bangkok: second day

twas a hot winter's day when i got driven for an hour and a half to the floating market in (this place is harder to spell than to pronounce). hot winter = 30 odd degree day. yells were heard as thai vendors tried to sell their wares. they all look pretty much the same to me. i ran into a japanese tv presenter quietly making her speech while someone held a ruffly umbrella over her head.

the boat i was in was stuck in a boatjam for roughly 5-10 minutes. once we got out of that, however, the waterway was relatively free. then i ran into her again.

frankly speaking, i was quite hot and tired so i can't tell you much about what i saw. except for teaspoons made out of coconut shells. they were cool. i'm at my sudio apartment right at this moment and the airconditioning isn't cooling me. it's set at 16 degrees and i'm still sweating like a pig.

bangkok: first day

the flight from melbourne to kl was so amazingly bad that i threw up in the last five minutes before landing. i haven’t done that in five years. i didn’t feel so well & I ended up having a cherry ripe for breakkie, a stick of 6 small porkballs & a spoonful of sweet glutinous rice with three pieces of mango for lunch and a huge hotpot of food for dinner.

i stressed all the way from melbourne to bangkok because the people i have been communicating with thought i landed on the 3rd when I specifically told them it was the 2nd. true enough, the weren’t there BUT i really thank God for his divine intervention because i met siree, esther’s friend from trinity college, her brother ? and her friend tang who went out of their way to make sure I was alright!

the drivers here are scary. i sat in a taxi which drove 500 metres in the middle of two lanes, cut in and out of traffic without once signalling and tailgating practically ever single car that drove in front of him. i kept my eyes on the address i was heading to the whole time, only looking up when he stopped to ask for directions (?!). taxi colours range from blue/red to fluro orange. and some taxis were hotpink! esther would have loved it if she wasn’t all pinked out.

after spending all morning stressing, i went to get a thai massage. it went for two hours. oooohhh…i've been waiting for that for a long time. and it was the first time i heard my back go crack in three different places all at once! however, i was told that they weren’t really professionals. kind of figured it out when they were giving me a face/head massage and a part of my face went a bit numbingly funny.

i’m meeting with my someone tomorrow. apparently there was a miscommunication somewhere and my accommodation was not booked. hmm…inefficiency, indeed. but before that, off to the floating market at 7am! whoopdeedoodah.

when i wish i was the flash

on the corner of ferntree gully road & princess highway stood a blondhaired midtwenties lady with a sheet of white cloth, waving it at passing motorists.

'beer money needed. please donate'

make poverty history concert

no cameras allowed. i KNEW i should have smuggled in mine inbetween some clothes.

great night, awesome company, loads of people and EVERMORE! how did i get so crazy over a single band? probably because of anita. you got me hooked!

but a friend did get a camera in so no fear! there will be photos coming up sometime in the near future, but obviously, not right about now.

when we got into line, i realised that i had left the tickets stuck on my wardrobe door. bad mistake. dan drove them all the way into the city for us (thankyouthankyouthankyou!!) just in time for the line to start moving. phew!

the night was cool but with people all around, a jacket was not neccessary. neets & i jumped around, sang along, shimmied and waved our glowsticks in the air with gusto when evermore came on, when jet chewed gum, when eskimo joe had red wine (not literarily, of course! who could forget the drunk bob evans?) and played with black fingernails. we conserved energy between bands, ate eggandmayo sandwiches, tried untying jonesy's laces without him noticing, tried tying rickshaw's laces together faster than he can undo them, slept (yes, we slept) and got lost in the crowd trying to find our way back to base camp.

in all, it was a fun night which i would do again if given the opportunity. well, i'll smuggle my camera in the next time i do this sort of thing.

will update with photos when i get them from jonesy.

love letter

it is great seeing you again. we talk as if it was yesterday i saw you last, as if no time has passed. it seemed natural for us to pick up where we left off, dual tasking as we talk, laugh and sympathise. sometimes, it seems our situations have pulled us further apart when we're not together but tonight, it feels like we're closer than ever.

i really wish i could see you more often. msn can be interpreted in so many different ways. a phone call is never the same. emails are so impersonal and handwritten letters don't quite convey how i feel.

i hope you keep me in mind when we're on different ends of the earth. i'll keep you in mine.

another year older

i have never been sung 'happy birthday' to so many times before. how many times, you ask. four in three days. FOUR!! wow. it so happens that my church celebrated its fifty-fifth anniversary today as well. and i'm really really glad that it was not 'happy birthday to church AND DEB!'

i had a really great time at my birthday party last night. this was the first party i've organised without help from my parents. i co-organised it with a really good friend and it was great! and with all great parties, there is a theme and mine was childhood ambitions. most people dressed up but i was disappointed with the ones that didn't. great night nonetheless. prizes did go to the best dress genders (or ones that i thought made the most effort).

an early start (8am) to the day and the constant motion all day left me utterly exhausted towards the end of the night. falling asleep on the couch with everyone still around was kind of my highlight (obviously sarcasticly speaking). i only woke up to say my goodbyes before going back to sleep for the rest of the night.

it was a full day today. another early start to celebrate my church's fifty-fifth anniversary. it was an extended service and i didn't pay any attention to the preacher at all. i was minding the cd's with the guys and we had a good chat on relationships from the opposite gender's perspective. this just reminded me i have to get the cd.

i had two cups of coffee today to keep awake. one instant coffee to make it through the morning & a short black after lunch to last me the rest of the day. worked pretty well. i'm wide awake now and my contacts irritation levels are slowly creeping up.

supper was with people i don't normally hang out with (with exception of you, cinderella) and it was good. i got to know a few people a little better. worked out well since all twentyfive of us wouldn't have fitted into the ultrasmall vietnamese 'restaurant' we all wanted to go to in the first place.

the night ended with me unable to keep my eyes open as i type this.

light up ahead

take this heart of darkness
i give it up
and all this emptiness
you fill it up
the times that i feel nothing
you bring enough
so i can live for something
you lift me up!

and all these bad dreams
i wake up to the light
and when i can't see
i wake up to your eyes

wake me up
there's a light up ahead

- waking ashland

gravitate only one

fourteen members

seven days til the launch

five singers

three guitars

two keyboards

only one

6pm 25 burton ave clayton 3168 australia

the past few weeks have been very busy for me in terms of studies, clinics and preparing for the camp and launch.

overflow camp last weekend was great. zoran spoke to us about extravagance and how we are called to be extravagant in everything we do. he also talked about dreams and its intepretation.

i guess one of the prayers was answered in that the camp wasn't a high but a stepping stone to a new level. i didn't feel like it was hyped up although i did feel quite sore the the few days after that. all to do with the rock climbing i did and how unfit i am.

i got to watch the stars on sat night with neets. it was great. and cold. we were both swaddled in her doona and i didn't have enought. God cleared the sky so the stars were quite bright. we picked a very darks spot near the path that was used to go to the campfire so we waited a while for someone to come up and poke us with a stick. ben and lovey came with a torch instead. very bright.

this is my third time to phillip island adventure resort and i must say that the giant swing doesn't give me quite the same rush of adrenaline. i must be getting used to it. hmm...need to fine another source of cheap but safe adrenaline rush.

then to a gig. i haven't been to a proper gig in awhile so i quite enjoyed evermore. the hampdens and the bob evans band supported them. didn't quite enjoy bob evans but i thought the harmonica bits were good. reason why? well, i did like a few songs he played but i think he was quite drunk. he had a bottle of wine which he drank off after every song. maybe because he was the second support act and everyone was tired of standing and waiting for evermore to come out that they started boo-ing him. it seemed as if he wasn't going to get off the stage until he finished his bottle of wine. and so it dragged on.

the hampdens weren't too bad. rickshaw really did love the lead singer (which was female) and so neets kept yelling "rickshaw loves you" when there wasn't any music and she was taking a drink. neets was excited also because they were supporting john mayer when he's down in melbourne.

i didn't know that the evermore band members were related to each other! i especially like peter, the bassist/keyboard player. it was actually fascinating how the keyboard moved like and extension of himself. it being thin and light was probably a good thing. he lifted it above his head a few times and moved it across the stage throughout the songs he played on it. my eyes were on him most of the time until anita wanted to go towards the back because the sound was hurting her ears. then i lost sight of all of them because i was short and there were a lot of tall people in front of me.

the only reason i regret moving to the back is when the drummer pulled out the eukalalee. argh! it was then i wish i was still at the front stuck between the sweaty bodies of screaming girls.

i had earplugs on so that helped a lot.

look at the stars, look how they shine for you

last night, i sat under the stars. except there was a huge cloud cover. so, no stars. i should rephrase that, shouldn't i?

last night, i sat under some clouds talking to some girl friends. the weather was beautiful. were were snug under the doona we brought along and there was a slight breeze in the air. mind you, it was after midnight and our stargazing expedition was foiled by cloud cover and proximity to the light pollution from the city. but we still had a good time.

as anne/cheryl always said, the best time to milk someone is when they're tired.

we all got milked.

haha.

i had the weirdest dream last night.

i just got off the tram and i can't remember how i got out but when i did, it was a laneway where trams never go because there simply are no tracks there. even buses don't go in there. anyway, there were shops around me with neon signs from hongkong. when i turned around, the tram was no were in sight, disappeared without a sound. turning back, the neon signs disappeared. things started to look a little familiar as i walked.

i was in the basement of royal melbourne hospital, where the student lockers were relocated and massive amounts of construction are currently going on. there were a few people sitting on my left. as i went about my business, someone called my name. i looked to my left and there was peaches and tangerine's ex sitting beside a stairwell and a dent friend.

next thing i knew, i was sitting beside peaches. i don't remember the topic of conversation but there were lots of laughter. then someone needed tissues. i reached into my pocket and pulled out some. for some reason, i also had a wirecutter in my pocket. you know, the one orthodontists use to cut the wire that so artfully make your teeth straight. it was made out of iron but it was so shiny!

then peaches exclaimed something (i don't remember, okay? it was a dream) and pinched my cheek. and you know when you try to stop someone pinching your cheeks, you suck them in and they make a noise?

well, that kind of blended in with the noisy beeps of my alarm clock.

i can't wake from this dream where my housemate cut my hair. as a result my fringe is a tad too short and i have no love for short fringes.

in this dream, i go to sleep and wake up hoping that i didn't let her cut my hair. it has been three days of slumber.

will my prince charming wake me up?