The other day, I had the biggest thrill due to work. I make merry and laugh with my colleagues rather than family or friends. I’ve grown exceedingly fond of my space at work. I feel very engaged when I do work, rather than anything else. Sometimes I’m tired of my friends but I could always rotate between the colleagues I hang out with.

—

I was thinking about public transport recently. The buses and MRTs always hold a special place in my heart because it represents freedom for me. Until I moved to Singapore, my movement was dictated by the family car and not very much by choice. One never really has the freedom to go anywhere just because you wanted to. Taking public transport by myself gives me a special kind of pleasure, perhaps one not shared by many others since it’s been taken for granted.

The one thing I really love about money is that it enables me to travel where I want (and also budget airlines). Travel is an exercise of independence and freedom to me. I like to do what I want, whenever I like it and I guess this is what makes me a poor travel partner.

—

And things are fast changing. I guess nothing can ever really stay the same. Sometimes I wonder if I have been frozen while everything flows on ahead of me. I guess it’s one of those times when you feel that way.

—

At any rate, I’m one of those people who have no life. It wouldn’t be a problem except I can’t decide if this is a good thing or bad.

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Quality Time – 9 (30%)
Physical Touch – 9 (30%)
Acts of Service – 5 (17%)
Receiving Gifts – 4 (13%)
Words of Affirmation – 3 (10%)

(The highest score you can get is 12.)

Brief analysis: Strong preferences for Quality Time and Physical Touch while the other three “languages” get a fairly close score.

What do I think of this: Well, I know that if I didn’t like someone, I wouldn’t spend so much time with them. So I can agree with quality time. I know that I tend to find what people say (rather than, say, what they do) to be more suspect because, really, you can say whatever you like. But I have to disagree that it’s the least important because what people say or don’t say is very important as well.

For physical touch, I think that if it’s someone I have a crush on or a lover, yes, that’s very important. But for friends and the like, not so much and I don’t really like to be touched (in fact, I don’t appreciate it when people who have no business invading my space does so). As for Acts of Service and Receiving Gifts, I don’t really require it but I do appreciate it.

—

Do you agree with this? From what you have observed of me?

—

I was reading some of Gabriel’s posts and he quoted someone who said:

[On why he runs away] This is my thought process. If a girl likes me, then there must be something really fucked up with her mind.

Sigh. It seems to be something that plagues guys more than girls and I feel quite sad when someone says this.

—

I was also thinking of how I would give my time to those who have the need to speak about something or tend not to turn down others when they ask me out. I wonder if it is because I value quality time that this is something I’m quite willing to give those I’m fond of?

—

Sometimes, I really hate this kind of test. It’s one of those mental exercise that gets you pigeon-holing yourself into a certain category and then you look at it all and say, you know, all this important. But then I admit that my fantasies tend to revolve around being touched by the one you love and such. Sigh. And it still doesn’t escape the reality that it’s kinda meaningless if there’s no one to appreciate all this.

Ahaha… FML.

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Noooo…

Went and had a fun day at the Singapore Art Museum today with colleagues.

Had dinner with Joanna. It was nice meeting up with her and catch up. Yang Le got Thai married. Joanna tried to matchmake(?) me to some guy on her Facebook (hahah, okay, the abs are quite okay lah). Rating guys. Trying out clothes. Walking around. Of dolphins and Sheldon.

Although I’m quite sure I don’t want kids and feel little need to get hitched, I’m not very sure what I would want to do. I’m not sure I can take my cue from the examples around me. All I am sure is that things need to remain interesting and keep me from ennui of the sort that makes death more appealing. But I guess that won’t happen as long as I have my faculties about me and not become disabled in some way.

I seem to be able to grasp better the patterns to my energy level, moods and feelings pegged to the menstrual cycle. Sometimes, it’s such a pain being female. Why can’t I just feel the same way the whole time? And the irony is that the whole point of going through these changes is to be ready for being pregnant which I am NOT going to be if I could help it.

I also read how anorexic girls can make their periods stop altogether because their body fat went down to such low levels. Young girls reach menarche on the achievement of a certain percentage of body fat, the reverse would make sense. However, I like eating too much to try what the anna girls do. On the other hand, if it’s just a matter of eliminating body fat, overexercise can also achieve the same results. Well, either way, it just takes too much effort. Maybe if I had nothing better to do, I would try it.

