Spider-Clip Hair Day Piccies are up! Did i mention that i love evan?
Out with Jingboy with minimal piccies. my cam sucks at self-shots :((
Close up of the face i drew WITHOUT TRACING! Wooo!
And I♥Kitty!
:) off to sleep!
Monday, June 30, 2008
TODAY'S been a great day in comparison to loads of shitty others. For once, art's actually giving me more hope than trauma. haha. and i guess im getting the hang of being back in JC, because i definitely feel less stressed out than in the first week. i seriously have a bad allergy to all first weeks of school!
Spider-Clip Hair Day Piccies are up! Did i mention that i love evan?
Out with Jingboy with minimal piccies. my cam sucks at self-shots :((
Close up of the face i drew WITHOUT TRACING! Wooo!
And I♥Kitty!
:) off to sleep!
Spider-Clip Hair Day Piccies are up! Did i mention that i love evan?
Out with Jingboy with minimal piccies. my cam sucks at self-shots :((
Close up of the face i drew WITHOUT TRACING! Wooo!
And I♥Kitty!
:) off to sleep!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
I found this pretty insightful article regarding the controversy of the reliability of Ted Hughes compilation of the initial Ariel by Sylvia Plath, his wife. Credits to slate.
Ariel Redux
The Latest Chapter in the Sylvia Plath Controversy
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004, at 1:46 PM ET
Sylvia Plath's Ariel is one of the most important books of poetry of the 20th century, and among the most controversial. In February of 1963, when Plath committed suicide, she left behind a manuscript titled Ariel and Other Poems. But that manuscript was never published. Instead, a very different book called Ariel arrived in bookshops in the U.K. in 1965 and sold a phenomenal 15,000 copies in 10 months. In the U.S. edition (which varies slightly from the U.K. edition), 12 of the poems Plath had included had been cut, and 15 new ones added in their place; several poems had been bumped out of their original order. Ted Hughes, Plath's estranged husband—of whom she had lately written "I hate and despise him so I can hardly speak"—had made the changes, inviting some charged questions about his apparent conflict of interest as both Plath's executor and the impugned subject of her poetry.
Plath's followers, especially feminist literary critics, were all too happy to skip the questioning and issue an indictment. They tore Hughes to shreds for what they presumed was a self-protective rearrangement—outraged at the male arrogance of his intrusion. It wasn't until last month that Plath's version of Ariel was published, as The Restored Edition: Ariel, with a foreword by the poets' daughter, Frieda Hughes. An overflowing "worldwide premiere" reading by poets and critics took place in Manhattan last week—a halcyon moment for Plath's supporters.
But is it a halcyon moment for Plath's poetry? The new edition is undoubtedly useful (though it is marred by several factual mistakes). But there's a good case to be made that Hughes' version of Ariel is actually superior to Plath's—and that Plath herself might have agreed.
Plath began to put together the manuscript that became the framework for Ariel in late 1961 or early 1962, fussing with it and changing the title from The Rival to A Birthday Present to Daddy to The Rabbit Catcher and finally to Ariel and Other Poems. She stopped working on it in mid-November of 1962, we think. And at 4 a.m. in the last few weeks of her life, she wrote some of the best poems of her career, the poems that, as she herself predicted in the febrile flush of composition, would "make my name." What Hughes did was to take these poems, some of which had a bleak, astonishingly pitched quietude—like Emily Dickinson's "formal feeling" that follows grief—and add about a dozen of them, including "Totem," "The Munich Mannequins," and the exquisite "Edge," to the end of her manuscript.
Hughes also acted like a good film editor, cutting a labored opening sequence back, removing poems like "Barren Woman," which were more conventional (and repetitive), and dismantling some of the narrative scaffolding Plath thought she needed. The effect was to plunge the reader swiftly into the sarcastic, funny, grotesque voice that dominates Ariel. Plath was still, as Hughes himself later said, a little afraid of her own poems, still learning how to wean herself from exposition in favor of dramatic immersion. (For evidence, read the drafts of the "Ariel" poem itself, included in the restored edition.) Hughes then moved up "Poppies in October" and "Berck-Plage" and used them as a springboard into "Ariel," the book's title poem, a luminous vision of self-transformation. The resulting sequence is more psychologically charged (and dramatic) than Plath's ordering had been. Hughes also added a few older poems, including "Hanging Man," inspired by Plath's electroshock therapy, to help clarify what he took to be her story line—the story of a woman triumphing over great peril only to later succumb to a version of her own "self-conquering self."
Hughes' changes did profoundly alter Plath's vision of the book, as enterprising readers could piece together when the excised Ariel poems were later published, chronologically arranged, in Plath's Collected Poems. Plath's Ariel was more pointedly optimistic, carefully plotting a path from "love" to "spring" (the first and last words of the book). In her mind, it was the redemptive story of a self overcoming the elemental forces that threaten her—a coherent allegory of rebirth, which ended with her famous sequence of bee poems. Hers is a powerful narrative on its own—but the final bee poems simply aren't as convincing as the late work that Hughes discovered on her desk. Their hopefulness ("The bees are flying. They taste the spring.") seems forced and self-conscious, as does the feminist thrust of passages like "The bees are all women,/ Maids and the long royal lady./ They have got rid of the men,/ The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors." Most of Plath's best tropes have the benefit of being factually plausible as well as emotionally powerful; this one doesn't.
Understandably, some critics are troubled by the newly morbid arc that results from Hughes' re-engineering. But what we don't know is whether Plath herself would have held Ariel and Other Poems to her original vision of it, as these critics believe. Plath was sharp-eyed and averse to platitudes, and it's not clear why she would have suppressed the work that was emerging in her final two weeks of life, or even have saved it for a new book, given that she was an inveterate reviser of her own manuscripts. We do know that Hughes and Plath had a history of reading one another's work; their shared preoccupation with mythology, their Nietzschean fascination with the interplay between creativity and destructiveness, were a wellspring for claustrophobic intimacy neither of them ever fully escaped. Despite the pair's embittered separation, Plath had apparently shown some of her recent work to Hughes, and the two had agreed that the freshly written "Totem" and "The Munich Mannequins" were among her strongest poems.
What's more, the poems Plath generated in the weeks before her death were thematically, syntactically, and lexically similar to poems she'd already added to the Ariel manuscript. They spoke to one another in a kind of harmonic design, full of images of stasis and violence; of bleak, fixed stars and dangerous little hooks; of crackling, dangerous moons standing hooded over a mythic landscape, and images of the self perfected and transformed by its flirtations with death. Plath was too sensitive a writer and critic not to have been conscious of the resonant layering of imagery she was playing with—all of which is reason to suspect that Ariel and Other Poems was not completely "finished." Hughes simply curated the poems as they invited him to curate them, with a poet's feel for the building implications of the interwoven imagery.
There is no question that Hughes laid himself open to the accusation that he had self-servingly suppressed lacerating (or, as he put it, "personally aggressive") poems about him, like "The Rabbit Catcher" or "The Jailor," in which Plath writes, baldly, "I have been drugged and raped" and describes herself as a "Lever of his wet dreams." But Ariel is by no means a bowdlerized version of Plath's original—Hughes comes in for plenty of scouring as it is. And far from reducing Plath to a pathologized victim—a sick woman—Hughes' version arguably dared to present Plath's raw power as even she did not, in its full-fledged, authoritative self-knowledge.
The real problem with Hughes' interference is that we can't separate the emotional relationship from the intellectual, artistic relationship—and we don't trust Hughes to, either. But from this distance Plath seems fortunate to have had his input. It's easy to forget now how radical Plath's poetry—with its elemental female anger, its sexual voracity, its self-loathing knowingness—was in 1963. A number of the poems Plath wrote in 1961 and 1962 had been turned down by editors who didn't understand them. Plath's publishers in the U.K. didn't want to publish Ariel, nor could Hughes convince Knopf, in the United States, to publish the new poems. "People didn't understand what they were getting at, or didn't like what they saw," the critic A. Alvarez later told Janet Malcolm. Hughes did get Plath's poems. And in a strange way, there is something moving about what he did. It is surely an emotionally complicated task to spend two years carefully reorganizing the work of your dead wife so as to persuade someone to publish a book that will implicate you in her tragic fate.
And the irony is that, in reorganizing Ariel to emphasize the ultimate price of Plath's emotional injuries, Hughes, like Samson, brought down the walls of the temple around him, even as he helped his wife take flight.
Ariel Redux
The Latest Chapter in the Sylvia Plath Controversy
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004, at 1:46 PM ET
Sylvia Plath's Ariel is one of the most important books of poetry of the 20th century, and among the most controversial. In February of 1963, when Plath committed suicide, she left behind a manuscript titled Ariel and Other Poems. But that manuscript was never published. Instead, a very different book called Ariel arrived in bookshops in the U.K. in 1965 and sold a phenomenal 15,000 copies in 10 months. In the U.S. edition (which varies slightly from the U.K. edition), 12 of the poems Plath had included had been cut, and 15 new ones added in their place; several poems had been bumped out of their original order. Ted Hughes, Plath's estranged husband—of whom she had lately written "I hate and despise him so I can hardly speak"—had made the changes, inviting some charged questions about his apparent conflict of interest as both Plath's executor and the impugned subject of her poetry.
Plath's followers, especially feminist literary critics, were all too happy to skip the questioning and issue an indictment. They tore Hughes to shreds for what they presumed was a self-protective rearrangement—outraged at the male arrogance of his intrusion. It wasn't until last month that Plath's version of Ariel was published, as The Restored Edition: Ariel, with a foreword by the poets' daughter, Frieda Hughes. An overflowing "worldwide premiere" reading by poets and critics took place in Manhattan last week—a halcyon moment for Plath's supporters.
But is it a halcyon moment for Plath's poetry? The new edition is undoubtedly useful (though it is marred by several factual mistakes). But there's a good case to be made that Hughes' version of Ariel is actually superior to Plath's—and that Plath herself might have agreed.
Plath began to put together the manuscript that became the framework for Ariel in late 1961 or early 1962, fussing with it and changing the title from The Rival to A Birthday Present to Daddy to The Rabbit Catcher and finally to Ariel and Other Poems. She stopped working on it in mid-November of 1962, we think. And at 4 a.m. in the last few weeks of her life, she wrote some of the best poems of her career, the poems that, as she herself predicted in the febrile flush of composition, would "make my name." What Hughes did was to take these poems, some of which had a bleak, astonishingly pitched quietude—like Emily Dickinson's "formal feeling" that follows grief—and add about a dozen of them, including "Totem," "The Munich Mannequins," and the exquisite "Edge," to the end of her manuscript.
