THE WHOLE THING IS THE HARD PART
Heather Christle

you have to live where   the house lands on you
what else can you do    your bones are all broken
and somebody loves you   who is it     tell me who
loves you    not as much as I do    I mean     I even
built you a house    and found you         why won’t
you live in it

How do I be cryptic about this? Every word that spills out of my mouth is screaming blatant, harsh truth. Angry syllables and raging clauses. How could you ever put the funny and joyous back into your throat? It's like you've swallowed a miracle lozenge of numbing power. Instead of coating your red tonsils with a lemony cure, you've burnt the hurt out of you with acid. 

On the other hand my pills for the night are becoming weaker. The stars are alive for longer and so is being in stasis. Blank eyes, open mouth, perpetually choked throat. Throw me a rope please. I'll put it around my neck and you can pull me out of this pit. 

It's difficult to lean on yourself. 

If you haven't done it in a long time your muscles have atrophied 

Your legs will be wobbly 

The unfortunate thing is before you let yourself get stronger 

You'll have decided, 

See? It can't be done.

how come everybody says 'you're stronger than you think' but they never consider that you might almost definitely be weaker than you think as well?

i had it in my hands but i wanted to hold onto it so badly
i crushed it
it fell to pieces around my feet
i've been trying to pick it up ever since but it's been cutting me
little stabs
i've been bleeding

an accurate description of this feeling according to me:

like i have no intestines
like every step i take, i could put my foot 3m into the ground
deflated

if you are famous you never run out of affection

everyday that i wait is another day i shrink

is it so bad if the world ended? i used to have all these things to look forward to. these hopes built a mountain beneath our feet that i believed would carry us up and above the reach of destruction, la fin du monde, 21st december. now i've toppled back to the ground. the mountain is gone. i used to be deathly afraid that it wasn't just some over-sensationalized myth, that on the 21st everything i've wanted in life would be subsumed by a gigantic tsunami. but now i've graduated to ambivalence. i don't want to die but i don't want to feel this either. everything feels like an abrupt ending

went snowboarding today
it was amazing
il neige
mais il n'avait pas froid

je suis tombée beaucoup de fois
mais comme une fille qui j'ai rencontré a dit: 'je tombe. c'est pas grave.'
c'est un peu poetic je pense

je suis penser s'il a raison d'oublier mes livres anglais
parce que je suis en france... probablement c'est une bonne idée si je pratique mon français par lis des livres français...
mais je sais aussi que quand je retourne à Singapour, je n'aurai pas de temps pour lis tous des livres anglais

how how how

can't post anymore pictures
'used up your free 1GB photo upload limit'
i can upload them to flickr and html them here but that is so.. troublesome
i avoid troublesome things as much as i can

ironically this makes other things more troublesome and i end up in even more trouble than before

been thinking if i enjoy living on my own
yes and no
but i think yes. i would want to get my own place if i could in the near future
i would have to live overseas for that but it would be pretty great i think
but i would miss my parents so much. i don't like missing them
i don't like missing Gus

two nights ago i went over to janine's apartment near the gare
5 girls live there
they cooked dinner for me and it was asian and it was great
so thankful
they made their couch a bed for me to sleepover and it was fun
i want to go back soon

been working on my french because i realised i don't have much time left
also because i have french exams coming up soon

snowboarding this weekend
i want to be really good but there just isn't enough time
if i enjoy it enough maybe i will go back to singapore later
just to have some time on the mountains

whatever it is: 9 days until Gus is here
i'm so excited my heart flutters just thinking about it
and the phrase 'can't wait' quadruples in significance
feel like my whole body is a neon sign flashing 'can't wait'

i can't

slippery sloping


never underestimate what you can do
when you don't believe in yourself

i understand my worst enemy is myself
but still i stand here, hands tied
bruised and battered
but ready for the punches, yet again

their ripples are touching you, aren't they?
or at least, they're coming soon
get up, dry off, leave this place

no. but don't leave me.
is it selfish to ask you to embrace them?

