my genographic project kit has arrived !!!

for my xmas present to myself, i bought a national geographic genographic kit online

the parcel arrived carrying swab test instructions and two little plastic vials to contain my DNA samples!!!

I'm super pysched up.


































the NationalGeographic Genohraphic project is an ongoing exercise that calls for the collection of DNA samples across the globe. I'll be sending my DNA samples in the next couple of days to the assigned test labs in the USA where scientists will then trace my ancestral roots and give me insight to my place in the family tree of the human race.

stay tuned here to see where this journey takes me!!

tanglin halt

the taxi driver took me on a journey. in an inner road, away from the highways through an old neighbourhood. tanglin halt. my grandma, while she was still around, used to live there.

i can't remember the block number she lived in, but i can describe its surroundings. the hawker center two minutes away, the provision shop, the confectionery and the chinese medicinal shop were all nearby places and landmarks which detailed my journeys in the neighborhood as a kid. in the opposite block facing grandma's, a malay family would sell ice sticks from their back kitchen.all you'd have to is knock on their gate. the auntie or uncle would emerge from the dark behind the door grilles...you exchange your 20 cents for an ice stick. it comes in different flavors marked by their colorings. red, blue, yellow or green. it's essentially a syrupy mix that fills a bamboo shaped plastic covering that has a deep fold in the middle. the sticks are frozen into yummy sunny afternoon treats. two floors above grandma, lived a malay family whose daughter we became friends with. we only knew her as rojak. she was our afternoon playmate. her grandpa would take afternoon naps, while she sneaked out to the corridor to meet my sister and i. we'de play till rojak's grandpa woke up. we didn't have watches then. even if we wore one. we wouldn't be able to tell the time. but when rojak's grandpa goes:"Roooojaaaaakkkk!" we 'd know that play time was over. our little friend would scramble back to the flat. while my sister and i would skip two floors down. along the corridors, we'd pass by some apartments tiptoeing. only cause they gave off funny smells- either burning joss sticks or funny strange people smell - that didn;t sit well with our imaginations.

my second sister and i used to spend some mornings during the week with my grandma - i can't remember the details of what we did, but i have memories of hiding under rattan mats, in particular. peeping through the little slits between the soft bendable sticks. looking at my sister seated on the stool by the old fashioned marble top table ,doing her homework for kindergarten classes. grandma would be in the kitchen cooking lunch. it couldn't have been the same every day- but all i can remember ever having for lunch was fried fish with kikkoman soy sauce, pork chops and green leafy vegetables served with plain white jasmine rice. i can still taste the white jasmine rice in my mouth - pure, plain and slightly moist right until i stuff my face with the lightly sauced fish - crispy on the outside but softly textured inside- and the pork chops.. in thick brown onion sauce. the memory of the taste has been burnt in my memory. between mouthfuls of food, i'd place my face sideways down on the marble table, my cheeks warm from the food in my mouth would experience the most comforting, cool sensation offered by the marble top. i really loved that feeling.

the taxi passes by the old block - and soon also passes by a couple of blocks away - where my aunt lucy - mom's sister - used to live. my sister and i used to make our way from grandma's to auntie lucy's in the afternoons. our independent,unguided walk across the neighborhood, block to block, door to door, made us feel very grand and masters of the 10 minutes or 15 minutes we'd take to make the journey. i made many such travels with my sister over that period when i was about 4. once i had to carry my take away lunch from the coffeeshop. it was char siew rice. my sister insisted on carrying the packet of rice for me, mainly cos i think she didn;t want me to slow us down.. but i insisted on being a big girl. the rice was wrapped in one of those brown squarish paper that was laminated on one side. the standard pink rafia (sp?) string was tied around the rice packet, with a little ribbon left on the middlemost part of the packet. the hook of the rafia ribbon hung on my little fingers as my sister and i walked to auntie lucy's .my sister was in a hurry- eager to play doctor and nurse with the neightbour's daughter bridgett. her urgency was obvious. she was consistently 2 meters ahead of me all the way through the walk, at several moments, she would turn around with one hand on her hip,and the other gesturing, motioning forward movements, urging me to quicken my pace. i really was trying my best. but it was really difficult to walk fast when there were so many other taller people rushing in all directions around you. you get distracted by skirts flying in your face and shopping bags swinging at your eye level. the char siew rice packet too was slowing me down. i looked down at my fingers on several occasions only to see that the rafia string wrapped around my tiny fingers was leaving reddish blue swollen parts near my finger tips.

10 minutes late we made it to auntie lucy's. but my char siew rice didn;t.

apparently,the char siew rice uncle hadn;t tied the rafia string tight enough. and unbeknown to me i was leaving a trailof charsiew rice from my grandma'sblock to auntie lucy's flat. i cried initially over my lost lunch. but laughed at it all eventually when my auntie took away from my numbed, red fingers the rafia ribbon string that was tied to an empty,weightless brown packet.

as the taxi driver drove out of the neighborhood, i smiled at my old, childhood memories.

just as we made a final turn out, i saw a shop that sold aquarium fish. it was called "fish & cheap aquarium"

i smiled. and i laughed. this neighborhood is special.

laughing

after zouk out the other night...

S jumped out from bed after napping. it was his turn to entertain since A was busy buttering & jamming the bread from the breakfast basket.

he represented this sleepy Tan who was just too tired to move. he was redeeming the Tans of the room after we were so openly laughed at for our unentertaining ways. ie. sleeping.

S's earlier attempts of singing Tan-tan-tan anthems to the tune of pink panther music, the wedding march and other tan tan tan-able chants cracked us all up and diverted attention from requests of having a Tan item for entertainment. but i was still was too tired to move. only laughing under the blankie was manageable.

fresh from his nap...S decided to entertain. with legs crossed in semi lotus position, S started prectising his jokes on the crowd in the room.

S: i walked into a bar
S: ouch

silence.

i laughed.

S: I walked into the bar again
S: Still ouch.

silence.

I was still laughing.

lots of laughing later,

one of my faves of the night (which has kept me laugh till now) emerged

A: two nuts were walking down the street
A: One of them was a salted.

it's been qte awhile since i've laughed so hard. =)

i'm nookless =(

nookless & PMS-y

crescent in my eyes, stars in my hands

between two trees
i saw a crescent
stashed away
in the blue.
it sat like a cradle
right on a hill.
it whispered
a lullaby
of clouds
of orion
of the universe
it sang to me
a song
about a simple path
i'd walk into the blue
just above the hill
and rest in its cradle
i'll fall in place
with stardust
in my hands
unleashing a million miracles
there will be one
for you
you
& you



-- for josie k as we walked through the wilderness last night & escaped the snakes. and for telling me i could write a happy poem.

feeling christmasy

it's been a couple of years since i've really felt the festive mood of xmas. i've really been a grouch the last couple of years during this time. but this year feels kinda different.there's a little more joy in the air and lightness in the air around me. even the sky looks bluer today. i walked into lim's arts and craft yesterday to buy a gift for a friend. xmas decor, candles, stockings etc etc... have filled the entire shop already. and i was unexpectedly thrilled. i dunno why.

the party invites are streaming in. and the festive drinking has begun haha. a bit overdone last night tho. (note to self =(

(incoming text message)

it's debbie 10 k. she says it's snowing in nyc.

looks like everywhere ---it;s beginning to look alot like xmas.

seeing miracles

at post-dinner drinks the other night

the three of us huddled around our beers and started spewing stories, thoughts and ideas leftover from dinner conversation.

i can't recall clearly now how the topic of miracles came about

i believe it started with someone, maybe me, saying: "i don't believe in coincidences...."

but i remember rudiments of the conversations.

and fragments from a party of three voices.

in random order - here's the prelude moment to our miracles chat

"i don't believe in coincidences...."

"oh i'm gonna be holy moly - not going for xmas drinks cos i have church camp"

"i'm aethist"

"you're aethist? not even agnostic?"

"i always believe in a force greater than all of us"

"astrology is not right or wrong but i always sense some truths in there"

"you should talk to my mother, she's a priest"

"you can never rationalise religion - it's a leap of faith"

"religion is the opium of the masses...do you think Marx was also trying to say the rich could discount religion cos they could afford the real stuff to get through life?...

"religions could be the many manifestations of that one source of higher being"

"i believe there must be a higher spiritual being - God- cos of the miracles i've encountered..."

and so it began.

i shared my life miracles on condition of not being sent away to a witchhunt trial - post-sharing.

i listed a couple.

here's one..


earlier this year i was feeling REALLY down one night. i was in a taxi ride home feeling crap and giving into to selp pity when suddenly a text message arrived. it was one of those really happy gay cheer-you up messages that i usually hate on any other occasion. but for that very second it really hit a welcomed spot.

the cell number of the messenger reflected was unfamiliar... i replied asking who that was?

and the person said: sorrry send wrong number...i'm teresa, what'syour name? wannabe friends?

i was so tickled by the weridness of it all. it must have been god sent. there was hope yet. one second i was just thinking life is shittie and the next second a text msg was telling me how life was beautiful. and did so convincingly.

i went home and decided to google saint teresa. just when i tried to dismiss the entire evening as a pure coincidence i stumbled upon in my google search a quote from Edith Stein - the woman would later become beatified and be known as Saint Teresa of Benedicta. She was born into a Jewish family..was interested in philosphy and later turned to catholicism.. and became a carmelite nun.

anyway here's a passage written by Saint Teresa... it lookslike an entry in her journal.

"Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that - from God's point of view - there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes."

i was amazingly comforted by her words. and thought to myself then how i should embrace lovingly the bad experiences in life just asmuch as i do the good experiences. i was also reminded of the scene when hamlet discovered providence and decided to let his destiny unfold, to surrender to life. and just be. with courage.

i shared this story of my st teresa miracle at the bar with my companions. it wasn'treally a HUGE miracle. but it was good enough for me.

"so what miracles have you guys experienced?"

they said they didn't have any

but deeper into the night -stories of little miracles were salvaged from our memories.

we came to the conclusion that once your eyes open to seeing miracles> there are soon miracles every where.

remember that pivotal scene in The Sixth Sense when the little kid said "i see dead people..."

and suddenly the entire audience is visually sucked into that perspective, that world - sound, sight and all-

in a splt second the room scene was viewed through the little kid's eyes. and everyone also began to see the dead people.

what has this got to do with miracles? well nothing about miracles per say. just wanted to draw that image of "sudden sight" that is given to an individual. just as the viewer was in that particular moment of the movie.

another visually helpful scene was when i first went crabbing with the family many years ago.

on my first time out - i was freaking mad i couldn't catch any crabs. "what do they look like? where are they?" everyone around me was catching 'em flower crabs left right and center. i suddenly see a muddy grey shell moving and used my net to scoop the rascal up. i was in a semi squat, bending over to look into my tiny net,my hair,unbundled, was all over my face...i was admiring my first catch.

when i straightened up and looked ahead into the shallow muddy waters for my next scoop...i saw crabs. every where.

why am i sharing miracle stories? involving crabs and saints... and all?

i have no idea. but it sure makes my feel eeeeky preachy. and maybe that's no coincidence. o well. take what you will, and leave the crap. i'm just blogging my thought of the moment. "i see miracles"