QuGee Updates » Tags » Daily and Randomness

For some reason, I feel much more alive and world-aware, in Hong Kong. Everything here keeps you on your toes. It’s a competitive, unforgiving city. It’s is a place of character, and it forces you to find your own. Here, you’re not allowed to simply exist. You’d be tossed around like a plastic bag in a typhoon. Here, you gotta take a stand, pick sides. You’re either for or against. And if you abstain, you’re just created your own side, an enemy of all. If you love all, well, it just doesn’t work that way.

* * * * *

A week seems to be my limit – any stay longer than that, and an affliction by some sort of ailment is almost guaranteed. Relatives like to joke that I’m allergic to a certain aunt. Of higher plausibility is that I’ve been too tamed by Singapore’s sterility, and am no longer used to the plethora of undesirable micro-organisms that inhabit Hong Kong’s overpopulated streets, on which I roam from morning till night. The crowds! The jousting! The –[can't breathe]! And the food, so dense, so full of MSG, preservatives and enhancers.

This time, it was food poisoning. A bad case, as it were. For most of the day I was stuck outside with filial obligations in the evening from which I had no escape, feeling miserable and wondering what was the matter with me – I was a stranger to the symptoms. The next morning, revelation came and I wasted the day curled up in bed and feeling all pooey. I had never been more in love with Po Chai Pills…

An Edward Monkton 2011 calendar now hangs from my shelves. This is the wisdom that January brings:

A most pragmatic and inspiring start to the new year. Nothing more helpful than getting a firm grasp on reality. :D

If there’s anything I’m rather good at, it’s keeping myself busy.

Hardly had time to eat, hardly had time to breathe. Lost a couple of kilos over the past week.

Time for yet another camp and time to zip about like a headless rabid husky. Till next weekend!

Everything’s collapsing at the last minute, before my marathon of events. A button cracked. One of a pair of something went missing. Tuxera NTFS has given me a ridiculous ‘authorizationexecutewithprivileges failed’ error. Even my Snow Leopard hard dive has somehow managed to drain every digital ounce out of itself and I’m left staring at a ‘Zero KB free’ label, although the machine is still humming and running. Goodness knows. There’s still so much I need to do. I could really do without such nonsense now. Some other time… please?

It’s a bit embarrassing to have to confess that I seem to have lost the basic ability to perform one of the most routine of personal grooming activities: blow-drying my hair. I flipped the side of my parting after a visit to the hairdresser’s, as is my practice to do so once every few years. Now I fumble with the roller brush like a toddler with an… almost everything really. It’ll most likely mean that I’ll have to go running to my mom for aid – she’s a whizz with these feminine things (too much of one, in fact) – if I don’t want to be seen sporting a Yeti’s hairdo again. I usually wouldn’t care, but this Friday is… nevermind.

Vanity aside, just loookiiit that chameleon (fourth trailer from the top)! I bet it’s the cutest reptile ever to have hit the big screens.

I don’t know why it’s so bloody difficult to speak with him. As if we haven’t learnt that anything at all can ignite explosions. Has happened countless times before, and it will happen again. A helpful earworm to have at that point would be one of the Black Eyed Peas: “Shut up, just shut up shut up“. It might save my skin.

He never listens properly; he hears what he wants to hear, says what he doesn’t mean and means what he doesn’t say and expects me to know when he does mean what he says and when he doesn’t mean what he says he doesn’t mean, twists my words, and dismisses my views as illegitimate. It is not that my opinions are “not valid”, it is that he doesn’t like them. Can’t my stand be one of impartiality? I see pros and cons for each choice and I would much prefer to make an informed, collective decision after discussing with all who are involved. I would be happy with any outcome, since I hold no particular preference. But no, if I have no sided opinion of my own, I am apparently a person of poor conviction and a follower like 99% of the rest of the world, and I am “癲”.

And then, when I exasperatedly repeat what I had originally said, he questions pointedly, “Why didn’t you say that at the beginning?” The more I assert that I did say so in the very first place, the more he says I am lying.

I could do with a dictaphone as a friend. Seriously.

When I’ve had enough of being yelled “黐線!” at or being accused of “K型” thinking, I just want to barricade myself in my room and avoid all confrontation while I calm down. And until he calms down.

* * * * *

But no, 10 minutes later he takes his keys and barges in, no matter how desperately I try to distance myself.

Then, part deux.

* * * * *

Am being driven to self-destruction no thanks to the great generational and cultural divides. It’s all so overwhelmingly suffocatingly Confucian, the roots of their chagrin. And Cantonese can be a sharp, harsh language and its words can pierce like no English can.

Anger? A little. More of sadness, perhaps.

I will not yield without a fight. On what basis was I judged?

Despite my apprehensive unease in slipping leaflets through strangers’ doors and into letterboxes, I found the activity to be rather therapeutic. Except the part where I sometimes inadvertently set off a whole chorus of barks and howls from either over-protective or over-friendly dogs in the entire neighbourhood. It was the sight of people in going about their everyday lives, the sense of normality, the consciousness of ordinariness, that soothed. It’s not often that I get to catch strangers up close in such unguarded, private moments: an old uncle wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, snoring on the living room couch; a granny fanning herself as she sits and stares at the telly; a young bespectacled boy, still in his school uniform, dabbling at a Nintendo DS and yelling for the maid to tend to she at the door (me) who saw fit to interrupt his quests of virtual conquest; an Indian mother shouting impatiently in Tamil at her daughter from the kitchen; a lanky grey-haired craftsman by the corridor, putting the finishing touches of polish to his ceramic pottery; a housewife perhaps, both hands gloved and soiled, tending to her front garden plot.

These scenes would have made for a perfect series of street photography, or offstreet photography, even. But if there’s one thing I wouldn’t do and wouldn’t think it morally (and legally) appropriate, it would be to infringe upon the right of these people to privacy where a degree of privacy is to be expected. So there’s shutting off my photographer’s eye with some difficulty, instead trying to focus on donning a winning smile and attempting in Cantonese or the best Mandarin I can muster, to explain the purpose of my intrusion and the content of the flyers. Most were friendly, welcoming, inquisitive. To my surprise I found that they were noticeably much, much friendlier when I was in uniform – when I was feeling visibly ill at ease and out of place. I gathered then, that once people’s foremost suspicion of “who are you?” in the “who are you, where are you from and what do you want?” routine has been addressed, preferably deducible by themselves by some visual means without your active intervention, it’ll allow for a much easier and trusting conversational opening. Labels, classifications, stereotypes, judgements… very typically human. Us humans as social construct, that is.

Oh dear.

So my dad was browsing through my shelf, and the little book on Happiness by Edward Monkton that my sis got for me from Oxford caught his eye.

“Ahh, this is the type of book I’d like to publish. Simple but attractive, with lots of illustrations.”

I was busy with my writing. “Umm.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“Orh.”

Ten minutes later, he came back with the book in hand. “This sucks.”

I was still too busy writing to defend the poor Monkton, but managed a “You lack a sense of humour.”

“Huh. What humour?”

* * * * *

Oh, Monkton’s got a new ‘Pig of Happiness’ video by the way. Go visit his site. I was asked to ‘spread the love’…

There’s something strangely satisfying about the air of mystery that I manage to project through the opaque and basic answers that I offer acquaintances these days when they ask about my current preoccupation in life. It serves to cover up and in some cases implicitly expose the fact that, frankly, compared to months past, nothing much is really happening. Yet beneath a façade of what’s barely visible and what’s physical (geographically-speaking, that is; I have been mostly glued to my station in front of a – now proud to admit – OS X-run MacBook Pro), I don’t believe I’ve ever been more intensely engaged in a scholarly pursuit, while ironically my fears of academic inadequacy have never been more acute. It took a 400-word, logic-laden reply from a person who now holds the key to my future to soothe my doubts and indicate that the concentrated effort I’ve put into this past month, and the attempts I’ve made at furthering my aspirations throughout this year, were not spent for nought. So I shall continue along this path and bury myself in texts, papers and sleepless nights along the way, and if all goes well I shall before long be experiencing the surrealism of a reality that is taking every ounce of my being to believe could come true. I plant a seed, an idea, a thought, a myth, and the world – family, friends, strangers – conspire to help me see it through. Why or for what am I doing this, I do not really understand, but curiosity seems as good an answer as any: a hunger for learning and an insatiable curiosity.

There’s an incessant muffled scratching and pattering noise coming from a corner of my room, from within the walls. Were I in a Victorian flat in London, I’d have attributed it to a mouse or two, but since I’m presently in an apartment 18 floors above ground the closest thing I can think of is perhaps a neighbour’s lost hamster digging tunnels through the concrete.

