其实伤心无碍, 从此各自精彩

杨宗纬 - 底细

作词：李宗盛 作曲：李剑青

Leaving and learning

Initially I was gonna call this "Another one bites the dust". But I guess my love for alliteration took over; it's less morbid and more pertinent anyway.

With GG finishing his PhD in 3.5 yrs (*envious*) and leaving for London, A is moving back to Singapore, K back to Texas, M is leaving for his dream job in CaliLA, J leaving in a foreseeable future, EK is going off to a faculty position, I thought my life would not be ruffled by goodbyes, at least not for a while. As life has it, LA told me over lunch she is moving with her boss to Philly in a year!

I am sad to say goodbyes. Scared. The feeling of being ditched, of dwindling numbers, of great nostalgia, of being alone, of being left behind... It's funny how all things come in a series of events. Unfortunate or not. And it's not like you finish this bunch, you finish up the quota for the rest of your life. Life does seem just like chapters of goodbyes, doesn't it? Maybe except this one, it's a whole chapter of goodbyes.

Yet, I am starting to feel this stage of my life that I have to learn how to say them - with love, with grace, with gratitude.

I should not perhaps consider each chapter as a goodbye; that just seems too one-dimensional. For a start, if one looks at it as chapters of meetings, then the goodbyes are merely endings, leading on to the next chapter of reunion. Or as chapters of events, good and bad. That forms a story. Your life. Sadness in parting brings out the anticipation and glee in reunion. Bittersweet. It makes you treasure your present, or at least the few months leading up to the departure. If they care, you are given time to prep till the moment, because they know it's hard for both persons, and because they know you care too. So I guess, these moments also make you realize who cares.

So for now, I am going to just cherish my times with my dear friends. I am happy for them, that they are moving on to further greatness in life. I am glad I got to know these awesome people. Sometimes, I wish I have known them a little more. But alas, that's how life is. Some leave deeper footprints than others, but sadness, and hope, lingers all the same.

是时候

是時候 該轉身就走
從此放棄 我們渴望的永久 

。。。

多希望自己就這樣鬆開手
一切很灑脫 好好看著你走
堅強該是我 給你的自由
還能做什麼

。。。

儅晚，我看見你驟變的臉，我就該已經明白。望著那模糊的面孔，你失溫的語言把空氣漸漸凝結了，心就開始寒了。當時真的無法理解，我之前的喜悅怎麽會演變成今晚的局面。或許我的心是被懞著的。

心揪著。有種無形的痛，虛無縹緲，卻又很實在。一種很糾結的痛。。。

應該是我給你自由吧。你一直都是我的快樂，我渴望的永久，但我，已不再是你的了。

。。。

五年。我要學著慢慢地，把它，把妳放下。

If we were indeed from the movies...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

This song is just so emotional/motivating/inspiring that makes me want to cry every time there is an awesome rendition on it.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Stand a little taller!.." Before I get lost in crooning.. Let me introduce 3 of those:

1) the original - none other than KELLY CLARKSON! She rox truly!

2) Glee cover - Complete with dance moves! Naya Rivera's voice rocks my world! Amber Riley and Heather Morris! Girlpower totally lolx

3) Sam Tsui - his singing prowess and versatility is really awesome!

Flying Free

This is a song that I love to sing when I was in choir in my primary school days. Cos it exhibits perfectly how a choir should sound like, the harmony and melody. And well, our choir was quite good, SYF always gold one haha... Yeah, we are pretty proud of that LOLX.

And it's the song that had made me wanted to learn the flute, but too bad la, too ex to learn then. Haven't had the experience to feel the lyrics of the song like now, after having walked the earth for 26 years now...

It's quite an inspirational song I feel, with wings of hope and anticipation for the future, yet recognising the challenges and adversities that will inevitably be facing and not backing down...

A song acoustically beautiful and inspiring, but alas, with that slight tinge of regretful melancholy, if you hear it in a different light.

This version is one with the violin though... I have the one with the flute one. LOLX.. Flute's nice...



Flying Free

There is a place I call my own
Where I can stand by the sea
And look beyond the things I've known
And dream that I might be free

Like a bird above the trees
Gliding gently on the breeze
I wish that all my life I'd be
Without a care and flying free

But life is not a distant sky
Without a cloud, without rain
And I can never hope that I
Can travel on without pain

Time goes swiftly on it's way
All too soon we've lost today
I cannot wait for skies of blue
Or dream so long
That life is blue

Altos: So life's a song that I must sing, a gift of love I must share
Sopranos: so life's a song, a gift of life I must share

Altos: And when I see the joy it brings, my spirits soar through the air
Sopranos: and when I see, my spirits soar through the air

All: Like that bird up in the sky, life has taught me how to fly

For now I know I can be
And now my heart is flying free
Oooooo...

