meekfreak sneak speak

Millie Milestone Draft

2011-06-29T18:51:00.004+08:00

Thanks to the wealth of encouragement especially those on this facebook thread (i've pdfed and printed it out and put it on my wall of writing encouragement next to NAC's email on the OK on my grant), I've somehow managed to finish my 1st draft.

Or it could be the fourth.

I put 3 sequences of little stories together (they ranged from about 10,000 to 30,000 words) and i dumped the first two "raws" (read third time lucky) and didn't have time to redo the 3rd sequence... so... I had to use it and then yeah. That's why maybe this is the 4th draft! (sounds better la.)

Surely now i have to go through with drafts 5,6,7,8 up to 30. but damn! I'm glad!

Alright, maybe it's just celebrating this small tiny accomplishment - i mean it's just a draft la.

But i'm high because i was racing for time and didn't think that i was going to finish it before my No Pay Leave (3 months) end. Now my last day of leave is tomorrow and going back to work on Friday, so I'm feeling damn lucky to have finished it in time!

Now I have 1 day to catch up on my sleep, eat, (i still shit regularly, no worries about that) and well, all the other things that i oughta be doing but haven't been doing. *blush*

Last week I was lying in bed - caffeine intoxication (coffee was not enjoyable for me anymore and i also had gastric pains last month), and my muscles lamed out (the lie in bed and cannot move type) - and thinking why the hell i have to torture myself like that - if i just work and watch tv everyday, i'd be richer and more relaxed and not so uptight and pleasant and likeable and go drinking with friends and worry about the ribbons in my hair. I was happier when i was like that in year 1 before all the people imagine..!

So i conclude (again) - that i'm irrational and unreasonable.

Therefore, I need these little irrational and unreasonable yays along the way.

Thanks again for your encouragement k! Really couldn't have done it without you.

Postmodern Trauma - So far so good?

2011-05-25T18:21:00.004+08:00

A month into my thankful and appreciative "third-time lucky" post. I am perhaps half-way into my third new draft. Maybe i'm a little more than halfway, but the story keeps growing in my head and it gets longer and longer so maybe i'm a little less than halfway!

I have more or less put in some big pieces about the story of Millie - the real person, and now I'm working on/in the dream-world. Feeling like i'm getting lost in this world that's in Millie's head.

Something like this happened to me the last time I escaped to Xanadu (my 1 week writing retreat). I emerged from the hibernation feeling alienated from my real world and it took me a few days to get used to going back to my previous routine.

The current version of my story is... much more complicated than the first version. It is rich in symbolism and references. And it requires me to do a lot of research and learn things that i didn't know before. Surely what i'm learning and thinking will affect me fundamentally and chemically. I shouldn't be emerging from this cocoon to become who I used to be? I'm not insinuating that i'm going to be as graceful as a butterfly, but lots of things come out of cocoons. Like...cicadas.

Okay.

Now the challenge is time.

A dear and concerned friend consoled me, and told me to take a break, change my pace, that I shouldn't be made to feel like i need to churn it out like that. Sometimes I'm afraid of burning out too. But I am running out of time. 1 more month until the end of NPL. I've already asked for extension from NAC for my draft.

Even if I finish drafting, i don't know how am I going to finish editing in time.

haha.

My reply to my dear friend was with blind optimism - "can one, i can do this. I'm a product of this churning system so i can churn this out." somemore my book is about churning.

The only thing is, for me, it is difficult to write what I write when I don't have enough sleep - so I can't burn the midnight oil. Tsk.

Sometimes I imagine someone asking me "How do you come up with things like that?"
and I will be honest and reply, "because i'm crazy."
"Why did you want to write a book like this?"
"I can't explain it, my craziness compels me to do crazy things. Writing it all down is the least destructive thing I can do already."

And I haven't started with editing. Editing would be sure to drive me even more crazy - like adding fuel to fire. hahaha!

Pressing on: Third time lucky!

2011-05-01T14:03:00.006+08:00

My facebook status says this: writing is writhing rewriting.

That's because i decided, yesterday, to re-write my 2nd draft. I wrote my first draft more than 3 mths ago. Word count, about 25k words. 2nd draft, so far, word count, 10k words. Now, restart. A 3rd draft. I'm back to 2k words.

Why?

I must be crazy. Even I think I'm crazy. Okay.

NAC people would be worried? Why? They might ask. Did you not plan properly?

I tried. so hard. I'd sob, remorsefully. Boohoo.

Just read Late Bloomers by Malcolm Gladwell in What the Dog Saw. He quoted Franklin Roger's description on Mark Twain's "trial-and-error method":

"His routine procedure seems to have been to start a novel with some structural plan which ordinarily soon proved defective, whereupon he would cast about for a new plot which would overcome the difficulty, rewrite what he had already written, and then push on until some new defect forced him to repeat the process once again."
Twain fiddled and despaired and revised and gave up on Huckleberry Finn so many times that the book took him nearly a decade to complete.

This is normal, this really is. Some people can write a story and have a day job and be wonderful at both. Some people are born with good grammar. Some people know what they're doing with their lives.
Okay.
Some people are like Mark Twain.

I only hope I won't take a decade.

In case I lose my mind, I would like to say Thanks to my family and Gary, who are my resident patrons, all my friends encouraging my writing, NAC, and even my organisation that for letting me go on No Pay Leave, for allowing me to exist in this bubble of clueless faith, for allowing the completion of one and half useless manuscripts for one and a half lousy novellas that will never ever get to meet the eyes of another person if I can help it.

I assure myself that the quality of writing is not measured by word count. It pains me more than anyone to waste 40k words worth of effort. But that heartbreak would be nothing compared to that if my next 30k words are... Touch wood!

I must press on. key by key. letter by letter. tick tock. Third time HENG! SOON! LUCKY! okay!

Obliques

2011-04-11T14:16:00.004+08:00

I am finally on the no-pay-leave from work. It lasts from 1 Apr to 30 Jun. During which i must finish my draft for millie. Ideally, it should have begun from March, to meet the timeline i previously set. This means, I've been waking up everyday feeling pressure. From the passing of time.

Just from the passing of time.

hm.

The problem with writing, is that there can't be too much stress. Too contrived - the work gets.

SO, I shall try to take it easy. and forget about the timeline.

That's partially why I haven't really been on the M project, but I have spent the last week, re-arranging (de-frag-ging) my thoughts and sentiments. Tried not to think about work. Tried to summarise what work was like for the past 2 years and what impact it had on me generally. And tried not to begin my sentences with a verb, and silent "I".

Also, wrote a lot of other things. I have this thing, this technique that i have to spend myself writing non-stop for days then my pen and thoughts - or my thoughts wld directly transfer to the written word - without going through my pre-frontal lobe? or the thoughts come from my pre-frontal lobe directly to my hand to put it out?

Oh whatever, I forget by anatomy and lobotomy.

It's just some secret technique that I use, that works for me and i'm proud of it, but maybe it's not v interesting to write about since i know it. would I forget it one day? haven't forgotten for 5 years. around. so it should continue to work - until i forget to practice it?

enough.

this should be enough to remind me of it anyway.

Summarising the effect of working for 2 years straight:

1) the invincible invisible pressure of completing things by datelines. Actually there's no datelines to life. I feel that i still need to accomplishing certain things by certain time. why? i dunno why.

2) opportunity cost? the neuron connection or learning that i need to unlearn is to measure opportunity costs by a quantifiable measure - or monetary costs. This is wrong. A taboo trade-off. It should not be measured. measures helps to communicate/translates the value of one thing, by approximating it into something else. a standard. It's not really the value of one thing at all. e.g. what's the value of a table? $100? No. that's a price perhaps. The value of the table is a relationship between user and the table. So, it depends on the user and the table.

What's the length of the table? 2 metres? No. the length of the table is actually how long it is. the value of the length is how much things you want to put on it. again, depends on the user, perhaps.

so, what's the cost of my no-pay-leave per day? $(gross monthly + employer CPF)/ days in a month? No. that's just daily wage. It's the value of things i would do if I were working (which includes earning daily wage and the things I could do with the daily wage)

But what's the opportunity cost of working/day? it's the value of the things I would do if I were not working?

I think maybe working is not the default state. The blank slate. The blank slate, or zero, is not doing anything. So, working was a 0+1. Not working returns me back to 0. writing is a +1 again. Doing what other people do is a +1. it's a choice exercised to plus that one.

What's my point? maybe I have no point.
Or my point is that i am changed, and worried about making choices and worried about money, and worried about not doing what other people are doing. Is it because i'm growing up? or i've learnt fear? like a babe learns to be afraid of being close to knives or cockroaches from how the adults reacts to knives and cockroaches. But maybe that's not due to work or NPL, but due to realisation that life is short and unpredictable (japan quake) and approaching 30.
But maybe I have no point.

3) I think in obliques. or the slash. In my head, i don't say or anymore. like, louis likes daisy, donald and or susan. with an awkward pause between and and or, to denote a mental slash. I attribute that to work emails. why do we do that at work emails? may people feel safer when they get more options. You may/can/will do this or that, please consult Ms A/ Ms B / Mr C for this/that. Something like this/that.

Maybe i feel better giving more options.

4) Mellow. I'm less excitable, more mellow. is that the right use of the word?

5) Health. I'm more concerned about my health nowadays.

this is getting boring.

Back to Millie project. though i said I haven't been on the project, I have been recuperating from work and then this morning/noon, i wrote a not bad portion. so thats' good. and the ideas from my writing the past week can also be incorporated into the book. I have the most interesting ideas when I'm not consciously thinking.

It comes from a mad side of my pre-frontal cortex. most probs.

Last night, though, i dreamt of going back to work to get something done. It's from a dunno what side of my brain most probs - that i've been trying to de-frag.

Mention in NAC Instep Magazine (Nov-Dec 10)

2011-02-06T14:50:00.007+08:00

Millie and I - in NAC art creation fund article for their Instep magazine (Nov-Dec 10 issue).
Read it in full here.

Also, here's wishing you a happy lunar new year.

Progress update - 2 months

2011-01-13T20:59:00.002+08:00

2 months since the last update?
Time flies, especially december time. But i no longer have a proper fix on the passing of time.

What have I done?

I've written an outline - did it in a flash - i think it's not very good now - boo - too contrived.

So I decided to let it lie down for a while and look for my voice. Read a lot as usual, and continued to write somewhere sometime later.

hm. my bits and pieces, drips and draps are more inspired, and they sound better. I like them more. But i can only produce 700 words of this inspired stuff per day. If i want to put together a novella of 35,000 words (aim to put in more words then can cut later, if need), then, I'd need to put togehter about 50 days. plus minus a bit here and there right. It's about 2 months.

Like I said, I no longer have a proper fix of time.
If I did, I'd know that the 700 words of this inspired stuff cannot be squeezed out like that. No point in measuring it like that.

Where is Mr Goon? - the ACF 2010 announcements

2010-11-16T22:31:00.011+08:00

Maybe people who make more important things happen will laugh at how I'm getting thrills being mentioned here and there for receiving the Arts Creation Fund (ACF) grant.

And the mentions aren't even really about the quality of my work. It's about my potential to produce. Hm. They're saying, here you go, I'm investing some faith and interest in you. They're not even saying, good job, you really wrote a good book or something like that. They're saying, here you go, you seem to have potential to write something interesting. Potential only mah.

But remember (well, if you had known in the first place) that I grew up in English remedial class. Spending some time during the most formative years of my self-confidence in bloody english remedial... it put me in my place alright. Luckily, the teachers were very good. Anyone knows where's Mr Goon (yes his real name)? He's a riot. And luckily I also made good friends there, one of my best - incredible is the bind of collective boredom to young minds.

I'm not brandishing my embarrassing past like it's an excuse for my bad grammar and bad sentence structure. (At least, not this time.) It's an excuse for my excitement in being mentioned here and there. :)

I mean, I'm in a Press Release!
Last week, NAC finally released information on the Arts Creation Fund 2010. And got my name inside, leh. With the Millie Project. Even in my CPFable job, I come from the corner of organisations that only ever release announcements to internal staff only - on updates to policies blah blah. So being in a press release... hee hee. It feels funny.

And just before, also on the ACF and Millie, 8 Nov 10, For Art's Sake, Today Online betted that I'm "gonna go places" leh.

Am I being self-indulgent? Then again, can it be like how some people celebrate getting a job. Or it's how... somebody celebrates getting selected for the national team of some sports? Maybe? Celebrating having potential? Probably?

Well, it's perhaps at least good not to take it for granted. Or at least to remember to treasure the opportunity and work hard. Write a good book eh. And get mentioned for having made "more important things happen".

Then maybe Mr Goon would be proud of me. After all, he got me out of English remedial. But then again, maybe he'd be unimpressed. But most probably he'd be nice. He's a little like Kurt Vonnegut you know. That is, who I imagine Kurt Vonnegurt to be like with the Mr Goon I imagine to have been like. I wish I was older when I knew Mr Goon. Not the unappreciative daft kid in English remedial class. The best of teachers waste their personality on stupid kids.

There are a lots of other people, besides Mayo Martin (Today) and Mr Goon (my imagination), who'd bet that I'm gonna go places too, I know. I'm very very grateful for them too. In fact I even wrote a long article on how I'm grateful - but it's a bit too personal to publish on the www. This essay is also personal. But less. I'm forcing myself to reveal more about myself you know - I came across some writer's advice to writers to dare to use "I", dare to reveal details about myself. So I'm training myself to be daring like that.

What do you think? Does it make me sound more interesting?
Let me know, please, I don't want to embarrass myself

Vacillating between Insecurity and Aspiration

2010-11-08T12:34:00.006+08:00

I just came back from the park where I went to read two Akutagawa short stories. I wonder how long it took for him to write them. But I suppose it also doesn't matter.

The latter of the two stories was about a writer. No, wait. Both stories were about writers. The first one was about the passing of Basho, the haiku master. The second one was about Bakin, or something like that, a fiction writer, who took 28 years to write a 3,000 page long story about a eight dogs.

I wonder how big each page was.

In between turning the pages, I was thinking of my own story, The Millie, that I started drafting, 2 days ago. How much can I finish writing in the 10 days that I am not working?

Goh Poh Seng said that he finished what was said to be "Singapore's first novel" in two weeks. either two weeks or ten days. I dont' know how that's possible. Although I am hoping to finish drafting my story in the same span of time.

I feel like I need to finish drafting it in at one go - so that it maintains a consistent tone of voice. That sounds stupid. I have been "writing" for several years now, and only at the brink of completing a novel, am I trying to develop and maintain a consistent tone of voice?
A bit too late, isn't it?

I hope not.

As I went to the park, I passed by a delegate from N-parks, or a delegate of a delegate of theirs, i.e. a worker for the subcontracter, most probably. He was in a flourescent green vest (which by the way, who was the one who decided they should all wear flourescent green vests anyway?) and talking to an ah-ma (old lady) who wore a cool pair of very dark sunglasses.

He was speaking to her, in hokkien, something about how working to maintain the park and keeping it in orde so that people can come here and feel happy, then they (his colleague and himself) would be satisfied.

I stole these words - as I nodded my head respectfully in their direction, as I would with some strangers - and kept it at a back pocket of my head so that I could ruminate upon them, as I am ruminating now.

Simple, it is, an aspiration of a gardener, who probably did not receive high-level education, and so humble that it might even seem noble. I recognise it as that.

How is it that as a writer, who writes in hopes of readers coming to read and feel entertained, or dare I say "happy" (?), I can feel so insecure about my aspiration?

Maybe the worker was trying to sound good. To impress the ah-ma? Maybe not.

I started drafting 2 days ago, and have vacillated about twice between thinking this is not good enough - nevermind, just do your best, ju-lyn - this is not good enough - nevermind, just try your best, ju-lyn...

Last week, I decided to go on a long leave from work, at the last minute, because the "exigencies of service" suddenly permitted me to go. Because of the suddenness, I also feel rather ill-prepared for this long retreat. A bit being caught unaware by myself.

Having only a limited number of leave / year, I am obliged or pressured to spend it wisely. Ration it properly. Roll-over as many days of entitlement as I can roll-over to next year.

I'm worried, that since I'm a little unprepared, that in suddenly taking these several days off now, I am not investing my "opportunity to take several days off" wisely.

Not being at work this monday, or tomorrow, or the day after, also makes me feel out of place. Insecure.

I take breaks between reading the pages of Akutagawa to look at the trees around me in the park. It was so peaceful that I could count the number of different bird-calls if I had wanted to.
At one point, my eyes focused on a butterfly resting on a leaf (?) of a branch of a tree some distance away from me.

Recalling a book I had read recently detailed how the uncle of the narrator would encouraged people to appreciate good moments in life, I thought to myself, "Well if this isn't nice, I don't know what is." The book is Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. I read it in the park too.

If I'm insecured, like a butterly resting tenderly on a leaf, then the leaf would then be my story?

No wait, a butterfly could easily fly away. The analogy doesn't work.

Maybe if I wouldn't be so out of place if I had booked myself a ticket to bali or Bangkok, to live for two weeks with my friend. Like, I wouldn't be here around familiar surroundings to feel unfamiliar?

Or maybe I would feel even more out of place.

I would have to wash my own clothes, and maybe helped to mop the floor. Worse is if I wanted to refer to a book that I knew was on the shelf in my room, but I couldn't because my home is in Singapore and I would be in Bangkok.

So I'd just stay here, I guess. And try to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that threatens to swallow me. Maybe.

And try to enjoy the process, or something. Or at least appreciating the butterflies I notice. Or whatever.

This insecurity is mundane. I felt it too when I quit my job sometime back. I wrote a lot then. Some of the most inspired short short stories, I think. I felt it too, whenever I considered the plausiblity of my proposed plot for Millie. But I think this is not a good time to delve into other things to be insecured about.

Okay. I can do this. Or I shall die trying.

See. I vacillate.

Notice how I do it so skillfully? It's almost an art, I tell you.

I wrote another essay about the progress on the Millie project about two weeks ago. I feel it required editing, but I didn't have the time to edit it to my satisfaction.

