falling into grace

excerpt from email to azi while waiting for story to clear:

anyways today was scary but good..got swept up into the whole singtel-starhub feud story..and i realise that i just love the adrenalin that rushes thru me when you're suddenly stuck with a breaking story and 4 hours to get everything done.
and the way the story changes thru the day as u get more and more info...and the constant briefings and rebriefings and gasp! from ignatius when i find something good.

and then the sitting down to craft it, and write it, and write it well. it's awesome. AWESOME!!!!

it really is.

Posted by chang! at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments

Lunch at Moonfish at Millenia Walk today.

Waiter brings Joyce's dessert, which she has promised to share with us. He lays down one fork next to the plate.

Joyce looks up plaintively.

"Can we have two more fucks please?"

Posted by chang! at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've never been very good at keeping in touch. I'm too busy is my excuse; I can't be bothered is my reason. There are just pretty few people that one is really friends with beyond convenient circumstance - the same class; the same CCA - and those friends are never a chore to stay in touch with. You don't need organised parties or reunions to see those people. They're the people you reserve weekends for; people you stay up to 2am talking to on the phone although you have to get up for work the next day; people you cancel less significant plans for because you know they are gonna have to book in tomorrow. I've always reserved a certain contempt for people who struggle on keeping in touch with people in whom you have no personal interest, and to whom you are of no particular significance. Why bother leh?

Barely 4 months after the End of School, there are still the valient attempts at reunions and what not..that's all and good. But I've always maintained that from the social whirlwind that is RJ, I would be able to count on both hands the people I would still be talking to 20 years later.

But life gets in the way doesn't it? Everyone has new lives now, new jobs or the army or whatever. And people only like to talk about themselves. That's why we all got along well when we had something - school - in common. Now that we don't, nobody's really interested in talking to anyone else. Nobody knows who "the PC" or "the slimey manager" or "ignatius" is; they don't care. And while there are the people you make an effort for - the people whose vincent lams you make an effort to get to know and remember, if only through description - there are so many people whom you just don't want to bother explaining anything to, especially when all you need is someone to commiserate over shitty copy-editors with. Someone who won't ask "what are copy-editors?".

But you never thought that friends you swore would see you through life would be such people. We went through so much together - those 2 years mean more than temp jobs and pumping right? Then you realise you have no energy to tell the stories you stored up to tell each other through the confinement. You realise that talking is such a chore because you keep on having to explain to me what acronyms you are using; I have to keep reminding you which people I'm referring to. You realise you haven't met in weeks, and haven't spoken in months. You realise that the "people you tell everything to" - who used to be each other - have now been replaced by acquaintances of four months or less.

You realise that you haven't even been aware of his absence until now -and that's the saddest part isn''t it? That all this while this all was slipping away - and I haven't even noticed.

And now maybe when I am 60 you will just be a distant memory of someone who once mattered. And maybe I will feel remorse for not trying harder .. or maybe the fleeting recollection - of promises to still be friends when we're 60 - will just drift away like so many memories of youth.

Ah the best laid plans of men and mice.

Posted by chang! at 2:35 AM | Permalink | Comments

From the literary genii at FEMALE:

10 THINGS NOT WORTH LOSING SLEEP OVER
1. When you'll ever find a boyfriend or get married.
1. Your weight
3. That argument you had with mum this morning
4. Whether he'll call
5. How good your ex and his new girlfriend look together
6. Whether he'll ask you out on a second date
7. How to get back at a colleague who's giving you a hard time
8. Not having more money
9. That fact that you haven't worked out at all this week
10. The mess in the kitchen - housework can wait.

This list speaks to me.

Posted by chang! at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

renji the office painter

This was really nice. And I read it just when I was feeling like I don't know what I want and why I am feeling so permanently bored, yet restless.

It'll be ok in the end rite? In 5 years, we'll all be exactly where we're meant to be.

Posted by chang! at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments

Awesome site. I've never felt so much empathy for something i've seen on the internet before.

Some are funny:
I only date girls with pretty feet

Some are chilling:
Everyone who knew me before 9/11 thinks I'm dead.

Some are heartbreaking:
I do not know how to love.

Some are just wonderful:
Your last mortal thought will be: "why did I take so many days - just like today - for granted?"

A comment from a visitor from Washington DC:
"I wish I could give all these people on the site a hug and tell them it's ok to be human."

Posted by chang! at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

Rachel Chang ... haha where do u wanna eat?
Rachel Chang ... i'm too lazy to move..but hungry
Jennani Durai/S... somewhere good
Jennani Durai/S... i love eating.


heh. jen's so funny. but then..unfortunately, it rings true for all of us, that the highlight of the day really is: lunch.

we have all so many conversations revolving around where to eat and when's lunch etc..it's sad, really.

What's also sad is that I could only fill out 25 out of 40 of the questions in the horrible diagram section in yesterday's SPH psychometric test. I'm left wondering, was it really very hard? Or have my diagram-identification skills eroded slowly over the three months? I no longer am able to identify which comes next in the pattern; I only know: reits, bonds, high-dividend stocks.

It's horrifying actually. I find myself cracking "ST MONEY" jokes among mixed company, and I just get blank stares. Using terms like "20 cm" and "coyote" amongst people who prefer to refer to "e-spring" and"PC" and "knock it down half-left!" (or whatever).Then I find myself trying to explain, only to be met with slightly piteous grins of faked-amusement.

eegads. (a term, which jen has kindly pointed out, that only I use. Must be the early Enid Blyton influence.)

Posted by chang! at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by chang! at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

The movie was great, totally worth the midnight-surcharge cab fare back! very enjoyable and not mindless romantic comedy kind (though renji would have loved if it had been! heh). and topher grace and dennis quaid had great chemistry haha.

But also, I was literally in good company tonight. I think I've come a long way from seeing renji as this slightly socially spastic guy who was good friends with my good friends, and he's now become my good friend in his own way. In that sense that's true of renji as a person..he doesn't look like he could, but then he pulls out incredibly profound things like that cow analogy thing (available at buddymeal.blogspot.com) that really makes you go wow, that's awesome, and also, wow, there's so much more to him than I expected.

So like just when I kind of settled in to regarding him as the have fun with and talk cock with kind of guy, he pulls out this guy that I can just hang with with no pressure and no hang-ups. And oddly enough also the one guy I can say anything in front of (and weirdly enough the one person I've been the most honest with for really long) and not feel that I have to be presentable about it.

So, tonight was really alot of fun. And remember what you said: that we'll never not be able to talk to each other (even if i come back with an accent or whatever). have lotsa fun in there. :)

Posted by chang! at 1:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

that was what jireh observed about me: it's true too. things were going so well for a while..acceptance after acceptance until I almost convinced myself that there would be two more acceptances waiting for me this morning. Sigh. I started well..but ended with a whimper.

Now that I can no longer use the "wait for __first" excuse anymore (at first it was "wait until As", then it was "wait until US decisions" etc) I've gotta choose a school and stick with it dammit!

This morning I was convinced that I was forced to go Georgetown..as the day went past, talking to Nick nudged me towards Oxford...and then the subsidised beer sealed it. I announced that I was going to Oxford to all and sundry (and Joyce was happy, not because she thought I should ("but they drink warm beer", she whispered in horror when I first told her I was considering going UK), but because then I would finally shut up about my dilemma.)

And now, perusing my buddy's blog has convinced me again that I can't go Oxford. For too long we've talked about me finally joining him over there in the US...and seeing his pictures and the "who visited whom then we went where" weekly accounts makes me feel sad that I'm not going to be part of that Singaporean diaspora, and somehow horrifies me with the thought that since I am not seeing pictorial evidence of life and joy in the UK, there must exist none.

What if someone hangs a pig's head as a racist slur on my dorm room door?*

What if all I do is sit around in layers of sweaters eating maggie mee and watching Under One Roof tapes with the other sad Singaporean sods?**

Then again, not like Georgetown is without its cons lor.

What if I gain the freshman 57?***

Sigh. The grass is always greener on the other side. The problem is I just can't decide which green will go better with my colouring.


* In an interview done with some magazine, Tan Hwee Hwee (author, not DBS Corp comms woman!) speaks of the rancid racism she and her friends faced in Oxford. Some Brit hung a pig's head on her friend's door la. The horrors. And how come Oxford can find a pig's head one?!!

**Nick: "They asked me to join the Singapore union...but when I went for one of their 'parties' they were talking about flying Under One Roof tapes over to watch. I was like: I'm gone."

***Jireh: "I told Debbie: 'yah, so the freshman 5 is a total myth la!'. and she looked really happy. then i said, 'for you, it's more like freshman 57!'"

Posted by chang! at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments