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

I thought this would be harder. Something seems out of place but it hasn't materialised. I think this means, me and you, you and I, we're better than we thought. I feel shame for thinking this was not possible.

As Seneca recommends, I am learning to linger in my own company.

Marty told me a theory as to why democracy simply does not work. I remember it now because I thought it was extremely plausible. He said somebody proposed that the maximum number of people that we can give a shit about is limited to 150. That is, only 150 people that you know are worth you giving them the time of day, from as little as a cursory thought to heavy emotional investment. Everybody beyond 150 is simply your environment, your circumstance, your burden of nature. And you will not give a shit about any of these people if you were asked to.

That is why democracy does not work, because people, you and I, our involuntary essence erodes the core values needed for democracy to 'flourish'. I hate when people say democracy 'flourished', they make it sound like it's something good but it's not. If you think about it, almost every 'democracy' in the world will have an article in the newspapers that says something along the lines of 'but the government is so ___ that we might as well be a dictatorship'

We're not even good at pretending as if we're democratic
I wonder what Jesus thinks of democracy

Nowadays I feel as if I can reduce 150 to 10.

People scream, I hate living with my parents/being with my parents, I want my freedom, I want to DO WHAT I WANT! And then they move out and go right on to do what everybody else wants

Things I really want to do, in no particular order:

- not go to school
- lie in bed
- touch Gus's tummy because it looks like he's losing weight

Some things cannot be procrastinated. Things happen and in retrospect they take on a new light, except sometimes the light dawns before you've stepped out the door. That is how I feel about Paris this time around, how I can feel a warmth expanding in my fingertips when I think about the past two days. It feels like somebody has punched my chest and left it bruised and longing. When I saw the Eiffel Tower flicker to life I thought about how much you've changed and how much I'm changing. The tower itself has morphed into something symbolic, emerged from the banality of tourist cliches with a sheen of metaphorics, a starship I have hitched my wagon to. I mean that I will always remember this time, roaming the streets and loving the people. Napoleon lifted the lid and offered me relief, comfort, joy on a silver platter. On the steps of Sacre Coeur I realised my naivety.

I wonder if birds enjoy the view.

Annecy, France
29th September 2012

me: yeah in two weeks they have a festival called "Retour de l'Alpes" where the cows and sheep and all the animals come back from the mountains for winter, so they're paraded through the city center
gus: oh really? but how do they know
me: know what? they have it every year
gus: but how do the animals know to walk to the city

laughed for 10 minutes or so

gus: yeah during the concert (big bang) lu's friend was in the standing area, and GD was singing right in front of her, and she shouted "GD FUCK ME! FUCK ME!"

laughed for 20 minutes

korean/french friend: sorry we cannot cook ddeokbokki tonight, i will be going to a dance lesson of rock !

in annecy we visited a contemporary art museum and there was a pile of sand on the floor.
it is a lovely place and it would be so perfect to go back in summer.
honestly thinking about it honestly it would look so so good minus the clouds and drizzle and plus beaucoup, beaucoup de ensolleile

i have been wanting to take all this time to read as many books as i can, but everytime i want to reach for my kindle, i feel guilty and reach for my french book instead. when my parents come in december i want to impress them and make them feel like their money has not been wasted.

on friday i will take a train to paris and meet Bert, which makes me happy, thinking about it. while i love meeting new people from all over hte world, there is a special delight reserved in indulging in a little Singaporean flavour in the form of another Singaporean who can understand and share my humour, & who is literally a little slice of home in an otherwise unfamiliar place. am excited thinking about it. we are going to disneyland.