a softness in her eyes that told of someone who has loved and known love and understands the value of it. I understand the value of love. That much I know I do. Love is a wonderful feeling, of being loved not just in spite of but because of your imperfections, love is finding someone's annoying little habits irresistably adorable, love is a deep emotional connection that cannot be put into words. Love is... what people talk about, sing about, write great poems and plays about, but at the end of the day, love cannot be qualified.

Love is not quantifiable. And love is not qualifiable. It is not viable, it is not visible, it is not tangible. And I am someone who does not believe in anything which I cannot see (the only exception being God, but that's not counted because I can still see what He does for me, which has been nothing short of amazing in 20 years), which is why I find myself unable to work in a huge company where I am but a small gear in the system and I cannot see the tangible final product that my effort results in. It's not that I'm not a team player- I am perfectly capable of working in an SM team, but I am the kind of person who would like to see something at the end of the day that I can say I was directly part of. Which is why even before I found my calling in the world of theatre I wanted to write and I wanted to do publishings, because I could see a tangible final product- the article. This is why I enjoy staging and SM work and making props because I can actually see something, see the show which is something that I have produced out of my own two hands, whether it's calling cues or making a props that's on stage every single night. So I don't know how to love, when loving is based on absolute, blind faith. And I can have faith in God because he always come through. But man? Ha.

Compared to R's affection and wistfulness, when I spoke of my past, it was... dead. It was a dead part of my past that I really felt absolutely nothing, that I felt absolute indifference for. And it scared me. Do I really feel that little? And that shallowly?

Maybe it's the way I'm wired. Maybe I'm just the kind of girl who puts her past behind her and totally, fully, completely moves on.

Or maybe... I just really don't know how to love another human being.

Got wasted at Helipad yesterday (note to self: do not underestimate yummy drinks that only don't taste alcoholic)

This morning I locked myself out of the house accidentally and so now I owe my sister lunch cos she had to cab home to rescue me, and because of that I didn't get to take a nap to rid the hangover but I'm headed to Suntec to call a show while still half-hungover and sleepy.

Yay.

but what if i can't feel mine anymore?

one two three

why confuse me with all these you say

when you were with another girl

just the other day

mind games mind games mind games

i don't wanna play anymore

-----
Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.
-----

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.



What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.


The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.



I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.



The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

I don't understand boys.

They accuse us of saying one thing and meaning another, then go and do the exact same thing cos of their damn pride and ego and then expect us to understand them. They say that they don't want to do something but end up doing it anyway, and then apologise for doing it. They say that they know what they say is going to fuck things up, but then they go and do it anyway. They say that they're being completely honest and then panic that they hurt our feelings when they totally haven't and are totally nonchalant when they actually do and don't realise it. They're such difficult creatures.

Must be all that testosterone.

invictus
william ernest henley

out of the night that covers me,
black as the pit from pole to pole,
i thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.
in the fell clutch of circumstance
i have not winced nor cried aloud.
under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloody, but unbowed.
beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the Horror of the shade,
and yet the menace of the years
finds and shall find me unafraid.
it matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll,
i am the master of my fate:
i am the captain of my soul.

Caught Invictus with one Mr JJG today... It was an okay movie- not really date-appropriate and I wasn't madly impressed by it, but the poem really stuck.

I did the hardest thing I've ever done in my life this morning and I felt like complete shit.

But tons of love for Jing, SM team of NETS D&D and DH for making everything better.

I love my friends.

In other news, I finally managed to catch JJG online and just opened a conversation window when my fucking fucker of a laptop decided to die on me exactly when I was plugging in my charger... and I signed back in to an offline message saying he saw me online briefly, talk to me soon, goodnight. #*$&*&#&$$ totally no fate, sigh...

Okay that's all in Today in Sylvia's Boring Life. Goodnight, and thank you for tuning in.

these words are stones in my heart

2258hrs and I'm alone at home, sitting in my room surrounded by Imogen Heap and methodically organising my bookshelf in alphabetical order.

24 hrs a day my mind in overdrive.

2300hrs and I'm home, with Imogen Heap echoing my loneliness and all 137 of my books.

12 hrs until I close a chapter of my life for good.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and it'll all be okay.

Had a good day at the beach with N and R. Talked about a lot of things, we see a lot of things the same way. I really do get along with them quite well, which is a nice surprise.

One point we all agree on- everything feels so pointless at this point in our lives. We all wind up getting fucked over in every aspect of our lives cos people are such assholes. Work, family, romance- we all face shit cos people are insensitive, selfish, and completely step all over us.

