Boston in October

my heart has been irreverently displaced by something very small. its tiny, pulsating force seemed so harmless in the beginning, but i can ascertain for now that my feelings have truly been hurt. isn’t it weird? i have no right to feel like this. i should be trying to finish all the work that i allowed to sit and curdle over the long thanksgiving weekend. but this is bringing back a lot of horrible sensations from 2003 that i can’t seem to fight away alone. i just want someone to make this better :(

pictures from boston, when joe and i went to visit dominic:

#1 dom’s very waspy suburban neighbourhood

#2 fall colors, all gone by now

#3 it has been my lifelong dream to climb onto a mailbox and take pictures

#4 but that picture didn’t come without a very ungraceful behind-the-scenes process

#5 success! after many, many tries where i trampled all over poor dom

#6 a slightly more graceful picture

#7 then joe decided to copy me. to add insult to injury, all he did was swing himself atop the mailbox T_____T

#8 mine now :)))))

#9 sunset spilling over the Charles River. i wish we’d had the time to walk along the river :( this photo was taken from inside a moving train

#10 dom took us to Quincy Market for dinner. it reminds me of some place in melbourne, just as bustling and with as many good smells

#11 joe and his lobster dinner. i dont think i’ve ever seen him so happy

#12 this picture happened because i squealed, “joe! let me take a picture of your mussels!!” -____-

#13 it’s a real place after all

#14 at the train station

#15 you know how sometimes you fall into these moments, and you feel like you must capture it in a photo… but as you are deliberating whether or not it would be polite to snap a picture, the people shift, and your moment is gone?

#16 for the first time i deliberated faster

#17 dinner with the very pretty xiao and her roommate ashley :)

#18 would you spend your dollar on mints or a tampon?

#19 our relative feet size

#20 i keenly apologize to all feminists in advance, but i was very drawn to the creative for this poster. at some point i announced, “she is all the marketing that harvard needs!”

#21 there is something about supermarkets that defeats their sterility

#22 i have never taken a newspaper from those stands. one day i must

#23 a house somewhere in the midst of the place where people go to get lost in boston

43 comments November 30th, 2009

The One Foot Rule

i often stumble into those things that i’ve tried hard to parcel away into just ’some month’ in the many months of many life. but it’s almost that time of year again, and the renewed festivities in the air bring me back to that epoch, that carefully partitioned meadow that i often look at longingly from behind a glass wall. it smells like fresh sheets and the melting evening sun. it sounds like the soft giggles of secret sex. it’s so very, very tempting and it lies there, beckoning me to come in, and it promises to be so warm — but like everything else in history, it is inaccessible to me because i am older now. i have grown and i have moved on. for every day that i wake up and think, shit, i’m late for class, i am really moving one day away from it, further and further until it is displaced from me and mine and i will no longer remember the sounds and the smells and how he looked as he watched me put on makeup. i was putting on eyeliner. i saw him watching from the mirror, so i turned around and asked, what? nothing, he said, it’s just cool that i’m dating a girly girl. we’re not dating, i wanted to say. are we? then we slipped out of the house together, my hand safe and snug in his pocket, my heart comfortably resting on his, and he held me close in the blustering winds. one foot rule, okay? that’s what we decided on. we had to keep a distance of one foot from each other for the night. this is my friend! i introduced him. i basked in the awkwardness with which he handled my friends, and me, as i playfully ruffled all the seams of his composure within a one foot radius. he sat beside me during dinner, and i complained loudly, emily make him stop! he’s flirting with me! and emily shouted over, yeah stop flirting with her! he blushed hard and i laughed cruelly with emily. later that night, when the one foot rule had dissipated and we were entwined and warm under the sheets, i giggled and apologized for being mean. he smiled, kissed me, and we fell asleep holding hands. it’s always like that. it’s always about me being mean for the sake of fun and glittery excitement, while he just kisses me and waits patiently until i’m bored of the game du jour, and i return to him, pouting. but i like the fun and the excitement. i can’t give it up, no matter what month of the year it is. there is a pace, and i wanted him to run with me too. but everything happened so long ago, and i’m so in danger of forgetting him. today i did not think about him at all. i appreciated the realization that i had simply forgot to keep him at the fringes of my mind, if not at the very center. it made me feel like i was finally in control. but then it occurred to me that i’ve only been awake for three hours today, and three hours of not thinking about him is not very substantial. nevertheless it’s a start. i’m thinking less and less about him, and every day that i wake up is another day further from ’some month’ in the many months of my life.

