From Monona Terrace

I have always wanted to blog from a terrace overlooking a lake. Okay, maybe that thought only occurred to me after I randomly stumbled upon a terrace that just happens to overlook a lake. But nonetheless, this is a beautiful place to write, no matter how hideously shallow the content. It feels a lot more author-y, somehow, writing on a lovely rooftop garden, soaking in the undeniable freshness of it all. It's the kind of place people would wanna bring their first dates to, as if being surrounded by softly glowing lamps and gushing fountains would convince their dates that they do indeed have a romantic side.

I did stumble upon the Monona Terrace by accident. After an hour of reading during the afternoon by Lake Mendota, I decided that I had to get up and leave, before my primal urges take over and I start pushing noisy kids into the lake. Somebody has to teach them that there are consequences to voicing one's adoration of ducks in an excessively loud manner. We'll see how much they like ducks when they're swimming with them. Besides, the sun was setting and it was getting a tad chilly, so I set off for dinner at Potbelly's. Nowadays I take extra caution not to tell the sandwich maker that I've got Big Meatballs anymore, after being given the strangest stare by the girl behind the counter. Sniggering after saying it does not help matters either. "Big-sized meatball subs" seem to be the safest way to say it.

Not wanting to return to my apartment for yet another night of binge-watching 'Dead Like Me', a most delightfully morbid series, I decide to just set off in one direction, wind in my luscious bottle-blond locks, and go wherever my well-toned calves and thighs take me. I deviate from my usual circle around the capitol building, and set off instead towards a path that seems to lead towards an expanse of water. The capitol building is on a piece of land flanked by Lakes Mendota and Monona, and I was unknowingly headed to the latter. A swarm of fluttering insects greet me, but they all parted like mist as I walked through the cloud of flutterers. I can't say for sure what they are - they're not flies or mosquitoes, nor moths, but look like miniature dragonflies, only more transparent. I take a short stroll by Monona, unimpressed by the lack of ducks but grateful for the lack of duck-loving children, and headed up the stairs of a building with numerous signs promising a rooftop garden.

So here I am, up on the terrace. It really showed me a side of Madison I never knew existed. I was around the campus area for so long that I got the impression that that was it. The rooftop garden offers a uninterrupted view of the illuminated capitol building on one side, and the lake on the other. You can just barely make out the opposite bank, with the lights of little houses dotting the shoreline. There is wifi connection from up here, but the free 56k version doesn't get you very far. For a weird nostalgic moment, it reminded me slightly of Singapore's Vivocity rooftop, only with less people and no ships in sight. 

There's just something about being in a place built solely to please our aesthetic side. It gives us a sense that people still do care about unwinding and relaxing, about enjoying the simple nuances of life, without being consumed by whether something's profitable or commercial. Maybe there's hope for the dreamers after all. 

'S'il suffisait d'aimer' en anglais

J'aime cette chanson beaucoup, mais c'est en francais, alors je l'ai traduit en anglais! 

I dream about your face, I reject your touch

Suddenly you're with me, I would long so much

All that I need to say, but words can't find a way

If only you could read my mind today

It seems that everyone can succeed besides me
Is it a mistake to have these wild dreams

I offer up my soul, my heart and all my time

Giving up my all, but you're still not mine

Is it enough to love, can we survive on love

If there's one thing that we can change, trying to rise above

If it's enough to love, if we could only love

I'd make this dream reality, for eternity

I see blood in my dreams, I see petals drifting

I feel the scars unseen, the tears my past still brings

Life isn't waterproof, my island's crumbling soon

The door leaves cries to enter, even when it's closed

On a balcony of flowers my inner child stays

Hiding from the blaze of my brazen ways

Dark clouds are gathering now, a sign of what's to come

Do our fears respond to the wartime drums 

Is it enough to love, can we survive on love

If there's one thing that we can change, trying to rise above

If it's enough to love, if we could only love

I'd make this dream reality, for eternity

Is it enough to love, can we survive on love

If we could do it all again, I wonder if I would change

If it's enough to love, if we could only love

We would make this dream a reality

If it's enough to love

Starbucks Gaze

 I'm really into monologues these days, perhaps a side effect of acting class. Love how a 2 second gaze can be developed into a full monologue. 


"Cute guys hang out at Starbucks. I know, because I've spent enough time lounging around Starbucks with my empty latte cup, pretending that my continued presence by the fireplace was essential cause of the latte that I had yet to consume. Those times, however, I was there, lounging by the fire for the sake of eyeballing some delicious cutie, then frantically blackberry messaging my girl-friends and just being a huge perv about it in general. This time it hit me completely by surprise. Yes, it happened at Starbucks too. Isn't that where all the most romantic of meet-ups happen? Engulfed by the heady aroma of toasted coffee-beans, I made my order at the counter and turned around and then – nothing. That was the best I can describe it, I just, felt completely nothing for a moment. It wasn't like I was bored out of my mind and felt 'nothing' in that sense of the word. It was more like, a beam of high powered light - focused directly on my face - and every one of my five sense were obliterated for a split second. As I clicked back into the real world, I realized that I had been looking at a pair of eyes. 'I know this person! I most absolutely know this person, we go waaaay back,' my mind is telling me. I instinctively pull one of my earpieces out, because that's what you do when you meet someone you know – you detach yourself from your iPod and say hello. It wasn't until our gaze broke, did I come to the weirdest realization. I had never seen this man in my life. But at that moment, that electrifying, soul-shattering, sense-obligating moment, I could swear that I had known this guy all my life. I felt my breath catch in my throat, right before it was going to be released, forming a sound or a word, and I pulled it back. Our gazes flicker to each other's eyes one more time, this time with some caution, as if suspicious about this bewildering sensation of familiarity. Then just as suddenly as it had started, he had gone, and the distorted, saturated glow that my surroundings had taken on ebbed deliberately away."

Last Day as a Freshman

The last bubble of the Scantron sheet I filled in was a 'D'. I remember that with absolute clarity, because it was the final question of the final paper of my freshman year. What was the main argument behind the Pennsylvanian prison system, they ask. Humans are social animals, and putting them in isolation was a punishment because it deprives them the chance to be social, I confidently answer. Whether that's actually correct is beyond my concern because I'm finally done with my first year of college.

It feels appropriate that my final paper required me to do a lot of reading on prisons. Trapped in my room in self-imposed isolation, force-feeding myself hours upon hours of prison facts. I almost feel as if I could relate to the horror stories so vividly described in my readings. Research shows that just ten days in isolation was enough to cause negative psychological effects on a prisoner. I think they were able to last that long because they didn't have to read about it. Ten hours spent on 'Entering the Gates' was enough to do me in. I spent two nights in a row having nightmares about prisons and waking up wondering if I was still wearing that horrible orange jumpsuit. That part's the worst, I think. You knowingly impose a color on him that just clashes with his natural skin-tone, he's gonna snap. Some of the prisoners' mental state deteriorated to a point where they started flinging feces at guards just for any form of human communication. 'Come on, play with me! Let's throw my bodily excretions around, it'll be fun!'

As per tradition, the first song I always listen to after my exam season is Mariah Carey's 'I Am Free'. It goes, "Once, I was a prisoner..." (What's with the recurring theme of prisons, it's haunting me!) A mere 9 months after I first started college, I suddenly found that I wasn't a freshman anymore. To put it in completely unnecessary dramatic terms, I had gone from fearing the unknown abyss, to slowly feeling my way through the darkness, to finding a way to stand on my own two feet, to realizing that I had -surprise, surprise- survived my very first (triumphant) year. I had gotten an AB for French, As for Theater and Music, and hopefully something decent for my just-completed Criminal Justice. Je peux parler un peu francais maintenant! Hourra!

Now what lies ahead is the monstrous task of packing up my room in preparation of my big move. Damian, of course, would be joining me here in US soon. We'd be off for our grand tour of the States, culminating in the widely anticipated Celine Dion concert in Vegas. Come to think of it, there's less than a month before I see my goddess with my own eyes. I don't even want to imagine how I'll react right now, I mean, how does someone act in the presence of god herself... Cry and promptly faint? Or tremble as you take in the glory that is Celine? Or go completely numb and then realize that you've pissed and shit yourself? Just so many ways to inappropriately behave, I'm not sure I can decide on one right now. I can hardly wait to see Damian on the 28th either. He's the first familiar face I'd be seeing after all this time, and all the emotions I'd be suppressing for the past year could be unleashed upon his arrival. I'm just giving an early warning right now - the screaming and sobbing could cause airport security to react violently. It's like how someone could get into an accident and get sent to a hospital, all the while maintaining completely calm, and then just loosing all control the minute a friend or family member comes.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna take total advantage of the fantastic summer weather Madison's experiencing right now. Have an ice-cream from Coldstone, enjoy the ducks on the lake... Life is currently looking very good.

The (Kinda) Big 2-0

Memories of my last birthday celebration can still be accessed with relative ease, as if it was only a year ago. A huge party was thrown to commemorate the last time I'd be celebrating a birthday in Singapore, and various uncles and aunts were all heralding the triumphant way I had escaped the clutches of the army and gotten myself a future in my very own birthplace. I was filled with an enthusiasm and optimism only the certifiably insane could have managed. "I'm a trailblazer!" Most likely, I was drunk. "I'm finally free to fly away and live the life I was always destined to - with countless lovers and a cellar full of wine." Now I'd like to invite you, dear reader, to jump forward in time to the present, to a day where I'm sitting here in bed (without any of the countless lovers in sight, I might add), stone cold sober, and writing to an imaginary audience, in hopes that someone out there would read this one day. Boy have I deviated from my goals. 

It sure is weird, celebrating - actually, we'd go with 'experiencing' - my birthday without my usual inner-circle of social-deviants. This is quite possibly the first time in my life where I did not receive a present on my birthday. I don't know if my parents were cheapos back when I was too much of an infant to know what a birthday is, but as far as I could remember, I'd always at least gotten something. I'm not being a Poshy Poshstine here, and I'm certainly not being resentful of the lack of presents. It's just that it has suddenly dawned on me the great fortune I've had in my life. There are literally millions out there who have not and will not ever receive any gift, birthday or not. Just growing up in my given circumstances, and now seeing how it's not something to be taken for granted, makes me feel exceedingly blessed. People don't have to do it for you - so be grateful when someone does. 

Honestly speaking, I thought I'd be hitched by now. I had envisioned my birthday with the perfect date, and how much less of a torture a birthday would be to get through because I was with an incomparable someone having the finest dinner and enjoying the most magnificent horse-carriage ride à la Will and Kate. Most unfortunately, my quests for a transcendent relationship have only culminated in hair-raisingly terrifying Vanessa Hudgens-esq scandals. Perhaps I got it so wrong because I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. For whatever reason, I believed I needed someone to lessen the impact of significant holidays and important dates. But I also realize now the danger of putting that much hope into one person, because what would you be left with when they decide to go? If everything I had was based on the supposed existence of that someone, how would I ever truly appreciate the innate survivor within me? 

Birthdays are celebrations of life, of the successful liberation from one's mother's womb - they're meant to be enjoyed, not tolerated. No matter where I physically am, I know I'm in the hearts and minds of those who truly love me. That in itself is cause enough for celebration.