algarabia

CAP'o7

2007-06-02T05:38:52Z

as continued from my (other, actual, label-as-you-wish) blogspot blog.

to be added on when i think of more. and shall be numbered just to show the astronomical proportions of CAP seminar's magnificence.

#1: walking from ucc all the way back to eusoff hall on vesak day, because it was a public holiday and the shuttle buses took a vesak day break as well. inclusive of the following points:
- listening to tienli singing random snatches of random songs
- overtaking (disgruntled) people
- trying to compose haikus in a destabilized state of mind
- watching an ri guy go on a sugar high and hop up a flight of stairs on one foot
- watching our feet go at astronomical speeds and unable to stop them from going too fast.
#2: laughing at all the ahemahem poems written by smax and assorted people during poetry slam.
#3: sarah and i being all-too-nosey girls and attempting to help the guys move away the humongous circular table smack in the middle of ucc suite 2, and not coming to much help in the end.
#4: marvelling at how chocolate bars quickly solidify in ucc suite 2, and enjoying the chocolate bar in question during a mass writing session later in the night.
#5: going on a sudden spurt of rafflesian-ism and doing random raffles cheers and singing random raffles songs at the bus stop while waiting for the shuttle bus after slam session one night.
#6: getting squished like a can of sardines on the shuttle bus back to eusoff hall.
#7: looking at how the handholds of the bus bob in synchronized motion when we hit a bump in the road, and debating over whether it should be described as 'choreographed', or not.
#8: sharing food, and clearing humongous chunks of vegetables into a black plastic bag of trash.
#9: multitasking during plenaries; taking notes and writing poems.
#10: getting arrowed by m.lee to answer questions because she was a rafflesian herself and we were way too quiet for her liking.
#11: ray writing down 'umm' to a question of 'why do you like poetry?' when the respondent was clearly still formulating her answer. and making a real philosophical face at that.
#12: the blatant irony of a group of hwachong guys naming their slam group 'raffles'.
#13: having the percussion rhythm throb non-stop in your brain in the aftermath of the closing ceremony.
#14: swooning over cyril wong's wonderful poetry.
#15: writing a collaborative poem, that ended up being titled, 'a cryptic poem'.
#16: talking to people in toilets, and making friends in this most unorthodox manner.
#17: collectively arguing, no i mean tastefully articulating our views, when the ucc people refused to let us in to watch the drama performance.
#18: tienli taking rather ahem photos of the guys across the dressing room. (i am not, i stress, not responsible for any of those photos. i am merely a guilty observer.)
#19: raffles congregation on the last day of CAP seminar, during dinner just before the closing ceremony, in yet another bout of rafflesian-ism.
#20: general school population being prefects for once, and checking the p.i.ts who have very promptly turned rather illegal during the course of this CAP seminar. (i, was, kidding. seriously!)
#21: trying to figure out who's who between the twin brothers, brain and keith. and sarah making a not-so-nice comment.
#22: running to the foyer from backstage after slam, back to backstage, and once more to the foyer in a serious case of miscommunication.
#23: wondering why certain councillors turned up in different school uniforms on thursday, and laughing at a councillor who was proudly wearing an acs tie but sporting an rgs badge.
#24: ng yi-sheng's loud poem. this does not require any elaboration.
#25: looking at the old copies of aCAPella during CAP alumni sharing, and chuckling at the chinese translation of the name. feeling stupid at not joining CAP alumni and listening to teng qian xi's poetry that is, beyond the norm.
#26: playing old maid during breakfast. and feeling downright childish.
#27: watching the once thought to be jc people playing with their slr and doing quite a bit of fashion photography.
#28: mulling over the great installation art at the eusoff hall bus stop, which was basically, a poor eight-legged spider squashed within a display stand.
#29: laughing at the fruit and vegetable band and their uprorariously funny songs.
#30: finally getting proper food at formal dinner. and tienli doing a great deal of cosplaying.
#31: watching azira and the rest of eastlife (haha!) doing their item during formal dinner performances! (:
#32: loserly staring at the violinist in the band even though i ought to be listening to the song as a whole.
#33: sarah trying to teach me how to roll my eyes properly. and myself wondering why i am so deprived, facial tricks-wise. (like grr i cannot raise one eyebrow either. it is double or nothing.)
#34: being unable to put on the intelligent audio device (or whatever you call it, at any rate it's just something that provides you with auditory information) properly. and wondering, as always, why it had to be so big and bulky. (-is reminded of the great handheld thingies that they had in prague.)
#35: waiting for the installation art to decide to start moving. and hearing others proclaiming loudly that 'it is already five o'clock but the stupid thing still refuses to move'.
#36: running uphill, downhill, and uphill again just to catch the bus. and collapsing to sleep out of sheer tiredness (also because: over-active imagination during the previous night, or should i say, early morning today.)
#37: sarah squealing in delight (okay she'd better not see this) upon meeting slc people and participants outside the museum, and beaming in pride. awww. (:
#38: the three buskers during sa'at's playwriting workshop: werewolf, chinese supremacist, and the One who Speaks in Song. alongisde an assortment of characters whose functions are primarily to tickle: singer who belts out a hip-hop version of the national anthem, dentist with a coxford university degree, chimpanzee and many others.
#39: slapping ants dead on bedroom table. taking particular delight in it and running the risk of being a downright morbid character.
#40: writing a note to the councillors to clarify the fact that she (meaning i, and i apologize for the sudden switches between narrative points-of-view) sleeps with the lights switched on. and hoping they would not take offence, and even read it in the first place.
#41: venturing too far into the ops room while searching for aCAPella. and subsequently getting chased out.
#42: using the haiku form as a very convenient excuse to write short poems when one is truly uninspired.
#43: being paranoid and constantly asking self as to where certain pens and pencils went. (answer: in the hands of trustworthy friends who had borrowed them 2 minutes earlier.)
#44: watching the bottle game. but being too lazy to actually take part in it.
#45: observing a humongous get-together of large, perhaps alien, ants while waiting for the bus back to nus after the visit to the museum, and trying to put on a straight face when one is obviously very, very scared.

algarabia @ 2007-03-30T22:48:00

2007-03-30T15:10:48Z

my livejournal is stagnating, yay for me! :D

anyway, thought this was a really pretty / interesting / insightful / rich poem! so well, worth posting and keeping here. (: [okay it's one of the poems used in our literature learning journey, but that does not, in any way, compromise the quality of the poem right! -of course not. in fact it shows that it's really good. teachers' choice. XD]

and yay for singaporean literature! (:

"I wish it had paws," you said,
"It's quite grotesque the way it is,
you know, limbless; can you
imagine it writhing in the water,
like some post-Chernobyl nightmare?
I mean, how does it move? Like a
torpedo? Or does it shoulder itself
against the currents, gnashing with frustration,
its furious mane bleached,
the colour of a drowned sun?
But take a second look at it,
how it is poised so terrestrially,
marooned on this rough shore,
as if unsure of its rightful harbour. Could it be that,
having taken to this unaccustomed limpidity,
it has decided to abandon the seaweed-haunted
depths for land? Perhaps it is even ashamed
(But what a bold front!)
to have been a creature of the sea; look at how
it tries to purge itself of its aquatic ancestry,
in this ceaseless torrent of denial, draining
the body of rivers of histories, lymphatic memories.
What a riddle, this lesser brother of the Sphinx.
What sibling polarity, how its sister's lips are sealed
with self-knowledge and how its own jaws
clamp open in self-doubt, still
surprised after all these years."

"Yet...what brand new sun can dry
the iridescent slime from the scales
and what fresh rain wash the sting of salt
from those chalk-blind eyes?"

A pause.

"And why does it keep spewing that way?
I mean, you know, I mean..."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said.
Eyeing the blond highlights in your black hair
And your blue lenses the shadow of a foreign sky.
It spews continually if only to ruffle
its own reflection in the water; such reminders
will only scare a creature so eager to reinvent itself."

Another pause.

"Yes," you finally replied, in that acquired accent of yours,
"Well, yes, but I still do wish it had paws."

-Published in One Fierce Hour (1998)

algarabia @ 2006-12-31T19:34:00

2006-12-31T12:00:51Z

post-prague&vienna, and to get over the guilt that i still haven't updated about prague&vienna, i present myself with

...of things i got from prague&vienna. -.-

PRAGUE.
- a glass doggy! (yes which i mistook for as crystal, but nevermind.)
- a wooden prague keychain.
- some thing which you're supposed to hang, from the bone chapel in kutna hora, except i haven't hung it up yet.
- a mug.
- the wooden zebra clip! (:
- pretty white scarf for mummy!
- bar of milka chocolate (which has been consumed by my gastronomical juices, sadly).
- postcards (good ways to spend of any remaining cash you have).
- a bone chapel brochure, full of creepy pictures, which i wouldn't have bought if not for the fact that it was a good souvenir.

