okie. they're gone now...

eh...where's my LG gone?

Praise the Lord! I've finally ... YES, FINALLY completed my ECE assignment. Totally dreadful. Now, I have to squeeze what'ever's left of my brain juice to do my ETE assignment due TOMORROW. Yes... that's right, I haven't started on it yet.

Although it's only 600 words, still, I really hope for an A. My last one got a B, and my tutor expects me to churn out an A piece of work this time round.

Missed two lectures today, can't be bothered. I had the best massage last night. It was superly good... wah... :)

Perhaps I should paste the poem i'm writing on, as well as the topic. Maybe some comments will flow in before 10 tonite... HINT!!!! :P

(a) Write a detailed analysis of any ONE poem on this course. You may wish to consider the effectiveness of a poem in providing social commentary or witness, or insight into human experience.

OR

(b) The value of a local poem lies in its ability to reflect on life in Singapore. Bearing this statement in mind, discuss how any one poem by a local author offers insight into the Singapore context.
Close reading of the poem MUST be evident in your essay.

Void Deck

Alfian Bin Sa'at
Where the neighbourhood wives,
After a morning at the wet market,
Sit facing the breeze
To trade snatches of gossip
About leery shopkeepers,
The local louts,
(Like that fella who's always drilling his walls ñ
Gives me migraine)
And that mad woman
Who throws things from her window.
With careful put-downs they
Fashion boasts, about stubborn sons,
Lazy daughters, who by some miracle or mistake
Always score well in class.
When words falter,
Gestures take over: pursed lips, rolling eyes,
Animated hands adorned by bangles of
Gold, jade, steel, string.

And children orbit around them
Laugh without diction ñ
Their games of tag a reassurance
That there has been no hothousing
Of who is unclean, unwashed,
Untouchable. When they break out
Into some kindergarten song,
One almost believes in a generation
Cleansed of skin-deep suspicions,
And free from the superstitions of the tongue ñ

And old folks sit like sages
To deploy chess pieces with ancient strategies.
In a corner, a caged bird bursts
With the song of its master's pride
And wrinkled women breathe, through
Tai-chi-tuned windpipes, the operatic melody of the air...

All a wanton fantasy.

Eyes reveal a meeting-point
For loners and loiterers:
A sense of things reduced-
Conversations that trickle through
Brief noddings at lift landings,
Teenage rhetoric scrawled, in liquid paper,
On the stone-table chessboard,
(Where the king used to sit)
The grandiose house-selling dreams of residents
Compacted in anonymous letterboxes;
As an afterthought, an old man pees
Under a public phone.

A place to be avoided, this,
How in its vastness it devours hours.
Little wonder then,
Why residents rush through void decks
Back to the cramped comforts of home
As if in fear of what such open space might do
To cosy minds.

Published in One Fierce Hour (1998)

actually there are other poems... but i cannot think liao. too lazy to cut & paste... argh. actually too many lah. :)

My shoe strap broke before i got out of the car for school today. sigh.