I was just reading a forum on Atwood's "Cat's Eye" (which is my favourite favouritest book out of all the books I've read so far) and they were saying things like,

"The relationship she had with her three childhood friends - Grace, Carol and Cordelia - would have been a lot healthier if she had just told them how she felt. I think that Elaine is a coward. She is afraid of these three manipulative, dominating girls and, as a result, she is constantly picked on and left behind. "

NOoooo..... I'm sorry, but you really have to get dumped into a situation like that in order to know what it's like. It. Does. Not. Feel. Good. To put it mildly.

The reason why I like "Cat's Eye" so much is that it brings out so extremely clearly what one wants to express and never knows how, you don't even know how to begin, you've been brainwashed so much that you can't find exactly what fault those people did to you. Things are accumulative. So is bullying.

"I think that Atwood overexaggerates the relationships that women have, and tries to make them realistic. I realize that there are things about your childhood that you might not understand until you are older. However, you can not blame everything bad in your life on someone who you were friends with when you were a child."

I don't know why people find it hard to believe that relationships that happen in childhood aren't that significant. I've always been a very firm believer that people are most cruel when they're about six to eleven years old. It's only after that age that society takes its hold over you, that you learn not to tease others about their defects, that there are polite ways to go about being unpleasant, what socially acceptable behaviour is, etc etc etc. But then again it's because we can't outright express disgust with someone, that lots of behind-the-back stuff takes place. It makes people even more scary. People are scary.

I held a grudge for eleven years against a girl I met when I was six years old. There was a lot I blamed on her - lack of confidence, insecurity, etc etc etc. There was a second girl I was afraid of when I was eleven, because she reminded me of the first. And then another girl, when I was seventeen. And when I next met that first girl again, she didn't even remember me... which was hardly surprising.

I find the relationships between women in "Cat's Eye" extremely realistic, in short. The world of women is like that. People are like that. This is what I've felt... that is what I know. You can make friends with someone and talk about absolutely anything and rush to each other's rescue when they're hurt... and about half a year later you meet in a corridor and don't even say hi. You can have a group of friends you call your best friends in the world, but the truth is you're bound to them simply because you fear being cut adrift, being an outcast when all around you people are gathering in cliques. And this fear gives them absolute power over you. You'd do anything for them. You'd do anything for them not to abandon you, and that includes letting them hurt you in any way they can.

You'll willingly get hurt and years later all you remember is the hurt and you can't even remember why.

That is power.

ICE is your chinese symbol!


What Chinese Symbol Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


That's... very interesting.
I'm not very sure I agree...

This weird piece (which, however, rings somewhat true) is courtesy of Emode

Ling, your romantic pattern is Romantic Rescue!

Love is all-powerful in the Romantic Rescue pattern. It is the catalyst for change within yourself as well as the means through which you discover if your partner is who you want and need them to be.

But, here's the recurring pattern you may see in your relationships: A desire to save your partner from his own self-destruction, or the desire to be saved by someone for the same reason.

Some people adopt the hero role in this pattern — nursing an ailing partner back to health, saving them from a string of previously destructive relationships, maybe even saving them from a physical danger. Others cast themselves as those in need of rescue — relying on their partners to swoop in and save them from whatever ill-fate's been visited upon them, either real or imagined.

Find it all in your personalized, 12-page Romantic Pattern Report. It's ready right now!

... Question mark, question mark, exclamation mark.

Ditto for the one that says "Ling, your emotions are triggered by your underlying belief in Dignity", which I cannot quite make sense of. ^_^

[Edit] ...On second thoughts, this test seems pretty much true... my attitude towards the previous previous guy I like shifted the day I saw him crying (hey, we were about 11 at the time), and the first day I saw the guy I most recently liked, his face was covered with blood (cos' of football). Hmm.

I'd rather be the rescuee though. I think I grew up fed with too many TV melodramas.

Sick today... got hit by a viral fever, aches all over, tooth infection and some minor food poisoning... all at the same time. Talk about timing. It amuses me horribly that I've to take charcoal pills, charcoal being what I'm drawing pictures with. Maybe I should try sketching stuff with medicine.

I suspect I messed up my body's reaction to Panadol that last time... all what I took (yesterday and today) were two pills, the normal dosage, and my eyes started swelling. I look horrible.

ok... this Coleridge poem is a little out-of-character for me considering what I have been angsting about for some time... but I found it really interesting ^_^. I particularly like the last line.

I'm reading Edgar Allan Poe at the same time too, while waiting for Kazaa to download my songs. I found a very nice quote from Poe's "A Dream within a Dream" :

"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream"


The Suicide's Argument
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no
No question was asked me--it could not be so!
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try
And to live on be YES; what can NO be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER
Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear?
Think first, what you ARE! Call to mind what you WERE!
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare!
Then die - if die you dare !

I was just thinking of doing another art piece. Something in hot, bright crayon, and flowing colours all around. Something where the person looking at the picture is the person in the picture; and the person in the picture is looking over her own shoulder. I’m not quite sure how to bring that about.

You know when you’re young sometimes your parents take you on rides… they have lots and lots of stuff now, ferris wheels and roller-coasters and something I got on called the Inverter once (which is a marvelous way to lose your lunch)… but my favourite used to be the carousel. Well I didn’t know what a carousel was at that age, to me it was the merry-go-round. (Pretty significant name too, if you think of life as a carousel.) Anyway, I would ride on the carousel with lots of flashing lights and tinny music and mirrors in front of me, and then, getting a little dizzy, I would look over my shoulder to find my parents. There would be lots of noise all round, and blurry images cos’ I’d been spinning about, but then everything would clear. And then I would see my mom, smiling at me with a special fondness, and feel reassured.

I want to convey that feeling… the feeling of all that clamorous noise and haze clearing away… and in that one moment of extreme clarity you look over your shoulder to see the person that you most want to see.

Who will you see?

I got a new bag yesterday. Umm... in a manner of speaking, that is. It was originally a huge black rather "obiang" looking thing my mom got me from Hong Kong on her last business trip. Last night I was looking high and low for my "Much Ado About Nothing" (turns out it really was much ado about nothing, cos' I later remembered it was in my locker) and I dug out this bag on the way. And I was really frustrated with things, so I took my silver glitter fabric paint, sat down and started drawing. I'm rather proud of it actually.

The design isn't original. It was derived from something I vaguely remembered seeing on a T-shirt in Far East. Well I don't think they can charge me for it... I'm quite sure I didn't remember it very accurately. The problem is bringing it to school. On one hand, I think it's nice, and on the other hand, I think it's ugly. The only way to find out for sure is to bring it to school and watch the eyes of people who see it. Not what they say... what people say is never important. If you want an honest reaction you watch their faces. That's what I think anyway.

New pencil case, new haircut, new bag. New hairstyle, if and when I feel like it (I pin my hair a different way now). New determination to buckle down and study.

I like new things. It feels like you're beginning something over, even if you're not. I don't get new things very often... that takes the feeling away a little bit. My cat, on the other hand, likes only the old and the familiar. He's lying next to me now, playing with his favourite ball. I think he'd make an outstanding soccer player =)

It's so hard to find good sheet music on the Net, but when you get one that's really worth playing, you can get hooked on it for hours. I've been playing "Inochi no namae" (The Name of Life) on my piano almost every day. It's from the "Spirited Away" soundtrack, and Tabby's "Schindler's List" theme sounds way good too but way too impossible to play, if you ask me. Well, I'm working hard.

(I don't think my neighbours like it very much though. =p)

I got a haircut yesterday. I got a bit of hair cut. It feels way good... to be able to feel my hair again. The way you can walk with it loose and it just flaps against your shoulders, which it can't do if it's too long cos' it just hangs down your back and weighs you down. Now I know why people like to cut their hair when they're undergoing some major emotional changes. It's the thing that really transforms the physical You, and it's pretty cheap too. Just $10 and all you do is sit still.

