Home Is Where The Heart Is

Sunday, April 24, 2005

I went back to church today.

I almost didn't make it. I have to admit, I was really tempted to sleep in this sunday morning, just like every morning for the past, what, 3 years?

But I didn't.

It's been so long since I last really came here. Of course, I see the building on a regular basis, since my bus passes right by it, but to actually step back into a place I literally grew up in. It's where I spent my kindergarten years, too (I remember eating red-bean soup for recess back then. Of course, since I detested red-bean soup - I still do - I used to just drink the soup and spit the beans back into the bowl. Hoping they wouldn't notice when they cleared the bowls. Haha. Nostalgia, indeed...)

Of course, the place has changed quite abit, of course. Total renovation, inspired in no small part by the government's MRT schemes, forcing a much smaller carpark underground. Going to church in a girl's school on sunday for 2 years, and listening to sunday school lessons in dingy classrooms... but we all really didn't mind. The church wasn't totally rock-solid, but attendance never really suffered, despite all the inconveniences.

The sermon was something about investing less in worldly possessions and wealth and more in love and relationships. Along with a liberal sprinkling of references to the Casino De-Bait. Interesting, because when he spoke about the lack of love and understanding in so many of our relationships, Man, you have no idea.

Today the Filipino Fellowship sang the Servant King. A song we always used to sing in sunday school.

I wonder where are those I used to know... are they still here? At another church, perhaps. Or have they, like me, fallen by the wayside?

I would definitely like to see them again.

Maybe I will.

Sometimes, all you need is a little faith. That the guy upstairs is always looking out for you.

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
10:10 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Your dating personality profile:

Shy - You are often timid around others, though you will open up when the right person comes along.
Funny - You laugh often. People never accuse you of lacking a sense of humor. You don't take yourself too seriously.
Romantic - You know exactly how to melt your date's heart. Romance comes naturally to you and is an important component of any relationship you have.

Your date match profile:

Funny - You consider a good sense of humor a major necessity in a date. If her jokes make you laugh, she has won your heart.
Practical - You are drawn to people who are sensible and smart. Flashy, materialistic people turn you off. You appreciate the simpler side of living.
Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things.

Your Top Ten Traits

1. Shy
2. Funny
3. Romantic
4. Liberal
5. Sensual
6. Big-Hearted
7. Adventurous
8. Practical
9. Intellectual
10. Athletic

Your Top Ten Match Traits

1. Funny
2. Practical
3. Adventurous
4. Sensual
5. Athletic
6. Conservative
7. Religious
8. Big-Hearted
9. Outgoing
10. Romantic

Take the Online Dating Personality Quiz at Dating Diversions

Hmm. Not sure how really practical this particular test is, but darn, that's almost uncanny in its accuracy.

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
6:26 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

I see the love in your eyes...
But I know it's not for me.

You ever wonder how the concept of love is so strange? It sounds simple, really it does - love someone who'll love you back.

"Comprehende, Muchacho?"

"Niet, Comrade. Comrade Gonzalez will please explain to Comrade Ivan zis... 'concept' dat you are talking about."

But take it baldly, and it seriously amounts to playing the state lottery - just one chance out of so many thousands. Are you really going to be so lucky to find someone who will love you back, equally, for the right reasons? Your 'soulmate', as they so adequately put it.

Hell, no.

And we see the consequences of this everywhere. Emotion is inedibly bound to humans, so that however we may try to deny its existence, we can't help but experience it. Hence we can't help but fall for someone. Whether that person is suitable or even gonna respond is irrelevant. Emotion invariably wins when pitted against logic in most individuals. That's why people rarely do the 'correct' thing. If someone close to you got shot and died before you, you wouldn't want to accept the person's death - denial, trying to save the corpse before you - all outward manifestations of emotion coming to the fore. Melodramatic, yes, but it gets the point across.

However, most people don't really try to fight their emotions so directly, hence they equivocate. Why is it I suddenly like this girl I never thought of romantically before? Hmm, there must be a reason for that. Maybe it's fate? Maybe she's the one for me? Maybe I just started liking her because I got to know her better?

Stuff like that. The human mind has an AMAZING ability to reason things out, even if the logic can be considered flawed. After all, aren't we all always right in our own opinions? We can't help but be self-righteous.

Guys will like girls. And girls will like guys. Homosexual tendencies aside, girls WILL reject guys, and guys will reject girls, although there's something to be said for the fact that the rejected guys far outnumber the spurned girls. It's a guy's lot to ask, and be turned away I suppose, even if it's insisted that there should be true equality of the sexes. One sex will always be more equal than the other in certain matters. It's just the way of the world.

And of those who are attached - how many of them couples can claim equal love in both directions?

I just spoke with an attached friend of mine, and he confirmed a nagging theory: one party will always love the party more. Usually the party that initiated the relationship, but that's not always guaranteed. Lots of reasons to go along with the relationship - the guy/girl in question is quite attractive, wanting to be loved, emotional security of a romantic relationship, even (selfishly) just wanting to show the world that you're attached.

The last reason is extremely prevalent, sad to say. And it's not just a cut-and-dry affair - if someone asked you to be with them, and this person was kinda ok but nothing special, what would you say? Would you have the courage to reject them? Courage to turn aside the offer of being lonely no more, and courage to break someone's heart? It's just so tempting to take the easier way out. Wouldn't really blame them, seeing as how I'm still unable to answer my own question.

Unfortunately, all that glitters is not gold. Relationships without true feelings soon crumble and fall apart of their own weight. Third parties and conflicting characters and ideals merely help to push it along - they're just catalysts, and not really the cause.

With all that in mind, why the hell would any of us want to risk all on such small probabilities? It's somewhat akin to gambling addiction - the chance is ever so tiny, but the reward so great. The one balances the other. That is why people, especially us Singaporeans, keep buying 4D.

And that is why we never stop hoping.

So long,
I've been looking too hard, I've been waiting too long
Sometimes I don't know what I will find
I only know it's a matter of time

When you love someone,
When you love someone
It feels so right so warm and true
I need to know if you feel it too
Maybe I'm wrong...
Won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong
This heart of mine has been hurt before
This time I wanna be sure

I've been waiting for a girl like you,
To come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you,
And a love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new
To make me feel alive
Waiting for a girl like you
To come into my life

You're so good,
When we make love it's understood
It's more than a touch or words we say
Only in dreams could it be this way

When you love someone,
Yeah really love someone
Now, I know it's right
From the moment I wake up till deep in the night
There's nowhere on earth that I'd rather be
Than holding you, tenderly

I've been waiting for a girl like you,
To come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you,
And a love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new,
To make me feel alive
Yeah waiting for a girl like you,
To come into my life

- Foreigner, Waiting For A Girl Like You

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
12:39 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Thursday, April 21, 2005

"What do you seek, young adventurer?"

"Princess Cassima. Whatever you can tell me of her..."

"Ah, that explains the images that have been haunting my pool of late... I see a young and beautiful maiden, a rose set amidst the bitter thorns. It is her fate to be the pawn of dark powers... and yours to try to rescue her."

"How? What must I do?"

A stirring of the luminescent waters of the pool, before a skull-like phantasm materializes out of thin air, and fades just as quickly.

"Oh, such pain! I see two restless spirits, crying out for vengeance. These shades could help you, if only they were brought back from the dead."

"But before that can happen, I see an infiltration... a dangerous game of cat and mouse in corridors filled with enemies. It is a dangerous path, but it is the only way to reach the one you love."

"There is more than one way into this place. Your choice will dictate much."

"There is nothing more I can do for you, except to give you this..."

A slight swishing as a crystal vial is filled.

"It is water from the sacred pool. That, and my blessing, go with you."

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
4:48 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

It's amazing how some things never change.

"She has no further part to play in this sequence of events. Her time is over."

"How can you even say that?"

"You knew it, did you not? We warned you, that to consort with one of unpure blood would herald unfortunate circumstances. Yet, you repeatedly refused to listen."

"You know very well why I did what I did."

"Yes, and that unfortunate expression of illogical emotion will always remain a taint upon the Brotherhood."

I looked at him with uncomprehending eyes. "What?"

"This incident will be forever remembered as a testimony to the fact that one's feelings should never be allowed to overwhelm pure and simple logic. Her death should be punishment enough for you. Know, however, that we will not judge so favourably in future."

"Are you saying you will not save her life?"

"That decision, for better or for worse, is not mine to make. She is already beyond any assistance, even mine. If you have something important to say to her, I suggest you say it promptly."

He spun on his heels and strode away, the long black cloak trailing behind him like a specter of death.

Even for the impure who were dying, the Brotherhood had no sympathy.

She died because of me.

They say love lasts for a lifetime, but vengeance is eternal.

That theory would soon be validated.

< To Be Continued... >

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
9:08 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Can't you tell, you've been all over me
Like a spell, I know
That I never wanna let you go

Can't you see, you've been changing the world
Around me, I know
That I never wanna let you go

If you hold me close enough
I can whisper you the words
If the distance is too far
I can't do nothing, 'cause

You are stuck in my heart
And we can go anywhere
Whatever the reason you are
So stuck in my heart
Like counting a million stars
For that many reasons you are

Can't deny, since I met you that day
I've been blind, to see
Now I wanna know for real

Inside me, I'm afraid to wake up
From a dream, and see
It never really happened to me

If you hold me close enough
I can whisper you the words
If the distance is to far
I can't do nothing, 'cause

You are stuck in my heart
and we can go anywhere
whatever the reason you are
so stuck in my heart
like counting a million stars
for that many reasons you are

You are......like a dream so deep inside of me

You are......the reason that I never sleep

You are......stuck in my heart

- C21, Stuck In My Heart

I wonder if we'll bump into each other in say, ten years down the road, a la Chase.

Wishful, romantic and ultimately naive thinking, I know

I can't help but wonder, though.

Do things ever happen as they do in dreams?

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
10:46 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

We both looked at each other, feeling the biting wind on our faces.

"You know it had to end this way," she said.

"No! Surely there must be another way."

Her lips came together in a frigid smile.

"I'm afraid not."

Her smile. So reminiscient of better days, and yet there was a chill that blended so appropriately with the howling gale.

Denial - the first, last and only refuge of those who refuse to accept reality. Was I really so disbelieving, then?

She leveled the the oblong piece of metal in my direction.

"I'm sorry."

"Can you really kill someone you love?" I hissed.

"Used to love," she riposted.

Frantically I searched the depths of her eyes, but I could find no love, no sympathy, not even a shred of pity. And yet there was fear in them...

Fear of... what?

I closed my eyes as she drew back the hammer. To maintain my last shred of dignity, I preferred to die without betraying the extent of my emotions.

A thundercrack rang out, the echoes swiftly absorbed by the blizzard.

A body slumped onto the snow-covered concrete.

But I was not dead.

I opened my eyes, and she was sprawled in front of me, a mess of red seeping from her left shoulder.

I hurried over to her, turning over her body and cradling her head in my arms. Grasping her slender wrist, I checked her pulse.

Too faint. Her life was fast ebbing away.

Her eyes opened. Dark hazel eyes that had so captivated me the first time we met. I looked urgently into them, my own eyes conveying the urgent yet unspoken question.

She smiled through a mask of pain. "I lied... I still do love you."

A cough of dark red blood. "I... no choice... to save you from a worse fate..."

She moaned, and this time this gush of blood was a torrent.

It was then I realized that unseen shooter was still out there, but the rush of frigid air and half-liquified snow obscured visibility in all directions.

Between worrying about the mysterious assailant and her copious bleeding, I knew which was more important.

Tearing strips from her shirt, I bandaged her wound as best as possible, but I knew my efforts would simply delay the inevitable. Long enough, perhaps, for a miracle.

Carrying her slight body in my arms, I ran back to the car.

< To Be Continued... >

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
11:41 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Here's something to chew on (from the up-&-coming Joey):

Michael: You're a hot girl. Hot girls get stuff for free.

Joey: Yeah, it's true. It's in the Constitution.

Alex: Look, I know what I am. I'm not a hot girl. I'm cute.

Michael: You're a hot girl that doesn't know she's hot. Joey was telling me about those.

Alex: No, I know hot girls. My sister is one of them.

Michael: "The even hotter sister" - one of four ways a girl doesn't realise she's hot. Along with "went to a girls' school", "used to be fat", and "is blind."

Joey: You have learned well, young Michael.

And that explains quite a fair bit, Mr. Tribbiani.

