Is it strange that I now feel chained to this new-found freedom I have been waiting on for so long? It feels like there is a certain pressure to be doing something worthy with all this time laid out for me. It doesn't feel very good.
I have been watching a lot of television on both the actual thing and on my laptop. I started watching Skins a couple of weeks ago and watched the first season within the weekend. I've also been watching this reality TV Project Runway-esque thing called Work of Art: The Next Great Artist for like... inspiration for that portfolio I need to finish soon. I like the first season more than what I've seen of the second.
Anyway, I'm pretty damn terrified about securing a place in a school next year. I'm fucking scared. I just really want to do art after this and the chance of getting rejected feels more real than actually getting accepted. I'm worried I'll screw up my interviews because I am so horrible at presenting anything at all. I'm afraid that my work won't be good enough because I neglected to put in enough time and effort into developing my technical skills and ideas and styles and whatever. Man. I am also feeling super insecure about not having taken O Level Art or any art classes before. I don't know how to go about the whole process of creating a piece. The research, conceptualising, preparatory sketches and all that jazz... Haha I don't even know if that's what it is! Sigh. I'm feeling quite small right now. But I shall make use of whatever time I have left. I didn't put in as much effort as I should have for Os. I need to work as hard as I can for this thing I really, really want now.
I spent yesterday with Syadza. It was a really good no-plans-let's-just-go-with-the-flow day. We met at City Hall and ended up walking round Suntec, sharing a macaroni & cheese and deep-fried breaded mushrooms at Swensen's, and eventually walking to the Singapore Art Museum where there was an amazing exhibition called The Burning Gaze by Korean artist Hyunk Koo Kang. He does a lot of monochrome portraits and they are so bloody realistic and intense, I got a shock when I saw "Oil on canvas". Looking at established artists' works makes me want to work hard to get to that level. Yet at the same time I still feel like I'd be better off just.. forgetting about it because I'll never be as good as that. And anyway my life goal is still to have a cafe that doubles as a gallery for mainly local and regional artists, and then when I'm old, to either run my own proper gallery or to become a curator in a museum..... so perhaps my own art might not be as important? I don't know. I still love doing it, though.
Tomorrow I am sharing a flea market stall with some of my friends to sell off some clothes I need to get rid of. There aren't that many so I'm wondering if it is worth it to pay $10 to try to make money off of only a handful of things? Let's hope it goes alright. Oh yeah, work didn't start this week. They couldn't slot in any shifts for me so hopefully this coming Monday shall be my first day. Trying not to get too anxious about that now.
This is so much rambling.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
The End
Hi.
The past week has called for quite a lot of celebrating. O levels officially ended last Tuesday, and in extension, secondary school too. Prom was on Thursday night at the Carlton Hotel. TK girls clean up really well. I swear there were so many people I barely recognised in their dresses and updos. It was a little intimidating. All the girls were so gorgeous and I felt a bit... silly compared to the rest because everyone else was wearing elegant gowns and sexy high heels while I wore my platform clown shoes. At least I was comfortable. . . The halal food was actually really disappointing. The programme was alright and the dancing was awkward. Especially me. I realise I have totally cut myself off from radio music. I didn't know anything they played even though everyone was singin along. I need to get out of my head. Yeah.
I think that the rest of the night after prom was more memorable. A group of us stayed over at Marina Bay Sands that night. We left prom at around midnight and went back to the room and goofed around until about 2 or something. We got bored, so we decided to take a walk around the area. We walked aimlessly, still in our prom outifts, through the MBS shopping centre. We took photos, found our way to the boardwalk outside and sat playing truth or dare by the river. At 3 a.m., a smelly drunk man came by and began to play with these orange barricade cones near us. We went back to our room.
We wanted food after a while so we all changed into our casual clothes and went out again. We were thinking of going at for satay Lau Pa Sat or something, but the hotel staff we asked advice from said that it was closing soon. It was about 4.30 then. We decided to go find a McDonald's somewhere. We took cabs to Marina Square. We thought that all Mac's outlets were 24/7. We were sorely mistaken :'( We ended up walking all the way to Raffles City after that. I don't think the walk was actually that far, but because we were so tired and kept stopping to take photos we only reached food at 5.30. But then!!! The McValue Meals start at 6!!! So we waited patiently for another half an hour before we actually ate. We also realised that the morning peak hour taxi surcharges start at 7, so we didn't stay long.
We went back to the hotel, crashed into fluffy white hotel pillows and slept until 11. Here's a secret: Only two out of the seven girls in our room took any showers at all. Hahahaha.
OH YEAH. And I did my brows. Hahahahahaha please laugh at me.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
2 days
Two more days and O Levels shall officially be a thing of the past for me!!! Two more hour-long multiple choice papers for biology and chemistry and then I'm free!!! CAN YOU SMELL IT?!?!?!? CAN YOU SMELL THE FREEDOM?!?!?!?!?!?! This feels so good.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
There's a Madness in Us All
Hi.
I hate myself when I'm upset. I rarely get as upset as I did the other day but if it happens then I turn into this annoying sobbing impulsive idiot who needs to rant. I hate the things that come out of my mouth when I'm like that. The things I type and decide to publicise too. I wrote a really long facebook post that I was going to put up on my mom's wall the other day. It was really hurtful and I made her sound so fucking terrible for her 1300+ friend list to read. I think just typing it out calmed me down a bit, because by the time I was done with it my head was thankfully clear enough to not actually go through with the whole thing.
I have been feeling strangely emotional in recent days. Studying for my social studies paper, I teared up reading about the conflict in Northern Ireland. I've been feeling those little pangs of heartache at fictional television moments even when they aren't particularly sad and reading my battered and wrinkly, rain-stained 5 dollar Edgar Allan Poe book draws actual sighs out of me. I usually read the poems in the book at random, flip to a page and begin, and last night at 12 a.m. I read Dreamland for the first time. It struck me as really beautiful and is now my 2nd favourite of Mr. Poe's works that I have read so far, 1st being The Sleeper. It's probably the whole dream idea. And the deliciously tangible imagery & metaphors and the dark vibes of the poem at midnight while I was feeling particularly creative and doodling furiously rather dream-like scenes in my sketchbook ha ha my brain really relished that piece of writing.
Do you believe in like, fate? I am feeling a little bit in awe of time and coincidences right now. Yesterday I left the house late for my 8 am geography paper. I waited from about 6.15 to 6.40 for a cab but there were none. I thought that perhaps this was a sign, so I checked my bag and behold, I forgot to bring my IC and entry proof!!! I ran back up to my house and by the time I was done I was too late for a train ride so I had to cab all the way to school. 5 minutes into waiting, this really kind old taxi driver who gives me free rides to the MRT station with his son if he sees me in the morning drove by and picked me up. I asked him if he could send me to school straight, and said I insist on paying this time. He said sure! he could send his son to work at Aljuneid too, in that case. So I got my taxi, and I was on time for school, and as if that wasn't enough, the taxi driver said that since he sent his son too, I must only pay half of the $20 fare! I was so touched man.. why are people so generous??? And how was everything so perfectly timed for something like this to happen? OK lah, I know how. Thanks, God :') (lol I just looked out of my window and at the sky after I typed that)
Dreamland
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
By Edgar Allan Poe
I also love how some lines don't actually rhyme phonetically but are spelled as though they do, like floods and woods, swamp and encamp... It's like.. the lines don't sound like they fit in the poem, but they more of rhyme visually..............
Santa Fe//Beirut
I hate myself when I'm upset. I rarely get as upset as I did the other day but if it happens then I turn into this annoying sobbing impulsive idiot who needs to rant. I hate the things that come out of my mouth when I'm like that. The things I type and decide to publicise too. I wrote a really long facebook post that I was going to put up on my mom's wall the other day. It was really hurtful and I made her sound so fucking terrible for her 1300+ friend list to read. I think just typing it out calmed me down a bit, because by the time I was done with it my head was thankfully clear enough to not actually go through with the whole thing.
I have been feeling strangely emotional in recent days. Studying for my social studies paper, I teared up reading about the conflict in Northern Ireland. I've been feeling those little pangs of heartache at fictional television moments even when they aren't particularly sad and reading my battered and wrinkly, rain-stained 5 dollar Edgar Allan Poe book draws actual sighs out of me. I usually read the poems in the book at random, flip to a page and begin, and last night at 12 a.m. I read Dreamland for the first time. It struck me as really beautiful and is now my 2nd favourite of Mr. Poe's works that I have read so far, 1st being The Sleeper. It's probably the whole dream idea. And the deliciously tangible imagery & metaphors and the dark vibes of the poem at midnight while I was feeling particularly creative and doodling furiously rather dream-like scenes in my sketchbook ha ha my brain really relished that piece of writing.
Do you believe in like, fate? I am feeling a little bit in awe of time and coincidences right now. Yesterday I left the house late for my 8 am geography paper. I waited from about 6.15 to 6.40 for a cab but there were none. I thought that perhaps this was a sign, so I checked my bag and behold, I forgot to bring my IC and entry proof!!! I ran back up to my house and by the time I was done I was too late for a train ride so I had to cab all the way to school. 5 minutes into waiting, this really kind old taxi driver who gives me free rides to the MRT station with his son if he sees me in the morning drove by and picked me up. I asked him if he could send me to school straight, and said I insist on paying this time. He said sure! he could send his son to work at Aljuneid too, in that case. So I got my taxi, and I was on time for school, and as if that wasn't enough, the taxi driver said that since he sent his son too, I must only pay half of the $20 fare! I was so touched man.. why are people so generous??? And how was everything so perfectly timed for something like this to happen? OK lah, I know how. Thanks, God :') (lol I just looked out of my window and at the sky after I typed that)
Dreamland
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
By Edgar Allan Poe
I also love how some lines don't actually rhyme phonetically but are spelled as though they do, like floods and woods, swamp and encamp... It's like.. the lines don't sound like they fit in the poem, but they more of rhyme visually..............
Santa Fe//Beirut
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