Otherwise, a relatively easy measure is to take oral contraception which simulates the body in pregnancy. It’s still a pain to have to take everyday though. Hahah… you know what, I just want a damn magic pill and make all of it go away.

Hmm, but no one has done a study on the effects of not having periods have on mood. There’s a lot of symptoms to taking oral contraception (sometimes it’s even worse than being on a menstrual cycle — but varies from person to person) but is there one about people who consciously reduce their body fat in order to avoid menstruation? It would not be ideal to conduct the study on people who have eating disorders, because anorexia and bulimia may cloud the issues. I want to know because if I ever undertake this, I want to know that it actually achieves what I want (ie. having neutral and consistent mood).

But I wonder how possible it is? It would take insane amounts of exercising… on the level of Olympic athletes? And it needs to be maintained because the body likes to store fat for a rainly day, especially for women as our purpose in life is to be baby machines (evolutionarily-speaking). To make possible, it has to revolve an entirely different way of life which I don’t see myself getting into anytime soon.

Then again, I might be insane enough to go extreme adventuring one day. But again, it would be a difficult lifestyle to maintain beyond a few months. Unless the world descends into anarchy and we return to primordial times. Huh, all that to achieve no menses.

Another thing I’m quite sure about myself is that I lack the kind of discipline for world changing. More often than not, I am very content to be where I am and feel little need to change.

I was looking at the Billboard Top 100 and Robin Thicke apparently has another song out, “Sex Therapy”! I really like it, it sounds good. Haha.

Current music nowadays follow a certain beat. Very familiar across many many of them. For me, I do like it as it makes the song very catchy. And as with literature, it’s interesting to explore the variations until it’s entirely exhausted and a new fad takes its place.

I really feel tempted to buy a Nexus One and I check the exchange rates every night on the off chance that one day the S$ will be stronger than the US$ (ahahah, never happening).

I don’t know how to explain I am quite leery because of some trust issues I have. The last time it happened, it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences so there needs to be some assurance it won’t happen again and threaten to ruin what was a perfectly good thing. Huh. I guess that does it. I guess it’s just a matter of making it known. Hey, maybe I’ve already made it known since some smartypants are so good at figuring stuff out!

When I fall asleep at the keyboard, it’s a signal I need to go sleep.

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Never drink coffee after 2pm or it’ll keep me awake all night.

I drank because I was really tired… slept at 2.30am yesterday night.

This. is. just. a. vicious. cycle.

(If caffeine affected me this badly, I wonder what other narcotics would do. Maybe I could get a full-blown psychotic episode. Hmm. Okay, maybe that’s too scary.)

One thing I notice is that I tend to feel, I don’t know… too alert? Paranoid? Caffeine does funny things to me.

Actually now that I think about it, 2pm would measure how long a cuppa has an effect on me. And if I can’t sleep until 3 or 4am, it means that one cup is good for at least 12 hours. Holy crap. I never made the connection with my 2pm rule.

Huh, I do discover new things by writing and thinking.

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A terrible thought has moved into my mind
Like an unwanted room-mate drunk on wine
It feeds on my happiness won’t pay the rent
I must take proper measures to evict it

A terrible thought has moved into my mind
A giant rat that’s nibbling on my pride
It’s tearing away my patience and my wit
I must take proper measures set a trap for it

What a terrible thought

I don’t care what you’ve done
I don’t care who you’ve won
I know in the end you’ll have your fun

But you can’t have it hear
And I won’t let you steer
You know I don’t want you in my mind

I must stay calm you know and I must be clear
It’s gonna take a hundred thoughts to make this one disappear
A train like that could travel a soul for years
A terrible thought could have a terribly long career

What minds have you shredded
I bet they regretted
Having ever thought you up
Just look at you shine
Commiting your crimes
You know I don’t want you in my mind

‘Cause you’re breaking my stride
You poisonous vine
You’re strangling me inside
You’re breaking my stride
You poisonous vine
You’re strangling me inside
You’re breaking my stride

What a terrible thought…

Father :
What is your greatest worry because you seem to be worried all the time

Daughter:
Sometimes I can’t hear myself think

Father:
You have to speak a little louder,
I can’t understand a word you’re saying

Daughter :
Sometimes I can’t hear myself think

And I was reading my comics and came across something that might explain my friend’s condition (for which I still haven’t quite figured out). But I’m not sure because it may be two symptoms with one cause? Or is it multiple causes which results in this one (visible) symptom. I wish I knew what to do though. And I’m always slow and a step behind everything. Sigh.

—

The wound on my right knuckle still hasn’t shed and has instead hardened to a point. It’s like a scab but doesn’t quite look like it. I feel like peeling off the stupid thing but probably not a good idea. On the other hand, it looks like the one on my right foot has healed but it is awfully discolored. Both of them actually. According to some quick googling, it would return to normal in 6-18 months. I guess I’m stuck with it for now.

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Well, no, not being single per se. But I think gaining some romance experience is good. Not to say I’m a know-it-all (hardly by far), but there are highs and lows to romance that isn’t replicated in other experiences in life. There is nothing quite like holding hands with someone, kissing, having sex, spending a late evening in a world made up of two.

I think that the longer one goes without it, the mythic qualities of romance become increasingly conspicuous. It’s best to live with a more down to earth view of things, I think. Getting to the point of “so it’s like that” is a good thing, in my view.

And anyway, I prefer to know what I like and what I don’t through actual experience than some nebulous half-formed expectation.

For me, what I learned is:

1) Maybe it hurts not to be reciprocated but there’s nothing like love to make you feel deeply and more alive.
2) Tactile encounters with another human being is very nice.
3) It’s beneficial to experience negative emotions just so you know how it feels. That way you don’t underestimate it as much in the future.
4) Minor but it helps you read poetry better. Hahah.

So what I want to say is, there are many enjoyable things you can do with another person. I don’t mean that one must be attached but at least go date someone, go out, have a great time together. It’s pretty fun and you have nice memories to look back on even if things don’t work out.

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To all these things came from the love of reading. Being drawn to the library was my first separation from the crowd, to take myself away from the socialising during lunch breaks and conversations. And over time, this forms a pattern, in being absent from all the small struggles in social life so that one somehow always keeps away at arm’s reach.

And I think nothing quite compares with the imagination of words to the humdrum and repetitive everyday life. To be attuned to the dramatic arc is to find the flat line of life rather unexciting, to say the least.

And then finding that being contrary turns up all kinds of novel and interesting experiences. Why did she study History instead of Geography? Why the Arts and not Science? Why did a choir girl choose IT club? Why did she take part in Temasek Titans? Why does she like the strange, honest ones? Why did she gravitate towards sociology? In some ways, these things made up for what she had missed out in the beginning. But it always retained a slightly strange aura as things did not so much happen to her as to happen around her.

At the end of it all, it is the action of a bored mind. It is an attitude that says, “Let’s see where this takes me.” It is also a lazy mind because I don’t set out to wrought a kind of outcome but only hoping to find something unexpected along the way. And so little has been done to develop skills in planning, but much has been done to develop positioning and maneuvering.

I wonder how far this will carry me through life? It’s not the most effective way of getting anywhere… but certainly a way to being somewhere all the time.

(Thoughts on a Sunday morning.)

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—

Gerald is leaving. See you in 10 months. I’ll miss your utter lameness but I’m sure you can channel that through Skype =P

But it just won’t be the same T_T

—

I missed my crush (there, I said it, even though I wrote not two posts ago that I didn’t want to write about him anymore) when I was in Cambodia (er, no not Gerald — if that’s what you were thinking, the above was just my sorrow at his departure). It’s very confusing because it may have been the potent surge of hormones prior to menstruation added to reading Eclipse which is about the pain of separation and loss. It’s not really a good time to speculate about why I feel in certain ways I guess. It’s not that I think that missing my crush is abnormal but it may be just making too much over something.

In re-reading the above paragraph, I wonder if what I want is just to feel very blandly about everything. But then I remember the joy of reciprocity (which didn’t last very long but probably opened me up to that possible and incomparable joy) and I remember the wonderful warmth of another human being. And I wonder if the experiences I had found only opened up the prospect of a long life of pain? To yearn forever what was gone? To find that I lack the strength to grasp it again in my hands?

Sigh, why am I so messed up? Just jump him already and stop thinking so much. It’s really not healthy. (I’m starting to think like my friends..?) But does anyone deserve such an unhappy and brooding creature such as I? Well, in my own defense, I rarely brood the same way as I do when I write alone in front my computer. Perhaps I should acknowledge that I do enjoy the company of others and that loneliness is my bane.

But I have already done that, many many times writing the same kind of post, but there is no progress and I find that this is another inescapable part of my existence. It never feels enough. The company of friends, good friends can assuage the pain but I never feel fulfilled. Perhaps that is key to this whole mess. That life for me has not been fulfilling beginning with starting as a loner even in my happiest period in school.

There are certainly things, material things I want but pushing past it, what is there more for me after its acquisition? I also crave experiences but I have found that it soon becomes I distant memory if it was too novel and unlikely to be repeated. I wonder if I seek wonder or contentment? Do I seek the wonder of novel, new and rare things or the content settlement into the familiar? Perhaps it is both or 2-in-1. It is hard to explain what I strive for. On the flip side of wonder is the keen sense of loss after the experience is over… and the flipside of contentment is to be petrified into the neverchanging.

And I know that, to me, the wonder of experiences never quite overcome the loss afterwards. It feels strange to say it but it drives me towards the safe… even if it makes me unhappy in some other way. Because I need to strive for both… yet it is a delicate balancing act… to risk but to also feel safe enough to do so. Calculated risk if you will.

I’m not sure where this is headed but it’s 2am and it brings out the worst in my rambling tendency. All I know is that when I’m exhausted, I should be sleeping yet I open up this blog to write about these faint insights/ravings of a fatigued mind. I must be mad to give up my hours of sleep when I know they are vital for a good day ahead. Yet this writing, it draws me like no other.

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Because:

I dunno anything about money.
All I want to do is move out into the woods and live like a hermit and commune with nature.
I have no concrete career plans.
It’s inaccurate to say I’m content but I have resigned myself to a long time of singlehood.
I’m still living in my parents’ house.
All I want to do is go shopping or kayaking or just one singular thing when the mood strikes.
I put off my chores all the time.
I think my greenness as a youth is a liability.
I don’t talk right.
I’m either too placid or too short-tempered.
All I really crave is love and sex.
I sing aloud.
I’m not too careful.
When Dan Savage says that [someone] needs their shit straightened out, I wonder if I’m one of those people.
I feel like I don’t know enough about the world.
I let my moodiness get to me.
I angst on my blog all the time.
I’d rather play than be serious. Also do silly things.
I like to annoy people.
I can be quite self-centered.
I can be swayed by contrariness.
I don’t sit up straight.

—

I really do like writing lists. Geez.

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On my bus ride home, I figured out the things made me out of sorts this week:

1) Getting lousy advice from the IT customer service rep at work when I was stressed out already and didn’t need the condescending bullshit when the fellow rejected my service request. Waste of my time.

2) Filling in a role I doubted that I was suitable for at work.

3) Losing my glasses last Sunday.

4) Getting to Kit Runners at 8.30pm when the damn place closed at 10pm (well within the time set to leave). And paying for cab fare.

5) Expecting to stop at Lau Pa Sat on the return ride back because I was dying. Then getting scared in my sleep-deprived state while crossing the road near Raffles Place MRT. Passive-aggressively cycling slowly. Ending up whining and holding up the others even though I really would have just taken a taxi after I slept it off awhile at the bus stop.

—

But if I was to talk about what made me out of sorts, there were some things that made it not so bad:

1) Olive Tree was a nice buffet. I hadn’t had such a nice one in awhile. Being at my company event was also good. Gave me quite an adrenaline rush, especially towards the end.

2) Seeing the view from Jurong Hill and feeling the night breeze.

3) Seeing Huey earlier. She asked me about the movie I watched yesterday night and listened even though I said I’m not good at telling stories. (And I’m really not.) It felt significant because it was the first time this week that someone was kind enough to prompt and listen to me talk — whether about movie or anything else. And after that on the MRT I told her about point 5 up there. That was what motivated me to write this post.

—

I think I feel much better and better able to face the week ahead. So glad for the Huey that exists in this world. <3

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