I Have No Eyes

Hi. Hello there.

Can you see me? I'm here.

Excuse my question, you see, I can't see you.

I have no eyes.

Hi. My name is C-- C for Canvas.

I spend my days and nights in the studio,

lying on an easel.

It gets cold at times, but that's okay.

I'm okay.

Well, because, occasionally, people come into this

cold studio,

some stare at this blank canvas

for one to two seconds and then leave,

some stay-- for a while more.

It's rather funny, you see, because I can't see them.

I have no eyes.

But, I can feel them.

They're warm.

Out of these warm few who stay,

some are artists.

With a palette on the one hand,

and a paintbrush on the other,

they colour me.

I can't see what colours they put on me, you see, I can't see them.

I have no eyes.

But I can feel them,

painting colours on me.

Gentle dabs on one corner.

Pause.

Hard strokes on the other.

After some time, they stop.

But I know they're still there.

I can feel them.

I also know that the blank canvas is now

a wet canvas,

but to these rare artists,

the blank canvas is now

a masterpiece.

Chortling. Chuckling.

I wish

I can see what it is they see on me, you see, I can't see me.

I have no eyes.

Is there blue on me?

Why did you use blue?

Are you sad?

Blue is the colour of the sky, right?

Is there yellow?

The sound 'yellow' tickles me.

Does yellow mean you're happy?

As happy as the sun?

Now

I'm not lying on an easel anymore.

I'm hung on the wall.

I'm framed.

I'm a masterpiece. Your masterpiece.

Thank you.

Thank you, and you, and you, you, you, you... Wait!

Where are you going?

Don't go.

Oh, excuse my question, you see, I can't see you still.

I have no eyes.

But, I can feel you-- all of you.

You're warm.

Chortling. Chuckling.

I feel so dumb. I know you can't hear me.

I have no tongue.

I wish

I have eyes though, so that I can see.

See me.

See you.

Trip The Light Fantastic

First of all, don't ask me what the title is all about. I was poised by my idle thoughts to churn up something unique for the title of this post, and uninterestingly, the first word that came to mind was 'dance'. Ever-so-trying to be super cool and different I was, I consulted the thesaurus and guess what? This phrase means dance! So, yeah, err... not very interesting.

Actually at this very second, I am supposed to be assembling my arsenal of draconian arguments which I have to spam expediently, strategically and perhaps even cunningly on the day of my moots. However, I chanced upon my doppelganger's blog and just like that *finger snap*, I am thrown into this yet-another pensive mood. Sigh.

Sometimes I hate it that Fate has mould me into this good-boy persona in my family. Not that I mind, but really, I have always been that small boy who is... good; who instead of running around the neighbourhood chasing after frogs and dogs, decides to be cooped up in his own little corner swamped with comic books while secretly labouring to copy his maid's drawing of ducks, which to him is equivalent to the Mona Lisa; who instead of being that kid who has the audacity and the courage to throw away his lousy exam scripts into the gutter beside his house, ends up being the kid who partakes in the national physics olympiad (shocking huh?). Sometimes I hate it that my parents take so much pride in me.

Don't get me wrong, I can only feel ever-so-grateful that they feel the way they do. It's every child's dream (or at least, normatively and conventionally speaking, this should be the case) to make their parents happy and feel that they have successfully discharged their parental duties. Ok, fine, I don't hate it (capricious much?), but when these people whom you hold very dear to your heart treat you like a trophy, flaunt you to the left and to the right, you can't help but to end up having these self-imposed expectations on yourself. And kudos to my folks, they aced their attempt in imbuing such dare-I-say masochistic trait. Well, at least sometimes, particularly when my teenage hormones are bubbling through my veins such as now, I would take a step back and view my life at large, sadly, only to find this tendency to feel that the universe is ganging up on me surfacing.

Perhaps this is the reason why my soul is so aged? Gotta get a face-lift real soon! Chicken soup anyone? LOL. I don't really know what I want to get from venting out all this. I'm not even sure whether I would want to get anything back. Everyone has a motive in doing things, but that does not mean that everybody knows what that motive is, and whether that motive is actually too much of his own good. Perhaps I just feel like doing things that's unprecedented-- unprecedented by me, of course? Attempting to crumble my clampdown on things in my life-- to be less overreaching, less paranoid? OK, coherence level hitting the zero mark now. May be I want to stop being that kid who always colours inside the lines. May be I just want to colour the feathers of those ducks green, the beak red, the tail purple, and everything else black? How are these things connected again? Especially as regards the title? Discuss.

