Year ends are always difficult for me. The past few years have been especially trying and as I get older, things around me seem to get more complicated, more difficult to unravel.
2008 was filled with upheaval. Periods of stagnation interspersed with bad choices appears to have been the theme for this year.
I wonder about this job - it is beginning to bore me and I've been at it barely 6 months
I wonder about this country - should I remain here? How do I get away?
I wonder about this boy and that boy - mistakes I can't let go of
I wonder about the people I've lost touch with or pushed away - I've been remiss and in some cases, childish
So this is my apology to all. I'm sorry for the things I've done and the things that I haven't done.
I don't make New Year's resolutions but after 24 years without, maybe it's time to start.
For 2010, I will be more thoughtful and less proud. I will put more thought (or at least try to put more thought) into my actions before I go through with them. I will try to be more forgiving of others. I will try to understand more. I will put more effort into maintaining friendships.
Maybe. You know I'll probably say 'ef it all' tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Jakarta: Take II
Although my companion set out to show me the different types of transportation available in Jakarta, as opposed to the limited few available in KL, what really stood out was the size of informal sector. Roadside vendors, ojek, jockeys (government policy states that at peak traffic hours, cars must have at least 3 passengers including the driver. ‘Jockeys’ stand by the roadside before turn offs onto roads where the police enforce this policy to provide an extra passenger or two for a small fee), bajai drivers – all opportunities to make a living. While this could be linked to a lack of government efficiency in enforcing licensing regulations, this seems to be a deliberate move to allow the informal sector to flourish, and create much-needed jobs.
The sight of people sleeping under a bridge in the middle of Jakarta is sobering and fleshes out a conversation with him about corruption and the state of the country. He argues, like many, that corruption is the biggest problem Indonesia faces but also thinks its consequences are worse now than they were under Soeharto. He claims that under the New Order, at least the corrupt kept the money they obtained inside the country and uses Tommy Soeharto as an example – he gained from the country but also gave back to it, deliberately or not, by building factories and creating employment for Indonesians. The ‘new’ corrupt are different – they take and send it overseas to Singapore, Hong Kong, everywhere else. He argues that corruption is the source of most problems here, even the most minor ones. The traffic jam caused by the bus stopped haphazard in the middle of the road to pick up passengers is in turn caused by the police’s lack of action (they have been paid off or will be, the argument goes).
He says, ‘the rich get richer, the poor are getting poorer’ – I wonder if inequality is increasing. Rising GDP figures and tax revenue figures are well and good but they say little about the distribution of income, where the wealth is going. For all of SBY’s show & tell and conviction that Indonesia is in a different place and all the shiny new buildings dotting Jakarta, a lot remains to be done to actually make this a reality for a portion of the population. SBY may be serious about tackling corruption but until there is a clean judiciary and enforced punishments, it will remain pervasive and an obstacle to ‘development’.
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Some things are familiar. The traditional market near the office is similar to wet markets/ morning markets in KL and across Southeast Asia. Shopowners are mostly ethnic Chinese (the diaspora never fail to venture into business of some sort). The easy availability of food (always around the corner if not outside the door) reminds me of Bangkok more than KL.
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I notice that bookshops in Indonesia are dominated by books published in bahasa, both original works and translations of popular and classic English books. Along the shelf with bahasa-language history books, a name pops out. One of my professors at university who specialized in Indonesian history is here, in bahasa. The fact that the majority of books are in bahasa stands out to me (and also proves to be an inconvenience for the reader seeking an English-language book on Indonesian history, Soeharto, Golkar, etc, although it also led us to a brilliant secondhand bookstore at the Jakarta Art Center). In comparison, the Malaysian publishing industry is tiny.
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The next night five of us take a bus to find dinner – ‘Nasi kucing’, so-called for the small amount of rice bundled with a tiny nugget of fish or other savoury/spicy condiment. She tells me this is student fare but it is also popular with other market segments in Jogja, depending on the location of the cart. Normally, the people at a ‘angkringan’ would be mostly strangers and they strike up conversations about politics, current events, and other topics of interest, for strangers to exchange ideas, she puts it. But today the group of us takes up the entire cart and there is no one else there when we arrive. It is only as we leave that some people come along.
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The Friday lunch hour crowd makes it impossible to hail a taxi and we board an angkot for part of the way back to the office. Our fellow passengers in the rickety bus appear to be from the middle-classes, likely on their ways back to the office after lunch.
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Monday, August 31, 2009
old ghost
I do not like hearing from you. After the initial surprise wears off, it messes with my head and my concentration.
"I'll wait for you"
but for what?
"I miss you"
do you now? which part?
I'm exhausted from the weekend and most of all from thinking about you. Work.
You're the addiction I need to break
"I'll wait for you"
but for what?
"I miss you"
do you now? which part?
I'm exhausted from the weekend and most of all from thinking about you. Work.
You're the addiction I need to break
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
hello again
My demon is not a small furry creature that wraps itself around my legs. Nor is it a monster the size of two men. It doesn't whisper evil suggestions in my ears, it doesn't twist me to its will like so many little fragile tendrils. It's nothing that insidious.
