caught rent the other day.
rent's about a group of friends surviving in the big apple. just in case you didn't know. actually that was all i knew about the musical before i caught it too. despite that i knew it's about a bunch of people living in ny beforehand, in the first half of the musical, i was rather thrown off the path coz the plot was just not that obvious to me. (yah lah. i'm pathetic, i need a real solid plot to scream in my face P-L-O-T before i get it. whatever k) the introduction of the various characters proved a little too complex for lil' o me. plus i couldn't catch the lyrics.
"you can't?" my brother asked when we were talking about the musical
"can you when you're listening to songs?" i asked
"er. no."
"then?"
i think if i knew the songs before i watched the musical it might have helped clear things up a little. for example, i didn't know their apartments got padlocked till JQ informed me so during the interval. supposedly joanne sang that right before the interval. think i must have shocked the people sitting next to us with my pathetic level of comprehension. yes, i'm t h a t dumb. but by the second half, i was more settled in. i was more comfortable with that the musical is about this bunch of people living in the Village. erm. if i didn't remember wrongly that Alphabet City's i n the Village. and i started to enjoy the musical more. i have less problems watching movies with "unobvious" plots coz usually they come with subtitles. i am such a total failure without subtitles. that's also why i like taiwanese serials more than hong kong serials - coz taiwanese serials come with subtitles. plus, i actually recognized a song in the second half. coz i haven't really watched a lot of musicals (this was my.. second musical if i'm not wrong) i can't really tell if it's good. despite that i thought the plot was not.. erm.. obvious, i did enjoy it. the reason why rent is described as being about the life of a bunch of people living in new york is coz it's - about a group of people living in alphabet city
- about how they struggle to live in their apartments
- about how they meet love, lose it and how they live with it
- all in the span of one year.
i liked the anger, the despondence the characters felt. i enjoyed the glimpse into the characters' lives. it was finding a small river on a hot sunny day and deciding to dip my feet in despite that i was running late. shocked by the coldness of the water when i first dip my feet in, but later enjoying the relief from the heat the water skittling past my overheated skin brought, running my feet over the smooth pebbles a little absent-mindedly, greedily taking in the coolness of the pebbles that came from the running water. watching rent was something like that. sorry i can't say it clearer.
overheard in sg
woman #1: "that's the world trade center." (referring to a photo of the world trade center, new york by yann arthus-bertrand)woman #2: "is it still there?"
go see it!
almost forgot to post about this. there was this really cool art.. erm.. gig? thing? in nyc. has ended. but still it's really cool!! yip.
coz new york times charge for accessing their archived articles, i really hope you catch it before it gets archived. but i still prefer nyt to st. for one, i can read quite a number of articles for free on the net just by being a member (which doesn't require payment). try doing that with st. @#!$ it's not like i don't want to support the local papers, but when they're so money grubbing..
anyway, here's an excerpt from the article, which hopefully you can still access in entirety from here. but if it's archived by when you want to read it, you can ahem contact me ahem for the article.
and in case you have problems visualising how exciting the entire thing is, you can see the photos from here.
read on!
* * * * *
Sometimes - never often enough - there's magic in new art. You'll find a sweet, rude shot of it, at least until 10 tonight, at Leo Koenig in Chelsea, where the Vienna-based collective Gelitin is in residence. Over the past week, the group has turned the gallery into a sociable, raunchy, pixilated all-night version of Santa's workshop, pumping out free art on demand, and turning the image of a money-choked, object-clogged New York art world on its head.
Gelitin itself has remained all the while invisible. What you'll see while visiting Koenig, at 545 West 23rd Street, is a sealed, space-hogging wooden box, the size of a small house or a pre-1970's mainframe computer. It has two extensions; one like a cabinet, the other like a top-loading chest. You are invited to place an object, any object, into the chestlike extension. Close the hatch. A yellow light goes on. You hear a sliding sound and a clunk. Your item has temporarily disappeared into the big box, just as dozens of others have, including wallets, photographs, specially made items (artists have brought their own work) and, memorably, a 2-year-old child. (The daughter of another Koenig artist, Erik Parker, spent a few hours in the box, emerging delighted but respectfully mum about her experiences - the Gelitin team had sworn her to secrecy.)
