i spent the night wondering why i couldn't find the energy in myself to plan the birthday party for the boyfriend. i used to do things like that in the past... even though it's pretty much a hassle but it was a joy to see someone enjoy himself. but this year, it just seemed too much of a hassle.

argh. things which made me happy before no longer make me happy anymore. i baked today, and i threw out the thing cos i just didn't like the way it turned out.

and i wondered why people have so many pictures of themselves and their other halves, but i don't think i do.. and the most ironic part? the bf's a photographer.

oh well.

tomorrow is the last day of 2007. like angie said. should leave all sadness behind.

*takes deep breath*

ting shared with me when i told her i felt like just lying in hospital and see if anyone would ever care. it'd be a sad picture. so many people are concerned, so many people care, but at the end of the day... it's back to feeling the loneliness.

i probably need a break from everything, everyone and anyone.

how i wish i can just lie down in bed, oblivious to what goes on in the world.... probably stoned unconscious, and see if anyone cares.

and wake up only when things have been settled, when people have moved on, when i know i am ready to be who i was before, when i can be happier.

i can't go on being the present me. i'm mean, i want to hurt people's feelings, i don't care shit about what others think already.

and when i cower under the covers, i sob and sob to no end.

and so i think i want to disappear. forever.

that night jamaican sex god said something that made me ponder the whole night. the exact words i remember not, but it was along the lines of .... nowhere near achieving anything when we're gonna be 26 soon.

hell true. i'm smelling 26 in the distance, and i'm nowhere near what i set out to achieve when i left poly.

what the fuck am i doing with my life?

just let me sleep forever. at least hopefully when i wake up i am famous and have achieved my dreams. even though it means not being able to experience the process. i no longer want to savour my achievements, i just want something to my name.

you get what i mean?

i read this somewhere.

"Time doesn't heal. It just numbs you, so that you'll be ready to move on."

and so true.

Blogged with Flock

and there goes christmas. sad to say, i don't really believe in the twelve days of christmas, because i still think it was an excuse to party longer and get drunk longer.

but heh heh.
 
xmas this year was spent doing a bali nightstop, and treated to a balinese massage. I think i still prefer the massages in china.

nostalgia seeps back into thoughts when a familiar, old favourite christmas song is played in the distance. you stop, and wonder what about the song made you love it, or find comfort in it. it brings you back, to Christmas past.

is that what they meant by the ghost of christmas past?

giving up my christmas just to spend the night in bali gave me an earlier start to my leave till the end of this year. and counting down to the start of 2008 does nothing to make me feel comforted... that my close friends in this airline, those who keep me sane and care for me loads, have quit and with one heading to london in a few months' time... ... sigh.

so today was spent catching up with the teamies, or rather. all ex teamies. and before the girls came, the teamboy and i spent time catching up, and when i opened the present he gave me, it was just as practical as he could get. but in all aspects, i appreciate the thought, gesture and the gift. just probably the next time i hope it would be all calculated and preferably in notes. and for making sure i was ok before he left by walking me all the way to my next appointment, thank you.

and the long conversation after dinner left me thinking. i knew it hasn't been easy to stick through the past few months, and in many ways i'm sorry for causing hurt to people who care, just because i hurt.

ever felt that you actually don't know someone as well as you think you do, or as well as you know you should? the feeling sucks. and when you realise that others don't see you in the way you see them... it hurts.

i am as random as i can be now. everything's changing around us... and in our struggle to catch up with the changes, we fail to notice what has always been constant, the things which keep us sane.

Blogged with Flock

Feliz Navidad... Joyeux Noël... frohe Weihnachten...

and christmas day to me... is just a sign that the year is ending.

looking back on 2007, i don't know if i am happy, or sad; hopeful, or dejected... all i know is, it wasn't easy for me to move on, and i still find it difficult sometimes to move on. yet the world doesn't stop turning, and time never stops for me. my problems, compared to those of the world... are always small. words from the wise one, who many years back, gave me endless encouragement and support.

how many of us are willing to let go of the past, then? I know i can't. and i am not willing. the past brings many wonderful memories which... sometimes evoke a lot of emotions. yet happy memories are never happier, sad memories just seem sadder.

perhaps i sound very morbid. but i am. never a day passes by without me feeling the hurt of the loss, or without me reliving the day i got the news. letting go is not easy. either that, or maybe i just don't want to let go.

and it's just 7 more days to the new year. and i wonder if one year ago on this date i was looking forward to anything at all. what should i be seeking in this year to come? what should be my new goals? i know nothing, and i yearn for nothing anymore.

but yet, christmas... the mere thought of it meant snow, turkey, gifts, fireplace.... pictures we grew up with in connection to the festival. should it always be a happy festival? do people cry on christmas?

and so, i post my favourite christmas song, and one i find especially meaningful today, this year.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

Merry Christmas everyone.

the new roster came out.

and SERIOUSLY.

i'm still trying to see if they'd given me the wrong roster. but probably it's to make up for the lack in allowances for the past 3 months.

listening to other people talk about how the proposed changes might really take place in the near future doesn't make me ooh-so=glad at all. and envying all those other people who's left.

oh well.

keep those fingers crossed for me, will ya?

