i'm flying tomorrow. 30th may. 8pm(UTC+8). anything urgent hurry up and find me, though i doubt there'll be any.

an unhappy farewell, a broken connection, leaving in the cool rainy night. driving on the empty streets, empty silent streets. a noisy bus screeches beside. winds up windows, changes radio station. moving off to a sad guitar. the car speeds down the avenue. a real broad avenue that goes straight on, lined with large trees, occasional drops of rain sprinkling the windshield. like the odd tears that fall from the cold silent heart that is spent. the journey seems fast, the car seems fast. but a look at the dashboard shows otherwise. how odd. more silent streets. changing traffic lights. running traffic lights. a graveyard serenity, of utter everlasting peace. mindful of death, of release. does it all still matter. onwards and onwards, alone, faint strands of music. green. green. green. back. smooth, good. out into the coldness. back into the reassuring coldness of today.

two movies. one in japanese, one in spanish. both, admirably, without english audio, but with subtitles. [sidenote, i believe that the chinese cannot translate into english decently]

one movie about a guy, and his lost first love, dead long ago from leukemia, memories of which haunt him. ultimate tragic romance. lovely story, lovely cinematography, lovely feeling. perhaps i shouldn't say it's lovely, since it's so sad and tragic.
one movie about a man, paralysed, seeking death. about the people who are affected by his condition and decision. about those who come, and who are changed. about euthanasia.

so much death. so much. how rare to even find one movie that actually regards death as more than a statistic, more than an overpowerful bullet.

the girl(aki) in "crying out love", was so strong, so mature, also so joyfully in her(their) first love. 16, 17 years old when everything was carefree, innocent, happy, simple. actually i think the guy is positively ugly and moronic. why would such a pretty intelligent happy girl fall for such a moronic person. just as oddly, how come the cover picture shows the other girl(ritsuko) instead of the main girl. i do not understand. so touching that the movie shows their entire love story. the casette tapes remind me of something, i smile. i shall not say too much, it is not a movie of many words, neither are.

The Sea Inside. NC-16 | Mature Theme. the rating doesnt even seem necessary, what would kids understand of it. how many secondary school kids would understand the feelings in euthanasia, in death. the permanance, the relief, the release. i doubt they would even care to watch this movie. the poor lawyer in the movie, poor woman who suffered such bad strokes that she became crippled, then lost her mental faculties. i wonder if she remembers that she wanted to take her own life too.

Tragedies. Love. Death. everything one could ever hope for in artistic works.

alright alright. wonderful movies. sit down, quietly, watch them. and go to sleep.

if only americans had brains and hearts.

and so i watch the tom hanks, Audrey Tautou, ian mckellen, jean reno. i went to watch the first two people, and i was contented with that. i was thrilled, delighted, and reassured, by audrey tautou's last little act, by her dipping her heels into the pond and declaring that she can't walk on water. it was just so her. such a wonderful person.
i didn't care much for the rest. a decent movie adaptation, some useless animations. not worth watching for the story. but perhaps armchair travel for those who wish to see the real-life novel shown as real-life pictures.

anyway Ian M. Banks' science fiction novels are way better than Dan Brown's crap. do read all of them. guaranteed not to make it to the big-screen because the movie makers won't be able to handle all that imagery and the lesser brained audience won't be appreciate the storyline, if they manage to get past the sentence structure and vocabulary. no it's not verse or anything, it's just good English (when it's supposed to be English, and good alien-speak when it's supposed to be that).

jh complains that he has many many bites from various insects on his left arm. many many many. he is disliking the equator.

very sadly, it is all too apparent, all too easy, and too unnoticed. all the hordes of empty minds out there Following. fans, idols, etc.
when they look back, what will they remember? "i followed this" "i liked this" "i went after this" "i went for this" "i bought this" "i had this"
but how much of it was just bought off-the-shelf, just taken and enjoyed, and how much was created, how much was their own.

like shopping for clothes, like watching TV, movies. why is it so popular, so easy, so 'enjoyable'? because it is easy, because it is passive. for that apparently little sum of money, you can pick up a ready-made product, well packaged and appreciable, worthy of some respect/recognition from other people. you absorb it, use it, display it. but it isn't any achievement nor progress. would you look back and say that year i watch this series and these movies, would you feel like you did anything substantial, anything to remember well by.

passiveness bores me. once you have the thing, once you buy the thing, that is all, that is final, it is the end of the life cycle of that object, it is gone. there is no further progress to be made, nothing to be created, nothing to change.

i told jx before, clothes. when you look back at last year, do you remember what clothes you wore, do you remember with pride that you bought that particular shirt or skirt, or bag. at that instantaneous moment in time, we are happy with what we buy, we enjoy it, we wear it use it flaunt it. no matter that it each individual item doesnt matter in the future, there is a lingering feeling that we dressed well, dressed nicely. but how much of it matters. in the end, how much difference is there?

hello.

or rather "Nong Nong ago", as singlish-influenced diction-missing jaw-immovable tongue-tied singer would say.

zera said stay away from black, but i can't. sometimes i can think that a particular color looks not bad, but if i compare it to black, somehow black wins, so i keep gravitating towards black.
zera wanted the sand picture back, but the old one was too narrow, so i made another one. and goodness gracious me (such a fun phrase), those photos are so old. 9th August 2004. long long ago.

last year i wrote in a letter that there were only that many years left in our lives and i would only meet most people, most friends, perhaps once a year. which amounts to perhaps 50 more times in this lifetime. i havent had this feeling in sometime. being busy in a boring school with boring people really dulls the mind and senses. no wonder sg's arts scene is so pathetic. such a boring money-making country.

can't seem to remember what has happened. seems like a lot, seems like nothing.

11 mai, went on a bus ride with jx.
plan: go to bus stop, take the first bus that arrives, stay on bus for 7 stops, alight and change to next bus, repeat 10 times.
started outside clementi mrt, eastwards. i cannot remember the bus numbers, data with jx, but we went from around the island, anti clockwise, touched bukit timah, bukit whatever, woodlands, tampines, bedok... bugis. rather fun. but i still think buses sux.

bought a new camera on 13 mai. which translates to a magnificent slew of photographs. i have concluded that the old camera was way too lousy. too bad the camera doesnt come with stabilisation, pity, but batteries and manual controls are more important for now. flickr upload limit is too little! 20mb per month is pathetic. shall i try to find a different host, sigh. unfortunately the good ones require regular payments. should i. now all the photos are severly reduced in size and quality, 800x600 only. i have no idea where im going to upload the photos i take overseas, maybe i'll upload 0.1% of those photos, dunno. will see how. but for the moment flickr contains many new photos. am currently taking photos of singapore, any and every place i can find. see if you can recognise them.

15-18 mai went back to army. amusingly. if NS was slack, reservist is beyond belief. how bad was it? well, during NS, there were ppl who were, ya know, the dun care, and less educated type, who like to slack and smoke, etc. and even they were surprised at how much we skived off. amused amused that all those SAF adverts protray such a gung-ho and scary soldiers. tsk. the govt fooling the girls?
nice to meet ppl. to see familiar territory. to be able to go back and have no one really care what the heck you do. untouchable slackers, like ORDing ppl. but the few remaining familiar faces there will be gone, and then it wont be so fun anymore.

16 mai went out with jx for bday dinner. walked around. took nice photos. and was treated to japanese curry.

18 mai went trampling trespassing travelling train-ing. oh, jx cooked lunch for me. took mrt to kranji. walked to malayan railway track (becoz somebody wants to walk on track), walked northwards. almost got run down by a #&%(#$) malaysian train. it came rumbling round the corner (rumbling sounds a tad too slow, it zoomed), snarled at us, and we scrambled off the rails onto the undergrowth slope. blah. some scratches and so on. it went by rather close though, empty passenger cars. was not expecting a train at that time. but anyway, jx's dream come true to encounter a train. after the shock, we hurried on and got off towards kranji reservoir. saw about a thousand trucks and hundred factories, abandoned army camp, ancient kopitiam, and a view of johor.
adventure with real danger.

19 mai gathering at junda's house. actually competed with linus on the xbox, even though both of us werent typical console players. ramming cars off the road is actually quite fun. pizzas pizzas. canadian pizzas all look the same, ugh. talked talked, about everything except weather, movies, tv. gep talk. found out that we probably own not just the medical system, but also the legal system as well. interesting social circles. very very interesting. perhaps acs ppl would own the businesses and banks.

20 mai. what happened. 4 ppl archery trng. where's everyone. tuition kid got exactly 50 out of 100 for maths. saw jx's sister at bugis (at work), saw jx's mother at sengkang interchange. odd. new soft toy. which made jx laugh the whole night. it's got a great expression on it's face.

sigh

woman. string of pearls. bouquet. head tilted back. like sacrificial lamb. 

http://www.thecoolhunter.net/design/GERMAN-PARKING-GARAGE/

what can i say

hm looks, theres a queues outsides the Baby Changing Room. wow. amusing. wonders. anyway this is at Singapore Expo (at Changi, if u cant recall). there was a crowd. the normal toilets were packed. shrug. i dunno. 

pitiful bouquet dumped at void deck. jx wonders who were the poor things involved.

their last rally for 2006 elections. overflowing Serangoon Stadium. inside was all full, the bright ppl area. swarms of ppl outside the stadium as well. good thing you could look in over the fence. ppl were standing at the overhead bridge at the road. the whole area was jammed up like mad.
their rallies are so fun!

OHNO. there goes the html for the blog. shucks. crap. mistake.
could only dig out this old backup copy. *blink*
i suppose now i really have to do html again.

ARGH.

went around island with camera today. took some photos. i want a new camera...

new series of Singapore photos. might just take photos of every single bit of Singapore. 20 years later, we will see how different it is. and perhaps you might also see places you've never seen before.

it's all on Flickr. url goes straight to this set of photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jianhui/sets/72057594125470868/