hello again

3.40am, i gotta be up and running in less than 5 hours' time. yet i dun care. scrolling through, i think i kinda miss my blog. hello hello, here's a h-u-g from the keyboard.

work has been sucking up great portions of my life, but i've been generally happy these days. and did i mention about my long trip? was a blast. hanoi, halong, cat ba, lao cai, sapa, bangkok, ayutthaya, manado, lembeh straits.. along the way i know i've touched the lives of at least a family in sapa, and seen my mimic octopus in the fabled seas of lembeh straits.

anyway in one of those self reflecting days i noted down the list of places that i've yet to account for since last year

kinabalu, lata cemeron, hk, macau, cambodia, malacca, taman negara and now vietnam thailand and indonesia. some day i'll gather enough strength and stamina to put the pics up.

but ZHIYONG UR PHOTOS ARE TAKING PRIORITY NOW, fret not.

alright, tmr looks set to be another long day of slogging and right now i'm best off tucked under the covers snoozing against rhythmic thunder from afar.

to show you that i'm really working on them

A Wedding

Sorry for the long wait, I'm still working on it old friend.
Dun worry, everything should be out by the time you have your wedding dinner.. haha.

and away.

One up for the newly weds.
Sorrie bro, didn't have enough time on hand.



and i'm off, till 12th April.
bye folks

it is at moments after i have dreamed

it is at moments after i have dreamed

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

i really like ee cummings' poems.

i had strange dreams this morning too. the family took a plane out for a holiday, which is rare enough by itself. upon exit, we found ourselves somewhere in america. we dashed across a busy road and at the entrance of a mall, we realised that it wasn't cold at all and pulled off the jackets that we were wearing. we hailed a passing cab and the driver was malay.

.

we had fun in taman negara.


ended on a happy note.

highway to nowhere

Suddenly waking up in the middle of precious sleep with parched lips and knitted brows isn't the best of things that can happen hours before embarking on another dreadful working day that lasted till after 1am the following day when most are having their distinctly different and prettier dreams.

Why were i in your car, in the backseat alone, when the car suddenly stopped in the middle of the highway and i got out to find you slumped lifeless in the seat and my frantic calling and slapping wouldn't wake you up so i looked around and shouted for help and spotted a man 20m ahead who didn't want to see me and so i stuck my head back into the car to find you vanished from where you were dead moments ago but turned my head to find you in the backseat with your eyes on me and a smirk on your face.

it was you, though it shouldn't be.

i sprang awake all knotted up and needing a drink.

now i need the bed. it's 3 bloody am yet again.

pain and its relative relativity.

Caught something cool on Discovery Channel last night, as i was stoning about with another damn late dinner. Our human sensation of pain comes from signals that got sent from the source through to the spinal cords, which then jumps over a gap in the wiring called synapse before passing all over the brain; that's when we feel pain. I always know that endorphins can relieve pain but what i didn't know is that the brain can actually counter-send signals down across the synapse to effectively block out the pain signals, which is prolly what happened to me in that motorbike accidents when i was 6 and didn't really register the pain despite the gruesome wound on my ankle.

another strange thing that's happening to me is that despite being drop dead tired for the past couple weeks, i'd suddenly be wide awake and unsleepable at 1.30am. yes, unsleepable, like now.

.

19th feb.

i wore black shoes today.

Best Pictures

I found out moments ago that I've watched or possess 18 out of 20 of the Academy Awards Best Pictures from the last two decades. The remaining two, Rain Man and Driving Miss Daisy, were in my hands as I was browsing through Gramaphone a week ago but I put them down for something else. No choice here it seems, but to extend my dvd spree and head back for them now. And after which, I will have over 190 titles to my name. Feeling rich.

.

Happy valentine's day, for whatever it means to you. had a good night out with my jolly diving buddies.

testing testing

this looks much nicer when it's all blown up.

why i'm still up at 3am.

The Reader

Superb.
Walked out of the cinema feeling peaceful for once in a series of sleepless nights.


and she,
was mere an arm away.

.


i need the quiet of a midnight charm.

my new bitch.

wah lau eh..

so nervous, i nearly dropped the lens while trying it at the shop.

okie zhiyong, i'm nearly ready.

oh bother

Words from an old friend, once good, now mere acquaintance, somehow managed to stick themselves into my mind for some time since.

Don't trouble trouble.

i used not to make much sense out of it, or to take much heed, but these days they drift back in the form of voices in the head, in their own good time and good health.

But i did not!! trouble trouble that is; largely peaceful and quietly contemplative men don't. Rather, trouble troubles me, taking all the initiatives and without me lifting a finger at times, to the extent that my allocated quota for piss taking for the next 3 years has since been expended in putting out the arson jobs in me. and i would like to not give too much of a damn hence on.

.

on an entirely separate note, dinner with peiyi and jacq was good today. i ate parts of a cow.

taking check

the year so far, sucks.

sick for the whole of the week, flu, cough, sorethroat, the whole lot. terrible time handling the mother sometimes, burnt out from putting up with things. and more things. the whole house painting affair was taxing, even though painting only starts tomorrow. buying a sofa was like fighting an expensive war. more shit at work. potentially no pay increment for the year. months on, right wrist seems permanently damaged from the stupid accident, as are my ankle and knee even though i haven't been running. can i still run? losing my new slippers en route to cambodia. lost count of the number of times i fell asleep this week with the lights on and burning the whole night, searing through the tatters of my dreams. january has been a warzone, a state of emergency. every step that i took vulnerable to igniting a land mine and i inevitably set off quite a few, so much so that at times i didn't feel like moving, or talking. silence was my safety net.
.

far too much unhappiness in the whole of my life. they sneak up on you, deal you a blow and scamper off into crevices unseen. sometimes you dun even know what wrong you have done - there might not be any - it's just fate's way of telling you that you're no more than a flick of snort.

i'd like to, for once, be happy this year, or more precisely, the remaining of this year.

fuck fate and all that shit.

atrocious

overheard on the train earlier on from two co-workers who boarded and sat together:
chinese man: i want to apologise for laughing at your hair yesterday.
ah neh: okie
chinese man: see now my hair is also dropping
ah neh: uh
chinese man: i know i laughed at your hair but it's not on purpose. sorry huh.
ah neh then alighted.
.

aside to that, too many people are oblivious to their own atrocities in this screwed up world. and i hate the fact that my holiday is coming to an end in this damn manner.

ill contented

it's friggin 4.30am but i dun wanna sleep. i'll quit my job and be a night-watchman instead and a bloody good one at that.

screw it all.

oh cambodia.

The air tickets to Laos were too complicated and expensive to obtain at the short notice, so i settled for the next best thing and find myself in cambodia yet again today, barely two days later.

Entered from Phnom Penh and hooked up with a bus to Siem Reap. Hitting the temples trail early tomorrow morning and to more obscure places on sunday. From that brief impression that I had of PP, it looks boring and shall leave it till the final day before i fly back next week. which means more of siem reap and wherever else that i decide to go.

a year on, siem reap seems to have fallen more deeply into the clutches of the tourism vices. walking alone down the streets, tuktuk and moto drivers bugs me at every kerb and the phrase "tuktuk, massage, girl" is fast becoming familiar.

And no i'm not a japanese. i just have a nice goatee.

AMok Party Goes Tripping

i laughed till i doubled over in pain, breathless, and wiped off the gay tears that were squeezed out by powerful forces within. Over nothing much in actual fact. But oh how we enthused over the absurdity of our trip and the great planning that was wrapped up in ten minutes, much of which was spent debating whether we should leave at 6 or 6.30am, or how much to bribe the polis man when we get pulled over for speeding. We picked our to-go places like we're ordering dishes off the ala-carte menu: we must find the eunauch Zheng He's memorial, and this is getting extinct, must eat, and this, this and this, and we should throw in a church. Though we'll prolly just end up watching footie over the whole weekend in Malacca.

Wiped out the remaining of the evening with an impromptu darts and table soccer and bowling session which leaves me with half an hour to pack before i hit the sack and get my ass to work in 6 hours time.

15 years and counting. AMok Party Rocks

oh thanks for that

to say that i'm selfish, coming from you, is plain ridiculous.

you are nobody to judge me.

maybe next time.

i know i know, for the 257th night in a row i'm supposed to be in bed but i'm not because i spent the whole night looking at ten thousand weddings photos. not because marital bliss are in the books but for a tricky decision that i've got to make.

im very honored to be asked but no.. having seen the best, the terribly lousy that destroys marriages and the average, i'd have to decline and refrain from jumping into the stream of mediocrity for now till i learn to take better photos.

okie okie not so drama. it's just ROM but still i dun wanna be remembered as the guy who took shitty photos at their fateful ceremony.