i'm tired of talking, today. i think it's because i think out loud. yesterday, i had this conversation (or what i thought was a conversation) with jon at the fifth-storey staircase, about prayer - and after we finished talking and we were walking down he said, "you do realise, don't you, that you've spent the past half-an-hour thinking out loud. you haven't actually told me anything, you know."
i started laughing so hard i had to sit down on a step. because he was right, and i do think i think out loud, a lot. maybe that's why i've started mumbling more - my mother says i have, anyway. because i've come to realise as i'm thinking out loud that maybe, just maybe, my thoughts aren't exactly what other people want to hear. and God also made it such that other people wouldn't know what you were thinking, which marigold in magic for marigold thought was an extremely good thing. seeing as i did pray that i'd think more before i spoke, maybe this is an answer to that prayer. it's got nothing to do with being forthright and honest, you understand. i doubt i'll ever not be. it's just that there's a lot to be said for least said, soonest mended.
so, because i thought-talked so much yesterday, i think it's time for my fingers to have a go. unfortunately, i dropped my keyboard yesterday so the spacebar is a bit sticky - but no matter.
***
i'd actually planned to go home early yesterday; come to school, hand up my assignment, pray with jon, have lunch with mui kheng, then come home and do my equality readings. i did all those things, but ended up going for prayer group as well - not because i felt obligated or anything, you understand. i just wanted to, and i'm glad i did. and i came home after that, ate leftovers, and crashed on the sofa for three hours. opened the door after and was greeted by wonderfully evening-ish air, decided i had to catch the sunset at the old holland road open space, and ran off after spending ten minutes gossiping with my mother. i love the place, and it's a real pity but i think they're going to build some monstrosity on it. there's a sign which says "state land, enter at your own risk," but no one cares. every sunday people will park their cars along old holland road and they'll fly kites and remote-controlled toy aeroplanes there; they'll bring foldable deck chairs, sit down and read a book and enjoy the day of rest. people will jog by in the afternoon sun, it's really a lovely place. we need more of them in singapore. true places of solace, the kind you stumble on accidentally, before that, you never knew they existed.
after dinner i decided to clean up my room, and i re-folded all the t-shirts in my wardrobe. i have a great many t-shirts, because in mg we had a choir shirt every year, as we did in ac - plus i went on tour twice as alumni; children's ministry makes us buy new shirts for every children's ministry sunday - i'm getting a yellow one for the upcoming prayer event, i already have light and dark pink and green ones. and i went for church camp every year in secondary school. add various school and school camp shirts - really, i have too many of them. i divided them up into those i usually wear and those i don't - and i'm keeping the latter solely for memory's sake, because i honestly don't think i'll ever wear them again. camp organisers should make t-shirts more wearable. i'm probably never going to wear my prc camp shirt again because it's red, nor the nussu reflections one we got in year one when we did flag day during matric week, because it's yellow. although i have rather fond memories of that shirt, because that was the time i got to know yalan. and the awful nus heritage run shirt - it was my first competitive run, but the shirt is really too ugly for words. it's got an orange border thing around the collar and it has the logos of the various sponsors splashed all over it. kinda like how the law soccer shirt says "colin ng and partners" really big, but worse.
i folded them all up neatly and put them away, but i don't know what i'm going to do with them the day i get married and have to move out. perhaps, by then, i won't need these t-shirts to remember all these things. or maybe i'll just have to recycle them, donate them to charity, to make space for new memories - how callous that sounds, but honestly, you and i both know these t-shirts don't actually mean a thing. jon and i are planning to run ahm before he goes to bangalore, that'll be another (ugly) t-shirt. i'll spend more time talking to yalan in school, out of school, though i doubt we'll ever do flag day again, together at least. and i'll go on trying to coerce linus into planning a gathering with our yayapapayas and the rest of our prc camp group.
memories come quite suddenly to me nowadays. it's quite strange, but i'll be walking along and suddenly i'll just remember things which i normally don't think about. so many things - i'll choose one everyone seems to remember, or some variation of it at least:
sunkist orange cordial which came in that oddly shaped bottle. if you didn't take the pains to stir it up, it wouldn't dissolve at the bottom like ribena does. you'd get this orange sour sludge that was quite nice, but oh, the preservatives! and when we were in primary school, i think they gave out those popsicle plastic bag things - you could fill them with orange squash and put it in the freezer and you'd have ice cream pops!
if you don't remember that, i'm sure you at least remember the ice cream pops part, those that came in many different colours; if you sucked them (which was the only way to eat them, really) you'd end up with bits of ice.
***
i enjoy public law, i really do. although i think LCL thinks i'm a total numbskull because i haven't said much in class, save for that time i told him i thought the government outlawed the whole raising your hand with your fist balled up action because it kinda looked like a hammer, worker's party and all you know? but his classes are really very interesting, and they provide a lot of room for thought. the way he teaches is interesting as well - it's the kind of module i envisioned myself doing all throughout university, not just for a semester, even though i like proper law law as well and i can't imagine doing anything else. but i should be thankful, really, and i am - i'd probably drive myself crazy doing modules like that for four years. i know it.
that being said, i had two interesting thoughts today, from something he said in class about people using "buzz-words"- i think the average minister, in caricature, would be a sort of giant bird man in a waistcoat, with many little persons clinging on to his coat-tails, hopeful (and rather smug) expressions on each of their faces. his wings would be clipped, and when he smiles he has no teeth - but birds are toothless anyway. no prizes for guessing which buzz-words describe which constitutional amendment.
the best thought i had, i think, was about "crushing the opposition" - i could almost see you-know-who (the mm. i don't want to be caught under the sedition act) in his golden years wielding a cane and crushing chee soon juan and j.b. jeyaretnam, both of whom have been shrunk to miniscule proportions - the size of cockroaches, maybe. just like margaret chan in masters of the sea. don't tell me you don't remember that, everyone does.
***
for all my i-don't-really-feel-like-talking-today-ness, i rang jon as i was walking out of school to see if he was around (he had tutorial at 1830) and if he wanted to have some tea. his brother picked up the phone because he was out for a run, and he told me all about how he was going for his friend's birthday party later and he was going to buy him sparkling juice - when you drink it it feels fizzy in your mouth.
i also met vasudha, coming from the bus stop, and everytime i see her i'll laugh because i'll remember what she said about jon being below the untouchables caste in india because he's chinese. which effectively put paid to his plans to get a dowry of 50 cows on the basis of his pink i.c. which is quite sad, because i like steak.
i started laughing so hard i had to sit down on a step. because he was right, and i do think i think out loud, a lot. maybe that's why i've started mumbling more - my mother says i have, anyway. because i've come to realise as i'm thinking out loud that maybe, just maybe, my thoughts aren't exactly what other people want to hear. and God also made it such that other people wouldn't know what you were thinking, which marigold in magic for marigold thought was an extremely good thing. seeing as i did pray that i'd think more before i spoke, maybe this is an answer to that prayer. it's got nothing to do with being forthright and honest, you understand. i doubt i'll ever not be. it's just that there's a lot to be said for least said, soonest mended.
so, because i thought-talked so much yesterday, i think it's time for my fingers to have a go. unfortunately, i dropped my keyboard yesterday so the spacebar is a bit sticky - but no matter.
***
i'd actually planned to go home early yesterday; come to school, hand up my assignment, pray with jon, have lunch with mui kheng, then come home and do my equality readings. i did all those things, but ended up going for prayer group as well - not because i felt obligated or anything, you understand. i just wanted to, and i'm glad i did. and i came home after that, ate leftovers, and crashed on the sofa for three hours. opened the door after and was greeted by wonderfully evening-ish air, decided i had to catch the sunset at the old holland road open space, and ran off after spending ten minutes gossiping with my mother. i love the place, and it's a real pity but i think they're going to build some monstrosity on it. there's a sign which says "state land, enter at your own risk," but no one cares. every sunday people will park their cars along old holland road and they'll fly kites and remote-controlled toy aeroplanes there; they'll bring foldable deck chairs, sit down and read a book and enjoy the day of rest. people will jog by in the afternoon sun, it's really a lovely place. we need more of them in singapore. true places of solace, the kind you stumble on accidentally, before that, you never knew they existed.
