From me here to you there

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and
say
It is sad? In one of the tenses I am singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

Is what it is like, or what it is like in words.

-Words, Wide Night, Carol Ann Duffy

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living. -Jim Elliot

Of life and death

Make a wrong turning into the BKE towards Johor from Mandai Rd because they didn't make it clear in the first place, and there's no turning back. Exit at Woodlands Ave something and make a U-turn, and that'll land you either on the SLE (CTE, PIE??) or the BKE, still towards Johor. Get onto the SLE, and that'll land you in Woodlands Ave something-else which goes on forever with no U-turn. Get back onto the SLE and that'll take you back to Woodlands Ave something and you're square 1. Finally get onto the BKE (PIE, city), and get all confused when it suddenly becomes the KJE (keep left) and PIE, city (keep right).

*faint*

After all that, made it to a friend's father's wake. Thank the Lord, she's doing as well as a person who's just lost a father could be. She described her father being the best ever, her and her sisters' best friend, well-loved by colleagues, church friends, and everyone else. No regrets there, closure to 2yrs of battling with pancreatic cancer. Heartwrenchingly sweet, yet laced with sorrow.

Missing my grandma, wondering about my own dad, wondering what people would say of me when I die. Most importantly, what God would say of me.

And I'd like to say, at the end of my life, as Paul did in 2 Tim 4:7 : I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

somewhere over the rainbow

Fortunate me! Got to catch Harry Potter on complimentary tix, after being mildly disturbed at the idea of having no one to watch it with. Thanks so much for the company, you. :)
Over supper at Crystal Jade, Dale was reminiscing (as usual) the experiences he's had playing with friends in various bands past and present...about how the ability of a musician to reach out to the audience, to touch a cord in their hearts is what determines his success, rather than how well he's recognised or how much he fetches a gig. And we were back to the question of what I've always really wanted to do, and what I really want to do right now. Got me thinking... I've wanted to be a Walt Disney figure skater or animator, or some wildlife researcher. Come to think of it... I've tried these things. I took ice skating lessons, doodled cartoons, attempted a course at zoology. But as time has passed the former 2 fade away to become distant dreams. What comes upon me more strongly now... the idea of playing music- christian, or jazz- in a band, as part of a greater company; or performing the lindy hop. Just that I can't do any of these at all. Playing jazz at Southbridge? Ha. Sings *dream...dream dream dream...on*

Sigh

Weird weird weird weird people all around me. Or maybe it's all relative... everyone's normal and I'm weird. Sigh.
A client today-
(talking to Doggie regarding ex-wife, whom Doggie stays with): "you're ok ya? Who says we're going to put you to sleep... we won't. We'll put the lady to sleep, not you, ok?"
I got bitten by a dog... on my face. (how did I manage that?!)
Another drowned in her own blood right on me.
Murphy loves me. If you want to knock off on time because you're dead tired, you'll have dying animals come into your clinic after 8pm.. and then they'll die, making you feel utterly useless.
And to top it all off, I've conceded that I can't play the piano for nuts. Sigh.

Certain Revelations

1. I love jazz but. Playing jazz is impossible. :( It's a bunch of accidentals.
2. One by one, all my friends are gettin married. *shudder*
3. Tink is a pig, not a kitten.
4. Be careful of how you deal with certain clients or they'll call the cops on you.
5. My mum is hilarious.

Kluang

Twas such a kampung! One shopping centre with ah-lian shops; one Mcdonalds; no Starbucks; one mountain. Not unlike Yarrawonga or maybe.. Werribee (ha!) in Victoria, or Wollongong in NSW. No wonder Mel wants to, or rather needs to, get outta the place. She mentioned how complacent people would become staying put there, without a need for ambition or drive for a better career or quality of life.
Makes me ponder over why we need a drive for ambition, and whether there is anything wrong with contentment in being a country bumpkin rather than a city yuppie.
We had her quarter-of-a-century celebration at a roadside seafood foodstall in Ayer Hitam, which sounds like a decent town but in actual fact is just a (singular) crossroad with a few imitation soft toys and fake flora shops. That was the best seafood dinner I'd ever had! For the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed eating crab (flower crab?) as the shells could be broken and I could at least taste some meat with its superb sambal sauce... not to mention the asam fish and tofu and sweet potato leaves. *swoon*
Met her ah-gong and some of her extended family as well. The scenes of her uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews (the whole jin gang) wandering in and out of the bungalow conjured images of my own mum and her family in the 1960s, when it was still the norm that big families live together. Something sweet which modern S'poreans would never experience.

Mel's cheeky niece Olivia who'd refused to let me take a picture of her.






All that's left of the Yap family's sawmill. Rest of it had been burnt down a few yrs back and they're just waiting for the wall to rot away...




AND I FINALLY GOT TO EAT MY RAMLY SPECIAL BURGER!!! :))) (thanks so much auntie for buying it for me!)

Ahem... well, food aside, it was just such a lovely time of being with a dear friend again after a long while apart. Thank you Mel for spending these 2 days with me. ^.^

P.S. I had the BEST sleep ever without Willow and Tink. But...I actually missed them!

Places

MacRitchie Reservoir.
A lovely place to stroll in. I reckon that the HSBC treetop walk has the World's Most Stable Suspension Bridge. Especially in comparison to that rickety bridge we never made across during our sec 3 Melaka geog trip! (silly rain. And we came back with more than our fair share of leeches.) The kiosk at the pavillion serves a fantastic mee siam and fan choy... reminiscent of our tuckshop days.

Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.
Finally got tickets for my Kluang trip on Wed. (here I come Mel!) It's most ancient and very much like a piece of Malaysia cut out and pasted in Singapore... I was pondering over that till Mel mentioned that it's still owned by KTM Malaysia. Go figure! The government here surely would've turned it into a purely historical and non-functional site a decade ago.

Church Of Our Savior.
Where a bunch of beautiful and joyful people come to worship our Lord Almighty. :)
Sovereign is the Lord my God
Of this I shalt give no second thought
Though falter I might I ought
To trust His plan intricately wrought
Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?
Would you still believe God when He is silent and will not speak?

Mt Faber.
Romanticism isn't as splendiferous as we make it out to be. Splendour-ful. Splendous. Splenderous. ? *grin*
The strawberry and chocolate-on-chocolate milkshakes are to die for! (well, maybe to kill for. Ah but which one would land you in hell?)
Pulau Bukom has Shell oil refineries and chalets to go along with it.

Chasing after the wind.

A few verses lept at me today-
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
-Eccl 1:18
Which explains why I always sing "I'd like to be a Toys 'R Us kid" in all sincerity.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
-Eccl 12:12-13
My brain is cluttered.
Jesus I could sing, in the tongues of men and angels, but if I have not love, I am just a clanging cymbal, an empty sound
The question then, is how to embody love.

blogs

Just read these on random blogs-

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

The spaces between your fingers were created so that another's could fill them in.

Sweet words.

Hepatitis A?

Wonder if I've really missed out on so much during my 6 yrs down under.

Went to Ang Mo Kio for dinner with my colleagues and made some more new discoveries about Singaporean food, yet amazing them with my ignorance. We had such things as chut-chut (snails?), la-la (cockles?), belachan kang-kong, chilli stingray, oh-lua (oyster egg)... bunch of 5 girls eating like we'd just gotten outta prison! And if that wasn't enough, Suj then went over to Mos burger to get some fried prawn thingies, frozen strawberries, and apple pies.

Think I can almost hear my stomach crying out for help. >.< Though it is still much better off than most people the world over who ain't even got anything to put in their bowls.

spectacles

Does anyone remember the time I gave the word "spectacle" to be used in a poem or prose... but we could just never come up with one?

After all these years, someone did it yesterday, in a matter of 10mins! And beautifully too. (genius)

Thank you. :)

love is a many splendoured thing
spectacled visions - which zephyrs doth hide
closely guarded by thy splendour of thy night
without of great turbulent waves of light,
man chews thy cud oblivious of bite
of an insect so potent it just really might
put all into perspective unless thou gripe
into thy fallacies of life thou would then delight
of love - many a splendoured thing thou would invite..

The final Word

In the end...

nothing else really matters, does it.
'cept for

one all-encompassing

Love.

Such joys

As Jazz @Southbridge, gelati @Venezia, wakeboarding @Punggol. Little pleasures in life, over this Deepavali/Hari Raya holiday. (well, holiday for most)
Thank God for a manageable Deepavali on AE duty at the hospital- it certainly didn't turn out as badly as I'd been expected it to based on my previous experience last Vesak Day. In the species list was 2 hamsters and a chinchilla. >.< But, the best part of the day was meeting my cell group for dinner and gelati, then impromptu-ly adjourning to Southbridge with Mich, Keith and Dale. It was awesome enough having the house band playing (with the coffeeshop-uncle-pub-owner on vibes!)...and wow did we get a pleasant surprise when Jeremy Monteiro turned up and took to the stage! In the words of.. erm.. someone, quoting his friend- "No orgasm lasts as long as this.." JM's rendition of My Favourite Things brought back childhood impressions of the Sound of Music with interjections of its familiar tunes, yet constantly luring me again into the maturity of the present with all its twists and turns... finally concluding whilst the euphoria lingered way past his music. :)

Wakeboarding! Totally worth the early wake-up, travel to the end of Singapore, aches and pains, seriously!






Fisherman next to Seletar Island. Never knew such primitive activities existed around here.



Reckon our poor instructor (some law student dude doing this part time) was traumatised by how rough us bunch of girls could be. Talking about peeing, pooing, and what else have you!