Happy 2009

It seemed silly to end the year with a Christmas tree post so here it is, the obligatory last post of the year. As I sit here listening to the wind stirring the wood mobile going clack-clack-clack against the window I don't feel any different. The anticipation hit a long time back. One year ago I was at the PY's watching The Gods Must be Crazy with two lovely women. We had chips, we cracked lame jokes, Hash complained the PY snored and somehow we ended up watching the fireworks from my house and harassing my hamsters. Truly, I didn't think anything then but certainly the gods must have been slightly less marbly after all because it turned out to be a crazy year. I am looking forward to seeing the new year through - I'll be graduating (fingers crossed), the world will be a warmer place, I'll go traveling, maybe I'll finally pick up driving, maybe - a whole lot of maybes lined up. And then, in another three hundred and sixty-five days, the world would see the first decade of the century.

I want to touch the curve of the sky, hear the wind in the trees, smell wet rain falling and watch the world spin on its slow axis to the sound of its own rhythm in space. I want to walk the streets of Greece and Rome, watch a kabuki play, chase the star-bursts down the promenades of Paris, visit haunted castles and museums and wide heaths and icebergs. I want to keep the scent of old books and the tranquil hush of the libraries by my side, the late night tappings on my keyboard and the echo of shoes on the many staircases too. I want to keep the nights out, the chilling out sessions, the tea, the uneven, narrow side streets and the numerous books and anime and films.

A toast to the old and to welcome the new.

2009/2010. 

Merry Christmas

It was a good day out today despite the hellish crowd. Thank you.

Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you. May 2010 be all the better!

B.A. in Idiocy

Introduction:

Welcome to the year 2009. It is ending now but I wanted to say a few friendly words before we part ways, forever, temporally speaking. I can only physically move forward, even if I think that I'll always have an eye turned over my shoulder to this point in time. Now that we are nearing the end, it is a time for reflection, for thought and for internalizing. The added bonus is unburdening, but we'll see about that.

Chapter 1: Zetsubo-sensei

Do not despair. Please kindly refrain from ever using this word (except in jest) if you ever have to mark someone's essay. I believe my professor was being kind but such things just kills. It doesn't help when at the same time, you're undergoing a crisis when you've suddenly to take on a majority of household chores because your mom's injured her arm. 

It may seem very sad for me to say this but I really agonized over which to prioritize. I felt that my essays were very important, but my mom felt a shiny floor and not eating out was. And one of my deep core beliefs that my parents cared about my education sustained a deep and irreparable crack. They certainly cared, they want me to have a stable job and money and a comfortable life, insofar as their own convenience was not unduly jeopardized. As, I was, naturally thinking the same, though in reverse (I didn't want to jeopardize my essay grade), I can't say I can fault them too much.

The fact is also that I wasn't always working on essays, which I had half given up the battle for made the guilt of not helping out more even more aching. It was a relief to hear somebody, anybody tell me that I had helped out more than enough even if I didn't believe it, it was nice to hear. Naturally I felt even worse because it indicated simply, the minutiae I can do for my parents, especially since I took on the housework very grumpily and fanned the flames of discontent a lot at home.

I'm a disappointment, really. Which is why and here is a lesson to all future parents: Never tell your child that she is useless. It is damning. It is also contractual. There was a point in time, when I ought to have been thinking about my ISM proposal that I was thinking more of a 5000 word essay on Tyranny.

Chapter 2: Bitter Fruit

This one is a joke made by another person. Every time we meet up and I've an opportunity to explain why I wasn't doing a thesis, she'll laugh and say, "Leong sounds so bitter every time". I don't. It was probably a good thing as I on average, score better grades in fields outside my major. The proposal exercise proved that I wouldn't have been able to sustain the rigor of a thesis. I lost interest in my topic. It was a struggle just explaining what I had in my head and I became frightened that I had sustained some kind of permanent mental damage. There is no way you can write clearly if you can't even articulate coherently your own ideas to yourself. 

My CAP went back up this semester, but just when I seriously needed a confidence booster, my grades were on a downhill slide. I would have liked to believe that I could do a thesis. I might have been less unsure of myself. But all those mights don't account for anything in the here and now, other than that in a way it is tedious the way it, like the early string of As I was getting this semester buoys hope up when all I had wanted was the peace of having accepted that I was an average student and average person.

I understand that I've not made as sustained a description of what bogs my academic life but some things remain too sore a point for me to talk about. Then I discovered that my opinion matters very little in the great scheme of things and that I should not be so concerned that I was wasting people's time having to bear through listening to my bewildered proposal.

Chapter 3: Death Wish

This has nothing to do with family or my education. It has to do with the only other thing left. This involves a person I knew from school, though only as an acquaintance. In a way, what I'm writing here is so watered down that it isn't even what transpired but I shall summarize pithily. It involved a bench, my idiocy, and a suspected perv. I don't know. I felt sorry for him but that has, in increasing days, turned to blood boiling. I was asked if I had a death wish following the idiot to the park at night. In a way I was outmaneuvered but still - I spent most of it being very uncertain if I was mistaking a fellow schoolmate of unholy designs or if he just liked me and was just stupid. And I was too polite. And nice. As usual. I have a very big range for accepted idiocy and strangeness in people you know. Just... don't take advantage of my open-mindedness. You'll induce me to feel pity - not very flattering for the person and anger. You would think alarm bells would be going off in my head and they were. And which goes to show how right Freud was when he spoke of the uncanny. I simply believed that Singapore was very safe and I was with someone I sort of knew, even if that someone was giving off very strange vibes. But everyone knows "safe" and "know" are easily turned on their heads. I just didn't think I would be the sort of person to attract creeps.

I however take this as a learning point and wake up call. There were several very strange things leading up to this 

Conclusion:

This might come across as a surprise to some people but, no, I don't trust myself. I said that maybe I ought to start but there are a lot of difficulties, and not two days after telling myself that, I committed the same mistake. No, I don't trust myself because I believe that people are inherently selfish and that includes me, of course. Being magnanimous is actually a struggle and a pain and it doesn't come easily and this year has been a dry year. I told a friend over prata that it would hardly matter if I simply disappeared; the world will go on and possibly even be the better for it. Less humans is always a good thing, these days and I point out, as a current example, Avatar. A human directed film where blue aliens trump humans - doesn't that say something? 

It has been an eventful year for me and I am grateful for small things. Tuition, while a sore point in terms of time constraints and aggravating children are all the better for making me feel happy and satisfied. I feel like I'm doing something for somebody, and the satisfaction it brings cannot be measured. I hope I will like teaching. The horror of my mom's friend's daughter when she heard me say that I was going to teach is priceless. 

So, too bad. This person doesn't want to be a blue alien. I want to finish my education. I want to see how chapter 3 turns out. I want to watch movies. Rediscover my love for books. I want to feel sunshine, listen to the rain and enjoy the sharp smell of wind. A salute to Life, and to Art. 

A couple of things

Children are morbid.

"The old lady had fractured her arms and legs. But she is fine."

Will all the forces of everything good and pure tell me how to mark this in compositions?

Unbelievably, I am going to say the following:

Avatar, in spite of being obviously and disgustingly overhyped, is actually worth your 6 bucks (if you're a student). I have it on good authority, trust me.

The meaning of happy

I love the view from up here, it is _____________.

1) pretty as a picture

2) gay as a lark

3) pleasant as a wind breeze (or obvious equivalent)

4) I forgot what but you get the sense of what is being asked.

Ask children what "gay as a lark" means and all I get are delighted smiles. Thank you, twentieth century for producing such a happy alternative meaning to the word. 

Note: The answer is 1)

UPDATE: And did I mention? I have to teach them cheesy composition phrases like "as eager as a bridegroom". And everyone knows what it is that the bridegroom is really getting excited about.

The Book Post: The Favourite

For the longest time, if anyone asked me what my favourite book was, the answer I had given was Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The story of an Indian boy (the epnoymous Pi) whose ship capsizes enroute to Canada to start a new life with his family, Life of Pi was no regular castaway tale. It can't be, not when one of Pi's liferaft companions is a full grown Bengal tiger. The book was special to me for a few reasons. It was funny, humurous and one of the few thoughtful and life affirming books I had read. What is writing? What is life? Why is art important? This book was the stuff of books and one of the few which I had re-read with pleasure time and again and I still urge people who haven't read it to go and give it a try.

But lately, I find that I do not immediately think of this book except as a fond memory. What is my favourite book? This is a tough one. I have many books that I love but none which I can say moved me above the others. I have moved on since I declared Life of Pi to be my favourite book. I am probably not much wiser or sadder than I was two years ago, when I was asked in an MOE interview what my favourite book was and I gave an admittedly unflattering answer because I was so stunned that they were asking weird things like this. But two years is a long time and even if it is only a little, I've moved on from then, taste wise.

I can however think of a few authors whose work(s) have given me that special feeling. Diana Wynne Jones. Eoin Colfer. Susanna Clarke. Neil Gaiman. Phillip Pullman. Yann Martel. Daniel Keyes. Eva Ibbotson. Margaret Atwood. Jane Austen. Oscar Wilde. T.S. Eliot. Edgar Allan Poe. J.R.R. Tolkien. J.K. Rowling. Enid Blyton. Isabel Allende. Georgette Heyer. Joanne Harris. The list goes on. And on. Not of all these can profess to being very literary. They can however, all profess to be books that people have enjoyed and possibly even loved and cherished by someone out there. If there is something I entered my major believing and will go out of it thinking, it is that books are meant to inspire and move its audience in all spectrums of emotion and thought.

So what is my favourite book? This is a difficult question with no forthcoming answer. In all honesty, there won't probably ever be just one again. There are too many good things out there for me to just like one.

Note: Martel has not published for a while and in lieu of this post, I did a google to find out what he has been up to and to my delight, it seems that he'll have a new work, Beatrice and Virgil out next year (which is another reason why 2010 will be a good year in terms of books and movies for me)

Scenes from Around Here

Elegy 8.6 KV

Here lies Sir N.U.S. Cable,

Who went to great lengths

Against the forces of darkness.

The Happy List

The Princess Bride
Great Gatsby
Middlesex
Year of the Flood
Blueeyedboy
The Enchanted Glass
Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex
Possession (gah! Finish already!)
Coraline
Anna Karenina
Alice in Wonderland
HP7
Bright Star
Summer Wars
Sherlock Holmes
Susanna Clarke's sequel to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (I can wait. I can wait.)
Black boots
Grey tops
Navy tops

Turtle Tale

What happend to the turtle at home when there is no one but moi to feed it?

Yes. That turtle. The one that lives in the toilet.

I've never fed it before and it can't go without food for the 3 days my sis and mom are in Malacca. This turtle is a creature which I live with extreme ambivalence and I could draw up a list of all the whys of both feeding and not feeding it.

No, Not feed:
1. It is smelly.
2. It is gross.
3. It has claws.
4. The dried prawns which I've to feed it with stinks
5. The tank is gross.
6. The tank is also smelly.
7. I've to touch it if I am to feed it because I've to put it back in its tank
8. It doesn't look light

Yes, Feed:
1. Only because my conscience asked me to

So, after umm. possibly more than a decade sharing the bathroom with that creature whose sex we've yet to determine but which we all decided couldn't matter anyway, I doned two plastic bags over my hands and picked it up. It was surprisingly light, but I wouldn't be able to describe how it smelt like because I was holding my breath. I then placed it back in its tank.

We both stared at each other.

I stripped off the plastic bag and refilled the tank and fed it, holding my breath again when I opened the lid of the prawn can. My mom and sis claims it has the same aroma of prawn crackers. I would like to point out that if prawn crackers really smelled like that, no one would buy them, least of all, me.

The turtle didn't look happy to see the food. Or maybe it was just not happy to see me. It flailed about and tried to escape. I ignored the flailing and scrabbling and sprinkled the water with the food (all the while holding my breath) and quickly fled when I was done.

When I checked back several hours later, all the prawns were gone and I was feeling a little satisfied, that is, until I remembered that I would have to repeat the whole fracas one more time the next day.

Dog Tales

Everytime I visit Pet Safari I end up having to reaffirm why I am a cat person. Seeing all those doggies, those puppies and those little woofies and I can see why people are enamoured with them. Come on - those eyelashes on the golden retriever puppy are so pretty~ I am still a cat person and I will one day own a sulky black tabby (you know, the striped kind) called Milton. But, before this turns into a loving paean to all things feline, I should get back to why I think dogs and animals in general (with the exception of caterpillars, illamas, sea cucumbers and most manner of insects and some reptiles, amphibians and fishes) are so well-loved and cherished by humankind. This is a story as to why dogs anyway, are so well-loved.

Cindy was my uncle's dog. But because he worked and lived in IMH (he's a nurse in case you're wondering) where animals weren't allowed, he gave it to my aunt to take care of. Now, Cindy is not one of your fancy pedigree types and is by far more intelligent than most of her purebreed cousins - or - at least that is what I like to believe, having next to zero experience with real dogs. Now, once Cindy made a - as they say in a certain parlance used commonly with tai-tais on their chihuahuas or inane parents on their babies - boo-boo of a monumental kind. My grandma was livid. And to point out how just how angry she was, she took up a cane and whacked Cindy. Before you get the impression that my grandma is some deranged old woman, I should point out that it is my grandma who cooks Cindy her food, it is my grandma who shops for her sustenance and who, in all the decade they had owned Cindy, never once laid a hand on her.

Cindy was of course pissed but being a dog and an affectionate one at that, she simply ran away. So, later during the day when they realised that she wasn't in fact skulking in some corner of the house, my grandma panicked because Cindy is the beloved of my aunt. She then went out to search for her. After hollering the street up and down to no avail, my grandma went back home to cook dinner. She was clearly still worried because she went out a second time after that, and was successful in spotting Cindy trotting homeward, but - truculently covered in muck and about as apologetic as the indignantly righteous.

This is a dog I would have liked to have known better. Heh. Naughty dog.

Face Up

Having said that, grades are not everything but they are the most superficially in-your-face thing that I can deal with. There was a long period last semester when I asked myself what I was doing, whether I was suited for an academic life. Last semester was horrible – the constant string of B-minuses was crushingly depressing because I had worked at my essays. Each one, as far as I was concerned was a dialogue between me and the module and the measure of not only how much I understood from the module but a measure of me as a person. When you are a student and your life revolves around academia, grades while not everything, is at least a way of measuring oneself. That you, after 3 years still fail to be:
a) clear
b) organized
c) pertinent
d) reflective/insightful

is a crushing thing to hear.
I chuck those essays aside. And that, I quietly tell myself, is yet another sign of inherent failure of me – not as a student but as a human being. How will I improve?? Can I improve? I am on an inherent and unstoppable train further into failure because I dare not face up to that B-minus. I cannot read it without feeling disappointment, without feeling inferior and insufficient – in discipline and hard work and intelligence. And I dig a further hole because I can’t face up to how I will never be disciplined, or organized or insightful enough.

I am scared of failure – both how it is manifest outwardly as a grade and how it might be a sign of inward failure of me as a person, and that fear is so crippling that I can’t even look at it. This time round, I have yet to look at it closely either. Can I chuck it aside? I might and I will tell myself: you can do better than that. But, as a person I cannot do that when I haven’t even seen what is wrong about it. So, tonight I will look at it. And though the grade isn’t everything; it is a lot of things to me and it is something I want to give due to by facing up to it.
And maybe it’s there where I can start to be those things. It’s not too late. I am not a B minus person. It is a grade which I am given and I can take what it is and maybe that is where I can begin to be not a B minus. Denial

To tell myself that grades are not everything is to not accept that I do find them important. But should they be? I don't know. After looking back at little more about what we've said today, I think they are. They can be so much pleasure and why should I belittle disappointment because it's unpleasant? Denial gets me nowhere.

Monsoon

I put up there 'Monsoon', but when I think monsoon I think of wet plantations, coconut trees lashing in a murky grey landscape with rain at a 45 deg angle - things which are not happening here. You'll be hard put to find enough land for major crop growing anyway, here in sunny Singapore-land. So, really, maybe this post has nothing to do with the geographical imaginings though because it is the tropics, the rain we're having is probably part of a common geographical phenomenon in these parts.

It has been raining. And I have been feeling lazy, partly because the weather is so lovely but also because for 12 academic years, whenever it rained, it meant holiday. I'm feeling the instinct of 12 years telling me in that insiduous whisper, "Kick back. Don't you hear us? It's the end of the year. Time to chill. Time to do the things you like again. No more obligation to textbooks." So yeah, when the North wind doth blow, I feel unaccountably willing to throw that book/essay/proposal aside. Holiday is in the air and I do so love it even though it won't, technically, be here for another month.

The Week in Three.

1. Ice

Welcome November,

Good friend to wind, rain and ice.

A time to reflect.

2. Loathing

Come, essay time,

Like some rank, o'ergrown carpet

Requiring a trim.

3. After rain

There is much to love

In watery days, milky light,

And murmuring of chimes.

October Meltdown

Ok. Long post coming up. I've several things I want to talk about but which I hadn't for the past month because my vanity wouldn't allow it. The month of October is allowed only 5 posts, and as you can see, I made use of the first 4 in the first 4 consecutive days of the month. Those of you in the know would know why 5 posts. Remember - vanity. Anyway, onward!

#1 Ang Mo Kio Fiasco

Out of the goodness and kindness of my soul I attempted to help this nine yr old girl who was crying on the streets outside AMK Hub. Oh the meanness of the Singaporean soul! Nobody else walking up and down the crowded streets even bat an eyelid at her!

For good reason it seems.

I asked her where her mom was and she said 'at home'. I then asked her where she lived and she told me she lived in the very er, "very far away" Ang Mo Kio Ave 10. However, I suppose, when you're 9, anywhere more than 10 mins from your front gate is far. Being unfamiliar with the suburbia of AMK, I asked if she knew what bus to get home and we then proceeded to walk to this bus stop ahead (88 bus stop) which she claimed had her bus. Which, as it turned out did not in fact. We wandered back to another bus stop perpendicular to it (159 bus stop via Sengkang). Which also didn't have the bus. Mercifully, before I decided to resort to a cab (at the taxi stand outside the train station), I spotted one of the buses she mentioned turning into the very Hub which we had walked away from. My heart bled.

And so I took her back there, making yet another perpendicular right, though this time utilising the underpass as I could not bear waiting for the traffic lights anymore. Those of you familiar with that area would realize that I spent a precious 30 mins walking from one bus stop to another around the traffic junction near AMK Stn, trailing a sniveling girl with me under the evening sun. So yes, I hereby permit you to indulge in envisioning this pathetic sight for personal entertainment as long as you want.

On reaching, she recognized her bus and walked eagerly towards it, and leaving me to stare bewildedly at the board and wondering why the bus she wanted to take did not actually go to AMK Ave 10. Anyway, I was done with her. After giving her some bus money, I hastily fled to the upper floors, not daring for an hour to come back down in case she had taken an entire round trip on the feeder service and ended up at the interchange again.

#2 The Death of Duckie, aka Sheep-like Sotong, aka hamster

Rest in peace fat Duckie! You were always the stupidest. But that's ok. We still love you very much.

He is a sheep-like sotong for the simple reason that he was the fattest hamster with the longest fur and sheep appearance. He was also, in local parlance, very 'blur', like sotong.

Allow me to indulge in one reminiscence.

Once, I put him on this long wooden bench at home for walk. He trotted along the edge of the seat happily and then suddenly slipped off. He hung for a split second by his paws, blinked and then fell. Bottom too heavy I suppose. There was no strong sudden gust of wind. Nobody pushed/pulled him. He just trot and fell. So clumsy.

#3 Birthday
Spent it wretchedly with essay submissions. Thank you the lovely ladies who got me Chewy Junior and my presents!! I heart you all.

#4 Halloween Post
I posted some of my favourite poetry that had some relation to Halloween for the past 2 years. Stands to reason I'll do it again this year. I had originally intended Keats's The Eve of St Agnes but it's too long if it's sharing a post with other things. Keats incidentally was born today in 1795, if Wikipedia is to be believed. So, what I have is an excerpt instead:


I
ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith


’Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,

“Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:

“Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;—

“The bloated wassaillers will never heed:—

“Let us away, my love, with happy speed;

“There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,—

“Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:

“Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,

“For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”


XL.
She hurried at his words, beset with fears,

For there were sleeping dragons all around,

At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—

Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.—

In all the house was heard no human sound.

A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;

The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,

Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;

And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.


XLI.
They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;

Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,

With a huge empty flaggon by his side;

The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,

But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—

The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;—

The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groan.


XLII.
And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

These lovers fled away into the storm.

You can see for yourself how long it is from the numbering above the stanzas. The original can be found here.

October. The Crazy Month. For all kinds of reasons.

Quote of the Day

"were all men always attentive to life, were we constantly to keep in touch with others as well as with ourselves, nothing within us would ever appear as due to the working of strings or springs" Henri Bergson, "The Comic in Situations" trans. Brereton and Rothwell

And quite, quite suddenly, I think I might be beginning to understand Deleuze and Guattari from 19th Century class

The Original Letter from Crazy Peoples

This is what happens when you are doing research for essays and you come across this again. Below is a short excerpt which one critic cited and then cheerfully called the author "unmistakeably...a megalomaniac"

William Prynne (1600-1669)

Histrio-mastix.

The players scourge, or, actors tragædie, divided into two parts. Wherein it is largely evidenced, by divers arguments, by the concurring authorities and resolutions of sundry texts of Scripture, That popular stage-playes are sinfull, heathenish, lewde, ungodly spectacles, and most pernicious corruptions; condemned in all ages, as intolerable mischiefes to churches, to republickes, to the manners, mindes, and soules of men. (the second full-stop here) And that the profession of play-poets, of stage-players; together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous and misbeseeming Christians. All pretences to the contrary are here likewise fully answered; and the unlawfulnes of acting, of beholding academicall enterludes, briefly discussed; besides sundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, health-drinking, &c. of which the table will informe you.

Observe how the second full-stop is really a technicality, since he goes on to start the next sentence with "And".

Notice (updated)

Oh lookie. Deja vu.

My phone has died again. There really is something about me meeting up with my sec sch friends that it really doesn't like. Or something. Like how it wants to infuriate me in my fav month of the year perhaps.

Update: My phone died again in spite of the new battery. It looks as though I'll be using my dad's ancient nokia for a while longer. Sigh. My ear. my ear.

TV has never sunk so low

The scene - a nippy bankside at one of Singapore's water catchment areas
The cast -
one standard clandestine young couple meeting secretly
one standard story line about young girl being sent overseas by ambitious parent to pursue music career. They are about to be separated for 3 years.

They cross the small distance to clasp each other's hands. The girl is visibly distraught. She is, as they say, stuck to be filial, pursue her own career, and in the process leave her boyfriend behind. The young man is understandably upset but what happens next doesn't make sense, even as cheesy R&J speeches go.

Girl (rough approx of lines): It can't be helped, my mother has already paid them the money. I'll have to leave for 3 years!
(They hug passionately) Both are miserable at the cruel twist of fate.
Boyfriend: But, can you bear to let me go?
Girl (shaking her head in frustration): I don't know! I don't know!

Yeah. I sure don't know either. Let me go sounds kind of pathetic when it comes to comforting your girlfriend and it's unnecessary to ask such a stupid question in a scene that is already visually coded to yell happily-in-love-couples-to-be-separated.

Just wanted to say

Memoirs of a self-professed professional jaywalker

Today I had a brush with death - in the form of being nearly knocked into by a cyclist when crossing the short space between the bus stop seat and the bus. And I never even put one foot down on the tar.

Campion's Bright Star(s)

This just proves that if a teacher needs anything literary that has been made into a film, the BBC will have had a hand in it somehow. But still, this looks like a lovely portrayal of the life and love of John Keats. *rubs hands*

Poster Talk: 9

I apologize. Blogger is acting up and I can't attach pictures of anything, so you will have to do with another non-picture edition of Poster Talk again.

I want to talk about "9" - not "District 9", just "9" alone, the motion capture feature from fresh talent Shane Acker, who developed his award-winning silent short film into a longer adaptation with the backing of Tim Burton and a screenplay by Pamela Pettler (Corpse Bride). The cast features, among others, the voices of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly and Christopher Plummer. With such luminaries backing Acker, it is a pity that the fluid and detailed animation (to rival Pixar's) is let down by a weak story.

Just look at the posters (which I can't put up) - they are bursting with potential. But, at just slightly over an hour, there is little time for anything but exposition, let alone for developing nine characters which had great potential. Mankind has been wiped out in a war against machines, and the last shred of humanity resides within the 9 little dolls that have been brought to life by a scientist to defeat his other creation, The Brain, which had been responsible for the destruction of practically everything living.

In Acker's defense, rather than let the characters do the talking, much can be gleaned from the landscape, the buildings and even materials as well. For example, it may be significant that Number 9 along with a few other dolls are made from burlap - the same material that is used to make sandbags - the material that form the last line of defense against the enemy. An architect by training, Acker is adept at infusing the scenery with symbolic meaning. As the "stitchpunk" (a term coined by Acker) dolls become divided over how best to deal with the mechanical threats in the post-apopcalyptic world, the more conservative and close-minded Number 1 opts for safety in the sanctuary of an abandoned church. Meanwhile, the others seek answers in a gothic-Baroque landscaped library complete with alchemical treatises and faded newspaper cuttings.

Having said that in favour of the film, it is still pretty annoying that the plot follows pretty much the convention of RPG games, going so far as to include some scenes that were shot literally like one of those mini sequences that accompany boss fights. A waste! A pity! Darn! Quality animation should never take the place of a good story. The premise of Acker's short film was, I feel, intriguing enough for it to be explored in much greater depth than it had been. An allegorical warning about Man playing God? Certainly. A warning against ambition and the corrupting force of greed and power? Duh. Science versus faith. Check. Going beyond this convention of sci-fi genre? Sigh.

All the same, a visual delight, bleak though the film's tone is for most parts.
Rating: 3.5/5

Mid-sem aspirations

When I grow up, I want to be able to write 4000 word essays and not feel a thing.
When I grow up, I want to meet a Zombie, a Ghost or an A** Student.
When I grow up, I want to eat Yong Tau Foo that tastes like it did before the canteen was renovated. Ditto the Western stall, the Japanese stall and the now non existent Cold Pasta and Deli stall
When I grow up, I want to be an A** Student.
When I grow up, I will have survived the Terrible October.
When I grow up, I will stop making an ass out of emails to professors.
When I grow up at the end of the semester, I will be academically enlightened.

When I grow up... ...

Time is subjective

Time is subjective - to old age. What else. I am at week whatever and I have a terrible schedule. It'll be nice if time stopped last week. I'd have been really grateful.

iTweet.

And under the auspices of Ms PY, I am now on twitter. Believe it or not. I still think the name is highly charged grounds for lame puns though, such as "Hi twit", "I twitted today" and "You twit!".

The most difficult 800 words

The most difficult 800 words has to be this stupid report that I am banging out right now on my laptop. I have moved into the room which may sister usually occupies when gaming and the table faces the window, where a very, very drafty wind is blowing in and attempting to freeze me to my seat. While the draught has been very refreshing, it is also mighty annoying in the way it keeps expertly blowing aside my blanket or nipping insidiously at all the places where the blanket doesn't reach or cover. I feel ready to throw in the towel.

To live in tabula rasa

Yesterday, I attended my first archi seminar (aka what we at Arts call tutorials). We were discussing Koolhaas's vision of Singapore's architecture as being built on a tabula rasa. According to Wiki, (less reliable source that it is), tabular rasa (blank slate) refers to, among other things, "the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception".

In discussing architecture specifically, this term "has been used in arguments against what were criticized as insensitive design strategies employed by a monolithic Modern Movement" since the 1950s (Wikipedia). Ahah! One wants to cry out - "This is exactly what happened to Singapore in the fifties!" No one who has gone through the Singapore Education System needs to be reminded of our nation's struggle with problems both of a practical and metaphysical nature. Well, okay, the textbooks mostly chronicle the practical ones but I do think how it's impossible for anyone designing the textbook not to have some ulterior motive pertaining to the latter.

Insensitive - yes - mostly because to start on a blank slate is not as pretty or easy as it sounds (the textbooks and I concur on this point). It means a determined bulldozing of the land's past. As Koolhaas suggests, it is hard put to find any building more than thirty years in Singapore (1011). Shocking, to anyone who has lived in Paris (for example), where the charm of the city is built partly on its carefully preserved architectural past. Everything else is shiny and new in contrast here.

My point on tabula rasa is that it is a brutal process - modern skyscrapers standing cheek to jowl with matchbox like shophouses, and now, contemporary structures in the most flamboyant shapes like Vivocity, the Esplanade, Ion Orchard and the upcoming gambling dens springing up in rejection of the . In these different types of buildings, one can almost map the way Singapore has changed to suit the times. It's not merely that the grey slabs are ugly or are vastly inhuman in scale, they represent the stripping away of a past, literally built on the ghost of the old shophouse, the dirt and squalor. I don't know about you, but when I step into the market in Chinatown, the one that has been recently opened again after all these years, I still subconsciously smell the horror of the damp, wet market when I first visited it as a kid. I also still mince my way between the stalls even though the smell is almost all gone, and the floor is much drier. Ghost of the old building? Check. Tabula rasa is not built on a clean slate - it's a slate that bears the tenacious traits of The Past. In psychoanalysis, it is suggested that which we keep under the carpets boils over all the worse the further it is buried. The same can be said of the anxious way in which living in tabula rasa all my life boils over constantly - progress and develop, but never forget the tenets of our little island home - we are yet always four races at potential loggerheads. We must never fall behind. Don't be complacent. Don't get left behind. We must always strive towards the light! (No rest for the good orthe bad.) We are simply, an eternal work in progress, absorbing and rejecting what's good for this little island without ever being sure where this light is (First world status, maybe?)

But perhaps, that is all changing - we've begun to build monuments to our glorious state -Ion, gambling rules relaxed (if hypocritically), the Durian etc. This is where, in a slice of tabula rasa, I see as the first steps to building permanence rather than change - the Fullerton and Raffles Hotel of the present. What they may mean to you and me is a different thing altogether, something which has not altered while bulldozing. We look back at the shophouses that have survived the demolitions and cranes and heave a sigh of relief - we then go on to insist that they're haunted - by what? A more exciting past, when the threat of death was far more real? When the piss and garbage filled streets which we abhor have been lent the nostalgic tinge of rose tinted distance? I am sinking to the low of rhetoric, but there, I've made my point: I may hate the bulldozing, but I am grateful for it. I may regret that my physical environment is denuded of its history but then, I don't want to live in the past either.

Reference:
Rem Koolhaas, ‘Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis… or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa’, in Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, SMLXL (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2005), pp.1008-89.

Bordering on lousy

Yesterday, I went to the Borders Sale. Just to show you how far their fiction sale standards have fallen, here is the haul I got from that place: 0.00000000000000000. Compare please, with last year's statistics, which is 13 books, the full description which may be found here. I ended up deflecting over to the Metro sale and I even wandered into Harvey Norman's - that by the way, would give you an idea how depressing I found the Borders one, which I had even rushed over to after tuition and totally skipping my lunch.

And not to make comparisons or anything (I totally am), last year's Borders sale was of the genuine kind, where they not only had the books tossed in a disorganised heap in big cardboard boxes, they did not even bother to put said boxes on a shelf - they were all on the floor.
This year, the books were all more or less neatly stacked, and I did not even see anything going for their purported $3. The majority had 30-40% discounts or started from about $5. Granted, there were a lot of hardcover non-fiction, but can anyone blame me for not showing any interest in The History of the Army and such titles? Plus, even though a hard cover edition of The Prince by Machiavelli going for $12 is still a cheap buy, it seemed pointless to join the queue for one book, especially since I got a Penguin edition of Plato's Republic for $4 the year before.

As Morphus said, the wonder is that the queue is as long as last year's (and as slow moving). Still, I suppose I should have known something was amiss when 10 to 1 shoppers leaving the expo were carrying Metro bags and few black Borders bags could be seen. Ah well. I'll just wait and see next year then though my hopes are not very high. Perhaps Borders has learnt not to overstock.

Not an intelligent thing

Today, I hit my head on the side of the train.

Me: Oh. Owwwww.
Sanah: That... was not an intelligent thing to do...

Yes. I quite agree... since I clipped myself on the temple region, which meant it throbbed like nothing for a good half hour after that. So yes, in other news, I shall try my best to restrain from laughing at people who miss their train stops. Yup.

Welcome to the Land of TV Tropes

Click me! And I promise you, this site will suck your life in, twist it into multiple pretzels and you'll go away not being the same again.

No. Seriously.

Hurtling towards the end

Four years ago, I was presented with my own hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as a birthday present. I'd been rudely spoilered about a major event in the book, which *glares at kappa* still grates slightly whenever I am brought to remember it. Other than that, my relationship with this lovely series is all mostly water under the bridge by now. A fond memory, is what I associate HP with nowadays.

But now that we're reaching the end, I am reminded again of what this book meant to me.

Book VI is my favourite, (not counting the VII, which everybody more or less liked) and the only one which I can safely say, makes it to competing ground with my other staunch favourite, II. As far as I was concerned, it topped I, which is all that mattered when you had then only read I, II and III. But, on to the point of this rambly post.

Harry Potter remains the only book series which I was fan (mad) enough to sit at an unprotected public bus stop with a friend for over two hours to discuss our theories regarding the books. So there. That sort of trounces any of those pointless rallying cheers that we were forced to do to get the class to bond together... I say Harry Potter! The Boy who Lived unites the world in not just the battle against evil, but in a singular tribute to the wonderful, wonderful world of the imagination. It's also the sort of thing that gets perfect strangers talking to each other - and what more spectacular thing is that?

Now... try to remain calm. I in fact believe, as I am typing this, that the bus stop thing didn't happen once... it happened twice... once for VI and one more time for VII... I think? Oh dear.

9 - Shane Acker

This is the original short film titled "9" by Shane Acker which is currently being adapted into a feature length by Tim Burton and Acker.
It is creepy, slightly depressing and rather endearing.

Anecdote for Educators

O dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.

-- W. Wordsworth

Ah, Wordsworth. What were you thinking? Much as you love your son and children in general, I cannot say the same.

I was teaching my tuition class as per usual on Saturday when I encountered my first crying new student who refused to enter my den. As expected, my class wanted to know why I kept disappearing outside after they'd caught wind of a rumour that they would be having a new classmate and they all trooped outside to gawk as me and L attempted to persuade her to join the class.

Attempt #first and last went down like a lead balloon.
I had gotten the class to all give her a very warm welcome by simulataneously saying hello and waving as she walked in, but all she did was shrink back. (mouse! mouse!)
Shit! Shit! I mentally cursed and went back outside to try and placate her while being tailed by multiple monkeys.

L suggested that I go back and try and teach something because I did afterall, have 9 other kiddies to supervise and I agreed. Back in the classroom, no, den, I was faced with wretched hobbit-height terrors running amok. "Teacher, teacher!" some of them shouted. (And for pity's sake, I am not Miss Long) "Why is she crying?"

"Well, she's scared because this is the first time she's gone to tuition." I replied. Most of them scoffed at this. "I wasn't scared," they said. Sure. Loud and noisy beings like you would have happily reduced your first classroom to debris. "Well," I persisted, "didn't you feel scared on the first day of school?" "Noooooooooo!" was their delighted reply. "I even made friends on my first day," someone added proudly, and which was followed by a dozen more incoherent accounts of first days. Ok. "Okay, okay!" I cried above the excited horde. "But if you saw someone who was scared, would you help them?"

"Noooooooooo!" came the second delighted answer.
Oh gee.

The boys in particular, except for one who openly declared he liked them and got roundly teased and maybe two, dislike fairytales. Is that somehow connected to why their moral compass is as screwed up as it is? Or maybe it's their fey-like amorality that J.M. Barrie more rightly captured? But that, is a musing for another day.

Unpave my road please

"JOYCELN: As a child, I could never sleep the night before the first day of school. The night before my first day of teaching was no different. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew that I was going to help kids learn, be the best teacher, and make a difference.

At my first staff meeting, the principal screened an image familiar to all new schoolteachers - the Prism. Like a magical crystal ball, the Prism told many things. It could predict how well students entering secondary school with 4 subjects at PSLE would do for the ‘O’ levels. With the Prism, we could evaluate each student’s potential grade in literature based on his/her PSLE grades and then tell if our school had “added value” to the child’s education.

Looking into the Prism, the principal announced that while she was concerned about the various aspects of development - Intellectual, Aesthetic, Moral, and Physical - “This year, our school will focus on the Intellectual.” By this, she meant that as teachers, we should all ensure that we stretched the potential of the students so that they performed “better than expected” at the ‘O’ levels. I noticed in the subsequent years that we never decided to focus on any other aspect of development. There was never an Aesthetic, Moral or Physical year.

The conversations in the staff room educated me considerably about the concerns of teachers.

“Oh, I heard you bought the new condo in Bukit Batok, that’s a good investment…”

“So which piano school are you sending your child to now?”

“Do you want to go buy diamonds with us, we are going to buy diamonds this afternoon.”

In my naïveté, this came as a shock. Why weren’t teachers talking about helping students learn or improving instruction?

And when they WERE talking about improving instruction, it was invariably:

“So what questions do you think will come out for this year’s ‘O’ levels?”

“Yes! Yes! I spotted the right questions!”

“You have to make sure your students write 5 ‘compositions’ and do 5 ‘comprehensions’ this semester.”

And when questions were asked, the answer was inevitably “Can’t change. That’s what the principal wants to see.”

The culture in the staff room was a mix of different groups:
· the Tai-Tais, women who had married well-off husbands, and who admired, respected and competed with each other for their Ferragamo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags.

· the few unmarried men who were mothered by the Tai-Tais as they were regarded as “good” men (i.e. hardworking and honest) but ironically insufficiently compelling marriage material (for why on earth would a functioning, virile, desirable man become a teacher?).

· the married men who usually lived in HDB flats (unlike the Tai-Tais and their non-teacher husbands), who generally kept to themselves.

· the older single women who were diligent in ensuring that all forms are handed in on time and helping students who need extra help get the preferred grades. They were usually more conservatively (and cheaply) dressed, and did not generally interact socially with the Tai-Tais.

· the expatriate teachers who were generally avoided by the other teachers and not expected to do very much because they either could not be trusted to do the work, were too difficult to communicate with, or were too troublesome to work with. And when they got together, they made plain their disdain for Singapore and its school system of which they were a part. Stereotypical as it may sound, those I’d met had invariably come to Singapore either to heal from a broken marriage (in which case, getting involved with a local woman usually came with the package), or had fled an unsuccessful career so they could return home and say, “I spent a few years in the Orient.”

· And the young teachers, bright-eyed and bushytailed, who believed they could make a difference, and who usually started out immensely popular with the students. They organized extra activities which they were not required to do, sat with students for long hours when they had problems, and generally tried to innovate with teaching. The Tai-Tais usually tried to matchmake the young single female teachers with single men they knew, but never the single male teachers. Seasoned teachers generally sat back and placed bets on when the neophytes would eventually burn out.

I didn’t know a single lazy teacher - everyone was extremely hardworking, taking work home, often physically running around as they hurried to different parts of the school. The teachers hardly had time to rest and reflect. It was as if we had been trained to work hard, but not to think."

Excerpted from:
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS:
How living in New York has illuminated for us the difference between the Singaporean Dream and the Singaporean Plan
By Colin Goh & Joyceln Woo Yen Yen

Singaporeans Exposed: Navigating the Ins and Outs of Globalisation (published to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Singapore International Foundation, 2001, Landmark Books)

Heaven (while we are on the topic of how all good intentions lead to hell) help me, but I don't ever ever ever want my school to be like that.

Grandfather Story

This week, my mom once again brought up reminiscences about her dad, who is also my maternal grandfather, a man whom I never knew because he died a week before I was born. Among the things that he is remembered for is the following situation.

Now, my grandfather was a loner. He detested large company, and during chinese new year, had been known to flee as soon as he got wind that visitors were coming. As someone who kept to himself, there were some times, when out of the blue, he would disappear from home without anybody's knowledge of him leaving. It remains a mystery how he is capable of such stealth that no one, not even my grandmother noticed when he packed at the crack of dawn and left the house, not to be seen for the next few days.

The only time he left a note, it was to remind my mother to water his plants.

While my grandfather never disappeared for more than a week each time, my grandmother would fret each day until he returned, laden with the booty from neighbouring countries. Once, he even brought back what looked distinctly like Thai souvenirs, including a nude sculpture of a female dancer. This figurine soon had its modesty recovered when my grandfather made a Tarzanesque outfit out of some furry and spotted material that he found. The dancer was also simultaneously equipped with a mini dagger at the hip, perhaps against would be molesters and pervs.

And, my grandmother would greet him with a mixture of relief and anger, and demand, "Where did you go? Why didn't you tell anyone you were leaving, you had me so worried." To which, my grandfather would retort, "What's there to worry about? If anything happened to me, you'll hear from the matah (police)." And that would be the end of the matter.

And look what I found when I was perusing my anthology of Irish poetry:

Leaf-eater
Thomas Kinsella

On a shrub in the heart of the garden,
On an outer leaf, a grub twists
Half its body, a tendril,
This way and that in blind
Space: no leaf or twig
Anywhere in reach; then gropes
Back on itself and begins
To eat its own leaf.

from Contemporary Irish Poetry ed. Paul Muldoon

And for me, I would have been incapable of writing anything about it except as some kind of unutterable horror, which in some sense, is what this poem seems to be about. Though, given its political bent, it is not so much unspeakable as nameless, and not so much horror as anxiety and frustration for the Irish condition.

Poster Talk: Weird things and Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland

There is something fishy in the air, only it ain't mermaids. Will the person who is cooking blaachan at a very inappropriate time please desist?

And, of weird things in the air, look what Johnny Depp and Tim Burton did for Alice in Wonderland. And you thought Willie Wonka was weird.

For this edition of Poster Talk, I will also be refraining from placing publicity material of the movie of discussion in the post. This is to ensure that no reader will get hurt, suffer any injuries, physical or mental on having to repeatedly look at Johnny Depp's rendition (apparition) of the Mad Hatter when it finishes loading and pops out at the top of my page.

Disney, in the vein of the Pirates series have released several posters each featuring a different character from the film. So far, spotted include Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (sharing one poster), The White and Red Queens, the Mad Hatter and Alice herself. All of them feature circusy looking backgrounds that are colour coordinated with the indivdual characters. In Depp's case, the background is a lovely peridot green with a painted looking texture and the silhouettes of little black top hats radiating from the centre of the poster in an outward spiral.

If that doesn't sound psychedelic enough, look at Depp in Hatter mode. That shock of orange hair springing out from under the battered hat stuffed and pierced with bibs and bobs, that really ugly bow tie, that hideous make-up. He looks like a walking child molester for goodness sake. Or-or a walking mistake at the very least. Putting aside the purple eyebags that suggest that the Mad Hatter has been imbibing on caffeine for far too long, there is that taut, leering overstretched grin and a generous layer of white powder to rival Robert Pattinson's.

And yet, such a mess of a look which hardly looks like the effort of a rational person and more of a certain escapee from Arkham Asylum was in fact put together with a lot of careful in-depth thinking which makes my own academic experience of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass look like a walk in a park. With such effort on the part of Depp, I can only imagine that the mad hatter, which has played a secondary if memorable role in the novels, would have a more central one in the film.

No doubt, Burton's adaption of the text would be a looser one, something which may breathe fresh air and significance for a well-loved and familiar text if executed well - see Cuaron's adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Disney for one, seems determined to put behind the apparently bad cartoon version that they released in 1951 and is gunning for Burton's rising clout and a audience raised on and innured to the temptations of vampires, gothic-chic, LOTR, Harry Potter, anime, fantasy, and horror. Weird is cool again. It's now or never people, if you want to don a bowler, loud checkered tweed and gloves while walking down Toa Payoh.

No doubt, even if Burton doesn't stray far from the original, and preliminary reports* seem to hint that he will be, the visual mishmash which looks like the twisted dregs left over from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are a far cry from how Tenniel and the Golden Age Illustrators for Children's Books like Rackham envisioned Wonderland - less tame and a lot more dangerous for one - if the deep and intense hues of the poster are anything to go by.

*scroll down. down. somemore. look for the article called "Burton's "Wonderland" Revealed", which gives some insight into how the world of Wonderland works.

Query - Is it better to give or receive?

Is it better to give or receive? The common adage holds that the blessed receive and well, the other lot give. But truly, is it that terrible to give?

Charming Chiangmai

I really love those alliterations that tour agencies always use to describe their touted destinations of choice. Alluring America. Romantic Rome. Enticing Europe. Tastefully Turkey.

The author regrets to inform readers that she did not take the new airbus A380. She was instead sitting in a SilkAir A320 that was dusty. The author then spent most of her next two and a half hours concentrating on trying not to sneeze in the aeroplane because people tended to stare in horror.

This is Centara Duangtawan, a very lovely hotel. And for someone who has had to endure the cubicle sized hotels of Hong Kong and Genting (which was also bloody missing the shampoo dispenser), this happens to be a godsend:

Look at that! A bath tub! And a sitting area with a very neat lamp!

For me, the nicest bits of the trip had to be Doi Suthep's Wat Prathap (Prathap Temple). Even though there were many tourists and devotees milling about, the temple retained its sense of tranquility and quiet. Though, with roughly 600 years behind it, Wat Prathap is probably capable of enduring more than intrepid explorers.

Prayer bells occasionally tinkling in the breeze, Temple cats have good lives and

More of Wat Prathap's dazzling golden roofs

The shopping opportunities are vast. Unfortunately, because I went to their cottage industries on my very first day, I got fleeced quite badly for a bangle which could have been gotten at a fraction of a price at the night market less than 50 metres from my hotel. In my own defence, I've never bargained before. And, if I am going to Thailand again, I solemnly swear that I will try to cut prices even further.

Pretty baubles

And this is actually the low season for tourists

A couple of tuk-tuk waiting for tourists to hop on

Then, there are also the neurotically white temples with white flowering shrubbery and white fish in the white stone lined ponds still under construction even after twelve years, hot springs that smell of sulphur, crazily speeding tour vans, rice sticks and border towns to lure one on to the next location...

Okay, I take it back

This is just to say, I take back what I said about Angels and Demons (the movie)and how it is actually waaay better than I anticipated. I suspect however that my enjoying the movie has also to do with how long it has been since I've read the novel and I was kept in suspension for the film because I'd forgotten the plot. That, and how I now know who Bernini is and Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo also helped.

Ubin

Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life,

The middle Tree and highest there that grew,

Sat like a Cormorant; yet not true Life

Thereby regaind, but sat devising Death

To them who liv'd

Ubin, or; The Kampung Paradise in Singapore that You Need a Boat to Get To.

One of the last remaining pockets of Singapore that remain embalmed in a past era. The houses are made of wood, there are no street lights (or not much), there are a lot of trees and telephone wires half rusted and half coated with moss. Getting on the boat is like getting on a time machine. You hop on from a shiny new terminal on one side and get off in what physically looks like backwater Malaysia, only you don't need a passport to get there.

Time moves more slowly there in more ways than one.

Some facts for the intrepid explorer: A small island roughly 10km sq off the north-east coast of Singapore. A small agricultural outpost of sorts, it was also at one point in time, a granite quarry. Both the farming and mining have subsided, and if not for the abandoned prawn ponds still dotting the landscape and the unmistakable red, upturned soil and granite boulders lying around, the island seems to have remained mostly undisturbed.

This is the point where I'm supposed to say something nice, like, maybe, an ode to the blue water, but happily, I am not going to try and embarrass myself.

Like any place of seeming unearthly beauty, Pulau Ubin is also a sinister death-trap. Cycling accidents including those of the fatal variety seem to abound. Seeing as there are no ambulances on the island nor first aid boxes at every corner, this is not very surprising. Also, given that the nearest entrance to Chek Jawa is a jungle trail that consists of bumpy, uneven and slippery slopes, one must be thankful for small miracles, such as everyone getting home unscathed. I myself got mud splashed, bird shit on the back of my shirt and what looked like paint and mud on both my elbows, and grease and scratches on knees.

That is actually trivial, but I wanted to complain about the bird shit.

The main point about Ubin these days do not however, seem very far from its previous purpose of mining and farming. Chek Jawa is an ecological haven. In one day, my family spotted 4 hornbills in two different locations, or maybe 8 if they happen to be different birds each time, a colourful pink and green pigeon, several noisy birds with fan-like tails, swallows, a waterhen, loads of tiny crabs and mudskippers, two schools of mud coloured fish and the cormorants.

The ghost of a jellyfish

Anthracoceros albirostris aka Oriental Pied Hornbill

This is not Chek Jawa. This is only a photograph

You can't really see the barnacles on the rocks in the picture, but there are actually a lot of them sticking on every available surface and the water is surprisingly clear. I can readily believe that there are starfish and sea slugs hiding around here. A pity that we missed the low tide.

Already, I want to go back there. And perhaps I will, another time, when the tide is low, and there is the scent of sea grass in the wind.

Hello nice weather

Hello nice weather. Hello sharp tang of rain and ice cold wind. Hello soothing thunder of raindrops.

Poster Talk: Blood: The Last Vampire

Oooh. Whee. Another vampire movie.

First of all. This is very very loosely based on a Production I.G. animation of the same title. The title of which is Blood: The Last Vampire. First up, this poster does not suck. It is very difficult nowadays to make a sucky poster, as backed by the producers of Crouching Tiger and Hero would ensure that the publicity would at least do the film justice. This is clear from the way my sister was jubilant that there was a life-action adaption of the anime version. When I complained that the poster looked dubious and B-movie-ish, she'd been excitedly raving about it, mostly because of the trailer (which was not bad) and because she had a lot of time to fangirl over the oversized poster in dim lighting at the cinema in AMK. When I, in my dimwitted way (which is what I sound like about any anime that my sister has watched and I haven't) that she has funny eyes my sister cheerfully said that her eyes glowed red because the main character happened to be half vampire. Ookay. Only the poster girl seems to have eyes of a funny silver colour like the evil mutant person whose name I can't remember from the 2nd installment of the X-Men series.

Prior to watching the film, most of the conversation about the same title seemed to be about two different things.

So, I say. Are you sure this is based on Blood+ and the anime film version?

Sis: Yes!

Me: Uh. I thought she had short hair. She's got pigtails in the trailer you know?

Sis: She did in the anime also! But she uses only one sword. The poster (frustrated sigh) shows her with two.

Me: Umm. And is her mother the evil white vampire?

Sis: No! What are you talking about?

Me: But it looked that way in the trailer...

For the record. She does only have one sword in the film, and a very neat way of extracting said kantana from the long container she hides it in. The Powers that Be knows why the publicity shows two in some of them.

But onward to the review proper. Ignoring the signs that this movie was made on a lower budget than most Hollywood blockbuster season flicks, it was an okay watch. There is plenty of hacking and slashing and rooftop action sequences for those who like that kind of thing and well, pretty much nothing else for everyone who doesn't. The plot is thin. The I am your mother schtick is as old as Star Wars (original series). My sister bemoaned how nobody ever does these things nowadays, but they unfortunately did... so yeah. I have mercifullly, not watched the animated version, so I can forgive that a cinematic experience like this usually calls for some semblance of plot and character growth which may have been unnecessary in a shorter animated version. Also, once again, ignoring some of the not so well shot action bits, the movie was quite enjoyable in an average sort of way. I only wish there were more scenes of Onigen (aka boss villain). She is utterly smug and cool in an evil vampire way and about the only thing with class apart from Saya (main character) on screen. I however wish she used Japanese instead of Engrish, as the latter sounded quite terrible. Still, as proof of the coolness of the actress, she still conveyed the evil sexiness of the character in spite of her awkward prounciation, and that is always difficult to execute at best.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

I suggest Terminator Salvation. If you're going to go in blind to a series, watch that instead. I think it was much better. Even with the CGI Arnie in the buff.

Picture sourced from here.

Why I make one hell of a tutor

Today.
Me shouting at kid.

K, who moves his tuition bag to the front of class says solemnly, "Teacher. I feel sorry for you."

My mind whirls. Eh?

K continues on earnestly, "Because you keep having to scold N."

Am I being pitied? By my student?

In a better frame of mind, I might have asked him why he didn't feel sorry for N instead, who was after all, the one being scolded.

The Awwww Factor

A couple of days ago, I was at the Pet Safari with mum and sis oogling the hamsters and puppies. Suffice to say, it took all my powers to resist the very squeal worthy adorableness of the puppies on sale. Most of them were about 3 months old and very very. very appealing. So much so that I had to tell myself, "You are a cat person! You. Are. A. Cat. Person!" This silent mantra to the self was promptly forgotten the minute two of the Schnauzer puppies got into a mini tussle and I spotted this very dignified looking Japanese Spitz puppy in the glass enclosure* below them. There was also this Shih Tzu puppy that had its tail in its food dish and was sniffing said tail in a puzzled manner. Heh. And so we three oohed and ahhed at the puppies for goodness knows how long and while neither my mum or sis displayed any outward anguish at struggling against their inner cat nature, that is, if they have one. I was telling myself fiercely that these were all Just Evil Distractions That Are Too Cute For Their Own Good. The part of my brain that wasn't simulataneously ooogling them happily while mentally screaming in stress decided that I ought to just enjoy the cuteness of puppies on the basis of themselves and not any initial prejudice I might have been harbouring. And so that was what I did.

I still want a cat if I ever get my own abode. That doesn't change one bit. I adore cats for reasons that do not, as I realise while drafting this post a few days ago, pertain to the cuteness/adorableness/puppiness of them (the awww factor, you can call it), but for a certain...cattiness about them. There isn't a way to put it other than that cats tug at different heart strings for me.

*You will have to pardon the authoress. She is clearly in denial that this glass enclosure is in fact a cage.

So now what

Bitter things are the hardest to chew and swallow. But yeah, cut and dried like dead meat as this year tastes like, (no thanks to It) I'll just sink my teeth into it. I keep telling myself. Treat it as a break. Treat it as a break. Treat it as a break. And then I think. Now what? Three months of debauchery? It'll just add up to the disappointment I feel already. Nothing comes to fruition. It's just as well this would probably blow away since I am too lazy to stay cynical.

What.

=p Fact of the day: Apparently, people with bipolar disorder really like opposing colours, in particular, blue and yellow (in that combination). Vincent van Gogh, whom one art historian mentioned (I can't remember who) really really liked yellow, and incidentally, his most most cherished works, in particular, Starry Night is painted in a splendid combination of vivid blues and yellows. Vincent van Gogh as history tells us, was also known for being intermittently in and out of hospitals and suffered from said disorder. This is rather fascinating. Is his art a sympton of his illness, or did his illness allow him to paint with such vibrancy? Which also goes to show why artists with neither eyesight issues or mental illnesses resort to artificial chemicals to produce the same effect...

The Beautiful Sublime

"When the starry sky, a vista of open seas or a stained glass window shedding purple beams fascinate me, there is a cluster of meaning, of colors, of words, of caresses, there are light touches, scents, sighs, cadences that arise, shroud me, carry me away, and sweep me beyond the things that I see, hear or think. The "sublime" object dissolves in the raptures of a bottomless memory. It is such a memory, which, from stopping point to stopping point, remembrance to remembrance, love to love, transfers that object to the refulgent point of the dazzlement in which I stray to be... Not at all short of, but always with and through perception and words, the sublime is a something added that expands us, overstrains us, and causes us to be both here as dejects, and there, as others and sparkling. A divergence, an impossible bounding. Everything missed, joy - fascination".

-- Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror trans. Kelly Oliver.

The Week at a Glance

Bought stuff yesterday at the John Little sale at PS. A dress, and two tank tops, mine first in a long while. (The ones my aunt gave me came with other stuff attached to it) and which are justified by the heat wave currently sweeping through er, well just generally sweeping through. The next things I am determined to buy are Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which seems to be an interesting parody of Austen's well-loved (and well other things, like winced at) novel. Yay! The annoying bit is that to utilise my Times membership fully, I shall have to go to their new branch in Tampines to fully utilise the in-store discount. Does anyone want anything? I feel like I'm on holiday already, which is kind of sucky because I still have a paper to write. Siggh. And if anyone can tell me where to buy cheap and nice wrap around skirts or regular ones will be endowed with my heartfelt thanks. I can't seem to find any anywhere, to my annoyance.

So bewildering it could be true

Franz Kafka International Airport... courtesy of ONN.
Note: One edge is slightly cut off, due to me being bad at embedding players. (It's better than getting one end to stick out)




Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Never Ever Gamble

The situation: Your sister is doing a coin flip and you're supposed to guess which will be the facing side up. Heads, my dear, or tails. According to probability laws, it's supposed to be 50-50 (assuming that sides are equal and that your sister is not cheating).
However, it is my belief that 50-50 does not begin to describe the odds I have because really, who is to say I am not getting all ten or so times wrong out of a potential thousand? Perhaps, you know, it's just the odds against me for now...

Things are falling apart

There is a 12 page paper for my philo class?! Why is there an at least 12 page long final paper all of a sudden. I've done film modules. And they were only 10 pages long. And that was the maximum. Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why

UPDATE: After seizing up in horror on Monday, my lecturer informed us that the paper is now 5 pages long. That is a nice, sane, number. Only it is now due on the same day as my Milton paper. The looong one. Argh.

Post Over-nighter

Hereafter, I will always be grateful for a chair which I can lean into. I'm not even asking for it to be cushy; it just has to have a back for me to lean mine on.

Hereafter, I will always not procrastinate to this extent ever again.

Hereafter, I will not complain about not meeting ghosts anymore, not because I met one, but because my whining is clearly driving them away. That night was severely disappointing.

Hereafter, I will ensure that I stake out a bench in AS4 early. That block seems endowed with the correct bad fengshui - it's cold, the garden outside looks perfectly creepy and definitely exudes a an air of being deserted.

Hereafter, I will do my work on time.

Hereafter, I will stop beaming at the camera at 1 am in the morning because I apparently just look really anguished. I was trying not to laugh. And I still can't believe I smiled at the camera like that.

Get away Freud!

Last night, or rather early this morning, I dreamt that I was doing my presentation for psychoanalysis class and TR asked if anyone knew who Kierkegaard was. I raised my hand and said "Heidegger" trimphantly.

My group members and TR stared at me blankly. But the worse bit of it was that I had no idea why.

And as to why I would be dreaming about existentialism in a psychoanalytic class is anyone's guess. I am just glad Tamburlaine didn't show up and bore the class to death with his high astounding terms.

And now it's too bloody early. I feel sucky and I am rambling.

Because lightning is scary and rain is good

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain.
- T. S. Eliot 1922

It is raining like mad and each time the lightning hits the condo opposite me, I wince. Which makes it a lot of winces. I am also procrastinating. Just so I can look back at this post and roll my eyes at how hopeless I am in focusing on something.

Additional note to self: I change my mind about living in a penthouse. I don't want my house to keep being struck by lightning as the penthouse opposite keeps being. Yup. I don't want one unless it happens to defeat the purpose of owning a penthouse by being the shortest building in its vicinity.

I like my wordle too

wordle!

Mistaken Identities

Yes. Me. As per usual.

People that I have been mistaken for up till now:

• A student at Mayflower, or now that I think about it, maybe it was St Marg's
• This was when I was attempting (and mostly failing) to sell Encyclopedias at the World Book Fair a couple years back. But, hey, this case of mistaken identity caused the family who thought they were speaking to a well-loved family friend aka me, to sit down and be subjected to a pleasant chat, or well, sales pitch.

• A neighbour when this tuition kid's mom stayed in Ang Mo Kio
• This was at the staircase when I smiled at a mother bringing her child to tuition and she said I looked familiar and asked if I stay at AMK. When I said no, she insisted that I must have at some point or other stayed there before.

• Caroline
• When we were introducing ourselves in tutorial, and my professor who said I looked familiar (and well I should since I took his module the previous semester) asked if I was such a person.

• That I am Malay
• This, coming from tuition kids who don't know better and thinking they can talk behind my back in chinese. This, also coming from a Malay auntie only just yesterday, is a little too much.

• That I am Eurasian.
• Also, this again from tuition kids who don't know better. I pretend not to be either. "Hey, teacher can understand chinese!". I feel like I'm not there, or conversely, that I am there, as a lab show.