after dinner i decided to clean up my room, and i re-folded all the t-shirts in my wardrobe. i have a great many t-shirts, because in mg we had a choir shirt every year, as we did in ac - plus i went on tour twice as alumni; children's ministry makes us buy new shirts for every children's ministry sunday - i'm getting a yellow one for the upcoming prayer event, i already have light and dark pink and green ones. and i went for church camp every year in secondary school. add various school and school camp shirts - really, i have too many of them. i divided them up into those i usually wear and those i don't - and i'm keeping the latter solely for memory's sake, because i honestly don't think i'll ever wear them again. camp organisers should make t-shirts more wearable. i'm probably never going to wear my prc camp shirt again because it's red, nor the nussu reflections one we got in year one when we did flag day during matric week, because it's yellow. although i have rather fond memories of that shirt, because that was the time i got to know yalan. and the awful nus heritage run shirt - it was my first competitive run, but the shirt is really too ugly for words. it's got an orange border thing around the collar and it has the logos of the various sponsors splashed all over it. kinda like how the law soccer shirt says "colin ng and partners" really big, but worse.
i folded them all up neatly and put them away, but i don't know what i'm going to do with them the day i get married and have to move out. perhaps, by then, i won't need these t-shirts to remember all these things. or maybe i'll just have to recycle them, donate them to charity, to make space for new memories - how callous that sounds, but honestly, you and i both know these t-shirts don't actually mean a thing. jon and i are planning to run ahm before he goes to bangalore, that'll be another (ugly) t-shirt. i'll spend more time talking to yalan in school, out of school, though i doubt we'll ever do flag day again, together at least. and i'll go on trying to coerce linus into planning a gathering with our yayapapayas and the rest of our prc camp group.
memories come quite suddenly to me nowadays. it's quite strange, but i'll be walking along and suddenly i'll just remember things which i normally don't think about. so many things - i'll choose one everyone seems to remember, or some variation of it at least:
sunkist orange cordial which came in that oddly shaped bottle. if you didn't take the pains to stir it up, it wouldn't dissolve at the bottom like ribena does. you'd get this orange sour sludge that was quite nice, but oh, the preservatives! and when we were in primary school, i think they gave out those popsicle plastic bag things - you could fill them with orange squash and put it in the freezer and you'd have ice cream pops!
if you don't remember that, i'm sure you at least remember the ice cream pops part, those that came in many different colours; if you sucked them (which was the only way to eat them, really) you'd end up with bits of ice.
***
i enjoy public law, i really do. although i think LCL thinks i'm a total numbskull because i haven't said much in class, save for that time i told him i thought the government outlawed the whole raising your hand with your fist balled up action because it kinda looked like a hammer, worker's party and all you know? but his classes are really very interesting, and they provide a lot of room for thought. the way he teaches is interesting as well - it's the kind of module i envisioned myself doing all throughout university, not just for a semester, even though i like proper law law as well and i can't imagine doing anything else. but i should be thankful, really, and i am - i'd probably drive myself crazy doing modules like that for four years. i know it.
that being said, i had two interesting thoughts today, from something he said in class about people using "buzz-words"- i think the average minister, in caricature, would be a sort of giant bird man in a waistcoat, with many little persons clinging on to his coat-tails, hopeful (and rather smug) expressions on each of their faces. his wings would be clipped, and when he smiles he has no teeth - but birds are toothless anyway. no prizes for guessing which buzz-words describe which constitutional amendment.
the best thought i had, i think, was about "crushing the opposition" - i could almost see you-know-who (the mm. i don't want to be caught under the sedition act) in his golden years wielding a cane and crushing chee soon juan and j.b. jeyaretnam, both of whom have been shrunk to miniscule proportions - the size of cockroaches, maybe. just like margaret chan in masters of the sea. don't tell me you don't remember that, everyone does.
***
for all my i-don't-really-feel-like-talking-today-ness, i rang jon as i was walking out of school to see if he was around (he had tutorial at 1830) and if he wanted to have some tea. his brother picked up the phone because he was out for a run, and he told me all about how he was going for his friend's birthday party later and he was going to buy him sparkling juice - when you drink it it feels fizzy in your mouth.
i also met vasudha, coming from the bus stop, and everytime i see her i'll laugh because i'll remember what she said about jon being below the untouchables caste in india because he's chinese. which effectively put paid to his plans to get a dowry of 50 cows on the basis of his pink i.c. which is quite sad, because i like steak.
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