part of the reason, i suspect, is that the role this blog has in my life has been usurped. i already have someone who listens with attention as rapt as my imaginary blog audience to all i need to say – the mundane to the dramatic; the gratuitous theorizing and endless analyzing of human behavior; the nonsense the rants and (sometimes) inspired insights. hi Hansies.
but i need to come back to this space because writing about my life is a thing. not just documenting but making sense of. what i’ve criticized about this space: that it forces me to filter and euphemize, is also part of its merit. all i experience is shaped by how i perceive, and how i perceive is informed by my filtering.
mere documenting isn’t enough anymore, because i don’t remember what my more nuanced thoughts about the happenings were.
so much words.
every May since 2012, without fail, i think about you again.
we spent no more than a night and day together. june through april you stay clear of my thoughts. and them BOOM. may – you again. tiny fledgling, raw and pink and grotesque. how is it that you crop up so uncannily on the anniversary of your death, some kind of macabre annual clockwork?
you make me think about death. how it is natural, expected, sometimes inconsequential because millions of tiny ones like you go every day. but if you’re lucky enough (or does it even matter to you?) someone remembers yours.
Summer is here again! Between productions and miscellaneous tasks, i’ve yet to get into holiday mode: mostly in my hobo gear squatting around doing work. Have not even dived into a hedonistic TV series binge watch yet. Shocker.
My brain has been feeling noisy recently. My thoughts are present and alive, but haphazard. Sometimes they drive me awake deep into the night. It’s not that i’m not at peace – i am; i feel safe and ready more than i’ve been for awhile. Maybe it’s because so many possibilities and responsibilities have blasted their doors open for me, that i feel all over the place. On the walls and under the table, wanting to be everywhere at once and therefore being nowhere concrete at all.
I want to write, to sketch, to create, to work, to go out and see beautiful things and meet people. I want to do all of this at the same time.
I have so much to offer but my erratic-frantic energy is hitting all sorts of dead ends without its eyes on a goal.
Need to find my focus.
That summer all he wanted was for it to not be the worst one yet.
He drinks six cans of stale tea in one afternoon and finds hedonistic joy in not leaving his desktop, even though he is free to. Today’s thought of the day was a variation of all the other days as far as he can remember: am i the only one whose mind offers nothing but grief?
He cannot imagine another as human as him but without the demons; and concludes that no one else is human.
These days are a repetition of the next. I wake, head to the library, and study till the night. But somehow it feels nice – a familiar kind of routine. The kind that’s stable and still surprising and fresh each day. The content is dreary but the company is good. :-)
In less than a week’s time the semester would be up. Much as i want for the holidays to be here so i can start doing all the shit i wanna do, i’m also slightly loathe to give up this structure i have everyday. I know exactly what i’m gonna do, and there’s something to procrastinate and be distracted from.
There really isn’t much i can’t find enjoyment from in life~
I’ve had trouble sleeping recently AND IT’S TERRIFYING.
What started out as just simple insomnia from too much caffeine/late nights, became an obsessive worry about not getting enough sleep from the previous night and not being able to sleep the next.
It’s been on and off – some days i revert to Qing baby sleep cycles and can barely keep awake once i’m in bed. Others, my heart and brain race like the other ravaged their ancestral line. For someone who for most of her life has slept at 11 and clocked her 8 hours throughout uni, this is living hell.
The worry comes from my belief that a lot of what’s important to me: my skin, my general alertness, my energy, come from ample sleep. Take that away and what is left of me? Paradoxically, with the worry comes the inability to just let go and let sleep take over.
Sleep is the most natural thing of all – but once you consciously are aware of it, it doesn’t happen. Like someone pointing out that you blink and breathe and all at once you can’t help noticing that you’re doing all that and it becomes strange and unnatural.
Stupid as it is, it’s in my nature to be neurotic. So i perpetuate this cycle by thinking shit like WHAT IF THIS GOES ON FOREVER. OH SHIT I HAVE A FEELING I CAN’T SLEEP AGAIN AT NIGHT, etc etc. It’s endless.
Sometimes i feel myself nodding off, barely able to keep awake when i’m trying to stay up a little bit later. But once i’m ready and want to sleep, just having a milli-scrap of the thought: shit what if i can’t- anxiety floods through me. The effects are tangible: numb limbs and insane heart. Loud thoughts. It frightens me and that fear sends a new wave of anxiety and it continues from there.
I need to reframe my thinking.
So what if i miss a night of sleep? It happens to everyone. The sleep debt would be paid eventually.
I don’t NEED to sleep at a certain time, or even at night. I can just sleep when i’m sleepy and am ready for it. There’s always the choice of a daytime nap. If i can’t sleep, i can just get up and do whatever.
The human body will eventually crash when it needs sleep. I don’t ever have to worry not being able to sleep because it’ll find a way to shut my brain down when it needs to.
I literally cannot control my sleep consciously. So there is no fucking point in worrying. I just need to stop giving a shit.
It will eventually readjust itself.
Things will go back to before, i just have to give it time.
Sometimes i get physically exhausted of small talk. I mean, practically having to take a deep breath to channel all my strength to give enough shits to speak. Not sure how others do it, but it’s a genuine life skill to hold these conversations with enough enthusiasm.
Sometimes i think i save all my words for my friends, the ones i want to talk to. There’s always so much i want to say, need to say with them. When that happens it’s a freestyle ramble that wouldn’t relent.
Just did my reading on ‘The Neural Bases of Altruistic Punishment’. I’ve always suspected this, but now I’m pretty convinced that in a psychological sense, there is no true altruism as we define it.
By (almost) all definitions, humans are absolutely capable of altruism – that is, acting in ways that benefit others even at the expense of incurring costs to self. This is how we conceive of altruism socially, biologically, legally.
But neuroscience has shown us that when we get to the deep of it, altruism is a goal-directed behavior to achieve expected satisfaction. It is analogous to a a person having that chocolate bar because it releases endorphins in their brain.
Personally, this doesn’t makes altruism any less beautiful. Maybe some find reducing a selfless act to activation in our dorsal striatum rather unromantic, but i for one find it fascinating; that over millennia, human interaction has shaped within our brains mechanisms that encourage the survival of other human beings – related or not.
Altruism is borne of something greater than itself: the desire for humankind as a whole to survive. An overarching desire that binds us all as a species, producing a tendency within us that binds us together too. It’s just… amazing.
Running is an addiction. It’s difficult to start but as difficult to stop.
Took to the ground again this morning, ran my favourite route over to Serangoon. I take my time but compensate with stamina. It’s pretty much the only time my thoughts are slower than I am going, and that’s pretty fucking relaxing.
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I know my brain works in strange ways. Not illogical but by its own set of logic. And sometimes all I want is someone who gets it – wholly, instantly. Yes i’m lucky to have so many friends who do get it – appreciate it even – after i explain to them. But.
But it’s like I have a set of legos that’s meant to be built in a certain way. Somehow i find myself creating something entirely different, with the same pieces. People would go w t f? Friends would listen to why and how i pieced it together this way, and go: ohhhh, i see it now. But explaining can be exhausting. Sometimes i wish someone would just look at it and think that that’s the way it’s meant to be too, without even realising it’s not the norm.
Guess what i meant to say is, everyone is strange in their own way. And i wish someone was strange in exactly the way i am. Like a twin or something, except fully mine.
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I’m down to the last chapter of A Little Life, and find myself unable to continue. Because it is too painful, knowing what has happened and what is bound to come. But hands down, one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Never have I been presented with such a convincing narrative for self-harm, self-hatred, and beauty. Everything is surreal but so real. On a micro-scale, it has gems of excerpts i’ve been hoarding in my notes. As a whole it’s just a wonderful, skilful, epic piece of work. Bildungsroman? But not really – that cheapens it.
It’s about love, about pain, and life, about friendship. It’s just … aiya go read la.
So, so glad to have been in USProductions in my last year in NUS. So, so grateful to have the cutest cast and crew with me through this. And incredibly touched for all y’all friends who came down to support (tq, and tq again!)
I don’t do scripted plays much, but they always hold something special for me. Because you start inhabiting a character that is wholly not you. Beyond being an excitable IJ girl, I spent a long time hating Anna for being an angsty drama queen. It was really until opening itself that I realized (with amazing direction from Dot and me lovely cast mates), that Anna is more than that. Anna is all of us – scared, vulnerable, loyal, masking all that with her anger and confused frustrated outbursts.
Confession: i found Anna really hard to portray, and it took me way too long to warm up to her. I may even have only fully gotten her on our last show. But the journey there was worth it. I do love me a good challenge. But it wouldn’t have been as amazing a time without deez talented awesomesauce peeperts:
Whether offstage or onstage, you guys shine. Thank you for being such an inspiration and a joy to work with. <3
Finding Robin together.
Sometimes making Dot cry with laughter / frustration. (Most of this is WJ’s doing)
And for the general backstage shenanigans where we basically kill our throats with chilli (mine died midway through the third show HAHSDHA).
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So recently I’ve been plagued by a bout of insomnia, which is strange because I’ve always slept very well and very early. My baby sleep cycle demands a full 8 hours. But for the past month I’ve had problems falling asleep and staying asleep. It’s horrible. Slowly I’m beginning to suspect that it has something to do with my slow descent into Anna-hood.
All the anger I’ve been forcing my body to possess, and the actual anger I’ve had to express through all our rehearsals / runs / shows are beginning to seep into my qi (i’m quite huge on TCM, yes). May be the reason I’m sleeping bad, especially considering how incredibly slow to anger I am in real life. Method acting much?
Need to find the Qing chill again.
–
OH AND AND AND
FINALLY
IT’S OUT:
SO. CHIO. So proud of Jude and Jem for creating this with just a vision and the desire to create something big. Aced it. And seriously can’t stop listening to this.
“See how far we’ve come,”
strikes true, especially since I’ve watched YQ win the crowd’s heart as splatterdashed in our HC years. It’s really amazing seeing friends making a difference, pursuing their dreams, and just – creating great shit with their innate abilities. Also tq for roping me in to help in whatever small way I could. Had too much fun roaming lupsup stores, aging paper with coffee, and making psychedelic clocks for this shoot. It’s quite a feeling seeing it all come to life under Jem’s film skillz.
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Now it’s back to school, and i’m taking it chill this semester. Have been reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara – deeply, deeply engaging. Have already found so many excerpts to fall in love with. Will share more when done (it’s friggin’ long).
Q 