moved back

HERE

Fading

I’ve already walked all the way back
My heart is so shattered; you wont believe it
I asked you what are the remains of our relationship
But you refused to reply
The only thing I could do was to guess
And all my guesses turned out to be wrong

My tears are drowning out my sorrow
Your only consolation to me was the lost of hope
Why am I the one getting punished
When you are the one who’s lying
Why don’t you just take a knife and stab me at my heart

I can take the pain over and over again
You can do the wrong things over and over again
I wont run away from the promise that you broke
I turn around to let you cling on to me
But you made use of my generosity

I listened to this song again today, and I realised that it no longer reminds me as strongly of you as it did before. I realised that some parts of my memories are fading away already.

*

As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, it’s identity fragmented into endless reflections. …I was plunged into a new world of images and sensations, peopled by characters who seemed as real to me as my room. Page after page I let the spell of the story and its world take me over…”

There, Carlos Ruiz Zofon, Spanish writer who lives in Barcelona, had already reviewed his own masterpiece, the Shadow of the Wind, within the book itself. For once, after reading an epic type of a good book, I’m speechless. I don’t really know what to say. The Shadow of the Wind is a mystery, but within it there are hundreds of mirrors for us to look into. Stories within stories to unfold. It is more than a mystery.

It was Barcelona in 1940s. This is the first Spanish book I’d read (it’s english translation, of course), the first time I come across strange spanish words, Spain’s culture, fragments of their history and wartime memories. The Shadow of the Wind is about a bunch of people bound together by a destiny they cannot escape… and it’s painful to read about them. Except that Zafon gives us a chance at redemption, in a way, through Daniel, protagonist of the book. Daniel found a book written by a mysterious author, and proceeded to look for other books written by this author, only to find out that someone had been mysteriously buying all of these books and burning them to ashes. As the story of this mystery unfolded, Daniel realised that his life was starting to screw up as well, and it is getting a tad too similar to that of the mysterious author.

*

Some nice passages from the book:

The two friends looked at each other in the sticky light of the cafe, spellbound. The last time they had seen each other face-to-face, they were half the age they were now. They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they’d been dealt or to the way they had played them.

Later, once night had fallen, our lips met, and in the shelter of that pressing darkness, we removed our clothes, which smelt of fear and of death. I wanted to remember Miquel, but the fire of those hands on my stomach stole all my shame and my grief. I wanted to lose myself in them, even though i knew that at dawn, exhausted and perhaps overcome by contempt for ourselves, we would be unable to look each other in the eye without wondering what sort of people we had become.

I was afraid of listening to Julian and starting to believe, as he did,  that we are all bound together in a strange chain of destiny…

*

I realised that I always like to read about what time do to us physically and to our hearts and souls. It just makes me really sad and makes me want to treasure what I have now. But as usual, time slips by so quickly without you knowing… it just leaves you with a bundle of regrets and remorse at the end of it all.

I realised after reading that Murakami is a little like a mystery kind of writer as well. Ishiguro too. Maybe I’m the mystery-reading type of girl. Haha! Next I’m gonna read The World According to Garp by one of Murakami’s fave authors, John Irving. I MUST finish it!

I hope the rest of my holidays will go as I wish.

I miss the old times ):

I was looking through my Ringo account just now. There’s about 1000 or more photos inside. Has all the photos I took from all the way back to Sec 4.. Which was like 2 years ago. And I realised how much I miss things in the past..

#1

I miss the time when I was still using a 1. something Megapixels camera and when I still bothered to take act-cute pictures of myself & make them into collages.

they look so EEEWish to me now!

#2

I never realised how much I miss hanging out with my brother till I saw the pictures we took! He used to come over to NP from SP everyday to accompany me. We would go just about anywhere. And I always sneakily take photos of him when he was sleeping on the bus.

This was the time we went to McRitchie and there was a sunset. So nice!

#3

I miss Hongkong, and I miss carrying a big bagpack and walking around like real travellers. I miss eating good food for 6 days consecutively and coming home heavier by 5 kg… Miss wearing really thick clothes and enjoying the cold weather (it was winter at that time). I miss the big big advertisements on the buildings of HongKong, and the way their shop’s signs always seem bigger than thou. I really regret not bringing any diaries along for recording, because now, my memory of my only trip overseas is fading.. Though I still remember Krispy Kreme (a donut shop that sells donuts that are BEYONG yumminess) & going to Ocean Park and taking just about every ride over there. (Yes, even the vertical drop!)

#4

I miss… Chye Tee. Haha! I miss the days when I still met her regularly, just to update each other about our lives and gossip. I remember we used to meet every Wednesday because it was the only day both of us end early. There was more than once when we chatted about our family and nearly cried together. I really treasure all those memories together. I miss how much we camwhore and just go crazy, laughing and talking loudly together. How we remember each other’s embarrassing past and never fail to remind each other so as to laugh at each other. Haha.

#5

I miss my 4e2 classroom. ):

#6

I miss Lockie, and the times when we used to go to East Coast Park every Sunday when my mum was still not sick.

#7

I miss my Grandparents, and that time when me and my sister went over to stay with them for 3 days. I remember my grandfather was so excited that he laid a mattress on the floor beside his bed way before we arrived. It was just like the old times when we were young, and used to sleep on the mattress beside his bed. Over that 3 days, they told us stories of their lives when they were younger… and they were so happy when my sister treated them to dinner with her pay. I must go and see them soon!

#8

I miss Jump, and our netball days from Sec 1 to Sec 2. I remember how we all used to laugh at Huijun because we thought she was weird. (well she definitely is not!) Also how I used to hate Chyetee so much and I knew that the feeling was mutual. We thought each other were bitches. And Dee was also behaving abit strangely in those days. But when almost all the people of our age left Netball, there were only 4 of us left, and naturally we became a clique and really good friends. I miss the times when we met everyday during recess and eat our biscuits. Hahaa, I can still remember how hard Huijun hit our breasts and butts and don’t expect it to be painful at all. And dropping ice into the back of our shirts. I miss meeting them at least once every half a year for a catch up session. Miss our phototaking sessions…Gossiping and crying (Dee!) together. Miss how we used to stay back after school for netball sessions with the juniors and end up being irritated with them. Haha!

 

#9

AG. Of course they will be part of the things I miss. They were the biggest group of friends in my life. I miss how we used to be so much like a big family. The whole group of us going to the street soccer court, them teaching me and Chyetee soccer, the whole group of us staying over at each other’s house, meeting everyday for mahjong sessions, going to the playground for gaming sessions or just talking cock sessions, barbeque sessions where we joked and had so much fun, smashing birthday cakes into each other’s faces, splashing water at each other that time at Jonathan’s house, and how we can put aside our differences as boys and girls and have all the fun together. I remember how the boys used to take care of me and Chyetee because we sort of created a lot of trouble for them (there was once when we had a quarrel with 5n1 people at the street soccer court), and also from pervertic guys, etc.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Why did he use the word ‘pursuit’? Is it because we can never really get happiness at the end of the day?

I’ve just finished watching The Pursuit of Happyness staring Will Smith and I’m really touched. Will Smith is such a good actor! The child actor is actually his real son. No wonder there was a kind of chemistry between them. So sweet! Anyway, it’s actually a real success story by Chris Garner, who is a millionaire now (I’m so happy for him!).

It basically shows the hardships Chris had to go through before finding success at the end. There will always be a rainbow after the rain that you thought was never going to stop. His wife left him because his business, selling bone density scanners, was at a losing end and she couldn’t take it anymore. Since she would be unable to take care of their son alone, she left him with him and got him to promise to take care of him.

Then the story started. The rollercoaster ride of his life. At times it seemed as if times were going to be okay, but it went down again. Towards the end, they were kicked out of their rented house & had to queue up to live in the shelter for homeless people each day… and while doing this he had to sell his scanners during the weekends, and go for his internship in a big investment firm. Only 1 out of 20 interns would be hired after 6 months (which he obviously got it at the end).

It’s inspiring to see how hardworking he is. He had so much will, determination and courage to change his life for the better. We should all be like that. He’s a real role model we should look up to.

I love good movies, especially a moving one. People, please watch this and get inspired!

A thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

I’ve finally finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, the second book of Khaled Hosseini, and when I say that it’s heartbreaking, I mean it.

After reading it… I don’t know. A strange, melancholic feeling overwhelmed me. The thing about this book is that I disapproved of it at the start. I thought it was cliché at some parts, the writing rather essay-like and the characters unlikable. But towards the end I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t force myself to like the book at all… I didn’t want to, but then I did. I love it.

Throughout the book, Hosseini striked me as being too brutally honest; all the facts of Afganistan’s history and the struggle for survival among people and the unfair treatment between men and women. In my heart, I know that such things really happened many years ago, and is still happening now, in not only Afganistan but many other parts of the world. It is all so painful, but true. That some people out there are really living like that. Somewhere out there, people live with the fear of the possibility of dying at any moment every second of their life. I bet I will never have as much courage as them if I were to be in their position.

Reading this second book of Hosseini was like taking a roller coaster ride… through Kabul and into the lives of people living there. I felt like I was putting myself in jeopardy at one point. I asked myself, what if every time I walked out of my home, I have to risk the possibility of having a bullet fly in my face, causing me to lose everything I love and hold so closely to my heart? I bet I wouldn’t have been as brave as the characters in the book. But I know that somewhere in the world there is someone brave like them, and I admire them from the bottom of my heart.

I don’t know whether its true, but from A Thousand Spendid Suns, I could see how unfairly treated are women in Afganistan. Men are supposed to far more ‘superior’ to women, and women have to cover themselves with burqa everywhere they go because their ‘face is only their husband’s business’.

Seeing how Mariam, as a women in Afganistan, struggled through life; nothing was right for her from the start. She was a harami(meaning Bastard in english); something that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Her fight for happiness cost her to lose the only thing she realised she have, her mother, and put herself in a even more unfortunate position as the wife of Rasheed. She was unable to conceive, and was beaten and scorned at daily by her husband, and when she finally found love from Laila and Aziza, she had to sacrifice herself for their happiness. She’s one of the most tragic and noble charactors I’ve ever come across. I pity her, yet I admire her even more. How could one have that much courage? Spectating the hardships she had to go through, I felt that I was way too lucky. Too stupid and childish and sometimes too concerned about things that don’t really matter sometimes.

Laila, on the other hand, was a prestigous child. She had a bright future planned ahead by her father, when she still had women rights when the Soviet came and took over Afganistan and made them communists. Men and women were equal then. But things changed when she lost her family to the war… Just like that. On the day when they finally had hope that things were going to get better, they just fell apart like that. But life wasn’t unkind to her as compared to Mariam. She had a chance at redemption, to redeem the things and people she really loved.

This book just made me so fucking happy that I’m living in a free and democratic country, and am given the rights that a human being is supposed to have. That women here are not treated merely slightly more contemptible than those Soviets who killed millions of Afgans.

I’ve always told myself that I wanted to experience everything in life, because looking at Singapore on the big scale, she is just like a drop of seawater in the Pacific Ocean. But I realized I just don’t have the courage. It’s one thing to admire someone who can summon the courage and really travel to places like Afganistan where people really need help, and it’s another thing to really do it.

Well, overall, I just think this book is damn good. From the Afterword, I understand that Hosseini works for the UNrefugee agency, and I could really see how much he loves his country and wants to help the unfortunate people who, like the charactors in the book, lived in fear every day during the war and had no choice but to escape to other countries to live as refugees.

I swear I must try to help this people someday, and start appreciating my life more from this minute. I love Hosseini. Thanks for bringing us this beautiful tale. (:

my addiction

I’ve started a new blog again. It’s because I’ve always wanted my blog to be wordy, but the previous one wasn’t. I love words so much. throw me in a house for one month with a pile of books and I tell you, I can just not move, sit there and read all day, unless I need to eat or go to the bathroom.

Let me try to introduce myself. It is hard. Normally people leave out details they don’t like about themselves. They only write the kind of themselves they want people to think they are. But i shall think to be as honest as possible.

I escape comtemplating myself all the time, because i know things i do and think are not agreeable most of the time. I’m a terrible person, yet i get disdainful when people do terrible things that i might do as well. I am that irritating and self-centred. I definitely dont like the way i am. The way i am such a disaster emotionally, financially, in friendships, relationships and my family. Someone should just kill me.

Okay, i think that’s enough. To know more, please continue reading my blog in future!

Below are some people i LOVE(:

YONGFENG

COCO

MY SISTER(:

EX-CLASSMATES!

Classmates<3

JUMP