Alan Fleischer's Time Exposures.

a great day out at SAM again, this time with kel because i was hoping the photographer could shed some light and give me a different perspective on Alan Fleischer's work. And to find out how he's doing. He arrived unceremoniously 1hr late with profuse apologies but i was feeling pretty ok. I've gotten used to lateness because i myself live with a internal clock slower than others by a couple of hours. I usually feel i have eternity to live, what's with standing on the NY streets for 1 hr to look at someone else's portrait being drawn by an artful hand? these things are the colours of my world and things that i remember well, much better than the myriad of colours in the Nine West shops. I love the arts and ideas. of representation and of the human psyche. We ended up catching up and talking about architecture and different cities over drinks overlooking Esplanade and the cool night air softly playing with my hair. the serenity of the city lights.

Sometimes i fear getting lost in my thoughts. sometimes i fear i stare so long into eternity that i would miss out the present and fail to live it to the maximum as i should. There are big things alright, but small things like exercise and appointments and grocery shopping and errands, i forget and let slip too often. Other times i suddenly take a look at myself inside out and panic that i have overlooked something important that will jeopardize my well being as an earthly being. Josh uploaded a photo we took yesterday and my first thought was: i think it's time to exercise and reduce those big arms. Jesus loves me whether or not i've huge arms, whether or not i have thunder thighs, whether or not i have unruly hair, whether or not i'm cleft-lipped, whether or not i'm blind, whether or not i am HIV-positive, whether i am fair or dark skinned but i still disappoint myself but not loving myself just as i am, most of all the time. there's always something i'm seeking to change or improve upon, which is a silly thing if i remember to KIV the fact that God made me and there's nothing i can do to make it better because i am perfect and good in His sight.

the sweet regret of wanderlust.

Posting one of the shortest but my favourite descriptions here. I enjoy it because it describes so succinctly and avidly the sweet regret of wanderlust, of meeting a city that one dreams of in his youth only to find that one is no longer young, and desires fade into memory:

"When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives in Isidora at his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories. "

my angels.

i believe God loves me so much He sent me angels to guard over me. therie believes the writer in me more than i myself do and is like the conduit between me and God when i get lost in the world. my companion and prayer warrior. grace was the first to speak to me about God in my life and recommends to me the best deals in town (trust me, she knows absolutely the best). my informant. serene is the only friend whom i can memorise BOTH her home no. and handphone no. and recite when i speak in my slumber because of the number of years we chalked up just talking to one another over the airwaves. my evolving half. tzing is the sort of friend i smile at whenever i think of her because she's just special to me; spirited and quirky (yes she HATES the Q word but it's a compliment). Hwee is my dreamer counterpart but we're completely opposite in flavour; she's passive and practical. i'm active and floaty. we keep each other dreaming and grounded at the same time. my paradoxical counterweight. Ching is a constant in my life from rg days till now. her never-changingness protects my authenticity as a person.

other pple are less regular in frequency in my life but special nevertheless. Ling is my grand-friend; we promised to remain friends even when we become grandparents and will make our children befriend each other, no matter what it takes. gas chamber, anyone? ;) Kel is the only guy i have no qualms with to ring him up and hang out. KC is forever calling and sms-ing me to complain, inform and gossip. jian has an apt sense of humour that's very endearing.

and yes my Nav gang. they're the sort you will call up if you're kidnapped, because you know they'll pray so hard they'll move the heavens and the kidnappers :D

quiet silence

she always believed in the need to be conversational, especially with those closet to her heart. it's almost like the crusade to bare one's heart is one that she lives for, a born psychoanalyst who instinctively protects the emotional well being of all those within 1m proximity to where she's breathing. Love, to her, is a warm and engaging conversation that can last into eternity; not necessarily of words, but of music of the soul in resonance with one another, of silence that echoes out into the deep, of musings and sighs that are shared and understood. which is why, she knows and understands God's love and her love for God. not intellectually, but with the heart and soul. perhaps that's why, etched in her mind is the image of a boy, silent and slightly awkward, always watching her from afar, not daring to draw near. they share a knowing smile, and then part ways. they see each other from the corner of their eyes, never quite making the connection. they pluck up the courage to speak to each other, not of words but of music. the heart, speaking much louder than the sum total of all the words exchanged between them.

