i have three things to tell you

1) HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUNGRYANI !




Thank goodness we don't have to sing loudly, out of tune, with customized song lyrics in McDo this time...


























Many more good times to come ! Come home! (singapore)
And of course, us being retards, and then you ling and mandy being retards. :P































the most active musk8ter :P




















2) i cut my hair ! (ok that was in singapore, which makes it... almost a month ago)
















3) i made a video! (ystd) -- my first upload on youtube ha ha ! the words are in french though, but the music is really nice (kikujiro - the rain) and i have michelle to thank for the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcwxSXUa7Dk

phantom update from paris

hello !!
i'm not sure if anyone ever reads this anymore -- not surprising since it's been consigned to the depths of obscurity for over 3 months...
well, well.

Ruminations (While Suitcase Packing)

I just put up the "Lotus Potato Super 6 Class" poster that the children and I made together in Nepal. It's been more than a year now, how does time sneak around like that? Everytime I see it I feel giggly, vaguely remembering our group name-choosing process (I think Monkey Boy suggested "Alu class" at first ... that's potato in Nepalese right??) and after some convoluted brainstorming process (which I admit to probably manipulating quite a bit) all the kids chorusing (esp Biparna) "Lotus Potato! Lotus Potato! Super 6 Class!" ^^ Aiya, so cute! It was one of the least cloudy periods of my life, I don't think I'd ever felt so clean (metaphorically speaking; hygiene standards left some to be desired), so uncomplicated, so content, so present in years.

Then I think about how they took this poster off the wall in the common room; I'm not sure why actually. One of them gave it to me, and told me to bring it home, to put it up in my room. So typical of most of them, a furious generosity scattered out like confetti in all their little presents - 4-colored pens, hand-woven friendship bands, the flowers on our last day. On one hand, the common, shared, unindividualised environment of an orphanage made them fiercely possessive over what was "mine" in order to own anything. On the other, what was "mine" was precious partly also because they could afterwards give it away, and we would have something that was theirs. Do you see what I'm trying to say? I never really delved into the logistics of gifts with these children before, only marvelled previously at how eagerly they pressed, slipped, their rare, weary treasures into foreign hands and pockets.

I remember Ling dissuading some of the children in her class from parting with a keychain, a pencil, other random knick-knacks that acquired a magnitude far beyond their function. The kids usually ended up un-giving the presents when asked a few times if they were sure they wouldnt rather keep it, and that the intention was lovely and well stored already. It was the act of giving then, mostly. I can't navigate clear paths in my head to explain or elaborate how these little ones thought or what prompted them to act exactly as they did, but when I remember, I am (as I was then) just floating, lulled off my feet by waves of their beauty, amazed. Awed and uncomprehending, the smallness of my soul reiterates how little they have, assembling the somber background against which their open hearts glow like fireflies or candles. I'm not saying they're angels, they were definitely insufferable at points, but only as children inevitably are. And then there were other moments like when I opened Round Face Boy's letter to me, and saw that he had put rabbit and giraffe stickers on the cover ( he asked me what my fav animals were earlier that day) and that the inside was full of the stickers I had given to the kids the day before, that they really liked and had been playing with all day... It just made me want to be a better person, to be worthy of children like that, who deserve, and more.

And then, I didn't go back this year... and, I need to write them letters.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."

- Arundhati Roy

i forgot

the gentle words, the soothing hand. soft, sweet.
the lessons i tried to engrave , not yet inked
perspective, hope rising from ashes.
more lists and ramblings, more of yes, yes, i will and exclamat!on marks replacing full stops because there were not to be ends only surges forward.
kind

for the moment, i forget, how i feel.
that is not true. it's easy to forget when youre alone, but when you're with people again it's okay. you remember. one remembers. i remember the resolve, i dont remember how to talk anymore. i wish i remembered how i feel, it's very quiet inside. try to guess the contents of an opaque black box without shaking it around at all. toss up a few options, but we'll never know, and right and wrong are equally quiet (or loud). a banana, two paper clips, i hate you, it'll pass.

is this the ocean or a glass bowl?
...i need to know if we'll meet halfway if we set off on separate ships.

Sad Brad Smith - "Help Yourself"

what i can't put my finger on

is why everything seems to be unraveling even as i have seen and heard and breathed more consciously more profoundly than ever before. where i believed a whole, there are cracks and spaces minute, but there is also a zoom function and helplessly i'm transported into further into deeper these pockets of empty until i no longer know where i am and 'it' is no longer representative of anything because there is no means of identification.

do you see what i mean?

what i really mean to say is, i'm lost.

what i really mean to say is, i don't know why.

what i really mean to say is, i've lost the why.

what i really mean to say is, i thought i got past all this and was somewhere else all together. but this somewhere else is suspiciously looking like the there of before, the here and the then confused and merging.

maybe not having furniture and 20 boxes to unpack is affecting my sanity. or maybe pulling out dusty, old faces of love is tipping a perpetually precarious equilibrium. or maybe silence to an unreasoning need is stirring clear waters murky.

I still need to write about Rwanda. I haven't forgotten. it's still processing, still. Maybe it will be forever. but what do i know of forever?