second home

i never knew it was so hard to say goodbye...

i read the notes you've written-

on bright cardboards and binded reports

embracing the long hours we spent, hammering knowledge into shape

and the tedious research that revealed more about you

than the technical data you tried to understand.

unknown to you, each line seals these eight years whole.

and i think how long this journey's been-

to walk a trail i was confident i could never be lost.

these days i still find myself pretending

that a simple act of will
may hold back time,

distracting me from feeling afraid

to leave the common ground we shared.

be it false or honest dreaming

this constant affection will keep alive these years we shared,

help us revisit once more, the moment when courage taught us to find our separate freedoms again.

the remaining months will be strangely peaceful.

i pray we may soon find our own light,

to shine on each other for life,

even as the years draw close.

going after

"The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road, pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, for the family knows it is to return, but for the moment in his limited understanding, he is being left alone, forever, and he has to run and run to survive..."

charles schulz

leaving, unsaid

rilke writes that 'departures create a burden within our emotions.' i sensed traces of it today, attending the last mc retreat for the year. the pictures we've taken, perhaps for the last time, captured a moment we would remember forever; our laughter locked in recognition and lost again, in our hour of forgetfulness...

there are more words to be said. words i can't get right. that morning beside labrador beach ends too quickly...and we walk away, still looking for meanings which make us whole.

waylaid

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

...Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must have within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

wallace stevens: 'sunday morning'

1997

rummaged through my old shelves and retrieved a note book from the past. written in 1997, the years spent in university... learning the taste of first loves and its sight and touch. the long yet fleeting hours which tranced and haunted me from the start...cummings echoes its tenderness best when he scripts it against the scentfalls of flower and rain and the hands that held the precious little left from those days... something still remains...



(i do not know what it is about you that closes
or opens: only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody:
not even the rain has such small hands...

e.e.cummings:
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

a trace of your life

You are always there above me, and I rise toward you in my mind. I shall go beyond even this force which is in me, this force which we call memory, longing to reach out to you by the only possible means to to cling to you in the only way it is possible to cling to you...But where will the search lead me? Where am I to find you? If I find you beyond my memory, it means I have no memory of you. How, then, am I to find you, if I have no memory of you?

st augustine

writing within, from afar...

i must, before i die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that i have never said yet --- a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and fearful passionless force of non-human things...

bertrand russell (1888-1914)~ selected letters

october after

when was the last time i said goodbye? i learnt as a child, when mom cried at grandpa's wake. years later, i returned to the cemetery for my uncle's burial. i stood, numbed in grief when cousin's body was brought to mandai last october. my aunts lean with their hands on the glass which separate our lives from his'. i never forget the wails that pierced the air, when his coffin moved to the furnance, never to be seen again. at sixteen, blackie was hauled to the pound. and no one told me so. i promised not to let bobby undergo the same fate. he lived his last life, riddled with cataract & paw cancer. at twenty-four, i put bobby to sleep. he never knew why. i held bobby tight even as he lay shocked...the whines...his cry... asking, why? at twenty-four, i wept bitterly as bobby laid limp on my arms. i allowed my own friend to die.

i visited my grandma who lived alone. a week before i left for melbourne. i remembered how she waved her wrinkled hands from the fifth floor even as her tired eyes strained to see me go. i walked and left a part of my soul behind...a trail re-opened within my heart to retrieve our past when she walked the kampung dirt road at six in the morning and boarded the schoolbus with me. the empty lessons went but she waited patiently in the canteen as i finished my paltry food and carried me home.

a different kind of death and parting lies ahead. eight years in waiting... like late autumn leaves falling, near the edge of winter. every leaf has a life and story. a single chair sits in the corner of this poem. behind, a setting sun. it waits for meaning. an unmarked hour, another chance, to say goodbye.

to pioneer alumni....

dear folks...we have not forgotten you. you bear within you many personal chapters of college history and your own experiences ........do participate in this and help us complete our tapestry if keen....i trust in your support

Student Handbook 2009 will feature quotes and photos from our students, alumni and staff. This will help archive our thoughts and memories as we approach our 10th year. The quote could be your personal life philosophy, advice you want to give to pioneers, a memory from your JC days, what you learnt or gained from your life at PJC etc. You do not need to restrict yourself to one quote as you may want to share a memorable moment and an inspiring quote etc. For the photo, please submit a moment captured of your PJC days -- something unusual, funny, cute or expresses something -- a moment, a scene, an artistic piece -- rather than the usual 'class-group' photos. The photos will be printed in black-and-white or sepia and not in colour. Please submit your photo/quote with your FULL NAME AND CLASS and (if you are alumni) WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW (e.g. university, year and course of study OR occupation/company to pioneersh10@gmail.com. We reserve the right to edit your quote or crop your photo depending on the layout of the page.

refuge

If we were not so single-minded

about keeping our lives moving

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence

might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves

with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us

as when everything seems dead in winter

and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count to twelve

and you keep quiet and I will go.

pablo neruda

meant to be

Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens...

william blake

5th canticle in song

5th Canticle Choir...

