+65 Indie Festival

The Obedient Wives' Club

In Each Hand a Cutlass

All it takes is the first few guitar riffs, and I'm instantly mesmerized. Usually I'd be pretty much immune to instrumental music but In Each Hand a Cutlass has turned me into an instant fan, just like that. How do I put this... they were mind-blowing. 


Time seems to have taken a sort of unreal, hazy quality, adrenaline rush mixed with a giddy pleasure, drunk with the feeling of heady ecstasy, heart pounding, rising, falling in sync with the music, I can barely think straight, all my senses are fully attuned and there's no room for distracting thoughts, all I can do is feel, let the intricate tapestry of music wash over me, go right through me, and think, " Oh my god" over and over again

their music is beyond amazing

4 Fridays ago : I've just taken my holga out from a dusty corner of my room and and loaded a brand new roll of film in it, something I haven't done in nearly a year. G and I spend the afternoon wandering around the art store at bras brasah looking at unfamiliar things like easels and wooden alligators and tubes of paint, picking out items for a birthday present. The music store too, holds just as much fascination for me, as I run my hands down the acoustic guitars, fingers idly plucking at a string here and there. We watch as the shop assistant, a man in his 40s, give a live demonstration, he's showing off just a little, and we smile and nod appreciatively. Afterwards, I find myself walking on the sidewalk with a cup of ice cream in my hand, everyone's moving at an unhurried pace as they cross the road, I look up at the gradually darkening skies, it's cool and nearly evening-time, and I think to myself, ' every Friday should be spent like this'

Afterwards, I receive some news from my mother, and the thought of june holidays spent traipsing around endless vineyards and vast lavender fields fills me with so much happiness I can barely speak. Later on at night, an hour-long phone conversation with gwen makes me laugh and laugh, what a perfect way to end the day

Fatigue seeps into my bones
a noxious, deadening substance.
I would like to
empty my mind
of all thought
free my flesh
from all sensation.
A hollow shell.
(something inside me falls away)
I would like to sink
backwards
into the comforting embrace
of my bed.
And pull the covers over myself
lie motionless and still
while the voice of bon iver whispers into my ear
leave this place far behind
let myself drift.
It would grant some modicum of blessed respite
however fleeting, however temporal.

CS206 Photostory: Flight Dreams

A girl who wants to escape from herself,  and the stifling confines of conformist societal expectations.

She seeks for liberation through dreams.

Back then I believed I was determined to lead a life my parents would be proud of;

 I would attain a degree, a job, remain a Christian, marry a nice boy

 Then I discovered a part of me that rose up in a hundred bedrooms that eventually looked like each other.
I began to understand myself for the first time

I remember I was catapulted from that claustrophobic room of my parents' dream of my future

I don't know why the pain comes back

Which was why I knew then to pull up the blanket of dreams over my head

 I would fly off balconies, jump off the tops of flats and swim through air for hours in my sleep

Note: This was inspired by the poem Flight Dreams by Cyril Wong

Thursday night:  I'm walking towards the laundry room to collect my clothes. The corridors are deserted, everyone's probably at the carnival downstairs, watching the band play. Someone from the band starts to sing High and Dry by Radiohead, and as I listen to it, something within me seems to give way. As I sing along to myself, I happen to look down at the the road below and see a lone figure waltzing slowly to himself in sync with the music under the moonlight. Little things like this make me laugh. And even though there are so many deadlines to meet, though time seems to be running out so quickly, though the world is just so crazy right now, I stop and smile to myself, feeling unspeakably at peace, with the sensation that everything is right with the world.

There are so many other things I should be doing but right now I can't even begin to bring myself to look at the growing stack of readings, let alone touch them.

A friend from hall once said, " You know, you wee kim wee people seem to be the only ones who love their school so much and get so animated talking about the mods they're taking. While everyone else- the engineering people, the business people, the chemistry people are always endlessly complaining about their course."

It's times like this which help to remind me what I'm doing all this for. Not for the sake of getting a good G.P.A, or the degree, but because I genuinely enjoy what I'm doing in wkw. Increasingly, it's getting so much harder to keep my head above the water. And the very notion of graded work robs learning of any joy whatsoever. :(

persevere em

These snatched minutes of conversation aren't enough, will never be enough, but that's all I'm ever going to get so I should learn to be content with what brief fragments I have