Thursday, November 30, 2006

The Winner Takes It All

As much as I want to, as much as I try, sometimes things aren't within my sphere of influence. I'm not a self-defeatist. I always get back on my feet somehow. Experiences have made me jaded, bitter and cynical. Yet, there is the childlike factor within me that I guard fiercely, as if it were the last ounce of joy I have before all is lost.

Perhaps it was naive to think that I had a magical wand to set things right by emulating time frames. We learn from falls. From bruises and cuts, the fundamental concept of cause and effect inscribes itself into our cognitive epitaph.

Hurts, deep as they are, will heal, albeit piercing anguish into a fragile being.

A beautiful flutterby when clutched in a clenched fist for a prolonged period, will have its life snuffed out before long. Beauty is transient. So are other finite qualities which we cling onto with gnashed teeth in fervent grit.

Dawn and dusk will transit gracefully in due time.T

he competitive streak in me doesn't take loss gracefully. Disappointment washes me with dread. When proven right, it spurs me on to achieve victory.

On a personal level, I advocate honesty and draw a clear distinction between black and white. I don't need to be told if I was right. I know I was.

I'm not afraid to lose. To lose is to sidestep a former victory and pave the way for another victor. It is an exchange, a transaction between individuals.

I know I've won once.

In every competition, the victor is declared and a medal adorns the individual as an acknowledgement of his place at the top. The position secured is fleeting before another comes along to take his place. Defeat is inevitable.

And that's what I've been waiting for -
To be acknowledged that I had indeed won before.

With that, I would be able to lay the medal on the mantle - occasionally glancing it with pride and adoration, dwelling in a past glory before resting its memory and facing the present.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

What's In A Name?

Original Meaning: "Who Is Like God."
In Mich's Context: Who has failed God.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

I Will Come To You

A song weaned on radio during the late 90s, this was the nostalgic anthem of encouragement and friendship for a while, despite the Hansons' tender ages. Embedding has been disabled by YouTube. Click here to view the video on YouTube.

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh, I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh, I will come to you

Sometimes when all your dreams may have seen better days
And you don't know how or why,
but you've lost your way
Have no fear when your tears are falling
I will hear your spirit calling
And I swear that I'll be there come what may

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

Cause even if we can't be together
We'll be friends now and forever
And I swear that I'll be there come what may

When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you

We all need somebody we can turn to
Someone who'll always understand
So if you feel that your soul is dying
And you need the strength to keep trying
I'll reach out and take your hand

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won't have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Hush....

It's complicated.

Fill the shoes wholly?
Partial occupancy would suffice.

Don't say a word.
Peforated letters are but superfluous.

A shoulder,
a smile,
a hug.

That's all I need.
From You.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Allo Allo!

Alex: I found you on youtube.
Mich: ?!!

Alex: (pastes url) See. You.
Mich: (clicks in curiosity)

Alex: Nice? Is you!
Mich: I think so too!

Alex: The shopping, cute, play, bouncebounce, hiao. Then got cow some more.
Mich: Gosh, it's so cute!!!!!!!!!!

Alex: I was looking for Allo Allo, the old British comedy. Then I found this.
Mich: (starts humming the infectious tune incessantly) Allo allo~~

Similarity #1

Similarity #2

Similarity #3

Similarity #4

Similarity #5

Watch the video below! It's incredibly adorable! =)

Ilona Mitrecey - Allo Allo - video powered by YouTube

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Are You Happy?

Are you happy?
You're probably not.

But....
You'll never say anyway.

Oh well.

Housekeeping

Did some housekeeping on my blog today:

  • Fixed the former erratic embedded media player along the sidebar with a new code.
  • Changed the host of the mp3 to one with a more stable server, albeit with limited storage space.
  • Carved new sections along the sidebar for Art & Entertainment.
  • Fixed the broken links.

Hope you'll finally get to enjoy listening to Corrinne May's Same Side of the Moon.

Cheerios!

Musings.

I did what I thought was right.
But it turned out all wrong.

I tried to fight for what I had lost, only to crumble at the bottom of the barrel. It's been this long. Time has diluted that which once was.

I didn't return to fight.

I returned to find the familiar haven.
To right the wrong.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Toss Out Your Calculator!

What a great way to multiply!
Thanks for sharing, Leion!


The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

"There's a phenomenon for you," cried the student and he laughed.

This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears.

"I want to attempt a thing /like that/ and am frightened by these trifles," he thought, with an odd smile.

"Hm . . . yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. . . ."

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Natalis laetus mihi

Or simply,
Happy 27th Birthday to Mich.

In splendour and mirth,
Cloaked markers of birth.
A flame or two
Streak transience's hue.

祝我生日快乐 - 温岚

祝我生日快乐 - 温岚
Happy Birthday To Myself - Landy
A compelling wistful yearning manifests its ugly rear annually.
Time fleets by, fading little.
There is not a day that goes by without Him on her mind.
It is this stoic strain within the song that intrigues,
evoking empathy from the listener,
propelling one to shed uninhibited tears.

我知道伤心不能改变什么
I know that misery changes nothing.
那么让我诚实一点
Allow me to be forthcoming.
诚实, 难免有不能控制的宣泄
Honesty invariably encompasses a rash divulgence.
只有关上了门不必理谁
Only behind closed doors, does one remain oblivious to what lies beyond.

一个人坐在空的包厢里面
A sole figure in isolated recluse
手机让它休息一夜
Let the cell phone take a break for the night.
难, 想切割切掉回忆的画面
Surmounting difficulty in eliminating the memories repeated.
眼泪不能流过十二点
Glistening drops must not be shed beyond the stroke of midnight.

生日快乐我对自己说
"Happy Birthday", I whisper to myself.
蜡烛点了寂寞亮了
Candles lit, loneliness illuminated
生日快乐泪也融了
"Happy Birthday" - these tears stain.
我要谢谢你给的你拿走的一切
I thank you for what you've given and all that you've taken.
还爱你的一点恨
Still loving you, though tinged with bitterness
还要时间才能平衡
A little more time before returning to the initial calm.
热恋伤痕画面重生
Passionate scars fester fresh wounds
祝我生日快乐
Happy Birthday. To Me.

Monday, November 13, 2006

The Spindled Perch

Cradling the floorboards, the rocking chair lulls to a gradual still.

A figure fleets by, with feet weary and laden.

Gently, the gungstol persuades the figure to a comforting rest.

Thoroughly refreshed, the occupant sets off to an intended destination far beyond.

The wicker on the adirondack betrays signs of repeated occupancy.

Albeit transient, sporadic sitting fulfils its purpose.

Till its rendered redundance.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

status quo

Wondering and never knowing.
Persistently slamming the eggshell on the wall.
Running in circles only to be yanked by the tail.
Indulging in various aspects with a sole focus.

In order to avoid hurting that, she meekly allows that to hurl the rocks at her.
And it is this attachment within the sentimentalist that has brought her more grief than joy.

Asking not to walk beside,
But to trail two steps behind.

Without expectations, there is no disappointment.

Birthday Wish

anonymous friend : what do you want for your birthday?

mich : what you are willing to spare with your time, not money. that which you can craft with your hands, not with the swipe of a card. Something which is fashioned from Nothing.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Sleep? What Sleep?

Caffeine ran through my veins (and arteries and intestines and .....) today as I loaded on the coffee to keep my eyes peeled open.

It was way past 4am after a night out. The price to pay was to be devoid of sleep!


Man of the Night : Desmond!

Mich

Desmond chuckling

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Towards the Edge

"Count your blessings."
If the blessing were absent, would it constitute a curse?

If you've been running in circles in solitude, would your effort be slighted?

Ought you to rejoice at the splatter of blessings or bemoan that the trickle can be taken into account individually?

Lately, a dry spell has plagued my world. Clearly, I'm equipped with the knowledge that this can be attributed to my absence in church. I've been running - averting the acknowledgment of my guillt. Up till adulthood, I had been an active and passionate participant. Church camps, carolling, trips with cell group, Bible quizzes, performances, discipleship training courses, morning duty, et al. Been there, done that. I'd even considered full-time ministry for a while.

James, Doris, Tony, Choy Kum, Shee Cher, Peh Muay, Daniel Koh, Shirley, Chee Boon - teachers of the word who had high expectations of me to ascend over the years. The pedestal's forsakenl. Daniel Foo - the Man whose words I cling onto with every shred of awe, the sole person I'd turn to in times of brokeness, the only one whose directions I'd follow at the drop of a hat - now fall upon deaf ears.

" We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. "
(Isiah 53:9)

Where is that starry-eyed girl who once yearned to serve the Lord? Why has her heart gone cold? Come rain or shine, she'd never missed a single week ever since the church started functioning in 1987. Yet, she holds the calendar up and prevalent, stark voids stare in her face.

Where does my guilt stem from? Am I running because of It? Is it to avoid affiliation and affliction? Or has It taken precedence such that I have shelved church below It on the priority scale?

Incantations of artifice - am I the very hypocrite that I have come to loathe?

Knowledge. Its weeds choke.

The carnal opposes the spiritual. Contrary to popular belief, Knowledge is not tantamount to power. What matters most is the Response triggered.

Is it a Response when you leave things as they are? Can Nothing be considered an Action?

I came upon God in the woods today
He was walking as He passed my way
I asked Him if He could help me see
a way in thought to help set me free
He told me to watch the butterflies
they damage nothing and tell no lies
He told me to watch the trees bend in the breeze
see how they hurt no one when they bend as they please

You are, but You aren't.

God doesn't keep score. I do.

At the end of the day, the sum just doesn't tally.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

"We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."

For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connexions and subjections.

Determinate Principle of Choice

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences.

Rene Descartes

[Excerpt from Literature.Org ]

"In the next place, I attentively examined what I was and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt of the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I had only ceased to think, although all the other objects which I had ever imagined had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I existed;

I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that " I," that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

And as I observed that in the words I think, therefore I am, there is nothing at all which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this, that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist, I concluded that I might take, as a general rule, the principle, that all the things which we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true, only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

But the reason which leads many to persuade them selves that there is a difficulty in knowing this truth, and even also in knowing what their mind really is, is that they never raise their thoughts above sensible objects, and are so accustomed to consider nothing except by way of imagination, which is a mode of thinking limited to material objects, that all that is not imaginable seems to them not intelligible.

The truth of this is sufficiently manifest from the single circumstance......and it appears to me that they who make use of their imagination to comprehend these ideas do exactly the some thing as if, in order to hear sounds or smell odors, they strove to avail themselves of their eyes; unless indeed that there is this difference, that the sense of sight does not afford us an inferior assurance to those of smell or hearing; in place of which, neither our imagination nor our senses can give us assurance of anything unless our understanding intervene. "

Friday, November 03, 2006

transgression.

Look for


Ask her if she wants to stay a while.

[ Maroon5 - She Will Be Loved ]

Remember to Forget.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Why?








For the IF in LIFE.
Why?