days of the dead are past

2012-01-31T08:32:00.001-08:00

cutting my hair has always been cathartic. additional perks including an hour long talk with the malaysian lady about sambal just because i really like the market area and didn't want to go home so soon. trust no one else with my hair yo

joy of the day came in a stupid moment when i thought i was late for class and was a whole bundle of nerves. turns out, i was an hour early and got to galavant about the cafe trying out new coffees. i love being pleasantly surprise.

when people ask me what do i want to do int he future...it is really hard to answer because while it thrills me to engages in complicated matters, there is nothing i love more than working with my hands... creating something in a semi dreamy state while being complicit in the creation of beauty. all at the same time, i do not think i could ever live a happy life independent from any efforts to contribute towards something bigger than i am, knowing that i could but consciously chose against it for comfort...ohwells, it all remains to be seen

2012-01-27T01:11:00.000-08:00

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

so cool

2012-01-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

read The Law of Second Marriages, and when i reached Counting Buses, my mind kept rolling back to aya with her large green eyes crying and i feel so much injustice.

the torment of having be in a perpetual state of fear and insecurity away from the light of happiness many other children see lives beyond that moment. more tragically, we all take these moments with us. what we do with it is something else altogether, but i do not doubt, that pain ingrains itself very tellingly in our existence. when we find happiness, it leaves a dull and vaguely unmemorable ache that in rare occasions, throbs with life, to remind us how hard it is, to run from what is

2012-01-19T10:09:00.001-08:00

to need, to want, to find beauty

to need, to want, to walk to my own beat

2012-01-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

there's nothing that feels quite sneaky as imagining up the what ifs. haha i feel so silly

2012-01-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

there is a way to live intently, intensely, so as to ignore the distractions that ruffle our feathers or take attention to petty things that plague my idle mind. thanks for inspiration for the things that move me forward, many a time, come from without. thank you.

2012-01-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

should not let myself forget. comfort is always deceptive. it is as fleeting as it is comfortable

2012-01-11T00:18:00.001-08:00

why are all my bruises perfectly symmetrical.. hmm..besides the shitass lump on my leg, inspiration has once again fallen from the graces of above and i can get kicking.

tomatoes..goes well in all foodstuff

2012-01-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

ashoofak bukra see you tomorrow

i think sometimes we forget how close some people are to our hearts until we revisit memories. looking back at pictures, i can remember the last night, all the furrow, adel, islam, mamdooh, all their voices and me always sleeping in their music classes prepping for that last night. and the last day where i was in the van with mamdooh sitting at the spot every morning where he greets sabah al khair - the first always among a whole row of children pouring in through the gates of caritas at 8am. at that same spot, i saw his face, pouting, silent, so much sand all the time...and in that afternoon glare, their little figures slowly diminishing..i want to jump out of the van and say i don't want to go home, but their figures keep going smaller,.. the van turns out at sharia el giza, it all went quiet for a while until i wake up to the roaring chants at tahrir..the scorching glare.. and more hugs before we bid remona, abraham and osama goodbye

... its friday, last protest.

in the plane, i had a little picture of islam, john and mamdooh. i've done nothing for the past thirteen hours but watch the plane on the screen inch across the globe where their metaphorical figures moves into distance further incomprehensible by sight. the mark on the screen and the picture in my hand made a surreal recollection tangible.

most times, i doubt the genuity of my prayers and how deeply do they come from my heart. but when i think of the children at caritas, prayer takes a very strong emotion. like praying very hard before seeing your results hoping for the best, i find myself crossing my fingers and praying with my gut, hoping that this entire breath of a prayer makes whatever difference it can.

i miss them so much. god be with them.

2012-01-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

nice trip to chai chee mucking around with the boys. bumped into fabs and bell after. coincidences of coincidences.

finally got down to new years resolution. this year blended into the next seemingly anticlimactically, not traditionally with friends jotting down resolutions at midnight in strange places but with family this time round.

this year has been so much a blessing that it can never come out in speech or random recollection. the greatest extent of gratitude is always felt only in the force of pre-sleep where in semi hallucination, i feel myself back in the highs of the moment. being back in singapore i quite forget how i lived everyday so intensely but it had to be tremendous for if nothing else, i remember thanking god all too often through the day because i couldn't believe i could get this happy 24/7 for a whooping 90 days. they say, 21 days form a habit and so i choose to believe that somewhere deep in my personality, those 90 days has ingrained smth beneficial in me that i am unaware of.