VIENNA.
- a doggy keychain. (yes, a dog, again.)
- a santa claus that goes bounce, bounce, bounce, except that it somehow loses its balance after each bounce.
- a windchime, which isn't exactly a windchime but because i can't find the word to describe it, a windchime it shall be.
- a mug, with a passage of beethoven's i-don't-know-which-one sonata printed on it.
- a violin magnet/keychain, which resulted in heartbreak when i saw the exact same thing priced lower at another store.
- bookmark & postcards.
- a teddy bear and a pencil with a cute giraffe at the end, courtesy of shzehui and elizabeth. (:
- 3 humongous bars of milka chocolate (way overpriced in singapore, so next time i should buy in BULK.)
- 2 bags of mozart chocolate.
- 1 box of strauss chocolate. (weird, really. i mean, they're composers, not confectioners. find a better way to commemorate them, i say.)
- 1 box of kinder bueno, the type that apparently cannot be found in singapore, as of now.
- 1 box of dove amicelli.
- HOROWITZ PLAYS CHOPIN - THE COMPLETE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS. probably the best thing i got on this entire trip, really. XD

i think that's all. yes.

hello 2007, it's time you came out from hiding round that corner. (:

algarabia @ 2006-10-06T22:16:00

2006-10-06T14:27:20Z

okay, for my own reference, the short story will be here.

of course, after editing some minor details, which aren't exactly really minor considering that 'mrs goh's son' became 'his son'. >.< {as in, i was so careless that mrs goh became a 'he' at the start of the story, and back to a 'she' towards the end. okay, gross. xD}

The door slammed. Mrs Goh looked up, only to see the back of her fifteen year-old son, Jake, slipping into the depths of his room. She let out a huge sigh -- it had been days since her son started giving her the cold shoulder. Incomprehensible as it seemed, Jake had refused to speak to her after the time she had reprimanded him from returning late. Now, whenever their gazes met, Jake would just stare back sullenly at her, and silence would hang uncomfortably in the air. Why, what I had done was just for his own good, Mrs Goh thought to herself, her temper gradually rising over the insolence of her son.

Meanwhile, in another part of the house, a temper was nearing boiling point as well. As he sat in front of the computer screen, mindlessly tapping at the keyboard, Jake could not help but seethe at the indignities he suffered. Everyone else, every single fifteen year old he knew was given their freedom, their choice to do whatever they wanted, but here he was, with her even deciding what he should wear when he went out! It's not fair, Jake thought, gritting his teeth. Why can't I be like everybody else? I've had enough...I'm leaving!

The door slammed yet again. Jake rushed to the door in a huff, without acknowledging his mother, while Mrs Goh stared blankly at her son. All the words she wanted to say, she had no heart to utter them.

Silence prevailed.

granted, the topic is like 'cliche, cliche, cliche!', but i thought it would fit the bill (or the title! okay not punny). so well, there goes. ms seah thought it needed more linking of the 'silence' theme in the middle though, thankfully she didn't mark it down for 'irrelevant to question' or something like that, considering that silence only occurs, uhh , twice in this entire passage.

i'm itching to write something on 'a flower', but i think it's really hard to write! because you have to introduce your ideas at the start of the passage, to make whatever you're going to write relevant, but then leaving the significance to the very end makes it much more poignant. >.<

oh well, back to christopher columbus for now, the person who thought cuba was japan. >.<

algarabia @ 2006-10-04T22:22:00

2006-10-04T14:36:21Z

we did some writing today during english (: as some sort of preparation towards the eoys (which are looming just right ahead >.<). so now we have this new option of descriptive writing, but the questions don't exactly appeal to me.

michelle does not like describing events, thank you very much.

{well, if it were the description of a place, i'd jump at the opportunity to write on that topic, provided it's something i'm familiar with of course. i mean, when you describe places, you can infuse more of your thoughts into it and link it to some larger social issue, seriously! now remind me why i'm sounding oddly similar to the oral examination rubrics.}

so i stuck to those nice little short-phrase title of story thingies (!!). well granted they aren't exactly what you call helpful, because it's just this big, broad topic and it doesn't exactly pinpoint for you what your plot should be like and so on. but i think it gives you more space to develop your ideas, more freedom to explore your own thoughts. (yeah, i sound as if i have so much to write about when in actual fact, i am the person most prone to writer's block. wow.)

i think the topic of 'a flower' is so pretty. like, you could have written something about nature, or if you're as sadistic as i am, someone stepping on a fragile flower?

yes i've thought of something! (: the flower could be like representative of someone really dear to this protagonist, and then the best friend of this protagonist doesn't exactly understand the significance of it and tramples on it. but then, i can't think of any nice resolution to this conflict (like what? breaking up their friendship doesn't sound highly plausible), so this is just an idea. not a really good one, i must admit. >.<

'my first fall' was nice too, but i was afraid giving the title a symbolic meaning would be twisting the question too much, so i ended up with 'silence'. it's such a melancholic topic. ahh well, good for my venting of emotions. xD but we're not exactly done with the essay, 'cos today was only the pre-writing and drafting stages. we aren't supposed to look at it so i'll be obedient and follow instructions. will put it here as the 'publishing' stage (haha!) when i'm done with it.

provided i like it here of course.

note to self: i love jiayi's motif of silence throughout her short story!

algarabia @ 2006-09-03T13:54:00

2006-09-03T06:03:10Z

uhh, i think i'm going to stagnate. and for a very long time at that. ahh well, you can't be thinking up of nice poems/prose when there's homework/revision to be done and which kill all creative juices that you have, never mind if you don't even have enough to fill a cup initially. (HAIL ME, FOR I AM THE QUEEN OF RUN-ON SENTENCES.)

hmm, i have a weird desire to plonk everything on my blog here to lj. for its simple, clean layout (though at the end of the day, i still sort of adore the one that i made, haha!), and well, because I ADORE LJ CUTS THANKYOU. but then i can't link (a lot of) people, because half the people i know don't have LJs. WHY AM I RAMBLING.

sometimes there are just people who you want to get to know better, but you don't. although you know they'll probably accept you for who you are, you don't really interact with them because they're more senior than you, and you can't pluck up the courage to talk to them. ah the irony!

this is a super short cut, by the way.

algarabia @ 2006-09-01T23:06:00

2006-09-01T15:24:36Z

firstly, PFFT at myself for getting a second LJ account. {seriously, michelle, do you need so many!} but anyway the other one's for memes and stuff that's hmm more subjective and personal so this one shall completely be devoted to whatever that strikes me as worth writing down. {but then, my sense of 'what's worth writing down' is seriously dysfunctional, so if you're expecting completely polished pieces that are up to CAP standard or something like that, you can either go away in peace or be disappointed. very disappointed, in fact.}

OH, algarabia! (: it's spanish, and amongst its many meanings, one of it is "scribble, scrawl". well, considering that whatever i'm putting here are just random concoctions of words and are often done in a more than haphazard manner, i guess it does fit. and anyway, spanish is the <3, too bad they don't offer it as 3rd language! (but anyway, it wouldn't be of much practical use. still, it's a really beautiful language!)

{hmm, michelle is getting overly interested in foreign languages. first it was japanese, well which she's still doing, then it was latin, and now it's spanish!}

okayokay, i'll get down to the point. here's a poem that prompted me to create an LJ. granted it's not wonderful, but hey, it'll be good to track how i grow in my use of words, my writing, and my literature. (: {and that's the whole point why i'm putting it here, because i reckon not as many people would read this, as compared to my blog, which sadly, already has a pathetic readership.) so...

STAR.

It shone.
It shimmered.
Dazzling the eyes of thousands,
penetrating the hearts of millions.
Enraptured, enamoured,
but is nothing.
The surface,
the exterior,
only!

What laid behind
the dazzle, the sparkle,
laid unbeknownst to all.
For by the superficiality
they were already enslaved,
yet overjoyed were they,
oblivious to what lay beyond them.
Like a minion,
but ten (hundred, thousand?) times worse,
for they didn’t even
know
what they were following.

And finally,
when they left,
for something else,
shining,
shimmering,
brighter than before,
they left the light to die down on it,
and with the light,
it died,
too.

okay, so i guess the title gives it away. hmm, actually it depends on how you look at it. a star, taken as that celestial object, wouldn't make this poem really meaningful, but would still fit. fine, i'm talking about pop stars, rock stars, superstars, whatever star you intend to name. so basically it's just reflecting this state of all of us, how we're chasing trends, fashion, and yes you guessed it (!that was the line i put in for the speechday script!), stars, but we have not a single rational idea why we're doing it all. we're not going crazy because we see all the hard work that's been put into whatever shows on the surface and we want to model that, we're just going crazy because we see the glam, the glitz that's superficial and in most cases, not exactly reflective of what's true. and the sorry thing is that, we move from one craze to another so fast, without thinking why on earth we're even doing it all. and whatever hard work the stars (or any respected figure, since it fits the context) put in, they are forgotten, or worse still, never acknowledged.

i know with this it sounds awfully offensive, but i think i'm going too deep into why i even wrote this poem. truth is, i just saw the paperclips on my table shining and wrote this poem. talk about inspired. xD

hmm, i guess i'm welcome to comments? (: