Static.

Sayonara!

Most of all, this girl needs to grow up.

Midnight Hour.

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;… In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.”
- Soren Kierkegaard

This space can be read by all.

How transparent do you think I really am?
How much of it is the truth?

This, my midnight hour? Think.

Theatrics.

The purpose of Art is to illustrate. Its aim rests on clarity: to amplify and make vivid an image, a statement or a theme. Its purpose is not to obscure. That is what politicians do. Artists do not make things confusing, rather they untangle the complicated into something coherent. So scriptwriters, whatever dimension you choose to give your characters and your plot, show it in what they say and do. It is the job of the audience to interpret what they have seen but ultimately the responsibility rests on you to illustrate this through the words. A director’s responsibility would be to translate these words into a composition, free to interpret whatever is written. An actor breathes through these words into action. An actor does not act with a mask. Rather the mask is merely a thin veil where disbelief is suspended, confined by the elevated stage. An actor reveals snatches of real emotions, what has been felt before. There your movement is true, veiled and vulnerable all at once.

Before we talk using terms such as “depth” and “between the lines” and “substance” and “complex” recklessly, remember your primary aim - to make visible and make clear a message. My expectation as an audience is that your message is worth its $15 price tag. Is that clear?

Made of Red, White and Something Else

I did not submit my piece on hope for my homeland. To put it simply, I think it’s icky - for lack of a more appropriate word. It’s not that atrocious. But framed in a book? Even if the only readers are the writers and the editors themselves, I don’t want it. This is the condensed version of what I wrote:

Someone called me a traitor for having lived most of my life outside of my homeland. That jerk.

How can I lay claim to having hopes for my homeland when it is not my home?

My relationship with my countrymen revolves largely around guilt, created by the false notion of identity that is incongruent with who I am. I’m going to pretend that made sense, thankyouverymuch. What does it really mean to be a Citizen of Some State? Is it level of contribution to our dear GDP? Is it cultural consumption? s it political participation? Is it possession of capital? Is it about family?

I think it’s about family. If so I belong to a large complicated family connected by legal strings and hereditary diabetics. I do not belong to a country. What have I to inherit? I may just be a product deficient of civic education or national education or what have you. I consider it a blessing frankly. I just feel out of place in the national sphere, be it here nor there.

Andrew Largeman in Garden State said it best:

“You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone….You’ll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back.It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

It’s just a constant state, not of anger or pain but just longing. It’s about wanting to have roots for all the frivolous, and all at once the most humane, reasons: just so you could never float away too far from gravity and too close into the sun.

All the strings that tie to me are those of by kin or by friendship. They pull me closer to the ground. But all the spaces that makes me feel like home? They lie beyond these political demarcations suspended in the international airspace: an enclave of 300 square feet in the sky.

This is life of the modern nomadic: feeling like you belong to Someplace Somewhere Somehow but never here nor there. With “internationally mobile work force” and “globalization of labour” and “transnational flows of human capital” - terms that mean the movement of people - I’m sure you’ll feel it too. In the coming generation, this is what we’d all come to.

Does this make me a traitor to my own country? I think not.

Let me float on the margins. I’ve found some of the most wonderful misfits here.

This is where I belong.

The Other 20%

Meant yes yes yes! Oh bunions here I come.

HAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHA

What on earth did I get myself into?

The One with the Baseball Cap.

Today I spoke with a boy after 6 long years, a boy whose name had meant furtive phone calls, shy smiles and then some. We talked about the people we used to be, the places we left and the people we knew. We talked about how we faded into the silence with all our awkward growing pains. I think I’m the jerk who stopped talking first. I’m sorry!

So we talked about the things we missed out on in each other’s lives. He tells me he misses this country. But it’s not the country that you miss. It’s our little colony atop Toh Tuck and Bukit Tinggi. From up above, our microcosm was sheltered from the ground below. I know so. I live here and I feel home sick for that place on a hill that no longer exist. Its constituent parts had dispersed with a burst, lodging the shrapnel pieces all over the world. I miss it too.

We’re a little taller, a little less shy and a whole lot different and yet we’re still two kids talking on MSN late into the night because neither one of us can sleep. Words flowed out easily like an open faucet because like Corrinne Bailey Rae once said:

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Don’t you think it’s strange?

There is a greater magnetic force that’ll bring us back to a place somewhere in the world just for a little while. It’ll happen when all of us have grown a little more and garnered the ability to jump on planes on a heart’s whim. Because that’s what families do: reunite and disperse in bursts of laughter, tears and pain.

OMG so hawt.

I have a weakness for geeky bespectacled boys with a strange sense of humor. like mr JOHN OLIVER.

AKA FEATHERWICK the UNSUPERABLE!!

He’s ohmagawd tohtahley adowable. Alright enough babble… want to know why?

1. watch this
2. and then watch this

In 7 Days

You know what happens in seven days? A week happens in seven days. Did you know this? I didn’t.

And in a week I shall be shedding my responsibilities one by one, packing everything important that’s portable into a suitcase and I will set sail on a pea shell boat, on feather sails, on to my very own Boston where no one knows my name, on to a new town where I’ll see too much of the sunrise, on to another penknife-clutching heartstopping adventure, on to a place where they really don’t care much that this is one horrendously long sentence with too many unnecessary clauses.

In seven days I’ll be gone. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I hope when I do I’ll come back without missing parts.

After 7 years, I need a new start.

Has it always been this terrifying?

Şule

you don’t know me
you don’t wear my chains

Dear Future Minister of Finance,

Cromacom

She Wants To Be Paid For Her Services.

It’s the second week of summer and I’ve projects lining up for me. I’m excellent at finding things to do, especially when it doesn’t pay me any money!

I’m adding final touches to the zero limits website. I had fun doing it up even if I was feeling my way in the dark with CSS. They’ve asked me to design their biking jerseys too. You know those tight shirts that bikers wear? Mwahahahaha… oh the possibilities for drawing obscene things.

I have to start making drafts for the smoob press kit as well. The proposal for Gaya 09 should be rolling out in a week and I have no idea what I have to do yet. I’ve got two articles to start and another to finish (yes, Kristia, I’m writing something!). Eurythmix have asked me to do something for them again this year. I have a canvas shoe and t-shirts that are screaming to be painted and yards of cloth to be cut and sewed into more nifty things.

Simon Pais-Thomas

I should stop running a charity. So if you have a problem that requires a design solution, come to me! With a pinch of fairy dust, I shall make you happy! …..and uh… this time… I charge my services for a fee.

I design most print collaterals with plenty of experience in advertising events. I have designed corporate identities which is a fancy way of saying I’ve drawn logos made with an attentive thought process. I generally avoid large format printing as it has the potential to kill my computer. Sometimes I design and manage websites, but only for projects with very small demands. So leave a comment (it asks you to submit your email address anyhow which can only be seen by me) and let me know if you need any help! (=

It Lies in Slumber.

Despite the amount of abuse I subject myself to, I rarely get sick. Yesterday I had a killer headache. I’ve never had one that bad before. I figured I must be slightly underfed or dehydrated yesterday, busy whirling around town with errands. Food and water deficiency explains a whole lot of things that could be wrong with me such as bad moods and even typhoid. Or I could have breathed in god knows what ancient strain of bacteria lurking in zee institute’s* library.

I can’t stand being medicated so i rode through it, hoping sleep would cure it. I managed to catch some sleep in the morning and in the evening which somehow made it even worse. To top it off, I had these very strange vividly colorful dreams: grandmothers in bright red dresses, a blue and red city hovering on stilts over a bay, steel spindles stretching out into the sky in intricate patterns and pretty Japanese mini cakes/dessert thingies. The content of the dream was rather disconcerting. Uh.. let’s not go into that.

I left my phone at home, didn’t check the internets and avoided the TV. Well it works! I’m alright today with a stack of email waiting for me. Ah reality. Here we go again.

Oh it turns out we’re not leaving today!

How Many Years Have I Hated You?

by theXenon

I saw this picture on Flickr with the caption as above.

Just. Brilliant.

He had another photo in the same set

“Even Batman sleeps on the train.”

Teehee.

And it turns out they’re part of a Six Word Story.

It’s a nifty project: shoot a picture & add a six word caption. Simple!

“Common sense loses yet another fight”

aaaahhhhhhhh.. I am in great need for a cameraaaaaa..

Nos Envies, Nos Amours

I wrote some strange things, few of thembarely funny which clearly defeats the purpose of this blawg where you, dear anonymous reader, is supposed to laugh WITH me. At least, you can laugh at me. I guess maybe laughing out loud won’t be the purpose for writing here.

Once upon a time I wrote for the sake of humor, on another public avenue prior to this. But it got tiring to write for an audience. I tempered and twisted what I thought and felt just to make it mildly humorous. I think about every single word I write. Can you imagine how long that takes? I wanted to write about more genuine things and moved over here. I wanted to remember things properly as they should be so that I really am in every word. Lo and behold, they are really pathetic stuff. I’m just laaaaaaaaame. That’s just how I roll, folks.

Heh, even with all of this I have yet to write a coherent paragraph for a project about hope and my homeland. Go figure. I’m vacillating between writing a very angry open letter or a fairytale bordering on delusional.

So with all of this emotionally charged poasty toasts, it only seems fitting that I end this with a song in a foreign language. It’s a pretty song sung by Feist. My French is terrible so you could probably do a better job looking it up on Babelfish. I cheated though and using an arsenal of online translators this is what I came up with. Do correct me if I’m wrong!

To listen: Feist - La Meme Histoire

Quel est donc ce lien entre nous, cette chose indéfinissable?
Où vont ces destins qui se nouent pour nous rendre inséparables?

What is this bond between us, this indefinable thing?
Where do these destinies go, to tie up themselves and render us inseparable?

On vit au jour le jour, nos envies nos amours
On s’en va sans savoir on est toujours dans la même histoire

We live from day to day, our desires, our loves
We go without knowing we are always in the same story

The Celerity of Radish Shaped Pumps.

I figured hearts don’t break as easily as they make it out to be. They’re rather sinewy things, all muscles and heartstrings. Without faith, they corrode. Without exercise, they harden with cholesterol. So here it is, on my cleanest sleeve if you want it. It has your name on it. It’s up to you now.

Aussigall

It’s not the bravest thing I’ve done. Once I know that it’s unwanted, it makes it easier to wipe away the letters drawn on its arteries and veins. The distance helps. If I were a little less afraid, I would have waited. It would have hurt a little more. We’d be in the same city, separated by traffic jams. Combined together, the distance would equal a string of promises and excuses. I didn’t tell you. It’s better not knowing, no?

But this radish shaped thing? It’s yours for today, yours for the last dozens of days. Tomorrow it belongs to me again.

As a friend don’t I at least deserve a word?

One Way To Bust Your Ego.

Apparently an email that asks you:

“When will you be available to start?”

…..is another way of saying “Hey, we want you on our team!”…. well, something like it. I have been told it is pretty much an acceptance, albeit 80% of the way there. I didn’t know this. In the last interview I’ve had with another company, the woman had asked the same question but that did not end with an internship offer. So when I saw the email, I did a little noodle dance before happily rattling off a series of dates without saying a single thank you! *gasp* Oh the indecency!

Oh and did I mention that it was also CC’d to the COO of the company?

I feel like an uncouth little dweeb! I sent a separate email to the tune of: “THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING ME! please reply me back pretty please <3.” Writing all of these corporate emails are more exhausting than writing a treatise on the benefits of pomegranate tea.

Until things are concrete, I’m reluctant to accept that I may have secured an internship. 80% of me is still in disbelief. The other 20% is wondering if she has just screwed herself with etiquette! Etiquette of all things! If this ends with just two little words - “not offered” - I could possibly sustain a little heartbreak.

Ahh.. internship rejections: busting your ego in one fell swoop over and over and over.

For those of you without an internship, hang in there! It’ll come sooner or later and when they send you a reply, any reply at all: REMEMBER TO SAY THANK YOU! It’s just courtesy. So they’ll know that your mother taught you well.