falling into grace

5 and more things i love about you:

1. that you understood how upsetting it was that the chicken. wings. were. not. arriving! and your noise of appreciation when they finally did made me cry from laughing

2. that you absolutely refused to notice that i was in pieces (looking out of the window when we entered the tunnel..so kind!) until i pointed it out. and when i finally did, you let me cry an ocean of tears into my long island tea, offering only your panda tissues, your understanding and your kindness.

3. that you were so up for the most random cheonging outing ever. i'm not sure who came up with the idea, but i know that it only hit us - the hilarity - when we properly took in that we were standing in a queue of 30-year-olds outside ministry of sound just the two of us. and that even then we refused to face up to reality..resolutely clinging on to our buzz until we could get another drink, being complete loud, giggly (and ironic!) drunks: you announcing (in raised voice surrounded by chinks) how white boys are so much cuter; me literally pointing out the masks the staff were wearing - i.e finger inches from some poor girl's face.

3. that once inside we were in wide-eyed wonder at how massive and gorgeous it was. the escalator!; loving studio 54; oohing at the gorgeous private rooms, faces pressed to the glass in unabashed ulu-ness; and the cage, the cage!

4. and what an adventure: from ploughing into the cage despite the 'we are going to die! what if there's a stampede?' fears, to meeting the most RANDOM people like chiam, ahmad and lynn khan; to being danced up by the most RANDOM men including the moustached admirer and the indian "brothers".

5. all the while knocking it back like sailors, and being so kind to each other: "eh CAREFUL! got STEP there."

and the random memories: that anonymous voice calling my name i literally ran away from; your lovely delight that there were FOUR martinis; the bag counter girl who told us that we had to collect at the back and was there waiting for us when we finally made it (and being kind about us bursting into laughter in her face); hanging out on the podium and spotting chiam and ahmad in the crowd (a massive feat, i must say, considering the number of people squashed into that arena, and my state of sobriety)

i don't think i can properly put into words how much i needed last night. as embarrassed as i was to be like sandra oh in that episode of grey's anatomy where she miscarries and then that scene where she's like "i can't stop crying! WHY can't i stop crying?". and although i didn't have sexy isaiah washington to climb into my bed and comfort me like she did, i had you. and would isaiah washington have gone on a mad MOS adventure and danced up indian men?

and although you didn't understand that reference (the grey's anatomy one) when i brought it up, you understood everything else. you understood that i needed to be a teenager for once, and that i didn't want to be strong and mature and put air quotes around 'fell in love" anymore. that i wanted to deal with everything the tried and tested foolish adolescent way: by crying pools of "why?" tears; and asking all the stupid questions that mature strong women are not supposed to ask...and then getting completely fucked. but more than that you didn't let me do it alone..you went along for the ride and got fucked too just because. so thank you for being more of a friend that i could ever hope to be. and also, for being perhaps the one person in the world that i could feel ok about being a teenager in front of. (and thank you for knowing how hard that is.)

and maybe we will end up at the exact same table in emerald hill number 5 when we're 35 still crying over the same damn things like we fear. and although that thought horrifies me a little bit, it's probably not worth angsting over. because even if we do, at least i know that that lethal combination - 'your face and the alcohol!' - will get me through.

and hopefully then MOS will still be waiting for us with open arms.

Posted by chang! at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments

I wish you bluebirds in the spring
To give your heart a song to sing
And then a kiss, but more than this
I wish you love

And in July a lemonade
To cool you in some leafy glade
I wish you health
But more than wealth
I wish you love

My breaking heart and I agree
That you and I could never be
So with my best
My very best
I set you free

I wish you shelter from the storm
A cozy fire to keep you warm
But most of all when snowflakes fall
I wish you love

But most of all when snowflakes fall
I wish you love

Posted by chang! at 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

From the Air-Conditioned Nation (cherian.blogspot.com):
8. Critics who only attack the mainstream media are barking up the wrong tree. Most societies have examples of mainstream, pro-establishment media that are not sympathetic to radical or progressive forces. In other words, in many countries with a free press, you will find newspapers not very unlike The Straits Times and Today. The big difference is that in those societies, such newspapers are not given government-protected monopolies. There is media diversity, including small non-commercial, cause-driven media published for ideological reasons. For those interested in media reform, the real issue is the absence of such alternatives, which can only be addressed by reviewing the media licensing regime. As long as critics focus their fire almost exclusively on mainstream media instead of the regulatory structure, the press system will outlast them, and every criticism expressed in GE2006 will be repeated in GE2010 as it was in GE2001, GE1997, GE1991...

go see also Yawning Bread (yawningbread.org)

Cherian George makes the point alot more succinctly and incisively than i ever could. i post this here because i feel it is a point i need to make to certain government scholars around me. Whenever horror is expressed that i chose the SPH scholarship over a government one, or whenever people pull faces designed to show sympathy for the prospect of me having to serve a bond at a 'propaganda machine' like The Straits Times, i can't decide to get pissed off or to laugh.

