Ps and Qs

If only man did not have to sleep...he'd have 24 hours in a day!
I think this is the second time I'm repeating my wish in 12 months... definately has something to do with mid-semester crisis.
It's 4am; the past 12 hours have been filled with the works of a psychoanalyst, a philosopher and a pater.
On the psyche, politics of art and prayer: 3 important aspects to arrive at an understanding of 'What on earth am I here for?!'

Been listening to Bukak Pantai's Budakumentary - support local artists! Not for the fact that they are local, but for the fact that they are quality, and we should stop bowing to imperialism.
Great acapella group who aren't afraid to experiment with styles and languages, and they're one of the pioneers (if not the pioneers) of the acapella scene in Singapore.

thoughts

residue
trickling down my
neck, my back
needing to be cleansed

apples released
one after the other
spilt milk dripping
falling off the edge

put a name to it
call it gravity
still can't take away
or give it brevity

this is me not getting over missing her birthday

Ling-Ling and Butterscotch

indiscriminate clarity

Just came back from lunch with Yan-Yan, and she gave me Ling-Ling! Ling-Ling's a baby female panda who was born in China, raised in Japan, and brought to UK to do her major in mathematics. Okie, you probably think I need to get out of my room more. I do get out....too much! Time to start work...sigh

On other things:
Heroes - It's better than Grey's Anatomy, Smallville, even Battlestar Galactica, and can rival X-Men!! Watch it! Don't be put off by the slow start....it'll come to a head!

Also craving for wasabi peas. And seaweed. Been drinking miso soup...mmmm

Are you trying to tell me something?

11am-2pm: Professor drilling the 5 of us in his class with questions about what it means to be an intellectual, what are his/her duties to the people, and on what grounds a critic enforces his judgement. This was our first lesson and it was pure discussion, without lecture, background or notes. These are some of the things we came up with in answer:

An intellectual is part of an elite group caught between tradition and innovation, who is in but not of the world. The critic moves from a subjective stance to an objective one, and beyond that to produce a rational, value judgement. People's judgements stem from the ideology they are immersed in, and an intellectual's role is to re-present (if necessary) culture, history and the future. One has the choice to be part of this elite group, or to retreat as Cypher does into the Matrix.

Those two hours just gave me a headache.
Well, no, not just a headache, but because what was said made me think. That we each have a choice, a responsiblity that comes with our abilities. But what?

6.30pm-10.30pm: Bible Study group, dinner and fellowship included. Today the 8 of us read and discussed Galatians 6:1-10, and then had an honest, uplifting intercessory prayer session. The thing I took away with me was prayer.
I had forgotten how powerful prayer was, how integral it is in communication with God, how much other people (not just myself) need it.
There's something I must do, and it can't be done through essays. But what?

hmm

an excerpt

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
by John Donne

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.