Take a seat. Eventually - the wait can be from a few minutes to more than an hour - a light on the other extension goes on. Open the door, and you'll find your object joined by a brand-new, handmade "duplicate," or at least something that more or less resembles the original. Both items will elicit admiring responses from the other people waiting their turn. And there always are people; the show has generated an avid community of shared interest. When the ooh's and aah's have subsided, you can take your new art home.
from the article "Insert Object, and Out Comes an Artful Replica" by Holland Cotter, new york times, 23 nov 2005
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anyway, the other article i'd wanted to blog about was actually this. to think i was just wondering what goes on in one's mind as one is sitting on a bus.
and this one is for the ipod owners out there.
this one will show you how design does matter in everyday life.
this one will bring you links to click on to watch the ads. it makes me wonder if i'm really as open and tolerant as i wish i am.
did you know now bubbles can come colored? whee..!
this is a review of a book by maureen dowd, who wrote this. the article by dowd has been archived and can only be accessed if you wanna pay for it. by there's a short excerpt here.
and here they demystify erm.. those.. erm.. 杂技 acts? to think it's all physics..
i'm wearing a mask
i feel tightness in the chest. wtf
maybe i'm really less fit than i imagine (is that possible?? i already think i'm. a glob)
and now i'm coughing? wtf
could it be the construction work downstairs? damnit lah. i feel like shit. lungs quite damn tired from expelling all that air can. f-
* * * * *
and so now i'm in my room with the windows nearly entirely closed. wearing a mask (courtesy of jq - who was trying to get rid of the heavenknowshow many masks she has). in the pathetic attempt to overcome the above feelings.
* * * * *
oc mix 5's.. weird. shall reserve further comments till i've given the cd a couple more spins.
got this from mandrake, who got it from snowystars. * * * * *
This was written by Andy Rooney from CBS 60 Minutes. Andy Rooney says:
As I grow in age, I value women who are over 30 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.
If a woman over 30 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.
A woman over 30 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 30 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.
Women over 30 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.
Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be appreciated.
A woman over 30 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over 30 couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.
Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 30. They always know.
A woman over 30 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 30 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.
Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.
Yes, we praise women over 30 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 30+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.
Ladies, I apologise. For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free”. Here’s an update for you.Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realized it’s not worth buying an entire PIG, just to get a little sausage.
* * * * *
but is that what the majority think?
when i was watching the madonna music mtv (live8 concert version) it occurred to me again (yes, it has happened before) why most women fear aging. madonna may be toned and fit, but argh, her skin still sags! and i really get why women get so freaked out about age.
but then again, i also realise there's only t h a t much one can do to fight age, and being a slacker that i am, i'l prob surrender rather easily (like the way i surrender to the mess in my life)
i don't really know a lot of females who are 30+, but is that what it's like? will i really be more self-assured, more confident? it's just that sometimes, i look at the people i'm surrounded by, and i get rather freaked out coz i don't want to be them.
but i don't really know what i want to be either. i hate it when people ask me about my five-year plan. f-. since when is that an essential. i don't know what i want. and i know that i should know. it doesn't help if you ask me about it. argh. bad patch.
je suis aloysius snuffleupagus!
jq took it. decided it's a good alternative way to entertain myself while i kill more brain cells with drudgery at (part-time) work and according to the sesame street persona test, i'm
snuffleupagus
i'd scored 41% organization, 46% abstract, and 45% extroverted i am somewhat organized, both concrete and abstract, and both introverted and extroverted. *wtf.. seriously to be so.. on the fence is.. hmmm.the test measures 3 variables. First, it measures how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. *i always thought i'm kinda anal (about things being clean and tidy), but then again when i see the mess i'm facing, i usually just surrender without a fight. even though i find cleaning, clearing, tidying therapeutic, the sloth in me is quite contented to live in a mess than to tackle it. Second, it measures if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measures if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert is somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. *eeeh.. thinking more about herself.. isn't that selfish? or egocentric? first time i see someone use introverted to describe thinking about oneself. ok, a more indepth analysis of my results.."You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren't totally obsessed with neatness though. Aloysius Snuffleupagus (and all Snuffleupagus') is not sloppy by nature, but he moves so incredibly slowly that it is impossible for him to be totally organized."*omg, snuffy has a first name? snuffy has a last name?? snuffy is really aloysius snuffleupagus??? aloysius????"You both are about equally concrete and abstract thinkers. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren't afraid to explore your dreams and desires... within limits of course. Snuffy generally has very basic interests, but he explores his abstract sensitive side when he plays his snuffleflute."*snuffleflute?? "You both are somewhat introverted. Originally Snuffleupagus was very shy and was only Big Bird's invisible friend. However as he has aged he has started to build new friendships with new characters. Like Snuffy, you probably like to have some time to yourself. However, you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations." *invisible friend? i am snuffy? i'm still totally freaked out by social situations whereby there are people i don't know. so that bit is shit. but i do appreciate time with my friends. if only they've the time for me. and if only i've more money to hang out with them.it's just a test for fun, but i think i've learnt more sesame street trivia than learning about myself.