Because you know nothing about what happens in the newsroom. You think you are superior and intelligent and would never read the *sniff* straits times. but you don't know the talent in the newsroom, or the battle that journalists and editors wage everyday to get the subtlest bit of controversial coverage or wording into the straits times against the dynasty of illiberalism that you have signed your life to. you think you can change things in the bureaucracy; that you can actually make a difference from within, and that journalism in singapore is a dead-end, not acknowledging that it is the bureacracy that makes journalism what it is in singapore. the straits times has the resources: both human and otherwise, to be an absolute first-class paper. it is the politics of mediocrity, not the impossibility of journalistic excellence, that makes it what it is.

and so, next time you sniff at how lopsided election coverage is, or how worthless a paper ST is, think about the wall of censorship that journalists here fight everyday (and to their enormous credit, mostly don't submit to); think about how press coverage has improved over the years despite the continuing intransigence of the government's media policy, and then think about who made the more foolish choice: you or me?

and like i said before, make no mistake: it is not the paper i am fleeing, it is the country. likewise, there is nothing sad about being a journalist in singapore, or even being proud that you are one; it is the unyielding climate of political control that is the tragedy.

Posted by chang! at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

blog-surfing recently, i've noticed a trend towards book-quoting. popular favourites are arundhati roy's "the god of small things", jack kerouac etc. of course reading these quotes make me want to book-quote also. i think hard: what was the last amazing piece of fiction i read?

i can remember the last pieces of fiction i attempted:
deception by philip roth, which i abandoned because the entirely-conversational conceit was bothering me; the little prince by antoine st-exeupery (hardly nobel-prize winning literature), and to be fair, read in about half an hour in the sun on redang; lolita by vladimir nabokov which i also abandoned; and jonathan strange and mr. norrell, again, abandoned. in fact, the last book i was actually really getting into was primary colours (the clinton satire by "anonymous" which actually turned out to be joe klein, famous journalist and also author of The Natural: Bill Clinton's Misunderstood Presidency which i loved) which i also put down after a while because i realised that i've actually read the thing before. (that's a whole other level of sadness which should be saved for another time)

and then it occurs to me that the last book i actually read in its entirety was eat, pray, love (hardly fiction), and that my latest library receipt reads:
primary colours
noam chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
john kampfner's Blair's Wars

eeee. and all i read is the economist somemore. i have become one of those! a philistine who does not read inspiring gorgeous literature anymore, only socio-political polemics!

i always knew my passion was politics, but i also always prided myself on being able to appreciate good literature. i mean..i did english at A level! but horror of horrors: it turns out that once i stopped having to read literature for literature's sake, i subconciously cut it out of my life entirely. the desire to attempt enjoyment of those dense, difficult pieces of prose has been entirely lost on my part along with the need to do english academically. in fact, the last piece of poetry to inspire me appeared in The Economist:

"Thou canst not stir a flower/Without troubling of a star"

and this was of course in relation to..

the interdependence of markets. i.e "faster car sales in Texas result in an increase in grocery shopping in Detroit, home of America's 'big three' carmakers."

when did this happen? a part of me is actually very sad that things have gone down this way. but i suppose the more self-aware bit knows that it was inevitable. doesn't make me feel less ashamed about not having book quotes though. in fact, i am going to go buy the god of small things now! just because i am slowly sinking into the cesspit of cultural barbarism, does not mean i should take it lying down.

Posted by chang! at 2:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

EXACTLY a month ago i was putting on my sub fusc feeling super diarrhea-y (not that i am not at the moment, as unlucky lunch and tea buddies will attest) about my first ever exams. those passed without incidence (well, surprising triumph anyway: 76 for philosophy mofo!), and the month that i've been back has been ridiculously hectic.

it's funny how i've only been back for a month and yet already i feel that i've never left. of course some things are different la, like when people laugh at me for saying "bollocks!" too much. but otherwise everyone's the same: old friends, old places, sometimes i am filled with so much love for the most mundane of familiarities. like the way emerald hill still has their 2 for 1 martini special (if sadly, not their 10 buck long islands), and how taxi drivers like to tell me what to do ("girl ar, should have gotten off at tuas interchange. you live choa chu kang what, why waste money? somemore now taxi more expensive know!" me, watching the meter tick with alarming speed, consoling myself with: "at least cheaper than london!")

