Will there be Time - 1/31/2002

I grow old I grow old

I wonder what it's all about, this rush for momentum and need to stay afloat. I trawl a net amongst them, and catch what I can, flinging the rotten or the dead off the boat. After a while the casting of the net becomes allegorical; if I cast for what may be caught in the web of complex games we play. From the classroom to the recesses of my mind, I confine the impulse to sink the net to a far away island. Perhaps, there with the once away there will be time enough to dream. Time enough to indulge in day-time reverie. Instead, I cannot. I cast my net repeatedly, expound the rules to no end, listen to myself nag and reprimand. I pick out the blood clotted, the struggling, those that won't stand a chance in the market and throw them back for them to sink or swim. Those that still ahve an once of energy left, after grappling with the tendons of the net, will perhaps drift listelessly for several years. But at least they are alive and free. But the vast majority thrown back are so sapped of life and energy, from the titanic fight with nylon, illusory flexing, that they sink to the bottom and wait the salty death. But those caught in the net that trawls the freedom of the waves, those get prepared.

First, you pack them in with as much information that you can - this you do with solid information, not its liquid, fluid state. Pack with facts. Next, you layer their thought so that they understand that this fish is not that fish, and their destiny lies in being one kind of fish not two. Then you freeze it into them that they will be preserved. Later, you'll tell them otherwise, but not now when they're freshly caught. At the market, the fish don't really have a choice. They don't pick the buyer. Sure, they'll squirm to get their best sides showing - "see how well I was packed with information?" - But no one at the market really wants live fish. Only freshly dead fish. Funny. We call newly dead fish, fresh fish.

Some get shipped away for export and even grace the tables of foreign climes. But what's the difference between one dead fish and another? Only how long dead.

Funny how to get fish once seemed so wonderful. Funny how a craft turns into a mechanised process. Funny how what you started out loving turns around to haunt you. Funny how little you regret not being different. Funny how you bob up and down to the waves, trawling this vast net, in search of more fresh fish.

Had to attend a stupid talk today. A measure of it's stupidity. One - we were informed only this week. Two - we had to cancel classes only to wait for 45 minutes for the talk to begin. Three - I was led to believe it would end at 3 - no - it ended at 5. Four - the kids were not allowed to go home and made to eat the food provided. Five - I made them eat it ... Six - And I haven't even started on how irrelevant and poorly presented the content was.

In research there is only ONE right answer ... Courtesy of the Old Man

Thank goodness I'm not doing scientific research. Would feel too much like fresh fish.

In Fifteen Minutes - 1/27/2002

I will have to get ready to become part of that generation that sips coffee from special imported glassware and pretend that this is the way life is to be enjoyed. In fifteen minutes I will have to appear interested in the grousings of an overaged "I don't dare ask her whether she likes me" adolescent who doesn't realise that the first thing to getting attached to someone is finding out if in the first place that person is attached (unless you do not have morals or think you are so suave you'll be able to sweep anyone who's not married - let's play fair - off their feet). And so I zip off this note in protest of 30 somethings who take Sunday nights as the only time they will come down from their yuppie world and commune with slackos like me. I will pay scant attention to their musings on how golf is supposed to be the most elegant of sports, and stir rapidly my skimmed mild latte when he mentions how fortunate I am to be a mere teacher, unlike the corporate workaholic that he is. I will break the biscotti with care while he whines about how he doesn't have a life because he's such a sought after IT consultant ... And yet I'll go for coffee with the dude because at a certain level I am so much aware that I'm probably more like him than I'd like to admit.

We like to be with ourselves, especially when we see ourselves in another person. But what if I see myself in a way that I don't want to? What if I become a class conscious yuppie --

In spite of all the irritation every time I hear the same pontifications on how his life is so painful cause he works longer hours, gets paid more, wears ties to work, drives around, plays golf and has no inner life (as has been defined, rather pathetically, in these OD entries), I'll still have coffee with him.

Cause he picks up the bill.

To HFC - for coffee and philosophical musings on a Sat afternoon - no better company!

Storylines - 1/26/2002

1. This is the story of the forgotten star
That fell out of the sky so far

2. This is the story of the hidden wish
Found in the belly of a great silver fish

3. This is the story of the wicked Ear
Turning evil when it lost the ability to hear

4. This is the story of the broken wall
Through which we walked, from which we fall

5. This is the story of the stray eye lash
That got left behind in the trash

6. This is the story of the stupid mind
So unintelligent it wrote storylines ...

7. This is the story of the wooden watch
whose eyes glittered like a flaming torch

8. This is the story of the drowning lamb
Bleating as he struggled down the Cam

9. This is the story of the long lost brother
A prodigal child who has no mother

10. This is the story of the intricate ring
Malleable yet so strong it could sing

11. This is the story of the deadly beast
Caught in the thicket by the Golden fleece

12. This is the story of the Dead Poet
Turning in his grave as they exhumed it

13. This is the story of the last line
Does it matter if it doesn't rhyme?

Associations:

1. The Moth and the Star - James Thurber
2. Jonah and the Whale - Books and Silverfish
3. The Body
4.However tangential - the Confessions of St. Augustine
5.A stray eyelash
6.The Present Attempt
7. Cuckoo Clocks
8. My friend Matt - though the reference is not to him - in case he reads this...
9. The Biblical Tale of the Prodigal Son
10. LOTR
11. Hotel California (I heard it in Olio today) Jason and the Argonauts
12. Robin Williams and a quote in today's papers by a friend of a friend
13. This week in Lit class (we were talking about rhyme)

For Yy - 1/26/2002

Down these corridors
where time has become a prison
We find refuge in simple pleasures.
Girls avert their eyes the brief
Instant you pass.
Drumming table tops rhythmically
fills in spaces of broken
off conversation
Timing perfected by pregnant pauses.
Never fixing the subject
you ramble, interpreting the distant
sweaty figures in sunlight straining.
I sense their movement, grace and poise in
the distracted shift of your eyes.
Here, I sit, back against the sun
Across you stare
straining toward the sun
For three hours.

I guess I haven't been much in communicative mood lately. I haven't paid my visits to the canteen to check out the scene and talk to people that I might stumble upon. In part it's to do with the fact that I try to leave school (it's becoming more and more an opressive place) as quick as possible, and to do with the fact that I don't think there's much to say anymore. "Most men live lives of quiet desperation", remembering the past, becoming nostaligic, trying to refocus - but isn't that what art has to be in order to define it against life? I cannot write in the moment, as energy refined, except within the force-field (already limited and compromised) by time.

Pissed - 1/24/2002

The quietest of things and most innocuous pieces of news can stir up angry thoughts. I feel like an accessory - we'll put him on when ... - Anyway - what happened today was HOD EL spoke to me about helping out with the ELDDS. This had to do with the fact that 1. One of the teachers is busy with other commitments 2. The Debates trainer that the school employed is "missing" ie AWOL. So I'm supposed now to "help out" with the preparations and with the teams. Why am I pissed?

First - last year when I was enthu and actually tried to help out with the teams on an ad hoc basis - I was "politely" told to butt out. Second - last year when I was enthu and actually volunteered to be in ELDDS - up to the point where it was almost confirmed, the move didn't work, wasn't allowed: someone changed their mind and didn't bother to tell me why until several months later. Third - last year when I was enthu I actually worked out a debate training system that would hold inter-class debates at sec 2, pick out good speakers and train them over the long holidays. The plan wasn't approved: no one was interested - "we're all too busy".

So I'm pissed cause once again, I'm saddled with this last minute. I'm actually quite ON about this, but less than a month to get involved in debates training is ridiculous. Why didn't Admin inform me earlier in Nov/Dec? What's their problem? The school repeatedly does this - Oh we need to look good in this competition lets send in entries against all odds and not bother to allow for adequate preparation ... - and I get saddled with the stuff everyone else is "too busy" to deal with.

On a more positive note after the anger, I think I'm quite looking forward to mentoring the debaters. It's quite thrilling to be involved in something like that and I hope the kids will put in their best. I'll definitely give all I've got, in spite of my pissedness ...

Which is a phenomenon the Admin can't get. They don't believe I can be an effective teacher/educator/mentor just because I dislike certain personalities/systems that the school has in place. It's myopia is almost facist - you must love your superiors and working environment unquestioningly in order to be a good teacher. Rubbish.

Shoes: - 1/23/2002

Instead of the standard Oral Exams that everyone's been doing for years ("With as much detail as possible tell me anout this picture ...") Lower Sec actually gets to give two minute talks this year which will count towards their Oral grade. And so - I've been practicing so that I can give an example talk tomorrow ...

Prop: Shoe
Title: Why I wear my shoes ...

This may seem to be an ordinary pair of shoes. In a sense it is, being a simple pair of black leather shoes. But they're special to me because these were the shoes that I got married in.

I remember how I came to own them. I've never a very good shopper for clothes and accessories because I usually wear what people give me for gifts. So I was quite tramatised in the weeks before my wedding where I had to buy many things. It was just a few days before the event when I realised I didn't have a pair of decent shoes. Everything seemed so expensive and I was not willing to fork out two to three hundred dollars for a pair of shoes. Then I happened to be at Robinsons' during one of their infamous sales and this pair of shoes caught my eye, mainly because it was only $70. There was only one pair left in my size and so I bought them. At first I was worried my wife would object to how cheap they were but then I later found out she wasn't even buying shoes for the wedding but was borrowing a pair from a friend who had gotten married several months earlier.

And so it was in this pair of shoes that I stood trembling slightly in front of 400 people as I waited for my bride who left me waiting at the altar because she was caught in traffic lights; it was in this pair of shoes that I gave a word perfect recitation of my wedding vows, it was in this pair of shoes that I first kissed my wife in public and it was in this pair of shoes that I walked out of church married.

Some people like to preserve their wedding suits or shoes in a closet, safe and clean, for memory's sake. I, however, prefer to wear my shoes everyday.