good day
i consider this a good day despite that i had to part time. despite that i developed a headache in the later part of the day, and am still suffering from it. despite that my bag felt ridiculously heavy. despite lugging around groceries in the library and not really finding books to borrow. (wanted to borrow at least four books so as to take part in some luckydrawcontest - prize: mirrormask gala tickets)
coz it's a cool day. the temperature was just perfect. according to forecastfox it's 25degC now. the dj on radio said the temperature for today ranges from 24degC to 28degC. if sg's temp hovers at 25 a l l the time, i would seriously like sg a lot more.
it's just dumb to have long hair but have to keep it in a ponytail almost all the time coz it's too freaking hot to let down one's hair.
f-. headache. it's time for food therapy.
in case anyone's been following, i haven't been blogging for a couple of days. kinda rare for me since some times i can blog multiple entries in a day. long story short - i'm being plagued by a f- eruption.
yup. your eyes are fine. i'm suffering from a f- eruption. (here comes the long story)
over 12 moons (and a couple more) ago, i busted some good money to extract an overly eager wisdom tooth.
said wisdom tooth's counterpart, being a 方向白痴 like your truly, couldn't tell up from side, north from east. thus managed to get itself jammedimpacted such that it refused to emerge out of the gums.
overly eager wisdom tooth tried to free its directionless mate. alas! its effort only managed to cause much pain for me as its effort only managed to leave a f- toothprint on me gums, while directionless mate continued to pushgrow (in vain) at me molar.
and after more than 12 moons, directionless wisdom tooth finally manages to emerge from the labyrinth of gum tissue. but alas, its soulmate is somewhere in my room (rather than happily in my mouth)
worse! it's still somewhat off in its sense of direction.
after suffering more than three days of irritation, i've concluded that i'm not suffering from teething pain. directionless wisdom tooth is somehow erupting off the X.
@#!@%^&@#!$%
- guminnercheek tissue are sore. teethbrushing is seldom so precarious an action.
- i can feel a f- ache when i move my jaw.
- as guminnercheek tissue semiclings to directionless wisdom tooth, i've taken the precaution of chewing on unaffected side of my mouth. coz i fear rotting bits of food in my mouth. and damnit. the tongue gets very easily bored by whatever i eat
- i try to avoid talking coz for some reason, moving my jaw gives me the delusion that i might somehow bite the sore guminnercheek area. great. i'm delusional.
think a visit to the dentist is inevitable. f-. this will definitely cost a hell lot. argh. f-.
* * * * *
the wisdom tooth thing has been causing me a suitable amount of grief and strife. also been providing me with a really lame excuse not to be working on me portfolio. f-.
i also blame it for my rather nasty mood. evilbitchynasty thoughts have been the bulk of my thoughts for the past few days. been cursing to myself quite a bit too. guess that's why i haven't been blogging. no point in spreading my whatever.
but it didn't stop me from reading voraciously. managed to read quite a few blogs while part-timing. finished neuromancer, rule of four, quite a few comics.
this kinda made my day today. sigh. i'm not the only person going though a tohellwithallofyou phase.
my verdict is out
surprisingly it's edible.
it's kinda a little too moistmushy - probably coz i'd added a little too much creamed corn than called for. might decide to throw the first batch back in the oven to dry them out a little
the use of creamed corn really gave it a very corny feel. - felt like i'm eating those.. steamed corn thing. not bad if you like steamed corn.
cornmeal gives the muffin a very.. wholemealhearty feel - my jaws are a little sore from the chewing. i don't think non-fans of wholemeal bread will like it. but i guess that's why i like cornmeal muffins. i love stuff with grainy bits like wholemeal bread. and my cornmeal muffins.
maybe a little more sugar might be good. - but it's really quite ok now.
on the whole, not bad lah. considering how i kept forgetting to add this and that in. at least it's not greasy like the raisin muffin i had.
i'm a horrible cookbakerwhatever
just attempted to make corn muffins.
first ominous sign - coz of my inability to decide which recipe i want to follow, i decided to adopt whichever parts of the two recipes (i have) i feel like.
second ominous sign - i don't have vanilla. and since only one of the recipe called for vanilla.. extract? too bad lah.
third ominous sign - forgot to mix the butter in before i pour the dry stuff in.
fourth ominous sign - forgot to put in the baking powder, baking soda, salt (and butter) before adding 2 cups of flour + cornmeal to 1 can of creamed corn.
2 cups of flour + cornmeal to 1 can of creamed corn is super hard to mix. have a sneaky feeling the baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter (i added a f t e r i added the freaking flour + cornmeal) won't be very evenly distributed. hmmm.
fifth ominous sign - i forgot to add sugar till the last minute. hence another struggle with the already super resistant batter. and to think one of the recipes warned against overmixing. well, it's either overmixing or notsweetoverlysweet muffins.
yipes
first batch is out. keep your fingers crossed.
* * * * *
chey. not cooked yet. but both recipes said 350degF for 20 min what. [sulk]
click away!
- rather interesting read. especially so for someone so f-- plagued by sleeping problems.
- decided to read this coz of the title of the article. found it rather queer for it to be under the category of "home & garden". not that i would know where else it might fit better in. thought it's sweet how love can transcend taste. some times i criticise my friends' taste, but lately, maybe it's coz i don't see them as often as i would love to, i tend overlook such things more. but still it pains me to see.. bad taste. i can't help it! i like pretty things!
- i know this is under my mustclicks. in fact it's the only thing there now. but this particular one has some entries that just do more than make me laugh
like the one about the streets with names. think it might be unique to manhattan. i heart manhattan.
today on my way home, i spotted someone that i guess kinda qualifies as a celebrity.
the said "celebrity" is violet oon. i'm guessing she stays at B- V- or is that estate called B- H-? this is pure speculation from where she alighted from the bus.
it's like celebrity sighting in sg - violet oon
while celebrity sighting in manhattan - eddie cahill + melina kanakaredes
yes, i'm that shallow. i'll rather live in manhattan than sg coz i can see famous good-looking people.
there're more reasons, but let's save that for another time.
then the other wednesday one liner i like is
Chick: I make it a point never to run to public transportation. It's a rule that I live by.
this is something i try to live by too. serious. but key word is t r y. just dashed for my bus on my way home. c'mon, it was so badly stuck in the jam i overtook it twice or thrice on foot? but still had to dash to get on to it.
i would say i run to public transportation less than half the time. it's just so.. ungainly. besides, the bus gods like to screw with me. it's more than once when i dashed only to find out there a faster bus behind the one i got on.
public transportation. love it, hate it, live with it.
click away!
reached here from here.
sometimes, it doesn't stop
knnsunday night/mon morn managed to sleep four hours or less before i had to part-time.mon night/tue morning managed to sleep three hours or less before i've to part-time. wonder what's going to happen tonight/tomorrow morning. no wonder i'm cursing so much. @#$@!but let me wax lyrical about alcohol. in case you didn't know, i talk to myself all the time. maybe i exaggerate, but at least 1/3 of my waking time. sometimes, there's w?A talking to w?B. sometimes, they talk as if i'm a machine that they're running. but most of the time, it's just like a running commentary of everythinganything that's happeningabouttohappennothappeningwhatever. and there are nights when the running commentary just won't stop. like the last mon night. and last night. a gulp of absolut vanilla neat at four plus am burnt. @#$! seriously i burnt from mouth to oesophagus to stomach. but it did manage to ruin the running commentary. it slowly ran out of juice and i finally managed to lose consciousness at five plus? i remembered tossing and turning for quite a while after looking at my alarm clock at five am - all the while thinking hey.. the running commentary ain't so rabid now! har! take that!suffering here now. body needs to sleep. mind wants to adjust to normal sg time. i must stay awake. tmd.
