dreams

[071002] been having extremely weird dreams. last night I dreamt of thousands & thousands of big fat penguins coming ashore at East Coast Park & charging inland along a canal running next to Siglap Link near Laguna Park & building nests along Marine Parade Rd. My family & I were standing at e Bedok South Ave 1 entrance to Bayshore Park, & my sis & I crossed e road to get to e penguin nests. e first nest we reached was on e grass verge by e pavement opposite Lagoon View, & apart from brown mottled eggs that were cracked & a few small skeletons, there was what looked to me like a yellow adult-sized human brain with blue veins. there was a RMBR (Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research) guy in a blue T-shirt & jeans explaining something about that nest to another guy....

am not sure if this is e cumulative effect of: (1) reading about e WWII Normandy beach landings in one of e recent issues of National Geographic magazine, (2) seeing e big fat (almost a metre tall) stuffed toy penguin that Darwin brought to e SPS room, (3) reading about dissecting mice to obtain their brains for making primary cultures of hippocampal & cerebellar neurons, (4) celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival at Bedok Jetty along East Coast Park with my family - when we looked across e ECP highway to our old homes in Lagoon View & Bayshore Park, & (5) a recent bus ride that took me along Marine Parade Road & Bedok South Ave 1 - when I noticed e drastic changes along Siglap Link due to e new Victoria School campus construction site....

other weird dreams I had many years ago:
....of eating a single neverending strand of yellow noodle (e type used for fried Hokkien mee & prawn noodles) which flavour changed every 1 metre....flavours included chocolate, strawberry & vanilla....
....of coming across Cadbury chocolate for sale at $1.00 per 1 kilogram bar in a New Zealand Countdown supermarket, only to discover that all bars had expired some 17 years ago....

[ filed under: 9_lives_2002 + thewonderingstraycat ]

totto-chan

[230702] "It was the poet Basho who wrote:

Listen! a frog
Jumping into the silence
Of an ancient pond
- Basho

Yet the phenomenon of a frog jumping into a pond must have been seen by many others. Down through the ages & in the whole world, Watt & Newton cannot have been the only ones to notice the steam from a boiling kettle or observe an apple fall. Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved & therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear...."

- excerpt from Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

[160703 update] till this day, Totto-chan still brings tears to e eyes each time it is read. hard to explain, but such is e frustration that remains this fresh - 12 years after leaving primary school, 8 years after leaving secondary school, & 6 years after escaping from JC. perhaps it is a curse to be in possession of a sentient mind, when trapped in such a damning environment. is it any wonder that my favourite periods in e timetable throughout those 12 years were PE & recess?

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat + 9_lives_2002 + art1 + japanese1 ]