Thou shalt not Plagiarize

I have noticed that people in general have developed a certain manner of writing. I do admit to having similar inclinations but I try my best to steer clear of them because these writing styles don't accurately reflect the way I am really thinking. But people still tend to use them nonetheless; maybe because it's convenient or maybe because it expresses a fleeting feeling. I will elaborate.

First, I should demonstrate what fashion of writing I am referring to. For some time now, I have become aware that people have begun to write in short, succinct sentences. This is especially so when they intend to give a powerful shot of a last one-liner or something like that (these types of sentences also almost always accompany emo-istic posts/writing). So the sentence usually comprises of short, sharp words, simple syntax, which we all think adds emphasis and impact.

So for example, if someone is writing about how much they love music (and it cannot Just be about Loving music in itself, it must also be something about how music has a soul and they look for the deeper meaning in it and the character of the piece and how music moves them and changes them and comes alive etc..), then they might conclude at the end of it all, with a powerful head-banger of a line that says "I love music that lives (in italics of course), that burns (more italics)". OR. If someone is writing about say, friendship. Then they might proceed to say something like "Friends that last. They're the ones worth keeping." Or Something.

I do not know where on earth we got the idea that sentences like these are in any way emphatic. I mean, yes, they provide for a prosaic break, what with the short, chopped up sentences, replacing commas with full-stops etc. But, I do believe much of this genre of writing has been imperceptibly copied from novel writers/ authors? You know how these authors deliver their life-shattering one-liners at the end of a riveting chapter or book and you sit there stunned and have to think for a while?

Well the mass population has decided that they too can emulate this life-changing style of writing in their everyday blog posts. So they copy it. And they think they're being wholly different from everyone else and terribly inspiring when they drop a bombshell of a sentence like that at the end of a very elegiac piece of writing (don't lie, I know you all do think that, me included. Maybe not overtly but subtly, YES.). Maybe we do it without even realizing it, maybe that's the way we really express ourselves and I'm not saying anyone is in the wrong. Truthfully, I hate always having to qualify myself when I write in my blog like this. I would just say it as it is if I had my way. But I'm not interested in being misinterpreted, so to save time and trouble I might as well add a disclaimer to every sentence.

In conclusion, I am starting to find this style-plagiarizing rather annoying. I would much prefer it if people just wrote off the top of their heads and I am quite sure people think in more convoluted sentences. It's especially dangerous when people get into one of those funks where they're just pensive and reflective and vulnerable to writing like that because they think it's reflective of a contemplative mood.

It would be foolish of me to think I'd be able to change the way people write just by posting my thoughts on this. But hopefully it does create some self awareness and everyone has the right to decide for themselves if that's the case with them or if I'm just spouting a load of gibberish.

Goodnight!

Everything seems brighter this time of the year!

I'm addicted to holidays.

There's always room for more cupcakes!

Today I went to val's house to be her baking assistant. Let me show you some pictures. Haha.

This is a picture of our workstation. It is super messy and we are mega unhygienic. Let me show you how.


For instance, we never wash spoons unless absolutely necessary. It's a waste of water and time. So we just wipe them on paper towels or leave them on a ragged, teared up piece of paper towel, all in a lump. I think thats the best way to get a mix of all flavours. See, you have chocolate, vanilla, banana, jam etc. YUM.


We also decided to cut holes in the cupcakes so that we can fill them with stuff like cream cheese, marshmallows, chocolate and jam. But if you think we were gonna place the little cut up round bits of cupcake on a clean paper towel, you were wrong. Cos we just put them on the workstation table which is already covered with melted chocolate, butter, sugar, flour and god knows what else. Nice?


And we don't really thoroughly wash the whisk. We just sort of rinse it and hope it's devoid of any of the previously whisked ingredient's taste.


That's cream cheese and butter. It is also the same whisk used for the chocolate above. (:


Soon enough, val finally abandoned this whisk cos she could not whisk the icing mix fast enough to make it thicken. She was trying to do it so fast and hard, she was shaking the entire table. I finally convinced her that her forearms will never move as fast as an electric CAKE MIXER.


And thus was born the electric CAKE MIXER. Which made our lives a lot easier.


Calorie-laden icing!


I am working very hard on getting the icing right.


More back-breaking work. All for a little cupcake. The things we do..


Voila!


Our first batch! They all developed a plateau at the top which proved to be very useful for cutting holes in later.


A cupcake stuffed with jam.


So you can see the jam.


This is val doing something. I can't see.


Smile!


So now that you know how damn unhygienic we are, you can kindly refrain from eating out food. That way, we can have them all to ourselves. Sorry rach, I know you ate it already. Haha.

I Heart Singapore!

So last Saturday, Sheng and I decided to check out the NDP full dress rehearsal at the esplanade since we probably won't want to be jostling around with sweaty aunties on the actual day. Here are some pictures, while I figure out how my laptop works so I can get the rest of the Vietnam pictures up here.

View from the esplanade bay area place.


The empyrean (right. Haha)


The Red Lions against a rather blue sky


More of them




I was quite amazed by how accurately they managed to land.






Sorry the pictures aren't really in order but I'm not really bothering at this point.








A Rather unflattering picture.


Onward Singapore!


I think the pictures are damn gorgeous, even if I must say so myself. Haha.


Some more.


Up up up and away.


Bye bye. (haha my captions are getting so annoying)


Ok next came the fighter jets.


The sky and surroundings. Apparently quite a lot of other people had planned to come down as well. And we thought we were the only ones... damn.


OK these are just some random boats like chasing each other in the water. I don't know what it's supposed to represent. Sheng said it was like symbolic of the authorities chasing illegal immigrants? wth? how does that even make sense.


See, there they are, chasing.


Yay that rounds up that batch of photos! I feel so accomplished! I am fighting the need to squeal! yikes.

Saigon day 1

OMG.

I have just over a million pictures from Vietnam. Someone please tell me what to do with them. What is the most efficient, hassle free way of getting them all up. I suppose I now have to join one of those flickerrrrr photo things.

It's such a cycle. First you get a blog, then you feel compelled to take pictures to put on your blog, following which, you have to go purchase a grotesquely priced photo taking machine and then after you've snapped say.. 5001 pictures of yourself and your surroundings, you are then burdened with the PAIN of having to put them up for all to see.

Why am I doing this to myself! Help help help... The sadomasochism.

SIGH!

(someone seriously tell me what to do. I'm just posting this for the fun of lamenting my sorrows. Thanks!)

How do you Love a Man?

How do you Love a Man?
One who's not le femme?
Of similar frame and similar build -
Broad, hard, straight, sculpted; is there no guilt?
For loving a man. Desiring a man?

When you meet at the restaurant
How do you manufacture
the desire
the -
impulse?
To draw him close
feel chest against chest
definition against definition
as substitution
for soft bossom?
And then plant one on a forehead
that roughs out with toughness
no alabaster smoothness
or supple softness

God made Adam and Eve
Not Adam and Steve.
Didn't He?
So How do you Love a Man?

Two Decades Too Old (pardon the pun) [and the alliteration!]

It has been quite a wonderful birthday. And it has also been a relatively good year, considering all the bad ones I've had thus far. The past year has been rather pensive, reflective, simmered, grilled, nicely cooked. I have liked and enjoyed it.

(I am trying very hard not to write this with a reading audience in mind. I would like, as much as possible, to capture my original reflections because this is important, it being a birthday and all. Even as I type this sentence I am only doing so for my remembrance in the future.)

As I was thinking back on my 19th year, I just thank God that at this stage of my life, I am still not a wreckage of a human being, as my weaknesses and stupidity have very much pre-disposed me to become. I thank God that I am on the path to relative success not just economically, but also as a person - that I have not entirely destroyed myself and my future and that there is hope for me yet. I am utterly grateful that I have been restrained from doing things that would impair my future and that I am where I am now. I think I must have proved to be quite a worrisome child in my angsty teens.

I was also thinking of how fortunate I am to be blessed with so many good relationships in my life. I am grateful for my family - my brother, my dad and my mom, individually, and I love all of them dearly with my life. I am very fortunate to have a family that is intact, mature and that has taught me much along the way. I am also very fortunate to have a continuing friendship with each of my family members and that, I should not take for granted. I am doubly blessed to have friends like val and andrea and fart and nu and ly and of course sheng, with whom I have been friends with for years and years. I don't have very many friends but the ones I do have, I really love. I also realized how fortunate I am to be loved by the people around me. It's not something to be assumed upon.

At 20 I would like to relish whatever is left of my youth. I would like to revel in being young and Looking young and Feeling young and reponsibility-free and released to do, learn, experience anything I want. I know I won't stay young and carefree forever but while I do I must tap on it to the max. (: I only have about 3-4 more years before I plunge into the working world and have to start thinking of big things like marriage and kids and growing fat and saggy. But at this age, I do feel it important to -cherish my youth- as the old foggies love to say (at 20 you do realize the truth in this adage though). I feel like I'm clinging on to my young self by the edge of a cliff. But like wine matures and acquires greater taste over the years (so I'm told), so I hope my person does the same.

So this next year, I am quite determined to learn and glean everything I can from people and experiences. I would also like to hone the art of understanding and living in nuances. I think nuances bring the greatest balance because they're always there without being over-assertive, in a quiet, knowing kind of way. And I am a great advocate for balance.

Less highs, less lows, more balance.

I hope to look back at my youth (at being 20) and be able to remember it, and remember the kind of person I was then and the kind of thoughts I harboured, the opinions I held and the things I felt. I really don't want to forget. Which is why I am writing all this down despite it being very contrary to my nature. I know how memory works, how it changes to become inaccurate or blurry and faded and just a general mesh of things. I don't wish to remember my life like that.

SO, Happy Birthday Thea and have a great year ahead.

(Thank you, everyone who's wished me.)

(It is really very difficult not to write here without an audience in mind. I can't say I have succeeded entirely but some things really just aren't meant for the masses to read. Perhaps it is an affront to my introspection, articulating it so publicly. But I have to keep some record of things.)

Hola!

I am back from the land of perpetual jams, inefficient transportation systems, corrupt bureaucrats, a soon-to-be-married PM whose wife died less than a year ago and most importantly, the land of dunkin' donuts; big and small, sugar and chocolate coated, cream or coconut stuffed, sugar glazed or powdered.

AKA

malaysia.

Alrightey. I shall update when I feel like it. No photos though. I have yet to grow into the habit of actually taking photos out of my own prerogative. Till then, selamat jalan.