Edward Hopper, New York Office, 1962

Edward Hopper, night hawks.1942
my current favourite painting. I would love to learn the way he paints light in the city.

I wonder if there are any autobiographies of Edward Hopper in the bookshops or library. The magic thing is to get into the brains of the artist/creator. I hope he did write something.

i have to get lisa ekdahl's album Back To Earth which i possessed last time but gave to a friend. i really miss listening to it.

one day i will do it.

i feel the surges beneath the surface, bubbling at the top, nearly surfacing but not yet.

that said, maybe in some areas, we must never be contented. or rather, it's not in our choice to be contented. desire is good. night is here. where am i? i need to be there and there and there. what for? feed my soul i suppose. one must take action.

soul fainting.

apathy is dangerous.

do not be lackerdasical.

the thick volume of vogue is two thirds advertisements, attractive but i'd rather have a normal size mag with more articles.

i have work to do.

yesterday MY CHOY and i had supper at NYDC. He's cool.

it's a very sleepy afternoon, the sun, the draggy air....can't take it...have to nap. totally devoid of poetic inspirations, of practical motivation. i'm drowsy.

MY, one day we have to go and have curry crab or black pepper crab ok? i'm craving...

Christ-Awareness - Oswald Chambers

. . . and I will give you rest
—Matthew 11:28



"Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.

A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.

If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest—the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself."

http://www.foundmagazine.com/

sites like this, they make you ponder and dream and come up with stories in your head.

films i have to watch:

garden state
before sunset
coffee and cigarettes

so i say....again..the grass is greener on the other side.now that my hair is dark red and layered, i think next time i'll go for a pure black classic neck length face framing one length thing. i think, i like classic better than funky. funky is, typical, and i am afraid of being typical.

should i cut my hair to shoulder length? MY CHOY what do you say?

mother sally does wonders to my hair. she totally understands what i want and creates something special to my hair each time. so i did some dark red highlights all over, and layered my hair even more, and some pseudo bangs.

i really needed it. thanks to my mama i got myself a new me look yesterday.

so will i be more focused with this new hair look on me? i hope so.

so, it's only a tv drama. but the different music that cues in at the apt moments, the fade ins, the fade outs, the sunsets, the nuances.

the music should come on when i'm having those moments. i think,
too caught up with imagining.

"Sweet sweet dreams, and color and sound
Highways in the faraway to be found
I saw gold mines, in the sky sky sky
They were clouds just waiting to cry


And with the wind
I'm dancing drift drift drift
In the shapes of the place that I miss"

gene autry, beulah

new purchase. dot perkins. this is the approximate rendering of the actual thing. a comfy fitting singlet with pastel brown and purple flower prints. sweet but gentle. goes with everything. prob will.

so yesterday while MY and I were at changi beach we saw the most beautiful alsatian puppy roaming the car park.i'm not a go gaga and awwww person when it comes to animals but i must say it was really endearing and we made up our minds we're definately gonna get an alsatian if we have the space next time. and a great dane. currently it's heiniken and stella atois for names, but hmmm, we have to think of more options.

then tonight i had a sumptious dinner at home with my family around the table and times like that reinforce the love i have for them and the gratefulness for every blessing i have.

so today, MY looked gorgeous. i wore my khaki skirt, and admired the very beautiful blazers in topshop. i did buy two things this week, a blue halter type top from topshop and a brown-peach pastel flowers singlet from dot perkins. and that pair of earrings from accessorize.

is complacency or procrastination the worser crime?

i really must have some sort of lace in my hostel room. it's too patternless. of course the more minimal, the better but, i'm truly, not a zen type person. i need flowers, i need motifs, i need prints, i need colours, i need texture, and i need complexity. but, thoughtful complexity, subtle and careful, never frivolous, never over the top, and never too common and blatant. i think, i'm itching for some edward hopper prints too. maybe i'll pop by kino to see if they have those booklets of hopper's prints. his pictures are as quietly common and heartachingly familiar as watching something like taxi driver. i was so excited when i saw my urban module's reading list. we're gonna watch all the cool films like chungking express and hitchcock's rear window etc, which i've been wanting to catch. it's even better that i'm going to study them in the context of the study of urbanism. i really really love all my theory modules. i think it's part of the flavour of why i keep coming back.

