the apple knocked over

when i was a kid, i was always marvelled by ice cream cones. i thought that they were such amazing contraptions, cause when you buy ice cream from the ice cream uncle in scoops, all he had to do was put a small round scoop at the top of the cone, and this ice cream would magically last forever until you are at the end of the cone. it seems that always, there would be enough ice cream to last me till i am at the last bite of the cone.

i used to ponder and ponder about how this amazing contraption works, was it like some kind of refilling cone, or did the uncle secretly put some ice cream into the cone without me noticing? i asked my dad for an answer a few times, but he never gave me a satisfactory one, i felt. (perhaps i just did not believe in reality.)

i just could not fathom why there was so much ice cream when it seemed like so little at first!

now, grown up, we do not wonder about such things anymore. there is always a logical explanation for something that we do not understand – religion and faiths, i shall ignore. one day, i suddenly realised that all that was happening that the ice cream was being pushed down to the bottom of the cone. there was no magic refill and there was no kindly uncle who would give me more ice cream that i would expect.

this was made worse today when i stopped by gelare after intensive cycling with my sis. the cone was so gigantic, two-thirds down…

there was no more ice cream left.

freak of nature

recently, i have added this phrase to my personal message on windows live messenger – “at night, i say goodbye”. everytime i see it, i laugh. cause it sounds emo, but actually it is basically a factual statement. i mean, it is true, isn’t it? like when it is getting late, you say goodbye to your friends and go home!

it is just kind of cute to me how when people put phrases up on their messenger, it immediately connotates “emo”.

give me your gold

in the game of life, have you ever felt like a mere pawn?

i guess it is a situation often described in tv dramas and what not, where the protagonist falls into this deep cesspit of shit cause of the circumstances and then he is in a dilemma cause he is stuck no matter whether he attempts to move forward or backward. in chinese, shortly 进退两难.

i have not attempted asking this question among my friends, i mean it would certainly be weird for someone to admit, “yes, i am just a pawn” cause it connotates that you have almost no control over your life. but for me, i would be inclined to disagree. in my life, i would not say that i have complete control over my life, since there are things that my parents would obviously not wish for me to do – and i do not do them. but this does not make me a pawn, i should think. because i make a conscious decision to listen to my parents, because i want to make them happy, or i think that they are usually right. (sorry, i do believe i am a family orientated person, at most times.)

but more often than not, i believe the decisions that i make, and the actions that i perform, do directly impact my life in more ways than one, and that is why i do not see myself as a pawn in reference to my life. for example, when i do not do well for exams, it is because i did not prepare myself hard enough, and not because i was unlucky or i was just pre-determined to have this score. (i do not wish into go into an philosophical discussion over determinism and freewill now!)

so i guess, i mean i believe strongly in not being a pawn when it comes to my life.

and after some thought, i believe this is one of the reasons why i am not suitable to go into a relationship. i mean the stuff that i once told chin nam and xiao di di were probably crap, like the 偶像剧的恋情 was just me attempting to validate my beliefs.

i am not saying that in everybody’s relationships, one person is treated like a pawn and the other, the mastermind. but relationships tend to remind me of chess games. new relationships often begin with a intense period of insecurity, which requires continual assurance from the other party that “yes, i do like you a lot”, “yes, you are seriously the prettiest girl i have ever met in my life” (which is so obviously crap cause the guy is definitely not having a relationship with like ms world or something.) or “yes, i do want to spend my life with you” well, for insecure people, i guess this phase would be pretty long.

but my point is, during this phase, people tend to play a game of chess. they feed information to the other party in attempts to test the reactions of the other party. they fish, and fish, and fish until the desired response is achieved. hands up for those who have attempted to make their counterpart/crush jealous by mentioning that other people are interested in them. well – this is what i mean – the other party is now a pawn in the relationship game. their reactions are being controlled by the mastermind, and sometimes, they would feel as if they are being led with specific cues to the desired response.

of course, i should think that there is often reversal of such roles during a relationship, any of the two can take on the role of the mastermind or the pawn at any one time. sometimes it gets to the point that it is no longer chess – it is a dance without a clear leader or follower. the relevant parties dance around a particular issue, unsure who is going to give in first.

i think i am seriously beating round the bush. but yes, my point is that i am unsuitable for relationships because i cannot tolerate such stuff. i cannot be a pawn in the game, and i would attempt to take control of the game. i am competitive, but relationships have no place for competition. if you are seriously in love with the other party, why would you even attempt to compete with the him/her for control over the game? in the first place, why should control come about in a relationship? oh and in the first first place, why would love be a game? i think, the base of it all is that i look at the world with a perspective that is not condusive for the growth and maintenance of relationships.

