Only Six Degrees Of Separation?

in small towns, everybody knows everybody else; that’s what everybody says. brunei is not exactly a small town… more like a small country. so i thought, perhaps, the rule might not apply… at least not quite so literally.

of course, like almost everything else in my belief system, i was proven wrong once again.

a couple of days ago, my buddy terrence asked, “wanna meet new people?”. so i met this bunch of people, one of whom was talking incessantly about “jo”. from what i gathered, she just broke up with this girl, and was bitter about getting dumped. fair enough. then came “josephine” from “KB” who was “bisexual”. wait a minute… JOSEPHINE? HURRICANE JOSEPHINE WHO TURNED MY BEST-EST COUSIN’S WORLD UPSIDE DOWN?!?

just like that, i found myself walking down memory lane, remembering all those months of hell when fred dated her. he would be down in a dump after being belittled for his hair or fashion sense or job or personality or socks. and i would pick him up only to have her crush his self-worth the next day, if not the next minute via the ever-popular SMS.

then came the realisation that in the midst of her lies, including her supposed new zealander accent and a degree in rocket science, she did tell one truth. she really was bisexual. damn!

fast forward an hour, and i was outside the cafe smoking with terrence and he said, “do you know your new friend is not your new friend? you added her on facebook a few weeks ago.”

i did? but why would a facebook whore like me add a stranger? i mean, i only have 299 friends to date and about 97% of them are not my friends in real life. who does that, right?

so came this epiphany. in a country as small as brunei, there’s no such thing as six degrees of separation. “it’s more like two, ” said terrence.

and he was not wrong… for all we know, you could be my uncle’s best friend’s cousin’s daughter’s boyfriend’s sister…

p/s: miss jo’s real name has been changed, given the risk of her stumbling upon this blog. and she’s not a rocket scientist, either. that was exaggerated solely for dramatic effect.

Click The Clique

i don’t know if it’s the alignment of the planets being a bit off; a lot of my friends are questioning: “who are my real friends?” and with that, reshuffling of their social circles. and it’s all done in an impressively systematic manner. do you we still share the same life goal? do we have similar opinions about people in general? do you like the same food? are we all cat people?

watching people cross out the unqualified is fun, until you realise your name has been crossed out too.

the problem with cliques, which occur among girls more than guys, is there is no explanation, no warning. by the time it hits you, they have long found a replacement.

so, while everyone is busy weeding out those no longer fit for “our group”, i’m finding myself a solitary hobby

Fear Itself

horror movies make me laugh; cemeteries are as scary as parking lots. so, technically i’m fearless, right?

errr… no.

you see, supernatural beings are not frightening if you don’t believe. as a non-believer, it naturally doesn’t bother me. but heights… *ahem* HEIGHTS ARE DIFFERENT. and we’re not talking about a skyscraper here; more like two floors above the ground.

i went to singapore with my bro last year, and we checked into this room which was on the 11th floor. as soon as we stepped in, i caught a glimpse of the windows and i could only imagine how frightening it must be to look down. i didn’t sleep for five days; i made stupid excuses to go to 7-eleven throughout the night, like it was the best-est store on the entire island; i opted to sleep in the bathtub only because it was the furthest from the windows. i would have taken the closet too, but it was too dusty.

five years ago, my cousin conned me into taking the giant drop at jerudong park. to these days, i still refuse to talk to him. i’ve had recurrent dreams of that fateful night. unless he’s willing to cough up money for therapy, we ain’t friends.

my friends are always saying, “try bungee jumping. or maybe skydiving? conquer that phobia of yours already.” but unless they forced me at gunpoint… wait… forget it. just shoot me instead

Click, Click, Click

maybe there’s a significance to july; maybe it’s just me. but every year, at the end of june, i feel the need to change, like a good spring cleaning of my life. this time last year, it was kissing singledom goodbye. this year, it’s photography.

well, okay… the interest didn’t pop outta nowhere. i’ve been flirting with the idea for… five years? oh well, now that i have a hand-me-down-canon 350D-from-brother-dearest, i’m ready to snap away

no, no, no. don’t expect anything spectacular anytime between now and 2056. we all have limitations, and art is mine. then there’s photoshop, which is another roadblock. even this new wordpress dashboard had got me so confused, it took me months to figure out how to get around it.

but if july is the month of changes, then photography *has* to stay ;P

p/s: the pic was a sad attempt at earning a spot in the world of photography…

Guy & Girl Falling Slowly

i know, i know. it was released in 2006. but i’ve been living under a rock, astro-deprived and all. so, i only got to watch it a week ago.

