i am a romanticist at heart. looking out of the huge glass window of the van into the wet gloomy skies of taipei, i feel like i am infatuated with the city, at first sight. it's all about feelings; everything feels so right. a sleep romantic old soul with a modern technological side to it, so much like this writer.

the windows are fogged up. i use the back of my hand to rub against the glass. a circle of semi-clearness in the middle of foggy vision. this is my idea of happiness. it takes so little to be happy. the green shrubs, the mountain, the cold air, teardrops on my quitar playing into my ears. i want to remember everything.

will frustration kill? did anybody die from frustration before?

there are so many people out there that talk the talk but doesn't walk the talk. i am surprised. i know that theoretically, i suppose, that there are always people who talk wonderful stuffs, flowery possibilities, amazing feats. i am not one to socialise well or blend with the crowd, simply because i have no interest in listening to one blow his horn, real or perceived. however, when real-life experience shows a 100% curvature towards people who cannot deliver but boast to the sky, i am a little miffed. not that i was expecting any result, but it was just one sentence extra to ask, so i did. i wasn't expecting any spectacular results, but it's strange how you can still be amazed when you were expecting nothing. kinds of fortify my already poor peception of mankind.

if humans don't work the way they are suppose to, that is even more true for technology. either i am running a string of bad luck or i'm being tested to the extreme by inefficient, erratic, impossible-to-deal-with electronics. a plus b do not compute c. not even after tens of thousand of people have used it. they should have figured out how to fix the bug by now, you will think. still, i guess that sounds about right. people who are not working right produces things that do not work right.

each time i look back on the photos of previous years, the first thought that comes to mind is 'how young and pure i look then'. exactly how OLD and COMPLICATED am i becoming???!

it will never be enough. men, as in humankind, will never be satiated. you give them $100, next year they will say that it is not enough and ask for more. you give them $1,000 and next year they will come back again and say it is not enough. you give them $1,000,000 and one year later, used to the luxurious lifestyle, they will once again come back and say that it is not enough. how easy it is to get use to abundance, to more. can one claim the same flexibility to less?

such is the greed of mankind. pleasure and satisfaction are short-lived, the desire for more will always return, sometimes with a vengeance. perhaps that is the basis for development, for growth, but never being satisfied means never being happy.

it's not the first time that someone has told me that i'm so happy-go-lucky, and it definitely won't be the last. seriously, me? happy-go-lucky? funny how i've never thought of myself as that. melancholic, perhaps. melodramatic even. if only they know how difficult it is for me to put aside the little things in life that makes me sad. the only way i know how to deal with it is to push it out of my mind. no matter how much time has passed, the pain still lingers. the frustration, the denial, the sadness. i've just learnt to apathetic about the death of my granddad, i've just forgotten how phone calls in the middle of the night jars me, and he is dead for more than 16 years now. i'm slow in handling and accepting such matters of the heart. when i close my eyes, sometimes i can still see the final moment of my aunty, so morbid and dark. i try not to think of the loss of my closest and dearest friend, lest it brings tear to my eyes and brimming frustration to my heart. i can still remember the apprehension of visiting my grandma in the hospital, knowing what's inevitable but yet putting on a brave front. i remember all that which i do not want to remember.

however, i do not wish to live my life brooding, and being afraid. death is not as frightening as being the one left behind. it does not take courage to die, but it requires a lot to live. so, yes, to all those who do not see this side of me, the side that only my mirror sees, i am a happy-go-lucky person. to all appearance, i am.

a friend asked me for a favour today that reminded me of what i am. unconsciously i have made a distinct separation between what i am and who i am. when your life is thus complicated you end up sounding like someone with split personality.

i try not to take offence. perhaps there is none to be taken. i don't know, i'm not sure. i don't have anyone to tell me that i shouldn't be feeling this way, that this is still considered normal. sometimes being what i am takes a toll on the spirit. it has it's perks, no doubt about it, but it's not as glorious and wonderful as everybody perceives.

it jars me slightly to be reminded of what i am. the last few weeks have been a beautiful escape from reality. i was who i am, not what i am. life was simple. escape is always transient

civilities are such a bother. you receive something physical. that in itself should be the end of the story. happily ever after. that is, however, only the beginning of the modern-day war of civility, where each outperform the other in being more polite, more tactful, more well-mannered. the sender follows with a sms informing you that he/she has sent something to you. which in turn prompts one to send back a thank you sms and that serves as the cue for the sender to send back a you are welcome sms, to which you reply you are most kind, if you so desire, or if you do not wish to seem ungrateful. you get the picture, the story can be an endless one. meanwhile, the telcos are laughing all the way to the bank.

not one for exaggerated acts of civilities, i'll bet i have many people cursing behind my back for my lack of proper upbringing and manners. i also don't acknowledge when people give me instructions or information. most will send back a simple noted or a brief ok. i have to practically twist my arm and force my obstinate self to acknowledge selective smses when my rude alter ego so allows. most days i just keep stubbornly silent. i guess that is arrogance on my part, not something that i am proud of. however, despite this flaw in character, i adamantly refuses to throw away good money for simple acts of civilities which mean nothing more than idle chit-chat and wasting time. if you send me a sms, assume that i have received it for i have not known an occasion when my local telco have failed to transmit the message.

