gryeon's Xanga

Goodbye

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:38:55 GMT

I don't know who reads this space
But somehow this space has cost me everything
My enemy/enemies, you have got it all now
For I have lost everything
My efforts are worth zilch, nothing, nothing at all
Its all back to square one
The writing board, you know where it is?

Now I have been sitting here for the last two weeks
Thinking of what to do with the rest of my life
It appears ruined and I feel so day by day as the clock ticks
I had written what I did in a fit of pride
Now, isn't pride the very thing we strive so hard for?
I don't blame anyone
I just blame myself for being the biggest fool ever
Thinking that nobody's watching

Goodbye, there's no more dinner at eight
Goodbye, to the few who had been reading
Goodbye to the people who treat me with disdain and wish for nothing but my demise
What have I actually done wrong?
I just wanted to write and share my thoughts
What you haven't realised is that thought police are all around..

Better to keep your thoughts in a closet

Once again I wish for an opportunity, this time I will hold it so close that it shall be forever. I will do everything you want and more...

Goodbye, I will sleep at night

Plans

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:04:47 GMT

The Joker says, "It's a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair."

Why so serious?

順流逆流

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:04:09 GMT

不知道在那天邊可會有盡頭
只知道逝去光陰不會再回頭
每一串淚水伴每一個夢想
不知不覺全溜走

不經意在這圈中轉到這年頭
只感到在這圈中經過順逆流
每顆冷酷眼光共每聲友善笑聲
默然一一嘗透

幾多艱苦當天我默默接受
幾多辛酸也未放手
故意挑剔今天我不在乎
只跟心中意願去走

不相信未作犧牲竟先可擁有
只相信是靠雙手找到我慾求
每一串汗水換每一個成就
從來得失我睇透

Looking for an opportunity

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:46:45 GMT

If you can give me an opportunity
I will do anything you want

The Watch

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:56:59 GMT

D and I waged war. We bickered, we quarrelled, we made threats. And then at last, abandoning all subterfuge, I told her.

She did not think I was mad. Something in my voice, my manner told her that this was not madness. If it had been madness, perhaps it would have been easier to endure. Her face turned a grisly white. In one fell stroke, her universe was upturned. Her stock of love, her hungry flesh, her empty womb were mocked and belittled. She looked at me as if I might have been a monster with two heads or a fish's tail. The next day she fled - 'left me' is too mild a term - and, rather than co-exist another hour with my indefinite lease of life, returned to her mother, who - poor soul - was ailing, in need of nursing and shortly to die.

Friends like this

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:43:52 GMT

I need friends
Who do not offer me "favours" on the pretext of making me do another "favour" for them and then play me out time and time again. I am a fool because you did it again
Who do not attempt to give me a solution but will listen to what I have to say
Who do not meet me just so they could sell me something

I need friends
Who genuinely value my friendship and company

Consider eternal depression

Sat, 31 May 2008 16:55:54 GMT

Ask yourself if things you have made the fulcrum of your existence
Have rejected you no matter how hard you try
A terrible feeling isn't it?

They say we do things so that one will lead to the other
If one thing does not really require the other, there is no point thinking of the other
Point is, why was the other perceived to be so important in the first place?
Was it because of misguided obsessions?
Or simply bad advice?

Just when you thought you had regained that slight zest for life
Along comes blows that beat you down to bits
You always tell yourself, climb up again, so that one day you will prevail, one day you will be successful
I have been repeating that same mantra for years
Why don't I just stay down
Just so I don't get beaten down once more?

If all that eternal striving has brought you nothing but sorrow
Why not consider eternal skiving?

I wish I can just die in my sleep tonight
At least, I don't have to own this troubled mind anymore

I'm two steps from cutting myself

Do you know how it feels to be the perpetual other?

I'm Chinese and I'm superstitious

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:59:44 GMT

Some excerpts from one of my favourite projects last semester

As noted by Chen (1998), good luck to the Chinese is valued in “receiving gifts of goodness”, such as manifested in health, wealth and success. All participants agreed that good luck is having positive events (i.e. winning the lottery, getting an unexpected pay raise) happen in one’s life. A participant mentioned,

“Good luck is where everything in your life goes ‘smoothly’ and there are unexpected gains on top of it. It means that things are “ho say” . We can eat things that have the same sounds as the words carrying the meaning of ‘smooth’ or ‘lucky. ‘Soon’ can refer to leek vegetable and also can mean ‘smooth’ or ‘ to count’ in hokkien. ‘Fat Choy’ can mean hair vegetable or wealth. The main idea is for everyone to feel lucky and hopefully luck will follow in the New Year ahead.”

It is also interesting to note the practice of politeness maxims in “Luck Talk”. An elder participant mentioned, “This is a good period for us to convey our wishes for our children. They will not think that we are ‘nagging’ them.” In this case, Luck Talk takes on another function; working as a ‘disguised’ form of making a request. Leech’s (1983) tact maxim is at work here; where cost to the hearer/children is minimized as the request is made in a festive setting and conversely, benefit to the speaker/elder is maximized as the request is received with goodwill. On the other hand, Leech’s (1983) approbation maxim works where children make greetings wishing for their elders’ youthfulness and beauty. In this case, the speaker/child is ‘minimizing dispraise of other’ and ‘maximizing praise of other’ when addressing their hearer/elder with flattery. In common greetings between family/friends such as “Happy New Year”, Leech’s (1983) agreement maxim is at work where the hearer repeats the speaker’s greeting in return/agreement for having prosperity and happiness in the coming New Year.

学业进步
xué yè jìn pù – Improvement in School Work and Results. The elder is requesting the action of better school results/grades from the child. When said in the Chinese New Year, it becomes more of an greeting/well-wish rather than a demanding request

早生贵子
zǎo shēn guì zhǐ –
Give Birth soon to an expensive one . The elder (a probable anxious father/mother-in-law) is making a request for a child soon from their married children. When said as a greeting in Chinese New year, it minimizes the implied cost as it is supposedly said in festivity and the use of “Gui” (expensive) connotes the idea of a “precious child”, further maximizing/making implied benefit to the children

青春常在
qīn chūn cháng zài-
“ Be forever young”
" I wish for my mother to stay pretty and youthful, or at least feel that way”

A rule of speaking for the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia is the avoidance of negative comments and arguments during the festival, because such talk is interpreted as meaning that negative events will occur in the New Year ahead. As observed by two Cantonese participants, the hearer of the message may say /tou3 hɐu2 sœy2 dzɔi3 gɔŋ2 gwɔ3/, meaning ‘Spit out your saliva. Speak once more’.

Fong (2000) notes that the hearer’s response to the speaker is a conversational repair that serves the purpose of correcting a word, supplying a reference or solving a problem before continuing the conversation. At the same time, the conversational repair statement is a perlocutionary act that functions as a directive, which directs the addressee to do something in the future (Clark, 1985; Searle, 1977). In this case, the hearer says ‘Spit out your saliva. Speak once more’ with the intent to direct the speaker to repair his/her violation of speaking negative words and to recant what was said, by speaking in a positive manner. A participant provides an example.

“ If you call someone an ‘idiot’ during Chinese New Year, you should spit out your saliva and speak once more. Everyone makes silly mistakes but they are not idiots. What if that person you scold really becomes an idiot? So you may call that person a silly boy/girl, but don’t call him/her an idiot. Speak once more.”

----------------------------------------------------------------
I think I can actually write...

I'm not so much of an idiot, speak once more..

Idea: Making Molehills out of Mountains

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:20:24 GMT

Cast
Wong San Keng
Lee Ah Loong
Mas Alamak
Low Bui Kiang

Mat Alamak, a 1.5m tall, plump malay guy with a slight limp has escaped with six cans of tiger beer and seven rolls of toilet paper from the 7-11 store. He was rumoured to have fled from climbing out of the urinal cubicle (wah urinal got door ah?) of the 7-11 store

Interview in front of 7-11 stall

Wong San Keng, store manager of the 7-11 store makes his apologies
" Alamak! I'm really sorry this happened. We never wanted this to happen. Rest assured, we will go all the way to find Alamak"

Lee Ah Loong, CEO of the 7-11 Chain
" I have full faith in San Keng that he will find Alamak despite this brief episode of complacency. It is not a sign of incompetence. We should not go on a witch hunt and asking for San Keng's removal will be a mere changing of guard that serves no real purpose. You see those horses at buckingham palace only know how to shit.. If we take San Keng away, can we ever get the tiger beer and toilet paper back? Removing San Keng will not change anything " (editor note: But keeping him there does not change anything too)

Wong San Keng
" Yes, I'm sorry the CCTV was not working."

Low Bui Kiang, Shop Owner of the next door econ-minimart
" You can put cctv camera and zoom up on people stealing magazine but cannot put cctv camera to catch a limping man. Where you put your face? That time you make one mountain out of a molehill. Now you make a molehill out of a mountain. Somemore you pay yourself so high...I know 7-11 make a lot of money laaa.."

Lee Ah Loong
" So what are you saying? Should I sack Wong San Keng? Then your econ-minimart take over ah?"

Low Bui Kiang
" Aiyaa...orrrrr"

Lee Ah Loong
" Orrr Hum zhi ahhh orrrr!! I alone judge what my managers and San Keng does. They are not really 'San Keng' you know! They deserve all they are paid"

As the interviews are conducted, Mr Alamak wrapped like a mummy with toilet paper limps slowly and drunkedly up and down in the background with a can of tiger beer. He waves the " Victory" sign and has the last word
" Tell them I just walked out laaaa. How to climb out when I'm fat and limping? And San Keng should really just take a pay-cut!"

Monday, April 21, 2008

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:46:12 GMT

It will not go to waste
I will not give up
If I were to go, i should just go all the way..