strangers in the sky
Life is lived by the moment. You have that one moment in that one place in time to make that one moment different from the rest of your life.
I spent that one moment in the Itaewon district of Seoul with that one beautiful stranger, before sunset.
She was the silently complicated, neurotically cheery, lovely Asian version of Celine who made heads turned wherever she went. I was the less charming, more introverted, socially awkward mirror of Jesse, whose trade was not in written words but that of the spoken.
It was a match made less than perfect in heaven but in South Korea, with the sense of invincibility afforded by the wilderness of our youth- we had taken everything in stride.
There was our time spent in between lines at the quaint neighborhood cafe; the Korean subway ride substitute of the boat trawl down La Siene; the long walk around everywhere to nowhere; and the nagging time shortage that reminded us of the urgency of then.
I fell head over heels over a beautiful stranger who found me in Seoul.
Alas, this story was not written by Jesse.
My story has not a happy but rather fucked up ending and I am left to forever contemplate what if I had a second chance with she who got away because I told her to?
************************************************
The 14th All Asians Intervarsity Debating Championship has just concluded with the best ever achievement from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
We came, kicked butts and took no names but alas fell to the eventual champions that hailed from UTMara. After 9 days of debating, USM ranked 4th in Asia; with Andrea and I both staking our name in history as the 2nd and 9th best speaker in the region.
This is only the prelude to our legacy as we attempt to cement our place in history as one of the sharpest intellects in the region of Australasians, if not the planet- come Australasian Debating Championship in July.
The USM train is on a way one ticket to debating glory. Bring on the Australs.
posted by Kit
10:03 PM
flying squirrel problem
From today till they announce the Final Four teams of All-Asian Debating Championship in Seoul- I swear to God/Satan upon the eyes of my unborn child that I will do nothing but to focus on writing the prologue to a new chapter of intellectual debate excellence for USM Debate Union.
South Korea. Bring it on, motherfuckers.
posted by Kit
8:39 AM
you did lose a lot of versatile solutions to modern living
The condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip one on when you meet a stranger.
You... dance all night. Then you throw it away.
The condom, I mean. Not the stranger.
***************************************
Do you know what a duvet is?
A comforter.
It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why a guy like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word?
No.
What are we, then?
Consumers?
We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession.
Murder, crime, poverty.
These things don't concern me.
What concerns me are celebrity magazines, televisions with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Martha Stewart.
Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down.
So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns.
I say never be complete.
I say stop being complete.
I say, let's evolve.
Let the chips fall where they may.
The things you own, end up owning you.
posted by Kit
7:38 AM
dan semua menghilang
Emily finally wrote after a hiatus of all communications between us since before last Christmas. There was no apparent reason for us not to talk then, thus there was no need of a communique for us to resume communication as usual. Or so I thought, wrongly.
The email came with a large attachment that I could not download, the lyrics to a song that I presumed was the attachment and a short Happy Anniversary note.
Dimanakah cinta sejati
Yang memberi ketenangan hati
Sampai kapan ku harus menanti
Kau pergi dan mungkin takkan kembali
Dan aku menangis, dan aku terluka, Bila…
Dan aku menangis, dan aku terluka , Bila…
Engkau menghilang….
Kau pergi dariku, tinggalkanku
Lewati malam tanpa kasihmu
Ku rangkai kata, ku rangkai nada
Yang kuinginkan hanyalah cinta
Dan semua menghilang…
Semua karena cinta kumenangis
Semua karena cinta kutertawa
Semua karena cinta, Semua karena cinta
Yang kau tinggalkan hanyalah luka
Dan semua menghilang...
It must have taken a great deal of time and effort from an American-Chinese to translate an Indonesian song in a predominantly-white city void of people from that part of the world. Especially when her only Asian friend was a stupid Malaysian who is yours truly. All at a time when I was listening to Eason Chen's Today, Next Year, thinking of her. It was a sad corny day of un-love to be receiving an email from a lost love, I tell you.
Love is such an overused word. So overused. So under appreciated.
Last week was the first time we met at the plasma donation center, almost ten thousand miles away from here, some two years ago. As much as I do not allow myself to be one of those soft sentimental sad sods, I did not make it a point to remember that day but March 14th just came naturally to me. It was vivid in my mind and I could feel every moment of that half day we spent together- the cold Spring air, the wet roads from the melting snow, the eye contact, the fear of first words, the dinner at that Hong Kong restaurant, the akward conversation, the walk home, the Everything that felt like it was today, and the silly me who still hope that the day would not end because I had forgotten to get her number! And that secret burn in my heart, wishing that I had dared a kiss as we stood in face of each other at her doorstep before saying goodbye, and hello to a new chapter of us for the next few months that would linger lost like a ghoul ship that could not find her shores, for two years on.
But that day did end. And I did leave her.
I guess it was only fair that she had to remind me of that day with this song. Was I right, to leave? Back then, choice was not even a luxury. We were mere college kids. Now she's in Med school and I'll probably be slaving for a major oil conglomerate of the world in a matter of receiving my graduation scroll.
I have grown older, but none the wiser. But isn't that the thing about humans? We are always at a constant.
How is it that I find it easy to be in love with three women but virtually impossible to love only One of them? In present, choice is not a luxury that I would afford.
Angie, Emily, Corey. The drama never ends. And the funny thing is that I find it getting ever so easier to just dig a hole, push them all into that hole and cover it with my work. Yet, on the full 3 days when I fell sick from overworking, I just wished that any one of them would be there for me.
My heart is so confused. Yet unavailable. Every emotion seems to dissipate the moment I lay my hands on them. I blame this skewed fear to love on having to be the best-man to my best friend who will marry my ex-girlfriend who dumped me while I was in love with her in the US, before I had the chance to love any one of of them.
Alas, it is always easy to point fingers at other but yourself. Especially the middle one.
The truth is I am just a whiny-ass lil' fucker who is stuck in the past, can't be fucked with the present and too overwhelmed by the future.
posted by Kit
6:58 AM
it's beginning to get to me
I have Two loves of my life:
a. Alcohol
b. Child pornography
c. Angie
*******************************
I tried to tell you before I left
But I was screaming under my breath
You are the only thing that makes sense
Just ignore all this present tense.
posted by Kit
5:19 PM
hotel expressionism
A birmingham sparrow attached to the railstand for a handle is the art of action through crafted analogy.
It is vandalism and expressionism that is keenly disassociated.
Andrea, my team mate at Worlds. Together, we'd talk you into selling your mother for a fuck too many.
The fine art of hotel expressionism.
Throwing my face against the window is nothing clear of weak self-glorifying camera cliche.
I'm talking incontrovertible structural damage and human injury- well, Mayhem basically.
posted by Kit
8:47 AM
post modernism is the new black
[A]: Have you ever fell in love?
Me: I think I have. But na-ah, don't think so.
[A]: Y'know, when you do fall in love- how do you tell if she's The One?
Me: When she swallows.
[A]: .......... It amazes me, your depth.
Me: Wait till you see my girth.
****************************************
Just as Adorno and Hockheimer had declared that "enlightenment is totalitarian", replacing romanticism (in the case of the pomos- religion) with rationalism is to supplant one form of mental slavery with another.
Dialectics of romance is intuitive yet counter-productive.
Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games.
People has to be emancipated from their grand theories of love by exposing their sinister nature that could only work to destroy that which they seek to cherish.
No more whining about why he did not call. No more hope in meeting the right one. No more tears when the person leaves or, did not arrive. And most importantly, No more bullshit.
You just love and let love in.
posted by Kit
1:41 AM
