so much to plunder that i think i'll sleep instead

you'd think the feisty little bitch could be a little more polite, considering we're being charged one hundred and fifty dollars a pop for each of her cheap little letters:

Dear Aaron,

I have already responded to Mdm Serene Lim's letter. Please note that I will not entertain any email(s) or corrrespondence from you as you are obviously not one of the borrowers.


Regards
Genevieve Sim

yeah, and would you have any "corrrespondence" at all if i wasn't bothered to send you anything? my mother won't write her own letters [probably because she knows as well as i do that her grasp of the english language is strictly informal/casual/conversational only] and you don't leave anything but a return email address and fax number. what do you want? besides, i'm not prepared to send back anything with a higher gsm [unit for paper weightage, grams per square meter] or dpi [unit for printout quality/density, dots per inch] than your photocopied literary masterpieces, and i don't print on cheap paper or send out personalized xeroxes.

let's hope genevieve is in the shamelessly vain habit of googling herself every now and then. i've no need for more legal trouble in the face of the very reason why i have to email this genevieve sim anyway, so this isn't being sent directly to genevievesim@khattarwong.com but if she hasn't responded to my mother and deciedes to be just as prissy when i ask her why, i might just let her have it. stress relief has to come from and go somewhere, after all. though if i can make it biting and yet not inappropriate i will be basking in a glow for hours.

i'm a seventeen-year-old, you're an adult working in a law firm. here's a little advice, direct from me to you: grow up. and learn how to spell. [maybe she's a paralegal, though i hear they only accept people with at least an A2 grade in the english language into Law & Management at Temasek Polytechnic]

maybe this christmas

i just came back up from getting some stuff out of my third uncle's Mercedes-Benz, and i really surprised myself when i realized, as i was walking back with rosemarie [my aunt's maid], that i did the whole smile-and-greet-him-he's-your-relative thing without so much as thinking about it.

it was scary. five seconds before i was telling rosemarie how Batman is not fat and Fatman is not a bat [our name for my third uncle behind his back is Fatman], then it was smile [for a different, non-unlikely-superhero-names reason], greet, listen, nod, comply, leave.

of course, five seconds later i was in the lift with rosemarie, talking about the people who were in his car [him, his chinese wife, his chinese wife's niece, and his maid. incidentally, this is his second wife], his car itself [this dark green third-generation Mercedes-Benz E200, the original "Mickey Mouse" model--speaking of which, why is it called the "Mickey Mouse"? there are four headlights on it and it looks nothing like Mickey Mouse], and did his wife get contact lenses?

when it becomes automatic like that it can either be invaluably convenient [later on it'll probably become emotionally scarring, but who cares? we all live for the now] or just plain scary. all i thought, though, was that i'll never be able to use the line "i'll go put on my face" [from The Best Chrismukkah Ever--episode thirteen of season one of The O.C.--which i am watching out the corner of my eye as i type this] for situations like this. and i so wanted to.

"Maybe this Christmas will mean something more
Maybe this year
Love will appear
Deeper than ever before

And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call
Someone we love
Someone we’ve lost
For reasons we can’t quite recall

Mmm, maybe this Christmas"

- "Maybe This Christmas", Ron Sexsmith

it's saturday morning

everything points to today being Monday: my remembering that yesterday was Sunday, my PowerBook showing the "Mon" label before the time at the top-right-hand corner of the screen, if i switched on my Palm to check it would tell me that it's Monday, and i have a class at twelve. [also: the datestamp above will show that it's Monday]

so how come i feel like it's Saturday morning?

"it's saturday morning
and who's gonna play with me
six in the morning baby
i got a long long day ahead of me"

- "Saturday Morning", Eels

i woke up to my aunt telling me to hurry up and wake up, my first aunt was coming over for lunch, besides i'd already slept over ten hours, i should have repaid most of not all of my sleep debt by now [these aren't exact words, even/especially if you translate then back into mandarin, i took the liberty of making the speech appear more expository. though there wasn't a chance in hell that i'd repaid any of my sleep debt]

notice that nothing in the above paragraph gave the impression that i was roused because of school.

so in my contrived mind i immediately thought: no school today?

and whilst she was telling me it was ten-thirty already, and i should have slept enough by then [again: not true], i was thinking: yeah, i would have been forced out of bed earlier if i had school. [i need to leave the house an hour in advance, as in physically leave, and my Monday class is at twelve]

so i thought maybe there wasn't class today. maybe i'd been listened to and my feverent, desperate wishes for an endless weekend had been heard. so i ventured off my bed, cleaned up, sipped a mug of tea, and opened my PowerBook. yep. Monday. i'm going to be late for class.

i'm still waiting for that one day where i actually look forward to going to school, the one day where i know i'll be alright.

however, now i have officially eaten into five minutes and fifty-seven seconds of my getting-to-school time, and i have to drag myself away from my PowerBook and get ready to leave, even though i should have been ready and leaving by now. it never works out.

i'll go put on my face now.

popular mechanics for broken hearts could help me now

i do not feel great.

it's six-ten in the morning.

i have to be back at my aunt's by ten am, to be in time for my first uncle and family visiting at eleven.

after that i need to stop over at licheng's around three to get my second aunt's data and hard-disk drive back.

right now, i am sitting on hongxuan's patio, composing this entry and myself on my PowerBook.

and i'm thinking, after one night of waiting, indesicion, more waiting, following people into Pastamania and then forming a mutiny into Whatafish [cheaper food, on par in taste, less crowded, less waiting, more sense], not having value in my ez-link card and attempting to top it up at the machine next to the Parkway Parade bus-stop, being cajoled out of it because our bus had arrived, getting off the bus and putting my jacket on because i was sick of carrying it around, walking to hongxuan's, waiting, watching, trying to talk, failing [in talking about anything important, anyway], watching over, sitting next to vomit on the roadside with the producer of the vomit lying on his back on the same road, watching over people, bringing them up to hongxuan's bedroom, clearing what must be at least two dozen bottles and cans, shifting lawn furniture back, picking up garbage, watching more technicolor burping, smelling an air-conditioned room with the scent of puke wafting around endlessly, moving all my stuff downstairs even though i am hot, sticky and sweaty and uncomfortable:

i have to decide on living without friends.

i'd say i've to make new friends, but i'm not inclined to. in fact i downright am against the idea of repeated social akwardness, unfamiliarity and the whole getting-to-know-you-getting-to-know-all-about-you crap. i'm too fucking old for this shit.

i'm also too fucking old to be hounding other people down, to sleep, lie down, vomit in the right places, etc. or clean up after people.

it's not even my house--because my own house is being repossessed by the bank, to whom my mother and father owe half a million singapore dollars.

and i have to sit around listening to how someone else doesn't deserve his lot, about what he did to deserve whatever happened to him, when i'm being forced into being seventy at seventeen?

no thanks.

i can hear the buses on the main road. i forgot how early the bus services start, in part because i no longer have to wake at unearthly hours to get to school. i'm thinking i should just take off, go home, sleep for two hours, wake up, put my face on, face my relations for three hours, go crash licheng's for the hard disk and data, then go back to my aunt's and possibly sleep the weekend away.

i think i will. should i leave a message?

and to think i came because hongxuan said it would be good for me, and matt told me i should go.

i'll text-message matt, then pack up and leave. though if hongxuan's parents find me gone it wouldn't be nice. i wouldn't go so far as to say they'd be worried, but it wouldn't be nice.

who'd notice? i'm leaving. and the next time i need a break from the real world and need to pretend, i'll watch The O.C. like i've been doing for the past fortnight or so.

we got more bounce in california than all y'all combined

there is, according to the flight information plasma screen at the platform of CG2, a flight out to LAX at four this afternoon. can't remember which airline though. but just imagine...

the magic of air travel and the reality of not being able to afford it.

these are the words of the popstars

several [actually quite a number of] teen-aged girls have invaded the viewing mall. i had no idea what was going on, until the tapping on the glass and mild shrieking and the cameras and the mandarin. must be some teen idol or another.

just at the same time as my iPod got to the end of the playlist and stopped.

hello sunshine

some kids from a kindergarten just flooded the Terminal One Viewing Mall. and believe it or not for once i don't mind the sudden infusion of under-eighteens-outnumbering-over-eighteens. it makes me long for the carefree days of kindergarten, where i didn't know anything about what my father did for a living, where he spent his money and what we had or didn't have. when school involved nothing more than drawing, coloring, playing, field trips [though as far as my memory works i can't really tell if Newton Kindergarten ever brought me to the airport] and naps and snacks and my mother picking me up in the BMW.

where are all the defining moments in my life which are supposed to change me profoundly? i feel like i grew all the way up long before i even began secondary school [i suspect it was primary two, but that seems far too early to mature so quickly] and haven't changed a single bit since.

california, here we come

orange county/obviously crack

1010 AM: your attention please. there will be a fire drill for airport staff in three minutes' time. passengers and members of the public are advised not to be alarmed.

1300 Singapore FLC 97

may i have your attention please.

i need to stop this going-to-the-airport-for-no-good-reason thing.

and who would've thunk that it'd take less time to get to the airport than it does to get to school?

let's take stock.

my home's being repossessed, my mother's sold her car, we owe half a million to UOB in a home loan and unpaid credit card charges, i suck at school and whatever it is that is expected of me there, my grandfather's keeping me awake all times of the day, i'm living off my aunt, my mother wants to abandon my siblings--leave them with my aunt and take off.

nice. and let's not forget i am in a crazy obsession with The O.C. i've downloaded season one because the DVD set won't be out until October, and that's the US, Region One release. imagine how long more for the Singapore, Region Three release. sadly three episodes have so bad audio sync that it is practically impossible for me to watch them. hopefully that can be painlessly fixed, in a way that doesn't involve re-downloading them. but the rest of the season i have downloaded and watched over and over and over again. i am addicted to TV, in spite of [or, rather, probably because of] the fact that it isn't on TV itself.

see, the torrents fetched me The O.C. in Pure Digital Television format. glorious high-definition widescreen.

speaking of widescreen. my 37" Sharp Aquos LCD TV is no more. well, at least no more with us, moved to my aunt's for safekeeping, but if i can't watch it whenever i please it's as good as no more in my opinion.

back to The O.C. what's not to like? and the music. oh, my, the music. all i've been listening to for the past few days has mostly been from the playlist i dedicated to music from The O.C. in fact i went to HMV and bought The O.C. Mix 1 [i also bought Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco, and it took me ages to actually start listening to it. though i must say it's been a great cure for my insomnia.] even though i'd already downloaded an unofficial copy, with more songs than the original.

i've decided that California is now somewhere i want to move to. seems odd when my other two choices are London and Sweden. i want to move to Hermosa Beach [if you know your O.C. you'll know why it's Hermosa Beach and not Newport Beach] or Los Angeles.

but as much as i would like to move to Cupertino, California and work for Apple i doubt very much that will actually happen. i suck at my course. i am not a craftsman. i simply cannot perform the required for two of my diploma core subjects. i've been seriously considering changing courses, possibly to Visual Communication. but i decided i should find out as much as i can about what the course is like before i jump into it and discover that the water's still too deep.

i went out with my sister Samaria, my maid Lelanie, my aunt Jacqueline and her boyfriend Samuel on saturday night to see a midnight screening of The Stepford Wives, and as i sat the the table eating dinner with them and flooding them with inane conversation i realized i was suffering from verbal diarrhea. i thought back and came to the conclusion that i hadn't been speaking to anyone outside of my three aunts, the maid that lives with them and my grandfather for over a week. i don't include my "colleagues", simply because i don't see them that much, and often have nothing to say to them.

but i am sick and tired. of what exactly, i do not know. i don't feel like going out, going to school, going home [or what is still but soon may not be my home], writing the letter to UOB's lawyers, pretending to be fine for my aunts, ignoring phone calls and text messages, waking up, living, breathing.

all i want is my O.C. i think it's sad that my best friends' names are Ryan Atwood and Sethula Cohen. but i also think that it's better than not having best friends at all. of course the next best thing is to find an alternative. but i don't want the next best thing. i want the best thing. Joshua Schwartz, will you please please hire me?

madness. if i post this i will never live it down.