Battlestar Galactica

Whee! It's monday and I'm feeling a bit of an adrenaline rush (even though it's now 2.30 am) because I've just finished reading a book of Battlestar Galactica (alright, so it was a compilation of 3 books into 1) and boy, was it good. I heard so much about it that I knew it must be good, but whoa, it certainly didn't disappoint. It was so fast paced, everything...

I was in the library on friday when I saw this book on the shelf, so I thought, why not? And so I borrowed it. Was secretly hoping that I'd run into C one of the days so I could show the book, as C happens to like the series as well. Would be cool (and funny) if I did :P

Currently talking online to Aby about it right now and he's telling me that it's the new version of BSG that I was reading. I had to talk to him about BSG, of course, especially because one of the characters that he has is called 'Hot Dog' after Brendan Constanza in the series. Apparently Aby knows that it's the 'new' version of BSG simply by finding out that this character called 'Starbuck' is female instead of male in the 'old' version.

Was mildly amused by the fact that often I manage to figure out what's going on before the characters in the book itself figure out, but isn't that usually the case anyway? (instead of it being an indicator of your intelligence) That you get the 'inside' view as the reader, while the characters are sort of floundering about not knowing what to do.

Aby is saying 'gosh, you are a reader'. Well, what did you expect, mister... I'm a bibliophile *smirks* On the other hand, I don't really watch movies or watch tv, so I guess that kinda makes up for it. It's just that on some level I rather resent the hold that books have upon me, when I end up spending hours, hours I can more often than not, barely afford to spare... Oh well, who cares :D Nobody here but us, me and my books :P

You are the girl in a love triangle

You are the girl in a love triangle

F F |F F |=- |E D | F |D F|= D|=-

1--- | 2-- |3--|4--- |1- |2-- |3-- |=-

Somehow the music found itself to the words while I was with the phone with a friend. It's so difficult to do music notation in purely symbols that you can find on the keyboard. Especially when you want to do syncopation and tied notes. Haha. Luckily that girl in a love triangle isn't me, or I should be so troubled. I'd just sit down here and just miss Nambi, thank you very much.

Meh

Aiyo... who knew buying a harp is so problematic even when going through a dealer who is supposed to do everything for you?

Btw I'm really happy about the dealer I'm going through because she doesn't charge you any commission and what you pay is exactly what is stated on the Lyon & Healy website, not a cent more. Her profit comes because L&H gives her a dealer's discount. If you know anyone who wants to buy a harp please contact me and I will give you her contact no. If you can possibly avoid it do avoid buying overpriced harps (well, duh): scout around the market, as well as online, to see what prices are like. L&H, for example, states all their harps' prices on their website. Great company, L&H. Lovely harps, good service, wide variety... I like the Salvi harps too, from Italy, though of course Salvi did buy over L&H when it ran into financial problems. Such a large and reputable harp-maker like L&H running into financial problems. No prizes for guessing in which country they are based in.

Read more of 'Mao's Great Famine' today. What a disgusting guy. What got me the worst was what he said: "It is better to let half of the population starve to death so that the other half may eat their fill." Of course, the half that eats their fill inevitably includes him and his cronies. Persecution of the Jews during the 3rd Reich? That's nothing. Stalin's Great Purge? A joke. I mean, these two actually had a motive to kill. Mao Zedong indirectly killed 45 million of his countrymen for the sake of saving face. He might not have signed an execution order, but he condemned them to death when he stopped caring about whether they actually had enough to eat, or warmth in winter. And many new agricultural measures introduced by the Communist Party were unscientific and untested, backfiring spectacularly. The rush for quantity over quality (to look good) created a chain of wastage when many products were simply unusable. Mao said, "There is no such thing as a reject product, one man's reject is another man's grain." Ha! What sheer stupidity... there are no words. It's a wonder no one started a revolution, or maybe everyone was too hungry to do so.

And so I shall head to bed. I'll be meeting Nambi tomorrow, as part of a group. After 2 years, I finally made it to his church's 'school meetings' in NUS which I couldn't go for before because it always seemed to be on a Friday when I always had one lesson or another (still do). This academic year though, because some people graduated so there can be changes to the timing of the meetings, and it will be held on Wednesdays. The best part is that it is held in Utown, where Nambi lives. AND it's close to my school, which is a big big big bonus, instead of having to travel to Science faculty and finding whichever random lecture theatre they have commandeered for the day. Bet the others will coerce him to show us his room, and I've always wanted to know what a Utown room looks like. Should be interesting.

P.S. there is a slightly yellowish stain on my bolster cover, barely discernible, but it's there, and it's exactly the size and shape of the tearstain that I left there yesterday. Which I created when I was on the phone for a blissful yet painful 16 minutes (I'd promised to time the conversation and put down the phone in 10 minutes, but it dragged, and we were saying our goodbyes when his phone ran out of battery. Just as well I guess). Being able to hear his voice but not see him just accentuates the pain. And the crying also left me with a hugely swollen right eye so I could hardly do my Italian homework. You are lousy, Karen. When I mentioned to Hazel that the yellowish stains on my bolster (the bolster itself, not the cover) are due to tearstains, she said that it could be simply due to saliva. Well then, the stain on the bolster cover is proof that it's not saliva: if saliva caused it, then my bolster should have been brown through and through a long time ago.

Back pains

I read 'The Time Traveler's Wife' today. It's one of the few times post-Nambi that I have not cried while reading a love story. How strange it is, because this book has made more of an impact on the core of my being than the trashy romance novels that seem to multiply like rabbits.

I've begun to realise the power that art has over me. Does it happen to every person who creates art (artists, musicians, writers, dancers, etc)? It is as if art has a greater impact on me than it does for others. I don't seem to realise this before and it was like the realisation that I had of Nambi: that every male that I had romantic feelings for after him was because they reminded me so much of him. Which is quite awful. Like exploring a house of mirrors thinking you're going somewhere and then you arrive just where you started from. That I thought I was over him.

I know now. My feelings are traitorous, eager to betray me at the slightest chance. Was it not enough that I should miss him every day? That I should encounter someone, even if imaginary, with the same experience that I have, of repeated loss and no hope of ever being truly together?

Do I even Want to be 'together'?

Surely, my body cries out 'yes, yes!' for deep in sleep I cuddle up to my bolster, knowing it is and yet knowing it is not the arms of my past beloved and quite possibly present beloved: after we broke up in Jan 2009 I have never told him I love him, but then again he probably knows... he's quite a perceptive person, actually.

His cynical reluctance to speak.

And then I think of the remote likelihood we might marry, the probability of which is about the same as randomly choosing a star in the Milky Way and finding out that it's our sun. Which gets depressing. Which is why I block the thoughts. Random thoughts about dopamine and receptors go floating by my head but I lack the energy to want to bind them together into something substantial.

I recall that breakup in Jan 09. Broken and desperate, I begged Esther, a girl from Nambi's church whom he calls his 'godsister' to help me, or at least speak to him on my behalf. Her response was that we shouldn't care about anything other than God. Secretly I've always had this personal conviction that this was one of the reasons I became Catholic instead of Protestant, but jokes aside, I've always been a little upset at her for that. I have forgiven her, of course, but old wounds do prickle still sometimes. Her response is actually not unusual of someone who has been 'Christian' all her life, so can't really blame her either.

When you lose someone who means so much to you... Maybe, after years of separation, you can say, "You know, I'm great, I don't need that person." and yet the longing creeps up upon you and sooner or later you're going to capitulate and do something crazy, or wither away. Or both, one after the other.

I can't believe I'm sitting in the student lounge writing this. And crying. Siu Yan is sitting behind me, blissfully unaware, because she is studying German. This is already the 2nd time tears have flowed down my face: after the first time, Siu Yan came to talk to me and apparently she didn't realise I was previously crying because she told me a funny story about a crazy man who used to be her neighbour. We giggled a little over it and I went back to my writing and here I am at it again. Honestly, no one else in the world can make me cry as many times or as much as Nambi does. I have the tear marks in my bolster to show for it, because every time I do cry it's always 'hug-the-bolster-and-cry'. Yet, the tears were what drove him away.

I wish I could tell him everything.

P.S. A note to myself: After the time Irene and I met for the Kinokuniya thing, she later broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years on National Day.