A friend of mine just mentioned that he's dreading for a new life. So am I... but to be more accurate, I'm dreading my new life. I want my old life back. Going for Odac's Basic Training Camp sure brought back a flood of old memories (not of my own BTC because, heck! I wasn't there for it!), and I really felt a sense of belonging just to be an Odacian again.
It's funny how you can feel three different ages all at once during BTC. With the seniors around and Lester and Ronald continuing their routine bullying (just like they used to on Fridays at the Odac board, albeit then they were assisted by Brian and Thanan... woe me!), it really felt like J1 all over again. Looking back, I never realised how much I missed the seniors until we met up again at BTC. Perhaps our own estranged relationship with batch xviii made me miss the seniors even more. But it still puzzles me how 2 batches can be close and 2 batches almost ice cold.
Watching the J2s handle BTC stirred old memories of the one and only BTC I participated in. The gruelling task of having to ensure all group activities were smooth running and at the same time wondering if I was too strict? too lenient? not understanding enough? too kind? too slow? too fast? assessing the J1s correctly? And till this day I'm haunted by whether I made the right decision during selections. Changes in the BTC routine and attitude of course bugged me (which senior wasn't bugged by the lack of strictness in the J2s?), and I imagine I must have been tolerance itself to not go up and correct the J2s as I am usually so prone to doing. 2 years of nagging batch xvii was not something I'm proud of.
And at the end of it all, the hard truth hit me that I was back at BTC as a J3. Sounds so alien. J3. Is that really me? A J3? But what kind of J3 am I? I did nothing to help with BTC 2003. I had no wealth of Odac info like Leroy. I... erm... alright I played the guitar but that's about it.
3 ages... all at once... makes one feel lost in time and space.

I wanna watch you burn
It's a lesson I will learn
Till the eyes of the dawn
See you torn
Before me
Sink low

Dedicated to the same person... who will never learn...

I am now currently halfway through 'The God of Small Things'. It's making me feel very depressed. But then all award winning books usually do. It's after reading books like these that I really feel the need to pick up some Nick Hornby, or Helen Fielding or anything Pop-fiction like just to make sure I'm in touch with the real world and my MTV-short attention span-plastic life. And yet again and again I pick up the Brontes or similar to pass my time. Will some one please pry those wretched stories about struggling/unfair/unrequited love out of my hand? I abhor the way my eyes get puffy after reading them. I should stop pretending to be litarary and stick to happy light chick lit and similar!
Oh damn! I admit! I cried while reading Tony Parson's 'Man & Boy' too alright?
Here's something that must have been MTV-short attention span-plastic influnced:

C'mon sister, put your hat on lets go
We're gonna rock the house and put on a show
Where the music's playing
And the crowd, it's sizzling
It's gonna be hot, hot, hot!
But mama says: NO!

Please, mama, let me go!
Just this time
I'll be good, I promise you
Just say it'll be fine
I'll be on my best
Next week till next year
Just say yes
Don't need no mess
Please mama, let me go!

The moods' jiving
The party's hyping
I'm at home begging mama please
I'll ace my tests!
And take out the trash
I'm on my knees saying
Please, please, please
But still mama says: NO!

Unfinished. And embarassingly hip-hoppy. But those were the days. 14 year olds can be forgiven for treating Smash Hits as a sacred doctrine. Sugi, do you remember those days? That was when Shampoo's Trouble was the trumpet of rebellion. And all of us had a personal vendetta against Nick Carter. Whatever was his crime?
I am not rebellious. I adore rules and stick by them. Never question means no trouble. But I've carved my way out from the 'curse of being the eldest child', protected, cotton wooled and barb wired beyond help. Maybe writing my poems was the one little window I was allowed to let my soul roam free.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of blogs by my friends, and I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of making this blog public instead of private. Considering that I’ve told no one about this blog and that I am an exhibitionist in public, yet retaining my own thoughts in private, do I really want to be scrutinised by the whole world?
Yes, owning a public blog is rather exhibitionist, like being on reality tv, allowing any ali, ah beng and arumugam to invade your life. And I do admit that I like attention, I dress up for it, I fish for compliments and I pull in my PR skills to steal the lime light. But at the same time, as I’ve told Greg, it is quite exhausting. And I’m afraid I will get tired of keeping up a public blog and preserving a public image in this blog and thus this blog will cease to function as it should.
My counter argument is that, I want to really know what people think of my poems. Have I just disillusioned myself all this while, thinking what I’ve written can really pass off for poetry? Are my poems all words and no soul? I want to hear different opinions on my poems. So far not many people have seen them, save the ones that were printed in the Sri Aman yearbook (2000) and Jason (who was so encouraging). And maybe if I get some feedback on what I’ve written I might understand why I stopped writing and pick up my pen and brush the dust off my diary.
Many people have told me that I have a knack for writing. But I just can’t seem to see it. All this seems so mundane, yet my friends tell me to keep up writing my funny emails. They aren’t even half as hilarious as Sachpal’s! Am I really cut out for this?

Here’s today’s poem:

Don’t try to escape the competition
Let’s end it here through and through
Lay out your cards
I’ll play me part
Declare the winner, either me or you

No Draws
No Stale mates
No Backing out
It’s either me or you



I signed this poem off with the words ‘Dead end road’. I don’t know why. I must have been very pissed at someone. I think it was you! Liar, liar, liar!