arty farty?

art is so subjective. some may love it to bits, and some may hate (and curse) at it so badly
to me, art is a universal language - something that speaks to more than your mind, but your emotions and your soul as well.
i dont have anything against the arty-fartys, but if you don't understand what is being portrayed or the message that is being brought across, how are you to be touched emotionally and spiritually?
i went to a school dance production last weekend to support a friend. not knowing what sorta dance production i was attending, i had expectations and visualizations of flowy and vibrant costumes; energetic and punctuated choreography; synchronized movements to catchy music.
but i was deeply mistaken.
the bunch of us literally sat through 2 hours in victoria theatre, racking our brains to whatever interpretations we could come up with of each dance; and of the meaning it could entail, and come up with.. nothing.
it's not that it was boring. it really wasn't. i just didn't get any of it.

clarke quay, after that, on the other hand, was art to me. and a fantastic one at that.
from the people it attracted, to its architecture, to the vast varieties of music and clubs - it was every beat an art scene that the singapore government has painstakenly developed, and succeeded in doing so; possibly one of its rare times i would suppose.
we went to pump room, to celebrate jianwen's birthday, and gained entry upon the strike of 12, and then met a drag queen who reminded me of the one in shrek, except that she sang superbly well, with a band that played covers so close to the original songs you really couldn't tell the difference

anyhow, i was discussing with lide about the perceptions of art, and he said he was going to stick to making hollywood films instead of arthouse films, although his decision garnered pretty negative criticisms from 'artists'
and it just somehow bugged me really bad, bout how many 'artists' these days look down on 'underlings' like us who don't appreciate or do not get their silent/shoot-and-cut/no-story-line kinda films, that seemingly get more awards the more normal people don't understand their stories
so seriously, what's the point of a language when nobody understands it but you?
art is for communication and expression; but if your audience doesn't receive the messages that you're trying to send, then you are the one who's failed, not your audience.

this isn't directed at anyone in particular (or maybe it is)
all i'm trying to say is, the appreciation of art is definitely subjective
and the purpose of art isn't to judge. so will the artists please stop judging?

change

i think life holds the most surprises and fun when it's at the transitional points - like birthdays are the transitional points from an age to another; like from high sch to JC, etc
right now, searching for a job, going for interviews and finishing my last semester of school, i realized i'm enjoying school a lot more than i did, because i have something to look forward to at the end of it. it's like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as i go for interviews and written assessments with a couple of govt agencies whose names i shall not reveal.
it might have something to do with the moral hazard problem that all my graduating kakis are rambling on about - there isn't much we can or cannot do to modify our GPA/CAP and hence there's not much motivation or urgency to study, beacuse no matter how we do, our grades and future are more or less sealed by now.

anyhow, school in the last semester is something like this:
classes --> meals @ the deck --> hang out at the econs honours room (which has become some sort of lounge or something altho its construction intention was prolly originally for 'academic purposes')
we eat, we sleep, we play, we work in that room, which, sometimes, above and beyond the companionship and friendship that can blossom inside there, has one important thing that everywhere else doesn't have - AIRCON!
today, the honours room came handy again for our game of poker with the usual econs people + mac. it must be chinese new year luck or something because alotta people got good hands today. and just like the evil of bell curve, average to decent hands got pushed out, again and again. makes things a lot more exciting, for sure, and certainly also a little more heart-breaking at times lol.

timbre @ old school after poker. ♥ to a millionth times.
i'm growing realllyyy fond of that place; it's so hidden and chill, and slightly up on a hill so it's alot more cooling than the other timbres. love the pizzas. love the music.
it's so going down in my to-go places. #1!

ok end post abruptly here. i think i just created a post out of entirely disjointed sentences with no link whatsoever to each other. well done.

.

i feel almost guilty that i'm not in school today, nor will be in school tmr.
after last sem's mad rush for time and crazy every-min-counts kind of studying, the first 2 weeks of my last sem in NUS seems relatively mild in comparison.
which is good, really, because i'm down with another bout of flu/cough/sorethroat (again), and so will need all sorts of rest that i can find.

i havent been getting much sleep, but that's probably self-inflicted
been taking the start of jan to meet up and make new friends, rebuilding relationships and reconnect with those i've lost touch with
from dinner with ac friends at holland v, to chilling at my place with ny girls; from cell grp dinners, poker with churchies to timbre/winebar with mac's polo boys (HAH)
it's really heartening to be with people you don't really meet up, but yet feel so comfortable and at home with once you start talking
and thats just. nice.

tis a great start to a new year (:

china

it's been so long since i've touched this blog, or had any urge to write in it.
for some reason i've just lost any writing ability or inspiration i had to begin with, and am now reduced to forced blogging to coerce my creaking brain into finally restarting
having just ended my last ever december-holiday, which was all too short in any case, i am now feeling a little melancholic.
the inevitable job-hunt has since begun, and it can be rather discouraging sometimes when the sent-folder is three times the size of the inbox
but.. no fear, my God will bring me to where He wants me to be, and in His time.
in the meantime, i'll just keep clicking on that send button, and hope one of them employers may fancy my longwinded resume and actually bother to call me back.

-
to get things started, a little update on the things in my life.
i should probably attempt to write about my trip to Wuhan, but frankly i don't really remember much of it now
there are pictures. loads and loads of them on facebook. and perhaps i will upload some here, just for memory's sake



i remember our hotel, walking to school in the cold (which was really nice actually)
i remember classes in the FREEZING lecture theater tt didnt have heating
i remember field trips to gorgeous places and sites (eg: visiting the terracota warriors. love)
i remember the train rides, Yangtze river cruises (and said amazonian armpit woman)
i remember the friends, ktv sessions, and good (cheap) food
it was a gd trip, and a real experience i'll never forget. also, my first christmas overseas (:

and then, there was the wedding of the year - on the first day of 2010
it felt a little like marrying your big sister off - teary, emotional and yet very, very, very happy




it's going to be a little weird now, referring to them as husband and wife; i just got used to 'fiance'
but nonetheless, really happy for the two of them. it was a blast of a wedding too, honestly the most fun wedding i've EVER been to. and i've been to quite a few.

lastly, school's started wehhh.
i'm kinda excited bout everything cuz it's my graduating semester, but also a little worried about how everything's going to turn out because i'm overloading and it may backfire if i can't keep up with the pace.
we'll see how things go

the finish line

"You dont love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not" — Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

i havent cried my eyes out at a movie for a long, long time. i dont think i really cry that much at movies in general; romance movies, yea maybe a tear or two. but what happened today was uncontrollable, unstoppable bawl-sobbing during 'my sister's keeper'.

the movie plot centered around a younger sister's fight for 'medical emancipation' while her older sister battled cancer. sure, there were a few scenes which i thought were deliberate emotional manipulation with the sad music and lyrics paired with a sick girl's weak smile - pure concoction for tears.

but i thought the bulk of the story laid in the character's maturity and strength in facing her brutal way of life, or what was left of her life.

it's officially about only 5 weeks till the end of this semester; 5 weeks to the grand finale of my 3Ms - macro, metrics and money & banking culminating to a dangerous and possibly disastastrous symphony of panic and chaos at the start of study week. -cue dramatic music-
i've worked harder than any of my past semesters combined, so now i can proudly announce with a resonant conviction in my voice, that.. i don't know what i'm doing studying economics.
no point complaining about the ill marriage of poor math skills and an intensively quantitative curriculum that leads to infinitely 'recursive' mathematical solvings. i should have realized this 3 years ago when i said 'i do' to the department.

ah well, suck it.

job applications have opened (or rather, are closing, at least for the public sector), and i've been trying to pull power words together to form a decent 'impactful' cover letter. which i did, for a grand total of ONE organization that i'm applying to. i took almost 3 hours applying for a job ytd; half of which was spent on my resume and cover letter. and they say a graduate applies for about 20 jobs on average. GREAT.

ah well, suck it.

on a brighter ending note, i re-discovered the joy of webcam pictures ytd. forgot my netbook had one of those built-in cameras, very useful for the stress-relieving (mandatory) cam session that puts spontaneity to the test.



another nice (but poor quality) picture to add to the collection (:

i don't like camps anymore.

at age 22, albeit not-that-big a number yet, i find myself loathing something that i use to find really enjoyable and exciting to be a part of.
maybe it's that, or maybe its the fact that i have a massive pile of workload waiting for me by my desk - deadlines that i'm racing against.
it's probably a combi of both that led me to leave my induction camp today 3 hours into the camp, barely after ice-breakers (which, werent even fun at all)

i guess i'm just past the phase where taking bus/mrt around singapore in a madrace to take silly photographs of yourselves doing utterly stupid things to strangers is deemed remotely funny and thrilling.
or to find any meaning in jumping around singing happy-birthday-songs to weird-personalities-of-organizers for 'extra points'

garh, pardon the complaining, i felt like i just dragged myself outta bed on a saturday morning for the most redunculous reason, only to return home tired, hot, hungry accomplishing nothing.

-

on a brighter note, it is perhaps this angsty exhaustion of mine, that led me to enjoy the simplest things and to derive relaxation from the simplest enjoyment.

mac and i spent a good part of fri evening lazing around in indochine @ Holland village. albeit missing a live band of any sort, we were ear-wormed with mambo & retro music; very entertaining.

nothing like a cosmo and fried scallops to end off a hectic week.

living in a terrace house has had many adjustments that were required of us, both the good ones and the bad ones. i've mostly enjoyed a much bigger space, minus the stairs, and also a beautiful deck & garden that has served in relieving my stress from work countless times thus far.

on the bads, the thing that i really need more time to get used to is the sudden increase in visitors from the bug-eyed nation. never was a fan of anything more than 4 legs, and prolly never will be. the influx of 6-legged creatures is expected, with so many more windows and doors that for some reason appear to be safe havens from the rainy and wet outside, much to my demise. just today, my maid caught a dragonfly aimlessly soaring in my room, which caused a chaotic hoohaa in both humans and dogs around me when she proudly showed off the red/green thing - humans were screaming at it to get away, dogs were screaming at it to come.

anw, just because i havent done this in a long time, i'll put up some random pictures: of LASERQUEST in church (:
lasertag is possibly the most fun thing after catching - despite the heavy guns and moody sensors, running around in church like mad people firing away like there's no tomorrow is really quite exciting, especially after hearing about how fun it can be in how-i-met-your-mother.

each game was about 15min (though it prolly lasted much longer than that cuz we completed the missions fast), and it is way more tiring than any game of catch i've played. although the guns in itself were only about 3-5kg depending on the size, having to run and fire and dodge for a full game can be quite exhausting, esp for the not-so-fit like myself =p



dinner that day was at Aston's, another place i've heard loads about but never gotten to try. food was decent at an affordable price, and the atmosphere was of a rustic feel, complete with cheesy love ballads (:

now, back to reality and the pile of work awaiting.

i've always scoffed at the idea of playing DDR, guffawed at racist stereotype jokes about how DDR is asian, wondered at how people were willing to spend hours on DDR machines perfecting a song



until.. i got myself a DDR game set on WII today and spent 3 straight hours with mac and my sister hopping around on plastic ground sheets, perspiring beads of sweat while occasionally cursing at the number of arrows that were coming up on screen.

not usually smth i'd do on a friday night; but it definitely took some weight off me. literally.

so.. summer holidays whizzed by me like a speeding, breakless train
today's officially the start of school, but due to insufficient allocation of modules, i'm having today and tomorrow free to ponder on how to secure my last two modules
complaints and whinings aside, my last week of vacation was actually made up for all that i've missed, all the stress that i've been through. i've seen accomplishments of some of the work i've done, effort that i've put in; i've made friends who're there to stay, and also had hell alotta fun in the meantime.
the light at the end of the tunnel surely is sweet.

i've taken on many projects, assignments and tasks this summer break, but there's one that really made an impact; memorable and unforgettable - and that is ACACHAMPS


taking part in acapella championships this year was probably one of the best and worst decisions i've made all year round.
worst not because we didn't win; or that it was a bad experience, but because it was utterly bad timing to be participating in something that required extensive commitment and time, smth that i couldnt afford or had the luxury of at that point in time.
given the time, we could have given so much more, and tried so much harder.

but, at the same time, it was the best decision i've made because through this experience i've learnt so much; about group dynamics, singing techniques, dealing with people, leadership, and most importantly, about myself.
through this journey, i've also gotten to know 5 other girls very well, and had the pleasure of working with them in something that culminated to so much joy, laughter, and fun, albeit amidst hard work, tears, and inevitable disputes.


we walked the path together, and came out of it, smiling.
at the end of it all, it wasn't about winning or losing, but reforming the bonds of sisterhood as we prayed together in a circle right before our performance
i had the most fun performing on that night, (yes probably because i knew there wasnt much chance of winning so no pressure right), but also because i know we went out there as one.