Potmos, Teleute, Oneiros, Olethros, Epithumia, Aponia, Mania

I went for Carine’s birthday celebration on Saturday, caught The Prestige on Sunday and ‘revived’ my MP3 player yesterday. There are so many things I can blog and elaborate upon: friends, movie, music, etc. But I will do none of that. All I am going to do for this entry, is just quote from my recent reads.

---

Excerpted from the trade paperback Death: The High Cost Of Living, written by Neil Gaiman

+++
"It’s funny but on good days I don’t think of her as much.
In fact never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly’s all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that’s not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option…

So we talk."

- from the Introduction, by Tori Amos

+++
Sexton Furnival:
"… I mean– Are you the kind of person who just says weird things suddenly in the middle of the conversation to seem interesting, or were you just joking or what?"

- from Chapter 1 titled The Spirit Of The Stairway

+++
Sexton Furnival:
"There’s this thing, they have in French: L’espirit D’escalier. The spirit of the stairway. I don’t think we have a word for it in English. It means, well, the clever things to say that you only think to yourself when you’re on the way out. All the cool stuff you wish you’d said at the time…"

- from Chapter 1 titled The Spirit Of The Stairway

+++
Sexton Furnival:
"You like being locked up in warehouses and being threatened by loonies and…"

Death:
"No. I didn’t like that. But… It’s part of the whole thing. And there is a whole thing out there. And it’s all part of living. The good bits and the bad bits and the dull bits and the painful bits–"

Sexton Furnival:
"Okay. I get the point. The whole thing. Right. Very profound."

- from Chapter 3 titled The High Cost Of Living

---

Excerpted from the issues collected in the trade paperback The Sandman: Fables And Reflections, written by Neil Gaiman

+++
Todd:
"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly."

- from the issue titled Fear Of Falling

+++
Delirium:
"His madness… His madness keeps him sane."

Sandman (Also known as Dream or Morpheus):
"And do you think he is the only one my sister?"

- from the issue titled Three Septembers And A January

+++
Eve:
"You can choose your friends, my love. You can’t choose your family."

- from the issue titled The Parliament of Rooks

---

Excerpted from the chapters collected in the trade paperback The Sandman: Brief Lives, written by Neil Gaiman

+++
"Touched by her two fingers, the two surviving chocolate people copulate desperately, losing themselves in a melting frenzy of lust, spending the last of their brief borrowed lives in a spasm of raspberry cream and fear."

- from Chapter 2

+++
Bernie Capax:
"I mean I got, what, fifteen thousand years. That’s pretty good. Isn’t it? I lived a pretty long time."

Death:
"You lived what everybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

- from Chapter 3

+++
Delirium:
"Um. What’s the name of the word for things not being the same always. You know. I’m sure there is one. Isn’t there? There must be a word for it… The thing that lets you know time is happening. Is there a word?"

Sandman (Also known as Dream or Morpheus):
"Change."

Delirium:
"Oh. I was afraid of that."

- from Chapter 3

+++
Delirium (Speaking to Dream):
"If you’re going to fall apart, then one of us has to keep this thing going. Please get up. I don’t know how much longer I can be like this. It hurts very muchly."

- from Chapter 7

+++
Destruction:
"I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend… I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments.

Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; And stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust.

But I can pretend."

- from Chapter 8

+++
Destruction (Quoting his sister, Death):
"She said we all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don’t to make it all bearable."

- from Chapter 8

+++
Delirium:
"Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay, sometimes."

- from Chapter 8

“I Love SLP”

CSC Day – Arts Forum
Signature Love Project – CSC Clubroom
Ethelontêr – East Coast Beach
Paint-A-Home – Pertapis Children’s Home

And you might ask what the common link is.

CSC Special Project 2006 – Where the OC members of that Project gathered at the end of the Project for a group photo.

Well, I went for Paint-A-Home 2006 yesterday and today, and wound up being the resident cameraman there. My original plan was just to snap a few shots here and there and spend more time painting but that was not meant to be. It turns out that save Ethelontêr where I was the Assistant Project Director, I took loads of pictures for the other 3 projects! Not that I minded anyway; It really is loads of fun capturing the joyous moments of the volunteers at work =) Memories digitised to last, haha. The downside is, that I did not really participate in the intended activities of the Special Project.