Growing your hair long (I reflect) isn't that much of a change. Sure, you get to look different, but it feels more like growing into a role, instead of belly-flopping yourself into it (which is what a major haircut does to you). You leave your hair alone and it grows. Big deal. Chopping off your hair, on the other hand, has a get-things-over-with, something we call in chinese "shuang3 kuai4"-ness that feels powerful, almost like a high.

Ok. Guess I'm making too much out of a haircut. I can't wait for the day I can get my hair chopped off, though it better be for a good reason. I'm still growing it long for Prom, cos' I've never done my hair up before, and I wanna see what that feels like first.

I attempted putting up the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man" here but failed, thanks to that infernal son-of-aDO YA HEAR THAT BLOGGER???!!! machine but you should all try finding it anyway, it's a great end-of-the-day song. Well, it was Gary Lim who said so, but I'm stealing words out of his mouth, since I agree. "Let me forget about today until tomorrow." Delicious.

I had a good day today. I bought myself a new pencil case. And ice cream. And I've downloaded two more songs by Gackt, whom Tabby got me hooked on, though he's bisexual. "All good men are either taken or gay."

Had a Lit S session today which has got me wondering with one half of my brain about Delirium, who has multiplied into a hundred tiny multi-coloured fish in Volume IX, and with the other half about fish with three second memories, that was from "Finding Nemo" I think. And then suddenly about bright purple Volkswagen Beetles. And then a pink one zooms mentally by.

I wouldn't mind being part of Del's realm, really. Fun place.

Quote Dream, who was speaking to his raven Matthew:

"Delirium will drive. You will advise her.
I am sure you will find the experience one of great interest and variety."

People talk way too much.

I wish I was autistic, or something. Then no one would bother to talk to me.

Everything is way too irritating today, particularly people who strangely INSIST on talking to me just as I'm in a lousy don't-touch-me mood. Even the internet messages I get are annoyingly burbly and cheerful, like one of those salespeople who like to tail you around with smiles plastered on their faces. Which part of I WANT TO BE ALONE do people NOT understand??!

(And I've been struggling to answer politely to questions all bloody day, I really have, but people are structured in such an odd way that the less I respond the more they ask, and I have to vent everything on a computer which at least doesn't talk back, thank god, and can you imagine if I told my mom I just didn't FEEL like talking??? I'd never hear the last of it and she'll think there's some awful reason and start imagining all sorts of things)

...DAMMIT.

"Ah, yes, divorce......., from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet."
--Robin Williams

Back to the land of the speaking…

I was just listening to a really good fast song by Gackt (It’s called “Vanilla”, in case you’re interested) and checking my e-mail and thinking about marriage and divorce, at the same time. That was something Shu (my boyfriend, btw, who’s missing a few vital parts… three to be exact) and I were talking about earlier today. I never think of marriage nowadays without connecting it gleefully to thoughts of divorce. I even have a great vision of marriage where I get to scream and throw plates every day. Exciting, huh?

Well, if I really wanted to be chained and tortured, I’d take the rack and screw any day, thanks. And for children (which I’d open fire on with a machine gun) I’d be quite happy with just a few cats. Gahh. Isn’t that the typical old spinster image?

Get a man, rob him blind, throw him out of the (closed) (glass) (absolutely NOT shatterproof) window, and get another one. Yeah.

Gackt does funny things to my head, or perhaps like my darling honey-buns says, I’m just developing a morbid sense of humor.

It's my sister's 21st birthday today. Her boyfriend came over and we had a green tea birthday cake with red candles that melted horribly fast and she got the hugest bouquet I'd ever laid my eyes on, twenty-one roses in all. ^_^ Plus other miscellaneous flowers; lilies, I think. I could hardly lift it.

I was thinking about birthdays... cos' many people I know have their birthdays in June. There's an especial fuss over milestone birthdays: the 18th, the 21st, the 50th. For me the only one special one was (supposed to be) the 16th because I turned 16 on February 16. Don't ever make days special like that. All what you get is the most horrendously bitter disappointment. I've ceased looking forward to a happy 21st myself, having spent my 18th writing deadly depressing poetry behind locked doors. (To be fair, it was great with my friends around, a few days before the actual date. But my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, and my mother wasn't speaking to me cos' we had a fight two days before. So it felt pretty bleak.)

