山本昌男の写真が大好き。一枚で、一枚で、静かに、この騒がしい世界を静めさせる。

Sometimes the photographs that touch you most are the ones that are so small and quiet you can hardly make out what they are.

Photographs are taken from here.
Masao Yamamoto talking about his work (video)

Confession. I’ve never watched Star Wars. Or E.T. Or any Hitchcock film. Am I good, or am I great? Yeah, somehow I’ve managed living through more than a quarter of a century without watching them. That confession somewhat surprised/shocked quite a few during last Friday lunch session. Oh well.

A little indignant, so I googled for ‘Must Watch Films’ to see how far behind I really stand. I mean, all that zoning out in the uni audiovisual room must count for something. It must! That uncomfortable chair, the yucky headphones, the no-eating policy, and their stuffy opening hours. I refuse to have suffered these discomforts for nothing. Anyway, here are some lists (not in merit, but in how easy they came up on Google):

NYT: The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made
Guardian: 1,000 films to watch before you die
Time: All-Time 100 Movies
From here: 1001 movies to see before you die

Counting in progress.

Time: Seven. 7! Wtf!
1001 Movies: 67. Depressing.

(Of course, quantity is nothing. Ha ha. Sigh.)

Nothing significant to report, except that we’re fast approaching the mid-year and if you are still thinking that the year has barely begun, you only have a fortnight left to be obnoxious about it. Indexing the internet, aka things read and things to read:

- How David beats Goliath, When underdogs break the rules
If their strengths are your weaknesses, you gotta stop playing to let them win.

- The Squint Test – How to protect fashion designers like Jason Wu from Forever 21 knockoffs

- Objection, Dear Leader! – How do court trials work in North Korea?

- 19th-Century Pregnant Dolls

- How Not to Photograph

Bored. Four minutes to Monday.

Hello. Long weekends kinda rock, even if the current one is officially over. Oh well. I was very productive this weekend though. Hahahahahahahahahaha. That basically summed up my weekend. Hahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahaha. On Saturday, I went ahead and bought a sewing machine. It was on sale (apparently marked down from 499$ to 199$ – but they lied), and I had made myself believe that I really need one. I had quite enough of my slow distracted stitching, and there was no place in crafty heaven for people who keep cursing while sewing anyway. I also convinced myself that most of my to-do sewing projects won’t be fulfilled without a sewing machine, which I guess is partly true because chances are I would had stabbed myself and bled to insanity before I make myself anything. It was easy choosing between insanity and otherwise, I must admit.

Anyway, after an extremely thorough planning in my head, I started sewing myself a skirt yesterday night. Which I did, eventually, after about six hours and two failed attempts. I took a break at 3 a.m. to watch a rerun of Project Runway (if they could make a garment out of car parts, I must surely be able to sew a skirt out of 4000 yards of fabric) and eat instant noodles (is it me, or has the taste of Maggi Mee noodles changed?). The first two attempts became attempts, because 1. I under-measured the width, conveniently forgetting that despite their almost non-existence, my hips still do exist; 2. I sewed the wrong sides of the fabric together. Woohoo. So, while watching whats-his-name get kicked off, and deservedly so, off the show, I cut up more fabric and reviewed my process (ok, watch how hard you work the foot pedal. Slow is good. Slow is good). After the show, I proceeded with my new patient demeanor and began sewing a third piece. Well, it worked:

Yay! Was quite relieved to get it done. At least it was evidence that I wasn’t entirely hopeless. Truthfully, the construction/execution was a mess. The stitching on the hem doesn’t quite match up. The waistband is a tad too loose. It is too short, too tight etc, but I don’t really care. Technically, it is a skirt. Sewn by yours truly. Facts rock.

Spurred on by yesterday’s semi-success, I tried making the same skirt in a different fabric a few hours ago. And that worked out too, though I now have an empirical idea of how hot an iron can get! Hahaha! At the very least, this skirt was longer and I didn’t have to will my hips into disappearing before I could put it on. So obviously, I now have grandiose ideas of making my own dress next. Ahh. I can also now pretend to look at dresses and mentally deconstruct them. Imagination is so fun.

(Hmm, for some reason, I smell hash browns. I guess/hope that it is probably the brothers fixing a midnight snack. I will probably dream of hash browns later, which will not be good because I don’t exactly like them. Except if they are bite-size. I like my foods small and cute and button-like.)

Lately, my favourite button to click is the ‘Mark all as Read’ one on my Google Reader. Thus, the dearth of non-me-me-me-me related entries. Sleepy. Yawn. Steamed crabs.

Unborn babies on Twitter. That is quite creepy, actually. Not into babies. Nor toddlers. Nor teenagers. Best if they come out as adults (no Benjamin Buttons, though; yes, am rather fussy).

A tad out of the blue, I know, but I miss Yahoo SG Auctions sometimes. The local eBay site has seen a lot of improvement since a few years ago, but it is quite boring since everyone seems out to make a buck. At least on the former, I was able to find some nice gems at great bargains. Maybe I’m just saying this because I can’t seem to find what I want on eBay right now, and I’m pretty sure that if Yahoo Auctions was alive, there would be some ending-soon-at-no-reserve-$5! auctions waiting just for me.

Celebrate Odd Day! After reading this book, I wish I had a math teacher who was half as inspiring and passionate about the subject as The Professor was. Unfortunately, all the teachers I had were pretty dull and probably part-time O-Levels assessment book saleswomen.

On the subject of school days(-ish), I’m regretting not working hard enough in my Home Ed classes. For some reason (well, I know the reason, but it will take forever to explain, so that shall wait), I never really cared much for the subject in school. Like P.E. and art (yes, I didn’t like art classes too), Home Ed periods were supposed to be endured and dozed through every three hours a week. Somehow, the idea of baking cakes and sewing on buttons didn’t appeal to me at all back then. Who cares if you can bake cookies, who cares if you can tell a thimble from an unpicker! Frankly, I didn’t give much of a shit. I guess then it is karma that I actually find these activities interesting now and that I stay up at night sewing something that probably lost half its width to textile perspiration. Why are my stitches bloody uneven and crooked? And bloody might have a more literal meaning than you may think. Bah! Goes to show that I will eventually develop an interest in say, gymnastics 20 years down the road.

Photos are here!

Back from Siem Reap. The weather killed me. So did a lot of other things. Like the weather, the weather, the dust and the fact that Coke (the beverage) was more expensive than beer. The trip was a much appreciated break, but at the risk of sounding like a spoilt and pampered tourist, I am sorry to say that I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for the place (you brat! Well, it was my holiday). And call me shallow, unappreciative, and/or unspiritual, but I was all temple-d out by my fifth one. Angkor Wat and the Bayon temples were amazing though. I was frankly quite floored when I saw Angkor Wat for the first time; its scale and majesty were/are quite unparalleled. Watching the sunset there was decent enough. The sunrise was uneventful. Sorry for not gushing. Perhaps I was just in a bad state. Somehow the architectural and historical significance of the place failed to register.

Good things that happened on the trip: I solved the math puzzle on the first night (then promptly reprimanded myself for not bringing the book along). I finished this book that I got at the airport. Ice cream and sorbet were/are godsends on a hot day. Our hotel had a 24-hr and reliable hot water supply. I walked around the city, got lost but eventually found my way without consulting a map. The Angkor National Museum was great and very informative, though a tad expensive at 12 USD per entry. We found a neat bubble tea cafe. The tea was great, and they played cool music and sold vintage dresses.

Not-that-great things on the trip: Getting unnecessarily spooked by young monks at the museum. Weather. Pushy driver who thinks that he was anything but. Personally, I think he was a little disgusted at the pace we ‘went through’ the temples. At Ta Phrom, he hinted that most tourists would take 2-3 hours there and that we should take our own time exploring the temple. Sorry mate, but a good part of the temple was undergoing restoration so it wasn’t accessible to tourists at all. In the end, we had a little picnic so we could clock enough minutes. Even then, we were in there for just over an hour. I was really looking forward to seeing Ta Phrom so I was rather surprised that I wasn’t as blown away as I thought I would be. Same for Srah Srang.

Swine flu. The last time I went on holiday, it was the Mumbai attacks and the Bangkok demonstration. Seems like every time I go on a trip, somewhere in the world takes a beating. And, I realise I watch the most tv when I am overseas, for some reason.

It rained for most of the fourth day of the trip so my friend and I basically nuah-ed. We had an overpriced and unsatisfying lunch at the FCC, then nearly bankrupted ourselves shopping for souvenirs at the Old Market. With less than 20 dollars to last for the rest of the day and the next, we parked ourselves at the bubble tea cafe. The ‘bubbles’ (pearls) were sold out – damn you two other tourists who got the last two servings – but the music made up for it. Friend read, while I scribbled in my notebook, half-heartedly trying to solve a puzzle in this month’s Wired (this issue is excellent) and the other-half-heartedly doodling. A fly drowned in a slow suicide in my drink, and we found enough in our impossible budget to get ourselves a second drink.

More pages from the notebook following the cut. » Continue reading “pages from siem reap”