after tolerating one and a half years of security lapses in my building, the final straw came on friday when the lift was not fixed for more than 24hours and won't be so till monday earliest. due to the lift's breakdown and the strata's incompetence to have it fixed within 48hours, the fire door to our building has become free for all public citizens of new south wales australia! to make matters worse, as i walked towards the fire door, a caucasian man came up to me and uttered, "fuck me. do you wanna fuck me? fuck me". i pretended that i didn't understand english at all and just walked away. at the same time, i got increasingly worried that he's gonna follow me up the stairwell, since the door is open for all.

got back home, called my agent who decided that maybe it's best for me to call the strata since, apparently, the strata gave her attitude for pushing for the lift to be fixed. she further suggested that maybe we might wanna consider moving since there are so many issues going on, etc. and our concerns have not been directly addressed. this, however, would mean that we might have to forfeit our deposit and we were not happy about it.

i began looking at statutes and reading through our contract in detail whilst dav drafted an email detailing out our concerns of the building. we, then, had a good long discussion over the whole issue, weighing the pros and cons if we do stay or if we do move. we decided that the best option would be for us to move but it would only be right if we gave the agent/landlord/strata some time to clear up this mess.

in any case, we've been viewing apartments and the property market has definitely gone up. we're not very pleased with how our tenancy agreement has turned out but we do not have a choice. it came down to a choice between our personal safety and honoring a contract, which isn't much of a choice really. so here we are, looking for apartments. anyone who has some legal knowledge in this field, i would love to hear your advices. anyone who knows of anyone who has a 2bedroom, 2bathroom apartment for lease in chippendale, ultimo, haymarket or broadway, please lemme know as well.

hearts 23:50:00
0 spoken words

for those who weren't aware, i was supposed to take my driving test next monday.
however, due to my "upgrade" in painkillers and my current "zoned out" state of mind, i consulted my instructor and decided it's best i postponed my test dates.

pray that my mind comes back to life.

hearts 00:50:00
0 spoken words

i'm so screwed.
before i'm even back in singapore, i'm scrambling for every last bit of savings to watch the theatre productions on show during my three months' break.

first up, there's chitty chitty bang bang, which i thought i was gonna miss and was rather depressed over till they extended their show!

secondly, there's the pillowman and beauty world for a bit of local flavors.

third on my list is the m1 singapore fringe festival, in which i wanna watch eclipse, the invisible life of joseph finch and above us only sky.

i don't wanna miss the rise and fall of little voice or verdi's la traviata.

finally, there's one event that i know most of my friends have been waiting for and i might finally make my virgin debut for it - zoukout!.

i'm so screwed. :(

and then there's that list of films that i will not get to watch - truth be told, 881 (which makes it the first royston tan's movie that i'm gonna miss), lust, caution (i just love tony leung and i'm gonna miss one of his movies. shit!), whisper, pleasure factory (i really wanna watch this. please have a VCD or DVD!!!) and rendition. of course, i might get lucky and catch a couple in sydney but there are some really priceless ones that i'm gonna miss, so bad, especially the local productions. please, for the love of God, have a VCD or DVD release.

hearts 23:38:00
0 spoken words

what's your definition of home? to me, home is where i feel like i belong or where i wanna return to after a long day of work. ever since my grandma passed away, home, to me, was a foreign subject. don't get me wrong. i still wanna go back to the house where my family and i lived in. i still feel a certain sense of belonging to my parents, just that it wasn't the same anymore. the warm, fuzzy feeling that one would love to return to, was just no longer present anymore.

when i first met my man, i told him exactly how i felt on the above topic. i never felt that i belonged to any specific group. there were only a few peeps in my life whom i'll say i felt at home with. peeps whom i can talk to about anything under the sun, without fear of being persecuted, reprimanded, etc. but singapore was never home to me. amongst the chinese, i was a 'banana'. in my secondary school years, i was banned from speaking mandarin cos in the words of my friends then, i was an embarrassment to the chinese race. several peeps tried to put me down for my westernized ideals by saying "i do not belong", "you should just go be with those wannabe white peeps" or "why don't you just quit".

everything i did or love was scrutinized by not just my friends but at times, my family too. so much so that i felt a deep need to escape every now and then. now, my parents, or at least my mum since she's more vocal about it, did try to understand where my train of thoughts run at times but it's exasperating to keep up with a growing child of a different era from your own. i don't blame them for my feelings of inadequateness. i thought by 'escaping' from the rigidity of the singapore society, i will be set free to pursue my first love - theatre, only to realise that even then, i'm not at home. maybe i am being overtly sensitive but i do feel at times that as an asian, with a theatre background, my comments have often been brushed aside. this became very much apparent in this semester. i felt as if, as an asian, i must have no inkling what theatre is, theoretically or in practical sense, and that my grasp of concept of an individual theatre style must be wrong cos i'm ignorant due to my race.

though they have been proven wrong at times (well, with qualifications from LAMDA, i would pray that i'm not wrong - it would have been a disgrace), i still find it difficult to belong in something i have loved for so long. i don't feel belong to either sydney or singapore and i began wondering where the hell in this world can i run to, till i find spot where i could sit back and say, "ah. i'm home". i decided to pray (no, really, i'm a christian) and ask Him for some directions or at least some sense of assurance. i was prompted to read the letter my man wrote to me in february. "everyone needs a home", he wrote, "and if you ever deem me fit, let me be your home".

it was like a 'eureka' moment. i had already found my home a long time ago, with God. though i never felt like i belonged in any church, cos there are just some gossipmongers who would love to feast on the delights of my past and share it to anyone who's hungry enough to devour it without a second thought. i was at home with God and He sent me a more physical sense of it, in the likes of my man.

and i thank God for all the little wonders He has done in my life that i was once blind to.

hearts 15:40:00
0 spoken words

Frodo: [voiceover] How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold.

-- Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

hearts 00:45:00
0 spoken words

i actually waited up for you.
don't call me, just go to sleep.
i'll wake you in the morning.

goodnight my love.

hearts 01:37:00
0 spoken words

hearts 01:12:00
0 spoken words

hearts 15:23:00
0 spoken words

hearts 01:39:00
0 spoken words

hearts 23:44:00
0 spoken words