She was elusive.
She was today. She was tomorrow.
She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower,
the flitting shadow of an elf owl.

We did not know what to make of her.
In our minds we tried to pin her to corkboard like a butterfly,
but the pin merely went through
and away she flew.
- Jerry Spinelli

Please view me in Firefox.

Ever heard of the Zimbardo experiment? As illustrated by the study, a make-believe is likely to someday overwhelm you; shifting your reality like one playing a Rubric's cube
into... a parallel universe, almost. There's no turning back, and there's no way to measure how far into it you really are. Perhaps some people are more grounded, whereas others are more open to these subtleties, more susceptible to such self-induced brainwash. Quite obviously, I'm one of the latter.

I first realized this in 7th grade on what seems to be a trivial matter. You see, among the Rurouni Kenshin characters, my favorite is... or rather... was, Himura Kenshin; the main character that everyone loves. I'm not quite sure as to what the reason was (ashamed that he's too "mainstream", or cos he's quite a sissy... or even for the heck of it), but I ended up convincing myself that I should pretend to like Shinomori Aoshi instead. Trivial, really. But I did end up liking Aoshi WAY better than I like Kenshin - and even forgot that I was just pretending. And its implication extends well beyond these two characters. A more traceable (ie less abstract than unwritten feelings and thoughts) verdict would be how I started to resemble Makimachi Misao, who's in LOVE with Aoshi. Not only did I start using "Weasel Gal" (weaselgal), which was Misao's nickname as mine own, but I resembled her all the more with each passing "I love Aoshi-sama" day: chirpy, silly ("I, Makimachi Misao, will never reveal my name to a stranger. *realizes* Oops...") at times, explosive, and hey, I'm small in stature just like her! Ah good times, good times.

Even now, some 7 years or so later, I'm still as susceptible. Just like how I feigned anger for a mere week over the summer... and ended up LOATHING that person, even in Facebook! Silly, silly me.

and i wonder why i don't care... about that summer guy at least - cos i really do hate him that much, perhaps?
Another strand of stray memory was awakened this morning.

As Norsie-dearie was explaining how I could get to her school (the zomgamazing Lasalle with it's doublezomgamazing courses and programs) to fulfill yet another crashing dream of mine (a dream consisting me crashing other people's schools and classes; NOT driving a bumper car and crashing to some hot guy - tho the latter is somewhat ideal, too), she mentioned the following regarding the Bugis MRT:

eleanor says:
(it's an underground station )

For a second, Pauline's Puny Prain (PPP! tho the last P is rather forced) triggered a train of giggles, assuming that duh, obviously all MRTs ARE underground.

Not true.

See, yet another change of mindset and assumption has taken place, most discreetly to mine own consciousness, during my UK adventures. London has its own famed version of the Underground, a tube stretching some couple of hundred miles long with the absolute bestest and most amusing advertisements ever. (will update this post with some of them, sometime) Uncannily enough it's located... UNDERGROUND. Don't take this as a duh thing cos PPP only managed to figure it out on her second last day in the UK - after wandering around and around and around the various train stations, going up and down the elevator searching for a sign that would point to the Underground (and asking more than a handful of poor, unfortunate souls who insist on fashionably ending each sentence with a ", darling", and each conversation with a wink). And there it was! Mystery of all mysteries, the way to go to the Underground is rather unanimous; one should head downwards to go under the ground. Now wasn't that enlightening?

D'OH!!!!!!

Anyway, apparently PPP is VERY proud of that discovery, and insists on extending the generalization over all Underground-like vehicles, such as the MRT.
when clearly, her "home" mrt station is one of the non-underground ones.



And... my deepest apology if I've disappointed anybody who initially thought that this post would contain some cheap, home-made thriller involving some sewer rats, dank and dripping tunnels that's cornily titled The Underground.



Oh and apparently, if you were to chose British over American English in Microsoft Word, the ever-fancy thingymajig would automatically shift your keyboard keys' functions to suit its British counterparts, with the "s and the @s switched and all. Credits to Norsie for the discovery.
Now. Some of you non-blogger.com-er mightn't know that Blogger has a "save as draft" feature. And my oh my, turns out that I've dumped quite a number of raw ideas and camouflaged them as drafts - which means that I'd still be able to read them, but you don't. Bwahaha. Lucky you, though, I do publish a couple of those "drafts" every now and then - most of them are still in a very raw state, some others have had a little polish here and there, and all of them will guarantee you a different experience should you feel bo liao enough to reread the old posts. :D


bo liao = having nothing better to do
I've gotta admit, I absolutely LOVE my lil bro's taste of music. Even the boyband he used to like back in third grade or so (I was going against the current by refusing to be a fan of any boyband, despite my peers - a case repeated during the F4 craze a couple of years later), Westlife, has got to be my favorite of the boybands. Then again, it was him who officially introduced me to McFly and Shifty's Slide Along Side among numerous others.

He's got quite a talent in that field, I must say... a drum major with killer (autodidact!) guitar skills and a voice range that extends far beyond mine own, especially when he sings in falsetto.

I'm really proud of you, boy :D
POP QUIZ!
(feel it: heart-a-thumping, ears-a-ringing, your tummy tightening, your eyes dilating)

Question: Drawing from your contextual knowledge, which of these is the most likely reason behind the lack of updates on Uncreative Unlimited?
(a) A wave of linguistic inadequacy is threatening the coasts of Pauline's morale and self-assurance once again. With high tides looming, coupled with an ever-rising humidity level.
(b) She's been travelling to urm... less internet friendly places.
(c) Her monstrous appetite has pushed her to reach a new weight record - and she's now too fat to even move a finger (my... pinky... is *huff huff* too... heavy..... to.... lift *huff huff*) to even bother typing.
(d) All of the above, and more.


The obvious answer demands an explanation as to what exactly "and more" breaks down into.

I got the chance to visit Surabaya, my birth town and my first hometown, for five days due to my grand aunt's funeral. I miss her loads, but hey, she's living in jubilee up there in heaven! Besides, methinks I've kinda numbed a little as this is the third such a loss of mine.

This is the first funeral (of someone I know) I've attended, however. I must say that it was starkly different from what I had in mind. It was a solemn, yet... light-hearted procession, almost. Yes, here and there, myself involved, a handful of people could be seen wiping a tear drop off the corners of their eyes every now and then. Yet, there was not a single heart-wrenching wail that errupted as I had imagined; not even when the casket was shut, taking her away from our sight for one final time (till we see her again, of course). It was a... nakiwarai case, almost, we were smiling through the tears, as the Japanese word imply. I know not much about everyone else, but what was shared through the sermons kinda got me in a state envy; she's "fought the good fight and finished the race". It's inspiring, really. And beautiful, even physically so.

Fragrant roses, lilies, and such beautiful, beautiful floral arrangements on sculptural bronze stands adorned the place. It was a humble place, really, separated by screens from the wailings next door, and some hymns sung by another group somewhere not very far away. The air was humid and hot, with no air-conditioning safe for a couple of fans here and there. Weirdly enough, I barely paid attention on that surrounding (and miraculously managed to avoid uttering utterly snobbish comments about the place!) and was whole-heartedly captivated by the beauty behind it all. To think about it, the flower arrangements were like a grander version of this little shrine to Lady Diana that I saw in Harrods (a HUGE department store in the heart of London). I'm not being histrionic, really. The proud maestro behind it all was this neighbor and childhood friend of my grand aunt who presented his best, and final project in her honor. Final, as he passed away just a few days after.

I was in Jakarta by then, where I managed to meet up with Paul *waves* and visited the new IPEKA building (the school was renamed, again, into IPEKA International Christian School), and exchanged jokes once more on how our batch didn't get to enjoy the much-promised new building and had to stand up instead with the old one that's shrouded still, by all those power failure issues. Another so-called milestone was getting to meet Sir Jacob, his wife and three months old baby daughter in his in-law's house. I'm sure they'd make excellent parents, being the open-minded awesome people that they are (: Oh and I met Reza Sukianto after close to five years - last time we met, I was celebrating my 14th birthday. Ah. So much has changed.

On a lighter note, and to tie everything back up, my English has clearly deproved. All these Indonesian encounters, preceded by two months of summer in Cambridge with barely any Indonesian communication at all, and topped with a couple of Indonesian novels (not that they were any good, sadly enough) have propelled me to speak fully in Bahasa Indonesia. Gone has the Pauline whose use of one language then another alternates as much as the reds and whites in the Star-Spangeld Banner even in one sentence.

After another five days in Jakarta, off I went to Singapore, and here I am today, a happy lass with... a very annoying mobile phone, with a knack for deleting all the contact numbers it contains (its method of throwing a tantrum to punish me for turning it off for too long during my London- LA - Taipei - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore trip perhaps?), whose favorite game is "play dead", in which it'll freeze and hang while I'm typing a txt message. ARRRGH!

I've got a new number btw, pretty easy to remember too: 907 - 91 - 910
Yayness! But boo-ness, cos I still haven't got a hold on my Eleanor dearest.

And if you've read all these and still wonder what the answer is, well... yes, silly, the answer is (d). Also, (c) couldn't get any truer. I'm ROUND, from eating three (3), yes, THREE portions PER MEAL. I'm not human.

Phoebe Pauline Valentine Kribben Sugiharto 朱宝玲, B.S.
110888
Eldest of 3
UCSD Psychology, class of 2008
University of Cambridge, King's College, summer of 2007
TKSS, class of 2004
ICHS, class of 2006, left on 2001
San Diego, California

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Picture courtesy of Eliara.
Meticulously hand-coded by yours truly,
with much ColorSchemer tweaking fun.
(c) 012509

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