Sunday, May 30, 2010

Indulgent Nights

tired tired tired.
then again it's 12.40 am so not much of a surprise there.
and I shall start giving my posts titles again.

back from a celebration of Timo's birthday with Ivan, Nat, Timo and Jurian. Really wish that Darius/ShiXian/Bok could have joined us but.... oh well, there's always next Saturday!

and this blog post is really dead. and probably going to be narrative. and here's to hoping that I'm not going to slip into one of those emo moods because I've really had a good week so far =)

rights, yesterday was the long-awaited Taming of the Shrew play. Epic dinner with Tammie/Thomas/Steph/Shu is epic. Lost my Waraku virginity at Central! which I think really does have an exclamation mark in the name. Shoyu Ramen was good, not great as I would have expected but certainly decent fare. Not quite worth the $12.80 that I spent though. Choice quotes from the expedition:

Thomas: Eh what are you doing?
Lino: Checking my hair in the reflection [of the Waraku sign]
Thomas: ...
[5 seconds later; Tammie and Steph check their hair in the reflection]
Lino: Wow, who checks their reflection
Shuyin: Girls I guess. But I'm too much of a man to check my reflection.
[Time passes]
Lino: Oh, were we suppose to say something about that?
Shuyin: OMG you guys suck! why do you not say anything huh? HUH?
Thomas: Whoops.

Lino: Crikey this here is a big'un! Imma get closer and tryna get a pictcha!
Ayesha: Go away idiot.
Lino: Ooo it's ahngry!

Shuyin: Hey the girls are going to go toilet so take care of my camera kay. Don't do anything stupid.
[Girls leave]
Thomas: Take a photo of me.
Lino: I thought Shuyin said not to do anything stupid...

Met up with R.A.Y (which is terribly ironic in my opinion) and Hafiqa and journeyed to the east aka Robertson Quay. Which I pronounced as kway instead of key for 5 minutes before realizing that I was mis-pronouncing a word I knew how to pronounce. yay random facts. walking there was epic; there's something magical about having the girls trying to orientate. thankfully the GPS system of the iPhones gave us an iDea of where to go so we didn't get horribly lost.

the play itself was... enjoyable yay! sitting in the 1st row gives you all the action you need. It also provides an uncomfortably close view of some of the more disturbing moments of the play. Biondella (who presumably is Biondello after a trip to Thailand) had a... momentously low-cut chinese-style garment. She ran a lot, heavily. There was a lot of jiggling. Blood vessels in my cheek burst from blushing. the Vincentio-impersonator was also dressed in nothing but tight tights. he later put on a nice red shirt. This remedied nothing of the problem of the lower half. There was a lot of uncomfortable shifting, much of it due to me forcing myself to stare at the program booklet.

Warning: literature bit coming up. those not litterateurs will probably want to skip. Those who are may still want to skip anyway. Here there be tygers.

that was also when i realized that the much-praised iambic pentameter of the nobles' verse wasn't really emphasized. it seemed so theatrical, so full of emotion and strongly, confidently delivered that it lost what I felt was a key aspect to the play: that it was a representation of something supposedly completely natural. a depiction of women's struggles in those times and to lose the natural iambic pentameter in favour of an artificially-theatrical delivery sort of took away from the play. it was perhaps a minor detail, certainly one that I've not given much thought to till I started typing this paragraph but still significant, somewhat I guess.

what I really liked though was the physicality of the play. Now of course this sounds somewhat redundant because the text is obviously not a physical thing itself and Shakespeare's rare imposition of specific stage directions allows for creative thinking. but what I found absolutely interesting was the tempestuous relationship between Petruchio and Katharina. Even through Petruchio's transitions from the suave, smooth glib talker to the fierce, wild almost Heathcliff-like ruffian, there was just this undercurrent of a true affection for Kate that was still very ambiguous in the book. I guess it was Woolhead's directing decision to allow Petruchio to show certain signs of affection (that were absent from the book) to Kate that kinda wowed me.

one part in particular that moved me was the ending scene after Katherine's monologue to the widow and Bianca. without giving away the ending here (though you can ask me :3), i felt that it was of the gentlest, most subtle ways of showing Petruchio's love for Kate. It also symbolized that Petruchio, by physically lowering himself to Katherine's level without having any monetary gain (as seems to motivate him), showed himself as being on the same level as Kate, physically or mentally or otherwise. But for a man to see a women as equal to himself was definitely rare in those times, and for Petruchio to do so after the rough taming of his falcon was even more startling for me. perhaps it was just a directing decision so as to somewhat lessen the brutality of the play's meaning since the epilogue scene is really not the most convincing nor thought-provoking of scenes but I felt that it really made sense.

it's a play good to watch if you've got the time and money. It's not the best play around in my opinion but it has its moments if I may quote dear Dr Saradetch and those moments justify the $20 spent if just for the rhetorical questions that are posed.

[end of literature bit]

OKAY!

Went to Subway with Dionysius, Thomas and YongZhi for midnight snack. Dionysius if you're reading this thank you for the lovely subway cookies x2 plus the drink! the talk in the train with you was awesome haha and i think it's a pity that we've only started talking recently. hope to have more conversations with you haha! =3

came back home, msned with some people for a while then crashed, happily.

woke up feeling like p diddy quite lethargic, feeling like there was a flu/fever coming on. plus the early morning smses in preparation for Edwin/Timo's birthdays didn't really help since I was being woken up every 15 minutes on average. crashed repeatedly till about 9 when I gave up. piano'ed and tv'ed my day away like the bum I am instead of studying. I am doomed.

i need to get my discipline for being punctual back again! for some reason, it's really done and gone these few months and I've been so uncharacteristically late for events that I'm actually getting worried. maybe it's a slippery slope, but if my paranoia about being punctual can be so 'subjugated' then what about the other not-so-paranoid paranoias...

