In case you guys didn't realise, the last two blogs were because I was damn bored la. Not that I meant to torment anyone with mediocre prose/poetry.
But I'm not bored anymore! WOW is here!
Not to mention lots of things to study, still. Haha.
posted by Đirestraits @ 1:34 pm
1 comments
I sit, I wait, I stay
Waiting for the night to follow the day
Lingering in an oppressed existence
Yearning for an untimely release
Impatience, incapacity, impotence
The dance may not yet begin
Passion is bridled, fire is contained
A pounding, throbbing heart
Beats to count off the seconds
Waiting for night to follow day
A futilely intense rhythm
Stirred by emotions that have no release
Incapable of other thought
But a exhilarating anticipation
Unwilling to settle for any less
Than that playing out in my mind
Still I remain, I pass the time,
Longing for what the dawn will bring,
The satisfaction of fulfillment
The experience of your touch
posted by Đirestraits @ 1:00 pm
3 comments
Far away to the east, near where the sun rises from every morning, there was a verdant land of rolling green fields. It was a land blessed with ample sunshine and abundant rain, and as such, nature's bounty could be found in its full glory. Its hills were oft crowned with colourful wildflowers, and little bubbling brooks ran cool and crystal clear down to emerald vales.
Within one such emerald vale, by a little brook just like any other, there stood a small baby unicorn. His skin was gleaming white, with a shining mane that glittered in the light when the baby unicorn tossed his head. Right now, though, his head was bowed low, staring at his reflection in the water. Or more specifically, at the tender, sawn-off stump of his single horn.
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Okay I just ran out of inspiration. I'm just bored la and I felt like writing something but didn't really have much to write. Just finished reading Blind Assasin. In it, a man concocts post-coital science fiction stories for his lover. Strange.
Been thinking a lot, lately. I think its mainly because I don't have enough to do. Or rather, I'm not interested enough or motivated enough to do the things I should be doing. So I just bum around, stare into space and think.
But if my mind travels on journeys as my imagination creates new situations and worlds for me, am I really still "stuck at home"? Hmm.
posted by Đirestraits @ 12:29 am
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This is going to be a bit of a long blog! Or at least its going to take awhile to load la huh cos theres something like 16 pictures haha.
So here we go:
This is the room I slept in. I got the room which doubled as a jamming studio, lucky me! Haha. Its pretty cool, with guitars, mixers, amps, PAs.. Heh.
Thats Gary showing off his backyard jacuzzi! We were having a barbeque that night.. In fact we had barbequed meat like nearly every night. No wonder I put on weight. Bloody hell =p
Some of Gary's budgies. Hence my msn nick while I was there. Some of his birds are worth AUD$2000 and up.
This photo was taken just before the wedding. Aren't the kids just so adorable? Haha.
And this is the wedding cert (one of i think, 4?) being signed! Its all pretty nice and informal.. unlike doing it at Singapore's ROM.
The kids at Penguin Island! If i had known there were gonna be hot bikini babes there (check out the background) I would've gone too. Ha!
The totally rad "Lambourghini" which I drove for 3+ hrs to Margaret River to visit Aunty Dolores' family. Its a 20 year old Holden Commodore.. Pretty crap car haha.
The home of Aunty Dolores' mother! Its pretty incredible. Something like 20 different varieties of roses, at least, and all kinds of fruit plants too! Not to mention other flowers and vegetables and herbs and shrubs and plants, all crammed in a half acre spread. Thats 2000 square foot, btw.
My parents with roses! Aren't they cute? Awwwww.
Tammy! Shes starting to pose for the camera a lot now.. Haha. Shes gonna be gorgeous when she grows up, man.
Me! Under some lemons. Haha. I just found the lemons amusing, thats all. There were also oranges, mandarins, apples, grapes, pumpkins, cherry tomatos, figs.. and probably more that I don't remember.
No particular reason for this pic, except that this is (apparently) the Wisteria plant. Only reason I posted it is cos it reminded me of Desperate Housewives.. haha.
And she is of course the reason why Desperate Housewives is stuck in my head. Same reason for all the guys in the TV watching world, I think. Haha.
Went walking through the bush with Gary. Was pretty bloody hard work, especially with a bum ankle that was giving me trouble. The bush is pretty overgrown. Reminded me of jungle bashing in tekong, except it wasn't as hot and muddy and there weren't any mosquitos. And its much more fun of course! Saw some gorgeous views there.
