What are the chances? 2:55 am

What are the chances?

what are the chances of a song that says what you never had guts to say? what are the chances.

KATE MONSTER (from Avenue Q sings)

There's a fine, fine line
Between a lover and a friend
And there's a fine, fine line
Between reality and pretend
And you never know 'til you reach the top
If it was worth the uphill climb
There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time

There's a fine, fine line
Between a fairytale and a lie
And there's a fine, fine line
Between "you're wonderful" and "goodbye"
I guess if someone doesn't love you back
It isn't such a crime
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time


And I don't have the time to waste on you any more
I don't think you even know what you're looking for
For my own sanity I've got to close the door
And walk away

There's a fine, fine line
Between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line
Between what you wanted and what you got
You gotta go after the things you want
While you're still in your prime
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time

photos courtesy of deviantart.com

Uncle T

Old friends, simple warmth 2:34 am

Old friends, Simple warmth.

The simple warmth. And all it took was 3 hours with them.

The old friends visited today. Having graduated and moved on into the realm of the corporate whirlpool, the bunch decided to switch their corporate collars for reminiscing and a good time; they came back to university. They came home.

All I had was 3 hours with them. Just 3. Nothing more. Yet, I still hear them lingering in my room. Laughing, smiling.


We shopped at Costcutters for drinks, ordered oily oily fried chicken take-out, walked back to my flat jesting. Lazed in my room, flipped photos, played with matches, chatted. Just basking in the company. We chugged down what seemed like an eternity of fried chicken and Coke. My tiny room turned into a cosy gathering of familiars.

Why? Why is it that I always get this easy, simple warmth with this bunch; without the feeling of being judged on what you say or do? Just being. Just happy. Where is your happy bunch? I can only hope to find this simple warmth more often; just being, without the fear of judgment.

All I had was 3 hours with them. Just 3. Nothing more; old friends, simple warmth.

just3.nothing more.

Uncle T

"Its Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas..." 5:31 am

"Its Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas..."

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Nat King Cole's voice lingers through the small warm room of mine at Hurst. With fairy lights framing my window, the darkness beyond the panes lies darkness and white snow.

It snowed today. In October. This shall be my final winter before returning graduating. All the nostalgia rush back, of that magical feeling I had when I first saw snow fall in Tocil Warwick 2 years ago. I recalled that night, jumping out into the snow in my PJs. Today, I was in a coat when I casually walked into the snow.

Something is different this time. Even whilst Senior Minister of State and his Foreign Affairs aides were literally jumping for joy on a snowy visit to Warwick today, I just smiled to myself. No jumping into the snow, just a smile.

Some might claim its the age catching up with me. Really? Perhaps I've learnt to appreciate a different kind of joy. A quiet joy. An elation that spreads warmly across your body and leads to a smile.

Well, putting all that aside, its just nice to reminiscent about the slips and falls of the aftermath of snow, and the amazing child-like joy as the snow just gently fall on your coat and you just see them melt away. I was just walking through campus last week for my annual autumn tour of Warwick. And just a week later, the autumn leaves have given way for the white blankets of snow.

Wouldn't it be nice just to tumble in the snow with the love of your life?

Humbling white on royal autumn. As my friend puts it, miracles do happen.

photo courtesy of sam eng

Uncle T

that familiar feeling 8:22 am

that familiar feeling...

you hold it back. it gurgles. soon you are drowning. its one of those evenings. that familiar feeling...

You get shouted at, made to feel you're not worth it. Worst, all this done amongst equals. Do people know the lethality of their words? Is it not so convenient to spew it out? But they shall never know the damage done.

They never shall know that the urge to tear their face apart was subdued by the other. And then the onus is on you to learn to forgive. How cruel life gets.

You work hard. Giving what your body can give. Then that all comes to naught when words fly from the mouth. Just so simple to rob you of all that. Too simple. And you try to walk the higher path; you take it all in. This injustice flung your way, you supposedly take it in your stride as what you should do. And all is meant to be forgotten.

Fuck. Is that justice? But its the path I've taken. It always has been. If I stood up I may have bitten, bitten hard. And then I turn the bad guy. Nice. Is that justice?

