Bad Form

Oh look, it’s only two weeks into the new year and I’m already lagging behind on updating this site by a mile. This is just one of those things where taking a break has a long-term detrimental effect.

So, let’s run through a quick list of what has been happening:

I’ve been at my FYP. Getting simple things to work has proven to be remarkably difficult. Sure, it’s entirely computational, and maybe that suggests something of a less unpredictable nature (as compared to wet-lab projects), but it’s very hard to get anything to behave. Meanwhile, I vaguely remember promising to write about it here, which I will eventually. Maybe when I have more interesting things to show you. I’m not sure if there’s some non-disclosure rule, so I’ll think about that a bit too.

I have a presentation for this on Monday. Hope it goes well.

I’ve made an application to continue studying after graduation. I hope it works out. Fingers crossed. One or two other applications to come.

I fell sick on Wednesday. Been recovering since, but it’s taking longer than I would’ve liked. Of course, it tends to take longer than you would like. (I’m presuming you don’t like getting sick.) Nothing serious, just a heavy bout of flu and a bad sore throat. For a couple of hours, I thought I would be running a temperature too, but that didn’t materialise, thankfully.

Rather confusing days, these, so my moods have been on the good ol’ up-and-down in the past week or thereabouts. Not exactly welcome, but I guess I’m dealing with it better than I usually do.

My poetry club has got going. It’s looking a little bare now. I’m trying to see where it will end up in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed and all that. Our first poem is Rimbaud’s “Le buffet“. It is a lovely poem.

I have a couple of book/reading resolutions for this year. I’ve already started on one of them, which is to reread Rayuela/Hopscotch. I also want to reread 《灵山》 and compare it with the english translation (Soul Mountain), which I’ve never read before. I never knew how Chinese-to-English translations would look in a literary text. It just never occurred to me to find out, despite knowing both languages. I want to do more poetry this year. So the poetry club’s a good thing for me in that way too. Those are the major projects. The other small promises are stuff I’ve in my waiting list or already have ordered, like the complete Your Face Tomorrow.

Finally, I think I’m beginning to have ideas on what to work on next. Early days, early days.

d

Brand New Year

Hello.

Here’s a new post for the new year.

Yeah, I’ve not been around for a bit. Been busy, and I’ve considered it a week-long holiday period in any case, as far as this place is concerned. I hope things are well with you.

On my part, I hope that your new year will be filled with adventure, strangeness, and simple wonder.

2010 was difficult and nice at the same time. I hope 2011 proves to be something of the same thing, and yet not quite.

I don’t have any resolutions per se; just some books to read, some promises to keep, and some things to do. I want to get on with setting up the website, which you might recall. I am also thinking of reviving my dead book club. The Dead Book Club is a nice name for one, by the way. Then I have a few other things to do that I can’t really talk about here, or shouldn’t. Otherwise, it’s really just a matter of keeping up with the few things that I’ve been at anyway, such as looking up old folks, I mean, old friends,and other similar long-term ‘projects’. I think I did okay in these areas for 2010, but I don’t think it’s of any use to look back in too much detail. Besides, it makes me feel older than I am, and I’m already mighty old.

Will I write this year, I wonder? Who knows. I suspect it will be more of an administrative year, where I’ll chase things, submit things, edit things, and the like. Hopefully this will be a year of some success, however minimal. So as far as work goes, I suspect I might get into shorter pieces for the year ahead. But these things are unpredictable, particular with the less-than-methodical, more-than-intuitive approach that I usually have. I do have some very young ideas, but they’re not even seedlings, so it’ll be a while before anything large begins to take shape.

Okay, I suppose that’ll do for the first post of 2011. Sure, it doesn’t look all that brilliant, but I think it’s done what it’s supposed to do: it got things started again.

Meanwhile, Joanna Newsom will be coming by for the Mosaic Festival. [via Esplanade] I might go and catch the show. Who knows. You might see me there if you do go, but that’s in two-and-a-half months and you probably won’t remembe a thing about this post by then.

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Kino Kitty

I popped by at Kinokuniya very briefly on Wednesday to do the last of my main Christmas shopping and came across this little collectible. I bought one. I somehow can’t resist Kinokuniya merchandise.

It’s a Trexi toy [site] produced by Play Imaginative and it retails for $13.90. If you’re a member you get 30% off which makes it about ten bucks. It’s about three inches tall. Limbs are articulated so it’s poseable to some degree. The top half of the head is removable so that you can change its expression [see here]. I didn’t photograph the other face, but it’s cuter, I think. The red eyes can get a little freaky. But otherwise I quite like it.

Meanwhile, I also went to the National Museum that day in the wonderful company of Huitian. The Pompeii exhibition is pretty good, but it might have been better if both of us had had a little more sleep.

Most of my Christmas shopping is done. Plans for the new site are becoming more concrete. FYP sees a bit of progress (not enough maybe) but I’ll keep at it. Oh and I have a new monitor; the old one had some problems.

Also, I’ll have to plug the new Humble Indie Bundle. [via Humble Indie Bundle] Five excellent games (well I haven’t played all of them, but that’s as far as I can tell) under a name-your-price scheme (DRM-free and available for Windows, Mac and Linux too) with the proceeds going to charity. What else could you ask for? I remember the first bundle being excellent and having great service too, which I was not expecting at all. (They’ve recently negotiated for activation on Steam, for instance.) So give them your support, do some charity, get one for yourself and some for your friends, so we can all have a merry Christmas.

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Cars, Mahler, Sleep

Wow, I’m so tired today. It’s not as if I usually don’t sleep so little, so I can’t really explain it.

Yesterday, I bought Gran Turismo 5 and realised how bad I am at driving fast cars. Thankfully, you can’t kill anyone in Gran Turismo. It’s quite a pretty game, though I’m no racing simulator conoisseur, so I can’t really comment on the little I’ve played so far. I think it’s the sort of game that is going to keep me company for a very, very long time. I just want to randomly start it up and do some driving. No completionist pressure and no great impulse to master the game. I’ll just take it at my own pace and get what I want out of it. Which makes me wonder if I should invest in a good wheel or a very good wheel. The monetary difference is… rather substantial.

I added a new Mahler to my collection. This one is Symphony No. 9 by the Berliner Philharmoniker and conducted by Claudio Abbado. I listened to it once this morning. I always loved No. 9. It is one of the most extraordinary and otherworldly pieces of music in the last century.

Apart from that I’ve been listening to:

• Neon Bible (Arcade Fire)
• Distant Relatives (Nas and Damian Marley)
• Jukebox (Cat Power)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenis (Phoenix)

My FYP goes on. I went to school on Sunday to do a little work, and it was the first time I’d been in school on a Sunday. It was a strange feeling, but I liked it because there wasn’t anyone around. It’s nice to be able to work alone now and then. Not that I don’t like people. … Just saying.

I’m going to think about my new website for the rest of the night and hope something comes together. Then I’ll arrange an appointment or two, think futilely about watching football, and collapse into a pile.

Hopefully I get some good sleep tonight.

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Orientation Week

Oh hello. A week sure goes by quickly. You would have imagined that things might have slowed down a bit given how it’s not the exam period but I certainly found the exam period more relaxing. I’ve plenty of things to do these days. More than I had first imagined, in fact.

My FYP takes top billing, of course. It… It’s progressing. I’m not so sure what to make of it. I’ll do my best, but I’m still learning many things and it’s still taking quite a bit of time to get anywhere. Hopefully I’ll iron out the kinks by these couple of weeks and we can get to making excellent progress during the holiday season.

Oh yes, the holiday season. So many presents to buy! So few actually bought. Daryl sad.

This weekend, I’m hoping to get started on a bunch of other duties. It just struck me last night how many things I have to do these holidays. I hope it works out. Honestly, I have no idea if it will, but I’m basically going to deal with it one at a time. I’m sure it won’t turn out too bad.

One of those duties–and I suppose it isn’t really a duty–is meeting up with some of my friends. And this is one of the things I am so thankful for, because I have such excellent friends. I don’t know how they put up with me. I’m afraid to find out because that might shatter the magic spell. So I’ll just let them do their thing and I’ll try to be the best that I can.

Oh I guess I should say a bit about my FYP. It basically involves reconstructing three-dimensional models from medical images (MRI so far) and using these models for simulations of computational fluid dynamics. I’ll show you a picture next time. Promise.

To end off this fairly disjointed blog entry, here’s a video of David Bowie performing “Teenage Wildlife”:

It’s on my jukebox now, and it’s such a wonderful song.

d

Exams over.

Oh hello. How have you been? Me, I’m well, very good, thank you.

Yesterday, I completed my exams. They were mostly somewhat unfriendly, but the last one more than the others. I hope I do okay. I think I may probably do okay. Who knows! Stay tuned to find out.

But there is almost no sense of elation associated with the end of these exams. Certainly, the number of chores and the amount of work that await leave me with a strange sense of dread. I did occasionally feel as if I didn’t want the exam period to end, which is something of a masochistic perspective, I realise.

It’s not been horrifically stressful, but I did activate my consumerism a little bit so that probably took off some of the negative emotions. In fact, I’ve been pretty happy during this exam period, which lends a bit of weight to the masochism argument.

On my first day after the examinations, I did some packing and some editing. There’s been a sort of smooth transition from one form of work (revision) to another (chores). I feel like I should be doing something to enjoy myself a bit, but I can’t figure out what that is yet, so work in all forms continues.

I need to shop for Christmas presents. I basically have some vague idea for one or two presents, but I am at a loss for a couple of others. It’s nothing particularly worrying, but still something to worry about. I also need to fetch a few Christmas cards.

I want to watch the Lion King musical they’re going to bring to the Marina Bay Sands theatres. I don’t know if it’s good; it might be terrible; the fact is that I really don’t care. I just think that the original animated film was wonderful in all of its Hamlet-with-animals charm. I’m sure it’ll be loud and colourful and all that, so I really want to go. With good company especially. That makes all the difference. But it is in March. That’s so far away.

