there?

Friday, March 31, 2006

oi.

 posted by zyn :: 12:03 AM :: 6 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


thursday hangover

Thursday, March 30, 2006

filip is right; i'm not good at honesty. i've only ever been completely honest with one person, mainly because that person is the only one i've ever really trusted. i've dissembled so much i can no longer remember to whom i told what, and i'm not even sure what i tell myself is true anymore.

that changes now.

it's one thing to equivocate when everything is going smoothly and you're in control and you know what you're doing; but when somewhere along the way you've lost the plot, everything just kind of falls into confusion. we all have issues with self-esteem.

forgive me, for i have lied.

no more. to hell with prevarication, distortion, deliberate omission. honesty, as it turns out, is really important.

as is coherence, which i appear to be lacking.

it's not enough to just pick some random person and decide: this is it, this is the one, i have chosen and it is final. i don't believe in fate, but it's hard to ignore the call of destiny. maybe none of us are really free. but that's too easy, too irresponsible an answer.

i live for good conversations. that's my answer. for now.

 posted by zyn :: 1:22 PM :: 5 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


等待良人归来那一刻

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

置身在传说中人间天堂

从没爱过那么认真

从今以后你会是所有幸福的理由

那些摇摆我都明白，都明白

就算是我不懂，能不能原谅我

别把我心也带走去跟随

洗涤过的回忆我记得你骄傲的活下去

你若撒野今生我把酒奉陪

 posted by zyn :: 3:01 AM :: 6 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


birthday birthday

Monday, March 20, 2006

All the best birthdays involve elements of surprise, mortification, good food, great company, and loads of awesome presents.

So thank you, all of you, for Ritz-Carlton and Lei Garden; for midnight supper and Harry Potter; for spa vouchers (!) and 20 red roses (!!). And for all the calls and emails and messages and well wishes - thank you. It's overwhelmingly humbling to be on the receiving end of so much kindness and generosity.

I'd put photos up but the only pictorial evidence was taken by a camera that looks like it belongs in a museum. Hahaha. (just kidding don't kill me! but you can leave angry comment if you want. :))

Also I want to say that Ritz-Carlton really has the best service ever, for spontaneously bringing over a birthday cake and singing Happy Birthday without prior arrangement. Apparently the exchanging of gifts is sufficient to signal a birthday celebration! How if I was, like, a buyer sampling goods or something? So paiseh.

Lastly, filip is talking nonsense as usual. Watch V for Vendetta!!! Because it is very very good and because I need more people to dissect it with me! (yes yes I am repeating myself, I know.)

I could go on ad nauseum but have to end here because I'm very tired and I haven't WoWed for days and days so I'm lagging very badly. But the people who wrote me nice long emails, I will get back to you. I will. Soon. Really. I swear.

 posted by zyn :: 11:35 PM :: 5 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


why post song lyrics?

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

je ne veux pas travailler
je ne veux pas déjeuner
je veux seulement oublier
et puis je fume

je ne suis pas fier de ça
vie qui veut me tuer
c'est magnifique
être sympathique
mais je ne le connais jamais


I always think this song should have been called ennui. Or maybe c'est pourquoi je fume.

It's not new; every time I hear it it conjures up images of sunny, lazy afternoons at Penn. But I never really understood it, I think, until now. Anyway I just bought the CD and discovered they're not really French. So poser.

 posted by zyn :: 9:58 PM :: 2 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


home and sleepy

What you first do when you get home from a holiday - how indicative is that of who you are? (Wah four question words in one sentence, well done me.)

Bangkok is amazing. I want to live there. It's like Singapore, but amplified. Everything is bigger, louder, hotter, noisier, dirtier, cleaner, friendlier, and more unpleasant all at once. We were walking along the street one day and a baby elephant ambled past me. Of course I immediately went into ecstasies of rapture ("ohmygodohmygodohmygodbabyelephant!!!") and started entertaining blissful visions of buying it and crossing off one of my seven things to do before I die. Unfortunately these happy thoughts were swiftly and ruthlessly crushed by my brother's unimaginative pragmatism.

