DUDES

hey, WHY THE HELL HAVE WE STOPPED BLOGGING. i'm damn sian la can't wait to see everyone in Ghana.

Dead (Poets Society)

As one of the founding members of this apparently abandoned club, I feel it's my responsibility to try and revive it. We thought that a special edition, with Clubemo ft. hungryman, would be able to do that - not so, it seems. The audience is too apathetic, the crowd too jaded; people need more in their ever-increasingly demanding search for gratification.

Whatever. I feel like arrowing some people, so I think President Daryl "emonemo" Yeo should share his experiences in Kenya with us, including the fabled near-death incident which (thanks man) you didn't tell me about at all. If the Scribbler can take time away from playing touch or jamming with his friend, or having dessert in some NY cafe with some other friend(s), he could tell us about Columbia as well (and whether he's worn his blazer yet).

On my part I've started work. The commute is killer, about 1h plus one way. It's really exhausting. I think I'm gonna end up being a workaholic in life too, even though I don't even exactly love my job...it's interesting, obviously, but I don't love it to death. So I don't know why I only left the office at 8pm on my first day of work. Sianz man.

Clubemo ft Hungry Man (based on a true story)

If you think we haven't been posting because of whatever reasons such as we don't really like to blog, think again. During our hiatus, Dave has been working on a comic biography collaboration with hungry man (art director). The series premiers in a few months, but here are some teasers.

Working at L

Hey Daryl, I met your cousin today! She introduced herself and handed me two boxes full of paper for data entry (update of student particulars by class). Working at that for half an hour, I managed to get rid of a pile about 1cm thick. So now I have two highly demoralising stacks of paper in TLU that I allocate some time each day to clear. (there are some upsides though, like an excuse to work downstairs where you can see some CHIs, and gangwei of course)

Apart from certain categories of work, TLL is fun! One of my routine duties is to be usher for the proficiency quiz ie. entrance examination for students. That's fun because I get to disturb all the kids and practice talking in a formal manner. Of course, I'm damn bad at talking in a formal manner.

Case in point: just today, I was sent to do New Student Orientation (NSO). After I did the orientation, the girl at the reception said to me, "Hey Justin, you're her friend ar? The way you conduct the NSO ar, luckily the parent was not there. If she was there ar, I think she'll be shocked lor. You just go up to the girl and say: Come follow me. like you're her friend like that."

Ushering is also fun because there's a lot of idle time to talk to people who are hanging around the outer reception (sometimes they are hot girls!). Sometimes you talk to parents and hot mums! There was even once a grandmother talked to me for very very long, which has resulted in MW telling people whenever he can to be careful of me because I am a grandmother killer. But that was my first time ushering and I was just trying to be polite haha.

You also meet strange parents. Yesterday, I despatched a document in heavy rain to a parent's house because he said he was not free to come down. In the end, he asked his wife to send me back to TLL, which meant that they could have come down to take the document actually! After that, he called TLL, asked to speak with me and asked for my handphone number on the pretext of getting me, or my friends, to teach his JC2 son tuition, a rather logical pretext. (a digressing point, I told him, "I don't think I am able to give you my handphone number", yet another testimony to my hopeless formal english) However, those listening only to my side of the conversation would have thought it a highly illogical question that was out of place (plus they think the parent is eccentric already). Even more unfortunately for me, MW was around so it has been added to his things to make fun me of.

Finally, from the MSRU, a department that I do not work in, there are rumours of LOVE between two interns, one of whom you probably know! (DISCLAIMER: readers of this blog, after your clever inferences, please refrain from asking whoever you think it is about it as it might cause extreme embarrassment and probably the premature death of a love affair! Let it grow man......)

Hahaha...the end.

random encounters

i have no idea how to spell her name, much less speak her language.
i have no email, address, or phone number from which to reach her.
i have but a memory of convoluted feelings, on a night of random encounters.

alas, there is about a 0.0000000000000000001% chance that i will ever meet her again.
but yet, my heart craves for it, for that moment to materialise into another sweet encounter.

rationality does not exist in the game of love.
in fact, nothing does.
you create it all,
and you have to end it all.

i pass on a gentle thank you, for reminding me of how it feels like.
you & me. always, but not forever.

so here's goodbye to you,
and the things that could have been,
that never will be.


till then.

steps backward.

when you meet someone,
you create memories. together.
yet when someone leaves you,
they don't take those memories with them.
and that's where the hurt sets in.

i do wonder, who you are now.
do you?
after all, all that i know of you,
is the recollection of memories.
you float in existence in the rifts of my mind,
and in the things you gave me, the ones that used to matter.
that's all that you left me with.

you cut me off.
i'm fine with that.
i can live with that.
but i choose not to.

Let's Go Series: Turkey

I dunno if this is still going on - possibly it was terminated after our somewhat dismal pieces. But I thought maybe we should up the level here to maybe L4 or L5 (JC or Uni), so here's my Let's Go Turkey with vocab.

I started off this trip with some trepidation, having never gone solo before. But I thought it would be an interesting experience, and my expectations were fulfilled despite it being a tad bit too long. I started off in Istanbul but skipped the city and moved straight to the famous Troy from the town of Canakkale. There wasn't much left of the venerated site of the Iliad (Note: famous epic written by Homer about the battle of Troy) save a few scattered, mournful-looking pieces of rock and some walls. Still, it was nice soaking in the atmosphere of this legendary city.

Next was Ephesus, a more intact set of ruins that were really quite nice. I went early, so I got them all to myself for the first part of the morning, and it was great fun roaming around, clambering all over the colosseum (Note: ancient theatre used to stage fights) and the fallen blocks of marble. But later on hordes of tourists arrived, swarming in like a noisy bunch of buggers (Note: alliteration) and I beat a hasty retreat. I also paid a quick visit to the Temple of Artemis, virgin goddess of hunt. It was supposed to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but again, not much was left of it.

