Thursday, June 29, 2006
Less mysterious than they think they areBack at work and lying low to read emails;
One outreach at C'ville Dave Matthews concert in September - now it's only a matter of finding people willing to commit, myself included. The friendly Richmond guy who tried to get us to adopt-a-child as we left the HRC store in DC was All Clear: "everyone says they'll remember! But no one does!" Okay okay okay.
May have to review Superman Returns after all despite previous reluctance, depending on how the weekend goes. My dad also has free tickets to the Pirates 2 preview, is the summer blockbuster or blockbuster?
Mel called last night to review her very tourist itinery and we were laughing like crazy as we added Science Centre and heartland mall (cho loh) in sharp contrast to CHIJMES and Long Bar (classy). If Zhaochu doesn't reply my email I won't be able to help in visa thing and he won't be able to return to shores of S'pore for ban mian anytime soon.
"If there was something wrong with my face," the girl asked, "would you tell me?"
"Turn around," the woman said.
The girl turned around.
"Now look at me."
The girl looked at her.
"You have the most beautiful face I have ever seen."
"You're just saying that."
"No, I mean it."
The boy turned on the radio. The weatherman was giving the forecast for the next day. He was predicting rain and cooler temperatures. "Sit down and drink your water," the boy said to his sister. "Don't forget your umbrella tomorrow," said the weatherman.
The girl sat down. She drank her barley water and began to tell the woman all about coniferous trees. Most of them were evergreens but some were just shrubs. Not all of them had cones. Some of them, like the yew, only had seedpods.
"That's good to know," said the woman. Then she stood up and told the girl it was time to practice the piano for Thursday's lesson.
"Do I have to?"
The woman thought for a moment. "No," she said, "only if you want to."
"Tell me I have to."
"I can't."
The girl went out to the living room and sat down on the piano bench. "The metronome's gone," she called out.
"Just count to yourself then," said the woman.
- Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine
# posted by s. ning @ 10:07 AM
Friday, June 23, 2006
"Thank the Lord, she didn't live to see her son as a mermaid"
Okay now I get the "Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too" group, NOW I get it, thank you (and can hence join it, although there really is no reason for a facebook group to have over two thousand members).
I also no longer have tolerance for heat, as if that needed to be declared dramatically. Yesterday after meeting Yuwei for dinner at Essential Brews, or place-you-will-most-definitely-run-into-someone-familiar-from-early-or-present-years (modest Thursday night count: we saw one friend each), she kindly accompanied me on muddled route because my mind was suddenly wiped blank of correct bus-stop that would lead me home. I was entirely plastered with sweat and it was only a couple of minutes outside, and in the evening at that.
On second thought, that restaurant is very Youki Singe tea-room, without the restless and posed sophistication (too much of A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity).
Later I overheard a probably-PRC girl in conversation with her mother, characteristic because neither bothered to keep their voices down in a disagreement; it was wonderful to hear the girl face down her mother's negativism in halting but spot-on arguments about language and Finding Home (it also made me miss you unreasonably and uncalculatedly).
My sister also finally called from China, after annoying silence that caused the whole family to assume she had been abducted by village moguls.
# posted by s. ning @ 8:41 PM
Sunday, June 18, 2006
I am the only person who can keep you honest
Justine is back from Nottingham and her hair is long for the first time in eight years. Gen's scramble-off-arm-chair-and-hide-behind-it indignation at Mirrormask's bad, bad, surreality; us valiantly flailing through crunches on the table and KFC in the function room, covering Zihao's ears at unyielding Closer dialogue. So, new UVA peeps? Two words: Alpha Male. Not that it isn't going to make the new school year unusual-interesting, even if I like my men offbeat, and Kai won't stop making American jokes about the lack of women to Talk To.
# posted by s. ning @ 11:43 PM
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
So it's broken, but it's a clean, deliberate break. Not the kind that acquires dozens and dozens of tiny cracks and everything suddenly comes apart with no one able to look back and figure out why.
Idealism is not innocence; it's not something that can be taken away from you one-shot, like a deflowering. It can curl in upon its mistakes, but then become a little wiser.
# posted by s. ning @ 6:38 AM
Monday, June 12, 2006
Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" or the drunken-parent-dance anthem from Finding Cassie Crazy just came on on radioblogclub. It's hard not to laugh. There's Kai's jetlagged phone-call with dry commentary, identity arguments and conscious unpredictability, and after the pants drought I have not one but four sexy new pairs. There's gorgeous 1c - though the Marina plan was rained out - whom I will love forever for never changing. And chilling with Sean at tcc afterwards, as he's a sweet water-drinking buddy who can take every subject curveball with a straight face.
Tomorrow I have to do something that may break my heart. And yet as melodramatic as it sounds, before it ends or begins, I already know it's the only way to go.
