Post-exam disonance

Eh... So this is it? The end of the semester? It's either I'm suffering from some kind of dissonance, or I'm sadistically attached to the notion of school. From the moment I dropped the pencil and handed in the paper until now, I'm still feeling... weird.

Post-exam emptiness. I've seen people playing slam dunk with their notes the moment they barged out of the examination hall, and I'm wondering why I'm even bothering to file my notes back nicely, in proper running order when I returned home. Madness.

And what better way to ruin my recuperation plan than to snuggle up on the couch with a sappy romance novel like Dear John in hand. And I couldn't fall asleep after that because I was so afraid that I would suffocate myself to death with the blocked nose incurred from excessive crying. Bleah. Nicholas Sparks had deliberately crafted a flawed character out of John, and it worked wonders in capturing those young and innocent hearts. While the writing style is still a little adolescent, but isn't that what Sparks was hoping for?

And I'm getting indecisive about jobs, especially when on one hand there's an internship, and on the other hand there's a temporary position as a marketing project director. Gah. Will one hate me for accepting the other? Or were they colluding to test my susceptibility to a higher paycheck? Ok. I shall pick the one who accepts me first. To hell with it.

LAST.

An optimistic view at this point of time would be 6 hours until the end of torture.
A pessimistic one would be 4 hours to the start of a traumatic experience, largely because i haven't finished studying. Plus there's a huge possibility that I might fall asleep during the paper simply because it's super boring.

And I just took a baby step out into the working world yesterday, by going for my first interview! And the job scope sounded exciting; to be able to manage a MKT/PR/HR campaign with a REAL team of like-minded people. It's no longer just about grades, but about setting realistic goals and reaping the rewards in terms of tangible income. *Thumbs up* But I'll still be crossing my fingers for an Honours track, no doubt. I need that alot. ALOT.

Rate of Change

As much as I desire to ace tomorrow's paper, my mind and body are disintegrating slowly, 10 hours to the paper. I haven't gotten much into the revision, and I doubt I'll be able to finish cramming everything by tonight. Oh well. Just one more paper to go!

I think I'm mad, because I'm getting increasingly easy to satisfy. I don't see it as a sign of diminishing affection or a change of heart, don't get me wrong. It's just... I have to stay contented this very moment with the warmth from your jacket, and occasionally catch a whiff of the scent of you off the jacket. I know I can't have you by me 24/7, and I don't insist on you being a slave for me. Simply because you're so much more to me.

I need those fingers weaved in mine.
I need the warmth I know I can't generate.
I need your hugs and kisses.



I need you.

Love in 26 ways

And here we are again, at another milestone. :)

Every smile, every hug and every kiss.

Every little thing you do for us.

Everytime we bicker, get into quarrels and make up when the night ends.

Everytime you forgive every mistake I make.

Everytime I give in to your little cravings for McD's.

Those goodbye kisses I hate giving.

Those tears shed out of missing you.

The little talks I have with our "little boy" about how much I miss you.

In every way, everyday.

I miss you.

Happy 26 months.

Lost and unfound

After losing my phone a few days back, I realised that nothing's really permanent anymore. Things and people we take for granted so conveniently; the sublime beauty of Nature we brazenly overlook; the seconds that tick by; the torrents that whip April so violently; the hugs and kisses given and taken by millions of lovers every millisecond...

I made it a point to tap those mini keys on my cellphone, composing a message for every moment I came away unscathed from the pangs of missing you. I held every single message so dearly, reading and re-reading them over and over again everytime I wanted to feel you near and yet have you so far away. I wrote something for every emotional moment; jubilation, sadness, jealousy, anger, disappointment, and everything I wanted to say to you but faltered in the process of doing so. I didn't want you to hear me telling you every single moment how much I need you, simply because I deemed it irritating to you. I didn't want you to hear me bemoan over the same issues over and over again; I didn't think it would be fair to you, who's having as many problems as I did at school. I didn't want you how upset I was with certain things, because I don't want you to see me all weepy and down.

I had wanted to keep all these little snippets into a book, where I would read and re-read them like I did on my phone, even when I'm old and time-ridden. I wanted to keep all our memories, happy and unhappy ones, and relish these moments again whenever the feeling arises. I want to keep these little thoughts for our children, for our grandchildren and their children; I want to share this love with those we'll love in the future.


And now it's all gone.



I miss you.

Weekend blues

The past weekend was filled with surprises, love, mishaps, and basically every possible emotion I could endure within 48 hours.

