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Tuesday, April 7, 2015


bewildered


Recently, I have received numerous comments about my complexion.  Everyone keeps exclaiming in dismay, "Wah, it's really very bad!"  Well, I wake up every day to my naked face.  I do know my face is in shit condition now.  

... It's not my diet.  Well I did eat an awful lot of fried food upon returning to Singapore (and not drinking sufficient water, hence the swollen lymph nodes now and cough), but this acne condition started a few months ago.  It's just been getting worse and worse.  I went for a facial a few months back and the therapist said it was because I wasn't removing my makeup correctly.  Since then I've been triple cleansing but the situation's still the same.  It's not an issue of over-cleansing because I use very gentle cleansers without micro-beads, fragrance or parabens.  I haven't used new makeup products.  

I think it's stress.  Every waking moment of the day there is an unsettling feeling in my tummy that everything is not right, everything is bleak, my existence is really just nothing much.  I don't think I'm very happy a person right now. 

Tonight I had dinner with my family at Sushi Tei thou.  That lightened my spirits considerably.  We had salmon sashimi and avocado maki.  Han had hotate mentaiko, which I absolutely love, but along with my complexion, my rashes are horrendous right now, and I'm strictly off seafood and chilli.  

I also stepped into a public library for the first time in years today!  And borrowed 8 books.  4 of which are Terry Pratchett's novels.  The only novel I've ever read of his was a collaboration with Neil Gaiman (Good Omens - I adore the book; it's hilarious), so I thought I'd read his individual works because the man passed away recently and I thought it a shame that I hadn't done so.  1 novel is by Gillian Flynn and it is called Dark Places.  Another is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.  The last 2 are by Patricia A. McKillip - Ms. Neo, if you're reading this, I'm re-reading Solstice Wood!

Speaking of which, the other day I pulled out Fire & Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones from my bookshelf and I was rather surprised to see this scribbled on the Dedications page!:

 
Somehow or another I had managed to skip this page in my previous readings of the novel (which were only 2, I must profess, this is a lovely but difficult and confusing narrative for me), but I came across this page just a few days back!  It is always delightful to come across Ms. Neo's script anywhere, and it is always a pleasure to read her words.  She comes across as so very her, in the most authentic and cutest of manners, through her writing!  Thank you for writing this to me, Ms. Neo, and thank you for gifting this novel to me, Topless 5!  

 I miss reading, I miss getting caught up in fictional characters' lives and contemplating their happenings and past all that is written.  Well, I have 8 books to occupy myself with, that should take some time!

 I wonder if you can sense the underlying tone of slightly forced conviviality in this entry...  And you're probably asking yourself, "Do I really care about the trivialities of Pamela's life?"  But to be genuine, I must confess to you, dear Reader, these trivial activities have been all that I am equipped to handle.  I feel anxious every day, about something, but what about, I can't really put a finger to.  Mentally, I seem to be stuck at a certain point....  

Oh well. 

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;1:27 AM

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Saturday, September 13, 2014


stories, help, and finding out


"none of us are getting married here."


//


Yesterday, someone asked me why I didn't like asking for help.  "It's... difficult," I managed to murmur.  It really is.  I despise asking for help.  I don't know why, maybe it's just the way I've been brought up.  I think I'm similar to my mother in that respect.  We are both middle childs who have been left alone to ourselves, a lot of the time.  The only persons I truly ask for help from are probably Huda, Andy and Flea.  Maybe it's because they've been with me for so long and seen me at my best and worst.  Maybe it's because they actually listen, and don't judge anything I say or do.  They aren't passive, however, there's a difference.  They help.  Family's supposed to be the first people you turn to for help, I think.  But parents will always be parents; they scold and chide you first, make you realise that there are other ways of doing things, ways to be a better person, before providing help to you.  I don't like that part of it.  It makes me feel like I've let them down, regardless of how slight it is.  I tell my brothers stuff.  Being on the same level (of being kids), they understand.  They understand the temptations, the pains, the lies and the difficulties.  Still though, being family, they have to protect you, and that involves a lot of scolding and disappointment as well.  I don't like that part.


I'm digressing.  What I wanted to really say was - even with such people whom you can turn to for help, sometimes, you're the only person whom can help yourself.  Sometimes, I just retreat into myself. Relating my experiences, having someone provide consolation, suggestions of alternative behaviours... as well-meaning as my friends may be, sometimes I just can't deal with it.  The times when I really just need some quiet in my life and not think, I read.  Books are amazing.  Novels are incredible.  I'm articulate, but I'm not a writer.  I don't write beautifully; nothing I say is poetic or lyrical.  That's why I love authors like Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman and Haruki Murakami.  Jones and Gaiman do wonderful fantasy, weaved into reality... Then Murakami brings fantasy and rawness to mundane reality.

