Working

Although I haven't been forcibly relocated from my comfortable home, shaven clean, thrown into an offshore jungle, armed and made to march every minute of the day, the last two weeks here, too, have been rather interesting.

Reality

I was standing in the train, as the outside world fell away into darkness. People stood like bowling pins all around, fitted closely, always expecting to be toppled. Five inches was all that we had to wade across to get to each other, but no one made the effort. I had to fight the sudden, insatiable urge to kiss the cheek of the woman standing next to me. I think I wanted to find out if other people were real. Either that or I wanted to make others see that I was real.

Romancing Jesus

My sword he took and sheathed
My shield he broke,
My Christian soul he took and loved
But my girlhood lay fragmented, unknowed.

A soldier

He said to me, before he put down our childhood and left to collect his manhood, You'll be there in happiness and in heartache.

And he left, to become a man, leaving me, a girl.

Dreams

I wonder if dreams mean anything. I wonder if they're figments of extended imagination, or manifestations of our subconscious desires. Some people believe they tell the future. My aunt believes they're channels into the supernatural - once she claimed my great grandma tried to speak with her.

I wonder if recurring dreams mean anything. I wonder if they reveal our innermost obsessions, or flippant, passing thoughts we need to get out of our system.

I wonder why I dream of some people, but not others. I wonder why dreams of these people sneak up on you when you're not expecting it.

Illyria

My body has slid into some mode of waiting: my senses are quiet, my brain is conserving itself. Only, it can't be waiting, because there is nothing to wait for.

The last week spent in Phuket with Olivia, KC, Seng and Yunsong was idyllic. It was everything I wanted and more for a coming-of-age trip; a nice balance between the serene and the exhilerating. The only down side was probably that Yunsong and KC took such good care of us, our brains rotted and our independence died during this trip. Looking at them, I know exactly why I have failed my parents, who never wanted anything more than their child to be able to take care of herself and those around her. But now, back home from Illyria, I am invincible again.

Back home from Illyria, I've also realised that Time can't be beaten. No amount of strength can stop the passing of days. I was standing in my shower, washing out my hair, when I found that I could stop my hands from moving, but the suds would not stop sliding down the brown curls. I could hold my breath and keep very still, but when I, inevitably, got out of the shower, it would be well into the afternoon, and going yet further in.

And yet I am here, waiting for something I cannot see, while Time slips by.

Hello 2008!

New Year's resolutions are long overdue, but I think this year, I'm going to give up making them - not even in celebration of dumb hope and 'lofty aspiration' as I usually do. Instead, I'm going to check off the lists I've made in the recent past.

Recalling:
After the A levels, I will
1) Paint Yunsong - DONE2)
2) Read economics
3) Take a writing trip around Singapore - DOING
4) Learn animation
5) Learn photoshop
6) Make Art obsessively - DOING
7) Accomplish all Lee Ang Films - DOING
8) Accomplish all local films
9) Accomplish all good films - DOING
10) Hopefully pull together a small art exhibition, from which I may earn some money.
11) Learn how to make soon kueh and ou kueh from Grandma - well, Mama gave up after the soon kueh, so I'll consider this DONE
12) Learn how to make rendang from Suhui's aunt
13) Learn how to bake a bake alaska.
14) Visit Shum in JB
15) Read obsessively - DOING
16) Make a short film
17) Make awesome Christmas cards and put Hallmark out of fashion - ABANDONED(So sorry)
18) Learn how to use makeup - ABANDONED
19) Jog everyday - aah, don't remind me. ABANDONED
20) Overhaul my red cocktail dress
21) Start and finish Indie Fashion project with Gab.
22) Get myself re-employed by the Substation
23) Become a curator
24) Throw an awesome party
25) Get a biking licence - SHELVED (for now) in view of parental objection26) Become fantastic at the piano - ):
27) Learn how to dance - ditto

From last year's resolutions, I would like to announce that I have managed to
a) Not kill bugs. At all.

Well, one is better than nothing.

Okay, I can't resist - I'm going to make a list. But I'll take a leaf out of Su's lists this time round, and make more specific, attainable goals.

- Try out 3 different jobs, not including private tutoring by the time I have to enrol into university.

- Finish the following books:
a) A Severe Mercy
b) Crime and Punishment
c) The World is Flat
d) Lolita
e) The Everlasting Man
f) Dracula

- Become fitter.

- Survive independently.

- Paint my room.

I actually find this fun

British
[x] You drink a lot of tea.
[x] You know what a brolly is.
[ ] Deal or No Deal has taken over your life.
[ ] You wanted Ben to win X Factor.
[x] You use the word "bugger"or the phrase "bloody hell."
[x] Fish and Chips are yummy.
[ ] You can eat a Full English Breakfast.
[ ] You dislike emos almost as much as you dislike chavs.
[ ] Its football...not soccer. (charm says: bah)
Total: 4

Australian
[x] You wear flip flops all year.
[ ] You call flipflops thongs not flip flops.
[ ] You love a backyard barbie.
[ ] You know a barbie is not a doll.
[ ] You love the beach.
[ ] Sometimes you swear without realizing.
[ ] You're a sports fanatic.
[ ] You are tanned.
[ ] You're a bit of a bogan.
[x] You have an Australian something
Total: 2

Italian
[ ] The Sopranos is a great show.
[ ] Your last name ends in a vowel.
[x] Your grandmother makes her own sauces.
[x] You know how a real meatball tastes.
[x] You know Italian songs.
[x] You have dark hair and dark eye color.
[ ] You speak some Italian.
[x] You are under 5'10''
[ ] You know what a italian horn is
[ ] Pizza/spaghetti is the best food in the world!!!
[x] You talk with your hands.
Total: 6

Spanish
[ ] You say member instead of Remember.
[ ] You speak spanish or some.
[x] You like tacos.
[ ] YoU TyPe lIkE ThIs On Da CoMpUtEr.
[ ] You are dark skinned.
[ ] You know what a Puta is.
[x] You talk fast occasionally.
[ ] You have had highlights or have dyed your hair.
[ ] You know what platanos are.
Total: 2

Russian
[ ] You say villian as: Vee-lon.
[x] You get short tempered.
[x] You know of somebody named Natasha.
[x] You get cold easily.
[x] Rain is fun for you.
[ ] You get into contests all the time.
[ ] You can easily make do with the cold weather.
Total: 4

Irish
[ ] You think beer is the best.
[ ] You have a bad temper.
[ ] Your last name starts with a Mc, Murph, O', Fitz or ends with a ley, on, un, an, in, ry, ly, y.
[ ] You have blue or green eyes.
[x] You like the color green.
[ ] You have been to a st. pattys day party.
[ ] You have a family member from Ireland.
[ ] You have blonde hair.
[x] You have/had freckles.
[x] Your family get togethers always include drinking and singing.
Total: 3

African American
[ ] You say nigga/nukka casually
[ ] You have nappy hair.
[ ] You like rap.
[ ] You know how to shoot a gun
[ ] You think President George Walker Bush is racist.
[x] You like chicken.
[x] You like watermelon.
[ ] You can dance.
[ ] You can 'sing' gospel.
Total: 2

Asian
[x] You have slanty/small eyes.
[x] You like rice a lot.
[ ] You are good at math. (HAHAHA)
[x] You have played the piano.
[x] You have family from Asia.
[x] You laugh sometimes covering your mouth.
[x] Most people think you're Chinese.
[x] You call hurricanes typhoons.
[ ] You go to Baulko.
Total: 7

German
[x] You like bread.
[x] You think German Chocolate is good.
[ ] You know what Schnitzel is.
[ ] You hate it when stupid people call you a Nazi.
[x] You went to Pre-school.
[x] You're over 5'2"
[ ] You speak some German
Total: 4

Canadian
[x] You like/play/played hockey.
[ ] You love beer.
[x] You say eh.
[ ] You know what poutine is.
[ ] You speak some French.
[ ] You love Tim Horton's.
[ ] At one point you lived in a farm house.
[ ] You watch/watched Degrassi.
Total: 2

American
[ ] You hate foreigners.
[ ] You hate non-Christians.
[x] You're lazy.
[ ] You are not cultured.
[ ] You hate abortion.
[ ] But love the death penalty.
[ ] You don't read.
[ ] You shop at Walmart.
[x] You think this survey is rather biased.
Total: 2

Love the Americans! Hahah.

Me and My Baby

Up till now, I've never really made artworks that weren't limited to exhibition in school, or kept at home under the layers of dust beneath my bed, or abandoned and eventually used as practice paper for math questions. Well, that changed yesterday. It was not at all momentous, for there was no silver factory gleaming behind me, or wads of cash flung about my person, but I suppose there's something highly personal about giving away an artwork that's worth thinking about anyway.

It begins with conception, a fuzzy idea you're not really sure will work and big dreams of colour you hope to cling on to. So I made a solo trip down to Artfriend, feeling a bit like an idiot because I never imagined how many possible sizes canvas came in and how impossible all the sizes I wanted were. And then of course, I realised how lucky I was to have the school pay for all the canvas I ever needed over the last 6 years. Some things don't last, unfortunately.

There was something immensely nice about shopping for art materials alone - no art teacher or top-of-class student telling you which brands were best, or which colours were most important, or if triple-prime was indeed better than double-prime. Which meant that I picked the nicest smelling paint and the cheapest possible everything else. I wished I could live down the aisles of paints and brushes of all sorts of shapes and sizes that I'll probably never learn to use.

Then comes the days of staring at the pristine white surface, gleaming brushes and undented tubes of paint, wondering how exactly to grab that dream and pin it down, wondering if you'd be able to do the seductively professional tools justice. The beginning of a work is never certain. But you'll decide to take a wild stab anyway. In the following weeks, it grows.

(Oil) Painting is a solitary affair. For one, your family shuns you, because of the poisonous fumes that only you are immune to. You also need to build up a fortress of paint, wipes, containers, used brushes, turpentine and cloth, which results in an impenetrable moat that nobody would cross even if you paid them to. Then, no matter how much advice you may be given from painters and friends alike, your hand can't listen. Sometimes, it feels like its the only one who knows what potential a brown blotch can hold anyway - visions belong to you alone. You stay for hours at a time, mostly because you're too dirty with paint to do anything else. If you stay long enough, you forget the world. Or the world forgets you.

About halfway through, photographs don't work anymore and you have to turn to your memory. You realise you've forgotten how the cowlick you've seen almost everyday for the last two months looks like. You don't recall how curved the eyebrows are. You have recurring impressions of one particular smile, but you can't get close enough to understand how the lips should stretch and how the eyes should gleam. But soon enough, you realise that vague impressions are all that you need - you want to replicate a feeling, a connection, not anatomy.

There are always bits that never look quite right - the cheeks always seem a bit too round, a bit too thin, a bit too shadowy, a bit too bright. You place what you think should be your final touches in the dead of the night, stop to take a stretch and get yourself a drink. But when you get back, the face on the canvas just isn't him. You sigh and go back to work.

For most of us, it takes a trusted friend to pry us away from a painting so that we dont ruin it with overworking. You tell yourself as your hands are restrained that many a great artist have concurred that Art is never finished, only abandoned. You put it aside and call it a day. Or a month. And then you don't look at it again.

The day comes for you to pack it up and send it away. You must say you're surprised - did you really produce that? You couldn't possibly have willed that touch of buff titanium, or that crescent-shaped eye. That's when you know you're truly finished with a work, some people say. But then you also notice some flaws - some crookedness in a feature- and that it isn't really what you were hoping for, but you tell yourself that that was your best effort and try very hard to stop looking at it. You spend the rest of your time worrying if the new parent will like it.

You pack it up and piss everyone off because you can't get over the fact that a corner of the painting is slightly dented, but you know it's really because you don't know what's going to happen to your baby. You wonder if its new parent will receive it well, will love it as you do with the right mix of contempt and care. It is not the same as putting a work up for exhibition - you know that intellectual boundaries may never be put on art (every viewer must think whatever he wants), but this time you feel the physical vulnerability of your baby too. Will it last? Will it be shoved into some dusty corner, some unseen darkness? But as you close the door on it, you know that there is no problem - it isn't yours anymore, and you're okay with that.