My memory is a bit hazy on this but I do remember that I never actually told you I loved you- and at the risk of looking back on this when I'm old and crumbly and possibly dying in my 1-room apartment with the many cats that will eventually eat my body, I'm going to say, that for what it's worth, and for all that's happened between then and now, and for however long it was, I loved you, I think. In Sunday's paper they said something about how loving someone makes you strive for higher things, so as to become someone worthy of their affection, and I guess that makes sense. I felt like I wanted to become someone better, and that I could become someone better with you, so I guess we'll say that it was love. They also say that when you're in love you'll just know, but I don't- though I'll say that being in love and loving someone are two somewhat different things- but it's possible that KI ruined me, so third time lucky: I loved you.

When you hear about this sort of thing, it seems almost expected that you should post something about it, but I've already posted things on FB today, and I'm not that close to her- though now it seems almost vulgar that things like these should come into consideration.

I'm a bit surprised, really; I hadn't seen her around for a while but as I said previously, I wasn't -that- close to her so it didn't really cross my mind at all. Am I feeling sad? I think I am, because after all she was a fun person to talk to, and she was so young and she seemed fine.

But I am a bit disturbed. Listening to all the testimonials during meetings and stuff makes you feel almost invincible- like anything could be overcome so long as you prayed hard enough and kept your faith strong. And she was a member too, so I'd assumed that it would work for her and she would be cured from her ailment and it would be just another testimonial in the long line of those who had triumphed before her...

What I am saying, I think, is that human life is just so fragile, and I am suddenly scared for everyone I know and love. I am fortunate enough to only have experienced 5 deaths- 2 of whom were people I didn't actually know- but it's the ones you know that scare you. I think of the survivors I know, and I used to believe that since they'd survived once it would only be logical that they'd survive again, but this scares me a bit.

I will pray for you- we will meet again in your next life. Until then-

I wonder sometimes if the creation of art isn't the expression of the artist's individual self, but rather a forgetting of the self. It's something like what Tolstoy said; in viewing and appreciating art you are drawn into a privileged perspective where you feel the emotions of the creator, and all the other men before you who have viewed the art. In some sense, in joining this collective, you lose a bit of yourself. You aren't just you anymore, but viewer #4328012- you are now part of the community and privy to a secret group, but the price you must pay is part of your identity.

I find that I write best and play best when I'm not being self-conscious. Not in the socially awkward sense, but when I'm not conscious of myself writing, playing, drawing, being. When I wrote my KI essay the last time, I wasn't even conscious of what I was writing. I couldn't even read the words I was writing because my eyes were out of focus and I was just writing down my thoughts in droves and droves; thoughts that came from a source I knew not. In contrast, the last long passage was just an exercise in self-criticism; oh god I have no idea what I'm writing, in a bad way, this is terrible, I can't find the right word, would this sentence flow better like this...?

Am I playing this note right? Should I go louder? Does this line look right? Is the shading off? Does my dress make me look fat?

If you are conscious of your self, you can't enjoy the world.

I have a story that ties Moonlight together for myself: the first movement is me sitting along Singapore River reminiscing the past- it's like moonlight of the River Lucerne, said critics- and it is a prelude of things to come. It's not a chronological prelude, rather the prelude to a story told in hindsight. It is not a happy story (it's adagio sostenuto, come on); but neither is it sad- it is just pensive, reflective? The words are not coming.

Sometimes if I just let myself go and forget the story, I fancy I can hear motifs of bells- dong, dong, dong- in the upper notes. They're not an explicit melody line and it feels like they are far away, which adds to the reminiscing character. I've read interpretations that say the last two chords are like funeral bells- I think that might have influenced mine a bit, but I don't think they're funeral bells. They foreshadow the third movement. It's like a hint. You know the ending of the story before it even starts.

The second movement, to me, is a happy dance- if I were more romantic perhaps I would say a dance through summer fields, petticoats awhirl and summer hat in my hand, but this is Singapore and we do not have flower fields or petticoats. Perhaps just a dance out of reach, teasing, away from an umbrella? Smiles. Definitely smiles. You can't play this piece without wanting to quietly smile and without imagining things in bright colours, maybe even with an Instagram filter.

I've written about the third movement before- about the impending rush to an ending that is already contained within the opening line. I knew it, knew it the moment you said you had something to say. 10 pages, 10 goddamn pages of exposition, and my fingers get so tired, and there, it's done. And I play the final two chords and we know what the hint in the first movement was referring to.

Sometimes when I play- and I think this is when I play best- I don't focus on dynamics at all. I just move back and forth, in an imitation of performing pianists, but without the intent. I don't shape the music. It shapes itself. But you have to move, be flexible, for it to take on whatever shape it wants through you. It can't do that if you are sitting stiff like a rod. That's when I think I kind of get what Tolstoy meant.