I digress again.  Help.  Let's go back to help.  This is how I help myself.  I read.  I read about these experiences, be they fictional or fragments of reality, and I drown in the emotions that they bring out in me.  I read what those characters did in their stories, their stupid actions, their insignificant emotions, their thought processes, and I think about my stupid actions, my insignificant emotions and my thought processes.  Then I realise that... Life doesn't have to be so difficult.  I think you live in the moment.  I think you need to embrace uncertainty.

So, help.  Maybe I do ask for help a lot.  By reading a lot.  Maybe it's not that difficult.  I don't know.


//

Goosebumps, fairy tales, sparkle dust and all that.

When in doubt, throw phone in sock drawer.  Put on Jamie xx, dream koala and Nicolas Jaar.  Cry if you need to.  Throw things around if you need to.  I don't know.

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;3:15 PM

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Tuesday, January 7, 2014


The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug


I HAVE BEEN AN UTTER HERMIT.


One reason is because I was recommended by Zhiwei to watch Elementary (the American version of BBC's Sherlock television series), and thus I've now completed all 24 episodes of Season 1 and 12 episodes of Season 2.  I've been glued to my laptop; I literally woke up, turned on my laptop, loaded episodes of Elementary, and did any necessary bodily processes throughout the day (reluctantly, I might add).  I don't usually latch on to a television series like this, but I seriously needed to STOP thinking for a bit and just removed myself from everyone around me.  I even stopped talking to my family members for a bit (not entirely, just wasn't my usual talkative self), and also often forgot/neglected to reply my friends' texts.

I guess I was really upset by what had happened and so I just needed to try to shut my brain up so it would stop going over all the What ifs.  Also, before I'd started on this crazy television watching rampage, I was also rather disappointed by the Internet and everything technologically related.  To make a long story short, because I'd started shopping on blogshops quite a lot, I had joined a blogshop review community online.  I had written my first review, and an owner of a blogshop had emailed me asking me if I was interested in writing a review for her if she sent apparels over to me.  I had read the rules of being a member of the community well and there was nothing stated about sponsored items, so I'd agreed, with the agreement that I'd be entirely honest.  However, as our correspondence carried on, the owner asked me if she could send me more apparels and write reviews for her but still have to send her the items back, and also saying that the community does not allow reviews of sponsored items, thus asking me to lie regarding how I had received the items.  When I asked her where she'd seen that clause she didn't reply.  I did a bit of snooping on my own and found older entries where the moderator commented saying that reviews of sponsored items weren't allowed because it's considered advertising for the blogshops.  While I did see the rule that advertising for blogshops wasn't allowed, I didn't make the connection that reviews of sponsored items would be deemed as such.  SOMETIMES I'M JUST QUITE DENSE; things need to be pointed out explicitly before I realise it.

Being an honest person, I replied her telling her that I couldn't do it.  I told my parents about what I'd done, and while my mommy was nice, saying I'd done the right thing, my dad commented that "You la.  Always so easy to take advantage of."  He really did mean it, and it has more significance than its surface meaning, so it hurt quite a bit.  I have to stop being sensitive about a particular incident, but it's proving exceedingly difficult.  I had initially felt happy that I had done the right thing, but as the day passed I felt increasingly troubled because she was the one who had known that reviewing sponsored items was prohibited on that community, while I didn't, hence she was asking me to LIE.  How could people be that way?  Are people that dishonest nowadays?  I felt so made used of.  Well so anyway, when Zhiwei suggested Elementary to me ("I think you'll like it!" she had exclaimed), I really delved into the whole series.  While I initially thought the cases were kind of lame, they grew a little more complicated.  What I really enjoy watching is the non-conformity of genders, and also the growth of the characters.  To use Huda's words, Lucy Liu is such a BADASS.

Sidenote: I haven't gotten over Jonny Lee Miller saying "with regards to" four times!  Haha


Today I had the pleasure of meeting Zhiwei again to catch The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug!  Our plans to catch it were thwarted the previous time (in the form of a packed cinema hall and only available seats in the front rows), hence we were really glad that we managed to watch it today!  No spoilers here: It was an awesome movie!  I'm not saying so because 1) I love the novel 2) Benedict Cumberbatch is in it in the form of a voice of a dragon, but because it was really a good film.  It got pretty intense at certain parts and I found myself holding my breath at action scenes, getting tensed up and worried for those fighting.  I LOVE LOTR SO MUCH.  :D  Actually I think if you'd read the novel you'd be a little dismayed (or annoyed), like Zhiwei and I, because they added in things which weren't there in the novel to the adaptation.  Still, I find it great fun to have been able to discuss with Zhiwei those little annoyances after the movie!  Instances of silliness, you see.



Zhiwei reaaaaaaally looked the part of a certain British detective today!  Really loved her outfit (her blazer's SO PREPPY).  When I said I'd liked her necklace as well, she went "I think you gave it to me!!" Lmao


Gannuer was hanging around in town so we bummed for a little bit together!


heyyyy sexy ladyyyyyyyyyyy~


This was what I put together today!  Honestly, after spending consecutive days in my pyjamas of school tees and fbts, I really couldn't think of what to wear.  Decided to with a full black ensemble because you can never go wrong with black, right?  *snigger


CNY DECOR IS UP!  OHMAIGAWDDDDDDDDDD


Love you two silly dweebs  (:



I realised that for all the recent outings that I've had, I haven't taken a selfie.  I DON'T KNOW WHY, but all my photos have been with friends.  Even so, I feel uncomfortable in front of the camera.  ME HAZ NO CLUE, HALP


Attempted some selfies but I think I've lost touch, hahahaha




Cut up one false eyelash into two and use each for each eye today!  Hence the falsies aren't too obvious.  I'm wearing NYX's Merlot on my lips  :D  Finally opened the one I was gifted after losing mine in Denmark!!



That's all kiddos!

Hope y'all have a lovely Tuesday (:

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;1:52 AM

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Saturday, December 14, 2013


wind up bird chronicle


Spent the entire day with Murakami.  Just didn't want to speak to anyone on the net or through the phone.

Fell asleep on my bed with The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in my palm.  I received it as a gift last year and only got down to reading it yesterday.  I can't even remember who bought it for me!  Vong and Ms Neo?


After reading certain authors' works I tend to feel really lost.  Murakami, Gaiman, Patricia Mckillips, Diana Wynne Jones, amongst others.  I don't think I'm really a whimsical person, but at times I feel like I can relate more with those complex, strange, mentally unsound characters in these stories more than I can other characters.  They feel more real.


What's real, though?  Do you think about what's real, and what's not?  Do you think about who you are as a person, what're the real parts and what are the fake ones?  As May Kasahara says in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, "I don't know how to put it, but it's as if by not thinking about myself I can get closer to the core of my self."


Does everyone have a core?  Or are we all made up of small little bits which we chose and picked from everyone around us, in order to piece together a coherent being?


At times like these I think about the person whom I could talk about all these things to, but he's far, far away now.

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;12:36 PM




Thursday, August 1, 2013


curled up against the bookshelf






there's something to be said about the melancholy in the air when it rains during the early morning.


i recall in younger years i used to stay up past 3, 4 in the morning, just playing around with random stuff, pasting photos, reading storybooks, whatever, and my entire family'd be sleeping. id crawl to bed with the distant sounds of people starting their days. in some ways my mom has never been strict with me. one of which was that she always allowed me to stay up late to read. i used to sit right outside the bathroom floor and read in the wee hours of the morning, because i was scared to be downstairs by myself.


then i grew older and those early mornings were spent mostly typing ridiculous early morning rants to mrs twit and writing emotional blog entries.


then it got taken over by late night studying.


i miss staying up and just feeling okay in my solitude.


yesterday i couldn't fall asleep till 6am, and had a strange dream in which i had the ability to see ghosts in our world. if i behaved too inconspicuously they'd notice me and i'd get hurt. saving someone was involved and jumping on bouncy mushroom-like things very high up in the air were involved. an evil lady was also in it. with a silent evil man as her partner.

i was very scared but very determined to achieve my goal as well.

i keep dreaming strange things recently and i don't really know what to make of them.

maybe this melancholy's also brought on by my riffling through my book collection today. my new book shelf was fixed together so my books, neatly put away into boxes by Mommy whilst i was away on exchange, were painstakingly wiped and placed into their new home. i think books have the power of transporting one to an entirely different dimension. not simply the story within the pages itself, but for books that you've read before, you get pulled back to the past time/s you've read them. it's nice to reminisce about the past like this. looking at my pokemon comics i thought of how i'd pull Alice to comic connection after school to check if the newest one had been released. at Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye i'd think of reading in my hall room tearing at that poor little girl hating herself just because of phenotypical characteristics. at my harry potter collection i'd think of being seated next to the bathroom flipping the pages of my hardcover books in the dim light. looking at my Gaiman books i think of all his novels which i'd read because of the brilliant thing known as the library.

someone once told me he doesn't read a novel again, after he's finished it. i don't understand that. really, i don't.

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;4:23 AM






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PAMELA
twelfth may
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Portia-Leila.strikingly.com

I write about my everyday experiences & pen down my thoughts in this lil' space. I read, listen to music, have a passion in language, love makeup and most of all, I observe. I really like learning.

I love making a difference.

All information and pictures on the blog are property of Pamela unless stated otherwise. Please ask for permission before using any information from this blog, thank you!

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