Blank Doll sits still.

It is a common phenomena, I think, that you forget what you want to write about when you finally can. Our dear Louis XVI, after all, famously wrote 'rien' in his diary on the day the Bastille was stormed.

I am at home again. I am clean and the place is silent. I have control over my own time and actions once more. Certainly, there exists an element of surrealism to my civilian life now for I am now also part of another world.

The army is a peculiar place. I cannot say that I have no enjoyed my brief stay in the army and I hope that I will continue to do so. Nonetheless, I cannot say that it has not been frustrating, that it has not been tiring, that it has not been nerve-wrecking, that it has not been hard.

I am who I am. I am proud and pampered with a certain knowledge of what makes life worth living. Above all, I have dignity. The army has taken it from me. My hair shorn, my vestment changed and homogenised with a thousand other people, my neck enchained with that thing they aptly call a dog tag. I am shouted at and made to obey people whom I would scarce look at along the street, whose dispositions I scorn. All measures of station beyond the barbed-wire confines of the military stand for naught and I find myself at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

At the same time, the army has also allowed me to befriend people whom I would otherwise have overlooked on the street. I confess to being something of a snob at times and perhaps it is folly on my part though it remains my conviction that it is this which preserves my pride. I have come to know people whom I can trust, people whom I can work with and there is no sense of rivalry, no backstabbing. The commensal spirit is so strong that it takes all of one's strength to fight for one's individuality.

Then there is the system. One of the most mundanely inefficient and stupidly dull systems that Man has in his misguided ingenuity created must be the military system. Everything has to be standardized but all wrongs make a right. We spend pointless hours waiting for decisions to be made only to go through a minute of panic and chaos. We are forbidden to do so many things for the sake of Order and Neatness even if it means forsaking pragmatism. Were it a civilian organisation, I would have sent a letter of complaint to the manager already but as it were, the system is also closed.

Not just closed, but insular. I begin to understand why so many coups began in the military. There is a faint air of distaste for civilians, a sense that civilians remain ignorant and that the burden of a military's responsibility to safeguard the sovereignty of a country imbues them with some special precedence. Nobody is allowed to enter and the publicity generated for the public is merely that, publicity. In the end, I am glad that the Singaporean military is placed under the jurisdiction of MINDEF and that is placed directly in the hands of civilians.

Yet one remembers that individuality is also chaotic and chaos can translate to vulnerability. What a remarkable structure the military is, that it may gather so many disparate elements and enforce order on them. One sometimes forgets when one is in the military that it is itself a paradox that lies at the heart of human nature. The dichotomy that exists between order and chaos, the organisation and the individual, conformity and originality- all these are reconciled by sheer effort. One comes to understand the screaming, the punishment, the callousness, the occasional brutality, the brusque dismissal of civilian comforts, the regimental silence of rank and file, the determined ruggedness for all these serve to introduce order where order should not be found. A band of people who fight, without discipline, is but a mob. It is regimentation and the subordination of the entity to the interests of the state and the nation that makes it an army.

Having said all this, I have to see it also from the perspective of an individual. I love Singapore, I really do. I go through all the hardships of National Service, endure the humiliation of being subjugated to people who would otherwise be beneath me by measures of education, background and merit but at the end of the day, the sight of the Singapore flag being raised is enough. These two years will be my parting gift to the motherland that I have grown to love so fervently and truly, I do believe I would fight for her. Though I have chosen my dreams over my country, I will say this- National Service is worth the pain, the sweat, the despair, the drudgery, the panic, the fear solely because I love our country.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits up straight.

This is it. Two whole, painful years.

I will survive this, I will.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll weeps.

So, so tired. Argh.

Lunch at Marmalade Pantry where I tasted foie gras for the last time before I enter NS where I'll be lucky if I get white rice instead of instant noodles. I haven't eaten a single packet for the past two years and I think I really will shiver and throw up if I have to eat them now.

A little shopping afterwards but as with everything that Mummy does when she's working, it was rushed and hectic and devoid of all pleasure. We walked from Orchard to Dhoby Ghaut within half an hour while managing to buy stuff from L'Occitane at Taka and then Robinson's at Centrepoint before heading back home.

If ashen could be used to describe complexions, my face must be that now. There's this strange minty taste in my throat and I feel like I could vomit any moment.

I think I need sleep.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll spends and spends.

Ok, for the record, I am very broke and need a) a job b) somebody to give me money c) money d) an inheritance. Then again, the military will claim me for two entire years and friday looms.

I had this strange nightmare/surreal dream last night where I was stuck in this place running away from something.

Jogged in the morning. Ran some errands for Mummy. I can't believe I actually managed to locate the Great Eastern Building in the middle of Raffles Place with nothing but the map, my sister and my pair of shades. Such a great feat of accomplishment for me.

Lunch with Jo thereafter at Sun with Moon which piles on the carbs. I should have ordered the sirloin or something. Anyway, my sister was really amused by Jo and we were all very amused at the funny waiter who gave us a thimble of apple vinegar when I ordered one for Jo (since I drank hers without telling her I was sick :O ) and so now we know how much water they use to dilute it with.

I ended up buying a CD for myself when I really don't have the money to. Oh and you know, I went to L'Occitane and couldn't resist buying all my christmas gifts from that place so there. At least I'm not so broke that I have to downgrade to Body Shop.

Trailed Jo around looking for her book which was considered a success since finding a pair of nice, cheap suspenders proved impossible. Met Jeremy at Gap. Erm, lol?

Tired out. All I really want is a glass of cold water and a blanket. Simple comforts, simple comforts. Monastic comforts so when I go into NS, I won't miss having a maid at my beck and call, won't miss proper food.

Leave, don't go away.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits down and sleeps.

You asked me what I thought was love. Well, I gave it some thought.

Love is not the lovers' embrace haloed by the soft, white glow of dawn. It is the grip of the rusted vice and the lash of the silken night.

Love is not the forever afters. It is the instant of fear, the crystallisation of age, dread and mortality that settles on your skin when death comes.

Love is not the quiet walk through the park with the little children running around and the dalmatian leaping ahead. It is the violent rape in the anonymity of the savage forest with naught a single person and the last thing you see before the pain consumes you is the floating sliver of a dandylion.

Love is not the fragility of a chin held between tender fingers. It is the aftermath when the hand closes tight and blood tints unwilling lips a dark rouge, when that inner bestiality that is more human than bestial takes over and love yields to lust.

Love is not the sweet warmth of breakfast the day and the gentle whistling coming from the kitchen. It is the hangover in the afternoon, breakfast at the lobby with more champagne than eggs and nothing spoken of the night before.

Love is not. It just isn't.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll eats dinner.

Having been depressed for the past two days, Mummy has very kindly brought me to the Raffles Grill at Raffles Hotel to have dinner there. It was brilliant, almost sublimal though not quite there yet. Unfortunately, I did not get to eat the duck liver and the tenderloin but I had the privilege of partaking in their seafood degustation which was excellent.

Cocktails first. I had a Bellini. There is something so wonderful about being able to order a cocktail by name without looking at the cocktail list and then the waitress taking note with a smile. The assumption that they can provide you with almost anything you may want to eat or drink is something you have to experience yourself. They give you this chilled glass, pour a measure of peach liquor from a little bottle and then comes the bubbly- a very rich, smooth Tattinger no less. I would have ordered three more if not for the fact that I didn't really want to get drunk with Mummy there and falling over the table before food was served is so not glam.

Amuse bouche was ok. I liked the soup alot though. It was this froth of green pea which had a nice, deep flavour to it with little lobster ravioli in it. For a little cocktail glass-ful of it, the intensity of flavour was really surprising.

Entree was this salmon tartare marinated most beautifully with an aspic of scampi, the two complementing one another so brilliantly and made even more so with the trail of creme fraiche and caviar by the side. Mummy really liked this dish.

Then came the oysters. Oysters go so well with champagne, seriously. There were the sweeter American oysters as well as the salty ones from France. At the centre was this luscious gem so much larger than the rest and it was so fresh, all that essence of the sea spilling out in a bite.

Now this dish, my sister will kill me for not being there. A pot of seared scallops (the size of which may be approximiated by making a circle with the thumb and index finger with a thickness of at least an inch) braised with cepes and a voluptuous butter sauce. It went very well indeed with the olive bread which was studded with little bits of olive and smelt really good.

The piece de resistance was the lobster dish of course. A whole lobster prepared in three different styles. The body simply basted in its own juices, the claw served cold while the remaining bits chopped and formed into a disk of orgasmic deliciousness with some sort of pumpkin cream. It must be disturbing to see me eat when I enjoy my food so much.

Then the dessert. Roasted fruits slathered in a champagne sabayon and then baked once more. The fruits melted in your mouth, yielding with caramel sweetness yet bursting into that last note of tartness as if in defiance. The champagne was a nice touch to the sabayon as compared to the usual white wine that is customarily used, its taste richer, its colour deeper.

With tea, the meal ended. Give me food this good over sex any day. No wonder dear Kipling was so enamoured of the food at Raffles.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll eats pie.

Alot of people focus on the separation between the state and the church in the last century but few celebrate the separation between the state and the labour unions or guilds as they were called. It could just be me but I find it fascinating that up till the seventeen century, France still had specific guilds for such duties as selling soft drinks (limonadiers) and cutting hair (coiffeurs). The Italian City-States were also foci of strong guild control to the extent that the leaders of these guilds often formed the oligarchy that ruled cities like Florence and Venice. I think the line between nobility and the guilds was quite undefined, especially in the cities where burghers crossed the line between the peasantry and the nobility. Think of all the rent-seeking involved. Wow.

Anyway, I have no idea why I wrote that except to say that my maid makes some mean parmesan omelette and is such a genius for giving me bread with peanut butter on it instead of just plain butter. Oh, and dinner at the Raffles Grill tonight.

I know I have the cocktail dress, slight trapeze line in mind but a new idea's beginning to creep up on me involving an apertheist's royal fetish but I'm not done with tweed and deconstruction yet. That's like, jumping two seasons ahead.

Je peux et je vais souvivre sans toi, tu sais.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll eats.

I am on a reading binge right now because the notion of effacing my individuality for two years scares me. I don't mind the rigour or the physical exertion. I do object to the conformity of that particularly uninspiring mentality that informs the miliary.

Ils sont pareils mais ils ne le se voyent pas.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll

Yesterday was graduation night. I spent the entire morning obsessing over a piece of handkerchief before spending the afternoon obsessing over my hair. It turned out well in the end, my ensemble.

What is there to say, I think everybody must have already described yesterday's events. The food sucked. The entertainment wasn't really worthy paying attention to except for certain parts. I suppose what was most important was that everyone got to see everyone else at their best for the last time while the air of shared experience still lingers. Took alot of pictures so I shall have to find a way to get my hands on them. Kris' dress turned out well I thought, seeing that I dashed out that design with the extra half an hour at the end of some literature A level paper. The rest of the girls looked gorgeous, more so than usual. Jo was her usual blase too-cool-for-this. Akesh had brilliant hair, Steven some very nice clothes, I couldn't recognize Tong, Samtan with a nice shirt and Darius was just, wow.

Momo sucks, lol. Was it the smoke, the crowd, the general atmosphere or the lousy drinks? I'm not sure. Ah well, at least I had my friends there with me and it was sort of funny to be sitting next to Siva who has been catching me for my hair for the past year because he totally didn't recognize me in the dark. Pity it was a tuesday so Equinox closed really early. Went off to someplace else after that to spend the rest of the night.

What have I learnt? There's a part of me that's still growing. I don't really like the looks of it yet but ah well. Oh, and I swear I could live my entire life in a suit, seriously. I'm going to get as many tailored pieces as I can from now on.

Got home by 5am, slept at 6. Woke up at 9 with a splitting headache. Ate breakfast, went back to bed till 5pm to get ready for some SKII event with Mummy which I'd forgotten about. Ah well, they had good white wine and champagne there so it was all good. You know, when I think about the Parisian clubs and the fashion events I will no doubt attend and organise in the future, botox and facelifts definitely sound attractive. Ended the day with dinner at Hot Stones. Had my hands burnt by the stupid plate.

If it sounds as if I'm tired then maybe I am. I'm a little angry though I'm not sure why. I hate my little bouts of anger so here's a song that I like and which makes me want to cry except I don't think I have the extravagance of emotions to do so:

I'll fascinate you

for awhile

My hands can wave to please

So well

When I wake to realize all I've done

I'll be breaking strings

And all you're gonna feel

is untied

I will not stay if you ask me to stay

Do not ask me to stay, because I will not stay

Why do we always collide

Stuck on two different sides

Your resignation

Don't simplify

It's not always good about

your life

When I wake up to find

All I've been is unkind

All you're gonna feel is untied

Untied

Why do we always collide

Stuck on two different sides

Why do we always collide

Stuck on two different sides

Why do we always collide

Stuck on two different sides

Why do we all...

Why do we all...

Collide by Rachael Yamagata.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll talks story.

"Your grandfather was a great man."

Not all the men in my family are weak, some of them are ever remarkable. My grandfather has become a legendary character, his soul crossing the chasm that divides the living from the dead to find me. I am informed by memories of him that are not my own but which fills me with a sense of awe anyway.

If I want to know about my grandfather, I have to ask my parents, my uncles and aunties and my grandmother. My grandmother tells me the most about him. Born in Fujian, my grandfather was born to a family of merchants. He was the few from his generation who chose an education, an English one, even though unlike the rest of the scholars who became revolutionaries, he chose to return to the tradition of his family. "Your grandfather was a scholar, he could speak English," my dad used to tell me, I only know what a remarkable thing that is now when I am eighteen.

Dutiful to a fault, he married his First Wife in China through a middle woman and they had children there. They are all grown up today and have children themselves. My grandmother does not like us seeing them even though they come sweep my grandfather's grave every spring. "The eldest son looks exactly like him," my mother would say. I have come to believe I am the first son of the first son of the first son, it is now to my dismay, that I discover my status as Second Wife's first grandson.

Yet he was also a man who believed in love for he married his little cousin whom he had loved since childhood. My grandmother, youngest daughter of her Peranankan merchant family, with whom he exchanged letters while he was in China and she was in her last year at Nanyang Girls. I have read their letters and they smell of people. The words are written long ago, in couplets and proverbs swearing undying love. My grandmother, no stupid girl, replied in couplets and proverbs too. I like to think I can smell the tears on the letters, that I can hear the wistful sighs of longing that must have come with the last fell of the pen. He took my grandmother as his Official Wife in Singapore.

"Your grandfather was a gentleman," my aunt said to me when I carelessly draped a leg over the bedpost, "he never slept like that." So my grandfather was a gentleman. I have only seen him in suits and shirts, his hair combed carefully to a side, his cheekbones so high that make his eyes look dark even when he smiles for pictures. He gave my dad a leather wallet from Aigner when my dad was young and insisted the entire family had their clothes tailored. He would buy only imported jams and honey with a taste for things not found in Singapore then. Twenty five years ago, my grandfather had style before his time. How it must surprise my dad and mummy, to find their son making the same choices his grandfather did so long ago.

My grandfather was also a successful man. Nobody remembers my family now of course, so many could-have-beens, and perhaps we do not merit remembering. Who may remember that my dad used to own a firm next to Creative Technology doing the same things they were doing then, only better? Who may remember that my grandmother ran a commodities business that came from before the Japanese Occupation, that her family was in charge of rice during that period and that she was the first distributor for F and N in Singapore? "Your grandfather was a good friend of OCBC's boss," my grandmother told me the night she showed me her letters, "he helped your grandfather reserve a whole stretch of land." My grandfather never bought the land because he died before he could and my parents never mention the could-have-beens. What is left today is the flat my grandmother lives in. He bought that for her as a gift. The house in which I grew up in had been bought by my grandfather to store rice. The shophouses are no more, taken back by the government. "Your grandfather carried a gun with him when he was young to protect himself," my mother would tell me gravely, my mother, the strong woman in awe of this man.

There are sides to him that make me smile too for it comforts me that my grandfather was also human. "He made the best chicken wings," my mother would say to which my dad would agree, "deep fried chicken wings, better than KFC." When he quarreled with my grandmother, my grandmother who was the strong woman before my mother would chase him out of the house and he would walk all the way to Changi where his factory was. My dad upon hearing it would drive over to pick him up.

My grandfather died at age 72 even though he suffered from gastric. I think he did it for my grandmother, living so long, who wailed and beat him when he died. I do believe she loves nobody else as much as him and when he died, she could but wait to join him. On his death certificate, it lists among the various reasons for his death: colon cancer, gastricitis, pneumonia. I have gastricitis.

The Chinese have it that the third generation will undo the good of the first. I will carry my grandfather's name once more. Travelling across the sea to another place, I will bring with me his spirit whose greatness inspires me with its unassuming strength. Sometimes I wish he had waited for me too, the first grandson of the first son of the wife whom he had loved, then I could tell him that I love him too.

How strange, that I may love a grandfather I have never seen. I wish you were here for me, here to watch me grow up. I want to hear you bless me when I tell you that I have decided to study fashion, I want to hear you praise me when I bring home my straight As, I want to sit at your feet with my head propped against your knee the way Little Aunt used to do when she was young. I want to tell you I love you, and then to hear you tell me that too before you close your eyes and fall asleep.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll.

I hate artspeak. It offends my sensibilities when people take any random piece of metal, twist it twice and call it the physical manifestation of Man's discourse with his inner self through the paradoxical distortion of Nature- in other words, it's art darling, it's art. Pfft. While I am content to leave an extended rant on art to another post, I think I liked art alot more when it was about an atelier with a master painter, his apprentices and a dozen pieces of comissions going on at the same time. You got it, Renaissance Italy or Bourbon France. Now, that was art. It was nothing founded on strange Freudian ideas or the need to transcend boundaries of taste, or maybe it was, but what art achieved then was beauty, symmetry, perspective. It's the technique, stupid.

Oh, and why did I start that? Because I either read in the Straits Times or heard over Art Central a phrase that particularly irked me- "set in its naturally artistic setting". If it had been said with irony, maybe. But it was whispered lovingly, reverently- "it's art darling, it's art". Does it occur to anyone that naturally artistic is an oxymoron? That Nature and Art are not synonymous? That Art by its very nature (pardon the pun) may only approximate the thunderous magnificence of Nature as viewed through the narrow looking glass of the individual? The individual, no matter how great, is but a whisper amidst the immense requiem of this world. Nature is the work of GOD, the apotheosis of evolution, life and material hurtling in a thousand directions.

Anyway, Saturday was spent with Jessie and Shang as we tried to find clothes for Shang. I risk nagging here but Shang, you really should have bought your clothes earlier.

Mummy applied a supp card for me and it arrived through the mail yesterday. I seriously hope I know how to manage credit.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll says hi.

Happy SUPER BELATED Birthday to Sarah darling. Went to her place yesterday for her birthday which had this cute black tie thigum and was terribly late :(

Rant: What IS it with cab drivers? Seriously, they whine and complain about Singapore, develop foolish conspiracist theories about the government, can't drive properly and are generally rude and disagreable. Noting the irony there. I have a new thing to add to my list though, my on earth would you advertise that you accept credit card if no cab driver will willingly accept it? There were seven cabs right in front of me stupidly waiting for a customer and here I was wanting to go to Clementi from Sembawang: all they had to do was to accept the damn credit card. Really, cab drivers, strictly a necessary evil.

Val had strange hair, Geri's nicer. Candice was wearing a nice dress with her spectacles which she now has on like 24/7 though it makes her look really cute, like she's always concentrating on things. Sarah was just radiant even though I wanted to rip the hairband off her head. Hazmi did a very good impression of a french gay artist (think Van Gogh, wait, he's not french. Think Picasso, wait, he's neither gay nor french. Damn.) and Dee has some cool hair.

Silly Sarah decided to go to some weird place with Victor and his *drumroll* extended family- heard that one before, Jessie?- while poor lil' us: Geri, Val and I decided to go down to town.

Oh, and all the ATM machines broke down so I actually penniless until we got to town and I found a proper machine. Sheesh.

Raffles City. Menotti was closed! Heartbroken. I so want a Bellini and eggs on toast. I think I'll go there for breakfast next time, it's bound to be nice because then I can have gelato too for breakfast. Then Val went to get her friends and Geri and I went to get food (and failed). It was a lost cause, none of the places at the Raffles hotels were open and Val refused to go to Equinox.

Comment: It was PJ's night out yesterday. In general, I think our girls do a much better job of presenting themselves to the world. It amazes me that the Straits Times does not publish things like "JC girls brandish ugly imitation handbags in equally ugly satin dresses and swear like they came from the gutter". Terrible.

Having gotten very lost in our misguided attempt at getting to the Esplanade via Raffles City while Geri and Val tried to figure out what was given out on the ninth day of Christmas, a really cool trishaw uncle gave us a ride to boat quay for five bucks each! Poor uncle, perspiring away while fat children like us wander around doing nothing. Uncle should become a cab driver, he's so much better. [Val's blog should have the pics of the uncle]

Inevitably, we ended up at Asylum. Before which I met this girl whom to my embarrassment, I could not recognise. Turned out to be Aunty Mandy's, erm, sister's daughter and it's always strange to meet relatives outside.

Ooh ooh, nachos at Asylum with a screwdriver and a lychee. Very nice place, it should be christened our class' turf. Like seriously, it's quiet, it opens till two, it has cool music, it's small and cozy, it's got chess (!), it's next to tcc so I can get ice cream though it doesn't serve the cocktails I want and no rum. Val was a little sad, don't be sad Val! Talked with Geri alot since Val decided to fume silently in the corner. Haha, I've never talked so much with Geri before, strange huh. It was nice though.

Slept at 4 am and I have no idea why or how I woke up at 10 am.

C'est tout.