haircut. acrylic. lettering. Deutsch. blog. piano. room. home. thoughts. subway. photos.

that was today. in no particular order. ok i guess i got lazy. lol.

this passage struck me as i was re-reading 'The Heart of Darkness'. (btw i stopped re-reading cos i have absolutely no time now).

"It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks - these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there."

another thing that kept running through my mind was:
you have great ears. you always had, and i don't forget that.

let's just say my life is kind of sucking right now. lol. i have to redo and redo and redo assignments. and do things other studios don't have to do. my studio mates call this "bullying" (tutor abusing his position and making us do unnecessary stuffs). nah, i don't think so. i call this "bad luck". or maybe "good luck in disguise". or whatever. this is my principle: i don't do things that harm others or myself. anything else, i'm free to do. what the tutor asked us to do was i think within limits of education in architecture. it's not like he's asking us to give money. besides, i think that there is a hierarchy in life. as it is, he's the tutor, i'm the student. assuming the HRD did their job, the tutor knows what he's doing and it's for the students' education.

in any case, although i am actually rather enjoying myself doing the assignments, this is bad lifestyle. it's bad for health, and bad for the wallet (having to get all the materials and tools ourselves).

in short, i wouldn't mind another 8 months' break. lol.

recently, the only quality essay i've been asked to read was 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' by TS Eliot. it was, i feel, the first coherent, comprehensible and articulate essay i read since the beginning of my life in this department.

some particularly well-expressed lines:
"Tradition ... cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour."
"[The poet] must be aware that the mind of Europe - the mind of his own country - a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind - is a mind which changes..."

anyhow.. today two random lines were stuck in my mind (these were my own lines):
why do i make sisters?
no hurries, no worries.

i'm so glad that Hendra Setiawan/Markis Kido won the gold medal yesterday. cos today is our national day! lol. i watched the game, and it was at times so fast that the shuttlecock speed beat the human eye. anyway... congratulations to the pair and also to Lilyana Natsir/Nova Widianto for the silver. and also to the other medalists :)


thank goodness there's Mustafa around the corner. cos i forgot to get clay and wire for tomorrow's session. so had to go there tonight.

i bet the entire singapore is watching the table tennis match now.

this one bloody assignment took me around twelve hours to complete. if the guy doesn't like it.. well too bad. i'll catch up in the next assignment. but i'm actually really glad he asked us to redo, cos i'm feeling much happier with the redo. i guess ya, the ultimate test is your own satisfaction. i'm really not satisfied with my last diagram,, but i was too tired to think so i just did it. if i'm getting some lousy grade, i'm blaming it on the last diagram, and ultimately myself.

a friend summarized my thoughts well: "the weirdness of this course is pissing me off."

so now Indonesia's chances in badminton golds lie with mixed double Lilyana/Nova Widianto and men's double Markis Kido/Hendra Setiawan. all this while dear callista is more concerned with Phelps' golds. lol.

am real tired. school has only started for a week, but it feels like an eternity. i cannot believe it was only last week that i went on flag day and watched rag and like still in holiday mood. i must have aged by thirty years.

singapore's 43rd national day. i'll go to the 30th storey to watch the fireworks later.

around two weeks ago i was so surprised (and kind of pissed) that i came back from germany and found crunchips PAPRIKA flavour on cold storage shelves!! the horror! it's not that it tastes bad.. just that it reminds me of how (almost) all the chips there are paprika flavoured. it's quite a shame. but then again, i'm actually eating it now. haha.

ok stop eating chips.

'the mathematics of the ideal villa' is such a bore! i couldn't understand anything!!

anyhow. today's review is 'Botchan' by Soseki Natsume. it was written in 1906. it's really good!! it makes sense that people compare it with The Catcher in the Rye cos the two narrators have similar style - direct and personal. in a way, the whole book sounds like a person ranting. it's really funny it makes me laugh and giggle (in public) which makes me look really ridiculous. having read 'I am a Cat', this Botchan didn't disappoint me. it's lighter and shorter (with no haiku exchanges to confuse me). no wonder Soseki Natsume is one of Japan's greatest modern writer. i guess your enjoyment of the book has to depend on how well you relate to the character of Botchan. the funny thing is, Botchan's real name is never revealed. i think 'Botchan' explores the issue of change (both on his personal level - from childhood to adulthood, and in Japan's society of that time), 'modernism' and its impact on society's values, and also the tension between the individual and society - the last one being the most important one. i shan't go on about this and bore uninterested parties, but if you feel like and have some time, do pick it up!!

four thumbs up for 'Botchan' (that includes the toes).

today's review: DAISO

it's an amazing store where you can get many things from plates to socks to toys at $2 apiece. appearance-wise the stuff are really nice, quality-wise.. not sure. haha. but i imagine they're not that bad. lol. i've personally used a number of things from daiso and they've lasted me quite some time. i should only warn that there are some things that are actually worth less than $2, so think closely before you buy.

p.s. the Vivocity branch has greater variety than the Plaza Sing branch.