Jenny

Whenever I'm in the midst of writing a new script, I often try to dig into my own memories.

Either they are events from my past,
or people I've met,
or something I've read.

It becomes some heightened state of awareness, where I begin remembering things I thought I remember. At the same time too, I wonder whether what I remember had really happened or were they just product of my imagination manifested because of my loneliness.

There's always my memory of a person whose existence I gradually starting to question, as no one else seem to remember her at all.

No sign of her on Facebook (her name was too common).

No memory of her voice as we had never spoken to one another.
(I
was
shy
...?)

My last memory of her was my last day as the president of the English Language Club in high school. I was Form 5 and stepping down, my (handpicked) successor was someone from Form 6. (my choice was either a Form 4 junior whose work ethics I questioned, or a Form 6 outsider, I chose the latter)

I gave a farewell speech. To my surprise, she was in the room too. She wasn't a member of the club, but maybe she was there because she was a friend of my successor? (she was also a Form 6 student) Perhaps she was there to see her classmate take over the club?

I was almost half the age that I am now, and as I (probably) fumbled through the speech, the only feeling I felt then was how surreal the entire situation was. I cannot remember what I've said, yet I remember her seated on the second last row of the classroom. She wasn't paying attention to the speech, which was okay, I wasn't paying attention to it either.

Did I imagine her existence?
Could it be possible that the sheer crushing loneliness that I felt during the last few months of secondary school had prompted me to conjure an imaginary person in my mind?

If she is real, I doubt I will ever see her again.
(Not the luminous eyes nor the (dark brown?) hair tied up in a ponytail,
nor the constant pink flush no her cheeks.)

If she is real, I hope she is happy now.

7 x 7. 49th day of my grandmother's passing. Remembering a dream.

I returned to Tokyo last night, on the eve of Malaysia's Independence Day.

55 years ago, my nation's fathers fought for liberation and attained it, through unity and faith. 31st of August, 1957.

I love my country. But I think, judging from the current political climate, there isn't much for me to celebrate.

Aside from being Malaysia's 55th Independence Day, 31st of August, 2012 is also the 49th day of my grandmother's passing, or the 7 x 7. For Buddhist customs, 1x7 (the first week), 3x7 (the third week), 5x7 and finally, 7x7, are marked by a short praying ceremony.

I was around for both the first week and the fifth week.

On the 5th week (5x7), a ritual was held to put her plaque on the walls of a temple.

A movie leading to a dream leading to an imagined movie...

Last night, he started to watch a film by one of his favourite Hong Kong directors, Johnnie To. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Hong Kong's 15th anniversary handover, it just happened that he wanted to watch a familiar Hong Kong film with familiar Hong Kong actors. The film, ROMANCING IN THIN AIR, was a romantic drama with familiar trappings, part-NOTTING HILL, part-UPSIDE OF ANGER (he didn't know he could still remember this film), part-anything Nicholas Sparks.

A somewhat nightmarish dream I had to end the year 2011.

It's the last day of the year. I had a troubling dream this morning, even though my sleep was brief (9am to 1:30pm, yes my sleep patterns are odd).

A melancholic dream about dying once

I thought I had a strange enough dream during my afternoon nap, but when I went back to my place and finally slept, I had a stranger dream.

I dreamed that I was back in Malaysia again, doing something mundane at home. Then my mother revealed reluctantly that I died once, in Japan, but they brought me home, and I was alive again.

There were brief flashes of images, like a quick montage. I saw myself collapsing onto the floor somewhere at the streets, and was hauled back from Japan to Malaysia in a white body bag.

I didn't remember how I came back to life. Everyone around me were polite and nice to me. Did they know what happened?

I went through the entire dream feeling incredulous that I had died once and wondering how I died before. I also wondered whether I was to die again. Or just fade away. There were so many things I have yet to do. It was a melancholic feeling.

In the end I decided that "perhaps i will live forever."

Or "perhaps I will just live on, normally, until old age. Or something like that. As if the first death was just a dream."

And then I woke up.

A singer who became a Buddhist nun.

There are only two buses a day that go from Honjo to Tokyo, one at 11 in the morning, the other at 7:45 in the evening. Miss any one of them and I would have to take the Shinkansen train home (3200 yen for a ride). Obviously, I chose not to pay for such a fee (after taking one here two nights ago) after I was done with LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, I decided to wait it out for the evening bus.

I had already made backups with my hard disk, made a HDcam, burnt a DVD, it was 4pm. I headed to the lab for a nap.

Suddenly I was in the courtyard of a Buddhist temple, there were a number of monks and nuns before me. A nun was introduced to me by a monk, she had plain features, seemed slightly older than me, late 20s, or early 30s?

She is from 2004.

I had a strange dream.

A dream of a love story from my past, and the girl who went to Yokohama

I seem to dream a lot lately. Yesterday was strange. I woke up from a dream, and when I dozed off again later in the evening, I had another dream again.

Odd dream from an afternoon nap

I always seem to get the weirdest dreams from afternoon naps, I think. Just like moments ago, when I unknowingly slip into a nap while watching something and dreamed of someone who had plagued my mind for the past few weeks.

An odd, unexpected dream

On the first night I returned to Tokyo, I dreamed of someone I never thought I would dream of again. The last time I dreamed of her was two years ago, which I had chronicled in painstaking detail to my friend Sebastian during a melancholic rant in Valentine's Day 2008.

In my dream, she and I were both in some sort of a bare living room adorned with illogically minimalistic decoration and furnitures, bathed in ethereal white glow. Even though it had been nearly three years since I've last seen her, when she had seemingly vanished from my life with inevitable finality, and I myself never making any effort to find out where she was, meeting the dream-her again made me joyous, a joy mirrored by the smile on her face that I have seldom seen on the face of her real-life counterpart.

Together we spoke, about many things, all kinds of things, but none of them I can really remember. Perhaps we spoke about nothing, yet because we were merely speaking, nothing felt like many things, or everything, or anything. Her voice from my memories used to sound like a lilting whisper, yet the voice of the dream-her was boisterous and snappy.

Shocked to see old high school friend in a short film!

A few nights ago, I had a really bizarre dream.

The Girl With A Melancholic Face

Maybe it was the booth girls, or the cosplayers.

But when I went back to bed after breakfast this morning, I dreamed of a girl with a melancholic face.