and yes, you there, i did not believe it when you told me that you did not receive my sms the other day. do i look like a fool?

i have a love-hate relationship with that little dot down south. perhaps not so much hate but more like apathy but love-apathy doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

on some visits i feel very detached from the little island that had been my ome for 4 years when i was growing up. the fast paced growth and development has left everything alien and different, an unfamiliar faint resemblance to the home of my many memories. nothing is how or where i remembered it. faint shadowy ghosts linger around, not quite knowing where they belong in the new beautifully structured island of singapore.

this time round i love the island for what it is, and not what it held. the cleanliness, the orderliness, everything is as it should be. things work like they should and people behave with simple clarity. perhaps it is because i am merely a visitor passing through. perhaps my fondness lies in the uncomplicated guileless lifestyle i can lead there. the world is not perfect there. there is no reason it should be, there is no perfection anywhere, but it's a far cry from the complicated web we weave over here. this time round i love the little island for being my little shelter from the storm.

not so much a new year resolution, more like a reminder for the new year. this year i must learn to slow down, to not feel so guilty for slacking a little, to take a breather at times and to love myself a little more.

my uncle has left. he wasn't someone that i was close to but his name, his face has appeared sporadically throughout my 40 years of life. i was one of the little flower girls during his wedding, not that i can recall it vividly but the photos in the albums show me glimpses of my past where my memory fails. he was not close, yet i can't help but tear when i think of his departure.

i don't recall having one direct conversation with him, aside from work-related matters on and off. i have written his name many times during the course of working for my dad, yet i have never had a personal conversation with him. how can that even be possible? someone so familiar, yet so alien? i never knew him, i never knew the story of his life, now i will never have a chance.

it had all been too sudden, for me anyway. one day, very much like any other, when i was out shopping for groceries in the supermarket, my handphone rang. are you free to talk? uncle so and so has passed away. my body started shivering. this isn't how bad news should be relayed, so casually, so by-the-way. he had left. he didn't say goodbye, he didn't give anyone a chance to say goodbye. then again, as someone who didn't have anything to say to him for the last 4 decades, what would i have said to him? yet i can't help feeling like i wasn't given the chance to say my final goodbye, to bid him farewell to his journey on earth which, eventhough we had not walked together, we had grazed and we had enough destiny for him to be my uncle.

time has passed so fast, i have been so busy, one day so much like another that i can't even remember the last time i saw him. perhaps one year ago, perhaps two years ago, but i can still recall his face, his mannerism so vividly. it was like he has been around all this time. his absence wasn't really glaring, which is perhaps why his departure was. i was not mentally prepared to say goodbye.

at his funeral a sense of calmness overcame me. here, now, i will say my goodbyes, eventhough i have nothing much more to say than that. one cannot come into this world, walked all those footsteps, touched all those people and leave, without telling everybody close at least, without bidding adieu and thanks for the journey together. i did not fall into the 'close' category, that is without a doubt, but i was still relative. in my mind, every opening should have a closing, every hello should have a goodbye. how else do we close the door and move on?

we walked behind the altar for a glimpse of the body, for a final look at my uncle, to see him in the face and say a silent goodbye. i was shaken. did they put the wrong person in there? there must be some unwritten code that one should not stare at a dead body but i was pretty sure that was not my uncle in there. there was no faint resemblance at all. he wasn't even of the same built for goodness sake. realisation struck me. my uncle has been sick for a very long time. he was thin beyond recognition. he was a far cry from that energetic, fit image i saw in my mind. my heart ached. he must have suffered so much. this was perhaps better for him. i finally understood why he didn't want to say goodbye to anyone. i would have wanted to remember my uncle as he was then, happy and healthy. instead, now, when i close my eyes, i will forever see the final image of him, a sad suffering sick man, thin to the bones. i bid my uncle a silent goodbye, hoping that he is happy and healthy once again wherever he is.

my heart goes out to the widow, my aunty but i see her surrounded by her children. all grown up, all independent, well-behaved and very capable. they have also been suffering all these time. hopefully now they can move on, eventhough their hearts will throb with pain for a very long time.

i'm sitting here cringing backwards into my seat, shutting my eyes and mentally preparing for the force that will throw me into the windshield and end my life, as cars zoom past me at 150kmh, or rather i zoom past them at 150kmh. i want to the driver next to me that i don't really mind arriving half an hour later, as long as i do arrive but i'm trying to refrain from making any sudden moves or sound that will bring the end closer faster. i keep telling myself that i have a long lifeline on the palm of my hand and that i'm going to live to a happy healthy 100.

he's texting and doing all kinds of things aside from driving and focussing on the road. his hands are not on the steering wheel! i want to reach out and grab the wheel but that may shock him into jerking the wheel to the right and the car straight into the divider. so here i sit, frozen in fear, having a little faith because we have made it thus far, but still frozen in fear.

did we just miss that car by a couple of inches?! close my eyes, quick!!