news to me

exciting times. i'm kind of involved with TED at the moment. I cooked a dinner for some of their people last week in London... they're super nice. I was sort of wondering if you were interested in the project and if you had any ideas for things you might want to do with it in Singapore. It's pretty basic: one of the world's greatest living documentary photographers/an untold story of global significance = a one month project to tell the story through the pictures, in er new imaginative ground breaking ways. talking of good videos this is one of the best lectures i've heard on youtube lately. this one is a good taster. oh and kali, you think brits are funny - clearly not half as funny as slovenians. oh and get this, i have a new video to make! i want to post the song here, but i can't work out how to do it. so i did it via yousendit. what do you think? a bit too morbid for girls maybe? this is what the inside of a mans head is like most of the time. What do you see when you listen to it? and i won a dogsht award at the film festival of the democratic convention in america. i def need to edit it again, as it's a bit pants. xxxx

inspiration

紅點降臨!



A friend of the lemmings,"dream bigger never stop" has gotten a red-dot award in concept design after much perserverance and hard work. He has been such an inspiration to me in constantly finding himself and never compromising his dreams.

Congratsssssss! :)

inspiring videos on TED

Thanks D for these links. Catty, will you pls watch it? they're pretty long though, but it speaks about technology. you might be interested. p/s. do you know this MIT media lab dude?

pugs rule

a piece of

here's what u missed out on yesterday RR ! im going to do a rendition of this for u next time we go karaoke tog.. whether u like it or not! ;)

Someday earlier this week when i was bored to death, i just stopped and went out to get a copy of this singer's live concert cd for a break hehe - she's almost like a chinese version of belle and seb, cos to me, she can do no wrong!
I'll burn it for u by weds hehe whether u want it or not too !

I'm glad I managed to vent half my frustrations away yest.. sigh. heres to a good week!

Lemming-alert

oh my goodness. a real life cinnamoroll up for grabs at serangoon road - SGD$180.

GO FOR IT RACHELLE !

CCC-CHINA

its confirmed. my dad is going to china next monday. it will be for quite a while. my mom wont be going over yet cos my dad says he will be quite busy, at least for the next half year. he will be in Kunshan, which is like 30mins drive from Shanghai. have you been to kunshan, cat and jessie? my dad says i've been there when i was a kid, but i cant friggin remember....

anyway this is bittersweet. cos i will miss my dad, but yet at the same time, i wanna go rock shanghai again! (jessie, i hope you are reading this and getting jealous!)

some best moments in china:


shopping sprees with jesssssicat! and having friends staying over at my apartment :)

mimiko the office cat!



toasting bread with a pan.


gig loner.

wasting money at dumb conferences.

the best quote i've seen so far

comes from Corbusier!

' "Is architecture dying?" Oh, stop your croaking, you academic crows! '

I wanna give him a hug! :)

sunday smiles

I'm trying my hardest to enjoy sunday afternoons..

Lemmings in never-seen-before shots part 1.








Sorry i'm disorganised.. and didnt remember about these earlier! :| i'll post the rest of the photos, with everyone else somewhere soon!

big idea

While everyone is mad-reading/writing for our much dreaded dissertation 1st draft submission next friday, I just did the most brilliant thing by extracting my wisdom tooth.

Genius or what.

big trip

Lately, i've been eyeing these two places for grad trip:



Rio de janeiro and ...

Cape town!

:D

I think they're so much more than NYC, u think?

i cant concentrate on work either

Do you remember we chatted about the Space Hijackers, Charlie? I just got this in my mail. Apparently they are having a party this weekend, and i'm just so tickled by their invitation. Not because of the theme of the party (i think they've had better ones) but because of this asian dude on the invitation cover! What the hell is he doing there! HAHA. Are you familiar with this guy? I seriously doubt that they actually know who he is! If they do, then this is probably like 1st class humor! (but i refuse to think that they are actually this witty)

ps: i'm writing about SH in my dissertation. hee hee.

pps: will you go for this party, C?

magazines

i bought my first monocle after eyeing it for many mths at Borders. it looks fun cos its a whole packful of reads, and in its feature article this mth Singapore is ranked 22nd on the worlds top 25 liveable cities (dropping from last year's 17th).

i have promised to do a 1500-2500 worded article in an architectural magazine (!). It will be my first published article ever :)! i will have 4 days at it after draft submission. U lemmings must help me vet it when im done. I trust u guys! Boy am i on my way to being a music journalist soon! Haha

german electro/the caucausus

field day was brutal. it rained almost constantly. spent most of my time in a tent - Modeselektor was good fun. you need to start watching from about 50 seconds in for the full effect. I know that you're not that into politics chaps, but the reporting of the georgia thing here is hilarious. I can see literally no difference between what Russia has done to Georgia after Georgians blasted the crap out of South Ossetia and what NATO did to Serbia after Milosovic went into Kosovo. If anything what Russia did seems more morally clear cut (the Kosovo liberation army had been killing loads of Serbs in Kosovo, before Milosovic went in/whereas I don't think the Russians in South Ossetia had been killing the tiny Georgian minority). The South Ossetians don't want to be part of Georgia. Maybe you get a bit more balanced reporting in Singapore.