Me:
*squeeeee* baby elephant baby elephant! I want to bring it home!

My brother:
Think of how much it would eat.

Me:
But it's only a baby elephant! I could feed it grapes!

My brother:
Yeah, but baby elephants tend to become, like, you know, adult elephants. Think of how much it would eat then.

Realising that my brother was clearly on a determined and relentless crusade to snuff out all bright spots in my bleak life, I subsided. Not without much muttering, though. Muttering, that's the stuff of rebellion, that is.

On the trip I also discovered, to conflicted emotions of horror and amusement, that my brother knows the word "bling".

Trying on sunglasses at one of Bangkok's many, many beautiful and sparkling malls, he picked out a huge pair studded with rhinestones and went, "Yo, check this out, this one has bling. Am I pimpin' or what?"

Naturally I was speechless. If anyone can come up with an appropriate response I'd be delighted to get feedback on this one.

 posted by zyn :: 2:37 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


no time, no regrets

Friday, March 10, 2006

I think I am becoming like filip. I fly tomorrow afternoon and not only have I not packed, but I have absolutely no time in which to pack. Waiting to be picked up to go drinking now, which means I'll be smashed tonight, plus I'm retail therapying tomorrow all the way until my flight leaves. Die lah, have to do laundry and pack in an alcoholic haze tonight. That will be funny until I fall down the stairs and am crushed under the weight of my laundry basket. Hahaha.

Every time before I get on a plane, I think: if the flight crashes, will I have put everything in order? (Yah I very morbid. But also practical.) Usually I have no regrets. But this time there will be a few: not finishing my lunch interview, not writing my story for Tuesday, not seeing how the office will be in uproar under the new system when it rolls out next week; not buying a car, not getting my braces off, not knowing what it would have been like to be 24.

Aiyah cham so depressing. Okay off I go to write long email so at least one person will know that I love them.

 posted by zyn :: 10:51 PM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


anger management

Thursday, March 09, 2006

I am so completely pissed off right now that I have to blog this first before I go home and take out my frustrations on Archaedas, whom we have not managed to kill despite what must now be ten tries and despite the fact that it's a yellow quest (green for some of us!).

I hate incompetent people. I really, really, really hate them so bad. There is no phrase in the English language more annoying than, "Har? I don't know leh." Except "Uh sorry I can't do anything about that now."

Look, we all do our jobs. I understand that your job is as hard as my job. But if I am sitting in the freaking office until 11pm waiting for one freaking quote just because you don't know how to do your freaking job, then you are fucking pissing me off.

Okay I feel better. *sweet smile*

 posted by zyn :: 10:56 PM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


fly away

Heading to Bangkok day after tomorrow with my family. Should be interesting. I haven't travelled with them since we went to New York after my graduation, during which time I handed them a bag of maps and city guides and told them to have fun exploring! while I stayed in the hotel room and slept till 1.

My parents' idea of a holiday:

6am: wake up
7am: have breakfast
8am: visit museum
9am: visit historic site
10am: have tea
11am: visit landmark
12pm: visit church
1pm: have lunch
2pm: visit museum 2
3pm: visit historic site 2
4pm: have tea
5pm: visit landmark 2
6pm: visit church 2
7pm: have dinner
8pm: plan next day
9pm: sleep

My idea of a holiday:

day 1: spa and shopping
day 2: cafes and shopping
day 3: shopping and shopping
day 4: last-minute shopping


The only thing is I don't have WoW installed on my laptop. Luckily there appears to be an Internet cafe pretty close to the hotel. I hope it has WoW; sekali by the time I come back everybody level 60 liao. Will die.


* * * * * *


For the last few months I've tried to get over my breakup by pretending that the relationship didn't exist and that it meant nothing (yes I know that's contradictory). I thought if I could convince myself that it was just nostalgia and weakness of mind then it would be something I could overcome.

But something someone told me on Monday has been nagging at me (much like what bosses should do). He said that in life maybe there will be people you can never completely stop loving, regardless of what transpired and how much you want to forget about it. And that's not stupid, he said; it's noble and life-affirming (his new catchphrase). And as much as I actually do think it's stupid and that I should be stronger than to let these feelings overrule my good sense, recent circumstances have persuaded me that he may have a point.

So - new strategy. I shall stop telling myself that this person doesn't matter to me at all. However trite the drama, however farcical the situation, my feelings are real. They're not simply, as I pretended over and over again, a symptom of misplaced affection or loneliness or a desire to relive the past. They're clear and present, built on a six-year foundation, and bugging the hell out of me. And until I can acknowledge that this is real love, and real pain, and that these feelings may never comprehensively go away, I can't start getting over it.

I'm still hoping for the day when I wake up and all I feel is indifference. But in the meantime there are other things that are stronger than this futile love and - budaoweng-esque - this still-flickering hope. Like the fact that I really, really, no choice, have to finish my lunch interview by today. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.

 posted by zyn :: 11:28 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


i'm not good at writing movie reviews

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

If you want to see a sanctimonious transsexual who's holier-than-thou without being religious, catch Transamerica. It's awesome. Even better, it's droll - one of those exquisite words that have lost their place in common parlance because so few things reach their esteemed standards anymore. Critics have panned it for being too melodramatic but I think that just makes it funnier.

It's one of those movies that always seems to be a step ahead of you but you know that if you listened a bit more closely, paid a bit more attention, you could get the joke too. I like it because it's clever without being pretentious.

Also, as Kel pointed out, it's overflowing with perversions and vices - pornography, prostitution, theft, incest, rape, child abuse, alcoholism, drugs, etc - and yet you come away from it thinking, what a wholesome and life-affirming (yeah it's a good description) movie that was. And in the midst of the mayhem that is other people's "normal" problems, transsexuality suddenly doesn't seem so screwed up anymore.

Of course the scene that spoke to me the most was when Felicity Huffman's character's mother says to her: "Do you know what I see when I look at you?I see a lost soul crying for help. This would never have happened if you had only come to church when you were little."

Ah, mothers.

 posted by zyn :: 12:48 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


it is a sad day when i am reduced to quoting fiction

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The worst part was that David couldn't hate her, as he'd always hated people before when they made him feel small or rejected him. He'd paid attention because he'd wanted to understand her, and now he understood that she was scared and he understood that she'd liked him and he understood why she'd picked Paul.

He wanted to be angry with her but he wasn't really able to, because she had chosen him, once, and nobody had ever really chosen him before.

"Do you want her back?" Terry asked, softly.

David thought it over, and thought about what Terry had said about Mitsy wanting a boyfriend. She'd been willing to consider Paul or Lucas last year. She'd been flattered and pleased and they had been good to each other, and David kept thinking about that place on the nape of her neck Paul was probably kissing now, and the way she used to smile at him.

Only David didn't want to be the best choice for now. He wanted to be irreplaceable.

"No," he said at last. "But that doesn't make it any better."

If Terry or Anthony had descended to these maudlin levels, David would have slapped them, but they both looked at him sympathetically because they were nice people who would never have dreamed of torturing Paul until he begged for mercy.

"It's okay, David," Terry told him. "You're just not very good at letting go."

Which was just a stupid thing to say, because why were you supposed to be good at letting go of people you cared about? Why didn't people hang on as hard as they could, prove they weren't letting go, make the other person care?

"I don't want to let go," David snarled through the vodka. "I don't understand the concept."

* * * * * *

I just made the most difficult call of my life, giving up something I really really want to do and put in so much time and effort for and tried so hard to succeed in. But I can't do it right now because it's too emotionally draining and I have very very little left to offer. The worst part was that they were so understanding about it and said they would take me back anytime. But I will definitely come back to it.

 posted by zyn :: 6:47 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


miserable

Why can't I stop crying? Isn't there a limit to the amount of water you can lose?

