sumatran earthquake caused several buildings in singapore to sway...

gracie, my "cher" and lunch-at-85 partner, felt her apartment block tremble...her family took the LIFT (..?..) downstairs...where they gathered with neighbours, waiting for the world to come to an end...as gracie pointed out, they were probably in more danger standing on the ground floor where the building will fall right on them, than in her apartment...

so exciting...how come i so sway i never kenna?

am finally feeling less ill...it sucks to fall sick and be all lethargic...didn't help that i got all emo and it made for a very wet and dark couple of weeks.

but things seem to be looking up now...i had a great saturday being receipt girl and getting traumatized by pervert josh ("zeeeeennn..caann uuu hold my haaaaannd?") at skirmish...followed by a cheap dinner with hock, huat and elden at burger king - all thanks to me being auntie enough to have burger king coupons in my wallet...

brewerkz with the gang and my babes later was enjoyable. hock and i shared a salad and cheesecake coz we're so full from the afternoon's duck and char siew rice...but got to taste bits of feng's yummilicious portobello mushroom and grace's scrumptious sausages...i even drank some beer!!!

we adjourned to hock's after much tu-ing outside brewerkz (what's new?! haha) and blinding camera flashes en route to the bitch-mobile...at hock's, playing mafia with the whole lot of friends brought my spirits up...daniel was HILARIOUS and it's been awhile since i laughed so much/hard...

we found out who can and cannot lie...and poor, sweet helly had trouble being a mafia coz she couldn't look commoner feng straight in the eye...which led to feng being the first to be killed off the next time helly was a mafia wahahahaha

feng made me laugh non-stop with her blunders as stupid spy and stupid doctor...and the two of us made for a really bad mafia duo, especially with gracie as game-mistress - both of us got found out in the first round! guess it didn't help that i was laughing so hard that i had to pretend i was choking on my banana.

finally caught howl's moving castle on sunday and had a sweet night. didn't realize that i'd missed the company so much. i'm glad we spent time together and though it probably threw up more things for us to think about rather than solved anything, i had a good time. heavy hearts or not, i felt a warmth that only you can give.

now my whole body's aching from 2 hours of hitting golf balls at the range...i must say it's a good way of venting frustrations...and it helped too that there was this cute rolly polly boy who took up the space beside me, and kept looking at me and grinning cheekily. he'd take a peek at me mid-swing, and smile his monkey grin, taking pride in managing to reduce me to a ball of rolling laughter...and when i made gestures at him to concentrate, he made mock gestures back at me...

so far, a good weekend and an ok start to the week...it will only get better, right? *grin*

there was going to be an aids concert.

key word: WAS.

why? because "an application for a permit to hold a fund-raising concert for action for aids has been turned down by the media development authority (mda) because it features a gay couple as the main performers".

i would link the entire straits times article for your reading pleasure, but i'm not willing to pay for straits times online. you can check it out in yesterday's (23 march 2005) paper, H8.

i was going "huh" and "wtf" and "wth" and "what nonsense" and "retarded" when i read it.

apparently, the application was rejected as it featured an american couple Jason and deMarco .

the mda assessed that the couple's performance "will promote a gay lifestyle which would be against the public interest", based on the duo's website and reports of their performances in the united states.

which leads to the age-old debate: who are they to say what the public interest is anyway?

isn't it in the public interest to raise awareness for aids and hiv?
isn't it in the public interest to quit ostracizing the gay population?
isn't it in the public interest to understand & accept differing sexual leanings?

what? are gays suppose to go into hiding now?

does the government really think that not putting it out there will mean that there will be less of them, or that they will disappear altogether?

why not look past the sexual orientation of the performers?

why not treat everyone equal and look at the bigger picture -
at how this concert will increase awareness and raise funds for aids programmes,
at how it will allow more aids patients to accept themselves, and be accepted?


silly, myopic, homophobic bigots.


read also this , for a story from the other side of the "fence".

sometimes, it's as if you live in a separate universe -

one where i don't exist.

am starting full-time work on 1st april.

seems like quite a funny joke to me.

"what do you do with a pain so bad it has no redeeming value?

it cannot even be alchemized into art, into words, into something you can chalk up to an interesting experience because the pain itself, its intensity, is so great that it has woven itself into your system so deeply that there is no way to objectify it or push it outside or find its beauty within.

it's so bad, it's useless.

the only lesson ever derived from this pain, is how bad pain can be."

i have 2 red eyes and 20 red nails.
i look like a monster.

RRRAAAAAHHHHHH

"pass the pills and fancy plants

give us this day our daily trance"

didn't get to go for the action for aids ward visit on tuesday, as my contact there had something urgent crop up..

hopefully, i'll be able to go next week.


on a different note altogether, i'm thankful for the swim classes i'm teaching right now...other than the fact that they provide me with money to survive, they take up some of my time and prevent me from brooding 24-7.

i may call them my little monkeys, but my 3 kids on wednesday brightened up my otherwise gloomy day.

it's so nice being 8 years old - innocent, cheery and full of energy...it's so nice that these 3 monkeys gave me little cuddles, hankered me into playing with them after class, and made me feel so much better...even if it's just for that little while.


am going to start full-time work on 1st april. it's a rather horrifying thought - no matter how excited i am about the new job, the free time i've been having for the past few months will be sorely missed.

but it'll be good to get my mind filled up with work stuffs instead of all the emotional shit that has been swirling around in my head lately.

perhaps this is the end of a fairytale-gone-wrong. and the beginning of another story.

everyone says that you will "bounce back" from a downtime.

what? do people become balls after a bad episode?


