The Ecstasy and the Majesty

cutting wings from this beast-flesh

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:18:25 GMT

my central thrust is not the same as my main objective.

Related, but not the same; so what are they? lay them out on the ground, these pretties, let them sparkle in the sun.

Central thrust => what art, metaphor, myth, drama, performance, imagination, creativity, story, poetry can do for people.

Main research objective => how these guys use these games to tell stories, where they create worlds where these things come alive, within a social and cultural milieu.

Context: a culture where creativity is seen as something perpetually "other" by the mainstream, yet not taken of very well as a liminal space by the people to whom it is supposed to be entrusted. state and business muscling in all the time, seducing little children with the promises of recognition, to feed the dreams of the solitary genius with splicings of broken mirrored widowed glimpses, reifying the gods of individualistic meritocracy.

ok, ok, down boy. how are these stories told?

they are experienced through the perspectives of player-characters, that explore imaginary shared spaces - these explorations also define these imaginary spaces into a continuum, yet also leave the edges ragged enough to be expanded upon potentially in the future.

they never really end, unless they do. sensitive to things like emotions, schedules, real life, etc.

but does that matter so much? we'll never have the ends of our epics, for the most part. is that important? perhaps, but is it the most important thing?

no, i don't think so.

what's important is that people can touch the divine through the profane with this act of communal energy pitchshifting, to reach the magical through the mundane.

this is just another means to do so, to square the circle, that the gods may emerge from the wombs of these words, and bring benedictions upon these blighted lands.

as long... as long.. as we can remember this

we will never lose.

so bless me now mother, father

grant me this strength i need to turn these wheels

the rest of the tribe is one long distant murmur

gaaaaaahhhh

let it flow, it will, it must, so bids it, i am the magician, and my will is law, and where the law ends, the chaosmos begins, and my magic is meaningless there, but then boats are not needed on dry land anymore, are they?

uncoiling undulating serpent spined-fire each bone a shining maw let these fangs rain down and make that void between you and me bleed wisdom

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:01:20 GMT

hi babe. long time no see, yeah?

here's some food.

time to break out occam's gilette, the best shave a man can get!

(null hypothesis laser time! or alternative hypothesis? gah my head ok focus breathe relax. I-ke! Cyflash!)

premise A -> state in SG is sibei authoritarian. Falsifiable? Yes. Evidence exists; can verify this, with empirical observation of prior actions by the state. This manifested reality will serve as the anchor for the rest of my argument.

premise B -> (popular discourse depicts) there is a lack of creativity, of imagination, of talent in Singapore. commonly equivocated with: Singaporeans have no creativity, no imagination, no talent. Are these positions falsifiable with evidence? What is the result of these positions? The need to "develop" talent, or to "import" talent from overseas? Logistical two-step shuffle.

how do these two premises relate to each other? are they even premises? See, never take logic class, or quantitative research, silly boy. now you suffer. don't worry just whack it overdrive!

iron heart surge!

magic black box magic black box MAGIC BLACK BOX

Authority and creativity are the two spirits i'm trying to play with here, and discover the resonance.

(hint flare blast: if the state perceives a relationship between authority/ creativity.. hmm. they did summon Richard Florida, after all. and the pink dollar ritual.. hence, by opening spaces, or allowing carving of discursive spaces for the "outliers" - the special foreign talent, the special vegabuttsechs, the special crazy bohemianinjas, the elite elephants, the so-called Cosmopolitans as opposed to the Heartlanders who have no talent, who have no buttsechs, who are not bohemian, etc... then this fucks us all over for it's, as KK would say, same old shit again.

Spaces for "creative folks" are goffman cooling marks to defuse psychic energy upsurge? explosive reactive armor => boom, deflect the bigger shaped charge coming your way? Chobham armor style.

Primary goal => to maintain hegemonic relations, Gramsci-style. The intellectuals will acquiesce to your rule, ANKOKU DAI SHOGUN, and fight in exactly the arenas you want them to. and make money. State view: cultural capital is not seen as the resources one uses to make meaning out of living, but rather seen as culture for making one's living.)

(reflexive hint blast: that trend of thought is dangerously seductively easy to arrive at, Shard-soul 1. Are you perhaps too quick to draw a conclusion when you have not yet established the correlation?)

Authority/ Creativity.

Let's examine the ideas here.

Authority is not necessarily a bad thing. But over-extension and abuse of authority? Censorship, draconian laws, being unaccountable to the public, above reproach, monopoly of mainstream fields of cultural production, invocation of higher moral purposes, while at the same time claiming to represent and speak in the voice of practicality, thus painting others as impractical, allowing their labelling of all alternative hypotheses as dissident voices and then smash them down into Sentosa with Drago laws? I WILL BREAK YOU APOLLO CREED.

Cops in Head, Cops in Head.

Creativity => what is it? That divine fire that is common to us all as human beans. Promethean laser pistol. To make new things. There is an element of perception. To see, to make connections between things, and also the ability to express that vision into a voice. Creative vision, praxis, creative voice.

Hmmm, it doesn't stop there. It creates more creativity too. Very StormWatch Seedling Activation style. Creative vision in one, creative voice sings to many, and elicits a possible frame of creative responses from others, and the wheel of the dragon turns and turns.

Ok, next thing. Creativity is not necessarily intelligence, and neither is a necessary condition for the other. In this society, what is more culturally valued? It seems intelligence and knowledge is more valued by most folks in the popular discourse. We can see it from the education system, and also sense it from the semi-sneering attitude of the people who describe themselves as having played it "smart". You know who you are. You memorized pract crit essays for lit, you took the classes in school that were easy to score, you were shrewd. you agreed with the prof even when he was talking bullshit, you never spoke truth to power, cos that would hurt your grades, and because that is unimaginable to you, you claim it is not true or possible.

(Shard-Soul 3 *gently* : But... Neither authority, creativity nor intelligence has sufficient claims to make moral judgments, sempai. chill. relax your defenses.)

so. this supposed lack of creativity in singapore?

1, Is it a resource lockdown? i.e. the starving artist problem? Hmmm. That cannot really be the independent variable that explains the matter. Cos other places also got starving artist, ya? and anyway, resources are always present. It doesn't matter what kind. There's social and cultural resources, no? i may be starving, i may be working as a slave, but i can sing a song, a ditty from my father's father's time. you may throw me into a cell, gouge out my eyes with rusty old spoons, but i can still see the serpent's maw gasping from the milky way.

Social and cultural resources exist here. There's images. there's sounds. There's a mythology that inspires dialetic relationships - the national story is a good centralizing focus to create spurts of energetic thrusts in and out, see-saw, the fangs of the sky. But hmmm this mythology is under the control of some very powerful magi who have a whole bunch of apprentices protecting this story.

And there's even a common language of sorts, for people to communicate with. From these, we can get building blocks to do so much. Yes, money is lacking, yada yada, and that sucks, but it's not the main issue here, is it?

2, Is it a talent mire? Do we lack "talent"? i don't think so. You can't really draw some arbitrary distinction between People A and People B, and say these folks got no talent. That's essentialism at its most classic, just another racist rant against ourselves, that somehow genetically or culturally, we lack creativity, imagination, or talent. Unlike the Jipun Kia, or Comrade Americanski, or whatever gets our goosely hard-on at the moment.

And there's also empirical evidence to argue otherwise. Lotsa folks do really good work here, not just in the realm of the arts, but also in the realm of everyday life, of everyday creative activity. The singing man. the old couple dancing their tango in the middle of Waterloo Street. 10,000 unsaid, unheard, unsung spirits laughing and crying from new variations of uber tasty noodles to KOF combo tricksmiths at arcades to lui jumping up onto a table to sing and dance to josh's spontaneous witticisms to ed's 1234567 cos they can't shout knnbccb at the white horse recruits anymore otherwise they cry.

So that's not "creativity" in the public view, cos the state has become the biggest fool of itself. It has deluded itself into thinking creative activity is airy-fairy and special, following LKY's old chestnut:

"Poetry is a luxury Singapore cannot afford."

Poetry exists in an emergent state la, it is not ontologically inherent.

The whole talk bout "creative industries" have somehow ghost-danced and swapped innovation for creativity, and genius for expression here.

So oi recover focus la. Everyday, ppl do creative things, or do things creatively, just that this is not recognized as talent or suchlike by the most powerful social actors in this society. And essentializing ppl doesn't make sense, so no need to poke that side.

For the answers, we must go back to culture here, lol not least cos that's my training, but also, srsly folks, i have a feeling i'm onto something.

it's not lack of resources, or lack of talent, in Singapore. So what is it?

Lack of spaces? Lack of cultural contexts for creative activity, and lack of identification of such?

A ninja that is not hidden, is honestly no ninja at all. A visible man that nobody sees, *is* invisible.

if the spaces are few for folks to share and access, for folks to develop, and the boundaries between these sacred spaces and profane spaces, in Eliade's terms, are strong, to protect the "cultural stuff" of these folks from contamination, and well, the status difference is there, as people wanna feel special, then that means it is irrelevant for most people, and thus it exists, yet it is invisible.

society of interlocking, independent parts, incapable of communicating with each other, except through floor managers, that serve to articulate the system's joints, but also provide feedback stresses of their own, ultimately reinforcing their own existence, and even they report to the engineers of this mecha robot, who also answer to the pilot.

Galbraith's technostructure/ industrial state => specialization of roles for industrialization. Taylorism results to inculcate efficiency.

so, lack of spaces is the independent variable, are you saying that? wah lau. go koon lah.

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:54:35 GMT

upgrade: parallel processors for better fire control, faster lock on and field acquisition.
weapons: twin plasma cannons, twin knuckle shots on front.
stabilizers: fins on arms, legs, heads (all front), elbow and core (left)
engines/ generators: hybrid of rapid response and air strike systems.
chassis/ frame: hybrid for energy/ ballistic resistance.

the center of gravity is heavily tilted towards front and left. inherent bias towards left lol. well, easy to rush in, and then maintain ideal close range, while bursting speed to maintain distance for plasma. boost to left is faster, but turning to right is slightly slower, so keep at optimum distance is important, but not that far too. if come too close, can wait it out and punch.

hmm, damn dueling unit.

field radar: (general target acquisition) writing is privilege of the rich and powerful, dominated by class of elites. writing as Djehuty's gift, that is a mark itself of wealth and sophistication. people who write are themselves part of the modernist project; this postcolonial nightmare.

wait, what is central focus? is this a siege unit, or recon racoon? No, it's a duelist and fast strike craft, so reconfigure.

larger radar scope is to see the missiles coming in so you can dodge them, not so you can RUN into them, boyo.

stance switch: apparent "culturelessness" is actually culture. no sense to essentialize culture as high or mass or folk or pop, back to working definition => culture as process. if the rich and powerful have access to means of resources, they have higher degree of control over culture, back to Rajaratnam's social engineering and historical switcharoo policies.

The cultural elites within this system aspire to a reification of the ang moh standards as being timeless, the standard for all else to aspire to. an abstraction is granted free-standing ontic status.

people write about what they want, about what they fear, etc. Together with the remodelling of people into mobile suits to help mine the ore the state needs, there's some kind of hoppity hoppity hop situation at work. Chua's application of Gramsci to look at the situation, where there's mutual cooperation, even in the forms of apparent resistance.

WAIT. if the state is made up of people who want to become elite, whether it's in civil society or political society, and this general society is built on encouraging elitism - LKY's "slender resources needs to be given to top 2 percent" theory...

some people will always seek to become the elite, and apply their technologies towards transforming their status into the elite. of course, there's different kinds of elite. Via my education, i have to acknowledge that now i am a elite in terms of my acculturation, but i am no Big Shot. Hence, i am not a socially acknowledged elite. (though the auntie who sells nasi lemak is impressed i read so much, lol, that is also a kind of acknowledgement, more ikan bilis, thanks)

ok away away from subjectivity as illustration.

so => rambling long thing is, people who seek to become elites will become some kind of elite, but then they'll always be smaller than some other guy who even lagi zai than them. (correspondence to leet culture? interesting thought but not too useful at this point)

boundaries are drawn in order to create clear, bounded units of ethnicity. "our people do it this way." this guy is the smart guy, that guy the strong guy. classification fever.

clear schematics!

rework!

1, writing is fiercely guarded privilege of the rich. and this rich tends to be consolidated in a few classes/ industries and their ideas are representative of their class/gender/religion biases. Yeah la, and most of them are old men (or young women wishing they were old men). Whether it's professors, teachers, feminists, govt officials, liberal humanists, Catholics, Marxists, or whatever. in that sense, they maintain the cultural hegemony, and the horizon of knowledge that can be easily reached by most people is controlled by them. Likely also to breed resentment, so people feel these ppl are irrelevant to them, and find other elites to emulate.