Introspection

It's been a long hiatus from blogging... Probably because I am losing my literary abilities (again).

I said "again", because, I think alot of things that happened to me, occur in a cyclical manner (an observation that has obfuscated me ever since my discovery). It's like hibernation or circadian cycles; it's all temporal, a matter of timing. I have my 'feeding' season, my 'hyper' season, my singing stimmung (like what SW refers to haaa) etc etc... Ok sounds like an insect, but I think sometimes timing is all that matters. Going with the flow usually does the trick; somehow it makes the whole process of transition from one phase to another much smoother.

However, this literary ability loss, despite the fact that it is most probably (hopefully) transient, scares me. It means my articulation is failing me, and THAT scares me - usually it leaves me pensieve and discombobulated. Then, like a cocoon (insect I know), I usually start to retreat into introspection. And I think I am recently feeling this forgotten de jevu worming its way back...

To me, introspection is akin to reorganisation, but of the intangibles. It's like reviewing and taking stock of what is happening around me, partitioning then compartmentalising. Sometimes, I feel like I am walking in a maze, trying to get out, but keep delving deeper into new spaces. Usually, there is this sweet point between sense and sensibility that I will be able to balance, that I will be at ease again. Sounds like some sort of nirvana that I am trying to achieve *roll eyes*

Finished reading a book a while ago, by an author who deals with autistics, Mark Haddon, "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time". Recommended by, none other than, my bro, who has an unusual penchant for unconventional genres. It is a strange BUT interesting, or even intriging at some points, book, writing from the point of view of an autistic teenager. Somehow, writing this entry, I felt uncannily connected to the book. Perhaps, because mostly, the autistic boy narrates (rather than describes). A form of recollection, and in many ways, introspection, albeit in a matter-of-factly and outrageously logical, unduly robotic, manner.

As you all can see, I am a wee bit convoluted and all wound up in the head now and things come out verbose and confounded, or even deranged (HUH?)...

This "5 for fighting" song sounds oddly pertinent to my current predicament: as polemical as gray, yet as clear as the blue.

Dun worry I am not going mental, or anything. I will let you know if I am.

Artist : 5 For Fighting
Song : Superman

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
I'm just out to find
The better part of me

I'm more than a bird...I'm more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It's not easy to be me

Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd...but don't be naive
Even Heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed...but won't you concede
Even Heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me

Up, up and away...away from me
It's all right...You can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy...or anything...

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
inside of me
inside me
Yeah, inside me
inside of me
I'm only a man in a funny red sheet
I'm only a man looking for a dream
I'm only a man in a funny red sheet and its not easy, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...
Its not easy to be me

"Looked in my mirror, who's that freak!"

How apt a 孙燕姿 song!!

Thought I saw a skeleton floating in midair im Spiegel!!! O-M-G!!

Ok exaggerating... haha

Although I am still struggling now, and that my project is NOT complete, and that WK hat mir gesagt, that that is so so not good (:P), I am SO SO glad the thesis dateline is tomorrow. God bless that nothing goes wrong :P

Then I am left with the final exams and get my ass out of school. For now at least.

HA!

会呼吸的痛

送给不懂我的你 - 祝 幸福

在东京铁塔 第一次眺望
看灯火模仿 坠落的星光
我终于到达 但却更悲伤
一个人完成 我们的梦想

你总说 时间还很多 你可以等我
以前我不懂得 未必明天 就有以后

想念是会呼吸的痛
它活在我身上所有角落
哼你爱的歌会痛 看你的信会痛
连沉默也痛

遗憾是会呼吸的痛 它留在血液中来回滚动
后悔不贴心会痛 恨不懂你会痛
想见不能见最痛

没看你脸上 张扬过哀伤
那是种多么 寂寞的倔强
你拆了城墙 让我去流浪
在原地等我 把自己捆绑

你没说 你也会软弱
需要倚赖我 我就装不晓得
自由移动 自我地过

我发誓不再说谎了 多爱你就会抱你多紧的
我微笑都假了 灵魂像飘浮着 你在就好了

我发誓不让你等候 陪你做想的做 无论什么
我越来越像贝壳 怕心被人触碰 你回来那就好了

能重来那就好了

Gewitter 雨的联想

silver lining at Duerfe

Went down to Stustadt today. Went to return Ian his coat and to visit Deen as well. Jari incidentally just arrived!! He came back from Finland!! Oh he looks just the same still haha... So Jari, Deen and Maria, and me went out to have dinner only to be caught in a Gewitter. The kind with flashes of lightning, the kind with torrents (and really I mean torrents of rain), the kind with the sloshing winds and this time the kind with dropping ice pieces, the kind we have been experiencing for the past few nights, the kind that I told myself I was so lucky to be in the balm of my room... Lucky I wrapped my external harddisk in plastic bag...

Reached home, listening to my favourite song now: "In the Sun". Just downloaded the many versions of it by Joseph Arthurs, Michael Stipe and Chris Martin from Coldplay. And reading blogs from Kat, from Xinli, from Ian, from so many people. Then was speaking to Zhang Ning online using Hanyu pinyin (!!!), for about an hour. Jialin called as well. Had a short chat. I suddenly realised, it's gonna be the last time till a very long time later that I am gonna see so many people here. Jari, Maria, Konrad, Guokun, Zhang Ning, Philip, Petya, Jean... The very nice people I have met here, Profs, tutors and all the strangers I met on the streets that talked to me, that conversed with me like we have known each other. Then I remembered, it really is the last time I gonna see Ian, before we all see each other back in Singapore. And even then, we might not be seeing each other very much.

All of a sudden, there was this wave of nostalgia... My heart wrenched... Funny isn't it? I never knew this feeling.

People attachments. Those that make you go all weird and gooey inside. Then you start to remember, as the song rolls on and the photos flashed by, all the outings and mirth that came from it, all the chilling-out at Coffee cafes, all the things we do on the trains, all the late night talks, all the nights when we all just sat there talking about trivialities or not talking at all, just enjoying company of one another...

I think I gonna miss it all. Miss them all. Miss everything.

When we all return to our individual real lives back in Singapore, and get on with our lives, get entangled in our day-to-day hassles, and started to blend into the background, into mere statistics, I wonder, just wonder what will become of these memories. Do they stay deep-rooted, missed, and stay in status quo, or do they grow, gnaw and develop into something else?

For a moment, you don't know whether you want to turn back time or want to go on.

But I guess, it is such moments that make you feel satisfied, feel sweet, feel joyous, feel strong to go on, that you have lived, among friends. That your memory will live in them too. That life is still full of good things after all. A little sad, perhaps that good things dun last as long as you wanted them to be, but they stay good.

To those thoughts, I thank all the people I love and love me in my life. I thank all the close and good friends and strangers that shaped and still shaping my life.

And I am just thankful that I am walking this world with all of you.

BBQ - the last gathering b4 Singapore

I think all of us would agree the BBQ on Thursday was indeed the last major outing that we gonna have b4 we all really seriously MUG for the exams and b4 we all fly back to Singapore.... I always hate that word esp when it's near the exams... It made me seem so... like a non-living thing... MUG wtf!! Whoever came up with the word has a warped sense of humour...

The BBQ was to me, like a re-connection. Deen and Chuanjie came!! Haha, 2 of my best friends. Then it felt so weird to me when now we have so many common topics to talk about when last time we had not that much. It's really amazing!

Then yesterday night my dear 2 friends, Konrad and Philip, at 1230am in the morning are still at LMU computer lab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is really WTF?!?!? I am so scared to be a Masters student now... They are so SCARY!! And nocturnal... zzzz.... And to all who dunno, Konrad was in NUS for 2 semesters b4 this one. I actually took the same lecture as him for one of the modules and I din know LOLX. How oblivious can I get... Actually, very... haha... But boy am I glad to have known him here, despite going one big round across countries and continents. We sort of hit it off quite well, I guess. And Philip, have you finished your thesis? Good luck on your thesis! You are featured in that scientific magazine!!! Was it a scientific magazine?!?!

GAMBATTE people! The exams are nigh, but so are the post-exams...

Ok I am getting overdose of mugging and getting real cranky....

Ok, so for the benefit of Konrad, das ist was du verpassen hast haha, click here for the PHOTOS!

I am not focusing... I regret not going to the library with Chong Wee now... Ok tmr tmr... Tmr I will go haha...

And I am into Grey's Anatomy again... Off all times have to be exam period... And I totally adore this song. So I put up the lyrics for all to enjoy:

In the Sun
Joseph Arthur

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May god's love be with you
Always
May god's love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
'cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can't keep awake

May god's love be with you
Always
May god's love be with you

'cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I don't know anymore
What it's for
I'm not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand

'cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you're not even sure what its for
Any more than me

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you