Something Emo
s t a r m | s t November 6th, 2008
Since I feel like sh*te yesterday and today, I’ll post something emo from fellow plurker, Thiang.
Maybe this is how afraid I am. Surely this day can’t get any crappier.
Archive for the 'the quoter' Category
Meaningful
s t a r m | s t August 24th, 2008
A message from Adrian Tan to the graduating class of 2008 of NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. Something for everyone.
Life and How to Survive It
I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.
My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.
Thought of the Day
s t a r m | s t June 9th, 2008
Personally I don’t believe you can steal one human being from another. You can’t steal people, despite what Josh thinks. People are funny.
They just slip away.
- One For My Baby
Silence
s t a r m | s t April 21st, 2008
When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it’s completely silent. You would think as it’s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world, or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it’s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.
If there is a noise, it’s internal. It screams and noone can hear it but you. It screams so loud your ears ring and your head aches. It thrashes around in your chest like a great white shark caught in the sea; it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been taken. That’s what it looks like and that’s what it sounds like, a thrashing, panicking, trapped great big beast, roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. But that’s the thing about love - noone is untouchable. It’s as wild as that, as raw as an open flesh wound exposed to salty sea water, but when it actually breaks, it’s silent. You’re just screaming on the inside, and noone can hear it.
More
s t a r m | s t December 22nd, 2007
Pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, you just breath deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn’t let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can’t outrun it and life always makes more.
- Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy
Moments
s t a r m | s t December 20th, 2007
Sometimes we’d be at the same place at exactly the same time and I can almost hear her voice. It’s like I’m touching her. I like to believe she knows I’m there. That’s all you get. That’s it. Moments with the people you love. And they’ll move on and you’ll want them to move on. But still, Meredith, that’s all you get. Moments.
- Denny in Grey’s Anatomy
Bring The Pain
s t a r m | s t November 15th, 2007
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
- Neil Gaiman
Questions
s t a r m | s t November 13th, 2007
What I am is what I am. Are you what you are, or what?
No, seriously.
Owe
s t a r m | s t November 4th, 2007
Deep down, nobody wants to hear it. Especially when it hits close to home.
Sometimes we tell the truth, because the truth is all we have to give.
Sometimes we tell the truth, because we need to say it out loud to hear it for ourselves.
Sometimes, we tell the truth because we just can’t help ourselves.
And sometimes, we tell them, because, we owe them.
At least that much.
- Grey’s Anatomy
Grey’s
s t a r m | s t October 30th, 2007
You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be, white dress, prince charming who would carry you away to a castle on a hill. You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears. Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely cause almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.
People have scars in all sort of unexpected places, like secret road maps of their personal histories, diagrams of their old wounds most of our wounds heal leaving nothing behind but a scar but some of them don’t. Some wounds we carry with us everywhere, and though the cut’s long gone, the pain, still lingers.
What’s worse, new wounds which are so horribly painful or old wounds that should have healed years ago and never did. Maybe our old wounds teach us something…they remind us of where we’ve been and what we’ve overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future. That’s what we like to think. But that’s not the way it is, is it? Somethings we just have to learn over and over and over again.
Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.
- Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy
