The News

I love this CNA headline - Selective sex abortion causes 32 million excess males in China.

Pls tell me you know why I love it. I need some faith in humanity('s sense of decency/humour/political correctness).

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And piracy news provided my wtf moment of the day - "This convention [i.e International Law of the Sea Convention], in article 105, does permit the seizure of a pirate ship, but article 110 lays down that, in order to establish that a ship is indeed a pirate vessel, the warship - and it may only be a warship - has to send a boat to the suspected ship first and ask for its papers."

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Finally, personal news - I didn't realise until highlighted to me by my colleagues, that I have a habit of frowning at everything. When I'm troubled/worried/thinking/sad/happy/whatever... I frown.

And now I have 2 permanent frown lines! ARGH!!!!!!! *panics* I need botox!!!!!!!

Series of updates

I'm insanely happy today because my teacher praised me! Albeit in his usual double-edged way haha... Dammit, I love to be praised. I am totally a closet teacher's pet (but will never admit this offline, 'cos I have my rebel-hates-teachers image to upkeep, ya'know?)

Unfortunately, nowadays the happy things tend to be tainted with the thought that I might not get to enjoy them for very much longer. *emos away*

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I remember the day I got 'The News' and crossed that mental threshold to realise that 'It' might really happen.

As is my usual practice when I'm faced with reality that I'm not quite prepared to face, I took a long walk in my neighbourhood. I was thinking how everything seems brighter and more beautiful when you're getting further from it... and of course I walked out of Cold Storage (hey who says you can't take walks in Cold Storage?) into the most glorious sunset I have seen in ages. You know, the type with the golden glow and painted skies and silhouetted trees. And I thought, wow is it just me or is this place totally reflecting my thoughts today?

Then I looked up at the sky and saw two (not one but TWO) brilliant rainbows stretching in huge arcs over the entire sky. At that point, I might have been observed to raise my eyes to the heavens and plaintively demand, 'Isn't this a bit much?'

And then, right then, my handphone rang, and it was my 2 sisters who happened to be on the opposite side of the street. They'd spotted me and excitedly told me about the rainbows. Then they ran laughing across the street to meet me.

I should have turned delightedly towards them and lovingly gathered them in my arms while seagulls called and the wavelets caressed the sand... but I just silently groaned at the corny movie that is my life and refused to participate in any of its silly theatrics.

True story, I swear. I couldn't even make this up myself.
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I have officially reached the pinnacle of my career today, and accomplished the one thing I will spend the rest of my life boasting about.

This story requires a bit of background. You should know that before joining my organisation, I was (and am) an IT idiot. More specifically, for the purposes of this story, I have never taken a course on MS Excel, and had to learn how to sum figures on the job. Just a few months ago, my colleague was horrified that I did not know about the 'black cross thingy', and was Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V-ing in order to replicate cells. So let's get this clear, my Excel sucks bigtime.

Today, I created an incredibly sophisticated (by my standards) excel form! I used the SUMIF function (which I've only heard of today), together with the IF function (also just learnt), and the form had drop-down lists and such! Before today I didn't even know it was possible to create drop-down lists in Excel! It was a form that my more technologically advanced colleagues did not know how to create! I am SO incredibly pleased with myself, I am about to frame that form and give it pride of place on my office wall. I am so impressed by myself, I bet I could do quantum physics if I really wanted to. If only I was the one giving me my performance bonuses...

Kowtow before my genius, ye masses of only ordinary intelligence!
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To reiterate, yay I got praised today!

Cry, the Beloved Country

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."

- Alan Paton

Joy-Sorrow Conundrum

Most of you would be familiar with my classic time-money conundrum, most often employed as a convenient excuse whenever someone invites me to go travelling.

You would not be as familiar with the joy-sorrow conundrum, or at least, my version of it. For after all, I clearly remember George Eliot giving a particularly concise articulation of this conundrum in The Mill on the Floss. Unfortunately, as such things go, I can't find my copy when I need it (I never do), so I can't refer to the book for the quote. I shall therefore have to rely on the Internet, and I don't really think that the quote I've found is the quote I'm looking for. It doesn't quite have the same meaning as my joy-sorrow conundrum.

Nevertheless, here is George Eliot - "Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon it."

I can't tell if the tangle is my life, or me, or maybe it's the same thing. But won't this darn mess ever get sorted out?

The Miserability of the Eaters of Babies

My colleague and I face each other miserably across my desk. On my desk is a huge tube of Chocobabies that LSB gave me in order to cheer me up. It is trying to do just that, and Chocobabies are dying in the attempt. We each have a pile of Chocobabies in our left hands (because we're both right-handers), and we're silently eating our respective piles. He throws a couple from his pile into his mouth and works at diminishing his pile, but I insist on eating Chocobabies one by one because I want to see if they're genuine Chocobabies. Genuine Chocobabies are the ones with the smiley faces because everyone knows that babies have faces. We (my colleague and I sans the Chocobabies, who are smiling away) are both very gloomy. How ah, he half asks. I confess that I don't know. Eat more, he answers his own question, as he finishes his pile of Chocobabies and pours a new pile on his hand. He places the tube back on my desk and waves me to take more. We laugh loudly-bitterly-helplessly, and my other colleague pops her head in to ask what we are laughing about.

Now there are no more fake or genuine Chocobabies on my desk.

Losing

I've always had the fear - and I'm not sure if anyone else is afraid over this in this same way - of losing myself. Part of the reason is because I feel as if I'm just the sort who'd trip over a step and drop herself somewhere and later have a hell of a time retracing her footsteps to find herself again.

Now that my 'extra-curriculum activities' have come to a close, I have a bit of time, and a few days ago I picked up some storybooks. Yes, storybooks. Books that I didn't have to read; books that could scale the heights of erudition or scrape the bottom of the trash bin, and I could read them all. Such a simple freedom, and I am floored. Which meant I spent my lunch hour at the miserable MPH near my workplace and bought 3 books. They weren't books I had been eyeing for a long time; they were just books that caught my fancy and so I dished out the hard, cold cash in a blind literature-purchasing frenzy. Doesn't matter what books they are, only that evening saw me parked in a cafe near the river with a glass of red wine, a slice of chocolate cake, a book in my hands and 2 more in my bag. Yes, when I Read I really Read. And so I Read.

And then the waiter asked me for the bill because they were closing, and I realised I had lost hours, and it was really time to be getting home. I staggered out of the cafe somewhat disoriented, with a buzzing in my head that annoyingly reminded me one should not read for hours in a dim cafe.

It was such a pleasure to read, and I was intoxicated with the seldom appreciated freedom of being able to read whatever one likes. And I thought, maybe I could keep doing this, sit through the work hours, then do this every evening - pick out a book and just read. I could do it for years, spending my time in a pleasant drowsy contentment, always letting my thoughts ride with the imagination of whichever author I happen to pick up, never being bored because I would be living so many lives through so many minds.

The thought chills me, that I might start reading one day, and look up to find that 20, 30, or even 40 years have gone by. I get scared because I think I am perfectly capable of doing that, perhaps not entirely literally, but close. I have never had a good memory, and now that I do so many things at work everyday, I would not be able to tell you, at the end of the day, what I had done in the morning. It would be as if my day got stolen from me, and I was alienated from my time.

I have always feared the madness within. It would be so easy for me to go mad, for me to forget who I am. All I have to do is to let go.

When I speak of madness - well, I don't know if a psychiatrist would call that mad. But I can't think of a better word to describe the feeling of not being in one's own mind, of letting the body do what it likes while the mind huddles in a corner or flies out and scatters in the rain. Of being unthinking, unable to form a coherent thought, unaware of myself and lost, suspended, in some fake, fictional world while my life drains away.

My erhu teacher always tells me that I need to make sure my qi is located low in my body, and I always give him my trademarked glazed eyes look. But I know exactly what he means.

The current heartbreak moment

Watercolour impressions. Singapore. Post-Ulysses.

I keep having these solitary romantic moments that I suspect are romantic partly because they are solitary. I feel quite Wordsworthian (or Words-worthy hehe).