in the bid to take control of the game, i think i change. when i was taking to js and wy on tuesday, i found many of the things that they said when i was in secondary four unfamiliar. in fact, it all seemed like a blur. i had almost no recollection about what wy and js said was happening during that phase, they just seemed really foreign to me. i spent many parts of the situation going, “really?!” and “seriously!”. i could well say that i was in a state of disbelief at most parts of the time because it really seemed like an extremely different me from that time and what i remember about myself at that point of time and now.

and then, i guess when one changes, it defeats the purpose of going into a relationship, does it not? because then you would not be the person your counterpart believes you are and not the person your counterpart would actually want to go out with.

so i guess these might be reasons to explain my beliefs and conviction. and zi lin is back again!

anyway, in other news, i just want to tell everyone to read xinyang’s blog! this is totally such a random shout-out cause he did not like ask me to do anything like that, especially since i have not talked to him online for ages. but i think xinyang is really amazing. but do not read the longlonglong entries, cause well, i do not. but read the short entries! the things that xinyang thinks about and writes about is amazing and really cute. like his most recent entry -

This leads me to conclude that when one says that he’s blogging, he could really be doing an infinite number of things: blogging, meta-blogging, meta-meta-blogging… and (meta-)^infinity blogging.

he is just very thoughtful. not in the common use of the word “thoughtful”, but the things he sometimes wonder about is very enlightening. but xinyang still remains as a conundrum to me, cause i always wonder why he is not in gep. afterall, he is the top individual for chemistry olympiad. like wth.

so yes use my blogroll.

the little bites

good night, my sweet.

you thought i was trapped,

but then i realise,

i have been on my guard all along.

 

it doesn’t hurt as much as it should,

it never should have mattered,

because i know what it feels like,

and yes,

it feels exactly like this.

 

so,

goodnight my sweet.

drugged endorphins

went on the singapore flyer on saturday, it was a pathlight outing sponsored by motorola singapore, which is surprisingly closing down soon. (cause they are shifting their factory over to some other country) but anyway eunice olsen was there too! she is really very thin.

uh the flyer was uh. not as impressive as i thought it would be, perhaps because marina bay is not completed yet. i guess when marina bay is fully constructed, the flyer scenery would be nicer. but till then, i think the DHL balloon would probably be a better choice – at least it is open-air.

anyway the photos above, i took with my k810i! quite cool quite cool. but i have not had much experience using the panorama function, and they turned out a little weird. but cool nonetheless.

shall post bout my thoughts today in the next-next post.

petals float

meeting my dear group of friends from sec 1&2 was sort of a wakening i think. it was nice to meet them again after so long, and it was nice to see them blossom into such beautiful and mature ladies with skirts and feminine tops.

i did notice the striking difference between myself and js with the rest of them, and it seemed as if we were somehow stuck in the times when we were still hanging out in secondary school. t-shirts and denims in the past, and still t-shirt and denims now, and most probably t-shirt and denims in the future.

i cannot judge, i can only wonder if someday i will find it easy to dress that way, and whether i will still feel like the same zi lin as of now.

js says that people do not change, they appear different to us because they show a different side of them. somehow like these traits were already present, and then now instead of them showing what they showed us before, they are showing another side of themselves.

i guess my question would then be if this “decision” to show a different part of themselves is a conscious one, and interestingly, it still constitutes a change, does it not? people change, as in they change the side that they now publicly display to people, no?

so i think it is still a change.

hm so zi lin, how will you change?

saying it with your thoughts

the latest korean drama that i watched was “get karl! oh soo jung”, also known as “karl vs oh soo jung” on channel u’s website. it was pretty good cause it was quite different from the usual saccharine taiwanese dramas that i sometimes watch. [cue thoughts about 微笑pasta] but i would probably not recommend it to people who do not usually watch drama serials cause well, it was not fantastic or anything, it was just pretty funny. pretty as in cause karl is good looking. haha!

but anyway, there were certain parts during the show that i was really quite impressed with the scriptwriter. it was not exactly like impressed with the twists and turns in the plots, but more like the exact ideas that were used. to me, script is important, but i do not just refer to like the plot. cause usually when people say “i like the script”, they usually refer to the plot and like how things happen and stuff like that. but for me, the exact things the actors say is very important too! in the past, there was this channel 8 drama called the rainbow connection (it was so bad i even remember the name okay!) about some dancers or something like that. every line that was said was so cheesy that i was cringing throughout the whole episode everyday! so yes, i like it when the scriptwriter can say things nicely.

