Sui Generis

‘Mama, my feet are cold.’ ‘Come warm your little toes by the fire, darling.’ I’ve always had cold feet. Colder than anyone else’s. Though not corpse-cold, but enough to have to keep wearing thrice the layers of socks as  anyone else during winter, and occasionally during the warmer months. When I became a teenager, my cold feet syndrome  kept me from joining the others in the pool, fearing I would catch a case of frostbite. Or rather, just about anything that required removing my shoes, basically. ‘Why are her toes purple?’ ‘They look like they’re about to fall off.’ ‘Maybe she’s a zombie.’ Or rather, I was just afraid. Of everyone else. It wasn’t as though I had no friends. I made plenty. There was a girl, Marie. She was just as different as I was. She had cold hands, like dead fish. And another, whose name was Lydia, had a complexion so pale, she could’ve very well been a vampire. Together, we set our own rules and ab...

Life just isn't fair, is how it used to strike me. Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for, while others get it without any effort at all. [...] I think this viewpoint applies as well to the job of the novelist. Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can freely write novels no matter what they do--or don't do. Like water from a natural spring, the sentences just well up, and with little or no effort these writers can complete a work. Occasionally you'll find someone like that, but, unfortunately, that category wouldn't include me. I haven't spotted any springs nearby. I have to pound the rock with a chisel and dig a deep hole before I can locate the source of creativity. [...] But as I've sustained this kind of life over many years, I've become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening up a new hole in the rock and locating a new water vein. As soon as I notice one water source drying up, I can mo...

A freshly procured book - complete with that new-book smell - is like an open puzzle, eagerly awaiting its reader to take it apart and recreate something entirely different. Would you deny it its aching aspiration? Because, honestly, what proves your existence more than a book with traces of you in it? At that precise moment, when you write even a single letter on its pages, you are the only one in the entire world who owns a book like that. That book is yours to claim as one of a kind because you wrote in it. So make that book yours - your own personal means of understanding the world and the people in it. Scribble in it. Write notes in its margins. Underline words that resonate. Don't fear defacing your precious literature. In the end, what is an empty canvas worth? A lived-in book serves more purpose than a brand new one that appears as though it has never been touched.  And after all that, you'll find yourself feeling impossible to read that book the same way agai...

It's true what some people say - when you lose touch with a person, your feelings dissipate along with that lost connection, especially if the relationship between those two people was a superficial one prior to the separation. Even more so if you've harboured feelings for that person, and you can feel it fading against your will as time slowly creeps past you. Even though it felt like it's been two weeks since you last talked to them, you realise that it's only been two days, and you feel this gnawing sensation in your brain, wondering what you're doing with your time wasted over thinking about something that only has a five percent chance of actually happening in reality, instead of the fantasies you conjure up as you try to your greatest efforts to fall asleep in the dark. In those moments of 'dead time', those moments when you're not wanting to do anything productive - being on a dull train ride, waiting in line at the cashier's, standing in...

Excuse the melancholic title, I was trying to put together my feelings and what would sound like Japan (land of the rising sun, get it?) Anyway, just three weeks ago, my ultimate dream was realized - I finally went to Japan. It was strange (yet, not really) because when I was in the nearly empty plane heading for Narita, I didn't feel a sense of nervousness, or excitement for that matter. I just felt exhausted, having just returned from nearly two weeks of intense travelling around parts of Europe, then flying off again the next night really worn me out. That said, I tried my best to catch some sleep during the flight of seven hours (it was a night flight). I recall waking up when the sun came up and saw one of the passengers seated in the next row take some pictures of the stunning sunrise glaring through the tiny window. Being jakun , I also did the same thing. well what do you know, it really is land of the rising sun! Landing in Narita at 8 am still didn't tickle ...

It's interesting how we desperately try to cling on to anything that can remind us of the specific past; certain songs, secret notes that we do not want to show anyone, virtual pictures of sweet, memories made, gifts bought - everything seems to suddenly hold a greater significance than anything that we've owned, especially if that certain past event has impacted us in an extremely strong way, say, perhaps emotionally and mentally. We try to recall with as much precision as our faulty memory is able to. It's pathetic, really, how much we try to recreate the past in our head.

This marks the last day of our tour, officially. This would also be the last time we'll ever see Howard or Peter, or all the others on tour with us. I was feeling rather reluctant to leave Europe, but we've all got to come back to reality when we're done frolicking. We changed buses at the other hotel. Peter and Howard would be taking the guests to the airport in Paris, while the other coach would take us to Calais and then back to London. Breakfast was super early at 6.30am but we had gotten so accustomed to waking up at 5.30am for the past 11 days that we had no problem waking up for an early breakfast. After breakfast, we went down to the lobby with a heavy heart. We were already bidding each other farewell and exchanging contacts while Howard and Peter dealt with our luggage. It would be the last time they wheeled and carried our bags around. That kinda has a depressing ring to it, don't you think? Everyone who would be leaving Europe boarded the coach one last...