Birthday Blessings

(Of course it was originally posted on my birthday! Have edited the post slightly but the message remains the same.)

Yay, it's my birthday, a day I feel entitled to behaving like a spoiled child and getting whatever I want. Of course, this does not always happen but it feels good to carry this sense of special entitlement even for one day.

Reaching 35 for some people I know would be traumatic. But somehow, I have never worried over getting old the way some do. I know this is because I have been blessed in my life, more than a lot of people and definitely more than I deserve.

I have been blessed with a wonderful house, chockful of the stuff I love, a kitchen for me to cook in and a study with a bookshelf stuffed full of books and cameras and a desk overflowing with art and inspiration, both of which I love dearly. I am blessed to have this house for me, husband and the various cats around in stuffed, plastic and porcelain form. 

I have been blessed enough to be able to do a number of the things I love. I have been blessed to be able to afford violin lessons and reach a (though low) level of proficiency. I have been blessed enough to be surrounded by more paper, art and writing materials than I could possibly indulge my creativity in. I have been thoroughly blessed to be able to indulge in film photography and spend money and time developing film when most people would think me mad and just download them from an SD card. 

And I hate to admit this, but I am blessed to be in my job, a job that pays well enough for me to do all the above and to have fun acting as young as the children on some days. Even on the days when I feel like throwing it all in. 

I have been blessed with great friends, not in quantity but in quality. Friends that have seen me through my whole life, seen me married, come to my house for food, drinks, TV, gossip, snacks and filled it with noise, mayhem and merriment. Friends that are there, no questions asked, who welcome me into their lives with open arms and whom I'll welcome in my front door, no questions asked either, other than, "Need a drink?"

I have been blessed with a great husband. One who negotiates through the financial paperwork that I'd rather just shred, who does all the bookings online, who remembers all the nitty-gritty stuff that I will always forget, who stands by me when I'm down, calms me in my emotional maelstorms and makes effort for me just because I'm, well, me. This kind of man, who will change for you, do things for you, support you when you need it, is harder to find than anyone thinks and I'm grateful he is mine. 

Even with all the crap I've put myself through, overall, it's been a good and blessed 35 years. My wish for myself is that I always remain thankful for my blessings as they come. (And a TOTO jackpot would not hurt either) 

Already Know and Want to Know

This month's focus for me is writing. Sadly, I haven't been as persistent at this goal as I wanted to be, blame it on work and all the other things I wanted to do as well. (sigh) Gladly, however, I have seen some progress, however little it is, and that gently nudges me to keep it up. 

From another page in the Pocket Muse, I was prompted to make 2 lists: One of what I knew about a subject, and another of what I wanted to know. Below is the list I made in my planner:

Those in the same industry as me would recognize this as part of a strategy called KWL, standing for what I KNOW, what I WANT to do and what I LEARNT. I learnt to use it to teach non-fiction texts, but never had I thought about using it as a self-reflective tool. 

So how do we use this?

Think first about the subject you want to know about. For me, this would be writing on a professional basis and publishing.

In one column, write down everything you know about your subject. I knew that I had the ability to form sentences in English (duh) and that given a good enough prompt, I would be able to spin a small tale. 

In the 2nd column, which is the more important one, list down everything you WANT to know. Here, it is easier to refer to the 1st column to see what else could be added to complete my knowledge. So I knew I could write in English, but I also felt that my current ability wasn't good enough for publishing, maybe just good enough to write a blog and hope some people outside of my circle of friends and family would read it. This tells me I needed to know what made a good story. I also needed to know other things like how to add enough detail to make a good story, how much characterization and plot development I needed. 

What would be the next step for me? Find material and ideas to tackle the items in the 2nd column. Take notes, references and practise this on a regular basis. 

This method turned out to be more useful than I thought. I realised that in writing, even with the skill I had, there was still so much I had to learn and now I desperately want to go to a bookshop to find books to read on this. Not only that, I'm wondering now about doing this for everything I want to learn and improve in. 

Pitfalls? Of course, the most major one being the difference between an intention and an action. It's not enough for me just to know my shortfalls, if I don't do anything about them! Then for the rest of my life, all I would learn from the list is how I'm not good enough yet and I would never see the improvement I want.  

So next steps: Go find a good reference material I can work with and read comfortably. Buy it, keep it and read it regularly over the course of my life. Practise, practise, practise what I read.

And one day, hopefully you see me announcing my new novel! (or blog entry......)

Creative Fatigue

Sometimes you think something is so difficult. And sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.

Like today. I had originally intended (in good faith, I swear) to head to the gym after work. I had packed my gym gear the night before and I was even looking forward to it.

After the end of today's work, I only wanted to go to my bed. I told myself, I will just go! If I just make myself go maybe I can do it!

I managed as far as Plaza Sing, and then I headed to the foot reflexology centre where mercifully they had a space. I took it as divine intention and I enjoyed one hour having my calves kneaded.

I suppose I didn't foresee just how tired I would be. I had forgotten that I was supposed to stay back to help in a cleaning exercise and the heat of the afternoon did not help at all. I don't think I have ever refilled my waterbottle so many times in a day. Of course, by the end of the day, I would have no energy to exercise.

Even if I like to think of it as divine intention......

I took my dinner there and I went home and took a good shower. Then I went to my study and looked at my journals.

Something funny happened. I thought I was tired. I knew I was tired. I had already admitted through the act of foot reflexology that I was tired. Yet, I took up the art journal I had not finished from last month and I stared at the blank page for a while. 

And I then I drew. 

Something funny about fatigue. If you are that into something, fatigue takes a back seat and a form of creative energy seems to take over. I've encountered this before, where I became so wholly engrossed in what I was doing that by the time I finished, I was physically tired, hungry despite having not moved from my chair for the entire duration. It's like suddenly, there was a goal to reach, it was within my grasp and I knew what to do and so without thinking too much about being tired, I did it. 

Of course, once I was done I felt the exhaustion again. But at least this time, I had something to show for it at last. Besides well-kneaded calves.

That which gives pain, also dishes out pleasure [originally published 14 Feb]

This thought came to me during my session at the gym today. I've been trying a new fitness app I downloaded which plays fitness routines at set intervals for you to follow. After such a long fitness hiatus, however, I was feeling plenty of pain. The wall squats I held for 40 seconds made my thighs burn and so did the regular squats. The push-ups made my triceps and biceps scream in collective agony. At the end of 15 minutes, I had to seriously evaluate if I was going to have a heart attack right there in the gym. 

Yet exercise, strangely, also gives me a kind of pleasure. A weird, sick, twisted one, to be sure, but exercise properly done makes me feel stronger instantly. (This is before the muscular aches begin) Regular exercise over time makes me better able to walk up stairs, carry heavy loads and prevents me from getting sick often. Thus, I may have suffered 15 minutes worth of pain, but it also gives me a longer-lasting kind of pleasure, as I am more fit to do all the other activities that I love.

We rightly associate pain with something gone wrong in our body. Migraines, chest pains and stomachaches, to name a few obvious ones, can be signs that something is wrong in the body and needs to be rectified. However, the pain I speak of is something different. This kind of pain can make you uncomfortable, frustrated or even cause murderous and destructive urges but at the end of it, transmutes into overwhelming pride.

One venture that serves as a good example of this are the times I tried sewing. Being plus-plus-sized and alarmed at the dwindling amount of XL clothing being sold in shops, I felt it prudent to learn some sewing techniques. (I believe that there is an ongoing conspiracy in which all clothing manufacturers have decided that only the skinny people have any money to buy their clothing) I went for a round of classes at Spotlight and I also experimented with some smaller projects on my own. 

Once I started, I realised that sewing required a delicacy that I had very little of. It's a very good hobby for women with dainty little fingers, but with fat chops like mine, threading the needle was like playing darts with a very, very tiny dartboard and at times resulted in tears. Even when the needle was finally threaded, my troubles did not stop. Sometimes, the machine jammed. I don't know why, maybe I forgot to offer dead scraps of cloth to some deity of sewing. A few times, I threaded it wrongly so that after stitching one seam, one gentle yank was all it took to rip out the entire piece of thread from the fabric, thus wasting a whole afternoon's work. 

(Here, contemplate smashing the sewing machine with my bare fist.)

So I can say that the process held a fair bit of pain for me, and that some of it I almost inflicted on myself willingly.

Yet, after all the pain was over, the amount of satisfaction and pride I held on seeing the finished product was immeasurable. That is a beauty unique to sewing, that after you are done, you can have an item of practical value.

I guess here's the thing: Pain is almost always part of the process in creating something grand. As long as I keep at doing it, learning from mistakes, learning better ways to do things, (use a threader to thread needles, for one) my reward will include not just the satisfaction of the finished product, but also immense gratification at the result that finally comes out of all my pain. 

Practise that piano/violin/ukelele/recorder/drum/noseflute already! [originally written 13th Feb]

One of my resolutions for this year (and the year before, before, and before...) is to practice a musical instrument. I have had varying success with this on my violin and it's a great week if I managed 1 practice session before my Thursday lesson.

On top of this, I also had this bright/lame/whatwasithinking idea to restart my piano and get my diploma. After almost 20 years away from a keyboard. 

Fortunately a friend living nearby generously allowed me access to her house and piano, so that I didn't have to buy a piano of my own. If I ever get my diploma in the end, I think I should inscribe her name on the back. 

So now I have instrument and book. How to practice? Where to start? Ah ha, here's my...

Idiot's Guide to Practicing an Instrument: 

Round 1: Dexterity 

In this round, I intend to improve finger dexterity for better playing. On recommendation, I bought a book by Hanon. Hanon's book is full of finger exercises designed to train flexibility of finger and improve dexterity. I start off with 2 pages of this to loosen up fingers. This is boring playing but really helps when playing nice music later. 

Round 2: Exam pieces

Many shudder at the sight of the ABRSM books which brings bad memories. However, for anyone who wants to test their proficiency, they are a good guide. I found a best-of collection of grade 5-6 pieces, so I will play one piece from this book next. This is so that I know the standard of playing to reach. 

Round 3: Play for Pleasure

Music after all is meant to be enjoyed so I will finish off the practice with some music I like. I have been playing songs from the Les Miserables collection. I first played this book more than 20 years ago and it's amazing to see that while not perfect, my fingers still remember a lot of what they are supposed to do. Next project for pleasure: A Piano Guys collection.

This may seem like it takes a lot of time, but remember my other keyword for language learning: Keep it Easy. So I would do just 1-2 pages of dexterity practice, and play an exam piece 1 or 2 times, which is easy to do. This is the advantage that adult learners have over students. I no longer have to quickly pass my exam in a year in order to save my parents the extra lesson fees (!!) so I will aim for a standard of playing first. Then when I am able to play at least 5 exam pieces easily, I might consider going for an exam.

So my goals:
Be able to play 3 Grade 5 pieces
Be able to play 3 Grade 6 pieces
Be able to play 3 Grade 7 pieces ( Yes, I know this is getting predictable )
Be able to play 3 Grade 8 pieces and score a pass on the diploma

Will I be able to do it in a year, 2 years or will I even be able to reach my final goal before 40? Nobody knows this, not even me. But it's not just about the destination, it's also about the journey you take. So let's just see how the journey goes along and what I pick up along the way. It might just be more interesting than the destination I had in mind. ;)  

Updates: (4th April)

It's been about 2 months now since I first wrote this post so how am I doing? Is my method working for me? 

It has certainly helped in piano playing. I've almost reached my first goal of being able to play 3 Grade 5 pieces on the piano and I have one more piece to reach Grade 5. 

Having a structure in the form of the 3 rounds certainly worked. It became a routine for me and now whenever I practise, I do so knowing that there are good stuffs waiting for me at the end. The weird thing is that the pieces I play for pleasure are actually harder than the Grade 5 exam pieces I'm playing! Yet I'm willing to do so for the love of the music. 

I had some extra help along the way. I managed to show my friend what I had been doing so far and got some valuable pointers from her to improve my practices. Those I have to remember the next time I practise at her place.

Another thing that helps for instrument playing is reflective practice. I first learned this word as a policy at work, which sucked, but later I read an article that made me realize how it could improve parts of my personal life. 

When applying it to practising an instrument, I apply it in a few ways. Before I start playing, I might go over the piece to see which were the parts I had the most problems with and practise those parts first. As I play, I record the music occasionally to keep a track of my playing. I also actively think as I play, am I playing this smoothly enough? Is there enough expression? Did the volume enhance the music?

It's hard but well, thinking is free, so it certainly saves on a lot of fees.

But I could only do this on the piano, because I had already attained a certain level of proficiency. With the violin, it's an utter disaster! My sense of pitch is not good enough to tell whether I was playing off or on key so while I could finish a piece, I had this sense of stumbling through! To make it worse, my arms became tired if I practised too long and as they strained, I would unknowingly go off key and I would only find this out when I went for my next lesson!

I knew that my main problem with the violin was my sense of pitch so I needed a different strategy. I could not just play more and more and more. I had to aim for a level of accuracy instead. Instead of the practices I did with the piano, I downloaded an app that allowed me to record the music by tapping keyboard notes and then changing it to violin-like sounds. Then as I listened to it, I had a more accurate idea of what the music was supposed to sound like. 

It also helped to combat the tired arms, since now I was focusing on quality of note rather than quantity played. 

A goal for the violin then? Haha, lemme complete one more book of technique playing and then I'll decide... Maybe not all things require goals... :p 

Alamak...

You might notice that the blog entry just before this one is about the River Hongbao festival, which I blogged about much earlier.

Here's what happened: Somewhere during February, I tried to toggle the layout of this blog and ran into some weird technical error, rendering the blog unreadable. 

Until today, I still have no idea what happened exactly.

I still wanted to blog, so I simply created another one [http://boredslacker2016.blogspot.com] to blog in. Which is where I've been blogging for the past 2 months.

Then when I checked my original blog yesterday, lo and behold, it has reappeared, hallelujah. But my pic is gone and the template is one of Blogger's basic templates.

*SIGH*

It seemed a bit weird to have these 2 blogs, so what I'm going to do is to slowly cut and paste the previous entries back into my original blog every time I create a new blog entry. Think of it as living in a newly renovated house and slowly moving back the old furniture piece by piece. One day, eventually, we should all be living happily together again.

Eventually. 

Anyway, it still doesn't change my focus on writing for this month, so as a reminder:

My Writing To-Do List
- Read the book each day, just like what I did with Big Magic.
- Write a story from Pocket Muse at least once a week. - Write in both my blogs at least once a week. 
- Start writing project. (Shhh, secret until I have done a few chapters)

River Hongbao Festival 2016 and Monkey Kings Galore

[original post: 13 February 2016]

On a Friday night, we went to the River Hongbao festival, held at the Floating Platform. The festival was originally intended to be a showcase of Chinese culture during the Lunar New Year. This year, when I went, it seems more like a light-up display of the Monkey King and a place to get ripped off for food and funfair games. (Whatever makes people happy...) 

Regardless, it still makes it an interesting place for a photowalk! For this, I opted for my digital Sony RX5000 because I only had ISO400 film in my film camera, which would not be strong enough to capture the people at the fair. I also used the Intelligent Auto mode, which would automatically choose the best mode to shoot in, so I could concentrate on taking photos. 

The Light-Up Displays

Monkey see, Monkey do

It's not CNY without the God of Fortune

It being the Year of the Monkey, the Monkey King is out in full force.

The hub surprisingly turned out to be a huge Monkey King drama fan. Having watched several versions of the saga, he could name almost all the characters here. 

Pawk, pawk, pawk, pawk........

Here, we saw people throwing coins at this lotus. Turns out that there are bells attached to couplets. Hit 'Gong Xi Fa Cai' and maybe you will strike it rich...? Well, the one who will strike it is most likely the TCM clinic offering free TCM treatment to the needy, because that's where all the coins will go to. All in a good cause......

Most people will aim for 'Xing Xiang Shi Chen' because it's in the middle and pretty much covers every wish you could wish for. Though the hub and I think that if you flung every coin you had at the 5 bells, you are bound to hit at least one of them. The TCM clinic will also be very grateful to you.

I got it!!!!!

 "You can buy a balloon from me... If you know where to find me......."

Nice... Candy art from China. He pours liquid candy and forms it into the shapes of zodiac animals. (Here he makes a dragon) When he is done, he will stick it onto a stick for you to eat. What a shame to do so, after all it's such a nice piece of art....

The Game Stalls

Lesson of Life: Rising COE prices may mean that this is the only car you will ever get to drive.

 "Is he gonna get it?? Is he gonna get it????"

 Lesson of Life: It is easier to hook a plastic fish than to hook a good man.

 "Imma gonna BINGO!!!" (Unfortunately, he didn't have 2 numbers to form a straight line. Lesson of Life: The House always wins.)

"Step right up! Try your luck!"

 And we finish off just in time to see a Monkey King performance at the Esplanade's outdoor theatre. 

The River Hongbao ends today, Feb 14, and there will be fireworks at 9pm so try to go around that time if you intend to do so.

A Way to Quickly Learn Foreign Vocabulary

I have done around 19 pages of my French grammar book (small hurray!) and I realized I am facing a problem with vocab.

Each topic starts out with a vocab list, this is one of the lists of verbs: 

How am I going to learn all of it and stick it in my memory?? And then repeat this for every topic? I'll probably spend more time memorizing verbs than anything else. 

So I remembered one of my own tips: Keep it easy. 

Now this looks more manageable. I choose 5 verbs from each list, small enough to seem easy, and many enough to make it a little bit challenging. I write them on a sticky note and I transfer them to each chapter I advance to. 

How do I choose the words? I set some simple guidelines: (always keep it simple!) 

1. It must be a word I am likely to read or use. So the word 'tordre' (twist) is out, but 'attendre' (wait) is in. I am more likely to use 'attendre' in a sentence than 'tordre'.

2. It must be a word that I cannot understand easily. Some words in French are close enough to their English equivalent that translation is not really necessary. You don't need to learn French to guess that 'descendre' means 'to go down', but you may need to know that 'pretendre' means to claim. That puts 'pretendre' in my list. 

3. Very common words that I have encountered before are out. 'Manger' (to eat' is a word I have seen many times. So are 'je', 'tu', 'il' and 'elle', so I won't bother with them. 

Lastly, as a motivation, 

4. I want to learn positive words. 'Perdre' fits all the criteria mentioned above, but has a negative connotation. I'd rather learn 'gagner' (to win) first. That is a much more positive meaning to learn! 

Idiot's Guide to Keeping Resolutions

We always have personal goals in our life we want to accomplish. And we always have obstacles that get in the way of those goals. 

One of my ongoing obstacle is work. It takes up so much of my time and energy that when I get home, all I want to do is fall on the sofa and do nothing more exerting than reaching for the remote. That's when a lot of my goals start falling by the wayside. At the end of the year, I feel so sad when I think of what I could have done and didn't. 

I'm thus interested in reading articles about goal achievement, and after reading a few, I think I have managed to narrow it down to something easy that I can keep to: 

This is a super-primitive note to remind myself how to keep going. In these few words, however, are some powerful takeaways.

1. Plan. 
I do this well already for the gym. I will plan the days I will go and pack my gym attire the night before, thus ensuring that I actually carry out my gym plan the next day. It's not foolproof, because there are times that coffee at a cafe is that much more appealing, but 9 out of 10 times, I do carry out my plans. So why not apply that to the other stuff I want to do, like French? Plan a time to do it and stick to it. Look at the day and see where you can schedule in time for work, time for gym, time for cooking and time for hobbies.

However, I also know that time is really short on some days, especially with marking and gym and cooking, so this comes to my next point:

2. Keep it Easy.
I know I'm kidding myself if I say I want to be 100% fluent in French in 2 months. Not only that, but if I set myself a big goal and I don't reach it, it can be discouraging and I may not try again. 
So I keep it easy for myself, especially when I know I have heavy markloads. Maybe I can't finish 10 pages of French grammar *horrors* but I can do one exercise a day, which is maybe half a page? That's a small step that is accomplishable and it's not that daunting that I will be put off by it, but yet it brings me one small step closer to my goal of learning French. 

The last part is one of the hardest in keeping resolutions, which is to

3. Keep to it, already. 
Now I have a plan. I've made it so easy even a child could do it. Now the hardest part is just to stick to it. 
The problem with this is distractions. TV is a big distraction. After all, TV requires no effort out of me other than to flick the remote towards it and choose a programme. But TV also gives me nothing in return other than entertainment and a TV belly. Learning French is harder and will drain my brainpower, but the sense of accomplishment is unlike anything that TV gives. 
So I have to stick to it. When I switch on the TV after work, I can stay there for one episode and then I have to do something else already or risk vegging out totally. When I watch one of my taped episodes, I have to remind myself of what else I'm missing when I'm sitting there. When I'm flipping channels, I remind myself that there is more I can be doing than just this. 
And this is the weird part: When I stopped watching TV after a certain time, I realised that there is actually so much time in the day for other stuff. (caveat: I can only do this because I don't have kids yet.) By the time I finish washing up all the dinner stuff, it's usually around 830pm. That's around 1-2 hours I have before getting ready for bed! I then have a choice: Watch TV or Do Something. I know which is the better choice. 

That's my Idiot's Guide to Resolutions. Of course, talking about it is always easy than actually carrying it out, but by typing it out and writing down even that little scrap in my journal, I take the effort to solidify my motivation for my goals. Hopefully, by the end of 2016, I will have more success to blog about. 

Fear and Big Magic

I just started on this book, as part of a resolution to read more non-fiction and reflect on them. I have only just finished the first chapter but already have a few thoughts.

The first chapter is about fear and how it stops us from having a more creative life. We have many fears in our life that are valid, eg, fear of getting mauled by a bear. At the same time, we also have fears that do not help us but instead keep us back. These are fears like "I fear I will not be successful", "I fear people will see me as a loser", "I fear that I will fail". Elizabeth Gilbert singles these out as fears that we should not harbour, as they hold us back from having a more interesting and creative life.

This I am all too familiar with. For example, my film photography hobby. If I want to take good photos, I have to, well, take photos. If I want to take photos, I have to use film. But film is getting rarer and good film is especially hard to come by, like my favourite Lomography XPro 100, which is out of production. (Sacrilege and travesty!) So whenever I think of taking photos, I will think,

"Are you sure you want to do that? What if your whole roll sucks? You would have wasted an entire roll! Keep it there until you are sure of your skill."

This goes against the words of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom I admire:

"Your first 10,000 photographs will be your worst"

This is the part that keeps me back from fulfilling my full potential. Cartier-Bresson's point is that we have to keep practising and practising many times before we start to take good pictures. My fear doesn't want me to start at all, instead preferring that I do better first before I take more pictures. But then,

How do you know when you are actually good enough?

Do I wait till I get 10,000 likes on my Lomo or Facebook account? Do I wait till I hold an exhibition? Or until I sell my first photograph?