i sat on a boat in the river that wasn't flowing
because i wanted to find you
and the water seemed to understand because it was capable of
drowning things, concealing them under its feet. a good place to hide.
i looked into its murky depths and finally, there you were,
holding your breath on the riverbed, your eyes shining

you were so beautiful
but we both knew that i would drown trying to get to you
before i could touch you i would be
more than the fair share of water a human should be

if you cried watching this from below
i wouldn't be able to tell

i decide not to try and go home
i am not sure you're worth all that

bruges, belgium

real life fairytale landscape
difficult to describe
so many swans

where i learned to love beer
drinking beer every night now, don't reckon it's a good thing
paid check-in just to bring home bottles of belgian beer
but gus says it must be that i only fancy wheat beers or something
because i still can't take heinekens or tigers
but another beer that i really love is desperado which is not belgian
but belgian beers were equally superb

going to let everything go and just get out there
i can't stand this feeling anymore
the feeling of waiting and waiting
for what, i don't even know
but i know that as i sit here there's awful thoughts fermenting in my
fucking
mind

tomorrow is edinburgh
booked lots of tours and activities
quite excited but will be sad to miss gangnam style flash mob this saturday
looks pretty awesome
but i will be so happy to meet bert, i miss her so much

and who else i miss is Gus
but this time with even more intensity than i've ever felt while on exchange
il me manque -- i miss him, but in french it's more like

he is missing from me

and he is
and i hate it
and can i have him here now

please

i wish the type of fun i have in mind didn't have to include the 'friends' bit
thinking about that bad ass white guy who danced alone in butter factory the entire night
i want to be him

the worst feeling is
feeling like you finally have somewhere
something
b e l o n g i n g

only to realize nobody thought that but you

one day the tree said, i'm tired of standing
i'm not as strong as i look
and he bent his trunk and lay down on the forest bed
and saw the sky for the first time

9th nov - 12th nov 

off to Bruges, Belgium 

lazy to blog atm 

brighton #2

brighton (31 nov 2012): 

woke up when i wanted to 

took a bus to baker street for famous fish & chips in brighton 

had the cod & chips and it was crispy on the outside 

hot and tender on the inside 

and the chips were soggy just the way british fish & chips are meant to be 

the restaurant had simple tiled floors 

simple plastic furniture 

simple glass doors 

unsophisticated and unpretentious 

in the background the waitress told a couple a story about how her teenage son disobeyed her 

everybody was laughing 

after that i took a slow walk down to north laine 

the shops were interesting 

bought two second hand h&m tops for 1.50 pounds at a charity shop 

tried hats on in a shop called 'the mad hatter' 

flicked through vinyls at a shop called 'the wax factor' 

bought an old watch for 7 pounds from a shop (i forgot the name) 

checked out every used bookshop i could
some were very specialised and carried only, for example, books on art design and coffee table books
others, like the one in the picture, was exploding with all kinds of books, called 'rainbow books'
i was taken aback when i walked in. you have to tread with caution because
the books litter every possible pathway, strewn open, spines yawning
almost impossible to browse yet it is such a haven
two extra side rooms downstairs, equally disastrous
it was chaotic but it was inviting, you couldn't help but squat down and start sifting
the shop owner was a lovely old man who knew where things were in spite of the mess
he helped me locate some books i might be interested in
gave me recommendations of his favourite books which include one that i eventually bought
and am reading now, titled 'the end of the world news: an entertainment' by anthony burgess
author of 'a clockwork orange'
it's a very good read so far, i'm going back to it once done with my french homework

i told him one day i would like to set up something like his shop
'don't expect to get rich' he said
'ok' i said. 'i don't need that anyway'
he said, 'but it pays the bills'
'and you get so much time to read' i said
'a lot' he said

i told gus, i'll collect the books and you handle the business things
gus thinks it's a risky, almost futile business venture in singapore, a used bookshop
no market
i believe him but
that would be a good life i think, reading all the time
however, if i think about the good food i'd be sacrificing if i didn't have extra good food money
it makes me kinda sad
in recent years i have realized just how much i love food
especially asian food

at night i went to the 'theatre royal brighton'
it sounds french, putting of the adjective behind the noun
feel like it should be called 'royal theatre brighton' instead
at 6.45pm i bought reduced price tickets for a play called 'the sacred flame'
it was about a crippled man whose devoted nurse loves him
but he loves his wife
and one day he dies and the nurse suspects murder
it was a story about the line between love and pity
the duty of a profession and the obligation of morality
but also the dissolution of morality as observed by the crippled man's old mother
who asks, why must one person's set of morals be a standard for everybody else
and, if love fades in a marriage, what is one to do

i watched it through the white hairs of the generally elderly audience
but i enjoyed it thoroughly
i seldom watch plays
it is an adaptation of a play by the same name by william somerset
perhaps if i can get the book i can post some of the dialogue i enjoyed in the play

after that i walked to the bus stop amidst zombies, vampires, nuns, witches
(one girl, totally green, wicked-inspired, great effort)
took a slow walk home
watched QI on tv and fell asleep