Saturday morning was spent tutoring, largely giggling at the little pronunciation mistakes made by my tuition kid. He's brilliant, probably the wittiest of all the kids I've tutored, and probably the most privileged of them all; he has a MacBook Pro, a white room full of white furniture, a white Yorkshire terrier and parents who love him to death. And he's barely 8. I wonder if he knows the existence of five stones and hopscotch.

S.H.E concert was brilliant!

2007年的《移動城堡》，讓我感受到了姐姐們的現場演唱功力及舞臺魅力。自從那天就一直盼望能看到她們再次站上室内體育館的那天。這次除了圓了我的夢，能和比我更愛姐姐們的老公一起看《愛而為一》，簡直是美夢成真。也許是命運和姐姐們的意願，把那麽愛我的老公帶進我的世界裏。:)

三個小時的演唱會上，姐姐們總共唱了40多首耳熟能詳的經典好歌。除了自己的歌曲，她們也以KTV方式演唱了《簡單愛》、《紅豆》等其他歌手的歌曲。姐姐們也不忘體現“亞洲第一女王天團”的華麗稱號，換上了一件件華麗卻帶性感的小洋裝，讓在場的8000名歌迷們大飽眼福。

在個人單元中，ELLA更是拉開了尺度，不止是大跳性感舞，還唱了自己為自己寫的原創歌曲。雖然歌詞淺簡易懂，卻反映了ELLA自信滿滿的一面。

這演唱會也能算是我一個小小的記事簿，因爲幾乎每一首歌對我來説都有特別的意義。《說你愛我》是進歌謠時試唱的歌曲;《戀人未滿》是曖昧時期的歌曲;《五月天》是差點得和老公的一首歌;《你最近還好嗎》是回想起往事的歌曲... 而且還請了許多資深的音樂人來擔任BAND的頭號人物，包括小芬姐和吉他奇才Jerry C.

雖然因爲隔壁有天團五月天在開場的關係而被媒體拿來比較，但是那又何必呢~？S.H.E有她們的粉絲，五月天也有他們的粉絲，難道娛樂圈裏除了比賽，也只是比賽嗎~？他們都有各自的好，而且也都是天團，爲何非得那麽做不可~？

從《移動》至今，相隔3年的姐姐們，成熟了，漂亮了，變得更性感了，歌聲也越唱越嘹亮。但唯一不變的是她們對彼此和對歌迷們的愛以及對音樂的堅持與執著。她們也許接下來就不會有太多的機會再同台演出了，但相信那種永不熄滅的熱忱會一直燃燒著。

And then I lost my phone on the taxi, on the way back from the concert. It wasn't just about losing a phone; it was about losing 2 years of memories cast in bytes, as well as the contacts of people I have loved and worked with. It's about pacing up and down at 2 am in the morning as I deactivated my SIM card and called the cab company (which could do nothing and put Jack on endless hold 3 times). *Sigh* Oh well. And to top it off, I lost my EZ link and matric card together with my phone, which doubly sucked. Oh well. In life, you gain some, you lose some.

At least dinner with Jack's family went pretty well. We visited his cousin and their pretty little bundle of joy! The darling had a lovely crown of ebony hair, and looks like a sweet blend of her parents. If only we could break out from the reality of baby formula and diapers...

While I continue to mourn over the loss of my old phone and my bombed bank account (which I just excavated 200 bucks out to buy a new phone with), it's mugging period to keep the mind off unhappy stuff.

April in May

And we wrapped up 3220 yesterday morning with our final presentation, after 8 weeks of conceptualizing, proposal-writing, instrument-crafting, focus groups, transcribing, data analysis, report-writing... I think our group had the most disagreements because of the writing style, the language, miscommunication, ineffective group mate, and so on so forth. But in the process we had a friendship forged so deep, it's going to hurt when we say goodbye eventually. My fellows in CNM would know the policies here well; our groups were randomly formed, which probably means that the probability of us working together again as the Dream Team is almost nought. But thank you so much, to each and every single one in my Dream Team, our Dream Team, for making this semester a hectic yet one with full of laughter, friendship and worthy sacrifices. :)


Anyway we had a fun fun fun presentation! Dressing up in lab coats, passing our toothbrush on to the next presenter, group photos... Well I probably screwed my portion of the presentation but, hey, we had fun, didn't we? Anyway the toothbrush went on a little tour with me to Jack's lab. :)

看到五月天成員石頭和孩子在遊樂場玩耍，別有一番體會。原來在臺上綻放著星光的藝人，卸掉華麗的服裝，放下樂器，當個平凡人，是种奢侈的享受。我們看過多少海外藝人，就算在閒暇逛街吃飯時間都被狗仔煩個不停，是否想過，我們那麽羡慕他們，難道他們就不曾羡慕過我們這些老百姓嗎？來到新加坡也許是他們夢寐以求的，因爲沒有該死的狗仔，沒有極度瘋狂粉絲，也不會被當作外星人看待。

始終，我和老公也只是多看他幾眼，就走掉了。何必去要簽名呢~？何必去要合照呢~？欣賞他們，聼他們的音樂，買正版的專輯，在演唱會上獻出你的熱情，就是對藝人歌手的最大回報。走下舞臺后，他們也像你我一樣，需要自己私人的空間呼吸。

雖然這周末不會去看五月天的演唱會，但還是要祝他們演唱會成功，當最棒的天團，也當個好爸爸。 :)

Breaking away

I'm getting horrid at being myself these days; the sanity I could easily retain despite past periods of madness is hanging by a moment. I get lost easily in those projects swarming around me, and eventually lose sight of objectivity. I learnt to discriminate badly against people who don't bother to put in the same amount of effort, and blackmark them for eternity. I nosedived into projects like a headless housefly and, in the process, wounded the innocent pining heart whom I'd rather die than break.

I need a break.

And I'll be getting it soon, courtesy of 3 very zomg-ly pretty and talented ladies and, of course, the loved one who goes by the handsome name of Jack.

Haha.

Needs breaks.

My eyes are burning from nights and nights of staring at the laptop, rushing assignments and struggling to comprehend word after word on MSN group meetings. I'm burning out soon; it's just a matter of time. I'll just be looking forward to next weekend, where I'll get my big break, before the madness starts again.


And I don't really know what I'm doing for 3220 anymore; it frightens me very much to be cast in a state of vacuum every time a question is being thrown out, making me feel as though I hadn't been part of the project. While I know it's precisely how an A+ is differentiated from a B+, I'm just plain exhausted from staring at quote after quote, transcript after transcript, and finding answers for questions you can't even answer. I love the group dynamics; I just can't tolerate the indecisiveness sometimes.






Clash of the Titans! It's been more than a month since our last movie, and Clash of the Titans made up for the void. If you found the actor playing Perseus familiar, that's because it's Sam Worthington from Avatar. :) He didn't fail to disappoint with this movie, wielding a piquant Perseus with his swordplay and keeping the women at bay. Can you imagine he's 34?! I loved this film because there was little romance and loads of scrambling around with those super fuglilistic monsters. Just a pity it wasn't an exact depiction of actual Greek mythology, or else it would have the potential to be developed into a sequeled hit like Harry Potter.
Yummy. Haha.

And I woke up this morning with zip imprints on my arms, legs and neck, the after-effects of sleeping with Jack's jacket on. LOL.

Mileage

It's quite evident that I'm up to my neck in work, so much so that, as I told Jack and my 3220 groupmates, sleep is at the bottom of my Maslow's hierarchy. Maslow will turn in his grave if he knew someone just trashed his theory.

Thanks to my awesome JS2213 groupmates, We managed to squeeze out a full research paper on women's football in Japan! Goddammit nothing can put to words all the effort we put in, especially those 3am MSN convos where everyone's struggling to make sense of themselves, Noel maxing out his library book borrowing limit just to make sure we've got the good stuff to ourselves (ngiak ngiak ngiak...), long Perk Point discussions... But then again, I wouldn't dream of taking another JS module anymore. It's simply too draining, and basically their style of academic writing is realms above what I can achieve. So bye bye to Japanese Studies, I hope we'll never see each other again, as long it manifests in the form of dense readings, grand narratives and some particular tutor. *clears throat*


And it took me 8 hours to juice my brains for a 800-word feature story for 3211. Seriously, I see no news angle in it, but it's still something, so cut me some slack. I totally disappointed myself by writing like a moron for Assignment B, and I didn't make use of the chance to do better for Assignment C. But whatever it is, it just reaffirmed the fact that no matter how well I write news articles, the idea of being a news journalist will probably be stuck outside the window.


And boy, did I spend the entire Saturday afternoon trapped at YIH NUSSU lounge with my 3220 groupmates, trying to tear apart our focus group transcripts in search of salient themes for our content analysis. I bet we'd clocked more hours on this project than anyone else! Pity it's only 30% of our overall grade, which sucks considering the fact that it's a non-examinable module and we all work our arses off enslaving ourselves to put this research paper together. Can't CNM be more flexible? I mean, if the intention is to ward off freeloaders, then I don't think it's the best possible way. Why not work on an incentive-punishment approach? We're not passive creatures, so I believe slackers will definitely be wormed out before the project progresses. Can someone start a petition?



And I miss you. Every single moment, with every single breath.
Please fast forward time, can we?