maybe the most unindicative element of a new year is the absence of cheesy messages spun around. i love it when cheesiness can be expressed and received in happiness. in the absence of unbridled affection, it tends to come across as it is - mere cheesy. haha anyway, heres to the new year and everyone in my life who walked through it teaching me something.

once again, one can never from my face derive any remote understanding of my deep gratitude or how they have subtly impacted my life but i dare say, every single person whom I've dedicated time and conversation to has change me in the way they effected thought in me. no matter how negative or positive, there always has been a learning point and for that, i thank everyone for everything. haha talk about general.

i wish for the next year for not to be without grey clouds, for that would be a stretch of a wish. but i wish for the attitude to live always with that intense feae of having lose everything - because only feeling happiness ecapulated in the wholeness of possessing the most sublime emotions is the fear of lost most present. but that, is also about the only moments in life worth living. cheers to 2012

2011-12-29T10:45:00.001-08:00

one day you wake up and it strikes you like a distant chord. it sinks in and it sinks in deep, the accumulated realization and suddenly, you're walking free from the longer miles you think you'd take. it's fresh, but this clarity comes with a touch of poiganacy that certain dreams and memories are too far behind to refresh to keep happy. i think this is the point people mark as moving on. what ever happened to the silver gleam of appreciation or somethign equally sweet in response. accusation, tasks, duty, errands, menial menial..and all these just make it all the more just a little thud somewhere behind and for the first time, looking back, i don't feel as if i've left anything behind.i could prolong a mental image and it conjures a smmoth, buttery calmness. but far from that is the present complacency and there, just being there. the inability to partake in little stealing joys and sadness. in the miscellaneous which i've alwyas helf of importance. the reason for today's sadness is the demise of something i've always held in regard. it belongs now to a head of someone younger, someone more believing . you make the past tangible by holding it in your mind. the day you decide to vaquish it, it vaporises to the virtual and intangible and it makes me sad - the intangibility of history's contingency upon the will to remember.

2011-12-29T10:41:00.002-08:00

the last dinner - 3rd october 2009

losing.

we lose things, phones, pens, paper and often the larger things we lose aren't in sight. wiped out in a sweep. it keeps echoing in my ear. pointless. pointless. pointless. and when you give so much meaning to something, you don't want to let go.but its always better to retreat. always better...beneath muted faces, four . its funny how pride and the seeming currents of life always override love.four muted figures seated in a round table. so much meaning to each, but all incomprehensible to the other. i want to scream a sound, life, into the void that sits in our hearts and laid on the table. but i cry, because i remember, rmember good times where happiness rang in an old song sung in unison across familiar highways. now all that remains are empty faces in formal courtesy hiding bits of weakness and irrepairable damage no one wishes to acknowlege. i wish i could remember love back into life.

2011-12-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

merry Christmas

this has been a harrowing year - optimism, and to keep it abreast, has been its running theme . my heart feels heavy but i feel the need to search and continually find my footing for something that could inspire my heart to rest. a lot of the bad this year has been the worse i've ever seen in my life and no amount of words could measure the distraught that follows its callousness. but the good,the good, has been indescribably pristine and has found its place somewhere so deep inside me that i've taken it with me for everyday i hid under my grey clouds.

i wish for better and i found hope and myself as i love best in the midst of floundering. awe, awed and struck with words, raw words as true as their intentions. against my high hopes of anything ahead, i wish for words to be true. that is all, that authencity may be crude, cruel and unpolished, but i will take it all as it is.

2011-12-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

henceforth, i am officially re-embarking on my new leaf campaign..!

2011-12-21T00:58:00.001-08:00

am so damn psyched! got an online copy of the crack up by fitzgerald.

"must hold in balance the sense of futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to “succeed” -- and, more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the high intentions of the future. If I could do this through the common ills -- domestic, professional, and personal -- then the ego would continue as an arrow shot from nothingness to
nothingness with such force that only gravity would bring it to earth at last. "

2011-12-19T09:29:00.000-08:00

comfort is beautiful, but damaging when its built upon weak dreams.

life is simple, but part of that simplicity is accepting that we are complexed beyond comprehension, yet - it is important that we try.

2011-12-18T12:48:00.001-08:00

what a great day, mucking around with siree and watching a musical, walking about in the half rain. i felt so happy, i think it was the idea of walking in rain without being drench. life feels simple in the company of old friends, words of formality passes, but you know that they understand something about you and their unbudging friendship is the greatest compliment to all ur personality nitpicks and the greatest testament to the tenacity of their stay.

cheers to six years of friendship.

2011-12-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

anger is an emotion that comes swiftly as does ecstasis. if we cannot be happy, we should never implicate others only to have them go down with us. if there be no solution, then swallow our unhappiness and need be die with it choking in our guts. how could pain be any better when we make others feel our pain?

i fear my dark clouds. but they are never my own.

