real #2

Another day another attempt. “toodle-oo” probably the worst way of saying goodbye to someone. i’ve heard it countless times among the children. A short bent at the wrist, a farewell, sometimes a tap on the shoulder chase away some strange demon/ angel in those moral good/bad caricatures that i find on newspapers. That newspaper, quite possibly an article would be great enough to fire up imagination and dave brubeck from a sniff. Soon, it will be used to wrap groceries, namely, roots with all that mud still trapped.

I still dream on the ocean, this time in sepia, the blues have changed. Still the creamy foam that form when waves move against each other, still the slight thin bright line that frames the sea, from the sky. This time there are boats, on them i do not see any sailors or sentosa cove refugees. Just little card board shilouettes floating on a vast brown sea. Then im breathing, tasting salt and back. Seeing myself swimming is alot more enjoyable then being there in that body of flesh struggling to keep its composure.

Who owns this body? Why you of course.Wish is the right thing, after all you made this body. Is it the vessel that my little boy carries.

Today i heard disembodied voices from a house nearby, muffled and desperately trying to make it self comphensible. The walls seems to grind the teeths i imagine are bright blue from the fluorescent lights, falling aginst the red glow of the altar. I hear a low old man’s kind of voice, tongue over saliva, teeth over an audible lisp from tiredness. Then later on, a softer but as emotional voice. For minutes i hear them locked, tongues with tongues, all black flames, all black flames. The flouresent lights fail to light that mind.

I have understood some new things today. I believe sometimes there are things best not to know, it hinders with reality that is already so frail and absolute. I dont regret it. In the face of monstrums filled with coupons from blush! and Zara, i am floating. Floating artist in the material world? Fantasies, both good and bad are fantasies until you think about them. Why? Within the will, not mine or any special person. Crawling on the floor wheni can stand up? Well, at least i know now.

Urge this cryptic shit is funny. It reminds me of all the lame attempts that i’ve conjured as memory or to commited to life, all the pauses and all the sighs. over the phone, over sms, over conversations. As empty as fantasies that direct you to something that you know isn’t real. wring me from the telephone poles, tight and calllous. I am not this. I am so not this.

The stars are pretty. When is it when i blow into all of you. First thing i see on a picture of the night. The skies. Rubbing my eyes in my pyjamas, i look through a pair of binos, and i see the stars i imagine are lit by the street lights. Again kallang national stadium, fire works, they lit up the stars. We can light up the stars. I can.

#1

The boxes, the tabs, the browser, the title bars, the links, the call to write leaving only myself to fill in the blank spaces. I try to run over the screen with my fingers, but you know they don’t exist physically. I imagine many others wrangling their thoughts both in stylized news stand magazine energy and in MTV Newtonian disguises. Like an emperor in new clothes, naked and with all heart, believing that the the Gaping mouths of an invisible audience is that of envy. Boughs of green flooding the faux spiritual realm of toolbar highways that lead to where you are, an icy plateau, Killamanjaro, slipping over the edges, closer to a couch potato’s space in time, while you find the stars that lead you to the moon.

Along the streets, Christmas has slid its way on the front of buildings, the lamp posts, into the mouths of buskers and plastic leaves that don’t sweat and die as long as it’s Christmas. A lady crosses her legs at the seats nearby, and sings along to songs playing from an invisible speaker. Near her, with his back towards me, a white man with a tattoo of a Romanesque horse on his calf, sinks into his pack of beers looking at cars engaged in a traffic jam. Quietly, lady with legs crossed bites into her lower lip, and takes out her phone, and taps it against the seat in between her legs to the beat of endless waves of people.

Near the pathway, an old lady walks into a speeding car, and dies, while her husband is waiting to be warded to see his grandson at his 5th birthday at Island Country Club. While chewing for lunch, dinner makes itself ready for birthday celebrants at Christmas mass. In the sacristy, Uncle Stephen finds a copy of her world shoved between two Sunday missals. The smell of brylcreem in his hair sounds like the John’s first whispers; quiet, but breathy, the musky smell on his cheeks and the warmth of his collar bones. As the bus, turns along Newton Circus, gravity makes itself seen complete with ether and ectoplasm, the railing slides itself away from chest, the metal turning into a kaleidoscope of orange, red and green for a moment.

Tack tack, China reveals itself in a conversation with an American, NGOs, Asian food and art. Where is the Irish? Angry but yet so ready to spring at this dark world, armed with bastions of humour and an amoury of non-sequitors. Where is the person i am? Hidden beneath my left wrist, somewhere deep beyond skin and bone. In the night, i can hear their toes moving as they stand around me, fidgeting, like a group of distracted school children warming up for exercise.

