It's Ugly Alright. The Quote of the Past Few Weeks. Fuck, its real ugly to put people together that they get real good friends and divide them later. You said it, mister. padurea fermecata I know I haven’t been writing, and I have a whole lot to write about. I seem to start most of my recent bits with half-appologies, and I’m not too sure why. I take it back, take all of it back. I’m not sorry at all for the life I’ve been living, the experiences I’ve been having. It’s just that recollecting them can sometimes be a little painful. — I tried something new, a new job doing new things in an area I’m only tangentially informed about. I’m not too sure how I fared, or if I was sane to have tried it, but I’m terribly glad I did it. It’s a pity that circumstance requires it to be in past tense. — Romania, Romania, Romania. What can I say about the ASEF training programme; I learned and lived and loved and changed. I’m still grappling with things that happened, and things that the two weeks in east europe set off. — Things like returning to discover change, heartbreak, heartaches, hearts. — New projects, new alliances, new news. — As the Luxembourger would say, stay tuned to the Vic Life. My Own Agenda, and Plan Of Implementation. [1] It is one thirty in the morning, and I can’t get back to sleep. The past two weeks have been a brilliant, brilliant experience. I meant to journal and log, each and every day, but the volume of what had been done and what needed to be done and the feelings felt and mountains moved simply overwhelmed me. Being part of the process as we were, it takes your breath away. I’m still undecided: is it because of the grand scale and macro implications of the conversations we’re having that awes, or disappointment in the flaws of the system and the process and the system’s and process’ people that leaves you drained. In any case, I was there. Working two weeks with people gorgeous inside and out – and believe you me, that’s no flippant platitude; it was hard to not get distracted by all the sexy peoples of the youth caucus – leaves you with a sense of profound.. profoundness. I lie. It was easy to forget beauty, when what shines through so strongly is passion of spirit and of mind and of frustration that we can’t heal the world right now and here. The experience made certain decisions clear, made certain paths extant. There are things that need to be done, and there needs people to do them. The gulf between stakeholders must and can be bridged. I sit here and think of the people I’ve met; and while there is strong regret that I might probably never see any of them again – it isn’t easy getting the resources to attend the CSD – there is also a great reassurance that there are people out there who are trying to make a change, and who are like me. I had become anxious and cross, wondering if I were not suited for the job. The nuances of local “civil society”, and with all the heavy implications of inverted commas, jarred with my soul, and I wondered if I were not suited for the job. I’m now pretty certain that the field itself isn’t very suited for the job. I have the strength and the support of giants behind me, ties that go all over the world, and lead back into my heart and my mind. I can do this. I will do this. The time it takes for the horn to blare. I’m scurrying, printing schedules and papers and documents and speeches and notes and cases, and reading the schedules and papers and documents and notes (but no, not the cases just yet). Tiny scratches of ink, squeezing four pages on a single side of a paper, double-side printing, save the trees! But it’s all right, really, that the text is tinier than most periods period. Because it matches my handwriting, period. I’m panicking, checking and rechecking everything I have. Neat little piles that become messy piles after I try neaten them out, looking at the weather and the distance and the little fiddly things that tickle the side of your hips when you wear a pair of jeans that are just a little too snug. I’m leaving for New York in the morning, to pretend to be grown-up. While pretending to be young and bold. I look at my schedule and look at my calendar and look at myself. It looks like I haven’t left much time for New York in New York. Still. I’m off to New York in the morning. Lists Of Things. [2] A little trick I’ve been using, with regards to to-do lists: I adore Remember The Milk, for a todo list web-app that meets my needs. I can create tasks using the site itself, or e-mail, twitter, or Quicksilver (my favourite)1. While twitter is absolute love, it’s true yumminess shines through not when you use it directly. If you have your mobilephone “set-up“http://twitter.com/devices with your twitter account, you immediately have a means to create todos from wherever you are. If you’re like me, and way too broke to afford the cost of twittering from your mobile, you can use it as a notification device. It’s brilliant to get smses reminding you of deadlines and to-dos – something that you have with you, whenever. 1 The RTM plugin is here We real cool. We I haven’t been writing/typing/poking at keys in the longest time, a time that seems all that much longer simply because I can barely remember what my last bit was about. School played a big part, as it always has; deadlines and assignments and an exam (no plural, thank heavens) – the final semester was a heady rush of almost challenge. I had not missed the return to tedium, to handing in work unsatisfied with. But I’m never satisfied. In any case, it’s all over. I have graduated from the Diploma. Or will have, once they force me into that silly gown – I’m still pretty sure I don’ want to go for the ceremony. And I have done well enough to please even me. Not, perhaps, my target gpa, but what’s the point of setting attainable goals? This is the end of it all, the end of a road I took with a heavy heart. There are certain things you want to do, and certain things you need to do. This was something I needed. I left behind people, beautiful people, people I’d love forever. People whom I’ve drawn away from, simply because it’s difficult to keep reminding myself of the whatifs. And found more people, people I wasn’t expecting to find. People who made this miserable trip all that more bearable, all that more worth it, and, perhaps most importantly, people who reminded me why I was on the trip. And now, it’s all over. With a mode grade of a Distinction, with a mean gpa of 3.83, with possibly (and hopefully) a few awards on the way, it’s all over. – Oh wait. It isn’t. This was just the first step on a road. Uni, scholarships, scholarship; I can do this. I need to do this. – Job hunt, before the army. Though I’m tempted to rest for a bit. It has been a little tiring, making sure I constantly peak. But I worry I’ll fall out of practice. We can’t have that, can we? – Being a bartender was fascinating, even for just two days. The job itself was a bore – I bemoan that now, I’m a jobsnob – but the experiences were brilliant. You look and you watch, and you make stories in your head. - A lady sitting, digging up coins and pennies, actual pennies, to get a pint. A pint she made last for hours and hours, as she stared out into the river. Her dishevelled hair and clothes and bag resting on her knees starkly out of place in this chic evening crowd, offending some of my chic evening crowd, and their loud money and loud voices and loud women. I liked her. - A man waiting, with a two pints before him. His lady had popped away for a bit, he’s looking interestedly at the chic night crowd. The minutes pass, he fiddles with the glasses. He draws little designs in the trails of moisture left on the bar-top. The hour passes, and he covers his lady’s drink with a coaster. His own drink is left untouched. Another hour passes, and he leaves, both pints untainted. I pitied him. - A woman smiling hesitantly, without understanding, as a drink is placed in front of her. She nods, and smiles, without understanding, and says thank you in her heavy filipino accent, meaning each of the two words. She is sitting, facing the bar, staring at the drinks in front of her, without understanding. A group of large men, white men, stand behind her, boisterously laughing and making rude gestures, spilling drinks on the granite tiles. There seems no connection between the two poles, but for the hand of one of the men gripping tightly the wrist of the woman. He was reached behind him, to accomplish this feat; not once did he look at her. For hours she sat there, not another word, not alone, but lonely, her wrists turning white as the men drank more. I mourned for her. Sorry. [1] This particular lady keeps popping up in my thoughts. Yes, it is a Mysterious Lady, but this story isn’t wont to end up with masked bandits and riding into sunsets. It was a night, as most nights are, with dinner and drinks and friends and.. not-friends (but that’s another story); her night seemed to rather different. She was sitting alone at her table, with her glass of wine. Right in front, right near the band, she would sway to the music, occasionally singing along. There was another glass of wine, untouched, sitting across her. And it remained untouched the entire night. It’s times like this you wish you really could read someone like a book, just so that you can flip back the pages and see what happened. A pretty Mysterious Lady, sitting alone in a bar, who requested the band play Apologise. jammed networks. [1] I wanted to send out my NYE texts early this year, just to skip the jammed signals. So did just about everyone on the planet, apparently. They’ll have to wait for tomorrow, but the point is this: the whole selecting to whom it goes to has always been an important part of my my new year. It’s strangely fulfilling, looking through that list of names, hopefully matching faces and memories with most of them, deciding who it is you’ll need (networking etc etc), who is it that you want. People I’ve met over the past year, new possibilities, new potential; them I’ve known for a longer time, the changes in our relationships; the people I’m not particularly close to, but want to keep in touch with just because they remind me of a specific time of my life. It’s a way of stocktaking, really. I’m not really excited about the countdown; it’s just like any other day, this year. Why? I suppose the past years have been exciting because I was hoping the next would be better, would be good. The past year has been pretty great. I’m glad. As I intended to say, to all 125 of you – It doesn’t matter if ’07 was vaguely awesome or vaguely terrible; it’ll all be just vague in time to come. So down those shots and kill them braincells! Here’s to waking up tomorrow next to a face that’s vaguely familiar. Or vaguely human. 2008’s in for an arse-whooping. awesome stuff [1] LOVE it! coal in my stockings I’ve been Naughty. I don’t want to go into too much detail – it still makes me cringe – but let me say this: nice helpful indian boy on arab street? You didn’t deserve to be snapped at. Sorry. =( A groupmate said he’s from the same school as us. I’ll be on the lookout, with chocolate. I feel terrible. Run Spot, run. Today was the Standard Chartered Marathon 2007 you know, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have picked a full marathon. It doesn’t really make much sense to attempt 42km at your very first try, does it? Well. I’m glad I don’t have sense. It was bloody amazing. Absolutely brilliant fun. My knees are screaming bloody murder, but I could be floating on clouds for all I know. I fucking love the endorphins! The absolute best part of the run was coming down Shenton Way, where you speeding down the road, the glorious office buildings looming all around, with a blissful breeze whipping in your face, and a band joyfully blaring a march, and spectators cheering you on. I had the stupidest grin on my face the entire time, I swear. Only bit I regret is not giving a good ol’ TP OEI when I saw Temasek Poly’s Blazers cheering for the runners, but hey! Next time! Of course, it’s not to say that the run was a breeze. It was a walk in the park, but very literally so: I hit the wall for most of the East Coast Park route, and ended up walking. Still, that bit was glorious fun, for chatting up with random peoples and making promises to meet at the finishing line (that I never kept, but only because I couldn’t remember who was whom). Helps to have long legs, too; I didn’t lose too much time with the brisk walking. Next year next year next year. Maybe I should try something new. Like actually running before the marathon. That might help! And getting a bloody hair-band. My ipod died on me 5km in (all the jiggling, I bet), but I had to keep my headphones on: it kept the hair out of my eyes! Shh, but the end of the ‘phones were tucked into my shorts. Yes, there’s very little coherence to this, but I’m still bubbly and excited and achy and high. Damn. doodels (har har) southbridge I kick myself for not bringing a camera, nor noting down the musicians for the night, but last night was a Good Night. Jazz@Southbridge is one of those places I’ve always passed by and said, dayum I’ve got to come here some time, and a friend flying into town gave me the perfect reason to do just that. I adore it. Alemay on vocals, she stole my heart. I love a woman who can sing, and honey, she can sing. Eddie on bass and Boon Gee on the drums (if I remember correctly), and the pianist’s name slips my mind – they were all great, but still. She was gorgeous. Do head down, when you can. And the lamb quarter-pounder’s absolutely sumptuous! A proper review-rave will ensue once I get pictures and such; see how cleverly I give myself an excuse to return? (and hey, the cute waiting staff didn’t hurt either!)