Put these words on paper or a computer screen and they seem ludicrous. Yet the fear of failure in them is palpable enough. Stand a few minutes with this ping-pong ball in your head and no wonder lying on the sofa with the TV seems preferable. 

So yes, sometimes you have to tell your fears,

"I acknowledge what you are saying, but I am going to go ahead and do it anyway." 

Take the example I mentioned of film photography. One of the very first photos I uploaded on the Lomography website was this:

Can you even make out what the photo is???

No point of interest, too dark, no flash used... A pretty bad photo. 

What if I had stopped there? Concluded that I sucked and that buying film was a waste of time?

I might have never started to get good stuff, like:

From The Missing Lomograper series taken in Dakota Crescent

Taken with the Rensha and Lomography XPro 200

From The Girl in the Red Hat series

This was my most liked album and it was taken with Lomography XPro 100 film.

I had plenty of failures after that first one, but if I had stopped at those early failures, I might have never taken the better ones too. 

Success is never just in terms of awards or number of likes. Success can also be seen in terms of where you have come from and the progress you have made. Over the course of my photographic journey, I realised that choice of camera, film and a lot of things count before you even take that first shot. I met with like-minded people who gave me advice, accompanied me on photowalks and inspired me to do more. All these I would never have experienced if I had stopped at that first roll and left it at that.

So the next time I listen to my fears and insecurities about my creativity, I'm gonna tell myself:

"Thanks, but I'm going to do it anyway."

January's Book I Read

#booksiread

Out of all the resolutions I ever made, the one I successfully held to were the ones for reading. At my age, in my comfy house and sofa, there really are few pleasures better and rarer than curling up the whole day with a good book and a stuffed cat. It also helps me to unwind and sleep at night and has become part of my weekday sleep routine.

It doesn't help much if I happen to be reading a particularly gripping thriller, but.......

Anyway, looking through my list, I realised it would be too long-winded to blog about every book, so I've decided to choose the best one I've read this month, and that is...

http://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/44508961-arcadia

This book was designed to be read as an iPad app, but it works as a linear storyline too, if you don't get confused by all the different characters and points of intersection. I've read Stone's Fall and Instance of a Fingerpost by the same author and they were all magnificent stories. Arcadia combines the genres of science fiction, fantasy and spy thriller into the same book, along with 3 different worlds which exist at 3 vastly apart points of time, past, future and way-into-the-future future. It sounds confusing but Iain Pears does a good job of spinning solid characters and immersive storylines out of all of them in one solid tome. Great read and worth the reservation fee I paid on it. :)

February's book plans include a slowly growing pile of library books (oh oh) but I also want to read at least one self-help book of my own. Can I continue like that for the rest of the year???

Manifesto 2016

It's been a long time since I was on this blog. Reasons/Excuses include work, life, etc etc... 

So why did I decide to come back to the blog? 

1. Stuff in my life
Just because the blog is empty doesn't mean that nothing was going on with my life. I travelled a bit, I crafted, cooked, sewed, read, took photos, socialized, got crazed by work, ate, ate some more, visited fleas, watched shows etc, etc, etc. Out of all these things I did, I did some great stuff, I did some not-so-great stuff and I did stuff that looked like my primary school art projects. Out of these stuff I did, I learned some about the way to do things, which leads me onto...

2. Journalling
A lot of times, I have too many thoughts and ideas whirling through my head and nothing I do can keep it still. I have ideas for photo projects, craft projects, writing projects, books to read and I cannot settle on one! And even sometimes when I finally start something, I stuff it away somewhere and what I learnt out of it is lost. So my other idea for reviving the blog is to treat it as a journal, to journal my successes and failures.

3. Plain creativity
Last year, I downloaded an app called Grid Diary, which supplied journalling prompts to document what goes on in your day. After I started, I realised that I really miss writing for the sake for writing. So this is one thing I want to start again with the blog. 

4. Just to be me
With all the shit that went on last year, I think it is important also to remind myself of all the other things that make me Me. This is what I plan with this blog, as a reminder that there are all these other great stuff that I do with my life, and that my work isn't really the only thing that defines me. 

So here are my plans:
1. Document as much as I can the creative pursuits in my life. Whether I did well or whether I sucked or totally failed, these are still the little Legos of Life and I should not forget them. 

2. Publish my plans, to make me accountable (dirty word) and to make me do them. (already started with this manifesto, hehe)

3. Journal my life and the stuff I do. Get out of the daily grind every now and then. 

Will this work? Like all NY resolutions, you just have to give it a go. At least I can say that I've tried it once rather than never having started at all. Wish me luck!

I hate it when we have to do a workshop on something I already know. it feels like a waste of time to sit through this kind of enforced lesson.

On the other hand, it's also not too bad if I charge my iPhone before that. Oh smartphone, what did I do before you?

A Year In Photos

Been a long time since I blogged... So much stuff I've been putting on FB but not here...

And yet there was so much that happened during the past year...

Inspired by the Lomography website and other bloggers, I decided to select one photo from each month of 2012 and compile it here.

Note that due to failing memory, some of the months may be slightly wrong. Just close one eye and accept it on my behalf. ;p

Dec 2011: Another glorious turkey. We will feast on another tomorrow.

January 2012: We celebrate a birthday and eat steak. We also decide that the little red place on Ann Siang Hill serves the best steak and fries. 

 March 2012: Remember this?

 I also attended the baptism of my first Godson. And he totally doesn't look like this now. -_-! How they grow!

March 2012: Called to Australia suddenly for Grandfather's funeral. It's funny that the sky can be so cheerfully sunny on such an occasion.

In other happier news, we also go to Malacca and eat chendol and chicken rice balls. I walk what seems like the entire circumference of Malacca and Yenn sleeps till we think she's unconscious.

The Baba house and its entrance foyer with free Wifi. We spent a lot of time here surfing.

May 2012: My cousin got married. Spunky wedding car!

The purchase of my Instax camera. My camwhore-hating friend groans.

 

June 2012:
 Remember the craze that was Draw Something?

I attended Shakespeare by the Park. Great show.

Oh, how we had fun, Poulet.

June 2012: The picture says it all. Gym starts in July.

Everyone loves a good Cosplay event. Yenn and I went for 2 this year, Cosfest at Downtown east and Anime festival at Singapore Expo.

July 2012: The purchase of my first Lomo camera, the Diana Mini. And the start of a collection of prints and empty film cannisters.

 Exhibitions: Andy Warhol and Harry Potter were fantastic.

Food discovery 1: Grass Jelly in Milk Tea really, really tastes good.

Food Discovery 2: Lil Papa's Wieners is an evil place if you like the unholy duo of hotdogs and beer.

Lil Papa bad. Very bad.

 Food discovery 3: The Bar and Billiards Room teaches me why you should pay for good food and service. YUMZ!!!

July 2012: There are people who are willing to build shackety excuses of a vessel, do a stupid dance, and push them off into the sea for fun. The ERP gantry one I'm rooting for doesn't win. :(

 August 2012: We take up Krav Maga and do each other copious amounts of injury. Actually started around June, but on the first lesson, I sprain my ankle and it is only around July/August we start to do the class regularly.


September 2012: Our house keys finally make us homeowners. And starts a long relationship with the HDB loans dept.

 October 2012: Another Lomo camera, the LC-A, joins me. I am approaching the dark side.


November 2012: The Turkey Tutorial in preparation for Xmas.

December 2012: Us 2 kentangs head to Taiwan and test the limits of our Chinese.

The year always doesn't seem like much till I look through the photos and realise that actually so much had been done. Of course aside from all these there were so many other incidents, cold jokes, insider jokes and much rolling of eyeballs. ( Mostly from Yenn ) 

The year has been good for me. Next year, who knows? More responsibilities, more stuff, more people... Let's see how. See you all next year. :)