 

Work Today, Gone Tomorrow? Survival Tips to Deal with Downsizing in the New Economy

by Sophia Su

http://sg.jobstreet.com/career/issues/work25.htm

Some 12,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs in Singapore this year. So far, 12,000 are on shorter workweeks.Companies are freezing wages and stopping recruitment. All signs point to an increasingly bleak economic outlook in the coming months. The fact is that, slowdown or not, companies have to keep on shedding lower-skilled staff as they restructure up the value chain to be competitive. Facing a layoff is fast becoming more and more a real prospect for many Singaporeans. In this new and unpredictable job market, job security has gone the way of the dodo. To keep your job, you need to work smart. Do whatever it takes to make sure you’re crucial to your company. But also have a plan, in case somebody thinks you’re not so crucial.

Here are some tips to help you avoid becoming a victim of downsizing and increase your career advancement potential.

The first rule of survival is to realise it can happen to you. It is amazing how may people just sit back and wait for the ax to fall. They didn’t see it coming and did not have time to prepare for change. Many people assume it’s never going to happen to them because of their long service and value to the company. Make sure you don’t fall into the trap of thinking it could never happen to you or you could end up being unprepared to survive economically or professionally. Remember, no matter how much your boss may like you, ultimately what matters is the bottom line.

The second rule is to keep your eyes and ears open. Be aware of what’s happening in your company. Hiring freezes, early retirements and other signs of what is called managed attrition are indications that your company is extremely serious about head count. Look for other warning signs. How are the company shares doing? Remember, while downsizing may be a bad word for workers, investors like it as it show the management is cutting costs. Also keep up with possible mergers involving your company. Look for when a merger is going to happen. When a merger happens, it is good news for the company and bad news for half the employees.

The third rule is that you should always be looking for new opportunities. Never just sit still. You are in charge of your own career. Regardless of how secure you may be in your job, you always need to be prepared to look for work in a volatile business climate. Even when you are working, you should stay abreast of the job market. Now is the perfect time to do some research. Keep reading the wanted ads in your field. Look for jobs in your field and see if the requirements listed are skills you possess. Take time to network and take on some informational interviews, if you hear of any. Make contacts with headhunters. Better still, sign up for online services that will keep you informed of new job opportunities, at no cost at all.

The fourth rule is always to keep your resume ready and fresh. Always document your work and achievements because you’ll forget how significant most of your work is. Have them both in hard and soft-copy. Many online job sites, in fact, will allow you to store, edit and forward your resume to prospective employers.

The final and golden rule-and key survival strategy in many industries-is to keep on learning and updating your skills. Lester Thurow, a well-known professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says only three things matter in the New Economy: Skills, Skills and Skills! The skills you have today may not be needed in a few years-or even a few months-so start now to learn new ones. Take advantage of your company’s training programs or the many programmes funded by government agencies. For example, in Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower has a career centre called CareerLink@MOM that can help you choose the right skills. If the worse happens, and you do lose your job in a retrenchment exercise, one of the first things you need to do is to examine your financial situation. Look at your resources and expenses. Check your contract to make sure you get your benefits. To know more about what your rights of employment or termination are, you can write in to Work Smart, where the Singapore Human Resources Institute will answer your questions on workplace problems. Then remember, life goes on. There are still many jobs out there, and more jobs being created everyday. Believe it or not, losing a job can actually offer an opportunity, as there is always a better one out there for you.

Venice Beach

Ok i better catch it while i can, before it goes away. If you’re wondering what it is, it’s this feeling to write/ type/ shimmy with the keyboard. It’s been difficult to write, to let it flow, after my mind has been drowning in apathetic stratosphere.

Today (oh yes, i have to start with this, best way to start your entry, 1 million years of human civilization and movies and it starts with today). Today, i went to the substation to do some stuff (c’mon i have to be able to specific, after I do remember how i used to be so specific to a point where its funny.) I went to set up some music stuff, because im playing guitar for a friend, (now now tell us who it is…) Nick Chim, who’s having an album launch. It was hard at first, after being thrown like a mixer that i didn’t know how to use and expected to set it up. Well, i managed to work the mixer and the PA like an old hand phone, and i think i’ve got it done somehow. Tomorrow there will be sound check so i think it’d work out fine.

I also cut myself really bad, i got home with my green shirt with blood, i wonder i how i got cut really.

(Is it all thinning out? the reason to write. I have to stop thinking in between these words.)

A few days ago a friend of mine told me that i should write for the government, i have a fantastic talent to make bad things seem pleasant. She calls me an optimist, seriously i wonder how i look like from the outside.

(yes its thinning out, are you building a new pen-writer persona, so that you can look at yourself at a safer distance?)

(try harder S, but don’t clench your teeth)

I know that most of what im writing is of not much significance now, but i must try a post at a time i guess. I am aware of how i am thrusting my self into the internet again, of this way of looking at myself with words. It’s safer to see what you think of in nice fonts and such, alot more comforting and assuring that your thoughts don’t just float around.

(Its getting really difficult already)

What do i want my pen-self to be like? I want you to be ok, to be safe, to represent S fully.

What am I, S. Have you forgotten me? I haven’t, really, I saw you pick up the hymn book today at mass, and opened to page 579.

the hardest, worst but best in my life

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, for always been there.

Thank you so much for listening, consoling me and answering me.

Thank you that now i understand, much more than all the books in the world can teach me.

Thank you so much, even if it hurts still.

Hello

here’s a song that i recorded.

tell me what u think

for you ***** ….

beyond the rainbow

Before i rest after sometime.

Dear *****

how are you. I’m sure you are fine, and that you’ve been praying for me.

Many times i feel that hollowness in the pit of stomach, that depth in my chest and that numbness in my heart, i think about you.

I look at myself from the people walking across me, one leg after the other, and i see myself, one thought after the other, walking across the rising tide.

I want to make my life worthwhile for you, so that you can smile, in your innocence and purity. Whatever that life separates us from, death will bring us together. Sometimes when i think of this, i feel abit morbid, but you know what i mean. Until death comes, i want to try all my best to make you happy from a distance, and when we meet again you can make fun of me all you want.

I think about how you’ll look like, how you’d chide me endlessly about my quirks.

I thnk about all the drawings that i made and how you’ll like them.

Sometimes i weep a little bit, because the distance feels so great, but one thought after the other, i make the distance up.

I have a badge of courage, a Th .D in thinkology, clock for a heart, and a pair of slippers to bring me home. I want to give them to you.

Continue to pray for ******, just as you have for me. If you don’t know how ask the star of the sea to teach you how ok?

I find it funny how i’ve written this on the internet, to reach to you, but this is a part of me, more real and firm then a photograph of me.

Listen to me sing ok? i’ve been learning to sing this song in a way that you like….

“Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There’s a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops, Away above the chimney tops.
That’s where you’ll find me.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then – oh, why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
Why, oh, why can’t I?”

For the short time spent together… i have so much to look forward to..

Cowboy

Rest assured, that the great west lies straight ahead. Indians make good with the confederates; blue twirls with colours made from blood and dust. The skies topple over european castles, church spires marking daylight stars. Chirascuro obscures the people at the top of bell towers where hunchback notre domes rescue faint gypsy marc anthony’s and jennifer lopez’. In the middle of the town square deep in the south, accused witches draw themselves to the gallows, hexx and pagan lick their tongues for death.

The best way to seal how the townsfolk had looked at them from the corner of their eyes, witchery amongst clean dinner tables and Oscar Wilde trinkets on moral perfection. The cowboys pick up coca cola cans and keep them safe in their dinner jackets as they traverse the Irish Docks and Arabic deserts. Sam phillip’s scores yet another great signing when he sees me at the beach, eyes wide into the sea. St Augustine is there, in the midst of putting a twenty ought six of grace of God into his brain. Splattering it like apache indian axes across Brooklyn beach combers who just watched Rocky Balboa tear lips.

Thin lines that cut, thick lines that cross the skies. The faint wind, blows a tune into empty bottles of coke, whistling along, is my cowboy, who walks along algerian alleys filled with debris.

With a coat, and with a smile, and a push cart along the aisle of transition. Pure excitement, electrifying back end engine fumes bubbles in champange. The calm of the skies, his shoulder. “i should’ve gotten the window seat”. The sound of his shoes on the carpet, i cannot hear it. The sound of what’s taking me where i want to be is louder; the engines, the onboard entertainment system. I can feel yet i cannot see my luggage, i can see yet cannot feel my distance from where i am going. Over his shoulder, i see the desert, and there from far is my cowboy who has travelled to christendom and back.

kite at marina barrage

thank you so much God for answering my prayers.

…and this is where they filmed that electrico mtv for national day. The awe and wonder of this in built resilience and positivity that the united nations could draw its blood from. Check for thyroid and blood sugar levels first before attempting to perform.

….. and this where the workers at the IR construction sites walk to at the end of the day at the weekends, hands in hand. Boot cut jeans with bright brand names emblazoned on their butts. Sunglasses and dark, but never darker from the sun and the kites. Their lives are larger than the kites, and deeper then the roads they built. Deeper and brighter than fiber optics cables that are strewn across town.

…..and there’s this marble wall copy at shopping malls. Pebbles and more pebbles plastered on foam. The concrete structures are like the edges of crocodile dundee’s knife, hills and valleys that mean nothing. I can see children running around, screaming in wordless excitement of the water playground, but do not see them hiding in dustbins or playing paper planes.

….and there’s this police man walking around the edges of the sea, making work permit checks on workers looking at the sea. At the sea, the horizon is filled with cakes, birthday cakes.

….children are playing in the waterplayground with their pampers, mother wiping their feet and faces. No one’s really thinking of closing time, or the last order, or tomorrow because today is the best day of life.

kite and sun

why

Thank you God.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

“Never was it known that whoever fled to your protection, implored you help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence, I fly to you, Holy Mary. To you I come, before you i stand, sinful and sorrowful.

Oh Mother of the word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy and grace, hear and (continue to) answer me.”