Tuesday, August 30, 2005
1. put tea leaves in pot2. pour in boiling water from a transparent teapot that allows you to count the bubbles!!
3. wash all the cups with the tea
4. pour in more water
5. cover and wait for 30 seconds
6. pour tea into square (flagrant) cup
7. wait
8. pour tea from flagrant cup into round cup
9. smell the flagrant cup ( not quite so flagrant, actually. rather smeowlee)
10. drink
11. repeat steps 4 to 10 four times, with the amount of time needed in step 5 increasing by 5 minutes each time.
and that, times three, because we went through 3 sets of tea, the most flagrant of which was bai mu dan, was how i spent my tuesday evening.
i left tea chapter thinking of a million things.
do you really think we have a history of amnesia? i think that is so ironic for 2 different ways. 1. the oxymoron and 2. we don't even have a history.
actually, i disagree with what vince said, about there being a negative culture of obliterating all that's old and replacing with the new. that is actually a very positive thing to have. people and places who fail to do that, inevitably, fail. just like what we talked about in the BAND session today.
i think, then, that the negativity is because of the timing. these build-destroy-rebuild things happen in cycles, everywhere, all through history. its just that in singapore, by virtue of the times we're in and the space we (don't) have, the cycles have no choice but to happen faster. it happens so fast that nothing lasts. but at the same time, that's our way of doing things. so the question is, is there a way of turning this sort of culture to our benefit?
having said that, actually not everything gets destroyed here. upgraded is more like it. another singaporean idiosyncracy.
but that was just one of the million things.
the rest of the stuff makes me alternately furious and delighted to think about. i feel furious that people, people who, dammit, ought to know better, cannot give what i expect, what anyone would expect. what did they do to earn it? why must everyone be classified, put in a box to be ticked off, career-pathed, coursed the right way, when there are others so much more worthy of it? and the strange thing is, that's exactly the same reason why i'm so delighted. i have never heard such genuinity, such real concern, if not such pure involvement for nothing other than interest, the "right" things spoken not cos they're "right' things but cos they're personal experience and personal struggle, at any of the places and from any of the people i'd expect to hear them from. it makes me so happy, somehow, like a new plum being squeezed somewhere inside my chest, both sweet and sour at once, and leaving behind a stone.
Posted by i confound myself at 2:15 pm
Monday, August 22, 2005
i've had 3 straight days of non-food, broken by one decent but guilt-inducing meal of chicken rice at thompson last night. it began with the vicarious lunch i ate on saturday afternoon. sitting in dome for a few hours- enough to span the changeover from breakfast to lunch, we were treated to random food smells wafting out of the kitchen and changing every 25 minutes. so first it would be toast, then toasty-coffee, then coffee, then coffee-muffin, then muffin, then muffin-roast ham, then roast ham.. you get the idea. it was like olfactory musical fountains. when lunch came around, the total effect of the breakfast smells merging with the lunch smells and getting stirred together by the (unexpectedly large and damp) crowd, was quite nauseating. add to that the prolonged sight of food being served, noisily and rapidly obliterated,and almost immediately replenished, and it all made for a very huge meal. so i left dome at 12 feeling dizzyingly full, despite not having eaten anything.the camb thing was almost..surreal. it was... i have to say it, set in someone's bungalow, in this shire-looking place which gave foreign vibes. in front of the house was this piece of EMPTY GRASSLAND which looked like it should be lined with temperate vegetation and filled with sheep. in the house was a roman catholic priest with an italian name and full ceremonial garb, and who turned out to have nothing to do with the camb event at all, but which added to my general disorentation. i left after half an hour, which was when the event started.
last stop was the pie club at china street. met some of the dsg guys and other designers/design students in/going uk. eugene definitely goes under "connectors". i learned something very interesting about fashion retailing. i ate...pie.
and then i rushed, really rushed back, because deb and gid were waiting at my big black impenetrable gate. in the end only 5 people came, and deb had to leave early. i can't help getting discouraged, not by numbers per se, but by the lack of commitment. its not like i'm super spiritual and bemoan everyone else's secular saturday night priorities-- i for one would much rather have had a chocolate buffet at fullerton or gone to listen to music, than sit in my room with 4 people and eat a dinner comprising of a peanut butter toast and milk. except for responsibility, and then some. so i guess its kind of for more selfish reasons that i feel discouraged. like, if i make sacrifices, why can't others too? but then that's just s stupid thing to think- nobody would do anything if everybody thought that way. and anyway, its not supposed to matter what other people do. come rain or hail or chocolate buffet, i guess i should always hope to be hungry for the things that matter.
