Photos from bad camera phone but nonetheless
CAT COW MEMBERS MEMO
Alert: All Cat cow club members
This memo is regarding: Nip's mysterious Chirstmas package
Attention: All involved members and collaborators, speical agents outside of club brought in by Sim the cat.
San Francisco, USA. Yesterday, Big cow unwrapped the mysterious package entrusted to her by team members with a warning not to open till Christmas. She has been fighting the urge to take a peek ever since she has been given the package. But she overcame that challenge, and at midnight when the clock struck 12 during the first minutes of Christmas, she opened the bag to find many Christmas decorations hand made by the gang.
"I had no idea what all the jingling from inside was, it made me very curious to find out." The decorations brought much Christmas spirit and warmth with love from friends half a globe away.
" I was very touched but it took a while for me to realize that many of these were handmade!!" Both Big cow and her sister spent a long time discussing how these could have been made. They concluded that only the very best experts could have produced this. Leaving obvious evidence of glue marks to reveal the heartfelt gestures behind these special decorations.
When asked which of the deocrations is her favourite, Big cow beamed and chirpily replied that they all were loved. But she was especially impressed by the Christmas wreath by the mixed chillun.
"I had no idea that it was handmade at all!! Until I saw the rest and concluded that it must have been a toilet scrub once."
It has been a heartwarming Christmas with all the decorations adorning her new barn. The only regret big cow says is that she could not find Lydia's address in time nor her email to send her Christmas wishes. Hopefully, the Cat cow members can provide her with the details for the mission next year!
Photographs of the sucessful mission will be uploaded the moment they are ready.
Merry X'mas one and all
All my Dearies and darlings and wonderful friends!!!!! TO all acquintances, friends yet unknown and strangers out there!! Let's all resound resound with the sounding joy!! (Whatever that is for you this season)
A Christmas karol
Dipping temperature
shopping whirlwind
crazy shoppers
commercial transaction
lighted trees
wrapping presents
roasting turkeys
hanging stockings
bribing parents
Bribing children
sleigh bells
red nose
Fat man
white beard
flight rush
snow storms
celebrate history
or myth?
OR
a belief
a man?
a son?
a saviour
was born
he died
he rose
ongoing controversy
commercial spiritual
stockings bible
candycane cross
laugh weep
wrappings trash
uesless things
empty champagne
party over
until next year
We need to do more than Imagine--think, feel, see
Imagine no heaven, no hell below us
Imagine all the people living life in peace
Everyday as I ride on the Freeway, I drive past a sign that says "Imagine. John Lennon alive today." IT is hard to imagine, as hard as it is to imagine the lyrics in his songs. yes the times were different then, people were more idealistic then. But the difficulty for me to imagine some a utpoic state on earth has nothing to do with cynicism. There are still many people who belief and hope for world peace beyond "miss Congeniality's" making of it into a private joke about Miss UNiverses. Perhaps it is the slow dawning of the fact that world peace will not come anytime soon. It is always only a matter of the distance, the distance we are from the wars, physically and mentally. The violence, the conflicts have been on going and as always, it is the history will be complicate things and keep some of these deep seated grudges, burying them even deeper into consciousness. When John Lenon wrote the words and uttered the much misquoted "that they were bigger than even Jesus Christ" he was criticized and labeled Satanic. I didn't understand what the big deal was, perhaps he was really evil, that's what people used to say.
But maybe, he got it right. He asked people to imagine the improbable. In those days and even now, not impossible. People get angry but it asks people to put behind them put away what matters most to them. Their worldview their faith, their identity, their differences. Our world is divided into political entities, but these run deeper in our lives than we think they do. 'We the citizens of Singapore" beyond the daily rote reciting, has a certain reality in our existence. It makes sense, we see ourselves in this way. I am a Chinese, some others are not. we define ourselves and others according to these differences, and sometimes, even if we know eradicating these differences might in deed be able to bring about peace, we are unable to let go of them.
John Lennon was right, if there was no heaven, hell, no religion, we will indeed be a happier race. BUt see already, how controversial what I'm only echoing is already becoming. Because sometimes it is hard to admit taht the very things we treasure and stake our very lives on are the causes of division and the very obstacle to peace.
GOing back to the seemingly irrelevant Miss UNiverse, only a title in name of a shared world, shared universe, it is nonetheless a contest between countries, rooting for their own, and a contest between races, nationalities, peoples.
Today is the first day of the Hanukkah--festival of lights for the Jewish faith, they mentioned peace and tolerance between religions, races, ethnic groups, yet today my sister felt the slight sting of racism. Today is also International migrants' day. But to my mind, the very placement of international next to migrant makes no sense. UNless it is meant to be a oxymoron. Because to be international is to blur national boundaries and embrace a larger entity, but at the same time the word migrant emphasizes the very real existence of these borders.
If turned on the very head, JOhn Lennon's song sings the answer to the ongoing problem in our world. IT is our need for differences, and how it is almost impossible to move beyond some of these fundamental obstacles we put for ourselves on the road to a "peace" which is more than just another favourite word of meaningless utterance.
The opposite to "peace" is not war, it is a deep seated and stuborn inability to see beyond differences.
It is clear that with the current division of the world, peace is not a true achievable goal except as a mere shallow mask. If we simply accept that peace means the absence of war, then I think we are all missing the very important truth John Lennon's song touches on. Peace in its truest sense is an sbsence of differences on a very deep level.
It is impossible
to read poetry while listening to Korean pop
The death of a salesman (or rather the death of a system of salesmanship)
Herald as one of the most enlightened ways of governance--the defeator, the truimph over foolish communism that betrays human nature and in born rights to liberty and freedom, the reason why there is a war going on in Iraq, the favourite word of Western politicians, being sprouted like ketchup to cover bad tastes of reality of dead soldiers and innocent civilians. A word loaded with politics, history, ideals, people's believes and their blood, A philosophy which promises so much but fails to live up to its overy own name.
Democracy will face its own death by its own hands. Sooner or later. It means so many things to so many people, twisted around fingers of politics, justice systems which pretend to uphold itself. IT means everything and sometimes that just might cover up the fact that it really means nothing.
I have always had this nagging feeling about recent develpments of democratic votes-- The past two presidential election in U.S, what is ongoing in Taiwan, Bush's war in Iraq to bring "democracy" whatever that means to him.
If the signs are not obvious enough, apparently democracy is now a inefficient and sometimes ineffective way to bring about decisions. The last two U.S presidential elections was won by a hair's breadth kind of margin, and it is not just in the U.S, it is happenign all over the world. People are crying out for democracy in not-yet-democratic countries, but in the alreaady suposedly democractic coutnires, voting results seem to anger half the population. Democracy, majority wins, works fine and wonderful if there is indeed a majority. MOreover, democracy assumes that the majority is enlightened. THE choice of the larger group of people should be by all means the better choice. There is no need for me to go further on how wrong that can be. But that itself is not the problem democracy seems to be facing,that assumption is embedded within the idea of democracy itself. The problem is that the 'majority' as an entity is slowly ceasing to exist, with the world becoming more divided by self-interest, different affiliation, more and more groups are emerging with no particular alliance to one another on a large front. It is not that the idea of democracy is dying, it still lives on well and fine even if it is parodied, made used of, abused and mocked. It is the idea of the majority, the group of people with a common interest and even as basic as a common choice when faced with two options which is dying out.
Politicians are finding it more and more difficult to draw people together, they take to a series of unrelated issues like cloning, abortion, going to war, to rally the various groups of people hoping to gain the support of the phantom majority. In the increasingly globalized world, and with people becoming mroe and more informed on their own sexual, religious, political,sceintific orientations. IT is gong to get increasingly harder to garner support over this wide range of population. Very soon, the scenarios will be one in which moves beyond supporters and opponents. Increasingly there are many moving to the middle ground. It is precisely in this gray area that democracy--which was never meant to handle and can never handle might eventually face its own demise.
There's always a season and a time
Not wanting to sound like one of those bloody self-help guru who tell people the obvious and attain some kind of occult status from commonsense that everyone would want to put into practise but being human--weak, failings and all always seem to fall short of, I risk sounding ahem, anal. But oh well. I've never dreaded anything as much as graduation and then uprooting, but now I've never been so grateful.
I still recall that pre-graduation syndrome we all seem to develop prior to leaving the school system which has weaned us for so many years. Ever since we have been conscious at that tender age when we start realizing that "yes I do have a brain and am expected to use it" we have been installed inside the school sytem and "Hell. It is frightfully scary when we realize we are going to be ejected from it into God-knows-what-is-out-there". And all those scary expectations we all seem to develop along the way about how sucess equates to alaphabets and rankings and even awards for how well we can write, learn inside that standard format of academia. And of course how we all get so lazy to even figure what the hell it all means to be the best, attain the "generally-approved and recomended" medal of honor. It is like being hung in limbo, when we see the end of that smooth sailing journey, we call studying, until we get the flimsy piece of paper. And then we start to worry.
But then, this uncertainty is probably the most wonderful thing that is going to happen to us, and before we settle into another comfortable comfort zone, where we just get into a track, and stick to it until something we calssify as "catastrophy of being sacked' or suddenly realization that mid-life-crisis has set in. WE all hate the uncertainty, it is like some blackhole hanging in the shadow just outside of the lighted zone we all want ot float around in lazily. I can understand why so many graduates want to go on all the way without stepping out there to hack it out first. Some fo them truly for the love of what they are doing. But mostly, it is to stay drifting in that lighted zone.
Soon, people start expecting you to develop certain traits ask certian questions about yourself at that certain age and you realize it gets harder to rebel. Discussion moves from crushes, boybands to work, salary and then eventually family, housing, cars. IT is probably unavoidable, and labels gets harder adn harder to shake off as we grow older. Probably because the possibilities seem to be shrinking with each increasing candle we get on our cake. until we don't bother with the candles and eventually even the cake.
I have never felt as free as now and am learning that there are so much beauty in the uncertain. It is a mild sense of fear and excitement and all these scary questions we ask ourselves in these precious moments about our lives and what it all means. IT makes us open up our eyes, our arms and our hearts to embrace and tolerate more about our abilities and inabilities.
I have never realized how imoprtant it is to not know what is ahead and yet still forge on, I guess that is probably why some people want to risk their lives climbing killer peaks just to see that view no one else has seen, sometimes not even knowing if it is all worth it or not until they reach the very top.
Perhaps. Robert Frost's poem can be read in a whole new way.
I remeber asking Ms Ng whether the sigh at the end of the poem can be a sigh of satisfaction instead of a regret that he cannot travel down both road. What we usually see as a poem about a regret and the uncertainty of the road ahead--is in fact a celebration of a moment in time, in life when we are faced with the uncertain. It is not choosing that one path that Frost is celebrating but the whole experience of the uncertainty and the possibilities in those diverging paths. It is that single moment when he is confronted by the two paths and he has to choose one that holds beauty. Enough for him to remember years later on.
It is at these uncertain moments that we are truly free. Free from the labels and confomrity, social expectations which put us into grids. Free from the expected and the fronts we must put on. It is at these moments that we stand at the cross roads with mothing but ourselves to confront.
Two roads diverged in the yellow woods...
Bimbo on leash unleashed
PppppPPPPPPpppppppPppp
in
ink is
not my favourite color
you asked me in email
"Will I marry an ang moh?"
(laughs)
not from the
P.O.T.A.T.O race
OoooooOOOOOOoooogle
at hot Asian Americans
once in a Bbbblue MoooOn
I like them in spectacles (slurp)
intellectuals [yummy]
Yes I like to let my eyes out for a walk
roving
but mind you, my mind is not
ONce in a while, we let that dog out (the female one)
I like hot ASian Americans and Korean soap opera leads
too
only to feast visually
Thank heavens that bimbo me is still within reach.
Wish I could order guys like a subway sandwich.
Li, next time, someone asks you:
"Why are you still single arh?"
Tell them--they've run out of your flavour.
"today's special" is not for me, even if it is dirt cheap
I would rather wait, thank you.
a toast to "the little garden" and "the little stream"
I received emails from you guys offering me sweet words of encouragement. And a reminder to take it easy, stop rushing around with my eyes ahead set on some clear goal which might yet be unattainable, but to stop and lift my head in the night to see that clear sky, the few sparkly stars and the half moon in its clarity and crystal silvery whiteness. Breathe. Look . And Smile.
Thank you. Thankyou to that moon, in her pure gaze, and the gentle words. Like that moon a symbol of our sisterhood? haha (R U still a v-----?) OF course our sec sch lit text--the Bard calls the moon the chaste godness.
Sometimes, I do tend to sound wallowy, and I do wallow in my miseries sometimes, but that's probably because I do tend to lean towards the 'sad' in my blog. The urge to write becomes all the more strong when I feel sad and need solace.
Li, I love your analogy that your blog is your little garden where you can invite your close friends to share in an opening of the soul. A peep into each other's gardens where they tend their thoughts like flowers in a little private place where we come and sit a while to recharge at our own secret gardens. That's probably why your blog looks like a garden too. (in fact so does Sim's)
I wondered about my own blog, It doesn't look like a garden nor does it feel like one. I call it a universe, but of course it is hardly one, unless it is a self-centered one.
So I thought. I wonder if my blog is not like a stream, a testimony to my instability, my changing moods, an artifact, an output of a moment, a feeling--fleeting but nonetheless real. It reflects my mood. On bright clear days, it shimmer and glow with positive spirit, on breezy days when leaves float past, it speaks of growth and life experiences. Dull days, when the sky is grey, and when there are drizzles, the reflection is distorted. Sometimes pollutants enter, and it grows horribly choked, stagnant--empty of life. ANd that's my blog, sometimes, a dumping ground for bad feelings, sometimes a celebration of life and freindship.
So a toast to "the little garden" of the soul and the spiritual and to the "little stream" which carries through little gems, celebrations, anger, moments. Like the water which flows runs through my life temporarily and ends up in some mysterious place where the past moments perhaps are still real?