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Tuesday, May 30, 2006

There are times when I am so against human existence.

Irony at its very best.

But sometimes you can't help but wonder what's happening to the world, to all of us. How can we, as humans, be so cruel and mean? So... flawed?

Like when you turn on the tele and you watch the news. You can see people dying... falling to the ground like autemn leaves in the wind. You can see, you sitting in a plush chair, munching away at your second snack of the day(incidentally, which you should not be earing, seeing as you are about to have lunch in half an hour), the blood. You can see a small child, no older than your own cousin (naughty boy though he is, but so adorable!) fear evident in his wide orbs, tremors shaking his body, blood on one isde of his face. You can see him, in a grassy field that is no more green than it is red, soaked with the blood of the dead. You can see him, prodding fearfully a woman's swollen body, slowly at first, then with trepidation. You can see his lips move, cracked lips that crackle with every tiny movement his angelic face makes. You can see them form one word:

Mommy.

For a moment you are entranced. Your heart fills with sorrow and anguish, for a moment that part that links all human beings surfaces and embraces your heart in a warm and enfolding hug.

Then you hear you father shout, and your heart sinks faster than it would have had a boy died in front of you on the tele. You know that he's found your report book, and you're dead because you've scored below average for most subjects.

And you forget about that little boy.

You start to fret about what your father is going to do to you, whether he'll take away your computer, whether you'll have to go for more tuition.

And yet when your teacher piles onto you a ton of homework, or your boss gives you extra stress (consequently you thus give more work to your students) you complain that there is no such thing as human kindness anymore.

You want human kindness?

Look into your hearts. Your own. Because until you know how much you can love, you are not worthy to judge others.

Judge yourself.

Like I'm doing now.

Can you see it?

A little smile on an angelic face. An angelic face on an adorable person. Her hair is golden- like an angel's. She wears a white dress. Her eyes are wide and innocent. She breaks into a silly little giggle and her laughter is fresh, like the tinkling of a bell in a place of silence and gloom. Like a ray of sunlight that streams across a shadowed area. Her skin has a feel of a new baby-soft and unadultered. She is dancing, flowers bright and cheery clenched in her little fist.

Imagine that picture.

Then imagine that her white dress is stained with the red of blood. Her golden hair is matted with blood, and instead of flowing about her shoulders, it is stuck to the sides of her head. One need only look into her eyes to see the horror and fear those orbs contain. Her face is muddy and stained, and her lips are trembling. They part to emit a tiny, anguished, painful whimper. It sounds like a wounded animal, one that has lost all, and is hobbling on its two front legs (its heel legs shrivled and torn in places). Her skin is rough and has abrasions and cuts lining her entire body. She is the darkest and gloomiest patch of vacumn in a dark closet, one that has doors locked and bolted twice.

Can you see her?

Do you feel your heart shattering, or are you more concerned about the essay that you have to hand in the next month and have not started on?

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 2:17 AM

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Well, it's officially the first day of school holidays.

Holiday.

That has got to be some kind of joke here in Singapore.

What, exactly, is a holiday? Here?

Holidays are never much holidays, are they? They are more like the one month in which us neat and conscientious students finally have the time to complete all our 12982746738463749 projects, and (so our glorious students won't be bored) 4874683724 more pieces of homework. And just to be on the safe side, why don't we ensure that students are preoccupied the rest of the time? Enter the CCAs, the remedial lessons etc.

Ack.

Sometimes although you know that marks aren't the most important thing, that you really should not waste so much time gnawing your lip out over marks, with a soceity such as the one that we live in, it's hard not to think otherwise.

That's the most frustrating thing. To know how you should live your life, but a fear of doing so. And of course, it all comes down to one question.

If you were to choose between being filthy rich but unhappy (by this I mean working all the time etc) and living in poverty but happy, what would you choose?

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 10:04 PM

Saturday, May 27, 2006

The title pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it? Yeah, today was flag day. I'll spare the details, except that Maureen, Becca and I walked around (little India especially) with big smiles plastered on our faces, asking for donations.

And although there were many who were more than generous, this post is about how selfish we all are, so I shall focus on the astonishing and depressing number of people who declined to donate or plain out right avoided us.

And this totally pissed/depressed me. There was a couple who avoided us from 2m off. We were standing by the zebra crossing (on the pavement, duh) and they were wallking towards us, and suddenly the woman grabs her partner's arm and said (loud enough for us to hear) 'eh! Cross this way.' And they did this pendulum walk across the road.

And so on. Maureen commented cheerfully that you can see the pattern of the crowd change when they are people asking for donations.

One thing you notice, the men are kinder, more willing to donate money. The women, especially the middle aged ones, in between 30s and 40s, I would say, are the worst people to ask from. Don't waste your breath. And you can tell, that when people purposely take out their handphone, they don't want to donate. And some other people, when you totter up to them smiling happily, and asking very politely if they would like to donate, they downright walk past you as if you were some sort of nothingness.

As Rebecca summed up: If I was invisible, I would make you mine tonight.... I already AM invisible.

I admit there were a couple of times I was sorely tempted to yell out: Thank you! I hope you enjoy your meaningless life!

There was an old man, two in fact, who were dependant on their walking sticks, leaning on them with their entire weight. I won't go into details, but the crux of it was that they really looked lonely and... unloved. And all these youngsters, teenagers were dashing past, ignoring them even, as if by pretending that the scab is not there, it will go away. Either that, or they just don't care at all.

And it hit me that so many people, so many people just care about themselves, about the money that they make, about their lives and whether their boss is going to notice how expecially hard working they were that particular morning.

It was that kind of typical situation in books where you imagine a throng of healthy, vibrant young people, listening to their ipods and toying with their handphones and jostling with each other, and as they pass, you suddenly notice that in the middle of them is an elderly, handicapped man, barely able to walk and struggling to stay upright. And they just continue to stream on by, as if he does not exist, yet the ironic thing is that they somehow seem to veer away from him as they near him, as if he has a contagious disease or something.

Seriously, what is wrong with humanity?

We went up to one of them to help them, but I think that he thought we were asking him for money... so the next time, we dumped on cans to Rebecca (sorry Becca!), but he said that he was alright.

Somehow CIP came on the perfect day, because I had dinner with a couple of my parents' oldest friends, one of which works for the Red Cross, and the other couple who work on humanitarian projects.

They were talking about a project they're working on in Chiengmai, where they help orphans who lost their parents through aids, to find their relatives. There was one particular boy who lived with his aunt and uncle and cousins in an apartment not big enough for all of them, and with no proper toilets, so his bed became a pile of tyres and zinc sheet outside the apartment, susceptible to all weather.

Yes! It's rubbery and flexible and yours for only 1 billion dollars! There you will experience the true beauty of Mother Nature's mercurial temperment!

With the monsoon season blowing it's warning breezes, there would indeed be a need to help him, would you not say?

Somehow, they (the uhh people working on that project) managed to find a comfortable enough house, with proper necessities, for S$3000, and they collected money to buy it, and put it in that little boy's name.

:D

Like I said, perfect timing. What with hearing about kids younger than us, whose greatest wish and dream would be to get a bed away from harsh weather conditions, whilst we, those who live in such diverse, cosmopolitan, city, worry and fret about getting that one little extra mark that would pull your grades up that little bit.

And I admit, I've been one of those people. It's hard, in a soceity where results are high on the pecking order, to scrap these as unimportant, and head for love.

And I admit, that when I saw my CA2 results, I was depressed and whinged around. (sorry to those who had to listen to my moaning!)

And I admit, that there are times, at school especially, my marks, my results, my homework deadlines, my ability to produce fine marks, are all that preoccupies me.

And I did all this while people somewhere not so far away, with the same organs- heart, brain, lungs, stomach, intestines etc as me, was crawling around with a determined face, trying to make the best of what they had, trying to find an inkling of hope that will push them over the surface and spring them out into sunlight.

I'm ashamed.

Damn, damn ashamed.

Because all this time, it's been about me. Sometimes I. Occasionally, us. Rarely, we.

Never them.

Absoultely never ever me helping them.

This is what we call our life.

No, this is how we are living our life.

Worse, this is how we aim to live our life.

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 5:54 AM

41 days to World Cup '06

I'm proud to be typing this right now.

I'm proud to have survived this week of pure torture and 1000% drainage, along with the rest of the people out there who are reading this, or blogging themselves.

To all those out there: We've done it again! Beaten the odds and come out a of frostbiting, snarlingly cold and bitter ice age!

Certainly brightens things up, doesn't it? Considering the fact that I have a pile of undone work + projects hopping up and down on their skimpy little legs behind me, raising their hands eagerly and squeaking, 'Pick me! Pick me!'

Oh joy.

I decided to slack for a litte while today. And yesterday. Figured that I deserved it.