Besides, I hope to die before my 50th. I think.

This is the most I've been thinking so far today.

I've been going into mental hibernation... ^_^; like Plath says, body like a closed bulb and too numb to think. I'm not depressed; it just seems like my mind is shutting down. I hate talking now, and typing, and blogging, and the actual physical process of writing, which explains why most of my diary entries now are either in one paragraph or simply nonexistent. Writing is a form of talking, in a way. You hold a conversation with someone, it doesn't matter who, someone in your head maybe. You have to translate feelings into words and string words to make sentences and these sentences have to make sense. What a bother.

I used to wonder how babies thought, since they didn't know any words yet. Maybe we've lost the knack of having abstract thought. Yet it does come back, when we do Art, or Math. Maybe that's why I've been painting and doing math most of the time now, and leaving all my writing aside. All what I have to do is pause, look, move. Pause, look, move. What a pleasure, to have done away with words.

Alright. I've spoken enough for today.

...

Interlunar
By Margaret Atwood

Darkness waits apart from any occasion for it;
like sorrow it is always available.
This is only one kind,

The kind in which there are stars
above the leaves, brilliant as steel nails
and countless and without regard.

We are walking together
on dead wet leaves in the intermoon
among the looming nocturnal rocks
which would be pinkish gray
in daylight, gnawed and softened
by moss and ferns, which would be green,
in the musty fresh yeast smell
of trees rotting, earth returning
itself to itself

And I take your hand, which is the shape a hand
would be if you existed truly.
I wish to show you the darkness
you are so afraid of.

Trust me. This darkness
is a place you can enter and be
as safe in as you are anywhere;
you can put one foot in front of the other
and believe the sides of your eyes.
Memorize it. You will know it
again in your own time.
When the appearances of things have left you,
you will still have this darkness.
Something of your own you can carry with you.

We have come to the edge;
the lake gives off its hush;
in the outer night there is a barred owl
calling, like a moth
against the ear, from the far shore
which is invisible.
The lake, vast and dimensionless,
doubles everything, the stars,
the boulders, itself, even the darkness
that you can walk so long in
it becomes light.

I haven't been blogging for ages, and my personal diary is similarly empty. Not that my time has been taken up by Sandman, or schoolwork, or eating dumplings, or my painting, which I'm almost halfway through. I just haven't been thinking very much.

Not much worth to think about, really. Really.

You know some nights when you turn off the bedroom light and prepare to go to sleep you don't just flop in and shut your eyes immediately? And at first everything is dark. Like totally pitch dark, though you can see your fingers in front of you if you wave them about a little, and all the glow-in-the-dark stuff in my room sure helps. You have to feel your way to the bed, bumping into some odds and ends on the way, and then you sit down, and if you sit long enough things start to emerge. Like shadows. Those are the first. And then patches of light, cos' there can't be shadows without light, or light without shadows. And then you wonder why you never saw them when you were first blinded by the night, as the outlines of furniture, the rounded sides and curves, start to emerge, but you only see the edges and they don't matter... and if you sit there long enough without moving, hardly breathing or even blinking you realise how nice it is really. How comforting solitude is. To be wrapped up in your own little black cocoon of "darkness/ that you can walk so long in/ It becomes light".

I'm not there now, but the mood is here. Rather contemplative, even if I don't know -- or rather don't like-- the subject I'm contemplating. (Wow. Makes me sound like I'm in really deep thought doesn't it?) I'm skipping P.E today, seems like everyone is, and I think, I'll make up for it later by running two rounds around both HCJC and TCHS. I really will. However, knowing me, this will probably happen somewhere in the era where pigs learn to sing the ABC.

I should have listened when people tried to tell me some things, yet if I had the chance to go back I'd probably go right there and make exactly the same mistakes all over again and not regret it. I only think I should have listened cos' if I did I wouldn't find myself so pathetically laughable now. But the way I reacted was me, anyhow.

I don't see why patterns should keep repeating themselves or why I can never seem to learn.

I don't know.