* zzzzz *

i need sleep.

very badly.

i'm leaving home for another home.

i'm leaving friends for other friends.

i'm leaving relatives for other relatives.

i'm leaving this day for another day.

to get another, i have to leave behind one...

CI 665, TPE to SIN via HKG

taking off at 9:25, landing at 3:55

december 27th 2002

last call

good bye.

about a girl

she walks into the room, her damp footprints leaving a trail on the mahogany floor.
her robes are clean, white and silky; a smooth compliment to her flawless skin.
steam rises lazily from her water-warmed body, as if fresh out of the sauna.

her cheeks are rosy - the color of a peach of subtle ripeness.
as she walks across the room, the walls display a slideshow of a slender silhouette;
her beautiful alignment of the body

she gave a smile that would charm millions,
a tiny dimple seated delicately on both her cheeks

slowly her hands unlaced the white ribbons that kept her body a hidden temple.
the soft silk slips effortlessly down her shoulders, following the curl of her body as it descended

little by little her body is unveiled,
a perfect artwork of nature, an hourglass figure
a neat bellybutton

and it is then that fantasy ends,
for she has become a he.

where there is light

stars peep out at night
snug in their dark residence
tinseled performers

at seven there is light
bright, penetrating
mounted on a pole

piercing white diamonds
their shrines in the black temple
blinking frequently

you

tell me about your
pecularities, vulnerabilities, idiosyncrasies

what you
admire, respect, adore

how you
attract, pose, flirt

why you
laugh, smile, giggle

for i want to know
everything and anything

about you

if one day

if one day
should we have a disagreement
you will have your way

if one day
should we fall for the same man
he will be yours

if one day
should there be only one empty seat on the ship to a better world
it too will be yours

but if one day
should we meet at the gates of heaven
we will walk through it

together

rain, rain, rain
the entire taipei (and keelung) is stuck in that meteorological monotony.
i'm sure when god made the world he had variation in mind, otherwise we'd all be brown and munching on dates.

meanwhile, in center taiwan, weird things have been happening:
hail stones, snow, lighting without sound
you name it, its happened the past few days

so i figure that while the lord did create variation,
he wasn't able to keep it evenly distributed.

or,
it could be that i'm not to go to the zoo

=)

and by the way, just for the sake of it, this is not a poem.

now that christmas is drawing near, every department store you step into blasts wobbly-sounding music by a certain caroller-wannabe. in a seriously-shaky tone and suspicious pronounciation, he/she belts out repetoires of christmas classics, peppered with the head-banging drum beats, in a desperate attempt to liven up things. still other

now, with all that aside, i have issues with 'the little drummer's boy'. oh sure, its a beautiful song, for like the first 35 minutes. but eventually it gets on your nerves, those voices shrieking 'Rum pa pa pum!' For openers, drums do not go 'rum pa pa pum'. drums go 'rat tat tat tat'. There's also a line that goes 'the ox and lamb kept time'. Really? How? did they clack their hooves together, castanet-style? Did they dance? Are we supposed to believe that two barnyard animals with legume-level IQs spontaneously doing the macarena?

and if someone were to be taking care of a newborn baby, and a person comes around whacking on a drum, that person would find himself at the mergency room having his drumsticks surgically removed from his rum pa pa pum.

christmas songs are all good, with easy words to remember, like 'fa' and 'la'. But when you happen to be having a christmas party, someone would invariably launch into 'the twelve days of christmas'. the singers gamely struggle through the gold rings, the eggs alaying... but then things start to go horribly wrong, because in these hectic times, when everybody must remember an ATM code and 143 computer passwords, no body has the ample brain space to remember what my true love gave to me on all twelve days of christmas. when everything gets jumbled up and some moron starts singing 'the little drummer's boy' then your party is OVER.

and how many people, when hearing the words 'we three kings of orient are', even if you are attending a somber sermon, you find your brain automatically following up with 'smoking on a big fat rubber cigar'? me too, its like at the weddings, when the organist plays 'here comes the bride', everyone automatically responds 'big fat and wide'.

but that is not my point, no not at all. i have no point. i just want to wish all a happy holiday season, and to remind you that this is the season when we are loving and forgiving, and not easily offended by vicky the neanderthal's blog. may the days be merry and bright; may Jack Frost (well, for some) not nip too hard at your nose; may you be lessed with a big old bowl of figgy pudding; and may you truly understand the meaning of the words that have been a beacon of hope to humanity for thousands of years: "thumpety thump thump; thumpety thump thump; look at Frosty go"

yes!!!! i am posted to the junior college of my first choice!!!! =D

anderson junior college, science stream (0705s) here i come!!!!

this afternoon, right in front of the taipei train station, a man came up to me with a stack of business cards. he gave me one - it was red, blue and white, proclaiming LEARN US ENGLISH in thick, dark fonts. i looked at it and he asked if i would so kindly do a survey for him. i just did one earlier on, and since i wasn't in a hurry, i agreed.

instead of handing out the survey form and paper, he led me to the mitsukoshi store lift and was about to head in when i stopped outside. he had tried to make small talk earlier on with me, and i didn't feel comfortable at all of heading into a lift alone with a charismatic i didn't know. the entire idea of possibly stepping into the lift with him gave me chills.

of course, it could have been just an innocent survey, or maybe i am thinking too much.

but then again, it could have been something worse, and i do not want to visualize what that might me.

all i can say is that, i'm so glad i did not enter the lift.

:: epilogue ::

and so she stood silently at the platform, watching as the tail end of the train sped further and further away into the amber horizon, shrinking smaller and smaller. until it was nothing more than a faded speck. until it vanished completely. until there was nothing left, but the scattered trail of wind-blown leaves, making their final descent to the cold, hard ground.

- no time for updates, man calling me off the comp. -

time for some life (or live, whichever you prefer; both are true) updates

today i went to the national taiwan university in a feeble attempt to add some substance to my gray matter. waking up at 6:45 in the cold (more about the cold later) winter's morning was not exactly my favorite way to begin a week. meeting up with my guy cousin for the first time in 4 years tho, was. =D for the first time in my short span of life i got to ride on the back of a bicycle - if you could call balancing on the two metal rungs riding, that is.

first lesson of the day saw me sitting for 15 minutes in an empty classroom, save another guy who sought elysium in room 504 with all his chemistry textbooks. realizing that no one else would be entering the classroom, i decided to scoot over to the library for some way to kill time. and that scooting over nearly had me killed.

for one thing, the weather was bloody cold. and before you all dismiss my 'cold' for something terribly lukewarm, believe me, it was COLD. 7 degrees IS cold. and it is even colder considering that i wasn't well-clothed, so to speak. so dragging my chattering jaw and spasmodically shivering body over the 400km unsheltered walkway was pure, undisputed hell. i literally looked like this when i got to the library. -> =S

fortunately i was able to catch the 2nd lesson of the day => statistical analysis. i had absolutely no inkling of what the ancient lecturer was going on and on about. all those funny E signs and what have you. BUT i must say that i felt pretty proud, being able to translate EVERYTHING he said into english.

and for the second half of the day, things got interesting. we had histology lesson, and today's peachy topic was HISTOLOGY OF THE MALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM. unfortunately, when you do histology, nothing get's vaguely romantic or erotic, because they strip everything down to enzymes, and as far as i know, enzymes aren't especially sexy or charming molecules. and i found out today that the real difference in males and females lay in the 'few extra enzymes' that separates testosterone production and estrogen production. now that makes existence a whole lot more mundane, don't you think?

the lecturer made everything so funny though, and if i was given the chance, i would have signed up for histology IMMEDIATELY. no second thoughts. plus, although the lesson was conducted in mandarin, the textbook was ENGLISH. (and so are the exams, i am told) and while people around me were busy trying to figure out what in the world was 'epidydermis' and 'vas deferens', i was happily scribbling pages of notes that i thought made me look very knowledgeable. =) AND we learnt meitosis and meiosis too! hehehe and guess what? i know everything (everything taught today, that is) wahahahahaha.

okie dokies, i probably shouldn't write anymore because this is starting to sound like a very lousy post =)

i really wanna talk about the rum pa pa pum though, but i guess that will have to wait. and the rum pa pa pum is going to be really interesting - i promise.

that's all for now then.

time to take a deep breath.

hi all,

i'm currently in one of those funky photo-developing shops that provide free internet access. free i say.. free. =) hehe

slightly miffed that i didn't find this shop earlier tho, because as some of you might know, i spent a hell of a one hour in this internet gaming cafe that's RIGHT NEXT DOOR, hyperventilating because of the bloody cigarette smoke. i absolutely smelt like a cigarette butt by the time i was through. you wouldn't believe the pain...

its only been less than a week and i've successfully spent NT 5000. that's hardly anything to be proud about, because it means that i'm going to run low on cash halfway through the trip, get bored to the bones in the other three weeks that i'm here, and finally, kill myself a couple of times when i find stuff nicer and cheaper than the ones that i got. hardly anything to look forward to.

oh boy i can't seem to write anything right now, cuz i just wrote 2 very lengthy emails that just about sapped all my linguistic abilities. =) plus i don't really feel like repeating stuff for the third time in the past half an hour. so, updates some other time, maybe.

enjoy the rum-pa-pa-pum people!