A.A.H As time creeps closer to my expected departure date from Melbourne, I find myself getting more and more edgy. The razor sharp anticipation cuts into my skin in a metaphor that I half wish were real, just so there is release. This release from stagnation - the chasing of my own devil’s tail has proven to be unbearable, its pointlessness stark and intimidating. It is almost as if I am trying to subdue my internal restlessness by promising it an escape route. Almost as if I am saying to myself “just sit still for a little while more and then you can run like the wind”. I feel like a kid, being made to hang out for that ice-cream because that ice-cream promises her a salvation that her child-like intellect will perceive as everlasting. In reality, we all know that’s not true, but at the moment I’m pretending that it is because a temporary salvation is well, better than non at all. I simply want to be able to welcome other perspectives and maybe for once, be able to hold on to some. I am tired. It has been a very personally tough year and I am tired. The awful thing though, is that I am mostly tired of myself. I had lunch with a colleague today. He is well-travelled and comes well-equipped with stories from all corners of the world. I listened to his tales and felt a little glimmer of light creep back into my eyes. My face warmed in the glow of spring’s sunshine. 16 more days. 16 more sleeps till I am on a plane. Despite all this, despite the blind hope that I will be able to find my breath again. Despite my eagerness to tred on soil that has never held my footprints or to be blanketed by the shade of the sky in another land, there is apprehension - it is there and it sits quietly quivering in the outlines of my vessel. There it sits, hardly visible till I acknowledge it. And when I do, there it is holding its protective shell over my sanity. My apprehension. My one greatest saviour and one greatest enemy of too many yesterdays and too many tomorrows. What I do know, is that this trip will also be a test - I will be travelling alone with my father whom I have not had more than a few weeks worth of personal contact over the past few years. My father and I whose conversations if they lingered, did so only tentatively and never more than on the surface before they quickly flitted away again to an uncommon detachment. Like a big brown funeral moth. Dull and short-lived. Like a superstition. All the big things left unsaid between us sheltered by its big dark wings, I’m not even sure if they exist. My father, whose awkward and overwhelming fatherly love for me has all but drowned my soul in the years gone by and silenced any affection I have for him into deep unspoken wells in my heart. The depth of my love is boundless but it has never seen the light of day. This trip will mean many things to me and one of the most important will probably be this - that it may be one of my few chances left to get to know him at all. And also significant, for him to know me in some way. Just a little way. That will be enough for me. Know me just a little. I almost want to say “please”. Then comes the other million dollar questions - will I be able to let him? Will 7 days be enough for a lifetime? No doubt it will be a test on my patience, my adaptability but most of all on my maturity. Have the years made a difference? But till then, I am sitting still. In anticipation. With apprehension. Perhaps in hope. CyberMantra This is after signing up for yet another web thingymiejiggie with Tumblr where I am now located at http://bamnesia.tumblr.com I have Wordpress. I have Tumblr. I have Twitter and spend lots of time on Flickr. I have Facebook. I have RedBubble. Tell me if that’s not all too much trouble. MySpace already has my face and I have the Amazon right here in Melbourne city. I have Newsgator and Googlereader tell me do I bloody need anymore feeders? I have google mail. I have yahoo mail. All these to help me with the cyber sail! I’m on trial with MobileMe but that’s till they charge me a rip off fee! So though it’s sad, my favourite mall’s Ebay - no really, I don’t care what you say! So oh no oh no oh no … repeat after me … oh no oh no oh no! Save me from this cyber labyrinth! At the end of the day, I think that I’m just not able to keep up with the cyber world anymore. But since I’m fast approaching my 30th, I’m having an early mid life crisis - I don’t want to become an auntie that cannot keep up with da technologie! *Wails* Shitty Business Whether it was intended or not it doesn’t matter. This is actually quite clever toilet graffiti. Fact: You did have to ‘push hard’ to get the flush working. However, how would you know if that’s exactly what these hastily scribbled black words are referring to BEFORE you had to push on the flush? What I liked about this is that it makes you wonder if it was actually meant to be toilet humour (you know … pushing hard whilst on the toilet) or whether it was simply a functional maintenance message. I mean, not many toilet graffiti requires brain cells. Either that or I spend too much time in toilet cubicles thinking about stupid things. And no, I don’t normally spend time engaging in photographic activities in toilet cubicles. Tears I’ve been crying quite a bit over the weekend. Not continuously, just intermittently, like the skies that decided to bestow its showers upon the city. I had to get into my little car this afternoon. It always brings me an uncertain comfort when I take it on the road. With no particular destination in mind, the road took me on a drive around the Albert Park lake. I parked in a near deserted carpark and saw this picture. Snapped it with my phone and wished I had brought a better camera with me. I watched people running in the rain, the grass was green and alive. Specks of blue peeked out from behind the gloom. The wind threatened senselessly and shook my little blue car. I rocked with it feeling the lull of its inconsistent rhythm. This image struck a chord in me when I saw it - it felt like it came from inside me, and brought all my tears into a picture. Melbourne Model: The Musical Melbourne Model: the Musical. I must admit I was apprehensive, even slightly nervous for the cast and crew of Arts and Creative Arts students who were attempting to carry out a show that puts its fist up against the new structure of Melbourne University. If you are in Australia and have not heard about the Melbourne Model, you must have been dreaming large and missing the cacophony of media that has surrounded this “evolution”. It was very brave of our students I must say, to put their feet forward and stand up singing loud and proud for what they truly believed in. The buzz outside of the theatre before the show was almost tangible and electric. People were excited. You could smell the anticipation. The queue at the box-office was long and hectic. It was a sell out and this ’small’ student theatre group has done very well for themselves indeed. Too bad it will be their very last performance as Creative Arts at Melbourne University enters its last year of the teach out next year. What a damn shame. “I can’t believe it!” people were exclaiming, “Look what our students have done! Look how this place is filling up!”