First post in weeks, and all I can write about are imaginary runaway rodents…

I feel like a subject of public curiosity, living my life out in the open. Even things… sometimes the most trivial and forgettable of things… that I don’t put on Facebook or Tweet about find their way to ears belonging to people I have, in the general scheme of everyday or everymonth life, very little to do with. And the funny thing is that I get to hear about it – that they know. I don’t know how it happens; that six degrees (or less, considering how well-connected we are these days) of freedom phenomenon must be at work.

Do people visit actual blogs anymore? Or do they just read posts in a feeder?

Anyway that’s not the point of this post.

Like what I told a friend – it’s as if I have a quota on words. The more I type while on a quest, the less I’m able to say elsewhere.

Meanwhile, new on Flickr: F1 Singapore Grand Prix, Venus Drive night shoot, Pulau Semakau, Kranji Marshes and Buloh, and Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Now I not only find society’s obsession with materialistic beauty, wealth and fashion extremely distasteful, but I have good reason to feel personally violated, my intellect stripped, my complexities reduced or even ignored. I am no mere stereotypical girl that graces the gloss of glamorous magazines! Oh but the burden of being (my parents’ daughter)!

World! Why do you hound me like this?
Do I annoy you? Really? When all I want
is to put Beauty in my Understanding?
and not my Understanding in Beauty?
I have no interest in Money and Luxury:
it gives me more satisfaction
to put Wealth in my Understanding
than my Understanding in Wealth.
A Pretty Face is soon gone:
how can I value the daily loot of Time?
or the forged crown of Luxury?
For as long as I look for Truth, I believe
it is better to unmake the vanities of Life
than to unmake my Life with vanities.

~ Juana Inés de La Cruz (1648-1695)

Life is like a one-way street… or perhaps, not so much a street as it is a network of forking motorways running over a chain of hills and dips of valleys with a littering of ruminant poo to top it all off. Every waypoint has a valve – once you have passed it; you cannot turn back. And you’re mostly not driving, but drifting through it. You have a limited amount of fuel on this journey, the exact amount of which is not known, and there is no refuel available. You only get one shot at everything you come by, and you have to get it right. Problem is, you won’t know whether you’ve gotten it right until you realise you had it wrong. “We live everything as it comes, without warning,” wrote Milan Kundera, “there is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison.” Unless you’re in luck and you’ve a series of rights and you’re able to enjoy sustained resounding successes. Or you could have hit upon a wrong which starts a series of wrongs, in which case, you’re screwed. Or you could have had a mixture of rights and wrongs, and you’re so obsessed with not wanting to screw your next potential right up that you end up screwing it up for precisely the wrong reasons.

In my life I have managed, most of the time, to get it right. That is, until recently, when I was besieged by the second scenario, out of which I am in the processes of extracting myself, and am now strategising how to avoid the third…

From the core fundamentals to the inconspicuous trivialities, having a field manual for the fine art of socialising would come in handy (although frankly impractical), and when it doesn’t exist one is thrust into having to trust the common senses and powers of minutiae observation in the unforgiving world of judgemental socialites.

How do you interpret dress codes – they leave so much to the imagination? How should you hold wine glasses? How should you consume those mini éclairs and quiche Lorraine such that your mouth is kept unstuffed enough to elegantly carry out a conversation? Should you put your handbag in front, at the side, or at the back, when you take a group photo, and where should you stand in relation to those very important people? How many variations can you come up for “pleased to meet you” without sounding monotonous after a while? After you have conveniently broken away from a boring or awkward conversation to get piece of serviette, should you go back to mingling with the same if you notice from the corner of your eye that he’s still standing there alone? If someone is making a speech and the others are still chattering away, is it acceptable to shhh from the corner of your lips? How do you execute the perfect namecard exchange when you only have one free hand?

Not a total stranger to these settings, but not entirely at ease, either. I watch my parents and how they move about so fluidly, so naturally, fluttering from one ambassadorial couple to the next. I watch others and start classifying them by their behaviours into the veterans and the newbies, the animated posers and the bored, the Machiavellian and the sincere. It’s so interesting that I could people-watch all night, given the chance, but that would be an activity for the airport departure lounge and not during events like this.

It’s easy enough to start: after the basic introductions, there’ll be questions of geographical upbringing and educational background. From there I continue talking on autopilot, asking harmless questions, giving harmless answers, while the brain races on ahead to conjure an intellectual, conversational riposte to something or another that has caught my mind’s eye. When it works and things go click, the next few minutes can be beautifully rewarding. It is these revelations of deeper insights that I seek in conversations with people, more so if they are a respectable figure of standing. But that’s quite rare though. Most of these people, firstly, would seldom see fit to hover around the littlebeings such as myself. And secondly, even if they do, it is unlikely that I’d have warmed up to the evening enough to make the best of the encounter. I frequently find myself shuttling back and forth between the buzz corner and… the drinks bar.

I also wonder if I would ever get to the stage where I’d have the chance, in future, to attend these functions on my own accord. I wonder if I would want to, or if I would want to be able to, in the first place. These are such tedious affairs!

Had I that phone conversation a few months ago, my response would have been so different. I would have been afraid. Now that I’ve already gotten more than I could have asked for, I’ve nothing to lose.

It’s one big party in Singapore after another. As if the National Day Parade earlier this week couldn’t satisfy the patriotic fervour of the masses, there was the grand Opening Ceremony of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games yesterday. This time, the 2700 spectators, including representatives from 204 National Olympic Committees (countries and territories), were all given mini Singapore flags to wave. My eyebrows twitched. It looked like another NDP: multi-racial cultural performances, flag-raising and the National Anthem, the story of Singapore in chapters of song and dance, lots of little children running across the stage, cheesy music and lyrics, drumming and and visual effects. And there was a giant furry ’scary’ monster that’s supposed to represent our deepest inner fears. The human scale was small, choreography was poor in many aspects and the whole thing just lacked impact. But ahh well, it’s a show for youngsters performed by youngsters. So long as they’re having fun, and are proud to keep their country’s flags wavin’ high. We keep thinking in terms of publicity and PR value and credentials. ‘Adult talk?!’

I was on the bank opposite from the floating platform, from where torch-bearers would send the flame on its last leg by boat across the waters of Marina Bay. Witnessed the fireworks and the lighting of the lighthouse cauldron by the Youth Olympic Flame (Xi, now here’s a lighthouse you’d want to shoot!).

Headlines in the local news today were full of praises for the show and for Singapore. Took a glance at BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, CNN, and some other international media. Took a closer look, dug around a little. Couldn’t find anything about it. So much for this being a truly world-class show and the nation’s largest international event. Let’s see what the next 13 days of Games and the Closing Ceremony will bring.

Passing the flame

The Float@Marina Bay

Boom boom

Another of my decisions, actualised.

I handed it to her, accompanied by a soft sigh, “I guess it’s about time.”

To the other, well, the other did all the talking. Questioning. Hoping I wasn’t being serious. I didn’t need to say anything, just watch him read it. I tried smiling.

It was kinda poignant, dignified I hope.

Last day in London tomorrow.

All too soon.

Travelling with family is so different. More luxury, less adventure. I prefer more adventure. Could do with less miscommunication, embarrassing moments (Neil Gaiman: “Of course, everyone’s parents are embarrassing.”), and conflicts of interest. Not that I’m ungrateful. It’s just kinda saddening that at our age, so many of us prefer to travel with friends. We see more out of less, and are able to do more with less.

* * * * *

Am bumping into Gaudi everywhere here in Barcelona. Spent hours in La Sagrada Família, one of the most impressive architectural wonders I’ve ever seen. I think it’s impossible to be a visionary without being mad. Gaudi was most certainly mad…

* * * * *

Holidaying aspects aside, my parents have been most… amusing and saying the most unusual things as of late. Some in jest, but for the most part, I actually think that they’re being serious. Which makes it all the more amusing. And to a small degree, confusing. In an objective sense.

* * * * *

I try to keep away from reading my emails, but in the end I succumb – at least to my personal alternate work email, knowing that there’s always something that requires urgent attention. It’s a curse. And it’s already August – the Youth Olympics is almost upon us. Emails pouring in, and there’s an endless list of to-do. I don’t know about others but it seems that real holidays can’t exist anymore in this digital age when you’re supposed to be constantly connected. Dad’s in the other room working too (which is why I can afford to use paid internet…)

Gotta hit the ground once I get back.

National Day’s also just round the corner, and Facebook is full of stati and photos alluding to some patriotic message or other. Very bad timing. NDP plus YOG… I’m not sure if I can withstand it. It may be too much too soon.