We hiked to the bottom of a valley and found this pretty little brook. Clarkes Brook, I think. It had the clearest, freshest, tastiest water! We refilled our water bottles there. Followed the river upstream, and found a lot of curious small man made dams. Found out why later.
The river was dammed up to form a lake for this house there! Its basically a summer mansion, I think. It even had a dock, with swimming pool ladder, sticking into the lake! Whoever owns it must be absurdly rich man, because that area is supposed to be government land. Gary was pretty pissed that his childhood playground was tainted like that.
Tammy smooching Laura! Aren't they the prettiest, prettiest girls ever? Haha they're basically about the same size though Laura is one year younger. Oh Laura is Gary's step-granddaughter, by the way. Shes a little farmer girl!
Well yea okay thats about it! I got more pics la but I'm lazy haha. It was a totally excellent trip man! Can't wait to get back.
Gotta do more fishing, and maybe some coonacking! Haha.
posted by Đirestraits @ 8:54 pm
1 comments
I'm home, and its so bloody bloody hot!
Wah. Will post pics later after I shower, unpack and reacclimatise!
*sweating bullets*
posted by Đirestraits @ 6:36 pm
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Its a beautiful day! I love this country. Bright sunny weather, clear skies, and not too dry for my (delicate?) skin. The budgies in the aviary in my host's backyard are chirping non-stop! They're pretty adorable! All dressed in bright yellows, whites, greens, browns and blues. I'll post some photos when I'm back.
The wedding I came here for was yesterday! It was bloody hot (but humidity was low, so still better than back home), but the garden wedding was gorgeous! Most gorgeous backdrop, with grassy fields, a pond with ducks gliding across it, bridges and arches and flowers dotting the landscape. And the groom was handsome, bride was absolutely radiant =)
I think I'd like a garden wedding too.. haha. No dinner banquet and "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM SENG!" for me, please.
You can see a photo from the wedding here.
Many many more photos here, but its gonna take a bloody long time to load.
Y'know I realise that I like the suburbs lifestyle much more than I do the city life. I'm not really one for shopping and all that, as many of you know.. Give me a guitar, some tabs, maybe some wood and knife for whittling, and i'll go sit under a tree in a field and be happy as a peach =)
Oh by the way, I'm staying at Gary and Dolores' home right now, in Rockingham, south of Perth city. And its a gorgeous home! Loads of space. And a huge backyard (thats where the aviary is). And a room with a full audio set up, mics, amps, guitars, the works! Thats the room I'm staying in.. haha. Loads of jamming going down here, baby.
And I love the fact that cars here are so cheap, man! Gary's Ford Falcon is a big fat sedan with a 4.1L engine (v8?) and it only cost AUD$31000! That wouldn't even buy a Kia Picanto back home.
The pace of life here is much slower.. Everyone knows this, of course. But last night the whole group spent something like 4 hours shooting makeshift blowdarts through a makeshift blowpipe at balloons, and after the balloons were popped, beer cans.. Haha. Can you imagine doing that in Singapore? Everyone else would look at you and go "Siao arh, le?"
Yea well I'm seriously considering emigrating here now, maybe when i'm 30, 35 or so. I'm not really a people person, so I don't need the city life. My brother is all for the city, fast cars, high life back home, but not me.
Me, I'd be happy to go driving SUV's in the bush or dune riding at the beach with Graham, Aunty Dolores' sister's husband. He was telling me about it yesterday, and man does it sound fun! Especially since he blasts Metallica.. haha.
But these are all just idle thoughts, of course. I still have lots of life to go through. And I suppose when I get married (once I'm financially stable anyway) my priorities will change.
Right now though, I'd just dream.
All you people studying overseas, you know how lucky you are? Just to be able to experience a different kind of lifestyle for a couple of years. Ahh well.
Still NUS for me.
(Sorry, I'm rambling again. Can't really concentrate, get myself into the right mindframe to write well, or properly at least. This place seems to ooze laidbackness.)
posted by Đirestraits @ 8:30 am
2 comments
I decided to stay up a bit so I can sleep well on the plane tmr morning la.
I'm waking up at 6.15am!!??!!? Haha.
So yea.. Luggage packed. Suit, dress shirt, tees, polo tees, and some berms. And some knives, razors that I can't put in my hand carriage.
And in the hand carriage I have JD's Amazing Toiletries Pack sans razor! Which currently consists of toothbrush, toothpaste, facial wash, pore cleanser gel, body powder, contact lenses, lens solution, cologne, comb, plasters, facial wipes.
Theres also two books, Margaret Atwood's Blind Assasin and a book on Cariology.
Theres also lots of tissue paper, my very cool (i think) notefile, pen and pencil and i can't remember what else.
Well I then spent the next two hours MSN chatting with Ben about (what else) finances and cars in relation to the former.. I think its good to plan for the future.. Work things out. Of course, you'll never know what will happen in times to come. But its always good to be prepared, if only to have a goal to work towards.. So thanks bro, for getting me thinking too! Heh.
Hmm anyway, after I packed, I also spent some time thinking about poetry. Y'know, I actually quite like poetry.. I think i mentioned that many blogtries ago, after watching Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
Reason I started thinking about poetry is cos Lester wrote a little 4 line poem and asked me to comment on it.. of course, I can't possibly reproduce it here.. Haha. I could however reproduce a poem i wrote for the Creative Arts Programme in '99.
Except, now looking at my portfolio I realise i didn't write any poems.. Haha. As i recall you need to submit 10 items of play, prose and poetry, with at least 2 categories. So I used 9 essays I wrote for school and knocked off a play in 15 minutes.. Haha.
So, before I go to sleep (and fly off to Perth in about 7 plus hours), instead, let me insert a beautiful poem a once close friend sent to me, a few years ago..
Evening Solace
By Charlotte Bronte
The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;--
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.
But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.
And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back--a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!
And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress--
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.
posted by Đirestraits @ 1:20 am
0 comments
I'm leaving for Perth tomorrow morning! I'll blog later if I have the time (or rather if I have something to write). Anyway I should really start packing.. hmm.
Cheers! Be back in 8 days!
(Update)
Packing luggage is a bitch man. At least, its a bitch when you have to try and fit a suit into your luggage. And dress shoes. And sandals. Can't even use a bag for my suit cos the bag don't fit in my luggage bag, so now my suit is probably getting really creased.. Haha.
While packing I realised something though.
My clothes cupboard is in a huge mess.
The reason the original picture is so huge is cos thats the default setting of my new digicam and I can't be bothered to resize it. Besides, its also to dissuade people from enlarging the picture and inspecting what strange clothes i have: "Eyerh whats that flowery blue thing?" "Is that a bright gold shirt I spy?" "Eh, pink!"
Thats after removal of 2 full bags of clothes to be karang gunied, when I cleaned up my cupboard a few weeks back la. And excluding a full laundry basket. And i've still got about 2 fieldpacks worth of army attire downstairs.
I was wondering for awhile if I have too much clothes, but Kevin assured me that I don't.. he has more =p Lol.
How do you ladies out there manage having so much clothes? (Here I'm making a sexist, but probably true, assumption) I mean, with tops, bottoms, dresses, double the underwear and I don't know what else. Then again women probably have ten times as much footwear than I do. I suppose its a gender thing.
But well. Totally stuck in this trap of having too much clothes. Just keep buying new ones, and wearing the new ones, and thus disregarding the old ones.
I think I regularly use (regularly meaning wear at least once a year) at most 1/3 to of my wardrobe.
I have like 20 dress shirts, at least, and 3 suits and 2 sport jackets. Which I probably won't use regularly till I'm out of university. And by then they'll probably all be mouldy. Jeez.
Mental note: Clear out cupboard after coming back from Perth and donate clothes to Salvation Army.
posted by Đirestraits @ 11:04 am
0 comments
I've been such a guy these two days! Its fun to just, y'know, act like a normal guy.. forget about studying and work and all that.
All immature and shit, know what I mean?
Lots of playing of XBox, of course.
Watching sports with beer and chips. (Okay actually thats tomorrow. Formula 1 Season, baby! FERRARI!!!!)
Reading crap but hilariously funny books by authors like Dave Barry, Drew Carey, Tim Allen. (I read fast)
And last night I had a good time jamming with part of the brotherhood. Jamming rocks man! Its been too long since i've done it. Completely forgot how fun it is to just play music with a bunch of guys.
Admittedly last night was a poor facsimile of how jamming should be, since there were only three guys and one of them just picked up the guitar recently.. But I still had fun.
