in a nutshell.

Eyes On Me

Saturday, July 04, 2009

2:05:00 AM

I think any teenaged boy growing up in the 90s would've heard of "Final Fantasy" at some point or another. My Marist friends and I practically grew up on this video game series, starting way back from FF6 up till about FF10 when we grew out of it.

Squaresoft, the video games company, now known as Square Enix, was releasing these titles at one every two, three years, and we started since primary school. Every weekend a buncha us would gather at one of my best friend's and while our Saturdays away. My father would, on his way to work (this was when Saturdays were official working days), drop me off at my friend's place, and I would take the bus back home after. We would play FF, and also a buncha other stuff (we've since upgraded to PS3 and Wii, among other distractions).

FF6 was first played when I was in primary school, and I guess in turn FF8 came at one of the pivotal points of my life - entering secondary school. The game incidentally took on a more serious, cinematic turn, placing more emphasis on plot structure, character development and graphics. The results were, nevertheless, stunning.

And I got hooked on "Eyes On Me" then, enough to make it play on repeat every morning on my discman to school and back. To gawk at the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LocdLRZqICE&feature=related) that came along with the game every day. One of those moments when pubescent boys dreamed about love and stuff.

Nobuo Uematsu certainly did earmark many important moments in my life, and my friends'. Not only through "Eyes On Me", but also the scores he did for others in the FF series. Previously he came to Singapore (in May, I think) and had an FF concert. Some of those in my Marist clique went, and needless to say, started this whole nostalgia on FF again.

On hindsight "Eyes On Me" is kinda cheesy, bad English at all (I thought it was terrible when I first heard it), but the emotions invested in the game, the storyline were consummate. Uematsu was right in choosing Faye, her voice ethereal enough to convey those thoughts. And watch the youtube video, if it but merely provides the tip of that nostalgic, emotional mountain we overcame.

Toru + Naoko + Nagasawa + Piano Student

Friday, May 22, 2009

6:43:00 PM

带着一本《挪威的森林》，从纽约到新加坡，再到北京，重新认识这催我长大的京城。在经过东四十条车站时，读到 Reiko 描述 Naoko 的病情时，我湿了眼眶，马上关上了书，头向后仰，靠着窗口，闭上眼睛，让泪在眼皮下翻滚，深深地呼吸。

是自怜。

是好多债，很多的未完成，在这京城中迷失了自己。我是 Naoko 走不出心中的森林，我也是 Toru 一直在追寻不着边际的地平线。是 Reiko 疼爱的学生，那渴望有爱，却负不起随之的责任的学生，更是 Nagasawa 在麻醉自己。

是自欺欺人。

这暑假何时变得那么沉重？

是纽约的繁华模糊了自己的视线了吗？还是让我意识到我一生想要做的，如果有着信仰、热忱，其实是可以实现的呢？

记得自己给自己许下承诺，无论结局如何，我一定要在毕业回新加坡之前想清楚。读到了 Hatsumi 和 Naoko 的遭遇，一阵悲从衷来，是必须成长，必须负起责任了。在搁置 Naoko 的遭遇之后，那晚也是对k, w, h做出了算是交待的交待。我不能负担起那么多的沉重，我已经觉得自己的世界在开始瓦解。

感谢北京引领我走进这迷人的森林，也让我看清了自己的内心。

是自残。

还是对mj有最大的责任，因为是自己曾经想要努力的，但不知道怎么的，走出了北京的森林，好像被纽约的钢骨森林花花世界有所迷惑了，又或者是了解到自己能够做的，想要完成的，还有很多很多，虽然寂寞。

两个人寂寞不如一个人寂寞。

最后我还是选择了寂寞。

我是有些害怕，但我已经四处找寻浮标找寻了很久，我不想要成为 Nagasawa，不想成为无法克服自己心魔的 Naoko，不想成为用爱来利用他人的学生，不想成为孤独而终的 Hatsumi。

可能最后了解到还是 Toru 不是很开心，但也是心安。

没必要也把别人给一起拉下水。

最后，还是松手了。我抓得累了。

thanks to sw, gerri for asking, thanks to sus for those hours in between. it's 7.10am now, it's time to finally sleep.

loneliness.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

1:08:00 AM

i think everyone in my family is so lonely - my mother, my father, me.

my mother because she has mild depression (or at least based on what i've observed from her over the years) and can't seem to reach out to people properly.

my father, because of his silence, and because, i think, of what he's experienced through the system, because he has always been at the short end of it.

me, because of my ego, my materialism, i want to belong somewhere, and i can't find it in my home, but yet i want to.