The test of Manhood - 1/21/2002

Today is a significant day in the life of my cat Marmaduke. Today he got ligated. Today he "kena potong". Today he lost his manhood. Neutered is the right word for it I think. It'sa loaded word anyhow isn't it cause we still know him as HIM in spite of the fact that he is no longer biologically fully male. I guess the strict gender categories that we have foreces us to place everything else into that middle ground of "neutrality". Not that I'm a proponenet of loosening gender roles or having a gradient scale of pronouns to announce an individual's inclinations. It's just interesting that an operation is named in terms of a kind of "non class" where we throw everything that isn't fully male or female into. To be neutered. Hmm. Anyway Marmaduke's doing fine. He's now confined and can't eat or drink for the whole of tonight - poor guy! I think he was starting to display the attributes of a dominant male type already. the past few weeks he's been pouncing on Mittens (sometime Mittens can't stand). Mittens will be minding her own business (yes in her elegant arrogant way) and Duke will pretend to stalk her and then pounce on her. It's led to several unpleasant confrontations between the two of them. Just last week, Duke tried to swipe at Mittens' bum and caused a small cut. Anyhow, I hope the neutering makes him less prone to these outbursts of masculinity.

My manhood was tested today by irritating students. There's a bunch of kids in one of my Lit classes who are so out of it that they have taken to sniggering to either the things I say or the way I pronounce things. Anyway it took a lot of self control not to point them out or scream at them. It all gets pent up with me. I could do sadistic things I guess, but in the mirror I wouldn't recognise myself. Besides I've sniggered in classes too - but at least that was in the Uni when I was sure I was smarter / had better ideas than the person speaking. (Show off !) It didn't help that we were talking about the sound quality of poetry today. Anyway - it's one of those stupid situations that I hate. I know they're sniggering and having their own little private convention bu they think that I'm oblivious and don't even know what's happenning. It actually takes effort to pretend to be oblivious to that kind of behaviour. But I guess that's the mode I'm in anyway. I know I should talk to them, embarrass them, scold them or do all of the above but I haven't got the energy. If it were kids I cared about I would. But hey - it's lower sec Lit - they'll probably be glad I didn't bother to get on their case and they'll just remember Lit as a waste of their time. I know that's totally jaded and cynical but it's their loss. I'm not going to invest emotionally in a bunch of kids who are too entangled in the web of the system anyway. If they wan't to come up to where we're at, that's fine but I'm not going down.

Having said that, I figure that every year it'll get worse. That's where mean apathetic teachers come from, an idealist that got disillusioned. The pragmatic teachers just remain effective. It's the disillusioned idealists that shoot themselves in the foot, let it get infected and died gradually of gangrene. I can just picture myself as a scowling old teacher, always suspicious of students making comments about my weight and loss of hair and droning on and on and on about the importance of alliteration. Better get out soon ...

"You only get disillusioned if you were once under an illusion."

Where hast thou been sister? - 1/19/2002

"A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap
And munched and munched, and munched. 'Give me' quoth I
'Aroint thee witch', the rump-fed runnion cries
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'th' Tiger ...
But in a sieve I'll thither sail
And like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do"
- Third Witch, Macbeth

One thick canvas shroud,
cloud drift dress
billowing underneath the Tyrant's tale.
"I was once a blue eyed sailor
Now to Aleppo gone
Master of the Tiger
A cat changed to a rat
Without a tail."

White sails fly pristine
No stains tell which unfortunate
Laddie with blood
smeared his mark.
A story without signposts is told
no one's blood is shed
in its telling.
"And they strung me up
because I couldn't sleep
though weariness like a bark
tempest tossed
lay so heavy on my eyes
that I could not weep
could not surprise
myself with dreams."

Crossing thick needles iron thick with
supple thread
they wrap blunt needle heads
in cotton,
and so cloth clothes to make new cloth
Fabrics engender a process
that joins
iron with canvas
to make the sewing smooth
the sewing strong
Needles used so long
their pin prick points are
At best blunt sensations.
"Having no sensation in any part of my body,
I shouted from the top-mast
continually, for the Ravens, Crows and Kites
to pick off me,
Flesh become so dull."

But Seabirds do not hear
The agony of a sleepless
Sailor: they want silver flesh
Living darting fish flesh.

"Thrice and thrice I cried out
Even now I proclaim
'O canvas sails be my shroud.'
That at least little death take me!"

"But on the third thrice
A woman's voice
My waiting wife wailing
For a husband lost
His ship tempest tossed."

In whose dreams do we drown,
Strung upon the mast,
O Master of the Tiger
To Aleppo gone?

I wrote this as an extension of the previous sketch. The initial idea from the last entry was to riff on the idea of sailors having to sew canvas sails together while sailing with the wind. It doesn't seem very smart or practical but it was an idea. Which came from a conversation with Yy about her job "I learnt how to sew" and the thought that books are of course, "text"s to be sewn up by the artist's loving hand. So it began with the prose and later I felt I should poeticise it to focus. I starting just cutting and pasting the images or phrases that seemed to have poetic potential. After about one stanza I suddenly had an associative moment with this passage from Shakespeare. Two sources: Am currently watching a video of a production of Macbeth (with Ian Mcallen and Judi Dench) and I remembered this bit. Also, was reading a book on the travels of the early English Spice Trade adventurers. Apparently there was a Tiger which did go to Aleppo. So there you have it, a work in progress.

What happens is this: the daily work of the sailors no matter how treacherous and dull, never gets traced for no blood is left behind. But now, the Tyrant, because he's a nuisance and deemed mad for a witch's curse (he can't sleep and his body grows dull to sensation) has been strung up on the rigging and is desperately trying to tell a story, trying to cry out for an end almost. The sails can't help him because they are texts that are without blood, without the markings of beginnings and ends. So I guess the Tyrant drowns in a perpetual trance, the "rat without a tail".

Just a Bang and a whimper - 1/18/2002

I

Don't cry
All it takes is a Bang and a Whimper
to make things right again
you've got new shoes. See?
Pretty ribbons and rainbow straps
Real metal buckles and leather backs

All it takes is a Bang and a Whimper
If life were that simple
why do you cry at the jarring ring
Of the telephone unanswered or the doorbell's chime?
Are you perhaps afraid of Nursary Rhymes?
Of the Mailman or of bodiless voices that hide
On the Rainbow's other side?

Don't cry.
It robs the prettiness from your eyes
It makes them puffy red
Broken pearls instead of rubies flashing
Stars from the night sky splashing

II

On the cloud drift dress, which seam holds together the puffing billowing underneath volume of air moving ship sail under the Tyrant's tale? Sewing means lashing textures together alike, unlike doesn't matter. High on riggin they sew. Against the screaming whistling they hum a song to the inward ear - they sew. Crossing thick needles iron thick with the suppleness of thread they wrap the blunt needle heads with cotton, to make the sewing smooth and efficent. Needles used so long their pin prick points are blunt sensations drawing no blood. White sail is kept pristine and no stain tells which unfortunate Laddie upon the sail smeared his mark. Ruthless stabs through textures - cloth, skin, no flesh, never through to bone. Their sewing hands are blistered and worn for the toughness of canvas on skin new born means layers cannot form. One thick canvas shroud, billowing when the cheeks of heaven bloat themselves silly, or is it fatulence divine?

Is the baby laughing, or is it only gas? Thomas Pynchon

I wonder - 1/16/2002

why the last entry got such overwelming response. Perhaps it is a demonstration of the priorities that we place on society ie that the confession of physical bulk and the lack of well-being therein leads to a kind of response that is easy to express. I suppose it's easy to respond to an entry on Weight Loss cause 1. We're either thankful that we don't have to do it or 2. We are in the midst of that struggle ourselves or 3. We once tried it but didn't stay with it long enough. Ah well - am into the fourth day of the veggie soup diet and things are ok. Spoke with Sham today (during the long chinese speeches ... I felt it would have been SO rude of me to pretend to understand and leave Sham grapsing bored and restless ...) and we were talking about how lifestyle changes are essential to maintain weight loss. Anyway he gave me some tips on Cardio workouts which are think are very sensible (he being a Bio person and all ...)

I don't think I want it written on my tombstone:
Here lies
An oversized
Man
Who couldn't prioritise
When
To eat
and when
to exercise.

I wonder too if there will be response to this Sonnet. I suspect that it's harder to respond to pieces that reflect the landscape of the soul. I find I can't say anything very eloquent or even honest when I read some soul baring piece.

I wrote it (also) during the long chinese speeches this morning - oh how handy the Palm Vx is. It's based on the afternoon before, when I met my friend, Alvin (a fellow teacher and malcontent), to "moan and groan" about our lots in life. It's not that we were being ungrateful etc, we were just mulling.

for Alvin Tan Peng Hong

The armchairs here are comfy and as we sit
We slip into the language of moan and groan
Where daily detail is examined, tailor fit
Into a discourse of angst we're embarassed to own

"I couldn't sleep at night with a mind at ease
If selling out to the system was the way
To achieve successes and laurels such as these:
A cushy position of power (and more pay)

"And what about the elaborate inner life?
They miss it all, no, it doesn't exist,
Like"credit card honour" or "a butter knife"-
Form persists as but redeeming myth*

"To be or not to be, is that the question?
The sole excuse for this introspection?

*- For hardcore Sonneteers - I know that this should be a perfect rhyme with "exist" but I found that putting "persist" at the end of the line made it clumsy. Besides the assonance with "myth" is quite nice. Anyway - the rhyme scheme isn't strict enough to make it a proper Sonnet - so forgive the impurity.

Weight Loss - 1/15/2002

is one of the most difficult things in the world to achieve. Having bveen plagued since from when I can remember by the scourge of being fat I have never endeavoured in losing weight properly. I do agree that it's a lifestyle thing - when I was in the Army and had the time to properly exercise and think about what was healthy, it was pretty easy to keep rather trim. But I must say there has never been a prolonged moment in my life when I was genuinely "not fat". The best I've ever been is "just at the edge of ideal" during BMT and OCS. After that it's been one big balloon ride.

