owlery's posts

White -Water Rafting and Palliative Care

2012-01-15T21:04:00.001+08:00

Back from Australia so a poem written by an Australian poet would be befitting.

White -Water Rafting and Palliative Care

for my late wife, Gloria

If I had understood (when down the river
you and I went swirling in that boat)
that there were those who knew the ways of water
and how to use the oars to keep afloat
- I might have been less deafened by the worry,
less stunned by thoughts of what lay up ahead
(the rocks, the darkness threatening to capsize daily),
if I had only realised instead
that help was all around me for the asking
- I never asked, and therefore never knew
that such additional comfort could have helped me
in turn to be more help in comforting you.

I’d have found it easier then to simply hold you
instead of bobbing to and fro so much,
for it was you who seemed to be more tranquil
and I whom death was reaching out to touch.

If only I had had sufficient knowledge
in that white-water rafting I’d have learned
that there were those around us (with life jackets)
to whom I might have, in that turmoil, turned.

Instead, because I had not thought of rivers,
or rocks, or rapids, and gave way to fears
that seeking help might make a man less manly
and liable to betray himself with tears,
I was less useful then, as twilight deepened,
than I might well have been, had I but known:
however wild the waves that roll around us
-no one needs to live (or die) alone …

Bruce Dawe

The conceit (sustained parallel) throughout the poem is quite remarkable. When I re-read it the second-time and comprehension of the last line (dual-meaning) dawned on me in a cafe off The Block Arcade, it was one of the best moments of the trip.

A very Tired Post

2011-12-14T21:49:00.001+08:00

I'm tired of waiting.

I've been waiting for A levels to end for 6 months, now I'm waiting for the results. I'm waiting for my internship to be over, to free up time to try out other things. I'm waiting for someone to return from overseas.

Individually, they are things I can deal with, things I want to be able to cope with, and I know I can, if I put my energy into them. But after all this waiting, I'm not sure if I even want to bring myself to spend that effort. There are days that I feel so drained that I feel like a ragged doll, unable to prop myself up and even try.

I'm waiting for an admission offer from LSE and Duke. I've figured in this time that what I really want in a university education is an intellectual challenge, and I don't mean a challenge for deadlines and submission for essays, not just that. But a well-crafted curriculum that doesn't for intend me to be productive capital for an economy but sees education as a worthy investment in and of itself, the rest being just spin-off benefits. Maybe I am too naive.

I have laughed too little since the end of A levels. I think I spent so much of my JC life trying to be someone. Not putting on a front, but rather to see JC life through the eyes of others because I've heard so many stories from so many seniors. I think this prevented me from venturing out to explore my capacity as an individual and to try too hard which may have proved counterproductive.

I'm most worried about the expectations. Sure I can let myself down but I will grapple with that but I dislike it immensely when my actions have unintended consequences on others, even if their expectations might just be a figment of my imagination. (Hoping for you can be a sort of burden)

What will I remember of my post As? I think I will remember that I did not feel as others felt. No joy, no loss. I will remember Durban with all its ups and downs, slumped in bed with my laptop listening to Anjali's speech and tearing for the future generations of this planet. My heart especially goes out to those living in the island states. I want to be someone who tramples on injustice. The question is which platform allows me to both stay true to my and the organisation's beliefs as well as create a change?

I've been reading fragments of non-fiction here and there. This tendency has made me wonder about my position towards the humanities and the arts. After all, I did considering majoring in Literature or Art History. I understand why people love them so because I do too. I do especially when I feel like running away from the world and escaping into Art can be the most enjoyable experience. It is ironic that it is not in human beings that I find solace but the works of human beings that ignites my hope in humanity. In the end, I guess I chose the social sciences after all. They are cruel, harsh but they are very true. I don't think I would have been able to escape into another world to leave behind a world that needs fixing. Eventually, it would have nagged at me until I conceded. Still, I never regretted entering Arts or doing Lit. If anything, it helped me appreciate the human condition better.

This is so very incoherent but I wouldn't have 'penned' it down otherwise (Oh, I'm becoming a victim of the keypad and not a master of the pen, save me from the 21st century!)

I'm not happy and at peace with myself. I don't know if I'll ever be but when I am, occasionally, I know I'm on the right path. I don't need a overseas holiday or anything fancy. I just want things to be alright at the very basic level because I'm not just tired of waiting for change, I'm tired. Period.

Time to carve out my identity

2011-11-25T21:57:00.000+08:00

Post As.

2011-11-24T00:00:00.000+08:00

I suppose it is time to resuscitate this blog. I definitely am not going to allow my brain to atrophy in this long period of time.

Things I'm doing to do:
NEW Internship

Find work at an environment NGO (WWF)

Join the CSR department of a company that does not greenwash

Pilates (after NEW internship)

Read up on art history

Read up on everything, inter alia, behavioural economics, sociology and pedagogy

Finish the other 76 books on the Time's top 100 books list

Listen to music without multi tasking (I fear this is impossible)

Read the dictionary and learn cool words however useless they may seem to be, but later appear to be useful for Scrabble (cue: Qoph, some Greek alphabet) and expand my vocabulary

Watch TED videos all day

With friends:

Dreams and Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Coming up:
Richard the Third review

A moderated bliss

2011-10-23T22:37:00.000+08:00

Earl Grey Tea, with a drizzle of milk, and Danish cookies
Running without ankle pain at all. Will continue to declare healing over my life. Amen! (:

(:

2011-08-19T22:49:00.000+08:00

Yes and Amen. This equanimity is really quite queer and can only come from a supernatural source. Things seem so surreal like I'm in Plato's world of forms.

When I felt anxious this morning, God spoke this verse into me, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

In economic terms, the past is sunk cost and we just got to look to the future. It's a pleasant one, and the best assurance of all is that it's already been written and ordained- that good and perfect plan

Yes and Amen

2011-08-18T18:45:00.000+08:00

'But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" or "No". For the son of God, Jesus Christ who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy was not "Yes" or "No", but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 1: 18-20

YES AND AMEN.

Denounce the world with its worldly pleasures, I think not

2011-07-15T23:58:00.000+08:00

I think 'worldly pleasures' = sanity so I would like to keep my sanity tyvm. It's kinda ironic that my social life only picked up in J2 with the debators and stuff.

Today, I listened to Bon Iver on the bus home. I wouldn't romanticize the feeling that crept up on me as I approached my stop (I have a tendency to do so, I know) It was plain but so very simple. The quiet melancholy echoed in my ear and it was raining, and I was quietly contented. It was that simple. I realized it doesn't take much for us to be happy but we are ambitious beings, and therefore easily discontented when we fall short of our expectations to succeed.

If I don't make it to Duke or the US, or I don't get a scholarship, I believe that there are many things that I can be quietly contented with. It may be a breakfast stacked with pancakes with lovely companionship, visitation to museums, having a Friday evening chat with a friend, even seeing small successes mushrooming in the environmental arena in Singapore..

Happiness doesn't have to elude us. It's the comparison that causes us to fall from this state of rest and contentment so easily. I think that Duke will make me happy, I want to see Lyonel Feininger in moma, and the successes seem so insignificant in light of the direction climate negotiations are taking.

It's so easily to get discouraged, I know and I have seem how this premise has caused many people to draw different conclusions for themselves, spiralling into existentialism at times (Including myself a few months back and here and there)

But that's not a conclusion I want to draw for myself. This resonates with me "For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it." 1 Timothy 6:7. In my mind's eye, I see this image of a a soul gently entering the world, and leaving just the littlest of an imprint, before floating out. I think that's all of us. Yes, I want to change the world but I don't want to be discouraged with this image. I somehow feel humbled with the insignificance bestowed and contained within me, in reverence of the larger scheme of things out there.

At the most elemental sense, I want to be the best person I can be and to help the world with my fullest capacity. I don't think more can be asked from me and if it is, I simply cannot provide it.Just striving to be a better person everyday, with myself of the yesterday as the benchmark.

-

2011-07-11T23:23:00.002+08:00

ennui, with a small indifferent e.

Why I Never Left

2011-06-04T21:04:00.000+08:00

Debate was one of the largest struggles of this 17 years of my life. It was the first time I had to grapple with not being good at something I really wanted and tried to be good at. But I wasn't a natural, and I took a long time to come terms to it.

There were so many times I almost walked away. But I'm glad I didn't. It's the people that made me stay on. The guidance of Rachel as a senior, Scott as a coach and friend and Joanne for tolerating my fickleness and encouraging me and accepting whatever my decision was.

This people are people who accepted me for who I was. I wasn't labelled a 'wet blanket' or anything like that just because I was different, fought for a cause, and tended to view the world in that manner. They tolerated my nagging at switching the air cons off, getting on Ryan's case for using clean white sheets of Sinar Mas paper for every training and his lurid picture on the front of his debate book, talking about styrofoam, etc. etc.. Up till the last moment when I whipped out WWF's Sustainable Seafood Guide and declared a table-imposed ban on bluefin tuna when we were eating sushi, they could laugh at me and play along. This group of dynamic people taught me to laugh at myself.

I will never forget Yi Ting's aversion to velcro, Joanne's aversion to UV rays, Ryan's aversion to saliva, Kenwin and Shawn's aversion to... well nothing which is scary in and of itself. Yup, we are a quirky bunch of people (:

Things don't die so easily. We are not defined by competitions. Things don't have to change. We can still exploit Ryan for food, have morning invasions of the s31 table, eat like vultures, and of course mug together (with the exception of Ryan)

Sometimes things we yearn to be good at don't yield results as we would like but undoubtedly, they generate 'spin off benefits' that will reverberate throughout our lives. I would like to think my passion for this cause was ignited by the awareness of issues and this yearning for knowledge can be attributed to debate. I don't like attention, and having to go on stage to talk about Earthwatch initiatives was a chore but debate helped me to overcome the stage fright that exists in all of us.

To Bryan: Though we're not on same wavelength, I think we have reached a stage where we can poke fun at each other, and still know that mutual respect exists at the back of our minds. Although you portray a flippant side, we know that deep down you're a softie and that kind of fans the flames of my hope in humanity :P Thank you for tolerating our nonsense, tardiness, pathological predilection for food and the like.

After these 3.5 years, my debate journey has come to an end. I say this because it didn't end at IHLs for me, it didn't in HK, it ended when your journeys ended as well. Selfishly, another reason I came today was that I needed closure. While you guys trained and worked hard, I found myself constantly thinking of you guys while I was studying for SATs during the course of the week. This 6 man team was special and I never left, even though I didn't take part in MIDCs.

I think the reason why I never left was that I had a team. In all sincerity, thank you team. I really love you guys (:

Indecision

2011-06-01T21:30:00.001+08:00

ANGELA MERKEL OR ECONS MAKE UP?!

Cry

2011-05-30T00:03:00.000+08:00

7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

You are blocking me at every direction, even my very escape route out of here. I am stifled, suppressed, and oppressed. This lineage of evil has to stop, I want it to stop at me. It touches me and blinds me, but I will not submit. I will fight it. I will submit to God and the devil will flee. Flee from this household, from all the relationships. You're in there somewhere. We just got to use love to draw that bit of you out. This has got to stop.

I claim these promises. Carpal tunnel I bind you. Ligament laxity in the ankles I bind you. Broken relationships I bind you. Take place, emotional and physical healing. Prayer is never about pulling the reluctant hand of God. It is already there in the spiritual realm, waiting for His time to be manifested in the physical.

God, come through. This is my prayer today.

Not quite back in the groove of blogging... yet

2011-05-29T00:11:00.000+08:00

I'm lacking the lyrical. Hopefully it'll come back to me soon. It's that satisfaction that one gets from a rather effortless well-written piece, having been led by the natural downstream flow of thoughts. Also, being unable to sit down and write with my 0.38 due to carpal tunnel has led me to blogging. It's more convenient and quicker too. To be honest, I've been reading my past posts, especially those spiritual ones, for the past months just to remind myself and to be acquainted once again with the familiar me.

Still, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. The width of my 0.38 seems too thin for my liking, the proximity of a loved one seems an eternity of a distance. Life is full of paradoxes and sometimes I wonder if we were made to think this way because enlightenment exists outside of the unsatisfactory circles of reasoning.

My grandma has come to stay with us. Trust my brain to overanalyze things but I can't help but feel rather perturbed at the notion of the woman who has been shaping my mother's identity, and hence mine, is living under the same roof, all 3 of us.

Also, I've been noticing of late that my insecurities are re-surfacing and the ease at which the devil manipulates good things to qualify the happiness they bring about. Despite feeling stressed about SATs and almost undergoing a panic attack that day in hot stuffy AJ, I managed to get a 2240, and a 2290 with superscoring! (: (: But that doubt always comes back. Could you have scored a better than 8 score on your essay? What if...?
But NO, I gotta reject these thoughts because they are not from God. I'm so blessed to have received this score because of the circumstances and the days following up to SATs which was a rollercoaster ride and not in the melancholic Belle and Sebastian sense, but in the existential frantic WHAT-AM-I-SUPPOSED-TO-DO-WITH-MY-LIFE sense. These relapses from the knowledge of the 'eternal glory that far outweighs them all' to the typical short term paranoia has been happening too frequent and I know that something's gotta change. If there's anything I learnt from this episode, I'm just so grateful of the strength granted to me that empowered me to keep my integrity intact.

On a brighter note, tea lattes are the best thing. And on a cautious note, I'm warding off coffee unless I really really need it. It's such a shame they don't offer caffeine jabs (imagine OD-ing on caffeine) because gosh I hate the side effects of coffee. Coffee dulls my senses, which makes me less sharp. Mehhh.

June hols are here. I love that I have large expanses of time to chisel at my work and refine it instead of snatching precious little here and there. I pray that it will be productive, restful, and most of all, a necessary reawakening of the spiritual.

Off to sleep now.
I know that my future is secure in Your hands.
I know that pain from carpal tunnel and my ankle has gone away in the spiritual realm and is just waiting to be manifested in the physical.

The philosopher in me will say that such a knowledge is not Justified True Belief but this is where faith comes in.

Music

2011-05-27T22:14:00.000+08:00

To Usher: Something's wrong when you need a DJ to facilitate your loving

Today, the teacher band undid 12 years worth of moral education and advocation of abstinence. Let's do it, let's do it

I'm more amused than anything.

Point to self

2011-05-26T20:25:00.000+08:00

Listening to music with Christian lyrics while studying enables you to reconcile your identities and the 2 different realms.

Back.

2011-05-22T22:59:00.000+08:00

I forgot that writing is a release. So I'm back. Not for anyone else's sake but mine.

I read through my past blogposts and whoa, how did I ever manage to write a post every 4.5 days?! Time has been slipping through my fingers like fine grain in a hour glass. I haven't had the luxury of reflection and my diary stares at me blankly when I glance through now and then.

Of late, I've been struggling with many decisions. It has hit me that this is the real thing. Entering this year has took on a whole new dimension, a weightier one if you ask me. The thought of scholarships, universities, all this is rather unnerving at 18. + the environmental awareness which can be pure idealism at times, but also a burden that frames your entire world view. You're standing there like a sumo wrestler bracing yourself and suddenly when it descends upon you, you just have this impulse to turn back and run back into the arms of childhood. At this time next year, I'll be knowing which university I will be in. My next 3/4 years will be kind of planned. That's quite... mind-blowing.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." James 1: 2-5

I don't know which physics-philo theory applies here but it seems like every single thought, action seems to reverberate and somehow affect the final outcome. For some reason, I feel like I've been a daze this past half year, just floating through. I've been so near burn out so many times and it takes all of me to avoid skidding off the cliff. Work seems to be endless.