. And it did. It was chockers. Students, staff and the public all crammed into the Student Union Theatre - the chatter melted away into an eager silence when the lights finally dimmed, 10 minutes after the show was due to have started. And the show burst forth - colourful and spectacular. A live band played the score on stage and the costumes drew gasps of surprise from the audience. The lyrics were clever and scathing, almost evil but that’s why I loved it. You could see people leaning forward in their seats, their hands clasped against their chests, captivated. The sound needed a little bit of work as some of the voices were drowned out by the band. I wish I were able to catch more of the lyrics but I’m sure they will fix the sound up for the next three shows. I’m just glad that I am not going prematurely deaf as I thought I was when attempting to lip read at some of the earlier parts of the show. Apparently everybody else had trouble too. Still, they managed to hold our attention as everyone strained to catch what they had to say about the Melbourne Model. Wickedly Satirical, kudos must no doubt be given and be given generously. Screeches of laughter mixed in with the crescendos and decrescendos on stage and applause congregated at every junction of the show. The message was clear - they hated the Melbourne Model. They mourned the demise of beloved programs and courses. They stamped their feet against the shiny plastic publicity of one man’s “large” dream. Queers, tears, fears and more. Politics, academics and antics - it was all happening. I could see how personally engaged some of the members in the audience were. People who have been involved with the dismissed programs and courses over the many long years cheered and held their hands to their faces. Everyone looked around at everyone else as if to say “yes! that’s how I feel” or “did they really say that?! Oh my god!” or “Isn’t this amazing!”. For a student production, yes, it was amazing. You could see that every single performer gave everything they had to make it such a stellar performance. As for the rest of the audience, it was a sobering wake up call in the form of a glitzy campy musical that gave everyone an hour of non-stop fun. I felt indescribably proud for some reason. Proud of these kids. Their passion. Their conviction. Proud of the breed of displaced souls who have found their place, stood firm and who have kept on fighting. I know how much time and effort has gone into this and though unfortunately the very last performance by Crunch, they have succeeded in getting their message across loud and clear - all whilst singing and dancing. Now that’s not a mean feat At the end of the day, I’m really glad that even though they have not won the fight in the end, even though the Melbourne Model is happening and has happened, the heritage students (bless them) did not go down quietly but were loud and proud with one hell of a show to show for it. Art Deco Decided to head to the Art Deco exhibition at the NGV tonight. Very quickly decided that it is definitely not my era. I can’t really say why - I can enjoy it in a good movie but I wouldn’t want to live in it. Although I did really like Eileen Gray’s lacquer screens (seen in photo). Just gorgeous. Other than that, $22 and 1/2 an hour later I was busy sitting outside playing on the iphone. I’m definitely more Modernist. Nothing wrong with that … *ahem* So anyway, I am being generally grumpy. My throat is sore and I’ve had chills all day at work accompanied by a massive headache. The headache was exacerbated by a boy who stamped his feet and burst into tears in front of me - “There there” I said to him, but I was really trying to comfort myself. Poor me! Poor poor me! Sniffly nose, scratchy throat and pounding head add vision of a skinny, red-faced boy with tears running down his face swimming in front of me. And of all the times this could have happened, it had to happen today when I’ve actually been buried under a pile of work this week. Compared to the relative oasis of inactivity last week, this is like rush hour on a Japanese bullet train. I still managed to find some time to chat to a friend from long ago who was on MSN. She told me that I was very un-Singaporean. I’m not really sure what she meant by un-Singaporean. Did she mean I wasn’t Kiasu (translate: scared to lose)? I think she did because she added “You’re not at all competitive, like all the other Singaporeans I meet. In fact, you do whatever you want, when you want and at your own pace”. She seemed like she didn’t mean that in a negative tone. However, I found it extremely funny because as I told her “yea, in this part of town they call it “lazy”. I guess she was mainly referring to how I ended up in Melbourne, 6000 miles or so away from home, in a career that had nothing to do with how I started off. But that’s actually called “not knowing what I want”. And what do I want? After having spent quite a lot of my life being told what I should want and ignoring what I really wanted - the answer is I don’t know. Which after bothering me for most of my life, isn’t really an issue at the moment. I’ve given up trying to figure out what my purpose in life is because I think that if I spend time being busy trying so hard to overthink things, I’m going to miss just doing it. Whatever “it” is. Photowalk: Docklands I haven’t been utilising my camera very much lately though in my dreams I tend to be photographing quite a lot - I wake up thinking, man I need to get out there. I have had some ideas for making pictures from my dreams but I haven’t gotten around to making them yet. Anyway, feeling rather lost and blue I figured it was time to take the Canon out of its hiding place and warm it up a little bit. I decided to head to the Docklands on a whim. I haven’t done this in a long time, go for a walk on my own with no fixed agenda in place. I had my headphones over my ears and my camera slung across my shoulders and I walked. And as I did, I noticed the little bits of emotions that swelled, rippled then faded away. Repeat often. The sky was blue and the early morning sun almost too bright for my eyes. Madeline Peyroux, PJ Harvey, Flunk, Radiohead - they were my company as were the swooping seagulls and the serenity of a new day. It was interestingly enough, a very emotional experience. And I was breathing - the air was crisp and smelt of clean ice. [Show as slideshow] test gallery=ID Insomnia Insomnia - a condition that doesn’t strike me too often. I am the deluder, the one that crawls under the covers and escapes to dreamland when reality isn’t quite working out the way that I want it to. But I think I have been sleeping far too much and far too long my entire life. Last night was the second time in the last month or so that I have been stranded on my bed, eyes shut as tightly as possible, but unfortunately, miserably and reluctantly wide awake. I tossed and turned, trying to find a physical discomfort that I can soothe but there was none. My mind raced ahead blindly in the blackness- too fast for me to even keep up and too dark for me to see where it was trying to go. In fact, there wasn’t a distinct direction obvious to me and I hate feeling stuck. I’m exhausted. I swore at shitty drivers the whole way to the market this morning though I’m sure if I were more awake, I’d realise that I was the bad driver. I’ve been debating just sleeping the afternoon away but the thought of tossing and turning all afternoon scares me so I’ll just hang about online being non-productive as usual. I would meditate if I were feeling a little less agro and restless. I know that this is precisely why one should meditate in the first place but I’m a very lowly human being and I simply cannot meditate to alleviate my agro-ness when I’m feeling agro. *runs around in circles chasing my imaginary tail* So anyway, on to other things. Kerry and I went by the gallery where my picture was hanging. To my part amusement and part horror, my little mounted print was being listed for $550. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry so I did neither. They didn’t even have my name on the price list which pissed me off a little, but not too much because I just had the best Turkish pizza for breakfast earlier and its little packets of happy were still bubbling in my tummy. I know it’s not the gallery’s fault, more so that of the organiser who had arranged to have RedBubbler’s exhibit. I guess I should have stayed on the day of the hanging to make sure that everything was right, but they told me 5.00 to 5.30pm and I had no money for my parking meter. The organiser was late and perhaps to my biased opinion, flippant about artists she personally didn’t find was worth her time. I had sensed this from the start by her e-mail reply to my query about the exhibition. I guess that’s ok, most folks don’t spare two seconds for people they have absolutely no interest in. I need to learn to do this then I’ll have so much more time available to me. But then I guess I’m already THIS bored so any more extra time will just be wasted on me :p Anyway, busy as said coordinator may be, how can she leave an artist’s name as unknown and set a stupid price on the work without my consultation when I had explicitly sent her an e-mail with all the details she had asked for. I guess my photo has been hanging in the gallery with listed as “unknown” with a price tag of $550AUD for the past week. It has since been changed, and at the end of the day I am not actually bothered just mildly amused but not in a positive sense of the word. Remind me not to blog again on lack of sleep because it makes me sound like a self-indulgent bitchy bitch. You know, lack of sleep = lack of vocab so yea, whatever. Potential Kinetic Energy Once again I’m finding myself engulfed in static. Static is just the right word I am looking for to describe my current state of being. Static meaning motionless, stationery - yet at the same time, static defines interference, electricity and movement. A certain kind of conflict if I may say so myself. To which definition do I lean? That is of no importance because what I am is engulfed in it. I am a motionless ball of resting on top of an imaginary mountain and filled with potential kinetic energy. I think I might have picked up that term from secondary school science. I never thought I’d use the term “potential kinetic energy” outside of the classroom, nor have I actually thought about physics in something like 14 years but hey what do you know? I actually retained some of my seemingly meaningless education. This is more than slightly uncomfortable. I feel myself growing roots here in Melbourne. It has been 3 and a half years since my second attempt to live here and finally things are taking shape. I’ve grown a little older - as one tends to do despite not consciously thinking about it - and somehow re-entered the 9.00 - 5.00 arena. Technically for me it’s the 9.15 - 5.00 or 9.30 - 5.00 arena depending on how long it takes me to move from my bed in the morning after the alarm goes off. So this little arena type section of my life hasn’t had very much drama in it of late. I’m sitting out the end of my contract and the work has dwindled to thumb twiddling proportions. This means that blogging is actually productive because on a very surface level it provides an almost believable façade that one is typing an e-mail of extreme importance. It’s almost akin to holding a cigarette in an uncomfortable social situation because even though technically you’re not doing anything, holding a cigarette kind of supposedly makes you look like you are. For example, “Oh I actually have a lot to say to you but I can’t because I am, as you can see, busy playing spin-the-cigarette-around-my-fingers and trying to beat my own high score”. For me here at work, typing a pretend e-mail feels something like that. Making busy out of nothing at all. I never thought that I’d be paid for doing absolutely nothing. Which is exactly what is happening right now. And the worst thing about it is, I never thought that I’d MIND being paid for doing absolutely nothing. In its essence, doing nothing is actually very very hard! Oh hang on, I’ve just reached an almost epiphany here. No wonder reaching nirvana is next to impossible because it involves a lot of doing nothing. I think the maximum time I can be in any sort of nirvana is the class imposed 10 minutes of meditation I go to weekly. Even than, in my nirvana I will have chicken tikka with yoghurt source and just that bit of chili. Despite being not very productive at work because there IS no work, I have mastered the fine art of being a very good chair-warmer. Make that a chair-warmer with a whole lot of potential kinetic energy. This restlessness is a good time for me I suppose. An opportunity to train this wandering mind. The problem is it doesn’t always stay where I want it to and currently my dreaded imagination thrives like a weed scorned and at points I feel like bolting from this chair that I’m warming so nicely and screaming “cut cut cut!” I guess I’m in a career rut. If things pick up and get a little busier I’ll stop whining. The only reason why I am not currently looking is because I’m due to go on holiday in a month. And the truth is, I am also needing this quiet chair-sitting time to sit with and really sort out this heaviness inside. The ball will get rolling again I’m sure … [Photo extract] Part of our new rug in the living room Spot Checks I think it’s time for me to do a little update about what’s been going on with me. Life seems to have gotten in the way but the bizarre thing is I haven’t really been doing all that much. Mostly time has been spent wrestling with strange things happening in my psyche, or in the psyches of people around me. I’ve had to learn a lesson or two about patience and humility - whether I learnt them well or not is another matter. If you’d asked me a year or so ago, I’d never admit to being a new-agey spiritualist. Today I find myself reading Eckhart Tolle with reverence and sitting still in meditation classes focusing on breathing. Really, breathing is what it’s all about I’ve decided. The difficulty for me is to actually remember to keep doing it. Anyway, back to the whole updating thing. I guess there are a couple of things worth doing a little shout out about. The most exciting for me personally would be with the work I have been doing with my photos. Thanks to the creative calibre of the people I work with, I’ve discovered Redbubble. Through it I’ve managed to secure a place for one of my pieces “The Broken Project” in the Brunswick Street Gallery till the 28th of August. It’s just one image in a group exhibition but because it’s my first and possibly last, it’s just a little bit special. I have also managed to sell a couple of prints and some postcards through Redbubble so thank you to those who have made a purchase from the site, or contacted me directly to buy a print. I really appreciate the fact that you guys were willing to spend your hard earned money on something of mine. My redbubble online gallery is at http://bamnesia.redbubble.com. I know there isn’t much up there at the moment but I’ll add to it as and when so keep checking back. If there’s a print you’d like of something not on that site (either through flickr or here), please just e-mail me. So I guess I’ve been busy learning a little bit about photo printing, canvas printing, framing and mounting - more often than not when I should be doing work :p Speaking of which, it really hasn’t been very exciting there at the moment. The next thing on my agenda is to start the job hunting process again. The non success of my previous attempts during the year has been quite hard on the ego. I think it’s still licking its wounds in a deep dark corner somewhere. It didn’t matter that the feedback had been good, or the fact that they already had their eye on someone on the inside for the job. It was still more than a little annoying because every job interview takes a lot of out of me and I haven’t been able to help taking it personally. *Breathe* On a positive note, I’ve decided to focus on my upcoming holidays and worry about the serious boring stuff later. I’ll be heading to China for a week in September and back home to Singapore for less time than I’d like in the same trip. Tonight, I’ve just booked a trip to New Zealand for the end of the year because what I’d really like to do is be away for my 30th birthday. I’ve decided I don’t want a big party with an invitation list. I don’t want any obligations or any pressure. What I want is to be in the midst of vastness and to be feeling a lot of natural joy. For my second trip to New Zealand, we will be travelling around mainly the South Island in a pseudo campervan hired through a company called “Spaceships“. The idea was introduced to me by a colleague of mine during lunch and by early this evening, I had fully digested everything I needed to know and booked a 11 day hire including air tickets. My visa card hasn’t quite caught up with this reality as yet. I’ll try and break it to her gently. Testing the Gallery WITHOUT THE GALLERY BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH Yahoo Boo Hoo! A friend of mine alerted me to the fact that one of my flickr photos had been used on a Yahoo.sg news site. I haven’t received a request for permission to use the photo and even though I was credited for it with my flickr user name “WenDee” there was no link or anything back to me. I find it a terrible situation to be in because it appears I can’t do anything about it. Or can I? On reading Yahoo’s fine print: Yahoo!7 does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo!7 the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable: With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of Yahoo!7 Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the specific Yahoo!7 Group to which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo!7 removes such Content from the Service. With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo!7 Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo!7 removes such Content from the Service. With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo!7 Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully sub-licensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. “Publicly accessible” areas of the Service are those areas of the Yahoo!7 network of properties that are intended by Yahoo!7 to be available to the general public. By way of example, publicly accessible areas of the Service would include Yahoo!7 Message Boards and portions of Yahoo!7 Groups, Photos and Briefcase that are open to both members and visitors. However, publicly accessible areas of the Service would not include portions of Yahoo!7 Groups that are limited to members, Yahoo!7 services intended for private communication such as Yahoo!7 Mail or Yahoo!7 Messenger, or areas off of the Yahoo!7 network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Yahoo!7. If that is the case it means that I’m paying Yahoo to use their services but it also translates to mean that I’m paying for them to use my work! That’s ridiculous. In addition, the “All Rights Reserved” license on my photo does not apply to Yahoo? How can they provide users with an “All Right Reserved” license option where Yahoo is excluded? It also says the image to be used in a way soley for the purpose “for which such Content was submitted or made available”. My image was not used for news report purposes, therefore does that make their use of my image illegal anyway? It’s nice that they like my image enough to use it however there was no courtesy gesture by their part to notify me that an image of mine has been used even if they believe that they have a right to use it. - the irony is that they used it in conjunction with an article on theft! I am royally pissed off and I’m going to stick this on the Flickr forum and see what people think. The Coolest Chair Ever I know I haven’t been writing in here lately. There’s been a lot going on but at the same time, not really. I still haven’t got my iphone and I’m waiting on a LCD television. A picture of this fabulous chair came into my inbox and I think it’s very cool. Obviously there’s more to me than current materialism. The Price of Materialism With fuel prices sky-rocketing in a fashion akin to speed of a reverse bungee with no end to the extension cord, I have been contemplating the necessity of maintaining my car. It is not just petrol that is costing a fortune, the six monthly servicing is costing me $300 a pop. The monthly payment for car insurance which I have never made a claim on because my excess is too high and because it will affect my ability to claim my 10% premium return. In the course of the year, I have had my car window smashed once and my car buttocks disfigured. I won’t even begin to mention the parking and speeding fines although to be fair to myself it hasn’t happened since I’ve gotten a little bit more experienced on the road. All that being said, is all that money worth the convenience and the ability to go wherever I want whenever I want? Excluding petrol, the car is costing me about $2.2K annually to maintain including the re-registration. That’s crazy. Stupid crazy. Crazy crazy. Unfortunately, I have already named my car. Wear and Tear My latest photo montage. If you like it, please support me by buying a card or a print here Lost Whenever I feel like writing nowadays, my words always carry with them a tinge of melancholy. It has been a revealing few weeks and this is where I am right now, at this point today. Nowhere but here. In a well that is deep and dark. But it is not my well, and it is not my water that I am drowning in. So why am I here at all? Because love takes you places and then you get lost, but it is alright because there is a hand to hold and it’s not my own. WESC Headphones I got my WESC headphones delivered to my work today. I’ve been waiting a week for them and it’s super exciting that they come in a bright pink box. I chose black headphones because they go with everything though I wish I could afford all the different colours for different occasions. I’ve been wanting to get nice headphones for a while and I was considering the Bose on Ear ones but they cost AUD$199. Although they sound unreal, I’m really not that much of an audiophile. I’m actually more like a wannabe-phile so I got these ones from WESC. They are great and look pretty funky (can I use the word funky at age 29?) and the sound quality is not too shabby at all. They supposedly use Sennheiser parts. For AUD$65 (includes courier) I’m very pleased with them. I’m sure I will put up a whinging post if they break but it’s only Day 1. Winter Blues Ah winter. Once I had not known seasons and now that I do, I am not the same. I write about the them all - summer, autumn, winter and spring - and I think about how in the grand scheme of the earth’s orbits and rotations, winter is really a beginning and not an end. It is like opening a brand new colouring book and then waiting patiently for the world to fill in the colours until once again you have a fairy tale in your hands. Even autumn, with the fading of summer, is vast in its richness of deep and sensuous tones. When the last leaf has hit the ground, when the reds turn to earth and the sky drains of its vibrance to present a desaturated, empty vastness - it sometimes brings about an unexplained shift in one’s psyche, a similar drain of colour and liveliness. I suppose most people don’t see winter as metaphorically as I try to. As if correspondingly dulled, people hide themselves in dark muted colours and shun the bitter bite in the atmosphere. I was recently introduced to the term SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I have always been a fan of the terminology “winter blues”, seeing it apt and poetic - a term rightfully belonging to song but I had never known its reality. SAD can be a serious depressive disorder where sufferers experience symptoms of depression during the winter months. Admittedly, the wonder of winter has lost some of its lustre as the years have gone by and I am more than noticing icy cold, dry hands and the chattering of my teeth. That dreaded moment before stepping out of a hot shower is akin to the anticipation of a slap you know you can’t avoid but you would like to put off for as long as possible. The cold and flu bugs that fly around the different zipcodes and into your system can be quite unappealing as they settle into your lowered energy levels. The short days and long nights seem to drag out our shadows. Perhaps it is because I hail from the tropics (Singapore is not known for its variety, either in seasons or anything else) that I still find winter to be somewhat of a novelty so much so I can remind myself why it really isn’t so bad. For example, I like winter because I like beanies, and scarves and jackets. I like winter because I adore how white fog puffs out of my mouth in the mornings and I like winter because condensation settles on glass and shields the greyness with an air of hazy mystery. Most of all, I can like winter because of its vast potential for new beginnings. I hope you smile soon. It Can Be Done It’s midweek and there is usually a sense of weariness associated with this particular day. I like to call it the “nowhere here, nowhere there” day. If you are a a slave to the 9-5 wage person like I am currently, Wednesday is the day when you are exhausted from having worked the previous Monday and Tuesday. It is also the day where there are another two days to go before the weekend. I’ve always had a slight prejudice against Wednesdays. I’m having a night off from the usual sitting on my ass on the couch in the living room. I’m instead, sitting on my ass on the chair in my bedroom (which by the way, I have concluded is definitely not as comfortable as the couch). Anyway, I came home tonight with a multitude of things that I wanted to do. I wanted to read my book, I wanted to watch Oprah, I wanted to have my ipod set up to my stereo, I wanted to fiddle with some photographs and do some drawing. I couldn’t quite decide what to do so I did them all. It’s 9.25pm and I’ve read a chapter of my book, watched Oprah, set up my ipod to my stereo and now I’m about to start fiddling with some old photographs and I might attempt a little sketching before bed. On top of all that, I’ve also managed to tidy my room - that is if you can call moving the pile of stuff from a prominent location to a more discrete one in its entirety “tidying up”. I’ve also squeezed in a fifteen minute nap and a long hot shower so I feel very productive. It’s funny how my mind tries its hardest to stress me out when there really shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Looking back at how 3 and a half hours ago, my mind going into overdrive trying to prioritise everything I wanted to do with my evening, it seems almost silly - laughable. It’s only 9.30 and I’ve done everything I wanted to do and then some. I suppose I should try and apply this lesson in the things that I do from now on. I can’t do everything in one moment - like how my mind tries and bullies me into believing that this has to be the case. I’ll have to take it one at a time, step by step and enjoy the process as it happens - because voila! I achieve a lot more and I am actually feeling relaxed. What I’m trying to say is, tonight is a prime example of how I should just remember to watch my breathing. Also, tomorrow is Thursday and not Wednesday. Reunions Pseudo reunions, although wrapped under the guise of a friend’s 30th Birthday gathering are really not my thing. I am naturally uncomfortable in large social situations and I typically feel about as awkward as I would feel if I had a sock stuck in my throat and a part of it hanging out of my mouth. For better visuals, imagine toe-end of toe-socks in rainbow colours. Although the years have lent me some interactive skills, it is usually important to remember that they are borrowed and not intrinsically mine. I only went to the 30th party because it was for a friend. That, and because I knew that Ant will be there to talk to me in case no one else does. I knew full well that I will more than likely run into a few, or more than a few faces from my college days and although apprehensive, I was also filled with a vague sense of curiosity. It didn’t turn out as badly as I thought because things got easier after the second beer went down. I actually managed to display resilience and stay for a solid four hours at the party. By the time I left the pub, the air outside had frozen a bubble around a me, and my scarf though double wrapped around my neck felt like paper in the wind. The tram was full of heavily built party goers dressed in unflattering fluorescent outfits. They were climbing all over the seats and singing really badly at the top of their voices. It has been a long time since I have been on public transport in the early hours of a Sunday morning and I was rudely reminded why. The sight of the girls’ wobbling fats barely contained under bright pink/green/flowery spandex whilst they paraded loudly up and down the length of the tram made me more sick than all the beer I had drank. I decided to walk the rest of the way home and the silence that greeted me as soon as I left the city was like a long lost lover whose embrace I fell into easily. Leaving the random hoots of Saturday night live behind, the Yarra river glistened with uncharacteristic calm, reflecting the lights of the city with a subtle charm. The sound of my own footsteps on the pavement helped sooth the pounding in my head and I found comfort in the shadows of the trees thrown onto the ground next to the yellow of the fallen autumn leaves. For the first time in a long while, my thoughts were as clear and crisp as the night air and I kept my hands shoved into my coat’s pocket to keep it from the cold. It was as if I had walked out of a huge mess and into serenity and it was overwhelming how inherently alive it made me feel. That was my favourite part of the whole night and I didn’t want my trip to end. Anyway, back to the party. As I had expected, not too many people recognised me and strangely enough, I liked it that way. After all, I am quite a different person now. A few faces have gotten bloated over the length of some ten years, a couple have the same issue with their tummies. A girl who used to try and physically pick me up and served in the same committee did not seem to register any recognition if our eyes happened to meet when we looked up from our drinks. The boy who was loud at college was talking about buying and selling companies and the next flash car he was going to purchase. The indonesian basketball player has kids of his own and built his own house in a suburb out of Melbourne. That good looking boy in college is getting married to a sophisticated woman with blue eyes. The questions were polite and predictable, the answers even more so. After ten long years of absence, how are you to summarise in fifteen minutes or less, the answer to a simple question like “So, what have you been up to?“. And really, do you even care to know or are you just listening because it’s what you do in a noisy pub filled with the hum of conversation and the thump of music. I suppose that’s what I hate so much about small talk. It is such a waste of time and it harbours about as much depth as the next photo of Paris Hilton. With the most surface of tidbits thrown my way I pretend to almost put together the roughest of rough outlines of these people’s lives since college. Well, that information will just as quickly disintegrate and self-destruct as the night wears on and the next ten years roll on by. “Hey, so it was really good seeing you again, we should definitely catch up! Here’s my number”. Setbacks So I suffered a setback today. The ego seems to have an uncanny knack of becoming your worst enemy at the most inopportune of times. But what do I know of setbacks? The people in Burma waiting desperately for aid after their loved ones have been killed and their homes destroyed know about setbacks. The families and friends of the 70 000 dead or missing in China’s Sichuan province know about setbacks. What about the father or the mother who continues to believe that their child, after more than a week of being buried underneath tonnes of debris, might still be alive? Ask them about setbacks and they might spit in your face and sputter “who has time for meaningless questions like this now?”. Then they will continue to pound their weak human fists against hard concrete whilst crying out their kid’s name. The news these days have been one tale of sorrow after another where the human race seems to be suspended in a living breathing sort of experimental / surreal installation and I am holding my breath. In the face of such severe tragedies and the collective grief of two nations and the world that looks on, what can I say of a personal setback? I spoke to my mother on the phone last night and she said to me in more sighs than words “life’s like that, you just have to take what comes to you … you just have to keep on living”. She sounded tired, as if the thought of life itself wearied her. My dad’s voice harboured similar unspoken resignation when he spoke of how he had cried watching the nightmares unfold on the news everyday and how touched he was by the solidarity of the Chinese people, “at least people come together … this is humanity.” So I ask you of your setbacks: Did you not have enough time to finish reading the book you are reading? Did you fail yet another job interview? Did you fight with your family today? Did you suffer a broken heart from yet another broken relationship? Are these setbacks in the grand scheme of things? From where and with what should you start measuring yourself and why do you do that anyway? Does it matter if you look at me funny because my make up is smudged? Does your opinion of whether I am good enough for you matter to my actual worth as a person? Am I careful and timid around you because you are smarter / bigger / better-looking / richer than me? Sometimes I sit in front of the wardrobe and stare at myself in the mirror for a long time. There is no hint of narcism in those moments, only a strong sense of curiosity. The stranger in the mirror tilts her head when I lift my chin, furrows her eyebrows when I frown and smiles when I curl my lips upwards. When I am still she stays motionless and looks back at me with the same curiosity. Am I one or two? Are we separate or the same? If I spoke you would mimic my words soundlessly and if I cried you will show me a photograph of my tears? Why is it the only way that I can separate myself from you in the mirror is to turn my back away and pretend that you do not exist? I can never reach you, no matter how hard I press my face against the cold glass, the mist from my breath only serves to cloud your form and render the sharp photocopy a frosted blur instead. So sometimes I just sit in front of the mirror and then I do nothing but look at you. I keep on looking at you until at some unspecified point I stop looking at you and start looking through you. I usually don’t know when I have made that transition - only the sudden realisation that the both of us have ceased to be distinct anymore notifies me of this change. For those drawn out silent seconds I can almost believe that I am sitting beyond the mirror looking back at myself looking into the mirror and vice versa and vice versa till there is no journey. It is in those moments, in those times when I come together with myself - that is when I lose my humanity. It is strange when my dad said “at least people come together … this is humanity”, because I feel the exact opposite. It is when we come together that we lose all humanity and become life in its most common denominator. Like I said, the ego is a funny thing - it learns individualism quicker than you can say the word “individual”. In my particular culture, I was taught the value of “face”, of respect, of status, of family, of privacy, of shame, of success and of failure. It is startling how rapidly these words fly into my head in the face of a seemingly small setback, and how it depresses my mood as if I have taken a kick in the gut. If I were the mother looking for my child in the rubble in China, I would say exactly this “setbacks? Who has time for such stupid questions now?” The Pendulum I remember how there always used to be so much to write about. That dinner party I had gone to and mixed wine with beer or was it the other way round? Who cares? Maybe the strange old man who had lugged an old piano onto the middle of Bourke Street and was tinkling the yellow keys like he was live in Hamer Hall. Sometimes I would write about the comforting crunch of gravel beneath my shoes … the same sound constantly reverberates in my daydreams when I am looking up at the clouds. I wonder where my knack of picking details have gone in recent times. It almost seems like I have sucked up all the world I could see in my younger years and kept them in my memory. It is as if reality now revolves only within me, and this other strange dimension on the outside functions only as a platform for me to carry out the daily routine of living. And it was like this, as gradual as the melting of winter into summer I found myself here. There. Where? Alone. One day I woke up and I didn’t know where I was and why I was feeling such pain. It was as if I were both a mother and a stranger to my emotions, one day identifying with it as who I am, and another completely rejecting its animosity. I stayed like this for quite a while, battling the world within against the one on the other side of the glass - each of them parallel but never quite meeting. Like a pendulum driven by an energy source beyond myself or my comprehension, I oscillated from one end to the other only rarely ever finding that mid point before I was on