all the people dave ever felt close to have either left him or passed away. a poignant account stated how he kept a picture of his younger brother, (whom he was close to but was killed in a road accident when they were children), inside his camp cupboard throughout his depression. sadly, not a single kin appeared in court to lend support to him. dave teo remained a lone soul till the end. he seemed to yearn for connection to the irrevocable loss sustained from childhood. i shall not speculate anymore.
The sentence was too harsh and could have been lighter in view of other mitigating or humane reasons even though the possession of live arms is itself a serious crime. the rare words spoken by the courts hold meaning beyond the prison...the same if not adapted version of what is found in scripture...justice tempered by mercy, if only and possibly healed, with words. "My heart hurts for you that so young a man will have to spend some of the best years of his life in prison and have to understand so many strokes of the cane, but i trust you understand a deterrent sentence is unavoidable in the circumstances. 
dave, you have had a very hard life. i hope that this unfortunate and traumatic wrong turn in your life will make you much more mature and a whole lot wiser and that you will spend the next few years reconstructing your young life. I hope that you will pursue your studies, listen to good advice from counsellors and learn many skills while in prison and that, upon your release, you will have a life full of meaning and purpose to honour the memory of your grandmother and your beloved younger brother. 
it has been written ' To everything there is a season.' There was a time when you loved, and there was a time when you hated. There was a time when you felt you wanted to kill, now is the time for you to heal. There was a time when you were broken down, now is the time to build yourself up. There was a time when you were at war in your being, now is the time to restore peace within."
it was your bawdy humour that kept my nerves alive. you make me laugh and the gloom mattered no more. you recognised the confinement
of home and forced me out, kept me going even though my brace gingerly held up. nowhere really to go but i am to smile again amid the pain...
we do not ask to be warded in hospital on most ordinary days. i took mine as a near-privilege, to be exposed to a hinterto unknown social setting, with a group of people i would otherwise be sheltered from. now i know how prisoners in wartime are able to bond in such powerful moving ways- a new patient walks in and others are eager to show him around the place...how to operate THAT bed, buttons not to press, meal rotations...just basic orientation but it does wonders to a bored and ailing physique-i find simple offers to help with lifting a chair even though my fellow patient was all tubed up and walking (!), sharing of daily papers (never mind your language proficiency), extra crackers, political gossip and minute news of each others' treatment process.
all nurses deserve a place in heaven. they embody the kind of qualities that heal people and make this progressive society a far better place. it's sad that doctors are still bestowed with more esteem somewhat...a regional staff of caregivers work here...myanmar, china, malaysia, philippines. they are multi-lingual, persuasive, humourous, instinctual, persistent, alert...each good soul bantered with patients in their own special way; one filipino teasing a stubborn patient with hokkien while the staff nurse shared her sadness about what her despotic government is doing to people in yangon. the only disturbance we felt were nights punctuated with quarterly measurements of temperature and blood pressure. we put up well with this small inconvenience. there is more than sufficient cheer and daily sunlight placed in an avenue (occasionally) visited by glum doctors.
am otherwise 'basking' gratefully with daily visits and care received...from my doc friends right from the first few hours of admission to kind and caring individuals from my family, 5th canticle, pioneer, and uncle philip who arranged for communion. am nourished in more ways than one - too distracted and moved by all these lightstreams of care to feel pity or worry about my lifelong condition or future. one of my neighbours, a sage-like uncle even came by and prayed for me in mandarin, sensing we both knew christ. 
there is a caring note sent via sms each day and delightfully-shocking gifts from friends: from a ta-pau version of crab bee hoon (john-check how the legs are split and sprawled..pun izzit?!?), to crayons (mee yoo), newsweek (gp colleagues), a collection of fresh and synthetic sunflowers (norien and ig) and playing cards from one strange uncle. i am still at a loss as to how some of this news reached the ears of my present batch of students, way before i was discharged even...thank u, people for your kind regards and care...i know everything is given in good faith.
pain. painful. pained. 
we flew into hakodate on an enormous 747 ANA jet unabashly coated with blobs and turds of pokemon fluff. amazed that they deployed a jet of this size for a mere 1 hour 20min flight from narita. thank God the stewardess did not serve us dressed as one of the creatures shown on tv! they are delicate maidens...with million-dollar complexions...
the route is rough and we have plenty of time on our hands...minimal shopping but plenty of exploratory drives and maximum reliance on earnest smiles, collins guide on japanese language and culture and an above-average EQ, i hope! it is a strange and unthreatening sense to be stranded here. so darn lost yet so assured to sense home in the warm manner and perplexed looks that meet us each time we pose a question of our whereabouts in this spankingly clean land of zero litter and quietly efficient recycling city...i have this simple faith that somehow, someone will come by and lead us to where we need to go. 
mrs nathan lashes wooden canes on bawling shelby..while she scotched-taped my vicious mouth, for having disrupted math class by proudly announcing to all, that your shorts were secretly pattered with poo. we watched godfrey chen's deluxe transexual kick with shock and awe...his tongue flickers like that red bitch from V while we countered him with tian long ba bu's yi yang zhi (laser-shooting fingers) and xiang long shi ba zhang (courageous dragon's 18 power blasts...)
we staged covert plots against mutual enemies like darren tan and competed like fools for jessie wong. where could she be right now? we talked about imposed spirit rumours in your haunted house; guan yin and virgin mary saying put even as your tank of curse-absorbent goldfish continued to bob, rot and die in spite of mom's weekly aquarium spree. there is macho chun and anna nicola smith giggling like macbeth's lost witches by a lone banana tree...while shaful generates his own paroxysm laugh at apple core's wife and mother soh who piles your sad desks with work and woe. you have never been off your addiction to transformers toys while i prefer to stick to marvel...my label that yours' amount to no more than tin-cans on the move still draws a dark spite from you.
To all- Julian is well: bright, warm and chripy. we are now discussing how his lifestyle is going to change following his discharge...he feeds on jelly daily. his stomach has been retained though it is only a quarter left. he can only whisper since the tubes and water-ban has left much of his voice-box in recovery. he looks very good, no loss of weight..his body bearing up with the terrible tauma it just went through. to all, faithful friends and even strangers who have sent very firm prayers...my friend has the courage to smile again. 
i woke up with images of death and anguish splashed on the front pages of papers. brought with me images of the cyclone & quake and its destructive impact on life. difficult images to meditate on, says jo. the first 45 mins was spent in aimless splattering of angry red juxtaposed against a deep & dark sky...frames of black were added later to contain the pain...the flowers are in ascension, beyond the transcendental white that separates 2 planes of existence...a sign of souls lifted upward, transfigured by the land's horrifying wounds. their colours are somewhat the same...not having forgotten what it is like, to suffer pain.
Stuart plans to be there tomorrow, and then Eddie arrives, so at least two old and trusted friends will be able to be with him and keeping a close eye.