*just thinking aloud

the ride has ended and i'm off the rollercoaster.

i guess i just have to dry the tears and get used to standing on the ground again.

i think i will be going ward visiting with action for aids tomorrow.

it's kinda daunting, seeing that i know so little about AIDS. AIDS is quite a taboo in our society, and i do fear that increased exposure to AIDS patients will give me AIDS.

as i told feng: i think the first thought i'll entertain is that of killing myself, if i ever find out that i have AIDS.

it just seems to be such a "terminating" infection - no cure, virus that slowly eats up your defenseless body, plus the social stigma and the discrimination etc...

i visited their website though, and googled for more information on AIDS...and i don't think it is THAT easily transmitted.

"casual social contact with persons infected with HIV or AIDS does not place others at risk. it has also been conclusively shown that HIV cannot be spread by things like sneezing, shaking hands, hugging etc."

so how is HIV spread? there're three ways:
1. semen, vaginal fluids, or blood during unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected person
2. sharing needles and syringes for intravenous drug use with an infected person
3. from infected mother to baby during pregnancy, child birth, or breastfeeding

i felt so sad reading the last one...

armed with this knowledge, i'm going to give it a shot, and visit the AIDS patients...learn more about the infection, and about the people it has infected.

my friend, who told me about these ward visits, spoke of how people infected by the virus can, with medication, keep it under control and lead normal lives - possibly even hiding their illness from everyone.

those who suffer are the poor, blue-collared majority of AIDS patients who don't have the money to foot the $1500-a-month medical bills, and who are not allowed to use their CPF to pay for medication.

it is a vicious cycle: they are infected, they need medication, but they can't pay for it, as they can't work, coz they don't have medication, so they get worse, and in the end, they are just lying there, waiting to die.

it is just so wrong, that these people can't lead fulfilling, normal lives just because they don't have the money to keep their infection under control, and under wraps.

yes, i know that life is unfair in many ways, and this is but just one of them...some people may think, oh serve them right for being promiscuous and stupid. well, it isn't just the whores and the gays who get infected.

there are the too-trusting girlfriends who had lying, cheating bastards for partners; there are the poor kids who got it just coz of a moment's folly; there are the uneducated who didn't know how to protect themselves... and etc etc etc.

i'm sure all of them didn't plan/want to get infected.

there has been big, aid-related hoohaa in the media recently, what with action for aids trying to raise awareness, and Balaji Sadasivan saying that an epidemiologist had suggested to him that the increase in HIV infections might be linked to the nation parties that are held every august at sentosa and that attract mostly gays.

it is appalling that our senior minister of state for health can make such an irresponsible sweeping statement. no amount of saying that "more research is needed" and that "it was just a hypothesis" will redeem him.

while a high percentage of HIV patients are gays, it does not give him the right to condemn "gay" parties and the gay society in such a way.

gays have already suffered enough because of the way many in society see their sexual preferences as deviating from the norm. while i don't deny to laughing at the extra-effeminate gays, and the way some of them are so over-the-top, i think they are still human beings who deserve respect and the right to lead their lives the way they want to.

hopefully this trip to the wards will open my eyes abit, to see the world of AIDS through (i hope) untainted glasses. and hopefully, i can do my part in raising awareness for the victims of not just the virus, but the social oppression.

i shall attempt to brush aside my self-centredness, to make living a little more enjoyable for those whose lives are more troubled than mine, and through that, make my life a little more meaningful.

"absence makes the heart grow fonder"?

my ass!


"out of sight, out of mind".

"give me a guy who stands silently back, but never loses track of me in a crowded room"

ok...so the story is out...the father was a gambler who lost loads of money and was tens of thousands of dollars in debt, according to their church's er...spokesman(?)...

see...the evils of gambling...i burst out laughing when the church guy went on about how gambling is bad...no offense, but he sounded like an anti-casino ad...the timing is uncanny, don't you think? what with all that debacle about whether we should have a casino in singapore...made it seem like some anti-casino group put them up to it.

gracie and i lived right next to crown casino when we were in melbourne. ( boohoo i miss our gorgeous apartment =( ) it was fun - the 24-hour entertainment, food and shopping - a part of the city that never slept.

but there was the dark side - the great unwashed who haunted the casino, the ones who lost all time trying to win back their lives, the ones who gambled their tuition fees away, and the brawls of the drunks and the desperates.

those were not pretty sights, and i think they are the same in every casino.

no matter how much you try to control things, no matter how many stringent guidelines are in place, gambling is an evil that can completely take over the minds of those who don't watch themselves. it is so easy to get all swept up in the adrenaline of winning, the hope of recooping your losses. the lights, the people, the hustle and bustle.

