Chicken Soup Noodle Night

York.

I have been all things wrong lately. I even got clumsy over dad's birth date. It was yesterday, but I had thought it was today. Even after munching through the celebratory dinner last night it was still not apparent to me- I thought mum was being eccentric by celebrating it a day earlier.

But padding around and getting things done today helped a little. I submitted my final two essays, collected some overdue documents that I've been faffing about (and without bureaucratic nonsense! How pleasant), did some banking, plopped myself at Starbucks and finished the skeleton of my graduate paper (the source of my overwhelming sense of futility and incessant twitching eye)

I need more days like this.

If I can get my paper done in the next few days, I can do anything. Anything. Even save the world - from tasteless advertisements and bad grammar.

Whittling Away is an Occupation

As you might be able to tell, I post things up more frequently when I'm stressed and need time to be still and sort things out in my head. Sitting and staring at the Blogger posting page and writing allows me to sift, clear and dismiss whatever that has been pooling in my head. I feign coherency in my life by typing out structured sentences in neat paragraphs. Content is ordered about and I articulate what is unsaid.

The real thing really is nothing like that.

It is still truth, of course. Only that you comb out and throw away the ugly. And you put on a soft, warming filter. And a string of pictures for when words fail you.

...didn't quite work out. Maybe I shouldn't use such grand adjectives the next time.

It's the final week of school, and it has left me miserable and a mess. I didn't think it'd end up this way. My optimistic first-year self would have convulsed and fallen over in horror at the sight. I don't clean up so well after all.

Now is not a good place to be in.




From a photoshoot at Bruno's Restaurant two weeks ago. Whole suckling piglets can never be photogenic, regardless of angle, profile or Photoshop.

little

IKEA on a Sunday afternoon = Hell, but with pretty furniture. Not even (good) cheap refillable coffee can change my mind.

Am listening to a selection of music picked by a friend (thank you, limfy!)- a thumbdrive bursting with goodness. Currently at Spoon and The Clientele. Oh yeah.


Last week I received something in the postbox: little felt people of us in the exchange group, from Spoon, or as he is sometimes known, Ben (oh look, another unrelated reference to the piece of cutlery). Here is me. I am holding a guitar. How awesome is that. We tossed and bopped them over tables and stuffed them in our shirt pockets and pencil cases. There is talk we might make a cardboard box play with them.


Sitar recital this Thursday. My whole being is in knots.

Sunday Morning Kind of Clarity

Anthony Gormley's Another Place, Liverpool.

There is so much rubble in my mind, but with only a handheld sift to sort it out. And there's plenty of homework to do, places to go, people to meet and things to forget. And to make it even more crushing, the lights in my room have burnt out, and we've run out of fluorescent tubes in the house.

It's early Sunday morning, and I'm seeking clarity. Will have to be in church in an hour's time, and my mind refuses to move or run. Like deer caught in headlights. Or squirrels in the path of a speeding car.

My head says this, but my heart feels otherwise. I don't want to remain in this place. It's not a good place to be in. Maybe it'll change today. I hope and pray so.



p/s: Sigh. I still haven't found West Side Story. I think I'll just resolve to watching 10 minute clips of the movie on Youtube. Shouldn't take too long. I think.

These Shoes Are Too Big

It rained. I am (was) trying to read deep into the play I'm writing about, but decided to pause for awhile to post this and listen to a little Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Eat World. That, and having to pause further for bathroom trips. I have a niggling suspicion it was the cockles in the laksa I had for brunch yesterday.

Been reading on much feminist school of thought and researching the characters of the play, which include a childbearing pope and a devil-fighting peasant. I still don't know what feminism is. In its absolute form, if it has one. Half a day was spent in the library speed-reading books from Thatcherism to reproductive labour to history of women and feminist theatre- and all I walked out with was a headache. Maybe it'd be easier to just burn undergarments- perhaps they had a point after all.

Photos taken at Crosby Beach, Liverpool. Which reminds me: I would love to have a pair of your feet on my wall. Photos only, please. I am in the midst of a bedroom overhaul, and planning to keep a wall free for my installment of black and white photographs- and all of feet. Ah. Joy.

So if you would please, do send me pictures of your feet in any form (film or digital) or fashion. Shod or unshod. On grass or gravel. Mid-air or firm on the ground. If possible, let it reflect you. (p/s: Clean toes preferred)

Email me at nowhitespace@gmail.com

Killing with Kindness

It's a done deal that I will get to graduate by November, after the finals. Whether I do so with a flourish is another thing, but I think the point veers towards a relief that it will be over. My dream of being a barista at Starbucks come January is looking perky.

This will also mean I can begin planning, concretely, for the next phase of my life (not that life comes in phases or sections, it's just easier to deal with it in that way). Sometimes I think I could live with more longterm-planning (married, two kids, golden retriever) but most of the time I cannot even see past the next month. Like, what am I even going to do in November? I can't say for sure. When I was in high school, I didn't bother looking beyond the national examinations. My idea of future stopped there and then, anything after it was a black expanse of emptiness.

So till now, my future was set to graduation, whenever it was to happen. Now that it is arriving, it's time to figure out what's next. (Hello Starbucks!)

The Raya holidays was spent cleaning out my room and stripping it of years of hoarding, mess and useless things that I've allowed to stay. The bed and cupboard was loaded on a lorry two days ago and now my room has so much space, it is ridiculous. Now I hope to paint the walls a lovely mustard-olive green colour and be done with it quick, because I've lost the copy of the play that I'm writing for my paper in a massive tangle of stuff at the corner. What a hopelessly horrible time to refurnish and redo my room when I have deadlines looming over my head.

Just before this I was watching Oprah's 'Big Give', for the first time, and slightly enticed by the teasers and ads I had seen. Today's episode was a formulaic tearjerker (Wait, I take that back. Redundant statement) which had the people giving hugs and cash out of a bag. I would love something like that- a bag that never runs out of money. And doling out whenever there's a need. And hugs. Except that when it comes in a game show kind of format, I am not sure how to respond. A competition to see who is most altruistic. Well, the thing with competitions is, someone will win and someone will lose. How can you lose at doing good?

The basics of doing good, however, are there, but surely it can come without the contest element. It's like the proverbial 'killing with kindness'-contestants prod competition away by being the nicest of the lot.

I think I'll stick to watching reruns of Project Runway.