I went to FASS Open House yesterday and it cemented something for me. I simply cannot afford to study locally. Neither can I afford to study overseas. It's limbo all over again.

Before I start over-dramatizing my life and weeping over the sheer hard work that is required in the coming months, let me reflect on what I can be thankful for:
- A taste of God's grace through His healing touch
- Mel's peanut butter and banana sandwiches
- Emerging from a moral dilemma with integrity intact
- Quirky things like noticing the trees at the road divider looking like the forest creature from Totoro
- The black cat at the nearby void deck that is so manja (rid yourself of Poe's superstition!)
- The opening up of Sg's political scene

Off to the week.

Hiatus

2011-02-20T22:32:00.000+08:00

Oh dear, I haven't been noting down my thoughts, even in my private diary. Too busy as a bee nowadays to sit back and meta-cognitively reflect on life. What happened to my compulsive urge to track my arc of history and to laugh at my childish self during retirement or at every stage of life retrospectively?

I neither have the willingness and ability which gives me to impetus to blog which I used to enjoy immensely.
With sleep as a necessary trade-off that I wouldn't want to deprive myself of, I hereby declare a hiatus from this poor puppet of a blog, being propped up by random occasional posts.

Ta.

Goals and my experience at One World

2011-01-13T21:07:00.001+08:00

Oh my, the new year has started, and not a single blogpost. It's highly unlikely that I'll be able to blog as frequently as I did last year with the already crazy first week!

But I'll make time. Writing is a release for me. I believe that powerful writing can lead to powerful change. Like Lingkang said, I seek to add 'the lyrical' to my writing, enabling it to 'sing'. (Disgrace reference)

Goals for this year:
- A greener VJ
- To maintain relationships (family, friends, etc.) and not allow studies to compromise on these precious bonds
- To grow in God, avoid being a lukewarm Christian

Trite as it may be, we wrote a letter to our future selves last year. meaning the 2010 self wrote to the present self. The last sentence I wrote reads: 'May you not feel guilt ridden reading this because I KNOW you have achieved the above.' I hope I don't disappoint.

I have also realized this strange phenomena of me needing the visual impact of books on my bookshelves. Never mind I don't read them, they just need to be there to comfort me, to be that external narrative to take away the self-centered me turning inwards and obsessing about how my own narrative unfolds.

Today, I helped out at One World International School and the children there are by far, the most vocal children I've ever seen (or heard), in a constructive manner, not the annoying Mummy-I-want-that-toy way we hear all too frequently in shopping malls. They respond to what you're saying and don't hold back in giving their inputs. It's very refreshing. At first I was very taken aback because I guess I'm just used to the old adage that 'children should be seen, not heard' and the kindergarden/ lower primary school manner of queuing up and placing your finger on your lips as you traipse through corridors. Also, I felt threatened in a way as if they were questioning 'authority'. But I soon realized to set down my prejudices and background influences, especially if I were to connect with them.

They astutely question things at the most basic level and one got to know how to answer them. They will just simply jump in mid-sentence and share about something they identify with. Like "Yeah! In England...", "My mommy couldn't run because of the haze." This 10-year-old knows policies of Barack Obama and a young girl of age 7 has heard of the Haiti Earthquake and is aware of the ongoing floods in Australia, I'm impressed. I think one thing I have to learn to do around kids is to treat them like adults and not belittle what they know, or can understand. I myself have gone through the stage where adults, not knowing how to treat me, have underestimated my intellectual capacities and hence unconsciously spoke in a condescending manner which did not sit well with me and wouldn't with them either.

And their comments are the pinnacle of cute-ness.
"My baby sister says, 'I want to throw this in the rubbish bin but I don't want to throw this in the rubbish bin.' And I know she means she wants to recycle."

Another girl recycles 90+% of her trash at home.

I think pedagogy is something worth looking into especially in the area of my interest, environmental education. I think at my age, everyone is so caught up with life's conveniences that it's hard to convince them to lead eco-friendly lifestyles if they have to go out of the way to do it. There are way too many climate-deniers and cynics out there. To me, at this point, the effectiveness of education is limited and therefore the only way to convince them is to elevate eco-friendliness to the same convenience level as the conventional way of doing things such that they simply do not have any reason to adopt the former.

That's why Article 6 means so much to me and its implementation in primary schools is so valuable in cultivating a lifestyle from young. We really have to engage with our government who agreed to Article 6, and ensure follow up is involved.

Ok, back to work. There's VIP Initiation tomorrow and I'm to give a speech to advice the incumbent IP1 as an old wise sage of an IP4 (Wait, I'm that old? Oh no) I think one great thing about the IP is that it's a step towards the culture I experienced today at OWIS, having developed my personal voice through it. Still, I wish such a culture can trickle down right from the start...

Retrospection

2010-12-31T13:11:00.003+08:00

My Year in Lists (Cliché but fun)

This has been the most eventful year in the 17 years of my life. The MOST, hands down. The rest can’t really contend especially since I probably spent 3 years sleeping and on my knees, and the rest reconciling my identity (which still is a work in process) and hence just drifting through life, not gifted with the self-awareness that comes especially with age. In this year, my mental capacity has been stretched with the need to multitask, KI IS, debate, researching for COP16 to name a few; my emotional capacity with the stress, relationships with others, relationship with God. I have cultivated self-awareness as a leader in Earthwatch, been humbled by telling-offs from higher ups, been encouraged by the people around me that I’m blessed with.

I think this one year has really given me so many experiences that brought me closer to understanding the human condition. I have observed from afar, I have experienced first-hand, simply put, I have matured.

So here goes!

Places I have been
- USA- New York, Washington D.C for GYLC

(and technically Narita Japan due to the flight delay, yay)

- Cancun, Mexico for COP16

- Houston for transit. (I'm pushing it, I know :D)

- Malaysia for annual family getaway to rural kampongs (I exaggerate)

---

Performances I have watched

- Kings of Convenience, Mosaic Festival

- Wind Shadow, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

(DO NOT get me started on the acts I’ve missed, namely:

Broken Social Scene

Belle & Sebastian

St. Vincent

But also:

Andrew Bird
Patrick Watson
Florence + The Machine, The XX as opening act)

I’m not too keen on next year’s Mosaic because am not too familiar with the acts but listened to a few songs from The National’s album High Violet and do quite like it.

---

Notable exhibitions I’ve been to
- Quest for Immortality- The World of Ancient Egypt
- Pompeii: Life in a Roman Town 79CE

- Parkett's exhibition "200 Artworks – 25 Years"

- Head On, Cai Guo Qiang

Greatest regret: 10 mins in the National Art Gallery is a travesty! I got to see a Monet and a Picasso but didn't get to see a Rothko which is impressive by size alone):): Oh well...

Mark Rothko, Four Darks in A Red

Looking forward to:

Singapore Biennale (It’s supposed to be once in 2 years, I don't get why it's being held next year instead of this year.)

---

Music I’ve checked out:

Big Echo, The Morning Benders
Forgiveness Rock Record, Broken Social Scene
Swanlights, Antony & The Johnsons
The Sea, Corinne Bailey Rae
Belle & Sebastian in general
The Suburbs, Arcade Fire
I Speak Because I can, Laura Marling

---

Books
I’m aware ‘novels’ have a more sophisticated ring to it but books, however juvenile-sounding, have been with me since my younger days.

Fiction

The Sea, John Banville
Fantastic carefully considered prose, with the sea as a versatile backdrop and reflection of the protagonist’s emotions.

- The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

- When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro

- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

For reviews on Kazuo Ishiguro, see here

Black Swan Green, David Mitchell

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, Chris Greenhalgh

Slowness, Milan Kundera

The Joke, Milan Kundera

Immortality, Milan Kundera

The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

A Home at the End of the World, Michael Cunningham

The Hours, Michael Cunningham

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Crazy Heart, Thomas Cobb

Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

Chocolat, Joanne Harris (Holiday read, excuse me)

Atonement, Ian McEwan

Non-fiction:

The Story of Art, E.H. Gombric

A Little History of the World, E.H. Gombrich

Dreaming: A very short introduction (too focused on dream science though)
Memory: A very short introduction
The Pig that Wants to be Eaten, Julian Baggini

Spiritual
- Pure Pleasure: Why do Christians feel so bad about feeling good? Gary Thoma's
- Who made God?:And Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith, Ravi Zacharias, Norman L. Geisler (Good read, halfway through though)
- 3: 16: The Numbers of Hope, Max Lucado
- Crazy Love, Francis Chan

Seeking C.S. Lewis books like The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters presently. I have chanced upon so many wise quotes from him with great usage of analogies to illustrate a biblical point. A recent experience has sparked my interest in theology.

Poetry

- Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979-2006, Wendy Cope (Bloody men are like bloody buses, heh)

- The Way Things Are, Roger Mcgough

- Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (Best anthology ever, thanks Mr Teo)
- Penguins’s poems for life
- The New Penguin book of Love Poetry

Novels I couldn’t get through (but shall attempt as I age- I’m a firm believer that you need to ‘meet’ a book at a particular point in your life to enjoy it fully, like what The Sea was to me this end year)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
- On Beauty, Zadie Smith
- The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (my being adverse to stream of consciousness. I’m avoiding James Joyce like the plague)
- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (I badly want to break through the classics world, but am stuck in contemporary fiction most of the time. Maybe Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte sometime soon)

Novels I didn’t want to get through after awhile
- The Widows of Eastwick, John Updike (Witty, but too American centric for my liking)
- Essays in Love, Alain de Botton (Too frivolous, none of Kundera’s wisdom)
- The Post-birthday World, Lionel Shriver (Her writing is faultless. However, the subject matter of an affair is slightly too unpalatable and does her writing little justice. Will try We Need to Talk about Kevin soon)

---

Movies
- Revolutionary Road
- Cést pa moi, je le jure!
- Inception
- Toy Story 3
- Never Let Me Go (I can’t help feeling smug about this, oops)
- The Lives of Others
- Up in the Air
- A Simple Man
- The Curious Case of the Benjamin Button
- 1/3 of Gone With The Wind
- Casablanca
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Bladerunner
- An Education
- Grave of the Fireflies

I’m quite sure the lists aren’t exhaustive, I would have to excavate old library receipts and scour through my internet history links for them to be truly reflective. Enumerating the above brings about a certain level of satisfaction which I think works more to the benefit of yours truly than you, dear reader who probably just skimmed that whole chunk of alphabet soup.

I really am quite satisfied with 2010. Guess the premonition I mentioned at the beginning of the year which came from the song ‘No One Said This Would Be Easy’ did materialize but boy, did I gain much from the trials.

Everyone is cowering in fear because of the daunting task that lies ahead, that is confronting the A levels beast, I guess I’m no exception. This picture summarizes our fear I suppose:

Hokusai Katsushika, The Great Wave of Kanagawa

But I have special antidotes that will bring me through. *brushes off holiday glitter* I may not be ready, but I’m anticipating. I may not know where I’m going, but I will follow. I may not see but I will have faith.

2011, what will you bring?

Pleasure

2010-12-28T22:56:00.002+08:00

You Puritan.

Convalescence

2010-12-21T00:37:00.001+08:00

*gasps in horror at my SATS diagnostic test score.*
There's a looong way to go.

I can feel the workload moodiness gently blanketing my soul and weighing it down, gradually intensifying, leaving me crying out in pain and desperation when it becomes too great to bear. I shrug off that coat of heaviness and trade it in for your jumper of levity.

It's that familiar scent. I have always had heightened experiences with the olfactory. The musty smell of a book, the scent of grass after the rain, sandalwood... (you)

I feel like a scholar with a tower of books next to me.
Booklist:
E. H. Gombrich: A Little History of the World
The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry
Keith Jenkins: Re-thinking History
John Tosh: The Pursuit of History

Shall blog about my gripe with Nex another time.

Holiday madness

2010-12-19T22:26:00.003+08:00

This is not so much a blogpost as it is a to-do-list of sorts. But before that, I've been musing over this theory.
I really shall not gift upon it the name 'theory' but this quickpost is not a time for semantics.

My theory is that we have areas in our lives that we are concerned with, and exert much control over, causing us to neglect other areas of our lives. In economic terms, it is kinda like a trade-off. But here is what it entails: Because of the past 2 weeks of busyness at Cancun and a emotional rollercoaster after (there were highs, there were lows), I've been losing control over a typical routine in my life, like sleeping at odd timings, and been kinda just drifting through life.

As if the slowness and lepak-ness will somehow make up for the madness that was the last 3 weeks, and perhaps more, extending way back to promos- PW- pre-trip preparations period.

Sample:
Sleeping from 5-7.30pm
Waking up to bathe, eat, tinker around the computer for abit, before sleeping again
Waking up due to restlessness, peering into the refrigerator to look for something remotely appetizing at 5am in the morning. Settling on apple pie cookies Mel has kindly offered as part of her fatten-Yiying-up-like-a-stuffed-turkey-at-Christmas package. (Applesauce, poptarts, cornbread muffins, seriously Mel tsang?!)
Returning to sleep, waking up at 8.30am.

I'm such a pig/ sloth/ (insert animal here)

THE LIST
Study for SATS
History H3
KI IS
Read read read to make up for the projected lack in the upcoming year

Btw, Never Let Me Go ain't fantastic. The director took the storyline too literally, almost till the point where scenes appeared to be shot straight from the novel and pieced together afterward. A pity with great child actors and the thought given to the colour palette of the costume and English countryside which I feel translated the fuzz of childhood memories, as well as the beauty in bleakness from the novel very well.

After reading 3 books from Kazuo Ishiguro, I can safely say I know his style well enough to move on. I think maybe I should read authors by the threes, mechanical as it sounds so that I don't make sweeping statements since I will probably identify a common style underlining them all.

For Ishiguro, I began to dislike his dubious conclusions which I find to be too traditional for my liking; conventional in its conflict-climax-resolution elements in which resolution tends to be an all-revelatory conversation between relevant parties as with When We Were Orphans and Never Let Me Go. Fortunately, The Remains of The Day dispelled all disappointment in his conclusions as it ended as gently as it started, the very rational and reflective tone of the persona a constant throughout.

When We Were Orphans was probably his most eventful book, naturally, with characteristics of the typical detective novel. Still, it never escapes from the silent observations the characters in his novels always seem to make from afar. The flow of the novels also always almost occur through the reflection of the protagonist.
-(event A)-
- But I suppose before I launch into this, I shall have to tell you about (insert event B)-
- Now you know what I mean when I say this about (event A)

I find it too clinical and abstract. The characters never seem to be living beings one can identify with, but more of writers musing in their autobiographies during their retirement.

I realize I sound too critical but the fact that I've gone through 3 books does show that I've derived some enjoyment from reading his books. They are fairly straightforward and very classic, especially because of the quietest of details in the settings drawn out.

They're the sort of books I imagine one read while sipping Earl Grey tea on the lawn, idealistic as it may be.

Lethargy

2010-12-17T23:01:00.001+08:00

I feel like burrowing in the covers and not surfacing for at least 72 hours.

The Sea

2010-12-15T23:56:00.004+08:00

What a little vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence through the autumn dark.

- The Sea, John Banville

COP16

2010-11-25T16:35:00.002+08:00

Hi fellow earthlings,
I will be leaving for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, aka COP16 (Conference of Parties) with ECO Singapore, the external environmental organisation I'm attached to tomorrow, and will only be back on 14th December. So, hiatus till then unless I have something unrelated to environmental issues to talk about. Otherwise, you can find me here: http://unfcccecosingapore.wordpress.com/ I'm yingkelaching. Do read up on environmental issues there, we will bring you the most updated and relevant issues, turning the abstract (and the acronyms) into something you can relate to.

I'll be at Conference of Youths (COY6) for the first three days, Klimaform (an alternative climate platform) for the first week and the official conference venue for the 2nd.

Drats, this blogpost sounds like an email (like the 10000... I've sent out this year) I shall inject some energy. I think I hesitated to do so because I know how it feels when people go around boasting (though they don't mean, it may seem like it) on Facebook (eg. "I can see the Effiel Tower from my hotel room!") I AM excited. It's cool to meet like-minded people and know you are not alone in this environmental cause. I really want to gain insights which I can translate into actions back home, especially in school. I know I should tone down my expectations but a bit of optimism never hurts. After all, no one expected a legally binding agreement to come out from the Kyoto (COP3)

My dad is worried that I'll come home a hippie, vegan and (I quote him here) "a radical." Hmm....

Application of econs into everyday life

2010-11-23T23:40:00.001+08:00

s*Mel passes over a box of cheese biscuits* "You can have them."
Me: "Are they not vegan?"
Mel: "Nope and we have a box lying at home, subject to my brother's mood swings so you can take them."
Me (haven't had lunch after mad dash to Mexican Embassy): "Thanks."

- Hist lecture starts-
Mel (in typical fashion): "Can I borrow a pen?"
Me (pretends to look annoyed, in typical fashion): "Hmm, since you gave my biscuits... alright."
Mel (casually): "Just so you know, the terms of trade aren't in my favour."
Me: "No Mel, in such cases, this is called dumping."

Both of us crack up before we face economic history, yet again.

Mel's my grocery store, and I'm her stationary shop. It's a mutually beneficial relationship since we have a comparative advantage in our individual areas. *straight face*

What's this?

2010-11-19T20:12:00.002+08:00

Earl Grey Tea Ice Cream

Oh my, oh me, I've gone over to the dark side because they had cookies...

I am a book junkie, hear me gush

2010-11-18T00:11:00.004+08:00

I've been tidying up my room recently (Yes it's the ritualistic yearly purge) and I hereby declare this shelf my favourite spot in the room. You cannot dispute that the rocking chair totally adds to the whole bookish zen. I got it from Daiso wayyy back when I was a kiddo (lending Mel's term here). I love how things fall into place so nicely, after so many years of redundancy (which is why I couldn't bear to throw out stuff like Ben and Jerry's ice cream tubs which had been a good source of packaging, but I did anyway, albeit with a heavy heart)

Below the rocking chair, my beloved though ageing Moleskine. Its years are few with the few leaves that it has left. Below the Moleskine- a Muji book with random thoughts on the road. At the bottom, notepad that Mel got me from artbox which has naughty kittens on them running about ("I think the kittens are special. They make me laugh and they remind me of what the both of us want to do: to screw the world and its expectations and run all over the place with feet coated in paint.") It contains beautiful quotes, or at least quotes I find beautiful like

"A great deal has been said about love at first sight; I am perfectly aware of love's retrospective tendency to make a legend of itself, turn its beginnings into myth; so I don't want to assert that it was love; but I have no doubt there was a kind of clairvoyance at work: I immediately felt, sensed, grasped the essence of Lucie's being or, to be more precise, the essence of what she was later to become for me; Lucie has revealed herself to me the way religious truth reveals itself."

-pg 66 The Joke, Milan Kundera

On the right is the card that the debators made for me. Nope they did not rip out pages from Where The Wild Things Are (the very thought of it makes me cringe), they (or Yi Ting, artistic director of debate) used the fraying cover of the hardcover to make it. Lovely, ain't it?

Haha I have no idea why I just catalogued that but I'm pretty happy I did it. It's my slight obsession with rooms and what they say about the people who make them their habitats.

My prefrontal cortex trumps my episodic memory...

2010-11-13T22:53:00.002+08:00

Whoops the title is a case in point. After reading other people's blogs, I realized mine is way too esoteric. I have also noticed my writings has evolved over the years from event-sharing to feelings, which does show maturity (in writing, at least). Still, it is also fun to chance upon a writing that brings to mind a memory that has been long shelved.

Maybe it's my aversion to what I call the Today-I-Went-To-The-Fish-Market kind of post. But I've realized lately that those have value too, just that my life has little entertainment value or the humour I encounter does not resonate with the average joe, so it seems narcissistic to bore a dear reader with superfluous details.

My fingers ache (and crack), I think I'm experiencing an early onset of arthritis 0.0 Okay superfluous detail #1, it's a start.

Currently listening to Dar Williams. Currently reading The A-Z of Art to familiarize myself with art pieces, it's bite-sized. I've been finding it impossible to just sit myself down and read. Half of Inkheart is the furthest I've come since Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and a failed attempt of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway which was meant to help me better appreciate The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Bah hambug. I'm also slightly wistful at my previous naivety where I could read Inkheart without doubting its authenticity. I have to constantly remind myself that it's fantasy and it's main target audience is children. After reading this Milan Kundera interview, I have also concluded that I need to return to his books when I grow more adult.

I realized for a tree-hugger, I don't discuss much on this blog. Maybe because my emotions are so mixed. Feelings like passion, anger, bitterness, hopelessness, inspiration all erupt within me at different points in this journey. I'm also carefully consolidating my stance on many environmental issues which would really determine the path I decide to venture into. You can find more of my opinions as well as the team's here, though.

Too serious, wayy too serious.

"Mel, why are you running to and fro barefooted?"
"I'm a hobbit!"

Nisa is right, these sentences are the sort of thoughts that just occur to you on lazy bus rides and you can't help but smile.

Language

2010-11-10T23:43:00.002+08:00

Apo- A prefix from a Greek preposition. It usually signifies from, away from, off, or asunder, separate; as, in apocope (a cutting off), apostate, apostle (one sent away), apocarpous. -from thinkexist.com

Meta- "Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter." - from Wiki.
Basically, an X about X.
Metacognition- Thinking about thinking

Greek culture has influenced our society in so many ways we cannot imagine: fundamental principles of democracy, art (discovery of foreshortening), language, to name a few. I think I want to venture into Greek mythology soon. (:

Hmm..

2010-11-09T22:37:00.003+08:00

I can sleep through coffee.

Sighs

2010-11-06T22:56:00.000+08:00

A bitter sigh. The active purging of air that sustains this tired existence. We can't help but live. A pleasure sigh- the slow deliberate exhalation of life, while savouring its non-depletable source. An empathetic sigh- willing that strength within yourself to take up residence in another.

Beauty

2010-11-05T00:59:00.001+08:00

Sailing
Lyonel Feininger

Gelmeroda
Lyonel Feininger

This is cubism in an entirely new light, it's mind blowing. I was never keen on cubism because I like many, have the tendency to fall into the trap of meriting an art piece solely on beauty and the emotions it evokes in me. It's not wrong to be naturally inclined towards beauty but having an inquisitve spirit to question the purpose of an artwork and how the form conveys the emotion it does, even if it is an unpleasant one, opens up a whole new galaxy in the appreciation of art.

It's amazing how much depth these paintings contain through the overlaps of simple shapes and the translucency of colour. For Sailing, movement is depicted despite the triangle being angular and hardly bearing any association to the amorphous wind or fluid waves. Gelmeroda looks better in print, and my jaw literally dropped when I first saw it. The shapes merely suggest human figures which went against conventions of realism, and yet managed to capture the stillness and serenity of the town setting.

Deeply unsettling

2010-10-29T17:52:00.003+08:00

I just made an impulsive decision to choose Hist H3 over Lit H3. You want impulse, Yiying? This is impulse, and this is your life spiralling out of control and hanging on a cliff precipitously.

On a completely unrelated note, Teenage Dream sung by Katy Perry irks me. First she praises her lover for not judging her looks: "You think I'm pretty/ Without any make-up on." Then she goes on to declare that "I might get your heart racing/ In my skin-tight jeans" which is superficial to say the least, and not to mention, entirely contradictory. She "let [her] walls come down, down" because her lover loves her for who she is and she reciprocates by sexually arousing him with the very factor that she does not want to be judged for.

No, it's not just lyrics.

I've listened to love declarations that may come across a little twee, but never lacking sincerity.
The Last Song by Lucky Soul is one such song. (They don't have it on Youtube, so: The Last Song)
Ali Howard croons with the childlike voice of hers, with the simple guitar accompaniment. She can come across as naive, especially with the usual bubblegum pop she sings with the band. But here, there's this heartfelt melancholy despite her voice being crystal clear and not rich like say, Feist.

Born on a tear,
That seeps from the dagger shaped hole in your heart.
Wounds that run deep.
Well I'll try to patch them as best as I can.

If the sun melts the black of the street,
And the long road home sticks to your feet.
When the music that frees you has all but been used up,
Then I'll sing the last song for you.

I hate to see your heart breaking.
I'll hold it safe in my hands.
I don't know if my words can bind it together,
But that's all I know how to do.
So I'll sing the last song for you.

I ain't got much.
That I can give you, to keep you afloat.
Mumbled comforts,
Are no use for wrestling demons, I know.
But a lopsided smile and a lovesick recital,
Might loosen the burden for now.

The penultimate beat of the drum,
As the second to last chord is strummed.
When all other words have already been heard,
I'll sing the last song for you.
I'll sing the last song for you.
I'll sing the last song for you.
I'll sing the last song for you.

Sweet.

Decisions

2010-10-28T17:38:00.002+08:00

I'm growing onto this life. Latching on to it even. It may be quite hard to let go, but I'll deal with that when it comes. (Shall I defer it by not signing on to be an OGL?)

I go to school to get PW done, achieve a sense of entitlement, and come back and watch House. It's the first TV series I've watched this entire year. I stay up at night, sifting through pdf files of UNFCCC processes while checking out music on Grooveshark. I just completed The Story of Art, will be uploading learning points soon.

Sure it does not sound like full-fledged limitless enjoyment, but it is a qualified one. And pleasure in small doses make me happy enough. Although the COP16 trip takes up quite a bit of time, I'm quite relieved it's there to give me direction in my holidays.

I can slump on the bed and sleep restfully in the evening without worrying much. But I wonder about next year. I do have decisions to make.

Firstly, H3. Then H3 Hist or Lit? Earthwatch, how many initiatives? Leave a legacy? Debate- To try to make the team or acknowledge inability to commit? Serving in Church? And the complexity arises in my need to make all these decisions simultaneously because giving up one, enables me to commit to another.

One of my greater stresses in not my threshold for stress, but my fatigue. Sometimes I'm just so tired, it affects my emotions.

Gotta tape up that ankle and run.

-

2010-10-27T18:43:00.002+08:00

BE RESPONSIBLE, YIYING.

2010-10-24T21:15:00.001+08:00

If I am capable of holding so much hatred, surely I am capable of that much love as well. Perhaps that love can negate the hatred and slowly erase the taint.
Find me somebody to love.

A shape poem that has been on my mind lately...

2010-10-24T01:18:00.004+08:00

1(a

s)
one

iness

- ee cummings

Major minor

2010-10-24T01:03:00.006+08:00

'You could have told me earlier. Why did you keep it from me?'
'Because I couldn't face one of your eruptions. David, I can't run my life according to whether or not you like what I do. Not any more. You behave as if everything I do is part of the story of your life. You are the main character, I am a minor character who doesn't make an appearance until halfway through. Well, contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of my own, just as important to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the decisions.'

- Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

I know that I have been quoting Disgrace quite a bit, but it has given me many insights, like literature usually does. Life may be objective in the scientific sense but experiences are subjective and because there is no rehearsal for life, literature gives us a taste of experiences to come, be it good or bad, and lessons from the lives of others that are relevant to our lives as well.

Of couse, this may entail overanalyzing at points in time and not going with the flow of life, not actually living in the moment. But that's another train of thought altogether that I may deal with another time.

Back to the quoted text. Sometime this year, when I was carefully examining ideas in my head (more than ever before, it's a pity that I didn't note them down with the busyness and all), I came to the realization that the world does not revolve around me.

I sound like a selfish jerk now but you'll see what I mean in awhile.

It's the idea of whole lives existing out there, and my sudden appreciation of the full extent of the existence of other people who are major characters in their lives as well. Take friends. We don't see our friends as them, the very mere title of 'friends' indicate their (technical term here) function in our lives. We see them in relation to our lives and not existing in their own right. We can criticize Berkeley's "To be is to be perceived" but really we act on it in our everyday lives. We are conscious of their existence, only when we meaningfully perceive them, which is when they are relevant to our lives. I think this is also why fresh couples spend most of their time together and wonder about what the other is doing in the time they are not. Because the other, once a calefare, now a major character, is consuming a large part of one's time, and has taken on such a huge significance in one's life, that the existence of them is just so cherished that the full appreciation of them needs to be realized. You just want more. It sadly also explains why Feist sings

"It was hard to tell just how I felt
To not recognize myself

I started to fade away"
- Let It Die

Because the large intersection of each other's lives never negates the fact that you're what you are in relation to that person's life, and if you let that define your identity, then you lose your own.

By extension, I cannot claim to know someone, because it is never possible that spheres of both lives in a relationship will completely overlap. This is especially so if he/she's expresses many facets of his/her character in other spheres of his/her life, of which I have no access to, apart from the human medium of news.

This may sound rather convoluted but I do hope to touch up on it sometime again. If it sound slightly incoherent, it just goes to prove that this is not something to explore at 1:03am in the morn. Hope this post was thought-provoking though.

[edited]

This major-minor character concept that I've been pondering about also explains why we found it odd to meet teachers with their families at shopping malls (found being past tense because we're past that naive stage, into a general acceptance of overlapping spheres in our lives). Because we saw teachers as teachers, we never really went out of our way to imagine them having families and having children like ourselves. Also, it doesn't occur to us enough that our parents were once kids and right now, they're just older kids, role-playing the character of a parent they assume is the best way how, perhaps even drawing lessons from their own parents. There isn't a manual, and they weren't born parents. It's strange to view my parents as anything other than parents, for example middle-age people as vulnerable as us to life's trials and maybe not coping much better though we assume it gets better with age and experience.

Still, I wouldn't go so far as to deliberately fuse spheres of my life if I can help it, such as say through a party. Every group of friends I know, met me at a different point in my life, and know a different facet of me (remember Hume's fluidity of identity?) But we were friends because I was that person and we had a common history. But the various personalities that I took on over the years reflect themselves in the choice of friends so it wouldn't be unfair to say now, that they're extremely different and some may be even polar opposites. Someone I wouldn't consider a good friend now, was a good friend then because of who I was then.It really is all about timing. The polar opposites thought irks me slightly, it indicates a change in personality, value system, character, however nuanced it may be, and though many have stated I remained fairly consistent (where k is a constant, haha Karthi) all these years.

to be cont'd again?

Desert

2010-10-22T22:02:00.005+08:00

I feel devoid of all inspiration. There's this sandstorm that clouds my life intermittently. Except that I don't (feel that I) have a big furry friend to walk me through those times.

I have been psychoanalyzing my life of late, steering clear of Freud but accepting that our childhoods hugely impact our lives significantly. Why this obsession with what's past? I wonder too. Duffy has explored the theme of adolescene in her poetry, Arcade Fire in The Suburbs, etc. Why this celebration...

This education system has made us grow up so quickly, it's scary. We are constantly reminded that what we do right now impacts our future lives. Remember the PSLE lectures on how PSLE affects your getting into a good secondary school, which will then impact your JC, which will then open doors to university which will then determine the course your life will take? We are only 12. And right now with scholarship bodies pushing forward their selection tests, the pressure is building up again. Sure at 17, I think I'm capable of assessing my interest and pursuing a course and university that I can live with, but somehow I can't help but feel that the accumulation of all these heavyweight decisions have taken its toll on my mental health. I'm doing a doubletake now and attempting to reclaim all those lost hours, to revel in the shallow waters of my childhood.

Maybe that explains the fondness for childlike things of myself, and many others as well.
The things I want are seemingly attainable, but are encumbered by complications in relationships, my overanalysis, and the world.
I want to play frisbee, floorball, run, dance, shout.
I want to picnic with close friends and recover those years which has changed me and matured me till a point of non-recognition.
I will to break the tension between impulse and control by just being childlike in wants and choosing the former over the latter.

A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

- Passing Afternoon, Iron & Wine

()

2010-10-20T22:32:00.002+08:00

If this wasn't Singapore, I would have been involved in multiple car accidents already.
I do silly things sometimes, and the total lack of control scares me when I see the damage done.
I know I'm just 17 and I have a long way to go, and a lot to learn. But recently, my mental and physical strength hasn't been able to keep up with my self.

Some say that there's no point in crying over spilt milk, but how true is that really?

Tree-hugger.

2010-10-11T23:17:00.002+08:00

I've found a few things that fulfill me.

I'm sentimental so I walk in the rain

2010-10-07T10:58:00.002+08:00

I really should be less sentimental.
My room is filled with old dusty stuff. Every year, new stuff accumulates and every year I'm learning to give things up.
(Ohmygosh, this brings to mind so so many Disgrace quotes)
I have been holding on to those pretty erasers for ages and I finally threw them away last year...but I couldn't resisting keeping that beetroot eraser. I know what you're thinking.

I keep a big black box that the prefects gave me as a farewell present in Sec 2 and it's my "Happy Box"- it's filled with notes, letters, my badges, the wrapping of my first (and only) floorball stick, my... earplugs from my MRI. (Stop laughing at me!) Okay, now that I have blogged and realized how ridiculous this sounds, I shall purge my room of sentimental but impractical stuff. That's a resolution.

I need to be able to press on the "Delete All" messages for my phone's inbox without feeling a pang of regret, I need to be able to delete emails from antiquity (I exaggerate but I'm young so it does seem like such a long time ago).

But... it just seems to pleasant to trace the arc of history, or my history at least, to see the path I've taken and how far I've come. I was this paranoid IP1 wondering what the future held, and hey, it all turned out to be fine. I've emails tracing the beginning, the process as well as the end of a friendship, and they really are valuable to me. As Dr Seuss said, Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Of course, when I go into philo mode, I'll never fail to bring in Kundera. I nod furiously when I read his books such that I look like a bobblehead doll, especially when I read on buses. He says that friends are functions of our situations and I guess at one point in time, personalities may fit like...enzyme-substrate complexes. But eventually, experiences may denature (Ok, bio analogy stops here!), I mean, may mould people differently such that some people don't click as well as before. But how does that destroy the friendship? True, the friendship was short-lived but at that point in time, with that particular circumstance in one's life, it was beautiful and why should the outcome rob one of what once was?

Those emails are a reflection of what I once was- I never fail to laugh at my immature self, and they are evidence that I have grown richer in experience and have matured which is really comforting, in a way.

Still... I blow off dust, I wipe off rust. It's time to move on. The future beckons.

Those centrimetres between my ears are MINE.

2010-10-05T22:14:00.001+08:00

I hereby declare a self-imposed ban on whining, complaining, and wallowing in self pity (on the blog) and can only do so if at least one of the three pre-requisites are satisfied:
1. The blogpost is thought-provoking. The feelings unique to myself, are felt universally, to an extent such that readers identify. Readers leave not bemoaning the complexities of this world and the painful depth of the human emotional experience.
2. The blogpost (or rant) breathes new insight into old recurring situations.
3. The situation inspires poetry and prose. The placement of those here will not expose dirty linen in public, and subtleties are not lost on those who know me well enough.

Whee. Okay now shifting from the now-condemened self-centeredness (which has been ongoing, I apologize dear reader) to art history.
Yes art history.
It's exploring knowledge for the sake of it, just because. I delight in this knowledge. No more pseudo understanding of art, or at least lesser.

I have learnt that the world of art is boundless. The progress of art entails a gain, but also the loss of a quality from the past, very unlike the progress of science if one subscribes to Popper's notion of falsification (Implication being that science progresses linearly towards the truth, whereas in art, there is no objective truth, just an evolution of styles)
Of course, I still am a layman in the artworld but now I'm a layman who has read (or am reading) The Story of Art by E.H Gombrich so that counts for something. *smiles*

(More updates on new insights to come, I promise)

Books:
Want to read: Room by Emma Donoghue (Shortlisted for Man Booker prize)

(Oh my, they're doing trailers for novels now. My sentiments? Nice)
I like novels that tell an unconventional story, and usually appreciate a view of the world that is encountered from a childlike perspective.
Materially on my shelves:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Schopenhauer's Telescope by Gerard Donovan (The reference to Bernhard Schlink put me off, to be honest, but I'm getting through)

Reality knocks on the door, as always and as always, we find ways to cope, somehow.

Current mood

2010-10-02T16:51:00.001+08:00

Being

2010-09-30T22:58:00.001+08:00

Is this apathy?
Or is this peace?
Hopefully one day the former will translate into the latter.
No, I call into the being, the evolution of apathy into peace.

That sort of peace that arrives unexpectedly, like today when I opened my eyes and nothing flooded back. Nothing. From thoughts the night before, from the dream...nil. It was just a comfortable moment of consciousness, just being.
Selah.

Really consider it. When was the last time you felt comfortable, just being? Not happy, not laughing but just being at peace with yourself.

Sometimes memory seems to be the burden of being, or maybe it's our emotional capacity.

Those Friday evenings

2010-09-24T18:09:00.005+08:00

This week has been downright horrible. Horrible as in living-for-the-next-moment horrible.
The worst thing being unable to understand what I'm going through. Tears can stream down my face and I don't know why. It's disconcerting.

But I've learnt much. A qualified awareness midst despair. Hmm...
Lesson #1: Stop chasing after the wind. Having read Ecclesiastes twice already, I manage to catch the gist of it but am still confused at times.That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil- this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:13 Yet, I still don't quite get how one can find work meaningless (see Chapters 1 and 2) and still gain satisfaction from it. Perhaps meaningless refers to the insignificance of men's toil instead, as compared to the eternal glory that outweighs them all? Didn't God say to "Seek first the kingdom of God?" And I've been told how strange it is that after pursuing Him, the other things don't matter no more.

Lesson #2: Pace yourself. I've been moving at the velocity of a Maglev train until I've come to a stage where I'm repelling the very route I've chosen.

Lesson #3: Live a little. Stop refraining from the things that give you joy. I have postponed my enjoyment continually until they have accumulated, making me feel like this: ' "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" ' Ecclesiastes 4:8 So from now on, I declare a self-imposed time-out frequently, even during term time. That includes art pilgrimages, coffee with friends, breathing nature, etc.

Lesson #4: If you aim for one thing, just one thing, and supresses every other natural impulse that is you, then you become nothing. You forget yourself. The self becomes diminished. (Haven't I learnt that just the beginning of this year? History repeats itself.)

Lesson #5: One day, bitterness and resentment towards someone will subside. Curiously, it was this poem that did it for me:

A father's discipline closed me like a box.
A hardness hammered shut the lid.
For fifteen years, no matter what he did,
I was unreachable. Venom sealed the locks.

Neutral beauty kept me company. Walking
through neighbour's cattle, from moving skies and trees
I learnt the slower, vaster intimacies.
Avoiding the world of men, I stopped talking.

except intensely to myself. Rumours
of happiness sometimes seeped outside the box.
'Untrue!' I howled, and double-checked the locks.
In the dark, poetry grew like a tumour.

When the poems were big enough to break
their way out, dragging me behind, I saw
my father's face, more bitten than before,
a soft fist eaten by love, impossible to hate.

There is no forgiveness now, nor the need.
Silence bred rich fruits- a known self, those skies-
for which I thank my father. Amnesia lies
behind our peace. Neither of us dares to bleed.

-Tony Lintermans

In retrospect, although this period of time has been trying, it has led me to reflect inwardly and maybe something good has come out of it after all.

Funnies

2010-09-19T17:59:00.001+08:00

(In the computer lab)
Me: "Why is the printer making funny noises. It must be hungry after the one week break. But wait.. it pukes out what it eats."

Mel: "Ohmigosh! The printer is bulimic."

And Econs lesson was Disgrace references much.

*People strolling into class late* "Sorry Mr Loke!"
Mr Loke: "Are you truly sorry?"

And Mr Loke swiping down all our answers to his questions.
Me: "Stop taking us in circles!"
Mr Loke: "I'm not taking you in circles. I'm leading you out of the circle."
Mars: "WHADDYA WANT FROM ME!"

Gratitude

2010-09-17T22:30:00.002+08:00

I love God and I love friends. Depressing thoughts have been circulating around my head recently, esp. last night. I cannot emphasize more on my desire to be someone I can live with, someone that wouldn't look back at my life in regret, wishing that I had participated in more meaningful activities. It's the desire to be a likeable person and an effective leader as well.

Mel is a godsend. Your prayer and your cookie (uniquely you), made me feel so much better. I couldn't have gone through today without you, Mel. I would have been really grouchy.

I thank God for friends, and most of all I thank God for carrying me out of that darkness, snapping me out of it.

I know all the trials and tribulations that I'm have gone through, am going through and have yet to gone through will allow perseverance to "finish its work so that [I] may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:4) Though these trials are inevitable and a by-product of a fallen world, I am an overcomer and I will pull through. And listening to Francis Chan speak, I am reminded that I have a choice in temptation, not to lift my eyes from the goal. It's interesting- he mentioned how the greek words for trials and temptations differ. Trials approach you while the greek word for temptation is actually a luring away such that you become the active person in choosing to succumb to that temptation.

Okay off to study now. Will be updating more frequently in the near future, oh the books and movies I will explore after the exams.

2010-09-09T23:50:00.000+08:00

I'm not one of those zombies who want to slumber for one month

2010-09-06T00:30:00.002+08:00

Today during worship, I felt a joy I haven't felt in a long time. A sense of relief, and the feeling of having a veil being lifted off my eyes. It has been my preoccupation with so many worldly things that I have forgotton how to be still and focus on Jesus. It's great to be back.

I'm really happy that I now have the resolve to read the Bible, cover to cover. At Exodus now. During today's sermon, I realized the importance of the Word as well as the extent to which the knowledge of the Word that I gather during the other days of the week can actually aid my understanding of the sermon. The recollection of Bible stories from Sunday school can only go so far. So let not my spiritual walk be a 1/7 thing but the pillar on which my life centers around. As I tend to be a speed reader, let me not be a casual reader of the Word too.

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is eluding me, each and every time I go to the library to source for it. (Yes, old-fashioned me relies on serendipity) Bah, humbug. I read 'When We Were Orphans' and I'm really drawn to his narrative style, though I have an inkling thatt the mystery genre doesn't suit him all too well, maybe because I didn't like the conclusion, which I found anti-climatic. I saw Nocturnes but I'm trying to diversify and read books from different authors once I get a good sense of an author's style. Scott says that Ishiguro is a misunderstood author, with readers having their expectations somewhat warped by the assumption that he is Japanese and therefore he must write differently from English authors. (See Murakami's poetic, slightly haiku style) In actual fact, though he was born in Japan, he moved to England when he was 6. Of late, I've been experiencing novels by great story-tellers including David Mitchell in Black Swan Green, so that's a joy.

Many people say that fiction is somewhat irrelevant but I beg to differ. It's rather pragmatic to think that non-fiction books are more relevant just because they provide more concrete facts when while attempting to present an objective viewpoint, a compromise is made on presenting the human side of the story. I got to know about the Roma problem in France through Black Swan Green.
Okay so booklist for the holidays is as follows:
Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb
Et cetera The Unpublished Poems by ee cummings (Not E.E.Cummings as denoted on the cover page hrmph haha)
Staying Alive (Anthology of poems)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
and ta-dah catch of the day!
What the Dog Saw and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

and the afterthought:
Burma by D.G.E Hall
Kinda to appease the studious side of my self that says "Go study, Yiying!" But still, Burma is intriguing, as rogue nations usually are. The refusal of aid during Cyclone Nargis and the Saffron Revolution makes Burma an interesting case study, one that makes its history especially (compared to other SEA nations) relevant to today's context. And of course, never forgetting that the human side of it all. I wonder whether obstacles like ísolationism and xenophobia in international relations can ever be solved. As with the Russian Submarine Kursk Explosion, to refuse aid for reasons like protecting country's secrets, upholding the country's image, at the cost of civilian lives just baffles me.

Here's to a fruiful week (:

Tired

2010-08-31T21:33:00.003+08:00

I'm exhausted

Fatigue is longing to be the white cat that roams around VJ, stretching out in the most absurd of places during our school hours- the cushiony seats behind the counselling room, on top of the drain, on a chair. It doesn't help when your best friend makes cat-like noises when she yawns and stretches which makes your want to scramble towards sleep and pull the covers over yourself for days on end, waiting for September to end.

Lunacy is hitting the piano keys with vengeance when the white cat is laying on top, sleeping. Eh, fellow Victorians? Poor cat.

I have decided to read the Bible cover to cover, starting from Genesis. (This is to hold myself accountable) It's just plain wrong to know David Lurie more than I know God, especially when God wants to reveal himself to me and David Lurie is a closed book, yielding little.

Mel's cinammon rolls are the best, no second best. The pinnacle will always be chocolate raspberry cake, yummy in my tummy. (: Today's picnic was pleasant. Laying supine on canvas sheets under the shady tree with the overhead news fix through an ipad (Thanks Jonk) is wayy more comfortable than it should be.

"Enjoying moments of a rented silence." -Douglas Dunn

Psalms 121

2010-08-26T20:11:00.003+08:00

Psalms 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

I've been drawing comfort in this psalm.
Today's 45 mins on the stationary bike felt real good. The feel of sweat at the small of my back, running down my temple, I almost feel like I'm back in the game again. Will do more of it in the future, a pity my compound doesn't have a gym.

Words or mathematical equations swim in my head at night, it's alphabet soup in the ball of matter we call our brain. I've been switching beds to trick my body into napping.
But still...
Words and concerns swirl.
Snatches of conversations echo in my brain.
I haven't been at peace, and I know it.

When I think of my concerns, and I compare them to the flood victims in Pakistan, or the hostages in the Philippines, it's a reality check- my concerns seem so frivolous compared to them.

I have to learn to be contented like Paul. (No, not the octopus, the missionary)

Entertainment

2010-08-20T23:42:00.001+08:00

Not one day in this year, have I sat through an entire episode of a TV series.
55mins of House before peace was disrupted was the closest I ever got.
I'm still reaching.

Sengkang Riverside Park

2010-08-16T21:35:00.001+08:00

Sengkang Riverside Park- another addition to my favourite places in Singapore alongside Botanic Gardens, Lee Kong Chian Reference Library (history section), Ann Siang Rd, Tanjong Pagar Distripark…

It defeats the typical image that comes to mind when I say ‘Park in Singapore.’ Usually parks are like a large crater in the midst of a concrete jungle, surrounded by hovering blocks- you feel like you’re in a cave, you can never really escape. But here, blocks are your height because they are maintaining a non-threatening distance. If you concentrate enough, the persistent humming of crickets, though soft, can drown out the drone of the highway (which is a minus point). Go on a Sunday evening and you see kites flying merrily in the distant sky, suspended in midair as if in a trance. The orange orb is a drooping lantern, casting light without imposition.

The faint saccharine smell of pandan leaves countered by the lemongrass leads you to conclude that nature’s alchemy beats Man’s mishmash of extractions hands down, anytime.

Children fling Gardenia bread in ponds wholesale to watch perfect Os break the water, gasping for air and food. I watch a young girl naïve in motion, flinging bread with the wrong trajectory. She aims far but the bread falls right at her feet. She looks so perplexed I am amused.

And just for a moment, I escape the hustling bustle.

Just another Saturday night

2010-08-15T00:19:00.001+08:00

I feel woozy- the feeling one always get from the recovery of a sickness.
That and a throbbing headache for the entire day. Bleargh.

The long weekend just passed me by and I already feel like I need a decent getaway. I haven't been to the beach in ages and it's so ironic that I'm within a kilometre of it everyday for about 12 hours each day. I don't have all the time in the day to lumber to ECP and sit at Coffeebean, unlike Mr Ixer. And neither can I run. And yesterday being 13 day reminded me of the time we went to Sentosa the day after End-of-years in IP1 (Those sweet people actually waited for Lynn and I to complete the Malay paper) and it was the most refreshing fulfilling outing I had with friends in a long time then. We made sandcastles, played Volleyball with random people (whose ball got stuck up a coconut tree), had lunch at a Japanese restaurant, played frisbee and... (: It's interesting how things always seem better on hindsight- maybe everything, including our feelings, is relative to our current frame of mind, and state.

I just hung the laundry outside and my mum is cracking a joke on how ghosts go around wearing the clothes of other people.
"It's been ages since I wore decent clothing, wearing white is such a bore..."
"Oooh...fine silk."

I actually like hanging out the laundry to dry. I get to think under bloated clouds and a wide starry sky, going through the motions that only require 1/10th of the brainwork I usually do, without any distractions.

I realized today that I got to increase my patience threshold and be more tolerant.

Current mood:

Books are yummy.

2010-08-10T08:54:00.000+08:00

Bookshelf cum Staircase

When I grow old(er), I shall own this.

An evolution of Friday rantings to art

2010-08-06T19:37:00.002+08:00

I loved my birthday, and more so the people who made it really special. Thanks for the cards, especially. Every year I come back, flip through my diaries and realize the extent of change I am undergoing as a teenage girl, and with it, growing pains. I realize this birthday that I really want to be someone I can live with. This birthday had many childhood themes and it is fitting that reconciliation is taking place (my polar identities) Practical and thrifty me would never get items like Precious Thoughts Porcelain figurines and Where the Wild Things Are (Hardcover!), but it just shows that you need loved ones around you to make you irrationally happy.

I have actually settled into a comfortable pace for the term and there are things that make me happy, mainly:
Breaks where we hang out at the usual tables and do work in comfortable silences
Debate: Not debating but the fact that there are so many people I can relate to (and to think I planned on quitting). I know I wouldn't fit in anywhere else.
The grinning Totoro that greets me when I return home

Sure, there are things I may not like too much but they have been there all the while so I guess they're just side irritations I got to tolerate and sidestep.
Mainly, I think it's sad that the Victorian culture clashes head-on with our motto. It's sad that projects like 10 Journals have so much potential to be insightful but people deface the journals with rantings and vandalism. Such projects rest on the assumption of depth, and time again, the student population keeps proving the assumption wrong.

I have been accused of being elitist, I admit. Or know-it-all by Yunita. I vehemently object to the latter, but to no avail. I shouldn't be elitist I know, will try to work on that.
Ha, I was not a procrastinator- I went to the Cai Guo Qiang exhibition!

Head on
Cai Guo Qiang

"Head On is created by Cai Guo –Qiang for his solo exhibition of the same name at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. Although the Berlin Wall is long gone, and the former East Germany and West Germany have reunified, there remain deep and intractable historical issues between the two sides. The 99 life-sized wolves are leaping en masse towards an unseen wall, with those at the front falling from striking the wall while those bringing up the rear continuing surging forward, undeterred. Seen from afar, the leaping wolf pack forms an arc full of force and power, their fierce courage and spirit of warrior camaraderie seemingly serving as a reminder to people: humanity is easily blinded by a kind of collective mentality and action, and is destined to repeat such error to an almost unbelievable degree. The crux of this installation lies just before the glass wall, as the artist reminds people: invisible walls are the hardest to dismantle. The second and third parts of this colossal installation - Illusion II and Vortex - will also be exhibited."
-National Museum of Singapore

And to animal lovers out there, don't worry the wolves are NOT stuffed thorugh taxidermy, but rather, made of gauze resin and painted sheepskins, not much better I admit. (This strangely reminds me of Disgrace) The interesting thing is that this is the first time it is exhibited in a black room. It travelled to Guggenheim (even the wolves got to see the Guggenheim hrmph) and I heard the exhibition was fantastic as the wolves circled with the famous spiral structure (Frank Gehry), utilizing the setting.
Here:

With so much effort being put into the project, I can't help but be in awe. Evidently, he had assistants (and even then they still took about half-a-year to complete the project), but still...juxtapose this against Damien Hirst who conceives the idea and leaves the work to his assistants. Art can't just be the idea, even though that component requires time and a fair bit of intelligence. The messages conveyed from Head On an What Goes Up Must Come Down may both be fairly complex but I can't help but get a more sincere feel from the former.
(Actually in my honest opinion, What Goes Up Must Come Down was lame, as a statement on the fluctuating prices in the arts industry.)

What Goes Up Must Come Down
Damien Hirst
Parkett
Singapore Tyler Print Institute

Iza Genzken

I forgot the title urgh, but it's a statement made by Iza Genzken on our consumption of food till the point of extinction of species. I quite agree with her view that art has to be created and this is reflected in her above work where she made everything right down to the dinosaurs she could have easily gotten from Toys' R Us.

Awakening

2010-07-31T23:39:00.001+08:00

The Core of Everything
Peter Callesen

I must bear fruit.

..."as the sky split open into a thunderstorm"

2010-07-30T22:06:00.003+08:00

Travelling to school with a watercolour art work in the rain is the most heart-stopping experience. I feel like I'm mothering a child, wiping away its tears which so destroys the integrity of its identity! The umbrella sheltering it more than myself, this is love.

My watercolour paints are ancient, it's amazing they still diffuse colour. Unavoidably, some crumble into bits and slide downwards (the palette is held in a tilted manner) but most are still intact and serving their function well, unlike *coughs* Pentel's poster colours and Omni's acrylic paint (though for the latter I manage to create a rough texture for the mountainous regions.)

I know vis-rep (visual representation) was annoying to many people and does nothing in preparation for the A levels. It's a rather IP assignment to do, with a goal beyond mere academics. (See Loss in Poetry module last year where we could represent a poem in anyway we wanted. I did Cinders by Roger McGough, changed the pronouns and acted the part of the daughter instead of the original persona, the father. I am hardly known to be dramatic but I thoroughly enjoyed it, though settling the props was a horror. I am still forever grateful to Yi Meng who brought the large baby seat. Hmm..I should have recorded it for memory's sake but was too shy, regrets.)

Anyway, exploring the theme of adolescence in Duffy's poetry through colour pencils and watercolour was therapeutic to say the least. Spending stretches of Sunday and Tuesday afternoon (the only afternoons I am really free) commanding the attention of a blank, but slowly filling canvas, ahh...bliss.

It's been a long time. My techniques are rusty, but I'm satisfied with the end product.

Though uploading photos on blogger is a pain, for o ye faithful readers:
The process

Initial photograph of Dione, taken outside PT

Sketch

Colouring

My work table

Before painting the sky and "green erotic pond."

Painting the thunderstorm was harddd, had to avoid the lightning (not so successful)

My favourite photograph of my painting

Note the change in colour of the hills (foreground)

Write up (by Dione, edited by me)

As Duffy allows her speakers to speak for themselves through the use of the dramatic monologue, we have similarly conferred authority upon the female -- the young woman -- by making her the subject of the painting, commanding the attention of the viewer who is asked, through contemplation of her, to understand her.

Like Duffy's speakers, our young woman rejects conformity -- standing atop rocks, she tempts danger and looks out toward the unfamiliar landscape with all its intimations of adventure beneath "the heavy, sexy sky". She is an adolescent, on the verge of discovering something new – sexual awakening being an important part of this discovery – as she strains for the apple which is slightly out of reach, even though she "(knows) it (is) dangerous", the red apple being a universal symbol of a forbidden fruit. "Lonely and thrilled", she faces away from the viewer, coming into her own as an individual before what she thinks is her own destiny, just like how Duffy’s speakers are “impatient to be grown”, sure of themselves and refusing to heed their teachers’ counsel until they reach “the day (they’ll) be sorry”.

The subject’s face is not visible to the viewer – young, what she has is raw potential, unshaped; she will soon encounter “the wall (she will) climb”. The rugged mountains in the distance are ominous yet inviting, the brown of the hard earth suggesting the uncompromising future lying in wait for the young woman. She welcomes the mystery, perhaps with a little “insolence” as she strains for the apple. In any case, she has chosen to leave the mementos of her childhood quite literally behind her, paying no attention to the makeshift swing, the teddy bear and the playing net. The boat is her tool now, signifying the autonomy she has over her life and the responsibility she must assume.

Yet this young woman's future is indeterminate; she hasn't reached her destination, but is "On the motorway bridge" -- on another level, the rocks help represent the liminal stage she is in, and the juxtaposition of a toy-littered beach with an apple tree and mountains evokes the possibility another world that her speakers are on the threshold of discovering. The contrast of realism in the photograph with the childlike and dreamlike quality of colour pencils (representing childhood) and watercolour (representing the near future) respectively, brings out Duffy’s surrealistic imagery. A sense of ambiguity is brought out by the murky pond both allowing the subject to gaze into and see herself and obscuring her image. Like the “green, erotic pond”, it evokes the tension and apprehension of a young woman on the cusp of maturity, lacking a distinct identity.

For all the strength of her adventurous spirit, the young woman is vulnerable before the unfamiliar landscape, at once intimate and hostile, and recalls the emotions of the speakers who stood in "air (that) tasted of electricity" or was uncomfortable with the "sticky breath" of the wood on the nape of her neck. She is about to leave the safety of the shore for the unknown, still innocent and seemingly unprepared. She is not dressed for a journey, but has worn what she would on a normal day – the viewer can imagine her standing in the middle of “a long road (that) held no one”, or in “gardens (that) were empty”, reminding of how fragile the speaker who gazed at “an ice-cream van (that) chimed and dwindled away”.

Finally, we wanted to respond to Duffy’s choice of giving voice to her speakers instead of constructing images – while Duffy is concerned about the limitations of representation through language, we have chosen to create images using visual representations themselves, and in so doing hope to have provided a response to Duffy’s treatment of young women in her poetry.

Longest blogpost yet, whee.

(Random note to self: Must see Cai Guo Qiang's wolfs before 31st August)

Don't feed the monster

2010-07-27T17:37:00.000+08:00

Green-eyed monster by Corinne May. Envy is the denial of His providence.

Yes, Mike Wazowski is gaping at you for forgetting. For forgetting after every single Sunday.
You go through the week forgetting that your time on earth is temporary, that there is eternal glory that outweights them all.
Don't blame your environment. Look to yourself, you are only affected because there is something in you that desires, that has ambition. Dreams are not wrong, but it has stirred something wicked within you. You have fallen away, you have worshipped false idols. What use is the education system if it causes you to gain worldly information but lose precious knowledge?

Didn't the Bible say in Matthew 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"?

Blessed masterpiece, reality check.

well-being

2010-07-24T23:26:00.001+08:00

Okay scratch whatever happened below. Those are the bouts I have to overcome.

We can't get stupider by the day, unless we experience a brain concussion. Even if the education system is too linear, we still gain something day by day. So take heart in that school may be a pain but you emerge a brain. (or brain-ier at least)

(:

-words-

2010-07-24T00:15:00.001+08:00

Friday nights are spent wondering what I was rushing in the week for.
As in, the purpose beyond meeting deadlines and fulfilling responsibilities.
It irks me that I do not (yet) know the answer.

Let's do the things we love, shall we? I don't know what I love. I now realize what a chore it can be when you work at what you love, in this case the humanities. The irony gets me.
Strip me of all responsibilities and give me all the time in the world. Now, what would I do?
I don't know.
This is the feeling I get on Friday nights.

What am I doing on Facebook and msn? I feel like I've been drinking from the wrong sources, and I keep lapping up saltwater, only to find myself ever thirsting and sorely lacking. The fact that I'm expressing such inner frustrations on a blog speaks volumes. I'm such an open book, willing to be swept away by the lack of privacy this world has to offer. *clams up, bites lip*

And in the dead of the night, it's this unbearable limbo state of wanting to be alone yet feeling lonely.

A poem from the other day. It was scribbled down (or rather typed, the less romanticized version) without much thought, but much emotion.

A Second to Last

One step forward, two steps backward
We are doing a tango here, a misstep
One tick and two XXes
The misuse of an endearment
(Chromosomes untangle)

Most of all, it really is the desire to prove myself but falling short at many times when it matters the most. I really don't want to live a life of mediocrity. Right now, busyness is mediocrity's cloak.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

2010-07-20T19:52:00.000+08:00

Sometimes all it takes is one email to shovel the sanity of the day aside.

Just gotta emerge stronger I guess.

Current read: Oscar Wilde: The Collected Short Stories, bite-sized munchies for the person on-the-go

Losing You(rself)

2010-07-10T01:05:00.002+08:00

Why, I am listening to the Toy Story 3 Soundtrack now. It's apt that I spent Youth Day feeling old, watching Toy Story 3 with Mel.

I think my batch is the most fortunate batch. We grew up with Andy. We were young when we experienced Andy's love for his inanimate (really?) friends, we are at that phase when we know how it feels like to throw out old things during spring cleaning, and we don't have attics to store up toys. We know how it feels like to grow up- growing pains are non too foreign. Been chatting with Mel, Junyi and we just keep reverting back to the topic of childhood and how last December holidays will probably be the last official student holidays we will ever have. Because the next few will always be spent studying. I am already looking forward to the long break after A levels and that is saying something.

Anyway, back to the topic, timing is so very important. I remember blogging about overgrowing the Inkheart series, and till date, it saddens me. And that is why Pixar hits the spot because it has proven itself capable to extend children movies to the adult audiences and those at the liminal adolescent stage (i.e. me). Emotions of fear, sadness are universally experienced, no doubt about that. The fact that we can relate to toys, proves this point. We never had a moment where we went through cognitive dissonance "Wait a moment, they're toys." Their characters are just so alive to us, so what if the game arcade aliens have 3 eyes? Intended puns also meant that adults could laugh along.

Still, I had moments where I wished I experienced this movie at a younger age. The knowledge of the world right now makes the ending all the more bittersweet, it's almost painful. This post is coming along with fading resemblance to a movie review, but no, a reflection is what it is.

Let me enunciate some of my observations!

Andy is using a MAC- it's thin, what else could it be?
When they were almost being incinerated, did you see the Ben and Jerry tub? I saw it, with its signature font in the midst of the garbage (:
And Woody was clearly using googlemaps when he wanted to find his way back to Andy.
^ (American dominance much?)
Totoro represents Globalization haha. I was delighted when I saw it and smiling at the credits when they credited Hayao Miyazaki.
Bullseye's texture is fantastic. I can't help but gush.

I love how Pixar uses the everyday in a new way. The trucks become seats for toys, the boxes become jails, etc.

Oh and aside from the hilarity of Buzz turning Spanish, it is quite stereotypical to depict the Spanish culture with the dance, rose between teeth and all. It made me wonder the about circularity of influence between the media and society. It is funny to us precisely because we have access to the stereotype and understand it perfectly (i.e. the media depicts what is already known in society). Yet, it also reinforces the stereotype, influencing society.

Oh and the ending could be due to a wariness to children using Toy Story as a justification to cram up the attic as with Fish Flushers learn Life does not Imitate Nemo. An altruistic donation will resolve the story better.
I wonder where my toy ostrich is now, it's pink blush on white, and black body brings back so many fond memories.

Pained

2010-07-08T22:04:00.001+08:00

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

-Emily Dickinson

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
1 Corinthians 10:13

It is so painful, it has been weighing spirit down. :( Pray for me that I will be able to stand up under this suffering, both literally and spiritually. Let me not be seized by temptations to take it out on others even when I'm feeling down.

I will come out stronger, I trust.

Pretend I was Queen of the Wild Things

2010-07-02T23:53:00.002+08:00

'Sendak also treasures a letter from an eight-year-old boy which reads: "How much does it cost to get to where the wild things are? If it is not expensive, my sister and I would like to spend the summer there." '

Why does this reverberate so deeply within me that I almost wept the morning I read this?

And once again, I walk away from dance

2010-07-02T23:42:00.001+08:00

but this time it is different.
I walk away not because I am forced to, but because I made a choice, a choice not to screw my ankle.

and because the support is different.
Mel: "I would say you would want to give yourself the best chance at success of the operation." Great advice. I mean many people can say "Don't screw your ankle" in so many different ways but it takes a true sportsman to repeat the words her coach used to encourage her friend. Indebted to Mel for the past 2 days.
Dance ministry: People who prayed and will be praying for me. Special mention to Eastina who despite choreographing the placement of people, understood fully and earnestly asked about my circumstance instead of concerning herself with the dance.

So very different from the pressure that I felt having to be there for my partner for ballet exam, and for the line for floorball. Maybe it was self-imposed illusion but there was undoubtedly that element of expectation since competition/grades was involved. Note: not blaming anyone here, don't misinterpret!

It's been two years, what have changed? Much, I am assured.

Brostrom gould ankle surgery, may you fulfill your purpose and do the Brostrom guy justice! (:
Behind the humour, there is this urgent desire for this to be it.
No more cringes, no more choking back tears, no more laying supine, tears running perpendicular to the spongy green yoga mat. Can I imagine running freely? It is now within reach. I can touch it, it ain't so far back that I cannot recall it.
Please Lord, do what it takes. I will do everything in my earthly ability to not loosen the ligament, do everything else in the supernatural realm.
I've been risking permanent injury for quite awhile, I am told. Your cartilage can't grow back once it is ruined. Have not gone back to the doctor because I lost hope for the past 7 months. When you get busy and the ankle situation fades into the back of your mind, nothing more than a nagging thought, you assume that everything is fine and dandy. But when something ignites that flame, to jump, run, dance- you realize that everything was so superficially dealt with.

Was thinking about this the other day: We say that we have faith in medical science. Why don't we say that we have knowledge in the outcome of medical science, always? We treat medical science as a certainty, yet faith implies a certain leap between action-outcome.

Now, all I need to do is to book an appointment and arrange for when the surgery will be- the month that is most convenient for me to go around in crutches.

HOPE.

An update because it is due

2010-07-02T12:11:00.002+08:00

I woke up at 9:45 today. Record: First time I woke up this late in the whole entire year.

And now realizing the things I have to face, I just want to burrow back into my bed (unmade, atypical of me) and sleep till ... till what happens exactly?

The truth is I don't know.
Sometimes the hardest part of an overseas trip is the coming back- the laundry, the settling of things undone in your absence, the loss of anonymity. I've let myself go, I know.

Got to reconfigure the structure in my life.

(I'll probably be fine tomorrow)

Up up and away

2010-06-12T22:49:00.001+08:00

I have to learn from Ryan Bingham on how to pack lightly.
Announcement: Will be overseas till 26th.
Okay end of assumption that people actually read my blog. (No, I am not one of the bloggers who grovel for readership)

Yay I am quite excited. Besides missing The Morning Benders's FREE show at Governors' Island, I hope things go pretty well. Hopefully my mp3 would last 50 TED videos.
Yes, you did not hear wrong, 50 TED videos, mostly on the brain. (I would have done bio if they studied neurology)

And hopefully, I do not get slaughtered for midyears. Muggers unite!

Right now, top one priority is not to puke on the plane. Yes, it is that bad. Olfactory senses are provoked with the mix of coffee in aircon, coupled with sanitized claustrophic environment. May my oesophagus be open to incoming microwaved food. Whee.

Sneaking NLB books abroad. Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenhalgh is a breath of fresh air. It is so comfortably slow, slow courtship- something that is missing in our times where Facebook reveals ___ is in a relationship with ____ or ____ is single and everyone likes it. Courtship that is wrapped with tension and restraint, I like. And the language is elegantly poetic. Every single word is so carefully articulated. *swoons*. I can declare it the most captivating book I've read this year. Really. Wow.

And I wouldn't mind watching the movie since Audrey Tatou is in it. (Yes, actress in whimsical Amelie). Sharon watched He loves me, he loves me not and we were jabbering away like gossipy girls, only appearing intellectual by revelation of the content of our conversation. How painfully shocking the ending is. It leaves you with a bitter taste in the mouth that leaves something within you fluttering, unsettled.

Reality will only hit me when I get there. Delayed response.

*smiles and muses to self*

Ramble rumble

2010-06-04T18:01:00.002+08:00

I realize that I do not mind the solitude in the hostel. I can imagine a student life like this, just not in NUS. And that is plain dangerous.

Because it requires a scholarship.

I am mad. A mad clown, that has many things to juggle- GYLC, vSparks, Earthwatch initiatives, debate and mugging for midyears.
*claps hands in glee* (oh gosh now I realize the dual meaning of the last word. Oh pop culture, you have warped simple English. Rish's drawing of the Glee sign on the GC pops into mind, he is clearly a nerd immersed in pop culture.)

I hardly have time to myself this holiday except for that lovely stroll getting lost finding Singapore Tyler Print Institute (which was informative and fascinating, I highly recommend you to go- I mean how many times do you actually get to see Andy Warhol's and Damien Hirst's works and receive various interpretations of them?!) Will post some photos of the artworks soon.. when I get around to it.

And this week was hardly eventful and I shan't care to elaborate, having just drafted a whole letter of feedback on the seminar. On a brighter note, I finished reading A Home at the End of This World by Michael Cunningham and I am proud of this. Cedric owes me a drink because he lost the bet on my inability to complete the book by the end of the seminar. I did not cheat, 90% of the reading was purely done within waiting time, journeys and occasionally, ahem, the panel discussions. It is 343 pages by the way. It examines a new family unit in today's age where identity is fluid. That being said, I do not condone homosexuality, just appreciating the book which realistically depicted the coexistence of multiple relationships in one family unit.

I have come to a comforting point where I do not expect much from the ending, due to influence from Milan Kundera:
"Dramatic tension is the real curse of the novel, because it transforms everything, even the most beautiful pages, even the most surprising scenes and observations merely into steps leading to the final resolution, in which the meaning of everything preceded is concentrated."

With the above quote in mind, 'A Home at the End of This World' is not cursed because the ending was like any event in ordinary life, leaving the lives in the novel to replicate that of the real world where you know even after something dramatic happens, the flow of life goes on unobstructed. Michael Cunningham's imagery is precise (some took my breath away) and the characters roll out smoothly, filling color within the outlines that usual characters do not possess.

Funny:
Me (to everyone present): Do you know of mirror neurons... (yadda yadda see: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html)
HC guy: Oh my gosh! You are more of a nerd than I am.

Nerd indeed is my alter ego. It has to be put on like a cloak this week to mug because I do not want to mug next to the Holocaust Memorial thank you very much.

This is a out-of-place ramble I know, but I find that my blogposts are too cerebral sometimes. I am human after all.

Hope

2010-05-27T10:45:00.003+08:00

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish...

Except one.

An inch. It is small and fragile and it's the only thing in the world that's worth having.

We must never lose it or sell it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

-V for Vendetta

Wind Shadow 风影

2010-05-26T01:51:00.006+08:00

Singapore Arts Festival
Esplanade Theatre, 25 May
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

The strength of the piece lies in the strength of the coordination between the dancers who act as both shadows and human beings, the separation only visible in their difference in outfit. The shadows are decked in completely black outfits which covered even their faces. An extension of the leg cues the shadow’s twists at awkward angles effortlessly. Human beings perform as simulacra of shadows. Shadows slide across the floor while human beings tread. There arrives a blurred area between reality and imitation as shadows take on lives of their own, and sometimes even preside over the human beings they seek to imitate.

Props such as flags become the canvas in which visualizers imposed an image on. Dancers pull imaginary strings of actual kites which drifts with the presence of fans in the wings. The performance was intriguing even with a colour palette of white and black only, and the occasional twinge of blue. The clinical setting made the extremes of black and white more pronounced.

It is interesting how 林怀民develops the dance first, “音乐是后来才加.” He says that the creation of music is part of the adventure. In this case, the dance did not complement the song but it was the other way round. Music was only inserted after the completion of choreography. The dancers were well-coordinated despite the only occasional trickling of water and odd noises like a dentist’s tooth drill (courtesy of his brother) and a baby’s cry.

The piece’s slowness seems to demand reflection which the audience grappled with because of the abstract nature of the message/ storyline. Usually in contemporary dance, one can appreciate the beauty of dance even if one does not identify with the “storyline” which is not the main focus anyway. However, in this case, I would not label the dance beautiful but more profound, simply because I do not know the answer, and that could be the choreographer’s intention. I was dissatisfied with the conclusion which is supposed to signify a black hole as it appeared to be more futuristic than apocalyptic with the green neon lights being shone on the dancers, but that may just be personal preference.

At the post-show dialogue, the artistic director 林怀民 discussed some of his inspirations which include Peter Pan who fights with his own shadow which naturally follows him. Such inspirations stem from his childhood where he used to play with fabrics and bedsheets.

The collaboration between林怀民 and 蔡国强 is fairly interesting. The latter drops ideas in short phrases while the former works with them with his own interpretation. “Black waterfall” saw yards of cloth falling to the ground, at a speed so quick, creating the illusion of flowing black water. He says this collaboration enabled him to think deeper. He likened the creation of something out of a one-liner from蔡国强to an elementary school composition.

With simplicity, 林怀民 feels that the dancers are more restricted and hence this performance trained their “traditional body disciplines” as well as brought them back to the basics. To the dancers, this restrain was harder, even harder than triple pirouettes and jete. It is no wonder that the dancers did up some of the more complex choreographies (the acrobatic part) and presented them to him but he had to cut down most of them as his intention was not to entertain and he wanted a consistent tone throughout the performance. They had to learn how to express more, more effectively, in fewer movements. Discussing this with Neo Yun (previous ballet friend), she felt that it was not a dance performance at all, and Singapore Arts Council should not market it as such. This made me ponder on the boundary between movement and dance. Especially with contemporary dance, it is hard to pinpoint what exactly dance is, and limit it to certain forms.

On the conclusion, when questioned about whether he believes in such haunting endings, 林怀民said that “I can sell the idea that tomorrow will be better but I don’t believe it. I can pretend though.”

Even in the setting of an arts hub, the struggles of artistes are apparent. Financial limitations prevent 林怀民 from employing live orchestras. He also reveals that the space Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan occupied was burnt down in 2008. Fortunately, with the joint effort of the Taiwanese people, they managed to raise funds for a proper space and he is not sure that his theatre would outlive him, because of the fact that there is the presence of a property now with a 50 year land lease from the government. Expanding on one-liners is easy because it seems that he is always working within limitations.

Too Close for Comfort

2010-05-22T23:16:00.003+08:00

Miles Away

by Carol Ann Duffy

I want you and you are not here. I pause
in this garden, breathing the colour thought is
before language into still air. Even your name
is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again
and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight
I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer
than the words I have you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a look, standing here whilst cool late light
dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,
but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,
inventing love, until the calls of nightjars
interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,
into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Too Close for Comfort

I want you gone and you are here. I delay
in this bathroom, purging the pigment pain is
before expression onto cream tiles. Even your snarl
is a bold outline and though I bleach it over
and over, I will forget no more. Tonight
I erase you, your memory more piercing
than the ideal I have you step into- you never were.

However far you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a glare, laying here, whilst humid sweat
diffuses into the drapes. I have got your rage right
and still it simmers. I distance myself from you,
inventing love, until the sound of silence
embraces and lulls what was fragile, was broken
to the unconscious. The round moon has been gnawed at.

displaced.

2010-05-13T22:22:00.002+08:00

I don't know what I'm doing here.

One more reason to be friends with a vegan

2010-05-08T21:46:00.002+08:00

During the careers talk, Miss Teo was talking about finding careers that help to "bring back the bacon."

Almost instinctively, I turned to look at Mel's face. I was greeted with a scrunching of the nose and the deadpan tone, "I ain't gonna bring back no bacon", which naturally cracked me up.

Later in econs lecture: "Yes! Breadwinner is a much better meat-neutral term."

My date with the pig that wants to be eaten

2010-05-03T00:44:00.004+08:00

The Pig that Wants to be Eaten by Julian Baggini, that is. It's quite a good introductory book on philosophy through the use of 100 thought experiments. Thought experiences are basically hypothetical situations in which philosophers/writers try to draw your attention to the core moral problem they are concerned with while eliminating all other variables. Just think of it as an outlandish exaggeration of ceteris paribus. Sometimes the realist in me goes "But this doesn't occur in reality what! Oh wait... it's a thought experiment."

I spent the whole night thinking of possible topics for Independent Study (IS) and I'm nowhere close to my decision. Great. Still, I've learnt much.

My personal favourite thought experiment has links to Book 1 of A Treatise of Human Understanding by Scottish Philosopher David Hume- 'The elusive I' which claims that there is no self apart from our experiences, debunking the concept of liberal humanism.

Below are my notes copied from the book:

We are unable to detach ourselves from our experiences. The I is nothing. Like a landscape being painted, we see the point of view, but the POV itself is not revealed in the painting. The self is nothing but a sum of experiences. The self is not a thing and it is certainly not knowable to itself. We have no awareness of what we are, only an awareness of what we experience. That doesn’t mean we don’t exist. It means we lack a constant core of being, a single self that endures over time, which we so often assume, wrongly, makes us the individuals we are.

Food for thought, that's why I like it.

I like to see myself as a knowledge fairy of sorts. If you leave this blog having learnt something, that makes me really glad. It's the reason why I interject weird trivia facts in the middle of conversations. Did you know... (insert yadda yadda yadda). Responses vary across a spectrum of blank stoned faces, fleeting vaguely interested faces, and those that draw your attention to the eyes immediately because so much curiosity is contained in those black wells. No points for guessing which category my close friends belong to.

This is one of the few times I actually disagree with the critical acclaim a book is receiving.

Before I branch into my seemingly interminable ramble, do take a look at the synopsis if you don't want me to come of sounding incoherent.

One has to credit Bernhard Schlink on his ability to branch out of the typical genre of the occurrences during the Holocaust to attempts in identifying the implications. It is hard to shove the blame of atrocities committed in Holocaust onto a particular person, which was what happened to Hanna in this story. Similarly, one has to reflect whether many had a part to play in such injustice or simply attribute it to the work of a cruel man-Hitler. Despite the good intentions, the premise for the sex scenes between Hanna and Michael are completely lost on me. Some may say they aid in creating the tension in the courtroom as we see later. In any case, other than describing the imagined nudity when her back was faced to him, I see no value whatsoever. Surely the writer could have used another relationship struggle to produce the apathetic nature of the protagonist in the later parts of the book. I can only speculate that Schlink did so to create the innermost attachment between Hanna and Michael such that reconciliation proves to be harder.

Schlink usually writes the detective novels which explains the cold treatment of the structure of the sentences. “The next day, she was dead” does make economic sense in heightening curiosity and prodding the reader to read on (This critic professes to have fallen prey). However, multiply such similar sentences for the opening of many chapters and it does get stale.

Admittedly, the cold treatment becomes a thin layer of vapour imposed on the unfolding courtroom scenes such that we feel the very coldness that Hanna is going through against unfeeling judges. However, this humble critic believes that such a potentially poignant plot deserves to be less devoid of emotions. The protagonist in the book almost recites his emotions but as with all translated books, perhaps we could blame this on the loss in translation as well.

Schlink poses us the questions that we seek to find in the book and it becomes almost exasperating especially if there are running questions that only vaguely resemble Michael’s thought processes.

Advice if you still want to read it and apologies to those who intended to read it and was put off by this review:

Do not read this book on the go. I think it is the type of book which one has to savour and have the luxury of time to ponder on. Perhaps the recognition of it came from the chords it struck in the Germans. Think.

My VJ t-shirt design...

2010-04-27T21:18:00.002+08:00

...which didn't even got nominated for voting. I am deeply saddened, especially when I saw the quality of the work that did get selected.

In all humility, I'm just an amateur, but still, it would have been pleasant to have my work displayed.

(front)

(back)
Oh well, c'est la vie.

Just keep swimming.

2010-04-25T22:22:00.000+08:00

When you experience injury, never again do you take movement for granted. Running is a privilege, it truly is.

My mental processes when I ran 2.4 on Thurs- but before that:

A reason why I think being in your element of running, a primitive action that predates the modern Olympics, reveals much. When you huff and puff, and push yourself towards that finishing line, when your mind is jumbled with thoughts- the clash of encouragement and discouragement- when you feel true blinding (literally too, when sweat gets in your eyes, ick) pain, it is then you feel alive. This is also the reason that I am against running with music. Music numbs the pain, it takes your mind away from the action itself. All self-reflection and rich experience dissipates.

12:48 is pretty good. I am satisfied at least. My ankle swelled up like a balloon. I removed my shoe and limped off the track. It's always the after. I comfort myself, at least it''s not the in-between.

My mental processes: I kept playing the line in my head "I am free to run, I am free to dance, I am free to live for You." It kept me going when my calves were feeling taut, when I was feeling breathless, when people were overtaking me.

Maybe one day, my ankle will take me further than my stamina does.

Swimming on the other hand...I love the embracing of the water and the rush of sound during the transition between land-water and vice versa. Being in an underutilized pool helps. No self consciousness, just plain operation of limbs. Leaves suspended in mid-water, sunshine peeks through the overhead trees.

These moments maintain my sanity.

Classic

2010-04-19T18:54:00.002+08:00

Conservations over dinner:
Me: Do you know the meaning of 'Your eye is on the sparrow' ?
Bro: No, what does it mean?
Me: It's a reference to Matthew 6:25-27 which says "Looks at the birds of the air; they do now sow or reap or store away, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Kinda like showing that God takes care of even the smallest thing.
Bro: Why not... *Hums* Your eye is on the amoebaaaa.

Hilarious.
Anyway, "I will run to you" really strikes a chord within me, it traces back to primary school chapel. I remember it was always sang at investitures and it just fills me with a sense of hope and purpose. It still does. I shall leave you with this- It's Alright by Melissa Otto. It draws references from Matthew 6 as well.

Homo sentimentalis

2010-04-11T22:45:00.003+08:00

Oh! I didn't notice the shoe on the cover as it was concealed by the library tab. So very feminine, like the cover of The Unbearable Lightness of Being- the latter being very sexual in that it portrayed a bowler hat and undergarments in a spatial arrangement that implied the shape of a person being there without the physical presence of the person. Here:

"I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that’s alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas : we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentricism."

-Part 4 Homo sentimentalis in Immortality by Milan Kundera

Not that I agree with Kundera's stance on suffering but still, it's an interesting perspective. Pain is a subjective experience. Sometimes I wonder whether my threshold of pain is comparable to that of others. Am I weaker if it's much lower? Emotional capacity on the other hand, can be trained to increase from a size of a teaspoon to a well of complex emotions. After all, trials make us stronger and we deal better after multiple experiences. Does experience and time grant us immunity? It's still up to us in how we choose to deal with each circumstance, I feel. Time heals, I've learnt, but emotional hurt surface in the most unexpected ways even after we think we have dealt with the issue at hand.

On another note, it's hard to believe that our brain signals inflict suffering upon us, that is pain, to warn us of danger and to define the limits of our bodies. It belittles such an agonizing feeling to a primitive instinct when I know that the manifestations of severe pain lead to many inconcievable actions, like lashing out at loved ones.

---

We're back to square one and I'm tired of usurped weekends. I won't degrade myself to the point of ranting on my blog. Still, there is a floor to which my expectations can lower itself to. My sleeping patterns have been sporadic during the weekends. I wake up with sore eyeballs and bleary eyes. Blogging right now while listening to Bon Iver is the only 'me' time I had in this entire weekend. I treasure this moment.

I need something to look forward to during the week. I need someone to keep me afloat but we are all precariously hanging onto lifebuoys (and slipping). All human beings, that is. There's still someone up there who is greater than my circumstance.

*Breathes deeply* Proclaimation of faith: I can conquer this week regardless of the curveballs it throws at me.

Bubble

2010-04-02T16:59:00.001+08:00

The existence of a bubble in a body of water, its mystique lost in the overkill of foam. It eludes fusion with the typical. Plain and bland dilution is seemingly unappealing. A diver, plunging the shallow depths, surfaces. Gently, it lifts itself through air, whirling heavenward. Its movement is graceful, showing care like a wineglass filled to the brim. Skyward, the adventurer discovers thinner air. It breathes the empty space and exhales shimmery brilliance.

With no possibility of descending, the bubble spirals through the air, canvassing the path trodden. It tilts towards its past normality and pines for normalcy. Precipitously, a grip of suffocation wrenches the heart of this bubble, it potentially implodes. It is curiously wholesome and inwardly empty. It is this absence of, keeping the bubble afloat. When it bounces off another atmospheric bubble, a compromising death ensues.

This must be one happy bubble. It will be, be iridescent in its own right.

Note to self: Lighten up a li'l

2010-03-26T22:46:00.002+08:00

Kings of Convenience

2010-03-21T21:34:00.003+08:00

Disclaimer: I'm not attempting to review this professionally. Just a layman giving my comments.

Erlend Øye introduced this song, in tribute to Alex Chilton. Any cover sang from his velvety voice will rule my world.

Kings of Convenience was lovely. When they materialized on stage, I was momentarily stunned. *rubs eyes* *opens eyes* Mental process: Oh my, they are really here. It's them! *unusual bout of fan girlism*

I really appreciated the way the Mosaic organizers blocked up the back of the stage to lend intimacy to the setting. Talking to others who attended Mosaic as well, I heard they did the same for Vashti Bunyan too. I like that very much. The pricing of tickets were very students-friendly as well.

The manner in which Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe speak and sing in English is really different. I kind of understand what the Pitchfork reviewer meant when he used "stiff" to describe their pronunciation. You can sense that they are still more comfortable with Norwegian. "We're speaking to our Norwegian sound engineer!" (No Jie Jie, you have Korean already, you're not going to learn Norwegian for the sake of them at the expense of your sleep, you silly girl!). It makes me wonder why not sing in Norwegian? Wouldn't that bring their music to a whole new level? I was wondering whether many artists compromise on their music to gain higher access to the masses, given the universality of the English Language.

The concert proved the compatibility of their voices. This has been an overused phrase but they really are "two soft voices blended in perfection." (from Homesick)

A snippet of Erik's thoughts were revealed too. I like to view artistes as living breathing entities whose thoughts are expressed in many other forms other than their music. (That's why concerts are important, Mummy). He said that it didn't seem like 4 years since he last came. It felt like 2 to him, the reason being that 1 year when you're 10 is 10% of your life whereas 1/34 of life is just...less ("I haven't done the math but you get what I mean.")

I found the audience slightly uptight, even for an acoustic concert. They had to make us stand up and snap and clap along for the more upbeat songs like I'd Rather Dance with You.Ooh I like their slightly different take of Love is No Big Truth. They invited the female voices to fill in for Feist for Know-How. "Oh, what is there to know? All this is what it is. Oh you and me alone. Sheer simplicity."

Bravo. (:

A promise

2010-03-20T16:35:00.001+08:00

I give to myself
Nothing short of my very best.
World out there, hold me accountable.

God, don't let me fall away from the path you have designated for me to tread.

I won't give up and I won't settle for mediocrity.
I will regain that zest for life and that drive to perform.

Feeling bookish today.

2010-03-16T11:25:00.011+08:00

After two years, I finally get what question 1 in IP1 EOY Language Arts Paper 3 is asking for and what the passage means. SLOWWWW... Incidentally, it's the question that I did the most badly for. But that's not the point. I think it's amazingly satisfactory to re-read something and know that you have matured in the understanding of it. That the words remained constant, and it was you who changed to grasp an alternative interpretation of the passage. The words becomes the reflection of your metamorphosis. Sometimes it's also the context, I need to know the larger picture before I delve into the minute details.

'Lovers and their happy endings have been on my mind all night long. It is only in this last version that my lovers end well, standing side by side on a South London pavement as I walk away. All the preceding drafts were pitiless. But now I can no longer think what purpose would be served if, say, I tried to persuade my reader, by direct or indirect means, that Robbie Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940, or that Cecilia was killed in September of the same year by the bomb that destroyed Balham Underground station. That I never saw them in that year as I claimed I did in this last version.

How could that constitute an ending? What sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader draw from such an account? Who would want to believe that? I couldn't do it to them. When I am dead and my novel is finally published, the stories of Robbie and Cecilia will only exist as my inventions. Briony will be as much of a fantasy as much as the lovers. No one will care about events and which individuals were misrepresented to make a novel. I know there's a certain kind of reader who will ask "But what really happened?" The answer is simple- the lovers survive and flourish. As long as there is a single copy of my final draft, then my sister and her prince survive to love. But this is the problem: How can I, as the novelist, achieve atonement, with my absolute power of deciding outcomes, I am also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that I can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive me. In my imagination, I have set my limits and the terms.'
-Atonement by Ian McEwan

Many authors use this device till it has become quite commonplace but I loved how Ian McEwan utilized it. The device being the author writing about an author writing about a story, to put it bluntly (in a linguistically crude manner). It wouldn't have changed the process of enjoying the read if you did not realize that the book was from written from Briony's perspective (even Robbie Turner and Cecelia Tallis' perspectives were 'written' by her).

Struggle for Meaning was a brilliant topic. It makes you really think about MEANING which is so vague but impacts your making sense of the world around you. Authorial presence is quite alive in Atonement. You can tell that Briony's perspectives on writing actually bring in McEwan's voice. The above passage questions authorial integrity here though. Fiction allows the the author space to manoeuvre his/her imagination in all possible directions (I shun sci-fi though, oops) and rely on the lazy excuse that 'The events and characters depicted in this work are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental....', and the mindset that fiction is harmless. Do we take fiction as simply fiction? I think not. I think lies that may be portrayed logically will unconsciously impact our worldview. (*cough* Dan Brown *cough*)

Hmm... maybe I should read McEwan's other books. But I find that when one reads the most critically acclaimed book, the others don't quite match up and you're left with a less sweet aftertaste of the experience with your first love. (I'm still referring to the book here). Like your admiration for the author is somewhat diluted.

This does not apply to Milan Kundera. His books are consistent and never fail to make me view life in a different manner. He draws on what I am cognizant of (the everyday), and articulates what I cannot, or have yet to,express. But sometimes the storyline tends to drag on between the short bursts of genius. Still, they provide a circumstance in which the articulation of ideas are at their most lucid.

Library later?

On an absolutely random note:
'The Persistence of Memory' by Salvador Dali (1904-1989, surrealist painter)

Matt Groening naturally.

I couldn't resist. Post modernism (:

Just my sentiments

2010-03-13T14:27:00.002+08:00

I dislike commercialism. It cradles an enormous amount of human greed and ambition. I'm the girl you see sitting on any available chair in Marks & Spencer or Espirit, reading a Time magazine or a book. I invite curious glances I know but I get a kick from disrupting the inner flow of the materialistic sanctuary.

Before I walk into a shopping centre, I feel good about myself. I'm perfectly contented with what I have. But then something catches my eye and I begin to doubt this identity. I think, maybe having that would give me voluminous amounts of satisfaction. I think of the possibilities that would go with it. I have to consciously shrug this off. I refuse to be sucked into their whirlwind of material goods. That being said, I don't deny that I am guilty of materialism sometimes. Still, no one should claim to be a victim of advertising. Yes, it's pervasive but you make the decision to step into a shopping centre. You're an alcoholic trying to go cold turkey, hanging out at the bar. So here's a reminder of what we wear may not just adorn us, but actually objectify us, causing us to be mere counters in this boardgame of capitalism, with the ability to spend.

Sucked into the material world

2010-03-13T13:17:00.006+08:00

It is not enough. It never is. All your life, you've been wearing hand-me-downs. But it will be over. Soon. Today, you will be a model, strutting down the catwalks between showrooms, an accidental actor in the grander scheme of things.

You pick out your best hand-me-down. It demands attention, it demands servitude. You throw on your best heels and exude a perfume of elegance.

You feel mighty fine. You feel in control. You feel as if you can proudly say to Urban, "Me? I'll rate myself 10/10." With a flick of your hair, you will list out every piece of matter that clings to your body as if you were some goddess, worshipping you when they all are in fact, fighting for individual attention. You wouldn't say that you got that from a cheap sale where that item was the least tawdry. With a carefully planned careless glance at it, you will fabricate your outfit. This is from D&G. That is an heirloom. (You deliberately pause here to pronounce air-loom, the air leaps from your perfectly-painted lips.)

Somehow the world revolves around you. Even before you flicker your eyes over their alters, they see you coming. The atmosphere changes when you step in. You are in a position of power. Yet, it is as if the world revolves around everyone too. You are a mere ripple of a skipping stone. You see many other models around too, not unlike yourself. You realize that all of you, despite not knowing each other, are spurring each other into competition. Mannequins are not sufficient. They have long lost their value. They do not breathe, they do not flaunt, they bluntly present. These models are the ones that you need to conquer.

The glass windows, they mock you, they harshly reflect your inadequacies but yet, kindly let you in on a secret- The Elixir. You reach in and embrace that formula. And another one. And another one.

Your demonic shoes are exerting every piece of pin and needle up your sole. But those empty chairs are not for you. They warn you of the stereotype you will fit in, dare you sit. Is that all you got? They taunt.

Finally, you are bereft of strength and desire. You muster up every atom of sugar to pave the way home. The bags bounce off your flabby calves which are a tad out of shape, don't you think? Flopping on the bed, massaging the arches of your feet, you feel a delightful pleasure arise from the tip of your toes, enveloping its warmth around your neck like a silk shawl before it strangles your throat. You let out a guttural moan that was meant to be a wondrous gasp. The moment you let out the sound, it is as if the sound was all that filled you, you're now a hollow shell of a woman. An ironic sense of nudity, you feel now.

You are naked.

Happenstance.

2010-03-07T21:02:00.003+08:00

Then the fight went out of control. It quivered their arms and legs and wrenched their faces into shapes of hatred, it urged them harder and deeper into each other’s weakest points, showing them cunning ways around each other’s strongholds and quick chances to switch tactics, feint, and strike again. In the space of a gasp of breath, it sent their memories racing back over the years for old weapons to rip the scabs off old wounds; it went on and on.
-Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Why does this seem all too familiar?

Two soft voices blended in perfection

2010-03-06T16:58:00.005+08:00

12 more days to Kings of Convenience... *goes mad at the thought of it*

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music | Video on TED.com

2010-03-05T23:29:00.001+08:00

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music | Video on TED.com

This made me smile.
I wouldn't use the word 'hack' though. Rather, it's drawing your attention to links (brain-movement-music) that most of us find refreshing and novel.

The Midnight Skaters

2010-02-21T19:59:00.003+08:00

The hop-poles stand in cones,
The icy pond lurks under,
The pole-tops steeple to the thrones
Of stars, sound gulfs of wonder;
But not the tallest thee, 'tis said,
Could fathom to this pond's black bed.

Then is not death at watch
Within those secret waters?
What wants he but to catch
Earth's heedless sons and daughters?
With but a crystal parapet
Between, he has his engines set.

Then on, blood shouts, on, on,
Twirl, wheel and whip above him,
Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan,
Use him as though you love him;
Court him, elude him, reel and pass,
And let him hate you through the glass.

Edmund Blunden

I couldn't resist sharing this. It's so beautiful it made me gasp in... awe. I almost used 'delight' but the poem has a morbid feel which Yunita comments is very 'Ice Queen'.

Heigh-ho.

2010-02-21T18:06:00.005+08:00

It's off to work we go.

Maybe I haven't settled into the full swing of things but 5.25pm days are draining me. Nowadays, I feel life is just carrying me along, and I'm just in for a ride. But boy, what a ride. I don't feel in control, on top of things. The problem with this, I'm beginning to fear, is that I don't know which way the wind blows and I won't be mentally prepared when a kink appears in the rollercoaster tracks.

I'm either psychic or emotionally unstable. (See: feeling of uncertainty and unsettled-ness before war rages in some sphere of my life, mainly _____)

Oh, the writing seminar yesterday was quite crappy, for the absence of a care to find a better word. I shall post some interesting material and insights... when I decide get around to it. I don't envision myself in a career that fully devotes itself to writing. I think it's the pain of overcoming the occasional but very inert writer's block.

Never again, shall I dread the long stretches of time in the holidays. What was I thinking?! It's partially the restriction of time that makes you value time more and use your free time more productively, I suppose.

Meanwhile, I should start treading the path to... java-addiction.

Passion for the environment, rekindle and galvanize effective change in the school! (I'm addressing passion as a thing here). Yes, even environmentalists get weary and they backslide too. (plastic usage, how could I have sucuumbed to you?)

Road trips of sleeping do little to cover up for your lack of future sleep. I wish we could all fill canisters with 'Sleep'- this amorphous dream-like concoction of air molecules and bring them around like oxygen tanks. We will press a button after History (Southeast Asian) lecture and be instantly rejuvenated.

This was the moment of the week:
Me: I feel hydrochloric acid in my stomach. (We just ran 3.3km)
Mel: Buy something to neutralize it like something that contains salt- sodium chloride is alkaline.. right?
Me: It's a salt, it's neutral right?
.
.
.
"WHO CARES! We are ARTS students."
-here is where we burst out laughing and couldn't wipe the silly grins of our faces-
If there's nothing else to look forward to, there's this one. I'm doing subjects I like. I won't give up KI. I sincerely hope I won't be humming a different tune when my results are released but right now, I look forward to KI lessons more than anything else.

Debate sessions may be draining, especially after a hard day. Maybe I will regret it in the future, I don't know. I'm giving it a shot and I have rediscovered something- a comfort in the environment. These people are people I like hanging out with, sharing trivial facts and cracking wacky jokes. I don't need to put on a facade. It's pleasant and hopefully, it's something that will see me through.

Sunday services sometimes feel so routine to me. But today, I realized the importance of them. I need to orientate my will to carry what I learn, what I feel to the week ahead, to be who He wants me to be. I have this sense that the issues that I'm struggling with, need to be dealt with now. I need to surrender myself to be moulded during these years of growing pains. To infinity and beyond (:

shoes (heels, toes, heels, toes...)

2010-02-06T16:21:00.006+08:00

Mama says they was magic shoes. They could take me anywhere. -Forrest Gump

Materials:
Pelikan Textimalen Fabric Paint (Black, Carmine)
Pentel FabricFun Water Colour Dyes (credits to Joy)

If the mistakes are not noticeable, it's because of white Pentel Acrylic Paint. But Acrylic paint shouldn't be used on shoes because it causes the texture to look rough and scratchy, unlike fabric paint which has a smoother print effect.

Malcolm Gladwell

2010-01-31T16:45:00.005+08:00

There used to be a taboo of non-fiction books. One would imagine a library full of formidable-looking hardcover books like that of Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat. When one chances upon a less thick paperback, one would possibly dismiss it as lacking in depth. Malcolm Gladwell does not lack in depth of ideas. Even if the above is true, what Malcolm Gladwell compromises in depth, he makes up for with storytelling that captures the interest of the mainstream audience and introduces non-fiction as a genre accessible to the public once more.

Outliers is an insightful book. It put forth many interesting ideas in simple terms that the layman can understand. It shows how our systems create an accumulative advantage towards babies born near a certain birth date, how a close-knitted community can do wonders to health, how professionals are not born overnight (they spend a calculated 10000 hours of their lives on their niche), how family background matters in child growth, how the cultural contexts of pilots are directly linked to plane crashes, to name a few. As with other Malcolm Gladwell’s books, such knowledge makes you feel instantly cleverer because they are concise and they give you moments of epiphany (ohhhhhhh…).

If there is one thing I am very appreciative of, it is the fact that Outliers is not a self-help book, which I generally don’t believe in. It informs you of refreshing ideas, and leaves you with the decision-making of whether you want to change your life based on the perspectives provided. It doesn’t even tell you how to change your life. It simply brings you the knowledge and one can argue that awareness is the first step to change.

His storytelling magic however, is too deliberate an attempt in Outliers and unnecessary too. It does not provide value to his argument. For example, he describes the rice paddies in China elaborately when he points out the argument that the Asian culture could possibly be the reason for Asian countries’ accomplishments and excellent standings in international grading systems. There are too many case studies this time as well. Having many examples does not prove a point further. If more evidence has to be shown, I’d rather Malcolm Gladwell utilize national or international statistics. Instead, he brings up specific case studies and expounds on them too much. I found myself nodding even in the midst of reading how the first example illustrates the point. A slight overkill of examples got me bored a tad too soon.

Also, although Malcolm Gladwell should be credited for consolidation of various studies and putting forth the essence of what such studies really meant, I think we do not credit the sources of such studies involved enough. One must note that Malcolm Gladwell just writes about success in general and cleverly picks out studies that revolve around his themes of ‘Opportunity’ and ‘Legacy.’ The ideas put forth and the ingenious conclusions drawn from such studies should be credited to the respective people deservingly.

In conclusion, I think Malcolm Gladwell’s books are worth reading. What I stated above are just areas of improvement which may compromise on the message put forth by him, specific to Outliers. However it does not discount the value of the ideas he put forth. I vaguely remember Blink being an enjoyable read (the first book I read from him so maybe that set the expectations) and The Power of Context theory put forth in The Tipping Point very mind-blowing. Anyway if all else fails, you cannot fault a guy with such cool eccentric hair.

If you want The Tipping Point, feel free to ask. Note to self: I got to get What The Dog Saw from Palani soon. (:

This is one of the most favourited TED talks of all time. Needless to say, he delivers both in style and content.

C’est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s not me, I swear!)

2010-01-31T16:36:00.004+08:00

C’est pas moi, je le jure! is not a movie that is dictated by a plot which usually drags audiences along, finding means to nicely wrap up the story and reach a conclusion. I daresay one can mix up the scenes and it would have made almost perfect sense. That is because the beauty of C’est pas moi, je le jure! lies in each poignant scene, even by itself. Envision Leon and Lea (a girl in his neighbourhood), hands interlocked, both victims of family circumstances, against the beautiful scenery of Montreal, Canada. The storyline just assists in stringing such scenes together for a coherent unfolding of events. That being said, the storyline is not loose in its delivery although the premise is rather simple: Leon’s mother (Suzanne Clément) leaves the family for Greece. Leon and Lea finds means to buy a ticket for Leon to visit his mother.

The convincing cast consists of first timer, Antoine L'Écuyer whose delivery is believable. On top of that, his appearance perfectly suits the role of Léon Doré. Antoine L'Écuyer has this sulky rebellious look, as with a boy just on the brink of puberty. The soundtrack is weaved together by a Montreal musician, Patrick Watson (whose band just came to Singapore and left. His band is named after his name.) The flow of music is subtle and its quiet sound is almost disquieting, especially to the most emotional of moments. I think this is music at its roots in film, not stealing the limelight but acting as a complementing dimension.

At the movie progresses, one laughs with incredulity at the lengths at which Leon would go to keep his family together, however naïve these measures may be. One wonders whether Leon would ever change for the better. There is a brief hint at normalcy when his father (Daniel Brière) delays leaving for work and seats beside Leon to play a duet with him on the piano, but the moment is gone in wisps soon, leaving behind the fragile father-son relationship and Leon to his mischievous devices again.

There are a few religious references in the movie, one right at the introductory narration. It was not altogether relevant but I think it added an extra layer to Leon as a character. The introduction of religious connotations created tension between his conscience and his wayward tendencies. It reminds audiences that he is still a child after all. He is not free from guilt and definitely not invincible from religious teachings.

On a side note maybe specific to me only, the overhead shots reminded me of a scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where Joel and Clementine laid on the ice, pointing to the stars. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the camera angle shows these two people in love in a huge intimidating world, as if their love is almost negligible. In this movie, it gives me a sense of helplessness as if Leon is alone, facing the wide expanse of universe, speaking out to it, cursing it, but at the end, almost accepting it.

C’est pas moi, je le jure! is a dark comedy with laugh-out-loud comical moments. Yet due to what I’m going through in life now, I laughed and cried at the same time. I laughed at the absurd extents at which Leon would go for revenge and sometimes, simply for fun. I cried at the breakdown of the family unit, as even the banal routines of life were not spared. If you’re looking for a feel-good heartwarming movie, look elsewhere. This is Little Miss Sunshine with fewer and barer gleams of hope.

I highly recommend watching it even if you have to travel all the way to Vivo to catch it. It’s coming to the end of its run. Do some justice to Art house films.

To err is human, to arr is pirate.

2010-01-15T21:46:00.005+08:00

That was the quote on Mark's tee. I love witty quotes like that. I came across a person wearing a shirt that says "I'm a virgin. This is an old shirt." My immediate reaction was Right. Whatever. It reflects badly on the person, in my opinion.

I have no idea why I'm ranting about shirts, and yes I'm aware that I haven't posted a proper post in ages. So here goes substance, hopefully:

BOOKS: I'm sad to say that I have come to a point where time never justifies light-hearted reads. You'll catch me stealing moments on the bus, during breaks but gone or rather, leaving are the Sunday afternoons of lazing in bed. That's why I have George Orwell's 1984, Arundhati Roy's Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy and this year's Literature texts looking quite threatening in ramrod positions on my pristine white bookshelf. Yeah sure, I had the chick lit phase in Primary 5, but a few years after that it was the race to the adult section for me whenever I entered the library. The smells of baked bread and coffee greet me when I enter Marine Parade Library. Lovely.

SHOES: I'm almost done. Kudos to Joy for the fabric paint. But I have to work on it sneakily because Mum claims that I should be getting more serious and concerned about school.

SCHOOL: We're having a leadership course for 3 whole weeks - Inv!gorate - 2 days which leaves about 11 days. It's not all that bad, and I don't get why people hate it to the core. In all honesty and without personal attacks, I think our cohort was never mature enough to handle things beyond superficial level. In other words, we just want to have fun. I'm sure the camp could have been better, the games more direct, but for now, there are still lessons to be learnt.
Idon'twannadochineseagainplease.

In the spur of a rather 'bimbo' moment, I'm going to state something irrelevant that will be shot off to blogosphere. My mum just bought me a pair of wedges. Height, here I come!

Time is calling me again.

Hi 2010, I'm treading lightly.

2010-01-02T13:03:00.003+08:00

I woke up with this in my head. Premonition or not? We'll see.

swing it for...

2009-12-22T15:17:00.006+08:00

2 years ago, I promised myself I would dance en pointe on that stage. Maybe watching what could have been would have been a painful experience. A painful experience I was willing to go through. Yet you deliberately took that option away. Sigh.

In principle, it was wrong.

In practice, her smile made the trip worthwhile. The way her eyes lit up when she saw me, slightly breathless after taking the steps two at a go. The way she laughed out loud in an un-patronizing way when I told her I intend to further my studies abroad. A person who suffices with my mere presence. I will be an artist, I will draw you before you fade back to dust.

On a different note,

New York New York by Frank Sinatra. Ignore the video, just listen to the song. I can't find a performance by him on Youtube for this song.

I love this cover and I daresay a tad more than the original.

I'm not watching Cat Power, nor Kings of Convenience live next year. Kick me somebody.

take a back seat, hitchhike

2009-12-17T22:53:00.009+08:00

In retrospect, mission trip was good, or better than what I felt going through it. I don't have much to say, almost everything is jotted down in my black Moleskine already. I like it kept that way- personal.

I love that Sunday night at the loft, snuggling under a duvet and reading a book. The book then was The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger. I didn't read it earlier when I saw it in Sec2 because the review drew a comparison between it and 'The Lovely Bones' which I didn't particularly like then and can't be bothered to re-read it now. The Time Traveler's Wife starts off promising but the between is draggy, a slightly banal means to an end. And the ending is of course, highly anticipated since the premise of time travelling is fascinating in itself. I suppose the premise is one reason why the book manages to sustain interest even in the boring segments because it keeps readers wondering about the possibilities and intricacies of time travel. It helps that Audrey Niffeneger cleverly chose strategic points to insert characteristics of time travel, instead of laying the basis right at the beginning. With a flimsy topic like time travel, Audrey Niffeneger managed to tie in a solid believable storyline which I imagine to be loose ends of thread (or timelines) meeting at points in space, all of which become wrapped into a ball of yarn very nicely towards the end.

Authorial presence is very much alive in this book, especially since Audrey Niffeneger is an artist and so is Clare. I don't suppose any other writer without artist background can paint such a beautiful picture in describing sculpture making and the materials required. However the excessive description of dreams did not add value to the book and gives one the feeling of autobiographical rantings on Audrey Niffeneger's part.