segue from dawn to dusk

Pinky Sprain

2010-10-12T20:10:00.004+08:00

So our team has been working super overtime for ages. UV and AF tell me that it was hectic while I was gone to China, but it's was pretty intense from mid-September onwards.

Returning from my holiday, I was plunged back into the whirling, swirling adrenalin that comes with being in the PR industry. As any PR person, they'll tell you the same thing. Expect late nights, ridiculously tight deadlines, quirky clients (to say the least), stressed-out media... That's our way of life, but we'll always be glad not to be them poor advertising sods. Heh.

So I'm stuck here having eaten lunch and dinner at my desk while juggling a million and one different things.

Had a nose bleed today.

Had dry eyes again today.

Had dropping hair again today.

And now I've got a sprained pinky. :(

New Post

2010-10-03T23:12:00.008+08:00

So it's been a pretty long while since I've actually posted anything in here. Two wallpaper changes, yes, but actual content? Nada. Then fresh from our trip to Guilin, China, out of the blue I get the inspiration to blog, and right on cue, P1 decides to act up and I haven't managed to log into iGoogle, Gmail, Blogger and Facebook in weeks.

But today's a day for surprises.

First I nearly whacked into some stupid bugger who decided, right at the last moment, to swing into my lane. Thankfully I managed to hit the brakes in time, though my heart was up in my mouth for the good part of an hour. Why Malaysian drivers lik dat wun?

Then when I reached Mei Ling's house, no one was in though there was supposed to be class today. Unexpected good luck (although I was looking forward to class), as that freed up an extra hour for me to finish this humungous pile of back-logged Chinese newspapers from September.

Much later, after dinner, the Cooking Bug bit for the first time in months. Haven't had much time at all to stir-fry/stew /bake/steam since joining Pat-Lin in February, but the itch came back and I whipped up a double-portion to ta-pau for lunch and dinner tomorrow hehe.

Anyway it's getting late but I'm still waiting for the photos to upload to FB. Another update later, hopefully tomorrow but doesn't seem likely with the amount of work and newspapers to get through.

But tomorrow can wait for a few more hours...

Rain is coming

2009-05-12T00:22:00.015+08:00

It's past midnight and I lie here in bed, not sleeping yet,
drowsily drinking in the sounds of this city that never sleeps, only rests.
There's a faint purring of a generator somewhere near, but far away enough.
Cars go by in the night, their wild hoots echoing emptily around the construction site,
deserted and forlorn in the darkness.
The wooden blinds rattle suddenly against the open window frame as a gust of wind slips through, surprisingly chilly on my bare, humid-sticky skin.

Rain is coming.
I can smell it, scentless, the welcome moisture driving away a week's worth
of dust and dreariness.
I can feel it, formless, the saltiness of cool viscid air spilling through the openings into this undisturbed space.

I lie on my side, shoulder and hip sinking into the firm yielding of the mattress beneath, limbs draped around a bunched-up duvet like a bolster, a lover.

Around my face, tendrils of hair stir faintly in the milky darkness. I start
as the blinds clatter again, insistently this time, and
for a brief moment in the splintered silence it sounds like someone trying to climb in.

And then she comes, stealthily at first like a car sweeping past in the distance, and then
steadily, steadily, melding with the humming of the generator,
drowning out the sounds of the world outside.

I slip into a dreamless, watery sleep.

Fugue

2009-04-05T00:22:00.007+08:00

I'm sitting here lazily surfing the web, when suddenly a new window pops up, and it's you. It's been such a long time, but now when we talk, it's like all those years and all that water under the bridge has melted away.

How are you? What have you been doing? We skip those formalities, launching right in as if resuming a conversation from years ago without a break.

Over the past months, I looked at your photos on Facebook. You in your creamy, satiny wedding dress, serene next to the proud hubby, and I start dreaming of my own. Your unmarked skin slowly stretching under the expanding belly, and I remember those carefree weekends playing in the sunlight garden, when you used to wear those cut-off tees and low-slung jeans, baring your taut tawny midriff when I was still graduating from my uncool, awkward pre-teen years. I always wished I could be like you, inimitably sexy in your calculated insouciance, the embodiment of teenage rebellion to this impressionable bookworm desperately seeking her own niche.

You tell me of a concert you went to the other day, the orchestra from our old school. I start reminiscing about the old days, the old people, and then I remember. Of course, I'd forgotten you were never in the orchestra. Funny how our memories of a place and time merge into each other. But those two years, they were so full, and rarely a day passed where did we not see each other, talk to each other, that it really doesn't matter whether or not you were in the orchestra.

We gossip a little about old friends. They still use the ancient photos from our times on the school website and brochures, those fading moments of our extreme youth frozen for the world to see. I remember you were on one of those glossy leaves, caught unawares and pensive, a surprisingly content look on your face that we didn't use to see too often back then. I saw you in that beautiful photo even before I saw you in real life. I'm glad to see you with that same peaceful expression in all your photos now.

We talk a little about your little boy, the pregnancy. I'm so curious, wanting to know everything, wanting it to be like that time long ago when our lives were so closely intertwined that we knew so many things about what happened during our day, our week. You seem happy enough to tell me, offer up information, but really, how much am I allowed to ask before it's considered over-inquisitive? I'm so glad for you, that you've finally found something to anchor you down in life, that gives you the joy and stability you've wandered so far and long in search for. I look at the photos of the life you've given birth to, that sweet sleepy smile, and I start hankering for one of my own.

You ask me when I'll be coming to visit. I wonder how much of me you have remembered, how much of me you will recognise. In the photos, you look like a slightly older, contented, mellowed version, but otherwise the same you from the old days. I bloomed years after you did, ditched the glasses, grew out the hair, gained the curves and confidence of today. Perhaps you were early, perhaps I am late. Would you recognise me now, if we passed each other on a busy street?

If we could've known, those handful of years ago, the dramatic turns our lives would take away from each other, would we still have done anything differently?

And then it's the end of our conversation. Your laptop's running out of battery, you're sleepy, and you say, long day.. years ahead.

And I suddenly realise... yes, you're absolutely right. Indeed, only a short span of time has passed since we parted ways, and we still have long years ahead of us to catch up with each other.

古典音乐

2009-04-04T22:15:00.006+08:00

和流行音乐比起来，我更喜欢西方古典音乐，为什么呢？

基本上，流行音乐太简单了－很多现代作曲家只需要作曲一些简单的旋律，加上流行的节奏，这就是算已经写完了一首四五分钟的流行歌。虽然每节的歌词不同，但基本上每节的旋律通常是一抹一样的。结果呢，流行音乐首先一听了几遍就听腻了。第二，很多歌曲是相同的结构的，因此很多歌都听起来很相似。第三，大多数的流行音乐都是关于爱情的，比如说，迷上了一个人，或者跟男女朋友分手。一真天只听关于爱情的幸福和痛苦，不觉得枯燥吗？而且，许多流行歌很容易过时，这就是说，它们显然都不是作曲质量好的音乐。

很多人错误地认为古典音乐是阳春白雪的艺术。古典音乐显得很抽象和难懂，但是我觉得这是因为这些人被吓坏了，所以不敢试一试。说实话，我们在每天的生活中会遇到一些古典式的音乐，例如电影，电视剧，广告，宾馆大厅里的背景音乐通常是古典音乐。

古典音乐的旋律和其他的要素都比流行音乐的复杂得多，所以全部的音乐实在能更好地表达人们的思想和感情。我们的推动力和反应都是很复杂，因此深奥的古典音乐能真实深深地打动我们的心。我很少听一首流行歌感动得哭起来，但有很多次听古典音乐的时候不知不觉地流着眼泪。此外，我一生听过最刺激，恐怖，生动和希奇古怪的音乐都是古典音乐。

在另外一方面下，我自从七岁以来在不同的音乐学院学会音乐理解和理论，而且靠着我弹钢琴和拉大提琴的能力在各种音乐会中表演了很多年。这对我说是一些非常宝贵的经验和记忆。我永远不会忘记这些表演过的歌曲，而且肯定继续支持古典音乐。因为如果没有遇到古典音乐的话，我就没机会欣赏那么优美的音乐，而且不会认识那么多和气和热情的好朋友。

总而言之，我觉得古典音乐是个高雅和强烈激情的艺术。

Servicing Service

2009-03-30T21:21:00.001+08:00

When I first moved into my flat, I got to know that the previous occupant was an American who went back to the US in December. I didn't enquire too much of landlady's dealings with him, as he had left the flat in a clean and tidy shape, even leaving some household cleaning items that I could use.

Within a few days, I started getting calls to my landline, asking for some Fast Global Supplier company. After a while, it became clear that not only were these people not getting the wrong number, or that the telephone lines had crossed, but my number was actually the published contact on the Fast Global Supplier website, for their China Shanghai branch. One of their prospective clients was actually kind enough to email them notifying them of the invalidity of the number, and on top of that, phoning back to tell me he had done so.

So I Googled my own number. And came across their website. Filled in a contact form, and wrote them a beautifully polite request:

Hello, I'm the current resident of the apartment that is listed as your China Shanghai Branch. I'd like to remind you that your previous manager here in Shanghai has already returned to the States in December. Please remove my address and telephone number from your website listings as I have been getting a lot of mail and telephone calls looking for your company. Many thanks.

It's two days before I get a reply, wonderfully concise and pithy:

This number is all over the website. It is hard to remove this number. You must cancel this number or change to a different number with your phone company.

Can't say they left me with much choice but to reply thus:

Your company obviously thinks it is harder to remove a number from a website than for a foreigner to request for a change of telephone numbers in China. Please be aware, then, that whenever any of your prospective clients telephone my number, it is within my complete power and discretion to say what I wish about your company. Imagine what kind of image and reputation you are projecting, if your clients found out that your company was so lax about providing up-do-date information on your website. Also, you will be interested to note that I have been getting on average one phone call a day. That adds up to a considerable amount of clients, current and prospective. Current clients can become ex-clients, and prospective clients may remain forever prospective. Remember, word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool. Have a nice day.

How would you have dealt with the matter?

Made in the big U.S. of A.

2009-03-22T22:19:00.000+08:00

What is everywhere, on everybody's minds, instrumental in affecting the quality of of people all around the world, and Made in America?

Why, our current 经济危机 dung heap, of course.

Now that their once free-flowing coffers are bust and they are effectively living on borrowed time and money, the greedy, grasping eyes of the West turn to China and its $2 trillion of foreign reserves, like Bilbo's beleaguered dwarves slinking towards the Lonely Mountain and the dragon Smaug with his stupendous treasure trove and jewel-encrusted hide. Of course, the supreme irony of the situation is that just like how the denizens of Middle-Earth shunned Lonely Mountain for its desolate landscape and fearsome inhabitant, the West once sneered at China's primitive, unwieldy financial systems. Even now many Westerners and Western-centric Asians still look contemptuously at anything Chinese, disparaging them for being nothing more than just... Chinese. Now it is this backwardness inherent in many fledgling nations that have protected them from cutting edge folly.

All this, because of Greed, and that wonderful cornerstone of Western civilisation called Individual Rights. With a constitution that places individual rights and individual freedom above all else, the USA sold to the rest of the world that paragon of Western capitalism, the American Dream. And because humans are by nature greedy and selfish, that evocative call of the American Dream, complete with hot apple pies sitting in picturesque houses with white picket fences, became too seductive for many people to ignore. With the droves of people settling down in America over the decades, so grew the public conviction that everything belongs to them by right, and if they haven't got something, well, they could just sue somebody for it. With the intense drive to own everything that your neighbour has and more, the American household became the main source of capital for the US economy.

Think Singaporeans are the ultimate kiasu people? Think again.

So all was hale and hearty until 1999, when the American household quietly upturned from being lenders to borrowers, and foreign capital became the only source of money for the USA. But even so, this was all rather hush-hush, and with the distraction of Sept. 11 and Iraq, nobody really paid attention to the fact that the whole of America was starting to survive solely on credit.

But even so, the greed and covetousness kept on escalating into the 21st century, and even though foreign investors were silently buying up low-risk investments and American debt, the influx of capital and borrowed affluence were not enough. Hotshot bankers and financiers who knew too much for their own good but not enough for everybody else's good started playing around with their magic numbers and spreadsheets so that everybody could get their American Dream for a dollar, minus the fine print of course. And because no sane foreign investor was willing to pick up the high-risk investments, they swapped dicey financial products amongst themselves like a game of high-stakes mahjong, where everybody picks up someone else's unwanted stuff until the whole system is interreliant and there's no more accountability.

And we all know what happened after that.

2008 has been the worst year to graduate in so far, and 2009 might turn out even worse. From a solid track record all the way until university, and a formerly bright future wherever I chose to go, I'm now saddled with no substantial work experience and unemployment rates soaring higher and faster than the Burj Dubai everywhere I go. This was supposed to be a year where a management graduate from one the world's top business schools could pick and choose and negotiate any job she wanted, and all I'm left with is mounting debt and new furrows on my forehead and that perpetual sinking feeling in my solar plexus that I'm sure most of you enjoy too. And statistics have shown time and again that people who graduate into a downturn do distinctively worse over their entire lifetime than their peers who graduate when the economy is stable.

Why such bitterness, you ask?

Well, when one really takes a step back and looks at the overall picture, there seems to be pointed lack of anger and blame in the world towards the USA for ruining everybody's lives for at least a few years. Indeed, the USA has indirectly caused people to die who otherwise wouldn't have, had this crisis never come about. Whereas when the rest of the world does something the US doesn't agree with, there's a massive outcry, a public upheaval, and the US will use all its financial leverage and political clout to get its way. The US has always appointed herself upholder of the world's ethics and morals precisely and only when it suits her, insisting that other nations apologise when they appear to slight the US or contravene with her so-called values. But now when the shit has hit the fan, and we all know where the shit came from, the culprit escapes blame once again.

Japan's humiliating defeat at the end of WWII left an indelible stain on the national psyche of the Japanese that has lasted until this day. Their contrition at having caused such a global catastrophe is etched forever within their society's subconsciousness and manifested in their taking extreme responsibility for mistakes large, small, and imagined, and a rigid unwillingness to inconvenience anybody.

Japan has her honour, and because of her greed for territory more than half a century ago, Japan and the Japanese are still apologising to this day.

America has no honour, and not a single American has apologised. Will it take half a century for America, once the golden land of opportunity, to say sorry?

Shanghai Crib

2009-03-18T17:34:00.024+08:00

So, it's been just over a month since I moved into my Shanghainese home sweet home. It's in a sizeable gated community called "锦苑" ( Jin3 Yuan4 roughly translates into "Brocade Park"), which maintains a rather prestigious-sounding epithet of "文明小区" ie "Model Quarter", presumably awarded by the Shanghai municipal council for err.. being a model example of a housing community.

I'm at the 56th block which indicates I have to (yes, you guessed it) walk rather far from the entrance to actually reach the block. The good thing is it is relatively quiet in my corner, and less polluted. Less dusty = less housework to do! Anyway it's 6 flights of stairs for me everyday, resulting in some nice toned thighs and bum. After months of inactivity due to my foot surgery, my posterior looked more like a deflated water balloon than a grope-worthy ass, but with having to climb those stairs at least once a day, I am now the relieved owner of une derriere par excellence. Hehe.

So here are some photos of my flat, taken after some frantic cleaning up and surreptitious chucking of clothes into the cupboards. They'll have to do for now until I bother to actually take some better angle-adjusted ones.

The central dining room area, first thing you see when you step in through the front door. Basically there are 2 doors on either side. On the left, the nearest door is to the kitchen, the farthest one to the bathroom. On the right, the first door to the sitting room, the second to the bedroom.
Better angle of the furnishings and bathroom door.
From left: front door, kitchen, bathroom.
Small drawer and water dispenser on the left.
This one's taken standing in the bathroom. You can see the doors leading to the bedroom on the left and sitting room on the right.
Kitchen from the outside. Having a convention cooker at home, it's been simply years since I last used a gas stove.
And from within. Rather sparsely furnished thanks to my incredibly generous landlady, who couldn't even bother to provide a microwave oven. She said the microwave would be too heavy for her to carry. And obviously she thinks it wouldn't be a problem for me, heh.
Bathroom, with toilet, washing machine, shower and sink. According to TingTing, this is considered quite sizeable for Shanghainese standards.
Sitting room. I'm currently living entirely in here at the moment, with the sofabed opened up. When I first moved in it was still pretty cold and this was the room with the best heating.
From another angle. It can be a bit of a squeeze getting in between the bed and TV, but when you're my size, small is nothing.
Closed balcony, great light for studying by during daytime.
Bedroom, uninhabited at the moment. Note the spare mattress leaning against the wall.
You can't see it, but there's plenty of wardrobe space for clothes. =D

In short, this space is my home away from home until August. With most of my day spent at ACLS, most of my time in here is taken up with doing homework and sleep. Kinda seems a waste of space and rental when the flat could easily accommodate another person. In comparison with some of the cupboards I lived out of during boarding school, this is like a mansion! Heehee.. actually boarding school wasn't that bad. Anyway when the weather is a bit more accommodating I will take the camera out and get some photos of the main entrance, and the downright ugly housing buildings here in Shanghai.

On another note, now that Spring is creeping in, some residents here have taken to walking their little trophy dogs in the mornings. So far on the way to ACLS I've seen: a Pomeranian with a massive fluffy winter coat, a pair of grizzled Schnauzers looking very much like Tramp from Lady and the Tramp, another large brown dog, and cutest little terrier puppy with a pink ponytail! Oh man, how I miss Muffin. Mum, if you dare give her away before I get back to KL, I shall be eternally upset with you! And never cook for you again, ha!

Muffin says, see, I have my own crib too!
Says, because you see, she's much too refined and proper to actually bark that.

Shanghaied into Shanghai

2009-03-16T00:07:00.003+08:00

I woke up this morning to a faint sound, something I must've heard dozens of times before, but rather bizarre and baffling in this setting of thousands of Shanghainese crammed into their sardine tin apartment blocks.

It was a cockerel, crowing lustily into the dazzling sunshine of a crisp Shanghainese morning.

I guess someone's having some rather good chicken soup for dinner this week.

So anyway I get out of bed, and it is the most gorgeous, brilliant spring day since I arrived in the midst of bleak and dreary post-CNY Shanghai. Birds everywhere are crooning the spring buds into waking, the city is rubbing its sleep-heavy eyelids, and that cockerel is loud enough to raise up anyone and anything still in hibernation, including my photography bug. Outside, the sudden proliferation of pink, white, and red blossoms infuse the lanes and paths and spaces with an invisible mist of exultation. The sunlight glistens off every surface as the city shrugs off its winter mantle, and the very air is evocative of magic and the promise of life.

After the initial weeks of settling-in stress, homesickness, loneliness, acclimatising, and cold, it is transcendent moments like this that make all that difficulty and discomfort so worthwhile.

La dolce vita, entirely in Chinese of course.

One Week to Go

2009-03-08T06:57:00.005+08:00

After being cut off from the WWW for the 3 whole weeks I've been here, it's time to resuscitate the bloggy. I dug up from the various drafts languishing on the Blogger Dashboard this post which I'd started just over a month ago. Understandably enough, this post has become even more relevant to me now that I'm actually here, as well as the number of times I've been asked that question that occurs a short way into the post. It would take a whole day of writing if I were to completely lay out my reasons for leaving England, but here are a few that relates to living in England in general. Sometimes the grass really isn't greener on the other side, but sadly enough life requires us to lose some things before we can truly appreciate them.

*****

It's one more week 'till I take off to Shanghai, the lustrous pearl of China, the land from whence my ancestors came from. I've never been there, even though a couple of my cousins were fortunate enough to be around to follow my maternal grandfather back to his hometown, where, a long time ago, his 7-yr-old self was the treasured youngest grandson of the local village bigwig. Where once that pampered little boy was even carried across the mansion's courtyards so his would not be dirtied by the earth, now stands a sprawling derelict ruin that nobody has claimed.

But such far-off origins, however interesting, carry only sentimental, wishful value to us. These places that we might return to visit are too changed, the long-lost relatives too foreign, to stir up any real deep-seated attachment other than those that arise from our own idealistic, romantic longings of our ancient heritage. Such is the fate of an Overseas Chinese. Our roots were cast too far away, partially severed by the journey undertaken by those ancestors who chose to seek new fortunes, and the lineage now far too imbedded in this adopted land to resurrect any dormant recognition of the past toils and triumphs from just a few generations ago.

Far more potent to our cultural identity is, of course, our own more immediate origins, the places and times that shaped us to what we are today. Over the last 6 months, many people have asked me why I chose not to stay on in England, despite (or perhaps, because of) having already committed 7 years to that country. They ask with undeniable interest and sometimes incredulity, as if by not remaining there I am somehow "wasting" all that time, by giving up on some benefit or opportunity that must have been my goal at the start of the 7-year commitment.

In the last post, I wrote about the places that have been my home for a while, of the nostalgia that arises every time I recall the feel and sensation of those spaces. Now my thoughts have moved from wondering about the physical place I am going to, to the people and culture I will encounter, and of course reflecting on my experiences from the past.

In the 7 years I have spent there, the UK, and Western society in general, has markedly changed from a culture that was a paragon of modern civilisation, to an environment that is unfriendly, self-serving, irresponsible, and makes one feel sick in the heart.

It has become a "surveillance state", where CCTVs follow your every move, and you can be held liable for actions you never realised were being recorded. It has become a nation obsessed with tests and rankings, much like the way Singapore is, and adopted much of the same kiasu mentality in that often the most important factors in making decisions, especially those pertaining to education and career, are test scores and league rankings. It has become a state bordering on socialism in certain aspects, and one so terribly afraid of offending, insulting or unintentionally discriminating against anybody and everybody. These two factors are invariably a hugely problematic combination, especially when needy or unscrupulous individuals can easily claim 'offense' if they are not given certain special rights or benefits from the state.

Prevalent among the worst of those living in Britain is the opportunistic, chip-on-my shoulder, denial-prone mentality that drives the individual to act only if there's something in it for them, and claiming indefinite inability to function due to some past, played-up mistake committed by somebody else. It's never their own fault, everybody owes it to them, and it is their prerogative, ie, "right" to be accorded special treatment even though they couldn't possibly deserve it in the first place.

Even worse is the now-rampant celebration of trash culture and anti-intellectualism, which has found its fullest expression in TV shows like Little Britain. This, coupled with the British nonchalance for a surveillance state, first gave rise to the "reality TV" of Big Brother, and now culminates in the very public dying of Big Brother's favourite prodigal daughter, Jade Goody. That a culture could denigrate so far, so low, that a sizeable chunk of its people will devote time to follow, in various forms of media, what should be a very private, dignified last act of a person says enough of the current and future state of this civilisation.

England was a place I called my "home away from home" for 7 full years, and never again will I call it "home" unless something happens, change extreme enough to divert this country away from its inexorable path to intellectual and spiritual destruction.

Akan Datang

2009-02-17T23:42:00.000+08:00

Awaiting connection of internet to my flat. More updates forthcoming. Bleeping cold over here. Having an not-bad time though. Needing some human company, especially in the cleaning department!

Shanghai Crib

2009-01-14T00:59:00.003+08:00

Ooh, so I just got off the phone with Kow Foo, who had spoken to his friend in Shanghai. At any rate I don't get to rent a room in their swanky unoccupied pad in central Shanghai, but that friend (thank you, thank you, whoever you are) with all his leisurely time went to check out ACLS and the surrounding area, and even scooped out some potential places for me!

- The 2000RMB one, which is about 10 minutes' walk from ACLS, in a slightly older quarter, a slightly older building
- The 2500RMB one which is just about completing renovation, a decent 6-7 minutes from ACLS
- The 2200RMB one, relatively new, and RIGHT NEXT TO the academy!
- And apparently another one in the nearby JingAn expat area, also nearly completing renovation.

They're are the open-concept single-person type units, and I guess decent places to live in for 6 months. We're gonna check it out some more, but at any rate I'm kinda grinning at the possibility of waking up just 5 minutes before class, pulling on my clothes and dashing next door! Heh, lazy me. Things are looking a little more exciting now, what with firming up my visa and travel plans.

So initially I was planning to fly on the 8th, maybe take the 9am flight with Auntie Ivy's son Jason who's working there. He'll be back for CNY, and it'll be nice to have someone to travel to SH with, who can at least help me a little in the airport. The original plan was to check into a youth hostel for a few nights and hunt around for suitable accommodation with the estate agents in the area. But then Mum's reminded me that Poh Poh's death anniversary falls on the 17th day after CNY, which for this year is the 12th of February. Might decide to fly late 12th or early 13th instead, depending on what flight with what airlines are available.

(Be warned, from here onwards the post changes tone and direction considerably, which is not all surprising since I wrote this in two parts. Feel free to skim over the graphic, grandmother-story descriptions and jump from introduction to conclusion.)

So for this new year, it'll be a new country, a new city, a new place to call my temporary home. I wonder now, how things will look like in a mere few weeks' time; 6 months from now, I will remember how I felt this moment, and ask myself whether it was as I expected, and what things I would do differently, if I could do it all over again.

6 months ago, when, for the final time (for now), I stepped off the plane from England, into the enveloping familiarity of my blue-brown room, the knowledge that I will not budge from this place for a while was like a sigh of relief and finality. That time, before I made the decision to uproot yet again, I finally did something that was the culmination of a 10-year habit.

Without fail, everytime I said goodbye to a place I had lived in, I would sit upright in the middle of the bed, close my eyes, and slowly visualise the peculiar nooks and crannies of the space I had to call Home for a while. That night 6 months ago, I sat cross-legged on my bed and closed my eyes in that darkened bedroom, and slowly brought to the surface of my mind those visualisations I'd etched deep in my memories. Minutely savouring the countours, objects and sensations of those spaces, it felt as if I was really there again, inhabiting that place, that time, that younger self.

First I visited my 11-year-old self, some 10 years ago. My divan bed had a worn cotton quilt with a patchwork of dolphins leaping up from the sea. The wall immediately to the right had a cantilevered double bookshelf, the upper level stacked with books that I'd somewhat outgrown. Behind was a raised cabinet storing various soft toys that took their turns on the bed, and in front was a sliding-door double wardrobe with a recessed, fluted pattern. The desk ran parallel on the left, filling up half the length of the room, its large window overlooking the fountains, bridge, and covered walkway. The floor was of the typical brown parquet you'd find in these mid-range condominiums. Even with a small oscillating fan on the wall, the afternoon heat usually drove me to the greater shade of the dining room to do the homework, but evenings were spent sprawled on the bed, zooming through my Enid Blyton and early fantasy books, and later on the rhythmic croaking of bullfrogs lulled me to sleep.

Next it was that chilly single bed in my quite-bare room in Gardenville, Singapore. A loan from the real estate agency until we bought our furnishings, that rented bed was the only item of furniture in the largest bedroom I'd had until then. Essentially a generous-sized rectangle with amazingly high ceilings, built-in airconditioning, a big wardrobe along one end, the room had floor-to-ceiling length glass windows with the most fantastic view over the lushly forested gardens of the Shangri-La Hotel. That first night, I switched off the lights and sat awake in bed for a long while, drinking in the softly spilling light from the moon and the trees that seemed to be waving a leafy welcome. It was also the first time I'd attempted to pull on a large duvet cover over my new goose-down duvet - needless to say I got tangled up inside the sheets!

That room, that apartment, was wonderful, and I absolutely loved it. Shortly later, I got a lovely, high loft bed from Ikea, a queen-sized manifestation of every child's dream with a workstation and shelves underneath, and most importantly, a real 6-foot ladder to climb into bed with. As expected, whatever books we had brought over from Malaysia lined the shelves; a framed photo of Mum with an infant me hung on the wall, and I even had a "chicken carpet" underneath my very own swivel chair. Luxury indeed, and Mum's complaints whenever she had to climb up to change the sheets was somewhat tempered by the fact that it was ridiculously easy to clean under the bed, for once.

Alas, my enjoyment of that bed and room didn't last terribly long, and it was onto a vastly different scene when I came to England at 14 years. Imagine how an only child feels, when you've always had a room of your own, and the only time you've had to share was with your nanny/maid during toddler-hood, upon realising you've somehow got to survive in a old English house and share the room with 3 other girls! But Wells saw some fun times, some great memories that I wouldn't replace with anything in the world. As I'd arrived there first, I got to take my pick of the 4 study-cum-bed units and of course chose one by the window and heater. The unit was one of those peculiar things that is hard to picture unless you've seen them before. the bottom layer consists of an incredibly deep desk, the inner half of which is covered lengthwise by a single bed about 2 feet above. To the right is a deep, broad drawer, and underneath a cupboard with 2 shelves. Below the desk is a pair of lockable doors which led to the empty space underneath the inner half of the bed. Designed for boarders to store all their belongings in-between terms, that back storage portion was actually open, but there wasn't much fear of vandalism or theft as the heavy units were pushed up against the wall. To the side there were 3 cubby holes where we would put our shoes, and a separate wardrobe for each of us. Boarders were allowed to stick things over any surface we chose, as long as it wasn't offensive or in the way of the cleaners. In my year, the wall shared between Emma and me were plastered with various posters, magazine cut-outs and print-outs of the Lord of the Rings movie and especially Elijah Wood (Emma's) and Orlando Bloom (mine). Eleanor had a large poster listing the reasons why a man was better than a dog, and Emily had one of those "Chocoholic" posters with a dancing purple berry in the middle. Along the headboard around the bed I'd stuck various cards from family and friends, Claire's sketch of a feisty Shetland pony (supposedly me), a newspaper clipping of an exposed Afghan woman's face in a sea of veiled heads, another clipping of a Picasso sketch, and a shiny red-and-gold ang pao. Funny, the things one can recall across the years.

Year 11 saw me sharing a much smaller room with Eleanor. Again, I chose the bed nearest to the window and heater, coincidentally directly above my bed from the year before. This was one of the prized dorms everybody fought to be allocated to, for it had its own sink (a luxury so you didn't have to stand in the cold bathroom brushing your teeth), and a mirrored alcove with its own built-in bench seat, in which generations of Plumptre girls would hide the damning evidence of outlawed vaguely-alcoholic drinks sneaked into the boarding house in soft drink bottles. Ah, the shenanigans of 16-year-old girls!

In these two years I grew resilient to the winter cold of the English countryside that is so different from the cold of airconditioning - the sensation of slipping from warm silk bathrobes and fluffy ducky slipppers into freezing cold sheets, and later on learning to run the hot air of a hairdryer underneath beforehand. Initially accustomed to the deep, complete silence and darkness of my Singapore room, I learnt to fall asleep to the comforting sound of occasional cars zooming along Liberty Road, their headlights through the thin curtains throwing slanted rays across the cracked plaster ceilings.

Even now, I still miss the gnarled character of that old English house, that inimitable sensory experience of patchy paintwork, the not-quite-straight lines, those chilly drafts sneaking through windows that cannot or will not close properly, and the clear, crisp sunlight streaming through old rippled glass panes. Sherborne's character was never quite in the same vein of quaint oldness.

Lower Six in Sherborne saw me bundled into Wingfield House, packed into a longgggggg, partitioned room with 5 other 6 Formers on the 3rd storey. My "room" was positioned to the far right of the dorm, directly facing the entrance. Furnished with a basic 3-ft bed with drawers underneath, wardrobe, tiiiiny study desk, our cubicles didn't have proper doors, only some mottled green-blue curtains that barely stretched the length of the entrance, and the partitions ended some 4-5 feet short of the ceiling - all this contributing to the lack of aural insulation, and a thin veneer of physical privacy. Luckily enough, my corner lot provided me with a nice bay window that overlooked the tennis courts and main school building.

My neighbours were, in order of proximity, Tamara, Cindy (Ting), Cherrie, and Lizzie, the only British girl in our dorm. Tamara and I, and occasionally Cindy, used to curl up in the toasty laundry room just behind our dorm, especially when winter gave its all. I missed the frequency of that companionship when I was made Vice Head of House, and subsequently Head of House later in the year, and given a room all to myself on the top floor. Nevertheless, that proper room gave me the privacy I've learnt to treasure, a place that was warmer and cosier that anybody else had the fortune to have, and my favourite bit of English houses: slanted ceilings with exposed rafters.

All the Upper 6 moved into Mulliner House for our final year, some 70-odd stressed, playful, loud, moody, vain, hormone-charged females under one roof. Again, my real estate luck held up, and I absolutely loved the single room I was given on the top floor, along the quietest corridor in the whole building, with the least-visited toilet, and overlooking one of the more tranquil spots of the school grounds. Everything about the furnishings they gave us was simply... generous. From the 3 1/2 foot bed, the large wardrobe and ample drawers, the full-length mirror (always very important), to the broad and deep desk and wide window, there was just so much space in Mulliner. It was, very simply, the best place anyone could be in, for having the optimum personal space for studying or just simply sleeping through a rainy winter afternoon, snuggled under an airy, warm duvet, unfinished knitting on the table and some music playing softly in the background.

My remembrance of Derby House, Whitworth Park, during my first year in Manchester is tinted by a strong wash of the colour orange and a stomach-churning waft of cooking oil. Having chosen one of the cheapest accommodation Halls due to its proximity to the business school, I had the misfortune of being placed into the most dilapidated of the housing blocks, the one that was next-in-line for rennovation and refurbishment. Though comely enough from afar, the make-up of Whitworth Park was a throwback to the architecture of the dread '70s, and Derby House was the worst of the lot. My room was perhaps the tiniest I ever had the misfortune to stay in, the rickety furniture and mottled orange curtains long deserving of the nearest garbage heap, the insulation and heating a laughable affair, and worst of all, situated above the window was the opening of the kitchen extraction pipe. I shall not bore you all with detailed descriptions of the stench, not commiserate at length on the narrow and so-thin-you-can-feel-the-springs mattress among other things, but suffice to say, my final visualisation of the place was not the best.

Thankfully, the final two years of my tertiary education saw me considerably upgrading my housing conditions, taking the D room in the H block of Wilmslow Park, originally intended as Manchester's poshest student accommodation. The carpet was noticeably thicker, the carpentry far superior in design and build.. well, everything was just miles better. But more importantly, the super twin bed saw me finally making my transition from the 3-foot bed of Derby House back to the original Asian (ie. larger than Western) Queen size of the bed at home. My room had more storage space than a student could wish for: besides and above the bed frame, cubby holes behind the door, a decent-sized wardrobe, small coffee table, bookshelf on the wall, standalone 3-tiered bookcase, drawers below the desk, a shelf and ledge inside the bathroom. The desk ran the breadth of the room, giving plenty of space to be messy, and the easy access to the electric heater somewhat made up for the relatively smaller size of the restricted window.

It was a great place, with great times. Cook-out sessions in the decent-sized kitchen, packed pot-luck parties, some intense society meetings, crazy drunken poker/chor dai di matches. Intimate one-to-one talks, heated discussions and hilarious imitations, and studying, sleeping, frantic essaying. The drama of 2 years played out to a striking backdrop of another hundred students doing the same things, across an airy, quadrangle courtyard.

And now it's a complete circle, and I'm back in my room, in a space that is finally mine, in a home that is truly our own. In my darkened room, cross-legged on the bed, I skim across remnants of the past, through times tumultuous and calm, and wonder what new adventures will come about soon enough.

Do you ever get nostalgic for the places you've lived in before? Do you, like me, try to preserve something of that familiar, illusive place within your memories, an essence of those spaces you breathed life into that can never be captured in a photograph?

One Month To Go

2009-01-08T22:11:00.018+08:00

And thus begins the final month countdown to take-off day. Just another one of those days, when, after some rest and respite in No.795, I take that 45 minute drive to KLIA, check in, pop my bags on the carousel, and say my goodbyes all over again. After 7 years of living away, each one with at least one or two of those days, it's gonna be an over-familiar feeling, tinged with a hint of alien-ness, and a different flavour of trepidation this time around.

It will be a little strange, this imminent journey. I've flown off so many times in that north-east direction, bisecting the globe diagonally through the Andaman spice route, over India's booming cities of Hyderabad and Ahmadabad, across the tumultuous Middle-Eastern lands of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, onto the blooming cultures of Europe, and then finally landing on that vaguely triangular-shaped island. The place that started it all, a land of bangers and mash, custard and crumble, the rhubarb and Yorkshire puddings that saw me through my formative years on a smug, rotund belly.

It's been rather nostalgic recently, picturing myself again in Manchester, perhaps braving the unusually biting winter cold with an army of jumpers, fleeces and my dad's infamous sheepskin underwear. (No, not literally!) Malaysia's monsoon this year has been on the chilly side, albeit nothing like South/North-East England this year. In that sense, I am looking forward to spending the last part of this winter in a different country, a different place. They say that Shanghai's winter isn't rationally that cold, but the omnipresent chilling wetness that spreads to your bones makes it as formidable a winter city as any.

Despite feeling relatively gung-ho about the impending winter, I'll easily admit that I'm a little scared of this new adventure I'm plunging head-first into. Just a little. Because for me, that small sink-hole of fear and foreboding in the pit of your stomach that materialises with the looming take-off, could be, more often than not, attributed to a guilty lack of preparations for forthcoming exams. This time, essays and exams are (for now) a distant thing of the past, but venturing into the unknown future alone is still somewhat daunting.

Suddenly, it's like I'm going away to boarding school again for the first time, just that I don't have my parents beside me, don't know anyone there, coming to grips with an unfamiliar language, and the school of 600 is now a swirling, pulsing city 10 times the size and density of KL. I'm buoyed up with the same irrepressible confidence that my 14-year-old self had, that by hook or by crook, I will get through it all, and have a jolly good time to boot. Coming along in the luggage are the same niggling doubts from 7-plus years ago: what if I don't fit in, what if I can't cope, what if I've pushed my extraordinary luck too far and something really bad happens this time around...?

During countless occasions when that sickening, sinking feeling of nerves made a timely appearance for my entrance on-stage, I'd stride out on the high of the adrenalin rush and the audience's adulation, and deliver one heck of a performance. It's like swinging your way across mountain tops, suspended 100 feet off the ground with no visible means of support. High time to reclaim my place out there. Stay tuned for one helluva ride.

p.s. How d'ya like the new bloggy template for the new year?

Endings

2009-01-03T00:37:00.009+08:00

With at least half the world ending 2008 on a decidedly low note, replete with dollops of bitching on and on how crap their year was, and the uncomfortably gloomy tidings of the year to come, I decide to - surprise! - blog about things decidedly less Gormenghast-esque for the first post of the new year.

Hello 2009!

So dad and I have been gearing up for our amazing event to start the year - a surprise 30th wedding anniversary for my mum! (Goes without saying that I'll be publishing this blog post a few days' later.) It's been a pretty busy, stressed couple of weeks, us having to plan and tiptoe around her all the while having secret conferences and making phonecalls/decisions when we're out of the house. It really doesn't help that she's a stay-at-home person, and the house is single-storeyed and relatively small... Anyway more about our secret bash later.

I guess with this new year, it's a timely reminder for me to come out of my hibernation-reclusive break. What with my feet nearly healed from the operation (what operation, you say? Just ask.) and the event-organsing nearly done, I don't quite have much excuse any longer to remain in my Hermitage. With my departure for Shanghai looming imminently in a month's time, it's really time to finally get off my butt and out there again. No new year's resolutions, as usual. Perhaps reviving this blog would be good, a sort of chronicle of my Shanghai adventures, but then again, I won't commit to more than 1 or 2 posts a week. Max. Can't be spending much time writing on here, when so much needs to be sorted and done, can I? Just writing from time to time will get them brain juices flowing again, a prelude to all the mental labouring I'll have to do once the Mandarin lessons begin. So here's to an exhilarating year off-the-beaten track, with plenty of opportunities to grab, places to see, and people to love!

Eurotrip sneak-peek

2008-07-06T06:46:00.017+08:00

Hiya, just a quick update before I lose my complimentary WiFi.

Been a hectic month since exams finished end of May. Tension of results, the relief of knowing, the stress of planning the logistics of a colossal EuroTrip, "ng seh duk-ness" of leaving UK after 7 colourful years, the dratted weather! Mum & Dad both arrived in Manchester safely, 2 weeks within each other. 4 nice days around Manc city for the last time, though Dad was a little ill and jet-lagged. Then it was off to Paris for 6 days - crammed into our tinytiny apartment somewhere central; food was great, the city was lovely but perhaps a little overrated? After that, 2 days' break before zooming off again. In Budapest now, our last night out of 4, and the end of the first leg of our erm.. Imperial Habsburg trail. On to Bratislava by train tomorrow after lunch, for 2 days, then Vienna and Prague for 4. To be honest, slightly travelled-out at this point, because our 2 trips were so close to each other, but nevertheless, on we go!

A handful of sneak-preview pics before it's off to bed.

And hungry in Hungary mmhmm...

Dust

2008-05-26T09:55:00.011+08:00

It's most often at the deepest hours of the night, when Chaos triumphs over Law, enabling creativity to turn mundanity upside down, when the darkest thoughts swirl around me, threatening to sweep me away like an uprooted sapling, that I turn to writing in an effort to calm the frenzied waves.

Apart from the obvious creative gratification, there is a certain pleasing utility in churning out word after planned word, the sensation that by focusing on typing letters on a keyboard, a disordered mind is straightened into neat rows of sentences and thoughts. It's almost like that scene in Mushishi, when miles and miles of written text escape from the supernatural bondage of their scrolls, a seething inky mass across all surfaces in the room, and Tanyu grabs her special chopsticks and expertly proceeds to stick the lines of words back onto the page in the order that they belong.

See? Feeling a great deal calmer already.

So, why the ruminating around at 3-something this morning? In one sentence, the end of childhood, the beginning of adulthood and assuming the responsibilities attached to it, and trying to tackle head-on the tough decisions to come.