OK, let's cut Matt LeBlanc some slack here: Joey looks promising so far, and I have somewhat hopeful expectations for this show. Hey, at least they're not making season 7 of All-You-Can-Eat-Entrails-&-Disgusting-Bits... what's that show, Funny Factor or something? Anyway, you get the point...

Bring back the ol' days of reality-free programming!

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
11:22 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Note To Self: Going to a club alone = BAD idea

It's really a bite that so few of my acquaintences even consider going clubbing, never mind on a regular basis. I'm not really surprised myself, since abt 2 or 3 years back I wouldn't touch the subject with a ten-foot pole.

It's amazing how I've changed. People I once knew a few years back would probably have difficulty recognizing me now. I'd wonder what I'd say to them... especially someone who has since left this country a long time ago. What would she say if she saw me now? Would it be for better, or for worse? I'd like to think I wouldn't repeat old mistakes here, but everybody has their illusions.

Besides walking all the way from Boat Quay to Chinatown after the party(reminds me of that epic trapise from Kallang Stadium to City Hall MRT: balls to the guy who said Kallang MRT was 'that' direction), we got accosted by a bunch of cops checking us for illegal gathering and our ID cards, to boot. Speaking of cops, had the friendly neighbourhood SWAT team replete with automatic weapons (unloaded, at that) put in their calling card on the street outside the club.

Aside: (Seriously, even the most fanatical religious extremist wouldn't really find this place that attractive to blow up. At most they'd score a couple dozen drunk foreigners and a whole of bunch of local people. Not exactly good for the 'keel Amaaricans!' crowd.)

Nothing like a bunch of guys hanging at 4am to attract the boys in blue. If there's one thing I learned from days in camouflage, it's that you'll always need some guy friends around you, if for no other reason than to remind you of your existence as a member of homo erectus.

Oh yea, almost forgot.

To the chief bartender at Rav: thanks for buying me a drink man, I really appreciate it. Let's hear it for Mr Bartender!

And, here's a retro song they should play at EVERY nightspot worth its salt:

If there's anything you need,
All you have to do is say
You knew you satisfy everything in me
We shouldn't waste a single day

So don't stop me falling,
It's destiny calling
A power I just can't deny
It's never changing
Can't you hear me, I'm saying
I want you for the rest of my life

Together forever, and never to part
Together forever we two
And don't you know
I would move heaven and earth
To be together forever with you

If they ever get you down,
There's always something I can do
Because I wouldn't ever wanna see you frown
I'll always do what's best for you

There ain't no mistaking,
It's true love we're making
Something to last for all time
It's never changing
Can't you hear me, I'm saying
I want you for the rest of my life

Together forever, and never to part
Together forever we two
And don't you know
I would move heaven and earth
To be together forever with you

So don't stop me falling,
It's destiny calling
A power I just can't deny
It's never changing
Can't you hear me, I'm saying
I want you for the rest of my life

Together forever, and never to part
Together forever we two
And don't you know
I would move heaven and earth
To be together forever with you

- Rick Astley, Together Forever

Retro Rocks!

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
8:18 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Thursday, April 07, 2005

How do you tell a girl you like her?

How, indeed?

It's the age-old question; akin to walking barefoot through a minefield, there are simply so many ways to screw things up and send the proverbial shit through the fan.

We got the people that advocate honesty as the best policy, and the gang that say you shouldn't tell her, but show it through your actions. Or, don't even tell her. Too risky. How about that?

If you like her enough, trust me, you'll find a way to tell her. Don't look to others as an example, just approach it how you would as though you're the pioneer guy telling a girl how he feels.

Perhaps we're missing the more fundamental question here: how do you tell if you like a girl?

AS the Oracle once said, "Being the One is just like being in love... no one can tell you, you just know it through & through... balls to bone".

I don't know if I'll find someone soon. I don't know if I'll find someone in the next few years. Heck, I don't even know I'm gonna find someone during my time here on Earth.

I don't know any of this stuff, so how can I presume to know so much?

I don't.

I just know there's always hope.

'Hope, the quinessential human delusion... simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.'

- A.

Why do birds suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you

Why do stars fall down from the sky
Every time you walk by?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you...

On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon-dust, in your hair of gold
And starlight in your eyes of blue

That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you...

The Carpenters, Close To You

Runnin' away, you can't pretend...
9:04 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment