NYU application!



[Not all true- I am in fact a fairly sociable creature
My sunburn from my musings is a quite attractive feature.
My complexion martyred for a conversation starter?]



Wait! What did you say?
Oh. Really? That’s a swearword
In Punjabi. Ha!

In a land of forty-storey flats
You either have the option of looking into the sky
Or your neighbour’s kitchen


I live in a thirty-storey flat. [We save land where we can.]

Light pollution is a funny thing

The sky is pretty nice today- in a blinding sort of way.

When they’re moving fast enough they might make one feel queasy;
But you can’t help but envy them. They make life look so easy.
You wouldn’t have to worry about turning out a dud
All you’d have to do is pick up vapour and, well, scud.


This could end in heatstroke or it could end in nirvana.


Whenever I’m uncertain about how I should begin
I just close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.

There are those who like to drown their sorrows in their drink
I, aloof, am on the roof, where I can sit and think.
[Not all true- I am in fact a fairly sociable creature
My sunburn from my musings is a quite attractive feature.
My complexion martyred for a conversation starter?]

When you are surrounded by flats forty stories high
The only way to flee them is to settle in the sky.

Some years ago, Singapore started on a massive chore
[The people were quite nettled that they had to be resettled.]
The plan was grand, but where was the land?
They stared at the ground, and sat around, and then someone looked up..

People use the term ‘head in the clouds’ with tones so harsh and flat
But on a bright day like this, there’s nothing wrong with that.

It strikes me that the beauty of visiting another nation
Is the endless opportunity for acclimatization.
[Sorry, readers, that pun there was fully intended
Thought I’d try and slip one in before this poem ended.]

If I stole a cloud away it would not much be missed;
Clouds are good for sleeping on, on sunny days like this.
Of course I know this poem isn’t making too much sense;
Clouds are simply water that’s almost halfway condensed.

My malady seems to me to be that I’ve lost the will to reason

[We’ve lost the will to reason- the madness of the season?
It could be stress, more or less, or just as easily not;
Perhaps it is more likely that we’re mad because it’s hot.]

Now our EE's done and gone,
We can get our party on!
[At least, or so we'd like to think;
Most of us can't legally drink]

Maybe they weren't quite perfect;
But not so bad, in retrospect!

First, econs, not being crass-
but OPEC's got a lot of gas!
Employment never in doubt
not while there's IRs about

History EE's- rise to fame!
Hitler changed his stupid name
Don't give Mussolini lip,
He rocked his dictatorship

Language EEs sound like fun
Tables, graphs, not even one
The reading's what lit geeks abhor
Quoth the student: 'Nevermore!'

Then of course we still have art
Painting, music, melts the heart
Try to put it down in writing,
Surely a battle worth fighting!

Math EE's.. well, never fear
Maybe someone will try next year?

Sample essays, perfect scores,
Not a concern any more
Worksheets, IAs, TOK
Deadlines soon, but not today!

Poetry is softness
To smother regret
It's cruel to remember;
But worse to forget.

He sat in the office, not on the plush orange chair by the desk but on a smaller, plastic one, wedged inhospitably between the door and an uncharitable-looking pile of invoices.

'I'm going to give you the jab,' said the doctor.
J tensed.
'There,' said the doctor.
The patient left. J glanced at the clock.

'Would you like blackcurrant lozenges or the orangey kind?' the doctor asked, to which the assorted responses never varied from 'blackcurrant'.

By the end of the internship J wanted to shout, 'TAKE THE ORANGE, YOU MORON', just for variety. But he didn't, so nobody ever did. J for his own part had had unfortunate, traumatic incidents with ribena at an early age, so it was doubtful that he would ever enjoy wine or blackcurrant lozenges. Which was fortunate, really, because he never had a sore throat.

'Shame about the wine, though,' his dad said, when J shared this thought with him. 'I mean, nobody ever got high off lozenges.'
'Well, actually, there was this one guy-'
'Really?' Arawn said, thoughtful. 'What's the name of this doctor again?'

The couple faced each other across the coffee table. The divorce papers lay between them, covered in blaring, angry signatures, dates, times.

The wife signed April 1st once more, and threw down her pen. Looking her husband in the eye, she shouted, 'This marriage is a joke!'

When she first heard the news she felt physically sick, and she knew grief, but only for a moment.
Then she was calm, and that was even more devastating than the hysteria.

She wanted to be upset. She wanted to tear out her hair and scream and cry. She wanted to feel like the world was ending, so that she could grieve and be done with it, because she knew that this kind of grief would hit her hard, but not now.

She was distraught.
She wished she was distraught.



rest in peace.

Larry spun around on his stool and extended his hand toward the guy a couple of seats away.
'Hi,' he said, flashing his teeth, 'I'm Larry.'

The other guy looked like he might have a couple of hits on the Country Western charts. His blonde hair fell in locks around his shoulders as he said, looking slightly startled, 'Good to meet you, Larry.'
'What's a brushed-up guy like you doing in a hellhole like this?'

The look of alarm continued to impress itself on Country Western's face. 'Meeting people.'
'Ladies?'
'No, just.. people. Talking. Understanding.'
'You're not one of those evangelicals, are you?'
'Um.'
'I can't stand those. Going around all high and mighty like they just climbed off a mountain of righteousness, or some such.'
'Well.'
'You one of them?'
'God isn't just on mountains of righteousness. He's all around us. He's in this bar,' Country Western said beatifically.
Larry snorted.

'God's not so bad,' Country Western protested. 'He's an ordinary guy. He's like you, only Without Sin.'
'So he won't be drinking at this bar, I take it.'
'..no,' said Country Western, who was nursing a bottle of mineral water.
'Won't be chatting up the ladies.'
'I suppose not.'
'Game of poker?'
'No.'
'Betting on the game?' Larry nodded at the plasma screen above their heads.
'Not.. exactly.'

'Would God fix the game, you reckon, if I asked?'
'No,' Country Western said, aghast. 'Free will, and all that.'

'How is God Just Like Me if he doesn't drink, gamble, chat up the ladies, or.. smoke?' Larry asked, going out on a limb.
'No, sorry.'

Country Western thought about it.

'God makes good wine.'
'Yeah?'
'At the wedding at Cana, say.'
'Oh, right.'
'He can hold his breath underwater.'
'Yeah? God like swimming?'
'Hasn't got much need for it.' Country Western walked his fingers through the empty air, and grinned.
'Nice. He's a bit of a stubborn bastard, isn't he, holding out in that desert against the devil the way he did.'
'Oh, you know about that?' Country Western said, modest.
Larry shrugged. 'Picked it up somewhere.'

Country Western gave it some thought. 'He'd be great at holding off the telemarketers, I guess.'
Larry laughed. 'All right! Here, I'll get you another bottle of that..water..?'

Country Western quirked his eyebrows. 'Carbonated.'