I worry about how I've done in these last few exams of my university days. I worry about how this one wasted year is sending difficult ripples through my future years. I worry that the decision not to redo 3rd Year was the wrong one after all. Most of all, I worry that I'll never have the strength to get better and stand on my own feet again.

I think I can pinpoint the beginning of this rapid downward spiral - when all these years I've managed to cope - to that moment last July when our exam results were released on the intranet. As expected, I did pretty all right with middling grades that were hovering around the 60 mark, give or take a couple. Except for one shocker of a grade. 39.66 for the 'Marketing: Foundations and Applications' exam. Luckily that 20-credit module was saved by the essay which made up the remaining 50%, for which I'd gotten 76%.

Thing is, it's not as if I'd never failed a paper in my life before. Just the previous August I had to resit for 3 Year 1 papers, but those were in Quantitative Methods and Finance, and it's no secret that numbers ain't my selling point. But this time around, I failed in Marketing. Of all subjects, one that I enjoyed and was so sure I was good in. It's one thing to do poorly in something you have no talent in or don't even like doing, and a completely different issue to fail something you thought was a breeze. It wreaks havoc on your confidence. And for someone who always got away with just intelligence and marginal hard work to get good grades, the crumbling on this last bastion shook my faith in myself to the core. So badly that it's taken me 9 months to admit this on my blog.

In the end, I've failed to build a solid foundation of tertiary education for my future career to stand on. With so much competition in getting a job, one way of salvaging my marketability is to get a further qualification. But is further study what I really need? Then there's the IGS which has been extended to 2 years, and at the same time a change in British immigration policy. It's the big boys that can afford to pay £1,000 to get onto the register to legally issue certificates for foreign employees to obtain work visas, but they are the ones with the highest degree class requirements. Smaller firms are more likely to take me in, but can't afford it. On the one hand, there is a desire to try and live out the next year in the UK solely on my own endeavours, prove to myself that I can handle things on my own, make something of myself without relying on others. It's partly the urge to properly 'fly the nest' all the way through, the pride in saying I was fully independent from my parents even for a short while, and partly the need to reestablish my own esteem by doing so. But already we've seen 55,000 jobs lost in the UK financial sector (of which insurance is part of) due to the credit crunch, and at the same time I've completely lost the confidence to go into marketing. Then there's that conflicting pull of home - that I still call Malaysia "home" means that there's still something there that I can't find anywhere else. It's pretty probably that home is the only place where I can get better quickly and fully, plus the added benefit of being able to *ahem* "pull strings" to get a decent first job, but will that then deny me the career advantage of first gaining work experience in the UK? Decisions were easier to make when you were still a kid.

So many choices, only one lifetime to live it all. It's finally time to go out into society as an individual, not an extension of my peer group, nor a continuation of my parents' hopes, but just as me.

I guess it is futile to resist change - each of us lives in an continuous state of limbo throughout our lives. We only reach the state of completion when there is nothing more to see, to do and to learn, when the journey ends and we die. The ancient Greeks had this saying, "Never call a man happy until he is dead." Somewhat cynical, but so very true. Seeing that life is unpredictable from one moment to the next, we earn the right to call ourselves something only when the possibility of change ceases to exist, that is, when we are no longer living.

And though the darkest period of night allows luxurious time for silent contemplation, it is in the brightening of day that one gains renewed strength to take charge of the exhilarating changes from dawn to dusk.

Dawn's dreams are done.
From misty slumber half-born sprites
spring towards the fingering light
tumbling, cavorting
golden ether forming,
caressing contours
and raising clamours,
melting into the blaze of day.

2008-05-14T00:20:00.006+08:00

Write to me a letter each day
Be sure you don't neglect
To pour libations, bless and pray
Or else you shall regret.

Traversing waters, skies, furlongs
My sailor 'cross the sea.
Lonely Odysseus dreams and longs
For land; Penelope.

Enduring long days, months, swift years,
With spindle, broom and comb.
I'll wait with patience just to hear
Your voice saying, "I'm home."

Write to me a letter each day

So I do not forget
To watch and wait come First of May
For your homecoming silhouette.

Of May and Media

2008-05-13T10:23:00.010+08:00

Been trying unsuccessfully to sleep for the past few hours. Blame it on the caffeine from the bubble tea? Nah, that was consumed ages earlier. Habitually trawled through the latest news feeds. Oh boy, when it rains, it really pours, and May certainly feels like monsoon month. Let's see, this month we've had:

Infamous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin the first blogger to be charged under Malaysia's 1948 Sedition Act
Cyclone Nargis wreaking havoc and devastation across Myanmar
A Tibetan woman hoisting the Olympic Torch at the top of Mt. Everest
A horrendous 7.2 earthquake hitting the Sichuan region in China, with the quake and aftershocks felt across the whole country and even in Thailand
Barack Obama just about to clinch the Democratic nomination for presidential candidate
Mother's Day in Malaysia
And last but not least,