You know what really gets me? That even when you're supposed to be relatively free, when you're taking a well-earned break, there's always that guilt plauging you, hanging over your head when you're trying to watch Lord of the Rings for the 20th time. It just keeps going, stopslackingstopslacking!

Stupid conscience.

And I wasn't even doing anything wrong!

Stupid oversensitive, paranoid conscience.

It's sad that our world revolved around work. School work, at the age we're at. Work, as in work in general, when we grow up and take up the mantle of responsibility.

What a life.

I was flipping through the threads and forums in the councilofelrond, and I came across the thread that said : What gives you a sense of wonder?

There were answers like...
Seeing the absolute perfection that is a drop of dew cradled in a blade of grass. A drop so perfect it almost looks as if it's made of totally flawless glass.

Seeing wild dolphins so close you could almost touch them as they leap from the water.

What gives me a sense of wonder?

Seeing a new pile of work on my table, smiling and waving to me?

Yeah, that'll be the day.

But seriously.

A fresh snowfall. Millions of tiny pieces of white floating and gently down, gently carressing the ground with a grace that would shame a queen. Sitting at the side of a slope, a beautiful tree at one side, the softness of the snow, and looking up, against a picture blue sky, at the beauty that is cascading down.

I'll give you an idea.

Black tusk, taken from a ski slope. There's no snow falling down, because I have only videos of that.

A gentle ripple of clear water over pebbles, shining and reflecting in the sunlight.

Someplace in Canada where we went fishing.

A sunset, with nature's most brilliant colours merged into one. Lightly indigo, with touches of red and orange, bordered with a hint of yellow, behind an azure backdrop.

San Diego, and if you would believe, LEGOLAND.

A forest of trees, pale, dark bark, light and dark green, gently merging into a prize winning painting, gentle streams of sunlight bursting through here and there.

I don't have a picture of this, but I can see it now in my head. Golden rays dancing across the crowned leaves, barelt touching, barely kissing. A painter's work of art; the perfect mixture of the most beautiful colours that adorn this world: a touch of gold there sprinkled through a mass of green, rich, vibrant, here and there, a breath of red, of yellow. Gently, the sunlight eases its eay through the leave and the branches, a gentle fresh breath, tickling the smooth green array, breathing fresh life. This of which no words can fully capture the insatiable thirst to dance, to sccream, to laugh, to whisper, of the leaves twirling to the blowing wind.

The reason I put the picture was because I wanted to illustrate that experience true wonders in our lives everyday, everyday, if only we stop enough to bask in the glow of them.

If you're reading this, take some time to think of what wonders are to you. Forget the pile of work calling you, try it. Just put it aside for awhile. Just a few mintues. Beacuse in those few minutes your soul will be imprinted the love and beauty that God gave to this world, and the true importance of God putting us on this planet, third rock from the sun.

It worked for me.

Have a nice day.

~fin~

*this was some time ago...*

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 5:53 AM

Today, despite being 4 Thrimidge in the shire, and 26 April in the real world, is the Chernobyl accident anniversary.

Imagine, exactly 20 years ago, millions of lives were changed on this day, once more due to mankind's destructive nature. Once more mankind tried to prove it's existence in this world.

We certainly did, did we not?

We certainly are, are we not?

We strip away areas of land, of nature, of beauty, of what was supposed to be there, was originally there, should still be there.

We flaunt our terrestrial whip around, yank out what was green and fresh, annihilate that which belongs here, quash out lives which stand between us and our superficiality. We nullify the tender, the good, the living, the soulful.

We enter a place of comeliness, a sanctuary, and we plant our machines, unnatural, whirring, metallic, foul, grimy there, and saunter off to repeat the above steps, destruction in our wake.

And we expect nature not to fight back?

We think that we hold supreme power over the world, the universe, the galaxy?

Pitiful.

We are but insignificant, puny, miniscule, immaterial, negligible beings in a world controlled by God, akin to a speck of dust on a sheet of paper covering the Earth.

What right do we have to crack our whip, to lay ourselves down wherever we please?

You know what this is?

It's suicide.

We're killing ourselves.

Of course, being us, if we go down, we have to pull others down first.

What exactly do you want to prove?

That we are the only living things that should eat, sleep, drink in the world?

That the ability to think, and to organise things, as Aristotle said, is enough to define and prove the fact that we are the unchallenged rulers of the Earth, and no other being should have the right to live?

That animals should stand in a line, amble up to us, us, sitting in high thrones of fur and gold and silk and tusks, assume a pathetic, sorrowful, unworthy, shameful look, and gaze up with deepest reverance to us, human beings, homo sapiens?

That they should beg, with the upmost ability they have, for forgiveness, for the right to live, for sparing their death?

That we should remain in our high and mighty thrones, on a wasteland of what that was once a place of serrenity, and turn scornfully to them, with the relish and pompousness of dictators? Pitiful cretins, we would mutter.

This is not a beautiful world.

This is not a world.

It is a world of materialism, where we taunt and flaunt our impressive weapons, our machines, in the face of nature.

This is a world where we falter when Mother Nature responds with a curving yet devastating wave, tremor, disasters that overshadow Human exisitance.

This is a world that will die out, shrivel, in a matter of minutes in the big scale of things, if we continue to live this way.

~fin~

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 5:51 AM

Today's Date in the Shire

4 Thrimidge

Somehow the date as shown above reminds me of the new calender introduced by the National Assembly during the Terror.

And the only one I can remember is Thermidor.

Obviously.

According to Barrowdowns.com personality quiz...

You are most like
Frodo

You are also like
Gandalf

Interesting.

Of course, I would totally venture into realms tainted, corugated and saturated with evil beings to destroy and evil weapon of power. I would indeed traverse through lands so full of Orcs, Wargs, Uruk Hais, Ringwraiths, Haradrim, Goblins, Balrogs, mumakil that if one were to grab hold of those areas, turn them upside down and shake them, it would never stop raining the above. Oh, and did I forget one evil EYE?

I would also be more than willing to leave the sanctuary and safe haven of Valinor, degrade from a maia to a lowly Istari (hah!) and be known as the strange old wizard with a grey pointy hat and a beard, and the disturber of peace (just doing my job...), and change my name from Olórin to Gandalf.

In stories you always get the heros, muscles bursting our of their shirts, the ones that brave such evil misgivings, risk their lives and who at the end of it all, somehow manage to keep the forces of evil at bay.

You also get the cowards, those who will be the first to dive under the bedsheets and refuse to come out, and later on, become a burden to the hero, and nearly bring the entire civilisation crashing down on its shaky foundations.

No prizes for guessing which category I'd be under.

Someone get me my paperbag so I can hyperventilate!

And according to the name generator...

According to the Red Book of Westmarch,
In Middle-earth, Jia Wen was a
Confused Teleri

Elven Name Possibilities for Jia Wen
The root name suitable for feminine and masculine is:
Waenkemen
Another masculine version is:
Waenkemenion
More feminine versions are:
Waenkemeniel
Waenkemenien
Waenkemenwen

Hobbit lad name for Jia Wen
Griffo Bridger from Grindwall
Hobbit lass name for Jia Wen
Goodchild Bridger from Grindwall

Dwarven Name for Jia Wen
Nerin Orcarm
This name is for both genders.
Orkish Name for Jia Wen
Golhosh the Depraved
This name is for both genders.

Adunaic name for Jia Wen
Ramapaphur

Well.

I suppose it was just as well that I was not born in Arda.

Although, thankfully,

** DISCLAIMER ** : These name generators produce random results and are not true translations of the words you type in. They are meant for entertainment purposes only. -- Considering how many languages are spoken by our visitors and how many names there are in the world, creating a program that can translate your real name would be an immense task and, in the end, would likely not be accurate since all of Tolkien's languages are incomplete. Additionally, most people have their names because their parents liked the sound of it or they had a relative with a similar name, not because of any ancient meaning. Still, we hope you enjoy our Name Generators and have fun with them!

But, on the names that the name generator have uhh generated, oh yes, out of all the many different elves, I had to be the indecisive one, unsure of whether to leave Middle Earth and sail to the west, or to remain.

And di it say that Golhosh the Depraved? The DEPRAVED? I mean, Golhosh, okay that sounds alright, quite orcishly nice. But depraved? As in 'Morally corrupt; perverted'?

*Coughcough*

Perverted??

Well.

That's just great.

I'm a perverted orc who probably thinks that being morally corrupt is a good thing, and anyway, being a pervertic mutated elf, I would probably have other things on my mind.

Like wondering whether an eye can wear underwear.

Or something pervertic.

And Goodchild Bridger? That's certainly a big difference.

#one of my earlier posts#

~fin~

[ T-ray* ] blogged @ 5:47 AM