Posted by i confound myself at 7:01 am
Friday, August 19, 2005
had another rather interesting experience today. went to oak3 films for a recording, and it was tough! i somehow never considered that you actually have to use effort and skill to just speak. the other guy recording, david, was a professional voice, with discovery channel, and he had that sort of ubiquitous movie-trailer type voice which seems so familiar to us all, and somehow comes without a body. that's maybe what it is with TV and radio voices, they are so compelling in themselves that they just go right ahead of the body. so, you can imagine that it was interesting for me to see him actually making the voice. he looked like he was singing, or expending substantial effort and emotion. and it was only a dumb voice-over. it never really struck me how specific and conscious things like intonation can be-- the slightest difference in pitch or the way you end a word, can determine whether you're selling innovative tour packages, or life insurance. then it was my turn, and boy was it tiring. i could actually feel my diaphragm having a workout. toward the end, i even ended up doing what david did, closing my eyes and imagining, i suppose, "i was there", wherever "there' might be. and in the end, they still had to put alot of filters on my voice. i reckon, for normal people like you and me, our raw voice just isn't worth listening to in itself. someone should invent these filters to fit over our vocal chords, so that when we speak we can all sound like voice talents and get the attention we need/want/deserve. for people like david and all the other bodiless voices of the world, they can just go orgasmic listining to themselves.Posted by i confound myself at 4:52 pm
Saturday, August 13, 2005
in the broken down jacuzzi under a starless, haze-choked KL sky, em and i had the most amazingly enlightening discussion last night. well, enlightening for me, at least. it was so interesting that i can't even begin to repeat what we covered. tony attributes it to "something about women taking off their clothes and getting into a hot tub", which, come to think of it, was what happened in cebu as well. you get to know people alot better in hot tubs, and are usually the better off for it. anyway, it was pretty cathartic, especially after the rotten day that i'd had, the sum total of bad air, retarded food, a shopping trip (the one and only) skipped in favour of the promise of a complimentary shang spa, which later turned out to be fully booked. and of course, a whole lot of what i felt to be bullshitting going on. i guess you have to determine to get out of ruts, and make the most of moments. the minute i decided that, conversation happened.talking about why i think the way i do, made me more aware of the reasons. and somehow, its made me accept it more, whatever that's worth. isn't it strange, having to give yourself a reason to accept yourself? and talking to other ppl about why they think the way they do really gets you understanding them, and even others, a whole lot more. if i could get under the brains of everyone around me, and find out the "back-stories" behind their behavior, i would never have cause to get annoyed, irritated or angry. anyway, most of the time when we get annoyed, irritated or angry, its because we fail to find the reason, or even bother to consider the presence of one.
for me, one of the most interesting things i learned was how people can exist in totally different paradigms in their minds, which you can't even begin to imagine even by observing them very closely. yes, people have different styles of doing things, but how often do you actually bother to sit down and analyse their behavior? you, or i at least, just assume that that's the way they are. but that is the great big injustice that we all do to each other, and often, even to ourselves. everything is based on a reason, even if its a subconscious one. and as long as there's a reason, it is worth something.
its interesting, cos some time ago, when i decided to stop moping, i asked, or rather bargained, that god give me a reason. the reason for why i was doing what and going where i was. today he gave me a reason- the reason why i want to do everything the hard and bizarre way, why i feel the need to come up with my own explanation for every damned thing, why i worship design the way i do and still somehow want to do law, and why i get so disproportionately angry when people bullshit. strategic people, let me emphasize. people who are suppposed to "get it". the rest of the world can go and dig trenches and tunnels and crypts of lies for all i care. but i really worship the "getting it", the idea, the ratio decidendi that will just nail everything there is, and most of all, the thrill of getting it. and i refuse to believe that there aren't people who can and will fight for that, in spite of everything.
Posted by i confound myself at 4:24 pm
Friday, August 12, 2005
lights at putrajaya shangri-la. i loved the cuttings on the celing too. its a much nicer shang than the one we stayed in in cebu, which was a proper shang.
Posted by i confound myself at 4:36 pm
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
i know its almost my responsibility, for lack of a better word. (this is what it has degenerated into). however, i refuse to do anything at all. i refuse to be effective and efficient. i don't see why i should bother, when there has never been any sort of concrete reward or outcome for me. all its been is a big hash of empty words which i'm so darn sick of hearing. i feel as if, if i hear one more of those consiliatory comments, i'll just hit him in the face. seriously. how can anyone be so busy? it is a great mystery. busy with what? with enlarging the harem?Posted by i confound myself at 8:33 am
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
i think so anyway!