Ceriph Issue 1

2010-10-03T12:29:00.005+08:00

Seeing my stories in Ceriph Issue 1 - I realised that it's still difficult to read my work in print. Regardless, it's great. That my work is brought to new readers? Thanks, Ceriph.

The stories featured are: Iced honey latte and Emotional Blackmail.
On hindsight, maybe I should have submitted stories that were more contrasting? Then again, with similarity there can be contrast...since the works were similar/parallel, both being caricature of characters/meekfreaks. Oh well. We'd see how next time.

The Millie Project - an introduction

2010-09-26T13:00:00.003+08:00

It's a little belated, to announce the news only now, on how I've gotten National Arts Council (NAC)'s support with the Arts Creation Fund on the Millie Project.

Who? me?

Recently, I'm "Lee Ju-Lyn (who) writes about how the imagination transforms reality. She is influenced by surrealism, existentialism, and Eastern philosophies. Her quirky and humourous style were likened to those of Murakami Haruki, Tim Burton, and Edward Lear. At present, her favourite writers are Milan Kundera and Akutagawa Ryunosuke."

I formally work in (i.e. receive CPF from) a corner of the public service, which I like being a part of for the idea of "serving the people (老百姓)" and from which I constantly day-dream about quitting to have more time to write more and better stories (I'd recently wonder if this might be a better way for me to serve the people).

So it's great, both in terms of receiving recognition of my potential (there must have been some serious literary people who saw the potential in my proposal), having been largely a self-taught fiction writer, and the opportunity to write something for the people. In that, being both a NAC grant recipient and public servant, I know that this is public service and I need to give it my best shot.

Now that i've committed myself, I must then try to forget the crushing sense of responsibility, other than holding onto the conclusion "i've gotta give it my best shot". Otherwise, I'd be paralysed by the sense of responsibility and fear of failure.

So, who am I? I am a person who has been given the much appreciated opportunity to write something.

Write what? The Millie Project?

That's my working title for now. I have a few titles.

It is a novella. About a girl, or woman, named Millie. Millie dreams, lucidly; as in, she is conscious in her dreams. And she got to know a guy, tentatively named Kwang Boon, or KB for short. Or rather, KB got to meet M. And she tells him about her dreams. And he writes the book, about her and her dreams.

I know my summary doesn't sound sexy. yet. It will, i think. When it comes to the point in time to make the summary sound sexy, I will worry about it. But now I have bigger things to worry about.

When? Jul 10?

I pitched the proposal in around Mar 10 (NAC submission deadline). The news came in around Jul 10, that I got it. Felt a bit blur for a while. Dunno what to do for a while. Got the contract, signed it, okay. Better start studying for a while. And have been studying since.

I only have about 1 year to complete the manuscript, including editing. So, it's really only about half a year. Can't start thinking about the time-line now i'd go crazy.

Where? on the blog?

I wanted to start blogging (it's really a blog blog) about this to update the people who want to be updated, and I want to develop ideas.

I'd be writing less regularly on meekfreak (so as to shore up the ideas - putting a dam and having a reservoir of ideas) - and in a way, blogging about Millie Project will be assuring my regular readers and supporters - whom are more commonly subscribing through facebook and readers - that I've not let go of myself. And I've taken my appreciation of your support and encouragement and I'm working hard.

As to where is my story? It's in my head. The big ideas, and the small ideas. I won't put up drafts on the net. But maybe some research questions and general progression. For now. See how.

Permit me to digress - Sometimes i realise, it takes me 1 hour to write a story, and then maybe half a day if i want to explain my story. Sometimes the idea of the story is best understood as a story, and not explained - if it could have been communicated better by explaining, then people shld be reading the explanation more than the story. It's perplexing. It's like, I can describe how to I char kway teow-ed, but never can my description replace the char kway teow itself - and you trying to understand my char kway teow vs understanding my description of a char kway teow are entirely different processes of understanding char kway teow altogether. my focus and priority should always remain on the char kway teow. So that even if you aren't a expert food taster, you can discern that it's good. If not good, then i'd have failed.

The story is set in Singapore. Because unlike my earlier (prior to 2008) works, I'm more ready to admit that I'm writing from my perspective. Of course, the grand hope is for the story to be universal. It's not written for a tourist, but can be understood by one. It's not a documentary. It's just a story (refer to Elif Shafak). I agree largely with what Elif Shafak articulated about setting, so I shan't spend time repeating or explaining how i've adapted it.

I concluded that I'm writing this story for my friends and their friends. Maybe this conclusion should be under the "Who?" and "why?". But nevermind la.

Why? Why write this novella?

So why write this novella? I should have an idea in my head why this story, but it's not firmed up. can't discuss it for now. until i'm more confident of it.

If this is too dismissive, there's a bit of "why" under the "who" section. I beg your pardon.

How?

I don't know how yet. Must study hard. And write hard. work hard.

Maybe I'm going to coup myself up - like a hermit - retreat into my own mind - try not to go crazy - then come up with something. That's what I'm thinking of, tentatively. difficult to juggle committments. priorities.

With your support, of course. and kind encouragement.
And hard work - good old hard work.
And Luck. Everything needs good old hard luck.
Wish me some!

After-note

After articulating the summary of the project. I'm underwhelmed by it. And feel that the rough idea or gist is stupid sounding. I am going to wallow around in a pool of wavering self-confidence and try to conclude that alice in wonderland also has a stupid gist of a story. Even better, that all gists of stories are stupid. sigh.

Goh Poh Seng

2010-09-26T12:04:00.005+08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goh_Poh_Seng

Dear you 2 (Why I'm writing less frequently)

2010-08-26T19:32:00.005+08:00

Dear you,

I wrote "Dear you" in 2008. It was put into my "All the people imagine" (API), my self-published labour of love.

In API (which is what how I refer to the book in my journals), I quoted a Lin Yutang, from his book "The importance of living". His "The importance of living" (i have no short form for it though) is , in my opinion, is one of the most important books ever written, though i'm not really a serious authority on such things.

Yes, I mean I'm a non-serious authority, or in other words, a casual authority.

As you are too. We're all casual authorities in anything we want to be casual authorities in. You might think that it's an oxymoron, since authorities are usually serious. But my favourite dictionary, authority can be defined as "an accepted source of expert information or advice". By the same reasoning we accept the mother or father, or older person, as authority, we can all be authorities.

I digress.

I digress perhaps because I haven't been writing to you in a long time.

You being my audience. My anonymous reader. Anonymous because, even if I know you as a friend, I don't know you as a reader. My writing and stories express my one-sided love as a writer, never knowing if it will be returned by your attention.

I am worried of losing your attention. I haven't been publishing stories less frequently and I worry that you may think that I'm losing interest in you and you will lose interest in me. I'm so worried that I felt like I had to write this something to explain why I haven't been writing.

Actually, I'm just moving away from my previous model of writing - I used to write sketches, spontaneously, not really caring if you would understand my randomness, relishing my inside jokes. My flash fictions of 2008 were like stick figures of writing. Sparse. Abstract. I wrote stories that were like the paintings I were inspired by.

Then I realised one thing. I'm not painting. I'm writing. And it's not enough to paint a picture with words, when I can do so much more with stories. And in chosing to write, there is so much more to do. So much more to learn and improve.

So I spend more time studying to better improve my craft and writing. I'm moving back to basics, going back to school. Besides learning shading and still life, there's all those things that can't be described because they're beyond the extension of the painting simile.

And I dedicate this effort to you. So that I can write better, and in doing so so, treat your time, that you spend reading my work, with more respect. In doing so, hoping to improve my chances of my one-sided love being returned by your attention. (I'd say affection, but I dare not.)

If you'd notice, my recent pieces are more constructed, it has cause and effect, it has more structure. I'm not saying that I won't go back to the abstract, but if I do, I want to do so with purpose. (Or with purpose to be without purpose, you know.)

So, please bear with me. I'm working hard and trying to work harder.

"There is a period of gestation of ideas before writing, like the period of gestation of an embryo in its mother's womb before birth. When one's favourite author has kindled the spark in one's soul, and set up a current of live ideas in him, that is the 'impregnation'. When a man rushes into print before his ideas go through this period of gestation, that is diarrhoea, mistaken for birth pains. When a writer sells his conscience and writes things against his convictions, that is artificial abortion, and the embryo is always stillborn. When a writer feels violent convulsions like an electric storm in his head, and he doesn't feel happy until he gets the ideas out of his system and puts them down on paper and feels an immense relief, that is literary birth. Hence a writer feels a maternal affection toward his literary product as a mother feels towards her baby."

- Lin Yutang,
Style and Thought, The Art of Writing,
The Enjoyment of Culture,
The Importance of Living.

Yours Sincerely,
Me.

Elif Shafak - The politics of fiction

2010-08-15T23:08:00.001+08:00

Been reading...

2010-08-09T11:38:00.003+08:00

Been reading a hell lot of books man. By my standard.

And i like the way that through reading, writing styles wld osmosis into my head. Lately, due to the exigencies of work, i wld type wld as wld.

Anyway, for example, in the Little Red Riding Hood story and the Wood-block... I found that I could train to narrate in a way that the dialogue would give way and lapse into what the characters were thinking, and then slip into their stream of consciousness. It's not about the content, or the technique. I think it's about the rhythm, the tempo. I attribute it to Milan Kundera's books/style. Read 2 of his books in the past month or so, of which, I enjoyed Unbearable lightness of more.

Not saying that i've perfected the technique, but to realise that that's one way i learn.

it's been a long weekend - actually i haven't gotten much reading or writing done and today is the last day (national day) - the day of - i dunno, the day to salvage the situation - but it's so easy to forget and just read manga for the past 2 days, and to go shopping. I wonder how reading manga has influenced my writing style - maybe that's why i have simplified plots and happy endings? Maybe i don't have happy endings...

I have some exciting news that I want to share, but haven't gotten the permission to. I should work on that.

Would Write - Closet writing

2010-06-04T23:54:00.006+08:00

In terms of writing, i have recently promoted myself. I was filling up a form for something and they asked me for my occupation - I've always had a problem with that 'blank'- because what i did at some organisation and paid me money and CPF was not entirely my occupation.

Occupation is defined as

1.
a. An activity that serves as one's regular source of livelihood; a vocation.
b. An activity engaged in especially as a means of passing time; an avocation.
2.
a. The act or process of holding or possessing a place.
b. The state of being held or possessed.
3.
a. Invasion, conquest, and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces.
b. The military government exercising control over an occupied nation or territory.

While being an HR exec is 1a. it doesn't fulfil my 1b. it also doesn't possess my being nor my heart and does not exercise, or i refuse to let it exercise, control over me.

Recently, as I was filling out a form that asked for my personal particulars, and in that "occupation" blank, i just filled in that I'm a "writer and HR exec", the latter of which is what i do for my day job. In other words, my occupation as defined by 1a is "HR exec"; my occupation as defined by 1b to 3b, literally or figuratively, is writing.

In this way, i have promoted myself because I never referred to myself as a writer before. And some time after i filled the form, which I did without much thought or decision making, i realised that I had presumptiously referred to myself as a writer - and through that, I became one.

It's a promotion from my previous title - I was a "closet writer".

Speaking of closet writers, there's the story "Would Write" about one.

"Would write" is a morbid tale, even by my standards. I can't remember what came over me, but I recalled one documentary (or maybe it was reading about it online) about a cleaning company in America which specialised in cleaning up after dead bodies and the mess they made. Apparently, the body entirely disintegrates, given the right humidity and temperature, even the bones and stuff. (And so, dead bodies would stain beds and carpets, which had to be properly cleaned before it could be chucked.)

The part on the blue skies - well, that's a sentiment i really felt when I was writing underneath a blue sky one day - about more than one year ago. It was a "life is beautiful" kind of experience.

Re-reading the story, I think I could have done better in distinguishing the voice of the narrator and the character.

Merlion - Of a lion and a siren

2010-05-25T17:05:00.006+08:00

Of a lion and a siren - the first story I wrote in a long, dry spell.

Kinda glad that it received encouraging response on facebook.

I don't know why I felt compelled to write a story about a merlion - actually, i was compelled to write a series of stories about merlions and mertigers. Sometimes, story ideas just come to me, to make me feel guilty that I haven't been writing enough/fast enough... or worse, project ideas - a series of mer-things stories. gee. How to have enough arapaimas to go around?

I wrote this story over 2 days. The first draft, on the Friday evening, in a sleepy stupor. I got bored by the predictable plot towards the end - I knew it was going to be about merlions all along - and that's why part II's tone turned dramatically into quirkier, reckless-er. On day 2, I polished up the stories here and there, and decided to cut it into 2 parts - for it's length, and tonal change.

This story, in turn, made me think about how I prefer to write. I used to be a lot more random and abstract - not bothering to paint the picture or set for my readers - thinking that i didn't care if they had the same/similar idea as mine as I intended. Recently (in the past year), I've researched more about writing, and read more (like 2 more books), and i must conclude that, as a reader, I prefer the more descriptive style of Vonnegut or Akutagawa over the mystical Murakami and avante-garde-to-the-point-I-don't-really-know-what-he's-talking-about Andre Breton (Nadja).

So, should I write with more consideration and kindness to the reader? But my random disregard for details creates fireworks in underpants of spiffy magistrates which amuses me too intensely to care what anyone else thinks.

I am afraid that the unfortunate answer for my dilemma is a predictable need to balance both concerns - to draft when I'm daft drunk, and edit when I'm sobbingly sober.

Anyway, the below featured are araipaimas and I am a great fan of all monster fish.

I miss surprising you

2010-04-22T23:23:00.003+08:00

I miss the time I had time to write so much that I could keep up with 3 blogs, that I had time to wonder if I was writing too much, that I had time to choose the words I want to use, that I had time to use less words, that I had time to learn new words, or read new things to write about, or learn better grammar, or come up with new ways to describe the moon.

I miss surprising you.

Purple Land of Golden Oats

2010-02-05T23:39:00.002+08:00

Purple Land of Golden Oats is based on this portrait/drawing thing my friend, Beatrice, got for me from India.

It's been a while - Lenny's video

2010-01-10T15:33:00.004+08:00

Happy new year. It's been a while. Seems like the posts i put up here has been about how it's been a while.

How's your first week of work? Mine is nicely wrapped up with my first story of 2010. A sadistic whack of a story - Lenny's Video

The hand-drill story was inspired by my recent search for a hand-drill. I remember when I was young, there were the convenient traditional types of hand-drills that worked like an egg-beater. Nowadays, i don't see anyone using that already. They use the powered by electricity one. Borsh has one that's powered by batteries.

The Lenny story was set up so that it seemed like he was filming something for a dating/match-making video. But it has a sadistic twist. He killed himself because he was sorry he raped his beloved, jenny, who could be his elder sister - Jenny and Lenny. Didn't want to be explicit about it, but to leave those in between the lines. Should I be more obvious and leave more clues?

That should be my goal for writing this coming year. I always writer riddles in the stories, but i never leave enough clues. This year, i'd be trying to weave in more clues. I'm also weaving in more details about the Singaporean setting - like in this case, reference to NTU and what not. Still, i suppose my stories are set with a very surreal note in general.

What's in a name - Ernest Beauregard

2009-11-28T11:47:00.004+08:00

Ernest Beauregard's story just came to me in an instance... the idea of an angmor sticking a ear pick into his eye was a bit violent and interesting. Ernest's name was chosen with care.

Ernest is also spelt "EARnest" so it's quite apt. According to thinkbabynames.com...

The boy's name Earnest \e(a)-rne-st, ear-nest\ is a variant of Ernest (Old German), and the meaning of Earnest is "serious; battle to the death".

"Beauregard" apparently, according to thinkbabynames.com...

The boy's name Beauregard \be(au)-regard, beaur(e)-ga-rd\ is of French origin, and its meaning is "beautiful gaze".... The name can also mean "easy on the eye".

Catatonia - Mr Bu

2009-11-22T20:07:00.002+08:00

Mr Bu began with a sudden urge to name my characters. Most of my characters don't have a name, i find it difficult to name them - perhaps that the stories are so short that they are strangers to me - and i'm, we're just eavesdropping into their lives, so they don't need to have names.

Well, i suppose I need to try harder.

Catatonia is a psychological condition/disorder, described in wikipedia as:

Patients with catatonia may experience an extreme loss of motor skills or even constant hyperactive motor activity. Catatonic patients will sometimes hold rigid poses for hours and will ignore any external stimuli. Patients with catatonic excitement can die of exhaustion if not treated. Patients may also show stereotyped, repetitive movements. They may show specific types of movement such as waxy flexibility, in which they maintain positions after being placed in them by someone else, or gegenhalten (lit. "counterhold"), in which they resist movement in proportion to the force applied by the examiner. They may repeat meaningless phrases or speak only to repeat what the examiner says.

Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro is a really nice show about some catatonic people... (it was adapted from a book). I highly recommend watching it.

A friend on facebook had asked me to try to continue the story. But at this point in time, I don't know how. Though I would really like to try...

Lavender bush - Lavender Remedy

2009-11-15T23:48:00.002+08:00

Lavender Remedy - This is how lavender bushes look like.

I think it'd be funny to have 2 of these hanging from your face.

Observation - Traffic Allergic to Rain

2009-11-15T23:44:00.003+08:00

Traffic Allergic to Rain was obviously based on my observations that there's always a traffic jam whenever it rains. It's like Singaporeans dunno how to drive in the rain, or something like that.

If it's a heavy downpour, then okay I understand, you know.
but even if it's a light drizzle, there'd also be some hold up.

Maybe soon, they'd jack up the ERP prices on rainy days.

Random updates

2009-11-03T21:43:00.002+08:00

Recently I am:

Wishing that i have more time/pieces to write for both meekfreak and sneak
27 years old
Amused by my peperomia which:
a) is growing tall and upright so that it can reach the sunlight at the window which is about 3 metres away from it.
b) has almost all its leaves turning to face the window.
c) now houses a spider (with webs and all) dunno for what, like i don't think there's a lot of traffic on my table... but okay whatever, maybe "Peppy" is just putting him/her up just for tonight.
Feeling like growing more plants. Perhaps a tomato plant.
Bored.

Feet - a story seldom told

2009-10-06T00:34:00.002+08:00

A story seldom told... the idea of talking feet has been with me for a long time, i tend to think that if any part of my body were to have its' own mind, surely it'd first begin with my feet. In fact, i had an accident with my little left toe a few years back, and I really believe that it has the mind of its own.

Thought of this story when I was staring at my feet, just after getting home.
I was also looking at yusof ishak on the 2 dollar note and imagined him probably having a conversation with my feet.

I did toy with the idea that the elephant and tortoise fell out of love, but it would be too upsetting for harmony in the body.

And i really did fall asleep halfway writing the story, for about half an hour or so.

It took me... about 3 hours to write. and I nearly gave up. but am glad I didn't.

I think the words look clumsy on the page, but it kinda reads okay when it's read aloud, and the rhythm of reading changes a bit to sorta keep the beat.

pictures - Jie Qi and Peperomia

2009-09-13T13:57:00.003+08:00

These are the starting points for the stories Jie Qi and I, its mealy bug. Featured, the clock that cost $5 from ang moh kio central, and the plant that cost $2 - with name peperomia acuminata (which is also called peperomia scandens, in some references). The mealy bugs kinda grew bigger and gross me a little.

The meekfreak banner

2009-08-23T23:15:00.002+08:00

Had wanted to write an explanation on the Banner photo at meekfreak for sometime. The significance/symbolism of clouds against the blue sky:

- of imagination: imagining the clouds are of etc etc shapes...
- of surrealism: the blue sky to me - and to some of the surrealists - are representative of the surrealist movement. It's like how the simpsons opens their credits with the white clouds and blue sky.
- of an elephant: I don't know why so coincidental, I think this crop of the clouds shows an elephant at the back. If you don't know, I collect figurines of elephants and adopt it on many occasions as my "emblem" should I need one.
- of a little boy/girl with rabbit/donkey ears: can you see him? in the foreground, in the side profile, with his/her face resting on his little hands and sorta turned to talk to the elephant. So i think it's also representative of my stories with the little meekfreaks characters I write about - the little boy/girl characters with an odd quality or two.
- of jasperware: jasperware's the pottery kinda thing with white patterns against often blue background. The white fonts against that particular blue, reminds me of jasperware that i seen in my childhood and the adults told me not to touch cos it's expensive. I like them cos they are fragile and pretty and delicate. Sometimes, i try to re-create that feeling in my writing. the precision, the delicate elegant depictions.

When I took this picture, it was for the first 2 reasons listed above, but as I was working on it, then the other things came about. so, actually, i like the picture a lot.

Lately, i've been wondering if i should change my meekfreak's name to something less of a mouthful than "chattering matterings of the original meekfreak" and been toying with the idea of "rebranding" - changing my banner etc... but i think that the banner is really quite apt and I wonder if i should change it for the sake of changing.

I also think about writing more things to explain about my book and the deliberation behind some things, but i think it's significantly less important as compared to actually creating new work.

A poem - Hm

2009-08-18T22:11:00.002+08:00

Hm. was written tonight. I spent about 1-2 hours on it, and I think poems are very time-inefficient to write. Very little words, but require a lot of thoughts about line breaks and editing and precision of words, perhaps because there's so few of them.

Actually, I don't think free verses written in fairly simple language, like this one, is a real poem. But for reference's sake i call it a poem. It's like I don't think charles bukowshi writes real poems - because I seem to get a pretty clear idea from the first reading. When i studied literature at A-levels, the best i got with just the first reading was a pretty blur idea.

Anyhoos. Let me share with you more on my romantic evening. I reached home early, and before and after dinner sat in my room (which I just re-organised) on a seat in from of my window, with the lights off and just watching the night sky and stars. The dog star - in a familiar position - I remember past years around this time when i wasn't working and wondering about the meaning of life - I watched the star rise into the sky.

I watched the aeroplanes fly by - it must be a busy night with lots of flights chartered or something. And then small clouds rolled by. Could see them - low-hanging- and lit by the city lights - orangey dark grey against orangey black night.
The night breeze stroking my cheek. Cool breeze. It's august, are the north winds blowing again? that's very soon. i thought it had just left us not too long ago.

The neighbour carries the baby at home walking around at home. Another neighbour sitting on the floor of her room.

A bat flies around quickly. The tree in that corner looked different - don't remember that there was a tree that height around there last year. Did it grow so fast? Wondered if it was a coral tree. I like coral trees. But I doubt so. If i could own trees, i would want to. But then again, maybe trees shouldn't be owned.

My mother reminded me that she bought fruits and I unabashedly took the last flat peach and washed and broke into half and ate at my window seat. It's so nice and sweet and cool and juicy. Nice complement to the nightwatch.

The lizard outside the window tsked loudly. The dog star rose higher into the sky.

I wanted to write down these thoughts but to be casual like the above, but it's probably something i've probably written before. This relaxed sentiment is not new so just rambling would not be new because rambling is easy to write. Something abstract? Written something like that before too. So... just wrote what I wrote and it got edited into it's present form. I honestly wonder if the "hm"s are very jarring, and don't think it's a very relaxed piece after all. Well, it's experimental, i suppose.

If you've got the time, effort, and point of view, pls tell me what you think.

Trivial - Watch out!

2009-08-14T00:03:00.004+08:00

Watch out! was inspired by my friends at work talking about shit and tapeworms over lunch. So they said they were fed with some "tapeworm medication" when they were young. But they didn't have tapeworms, because they didn't shit any out.

me: what do you mean you didn't shit any out?
them: apparently if you have worms, and you took the medicine, you wld shit it out.
me: how wld you know if you shat it out?
them: cos you can see the worms if you shit it out.
me: omg. you mean you go and see?
them: no lar no lar... you're young mah, but they say lar... cos kids shit in spittoons, and if the worms are shitted out, you can easily see...
me: omg, you mean you can see the worms? as in they're moving?
them: yah! they'd crawl out.
me: then it's like someone go and see the shit they just shit then he'd exclaim "OMG my shit is alive!!!"

then i think that's very funny, so i wrote a modified story on that line.

But i think it's a bit different afterall, i think a moving lump of shit is actually a very much funnier visual spectacle. so maybe I'd write another story about that next time. like an actual live moving lump/piece of shit...

Words in my mouth - Funnel

2009-08-13T23:57:00.002+08:00

Funnel was written yesterday after being let known that somebody "put some words in my mouth" - ie. say that I said something I never said.

I wanted to write something to convert the feeling of frustration into positive creative tension or something like that. True enough, it resulted in some strange moderated, not so pek chek kind of ending.

And in my frenzy, i put it up on this blog instead of the meekfreak at first. :P so i correct it now.

Debit notes = invoice / note informing that I owe people money.

Article on aspiring - mangaka & writers club

2009-08-11T22:31:00.002+08:00

Wrote an article for some people at the "aspiring mangaka & writers club" to share my experiences on self-publishing. Might well post it up here too - to share with my regulars? and to clock 1 more posting so I don't feel unaccomplished for not posting anything for so long.

i even thought about splitting it up into 2 postings cos it's so long...

Hello, how are you?

A few months back I received an email from moon to share on my experiences of writing and self-publishing a book. I was excited to find a community of like-minded Singaporeans and flattered to be asked to write an article. I asked her what I should write about, and she said pretty much anything. Then I asked her how long should the article be. Then she said it’s pretty much up to me. It’s been hard trying to decide what to focus on – writing and/or self-publishing, to me, is very complicated. So, I thought perhaps I could share broadly about how it’s complicated. It is, perhaps, something that I wish I sorted out for myself earlier, and I hope that the brief outline that follows will be helpful to you.

To me, writing (or whatever it is that I want to do) is at least complicated in two aspects. Firstly, there’s the technical aspect of doing things – the “HOW” of getting things done. How to write, what to write, when to write… How to spell a certain word, what is grammatically correct… How to work what software, what is typography, how to design the cover, what shall I put on the cover… and the list goes on and on. Effort must be dedicated to researching, studying/learning, doing, reviewing or editing… I had wanted to do everything myself (including writing to laying out to publicity) because I wanted to have control over all these details, it was important to know what I needed to learn so that I could do what I wanted to do… and how much time and effort each phase (e.g. learning, training, doing phases) would take so that I can allocate my time and energy accordingly.

The second aspect is the psychological or philosophical aspect of things – the “WHY” and reason behind wanting to get things done. In some ways, I think this aspect is often less considered, although it is as important as technical competency, if not more important. This is simply because I could have used the time I spent on writing to do many other things. Similarly, everyone could spend his efforts on doing anything, for example, on doing other things, like studying harder, or doing something for his parents. Why do I want to spend the effort to edit my stories again and again and again, when it gets boring and tedious and trying? Why do I want to do what I want to do? Why do I write?

Understanding this was important to sustain my self-motivation. And even though I always gave different answers to different people asking me about my self-publishing project, it helps when I have the real reasons and motivation firmly establish in my mind. This also prevents me from being hurled into a whirlpool of self-doubt whenever someone asks about what I’m up to, having given up a cushy job, facing zero security with no income, etc.

I recommend putting together a “scrap-book” of why you do what you want to do, so that it’s convenient when you need reminding. It also helped me to have explained my motivations clearly to my closest friends and family members, so that they could better appreciate my pursuit, and helped to remind me, or at least, don’t question me too much.

On this, I recommend reading “Why I write” by George Orwell. You can probably find the full text online or neatly summarized in wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I_Write. Broadly, Orwell discussed 4 motives behind writing and it can kind of get philosophical. Whilst Orwell’s personal reasons did not always apply exactly to me, I generally related to the 4 motives and it greatly helped me organise for myself “why I write”.

In this way, I should think that every individual would have to figure it out for himself, why he writes, or why she draws, or acts, or dances, or become a lawyer or teacher, or whatever it is that he does or wants to do. This is because everyone is different and have differing background, etc, thus everyone’s motivation differs. Which brings me to my next point, writing, to me, is very personal and that it’s SO personal that it complicates things even further. (This is something that I really wish to have been warned about earlier.)

Say for example, taking in other’s criticism or feedback on my work. Because it’s personal, I can’t help emotionally reacting to these inputs and feel bad or upset or happy or proud, and my emotional and psychological reactions would affect how I might assess the criticisms and applying them constructively. On bad days, my psychological reactions to my work – whether I’m good enough to write or not, blah blah – it can even hinder me from writing altogether.

But say then, on the other hand, if I didn’t take my writing personally at all, i.e. I took it totally from the objective point of view, then would I take other people’s opinion or feedback more easily and improve my competencies faster? Yet if I didn’t take my writing personally, then what would I be writing for and what’s the point of improving anything?

Ugh, so how?

I don’t know of a better way, but I try to balance when to treat my writing personally and when to be objective. For example, I treat it personally when I must motivate myself (or put my personal point of view into my stories, but that’s calls for a different discussion). I treat it objectively when I must critique and edit my work, and I find it helps pushing towards higher standards. And this balancing-personal-or-objective-act is difficult. For myself, it demands more self-control, self-awareness, and self-discipline than is required to overcome all the technical complexities combined together.

And I suspect if I didn’t harness the power of how writing is personal, then I wouldn’t have enough energy to complete my project. If I don’t manage to keep it tame, I would not have the energy or self-confidence to continue writing (find my stuff on meekfreak.blogspot.com). Aside, I think “You’ve got mail”, the movie starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, illustrates the difference between taking something personally, or not, quite well.

Okay, I hope my sharing helps.

Kurt Vonnegut - Sometimes, life is like that.

2009-08-11T21:32:00.003+08:00

This story was based on this picture of Kurt Vonnegut :

which is currently my computer wall paper. Thus, the story.

For those who don't know him. He's a writer of funny stories. If I were to have a writer-idol, it'd be him. Although i never read much of his stories. (i'm stupid like that.) Also, i learnt the term "scatological" from his wiki site. which means:

sca·tol·o·gy (sk-tl-j, sk-)
n. pl. sca·tol·o·gies
1. The study of fecal excrement, as in medicine, paleontology, or biology.
2.
a. An obsession with excrement or excretory functions.
b. The psychiatric study of such an obsession.
3. Obscene language or literature, especially that dealing pruriently or humorously with excrement and excretory functions.

He died from complications resulting from falling down the stairs.

I never wrote about ghosts before this (or at least never published any here, i think) though i often wld write about pple in my imagination etc. i suppose its a breakthru too, in that sense. And i thought better publish it before the 7th lunar month is here.

On "sometimes, life is like that" - this is gary's retort/reply to me to many of my questions (sometimes mundane, sometimes existential) and there's just too much greatness and truth in that not to shut up to it.

On "life is never fair, what" - it's something i always bene wanting to put in a story, actually i wrote an epilogue to "All the people imagine", but it was too violent and I didn't include it in the end. It was about how to be borned a girl = already unfair. Because i think women got the tougher lot in life, having to give birth and menstruate, etc.

Okay. that's enough trivial for a post.

(Link back to story. Which btw is usually the link from the first word of each sneak post.)

In 30 mins - I overheard the cats...

2009-07-18T23:39:00.003+08:00

I overheard the cats was written in a hurry and I think the tone shows. Originally there was an opening para explaining why the narrator had to tell the story in a hurry, but it was quite out of place - in that it didn't give to the story - so I had it removed. Now I wonder if the rest of the story is out of place.

Wanted at first to write a Frankenstein kind of story about a mad scientist who was out to remove people's testicles and implant them into their eye sockets. But it's a bit sick and cruel and a bit too violent, so i thought to make it happen to some kind of animals instead, so that it's at least a bit cartoonish.

hm... I wrote the story in 30 minutes. I aimed to write it in 15 minutes but I think with a little bit of editing it took longer than that. Why in a hurry? I was tired it was late but thought I should try to write something anyway, so I had to spit something out.

I used to usually take 2-3 hours (sometimes much longer) to come out with a piece, with story edits... and used to revisit the stories and edit them and edit them back and everything... very very often. But recently, i think in this year, I haven't done much editing. My average timing is maybe about 1 hour to write a story. and I don't think it's because I'm more confident of my writing (actually it makes me a lot less confident), but I do feel like I can always go back and edit them somemore, when i have more time, but when i have more time, I would rather spend it on writing something new.

The jobless period has been quite fruitful and productive for me - in terms of pieces/month... and then frankly, I've forgotten a lot of what I've written... which surprises me, because I usually know my stories quite well.

So what do you do as your pastime? I used to watch the fan twist itself silly.

Part 3 of ? - Relieve

2009-07-15T23:19:00.004+08:00

Relieve is based on my recent flu season. I've been having the sniffles every other week. In between, I'd be feeling weak from recovery.

Everytime I check on sneak, i would realise and be appalled at how long ago the last post was. I realise what keeps me from wanting to write about my writings is the linking here and there the pages that I have to do. So, I think i should just keep up the writing a bit, and then, one day when I have the mood, then I'll do a massive linking exercise.

This Relieve is one of part 3 of a death series (i dunno how many more to come), but apparently i must be feeling rather morbid lately. After a straw poll, seems that Relieve is the favourite, though it might not be my personal favourite, which might be "Would write". But relieve is the funniest of course. And when I was telling it to 2 of my good friends on Sunday, I shed tears from laughing so hard.

I actually don't believe that one would feel like choking from a piece of pee sai. but it's just a story. I'm especially proud to suddenly thought of how the body would excrete all the sai after death because the muscle relax and all that. Actually having done a brief research, not all deaths would cause the bowels to be released. Only due to some causes.

2 points.
1) on the title. Called it relieve, relieve being a sense of relieve and relieve of shit. I wanted to come up with a less act cool name, but i couldn't, and I was sleepy. Relieve also as in the relieve of the plane, ie something like gradient. So, watch the girl's neurotism escalate as we read on the story.

2) on the meaning. Choose such a stark and dirty ending, to remind us that death is absolute and dirty, but simple and unavoidable. No matter how you would try to keep your nose shit, after you die, the shit will be exploded all over the floor. Thus, the moral is to enjoy life, and just dig your nose lor, if you want.

I'm falling asleep at the computer as I'm typing this, so I'm gonna end here. take care and i do hope to write sooner.

To those who bought/buying/will buy the book

2009-06-02T22:03:00.003+08:00

Just a note to inform you, in case you'd like to know, that $5 of the proceeds went to comm chest. Thanks.

Coach - She always carries a book in her handbag

2009-06-02T21:49:00.003+08:00

She always carries a book in her handbag... actually inspired by a train ride home. I suppose I was listening to some light-hearted music and had no place to sit so i just people watched the office ladies (OLs) in the train... wondering if I'm just like them. counting the number of branded handbags in the train - wondering why would so many people spend so much money on just a bag - will I ever understand? Wondering if there's something wrong with the world when thousand dollar bags are so prevalent...

anyway, personally, I very often carry a book or 2 in my handbag that I don't read cos I'm more likely to try to write into a notebook - but the books are there in case I don't feel like writing then I would like to have something that I feel like reading to read.

The trivial here is the "but i still like coach leh". Coach may mean:

1.
a. A motorbus.
b. A railroad passenger car.
c. A closed automobile, usually with two doors.
d. A large, closed, four-wheeled carriage with an elevated exterior seat for the driver; a stagecoach.
2. An economical class of passenger accommodations on a commercial airplane or a train.

So, its like cute lar.

if it had a taste - emotional blackmail

2009-05-17T23:01:00.003+08:00

Emotional blackmail was written from seeding an analogy that i used in an email to a friend - on someone being strangled by some umbilical cord - and it had something to do with emotional blackmail.

On the relevant note - would like to explicate more on the taste of abstract constructs. You see, i think if emotional blackmail had a taste it would taste like bad - watery blueberry cheesecake - that had been left outside of the fridge for too long.

Pride would taste like steel. Like the first swig from a newly opened bottle of beer that had been left on the shelf for too long such that the bottle cap has a strong taste or influence on the mouth of the bottle so it tastes like steel.

Jealousy might taste like wine - plum wine, red wine, whatever wine - that's left to air too much like it tastes a little vinegar-ish. Much truth in the chinese way of describing jealousy as eating-vinegar.

Having blisters on the feet tastes like apple cider vinegar.

Having too much work to do, and too little sleep, tastes like vomit. Vomit of someone who drank too much milo.

I like the description of the little emotional blackmail monster. freaks me out. but i think that's quite what the little emotional blackmail cherub would look like. innocent, in nature, but deformed and ...murderous?

Grandmother series

2009-05-09T08:18:00.003+08:00

Grandmother series... a new grandmother series because thought i'd better record down the wisdom of my grandmother while they're still fresh in my memory.

Can't believe I haven't posted anything here for more than 1 month!

Brown Nose - Tom, Dick, & Harry

2009-03-23T23:03:00.003+08:00

Tom, Dick, & Harry was based... on a conversation.

"Do you think it's like how I forget that if I've brushed my teeth, then I have to go and feel if my toothbrush is damp?"

I think this was referring to my own experience.

"Oh, right... I can see how the suspicion is completely valid... Seeing how you usually completely forget to wipe your nose when you come out of meetings with the bosses."

This is a reference to brown nosing. Which means, ass-kissing, which means disgusting flattery (usually of bosses), until one's nose is browned- due to the shit that's hanging around the ass.

That's such an explicit way of putting it... but it's for the benefit of those who don't understand what's brown-nosing and may therefore... appreciate my forthcoming manner rather than pretending to be a mermaid dancing around a cowboy's fire.

In a bimbimbap - Mary

2009-03-18T22:21:00.002+08:00

Mary was written after my last minute trip to korea. I decided to make a dash for it before I started work. Yes, I found work. But let's not talk about work.

So, in korea, i was shitting and thought that my shit smelled very funny, or different. Then I wonder if it was because of the kimchi. Yah, that's a gross detail, but let's just admit it, please: It's more important to your life and your personal state of being to know the smell of your own shit than the name of some president half way around the world. I don't even know how to elaborate on it, becuase it's so apparent. It's like, okay, if you have kids, it's important to know the colour/smell of your baby's shit so that you'll be ganjiong when it's abnormal right? yah. so, the same for your own shit.

Then, Mary was deliberately written in the way that she sounds rather familiar/typical in the beginning portion. These details... were deliberately painting her to be seemingly normal and have the typical executive dream, though it has hints of quirkiness, so that the twist can be abrupt and shocking. One of the points I wanted to communicate here is that even though there are those who are very arrogant or look very high class, they may really be doing it for some shit reasons.

In a bimbimbap - sounds like - in a flash - with korea influences.

A trivial - i'm dozing off as I'm in front of the computer typing this.

Mary was written in about 4-5 hours.

Today? Two days before yesterday.

2009-02-20T08:58:00.006+08:00

I was featured on Today on Tuesday for All the People Imagine. Check out the pdf article here.

李白 <<山中问答>> - no link (yet)

2009-02-01T22:47:00.002+08:00

Haven't written an entry for sneak in sometime. So happy lunar new year to everyone and hope that everyone will be happy.

Came across this nice poem from Li Bai to share with you here.

<<山中问答>>
问余何意栖碧山，wen4 yu2 he2 yi4 qi1 bi4 shan1
笑而不答心自闲。xiao4 er2 bu4 da2 xin1 zi4 xian2
桃花流水窅然去， tiao2 hua1 liu2 shui3 yao2 ran2 qu4
别有天地非人间。bie2 you3 tian1 di4 fei1 ren2 jian1

Line by line rough explain:
1- someone asks (me) why I go live in the mountain
2- smile/laugh but don't answer. (my) heart is relax.
3- cherry blossoms fall into the flowing water and gets carried away (until I cannot see)
4- this place has a different sky and water, and is not earth, ie. like the heaven.

Personally, and egocentrically, I feel that it explains why I would want to quit my job and spend afternoons looking at the clouds or how the north wind blows everything here and there. I don't see cherry blossoms on flowing water, but say, watching the chameleon lizard run around and climb trees, and finding it again after hearing a fall or tumbling through the tree, and then see that it has caught an insect between its jaw, and distinctly hearing the sound of the crunch crunch crunch...

it's almost the same sound of fried grasshoppers between the jaws of my friends sitting next to me when we were hanging out in Thailand some years ago. I also ate grasshopper. But back then was concentrating on how disgusting it was. But now to the think of it, should have ate it and imagine that that's how a frog or lizard feels like everyday. Next time when I should meet them in dreams, then I will be able to relate to them in that different level...

What a long simile and side-track. Anyway, but to have experience the peace and delight of my heart still enough to hear the sound of the crunch of the prey of the garden lizard... is something that can really relax me on those dull-jobless-wtf-Recruit-is-3-page-long-again??-days. Like remembering the lizard at interviews will make me feel like standing up and saying, "aiyah, life is too short to be working for you la."

If people ask me why I quit my job to go and do these bo liao things, I also dun know how to answer. Tell them, "because i'm a bit siao" or "because...for the heck of it" or "to write a book", or "to take a break"? Well, all the above is true, but all the above can't accurately describe how all in all it's a good thing, so i also want to "smile and don't answer, ownself feel shiok", but because I don't want to be rude, I will say something simple, and then try to change topic.

So Li Bai's poem puts it well. I do relate to his protagonist here. If people ask me why I quit my job and go and do these bo liao things, my sincerest answer is to quote <<山中问答>> and walk away (or smile and walk away). But if I were to really do that, I'll just feel gek sey and rude also. So, you know, some things can be talked about, and never done, and left better at that. Just as how some times can't be talked about, and left better at that.

Perhaps before this experience and I read the poem or idling things liek that, I'll be like thinking, ah, very charming idyllic picture thing. but after this experience I'll feel, that it can be lived, even for a while. I hope when you're reading me waxing lyrical here about zo bo-ing, you'll feel less distance, at least i'm not from the tang dynasty.

A very important note to take if you're thinking of taking a break from work: Weather is a very important consideration for timing. eg. If you don't like rain, then don't quit during the rainy season, because you'll just be very pekchek. May is the month of great heat. December-January has good northwind. Personally, I'd recommend Dec-Jan, but xmas and newyears takes up a lot of social time. That said, do remember being jobless can also suck big time. so ya. That's life. Do whatever you want.

祝大家笑口常开无优无虑.

Inside jokes - The French Crow

2009-01-17T10:14:00.002+08:00

The French Crow was written because i wanted to change my msn nick from "je m'en fous. je ne veux que chier." to "I'm bored because I'm hard to pleased", and I wanted to write a story to incorporate the french that I had learnt from a friend, so that I won't forget it.

I had wanted to write a simple situation to contextualise the french words, but I was meaning to write a story about how mynahs - as i've noticed nowadays - were flying around in pairs. Like some kind of neighbourhood watch programme. Anyway, my mind and thoughts twitched around and then I chose to write on crow instead. Somehow, in my subconscious, there was also a lady in a red dress in the background. But she wasn't addressed and perhaps, it'll be explored in the mynah story that I might one day write.

Anyway, I think "The french crow" sounds nicer than "the french mynah". The french crow, sounds like something, the french knot, the french horn, the french man? I don't know. The mynah should be malay. The malay mynah - like the malay minah you know? I don't mean to offend. I would also write a story on the chinese pigs. Oh, in fact, I might have already. My pig stories: Sus, and Uncle Hock were both based on chinese characters in my head. Though I concede that is not obvious in the stories. Fine, i'll write one someday.

The first part of the story, waking up to be frightened by a crow - was based on a nightmare I had some years ago. I dreamt that I woke up, and there was a claymation kind of crow scaring the shit wits out of me. So, recalling that, I decided to write the story with that beginning, and see how it goes.

"Je m'en fous. Je ne veux que chier." (pronounced "jer mong foo. jer ner ver ker shi-eh.") means, "I don't care. I only want to shit." I decided to leave most people wondering what that means as it was not so important to translate it in the story, and will be funnier left as an insider joke, and rewarding for people who are reading sneak... so there you have it. It's funny also because that's what the crows do, on trees, they just don't care and just shit on the cars below. It's also a marvel how being on a tree full of crows, they don't shit on each other. I mean, the chances are there right?

Anyway, thanks to laysuan (also my kusudama friend) for teaching me, abeit reluctantly, the coolest bit of french that I know. Enculé (pronounced "on cue leh") is just too vulgar to spout all the time.

Crow in French is "corneille", according to the google translator. So happens, with a dictionary search that Corneille is also Pierre Corneille who is one of the great seventeenth century french playwright. So, I just named the crow "Pierre" (pronouced "Pee-air") which is a variant of the name "Peter". Peter the crow, a black bird, reminded me of the rhyme:

"2 little black birds sitting on a wall,
One named peter, the other named paul.
Fly away peter, fly away paul.
Come back peter, come back paul."

So, the left middle finger, we decided to name paul. It's cute like that.

The rest of the story was constructed on the go. I like it because it's spontaneous, and the story developed in a way that I didn't anticipate, so I was also surprised as I was writing it.

One of my accomplishments of the week is to name my middle fingers. What have you done, huh?

Wind series - The champedek tree

2009-01-14T00:28:00.002+08:00

The champedek tree is one of three stories that I wrote about flying in a single day. I've been moved by the winds lately.

As you may know, I've been looking for jobs and all that lately. My biggest sianness, I think, at the end of both interviews I went for, is that, the weather on that day was nice, but I was unable to enjoy the wind earlier because i was ganjionging about the interviews.

I hope that I can have the good fortune and calmness to appreciate the weather. And I hope that you have that too. Take a bit of time, to notice how the mid-day winds are blowing trees upside-down, and chasing clouds so fast across the sky. it's not like that all the time. it's a very rare thing. Notice how the clouds are wispy looking because of the wind.

Notice too, when the moon is round, and when it's waxing and waning. That it's milky/dusty/yellowy earlier in the night, but as it rises higher into the sky, it's bright white. A few nights ago, I noticed that the moon was so bright white that even when some clouds were blew to cover it, it didn't get covered but shone right true. That defies logic.

Who isn't busy and pre-occupied nowadays? Don't I have better things to do? I do! I need to look for a job. Prepare for interviews. Apply. I need to sell my book. I need to read, I need to blog, I need to eat and watch tv.

But how can you be a human and live life, if you don't spend some time to look at the moon. The moon! the moon allows us to look (not point). THe sun you can't really look, but the moon! find the rabbit. Rather than going jogging and worry about your adrenaline or your heart muscle, look at the moon! look at the stars, the clouds at night. and put up paper butterflies at your window, and romance yourself a little.

I've met a girl who was about 20 years old, when I walked past her in hall, she was starring at the moon. and i asked her, wassup. and she said, "you can see the moon, i didn't know we can see the mood". i said, "what do you mean, as in, you didn't know we can see the moon in this direction?" "no," she said, "I didn't know we can see the moon, without telescope." or something like that. I shit you not. SO, if you have kids, teach them not math, nor the dreaded spelling or mental sums. teach them to appreciate the MOON. the winds, the paper butterflies you put up at their windows.

I wanted to keep all these as little secrets to impress you next time we meet. But I don't think it's a secret to keep, but something to share. Look at the moon, and sing "somewhere out there, beneath the pale moon light, someone's thinking of... me, and loving me tonight". And be happy that we're not Seng Han Thong, or Palestinians watching the sky raining bombs or Isrealis, fighting a war, fending off protestors around the world.

Read somewhere lately, that world peace lies with the individual. Only when every individual believes in the concept and values "world peace", then will world peace be lived.

Current affairs, personal opinions - The Elephants' Tusks

2009-01-05T10:11:00.004+08:00

The Elephants' Tusks was based on:

1) The warring in the middle east. And how a way of supremacy of the religion is exemplified by the tolerance of the people. I have many thoughts about tolerance and it being an underrated virtue.
Maybe the westernised world would emphasis a lot about go-getting and not getting yourself bullied, and very individualistic ideals. But tolerance would bring about graciousness. I personally think believe that instead of campaigns promoting graciousness and Stomp being the society's not-so-secret police, they promote tolerance instead, then we'll all be more gracious. It's not gracious to kaopei about others not being gracious. But when one tolerates another ungraciousness, as opposed to being self-righteous, then one would be inclined not to act in the same way. and... so on. Anyway, that's another theory for another time.

The warring in the middle east. I wanted to write a story where in an alternate world, there's peace in the middle east.

2) And that even if there's peace, there will be disorder again. Peace and disorder, will play and interject each other. The rise and fall of civilisations. blah blah. it's something that will continue to happen, whether obama or mccain become president. Current affairs - are current and not perpetual. Learning it to have conversations at the water cooler is like watching korean drama to have conversations about korean drama. Or joining facebook, to talk about what's happening on facebook. That's what I always feel about current affairs, and will be pekchek when people ask me to brush up on my current affairs, because it really doesn't interest me what, except juicy details like, why mccain go and choose palin - which is as entertaining to wonder about as watching Yes Man by jim carrey.

Anyway, whether the snail/slugs die out or not, it's a passing matter, in the very macrospect. Like how the wiping out of an ant hill is very trivial, when we're kids on an ant massacre. Or it could be very big deal - to an ant.

3) Read a story from zhuang zi, on nations being on snail's antennae, which I quote, violating copyright laws, from here:

(King) Yung of Wei made a treaty with the marquis Thien Mâu (of Khî), which the latter violated. The king was enraged, and intended to send a man to assassinate him...

Hui-tsze...introduced to the king Tâi Tsin-zan, who said, 'There is the creature called a snail; does your majesty know it?' 'I do.' 'On the left horn of the snail there is a kingdom which is called Provocation, and on the right horn another which is called Stupidity. These two kingdoms are continually striving about their territories and fighting. The corpses that lie on the ground amount to several myriads. The army of one may be defeated and put to flight, but in fifteen days it will return.' The king said, 'Pooh! that is empty talk!' The other rejoined, 'Your servant begs to show your majesty its real significance. When your majesty thinks of space-- east, west, north, and south, above and beneath-- can you set any limit to it?' 'It is illimitable,' said the king; and his visitor went on, 'Your majesty knows how to let your mind thus travel through the illimitable, and yet (as compared with this) does it not seem insignificant whether the kingdoms that communicate one with another exist or not?' The king replies, 'It does so;' and Tâi Tsin-zan said, finally, 'Among those kingdoms, stretching one after another, there is this Wei; in Wei there is this (city of) Liang; and in Liang there is your majesty. Can you make any distinction between yourself, and (the king of that kingdom of) Stupidity?' To this the king answered, 'There is no distinction,' and his visitor went out, while the king remained disconcerted and seemed to have lost himself.

I thought about saying that that slug/snails are peace-loving because their antennae housed warring nations. but the story just didnt' turn out liek that.

Now, talking about the elephants tusks doesn't seem that original as compared to a snail's antennae right? I think about changing the elephants back to snails and snails to somethign else, but the story won't flow anymore. The snails don't have trunks. and they won't need to feed each other. so... i suppose my story took a different direction already.

4) Watched man in black on tv again, and the idea of universes being as small as a marble on a cat's collar made me feel that there can be universes with elephants and little animals living on them, and so on. Where is the world of little elephants? maybe in the dirt in my toe nail.
Relevant to the big-small thing as in point 2.

Happy new year to all~.

Should he eat the dog - The poor little boy

2008-12-31T09:41:00.002+08:00

The poor little boy was inspired by learning how to clean candle holders. If I weren't shown, then I wouldn't have known that can just pour hot water to melt the candle wax.

Did the poor little boy eat the dog? What do you think?

That is the question posed by the story is should the poor little boy bring the dead dog home to his mother to eat?

Yes, because the dog is dead and now there is no more dog, and there is only meat.
Yes, because his mother is hungry and the boy is filial.
No, because a filial son should not bring home the moral dilemma to test his mother.

No, because what if they become addicted to the taste of sweet meat and then will go dog hunting one day?
No, because the boy killed the dog, and one should not eat anything whose killing was done by one's own hands - like a tiger in the zoo should not be fed live prey - it'd awaken the animal instinct.

Yes, because if the boy was resilient, the animal instinct wouldn't be easily awakened or at least, it won't be perpetuated.

Yes, because the killing was unintentional, and now a dead dog is just a dead dog.

No, because the dead dog was meant for insects to eat, and everything has its own place in the world. Dead dog feeds maggots. and humans don't eat dogs?

Yes, because humans used to eat dogs prevalently. and the story was set in once upon a time.

No, because nowadays, it's inhumane to eat dogs.
Yes, because it's a dog, it's not a human. It's inhumane to eat pigs and cows too. And grasshoppers and cockroaches.

No, because a dog is closer to humans than to the animals reared for food.

Yes, because that's by today's standards? Ethics evolve across time.

The above is my dilemma as writer of the story. I quite often write and think of the consistency of the characters in this manner, but in the case of the poor boy, I couldn't resolve it for myself, and think it is better to invite the reader to decide... so I left the ending open.

By the way - By the way series

2008-12-24T10:50:00.002+08:00

By the way series of photographs are taken by the way - I was travelling on a road, and I take the pictures. Many of which are from philippines.

My photos are usually unedited because I'm too lazy to edit. So the cropping may be strange. And the colour of the photo may be a little off depending on how clean the car windows were.

Thought long about the title of the collection, until "by the way" occurred to me. I like it, because of the double/triple meanings. Cheap thrills keeps the boring day going.

This part is true - Spaces

2008-12-16T00:10:00.003+08:00

Spaces... loosely based on falling asleep in class.

Debated about the title: Spaces or paces, which is an anagram for space. but decided on spaces because of the spaces in time, spaces in between paces, spaces in between consciousness, and spacing out in class...

This part of the story is true:

I had to wake up this morning to check my emails and my bank account on the internet.

Because I don't have to travel to work nowadays, I just wake up every morning and pop on the computer immediately.

I remember someone asking before, where does all the time go to? The time we save from not needing to mail things and using word processors and travel to the bank. The time saved from modern conveniences.

So I printed a book - All the people imagine

2008-12-09T23:27:00.005+08:00

So I printed a book. You can find out about the book here. It's a slip-shot website that I created about the book and its collection details.

I haven't directly addressed my book production in both meekfreak/sneakspeak. Perhaps I don't know how to begin. I don't quite yet know why I'm addressing now. Perhaps I think I should address it because it's just this huge personal episode for me, but this has happened in such a rapid cascade of events that I don't quite have the time to think what should be said properly, or what are the answers that people want to hear. What do you want to know? Ask me. Or else I don't know what should be said.

Today I spent about half an hour, waiting underneath a tree. I was listening to some Thai pop rock and thought about how lucky I am. When I was home, I found a green caterpillar on my arm. I hope that there aren't any caterpillars in my hair. I flicked it away and then picked it up with a piece of toilet paper, and then I carefully threw the toilet paper out of my bedroom window. I knocked my head against the back of my window, because I was standing on the table so to reach as far out as possible. Poor caterpillar. Displaced. I hope it doesn't feel too lonely. I hope it is not even aware of how lonely it must be.

And I was scrolling around the internet, looking for something to read but I didn't find any. Then I thought that meekfreak/sneakspeak are also huge personal episodes for me, so I'd just try to write something, in case anyone wants to read.

I left my job about 5 months ago. I printed a book and am running out of money. Today's newspapers' headlines were about how the jobmarket is going to suck for the next few months. My mother had asked me if I regret leaving my job. If I were still at it, I would have been there for 2 years come 12th Dec. I remember such things. But I don't remember the birthday of my best friends. I've concluded that I'm a workaholic. But I do love my friends. I don't even remember the birthday of my grandmother. But I do love her. This is a picture of my grandmother.

It was taken a few years ago, when she was healthy enough to make dumplings for the occasion. Those were the best dumplings I've ever tasted, and I suspect, they will be the best that I'll ever taste. I don't know how to make dumplings. But I recently heard about why Mr Qu Yuan killed himself. Apparently, if I remember correctly, he did it to protect his ideals. He believed in the country he worked for (he was a statesman/advisor to the king), but because he knew the country was going to fall, and if he was to watch his country fall, his ideals would smash against the rocks like waves on the shore. So he smashed his head instead, against the rocks of the river bed. Now we all have dumplings to eat. I'm taking for granted that everybody knows dumplings were what the people made to feed the fishes so that they won't feed on Qu Yuan's dead body.

My ah ma is very proud of me that I have printed my book. She doesn't understand English but she would sometime surprise me by knowing some alphabets and understanding snippets of English conversations.

I told her, that now that I've printed the book, I feel that it's no big deal. I have no reason to act humble in front of my grandma, but I really feel that it's a matter of going to the printer with some essays and paying them to print. Sometimes, I have this strange tendency to trivialise my accomplishments. But then again, at the same time, I also know that it's been an arduous undertaking and it's arduous in a way that it cannot be fully articulated, and therefore, perhaps, the effort deserves no further validation. Are you confused? I beg your pardon. I am confused too.

How do I feel? I feel about one hundred levels of emotions that I cannot accurately discern apart.

Some friends reminded me that they are happy to see that the book is finally out. I have been talking about it since forever. (I have records that I wanted to have finished a book more than 5 years ago.) I am embarrassed that it is done so late. But I am comforted that I have friends who are with me for more than 5 years, and who are simply happy for me to see that I've fulfilled my "dream" of producing a book. and to remind me, that simply to have produce them is success already, even if I just stuff them underneath my bed, and then underneath my corpse in my coffin when I finally die.

Indeed. Perhaps now I can say, with this little bit more credibility, if there's anything you want to do, just do it. (I may add that after you do it, you may feel that it was nothing much too, but then again, you may be different from me - you may feel great, or you may feel shittier. Even I may feel different about it tomorrow.) But just go and do it lor. It's not hard to start taking the little steps towards it. It's like stepping stones across a torrent river. Looking at the river - it's fucking scary. But just concentrate on the next stone and worry about the next next stone later. If anyone asks me for any advice, I think that's the best one that I can offer up now.

Some very patient friends, I cannot thank them enough, had to suffer my repetitive questions, that were simply begetting reassurance under the pretence of being rhetorical. How wonderful is life to have people like that around.

And the excitement now lies in what people think about the stories, how they can stand up for themselves. Can they stand up for themselves? When you read them, don't just read into how it has been a fierce undertaking for me, read them for themselves. I hope they stand up for themselves. They are my children. Now that they've been put to print, I can only hope that they'll be independent and make a living for themselves. That's me - I'm a mother like that. Of course I hope that they'll be accomplished in their field. But if they're not, I can't help it either, right? I will be disappointed, but I will not be ashamed. Is that how mothers feel like? I bet some mothers feel ashamed. I hope I won't feel ashamed.

On occasions, I likened my anxieties and the entire experience as a crab (crab eat rotten meat) that sits on my heart and tear off and nibble at the throbbing muscle that's probably sickened by the paranoia and the panic that ran amok. I don't quite know how the analogy works. But I don't want to explain too much.

These are just some examples of how I feel.

My sentiments about putting the book together, accompanied by my instinctive rambling style, could be compiled into a fucking telephone directory - and it may be just as boring to read. The way ahead is curious, exciting, and as scary as... the first day in primary one, except that I'm not in primary one, and there's nobody in my class, and I'm 26 and I am aware of how crazy I feel.

I take comfort that my loved ones and, those who love me, are standing outside the classroom, peering through the window, wishing me well.

The strange thing in my case, is that I am also standing outside a classroom, looking at my children - the stories - perform their first piano recital, or oral examination, or taking their first baby steps - performing for their audiences - who may or may not be my friends who are watching me outside the window of my classroom. It's like living in a M.C. Escher world.

I wish them well, too, and even though they may be like the caterpillar who doesn't know to be afraid at all, I sure am nervous like hell. I did write them, afterall.

I take a deep breath.

Come on, wish me good luck. Luck - one could always do with more good luck.

To the cockroach - The Snake Renter

2008-11-25T12:17:00.004+08:00

The Snake Renter, is loosely written in response to the teachings of yu dan on zhuang zi. Bought a set of 5 vcd that was on sale ($15) that featured 10 half hour lectures, on taoist philosophy. I figured I'd never get down to reading it, and the internet doesn't say much. and even when I'm going to read, i need to read in english, and when zhuangzi was in mandarin, it's actually nicer to understand it by the mandarin language first hand...etc. it was a good purchase.

The snake renter is inspired by what yu dan said about this zen teaching:

(禅宗有这样一句话，叫做)“眼内有尘三界窄，心头无事一床宽”。眼睛里要是有事，心中就有事，人就会看得“三界窄”。三界是什么？前生，此际，来世。只要你眼里的事化不开，心里成天牵挂着，你就会把前生来世、上辈子下辈子都抵押进去。但是，如果你胸怀开朗，心头无事，用不着拥有多大的地盘，坐在自家的床上，你都会觉得天地无比宽阔。

Which translates loosely like this:
眼 eye 内 inside 有 have 尘 dust 三 three 界 world (lives) 窄 narrow，
心 heart 头 head 无 no have 事 things 一 one 床 bed 宽 wide.
If you have a little thing bothering you, then even the three lives (past life, present life, future life) will seem narrow. If you have no care in your heart, then even the bed will be wide to you.

Then one recent night, i lost sleep because before I slept, I saw a baby cockroach at the foot of my bed. I tried to catch it with a box, but it was too fast for the little box and my clumsy frantic incompetent self.

Snake renter because renter means:

rent·er (rntr)
n.
1. One that receives payment in exchange for the use of one's property by another.
2. One that pays rent for the use of another's property; a tenant.

He is one that receives payment - for the cockroach's money and the woman's company.
But he pays rent too - to the woman by being her food. And that he dies - he never owned the cave - he was also renting it.

I don't think it's because the snake is stupid, but he was just acting according to his nature/character (as a personality not the attributed stereotyped characteristics of a snake), as was the cockroach, as was the woman. And the story developed in this way because nature took its course.

I dedicate this story to the cockroach that was under my bed, and as is in my nature/character, I wish for it to be gone by yesterday!

Real brain worms - The earthworms

2008-11-24T08:45:00.003+08:00

Secret Report - The Earthworms was actually written in 2007, i just didn't post it up then, I think because i was lazy to edit it. Apparently, this morning, I heard the radio reported that a woman had a worm in her brain. It's quite common. I don't remember if i did any research on it beforehand, but here are some links from goggle anyway. This is a good and informative video, on how common the parasite is, how it gets transmitted, and that there's actually a medicine you eat and kill the brainworm. The below, the video on the woman reported this morning, i think, less info, more hoo-hah-near death experience my life got meaning now-thing.

The idea of the brain worms... well, i suppose the brain-shape and the bumps are like very worm like. The secret reports resembles the reports i wrote, e.g. The shit king report, in 2006.

On a personal note - Mr Creosote

2008-11-16T23:49:00.003+08:00

Mr Creosote got his name from a Monty Python character, from Monty Python's The meaning of life, who was repulsive and puked and ate and... you can watch the video on the youtube below. He drives me nuts!

hm... MINDER's Mr Creosote is different though, turned out that he is slimmer. But somewhat disgusting too. Kept the name as a little tribute, link, whatever. hmm... maybe he's a younger version of monty python's original, or a very distant cousin's very distant kid. Whatever. Been meaning to write this story since sometime in Sept/Oct, following USED II: MINDER - an introduction, but it was too hard for me to just keep working on the same story line just for the sake of it, i'll just end up rushing it and it won't be nice to write/read. So, apparently, USED shall be written as a series whenever the time is right.

On a personal note, the snot-falling-on-the-sandwich-held-in-mouth bit was inspired when I had a sandwich in my mouth and occupied hands and my nose was itchy. BUT i didn't eat my snot. Not that it's poisonous. or that I am against anyone who ever did eat their snot, but I personally did not.

The Oct 06 Essays: X - Oh my King Sisyphus!

2008-11-05T09:17:00.003+08:00

Oh my Sisyphus! is this riddling piece of thing that well... erm... is riddling. I had the vision described in there. Up til the part of the Dali fairy. Maybe it's about how everything is futile.

Robin Williams (actor) and Che Guevera (revolutionary) and my mother (mother) and Salvatore Dali (artist) and I... we all do everything in futility. and Sisyphus is everybody's king. Except my mother is a little deviant here.

The essay below is written in the way that explains... who is sisyphus... again. I had referred to him in the first oct 06 essay. It's already Nov so I want to put out all the Oct 06 essays. Here's a little trivial about my personal life, today is a special day - 5 Nov 08 - I have been jobless for 4 months.

Oh my king Sisyphus! I should open a bottle of something and drink to him today!

Oh my King Sisyphus!

There has been a lot of mystery shrouding about the myth of Sisyphus, but he is undoubtedly one of the recurring heroes of my joblessness.

Sisyphus was a king of Ephyra (Corinth) in Greek mythology. It is rumored that he was a cruel king, but he is more famed for being the craftiest of men. He was a liar, a strategist, and a master of deceit.

Things seem to start going wrong for him when he went to tell Asopus (the river god), that Zeus (the sort of king of gods) was dating Aegina (the river god’s daughter). Then Asopus got angry with Zeus and Zeus got angry with Sisyphus. So Zeus asked Hades (the god of the dead, also Zeus’s brother) to chain Sisyphus in hell, but Sisyphus made a lot of noise about how Hermes should have came fetch him instead of Thanatos (death), and then tricked Thanatos to chain himself. After tricking a few more people here and there, Sisyphus went back to the human world to stay for a few years and enjoyed himself. He was finally carried back to the underworld by Hermes (who seems to be the god of many things including the cunning of thieves and liars).

As a punishment for his trickery, and especially of his betrayal to Zeus, Sisyphus was ordered to roll a huge rock up a hill. Before he reached the top of the hill, the rock will always escape him, and he had to begin again, and that he does for eternity.

Some people say that Sisyphus and his rock is the sun that rises and sets everyday. Some people say that Sisyphus is the tide of the treacherous sea. I say that Sisyphus is my soulmate for the tormenting ebb of the joblessness that dwells in me. Then again maybe the sun theory is all bogus, and he is just moving a rock around in the underworld. Nothing as glamorous as the sun would be true punishment, for Helios and Apollo must have their own ideas of their own realm. Similarly, there is nothing as cool as the tide of the treacherous sea that will be considered punishment. So, I am forced to conclude that Sisyphus is punished by just moving a rock around and is my soulmate for the tormenting ebb of joblessness in me. It is tormenting because I know that jobfulness is futile and boring. That jobfulness is pushing that rock up and joblessness is the time when he chases the rolling stone down the hill.

How great and capable is Sisyphus to trick so many people, but how dearly he is to pay with such a punishment. Will he one day stop for good? He must trick the nearby underworld dwellers to hold the rock in place for him as he goes gallivanting and exchanging name cards with me.

With technology and progression I’m sure that over the years he must have tricked some of his descendents who became engineers and architects to build him another system to move the rock.

And marketing executives to cheer them on and accountants to figure out the costing and the profit, and cooks to feed these buggers and event managers to entertain these people, and poets and songwriters to sing the futile lives of these people and teachers to teach the children of these people…

And I, the jobless, to feel tormented and touched and untouched and left out.

(For who am I trying to kid? Sisyphus is king. Free of his boulder, he is still king.)

The Oct 06 Essays: IX - At times it just makes sense...

2008-11-05T08:57:00.004+08:00

At times it just makes sense... is about well, driving. the title is taken from a charles bukowski collection titled "you get so alone at times that it just makes sense". It's a book of poems i bought from tower books when it was still around.

Written at a time when I was driving in my parent's pickup. I'll talk about it in the essay below.

The phrase "rusty-more-rain-harbouring-sky"... has a background. I wrote many years ago, looking out of my hostel window, with reference to the night sky that's about to rain. Back then the phrase was "Like a fist clenched in restraint, like the rusty sky harbouring rain". something like that. Been wanting to use that phrase for a long time. Still want to use that phrase properly... I have pictures.

The rusty sky looks like this.
Loved the view, the houses always look like they're from a xmas card. This is when the lightning flashed across the sky...

Wonder who's living in the room now... It's been so long ago.

How Xiaobai got its name

Xiaobai means “little white” and is my parents’ white pick-up truck that I drove around especially when I worked for my parents’ company.

It is a pretty old truck, it has been around for about fifteen years, but it does not look so old. It is from Nissan. My brother used to drive it to school when he was 18, but after a while he is driving another car now. So, the pickup is generally at still my disposal, and I like it very much. There is something about Xiaobai that makes me feel that it is heartbroken, but since it doesn’t say much, I won’t probe. Maybe it is about my brother, but I feel that I shouldn’t interfere.

Xiaobai has analog car locks, such that everyone except the driver should lock the door before slamming it close; the driver’s door will have to be locked with the key. This is so that we will not lock the door with the keys inside. Also Xiaobai has analog window winders, and a squeaky accelerator pedal.

There was this one time I fetched my mother with Xiaobai, to Cycle and Carriage, where they fix Mercedes cars. My mother made me go inside with her, and I parked Xiaobai next to the Mercedeses, and it was drizzling lightly.

At the end of the ordeal, my mother was fussing over me and an umbrella, and I said without thinking,

“No time for that, I have to rescue Xiaobai.”
“Who is Xiaobai?” she asked me back curiously.
“The pick-up.” I said, surprised at myself that I called it Xiaobai.
“Rescue from what?” she asked me again curiously.

I shared this feeling with Xiaobai that inherently, we feel nothing wrong with ourselves and we are proud of who or what we are. When juxtaposed with people or cars that look glamorous and dress nicely and feel expensive, they sometimes make us doubt ourselves. Sometimes, when we compare with a lot of them, we feel inferior and out of place. Just as if we place a pretty looking car in the middle of Xiaobais’ alikes, it will too feel out of place and perhaps a little useless because pick-ups are hardy and can do many things pretty cars cannot.

It does not matter if the rest of the cars at Cycle and Carriage were snooty or were bullies, but Xiaobai will sure feel uncomfortable when all of them were of the same kind.

There are some people who think it cool and bohemian. There are some people who really think that driving a pick-up around is quite cheapskate. But driving a pick-up around is actually neither cool nor cheapskate, or both cool and cheapskate.

That’s one thing I miss most about my previous job, driving Xiaobai around.

The Oct 06 Essays: VIII - Sometimes I rest my forehead

2008-11-03T11:52:00.002+08:00

Sometimes I rest my forehead is a description of a fantasy of self-mutilation. Sometimes visions of stabbing myself in my face occurs to me. No I haven't done it yet. I never imagine the pain. But there is usually blood. I dunno why I think of it.

I suppose, sometimes, I don't know why I do things but I do.

I shall make it my latest thing to ask people why they do things. Why they write they they draw why they sing, why they take photos. WHY. email me if you know why you do things. that are not for the money. unless you wanna go into why you need the money for? that'll just be a mess of knotted snakes having sex.

I dust my keyboard

Packing my room has become my therapy, and writing about it is growing into an obsession.

Yesterday night, I was trying to reach rock bottom of a sadness that I feel that I should deny no longer. I don’t know why I feel sadness for, and that is probably why I have been rejecting its onset, and every few days, I feel miserable, but I wipe it away with joblessness and job hunting. I presume it comes from existential anxiety largely, about what I don’t want to do with my life and what I want to do with my life, but I truly don’t know. Well, to stop these random onsets of unhappiness, I figure that’s what I need to do. Mourn irrationally.

I don’t know why I want to stop these random onsets of unhappiness, but one of the reasons must be because I have visions of myself stabbing my temple with a katana. I envision that the katana will go in cleanly, and come out cleanly. That seems to be the property of katanas, neat and clean, and usually spurting blood, but in my vision there’s no spurting blood. I wish I have no blood sometimes. Anyhow, I suppose I want to stop these random vision onsets because I have lost control over them, and it is torturing me.

Last night, instead of going to bed when I had nothing to do, I was compelled to dust my keyboard. My computer keyboard that is, the one that I am typing with right now. Looking into my stationery supplies, I find some paint brushes and I had to use a pretty small one to get in between the keys. If you dust around in between the keys, I presume you too would find the dust to roll into dust balls that look like laundry lint, but grosser.

I was surprised by the amount of dust beneath the keys of my keyboard. The particularly dirty places where around the backspace and the enter keys. Either I am right, or I was just tired by the time I got to them. Anyways, it was really pretty dirty. If I laid out all the dust balls, I presume I can cover about six computer keys’ at least.

There was a point, when I was scooping out the dust balls, when I asked myself if I knew what I was doing. It must be pretty ridiculous, dusting my keyboard at 3 am in the morning, with a little paint brush. Then, as I was scooping out a little piece of potato chip, I knew that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Is my keyboard perfectly clean right now? I doubt it. I bet I will at least need to turn it around and give it a few good pats on the back to knock out what’s left. Yet I don’t suppose that I will do that. It will be interesting to pour sand or soil into to the keyboard and some seeds to grow some grass or tiny flowers.

The Oct 06 Essays: VII - Central Themes

2008-10-28T09:56:00.005+08:00

A central theme to my writing is that "Happiness is in the details." Chanced upon an essay before about how happiness may be found in the details and that idea has been ingrained into my system. I think it can be noticed across many of my pieces that I'd zoom into some details. So that's where I'm stemming from. I probably find the details interesting to imagine. and I probably think that people may find the details interesting to read.

The below essay briefly mentions the essay, but is mostly about what I think about idling. Most of the time when I write something that's meant to be read, I write from the point of view of a persona that don't expresses exactly what I believe in. Even though it may sound very much like me, there are some things that I will write that doesn't express my sincere feelings, so that I can write things for dramatic or comic effect. I used to hate it when people assume that somethings I write on meekfreak reflects my sincere state of mind, because the works are obviously fiction. But i've come to terms with it now. It's okay if people want to attribute that. It's up to them to do whatever they want.

Even the Oct 06's jobless persona expresses things that are not really me. 'cos the essays were written to be read. The persona may be very close to heart, but it's really not what I'm thinking exactly. The Oct 06 essay's "jobless persona" will continually both marvel and kaopei about being jobless - in alternating essays. It's to show the dilemma, really, and to demonstrate the contradiction more coherently. But when I'm really writing about jobless being nice, I'm already thinking about how being jobless sucks, but the persona haven't thought about how being jobless sucks so to continue ranting about the persona's topic of the day. Oh well, this is getting boliao to explain.

Anyway, I think that being jobless is really nice and not nice. It's got 2 sides. It's not easy for everyone to be jobless. To be on extended leave is one thing. To be jobless by choice is another thing. There's tremendous pressure. E.g being jobless, one must be very resilient to many people accusing him of "wasting his life". I think the essay below explains it quite well. If you're thinking of taking a break from work, you should read the below before you act recklessly. It's not as easy as you think it's going to be.

This year, 28 October is a Tuesday.

28 October, 2006 (Saturday):
Lin Yutang and the Cult of Idleness

Reading what I wrote yesterday, I am laden with a sentiment of irony for I am jobless. Maybe it was because I wrote it on a Friday night and what I felt last night closely resembles what I feel every Friday night after work. I wrote with so much advocacy, and puzzling conviction.

Coincidentally, I was packing my room today and I came across a copy of an essay by Garrison Keillor, “In Praise of Laziness” that was published in Time magazine from issue of September 10, 2001. (I purposefully list the date of the issue, to show you that I really did find a copy of this essay, and lead you to believe that I am really packing my room.) In this essay, Keillor talks about not working, and praises not working. He was on a five week vacation.

This essay is particularly important to me, because Keillor taught me one thing with this essay, that is, “Happiness is in the details.”

An indolent man awakes in the morning and thinks, “Wow. A shower with shampoo with aloe in it. The orange juice not made from concentrate. Seven-grain toast with butter. Jamaican coffee. One Across: A waiteress (slang),” and he gets all giddy and happy.

The idea of happiness being in the details influenced me a lot ever since I read this article. The above passage changed my life forever. It was like I opened a door to a new world of happiness. It is true, the happiness is there, you should try to find it if you haven’t already. I thought this was such an important message that I tried to tell as many people as I could so that they can open the door to this happiness too. In fact, I made photocopies of this essay for my friends to read it, and it was a photocopy of this essay that I found.

Reading this essay again, however, I certainly have mixed feelings about it.

Keillor spoke about this doing nothing after a five week vacation, and he professed himself to be an authority on the subject of indolence. I have been jobless for about seven weeks now, and taking away the time I have spent applying or looking for a job, I must have at least five weeks and one day of doing nothing, therefore, must assume higher authority in talking about doing nothing. If you are not persuaded by what I said about money yesterday, and rightly so, because I’m jobless, then at least give me a chance on the topic of idleness.

I profess myself to be a tormented member of the cult of idleness. I believe in the true value of not working and leisure time, and how leisure gives rise to many good and beautiful things of human beings or being itself. Sitting around, not doing anything related to your real occupation, doing things you simply to enjoy, dancing around, taking photos, eating chocolate, etc. I am tormented by my guilt and as a human, I too want to belong and relate with the larger part of rest of the world, who are seemingly jobful.

This entire essay, that I am writing or that I am writing on, is an example of how idlers always have to account or substantiate for why we are not doing anything. It is as if people need to convince others that doing nothing feels good, and people should go for something that makes us feel good. Try it, you’ll feel good too! This obviously points to that there is no convenient tolerance for idleness that we can take for granted. It is like by default, idling is wrong.

The conscience of my beliefs is stolen, and with it, my heart. Finding a good job with high prospects and therefore high acceptance by my jobful peers, will take away my dreams of a good life, and so, I am tormented.

If Bertrand Russell’s opinion that people should work for around four hours of work each, then maybe the world will be a nicer and better place, was taken more seriously, then life should be easier for me. But perhaps Russell was painting a blue print for a utopia and the only way for me to retain my beliefs is to be disgruntled, and do it despite of myself and then everyone else.

Then there is Lin Yutang and how he managed to hide in his philosophies on the importance of living in midst of everything that happened around him. I am especially taken to Lin Yutang, because he is Chinese, and so am I. He advocates the ancient poetic Chinese idling and we share a pride that we, Chinese, thought of it first. Reading him makes me feel that all the Taoists and the ancient poets will be supportive of the wisdom in my decisions. That makes me feel less afraid, but lonelier because I’m wearing jeans and watching tv everyday receiving and sending sms on my mobile phone and not wearing layers of chiffon, going to a waterfall to drink a merry wine, enjoy the company of the moon and tying some messages on a homing pigeons’ leg.

It dawns upon me how wrong it is for me to be persuaded by them blindly and how great they think it is to do nothing. This is because all of them are already great achievers in their field. Keillor, Russell, and Lin Yutang who advocated, in one way or another, idling, were good entertainers or writers and therefore, rich enough to idle. If I had the opportunity to achieve so much, it is okay to not feel anymore tenacity and feel as ‘above it all’ as them about achieving and working. I, on the other hand, am jobless and not already famous. Even Tom Hodgkinson published a few books on idling already.

True, I am not starving or down to my last dollar, but I am not secured either.

Therefore I must insist that I understand at least one thing better than them, and that is the torment of the idling spirit. I already understand the important of idling and loafing, and how meaningful it can be, but songs like the importance of being idle by Oasis and most of the literature makes doing nothing sound too easy. This is quite bad impression management, if you think about it. We should tell the world that it's hard work and hope that they will give us a break.

It is not easy to idle anymore and idling is definitely not the easy alternative to working. To me, it might be the more meaningful alternative to working, but I have a real choice to exercise here. The pressure, the responsibility, the dream of idling, the headaches, the lack of money, the parents, and everything that matters torment my idling spirit. Give me a break, doing nothing is not inherently bad, like doing something. Inaction is the lack of action, and action is the lack of inaction.

I think I am truly struggling with myself, and caught in between the choices that I feel for but dare not exercise. The underachiever, who can achieve more, struggles to underachieve.

I am, at this moment, bitterly jealous and horribly unsatisfied by myself.

The Oct 06 Essays: VI - ?

2008-10-24T08:08:00.004+08:00

Can't think of any link to other pieces. Just put this here for reads. It's about money. I think the second most toughest part about being jobless is the money. The toughest part is the people thinking that not working is like I'm a useless.

Death Matches

There are compensations to being jobless, you know. For the lack of money, I get a lot of leisure time. Lin Yutang, who wrote on the importance of living, educated me not to waste my leisure time, and I must treasure, appreciate it, and use it wisely.

So, yesterday in a bid to maximize my leisure time, as I was packing or cleaning my room, I also watched a Chinese movie on a DVD that my friend lent me. This Chinese movie is about a fighter who fought death matches for fun. And here I was packing my room for fun.

As I watched the characters batter each other with force and skill, a spontaneous questions came to me, and the internal dialogue is as follows:

“Do the fighters get money out of this?”
No, it doesn’t seem like it. (The best fighter becomes bankrupted.)
“Do the fighters get some product sponsorship or endorsement fee if they become famous?”
No, it doesn’t seem like it either. It looks like they are just fighting for fun and glory.
“Why do I think about money so much?”

I don’t know why I think about money so much. Perhaps it is because I don’t have enough of it. Or it is because the modern day fighters are all fighting for money, because nobody really cares enough to give them any glory. Or it doesn’t occur to me at all that fighting can be fun. But noticing that I think about money so much makes me feel a little embarrassed and guilty.

In religious Taoism, there is a money god, or the god of wealth. I am not sure if there are also money gods in other religions. With all imagined prejudices aside, from my professedly amateurish point of view, I think this is telling of at least one thing: the religious Taoist thinks money is governed by gods of fate, and money is like the wind, or good weather, or good marriages (also governed by gods).

The Taoist’s ideas of many things are governed by gods of fate. There are gods who dictates the natural forces, for example, and there are many Earth Gods (土地公), a Goddess of the Sea (媽祖), and a Thunder God (雷公) who also judges filial piety. There are also many other gods, like Confucious (孔子公) who will help with good grades and academic achievements, and Guan Yu (關公) is the God of Justice. These pagan gods are manifestations of the forces of nature, and with the Money God (财神爷) alongside, we can begin to imagine how the Taoists envision money to be as fluid as the weather or as Justice. We pray so that these forces will work with us and not against us, or we pray so that the Gods will be kind to us.

Like I said about putting the prejudices aside, and just looking at this phenomenon as some socio-ideology or something similar, we can notice this and wonder together.

I did not read George Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” where Gordon fought with the money god, but I heard he lost the futile fight, because he thought the money god will take up the fight, from start to the end, he was just fighting with himself. What a waste of time for Gordon, so let us not busy ourselves with this imagined antithesis. The Money God will not fight with us. If you were a god, do you think you will fight with a human? Who do you think you are? Will a God of Justice fight you? Will a Thunder God fight you? He will either punish you or reward you, and you better take it easy.

Back to why I think about money so much. I think money is the new denomination of modern society. In order to understand across cultures or another person money is universal. Whether one denies himself of the influence of money on his decisions or lets money dictates all his decisions, one has the option to use money or money’s expression to explain his actions.

Q: Why did you buy that?
A: Because it was cheap.
Q: Why did you buy that?
A: Because I am rich.
Q: Why do you ignore him?
A: Because he is poor.
Q: Why do you hate him?
A: Because he is rich.

This is the new world that is driven by forces of money, and instead of denying it, I must recognize it. Only with recognizing it, can I recognize its limitations. Like with the death match fighters, I can recognize that they might be fighting for glory or dignity. There are also things like integrity and fear for life, or dreams, or art, or food, to fight for. When we recognize the power of money and accept its influence and how you can use two dollars to eat another ice-cream or buy another old man a cheeseburger, then can we tai-chi the force of money to affect change. Then can we harness it with like how we harnessed the wind to move the sailboats. The masters or heroes of this fashion are the Gates couple and Sir Shaw Run Run.

If we make money the embodiment of greed and all things bad, we are forcing ourselves to go against money. It becomes a death match of good and evil within each one of us. This is the reason why I will feel the sense of guilt when I think I think too much about money.

When there is a death match, one must win, and one must lose, and it becomes a struggle to be good and poor or rich and evil. This is an unnatural antithesis! This is unnecessary! Maybe I want to be good and rich! Maybe you want to be good and rich!

My brothers and sisters of the human race let us not fight the futile fight against the Money Gods. It is unnatural to fight. Let us not impeach ourselves against ourselves, but accept the humanity in money and end the struggle.

Birthday treats - Kusudama Fairy

2008-10-21T10:01:00.004+08:00

Kusudama Fairy is written for my good friend Lay Suan, who has the same birth day as me. I always find it very interesting how we became friends under the circumstances we met. We share a lot of similar opinions, e.g. we both usually count down to our birthdays, and that this year, we both didn't really. Anyway, she makes kusudama as gifts and gave me this kusudama.

Kusudama is well explained in wiki here.

The Japanese kusudama (薬玉; lit. medicine ball) is a paper model that is usually (although not always) created by sewing multiple identical pyramidal units (usually stylized flowers folded from square paper) together through their points to form a spherical shape.

Paperunlimited features many pretty kusudamas, and this post in particular features a similar one from the one I received, saying that it's a traditional kusudama. Which fits the story well.

Mio TSUGAWA’s site, features many diagrams and how tos. I find the following important points to improve skills of folding very good. It makes me want to seriously pick up origami.

# Get the skills of deception.To do origami is continuation to make a margin of errors.To pretend that works are beautiful is important skills.
# Don't be much serious.
# If when you will complete the work, you must show it off to everybody, be proud of it , and boast about it.

Also, a lucid dream is when one is aware of being in a dream.

The Oct 06 Essays: V - 面线、红鸡蛋

2008-10-20T16:28:00.003+08:00

面线、红鸡蛋 is just a liner that is so short and that I shouldn't link to it, but I'm writing low on things from chaMOTOM that I can link with the Oct 06 essays.

It's the way chinese cook mee sua and 2 boiled eggs (dyed red) on birthdays. And that it's a very touching thing to have.

Excerpts from 27 October 2006 (Friday): Happy Birthday

It was my twenty-fourth birthday a few days ago. A friend on chat messaged me on the eve this is our conversation:

He: Happy birthday.
Me: Thanks.
He: Are you going to celebrate?
Me: I don’t know.
He: What is the point anyway?
Me: Well… it is an excuse to spend money without guilt. (Now that I’m jobless, I’ve been painfully thrifty.) I can go get drunk!
He: What is the point of getting drunk anyway?
Me: I don’t know.

Now, the above exchange makes me look like an idiot. That’s how the cynic makes everyone else feels unless you agree, or pretend to agree. Damn them and their fucking rhetorical questions. If the point in celebrating or getting drunk is of any relevance, then tell me what is the point of wishing me a happy fucking birthday?

***

The funny thing is that about half a year ago, I resolved to a friend that I will be jobless by my birthday, and I fulfilled that. Half a year later, on my birthday, I am jobless and it is meaningless as well.

The Oct 06 Essays: IV - Environmentalism

2008-10-18T08:19:00.005+08:00

Environmentalism is based on an idea that will dawn upon me once in a while. That is, all the development that we have, the computers and internet and pollution, is actually an extension of nature.

There's too much talk that it's machine vs nature. I feel sorry and sad for the trees and the trees that die. One day, in the Oct 06 Essays, I described how I decide that we're not against the environment, we're part of it. I still feel sorry for the dying forests. It's just another way of looking at it, I suppose.

Wrote Environmentalism when was walking in Orchard Road and heard the construction sounds. I thought that they sounded like screaming rocks. If rocks could scream of pain, surely it'll sound like the sound they make when they are cut with diamond blade. Screaming rocks or iron or whatever. If anything inanimate could scream of pain, it'll be the sound they make when diamond blades cut through them. Or the sound they make when they're burnt with a welding fire.

Not the first time I wrote about construction sounds. It's also mentioned in the Quality of life.

Nature and a Red Plastic Bag Abomination

At this point it is important I feel, to share with you a new point of view that dawned upon me only just, and I don’t know why it occurred to me so late.

One jobless day, a few weeks ago, I went down town to the busiest of the business district to watch the crowds rush around. I sat there in the middle of buildings and watched the shiny tall buildings and the giant television screen blasting advertisements. I watched them and listened to the noise in the wind, and heard faint rumblings of a road construction somewhere not too far from me.

After a while, I walked to the Singapore River to watch the ebbing of the water flowing from the sea or to the sea, I do not know. The ripples and the sunset soothed me, and I was calm enough to wonder about the dead leaves and red plastic bag floating on the water.

A grey tabby cat came to stand beside me.

On another jobless day, sometime two weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on li jiang, china. There is an ancient town in li jiang, where people still reside. This ancient town is built upon the network of the li jiang river that runs through the place. The roads are curved and bent to the river, and not parallel grids. The people respect the river, and drink from it in the morning and wash in it in the afternoon. This li jiang ancient town has a river, and this li jiang river has an ancient town.

As I was watching tv, maybe I fell asleep or for some other reason, my consciousness went out for a while. When it came back, I realized that li jiang old town was the desired piece left of my jigsaw puzzle of understanding what is going on.

Somehow, somewhere, at some point in time, we human beings came to think that technology is at odds with nature. Some person, full of awe or jealousy, marveled at the industrialist opposing the nature, or vice versa. Now by that theory, makes me feel that living in a plastered room with clothes hanging from the back of my door and typing into a computer I don’t understand how it works about typing, makes me feel unnatural.

Look at lijiang old town, and how she came by across the so many years from a farmer village or something. Look at me now, living in my town, and how I came about from a town like lijiang old town.

The thing is, I think everything is a actually natural progression of nature. We keep thinking that humans are violators of nature, like a superpower who exist sub naturally, like an abomination, but truly, the computer we type into, the ceaseless advertisement from the super tv screen, the literature that we read, are just natural progressions. Just as natural as the viruses that are sent to disrupt our physical body, and the computer viruses that are sent to disrupt our piece of mind, industrialization and commercialization are sent to disrupt the old nature.

The ebbing of the human crowds is as natural as the ebbing of the water in the river. The giant advertisements are like the sunset on the river. The road constructions are as natural as the wind that carries their voices. The fallen leaves in the river are, as the fallen red plastic bag, natural.

It is often awkward to realize though, after the long time of thinking about how man made we are. Yet, the truly, we are what happened and are happening. Maybe the ozone layer will mend itself, or humans will extinct ourselves before potable water runs out. Whatever way the natural progression of things will take us, we must humbly execute and stop thinking that we are above nature’s fate and recognize the greater forces. With recognition of the greater forces, we can once again reconcile with the world we live in, and love everything we love without feeling guilty.

The Oct 06 Essays: II - The kite flyer

2008-10-13T22:15:00.004+08:00

The Kite Flyer... expresses sentiments from when I went kite flying when I was picking up a new hobby thing, when I was more recently jobless. The photo was taken in Hang Zhou, on a bridge on the West Lake, around evening. Friend and I were on our graduation trip. We sat on a curb to watch the old man fly kite for a long time.

Then we were inspired by him, and his reel that had ball-bearings and was cool. So, we went to buy too.

Below, part II of the oct 06. The connections with the kite flyer are:
1) both written during periods of joblessness
2) about new pastimes
3) one of the kites I was recently flying is one of the kites I found in the description below (in red).

Maybe I should have bought more things on my graduation trip. Or maybe I should go for another one. *shrugs*

Germany’s Gateway to the World

About one or two weeks ago when I thought that I was about to be offered a job, I panicked and thought about the ideal time to start work. That was when I stopped forcing myself to send out application letters to stall the dreaded interviews. I think I did not yet come to terms with the not working and the start working.

You know how after a serious romantic relationship, you cannot immediately plunge into another serious romantic relationship? That is exactly how I feel. Yet another part of me, for fear of joblessness, kept on pushing me to go apply for more jobs. Somehow I was telling me that I should at least find a fling, a temporary job or something part-time. The other parts of me just want to stay home and watch bad tv.

So when I thought about the ideal time to start work, I did not have an answer. My friend told me that I should be expected to take up the job immediately, starting work as soon as possible.

“Really? I can’t say I want to start two weeks later?”
“What do you think? You think you can just say, sorry I need to clean my room first, give me a few weeks, thanks.”

Regardless of whether I had wanted two weeks, or if they would have given me if I was offered the job, I realized that I really want to clean my room.

Besides, I needed a new pastime. At least that’s what a lot of people have been telling me.

“Ju-Lyn, you know what, you should go get a hobby.”

Maybe I say I’m bored too often, though I say I’m bored because I am. But anyway, I thought, so many people can’t be wrong. So I decided to look for a hobby. I can’t swim, so sea sports are out, and dancing doesn’t interest me. I’m jobless so I can’t go for anything expensive, and I don’t feel creative about thinking up what new hobbies I could try out. So, one boring evening, I decided to pack my room. For the people who recall having ventured into my hostel room, you can try to imagine how bad my home room is. I’ve lived in here for 12 years and never had to move out of it. I was such a sentimental you know, pretty much everything that doesn’t rot, I keep. I even kept sweet wrappers. I seemed to like to stuff things out of sight and forget about them.

Anyway for the past few days now, I have been packing my room. It’s strangely therapeutic. I think I am beginning to understand now why some people want to do it every week or so.

When I was packing my room today, I decided to do something drastic. You see, for the 12 years that I’ve moved in, I did not quite ever try to remove the things underneath my bed. You see, when I moved in when I was around 12 years old, I had a lot of things, amongst which, an unframed completely assembled jigsaw puzzle of Hamburg Harbor, Germany. It measures somewhat 50cm by 75 cm. It’s the 1000 pieces kind, but one piece got lost on moving day. For the past 12 years, the 999 pieces of Hamburg Harbor rested underneath my new bed. I always knew it was there. It always knew I was sleeping above it. For the past 12 years.

So, like I said, I had decided to do something drastic, I decided to clear out the space under my bed.

Before I got to the jigsaw puzzles, which was close to the wall, and almost furthest away from me, I fished out:
1 box of book marks,
2 kites,
2 brand new babies’ milk bottles,
1 florescent green golf ball,
1 bag of old textbooks (including my Secondary 1 Science textbook),
1 pair of terracotta figurines with dried moss bits,
2 bricks of white clay,
And many other things.

However, the moment I felt like Steve Zissou was when I pulled out all 999 pieces of Germany’s gateway to the world. I stared at the dust patterns that collected over the years. The dust accumulated dust. I dare not breathe... for fear of the dust mistaking my breathing as a challenge to attack me. I beheld it, like Zissou would his son, Ned Plimpton.

Then I took 1 hour to coax to break up the 999 neatly in 6 stabs and laid them on paper and kept them away in a box.

I proceeded to remove the piece of paper Hamburg was on, and discovered that the moment I felt most like Steve Zissou was when I found a Mickey Mouse almost completed jigsaw puzzle underneath Hamburg. I had completely forgotten about it. Although upon seeing it, I recognized it. It is 700 pieces of Mickey Mouse, forgotten for the past 12 years. I beheld it with awe, and made a strange face, like how you would the crayon pony fish.

Then I took five minutes to break it up hastily and stuffed it into another box. At the end of that, with all the monsters underneath the bed either packed in boxes, or strewn around, or in the trash bag, I mopped as much of the floor that I could with a rag and my brother’s golf club.

Finally, I marvelled at how for the first time in 12 years there is nothing underneath my bed.

The Oct 06 Essays: I - The secret of HK

2008-10-06T11:07:00.008+08:00

...The secret of HK... is truly based on a friend who is an example of many others. It is centred around the theme of working and existential crisis.

Existential crisis, derived from Existentialism, is the psychologic panic and discomfort experienced when a human confronts questions of existence. This phenomenon, presumably, is common to technologically-advanced cultures, wherein physical survival is not life's priority. (excerpt from here.)

This theme is central to many of my other writings, for example, also Mr Monday. The Oct 06 essays explores the theme too. I was jobless then.

There is a perpetual dilemma with working and not working. On one hand of the dilemma is the idea that I don't feel like working because of the inherent lack of relevance work is to my interest and I should just do what I want because life is short. On the other hand, I feel compelled to work because there's social pressure. This second hand is explored in the extract from the first Oct 06 essays. Here the narrator/perspective is desperately making sense of being jobless. It is as desperate as how he describes the jobfuls are desperate to make sense of working.

26 October 2006 (Thursday):
I am Jobless (Extract)

These are the few reasons why people who have a job are deemed superior to those who are jobless :

1) I work therefore I am. – Identity affirmation
Think about the average grown-ups’ “getting to know you” conversations:
“Hi, I’m Ju-Lyn. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hi, I’m Sisyphus. Nice to meet you too.”
(Awkward silence follows if there are no cards exchanged in which case both parties will read the card and are taken aback by the size of the organization the other is working at or the position of employment, or both. Since I am jobless, I don’t have a card, so I can only receive a card from Sisyphus, Ex-King/Founder of Ephyra, Rock ‘n Roller.)
“Here is my card,” Sisyphus smiles.
“Thank you. I must apologize, I don’t have a card.”
“Oh so what do you do?”
“I am jobless.” I hurry justify why I'm jobless, or change the topic, otherwise the awkwardness would crush the both of us. Asking about Ephyra which I cannot pronounce will only undermine my position further. “So Wow, you are a Rock ‘n Roller?”

Why do we pretend that the word “Manager” or “Assistant Executive” give us any insight to that person’s life. What the hell man? I don’t know if it is just me, but look, these two terms help me understand somebody much less than “Married” or “Single”.

2) Work is cool! - Barrier of self-preservation and retention.

The workers subconsciously think, “Look if I have to work, might as well establish some snootiness about it. If I am spending almost all of my waking hours being a “support officer” I might as well be snooty about it right? If I don’t be snooty about it, I might realize that I don’t want to work and don’t like it at all if I quit then I will have no identity I won’t know who I am so, so, so let me over-compensate, I will be snooty! Let me gang up with all the snoots in my department, and then organization, and then the rest of the working world. I will work because it is cool!”

The workers consciously think, “Better complain about work because that will humanize me and let people think that I’m not snooty so that they will gang up with me to bully the jobless. So that more and more people work and less and less people will remind us how good it is to not work and enjoy life I better get myself more liabilities lest in moments of weakness I will quit and enjoy life and regret when life will still suck I am going to buy a car now!”

I wish I did not care about being jobless, but I do because I am afraid to take the road less travelled. But also, more of a reason is because I feel so left out. I want to work and be thought of as cool too.

3) Those who work are usually Richer than those who don’t. – Materialistically, and Spiritually.

My neighbour owns two red Ferraris and some other red sports convertible automobiles that I don’t identify but I know that it belongs to the same family because they have the same license plate number.

The truth is I know I don’t want to own so many cars ever in my life. Yet, like a faulty neuron embedded into my mind, I am envious.

Suddenly, the rich are like the new idols. Like how Ozzy Obsourne or Kurt Cobain, or Thomas Hardy or Superman are idolized. Now the rich like Donald Trump, or Warren Buffet are like bloody superheroes. It is like we want to be as rich as them.

If you have a job, you are like closer to our idols than me, the jobless. If you are closer to our idols than me, you must be better than me, the jobless.

--

Now, with these reasons set in place, how can I not be unsatisfied?
I have no identity. I am not cool. I am inferior to you, the jobful.

The jobless 26 Oct 2006 arc & part III - Silverfish graveyard

2008-10-04T12:48:00.004+08:00

Silverfish graveyard was written as part of a very large arc which I just found. It's a series of essays written from 26 Oct 2006. Just counted them and there are 10 essays in the 20 page document, some essays have sub sections. Silverfish graveyard is essay 3.

For the better informed, I am currently jobless again. Again, because I was also jobless when I wrote the 26 Oct 2006 arc. The essays had themes about joblessness and packing my room. Generally, they very much expressed confusion about whether working was important or not important, and whether I want to work or not. So, reading through the essays, I found that they were still very relevant to me. Over the next posts, I shall share them in parts with you, so you get a laugh or two; and mostly because some of the themes expressed were eventually distilled and embedded in my other pieces, which I shall try to draw the relevance; and partly because they're already written and they're readable. I write quite a bit that I didn't post up, though you'll find that they were written such that they were meant to be read.

Other than that, silverfish graveyard is largely autobiographical, or at least to a large degree more autobiographical than my other pieces. I really did find damn lots of dead silverfish in a corner of the room. They were grey flakes like dust specs. but they had feelers and wtf. The essay was structured loosely based on the scientific method.

Chanced upon - Mr Jiang

2008-09-24T09:53:00.004+08:00

Had posted a sneak on Mr Jiang already so won't link this one, mostly because I feel lazy to. Found an idol of Mr Jiang in a remote place in the mountains. Cool eh?

Well, it's cool to me.

Unexpected pictures - Beach

2008-09-08T10:39:00.004+08:00

Beach is an unexpected picture taken in Japan. Was with my father and associates on the way somewhere. Made a pit stop for the toilet or for lunch - I don't remember. It was at a restaurant by the sea. Saw an image and took the picture while waiting for something else to happen.

I like this picture a lot though it was taken without much deliberation.

My parents never brought me to the beach when I was young. Or at least, they did so few a times, that I can't remember. It's okay. They were busy working. I understand and don't feel sorry for myself. The only inconvenience that caused me was how I would need to make up the essays in primary school when the teacher assigned topics like that, "a day at the beach" or "a day at the park". I could do "a dinner at a restaurant" or "lunch at the market". But whatever. I bet damn lot of kids made up those stories too. The problem with making up those essays is that the teachers didn't encourage surrealism and they were too predictable and boring to make up and boring to write. I think they should encourage more free play, it would also make marking the essays more interesting and less of a chore.

The point of essays is just to teach grammar and construction, right? The same lessons can be learnt. The same derogatory red scribbles could be made.

A day at a beach.

On a sunny day, my parents decided to bring us to the beach. So we packed some sandwiches and went. But it was so crowded we took a long time to find a place to settle down. When we did, I built a sand castle with a pail that I brought. My brother knocked it over and I cried. Then I slapped him on the chest. He threatened to summon Hulk Hogan to come and kick my ass. I threatened to call upon Shera - the warrior princess who would come on her colourful rainbow flying unicorn. He threatened to summon He-man, who was the brother of Shera. I threatened to tell mummy he bully me.

Suddenly, a giant fish louse monster arose from the sea and told us to stop fighting. We were very scared and we cried and cried. He warned us to shut up. If not he will call Yokuzuna to come and sit on us. So we shut up. He told us to be good and not argue with each other any more. So we shook hands and be good. After that the giant fish louse monster sat down with us and we all played together.

When it was evening we were hungry so we waved goodbye to our new friend and my brother rudely said "byebye, you go and die" and the fish louse sat there and cry and cry until my brother go and say sorry he was just joking only and they shook hands but the fish louse got no hands but they were okay already. Then we said byebye again and go and eat dinner.

~The end~

(Teacher, if you want to know what happens next, next month tell us to write "a dinner at a restaurant" and you will find out more, because now I write long enough already tomorrow can pass up to you. Byebye.)

Why I love Magritte - All the people...

2008-08-27T14:57:00.005+08:00

All the people was written before i got to learn about rene magritte. I do not know if I had before saw in any image the picture of a mermaid with a fish head and human legs. but it was not hard to imagine. Any defiant kid should have conjured up that image when they heard the answer to "what's a mermaid/merman?"

So, when I saw the picture collective invention (1934) by rene magritte, shown below, I wasn't surprised by the image per-se. But I was surprised at the remarkable similarity between the mood of the picture and the mood of my piece. As in it's so similar that people may conclude that I based the piece on the painting, but actually I hadn't done so, consciously at least. If he painted the picture after me, maybe they'll say that he based it on my piece. I think that's the disadvantage of being born later, and not in Europe/US/westerners' place, and in a time of over-population and etc...

Collective invention is a play on the concept of collective imagination. I couldn't find ready explanations of these concepts, but I think it sorta means that the concept, say the mermaid, is product of collective imagination, everyone imagines woman plus fish = mermaid. Collective invention is everyone invents it together? Gee, see the onlinedictionary.com definitions below. Anyone's got a definition in your textbooks please email me. Thanks.

i·mag·ine
v. i·mag·ined, i·mag·in·ing, i·mag·ines
v.tr.
1. To form a mental picture or image of.
2. To think; conjecture: I imagine you're right.
3. To have a notion of or about without adequate foundation; fancy: She imagines herself to be a true artist.
v.intr.
1. To employ the imagination.
2. To make a guess; conjecture.

in·vent
tr.v. in·vent·ed, in·vent·ing, in·vents
1. To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination.
2. To make up; fabricate: invent a likely excuse.

Anyway, the original title "all the people" was from the lyrics of song park life by a british group called Blur that rings in my head every now and then cos i listened to it a lot when I was a teenager. (Actually, a recent commercial on tv uses the tune.) Anyway, it's a coincidence that "all the people" alludes to "collective".

So I think it's quite suitable that I change the title now to all the people invent. I debated about calling it all the people's invention. That sounds more concrete with less drama, so no. Calling it all the people imagine, will remind me of john lennon (also british)'s imagine all the people - world peace song. though I have my theory that imagination will bring about world peace and all... maybe that link is too far-fetched for this piece. Calling it all the people invent - will allude more directly to magritte's picture and thus, help to illuminate how to read the piece - in the surrealist fashion.

Thought very hard if I wanted to correct the punctuations on the piece, but decided not to, since some of the full stops are used as commas. and it shows the breaking down of the language quite authentically. All written with free association. I don't remember if I had made any edits, but I think minimal. For trivials' sake, I also spent about half an hour pacing around the house if I should change "type" to "write", but I didn't. Is this interesting for you to read at all? Didn't change the "either" too, cos i thought that was funny. Really like this piece, feel it's very original, consciously at least. Been called for it to be paragraphed properly, but i really don't know how to break it up further, maybe cos I like it that the text flows faster without paragraphs.

Just went also to read on London bridge if the water is indeed fresh water, turns at that River Thames is both salt and fresh-watered. Dunno how that works but what are the chances anyway. How ironic and apt to the piece then.

Albert! here refers to Albert Camus, whose the myth of sisyphus was promised to me to contain the argument against suicide. He's french though.

From rats to bats - Untitled 19/7/07

2008-08-26T23:24:00.003+08:00

Untitled 19/7/07 is just a frivolous thing based on how my grandmother told me that rats become bats. Not as in evolution, but more like as in a life cycle. Like how tadpoles become frogs.

Science will disagree. But science disagrees with itself all the time. Maybe they're special and different from frogs and they change only when nobody is looking. So no transformation's been observed.

Truth is over-rated. It is important. But over-rated.

Man copy 26 Feb 2003 - Untitled

2008-08-25T00:29:00.003+08:00

Untitled post on 25 Aug 08 features a picture (which I try to at least occasionally include on ChaMOTOM to break up the visual monotony of words) which I conjured in some photoshop in 2003.

Vaguely remembered not being much work, just playing with the brush and drew a couple of lines. Quite minimalistic, but so what. I like it. Not deliberately posted for any vague resemblance to the Olympic logo. Though perhaps relevance can be made if we stretch it a bit.

Any relevance can be made if we stretch things.

Just digging through my old files. Found interesting things. Maybe even about you. :)

Edward Gorey - Neville

2008-08-20T20:01:00.003+08:00

Neville is based on a character in Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

"N is for Neville who died of Ennui."

I like the word ennui because it's the closest thing ever to the word "sian" in hokkien. And I like the word "sian" because I am.

想你 series

2008-08-10T20:39:00.003+08:00

The 想你 series expresses general insecure sentiments of missing and thinking of somebody. Sappy mandarin things...that are left deliberately vague. Because 1) my Chinese is not so good and 2) it's better for imaginations to fill in the rest of the details.

Though mostly not about, or inspired by ex-lovers or even persons, they're written like they're about ex-lovers or crushes. For example, 16 came about from how saying hi to acquaintances are troublesome, 15 was when I was trying to write 想你 and nothing came to the pen, 14 is about wanting to use the puns "海的浪漫" meaning the waves of the sea (海的浪) are slow (漫) and also the romance(浪漫) of the sea... etc.

12 is for my friend priscillia.

Hadn't written for a long time, but the recent surge (i.e. 2 entries in 2008) is because of my friend, Lee En. (hello.)

Mystery - There is Heidi

2008-08-10T20:32:00.003+08:00

There is Heidi was written in 2007 loosely after my trip to the museum looking at the an exhibition of old greek (god's) statues from the louvre.

Frankly, I don't know what this piece is about. *shrugs*

The leaf sweeper - Modern Rodin

2008-08-04T09:31:00.003+08:00

Modern Rodin is just a picture of the leaf sweeper, in a curious posture. I did not ask for his permission for the picture. The title references to Rodin who is the guy who sculpted the thinker (as featured). Apparently, he was poor/working class.

There may be contemplation here as, the viewer may wonder at the photo-taker wonders at what the sweeper wonders at. blah blah. so much thought and wonder.

Did you zoom in to the picture to look at his expression? I like his coy look. Whose? Whoever.

Reference:
1. On who is Rodin's Thinker?

The eye - The false mirror

2008-08-04T09:19:00.003+08:00

The false mirror is also the name of a 1935 magritte's painting as featured.

" 'The eye is the mirror of the soul within' according to one version of the proverb. Magritte is playing his game of reversal again here, one of questioning what is outside, what inside. THe overdimensional human eye, instead of providing a view into what lies within, into man's soul, reflects what lies without, namely a sky with clouds in it."
Paquet, Marcel. (2006) Magritte. Germany: Taschen GmbH. p.10.

The search for main character - A lonely long legged fly

2008-07-30T10:29:00.005+08:00

A lonely long legged fly was originally loosely based on a day flying moth which is a type of tiger moth, I think. I saw the fly/moth land on my windscreen and had spent some hours searching for the actual name, enlisting also the help of a friend, who sent me the link. In my memory, the body of the moth was black.

In the end, I decided that it would be more apt to use a fly instead. I kind of decided too that a moth would not feel that inferior to a grey butterfly.

But it cannot be just an ordinary fly, I thought, as he also feels somewhat good enough to want to be like a butter but not the grey not so beautiful one. The ordinary fly doesn't look like the type who will be so complicated. And the ordinary fly has friends. In my research for the identity of the fly/moth, a long-legged fly is more unique than a normal fly. And more comical. Apparently, W.B. Yeats wrote a poem called "a long-legged fly". Though quite different, his long-legged fly can be interpreted as a symbolising thought processes. Which is somewhat...relevant, as this piece is about a thinking fly.

Wind, of course, represents the wind of change. But the fly...doesn't want to see how all are subjected from the same forces and sticks to his perspective and but he cannot as his thoughts are changing and blah blah...

I dunno why the setting is at a coast, other than that I wrote the story near a coast. I am thinking of changing the setting for it to be by the stream, or by the coast where the mouth of a river meets the sea.

References:
1. On punctuating dialogue (and thought)
2. On the definition of comic
3. On differences between butterflies and moths

Of life and death - Of Supreme Importance

2008-07-29T23:19:00.003+08:00

Of Supreme Importance... is mostly about life and death.

Regardless of how we spend our lives, we all just die in the end?
But because we all die in the end, how we spend our lives is important?

So, what is of supreme importance?

==
Some References:
1. On the usage of "neither...nor..."
2. On Dian Fossey's life
3. On Dian Fossey's death

A confession - The bear with the biscuit face

2008-07-26T22:33:00.004+08:00

The bear with the biscuit face is written with automatism and I didn't know what the story was going to be like until it was written.

I wanted to write a story about a bear with the biscuit face, an image that occured to me. SO I put down the working title of "the bear with the biscuit face". The biscuit part linked me to the hansel and gretel story of the biscuit house, so I researched a bit on the witch who tried to eat them, thus Frau Totenkinder was referenced to. I decided to start with Frau.

To confess, I dunno where the rest of the story came from... (perhaps from the back stories of hansel and gretel...?) and I think this is the scariest story that I've ever written. And it scares myself.

My bear was a big black bear with a huge ritz kinda biscuit instead of a face. What was the bear like in your imagination?

---
13 Aug 08 update.

Wen wrote a continuation to this piece. Check it out here.

Nostalgia - At Class

2008-07-24T09:50:00.005+08:00

At Class was written on my lecture notes during tutorial because I was distracted by the trees that looked so happy swinging in the wind outside the window behind the teacher and the aircon was too cold and I dunno why he was rocking left and right like a palindrome which was a word I used but I've forgotten what it meant until now when I searched for a link to link up.

So, I went back and read it and think that palindrome is not as apt as a mechanical escapement. Escapement suggests the clock and time passing and escaping in wanting to get out of class i bet the teacher was also sian, so I changed the words. I often change things that were previously posted but this is the first time i'm announcing it.

Haiku - 4 am

2008-07-24T09:37:00.001+08:00

Once upon a time,
I slept after 4 am
and wrote a haiku.

Ali Baba dream - Untitled (11 Nov 07)

2008-07-24T09:09:00.003+08:00

Untitled...
1) One night, when I was nearly asleep, I dreamt/thought that I heard a man whisper something to me. I like the images I see before I fall fully asleep. Too bad I usually forget them by the time I could write them. But this time, I remembered when I woke up and decided that he was ali baba.

2) mona lisa part was based on a discussion I had with some friends that i said it just to be controversial. Apparently, wiki says that mona lisa is a girl and speculates that leonardo da vinci, the painter, is a boy-lover. In case you're curious about what's controversial, check out these mundane speculations on why mona lisa may be a boy.

3) seemingly unrelated except to some, here's some scoop on bert and ernie from sesame street. If you want more, then here's a list of scoop.

4) If you're curious, as I was, then here's the scoop on scoop!

25 Jul 08 addition

Thumbing through something, I found the original which reads:

"In my sleep, Ali Baba came to me and whispered a secret I wish I remembered.
His voice was distinctively sexy.
It kept me up all night."

Nothing compares to you - All the flowers that you planted...

2008-07-24T09:02:00.000+08:00

All the flowers that you've planted... The title of this entry is from a song that put me in the mood for writing it, "Nothing compares 2 you", originally performed by Sinead O'Connor. Apparently, it was written by Prince. I was listening to a cover.

"All the flowers that you planted, mama
In the back yard
All died when you went away."

Seeing people listen to their MP3 players on the bus. I wonder what they are thinking.

Trivial: "3 cm pinnate leaves"

False choice - the cupboard said to me

2008-07-22T10:33:00.002+08:00

The cupboard said to me is about how closure is often overrated. That the beauty of things can be in the mystery that is in the unknown. The intention was to illustrate the following...

If you chose not to read on, you would have the space to imagine what the cupboard said to me, and completed the story for yourself. It which should be unlikely, but let me know if you did, it's so interesting if anyone did not read on.

If you read on, then perhaps there is the initial anticlimax and someone had told me before that it made feel like it was a waste of his time. Indeed. I am sorry to waste his time reading my story but it illustrates my point well and I am satisfied that it can instigate that feeling of disappointment.

"The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment. "
- James Arthur Baldwin (writer).

想你 11 touches on the same theme.

If I remember correctly, the usage of the talking cupboard comes slightly from the "skeleton in the cupboard" thing and how kids are fearful of the monsters in their closet. The bart simpson is symbolic of things that are naughty and mischievous. Which alludes to the riddle that this piece plays on the reader.

Epidendrum - Global Warming

2008-07-19T11:49:00.003+08:00

Global warming was posted in late april, approaching may. According to me, May is the hottest month, weather wise.

The featured is the epidendrum, a.k.a the crucifix orchid, thus named because of the cross shaped lip of the flower. See the cross shape clearer in the following picture, taken on a different occasion. (There are raindrops in this one. Doesn't look so hot.)

姜太公 - Mr Jiang

2008-07-18T11:34:00.003+08:00

Mr Jiang is written by automatism regarding a man from old China, jiang tai gong. He fished with a straight hook and with the hook 3 inches away from the water surface.

The idea behind this is complex.

In a nutshell, it is somewhat like "if the fish wanted to be caught then he shall be caught and I will not, need not, go out of my way to go and catch it." So, to be able to catch fish (some accounts said he caught a lot of fish) he must be some genius or a man with extraordinary calibre. In this way, he caught the attention of some king who hired him to be some strategist.

I recall reading about Jiang tai gong's fishing's and why the fish is caught... I try to transpose some of the learning here to the best of my ability, maybe it's not so accurate... (here's the original passage in chinese.)

1) The fish is no ordinary fish who would want to be caught because they would want to get near the extraordinary person, it's good for the fish to be close to the vitality or energy of extraO persons (implicates karma and such).

2) If he can catch the fish in such an incredible way, he must be an extraordinary person. An extraO person must do something incredible to show that he is extraO. Thus, he would fish with a straight hook.

3) He wants to catch the fish and the fish wants to be caught, so, it is a win-win situation.

The original is better. I tried to summarise. Anyway, hope it's fun for you to know.

Bird of prey - Steller's Sea Eagle

2008-07-18T11:22:00.002+08:00

This picture was taken at Jurong bird park. The words are quoted from the descriptions on the panel in front of the aviary that is smaller than those for parakeets. The world's largest eagle, caged. It to eats arctic foxes for breakfast, man.

Frankly, it makes me feel much better about my life.

Go figure.

Existential angst - R.A.P. 4 - Television is a trash bag is a black hole

2008-07-18T00:52:00.003+08:00

R.A.P. 4 is inspired by existential angst, or in the simplest of ways of putting it, a feeling of pek4 chek4 (irritation of sorts) arising from the state of things in life.

Sure, I was making a controversial and absolutely reckless generalisation. But I recognised, and was deliberately capitalising on, its potential.

Lately, I have been feeling existential frustration and realised that this piece sorta tests this new theory that I am apparently developing: If one is feeling existential angst or frustration and picks a senseless existential fight or argument with an imaginary opponent (preferably with an empirical approach) and win it regardless of what beliefs are required to be suspended, the angst will likely be divisible by itself and reduced mere to anxiety.

In other words, if you're feeling pek chek, pick a nonsense fight and win and you're likely to feel better.

So, this time I picked on a random nose with the world by blaming the television for its stupidity. It sorta worked for me.

Had written other R.A.P.s before (1: I need a new alarm clock, 2: The song for dead millipedes, 2.2: dead millipedes, 3: The cure for self pity) before and I remember they sorta worked too. Let me know if it has worked for you. If there enough of us, someone could be moved to do some empirical study and it could SAVE THE WORLD we love so much.

I can be so emotional.

On a fairly irrelevant note, I read somewhere recently that facts are supposedly everlasting, but non-fiction gets revised every five years. Non-fiction usually become obsolete but good fiction may remain very relevant.

Relevant links: Wiki on black holes, existential despair (like angst).

The dog star - Untitled (July 01, 08)

2008-07-11T16:36:00.002+08:00

This snippet is based on the dog star, Sirius. It is the brightest star in the sky and it was discovered that it has a faint white dwarf companion i.e. a small star that follows closely to it (see wiki for more information and picture).

The photo was taken from my room's window with very extended exposure. The star in the sky is the dog star (as recognised from the rest of the canis major constellation). The moon is not the moon, but a reflection in the window glass.

A rat who climbed a tree - A rodent's tale

2008-07-11T12:16:00.003+08:00

"A rodent's tale" is based a rat that would scurry out of a drain that ran behind the bus stop whereby I used to wait for my bus. The rat would then try to climb this particular tree. And then it would fall. There is a newly developed condominium estate behind the busstop and there are some security guards who would check the work permit (I presume) of the foreign workers who arrive in the morning to do some construction. The security guards would point and gawk at the rat and its attempt.

That helped affirmed that I wasn't hallucinating.

Of course I could have hallucinated the security guards' reactions altogether. 7-ish am is pretty early in the morning to be waiting at a busstop you know.

Frankly, I only seen the rat for a few times over a span of a few weeks and I haven't seen the rat for a long time.

The first post on Sneak Speak – An introduction and disclaimer

2008-07-10T16:14:00.010+08:00

There are so many things that I would want introduce or disclaim that I don't know how to start. I have been procrastinating, or shelfing the idea, for about 2 years now, of ever being explicit about the stories behind my stories on the chattering matterings of the original meekfreak (henceforth until further notice, “ChaMOTOM” for short). Sneak Speak is the end of that chapter.

What is known cannot be unknown

I procrastinate and hestitate because what is known cannot be unknown. It can be forgotten, but it cannot be unknown. So I did not want to be explicit about any reasons behind what I write and why, preferring to leave them to evoke the rawest and barest of reactions. There is beauty and magnificence in gross and thorny responses. I like to imagine it.

Besides, I had preferred truth and sincerity of the undiscerning audience, over a second guessing, over-psychoanalytic audience. So, I remained implicit.

However, I've been reading on art and some subject guidebooks and appreciated the direction and interpretation that they offered. What the guidebooks transferred to me was not the opinion of, for example, Botero, but how I can better interpret Botero's works in whatever way I want. The only differences with this time are that, it's with more confidence and intrigue. I recognise that there is also beauty in understanding the riddles behind some of the paintings. eg. why did he paint fat people. So, I suppose, sometimes riddles are fun too, when there are answers. Answers to which one can choose to agree or disagree with.

This is why I am starting sneak speak, for some of my friends who asked about my stories. There is no right way to read them. What you think they mean to you, is what they actually mean. It may be different from what it means for others or myself, but that is only interesting.

To get the best of both worlds, don't sneak before you react to the stories.

I will attempt to add dimension by explaining parts of the stories or what they were inspired by. I don't know how it will turn out. I don't know how often I will update this. I only hope for the best. I think the sneak speak will allow comments, so you can give feedback on what you think or feel, or what you ate for dinner. Otherwise you can email me. I like to hear feedback. If I think sneak speak sucks, then I'll kill it in 2 or 3 months.

See: The Creative Act by Marcel Duchamp.

The Great Surreality

Sometime last year, I came across the philosophy of the Surrealists that helped articulate a large part of why and what I write. By articulating, it was clarifying, which in turn, facilitated my elaboration and development.

I think Andre Breton wrote about how there's a quality of things or life that can be brought stark by surrealist situations. Take a soluble fish – a fish that dissolves in water. There may be no such thing in reality. It is surreal. Can you imagine a fish that dissolves in water?? Yes, you can. Or at least make a attempt to. A soluble fish is imaginable. Imagining a soluble fish brings out a truth about “soluble” and “fish”, and how brain and thoughts can work. I find that interesting, so I write about things I don't need to understand.

“If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.” - Magritte

See: Manifesto of Surrealism (Andre Breton, 1924) and anything on Rene Magritte's idea of mystery.

The Magic of Mystery

“My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, whne one sees on of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.” - Magritte.

I write about a lot of things. The stories that I most enjoy writing and most proud of writing are imagined and, preferably, by automatism or free association, or at least in part developed from an arc that is born of free association. For the uninitiated, automatism or free association is quite like writing whatever comes to mind. A lot of my favourite stories are written in a stupour. I like the element of surprise at how the sentences connect into stories or how the symbols loops or how the irony coils and recoils itself. I don't know what I'm going to write about until I've written it.

The Palatable (acceptable to the taste) Soluble Fish

I also learnt that the Surrealists were employers of the free association technique, abeit to a rather unpalatable extreme. The palatability factor implicates another principle that I've adopted after comparing Johnnie To and Wong Kar Wai movies. That is, if I were to write, I will try to be palatable. Because I like to read palatable stories. So I try to write the stories that I like to read. Even if one doesn't see the ironies in the stories, or the theme or the whatever detailed riddles woven, at least there is entertainment at the surface level.

This is like Johnnie To's movies. The plot is easy to understand, I watch, I like, I understand. Maybe it has some moralistic message but if I like or dislike, so be it. Wong Kar Wai's works win a lot of fancy awards and seems more intellectual when we discuss it at table of sober people, and it sometimes makes me feel quite insecure if I cannot appreciate it.

I'm trying to lean this motorbike more towards the Johnnie To's side. Although, I honestly think I'm somewhere in the middle. Anyway, sneak speak is an attempt to lean towards Johnnie.

See: Johnnie To and Wong Kar Wai.

The Insider Philosophies

So, besides the westerners and their absurd interpretations of the world, I also feel a strong affinity to eastern thoughts. I like the Taoist philosophies for its interest in details and happiness of being. I share the idealisation for the idyllic life and the general perspective. I also like the buddhist philosophies of hardship, of impermanence, and emptiness. I like the Japanese formalised philosophies and appreciation of beauty, e.g. mono no aware.

They share similarities with the above. For example, in eastern art, be it chinese paintings, or japanese wood block paintings, there is emphasis on the space that are left blank, so as to let the viewers complete the images for themselves. This is like Magritte's concept of mystery.

What I like more in the eastern interpretations is how it is more encapsulating, or wholistic. It is more simple, subtle, and genteel, but at the same time, more complicated, detailed and forgiving. I don't know what I'm writing about really, but it sounds sensible.

It is hard to explain partially or concisely what the influence of these philosophies have on my stories. Frankly, I feel that they are not important for my further explanation here. Simply, these philosophies influence my take on life and the world, and inevitably, it affects how my stories are written.

A search on the internet on the above topics will lead to many interesting and illuminating articles.