2, the big problem: in a state where writing/ reading is the ang moh pai's gold card, the oral tradition is gutted with a vibro knife. The "i want to be writer" syndrome. Haha. Writing has such a powerful fetish bound to it. even this one. *pokes* hmm. this reality seems rather stable.

3, english-educated people look at english writings and see that world of writing as za worldo.

4, these english-educated people are either well-placed cultural producers in their fields, or cultural producers in the schema of everyday life. your "normal joe".

5, ideological blindness, because in that way, they see one thing (a particular) as representative of all (the whole)...

6, these games are themselves created by the ang moh pai, either becos they have access to social networks or other capital.

ok go eat la. come back later.

rant/ vent

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:23:44 GMT

satori: unfold. THUNDER KONGO VAJRA YASHA STRIKE!

within larger space-time social context => (boomer generation in the world post 1945, singapore's experience: one sub-caste of the English educated elite had to deal with the individualistic mindsets of that time)

british trained anglophile founding fathers; chinese and indians who wish they were brits. They won and dominate current historiography had to deal with ppl who disagreed with their ideas. inherited power structure from the brits, primogeniture. hmm. perceive chaos on all sides, then the big bulge of baby boomers who saw the world as their oyster had to be tamed... no hippies, no long hair, all dangerous.

my parents' generation. some of the richest and the poorest were able to break away from the social engineering, by drifting away from the mainstream. but hmmm the individualism of the times was subsumed into a group identity, a fallen generation - where kids didn't know how to grow up into adults, and parenting sometimes left a lot to be desired. but everyone was just finding themselves, yeah..?

ppl were supposed to "get married" start families get jobs and be responsible. then the peasant mentality comes in, cos these ppl of the generation before us - my parents at least - were from peasant stock. so we didn't have big old money. so upward social mobility FTW, everything is a matter of moving on and on. Get english name, get western education, get job that is based on manipulating resources for an industrial purpose, and all that based around gaining symbolic capital of social prestige..

(and some of you want to run but you never do because you're scared of daddy, aren't you? sigh. and you're scared of mommy dearest. and you think of yourselves as stoic warriors, just like those salarymen with tie-bandannas in japan. please level up a bit more before the world eats you up even more...)

so anyway. next wave.

some of you get a mistress or a toyboy on the sly, others go to church or temple or mosque, get your damn car, your family's ok, you provided for your kids, so what if they're latchkey ya? They're fed at least. Send them to school, a good school, where they'll get good traditional values (another strange construct - those values you have?) Equip them with the skills they'll need to survive, and hope you did all right. And most of you did all right la... it was hard for you too. Your times were quite crazy.

Then our time comes in. The rebellion wave - bursts in next generation, we the Gen X-ers. For those from old money families, hmm you get married and stabilize really quick... but for those from other places, who don't benefit from the system that much, it's hard ya. You can't even articulate your rage. (if you benefit from the system, even worse, cos you got Catholic guilt now lol) You don't have the vocab. The cultural capital. You just know you're feeling pissed on. You just know that a bunch of guys who push papers around somehow get the girls, the cars, the big house, and the respect, and you're the guy who did mechatronics just like everyone told you to do so, and you got a PHD poly halfway dropout and then you upgrade yourself like siao to just get your job now and you're stuck in some office hell where some smoothtalking asshole tries to rimshot you all the time and get the credit for your work.

So the point is, the old guys dominate discourse and discussions, while the ppl who do well, want to do well, and not "be wrong" don't really see anything wrong (and quash any feelings of those wrongness if they get too strong) and then this middle/ upper class of cultural elite produce the media, reinforce cultural hegemony of this place being a world for the rich, and this place runs and thrives on this glut of mammon, and you justify its existence by saying "if this wasn't the case, would we have this or that?" then shout out any form of critique by straw man arguments. the intellectuals' roles within a knowledge-based political economy is very powerful.

middle class wants to be rich, rich wants to stay rich, maybe if you're rich dilettante, you can play at being poor and grungy, then poor also wants to be middle class. everyone hates themselves because they can't be you, and as long as there's you, who needs to do anything yeah?

then the really poor, who fall out of the cracks? Those who can't speak english? Those old uncles who worked as rickshaw pullers and then cobblers and then sit at coffeeshop tables with transistor radios but they can't understand JACK SHIT now because you took out their dialect programmes you did you motherfuckers oh and don't tell me bout meritocracy i'll punch your laser satellites out with my armpits. So they have no education, no media, no publications for them? and it's all their own fault?

oh wait they have THE NEW PAPER right, or whatever you have created to be the voice of the masses ya. Meh. So cynically you stalk, my scholarship-holding ninjas, you didn't even do journalism, but you're journalists now. And then you don't even know how to investigate. But ya la it's not your fault. You have to pay the piper, and give Caesar his due.

AND YES PUT IN SHOWS ABOUT HOW THE LITTLE GUY MAKES IT BIG DESPITE TROUBLE YADA YADA and it's all cos he got talent and the system works and there's no structural problems no sirree.

so programmes news publications here just push the little guy down and push the big guy up eat this fucking nice new restaurant ya it's so goddamn nice and go to this ccb place in dont know what continent to backpack and you're one of the culture elite

laugh at us push us down and then say we have culture by having goddamnawful programmes telling us to eat chicken wings at fuckall what hawker centre, that doesn't cut it, punk.

rage rage rage GODDAMN RAGE.

push the poor into invisibility, deny the social problems, quietly work on them on the sidelines so you even prevent people from having the moral grounds to criticize you, and work on them just a bit so they dont stop you from making your money with social unrest, and overwork the social workers who are living saints and bodhisattvas who wont ever complain cos they know they depend on you for their damn funding and too many things depend on this working right for them to risk it all on a burst of angst and so this sits inside INSIDE INSIDE and it never comes out

and another generation of drones buzzing beelzelbub rasetsumaru with no idea what their own angin is, all dancing demons in the skies of concrete!

you use your power to twist their lives, Gramscian attack dogs! and you drive them onwards and work them to the bone and reap the benefits of their labor for yourselves.. and your puny pathetic defence is "that's how the world works", hahaha, what did the dentist fill your rotten maw with when your teeth fell out due to a lack of moral fibre? Filth fillings? Tau sar pau and mantou got different fillings, same same can la.

then if media is controlled, dominated by you white people who can't find work elsewhere so come here do Red Threads and Masters of the Sea... and then act so goddamn cultural at holland v and dempsey...

who speaks for the little guy? can the subaltern speak? not with speakers, maybe, but with subwoofers, woof woof under the radar, when all we have are the tongues of curs.

need to go out to breathe a bit now. Refocus later.

*woosh*

ideas

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:13:09 GMT

what does it mean to possess cultural capital? re: singapore context.

ok, so i'm like some sort of an academic. i read a lot, write a lot (used to), think a lot, and i observe a lot. the work i do deals with learning, teaching, communicating and remembering.

my da and ma both graduated from nantah; they treat education with quite a high amount of respect. there are beautiful things in my house, from paintings to dinosaurs. i am reasonably proficient in chinese, more so in english, and a lil bit ok in indonesian/ malay.

i used to act, and used to play games, tell stories a lot more. those leisurely pursuits, together with my family's respect for the scholar-knight errant, had more to do with my current life in this configuration, than anything else. i grew up with a bunch of great friends who were from different walks of life, but were all expressive and confident in their own spheres of life, and we did many great things together.

what is it that prevents this greatness and exuberance from reflaring up?

the machine of this place.

hmm.

why am i able to continue doing what i do? family background comes in. not by birth, but by my family's cultural dispositions towards education, literacy, and higher learning, i was equipped with enough resources as a kid that nurtured certain nascent qualities within me. I have entered the ranks of a scholarly elite class that exists in this country. i do not *choose* to channel my social and cultural resources towards attaining what this country's popular discourse holds up as being "success", but that also possible due to my good relationship with my family. i don't encounter the same pressures as perhaps others of my social class do, to become an iron bowl bureaucrat, and they have encouraged at many times these interests and affinities of mine.

Cultural capital, in Bordieu's sense?

hmmm. university. it's not bout whether you can get the book or not, to read. it's bout the training, the apprenticeship to a discipline, the mentor-journeyman relationship, where you learn not just bout books, but about life and lives. books are cultural objects - artifacts that contain "embeddings" of culture, perhaps, but to associate books entirely with intellectual high culture is an aspect of the totemic fetishism..

yes, i read many things on my own, and i gained a lot from these readings, but it was not until the discussions, the arguments, the late-night conversations, the research papers, the putting of theory into practice, that my readings crystallized into learning.

(cultural capital also linked thus to social capital? to meet people of similar interests and affinities, whom you can apprentice together with, to learn a craft and master some skills? they then eventually go into certain sectors of society, and i can utilize those contacts and friends to do certain things?)

hmmm. and in this regard, RPGs - both as hobbies/ leisure activities and groups of people who come together, the hobbyists - represent a possible way by which people can gain access to cultural and social capital in a highly stratified society. It's not something that appeals to everyone - or can work for everyone; firstly, there are some affinities that are more useful than others. Power gamers and rules lawyers emphasize that bend-it-till-it-breaks ideology that underscores Weber's ideas of the bureaucratic elite and their knowledge-power base; linguistic affinities, ability to express oneself and understand others are also good skills to have, because all games are social activities and cultural products.

hence, ppl with interests in magic, but not necessary of that intensity/ sort to go into the full-gonzo occult lifestyle, can consume "fantasy"; the fundamental schema of reality within their reckoning is not threatened because it is not "really real", but also because it is not "really real" it is actually less dangerous and more comfy; so you can put it into your life in a more or less modular fashion that isn't so painfully stark.

Magic isn't limited to being an intellectual thing, but some degree of intellectualization and cerebral activity is involved. there is the whole breaking apart of cultural conditioning + the ability to have faith and belief in things. most of the time, without the latter, the former degenerates into some kind of flaccid agnosticism?

but anyway, not the point.

RPG => hobby groups and activities => different kinds of people play them, come together into different groups, recreate their social universes and express their fantasies and ideas, gain access to voice for self-represnetation, even if that voice is borrowed from other forms of culture through media => and speak for one-self.

context? => local arena, stratification of classes, tightening control of social and cultural capital for the technocratic culture elite, survival tied to global flows, loss of soul and spirit as language and memory is molded and spliced, increasing amount of empty markers of class boundaries, searching for "identity", for "who am i truly", while agnosticism increases, and the erudite love techne more and more for its "reality", and then the drive towards fundamentalist interpretations of scripture also increases, that are actually supporting pillars *and* distinguishing features of an increasingly atomized, self-worshipping, individualistic society, that seeks to define the limits of "humanity" and creates a cultural product of the "human being".

ack.

nightmare blade!

chill. relax. something gestated there. return to the void. namaste.

summoning

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:17:03 GMT

wandering ghosts of the seven clouds
where are you now and where do you go?
where do you sleep in these lands
when your homes here are gone?

this house is but a heart
caged in bone and brine
this tongue a dew-weeping bridge
from my world to yours

another brick of memory
a kiln of forgotten fires
cracked dreams, quiet tempest
in a pallid palace, that king feasts
and his banquet sings to the bereft

through you, thunder-god, sky-singer
old stone names whispered in a sheltered gaze
i taste this draught of my eyes so cleanly
winter's dart across these lifeless winds

embrace me
as i return to you
as a son
to this black earth

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:51:30 GMT

you don't know how to give to others, do you?

everything is conditional for you.

you will tear down the world to feed your ego, and deny your own true power, because you're scared of fighting for yourself, for other people.

and you will keep them down, push them down, tear them apart, to suit your purposes, rather than acknowledge the possibility that you may just be wrong, and reflect on that... it's too much to ask for you to make amends, is it?

this sword is a serpent, and this blood burns like venom.

ink of the skies, rain upon the soil of my brain.

infinity uncoils.

Fri, 22 May 2009 05:13:31 GMT

fucker

what a bitch.

love

Mon, 11 May 2009 02:50:34 GMT

this city
this tribe
full of assholes
who dont have any respect for themselves,
let alone others
but what to do
they're my people.

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:20:37 GMT

devil's eyes. devil's eyes!

A prayer

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:53:20 GMT

Hello!

Dear Mother, how are you? How are my friends and family on the other side? It is all getting rather strange, these days, for me. I wonder how you are doing? It gets tiring sometimes, here, in the shadowed world of matter. i hope things are good for you all in the realm of spirit?

It's getting rather scary here, you know. Yeah, i know i'm probably just panicking, but this time, i'm a mortal - and a rather young one, after all. This incarnation is getting a hang of what he's supposed to be doing. It's just getting really, really lonely. Which is funny, cos i have so many friends, yeah?

But they don't - or they can't - see you anymore... and the places i go to, to find you, they grow smaller and lesser.

The tall grassy lands, the hills, the little copses, they are all gone now, replaced by banks and luxury condos and carparks. The wild pack isn't there anymore; they've probably been killed and shot down for the safety of the new human denizens. I don't know where the snakes and the birds and the frogs went too. Even that little mound - where I leave my flowers, my fruit, and my tea and wine in your name - they took that away from me, my friends. That place where I sit to commune.

First they took us with fire, that they claimed was an accident. Then the surveyors came, and gouged you so deeply with the iron dragons. And now they build a mausoleum of cement over my memory of you. I am glad some other humans found a home to stay, but still i miss you. Mostly i guess i miss hearing you all the time, and talking to you. It's something nobody would remember, when i pass and fade as well - for i have no tribe to sing to these days. They are too busy for us. They don't believe in us anymore. They would kill you and replace you with their golems.

This place breaks the spirit, Mother. i don't know what to do sometimes. I throw myself into work, mostly. Around me, i hear the darkness gather and its teeth grind, and it suckles upon the freshly broken dreams of the young and the constantly revived despairs of the old. It is a subtle thing, not carved in hellions' flame or tipped upon wyvern's stings. There is a sickness in the spirit - that afflicts the people; and their panacea... well. that is a shape in my head that they would bid my soul to wear which I would not don.

It is hard for me not to cry when I see my friends walk to their houses of worship, and they have so many things. They have books, and they train their priests. Their young believe in their truth, and that is good, but... their ways will destroy us. And they know it, and they plan it, and they do it consciously, and they are protected by Gilgamesh. The laws of man are comforting things to them, a blanket, an invisible veil, that shields their hands from damnable spots of the blood that should stain their soul.

and Mother, this land itself - the spirit of you - it is changing - and that is why i pray to you now with this electronic image - which is hydra-like and infinite. i do not know who will read this, or why, or when. Maybe someone can sense you in these words. Maybe someone will taste the salt of my eyes in this scentless ink that repeats itself across time and space in the minds of the humans. Maybe we can break the illusion, for a while, and wake up from our sleep.

No, i am not jealous of the other children, no. i have gotten over that. And yes, i grieve, for my own loss as much as yours, and also that they will never know you. It is human to weep, and pain is not the sole province of man. And in this weeping, i know passing, and in this grief, i know winter, which breaks me from the bonds of digital manipulations of time...

But still, i have my own house of worship for you, in this palace of my mind, built upon memories and experiences, a narrative citadel. I can still hear you when you laugh, bells twinkling in some unknown flat-owner's window, and I can see you in the shudder of the mynah sits on the grass, feathers all rough-fluffed, eyes wild and beak askew. The blind clarinet player's midnight howls as empty glass eyes stare at me from unsleeping office towers where the lights are never allowed to die.

So, thank you, for blessing me with your greetings and reminders of the empyreal.

and i can still see you, so i try my best to do what i can, for those among the scattered tribes who feel this pain too, that they can't see clearly, or can't express, except through the ideas of dead white men.

lend me some of your strength, and sensitivity, and fill my heart with the humbleness of the little beetle. i need such to soothe the minds of men, to ease them from the throes of hatred and hidden jingo, before they birth the nightmares they entertain, and realities collide and shatter.

Oh, and this wish deep inside me - that i could just go to the steppes, or the mountains for a while - soon, soon. In a few years perhaps. But ironically, i am a child of the city, born and bred in this concrete jungle. Still, it can only do me good to learn from the older voices. But i must remain, for now, for there is shaman's work to be done, and the other friends i have learned from - i do not think they will return, from where they are now. They're happier there, and i'm truly glad for them. But i'm just an old-fashioned kind guy, i guess. i'm born the son of the sons of peasants and immigrants. And we have our links to the land that we cannot forget, that we can never truly sever. In this hope, i shatter the strictures of thunder placed by those who would inherit the sky-mien.

Thank you, Mother, for going on and sailing into the deep sea of stars another day, for bearing us upon your back.

Good-bye. It's been good talking, we should catch up again. Please take care of yourself.

hurt

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:23:21 GMT

pain and grief

i feel my loss again - my loss of you

o Green, my bond to you..

all the dogs have nowhere to run now, and the birds, nowhere to feed

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:48:55 GMT

identity?

identity as something inside that is expressed outer? or something outside that shapes the inside? useful distinction? (return to this later)

attitudes and stances and ideas
influence how we deal with situations
influence our experiences of things - our experiences of our experiences even
meta-experiences?

rigidly defined identities exist, just as rigidly defined everythings-else.

why do ppl want to rigidly define identity thru markers? sanity? stability?
hmmm.
pedantic.

ok, it's not really being in touch with reality, per se, cos they're more really holding on to a specific view, a discourse, extremely strongly. They may array themselves with an armory of relevant facts and common sense and personal experience..

hmm.

*observe though, your own slant here - you are already interpreting them in your own schema's frameworks.*

lol. in my observations though, that works out so far quite well la to explain stuff.

spectrum of reality

facts - generalized statements of observation about phenomena which can be objectively tested to some degree...

THIS IS A PRATA

feelings - subjective experiences of phenomena

THIS PRATA IS GREAT

or

THIS PRATA SUCKS

then mmmm... social reality gets into the picture.

WAIT.

social science problem zomg the oldest engineering fake out solution

if the hypothesis you have created does not suit the phenomena you are studying, you can change either the hypothesis, or the phenomena!

LOL. ok. frigging cheaterbugs.

By streamlining social reality into a certain form - through the use of various engines - you can manipulate ppl's actions and perceptions....

Then by removing certain scopes of action from the realms of imaginable and actualized possibility, and by transforming how people think and feel with control over media and knowledge... you can make them into you.

Cos it's not bout who you are, for most ppl?

it's bout what you do?

then when what you do (no-sync) with your self-image, you break down, go bwuhhhhhhggdgdg?

then you do what you are doing/ have done/ have been made to do, and your self-image kinda cracks and you rearrange the broken mirror shards into liquid glass and paint over the holes in the soul and pretend they not there at all?

Then then then

then hor it's like one day quarter life crisis, WHY AM I DOING THIS

I NEVER LIKED THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE

WHO AM I

ZOMG

OH NOES.

(then ya la, ok, aunties, mom, you will send your kids to tuition and piano and say "that is the real world.")
(but i got you to admit at lunch yesterday that was how *you* thought!)
(and then you admitted it's cos you are worried - which is yay, it's a human thing to feel emotion. don't argue from authority over metaphysics ok! as long as you human, not robot. elemental also can. thanks for being fleshy organic.)

THEN HOR. ppl will call you irresponsible, say you never think of big picture.

that discourse privileges certain masculine ideas of man over nature, of technocratic power, of ascetic discipline without the introspection and humility.

It's like become a monk for pride's sake, look at how i flagellate myself, and get toughened, and endure, without walking the path of lily or lotus.

lol, silly male pride.

ok, then. come back to topic la, nabuay, you got thesis to write.

this is dancing around the main issue.
but you not approaching it fully yet!

bakhtin, butler, turner, herzfield, appadurai, abu-lughod, husserl, scheler, geertz, tolkien, goffman, cs lewis, foucault

autoethnography stuff
symbolic anthro stuff
philosophical anthro stuff

arghified! then there's the fieldwork to make sense of too.

it'll all be all right. City, speak to me. I hear you.

another version of the Well, by Terence O'Flaherty

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:32:01 GMT

http://tr.youtube.com/watch?v=MFkSE_3GSLM&feature=channel_page

nice!

Omnia - The Well

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:26:08 GMT

Adapted from traditional folk song. Minstrels and bards apparently didn't really like to sing this very much. You'll know why when you read the lyrics and hear the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa8zeimdrZk

Green grows the lily oh
Right among the bushes oh

A gentleman was passing by
And he stopped for a drink
As he was dry

At the well below the valley oh
Green grows the lily oh
Right among the bushes oh

My pack is full unto the brim
And if I were to stop
I might fall in

If your true love was passing by
You'd fill him a drink if he were dry

She swore by grass
She swore by corn
Her true love had never been born

He said: young girl
You're swearing wrong
Six fine children you've born

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me the father of them

There's two of them by your brother John
Another two by your uncle Dan
Another two by your father dear
Green grows the lily oh

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me what happened to them

There's two buried 'neath the kitchen door
Another two near the stable door
Another two just beside the well
All of them outside the graveyard wall

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me what'll happen to me

You'll be seven years of ringing a bell
At the well below the valley oh

Seven years of burning in hell

I'll be seven years of ringing a bell
But the Lord above might save my soul
From burning in hell...

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:17:59 GMT

BLOODLUST MODE ON

ACTIVATE, CODE KIRIN!

BEOOOOWUULLLFFF!!

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:40:34 GMT

tired soldier. weary wolf.

i love this land, and i love my people here, but ...

would i really want to raise my clan here?

i don't know.

i'm so tired, so very tired.

constant fighting and training is gonna break your back one day, boyo.

rest up, you're in this for the long haul. no point draining yourself dry.

reverie

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:54:59 GMT

observations upon simulation of reality in modernity

1, draconian tail sweep, maintain social order, and justify its existence with the Book of Lord Shang disguised as Confucius, that most people read as niccolo cos they don't know anything but they think they know everything. direct biopower towards creating and maintaining production and viability.

2, control as many aspects of reality as you can with appeal to lowest common denominator, while getting the highbrow on your side with Thrasymachus attack. You mostly get the janky uncommons, but you sometimes get the Egghead Emeritus, and then there are the envious types who will do anything cos the most they will show dissent is to kaopeh and then diam diam.

3, next, deny validity of free exploration to suppress generation of alternative paradigms and opinions in society

4, then, positivism strikes back; under scientism, reality has been reduced to bare matter, and most organized religions pretty much buckle under by not asking individuals to look beyond the Demiurge, but to instead look to the Demiurge to provide a glance into Sophia. look for archaeological evidence of divinity, o snap.

(backwards dancing man asks: what if you are wrong, observer? what if this is not sell out, but it is possibly exactly this search for tying Spirit with Matter, that is resistance to the Unitarian Engineer Council?)

(observer: still looks like a crock la.)

5, So, if those who have put themselves in charge of mediating Spirit for the mass consciousness sell out, what remains is a drive towards occultism in all its forms. To be *occulted*. to hide. to sequester oneself, so one can think and experiment and reflect; mystic's path, contemplation.

6, hence the generation of self-sustaining, inherently fluctuating groups of subcultures who practice resistance via the weapons of the weak; produce transcript narratives.

7, but they get sian ji puah, cos they feel like they will never be the mainstream, and they judge themselves by that standard. Then the younger ones look at the older ones and shout "YOU ARE SOOO PASSIVE AND COMFORTABLE!!!! YOU DONT HAVE THE EDGE ANYMORE!" while the elder lao jiaos say "NO, YOU ARE TOO REACTIONARY!!"

8, but that's life ya. Then inside, the lessons get taught again. and again. Is it just my sentimentalism? Or is control getting stronger? Or has it always been the same?

9, (dancing backwards man says, you'll always have friends who disagree, then how?)

10, observer: lan lan lor, it's not like you can expect everyone to agree, if they could then no need for simulation and control of reality right. And why you want everyone to agree so much? If you do, then you fall into Thrasymachus laser diu diu trap too!

Ok, breakfast.

introspection

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:48:44 GMT

Contemplation as an internal process is an action. But it is not an action that is manifest in the world we share with others. How do I manifest my love for others and this world? While empathy is a good start, what is the next step, what is the next step needed to change our shared external world, to make things better for all of us?

Hmmm. Direct action in both the realms of flesh and spirit. My path has been to distill, test, forge within, as well as to share, give, receive without. To me, magic now seems simply to be the skillful and meaningful synchronization and calibration of both these internal and external realities.

Pride in one’s self, which springs from self-confidence and self-knowledge, is my path by which my will actualizes these changes. It grants me the exuberance and inner strength to transcend overwhelming odds, and bring hope.

Yet, at the same time, when hubris strikes, and delusion conquers me, corruption and stagnation will swirl from the murky depths of that poisoned well of arrogance.

Then meanwhile, the mystic experience that comes when the underlying essence of all things is revealed, when the weariness of the soul fades for a moment, and the eyes of my feet kiss this sacred earth. Hmmm. The ecstatic thrill of intrinsic connection with the cosmos, that everything is all right somehow, no matter how screwy things may seem. There’s a sort of deep, deep, faith – that this all means something, all makes sense.