52 comments November 25th, 2009

I Jumped Into Cold Water

heartbroken people should avoid concerts, i think. and since we are all heartbroken people, i suppose that none of us should ever attend concerts. last week, i went to watch Joshua Radin’s show at Webster Hall. i went with some friends from school, but i left them because i’d found what i thought was the best seat in the house– some tall speakers right next to the stage, atop which i hastily clambered and found myself at eye-level with the man himself. i was thrilled at first, but quickly realized it was a big mistake, because i could see everyone. webster hall is quite small. i could see all of the girls being cradled from behind by their tall boyfriends, his chin on her head, as they swayed together to the music. i could see all of the guys going to get drinks for their girlfriends, and those girlfriends holding their boyfriends’ coats as they waited. there was this one couple right in front of me — the guy kept twirling his girlfriend’s hair around his fingers, and many times he would lean down and press his face into her hair (it was so golden and soft-looking). she smiled much. i wondered if she was happy.

i felt sad as i watched everything. is this how god feels? all these songs are about me, i couldn’t help but feel, and because god has so many songs written about him, he must be sad too. is he lonely as he watches over everything? where do all these people in love come from? and why are they always at concerts?

for all of the concerts that i’ve been to lately, i’ve been missing someone. that someone is always far away, whether in hong kong, new york, australia, china, london or singapore. i’m somehow always in these situations. perhaps i’m a sucker for pain. let me tell you guys the story of the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival that i went to a few years ago. i was 18 and so young, and that time feels like showers and showers of meteors away, but the truth is that i’m only 21 now and three years isnt that long a time. when i was 12 i used to read blogs of 21 year old girls in towns scattered all over the world, and i would think, wow, how old these girls are, and how real their lives seem to me, this 12 year old in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, who was, for the most part, quite happy. now i am their age. but my life doesnt seem real to me at all. Unnecessary Tangent Counter = 1.

the point was… the concert in bangkok. so i boarded the very colorful Thai Airways plane, and i remember thinking how easy it was to swathe capitalism in happy purple and yellow seats, big posters exclaiming ‘fair trade coffee!’, big smiles, buy 1 free 1 promotions. but before i knew it i was at the concert site. did i know that i was going to meet the love of my life there? probably not. i wanted to hold his hand but i was afraid. perhaps it was possible that i’d always loved this guy. i remember him feeding me cut-up sausages with a skewer stick, and us sharing a big cup of Coke, but i don’t remember if he held me from behind as we listened to Oasis and Snow Patrol.

lots of things are hazy now in my memory. i dont remember how many nights i stayed, or if i was nervous before i met him. these days, i’m thankful to have him in my life because he saves me from drowning. the last time i was back in KL, i was supposed to help him with some shopping, but the day started and ended with me storming out of his car angrily in the middle of a vast and congested road. he never came back for me, so i kept walking. i could have walked off the edge of a cliff in the middle of bukit bintang and he would never have known. sometimes i think i need to check that fervid temper of mine.

i dont have much to say today. i’m really quite emotionally drained, as i tend to be these days due to nothing at all. it’s the start of a new week, i know, but i had such a restful weekend that spanned extra days. my favorite parts: a dusty evening nestled among old books at the strand, ice skating at bryant park, playing drinking games over lychee soju and the best fried chicken in the world (now sold in singapore too), hearing Sandstorm being played at a club, and the 12-hour sleep i got on Friday. blissful rarities! but these things can become undone so swiftly just by one wrong move. but then again, i’ve always been lucky.

Winter by Joshua Radin

I should know who I am by now
I walk the record stand somehow
Thinkin’ of winter
The name is the splinter inside me
While I wait

The walk has all been cleared by now
Your voice is all I hear somehow
Calling out winter
Your voice is the splinter inside me
While I wait

at the concert, he told us that the inspiration for this song came to him as he was walking along 1st avenue, between 3rd and 4th — which is the name of his first EP. but of course that’s where it had to happen.

22 comments November 24th, 2009

If I Were A Painting

this would be me

26 comments November 17th, 2009

In Search of Sunrise

i had a veritably brutal midterm yesterday . it was the kind where you stare at the question and vaguely understand what concept you’re supposed to apply, but don’t exactly know where to start or what you’re really supposed to show, and before you know it, given time is up and you’ve barely answered two thirds of the exam. when i left the exam room, i felt like i wanted to die. i studied so hard for this exam, and i was (somewhat) confident that i would be okay on it.

plus i had extra time to study for it. the midterm was supposed to be two days ago, i.e a full day before i actually took it, but on the morning of the exam in the midst of some last-minute cramming, i got the worst panic attack i’ve ever gotten. it came while i was doing a practice test, and i realized that i couldnt remember anything that i’d been studying. that truly frightened me, so i closed my eyes and randomly picked a question. i couldnt answer that one either, or the next five questions i randomly picked after that. so i tried to go over my notes, but nothing was sticking in my head. i felt like a sieve — a very confused, scared and jittery sieve. two days ago i’d gone to a doctor for muscle pains, and he took a look at me and asked when did i last sleep. i said not for about 32 hours, and he nagged me about it despite protests that i was going through midterms. he gave me some pills, and i made him promise me that these were non-drowsy pills. i asked all the nurses outside to verify that these pills wouldnt induce sleepiness, because i had to stay up all night to study. i swear i felt like a complete lunatic, being so obsessed about drowsy or non-drowsiness.

so on the morning of the exam, i panicked, and realized that i just could not take the exam. i cried for about two hours because i felt so disappointed with myself, partially for being so stupid and partially for being this affected by exams, grades and percentage points. i’ve never been like this before coming here for school, most definitely not in high school and definitely not when i arrived here in my first semester. i used to be all about colorful skirts, beads, good fiction, moscato and jazz, lazy afternoons, baking brownies and forcing people to eat them — now all i care about is getting a 4.0 GPA. i feel so grounded in this world that i can actually feel the discomfort in my blood, yet i keep telling myself that this is only temporary, and once i finish this assignment, i’ll chill out for a bit. but of course the exams, papers and assignments just dont stop coming.

i ended up going to my professor’s office in tears, and cried and begged him to let me take the exam tomorrow. he said yes, but made me promise that i would go for counseling. counseling — that’s really what it’s come to. so i took the exam a full day later. right before he gave me the exam, he told me that several people had already emailed him to ask if they could drop the course because they think they failed the exam, and that i shouldn’t worry if i find the exam difficult, because there will most likely be a huge curve in the grading. he was right- i did find the exam bloody difficult. i was so buzzed from caffeine and taurine that accessing information in the correct pockets of my brain was becoming hard. for a long 20 point question, one of the intermediate steps was to find the directional derivative, and i was stunned for a moment that i couldnt remember the step because it was a very easy method. it was like yesterday morning all over again. so i had to abandon the question and lose about 12 points. the security guard at my building saw how sad i was after the exam, so he gave me a short talk on how one day i’ll see that exams are just one small thing in our lifetimes. i couldnt really respond with more than a half-hearted smile.

i fell asleep for about 12 hours after that. i woke up and the first thing i thought about was the math exam. suddenly i could remember all the stuff i’d forgotten, and i realized that i knew how to answer every question that i’d left blank, including the directional derivative, and the continuity problems, and especially the epsilon delta limits. it was like… putting on contact lens. that wet and clear feeling. but omfg. despite that, i woke up and felt so good. so what if i flunked an exam? so what if i behaved like a complete lunatic in front of my professor? it’s just an exam. i’m pretty shit at math anyway. my best friend used to jokingly say that my utter inability to do math was not a bad thing, but a blessing, because all these smart math guys would want to help me with my homework, and that’s how i’m going to find my soulmate one day. :)

that’s what’s important. soulmates. best friends. the fluffy Michael Learns to Rock songs that i’m listening to right now. the Joshua Radin concert that i’m going to this week. the irony in the fact that i typed Radian instead of Radin just now. that my roommate Piglet will be coming back from her field trip in an hour, and we’re going to be having Chipotle for lunch together in our suite, and i’ll get to hear all her hilarious drunken stories from last night, and how someone peed in our bathtub during our suite party a few nights ago. right now i am so happy.

i’ve also just broken up with this guy that i’ve been seeing for awhile. yesterday we had a really long and angsty conversation about how we’ve been doing since we broke up. it’s a long and convoluted story, but i was just finding it hard to be happy. the point though, is that i’m on my way to being happier as i slowly peel away all of the rahula that i’ve inadvertently found myself so wrapped in. as i woke up this morning and quietly answered that 20 point question in my head (and then wrote that one-line post below), it occurred to me that all i had needed was just some sleep. if i had stuck to my guns and continued being the utterly lazy person that i am, i would have partied over the weekend, and all of the sleep from the hangovers would have helped me more in my exam than four straight days of forcing into my head stuff that i already was familiar with. but no… i just had to try and be hardworking, pretend that i’m someone i’m not, and end up screwing things up for myself :)

i’m not saying that it’s not good to be hardworking. it’s just that people exist in such different ways, and sometimes forcing a change is just so futile and possibly damaging. one of my high school classmates told me the other day how he thought i’d changed so much from the person who used to have a 40% attendance rate in school, and who would walk into class halfway into the school day, happily wearing pink scrunchies and a uniform skirt that was 4 inches shorter than what it should be. he also told me that he was talking to another of our classmates, and how she simply didnt believe that i’ve become so intense about my academics since i got here. i rolled my eyes, and said, yeah, she never has anything nice to say about me. but he shook his head and said — ‘no, right after that she said “but then su ann is the type of person who doesnt have to study hard to get good grades”‘.

i think once upon a time that was true. but then i got here, this wretched university, where everyone was top of their class, valedictorian of their high school, wants to take graduate or PhD level classes, is aiming for summer internships at the biggest and baddest firms — and no one ever stops to help. we were all so used to being the best and the most talented, but now that we’re here and everyone is just as good or even better, we get scared and start clawing our way hard to be ahead of the curve. it’s so exhausting. i liked it at first because it was challenging, but now i detest it because it’s changed me into someone i cant even recognize. it’s changed me into someone who went to see a doctor for muscle pains not because she couldnt sleep properly, or that she was worried about her health — but because it was affecting her ability to write fast for a time-constrained exam. i dont want to worry about where i am relative to everyone else. i dont want to feel suicidal after every exam. i dont want to have the answer key to problem sets, but refuse to copy it because i ‘want to learn things the right way’. i want to be lazy hazy and rainy. i want to flake off and borderline flunk out college. i want to major in something that has no ‘market value’. i wanna take advantage of this amazing city! and see everything! i wanna fly to london on a whim. i want to go to pittsburgh. there are so many things to do and so little time. do perfect scores in problem sets answer any real questions in life?

right now, i’m excited for Chipotle lunch! and the holy grail of all happiness, for me, at this point in time, is a Mac-compatible version of The Sims 3. :)))))))

from Nottingham, during a very popsicle, long flowy skirt, grocery shopping period of my life:

64 comments November 14th, 2009