Maybe I can hire someone to take care of me for a little while. There should be a service like that.

 posted by zyn :: 9:32 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


bounce bounce bouncy ball

Monday, March 06, 2006

Zyn #1:
Boohoohoohoo my life is over! I love someone who doesn't love me! And who dumped me at a car showroom, thus robbing me of all glee at the thought of buying a new car! I want to kill myself! I'm going to swallow these two bottles of pills! And wash them down with Dettol! And slit my wrists!

Zyn #2:
Aiyoh. Stop being so drama lah.

Zyn #1:
... ... ... okay.

Show's over. Normal scheduled broadcasting will resume.

Now if only Parliament and the Oscars will stop screwing up my life by replacing Desperate Housewives.


Don't get me wrong. I'm still devastated... and for the most part a complete wreck. I just spent a very embarrassing day bursting into tears every five minutes at work, something I've never ever done before and something I never thought I'd do. But there are still people to help and lunch interviews to write and I've already been very selfish this weekend by blowing everyone and everything off. So what if my heart has been humpty-dumptyed? I still have two eyes and two hands and two legs and a 24-inch waist (heehee slipped that in there). Who needs a heart anyway? Bah.

 posted by zyn :: 10:22 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


everyone is the same - except for those who are different

One of the funniest blog posts I've ever read:

CONGRATULATIONS! You are ORDINARY

You are an utterly mediocre, boring ordinary human being. Every thought you have has been thought of thousands of times before by beings with the sentient abilities of amoeba, although they may seem like revelations to you. You are mundane and soulless, and your existence serves the sole purpose of moving bile from point A to point B.

Chances are, Henry Kissinger didn't consult you when he was planning to bomb Cambodia, and the odds are that Tiger Woods will not call you to check on his golf swing. You matter very little in the greater scheme of things. No one gives a damn about you apart from that family of yours and the breed of inbred mutants you call friends. You will live to about 70 by which time you will accomplish absolutely nothing of note, and die a bitter, boring, drooling old man/woman in a pool of your own shit. Your kids will turn out exactly like you and will take up oxygen better kept for people who really mean something. Try not to breed. You should have been a blowjob.

 posted by zyn :: 1:56 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------


tuesday night and i ain't got no mahjong

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

so i shall be self-indulgent and do this meme thingy that dio has tagged me to do.

Seven things to do before I die

1. Buy a car
2. Buy a house
3. Buy my parents a house
4. Buy a Prada bag
5. Buy Jimmy Choo shoes
6. Buy my soul back from the devil
7. Buy a baby elephant (just, you know, for fun)

Seven things I cannot do

1. Hit 45 kg

Therefore:

2. Donate blood
3. Fly a plane
4. Become vegan
5. Fit into clothes from Zara
6. Suffocate people by sitting on their stomachs
7. Burp out loud (okay unrelated but I really can't)

Seven things I say

1. "wanna qst?"
2. "*@#$%ing horde"
3. "LFG"
4. "lol"
5. "heal pls"
6. "ding!"
7. "Hi sorry can't talk getting killed bye"

Seven books I love

1. Freakonomics
2. Harry Potter and the anything
3. World of Warcraft strategy guide
4. The Deer and the Cauldron by Jin Yong
5. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
6. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
7. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (yes, really, until now)

Seven movies that I’ve loved

1. Lost in Translation
2. Spirited Away
3. Chungking Express
4. Happy Together
5. Taxi (2, etc)
6. Snatch
7. Pirates of the Caribbean

Seven people to tag

Let's make it 10.

1. Sierra
2. Zhenyi
3. Immie
4. PY
5. Miz_Y
6. David
7. Mr "bear bears are cute" (you know who you are)
8. Fanman
9. Weili
10. Paddychicken

Extra category: Seven things "meme" could mean

1. Me! Me!
2. Most Egocentric Movement Ever
3. My Existence More Exciting (than yours)
4. Me Exalt Myself. Et (tu)?
5. Mass Execution of Megalomaniac Exercise
6. Man Enact Monkey Echo
7. Any piece of information transferable from one mind to another or
an idea, question, statement or project that is posted in one blog and answered to in many other blogs. Bo-ring.

 posted by zyn :: 12:49 AM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


--------------------------------------------------------::--------------------------------------------------------