And that lends me a surety of purpose that bursts forth from an overwhelming sense of energy around, inside me. There’s this engine that buzzes, a furious ticking, loping, growling thing bleeding chaos and potentiality. Time slows down. Reality becomes fluid for a moment, and I sense connections of bitterness and honey, of where my fangs and fists can change the world. No matter how bad everything is – it will be all right.

Not just cos of the self-belief; that’ll be vainglory.
Not just cos of the faith; that’ll be delusion.
Not just cos of the energy; that’ll be ego again – application of energy and effort does not always equate to an effective outcome. Reality is not a static, replicable thing.
Not just cos of the mental preparations and planning; again, too much pride in wisdom can lead to hubris in action.

So what is it? How do I express it?

Is it something that comes together from the whole of the parts? Or is it yet another thing entirely, ineffable? Am I trying to explain and deconstruct that sexual rush of mysticism?

Oh yea la. It's magic.

Then I return to earth, and my eyes are tired from the dust of both the stars and the streets. Then my blood is a hungry thing, that cries for the milk of the ocean to feed its lust for meaning… And I close myself off and force myself to earth and ground myself.

And so… I must not lose my nature, even as my mind roars and flares.

oubliette

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:00:48 GMT

sweet fear!

hermit's path

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:06:55 GMT

i would love to be alone for a while.

the wind calls.

too many spells, too many tingling tastes of reality co-mingling within a brief measure of this life matrix.

too many things started but spinning into vistas of the undone, unfinished.

i need to focus the flare before it burns me out; my fury is a quiet thing that bleeds out into the world around me through these devices of syllable and context, and i don't want to burn all of this up, to poison this land and this well.

Please.

Let me understand what i do, see what i see, and speak the Truth.

Please.

Gaia.

it is not despair that drives me, nor is it rage, not anymore.

what is that taste in the soul?

Pride exalts, just as hubris brings one low.

there is a gentle shaking

as doubts are lifted from the eyes
when the fist blossoms into fire
yet you stop and break apart and reform
and pluck desires from the tree of the will
and spring slays winter without weeping

there is a gentle shaking

i hear the gutting of the wind
it howls and snarls; irritated,
as metal scrapes the sky
devils yawning, windows blinking,
nothing spinning in this wheel

darkness
solitary in this cave
i stare into you, one-eyed bearer of the book of numberless pages
i stare into you as you stare into others who read this now
i stare into you, the source of the light in this darkness
and yet you are not all there is
but i have drunk so deeply of your light
that i have forgotten my name as spoken by the sun

there is a gentle shaking

i feel the roads leading inside growing from brick of bone
fletched flesh binding broken arrows torn from discarded words
this puppet is animated by excarnate lovers and soldiers

there is nothing wrong with exuberance
and nothing wrong too with melancholy
except that i must temper one with another
even as i whirl in rage
i must remember i walk
and walk
and walk
as nestled in loneliness
or clustered in company
as i wish to be.

Queen - 1 Year of Love

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:01:40 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKuR3skM_g0

Just one year of love
Is better than a lifetime alone
One sentimental moment in your arms
Is like a shooting star right through my heart
Its always a rainy day without you
Im a prisoner of love inside you -
Im falling apart all around you - yeah
My heart cries out to your heart
Im lonely but you can save me
My hand reaches for to your hand
Im cold but you light the fire in me
My lips search for your lips
Im hungry for your touch
Theres so much left unspoken
And all I can do is surrender
To the moment just surrender

And no one ever told me that love would hurt so much
Oooh yes it hurts
And pain is so close to pleasure
And all I can do is surrender to your love
Just surrender to your love
Just one year of love
Is better than a lifetime alone
One sentimental moment in your arms
Is like a shooting star right through my heart
Its always a rainy day without you
Im a prisoner of love inside you
Im falling apart all around you
And all I can do is surrender

reforging, reminding

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:28:32 GMT

sword.

SWORD.

where is my sword - where is my mind's blade

all broken, all gone, blood-lust turned to dull rust

this is the taste of shadow-winds scattering thought-pollen across the mind-field.

water i beg for water but not this - not the devil's kiss bringing a scorpion's touch, burning these eyes - watering that insect dust, salting those poisoned fields, and now only they bloom, and very little else.

oh black-furred fang-petals gnashing gnashing

you are a sea
the sea that pretends to be bigger than me, though you are of me, that flows into me

you are a demon's maw
that plays at soothing my fear by replacing it with more of your master's wounded pride

you are a rope
that appears to tie together the past and present, but you are only a binding to bitterness

let this sea be shut with the sky
let this maw be silenced by a roar
let this rope be sundered by the way

bane
you are nothing but a cascade of jettisoned doubt
twisting my desires into disappointments
before the thunder has even been heralded by the lightning

sword

WORD

SWORDD

let this bloodsword flare

You are my opus, not my opulence

And never forget that.

طلاسم

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:06:01 GMT

I am awesome, and I am feeling pretty damn awesome, too.

Really. I am.

I've forgotten just how awesome this life is, and how damn happy I am to be alive, to exist in this present incarnation.

I took a look over at a box of my old stuff. I wrote a story when i was, what, 11? About animals and conservation. I was a young orphaned komodo dragon, trapped by humans, so they could conserve me, and my name was Fireflash (thank-you, Dragonlance!) - funny how they saved me by trapping me. Elegant engineering solution - if you can't stop the humans from hantuming the forests, you can stop the animals from living in the forests so they won't die when the humans hantum them. Damn ape logic. Works for the apes, not so much for the cold ones.

Then, what's next? Oh, the usual. Primary and secondary school records. Wow. i was quite a poor student when i was younger, wasn't i? Dreaming, quiet, looking out of the window, painfully shy, wondering about who knows what. Poor grades. But i was having tons of fun at home, drawing dinosaurs and dragons, and reading Borges and Lennon and Marx and Camus and Kafka and Ogilvy when i was 10? No wonder i grew up this way. DAAAAD. I never told you this, but really, thanks! Your library is KICK ASS AWESOME! The Edward de Bono mental training books you gave me also helped tons, dude. You kick ass, Mr. Tan Senior.

Nearly dropped out of sec school, because i was giving the History, Geog, and Lit teachers quite a bit of lip. I wrote in some exam, that we can't know why Raffles came to Singapore, it could be he's just an evil world dictator who's chillin' and decided to come by with Head Henchman Farquhar, and well I systematically made a mockery out of the whole textbook. I was 14 i think. Geog teacher was probably trying to hit the sack with the Bio teacher, who also disliked me. That dude was such a smarmy, slick one - hitting on the girls in class all the time. Well. They gave me an education, all right, on How Not To Be A Teacher.

They wanted to kick me out, but a cabal of teachers came together to drag my fire out of society's ass. That was around the same time i discovered two major lessons to refine my soul:

1, word-magic: by reading, observing, listening, thinking, and then writing/ talking, you could kick quite a lot of ass.

2, sacrifice: to get through school, i willingly removed my toys and tools and books and comics from myself. True, the aunts and uncles were all on my case, and my dad was driven to tears and grief and rage trying to get thru to me. I didn't realize it then, but i was punishing him - and my mom too. And i was the proxy warrior for a war that stayed silent. But anyway. Sacrifice. I lost my comfort zone, and freed up my energies.

i tried to write a lot then but always felt like i was never good enough, compared to the greats. and for some reason, i wanted to make a character named Darkseid when i was 15 - maybe i had read a bit of Kirby? Or maybe Darkside is just an easy thing to anagramize! I also jumped into the world of ye yonder occulty realm; couple of friends joined a cult, some guys tried to get me to go to Pentecostal churches, and i was super super anti-theistic, had huge issues with the universe. Baked potato on shoulder, ya. i was 15. Also learned how to work html on notepad, but i didn't really develop it further.

Shit man, all these systems stuff. Somebody tried to teach me ang moh style hermetic magic, but i didn't really do it very well. Somebody then tried to teach me feng shui and stuff like that... then there was all the memorization and shit for school work. And i didn't have the necessary faith or greed to do spirit-work or demon-howling. Didn't work on computers much too, despite liking them. They didn't really like me that much haha!

oh well. Humans and the systems they build, that they populate with symbols of symbols. Cybernetics.

Then well - next. i made it through. Next up, junior college. They told me i was going to enjoy JC a lot more cos i could think and write well. Whoopie-doo, the analogy i thought bout it was an artillery piece, y'know. I couldn't very well blast ppl next to me, cos my delivery system is long-range. So primary and secondary school weren't supposed to be my gunnery points; and JC, with its GP and stuff, was supposed to be my area where i could find my groove.

Funny funny hur hur. The best thing i did out of there was GP, Lit, some history, and acting. that's where i met Raihan and that led me down to befriend Jo, and from there... Josh, Edmund, Paul, all you guys. Roleplaying games.

Third lesson, from acting and playing games: you can be anything you want. You can put on any mask you choose to wear. Some people use masks to hide, while some wear masks that show reality to be what it truly is. More importantly, perhaps, you can become anything you want, so what should you want to be?

That's where i first got my dream-awakening. Woah. Major shit. Got kicked out of my body. Trance, floating out, looking at my own body and the surroundings...

Then at this point i was laying hexes whenever i got pissed, which was often. I got a visitation from the soul guides... and that pretty much shaped my life from then on. "You know what you're doing is wrong, but you're doing it anyway."

Stopped the hexes, stopped the curses. Been tempted to lay down the smackdown sometimes, but i've never really succumbed to it.

Well, NS. It took all my energies and skills and training to get out of there alive. All my lessons, of words, of identity, of introspection, of flaring out - these techniques all got me out of there, and helped me retain my sanity when they insisted on drugging me full of dope to "make me normal".

And then i failed A levels. Redid them in one sem, in a private institution. Took the wrong papers for Lit, but had fun anyway, hey, it's just words and magic and meaning.

got enough grades to scrape through into NUS...

and that's where the second major phase of my life came in. That's where... let's look at these records.

Hindu Religious Texts, Cultural Resource Management, Cultural Heroes and Heroines of Southeast Asia, Arts of Southeast Asia, Religion of Southeast Asia, Art and Archaeology of Southeast Asia, Literature of Southeast Asia, Ethnographic Analysis of Visual Media...

Social Inequality, Money, Power and Corruption in Southeast Asia, Industrialization and Economics, Geopolitics...

Environmental Ethics, Biochemistry, Xenobiology, Astrophysics, Chinese Philosophy, Herbalism and Traditional Medicine...

Hey, man. i aced most of them. I got to slake my thirst on the Well of the Mimir, and somehow i made it through just before the net tightened and NUS became super uppity and didnt want to let ppl with mediocre grades into its hallowed whores of ivy.

It's just the damn F in Genetics in yr 1 that pulled me down, but that's a small sacrifice to pay for the immense focus i gained in exchange. And i enjoyed all of them. That's where i learned to be an Etherite! SCIENCE!

Then, well AS1. so many friends made there. you taught me the dilemma of Thrasymachus, the Balls of Gyges, Isaiah Berlin's freedoms, instructed me in Foucault, trained me in Socratic dialogue, and gave me a place to sleep, rest, and recover myself, and do my rituals in peace. Thank you. Those were good times, and we will never forget them. (WHERE IS MY SASHIMI! LIES YOU INSULT MY HONOUR! NO-ONE EATS THE FUGU AND LIVES!)

Then, Masters. Hmmm. So obsessed with the 2nd upper Honours, i totally lost sight of myself. I did 4 mods in a sem when ppl did 2, and got some crazy 98 percent average - what the hell? What were those classes? International Issues in Southeast Asia, Anthropology of Southeast Asia, Graduate Research Seminar, and Theory and Practice? That seems pretty hardcore. And somehow i linked it all together. How? With sheer bleeding passion, obsession, genius, and hard work lor. And with quite a lot of help from my friends, both flesh and spirit.

Now, here I am. A broken heart remended, a shattered spirit reforged, a tired mind healed. I have changed my topic for my dissertation, and everyone's worried i won't be able to finish my work on time. Meanwhile, i'm doing tons of stuff for other projects and people, and the worry factor ramps up. Community kitchen, discussions, teaching, guiding, networking, exorcisms, investigations, troubleshooting, storytelling, writing poetry and fiction...

How do i put all this together?

The answer is simple, people.

It's been in this whole text, this whole time you've been reading it.

It's just... magic.

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:25:47 GMT

Hi darling dear...

No, i hadn't forgotten you.

*sweeps the dust*

For tomorrow, my oldest friend, we laugh at today, and scribe infinite yesteryears.

Thank you for your faithful service.