last week i spent some time in Singapore at the invitation of the Nuffnang Singapore team. i’ve missed Singapore quite a bit, so i jumped at the chance to go.

it was really good being back there. not much has changed, but a couple of new malls have sprouted up, most noticeably the gargantuan and futuristic-looking Ion on Orchard Road. it’s almost completed. just a year ago i walked past the construction site practically every weekend cos Martian’s apartment was really close by the Ion. Ming and Huiwen picked me up from the airport, and on the way to the hotel, we drove by the apartment – a huge red sofa sits in the middle of the living room now. not nice :(

they put me up in the Park Hotel, which is a new hotel near Clarke Quay.

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i spent my first day in Singapore just catching up on sleep. couldn’t help it – the bed at Park Hotel was so deliciously comfortable, crisp white sheets and all. also was too lazy to go out for dinner at some point, so i ordered in KFC delivery. haha! it is my dream to one day be able to afford a lifestyle of staying in all day to eat KFC on a big fluffy bed.

Kenny arrived at Singapore the next day, upon which we took this photograph of him in my bathroom, which is separated from the bedroom with only a huge glass window:

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what to do. taking stupid pictures is all one can do when staying in a kinky-esque bedroom alone :(

a more normal picture of us:

#5 so cute! he looks like a little boy with really long eyelashes

on Friday night, kenny and i were brought to the launch party of the Singapore River Festival, which was the reason we were invited to Singapore. the Singapore River Festival is a weeklong sundown festival along the river, with a medley of events taking place, such as boat parades, circus-themed parties, magic shows and aerial dance performances.

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a big handful of singaporean bloggers were taken on a tour of the festival’s events by the ever diligent Nuffies, but kenny, ming and i just attacked hor d’ouevres at the launch party held at the Asian Civilisations Museum. also met up with a few singaporean bloggers:

#8: Underage girl, Nadnut, Iceangel, Kenny Sia, Boss Ming and Xiaxue

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#14 they placed three clear floating balls onto the river, and they each had dancers in them!

#15 a closeup

i really like what the organizers are doing with the event and the Singapore River. it’s such a clever and contemporary use of geography. i must say that in all my time in Singapore i never really gave much thought to the river — it was always just this thing separating Boat and Clarke Quay — but now the Singapore River Festival has spurred me to think about all the untapped event venues in KL. Ming told me that he once went for a corporate dinner party hosted on one of the bridges on the river; they threw huge white drapes over the bridge to form a gorgeous tent under which the guests ate and partied! and then there’s St James Powerstation — the coal power plant that a Singaporean real estate firm converted into a humongous party house that holds 10 clubs and bars. so innovative, a power plant ok! but we’re a long way from using the Klang River as a party central …

after the launch we went on a fab river cruise where our hosts told us many tales, the saddest amongst which was that the Merlion was recently struck by lightning and part of his head fell off :( so poor thing!!!

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i was really amazed at this side of Singapore that i’ve always taken for granted. it’s so glitzy now. i was taking pictures of the riverbanks from the boat, and couldn’t help asking myself, since when did Singapore look so much like Hong Kong?

#17 outside the Fullerton – photo credits to Kenny.

#18 photo also by Kenny!

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the boat dropped us somewhere at Clarke Quay, where we went for a Pyjamas Party at The Arena. the bloggers were all dressed in PJs, and so were the Arena Allstars singing on stage! and so was Kenny:

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wtf.

some other pajama party photos:

#22 with the Nuffies!

#23 with the Spartan, who is also my former archenemy. haih one day I will tell y’all our splendid story – stuff of legends, that :P

#24 kenny is suuuuch a Sarong Party Girl!

#25 stickgal!

#26 awww Kenny looks so happy!

i really wish i could have stayed for the circus-themed party, as well as the J C and ‘Magic Babe’ Ning’s record-breaking set of illusionist stunts this Sunday (can someone please go and tell me what the stunts are?! i met them both but they refused to say :( ), but i had to leave Singapore early. oh well :) there’s always next year. organizers of the Singapore River Festival – may i suggest a riverside flea market for next year, with lots of shoes, trinkets, food, art and music?

the Great Singapore Sale (aka Jovann’s best friend) was also on when i was there, and i heartily did some splurging! i’ve taken a huge liking to little leather satchels, so I bought some at Far East Plaza, which i love. i thought Far East had closed down because i miscalculated the distance from Orchard Road, and thus got a bit frightened, but Ming said no lah it’s still there, and — “Far East cannot close lah… otherwise Malaysians will have nowhere to shop!” KNN stupid ming :(

photos of my new bags:

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and i forgot to buy tutu cake :(

i woke up today to find out from google news that michael jackson is dead.

i grew up knowing and loving MJ. some special sunday mornings at my old house, my grandmother would throw open the sliding glass doors and someone would put on our laser disc of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album. we would all sit around the living room table eating kuaci, joking, laughing, as MJ’s energetic tunes and crisp voice filled the room. and instead of playing crashing and clanging festive music during Chinese New Year, we would always opt for our MJ laser discs. the kids (ie me) really loved dancing to Black or White and Thriller. at one point i knew all the words to the rap portion of Black or White, and would irritate my Cantonese-speaking grandmother to bits whenever i jumped onto the dining chairs and started rapping english gibberish at her.

where your blood comes from / is where your space is / i’ve seen the bright get duller / i’m not gonna spend my life being a color!

the Michael Jackson concert in Stadium Merdeka was the first and only concert i’ve been to with my parents. i dont know why my parents decided to bring me, cos i was really young and couldnt really have appreciated the show very much, but i’m glad they did. i feel so lucky that that they did. for my own personal reasons, that night was a really glitzy and special one for me. what a night. i was sandwiched between my parents clutching one of those concert souvenir plastic mugs, staring down in awe at MJ, all the way up there from the bleachers. maybe he will do the moonwalk, my mother nudged me and said, and i remember asking, what is a moonwalk? issit like when he slides backwards on the floor? yes yes, it’s like that. did he do it at the concert? i dont remember. but i do know that to this day people still go, wah, moonwalk, whenever they see an old video of MJ doing his thing, even if they’ve already seen the moonwalk an infinite number of times.

i was really angry when i logged into twitter to see some really insensitive remarks about MJ’s death. “RIP MJ’s nose” and “be happy everyone; our dreams wont be haunted by MJ’s nose anymore”, and the most repulsive one yet, “farrah fawcett went to heaven and asked that all children on earth be safe, so god killed michael jackson”. disgusting and so disrespectful. just because he put up with a lot of media shit and public humiliation does not mean it’s okay to further ridicule him at his death.

and then there are those who passed comments along the lines of, “oh last time everybody make fun of MJ, and now they all miss him, stfu lah”. really? who is this everybody? the only people i know who made fun of MJ’s nose, skin and alleged crimes are the ones who are making the same jokes about his death, and these people didnt care about him or his impact in the first place. someone tweeted this incredulous comment agreeing that MJ fans are hypocrites because “it’s too late to miss him anyway”. isnt it always too late to miss the dead? would this person rather that people didnt pay tribute to MJ?

take a look around — people are gathering in public places to pay homage to the king of pop, buying out his CDs everywhere, playing his music at the office and at home, writing tributes to him… and a couple of random people who dont care about MJ decide to take it upon themselves to declare that the world actually doesnt care either, and are all just faking their sadness. please lah okay. there are many of us fans who never once believed the allegations about him, and even for those who did and consequently made fun of him, you cannot tell them they dont have a right to pay tribute to MJ. relationships to music and its inspiration is sacred and personal; who are you to say that paying tribute to an idol — a musical genius, a virtuoso, a world-changing artiste who always stood up for humanity and charity — is hypocritical? many of us grew up staring at the ceiling after school, listening to his crooning that always made us feel better and taught us new things; many of us derived simple joy from watching him dance.

this all reeks of people who dont give two hoots about Iran and choose to believe that no one else actually cares about Iran either, and that everyone is just playing up their concern to sound educated. why do people always resort to such odd justifications when they simply just dont care about something the rest of the world cares about? if you dont care, dont; just dont imply that no one else cares — or thinks about — these things.

(i really hate myself for getting angry today. sorry. i really shouldnt have.)

MJ MJ MJ. we have so many memories of you. in standard 6, Syafiq used to twirl around the classroom executing perfect imitations of your dance moves, and we used to shriek in laughter whenever he did the crotch-and-tiptoe thing.

in standard 1, my classmates and those from 1 Dahlia did an awesome pirate-themed dance number of Beat It at our annual concert, which incidentally was the last annual concert our school ever had. some seniors in secondary school taught us and our class teachers the dance moves in the old 4th floor studio that was soon dismantled. Johannas was the evil swashbucklin’ pirate! i wish i still had the tape of that concert.

my cousin Eva and i used to sing Heal the World before we fell asleep after a long night of little girl chat. our aunt had these Michael Jackson cassettes that we would slip into the radio and sing along to when our aunt left the house. simple joys.

everybody in Starbucks used to dab at their eyes with tissue during Christmas season, when the carolers would go around the cafes of Bangsar singing an absolutely beautiful and sincere rendition of We Are The World. sometimes we would run up to them and sing along with them too, taking pictures and laughing.

once, we went to a home for disabled children in Teluk Intan to paint them a beautiful mural to brighten up their home. when it was a time for break, the homekeepers put on some music so that we could all dance with the kids. everybody went wild when MJ’s music came on. hands flailing, hip swinging, egyptian-move-making… MJ, i guess that’s how we do your moonwalk.

everybody loved you in their own little ways.

i found this picture online and thought that it would be an apt dedication to MJ:

from here.

everyone knows that MJ is a manchild. i often wonder how scared and lonely he must have felt in the midst of all the accusations and cruel press coverage, whether they were true or not. i guess it’s a good thing that he’s free from all the speculation now; and i suspect that he’s having a great time moonwalking and going, “ow!” wherever he is :)

rest in peace, Michael Jackson, king of pop and my first love. thank you for the music and the inspiration.

everyone wants to see the pictures, or read about the happy, but i am not happy. i am not. i am chronically dissatisfied and the only way i can grate off all the resentment is if i write. will people stop lying to me? will they please stop calling me all the wrong names? i’ve been sitting here staring at the blinking cursor thinking furiously about something else to fill this post with, but there’s just nothing else that i want to say for now. but i know that in an hour i will want to abruptly ejaculate something. like how i’m misty eyed and heart broken and have this incredible urge to go for a swim. like how i’ve been sitting in Starbucks practically all evening trying to write an article but have barely budged ten words past my last word count.

i guess the ability to assert one’s existence with brevity and immediacy is why people like Twitter so much. but then i can’t tweet all these things without people grumbling that i’m flooding their streams or something incredibly new media douchebagey like that. every Wednesday or every Friday should be Many Short Blogs Day on quaintly.net — hopefully with a catchier name when i can get over my melancholy long enough to think up something more creative. at least then i will have my own space to write about short, random things. mobile 3G allows for the possibility. does that make me a new media douchebag too? songjun, sieutheng, rfoong, rchin, kenyen, eeyang … remember the days of pinkskyes when i would update every 10 minutes about the littlest and most mundane, vanilla things? i’ve missed that; i’ve missed the convivial symposiums we would have in my Snorcomments. i think i want to recreate that. and i kinda really want to bite something right now.

i’m currently in hiding because i’m about to be skinned if found. so betray not my whereabouts!

conciseness cos i need to slip back into reclusion very soon:

: i’m back from singapore! i thought i could throw myself back into KL proper but as it turns out my aunt in melbourne is quite dangerously sick and we may have to go see her sometime in the week. everybody is hovering on the edge of health lately :( scary.

: my grandma is fine. she didnt do the surgery, but she’s still feeling a lot of pain.

: happy father’s day to all fathers! i bought my dad a Dumbo plushie. it’s got very big eyes and floppy ears and is in the midst of learning the multiplication table from Lenny, who is by now a mathematical mastermind.

: i have decided to dedicate my summer break to slavery :( i start work next monday. no, dont ask me what i’m doing, because it involves top secret governmental classified information. yeah, that kinda only sounds cool and legit if you’re not working in malaysia.

: i met Stickgal in Singapore!!! t’was the highlight of my trip. she is quite possibly the cutest person you will ever meet. guys, please convince her to start blogging again.

(we were dressed like that cos we were at a pajama party.)

: i have NOT learnt how to drive yet. very hard to go into hiding with the lack of this crucial skill set. i also haven’t learnt how to use my new camera.

: i dont really owe anyone an explanation, but no, Martian and i are not actually back together. something funny happened though — Martian happened to be on the same flight as kenny and i out of Singapore yesterday morning. anyway he’s good, healthy and still martianly mean. we went out for supper yesterday and he scolded the jockey guy. perlu?

: new blog layout is quite possibly never going to happen. sorry, you guys are stuck with elisha cuthbert’s big blue eyes for awhile :( oh, special apologies to all testosterone-filled men who like reading my blog but are ashamed of checking it from work cos it’s pink :P aiyah it’s not that pink also lah. do the internet like a man!!!

: have been on Twitter for a while. follow me over here! i use Twitter for announcements or random vanity updates on my life that no one really cares to read about, or sincerely curious questions like: why do girls always fall in love with guys who teach them how to play guitar? though i’m still with Plurk for all things conversational and communicative. add me on plurk as well — i’m chattier there. drop me a line if the plurk river intimidates you; but the short of it is that you simply have to scroll left/right :)

: i miss my boys :(

: today is the beginning of the end of my blog’s emo phase. no more emo cryptic posts!!! or maybe just a reduced count — can’t take the emo out of the girl that easily.

it’s been one of those months where i have been building up a deluge of thoughts and ideas in my head, but remain far too much of a perfectionist to pen them down. mostly i’m just waiting for the right, quiet moment to sit down and organize all of my mental hodgepodge so that i may communicate them clearly — but i should know by now these moments always take too long to come.

i am currently alone in singapore, in a hotel overlooking clarke quay. i could get used to such a life of solitude, fresh white towels and curry puffs from old chang kee nestling happily in my stomach; but real life calls. and i’m still not getting any writing done. dont know which to expel first — my thoughts on twitter and plurk, my thoughts on (insert adjectives: Malaysian, famous or pseudo famous) bloggers and the sociology of the blogosphere, or my thoughts on the recent proposal for a compulsory pass in English for SPM. or how i’m becoming jaded? or how i really need to learn how to fly (literally)?

i’m shattered right now — both physically and emotionally. the former can be dealt with by a good night’s sleep, but i’m not so sure about the latter. and so to make myself feel better i want to share some videos of three cartoon movies from my childhood that i was very thrilled to have found on youtube.

1. this is Swan Princess. pretty popular with the kids, this one. if you are a fan of Harry Potter (specifically the Draco/Hermione ship) AND you have watched the Swan Princess, check out this video. it’s impossibly adorable!

2. this is an anime version of Jack and the Beanstalk. i was very surprised to know that so many of my friends have watched this! i’ve embedded the part of the movie where the princess sings as she sits on a cloud (skip to 7:10); that’s the part that everyone seems to remember the most. i recall being extremely frightened by the wicked witch — she gave me the most chilling nightmares. old Japanese anime can be so deliciously dark.

3. this is Little Nemo. i have yet to find a single person who’s watched this movie, but i believe i’ve just been asking all the wrong people. this movie was also very dark and disturbing to me as a child; sometimes i dont know how i made it out of my childhood dreams alive. when i was younger, i was so in touch with my own fabricated worlds that i didnt realize until i was much older that this movie was all about the state of dreaming. i think i also thought squirrels could talk and were all petulant, prickly things.

hands up, people who have watched any of the above three movies!

the mechanical whirring on the other side sounds like the incessant firing of a machine gun. a million imaginary bullets later, i have finally realized that the tugging sense of deja vu is nostalgic of the afterschool sounds of Counterstrike in the dingy cybercafes of Pandan Perdana and Damansara Jaya. occasionally the whirring is punctuated by smooth swooshes of passing cars from beneath the windowsill where i used to place my glasses. i have a white rubbery lifeline through which i hear these things. i am grateful for it. and you snore. you snore like a bear and i can see in my mind the shadowy contours of your body as you lay sprawled and sweaty in the summer heat of your bedroom. memory and imagination are so crucial in states such as ours; otherwise, with what could i fill in the blanks? how could i feel like i am still relevant if i didnt help myself to copious amounts of self-implementation? teleportation seems so lofty and unnecessary; i dont want or need it right now. everything looks and sounds good from here as i sit back and admire the ease in which you sleep.

the boxed fan sat with us on the brick wall that hot sunday afternoon, quiet and unmoving. we were there at its inception, it was there at our conclusion. i recall thinking that our composition must look like a scene from a movie to the passerby — the air was heavy and sticky and i was perched on the wall swinging my legs while you paced the tired-out ground, and on the margins of it all a boxed fan hovered awkwardly as we fought. we are always fighting when we’re together. is this the thing about long distance relationships that seem to span a lifetime: that the distance is what holds the two people together because incompatibility becomes diluted by the continents and the seas? could it be that we trudge about and immerse ourselves in the pathos of our separation to forget that ultimately we are just not meant to be? but i love you most at night, like this, when you are sleeping and snoring like a bear would, and i can say all kinds of soothing things to you that you never hear because i always forget to unmute the microphone. love is so weird.

it was straight out of the books — sunshine, crisp grass, sweet strawberries, cheap wine drunk straight from the bottle, a funny blanket that i couldnt help but laugh at. as i recall, it was an afternoon brimming with pouts and angry glares, but lukewarm air and gusts of leaves take care of such things. i fell asleep briefly and i loved it. lucidity can be so awful, and it’s nice to escape it even if momentarily.

dedicated to kakicucuklangit!

forgiveness is a funny thing.

time traveling is over, kiddos. it’s back to earth and real timezones now, or more accurately, it’s back to a single timezone, where i alone reside. i left london prematurely. that means a lot of things are no longer happening, among which are the Britney concert i was going to attend on wednesday night, visits to Cambridge and Manchester to see Voon and Emily respectively, and a lifetime. but there will always be new lifetimes, hopefully happier ones.

i’m writing this on the plane. the flight is taking longer than it should be, and i have a feeling i’m going to miss my transit flight out of Singapore, but the bright side is that i can hang out around Changi for a bit. i’ve missed Changi — trees of many memories grow there for me. my favorite one is the memory of the airport clinic; that doctor was the brusque one who didnt nag. streams of sunlight are flooding the cabin right now. Lenny is bathed in a pool of that golden stuff but he remains fast asleep. he bared his tummy to me earlier as consolation, and i rubbed it, but it just wasnt the same.

i am confused at the lack of conflict i am feeling. i must have really psyched myself out to the point of numbness. but you see, the point here is that i am okay. i dont care what anybody says about the destruction that lies in the wake of always expecting the worst — the truth is that you always emerge prepared to handle the hardest of times. do you remember the time you weren’t prepared? do you remember how you felt like you wanted to die? see, right now, all i’m feeling is that i just had the wind knocked out off my stomach. this constant sinking feeling. shards of heart. dusty dreams. it’s still not a very pleasant combination, but at least it’s all physiological. and it’s a lot better than feeling like i want to die. it’s also better than a lifetime of dying bit by bit every day.

