at times i've wondered why have i stuck with my internship for so long. i know there's a contract but i've been completely dismissive of contracts in the past, left jobs which i felt i really didn't enjoy, even if i may have needed them at the time. granted, 2 months is not a long time to be on an internship, but after my first week i already started feeling the dread of work, office life, fitting my body into this cubicle shaped hole. and i recognized that feeling, the same feeling right after i started working as a waitress, a tuition teacher, etc. i quit all those jobs. but i haven't quit this one. i contemplated that perhaps it was because it was an 'internship' which carried a different connotation than that of a 'part-time job', i think i felt, perhaps, it was more valuable to my future. on the other hand, i've often felt guilt at quitting my other jobs, thinking that it reflects so badly on me, affects my future if employers ever discovered i was such a quitter. so i felt it couldn't have been that. then, i think, i realized it was because my dad was so heavily involved in helping me this time around. every morning in the car he asks about what i've been doing, is it good. i stick with this job because i don't want to disappoint him, or my mum. i realized this this morning, when i woke up late, and we ended up leaving the house about 5 mins later than usual. i was so scared that my dad would be angry, tell me about how i'm no longer in school, i can't do stupid things like oversleep anymore. he wasn't, of course, but that natural instinct told me a lot about how i viewed this job. as a way to prove to my dad i'm capable, a way to make him happy, make him proud.

then i realized this is both a good and bad thing. that my parents motivate me more than i can motivate myself. i can't expect my dad to still have such specific expectations of me when i'm 30, or 40, or when i have kids and a husband. is it awful that i cannot motivate myself? my parents give me so much and now they have to be my sole source of motivation too? it's ridiculous i think. it's like i don't want anything for myself. no personal goals or aims. what bullshit. but i've never been more single-minded about not quitting than at this job. to me i've crossed a milestone in my life, enduring work, office life, somethhing i've discovered, i really don't like at all. but i persevered, not because i was interested in 'developing my personal character through overcoming hurdles' but because i didn't want my dad to think i was a failure, or lousy, or incapable. of course i know he will never think such things of me, but just to be safe.

i place it at 40% good 60% bad

i also want to state that despite how much i hate office work, i like the significance or meaning that underlies my job. working for WWF means in some way i am not contributing to a gigantic corpocratic entity with eyes on nothing except profit. i'm not a hippie socialist activist, but -- 'we have made gods and goddesses of stuff'. that is a quote i love, i've come to realize. it is a quote i struggle and think about everyday. i feel like working here i have gleaned the importance of non-stuff. there is nothing wrong with profit, with money, that is what capitalism is, but there is something wrong when there is nothing but. do i mean to say i will carry on working for NGOs the rest of my life. no, i don't think that's what i mean, but i think what i mean is that i have lowered my personal expectations of salary, of pay, of monetary gain from a career, as long as i'm doing something that i feel passionate about, that i feel makes a difference no matter what it is. in a way that WWF is very concerned about nature, it is very concerned about human nature. what you get when you strip this world of its steel rods, skyscrapers, leather bags and paperwork, is nature. a most natural and infinite method of living perfected long before humanity. in a way, that is how WWF makes me feel, closer to nature, even though i have not even stepped one foot into a natural landscape since i started working here. today after reviewing the tedxwwf videos, one of the videos i didn't get to watch because i was busy really impacted me deeply, and the words he spoke felt so relevant and real, and i could feel them move from my ears and lodge themselves in my chest, sear themselves in my brain, inked all over my skin. and i thought -- if i felt like this, imagine how many people who were at tedx felt this way as well? i think that is when i appreciated WWF for what it is. disregarding every single corporate-like or money-driven aspect of it, WWF is an NGO that tries to do good things within its limitations. once in awhile it succeeds, changes a single person like myself, and i think, perhaps, makes it worth it.

i will review this one talk soon, when the video is up, i am involved in that and it makes me feel good

i thought about something today. when we are together there is a magnified silence but also an overwhelming need to talk. i admire the silence in its entirety but also want to destroy it with the weight of words. it's like i want to see how every moment blooms, to carry out two simultaneous moments, silence and noise, both at the same time, except that it is every moment that struggles with this dichotomy. when we lapse into silence i struggle to speak. when we talk i want us to be quiet. it is the same tension that makes me want us to burst out of our skin and travel the universe but also to shrivel up within our cages and lie down beside each other motionless. i wonder what this means. i think it means that there are so many dimensions to you that i cannot cope with not being able to experience everything at once. that i must feel each moment slowly before moving onto the next, i don't think i have the patience for that. i think i am too greedy. i crave every possible scenario that could happen with you at every possible moment. your touch makes me shudder and cringe but also, i want it to last forever. push and pull. i am inclined to think it is something good but other times i don't think it is normal. all i know is when i am with you i feel like there are a hundred copies of myself each fighting for a fragment of you (that means anyone who tries to mess with you faces a hundred times of me), your skin or your hair, or a smile or a look of subtle dislike, i don't know, but these hundred copies are still one, still me, stretched over a hundred functions and mobilities, stretched till my veins show and my ribs hurt, and it is so difficult to be with you but it is so worth it, and i always want to be with you just to feel like this. it is intense, a boiling, sweltering fireball as hot as the pits of hell trapped in my chest, and it makes breathing hard and frays my nerves with its flames but i know that if i took it out, i would simply put it back

sometimes. i try to write things for the sake of writing. but other times, i write things and i feel that the words are precious to me. it is not necessarily something i would be ashamed of somewhere in the future. for that reason, sometimes i feel like it is not a part of me privy to just anyone. i would like to privatize this blog, i think, for awhile

tonight i think is some relative downtime opposed to the next three days that follow. what i enjoy at work is that i get to share responsibility for so many things happening with the event. i almost feel like anything that falls apart will partly be blamed on me. which is exactly why i also hate it. i'm so afraid everything is going to go wrong because of something that i did. something cropped up today, a problem, i analyzed the situation and disassociated any of my actions with any of the faulty parts out of fear

my internship ends in 19 days -- idk how i feel about that

when i lie down my chest constricts and i feel my muscles pulling my shoulders towards each other

social media makes me more cynical about people on there, they expose their thoughts but only one dimension of it but often it is the dimension that makes me feel icky and tired of such constant interaction with other people's brain farts. twitter makes me think lots of people are annoying and facebook makes me think a lot of people are really ignorant and/or are pricks. instagram is ok but increasingly reaching the same levels of sliminess/possessing a vexing quality. i see the appeal in shutting off all these things but i also innately feel i cannot maintain such a plan, what would i do with all that free time. i am too reliant

tracing the roots of this increase in blogging

my favourite poem

"A Brief for the Defense"
Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only 
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront 
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

oh and if i had the brain
i'd be cold as a stone
and rich as the fool
that turned all those good hearts away

well i met an old man
dying on a train
no more destination, no more pain
he said, 'one thing before i graduate,
never let your fear decide your fate'

things i like lately 

haven't blogged in awhile, but i just wanted to say that the Wool series by Hugh Howey is fantastic! it started as a series of short stories (they get longer with each sequel) on a dystopian world in which a small colony has survived a catastrophic event, and they now live in an underground silo where social, political controls are maintained by an insiduous man who uses technology to wield his power. the outside world is taboo and anyone caught for treason is banished outside where they die from suits made by the rulers of the silo specifically engineered to asphyxiate the wearer.

i only remember reading a few books that were as heart-palpitating as this:

special topics in calamity physics by marissa pessl
the eyre affair by jasper fforde
to kill a mockingbird by harper lee

it makes me happy to stumble across such a gem. unfortunately i think you will only find it on kindle! i think physical copies are scarce (the author is self-published), may not be sold in singapore. i wonder if i'm getting sick of political themes (constantly reading dystopian novels). sometimes i think i would like to read something about romance, or loss, something more rooted in the real world as it stands today but i'm afraid i think

have a distinct feeling like my blog became 'gross'/not worth reading (to others) after i revealed that i like k-pop and mindless korean things. the funny thing is though i am aware of it, i also don't really care. i like that feeling.

this week i've been sick on and off, only went to work legitimately for two days and spent the rest in bed. don't know how many times Gus had to take me to the doctor and wait for me, but i feel like parts of my body don't belong to me anymore, i wish i could get new parts, send my body into a repair shop and get it fixed. but certain parts of my body that ache do not qualify for transplants, unfortunately

i have been reading a science fiction novel called 'ready player one'. i really like it. it is about earth in the near distant future in which exists a gigantic multiplayer simulation system/videogame called the OASIS that has become wildly popular. kind of like the sims but better. shopping malls, entertainment grounds, even public schools have been transferred to exist in OASIS, while simultaneously their real life counterparts fall into dilapidated chunks of concrete because nobody can bear living in the real world, the one plagued with high unemployment, recession, falling education standards, rising fuel prices, etc. the OASIS on the other hand, being basically a virtual platform that users can 'touch' while wearing a visor and haptic gloves, can create anything the people want: their own mansions, cars, planets. avatars can be customised according to the user's wishes. The storyline follows that the creator of OASIS, a man with massive fortune, has died, and indicated in his will that within OASIS he has hidden an 'egg', and that the first user to find the egg will be entitled to all of his riches and fortune. the protagonist is an overweight 18 year old who becomes the first person in the world after 5 years to find the copper key, the first clue to where the egg lies hidden. can't wait to finish the rest of it! tq kindle

would like my life to become more interesting, i suppose it will when i reach France, if that pans through, but in the meantime how do people simultaneously work & maintain an interesting social life, enlighten me, i don't get it

some people have to shut the fuck up and stop whining about their imaginary depression