2011-12-16T10:01:00.001-08:00

why has it never crossed my mind to minor in philosophy. in my third year i find out the gem that is their modules. what a late blooming dumass

2011-12-15T11:10:00.001-08:00

2011-12-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

had a first night swim with rann and tab and it was so much fun! self-invited myself to their home and just chill before i caught the last bus. imma very happy. simple pleasures.

this year has been an incredible blessing and repeatedly before i sleep, it chronologically flashes like the moment before one dies in movies. and it gets so intense i can't sleep. i can hear segments of the most memorable conversations drawn out in a second what feels like real time... slowly, i shuffle the blankets, that conversation with ian and dominykas..dahab, on the last day in caritas when maro hugged me i cried like a baby hugging her like a child...as the van pulled away, i see all these figures i see everyday for 60 days slowly fading into indistinguishable dots and i think to myself...this is the last of them i will see in this lifetime. i remember crying all the way in the van, i fell aslp, and woke up, took a step out of the van at tahrir where the scorching sun, with blurred vision, waving flags all around, dragging my feet slowly home.

2011-12-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

we wear progress wearily on our sleeves heralding its mantra as a promise towards a very distant success but i somehow feel it isn't enough. it feels as if our happiness isn't enough...strange sounding, i am aware.

empathy runs thin on the most crucial lines where it needs be expected. it is more than holding on to ideals such as hope, aspirations and the like. lovely feelings and ambitions hold little value when it runs on an emotion not apart from ourselves. i have no right to, but i expect this from others, but more so of myself. that in the thickest of our joys where we grow blind to the tickings of any semblance of pain in our peripheral radius, that we will always find the heart to understand what we do not know.

i also understand that all my musings seem a discontented lot, always frustrated and unhappy but it couldn't be further from the truth. i feel always happy. comfortable. every second feels like a spontaneous dance where there is beauty in boredom, in happiness, in rage, in disappointment. the difficulty is always in uncovering its nuances which expands a simple emotion into a biography.

2011-12-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

in the doldrums...

2011-12-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

i realize anger or strong emotions lead to more intense and thought provoking musings but happiness and contentment, though leads to less words, render all things lovely.

the trade off .

2011-11-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

when i am studying, (whether it turns out well or not), i always feel so blessed, snuggly and half crazed in the night where my life and the most intricate moments will pour over my vision with the words from the pages.

it is a crazily intense feeling and i can almost feel the warm sweltering egyptian afternoon with adel and john by my side. there was no english lessons that day and we got the day off to play. but they found a book, about chicks, someone in the library of caritas and ask if i could read it to them. with my desperately pathetic arabic, the story telling ended up incredibly animated where i learnt arabic from story telling more so than they did english that session. but it was good fun. played soccer with the boys and i felt embarrassed at how much i sucked, and how they deliberately lost to be which in their kindness i must say i felt touched in a really funny way.

this is going to sound done in a matter of time but i think about the kids all the time before i go to sleep. wondering how they are and if every morning they still make their way to caritas. ohwells, back to work...

2011-11-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

a morning call from vadim made this day feel alright. his weedy everything is going to be okay disposition is a very nice comfortable contagion.

i'm not saying everything is okay, but i trust that it will be.

2011-11-24T10:04:00.001-08:00

Cure my heart, so i can live more.

while waiting for lena before heading to khan al khalili.

it was a weekday. after work, abraham stopped me at garden city on the other side of tahrir. walked home, took forty winks before walking back to tahrir to wait for lena at this spot. this was the second last picture on my disposable camera. had no intuition to take a picture and was just trying to finish up the film. but when the pictures came out, i liked this a lot. it makes me feel back where i stood.

i miss egypt terribly

2011-11-24T09:02:00.000-08:00

just watched breaking dawn, i heard lykke li's knocked up and i cracked up

2011-11-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

my heart is so unrest, and its not because of my exams tomorrow.

just imagining tahrir in a state of massive disarray or ak, zidane and co all being there tear gas-ed and shit just makes me feel so.......urggh....restless! life is so different here i hate it how i can't even imagine what's going on and i hate it, how i feel so socially disconnected and insulated from everything in the world, sitting by my lamp like a bedtime story reading on deviance and social change when i am thus insulated. it makes every and no sense

2011-11-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

reading about egypt in the news draws me back a million times through familiar streets... and it always gives me the one second of intense fear when i think about the night we went to the hash dude's place and how destroyed so many segments of life is from a death of someone in such incidences. if one is happy and they take drugs to get happier, i somehow think it less of concern. but what made my heart stood still that night was the intense feeling of immense pain that led the guy decide to just take the leap, and fuck his life altogether after his twin brother got shot. next t the picture of bob marley (yea..) was a blown up picture of a smiling face of his brother.. the lights were dimmed, very shady place... with random murmurings from the street seeping through the blinds...."from dahab", he said. "dahab, means gold in english" he said with a toothy grin. when someone you haven't met passed on with such an effect left behind... earnestness, despair, resilience, anger..., its very unsettling to have them stare straight at you as if they knew something you did not..anyway, when drugs are used to escape, there is something terrifying about the dark harrowing place where it brings little temptation of return. i sensed it so strongly in the dude, in his adamancy to get out of a conscious life...i didn't like how that felt. and when i read about the death toils of the clash... my heart stood still for an instant.

in a land filled with an unsaid vibrancy of immense potential, the people deserve so much more. i pray all things turn out well.

inshallah.

2011-11-20T01:30:00.001-08:00

so nice in the rain

2011-11-19T23:31:00.001-08:00

i think people are happier in a society which dances. lol

2011-11-19T09:05:00.001-08:00

fery fery...zzzzzzz

2011-11-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

i am somewhere between being disillusioned with academia and insatiably drawn towards how much there is to know, and the knowing does effect itself into a constructive perspective above musings and the like. i'm so excited though...for god knows what!

i think more than ever, i am inspired. with brilliance met with unbridled optimism... like a diamond in a rough.

2011-11-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

precarious, and gentle that it feels precious

2011-11-16T02:20:00.000-08:00

breath of fresh air

though time is taken out of studying, it is quite refreshing to be involved in something that extends an expression instead of activities that reply solely on analytic functioning.

lots stuff lined up for december and it makes this reclusion fun...like a climatic build up towards chritmas holidays.

2011-11-11T10:10:00.001-08:00

for the love of rousseau, press on!

2011-11-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

best feeling in the world... accomplished exhaustion.

because of the loss of a laptop, i wrote one too many papers this time of the year and am relatively glad it is all ending with modern western pol thought...could have been something really disgusting like IPE.

anyway, i am horribly judgmental towards overtly loud people who put too much of themselves out there. to which this judgement is in its best efforts to be curbed. i can try to understand all sorts of people but very attention seeking people just renders my resistance towards any sort of understanding.

2011-11-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

i realise i like people a lot more than i let on. what a good day.

2011-11-06T10:36:00.001-08:00

don't want to be sad no more...

2011-11-04T13:14:00.001-07:00

i re read the things i wrote 3 months ago and i wonder where all that optimism and bubblegum went. need to find a way to live moderate - not in extreme highs, or lows.

2011-11-02T12:55:00.001-07:00

no pain greater thab rewriting essay that have been wrote. one can cry... but i'd really rather sleep.

i want to dance in stars and pouring rain. run around in a poncho and...for strange reasons, in solitude, egypt keeps reappearing in my mind. i wish someone was awake at this strange hour between night and dawn. better speed up before godforbid, sunlight kiss my eyes open

.

2011-11-02T10:00:00.001-07:00

youth knows no pain...youth knows no pain

.

2011-11-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

being away from people thus much and being doused with so much bad air and the need to spring up immediately is exhausting me. i tried to put up pictures on the wall, a huge gust of wind came through the window and now a bundle of photos with tape behind are scattered across the desk.

i don't el perro del mar is any fancy but i cannot stop listening to her

.

2011-10-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

been dipped in a thick mix of nostalgia and i miss many people. i miss the sound of many voices, i cannot look back. when i do, i want to retreive everything that is beyond my reach. there is beauty in the past, but perhaps more so before us.

.

2011-10-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

today is quite the clear sign that i have been thinking too much and acting too little on my thoughts.

.

2011-10-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

days have been good. been spending a lot more time with momma, cheryl and ben at home at the expense of work and school related stuff but it feels good. monkeybutt crashed in to our family day but there is always room for family friends. i love love lots of people in the house, to hear good wit, bad wit, shit jokes and just general familiar noise buzzing around as i weakly attempt at work...on a rainy day. what are the chances. but other than being riddled with a cramp from hell, life has been exceptionally kind.

.

2011-10-24T12:55:00.001-07:00

nyway, resting on our laurels is always comfortable, but when smth kicks me off and i remember how precarious this comfort is, it reminds me of how i was always mistaken about certain things, and that i always need be alarm. always. it reminds me the moment right before i left for egypt when i told myself all these things. but forgot very quickly when the lure of comfort made me believe things and people could be different. the people who are not afraid to disappoint you thinking that your trust could be easily bought, are the people we should fear most of.