the surreal timelessness inside a casino can, and has, held many imprisoned.

but of course, the presence of a casino can boost our economy, aid the tourism industry, and provide some new form of entertainment on the island. plus, maybe it's better that singaporeans lose their heads (and money) in their home-casino, rather than in some overseas building of doom.

either way...the house will always win.

just heard about the demise of four people in tampines - a man who fell to his death; and, found lying faces-up in an apartment, a thirty-something year old woman with marks on her neck, a four-year-old and a twelve-year-old.

they were reported to have been dressed nicely in "going-out" clothes.

it is tragic that such a thing happened, and it led me into thinking that there must have been some problems, and the man (probably the dad) killed his family before jumping to his death.

but i don't want to assume anything until the "true story" emerges (reports say that a note was found in the apartment).

regardless of what led to such an unfortunate ending, it is sad to think that this family (if it is a family) has ceased to exist. i don't know anything about them, and i may have never seen them, but i see many similar family make-ups - a group of people, entwined by fate, trying to survive as best they can in this big bad world.

their last moments must have either been so terrifying, or such a relief. to have seen the hopelessness in living, to have lost all will, to have desperately felt the need to leave.

life is no bed of roses, and everyone faces their own problems. from friends and family, and from my own little experiences, i see how the stress of living in this world leaves many people feeling dejected, in disarray, in despair.

but i also see how, with the help of everyone, circumstances can change. having a support network is vital - a ear to pour troubles into, a shoulder to cry on, two arms for warmth.

a simple thing - the human touch - is still so very important in this so-called modern world. and it is something that technology can only assist in, but never replace.

to everyone, anyone, who is feeling down, moody, or at the end of your tethers: don't give up. things can only look up and get better, if you're already at the bottom of the wheel. there is always someone out there, just waiting to listen, waiting to help. there will always be hope.

as long as you allow it.

as a disclaimer, i'd like to make it clear that my previous blog was not about any particular person, but about how i've been treated sometimes, and how i sometimes treat those who love me.

at times of anger, i do flare up and i do not have good control over myself sometimes.

it is as much a fault in myself, as it is in many people.

thanks for the concern my dears, but i really am fine and no one has bullied me.

"forget it"

famous last words. but it's never easy to just "forget it" is it?

after all that has been said and done, a simple "forget it" doesn't automatically clear the slate. every hurtful comment will still be etched in your mind, and the pain will still linger in your heart.

it is not about being petty. it is about how some words, said by some people, have the ability to wound deeper than any sword can.

at times of frustration and annoyance, perhaps it is better to exercise some self-control, to avoid saying some things that one will regret. when fury takes over, perhaps it is better to move aside, till clear thinking returns.

deliberately hurting someone in a moment of weakness just shows how you are desperately seeking to feel that little bit of power, to make yourself feel that little bit less lost, to make someone feel worse than you do.

but it's all at the expense of a loved one who is reaching out to go through it all with you.

is it worth it?

i was watching a telecast of the recent chingay on tvmobile a few days ago, and as the credits rolled on, one name caught my eye: SALMON.

no offence, but why anyone would want to name themselves after a fish is beyond me.

zoe tay just named her son braydon, which is suppose to mean "brave" but it kinda sounds like a donkey to me.

oh but who am i to say anything, i've got a sister named FAWN. (who sometimes calls herself PRAWN hahaha)


animals aside, we have gwyneth paltrow's apple, frank zappa's moon unit, and jamie oliver's daisy-boo and poppy-honey.

and of course, my dad named me zenn.


weird names galore!!!

many of my friends look at me in disbelief when i say that my sis is already in JC.

they still picture her as the little midget with baby fat, no front teeth, and two ponytails...sitting in the back of the car whenever my mum comes to pick me up.

but yup...she has grown! she's still a midget, with baby fat and two ponytails, but with two front teeth this time, and even though she's still in the backseat when my mum comes to pick me up, she's no longer in the "babychair".

she's in J1 and proud of it. she never fails to remind me that, in JC terms, i'm already a J7.

while a huge part of me still feels like i'm 16, photos attest to the fact that i have....erm...MATURED... and foolish behaviours aside, i believe that i have indeed grown - physically, mentally, and everything-else-ly...

sometimes, it's just scary how it all seems to go by so quickly, and so silently.

my home phone rang NON-STOP yesterday...it hasn't worked so hard since i got my handphone (muahaha)

none of the calls were for me though (damn, and i thought i was popular!)...they're all relatives and friends calling to find out how my sis did for her O levels!!! yeap...nothing like the big RELEASE of the results to get the phone a-ringaling!

and i'm happy to announce, that my smartypants sis scored a fantabulous 6 points (without even deducting CCA points and whatnots)...EIGHT A1s and THREE A2s!!! (she was gunning for 11A1s...but we figured it's not cool to be a top student) muahaha

she's even in the newspapers! go look in today's Straits Times, first page of the Sports Section. Under the heading "Top Student Athletes"...

you see it? you see it??? FAWN SOON, smartypants, only athlete who took on 11 subjects.

ahhh so proud i can cry......now for the celebratory meal!!! wahaha