Hughes also acted like a good film editor, cutting a labored opening sequence back, removing poems like "Barren Woman," which were more conventional (and repetitive), and dismantling some of the narrative scaffolding Plath thought she needed. The effect was to plunge the reader swiftly into the sarcastic, funny, grotesque voice that dominates Ariel. Plath was still, as Hughes himself later said, a little afraid of her own poems, still learning how to wean herself from exposition in favor of dramatic immersion. (For evidence, read the drafts of the "Ariel" poem itself, included in the restored edition.) Hughes then moved up "Poppies in October" and "Berck-Plage" and used them as a springboard into "Ariel," the book's title poem, a luminous vision of self-transformation. The resulting sequence is more psychologically charged (and dramatic) than Plath's ordering had been. Hughes also added a few older poems, including "Hanging Man," inspired by Plath's electroshock therapy, to help clarify what he took to be her story line—the story of a woman triumphing over great peril only to later succumb to a version of her own "self-conquering self."
Hughes' changes did profoundly alter Plath's vision of the book, as enterprising readers could piece together when the excised Ariel poems were later published, chronologically arranged, in Plath's Collected Poems. Plath's Ariel was more pointedly optimistic, carefully plotting a path from "love" to "spring" (the first and last words of the book). In her mind, it was the redemptive story of a self overcoming the elemental forces that threaten her—a coherent allegory of rebirth, which ended with her famous sequence of bee poems. Hers is a powerful narrative on its own—but the final bee poems simply aren't as convincing as the late work that Hughes discovered on her desk. Their hopefulness ("The bees are flying. They taste the spring.") seems forced and self-conscious, as does the feminist thrust of passages like "The bees are all women,/ Maids and the long royal lady./ They have got rid of the men,/ The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors." Most of Plath's best tropes have the benefit of being factually plausible as well as emotionally powerful; this one doesn't.
Understandably, some critics are troubled by the newly morbid arc that results from Hughes' re-engineering. But what we don't know is whether Plath herself would have held Ariel and Other Poems to her original vision of it, as these critics believe. Plath was sharp-eyed and averse to platitudes, and it's not clear why she would have suppressed the work that was emerging in her final two weeks of life, or even have saved it for a new book, given that she was an inveterate reviser of her own manuscripts. We do know that Hughes and Plath had a history of reading one another's work; their shared preoccupation with mythology, their Nietzschean fascination with the interplay between creativity and destructiveness, were a wellspring for claustrophobic intimacy neither of them ever fully escaped. Despite the pair's embittered separation, Plath had apparently shown some of her recent work to Hughes, and the two had agreed that the freshly written "Totem" and "The Munich Mannequins" were among her strongest poems.
What's more, the poems Plath generated in the weeks before her death were thematically, syntactically, and lexically similar to poems she'd already added to the Ariel manuscript. They spoke to one another in a kind of harmonic design, full of images of stasis and violence; of bleak, fixed stars and dangerous little hooks; of crackling, dangerous moons standing hooded over a mythic landscape, and images of the self perfected and transformed by its flirtations with death. Plath was too sensitive a writer and critic not to have been conscious of the resonant layering of imagery she was playing with—all of which is reason to suspect that Ariel and Other Poems was not completely "finished." Hughes simply curated the poems as they invited him to curate them, with a poet's feel for the building implications of the interwoven imagery.
There is no question that Hughes laid himself open to the accusation that he had self-servingly suppressed lacerating (or, as he put it, "personally aggressive") poems about him, like "The Rabbit Catcher" or "The Jailor," in which Plath writes, baldly, "I have been drugged and raped" and describes herself as a "Lever of his wet dreams." But Ariel is by no means a bowdlerized version of Plath's original—Hughes comes in for plenty of scouring as it is. And far from reducing Plath to a pathologized victim—a sick woman—Hughes' version arguably dared to present Plath's raw power as even she did not, in its full-fledged, authoritative self-knowledge.
The real problem with Hughes' interference is that we can't separate the emotional relationship from the intellectual, artistic relationship—and we don't trust Hughes to, either. But from this distance Plath seems fortunate to have had his input. It's easy to forget now how radical Plath's poetry—with its elemental female anger, its sexual voracity, its self-loathing knowingness—was in 1963. A number of the poems Plath wrote in 1961 and 1962 had been turned down by editors who didn't understand them. Plath's publishers in the U.K. didn't want to publish Ariel, nor could Hughes convince Knopf, in the United States, to publish the new poems. "People didn't understand what they were getting at, or didn't like what they saw," the critic A. Alvarez later told Janet Malcolm. Hughes did get Plath's poems. And in a strange way, there is something moving about what he did. It is surely an emotionally complicated task to spend two years carefully reorganizing the work of your dead wife so as to persuade someone to publish a book that will implicate you in her tragic fate.
And the irony is that, in reorganizing Ariel to emphasize the ultimate price of Plath's emotional injuries, Hughes, like Samson, brought down the walls of the temple around him, even as he helped his wife take flight.
I didnt know that bour·geois was pronounced boor-zwah
short posts nowadays, will make up for it tomorrow after going out with mahboy today. and as you can probably tell, i do not intend to go for the gp thing-- i woke up much too late and didn't do any preparation before the test so im vying for a re-test (with Deb! yay!) and i totally do not advocate, or even vaguely agree to having any school-related event-- especially school-WORK related events-- on saturdays.
Saturdays are MY days!
And im doing a compilation of Plath's Ariel poems so i can have a printed copy to work on. I know it's stupid to re-type all 46538 poems just so i can print them out (sadly, i tried. haha.) so i guess i'll just be copying them from the net then. yay!
Hoping to get one of my two sketches done today-- and a lit essay if possible. go me!
short posts nowadays, will make up for it tomorrow after going out with mahboy today. and as you can probably tell, i do not intend to go for the gp thing-- i woke up much too late and didn't do any preparation before the test so im vying for a re-test (with Deb! yay!) and i totally do not advocate, or even vaguely agree to having any school-related event-- especially school-WORK related events-- on saturdays.
Saturdays are MY days!
And im doing a compilation of Plath's Ariel poems so i can have a printed copy to work on. I know it's stupid to re-type all 46538 poems just so i can print them out (sadly, i tried. haha.) so i guess i'll just be copying them from the net then. yay!
Hoping to get one of my two sketches done today-- and a lit essay if possible. go me!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Today was a day of Revelations.
Just a quick recap--
♥ 50 points for MYEs
♥ Have not been overly nasty, yay.
♥ Deep talk with Deb over Tau Huey was geeewd.
♥ Funny GP lesson.
♥ Spider clip hair day with Evan!
♥ Visited my real Ah ma. she's in Hospital!! :(
♥ Going to Europe next year in June
♥ Art's on the right track (like finally..?)
♥ First traumatic incident in Marmi's 13 years of service to SGH
overall, today's been pretty good. im too lazy to do anything else, PLUS i dont wanna go for GP tomorrow. :(( noights!
Just a quick recap--
♥ 50 points for MYEs
♥ Have not been overly nasty, yay.
♥ Deep talk with Deb over Tau Huey was geeewd.
♥ Funny GP lesson.
♥ Spider clip hair day with Evan!
♥ Visited my real Ah ma. she's in Hospital!! :(
♥ Going to Europe next year in June
♥ Art's on the right track (like finally..?)
♥ First traumatic incident in Marmi's 13 years of service to SGH
overall, today's been pretty good. im too lazy to do anything else, PLUS i dont wanna go for GP tomorrow. :(( noights!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Today's been a more pleasant day for me than most. Had expected to get really shitty grades for my MYEs so i was shell-shocked when they turned out much better than expected. i guess consistency really triumphs last-minute studying? Havent gotten all of them yet though; there's still art and math!
And Evan gave me this sweet little keychain which fits my tiggie perfectly! yayy thanks evan!!
and i really missed my JC classmates-- glad to hang out with them during lunchiee. they really make life in JC alot easier to cope with :)) NOT TO MENTION EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE FLAT CHESTED ANDROGYNOUS FLUFFHEAD OF A THOUSAND MAKEOVERS hahaha!
(and poly boy as well heee)
And Evan gave me this sweet little keychain which fits my tiggie perfectly! yayy thanks evan!!
and i really missed my JC classmates-- glad to hang out with them during lunchiee. they really make life in JC alot easier to cope with :)) NOT TO MENTION EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE FLAT CHESTED ANDROGYNOUS FLUFFHEAD OF A THOUSAND MAKEOVERS hahaha!
(and poly boy as well heee)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Image Heavy Post Soccer and Mini-Class Outing at ECP!
Yesterday was possibly the most tiring day ive ever had ever since we stepped down from CCA-- it was like a full day exercise routine! But i really, REALLY enjoyed it-- im a sportsaholic; especially when it means getting together with friends to do sports :))
Soccer was awesome; i played beyond my expectations and scored more than 5 goals altogether :)) cant wait for the next soccer gathering even though there wont be one next week (DAMN YOU SUDDEN GP EXAM) ah well and there's an obvious difference from the teams at temasek poly in comparison to those at tampines sports hall; the ones at tp are really not that good.
and our two teams kept winning and winning for like the first time ever!! unless you count last week too :) a real morale booster, playing at tp. haha! this time there were more people-- the same old plus a few others like guan hui and glendon.
It was &$!^% hot though!
Rajab insisted on me taking his picture, haha.
Other pictures; obviously without me in it (i was taking the pictures, duh!)
And here's jingboy :))
Later rushed to ECP to meet the rest of the 5-man crew, and camwhored along the way. hahaha. Wished i had more time to to talk to Jing though :/
We met in Macs at first and it was great catching up with each other after not seeing everyone during the hols-- the two ahmas, the communist, the bimbo and the brimbo. HAHAHA! later made our way to ECP, and i didnt get to bathe even though i wanted to. dont mind my unglam pics :3
It was a beautiful windy day, as Jiayi said-- "Perfect for sleeping". hahaha! Jiayi started the ball rolling by eagerly requesting to learn blading; and even though it was her first time she really was quite pro. she's promised to get a pair herself so we can learn in school.. if we do have the time, i really dont mind! ive been wanting a good skating buddy for quite some time already; and since i can blade reasonably fast i dont mind investing in a professional pair of blades and blading gear :)
On my mats!
Then all of them rented their bikes before heading out to bedok jetty. i bladed alongside them and we had a nice time chatting along the way. A2 talks ALOT man! hahaha! It wasnt long before we reached our destination; but it was a nice view with ships surrounding the jetty and prettay clouds.
Loved this shot. Nostalgic; reminds me of the 70s?
Full picture! Im hardly in any pictures cuz i was the photographer (albeit an unprofessional one) for the day. haha!
And this odd couple (without the spoiler in between them) was SO CUTE hahaha!
aikes unglam pic!
did you even notice jarifah's head at the right bottom corner of the pic? HAHA!
Then we decided to cycle somemore to the end of ECP, past bedok jetty. it was quite interesting, but grdually tiring. two hours straight of blading (cycling for them) plus soccer in the morning is really no joke.
I liked this shot! You can see the three musketeers, haha!
And the other two on their double bike :))
After a while jarifah began to tire, so we stopped at this random place that had a few seats just off the road. which was so random; come to think of it. haha. we took a much needed break and chatted away before continuing our "journey to the west", haha! Oh and it so happened that the place we stopped by was full of... orgasms?! HAHAHAH!!! (joke of the day!)
Here's Jiayi and i :)) all our pics were pretty unglam.
And i finally caught gillian in a nice shot yay!
Would have really loved this pic if it wasnt overexposed (PUN GEDDIT GEDDIT?!)
pretty back view :)
And OFF WE WENT (AGAIN?!)
We saw several random things there as well, like many sailboats and the A380 (according to Dongbin) . they didnt look much like the world-acclaimed planes they were advertised for; more like fatty planes. haha.
And this guy's vegetable basket says "BE FRESH", which i thought was ingenious, hahahaha!
Sweet picture? pity there's really no chemistry. hahaha!
And here's gil! this is the first time ive got soo many pics of her haha!
And even though we met Alphonso at the end of the day, thats the end of my piccies! camera went out of battery and we were all dead tired by the time we gave back our bikes.
Also, several unpleasant events unfolded where Jarifah realised the reason why she tired so easily was because her bike sucked, and she changed it with Ahma only to, by the end of the day, lose her ex link card in the process. Ah well, besides that it was a pretty fun and eventful day for everyone i think.
Love from A2, cant wait for the next outing, seriously. x))
Yesterday was possibly the most tiring day ive ever had ever since we stepped down from CCA-- it was like a full day exercise routine! But i really, REALLY enjoyed it-- im a sportsaholic; especially when it means getting together with friends to do sports :))
Soccer was awesome; i played beyond my expectations and scored more than 5 goals altogether :)) cant wait for the next soccer gathering even though there wont be one next week (DAMN YOU SUDDEN GP EXAM) ah well and there's an obvious difference from the teams at temasek poly in comparison to those at tampines sports hall; the ones at tp are really not that good.
and our two teams kept winning and winning for like the first time ever!! unless you count last week too :) a real morale booster, playing at tp. haha! this time there were more people-- the same old plus a few others like guan hui and glendon.
It was &$!^% hot though!
Rajab insisted on me taking his picture, haha.
Other pictures; obviously without me in it (i was taking the pictures, duh!)
And here's jingboy :))
Later rushed to ECP to meet the rest of the 5-man crew, and camwhored along the way. hahaha. Wished i had more time to to talk to Jing though :/
We met in Macs at first and it was great catching up with each other after not seeing everyone during the hols-- the two ahmas, the communist, the bimbo and the brimbo. HAHAHA! later made our way to ECP, and i didnt get to bathe even though i wanted to. dont mind my unglam pics :3
It was a beautiful windy day, as Jiayi said-- "Perfect for sleeping". hahaha! Jiayi started the ball rolling by eagerly requesting to learn blading; and even though it was her first time she really was quite pro. she's promised to get a pair herself so we can learn in school.. if we do have the time, i really dont mind! ive been wanting a good skating buddy for quite some time already; and since i can blade reasonably fast i dont mind investing in a professional pair of blades and blading gear :)
On my mats!
Then all of them rented their bikes before heading out to bedok jetty. i bladed alongside them and we had a nice time chatting along the way. A2 talks ALOT man! hahaha! It wasnt long before we reached our destination; but it was a nice view with ships surrounding the jetty and prettay clouds.
Loved this shot. Nostalgic; reminds me of the 70s?
Full picture! Im hardly in any pictures cuz i was the photographer (albeit an unprofessional one) for the day. haha!
And this odd couple (without the spoiler in between them) was SO CUTE hahaha!
aikes unglam pic!
did you even notice jarifah's head at the right bottom corner of the pic? HAHA!
Then we decided to cycle somemore to the end of ECP, past bedok jetty. it was quite interesting, but grdually tiring. two hours straight of blading (cycling for them) plus soccer in the morning is really no joke.
I liked this shot! You can see the three musketeers, haha!
And the other two on their double bike :))
After a while jarifah began to tire, so we stopped at this random place that had a few seats just off the road. which was so random; come to think of it. haha. we took a much needed break and chatted away before continuing our "journey to the west", haha! Oh and it so happened that the place we stopped by was full of... orgasms?! HAHAHAH!!! (joke of the day!)
Here's Jiayi and i :)) all our pics were pretty unglam.
And i finally caught gillian in a nice shot yay!
Would have really loved this pic if it wasnt overexposed (PUN GEDDIT GEDDIT?!)
pretty back view :)
And OFF WE WENT (AGAIN?!)
We saw several random things there as well, like many sailboats and the A380 (according to Dongbin) . they didnt look much like the world-acclaimed planes they were advertised for; more like fatty planes. haha.
And this guy's vegetable basket says "BE FRESH", which i thought was ingenious, hahahaha!
Sweet picture? pity there's really no chemistry. hahaha!
And here's gil! this is the first time ive got soo many pics of her haha!
And even though we met Alphonso at the end of the day, thats the end of my piccies! camera went out of battery and we were all dead tired by the time we gave back our bikes.
Also, several unpleasant events unfolded where Jarifah realised the reason why she tired so easily was because her bike sucked, and she changed it with Ahma only to, by the end of the day, lose her ex link card in the process. Ah well, besides that it was a pretty fun and eventful day for everyone i think.
Love from A2, cant wait for the next outing, seriously. x))
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Suddenly I see Why the hell it means so much to me
Had a bathroom epiphany; ive not been getting many of them recently so i was pleasantly surprised when i launched into this whole self-analysis on the reasons for my half in-denial half melancholic state nowadays. While it is true that no matter how many epiphanies i have life moves on just as sluggishly as it previously would, im glad that for once i finally came just this itty-bitty bit close to finding the true purpose of life; of my life.
Ever since i was young ive always been drawn to the vitality, the rawness and the beauty of life in many different areas; be it in the unending imagery released within the lines of a carefully crafted novel, or from the immediacy of various art forms; music, fine art, film, plays, and possibly almost every other avenue you can think of. While life clearly needed to be supported by its daily sustenance of money, technology and logic, it was the undefined, the illogical, the illusionary that drew out the essence of living-- at least in my case.
These past 18 years have molded my character, sharpened my perspectives and honed my thinking; but one thing that didn't change was my zest for life and the outlets through which i sought to express it. Even though there were times in my life where the tide stemmed or waived, just like water flowing downhill, it would always seek some other way of expression. However, ive also made my own fair share of mistakes in this search, succumbing to the superficial lures of the world and resorting to childish, hypocritical acts in a skewed, failed attempt to ascertain the reason for my existence.
While i acknowledge the recurrence of my flaws that occur sometimes simply as a by-product of bad habits not curbed earlier, sometimes i do berate myself badly for my mistakes. After all it doesn't take a genius to spot them once you don't get caught in the whirl of the moment.
It always takes me quite a while to realise that being human requires us not to blame ourselves for the very factor of our humaneness; our faults. Even when i do im not sure if my right brain is trying to convince my left brain of its apparent stupidity; always unable to make out a straight answer from the many thoughts that form in my grey matter. But this is precisely why there is simply no blue-print to living the perfect life-- for we gain perfection in our flaws, beauty in our simplicity, wisdom in our imperfections.
Beating the "A" Levels is no mean feat, considering the chances of failure is high with Serangoon's bleak odds of one failure for every two students. But does failing your "A" Levels mean you are a failure? Are you willing to let society label, usurp and assume your identity without you even trying to understand yourself? Even though it seems extremely easy at first, it comes with a high price-- for you lose your sense of self-worth and the drive to establish it, the very quality that pushes Man to seek past the boundaries of the impossible.
I don't know about you, but i think i've finally found one reason in my current context that pushes me to excel past who i am now in order to achieve who i am to become, learning from who i was before. And that reason simply is-- i want to live.
Someone once quoted Albert Einstein, "I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family. When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives. Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig."
Similarly, every new dawn breaches 24 hours of painfully unequal proportions of blessing and disaster. If i lived just so i could ensure material wealth for my family and i, or so i could engage all my senses in experiencing the pleasures of life, or solely in pursuing the sordid dreams of my half-blind childhood, then what is the meaning of life? For with death, all of these would be robbed from me instantaneously, into nothingness. But if every step towards the unknown, every new experience, every hair i drop as a result of stress brings me just one step closer in understanding the reasons for my existence, there and then, i am satisfied.
At least, im not afraid to venture past what's comfortable in order to understand. To learn, even if it comes with pain. At least when i die, i would know i lived, imperfect, but courageous. So what if the arts dont make me a rich woman? I shall die a poor and reasonably satisfied one then.
Knowledge on its own is useless. Knowledge, coupled with wisdom, and moral guidance, is my own flawed blueprint in weathering the torrid blows of life. This is my life, this is my conscience, this is my dream, this is my death.
Had a bathroom epiphany; ive not been getting many of them recently so i was pleasantly surprised when i launched into this whole self-analysis on the reasons for my half in-denial half melancholic state nowadays. While it is true that no matter how many epiphanies i have life moves on just as sluggishly as it previously would, im glad that for once i finally came just this itty-bitty bit close to finding the true purpose of life; of my life.
Ever since i was young ive always been drawn to the vitality, the rawness and the beauty of life in many different areas; be it in the unending imagery released within the lines of a carefully crafted novel, or from the immediacy of various art forms; music, fine art, film, plays, and possibly almost every other avenue you can think of. While life clearly needed to be supported by its daily sustenance of money, technology and logic, it was the undefined, the illogical, the illusionary that drew out the essence of living-- at least in my case.