my way again. Caught in this craziness nothing really existed anymore. I got so tired so often, but my dreams kept on fighting for me at night whilst my body gave the impression that it was at rest. However, more often than not, I would wake to find my physical self striking out with frustration - still looking for that metaphorical punching bag. The colour I gave that bag was bright red. Colour. Even the word itself soon became lack luster and it would be factually incorrect for me to give the various shades I saw that same label. I spent a lot of time not talking because even my words confused me as with other people’s speeches. I did all the things that I was expected to do. I wake up and I brush my teeth - sometimes I ate breakfast but most of the time I did not. I got dressed every weekday morning and I went to work. At work I smiled at my colleagues not caring whether they could see the vacancy that resided in my form. This was not because I didn’t care, but it was because I could not. There was a whirlwind enveloping my mind and its tendrils stretched beyond this consciousness - a natural disaster was happening, perhaps an earthquake maybe a 9 on the Richter Scale - but still my exterior would not crack. Until one day it did. It was without warning that it happened to me. It was at the mid-point between lightness and darkness, wakefulness and sleep. It was at the mid-point where I so often passed without stopping because my vehicle seemed to have no brakes. At that mid-point, I heard the cry of a little girl and felt the crushing pain on my chest. In my chest. On my chest. I didn’t know what was in or out, real or not. I did not know whether I was dead or alive but then all I knew did not matter. From that night on I tentatively slowed …  The autumn leaves this year have filled me with the greatest wonder. I notice their red and yellow outlines on the pavements marking each and every of their own lifetimes. Although fallen, they have done so with such vibrancy … such splendour … such pride. Walking around campus the other day I saw a yellow cloud of autumn leaves softly descend upon a group of young pedestrians as they struggled against the slight wind with worldly books clutched against their chests. My own then felt a lightness it had not experienced for a long time and discrete tears appeared without a command. The light was golden like syrup and spread carefully in an almost invisible flow across my field of vision. I can slowly see again.   Welcome Back Life has been little like this photo lately. Patches of intense fire mostly, bits of clear sky at times and the rest of it shrouded in darkness. I suppose I stopped writing in my blog because life told me that it was time that I needed to start looking for something so that is what I have been trying to do. It is a difficult assignment when you don’t actually know what you are looking for with only inward intuition to guide you. There has been deep introspection and the process has been long and difficult to put it mildly. I have taken the time to examine the scale of my own humanity and the discovery has been immense if not overwhelming and what I’ve learnt is that there is still a long way to go and the only way I can deal with it is by the minute, no .. by the second … no by the very moment itself. I am extremely grateful for days when I can see the azure in the sky but I am trying to be patient with myself in my flashes of darkness. I am also eager to shed light on my shadow so that the flames that burn are ones of life’s brilliant intensity and not of shame. So anyway, here I am. I’m back and I shall attempt to keep this blog going with little tidbits from a life so ordinary. Maybe my friends will stop asking “hey what happened to your blog?”  Change of Address Hi guys, Now blogging at http://beautifulamnesia.wordpress.com/. Please update your links, but only if you so wish. Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:25:05 +0000 Soup Similarly to food, to dream about soup, represents emotional hunger or nourishment. In addition, it also signifies comfort and healing. Consider the contents inside the soup and its symbolism. Eyes To see your own eyes in your dream, represents enlightenment, knowledge, comprehension, understanding, and intellectual awareness. Unconscious thoughts may be coming onto the surface. The left eye is symbolic of the moon, while the right eye represents the sun. It may also be a pun on “I” or the self.�If you dream that your eyes have turned inside your head and you can now see the inside of your head, then it symbolizes insight and something that you need to be aware of.� This dream may be literally telling you that you need to look within your self. Trust your intuition and instincts. Makeup To dream that you are applying make-up, signifies that you are trying to cover up or conceal a hidden aspect of yourself.� Alternatively, it may signify that you are putting on your best face forward. You are trying to enhance your self-image and increase your sense of self-confidence. Driving To dream that you are driving a vehicle, signifies your life’s journey and your path in life. The dream is telling of how you are moving and navigating through life. If you are driving and cannot see the road ahead of you, then it indicates that you do not know where you are headed in life and what you really want to do with yourself. You are lacking direction and goals.� Friend To see your friends in your dream, signifies aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to integrate these rejected part of yourself. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Additionally, this symbol foretells of happy tidings from them and the arrival of good news. Bra To dream that you are not wearing a bra, indicates that you have no discipline or control. Alternative, it may reflect your sexual nature. Sports To dream that you are playing a sport, signifies the learning of rules, talents, and the achieving of your goals. It also highlights the importance of cooperation, harmony, and teamwork. Alternatively, it represents your attitudes about sex as an aggressive act. Looking up the Dream Dictionary Doctor To dream that you are seeing the doctor, denotes discouraging illness and strife amongst members of your family. It may signal your need for emotional and spiritual healing. The healing forces of your being. Also intuition or self knowledge about the state of your body or mind. Your feelings about, or need for, an authority figure. May also represent fear of illness or death. Fainting To dream that you are fainting, suggests your inability to confront some unconscious issue or feelings. You need to be more aware and acknowledge these feelings. Losing your sense of balance, of relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness. Camera To see a camera in your dream, signifies your desires to cling on and/or live in the past. Alternatively, it may represent you need to focus on a particular situation. Perhaps you need to get a clearer picture or idea. Red Red is an indication of raw energy, force, vigor, intense passion, aggression, power, courage and passion. The color red has deep emotional and spiritual connotations. Red is also the color of danger, shame, sexual impulses and urges. In many dreams this links with strong feelings, even to the degree of horror. So there are probably issues worth exploring when red appears in your dream. Red also represents your primal emotions, the earthy side of your nature, and your sexuality. In depicts your strength, your vitality and your power to heal. Motorcycle To see or ride a motorcycle in your dream, symbolizes your desire for freedom and need for adventure. You may be trying to escape from some situation or some other responsibility in your waking life. A motorcycle is also symbolic of raw sexuality. The Familiar and Unfamiliar After installing a completely new theme for this blog, I have idyllically passed many days of not quite knowing what to write in here. So. 2008. I spent that stroke of midnight curled up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house, in an unfamiliar state that is Western Australia trying to subdue my sniffles and wipe discreetly and awkwardly at the tears that dripped onto sheets that were not mine. I was in Perth. You could see the stars when you looked outside because the streets were dark and the neighbourhood restful. There was an angelic silence even on New Year’s eve, interrupted only by your quiet sleeping breaths beside me. Just a couple of days before New Year’s eve, I was still in Singapore, asleep on the bed in my bedroom in the family home that I had not slept in for over a year and a half prior. I was still tangled up in a bedspread that had been kept and washed regularly for me in a room that I had not occupied for a long time. A few days before New Year’s eve, I was waking up to the patterned light that wriggled its way through the rather ugly but kitsch peach flowered curtain. Somehow, every morning, a ray of sunshine would fall precisely on my eyelids. Yet despite my long and checkered history of presence and absence with that room, I was familiar. This is the familiarity that comforts me. The ability to walk with my eyes closed and cleverly bypass any obstacles leading to my tiny ensuite bathroom. The inherent knowledge of the exact number of steps it would take me to exit the room from the seat by my desk. The chair on which I had spent hours when I was home gazing out at the view of the tennis court that lay beneath it. Mostly the court was empty, but sometimes there were school kids in their consistent uniforms taking swipes at lime green balls with branded rackets. From that seat, I can detect the almost musty smell of fiction that I had spent so much time absorbing whenever I was there. The books that lined the shelves had been rearranged just the way I liked it. The books that seemed worldly and wise and controversial had the front seat, but my Jackie Collins and Dean Koontzes were shamefully given their places in dark quiet corners. I still know where everything is. So, Singapore this trip round was … nostalgic. I will write the moments of zipping around riding pillion on a bright yellow Harley, with the warm tropical rain beating at my face into memory. My camera pointing at your faces - relaxed, distressed, mysterious anything I wanted you all gave. All that work but so much fun whilst we played and created together. A rare fusion of direction and energy that my pictures will be but a reminder of. I can still feel the warm guzzle in my throat from shot after shot of alcohol lightly salted by smiles. In the foreground and the background, the band played on and on until their lyrics and our conversations melted into a blur of loud glorious melody. I am still amazed at how so much time had passed - another birthday, another heartbreak, another success, another round of drinks and still your hugs are familiar. And this too, is the familiarity that comforts me. Even the tears in my mother’s eyes that mimicked the clear pools of our hot teas … oh how I drank them all in so they too were a part of my soul. At the stroke of midnight into 2008 in that quiet room in Perth, my own tears spilled quietly with a sense of longing for home. But as much as the familiar clings to me like a child holding on to her father’s thumb, the unfamiliar has also cast its magic on me. The traffic in Bangkok, Thailand exploding in a kaleidoscope of colours and near accidents. The ocean around Koh Phi Phi unfolding in translucent shades of blues and greens. The first shudder diving into warm salty water and being surrounded by the height of limestone cliffs with the roar of tiny longtail boats in my ears. Trekking around Krabi town with a backpack on my back and nowhere else to go but to you. What about that bout of food poisoning from food too interesting even for my seasoned palettes or that high fever where I was curled up and shivering for slow passing hours in a basic guestroom that had cable on television. I navigated maps written in broken English, bargained like a tourist and allowed myself to be lulled to sleep by foreign languages spoken outside the window. Perth, with its windblown trees adopting curious postures was inviting. I doubt I will forget the grand drive from Busselton back to Perth in the deep of the night at 120km/h, with the only visibility the short length of the tiny white car’s headlights. The unknown blackness rushing by on both sides as I stepped even harder on the accelerator . The security of a tiny radio that played alternative hits and the serenity of your voice in the car and how nothing mattered then but being and staying alive. The Pinnacles in all its glory were smaller than I expected and more numerous than I fathomed - nature’s curiosity matched mine and my heart did not seem big enough to encompass all that land. You seemed like a child, flitting from rock to rock and then pretended to fall over … the sun appeared to shine just for you then. I can still feel the huge waves that crashed into the side of our boat from Rottnest Island to the mainland and the unified gasps of strangers - what amazing cloud formations they had in Western Australia, cumulus, stratus, cirrus, nimbus … all jostling for space in the wide open sky. I would huff and puff up the hills on the rented bicycle that came with a basket I did not need, all over Rottnest and all over again. So how can I put my footprints around the world and be with the familiar at the same time? How can I be anywhere but here? What can there be but now? What should I shrug off and what will I keep safe? Every day I struggle to live these questions and though they baffle me often, they also keep me anchored. I am looking forward to what this year may bring and what wonders I will still discover. The last year of my twenties has arrived without warning, and suddenly the benchmark year of 30 looks me in the eye and beckons me to say hello to a new decade and to live the last of this one with inspiration. Am I afraid? Yes. Am I excited? Yes. January has already turned its head and February is just around the corner. But does it matter? Australia has its seasons, so does everything else. Meanwhile, I will alternate between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Summer will come again. Black out I like blackouts. Back to basics. Back to simplicity. Back to soul. Back to your silhouette by candle light. Beautiful but faint. Like so many things before … so much I have forgotten. These days, I struggle with my memory. With days. With time. With faces. With moments. Sometimes I tell myself, I need to remember this … and then when I try to remember I forget. Blackouts. When nothing’s really left but now. *dusts away* This place has been forgotten for a little while. I’ve been busy having a holiday and that’s a full-time job. I will write in here soon to update on my travel adventures and bitch about life in general. Nowadays, I’m actually reading a book. On that note, I will let you all recover from your shock. Be back at some point.