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Love is a dress that you made
long to hide your knees
love to say this to your face,
"I'll love you only"
for your days and excitement,
what will you keep for to wear?
someday drawing you different,
may I be weaved in your hair?
it's hard to put the past week into proper words- it's been a strange concoction of social services, ups and roller-coaster downs, closed doors and silence. and yet thinking back on it, there has been love in all the little things; love that was given, taken, kept behind, and silently shoved below doors melting away into the sunlit playground.
Love and some verses you hear
say what you can't say
love to say this in your ear,
"I'll love you that way"
from your changing contentments,
what will you choose for to share?
someday drawing you different,
may I be weaved in your hair?
now even more than before, there is a profound wish that everyone could be happy. but we all are broken, broken; and perhaps that's why this happiness is not for any of us to give out to each other. what is there that i can do for you that would ever make you happy? nothing nothing, everything diminishes, nothing lasts, and perhaps there comes a point when you must say, "i am helpless" and "i cannot do this by myself" and submit it all–
perhaps my role has ended and it is time to step out, but there have been new openings to step into, and new feet to fill in my place, and everyone changes partners. bow; curtsey; step; turn; and another round of this waltz. now, however, there is acceptance (though acceptance means that we have reached the point of the crossroad where there is no turning back) and i have been selfish, and happiness was never a contest to see who could dole out more. i have lost, but i have lost nothing, still the wish is the same.
i wish you would (could) stop your wandering, i wish you would find your peace, i wish you would find what you were looking for, i wish you all could know that you were lovable and you are worth being loved (unselfishly, though that is not for me to give), and that you are loved, you are; you always have been.
(i wish the world was simple, but its love is not, and that is why we will always keep hurting each other.)
(ETA: too many yous, too little time. i don't encourage you to try to guess, because some of the yous are composite and some of yous don't exist.)
:) am a happy procrastinating bunny today! finally finished half of the cast sketch for this webcomic me and cui have been talking about hahahahah. it's about Hestia, goddess of the heath in greek myth, and about this inn that she owns called The Ambrosian Amphora. :P this is just the 'gods' section ofthe cast, there was supposed to be another half (so Hestia would be in the middle) but that didn't quite work out :x cos i was really running low on time.
am quite happy with it (despite the slightly shoddy shading, was trying to get a feel of the colours i'd be using). Hestia ended up looking like she was wearing a purple RG uniform, and aphrodite looks like supergirl. the latter effect was totally intentional. after watching justice league, have renewed my interest in that warner bros. animation style of art. :D and i adore supergirl in the cartoon! she is too too too cute! so shiny and sporty and flouncy! <3 i had to draw someone wearing that outfit, and aphrodite seemed like the kind of girl who would like to cosplay as supergirl.
ariadne was supposed to be aphie's opposite, she's serious, calm, sophisticated, and has the figure of a stick. i was going to draw ariadne as a trailer park trash type woman with horrid tacky 80s dress sense, but she ended up very different. :) aphie used to laugh at her in the days were full figures were all the rage, but ariadne's the one having the last laugh as aphie chews her carrot sticks. :P and yes, dionysus has passed out from drinking too much.
and what? hermes looks like a girl? uhhhhhhhhhh. -wibble-
there's a lot of anatomical problems with the arms and fingers >__< i still haven't got the hang of it yet. sad.
—
everyone who watches anime: download ouran high school host club! it's shoujo, but is so meta it's practically art. *___* and so. so. funny.
whee~!
had a very lovely 21st birthday! much, much thanks to friends here and far far away (sad) for wishing me a happy birthday, pak, sharon, shaRon, kelvin, yuankai, yexiang, kevin, raining (from beijing!) much much much love. can't wait to see you guys in summer. :)
and to yorkies! hugs (avec underwear) to wee zi for tulips, pepper's precious princess card, cui and lin for putting so much effort into the murder mystery dinner party, charmain, yiwen, evan and shan (for the chocs too!), en qi, jia min, emily, jason, pepper and louis for being the most enthusiastic bunch of people i could hope to have a murder mystery dinner party. thanks to the many many people who shared my blackadder dvds (ROX0RS!), and cui, for the delightful map of singapore as i see it. :D
hohoho! it's all jurong, i tell you! all of it!
will blog more with pics later. back to studying for my pol exam. weep.
anyhoo. back to photo blogging, cos en qi sent me her photos
the sweet stall at the fair in hamburg. liquorice, haribo, gingerbread, fruits dipped in candy and chocolate and caramel and other things i do not know the name of :x and as a random sidenote, i never knew these germans loved their maggi so much. yes. maggi. like mee. maggi is apparently– german?! and there's this enormous maggi store we found in both hamburg and frankfurt, which had floor to ceiling shelves filled with maggi products, AND a little bar-counter/kitchenette in the store to instantly cook anything you buy. it's. bizarre.
us at checkpoint charlie in berlin. and also a note on what sort of food we were having in germany… it was mostly wursts (sausages), bratwurst (fried sausages), currywurst etc. the occasional pork knuckle and roast pork sandwiches, pork steaks and goulash– but what really takes the cake is what yiwen had at this german food fair… pig's blood. (click to enlarge.) just. ick.
so picking up where we left off, the day after dachau we were going to leave munich, but of course, we couldn't leave munich without having had one litre of beer each.
prost! (hic!) was quite tipsy then. manage to haul my ass back to a souvenir stall, make a purchase and go to the train station without major mishap. yiwen and en qi will prolly tell you a different version of this story. coughdon'tbelievetheirliescough.
so it was off to frankfurt, which we were prepared to be disappointed by because we heard that there wasn't much in frankfurt to see. but! frankfurt totally surprised us by having the friendliest locals in the world. they're patient, smile, give clear instructions, and genuinely want to help you find your way. we asked local after local how to get to our hotel, and some even approached us unsolicited and asked what we were looking for. then as we headed down a dark mysterious street that was badly-lit, and seedy looking, this guy approached us and went
dude: you all looking for luxor hotel.
us: O__________O yes!!!
dude: ah, you're not far. -gives detailed instructions and encouragement-
us: ;__; thank you!!!
dude: yeah, enjoy your stay.
O_O frankfurt is too nice. the next day we had in frankfurt, the same would happen. we would look confused at the ticket issuing machine, and a local would ask if we needed help. we would look at our map and check street names, and a local would ask if we were lost and needed help. the people of frankfurt seem to genuinely love their city.
and the city is a bit of an anomaly. it's got this medieval part of frankfurt, carefully preserved, and also tall skyscrapers and uhhh. giant euro signs. all fear the power of this strong currency!
this is the owner of the hotel we stayed at in frankfurt. and O_O he can speak chinese AND hokkien. egads! he apparently (due to uhhhh, work commitments) spent a lot of time in china, taiwan, singapore. it's shocking. gave us tips on doing business in china and the importance of guan xi, and how we should always be sceptical if people told us to join in chinese business ventures. apparently knows everything about frankfurt too. :) possibly the epitome of frankfurters. (now, don't laugh.)
ahh. so that was germany. :P
auf wiedersen. ;)
i do not know why i am afraid. perhaps part of me is ashamed of the feelings that i feel, perhaps part of me is angry (with everything and anything and has always been and will never stop being), perhaps part of it is fear, perhaps apathy, perhaps guilt. mostly it is sadness. and there is a pervasive melancholia about everything and i want to curl up and cry, and i don't know why. perhaps louis got it right that it all boils down to insecurity and greed but on top of it i just want things to be the same, but something is holding me back and the words pile up but they go nowhere–
i am a coward after all.
i think it makes sense now. we all want what we can't have, what is absent. everything in this world is too imperfect, too transient and sometimes too mundane. we remember the highs and the lows, but most of the time, life isn't up or down, it's just boring. but we forget these parts, and we try to think, yes we were happy then, but perhaps we were never really so, just a deep survival instinct in us to smooth it over and add the gloss and say we were happy then. we were. are.
we all want to go to 2046, because it's a part of us that exists in absentia. but tak knows that the 2046 we go to isn't really the past. it's the past we want to remember, but it's not the past we actually had. how many people, though, want to relive the actual past they had? pettiness and selfishness and warts and all. we want the past to come back, but when it does, it only reminds us of our imperfections.
there is no maudlin soundtrack of wailing violins in real life, just nat king cole singing about the christmas we all had. the one we never did.
i finally popped in my les miserables complete sountrack cd after what-is-it, a year? and it just reminds me why i love the musical. sure, it's mainstream and commonplace and over-commercialised and by that horrid cameron mackintosh. but still– it's such a powerful story, and the lyrics are so… not-cheesy, for a broadway musical. (unlike miss saigon. koff.) and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. a les mis 2-disc dvd is out. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. and being in the uk means shipping is going to be a lot cheaper.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
and i'm just in a musical mood. read that wicked is opening on west end in september, and spam-a-lot in october as well (taking over palace theatre… so i guess woman in white hasn't quite been the smash hit they were hoping it'd be?) and i badly want to watch them. i also want to watch billy eliot, and the last 5 years, and songs from a new world. ;__; and i missed ewan mcgregor in guys and dolls. sad. i also want to see the producers and chicago onstage, because theatre is so… magical. *___* i also really want to see you're a good man charlie brown, but with roger bart and kristin chenowith.
arrrrrrgh. i just, wish, you know. part of me wants to quit it all, sign up for acting and singing and dancing lessons and attend performing arts school.
but life doesn't work that way. sad.
the cd raining burnt for me has come in handy lately, and happiness from charlie brown made me all goose-bumpy and tingly. also just realised it has the songs from the producers on it. hrr hrr. ula is adorable.
unhappy. unhappy. very very very very unhappy.
hello all! am just back from germany (well, not quite just, reached york on friday and spent saturday recharging my batteries…) but it was fun hahaha. me and en qi and yiwen went to hamburg-berlin-munich-frankfurt… and while it was (to me) and odd mix of people, it turned out we were all crazy-random-cartoon obssessed people and we got along like houses on fire. burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn! *_____*
koff. and what is that you say? am i wearing fuzzy earmuffs? why, yes. yes i am. hoho! have you not got the memo? earmuffs are totally fetch.
anyways, we started off in hamburg, where i was sick, : | but just as well, because hamburg was more or less a city, sleek and modern and uhh, depraved. (says a lot when your major attraction is a red-light district called reeperbahn. and it's not even like amsterdam where it's reached a level of camp. it's just… sad.) but! it was a coastal town type thingy, so we got to see the sea. ahh. bikini bottom. the sun, the uhhhhhhh, skyscrapers, and map-reading.
and there was a carnival going on in hamburg… which saved us from much boredom. it was a makeshift, movable carnival, but had an enormous ferris wheel and manymanymany rides, and lots of german food like wursts and sauerkraut and uhhh, ribs (?), and a medieval german fair where they sold wine in potion bottles, and pony rides (which we discovered too late so pony go down the hoooooole.) and we took this spinny ride called the airwolf. and it was tres funny because the whole ride went something like (simultaneously):
Yiwen: Shit! Shit! Ohhhhhahahha shit! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! I want my mommy! Mommyyyyyy!!!
Me: Mwahahhahahahahahaha! w00t! Whooooo! Hahahahahahaha!
En Qi: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~!
strange. but true.
then we trooped off to berlin, where we got off just opposite the zoo (again, strange, but true.) it was called: *__* zoobahnof
but we'll get back to the zoo. berlin's a fascinating place. it looks like any other ordinary city, with sky scrapers and rotating mercedes benz symbols and black-tie-white-collar businesmen, but it's got so much history. we saw parts of the berlin wall, (and bought parts of it too. koff. yeah, it's a tourist ripoff. shush. don't tell us. we might hear you.) and saw the grounds of the old gestapo headquarters, went to checkpoint charlie *__* (yes! with tacky kermlin relics being sold by the side! the authentic tourist experience!) photos come later, cos they're on en qi's camera. and she hasn't sent em yet. -pointed look-
the next day we went to the zoo. why, what's so important about the zoo? well– it boasts being one of the largest and most important zoos in europe, with more endangered species than any other zoo (save for antwerp). so we went. and it was ok lar. we saw fluffy llamas (now altogether! here's a llama there's a llama and another little llamaaaaaaaaaaaa~! llamas llamas tastes like llamas llama llama duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!)
koff.
but the berlin zoo has the cutest bestest apes ever! they're so human… it's surreal. and they're pressed up close to the glass (cos it's too cold outside for them so they've been brought into the indoor enclosures) and there was an enormous orang utan (which we have no picture of… sadly.) pressed up against the glass generally staring dolefully at her distant cousins. and there was a cute li'l orang utan curled up in a gunny sack…
fantastic. :D the berlin zoo also houses this crazy creature:
which is the most insane, on-crack rockhopper penguin i've ever seen. the emperor penguins were huddled to another side, muttering about how undignified he was and what a disgrace he was to the penguin race.
i've got many other photos of cute animals, but you can go to cute overload for that. :P
we also went to some palace (failed German answer to the palais versailles), and a jewish museum, and a jazz club, which was quite lovely. if uhhh, german. we also went to the berliner dom (the jelly donut dome!), and were treated to a free (gratis! gratuit! frei!) concert. hur hur. lovely boy's choir. half of them sing higher than me. sigh.
anyways, it was off to munich then! after dragging ourselves out at the unearthly hours of 3am to catch our early flight on german wings (nyam!) to munich, we were quite, quite zonked. our hostel, had the delightful extra (free! gratis! gratuit! frei!) of toilets which reeked of piss. soured. piss. mmmmm. the upside though, was we got a free walking tour conducted by an american called aaron. who's hilarious, really. munich's the stronghold of bavaria, which is the province of germany where lederhosen (those silly suspenders) and beer (rawr!) reign supreme. so aaron was like, "half the answers i'll be asking you today can be answered with beer." and then he was like,
aaron: now, let's talk about the symbols in munich. everywhere, on manhole covers, pillars, walls, you'll see a picture of an infant in monk's robes. he's supposed to be a representation of munich. and of course, what is he holding in his hand…?
us: uhhh… beer?
aaron: can't hear you! what was he holding in his hand…?
us: (emboldened) BEER!
aaron: no. no, he's holding the Bible.
us: (deeply embarrassed)
heh. we ended off the evening in the hofbrauhaus, which is munich's most famous beerhall, with an oompahpah band and lots of beer and revelry to be had (hic!) hitler started off his political career by giving speeches in munich beerhalls, as a side. beer halls are communal areas, so we were joined at our table by momoe, a japanese exchange student in munich to brush up her german, and sigi, a native munich…er. (munchenien? munichian? ehhhh…) we talked in a mixture of english, german and japanese (very little japanese… actually. it starts with "nihongo o hanashimasu…….. chotto!" and then dies.) but it was really cool. bopped along to the bavarian band and sigi led us in bavarian bopping. we signed coasters as a souvenir, to remember each other by.
the next day we went to see schloss neushwanstein and hohenshwangau, which were two castles that King Ludwig II resided in. neushwanstein is the fairy tale castle that disneyland's sleeping beauty castle is based off, and th strange and tragic king ludwig II was called the fairy tale king. because i uhhhh, messed up dates and times, we didn't get to go inside neushwanstein but we climbed up the hill to it (mutters) and it was… huge!
phew. i'm bent over because i thought. i. was. dying. thirsty. stupid. slope.
then on our way back to munich, we met a lovely singaporean on the train, who's a postgrad student from glasgow called ee lynn, and she's studying– animation. arrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh. >__< we invited her out for drink with us, this time at the augustiner keller (the favourite of munich locals).
we played silly drinking games like cai quan and ji go ba (what? since when is that a drinking game? since us, i tell you! us! wahahhahahahaha!)
the next day we did another day trip to dachau, which was the first concentration camp that himmler and hitler created.
the famous "arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free) slogan at the door. dachau was traumatic. and upsetting. and just… flinchy. there are just some things you don't want done on other humans… but it happens. sigh. apparently at the end of the war, the american troops made the locals in the area go into the camp and look at all the bodies, to know the atrocities happening in their backyard that they never looked into. sigh.
and… on that somber note, i'll leave frankfurt till later. back to work. now. sigh.
