and i just want to thank you

i am so immensely thankful to my friends. i really feel an absolute devotion to them. part of yesterday and today was so much fun. surely a great start to our mid term break from all things educational.

i had a pretty average exam saturday morning and because of my sleep deprived state i wasn't too thrilled to go collect our black eyed peas concert tickets with Shashin in Orchard but it turned out quite good actually. after picking up the tickets, we did a bit of shopping and i picked up a shirt from Top Man. kinda preppy shirt but i really liked it so what the hell ah? had dinner at swenson's and then came back to campus.

within 45 minutes, got dressed for drinks. drank some vodka and bacardi with byron, malinda, shavanka, nadeeka, harjote, shashin, buhary, mizran and mustafa. then left for Gotham Penthouse around 12.30am. met up with ash, fazil, shines, sujan and rakhil there. there was a bottle of black label so the alcohol was flowing quite smoothly and it was interspersed with at least 4 shots of tequila. i don't quite remember everything. then left for Attica which was quite good since cousin was there, but don't remember much of anything there either. ooops. left at around 4.45am to go have supper at Newton. the mee-goreng was really spicy and i'm really happy i can remember that. waited till 6am so that cab fares would be cheaper and shashin left back to campus whereas i cabbed it to fazil's cousin's apartment where sujan, shines, fazil and ash were chillin. had a bit more alcohol there and shot the shit for a bit. all obscene things and all things connected to masturbation, penis length and girth and god knows what else. i said god and penis length in the same sentence; going to hell for sure.

so me and shines came back to her apartment around 8am. crashed out on the bed. woke up around 1pm with a roaring headache. called a few million people but ended up talking to only pavs and ani. took some panadol and just conked out until 5.30pm. pavs came over, i showered and we left for parkway parade. had dinner at swenson's (again!) and walked around a bit. just fun to chill. then went to east coast park, sat outside coffee bean and had.... guess what... coffee. such interesting talk we had lah. all about scandalous break-ups between friends, about cute kids and i honestly don't know what else. then we took a walk to the beach where we sat down again and admired the beyootiful views of the ocean, the sky, the moon and the streaks of smoke made by taking off- and arriving airplanes. the whole package was quite mesmerizing. well, we talked about revirginisation, turtle eggs, cute turtle babies, dirty sex/almost-sex secrets, potential fun plans of hanging out for a solid 2 hours at least. then took a cab and came back home. 24-fricking hours later after i left my room. shock!

anyhow, SUCH a good day. hanging with shines and pavs today made the hangover, the excessive hair on my face, dirty boxers and acidic stomach seem totally insignificant and not much a problem. u gotta love it (them).

starburst

I have a photo frame right beside my laptop on my desk. The frame is translucent blue with a starburst of silver glitter and stars around where the photo should go. Of course, right now, it wouldn't look that great coz of all the dust but that's because I got it right before coming to university... which was three, yes, three years back.

It was given to me by mum's friend as a going away and good luck present. It came with loads of yummy lebanese desserts but the frame is what I really appreciated. I knew exactly what photograph would go in it, one of my sister and myself at our house on the day of my going-away party. That photo was there for an entire two years. Only then did I discover one with both my parents in it on what was their pseudo-honeymoon.

They are both lying down in a hammock somewhere in either Kashmir or Ooty and my mum looks shy. She has this peculiar upside-down smile which looks beautifully naughty. It was a time when she was free of all burdens in life with a man she was slowly beginning to love. My dad, a man I am afraid and regret I never knew is sitting beside her not looking particularly happy or sad but with a blank look of shock as if he doesn't know why or who is taking the photograph.

I wish I knew what was going through his mind. We can never know what another is thinking but we all pretend to because we've known them long enough to understand how they think, and what that facial-twitch or frown or smile means. We've got mental signposts based on years of experience. But I never had it. Don't get me wrong here, I don't miss him, I don't feel any particular love for him but I would have liked to know how a father would have changed my life. I want to miss him and I want to love him over and above that self-imposed obligatory love one must have for family members but it's just not possible. I just think it's unfair that so many people knew him and his own son never did. It's so ironic or surreal or whatever word that can be used in this kind of situation.

So there the photoframe sits, with its simple, natural, naïve photograph meticulously pasted in it. I take no notice of it at all most of the time but it sits there patient and bursting with love. A growing, young love for each other, for their respective families, for gulab-jamun, for goat brain, for paneer tikka, for the child that is growing inside my ma and all the love they showered on me when I was born.

I'm so lucky and I don't even fucking know it.

you know how i feel.... and i know how i feel

so tell me? do you regret anything from your past? coz surely, everyone has a past.

who gives a fuck whether it's in an 'interesting' past or not? it's still your past; no one else's.

really, no, tell me, any regrets? no regrets at the moment, but things come back... to haunt you, to taunt you, to bite you in the ass.

that bites. oh boy does it suck. listen to some oasis. it will make you feel better.

maximise your potential today. exploit your every opportunity. cannot be done dude, we live abstract lives shrouded in everything but rationality. we cannot touch our sadness, we cannot feel our feelings, we cannot stoke our irrationality.

it's a fine balance. sorry. a lifetime of regrets spread before you and no idea of what they are, only knowing, that they will be there, littering the ordinary, beautiful landscapes of routine.

blue balls

everybody I have been in contact with since I came back to Singapore has noticed at one auspicious time or another that I have been cranky and have been lapsing into periods of very awkward silences. Well that has passed! I feel cheerful these days; there seems to be no need for me to be unsociable. You know why? Because, when I do feel unsociable, I am perfectly happy sitting in my room watching a movie, chatting, studying, drinking coffee and smoking. I feel no obligation to go out and hang with friends if I don't want to. I think my problem before was that I always went out and immersed myself in company even when I knew perfectly well I would end up having a miserable time. I know exactly how it works. First, I feel tired, then some sort of resentment towards present company (however unjustified), then periods of zoning out, then periods of making an effort, then a headache and then full-blown anger towards the people I am with. And most of the time, the anger just stays in but when it comes out, I am snappish, mean, rude, below-the-belt. Oh I know this will sound sexist, but its exactly how sooo many of girlfriends are when they have their period.

It's never good to treat a friend like some kind of sounding board, but it helps time to time. I would hate people treating me like a punching bag, but there are degrees to which I can be pushed to accept and this is perfectly fine if I can have this privilege too. Ha Ha.

On a side-note, I just finished watching the eighth episode of the final season of Six Feet Under. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkk. It's sad. I cried. I went to the HBO site and read the synopses of the rest of the episodes too and I cried more. I feel like I've lost a family because this series is the best show I've ever watched (withSATCbitch) and has taken me through some good times while I've been in NUS. It's also been a conversation topic with a few of my bestest friends. I want to sob again. I am bereaved. I need help. Psychiatric help.

On another side-note, my roommate always knocks on the door whenever I start masturbating. I haven't had any relief in dayyssss! I'm horny as fuck. I'm hoping I get some tomorrow. Some real, unadulterated fun!!!!!! woo hoo!!!

balls of light

Friday was a good day. It started off quite underwhelmingly even though I should have been feeling a bit more nervous. You see, I had a test on Marketing Research and my mind was very badly muddled with the differences between concepts, constructs, extraneous variables, intervening variables and other such shite. But, I wasn't feeling it, it being the usual nervousness I feel when this confusion has the potential to confuse me, fail me. Instead, I flipped through the book with ease, which might be taken as a sign of great confidence but really the only way I could be ignorant of what I had not studied..... Anyhow, the class was pretty good and the test was... confusing but I think I did pretty well.

I met up with Nadeeka and Shashin for lunch after that. It was a very minimalistic lunch. I mean the food was alright, the conversation pretty sparse but I think we all left quite content. I think it's that time of the semester when you realize that leisurely lunches are not all that much of a necessity and lunch is not something you plan other events, more mundane events around but rather something you fit into a schedule. squeeze it in because you don't want to grab a curry puff, chocolate bar or some other unhealthy thing for something as sacred and so motherly-infused as lunch.

Came back, slept for a measely one and a half hours and then went for a meeting. I have joined a marketing plan competition for a brand of sanitary napkins called Kotex Dri-Comfort. We need to plan a year's marketing communications campaign for the brand with a budget of SG$500,000. It's very interesting work but I can totally forsee these meetings taking their toll on me and my haphazard schedule where I like to keep entire periods of time free so that I can possibly chill, zone out or meet up with friends. Hell, I shouldn't be complaining since this is what I hope to do in the long term. The meeting went for a very short time, after which I went home and slept for another 1 hour to keep my spirits up for........ Pavs' Dinner Party.

This girl and her flatmates put on one hell of a party. First and foremost, the apartment was in impeccable condition. The apartment is beautiful and these girls have nicely done it up. What struck me most and still does, is Pavs' room. It's very understated. The only thing remotely ostentatious about the room is the purple/pink balls of light she's hung on her wall. It's beautiful and it totally brings out everything else in the room. The pictures of her and her family, her bed, her curtains take on a completely different tone and colour because of these balls of light and it makes me feel like a child again. I am fascinated by light, especially lights of different colours in the dark. I am reminded of days in Colombo during Vesak when my uncle takes us out to see the pandols and the lanterns adorning the city. Every conceivable colour in every possibile receptacle of light splashed everywhere. I love it. In my garden back home, in the old house (now, it's been converted to concrete to accommodate our fucking vehicles), we had a custard apple tree and a frangipani tree. On these trees we used to hang small paper lanterns with a candle in each of them. My heart used to burn, when the lanterns caught fire because the wind was too strong. I used to love coming out in the night to just stare at these blurs of light (if you scrunch up your eyes) the same way I used to crawl under our Christmas tree at night to take in the aroma of the pine and bathe in the iridescent light.

Chh. I digress. The entire apartment was set in darkness with only a few spots of light, graciously provided by candles set around the place. The liquor flowed, the music loud as shit, the food slowly but steadily getting over and the crowd absolutely raucous and disgraceful in their behaviour. I don't understand how my friends... FRIENDS.. and I can just touch each other, grind with each other and still be as platonic as we are. It just feels comfortable and natural and quite hilarious. We have no boundaries and it might or might not come back to haunt us in the future but right now, I put my friends up there on a well-deserved pedestal.

So we slowly got drunk on wine, vodka and Bacardi and countless repetitions of the elephunk theme, striptease and galang. Also, we drank everyone else’s alcohol. After getting done with that, we bought another bottle and selfishly kept it hidden from everyone so only we had access to it. In that inebriated state, we entertained someone not usually in our group and some accusations were made against me. I don’t want to go into it right now, but if you think I spread rumours, then think again, because even though I gossip like an old Sindhi lady, my gossip is purely directed towards people I know, love and trust implicitly. My offended sensibilities slowly took in more alcohol and before I knew it, I was having fun again.

I shudder to think of what we did to Pavs’ room. We spilt alcohol, coke, cigarette ash and sugary syrup all over. I would never have been able to take it but the beautiful owner of the beautiful room was too busy looking for a phone that was believed to be stolen but was actually lying a foot away from her. Quite hilarious but how can I possibly afford to talk? I once, went up to random people in a club and asked them to look for my room key which I thought I had lost. Eventually, after asking about a thousand people about it, I realized I had given it to my friend for safekeeping. Some of these random people turned out to be Sri Lankans and after that, I have forever been branded as the useless fucker who’s a cheap drunk. Anyway, that is not the point. We were too fucked to care about anything else at that point and we happily set off to Club Momo.

For once, the guys, Anirudh and Myself, got in free while the girls had to pay. Sexism is back in fashion. Yay. Club was disappointing, so after a while we just sat outside, talking about a certain someone and referring in that context to one particular commandment set out in that all-consuming, all-empowering book called the Bible. We also ate some of the oiliest fried chicken which turned out to be fucking tasty. After that, we parted and came home. Ashanie was drunk, Anirudh coming out of some haze hanging around him (call it the happiness, totally not underwhelmed haze) and myself, angry with God knows whatever reason. Went back to room and did mundane things like check email, brush teeth, listen to some non-party music and then I slept like a fucking baby.

So all in all, minus the accusation, this party was a roaring, disgustingly drunk success. And now since, I was interrupted while typing this post and am now typing this 4 hours after I started it, I have totally forgotten the tone I wanted to end this post with.

So, bye.