2011-10-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

sometimes, after all the excitment of summer meeting new people visiting new places, getting constantly awed and awed again, i get frustrated being in singapore. we can all rant but that is not my purpose.

days like today make me a little appreciative of this 'boring' life because it feels precious. this mundane-ness, this predictability and most of all, this familiarity. just loafing about home, going to the vegetarian cafe at the corner of the street trying out a new mock meat dish, trying different coffee, eating with our hands over the bar counter... this is fun.

2011-10-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

ended the semester of tutorials with a tremendous bang

after 2 hrs of sleep from prepping for human rights presentation, i trudged down to school, with one lid half open. at 6, my alarm rang and i sprang out of bed; last thing i want : to be late for modern western political thought tutorial.

at 8am, with a mere class of 6, (and it being a political philosophy class) it has all factors for an unusual dynamic. it is among all my classes i have ever taken one of the most thought provoking and awe-inducing modules. i find my mind darting and leaping wall to wall with ideas springing from all and about the ground. it was paradise for the mind to be thus open to revolutionary philosophies as they span through the modern period.

human right tutorial right after its interesting in the sense that its technicality and legality of the entire system of right feels very relevant. it is confusing the way it straddles pragmatism, seeking to act on idealism while being caught in the trappings of realism. a truly complex place to be in. but this complexity really proves exciting.

its such a geeky thing to be talking about tutorials but im happy. this sem is great... now to finish up my essays...

2011-10-17T10:47:00.001-07:00

all for early morning optimis, today was a test of my wits. haha what an amazingly frustrating day! but this research is taking shape... i need greater commitment to ideas.

2011-10-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

it is so strange that after the unwinding weekend away from all the furrow of schoollife, i actually embraced my monday with all the work that beckons, with open arms. i feel 16 and motivated and happy and shizz again. can't imagine any other time in my life where i was so happy and all fired up.

this brings to mind a phrase from orhan pamuk's a museum of innocence. it mentions something along the line of the happiest moments in our life are always the happiest only upon passing. when in the moment, it is quite impossible to relish and recognise it being such. but in hindsight, only do we recognise our happiest moment of our lives.

2011-10-16T09:27:00.001-07:00

love, the way it is so idiosyncratic, walks to its own beat.

the kind of people you find interesting, the kind of people you want to understand even when you need not, the excuses you come up with to prop the best image you have of the people you love. it defies rational and logic. this is speaking entirely from an unromantic angle.

i was just thinking to myself. and for the people i love it is this way, there are whole lists of good and bad that i am entirely aware of, but consciously, every bad gets strike out to a point of nonevent. and they are very perfect in their imperfect way. and i love the idea of this. how despite the acceptance that nothing can be perfect, i see perfection.

but of course no one gets any of these ideas(even those i love as mentioned) because of my untimely humour and random stoicness. but i like how the world is lovelier, this way.

2011-10-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

official pronouncement - the need to lose an ass(or so said my mom that i have gained one!)

yesterday night was great fun. never one to 'party' but in light of this extremely rigorous week, it was great to just loosen up to good and familiar company.

2011-10-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

hhoooo shit, this is badass. this last economics paper is badass and gross gross gross...hahaa

2011-10-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

can one die from tea and coffee intoxication?

so nice being at home like this. the smell of apple tarts and rainy afternoons. i am so sleepy i really should get to school even on days without because this weather is just intoxicatingly sleep inducing...

2011-10-06T11:41:00.001-07:00

MIRACLE from Vanessa Bruno on Vimeo.

2011-10-06T07:02:00.001-07:00

LE BEL ETE from Vanessa Bruno on Vimeo.

so amazing

2011-10-06T00:00:00.001-07:00

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

the road not taken - robert frost

2011-10-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

being thisss exhausted everyday brings much satisfaction.

anyway, i have a couple of feelings about school, somewhere between it being really great, and it being very superficial in a way i am not excluded from.

2011-10-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

looking through all the videos taken in fayed. i would do anything to be there for one more day... 7 days, woke up at 7 ate, draw, and swam till dusk. i miss them so much

that's all i want to do

2011-10-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

i am somewhat inspired but it isn't enough... i need a compelling dream, something that i eat, breathe and dream and work my ass towards.

a rather productively unproductive day.

on a random note, i think i value honesty much more than i thought i did. i like things raw, unpolished, even if they be crude and unpleasing. what matters is that it is exactly as it is. then the task for me is to uncover its beauty - sort of always making a challenge to view everything in its right perspective. watched a couple of great movies and i am in love with the idea that life is what we make of it. like the most revolutionary stable thought that could run your mind in rollercoasters.

2011-09-30T22:46:00.001-07:00

all the skelotons in our closets are but waiting to be unbound.

2011-09-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

can cry writing another economics paper. h e l p p p p pp ppppp. . .._____

2011-09-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

must not be complacant but there is hope! for my economically retarded brain

this is ridiculous but i sometimes enjoy disappointment. it is an interesting kick which makes me feel as if things aren't going to be served up a silver platter to me - i have to work my ass off for it. also, it is interesting because only with a boom then do you reevaluate all your preconceptions of success. and success is what you make out of it. make every moment count. whoopedowee

2011-09-24T13:13:00.001-07:00

i remember this at 15.

2011-09-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

"it doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. i want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. it doesn’t interest me how old you are. i want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. it doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. i want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! i want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. i want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human."

oriah mountain dreamer

2011-09-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

the first feeling of necessary caution in a long while. and i quite liked it. it was as it is - necessary.

anyway, reading about palestine's bid for statehood reminds me of the first moment when politics as a study struck a chord with me. i remember someone at a lecture mentioning that politics is a study of power. and that perplexed me as much as it frustrated me. with a lifelong clash with authority and this general unsoughted anti-establishment stance, it just made sense to keep my enemy close. haha no, that was not why. i always mention in jest that we have to understand to dispel our prejudices and i was really hoping for that with politics. but it just makes me more disillusioned with a lot of things. so we seek beauty in things outside our study to prop our mood to buoyancy. don't know why i am talking about this....but smth in a while ago jolt me from my comfort..

2011-09-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

words from sound

i like it when you look hard at me from beneath the furrows of your forehead. when you look and keep me guessing and trying although i know i have lost. although i know your heart inside out. you keep me on my heels and it thrills - not knowing when i'll fall; from your grace; from where your voice soundly curl up like tendrils up the nape of my neck. comfortable. you make me feel in bed walking out in the blazing sun. secure and frightened.

well those are words of my own that are not mine. i like this kick i get from exposure with books and music. how streams of thoughts and words keep coming and i feel so overwhlemed by the beauty of the world with this immense desire to encapsulate as much of it as is humanly possible..

2011-09-23T13:03:00.001-07:00

fuck, this is magic

music like ekstasis

2011-09-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

i forgot how much i loved this

2011-09-22T13:03:00.001-07:00

after i'm done with this essay which was quite the pleasure to write, this lovely weather renders fitzgerald amidst balm and chill. i like the cold. anything is possible with good weather. ha and a ha.

but kleerup and lykke li in combination really is the most ethereal mix of sounds.

2011-09-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

still intoxicated from yesterday

lykke li is fucking awesome live. never had the whole fan thing in me but i think i might have just found my muse. there is nothing quite comparible to her music, but a hunt for smth close is in order.

audio and visual feast. reinforce: fucking awesome. best shit eveerrr

2011-09-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

had a nice day in school and weather is the way it always should be. life is good as it is now. the only downside is my management of time which really needs to get on form. other than that, i cannot beleive i will be listening to lykke li live! after all the long drawn hyped stirred between my headphones, i cannot believe i will be hearing her in person! and this is going to sound sooo darn bimbotic but i wish i exercised more, because there is nothing worse than living t h e moment feeling fat and lardy.

haha

anyway, i am very happy for the friends i have. random. but they are good people, sincerely good hardy ppl

2011-09-19T11:50:00.001-07:00

its easy to live life in a lacklustre manner to feel that you have nothing to lose. for a long while i thought, live and let live. but i looked back at the pictures in egypt and such an acute heartache find its way and i remember, thats how it feels to retract from extreme highs and attachment. i miss the children so very much. whenever the wallpaper of my phone shows, i can almost hear john, islam and mamdooh saying the same ol things everyday...all the reading sessions, engli-arabic and fayed. i always remember fayed best. i love them and i hope god be with them, always.

on a sidenote back from dreaming, i look up at my schedule and wooowee, i was in for a rude shock at how much work beckons me in the weeks to come.

2011-09-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

borders at 50%

what prompted us out of our rush for time into the store was the attractive halfprice screaming in a huge print outside borders. it was strange, a first time - seeing borders not its usual poise, light-music-in-the-background and calm with rows and rows of books in their orderly ease. the initial excitment of purchasing cheap books slowly gave way to a strange sadness of having this familiar place set in disarray this way.

