word of the day

Lexidactylophobia: The (irrational) fear of fingerspelling

i'm reading Touch The Dragon by Karen Connelly now. it's a journal of her experiences when she went to stay at Thailand for a year at the tender age of 17. An age when most Singaporeans are in a dilemma about which route they should pursue after the Almighty "O"s.

My god.

she writes in metaphors and rhetorical devices. she plays around with language, using nouns as verbs and vice versa. she employs an all-rounded assualt on your consciousness, by detailing what she observed, smelt, heard, touched and felt.

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i have been telling people these days that i don't want to think too much, that i aspire to be simple-minded, that i find writing a chore because i often digress and write so much that by the time i have come to write about something that's deeper to my heart, i'm exhausted. they appear bemused at how serious i sound.

what i don't tell people is: i'm sick and tired of my functional sentences that are in sync with the conventionalised rules of the English language but don't evoke this additional emotion/wanderlust/imagination from the reader, including myself. i hesitate to think because i strongly suspect that my mental faculties won't stretch beyond the mundane and trivial. That despite a penchant for authenticity and originality, all i can do at best is to pen down sentiments that everyone else have thought of before but are just too ill-disciplined to write/hate writing/think they are lousy in English etc etc

If I'm not special, i don't want to know i'm not.

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There is no resolution in sight. No Duh-inducing rabbit-pulling out of my bag of tricks and proclaiming, "I am a born-again thinker! I may not be extraordinary but I will hone my skills to be the best thinker and writer I can be! Appreciate my own unique point of view!"

This is a mental note to remind myself of the kind of person I ultimately want to be, despite my current hiatus of escapism-indulging. Like Karen, I want to look at a beggar and think about Karma and religion. Like her, I want to take ordinary everyday events, look beneath the surface and draw the deeper insights about a country and its people. I want to do justice to the life I'm living. And I'm not getting any younger.

as someone who has faithfully followed all 7 seasons of Survivor, here's my ideal cast list for All Stars Survivor:

Season 1 (Pulau Tiga):
Richard--interesting to see if this regaled Granddaddy of Survivor can hold up against stiff competition
Susan--her tirade at Tribal Council is still one of my most memorable memories from Survivor
Colleen--first sweetie-pie that played Survivor. but isn't a pushover. need i say more?
Greg--weirdo but not creepy weird like Matthew (Amazon). kinda endearing to watch once you get used to his mannerisms

Season 2 (Outback):
Jerri--Finest bitch ever! a huge void would be left unfilled if she werent playing
Elizabeth--Only player that made me go "Awwwwww...." every time i heard her speak
Jeff--he would have been a terrific villain if he weren't voted out so early
Colby--strongest player at Outback. swept almost all the challenges. curious to see whether he can monopolise all the challenges again
Tina--cos she isn't so deserving since Colby practically gave her the $$$$. to see how far she can go this time. i think she has more in her than she had let on during Outback though

Season 3 (Africa):
Ethan--he won by being a nice guy. Can that strategy ever be repeated at Survivor?

Season 4 (Marquesas):
Kathy--bestowed the honour of the first power-broker. from no allies to third position (with no thanks to evil bitch vercepia). how can she not be there?
Gina--I picked her over Rob, the Godfather because i was crushed when i saw her voted off. she might have done better this time round.

Season 5 (Thailand):
Shii Ann--do us Asians proud!

Season 6 (Amazon):
Rob Cesternino --personally, i think he's the best player of all time. how can he not be there??!!
Christy--first Deaf contestant. a bit clueless at playing the game but boy, do i root for her!
Jenna--from spolit brat to commendable winner. let's hope she is as interesting to watch during All-Stars

Season 7 (Pearl Islands):
Rupbert--Eeeeewwww. but he is so fun to hate!
Sandra--okay, so she isn't so cleverly devious as i have originally hoped. but i like her brutal honesty, her sneakiness when playing the game, her splendid performance at Final Tribal Council, her pettiness even

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which is why i thought some choices for All-Stars are bizarre. Big Tom, Rudy, Alicia, Rob the Godfather i'm fine with but Jenna Lewis? Amber the Fillipino maid? Lex the neurotic kan-cheong spider?

i never cry at movies

a First for 2004: my tears fell while i was watching "I Am Sam". Thrice.

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Instead of doing some quality work for my thesis, i spent the time watching 4 movies within 3 days. Ya, i was feeling guilty but apparently it wasn't enough to deter me from putting in the vcds again and again

i watched "The Usual Suspects" when i was in Sec 3 and remember being blown by it, even though i couldnt quite understand the twist. Yesterday, i was like "what? you mean that's the twist? shouldnt there be more?" but the movie ended, with some of my burning questions unresolved.

then "The Piano Teacher"...okay, the female lead was feeling repressed, right? so why didn't you reciprocrate but instead play hard to get when this dashing male student comes along and is willing to indulge in any games you might have had in mind? go have sex lah! and i didn't understand the ending--why go stab yourself in the chest? aren't you risking a lot here--your reputation, your job, your sanity?

"The Love Letter" was better but i still felt strangely unfulfilled. am i supposed to fill in the gaps here with my imagination? (like did the deceased male lead choose his wife-to-be because she resembled his sec sch classmate? and how did the wife-to-be feel about it all if it was indeed so?) or are there no answers to begin with?

i badly need a film module so that i can appreciate films better! as is the case now, my emotions are only evoked by straight-in-your-face, no-holds-barred narrative storytelling like "I Am Sam". Otherwise, I go "huh?" and "shit, dont understand leh...must really go and check out the film reviews sometime"