"... Now I crave what I didn't have. I crave that definitive strategy created by pushy parents, by ambitious teachers. I wish someone had sent me to law school so I could be pouring over intensely boring corporate cases deep into the night, surviving on Red Bull and chocolate melted from the neon glow of a striplight in a windowless office. I wish I'd taken upthat PhD so I could be sitting in my Cambridge college droning to my spotty, upper class students about the literature of Postcolonial India, exuding the academic stench of sherry and pomposity. I wish I'd met the love of my life at 25, so 26 never happened the way it did. I wish something, someone, would hand me the strategy in neatly typed, large print, step-by-step instructions, Spanish on one side, English on the other. I gravitate to the successful, those in my age group who have two-bedroom apartments with wooden floors, flat screen TV's, bare brick walls, partners who look like they just stepped out of J Crew, clean, safe, nice. It makes me feel comfortable, even as I stutter, embarassed, over the words in conversation which mark me out like a Cain as unworthy of their upwardly mobile existences. "No, nothing so far. Sold a few big articles, but not yet writing with JJ Abrams. Still dancing to scrape by."I wish I'd planned a little better, strategized a little more, said no to those last three glasses of wine. I wake in the morning and the alcohol and pneumatic drill outside my window drag me to the depths of self-pitying despair. I order the Bouncer outside to bring me orange juice and bagels, and he looks at me. ..."got this from here. and the blog entry just blew me away. some things i came to realise after wantonly using up the earth's resources for.. 24 years and nearly ten months (yes, i have to think before i remember how old i am), i realised that i didn't have pushy parents (like mimi). but i've yet to come to a decision if that's good or bad. but i do know thati wish i had the courage, the strength and the wisdom to take a year break before entering U.i wish i had pushed myself more when i was in U. i wish i had pushed myself more when i was in sec school and jc. i wish i had the desire to attend U in a place other than sg. i wish i had the determination to strike out a path on my own rather than to have compromised and done aki in nus. i wish i had just gone ahead and gotten an interior design diploma instead. i wish i knew what i want. not that that's any really a whole lot clearer now.i wish to have met that someone.i wish to have done the past a whole lot differently. and maybe, like mimi, "i wish i'd planned a little better, strategized a little more".
bloody hell.
spent one entire hour trying to conjure up orange flavored popcorn. o n e h o u r. s i x t y m i n u t e s. knn.
the one hour is inclusive of two attempts to conjure up said popcorn. it also includes time i spent scrubbing the @#$%@! pot in order to attempt a second time. (badly burnt the first batch) knn.
to think all i wanted was a fuss-free dinner. fuss-free my foot. @#$%!#
* * * * *
and then C unloaded his unwanted comics on me.
knn. this is the thanks i get for lending him comics. and now i have to lug his unwanted comics to salvation army. luckily he always offers to help me buy dfs booze. @$%!
* * * * *
and i just discovered the cool del.icio.us!
tres useful. especially when one uses desktops at various spots (eg home n outside home. yah lah. i dun have laptop. 我是穷人 happy?)
and what more, now i get what tags are! sheesh, to think i never understood tags even though i use flickr every now and then. my conclusion: del.icio.us does a better job at giving instructionshelpwhatever.
even better, i just realised the purpose of the bookmarks toolbar folder in firefox.
yes. i'm t h a t dumb.
click them!
1. there i was, happily indulging in puzzle pirates, and there they were, doing this.
2. they only wanted a little chicken..
is that your butt??
imagine receiving an email with the above in the subject line. notice the double question marks.apparently HX sent photos of his apartment in michigan back home to his family. his family members (including, horror of horrors, his extended family) noticed a butt that is "distinctly female" in one of the photos. JQ (HX's sis) thought hey, that looks like w?'s butt (instead of the very general thought it's a female butt). and thus she sent me the photo to find out for sure.it was with much trepidation as i clicked on the icon of the jpg. my butt? i don't remember mooning. e v e r. seriously i'm a really boring person with absolutely no life. somemore, i haven't been drunk in public for a long while liao mah. where got so suay kena caught in malu photo?what photo did the guys take that is causing such hoo-ha? h o w did the photo framed my butt to cause such a commotion? is my butt t h a t big??never thought i would be traumatized by those four words and two punctuations. and then, the moment of revelation.tmd. it was like a view of my back from mid torso to mid calf lor. i wasn't even in the foreground for heaven's sake. i was in the background lor. biang.
true, HX and all his flatmates are all guys, but is it that surprising to find a female presence in the photos? surely they'll have female friends popping over? stupid JQ. scared me for n o t h i n g. succinct, my foot. (her excuse for the subject title)and for the record, my butt looked normally sized in the photo. heng sia. quoting from JQ, it's distinctly female coz it's "round".
hmmm. is that good?
the conclusion JQ n i came to was that the photo just needs captions (really badly).
if not for the fact that i was present when the photo was taken, i wouldn't know what the photographer was trying to say with the shot.
if not for the "short and succinct" subject line, i would have just gone "huh? erm. what's the point here?" instead of zooming into the figure in the b a c k g r o u n d that took up.. 1/8 of the entire photo?
if not for the fact that HX's family members didn't realise the focus of the photo was the wok that took up 2/3 of the foreground, they prob wouldn't have paid a n y attention to yours truly in the background.
lousy photo lah. and my butt is not obscenely offensive. har :p
musings on a muffin
had a sweet secrets raisin muffin. it was
- a little too greasy for me
- not sweet enough - i couldn't really detect sweetness in the muffin. but there was plenty of sweetness from the raisins. luckily there were plentiful raisins so it kind of balances things out.
- had lovely moist raisins - yum
- a little crumbly - in comparison to the one they sell at the hawker store at my place which sees a stupendously long queue a l l the time. will try to review it one day.
weird how i am crit-ing the poor muffin.
but it's way better than the muffins one gets from using the jiffy muffin mix. they usually end up too dry. wonder how my corn muffins will turn up. looking forward to churning them out this coming weekend..
my life story. almost
click
amuse thee
something amusing click
something else that's rather amusing click
bilingual
someone once told me that he envied that i'm bilingual. and i thought "so?" coz quite a huge proportion of the population in sg is bilingual. (ok, we have to note that there are those who aren't. like the more elderly portion of the population. and those who have really.. argh!. sticky corner.) ok. a lot of people i know (which isn't a lot really) are bilingual. so it's not a big deal to me.
but this article showed things a little differently.
i've always had a slight preference for chinese over english. coz it's the language i grew up with. reading traditional chinese comes naturally to me despite being educated in a simplified chinese system.
over the years, i've kinda lost touch with the language coz i use english more. i watch more english tv shows. and that is why i stubbornly refuse to give up chinese pop.
there're just some things that one can convey through chinese that one can't with english. like the noun, 背影. i've struggled forever to find a suitable synonym in english. let's say the sentence goes something like "就这样, 默默地望着他渐行渐远的背影" (ok, technically that sentence sounds a little awkward too)
maybe it's coz i'm not super fluent with english but how to i translate that?
"and so, silently i watched him disappear from my sight?"
where's the pain, the longing (which i would subtly hint from the rest of the text if i've actually bothered to think about them) that the line in chinese would have reiterated in the english translation? where's the poetry? the imagery? (ok. don't know what i'm talking about now. i didn't do literature.)
maybe i'm just not as bilingual as i wish i am.
thunder and lightning
thunder vs lightningwhich scares you more?as i was driving my brother to camp last night, i found out i'm scared of lightning. especially lightning that lights up half the sky. for me, it forebodes seriously heavy downpour. some thing i'd just experienced last week while in my cousin's car. every swipe of the wipers rendered the windscreen visible for.. 1second? and wipers should only wipe at a rate that's not too fast so that the wiping action will not be the thing that's obstructing visibility. at least, imo. so effectively, one can only make out what's beyond the windscreen in 1-2seconds intervals. scaryyes, i'm scared of driving in crazy storms. plus, lightning is more dangerous than thunder, no? lightning is a bolt of electricity that can kill if it happens to make contact with you while you're.. erm.. grounded? (my physics sucks) and thunder is just.. vibration of sound molecules?that's why i don't get why my cousin, Y, my friends YX and K are scared of thunder. it's just noise, isn't it? the last time i met up with YX and K, we were picnicing at a seaside park. at night. what to do, they actually work. when we decided to leave, it had started to rain, and thunder was rolling at a rather frequent interval. thunder managed to freak K so much that - she ran away from the umbrella YX was holding.
- she started running zig-zagingly to the carpark (which could be reached in a straight line movement)
- she forgot which side the car was parked.
- she couldn't remember what YX's car looked like.
- she started screaming "is this your car" at 3? 4? cars before finally hitting the jackpot.
it's how i imagine a headless cockroach would behave. seriously, it's just noise isn't it?(but K was really petrified. it's kinda mean to describe her action like that of a headless cockroach. but YX agreed. amazing what fear can make a person do)
