Glastonbury Part II

To my dear readers, I am finally leaving for Glastonbury after going on about it for quite long (I know you're saying thank God for that! right now) so this is just a temporary farewell till i return on monday with juicy details and (hopefully) fantastic memories of cohabiting with at least 150,000 other people in a massive field with non-stop music, drinking and tripping, disgusting urinials, lack of showers and fantastic food and shopping.
To those at uni whom I won't see due to my leaving for Glasto and not saying a proper goodbye, sorry.. have a great summer and when we come back next year it's gonna be even more amazing (and sad, for it is our last year of student slacking)!
If you need to get hold of me, there's always still the good ol mobile...hopefully the battery will last me for the next 5 days!

Sweet Victory

England 4 - Croatia 2.
THIS, by far, is THE match of Euro 2004.
To hell with the czech-holland match, it doesn't even come close to the excitement of last night's.
Croatia's first goal into a mere 5 minutes of the game was on hindsight, a blessing in disguise. The pressure to attack that ensued had never seen English football any better (okay, i'm exxagerating)... but still, it was fucking amazing. Not just the match, but the atmosphere where i was watching it. I had never seen that many females watching football at one same place.. usually it's just me and the boys. The union was jammed packed, four screens showing the match simultaneously; flags, music, jerseys...I was somewhat bemused at the extent of how England's national pride takes the forefront most visually and emotionally when it comes to football. A nation united in dismal cries against a foul badly taken, a pass badly placed, united in victory raves and chants at amazing goals, beautiful saves. (NOT referring in particular to David James)
Suddenly, nationalism makes so much sense. And football surprisingly contributes immensely to this imagined community of the nation.
I lament the lack of national identity for my own country - I stand somewhere between being mildly defensive of a home i grew up in, and an inherent desire for a different national identity. I was even far more genuinely excited about last night's sweet victory than most England supporters were...
to be fair, i have always been a loyal fan.
So to you twats out there who gleefully gloated France's freakish victory over England, and arrogantly insisted England wouldn't have gone through, or that they played bad football - TAKE THAT!

Transitions

I'm in this phase of my life now when life is just a blurry mess of whirring activities and noises. I had mentioned this before on a previous post on my old site... but somehow moving around, flying from one country to another, just induces a much more thoughtful mood than i should be. It's like observing from behind your eyes - behind a looking glass. The packing I have to do, the farewells I have to say... the summer ahead that splits some, reunites others. And at the end of it all, when the cycle is finished, it begins right at the beginning again. I can imagine finding myself right where it all seems to have started.

Freedom

Yes, I have been finally liberated from the chains of academic torture. It could have gone much better i think, but it's no use thinking about how i did... it's all over. nothing i can do, or how much i can worry, is gonna change it. Entrusting it to Him is all i can do.

On a different note, have been partying loads since i have been liberated from exams and tonight, was fun proper dancing...i think monday was better though. We performed at the Marketplace and it was wicked...
tonight, there was this bloke at the club who was pretty good looking.. but he was so obviously looking for a pull, coming on to almost every girl he managed to make eye contact with. I have always wondered why some people get so desperate when they don't need to be in the first place. and then there are those who obviously don't go out very often and they make such a big fuss over someone expressing interest and spend the whole night moaning about how they didn't take the chance...it really amuses me. In the midst of the intoxication of the night, I was quietly playing the voyeur, observing everyone from up on the platform - dancing away, but peculiarly observing the machinations of the ongoings inside the average club.
I sometimes don't know if i should pity them, or is it unecessary condescension on my part because it's all part of life. some people can't help how they feel or how they behave.

I would hate living a provincial existence. I pity those who do. And I hope I never reach that stage.
But at some level, do all of us, at some point, live a provincial existence? Is it not unavoidable?

I hate provinciality. And it disgusts me to be surrounded by it.

Unbelievable

What a world of difference three minutes can make on the football field. Lady Luck must have gotten angry and left England behind at the last precious minute of today's game...

Silvestre should have got a red card for the stupid tackle he made.
Beckham should have scored that penalty.
Barthez should be given a tight slap.
Heskey should be kept off the field.
Zidane should not take free kicks. He's even too old to still be on the pitch.
Gerrard should not have made that fatal mistake.
David James should have kept to his post.
The referee should have whistled for the game to be over well earlier.
My housemate should not have jinxed the match by saying just one second before Beckham took the penalty that he was gonna miss, and that when Zidane took his penalty he would score and that France would win.

England played more than decent, and this is fucking unfair.