today after dinner at MY's house we drove down to site and took a leisure stroll around changi village, esp near the jetty edge where it's serene but pitifully serene. i think, i'm very much drawn to using that part of the site for my project. i have to be more hardworking from this week onwards. consistency is the key, for someone like me who easily wanders off the path getting distracted by the goodies the goblins offer me, like i'm remembering the gothic poem, goblin market by christina rosetti. i think, while doing gothic lit back then, i always thought christina rosetti was a pretty romantic name, like some name belonging to a pre-raphaelite maiden, pretty much like the print in my room. anyway, consistency is the key. that pertains to my work outs too. too long a break in between will be detrimental to my focus. so now i will aim to go swimming at least twice a week and running twice a week if i can afford the time. i think starting with something easy like that to practice consistency will be good for me.

that said, it is hard not to be materialistic in this world. great people churn out beautiful designs and what can i do? i'm only human. ha.

i'm itching for a thirty lap swim soon. it's the equivalent of a smoker's fix for me. i am addicted to the endorphins, i think they help me stabilise my life and especially so because i'm not meticulous and focused by nature.

dearest MY CHOY,
you make good better, and better best.
i love you.

love, me

shu....i accidently deleted my tagboard from my template.

History begins only at the point where things go wrong; history is born only with trouble, with perplexity, with regret. So that hard on the heels of the word Why comes the sly and wistful word If.

Graham Swift
Waterland

i want snow, i want snow,
i want cold, i want new york,
i want travel luggage, i want airports,
i want ice, i want skiing,
i want toronto, i want kensengton vintage,
i want low key glamour, i want cool,
i want art school, i want art,
i want fashion school, i want marc jacobs,

i want snow.

bouna vista swimming complex is pleasantly old and cute. i went swimming today. though it wasn't new or didn't come with high flying roof features, it was quaint and clean. and the floor of the pool is so weird, one end is the average low end height for a human and the water at the other end is like almost just600m high, for kids. it wasn't the best pool floor, but the important thing was the availability of free lanes for me to swim.

i did twenty laps.

and tried the aloe vera meiji yoghurt today. it was alright.

oh look!

two of my favourite tv people in the same september photoshoot!

"[Love] is wonderful and pretty universal, too. Once it happens, you finally read the books and listen to the songs and go, 'Oh my God, I know what they're talking about now.'" - natalie portman

life in general, is so full of complexity.
now ain't that wonderful?
we rant and groan about this and that, but really,
who'd want to live emotionless, passionless, thoughtlessly?

not me.

so there, me, unless you keep reminding yourself of this, you'll keep losing the faith. the thing is, in all that we are pushing towards, striving towards, we are always trying to grasp the final point, the ultimate destination. so today, suddenly, after four cups of m&s green tea( it's a wonder also, how far one tea bag can go), i see, that i have to come to terms with life being a journey, that's a cliched term, so let me be more poetic about it. hmm, yes, there is never going to be that end point as long as you are a human being with the emotions and mental faculty that comes with the package. the only end point of stagnation is death.

ok, so after yesterday's moody but valid ramblings, this has to be the sudden spark that sets me a going for the rest of the semester. isn't it wonderful? that we can suddenly think this way and be inspired?

wow.

http://www.paramountclassics.com/virginsuicides/html_3/index.html
it may have been the surburbia of archie comics, not dreamy but nonetheless, and my exposure to media; our hdb surburbia is not so romantic. the virgin suicides is not massively brilliant, but it's one of those quiet, romanticising the human emotions and celebrating the seventies in a dreamy way, that type of film which adheres to my senses. ok, i guess it's the whole packaging, but who cares, they are successful and i like to indulge in this like.

i wish, i were seventeen again.

tearfully yours,

oversentimental and in need of a pause.

you know what i want now? me in a scarve over my head and aviator sunglasses, and a retro leather luggage travelling through europe and US now with MY CHOY or alone.

i'm also thinking, art school, art history.

sigh, so unfocused.

actually, what is making me so, like that?

maybe i know the answer, maybe i don't.

as with times i feel like this, i escape to my idealised notion of the seventies, even if it's a romanticised era, i like it so. air's playground love is one of my favourite haunting tracks.

the past few days have been a flurry of activity and worry and physical exhaustion that has rendered me immobile on my chair now. ok it's not that extreme but i'm glad i have a calm room and quiet night to start the week with. this morning i ran the 10km at the nike reel (real?) run at sentosa and it was rather enjoyable, as in it wasn't unbearably hot and the 3km on sand was actually quite a luxury, giving me and most of the other runners a chance to walk cos i'm not sandtrained so i walked most of the sand bits so i didn't feel that exhausted but my contacts irritated my eyes and made my right eye extremely sore and painful so that kinda killed the fun cos i was running around the island with my eyes half closed and watery. anyway i like the ache now though my thighs and calves feel like jello. it's interesting though i thought i won't survive cos the past two weeks' swimming addiction has led me to ignore running but surprisngly i didnt' feel too bad during the run. even the last time i tried to run on friday i just did 2.4km then packed my bags and went to do fourteen quick laps before rushing to school. i guess, it definately is a good addiction.