* * * * *

Deadlines have been set. Now I need the discipline and willpower to stick to them! Not everyone will be happy, but as more than one friend has taught me… well, they’ve taught me many things.

Where you’ve to pay to be a bum…

Where morning crowds gather at Buckingham Palace for a glimpse of the guards in red tunics and bearskin hats…

Where anti-war protesters camp out (34 days and counting) on a hunger strike right on Parliament Square…

Where conspiracy theories abound…

Where the 2012 Olympic is set…

Where one simply can’t get enough of things British…

Where two legs just aren’t good enough…

Where the average chair can’t quite make the cut…

Where you’ll find stars and red carpets right next to Chinatown…

The difficulty is as often in children’s relationships with their parents as it is with their peers. They seem unable to label their feelings accurately, showing instead a sullen irritability, impatience, crankiness, and anger – especially toward their parents. This, in turn, makes it harder for their parents to offer the emotional support and guidance the depressed child actually needs, setting in motion a downward spiral that typically ends in constant arguments and alienation.

Such parents are typically disapproving, harsh in both their criticisms and their punishments. They might, for instance, forbid any display of the child’s anger at all, and become punitive at the least sign of irritability. These are the parents who angrily yell at a child who is trying to tell his side of the story, “Don’t you talk back to me!”

~ Daniel Goleman

I want to be able to wake up, and have nothing ahead of me, nothing to prepare, nothing to tend to. I want to have a night where I don’t have any work to do, no meetings to attend, no obligations to fulfil.

Every Friday I look at the weekend coming and by thinking about it I already feel tired. Every weekend I look at my schedule for the new week and I get even more tired. Every day, unexpected and new poo comes and…

I wonder how I would manage to survive the next onslaught. I survive, and it’s a mystery, but it’s also tortuous.

It’s always just a bit more to go…

At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.

The collisions begin in earliest infancy, with the discovery that the sources of our satisfaction lie beyond our control and that the world does not reliably conform to our desires.

And yet, for Seneca, in so far as we can ever attain wisdom, it is by learning not to aggravate the world’s obstinacy through our own responses, through spasms of rage, self-pity, anxiety, bitterness, self-righteousness and paranoia.

A single idea recurs throughout his work: that we best endure those frustrations which we have prepared ourselves for and understand and are hurt most by those we least expected and cannot fathom. Philosophy must reconcile us to the true dimensions of reality, and so spare us, if not frustration itself, then at least its panoply of pernicious accompanying emotions.

~ Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

Today was exceptionally bad. Not just the weather.

Stared at emails, couldn’t reply. Stared at the screen, couldn’t type. Stared at papers, couldn’t read. Sat in meetings, couldn’t talk.

Feeling so fatigued all the time, although I’ve already been getting more sleep than usual.

Being poooh-ed into a downward spiral.

Since when did I start becoming so self-destructive? So full of doubt? So irritable, so full of anxiety? So unable to cope?

Lunchtimes, the outdoors, the cinema – these are but temporary relief, only for as long as they last.

This crippling inability to do pretty much anything at all, including the thing I need to do most urgently, is such torment!

So much counts for nothing; so little for so much.

We watch we frown we sprint we stumble we try we do we bicker we tolerate we work we play we listen we worry we munch we starve we want we refuse we moan we laugh we question we find we fly we sink we read we forget we blink we sleep we complain we share we promise we pretend we don’t care but we do we pause the butterfly is still caged its wings are tattered we continue we wait we hope we [can] [never] stop

What a joy it is to peel an egg clean… when the membrane comes smoothly off the albumin, exposing the shiny white surface beneath. What a great difference it makes to the morning, and what a difference a great morning makes to the day.

Until the shitty stuff comes in.

The butterfly, the butterfly.

Remember… the butterfly.

April 2010 is missing from my archives. No posts, just plenty of pooh pooh.

I think it’s a month I’d rather forget.

No, it’s not that I’ve been too lazy to blog. Problems with the hosting, server troubles, got locked out of my admin account, yadda yadda. It’s been a month of wasted hours and feeling helpless. Couldn’t do anything, couldn’t fix it myself, couldn’t… wait anymore.

So I started anew, installed WP again, upgraded to a newer version of the theme, and migrated some stuff over. If this goes down again before I put my plan into action, somebody’s-gonna-get-a-hurt-real-bad…

These weeks, I feel like I’m becoming like that donkey with a cartload so full and heavy that the animal has been lifted off the ground. It struggles and runs on air, then gives up and hangs limp from the harness. You can almost hear a baying sigh – heeehaaaaaawh…

‘Cept that this Husky is determined to keep running, despite the IBS and all!

Increased responsibilities at work and the Scouts (however did I get sucked into these blackholes) mean that I now have little time for myself and my family. Plans on the personal front are also not moving as fast as I’d have liked.

And Xiyunicus is coming to Singapore!

(For the record, this is a dead squirrel (Callosciurus notatus))

Sometimes I just wish that this country wasn’t so darned small and the world wasn’t so darned big.

My sis had a visiting friend over the weekend, and my family invited her to join us for dinner at Clarke Quay. We passed by the river cruise ticketing box, and Mom thought that it would be rather exciting to take a river taxi down the Singapore River, and so we did, on the DUCK and HiPPO hybrid powered eco-friendly electric boat. There was a friendly tour guide who pointed out the sights as we went along.

When the then-Hill Street Police Station, now MICA Building came into view, the commentator introduced “that colourful building… which is now called the MICA Buildling. MICA stands for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts”.

And what do they do?

He had but a one-liner to share with the Japanese, Taiwanese and us pretend-tourists on board: “They’re the ones responsible for censorship in Singapore”.

And there you have it.

I’m not sure if I was the only one who appreciated his style of humour.

Today I did something on a public light bus that probably made the observer-passengers and the driver think, “she’s so stupid”. But inside me, I was laughing. I was happy, for I had learnt something.

View from my window this morning:

Quite typical up here.

It’s a mild winter – feeling like the upper 10s instead of a 11°C, yet the locals are all wrapped up like they’re training for an Arctic expedition. Something that amuses me greatly, every time.

* * * * *

“唔准哭,” he tells me. But how can I not? ‘Tis a sad, sad thing, for it’s beyond the point of no return, and everyone’s given up. So many have even left. I wonder if we’d still return every February… we were so close to not returning this round, for what’s the point, when we know that reunions are no longer possible?

People, even those you think are thought were closest to you, can be cruel. Even to you.

點解要搞成噉…?

Such a mess.

Clinic staff [over the phone]: Can I have your name?

Me: Xxxxxx Xxx. Xxx is my last name, X-x-x.

Clinic staff: Chinese name?

Me: Um, Xxx is my surname…

Clinic staff: What is your full name?

Me: Xxxxxx Xxx is my full name.

Clinic staff: What is your Chinese name?

Me: It’s not in my full name.

Clinic staff: If I call you in Chinese, what is your name?

Me: Xxx Xxx, but it does not appear in my full name.

Clinic staff: No Chinese name?

Me: Yeah, no Chinese name in my full name. Xxxxxx Xxx is my full NRIC name.

Clinic staff: Ok, thank you Miss Xxx. See you later.

I keep hearing voices in my head. Not the schizophenic sort! but more like silent monologues, if you will. I’d be an observer to a scene or an earwitness to a conversation and the dialogue would just fade out and there’d go my voice, like a scripted voice-over in documentary, providing a running conceptual abstract commentary inside my head. They run so fast that my real voice would hardly be able to catch up. Philosophical and socio-political musings, mainly. At those moments I’d think: This is brilliant, I need to write this down! But when I grab a pen or get to my keyboard, all the thoughts just go pwoof! in a word cloud of lifting haze.

Keep track of updates via Flickr. It is by far where I’m most virtually active these days.

It’s been a heck of a week and more. My portfolio during this period could not have been any more varied: graphics designer, photographer, PR manager, personal assistant, driver, tour guide, nature guide. Appearances ranged from field trip garb, business executive look (Mom has been tremendously pleased), hiking boots, heels, flats, shorts, skirts, business jackets, hair let down, hair bunned up, ponytailed, contact lenses, spectacles, etc. etc.

Been round to Sungei Buloh, MacRitchie TreeTop Walk, Pulau Ubin and Chek Jawa, Singapore Quarry and Dairy Farm Nature Park, National University Hospital, KK Hospital - and somewhere in between was squeezed the main reason for everything in the first place: the three-day Asean Biodiversity Conference which my office co-organised.

I was attached to the keynote speaker - who flew in from Harvard - for the duration of his stay in Singapore. A man of great conviction, perception and knowledge, and youth, I might add, he is perhaps one of the most impressive personalities I have met across the continents so far. I have learnt much from our chats, and from listening in to the exchange of ideas he has had with the numerous dignitaries and who’s who we’ve met. Not only about his pet topic biodiversity and human health (the preface to his book can be found online), but just about anything under the sky: politics, philosophy, America and the world, culture, music, education, science, healthcare, architecture, economics, national identity.

Again I am inspired to write about what has been conversed but I have been reluctant to fend off this certain shyness about analytical writing in the public domain, on a personal blog…

An encounter at a petrol kiosk yesterday marked the near-end of my liaison officer-ing stint.

I was waiting in line at the cashier’s when the lady in front of me, upon hearing of a promotion for peanut cereal bars, asked the sales assistant to hold off swiping her credit card. She stood by the side and ripped the packaging off one of the bars.

“I want to try one first. If it’s good, I’ll buy more.”

Fair enough, I thought.

She munched on. I looked on, and waited. The sales assistant was still holding on to her card. I waited some more. The lady then started picking bars off the shelf.

I asked, “So it’s that good, huh?”

She was busy counting her bars, “No, I just like the nuts.”

Uhh, whatever cracks your nuts, then.

She continued counting.

The cashier decided - good on her - that she would serve me first, for which I was grateful. When I left the kiosk, the lady was still crunching away and counting bars.

is to prevent you from slipping.

Me: 我有啲嘢想講畀你聽…
Then I tell her.
Mom: 呵, 你死咯你!

It’s sad that the first thing I can think of to blog about is how peaceful it is to drive through the city centre at midnight. No cars honking, no taxis cutting into your lane, no fuss. Just you and the car. If only it could be just you and a horse (with no name… in the desert).

* * * * *

Does anybody find it weird to be sending and addressing an email to a recipient who has the same name as yourself? Suddenly, you feel much less unique.

* * * * *

My lappie is finding itself inadequate to the task of handling PhotoShop’s scratch disks and memory requirements. First time having to design a banner that would measure 8 metres across. SOS!

* * * * *

A colleague fingers the fieldguide page detailing bird species descriptions.
Bird-ringing trainer: “What are you looking for?”
Colleague: “Sex and age.”
Laughter all around.

* * * * *

Work in play. Play in work.
Why must that be wrong?
‘Cos “that’s not the way society works?”

* * * * *

Ideas aplenty. Focus…
Focus.
Decide… hurry!

So it takes the flu and a couple of days’ MC to make me appreciate the simpler pleasures of life.

Why can’t we, in our working lives, ever seem to find the time to just sit on the sofa and read a novel? Or lay in bed and dream?

Christians who do not read the Bible,
Muslims who do not read the Qur’an,
biologists who have not read Charles Darwin,
Scouts who have not heard of Scouting for Boys,
statesmen who have not touched Machiavelli,
and more.

Does not reading what we are expected to, unmaketh us?

It’s September already. For six years I’ve been blogging, six years of life chronicled.

Looking back, I realise how far I’ve come, and it’s now time to chart out where I’d like to go from here.

Was manning the visitor services counter for GardenTech over last weekend and on Monday…

Meetings at work on Tuesday, followed by talks at NUS, part of the DBS 60th anniversary lecture series…

Went back home to find that my Pericallia ricini moth adults had copulated and laid huge batches of eggs…

Attended on Wednesday a sharing and discussion session with a researcher from UC Berkeley on the arboreal acrobatics of one of my favourite animals - the geckos…

Marine macrofouling buoy survey in the ports on Thursday morning, and brought my visiting cousin (the youngest of them at ten years’ old) to the Science Centre in the afternoon…

Mahler at night…

Scouts Centenary comm meeting on Friday night immediately after work…

Buloh guided walk and mangrove reforestation with the Scouts on Sat morning…

A recce around Buloh and another meeting in the afternoon…

The Japanese Association’s Natsu Matsuri (summer festival) later that evening…

The Ministry of Parrot’s Parrot Parade today at Sungei Tengah…

And all of sudden I’ve found myself the caretaker of a few hundred newly-hatched Pericallia ricini caterpillars…

And the proud new owner of a handsome, three-month old Ornate Lorikeet!

I went ‘fishing’ during two extremely boring and redundant 3-hour-long briefings today. Don’t mind me. I’m sure my bosses share the same sentiments, having been forced to sit through the same.

If there’s anything that turns me off and makes me squirm in my seat, it’s poor English. Or heavy Singlish, in what should be a professional setting. Mis-pronunciation of words, grammatical inaccuracies, punctuation errors, missing Ss…

‘Ambulance’ becomes ‘Ambulen’
‘Lamp post’ becomes ‘Lampo’
‘Dollars and cents’ become ‘Dollars and cen’

I clench my jaws and breathe out sighs, and hope that the next presenter(s) would bring less pain to the ears. But nooo… it’s mediocere mesolectal English at best.

We were advised to read the FAQ guidelines so that we could “familiarise with your[our]selves”, and go to “bied early” to “rechar energy”.

* * * * *

One more thing, also cringe-worthy.

Has anyone else noticed - and is bothered by - the increasing overuse and misuse of the word ‘actually’? Everything these days, it seems, is apparently not what we expected.

“The soup-of-the-day is actually cream of mushroom.”

“We will actually put up signs at the pick-up point.”

“If you click this button, it will actually bring you to this page.”

“Those who actually work outdoors, will actually have to come in earlier.”

(And the little voice in my head would reek of sarcasm: “Nooo kidding… Wow, really?!!”)

* * * * *

Oh, actually, I’m not quite done yet.

Another pet peeve, an SOP for written communication especially prevalent in the civil service…

1. I was on the line with a NatWest banking manager just now. British accent and all… very refreshing.
2. When he learnt I was calling from Singapore, he told me that he had visited the island just last year during Christmas, and had found it to be a lovely, modern city.
3. “The people speak a funny English,” he said.
4. I laughed.
5. Thank you.

Man, Tsim Sha Tsui, HK

Oh, the irony. With the two separate events that I will come to be involved in, in the service of this nation-state, one might think me some patriotic, zealous, public-spirited citizen, when I am in fact admittedly quite the mild dissenter. I was a willing volunteer for the first, but the second was an appointment I was forced to assume, one which I deem myself ill-suited for.

Friends overseas have commented that I am losing my accent - “Stop the Singlish!” they cry. Thus I was glad that an Australian I was speaking to recently suggested that I sounded American-Canadian to her.

Today an Imperial College-mate, back in Singapore on a visit, applied on us the term ‘civil servants’. I shuddered. Yes, I’m in denial. But I know why I’m here. Passion. Real passion, not the sort inculcated into you through workshops and Newspeak. 反感, y’know?

Yes, I’m bold. So what of it? I’m not bogged.

No matter the class, race, or culture. No matter the place, time, or situation. The capacity to feel loss, to fear death - perhaps not in itself, or that of oneself, but that of others, and other things - and to love. These are central to what it means to be human.

Sitting there in the heavy silence, the eyes uncomfortable in settling on anything else but the floor, the ears picking up the wails and low murmuring of relatives - not mine, but a friend’s, the heart wanted to cry out not only in sympathy, but in realisation of a lesson learnt. That the human body is a fragile thing, that we are all living in a false sense of security that we are immune to the random nature of fate, and that we are, after all, human.

I don’t think I’ve managed to clock so many working hours across consecutive days, including over the weekends, since I started working. Not complaining, for I rather enjoy it, but there is only so much I can sustain before feeling burnt out. I hope I can be forgiven for having a 臭脾氣 in the only place I dare let my emotions show and snappiness get the better of me.

* * * * *

There’s been this wave of depressing news and occurrences lately that you wonder if the antepenultimate apocalypse isn’t coming. Listening to Requiems seem entirely apt. They lend a feeling of solemnity and yet also a spiritual uplifting that can’t be found anywhere else…

It’s kind of redunculous that they’ve completely dug up the roads running through the front porch and driveway of our office. Impassable, unwalkable, for there’s no road left. Heck, there’s no ground left. It’s like a waterless moat. Or a ladderless trench. The only way to get to work these days is to slip through a gap in the hoarding into what feels like a construction site, briskwalk down a newly-paved fire engine access road (don’t really like having Bangladeshi workers watching me from both sides…), and leave the path to traverse this unlevelled grass patch to the right of the house. Then there’s a choice of either going in through the backdoor, or through the front after hopping over the four-language DANGER — KEEP OUT signboard thoughtfully placed a few steps away from the mini-abyss that separates the adjacent narrow concrete flooring from what’s left of our front steps.

I can imagine giving directions to our office: “When you see the side of a colonial house with with pots of plants and many booties hanging on the grilles - that’s us! PS. It is not advisable to come during or after a rain; umbrellas aren’t sufficient - you will need WelliesPhua Chu Kang boots. PPS. Heels are not recommended, no matter the weather. PPPS. Please bring torch if leaving after dark.”

Now… let’s zoom into the office, where my colleagues and I have embarked on a late-night regime, as is usually the case during preparation for conferences. We can get quite, quite busy. Call me a masochist, but… I like.

Quote of the day: “I miss running around like a headless chicken and talking to big people.”

In response to this.

And this one isn’t tagged RSPB.

The Japanese Ambassador and his wife prepare to start off Ikebana International Singapore Chapter’s 40th Anniversary gala with a Kagamiwari Ceremony (Sake Breaking Ceremony).

At the office, some of us were landed with the responsibility of fledging a young mynah, whose nest was removed from the ceiling boards in a preemptive motion by our admin staff to prevent another stinky affair.

Kent Ridge Park - An Argiope is met with death at home at the jaws of the much smaller Portia jumping spider, one of the most intelligent of hunters.

An oriental whip snake finds itself the centre of attention at the Dairy Farm Adventure Centre, in the break between the NSS Bird Group book launch and NSS AGM 2009.

Volunteers from the biodiversity and environment circles in Singapore gather for a weekend of social, outreach and educational activities at the Toa Payoh HDB Hub in the inaugural Envirofest.

Also happened within the week: breaking in the new car, NPSS photo-sharing session, Prof Peter Ng’s talk on International Day for Biodiversity on invasive alien species in Singapore.

Definitely the best British sitcom, ever.

Ahh, the verbal dexterity!

I think I’ve found my portable antidote.

The urge to roam has been growing stronger.

Feeling starved and restless.

Physically, psychologically, intellectually.

Very badly.

… …

Very, very badly.

All these tools, these drivers of globalisation, these reducers of distances. Worlds are bridged closer, yet remain far apart. Friends seem so near, and yet so distant. Blogs, Facebook, and instant messagers help me connect, yet I end up feeling even more disconnected. Photos of or by others are keys to shared happiness yet they also open the gate to envy. Reading BBC is like medicine, yet it fails to soothe.

They only remind me that there is still that whole wide world out there, and I am here. I am - having settled and having the opportunity to remain settled - ironically feeling unsettled, and feeling guilty about it. And feeling guilty about feeling guilty.

Constancy has to be temporary, if not it’s just hard to bear.

Pea blue (Lampides boeticus) on my parents’ bed.

On a grid chart of Singapore waters that was laid out on our desks during the course. What were the odds?!

Nothing pretty about this picture… it’s blurry, poorly-framed, and the subject’s hardly anything of interest. But it’s like my mind right now. Wavy, twirly swirly, proceeding almost in straight lines but not quite, little circles in some parts. Oh, and there’s that deep, black, hole… which probably isn’t really that deep at all, if you shine a light down it…

First it was PhotoShop, which for some reason refused to start up and always froze at the loading screen.

Then it was my blog, when the image upload function malfunctioned. And the book reading list plugin also started giving me errors.

Then my beloved D200 decided it had enough (it was perhaps getting jealous that I had acquired the G10) - a white line started appearing in every single photo I took.

A helpful duck took it to the Nikon serving centre and obtained a quote for the sensor replacement. It would cost me a third of the price of a brand new D300, the successor to my current model.

My D200’s been with me for two years and a half, which, in dSLR camera lifespan speak, and in my opinion, is quite a respectable duration. Shutter count is nearing 46k, so it’s got a while to go yet before it rightfully retires.

But then again, there are those who would appreciate an early retirement…

Wherefore this sense of restlessness?

Happy new year to all from HK!

When I’m behind the wheel, camera, bush, or book, I feel inspired to write… more intellectually, academically, and educationally. Words flow… invisibly.

But once I’m behind my lappie, the mind rebels.

There are times when you weren’t expecting that you’d need a cab, but when you do, you wonder if you weren’t fated to have flagged down that very cab that you did. Wednesday was one of those times.

I got into the taxi, and told the cabbie uncle my destination. His response: “Geylang? Geylang ah… dangerous place leh!”

My mom had said a similar thing when I last visited the NSS office, which unfortunately is situated in this most unsavoury part of Singapore. She had cautioned strongly against my going there again. Thanks to an officious-sounding purpose (these sessions, held quarterly, are called the ‘President’s Chat’), she relented.

Anyway, not being inclined to make small talk with the taxi driver, I merely nodded and went, “Err, yeah, I know…”

We were at a traffic light junction, and he took the opportunity to slurp a few mouthfuls from the Nissin cup noodles that he had placed in a mug holder by the side of the steering wheel. “Don’t mind hor,” he looked at me through his rear view mirror, “I makan first before it gets cold.” I smiled politely.

We managed to get past a few more traffic lights in silence, and then he asked, “Do you play 4-D?” I wondered what it had to do with Geylang, or instant noodles. I answered no. He then asked if I was interested in statistics. I said that it would depend on what sort of statistics. He then launched into a monologue about how he has a degree with distinction in stats, and how he has been studying the 4-D system for a decade. He has pulled out all available records on every single 4-D draw since its inception, and has discovered certain ‘truths’. He believes in his work, even though his ‘wife and girlfriends’ don’t (at that point, I became curious, but refrained from interrupting as I didn’t feel it prudent to further distract him from the roads). He was going on about numbers and permutations - at which point my mind turned itself off - and something about the AABB or ABBB combinations which stand the highest chances of seeing an opening. Something else about an AAAA occurring only every X years, and so on and so forth. That if you ‘invest’ $XX in which ever combination, you’ll likely Y% receive a $XXXX return.

I had a feeling that he’d recited all this a thousand times.

We turned into Geylang Road, and he found the inspiration for a topic switch. He continued talking just as ardently about the various even-numbered lorongs of Geylang and the predominant countries of origin of their red lighters. He knew their price ranges. He added that he used to be in the police force, as if that explained where he obtained his intimate knowledge of the area from.

And just before I alighted, he was going on about AIDS and suicidal men…

I was eager to get off, and slip into the Sunflower building on the corner of Lorong 28, which, I was told, was the most notorious street of them all. While giving me the change, he told me his name. So that if I ever come across this name appearing beside a lottery windfall in the news, I’ll know that it’s him.

Is only for now!

Or so the lyrics from Avenue Q go (the Filipino cast yesterday was excellent. My dad bought a CD of the original Broadway cast recording and declared that even the Americans weren’t as good!)

* * * * *

The world was watching…

I experienced the moment in a conference room with dozens of international participants… most were too distracted by the live Electoral College vote figures on their lappy screens to be paying the presentations any attention. Applauds and jubilant cries erupted when one of the co-chairs announced to election results. Well well, so Obama won.

If I were allowed to say just three words to sum up these last couple of days, it’ll be:

I hate heels.

Saw this at Hip Diner USA at Bugis Junction and just couldn’t resist not taking a shot. In case you can’t read the signs, the one on Obama says “Democrats or Republicans | All are welcome” and McCain’s goes “US Election Promotion | 1 for 1 McCain Honey Stung Chicken“.

We woke at 5 yesterday morning to send my sis to the airport. Surprisingly, this year’s expedition was met with less resistance (but no less the fuss (private post)) than previous school trips. Hiking in the mountains of Korea, visiting the North-South DMZ… sounded like the tamest activity out of all the other options (an expedition to Ladakh, hiking in the Himalayas, biking down the Mekong River, manning a sailing ship around the coast of Australia). And since she’s already survived Chang Mai, Taman Negara, and others besides - the lucky thing, Korea should be alright.

At the airport, having seen the kids through the departure gate…
Parent A [chuckling]: Freedom!
Parent B [shock horror]: No no no… just more worries!
My mom grins on, obviously identifying with Parent B…

Talk about conditioning. I went to the supermarket, and as habit dictated, had a $1 coin ready and inserted, or tried to insert it, it into the coin slot on a trolley. It would not go in. So I tried another trolley. And yet another. And only then did I realise that all the trolleys were unchained to one another. There wasn’t even a need to put in a coin…

I unparked a trolley, and just then next to me, another shopper was struggling to slot in a coin, and looked confused when the second trolley refused to take it in. I wanted to point out to her that it was not necessary, but by her third go, she had it figured out as well.

* * * * *

Upon reaching home, at the carpark basement, I entered the lift with a Caucasian lady. She was carrying five big colourful knee-high, doubleshoulder-width bags. She put them on the floor, and I saw that they were full of groceries. They were those eco-friendly bags - from SAM, Carrefour, and one had the words ORG-A-NIC printed across it. Whereas I had only two A3-sized CitySuper eco-bags slung from my arms, and about five plastic ones from the supermarket. I thought I was doing alright, but she put my efforts to shame.

Ever flipped back and forth, and back and forth, through pages and pages of printed material and wished there was a Ctrl+F?

I don’t suppose anyone would take to blogging about the affairs of tooth-brushing. But this I simply have to mention. It’s about my toothpaste… my new tube of toothpaste. Nothing else in my bathroom intrigues me more than what’s on its label, and I can stare at the tube every morning and every night and still find it amusing.

Here’s my shameless one-liner plug for Colgate Total: “PROFESSIONAL CLEAN contains a DENTIST-LIKE ingredient for smooth and polished teeth!”

It’s a silly Chinese tradition and cultural notion that if shark’s fin soup doesn’t make an appearance on some fancy gala dinner menu, it’s a cheap show. The response to my objections, coming from my mom though it may be (perhaps that is precisely the cause), makes me sick. My sis and I will keep up the pressure.

Edit: Victory is ours! Mom has gotten the event menu changed.

I’ve been receiving a lot ‘email alerts’ from CNN. It first tempted me with a headline about a man-eating python, then another one came telling me to ‘Be a happier person with your family’. How tailored to my tastes, eh? But waitaminute… I never did sign myself up for these news updates. One quick check of the originating sender confirmed my suspicions.

Don’t be fooled. These phishing spam emails look entirely authentic, and so are the pages the links bring you to. But hidden in the Flash program that it prompts you to download is a malicious Trojan.

See:
CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert malware
New Trojan Bait: CNN Videos

It can get pretty noisy up there on Dempsey Hill.

After a week’s break and relative calm, hell starts again.

As it goes, I’m still here. I was supposed to leave on Monday, but I’m still here. Various reasons. It’s that same feeling all over again - sitting at my desk, with a novel or my laptop for company, the room entirely empty save for the few pieces of luggage on the floor, echoes bouncing off walls.

I had some time, so I went across the road to Hyde Park, as I usually do before my flights. Such a lovely day…

And I’m off. For real this time.

So I guess this is it. After having postponed my flight back twice, prolonging my stay here for as long as I dared, my boxes are finally all packed, as are my suitcases. Only little things remain… those that I will be leaving behind, bits and pieces to which I attach a strong sense of sentimentality but they are of no use to me now. Some of them have been with me since Sydney, the electrical appliances with their triangular pins still attached to their travel adapters.

I tell people that I might be back next year. Might. But one can never be too sure about these things.

And I guess… I will miss this place, despite its many shortcomings. I’ll miss most of all my friends, and the spontaneity, the freedom, experiences of life that London has to offer… the lifestyle that I had come to have and taken for granted. It’s so different, and it’s one that I’d never have in Singapore.

Saying goodbyes are never easy. I know it will hit hardest when that plane takes off from that runway at Heathrow.

We just keep moving… settling down… uprooting ourselves… moving on… and on. ‘Tis the life of a dogged wanderer. Another chapter closed.

It was clear skies beneath me as the plane (an A380!) descended into Heathrow. Usually, it’s all fog. I was reminded that this wasn’t when I’d usually be arriving in London; I’d be departing, to miss the best times of summer.

The past two days I was in a short-sleeved top with a light jacket tied around my waist and I’d be warm. Today I had worn a jacket and it was chilly cold. This is London… the unpredictable, foul-weathered London…

… where sundown is at 9pm. The skies were still bright when we were done with dinner. Good light for shooting, but it messes up my circadian rhythms, as if it wasn’t already confused enough as it is.

I was asked how I was feeling. I said I initially thought I’d be sad, that I’d miss this place, but not that much. It’s a love-hate relationship. But once you’re on the streets, dodging that puddle, on the Tube, minding that gap, evading burly characters, converting those pounds, calculating in miles, you don’t think about it anymore. It’s London, this is London, and it’s all that matters for now.

And I can’t believe that a toilet brush is not to be found in the whole of Bayswater.

There’s so much I’d like to say, but so much of it doesn’t need to be said.

* * * * *

From the living room windows, I can see our old apartment, just a few blocks and one postcode digit away. We’re barely two weeks settled at the new place, but it already feels like home; it has already been witness to much. Too much.

* * * * *

I’ve finally, finally booked my return flight to London. This trip… this journey… has been many months late. And this trip, unlike the many others before it, will be the shortest yet. And the most final. This Monday I’ll fly, and in a week I’ll pack up four… five years of my life and tie up any loose ends, and come Monday I’ll be leaving London behind. Another move… and another conclusion - not a very clean cut, this one - to another chapter in life.

* * * * *

Not everything in life goes according to plan. Plans I did have, but they are at the mercy of those forces out there. For now, I need to be here. I am needed here.

Just me, and an empty, unfamiliar house. No people, no furniture, no noises. No yet. Just the bare walls, floors, windows.

Even if it was only for a few minutes…

Peace. I felt the air I drew in. I heard. Inhale. Silence. Exhale. Silence.

I felt like I could cry. The emptiness made me happy. I was happy to feel the lightness.

Then the phone rang, and the world came shattering back down.

We’re moving again. 9th move in Singapore. What fun. What a mess. My nose is dead.

Tomorrow we’ll be far away…
Tomorrow we’ll discover…

Will it be release? Or will it harbour the beginnings of yet another onslaught?

Until then, I shall wait. Let that classic tune from Les Misérables echo in my mind…

One day more…

If only we could manifest that same fighting spirit shown of the revolutionaries…

One more day before the storm!

I’ve finished the entire Frank Herbert original Dune series back-to-back, pacing myself out towards the end (since I realised I completed Pullman’s His Dark Materials a tad too quickly, by which time it was too late). Nothing beats the thrill of a virgin read.

After that, I picked up a couple of others and put them down again. What I feel like reading corresponds to my mood, and that at present remains undefined.

Read a few pages of Wodehouse, managed a few laughs out of it. Too shallow; got tired of it after a while. The Englishness was freshening though. But I felt more non-fictiony. So I bounced between Gould, Dawkins and Jones. Odd, I thought I enjoyed Steve Jone’s writing much more when I was in high school.

I would dearly love to finish Jared Diamond’s Collapse, but it’s in London…

*hollow echos*

*stirring within*

Yes… I’m uhh… alive.

I’m not sure where my mom got that idea from, but it was a welcomed move. Last Sunday, she carted the family off towards PSA along Alexandra Rd where she heard there was a new butterfly farm or something. I was asking friends before that, about a ‘new butt place in town’ but they were as clueless as I was. Turns out that it was a new horticultural park, managed by NParks, linked by park connectors to Telok Blangah Hill Park and Kent Ridge Park. Manicured grass, neat plots of land showcasing themed gardens, playgrounds for the kiddies, and high-tech greenhouses at the back. A nice Thai restaurant and function rooms at the visitor centre, its architecture reminiscent of the Zen aura we felt whilst at The Lalu Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. It’s still very new, and aside from a couple of Changeable lizards that we saw, not much of the fauna has mmm… moved in yet.

Haute Nature

First park in Asia to blend recreation and retail with research and technology

There is now another alluring option in the Garden City if you want to relax amid lush foliage. HortPark is a 23-hectare recreational and technological park developed by Singapore’s National Parks Board at a cost of SGD 13.1 million. The first park in Asia to house recreational, educational, research and retail activities related to gardening in one location, it also aims to become a knowledge hub for training and value-added services… …

~ Singapore abuzz, Mar-Apr 2008 edition, Singapore Tourism Board

Photos :: HortPark

When you’re beyond calling a bird a ‘bird’, you call it a ‘Pink-necked Green Pigeon’ or a ‘Pacific Swallow’ or whatever its species is.

When you have pets, you tend to call an individual of that same certain species by the name you give your pet, even when that individual isn’t your pet.

I was looking out of my window when I saw this grey flying blob approaching. It was coloured like rock pigeon, but it didn’t fly like one. When it came nearer, I saw its bright red tail. When it flew past, my mind registered it: “A Banjo!”

I stood there for a full minute, replaying the sequence in my mind. I was sure it was an African Grey Parrot, on the loose… very likely an escapee. I told my sis, and she chided me for not yelling out for her earlier. She’d have scrambled over to look. We went to tell our parents, and they asked, “Why didn’t you save it?” -_-

If experiences with past alien escapees were anything to go by, there’s a probability that it might fall victim to the crows.