A nurse turns out of the corridor and calls what I think is my name. But she pronounces it wrong, and instantly I am torn- do I answer? What if it's not me?

She calls again, sounding just a little bit more irate. I decide to risk it, and tentatively raise a shaky hand.

The nurse sighs and comes over. "Ho York Leng?"

She has the intonations all wrong. "Ho Yoke Eng," I say.

"Ho York Leng?" she repeats, and she is still wrong. We do-si-do for a while, but she is starting to look annoyed, so I give in and admit to being somebody that I am not.

She says something in English, and gestures to a board with flashing numbers behind her. I do not speak English, but I gather from her tone and how she rolls her eyes skywards is that she is berating me for something about those numbers.

I look at the board, and the numbers swim. I try to apologize, to tell her that I didn't do it willfully, and that I didn't know what those numbers were for, and that I am not what she thinks I am. But words fail me, and I am left stammering away in Chinese.

The nurse seems to sense my discomfort and her eyes soften. "Have you eaten?" she asks me in Chinese.

This courtesy is one that I am familiar with, and I nod, finally able to find my ground in this alien and terrifying environment.

But it seems that was the wrong answer to give- her expression instantly returns to that now-familiar annoyance. "You weren't supposed to eat! You have to do a blood test, and now that you've eaten, you can't do it anymore!"

I am lost. No one had told me that before- at least not in a language I understood. I open my mouth, wanting to say something in defense of myself, but she has turned away in exasperation to tell on me to the doctor.

I close my mouth. Once again, I am a lost child, trying to understand the world of adults, who show their wiseness by jabbering away in English, and feeling exasperated by this slow old lady who does not understand the simplest things.

Do they know that as a child, I, too, was top of my class?

Seniors make me laugh

I overheard this dialogue between seniors on the shooting line that day, and it was so very random that it made me laugh:

Senior 1: "ehh. I want to shoot the centre target. You shoot extreme left la."
Senior 2: "YOUR MUM. I'm shooting centre."
Senior 1: -pokes senior 2 in the eye with an arrow fletch-
Senior 1: "BALLS what did you do that for!!"

Observing how guys interact with each other is really amusing. Their propensity to use creative swears which don't even relate to the topic- "your mum"- is so very hilarious.

Perhaps?

Inbreeding

I fear that someday, we shall all become inbred children of generations of elite-school-kids.

You see, the IP crams people together from the moment they accept that invitation in P6. Hence poor children who don't know better are immediately dunked into one of a few IP categories-- back in my day it was just Raffles or Hwachong, depending on what JC you were set to go to, but now apparently ACS and VJC have their matchmaking offices up too.

Matchmaking office! I love that word. It's like, they get a constant inflow of boys and girls from their feeder schools, who are thrown together for two years and eventually fall in love and get married and have 2.1 kids, just like the good civil servants they have been bred to be.

So from that moment you accepted that invitation in P6, your destiny to become part of a giant inbreeding conspiracy was sealed.

Think-- what happens to the 2.1 kids of the couple of said JC? Let's just use RJ for simplicity's sake; you may substitute it with whichever JC you are currently schooling in and its respective feeder schools for RG and RI. The phenomenon still stands (arguably stronger in certain JCs, but yeah.)

So. RG girl and RI boy meet in RJ. They fall in love, due to the hormones they have been repressing (or, shockingly, not) in their respective single sex schools. They have 2.1 kids. And these 2.1 kids (obviously a boy and a girl) grow up, take their PSLE/apply for DSA and which schools will be their first choice?

This evidently results in a vicious cycle, the product of which are what now appear as "2nd-generation Raffles", "3rd-generation Raffles", and even "5th-generation Raffles", as appeared at our Founders' Day last year.

In a couple of generations (depending on how fast people act) you will have people going: "And my mother was from RGS. And my mother's mother was from RGS. And my mother's mother's mother was from RGS. And my..." and this will not be an exaggeration.

Obviously this rate of population growth is rather unsustainable, and within a number of generation all Raffles people will be related to each other. Your seatmate will be your second cousin thrice removed and your CCA chairperson will be your great-grandaunt. Eventually the population might dwindle to the point where there is only one boy and only one girl left, and they will be forced to mate with each other despite being siblings. And then it will proceed from being inbreeding to incest.

Okay what the hell I don't really know what I'm talking about, knowing next to nothing about population growth/shrinkage, but the inbreeding trend still applies.

We have got to stop inbreeding before Singapore becomes divided along the lines of IP schools. The pledge will have to be changed to read "regardless of race, language, JC, or religion". Is this a future you want for Singapore?

Stop inbreeding today.