Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Madrid #1: Gran Via




Going to put up photos from Spain, not going to write much about it because I didn't do much research and in any case I was much more preoccupied with my friends than the actual cities I visited. After all it was mostly a relaxation break rather than a travel mission, and I was laaaazy



Madrid #0: Air Travel

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Chimera


My life is changing

TTTTTake It

This is going to be pretty specific: 

 

So last night I watched SBTRKT play at Home Club. It was cool, Sampha was there, they both wore masks and played pretty mad stuff. The club was shaking and the satin lining of my skirt was vibrating like crazy weird. It was a 45 minute set but still pretty damn amazing.

Then tonight I had dinner with my family at Jumbo and... so did Aaron Jerome and Sampha. They sat a couple of tables away so I mustered my guts to go and say hello. Only after they were finished with their crab though. I felt like such a freak but I knew fate had put me in this position for a reason!! They were so nice. Totally made my week.

The powers that be are being kind to me :)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Huat Ah


This is the shortest my hair has been since like ever. 

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! So glad I came home for all this: overeating + watching movies on TV with my parents + 那些年,我們一起追的女孩 + tropical storms + iced drinks + sisterly chilltimes + + +

Friday, January 20, 2012

Back in the +65

pikachu in party lights mode, bed side wall

We all take comfort in the familiar, and with everything else we appropriate it into some semblance of familiarity, until it eventually becomes so.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

En Route

madrid with marcus, pic via sam

If I don't push it too far it turns out that sleep deprivation is like the best drug for me, it makes me deliriously happy and mindlessly efficient. After staying up the whole night and attending 4 hours of lectures in the morning, it only took me barely half an hour to fill a 30-kg suitcase + hand carry, and most of that was my work stuff so a lot of rolling, folding and cling-wrapping heels et cetera. Slowly I am getting more excited about going back to Singapore but I really hate leaving London and all my friends :( 

Friday, January 13, 2012

I know that nobody really gives a crap about my new job, so I know that they're happy for me because they want me to be happy, to have what I want. It is sort of the same for me. I'm happy that after all this time I am properly wanted, with terms and conditions and a take-home salary. A real, legally-binding promise, signed and sealed.

Over the years people have always told me that there's no reason for me to worry, that everything will turn out ok in the end. It isn't a complicated process, and I am more than good enough. The older and wiser boys deal with this so well, they never seem to miss their shots, and if they do they never lose focus, they are always moving on, looking forward. They don't worry, and they tell me that's because there's nothing to worry about. I tried to be like them but I couldn't, I can't, my ambitions and emotions are all tied up with each other, and my head is always a mess.

There have been so many episodes of this anticipation - excitement - stress - nausea, dry-gagging, shaking, waiting - more dry-gagging. Then, hopelessly facing a person who would then destroy my soul most apologetically. Going into hell for a week and dragging myself out of it for the next ordeal. Again and again and again.

And this was the worst of the worst. I remember exactly how it felt, walking out of the interview room, shaking, the fuzzy feeling in my head. I couldn't even look at Harriet, because I knew she didn't know what to say to me either. The stinging feeling in my eyes came when I entered the lift, went away when I thanked the doorman, and came back again once I stepped out of the building. When the cold wind hit my face I realized I was going to lose it. I managed to get across the street, I went into a telephone booth to make a call, no answer, so I went underground, got into the central line train and covered my face with my hands. I tried to meditate but I ended up crying instead. I felt so stupid, all alone, this tiny Chinese girl in a navy suit and pumps, sobbing into her hands on the tube because all she does is waste time, waste money, waste everything given to her by her parents and life itself. The whole time I was aware of how ridiculous I looked, how embarrassing it is to be so vulnerable on public transportation, and... it just made me cry even harder. I felt so stupid for feeling so much, I felt like I was wrong about everything, always letting my emotions lead the way, in life, in love, in everything I do. I knew if I didn't care about things I wouldn't have to feel, they wouldn't be able to hurt me, I could live without crumpling up.

And now, in spite of everything, I have something to look forward to, and in that I've already had an easier time than most. How happy I am now just reminds me how fucking good it feels to want something so bad and have it in the end, to have hope fulfilled and ambition rewarded. My method is insane, but I will continue to want, I will continue to do so intensely, and I will endure pain and push on like a fool because I know without my emotions I will never want anything enough, and if there is nothing I really want how can my life be anything but meaningless?

The heavens opened and gave me a way out



I miss my parents

Thursday, January 12, 2012

30th December 2011, ~ 1730hrs, Madrid


Once in a while you see something and it just sort of knocks you out. Sensory perception is the best thing human beings have but we all get pretty desensitized to aesthetic experience after the 24/7 drivel day after day. Then you have all the deliberated, concentrated stuff in galleries, museums, cinemas, concerts... and that's all the aesthetic experience people talk about anyway. Other than that you don't expect much from life, and even when you experience something exceptional it takes a lot to share that feeling. Even then it really can't be shared transparently anyway, it has to go via some external medium, and in the end you have to create something entirely different from what you experienced. Almost everybody does this, which is great. Some people are better at it. Ok this is stupidly abstract.

Really long ago when I was a little kid in Singapore, there was one afternoon where I saw some broken glass on the street while walking home alone. It was all over the tarmac, like spilled crystals or something. I picked up a couple of pieces and brought it home and put it in a little box... the kind of thing little girls do (or maybe just me). 

I spend a lot of time doing stupid things these days. The little Marx faces on my browser tabs keep giving me disapproving looks.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Dumb

These days it takes so long and so much to get anything done. I had to stop. Making my consciousness the object of itself is seriously problematic, psychologically and epistemically. My mind is so limited. Human beings can't be objective. The subjectivity makes me sick. I really don't see the point.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

World of Action

“After I was released, people used to keep asking me, ‘What is it like to be free?’” she tells me, in her forthright, plummy English. “And it was very difficult for me to answer – I always felt free. As far as my state of mind was concerned, I didn’t feel any different... People ask me about what sacrifices I’ve made and I always answer that I’ve made no sacrifices – I’ve made choices. I don’t get angry. I wasn’t sacrificing myself for anybody. Really, it was a choice I made in accordance with what I believed.”
Dazed Digital's August Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi

Putting things into perspective.

Friday, January 6, 2012

2012

pigging out circa 2011, pic via sam

I went to Spain right after Boxing Day to spend some well-needed chilltime with two of my best bros in the world, and now the United Kingdom as well. Globalization is so good, I always have everything I need/want now. Madrid was great. Barcelona was Amazing and I know for sure I'm going back some day, hopefully sooner than later. 

New Year's, like most things, was an anticlimax. At the first moment of 2012 I was hollering down a hallway for Sam, feeling a bit sleepy and stupid. We went to a huge club and sang/danced to indie-rock tunes for the entire night, including Such Great Heights and Have Love Will Travel. So random but so good

I woke up the next morning with the full realization that it was 2012, and an entire year had passed since we watched the fireworks together off Tanjong Rhu in Singapore. 

2011 was a pretty strange year for me. I moved forward but I also went backwards, much further than I thought I could. Every year my emotional experiences seem to reach new extremes and last year gave me the best and worst times ever, sometime together at once. In so many ways it was the best year of my life, but very much the worst too.

Either way:
1. It is over (2011, but nothing is ever really over)
2. I am still wholly grateful for everything that has happened
3. And everyone who stayed by my side, some longer than others