Last.. going out

I promise this is the last time i will be going out for fun before dissertation draft submission ! Boohoo. Just now, it was the first time in a damn long time i totally forgot about dissertation..

Thats melissa, june, elaine, me and maxie. HEHE. U know june and maxie! elaine works at DP and is damn funny and melissa just came back from a year in London.. Oh! u know her from the Kings of Convenience concert right? Charlie, u know maxie from the MUM concert! now i feel like such a concert goer. haha hmmm.

I'm gonna print notes now... see u in school tmr RR!

the gloom that is NUS

i can't believe that i'm having the jitters about school!
it feels like primary school days when we have to go back for the new term after the june/december long break. SUCKS!

i don't. want. skuuuuuu.

:((((

ps/ in order to cheer myself up, i've made new sch totes for you guys! pls appreciate my handicraft pple!

:))))))

good morning! a letter from Nate

Remember R, yesterday during our walk-about that i talked about bands that come up with magic all the time? and then u asked who i was talking about and i said the Format but maybe u would not like? HEHEHE

Anyway they broke up a while ago and i was thinking about it and feeling sad cos they are one of the rare bands that i really like. Anyways after that, last night, the lead singer sent us/his fans a mail about his new band, Fun. Their new song isn't extremely good or anythg, but it just feels nice, like hearing from an old friend.. His voice will always be good though!

Its a collaboration with a guy from Steel Train, which i just discovered, and i think theyre not bad. ;)

Thats all for the morning! Hope life is going good for everyone!
Where's yr post on yr dream about Kenn-tish town, R?

" The beauty of a morning

is always only fully appreciated when rushing for work on a Sunday night."

Just a reminder to self. sigh

words fail me now

how much does the pictish trail rule?

I'm going to this fandango at the weekend. can you recommend anything to me?

the kids are being noisy on national day

The neighbourhood







For more than an hour this morning the kids dressed in House t-shirts lined themselves up along the streets opposite my house, cheering and counting down to something that I couldn't hear properly. But it reminded me that tomorrow is a public holiday, which is a sad reminder when u know u have tons to do, and everyday is no longer a holiday!

Teevee report









This is terence on 早安您好 on his NDP "Participatory" bag featuring designs of students and disabled artists. I was really glad to see how his final work translated from his initial concepts without much compromise. I was seeing the bag for the first time that day!

He successfully managed to design it out of Tetra-pak (environmentally friendly), engaged public participation, and features a simple mechanism of adjustable strap (which i have to say is quite cool -_- ! but i didnt tell him that heheh). Maybe i will do a review of it again when i see it for real :)

He looked generally good and designer-ly on teevee haha. He also memorised a whole long speech, translated professionally into Chinese by his gf Jingyi (including phrases like 摇身一变！) BUT his chinese sounded damn weird ! haha. Especially for someone from a Chinese school, ahem.

Terence is leaving for RCA sometime early in September and i will miss having him around, even for his times of honesty/bluntness! :((

PY's party
For your benefit, RRR, here's dinner with PY at timbre. Featuring Hon (and JJ) which You havent seen for months !!!!

Py was happy and calm and looked all set to leave! The band (EIC) was playing and they were quite good.. Timbre was nothing exciting as usual.. but You haven't seen it so u wouldn't know ! Even Charlie has seen this place!







Here's to u RRR!



Closing words
In celebration of national day tmr, i will also attach the site of the photographer who did our shots for Biennale which intrigued me, but did not for R (it reminded her of national day hehehe). Isn't it rather like a local version of Matthew Barney?

Tell us what u think of this Charlie: http://superhyperreal.com/test/


I've been talking too much these days (on fb, in real life) and its making me damn tired and distracted. I think i will get out of my talking phase for a while. This marks the end!

Hey PS R, do u want a national day goody bag from terence?

Heheheh. The end.

walk this way

i think i'm a pretty good walker. must be all that dance class practice. and i found out that walking backwards really tones your butt. REALLY.

REQUEST OF THE DAY

can we be more shameless on this blog and post more visuals of ourselves?

R's fashion predictions

I say ditch the neon. Pastels are the new black.
Better start wearing them before the world does!
Some inspiration:

dark times ahead

Its raining. I'm a bit morose. And the builders are moving in tomorrow to fix a hole in the wall. They are definitely going to mess the garden up - right when it's at its peak. They are going to put scaffolding all the way up the side of the house. Apparently scaffolders are 'like gorillas'. I feel quite anxious.

So, to recap, this is what it looked like seven weeks ago.














And this is what it looks like today.

can you put the past away?

I miss those third eye blind days. How did u find them last time, R?

a Newsletter abt me

Here are some useless facts/updates on the recent ongoings in my life. I hope this makes a good read whether at breakfast, lunch, after midnight or any random study break. Because it is so long, you can also break it up and read this over a few days hee.

Did you know?
Hungry Ghosts Festival is here? It came so suddenly this year - usually i totally prepare myself mentally for it. Well not really PREPARE, but i would live in dread the week before it starts and lament to myself: WHYYY must there be such a thing!

I realised it on Friday though ( R, just the other day i slyly suggested to my dad to have DinTaiFung for dinner hee) when i noticed many "set-ups" about on my way to the MRT station.

Cleaning up
everyone's dissertation nicks are stressing me out! so, ive cleaned up my MSN (sort of) by starting a group of only the essential pple i care to know are online - and there are only 9 HAHA. Not that i dont care about the rest though, but everyone else is hidden which keeps me at peace from not knowing too much :)

Financial Intelligence
On Monday, i met up with this girl i didnt know very well, for dinner. I met her at the National Library previously when she was asking me to sign up for this workshop at NUS about financial intelligence. U know these group of pple station themselves at the national library on weekday evenings so i've bumped into so many of them. So anyway now at this current state of dissertation i didn't think i would have the mood to go for any of these workshops. So when she called me the other day, we just decided i'd meet her for dinner and she could talk more about it.

Anyway shes a really nice person, and she definitely wasn't selling me anythg. And i realised though she was already working and had her own personal business as well, she was our age and from TJC previously. Anyway the bottom line is just that - during the dinner we just shared with each other about our lives during university, and she's really down to earth and had worked throughout university to sustain her hostel fees (which i realise now, how expensive it is!).

I felt so guilty when i shared with her my working experiences and where all that money went to. U know i have worked most holidays during my education but most of it always went towards funding my yearly travels, sigh. I don't regret them of course. :(

Practicality & Health
Just now, i was alone at CoffeeBean in bishan after running some errands and it was so crowded, so halfway this group of 3 ladies ( about 40+ year old) came to share a table with me.

And they looked at my work and chatted about what i was studying and i also randomly interviewed them about my dissertation haha. they were damn funny.

In those 2-3 hours, they also intermittently educated me on their views of life They felt it was unwise for me to study so much ( i disagree) , they felt theory can always be pursued later in life but while ure young its important to get practice in the real world, as they have done. Anyway, they looked so happy with life (with their stable income and family) that it was hard to ignore their point of view.

Besides that, they said they noticed that i looked unhealthy ( hon said it the other day too. sucks :() Thats it, i really have to start jogging very often, cos if theres anythg i take for granted the most in this world, its finances and health. Gosh this really sucks. I guess these will be my mid year resolutions.

They also said many other things haha, but i disagreed so i shant say it here.

Coffee Places
I really like coffee places, from the bottom of my heart! haha.

They're sincerely my favourite places in the city. I like how globalisation has created a sort of universal home, anywhere in the world. When i'm in a starbucks (or mcdonalds) alone - in uk, china, taiwan or singapore, i always know where my favourite place would be and i'm always never really alone.

And i always end up crossing paths with such random people. My favourite story being the stranger that i met in Nanjing starbucks on a snowy day who talked about me trodding on a grave. And i also miss those days in Nanjing that i used to observe this playful dog who's always outside this certain branch.

Anyway i know i mentioned this many times, haha but i just thought about this again, after talking to strangers at coffeebean just now. I just want to say that these presumptuously "universal" coffee places arent as sanitised from culture as everyone would like to think! They have really been places for me that have allowed for certain special encounters that would have never happened anywhere else!

Biennale Wrap-ups
Here are 2 photos of the biennale team from the shoot we had this week- i guess pple's faces are all i can put here cos i'm not clear about issues of confidentiality (!) It hasn't exactly wrapped up, just for me, since i gotta be concentrating on school. Anyway we all went out for lunch after that, and i just felt like everyone is so nice, i will really miss the experience.





But i'm sure i irritated them for mentioning like i would miss everybody - becos they still have some way to go before finishing it! hehe.


Conclusion
One day, when i'm free, i will write some lyrics based on these incidents, in a Belle and Sebastian-ish style. It SO would fit !


PS. i want to upload my mix! but yousendit has been having problems the whole day !