EXAMS
(kill me please.)

~~~~~~~

The New York Times is currently running a series "examining the lives of youth across the Muslim world at a time of religious revival", and it was to my utter dismay when I saw that articles #3 and 4 were about the lack of individual freedom in dating and marriage in Saudi Arabia. Click on the numbers for the links, but I wouldn't advocate either article if you're looking for sophisticated or intellectual reading. Considering how this series was meant to showcase a current snapshot of Muslim youths in general, I was quite stunned by such a biased and blinkered representation of the Islamic world in the two articles, and even more so considering the prestigious reputation of the NY Times.

Yes, I can understand the need for journalists to produce attention-grabbing headlines, and their fondness for intense coverage on issues that are guaranteed to stir up their readers, but has journalism fallen to such a low that even the higher ranks of journalists (ie non-paparazzi) resort to such sensationalist, one-sided reporting in order to increase their readership? I'd freely admit that even I have succumbed to the cheap allure of the shock headliner (t0 illustrate, see my previous blog post, 'Of Airports and Boobs', which actually elicited a response from Mr. Malat-Lou-in-Miri), but the main point is that I write for my own enjoyment and limited circle of friends, whereas a newspaper has the responsibility towards its shareholders and readership to produce neutral, balanced, discerning journalism. (Politics-studying/loving friends will argue with me that no newspaper is ever neutral, but I digress.)

What's even worse is that the 3rd article, "Young Saudis, Vexed and Entranced by Love's Rules", obviously succeeded in eliciting an outpouring on views on the issue - 257 comments by readers from all over the world. Quite troublingly, a sizeable chunk of them express different combinations of revulsion, anger, and outrage, some directed against the Saudi Arabia as a whole, and others sweepingly at Saudi-Islamic male-female segregation practices even though the ultra-conservative practices in the article are in fact limited to a small number of ultra-conservative Saudi families. One sentence that struck me as being particularly sloppy reporting was: "Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, largely uncontested at home by the next generation and spread abroad by Saudi money in a time of religious revival, will increasingly shape how Muslims around the world will live their faith." Firstly, just like how traditional Christian/religious practices vary across countries, the situation in Saudi Arabia is hardly a blanket representation of that of other Muslim countries. Furthermore, what an idiotic assumption that Saudi Arabia's considerable but hardly unrivaled oil wealth grants it leader status among Muslim nations!

Gaah, I'm peeved. Accuse me of making sweeping statements, but what's with the plummeting standards of Western journalism nowadays!

There and Back, Again

2008-05-01T03:37:00.006+08:00

Joyful tidings! It's official. Those of you who've been tracking LOTR news would already know The Hobbit is definitely on its way from book to screen, and although it's a shame that Peter Jackson won't be returning to helm the project (due to his infamous falling out with New Line Cinema), he will still be executive producer. So, who else to fill the long-contested throne of director for the most successful fantasy film franchise ever, but the man who's possibly the latest visionary for creative fantasy films?

GUILLERMO DEL TORO

*Chilipadicello whoops for joy.* (Read the news here.) With Peter Jackson out of the picture, Del Toro is arguably the most fitting person to direct Tolkien's, with his experience in delivering brooding, epic historical/fantasy/comic adaptation films. I've only managed to catch one of his films, the fabulous Spanish Pan's Labyrinth, and I've been a fan of his ever since. Looking forward to see how Del Toro will merge his darker, mordant directing style with the initial lightheartedness of this children's book, as well as Jackson's expansive masterpiece. He thinks The Hobbit is a "world that is slightly more golden at the beginning, a very innocent environment taking you from a time of more purity to a darker reality throughout the film, but in the spirit of the book". And the icing on the cake, Ian McKellan is now officially reprising his iconic role as Gandalf. Yipee! Can't wait to see the extended line-up of cast and crew for the movie. It would be interesting to follow the casting process for Bilbo, cos obviously ancient Ian Holm wouldn't be able to reprise his role from the LOTR trilogy. It would be a joy to see Andy Serkis back as Gollum (my preciousssss...) and Hugo Weaving as Elrond - Del Toro wants actors from the trilogy to reprise their roles, plus key members such as Howard Shore (composer), Richard Taylor (WETA boss), Alan Lee and John Howe (conceptual artists). My money's on Del Toro regular Doug Jones as Beorn the bear-man.

2 films have been scheduled for back-to-back filming in - you guessed it - New Zealand, to be released in 2011 and 2012. The 1st will be a more straightforward interpretation of the book, with the 2nd an original plot covering the 60 years between events in The Hobbit and the beginning of LOTR.

Ahh the delicious anticipation! The wait's gonna kill me!

Chinese, China and the Olympic Games

2008-04-29T03:25:00.037+08:00

I'm sure all of you who do drop by from time to time are quite aware of all the hullabaloo of anti-Chinese sentiment leading up to this summer's Olympic Games because of China's poor record of human rights.

TIME and BusinessWeek have a couple of the better articles on Chinese anti-foreign media stance, highlighting the opinion that the Chinese are retaliating against what they see as very biased anti-China coverage by Western media. Do skim through the readers' comments if you have time - very interesting conflicting viewpoints.)

I have to admit I was actually more indignant about the Western media's blanket criticism over fallacies in Chinese manufacturing, blackening the tag "Made in China" even further, to the extent that I actually wrote a short defense about it in one of my January exams. To me, currently the whole storm is very much a China-issue, with the criticisms directed at China the country no reflection on my identity as a Chinese, and I can't help feeling slightly ambivalent about it all.

But the question one must pose is, if not for the March 14 Tibetan riots, would all these so-called righteous activists have done anything to voice "popular" dissent over China's poor human rights record? Communist China has had stringent controls over its people's fundamental human rights for many decades, but never have we seen such widespread, intense criticism before. The whole issue this time started with the recognition of Tibet's independence and separate cultural identity, and has gone on to criticise China's policies as a whole.

Accuse me of being apathetic, but I won't claim to know enough of the big picture to put down an opinion on the Tibet contention. What strikes me as pure irony is that dissenters have chosen to highlight their pet peeve by disrupting the Olympic torch relay around the world. Don't get me wrong - it is good that people are actually doing something about an issue they believe strongly in, but for any instance did they think that this destructive campaigning will affect the Games in any way, or make China change its policies? Cases like the Chinese paraplegic who was attacked while relaying the torch makes one wonder who the real "bad guy" is. Presumably these "activists" will also be boycotting the Games in Beijing come August, not that they have enough $$ to go anyway.

Secondly, society's collective memory seems to have conveniently forgotten that the whole Olympic torch relay was the brainchild of Carl Diem, a Nazi commander, for the purpose of promoting Nazi ideology and propaganda. With the support of the infamous Joseph Goebbels, Diem twisted the ancient tradition of a fire burning throughout the Olympics in commemoration of Prometheus (a human) stealing fire from Zeus. It shouldn't be necessary for me to point out that Nazi Germany is one of the most well-known instances of the lack of human rights in Western history. Shouldn't these well-meaning activists be channeling their energy into getting rid of a practice with such a foul conception, or at least actively doing something about China's other issues such as child labour?

I'll take the Chinese's side in being irritated by those countries and politicians who have felt pressurized by the media to boycott the opening or closing ceremonies, or even the Games in its entirety. For goodness' sake, get a backbone. Nevertheless, however much we would like to the the high moral ground that "the Games are a celebration of sportsmanship and the human spirit, leave politics out of it!" (hello, Mr. Bush?), the truth remains that the Olympics have always been a source of political intrigue since its conception, a fact so succinctly pointed out in an excellent commentary by a classics professor from Cambridge writing for the Times.

Contrary to what I wrote earlier, I did get a little riled-up there hehe. Come what may, this August I'm gonna be glued to the TV watching the Games on Astro (television provider la, not Minishort's rabbit haha). Okay, lame joke.

Anyway, here are some images emailed in today by my cousin brother (one of the many =P) of botanic Olympic advertisement scattered in various cities in China. Kinda reminds me of the big keris-with-hibiscus structures promoting our Commonwealth Games way back in 1998. Hope the Chinese will be able to maintain these beautiful creations even after the Games are over, unlike the miserable state of our monuments.

Impressive water features:

Particularly like the one on the left

Amazing animals - I think the horse is really realistic

Elegant celebration of the (idealised) ancient Chinese lifestyle,

Allusion to a couple of Chinese inventions.

Fitting homage to the Games' Greek origins,
with the Temple of Zeus in Olympia on the left,
and what seems to be a very Palladian structure on the right,
a likely symbol of Western Civilisation's rebirth in Renaissance Italy.

And of course, what would a celebration of mankind be, without a salute to the 2 other cornerstones of civilisation?

Finally, a salute to the tremendous effort and
sacrifice of sportsmen around the world,

while ordinary rakyat like you and I go about our daily lives
interrupted once in 4 years by the greatest sporting event of all time.

Of Airports and Boobs

2008-03-27T08:35:00.009+08:00

Just seen a new slide-show on BusinessWeek, the results from the latest annual survey by the Airports Council International on the best airport service quality around the world. (Check it out here.) KLIA is ranked 2nd! How awesome is that! I've always thought that KLIA was a great airport, with its high airy ceilings and palm-tree columns, plentiful use of glass, clear signage, clean and abundant toilets, etc. So proud that we Malaysians can actually get some things right, and especially since the airport is really the first contact point for so many people visiting Malaysia for the first time. Often, good or bad first impressions of a place is pretty dependent on what kind of welcome greets you.

*********************************

And this is another random bit from earlier this evening when *ahem* mammary glands crept into the dinner conversation, and the girls on the table commented that we were pretty happy with what we had been blessed (or cursed?) with. This reminded me of something on a random blog I stumbled upon some time ago:

According to some research (via the BBC) released to time neatly with all those women exercising to remove the Christmas poundage, apparently 9.5 million British women don't wear the right bra when they run and are damaging themselves irreperably. Some scary facts and figures...

Boobs move in a figure of 8 shape when you jog. This strains your ligaments and tissues.
If you run a mile, your bosoms will bounce 135 metres.
Each funbag moves independently of the body by an average of 9cm for each step.
An average boob weighs 200 - 300g.
Wearing an average bra stops bounce by 37%.
Wearing a sports bra stops bounce by 78%.

Scattered Thoughts: Wow! 200-300 grams! What size cup is that? Hmm.. I really should get hold of a sports bra then, if it really is that helpful... Why figure of 8 and not just "up-down-up-down"? How is it possible for a boob to move 9cm for each step??? Is that when one is or isn't wearing a bra?

For all ye female readers, hope that was an amusing read and a strong enough warning that we should heed our mothers' advice to always give 'em girls enough support. It's never too late to get properly fitted! And to all our dear blokes out there, please appreciate *them* better and with more care! =D

Of Competition and Triumph

2008-03-17T09:18:00.045+08:00

Been reflecting a little on the various events that have transpired over the past 3 weeks, and realising that they've been linked by a common theme. (Apologies for the lateness in actually publishing this post - I've been waiting for the photos from Phing's camera which I borrowed for the first event.)

What a month! Be warned, it is a very long post, so skip the bits where I start rambling away.

*****************************

~ COVENTRY ~

Date: 29 Feb - 2 March
Place: Coventry (Warwick University)
Status: a very long overdue reunion with some of my good friends from school
People: Cindy Ting, Meryl Lam, Fred Emmott, Nick Sutcliffe, Ruari Edwards
Event: University of Warwick Symphony Orchestra concert.
Soloist: Cindy Ting

For those who don't know, Cindy, Meryl and I were part of the Sherborne Schools' Joint Symphony Orchestra way back when we were in 6th form. The SO was a joint effort between the all-boys Sherborne School and our Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. (Similarly, Fred, Nick, Ruari and I were part of the Wells Cathedral Symphony Orchestra when I was in Years 10-11.) And as with most school and university orchestras who have sufficient resources, every year there are concerto auditions for musicians to grab the chance to perform as a soloist with the orchestra in one of the concerts usually held throughout the year.

Cindy and I went for the concerto auditions in September 2004 under the guidance of our piano teacher, Martin Walker. I played the 2nd movement and part of the 3rd from Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto, and Cindy performed Schumann's Introduction and Allegro Appassionato, a quasi-concerto stand-alone work. While yours truly received some favourable comments but ultimately did not win a concerto spot, Cindy shone through with her authoritative and elegaic take on Schumman's rather neglected work, and we performed her concert in March 2005 in none other that the famous St. John's, Smith Square, in London.

Words couldn't not rightly describe the intensity of the emotions and bonding between us during that year so full of joyous music-making. Suffice to say, learning a concerto is no mean task, and we stuck together through the whole journey. Unless you've experienced it yourself, I couldn't possibly convey to you the incredible fullness of connecting through the creation of music. It's not the same when you are the audience, merely absorbing the sounds coming from the orchestra or speakers in front of you. Immersing yourself in the whole creation process is a completely different experience, and the connection you make with the musicians around you, however brief, transcends the moment and stays with you for a lifetime.

Needless to say, when Cindy told me that once more, she will be performing the Schumann, this time with the UWSO, I couldn't have missed it for the world. After a ridiculously cold journey complete with train detour from Manchester, I arrived in Coventry and was picked up by Meryl and her boyfriend. Carefully bought the flower bouquets for later, and went to IKEA for a warming cup of (free!) hot chocolate. Met up with Cindy before the rehearsal started, and the first thing she says to me is, "You've grown!" - jokingly of course. Helped her sound-check in the venue hall, which, with its slightly out-of-tune piano, awkward stage arrangements and short length, was rather dissatisfactory. (A concert venue that's not long enough results in the sound from the stage bouncing front-to-back-to-front very quickly, giving off jarring echoes and poor clarity.)

But poor performance conditions aside, the whole evening was a nostalgic trip down memory lane for both of us, and I'd freely admit that we both got rather emotional at some point. Nobody broke down and cried, but there were definitely 2 pairs of misty eyes that evening. In all, just those 16 minutes when Cindy played her Schumann made the whole trip worthwhile, if not for the actual performance itself, then at least for the sense of closure and accomplishment I felt.

Post concert: a rather dishevelled me with the lovely soloist.

Holding up the back page of Cindy's Schumann score.
My comments and signature as the "Page Tuner" are in black in the middle of the page.
Yes, the one from 3 years ago! =D

The rest of the weekend consisted of some nice chill-out in a peaceful, green uni campus, a lively flat dinner, and a tour around the University of Warwick and Coventry town.

Cindy in front of her uni flat.

The superbly sinful hot chocolate at the Warwick Arts Centre cafe.

Equally superb but a thousand times more sinful "Thing".
Method: 2 slices thick white bread, peanut butter in between, deep fried in oil, slathered with butter and honey. Munch away.
Argh.

Cindy's Stitch fetish.

And lastly, the rather wonderful ruins of Coventry Cathedral:

*****************************

~ MALAYSIA ~

Date: 8 March
Place: all over Malaysia
Event: 12th General Election
People: Malaysians
Status: the people have spoken

Probably the most exciting and tense election in Malaysia's recent history. The very year in which I turn legal to vote, but unfortunately the registration was held before my 21st birthday. Darn! Anyway, it was still a pretty exhilarating time once the election date was announced, reading analyses from pro-government papers like The Star, prolific opposition blogs such as Screenshots and Malaysia Today, to articles in the international news-sphere of our election's hanky-panky phantom voters and politicians' gerrymandering. Late Saturday night, when the "experts'" analysis and commentaries started flooding in, I stumbled across a Reuters articles with a slide-show of the election proceedings. After numerous images of notorious politicians and voters from all walks of life, the last photo was a quiet one devoid of any signs of human activity.

(Copyright Reuters International)

After all the excitement, tension and relief of the previous hours, going through the intense emotions and swirling thoughts shared by most of my fellow Malaysians wherever they might be, the sight of a new sun dawning upon the heart of our country was a veritable tear-jerker. Aye, I choked up.

And who wouldn't? Whether pro-government or pro-opposition, passionate or apathetic, no one person involved with the progress of Malaysia and the fate of Malaysians could possibly remain unmoved by the thought of 27,496,000 Malaysians waking up to a whole new political landscape on the morning of 9th March 2008. The feeling must be somewhat akin to our forebears' emotions when Malaya declared her independence 50 years ago in 1957.

Only time will give judgment on the choices we Malaysians made that day. Stay tuned.

*****************************

~ MANCHESTER ~

Date: 15 March
Place: Council Chamber, UMSU
Event: inaugural UKEC Intra-Regional (North-West) Debate 2008
People: Rohit and Krishnan; miscellaneous
Status: pretty flabbergasted

Seeing the low levels of interest for this inaugural event, Vince made quite a few phone calls in an attempt to persuade more people to participate, and managed to rope in my interest more than a week before the debate. However, I didn't manage to find anyone else who was keen/available to participate, partly due to the last notice and the high turn-off point of having to wake up super early on the first Saturday of Easter Break.

On Friday morning I received a last-minute offer from Rohit and Krishnan to join their hastily-formed team. Vince decided to open up the competition to non-Malaysians as well, and they were roped in to fill the 4th team for Saturday. (Note: participation was so bad, that instead of the targeted 8 teams, UKEC would've only gotten 3 teams if not for us.) Went over to Whitworth Park early evening and we trashed out our basic argument, and decided on the order of speakers. 1st speaker: Krishna; 2nd speaker: Rohit; 3rd speaker: Yours Truly.

- 1st preliminary round: This house believes that commercialization has eroded sportsmanship. Opposition.

Having had an evening to prepare for the first round, we were reasonably confident and ready to tackle the debate head-on. Nearly had an emergency when Mr. "Let's-Meet-At-8am" Madathil stayed up until 3am watching some Indian movie called 'One-Dollar Curry' and couldn't wake up in time. Rohit had to go bang on his door at 9am and almost physically dress the fella up and drag him to the SU.

Being the first time I'd participated in a formal debate, I was understandably nervous when it was finally my turn to speak, and didn't do as well as intended. Nevertheless, we won! 178 to 158 points. Unbelievably, the score was out of 180. What a shock. What on earth did we say right??

- 2nd preliminary round: This house believes that everyone should be able to access your Facebook profile. Opposition.

In all fairness, the topic was obviously biased towards the Opposition. Government had hardly any space for argument at all, and honestly they did jolly well considering how difficult it was for them. Their main argument was that these so-called privacy settings only serve to give users a false sense of security, and opening up everybody's profile functions as a protective psychological warning for users.

Our argument was divided into 3 neat parts: the inherent human right of privacy; information security against predators, fraud and exploitation; the right to choose. Needless to say, we won by a considerable margin too.

The other 2 teams had the pretty fun topic of "This house believes that Wikipedia should be given equal importance as Encyclopedia Britannica", which seemed a more balanced debate than ours. The 2 teams with the highest cumulative marks from both rounds were to proceed to the finals. Rather pleasingly, but not surprisingly, our team emerged with the top score out of the 4. For the finals we were going up against the winners of the Wikipedia/Britannica round, Joshua's team whom we faced in Round 1.

- Finals round: This house believes that tradition hinders progress. Opposition.

At first glance, the topic seemed highly daunting as one's immediate impression would be that tradition does indeed hinder progress. Then we pushed way our self-doubt, the 3 big brains got cracking, and the battle plan was formulated.

Govt 1st Speaker, Arthur, started his "social" argument with how traditions such as female circumcision has impeded women's suffrage/progress, and the blossoming of LGBT rights in our modern society unshackled by tradition. I POI-ed both points with examples of circumcised women such as Iman and Waris Dirie who have become international icons and successful female entrepreneurs, and the prevalent tradition of homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, the 2 founding empires of Western civilisation.

Opp 1st Speaker, Krishna, spoke of the founding of the UAE, and the incredible progress the nation has achieved despite (because of?) the highly traditional mind-set of the first president, Sheikh Zayed. G1 POI-ed by claiming that the UAE is very much the exception to the norm, and other tradition-bound countries in the Middle-East such as Yemen and Oman are still very backward.

G2, Lilian, tackled the arts aspect of progress, drawing on 2 examples: if society followed tradition, we would still be painting Madonnas like the Renaissance, instead of works such as Warhol's iconic multi-coloured Marilyn Monroe; and it is because society has broken free of tradition that literature such as Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code can be written, where before the Church would have persecuted their authors much like Nostradamus was for claiming the Earth is round.

O2, Rohit's argument was that India, commonly claimed to be the world's most religious country (by The Economist, etc), is also one of the fastest-progressing countries. Govt POI-ed by arguing that we were confusing religion with tradition, and that India is still held by by outdated practices such as caste barriers. Rohit defended by saying that India's religious practices are their traditions, and the analogy is a metaphorical representative of tradition. He went on to tie-in Krishna's UAE example by illustrating briefly the concept of Islamic finance - brilliant supportive example, don'tcha think? He finished off by contending that tradition evolves with time, and goes hand-in-hand with progress.

G3, Joshua, took the typical textbook route by expounding on how all our team's arguments so far were mere exceptions to the norm.

And finally, it was my turn to take the floor. I began by explaining how my speech's structure will be much like Joshua's, firstly by rebutting some of the Government's points, then adding my own examples, and closing off with a summary of my whole team's argument. I got a perverse satisfaction in knowing that, being the final speaker of the whole lot, I get the supreme upper-hand in having literally the last say, thus refuting all of Government's points and firmly driving home my team's argument.

G2's point about art is irrelevant and invalid. The reason why Madonnas were prevalent in the Renaissance was that Christianity was a huge aspect in their everyday lives, and the Madonna served as a constant point of reference and reverence. (1) Nothing to do with tradition. Secondly, where the Renaissance Italians worshiped the Madonna by creating images of her, arguably our modern society is a continuation of that by worshiping images of our modern idols/celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe. (2) G2's Warhol example illustrates how tradition has continued into our time, and encouraged "progress". p.s. With both examples, G2 seemed to be mixing up religion with tradition, so how dare they accuse us of getting confused?
G2's literature argument is irrelevant and invalid. (Poor Lilian! Going up against a History of Art/ClassCiv student. Sorry girl, my A Levels learning was at stake =P) The Chuch dislikes Harry Potter and DVC not out of tradition, but because content within these 2 works directly contravenes some of the very foundations of Christianity. Again, a theology-based argument, nothing to do with traditional religious practices.
Our examples are not exceptions to the norm. (1) Japan, arguably the world's most progressive country, has grown with an economic structure based around the 19th century concept of zaibatsu, ie family conglomerates. (2) Going along with China's stance that Tibet is part of China - Tibet is famously known for being an ultra-traditional society, but the standard of quality of living there is considerably higher than many urban areas in the rest of China.
Time does not stand still, and neither does tradition. Tradition and progress and not mutually exclusive. In fact, tradition is a new expression of progress, and to throw off tradition is to be stagnant.

Heckling for the first time, I banged my hand subtly on the table top, and uttered the opponent's death-blow: "To say that tradition hinders progress is to put a full-stop to our time, and to our future." You just had to be there. =P

When Vince went on-stage for his final announcement, he certainly dramatized the situation to the fullest extent! Grinning at the audience with the results in his hand, his first comment was "Ohhh it's very close!", then went on to invite the panel to distribute the certificates of participation, the award for Best Speaker for the preliminary rounds (congrats, Nicholas!), and the award for Best Speaker for final round (way to go, Rohit!). By the time he declared, "And now I would like to invite the runners-up to come to the front," my nails were gone and my hair had almost turned white from the gan jeong-ness. And then he said, "The runners-up for the *insert full title* debate...

"-Government."

I stood there for several moments before the realisation actually hit. And when it did, the flood of jubilation was incredible. Grabbing my teammates for a celebratory group hug, the adrenalin and pent-up tension drained away like an unplugged bathtub, and my whole body went weak from the relief and happiness.