# posted by s. ning @ 11:16 PM
Saturday, June 10, 2006
You know I got black eyes, but they burn so brightly
My parents are in the kitchen doing the dishes while talking in Cantonese. It is about me, I know it. Parents are so obvious.
I like work. There's having to wear stockings and borrow people's computer accounts, but also compiling feedback forms from entertaining variety of courses for hotel staff ranging from leadership training to Indian head massage. Everyone's friendly-inclusive and professional without compromising either quality, very hotel-industry but very positive. Spatula and bath towel order discussions over kolopok are common. I like listening.
After waiting for five months, I'm finally in the International Residential College (IRC) - to add to the fun and laughter, the new roommate is from Tex-as.
Because of Mamaleng's reviewing coolness we saw The Road to Guantanamo for free; my brain cells have been smashing into one another because of all that's happened this week, so it was good to go back to filmlove. I was somewhat distracted trying to decide what was real and what was reenacted (who played the US Marine bastards, then? Were those men really so spunky and smartass with their interrogators?) but I liked its simplicity. No emotional trips, just sardonic men looking back, no genius pulpit-speaker among them, just stories.
As with all things, I'll give this time.
# posted by s. ning @ 4:01 PM
Sunday, June 04, 2006
"You fall in love to keep from falling in love!"
I start work tomorrow, so before that happens -
I watched Almost Famous for the third time, and recognized a Bolt of Intuition!
This is Han outside the Plaza Hotel in NYC. I took this picture simply because voices at that moment said to do so.
And lo and behold, what is the hotel William dashes into to find Penny totally off her face, valiantly holding the girl upright before making that sweet speech about "boldly going where many men have gone before"?
I seem to have lost interest in brainy movies, by the way. I enjoyed X-3 mightily, in what my fanboy friend would call a wholly Mainstream Manner; excuse me for enjoying thematic elements, Jiahan!
My Malaysian relatives are here for the Great Singapore Sale, if nothing else, and there was the dinner with them that included smiling a lot since I do not understand dialect. I don't know why my mum keeps assuming I can deal with children, but the older you get the more you remember yourself, adding chocolate sprinkles to my cousin's already-chocolate ice-cream, and Never Patronizing 12-Year Olds.
I don't know why I assume I can read a library; I already have five books from there plus the two I got from awesome Books Actually jaunt with Gen.
What would I do without girly-MSN-convos-that-are-not-with-girls?
"Never take it seriously.
If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt.
If you never get hurt, you always have fun.
And if you ever get lonely...
you just go to the record store...
and visit your friends."
So said Penny Lane. Don't listen to her - too seriously, anyway.
# posted by s. ning @ 1:42 PM
Thursday, June 01, 2006
No more angry young manAfter a year away from home I find that the most significant thing a Singaporean can do is get away from confusion and criticism.
Over ba chor mee my neighbor was telling my mum how overseas Singaporeans, such as her own daughters, turned off by the pay-to-view online subscription option offered by the Straits Times, choose alternatives like
mr brown, and hence acquire a very cynical view of the world back home, if they did not already have one. That is of course short-sighted reasoning, but what's always irritated me is the assumption that
everyone in Singapore is cynical about their prospects and do nothing but criticise - and with good reason.Of course, everything cultural-identity-related here is so obvious, I can be reading an article about fist-flying in Taiwan parliament and then there'll be a "Did you know?" type box in the corner, detailing "Taiwan: Singapore as anti-corruption model" or "Singapore denounces actions of senate member so-and-so." Yes, everything is so obvious, right down to tearing apart Levin's cannot-get-away-from-JCness on Singapore Idol, while I was effusing about how ridiculous it was for Jonathan to sing a line like I think you're so mean / I think we should try with such clinical precision.
But when I was explaining Singapore's semi-turbulent communist history to my professor, he told me about article on Singapore in the New Yorker that talked about how "certain politicians played on the public's fear of unrest and chaos in order to cement their own positions and unfairly suppress loyal democratic opposition", thus encouraging me to "cherish Alfian Sa'at's courage to speak the truth to power". A bit rich, right or not? Easy for him to talk about appreciating criticism, we do that enough; but what about working with it?
In my opinion, like interpreting Bono's idealism as a sign of being removed from the masses, it is of course easier to be optimistic about Singapore when you're not there most of the time. Otherwise it becomes a matter of sinking or swimming, categorizing characters as survivors or victims (Maxine's mother survived, Maxine's aunt lost...) So I thought Alfian held one ferocious flag of survival, but reading the March Life! article Han saved for me, he stopped, hated giving up the medical degree, and can ham it up, the way all poets do. Don't sink, Alfian! And it makes me quite sad lah.
# posted by s. ning @ 10:02 AM