so i suppose i could angst about how i will be so sad to leave again, and how i'm torn in two directions: the oxford me and the singapore me etc etc (amogh: "sometimes in life, we ask: chocolate or vanilla?" heh), but i suppose there's really no point. for now i will enjoy the heat, the rudeness, the endless bus/MRT/bus (i think singapore is probably the smallest country where people spend so much time commuting)....and enjoy the fact that i enjoy it! (jo...it'll pass! x) when it comes to say bye again..it'll be harder for specifically one reason, but generally just because. as i pointed out to tzing today about her grass-is-greener syndrome (miss "i think i am an spg"). as a previous sufferer i tell you this: while you're here you think you like white boys. then you go over there and finally have them, you realise: all you really want is a nice singaporean boy. (sheryl loke, hor? :D)

then again, for someone who was told by her father (at 14, i stress) that i better marry an ang moh...

me: why?
father: because ALL the chinese boys SCARED OF YOU.

...i might just be blinded by comfort and foolish optimism at the moment. i forget my old insistence on the corollary between nice and boring. but i've had too much excitement for a bit i think...i want nice and boring now. like i said: i'm really ready for the happy settle-down experience! now if only life goes according to plan for ONCE. hah.

well, if anything, this has gotten progressively less coherent. oh well. off to bed so that i will look nice for my photo-taking at sph tomorrow.

Posted by chang! at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

If it's worth your while
Say something, say something
If it's worth your while
Say something good to me
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey
If it's worth your while
Do something good to me

Tell me why we're still in here
There's nothing for us to fear
I could tell with my eyes closed
Now baby, I'm ready to go

Posted by chang! at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

i remember 3 years ago - omg has it been only 3 years? it feels an eternity past - writing in my cute little green dog diary the words: "you would think that i would be past this now. staring at my phone willing for it to ring..this is so pre-pubescent angst". you would think that now: 3 years gone in which so much has happened, that i would finally be past that staring-at-the-phone-willing-it-to-ring thing. but here i am. staring.

i also remember the painful few months after that entry...my heart breaking for the first time, and me thinking while it happened almost in slow-motion: is this what it feels like? that sweet sorrow that i've read so much about?

and after i mended i felt invincible for the longest time... i've survived my first heartbreak: it's all uphill from here. i've done it before; i'll be fine. but what they don't tell you - and what i wish i knew to expect - is that it really doesn't matter how many times you've been there, does it? because even at 20 - and hell, probably at bloody 35 as well - it's still going to feel like the first time..the pain is still as ridiculously sharp; the despair still come as easily.

the worst part is that your heart probably takes longer to patch itself up the older you get...because the pieces of sorrow it has harboured over the years never really disappear. and with each new sorrow the hole in your heart just gets bigger. and even though sorrow becomes more familiar over the years, the stinging edge never blunts.

"it is such a secret place, the land of tears."

Posted by chang! at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments

wahlao i should have better things to do then to sit here angsting about whether to go out tmr or on thursday to MOS. thurs is not ladies night at MOS, so it's NOT free, plus it's RandB, which the brits might not appreciate. so maybe tmr? but such short notice..a couple of hours after they arrive, they might be jetlagged? and zouk is always ridiculously packed? and what if we go MOS tmr night and no one is there because they're all at mambo?! aiyoh. in oxford not so hard one you know - only got one club per night, everyone is there; no such thing as ladies night; drinks also so cheap. bloody hell!

anyone out there with more knowledge of the singapore night scene and esp MOS please tell me what to do. what to do?

had a pretty nice lunch with jen and joyce today at uberburger. nice for the company la, not the food (eeee, gourmet burger kitchen in london is so much a nicer version of the same concept, and much better burgers too.) i think they were both shocked at how my principles have changed over the year. aiyah, like i told joyce in my (weak) defence...before i left singapore i thought i had all the answers. you know - i was one of those quietly (and usually not so quietly) superior people who clucked their tongues at those lesser beings who were self-destructing all over the place and passed judgement on them. but if the year has taught me anything it's that i know the square root of fuck-all. the answers i thought i knew were only theoretical, which counts for absolute jackshit. and so many times during the year i was one of those lesser beings self-destructing...and a year on, the only thing i know is that i know fuck-all still. i suppose it's called being human.

Posted by chang! at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments