You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2007.
and to a game like jade empire!? -sulk- i’d rather nwn2.
i saw a rec for dexter on char’s lj, and decided to give it a shot (i was trying to put off going to the library to work. which uh, on hindsight was a bad idea, because when i left my house, spring decided to take a holiday and turned off the sun, and winter pelted me with hail. oww.) and i love the show! there’s definitely a certain american psycho feel to it (and the show does indeed allude to bret easton ellis and patrick bateman a fair bit), with a macabre, perverse humour, and moral ambiguity.
the premise? dexter is an adopted child, and his father (a detective) immediately recognises a sociopathic, homicidal streak in him. so he does what every other loving father would do– he teaches dexter to focus his energies on a good cause, punishing the wicked who get away with heinous crimes like paedophilia and murder. it’s really, really endearing, despite the seemingly creepy main character :) and to prac crit the picture a bit, it’s interesting that the two people behind the plastic curtain (and therefore shielded from blood and gore and dirt) are dexter’s girlfriend (who had been abused and raped multiple times by her husband, and dexter says “it works out, because we’re both equally damaged.”) and his dad (whom dexter proclaims that if he had been able to love, “how i would have loved him.”)
just as well– this shall tide me over till csi (april 4), and heroes (april 23) returns.
it’s the constant swinging up and down really. i don’t know how to put it. it’s the terrifying thought that the things you hold as criteria by which you can be judged by either have not come into fruition, or likely never will. it’s the feeling of being a charlatan, and the constant glancing over your shoulder to make sure no one’s come close enough to find out the truth about you yet. it’s the feeling of being ashamed of what you are. it’s the feeling that makes you blog poison at 2.17am, insomniac, pinned by the sheer weight of uncertainty and unable to find rest.
i think there’s a statement to be made about a relationship when the highest form of compliment from one person to the other is, “you freakazoid you.”
it inspires the squishiest feelings, does it not?
—
because i never acknowledge comments, but i do read them :) and they mean muchly to me–
sometimes, i think, well– i’m jacob after all. too much panic on my own part, a little submission, but still a whole lot of back up plans. it’s just a tricksy balance lar. proactivity and submission, obedience and sacrifice.
tricksssssssssy.
am suffering an extreme bout of panic :\ schedule for easter is not looking very good. technically i need to start reading NOW. and in the first week of holidays, write 700 words a day for 6 days to churn out my politics essay -__- repeat process (one week reading one week essay) for the next two weeks for my film essay, take a quick break for NEEC, then back to mugging non-stop till week 2 for my pol exam. ARRRRRRRRRRGH.
and well, i know i’m whining, but urgh. the schedule for combined course students is way, waaaaaaaay unfair. RAWR D:
and because the york library is inadequate, i’ve got to fight people for books! -head spins- and somehow, i feel like i have never been this stressed in my life. (though i likely said the same thing for the a levels).
and to end of this disjointed, ARGH!stressed post–
RRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRR D:
Dear Ms Chin,
I am pleased to inform you that you have passed the preliminary selection process for the 2007 JET Programme/ALT conducted by this embassy. You are now on the shortlist for the final selection process to be conducted by the JET authority in Tokyo. Please note that not every applicant who has passed the preliminary selection process will be offered the post. You will be informed of the final results in the beginning of April.
Regards,
Second Secretary
Embassy of Japan
—
how do they cut down the list in tokyo? :< is it by pure impression looking at your photos? is it by notes/ranking etc? oh my.
but still, i’m happy.
this is a backdated entry i wrote by hand on the plane back to york, on a sheet of foolscap paper. and the sentiments hold true, and this is as good a time as any to type it out so here goes:
i think if anything, this short, mid-term sojourn back to singapore has only reinforced the notion that singapore is home, and will likely continue to be home, no matter how long, or how many places i relocate to. sure, the weather may be a bit too hot, the humidity suffocating at times, the people too rude, too pushy, discourteous, superficial (i will always feel inadequate in singapore, my dressing always a bit odd, and always one size bigger than the typical asian frame), and it is simply a place where you constantly feel like you can be judged by your own standards (though admittedly, this last fault is more of my own quirk and neurosis than that of singapore’s). but this is always, ultimately, where family is. and that is the one thing that i cannot leave behind.
this is not to say that i do not love york. i’ve come to refer to it as home (and we all know how semantic spheres of meaning have a bearing on one’s world view and perspective). there are times (most of the time) that i count myself as incredibly blessed to have come to york, and i can think of no other place that has brought about such an incredible change in me over the past 3 years. there’s definitely something liberating about this place, something that makes you feel like, it’s ok if you’re a dork, it’s ok if you’re not stick thin, it’s ok if your dress sense is a little boring, it’s ok if you are a little boring. it’s ok to be a little odd, and yet similarly, overwhelmingly mundane.
and it’s not like the first 2 years here weren’t a struggle. my first year was a strange sort of void where i had to figure out exactly what i was looking for here. it’s just that constant feeling that you’re different from everyone else, and yet depressingly the same. and ultimately how you traverse that fragile balance will inevitably determine your self-image. i can only count myself as lucky that in these years of (re)definition, i met some of the greatest people i have ever known in my life. these people are my family in york, and like the family in singapore, they are the things that i find the hardest to leave behind.
and july presses ever closer.
somehow, the pragmatic part of me knows that somehow– i’ll just shift gears as easily as before, and all that overwrought emotion i had felt at manchester airport before flying home will fade. once in singapore, i will simply shed my coat, take a shower, and walk around orchard road like i never left it. somehow the old singaporean ways just turn back on, and york becomes a hazy, prolonged dream. (and was it ever really how it was? did i imagine it all, or did i just go through the photos and airbrushed them till their edges were so fuzzy the good look better, and the bad were never so bad.)
and the only concrete assurance that i can hope to have, is that you, my friend, felt the same way, in a similar time, and that it must have been more than my imagination, because someone else felt it too.
