Archive for June, 2009
Rush
Somewhat Numb
Work, work, work, work, work. It’s left me a bit numb. I don’t greet it with a whole lot of enthusiasm, but I also don’t find myself reeling in disgust or anything either. Occasionally, I feel happy to wrap up a particular section, though these moments of gratification tend to be accompanied by brief how-much-longer thoughts a little after. It’s certainly been nothing drastic. I don’t go around wanting to beat myself up for having this job or anything, but it’s also not entirely comfortable.
I’ve noticed, however, that Bukit Merah is a strange project. As in, really strange. Funny. I wasn’t in planning on that, but it is. It hops here and there and I think it never really settles on a conventional identity of any sort. It just makes its own rules, I think. Some things that you and I think, No, that can’t be included here… Well, those things are in. They just float in and try to act inconspicuous.
It doesn’t always make the most imaginative sense, in a, uhm, hard to describe way. Like, just because you have a dragon doesn’t mean you have to make it breathe fire, you know? It’s certainly far more playful and wilful than The River, though not necessarily any less dark.
It’s a funny thing. I don’t even have any idea how it looks like. I’m just going along with it for now and hoping that in the case of an emergency, I’ll be able to patch it up later. It’s too late to try to rein it in too, anyway, because we’re almost at the end of it. Though, thinking back, I can’t say that there was ever a time where I knew I would do something like this. It’s just weird to the point of being unexpected, even to me. Yeah, I think the words ‘weird’ and ’strange’ probably describe best how I see it right now. It’s a curious thing, even by my standards.
Well, here’s hoping that doesn’t mean it’s doomed or anything. I ought to know but I’m too numb to think.
We Are The World
The CPDRC inmates are back with a Michael Jackson tribute.
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Work, Friends
The Fast And The Furious
I’m sure I made mention of this several times already, but I’m sort of approaching the final lap of things for the first draft, so I’ve essentially stepped it up a gear and that has seen the (planned) return of the 80-hour work week. I’m close. I know I am. I’m getting a very clear idea of how this will all end as I go along, and I also have a target length in mind (based on a feeling of how long it ought to be). Everything I do now I do with the intention of contributing to the completion of the project. I don’t want it to expand. I don’t want it to stray. And that, I think, is what the target length is good for.
It’s been a bit taxing, but with the end in sight, it’s not all that bad. I get the feeling that I’m at some tipping point. I can smell completion. The images I’ve been getting have been affirming this gut feeling, and now I want to latch on before it slips away, capitalise on this. It’s a bit like chasing after a football title, when it’s only the middle of the season and you don’t have a substantial lead but your momentum is good and your team looks sharp and you can catch a whiff of the title already. Full speed ahead, full speed ahead.
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes, One must hold onto the antlers of the Qilin having scaled its scales. It means that you have to take advantage of the curve the moment you’re on top of it.
Okay, I made that up.
Counterfeit
I have a friend who of late fears neglecting her friends, so she made it a point to put together some package for a bunch of them and had it delivered, recognising that it was a selfish thing to make herself feel better. Funny, I had that feeling about her long ago, that most of my interactions with her seemed to be based significantly in that self-assurance factor. I suppose we all fool ourselves in some ways. Still, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, I imagine it’ll be sorted out. Somehow. Eventually. We live, we learn, we poke around and figure things out. That’s the way it goes.
On The Other Hand
Can I just say that Wednesday was a lovely day for friends? I heard from Li Yue, Gao Jie, Shi Jia and Tammy (in that order), and it is quite great to see that they’re all doing well. I realised too that I don’t have many friends as unrepentantly chatty as I am, but Shi Jia is one of them and now that I know that I can bug her with no sense of shame.
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Old Man
Allow Me To Explain
I said on Monday that I picked up an injury last week. On Friday morning, just after I woke up, I had the computer up running, I sat down, checked some news, stood up, looked out of the window, saw nothing, went back to the chair, sat down and ouch. The pain in my back was rather, shall we say, excruciating.
With an enormous amount of difficulty, I went to lie down on my bed, wondering what had happened. I didn’t think it was anything serious, because I couldn’t have hurt myself too badly with the innocuous act of sitting down. I thought it was temporary, in fact, but I was proven quite wrong when I tried to stand up again. Then I sat down one more time, except far more gingerly, but the pain wouldn’t go away.
After that I ventured downstairs, very, very slowly. I told my dad about what had happened and slowly came to terms with the fact that I must have sprained my back somehow. I tried sitting down for a bit, but I wasn’t quite used to my amazing new injury just yet, so I couldn’t find the right posture and it hurt. I stood up again and went to a bed, on which I lied for a while, thinking I would get a bit of respite before heading into the shower.
I probably shouldn’t have done that because I couldn’t stand after lying down. It was as if my back had adapted to lying down and locked itself into that configuration. It just refused to go back into standing and walking mode again. It took me about an hour and a half and lots of frustration before I managed to get a shower. During that time, I also informed Jolie about this fairly embarrassing turn of events because I was intending to meet her for lunch that day.
At breakfast, I found a couple of useful postures to adopt to minimise the pain, and then I went out to the living room to set up my workstation. I carried my notebook to the area and powered it up. Then I played some games in the couple of sitting postures that I had figured out. When I realised that it was too distracting to work (the weather played a partial role in this too), I used the notebook almost purely for communication purposes and sought to pack up one shelf of books that I was intending to give away, with the help of my dad, of course.
I survived the first day primarily by figuring out these various postures, whether sitting, lying down, or walking. I also had some help from pills.
I regained some of my flexibility on the following day, and the pain was approximately 30% of that on the first. I managed to do a reasonable amount of work. It was even better on Sunday, where most of the pain vanished and it was simply an odd stiffness that persisted. On Monday, I even went for some exercise, although the stiffness remained, and yesterday, it was nearly gone.
Nearly. It’s strange because with each day it seems to surprise me how much better it’s become while managing to refrain from a complete recovery. As if it’s doing it on purpose.
I guess it’s just one of those things, when you’re just going at the right speed, the right posture, the right everything (or maybe in this case, the wrong everything), and it all falls into place on cue, and snap. Either that or I’m just getting very old. Still, lesson learnt. Sit carefully.
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Tour De France
Maillot Jaune
Lagging behind coming into the week, he bursts onto the scene and takes the first stage of the week with aplomb. This is something of a minor milestone in the arduous tour considering how important it is to take the lead going into the mountains. Something of a psychological edge if you will.
He hits the mountains hard and fast, with enough power to put a comfortable distance between him and his nearest competitors. Yes, indeed, he’s doing very well on our first day in the mountains. Lots of power and determination, this is a remarkable sporting performance. He’s coming into the last bend… He’s turning far ahead of his opponents, and he’s leaving them in the dust! And he crosses the line! Taking the stage and returning the yellow jersey!
Third stage of the week, a speed trial. We have here a tremendous team effort on display. They are doing their best to fend off the competition, but it looks like a difficult one. This is going to be close… This is going to be close… In the lead, no, second, no, in the lead again, and across the line! Just narrowly! Going into the next stage still with a good lead over the second-placed rider.
Another difficult course today, with many steep slopes to scale. Here we see him doing well early on in this stage. He’s coming up fast. He’s pulling ahead. He’s… No, he’s slowing down, slowing down! Oh no! They’ve caught up with him. It seems as if he’s burned out or something. He is still maintaining a good pace, though, and a podium finish for the stage looks like it’s on the cards here. He’s struggling, but he’ll make it across with an adequate result to stay in the yellow jersey on the fourth stage of the week.
The fifth stage of the week should be a walkover for him now. But no! Reports say that he’s picked up a back injury early in the stage, but he’s still continuing. He doesn’t want to be disqualified now, no! Trooping along far behind the rest of the pack, he loses sight of the leading party far too soon. He grits his teeth and makes it past the finish line, but he’s no longer the leader of the race as we head into Saturday’s stage.
How will her fare this morning, on a difficult course while still recovering from his back injury? It looks like he isn’t pushing too hard today. He’s going to see how it goes and avoid being too ambitious. He just wants a decent result, and it looks like he’ll get it today. It puts him back within touching distance of the current leader, and I’m sure that’s all he could have wanted out of today.
The last stage of the week, and we are just over halfway of the tour. At this crucial point in the tour, he will want to overhaul the leaders and go into the next week wearing the yellow jersey. He’s not going to do that with the pace he’s started with. But no, he’s ramping it up. He’s going for the kill. Incredible power! He must be on drugs or something! He’s putting in his biggest day yet! Look at the distance between them! He’s going ahead! He’s crossing the line! And I really have to stop screaming into the mic! Success! He pulls ahead of the leaders by a mile! What a show!
And that, really, is how the writing week has been. A relatively okay first half, an injury on Friday, and the biggest day I’ve ever put in yesterday. Phew. A total of just about 10,000 words in the week.
Returns
My Amazon order arrived on Saturday, and one of the books is damaged. That made me quite upset. Returns are possible, but I keep getting the feeling something will go very wrong with the returns. Oh well, I suppose I can only make do. At least I got Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook just fine.
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Potential New Species
A Bit Slow
I was a little slower than expected yesterday, but I’ve still managed to clock about 5,000 words so far this week, so I’m more or less unfazed. And I suppose I can pretend that the awful weather has been too distracting for me to work in, and I can compound that with the fact that I woke up feeling quite sore (exercise), but it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Funny though, I’ve been going consistently faster than my usual speed that it now seems odd whenever I fail to hit top gear. I think I should temper expectations somewhat to ensure that I don’t get frustrated when I hit a slow patch.
Weather Woes
In any case, the weather really is quite horrible. I think I’m heading out today to see if I can hide somewhere cooler.
And it also makes me all a bit lazy, so I’m cheating and what follows are a few links.
Yes, Brand New!
Pictures of potential new species. [via National Geographic] The katydids, in particular, look beautiful.
Homeless Sims
Alice and Kev is the blog about a homeless family in The Sims 3. [via Alice and Kev] From the intro:
This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.
I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.
Stamp
Will someone buy me the lovely Dave McKean-illustrated stamp set? [via Royal Mail]
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