Greetings from Sweden! After 4 days in beautiful Paris, Glenn and I are finally in the hometown of Ingmar Bergman! The snow is about 5cm high on the ground and the temperature is around -10 degrees right now. The house that we're sharing with our landlady is quite lovely and I'll have to take photographs soon. In the meanwhile, I'm just going to update some photographs from before we left Singapore. It'll take some time for me to sift through the Paris pictures so I'll do a separate post for that (: I've lost all sense of chronology so here are the pix in random order:

My favourite kids <3

Team dinner for the Dec babies, but many couldn't turn up ):

Finally a catch up with my bez!

That's all for now! Will update soon (: 

Tonight Glennice and I will board the plane and make our way to Paris for 4 days before heading to Stockholm. Feels rather surreal, don't think it has hit me quite yet.

I like the idea of a "recovering journalist"; someone sick of mainstream media and the strict report writing guidelines. Sometimes when you write for too many reasons other than for yourself, words start to sound tawdry and dry, even when they're not meant to be. It's important to write for yourself; articles, press releases, campaigns, copywriting - all is fine and good, but none of them can bring the kind of solace a writer truly needs.

And what is a writer anyway? Simply someone who writes? Or someone who moves with the undercurrents of words, even when he has to swim upstream against them to get a feel of the way they flow; someone who knows that words have to be fought for and claimed, who knows that ellipses don't always mean it's the end of the story. Most importantly, someone who sees the value of silence - the gaps between what words cannot convey, the white space that sits quietly with black ink. Someone who knows the value of the unsaid amongst the said.

Language, like love

can build bridges
or burn them.
This much is known.
*
I take a word
and insert it into the
space between us.
Does that connect us? Only
if you take it in
and make it your own. Then
you take another word
and throw it back
to me. My turn.
*
This is about physics.
Taking a loose word, and
Stretching it, transferring all
Your rage and thought and
Passion into that taut pull.
Stretching it just beyond it
Capacity. And then letting go.
*
Whole strings of them.
You'd think they had
substance, the way we love
to throw and stretch them
out,  taut lines to peg
ordinary meanings on.
*
Or how about morse code
where language is always a series
of stops and starts;
Flash, flash, nothing, flash,
flash, nothing, flash.
The way we
decipher the silences,
you'd think love
was written in code.
*
In a language like love
there are only syllables
even a child could manage.
*
Children speak it. So
does grass, reaching
upwards towards air.
The language of trees
is heavy with love,
florid and accented,
we even give flowers
when we do not know
what to say.
You hear it in the
dreamy purr of the cat
curled up on the carpet
or on your lap, you can
listen to the orioles
shrilling, frantic,
and think it brings pleasure.
*
A fish lays eggs
its eyes staring straight
ahead, as if at nothing,
not wanting to look
back. Too small
and too soft to be marbles
the clear spheres form
in spurts of foam
rising to the surface
like thought balloons.
*
Love perhaps, like language,
happens. It's done, simply
because it can be done
and someone thinks
they want it to happen.
*
Perhaps language is most like love
when it is not there, when
it has to be looked for.
When it won't come
if called. When it leaves.
When we reach for it, just
before we realise
its absence.

By: Alvin Pang

Suddenly it's dark and here am I questioning everything silently in my heart. This hasn't been happening much lately, mainly because I've be consistently exhausted and sleep has been coming easily(ish). Life is so unpredictable and people can change so drastically; everyday I've to tell myself to enjoy the moment and cast uncertainty somewhere far inside the back of my mind. It's so easy to say that the beautiful part of life is about how fluid it is, but sometimes I wish I knew some things for sure.

The days have been going by pretty quickly and we're now counting down to the 9th. I'd like to think that I've got everything under control and am ready to go. The christmas and new year celebrations were lovely and I'm glad that 2013 ended on a lovely note. Not too sure what's going to be ahead in 2014 but I think I'm going to stay optimistic (:

So far all I've been thinking about are meetups and travel plans, there's also the sketchy issue about money lingering at the back of my mind - crossing my fingers that things will work out in Europe!

Think this year's gonna be a big one!