Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Oh my, its been a long time since a trailer has made me laugh this much.
"Spiderpig, spiderpig,
does whatever a spiderpig does.
Look ouuuuuuuut, he's a spiderpig."
Pure, comic genius. :)
he rocked the party at 9:02 AM |
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Please forgive my lack of worthwhile updates on this blog. Summer has been extremely busy of late with the internship during the day and dinners/gym/coffee/prata/martinis in the evenings, leaving me back home past midnight, exhausted and wondering how I'm going to survive the next day with only 5 hours of sleep. Not particularly exciting, but I'm telling myself that I need this bout of Singaporean-ness because I know that I'll miss it once I return to the US.
Randomness:
SMU hiphop concert Urban Pulse, despite its painfully generic title, was actually very impressive. Fantastic cheoreography, and a much bigger improvement from last year. Inspiration to try out other studios in Singapore and expand my very limited exposure to hip hop of late.
Rapture 2007 over the weekend, with nothing much to report about except the sudden realization that we were dancing on that very same (garish) Mediacorp stage SIX YEARS AGO. We're positively ancient. A possibility of a mega comeback alumni item next year? We'd better do it soon before we become too old and get inflicted by arthritis or something.
Current obsession: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, although I'm halfway through the book but its yet to jolt my senses. Bah.
Have finally obtained a new phone: The samsung d900c thinthin stylo milo slider phone. Hopefully I dont drop and ruin it in 6 months. Have decided to hold off getting the iPhone in view of the disgusting AT&T 2 year contract and the (very likely) possibility that Apple will release a similar phone with a price more suited for poor people like me.
And yes, I promise i promise i promise to post my diving pictures with the bruddas once I get a hold of them.
Oh shit, my boss just ended her meeting. Better pretend to be doing work.
he rocked the party at 8:16 PM |
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I believe I am a theorist. My current new posting to network planning is keeping me happily occupied at a comfortable level (such that I actually have time to blog at work, but not enough time to blogsurf). So now I can actually be happy busy instead of pretending to be busy. As much fun as the latter sounds, it actually isn't.
Anyway, where was I? The theorist thing. Yes. So my current project involves pretty extensive research in area/route studies, which translates into many happy hours reading articles from The Economist and finding credible sources for the stuff I find on wikipedia. And I love it. This project came when I was lamenting at my lack of time to go through my huge backlog of Economist subscriptions.
So I believe that I have found my calling, an area of tendency, if you may call it, towards macroeconomics and IR, or politics and trade, stuff that I would have never thought i'd be inclined towards.
And honestly, there's no other industry where this is more prevalent. Its cyclical and unpredictable. Its vulnerable and dynamic. It shows no mercy to the weak players. And gives limited rewards to the successful. But its ever so exciting. I could spend years studying the thousand and one factors that influence this industry and not tire. It has all the elements that I'm so attracted to as well: economics, finance, power, diplomacy, and just a little bit of sex.
Its a whole lot more interesting than plain old number crunching and system tweaking, anyway. So nyah nyah ni poo poo, all you bankers. I may not earn as much money as you, but at least i'll have more fun. (well, i hope so, anyway)
he rocked the party at 10:58 PM |
Thursday, July 12, 2007
I've come to realize how this Singaporean lifestyle makes one mindlessly check off one thing after another. I.e: I've got to do my internship and do my diving trip and do my gym workouts and learn excel and meet my friends and...
not stop to think about stuff. And I know I'm not thinking about life when I realize that I log onto blogger and realize that I have nothing to blog about. Which is ever so sad. In the past, I used to mentally compose quoteworthy blogposts in my head while I went through my "life checklist", careful not to fall into "i-did-this, i-did-that" trap (though sometimes its inevitable, when i pack too much into my weekend).
And now, I find myself drifting through the routine, not really focusing, not really aiming for anything, except for some vague, random and senseless goals involving a new phone, better dance standards and .. not really anything else.
A paradox is: I find myself becoming really critical ever since I came back. Critical of certain religious practices, cynical of professional life, constantly smirking at the political/social climate (which is perhaps why I enjoyed Dim Sum Dollies IMMENSELY), but of my daily engagements, I feel absolutely nothing.
It's weird.
Am going diving in Dayang this weekend with the brothers. Hopefully it'll restore my happy "innocence", as a certain reader claims I have.
he rocked the party at 11:54 PM |
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
I have forgotten the miseries of a faceless, humdrum corporate life.. till now.
The early morning rises, the traffic jams to work, the starchy shirt and the uncomfortable leather shoes.
Dusty carpets, stale airconditioning, and bland walls.
The computer screen with the Excel files, the in/out trays. CUBICLES.
Counting the hours till lunch, with conversations about the mundane, the bonus, the business, and the awkward silences.
Silence.
Which is what the pale brown desk greets me with in the morning. As I sit and STARE at the numbers on the screen, and fall asleep without knowing it, and wake up only to realize there's still 3 hours before 5.30. And I scream. Silently.
Today, however, offered some respite. A mildly interesting meeting involving decisions about obscene sums of money. An actual job to do. Fun colleagues who, despite the awkward conversations, are actually very interesting to talk to once you get to know them. A helpful supervisor willing to sit down and patiently explain the details of hedging.
Fit all these with an exciting industry to be in, (it really is, i'm not kidding), and perhaps, just perhaps, I can try to ignore the excruciatingly boring physical environment.
I swear, i am NOT going to degenerate into a mindless office drone after I graduate. The day may take my soul, but the nights can always be filled with reckless danger.
(or good ol clean fun: like today's performance of the DIM SUM DOLLIES!!!)
he rocked the party at 9:06 AM |
Saturday, July 07, 2007
But what exactly IS a home, really?
Perhaps I have yet to find a place that I can truly, completely, feel at home in.
Why? And do I even want to?
he rocked the party at 8:15 AM |
Monday, July 02, 2007
Nothing, nothing beats the feeling of treading the lovely carpets of Terminal 2 as I make my way towards immigration. I breathe in the pristine air conditioned air, my eyes take in the familiar Singaporean signs ('toilet' instead of 'bathroom', 'lift' instead of 'elevator'), and that unmistakable accent that i've grown to love and miss so much. (Even the flight attendant spoke in that distinctive singlish slang, small details in speech in phrases like "they will actually send you the miles itself")
I step into the arrival hall and it hits me all at once: the scatter of asians, no, SINGAPOREANS milling around. Polar cafe with its curry puffs and the malay dude at the counter. The lao beng uncle with the striped polo tee and pants buckled too high yelling "HOUGANG AVE T(h)REE!!!" Hugging my dad. Tampines Expressway. Hendon Camp. (oh my goodness, i hope it'll be a long time before i see that again). Bak chor mee at Changi Village. The little ERP thing on the windscreen. Drivers on the right of the car.
My familiar/unfamiliar house, with its cosiness and humidity, with its marble floor and wooden staircase. With my ocs sword on the mantle. I stare into my room momentarily because I've forgotten how absolutely wonderful (and big!) it looks. (i have THAT much desk space??!). And as I turn on the radio and listen to Hossan Leong's idle chatter on Power 98, I realize...
I'm home :)
he rocked the party at 7:03 PM |
Sunday, July 01, 2007
I've been trying to think of a way to not make this post sound cliched, overzealous, and downright corny. I still have no idea, but I'm gonna try anyway. I'm going to talk about faith. My faith. And if this sounds like what i used to dismiss as "one of those Christian rants", you're right, it does sound like it. But it isnt just that.
I'm one of those that absolutely HATES performance, especially in the Christian sense. I'd see people yell at the top of their voices at Christian rallies, speak in tongues, faint, and dismiss it as performance. I'd participate in prayer with that distinct "Christian" tone to it: you know, the one with that slang, and the multitudes of "Father, God, Lord" interspersing every other syllable, and dismiss it as performance. I'd hear about church services that seem more like rock concerts, and dismiss it as performance. Heck, I'm not easily swayed by all that. Which was probably why I remained such a staunch Catholic, because only in a Catholic mass could I talk to God without any pretense, without feeling as if I had to appear all pious if I didnt want to.
In a sense, I guess that's good and bad. Its good that I could strip away all the fluff, which I believed defined Christian churches, and just focus on God, and me. Its bad because all too often its so easy to get lost in all the rituals, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it; and to go for Mass but have my mind racing to other things throughout the hour. And it was bad because it was simply just God and me, without anyone else.. no community, no Church.
So Overflow (the GCC dance ministry I'm in) had to open AMI revolution this weekend, and I decided on a whim to go for the retreat anyway, since it was after the exams and I had nothing better to do. (and after much convincing from Andrea, our graduating choreographer, and member of Funk, whom I have great respect for. Yea Andrea!wootwoot) AMI is this network of churches throughout the US, hailing from as far as California. I found it a little weird that all its pastors are Korean, and practically 80% of the congregation is Asian. But I guess that made it a little more comfortable for me. This particular retreat was a pretty big, annual event, so I was admittedly a little apprehensive that I would have to put on a big fake Christian performance throughout the weekend, saying Christian prayers in that slang, etcetc.
Well, I was pleasantly, genuinely surprised. Now let me say that this is not a product of me being moved by the extremely powerful songs (which affect so many people), nor is it a religious social network theory of "cognitive dissonance" brought about by being surrounded by people whom I want to be a part of. No, this was every bit as personal as it was in Mass, but I felt touched by God in a much deeper way than I'd felt for a very long time. And it happened at the most random of times too, like right after I'd woken up after a pastor's sermon (I'd been having 4 hours of sleep for the past week). And it was.. well, wonderful.
What surprised me was that they started out AMI telling everyone to not perform, which, amazingly, was the one thing that I abhorred about such events. Was as if they'd known what I was thinking all along. The pastor was telling everyone, "if you dont feel touched, if you dont have an emotional reaction, it doesnt matter. If you fall asleep, it doesnt matter. Let's not perform for God. Just keep your heart open." I still felt a little uncomfortable with the intensity of some parts of the retreat, but I felt free to block all of it out, stand in the midst of it, and privately, personally, be washed over with, and there's no other word to describe it, joy.
Joy that I didnt have to focus on my problems and ambitions anymore, the two things that have defined my life till now. Joy in understanding why I couldnt achieve/gain the things I wanted. Joy in seeing how everything that has happened in my life thus far fits so perfectly well, and how it makes sense. And above all, joy that God loves me.
Oh my, that last paragraph sounded like yet another Christian rant now didn't it? I can assure you, it isn't. I don't force myself to evoke emotions; on the contrary I constantly question why everyone is feeling this way. But I can ascertain that what I felt, what I'm feeling, is genuine in a way that I'd never thought possible. I don't know how to convince you, but it just is.
Perhaps the challenge now is to maintain that. I know of people who come out of these revivals with passion in their hearts ready to take on the world, only to lose it after a month. I, of all people, am so easily distracted by the ambitions, the glories, the adrenaline, and the dangerous life in the superfast lane of college, and complete, uninhibited freedom. But still, (and I'm trying to think of a noncliched closer here, but I cant think of one.)
Have started to take steps towards maintaining it. I guess my first step would be to reconcile all the doubts in my faith. After the da vinci code, after the assertions that we are reading a biased Bible, after the whole "big bang" debate, I need to fill all the holes in my faith so I can be sure of what I believe in. Am currently reading "The Case for Faith", by Lee Strobel, on recommendation from Chrissy. I had some good conversations with young adults from New York comparing the Christian and Catholic perspectives of "do people who just do good works and believe in a God, but not the Christian God, go to Heaven?" I thought i knew the answer, but now I'm not so sure. We shall see.
For now though, I am just very, completely, wonderfully, happy. And, in true Chrissy style, can safely say that i LOVE God. :)
he rocked the party at 7:36 AM |
