i want to remember.

on the way to dinner at bt timah after work, i thought i spotted a familiar face at the bus stop in front of the Al-Azhar Indian-Muslim Food place. i wanted to say hello, but then i realised i had forgotten her name. the only thing i remember about her is that she was from Dunearn Secondary School's Band and that her name started with a C.

and for that moment i felt sad. i hate forgetting.

the only thing i could remember was that i last saw her on some sec 3 day of reflection in church or something like that. that was the first, and also the last, time i spoke to her. i remember sitting next to her on that saturday/sunday evening but instead of interacting with her, all i did was check my watch and curse about how time moved so slowly and think about how fun it would be at risen christ's confirmation with all my friends later in the evening. waiting, cursing and glaring at my watch soon got boring and i gave up and so i decided to make a half-hearted attempt to talk to her. i have no recollection of the conversation, but i can pretty much remember how everything was in the hall and all. like what everyone was doing and all. kinda very much like a mime show or one of those classic charlie chaplin movies. a couple of hours later, i was gone.

and just like most things that we take for granted, i didn't realise that she didn't get confirmed with us in 2007. i didn't even notice she was gone before confirmation camp. perhaps i was so busy in my own lil' world, so caught up with everything and all. i lost a friend, or perhaps, an acquaintance just by forgetting her. what makes me sadder is that i heard she stopped going to church a long time ago, presumably in 2006. no, i'm not sad cos she's(presumably) not fulfilling her sunday obligation. i'm sad because i didn't do anything to try to get to know her, maybe it might have made a difference. church is supposed to be a second home, but it was pretty much a torture camp for us, until confirmation came along and made things better. but she left even before confirmation camp came. some people just stop going simply because there's no motivation or incentive to go anymore. people start to get lost, jaded, and cynical over time and by then, it's pretty much game over.

after some clarification with Ryan, i now know her name is Charlene Ang.
but the thing is, i don't really know whether she's dead or alive. or whether she was the one i saw at bt timah today. or how and what she's doing now. or where's she studying at now.

does anyone know the answers to these questions?

i don't know what to believe anymore.

i think i'm pretty naive. tell me anything and i'll most probably believe you. call me a sucker or a dumbass, but it's just me having this belief that it's better to just give the person the benefit of the doubt. sometimes, it's good and all is well. other times, i just look like a fool. no one likes to look like a fool, not even me. at the back of my head these days, a voice tells me that everyone's just punkin' around and nobody's serious about anything and that everyone's lying about everything. but this time, especially this time, it's telling me to listen. thing is, should i?

things to watch.

-seven samurai[1954](the original japanese movie)
-samurai 7(the anime adaptation)

does anyone, by any chance, have any of these?

i don't quite get it.

the goal of any creator is to create a masterpiece that embodies perfection.

then why does God the creator create us, imperfect individuals that are flawed in more ways than we can even imagine? is perfection not key in His design? is there a reason as to why we were created imperfect? what exactly is His plan? i cannot comprehend why He has done so.

i believe that God the creator never intended for some of us to become monsters. i'd like to think that He would never create monsters. what then, you ask, are the monsters i refer to? my answer is as such; individuals who have stepped across the boundary of human morality. some of us become monsters intentionally while others become monsters unwittingly and under unfortunate circumstances.

what exactly makes a human person become a monster. his appearance is human, is it not? everything about him is human. he has fears. he feels emotions. he experiences hunger. he feels pleasure and likewise, pain. he still has dreams. but he is not human. perhaps it is because he does not think like one. to me, one who has no qualms about killing a fellow human being is a monster. or perhaps, those who are possessed by the flames of war and are thrown into the abyss can sometimes too, be considered as monsters.

sometimes i wonder if monsters were supposed to be the norm. what if a monster was the embodiment of perfection? what if they were the perfect masterpieces; killing machines for a higher purpose? what if that was our purpose? it is warped sense of perfection, but nonetheless, it is still perfection. killing without hesitation. killing instinctively, as if it were in them.

oh well, it sounds far-fetched and unlikely. it was a random thought after all. perhaps, one day, true perfection will shine through.

i'm still waiting for that day.

i still remember.

i am surprised that jon chen still remembers the story of the happy prince. i first read it when i was in secondary one or two because it was in one of our literature textbooks(which we never used at all). the story is a pretty awesome one. no, it is not just a typical feel-good story with a happy ending. i'd say that it is pretty complex story as it reminds us about how life is, with its hardships, prejudices and struggles.

it is a sad story to remember, simply because it reminds us that people and things that have outlived their usefulness to society are discarded and that only people of great wealth and importance will have their way in this world. at the same time, it is heartening to know that these people and things eventually go someplace better, away from the mess we've created.

i must say,
i'm surprised that i too, still remember.

Blackmore's Night - I Still Remember

I thought of you the other day
How worlds of change led us astray
Colors seem to fade to gray
In the wake of yesterday.

You looked into my eyes
You had me hypnotized
And I can still remember you

I had a dream of you and I
A thousand stars lit up the sky
I touched your hand and you were gone
But memories of you live on.

