paint splatters Friday, September 23, 2005 09:01 p.m.
It's been a damn long while, and here I am in USA, struggling to fit in and learn German and American and also wrestling with a mad infatuation. And then there's the schoolwork, and lack of entertainment and social life, how depressing but how typical. I always spent Friday nights with family after all. So when family is removed from the equation this means I have no where to go.

paint splatters Tuesday, June 21, 2005 08:36 p.m.
Just fifty odd days till departure from Singapore. I am apprehensive.

paint splatters Monday, April 11, 2005 10:56 p.m.
Thought I couldn't be bothered to wait, so I've moved the page tohere. Many thanks to Mandrake from teh Liquidblade tribe, and jac for her reccommendation. :)

paint splatters Tuesday, April 5, 2005 09:31 p.m.
Baby, the world ain't fair
""i just felt stunned by a gun/and it was as if someone had just stamped on my dreams/yeah? well/but in many ways/i'm glad/that i've not gotten all that i want/cos' it makes actually getting something all that more sweeter/but you can't help looking over/and seeing all those who HAVE all that they want/and thinking - what did THEY do right?/and the worse part? you don't even have a gd ans to that qn/even worse?/when the ans is - they've done nothing''
Shush, I know the feeling. I have a lot of anger within me, an I know it. But I think tiredness precedes all.

paint splatters Tuesday, April 5, 2005 09:12 p.m.
Was in a middle of a long entry when I accidentally closed the window. Which is highly annoying.
But. I still detest work. Isolation is a terrible feeling to wake up to every single morning when it's grey light half filtering through the cracks in the curtains and the house is deathly silent and you moan that oh dear lord not another day to plough through, please not another day. I feel so strangely cut off from everybody, like an amputated appendage, somehow aware of the surroundings but not able to break through the bubble. Anxiety gnaws away at my insides and I am just so exhausted now. There are so many things I want to do. I want to go to Kerala, and see Father Augustine again. I want to sing with Voices, and go to Malaysia with them. But I feel so trapped and tied down by everything.
Brown sent me my official letter of rejection today. Bitter laughter anyway, to see it propped up on the dining table next to the violin tuner. SO nobody wants me, whether school or person or anything.
MM asked me a very strange question on Sunday night. He asked me if things would have been better if I had a boyfriend: at least you might not feel so isolated, he meant. It was an odd question nevertheless.

paint splatters Sunday, April 3, 2005 12:25 a.m.
Inertia
Funny how my room is horrifically messy now, even though I'm at home less often than I was while in school. I've got pieces of tissue (unused!) strewn on my desk, strands of hair everywhere, and jewelboxes and CDs spilling in tottering towers and piles. And of course, the books and tapes (yes I still use casette tapes) and random pieces of junk I can't throw away, not yet anyway. I hate the box with my JC stuff in the corner: it's out of shape now and just this globdhaiuhdthingy because the papers are so durn heavy; and my prayerbooks are scattered everywhere (I've got Mary staring at me from one corner and Pope John Paul II from another), the palm fronds gathering dust and the BIG FAT PILE OF NEW[S]PAPER[S] (Yaaaarrgh!!) building silverfish castle just next to my mattress. And the clothes. I was never much of a clothes-flinger but this is insanity.
I can't be bothered to clean it up though. Simply because I'll just put more nonsense in.
Unfortunately that also means I've also misplaced my paintbrushes and acrylics, rather annoyingly. So I dug out the violin and annoyed the whole neighbourhood instead of painting: I had to release all the frustration somehow.


Mum went on kitchen strike again: I haven't had home-cooked food this entire week now, thanks to work So we went to IMM (again!). Well.
But house-moving is imminent (:
Once err, things get sorted out. Thanks jac, for the recommendation though!

paint splatters Saturday, April 2, 2005 12:03 p.m.
Good Morning Singapore
I wonder if it's true that I always feel blue at the beginning of the month. Whatever it is I was doing nothing at work yesterday and ended up surfing the net and slacking and generally feeding onto my blue-ness.
And today? Well today wakes with no breakfast and a sleeping sister and a dead wireless, and the feeling of tired tired tired.

I thought I'd really be pushing it by taking 8 pills at a go but it didn't work: it wasn't the sleep I hoped would come but more of half-asleep-half-awakeness and persistent waking up in the middle of nowhere and the general feeling of wretchedness. The last occassion pop-pills happened was surreal at best: I couldn't hold my neck up and found it giggly-funny to be trying to set this weird heavy thing on my wobbly neck right. At least this time I didn't take the blade to my wrist: it'd been pointless anyway.