being alive, with colours and individuality

i'd very much rather stare at the computer till my eyes hurt than actually sleep when i'm dead tired since 2.5 hours ago. i know i deserve all the dark eye rings and eye bags in the world but too bad i'm endowed with youth and not-bad genes and those things don't get me so easily. right now i'm just thinking about how to use an eyeliner properly to get a rather sweet gothic look like the girl on the far left of the picture. (i don't really care very much about the other rather pointless pair of pictures.) makeup is my new love ever since starting temp work. it changes the way you look, but more importantly, it changes how you feel. it's a beautiful colourful day when i look through my 12-colour palette of eye shadows and decide whether to be a lilac butterfly or a brown racoon. it captures my imagination and expresses my creativity; yes, all in the process of choosing colours and styles to present to the world. makeup does not equal vanity my dear friends. they are like the colours of the rainbow to enthrall and inspire, the paint colours on the palette of a pensive artist to translate the overflowing reservoir of heaven in his breast. if art is spiritual, so must the trade of beauty creation be.

On a more intellectual tone, i have been reading Affluenza by Oliver James to satisfy my book hunger. how can i ever live without books and ideas?

besides the aesthetic reason of how i adore the cover picture of 2 zombified beautiful city dwellers, what Oliver expounds in his book about the Virus-infected English speaking cities (including Singapore) is superbly interesting. Sadly, Tzing was not too impressed nor intrigued when i was sharing (albeit a little too briefly) about his finding about how focusing on being beautiful rather than attractive is much healthier and more intrinsically motivated and hence gives you better emotional well being. well, it's common sense to know that you're always happier when you're not trying to please everyone in the world, but i've never truly separated being beautiful from being attractive. most people, like me, will probably intuitively think that they are one and same. he raises the very poignant example of how Russian and Danish women are the most beautiful in the world (seriously, i never knew that before reading the book but apparently, it's a known fact in the Western world.) but miniskirts and low cut tops are not found in their fashion encyclopedia. think individualistic, personalized, tasteful clothings mixed and matched that DON'T cost $60 a piece, mass produced in Zimbabwe and shipped over to Zaras and Mangoes going on sale in Singapore. i've always been disgusted by the state of fashion in Singapore. I'd rather dress plainly in clothes that are flattering for me and feel comfortable than trash my money on clothing that are skimpy, overpriced, mass produced and devoid of personality. Oliver's theory is that Russian and Danish women, unlike the Virus-stricken (materialism) women in developed cities, have learnt to express their beauty and creativity in their appearance, instead of using appearance to impress others or to attract men. this is why their beauty radiates from within.

Pretty cool thought huh? Oliver writes much better and interestingly of course. and every page reads like a vaccine for myself and helps me to dig deeper to discover what is truly important to me and authenticity ranks tops. To be true to who i am, what i feel, what i think, what i believe, to all those who cross my path and whose paths i cross. of course, that presupposes a simultaneous process of improving that authentic self; less selfishness, less materialism, less pretense, less hedonism, less directionless, less introspection. work in progress, that's what i am.

And don't ask me why i address Oliver James by his first name. i don't want to tell you that i neurotically treat all good writers as my personal friends. shhhhhh.

the diving bell and the butterfly (1)

why movie posters can look scandalous and irreverent to the spirit of a film eludes me. but it was a good film, which made me fall in love with French all over again and it nourished the lingophile in me. I love the beauty of the monologue Jean-Do recites in his solitary diving bell and can only metaphorically weep at my incompetence and his confinement; that i could only read the translated English form, like listening to Chopin Waltz No. 69 through the fingers of a mediator.

I got my hands on the book the next day, that i may savor once again, the resonance of the quotes which tugged at my writer soul. I wish i could rave more on the film tactics, but i was too wowed by the subtitles to give due attention to cinematography. that would take a separate viewing. i promise to fulfill my irreproachable role as an amateur film critic.

the first film that we watched together and might be the last for now, as seul, he takes off to France.

taking stock

a long time since she's been here, a poignant reminder of how long she has been a member of the living dead. She still is a drifter in every sense of the word; a traveller, a wanderer, a pilgrim of suppressed hedonism, a sprinter who exhaust her lungs in every surge of forward movement - never has been a persistent marathon runner. Her attention has been fleeting in other areas; shutting out the listening ear of the attentive doctor beside her as the charismatic pilot presses in for her number. Why not? her internal monologue rationalises away her 3 minute interest in anyone at all.

for the longest time she has been sick of her raven hair; the overdue sunburst colours haunt her every day, in the reflection of a glass, a mirror along the shopping windows. The memory and desire taunt her unceasingly: How much longer will you live a partial life?

the dazzling colours of the city lights of New York provide a wisp of dreamy remembrance these days, as she relives the sensation of the cool Times Square night on her skin and the buzz of people roaming the city that never slumbers. so sweet yet so short; they had to leave before the subway fails them in the wee hours of dawn. how she wished she insisted on watching the warm hues of morning light envelope this city inch by inch. Manhattan, the sleek sort of man she knew she'd fall in love with - long enough for a summer and deep enough to harp on for years after. Perhaps, fond memories will fail her when they meet again, but nostalgia remains bittersweet; like the dark chocolate she well savors.

she starts to wander once again, in her invisible cities she is once again free to roam, free to create, free to dream. no more mirrors and no more promenading.

series of unforeseen happenings

a whole whirlwind of unexpected happenings caught me off guard, and i feel i've finally been set free from a ship anchored in a wrong place for far too long. the nautical miles are dropping steadily as i start afresh on my little make shift raft and continue to sail in this vast space called LIFE. Much to do, but top of my list to really live because life really is too short to eat bad food, work in an office, maintain the status quo, be afraid of change, suppress my wildest ambitions and to live carelessly. This realization came as i was in the midst of grandma's funeral service over the weekend as people scurried around to take care of matters ostensibly for a dead person but whom will never grasp the meaning of all this fuss and bustle as her shell lies silently in the coffin.

And life, is too full of possibilities to box myself in or to tell myself NO or MAYBE out of fear. Seize the present, for it is called a gift for a reason. There is much to do, much to hope for, much to imagine, much to explore, much to seize and treasure. This realization came when Glenn told me he's taking a week's leave to go and see France all by himself after this semester of French class ends. makes me want to go with a new sort of urgency, i admit.

who am i to be

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,talented and
fabulous?

Actually who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel
insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own
light shine,we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,our presence automatically liberates
others.

Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech

a buoy floating, bobbing, drifting. without a routine to channel my thoughts and energy through, my soul senses something amiss. i can't seem to figure out my purpose for being alive and without a definitive sense of destiny, i've no idea what to take interest in. Should i take a course in singing because i love it or should this endeavour be pursued only if it is profitable for my future in some tangible way, only if i'm sure? Should i even dare to dream to be travelling the world and doing sth that i absolutely love and knowing for sure in the deepest of my heart that this is it?They always say, you need to be doing something you love, as a reprise from the demands of life. but i can't make something i don't love the main anchor of my life in the first place. but what is it that i love? I don't seem to have the determination to follow through with my dreams. almost always bound by a wisp of fear, a dose of i-don't-think-i'm-good enough and maybe-i-don't-want-it-enough-anyway. i ask for a little more tenacity in my personality, a much more confident of who i can be.. i'm transiting already, i just have to find out where i want to be soon.

fresh new start.

The world collapsed in its entirety, that i might once again make a fresh start. a long awaited break from the present, a long awaited clean slate to build my existence upon. with no foreshadowing you said with such cheekiness that you have found someone and i could only match the twinkle in your playful glance. Something collapsed within, but i believe it was a start, not an end to what could be. I'm moving on to be a new me in transition, thankful for the simultaneous heartache and lightness of being. a fortified heart is useful in such times, i just wish that my eyes were as obstinate.

my reprise!

the tragically unemployed has finally found gainful employment in a fabulous events management company. stay tuned for absolutely superficial gushings and thoughts :)

http://raediant.wordpress.com/

retreat with the lover of my soul.

what we do for Navigators' retreat is all 13 odd of us sitting in the conference room, practicing listening prayer as we deliberate over what God is telling us about the past sem and the direction for the coming semester. And God never fails to meet us and He always speaks the same to all in different ways and when we share, faith arises and we are sure of God's leading. To many who haven't gone through the rigour, it may all seem a little mystical, but for me, each retreat/Nav camp is an oasis in the desert that refreshes my soul as i get connected to God to hear His prayer for His people, especially those in NUS. I'm very excited and moved at how God has revealed to us His plan for the Nav community and NUS. Especially when I shared what God has been speaking to me about prayer, it resonated with the rest and we all had agreement in the spirit. We meditated on Isaiah 41,43, 58, of which God also said Isaiah 43 is for Therie dearie as she starts her internship :) (hope first day of work went well! -waves-)

God spoke with regards to sending rivers and living waters in the desert, sun-scorched place. It was both for my personal journey, as well as for campus revival in NUS. it's all wondrous, but not crystal clear yet, just an inkling of how the journey will be like.

suffice to say that i am understanding what it means to love, and love which i thought had died has died only to be resurrected in a new form. I was perplexed, but God said to forget the former, for He is doing a new thing, do i not perceive it?

kyo

Everything's fine on the French side, found a new French band, Kyo to listen to.