You looked into my eyes
You had me hypnotized
And I can still remember you
Those moments spent together
Promising forever
And I can still remember you

Do you ever think of me
And get lost in the memory
When you do, I hope you smile
And hold that memory awhile.

looking back(again).

it is the PAE. i have almost everything i wanted in a JC.

friends, good food and drink, a class to die for, a team that is motivated to excel and that i daresay is worth giving up an arm for, a nice catholic community that is largely familiar to me, good teachers and much more.

one fine friday evening, after an early training, T9 decides to eat a steamboat dinner. our first together, with zhi cheng leading the way. i am second last to turn up at the grandstand because of rugby. arnold would be last, because of soccer training. while waiting for arnold, cherzy notices that i am getting bored, so she asks me if i want to use her ipod. i go like, "er, okay?"

it is a delicate thing, this ipod, with a fancy click wheel and a screen that screams, "don't drop me, i crack!" i take the delicate piece of machinery from her hands into mine and stare. i scan quickly through her artists and i soon spot something familiar. Sum 41. i am surprised and i ask her about it. songs from the new album i soon find out. i find one that i really like, titled "With Me".

it is a glorious evening. good music, good company and a lovely sunset after a hard day's work. i take a good look at everything around me and say to myself, "this is life, as it should be. i hope everything stays this way."
i make a silent promise to never let go of everything i have right now and i think to myself, "mann, i am so lucky."

little did i know that a month later, i would lose everything that i swore to never let go of.
well, almost everything.
after all these long months, i still have the song on my phone and my mp3 player.
i must say that i miss the way things were, but as cliche as it sounds, no one can take away the memories that are mine to keep.

"i don't want this moment to ever end.
where everything's nothing without you
i'll wait here forever just to see you smile
'cause it's true, i am nothing without you.
through it all i've made my mistakes,
i stumble and fall but i mean these words."

about catching up these days.

personally, catching up has always been a big problem for me.

firstly, it's just plain awkward to just go over to say hi after not meeting for so many years.
secondly, there's this rush of words or things you want to say but somehow, you're not sure of which ones to say. and most of the time, you end up just waving and saying nothing at all. or in my case, you just end just saying "oh my God! oh my God!"

y'see, time does funny things to people. for starters, it makes some of them look so damn different and you can't recognise them anymore but they can recognise you. funny, huh?

today's post is about a childhood friend(who's a cousin of a girl i had a crush on in primary school) who went with me to piano class(lowrey music school i think). so, as time would have it, i didn't see her for a good six years, that was until we met again at cjc. it was during orientation and all, and it was during one of 'em meal times and i was talking to po xian(i think). then came this girl, who looked pretty fierce, who came over to our table to ask if i was "alex poon". i said, "yeah. and you are?" deborah. "deborah what?" wong. "er, oh." at that moment, i thought i was in some kind of trouble or something. no one has ever gone up to me during an orientation camp to confirm my name before. it was scary mann.

there were a few more things she said to help me remember who she was. but i can't remember what they were now. but most importantly, the last thing i remembered saying was "oh my God! oh my God!" mann, what a doofus. i meet a friend from some light years away and all i could say was just that. well, you could say that i was shocked. i couldn't recognise her, for one. two, i totally didn't expect to see her here, of all places. if you ask me, i thought she would wind up at RJ or something. three, yeah, i was just stunned.

time does a lot of funny things to people. for her, she went on to become the head prefect in her secondary school. like wow. as for myself, i pretty much stayed as nothing. okay, then again, time didn't do that for her. she did it herself. respect mann.

anyway, i finally got myself some courage to say hi to her(i always have this fear of screwing up catching up sessions. y'know like how you run out of things to talk about after you say hi.) on MSN messenger just the other day and we kinda caught up and all. she's aiming for FASS. she's doing relief teaching now. she thinks that i dislocated my shoulders tackling fat people(i should have told her the truth, but mann, that'd be just messed up. cos in rugby, it ain't always about tackling fat people, sometimes, it's about the fat getting tackled.). she kinda messed up her math and now she's worried about the 'A's. and yeah.

it was nice i guess. keeping yourself connected to the people you used to know and all. and maybe, by doing that, you actually remember who you are too. funny, isn't it?

Dan the Man.

daniel ilabaca is awesome stuff mann.
yeah, that's it.

maybe today wasn't so bad after all.

on sleepless roads the sleepless go.

we are taught that thought is the precursor of action and that the latter cannot occur without the former. but eighteen years have taught me otherwise. sometimes, the action comes before the thought. and when that happens, it's usually an awful mess.

the problem with a mess is that someone has to clean up and we all know that cleaning up is an unhappy business.why so? because you would need to find out the source of the mess and confront it. and now, that is just, well, messy. no one likes a mess but the truth is, we pretty much live a lot in it.

now i have more time?

some things happen for a reason i guess. divine intervention maybe? i don't know. but this time round, i don't really have much to complain about. that's a good thing, i guess?

extra time is always a good thing to have.

being sick and lying in bed made me think about the things i have and had, the people i know and knew, the awesome things i always said i wanted to do but never got down to doing, the bad things i did, the little good i did and etc. in essence, it was just my life and all.

believe me, there is little joy to be found in such memories. not to say that my life was bad, because it might have been worse, but because i have too many regrets. now, a lot of extra time and a bagful of regrets clearly do not go hand in hand with other. it makes you want to turn back the clock, even though you cannot, making the experience even more painful than it already is. i dislike this feeling of helplessness. but fighting it is futile. there is no going back. everyone knows that.

"i could have done more, so much more."

Lord, i pray you keep these words from leaving my lips again.

it is done.

now that my fate is sealed,
let me claim my destiny.