Random thoughts

Tori Amos is coming to Sydney in September.

Cannot wait.

This woman, i think kept me going through my angstiest, angriest years as a teenager. Incredible voice, often heart-rending, perculiar but personal lyrics left open to interpretation...you never really know whether you've quite figured it out even after the 18th time you might have heard a song from her.

But oh so identifiable especially when in my teens...

Girl--
"And in the doorway
They stay and laugh
As violins fill with water
Screams from the bluebells
Can't make them go away
Well I'm not seventeen
But I've cuts on my knees
Falling down
As the winter takes one more cherry tree
Rushin' rivers thread so thin limitation
Dreams with the flying pigs turbid blue
And the drugstores too safeIn their coats
Anda in their do'sYeah smother in our hearts
A pillow to my dots
One day maybe
One day
One day she'll be her own"

I kinda see her as the Madonna of confessional alternative-piano-pop-rock. If there is such a thing, she's definitely it.

----

I need to sit down and write. Write properly. For myself, figure out things. Submit things. Create things. Just create and think for myself, for more clarity. I also understand the danger in that...in thinking, overthinking and never quite achieving. But the journey is on.

I cannot wait exams are over.

---

What is it about our puny short lives. We struggle so hard to live and then to live well and then to live at all...the whole time, we are struggling all the way to our old age and deaths. Even in death, we struggle, 'death throes'. We struggle so much...so much does seem futile. So much to learn, to accomplish, to see, to meet, to know, to create...to help...

So much futility. I cannot help but once in a while in wallow in this sense of listlessness. If, despite a lifetime of work to creating and helping...how does one ensure that there will be others to take up the baton, to keep your work going? None. There is no guarrantee there is even less surety when you place trust in people. We are so short lived and vulnerable and intrinsically so flawed.

Choices

I was thinking about this today. About how each individual chooses to lead their life. How, in the everyday, seemingly small and trivial choices, how we think, our values and belief systems guide us in this.

ie:

1) Take person who believes in Karma and gives up his or her seat for the old granny despite having had no sleep or is aching all over. It is very tempting to reassure oneself that good things come to those who do good and shrug away the sacrific, however small it is.

2) Little boy or girl puts his 50cent pocket money into the homeless guy's cardboard box and feels bigger, puffed out, that they'd done something good. And the benign parent beaming on who says, :"good boy, god will bless you."

3)People who do things that they don't really instinctively like but still do, for the sake of 'moral', 'duty'...'moral duty'. Because despite doing this instinctively unpleasant thing, God or whatever divine being will bless them. This really pains me.

4)The taken for granted assumption that blatantly religious individuals, ie: muslims, christians,buddhists,taoists,jews,bahais...etc will have understandable moral codes. I think this is ultimately what is comforting for most people. That people know or more easily have a grasp/gist of what another person will be like, in their behaviours, their choice making...christians may automatically feel comfortable with another christian because they know they both believe in the same holy book, the same god, the same commandments. (I am speaking in generalisations here)- but this general comfort factor lies in also the easier identification process with others, of say...the same race, culture, gender, age...etc.

5)People who aren't religious. are more suspicious. lol. I say this jokingly. More that, their moral codes, their belief systems are not so simple. They may be the complete opposite of a religious moral coding (which is highly unlikely) but they are more un-knowable. Religious people are suspicious of such, of someone who would casually but quite seriously say: "I don't believe in God".

6)Non-religious people. Perhaps Atheists themselves, if should choose to be moral. Aren't they more moral then, for the very principles that morality stand for and because they exercise 'free will', to enforce choices...more ethical, more just? Should then, there be a God...should he not appreciate more so the intellect and choices such people make regardless of his rules, instead of following just because "he told us " in this tome of holy words of so much controversy...transcribed so many thousand years ago?

Is the concept of Karma...and perhaps also by implication, the idea of religious moral coding and God, Judgement day...so bad if it keeps people who arent inclined to be moral or good and more 'base'...to rein themselves in? Would they be far worse, if without such possibility of divine justice hanging over their heads?

We see alot of shit happening in our world, in the name of blind faith, religious fundamentalism, blatant ignorance and arrogance and the brazen use of idealogies to champion filth, degradation and violence...but could it be much worse?

I don't like this idea, any more, nor do than I approve of this...but can this be what is keeping people in check?

Black Boots

Fuck exams.

Havent been blogging, because i've been intensely studying for the last few days for my upcoming

"JOY, OH JOY: 8 EXAMS!" Whooppeee!

Meanwhile.

1) I really want to read Fury by Salman Rushdie. AGAIN.

2) I just really want to read anything that has nothing to do with body parts, or nerves, or musculoskeletal stuff, or patients who have been traumatic accidents, have spinal cord or brain injuries...or even about sporting athletes or the grandma who fell downstairs and landed on her open wrist with a twisting motion...

NO MORE! Goddamn. unfortunately...another 2 weeks to go.

3) I want. to buy. black boots. like really hot, leather black boots. Not really with a heel I don't think. I'm not that much a heel girl. I tend to wear ballet flats alot. But black boots, for winter, with maybe a slightly chunky heel. Something warm, fits well, that I can wear with my tights/leggings/jeans.

What is it about retail therapy?

4) Also. I've read this graffitied several times, across several different types of handwriting (so assuming from different people, unless it was by a very bored someone, or just a multiple-personality- someone.)

: " I think about sex all the time during exams"

--> ok. maybe not 'all the time' was written always...but the implication was there.

Yeah. I think about sex more during exams as well. Today, I've been more stressed than usual, so...maybe not.

But i actually think, i think more about sex during study time i think. But once exams edge ominously close...maybe not that. too much desperation involved.

5)I'm feeling trapped. I felt pretty upset today. Really wanted to get away. for a while perhaps? I'd like to go back to Singapore I think...to visit. I don't think I can live there, but to visit. It's been a very, very long time.

6)I think i'm an emotional coward. I don't think people realise just how little i tell them. Or are people all the same and I'm just jibbering? Or that other people just have less to tell? I realise, that before, people had to dig or actively pry away in order for me to divulge. Or when i'm on the verge of hysterics, crumbling.

7)Libraries are comforting. Fuck going to see the counsellors, or psychologists, or self-medicated-indifference, arm-chair confessionals. Go to the library. read a good book. Good books, great authors, talking, walking characters beckon and they come alive in your head.

8)Hugs are great. From people who matter. It's great giving it back as well . But there's definitely something about being hugged by someone bigger than you are, it feels alot safer. And it is comforting.

9)Rain. and great music. and soup. Imogen Heap, and tomato soup with onion and basil and rolls, are on the brain at the moment.

10)I want more certainty in my life. Don't we all?