So You Think You Kent Dance?

"Uhm.. No, it's... I mean, you just get to that point where it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter what other people say, or it doesn't matter whatever you... you know. In my life, you just— I just wanna dance, and... that's all."

Why Then, Can One Desire Too Much Of A Good Thing?

(Props to Julian for the photo.)

Today Was A Fairy Tale

The title was taken from a song that was playing on someone's iTunes as it was flashed on the screen-- a song by Taylor Swift which I didn't particularly adore, but I thought it best expressed how I was feeling as I was standing there in the auditorium, half alive at 5.30 am in the morning, looking at the raggers getting their make-up done. Today was going to be fairy tale.

So was the rag experience, and funny story, it had a bittersweet beginning and a bittersweet ending. The bitter part spurred up from the things once said by a friend of mine (not in law rag 2010): 'There's nothing in it for me.' I guess this thought kept playing in my head every time I hit rock bottom, that I was squandering my time and effort on something that was, well, ultimately futile. Thankfully, he was, or more accurately, I was proven wrong. Rag turned out to be an experience I would never trade for anything.

Ever so often in my hollow existence I felt hapless, tumbling into the pith of depression for all the wrong and sometimes illogical reasons (oxymoronic much?)-- pretty much a strangled old man.

Like this!

(Kudos to Julian for capturing this photographic masterpiece.)

More often than not, this is how I feel about me: an decrepit, wizened old man with beads of responsibilities hanging around my neck tugged in every direction... except that I would probably cover my nipples, but that's beside the point. As an aged soul I lived my life, with no apparent reason why I felt so, with no tangible reason why I couldn't snap out of it.

However, every once in a while, a glitter of hope would make its teasing appearance before me, too fleeting for my hand to grasp, too fleeting for my eyes to catch-- but there it was. It put this soggy feeling around your heart, and you tried to replicate it as closely as possible, although sadly, often to no avail.

Nevertheless, with rag the feeling stayed there for a tad longer. It stemmed from the earnestness that was shared amongst the raggers. For me, there and then, there was no expectations, no nothing, just me doing what I truthfully feel was best for everybody. I'm not talking about choreography, I'm talking about the then-felt-so-interminable practices as a whole. It captured me as a person when such earnestness, which I unwittingly put up out there in the moot court and auditorium, was reciprocated-- or to say the least, shared by others.

It reminded me that dancers were human too; that there was beauty in imperfections, beauty in hard work, beauty in pain and suffering; that souls-- even cold, aged and dried-up one like mine-- can be touched by imperfections, hard work, pain and suffering. This was the sweetness of it all: the cliched 'warm and fuzzy' feeling that crawled inside whenever 'Take Your Shirt Off', or 'I Am Not A Whore', or 'This Time (Klaas Remix)', or 'A Drop In The Ocean', or 'I Am', or 'Come On Get Up', or other five to six songs played on my iPod during practices.

I truly felt bad because at times it felt like I was being a bad father who always left his kids half way, leaving them in arms of an overworked mother who (as she put it in her own words) 'always came late because she couldn't wake up in the morning'. Haha.

And I missed the run that made everybody cried-- one thing I would always regret.

Anyhoo, ten minutes prior to the performance, it really felt surreal. Never in a very, very long have I had such an overwhelming feeling sweeping right through me like that. Funny enough, I couldn't-- no can't-- really pinpoint what that feeling was. Was I proud, just like when I saw them doing their own company warm-up in the morning earlier on their own? Was I sad, knowing that I was turning the last page of the fairy tale? Was I nervous, because there were people whom I knew watching the item for the first time? Was I worried for the dancers?

I don't know. Perhaps I shouldn't know.

I guess at the end of the day I just want to thank every single ragger-- seniors, juniors, heads, freshies, rag committee members and ad hoc OTOT helpers. Really, you're the best (a la Nicolette)! You guys made learn more about myself. You reintroduced me to a world I once left. On top of all, you did all of us proud. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you. Today was a fairy tale.

You've Got To Fall Apart

If you think you're sinking, you probably are

Only you can know, only you can know

If you think you're falling, you probably will

You've got to lose yourself, and not let go

I think we'll be alright

I think we will survive

Everybody gets a little scared like this sometimes

I think we'll be alright

I think we will survive

You've got to fall apart

And put it back together again

Parelaphostrongylus Tenui

"...The question is, what does God want from you, besides being very sorry? Have you any ideas, Mr Lurie?'

Though distracted by Isaac's back-and-forth, he tries to pick his words carefully. 'Normally I would say', he says, 'that after a certain age one is too old to learn lessons. One can only be punished and punished. But perhaps that is not true, not always. I wait to see. As for God, I am not a believer, so I will have to translate what you call God and God's wishes into my own terms. In my own terms, I am being punished for what happened between myself and you daughter. I am sunk into a state of disgrace from which it will not be easy to lift myself. It is not a punishment I have refused. I do not murmur against it. On the contrary, I am living it out from day to day, trying to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?

'I don't know, Mr Lurie. Normally I would say, don't ask me, ask God. But since you don't pray, you have no way to ask God. So God must find his own means of telling you. Why do you think you are here, Mr Lurie?'

He is silent..."

"...Well, now he has become a dog-man: a dog undertaker; a dog psychopomp; a harijan.

Curious that a man as selfish as he should be offering himself to the service of dead dogs. There must be other, more productive ways of giving oneself to the world, or to an idea of the world. One could for instance work longer hours at the clinic. One could try to persuade the children at the dump not to fill their bodies with poisons. Even sitting down more purposefully with the Byron libretto might, at a pinch, be construed as a service to mankind.

But there are other people to do these things - the animal welfare thing, the social rehabilitation thing, even the Byron thing. He saves the honour of corpses because there is no one else stupid enough to do it. That is what he is becoming: stupid, daft, wrongheaded."

- Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

What Wordsworth

"...seems to be feeling his way toward a balance: not the pure idea, wreathed in clouds, nor the visual image burned on the retina, overwhelming and disappointing to us with its matter-of-fact clarity, but the sense-image, kept as fleeting as possible, as a means towards stirring or activating the idea that lies buried more deeply in the soil of memory.'

He pauses. Blank incomprehension. He has gone too far too fast..."

- Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee

For The Sake of Osaka

This journal is actually unplanned. I thought to myself that there was no chance in hell that Imma gonna have the time, energy and patience to document every single teeny meeny detail of the Osaka trip. However, after much persuasion, and toying with the fear that all the fond Osaka memories would just dissolve into the darkest corner of the grey matter, I've decided to pen down some irrelevant, yet memorable bits that are fortunately/coincidentally still latching onto my pathetic memory.

Arrival - 2115 Osaka Time

The Osaka air didn't smell much better than the Singapore air, which I gotta say is totally not a cool thing, literally. I had the impression that Osaka would be this modern city with a nice, not-so-polluted and not-so-Singapore/Jakarta temperate climate (read: not hot!), but the reality is again pretty much far from ideal. Nevertheless, after the interminably long flight (yes, 10 flipping hours) from Singapore, anything that allowed me to straighten my legs would do me good.

The train ride from Kansai Airport to Shin-Imamiya was interesting, and I mean in a good way. The train was worn out with age. It bobbed occasionally, accompanied with the clang of metals rubbing against each other following the train's twisting and turning. The smears of dirt and dust here and there and the cacophony of rattling metal sounds that serenaded me throughout the entire journey gave the train its olden day character-- truly, an experience like never before.

When I got to hotel, I couldn't be happier. I met a long-lost friend twice removed, and we ended up spending the night together. It was good, so so good. In fact, it was one of the best nights I've had in a long time. Air-con, don't ever leave me again! I love you way too much.

Day 1 - 0957 Osaka Time

I felt slightly giddy when I woke up this morning. Must have been the bad wine they served on the plane. One question, why does airplane food have to suck so much? There must be a law somewhere because never once in my many flights with budget airlines have I ever had a good meal on the plane. Hmm...

Oh, I got squashed by the elevator door!

OK, I gotta be honest, Day 1 doesn't end here, but I'm just way too tired to continue this post now. OMG, journal phail. I would try to finish this post asap, if I ever had the time. Ok, I'm crashing now...

Sayonara!