Apology if this has got a bit Freudian.

Chemistry For A Great Movie

Who knew that a story involving characters with ridiculous names like Toothless and Hiccup could make such a great movie? Yes, I'm talking about the latest Dreamworks movie: How To Train Your Dragon. It really has all the formulae to make a great movie. It's cliche, predictable and audience-friendly. It has clean and harmless romance, it talks about friendship and family values-- specifically the most fragile of all family relationship, that between father and son. (Whoa, oversharing much?) Nevertheless, even though after only ten minutes you could already expect all the twists and turns in the story line (and yes, I did, especially since it was alarmingly similar to Avatar *cough cough*), the movie was enjoyable still.

Perhaps it's the fatigue of a long day spent performing in front of motley crowd of strangers, who thankfully were appreciative of our effort, that makes the movie especially relaxing. You know, when you watch a movie, especially brainless ones like this animation movie, they sort of do the thinking for you. So what you need to do is to relish those small, digestible bits that they throw at you as the story develops. Or perhaps it's the amazing predictability of the plot that turns the whole experience into a guessing game. Guess what happens next? AH HUH! I knew it! Or perhaps the movie provides a mode of escape from reality, an experience where we are whisked into this world of dragons and vikings. We are given the kind assurance that no matter how shitty and complicated things may turn around, everything is gonna be back to normal and a happy ending is a must-have and a will-be.

Actually, the last proposition is unlikely considering the uncanny resemblance the movie has with reality. Well, not everything and every character are the same as reality, we don't have a pet dragons that take us high up into the galaxies. But there were several things which, against my better judgment, I involuntarily picked up which sort of ruined my fantastical journey into the land of the vikings. It was rather distracting-- it caused some jarring effects which made the supposed-to-be seamless and fluid enjoyment of the movie less than satisfactory. LOL. I'm sorry I'm speaking in cryptic. If it appears as if I'm beating around the bush, running around in circle like a headless chicken and maneuvering around, selecting my words carefully so that I manage to put my point at some level of generality that makes it rather difficult to figure out and grasp-- and thus the ambiguity creates the impression that this point applies to every single issue that there exists in the world-- in addition to this complex and unending sentence that follows, well, that's because I am. LOL.

Anyhoo, the ending of the movie is particularly delicious. I was sorta hoping that the main character, Hiccup, would die so that this meant-for-children movie would not be your typical mean-for-children movie. But it didn't happen, instead (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE MOVIE AND INTEND TO DO SO, CLOSE THIS PAGE NOW!) he lost his left foot, which made him exactly like his pet dragon, Toothless, who had been handicapped in the very beginning of the movie when he lost his left tail wing. Now, the foot pedal thing which he uses to control Toothless when he rides him is linked to his iron foot (think pirates!), which is soober cool because it kinda reflects the strengthened bond between them. Last time it was like a left human foot on a metal pedal, now it's like an iron foot on a metal pedal, perfect match. You get the imagery? Isn't it just scintillatingly poignant? LOL.

Ok, now I need to do my blocking! :( Expresses fatigue and unwillingness. Rolls eyes. Expects hours of twitching in own seat and listening to the same song over and over and over again. Commits painless suicide.

P.S. Happy birthday! LOL.

FLiCKERHOLIC

To begin this foreseeably long post, I would like to apologise for the delay in writing this (again) foreseeably emo post. With the terror of my assignment looming from a 48-hour distance, I had to pay my dues to Lady Justice first before I could bask in the joy of the victory. Not to mention that there was her distant cousin twice-removed, Mr Sandman, who had been badgering me for months already. So yes, when Reality hit hours after the competition ended, she hit with BANG! in all the wrong places. @_@

Moreover, I decided to 'swallow' my very verbal vomit, a.k.a my previous post, because... well, I don't know. Somehow, upon reflection, it just didn't sit right with me because this blog is not protected. And yes, I gotta admit that my technologically challenged mind is incapable of getting around this mesh of virtual network so as to find a way to privatise this blog. (Another long sentence, courtesy of your truly!) Not that I'm ashamed of me past, I think it's quite entertaining actually. Ok, to illustrate my uneasiness: it's like watching American Pie with your parents around. You know what I mean? Like, you watch American Pie all the time, and you're not ashamed of people knowing that you watch American Pie-- not even if your parents know. However, if in the excitement of watching it (no pun intended), all of the sudden, your Ma and Pa walked in on you, it would a bit... eh, weird? I dunno, I guess it's just me. I would therefore apologise to those whose minds have been gravely scarred by the grotesque images in that post. And for those who were lucky enough and didn't read it, you have just been spared the trauma of TMI-ness. (TMI-ness, the splendour of my vocabulary.)

OK, let's cut to the case. FLiCKERHOLIC! ("Flickers") First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude for every single one of you. Thank you for putting up with me and my rather annoying idiosyncrasies. Thank you for allowing me to persuade/pressure/trick you into agreeing with my ludicrous, superficial and 'what-the-FLICK-did-he-say?- concept. I am uber thankful that you all grew to like the concept. (Do you now? :) ) I am very very thankful that you were willing to overcome your initial reservations and doubts, and decide to plunge forward into this dubious mess, then built up on it, neaten it up and make wonders with it.

I knew that but for this concept, you guys would probably be able to put more 'you' into the item. I apologise for having to put you in a situation where-- by peer pressure or not-- you have to be contented containing your creative muses in a small, well, container. I'm sorry that instead, you have to grapple with my style of choreography, whatever it is, because by reason of the concept, you can't do what you do best. If I was sick of my own choreography, I could only imagine how you must have felt. To be honest, I was--- and am still-- so so eager to learn more from you guys, your eclectic styles and motley interpretations of the music. Should opportunities (plural, yes) present themselves in the future, I really wished to learn more you.

Truth be told, I was not feeling it days before the competition. Haha. I think it was the stress. We were in a hot mess, there were mountains of school work which we all had to do, schedules were clashing like some sort of bumper-car frenzy AND, to top it all off, the item was stuck at chapter 5 where it was supposed to reach chapter 10 by that time. So, I applaud you guys for putting up with it all, with me especially. You guys are real superstars. If I pressed the wrong buttons during that period of time, I genuinely apologise.

So now, am I to make individual comments? @_@

Queen Bee

I thank you for everything, and am thankful for you, my clone! LOL. It's been amazing working with you. The thing that I really admire you for is that once you dip your foot in the water, you don't hesitate to dive in completely when the need be. You put Flickers first, your life second. Not many people have the ability and willingness to do this, and you are certainly a rare find. Thanks for being the constant voice of pragmatism when it comes to brainstorming. I know at times I have lofty ideas, but you always anchor them back to reality. Truly, an invaluable asset to the team. Thanks for stepping out of your comfort zone and hold center (remarkably at that!) for most parts of the item. I mustn't have been easy, but you shone like a Queen!

DJ Shaggar

Another trooper in the group! Thank you for sticking by it through the thick and thin! I know in addition to Flickers, you had other drama that you had to contend with. However, never you gave up. Speaking of comfort zones, with respect to you and the new sets of dance choreography, it was tantamount to putting a Japanese in Jamaica. LOL. Again, never you gave up. Honestly, I think you can do jazz funk pretty well, minus your looking-up you'd be perfect! :) Haha. NOT TO FORGET, you amazing ear for mixing transitions! *BOW DOWN* With such lousy a technology (Windows Movie Maker), you could really create seamless transitions from one song to another. That's talent with capital T, for sho! Lastly, I really hope that after this competition, you are not discouraged from choreographing! Your choreography is nice! Dun ever let other people tell you otherwise, especially YOURSELF! :)

NikkarooNKR

Ms Boom-boom-ka-POW! Thank you for your amazingness (again, not a word...) and not despising my dancing! Haha. For you, I think more so than for everybody else, this whole odyssey is like an emotional roller coaster. No smooth sailing indeed. I thank you for bouncing back each time a blow was swung your way. It was clearly not easy to cope with the hectic schedule, but you managed to make things flow swimmingly. I genuinely think that if you wanna dive into the dance industry, you really really have a shot. You have a distinct style and performance quality (evidenced by the fb pics) that lights up the stage. Do NOT ever dull your shine for whatever reason ok!!! You're one of those people from whom I could learn a thing or two (or ten?). :))

Arkenxin

I thank you for really really contending with the whole Flicker-ing frenzy that always intensified days nearing to the competitions (heats, semis, finals). I do think-- and I think others would concur with me-- that you are improving at lightning speed. It must have come as a huge surprise to you the amount of time that we ended up putting into the competition. I mean, it surprised me. So, if you have someone who is having her first competition, dealing with dance styles with which she is not familiar, yet is still persistent, crunching it together with rest of the team, what else can you ask for from her? Thanks for tanking the feedback that at times, I know, must not have been easy to hear. I really warmed my heart when I saw you consciously tried to change your muscle memory, especially when I saw you, we were practising my part. It's really these little things that count. :)

Chu Leong

Thanks for not minding working with us, immature JC kids, for the competition, Mr BBoy Santa! LOL. Thanks for lightening up the mood during practices with your goofing around! *reminiscing the so-many-hands-so-many-hands video* And, WOW, you know make-up! Like WOW! I owed my tranny look to you! Haha. But really, you really know how to glam things up-- the shoes, the make-up, the back-combing! LOL. You're like a comprehensive package one should never forget when one wants to join a dance performance/competition. Seriously, one of the strongest pillars holding the item and the team together. Hopefully, I can learn more from you in the future because there's wealth of creative talent bubbling somewhere there which, I think, even you haven't tapped into. Can't wait to see it erupt, and fly out in the open! :)

Sneaky Z

MY GOD! You're like a new man (or woman?)! You, you, you surprised me, in the good way! Like WOW! DUN ever feel that you're inferior! Really, the crowd cheered for you countless times not because of the golden headband! There's talent there! The waacking part waacked my sox off! I think you really have a flair for it. LET'S TAKE waacking classes together! AND I THREATEN YOU TO COME TO NUS AND JOIN BLAST!!! Must come ok! You'll be like the sickest junior by then!!! It's been a pleasure (not in the gross kinda sense) working with you! Thanks for laughing convulsively at me and my unglam moments! Ehleee~ehleee~ehleee! LOL. On a personal note, I think you show those people who doubted you before a run for their money! Can you say: 'in your FACE!' :)

Ok, I'm running out of words (Haha!) and tired. Thank you so so much, FLiCKERHOLIC!

That Time of the Month

Hear-yee Hear-yee! It's that time of the month when Calvin Magnus feels slightly bogged down with this shit on his head, on his shoulder, and basically on every other flat surface on his body, and therefore feels like ranting on and on and on and on. First of all, I would like to apologise to those people who, by the unfortunate turn of events, happen to read my blog posts and cringe at the sight of my glaring typo errors. I gotta inform you straight now that sometimes my fingers just cannot keep up with my brain activities: so much to say, so few fingers.

I assure you that I, Calvin Magnus, am capable, at the very least, of constructing non-repulsive, grammatical sentences free of all forms of typo errors, and any mistake made henceforth results exclusively from inadvertent lapse of concentration. I'll try to read proof my posts, I promise. I'm just a lousy grammar Nazi wanna-be.

Anyhoo, enough law-school bashing. There's nothing that I can do but to deal with my sad life. Since evidently I have not been acting on the advice I gave myself the last time I reflected on this tragedy, another ranting on the same subject seems futile and irksome. So, let us talk about things which are more interesting, dance!

It's has been quite some time since I talked about dance. I guess it's because this part of my life is one that I really hold dear to my heart (this sounds so gay!), so talking about it on my blog, to me at least, is equivalent to exposing one dark corner within me that I am not sure whether I would want to let others to see. Other than that, dance has not been the centerpiece of my life until just recently, which thus allowed me to just not think about it so much, to cast it aside, away from my every-day-life field of vision. However, now it's the one thing that I can think about. I am not saying that I'm super dancer, because obviously and really, I am not. Nor do I aspire to be one. I just think that it has now taken such a major portion of my life that it has become the one thing I look forward to when I wake up in the morning. Even now, I initially promised my self that I would do my reading for my 11 o'clock class (which is in one hour's time) once I reached school, but now I'm like ranting senselessly on my blog, which I don't even know whether real people, or even whether I want people to, read. As illogical as it is, I just can't help myself to do it. I guess this is what the law sees as lack of volition.

OK, let's stop digressing. I feel rather emo nowadays because I do not seem to have the capacity to break out of my shell. It feels like I have hit a plateau, on which I have been running amok, senselessly and tirelessly, yet to no avail. I cannot get to that elevator and move on to the next level. This frustration (ok, may be frustration is too strong a word) is compounded by the fact that at times I feel that I am put under a microscope (it took me 1 good minute to spell this word! Darn it!), exposed, scrutinised, studied. Perhaps others may argue that I'm the one who put myself out there, that it is all a fruit of my own choice and actions. May be they're right (wahooo, I can't believe I'm being so honest here, but better this than to pretend to be naive), but on the other hand, the reason why I am, so-to-speak, proactive is that otherwise nothing gets done, seriously. If I were to take a backseat and let things unfold themselves, everything would just continue to be in a hot mess. Again, I am not saying that I am the sole ball of motivation around, nor am I taking all the credit for the progress that has taken place. Trust me, it all stems, and can only stem, from a solid collective effort.

I guess my plea here is that if I were to sacrifice so much for this thing which we all love, and I do, I would expect others to do the same. At the very least, I would expect others to TRY to do the same; whether or not the same product is made is secondary. It's the effort that counts. Contrary to popular belief, I am not very free, and I am not very creative (if this sounds a bit like a self-praise, then I would wanna say, NO, it's not). It takes me a great deal of time and effort to funnel the haphazard and ever-so-fleeting darts of 'creative' spark, which people think I have, down to the reservoir of my memory. It's a labourious task, but truthfully I do not mind doing it because I love it so so much. I guess what I want to say here is that as much as I do appear like a sarcastic and annoying, free slot-machine dispensing sweets at your command, I wish not to be taken for granted. I do not, and do not want to, feel it now. However, when the normal course of nature makes you appear that way, when actions betray those sweet promises, I fear that I would succumb to this ugly emotion; a state I genuinely wish I can journey through this whole experience without.

Keeping It Real

My teacher just gave the class a 20-minute break, somehow I can't even be bothered to scream 'horray!' Seriously, I don't know why I cannot bring myself to concentrate during class. I would argue that all the presentations made during class are all of excellent quality, stuffed with all the good 'law' things that I need to know. However, I can't give a shit. One of my classmates just approached the guy sitting next to me, like 5 seconds ago, and he was talking about this law stuff, about presumptions of the law, about the reputation of some legal scholar whose existence I don't give a f-word. Can you say the f-word on a private blog? Now that sound like a legal question.

I mean, why should I give a crap about the difference between legally wrong and morally wrong, between insane automatism and unsoundness of mind, between justifications and excuses? They all seem to come in from one ear and out the other. Whenever I get to this emo, angsty, teenage mood, I would ask myself why I chose this course to begin with. At times, it seems like I am over-burdening myself with things which I can otherwise live without. Now one thing I have noticed, and those who know me would concur with me, that I tend to write in complex syntactical structures, peppered with superfluous predilection for verbosity, after I joined law school. Anyhoo, back-paddling a little bit to the times of university application, I can still recall that I was so convinced that I wanted to do what I am doing now. Perhaps then I was too much of a wet puppy to acknowledge that I wanted to do what I'm doing now just for the money. Or the prestige even? Whatever. You can't blame a 19-year-old for being and wanting to be human. And rich. Haha. Anw, my point is that back then, I really had to psych myself to be, so to speak, enamoured with this subject. I mean, if I couldn't bluff myself, I wouldn't be able to bluff those law professors at the interview right? LOL.

Fatigue

Life? She's a ball of contradictions. Sometimes she puts you in a yucky place, and you see yourself trudging down a narrow path. After each step you can feel your foot squeezing into this sickening softness; grimy, thick mud pushing through the little spaces between your toes, fighting to fill that minute gap underneath your toenails. Each step is heavy, painful, sticky.

Suddenly, when you least expect it, everything's cold, rimy, blue. You do not know what has happened, but you are now skating on thin ice. The icy wind brushes against your cheeks, messing up your hair as you dart around the skating rink. Exhilarating, thrilling fun. Your knees wobble still.

No matter what the surroundings are, be they cold, icky, blue, or brown, the strain is there, squeezing the same part of your back twenty four seven. You can't reach it with your hands, but it's there, and it does not go away. So, against it you persist through, through the miry and the frost of Life, all with the hope that you can lie your head down at the end of the journey, on that illusive place Life has made you think of and struggle for always.