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.