next up, terry fox run with the aki people and wyn.

frame of mind, frame of mind. need to work on that. i've been so mentally lethargic and lackerdasical which is a more severe crime and i'm annoyed and afraid so i think the isolation in this cosy hostel room will be good for me. everytime i take a step back and analyse myself i cringe at my lack of spontaneity and responsiblity. i think i crave it all but i'm so distracted of late (which refers to uni and onwards) it's simply disappointing. where, is the drive? where is the innocent drive of passion i had before? i think, it's time i started elimating distractions bit by bit from my life and start being focused about priorities. and be more selfless and lardidar. my life, is getting slower and slower paced and that, is not good.

observatory playing now. maybe that contributes to this introspective mood. sun setting, shadows outside and slight breeze. it's evening time, prelude to night. this is it.

i have a fear that i may be made of fluff,i hope it's not true.

early in the morning you know i'm thinking,

it's not that i'm in love with kate hudson, i'm just in love with penny lane and all her other screen characters. i want to be a band aid, a part of penny lane's clique you know.

sometimes i sincerely think i live in their world, i really want to be their friends, another one would be holly golightly in breakfast at tiffany's. i want to sit by her side at the window sill while she strums at the guitar sitting at the window singing moon river.

sometimes i really believe i could be there.

those good filmakers they just kill me.

and while i'm on a quoting spree, here's another:

"Life is a random lottery of meaningless tragedies and a series of near escapes.
So, I sit here and I smoke my camel straits." - Ethan Hawke from Reality Bites

'cept of course i don't smoke camel straits, i just sit and stone really and i figured out that's what's getting me dreary and unenthusiastic, more like, lazy perhaps, holliday underdose, and moaning about it. and life is not a random lottery of meaningless tragedies, mine has more commonplace drama than tragedy, and perhaps the only tragedy currently is that, i sit around and do nothing too much. that's why i end up with my series of near escapes.

tsk.

i cried and i cried and i cried. girl interrupted. that's why i like winona ryder so much. and why i love this show. it's a modern hamlet really, not plot wise cos hamlet didn't live to do the winona ryder thing and go back to society but the issues of insanity and sanity and straddling both sides and how amazingly we humans work it all out. You know we area really all interrupted at several points in our lives and i believe that if we are the type to truly truly intensely love the world and passionately embraces all the life has to let us drink in then we will definately need those silent agonising pauses at times. that's life intense and extreme for you. so that's how ms. plath managed to create such beautiful poetry. really, you really need to be as near to the danger zone as possible and try not to fall of the precarious edge while standing on your toes and peering over. that's the way you manage to look at what others don't see and how you grab your insides deep down and fling it all out into the world in all its glory.

"When you're sad, you need to hear your sorrow structured into sound."

"... the entirely credible yet unreal Vermeer light.
Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skins, most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them, as are the maid with the letter and the soldier with with the hat."

"The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful, overcast light of life, by which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom."

"Every day we choose who we are by how we define ourselves"

- Girl, Interrupted


more like, i guess, we are defined by what we choose.

hmm, so anyway first kickboxing class today. pant-inducing sweat-inducing endorphin-seeping cardio always does me good. as does the instructor's flat abs which will be my inspiration for the next twelve weeks.

currently, in need of a clean pause to start the semester. i'm at least a week behind in terms of enthusiasm and energy so i guess, gotta start tomorrow, be inspired and all. i'm not jaded, i'm just, needing a mental and physical detoxing thing to fire me up and calm me down at the same time.

so if we were somewhere else we'd be needing to don gloves or nice fashionable scarves now. it'd be nice, to have an autumn. i like my sun here and all but it'd be nice to have an autumn. that obvious transition that jolts us out of complacency. school begins tomorrow. i am so not used to it, so not prepared for it. it is exciting definately but i just so love nuah-ing and putting my brains on 'away' mode. i have a lot of plays though, in my head, waiting to be materialised into personal movies but i'm constantly too engrossed with watching other peoples' shows, i'm distracted from charting out my own beautiful path. one thing i'm glad is i'm less nonsensically depressed than before. i realise that comes with pushing myself out of my comfort zone, forcing myself to go seek happiness that comes with understanding and inspiration. so for now, to get out of my holiday mind rut, i'll just have to soak in that aki atmosphere and get on with the hard work i always attempted in mind but not in action.

goodbye, my precious holidays. see you in decemeber.

ten hours i spent walking, talking, sitting, loving you today and i wanna tell the world, it is bliss. so we aimed to watch the fireworks, it was a delightful treat to look foward too, but i'd like to tell you honestly i'm more excited at spending the time with you than the fireworks. we talked alot today, and we talked everywhere. we talked at macdonalds while reading the papers together, we talked while walking from church to suntec to one fullerton, we talked sitting on the aluminium oasis in the sea of heads and bodies that scrambled to and fro and uniformly gazed at the sky going ahhhhhhhh open mouthed at the very pretty fireworks, and we talked later at the hotel lobby lounge over iced tea and salted almonds. and in my head we're still talking cos that memory is so fresh and beautiful i'm recording our conversations in my diary and i want to also say that you inspire me so and you were meant for me and all love songs in the world were written for us, cheesily put. haha. love is cheesy from the outside but wonderful and personal inside. hello MY i love you.

event wise, we watched farenheit 9/11 (it was good) and we watched fireworks.

so, i've kept a diary since i was two. mom started recording entries, then da jie.
these are the first three entries i added on my own:

17-4-88
Today i went To SundaySchool my SundaySchool teacher went me to learn my memoryverse but my teacher went me to Learn my memoryverse nexe Sunday.

17-4-88 on 17th April
i go shopping with my mother i saw many toys and books i went to buy the toys and books but my mother say no

17-4-88 April
it is my Maid's Birthday i Give har a priesent it is a surprised for har i can't tenl har what is in the box and i can't tenl you what is it too.

pretty nostalgic.

so really, what is the point of blogging that? i guess, that means i'm too sentimental, that's why i'm in a state of blue now. not depressed blue, just inactive and pretty much a blank screen.

the revenge of the dim sum dollies. don't miss it.

morning mom woke me up to go help her answer calls at the shop while she attended a course next door. so it was a quiet morrning in the empty salon reading magazine eating chee cheong fun breakfast going 'hellogoodmorning...sally hairstyling' when the phone rang. then me and mom went for breakfast then i left to meet shuying at the woodlands pool where it was blazing hot but pretty. the pool area, has brick seats brick walls and brick seats, and a little hill with green trees at one side so whenever i swam towards that side it was a nice to come up to breathe and see that soothing scenery. then i went home and got ready to meet the fantastic fabulous mister am why choy for dim sum dollies at the esplanade.

i think going to meet mister am why choy is always exciting. i'm still having a crush on you.

and you in your new shirt (oh very very becoming) and me in my new skirt (ok la, also quite becoming la.. tsk for self praise) we trotted off to dinner at the raffles city food court and the ice kachang was special with their secret ingredient sugar water or something then we sped to the esplanarrd and enjoyed an exciting evening of very wonderful theatre. those three, so good. i have not laughed so much at a theatre performance for so long. and it was poignant and funny and whimsical and funny and sad and funny and so perfect. everyone must watch it to celebrate national day. i think i'm a big fan. we clapped along, screamed, cheered and even waved singapore flags. there were disco ball lights shimmering around the circle seat walls right up to the ceiling, malay rap, japanese accents, birds and scgs girls. and not an untheatrical moment of enthusiasm.

and i enjoy every single performance we attend. the anticipation of meeting, the dressing up, the dinner before is special even, the slow or fast walks to the esplanarrd and the interval chatter and the glimpses during the show and the my hand in yours boy girl man woman us against the whole world feeling. so ahhh sighhh. so proper and so exact. i would like to say we should all dress up to go to the theatre/ concert hall whenever we can. it's a great joy to make things like that celebratory. it's our little drama you see complete with the sensitive camera angles and the cue music except it's all saturated in that little twinkle in your eye or that squeeze in my hug.

aiyo, so ooh, so aww. but i like. haha.

no more swimming for a while. i'm tan enough and i need to train for next sunday's nike reel run. i've been putting running off for two weeks so no good. tonight i'll start on an 8km slow run to start building up my pace. i think i miss running like i miss an old friend. there, see you tonight.

tomorrow, dim sum dollies date.

you, new shirt.
me, new skirt.

so fun.

the book i'm reading is bill bryson's 'made in america'.