No.

But its the path I've decided to take. Its not easy, but we all try don't we?

Uncle T

When was the last time...? 5:59 am

When was the last time...?

When was the last time someone ever called me generous?

This evening. By a stranger.

It is one of those compliments that has lost itself in our vocabulary of "nice" and "cool". A compliment that carries so much sincerity and thought. One that we should share more with the people around that deserve a compliment as this.

Generous. To share and not to count the cost, to give and not to seek reward.

If only I were.

Uncle T

Swirling Oxymorons 8:00 am

Swirling Oxymorons

Slowly the concrete makes way for pavements of autumn leaves.

The autumn leaves, swirling oxymorons.

Uncle T

An amazing process: Gift-giving 4:32 pm

An amazing process: Gift-giving

Gift-giving is an amazing process. Yes, a process that has in-built notions of rights and freedoms, as well as benefiting both giver and receiver. Especially in this age of consumerism and commercialisation, where corporates "guide" gift-giving patterns and seasons, it is no better time to ponder upon this process.

A friend casually mentioned how amazing this CD was but he didn't want to get it because it cost GBP10. It was a passing comment. Then whilst I was at Tesco's on a seperate shopping mission, I came across the CD and somehow my mind instantaneously made the link that this was the CD that would make my friend happy. So without thinking much, motivated only by that irrational desire to make my friend happy, I bought it.

Wrapped in beautifully environmentally unfriendly Tesco's bag, I gave my friend the CD. He couldn't believe it, that he got a gift out of the blue for no reason. His sheepish embarrassment made me embarrassed momentarily. And so, in line with my glorious attempts of one-liners in this country, I replied with a "So?" when he said: "Eh why you give me? My birthday next year leh".

Gift-giving indeed has been patterned, both on the balance sheets of corporate companies as well as in our psyche, that there are appropriate times and occasions to give gifts. These are set nearly in social concrete. It is sad how gift-giving, once an expression of free-will to voluntary give one's own property to another, has fallen prey to the corporates.

Where has the spirit of giving? Can Christmas not be the whole year round? Must it be Christmas only when the departmental stores scream "Christmas Sales!"? I surely re-found the wonderful joy of giving gifts, and it is all the sweeter when its least expected.

Why not let's try giving gifts the next time we can? No need for a special occasion. Just give. From the heart.



Uncle T

Ironically the saddest is the most beautiful.

It is starting to get dark early. My final autumn before returning to perennial tropics. The happy autumn breeze is giving way to an impatient wintery wind.

Uncle T

It's Back, Smiling. 7:36 am

its back, smiling.

its back. that feeling.
that sticks to your skin like
revolting sweat in the tropics.
that familiar stench,
the familiar irk.

yet i like it.
like how massages feel
repulsive yet soothing.
i smile at it, yet
i wish to tear from
seething just below the skin.

it smiles back.
i want to lash out but
i'm bound by social ropes.
it smiles in my face,
i can feel its breathe
yet cannot gnarl back like
an itching sore on your back.



Uncle T

Walking Oxymorons 7:05 am

walking oxymorons...

Are we not all walking oxymorons? Or the very least we are often oxymorons at some point.

Arrogantly humble, timidly brave, happily sad, hating to love, stupidly smart...

But do people know that they are oxymorons? That there is hardly any clarity of black and white, that we all thread amidst the massive grey?

Uncle T

It Never Leaves 4:33 pm

It Never Leaves.

the night never leaves.
it quietly finds
recesses in our hearts
but it never leaves.

it merely gives way
to the sun.
but it never leaves.

o moon, o melancholy, o sweet romance!

Uncle T

What Makes Me Tick?

Plugged into my little world created by Chet Baker's soothing voice and trumpet, I walked from room to lecture theatre. Its cold. Winter beckons. The wind finds its way through the threads of the fabric.

I meet someone familiar; I smile and move on quickly. Then another. And another. Chet, take me away faster. Familiar faces, quick smiles. Some trees are shedding the last of their leaves. Winter beckons.

Soon I was smiling without conscious effort to familiar faces, more like a Pavlov response than a sincerity that is meant to be attached to a smile. I was only caught up in one question: what makes me tick?

What makes me tick? What makes you tick?

I'm so afraid once I return to permanently live in Singapore, I will fall into a rut, one that catches you and tends not to let you go. A rut, due to locality or just permanence? A rut that finds hard to shake off the inertia to try new things, go out and discover, putting yourself through the baptismal fires of self-reflection, a rut that will make me yearn for my days here in Warwick. A rut that I have seen some friends fallen into upon returning home to Singapore.

As I near the doors to the lecture hall, my mind could only grasp one solution for now: find what makes me tick, what makes me passionate, what makes me want to disregard meals, skip temptations to laze, what makes me want to lose sleep over. Once I identify that, I will ensure the activities and people I surround myself back home will continue to be in-sync with this rudiment.

I could be totally wrong, yet totally right. As the lecturer's voice booms through the air, I reluctantly remove my earphones, and Chet Baker, and settle into lecture on theories of justice and with a momentary resolve to find what makes me tick.

What makes me tick? What makes you tick?

Uncle T

Sigh of the falling human 7:07 pm

Sigh of the falling human...

Ever since keyboards took over pen and paper by storm, people have stopped writing letters as much.

With the backspace and delete keys, people put less thought before they pen (or rather type) their thoughts.


With informality creeping into our languages, metaphors are slowly being shelved for short-forms. The beauty of languages are fast becoming an obsolete and uncool obsession. Rather, other beauties have taken centre stage, led by emaciated young models and the likes of our modern world.

I miss the appreciation of words, regardless of the language. When people stop to think before expressing themselves, verbally or in writing. I miss the appreciation of values and morals, which have been relegated to mere satirical devices on TV (like Little Britain perhaps) and movies.

this picture is from deviantart.com

This is the sigh of the falling human.

Uncle T

The Autumn Leaves 7:14 pm

With the full-frontal view of autumn leaves here in Warwick, I read on about the latest subtle strategy of Northern imperialism of the South.

But all my mind falls back to are academically senseless thoughts, but thoughts I'll rather dwell in. Don't you too?

...about the painting I was working at 3am this morning. Oh how I wish I could get back to that now, with the autumn leaves in company on the park bench, hands on my lap.

...about how friends at home are changing; becoming bitches, getting married, hating new bits of the world they thought they loved.

...about the Brooklyn as I stubbornly stay in the company of coffee machines; the smell of coffee beans ground, the hiss of the steamer of the machines, the tills going "ting". I want to be a coffee maker.

...about my friend whom I met yesterday in London. She wants to be a writer, and I know she will be a great writer, if only the world will give her a chance, and if only she gave herself that chance too.

Yup. Thinking about everything that is academically senseless; that's blasphemy for a student isn't it? What do you think about that is wonderfully senseless, that you're not supposed to but want to?

Do tell.




Uncle T

The Latest Non-Solution from Capitol Hill 4:20 pm

Democracy gets in the way...?

Capitol Hill finally came up with a rescue plan, pumping in $700b into the ailing capitalist economy, already an embarrassing about turn of the Washington-Consensus pride. And now, one house of the lauded American bicameral democracy, can't seem to agree on the plan that is essentially America making-up for its corporate greed that has forced global markets into a plummet.

Some may argue this is democracy at its best, preventing a Republican government from abusing its power. But some, and rightly so, have argued that this has sunk to the base wrangling of domestic politics in the light of the American elections. And if the real reason is the latter, which we might never know, I am terribly disappointed; where the American elections has fallen to become the playground of narcissists, with the world suffering from it.

Capitalistic Plague: The Real Economy Affected

Imagine ambitious investment bank, headquartered in New York. Greedy to get balance sheets to look impressive, so shares can go up, so their dividends go up and so do their bonuses. Along comes risky securitised mortgages which equally ambitious rating agencies say are "investment-grade". Investment bank takes on this risk, unsurprisingly risk fails, bank goes bankrupt.

Now, car manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, toy-makers, food manufacturers etc are paying for this greed and ambition because of the inter-connected global market.

This great big invention of liberal capitalism has now become a plague.

Uncle T