It is a shape-shifter, this one.
A certain quality of light
a close friend
a sudden breeze
a memory of insignificant events
a road
a season
a song in my head
It's my siren, singing her deadly song, only I don't know if she's leading me forward or pulling me back. I cover my ears but it pierces flesh and echoes in my head. I turn away but I still feel her inexorable pull.
It is a shape-shifter, this one.
A certain quality of light
a close friend
a sudden breeze
a memory of insignificant events
a road
a season
a song in my head
It's my siren, singing her deadly song, only I don't know if she's leading me forward or pulling me back. I cover my ears but it pierces flesh and echoes in my head. I turn away but I still feel her inexorable pull.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
interruption
On the way back from ipoh I watched an amber moon play hide and seek behind the clouds.
This isn't a chapter 3. I intended to record my memories of Sydney here, not every last detail/day (that would get boring) but the most memorable and significant little moments, medium-sized events et cetera. But as the days wore by and the weeks plodded along, the urgency I felt immediately following my return faded. This isn't surprising. Memories get worn around the edges and begin to fray. Which is why I wanted to record them before they faded - because I know they will and I wanted to have something ready to hand to remind me - press refresh.
But now, and maybe this is because time has passed, I am content to just let it be. I don't feel the urge to record right now and the words won't come. So consider this an indefinite pause on that project. If a Chapter 3 comes, it comes. If it doesn't, that's fine too. Because sometimes not recording and just allowing it to fade is, upon reflection, as it should be. They aren't lost. They will just remain wherever they choose to be. And in those rare moments when they flash into my head, the way these memories do, the rarity of the occasion will make them precious.
-----------------------------------
Effective immediately, I am taking a break from non-essential human contact. I need to withdraw. People are beginning to wear me down again.
This isn't a chapter 3. I intended to record my memories of Sydney here, not every last detail/day (that would get boring) but the most memorable and significant little moments, medium-sized events et cetera. But as the days wore by and the weeks plodded along, the urgency I felt immediately following my return faded. This isn't surprising. Memories get worn around the edges and begin to fray. Which is why I wanted to record them before they faded - because I know they will and I wanted to have something ready to hand to remind me - press refresh.
But now, and maybe this is because time has passed, I am content to just let it be. I don't feel the urge to record right now and the words won't come. So consider this an indefinite pause on that project. If a Chapter 3 comes, it comes. If it doesn't, that's fine too. Because sometimes not recording and just allowing it to fade is, upon reflection, as it should be. They aren't lost. They will just remain wherever they choose to be. And in those rare moments when they flash into my head, the way these memories do, the rarity of the occasion will make them precious.
-----------------------------------
Effective immediately, I am taking a break from non-essential human contact. I need to withdraw. People are beginning to wear me down again.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Chapter 2
I remember the kitchen in my uncle's house.
I had rented a room from a crotchety old woman my first two months in Sydney. It was the first time she'd let out a room and had too rules on what I could and could not do, too many things to say, too many idiosyncrasies for me to bear. So I moved out and stayed with an uncle for a couple more months. The next session, I moved into the apartment and stayed there.
The house itself looked shabby and small from the outside. But inside, it was comfortable and felt lived-in. The living room was perpetually dark because of the heavy curtains but the kitchen and the rooms facing the downward slope behind the house were full of light. The kitchen was my favourite part of the house (the bathroom, with its heat lights and angular bath, came a close second, especially when it got colder). It had wooden floor planks and a large blonde wood table in the center. I spent my Saturday mornings at that table, poring over the weekend edition of the SMH in a quiet house. My uncle was hardly around, which suited me well, and Saturday mornings were no exception.
-------------------------------
My first morning in Sydney after a 4 month absence was sunny-beautiful. I woke up early that morning with a not-quite heavy heart, but a rather weighted one nevertheless. The strange feeling I had the night before still lingered and even now I can't quite describe it. It was slightly surreal, but then everything remembered takes on that quality. Possibly a cross between deja vu and jamais vu, although that doesn't at first glance make sense. It was that feeling of familiarity and comfort mingled with displacement and dispossession. This sensation never really went away during the trip, but it was the strongest those first few days living in the old flat.
Stepping out into the morning sun dispersed the sensation. It was only 10am but already the light was intensely bright (that rhymes!) without the suffocating humidity and heat that envelopes the tropics. How orientalist that sounded. It was exceptionally warm for mid-autumn, something I realized a few days later when the weather returned to normal. But that day was perfect.
It had rained early in the morning and the ground was still slightly damp. I remember smiling at the warmth on my legs from the sun, practically glowing at just being there and walking the familiar path to uni. The thing about being absent from a place is how much you forget in the interim, both the good and the bad. I had forgotten so much: the way those fig-like fruit crushed on the walkway perfume the air with their sweet, pungent scent, how bracingly crisp the air is there, the smell of cut grass drifting in from the racecourse. Sensory overload.
I had rented a room from a crotchety old woman my first two months in Sydney. It was the first time she'd let out a room and had too rules on what I could and could not do, too many things to say, too many idiosyncrasies for me to bear. So I moved out and stayed with an uncle for a couple more months. The next session, I moved into the apartment and stayed there.
The house itself looked shabby and small from the outside. But inside, it was comfortable and felt lived-in. The living room was perpetually dark because of the heavy curtains but the kitchen and the rooms facing the downward slope behind the house were full of light. The kitchen was my favourite part of the house (the bathroom, with its heat lights and angular bath, came a close second, especially when it got colder). It had wooden floor planks and a large blonde wood table in the center. I spent my Saturday mornings at that table, poring over the weekend edition of the SMH in a quiet house. My uncle was hardly around, which suited me well, and Saturday mornings were no exception.
-------------------------------
My first morning in Sydney after a 4 month absence was sunny-beautiful. I woke up early that morning with a not-quite heavy heart, but a rather weighted one nevertheless. The strange feeling I had the night before still lingered and even now I can't quite describe it. It was slightly surreal, but then everything remembered takes on that quality. Possibly a cross between deja vu and jamais vu, although that doesn't at first glance make sense. It was that feeling of familiarity and comfort mingled with displacement and dispossession. This sensation never really went away during the trip, but it was the strongest those first few days living in the old flat.
Stepping out into the morning sun dispersed the sensation. It was only 10am but already the light was intensely bright (that rhymes!) without the suffocating humidity and heat that envelopes the tropics. How orientalist that sounded. It was exceptionally warm for mid-autumn, something I realized a few days later when the weather returned to normal. But that day was perfect.
It had rained early in the morning and the ground was still slightly damp. I remember smiling at the warmth on my legs from the sun, practically glowing at just being there and walking the familiar path to uni. The thing about being absent from a place is how much you forget in the interim, both the good and the bad. I had forgotten so much: the way those fig-like fruit crushed on the walkway perfume the air with their sweet, pungent scent, how bracingly crisp the air is there, the smell of cut grass drifting in from the racecourse. Sensory overload.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Chapter 1
Have you ever read 'Hopscotch', by Julio Cortazar? I picked it up from the library a few years ago after a recommendation from a lecturer who specialized in Latin America. It is a curiously structured book that you can choose to read conventionally (Introduction is followed by chapter 1 is followed by chapter 2 and so on until you get to chapter 155) or unconventionally (chapter 1 is followed by chapter 37 is followed by chapter 102 is followed by chapter 9 until you finish all of them - there is a line at the end of each chapter suggesting which page to turn to next, not the one which follows numerically). It is a brilliant idea, to let the reader assemble the story as s/he will, and to have it fit at the same time is masterful. I digress.
Monday.
I watched as many movies as I could stomach on the plane, as I always did. Put on my face in the cramped, slightly disgusting airplane bathroom because I refuse to look a mess getting off. The queue through immigration is unusually long, and slow. Collect baggage. Queue again to get through customs with my white card and passport in hand. The official checking the ticked boxes on the card waves me through and for the first time, after countless struggles with getting heavy bags onto the x-ray machines for 4 years, I get a free pass.
He was waiting in the arrivals hall. No surprises there. Those came later. The usual exchange of pleasantries follows, how long have you been here, sorry to keep you waiting, work-talk, accept compliment, weather-talk. Kingsford Smith has a new addition to its infrastructure - a multi-storey travelator in the carpark. It is on the travelator that he surprises me first, although I can't say that I wasn't half-expecting it. Oh the uncertainty, always the uncertainty! I think that's what gives me, us both, the rush. That potent mixture of fear, anticipation, uncertainty, defiance.
There was a light drizzle that night. The roads from the airport to my place were the same as I remembered, semi-familiar landscapes.
Later, I found myself in a room that had been mine but now wasn't. Almost everything seemed the same - the same furniture, the same people (at least the two who were around), the absolute silence of the apartment. It was a strange feeling, being somewhere that had been a home. Another curious thing was the lack of emotion I felt. I was sorry for him and would have done anything to help, but not angry or hurt or any of the hundred things someone in that situation could have been. How complicated human relationships get and how much they can change with time. But then, this was never a solid matter to begin with.
Monday.
I watched as many movies as I could stomach on the plane, as I always did. Put on my face in the cramped, slightly disgusting airplane bathroom because I refuse to look a mess getting off. The queue through immigration is unusually long, and slow. Collect baggage. Queue again to get through customs with my white card and passport in hand. The official checking the ticked boxes on the card waves me through and for the first time, after countless struggles with getting heavy bags onto the x-ray machines for 4 years, I get a free pass.
He was waiting in the arrivals hall. No surprises there. Those came later. The usual exchange of pleasantries follows, how long have you been here, sorry to keep you waiting, work-talk, accept compliment, weather-talk. Kingsford Smith has a new addition to its infrastructure - a multi-storey travelator in the carpark. It is on the travelator that he surprises me first, although I can't say that I wasn't half-expecting it. Oh the uncertainty, always the uncertainty! I think that's what gives me, us both, the rush. That potent mixture of fear, anticipation, uncertainty, defiance.
There was a light drizzle that night. The roads from the airport to my place were the same as I remembered, semi-familiar landscapes.
Later, I found myself in a room that had been mine but now wasn't. Almost everything seemed the same - the same furniture, the same people (at least the two who were around), the absolute silence of the apartment. It was a strange feeling, being somewhere that had been a home. Another curious thing was the lack of emotion I felt. I was sorry for him and would have done anything to help, but not angry or hurt or any of the hundred things someone in that situation could have been. How complicated human relationships get and how much they can change with time. But then, this was never a solid matter to begin with.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Introduction
I'm back
I know I was only there for 12 days, but those 12 days seem both like a lifetime and a blink of an eye. Where to begin?
To begin with, 12 days was too short. In between meeting up with friends and shuttling the family around, I didn't get half of what I'd wanted to do done. Despite my best efforts, I missed out on going to the beaches (too cold), seeing the Botanic Gardens properly (too big), taking the ferry from circular quay to anywhere, taking the train anywhere, digging through the library for books (definitely not enough time. and it's being rearranged. again.), and taking a full walk through uni. In retrospect, I would have needed a month to be even remotely satisfied.
I did however manage to make it to the Opera Bar after dark, to the art gallery for a final(?) visit, to David Jones food hall (where I found my sister looking staggered by the sheer amount and variety of food available - "I need help... can we stay here all day?"), to the fish market for seafood and the best oyster I've had (ever) to catch up with Duncan over coffee (and listen to him complain about his 1st and 2nd year students. and to be amazed once again at how much he has achieved by 30), to walk along the racecourse from my old flat to uni on a beautiful, sunny-sweet day (after a not-quite-dark-but-far-from-bright-night), and, most importantly, to laugh, listen, reminisce.
I also graduated (officially), which was quite fun.
A lecturer once told me not use a sentence as a paragraph. He was right. But this isn't an essay or an article.
Does that count as a start? I certainly hope so.
I know I was only there for 12 days, but those 12 days seem both like a lifetime and a blink of an eye. Where to begin?
To begin with, 12 days was too short. In between meeting up with friends and shuttling the family around, I didn't get half of what I'd wanted to do done. Despite my best efforts, I missed out on going to the beaches (too cold), seeing the Botanic Gardens properly (too big), taking the ferry from circular quay to anywhere, taking the train anywhere, digging through the library for books (definitely not enough time. and it's being rearranged. again.), and taking a full walk through uni. In retrospect, I would have needed a month to be even remotely satisfied.
I did however manage to make it to the Opera Bar after dark, to the art gallery for a final(?) visit, to David Jones food hall (where I found my sister looking staggered by the sheer amount and variety of food available - "I need help... can we stay here all day?"), to the fish market for seafood and the best oyster I've had (ever) to catch up with Duncan over coffee (and listen to him complain about his 1st and 2nd year students. and to be amazed once again at how much he has achieved by 30), to walk along the racecourse from my old flat to uni on a beautiful, sunny-sweet day (after a not-quite-dark-but-far-from-bright-night), and, most importantly, to laugh, listen, reminisce.
I also graduated (officially), which was quite fun.
A lecturer once told me not use a sentence as a paragraph. He was right. But this isn't an essay or an article.
Does that count as a start? I certainly hope so.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
in an anonymous cafe
dear family at the next table,
nothing says illbreeding quite like staring. i hope you take this into account while raising your toddler because you have clearly missed the boat with your teenagers.
love,
jeen
nothing says illbreeding quite like staring. i hope you take this into account while raising your toddler because you have clearly missed the boat with your teenagers.
love,
jeen
Monday, April 06, 2009
random but not
Somewhere in my head space, there is a gallery of sorts where I have stored the most important, most intense, most unforgettable moments in my life. They aren't memories of events, but brief moments in time - maybe a second or five, rarely more. Most of them are solitary, few have other people around, and even less have other people occupying more than incidental positions.
One or two are chance sightings of something unexpected and beautiful. I remember catching a glimpse of the opera house with the evening light glinting off it while I was on the train pulling into circular quay station. I happened to look up for the briefest second and was struck by the sight. That was one of the things that made me love Sydney.
There are a few that I remember and keep deliberately for the sense of peace and fulfillment I felt then. When I was backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia a few years ago, we stopped in the mountains for a night or two. I remember a breakfast of the sweetest mangoes I have ever eaten, purchased the day before from a street vendor and chilled in the mini-bar overnight, and hot, strong, Vietnamese coffee at a tiny cafe/house. I could want for nothing more.
There are a couple of moments that maybe I would forget if I could but cannot because they are ones which make my heart ache for what might have been but was not.
And then there are those that are so intense, the first time they arise unbidden, I shudder involuntarily. During a lag in the conversation, or a quiet moment, the memory of these moments almost consumes me and transport me away to a different place and time.
If I were to try and count them, the sum of these moments might number less than my fingers. I don't know because I cannot count them - I get confused as to which are and which aren't - but I suspect that they are that few and far in between. It's odd, but most if not all of them happened elsewhere. Maybe life here is too familiar for anything to hold that much significance for me. Or maybe I'm not meant to live in my birth country.
I should just be a nomad.
One or two are chance sightings of something unexpected and beautiful. I remember catching a glimpse of the opera house with the evening light glinting off it while I was on the train pulling into circular quay station. I happened to look up for the briefest second and was struck by the sight. That was one of the things that made me love Sydney.
There are a few that I remember and keep deliberately for the sense of peace and fulfillment I felt then. When I was backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia a few years ago, we stopped in the mountains for a night or two. I remember a breakfast of the sweetest mangoes I have ever eaten, purchased the day before from a street vendor and chilled in the mini-bar overnight, and hot, strong, Vietnamese coffee at a tiny cafe/house. I could want for nothing more.
There are a couple of moments that maybe I would forget if I could but cannot because they are ones which make my heart ache for what might have been but was not.
And then there are those that are so intense, the first time they arise unbidden, I shudder involuntarily. During a lag in the conversation, or a quiet moment, the memory of these moments almost consumes me and transport me away to a different place and time.
If I were to try and count them, the sum of these moments might number less than my fingers. I don't know because I cannot count them - I get confused as to which are and which aren't - but I suspect that they are that few and far in between. It's odd, but most if not all of them happened elsewhere. Maybe life here is too familiar for anything to hold that much significance for me. Or maybe I'm not meant to live in my birth country.
I should just be a nomad.
sydney shopping list
strictly food-related, this one
harissa
truffle paste
olives
dark chocolate
tahini (if its cheaper there)
maldon salt or murray river salt
jams! strawberry and champagne, sour cherry, plum
harissa
truffle paste
olives
dark chocolate
tahini (if its cheaper there)
maldon salt or murray river salt
jams! strawberry and champagne, sour cherry, plum
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
crunch
is the sound stupidly healthy, borderline tasteless pretzel crisps make as I try to keep from falling asleep at my laptop
Monday, March 30, 2009
nyik
I have a confession to make.
I am a language snob. Unless the writer is someone I know personally, bad writing sends me running. Or squawking. If I cannot comprehend a paragraph, not because it's been written GGMarquez-Autumn of the Patriarch-style but because it is fragmented, incoherent, or just downright rubbishy, I'll close the page and never go back. Okay, I might open it again once in a while to see if it's still bad but then I'll shudder and kick myself again.
There really isn't a point to this post, I just felt like complaining.
Oh, and S offered to pick me up from the airport when I arrive on the 13th. I don't know. April is a day away and it's making me fidgety.
whatever. time to scour the web for information again.
I am a language snob. Unless the writer is someone I know personally, bad writing sends me running. Or squawking. If I cannot comprehend a paragraph, not because it's been written GGMarquez-Autumn of the Patriarch-style but because it is fragmented, incoherent, or just downright rubbishy, I'll close the page and never go back. Okay, I might open it again once in a while to see if it's still bad but then I'll shudder and kick myself again.
There really isn't a point to this post, I just felt like complaining.
Oh, and S offered to pick me up from the airport when I arrive on the 13th. I don't know. April is a day away and it's making me fidgety.
whatever. time to scour the web for information again.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
musical chairs
My dogs treat me like a piece of furniture. One walks over me repeatedly - back and forth and back and forth again - before settling his heavy ass on me if I'm sitting on the floor. Just now both of them tried to climb onto my lap at the same time, while I was seated on a chair, working on my laptop.
I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight. 35 more pages to go before I can compile the whole damn report and arrange and edit it.
Also, I just turned down a job offer from the first job and interview I went for. It would be more sane, but it still sounds boring. And they took what, a month? to get back to me. Harumph.
Also, I love the way the rain smells grassy and damp and heavy :)
I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight. 35 more pages to go before I can compile the whole damn report and arrange and edit it.
Also, I just turned down a job offer from the first job and interview I went for. It would be more sane, but it still sounds boring. And they took what, a month? to get back to me. Harumph.
Also, I love the way the rain smells grassy and damp and heavy :)
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
gargle blah poo
i take it back >(
see I was just about done at 7 when they sent me an urgently needed 10 page document - 'can you handle this?'
like i'm going to say no!
blargh
i don't like not having the time to shower and eat!!
see I was just about done at 7 when they sent me an urgently needed 10 page document - 'can you handle this?'
like i'm going to say no!
blargh
i don't like not having the time to shower and eat!!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
hustle
I'm happiest when I have a tonne of work to do and deadlines to meet. Unfortunate, but true sometimes.
Today I have:
the usual media coverage
2 reports in Indonesian to translate, edit and restructure
and then, when all that is done, research! corporate dirt-digging! fun :)
Today I have:
the usual media coverage
2 reports in Indonesian to translate, edit and restructure
and then, when all that is done, research! corporate dirt-digging! fun :)
Monday, March 02, 2009
in passing
1. I'm really looking forward to April.
I got an email from Duncan about attending my graduation ceremony and it made me miss the smallest things about Sydney.
2. Does last week count as a seven day week?
It sure felt like it. And I know I can expect more of the same this week.
3. I actually enjoy the info-digging thing
so long as I don't think about the ethical aspect of it.
4. steely blue nails *love*
I got an email from Duncan about attending my graduation ceremony and it made me miss the smallest things about Sydney.
2. Does last week count as a seven day week?
It sure felt like it. And I know I can expect more of the same this week.
3. I actually enjoy the info-digging thing
so long as I don't think about the ethical aspect of it.
4. steely blue nails *love*
Monday, February 16, 2009
campbells tomato soup
Now. You know I've been toying with the idea of adopting a sustainable, organic, local, and ethical diet, which thus far I have yet to follow through on simply because it requires conscious effort and I am lazy. However, after reading this article, I am seriously considering throwing all canned and processed foods out with the trash. Or at my sister when she's in bitch mode.
The problem for me is not so much the fact that the curry powder or cinnamon I use may have bug bits in them - after all, a little bit of dirt is healthy, sterile food is bad for the immune system and all that - but that, as the writer asserts, "we don't really know what we're putting into our mouths". For all the ingredient lists and ticks from regulatory agencies on food packaging, we don't actually know much about what is inside that microwave meal. Chances are, tongue-twisting chemicals and plant/ animal derivatives couched in scientific terms make up half the list, obscuring the true nature, sources, and usage of these 'ingredients'. And by extension, the effects they have on your physical and mental self. More disturbing than this is that the use of these ingredients/ chemicals is approved by the agencies (USFDA being the no. 1 culprit) we look to for nutritional guidance.
The verdict: cut down (if entirely eliminating is not possible or practical) on packaged and processed foods.
Sigh
The problem for me is not so much the fact that the curry powder or cinnamon I use may have bug bits in them - after all, a little bit of dirt is healthy, sterile food is bad for the immune system and all that - but that, as the writer asserts, "we don't really know what we're putting into our mouths". For all the ingredient lists and ticks from regulatory agencies on food packaging, we don't actually know much about what is inside that microwave meal. Chances are, tongue-twisting chemicals and plant/ animal derivatives couched in scientific terms make up half the list, obscuring the true nature, sources, and usage of these 'ingredients'. And by extension, the effects they have on your physical and mental self. More disturbing than this is that the use of these ingredients/ chemicals is approved by the agencies (USFDA being the no. 1 culprit) we look to for nutritional guidance.
The verdict: cut down (if entirely eliminating is not possible or practical) on packaged and processed foods.
Sigh
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
midnight munchies
hey.... they didn't scrap the little packet of seasoning in Mamee noodles after all. They just don't include them inside the individual packets. How do I know this? I'm awake at midnight once again because that's the only time of day (night) my intellectual brain is actually malleable enough for me to push in less frivolous directions. And I woke up from my pre-work nap hungry. Say what you will, but coffee + carbs + MSG saves the day.
:)
:)
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
CNY excerpts and then some
she pored over my palm
"hmm... your fortune is exactly like mine. Lots of broken relationships"
"KL boys are such dufuses. Or gay"
"so she's thinking of turning it into a novel, with gung gung's death and the big secret as the finale"
"DIDI! get off the car"
on to the news:
2 weddings (both in July, both in Sg. Consider yourself forewarned-forearmed)
2 jobs (fine, one is a 2 month research project I'm supposed to be working on from today. the other starts proper in April (May hopefully))
Sydney in April. I'll be there for a few days before the hurricane of a family hits.
A close friend sent me a piece on solitude after he found out that I actually enjoy it. I was on one of my KL diatribes, all loathing and nostalgic for Sydney and he asked me what I missed there that was absent here. Solitude ranked quite highly. Other, less mentionable factors went unspoken. And I forgot to say that I felt more fully of myself there than I did back here. That only occurred to me in the taxi.
"hmm... your fortune is exactly like mine. Lots of broken relationships"
"KL boys are such dufuses. Or gay"
"so she's thinking of turning it into a novel, with gung gung's death and the big secret as the finale"
"DIDI! get off the car"
on to the news:
2 weddings (both in July, both in Sg. Consider yourself forewarned-forearmed)
2 jobs (fine, one is a 2 month research project I'm supposed to be working on from today. the other starts proper in April (May hopefully))
Sydney in April. I'll be there for a few days before the hurricane of a family hits.
A close friend sent me a piece on solitude after he found out that I actually enjoy it. I was on one of my KL diatribes, all loathing and nostalgic for Sydney and he asked me what I missed there that was absent here. Solitude ranked quite highly. Other, less mentionable factors went unspoken. And I forgot to say that I felt more fully of myself there than I did back here. That only occurred to me in the taxi.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
new modem
did you catch it? did you catch it?
fine, so this is a day or two late but Barack Hussein Obama is now no. 44. Leader of the free world and all that. I'm not American, nor do I usually want to be, considering what the country has been through the past decade or so (can you say Bush?), but since this guy clinched the Democratic nomination I have had to grudgingly admire (and envy) Americans for the mobility their society affords to its best and brightest.
On to more pedestrian topics, CNY is around the corner. I can already feel its fiery breath in my skull as the heat takes over. Why does it never/ hardly ever rain during Chinese New Year? Did the astrologers who set the date manipulate the weather so to add to the suffering of celebrants? I've been reading too much sci-fi. I've read almost everything else in the bookcase and it is unfortunately addictive. No hidden meanings or moral preachings, pure entertainment. Much like watching E! but with no epilepsy-inducing flashes. I digress. CNY. Right. Anyway the whole thing must be messing with my head and twiddling with the little knobs which control my internal soundtrack. To give me Damien Rice. Not even new stuff, but the 2003 album. Freak. Depressing stuff.
You know that strange sensation where it feels like a lot of time has passed or a lot of things have happened in a short period of time but you can't actually place your finger on what has happened and you can't even say if anything has happened but you feel as if it has? I'm sure there's a phrase for it, but I don't know what it is.
[back in 5-6 days]
fine, so this is a day or two late but Barack Hussein Obama is now no. 44. Leader of the free world and all that. I'm not American, nor do I usually want to be, considering what the country has been through the past decade or so (can you say Bush?), but since this guy clinched the Democratic nomination I have had to grudgingly admire (and envy) Americans for the mobility their society affords to its best and brightest.
On to more pedestrian topics, CNY is around the corner. I can already feel its fiery breath in my skull as the heat takes over. Why does it never/ hardly ever rain during Chinese New Year? Did the astrologers who set the date manipulate the weather so to add to the suffering of celebrants? I've been reading too much sci-fi. I've read almost everything else in the bookcase and it is unfortunately addictive. No hidden meanings or moral preachings, pure entertainment. Much like watching E! but with no epilepsy-inducing flashes. I digress. CNY. Right. Anyway the whole thing must be messing with my head and twiddling with the little knobs which control my internal soundtrack. To give me Damien Rice. Not even new stuff, but the 2003 album. Freak. Depressing stuff.
You know that strange sensation where it feels like a lot of time has passed or a lot of things have happened in a short period of time but you can't actually place your finger on what has happened and you can't even say if anything has happened but you feel as if it has? I'm sure there's a phrase for it, but I don't know what it is.
[back in 5-6 days]
Sunday, January 18, 2009
pax?
Israel has declared a cease-fire. Now, I've been rethinking my position on the conflict - although I do not condone the severity of the war waged by the Israelies, I do understand their reasoning.
more after lunch
more after lunch
Saturday, January 17, 2009
almost end of the week update
I have been lazy. Forgive me?
So here's what I've been up to this week:
sent out summaries of research findings (finally)
- sent copies of thesis to participants who made requests
- received request from city council to present findings at a mini-workshop (! hahahaha)
applied for first job, wednesday 11am
- received call from company, wednesday 3pm
- phone interview
- second interview friday morning (blah, job not as interesting as I thought it would be)
- to know in a week or two if I got through to the third and final interview
finally bought clothes in KL
- topshop dress (that takes care of CNY)
- basic shorts
finally got a hair cut
And in between all of this, the usual going out, getting high, and a smidge of baking. I like KL best at night. You can't see the filth and the riff raff then. The lights wink at you as the car passes through the city, denizens of the city slave away in their little high rise cubicle-prisons.
Bright lights, city nights. Stay in the car, turn off the lights.
I read this some days ago and meant to link it but forgot: on kindness
food for thought. and something to aim for.
So here's what I've been up to this week:
sent out summaries of research findings (finally)
- sent copies of thesis to participants who made requests
- received request from city council to present findings at a mini-workshop (! hahahaha)
applied for first job, wednesday 11am
- received call from company, wednesday 3pm
- phone interview
- second interview friday morning (blah, job not as interesting as I thought it would be)
- to know in a week or two if I got through to the third and final interview
finally bought clothes in KL
- topshop dress (that takes care of CNY)
- basic shorts
finally got a hair cut
And in between all of this, the usual going out, getting high, and a smidge of baking. I like KL best at night. You can't see the filth and the riff raff then. The lights wink at you as the car passes through the city, denizens of the city slave away in their little high rise cubicle-prisons.
Bright lights, city nights. Stay in the car, turn off the lights.
I read this some days ago and meant to link it but forgot: on kindness
food for thought. and something to aim for.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
hargh
As far as awkward family dinners go, that took the cake.
Not a word exchanged between the two in the car, through dinner, and on the way back. Jesus effing christ.
In the meantime, I'll entertain myself by choking and hacking my throat out.
Not a word exchanged between the two in the car, through dinner, and on the way back. Jesus effing christ.
In the meantime, I'll entertain myself by choking and hacking my throat out.
Monday, January 05, 2009
homecoming
A number of things.
I've been finding it difficult to make my usual observations about the things and people surrounding me - strangers, acquaintances, atmospheric descriptions etc. Something about this particular environment makes it difficult for me to turn my gaze outwards. I find it especially difficult to empathize with the people I see here, something which is compounded by the fact that this weather is inconducive to long walks and public transport here is the shits. So I sit in the rarefied and filtered air of a car, in a little bubble that isolates me from the outside. Like almost everyone else in this country. No wonder we are so antagonistic to one another. Each one of us alien, each one of us the other. (ref. to Foucault and Arnold for more on the gaze, Said for the other)
There's this strange sensation that dogs me here. This is home, I know it to be home. But it feels like I've stepped or been forced out of my skin here. It is, but it isn't. Theorizing about this in the shower has led me to believe that it stems from the fact that this place and this house is home not by choice and not because I have made it so but purely because I happened to grow up here. I had little say in this. It is home by default. In contrast (I know, I know. I'm romanticizing the past.) I had an active role in making myself a home in Sydney. That was a deliberate choice - taking four years away from this place, to assimilate in Sydney and to submerge myself completely in a different place, culture (hate using the word and stereotype of 'culture' but I'm too lazy to find the right one), maybe identity. Two homes - one passively so, the other made as such. How now brown cow?
While I'm on the subject of different experiences in the same locale conditioned by ethnicity, I remember talking with D about how each of us experienced Sydney and Malaysia respectively. D found Malaysia hospitable, fascinating, and contradictory. People were unfailingly nice to him here, more so than in Sydney. The dysfunction of government and everyday life in this neck of the woods was a sometimes refreshing change from the usual. In contrast, I found greater hospitality and openness in Sydney. The way everything ran like clockwork without ever seeming hurried there charmed me. Maybe the two experiences were that of outsiders. He, as the 'mat salleh' visiting a postcolonial country, experienced a culture eager to please the white man. I, as the untypical Asian in a country of migrants both established and recent, experienced - what exactly, I still don't know.
April is still months away but I can't wait to return. I'm considering doing what E did and returning a week before my family comes. But for different reasons. I want the chance to be in the city alone one final time, as I so often was these four years but especially the last 6 months. I want to see it alone, without people to usher around the sights. Ride the familiar bus routes, walk my favourite tours of the city. Surprisingly or not, I enjoyed the solitude. And the freedom that came with it.
I've been finding it difficult to make my usual observations about the things and people surrounding me - strangers, acquaintances, atmospheric descriptions etc. Something about this particular environment makes it difficult for me to turn my gaze outwards. I find it especially difficult to empathize with the people I see here, something which is compounded by the fact that this weather is inconducive to long walks and public transport here is the shits. So I sit in the rarefied and filtered air of a car, in a little bubble that isolates me from the outside. Like almost everyone else in this country. No wonder we are so antagonistic to one another. Each one of us alien, each one of us the other. (ref. to Foucault and Arnold for more on the gaze, Said for the other)
There's this strange sensation that dogs me here. This is home, I know it to be home. But it feels like I've stepped or been forced out of my skin here. It is, but it isn't. Theorizing about this in the shower has led me to believe that it stems from the fact that this place and this house is home not by choice and not because I have made it so but purely because I happened to grow up here. I had little say in this. It is home by default. In contrast (I know, I know. I'm romanticizing the past.) I had an active role in making myself a home in Sydney. That was a deliberate choice - taking four years away from this place, to assimilate in Sydney and to submerge myself completely in a different place, culture (hate using the word and stereotype of 'culture' but I'm too lazy to find the right one), maybe identity. Two homes - one passively so, the other made as such. How now brown cow?
While I'm on the subject of different experiences in the same locale conditioned by ethnicity, I remember talking with D about how each of us experienced Sydney and Malaysia respectively. D found Malaysia hospitable, fascinating, and contradictory. People were unfailingly nice to him here, more so than in Sydney. The dysfunction of government and everyday life in this neck of the woods was a sometimes refreshing change from the usual. In contrast, I found greater hospitality and openness in Sydney. The way everything ran like clockwork without ever seeming hurried there charmed me. Maybe the two experiences were that of outsiders. He, as the 'mat salleh' visiting a postcolonial country, experienced a culture eager to please the white man. I, as the untypical Asian in a country of migrants both established and recent, experienced - what exactly, I still don't know.
April is still months away but I can't wait to return. I'm considering doing what E did and returning a week before my family comes. But for different reasons. I want the chance to be in the city alone one final time, as I so often was these four years but especially the last 6 months. I want to see it alone, without people to usher around the sights. Ride the familiar bus routes, walk my favourite tours of the city. Surprisingly or not, I enjoyed the solitude. And the freedom that came with it.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
grunt
Woke up after a late afternoon nap. Scrambled eggs for dinner cause there's nothing in the fridge. Add truffle salsa. Open the chewed-up newspaper. And 'gong xi gong xi gong xi ni' goes off in my head. Fuck me.
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