I’m trying to figure out how to sort outmy books in a way to maximise the space available on my shelves. I was thinking of using Lego to create layers and all that, but… that would be enormously expensive.

Okay, the longer this goes on the more random it will seem.

The month will be short. There’s no question about it. I’m going to try to make the best of it. And you will too, I’m sure.

d

Exam Playlist

Yesterday, I made my exam playlist. Here it is shuffled:

[Large readable version here]

It consists mainly of songs I know fairly well but haven’t listened to for a while. Many of them are songs you can sing along to, just so I don’t fall asleep while revising. Some of them are less familiar to me and that’s to keep things interesting.

(You’ll spy Humpback Oak in there somewhere. Support local music!)

It lasts for about 5 hours, as you can see at the bottom.

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But Goodies

I’ve been using Steam for quite a while and have been rather satisfied with my experience. I’ve bought quite a few games, and enjoyed myself with a good fraction of them as well. It’s been mostly a pleasant experience.

About a month ago, someone directed me to GOG.com, the other direct delivery gaming service that most people seem very happy about. I took a look, and I’ve been taking a look ever since.

It’s not that I haven’t found anything to like. Quite on the contrary, there’s been plenty to like. I’ve just been preoccupied with other stuff and have had other games to while away the time as well. Nonetheless, I’ve to admit that many games look pretty tempting, and I doubt my window shopping will last very long.

I’m mostly interested in two games: Icewind Dale 2 and Sanitarium. I still have my Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment disc editions working (I think), so those are not on my list (though I would buy a nice complete Baldur’s Gate collection in a hearbeat) but I’ve always had a great love of the Infinity Engine games, so Icewind Dale 2 intrigues me. Sure, it won’t be the story-driven adventure that some of its contemporaries were, but I’m game. As for Sanitarium, I remember reading about it in ye olde PC Gamer magazine and being so fascinated by it. I remember also the ads. It was just one of those games that grabbed my attention but I never really got to by some twist of fate. I can avenge that now, and the prospect of playing an adventure ten years in waiting is an unbelievably attractive one. There’s such a joy in rediscovering these titles; it’s a little like suddenly recalling that one novel you read all those years ago or that one great movie you missed back when it was first showing.

Other games I will probably get include both Fallout‘s (I don’t have a copy of either anymore), Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Longest Journey (and Syberia + Syberia 2 of course), Caesar 3, and… Well, there’s a lot of stuff. I’ll keep looking, but I’m sure I’ll be getting one or two of these games pretty soon. We’ll see how that goes when the day arrives, but for now, I’m just so glad to be reminded of all of these games.

d

Update: And as soon as I publish this, they release Baldur’s Gate 2.

25

Here is a semi-accurate list of books I’ve read or re-read this semester (in more or less chronological order):

1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
2. Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
3. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. The Ruined Map by Kōbō Abe
5. Contempt by Alberto Moravia
6. The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) by Macedonio Fernández
7. A Woman Alone & Other Plays by Franca Rame and Dario Fo
8. Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
9. Seeing by José Saramago
10. A Heart so White by Javier Marías
11. Silas Marner by George Eliot
12. Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss
13. In the Castle of my Skin by George Lamming
14. Mythologies by Roland Barthes
15. Stories and Texts for Nothing by Samuel Beckett
16. Crick Crack, Monkey by Merle Hodge
17. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
18. The Outsider by Albert Camus
19. Crabwalk by Günter Grass
20. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
21. Mourning Diary by Roland Barthes
22. Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes by Tamar Yellin
23. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
24. Tinkers by Paul Harding
25. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin

I might have missed a book or two out, but that’s mostly it. I’ll do one more before the semester is up.

d

Week 12

It’s Week 12. I’ve been fighting many fires, so I’ve not been updating for a while. Here’s a quick rundown on what has been happening:

I’ve just finished Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. A very beautiful book. I’m basically trying to squeeze in as much reading as I can before the exams right now.

Been making friends here and there,which is always a lovely thing.

It’s also a big week. I’ve a couple of interesting things to do (that is, unless you consider assignments interesting as well) and also some big decisions to make. I hope to get things sorted out soon. More on that as it happens.

I’ve also been chasing my submission. And I wonder if I should do something to the two short stories I have on my hands right now.

Yes, next week is the ominously named Week 13, which means school will be over soon. I have one essay left to complete. Well, actually, I have one-and-a-half. There’s also a small quiz early next week. So it’s not exactly plain-sailing all the way to the finish line. The exams loom in incredibly unappetising fashion.

The weather’s been pretty crazy. Incredibly warm sometimes and then inexplicable rain. Today was one such warm day, though today came without the rain.

And that’s about it. Because I haven’t been sleeping and my brain feels like kueh tutu.

There is a new Decemberists song available for download, and you can get it from their main page [here]. I like it. Feels confident and not overdone. I was perhaps less surprised than when they released “The Rake’s Song”, but in a good way. I’m looking forward to the new album.

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