These past 18 years have molded my character, sharpened my perspectives and honed my thinking; but one thing that didn't change was my zest for life and the outlets through which i sought to express it. Even though there were times in my life where the tide stemmed or waived, just like water flowing downhill, it would always seek some other way of expression. However, ive also made my own fair share of mistakes in this search, succumbing to the superficial lures of the world and resorting to childish, hypocritical acts in a skewed, failed attempt to ascertain the reason for my existence.
While i acknowledge the recurrence of my flaws that occur sometimes simply as a by-product of bad habits not curbed earlier, sometimes i do berate myself badly for my mistakes. After all it doesn't take a genius to spot them once you don't get caught in the whirl of the moment.
It always takes me quite a while to realise that being human requires us not to blame ourselves for the very factor of our humaneness; our faults. Even when i do im not sure if my right brain is trying to convince my left brain of its apparent stupidity; always unable to make out a straight answer from the many thoughts that form in my grey matter. But this is precisely why there is simply no blue-print to living the perfect life-- for we gain perfection in our flaws, beauty in our simplicity, wisdom in our imperfections.
Beating the "A" Levels is no mean feat, considering the chances of failure is high with Serangoon's bleak odds of one failure for every two students. But does failing your "A" Levels mean you are a failure? Are you willing to let society label, usurp and assume your identity without you even trying to understand yourself? Even though it seems extremely easy at first, it comes with a high price-- for you lose your sense of self-worth and the drive to establish it, the very quality that pushes Man to seek past the boundaries of the impossible.
I don't know about you, but i think i've finally found one reason in my current context that pushes me to excel past who i am now in order to achieve who i am to become, learning from who i was before. And that reason simply is-- i want to live.
Someone once quoted Albert Einstein, "I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family. When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives. Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig."
Similarly, every new dawn breaches 24 hours of painfully unequal proportions of blessing and disaster. If i lived just so i could ensure material wealth for my family and i, or so i could engage all my senses in experiencing the pleasures of life, or solely in pursuing the sordid dreams of my half-blind childhood, then what is the meaning of life? For with death, all of these would be robbed from me instantaneously, into nothingness. But if every step towards the unknown, every new experience, every hair i drop as a result of stress brings me just one step closer in understanding the reasons for my existence, there and then, i am satisfied.
At least, im not afraid to venture past what's comfortable in order to understand. To learn, even if it comes with pain. At least when i die, i would know i lived, imperfect, but courageous. So what if the arts dont make me a rich woman? I shall die a poor and reasonably satisfied one then.
Knowledge on its own is useless. Knowledge, coupled with wisdom, and moral guidance, is my own flawed blueprint in weathering the torrid blows of life. This is my life, this is my conscience, this is my dream, this is my death.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Note: Tagged by Dawn
(best ive read so far has to be Deb's. Damn funny haha!)
1.If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Thats it, no more sex for you! (like that'll make a difference haha)
2.If you can have a dream to come true, what will it be?
Immense Wisdom.
3. What will your dream wedding be like?
Ask Jingboy. HAHA!
4. Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?
No. Yes. Maybe.
5. What is your ideal lover like?
A switch. Turns on at a touch! HAHA!
6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
both depends on the "someone" :/
7.How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Why must i wait? Be proactive :)
8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Shit happens, haha. (btw why is it a secret?)
9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Not doing work. Even though it IS the holidays.
10. Is being tagged fun?
Oh Boy, Yeah. Whoopee. Awesome.
11. How do you see yourself in ten years’ time?
Hmm, you should ask HG Wells!
12. Who are currently the most important people to you?
Mummy, Jingboy,Spree organisers hahaha evawai, the idiot who tried to sell my books when i went out for lunch with the chicas, ahma, REAL ahma, ok this list is not exhaustive :))
13. What kind of person do you think the one who tag you is?
Ive had a decent share of extremely good and extremely bad times with her-- but thats cuz we're all human, no? I'll tell you once i get to go out with her :))
14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?
Hahaha i can totally imagine some idiots writing "single and poor" haha!
15. What is the first thing you do every morning?
Realise AC's in the corner crack again.
16. Would you give all in a relationship?
Why not?
17. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
myself up. okay this wasn't funny haha.
18. What type of friends do you like?
Ask them! Ref to Q12!
19. What type of friends do you dislike?
If i disliked friends im sure i'll be calling them enemies :/
Hmm Hypocrites just make me go bonkers.
Donedonedonedone!
(i have kindly spared everyone by not tagging anyone. yesh i rock, i know :D)
(best ive read so far has to be Deb's. Damn funny haha!)
1.If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Thats it, no more sex for you! (like that'll make a difference haha)
2.If you can have a dream to come true, what will it be?
Immense Wisdom.
3. What will your dream wedding be like?
Ask Jingboy. HAHA!
4. Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?
No. Yes. Maybe.
5. What is your ideal lover like?
A switch. Turns on at a touch! HAHA!
6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
both depends on the "someone" :/
7.How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Why must i wait? Be proactive :)
8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Shit happens, haha. (btw why is it a secret?)
9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Not doing work. Even though it IS the holidays.
10. Is being tagged fun?
Oh Boy, Yeah. Whoopee. Awesome.
11. How do you see yourself in ten years’ time?
Hmm, you should ask HG Wells!
12. Who are currently the most important people to you?
Mummy, Jingboy,
13. What kind of person do you think the one who tag you is?
Ive had a decent share of extremely good and extremely bad times with her-- but thats cuz we're all human, no? I'll tell you once i get to go out with her :))
14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?
Hahaha i can totally imagine some idiots writing "single and poor" haha!
15. What is the first thing you do every morning?
Realise AC's in the corner crack again.
16. Would you give all in a relationship?
Why not?
17. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
myself up. okay this wasn't funny haha.
18. What type of friends do you like?
Ask them! Ref to Q12!
19. What type of friends do you dislike?
If i disliked friends im sure i'll be calling them enemies :/
Hmm Hypocrites just make me go bonkers.
Donedonedonedone!
(i have kindly spared everyone by not tagging anyone. yesh i rock, i know :D)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
hate it when my mum starts raising her voice at me for no big reason. especially when she's clearly pissed off at something else but dont know how else to vent her frustration.
Today was an in-denial day. only managed to sort out art a little more, and finish that sketch which had been pending ever since the beginning of last week.
Im more than a little worried; art seems to be another silent killer (along with lit) and thats without taking history into consideration. oops and totally forgot about gp and math.
groping around in the dark; lets hope i dont end up with a knife in my back.
on a lighter note, one of the tops have arrived! and i am so pleased :)) dont think i'll be able to get any shopping done when school starts; so gotta get it done NOWNOWNOW! okay yesh i know excuses but as i said, im in-denial!
Today was an in-denial day. only managed to sort out art a little more, and finish that sketch which had been pending ever since the beginning of last week.
Im more than a little worried; art seems to be another silent killer (along with lit) and thats without taking history into consideration. oops and totally forgot about gp and math.
groping around in the dark; lets hope i dont end up with a knife in my back.
on a lighter note, one of the tops have arrived! and i am so pleased :)) dont think i'll be able to get any shopping done when school starts; so gotta get it done NOWNOWNOW! okay yesh i know excuses but as i said, im in-denial!
Monday, June 16, 2008
New blogskin! Think this was Wanli's blogskin though. :/
Ive been having a hard time finding a nice one that's big enough for all my piccies and videos; but well this is what you get after 2 hours of scrounging! yay!
Woke up this morning to a delightfully yummy breakfast of pancakes! I have to say nothing beats good ol' pancakes in the morning with maple syrup and a nice comfy sofa.
And ever since my news about my sis' surgery spread people have been coming over showering their concern in the most sincere ways possible-- food and money. I swear ive never seen my larder and fridge so well-stocked with cooked food; uncooked food; herbs, spices and anything else edible thats been given to us as a token of love.
Even though i wasnt around most of the time to witness it (being away at chalet and the play and all) its as if these angels appeared out of nowhere; in fact, they're my very own relatives. They drop by pretending to be enquiring around, having a little chit chat with my mom, then later reveal that theyve lugged this and that and "Oh! Its nothing lah! Gotta go first, bye!"
I dont know about you, but these little gestures really, really make me want to take real good care of my family-- extended or not-- when i grow up. Here's our fridge; and even though its so well stocked that sole egg looks kinda lonely up there! haha!
Later I headed to school for a half-baked attempt to start studying; and while i managed to clear my locker i didnt even get to do it as thorough as i wanted; and went to Heartland Mall with the chicas :)) I know im in denial (i havent done ANY trigger notes T.T)
Random pics around school; i thought this was nice!
And i like how this makes me feel all mushy towards soccer. heee.
Yours truly :/
And taking pics of girls seem so much more natural than with boys. haha.
Off for a goodnight call and shleeep :)) noights!
Ive been having a hard time finding a nice one that's big enough for all my piccies and videos; but well this is what you get after 2 hours of scrounging! yay!
Woke up this morning to a delightfully yummy breakfast of pancakes! I have to say nothing beats good ol' pancakes in the morning with maple syrup and a nice comfy sofa.
And ever since my news about my sis' surgery spread people have been coming over showering their concern in the most sincere ways possible-- food and money. I swear ive never seen my larder and fridge so well-stocked with cooked food; uncooked food; herbs, spices and anything else edible thats been given to us as a token of love.
Even though i wasnt around most of the time to witness it (being away at chalet and the play and all) its as if these angels appeared out of nowhere; in fact, they're my very own relatives. They drop by pretending to be enquiring around, having a little chit chat with my mom, then later reveal that theyve lugged this and that and "Oh! Its nothing lah! Gotta go first, bye!"
I dont know about you, but these little gestures really, really make me want to take real good care of my family-- extended or not-- when i grow up. Here's our fridge; and even though its so well stocked that sole egg looks kinda lonely up there! haha!
Later I headed to school for a half-baked attempt to start studying; and while i managed to clear my locker i didnt even get to do it as thorough as i wanted; and went to Heartland Mall with the chicas :)) I know im in denial (i havent done ANY trigger notes T.T)
Random pics around school; i thought this was nice!
And i like how this makes me feel all mushy towards soccer. heee.
Yours truly :/
And taking pics of girls seem so much more natural than with boys. haha.
Off for a goodnight call and shleeep :)) noights!
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