Say it loud and proud!

I’M A BORING WORKING ADULT LIVING A BORING WORKING ADULT LIFE

Talk About Bad English..

This morning I found a note from the lab officer stuck to a form telling me I should update my particulars. So I duly did so and returned the form to the officer. Then I asked why the update?

“Suan Foo is coming. Very dangerous. Need to keep track of people”.

“Who’s Suan Foo?”

“Suan Foo! You don’t know about Suan Foo? Suan Foo is coming!”

“Suan Foo? I’ve never heard of the name! Who is he?”

“Suan Foo! That’s why we need to keep track of people. Remember during SARS we had to keep track of people and take their temperature?”

I was still trying to figure out who this Suan Foo guy he was talking about was when 5 minutes later I thought, “OMG… I get it… swine flu!”

English FAIL

The cultural guarantee could personally take the form of the object made by humankind, did not move or move that took the form of unity or the group, or a part-a part or the remnants the rest of them, that be aged at least 500 years.

Have any idea what the paragraph means? No? Neither do I. But it’s on the welcome page of Jakarta Tourism website. I have my suspicion they wrote the contents in Indonesian, then used Google Translate to convert everything into English and that’s that. Couldn’t they hire someone who actually know how to write in English? With the bad english rendering it almost useless to anyone looking for information on Jakarta, the website seems just like another unecessary spending by the Government.

I Found Love

Yo Gabba Gabba ~ I Found Love

From theawsomest coolest hippest  kids’ show ever, Yo Gabba Gabba.

Visit Museums near you! Now!

As a volunteer for one of Singapore’s museums, it disturbs me that many people have never visited one, or even know where they are located.

ONE. Museums are not boring.You can learn a lot about a lot of things in museums and they keep changing the exhibitions.

TWO. The tickets are not expensive, and students / seniors get discounts, and they do open house few times a year (although free entry all the time for Singapore museums would be great)

THREE. It’s not only a place to see old things or things you don’t understand. They have programmes for public, talks, film screenings, festivals, workshops, and a myriad things to match your interest.

If you’re thinking “Well I don’t think I’ll be interested in whatever’s inside those big old buildings” – prove it. Go there and take a look. If you really don’t like it, fine. At least get a first-hand experience.

It’s the INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DAY on 23-31 May (OK it’s 9 days). See the many things you can learn about this weekend at the museum:

http://museums.com.sg/imd09/  (programme for int’l museum day)
http://www.nhb.gov.sg/

To The West!

We’re moving to the West side of this city/state/island next month. West Side Story happens to be one of my favorite films. Nothing to do with it but yeah. Just trying to fill up this blog. Blah blah blah blah blah.

OH I HATE PACKING!!!!

It’s Been a Long Time

Bah. I barely look at my blog nowadays. I think it suits my moody and inconsistent personality or something like that. Actually I’m spending more time in the real world now (not that I was stuck on the internet all this while) and jotting down stuff with the more traditional paper and pencil or the occasional ballpoint pen et cetera. It’s a better and faster way to write or scribble down inspirations. But I still find blogging (like this) is a good way to just bitch. So here are some things that annoy me:

1. Overuse of multi-color LEDs on building facades. You see this everywhere. The building walls changes color seamlessly thanks to the new technology. It looks kinda nice if it’s done correctly and only on a few buildings. But the thing is it seems that it’s the IN thing right now and so all around Singapore we see buildings changing color like a discotheque in the 80s. Hell why not add lasers as well. UGLY. OVERDONE. BAD TASTE.

2. Our landlord is selling the house we’re staying in and it seems he’s quite desperate at it. Comon we all know this is exactly not the time to sell a house. Anyway the flat is small, expensive, and the crowd downstairs tend to get a little too rowdy for family living. But it’s located very strategically. A good 2 dozen or so buyers have come and go and it’s still not sold.

What pisses me off the most is that the agents hold the key to the house and on more than 1 occasion, they just let themselves in the house without giving us a call beforehand. So we’re caught sleeping / showering / on bad hair day. The owner is not much better in keeping forgetting to tell us that buyers are coming. I should put up a “trespassers will be shot” sign on the door.

Uhm.. yeah that’s about it for now. Anyway I’m kept quite happy with my weekends. I love my art class and the museum keeps me from wandering aimlessly on weekends.

25 Blah Blah about myself

This thing has been going around Facebook for some time and I got tagged by a friend the other day. So here it is, 25 things about me that you may or may not already know…

1. I’m an only child. So an only child has to entertain herself. I ‘published’ books and tabloids and read it myself for enjoyment. That was before those desktop publishing softwares were in, so everything was printed out MS Word, cut out, laid out, and photocopied. I pretended my articles were world class and intelligent, and my corny jokes funny as hell. Apparently I was full of confidence. One of the earliest books I wrote was about the rabbit who’s afraid of carrots. I think I should’ve went on with it and maybe I’d be rich by now.

2. I love making things with my hands! Anything, really. Be it drawing, origami, writing, photoshopping, assembling IKEA furnitures, you name it.

3. Thing is, I hate cleaning/organising. Everytime I want to start making something, I can only imagine how big a mess I’m going to make and how I will hate cleaning it up. I know where my things are, but I leave them in random piles. Organised mess yes yes. Although I must admit sometimes it’s just a mess, a mess.

4. I’ve loved listening to music even since I can’t remember it. As proof, I have photo evidence of myself on a green potty with headphones on. My earliest memories of popular music was the 80’s stuff my aunt listened to.

5. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of travelling. I don’t REALLY REALLY REALLY want to go on a long trip to somewhere exotic or anything. It’s in my list, but not one of the top items. If I get the chance, I don’t mind. If the world were to end in a year, I can do without travelling far and wide before I die.

6. I think I have relatively good taste. Although this is yet to be confirmed. I hate ugly and tasteless things and wish more people have better taste. Maybe I should stop complaining and start providing solutions.

7. I don’t like money. Yes, that’s right. I like to have enough money to live comfortably, but not luxuriously. Nothing should be done for the money other than to feed myself. Come to think of it, I may be a little allergic to money. But not that bad that I’m gonna start giving out what little cash I have to other people. Haha!

8. I’m basically an introvert. Yes, I like talking and may even be loud and obnoxious around people, but that’s me on overdrive. More of a survival skill. And even then usually I need other people to initiate the talking. I get tired after some time and need time to brood. I get excited when other people are excited. But when I can’t really connect with them, I just stay in the background and let the hype happen.

9. I’m bad at parties. I wish I were better in starting conversations. And sustaining them. Saying hello and talking about the weather is easy enough. It’s hard to keep on after the first few minutes. And I hate awkward silence.

10. On that note, I guess I find many things boring. Maybe that’s why I don’t have many things to talk about usually. Sometimes I’m amazed at how people can be interested in (my opinion) the most mundane things in the world. But maybe that’s what keeps them happy and me uptight.

11. My ideal job would be getting paid for churning out ideas. Be they good, stupid, beautiful, random, impressive, world-saving, or destructive. I will charge by the hour. I will listen to what the client have in mind for the first 15 minutes, and let my brain on the loose for the next few. My second one may be an ugly-detector. Much like expert sommelliers or tobacco sniffers or perfume testers. People bring me things and I tell them if they’re ugly. The things, I mean.

12. I never knew I’d have a degree in Engineering one day. I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Before that I thought I wanted to be a microbiologist. Before that I thought I wanted to be a vet. Somewhere in between I thought I wanted to be an astronaut, a palaeontologist, a designer, and a magician. I still don’t know what’s next.

13. I don’t really like playing favorites. When I determine that something is my favorite anything, I feel the need to be consistent and sometimes to the extent of betraying myself. My favorite things are things that I think are nice.

14. I shower quick, make-up quick (I rarely put anything on my face anyway), but spend most of my time getting ready picking the clothes I’ll wear. I’ll try on different combinations and pick the one that looks best for the day. I don’t have that many clothes, nor am I stylish, but I like to make sure I don’t spend the rest of the day being uncomfortable.

15. After graduating from Uni, I felt lost. I still do.

16. Watching people slurping soft-boiled eggs mixed with pepper and sauce makes my stomach churn. I hate soft boiled eggs. And anything that has a soft, slimy texture. Like okra, or salmon skin. I think they’re gross. If I really have to eat them I’ll just swallow them as fast as I can.

17. I don’t open up too easily. I may make good conversations, but usually they don’t revolve around me. But I find it easier to share with total strangers, compared to people more familiar to me. I like to keep a distance, although close, but still some distance. Some people say this has got to do with being an only child, but I’m not sure.

18. My favorite subject in primary school was science and maths and crafts, in high school it was biology and drawing, in university it was engineering graphics and life science. I kinda liked language/literature, too – when we get to write stories and such. I like things that I can see or imagine, and disliked anything electronics. I couldn’t fathom programming either.

19. I have short attention span and get very tempted by the prospect of new things and projects. In the end I’ll have dozens of things I do at the same time. Luckily I’m not too bad at multitasking. At least not until it reaches some critical point where everything just become one big mess.

20. I abhor organised, repetitive things, even more those that goes on and on and on and on. Examples would be cross-stitching, or repeating the same experiment dozens of times everyday.

21. I hate moving crowds. Like those in shopping malls on weekends. They give me a headache and I’ll feel a little claustrophobic. But I’m alright with them just sitting around, like in a crowded bar or restaurant.

22. I like performing in front of people. That’s one of the reasons why I was in the choir, and now a guide at the museum. Maybe I just like being the centre of attention. And I like spontaneous feedback. Hmm.. maybe I should try streaking next time.

23. If I won a million dollars, I would buy a house. In Singapore, I would be left with nothing much after that.

24. I don’t know if it’s just a nightmare or if it was real. When I was about three I saw a woman’s head coming out of the floor under my grandma’s bed and started following me with her eyes. Or maybe I had too much imagination, or I was hallucinating, but it freaked me out real good. I’m still freaked out.

25. It takes forever to make up my mind.

Newfound Respect

I have newfound respect. For accountants. And auditors. And everyone else whose job is to look through thousands of financial documents and numbers day in day out.

I’ve never been particularly good at details and numbers, especially if they don’t contain concepts behind them. Just like excel files for money records. To add on, they all have to be organised in a particular way, with many many rules. This must go here, this must go there. What if I do it another way? It won’t work, it has to be this way. Oh God, that sounds like hell to me. How repetitive, how boring, how mundane that sounds!

What if I colour the excel files and use a type that pleases my eyes more, or arrange it in this or that way so it looks friendlier and not so much rigid and masochist? Can I make a graph out of it? Maybe I’m nuts. I’m the person who spends more time making sure the powerpoint slides look pretty than writing the contents anyway.

I’ve always been attracted to things concrete, something I can see, I can touch, feel, or at least imagine. I think I’m a little more visual than other people. Maybe that’s why I take so long to read novels. Whenever I start reading one, I have a movie going in my head.

Numbers are just that to me. Numbers. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Nothing else. In physics (which, I must admit, I’m not bad in) the number represent concepts. When a question mentions a 50kg weight and a 5kg weight, I have this visualisation of a balance in my mind, with the two weights on it, obeying the laws of gravity. When I lift up my hypothetical weights, I can compare them and then know which one is heavier.  When a problem mentions $1,378.22 I don’t have anything visualised in my mind. Maybe the number 137822 but that’s about it. It doesn’t make me feel any emotion either, like when I’m reading or writing.Neither do I have any affection for money. So, blah.

So if you’re an accountant, or an auditor, or a bookkeeper, I salute you.

What’s in my bag

1. Mobile phone
2. Internet banking thingy
3. Thumbdrive
4. Lip balm
5. Magazines, pamphlets, books
6. Doodlebook
7. Tissue and wet wipes
8. Pens
9. Keys
10. Wallet
11. MP3 player
12. Blotter
13. Scribblebook
14. Mints
15. Antacids
16. Sweets

Done and Started

Just Done

Just Started

Currently at the Singapore Art Museum

SAM

Is It Tomorrow Yet? – Highlights from the Daimler Art Collection
27 Nov ‘08 – 1 Mar ‘09

An extensive showcase of Daimler’s art collection. This traveling exhibition currently takes over the space used to display the museum’s permanent collection. Mostly modern contemporary art from the last 80 years or so with emphasis on minimalism, Bauhaus, and the like.

Recommended route: start from Gallery 1.3 (oldest works, basis of the collection), then go upstairs to cover Galleries 2.1 – 2.6 and finish in Gallery 1.1 (latest works). Not to be missed.

Transcendence: Modernity and Beyond in Korean Art
8 Nov ‘08 – 15 Mar ‘09

The exhibition examines Korean contemporary art development over the last five decades and features over 40 works by 12 artists. I like this one, especially the earlier works.

Recommended route: start from Gallery 1.10 (across the courtyard, near the glass hall), climb the stairs up to level 2, and don’t miss the gallery on the 3rd floor (just follow the arrow).

APAD: Tradition, Innovation and Continuity
13 Dec ‘08 – 5 Apr ‘09

This exhibition showcases works by current and former members of APAD (Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya), a society of artists with Malay heritage founded 46 years ago.

The galleries are quite hard to find, make sure you cover Galleries 2.8 – 2.10 and take the lift next to 2.8 up to level 3.

8Qsam

This is Not a Print!
10 Jan ‘09 – 26 Jul ‘09

A play on Magritte’s “Ceci nes’t pas une pipe” – this exhibition features a selection of over 70 multiples and prints from the SAM Tyler Art Collection; presented to the museum from master printer Kenneth Tyler’s collection in conjunction with the inception of the Singapore Tyler Print Institute. Don’t miss works by Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, and Roy Lichstenstein.

I Don’t Know…

Yesterday in NUS my colleague (sort of, I don’t actually have a colleague. Long story) – anyway, this colleague and I dropped by the Forum after lunch and it happened that there was some sort of bazaar going on. One of the booths was by Youth.sg and we wandered there, wanting to see if they have freebies and such. There, we were given pieces of paper with the question: “What’s your motivation in life?”. For a moment I was struck by a deep sense of sadness, because I really don’t know. I don’t know what makes me excited to wake up in the morning (I rarely do), I don’t know what my cause is, I don’t know what I actually love, I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know if I’m on the right track, I don’t know what I want to achieve. So I scribbled down some cliche answers and got my picture taken and tell them I’m a student. (Why? I don’t know. It’s complicated.)

I feel so miserable.

p.s. You can submit your own motivation in life via www.feedme.youth.sg

Looming the Memory

Guiness Theatre, The Substation
7-8 January 2009

Part of the M1 Singapore Fringe festival

Who would’ve thought a handmade rug  could transport us to a rural village in Greece? Thomas Papathanassiou does just that. His astounding one man show, Looming the Memory, is a memoir that draws on the theme of identity, family, heritage, and home – things that are close to the hearts of people in immigrant countries such as Singapore.

The stage is bare but for a rug rolled on the floor. The play opens with childhood memories: an old woman at her loom, weaving strips of garment of a deceased relative – weaving the memories. As the play unfolds and the rug unrolls, snippets of memories are brought to life, one interwoven with the other.

Thomas Papathanassiou’s parents migrated from Greece to Australia, leaving all their relatives behind. Papathanassiou spent part of his childhood in Greece and he tries to explore his own  family history through stories told by relatives and neighbours during his visits to Greece many years later. He discovers untold grudges, connections, and stories through his conversations with people from his childhood.  It’s his  struggle to understand where he actually belongs, as with many migrant children who never feel they fully belong to one place.

Papathanassiou plays eighteen characters that makes up episodes of the story, including grandmothers, uncles, neighbors, himself and a chicken, very effectively – even when they are conversing between themselves. With just the slightest change in posture or expression we can easily identify the character he’s become. The transition between characters are done seamlessly, making it look almost effortless.

With his powerful emotions and effective story-telling, we are taken through a crowded market, rows of fig trees, an old school building, just as if we are walking with the characters themselves. We can feel the festivity of a dance, the blue skies and warm sun of a Greek summer, and the commotion of a village fire.

As we leave Greece, the rug is rolled up and the characters were flashed once again in rapid succession without Papathanassiou ever losing one bit of control or intensity. The phrase uttered at the end reverberates with me: it is a difficult thing to have your heart in two places. This journey of self-discovery asks us to question ourselves how family and culture has shaped us to who we are.

Looming the Memory is a very personal and intimate storytelling that grabs the audience’s attention right from the beginning and doesn’t let go until the end.

Thomas Papathanassiou trained in Curtin University (Theatre / Literature), WAAPA (Music Theatre), and VCA (Grad. Dip. in Animateuring – Performace Creation). He is an actor, writer, choreographer, dramaturge, and theatre-maker. Looming the Memory won Best Actor (2006 Perth Theatre Trust Equity Guild Awards) and Best Production (2007 Blue Room Theatre Awards)

Filling The Void Within

Just being weird. Click to see the rest of the set (Facebook).
Thanks to Billy and Els for assistance.