Episode 100: Wing Wah Redux

Just came back from a New Year Eve's dinner with some of the other Singaporean (and one Bruneian) freshers in Warwick. I love the buffet! Was feeling sleepy though, so didn't really stuff myself. Now we're about to start watching The Matrix on my laptop, while we wait for 2009 to arrive. The flight was okay, I guess. Between Singapore and Colombo, I managed to watch The Oxford Murders (now I know what John Hurt who voices the Dragon in Merlin looks like) and The Happening. I quite enjoyed the former, although the final twist was a bit too much to take. The latter is rubbish. Not total rubbish, but still bad enough to make you wonder what the heck is wrong with M. Night Shyamalan these days. Unless it was all intentionally bad, as the Wikipedia article on the film suggests. Still, that's a bit rich, isn't it? From Colombo to Dubai, I spent a good deal of time reading Faith Hunter's Bloodring. On the final Dubai-Birmingham leg, I started by catching four episodes of Doctor Who. I find it somewhat amusing that I really like watching Doctor Who, but I only ever seem to watch it while I'm in an aeroplane! Then I caught Wild Child, and can I say that Emma Roberts is hot? So's the song that plays while she and her friends are getting ready to party. Replayed that scene several times just to get the lyrics so that I can search for the song. Rounded off the flight by catching The Duchess, which was a little boring. Much preferred The Other Boleyn Girl for historical intrigue. It's bloody colder than when I left, which is just awful. Now I really do need gloves...

Episode 99: Going Home...

Am about to board the flight home. Yeah, I do think of Warwick as "home", in the sort of way that you think of school as a second home. I'm actually looking forward to heading back! It means I can finally get some work done, instead of constantly being tempted to just stone in front of the TV. Am going to miss the final week of Little Nonya, but I'm probably going to get a MobTV subscription. The plot summary Shirley provided via SMS would normally have been good enough to satisfy my curiosity, but I'd really like to see for myself how the plot plays out in detail. Spent my last couple of hours in Singapore cramming things into my luggage, which is now overweight by about 7 kg. Thankfully, the staff at Changi aren't as strict as their Birmingham counterparts, and let us check in our baggage that turned out to be 10 kg over our combined allowance. I had thought about what I'd take out if they kicked up a fuss, but I'm glad things worked out! Was at Swissôtel The Stamford for lunch because my dad wanted to go out, it being my last day in Singapore and all. We ate at Kopi Tiam, but I wasn't very impressed. My laksa wasn't spicy enough, even after I added belacan, and that was supposed to be one of their signature dishes. Basically, it was overpriced food that tastes better in a hawker centre anyway. Haha...

Episode 98: Just Over 24 Hours...

Till I'm back on an aeroplane to the UK. I'm going to say something that will make me sound like a totally horrible person, but I don't care and I'm going to put it down here anyway: I'm actually very glad to be going back. Whining about packing aside, I do miss the quietness of my Westwood room, where I can hide from the whole world if I feel like it, with just me and the latest episode of Fringe, Gossip Girl, House or Privileged for company. Even eating rubbish most days of the week feels good in a way, and doesn't seem to have done much harm, since I didn't gain any weight over Autumn Term. I can't explain it properly, but I think it boils down to the whole hassle of having to pack, unpack, repack my life every time I move between Singapore and the UK. I've only done it twice so far, but I really, really hate having to do it. This is the part of me that enjoys the routine of waking up in the morning, already knowing exactly how the rest of the day is going to turn out, the part that needs to be in control and self-consciously map each moment out in advance, so that it happens exactly the way I want it to. I seldom get it perfectly right, but that doesn't keep me from trying. I suppose what I'm really trying to say, in my messy, disorganised way, is that being alone in the UK isn't difficult, not for me at least. Even leaving isn't difficult, that brief instant when you perhaps turn and wave to the people who've come to send you off. It's the period leading up to the goodbye that is trying. Not because it reminds you of what you're leaving behind, but because it reminds you of what you have to lose again and again, before you can finally regain it, and even then it won't be the same anymore because you won't be the same anymore. If you've read this far, I applaud you, I guess, for enduring my ramblings. I played mahjong today with Ben Woon, Ka Tsai and Ming Yong. For a brief couple of hours, it felt like contentment.

Episode 97: Packing...

Led worship for the last time in the coming six months and I thought it went okay. Am presently beginning to rip my DVDs to my external hard drive. I wanted to find a way that lets me preserve the menus in the original DVD, so I'm using DVD Decrypter to copy the entire contents of each DVD, then DVD Shrink to create an ISO file that I can then mount in a virtual drive with DAEMON Tools Lite. Yeah, it's a lot of trouble just to be able to watch a DVD, but I can't waste space in my luggage carrying the DVDs back to Warwick! Am still agonising over which books I'm going to bring back. I'm quite set on bringing at least some of my Italo Calvino and Russell Hoban books back, so whatever I don't bring this time, I'll most likely just get my parents to send it to me as a package. Am trying to be sensible about how much I can conceivably store in the UK, so have decided not to bring any author who can be found in the library in reasonable quantities. Hence no Bret Easton Ellis, I guess. Orhan Pamuk, whose books I originally wanted to bring, is also out, for the simple reason that reading his books requires too much thinking to appreciate their beauty, and I doubt I'd be able to get through all his books within six months anyway. I am bringing a lot of local poetry over though, simply because I want to re-read all of it again and reconsider my prejudices towards it. (I tend to be quite dismissive of local poetry, although there are of course notable exceptions.) Ah well. I guess I just have to make up my mind once and for all by tomorrow...

Episode 96: Jaunting Down To VivoCity

While heading to VivoCity on 855, I finished reading Jeff Noon's Automated Alice, a quirky hypothetical sequel to Lewis Carroll's own two books about Alice. The language of the novel reads like a modern update of Carroll, although the ideas it presents feel a little dated, to me anyway. I did enjoy the read though, although I'm trying to decide if the ending constitutes an instance of deus ex machina, as it wraps everything up implausibly tidily and conveniently, at the last possible moment. The very last few paragraphs do feel like they're trying a little too hard to inject ambiguity into the matter as to whether it was the real Alice, or her automated 'twin twister', Celia, who made it back to the past. Ah well, it was a small quibble. I had lunch with Shaun and Yi Hua, both of whom I haven't seen since the latter's birthday barbecue. (I just realised that while typing this post.) It was nice, just being able to see old friends again. Not that there's anything wrong with the new ones, but the old ones anchor me to the past, and then only as much as I want to be. I sometimes wonder how all my friendships will be like, when everyone's started working, and I wonder which ones will survive and which ones will fade into the pleasant rosiness of the past. Then I met Ben Chan for a drink and some browsing through the shops. Ended up not buying anything today other than some books from PageOne that I haven't been able to find at Borders or Kinokuniya and another 1 TB hard drive. No more worries about not being able to store all my TV shows! Was supposed to meet my cell for dinner, but we ended up cancelling. Ah well...

Episode 95: Double Disappointment

Went to Sinema Old School with Ben Woon to watch The Art Of Flirting, which I'm so glad we didn't have to pay for. I guess I'm just a bit disappointed because I'd expected the film to be sexier and wittier, and while it was pretty much a dialogue-driven vehicle, the dialogue was more intimate than witty. The jerky filming was also really irritating after a while. Then again, this film has been critically acclaimed, so what the heck do I know about what makes a good film? Went to Borders after the screening, as there's a 40% discount if you buy four or more books, until January 8. Managed to find some stuff, although as a general rule, Borders is frankly not the place to head to if you're looking for variety. I took it as a chance to just buy stuff at a really steep discount that I wouldn't otherwise pay for. Anyway, like I told my mum, it beats spending a few hundred dollars at the Comme des Garçons Guerilla store, which I visited for the first (and only) time on its opening day. Have to save money anyway, in case there's stuff at VivoCity tomorrow that I want to get. Am going to be there for the entire day! Should probably bring some of the materials for my essay, just to read and get some fresh ideas of what the essay's going to be about. As for why the title of this entry is 'Double Disappointment', it's because Greg Egan's latest novel, Incandescence, promised so much but didn't deliver in the end. I put down the book feeling cheated, like there was an entire second half to the novel that somehow didn't make it into my copy of the book. I didn't really like how the double-stranded plot couldn't make up its mind whether to merge into one storyline, or continue spinning two separate webs. That was the worst bit of the ending for me, as both halves of the plot worked brilliantly standing alone, and could have come together quite spectacularly, but somehow that doesn't happen. Or it does, but in a fashion so oblique as to be unsatisfying as a denouement. Ah well. No author's perfect, and I recall being bored by one of his earlier novels, so disappointed is still better than bored!

Episode 94: Joyeux Noël!

Just finished doing my dad's PowerPoint slides for him. Again. Didn't have much of a choice, since after his eye operation, he's in no condition to do them himself, even if I wanted to show him how. Sigh. I wish he were a little more IT-savvy. Oh well, finished it and he's grateful. Now I can go finish reading Incandescence, which is another interesting novel from Greg Egan, in which one of the strands of the plot involves a group of DNA-based lifeforms arriving at an understanding of relativity from what are tantamount to first principles. I've given up trying to follow the scientific reasoning going on, but I recognise it as involving relativity, so not all my science-related general knowledge has forsaken me anyway. Once I've finished reading that, I can take a peek at my last library book, which is a book masquerading as the third volume of Alice's adventures. Yes, Alice of Wonderland fame. It sounds interesting in a really bizarre way, but if I don't get into it after a few pages, I'm chucking it. Have other (more important) things to read! Have decided to try out a song from Chris Tomlin's most recent album when I lead worship next Sunday, 'Jesus Messiah'. Think it should be fine because the chorus is dead easy to catch! I leave you with the chorus and bridge of Brian Bates's meaningful Christmas song, 'Mary Christmas', available for download here:

I wish you more than happiness
More than greetings of good cheer
But a true joy to last the years
I wish your spirit to be filled
With Heaven's perfect gift
I wish you a Mary Christmas
...
May Christ be born in you this Christmas
May His life grow in you this Christmas
May it change you
Come forth from you
And light the world around you

(c) 2008 Brian Bates/Staci Frenes

Episode 93: Christmas Eve

In the end, I bought only nine Threadless tees. Am proud of myself for cutting it down from 30+! Met Shirley in town so that I could exchange Natsuo Kirino novel that I told Audrey to buy by mistake, and then help her with her Christmas shopping. That turned out to be a rather protracted process. I'm glad I'm such an efficient Christmas shopper! Then again, I would be, since I follow the principle of asking people what they want and then just getting it for them. I managed to finish reading Neil LaBute's Fat Pig while coming back on the MRT, and I already returned all but two of the other library books when I left for town. Haven't got time to finish reading them, so not much point starting! Shall study instead, which I haven't done at all during this break, and hopefully start writing my essay. At the very least, hammer out the introduction. Then everything else will magically take care of itself, like it always does. Except this time it actually counts for something, so don't start screwing up now. There's still so many things I want to buy, but there's not enough money. I think I should try to find a vacation job during my next break...

Episode 92: Threadless Spree!

I'm going to go mad and buy a huge bunch of Threadless tees! The discounts are just fantastic, and I've got a bit of spare cash, so I can afford the shipping fee to the UK. Was going to ask Dan if I could send the tees over to him and have him bring them over when he comes over the Atlantic, but he hasn't replied, the promotion's ending in less than a day, and I'm certainly ordering far more tees than it'd be fair to ask him to carry over. So I'll just pay for the extra cost then. Now I'm getting Shirley to help me vet my selection of tees, and hopefully, cut down on the number that I'm buying. It's so tempting to just get everything though! I'm becoming quite a fan of Threadless, so if anyone wants to check it out, click here to help me earn some points! I've been reading more of Neil LaBute's plays today. Finished The Shape Of Things, and then went to look for the movie. Now I'm reading The Mercy Seat. I think I've found a new playwright whom I love! Am going to check out David Mamet's work too, once I get back to Warwick, as going just by the Wikipedia article on him and an excerpt from one of his plays, I think I'd like his work very much too. Must resist temptation to start buying scripts too, in addition to poetry. Sigh...

Episode 91: The Mystery Of The Missing Book

Have started reading Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, but have also realised that I've somehow managed to lose the Tolkien translation. I'm pretty certain I brought it back to Singapore because I can't imagine why I'd have attempted to read without the aid of a translation into modern English, but that's going quite decently actually and I really can't be that bothered for a test that doesn't even count for a module I don't even like. Still. Where is the freaking book? If this was a matter of walking 15 minutes back to my room to set my mind at ease, it wouldn't be a big deal. As it is, it's more than a week before I'll be able to check. So all I've got is the vague belief that I brought the book back, and I'm left wondering if I haven't absent-mindedly left it somewhere or returned it to the library by mistake. Sigh. Ah well. I'll just buy a new copy if it's really missing. Have been wanting to replace my entire Tolkien collection with the black cover editions anyway, another of those frivolous notions that explain why money never seems to hang around long in my bank account, although I've resisted admirably last term in terms of buying books online, but obviously not admirably enough! Hopefully, the new term'll find me too busy to even entertain the idea of buying anything! Policy of prudence, here I come. Might have to indulge one last time in a new external hard drive though...