7th August 2000

Well I had a solitary walk down the Thames last night, at a friend's suggestion. I've never gone down the Thames at night before, and it was quite beautiful. Actually, I arrived in the evening, I was following the dying light in the roofs of the buildings (for some reason when there's a spectacular sunset going on I'm inclined to walk towards it, perhaps I was a mosquito in a previous life) and I got to the Thames just in time to watch the last moments of the sun setting over it. Then came a pale dusk which lasted about an hour, before it became dark. I spent the hour reading my time-travel book.

Someone asked me how I could bear to put all my intimate thoughts up on this page. Well, I suppose I don't see why not - does it make me any more vulnerable that people know what I'm thinking? What have I got to lose? Absolutely nothing... and in a funny way it helps me work my mind out. She also asked me didn't anything ever get me down? Didn't I ever get really depressed? Because my page makes it sound like I'm always riding a high, always happy and quietly grateful to God for the things I have.

Well, yes I do get upset like most everyone else. I am human. I suppose it's just that when things aren't going well I don't feel inclined to write - usually around exam time. And also because I'm tired of angsty pages that rant and flail at the world. I'd rather my page be unique, in it's own insipid way.

It is a very pretty walk down the Thames at night. The lights come off the water - just so! and the ships go by - just so! and it's wonderful. Unfortunately it's also conducive for nostalgic reflection (it must be the reflected lights that do it) and wistful reminiscence. When you're on your own that is. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much solitude? I watched the water last night, and the lights across at the Aquarium, annd the myriad tiny flashes of cameras wielded by Japanese tourists from the Wheel (that silly bicycle wheel thing they slapped up for the millenim) and wondered how I'd managed to, so many years down the line from the time I was a happy kid, lose people integral to me, and to my tiny life. Most of them unintentionally - childhood friends who just drifted away; some of them intentionally, because it hurt to know them. Somehow though, at the end of the day, it felt wrong. If I could go back and do it again, to talk myself out of being silly, I would. There was an empty space beside me on the bench - think Ally Mcbeal and you'll get the general idea. A space I wished could somehow be filled - but not by any random person; by a very specific individual... whom I've met? Or perhaps have yet to meet? But she's got to be - just so! or it wouldn't work. She's got to be funny - really, truly funny, not just funny-haha, or haha you're so funny, funny; someone with magic and life in her eyes; someone I understood empathically and who empathically understood me - because I'm hard to understand, and complicated at my simplest. I'd have to miss her when she was gone; to really engage and enjoy interacting with her. To appreciate her for the person she is, and not just the body she wore or the face she bore. And I don't do that easily... sure I miss my parents, but not much else. I don't miss my country, or the food (or even most of my once-friends!) - I'm not a miss-y type of person. How could you get together with someone and make the noises everyday, yes I wuv you, oh yes, I'll miss you when you're not around, come back soon, and - not mean it. It would be simple hypocrisy - not worth the effort, to my mind. Oh, but you must, you must. You must get married by 30 at the latest, and have 3 kids by 31! That's the oriental way. That's the way singaporean society expects you to go... well sod them. That's my answer to the world - sod you. I refuse to waste my life pretending to someone that I loved her. Lee Kuan Yew - eat my boots.

There is someone I miss whom I haven't seen in about 2 years now... is it possible to miss someone you barely remember? (Is it possible to miss someone you've never met?) Who's more of an amorphous shape in your mind than a face? (well, until the carefully constructed walls are temporarily breached and the memories return that is) But such were the choices I have made that the space beside me was vacant - my choices, my life. My road to walk. Bear the consequences, and wait for amorphous to melt away into the mists of time...

If I could go back I would tell myself don't be stupid! Keep and cherish all the friendships you have, or the spaces beside you will gradually empty out... But, well, I dunno. Do you believe in fate?

Oh, yes, I do get down now and then. And I think, as I've just proven, I shouldn't really write when I am - everything just turns into an incoherent (or less coherent than usual, if possible) ramble.

So... now I've got to get my jacket on, pick up my suitcase, and head out for home... 60000 miles away.

This page will be down for the next 4 weeks... but with luck, I won't! :)