I realise gradually the feeling of displacement is coming back once again - nobody wants you, sucker, or cares, so to hell with it all. Oh the anger. Oh the angst.

I'm really not sure about anything anymore.

paint splatters Friday, April 1, 2005 10:40 p.m.
No it's not April Fool
Brown rejected my application.
Yale rehected my application.
F*** was playing in my head all the way home in the bus.
The Pope may die.
I will attempt to swallow more Panadol.
I am bloody depressed.

Happy first of April.

paint splatters Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:40 p.m.
Moving house is hard
Am trying to move my weblog over to a new host (any recommendations?) and also need help.
Jac's recommendation of WordPress sounds promising but I have zero idea what I'm doing beyond extracting .zip files and marvelling at the number of .php files that are popping out (why do they say popping out like mushrooms anyway?).

Any kind soul willing to help me, drop me an email please. It's petrushka@gmail.com
Haha like who am I kidding nobody visits this page anyway.
It's terribly tiring, and being in for the long haul feels like absolute shit all the time.

Woke up to 4 missed calls on my handphone this morning and it vibrating away angrily with the dreaded 6319 prefix, and was asked the annoying question whether the spelling of the advertiser's name was right.
Dude, it's 7freaking30 a.m. in the morning, I got home from work at 1130pm the night before and you call me to ask about spelling? Morningtime was hilarious though - I went all the way down to that particular school, as promised, just to speak to two ladies for a grand total of (get this) 5 minutes. I took more time walking to the school from the MRT station than talking to them. Anyway whatever it is I was walking around most of YishunRingRd Central trying to get some story, any story at all, but only managed to get a packet of white-rabbit candy with which I spent the rest of the day feeding the office with.

The dry spell looks like it's gonna stay unless I create the news or something. Like kill myself, or jump off the topmost level of 1000 TPN. Haha and they are doing "external facade cleaning" too - I'll add some more things for them to clean off.
Tired. Tiresome. Tiredness.
I'm so bloody tired I keep making silly mistakes and my work performance is not up to standard. Which is very worrying. And the tiredness is clouding my perception: I don't even know if I'm sticking to this because I really like it or because of the quiet desperation of having no money.
It's a crippling sort of tiredness: I didn't apply to the SADM because I was too tired and busy at work to get down to the video; and now I'm not applying for any local scholarships offered by the local university because I'm too tired to write any more silly dumbass essays that are just entirely out of character.

I have a headache which is has got quite bad now (building pressure in my right eyeball and also making me deaf in that ear)and God, there's work again tomorrow.

paint splatters Thursday, March 31, 2005 12:11 p.m.
Dawn of a yet another new thing
We're starting a new section in the paper, somewhat like Agony Aunt I suppose, but it's about BGR (yes, Boy-Girl Relationships not Boorish Growling Redneck) and problems that bug young adults and teens.
Got anything to ask? Just email me at petrushka@gmail.com; I'll pass it on.
Thanks for your help.

paint splatters Wednesday, March 30, 2005 10:48 a.m.
Because letting off steam is healthy
Why are some people just out there to make your life difficult?
Working on two slugs now, one which requires me to answer to 3.5 different people with 10 different opinions each, so it's just a -bit- of a pain having to do it. Apart from the fact that I'm writing about a website that is. And the 3.5 people have vested interests: one is the content-pro***er, the other the birthmother, and another the midwife. And they all want to have a say as to how their baby will greet the world.
The other involves getting a ONE LINE quote from a teacher from a certain school in the northern part of Singapore. I just need to talk to you for 5 minutes!
But "Yes. She (the principal) has given the green light. Could you pls come down to the sch to have the interview".
Woman, I don't need a face-to-face interview with you. All I need is a phoner. A five minute phoner!
I have other things to do than run around to schools to talk to difficult teachers.
Having a 13 hour day the day before also does not help at all.
But hey, I sold my soul to the devil after all.
Oh do you feel the angst.

paint splatters Sunday, March 27, 2005 01:36 p.m.
Aah-aah-aaahaaah-aah-lleey-loo-yaa
At Easter Vigil mass yesterday one of the catechumens fainted from the lack of air, interrupting Father Chong's homily. He stopped then. And got down from the lectern and actually went down into the sanctuary to see how she was doing. It was surreal somehow, seeing his golden robes flapping and the white cassock swishing in the mid-silence.
Singing Regina Coeli is pretty fun anyway.
My thoughts are broken up in weird zigzaggy lines that go off into squiggles. Live under the banner of oppression, oh heil hitler. ich liebe es indeed.




Corrupted diskettes
Mean I have to redo the shit all over again. Thanks.

paint splatters Saturday, March 26, 2005 09:25 a.m.
It struck me suddenly then, how silly it all was.
Like living in Iceland and wishing for the sun - it just doesn't happen, silly. Wake up, sweetheart, it's time you grew up. Stop chasing paper moons and trying to sprout wings from your shoulders.
But you will be free. See it full and round yelloworange in the night. While candle flames flicker in the throng and sounds of Hail, Hail Mary, full of grace are muttered in one guttural voice.
When I got home after prayers I played with fire, counted four, five flames in the darkness, wax puddling in hot beautiful globes. Let the molten wax drip down your fingers, see it take the shape and curve of your flesh.

paint splatters Monday, March 21, 2005 11:41 p.m.
Interpol
Currently blaring now, and I realise that good Lord I am so cut off from the world now I could die and it wouldn't effing matter.
I miss school alright.
And I wish I knew what the hell I was doing.

paint splatters Saturday, March 19, 2005 01:23 p.m.
Ghosts and shadows
Reading through the archives, I wonder now who I am. Have I lost touch with my sensitivities? Can I no longer feel anymore, being consumed by everlasting tiredness?
I perch now, in the warmth of my sun-bathed room, watching the sun break through the crack in the curtains, illuminating the strings of circles on sheets of pristine white cloth now yellowing and glowing. I hear always the song of impending death- each clamouring out for attention I am stressed i am dying i am stressed and infused with fear.
The picture of Our Lady sits amid the mess, serene and weeping - a teardrop suspended between now till eternity. On the ceramic gold lined fabric of her smock faded residue of blood remains; remnants of wept blood for 700 days, in Naju how long ago.

I am rather lost now I suppose. And the dealine is at April 1st - I believe it is too late now but nobody believes me.



Why are there so many words for God?

paint splatters Wednesday, March 16, 2005 10:06 p.m.
Three thirty in the morning...
Is what time I have to wake up tomorrow, Thursday, 17th Mar 2005. Yeah, not kidding. Because I have to be at Marine Parade at 5am. Haha it's quite interesting and quite fun I guess, apart from the pressure of having to file the story by tomorrow also. The photoj's face went from neutral to guarded black in a matter of split-seconds it was hilarious. Can't blame him, I'm wondering how I'm going to last through tomorrow on limited and minimal rest.

Got a lift from Desmond in his 35 year-old Volkswagon Beetle with Bryna giving her heeeaaaa-heeeaaaa laughs all the way in the front seat while I was folded in the backseat. I did yoga twist-turns squeezing out after that and Desmond had to laugh too. Thanks for the ride though dude.

U.Va. sent me an offer via gmail, and an invitation for the Echols, but still the question of money, oh money, remains. I got all excited about it in the subdued way -more excited about it than getting my A level results, can you believe it - but it died down with the sobering Lack of Money thought though.

On the home front it is just as hurting as ever. Tears, reproaches, arguments, quarrels, and last I heard, threatenings of suicide, yet again, and tearing the knife from it's holder in the kitchen and causing a panicked pell-mell to the refuge of his room. Lord, your holy angels guardeth us. Have mercy on us, and on the whole world...

Tuesday night saw an unexpected call from the person I think of irrationally all the time... somehow I just felt like I had to hold on to that few precious lines- how long more anyway? Listen to his breathing on the phone, and try to pick up the thoughts that cycle and run through. Regret, oh regret. It's a dirty word but yes I wonder also, if things would have turned out differently. I am changing, believe me. I am sorry for all the nonsense you had to endure, all the uncertainty and hesitation I harboured in those precious early months of our J2 year. I guess I was really afraid then - I told you before. I was trembling from head to toe. But well, it's been done. It's always the if only, if only... breathing, heavy as the haze in the air, suspended like misty breaths clinging onto glass.

paint splatters Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:35 p.m.
Beached fish
I am feeling the pressure now, only because I need at least 3 new ideas by tomorrow for tomorrow's meeting or else Ol' Dave Almighty shall smite me.
I think this is one of the things I can't really handle that well about the job- the stress of perpetually having new ideas cycling through my head. It's giving me a tremendous backache.
The dry spell feels like it's coming and it's not a very pleasant experience. Dear God, please help me.

paint splatters Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:20 a.m.
Belated
I'm quite pleased the way the picture is turning out on the page but promise to crop the white bits off when I get my internet connection back on track at home. My brother burnt the router somehow so it's bye-bye broadband - and only my sister has the exclusive rights over the web and playing DOTA.

paint splatters Friday, March 4, 2005 02.30a.m.
"So you think you want to be a journo"
Part II of wondering. Since it is this early in the morning. And I always ask myself the same question daily: Do you really want to be a journo for the rest of your life?
Depending on which point of time you catch me at, the answer is always different.
At 4pm on Thursday afternoon it was yes, I love writing about education. At 5.30pm on that Thursday it was no, where are my supervisors, why hasn't photog uploaded the photos yet?

As Sam kindly reminded me, I've done a lot in the short 2 and a half going on three months that I've been with the paper. Like the dreaded surveys that strike terror into my heart and really darned-make-my-day, which have ranged wildly from 20 people to 100 people (each), whether it's sweating it out in Toa Payoh and breathing in cig smoke because the smokers are the only ones who don't really have any excuse not to talk to you or sitting at my desk wildly scrolling numbers in the phonebook so I can call anyone, just anyone before time's up.

And the impossible people to interview - who tell you they got their fingers burnt by their bread ovens so they can't talk to you, or trying to sweet talk bread shop owners into having their photo taken (I failed miserably at that one, thank you Mae Lynn for rescuing me.)
And wearing a silly little santa hat and running around like a Duracell Bunny in a certain Toy Store pointing out fake ATM machines that "really has money!" to straightening the polyester Cinderella dress horrors which I told myself I would never let any child of mine put on.
All in the name of investigative journalism at its most sterile and harmless.
Internet, did I tell you? I almost got sent to Batam once, to enter a casino illegally.

And then there are the people -who either make your day or ruin it totally. I find myself smiling idiotically over a newsmaker but I also break down because the rejection hurts so badly sometimes. Doors slamming, unkind remarks, dear Lord you have sheltered me, your holy angels guardeth me.

Emotionally, it is also very stressful. I remember the two days spent at the airport speaking to people who came back from tsunami-hit areas, and of course Melvin on the phone with Kianbeng. If I could get less emotionally involved perhaps that would save a lot of heartache but how else can I convey the sense of what I see and hear, to depict what truth, no matter how fabricated, there is?

There is fulfillment of course, which apart from the obvious of seeing your byline, and scoring a front page, also borders on the intangible.
All that jazz about the job being challenging, it is true.
It's not about writing.
It's about being streetsmart, being able to sniff out the news, and of course being able to communicate, whether it's to the old ah pek rifling through cardboard at some HDB void deck or the CEO and Founder of some bigshot company that you have to call, now even though he's in India or Indonesia.

The biggest struggle for me remains at what is news. It is very tiring and exhausting trying to get news ideas. I need all the help I can get still and it's exhausting, exhausting, exhausting.

i'll continue this at another sitting...

paint splatters Friday, March 4, 2005 01:44 a.m.
I'm lifting this entirely from Sam's blog because I miss her. Not a very logical link over there, but hey it's almost 2am in the morning and I haven't tried going to sleep. Not yet anyway. Besides, I've spent the past couple of weeks asking myself the same question: Do I really want to be a journalist for the rest of my life?

""Monday, February 28, 2005
"The truth isn't always beautiful, but the hunger for it is"
I thought about it, and realised that Mitchell Stevens is completely right in saying that
"whenever you find hundreds and thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place and a little bunch of madmen trying to get in, you know the latter are reporters."
Oh how ridiculously true... my little stint at TNP showed me that alright. While everyone else was scrambling outta Aceh and Phuket, Kian Beng and Ling2 were scrambling in.
One would also find it hard to forget the phone call Melvin gets halfway through a meeting where Kian Beng is hysterical and crying.
Shessh.
Glamourous no?
Not from my pitiful experiences - most definitely not.
Getting sweaty and gung ho at little india, Looking wasted and bloated whilst being confused for a rape victim on an extremely public level.
Wearing a sweaty Santa's cap whilst getting paper cuts...
It's hardly an occassion to blow out Chanel is it? In fact, I was amazed at how i endured running around in 6inch heel at little India. 6inch heels, floral vintage dress, and massive bag.
I'm a laugh and a half.
Which is probably why Eddy spent half my time there throwing wit all over my outfits.
Plus a peppering of insults, sniggers and smirks.
Here's to friendship and my transperant dress . (ha)
Well... old man, nubile young thing here misses all you fine people too. Pass a shout out to Emilyn and Ivan for me wont you?
This entry goes to all journos out there, who bother to look for their news. Those who make the news happen, irregardless of the genre of news. It's hard work looking for tabloids to keep the public interested... let's leave journo bashing to scientist and democrats for now.""