Then I made my way inland to Pamukkale to see the wondrous white terraces and Hierapolis, yet another (the last) set of ruins. During this part of the trip I traveled with a mainland Chinese, a companion I'd met in Selcuk, the town from which I'd explored Ephesus. It was good traveling with someone as it relieved the loneliness that had set in. The calcium terraces were a pristine white and quite wondrous. It was evident though that years of tourism were starting to erode away at the formation. Hierapolis, like Ephesus, was dominated by a colosseum. It was much bigger, with buildings stretching across quite a large expanse and once again I had fun traversing the rolling hills upon which the city had been founded.

Following that I parted ways with my erstwhile companion in Cappadocia, specifically the city of Goreme. Without summer and the tourists it heralded to provide energy and life, it was a sleepy, quite quiet place - the hostel I slept in had only me, and they were unwilling to turn on the heating, so it was a pretty cold night. Cappadocia is famous for fascinating rock formations caused apparently by differential erosion (leading generally to either phallic or mammarian motifs) and the churches which were carved into them by Christians who were under persecution by some emperor or other. I watched a whirling dervish performance, which was interesting, and also joined a tour which took us to an underground city which was quite a claustrophobic experience. I should also mention at this point that there were quite a number of Japanese tourists, and that for most of the trip, the Turks kept thinking I was Japanese and saying konichi-wa to me. A Korean girl also mistook me for a Korean and asked me some stuff which rather confused me. In the end I had to say I didn't understand, following which I understood that she wanted me to help her take a picture.

The most intense part of the trip was probably Mt. Nehmrut. I'd been told not to go, and that it would be a waste of money, but I guess this leg captures what the whole Turkey thing was about: it was quite dangerous, done on a whim, and I forced myself to go through with it to prove some point. I had to scale this rather steep rock-face (falling from which would have landed me in some serious shit) and it was quite scary at times, having had to use all four limbs and stuff. Then I tracked through the blistering cold and falling snow to find the vaunted statues buried in f***ing snow. At that point, I let out a bitter laugh, a recognition of my foolishness and acceptance of the situation I had driven myself into. And to top things, I had been charged an exorbitant price to drive me up to the place. This part of the trip made me think rather badly of the Turks, made me see them as money-grubbing assholes rather than the warm, friendly people they really are.

This latter change of perceptions was incited by the arduous 20h bus-ride to Istanbul, during which two young Turks talked to me. One of them was a kofte-seller (Note: kofte is a scrumptious meatball made from lamb, chicken or beef), the other a policeman. They showered gifts on me for no apparent reason, buying me some bread, giving me a worry-bead, a broken watch and the old Turkish lira (Note: Turkey abandoned their previous currency, removing the 6 0s that had appeared due to runaway inflation) for 50 cents, or 500 000. And this was a sign of things to come, for when I arrived in Istanbul, I plunged straight into the absolutely incredible Turkish cuisine. These people work with a handicap, having no pork and not so much beef, but even so they have some of the best meats (in small, palatable chunks rather than the large slabs you get further west) and delightful desserts I've ever tried. Kebabs, kofte, kokorec (lamb entrails), lokum (the famous Turkish delight) - I was drowning in delicious food. One of the criteria against which I judge a civilisation is its culinary culture: ceteris paribus, a culture that knows how to cook and eat is more advanced than one that does not. So naturally my opinion of Turkish culture is rather high.

In Istanbul, I visited Aya Sofya, the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace. They were all grand, the equivalent of the majestic churches in Europe; the Topkapi Palace reminded me more of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing in terms of lavish splendour and ostentatious grandeur - maybe Eastern cultures are more into the whole opulence thing? And maybe cleanliness too - they seem to enjoy exotic baths (which I tried in a Turkish hamam, the one where they filmed Indiana Jones!) too. But sadly the feeling I was looking for, the Constantinople (Note: capital of the Eastern Roman and Byzantium empire) feel, could not be found in Istanbul. Maybe it had spent too long under the Ottomans, or become too touristy, but I found none or little of the Byzantine glory and grandeur that had drawn me there in the first place. Even so, Istanbul was great, though I spent too long there (5 days). When you have experiences like the one I'm about to narrate, you probably have overstayed a little.

I was sitting on a bench in front of the Blue Mosque when a middle-aged Turk motioned me over to his bench. I went over and we entered the usual conversation starters - where're you from, Singapore, traveling alone, yes, no girlfriend, no. (All the Turks I talked to were really concerned about this for some reason, and were somewhat outraged when I told them I didn't have one.) Then, "Do you like girls?" "Sure, I like girls." "You like to f*** girls?" "Uh...I guess..." So we went into what types - Europeans, according to him, know how to have sex etc. Well, comfortable ground for me and soon he had his arm around me in a friendly fashion. But then his next question came quite suddenly. "You like to f*** boys?" Woah. "Uh, no, not really..." "I like to f*** boys." And he made this hole thingy with his thumb and index finger, then transforms into a thumbs-up motion. Sensing my surprise, he quickly justified. "I'm not gay, I like to f*** girls. But I like to f*** boys too. Sometimes." "Oh. Ok." After asking a little about the gay scene in Turkey, I said I had to go, and as they say in the army, six o'clock back to track. It's a pretty vibrant place sexually too I guess.

In all Turkey was a good experience in terms of traveling alone. My style of tourism involves exploring the culture (especially gastronomical aspects) and seeing as many key sites as possible. So I supposed it worked out quite well - I felt that I'd seen most of the best of what Turkey had to offer, and experienced as much of Turkey as I could within the time I had.