I went out into the living room and looked at Banjo. “There’s one of your cousins out there… why don’t you do your stuff and get him here?”

With his eyes glinting as if he understood, he flapped and nodded and did his dance. Silly Banjo.

The quality of the photo shops here is horrible. I think I’ll need to take my images to a professional photolab to get printed, or do it myself.

These are samples of photos printed by three different shops… using the same files. I took care to ensure that the white balance was accurate when I photographed (’scanned’) copies of the prints, so that WYSIWIG:

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” the man kept repeating, his shirt slightly dirtied and wet from the watermelon juice which he… vomited (how gross) onto the floor right behind the chair on which my mom was seated. Some of what he belched found its way onto my mom’s hair, clothes and handbag.

Sitting opposite her, I watched it happen, but it came without prior warning. The man showed no signs of wanting to retch, although I noted his face was flushed from all the beer, just like any other companion of his at his table - a mob of people so uncouth I wish never to come across the likes of them in Singapore again, at least not places such as these where people are expected to behave with a certain degree of civility. Talking, laughing, snorting extremely LOUDLY in a motley jumble of dialect, Mandarin, Cantonese and English (the restaurant staff said they were from Guangzhou) throughout the course of their dinner, they totally ruined the atmosphere. My sis wanted to get the waiters to shush them - politely, of course - but was advised by my parents not to. We will do no such thing; we will bear with it.

I emitted a yelp when I saw what the man had done, just as my mom realised what had happened and the four of us sprang up and reached for towels and tissues. My mom was aghast, disgusted, no doubt, and the offending man stood to a side, looking at the puddle on the floor and at all the fuss, his eyes appearing glazed, but wide in amazement as if in disbelief of the commotion and mess he’d created. I ventured a glance towards the table of mainlanders. They were engaged in comradely laughter, either oblivious to the incident or making jest of what their friend had done.

Thank goodness there was a spare shirt in the car. I turned to accompany my mom to the car and then to the washroom to help her wash up, leaving my dad and sis behind at the table. We walked past the man. Again he bowed and his head low, “I’m so sorry. I’m really so sorry.” I think my mom replied to the effect of “It’s ok.” And there was me thinking in my mind that No, it’s not ok. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. But instead I walked on, barely giving that man a second look. Oh, how I wanted to glare him down! I was tempted to confront him and his companions, but that would’ve been unwise. If even I felt thus, I could only imagine my dad fuming yet attempting to control his anger, his sense of protective duty over my mom compelling him to take action - even if only verbal - against the man.

We returned from the ladies’ a good handful of minutes later, and I saw that the floors had already been mopped clean and my dad, still standing, was bent over signing the bill. He was silent, lips pursed. His eyes, set into a deep frown, conveyed deep indignation and infuriation, and I knew that had that not been a public place and had we not the apprehension that the mainlanders could react in ways uninvited and untoward, he would have strode across and chided them. Instead he - we - directed our displeasure at the restaurant manager, who even while sympathising with us and the rest of his patrons, was powerless to act in the face of such occurrences. All he could do was to assure us that they were not regulars, and that nothing of this sort had happened before. A discount would be nice? I thought, but then again we understood it’s not their fault.

What to do? I replayed the scene and tried to imagine what we could have down, or what people from different sorts of background would have done. What if this wasn’t Singapore, but, say, Beijing? Or what if this was London? What if the man was a Japanese, or a European? What if my dad wasn’t my dad, but some other equally guarding but less prudent husband? There could be so many varying responses, but knowing the cultures well, how people might react can be quite predictable to a certain degree.

I am alright with the innocent, the new and the fresh (the n00bility), the outlandish, and the bold. For matters and people to which the command to hurry up! would elicit no favourable response, I can suspend myself in a calm waiting, observing, state, so long as inaction or acceptance on my part would not prove to be too costly. Just wait. Why add to the discontent?

It is, ironically, the impatient I have no patience with, the intolerant I lack tolerance for, and I cannot stand egos masquerading as maturity when in fact the behaviour betrays the existence of an even greater immaturity than that originally perceived in the person who prompted the response.

Aahhh… if only the people who think themselves grown up could really grow up.

But who knows… I myself might be a victim of my own words, a hypocrite. I only hope not.

Just came back from a shoot - OMG I LOVE MY NEW Nikon 17-55 f/2.8! Yes I love it so much that I feel like YELLING OUT WITH JOY!! It’s such a beeeeautiful piece of glass, built like a tank, so smooth that you hardly realise when it’s focusing, and the quality is just… aaaaahhhhhh… so sharp it hurts…

Hong Kong is so full of mainlanders, full of Mandarin-speaking Chinese who behave as if they haven’t taken an elevator nor enjoyed such a thing as a buffet brunch in a hotel before. The average conduct of the locals, in contrast, appear almost saintly. One can’t help but lavish praise for the good service they receive in Hong Kong, as compared to that they get in Singapore. It is almost as good as the Japan’s, only less elaborate.

* * * * *

My interview was extremely long, one-on-one meetings with one manager after another. There is this thing about conversing with Asians (in English) that puts me at better ease than when I have to engage a gweilo. I have to switch modes. But so long as it’s in English, I’d be comfortable. I was asked to describe my extra-curricular activities and internship experiences in Cantonese, and it felt weird, the interviewer continuing her questions in English while I replied in Canto interspersed with English expressions. I code-switch a lot, and it is difficult to break this habit, even if only for a few seconds. All-in-all I enjoyed the interview immensely, but the question remains of whether to work in London, Singapore or Hong Kong. All three places have their pros and cons, and while my current approach via speculative applications isn’t returning much success, I am still able to explore which of the many varied paths to the future I’d like to embark on. Still honeymooning, still in a dreamlike state of transition, but this can’t go on for too long.

* * * * *

More than a year after I’ve changed my address in Singapore, Imperial is still sending posts to both the old and the new addresses. Two weeks ago when I wrote in to re-confirm my address, I received an auto-response: “… At present we have a large backlog of emails to get through which have come in over the Christmas break. Please bear with us as delays to our usual processing time will be inevitable as we clear the backlog.”

I’ve only just received my results slips which were sent in December. They were sent to the old address, and the tenant there had slipped it into our current mailbox. The invitation to postgraduate ceremonies arrived at the new address. I’m still waiting for my postgrad degree certificates to arrive - long overdue now, since I know my coursemates in London and HK have already received theirs.

* * * * *

Been spending most of my time these days working on 10 mini-essay answers to an assessment for Associateship of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. The AIEMA is a sought-after credential for many job postings, but I wonder how much this actually helps. Still, having yet another set of suffixes wouldn’t do any harm - that’ll make the sixth if I do get it.

Going to Hong Kong again - this is my third trip there in six months? - to visit my folks for Chinese New Year. For too long has my face been missing from those family photos. It still wouldn’t be the entire extended family though… what with relatives away at the far-flung corners of the world… with some in Canada, and school beckoning my cousins back to the UK. And Japan, but that’s another story. We’re just all over the place.

Strangely enough, I’m setting out with the same goal as I did when I was in HK for CNY those many years ago. I wonder if my sis has been carrying on with the campaign… but I’ll know how far our influence has gone when we are witness to the absence (or presence) of sharks’ fin on the dining tables.

I love it much more when grown-ups adults parents aunties and uncles talk about their jobs and their experiences to one another than when they talk about it directly to me. When they talk amongst themselves, it is done with doses of humour and the humility to laugh at themselves. I become a willing listener, a keen observer, being selective with whichever bits of wisdom I’ll take home, and able to witness the subtle dodging of sensitivities and the ego-flattering (plus counter-flattering) attempts. I learn more and take in more this way, than in face-to-face, oft-one-sided ‘conversations’.

And another observation: sometimes I feel that parents are expecting their kids - older toddlers and younger teens - to behave, speak, and think like adults. Of course, that’s the ideal parental vision… to guide their children along into maturity into civilised, noble, accomplished adults… but why the hurry? Let children be children, while they still are. Let them have their fun. Parents are too quick to forget that their children are children, after all.

I mentioned last week that our neighbouring condo was being demolished.

I’ve had peaceful lie-ins in the past few mornings, and I could hear the songs of the birds once more through the relative quiet of the area, but it came at a heavy price.

Apparently, a 30kg concrete slab fell onto a construction supervisor, and killed him on the spot. Now the site’s been cordoned off while investigations take place.

The way they’ve been doing the demolishing work, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Before they started bringing in the backhoes, they were emptying the building of its interior assets and I recall seeing last holidays the workers were heavy pieces of furniture right out of its windows and corridors, letting them fall from the upper storeys to crash in a thundering clap upon impact with the ground.

Looks to me they have serious HSE issues.

Chinatown, Singapore. Needless to say, it was sardine-packed full of people. But I don’t believe I’ve gone down to S’pore’s Chinatown during CNY before, so it’s an experience. They sell the traditional Chinese New Year goodies, cultural arts and crafts, and many random things like special anti-bacterial socks (the stall attracted quite a crowd), Power Showers (showerheads), and some imports, mostly candies and sweets, from Japan, Taiwan and Europe.

Stalls line the streets. I don’t think the shophouses’ windows were specially painted for this occasion though, matching as they are.

Everything’s red - this stall must be oozing with good luck

It never does harm to bargain.

Safekeep your pennies in these blue-eyed red-nosed golden-year-of-the-rat piggy banks!

I thought it goes that the less active a blog is, the less readers it’ll have. So I wonder why it is that visitorship has rocketed despite there not having been a single new post in almost two weeks. Are readers that curious about what’s been happening in my life? Voyeurs, the whole lot of you! Move along now, nothing to see here.

* * * * *

I made a couple of mental notes of a few memorable bloggable encounters throughout the week but sitting here now, I can’t recall what they were about exactly. Turns out they aren’t *that* memorable after all.

* * * * *

The condo block next to ours is now being demolished. Bit by painstaking and thundering bit. The entire facade has been enveloped by a mesh netting, and backhoes have found their way to the rubble on top - some 20 storeys high. Early every morning, I’d be rudely awakened by these machines doing their work, the concrete slabs and glass pieces they’ve dredged tumbling all the way to the ground, hitting against the steel scaffolding that surrounds the building, just under the mesh. They create a disharmonious melody of booming, banging, screeching and tinkling sounds, joined in by the bass death-drumming of a nearby thumper.

It is both unfortunate and inconvenient that that building is less than a hundred metres away. Too much dust forces me to keep my windows closed at all times. Once when I opened a tiny slit just to let some stale air out and fresh air in, the breeze brought in some dust particles and I was sent diving into a box of tissues for the entire day and night.

What a most useful invention, tissue is. My allergies have been assaulting my nose and my sinus is having the hardest time of it. I don’t know what I’ll do without tissue. Thank goodness for tissue.

* * * * *

I saw an ad on a cab - it was a picture of a rainforest and a painting of a hornbill that caught my eye. I read the caption - Visit Malaysia, it screamed, followed by a smaller Tourism Malaysia. And the website? ineedabreak.com.sg

* * * * *

Oh, bribery of briberies. More blisters and callouses on toes, and tense calves. Dare I admit that I have had my brows shaped too? Just very, very slightly mind you, but still, the horror of my face being molested, powered, blushed, pinked-up! On not one but two occasions, too. Playing mommy’s doll.

In a more than equal return, I was allowed to acquire a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, the Nikon R1 close-up speedlight system, and I’m still contemplating that juicy Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 which sits so rightfully at home in a professional’s kitbag (frightfully, too, considering its pricey tag). *smacks lips* Sigh sigh sigh, what to do, what to do? To get or not to get?

I love the sharpness and speed of that 50mm. My first time toying experimenting around with an AF f/1.8, I fell in love with it. For low-light photography and portraits, it does wonders. People might have thought me weird though, when I had to stand meeetres away when taking full-body shots of them. Kept swapping that for the 18-200mm VR and vice versa every few minutes. I think I blinded a lot of people with the flashgun that day.

Two summers ago in Singapore, I wondered aloud at the extra layers of clothing that people were wearing on the streets. These days, I see people walking about with scarves around their necks. I thought I spotted a youth with a red wool-knitted scarf, no less! When people talk about individuals ‘living in their own worlds’, I never did realise that it could refer to them having their own climes as well.

“While wearing high heeled shoes, a woman’s curves are more pronounced because of the positions of her derriere and chest. She also walks differently, with her hips moving gracefully. High heeled shoes not only make a women look better. She feels sexier wearing them as well. This can be seen in the confidence that is seen in women who wear high heeled shoes. They move with a smooth sexuality that women in flat soled shoes rarely show.”

… so says a website I found. (I was curious. Seriously. Wearing heels make no - physiological and anatomical - sense.)

Far from donning a dainty, elegant gait when heels are worn, I feel more like a baby elephant trying to imitate how penguins walk. (Or should it be trying hard to not imitate how penguins walk?) Occasions that call for a certain attire demand a certain sacrifice. Oh vanity! Thy price is sore calves, strained tendons, and blisters on all four corners of the feet - the two big toes and the two little toes. Womanhood is a tall order, and ‘dressing to impress’ is such a flawed trait of a twisted societal expectation that borders on self-abuse. London’s uneven cobbled streets, fallen leaves that pose a slippery business, puddles of rainwater, the stairs, crowds and occasionally out-of-order escalators, and the mazes of the Tube all make for an advanced endurance course.

Aye, this is the first post dedicated to my job-seeking experience thus far - my first assessment centre at an environmental consultancy - my first job application. It’s been a fun day, meeting all sorts of people (a quarter of the candidates were, coincidentally, from my MSc course!) and thrown into all sorts of stimulating situations, with individual and team-based exercises. Having one too many mugs of tea or coffee over breaktimes, sipping politely while engaging in talks of sustainable development, or general, harmless conversations of a more personal nature. I really wouldn’t have minded more of these assessment centres, if it were not for the anxious waiting-for-the-outcomes that follow (okay, and if it were not for the dressing up bits as well).

Right now I’m deciding between bursting my uber-large blister with a semi-sterile needle, or letting it get squished and pop on its own on Wednesday. It’s inevitable - a degree of ignorance for my personal welfare will be required again. Wednesday might just make or break my prospects of a career with this firm.

Went with Xi to the National Portrait Gallery where they were showing the Photographic Portrait Prize and Pop Art Portraits exhibitions. For many of the prints, although first impressions were of an occasion of solemnity, if you were to read the captions and the story beneath it, you’d be hard-pressed to suppress a chuckle when you look at the picture again. Somehow, there’s something intellectually funny about it.

I’ve been meeting quite a lot of people (relative to my usual weeks) in the past week - all quintessentially very English sort of people.

From pre-teenage kids to retired seniors, from the BBC to tabloid papers, from the highly-rated TV programmes to YouTube homemade clips, from those classic Orange ads in the cinemas to the posters they have on buses (I saw one they other day which went: “I’d do anything for you… including your wife” but couldn’t see what it was trying to sell) - they all have it: humour. And it’s not just any humour. It’s English humour:

The English do not have any sort of global monopoly on humour, but what is distinctive is the sheer pervasiveness and supreme importance of humour in English everyday life and culture. In other cultures, there is ‘a time and place’ for humour: among the English it is a constant, a given - there is always an undercurrent of humour. Virtually all English conversations and social interactions involve at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, wit, mockery, wordplay, satire, understatement, humorous self-deprecation, sarcasm, pomposity-pricking or just silliness. Humour is not a special, separate kind of talk: it is our ‘default mode’; it is like breathing; we cannot function without it. English humour is a reflex, a knee-jerk response, particularly when we are feeling uncomfortable or awkward: when in doubt, joke. The taboo on earnestness is deeply embedded in the English psyche. Our response to earnestness is a distinctively English blend of armchair cynicism, ironic detachment, a squeamish distast for sentimentality, a stubborn refusal to be duped or taken in by fine rhetoric, and a mischievous delight in pricking the balloons of pomposity and self-importance. (English humour is not to be confused with ‘good humour’ or cheerfulness - it is quite often the opposite; we have satire instead of revolutions and uprisings.)

~ Kate Fox (2004), Watching the English

And I’m lovin’ it!

* * * * *

The Aussie election outcomes were announced yesterday. On the streets, we saw a group of people, dressed up to an Aussie theme. What was odd was not so much of how they looked; even odder was the response (or lack of) that they got from others. We tagged along, observing them for a while. Other pedestrians, although they were aware of the comic group of characters proceeding their way, would hardly give them a second glance as they walked past. As if it was a most normal affair - to have people costumed as the Tassie devil, girls in pink fluffy dresses as though they came straight from Dreamworld, and Steve Irwin impersonators (cargo shorts in winter complete with ‘Akubra’ hats and dangling corks). “This is London!” - where everyone minds their own business. I came to the same deductions when doing street photography here too - compare shooting on the streets and markets in London, and in China, for example (where people’s reactions are simply hostile), or in Japan (where they’d pose and give the ‘V-sign’), or in other parts of South-east Asia (where people would look down, face away, or walk off).