I was watching this hong kong drama serial, and in the show, they showed a lot of chinese art and calligraphy... and i suddenly remembered how i used to do calligraphy when i was young. actually, granddad was the one who taught me calligraphy. Sunday afternoons after the mandatory "Journey to the West" on tv, he would put out the paper and ink brushes, and i always had joy using the ink stone. I'd always wonder how come all we had to do was to add water to the stone and then there would be ink.

i learnt how to write proper chinese words with the brush, and though i could never write beautifully, and with my limited number of words (i was only about 6, what do you expect?) granddad would never fail to praise us and patiently taught us new words. i never learnt how to use the brush to draw, i remember attending one session of calligraphy art in primary school, and all i learnt was to draw pandas, and bamboo plants. I did remember learning how to draw the koi, but i did that sitting at the pond in primary school. i guess my calligraphy phase was pretty short-lived. granddad didn't write much after we grew up, and thinking back, i feel pretty sad now that i never used to spend more time with him learning such things.

he had a knack for handiwork. he made a kelong out of sticks and weaving strings. and i would always have fun playing with the kelong, cos he would make a fishing net that could be levered up and down. the kelong is now encased at home...

suddenly i had this urge to want to go back home to look for that slab of ink stone and my ink brushes. not that i'd use it to draw or write, but just want to ... reminisce the past.

oh wells.

and today was spent pretty much productively, i watched many episodes online, and did quite a bit of work. using photoshop without a mouse has always been my forte, but after so many months of reliance on a mouse, i couldn't really function proper here just because the handy mouse isn't with me. argh.

hoping this burst of creative spark stays in my head for a while. gotta jot down ideas ideas ideas.

coming home tomorrow night! so many things i want to do and hoping that it would all be worth it.

xoxo

i have an untitled blog post.

I am slogging in front of my computer in my room, well, slogging for work i think i will kinda like once i get it up and running, not that i'm complaining. i set the aircon in the room to a temperature which doesn't look freezing in numbers, but it sure feels like it's freezing cold.

this set of crew i'm with here in abu dhabi are the fun crowd, and we had fun on board, as well as in this.. pretty forsaken place. everyone had their misgivings about this trip, but we felt immediately better after we knew all of us were out to have fun. Well, at least we intend to go out a bit, club a bit, and shop a bit. Oh well, we settled the go out a bit part, we're gonna settle the shop a bit part in a while, and the club a bit part tonight. and probably repeat the whole process tomorrow.

and part of the reason why i never turned up the temperature is... because.... i bought milk and i want to keep it cold. Don't laugh. I know i have a refrigerator in the room, but somehow rather i can't open it, because i don't have the key, and i don't want to call the minibar staff to come up because i don't want to change into more decent looking clothes.

so there. i'd rather suffer in the cold. but this chilly aircon wind beats the dreary weather in New York anytime any day.

i ate wayyyy too much meat today i feel so carnivorous. *ROOOOOOOOOOAAAARRRRR*

yeah it comes and goes, but i know i'm feeling better. i just hope it stays this way, the feeling better part.

Blogged with Flock

almost every flight i go on these few days i hear people saying, "this is my last few flights!" sigh. sometimes i wish i have better plans, or at least afford to quit. but i can't.

anyway i'm in bombay now and logging on using my hp. wishing i could be home instead. tired and i am gonna sleep and sleep now tt i've had dinner.

please, i'm hoping for a good flight home.

i've never been so broke in my whole life.

and now i look at the pending credit card statements (mind you, i am no shopaholic, the purchases were necessary for home) and i am starting to panic a little. it almost feels like these few weeks i've been working for free. whatever came into the bank account, went out to bills.

shucks.

i need to find a better source of income during my off days. argh.

seriously.

i am on new york time now when i am back in singapore.

what is wrong with my body clock!!!

on another note, today's spa indulgence with the bestest gal friend was shiokadoodadoo. but it rained and rained and rained and rained. so we hid at breko's and then in orchard with bubble tea and window shopping.

i wonder what it is about today... everyone seemed to be too keen in making us buy things. Any slight interest in an item will generate a lot of sales talk. it got me irritated, and stella was more patient with the staff. i simply walked away.

i am so rude. but i don't really feel like entertaining strangers. I'm sorry but it's just one of my bad months.

and i still don't know if i should be glad the year is coming to an end. somehow looking back, this year hasn't been good for most people i know.

i don't think hopeful of next year too.

of falling snow and runaway sanity

it started to snow just as we stepped out of the bus at JFK airport. The journey to the airport made me pretty sick, with all the abrupt jerking and all, but i looked out the window and i saw roads, cars, rooftops, trees all covered with a thin blanket of snow. At that moment, I wished i could be back in new york next week so i could be near when someone loses his virginity to snow.

as i revelled in the falling snow, i wondered why snow makes everything look so dreamy. i never really liked snow. it makes my hair go limp, my feet cold and mushy, but i had the urge there and then to catch the snow with my tongue. but of course. to do that in uniform not only warrants weird looks from other people and my colleagues, i might just find myself with a tongue-lashing (oh i made a joke) from the boss.

Christmas is around the corner, and although i'm thankful that i'll be home for xmas i really don't feel the festive mood in me. I guess the saying's pretty true, it's usually around festive seasons that people feel more depressed. and statistics actually proved that the rate of suicide is higher during christmas and festive seasons. Why am i talking about this at all?

i went completely berserk last night. and it happens to me more often nowadays. it could be the longer time spent away from home, the more lone time i get. and i kinda.. no longer know how to handle it anymore. it makes me feel horrible that i've turned into this monster i can't handle. i push people to their limits, the closer they are to me the more i want to push them away. i want to be around people but i don't want to be around people. and in the midst of a crowd, i feel like i'm alone.

i don't know how to turn it all around. i just want to disappear.

help.

maybe i could love new york in summer.

I don't know truly what it is about new york that many people love.

Compared to the first time I was here many years back, i feel that apart from the horrid biting winter, nothing has really changed. I seldom get smiles from the people on the streets. I wonder if the winter played a part in the cold, cold, stony faces on the people here.

Maybe i just don't like winter now. The little bits of snow falling from the sky did nothing to soothe the turmoil in my heart and mind. and I lie awake each night here, just listening to the police sirens, counting the number of police cars which drove past my window. my heater is spoilt. there was absolutely no warmth in my room. just pure, pure icyness. And Paul heard how tormented I was by the cold, brought me his portable heater and set it up for me in the room.

I thought i'd love winter. But i guess i wasn't prepared for this harsh and horrid cold. it hit me right smack in the face when we stepped out of the airport. I told paul when i was in frankfurt that i'd give up the dance competition and he was understanding about it. so he met me after the dance thingy was over and we had breakfast along broadway. my initial plan of going to jersey garden was put aside simply because i didn't have the mood to brave the cold winds. and so I stayed in most of the time, reading and writing.

it was weird to come back on this flight exactly 2 months after the last one. and checking into the same room i had the last time made it not much easier for me. I cried once i put down my bags and removed the coat. I didn't dare sleep because I was afraid of receiving any calls from anyone. and so i stayed awake the whole night. and slept only when it was near dawn.

the sudden relevation of what i am going through hit me yesterday as i was surfing through the internet. and it made me shudder.

I hate being lonely, but yet i can't stand being in a crowd. I want to stand in the cold, but i hate the strong winds. I yearn for companionship, but i detest the person i become when i am alone with someone.

i wish i know what is happening to me.

parce que c'est toi... because it's you.

I found this song after a long long while. and i still love this song.

yesterday was dad's birthday. I remember when we were kids, mum would bring us to the bookshop at the market and let us get a present for dad from there. and every year it would be a nice pen, or a tie pin. and we'd always buy a cake back to celebrate. I always made sure i was around to at least eat the cake with dad even after i started work.

and after flight yesterday, i cried as i was driving home from the airport. it feels weird not doing anything on dad's birthday, and so i went to get dad's favourite durian cake. we'd only allow him to indulge in durians on his birthday.

this morning i received a message from a dear friend saying he'd quit. it came as a surprise really, because although we've talked abt it but i never saw it happening anytime soon. but probably the greener pasture came to him sooner than i expected.

24 hours is never gonna be enough for me. sigh.

18 November 2007 marked the 49th day of my dad's demise, and also the end of the mourning period. We held a little private session at the temple early in the morning, and i woke up that day feeling heavy in the heart.

the monk we asked to pray for dad was a young man who dedicated his life to buddhism. he stood in front of the table after all formalities were done, and proceeded to start the session. As the prayers went on, I had to battle with all the emotions within me. The sadness consumed me first. Everything that I remembered about dad came flooding into my mind. From the very faint memories that I had with him when I was young: the time he took me to the hospital after mum gave birth to brother, and placed me on the bed while telling me that little red thing in the box is my brother; the times we had breakfast as a family at the market on Sundays, and thereafter to the park opposite; the Friday nights in Boon Lay; the times i used to wait at the window to spot his car coming back; the day i brought Charcoal home; the time my dad called me when i was on my first SNY to Incheon; the very few dinners we've had after we've all grown...

and then anger hit me. I stared hard into the back of the monk's head, and silently wondered if there was any point in giving prayers, for the monk never knew my dad, never knew our family, never knew what we had gone through since young. Never knew what good or bad deeds my dad did, never knew if he did more bad than good, never knew how we are planning to survive for the rest of our lives since dad left us almost nothing...I got angry at the fact that I didn't get to send dad off, I got angry with the fact that almost every time we went to visit dad at the hospital we had to face that irritating male private nurse who never failed to make us feel unwelcome. I got angry at the fact that I couldn't do anything when the other family refused to let us attend the wake. I got angry at the fact that dad's eldest son from that family refused to partake in the prayers the night before the cremation just because he believed in a religion different from dad. I got angry at the fact that after the whole funeral thing, people talked about my mum taking a lot of money from dad when he was around when the truth was that we never took a single cent more, apart from money into education, from dad ever after I started working at 16 years old.

and then i wanted to laugh badly. I thought about how everything was just one big joke, that dad left us nothing but debts, and that my so-called plans have to be altered just because. I wanted to laugh at how my dad had been a womanizer when he was around and how he in his foolishness, had been conned by other people of his money. and I wanted to laugh at the fact that no matter what the monk chanted, I understood nothing. I wanted to laugh at the fact that no one will ever know how my dad looked like because i didn't put up a picture of dad on the tablet we made for him. I wanted to laugh at the fact that I was the cause of my own misery just because i wasted all those years not knowing who dad really was.

and i went blank. i stopped crying and stared straight ahead. I wondered why people light candles at funerals, why the picture is always put in between the candles. I wondered why some of us light incense for the dead. I wondered why in Chinese customs, it is always the guy who holds the picture of the deceased. I wondered why we couldn't celebrate the passing of a loved one. Like drink till you get dead drunk kinda party. I wondered why I paid so much money for the prayer session in a temple, because we can't offer any meat to dad, as we had to respect the fact that only vegetarian food can be served there. and I wondered if dad would be a little pissed at the fact that he can't eat meat from our offerings, and wondered if he could be appeased by eating mock meat. And I wondered why people called it mock meat when it wasn't meat at all. I wondered who invented mock meat and how did vegetarians know if mock duck meat tasted like duck?

the whole session took half the day, and by noon, i was totally drained. emotionally and physically. and when i heard of news about a friend who had to pax back on the same flight I did the other time, because her grandfather had passed on, I started to wonder if she had already known when i was chatting with her online earlier, and wondered how she would feel on the flight back. and all the memories attached to that day I flew back from Frankfurt came to me again, and i had to hold them back and enjoy the dinner with people i love and care for. by the end of the night, all i wanted was to sleep and do nothing at all, because i was so drained i wished i could have slept forever.

sometimes i get tired of explaining myself, and why i do the things i do. i get tired of trying to put across how i feel at times, because i don't know. and i get mad at myself because i am so easily irritated now, and am seldom happy. and i get upset at the fact that sometimes i still do cry alone in the hotel room, and i don't know how long it'd take for me to get on with life without dad. I don't know which is worst, losing someone you've lived with your whole life or losing someone you never really made the effort to live with.

and sometimes i bother to explain myself and why i do the things i do... because it matters to me how u feel.

i haven't been to london in the longest time ever, and this trip kinda reminded me why i heart london so.

fish and chips, marks & spencer, habitat... and of course, catching up with friends who live here tops the cake. Almost wanted to change the flight away for pure off days, decided against it because mr bank account won't look happy, and it was a good thing i did the flight though, the trip up was a bonus with a very easy load, a seldom seen scenario on long flights.

though most times after flights it becomes a back-to-reality kinda scenario, i figure i've been holding up pretty well. of course, it helps that most stations i fly to, i have friends residing there, or friends who are willing to bum down all the way to catch up with me. and these friends, make me feel like i'm home even though i'm far away in europe.