Champion team.
from left: myself, Krishna, Rohit

(No amount of superb Photoshop is gonna save the photo. Sheesh.)

Yours truly receiving her trophy and certificate from one of the judges.

WOOHOO! My heartfelt thanks, you two.

*****************************

~ MANCHESTER, LATVIA? ~

Date: February - March 2008
Event: Peak Time Business Challenge 2008
People: Allen, Aditi, JJ, myself
Status: did not proceed beyond semi-finals

Aditi, Allen and myself randomly decided to participate in one of the current biggest business challenges available, and managed to rope JJ in as our 4th team member. Finals to be held in Riga, Latvia, with cash prizes of up to 5,000 euros!

First stage involved 5 rounds of an online hotel business simulation, directly competing against 7 other teams. All the teams started out equal in terms of financial and operational resources, with decision-making required in each round according to market outlook. Competing for highest market share and revenue, we were required to make decisions on factors such as staff wage, employees' numbers and capabilities, marketing budget, room rates for current, +1 and +2 periods (each period = 6 months), renovation and maintenance budget, dividends paid, loans and payback etc.

At the end of the 5 rounds, the top 3 teams from each group of 8 were selected to proceed to Stage 2, and we got through! And with the highest market share by a considerable way, no less! Out of the 4 teams from Manc Uni, we were 1 out of the 2 that succeeded. For Stage 2, each team was required to submit their recommendations and reasonings for a case study on automobile leasing, auctioning and sales, a brief group description, 1-page CV from each member, and a "creative" group photo.

My favourite photo among the whole lot. Lookin' good!

Even though, in the end, we were not among the top 20 teams shortlisted for the final round in Riga, the whole exercise was pretty interesting, informative, challenging and above all, good fun!

*****************************

It's been a great month for learning and challenges. So for whatever life serves up next, bring it on!

Of Chinese New Year and artsy ramblings

2008-02-04T21:28:00.003+08:00

Shocking... I've only posted TWICE since CNY last year... That's once every 6 months. I guess the tiny handful of you guys that do actually visit have given up already =) Apologies, I've indulged too much in my private, offline journal to find enough time to write in here. The second "barrier" to writing in this blog is that I've changed email address, and stupid Blogger doesn't allow blog users to change the email associated with their account. It's too much of a hassle to log in on my old email add here, esp when this logs me out of my iGoogle account.

Anyways, how are you finding the new layout? It's a special temporary one just for CNY - I'll be switching it again after Feb is over. I rather like it, actually, even though the column is annoyingly narrow and the designer forgot to write the code to enable comments. It's quite "Chinesey" and festive without being too in-your-face bright. Quite impressed that I managed to play around with HTML after nearly 2 years without doing any (the last time I changed my blogskin), and I even manage to insert some code and fix the comments problem!

Ok, this post is going nowhere. Since my last "update for 2007" post I've gone through the inevitable hell of assignments and exams. Sem 2 has started, and it's pretty unbelievable that these are my last few months as an undergraduate. I refuse to continue being a student after July, but as things stand, I have yet to formulate a "life plan". CM's been berating Phing and I over this ehehe...

On a different note, it seems that my prose has somewhat deteriorated. It's lost a certain... eloquence. I haven't neglected my reading, but guess I haven't been articulating myself often enough recently. The advantage to regularly maintaining a public blog is that I'm always very conscious of how my language is presented to the whole wide world (not that many people do read me), which means my writing skills are constantly maintained by the process of writing for the public. When I'm writing in my private journal, I simply reel off whatever thoughts run through my mind without too much concern over the elegance of my syntax.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, just finished watching a great episode of the anime Gallery Fake. The basic premise of the series are stand-alone incidents around Reiji Fujita, the owner of an art gallery called 'Gallery Fake' and his assistant, Sarah. As you can guess, most of the art that passes through Fujita's hands tend to be excellent copies indistinguishable from the originals to the untrained eye, but the business itself is a facade for his 'black market' dealings of rare original pieces. Fujita himself was once a curator at the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY- omg I want that job!), and has regular conflicts with Sayoko Mitamura, the head curator of another Japanese museum. Mmm.. any drama based on art is a surefire favourite of mine, but unfortunately subbed episodes don't appear often as most subbers are intimidated by the art-heavy references of the series.

To summarise, Episode 13 is set during Fujita's student years where he assists tattooist prison inmate Shimoda in creating a Michelangelo-inspired Buddhist fresco for a prison's dome ceiling. Many years later, Mitamura attempts to prevent the destruction of the now-abandoned prison and tries to purchase the frescoed ceiling for her own museum, but Fujita had already bought the rights to the building, and proceeds to blow it up in accordance with Shimoda's last wishes. At the end, Fujita obviously had some regrets that such a work of art is destroyed, but the conflict is outweighed by his loyalty to the artist's wishes.

This brings us to the conundrum of art's true ownership.

Virgil wanted his (unfinished) epic Roman poem The Aeneid to be burnt after his death, and similarly, Michelangelo himself nearly destroyed his rather excellent poems. Very fortunately, Virgil's friends ignored his last wishes, and thus we have the blessing of modern Western civilisation's first epic literature. When a piece of art is physically mobile, the artist owns the work unless a publisher/patron owns the commission rights, or it is sold off. Much like how Leonardo da Vinci had every right to destroy his Mona Lisa for the 10-odd years in which he carried the painting around. But when the creator of works with considerable artistic merit dies, do we have a duty to honour and fulfill his request to destroy his unsold works, or do we have a duty towards society to preserve such artefacts integral to our culture? One can argue that works of art, especially those of important historical significance, are an integral part of our cultural inheritance. For example, William Turner gave some of his paintings to the National Gallery so they would forever belong to the British people. No one would challenge Turner's artistic ownership of his works, but what if Turner gave his paintings to the Gallery on the condition that they would be destroyed on the event of his death? Could you bring yourself to destroy a Turner painting?

The second aspect of this discussion is the physical ownership of art. When the work is on a physical medium that belongs to the artist, ie the paper that a book is written on, the canvas and frame that the painter himself purchased, they have a right to destroy it. But when the art is part of another's property, like a fresco which is an integral part of a building's ceiling, who has greater right to it - the artist, the property's owner if it is privately-owned, or the public? If Ghiberti wanted to destroy his Gates of Paradise on the Florence Baptistery and the Florentine council was not opposed to it, does the public have any right to protect the Gates? On another dimension, the Mona Lisa (the most famous painting by Italy's most famous artist) belongs to the Louvre (France's most famous museum) and by extension, the French people. Who has more right to the painting - the cultural structure and legacy that gave birth to such genius as Leonardo, or the French cultural identity of which the Louvre is an intangible part?

This brings me to the final aspect of cultural ownership. When a work of art is an integral part of a culture, especially if it does not have a specific physical owner/creator, who can claim the greatest ownership over it and to what degree? When the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, there was a global outcry, but too late. Unfortunately, the Taliban were the ruling government of Afghanistan at the time, and the collective Afghanistan people were too oppressed and suppressed to mount any resistance. Imagine if the Chinese government decided to destroy the Great Wall, or the Egyptians the Pyramid of Khufur, to use famous examples. (There are no legal inheritors of these cultural artefacts, unlike the still-existing Romanovs who could arguably stake a claim over Romanov palaces seized by the Bolsheviks, or the descendants of the Qing dynasty who could stake a claim over the Forbidden Palace etc) If the Malaysian government decided to pull down Fort A Famosa, we would probably lynch them. But when the Bok family illegally obliterated Bok House a couple of years ago, the Malaysian public should have put in a greater effort to stop them, as the Bok House was the sole remaining colonial proper Palladian structure left in our cultural inheritance. (Telekom Museum and the Coliseum don't count as full Palladian.) Unfortunately, our heritage ministry seems to have taken that reprehensible cultural blindness to any part of our collective legacy that's not Malay.

(But I veer dangerously close to digressing from the discussion.) Further complications arise when more than one culture can claim cultural ownership of the work. Continuing the Mona Lisa analogy, the painting was legitimately purchased by King Francois I, so the French have legitimate physical ownership of the painting even though everything else about it is Italian. However, part of the Parthenon's frieze was famously stolen by Lord Elgin during the loot of Athens, and the so-called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum have become an integral part of British culture, even though they are fundamentally Greek. Looting does not constitute a legitimate transfer of physical ownership - however, to an extent the British can claim some cultural ownership of these priceless Greek treasures.

So to sum it all up, the conflict between the artistic, physical and cultural ownership of creative works makes the "arts" as a whole terribly fascinating. I guess even with the lack of a clear "life plan", the fact that I just spent more than an hour writing the above discussion demonstrates that irresistible hold the arts sector retains over me, and that no one should be surprised if that's what I go into after graduation. And also how I've got a little too much time to waste, plus a rather sad, nerd-ish propensity to turn blog entries into essays.

In memorium:

(Copyright Azrul Kevin Abdullah, 2001)
I can't seem to find the photos of Bok House I took for my History of Art A Levels thesis, so I'm posting this haunting B&W photo instead.
Incidentally, I met Azrul himself in August 2007 when I attended a photography workshop at the Annexe Central Market.

Farewell to 2007

2008-01-07T06:09:00.000+08:00

Imported from Facebook notes:

Hi everybody! How've you been? Hope you have all been keeping well and enjoying the Christmas break. Haven't heard from some of you in a while, and I'm sorry I've been so terrible at keeping in touch as much as I could and should have!

2007 was a pretty intense year for me. As usual, in January we had exams and assignments due, and that was pretty much it for the whole month. I went home for Chinese New Year in February to visit my grandmother who had been ill with cancer for nearly 2 years. That was quite an emotional trip for me, the first time I'd been home for CNY in the 6 years since I left Malaysia, and in hindsight I'm glad I took that trip. My grandmother passed away a week after I returned to Manchester.

From March onwards life was rather hectic. Rehearsals for the Malaysian Night performance started, and my parents came over for a couple of weeks during Easter. Had a lovely time overall, and would really recommend visiting the Peak District to anyone who enjoys being outdoors, bonding with the calm and peaceful (dare I say tame?) British countryside. Malaysian Night 2007 finally arrived at the end of April, and the performance was a satisfying success for all the months of time and effort put in, especially on that fiendish Indian dance! A big Thank You to all the hardworking, fun, and above all inspiring people I had the fortune to meet and work with during these months.

The end of April saw me take on the post of President of The People Society. It was a big committment that I was initially reluctant to accept, and involved a few sacrifices such as my volunteer job at The Bridgewater Hall, not to mention time away from studies. May/June came and went with the exams, and so soon it was the end of 2nd year, and I was back in Malaysia.

Summer was mainly taken up with interning for KPMG, on the whole a good time due to the fun and lively people in the Marketing department. Managed to squeeze in a very productive fishing trip off the coast of Kuala Rompin, Terengganu, and I caught my biggest fish ever! 6 hefty kilos of solid tenggiri. A darn good fight, and delicious afterwards, of course.

I started my final year in uni with a big bang that was Freshers' Week - organising the People Society committee, running the stall and Freshers' Party, desperately trying to recruit new members by hook or by crook. My tenure as President ended with the high that was our Zest fashion and dance performance show at the end of November. I've never had so much responsibility before in my life and it was a rather... interesting learning experience. Despite all the ups and downs that come as part of the job, being President is a decision I don't regret in the least, and part of the reason was being able to meet such creative, dynamic people who provided such incredible support and were willing to do anything for what they believed in. Thank you, guys - you know who you are.

Since then it's been assignments as usual, catching up on my (slightly) neglected studies, and a short break to Switzerland for some extreme cold and the beauty of mountain landscapes. Turned 21 too - thank you all for the birthday wishes, I will get around to answering them personally. Eventually.

In all, 2007 was a good year, one in which I learnt a lot, and lived a lot. After graduating next year, I'll probably do a mini-Euro trip with the parents, go back to Malaysia for a while, and come back Sept/Oct to take up the IGS and line the Labour government's pockets even further. I've got that one year to get a job here, fingers crossed! So, for all my friends old and new, here's to an equally fruitful 2008, and I sincerely hope that you will find joy and fulfilment in the year to come. Thank you for being here.

Best wishes and much love,

Yi-Wen x

Marzipan Babies!

2007-05-30T06:08:00.000+08:00

Aren't these babies so absolutely adorable?! Dear ole Daddy emailed them to me, really cheered me up after today's fiasco. Aaaahhh I can't decide which one I love the best!

Definition of Marzipan
Almond paste: a sweet paste made of ground almonds and sugar, often with egg whites or yolks, used as a layer in cakes or molded into ornamental shapes. While some of the faces may look "crafted" rather than "real", every detail is amazing, and the rest looks VERY real.

Yups, I'm blogging when I should be revising =P Had Marketing: Foundations and Applications last Tuesday, which went so much better than I was expecting - I felt so unprepared! All the concepts were already there, but the details just weren't sticking in my head. Felt like a human-sieve. Today was Marketing Research, which, on the contrary, was quite screwed up even though I felt a lot better prepared than MFA. Gaah! MR MCQs are driving me nuts! Anyways, got International Business Strategy on Thursday, then International Business Environment the following Monday... and then I'm home on the 9th of June! Wahey.. can't wait. =D

CNY

2007-02-27T23:25:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year people! (Hah I sound like I'm writing one of those People Society emails...) Had a fabulous 10 days celebrating at home, spent some lovely quality time with parents and relatives, pigged out for all I was worth... Thankfully I seemed to have brought the rain back with me, so it was a pretty wet and cooling CNY for a change.

Wrote the following semi-fictional short piece during my 6-hr-transit in Abu Dhabi airport. 'Tis killing two birds with one stone as it fits Sean's silly MPH theme of "The Young Malaysian's Identity" as well as my contribution to Jian Liang's Bristol newsletter of which he's given me free reign. PleasepleasePLEASE leave some constructive criticism if you do read it.

Coffee Arabica

The initial mystery that attends any journey is:

how did the traveller reach his starting point in the first place?

- Anonymous

Here I am again, sipping an iced coffee in the waiting lounge of an unfamiliar airport, in yet another foreign country. All around me hangs the shimmering, shallow allure of the different, the mirage wavering only when one looks past the exotic mosaics and gilt, red-wrapped Valentine cherubs to the grittiness, the sandiness underneath. The Costa coffee cost me six US dollars, my neighbour to the right is a middle-aged Caucasian man in a blue chequered shirt, but the younger men to the left in matching leather jackets and shoes, puffing away between exclamations in a melodic tongue are, like the majority of travellers here, Middle-Eastern. Across the concourse, a dark-skinned man stands shirtless in front of the Swatch shop, half-heartedly fanning away the encroaching evening heat. Abu Dhabi, I decide, is an unapologetic diamond in the rough.

If life is a journey, then it feels as though I have spent these twenty years of my life in an airport waiting lounge. The decision to undertake the journey was made long ago, but still the uncertainty resounds – why am I here? Where am I heading to? The moment I check in, I merge into the many-hued crowd, the only stamp of my identity is a passport and the sheet of fragile paper I clutch which says, Name: HUI/YIWEN MISS, Destination:… The destination has changed many times over the years, the countless airports merged into the single image of a universal waiting lounge.

Was it really the wisest decision to leave home - Malaysia, at the age of fourteen? One is always advised never to look back and harbour regrets, but I simply cannot ignore the irresistible urge to re-examine the past. The years of travelling from country to country have made it so easy to fit in everywhere and yet nowhere, so easy to run away whenever things turn sour. Every time my destination changes, I am back again in this place where all paths intersect, the ubiquitous traveller-in-transit.

Tomorrow will be the first time in six years that I will celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, at home. But can I honestly say that this is home? There is barely anything left to keep me anchored here, merely a childish sense of loyalty - or duty? - towards this country I’ve never truly experienced. A feeling of… displacement, the longing to belong somewhere, emptiness harboured within for many years.

Within hours I will be back in the sticky warmth I was born into, see the familiar-forgotten smiles through the Arrivals glass, and feel the security of my family around me. Then I’ll savour the hour-long drive from the airport when my inner world slowly unwinds on the road to rest. And when I enter the house and allow the familiar scents to crowd my senses, the trappings to pull me deeper and tighter into the place - understanding dawns. In truth, no matter where we are, home dwells within the spaces we choose to make our own.

The Caucasian man finishes his coffee and paper, and leaves. I offer to take a photograph for the three leather-clad Arabs, but in the end, they don’t understand English and the picture is never taken. Within five minutes I will have forgotten their faces, and they will be hard-pressed to recall the small Chinese girl who spoke to them in a foreign tongue in a familiar airport.

But I suppose in such chance encounters lies the magic of the waiting lounge. For in these places of bewildering humanity, I’ve discovered that perhaps life isn’t meant to be lived as a straight and narrow path towards a solitary destination, and that waiting lounges are, after all, also shelters to catch one’s breath between adventures. Besides, wasn’t it by chance that our paths intersected, so long ago, in a waiting lounge just like this one?

Home for CNY at long last

2007-02-17T00:39:00.001+08:00

Weather: 6°C, wind North at 9 km/h, humidity 72%. Melancholic end to a beautiful, rare day of clear skies. Not that I was awake long enough to enjoy it hehe.

Soundtrack: Non allegro from Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances. Alternating between the Liverpool Phil's lush orchestral version and that fiery and lyrical piano duo of Ashkenazy and Previn. Sublime.

State of mind: wine-infused.

Outfit: oversized Esso "Save the Tiger" T-Shirt

Random thought of the day: my keyboard's sticky with fruit juice! eww...

The past few months have seen me retreat into a terribly introverted frame of mind and I realise I've completely lost the incentive to blog. Saying I'll extensively update the bloggy soon is just deceiving myself, n'est pas? So to clear the vicious cycle of procrastination, here's the key features of 2nd year in uni so far:

Study: classes have been mostly good, my choice of modules, on the whole engaging lecturers and seminar leaders. Babs and whassername from Marketing F&A highly snooze-inducing; Jonathan Swift of Consumer Behaviour the highlight of 1st term. No proper assessment until January's 2 exams and 1-and-a-half essays, which was kinda worrying, but overall they went pretty well. MLP group quite a fun bunch. 9am triples have been very taxing on ye ordinary student who does not normally emerge before 10am as a rule.

Wimslow Park has been a great place to live in. The Times did a feature on university students living in luxury accommodation and slotted in a photo of three smug young blokes relaxing in a spa complete with bubbles. Ooh yes you guessed it, our very own Momentum Leisure Health Club, conveninelty situation 20 seconds away from my front door. Had a quite a bit of excitement and stress organising my final year accommodation, but in the end I'm staying on, same room, 2 floors above.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Am now continuing this post from my dear ole room in 795, Jalan 17/24, PJ, Malaysia! Wheeee... arrived back yesterday noon (KL time Thursday) and thoroughly enjoying the rest, company and food, but certainly not the heat. Thankfully it's rained the past couple of days, and my hair's already been trimmed so it's not terribly sweltering. Still retaining my "bak zham kai" (steamed chicken) pale skin hehe.

Been on the People Society's committee as Communications Officer since November. On the whole a fascinating experience, and because just about everybody on the communications team quit or was asked to step down, I've had full control of the whole comms and publicity works even though I'm still vaguely feeling my way around this job. We have weekly Monday meetings which usually last 2 hrs - Mon evenings are busy times writing the committee email (which I created) and the weekly members' email. So far I've helped publicise the annual Badminton Tournament and taken lots of photos of all the leng zhais competing against each other =P, and we're gearing up to the big Charity Day on 12th March.

December hols saw a fantastic trip with Emma (Stubbs) to her father's place in Gutersloher (near Dortmund), Germany. Weather was freezing, house was lovely, Christmas markets were almost as amazing as her family. Unfortunately I got stranded in London on Christmas Eve with no transport back to Manc as the flights were delayed from the terrible fog. Should really have taken up their offer to stay on until the 27th, but in the end I stay with Teng Huang on Xmas Eve night, and Mum's ex-classmate Aunty Ai Tee picked me up on Xmas morning. Managed to catch the earliest coach to Manc on the 26th - what a horrible ending to my brilliant holiday! Photos up once I clear some capacity on my hd.

Anyways this will be my first Chinese New Year in Malaysia after a 5-yr abscence. Be back in Manc 6am on Monday the 26th. Have a lovely week, everybody!

47

2006-11-16T23:06:00.000+08:00

Hello people, I'm finally back into blogger mode after a 2 month hiatus. So let's start off with... a survey mwahahaha... More updates this wkend. Watch this space.

(Ok, so this was stolen off Phing's bloggy. I was bored!)

1. FIRST NAME?
Yi-Wen

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
yeah... this taiwanese girl whom my dad never even met. haha.. don't ask.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
yesterday! only a couple of crocodillo tears. it was while watching this korean family breakdown when they thought their lil girl had been eaten by a giant mutant formaldehyde fish with legs.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
most of the times. when everything's nice and cursive and the letters all conform to the same size.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
luncheon meat? hehe no la.. erm.. fish ball?

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
hell yeah! i'm like, the nicest most amiable person to get along with. even with pmt.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
got. private ah so no sneaky peeks.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
ya.

9. FAVORITE TV SHOW(s):
don't watch much tv. honest!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Special K Peach & Apricot! yummy stuff especially without milk. munchmunchmunch goes me during exam period.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
errr.. who does?

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
bring it on mate. 6 years of carting one block of wood my own size (the cello, duh) has built up pretty impressive biceps and triceps. no la, i'm normal for my size i guess.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
fossil fuel. it's that ben n jerry's one with little chocolate dinosaurs... awwh.

14. SHOE SIZE?
UK 3.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red, definitely.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
i'm terribly low on motivation. especially when getting my fat ass to the gym.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
mummy.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
nah don't bother.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
barefeet, lime-green and white beach shorts. bikini pants cos i went for a swim earlier

20. LAST THING YOU ATE?
convent garden roast chicken and rosemary soup, slice of tesco finest seeded wholegrain bread mmhmm.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
classic fm. some random march.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
sky blue.

23. FAVORITE SMELL?
food when i'm hungry. a pot of cyclamen minis.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
phone? umm.. shyan i guess.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO?
goofy smile.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
She didn't send it to me, I took it off her blog. And yes i suppose i like phing or else i wouldnt be cohabitating with her rite?

27. FAVORITE DRINK?
elderflower press.

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
swimming.

29. EYE COLOR?
Dark brown.

30. HAT SIZE?
small?

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Yes.

32. FAVORITE FOOD?
oooh lots! it varies.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDING?
scary movies with happy endings

34. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
dark green sherbs hoodie

35. SUMMER OR WINTER?
autumn

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
a huggy kiss.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
apple crumble with custard. or if i'm up for something more posh then it's gotta be gaucho grill's chocolate truffle cake with that divine vanilla icecream.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?
Scipio by Ross Leckie, A Short History of Asia by Colin Mason, the Ramayana. apart from all those %&^%$E%* text books of course.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
I have no mouse, and therefore no mousepad.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV?
didn't watch tv last night. the last tv programme i watched was gordon ramsey's nightmare kitchens or whatever it was called

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
good music. that peculiar sound when you're alone at sea at night. sound of slicing cleanly through the water when you're swimming. the sound of your name when loved ones call you.

44. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
no comment

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME?
i suppose manchester does qualify as the furthest distance, doesn't it?

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT?
you tell me.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
assunta hospital, selangor, malaysia.

On This Day

2006-09-27T04:16:00.000+08:00

On this day... in 1678, the Temple of Athena Parthenos (more familiarly, the Parthenon) was partially destroyed during an armed conflict between Venetian and Ottoman forces. Lobbed explosives from the Ottoman side blew huge chunks of glorious Pentelic marble into flying fragment, forever destroying the elegant men, women, gods and animals that peopled the many friezes and metopes of argubaly the greatest stucture from ancient Greece's golden era.

On this day... in 1957, a musical written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim debuted on Broadway and was nominated for Best Musical the same year. Revitalising the ages-old tale of love across social boundaries, the musical spawned a number of remakes, films documentaries, and revivals, and is still touring to this day. This musical is West Side Story.

On this day... in 1983, a potential nuclear WWIII was averted when, despite indications from his computerised early warning systems, retired Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov refused to believe that the USA had launched long-range missiles against the USSR.

On this day... in 2006, Yi-Wen Hui was finally blessed from the powers-that-be the gift of Ethernet Connection, thereby putting her in touch with the world at 2 in the morning after a sorely-felt abscence of three months. On the same day she rose at 8.30am, cooked and ate a substantial meal, and set off to Gilds Silver Service training where she learned all about food handling and how to hold large serving cutlery with small hands and how to serve potatoes and how to clear ten plates at once. Adjourning from the training centre, she spent the next two hours being intellectually enriched on contemporary industrial relations. The following two hours was spent at the opposite end of the university campus listening to an old prune about marketing foundations and applications. She grabbed an egg-and-cress malted sandwich during her mid-afternoon break, and prowled through endless dusty cartons at a book fair in a bid to find a good bargain (something one cannot live without). Half and hour passed before she emerged into the afternoon sunlight, triumphantly brandishing three management text books, one of which was core reading, and all for the very thrifty price of thirty-five pounds. From 4-6pm she absorbed a rather inspirational introduction and talk given by the vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, as part of her Leadership in Action unit. And now, utterly exhausted by the day's activities, she is going to bed.

2006-09-09T19:47:00.000+08:00

yoohoo just a quick note to say i'm only gonna get connected to uni broadband on the 15th ah... so just gimme ur patience a little bitty bit longer ok? akan datang: loadsa holiday photos n updates on the resits!

p.s. i'm writing this in Varsity, the pub directly below my new home-away-from home =P

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000+08:00

Back on Wednesday from Kuching! Spent 3 nights in the city of cats and 2 nights at the Holiday Inn Damai Lagoon hotel while visiting the Sarawak Cultural Village in Damai.

Rainforest Festival ROCKS!!!

I'm brown like a monkey nut.

Hahaha got lots of pics n stories to tell, but I haven't even posted up the Fraser's Hill photos n I'm still quite busy revising for resits, practicing n editing LiYing's mini novella as well as other editing projects n my own bits of writing. So... patience ah. They'll be up soon.

Pulau Lang Tengah

2006-07-06T00:47:00.000+08:00

Ok honeys here's another one of my mass updates! This time it's not so much a return from hibernation but rather a return from sheer laziness and procrastination hahaha... Dunno why, but I tend to cut myself off from contact with the outside world once in a while when I'm back home.

Anyways update and some pics from a little gem off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia - Pulau Lang Tengah. It is nestled in the waters of the South China Sea between the larger islands of Redang and Perhentian, and features warm clean white beaches interspersed with rugged weather-worn rocks and breathtakingly clear aquamarine lagoons with the requisite parrot fish and baby black-tipped sharks darting amongst fantastical coral formations. (Hey, one's gotta do one's bit in promoting tourism Malaysia... Truly Asia.... right?)

Having first met up with Ming and her Taylor's lawyers at Subang Parade, I found myself comfortably installed at the back of the Redang Lang Resort's coach at 12am. There were just over 20 of us on the trip, and thankfully I wasn't the only "stranger" there, so to say. The night-long journey was pretty smooth, with some of the usual guitar-strumming, spookily entertaining ghost stories and pirated dvd watching that usually accompany these post-exam trips.

Stopped by a little town at about 7am for a breakfast of nasi dagang or nasi lemak, and then it was off to the jetty and onboard for Pulau Lang Tengah. The 40minute boat ride was another nice chance to snooze, and pretty soon we were greeted by beautiful waters lapping gently at the soft white shore. Just a little slice of heaven on earth. The only other place I've visited that surpassed the quiet beauty of Lang Tengah was, of course, the Maldives.

Shared a room with Ming and Eeva. The resort was reasonably well furnished with two queen beds in each room and en suite bathrooms. Meals were inclusive of the price and quite edible (despite the gripes of Miss PickyKan =P) Also included on site: dining area mahjong tables, snooker, foosball, souvenir shop, karaoke room, tv room, tv bar, snorkelling hut, scuba hut, 24/7 make-your-own non-alcoholic drinks. Nice rite?

Plenty of snorkelling around the island and also at Redang's fish-filled Marine Park made a very happy and tanned me. If there's one thing that I could say about the side of me more inclined to nature, is that I love the sea. The sea, the sea. We're ole buddies I suppose, what with my parents being frequent divers during those courtship and early marriage years before I popped along, and the numerous beach and deep-sea fishing trips we've made over the years. Returning to the sea is like finding a resting place after years of travel and searching.

Other highlights of the trip include: burying Ming and Eeva in the warm white sand while they shrieked for all they were worth, Ming totally falling for Shah's "dog in his past life" prank on the coach, arriving at the island, sinking my toes into the clean sand, Ming & I falling asleep on a warm flat rock, sharing by the shore, listening to Diana Krall from Alex's speakers on the beach and watching the blinking lights of fishing boats at 3am, and of course the wonderfully humorous and down to earth company. Thanks dear for bringing me along.

Again, do click on the photos to see the better, larger images. Please note that these photos are taken with my trusty ole compact Sony P10, and that most of the "funny" ones are on everyone else's cameras! Constructive criticism very much welcome. =D

Beach, Sea & Sky

Boats

People

Macro stuff

Rocks

And to cap off my brief adventure on the island - a lovely moment of dusk descending on the deserted jetty, and the overnight fishing boats drifting out on the irresistable pull of the ocean.

Back from hibernation

2006-06-23T11:12:00.000+08:00

Ahhhh I'm home. And it's a great feeling.

You know, that sensation of having absolutely no worries for the time being, of being in a safe, safe place, of finding the place that fits you like a tailored piece of clothing.

I realised the other day that once I'm outta uni, the only relatively long (ie more than 1 1/2 months) break I'll ever get from then onwards would be when I go on maternity leave. Govt say minimum 60 days now waaaht. Which means - gulp.

I realise this blog is close to entering a persistent vegetative state. I haven't been able to get my laptop connected to the silly streamyx modem since I've been back, so my photos are gonna have to stay on my lappy until I get it fixed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And oh, FDM went ok. Just ok. Actually it sucked, but then I'm just happy happy that exams and 1st year is over wheeeeeeeeeee.. More thoughts on completing my inagural year of university later.

The last few days of being in Manc were totally hectic. FDM on Wednesday; clubbing @ Opus (instead of MTWO) with Li Ying, Sam and Nic was a blast! 4 hot chicks indeed. Mr Freaky Egoistic Chinese Dude was amusing, and Mr Ooh Scottish Accent turned out pretty cute but boring after a while.

Amidst the final exam, lots of last minute packing and an airport taxi that never turned up, I managed to say good riddance to my skanky Whitworth Park Hall flat, have lunch @ Thai Banana with the Mgt gals and 3 guys of various delectable ratings, catch Silent Hill, and say goodbye to some dear friends. Damn all of ya who went off to Spain! ;)

Journey to Manc Airport was kinda interesting, with Yet Th'ng panicking all the way that she'd miss her flight and me just sitting there cool as a... cucumber? Anyway thankfully I didn't get into any trouble with the extra weight of my cello, and arrived on home ground without a hitch, until I realised that the poor BF had been left behind in London! Silly BMI girl didn't check the cello all the way to KL so the boyf had to spend a night in Heathrow all alone.... sobs.

Came home Saturday evening to a scrumptious dinner of siew zhu guat jook. Sunday night saw me off again to Pulau Lang Tengah with darling Kambing and her bunch of kooky but cool Taylors lawyer-wannabes. More goss and photos about our three-day trip and my three-day crush later... =P

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Talking about photos, here's a photo of my new toy :P

Isn't he simply gorgeous?

p.s. Shyan, I've already prowled our SS2 pasar malam for irresistable photos of your favourite fried stuff stall teeheehee...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aiya I've been tagged! Linges, I'm so gonna get you back for this. Dude, I'm only doing this meme out of blogging etiquette ok? Here goes:

MEME OF DOOM

-The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points about his/her perfect lover.
-Have to mention the gender of his/her perfect lover.
-Tag eight other victims to join this game and leave a comment on their blog.
-If you are tagged the second time.There is NO need to do this again.(i got tagged 3 times!)
-Lastly, most importantly, HAVE FUN DOING IT.

Righty ho, I'm trying to have fun here, but tis a bit of a brain-wracker leh.

My perfect lover: (hmm it says "lover", not "mate for life" rite?)
(in no particular order) ~ gentle, obliging, flexible ;) , main aim in life is to please ME, mature, patient, curious, loving.

Of course male la.

And I'm not quite evil enough to tag people right at this moment - busy packing again leh. But if any of you wanna do it then, feel free you sad people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, how time passes - I've been back two weeks! Gotta go - I'm off to Fraser's Hill! Catch y'all on Sunday.

(Extract from To Myself)

2006-06-07T10:29:00.000+08:00

3.22 am and I find myself doing my usual exam stress ritual of writing in my journal. Five down, one excruciating last one to go! Financial Decision Making, of course. Surprisingly I've given up panicking a long time ago, and now I'm floating in a strange sea of blase-ness, and insouciant couldn't-care-less mood.

Frustration: a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs. - Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

I am frustrated. Academically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually, musically frustrated.

(I have my parents to take care about the financial frustration bit.)

By noon on Friday this one year of my life will be completely boxed away, removed from the world to become dusty and musky, until one fine day in three months' time I'll fling open cardboard lids and exclaim oh, how the time has passed!

Ok, ok. Collect my thoughts, focus on FDM. Deep breath followed by an even deeper sigh...

London cont'

2006-06-02T09:13:00.000+08:00

Monday saw me wandering about High St Kensington before and after a posh pizza lunch with Eun-Jung. Had a lovely time yakking away and window shopping. Explored the delicate St Mary Abbotts Church while waiting for Lynn to finish her piano lesson and lunch. More money down the drain.. sigh.

Emma made her way to Shepherd's Bush around 10pm, and so it was another wonderful time just catching up on one year's abscence from each other's life. Happenin, indeed. Imagine us two guzzling wine and munching on Cadbury's fruit & nut chocolate on poor Otis' bed haha!

Didn't have time to explore Peter Paul Ruben's ceiling in the Banqueting House with Emma on Tues morning, so we made our way to Egham via a rambling bus ride and a short train journey from Waterloo.

Egham's this small town around which the Royal Holloway is situated. Met up with my blond longshanks - Claire la - at the train station, then we went to a really nice Italian restaurant to catch up over lunch. Lovely.

Neways i'm too lazy to blog much now. Hahaha photos and more updates akan datang ya.

Hail Juno

2006-06-02T07:42:00.000+08:00

June's descended on us and I can hardly believe how quickly the last five months have passed by. I've got good ole Savage Garden playing away softly and I'm lolling my way through a very strange mood.

It's probably my body's way of telling me how tired I am. A decisive order to just... stop.

Ever run through a field and had a friend spin you round and round until you both collapse onto the soft ground, helpless with laughter? Ever just lain there watching the world spin past, Time leaving you unexorably behind, wishing yearning dying for it all to stop and wait for you to catch up?

Welcome to the current interior of my world.

*******************************************************************************

~On Happiness~
Lynn says:
what should be the normal balance anywyas
Lynn says:
between high and lows
Lynn says:
would u say 50-50
Lynn says:
i mean...ideally it does kinda make sense
Lynn says:
cos u won't appreciate the highs without the lows
yi-wen says:
hmmm...
yi-wen says:
actually i'd say i'm slightly happy most of the time
yi-wen says:
like, being able to be happy-ish just with myself
yi-wen says:
sighh i dunno
Lynn says:
heheh
yi-wen says:
it seems like the younger and more innocent i was, the easier it was to be happy
Lynn says:
of course
Lynn says:
everything was 'simpler'
Lynn says:
hahaha
Lynn says:
then again...
Lynn says:
pple complained about my 'thinking too much' when i was like 10 or something
Lynn says:
hahaha
yi-wen says:
nah, i dont feel as if things were simpler
yi-wen says:
back then
yi-wen says:
just not as "jaded" as now, and every experience was fresh
Lynn says:
i dunno...
Lynn says:
for me...
Lynn says:
its just now...i worry about what pple will think or feel
Lynn says:
like...
Lynn says:
there are the parents...
Lynn says:
big important factor
yi-wen says:
as always hehe
Lynn says:
and last time...i never really used to think about how they'd feel about something
Lynn says:
but now...
Lynn says:
everything i do...
Lynn says:
alot of things i do or feel i don't say cos i don't want them to worry
Lynn says:
i don't want to hurt them or think of themselves as 'failures' for producing 3 useless kids
yi-wen says:
yeaahh
yi-wen says:
and sometimes i feel that although ppl cant help judging, the ppl i least want to be judged by are my parents
Lynn says:
yeah
Lynn says:
all i want is to give love and to recieve love
Lynn says:
and sometimes i get crazy thoughts like...if i do something really bad...my parents won't be happy...
Lynn says:
so will they love me less
Lynn says:
and crap like that
yi-wen says:
yeaahhhh
Lynn says:
sigh
Lynn says:
that is really what i want eh..
Lynn says:
hrmmm
Lynn says:
never really thought of it like that
Lynn says:
to love and to be loved...
Lynn says:
and music
yi-wen says:
if only life's that simple huh
Lynn says:
well...
Lynn says:
i suppose
yi-wen says:
^^
Lynn says:
then again...sometimes...i think alot of my complexities...i create by myself
yi-wen says:
sighh... been completely useless today haha

But 'tis true, the oft-repeated line from Nature Boy: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return..."

And don't most of us want that at many points in our lives? The incomparable love of a mother and father is one thing, but there comes a time in one's emotional journey when we feel the need for someone else. Parents are, after all, ultimately biased towards their own offspring and ya can't help loving something you've created. (I'm sure even Dan Brown has a mother haha.)

I suppose that's why once we hit a certain age there's this deep-seated, intense longing to have someone else love you simply, as unconditionally as humanely possible, without any other selfish motive but to be loved in return. And this means the whole package of enchanting traits and disreputable habits et cetera.

I just want to feel.

*******************************************************************************

On a lighter note, I'm getting a new camera! Yippeeeee... *shhh* it's supposed to be a secret but anyways my parents'll get my trusty Sony P10 hand-me-down, and I'll just blissfully shop around until something catches my eye. Any suggestions?

*******************************************************************************

Went to see X Men: The Last Stand yesterday evening with Li Ying, Enn Yong and Min Fung. Pretty good as a movie in itself, but personally I think it's the weakest of the trilogy. Plenty of action and eye-candy, but it lacks the great character development, smooth plot continuity and the wonderful quieter moments of the earlier two. Verdit: X2 still rocks my boat! Oh yeah, for those who have yet to see it, don't forget to stay on until after the credits. After the credits, i say!

The lastest on the entertainment grapevine is that they're gonna make a stand-alone Wolverine movie. Waheyy bring on the sexy Hugh Jackman - encore! Encore!

Lovely painting we saw at the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum during the Easter Amsterdam trip - Rembrandt's enchating oil study of his son Titus daydreaming at his desk. Read my long-winded artsy comparison here if you really have nothing better to do.

Hittin' London Town

2006-05-29T09:12:00.000+08:00

Blogging to you live from London wahey! I'm currently sitting snug under Lynn's awesome bloodred-brightred-satsumaorange-sunflowerorange duvet. The babe herself's engrossed in yet another game of sudoku, and we're busybusy singin' along to the boyband hits of our primary cacatness of so long ago.

"A foggy daayyy... in London townn..."

Saturday's coach journey was uneventful, if rather prolonged due to lousy traffic coming out of London. Navigated my way to Shepherd's Bush by bus because the Central Line was closed, and settled in to a nice dinner of sweet-and-sour chicken with peas and rice. After a quick shower we headed out to Fabric, this apparently really "happening" club with Sophia and Sanna. Sophia is Apui's friend from Kuching who's doing her AS somewhere near London, and Sanna's a Pakistani girl living in Bangsar going to the same A Levels college.

Goodness - Lynn and I were proper "flirty aunties" for the night, the rest of the group having an average age of about 16-and-a-half. LOL. The boys were cute but rather young and inexperienced clubbers, the music incessant techno throughout the three dancefloors and the entrance/drinks price skyhigh compared to ole Mancunia. Lynn and I abandoned the group about halfway through the night and from then onwards had a ball of a time shakin to the beats.... Haha, the idea of us two classical musicians actually have a great time in a techno club...

Verdict? Better stick to my northern "kampung "where clubbing's concerned. At least the unwanted attention's from dodgy inebriated students (as Phing can attest from last Thurs *wink*) instead of even dodgier men possibly on E.

But other than that, London rocks! Oh man, the shopping's greaaatttt. We get the same variety of shops in Manchester but because of the larger amount of space in London ya do get the full range of clothes, accessories, trinkets etc.

Today (Sunday) was spent sleeping off the previous night's debauchery, followed by a shopping spree. Meeting up with Soph and Sanna in Leicester Sq, I suddenly spotted Yvonne (from Wells) who was on her way to meet Eun-Jung. The square itself was quite crowded with the usual kaypoh tourists and locals craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the fabulously beautiful at the premiere of Poseidon. Had dinner with the girls and Ian at a nice posh Jap place, followed by a cocktail at the nearby Crescent restaurant-bar.

To be continued...

PVS

2006-05-25T01:37:00.000+08:00

I've lost a sock.

I simply don't believe it, but I've lost a sock. And not just any sock, but a brand new, wonderfully stripy, adorably fluffy pair Khai Ern gave me when she stayed over last Friday.

I'm sure I'll find it if I did a more extensive search than the cursory rumage through the debris on my bed I did just now. I'm quite certain it's within the confines of this room, probably chucked in the knickers drawer, trapped behind the bed or bundled up in last week's PJs.

But this loss of a possesion - a sock, no less - albeit temporary, has suddenly thrown me off-course. And with the temperature stubbornly staying in the low 10s, I find myself unable to concentrate, incapable of even reading through any wikipedia article on the management in society topics. Even the nice thick Esprit pair my mum just sent me won't do any good - I want that particular sock. With tomorrow's exam less than 24 hours away, I guess you could say that I'm pretty screwed.

*********************************************************************************

Got a pleasant surprise today when I visited Bonnie's xanga site and saw a rather familiar photo... She'd used one of the shots I took around Wells Bishop's Palace as her background. Wahey! Talk about unexpected recognition. I'd totally forgotten that she had used some of my photography for an A Levels art project. Miss you, Bonnie!

*********************************************************************************

Lynn and I have both entered a phase of carbohydate craving. Not good. Quite upsetting, actually. I hereby bid farewell to my nearly non-existent waistline. I need to resume exercising in the gym once tomorrow's exam is over. But then I'll be spending 5 days in London with her and I foresee more binging on rice and ice-cream. Hey, us women have needs, ya know. Tom yum fried rice for dinner, anyone?

*********************************************************************************

I've got cold turkey from the recent lack of any photography on my part. It's great being able to explore the wonderful images posted online by photographers worldwide and especially from Malaysia, but - I'm just not satisfied. I wanna go out there and make iconic images of my own. Images that stimulate thought and emotion. Images that preserve my own memories and and represent a thousand words to others. Images, like those of the great photographers', that make you stop in your tracks and become helplessly absorbed from the very first glance.

One can only keep trying.

Don't even mention the "E" word

2006-05-18T15:01:00.000+08:00

Hell starts... right about now. Blow me a kiss for luck =P. Gotta go, ciao!

p.s. be warned I'm only disturbable during weekends and after the 25th yayy. Buzz me aimlessly anytime between that and I might bark, or even worse, bite. Arf! The exams have gotten me a bit barmy, I'm afraid.

Registration Number: 05006474			Degree: BSc Management

	Date	Time	Exam Code and Title	Location

	18 May 2006	09:45-11:45	XSM101 Law in a Management Context (BM1002)	Academy
	19 May 2006	09:45-11:15	XSM101 Quantitative Methods for Management Group Y	Sackville St Bldg Ent Hall
	19 May 2006	14:00-16:00	XAF151 Introductory Management Accounting (AF1512)	Sugden Centre C & D Hall
	23 May 2006	14:00-16:00	XSM101 The Modern Corporation	Sugden Centre C & D Hall
	25 May 2006	14:00-15:30	XSM101 Management in Society	Academy
	07 Jun 2006	14:00-16:00	XAF152 Financial Decision Making (AF1522)	Whitworth Hall

Reverie

2006-05-16T09:46:00.000+08:00

Yesterday afternoon was so quiet. It was one of those damp British afternoons that everybody complains about, yet somehow there was a beauty all around that really moved me.

I took a quick break from quants revision, facing the blank wall and closing my eyes. It was a moment almost reminiscent of John Cage's infamous 4'33" as my aural senses adjusted to compensate for the lack of sight. My laptop whirred at one side, the sound soft and unobtrusive. I could feel the light and warmth of the desk lamp on the left half of my face, see the yellowness through my eyelids. Birds chirped intermittently outside on the trees of Whitworth Park Hall. Somewhere in the building, someone closed the front door of their flat. Amazingly there was no indication at all of the usual rock or techno music that faintly punctuates the air from neighbouring flats.

The light rain threw a distinct blueness to the subdued world outside, refreshingly lush compared to the perpetual grey of British wetness. In this hallowed place of incessant worldiness and careless thoughts it was a moment held in stillness. For the first time in more than four months, I felt truly alone. And it was divine.

From the shores of Troy

2006-05-16T03:39:00.000+08:00

Oh my, here's the latest blogsome blog I accidentally stumbled upon during my subway-dinner break from revision. Briliant, tongue-in-cheek idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing if this anonymous Homer can keep it up. Darlings, do check out Eurylochus blogging live from the shores of Ilium on his adventures with Academy mates Polites, Elpenor and Misenus as well as General Odysseus, and his insider's blow-by-blow account of the Trojan War.

Under Odysseus

Happy Mummy's Day

2006-05-15T08:09:00.000+08:00

"Yay - happy mummy day."

Vincent's MSN has the sweetest message I've ever read on a guy's profile, and got me reflecting for a while.

Here I am, fresh from a shower after dinner @ Nandos, swinging on my red "office" chair, snug and warm in my favourite over-large red hoodie and track bottoms. I ought to get back to quants but I want to blog for awhile about one of my favouritest persons on earth.

I really should start off by thanking my mum for the agonised hours she spent in labour just to have my bawling, bloody, wrinkled, miniature chimpanzee self pop out, not to mention the full nine months of tiresome gestation. Having said that, labour was a mere couple of hours and hardly labour at all due to her immensely high pain threshold. After inducing lazy me, and with a little bit of forcep assistance, I slipped out as easy as a seal flipping from its iceberg into the ocean. The 9 months of carrying me to full term were happily spent waxing fat and contented with daily glasses of pure cow's milk and mahjong sessions with my various aunts. Really, you should see the photos.

Anyway without further ramblings, I'll just say that my mum has been a fantastic mother this year. Every time that I walk away from both my parents and through the immigration counter at KLIA only seems to bring us closer. Sometimes I'm even afraid that we might be getting too close.

Without her, I'd lose my only window to the world I leave behind every time I board that long-distance flight, where every minute takes me further away from my family and home.

Without her, I wouldn't have had so many light-hearted moments to break the oppressiveness of study stress, when everything just seems so overwhelming and I feel like I'd rather run away than face the big world out there.

Without her, I wouldn't have been able to pull myself out of my February Fiasco. What truly helped me through that difficult period was her unfailing support (even when I needed to talk at some unearthly hour, KL time) and a mother's strength to say the right things at the right time, even when it hurt to say the truth and it hurt her even more to watch her daughter come to terms with the truth.

Without her, I'd have less contact with darling Daddy, and miss out all the hilarious and frustrating moments of balancing the dynamics in our fragile but everlasting little trio of a family.

Without her as my anchor, I'm afraid I might lose touch of the goodness in me, the values that make me who I am. And so, as we used to giggle and whisper in the sunlight of my early childhood, I love you from here to infinity!

2006-05-15T07:58:00.000+08:00

NEWSFLASH!!!

Falling with amazing panache from his lofty arcadium, Datuk Hon has finally succumbed to the gloriously decadent phenomenon of blogging.

Ta-da! Thou is henceforth obliged to visit Shyanism: Thoughts, Beliefs, Passions for the latest updates on thoughts, beliefs and passions. Okla, more like musings on Starbucks Java Chip, brilliant movies (in his humble opinion), world religion(s), a lack of a girlfriend and human fallacy. The formerly scornful archangel has finally joined us flawed humans in an attempt at voicing his take on life's questions and certainties. *chortle*

Figaro

2006-05-13T22:25:00.000+08:00

Goodness, this apek cello uncle is bloody awesome... reminds me why I love the cello so much in the first place. Total versatility. Some people may think that it's pretty easy, just get together a few cellos and voila! there you have it. But as a cellist myself, i see it through different eyes. Perhaps it's the sight of a middle-aged man coming up with rhythms and tunes that are so... youthful. Maybe it's the ease in which he slides around the highest registers of the strings that makes me envious and at the same time, proud. Or perhaps it's the mere idea of anyone creating 37 separate parts for one sole instrument, and single-handedly recording and putting everything together in sync. As they say, the sum's greater than the individual parts.

(Blogger's crapping up my blog. Please ignore the previous scrambled post - the resilient wag's resisting all my earnest attempts to delete it, but there it remains, indefinitely. Might have something to do with YouTube or my completely inability to do any sophisticated html. or CSS coding. whatever. Anyways please follow the link if you want:)

A Cello Rondo

Just came back from watching the English translation of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro @ the Lowry with Shyan, Roy, CheeMun and Colby. Another first! This time at the opera, and I have to say it was pretty darn cool. Most, if not all of the singers from Opera North were stellar, the relatively small orchestra perfectly complementing and never drowing out the singing. Even though I still prefer the vocal sounds produced in Italian, this English version was interesting in that I could understand far more of the repartee and humour than if it was in Italian without subtitles.

I wish I'd have listened to recordings of Figaro more, so I wouldn't have felt so lost in the actual performance. I wish I had read up more on the intricasies of Mozart's crystalline music so I could've recognised more than just the famous tunes. I wish I (and the audience) had the benefit of the lyrics and dialogue (perhaps across the top of the stage?) so we could've laughed more at the ingrained humour in Mozart's opera buffa.

Anyhow, there were some sublime moments during the opera, when soaring voices and instruments merged, transcending unfamiliarity and literary understanding to create pure music.

tears

2006-05-09T18:44:00.000+08:00

Woke up this morning with sore, swollen and tearing eyes, so it was another day wasted without any studying. Haven't the foggiest idea what caused it but I coudn't even open my eyes for 10 seconds at a stretch, and even wearing glasses was painful because of the lens contraction or whatever. After getting bored of sleeping (can imagine JJ's shock at this statement haha), been alternating between listening to music, peering blearily at movies on my screen, chatting on msn, and touch typing with my eyes closed.

As you can see, I've had plenty of time today to let my mind wander, get down to a little thinking.

After the glamourous photoshoot last week, I've had a handful of people buzz me over msn just to tell me how hot/sexy/nice/pretty the photos were. Mind you, they're on my contact list but aren't those I have conversations with regularly, and even if I do the conversations are usually initiated by me. Even now, looking over those photos, I think to myself that yes, I will always treasure them as the frozen moments of looking my best in my youth. At the same time, there's this niggling discontentment that only these superficial photos were able to make some people sit up and take notice of me.

The thing is, almost anyone can look stunning with good makeup, the right lighting, and a passable photographer. Thanks for the flattering comments, but I don't want to be praised only for looking like a generic 21st century hot chick. If they have to say anything, I'd rather people say that my smile comes from the heart. I want to hear things like 'Yi-Wen, you write like a dream. You've helped me live through this difficult period in my life. Your playing really moved me. I can lose track of time just by looking at the photos you take." Don't tell me I've grown prettier through the years, instead, that I've matured and improved as a person.

Rob wrote in my Wells farewell book that although I am small, I have a huge personality. However true that statement is, that's something that I'll always treasure and bring with me wherever I go. It's something that means far more to my values as a person than any photogenic image.

Because ultimately, I want to be noted for things that make a difference.

Narcissim is Necessary?

2006-05-05T06:37:00.000+08:00

Spent a rather interesting day out with the other Miss Lim - Li Ying - @ Fusion Studios just off Oldham Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter for a "free" makeover & photoshoot session =P. The four hours there started off with a mini manicure - LiYing got a frenchie and my nails got a pearly pink colour. After that it was into the hair chair where first my mini facial, makeup then hair was done. Aiyor the amount of makeup that goes on! Felt like an inch's worth of foundation, concealer, blusher, powder, glitter, shadow, liner, mascara etc etc etc on my lovely face. *chortle* Hair was done astondingly quick - curled around a very hot, slim pair of straighteners, then spritzed and deconstructed. I have to say it was all very professionally done, and looked totally natural in the photos.

My photographer was Sean, a kinda cute, quite sweet Brit guy whose girlfriend's apparently around my height. Had borrowed a couple of dresses to try on during the shoot (thanksabunch Phing!) and we decided on three looks to try out. First up was my black lace top, slashed jeans and white/gold wedges. In the end the initial photographs didn't turn out as good as the later ones, probably cos being photographed as a model took some getting used to. Having said that, I have no excuse. My stint as a 2-yr-old gum gel advert model shoulda sufficed hahaha...

I'm wearing the same dress in the above photo as the one below. Sean switched on the fan in this one, giving a kinda soft, epic Hollywood look to this. Hmmm... just a chance to pretend I was Lizzie Bennet standing on Stanage Edge in Pride & Prej, dreaming of my Mr Darcy mmhmm...

Really pretty floral print, no? Not sure whether I like or dislike the glitter - the style's kind of Brit but at the same time it does open up my eyes. My skin looked so pale throughout this shoot.. aiks.

For the last shoot I Wore Phing's gorgeous WestOne dress with the lace back, and had my hair half pinned up and the fringe straightened, though you can't really see it in this photo. Sean dimmed the lights and pulled down a black background for a minimalist, dramatic effect. Very noir chic. Think this is the best out of all three I came away with. (In Shyan's words: my hair framing my face perfectly. Though he thinks I look too serious. Oi, I was going for a mysterious, sexy look ok.)

In all it was quite an experience, a good break from the intense studying. (Studying? What studying??)

Malaysian Students' Society of Manchester Night 2006

2006-05-02T20:35:00.000+08:00

Oh my I'm in a poetry mood again... Think my tastes go around in a very erratic - I'd like to think eclectic - circle. One month it's classic Russian Bulgakov, the next - Rembrandt in Amsterdam, then ballet, followed by full-out Rachmaninov and John Donne's poetry (blame Tristan + Isolde for citing his The Good Morrow), swapping over to "father of New Age" David Lanz's iconic first album Heartsounds, and now easy, languid poems. In the coming months I'll have Mozart's Marriage of Figaro @ The Lowry, Rachmaninov's Suite No.2 for 2 pianos, his 2nd and 4th Piano Concertos, hopefully the performances of Bobby Chen and Krystian Zimmerman with the MPO, and maybe Sarawak's Rainforest Festival. Me and the arts would be like Shahril and his bands, though he'd probably proclaim that his music is the true art of all hahaha.

Saturday saw us all getting dressed up for the MSSM event of the year - M Night 2006! Preparations began early afternoon, with Li Ying, Enn Swan, and Wan Phing trooping over to my little room in various states of (un)dress. 5pm onwards saw two wonderfully patient guys, namely Enn Yong & Shyan waiting in the common room and occasionally glancing at their hypothetical watches. Takes time to curl hair, make up and get zipped into our glamourous gowns, dears. Besides, us girls do it for the benefit of you guys =P. Made a rather head-turning crowd as we tottered and sauntered respectively up Oxford Road from Whitworth Park Hall to Whitworth Hall. At the entrance there was of course the necessary quarter of an hour spent camwhoring, and by the time we waltzed to our table we were so late it wasn't even fashionable heehee.

The lengluis: WanPhing, EnnSwan, me, LiYing =P

The lengzhais? : Shyan, Roy, EnnYong, JJ

Food was biasa-lah, catered by Jati, slightly deviating from the planned menu: prawn keropok, some weird prawn rolls, swimming achar, diluted air bandung, not bad nasi minyak, spicy beef rendang (not!), lousy ayam merah, dodgy sour green grapes, nice watermelon and sweet honeydew. There was a guy all dressed up in matching suit and leather shoes but totally sockless!! (see left for evidence.) Hilarious. After a break camwhoring with Sam & Nic on the stairs outside the hall we took the shuttle mini-van to the Dancehouse Theatre for the "cultural performance" titled Chrysalis. (According to JJ the sign was destroyed by a bus ploughing into the front of the building!) On the way Miss "future-flatemate" Lim happily oggled the fit Malay boys in our van, whereas our own guys followed behind, alone in their own van because apparently no girls wanted to get in with them! Teeheehee...

Phing & I fooling around with my flower while queueing to go in for the performance.

Chrysalis featured two lousy MCs, an ok script with its cliched predictable plot but some hilarious moments, mixed standards of acting, and peppered throughout with "cultural Malaysian" dancing. Highlights include seeing Nunie in both the traditional Malay and Chinese fan dances (really she looks soo Chinese!), QiLian & MingWei looking gorgeous and graceful with their Chinese ribbon dance, the pretty darn good Bollywood dance, and the amusing roles of Shahrin our president. Interval and post-performance saw more mingling and camwhoring.

L: Malaysian Bollywood R: Nunie in the fan dance - she's the one in specs

Instead of joining the horde of Malaysians @ Zoomroom which had been rented by the MSSM for the night, we decided to troop down the road to Revolution - never been to this one, only the Fallowfield branch. No need to comment that our "decent, well-brought up Malaysian students" behaviour degenerated from there =P.

May Day May Day I Luv Holiday

2006-05-02T15:06:00.000+08:00

Just a short 'n sweet poem I got off Sue Shen ages and ages ago. Enjoy. =)

You know a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows.
And a dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes.
Trying to learn from what's behind you and never knowing what's in store
makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores.
And I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry.
Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky.
I'll never reach my destination if I never try,
So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry.
Too many times we stand aside and let the water slip away.
To what we put off 'til tomorrow has now become today.
So don't you sit upon the shore and say you're satisfied.
Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides.

Back to School

2006-04-24T20:09:00.000+08:00

It's first day of my third term at university... time to take a blogging break from studying! hahaha... Anywayz, just a quick update of what I've been up to since coming back from Amsterdam:

Nothing.

Yes, yes, je vais been a lazy little piggy wiggy. Doing quite a bit of spring hibernation, esp with the dratted head cold I've been struggling to overcome, contributed by a sense of pleasant confidence that I won't miss any classes if I do oversleep. But, I have managed to get a teensy bit of studying done, so all's not lost.

Went to see the Bolshoi perform Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake at the Lowry. For those in the dark, the Bolshoi is the premier ballet company in Russia, and argubaly the best in the world. In fact, they were the ones who premiered the first performance of Swan Lake, so lots of history there. 'Twas a very interesting, visually exciting first experience at a ballet for me. The production was top notch - props and scenery rich, dark and lush, costumes gorgeous colours and textures all the way... Tchaikovsky's lyrical score had a strangely distant quality almost like the way one hears the eerie waltz through thick mist in Ravel's La Valse, thanks to the odd acoustics caused by the orchestra pit being half under the stage.

Under the lead of new artistic director Alexei Ratmansky and choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, the interpretation of Swan Lake was shifted from the familiar fairy tale to a darker psychological drama, the focus of the performanace here being more on Prince Seigfried's internal demons than the Odette/Odile power struggle. Siegfried himself was played by gorgeous hunky Sergei Filin with one helluva nice firm butt (hey, no complaints about him standing with his back to the audience sooo often ya?); the lovely exotic Maria Alexandrova was graceful and lyrical, and even though she didn't quite dazzle with the famous 32 fouettes en tournant (I counted only 29!), her interchanging characterisation of the fragile Odette and strong Odile was totally spot on. Now if there's one thing the Russians know how to do, it is ballet. The sheer discipline of the dancers produced some utterly stunning images of intertwining limbs, curvin patterns and yearning bodies. For some more official photos of the lovely ballerinas and eye candy (heehee), click here. Shame we didn't get back in time from Amsterdam to enjoy the famed visceral virility of the Bolshoi's male corps de ballet in Spartacus horr... ;D

Aiighh reading Phing's bloggy just reminded me! Oh my, how could it have slipped my mind?! Hahaha.. after Swan Lake Phing, JJ, Francois (cute... Luxembourgish? Luxembourgian? Luxembourger? heehee..) and I headed into the city (poor Shyan having to rush off his Roman pottery report thingy) Hungry Boy being hungry again, Burger King it was for an early nightcap before meeting Roy and heading off to Opus. We had to reintroduce Francois to the greasy pleasures of American fastfood!! Waaah how cute is that? one refreshing human who's not been "mcdonaldised", so to speak haha.

Anyways it was a 7quid entry to Opus! Trotted down the path to Paparazzi - I've never been on a Saturday night before - where they were playin a weirdly random mix of dance, RnB and hip-hop, and way too many obscure 90s songs... :S And then there was this slimy creepy puny skinny little Indian bugger! I swear he was sorta following me around arrgghhhh... Didn't help with JJ grinning and sniggering everytime I moved around our cosy circle n the Indiano following around on the outside. No dancin, grabbin, grindin or pullin with me, yo! Thank goodness I had three wayy bigger n better lookin guys with me hahaha... Come to think of it, maybe the guy was following JJ around, not me...

Between then and now there've been a few movies @ AMC, couple of times makan-ing and hea-ing about, a couple of intense days with a friend who needed someone to be there, a memorable weekend marathon of Prison Break (ohh, Michael Scofield, how you have stolen my heart...) because I didn't want to start the term with any unwatched episodes, a crazy day's outing with Li Ying in our search for the perfect evening dress, plus an interesting first attempt at cooking bak kut teh combined with Linus' movie night. The friend's now feeling hugely better and on the way to the discovery of happiness, Michael Scofield remains in my heart until I can get my hands on episode #20 haha, the vaguely successful bak kut teh will be attempted again with another poor unsuspecting bunch of guinea pigs, and The Dress will make a hopefully spectacular appearance this Saturday, at our very own Malaysian Night!

Inspiration

2006-04-20T00:09:00.000+08:00

Tell me, O Muse...

So Homer begins his epic poem of the man of many ways, the Ithacan king Odysseus. Hard and twisty is the homecoming of our favourite hero, hard and twisty is the telling of one of Western civilisation's earliest literature.

And as rosy-fingered Dawn leaves the bed of her immortal Tithonus, so I too shall evoke her, beloved of bards and poets, Muse of the most ancient of days...

Amsterdam 31/03/06 - 05/04/06

2006-04-15T01:24:00.000+08:00

Whoaa where has the time flown? Exactly two weeks ago I was enjoying my first day in Amsterdam, capital of Holland and canal city of the north... and now for the long-due update! Link to photo album is at right under Photography; do click on the photos to enlarge as well as the links in white text- you're missing half the enjoyment if you don't. (p.s. skip the lofty long-winded artsy descriptions if this post seems too long ya.)

Follow me, on our very own mini-Eurotrip...

Friday 31st March - Arrival and exploration of Museumplein
Shyan being the only excusable exception to our "let's stay up all night!" plan, 4.45am saw us wannabe glamorous jet-setters trundled into a dodgy Wilmslow-based cab, bleary-eyed and hoping desperately no one left anything behind. Lynn pulling out of the trip to go home, there were no last-minute replacements to be found... and voila! our own (ahem!) menage a trois:

Shyan

The most experienced traveller, veteran of dingy hostels and rough camping, the aged, cynical seen-it-all navigator and rock of the trip.

JJ

The rookie on his first visit to a European country, the cool dude forever hungry, dragger of the unnecessarily massive luggage. Which then leaves...

Yours truly, me

The above image should represent the very embodiment of tranquility, peace and harmony with the natural world. In reality it's just another bloedige toerist (Dutch-slang for, of course, "bloody tourist") arsing about on the man-made lake in Keukenhof. Very cool wooden floating circles. But wait! I get ahead of the story.

Easy-peasy journey from Amsterdam Schiphol to the lovely Amsterdam Centraal though the flight itself was slightly delayed due to the French strikes; decided to get three-day passes for 13 euros each instead of the mind-boggling stripenkaart. Despite Shyan's adventurous spirit, a half-hour walk complete with luggage into our yet-undiscovered city in search of Hotel Abba seemed more like a search for El Dorado, so onto the tram it was. Info nugget: the central Amsterdam public transport system is indeed quite a wondrous thing to experience. Smooth, clean, relatively regular and very proper, plus you can sneak in from the back for FREE if you'r nifty enough; *insert appropriate derogatory comparison with a) Manchester buses, b) Malaysian buses/LRT/trains/taxis. enuf said.* Got off at the strangely-named 1e Con. Huygenstraat stop, less than a 10-minute walk from the Leidseplein eating district yayy!

Staff at the 1-star Hotel Abba directed three clamouring bellies to the nearest "in" place to eat, the Irish pub Tig Barra. Had a comforting English breakfast that brought back memories of boarding school, with a Baileys mocha... mmhmm...... After lunch it was off exploring to the museum area. After familiarising ourselves with directions and buildings, we decided to get the joint ticket to the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum. (Info nugget: Didya know that the architect of the former's new wing - the curvy thing in the photo below - also designed our very own KLIA?)

The few hours spent in the musuems were hugely enjoyable, albeit very tiring. The first floor of the Van Gogh Museum held a chronological retrospective of the Vincent's life and works, with very informative write ups and an excellent logical layout. It was quite absorbing seeing some of his most famous paintings (such as The Potato Eaters, The Yellow House, some of his Sunflowers, many portraits and self-portraits, and landscapes), as well as the smaller, more intimate works. Unfortunately, especially for Shyan since it's his sister's favourite painting, the ever-iconic Starry Night lives in the far West. Personal favourites include the series of peasant portraits, the Japonaiserie studies, The Pink Peach Tree, both versions of the Sower with Setting Sun, Church in Auvers, Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass, Almond Blossom, and of course A Pair of Shoes.

The Rembrandt-Caravaggio comparative exhibition jointly held with the Rijksmuseum was one of my personal highlights of the trip. The very cool, atmospheric entrance to the exhibit was the underground link between the old and new wing of the museum. Complimentary audio guides, dim passageways and intimate ambience, plus great spotlighting on the paintings made the whole thing thoroughly enjoyable. Caravaggio's colours were crisper and bolder, Rembrandt's tonal and jewelled with more chiaroscuro. The verdict? In retrospect, I still prefer the "Caravaggio of the north" to the "Rembrandt of the south" (haha). Might have something to do with the satisfying painterly quality of Rembrandt's style compared with Caravaggio's cleaner and harder execution, as well as the humanity of the flawed and approchable people in the former's work instead of the exalted, slightly-aloof feeling of Caravaggio's subjects. There's also something rather contrived about the latter's infusion of drama in oft-depicted scenes.

Favourites included Rembrandt's small early portrait, the memorable ugliness of the baby in Abduction of Ganymede, the tightly controlled drama of The Feast of Belshazzar and The Blinding of Samson, the surprising loveliness of Bathsheba with King David's Letter far more apparent when you see her "in the flesh", so to say. The Angel Stopping Abraham from Sacrificing Issac to God (long-winded title!) reminded me of Ghiberti's Sacrifice of Isaac panel (1401) which won the competition for the Florentine Baptistery east doors. The classically heroic, idealised body of Rembrandt's Isaac is quite a lot like Ghiberti's of 2 1/2 centuries before, but the suspense of Abraham's falling knife that seems about to kill Isaac anyway is entirely Rembrandt's own.

Perhaps the Rembrandt painting that moved me the most was Titus at His Desk, a small-ish, quiet and earthy portrait of the artist's son daydreaming over his homework, head resting on his hand and the imprint of his thumb distorting the shape of his mouth. The dreamy visage of the boy emerges into a shaft of light that dances on his golden hair, his empty brown surroundings almost a canvas that plays out the far-away images that only he can see. In comparison, Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by a Lizard is a wonderful and amusing study, but somehow one can't get "lost" in his work like Rembrandt's. In all, I preferred Caravaggio's quieter, contemplative paintings such as Penitent Magdalene (love how her turned-away face projects such emotion and how her sleeve shines out of her dusky surroundings almost as if the Holy Spirit's about to lift her up; note her contemporary clothing and jewelry as well as her status) to the larger and more recognisable subjects. Judith Beheading Holofernes was a rich but subtly coloured take on the OT story - the flowing curve of her body and strength in her arms almost seems to combine the grace of early Renaisance Botticelli and monumentality of High Renaissance Michelangelo.

The whole exhibition was pretty darn amazing in the way it brought together some of the most incredible paintings from all over the world to commemorate Rembrandt's 400th birthday year. Shame Danae's still in the Hermitage in Russia, would have loved to see it again. Really, ya just had to be there.

After resting our terribly sleep-deprived bodies along the Museumplein, it was a hop, skip and jump over to the Rijksmuseum. After about an hour's wandering about, I finally found it! The bigshot of the museum, grandly lording it over all the other punitive little paintings - The Night Watch! Goodness, to think of Rembrandt's genius in conceiving and completing this colossus within four years. Originally titled The Company of Captain Frans Cocq, the work really shows off his skill with light and shadow in creating emphasis and exciting composition throughout the scene. Highlight of the Rijksmuseum definitely had to be Vermeer's works especially The Milkmaid (use Artchive's image viewer to give you a sense of Vermeer's colours). Oh my that blue of her skirt! You simply have to see it in person to appreciate that deep joyful irisdence, lovely beyond description. I can't rave about the painting enough - it's the heart-stopping folds of her skirt and the sheer physical realism of the milk spilling from the earthen jug that makes the whole thing simply breathtaking. Also really enjoyed exploring the very detailed Street in Delft and the atmospheric Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.

It was too late for a restaurant dinner by the time we returned to the hotel and showered. Domino's takeaway right across the street suddenly seemed rather attractive and so it was pizza for a rather belated and sleepy dinner. One by one we fell asleep in front of the TV and over our reading materials. 'Twas a long, long day.

Saturday 1st April - Koningsplein, Anne Frank Huis, Red Light District
Like clockwork Shyan got out of bed when his alarm rang and went down to breakfast. Dunno where he gets his energy from. Followed him after twenty minutes of lazing in bed. We had a typical Dutch breakfast, rather close to the Continental meals we have in Asian hotels, but I suppose we were, after all, on the Continent. The spread included coffee, tea, orange juice, milk, cornflakes, whitebread, brownbread, sesame ryebiscuit-like bread, Dutch "breakfast cake", jam and chocolate spread, ham, salami, cheese, and hardboiled eggs.

We waited until about 1pm (yes, you read right) to finally get JJ out of bed. Turns out the flu-riddled Shyan had kept JJ awake all night (ahem!)... with his snoring la. Took the tram and got off at the Koningsplein stop to explore the floating flower market and beyond. Spring's arriving later and later each year - as a result there were honestly more orchids to gawk at than tulips. Had our first encounter with Dutch pancakes along the flower market - I had a normal and satifying chocolate pancake, Shyan a wonderful banana one, and JJ decided to experiment with the vanilla icecream and whipped cream with eggnog pancake! Whoaaa his was decidedly very alcoholic and proved too much for the poor fella to finish.
After walking across a maze of picturesque canals, trusting Shyan to lead the way with his map and tantalised by the shopping(!!) around Koningsplein, we found our way to Anne Frank's House. Very interesting tour around the narrow converted warehouse, office and hidey-hole where her immortal characters lived so many months in hiding from the Nazis. The ghosts of the past long at peace, and it being years since I last poured over her diary, I had to rely on my imagination and the commentaries provided to reconstruct what it must have been like for the refugees. The Free2Choose interactive display at the end made the whole tour truly meaningful and worthwhile. The audience is shown short clips on different themes (the right to demonstrate and the right to religion, for example) and then asked to vote on current issues. Results of the votes are then compared between the current audience and all the visitors. Brilliant idea, great display.

The boys being hungry and desperate for Chinese food (c'mon we're in Amsterdam!) we headed to a large-ish Chinese restaurant. After that it was off to explore Chinatown (as it was still light); we discovered a Malaysian restaurant called Wau! haha.. seriously pricey satay. Parallel to Chinatown is the world-infamous Red Light District, so-called because of the red lamps lining the long, long street as well as red lights adorning pleasure shops and "theatres". Oggled both the seriously hot and not-so-fanciable girls (haihhh why no gorgeous gigolos waannnn??) and sated our (esp JJ's) curiousity in a video/accessory shop. (@o@) My god there were some MASSIVE dildos! No joke, they were so big as to be almost scary leh.

Headed back after a night of experiencing the more "exciting" area of central Amsterdam; chilled out with some chor dai di and then the boys attempted to teach me to play mahjong! And that was the end of our second day.

Sunday 2nd April - De Oude Kerk, Botanic Gardens, Rembrandtplein
Found our way to the Old Church and discovered the "Black Corner", rather aptly named as the prostitues were only "women of colour". A very satisfying afternoon was spent wandering by ourselves in Amsterdam's Botanic Gardens, featuring a magnificient plethora of flora and fauna. Highly recommended, if you ever go to Amsterdam. A large open area with patterened beds featured different species and types of flowering plants and small shrubs, as well as a pond with ducks, frogs and frogspawn. The first greenhouse I went into was specifically for palm trees; the 2nd one had a high gallery walkway - spent a couple of minutes camwhoring there. The next greenhouse was really lovely with flowering shrubs, sculptures, mini fountains and delicate plants. From a hanging walkway one enters the next gallery and is hit by a hot, sultry blast of humid tropical air. Walking through the "rainforest" greenhouse, I could have been deceived by the realness of the setting - it was as if merely walking through the doorway transported me 8,000 miles back home to Taman Negara. Wonderful, wonderful humidity! At once I felt utterly uncomfortable in my jumper and thoroughly at home. There was even a really nice pond amid the lush greenery with a funny sculpture man with his arm all streched out. With a backward look of regret I returned to Europe. Smaller greenhouses contained cactuses from the mini to the gigantic, and fiendishly hard-to-photograph butterflies.

We returned to the city centre and indulged in some Haagen-Dazs icecream =P along Rembrandtsquare. Fooled around with the larger-than-life sculptures from the Night Watch (see headless impaled JJ at left). Dinner was at Leidseplein - after much deliberation we chose Zorba de Griek - yes, you guessed it! Greek food. I choose a simple but perfectly made vegetable chicken soup and a starter plate of dolmades - herby rice with minced meat wrapped in wineleave with a light Greek yoghurt dressing. Shyan had a really good beef stew with vegetables, and JJ chose roast lamb with rice and salad. And it was all simply scrumptious.

Monday 3rd April - Zaanse Schans, St Nicholas' Church
An early start and we were on the train to Koog-Zaandijk. It was a fifteen minute walk to the windmills; on the way we passed through a pretty town and a chocolate-making factory! Whoaa the smell of cocoa beans was simply everywhere, and to be honest I'd be completely sick of it if I had to live there for long, chocoholic me notwithstanding.

Sure enough we came to the bridge over the River Zaan, eagerly awaiting the first glimpse of one of the most breathtakingly beautiful views in Holland. Sure, it was pretty enough, but staggeringly picturesque? Hmm... But anyway, it was a lovely day to be out leisurely strolling. Took plenty of touristy photos with the windmills, browsed the souvenier shops with dazzling arrangements of blue-and-white pottery and dizzying rows of multi-coloured clogs, had more over-priced pancakes, and of course sampled enough cheese at the cute little cheese farm to make Malaysia proud. Free waaht. In the end, I still prefer cow cheese over goat cheese - Shyan begs to differ.

Back in Amsterdam, we paid a spontaneous visit to the Gothic-looking church near the station. St Nicholas' Church it was, and a rather well-hidden gem it turned out to be. Despite its dark, colourless and rather uninviting exterior, the building featured some truly lovely stained glass rose windows, engaging apostles on the well-preserved dome's pendantis and beautiful coffering all around.

Dinner at Leidseplein again saw us spoilt for choice, but in the end we chose to go to an Argentinian steakhouse. Hah, budget eating's only for poor British students who spend it all on drink haha! Oh my, another memorable meal. This time the steak was marinated to perfection and just nicely medium rare the way I like it, the salad was fresh and sweet, the herby rice cooked to the right consistency, the red wine complementing the meal in every way, and of course what's a good dinner without wonderful company?

Tuesday 4th April - Keukenhof, Leiden
Another relatively early wakeup call to catch the train to Leiden Central, and from there the shuttle bus to Keukenhof, world class flower gardens. As I mentioned earlier, our trip was a bit too early to see all the tulips in their most magnificent outdoor state, but the gardens were a great walk in themselves. Unfortunately it decided to drizzle for a while, but we found the huge greenhouse soon enough, and it was nice and sunny by the time we came out again. (Info nugget: there are many, many, many, MANY different kinds of tulips.)

And oh my, the flowers were amazing. Temperature in the greehouse is controlled all year round so the tulips and hyacinths and crocuses and hydrangeas and cyclamens bloom gloriously, scattering their faintly intoxicating scent through the air, proudly showing off their stunning colours and perfect petals. If you're a flower girl - or flower boy, for that matter - go to Keukenhof. Need I repeat myself? Go to Keukenhof. And bring a good high resolution camera with plenty of battery and lots of memory cards. Let the photos speak for themselves.

After an overpriced lunch of Ajinomoto-vege soup and cold apple pie - the boys had tomato soup, rather interesting herring roll, smoked salmon roll, apricot tart and yummy chocolate cake - we headed out into the sunshine and the themed gardens. As hard as we looked, the Japanese garden remained elusively unfindable. Which brings me back to the spoiler in my initial introduction. Like true Malaysians we camwhored for a while on the wooden circles peppering one side of the lake, then decided it was time to head out. The afternoon drawing on, there was no chance for a last-minute trip to Deflt - Vermeer's home - so we took a leisurely stroll around Leiden itself, birthplace of Rembrandt.

Headed back to Amsterdam and Leidseplein again for dinner, and bumped into the Singaporean group on our way to the Dutch restaurant. JJ had an excellent beef roast with young jenever (Dutch gin) followed by dessert, I chose herring on a bed of mixed salad with Dutch pea soup; Shyan's dessert choice of buttered poffertjes with vanilla icecream washed down with Jaegermeister was undoubtedly one of his personal highlights.

Wednesday 5th April - Shopping, at last!
Perfect weather on the last day, of course. With our flight scheduled for 8pm, there wasn't quite enough leeway to satify the shopaholic in all three of us, but time sufficed for a detailed exploration of the long shop-filled street parallel to the Koningsplein canal. For those of you who love European fashion, sigh and go green with envy. Esprit, Mexx, Zara, Morgan de Toi among the bigger names, the stuff was classy European, oh yes. None of that trashy slutty cheap quality English stuff, thank you very much.

A quick nibble on our last journey to 1e Con. Huygenstraat, another quick bite at Amsterdam Schiphol's Wok to Walk (yes, our last meal in Holland was Burger King and Indon-Chinese takeaway), and we were on our way back home again. The silly French delayed our return to reality by more than an hour, and so by the time the cab dropped us back at our cribs, it was truly time for another holiday to recover from our holiday.

What a superb time I had despite our minor cash setback, and the credit goes to my two guys who made it remotely possible and thoroughly worthwhile. =D

Back at my home away from home

2006-04-07T08:32:00.000+08:00

Just got in from a pretty good chinese dinner with phing, shyan, ennyong, cheemun n roy. *Burrrrrppppp* heehee.. been craving chinese food for ages!! Nice long chillout sesh @ CM's; it's great to be "home" in Manchester and catchup with friends. AMSTERDAM WAS FREAKIN FANTABULOUS!!! in shyan's words, a truly "super-funkadelic city" of crisscrossing canals, funky narrow houses, bloody good shopping and of course the ever-wonderful culture. Detailed re-telling of the trip comin up once I finish editing my photos... Watch this space.

Yee Ku Poh

2006-03-23T22:11:00.000+08:00

My grand-aunt passed away on Tuesday morning. She was my paternal grandfather's younger sister, mother of two, widow from quite young but happy in her own way. I haven't seen her for many, many months, and I suppose I shan't ever see her again. I remember from my childhood a small, often sweet-faced woman, who with time, became delicate and fragile that you'd be afraid of crushing her slender bones with a hug, but sparkling with a quick mind and even quicker tongue when you did something she didn't approve of.

Her wake was held yesterday, in her house just behind my grandfather's. I can just imagine it, even though I was not there to say the final goodbye. The coffin was one of those with a glass panel at one end - I can picture the calm scene, perhaps just a simple, very ordinary wake of an old woman you could see lying there - could she still be sleeping?- over the bed of dry ice preserving her like magic against the sultry Malaysian heat she'd known all her life. Face and body clean after a long but unnoticed fight against liver cancer, her soft parchment skin and snowy hair blending into the cream or white or just plain beige of the pillow under her head. Bright dark eyes that sharpened in discontent as often as they flashed with laughter now forever unseeing under the closed, papery lids.

My memories hold scenes of a woman struggling to fill the blue echoes and shadows of a house too big and long empty of children and family. The faded red of kua chee seeds concealing a sliver of white crunchy flesh, the tantalising red of hong pau promising an addition to the piggy bank. I can hardly ever say I knew her, and her passing costs me no emotion; well, perhaps a little relief that she suffers no more, as they always say, and there is closure to her final months of just existing. For myself, I'll take a while to remember her from my days of innocence, back from where the spicy tang of family politics had yet to be discovered, when a kiss and hug for a slightly-smiling, delicate-featured woman were easy gifts in exchange for a cold juicy kam and the treasured envelope of red.

Update

2006-03-21T01:01:00.000+08:00

Whiling away twenty minutes before Spanish class. Hmm... last week seems worth blogging about.

Monday was a bit annoying with all three seminars in a row. Had to scramble the day before to get all the work done (last minute, as usual hehe). Spanish was quite good - with only four of us bothering to turn up, the session was more intensive and satisfying than normal. I really have to buck up with memorising my vocab if I want to get anywhere with only 10 1.5 hour Spanish lessons under my belt.

Tuesday evening Yew Hoong and I went to the meet-and-greet session at Midlands Hotel. The guest of honour? PubSec for the Singaporean Minister of Defence. The event? Launching of the Singaporean Overseas Community for students. Quite amusing that the PS came and shook my hand, and started to make conversation. He was actually trying to seem interested in me and what I do, but the moment I told him I was Malaysian he said, "Oh!" and then somehow wandered away. Cheh. And there I was telling YH we're part of the "honourary delegates from across the causeway" while the S'porean PubSec himself didn't seem too eager to foster a dynamic relationship with us Malaysians hahaha... Anywayz, felt obliged to mingle and "network" a bit just to show I wasn't a freeloader who only turned up for the food (unlike some other M'sians who arrived totally overdressed and then headed straight for the food and hardly talk to anyone but themselves - no names! heehee). =D And speaking about food.. mmmmm not bad, not bad. Though I did expect something better from a 4-star hotel. Highlights were the white wine and chocolate dessert.. ohh man!! Really nice time talking to some of my S'porean friends and catching up with Yew Hoong over some good food.

Quite interesting comparing this event with any Malaysian parallels. When Nazri, member of Badawi's cabinet visited late last year, the gathering was held at Jati - venue was "Malaysian" but the space was way too small to accommodate the number of people who turned up. Indeed, it was mostly Malays present and the event was hardly publicised to us students. In fact, my group only turned up because we heard there was free food, not because we were aware some politician was here to visit. Nazri's speech itself was rambling, unfocused and very, very long. I have nothing against it being in Malay - after all it's our national language and the event was for Malaysians. What rubbed me the wrong was was that there was hardly any purpose to this courtesy call, hence no focus at all in his speech covering the hot news back then which was of course, Squatgate. The S'porean PS's speech was very articulate, precise, rightly patriotic and with just the right touch of informality. He stirred in me something quite close to a longing to be Singaporean... comparisons demonstrating how time and again, we Malaysians and our government always seem to miss the mark; Singapore seems a utopic paragon of how to do things efficiently, diplomatically, and just spot on. A gal just wants to be proud of her country for the right reasons, ya know? Sighhh...

Wednesday went to this Thai restaurant, Koi Samui with "The People" (Shyan - they're formerly known as as "The Party Animals" lah). Truckloads to eat, quite good, rich food but somehow not spicy enough. Damn the gwailoh palate!! Heard from QiLian & Kuan Ching that MAS is discontinuing the KL-MAN direct flights from May... damn damn damn!

Friday had a great time with Lizi at RNCM's Symphony Orchestra concert. Stravinsky's Fireworks got the programme off on an explosive start. Lulu Yang's applaudable rendition of Saint-Saens's 2nd Piano Concerto was both strident and delicate. Amazing how that small-sized girl can pull off that intensely physical piece with such virtuosic panache. Rachmaninov's highly Romantic 2nd Symphony was a wonderful counterpart to the earlier shorter pieces. Sublime music-making from the musicians and conductor Paul Daniel, though I didn't quite like his style of conducting. After that, St. Patrick's Day drinking with RNCM and Mgt chums! And, I even bothered to put on a green halterneck top, no less.

Remember, remember, the twenty-second of December... Haha just my own birthday take on V for Vendetta's cheesy but strangely haunting opening (it's actually meant to be the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day). Saturday late afternoon met up with Ainun, Shyan and Enn Yong. Finally saw that gal after so long! I swear she's spending more time in Liverpool than Manchester. The movie was not bad at all, pretty interesting in its own way, and admittedly a lot better that the Wachowski brothers last writing attempt - Matrix 2 & 3. I enjoyed the "look" of the film more than the ideas which weren't exactly revolutionary. That Britain's a totalitarian state was amusing, but the Chancellor's rather Hitler-esque figure and takeover was a bit disconcerting, if not insulting. V's ultimate reason for wanting to destroy the architectural symbol of a government was not quite clear in the end - did he do it because the goverment was stifling its people, or because he wanted to avenge what they did to the actress in the next cell? Natalie Portman, the so-called thinking man's sex symbol gave a very solid if not exactly Oscar-worthy performance; Hugo Weaving - ah, what can one say of the actor versatile enough to handle both Agent Smith and Lord Elrond with such incredible skill? Oh my, his projection of physicality and sheer persona from behind an all-enveloping costume of mask, coolass black outfit complete with cap and hat was simply stunning. Ya had to be there.

After the movie we headed to Pearl City - Enn Yong can really order food heeheeee... Had something similar to kangkung belacan, a claypot seafood dish, n pretty damn nice lamb with bamboo shoots and foo juk in a large claypot over our very own stove! The lamb came with a lovely sauce of fermented beancurd and rice wine (so they guys tell me) with fresh chopped chilli. Exciting stuff.

Sunday early afternoon met up with Shyan at Cornerhouse. We wanted to watch the very noirish Spanish/Cuban Homigas en la boca (Ants in the Mouth). Tickets were sold out so we went for Habana Blues instead, a Cuban take on the "musical film", relationships and opportunities. Interesting, seeing the slightly grittier side of life. S'been quite a while since I last got teary-eyed in the cinema; this time was when Ruy and band sang his farewell song - Arenas de Soledad - to his ex-wife before she and their two children illegally cross over to the USA in a "raft". Music was wonderful, very different fare from my usual Chopin et co - listen to three tracks including Arenas de Soledad under "Musica" on the website.

Laws of the Universe

2006-03-18T01:11:00.000+08:00

Another classic forwarded email from my Dad. Personal messages come via txts, postcards or snail mail heehee...

Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease your nose will begin to itch or you'll have to urinate.

Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of the Telephone: When you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.

Law of the Alibi: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law: If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will start to move faster than the one you are in now. (Works every time!)

Bath Theorem: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of the Result: When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Theatre Rule: At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

Law of Coffee: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers: If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Dirty Rugs/Carpets: The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich of landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

Law of Location: No matter where you go, there you are.

Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

Brown's Law: If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Oliver's Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law: As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

Law of Reality: Murphy was an optimist.

Joie

2006-03-15T00:48:00.000+08:00

Haven't blogged in ages, but while chatting to Eleanor it struck me that today is Tuesday, March 14. Well, a month has flown since Tuesday, February 14 - if time flies when you're having fun, I guess I did find the strength to have fun. =) Le bonheur de vivre, n'est pas? All in all, I would like to say a big thank you for those who have helped me through this month in some way - you know who you are, love you lots.

Anyway, change of tune. Decided to give the blog a bit more purpose, a slightly more intellectual flavour apart from my usually incoherent ramblings, a better reflection of my life and passions.

Matisse's "epic" painting was completed between 1905 and 1906, the explosive start of the French movement now known as Fauvism. The work is not only a celebration of idyllic life and happiness, but also an ode to the artist's love of sheer colour and the lyricism that continued throughout his long career. Intense oranges, verdant greens, bloody reds and vibrant yellows result in a canvas that pulses with a tangible outpouring of exuberance and emotion. Very much like Edvard Munch's infamous The Scream (1893), it is in fact the background and colour that transmits the title - here, the intense happiness of life; in Munch's work it is the bloody-hued sky and tortured landscape that screams. Munch's iconic figure is soundless; Matisse's sensuous pairs are very calm, sweetly passive even, slowly writhing with a pleasure that is entirely separate from our world.

The scene opens into an Arcadian landscape of gentle woods and a paranomic ocean in the distance. What a furor the painting must have caused in its debut in the face of Parisian critics and public as a whole who, still recovering from the innovation of the Impressionists, almost keeled over in salons and galleries from the shock impact of Fauvist brilliance.

Simply gorgeous, isn't it? Makes you wanna just rip off your clothes and run to Alexandria Park, lift your face to the sun and sing your heart out. Well, that's how I feel anyway - could go on for ever raving about the painting, but ya won't catch me dead streaking along Oxford Road! Hehe... cheers to one of my favourite works ever.

Coffee break

2006-03-09T15:25:00.000+08:00

Whew one heck of an early post for me, huh? Havin a break now with the always wonderful Ipoh White Coffee, and a rather extended break I might add. Zis is me trying to be hardworking - submitting my portfolio on The Impact of National Culture on ExxonMobil (using Geert Hofstede's theorectical framework of cultural dimensions. Hmm that bugger relli got lots of time on his hands huh, analysing data from hundreds of IBM employees in 70 countries over 7 years, just to prove that Americans really are the most selfish people on earth. (See Individualism, of which USA scores the highest among the most relevant 50 countries in the world.)

Anyway, the portfolio's only meant to be 250-300 words (worth 10% of my total marks for Modern Corporation) but then I kinda panicked a bit - what I've written over the last week or so just doesn't seem to make sense!

Poem of the Week

2006-03-06T01:55:00.000+08:00

Haha check this poem out, sent to me by none other than... my Daddy! (yar I know I hardly check my mail.)

Bloody Men

Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.
You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You're trying to read the destinations,
You haven't much time to decide.
If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you'll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.

Really random but so true horr... Dad gets these stuff off weekly internal ExxonMobil emails or somethin like that complete with Poem of the Week, Jokes of the Week etc. LOL. He's off to Brisbane until Friday, and I'm missing him already. Awww... At least Mum gets the TV all to herself haha, but I bet she'll kinda miss not havin anyone to fight over the remote with =P Knowing him, he'll prolly get her some totally unwanted stuff like beef jerky n Auzzie chocolates... perfect for the waistline huh?

Maafkan, je ne parle pas chinese

2006-02-28T22:55:00.001+08:00

I'm beginning to slightly question my decision to take up weekly Spanish lessons this term. Why? you ask. Now, yours truly is Chinese, born in Malaysia, brought up by parents who went to missionary schools in KL. That makes me fluent in English, with seven years' worth of Malay and Mandarin lessons complete with tuition, Cantonese picked up in late in primary school and from HK friends, and French GCSE on a piece of paper.

Couple o' facts and figures:
- there are more than 500 million native English-speaking people;
- 2 billion people will speak English as a second language with a decade;
- currently 1.1 billion Mandarin speakers
- employers are increasingly looking for bi- and even trilingual candidates - the continuing trend of "global languages" are English, Chinese, Spanish and Japanese.

Arrrghhh I don't wanna become a "jack of all trades, master of none"!! Dammit.. so how, so how? Spreading myself too thin la :S

2006-02-28T22:55:00.000+08:00

Skimming through several sites and blogs, this link caught my eye:

Girl Weds Stray Dog

Seriously, go check it out. This clearly illustrates the need for education, education, education. Yeah? Despite the numerous attacks etc on how the Malaysian/British/anywhere else education is completely pointless yadda yadda yawwnnn utterly absurd things like this happening in countries where the literate aren't the minority. Female circumcision vs canine marriage consummation, anyone? We're ridiculous.

Brrr....

2006-02-25T14:02:00.000+08:00

Gaaahh the weather's been very British the past few days. Well, only in Britain does the weather have personality attributes. And of the alarmingly schizophrenic mood swing type. Well let's see, just a few days ago it was sunny, crisp and dry. So dazzlingly bright that shades made a mini-comeback along Oxford Road. And then, without as much as a farewell, liquid depression descended upon us. The damp is rheumatism-inducing, wind so bitingly horrible even the coat and scarf don't wanna go out and be seen, sleet so nasty I've almost forgotten what it felt like to live in darling Malaysia. Woe on those whose heaters mysteriously switch off during a cold spell. You have my sympathy, really. Suddenly the kitchen seems warm and welcoming - overflowing bin, fried onion smell and all.

But anyway, food supplies are diminishing with worrying aclarity. Something about the cold that makes me eat more hehe.. Out to face the weather, then.

Anyways I'm back and it's like, 5am in the morning. Jasley walked Phing n I back from Hulme Hall and he's sooo totally all over her! *chortle* Can't believe I'm blogging instead of sleeping the alcohol off! But I just had to shower, wash off all the encrusted vodka from my arms and clean my smoke-permeated hair, so gotta wait until said hair is dry or else I'll wake up looking like a peacock in heat bloomed all around my face. So I have nothing better to do than blog - eyes too tired to continue Season Two of the O.C. and I can touch type anyway, even with my eyes close. Honestly, test me haha.

Went into town Friday afternoon to help Dara find an outfit for her performance in Sunday's Student PopIdol - she's gonna be singing some Whitney Houston - but no luck especially with the search narrowed down to something dark aquamarine-green. Stopped for a latte at the cafe next to Arndale's Starbucks and a generous sample of carrot & something muffin! Mmm... Dara looks simply fabulous this term with her huge blue contacts, longer hair and that luvved-up glow =P

Anyways happy 19th birthday JJ! Went to Lidl & Tesco yesterday, got the stuff for my cannellini fusilli salad that I planned to make for the potluck dinner cos I was too lazy to do any full-scale cooking. Of course, silly me, totally forgot to get the cannellini beans which kind of made the salad just a plain, boring ole.. well, salad with fusilli. Cheated on the dressing cos I used the remainder of the white rice vinegar used for cleaning the CNY jellyfish (the unused vinegar, i mean) instead of balsamic vinegar. Maybe some coarse black pepper and crushed garlic might have given it more oomph too. Never mind, always next time. Ainun did some scarily good sweet & sour chicken with mix veg and pineapple; wanphing some wonderful creamy spaghetti cabonara; JJ the fried egg rice he did for Shahril's birthday ages ago.

All in all, the dinner gathering was pretty good. The M&S cakes were seriously tho out of shape haha.. Doesnt matter what the thing looks like just how it tastes horr... Headed down to Fallowfield and in the end chose Orange Grove bar (or watever it's called) as our get-JJ-drunk-birthday-rendevous. Watched with fascination this totally wow (in my experiences anyway) Korean drinking stunt. 19 small beer glasses lined up perfectly, 18 shot glasses of vodka balancing precariously in between. And voila, a brilliant demonstration of the domino effect and beer never tasted so good than with a shot of vodka. Pity we never got to use Shu Mei's tongue-twister drinking cards, but I suppose that was probably more cerebral than most people were game for on a night out...

Got back bout 5am ish after spending a few seriously random hours in Jung Hann's room. Showered, and surprisingly got myself out of bed 2pm ish. Went to see Munich with Wan Phing. Damn good movie! Intense like a typical Spielberg but have to say it was the highlight of my week. Arggh gonna go to classes in my duvet if it doesn't start getting warmer soon...

2006-02-17T01:32:00.000+08:00

Here's one of the best posts I've ever read, courtesy of Wan Phing again. Really got to me, deep inside at the right moment. Thanks girl you somehow always sum up not just your own feelings in your writings but mine too. =)