2011-09-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

ana hashuni awi

2011-09-15T12:11:00.001-07:00

after the shitass ipe paper, chilled a little and found good company with sheesha and readings. haha it was such a royal mess. i forgot to shut my windows and a gust of wind came and ash was flying all about my room. but it does help me concentrate without eating. haha i cant read without fiddling with smth and that often means reading veryyyy slowly. but this is nice... always nice, couple with greetings from mahmoud in the morning. i could be at home like this...nice...

anyway, aside from my half aslp crap english that refuses to speak in a coherent sentence. i think about egypt a lot. i was so glad lena came and am subsequently sadden that she has left. she brought so much of egypt here. emad spoke with me with google translater and i always remember how remarkable raw, honest and sincere he and sameh always was all our time at caritas and at fayed. i miss them so much and sometimes i am scared to pray for all the people i leave behind. i don't know why. perhaps when i do pray and think, i remember them too well, and it is so bittersweet in having a good moment gone past with time and distance holding it away.

looked through pictures all night and i pray god always be with the children. i know he is...but i cannot hope that he always will to make everything better for them, wherever they may go.

always in my heart yaknow.

2011-09-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

international political economy is so boggling for my economically retarded brain... h e l p

2011-09-12T11:28:00.001-07:00

desperate need of inspiration...

2011-09-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

lena is coming to singapore on friday! it is so impromptu and i really need to pack my room because it looks like a shithole! haha arabic classes begin in two weeks. well, that would be nice...

2011-09-05T10:16:00.001-07:00

bummer,...

2011-09-05T06:36:00.001-07:00

Leave Your Fingerprint Promotional Video from Leave Your Fingerprint on Vimeo.

2011-09-05T04:16:00.001-07:00

suddenly when you peer out the world with curious eyes, there seems to be an insatiable amount of things to be understood

anyway, magdy provided the referral and the next interview is scheduled for wednesday. a little apprehensive about being too psyched up or wanting something bad enough. i have somewhere along life fallen along the wayside of being a fatalist and in fate do i believe alot in. because many a times i plot out a determined goal and become so deeply disappointed upon not achieving them. but it turns out, the 'disappointing' situations always seem to fit me more perfectly than my idealised goal. with that said, i really hope wednesday go well and that i keep changing with the currents into something better than i know now or a few years back.

2011-09-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

i am really happy today. maybe what the world needed was a spring of inspirational creativity and i'm glad monkeybutt hitch me in to his project. technically speaking, it is a waste of time - a diversion from the accumulating readings that beckons me. but alas, inspiration is key. now that fuel is in, i'm all fired to go!

tourists for the day in singapore and its so refreshing to revisit old places with new sight!

2011-09-03T20:51:00.001-07:00

2011-09-03T12:42:00.001-07:00

love is such a powerful feeling. it drives us to do impossible things, it allows us to live alone and never feel alone. sometimes, that feeling in my heart surfaces- the ability to feel immensely and insanely without thought, logic or decent sense. i am afraid of the precariousness of life, but i embrace it because of how it thrills and pains me. the unknowing is so daunting, but it is beautiful - the way it stretches our horizons beyond imaginable limits.

i love emerson with an inexpressible vigor.

Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2011-09-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

2011-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

very very empty.

a silent stealing empty. i was always afraid that i would come back and feel this large uninspired void.

so many voices, none of which speak.

2011-09-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

very, very uninspired.

hmmmmm

2011-08-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

atonement

caught atonement in 12 parts on youtube and i must say i miss being plagued by the aftermath of a hauntingly harrowing film. its rather cathatic from all the unremembering of egypt that's making me a little down these days. spent a good day alone and travelled in and out of films, returned my mind to an evening in egypt and back home. the thing i loved about sayeda zeinab is that there always were people in our house. egyptians, non-egyptians, a lot of ak, zidane, hatem rana, mahmoud... i like being alone amidst many people. not alone in alone, unless sought

2011-08-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

i am sucha sentimental shithead sometimes...

watched the painted veil and there was a scene where the children were singing and it reminded me of monday mornings where the children at caritas had music lesson and the first day i stepped into class and khalid was so sad. how i am always sneaking in to join the kids for music lessons and after which, there will be a disney cartoon played in arabic and i will find the darkest corner behind the children and fall alseep. once, they were watching finding nemo and i fell aslp in my corner when adel sounded everyone out, and my eyes open to many children going "ayez enam ya uztaz?" (are you tired my teacher?). and so very quickly in those two months, my late nights out with vadim, hatem, zidane and rose took its toil on my nightly rest and gained me the arabic nickname of a sleepyhead at the shelter.

