from country to country...

i smile in wonder as i take pride in being given a chance to touch on 24 states on my travels so far. these places and the experience they bring have become a rich source of reflection and poetry in many lessons when i least expect them to surface in the classroom. i do not think i will ever have the space or time to depict every journey on a blog.

there were times when comparison with other well-travelled buddies became an ego-battle of sorts as we challenged each other as to where we might head next. yet, travel is not about allowing your ego or pay-cheque to 'conquer' exotic spots you've been. it serves more as a quick escape from the limits of an island-cityscape. this recklessness and latent desire to explore new cultures and landscapes impart a sense of awe and humility... simply in knowing that there is no place i am able to know completely. i am none the wiser just because i have almost a decade of teaching experience, 3 degrees and 2 diplomas to put on my cv. i like my worldview to be cracked, my perceptions to be challenged by a language or custom that is alien to my own.

it is a warm insight. to recall this teaching as i look back on the many albums composed by these travels. i might discard them one day. every picture seems to betray the visual greed i had. when i look back, many fail to capture the feeling i had intended. i could be freer and happier to let the moment be. how stupid of me in wanting to possess what i can never grasp or even hold. in naming these places, i tell myself that i do not know enough to call them my own. they will never be. within these lands are a thousand more people i have yet to know, many pages of history i've yet to fully comprehend and the lores and songs of the seas, rivers, deserts, sky, air and land that humble and diffuse the false sense knowledge of my personal world. i stepped on these countries only to find a partial track to nowhere...i guess the real work must begin from within.

west and east malaysia, indonesia, thailand, laos, vietnam, philippines, china, mongolia, hong kong, taiwan, south korea, india, sri lanka, australia, new zealand, turkey, hungary, holland, czech republic, austria, spain, portugal, usa, mauritius

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sri lanka: 9-21 dec 2007

on a recent bagpacking trip to sri lanka....a very poor nation torn by decades of civil war. my best experience was to feel at home in a strange way; i felt regarded as a visitor, not quite a tourist (unike certain spots in Indonesia). over here, expect your seat to be hovered around by well-meaning stares and bemused expressions, i.e. whenever you step into a local eatery and order food in a spattering of english given emphasis by hints of a body in language. the cooks and attendants would do everything in their power to assure and protect you from their lava-hot olive curries and dishes known to be dressed in potent swathes of chilli padi. your palate is cared for...and most meals were served in with more than a smile...sweet tea to soothe an abused tongue and or extra dahl simply because your larger morsels showed you liked them so much.

on a train that moves beyond the mist. my legs dangled over a yard of valleys and the mark of a constant waterfalls. hungry. i pick from a providential basket of vadai and chickpea selling for 20 rupees (less than $S0.30) onboard. overland, village boys lead the road to a lake by a gentle wind. a saffron-clad junior monk continues to wave from a faraway monastery. the colours carry on with their song: there were tea-pickers in sari- their back-breaking work awashed in waves of blue, gold and green. they moved, some on bare feet...i saw a quiet circle of gold, a toe-ring worn on the very end of their feet. the path was muddied. and became asphalt at times. black with a hint of gold. i sense toil and dignity in their stride as they picked their tea.

resorts on the east were overun by dogs. they lead a spartan life. facing the blue seas daily. a few were saved from the tsunami. i stayed on galle face hotel. the equivalent to the raffles, in colombo. the classic wing had a bathtub marked by murderous stains (straight from the classic psycho movie...) and the prison-slit of windows were dressed in aged mosquito nets. i slumped by body by chairs of a saltwater pool. content to stare blankly at the indian ocean for the third time in my life...(the last was at port louis, mauritius and chennai plus goa in india). i was at chennai's marina beach at 3pm in 2004. i left a day later. At the same time, the tunami swept in and took everyone by surprise. am taking it slow. not knowing when life will close again, i sharpen my stand, bend my knees. angle my hand and jump

into sweetpurple and the blue of full release as the cold sky witholds its judgement, and blesses the body's roots to hunger.

landscape. 2008

new year's eve by east coast, content to see families and independent scores of revellers bbqing the night away. the old smells of corn, chicken and prawn reminding me of an idyllic childhood spent in st john's island. the quiet spell was occasionally undercut by rhythms from sunset bay. they were playing the 80s...tots, teens, yuppies in berms and old men & ladies in jeans boogey the last hours away. i caught the sight of ships releasing their flares into the night as the clock struck twelve. airliners were making their descent to changi. they were several every minute. what is it like to arrive in a new country on the last hours of a year? or step onto seasoned ground as the new year came? the cabin must be draped in a party-mood. anticipations ahead.

we had one bottle of shiraz with us. some fine glasses to complete that old bond.


then the texts came...a friend asked for prayers. her friend's her 5 year old son drowned today. another former student contacted me online- a badly- timed breakup. she was in pain and needed to chat. i taught them both so the news still came as a shock. my friend was reminded of his own when the same thing happened to him 3 years back. all on the eve of the a new and suspicious year that can easily start in goodwill and close in bad fate. mortal death. relational deaths. no beginnings in sight. a stark bruise of sadness festering into grief. pointless are our attempts to control the tides of life when it throws and sharpens our absent fate on rocks. lives smashed by the safe shores of our giving, our sometimes blind and faithful dreams.

i no longer believe in the need for resolutions. there is also nothing more to believe or to cast away. what is urgent and real lies in the simple cold truth: to be more present to myself and others, just for today. what matters today may extend to the future. but the energies and opportunities present this hour will not return nor can they ever be reclaimed. there is a empty sense of freedom in the new air i breathe. a yet-to-be-named moment to come: when i am finally able to see the white rays of first light extend beyond the familiar forest of trees. walking, i home in on a song, the barren and celebrated road leading to the orphanage within.

rest

good that the year is ending soon. am well rested. never felt so ready for the year ahead. it could have been due to my recent backpacking trip. there are times when a new surge of awareness emerges from within, a momentary freedom from a life of self-imposed constraint and regiment. the temptation is to move on, thinking that all came by chance or even by fate. i struggle to recognise the presence and lordship of Christ in the middle of all these tides and movements in life.

i pray still each afternoon or night when i fall down to sleep. grateful that the sinews of my body work in accordance to the dreams and journeys on the sky and ground. there are quiet leaps made, to the quick comfort of a forgotten childhood. sometimes, i can only look back in wonder on the years of loss and bereavment that mark my schooldays. there is a deferred sense of arrival in all this. an awkward space between a fresh discovery and the old nostalgic need to steal home a stolen dream.

i no longer feel alot for terms like year-end 'resolutions' or the 'happiness' wished for, on a year that has yet to be lived. there is only one stark and unsentimental truth to all this hapless pondering: that life has little meaning apart from the relationships we forge with ourselves and others. there is also a deep spirit to our common bond, an awareness that may wound or redeem us in the same instance. this opens up a road we may choose to take on or ignore...the risk that comes from our giving as. opposed to the safety felt in holding back or being wary of our actual needs

before december

07...december twenty-fifth

sitting in a room facing the last patters of rain. the sky is dusted in orange orche, the last marks of monsoon dusk settling quietly into place. i look at my old entries and now, they suddenly appear thick, foggy and strange. much has changed. you sense the newfound space between the best of friends. some fall away. others walked ahead. i stood by a grove of white trees as they blossom into prayer; leaves of song uncovering other pathways, marking the distance between a wounded needy world and a needed sheltered cave.

a cluster of ashen dreams dissipates, in various intermitten memories, by years & batch, on the fire by the beach. the heaps are ready to be blown by the untested freedom found in wind. high above, a bright arc of night grows more inviting by the hour, making visions arrive, divided. it felled that old forest of dreams, making fresh light pour in.

i renew the native in me. someone not seen in a lifetime. rarely spoken. someone emerges from the valley.

someone yet to see.

and all this while, i never once forget how my father called my name, always in that still, insistent voice. i have never been lost yet i was found again.

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...may another year of care and meaning be found inside u, this christmas...thanks for making this year so complete for me.

when 2 short years pass u by....o6s11

Love is so short...

forgetting is so long.

pablo neruda

end of term...the closure of another year in school. i am reminded that any given time in my life is but a season.

i met s11 during the first half of may 2006 and saw them again in mid 2007...in between this span of time, i've seen some leaving the class while others stayed behind and worked the hard way. jc life is too short, with little time given to foster and nurture what matters most: relationships and inner growth. like many, they felt the brunt.

their vague affection for each other amid the snapping politics... remained even though the class gradually dwindled in size. still, i remember our early days in com lab 2, where lesson can leap anywhere from the intoxicating science of the x-men to the deathly detached sense of collective silence on capital punishment...

s11. somewhat boisterious in jc 1 but grew tired in faith as the terms rolled into year two. something else kept the class special and you are remembered for that always. i will always remember well your goodwill on the night so many of you turned up to say goodbye as i left for study overseas...the kind notes and jersey you sent to cheer me on cold and boring days alone in melbourne. the reunion we had again last july and the sacred ties and notes that made us one in that darkened room on our last day at school. you took the step to make your feelings known and helped all to recognise all that we have failed to value and forgive.

reconciliations are rare in the experience of most students during college life since time is so short. still, i take pride in being part of your renewal, your forgiveness, your letting go as we wrapped up 2 very intense, yet distant and significant years in the time u have known one another...

i hope your friendships remain and continue to grow in the many years to come...

* * *

thank u too for being and wanting to be...

a very special part of my teaching journey...

a clear and shining light...

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you thread on my dreams.

william butler yeats (1865-1939)

missed, missing...i.m

i.m.
blackie (1982-1995)
bobby (1983-1998)

"For awhile, reading your lines, i ran
on your trail so well i could never be lost.
And sometimes when you turned,
i was already there,
your very best friend."
william stafford

"i wanted this from you-
laughter... a child turning
into a boy, at ease
in the spring light, with friends...

i wanted this for you..."

andrienne rich

dogtots

2 excerpts from baudelaire's paris spleen, in which the poet records the affinity of a full & broken life shared with the city's strays ; wandering emblems of many forgotten lives...the receptive necessity that trails the urban experience of loss, and blesses it with soul...

we don't get much of these sights in singapore though many are also contained in several animal shelters here. one only needs to step out into cities like bangkok or phnom penh to see stray dogs wandering the city lanes in search of food and shelter...tough tramps of an improvished life that largely depend on its buddhist economy for sustenance and the will to survive.

"I know nothing more disquieting that the mute eloquence of those supplicating eyes that contain at once, for the sensitive man who knows how to read them, so much humility and so much reproach. He finds there something close to the depth of complicated feeling one sees in the tear-filled eyes of a dog being beaten."

"Away academic muse! I have no need of that pedantic old prude. I invoke the friendly, urban, living muse to help me sing of good dogs, poor dogs, mangy dogs, the dog everyone kicks aside because they are diseased and flea-bitten, except the poor man whose companions they are, and the poet who looks upon them with a brotherly eye...I sing the poor dog, the many dog, the homelss, roving dog, the circus dog...the luckless dogs whether it is those who wander alone through the winding ravines of huge cities or those who, with their blinking and spiritual eyes, have said to the abandoned man: "Take me with you, and out of our joint misery perhaps we can make a kind of happiness."

smiling thru' the winding cracks

the a-levels begin next week. you see the spiral in some of them. they do not seem as worried as you. some gladly smile through the winding cracks.

i sometimes wonder what goes on in the minds of students as they prepare for their exams. the nerves set in and there were many times when i felt more panic than them. but there also comes a time of quiet detachment as i allow each to take their path, and own their learning in ways they best know how: to be discriminate in using the methods taught, to watch and keep close vigilover the pits that loom ahead. plan well and avoid booby-traps. interpret within easy grasp and push an argument, through... with perfect teenage not kiddy clarity. avoid sweeping statements in the mind. bolster observations with modern evidence and ultimately, to write with focus, empathy and wisdom, knowing the sensitivity we all seek in our lives might shine in the sensible lines you are committed to write.

all the best, dear good students as you set sail on the rough winds ahead. be smooth in your flight. don't crash the rocks! always write with dignity and dogged persistence in the same thorough ways we've trained ourselves to live and to be.

i'll see you again, sometime... on that distant shore ahead...

Thought-Work by john o'donohue

Off course from the frail music sought by the words

And the path that always claims the journey,

In the pursuit of a more oblique rhythm,

Creating mostly its own geography,

The mind is an old crow

Who knows only to gather dead twigs,

Then take them back to its vacancy

Between the branches of a vacant tree

And entwine them around the emptiness

With silence and unfailing patience

Until what was fallen, withered and lost

Is now set to the fill with dreams as a nest.

to s11...

we wrote our stories together and held them in a book. i brought them thousands of miles with me, to remember each one of you. now the journey turns full circle and once again, i find you there. the same sparkle that drew me to you, the innocence kept.

these days are worth more than memory, beyond the fond sentiments we had. we claim back that morning, that circle we shared. we had a beginning and it goes on without end. this hour seals back the blessings gained: forgiveness and faith, renewal and grace. those missed and missing moments are filled again with the song of our names as we we run towards our journey's end...