Going to sleep.

Sometimes, all you need is a small glimpse of peace just before closing your eyes to trick your mind into forgetting the turmoil of the day and sleep comes easy.

This past week showed me that I had alot to be thankful for in my life. For starters, I have a grandmother who is enjoying herself and hangs out with us all the time. I'd never been very close to her but we connect at some level and I feel like we have a relationship that goes beyond bloo. On that same note, I have an extended family that loves eating out together any time without needing the excuse for some occassion before we would meet up. I have long envied the scenes of large families feasting and enjoying each other's company that we see on travel programmes all the time and now I feel like I have that in my family too.

At work, in spite of a serious lack of motivation to get work done, I was given the opportunity to co-ordinate the putting together of a pitch and somewhere along the way, was provoked to start a conversation about where I thought the company should be, which led on to a very quick, intense immersion in intrapreneurship, innovation, presentation and alot of youtube videos of Guy Kawasaki. I must say, it feels hella good to be in a place where you're surrounded by people who share your views and willing to change things up; thoughts and ideas and people who inspire you to do what you believe is right and good; and the most amazing is to be in a team that is with you - not that they are always in agreement with you, but actively contribute to the project be it through descension or suppport. It has been a brilliant week at work. Absolutely. Every work week should be like this.

Finally, the weekend, of which there is another half to look forward to. Granted, it has been extremely indulgent, from great big meals to copious amounts of alcohol and let-loose dancing which resulted in needing the hangover remedy called retail-therapy. During sale season. I have rarely been more wasted, tired or broke - or this satisfied with a weekend.

The powers that be have really come together to set up this week with zero motivation, neediness and crankiness this time of the month, primed with the right cravings and wanting things that have led to this extremely gratifying climax. I am immensely thankful for everyone who has been part of this with me and hope that when you need it, you'll get a perfect week like this too.

To y'all

That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That's life
I tell ya, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here july
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, My

-F.Sinatra

There is a machine.

When you're wound up, pushed into a corner, preparing for battle
it conjures a lush, serene forest and lulls you into peace

When you're overexcited and overreacting
it brings a soothing sea breeze that carries the scent of the ocean and calm swish of waves

When you're in a bad way,
it envelopes you in a comforting warmth like a thick flannel blanket and a cup of tea

There is a machine. It is a melancholytron.

How many times have you wanted to tell somebody this?

I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock

Verse 1
Word on the street, you got somethin' to show me, ee
Magical, colorful, Mr. Mystery, ee
I'm intrigued, for a peek, Heard it's fascinating
Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath

Words up your sleeve
Such a tease
Wanna see the show
In 3D, a movie
Heard it's beautiful
Be the judge
And my girls gonna take a vote

Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath

Pre-Chorus
I want the jaw droppin, eye popin, head turnin, body shockin
(Uh, uh, oh, Uh, uh, uh, oh)
I want my heart throbbin, ground shakin, show stoppin, amazin
(Uh, uh, oh, Uh, uh, uh, oh)

Chorus
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
Don't be a chicken boy, stop acting like a beeotch
I'ma peace out if you don't give me the pay off
Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
what you're waiting for, it's time for you to show it off
Don't be a shy kinda guy I'll bet it's beautiful
Come on baby let me see
Whatchu hidin' underneath

I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see ya


Verse 2
Skip the talk, heard it all, time to walk the walk
brake me off, if you bad, show me how's the boss
need some goose, to get loose, come on take a shot

Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath


[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/peacock-lyrics-katy-perry.html ]

Pre-Chorus
I want the jaw droppin, eye popin, head turnin, body shockin
(Uh, uh, oh, Uh, uh, uh, oh)
I want my heart throbbin, ground shakin, show stoppin, amazin
(Uh, uh, oh, Uh, uh, uh, oh)

Chorus
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
Don't be a chicken boy, stop acting like a beeotch
I'ma peace out if you don't give me the pay off
Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
what you're waiting for, it's time for you to show it off
Don't be a shy kinda guy I'll bet it's beautiful
Come on baby let me see
Whatchu hidin' underneath

I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock

oh my good no exaggeration
boy all this time was worth the waiting
i just shed a tear
i'm so unprepared
you got the finest architecture
end of the rainbow looking treasure
such a sight to see
and this all for me

Chorus
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
Don't be a chicken boy, stop acting like a beeotch
I'ma peace out if you don't give me the pay off
Come on baby let me see
what you're hiding underneath
Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?
what you're waiting for, it's time for you to show it off
Don't be a shy kinda guy I'll bet it's beautiful
Come on baby let me see

I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
I wanna see ya
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock, cock
Your peacock, cock, cock
Your peacock
I wanna see ya

Come on baby let me see
Whatchu hidin' underneath

Thank you Katy Perry.

So this is the new year.
And i don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance (in the distance).

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back.

- Death Cab for Cutie

Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor
Reachin' for the phone 'cause I can't fight it anymore
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind
For me it happens all the time

It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now
And I don't know how I can do without
I just need you now

Another shot of whiskey can't stop looking at the door
Wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind
For me it happens all the time

It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk and I need you now
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now
And I don't know how I can do without
I just need you now


Guess I'd rather hurt than feel nothin' at all

It's a quarter after one I'm all alone and I need you now

And I said I wouldn't call but I'm a little drunk and I need you now

And I don't know how I can do without

I just need you now

Dream.

You came to visit, you said you "just had to". Then we ran away, on a journey, and I realized that I loved you.

Dream.

Rabbits and lollipops

The last thing one should ever do after making a monumental decision about their life is to celebrate it. Because that means you’re thinking about it.

Just last week, I’d made the decision to grow up. To accept that I can create the life that I’d been dreaming of, and was so sure could only be found elsewhere, here - a place I’ve sneered at and despised since I learnt how to twitch my cute little button nose. It was momentous. There were days and days of Practical Self V. Escapist Self arguing if this house should be built here instead of in a dingy apartment above a street where bar brawls and roach-trips provide nightly entertainment, where there are four seasons that aren’t “shopping”, “hot”, “monsoon” and “flu”. It is also there, apparently, where I will find a true love who does not still live with his mother.

Then there was the issue of why I was staying. Can I really be happy here? The opportunities sound really great – chart your own future, do things the way you want to because you think it’s the right way. But are they for real? What’s to say that I’m not being swindled by a big conspiracy that has already been set in motion to destroy the very thing I’m giving up my dream life for? I’m not enough of an egoist to think that I’m some sort of saviour but here’s hoping that I can make things less bad at least. If I did get screwed over, it would surely be an epic betrayal like Italy allowing New Zealand to hold them to a draw at the World Cup Finals.

There were a few days of ding-ing and dong-ing on my head that was further encouraged by a red tide of rampaging hormones but I knew I had to wait for all that noise to stop, lest it colour my decision. So I did. I stopped thinking about it completely and emptied the vessel of my mind. There was nothing I could do about the other, so I simply waited it out until it was all clear, and I was convinced that I was thinking straight again because the sun was in the blue, blue sky, there was a brilliant rainbow that perfectly framed that lush green tree and the rabbits are out having fun in the fields.

And I decided based on what felt right. I had never felt more at peace and satisfied and invigorated and ready for a New Life so I decide to celebrate by picking some beautiful wild flowers from the field that the rabbits were cutely nibbling on and to my utter delight, they turned into lollipops!

A week later, some lollipops had been eaten and the others that were gripped in my greedy little hands were melting into a gloomy shade of black-eye purple. There was a slight churning in my gut. Some people were congratulating me while many others rolled their eyes and muttered to themselves “again?”

Another week later, things had gone back to normal. I was perpetually sweating like a pig, there was no money to go shopping with, the damn thunderstorms were flooding the path to the office, I need to stay in bed (it’s the flu, you see, that comes every Monday) and what I wouldn’t give to be living in a little apartment where it is winter and I can wear a pretty coat to work and to go grocery shopping for the romantic dinner I will cook for my man that evening when I got home at 6pm. Oh, how I wish…

So, it really is to just blindly follow the instructions you have given yourself because it really does make you feel better. After all, you’ve already done all that thinking to come to such a major decision, isn’t it time to take a break?

In spite of my love for technology, I have often thought that many things should left to develop organically, especially when it pertains to anything human. While it is nice to be able to change so many things about the way we live, eat, look and communicate, I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like if we did not intervene with the natural processes of Life like disease, food production and death. Left alone, could we have evolved and become much stronger than we are now, relying on so many artificial crutches to prop up this flailing existence of homosapiens?

I don't want to hear you, think of you, want you or need you.

Get the fuck out of my head and leave me alone.

Get. The Fuck. Lost.

3 days out - 17hrs.

I read an article in British Vogue this past week about the perfect poop. While there were descriptions of what the flawless fecal matter should be passed - which would require no more than 1 swipe of paper to clean up - the writer was rather more focussed on how ladies find it difficult to "go" and obsessed about taking a delicate dump in public or baking a brownie with one's other half in the same toilet.

The lengths some women go to, like only going when they're at home and having a separate wardrobe for when they have to go out before they put out just to hide the bulge, is really fascinating. But do we really need to go to such extremes? For sure we should be considerate while we defecate but one does not need the ability to take a scintillating shit to be able to do it in public when inspiration hits. Just let yourself go.

Instant messaging gives you the illusion that you're not dependent on others because it allows you to be comfortable with not having to physically be in contact with friends for days and days on end.

Then you lose that connection with particular people and you really feel it.

Lost, even though you're still connected to the world. You are not as alright as you think you are.

A back to front day

Was asleep most of yesterday and didn't get out of bed til 9pm. First meal was a dinner of mushroom porridge with har gow then in the 15 mins before the live cast of the Apple event was a quick dash to McDonalds for a box of 9pc nuggets and iced tea. I might scramble eggs for breakfast then head to bed.

Must say I wish I could've been at the event for the announcement of the iPad. i probably would've sniggered too loudly. I wonder what they had to compromise on to decide to go with this name. So "Whisper bar". Still, it is a wonderful concept with so much potential and I can't wait for the 2nd gen to get to Singapore, hopefully with a camera.

Random thought - this could really revolutionize the way people watch porn and play online sex games...

Man, I am so not ready for this.

Blessed Christmas

If you've read the previous post, no, I have not started taking medication. It seems that making my Christmas wish early in December is just about right for the magic to happen by the twenty-fifth. This year, I asked for an epiphany. It's about time I've moved further along the path to finding the meaning of Life, and while the beer goggles helped, letting Life pass you by in a blur is only so much fun.

So the epiphany has been happening in fits and starts. Oprah would have called it a series of a - ah - ah- ha! moments. From pulling off amazing events, to realizing what my calling is, to celebrating beautiful friendships forged over the year and, finally, being able to feed my family some decent grub myself, I am ready to end the year satisfied. In spite of the few low points which isn't unexpected, I am quite proud to say that I've lived and loved through 2009 in a way I have never done before. The sheer intensity and gamut of experiences still baffles me sometimes and the only thing I can ask for now, is that next year will be at least the same. There are already some doors which I've got my hand on I hope I will be spending 2010 pushing thru them with more veracity, tenacity, vivacity and zeal than ever before.

Here's to everyone who's made my 2009 and whom I will make 2010 with. "Bravo, Brava!"

Come on.. does X'mas always have to be about love? I mean, do you really need the happy family reunions, discovering true love and finding santa crap to truly appreciate X'mas? No. Because then you'd have to have endured a broken family, been tormented by unrequited love and suffered the trauma that comes with having to abandon Santa coz you had to "grow up" prior in the year. That's bollocks! What fool will wish that on themselves?

Please, people. We need to learn to be content with what we realistically can have. There are loads of gifts and turkeys and lot's of pie and that should be enough. Yearning for the "true spirit of Christmas" is just setting oneself up for disappointment. Do you really need to meet Santa , or can you just be happy with the presents under the tree?

It's the time of the month again, for ranting at whatever's caught my fancy. I've done the whole end-of-the-world thing and decided that as a species, and an individual, we (I) are too ball-less to attempt all the "if the world would end tomorrow" wishes until the world is actually at an end or is very close to, by which time, there won't be any bank tellers who will hand over all your savings nor will there be pilots to fly us all to Rio/Paris for that one last party/croissant.

So bring on 2012, we will always live like there is a tomorrow, in case there IS a tomorrow. We totally need to grow a pair.

I've also just been browsing the profiles of TED members who have indicated that they reside in Singapore and realized that, what feels like 80% of the members, don't have profile pictures. I wonder if this is just a case of them all looking warty, have extremely low self-esteem, are simply too lazy to find a decent picture/image that represents themselves or they're afraid to be identified. Granted, most used their (or what we assume is theirs, honestly) names rather than pseudonyms, I do believe it's the last one that's got them all scared. But why should they be afraid? The powers that be only clamp down on unfavourable opinions. You don't even have one so you've really got nothing to fear.

Then there's the whole hanging of this Malaysian drug offender. Does anyone care? Of course! Do enough care? Not nearly. Does it change anything? Duh - of course not. We have a vast, silent majority - as has been proven repeatedly - so how does anyone expect anything to change?

Unless of course, it is something major, like the Reunification of Orchard. Are there only two people who are repulsed at there is now a theme for the entire Orchard Shopping Belt not only during CNY and Christmas but for the ENTIRE DECADE? Only 2 things could have happened - the powers that be decided that homogeneity is the new black, or in times of economic depression, ALL the developments in the OSB have pooled together their resources to hire the same architect to design their brand spanking new buildings.

I wonder how much each of them now have to spend on PR/AD agencies to create a brand personality to distinguish them from their competitors down the road because they have the exact same imported boutiques/restaurants/services. Geniuses.

When everything goes down the proverbial drain pipe, can we preserve Ngee Ann City, Tangs Plaza and Wisma as National Retail Monuments please? The other steel and glass replicas of each other, with their convoluted escalators/lifts that never go to the floor that you need to reach and mall directories that you have to queue up to use can be replaced by proper shops that aren't the third appearance of a chain within a kilometer. What happened to "pleasant shopping experience"? How did we become these retail anorexics who binge on skinny jeans and a diet of only Zar*, Un!qlo and Co**on-freaking-on?

Do we, as a society, actually like this? Are we, as a society, like this?

The Sound of Settling

I've got a hunger
Twisting my stomach into knots.
That my tongue has tied off.

My brain's repeating
"If you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth.

Bop ba, this is the sound of settling
Bop ba, Bop ba


Our youth is fleeting,
Old age is just around the bend.
And I can't wait to go gray.

And I'll sit and wonder
Of every love that could've been.
If I'd only thought of something charming to say.

Bop ba, this is the sound of settling
Bop ba, Bop ba.