I took a walk down to the Merlion area at the mouth of the Singapore River today, and there was an almost post-apocalyptic feel to the place. I'm not sure why, but it might have been the dark clouds, the half-hearted drizzle, the slightly too-strong-for-Singapore breeze, and the not-quite-dark dusk of Singapore. Come to think of it maybe it felt more post-modern than post-apocalyptic. Or maybe they're the same thing. In any case it was a post-something vibe.

I have always been fascinated by the placement of the Merlion in what is a carefully constructed picture of Singapore (and of course a photo opp for tourists). A specially built pier stretches out in front of the Merlion so that you can take the 'perfect' picture of Singapore: behind the Merlion is the Fullerton Hotel (an old colonial-type building), and beyond that is a towering circle of skyscrapers, Singapore's financial centre. There is the Singapore story for you - from British colony to economic success, just perfect.

Edwin Thumboo's poem Ulysses by the Merlion, is placed on the pier in front of the Merlion, an official caption to the official definitive photo of Singapore. This is the last verse of the poem:

Perhaps having dealt with things,
Surfeited on them.
Their spirit yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, the phoenix,
Garuda, naga, those horses of the sun,
This lion of the sea.
This image of themselves.

Whatever Thumboo thinks of his poem, I cannot but feel that to place the poem at this place is both bittersweet irony and piercing commentary. All around this spot, the hustle of dealing with things continues. This is the historical centre of trade in Singapore, the Singapore River. Today the Central Business District forms the backdrop to the Merlion. If you look a bit to the left of the Merlion, you will see the bright lights of the construction of the 'Integrated Resorts' (i.e. multi-billion dollar gambling den). This is the heart of where things are dealt with, traded, fought over. And yet in the midst of all this stands the Merlion, this misshapen, wistful creature, this symbol of our longing for images, and the image to satisfy our longings.

There is a beauty to Singapore that I had not appreciated when I was younger. It is not the beauty that our Tourism Board would like us to see, but a more ambivalent and neurotic beauty - a beauty more akin to that of a raving Ophelia or a guilt-stricken Lady MacBeth than the sweet innocence of a pure and certain Juliet. It is a desperate, futile beauty, beautiful because it is tainted with contradiction and conflict. There are red angry splashes of frustration in Singapore, and a greying disappointment, a mildewed, unsure hope, the green of our grass and sandy tramples, the shiny silver of technology, money and efficiency, a confusion of dragon and phoenix and garuda and naga and the horses of the sun has rampaged through and we no longer know what colour we are. Which lion in which sea?

The CBD during the weekend is like a silent, gargantuan cemetary that does not reflect the warmth nor the life nor the banality of those it was built for. They stand, huge and monumental sculptures, indifferent to the purpose for which they were built, and indifferent to our office hour scuttling between their concrete layers and columns.

We build things hoping that in building things we build enduring images. We are good at building things but we are not good at building images. Our images turn out to be a child's scribble - half-fish half-lion, half-everything all-nothing. Such ironic self-awareness we possess, that we chose this crooked creature as the image of ourselves and placed it at this very spot - this spot that represents everything we've strived to achieve and all the things we try to transcend.

Opposite float two brightly lit durian husks, two more halves of an empty whole.

I actually hesitated for quite a while before posting this, largely because it sounds so maudlin. It reminds me of my Creative Writing Club days, and god forbid I return to my Years of Angsty Poetry (although in my defence I wrote most of my poems in 2 weeks and only because I had to produce a portfolio to get into one of those arts programmes. After that I was a proudly inactive and unproductive member of the Club.) Nevertheless, here it is, and for a little extra entertainment... The song for tonight is:

Going Quantum: My Perfumed CNY Adventures

Title totally misleading. But I do have some stuff to say about quantum thingies, perfume (as always), and CNY.

This CNY has seen me behaving like a big girl. This was largely thanks to the incessant nagging of my colleagues who insisted that I Absolutely Had to get Lim Chee Quan bah kwa for my 'future mother-in-law' (their words, not mine) after they saw what I had originally planned to give (cookies). So after much haggling ('Can I give 500gm?' 'Too little!' '800?' 'Too little!' 'But very expensive! Ok ok 1kg lar.') we trotted down to Lim Chee Guan after work only to learn that the sliced pork had already been sold out, and we had to settle for the inferior (oh tragedy!) golden coin one. And even for that we had to queue for about an hour! An HOUR! But, as my more experienced and wiser colleague sagely noted, Lim Chee Guan is more than bah kwa; it has become a symbol of patience and virtue. Buy 5 cans of abalone also not better than 1kg of Lim Chee Guan bah kwa! 5 cans of abalone just use money can buy already, but Lim Chee Guan bah kwa still got to queue up and then maybe queue finish already still don't have.

It's things like this that make me realise how much I enjoy where I am now. Sometimes I think, I could work here forever. Sometimes.

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Today I dropped by the discounter near my workplace, and to my huge surprise, discovered a gem of a perfume. A banged-up box of Guerlain's Vol De Nuit in parfum form(!!!!!) was sitting alone in a crowd of Guerlain's Samsara. Now I confess that before today I'd never smelled this perfume before, and I actually knew very little about it. BUT what I knew was that this was a perfume that was launched in 1933, has since been discontinued, and is nearly impossible to find in parfum, especially in Singapore. I also knew that parfum extrait in general tends to be horrendously expensive compared to EDT & EDP. And here was this little perfume sitting calmly on the shelf selling for SGD39!

Ok, so the box is a little discoloured (read: very) and torn and even a bit mouldy. But I got the salesperson to open the box, and inside was an absolutely charmingly retro black and gold box, with the 8ml gold bottle nestled inside. So of course I jumped on it, hugged it, announced it was mine, and got a discount of two measly dollars. I confess my purchase had nothing to do with the actual juice. It's just the sheer joy of unexpectedly discovering something old and pretty and expensive and has a bit of romantic and tragic history to it, and being able to buy it for practically nothing (haha ok not really), and I would really have regretted it if I'd let it go. (I sometimes have the same reaction to really old books, but I'm a bit more wary with books because I am convinced the old ones are all infested with gigantic silverfish).

For an idea of what my perfume looks like, and how much it costs online, look here. The picture is on the right. It's selling online at $100+ for 8ml! Needless to say I'm reasonably pleased with myself.

In other perfume-related news, I am seriously considering setting aside a perfume fund. This arises from a recent visit to Sephora, where I fell madly in love (again) with Sisley Soir de Lune, and fell madly in love (for the first time) with Aqua di Parma Iris Nobile and Sisley Eau de Campagne. All of which cost about SGD200 each.

I think I'm rather fond of the iris note. Iris perfumes (Prada Infusion d'Iris, Hermes Hiris, Iris Nobile) tend to sit well with me.

I also like rose perfumes, but I think those are a little harder to do well. I don't like Bvlgari's Rose Essentialle because it's a little too sweet to be a real rose perfume for me. I've got Agent Provocateur, but oh man, that is a rose perfume with a huge wallop. It is the only perfume that I don't spray directly on my skin because it's too damn strong. Instead, I spray into the air and walk through the cloud of perfume. For most perfumes doing that just wastes the perfume, because the smell doesn't stick to you. But for Agent Provocateur it's a totally different story. I love AP, but it's incredibly strong, plus it's a rose perfume with a dirty/skanky note, all of which makes it not-so-polite. Thing with rose perfumes is it's too easy to be a) boring; b) old lady-ish; c) too strong; or d) too candied for my taste. But Sisley's Soir de Lune is such a wonderful gem of a perfume. It is a perfectly rounded rose perfume with no sharp edges; it's incredibly incredibly well-made, very sophisticated, and just all in all wonderful. At this juncture I should also inform you guys that I have a bad habit of sniffing congratulatory wreaths as I walk past unsuspecting newlly-opened shops. I especially love to sniff the lilies and roses, but this makes me rather embarrassing company, methinks.

As for Sisley's Eau de Campagne - For the longest time I've been looking for my perfect 'green' perfume, and this is it. Some green perfumes are nice but rather boring (Guerlain Vetiver), some are too strange for me (The Different Company Sel de Vetiver), and some are too sweet. But Eau de Campagne evokes freshly cut grass, the damp earth after the rain, and salty ocean breezes. It works. It works dammit.

Incidentally, I also love Annick Goutal's Encens Flamboyant, which smells exactly like incense in churches. It also costs more than I should pay for perfume. Just like the rest.

Bloody thing is, Sisley, Aqua di Parma & Annick Goutal don't usually turn up on Singapore's discounters' shelves. Argh! *tears hair out*

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On my going quantum - In the midst of all the stress and work early this month, I anyhowly bought a book by Stephen Hawking that is called [[something something] Baby Universes. It is coolness man. It has things like quarks and parallel universes and black holes. I was so fascinated by it that I bought Hawking's A Brief History of Time as well as A Very Short Introduction to Cosmology. Why in the world didn't they teach us this stuff in secondary school?!?! For all these years I thought that electrons were the smallest things eva! And if they'd told us about this stuff maybe I would have gone into science! (nah.) Reading these books, I feel somehow as if the world is actually pretty magical. I need to remember that not everything is prosaic and expected...

Rock music

I find that I appreciate different genres of music in different ways. For example, lyrics play a huge part in my appreciation of Mandarin pop/rock, but I seldom bother to even make out the lyrics in English rock. I think it's partly because I feel that Mandarin is inherently much much much more lyrical and beautiful than English, and very often, English lyrics merely spoil the music for me. (Case in point, Celine Dion's abysmal lyrics for 'All By Myself' have forever spoiled the 2nd movement of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2 for me. Forever.) Just look at the lyrics for Jay Chou's songs - how much of it can be translated into English without losing the beauty? (Ya, irreversible damage to street cred due to appreciative reference to Jay Chou. Dear Jay, long gone are the days of your coolness. You have faded into mediocre idol-ness.)

For English rock, it's the howl (or growl, depending) of the guitars, wildness of the drums, the animalistic timbre and power of the voice... (*ahem* composes self and takes cold shower) and the sheer energy of the musical dissonance that gets me. Or it is the urban degenerate druggie feel. You know, for those urban degenerate druggie rocker types who are not like the healthy ones jumping around on stage and prefer to slump in a corner while somehow producing what passes for very very cool music from their guitars (probably stolen). As for the lyrics... I don't want to know. Really.

But occasionally, I take a listen to pop/rock that I never used to think much of and kinda tear up because the lyrics are so beautiful.

Superman

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
I'm just out to find
The better part of me

I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane
I'm more than some pretty face beside a train
And it's not easy to be me

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
'Bout a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd but don't be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed but won't you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream?
And it's not easy to be me

Up up and away away from me
Well it's all right
You can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy or anything

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me

Inside of me, inside of me, yeah
Inside of me, inside of me

I'm only a man in a funny red sheet
I'm only a man looking for a dream
I'm only a man in a funny red sheet
And it's not easy, it's not easy to be me

For the record, you should all know that I detest Superman (the red cape guy). For reasons unrelated to my detest of the superhero and for the longest time, I was relatively unimpressed by the song. It was one of those pleasant rock ballad types floating around in a veritable Pacific ocean of pleasant rock ballads. But for some reason this song is speaking to me these days. It's speaking, dude!

All this makes me think that maybe appreciation for the lyrics of a song is situational - (i.e. we like certain lyrics because of our experiences or our ability to imagine certain situations or images), but our appreciation for the music is largely aesthetic, with nothing to do with anything outside the music. Maybe? Yeah whatever.

Things are getting weird in here

I officially declare this the month of freaky Singapore weather. The mornings and night have been incredibly cold, and the afternoons have been incredibly warm BUT very windy. And I mean my umbrella turns upside down windy.

Ok I'm going to have to explain that right? Why I'm toting an umbrella on a sunny day like an old lady?

Nah.

(I love my l'aire de mysterieuse, and I don't know if I retain any French, I being one of notable French-specific non-retentiveness.)

In other news, I spent more than 12 bucks on post-it notes (2 pads altogether). Very very cute post-it notes.

I've become a post-it fanatic. They're like little flags saying 'look at me, I'm important!', so I tag all the important things at work with post-it notes. What this means is, of course, that my work desk looks a bit like it has been claimed by every single country in the world (and possibly a few extra-terrestrial empires), with many many many flags planted all over and all fluttering in the minuscule office air-con breeze. Either that, or my desk has become the unofficial hangout of the United Nations, and everyone brought their own flag in some sort of flag-themed potluck. Sometimes I think that with all that fluttering, one day my work desk is going to float up and out into the sky. Ah, most treasured dream!

Seriously, every morning I reach office, I'm greeted with many little paper screams, all wanting my attention, all saying 'look at me look at me! me first!' I might as well be a mother.

Oh, and my worst nightmare has come true. My colleague has been clearly heard to comment that I am like a little girl. Don't cry for me Argentina, it was inevitable and anyway, I don't really know you. As for the rest of you, cry your hearts out for my miserable little reputation.

(Can anyone tell I've been watching Scrubs again?)

Hedley Bull is the coolest

In his introduction to Martin Wight's International Theory:

"Wight's atttitude towards the behaviourists was the source of one of my disagreements with him. I felt that they represented a significant challenge and that it was important to understand them and engage in debate with them. The correct strategy, it appeared to me, was to sit at their feet, to study their position until one could state their own arguments better than they could and then - when they were least suspecting - to turn on them and slaughter them in an academic Massacre of Glencoe. Wight entertained none of these bloody thoughts. He made no serious effort to study the behaviourists and in effect ignored them." p.xi

Pissed

with African historians.

As much as it's not very PC to say so, and insofar as my rather scanty knowledge of the literature allows me to make sweeping statements on the subject.

But if they don't start acknowledging that the Europeans weren't the only brutal murderers in their history, they should stop writing.

My love for The Onion grows

Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

No Machine Can Do My Job As Resentfully As I Can

'Iraqi Gandhi' Preaches Slightly Less Violence

Substance dependency

I can't believe I spent the whole day searching for a blue can of Red Bull. Does nobody else require Red Bull to get through the day?!?!

Also, stopped by new Sephora at Taka. Perfumes section was a huge disappointment. The discounters have a much better range. The makeup and skincare sections were funky though. Sephora had better buck up if it's going to suck any of my perfume money out of my very shallow pockets.

Oh yeah, thought I'd mention that I cut my hair short. I look very very cute (in case you hadn't noticed).

Confession

I love this post.

Yes, I read Dooce. I know that makes me uncool. But what's worse is I read it because her small daughter reminds me of me. Esp. post linked above. LSB would be very familiar with that reaction of mine. Thankfully I also have this other strategy - the talk in most reasonable tone strategy: "But LSB, I'm very tired now, and won't be able to work anyway. Why don't I just take a short nap and you can wake me up later? It's much more efficient that way." (LSB is this big efficiency freak. I know, he's strange.)

I'm also in my desperate early hours of the morning work rushing thing again. Sighz.

Celebrity Collage 3

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Geneology - Vintage photos

Hmmm strangely enough I seem to score high on the Northeast Asian types. LSB is going to have a fit. I think some of these rank high in his idol list. Ah what can I say? I'm very cute.

Celebrity Collage 2

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Collage 1

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

A dash of hope

I might as well come right out and say it, since so many of you know already - I'm finally doing what everyone said I would do in the end.

Ok, so it's been a secret too long, and I just can't bring myself to say it out loud. Shoot me. The rest of this post should make it obvious anyway.

In the course of doing what everyone said I would do, I went back to one of the old papers I wrote during my undergrad, and I was truly, truly ultra-genuinely shocked by the standard of the paper. I know it seems like I'm blowing my own trumpet announcing this on my blog, but I don't think anyone realises what a basketcase I am when it comes to academia, and therefore nobody truly realises what a shock this is to me.

For emphasis: BASKETCASE.

I've always been an insecure, neurotic nutcase when it comes to academia. I have never felt I was good enough, despite what my lecturers have told me. It is for this reason that I've always felt somewhat ambivalent about my grades.

I think maybe some part of me still retains that slacker/ invisible student/ hated by all teachers identity I had throughout my teenage years. I recall fondly when I had to apply for the humanities scholarship, all 3 of my secondary school humanities teachers refused to write a recommendation for me. I remember especially clearly my History teacher expressing doubts about my ability, and then asking how I did for my history prelims. To which I replied '93/100'. (Yes, I remember the exact figure till now.) She was not convinced by my score however, and after muchos begging, I managed to hound my Geography teacher into recommending me for a History-Literature course. I suppose it was revenge for not participating at all in my classes, and basically ignoring my teachers as best I could (and I was better at my humanities too. I can only imagine what my Maths & Science teachers thought of me.) But you see, that's how it's supposed to work. That's how the teachers and I hang. I quietly ignore them and they quietly detest my pretty ass. That's the way the world works.

Anyway, back to the main point. I've always taken any compliments I received in the course of my studies with a huge pinch of salt. How could it be that I deserved any of it? I was fairly convinced that all my lecturers were delusional or they didn't mean what they said, or maybe they just didn't expect much from their students, and I was always scared of being exposed for the fraudster that I thought I was. It was partly for this reason that at times I just felt miserable. I was carrying on in academia, pushed forward by the momentum of grades, encouragement and people's expectations, but not believing that I could progress much further. I mean, how long more before somebody pointed out my abject ignorance of what I was supposed to specialise in? And this was also partly why I wanted out. The pressure and emotional rollercoaster I went through was just too much for me. I didn't believe any of it - the encouragement, the compliments, the future in academia.

I don't know if that old paper of mine is accurate or true in any way, I truly don't. But I can say now that the level of sophistication (or sophistry, if you like) is not something I would expect from an undergraduate, or even a Masters student. I cannot believe that I wrote that paper. I remember I was very stressed out by that paper. This was a paper meant to be completed in a semester, and I remember that by the mid-term break, when my supervisor still hadn't received a proposed topic from me, he called me up and asked me if I would like to withdraw from the module. In the end I managed to convince him that I could finish the paper, and, as is usual for me, rushed the paper in a day. (that was just the writing of course. The research was done, albeit a little hastily, before.) When my supervisor returned the paper to me, he told me that he believed he couldn't have written a paper like that when he was a student. I didn't quite shrug that comment off, being absolutely flabbergasted that he could think so highly of a hastily put together argument that was full of holes and of doubtful veracity. But I was convinced that he probably knew too little about the topic, or was just being nice. Basically my reaction was 'Yeah sucker!' (Ok I pray my lecturers never read my blog.)

Now I have to say I agree with him. At the risk of sounding like I have an ego the size of North America, I have to say that I don't think any of my classmates could have written a paper of that level of sophistication in that little time (with that little knowledge, I might add). In fact, I have never seen another undergraduate paper that showed an equivalent level of analysis. That paper was like advanced-level intellectual kama sutra. I sound like an ass, but I genuinely think it was that good. Again, I have to emphasise that what I am so obviously impressed by is not the accuracy of the paper, or the truths revealed by my brilliant analysis (haha) but the level of sophistication (i.e. it might be bullshit but it is damn good bullshit).

So now I'm thinking, maybe I deserved all of it. Maybe even if I don't have the ability yet, I have the potential to pursue a career in academia. Maybe I can be successful academically, even if that might not mean professional success. Maybe it's just about finding the confidence and motivation and drive and environment in which I can do well. Maybe it's all possible, perhaps not this year, but maybe next year, or the year after that, or some year down the road. Ya' know?

And that means so much to me.

A perfect morning

It's one of those mornings with a good-tempered rain and light, cool breezes and chirping birds (strangely enough) and an all-the-earth-is-verdant-and-growing vibe AND that happens to be a public holiday. It's the kind of morning you stretch luxuriously and wake and look out of your window into the garden with the flowering shrubs and birds jumping in and out of tiny puddles and think, damn I need more Mozart in my music collection. In fact, it's the kind of morning for which this would be the perfect accompaniment:



Just look at how happy the pianist is!

A people's dream

This is Black Elk, speaking of the massacre at Wounded Knee:

"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Christmas is coming!

I was in town today, and realised that Christmas is coming! I love Christmas! (even though I don't get presents from my family etc) I love all the glitzy commercialism and consumerism (and I really mean this), all the spending of cash and blood and sweat and toil!

I have Hayley Westenra's 1st album, and I am immensely in love with this song:



Christmas is such a nostalgic season. It feels so festive and yet a little sad at the same time.

I'm also at a slightly depressing spot in my music collection. First it was this:



Christmas is not a good time to feel lonely. I love this song! It's so melancholy and chilly and er, lonely, it practically sucks the life force out of you and leaves you deflated and feeling somewhat grey.

And then my playlist went to this next song, which was about the only highlight of Jay's flop of a show:



I love this version of the song. So retro, and so listen-able.

Zhao Ziyang

(T_T)

It's just one of those days of neurotic self-doubt and lack of direction. Or rather, I feel pulled in so many directions, and I'm not sure why I'm choosing one direction over another anymore. I feel as if I'm setting myself up for a big big fall and plenty of regrets.

There, an emo post for you to chew on. Don't say I don't have inner struggles :P

Yawnz

I stayed up to watch the whole Tiananmen documentary on Youtube, so I finally have a detailed version of what happened. Main impression is that the students were passionate but horribly naive and ignorant, probably imbued with the sense of immortality that youths always possess. They were rebelling against the government, but still believed in the inherent goodness of their government.

And yes, I watched Painted Skin, and thought it was good.

Just in case anyone didn't realise...

... what a hugely monumental change it is to have an African American as the President of the United States.

This is a website with a collection of postcards and photographs of lynchings in the US. Not all of the victims depicted are black, but you will notice that most were.

And now, just look at this. Would you just look at that.



No wonder the Kenyans are celebrating. Can you imagine being seen as the poor and destitute and backwards (or worse) for centuries, and then suddenly have one of your own become the leader of the most powerful country in the world?

It's just freaking amazing.

*brain explodes*

Sarasate Zigeunerweisen (damn that was hard to spell)

This version on the erhu:



This version on the violin (Heifetz):

feverish brain

I'm running a high fever, so forgive whatever rambling might occur. Had no choice but to take work MC today, and cancel TWO(!!!!!) driving lessons... when my test is on Monday! I'm not even sure I can make it for the test *whines* But feverish semi-delusional zombified me in a car? Not good idea.

Anyway, I love this - 50 of your favourite words. It reminds me of this poetry class I took in my 1st year. The tutor would have all these oldish poems with obscure words, and every week before class we were supposed to look up the meanings of these words and there'd be a quiz during class. And of course I never bothered, so during the class quiz I'd make up definitions, most of them quite fantastical and fairly specific. Things like 'a rare carnivorous plant found in the southern regions of Spain that devours only the red-legged mosquito', or 'a form of wood carving, thought to be invented by the Aztecs as part of their ritual lunar sacrifices'. It was such a laugh. My tutor never said anything, but he had such a despondent look everytime he handed me my marked (and failed) quiz. He must have hated me to bits man. Hell that class was fun.

I've been sleeping all day. Should go back to sleep.

More Damien Rice

Ok, I HAD to put this here. I think I've fallen really hard this time...

The Blower's Daughter



I'm so in love with this music, I can't bear to sleep even though I'm really sleepy hehe... The music is so lovely! Today's been such a wonderful day, even though I slept through most of it. But the parts when I was awake were wonderful... This morning I managed to drag myself out of bed and when straight to my piano to play a very incoherent but very rapid and adrenaline pumping 3rd movement, moonlight sonata. Very very very thrilling. I swear it's immensely addictive and exciting, I don't know how I'll ever live without my piano. Almost nothing gets my pulse racing as fast haha... I love it when the music fills my head; it's almost as if I'm entirely animated by the music. And now I know I sound like an idiot, and it's really time for me to go to bed :P

Totally in love again

This is Damien Rice, my newfound love.

Volcano:



Delicate (which House used before, so even if you haven't heard of Damien Rice before, you might still find it familiar):

Sarah Palin Disney trailer

Trailer of Disney movie featuring Sarah Palin the soccer mum who becomes President of the USA.

重色轻友

Late at night, in a car parked a deserted carpark lighted dimly by streetlights, with the rain pouring and this song playing -



And all of a sudden I wished it was LSB sitting beside me.

But it was still very fun lar, and got quite high haha.

Irish Airman and Rubaiyat and some thoughts on music

Irish Airman (Yeats_ has been a long-time favourite of mine, and LSB just introduced me to the Rubaiyat. I suppose if I pick out the stanzas in Rubaiyat, and stick them together with Irish Airman, they'd together articulate my interpretation of (and extrapolation from) both poems.

The similarities:

Irish Airman:

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan's Cross
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor;
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.


Rubaiyat:

VII.

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

X.

With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.

XI.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

XXVIII.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

XXIX.

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXXVIII.

One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste--
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Starts for the dawn of Nothing--Oh, make haste!

XXXIX.

How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

XLV.

But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

LII.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to IT for help--for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

And these stanzas, just for the heck of it:

L.

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows!

LI.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

LVII.

Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

LVIII.

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give--and take!

LXIII.

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What? did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

The sentiment expressed in Irish Airman is so dear to my heart that the wanton use of the lines sans understanding of the sentiment feels to me very much like a prostitution of Yeats' poem *ahem looking at you*.

Anyway, I think that sometimes I love poems not for their content, but for the way they sound to my ears. As such, my appreciation of poetry is more like my appreciation for classical music & jazz than my appreciation of most contemporary pop. I look for balance and structure and symmetry and reflection and placement of words, and ideas are mostly secondary. Irish airman is probably one of the most symmetrical poems I know.

Hmmm I've always associated poetry with music.

If say I listened to the melody of most contemporary pop first without being exposed to it through participation in it (e.g. in ktv, where I learned most of my Mando-pop), I'd probably wince at the crudeness of the structure and the very very maudlin melodies. But that same crudeness makes it easy to listen to when I'm just not feeling up to it. And of course they're easy to sing, and I think the ability to participate in music-making is one of the most significant factors in our appreciation of music because the participation gives us an outlet for creative energies and allows us an active (if somewhat unconscious) exploration of the structure and nuances of the music. Which is why I also think that it is very very difficult for someone to fully understand and appreciate music if he doesn't actually play an instrument or sing.

Maybe I'm just a snob.

That said, some classical melodies are horribly icky as well. Yes, Sadie's Gymnopedies. *shudder*

Ok, enough of this stream of consciousness thing.

closing

I'm slightly preoccupied these days, and have actually lost the urge to blog. Actually, gist of this is I won't be blogging here for some time. I might not blog here again. That happens pretty often, I must say, this moving blogs thing. But this lasted quite long for me, so it was a pretty good run. Well, if I start up again, maybe I'll tell the 345,802 people who like reading my nonsense.

Dance

Goodness knows I'm not a dance person, and the best thing about my dance moves is I'm forever forgetting them. (My apologies to anyone who's had to dance on stage with me before. I know it's embarrassing.) But this is probably the only dance routine I've ever fallen in love with -



It's apparently a dance about a hummingbird and a flower, and as corny as that sounds, damn it's good.

Truth & Reality

This is just one of those things that happens occasionally to me.

I was shopping aimlessly when suddenly I thought to myself 'Yes, truth and reality are separate and distinct.' Then a moment of panic when I couldn't help but think 'But why? And how? Omg do I not know this? How can something be real but not true? How can something be true but not real? What is the point of my life if I don't know this?'

After which I mass sms-ed all the people I thought could give me an answer.

Those who didn't get my sms, you know who you are. And now you even know what I think of you.

Those who did get an sms, to tell the truth, I set the bar pretty low.

Anyway, the moment I sent out my x no. of smses, I suddenly realised that there was something wrong with my question because 'real' and 'truth' relate to different things.

Quite simply, 'real' relates to the existence of something. Doesn't need to be a corporeal existence as long as it's an existence. 'True' relates to statements of fact.

So I can say 'The cat is real.' And then I can say 'That statement (the statement that the cat is real) is true.' Or untrue. 'Real' refers to the cat; the cat is real because it exists. 'True' refers to the statement of fact about the cat (that it exists); the statement is true if the cat is real, and it is untrue if the cat is not real. We can't say that the cat is 'true' or 'not true'.

If I say that a statement is real I mean that it exists. If I say that a statement is true I mean that it accurately tells us what reality is.

Reality & truth are still linked very closely. but in this way:

Can a statement that an object is real be untrue if the object is real (exists)? No.

Can a statement that an object is real be true if the object is not real (does not exist)? No.

True statements reflect reality, but essentially, truth and reality reside in different objects, so my question was itself flawed.

I know, I know. This is totally dumb and there's absolutely no reason why I should be thinking about this, and there're probably many anti-reasons for actually spending a whole blog on this. But I truly had to get it out of my system. Seriously, have you ever had a question haunt you? No? You suck.

The solution seems simple enough to me now. I just hope I don't wake up tomorrow and realise that everything I've said here is flawed and have to think about it all over again.

incoherent post that has something to do with music

I'm waiting for my hair to dry again. It seems I spend most of my life waiting for my hair to dry. I bet if anyone did a study they could tell me I spend a disastrous amount of time, like 38% of my life waiting for my hair to dry.

I spent $52 on 2 CDs with the exact same pieces, but different pianists. A selection of Beethoven's piano sonatas played by Alfred Brendel and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Yes, call me an idiot. I was testing the CDs, trying to decide which to buy, and I was intrigued by both and couldn't possibly listen to the whole CD, so in the end I just bought both. What follows is my very subjective and amateur dissection of what I like/ don't like about one of the pieces, Piano sonata No 8 in C minor, Pathetique. (I've been mainly listening to this piece because I'm trying to play it.)

1st Movement (Grave) - Let's face it, I like drama in my music, with storm clouds gathering and titanic clashes of forces etc. Ashkenazy's opening is dramatic (I think he's a dramatic sort of pianist); he starts with literally a crash of keys followed by soft, tense and tight phrases. Brendel's opening is measured and deliberate. It's not without tension, but it's not as nerve-wracking as Ashkenazy's. In principle I like a more overtly dramatic opening like Ashkenazy's, and when I play I tend to interpret along the lines of Ashkenazy instead of Brendel. Yet strangely enough, I prefer Brendel's version. Perhaps it's because while Ashkenazy is dramatic, there's something about it that makes me feel slightly restless and flustered and unsatisfied, as if Ashkenazy's drama is not as focused and masterful as I'd like it to be. That said, I do wish Brendel's version had a bit more fire and less soiree in it. So yes I like Brendel's version, even if I would not go with his interpretation.

2nd Movement (Adagio Cantabile) - This is the Adagio Cantabile section (meaning slow & stately, & in a singing style respectively). Ok, this movement is a big problem for me because I go for more cantabile and less adagio. It just seems strange that for a section that is supposed to be cantabile/ singable, so many pianists play it so slowly that no one could hold their breath long enough to sing it. In other words, I feel that most tend to go for more adagio and less cantabile, which I think is a pity because it's such a pretty section and playing it too slowly takes the prettiness away. Plus most pianists play the bass too heavily for me. It just ends up feeling like a very 'heavy' section, whereas I prefer it with more movement and more song-like. Then again who am I to argue with these legions of professional pianists? It's just me I tell you. For this section Ashkenazy plays it faster than Brendel, but again, I like Brendel's cleaner sounding playing. Hmmm I'm beginning to think that it's Ashkenazy's piano that I don't like, not his playing. I actually adore Ashkenazy for Rachmaninoff.

3rd Movement (Rondo Allegro) - Ok, again mixed feelings. On one hand I think Brendel captures the shape of the music better, on the other, Ashkenazy's interpretation is closer to my own. The thing about this section is that I feel both play the section slightly too quickly. There are parts of this section that (I think) are dying to be milked for emotion and drama. For me, this is especially so for the theme, and even more so for bars 170-182. I was waiting for either pianist to do that, but I think both played the movement too fast to do much with it. Then again, I play the movement too slowly for an allegro, so maybe I'm just entirely off track.

Hmmm this has been an interesting exercise for me, comparing my interpretation of the piece with the interpretations of two piano superstars. Sometimes I learn a piece AFTER listening to it many many times, and I get very influenced by that recording. For this sonata, I started playing from the score first, so my interpretation is really quite uninfluenced. It's kind of fun to see where my teacher would have rapped me on my head for ignoring the score and tempo instructions entirely (the latter is something I tend to do a lot). I guess what I call 'my interpretation' could as easily (and perhaps more accurately) be called 'my mistake'. Ah well, I guess it also shows me how far I have to grow still. Perhaps in a month, I'd be changing my assessment of the two pianists entirely.

Gosh I'm so incoherent today.

many tragedies

Darling LSB is going off to exotic foreign lands on some probably malevolent mission, undoubtedly history-related. I have decided to pine away into nothing while he troops around my homeland. If you want to know where exactly he is, just follow the cold, cold trail of lame jokes.

I've also had a really controversial haircut. Many eyebrows have been raised, and raised again. (It's like having multiple exclamation points instead of just one!!!!!) My mum has been heard attempting to say 'It's nice, really, it's nice' in between muffled sniggers. My dad has allegedly cried out in despair, 'Why you go and cut china doll hairstyle?' My siblings have unanimously concluded that I'm having a quarter-life mid-life crisis. This apparently means that I'm 40 years old trying to look 14, despite the reality (note: not the same as truth) that I'm 25. LSB has (ah, break my heart) decided to refer to me henceforth as 'xiao mei mei' despite my very obvious exuding of adult sexiness. He has also become strangely resistant to my charms, alas. You see the number of deluded half-blind people in my life? The tearful reproach that I've encountered in all quarters resembles nothing so much as that usually reserved for recalcitrant young ladies with one in the oven and no baker identified as responsible. (I've been reading LSB's book of euphemisms, and have elevated the use of euphemisms to an art.)

I long for dark chocolate with the whole of my reprobate soul. (T_T)

New bag!

Yes, I bought a new bag, a mere 3 months after I first laid eyes on my old bag, otherwise known as the Big Blue Monstrosity.

This is because Big Blue Monstrosity has fallen into disrepair, and disrepute, because anything that has Monstrosity in its name just isn't supposed to fall apart that quickly.

Anyhoos, I think you should all know that I spent on this new bag more than I've ever spent on any fashion item.

Sigh I'm learning that it's very hard to tread the line between 'I can buy this' and 'I will buy this'. But I've got to say, so far I'm not doing a bad job of it. It's just that I was very single-mindedly shopping for a bag and trying not to get distracted by the other stuff along the way, and this was the only bag that I really liked!

So I set out to buy a bag, and I got one. That isn't too bad is it? Even though I spent about 3 times more than I did on my previous bag.

Plus I followed the 3 times rule! I 1st saw this bag early June, then I saw it again on Thursday, and finally bought it on Friday! And it was on sale! The amount it was discounted by was more than the price of my previous bag... *argh*

Anyways, the bag is really quite me (or so I like to think), so despite my money woes I'm reasonably happy with it. The Big Blue Monstrosity, on the other hand, was not me at all. It was big, blue, patent and faux snake skin. *shudders* I really don't know why I bought it. From time to time I would discover the Big Blue Monstrosity sitting menacingly on my shoulder, and I would freak out at the alien parasite sucking the life out of me. And then I would have to murmur soothingly to myself, 'No no, it's yours, you bought it, remember? At that awful sale? With all those people pushing? It's ugly but it's still your baby. You can't shriek and throw it at an innocent by-stander. Yes, it's your burden... carry it...'

Argh. Haha I'm such a freak.

Oh you might also like to know that when I got home with new beautiful bag slung proudly on my triumphant shoulder, I was greeted with dire warnings from my mum that it would break in no time, and it's too casual for work, I'll get fired. Thanks mum.

The coolest Mayday song ever!

Perennial ktv favourite.

I dieded

You can't possibly not love this. You really can't. Absolutely darling.



*twiddle fingers* This kid is 14. Is it horrible to say that he's totally hot? He looks like an anime character! When he first started dancing I actually couldn't tell whether he's a guy or a gal... the epitome of pretty boy-ness. And who else thought that rain sequence was smokin'? And the confidence! I love a guy who can say 'it was the greatest performance I've ever done' without sounding like an ass. Am I a paedophile? Seriously, am I? I could totally fall in love with him! *kicks LSB out of door*

(Also, am I a geek for recognising the Gene Kelly moves in the dance?)



This is also ultra-cool. They're not as pretty and charismatic as pretty boy, but dammit I think they might be better dancers.

university

First, I found this post on Infinite thought:

What universities need is less consultants and middle managers indulging in 'blue skies thinking', the outcome of which is always that universities become more like businesses, and more self-critique. The celebritisation of academia - the guest star-lecturers, the honorary degrees, the bid to get a by-line in a national daily - must stop. Knowledge is anonymous and universal or it is not knowledge at all.

Yes, Singaporean universities, factories producing streams of soon-to-be disaffected labour like the multiple leakages of toxic waste flowing from filthy pipes into filthy ground, in which they languish for another 50 years till they dissipate, unnoticed, and vanish forever, remembered by none, this is you.

And this wonderful link as well:

What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude. They took this in for a second, and then one of them said, with a dawning sense of self-awareness, “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?” Well, I don’t know. But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system.

The same lack of solitude & introspection applies to the poor sots who have to work for a living. Each day passes in miserable apathy, succeeded only by the next identical day till the days of our lives are spent. Your life seeps away while you, unaware, attempt to amass resources so that you can live. Every 9 hour day translates into a 45 hour week, which shortens our lives by 45 hours every week.

Ok, I'm sure you've figured out by now that I've taken two wonderful opinions about the deplorable state of university education, turned them into a diatribe about work, but if you don't get any of that, you only have to take with you this important message: I've had two utterly miserable sucky lousy tragic stressful days of work, really, but at least I can still write a long, meandering sentence that probably lost you by the 15th word.

Stumbling - the grand romantic gesture that was not

This morning I woke up with the brilliant idea of sending LSB a recording of my piano-playing. Then the problem - what to play for the love of my life? Something not overly cheery - neither of our dispositions tends towards carnivalism (yes, my made-up word. I shall petition to Derrida's memory.) Something that sounds warm and lovely and appropriately romantic. Something that wouldn't make my philistine boyfriend think immediately of 'that techno remix by random anorexic Taiwanese star'.

Unfortunately there's nothing in my repertoire that quite fits the bill. So in the end I decided I'd just have to learn a new piece. I dug up a copy of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, sight-read and practised a couple of times, just to get the hang of things. Then I played the 1st bit of the 2nd movement for him. After about 30 recordings and two hours, I settled on one version and emailed it (together with all my love and a lengthy mushy coupla paragraphs) to LSB...

Turns out he can't seem to open it.

Ok.

Oops sorry. Don't mind me. Just stumbling my way through life and love. *trips over own feet*

(Seriously, that should be my motto: 'stumbling my way through life and love'.)

Anyway, I'll probably let LSB listen to it at some point, but of course it's no longer a 'grand romantic gesture' and more like a 'ok, do I really have to listen to this? your playing sucks' kind of scenario.

BUT just because it will forever be associated in my mind with the general screwed-uppedness of life doesn't mean that you guys can't listen to the music now. :P

I searched through Youtube and can't find a single version of the 2nd movement that I like. *sigh* It seems everyone plays it much slower than I like it. Nevertheless, here's Zimemann (don't ask me who he is) with Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata (in C minor), 2nd movement:



It's really a lovely piece.

Hamlet

Comments like this remind me of how different Hamlet appears to all of us:

"We love Hamlet, but, it seems to me, we love him more because we see him not only at his best (when he tells Horatio, in the serenity of acceptance, “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” or when he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes, the brother of the woman he loved and whose heart he shattered) but also at his worst (when he bullies his mother and brings her to tears, or when he hesitates to kill Claudius at his prayers because, not content with taking revenge for his father’s murder, he wants to send his uncle’s soul to hell)." - The American Scholar

When Hamlet gives his "fall of a sparrow" speech, I don't think 'serenity of acceptance' - I think fatalism, a sense and premonition that events have come to a head and he no longer has control anymore. When Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius, I don't buy his 'I want uncle to go to hell' excuse. I just think that he felt it was not the right time - his anger had not run its course, there were too many things he still did not know and had not made clear (why his mother had married his uncle, for instance, and how she felt about all of this) - to kill Claudius in the midst of so many unresolved issues and so much uncertainty, it just didn't feel like the right time. So I do buy the 'Hamlet as man of thought instead of man of action' theory in the sense that I believe he could not take action until he's straightened out his world of thoughts. (But not in the sense that Hamlet is perenially unable to take any meaningful action.) Perhaps A.C. Bradley would disagree, his Hamlet being more warrior-like than mine.

I remember some scholar - I can't remember who - commented that the beauty of Hamlet the play is that Shakespeare leaves so many things unexplained. We never truly know why Hamlet did this or that and as a result, we are able to interpret Hamlet in our own different ways. Each of us is able to create and own a different Hamlet by projecting ourselves upon this slate that is not entirely blank but blank enough. I am 80% convinced that my interpretation of Hamlet reflects what I would have done in his place. But methinks perhaps Hamlet's motivations or even his personality are not quite the point of the play.

Hamlet the character is an elusive and charismatic one, and he is a constant source of fascination for me. I think this character is probably one of the best known in English literature, and much of the attention given to the play is focused on figuring out this personality, his motivations, and in some cases, figuring out whether he is 'good' or 'bad' or plain 'pathetic'. But if I don't remember wrong, till the 19th century Hamlet the character did not receive much attention from the literati. The play was seen as just one of the 'vengeance dramas' (my term), which was by no means an original plot, even during Shakespeare's time. I think some writer (Goethe?) suddenly found Hamlet the character to be pretty interesting and atypical, and suddenly everyone was debating Hamlet the character, and Hamlet the character took precedence over Hamlet the play.

Ok my account of the history of scholarship is not particularly impressive. (I'm old! My memory is fading! I knew this once!)

I have to confess, I love thinking about Hamlet the character as well. But I also think that Hamlet the play can be appreciated without much knowledge of Hamlet the character, and not just in a Hollywood blockbuster - murder and incest and sex and war - kind of way.

Whether or not Hamlet was a thinker or a warrior or an angsty spoilt teenage prince or misogynist, the range of emotions in the play is exquisite and exquisitely portrayed. The highlights for me:

- the despair and grief and bitterness of Hamlet: "Seems madam, I know not what seems"; "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into dew"

- his angry lashing out at everyone around him: his bitter wordplay with Polonius, his disastrous (relationship-wise) scene with Ophelia

- Ophelia's beautiful mad confused grief: "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died"

- Gertrude's subdued, poignant and pathetic (in a tragic sense) lament for Ophelia: "There's a willow grows askant a brook" is one of my favourite speeches from this play; "Sweets to the sweet, farewell. ... I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, / And not have strew'd thy grave" --> I was horrified when some stupid local desserts show on tvmobile called itself 'sweets to the sweet' or something to that effect.

- the self-centered (& perhaps guilt-ridden?) angry fight between Hamlet and Laertes in Ophelia's grave: "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with their quantity of love, / Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" --> Seriously? You called her a whore, dumped her, killed her father and caused her madness, and now you disrupt her funeral and fight with her brother in her grave over who loved her more? One of Hamlet's lowest points for me.

- Hamlet's final realisation that it was all over: "The rest is silence." --> Another of my favourite lines.

- Horatio's lament for his prince: "Good night, sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." --> Yet another favourite line. It's so poignant and yet ironic, given Hamlet's last words.

Ah I'd almost forgotten how much I love Hamlet the play. Chock-full of emotions and drama! Which is the way I think it should be appreciated. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on understanding and not enough on simply feeling.

Agyness Deyn

How do you say 'new girl crush'? (alt.: how do you say 'yes, I attended a girls' school'?)

Ok I'm probably late on this bandwagon, but she's so incredibly beautiful!!!!!!!!! But not in a done to death way!!!!!! Argh! Especially love the hat look in this video. I also love the look in her eyes, if you know what I mean.

10 smokin' beavers

This was a phrase that decided to take up residence in my brain just a few minutes ago. I'll try to use it somewhere in this post so you know what 'tis all about. We all know what a earworm is (or at least now you do, if you followed the link), but I'll be damned if there aren't brainworms as well.

As you all have probably rightly forgotten my dismal attempts at philosophy some months and a lifetime ago, you would probably be surprised that I haven't given up the expedition into cuckooland. Nope, I have too much iron in my soul (ironic fortitude, perhaps?) to be turned back by mere lack of reason to continue. *roars and thumps hairy chest*

I have as a matter of fact, gone past Leibniz, at whom I was stuck at the last time, by employing the elegantly simple strategy of skipping the chapter. By dint of pure willingness to ignore whatever looks too difficult to understand, I've reached Locke. And discovered that I can't proceed any further without going back to the bloody Greeks. (watch for it...) And I was like, 10 smokin' beavers ina cherry pie! Ain't this a right-ho bobbity-cop?

Guess which accent I have in my head. Really, guess. Prizes if you get it wrong.

So dragging my feet (I must say my feet appear to be less philosophically inclined than the rest of me), I went back to Socrates and started from there. The beauty of getting a 'philosophy for idiots'-type book from the library is that I managed to go from Socrates to Aquinas during lunch hour before I was rudely interrupted by the pointed silence that marks the recommencement of work.

Let's face it, if Socrates was playing an electric guitar with his homie Plato on a snazzy stage, I wouldn't be throwing any underwear on stage. In fact, I'd probably be doing the opposite. Which means I'd be collecting the underwear thrown on stage and either screaming to teenage girls that THEY COULD GET PREGNANT IF A BOY TOUCHES THESE PANTIES or not so surreptitiously pocketing the underwear to sell on eBay later. But never mind that.

The Greeks are so antiquated! *cries*

Good work, me. That was a brilliant one.

I really want to get to the 20th century soon, and I have only... well, 700 years to go.

Hmmm actually, that doesn't sound as bad as I thought it would sound.

I tend to take the default, instinctive position that people have always been a certain way and will always be this way. But reading these strange old men, I'm constantly surprised by how differently people think nowadays.

Which reminds me of the website of lynching photos that fell upon my lap from the bountiful plenty of the Intrawebs. Mere decades ago it was considered ok to kill someone. Mere decades ago children laughed and played around the gibbet or bonfire or any ol' tree as someone died and it was ok. Nowadays parents are uncomfortable when kids play violent video games.

I once attempted to read John Boslough's Stephen Hawking's Universe, which is the 'pop' version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which is the 'pop' version of whatever else it is that he has written. Needless to say I started out with the Stephen Hawking original, didn't understand a word, retreated to Boslough's further dumbed down volume and still didn't understand a word, at which point I retreated into ignorance and fortified the defences against anything quantum.

Gosh I do like me my digressions.

There are only 2 things I brought away from Boslough's book:

First, WTMF what do you mean space might be shaped like a saddle?!?!?!?!

Second, Robert Frost's poem: -

We dance 'round in a ring and suppose
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

I love this poem. It is rife with material for blatantly pointless analysis, but I think I shall go sleep. I just remembered tomorrow I have to march in the ranks of the living dead, juggle 3 full pitchers of water and solve a sudoku puzzle at the same time.

Ubi Sunt

From Wikipedia:

Ubi sunt (literally "where are...") is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?" Ubi nunc...?, "where now?", is a common variant.[1]

Ubi sunt is a phrase that begins several Latin medieval poems and occurs, for example, in the second stanza of the song De Brevitate Vitae (also known as Gaudeamus igitur). The theme was the common property of medieval Latin poets: Cicero may not have been available, but Boethius' line was known: Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent? Ubi may set the tone of a poem, and can even be used to indicate the tone of another work, such as Beowulf.

The moment I saw this, I thought of Tolkien's lament:

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the sping and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

And behold what Wikipedia says:

Sometimes considered to be a nostalgic longing for the clichéd "good old days", the ubi sunt motif is actually a meditation on mortality and life's transience.

I am constantly amazed by Tolkien.

Yes I know I'm at work, but it's lunch. :P

Playlist

This is stuff currently on my mp3 playlist:



I stumbled across Mazzy Star on youtube and fell in love (again). Not good music if you're sleepy but need to work.



If anyone is wondering, this is the SM song that I keep telling you guys about. It's wonderfully delicious listening while on the way to work.



I love the sound of this band, which is not surprising, since their sound reminds me of velvet underground.

This is one piece I wish was on my playlist, but haven't had the time to acquire. Does Chopin never go wrong?:



Oh and in other (perfume) news, I got the miniatures for 24 Faubourg & Sisley's Eau du Soir. I'm especially enjoying the Sisley (I just bought them on Saturday, so I'll try the 24 Faubourg soon), which I should, since I paid 8 good bucks for 2ml. But I hadn't expected to find a miniature of that one, so I count that as a steal. It'd be perfect if I could find a miniature of Sisley's newer Soir de Lune :( And I know that cost per ml is MUCH higher for miniatures than for the full bottle, but dammit I don't have enough money for the full bottles... and this way I get to own more perfumes :P

Accuracy of Death & The Black Book are wonderful, if a little depressing. There're so many lovely movies these days *contented sigh*. Sex and the City.... well, the dresses (some) are drool-worthy. Nothing more, but I don't think anyone was expecting more either.

Disturbed

I came across this website of lynching photos from the USA (via Politics, Theory & Photography), and emerged feeling really disturbed. I suggest you don't follow the link if you think you might be affected. These are real photos of lynchings and dead people. I almost cried while looking at those photos, and felt really sick afterwards, so don't say I didn't warn you.

From the website:

"Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of a mad citizenry. The communities' best citizens lurking just outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt."
- James Allen

It was really hard to look at the photos, but I'm glad I did because the photos are meant to be seen, to be recognised finally for what they are before they can be laid to rest - evidence of murder. I felt that I had to see the photos, and for each photo admit that yes, this was wrong, they were wrong to do this.

While looking through the photos, it felt a bit as if I was bearing the burden and responsibility for what happened and what happens still, and it felt right. The crimes humanity has committed are rightfully burdens of memory and guilt to be borne by us all. Not quite rational, but it felt right.

Gender, Love and Sex

Ok I swore I'd clear the backlog of things I want to blog about.

I read this really interesting article about a guy who underwent a sex change, but what got me was the comments. One comment linked to this NYT article on a married couple who stayed happily together after the husband changed his sex. Yet another comment tells a supposedly true anecdote about a hetero female who fell in love with another woman. A reply to this comment argues that either 1) the female is not hetero but is bisexual or lesbian, or 2) the female is hetero but not really 'in love' with the other woman.

So the question is, can you be straight and still love a person of the same sex? And by love I mean what most Singaporeans would see as the emotion that leads boy and girl to date, get married and spend the rest of the lives together.

One particularly favoured response to that question is that our sexual preferences are just general preferences. Meaning that if I say I'm a hetero female, what I mean is that I'm usually attracted to guys, but I might, however rarely, be attracted to and fall in love with women. So some hetero females might be more likely to be attracted to women than other hetero females, but they remain hetero because most of the time they're still attracted to guys. Likewise a lesbian might be attracted to females most of the time, but might occasionally be attracted to a guy.

Now I totally agree with the above response. I think it's silly to believe that even though we may like more than one type of music and more than one type of cuisine and more than one colour, we can only like either males or females, or that if we usually like only males then we cannot possibly like females or vice versa. Why should our sexual likes and dislikes be so different from our other likes and dislikes?

But what I find more interesting is the definition of love and the question of the relation between love and sex.

When I say love, I'm talking about that romantic love that people seem to differentiate from all other types of love, and have amazingly high standards for. 'Love' has to be monogamous (usually), it's special, it's great and momentous and unique, and above all 'true'. You can't merely 'feel affection for' - that doesn't make the cut. 'Love' is greater than that. It's the force that triumphs over death and families locked in violent conflicts and the star-crossedness of all that.

But what is this 'love'? What makes it so special? We all know about 'true love', but what exactly is it? Were Romeo and Juliet 'truly' in love? What makes it not just a crush? What makes it different from other types of love?

One question is, can you be in 'love' and not feel sexually attracted to the person you love? Can there be love without lust?

If love can exist without lust, what makes this love so special? How is it different from the love between family members and friends? Would you marry your best friend if you saw him 'only' as a friend? If you see him as 'more than a friend', what's the extra thing that constitutes the 'more'?

If love cannot exist without lust, then what if someone has well, libido problems? Or is for some reason not interested in sex? Does that mean that that person cannot love? Does this mean that on days when you think your partner looks unattractive (your dress makes you look fat, dear) or on days you simply don't feel the lust (headache, dear) you then love your partner less?

What are the other components of love (besides, perhaps, lust)? Conventionally, one would list things like care, affection, commitment etc. These are things that are common to familial or platonic love. Can we say that familial/platonic love + lust = Love? But what if you have a friend whom you care about and are physically attracted to? Does that mean that you 'love' that friend in that special way? How much must you care about the person in order to be able to say you 'love' him?

The most common way (this is what friends tell me!) of 'verifying' if someone 'truly' 'loves' you seems to be his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for yours. I'm not sure I quite buy that. When you sacrifice yourself for someone, is it a total loss on your part, or do you actually gain utility/satisfaction from sacrifice/being needed/being perceived as noble and loving? If so, when you 'sacrifice', is it an indication of your love, or your enjoyment/satisfaction from your sacrifice?

In the end I've never seen a definition of love that really satisfied me, and my sneaking suspicion is that love is probably an amalgamation of phenomena instead of the unique discrete phenomenon that it's often perceived to be, and that the composition of love differs from person to person, relationship to relationship. i.e. 'True love' is often seen as special and momentous and more than mere affection or care or lust, but I suspect it's actually just 'great affection' or 'great need' or 'great desire', and that what I mean by love might be quite different from what you mean by love. I do believe that there is no such identifiable, definable thing as 'love'.

And yes, I know the difference between 'cannot be defined' and 'does not exist', and knowing this I still believe that the 'special, momentous, till death do us part, one and only, there'll be no other' love is a myth and a fantasy. At least until I stop thinking and start feeling.

What's in a name?

The most heated LSB-moi arguments are those over the name(s) of our future daughters. Yes, those future daughters that are not even a sparkle in our collective eyeballs yet. LSB doesn't seem to care about the name(s) of any future sons.

For some reason, LSB has this horrendous penchant for very feminine and slightly old-fashioned names. Whereas I prefer names (for gals) that are unisex or not so girly.

Today LSB proposed the latest horror of a name - which I shall not specify, just in case someone with that name gets really hurt hehe - that I thought was pretty much bovine. You know, you can't help it. Some names just sound placid, slightly stupid and like they should have wide hips and a bell around their neck.

LSB observed that the child would be traumatised if her own mother thought she was a cow. I observed that the child would be traumatised because I would have fed her grass throughout her childhood. Nice green grass.

I sort of want to call any future daughter Sylvie after my 1st French teacher. My 1st French teacher (a french lady of course) had incredibly flat abs and... well let's just say she had assets that made the day she entered our chilly classroom without a bra (or with a very thin bra) a very very hallowed, blessed day. We were truly subdued and awed.

Gosh I still remember this. Yep I sound like a guy.

More wishes

Yes, my wish list expanded again, and it's all perfumes dammit.

I'm tempted to buy the guy perfumes on the list for LSB/my dad, though more probably my dad cos then I can steal a spritz or two whenever I like. Unfortunately my mum has final say on how my dad smells, and my mum's taste differs greatly from mine. :( On the other hand, I do quite like the idea of deciding how LSB should smell. Hmmm. Plus LSB recently gave me permission to shop for a scent for him. Perhaps he was drunk.

I bought a Sonic Youth cd. They rock, but they don't rock as much as Velvet Underground.

Random thought. Vetiver smells like grass to me, but grass with a twist. It's as if you take scent of grass, identify the earth smell, make it stronger, then somehow make it sharper. And then you get vetiver - a grassy scent with a strong, sharp earth smell. Oh, and I like vetiver vetiver. I don't really like it softened or sweetened. I want to be hit in between the eyes by blades of grass and clods of fresh earth.

Hey, it takes all kinds.