Having been present for all 4 of the end-of-project OC shots, the most recent being P-A-H’s photo today, it becomes even more apparent to me that I really like CSC Special Projects, perhaps even more so than the Regular Volunteering Programmes where we visit homes and interact with the residents on a regular basis! I feel very happy for a Special Project when it has been successfully completed, happy for the Project itself and happy for the volunteers who have put in so much effort to ensure its resounding success. Heartfelt joy cannot be described by mere words, indeed the Project is "Special" for one must be present all the way to be able to understand it fully.

Anyway, on a sidenote, here is the part of a song that kept ringing in my head these two days whenever I looked to the sky and hoped for clear weather so that the paint jobs will not be disrupted.

"いろいろな苦しみは　鉄の釘で刺して
過去の川へ捨てた
冬の瞳は閉じて　春の陽射しを受け
わたしは暖かい… "

– Kiss Me Sweet by 紐育歌劇団 from
the album, サクラ大戦 V ボーカルコレクション 紐育歌謡全集

***
What my take on the 5^th Coming is, you ask?

The Economics Of Board Games

It is really amazing how Alex, Denny and Paul always manage to come up with arguments and economics theories about the gameplay of some board games, especially those that involve the use of some form of game currency! Usually, one of them will go, "No! You should not spend so much on that, given , your expected returns will…" Then some form of discussion will ensue. All the programmer (Me) is able to do is to watch on, amused and bemused by the fuss.

Aside from the usual ones, we played 2 new games at Settlers Cafe tonight (10/9/2005), Santiago and Shadows Over Camelot. I felt Santiago was only so-so but the others thought otherwise of it. Well, the fun part came towards the end of the game when Denny decided to make sacrificial moves to deny the other players from earning more money by spending large amounts of his own money (Yes, this was the game that started today’s economics debate)!

I really liked Shadows Over Camelot because it was a fantasy-theme board game with role-playing and quest-completing elements in it. These sort of games always appeal to me =) The biggest problem with the game however was that the game rules made it such that those playing the role of the good guys lose most of the time! In fact, the café staff declared that eighty percent of the time, he lost the game! Nevertheless, I had loads of fun, playing the "Loyal" knight and the "Traitor" on separate rounds.

I love board games and I love them even more when I play them with friends!

Cat And Fish

Back-story: One Sunday some years back, I happened to pass by Kampong Glam Neighbourhood Police Post. There I saw an orange cat sitting at the steps to the Police Post, looking at the glass doors, as though waiting for something. On the glass doors, a ‘Closed’ sign was hung on the door handles.

The class assignment for my Arts Module was to draw a single picture to tell a visual story. I sat there and pondered, and thought, and considered what to do with my picture. The following is a description of the drawing I finally came up with.

A cat standing on its hind legs, restricted by a taut leash with its paws against the glass panel, looking at the freely swimming fish kept in an aquarium.

I was happy I managed to come up with something within the time frame but at the same time, the picture made me feel moody. I wonder why I decided on this picture. Sigh…

2 Similar Beginnings

[Beginning #1]
Thanks to a friend, I got a temporary job two days ago, working as a Student Associate in University Hall. I have thus, ‘broke’ my 3-day week and made it a 5-day week instead, choosing to work for the two mornings of my Wednesdays and Thursdays. Now I have a small independent source of income at the expense of my free time. Well, to tell the truth, I was never really fond of a short week anyway. I’m looking forward to my second week at work =)

[Beginning #2]
The CSC Annual General Meeting ended last night, marking an official take-over of duties by the 4^th MC. Working relations don’t really mix well with friendships. Friendships may blossom, but they may also sour because of work conflicts. But I guess I should not be pre-dooming anything here. Anyway, here’s to many wonderful friendships and working experiences with each other ahead =)

Pensive

During the CSC 4^th MC Elections, someone posed a question to a candidate, asking him to rank the following in order of priority: Work, CSC, Friends, Family. There I sat amongst the floor, running the 4 choices through my head, generating my very own list. I told Alex about my order and he was shocked. Well, some of us have different values…

The long bus journeys home from school, all alone, sometimes trouble me. My mind just cannot seem to stay unperturbed by my little thoughts. The accompanying music from my mp3 player sometimes soothe me. Other times, it’s just playing slow tunes that synchronise with my mood…

I have been reading my past blog entries. Some of them required a bit of work on my side to jog my memory to recall the event that happened. Others just came to my mind naturally. I remember penning ‘16/7/2004 – Will You Make Another Person’s Day Better?‘ This was before I joined CSC as a volunteer and is most definitely not a reason I joined CSC. If anything, this post would be the one reason to deter me from taking up community service…

My recent comments about a "hollow world" and "pretending" sparked some little chat about me on the chat-box. My existence, a pretence? Most probably. Well, it’s my show, and I can and will choose to let you see whatever I want you to…

Me. Life. Work. Friends. Family. Answers. Questions. Troubles. Thoughts. Faith. Values. Music. Money. Commuting. Help. Helpless. Joy. Pain. Pretence. Show. Right. Wrong. Sins. Inaction. Selfish. Biased. Self-Centred. And many more…

***
Unaffected. Sought 黄純(きすみ)’s aid.

“I Love Board Games!”

I shall indulge in myself a bit, be proud of my work =) Here’s something I had to do for my Arts Module assignment.

This is the only (I stress "only") module this semester I am having fun in. It involves lots of hands-on work on the students’ part and basically lets your imagination run wild, doodling and coming up with designs and stuff. At least I don’t have to memorise notes about how packets get routed about in networks and how to store data in databases.

Okay, that said. I think it’s high time I stop living in this dreamy state and get down to understanding my Computing modules’ notes…

PS: I also love beans…

The Joy They Brought

I woke up this morning and left for school with a lot of anger that had yet dissipated from an event that took place the previous night but left school at night for home, feeling a wondrous sense of joy.

Well, I’m not going to spill about why I had so much rage accumulated. Instead, I will tell you what made my day. The right company. Friends you can crap with. Friends you can smile with. Friends you can work and joke with at the same time.

I am so glad I went down to the Clubroom after lessons instead of hanging out at my usual quiet but lonely spot in the Faculty of Science. Just being there to do my work, chat and help out with some of the work going on brought a nice end to a day that started out on a really terrible note =)

***
Go on, insinuate. Do the things you do. When you’re done, kindly shut up.

Elect ‘Em!

It’s all part and parcel of elections. Some win, others don’t be it due to strong competition or lack of confidence votes. There is bound to be disappointment, be it among the nominees or voters. Surprises are also to be expected. Yesterday was CSC’s 4^th Management Committee (MC) Elections.

I was in a way lucky, to be the last nominee to stand for elections, to take up the post of Publicity Assistant and it so happened that I had no competitors. Everyone probably wanted to go home so badly that only one person raised a single question during the Q&A session after my short introduction (I won’t even call it a speech, haha). Either that or no one was interested in grilling me about my possible contributions or working habits at all… Oh well, it’s their loss for not asking more questions to try to tear me down and find out more about me. I can live with that.

Ah… A chance to attempt to extend that helping hand beyond a Regular Volunteering Programme =) I will do my part, fulfil my duties to the best of my abilities and contribute in whatever way I can to the Club as part of the MC! I must!

"… I know I have a chance again
Now suddenly I feel I’m starting over
It’s time to turn the page"

– Story Of My Life by Liberty X from the album, Being Somebody

***
Redemption?

Lost On A Sunday Morning (Routine No More)

Routine:
Wake at 7 AM
Leave house at 8 AM for language lessons
Reach Shenton Way at 9 AM for lessons
Have lessons till 12 noon
Hang around/ Go loitering in Bugis/ Go home at my own free time after lessons

I have been faithfully following the above-mentioned routine for 6 months straight. However, Japanese Intermediate-4 lessons ended last Sunday and I am presently stuck at home without a clue as to what I should do. Tutorials don’t interest me, neither does online gaming. I am in no mood to laze in bed or read a book. It really makes me wonder what I did on Sunday mornings before I started lessons. Oh well, it was probably nothing significant anyway since nothing comes to mind.

That said, I must find my motivation. I really must.

***
Don’t tell me the world is hollow. I won’t believe you. I will not let you shatter my naive impression of this world. Then I can continue to believe in what I want, about this world and everything else in it.