they even tried bribery. i could have anything i wanted, as long as i said it out loud

wowzee wowza.

i am at the Starbucks right next to California, where i spent five-sixty-five on a Lemon Passion Ice-Shaken Tea.

i came from HMV at The Heeren Shops, where i spent a hundred and twelve dollars on CDs.

i should stop going out alone.

i didn't want anything more to do with the outside world

i am calm. i am confident. i am serene [but not in the sense that i am Serene, my mother]. above all, i am Zen [and, again, not in the sense that i am a shoddily-done iPod imitation]. i am more Zen than Julien Janvier's father, who imagines that his wife was killed by his son, because his son was bewitched by Sophie Kowalski and her games.

i have just spoken to my ComDI lecturer about what happenes when i fail this module [notice i said "when", not "if"], and i have a second shot at passing in the re-sub, after the results come out. i didn't know i have results, considering that i don't have examintions. well now my aunt is going to know how i crashed and burned. in any case. i have the re-sub. i will kill myself trying to pass in the resub, even if i have to re-sub all seven modules.

i have given up on the group i have for ComDI. i have told them as much, and i don't really care if they get pissed off because i will no longer have to see them after this module ends. i am still in it because, actually, i don't why i'm still in it. i cannot pass, no longer how brilliant i make this presentation by dragging the other members onboard by their fingernails. so what am i in it for? to prove that i can do it? because the group will bomb without me and my PowerPoint/Word/language/presentation skills?

why? for gold, god, or glory?

am i on the wrong track?

and, yet again, i'm avoiding the details of the weekend. i do not know why. i want to record the many levels of disgust i had to go through reach today, but i'm either too tired or i feel i can live with the linen being as dirty as it is for now. next weekedn ought to be a hoot on around the same level as last week, though, so must prod me to update for the weekend before the weekend.

right now i'm seated in the PID studio. nothing new, except that i'm one half hour early for lecture, and have opted to come here instead of waiting for lecture outside the room, or at the library. and i'm exactly across the room from where i normally seat, because i am sick of pretending that i am a normal, unbalanced human being.

"Happy people scare me. They are chemically unbalanced."
- Shirley Manson

i am sick of being next to the staircase, next to the lecture area behind the lockers, next to way most people walk into the studio, forcing myself to greet everyone that comes though in a non-sardonic, positive manner, smiling and laughing occasionally, etcetera.

I AM SICK OF IT.

so i've moved to the table where people go to only to eat, or sit by themselves. occasionally the two other PowerBook users take up roost here, but as long as they don't bother me or force me to act like i'm on twenty levels of Prozac, i can not mind their presence.

somebody get me out of here, i'm tearing up myself

what i'm eating right now:

one piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [the fruit in this instance being orange]

one huge bowl of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries

[five minutes later]

what i'm eating right now:

one more piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Quality Street Orange Cream chocolate

two more pieces of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [also orange]

two more bowls of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries [technically only one more, but this bowl is twice the size of the first]

it figured that the instant i wrap up my digital coversations [my brother, my sister, my maid, my mother, matt], close my PowerBook, set my iPod for charging whilst lulling me to sleep and switch off the lights, i get the most compelling hunger pangs in recent memory.

so right now Post, Dove, Quality Street and Apple are rocking my world. i am bingeing. i am upset. i am hungry. i am angry. i am angsty. i am brooding. i am pissed off. i am disheartened. i am tired. i am sick. i am sleepy. i am cranky.

but somewhere in this shaking/shivering [either from the hunger or from the sugar] mess is a very, very lonely seventeen-year-old.

i ain't happy, i'm feeling glad, i got sunshine, in a bag, i'm useless, but not for long, the future, is coming on

so, as i was getting my mobile out of my bag after lecture ended just now, i wondered to myself: "what the hell are you checking for text messages for? there aren't any, and you know it."

yeah, why do i?

bow down to me

so here i am, in the PID studio. the malays are in seated at a clump of six desks, the chinese are all over the place, the two PowerBook users are across the room from each other [there's me, slumped on a desk against the staircase--do not mistake this for Harry Potter-esque, i am NOT under the staircase--and there's He Whose Name I Think Is Joel. i do not like HWNITIJ. not in that explict if-you-talk-to-me-i-will-not-respond way, but in that i do not actively seek him out for conversation [in any case i don't actively seek anyone out for conversation]. he smokes. half the time when he's just entered a room i get this whiff of cigarettes off his backdraft. most people say they cannot detect it--to which i ask if they've lost all ability to smell--but i guess my nose is just hyper-sensitive. plus the way my father smokes i am surely fine-tuned to that smell if anything. he recently asked me for a copy of Microsoft Office Mac 2004 and Adobe Photoshop 7 for Mac. i hesitated to help him out, but my brain had already sent the command to say "sure". i used the excuse that i ran out of CD-Rs over the weekend, and today i forgot my FireWire cable for transferring the program off my iPod. to be honest i really forgot, the guy brought his PowerBook to school today [something he apparently doesn't do everyday, and why should i feel anything since i bring mine to school everyday] but i guess it was on purpose subconciously.

accidentally on purpose, i guess.

back to the first topic i brought up. yes. it's a block party here [and you know how i am at parties], and the racial divide is clearer than ever. i don't know why this matters at all [in fact, i don't know why this matters to me] but i thought i'd post it anyway, if only as a cover for my need to bitch about the PowerBooks, FireWire cable, iPod, HWNITIJ, Office & Photoshop, smoke and cigarettes.

until the sun comes up over santa monica boulevard

how i wish i had a gun:

U2 5-Pocket Classics dark gray pants: $34.50

2004/2005 Fall/Winter collection Springfield white-pinstripe maroon business shirt: $69

Giacoma Puccini matt-black metal-rimmed glasses: $195

Apple 15GB iPod: $198

Ericsson T68m: $288

Palm Tungsten T: $568

Apple 12" PowerBook G4: $2841

Knowing your day sucked and wanting to shoot yourself: Priceless

There are some things in life money can buy. For everything else, there's a fully-loaded Glock.

today just full-on, flat-out, fucking sucked.

death of a french whore

no, no, no, no, no.

i spent the last weekend chasing my ComDI group for work, even though i'm not their leader, because last week we did nothing for our presentation. this week there is another presentation.

last week one group blew everyone-but-i's socks off with their RELATIVELY well-designed and pulled-off presentation.

my socks should have been blown off, but i feel i could have easily done better, even if my group have NOTHING last week.

now, after chasing one person, another, and a malay girl [she's not in my group, class, or even course, and i do not know WHY THE HELL our group's only copy of the presentation is with her] who i didn't know until after i started chasing them, i have an eleven slide presentation meant to cover for last week's lack of a presentation, and this week's FINAL, VIDEO-TAPED presentation as well.

ELEVEN SLIDES. that one group's presentation last week was much longer than that. and needless to say, better and much more well-designed.

i have a whole fuck-ton to bitch about, but i have to get cracking on the makeover of the presentation now.

in order to quell my feverent desire to throw everything [PowerBook, iPod, Wireless Mouse, Tungsten T, T68m, bag, contents, possibly myself] out the window just to obtain that one second of absolut peace and calm and zen before the "oh shit" sets in, i am going to delude myself into worrying about superfical things, so that my mind is sutiably distracted whilst keeping its need for constant worry satisfied.

this Springfield shirt i bought on Saturday is one size too big, my hair is a Beatles-esque mess, i want to go to the Heeren Shops' Mambo store to look at shoes but have no one to go with, and i strangely don't dare to ask anyone at all, let alone anyone i actually want to go with, and shit shit shit my presentation and this semester's work is gone out the fucking window.

one more cup of coffee. won't hurt anyone.

you've got a great car

just a couple of days ago, i was lamenting about how i'm no longer in an educational institution that takes you to the airport for a class.

now, here i am at the airport's Starbucks, having finished my class here today, blogging on my PowerBook, which is connected to my Ericsson via Bluetooth, which is in turn connected to the Internet via GSM/GPRS. you would technically say that i wasn't taken here for the class, we were simply told to arrive at three at Terminal 2's The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but i was late, waiting for an email, and the lecturer passed by my desk in the studio as i was packing.

five minutes later, i was in his Bertone X1/9, its engine growling behind me, seated about fifteen centimeters off the ground, headed for the airport.

so. damn. cool.

plus. he's a car guy. and five minutes into MX-5s and MR2s and Saab 900S Convertibles and getting parts of the Internet, i was sure that i didn't want to buy a new car as my first car. in fact, it's possible i don't ever want to buy a new car. nothing compares to something like an old Peugeot 306 Cabriolet or an Alfasud. or a Bertone X1/9.

new cars are, for the most bit, bland. few new models strike any chord with me at all.

maybe the next time Perpective & Freehand Drawing is being held off-campus i'll hang around my desk until it's too late to make it on time via public transport, but is the perfect time to leave and arrive on time by car.

that wouldn't be nice, though, would it.

the red and purple, blue and gray

so i'm sitting in color class, waiting for james [the lecturer] to tell me how much my test and previous assigment sucks, and iChat Rendezvous [Rendezvous is an Apple technology that allows you to chat with Macs on the same network as you are on, wireless or otherwise], and this guy called Macrus Lee signs onto Rendezvous.

his Mac is called "DeAtHG4".

for the love of god. this is clearly someone who uses a Mac only and only because it's cool. "DeAtHG4"? i feel ashamed to be using a Mac now, though logic dictates i shouldn't since only Mac uses will be able to see that his Mac is called "DeAtHG4". unless he's publicly sharing his files on the network. wait. let me check.

urgh. he is. but thankfully his share is listed as "MARCUS".

"DeAtHG4". really. unless he's using one of the school's PowerMacs, he must be using a PowerBook. hopefully not of the same series as mine. just two days ago i wished more people would sign onto [or, in some cases, even know about] Rendezvous, and now i wish less did.

and how long more is james going to take. i have only my assigment and my test. other people have entire portfolios and color journals to go through! i want to get this over with so i can plug in my PowerBook! i have only one hour and thirty-six minutes on my PowerBook's battery left!

counting numbered days

teachers' day is a terror.

a total of eight people turned up for Model Making class [class size: twenty-five] on Tuesday. wasted time.

in unrelated news, i've just discovered that i've been telling my grandfather's age wrong. he was born in 1910. that makes him ninety-four.

on a related note: why do people say "ripe" in reference to old age? it implies a fruit on a tree branch, ready to be picked or going to drop off onto the ground. hardly what most people want implied in old age.

but then again most people use "ripe" in reference to the age of someone who's already died. i think.

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.

chemicals rebalanced

i think it's happened for a few hours already, i just hadn't noticed until now, when i finally got around to listening to Novocaine For The Soul--the happy mood's gone.

"life is hard
and so am i
you'd better give me something
so i don't die

novocaine for the soul
before i sputter out
before i sputter out

life is white
and i am black
jesus and his lawyer
are coming back
oh my darling
will you be here
before i sputter out
before i sputter out
before i sputter out

guess who's living here
with the great undead
this paint-by-numbers life
is fucking with my head
once again

life is good
and i feel great
'cause mother says i was
a great mistake

novocaine for the soul
you'd better give me something
to fill the hole
before i sputter out
before i sputter out
before i sputter out
before i sputter out"

- "Novocaine For The Soul", Eels