a-muse

comfort food

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:46:00 +0000

I don't know about you but my idea of the perfect comfort food is actually bread with luncheon meat washed down with a bowl of Milo.

A bowl of instant noodles with a slice of luncheon meat and a fried egg comes close but I think the former still wins in my book.

Yes, given my (supposed) gastronomic tastes and all, this may sound slightly strange but sometimes, it's the simplest things that make you happy the most and this is the perfect example of that.

it really annoys me that...

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Fashion is seen as something frivolous in Singapore - that people who write about fashion are deemed less ahem intelligent than those who choose to write about economics, finance, politics or even education.

The point is, the fashion industry is big business and most of time, is the first indication as to how a country's economy is doing. Fashion week, to me, isn't just about looking at the new trends. It is a study of how fashion evolves year upon year which in turn becomes a study of changing economic climates. While it may be true that Asian publications cannot compete with the big guns a la Suzy Menkes or Cathryn Horn in terms of copy content but the fact is, how could we when the local publications don't even bother to try?

Sometimes I get asked, why I can't write more like Vanessa Friedman when I used to intern at the FT. To which all I can say is, how can I when I only have 650 sq blinking kms to play with.

london

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:52:00 +0000

Of course, in many ways I miss London. I miss London for its bad weather, I miss London for Fortnum & Mason's and Oxford Circus but most of all, I miss the feeling like a small fish in a big pond in London because only then do I feel like I have the motivation to aim for the sky.

something i wrote three years ago.

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:19:00 +0000

introspect
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler...

Today, of all days, I mourned the loss of my room back at The Royal House where it all started. I missed everything about it, from the freedom, to the sense of unknown. But most of all, I miss, sitting with my laptop by the table, starring out across the foyer into the dark blue depths of the night, where I am accompanied only by the soft whirling of the night zephyr blending with that from my cold, dry, air conditioning.

It's all gone now, I made the decision to give it up as I made the decision to give my heart to a man whose past I wasn't sure I could live with. Then again, something must have made me choose this path, and it sure as hell wasn't the practical, economic reasons that I had been propogating, it was because I sincerely wanted to give this relationship a shot.

These days, it's hard to find a man, who truly loves you. Harder yet to find someone that won't cheat on you, as my summer forays and insights would tell you so I really cannot ask for more. So the past, whether or not I was already in the picture, will be forgotten, for the only moments that really count are those that came after he took my hand and said, "Do we have a deal?"

For now, I will endeavour to see everything before that as free game, a clean slate, well, God knows I haven't exactly been the saint that I made myself out to be anyway, so to be fair I can't gripe. I just want to complain because I am woman, hear me roar.

Alas, I think I've dawdled long enough on this issue and I feel the effects on my body. The sleepless nights, the dark rings and gasp, I spy little wrinkles forming or so I've been told but that's alright, because there is a man out there who would love me, wrinkles or otherwise, or so I've been told, again.

I will not say, that there isn't a part of me that wants to run free in the lush green wilderness of the forest of singlehood, and the sense of restlessness in me seems to point to that. And yet, I sit here still because I know that the restlessness comes, not from wanting to taste the forbidden but rather because I feel like a big fish in a small pond.

I have, a lot to be grateful for, which at this moment, I'm counting my blessings and saying my thankyous to the man above for, but I also know that I'm capable of more. I haven't been the luckiest, nor the most blessed, but this time, I think I'm tired of being just lightly better than mediocre, I want to shine and I'd do everything in my power to achieve that.

Well my darlings, I wish I was more coherent and eloquent like all the other people that I tend to rub shoulders with but I'm not. For tonight, I will allow myself to be crass and frank for it is the only way I can face up to the demons lurking behind my closet door. When I wake up, things will be different, if only because I have decided that they will be different. Who knows, the star out there, trying its best to shine so bright, might just be shining for me.

I await, with bated breath whatever the future holds, for some unfathomable reason, I have a feeling it will be a good one.

Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

time

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:29:00 +0000

I hardly write on this blog anymore. There are various reasons for that of course, the first being that I write for a living and have no inclination to write anymore when I get home but primarily, I think, it's because I have nothing to say but today, it seems, I do.

---
When I was in school, I could hardly imagine my life being out in the working world. Though equipped with the knowledge of what I was going to do, it still seemed so surreal. Now, however, that I'm working, I can hardly imagine what it was like to be in school anymore and it all seems so far away.

Sometimes I look at my friends and how things are so different now as the years have gone by and all I can say is, my my, so much has changed.

There are times when I look at myself today and I think, when was the turning point?

Drunken ramblings

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:59:00 +0000

There was a guy passed out on the floor near the club I was necking red wine at.
And I started to wonder: whst is the point of getting drunk to begin with.
Then I realized, the key is not whether you are drunk or not but rather the idea that you can forget just for 5 minutes that you are , unfortunately living on this earth. And this is necessary for survival. Sad isn't it?

girls like us

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Have had an impressive number of conversations with girls I was at RJ and what being 'girls like us' entail.

Girls like us, who have gone to the right schools, got the right grades and know that because we have, inside us an innate sense of ennui, can never really stay at one place long enough to be happy.

And then we lament on how we dig our own graves because when we move - because we can - we always make the same mistakes of creating ties and then having to face leaving loved ones behind.

But we shed a tear, and move on anyways, because that's all girls like us know how to do.

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:23:00 +0000

last year at this time i was ready to leave singapore for london.
thi year at this time, i'm not ready to leave london for singapore.

on another note, i always thought of "mad" as something that was ours - down to that icon we had on our phones. it seems slightly odd that it's been re-used in some senses, even if her name does start with m.

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:52:00 +0000

My fellow indentured journalist: Babe, sekali you come back, find a Singaporean guy and then you will stay here and become a housewife.

Me: Give me some credit, at the very least I'll be a tai tai.

MFIJ: What if u find a poor manwho drives a lao pok car and lives in 3 room hdb, got 2 aged parents for you to care for?

Me: Ok now you're pushing it. If I go back it will be doctor, lawyer or at least Indian Chief."

I wonder what it would have been like if I hadn't taken the year off to come to London. Would my life have been much easier? Would I have had simpler decisions to make?

Say I arrived in London 4 years later after serving my bond, would I be stuck in the same situation I find myself in?

Would I even have come to London if I had waited 4 years to do my Masters? Would I even have made it out of Singapore at all?

Questions that I cannot answer and questions I probably shouldn't be asking because it's all for nothing and asking these questions can't make my present predicament go away.

But I do wonder, largely because I'm scared - of myself, what I'm capable of and what I'm willing to give up.

However, what scares me the most, is the idea that I'm the only one that's scared because I am, very very scared of my impending future.

sometimes

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Every so often I remember how it was in the past and I wonder why I'm trying so hard. "Wouldn't it be easier if I just gave up?" I ask myself that alot - because it would be easier, not just because of circumstances but also because then the past can't hurt me anymore - but yet I never stop pressing on even though it is slowly killing me.

some things don't change

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:44:00 +0000

And as I walked away from the banker leaning against railing looking out at the city of London, an image of two years ago flashed through my mind. It was as though I was 22 again and he, 24, and we were sitting on the steps of PGP, me walking back to my room and he, smoking on the steps by himself.

Despite the fact that everytime I meet him, I know a little bit more about how he felt about what happen, I think some things just don't change and sometimes I wonder if they ever will.

Somehow, I have a feeling, give it a couple of years down the road and the same thing would happen again.

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:32:00 +0000

There are bad people out there, be careful.

familiarity

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:22:00 +0000

Walking through Wealdstone, just north a little bit of Harrow, there's a bit there that reminded me alot of Seletar. As I made my way through that quiet suburbia, I had this image of walking through a green patch with my friend VG as we made our way to her house. How quaint.

the difference between cats and dogs and when enough is enough

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:20:00 +0000

I try to explain that in many relationships where obtuse men - who don't realise that they're shutting their girlfriends out of their hearts - are concerned, there comes a point where the girl would just give up.

And even for the most patient girls, when that manifests, if things don't change then the boy's just not worth it, but if he wakes up and smells the bloody roses, then you know that he might just be worth your time after all.

rip

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Dear Ma Ma,

I wish I was there when it happened. I will miss you.

Love,
Girl Girl.

men are from venus, women are from mars

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:37:00 +0000

quote of the day from my friend, somewhat far far away:
See, i'm a girl. girls get serious when they think they've found the right guy,
Boys don't get serious until they've found the right girl at the right time.

conclusion: boys are rubbish.

the end

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:31:00 +0000

I know that when the end came, there were so many people who thought that I did wrong; that I was stupid to let it go and that I was going to regret it. I know that there were friends, the judokas and family who were vehemently against me giving D up.

Two years later, there were still people asking me if D and I were still together - whoever thought you two would break up, they said, apparently if there were any couple that they thought would have made it to the end it would have been us.

In hindsight, they were probably more right than they thought they were for I don't think anyone knew, that up to the final moment when I said this was it, even I didn't know that the end was about to come. And honestly, up till the exact moment I said I really wanted out, I never thought I was ever capable of really ending it because I simply could not (up to the very last minute) envisage life without D.

I heard, that he (and apparently H as well) was never quite the same again. I don't think anyone knew, that I was never quite the same again. Because he was, for three years of my life, as good as my everything and people forget, that just because I left, that when he was my everything, he truly was my everything.

And until today, I question the commitment of every guy that I've been with after that because I don't think any of them could ever match up to D in that respect, in doing everything in their power to make me happy simply because he loved me.

He used to say, with a laugh that he spoilt the market for all boyfriends out there because he was so indulgent and I agreed but he did it anyways.

Years on, I look back and I read (because for some reason I'm linked as her on her blog) with a sense of trepidation what D's present girl writes about their relationship and I know that the situation I'm in right now is me paying back my bad karma for what I did to D and the trouble I caused a year later.

Oddly enough, I mentioned to the boy the other day that had I not moved into halls my first year of uni, I would probably now, be back in the newsroom, engaged to be married to my now doctor boyfriend leading a comfortable life.

But I digress.

I suppose my point is that I can see that he's happy so I don't regret my decision because had I not left, he wouldn't be with her today. And that was - despite my muck up the next year - the real reason why I left.

Because at the end of the day, I think, we can safely say, that she has made him happier than I ever could have made him and he, being the beautiful boy that he is, deserves nothing short of that.

I just hope, that one day, when all is said and done, that I can say the same for the boy and I.

i want to

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:36:00 +0000

to eat tau huay at Rochor with US after having a massive steamboat at Roxy Square where yet again V and R over-order and Y, C and I curse and swear because we end up finishing all the leftovers.

To make up for it: Have resolved to eat KFC this weekend, if only because I have yet to eat my happy food ever since I moved to London.

on reading Lawrence

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:58:00 +0000

I'm not one to enjoy DH Lawrence, and re-reading Women in Love for the first time since I was 12 has only proven that to be the case. I find his style of writing awkward and contrived, to say the least.

But there was one bit that I read that made me stop and think, ah, maybe he understood the people and their characters better than I previous thought. It seemed, oddly enough, relevant even in today's fucked up society.

"She made great professions, to herself, of her willingness to warm his foot-soles between her breasts, after the fashion of the nauseous Meredith poem. But only on the condition that he, her lover, loved her absolutel, with complete self-abandon. And subtly enough, she knew he would never abandon himself finally to her. He did not believe in final self-aandonment. He said it openly. It was his challenge. She was prepared to fight him for it. For she believed in an absolute surrender to love. She believed that love far surpassed the individual. He said the individual was more then love, or than any relationship. For him, the bright, single soul accepted love as one of its conditions, a condition of its own equilibrium. She believed that love was everything. Man must render himself up to her. He must be quaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be her man utterly, and she in return would be his humble slave - whether she wanted it or not."

"'Wouldn't it be lovely to go home in the dark?' she said. 'We might have tea rather late - shall we? - and have high tea? Wouldn't that be rather nice?
'I promised to be at Shartlands for dinner, 'he said.
'But - it doesn't matter - you can go tomorrow -'
'Hermoine is there,' he said, in rather an uneasy voice. 'She is going away in two days. I suppose I ought to say good-bye to her. I shall never see her again.'
Ursula drew away, closed in a voilent silence. He knitted his brows, and his eyes began to sparkle again in anger.
'You don't mind, do you?' he asked irritably.
'No, I don't care. Why shuold I? Why should I mind?' her tone was jeering and offensive.
'That's what I ask myself,' he said; 'why should you mind! But you seem to.' His brows were tense with violent irritation.
'I assure you I don't, I don't mind in the least. Go where you belong - it's what I want you to do.'
'Ah, you fool!' he cried, 'with your "go where you belong". It's finished betweeeen Hermione and me. She means much more to you, if it comes to that, than she does to me. For you can only revolt in pure reaction from her and to be her opposite is to be her counterpart.'
'Ah, opposite!' cried Ursula. 'I know your dodges. I am not taken in by your word-twisting. You belong to Hermione and her dead show. Well, if you do, you do. I don't blame you. But then you've nothing to do with me.
In his inflamed, overwrought exasperation he stopped the car, and they sat there, in the middle of the couintry lane, to have it out It was a crisis of war between them, so they did not see the ridiculousness of their situation.
'If you weren't a fool, if only you weren't a fool,' he cried in bitter despair, 'you'd see that one could be decent, even when one has been wrong. I was wrong to go on all those years with Hermione - it was a deathly process. But after all, once can have a little human decency. But no, you would tear my soul out with your jealousy at the very mention of Hermione's name.'
'I jealous! I - jealous! You are mistaken if you think that. I'm not jealous in the least of Hermione, she is nothing to me, not that!' And Ursula snapped her fingers. 'No, it's you who are a liar. It's you who must return, like a dog to his vomit. It is what Hermione stands for that I hate.I hate it. iT is lies, it is false, it is death. But you want it you can't help it, you can't help yourself. You belong to that old deathly way of living - then go back to it. But don't come to me, for I've nothing to do with it.'

at that age

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:03:00 +0000

There was this old lady on the tube the other day and she was having the most wicked conversation with her friend about toy boys.

And to top it off, she whipped out an iphone to show her friend photographs.

I want to be like her when I'm old. Whipping toy boys and iphones (out) until I catch my last breath.

sleepless in london part deux

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:43:00 +0000

'Forgive and forget' that's what they say,
It's good advice, but it's not very practical.
When someone hurts us,
We want to hurt them back.
When someone wrongs us,
We want to be right.
Without forgiveness old scores are never settled,
Old wounds never heal.
And the most we can hope for,
Is that one day...
We'll be lucky enough to forget.
- Miranda Grey

A: Why, for the love of God, would someone (the actor) try to ask me out for drinks five months after I refused to pick up at least 10 of his phonecalls the week after we went out on a date?
B: I don't know, but I think those artistic types tend to be the worst sort.
A: Why:
B: Oh, artistic sort, are moody and they like the idea of the spurned or jilted love.
A: Maybe I should have given the artistic boy a chance then. They seem right up my ally. Finally someone who is likely to be more clingy than I am, haha.

A: That's it la, the next guy I date (if ever) is going to be a relationship virgin.
B: Haha, there aren't that many around.
A: Does that mean you can teach him stuff? Wait, that means you have to teach him stuff.
B: Yes.

I think that's wicked. I have it on good authority that I'm one hell of a teacher.

bleargh

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:13:00 +0000

我自己也不懂为什么，可是你不在我身边的时候，我真的觉得很害怕。
最残的是，我一点都不敢告诉你，因为我怕你不会明白我心里的痛苦。

-----
刮风这天, 我试过握着你手
但偏偏, 雨渐渐, 大到我看你不见.
还要多久我才能在你身边?
等到放晴的那天也许我会比较好一点.
从前从前, 有个人爱你很久,
但偏偏, 风渐渐, 把距离吹得好远.
好不容易又能再多爱一天,
但故事的最后你好像还是说了拜拜.

lethargy

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:42:00 +0000

There's a part of me, that misses what i had in Singapore - the whole living it up bit because I'm a journalist and the whole idea that I never have to queue or pay.

It's times like these that I think, I'm better off being in Singapore, regardless of the fact that London has been very good to and for me, because Singapore's home, it's comfortable and I'm surrounded by like-minded people who understand where I'm coming from and why I am the way I am.

But I suppose, I'm just being picky and difficult.

Then again, what's the point in living when one is perfectly content.

It's when one is perfectly content that there is not point in living, in which case, it's when you just give in to life and well, die.

i'm gonna sip bacardi like it's my birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:16:00 +0000

It's been one hell of a London Fashion Week. Will post more, but in the meantime enjoy this picture whilst I'm off to parteh because it's my birthday tomorrow.

我要的就这么简单

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:49:00 +0000

喝纯白的豆浆, 是纯白的浪漫,
望着你可爱脸庞, 和你纯真的模样.
我傻傻对你笑, 是你忧愁解药,
你说我就像油条, 很简单却很美好.

我知道你和我就像是豆浆油条,
要一起吃下去味道才会是最好.
你需要我的傻笑, 我需要你的拥抱,
爱情就需要这样它才不会单调.
我知道有时候也需要吵吵闹闹,
但始终也知道只有你对我最好,
豆浆离不开油条让我爱你爱到老,
爱情就需要这样它才幸福美好.

我知道都知道, 你知道你都知道,
好不好, 别偷笑让我知道,
我知道都知道, 你知道你都知道,
好不好别偷笑让我知道就好.

我喝完热豆浆眷恋着还想要
你吃完金黄油条爱情又要再发酵

我知道你和我就像是豆浆油条,
要一起吃下去味道才会是最好.
你需要我的傻笑, 我需要你的拥抱,
爱情就需要这样它才不会单调.
我知道有时候也需要吵吵闹闹,
但始终也知道只有你对我最好,
豆浆离不开油条让我爱你爱到老,
爱情就需要这样它才幸福美好.
- 林俊杰, 豆浆油条