A mac between two windows

Restored when you revisit -
refreshed the pane stares back at you.

Through the looking glass
what once felt a bittersweet torture -
the years apart -
has become
a lopsided work of art.

Caught dancing en arabesque, first and last

Today I was talking with a friend and it got me revisiting Carla Bruni, who IMHO, has the sexiest voice ever, when she sings in French (don't even get me started on L'excessive). I've been almost reluctant to listen to her English songs for fear of ruining her impossibly sexy appeal. But I had iTunes on shuffle, and realised that the song titles, and the lyrics were oddly familiar...

Googling worked wonders to discover that...she was singing some of my favourite poets! Serendipity ftw!

At Last the Secret is Out

W.H. Auden

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
the delicius story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddently singing, high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Those Dancing Days Are Gone

W.B. Yeats

Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag.

Oh glucose, glucose!

Specially for the chemistry geeks out there, I present:

Acronymn of the day: FAAK

No, it's not a four letter f-word.  OK, it is, but it's got nothing besides aural similarity in common with that.

Used to end late-night MSN/Skype conversations, FAAK stands for falling asleep at keyboard.  As in, OK FAAK TTYL.  Or, I'm FAAKed out.  

How did the Jamaican grow a Jewish nose?

A Jamaican fellow came across my blog, apparently having searched for nose+growth+reasons. So today's post shall be in his honour. Incidentally, today I happen to be 19 years and 8 months and 8 days precisely.

There are a number of reasons for nose growth. As you have probably already read in Pinocchio, it can grow from lying:

At this third lie, his nose became longer than ever, so long that he could not even turn around. If he turned to the right, he knocked it against the bed or into the windowpanes; if he turned to the left, he struck the walls or the door; if he raised it a bit, he almost put the Fairy's eyes out.

Whether this is true for people or not, I leave for you to decide. I can only tell you that this blog is named after the famous wooden puppet for a reason. I can also say that my nose is a rather prominent feature on my face. From the side, due to a lack of endowment in the vitally important region below my face, one might even say I looked like a nose on a stick. Again, I won't state explicitly whether I'm the lying sort, but there certainly do seem to be a lot of posts on the subject. Anyway, my nose has certainly grown bigger over time.

Since I will not disclose further details on my habits in deception, I shall suggest a number of other reasons, which I shall claim to be closer to the truth.

The first reason is genetics. Obviously, your parents' appearances and the genes which code for them will play a part in determining what you will look like. Genes also play a part in determining how you will grow. As a friend of mine who's studying optometry claims, you can't really help how you grow. Whether you become short-sighted or long-sighted depends on the depth of your eyeball, and that depends to a large extent on your genes. Similarly, whether your nose grows disproportionately larger as you grow older and bigger, as mine has, also depends on whether your parents have been kind enough to endow you with the best of both genes (in my case it was the worst).

The second reason is muscle activation. There are two kinds. One is active, or unassisted, where you use your nose muscles alone to move your nose. You can move your nose up and down, bunny-style, wrinkle your nose, or isolate movement of your left and right nostrils. You may also flare your nostrils. I have yet to discover and master more nose movement, although there have been reports of people who can perform feats such as nose-wriggling. Such movements will result in the building of the muscles of the nose and a resulting increase in size.

The other is passive, or assisted, where you use other parts of your body, such as your hands, to pull at or move your nose. The act of pulling one's nose also stimulates circulation to the area. Supplied with more blood, it is likely to promote healthy, and sometimes vigorous, tissue growth. Repeated contact with your nose if you wash your face too frequently may also result in over-stimulation and growth.

The third reason is injury or illness. If you are injured, or if you have sinuses or a blocked nose, inflammation is a likely result that will temporarily increase the size of your nose. Alternatively, a broken nose that is poorly healed may result in a misshapen and enlarged nose.

In short, who nose how your nose will grow? I might be pulling your leg, or lengthening my nose, but as I have mentioned before, a good lie is always based on observed fact.

But that's so undignified!

You do the oddest things when you think you're all alone and no one's watching. Generally, of course, you get away with it, unseen, and hardly think anything of it. Perhaps you may laugh at your own indignities, but that's the extent of it. After all, they say that the tree that falls in the forest that no one hears...hasn't fallen. Generally.

But today, the illusion of isolation was shattered when Joshua came in on me bopping to Our Song by Taylor Swift. Twice.

I have to laugh at my own indignity. Although I think he's secretly laughing harder.

Dammit.

Weird social practises: eating

You're not supposed to do obscene things in public - that's what your mother always told you.  At least, you should avoid doing things that are unpleasant for other people to watch, in public. Like dig your nose. Or fart.

So I wonder, why isn't eating gross? If you think about it, eating should gross you out! I mean, who on earth would want to look at someone shove a utensil up his mouth, and chew? It's as bad as poking your finger in your nose and digging around for a booger.

But oh, no, eating is somehow un-gross. People actually make appointments to go and watch each other eat! People find it romantic to go out to dinner together.

At least we don't have to see what's in their mouths.

Gross anatomy

A requirement in learning O-level Biology is that candidates should be able to describe the gross structure of the eye. In the paragraphs that follow, I shall attempt to do precisely that.

The eye is a gross and slimy, albeit useful, receptor organ in man which plays a significant part in co-ordination and response.

It is enclosed by the eye socket, which looks weird without an eye, and the eye is attached to the socket by six stubby rectus muscles, which can also roll the eye around maniacally (so really, if you have a glass eye, don't pretend like it can move, because it ain't got no rectus muscles).

The rectus musles are attached to the sclera of the eye, which is the thing that keeps all the eye-goo in place. The sclera is tough, yellowish, fibrous and a little bit slimy to the touch, and the exposed part of the sclera (the part which you can see, and which people commonly call the whites of your eyes) is covered by a thin membrane, the conjunctiva, which looks a little like a GATSBY oil absorber stretched too tightly over a finger, only it's transparent and continuous with your eyelids.

There's a little bulge where the lens of your eye is, and it is highlysquishable, thanks to the aqueous humour which fills it - like a water balloon just waiting to be popped. It's where the sclera becomes the cornea, and also becomes transparent, allowing light to shine through to the retina at the back of the eye. That's also where the iris is, and the iris is what gives your eye its color. The iris is an extension of the choroid.

The choroid is the grossest part of the eye and is the second layer after the sclera. It's pigmented black, to prevent total internal reflection, and black fluidoozes out when you dissect it. It also contains a network of blood capillaries. Also connected to the choroid are the ciliary muscles and suspensory ligamets. The muscles are pretty firm and elastic, to allow the eye to focus on both near and distant objects. The suspensory ligaments, on the other hand, areteensy little buggers which probably look a lot like dental floss with plenty of plaque.

The lens may be the best bit yet. It's hard, a little squoogy, and supposedly a little stretchy as well. It can become more or less convex, depending on whether the object viewed is near or far.

Just behind the lens is what makes up the bulk of the eye - the vitreous humour (which I hear is not as funny as the aqueous humour, and decidely more morbid. It's jelly-like, and clear. Altogether disgusting, really.

Behind that, which is incidentally, the third layer of the eye, is the retina. It consists of photoreceptors called rods and cones, and if I had to hazard a guess, it's probably pretty rough, like goosebumps. I believe it's kind of shiny, like an oil spill on the sea. The retina is also connected to the optic nerve at the blind spot - smooth going there, I bet, with no photoreceptors to speak of. You can see it if you pluck out someone's eye. It's that strand still connected to the head, I think.

Q.E.D. the eye is pretty darn gross.

Family Mah Jong

Playing Mah Jong with my parents is a hoot.

Not because their playing is bad. It really is because it's funny. Seriously.

For instance, today, my mum asked, "Has everybody poot fart (she meant bou fa or bu3 hua1) already?".

Then, I have this obsession with keeping the wall straight. I use my tile rack to straighten it while waiting my turn; a pastime my dad has also taken up.

When we play Mah Jong together, you can easily see the family resemblance. We are all really clumsy (and needless to say, really eccentric).

In our excitement to get tiles, we have: pushed over the wall, revealed our hand, shook the table, pushed over our chairs, etc etc.

In our reluctance to give our chips to the winner, we have: thrown the chips out the window, tore the bag we keep the chips in, narrowly missed injuring a fellow family member.

We also do this weird head-bobbing, finger-drumming thing while we play (to the accompaniment of Chinese New Year music).

I don't suppose anyone would care to join us for a game?

The moon watches a nose-digger

Moonie, if you are reading this, this entry is a response to your blog entry about how you are disdainful of nose-diggers.

You settle yourself down and prepare for the long wait. Maybe, you should take out a book to read. Nah. You decide to look out the window instead.

Suddenly, you feel this prickle in your nostril. You blow harshly through your nose, hoping to dislodge it. It only gets itchier.

And itchier.

You rummage around your bag desperately, searching for soemthing to distract yourself. 

You decide to take out that book you were thinking of reading.

Page 1. It isn't working. If anything, the itch just becomes more prominent in your mind. You know what you want to do.

You look around. Nobody's watching. Surreptitiously, you bring a finger to your face, and begin to dig.

Aaaah. That feels good. Now for the other nostril.

Suddenly the bus lurches forward (you didn't even realise you stopped). As you pitch forward, you're brought back to reality, and you accidentally catch the eye of someone watching your. Embarrassed, you look away, but it's too late.

For it's then you realise you still have your finger up your nose.

A really lame limerick about a mudskipper

There once was a 'skipper from long kang,
who was too big for his barang.
He jumped out from the drain,
and then into a plain -
the garden of overgrown lallang.

The contractor said it was lucky,
for a fish that was so very plucky,
so he stuck out his wella,
and moved the ole fella,
into a bucket which was really mucky.

Lame limerick about the mudskipper who popped up one day at the house we're currently renovating. The real story goes something like this:

My dad and the contractor, Mr G, walk out, and see this fish-like grey thing on the porch.

Dad: Oh, look, a fish!
Mr G: Is it still alive? (kicks fish, it wriggles)
Mr G: Yep, it's alive.
Dad: Let's throw it back in the long kang!
Mr G: No, lah! The fish is lucky you know! Keep lah! (puts it in a pail of water previously used for cement) You don't want I want.
Dad: Okay lah, I'll keep.

So my dad brings it home in a pail, and I advise him to throw it back into the drain.

"It's an amphibian, dad, not a fish!" "Giant mudskippers can be found at Sungei Buloh Nature Park! They aren't meant as pets!"

But my dad decides to keep it.