As Angie would put it: Frightening.

good celebration is good. though the 2hour delay was kinda ridiculous but it all worked out well in the end so hurrah! BBQ chicken for dinner, cake at Gelare (Reminder:Nat owes me money) and then even lepak'ing at the grassy patch area with a guitar and songs.

ah, indulgent nights. indulgent days. indulgent weeks.
how many more do I have?
hopefully none
i need to start studying!

C'mon Lino, 加油！

Sunday, May 16, 2010



you keep me strong.
keep me going on.
and you know who you are =3

i love you both so much.

...
and yes, i think it's going to be a brand new day.

i'm really tired and it's 12.30 am and i've been out since 2.30pm.
and i'm really really really tired.
but i need to blog about something which i don't know and probably won't know by the end of this post but i still wanna blog anyways.

i'm going to regret this later when i wake up for church and feel so tempted to sleep in.
but i shall not because my spiritual journey is practically in shambles. and i really feel helpless about it because the root of my happiness and confidence has been shaken.

all the plant imagery recalls plantagenet stuff. and that does not bode well for me.

I think that being so happy can be quite a downfall sometimes. like small setbacks seem so magnified, a small yet significant mar on an otherwise-perfect landscape. and the best thing is that i know that these setbacks are really really minor so complaining about it seems like such a... well, bastardly thing to do I guess. but still, i have a right to voice my frustrations sometimes right?

like hannah said, it's quite a surprising thing that Stick to the iPod lah MMJ actually gives me hope (GMH). it's touching to see how some people really stick up for SC and it shows me that I've really been too judgmental of some people, too quick to form impressions. then there should be something inspiring and insightful here but i'm really tired so the point shall die here.

BLEH

sorry, that needed to come out.

i didn't blog about this before which I guess is kinda weird because it's been a little more than a fortnight since it occurred. but seeing them at the CO concert truly shook me up a bit and made me realize that I still can't (completely) let go of my past. too much negativity that never really got expressed, got set free. And even now, I thinkknow that there's still some lurking somewhere inside of me. And yes, it still hurts.

i think that sometimes, life really is quite hard for me. call this being shallow and immature and what not, but i get really annoyed and irritated with certain groups of people sometimes. and yes, it's probably called jealousy but i won't admit that because i don't want to think of myself as that word in this escapist world i create to hide sometimes. i hate it when i have to work so damn hard to try and form a good impression of myself on others while certain people just have to waltz in and suddenly they're mr/ms popular. Just because.

like, i honestly feel that i'm overlooked sometimes and that people just don't appreciate what i'm doing for them. and to be very honest, this applies to even the people closest to me. and what makes it worse is the very real dilemma of how to respond when people do recognize. because if i say the politically correct "oh no need for thanks, i'm doing this because i really want to', then i won't really be getting the recognition that i want. on the other hand, admitting that i want that praise would be a very hao lian thing to do.

i suppose that i could say something along the lines of "thank you, your recognition of my efforts really motivates me" but even that sounds jolly retarded even at 12.56AM (Damn!). i don't think i'm being whiny here, just that i'm honest enough to voice out a dilemma that i'm sure most people share. and even if most people don't share it, it's my dilemma and i'm troubled and i'm confused.

it's like i can do about fifty 'good deeds' and no one will ever really notice them. but some people just need to do one thing and everyone's overflowing with praise for them. and it makes me sick. it really does. is there some reason that I don't get the praise? there's only so much that a person can give before he needs to take something back in; i'm not some inexhaustible supply or reservoir because i'm very quickly being drained.

maybe cause it's because i tend to give in to other people that few people really consider how i feel about certain issues. like how, despite my best efforts, i'm beginning to really question why i hold on to a certain friendship. it's not that i'm really getting anything out of it except having ideas shot down and care/concern blown to smithereens. and i'm trying to hold on which is exactly the problem because why am I the only one who is trying to hold on? i don't think it's unfair to say that i'm probably the one in the friendship that's consciously making an effort to be nice and take all the fudged-up crap even when i'm really tired and at my limits and I still really really try my best.

because now i'm beginning to wonder why is that i need to try so hard and if i'm just holding on to something that i think is making me happy but really just pushing my emotional limit ever further. why do i need to put in so much effort? why am I the only one in the friendship putting in so much effort?

I think God gave me a caring heart (despite what people might think, I care deeply for others and if you don't know it, you probably haven't given me a chance to show it really) to test me on how much i can take. and well, He doesn't test us more than what He knows we can bear. and I know that he gave me some awesome awesome people so that I can bear so so so much more than if I were but alone. But, i think my true tests arises from the knowledge that I am so willing to invest so much time and effort and heart and soul into caring for others; not just to see a smile on their face, but to feel a warmth in their heart. i want to be that kind of person that can really cheer up a person just by being with them because they know that I love them so much. and it's the fact that I'm willing to throw myself against the odds and all the machine-gun fire that others shoot that really hurts me sometimes. having my love and effort torn apart by people who don't take the time to understand that I need something back sometimes. having to withdraw, agonized and bleeding, because some people just don't care about me anywhere near as much as I care for them.

and what's best?
like a fool, i do it again.

i'm not a river, a reservoir, a sea of inexhaustible love. i want to be, God knows, i want to be. but i'm not God, I'm not Jesus, and I can't do it. I'll try, oh yes, I definitely will try my utmost best to be that reservoir of love. but i don't know how long more i can keep it up before i break.

because, sometimes, i think that i'm really stupid.

...
and yes, this is my soul bared.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010



i fall down into the depths.
thank god
i have my friends to pull me out.

sigh.

a levels really suck.

...
and yes, i'm in another of those moods.