Church of St Mary's of the Angels, Singapore

http://www.stmary.sg/

in dedication to adeline and adrian on their birthdays...

hey...i wasn't joking when i said i'll sing with all of you till the day i drop dead and die. it's been close to 8 years. i joined way back in 2000. freshly enslaved in work...withdrawn and cornered myself in church. grew cynical of empty alleluias and 'praise till the break of day' jolly molly emotionally invincible groups. somehow, i led myself forth with your music...not knowing why but for certain, moved by your quiet devotion to Christ.many have come and gone, rejected the routines of every passing year. i looked back, still shocked and surprised i stayed behind. by the way, we were down to 3 at one stage. but we hung on, prayed like crazy, asked God to send more members to grace his harvest of song....there was little to disappoint us. in time, several trodded by. started with law and jo and many more of you. we now become captives of our own joy...taste and see the goodness of simple friendship, lost in moments especially when we gather for easter feast. ..... you know something? i learn to laugh again at the silliest little things around corners of my bright forgotten world. together, you help awaken the last flush of light from person to person, once unnoticed, now rekindled.every sunday becomes quite complete by itself. you turned my voice home. and the memory of age-old hymns learns to shine like an unspoken prayer...our hands joining, our choral breaking, our common bread at the close of day.

the only life you could save

i like to think this poem precedes the previous entry...ziz, kristy, shang, astro, jolene, regina, john loh (any more?) who have gone overseas for their tertiary studies...

for you :)

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,

though their melancholy was terrible.

It was already late enough,

and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen branches

and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly recognized

as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do the only thing you could do

-determined to save

the only life you could save.

~ mary oliver ~dream work

2 former students...doing law in london

i remember them for different reasons.

shang chatted non-stop when he visited the college library back in 2000. amused me with his highly articulate, somewhat stubborn relentless pursuit of knowledge and stinging critique of singapore's education system. he knew what he was in for though he was only 16 then. one of my finest students who kept discussions going even though the entire class was dead like a mortuary. incidentally, shang always topped gp and escaped certain execution when he admitted writing close to 10 pages on the possibility of the 3rd world war in the a-levels gp exam. obtained a rare distinction for that innocent stunt. his intellectual passion must have got him away. he applied for law , got rejected twice but grew to understand he will never be happy with ntu's mass com. he would not settle for less. fought one more time and entered law on his third try. now tackling comparative legal studies on an exchange programme in London. his blog http://shangjun.blogspot.com/ details his journey.

i know he's happy :)

aziz didn't quite fit into his arts class. some judged that he was arrogant. but none knew he was diving into in a zillion community involvement projects which were not even accredited by the college. like me, he loved the outdoors and mastered rock-climbing, diving, mountain trekking and other height-defying stunts straight after his As. never knew him well till we met up for drinks and runs separately after the exams. discovered he was a much misunderstood soul who was far too mature for his peers. ziz was the top arts student that year but still, did not manage to get a place in law (what is wrong with our law faculty?!?). well, he just left for better shores, this time to UCL (ironically better ranked, i was told!) for legal studies. he said he will change. i know that will be (delightfully) inevitable. and it is good.

2 lawyers in the making....and many many others whose lives i've been privileged to share and know. having taught them was only a fraction of the story. .. being a part of their formative search helps me experience a deeper sense of pride for what what they will eventually discover in another land... letting themselves be found along the way.

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost

And found and lost again and again; and now, under conditions

That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business..

t.s eliot: east coker

regional animalities

the above title came from a paper which was featured in Focas (2007); a forum on contemporary art and society. many papers presented in this journal catered to issues and topics dealing with the role of fauna and its socio-political representations in asian societies. it took a leap of faith to turn back the clock and recall the exact period my association with animals first began...it started with keeping pets which took on an insatiable pace whenever i have enough place or space to call my own...

these are among the various spendid (exotic, for want of a better word) creatures i've kept as pets since i was a child...i could have been a low-brow curator if i had my way. you'll never catch me alive with goldfish or guppies...i think they lack personality. the ones who have left the deepest impression...

any dogs will do (feral, pedigree, mongrel), an uncommon cat, soft-balled rabbits, incestuous hamsters, tiny white mice, earthy earthworms, vegan beetles, temperamental lungfish, wasteful piranhas, bloated electric catfish, stunning swamp eel, albino african clawed frogs, siamese fighting fish, elegant water stick insects, paddling water boatman, mandarin salamander, japanese newts, chirpy budgies, arrogant mynah, bright golden oriole, praying mantis, grey doves, bullfrogs, red crabs, adaptable mudskippers (mine lived on fresh water for over a month!), slimy caecilians, and tens of hundreds of other aquarium fish species...except for each of my dogs, it never struck me to record a picture of them each time they arrive, live, die or go away (my first hamster is still listed in the missing rodents list since 1984!)...