The social stigma of being a fat person is considerable. Fat people are targets of everyone. Even students will not hesitate to laugh at fatness. Socially, we've come to accept sniggering at fat people as a kind of acceptable past-time. Not that I'm complaining about. But I am unable to totally rid myself of that sense that being fat makes me less effective as a person.

There's that odd bit about knowing that you bulge uncomfortably under the already loose shirt, ever-tightening pair of trousers and the belt that's really hanging there just for display. You heave in your belly but that becomes a strain and you have to try very hard that you're really doing "low impact hidden crunches" instead of holding in your tunmmy. You know when your fatness is becoming unacceptable even to yourself when you realise that the rim of flesh around your waist has doubled and that when people mention "spare tires" or "love handles" you think - "Top or bottom one?"

Some people are of the opinion that fatness should not be discouraged. Instead, we should learn how to embrace fat people - they after all have a lot more to offer. I suppose this would be a position that is attractive. First, I wouldn't have to work at anything but merely develop intelligent and witty comments about fatness. Second, there is a tradition of fat people being thought of highly in societies where abundance is celebrated. However, the promise of being thinner always lies before me.

They Just Don't Get It - 1/14/2002

Some reflections here on what teaching lower has been like for the past two weeks. This entry is really prompted by the fact that "they just don't get it"

Me: "Ok so we're studying literary devices today. These terms that we're using are just fancy pants names for what we already know. (with heavy irony) We do this so we can keep literature the preserve of an elite and so that no one will understand what literature students are talking about ..."
Them: Blank
Me: "Ok so we're studying metaphors because poets use metaphors. (with more heavy irony) Poets are very deep and broody people who have a lot to say about life that can't be understood by ordinary people ...
Them: Blank
Me: "Ok so I'm going to read out similes. As slow as a snail - hey that's so boring - everyone's got "as slow as a snail" - can't you all be more original ...
Them: Blank

You know, I used to think that humour was an important tool in the classroom not only for the building of rapport but also so the kids get interested in the subject by realising it isn't as dry and heavy going as it seems. I still think it is there's nothing like a good dose of sarcasm to get at the kids or a nice amount of irony to dig at the flaws in institutionalised thought. I think one of the tragedies of our educational system is that we don't take humour seriously enough (oxymoron?) Why don't we have the comedy club for a CCA? We should - sometimes the agenda could be to review different stand-up comedians, rank the effectiveness of different kinds of jokes, do physcial comedy, work on one-liners, trade jokes, think up silly pranks ... all very creative stuff.

Problem: we want not "chaotic creativity" but creativity that can be used. So we delineate the boundaries and assign "good creativity" vs. "bad creativity". Where does this stuff come from anyway? Ok- I'll admit that I have my reservations about pushing the envelop on this one but hey I'm willing to give it a go. If someone excels at making a total clown of themselves surely there's a theoretician who can formalise the psychological and pedagogical benefits. Instead we straight-jacket. One size fits all.

I think a true measure of intelligence is the ability to laugh at stuff. One- it shows you get it. Two - it shows you're smart enough not to take things too seriously. Three - it shows (if you're the only one laughing) you trust your own judgement more than the influence of others. Four - it's an intuitive kind of intelligence that's very hard to quickly develop or mug up for.

Hmmm maybe they'll give me a National Day Award for thinking up a new O levels subject: Humour in English (Chinese humour remains inaccessible for now - even when it's explained I don't actually get it)

Possible essay questions: Discuss the development of British sitcom humour versus American sitcom humour from the mid 1980s.

Possible structured questions: The follwing clips will cause you to laugh. Your laughter will be recorded and marked for a)appropriateness b)length and tone c) consistency. (NB Not all clips are meant to be laughed at, so don't feel compelled.

Possible MCQs: Which of the following is the most funny?
a. A teacher
b. A teacher telling a joke
c. A teacher telling a joke that doesn't work
d. Students that don't laugh at teachers' jokes

OR

Which of the following is the least funny?
a. A teacher
b. A teacher telling a joke
c. A teacher telling a joke that doesn't work
d. Students that don't laugh at teachers' jokes

Quote/incident of the day (which I thought was awfully funny because it demonstrated the thorough lack of self-awareness of the speaker who probably didn't think twice about making the remark and because the student population obliged/indulged that unawareness so graciously [yah right! they probably didn't get ti themselves]): "Mrs L just spoke for a short while and she got applause. I wonder what I'll get after I talk to you (massive applause for the student population erupts)"

I laugh to myself - and i don't think I am the only one.

Elephant Song - 1/11/2002

Wrote this while thinking about teaching similes next week. It continues a theme begun by my pencil-box.



He trundled slowly
like an elephant
Down the rows and
Rows of childish stares
His voice grew loud as if
It were trumpeting
A call to arms-
But then
Died down
As he waved his arms vaguely
Like an old leathery trunk
Grasping for peanuts
In the air.

Um Her a her - 1/11/2002

Is the transcription of a guitar lick from Space and Time, the track playing in the background now. Which is to say the act of this writing is foregrounded, pushed absurdly to the front in spite of its reflective and unobstrusive nature as opposed to the music that is obviously playing out loud. What is loud has to be sublimated so that its hi fi sounds no longer leave grooves on the being. A lasting kind of music? No, single notes which hold their length long enough to be sensed, then fade off into lullaby.

Come on into this mode of triggering thought
Via the synapse popping of nerves figuring out their way
over plastic pieces marked / signalled out as different
only by shape not meaning ...
"we have existence and its all we share"
"keep on pushing cause I know it's there

Small, shrivelled, the mind looks for gorgeous things.

A flaming dress all flowing textured as rock made craggy by nature's forces would be. We leap from peak to peak trying to find a safe place to plant the next step. Safe not for us, for our footprints are littered across the globe! But safe for those who still small and shrivelled remain. She and I are writ large for all to see. Once we walked, trekked for days over the dense landscape. We picked the scents of mountain flowers - the Ulaweira, the Flume - and folllowed these to the high places. But now we are large. We stride, giant steps over the mountains, now made small. We look down at the miniature farms as if we put them in place when we were children in our nursery hour.

Crossing the Hellucian Ridge with a single step, we come across the Bay of the Broken Back, so named because it is in the shape of an old man. When men grew old, their backs grew thin and snapped. We walk as giants. Planting our shadows across the wild waters, we find our reflections perfect in the black. The water here is stained by the dye from the button bushes which line the Bay. It laps up the edges brown, as if made dirty. But there is nothing clearer than your reflection in the Bay of the Broken Back. The blackness allows for a metallic clarity and the Bay is sheltered from the winds by the ridges that surround. Made darker by our shadows that stand in the sun, the Bay becomes an enormous density of dark reflecting surfaces. Those still small look up, as if trying to chart the cloud cover, as if making preparations for rain. But there are no clouds today, only Giants .

In snatches

Level Zero - 1/10/2002
I am a vegetable. Turning toward the sun hurts my eyes cause I'm so used to looking inside myself. I wonder about the properties of liquid nitrogen when desiring that my kin are preserved in something more exotic than salt water - I am a vegetable.
I am a mother seal. Looking for her pup to suckle. I swim in the salt seawater with the mackeral and fast silver fish. I open my mouth as a dish to net what I'll serve upon a plate for dinner. I am a mother seal.
I am a CD case - I was misplaced by the Grandfather who felt his children's children were being cheeky and were ignoring him. He chucked me behind the old Peranakan style wardrobe with the awful hard brown carvings. They've searched all over for me, but dare not go near Gong Gong's dangerous wardrobe with its jewel eyed monsters making strange procession over frame and handle. I am a CD case.
I am the dance. When music runs about the heels and turns still beings into motion mills, I plan and strategise the next surmise of movement. When I come down, the ladies frown a curtsy and the men hurry to meet me. The names used to greet me - Fadango, Salsa, Ballet, Jazz - I come to own, muscle and bone become fluid with me. I am the dance.
I am the sound of squishy toes. After they ran through the garden mud on the pretext of hosing down their feet, they decided to linger on the garden swing, fleecing time with rhythmic ups and downs. Toes mingled with mud, playing footsie with other toes. I am the sound of squishy toes.
I am the baby made. After passion and naked tenderness, what is left? I am the baby made.
I am the photo frame that was given. I was first given as a gaudy sea shelled gift on a birthday as remote as the exotic exoskeletons that line my border. Through a succession of "Oh No"s and "It's horrible"s, I passed from birth to death, from wedding to anniversary, from the altar to the garage heap. I am the photo frame that was given.
I am the word that was written. Before I appeared in blue black or multicoloured ink, perhaps I lingered at the corner of his mind. Perhaps I snickered when I danced away as he grappled furiously to pin me down. I gaffawed as when stars burst as his typing fingers failed to stroke me into existence. I skipped like pebbles dancing upon the wave lined surf. Then, sank onto the page. I am the word that was written.

Am I getting stupid? - 1/9/2002

The thought came to me during a Lit class today. I was going over a poem (First Day at School) that I had talked about before. And I suddenly realised that the things I was saying weren't very insightful or interesting. In fact, they were mundane. I thought about it while they class was doing an exercise and rationalised it by saying to myself that I had deliberately pitched my comments at a level that the sec 2s would understand. I had earlier spent a torturous 20 minutes formulating a single question that I thought would be appropriate for sec 2s, when last year questions came off much faster. I think it has to do in part with this re-pitching of levels.

But what happens when you get so used to the "new" level and you stay stuck at "that level". An experiment - will I understand the stuff I wrote in the U ....

"Melville tries, by enacting the sacrifice of one author-figure to the death energies of desire, to latch the text onto those energies, without himself being utterly destroyed. But if one agress that to write for public consumption is to sell one's head, then Melville, while refusing that compromise in Pierre, by allowing writing to become energised by transgressive desire, has sold to the textual machine, his soul."

Ok - so Melville plays this balancing act, trying to use energy but not be consumed by it. Apparently in the formulations of D&G, the machine moves to a mode of the Body Without Organs where the tradiational psyche of the self (the soul/the heart as an organ in this case) becomes read, instead as individualised, becomes a movement point in a network of nodes, traversing a space that is more social in character.

Ok - I'm confusing myself with definitions I'm not even sure of .... sigh ... need to read D&G again ...

Histories - 1/8/2002

have been trying to be conscientious as a form teacher to find out a little more about the class and where they're coming from and realised that the class does have quite a lot of baggage from the previous year. Lots of misunderstanding and miscommunication that was allowed to fester and left unchecked I guess, would characterise the situation best. Am not entirely sure as to how to proceed - I guess I'll try to get to know the class as individuals and hopefully help resolve these conflicts. Yet at the end of the day - it's really up to the kids - whether or not they want to grow up and learn how to get a grip on their emotions.

Was most pleased to meet many from last year who having started first week of lessosn in JC had the time and heart to come to RV to slouch around and say Hi to their teachers and their juniors. I'm glad they're getting into the swing of things at JC and seem to be enthusiastic - showing me timetables and notes - I mean - they used to throw those handouts away! I guess the new life in JC does cause one to suddenly realise that a whole new level of responsibilty and commitment is required.

Found out some news about the vacancies at PJ - apparently they've been filled. Need to get more details and then see which doors will open.

Tommorrow - another day of Comprehension Answers (the quickest way to kill interest in the Subject ...) and a desperate attempt to recover a Sec 2 Lit class (I think I lost them somewhere in the middle of First period Monday). Actually - it's quite a bummer that I only get to see Lit classes twice a week - can hardly build any rapport or teach anything concrete. They should just allow kids to opt for subjects in Sec 1. A thought: in lower sec - they do 3 humanz and 1 science; in upper, they do up to 3 sciences .... Sadly the system eradicates the probability of kids doing Lit just when they start becoming mature enough to get the subject. I think only when they've been through some difficult friendships, had to work through their own emotions, suffered setbacks, experienced anxiety and (of course) fallen hopelessly "in love", then they're ready for some thinking about WORDS WORDS WORDS.

Last Saturday - 1/7/2002

I met up with some of the beloved from 4K 2001. HY called me at like 10 pm and "mr lim mr lim (some habits die hard ...) meet us at HV ..." Considering it was that versus a whole pile of Sec 2 article reviews ... I slipped out of the house and went to HV. And I didn't regret it. It was really quite amusing to see the bunch that was there in their HC get up - all wearing shorts and Orientation Ts. But what really was heart-warming was the fact that they spoke of school in such a enthusiastic and excited manner. I'm glad they're in a place where they can enjoy and love school. Perhaps it's only been a week of orientation and the "real" stuff hasn't started - but at least they seem really positive about it.

Brought them to this place in HV where there's a hill which quietly overlooks ... well there's not much of a scenery. Anyhow it's been tiled and cemented such that it's become very sanitised and a little artificial. Used to love the place when it was really more like a hill-top. I've always been attracted to the idea that just behind this noisy pub filled hang out place there's really quite a gem. Anyway we sat and talked and talked and laughed and it was quite enjoyable.

Also brought them there because I went there during JC orientation (I mean after JC orientation for the year ones, when I was in J2 and "pretending" to be involved in it so that I could cut classes ...). Went there with M after the one of the Orientation days - cause we hadn't talked for like 2 weeks because she was on the main comm for Orientation ...) We sat the whole night on a hard cold wooden bench and talked. Was quite crazy cause we then went to school "like that" the next day -

Anyway I actually wrote a poem about that some years later after M and I had broken up and were studying in different worlds ... . It's rather stilted cause at that point in time I was into writing Sonnets:

A Remembrance

Tonight the village twinkled half asleep,
In stars of orange and white, the shaded hues
Of lamplit sitting rooms, the gazing view
Upon the outside world in darkness deep.
Tonight the high place uncovered from the heap
Of memories lost, the old replaced by new
Fears and desires which trembled as they grew
To extinguish the heavens, in a single sweep.

Now three years, the wooden benches remain,
The walking footsteps often trailing still,
A breezy rustle, which whispers out my name,
Still echoes through that grassy stone worn hill.
One night, one cast, one roll, a decision made:
One cry, one anguished hand upon you laid!

Anyway - after that cold night on the hill - I promptly fell ill with the chicken pox and missed another 2 weeks of school.

Random Thoughts (if ever there be such a thing) - 1/5/2002

Like the way I suddenly became interested in a certain personality of the past who for a brief moment strode into my life and made me feel old and manipulative. Who listened to jangly guitar music, broken chords and all as if it were the only sounds that counted. And she would close here eyes and seem to hum from inside the tuneless replaceable sounds that groove into chord progressions. The nature of memory is stark and its visitations leave you unprepared for the dwelling on after the event. I catch a glimpse still of the purple vest and hear the strange muted voice trying to make clear the sounds of the inner ear a vague humming never that never suceeds to form words. Until now you've managed to keep the thought / image supressed but a moment is all it takes for her to come bounding forth.

"Come Forth Silent Rogue and Claim Your Prize"

For it is only worth the blinking of an eye, the gasp before the falling, the sigh which evaporates the passing through closing doors. And the intensely personal is refracted through writing, a rememberance too shallow to elaborate upon as detailed narration but the starting point of every dream. A single word, an image breaks up into a torrent of desire. Can I concentrate thought so finely that all its theories and verbalisations become superfluous? Perhaps the nature of thought being chronological resists my distillation. one event precedes the, follows after, results from and tracing that line endless is thought itself.

So when the suddeness of her face flashes across my mind's eye where does it come from? Is that thought or image? The image generated by the mind - is that thought? For its origins lie too deep in the subconscious to make subconsciousness a terrain worth exploring.

Keys Words:

Large Unblinking Eyes
I have to go now
furry forearms
Purple
I want to do Medicine
maybe you can sing
Seated in the dark
LT 1
Just Play

MRT Jan 2002

To record - 1/2/2002

a first is perhaps the single thing that contradicts the notion of firsts and allowing that moment remain as a first. For the act of writing about it renders that "first" no longer untouched in its moment. Rather, that first becomes recorded, re-ordered and reconstructed - via word, via memory. What is possible is to understand and know full well that writing about a first is neccesarily a "re-inscribing", a re-living perhaps because that moment of experience is already a mitigated one.

But I shall, at the risk of cementing a "false version" of how i feel (but the subjectivity of emotion does lend itself as a freedom of sorts) about the first day of school.

I perhaps feel that working with my form class is going to be an uphill task and a challenge. There seemed to be distinct blocks of support / cliques which when I checked out later are really there. Not that having close friends or liking certain groups of people better is wrong: the problem arises when these groups become hostile and un-cooperative. So I'll probably have to scramble the class a bit and see if things change for the better. Am also thinking about whether or not I should talk about this issue which apparently has a history from the previous year. Sigh - so much emotional baggage at fourteen.

Have already sent 4 people out of class for speaking mandarin (and in one case hokkien ...) Will try to be consistent and firm about this one although I know it's very embarassing. They've got to learn how to get used to speaking english naturally.

Enjoyed my first Lit class very much. The class was rather responsive (considering it was the first time they were with me) and gave some rather thought-provoking replies. Felt that spark and love for the subject and the excitement about getting the kids into the subject as I taught. Lit's definitely the thing!

On a More Encouraging Note - 1/1/2002

To all who regularly read this diary
To all who are beginning a new year in a new school or place

I DO wish you all the best, that you may continue to stretch yourself in the area you love and are passionate about, that you may not merely conform but will re-form yourself and those around you ...

that you may this year (as I desperately hope to ...) not merely make your life successful:

make it significant.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Am dreading the first day of school even more. I wish I could hide behind the skirts of some never-aging never ending mother figure and never need to go to school ever. I am in my predicament reminded of a poem where the Child is in a terrible straits about having to go to school and is complaining to his Mom about how the boys will bully him etc and it's revealed only in the last line that he's the Principal.

Sigh - Six whole new classes of faces I've never seen or at least never taken notice of before to contend with. A plethora of unpronounceable names. Forms to fill, duties to assign, questions to answer, work to check up on, discipline to enforce ... and we haven't even gotten to the real teaching yet.

Remember when I was a kid in Secondary School - I really loved the idea of going back to school. For one I was basically in the same class for all four years - the make up of the class hardly changed. So got to know people better and better and had more on-going friendships. Second, school was where all your friends were and holidays in those days, we didn't go out as much as the kids do nowadays so your only option for talking with friends and hanging out after school was during the term. And also, school kept your mind occupied with interesting stuff to learn and absorb. I seriously think I'm actually dreading school more now ...

I'm pretty sure that tonight, Ms Tan and I will lie in bed, stare at the ceiling and repeatedly say to each other, "You're not yet asleep right?" Has happened for every "day before" school for the last year and a half. I guess some traditions come into existence out the anxiety or the dread one feels before an event.

It's not even the knowledge that I won't have time to do the things I want to do. I think I'll pin it down to this - there is a repetitiveness that GOING BACK to school represents for teachers. While there is a desire for familiar people, I want to do different things with people that I know, rather than embrace the system (again) with a different batch of kids. Odler teachers bring up the fac t that the KIDS are different and that this is the challenge. Perhaps. But is not the thought more damning? The KIDS are different and we're going to expose them to the same minimising, alienating politically correct, de-humanising system ...

"How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died"

The system does not progress much over a year and so you're returning to the same production process - perhaps a different phase in the process, but still, the same groove. A deadness appears, in the sense that your kids from last year have moved on and you're back in the same groove. It's not even with a sense of mission that will rehabilitate you, as you realise that the rest of the world has been recognised as one year older, advanced or more progressed, and you, are just going to repeat it all over again. Conceptually I think it is a depressing thing. Some may enjoy the familiarity of repetition; having not even repeated very much, I am already sickened by the thought.