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!

Chinese New Year eve. What does that bring to mind? Reunion dinners, really good chinese food, family feuds and angpows. But not this year. Is tradition really meaningful anymore? I like to think of myself as traditional and conformist... yet I don't know that I really miss the lack of tradition this year. That doesn't by any chance mean I'm losing my roots nor becoming distant from my extended family. It's really puzzling. I don't even know what I'm grousing about. Here's the poem

Don’t chase those who’ve chased you away
Don’t turn back on the one’s who’ve
Turned their back on you, turn away
Let go of the one’s who left you
But hold on to the only one who loves you

Hold on to the one who loves you
Hold on to the one who cares for you
Hold on if you know his heart is true
Hold on, don’t let go
And let him know
That you love him to


I must have written this for someone, and as usual never told them about it. I think I’m a pretty good listener, because I only know how to listen. Advice is a completely different skill altogether. I’m also pretty bad at comforting. But I do know how to keep quiet and listen. Is that good enough?

It's Chinese New Year's eve tomorrow. Usually at this time I'll be in Penang, with all the aunts in the kitchen, squabbling over the fish, chicken, soup, fatt choy, mushrooms, choy geok, etc... , while my grandma tries to slip away from the commotion and pretends to be busy distributing kum (mandarin oranges) or ang pows or something. Meanwhile the uncles will be watching some kung fu show on tv, with my grandpa dozing off and the few girl cousins gossiping and the even fewer boy cousins filling up their time in anyway they can.
But this year I'm not in Penang, I'm in KL and instead of a reunion dinner we're having a reunion lunch, and it all seems rather strange, almost as if all celebrations are starting to lose their tradition and meaning. I didn't celebrate Christmas last December, because my family went to NZ for a holiday, and I didn't even miss it one bit. Families are growing further apart. Cousins are moving further away. Is there nothing to hold on to anymore in that bit of festive cheer? I don't even want to wear red on new year... I have nothing new this year and I'm not complaining. Everything's left in dust.

Are you really looking at me?
Am I just hallucinating?
When you talk do you mean what you say?
Or am I just imagining things?
Then I play my little games
Sometimes I respond
Sometimes I back away
At times I play a charade
Sometimes I’m bold
Sometimes I’m innocence to the soul


Who am I referring to? I’m not really sure, I can only guess. And I’m not telling my guess here. In case you find me.
Greg says girls just don’t get it when a guy likes them. As if we’re totally oblivious to all the niceties and out of the way things he does for us. Maybe there’s some truth in that, but I for one have never been able to discern if a guy is paying me attention just because he likes me or perhaps its just some innate nature in him (delusional huh?) that makes him this nice to everybody. What do you think, girls?

I give up uploading poems daily! I think I'll just upload them as and when I like. CNY is getting to be rather overwhelming. Too much red and yet I have nothing to wear! Cooking beckons too... you can't believe it? Neither can I. Oh well... on to the poem

Close my ears so I can’t hear what you’re saying
Just keep talking, I’m not listening
I don’t want to show reaction
I want to pretend it’s just a bad dream

But if I listen to your poison it’s gonna be like a tumble dry washing machine
Drenching me of my believes
Make my cry but my tears were just irritations

Evaluation of your soul has constant changes
Characteristics of your style has different faces
A tangled web
A slick cocoon
I’m trapped
I’m bound
By your strategic annihilation




Lies, all lies. I can never look back on those Form 2 days without thinking about suicide. I wonder why you told us all those lies? About the pills? The abuse? Your parents? Jason? Your imaginary fantasy life? All these questions forever left unanswered. And now, no one except the few of us too closely tangled up in your web remembers those scarred form 2 days. But those days disappeared like smoke, and it’s as if it never happened, you, I, them, talk as if there was never anything in the past that tied us all together, in a hangman’s noose.

Alrighty then, to make up for yesterday I guess I should upload two poems today, so here's another one. Oh, I suppose I’m not really uploading my poems in chronological order. I’ve plenty of poems here that are without dates and I can only vaguely recall why and around what experience I wrote them.
I recall this one clearly, because Joon Kim read it out rather animatedly while we were stacking chairs for assembly in Form 2. Dear, dear Joon… where art thou now?
This also brings to mind the time I was an X-Files fanatic and was inclined towards the spooky, mysterious or outer-worldly. Oh yes, Sugania and Choo will never let me forget those days when I fancied masquerading as Agent Dana Scully. But I’ll let you in on a little secret; I still want to be an FBI agent if I could work with as quirky (and cute) a partner as David Duchovny.


The Haunted House

Many welcomes to my humble abode
Yes it’s always draughty here
Don’t worry about the door, it closes by itself
And don’t mind the wailing wind, my dear.

Have a seat on my coffin, while
I get my ghost of armour to bring you tea,
Just tell the poltergeist to stop fooling about,
Floating dishes is just his source of glee

Oh, that picture, I’m proud of it,
Its eyes follow you everywhere you go,
And here’s my great, great grand mummy,
She’ll be up in a minute or so

That tapping on the wall? It’s just
The poltergeist again
And here’s the Incubus’s bedroom
He’s out finding a bed partner in vain

May I introduce you to Mr Bones,
He loves clanking his chains round the house,
And Madam Trot-about who lived here once
Carries her head under the sleeve of her blouse

And here is my room of torture,
This is a guillotine and here’s a spike
They squashed you on these wheels you know
If you didn’t do something right

Oh the screams you hear are just
The Banshees practising their songs,
They usually wail on full moon nights,
And often I howl along

What’s that my dear, you say?
I’m growing whiskers, why you’re right!
I’m turning into a werewolf, after all
It is a full moon night!

Beware, my dear, run as fast as you can,
But you cannot get away,
For in this haunted house my dear
Forever will you stay!!

4/3/1997

I didn't blog yesterday because I was way too tired. Anyway here is todays
I suppose I was never fond of the past or the future. I live for the present. I hate planning for the future, knowing there is already a fixed set of expectations waiting for me. At times it seems that if I live according to what everyone expects me to do, things will be much easier, I’d face fewer decisions. And then I get all ridiculous and long to do things like restore heritage buildings or revamp the entire KL, PJ bus routes or write for the National Geographic… and I still don’t think they are insane ideas, as you would!
Personally I think this was a very badly versed poem, but it’s frank. Yup, that’s my 14 year old self telling my 20 year old self now that I have deserted myself and grown up.


I don’t ever want to grow up,
It may sound like a line from ‘Peter Pan’ but
Deep inside I know
I’ll always want to be
Mummy’s baby
Daddy’s little girl

Why must I be hastened?
Why do I have to act mature and serious?
It’s a free country after all
But everyone expects you to be realistic and straight forward
Especially when it comes to responsibilities
Which accumulate with each cm you grow

I’d like to be innocent once more
I’d like never to think of the future
Especially with no grown ups and their silly insincere grins asking:
“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”
To tell the truth, I want to be a child again
To seize each day as it comes
To never worry what’s going to happen and what’s not
To challenge problems when they come
And to be a child of love

30/7/1997

I remember writing this one in my prefects note book. I was inspired by some comical poems I’d read when I was younger. I think comical poems, even if they aren’t the best literary works, just hit a warm fuzzy note in my soul. I’m glad one of the earliest poems I can ever remember writing was comical. I think too, that this poem was directed at my little sister, for always asking my brother and I “duh” questions

I went up to my brother and asked:
“Why do we have to wear shoes?”
“So our toes won’t run away”
“So our toes won’t run away?”
“Yes, toes run very fast you know.”
And he gave me one of those brotherly smirks brothers always give.
The next day I went to my sister and said:
“Calvin says that our toes will run away if we don’t wear shoes”
“Oh don’t be silly. They won’t run away. They’ll smell.”
“Smell?”
“Yes. They can smell mum’s cooking, or the flowers or the carpet”
Then she looked at me in a very sisterly way that sisters always do
The next day I went to my brother again and said:
“Claire says our toes smell”
“Of course they do, silly”
“Smell things like mum’s cooking and the carpet?”
“No, they can’t smell the carpet. Because the carpet has a very special smell.”
“What kind of smell?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret”
Then he raised his eyebrows up and down in the brotherly way brothers do.
The next day I asked my sister:
“What does the carpet smell like? Calvin says it’s got a secret smell”
“Then I can’t tell you what the carpet smells like”
“Then how will I know?”
“Smell it yourself”
Then she gave me a very sisterly smile the way sisters do
So I went to smell the carpet
And do you know what it smells like?
Smelly toes after running

30/7/1997

I suppose it would be unfair of me to not justify the emergence of this blog. So go grab some popcorn and some cushions and while you’re at it, could you make me a cup of hot cocoa too? No? Oh well, it was worth a try.

I started weaving my thoughts into verse when I was 13, the beginning of that tumultous age they call teenhood. Since then I’ve morphed into many different people, but I kept on writing my poems. Whenever pensive or melancholic, I’d grab the many scraps of paper lying around and write what ever came to mind. Words, in a strange way too, always managed to intrude on my mind at the most inconvenient times, and wrangle a rhyme out of me, such that I’d find myself scribbling poems during exams, in the midst of doing homework, sometimes even while at prefect duty (I obviously wasn’t a prefect for very long).

But the best times for poetry were late in the night, when the world drifts into slumber and you feel like you’re the only person breathing, thinking… writing your thoughts down before the night breeze catches them and they’re lost forever in Midnight’s clutches.

I kind of stopped writing when I moved to Singapore. It’s all your fault, Greg! You took up so much of my time and my mind! I haven’t felt the need to pen down my emotions since then, and the pages of my diary are now vacant expressions with no owner. Maybe I’ll pick up my pen and write again some day, when I’m once again alone with my thoughts, where the world seems too big a place for a small soul like me.

Till then, I’ll try to record my poems in this blog everyday, because I don’t trust myself nor my untidy room to secure my scraps of papers with my thoughts in them. And then I’ll lock them up in here and finally throw away the key to my past. It’s not that I didn’t have a happy one, I just don’t really like looking back. If you have found me, well, there’s no need to spread the word about my precious treasure trove here. We’ll keep it between you and me, okay?

Why? Heaven knows. I don't have a clue to my own mind most of the time. Probably because I've given up effort of changing, rearranging, trying to find me. Go with the flow. I'll just be.