To be honest, in all three aspects I feel like I have nothing worth fighting for.

I like my job. I love my job. I love theatre. I love seeing everything come together and the adrenalin of opening night- nothing replaces that. But right now I work for the sole reason that it keeps me occupied and provides some sort of income. I go on long prop sourcing trips that I don't even need to be a part of just to fill up my time. It's sad cos I used to think of my doing theatre as something I do because I like it. Right now I'm doing shitty projects that have zero artistic value just cos it pays or just cos I have no other project to take on. I feel like I'm selling out, and that's not a good feeling to have. Maybe after tomorrow and my secret project with one Mr. John Savage I'll feel a little less like such a sell-out, but until then, I feel like I've compromised on the things that made me me. ): And not to mention the cutthroat people in this industry. I think I have a lot more to learn, I've been rather sheltered in terms of the people I've been working with but the deeper I wade into this pool, the worse the people I see are and the complete lack of loyalty, morals and respect in people are honestly quite shocking. And well... sad.

Family- I bought my parents lunch and a movie yesterday and we talked and it was nice. Perhaps they're realising that I'm growing up, or perhaps their remarks just get to me less or a combination of both, but it's easier to spend time with them now. I feel less like moving out, not really dying to stay here forever, but at least less like moving out. Baby steps, baby steps. I think it's one aspect of my life I've stopped struggling with. My parents trust me a lot more and I've stopped needing to fight for every little thing I want so it's been... calm to say the least.

Romance, I'm not even going to think about it. I really don't understand people who cheat, at all. Even worse, married men (with KIDS btw) who lie about being married and cheat. These stupid guys lie, they cheat, they treat us like complete crap and I'm just going to stay single for a bit. Or turn lesbian. I haven't quite decided yet. (Only partly kidding.)

Ah well. The complete lack of respect for people's feelings just disgusts me these days.

Despite what you said, I knew the very moment I walked right out of your life she would walk right back into yours. I fucking knew it. It didn't matter what you said, at the end of the day it was always going to be her.

I feel tainted.

Tainted by your touch, your love (if there was ever any) and all your lies.

i want it gone. all gone.
http://leloveimage.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-want-it-gone-all-gone.html

Love is hurting me again,
Love is making me cry again.
It's aching in places that didn't ache before.

I say quietly to myself, Please.. Please let me be. Please stop hurting me.
The pain will eventually fade, but the next night, it haunts me again.

Sometimes I wish that there were such magical device like from the movie (Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind). Where you can erase the entire memory of one person you wish to delete. Like deleting his picture from your computer. Permanently. Even if that person made a big impact in your life, even for a short period of time, like, 6 months. I want it gone. All gone.

so go on and sleep darling why don't you pretend we were just a dream

I knew that the moment I walked right out of your life she would walk right back into yours. It didn't matter what you said, at the end of the day it was always going to be her.

I should feel repulsed, I should feel angry, I should be happy that you're out of my life cos now I see the pictures and I see for myself what you've been doing behind my back.

You're disgusting. The both of you. Completely, utterly disgusting. That's all I can say. You have no respect for anything, anyone, no regard for anything or anyone or anyone's emotions. Selfish and completely self-absorbed.

And yet all I feel is hurt. It's so fucking painful.

Is this the price I pay for standing up for myself, for having self-respect and dignity? For refusing to throw my pride away over someone I love?

I wish I could move on like I've told the world I have, but when I'm alone and without the company of people who take my mind off things it feels like absolute shit. I don't want to cry over you anymore because it will never amount to anything anyway but it feels like complete crap when I see you two of you together and I'm the one you let down and I'm completely, utterly alone.

Someone please take all of this away. I want a red pill right now I want to erase everything I want to forget we ever happened I want everything to go back to the way it was 7 months ago I want me to go back to the way I was 7 months ago, completely independent and happy to be that way I want to be happy again I want to not feel this gnawing emptiness I want to feel less lonely I want to stop randomly going out with any boy who asks just because I want to stop shopping when it doesn't make me happy for long anyway I want to stop eating my unhappiness away and I just want all of this to stop.

6 months is a long time for a commitment-phobe like me and in that short span of time I gave you so much of myself that now I cannot even fill myself up with what I have left of me. I don't know why I felt like everything was going to be okay and that I was going to be okay and I was completely unaffected and I don't know why it's only sinking in now. I guess maybe it's cos I never thought you would move on so quickly and then there you are with the girl you cheated on me with and you're happy and I'm not.

It's so painful. And it's not fair.