12:57:00 AM

i got this nagging sense that quite soon, maybe in a year's time, a few years perhaps, that my family is going to fall apart.

day by day my mum feeds into her own fear more and more and acts irrationally upon it, and i try to speak to her but somehow she doesn't catch my point. dad's health is not stellar, she doesn't seem to care, or rather, know how to show the right way of caring for him.

just give me time until when i graduate and return home, please, i beg of you. maybe when i'm back in singapore everything will return to normal. i just want to have a normal, functioning family for once. at least maybe perhaps let me feel some family love that will definitely be lost once i'm alone, all alone in the world.

hilarious!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

12:30:00 AM

see more pwn and owned pictures

aiyoh, i still love sing song...

Monday, April 13, 2009

1:36:00 AM

... when i jumped out of bed after 15mins upon remembering that i still owed them an email of my thoughts on their practice recordings for this competition they were taking part in this evening (or my coming morning).

i hearts you all man, i hearts the noobs and the lao kok koks, the extinct ones too, i heart the group as a whole, past and present.

i hearts sing song.

the funeral.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

9:08:00 PM

finally, singaporean movie is taking that step forward.

"there are only two seasons in toronto...

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

12:32:00 AM

... one is winter, the other, construction."

or so said nicki when she was driving in downtown toronto.

so, winter's gone, and it's the season of construction again.

dropped by toronto for the weekend without any agenda in mind. chilled out at nicki's place, realising that things certainly didn't change much. she was still her same old self since junior college, albeit more seasoned by her experiences in toronto thus far. it's a vast place out there in toronto, a lot of empty spaces, a very cold climate, one gets a lot of introspective thinking.

and i met up with wanting and lin ling. was amazing to go ktv with them, to start off with songs that we grew up with, and that made that instant connection that was somehow shelved aside when we graduated from jc. and they didn't change much too.

and kee kee, this has got to be the most amount of time i've spent with him ever. he left singapore when i was still in the army, so i have only vague memories of him.

and we talked about family. about amah, about how we loved our grandparents, about what different lives we lead. in omi restaurant in cabbagetown he advised me on my career options. in the burger joint downtown we pined for grandma.

so i came to toronto to construct friendships and kinship anew.

and because of this introspectiveness, of that blue skies and open space that seem to be a scarcity in new york, i wouldn't mind heading back to toronto again.

this time, with niagara falls included.

سلام, ايران

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

4:44:00 PM

salâm, iran.

so, i'm going to iran in a few hours' time. something totally random, something totally done on a stroke of luck, i just wished i knew much more about the country and its past, the different facets of the nation.

haven't felt so excited about a trip in such a long time, and what makes it even more exciting that it's a package tour (of sorts) that i'm embarking on with about 20 other americans. i miss package tours. i miss rolling out of a hotel bed, arrive downstairs to a restaurant to the smell of coffee melanged with toast, eggs and orange juice. i miss walking out of a hotel to find a whole different world. it's like you've transplanted the other right down at your doorstep.

shit, i'm getting old.

if you don't hear from me for more than two weeks, you'll know where to find me.

what a wonderful world.

Friday, February 13, 2009

2:07:00 AM

i remember a time when i was in primary three, nine years old, seated in front of the tv, enthralled by gazelles galloping across the green grass, with louis armstrong crooning that it's a wonderful world out there.

my mind was mesmerised by those promises of that vague world out there, they stoked my wanderlust, and hints of jealousy that i was denied of such beauty and wonder, to be claustrophobically trapped in the concrete jungle of our high-rise urbanscape.

and three years in a row, i would sit, entranced by fujifilm's series of these advertisements, and three years in a row, they would emerge champions in the viewers' choice awards.

and that magic, though they set my heart pining for landscapes thousands of miles away, what made it more magical was that love i had from my mum and dad seated beside me, that for once the three of us shared a common love, a shared moment of being touched and enchanted, and that was the wonderful world the three of us shared, in that little shophouse, where time stood still.

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of the xy-chromosone, edging closer ever to the big three-o.

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