other wild ambitious hopes have since colonised my dreams-

volunteering at the zoo rekindles my deep-seated interest (from young) to further explore the lives and habitats of animals. if there is a way to understand our animal archetypes, i wonder what will our choice of favourite animals reveal about the aspirations, values or personalities we live by? manatees, sloth, giraffes and hippos are among my favourites so far. common traits; slow, languid, gentle unless provoked (except manatees). selective of the company they keep, they value their solitude and don't quite believe in taking life on the fast lane.. i caught the sloth for the first time during practice training at the zoo last weekend. it came so close the divisons parted and i saw it up close...tussling with the malayan flying foxes in their eager jostle for long beans, bananas, carrots and fruits...inexplicable moves... and i was in awe.

a poem by w.s merwin celebrates this sacred kinship witnessed that day.

witness

I want to tell what the forests were like

I will have to speak

in a forgotten language

docent 2008

i've been committing most weekends for the zoo docent (latin: to teach ) course held in the singapore zoo for the past 3 months. exams (mcq and short response!!!) are due this sun...need to know everything about rainforests and out of desperation, even dug out my niece's pictorial encyclopedia (for children!) for some good old-fashioned knowledge-chomping. it's been donkey-years since i took my last exam...and the skills are all lost...fancy teaching students how to manage their own stress and now, fumbling on my own...the zoo invested big-time on us volunteers and i'm thrilled to be able to conduct my own guiding walks and live-specimen handling sessions (mostly giant stick insects and caterpillars (yes, i conquered my phobia for walking prickly marshmellows) for visitors. the archer-fish are for taking too.just ask for free live crickets from the keepers..i'll be manning the mangrove tank soon! i thoroughly enjoy getting behind the scenes to be in close contact with rare and endangered species which would otherwise be out of bounds to all vistors. for example, i learnt that these giant aldabra tortoises do grunt and hiss when pissed and are not to be trifled with...but that what's they hope for. except for one temperamental female (ahem) the ones i fed enjoy having their patted, or their necks scratched when they eat. shocking to know they were almost hunted for extinction by early explorers enroute to africa during early 19th century.we dabbled in insect preservation last week...csi on a mini scale. thank God i took on a scorpion where there was less goo to extract from its thorax. my mates at the other end had to pull out unlaid eggs from a giant tree nymph which smelled like a cold blend of sour poo, over-riped durian and crushed gecko faeces. the sharp scent of yesteryears punctured the air in the form of unspeakable milky substances that oozed from insertions made on soft swollen abdomens...the smell of entomology was tremendous. everyone wanted to stay away from the hissing cockroaches of madagascar...we learn to breathe on ozone-friendly air fresheners that day. still, the awesome sight of a mounted rhinocerous bettle in flight made the effort all worthwhile...i didn't fix this, of course. this giant is one of the strongest bugs in the animal kingdom able to lift " up to 80 times its own weight...equivalent to a human carrying 80 cars...." more truths lie ready to be unpacked in the weeks ahead...people, come visit if u happen stroll by on a weekend !

reunion on teachers' day 2008

we bumped into 3 of our former students, zong (00S22-class of 2000), joanna and valane (01A03-class of 2001) on teachers' day dinner last night where 2 schools held their staff dinners in the same hotel. a chance-miracle closing the years that time set for us.

of course we were 'shocked' to discover they have become teachers themselves. the 3 former pioneers are now serving in clementi town secondary doing the same subjects, literatures in english (they still use our notes!) we taught them so long ago...while zong took the rare combo of music and history. that same morning, shawn and hui (04A04-class of 2004) came by and met the tired lot of us...and in a second, helped us look between the past and present space and the gift of self which they unknowingly carried along.

morning breaks. along the same corridor. and the night was just the close of another simple day. but we paused a little longer to capture moments that kept our vocation alive with meaning...the colleagues who have become lifelong friends...the same students who used to vex us return once more to bless the lives we led...unknown to all, each played a part to help us weather the difficult & unspoken moments in this profession. these pictures reflect some of the songs we penned. we expect you to take them away...never to return. we were happy to write them just for you, so that you can set them free, and move on to discover your own place in the widening channels of the open sea... but now and then, you still return to the same shore of your first dream, if only to say "i remember and hey 'cher'...thanks for everything..." that grace alone is sufficient for me...

one ride for a lifetime

credo one-

we carry on being young & nubile just hours of our birth. as toddlers, we make new myths of our own. we climb to the summit just above our teenage years only to catch the ride of our lives, heading the thrill of adulthood, far away from the sombre thought of staying still....

credo two-

"doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

mary oliver: The Summer Day