in two hours, i will be back in the arms of the people who truly love me and would never hurt me the way i’ve been hurt today.

edit: i am home now :) CALL ME, FOLKS.

many months ago, i went to london to find love. distraught, stung and exhausted, i dug myself little tunnels to escape the stale noise that for so long had threatened to wear off my skin layer by layer until nothing could possibly be left. yet even in the subterranean quiet my ears would still ring and i would find myself kicking frantically from reflex and ritual. how how how do i move? am i searching for something similar or something different? i did everything within my fortitude to crush everything into one fist — i sang on trains, i drank horrible mulled wine, i tried not to cry, i cried, i bought a remote-controlled helicopter. but did i find love in london? no. so i went to barcelona. a hundred thousand dusty alleys snaking through the passeig de gracia revealed nothing; even the favorite gelato stand at its main artery was helpless. i fretted as i descended the winding stairs at la sagrada familia, nervously keeping my eyes fixed on the chalky graffiti scratched onto the stone walls. i was in a cavern! a vandalized test tube! air could run out soon. i was to die before i could see my quest to the end. had i become desperate? i fled with fear and petulance to the mediterranean sea, and one day i will tell you about it, how i kicked off my shoes, laughed, and jumped in, getting salt water all over my jeans, my top, my hair and my lips. i liked it best on my lips; although i forcefully seized number one, i secretly adored number two. how do i describe that moment in time, that sharp slice of realization as i leaped into the freezing winter waves? it’s a little bit like getting your nose flicked — i was likewise startled, scared, and felt some pain. briefly, i had glimpsed love. on the empty shores, beneath the catalan gray skies, with sand between my toes, i glimpsed it just so briefly.

last weekend, i went to paris to find love. i found it.

so here’s a recent conversation with my dad that really made me miss him :( his secretary had just sent me a bill for something and CC-ed him in the email, asking me if the bill looked right, and i replied saying that yes everything look’s alright. then:

Dad:
Ya ya ya …. All is right.
I am not alright… $$$

Me:
why u act cute !

Dad:
Because daughter is cute papa also cute… [awwwww!!]

Dad:
Want to know something?

Me:
what!

Dad:
Nothing… just make you curious … hahahahahaha

Me:
-_-
dont be weird!!!!

Dad:
WHAT ??? early say me cute now say me weird. [HAHAHA TOO ADORABLE!]

Me:
you can be both cute and weird wat

Dad:
What are you doing for today?

Me:
ah see never follow my plurk so you dont know what i’m doing today
i’m going to SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP
yesterday all i did was sleep, eat and watch a movie
do u think i’m a pig?

Dad:
No lah… you are my cute daughter. [awwww again]

(then we talked about some money matters)

Me:
not bad wor……
i give u my paycheck ok? (background: my folks are fighting over who gets my first paycheck, ahha)

Dad:
DEAL!!! but mum will not be happy… you know, she loves $$$
hehehe

——–

and just today:

Me:
aiyahh
what you doing

Dad:
Working.
I was in manila last week and colored my hair.
My scalp is allergic to the color chemical and now very itchy.
SAD…….

Me:
HAHAHA SO POOR THING
like doggy

Dad:
no … like monkey… scratch here scratch there

——

haih sometimes i dont know if i my dad is cuter than he is weird, or the other way around. wei lou paeng!!! are you reading this? i am coming home soon!! we go eat THE pan mee ok?!

nah show y’all a picture of my lou paeng. he was fiddling with my macbook and took a picture of himself using my Photobooth:

haih too cute. i think i should dig up something funny about him and submit it to mydadisafob.com!!