and because i'm heading to new york, new york next month, paul invited me to take part with him in a ballroom dancing competition! i'm psyched up about it, but that means once i touch down in new york i have to run to his place and practice like hell, and take part in the competition the next day, and run back to the hotel for standby. it'll work out i guess, but i just don't know if i can dance still.

sometimes i still do cry, hiding beneath the covers. Probably a false sense of security and warmth. of course i yearn the human hugs, and lots of kisses from charcoal, but since i can neither pack charcoal or a human into my cargo bag (oh freak i shudder to think).. i have to make do with what's available.

i just settled a whopping credit card bill for the month, and thinking far ahead into the future, i don't know what holds. and sometimes i feel drained, like i just want to run away and hide but i know i can't do that forever.

honestly, i don't know what it will take to find the old me-self back. and i want the old jenn back. i can't live life like that knowing that behind each smile, i am never happy.

i don't know why my blogger is forever stuck in italiano, even now as i am logging in from Shanghai.

feel like i've overworked myself, and that i should have just treasured my off days instead of crazily doing flights. but yet that's the other source of income that i can now foresee myself having, and somehow rest time doesnt matter so much when i think about the money i can earn.

probably i am being too practical, or too money driven. but i can't stop thinking how the money would be helpful to my family, and the fact that mum never asks me for money keeps me worried that she's not asking because she doesn't want us to be tied down by money matters.

thing is, she doesn't realise i already am. i've been debating within myself if i should forgo the money i can earn for the long flight for nothing but off days to myself. it's a huge huge huge huge huge difference in the pay if i don't work. but at least i can rest. oh well.

i think i'm just being very incoherent here. the sleeping pills are kicking in a lot faster than before.

daylight-saving time

by the way, i absolutely hate it that i am in the middle of the DST change. So does that mean i get one more or one less hour of sleep if my time zone goes from +2 to +1?

shit. shit the DST.

post-edit: Ok, after much calculation and thinking with my stupid headache, i hereby conclude that i gain one more hour of sleep tonight. YooohoooO!

and to friends in sydney, melbourne, adelaide and perth, congratulations, you just lost one hour of sleep.

i always thought that... if you wished and hoped hard enough, it'd come true. it's naive really, this thinking, but then it never stopped giving me hope that one day, just one day, something i wish really hard for will come true.

i took a mini-hiatus, for many reasons, of which one was because i still wanted to see the blog posts i wrote on my dad's demise and how i felt so i could be reminded time and time again; another reason being simply because i have nothing much to say. i still tear now and then when i am alone, thinking about all the things i could have done; i get angry every now and then thinking about how much responsibilities financially wise i have to take up now. It is a good thing that i seldom splurge on expensive goods, but it also means whatever plans I have made to go back into proper ballroom dancing have to be put on infinite hold.

Never has a day passed when i don't wake up thinking if we would be evicted from our house today. and still, sometimes i wake up crying in the middle of the night, missing dad and wondering if he'd heard me. this current place we've lived for the past 20 years belongs to dad's company, and since dad left no will, i guess everything kinda rolls to his family. it probably is sooner or later that we'd be chased out i guess. things died down slightly after dad's cremation, and heard now the office is in a mess.

i spent one week hoping and hoping the other family would change their minds, and then it didn't happen. our only updates were from relatives, who, in my honest opinion, thinks it's easy for us to stay away but all i really wanted to do is to scream at them and ask if they'd really understand what we felt.

the company was understanding about my plight, with my leave and the compassionate leave given, i spent a week away from work and at home. yet i couldnt bear staying at home. neither could i stand being in a crowd. i went back on flight the first day, a hong kong turnaround, and into hong kong, this guy was the last to leave the plane. he stared out the window, and when i gently reminded him that we've reached, he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and somehow a feeling i could reconcile with. looking down, i saw him holding a picture of his family. and en route back to singapore, during landing i teared silently in the darkness of the galley.

the next 2 flights were alright, because i had friends with me. but i am now alone in rome, finished a plate of lousy pasta (such audacity!) from the hotel because i didn't feel good enough to go out, and every minute awake screams murder. i spent money just to be online, to be connected with friends, and yet no one could comfort me much. i don't blame them. it's just me.

i crave for that companionship now, and for someone to just cave into my demands and my ridiculous outbursts, for me to rant and vent and just swallow all that like... a sponge, but i realise i can't do that unless i get a dummy.

so i'm pretty fucked up.

and yeah. rome is pretty only if we have transport into town because the two days we are here, transportation is either on strike or having some green day action thing where no vehicles should be on the roads. and it gets back to working conditions tomorrow, the day we leave. it's a good thing i've been here before, and that i didnt really intend to go out much because i am feeling ill still, otherwise i would feel even more fucked up than ever.