it's a very exciting evening. tame, fading, amber, but exciting in a subdued manner. like i'm excited for night to come, simply for the fact that i appreciate nightness.

i wish somebody else would have a housewarming dinner/party. i want to buy them pretty and wonderlandish artificial flowers.

a list of things to do before i reach thirty:

1 >>learn to ride a horse and actually gallop through meadows
2 >>sell a painting
3 >>visit new york in autumn
4 >>visit europe in the summer
5 >>windsurf
7 >>own one marc jacobs dress
9 >>run a marathon
10 >>visit the summer palace in beijing

of course, there is more, now is just a list i am making up on an exciting amber evening.

also.

ten films i want to watch during the dec holidays:

++ Schindler's List
++ A Clockwork Orange
++ Vertigo
++ An American in Paris
++ Before Sunrise
++ North by Northwest
++ In the Mood for Love
++ Chunking Express
++ Fallen Angels
++ American Graffiti

women are born to shop. five hours of walking today and i've only a slight satisfying calf ache. mango has been good this season, the clothes are much better. maybe that is bad for me. i should ban myself from entering that place but i went there today anyway and tried on fantastic tops but luckily they didn't have my size so i didn't buy the one i eyed. i went to top shop and got two singlets that complemented my mediterranean princess tan. and went to gg>5 and tried on a randomly picked skirt which i fell in love with. but, i decided to go consult sharon who was mannning the booth outside taka. then i went to shop for housewarming gifts for bernice. for two hours i walked and i bought four pairs of stainless steel chopsticks which i beautified with a green gauze type ribbon. and five stalks of purple artificial roses from lifeshop to beautify her house with.

i am rather too tired now to be a tad artsy and dreamy, so it's simply directly put, today, was window shopping day.

also, read bill bryson. if you like history, learning about everything mundane and randomly important and travelling and places and told to you in a casual whatddever smart comic way, i think he's good. and i'm only in chapter two. forgot the title, america something or something america.

i'm going to eat a plum.

from mango. chic.

from mango, i want. wait for sale.

i need harmony to perpetuate every single aspect of my life. every single aspect. i think we all do. that calmness that soothes the heart.

twas a nice day.

finale: in the dead of the night when the bus interchange was silent, the speakers were playing ' i left my heart in san francisco'. i tried to imagine myself in san francisco but pity the actually passive ah lian in front of me dropped the bag of cheezels she was munching on accidently and didn't even bother to pick up the bag and throw it in the dust bin three steps in front of her.

met my friends in school, the group c gang. walked to acs. was picked up at entrance by da jie and bro who were just exiting the school. had a good dinner cooked by dad.

today i ate grapes, apple, durians, plum. and nata de coco.

meeting at starbucks late at night, bought bill bryson's book 'made in america'. it's nice, sitting with a good book and a cup of tea, passion fruit was too sweet for me though, and waiting for people.

breakfast was

a whole meal gardenia slice with crisp lettuce and honey bake ham and honey mustard dressing drizzling topped with a scrambled egg spiced with lemon pepper and majoram leave seasoning and a sprinkling of black pepper.

and an apple.

and a warm comforting cup of m&s chinese green tea.

she's great too. http://www.yokoikeno.com/

today was a grin day. an achingly heartpinchinly great grin day. owww. haha. so he came from around the corner of the line of people and that, started the grins. of course, there were the interlocking of hands, the joined at the hips hugs, the occassional muacks, but nothing beats, the funny nonsense and witty rubbish replies that bounced to and fro, the deepness of conversations of everything and anything, that starts to form that grin in your mind like a light switched on and it electrifies into silly goofiness that is a grin. from church down the secret stairs at ywca to far east chicken rice ( the shao zi skin was nice and crunchy) to the supermarket at shaw to borders to kinokuniya to suntec to coffee club and the king of mudpies muddy mud pie and the conversations about back then when you didn't know me and i didn't know you and what went on with our lives back then. i was grinning all the way inside and probably outside too. and the conversations in the mrt train. i think we can talk until we're old and our faces are filled with laugh lines. no la, not filled. i want smooth porcelain skin when i'm old but probably cannot. see now, the sun rays while swimming are slowing eating my skin. so bad. my double dosage of sunblock is overpowering my clinque happy two sprays a day and the whole world can smell.

anyway, ya, today was a grin day.

that pic is taken from the movie 'love me if you dare'. some reviewers actually gave it bad ratings. a pity. they have no imagination and are devoid of passion.

http://www.kino.com/thereturn/index.html

i watched this that day. hmmm.

courtesy of yvette.that movie - elephant