still to blog about:
london
interlaken

cannot begin to describe how awesome brighton has been for me 

not sure if it's because i'm not with any friends 

forced to do things alone 

but it's beautiful, the freedom, in a beautiful place, i cannot describe 

the first day i woke up when i wanted 

went down to brighton pier (of course) and walked around 

bought fish&chips to take away and sat on an unused cart staring at the sea 

 

my lens cap fell between the boards and into the ocean 

'well it's gone now' a man said to me 

walked around all the gaudy, tacky rides that looked so fun 

rickety and simple and garish and beautiful 

smiled at a group of old women who were driving bumper cars 

the metallic structure of the abandoned West Pier was in the distance 

just huge pieces of metal left standing in the water, facing the wind 

and it was haunted and empty and sad and pitiful 

when dreams die i think they look like that, west pier 

walked down to the pebble beach and to the shoreline 

never been to a pebble beach before 

it was difficult to walk 

little kids were hurling pebbles as far as they could into the waves 

the wind was making me tear and sniff 

 

i sat down on the pebbles and looked at the sea 

took out my kindle and read 'sum: forty tales from the afterlife' by david eagleman which is a book i forgot i had, and found it an apt read to have

because everyone thinks brighton is where people go to die isn't it 

i don't see why it wouldn't be true, it's so lovely here 

always messing things up
don't understand what self-control is

came to brighton to be alone and feel in control of things
doing things on my own and whatnot
now the only sensation i feel is an urge to throw myself off brighton pier

i love you but it's hard when the sky always looks different for each of us
i hope you love me too and you understand
it wasn't right
please don't ever run to anyone else for help but me
i promise i have the best arms even if they're the ones that made you cry
they're sorry

i'm sorry

thank goodness for sleeping pills

last night i went to a halloween party with alex, kim, hyun & the korean girls except it was in the basement of our residence and they served pumpkin soup that tasted like water and burnt potato cubes, but it was 2 euros each which i guess was worth the 3 bottles of soda we finished amongst ourselves, and the excessive stashes of haribo we grabbed by the handful when leaving

in hyun's room we drank until i felt sleepy, and we talked about cultural differences in the club. eun yeong is so funny she likes to mix english and french into one sentence, and it cracks me up so bad. alex said 'carly rae jepsen is so pretty' and eun yeong said, 'no? she's just a femme' (she's just a girl) and the other night she shouted, 'please help me i have to do my devoirs!' (i have to do my homework) kim was sick and eating strepsils which is better than kim being drunk i think

i thought about saying bye to them and their french accents when i leave and felt sad. they asked me to a party on thursday but i will be in london which is the first time i wished maybe i wasn't going to london

it didn't last very long, nowadays all i think about is london

but today i was lonely again

i am taking off wednesday morning, 5 hours in geneva & 2 days in london all to myself
think i am meeting rachel sometime then
jamie & nut until monday
eve sometime in between
then brighton alone
then geneva & interlaken with kat where we will soar above mountains like birds

things are bright and getting brighter

i think i'm ok because i try not to think about it, try not to think about the emptiness at the end of my fingers or the gigantic hole in my stomach or my blue-black heart or the way my feet drag ever so slightly, or how crunchy leaves don't crunch under my boots and the cold pierces my clothes more than it should. but if there is even a lapse in my conscious effort to forget it then the void widens like a growing sinkhole and suddenly there's only the floor for me to hug, how much i miss you is the amount of extra hours i spend sleeping because i don't want to experience missing you, at least in my dreams we can touch

'a person who sleeps a lot is very lonely'

i sleep so much nowadays

it's silly but it's real

my home is in your bones

which part of me is supposed to grow? my static state is growing bigger than my body. i feel like soon i will lose all physical shape and become simply a directionless, aimless, static aura that scares people away

just thought about the time gus & i were skyping and a man in the corridor burped so loudly that gus heard it

'on the horizon':
london
brighton
geneva
interlaken
bruges
edinburgh
lisbon??? maybe
family
gus
gus
gus

if all goes well, november & december x

Retour des Alpages 2012
Annecy, France

about 15 St Bernards, so many ducks, sheep, cows who tried to hump each other while marching in the parade, folk groups in costume, food, food, food... had such a great time at the festival, the weather was beautiful by the end of it and we sat by the lake happy. a clown made me take a picture with him and somebody else made us taste some liquor that was really disgusting. ate raclette in the windy cold. dangled our feet over the water and enjoyed the view.

thank you Annecy for a beautiful day, one of my favourites on exchange so far

cycled home at 12.30am (it's not even that late)
the wind was blowing my face and my hands were frozen stuck to the handles
the wine i drank earlier was not keeping me warm anymore
don't really fancy it. reckon i might just give up going out late altogether

i am looking forward to sunday i think
hopefully i get to go see the big engineering schools' dance-off

booked my tickets for harry potter studio tour with james
excited
saving all my shopping money for uniqlo in london

heading to Annecy again tomorrow for Retour des Alpages 2012
i really just want to see the St Bernards
take some pictures for gus, some really nice ones, that's what i want

often i sit at a table and stare and try to be quiet. i think there is supposed to be a voice that will tell me something useful, tell me something about myself, what i want in life or what i should do, but i just keep staring, staring at stationery on the table, a water bottle, staring at my laptop. i sit like this for an hour and a million thoughts have bullet sped through my mind but none of them tell me anything useful, and i still sit here. this physical scene is quite an accurate description of my life i think, i find that i sit and stare at the world, tearing up from the dust and smoke it leaves behind, but i still sit here, like on a curb, waiting for something, a car, to pick me up or knock me dead

someone tell me that some people are still worth investing something in even if it seems as if their owners have taken a trip out dilapidated doors for an indefinite period of time, even if there's no meat to scrape from the shells, even if their eyes are constantly dull and half-asleep and their mouths get smaller and smaller everyday from lack of use. someone say that it's ok to be like that, just for awhile, or maybe more than awhile

it is probably not healthy the amount of class i skip
but skipping class is something people do on exchange
except normally they do it to travel and gain 'exp points'
but i skip class to lie in bed and read books
watch youtube for five hours
eat m&ms and pizza fish biscuits
the rare times i go to school, i feel like going home

my favourite places in grenoble are:

my room
nabab's kebabs
the bookworm cafe
... sometimes the kitchen

my favourite people in grenoble are:

katarina
marty
hyun
kim
song kyung
asako

in terms of how nice they are and how much i liked hanging out with them given the chances i have had to hang out with them

mostly i am alone and i enjoy it, except i don't get to practice my french much

some things that french people say, i find weird, when they want you to wait & they'll pay attention to you in a minute, they say "j'arrive", which means "i arrive/i come", which is weird. today i asked the kebab man for a wrap but he was busy, and he said, "j'écoute", which means "i listen" but he meant that he would attend to me/listen to my order in a minute... i get confused, sometimes i know what the words mean but i don't understand what they're trying to say if that makes sense

i want to ask hyun to speak to me only in french from now on, but i think we will never talk about anything ha ha. i wanted to apologise to him and say, sorry i am so boring but the language barrier is serving as a major prohibition to the truth of how interesting i am, which is not very, so just sorry overall

i cannot decide if i am more boring than everyone else here or just not as loud

i have to do a presentation on french immigration laws. in french
i look forward to it because i enjoy speaking french... out loud. seeing if people understand me

i want to live in a world that is not real
je veux vivre dans un monde c'est pas real 

last night a boy ran around the corridors blowing a whistle
la dernier soir, un garçon a couru autour les couloirs, un coup de sifflet

today hyun told me he might be evicted
aujourd'hui, hyun m'a dit que il pourrait être expulsé

Père Lachaise Cimetière

I think one of my favourite parts about Paris this time around. Something creepy about knowing you're in the middle of tons of dead bodies, but at the same time it felt very humbling, and reasonable, surreal and beautiful all at the same time. I am and will always be absolutely terrified of death, while simultaneously being completely enamoured by the concept of it and its implications.

I especially love this last statue, that of Mary cradling Jesus's broken body. I have never seen such a statue or image depicted of Jesus before. This is the first time I'm seeing an image of Jesus as 'weaker', if you will, or in need of care. I really like it, because often we immediately see Jesus as strong, almighty saviour, Son of God who is powerful and gracious... but i think I often forget that he was also a man, somebody who felt all the torments and pains of humanity. And of course, Mary's pain. I like to think this is the grave of someone's mother.

There also lots of famous people buried here, but surprisingly I was more impressed and intrigued by the tombs of the unknown than Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Chopin... most of them had been defaced by fans' graffiti and writing and so have had to be barricaded off by ugly sheets of plastic and railings... looking at the tombs of strangers was a much more fulfilling use of time here, although I did want to see Oscar Wilde's tomb, the man who wrote the brilliant "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has to be paid a visit, no?

& I loved seeing tombs that were completely decaying, broken down or just totally worn down by time and weather, but still, a fresh bouquet or a lively sprig of flowers would rest on the doors or on the tombstones, just put there a few days ago. The contrast in the colour is so, so lovely, and so touching.

I thought I would be a little scared but I really wasn't. It was most definitely a place worth visiting. There are other cemetries in Paris that are equally famous, and I hope I get to see them on my next trip in December.

Père Lachaise Cimetière
16 Rue de Repos
75020 Paris