c'était un rêve?

Salty air. Turquoise waters. Blazing sun. Cheap.Cold.Beer. Mmmmmm.

No footprints on the sand because we will always be the kind who'd walk close to the waters edge.
Et la mer efface sur le sable.

Bat gown, Mortar board, Degree scroll

The culmination of seventeen years of education merely produces a meh... sort of feeling. Instead I think of the job hunting process with vestiges of dread and with definite apprehension as to what my worth would be in the working world. A basic degree is not enough these days, for employers.. and for me. Striking the balance between what you want and what you can get is difficult. Annoying ambitions. Bloody bond. Thank goodness I'm done with school. Oh I miss school so. Damnit! but Yay! I got my Harry Potter robe, flat hat and decorative kitchen paper towel roll. Is it vain to not want a PhD. because the mushroom hat is quite fugs? Maybe shallow would be more apt haha. If it were a conical wizard topper it may be easier to fancy and can be recycled at Halloween haha

so yum.

springsteen singing fire.

Math don't add up in real life.

We are so much more than the woeful sum of our parts.

Mouse Mouses Mice

When my grandma was young, her sister forbade her from tying her hair in two braids, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible.
There are so many more real things to forbid kids from doing these days. Speed. Crystal meth. Angel dust. LSDs. Coke. Ketamine. ThereAreJustTooManyCrapThingsOutThereNotEvenIncludingOverTheCounterStuff. Donchoo be smackin that crack kiddo.
Things aren't as simple as they used to be but then again we can buy groceries with a bunch of clicks.

Blogging is

an exercise in navel gazing.



No lint.

It's easier to reflect on the -unfortunately-oh-so-traceable- net then to do things in real time and space sometimes but there is a fine line between introspection and self-absorption.

The unusual fountainhead

we only wake to feed our dreams

inspiration from an unconventional source... the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine whadayaknow.

The keratinous cataclysm

It doesn't make sense. When I voluntarily removed it, it was cool. Now that it drops, in sheaves, bundles and clumps, I'm going nuts. What is wrong? The water? A hormonal imbalance? Definitely not a lack of nutrition. Weather change? Stress? -over what?

It has confirmed my vanity, how does one not writhe at their own shallowness. Being upset that you're upset at something trivial makes you feel more upset. Don't tell me how to feel. It doesn't stop me feeling the way I do. It just makes me guilty about the way I feel.

A pointless spiraling, geometrically progressing such that each recurrent relation of the term 'upset' is worse than the preceding one. Simply, let n = upset and the common ratio be something positive. An exponential increase over time. Does mathematically defining a problem soothe the soul? Sometimes. You have a sense of control over something.

It might not be a good idea...

to introduce a date to your dad when he's wearing a parental advisory tee. Doesn't help if your mother is myopic and gets someone to read the tee out loud. Quite funny when the person doing it is the proper aunt. Exceedingly hilarious when guy in question flushes rosy red.

What I will miss...

1) random tau huey jaunts, roof climbing and corridor gossip sessions with the girls
2) midnight runs and the salty pool
3) engineering unfunny humour from profs and classmates
4) waking up at noon
5) sleeping at noon
6) Tagore quoting the Spice Girls in philo classes
7) the green hammock
8) hanging around campus in FBTs
9) drama, dance, sports, performances
10) the specific brand of camaraderie only found in halls

Of sand scrapes and twilight parasailing

It was a spontaneous decision, the kind you're always glad you made.
SlapdashRandomIncidental?
The light behind is fading, the ground below is glowing and over the sea we swoop. An ungainly bird, flammable, no smoking in the air please!
At some point, instead of appreciating the glittering gem of the island or the gliding, soaring, flying, I thought "shit, all that's stopping gravity from acting is a nylon canopy overhead, a canvas harness under-ass and the strings that ligament-like keeps us attached to the boat below."
A deep breath, hard to catch in mid-air, and the calmness sought is found. Maybe now I get why Icarus could not not go higher.

Yupdate

okay, so i have not blogged in forever.
nepal and tibet were AMAZING sans food poisoning in Kathmandu. home is awesome. still haven't started looking for a job/ sending out C.V.s/ doing all the things a responsible graduate should do. Graduation in slightly over a week. Going to KL again today. I really need to update my blog.

21052010

This time last year, the day after your birthday, I saw you for the final time before going home.
It's funny how some dates will always be imprinted in ones memory.
I could not blog yesterday.
Sometimes,I wonder what would have happened, if I had not taken that flight a year ago. The outcome could have been the same, but would my sense of guilt match that of those who were there on that fateful day, 10 days from today, a year ago?
On the last day of this month, I will be away, far from it all, perhaps on a dusty road in Kathmandu, on a green trail hiking to Nagarkot, in a dingy restaurant eating spicy potstickers or on a breezy plateau high above the rest of the world. A year would have passed and my reaction will still be apparently torpid. Moping sucks and does nothing for anyone, I will laugh hard on that day, the way we used to.
Are people onions? Layer upon layer, almost-always hollow-centred, they add flavour, they make you cry. Whatever.

"From a delightfully digression-packed essay on John Mackie's argument from relativity"
reading that statement on my prof's blog followed by an excerpt of my answer script was a little unnerving but whadayaknow, he must have liked the digressions :)))

Vertigo,

the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.

Botero's crow

i have asked the plump crow at the cbd what it sees. it sits there plumply, not saying anything. but there's a contradictory chattiness in its silent round eyes. one day, it will shake out its plumpy wings and waddle across uob plaza.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Kerouac love.

Bleeeeargh!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
i'm turning into a blimp :(
exam stress, thesis stress, job-hunting stress....
who am i kidding, i'm addressing none of the above haha.
it's because i've morphed into an eating and sleeping machine.
i haven't exercised in fuck long and i need both hands to count the number of meals i have a day. raaaaaaaawr!

You don't know Pain until you've studied Engineering

I totally ripped this list of a fb group called:
"Childbirth? ... You don't know Pain until you've studied Engineering"
I've only taken the ones that I personally felt haha... the list is way more extensive than this,

You know you're studying engineering when…

You come out of a lecture and feel that you wouldn’t mind being hit by a bus.

You are doing maths that the maths students don’t cover until the 2nd year.

You know the Greek and Arabic alphabets better than the language students.

A 4 hour day is an easy day.

A 9 hour day is still an easy day.

You are up at 3am in the morning trying to finish yet another piece of coursework asking yourself… why?

You feel bitter contempt towards anyone complaining of 2 lectures in a row.

Someone complains about ‘take away exams’ you feel a sudden urge to hospitalise them.

It’s the norm that you can’t fit an equation on 1 line of a page.

Handing in an assignment just means that’s there’s a new one to complete.

Time is measured in submission deadlines.

You find out you have 3x as many exams as practically everyone else.

You frequently ask yourself why the fuck are you doing this.

You are used to covering a ridiculously large span of subjects to the same standard as the respective degree students.

Breasts in a lecture theatre generally means there's a guy who's let himself go a bit.

You would assume a horse is a sphere to make the maths easier.

Your best friend is your calculator.

Things I've added to the list:
You've wondered if the alcohol in the lab could make the hours a little easier and have contemplated adding a squirt into your coffee.

You've been warned that the chemicals used in your experiments are cancerous/ you could potentially be exposed to radiation/ your equipment has the capacity to electrocute the motion out of you or slice your fingers in a heartbeat.

You start appreciating classmates for basic things like showering at least once a day.

You tend to know at least 70% of your classmates and most of their wardrobe because you see them almost every day (refer to lecture hours point above) and because each year, the class size dwindles and no one really has much fashion sense.

Freddie Mercury is Alive

On memory and existence.

Someone is really dead only when there remains not a single person with memories of them.
This thought emerged in the midst of the whimsical and the random that make a good Sunday afternoon conversation with a friend who faced a common loss.

So I say Freddie Mercury is alive! Caveat, I'm not claiming he literally exists in a corporeal form at this moment in time. What I mean is that his memory remains and we can vicariously (Youtube, music tapes, biographies) experience his genius. Eight generations from now, he may still be remembered. Say what you will, Bohemian Rhapsody is as much a masterpiece (and probably as overplayed) as Beethoven's symphony in C minor.

Lets put aside the likes of Freddy, Newton and Shakespeare, the thought applies to us mere mortals too. The day not a single person in the world remembers you, is the day you truly are dead. Dammit, I better record an album do some worth it shizz with my life. Do we crave immortality more than we think or somethink or nuthink at all...