When I came home I listened to some of the songs my secondary school bands recorded.. sounds good man! Well maybe not damn good, and probably not as good as the stuff my bands in JC and army did. But it was very obvious we were having a damn good time, lots of cheering and laughing..
I miss those good old days. In all my latter day bands, theres more stress, politics even. Always trying to make the most out of practices, searching for songs, looking for individual parts, arranging it to make it sound professional, I dunno.
I just want to get out there with a loud mic and a rocking guitar, y'know?
In secondary school jinming and I used to go peninsular plaza after school to jam for an hour. We did 2 man "Smells like Teen Spirit". It was pure unadulterated noise, but total release, I tell you.
Its not something we'd do nowadays, I suppose, after being exposed to how good bands can actually sound.. but its a fond memory, y'know? Nostalgia. And for me that'll always be how jamming should be.
Not so much the sound, or the music, but the spirit of just rocking out.
Yea and tonight Jinming came over for us to work on our Spudgun again.
For the uninitiated, a spudgun is basically just something that fires potatos. Usually it works on combustion of gases such as propane or butane, or in more advanced cases they can be pneumatic.
We're just making a simple one, really, and if the potato would fly 20 metres we'd be damn happy.
Because so far we've spent i think up of 8 hours on it and we still can't get it to work la. At least now we've figured out how to get the ignition system to work.. Nearly burnt my eyebrows off just now when it fired off unexpectedly =P
Haha see what great fun it is to be a guy. Sure, girls may have much more fun, I dunno, dressing up or gossiping or shopping for shoes..
But guys get to stick 500 plus sparklers into a can and light it all at one go!
Ooooooh, yummy. And incidentally these are just before/after pics. Can't get any pics of the actual explosion unless you want searing white patches! We have vids, though! Haha
Guys rock, man. Getting away with occasional immaturity rocks. Haha.
Time to play some guitar! Haha maybe I'll do some speed drills on my electric.. or work on my jazz intonation.
Oh I realise that cos of my guitar playing the music I listen to is actually quite limited.. A lot of what I listen to I do because of the guitar parts.
And I tend to like slower stuff now.. maybe I'm just getting old at 20 going on to 21 la.
While driving just now, I listened to this Hiphop/R&B cd a friend burnt for me.. After two songs I nearly barfed. I'm totally out of it, man... Not my scene any longer.
Maybe in a year or so I'll be back in the mood.. but for now, sooth me, dear Joss, dear Norah.
P.S. Yea, I know, yesterday's "JD, you're a machine" campaign didn't work, alright? Don't rub my face in it. I'll try again tomorrow.
posted by Đirestraits @ 12:42 am
0 comments
Last night I fell asleep at around 9pm.. Or could be 8pm. I'm not sure.
I turned on the TV, American Idol was on. Got pretty disgusted at the performer, some whiny guy in a cap, so I switched the TV off again. Then I lay on the bed under my blanket and started reading a book.
No sermons about reading while lying down now. I've been doing it since I was a kid and I don't intend to change, dammit.
So anyway yea, I just knocked off. With the lights on and everything. Y'know, if I had a dime for each time that happened.. haha! Especially while studying for exams! "The inertia of an object is the force times the... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Point is, I woke up at bloody 3am! And couldn't bloody get back to sleep again!
I know I've been trying to sleep earlier and wake up earlier in preparation for uni life, but this is just bloody ridiculous.
Right now I'm watching the sunrise. Or at least, watching the effects of the sunrise on the sky.. a slow reddening spreading across the heavens.. Like blood across the dancefloor. (Hmm where did that reference come from? Strange.)
Anyway yea this uncontrolled lazy aimless lifestyle of mine has got to change! I've been trying to exert discipline on it by tidying up my cupboards, desk, shelves, room, everything. So I'll only have the most hardworking objects (e.g. textbooks, literary classics, weights, gyroscope) at hand.
Though I'm still trying to garner up the mental fortitude required to move my TV (and XBox!!!) into the corner of my room.
Discpline, JD. You're a machine.
Someone call a repairman?
posted by Đirestraits @ 7:03 am
0 comments
Sensitive Medieval Gentleman? Super Macho Guy? Sub-Machine Gun? Silently Mad Goonybird?
Yet another guy hurling his trash all over the great rubbish dump of the universe. (Well not really. Just trying to fill each space, really. Unfilled blanks make me feel rather uneasy. Like they're going to swallow up the world or something.)