Qui Je Sui ( Who am I)


C'est ma faute (It's my fault)

the stubborn old tree.

the tree shall stop telling the gardener that the pruning hurts the branches too much and stop screaming and kicking for the pain to go away because the whole point of pruning is to make the tree more fruitful. life goes on with that kinda pain even if it really really hurts alot and no one else knows how much. and life, will go on much better after the old branches finally die and new branches and hope take their place. The weight of the pain can better anchor the roots, nourish the leaves and give a newfound courage to the complacent tree. it will all be fine. No need to scream, no need to wave the remaining branches flagrantly for the gardener to watch out lest he cuts the wrong branches. seriously, he knows better. who are you, o tree, to advise the gardener?

nostalgia once again.

i was trying to reorganize summer photos from last year on FB coz i realised that i had named a folder "Yale University" instead of University of Connecticut. But who'd really know right. Still, it's a perplexing mistake. Looking at the photographs make me nostalgic. I was just thinking of all the friends in US; Heidi, Carl, Vogel and all the peeps from Evil class. Even the dudes from Investigative Journalism, though we didn't get a chance to get closer. Missing New York's dynamism, New Haven's rusticity, Boston's refreshing spirit. The stoic Harvard, the dignified Yale. And of course all the crazy people along the way.

Somehow looking back the me a year ago was so un-apt at making full use of my experience there, too timid to live it to the fullest, too hesitant to seize the moment. I was too reticent and self conscious to do alot of crazy things. Maybe that was part of self discovery too, to see all the flaws and be dissatisfied with how i have lived. I'd hope that this summer i could travel around UK or Europe, though it is not to be. Nothing else to be said except a long sigh. Maybe the key lies in not being greedy and living with an extra dose of self contentment.

Where to go from here? I must learn to stop looking back fondly too much lest i miss the road ahead once more.

fatigue.

i am dead tired from 3 hour Film Art exam in the morning and French class at night. bleah. why do i get the feeling that everyone else is enjoying their post exam celebrations already? I still have a paper tomorrow! Oh gosh.

We were doing phonics and the alphabet tonight and man was it borrrrrrrrrrring. the take home is that i can recite the alphabet in French now. yippeee. bestest achievement of the year. C'est Ca. Glenn was nice to talk to as usual on the way home but i was less chatty tonight because of overwhelming fatigue. But one thing i learnt about doctors is that they really signed their life away on the dotted line. His schedule is KRAZY for a 26year old. If i were a doctor i think i will eventually adapt to a life of only patients and rounds AND MINIMAL SLEEP but the fact that i will have to give up time with family and friends and hobbies is just... unimaginable.

the sailor.

There is the story of this sailor who experienced a terrible shipwreck at sea. He climbed upon a raft and set his course based on the stars since he has learnt to navigate from the stars.

Yet for the next 28 days, the clouds cover the sky every night and he is uncertain whether he remains on course or whether he is doomed.

The question is had the sailor set his course right? The message of the constellations - had he imagined it because of his desperate circumstances? Or he had seen the truth once, and now had to hold on to it without further reassurance?

B student.

"B-students don’t know everything about anything and are excellent at nothing. B-students, however, know something about a lot of things, and they can complete almost any task with some modicum of success. Entrepreneurs are B-students. There is no one thing they do well. But there are many thing they do well enough.

A-students, on the other hand, know a lot about one thing, whether it is technology or marketing or sales and finance. And they do this thing extremely well. If they don’t do it well, it bothers them. A-students want to do things perfectly all the time. This is a very bad trait for an entrepreneur, but a very good trait for a manager.

The most important thing to realize when you’re a B-student entrepreneur is that you need A-student managers. You must listen to them. You have no choice. The good news is that A-students must also listen to B-students, because B-students know about aspects of life and business that A-students know nothing about. While most A-students are really good at one thing, they tend to be completely out to lunch when it comes to most everything else. On the other hand, B-students are really good at being sort of good at everything.

The sooner the B-students and the A-students understand and appreciate each other, the more productive everyone will be."