i cannot even began to describe how much i miss the children and all their idiosyncratic greetings every morning. i miss them so very much. if i let my mind drift into a memory sharply enough to hear the sights and sounds, i feel as if it were a regular in egypt....i am taking my eccentrically warm/cold shower(our heater is shit) every morning. it is 7.15am. 5 more mins to let the water run down my head before we'll be late for work. i am always thinking...drats ian, he reallyyy got to keep his air conditioner down. then as i go down the step, 7 puppies and a stairway of a shit and pee mine greets us. we emerge in the cool, dusty streets of sayeda zeinab, sometimes, a donkey might be outside our gate with aish(bread) on its back. the early walk to sayeda zeinab metro will be greeted with the ducks randomly on the right sidewalk and woobies(the mother dog) would send us all the way to the metro... then we take the warm sweaty train ride to ghamra where we are greeted by remonda and ibrahim warm smiles...sitting in the minivan, i remember the streets....ramses....tahrir...zamalek...the nile...then into the traffic congested giza where the faint outlines of the pyramids are visible.

i will find my way to egypt again. i always tell people, there are certain places that fit us right. that we fit right in - into the culture, the people, the places...and egypt felt like that for me. i was fascinated with being in a new place, but i was happy, always truly happy being there.

2011-08-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

YAY ak and lena are coming to malaysia and i have a long weekend that week. I AM SOOOOO PYSCHED HAPPY AND EXCITED!

2011-08-26T04:05:00.001-07:00

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human."

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

2011-08-25T23:45:00.000-07:00

it is so fascinating how distance cannot steal what is captured in your memory. everything...

2011-08-25T01:41:00.001-07:00

while doing my reading...suddenly, the day where we watch harry potter played in my head...how i told ian to meet us at ramses hilton and he, vadim and rose ended at semi ramses hotel. after cabbing all and along the nile, we met them only to be greeted by all their morning faces (which by them we were very familiar with already) and cheap kofta smuggled into the cafe. then we went to the photoshop to get my photos printed while ian went to grobbi and vadim and rose head home for a bit..i was happy, that after mnay rounds, this roll of film turned out well..i miss them all so much.

2011-08-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

skyped with vadim last night and it was truly disorientating. me, and my many pillows that i wish i had in sayeda zeinab, vadim in florida, us talking about egypt... i truly miss all his ebonics crap and looking like a windswept mess in the morning. i miss egypt so very much tonight

2011-08-20T23:34:00.001-07:00

love bon iver to no end

yesterday, at bob's party, in between exchanges of conversations, egypt found its way into many. i like to talk about it only because of it make my heart bloat with a soft feeling and how it keeps all these people so far away alive in my life. bon iver captures the sublime feeling that escapes us where gladness only fills the air

2011-08-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

met a couple of dumbass nus kids who are capitalist at its best and all i wish them is to be poor for a week for them to appreciate the system as it is. all this practical thinking, cv accumulation, networking not for its people but for business, and pragmatism...stinks. big time. seriously dude, talk about brainwashing. i am angry today. angry that governmental policy has t h i s much impact over the ways in which the culture of society takes shape, and more sadly penetrating - how it has made us t h i n k entirely in terms of self interest and economic gain.

dude, the entire economic system is a construction. someone made it up. we are functioning on a theory that facilitates economic exchange. nothing is set in stone. so the argument that inequity should exist because this is the best economic model is bullshit to me. a perfect model versus quality of life for many other. honestly, i don't even know how is that comparable.

question is, with all the discontent in society, have we sold our souls for this economic growth?

2011-08-14T07:00:00.002-07:00

today was a test of this dandy new found happiness.

i like myself like this. happy, happy, unworrying, looking forward to everything. i told chiara as i told zaki it feels so different. 3 months ago, i felt so bogged down by general sadness, life in a nutshell felt like the very nutshell that summed it up - dark, dank and very limited. all existential questions felt answered by a resigned response. but everything feels different now. its like...keep moving, keep trying and if we die in the attempt(literally and figuratively)..its's a matter of "opps,", an incidental twist of fate that would otherwise sit well even in shock with the knowledge that the best is continuously done in motion. cut mid action, it was always with the best foot forth.

i love my friends alot. particularly zaki, ria, rann, and najib. i am absolutely myself ard them - unfunny, clumsy, striaghtmouthed, crazy, very noisy, very quiet, ..they give me a strange sort of courage to do things even if not always they know exactly what i am doing. cheers to the week ahead and international political economy is putting me to slp way before bed time. shall talk it over w mahmoud and mayybe..maybe it might appeal more to me