what makes the otherwise overly-simple movie stand out, for me, is the musical nature of it. maybe i’ve been plagued by the whole life-imitate-art epidemic. i’d like to believe that there’s a song to every crisis situation i’ve been in, though some instances are a tad tricky, such as the anger and disappointment i felt when my favourite dog destroyed my favourite, limited-edition nike sneakers. i bet if there were a song for that, i wouldn’t have cried as much as i did.

while the best known song in the movie is “falling slowly”, i find “say it to me now” more interesting, perhaps due to the less common open e tuning.

and if you, little miss trouble, is reading this, you might find comfort in the song

and i’m trying hard to work it out. and so much has gone misunderstood. this mystery only leads to doubt. and i’m looking for a sign. in this dark uneasy time. so if you have something to say. say it to me now…

He Says, She Says

i recently met with a friend who got kicked out of his band a couple of years ago. his take on what went wrong? the leader “chose the lead singer over me”. while i enjoyed the bitching session, i had to hold my tongue for one reason and one reason only: i knew the leader attributed the break-up to my friend’s inability to deal with the lead singer.

he says, “according to him, i had no talent!”

and he says, “do you know he has no talent?!?”

he says, “he can’t write even if his life depends on it.”

and he says, “he can’t write even if his life depends on it.”

who’s telling the truth? who’s blowing things out of proportion? who knows….

CNY Without The Bang

i know it’s too soon to say, since chinese new year only starts tomorrow. but i have a feeling it’s gonna be bloody uneventful. i’m so cynical that a) i didn’t shop for new clothes, b) i was half-hearted about spring cleaning, and c) the living room is still a mess.

maybe it has something to do with age – the older you get, the less you are inclined to celebrate anything.

i sure hope it wouldn’t be as mundane this year. so, whoever is capable of surprising me, surprise me within the next 15 days.

and to all CNY celebrants, happy new year

#@*($*&%*

my mom has been stressing the hell outta me in the past few days. first it was installing wooden flooring in my room, when i was perfectly fine with my cyan carpet. then, it was the inability to get rid of the carpet because according to her, “it might come in handy someday”. and since it’s too big to squeeze into the store room, it’s been right outside my room the whole time. no one is allowed to move it; no one dares. if i’m so stressed that i feel like my head is gonna explode anytime now, she’s in a worse shape.

then there is the *thing* at work. i found out on thursday that i still have 40 days of leave to clear from 2006 and 2007. woo hoo! but of course, my lady boss is onto me. boo hoo….

in times like these, i usually just wanna abandon my social life and head on home… except this huge wardrobe parked in the middle of my living room. it’s so big that it cuts the room into half, blocking the view of me and my bro’s rooms. so whenever one of us comes out to grab a smoke, the other person will get a scare. and whoever is having a smoke can’t also watch tv; the wardrobe is not a see-through, you see.

thus, my quality of life has decreased significantly, since the installment of wooden tiles. who to blame? i’d say the person who invented wooden tiles…

87 Pounds Of Happiness

my best friend lyn announced last night that her new year’s resolution for 2008 – like those in the previous years – is to lose respectable amount of weight. she figures that since guys go for skinny chicks, then being skinny is the ultimate way of attracting their attention.

it got me thinking how common it is among us girls to believe that skinny equals beautiful. “lose weight and secure yourself a boyfriend” for the single. or “how are you gonna squeeze into the wedding gown if you don’t start dieting now?” for brides-to-be. or “better not let yourself go or your hubby is gonna cheat on you” for the married.

the truth is, our ideal is probably screwed. my college best buddy chris, for one, has always preferred girls with “a bit of meat”. same goes for my brother who finds it a turn-on when her girlfriend attacks a massive plate of pasta like a savage beast. and thousands upon millions upon billions of guys out there who hate the skinny, or at least that’s what i’ve been told.

so, now the questions become: why do we measure ourselves against celebrities of tinseltown? is the media to blame for making 87-pound stick figures look so damn glamorous? or are we to blame for mistaking skinniness for guaranteed popularity?

I Heart Facebook!

so there you have it. i’ve finally blogged after one month of absence. the reason… FACEBOOK!!!

lately, i’ve been heavily into scrabulous, thanks to r&al. since then, i’ve been challenging whoever cares to entertain me… well, i hope more people do, cos i’m so hooked on that darn game. i need at least a fix every hour!!!

anyway, gotta go. need to get back on da game