I'm so B-weary this semester that i actually googled "B student" to make sense of my rather unfortunate predicament. What can i say, except that i'm so tired of studying and examinations, yet terrified at the prospect of having to find a job because securing an interesting internship is proving to be harder than imagined. I think the problem with me is that i'm neither an A or B student; i straddle between both and my butt hurts warming the fence. I'm secure in neither camps and there's an agitation within, esp so during examination season. But i think the problem runs deeper. It has to do with knowing my station in life and what I'm called to do and wanting to know WHAT'S OUT THERE. I'm tired of my books. I want to experience the real life, much as i still enjoy student status. (think of all the student rates you're paying everywhere and be thankful). But this is a poignant ouch! because my cardinal sin is pride ->

"The number one killer of start-ups is when entrepreneurs confuse ‘being lucky’ with ‘being smart.’ You must possess the humility to distinguish one from the other.

Is this a cool book or what. I want to be a poetic but shrewd entrepreneur in life.

Accidental Francophile.

I was a little jittery for my first French class at Alliance Française ; it felt alot like the first day of school (well it is) with no friends and no expectations save for a desperate prayer that it will be fun. And fun it was. Although I've gotten the impression that the French ain't very outwardly friendly people; it seems that all their passion is locked up in the oasis of their hearts and bursts forth only at measured intervals. And of course i remembered to pray that i will make ONE new friend to brave it with me and viola! I met Glenn the doctor 2 years into his training. He's really a kind doctor and stays near my place. yippee.

Here's the essence of what i've learnt today; i shall attempt to revise:

A: Bonjour!
B: Bonjour!
A: Ça va?
B: Ça va bien, merci! Et vous?
A: Ça va bien, merci! Comment vous vous appelez?
B: Je m'appelle Weiting. Et vous?
A: Moi, je m'appelle XYZ.
B: Enchante.
A: Enchante.

The beauty of learning a new language is that it is all very novel, like discovering a whole new world like a newborn baby; curious to describe everything with one's very limited vocabulary. and Thank God for my Panasonic voice recorder! I've come to realize that audio revision of classes are very helpful for audio moi. yippee. Life is fun even in the midst of exams. I've never felt so slack during exams; mainly because both Film Art and Contemporary Political Theory are open booked exams and having been consistent through the semester, I don't really need to prepare anything. C'est la vie.

The decision to take up French was quite an oscillation,even though i have seriously decided to take up a third language; as a diplomat needs to be versatile. Nothing's set in stone but i want to be equipped as long as my heart is still set on it. My loyalties were however divided because i've already started on Korean on my own (yes due to my own drama-and-DBSK complex) and a new attraction to the Japanese Kanji. But after a long deliberation, i finally decided that in terms of intellectual and cultural richness, diplomatic value and romanticism, French comes up tops. yup so i'm on my way to be an Accidental Francophile. exciting.

Au Revoir!

On being young and idealistic.

Everyone's young days are a dream, a delightful insanity, a sweet solipsism. Nothing in them has a fixed shape, nothing a fixed price; everything is a possibility, we live happily on credit. There are no obligations to observe; there are no accounts to be kept. Nothing is specified in advance; everything is what can be made of it. The world is a mirror in which we seek the reflection of our own desires. The allure of violent emotions is irresistible. When we are young we are not disposed to make concessions to the world; we never feel the balance of a thing in our hands - unless it be a cricket bat. We are not apt to distinguish between our liking and our esteem, urgency is our criterion of importance; and we do not easily understand than what is humdrum need not be despicable. We are impatient of restraint; and we readily believe, like Shelley, that to have contracted habit is to have failed.

To be young, is not to be disposed to be a conservative. He could have said it in a succinct sentence but no, Oakeshott lapses into his own nostalgic musings on being young. The first time i read his "On Being Conservative" i was bored by his longwinded illustrations of each point he was making. A second attempt at deciphering his conservative mind was much smoother as i picked out a gem of a passage which i liked. All it takes is a slice of apt writing to perk me up. Likewise for the "basic" political science-y piece by Max Weber:

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth - that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders or heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even what is possible today. Only he who has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of it all!' has the calling for politics.

In class, i disagreed with Prof Pellerin over Weber. I saw this is an inspirational text to budding young politicians, while he saw it as Weber writing a cautionary passage as pouring a cold bucket of water over the heads of political science students; that their flames of romantic idealism about politics must go. Much as I can see Pellerin's very poignant point, my personal response is that of being inspired, whether or not i have the calling for politics. But of course, that might be because i'm too young and too idealistic and am still walking around with my rose-tinted glasses over my rose-tinted contact lenses. The prerogative of being young.