They should have won and everyone knows it - I sat there stunned at the unbelievable outcome at the last three minutes of the game.
And now, I am in no mood whatsoever to continue studying for tomorrow's exam.
Or even sit for it tomorrow...

*sobs*

End of the Race

I have reached the last legs of my exam marathon... and i have nothing but guilt and obligation to keep me going till monday.

Suddenly there seems to be a massive exodus of students liberated from libraries and exam halls, sitting out on the piazza, basking in the sunshine. How is that fair?!

I tried to resist temptation but it is a force i can't reckon with. Watched the Euro Cup matches today, Portugal's performance was disappointing and there were annoying bunch of Greek blokes at the bar who kept ranting and raving every 5 seconds of the game - they even had a horn which they kept blasting despite the fact that our airport bar has an extremely low ceiling. After indulging in a fair share of today's sunshine, i reluctantly trudged back to the library - but it was a vain attempt. I just sat there in the lonely aisles dreaming about monday, my liberation, the intoxication, and the partying that is to come.
I can't believe most of my coursemates and friends have finished their exams before me and they get three extra days to party before I do. Sigh.

On a slightly happier note, European Theatre (the module i'm sitting an exam on monday for) is not that hard a subject to get round. One day before my exam and i'm still deciding if I should study Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House with Strinberg's Miss Julie of if i should do Hedda with Sophocles's Antigone . Then there's the case of Beckett's Endgame or Waiting for Godot with Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love or 4.48 Psychosis . Kane's stuff intrigue me the most, not so much its brilliance (it's hard to judge brilliance of a play against centuries of sophisticated literature) but because of its ability to shock. I'm not surprised she caused much discomfort to quaint British society (if you must know, her plays involve staging the castration of male genitilia and in-your-face sex) but I have my reservations if her plays were good because they were really good or are they just shocking for the sake of shocking. it borders on being absolutely disgustingly refreshing and uncomfortable distastefulness. But as she says, I hate the idea of theatre being just an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding.

Oh well, guess what. This is my evening pastime for today - and definitely not by choice. And it is emotionally and intellectually challenging me when all I want to do is to just sit, chill, and not actually have to use my brain cells for once without feeling guilty.

31 hours more to go till total liberation...

For the first time in my life

For the first time in my life, I actually really appreciate home.

Not that I don't, usually... but it seems to me clearer that we underestimate its value most of the time. i have had moments when all i wanted to do was to run out, escape and never return. on the other hand, moments like today when i have never wanted more to go back.

I awoke today, as I do everyday and happily went downstairs to perform my usual routine before going on campus... greeted by my housemates who had disgusted looks on their faces, i walked into the kitchen and placed my bowl on the kitchen counter when gonga suddenly shouted No don't put it there! He pointed to the pan that had been sitting on the kitchen counter for the last two-ish weeks and to my utmost horror, I witnessed a swarm of big fat white maggots swirling and crawling in it, basking in the putrid remnants of food left in the pan by may, my housemate a couple of weeks ago.

It never fails to amaze me why people can't just do their own washing up after they use it, if not immediately, at least in a day or two! I was absolutely revolted I felt like throwing up... I was so hungry before I went down, and after making myself a bowl of cereal and forcing myself to partake in several mouthfuls of it, I seriously felt like my insides were turning out and i had to retch. So of course I stopped eating and threw the remnants away, all the time feeling my skin crawl both internally and externally.

After several attempts to get May down to witness the offspring of her neligence, she finally did and unsurprisingly, she remarked it was really gross. So I said you know, if you just washed your dishes after you used them, this would never have happened. and she said, what's a pan and two bowls (her rotting dishes for two weeks plus) compared to the ten plates you guys have? Obviously, i told her, we may use loads of dishes but we clear them in max a day or two. And you know what I heard next? You guys shouldn't have let this (referring to the maggots) happen! I gave an incredulous look.
Let this happen?! It's your own fucking pan which you used to cook for goodness sake! Are we expected to clean your dishes for you?

Of course my momentary incredulousness and anger was only towards the utmost cheekiness to her statement, not directed towards her of course; she's a lovely person, except when it comes to cleaning dishes.

After much contemplation on how we should obliterate the maggots, May took it upon herself (after being told by us that it was her responsibility anyway) to try to burn the maggots alive. By that, I mean, she used our stove and put the pan on it to try to burn it to a crisp. or crisps. *shudder*
I vehemently objected. What if they jumped out and invaded our stove? Then we'd have maggots in our stove!
But she went on anyway. The rest of the house, fascinated at what would happen next, trooped into the kitchen to watch the massacre.
Several moments later, the girls started screaming. May said the maggots were jumping/crawling out, then she said they were dead, then Ana said they were still alive and in fact, there were more of them emerging from the tuna can that found itself in the pan. Gonga scrunched his face and sniffed the air.. that's the smell of the barbercued worms! The revolting whiff soon reached my nostrils and surprisingly enough, it wasn't as bad as i thought it'd be. It was pungent, but if i didn't know its source, i never would have guessed. By this time, I was ready to retch. I was late in meeting my tutor so I promptly fled the house.
By the time I got to my car, I felt like i needed to have a long shower. But there was no way i was going back in the house. I had another appointment. So with that contaminated sensation, I drove to campus and went about my day.

...........

10.10pm. I reached home after a very long day. I walk into the kitchen and it seemed to me like the smell still pervaded the air. I recoiled inwardly but forced myself to go about heating up my dinner in my rice cooker. Everything in the kitchen seemed to stink.
I sat down, waited for my hour of ally, and found out that it was postponed one hour later. Not impressed, I sat down to consume my dinner. My housemates came along. What happened to the maggots in the end I asked. Oh, May took it down the road and threw the whole pan away somewhere after burning it. Oh, and guess what, we wanted to take a plastic bag to put the pan in, and we found out that almost all our plastic bags were shredded to little little bits. So we suspect it was a rat. And we have no idea when this happened, because we haven't used the stored plastic bag in ages.
I gave another incredulous, mixed with disgust, kind of look for the second time today. Walked into the kitchen, and saw bits of plastic from the bags strewn on the counter and the floor. Unbelievable. I went to the sink to do some washing and got the fright of my life when i looked to my right and there was a cat that suddenly appeared itself on the back yard door. I am a feline lover, no doubt. But this was just too much for me to take. I started at the sight, then slammed the door in the cat's face. Gonga said maybe it could smell the rat in our house slightly jokingly. Then someone else said, it could even be in our rooms . Then a debate ensued over the fact that rat couldn't scale our steep staircase anyway... then another over whether rats or worms were worse. One housemate declared worms were worse because at least rats were cute.

I wasn't impressed; nor amused. I'm hardly in the house, so i had no idea when the state of our house had degenerated into such pallid living conditions. I blame it on my housemates who are at home everyday but make no effort whatsoever to clean up after themselves. But I probably have a part to play in it as well...

I came up, had a long long shower. Feeling slightly better and cleaner after that, but I can't shake that feeling that some rat is gonna spring upon me when I least suspect it; or that something absolutely disgusting is gonna happen again.
It wasn't funny.

I'm sorry to have to make you readers go through this horrific account of mine; but it is my hope that in writing it down i can purge this feeling from inside me. I have an exam on Wednesday, and instead of revising for it, I am compelled to waste time writing this.
I hate living in student houses... I wish I was at home.
Home - where mum takes care of everything, makes sure there is no corner where some other living organism is thriving in some secret conspiracy to revolt and appear some day...where my domestic helper makes sure my room is free of bugs, where almost everything is spick and span, where my brother is just a room away to call on to eliminate any unwanted visitors in my room, or in the house.

And amidst typing this, a moth has just flown into my room and perched itself on the inside of the lamp shade on my ceiling. Brave Gonga has rescued me by catching the huge moth in his hand and releasing it somewhere else I dont wanna know.

I love summer the most - but why why why, can't it be just summer without the bees, the maggots, the rats and the moths!

WHY!

I wish they'd all die and leave me alone.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair (left) looks on as his Singapore counterpart Goh Chok slips on the doorstep at Downing Street in London, May 11, 2004. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty
How funny is that... Reuters calls PM Goh, 'Goh Chok', and Blair looks like he's trying to supress an in-your-face laugh. Certainly something you'll never see on the front page of ST or other national papers...what an excellently-timed photograph.  

Glastonbury

Finally!

The Glastonbury 2004 lineup has been announced! Here is the lineup in full glory. I reckon it's not the finalised version but most of the major bands/artistes etc have been announced. Am well excited about this... it'd be my first major experience of any summer festivals whatsoever... and i can finally say i've been to Glastonbury at least once. The thought of man-made urinals and lack of showers are lurking unpleasantly at the back of my mind, tough... hopefully it wouldn't be that bad. they have said they're gonna up this year's level of hygeine and cleanliness...not that it really matters that much to me. it'd just be more comfy...

These are some i should make a point to see...
Scissor Sisters (yay!), Black Eyed Peas (if anything, it's good grooving), Oasis, Ozomatli, Roy Ayers, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band, Ty, Tindersticks, Lamb, Quantic Soul Orchestra, Nelly Furtado, Amy Winehouse (rumour), Goldfrapp, Chemical Brothers, Paul McCartney (haha)... okay, i'm getting tired of listing them.

