On rainy days like these the mind wanders, turning pale-like and translucent. Thin, filmy and shimmering like a mysterious, see-through shroud. Is it obvious when my eyes stare out the window, seemingly oblivious to the world? Is it obvious when I smile, for it is an honest smile marred with a tinge of aching hope, unsure yet whether it has occasion to smile so honestly, so betrayingly. So in between an undecided smile and unseeing eyes, the details become vivid and beautiful. The way the air is suffused with rain and excitement, like little pellets of anticipation dominating every particle I breathe. It’s like a secret sense, forming yet another layer deep inside, hidden and unknown to others and driving you mad with hesitant pleasure…

Amused to report that this blog is the proud winner of a hardrock fm quiz! Vitri was listening to the station, they were checking out people's blogs for best blogs and she urged me to send them my address, which i did. Then i completely forgot the whole thing. Two weeks later, got an sms and well, apparently we won! (we = the blog and i)
So i got two tickets to the movies, premier of wicker park, pretty good movie for a freebie :) Well done !

The euphoria has dwindled down and left me with the shapeless residue you find at the bottom of the cup.
The shades have shifted from confusion to dejection, and finally indifference. I never was one to stay in stagnant conditions. But the next time it comes, I’ll be so easy. So very easy I’ll wonder if it’s cheap. But being true to yourself is rare… and immaterially expensive. Life will flow and curve gently around bends… and I will yieldingly follow… flowing and gushing and rushing and sparkling and, letting it awaken me or kill me. Just for this special occasion, allow me to be irrational. Allow me to harbour impossible dreams. Allow me to go against the grain. Allow me to fall in love, if that’s what it is.
Mediocrity is a crime, don’t you think ?

dinner (main course), talk, and a coupla drinks...
so it was, and so it turned out to be one of those rare conversations you don't really want to end, sipping wine and talking of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings, err.. unliterally speaking.
He had a lovely smile.

exhale

*stretch*
oh, this is such a luxurious feeling, waking up, feeling fresh, and thinking, "now what do i do?" Absolutely sublime ! i've decided to watch a dvd, about five of them are piling up untouched since... last semester or something. I'm waiting for the results, meanwhile planning to make the most of this void space in time before judgement day.
And preparing myself for the worst.

so now i write. i have nothing more to lose.
Nothing more to fight for, nothing more to keep me in constant suspense and agitation.
did i do my best, did i try my best? I think i did.
Was i the best? i doubt it. I can't figure anything out, i can't measure my chances. There's nothing to do but wait.
And if i don't make it, I'll be ready. ---> i made it !! :) Jessup team 2005 !


jazznite

by the way... ini foto waktu manggung perdana di Zoom... hehe
It was one of those kamikaze things you need to do every now and then :D

like a reel my mind flashes back
dropping memories into my pool of thought
with an icy cold splash awakening
with a bottomless sound echoing
but i close my eyes and cling to you
and the world shrinks, wrapping itself tightly around us
shredding its cold debris, dispersing like dust
warming, breathing, and releasing...
you didn't let me lose you
you didn't let me feel the pain...
is this fair ?

a torpor came over me and i was left in the dark
i might have slept, who knows?
through the open window the cold dawn
shrouded my pain with a blanket of rain

hope, you died too soon
longing, so soon you arrived
when one leaves, the other's not far behind
to cry?.... if i have no tears
heart, why don't you stop?

last one standing

now. it's late and i just got back. hellishly tired, not enough sleep. but good. busy. challenging.
do i care ? i do. but i don't have time to care. i push it down, deep... and focus on issues at hand. Concrete, solvable issues. things you can answer. things you can actually explain. and at the end of the day, it doesn't even haunt my dreams... sleep is too precious and short to provoke dreams.

she wants to go to her little corner and cry
she doesn't know why...
they thought she was intimidatingly strong
that she'd prove everybody was wrong
she walked like she owned the earth
her constant smile is full of mirth
but deep inside her fragile heart
her soul is being torn apart...

Mais uma luz
Uma luz a mais na cidade
Penso em voce
Sonho maior da realidade
Se vivo sozinho
E pra seguir meu proprio caminho
Tente entender quem sou
Tao desigual em tudo
Que voce quer que eu seja
Mais uma luz.

One more light
One light more in the city
I think about you
A dream greater than reality
If I live alone
It’s to follow my ways
Try to understand who I am
I’m always the opposite of your expectations
One more light.

Life is a coagulation of complex strategies. It becomes that way after a while, after about.. say, twenty years. When choices are no longer limited to doing or not doing, saying or not saying. It’s always too late to turn back and too early for drastic changes. There’s always a cause for the cause and a consequence for the consequence.
Hit me and I’ll bruise, stab me and I’ll bleed, but perhaps I won’t die.
Perhaps she would love the pain that spreads and exaggerates itself like a venom,
stinging her and awakening her to the fact that she is still alive.
She picks herself up, dusts herself off and starts all over again.
And in between she feels, FEELS ! the splendour and pleasure of feeling,
if only to feel pain, rather than become a numb white futuristic doll,
perfect beyond sanity.
She digs her own graves, cries her own drowning pools,
and laughs at the funny irony of life, and love,
and laughter itself.
Kiss me, and I will bloom for you, glow for you.
Slowly unravel, and reveal layers.. and layers.. and layers of coagulated complexities, individually simple, and absurdly frail.
She would challenge you, knowing you would not dare.
She would not challenge you, knowing you may not be worth it if you do not dare.
She would scorn you, and hate you, and love you.
Then she would laugh, brokenly, at the funny irony of life, and love.
And she would go to sleep with you on her mind, acting as if she cared about the world

Saturday night clubhopping. I mean literally.
We started from Centro, moved to Embassy after making a pitstop at Banana Café, and finished off at Club Monaco.
Only because my sophisticated friends managed to get freepasses to all 3 clubs. Only because it was a girls night out.
A month ago I wouldn’t have imagined myself clubhopping. But there you go, life is strange.
All places are identical, really. They may boast different atmospeheres, different music, different dj’s, but when you’re in a club, you’re in a club. You’re in a place that’s dark with blinking laser lights that allow you to see in blinks, with cigarette smoke densely formulating in the atmosphere. With music that thumps and sends vibrations to your chest until you can no longer distinguish your heart beat and the beat of the music. With people, moving and doing their thing in their respective narrow spaces in the crowd, some oblivious to all except the music, some rather awkward and self-consciously. The dancing, the drinking, the release from inhibition. The occasional guy who gives you 'the look' and starts dancing his way towards you, moving along to your rhythm and finally leaning over to shout a pick-up line in your ear.

Left the club at 3, slept late into the morning. Washed out, unsuccessfully, the smell of smoke out of my hair. Sat in the morning sunlight eating peanut butter toast, listening to the brazillian jazz sounds of Eliane Elias.
I’d trade all the freepasses in the world for a moment like this.

New habit this semester, every subject dealing with international law gives us tasks in which we are to translate and summarize given english articles on international law, every time we have class. My main concern is I won’t be able to skip class at all. Tragic!
It’s the new Dean, supportive and visionary proffessor who feels students majoring in international law should know what they’re getting themselves into, they say daunting books if you’re lucky, written in the most unpractical english if you’re unlucky. So should students think ‘shit I can’t do this’, they’d best think it at the very beginning of the semester so that they could still bail out. The new system has successfully driven away a few people from int’l law, in the course of two days. Not surprised, after the single page article we had to summarize today took more than an hour to complete, half an hour spent in privately discussing what it actually meant. Personally, I’d rather blame the intelligent scholar who wrote the damn thing for not using plain english. On a more serious note, it is rather fun and challenging... god I’m going to regret saying that.

Wrote this in highschool, 5 years ago

It’s the effort that makes you cringe away from its inconstant beauty.
You wake up and find it staring, glowering at you like a deadline,
telling you to wake up and appreciate it
(and get snappy coz it doesn’t last forever)
And if it’s a game, why should I appreciate it?
And if it’s a dream, why should I be living in it?
And if it’s a process to get “there”, why should I go there?
If I surpassed its bounds, a sinner I would be.
And yet I am a free soul.
Boundless. Relentless.
Sinless?
Look but don’t touch.
Touch, but don’t taste
Taste, but don’t feel
Feel, but don’t enjoy
Enjoy, but not too much
Because we are free sinners.

I’ve come a long way since then, finding answers along the way.
Important to refresh my mind on that because… I’m twenty and a hell of a lot of challenges are coming my way.
Musn’t get carried away.
(hey, that rhymes..)

He said..
"...I dont know Teez... sometimes I feel that You're just too good to be true! I even think that I'm not worthed at all... I mean, there you are... so high, and so PERFECT! while here I am.., moaning.. cryin' my life, disgusted to look on my own reflection!I love thee, Teez... but I dont know if I deserve someone like you... I dont know if I could level you.. I'm not running away, I'm just scared... that's all..."

I've been thinking about it for a while and... there just really is no response to that.
I mean.... Fine.

Nobody's perfect.... shirimasen deshyoka

Pimps & Prostitutes

Tory’s being assigned to East Timor next month, and the crazy bule, along with a few of her friends at UN who were also leaving, threw a farewell party last night with a fabulous dresscode: pimps and prostitutes! She promised jazz bands and strippers, but we found a dangdut orchestra instead. Still, highly amusing, and anything goes coz the drinks were freeflowing, the rooftop venue was breezy, the crowd was merry, and shit the margheritas were excellent. I look at the pictures this morning and I think, god I need to get rid of these pictures. Decency doesn’t come to mind. Tory gathered us around her just before it all started, and made this beautiful, emotional farewell speech, which almost ruined most of our mascara. It would never work to have it written down, it would lose it’s charm. But I look at her and I’m just simply inspired. Wherever she would go, whatever country she would be assigned to next, for the rest of her life, she will leave a trail of young and dreaming people like us, enlightened and ready to break barriers.
Then we clinked our wineglasses to the merry chorus of “WE FUCKING LOVE YOU TORY !!”. And the night began.

Kagumilah ini…

Ketika kau berbicara aku tidak berharap
Tapi harapan itu kau timbulkan dengan sendirinya
Dengan sejuta tanda-tanda kecil

Ketika aku tertawa aku tidak jujur
Menyimpan harapan yang membandel
Mengubah tawa menjadi pecahan kaca

Ketika aku merasa bodoh, akupun berpaling
Menarik diri dari pusaran gravitasi
Meninggalkanmu dengannya.

Again, distracted.
Sometimes I wonder whether I should just quit everything and spend my lifetime writing and playing jazz. This has been a perfect day, really, except now I can’t do my speech drafting because I want to write about other things besides how destroying civilian objects violates international law. So today I:
05.00-07.00: Finished as much as I could finish my speech drafting.
07.00-09.00 : Exercised. Skipping and stuff accompanied by Bill Evans Live at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Not exactly adrenalin rushing music but it adds quality to mornings!
09.00-12.00: breakfast, long shower, played piano. Currently working on that blasted and beautiful Time Remembered by none other than (you’d never guess!) Bill Evans, which has the weirdest, hardest, most beautiful chord progressions I’ve yet encountered, and simply not making much progress. Haven’t even started improvising :(
12.00-13.00: Took a nap. Ate muesli with yoghurt for lunch, sadiss… ceritanya mau hidup sehat.
13.00-17.00: Went shopping with ex-boyfriend who is an excellent critique hence perfect shopping companion. Something about shopping always makes a girl feel good, unfortunately.
17.00-19.00: Took a lightning nap, lounged about restlessly, had an early dinner.
19.00-22.00: Off to Tory’s place to have my speech draft scrutinized, found out that mine was the most “minimalist” compared to the others hence needed to be significantly repaired, supposedly TONIGHT. We did 6 minute speeches and she said I had good structure but it was “fluffy”. Can you believe the way she just makes words up like that ? I mean, what can you say if somebody tells you your speech was “fluffy” ?? Teddy bears and pillows come to mind for God’s sake.
22.00-23.00: Met up with Dad and Kane at Izzi Pizza in time for dessert, melting chocolate cake with a dollop of ice cream accompanied with a cup of Illy black coffee. So much for the muesli.
23.00- now: Rooted in front of this screen, mustering up strong resolve to finish my speech draft. *sigh*.
Alright, bring on the civilian objects.

I’m in love with a gentleman with whom I feel unladylike in comparison.
It’s not that he’s articulate, dashing, dresses well and has a dark, brooding smile. It’s not that we spend hours talking about politics and social culture over wine or an exquisite blend of coffee.
It’s that he’s loyal, unlike me. And he sticks to the rules, unlike me.
And by the way, he doesn’t care how he dresses, has a shy sort of smile and we spend hours talking of nothing and everything over the phone. And ice cream, once.
And he’s in love, unlike me, to someone else.
Did I say I love him? I take that back. I haven’t a single clue what love is.
Much too abstract.
There are people who love you and feel it as a justification for owning you and tying you down.
There are people who love you and say they would go to the ends of the earth to be with you but cannot even spend time with you.
There are people who love you, yet love someone else a month later...
No, love is a vague and fuzzy word.

But I broke the rules for him.
And I’m inspired by him.
And I laugh with him, liberatingly, at times when I’m determined not to laugh.
And I’m not bothered about how different we are
And he lingers on my mind, stubbornly,
like a secret yearning to be revealed.

I’ve been waiting.

So where art thou now ?
Elusive as a dark mist
Every word remains a word
And nothing else, as I had feared
And I barely know you, still.

And life keeps flowing.

[This insomnia has to be unhealthy.]

What’s going on in the corner of her mind?
There’s a man with a gun trying to be kind
There’s a girl with a smile that looks tired
There’s a woman, her third eye’s almost blind
Then there’s herself, she knows she’s lied
And they all sat back and they just sighed.

They say rules are just a guide
The rest is an effort not to follow the tide.

[And I didn’t even have caffeine, damn it.]