The new Fiona Apple is awesome. Go get it people! I like this mix by Mike Elizondo better than the unreleased Jon Brion one. That one had too much of his personality stamped over it, it didnt feel like a Fiona album, more like the soundtrack to some quirky "indie" Paul Thomas Anderson film.

My ten favorite Fiona Apple tracks (not in any particular order):

1. Paper Bag
2. Shadowboxer
3. Waltz (better than fine)
   
4. I Know
5. Parting Gift (this is the new obessesion; itunes tells me ive played it 34 times since Wednesday already)
6. Criminal
7. Across the Universe
8. Sullen Girl
9. To Your Love
10. Never is a Promise

I'm sure i'll like the new tracks even more the more i play it. Between this release and the Org4n's impending gig (which i am so going for even if i have to go alone), its been a good week music wise.

Parting Gift

I opened my eyes
While you were kissing me once more than once
And you looked as sincere as a dog
Just as sincere as a dog does,
When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love

I bet you could never tell
That I knew you didn't know me that well
It is my fault you see
You never learned that much from me

Oh you silly, stupid pastime of mine
You were always good for a rhyme
And from the first to the last time
The signs says 'stop'
But we went on whole-hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started
They said 'stop'
But we went on whole-hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started

I took off my glasses
While you were yelling at me once more than once
So's not to see you see me react
Should've put 'em, should've put 'em on again
So I could see you see me sincerely yelling back

I bet your fortressed face
Belied your fort of lace
It is by the grace of me
You never learned what I could see

Oh you silly, stupid pastime of mine
You were always good for a rhyme
And from the first to all the last time
All the signs says 'stop'
But we went on whole-hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started
They said 'stop'
But we went on whole-hearted it ended bad
But I love what we started

i walk through the streets and memorize the city

I LOVE:

-just sitting around, on the steps of Robson Square, on my way home from school, sitting right next to the ever-present cluster of bike messengers and the ubiquitous marijuana cloud

-yesterday's Green Day gig. They rocked SO hard i was so into it even as my nose was bleeding from the seats way up at the GM plaza

-smoking up

-vancouver when it rains. or rather, after it rains. it just seems so much more peaceful, relaxed then.

-my philosophy lecturer Brent. He is SO COOL. Think hugh grant with a revolving wardrobe of hawaiian/bowling shirts, salt and pepper crop, and slightly stoned. He totally hates me though, cos i never attend class.

-amer1ca's next t0p m0del. why? This.

-coal harbour. i go there when i'm down, which is often, being increasingly mercurial these days. the benches have these tributes? inscriptions? obituaries? on them, and its so sweet and sincere and loving. all from a bench, i know.


some crackhead came up to me and selvin the other day when we were chilling outside at Blenz. He was pissed off, probably because of something the women at the next table said to him when he was asking for change or something. (incidently, as an asian student, we either get hit up lots, cos ppl figure you're not too jaded by the rampant panhandling around here to refuse food or cigarettes, or the street people steer clear of you cos they think you wont understand them or something. too bad, cos they would've gotten a smoke off me otherwise).
anyway, the guy storms over to us, with this deranged look on his face, and i think he's gonna kick my backpack or my ass or something which wou;d really suck cos i had my notebook in my bag and i don't think futureshop's insurance policy covers 'attack by crackhead', but he just kicked the sign? board? advertising chinese food next to me and continued raving down the street.

not all crackheads or street people are like that though. one guy actually has a phd in philosophy. he approached me with the usual "spare a cigarette?' routine when i was sitting on the steps and smoking on the circular steps at the public library and we got to talking. turns out he has a doctorate from McG1ll's, though he was vague on how he went from being a Dr. to sleeping in a shelter in downtown eastside. i felt like a bit of a fraud talking with him though, cos the guy knows his shit, and me, not so much.

i like it here, i think. but i'll never be fully assimilated into this province, which sucks.

I found my old notebook today. Y’know, the one that everyone refers to as the NS one and into which I kept a running food diary? Oh MY GOD. Why did you guys let me out of my house? Did you not catch on as to why my lips always looked especially frothy? Those were not produced for the effect of aesthetic pleasure, people, those were SPECKLES OF FOAM. THE FOAM OF IMPENDING LUNACY.

An excerpt:

Wed Aug 18

-1 bwl cereal, ½ banana

-1 laksa

-handful of grapes

-1 chicken tart

- cai peng (originally written in Chinese characters, but if you think I’m going to search for a Chinese character inputter, wait for its slow-ass download , during which I would have to send away for adult diapers for the mature bed-wetter because it takes THAT LONG to download something, and then go through the process trying to remember my Telok Kurau Chinese lessons, of which my only lingering memories are of Tan Bee Bee calling Asraf “Ahchup” and her impressive impression of a Chinese teacher on speed, so that I can type the two words ‘cai peng’ into this blog entry, then you would be wrong. Very wrong. Not as wrong as putting out your cigarette in an old lady’s eye or anything, but still wrong.)