Any more suggestions?

I can't wait for my summer to properly start... the exams are such a pain. i already feel like it's over... and that's not a good thing.

Information Overload

I can't decide if time is now flying or crawling... in the midst of all this revision it seems sometimes that time crawls to a halt while i'm poring over the words on my stacks of photocopied notes which sometimes merge to create the illusion of ants crawling over my page. And yet sometimes i look up at the clock and am alarmed at what seems to be an enormous lapse of time which i had been oblivious to. I make it sound like i'm hard at work, but i'm not really...haha. it can be so much better...

Still, i have been reading loads of stuff and it's bordering on such an information overload that i'm unsure if i'm experiencing one of my intellectual orgasms from the assemblage of intelligent academic discourse that i attempt to immerse myself with everyday, or it's just my brain having spasms from all the shit i try to take in and my pretending to believe i really do remember all of it.

A lot of what i seem to read has been on the state of disillusionment of the world, particularly America. My Hollywood exam I studied the 70s and it seems like all about it was the downbeat pessimism and disillusionment of society towards a country reeking of rampant capitalism. And then now moving on to 19th century American literature, (my next exam one week from today) it seemed like what the 70s experienced, they already experienced it during the 19th century when America was rapidly developing and evident social divisions emerged from the young and unstable country which could not handle the emerging crises. Then I look at the world now... and i realise it's not very different, is it. Just that instead of applying only to America, that disillusionment seems to have expanded congruent to globalisation.

I had just been reading an article on Margaret Fuller, widely considered to be the most intelligent woman in antebellum New England. Her transcendentalist philosophies (which I hadn't read only till now because i have no choice and an exam) seemed to appeal to me today...

She was acutely alive to the tragic irony that the whites, in order to justify their own inevitable rapacity and destructiveness, were determed to destroy the Indian's sole remaining possession, his self-respect. Woman in the Nineteenth Century revealed that she saw male-female relations as another version of the same dynamic...whether Indian or woman: you merited no better.

Should we consider ourselves fortunate that we now live in an age where women have progressed past the age of oppression? Do we even realise that this so-called 'gender liberation' has only progressed in certain states? How many other parts of the world, especially in third world countries, do these oppressions still exist for women?!

Then i think about the feminist movement (Fuller can unsurprisingly said to be one of the pioneers for the movement)... and i sometimes wonder if we don't go too far in proclaiming equality; that in some modern contexts, males are becoming the ones victimized by a whole population of women that sometimes go way over the top with their myths and ideologies.

That discrepancy between myth and reality... how hard it is to define. how hard it is a truth for society to accept.
I think about the transcendentalists, the socialists... attempting to create a utopia on Brook Farm. I think of these intellects, writing The Dial, holding elite 'Conversations'... how i would have loved to be part of that. What it must be like to believe so firmly in one belief, have that one pursuit in life, to seek that truth... I read that Fuller and her eventual Italian husband connected by their shared political sympathies.. that they even risked the life of their child because of their over-riding commitment to the destinies of the political ends they uphold. That's when it struck me. Would you ever risk your child's life for an ideology? I know it may sound twisted, but I am thorougly fascinated. That these people would risk lives for a passion they uphold... I somehow wish that someday I could experience the same thing.

Suddenly, I didn't feel like I should be sitting in my library pathetically reading about someone's actions, when i could be doing something instead. But then I recall, Fuller had to go to school too, she studied in Harvard. So I content myself by settling into my chair once more... my time will come... I think to myself. When I am liberated from the chains of process, my time will come when I will be able to do what I want, pursue what I believe in, and hopefully... write or do something that would be a 'piece of life'....something that time would not be able to erase.

Once nested back in my chair, i think about the Communists... Mao's consortium of followers... the French students, taking part in a Revolution, marching with a red book in hand, written by a Chinese man when they can't even begin to speak or understand the language... how easy it is, also, for passion to blind reason. I think about Mario Bellocchio's new recently acclaimed film,
Good Morning, Night (Boungiorno, Notte) and how the Red Brigade kidnapped and murdered Italy's prime minister in the name of ideology... and I am amazed, once again, at that thin line that separates myth from reality.

It is not a black and white distinction - to the definition of that line - perhaps the scary thing is it is a grey area. And how dangerously can one be treading on this grey area before wandering blindly into misguided conviction before it is too late for rectification.
Still, I believe there will always be a need for ideologies. I don't want to be sitting for stupid exams that can't measure your intelligence in the pathetic span of a one-hour essay duration. I want to be out there making it happen...