so in “get karl!”, i think the scriptwriter was really brilliant! there were some things that were said that i believe i would remember for a long time to come, and there were 2 moments in the show in particular…

the first one would be when they were talking about the cinderella. if you think carefully about the fairy tale, you will realise that the prince actually married the wrong person all along and still lived happily ever after! cause the prince chose his princess according to whose foot would fit the abandoned glass shoe perfectly. but the fact that cinderella’s glass shoe fell off while she was running down those steps meant that the glass shoe did not fit her foot well! therefore, the real cinderella’s foot should be smaller than that of the shoe size of the glass slipper… and this would naturally mean the prince has got the wrong girl after all. oh wells but they still lived happily ever after, so what do we learn? i think we learnt that shoe size are all that matters to marry right.

the second one was a conversation between oh soo jung and karl’s love rival – uh i can’t remember his name. anyway, she realised that he was really a conman hired by karl and she was devastated. but this conman still wanted to be her friend. (cause he is secretly in love with her.) but of course oh soo jung would say the line that scriptwriters and primary school kids always use: “friendship is like a glass, once it is broken, it cannot be mended.” then the love rival said, “a mended broken glass may not be able to hold water anymore, but there are other uses, aren’t there? for example, you can put coins or cranes inside and it will work just fine.” (i love this comeback!) but then oh soo jung said, “but i don’t wanna do that.” (but i love this comeback even more!)

yep so i think the scriptwriter is pretty brilliant.

 

and then, i realised you were never what i imagined you to be.

hurry, before it’s too late

though it was only two weeks since i wrote the post about “zi lin has gone fishing is going through an unimaginably bad phase”, it definitely felt like forever. every day i would stare at that entry and wonder if “today” was the day i was going to say “yes, this phase is over, so let me start blogging.” so i guess “today” is “the day” then.

but here i digress. the phrase “zi lin has gone fishing is going through an unimaginably bad phase” sounds weird and is bad english, and most people did not understand it. well, it was supposed to sound weird so too bad, i guess? but anyhow, “zi lin has gone fishing” is the name of my blog. but i don’t mean my blog was going through a phase, i meant that i was going through a phase.

at some point of time, i think my blog has become an extension of who i am, and in fact i find it creepy when people do a search on google with the terms “zi lin rjc” or “sim zi lin” and arrive at my blog. sometimes it does make me feel insecure, as in like acquaintances may actually be finding out pretty personal things about me when they read my blog. in this case, i would not be referring to things like the things i like to eat or the colours that i dislike, but more towards like what my thoughts are and how i think. these things, to me, are even more personal than the superficial stuff such as likes and dislikes. it is something like friendship i guess, just because someone knows your likes and dislikes does not make them become your close friends, but the friends who have a good idea about what makes you tick are the ones who you believe are your close friends. it all boils down to being at the same frequency or wavelength i guess.

most of the times, i think we are just on different frequencies. it’s hard.

right! so back to the fact that i was going through a phase. the fact was that i was having a really bad allergic reaction to something that i do not know about. apparently, allergies can appear suddenly during your lifetime, you do not actually have to be born with it. the doc said that it was cause the hormone levels and stuff will like alter during your lifetime and may trigger allergies. so anyway, my allergic reaction was really bad. like really really bad. i had like entire patches of red (like humongous) over the back of my two upper arms, as well as on thighs. in short, it just looked disgusting and itched like hell. and seeing a few doctors did not help at all – one of them even said that i was probably bitten by bugs. if you had seen the extent of the rash, you would probably disagree vehemently. the rash just refused to go away. for like 3 weeks or something.

to people who never had rashes in their lifetime, it would seem like just a small matter. but actually, rashes is a social thing. it is not like having like a cold or gastric – the fact that rashes can be seen on the skin makes it something social. people see it, and they think your rash is contagious or something. i have seen a few lists around the internet about “what not to say on your first date” and “what to do to make sure you are not invited again to a party” (well it is supposedly for people who hate to attend social functions) etc – no. 2 on the list always goes along the lines of telling people about your rashes, or showing off your rashes. i cannot remember  what no. 1 is, but in the list of like 50 behaviours or something, no. 2 on the list is quite high up! anyway, my point is that having rashes can really be quite demoralising. i mean, i am usually a pretty positive person (alliteration!) but when it got quite serious i really could not take it anymore. i really took to whining to my parents! okay maybe not, all i did everyday was like “pop, LOOK! ma, LOOK! ah cheh, gor, LOOOOK COOL RIGHT”, and then sometimes with a frown. but in conclusion, rashes really put people in a bad mood all day. and it did not help that i had to wear long sleeves to school everyday in this bad weather, sigh.

so anyway, as the final resort, i had an injection, so the rashes has mostly gone away, leaving some pigmentation. so i guess this means i’m ready to start blogging again, and i just did! (:

Protected: hell yeah

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: