Tuesday, October 28, 2008  3:19 PM
Lacquered notes
I'm getting ever so slightly worried that I'm ageing faster than I should be, and becoming like my father.
My mission Pachelbel Canon in D project has taken off, and what scares me is how much I'm enjoying it. Practising that particular song on the piano has now become something I take delight in, and I actually want to sit there for hours running my fingers up and down those black and white keys. Because I want to see (and hear) myself get better at playing the piece with each time I hit those notes. Maybe this is what my father takes pride in every morning when he wakes up, when the sky is still pitch black and the birds just starting to wail. I never understood it, sometimes I wake up in annoyance hearing him play, groan and pull the blanket over my ears and sink back into slumber.
This piano thing, coming from me, has got to be the strangest thing I've discovered about myself this year. Because if you knew me then, I was my piano teacher's nightmare and could probably write a book on how to evade piano lessons. I never ever practised and made the people in my house lie to my dad that I had played for hours when he got home so I wouldn't get scolded. The petulant eleven-year-old me shouted at my piano teacher and slammed a door in his face once because I was so tired of playing. I refused to take exams, and I faked the notes all the time because I knew my dad couldn't tell the difference. If no one was at home when my piano teacher came over, I made him tea and we would sit and chat, and it was our secret, because it was a common understanding between us how much I hated playing. As a result, of course, I was nobody's star pianist. I hardly got better, and for the ten years of my life I invested in it - someone else would have risen to Grade 8 or better while I was perpetually stuck around Grade 4. But I never had any desire accomplish something out of those years of piano playing, I did it only because I was forced to, because my dad loved the piano and I was his only ray of hope.
He would actually sit there and watch me play every single day, his disinterested daughter who looked as expressionless as she sounded.
I think I'm making up for those lost years. Ever so often when I'm home, I abandon my schoolwork and choose to practise my song, the one song that is slowly changing my life. And my father walks around the house with an encouraging smile on his face, musing, "it's not too late, it's not too late" when my fingers fumble or seeing how much trouble I have sightreading these days. I only pray he doesn't get child prodigy ideas with me again.
And I've realised how much playing the piano trains your patience. I feel soothed each time I start playing, and sink into the rhythm of it all. Suddenly, all the stress and whatever else I'd been feeling dissipates into the melody. I sound like a fanatic here, but I somehow think this revelation is miraculous in itself.
On another note, yesterday's holiday was spent drowning in work, surfacing only for waffles and prayer with my dg girls, coffee with shimei my wonderful ex-colleague at Female because our conversations always leave me dwelling on them and walking along one fullerton by myself and breathing in the night. I have had many thoughts lately, some of which I want to compartmentalise into folders to save, some to send to the recycle bin and others that I want to send in an email to heaven. I subconsciously typed out my thoughts as I was fiddling with my phone yesterday, and in my daydreamy state, looked for 'God' in my address book under the "To:" column.
Topshop sale: Flattery always works wonders. I had already noticed the Chinese girl at the cashier even as I was walking around the shop so while paying, I told her that her English was very good and that she was very pretty (both which I truly meant), and beaming from ear to ear, she happily offered me information on when the new stuff come in, and when the next sale is.
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Thursday, October 23, 2008 10:05 PM
We sing, we dance, we steal things
I'd like to think that I'm waxing lyrical about this subject, but it gets me more riled up than I'd actually like to imagine.
As a final-year core subject, Media Law, Ethics and Policy shoots straight up to number one on the list out of all the four compulsory core modules we've been put through, all one hundred and eighty of us. It definitely beats the ineffectuality of learning about communication skills in the first year, becoming friends with Darwin, Freud and Marx in my second year and literally not remembering anything in media management class in my third year. Yes, this year's core module has been stimulating, and interesting in certain aspects and absolutely futile in others.
I usually don't devote whole entries to schoolwork, so you see how this class has really got picking on my brain - a rare occurrence.
The law component was tough, and failure to keep up with the hundred-page readings each week meant sinking quite surely to the bottom and not being able to keep up with the crossfire debates - in other words, attending a pointless lecture and coming out feeling stupider than you did when you first entered. Surprisingly enough, I liked it once I grasped the rationale behind each subject and it served the general purpose of intellectual conversation topics over dinner. I also enjoyed countering my father on issues which I knew more about than him. While I engaged in those conversations, I happily thought pinned-up chignon, classy black spectacle frames and the authoritative resonance of four-inch heels on marble flooring.
Ethics, however, is a completely different story. My world while growing up was perfectly black and white. Black was evil, the rogues that managed to shoot down Captain Planet and the ugly monsters with fangs. White white, the knight in the shining armour, princesses and their wonderful fairytale endings. I embraced white with childlike innocence, and wrapped it around myself like a blanket thinking that my life would be that perfect too.
I paced around in school today and watched the crowds rush by, and thought about how my life has now been clouded wtih grey. And grey, I won't label it a bad thing, I just call it inevitable. Differing opinions, measured on what scale, what standards and whose rules? Every single person walking past me grew up a different way, exposed to worlds another might not understand, and pain someone else might interpret as pleasure. How do you grapple with what's right and what's not? Sure, you can impose your moral values on someone else, but morality and ethics are not synonymous. Religion comes into play, and admittedly, it shapes my life - but are you going to impose those views on others with that self-righteous stand? No, they'll find every other way to counter you and that's where their hate begins.
So when I sit amidst a discussion on ethics, just like in class today, where my professor throws out situation after situation - Do you think it's ethical to take an MC when you aren't really sick just to get a day off work? Is it unethical to snub a junior colleague and treat him as if he doesn't exist? Is it okay to be in a group of ten colleagues, nine Singaporean Chinese and one from mainland China, and when the one from mainland China walks out, you imitate her and mimic her accent? - thoughts are running through my head like wildfire, but somehow I cannot bring myself to form a cogent argument to defend the ethics behind it. I throw out my opinions, but I find most of these issues personal choices as opposed to ethical issues, because what is ethical in today's society where everyone is so diverse and hold such varied standards? It would be easy to defend those obvious things, like murder, theft or adultery. But with these controversial everyday issues, everything we do is a personal choice, based on our beliefs and our conscience, but there is no one written book of laws when it comes to ethics. I find the discussions futile, useless, ineffectual, because everyone fights and it does seem like an interactive tutorial, but really, you come out of there learning nothing at all and simply sticking to the points you already had in your head formed years ago through your experiences or what your parents taught you.
There is no point at all discussing ethics. No point. It's parallel to the Democrats and the Republicans. Who's right and who's wrong? It all ends up in a great divide.
I think back about my perfect white world once in awhile, the stories I held so close to my heart. And I wonder if everything was one then, and there were laws for every single thing and situation. I doubt and then think maybe their standards were different, perhaps doing less charity was considered abominable because charity was part of everybody's life. See, that's when my grey creeps in.
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Sunday, October 19, 2008 1:07 AM
Every memory of looking out the back door
"Consider it pure joy," the words jumped out at me that night as I was reading in bed, a nightly ritual under my canopy. That night, I let go again. This process of letting go repeats itself time and time again, like an old cassette only tuned to that one song, but the difference is, I'm getting stronger each time.
Days are happier, not because of anything material or earthly, that I know for sure. It's a constant reminder of placing my heart in the right place and to cease doubting, and choosing to participate in activities that make more meaningful days. I danced while supermarket shopping at midnight, mentally calculating price discounts in my head vs quantity - which taught me that all you really need in life is simple math - I take long walks with my iPod, I visit Bench 1b and I've made it my goal by year end to learn and memorise Pachelbel's Canon in D on the piano. Good luck to my neighbours in the meantime.
And photographic imprints of what I've captured over the last few months while travelling, just some of my favourites.
 Venice Beach, Los Angeles: Colour, vibrancy, quirkiness, no one's weird here because acceptance takes on a whole new meaning.
 Venice Beach, Los Angeles: I think I wanted to capture the sky. The sky is Los Angeles is like nowhere else in the world.
 Venice Beach, Los Angeles: The girl reflected me. She was snapping away, at everything and everyone.
 Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles: Where we ran around in circles and dipped our toes in the sand and sea.
 Somewhere on a cliff in Los Angeles: The most beautiful sunset, ever. The photo doesn't even come close to doing justice.
 Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco: He took one minute to capture the essence of me - and drew my shopping bags with high priority.
 Sausalito, San Francisco: My dream, far-fetched but a dream nonetheless, to own one of these floating houses in quaint Sausalito.
 Sai Kung, Hong Kong: Third time to Sai Kung, but the first time I notice the lone old man with his livelihood.  Choi Hung, Hong Kong: Funny, even their flats are rainbow-coloured. Made me wonder whether the flats in Redhill are red.  Monash University campus, Melbourne: If I were God, I would not have to spend hours figuring myself out on faceyourmanga.com  Clayton, Melbourne: I miss those mission trip days, those long train rides back from the city only to return home to cook and do laundry. The simple life.  Glebe Flea Market, Sydney: Nostalgia struck when I saw all my childhood at once on these old storybooks being torn apart and re-created into fashionable notebooks.
 Darling Harbour, Sydney: One of my absolute favourite places in Sydney. Every city has one, think Esplanade and Tsim Sha Tsui Avenue of Stars, but Darling Harbour still wins. I could imagine myself there all day just staring, with a book in hand.  Surry Hills, Sydney: Vintage shops and colourful shophouses. This is where I started Christmas shopping because I couldn't resist.  This one speaks for itself. :)
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Saturday, October 11, 2008 11:51 PM
Did you fall for a shooting star
Tonight I looked up at the sky as I sprawled out on the lounge chair and the sky matched my mood exactly: cloudy. Not a star in sight, the clouds obscured my entire vision of what lay beyond, with the moon struggling to shine through.
Out of sorts, out of place. My emotional heart felt strangely heavy and burdened. I wanted to let it go. For the first time in a very long time, I didn't know where I belonged and happiness seemed to be slipping away like sand between my fingers.
Topics of conversations suddenly disinterest me, words and actions attack me more than usual because I know my fortress is not as formidable as before, people in their warm cocoons with cubes of chocolate suddenly don't involve me, and me, in my little grey confused world.
I don't know how long I was there for and how long I spent singing to myself and covering my ears and thoughts fleeting in and out of my head and how long I spent watching the clouds slowly billow into different formations. I think I needed it, me and God, tears and convictions, half-empty and half-full.
I spent the rest of the night on skype, not talking, but just feeling the presence of a pillar of support far away, and finally felt like myself again.
So I lift my eyes to You Lord
In Your strength will I break through, Lord
Touch me now, let Your love fall down on me
I know Your love dispels all my fears
Through the storm I will walk on, Lord
And by faith I will walk on, Lord
Then I'll see beyond my calvary one day
And I will be complete in You
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