-chupa chups (chocolate vanilla)

Imagine that 90 days over, each with different variations on the spelling of “bowl” (sometimes, when I felt like mixing it up a bit, or there was more than one entry for “teh tarik”, I spelt it as “B0vvl”). It’s also a somewhat unfavourable reflection on my intellect (or sanity?) that, if I was already so far gone as to debate with myself over the percentage of banana I just consumed (“Was it half or one-third? Hmm, let’s compare it with the other bananas!”), how come I didn’t note the most important element of this journal-keeping, the calories?

My point is, how did you guys not pool your collective funds together on a giant butterfly net and hide in the nearby cemetery waiting for sounds of my footsteps? Had your eyes been misted over by the duty of platonic love, or by the dignified nobility of the belief of minding your own business? Or did Tuesday hawk a “gluttie-loogie” into your eyes too? (Re: Tues-Kris Battle of Grossed-Outness at The Publishing Room (also known to the particularly slow and abbreviation-(dis)inclined as the PR room. Victor? See above spit-in-eye reference).

CHAO I LOVE YOU YOU ARE THE BEST YOU ARE THE EMPRESS OF HELL! MUACKZ MUACKZ *KISSEZ* LOLZ!!11!!!1!!!!!1!!

(SHOUTOUT TO MY PEEPS SEAN PLANT NAS JIG TUES JOHN S. HEINZ SITI ALI WEISHENG LAU and others I’m sure I forgot to mention. But not because you’re unimportant to me. Its just, y’know, I had baked mussels today, and while they tasted good, my stomach and colon disagreed, and, apparently, diarrhoea has amnesiac effects. Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much, and I really, really miss you guys.

I know, I can’t get away with “shoutout to my peeps”. Its like me wearing playboy-bunny ears leaning down to expose my cleavage for a better tip.

three guys just got wrestled to the ground and cuffed by largish police cluster right in front of my building. good times. cny was spent watching american idol. is that sad? i dunno. think i preferred it to the usual stilted conversation and empty platitudes.

as always, have to wait till band's just toured vancouver to start listening to them obsessively. tegan and sara, come back!

i really like philosophy, though more the concept of studying it than the actual studying. when you slough through the middle-century text and finally understand the writer's arguments, there's this second of "oh, that's why..."only metaphysics and ethics tho. logic can go suck my non-existent dick.

it was jig's birthday on the 9th. happy 21th yo, wish i was there so we can go fuck shit up. inadequete as it is, top five reasons why jig kicks ass:

5)best male lesbian ever. even has the boobs to prove it.

4)so secure in his sexuality he wears makeup and touches up in the mens (source: lau. questions re: validity of statement her business)

3) creator of "wah lang si parkway eh lang", due to storm the charts when hell freezes over/said creator stops fussing bout his hair

2) also credited with the tuneful ditty "dadaAngWeWe", repeated ad nauseum, to the point where inspiration for said ditty considered self-disembowelment just so she wouldn't hear it anymore.

1) fabulous sense of humor. quotable classics include: . (ok, it's like 5am at point of writing; i can't even remember my own name. but trust me- jig? funny guy)

5) is responsible for this

one of the best times i had in recent years was a routine saturday night meetup at parkway, a few weeks before i was due to leave. nothing out of the ordinary happened, dinner was followed by cheap ice-cream and more gluttony at east coast lagoon, capped by drinks at Full Moon. it was pretty typical as meetups go, conversation was the same-old same-old, bemoaning the states of our lives, dissing his mom, amongst many others, and just shooting the shit.
behind the seemingly mundane excursion laying the truth of the friendship, that 2 people, so comfortably ensconced in the familarity of one another's lives that sentences need only be half-spoken, that physical tics are unconciously mirrored and adopted by the other.a link of this calibre is rare, always elusive, and the fact that i have more than one makes me so fucking grateful, and that you are part of that makeup even more so, so, yeah, happy 21th, jig jiggy jig.

i am so in love y'all, and her name is nellie mckay.

But then it hits you, then it kicks you
Then you realize you're not unique
And you ignore it, you implore it
Just to let you find the "om" you seek
Don't wanna think about the fall elections
Don't wanna sing about no vivisection
I don't need this, I don't see this
All I want is inner peace

what else? philosophy is hard, yo. Logic is anything but. uh.. think roomie's getting hooked up- found roses in the vase on the table. hey, if it means i'll get the place to myself, huzzah for her!

this week's been pretty repetitious. any suggestions for breaking the routine, social circle-wise?

so. the new semester has started, the first one i have undergone where i have had my future, however vaguely, somewhat planned. decided to major in philosophy midway through a particularly good thriller novel. (that was not an oxymoron. nicola griffith kicks ass) don't think i havnt considered the implicit irony in my choice of major. may be going back to singapore in april. havnt worked out the kinks yet, but, mood regarding this, hmm, am wary. on one hand, will get to see family and friends again, on the other hand, may realise, upon arrival, that time already spent abroad is part of reality, and will be forced to merge my two so far independently existing worlds.

anyway, am taking math, phil, and soci this winter. pissed off as hell cos the math would be a hell lot easier (its precalculus, O level standard) if i actually remembered anything from my A2 scoring brain.

stupid muthafucka.

P.S: Sleater-Kinney. Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver. 26 February 2005.
Me: There.

VIEW FROM MY APARTMENT RIGHT NOW: