as queer as a clockwork orange

I stand waiting under the street lamp for the green man to light up as I watch cars flash by. I try to peer into the tinted windows to catch a glimpse of the people sitting inside their encapsulated little world. I wonder where the lady staring out the taxi window is heading to: where life is taking her. Her blank face conceals a whole confused tangle of emotions: desperation, despair, frustration, joy, depression, failure, success, victory, and yet as the taxi rushes past, pulling her away from me, I will never know the story of her life, the story that brought her to this exact moment where my life and her life crossed paths.

The lady in the taxi, the person sitting next to me on the MRT, the barista I order my drink from, the singer on the album I’m listening to, the doctor who gave me my PPD skin test, they all look normal, just trying to get through the crap we face everyday all the same. And yet if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find the insanity that taints their world. The secret obsessions of each person slowly ripping apart their idealistic image of life, prolonged victories of the heart over the mind. Snippets of sinful action, of destructive words heard, of unforgivable failures, pile up like bricks of memories unwilling to leave, pushing these people closer and closer to the brink of mental insanity.

Sometimes it’s scary to imagine the possibilities in each human being we meet. We are just organisms living through our human imperfections. We breathe, feel, see, hear, just like any other person. And yet each one of us possesses a complicated history; a history that fabricates the turmoil that is the present. Our world is so small compared to the infinite universes we make of our lives.

Jason Mraz – We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
I bought this album without second thought, without taking my brother’s warnings into account just because I believed in Jason Mraz. I believed in his genius. But it turns out to be another one of those crappy follow-up albums that depends on the fame of previous album hits and feats with famous artists. As is my tradition, I played through all the songs in the album. None of them stuck. They were all boring, simple and similar, with the exception of maybe “The Dynamo of Volition”. It truly is a shame that in this album, he failed to bring out his amazing lyrical ability as he did in his last album Mr. A-Z. The tracks “Lucky” and “Details in the Fabric” are basically scams to get the fans of Colbie Caillat and James Morrison to buy Mraz’s album. When I first listened to “Lucky”, I was so horrified. The first word that came into my mind was transvestite. The thing that almost made my lunch come back out was that Colbie’s voice was so similar to Jason Mraz’s she sounded like a man. Not only was the song boring, but couple this with Colbie’s supposed feminine beauty, it just came out all wrong. In “Details in the Fabric” James Morrison is basically just a background vocal. Then there’s the awful chorus of children in ”Coyotes” that ruins the whole song.
Sure, I have to admit that his lyrics are still pretty awesome, but I really don’t understand all the hype about the song “I’m Yours” or any of his other songs. This album was, from its ugly packaging/cover to its blah content, just seemed to me like a low-budget production made just in time to keep riding the wave of his crashing fame. I guess it would be good background homework music.

Jon McLaughlin – Indiana
Another one of the albums I bought without second thought just because I was so in love with his voice in the song “So Close” in the movie Enchanted. Luckily, McLaughlin is no disappointment at all. A very well produced pop album by an amazing singer-songwriter, and piano in all songs. Couldn’t get any better than that. Although I must admit, the introductions to some of the songs are obviously just to flaunt his finesse on the piano and have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song, but they’re still wonderfully beautiful. If any of you are craving for some really awesome mainstream pop rock, Jon McLaughlin is the one for you. My favorite in this album is “Human”. The reality of the lyrics strikes me each time I listen to it. They should play that song on Heroes someday.

Sophie MIlman – Sophie Milman
A new and upcoming Russian jazz vocalist, she has one of the most unique jazz voices I’ve heard. It has a really comfortable fuzzy feel to it. Lisa Ono’s been overplayed. Luciana Souza and Madeleine Peyroux are getting old. Finally, there’s someone new. Look out for her in the future.

Dear TAS,

It’s finally time to say goodbye. After walking hand in hand through thirteen tumultous years, it’s time. I won’t miss you. You’ve become so much a part of me, I can’t get rid of you even if I wanted to. All my memories, my thoughts, my actions, my emotions have been molded, crushed, shattered by you. I am someone because of you.

In Kindergarten, you taught me how to fear and love everything that was American. I was led into a classroom echoing with an unfamiliar language and a teacher who was white and sprouted yellow hair from her head. But I picked up the language like a dusty book on the shelf and read it with wonder and delight. I was plunged into a pool of new ideas, swimming freely through cartoons, picture books, comics; each one planting their unrealistic and ideal morals in my naive mind. Equipped with more freedom than I could handle, you let my creativity and curiosity run wild. I learned to whistle. I secretly cut the hair of my long-haired classmate to see what would happen. I napped. I laughed. Love was always happily ever after.

But things change while we’re trapped in the same body we’re cursed or blessed with. In third grade, I discovered love. An innocent love that I yearned for everyday. It wasn’t bounded by the norms that so thwart the complicated love that this world believes in. There were no consequences, no future, no past, and a happily ever after…for a while anyway. The next year, he was no longer in my class and he left not long after. I didn’t even realize I was in my very own silly tragedy.

Those happy and innocent days ended with the first fat C I received in middle school. Thus the hatred began. You instilled in me such high standards that I could not achieve. You taught me to despise myself when I didn’t believe in myself. I learned to hate my own self-consciousness. But you loved me a little more than everyone else. That was when I started to run on the track, in the park, in the classroom, through all the spontaneous fires that middle school has to offer. And when I won, I felt so very absolutely ready for high school.

During high school, I loathed you like no other. Frankly, I wanted to divorce you. You flung me through depression, ecstasy, anger, defeat, victory and yet I was forced to stay with you. After all, you were the only one who could make it all happen. Well, I made it through alive, albeit a little burnt and disfigured. And I just want to let you know that I hate you for screwing up my eyes, for crowding my mind with thoughts that aren’t good for my mental health, for treating me with failure when luck was almost on my side, for making me force myself to give up my hobbies for academics, and for giving me heartbreak. But I love you for sparing me my life and allowing me to finally wrap you up in a lovely box so I can push you into a little corner of my brain as another one of those fading nostalgic memories. I love you for creating a fighter, a soldier in me out of the wreckage.

Thank you for ruining and saving my life.

Your ex-student,
Jane Lock

P.S. You’re the best teacher the world could ever ask for.