Points of order.

Hello,

I came back from Malaysia at the beginning of the week.

School is basically officially over, with my FYP poster presentation done, all the loose ends tied up, and having tried my commencement gown on yesterday. I’ve yet to indicate my attendance and place an order for my gown though, so I better get to it. The poster presentation went by fine. The graduation night dinner was okay too, and I suppose I managed to settle a few things that I didn’t think I would be able to.

I’ve been busy clearing up admin matters and getting the house in order. Have also been meeting many people and enjoying myself in doses. I am looking to get back to work very soon. There actually are deadlines I have to meet so I better get to it. I think my mood is swinging very gradually in the right direction so with some luck I’ll be back at it real soon.

I’ve been doing a lot of revisiting lately. I rewatched my favourite Audrey Hepburn movie, Charade, last night in the new Criterion edition. I reread Vila-Matas’s Bartleby & Co. and have been rereading Gao Xingjian’s 《灵山》. I’ve also been listening to some of my favourite music.

I got my place to do an MA in Literary Studies. I’ve yet to officially accept it.

My copy of Radiohead’s The King of Limbs arrived in the mail and I have to say that the packaging is quite lovely and thoughtful.

My to-do list is immense. I’ve not seen such a massive to-do list since I last had… well, lots of things to do. But seriously, I put it down on my whiteboard and even as I’m cancelling things, new things keep surfacing. I don’t think this summer break is going to get any easier.

I got a new keyboard and mouse. I love my new keyboard and mouse. And mousepad.

Okay, I think I’ll get back to work now with the promise that I’ll be back blogging again with more frequency.

Of course, these promises… they are guilt-generating machines.

d

Back in business.

Hello, hope you had a good break this Chinese New Year. Mine was relatively normal and slightly boring, but it was okay, I guess. I am currently quite stressed about something but I guess it’s still going as well as it could.

I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve also been meeting friends, which is great. Mostly smooth-sailing.

This week on the menu: aforementioned stressful issue; FYP, FYP, FYP; some administrative issues; my Singapore theatre project, which has to do with Drama Box; meeting up with some other friends; and the new blog. That’s probably as much as I can swallow at this point. Oh yes, I should also blog more, so I’ll try to get things back on track. Empty promises, maybe, but I won’t give up the ghost without having a shot.

Been spending a lot recently. Most of it has been on tickets, clothes, and some books. I can feel myself slowing down in this respect though, which is a relief. I often wonder if other people get the same sort of feeling when that happens, assuming that our spending patterns can even be compared.

Oh I’ve spent some money on new music too. No regrets though. Some great new stuff available recently.

My FYP is doing fine, though maybe going a little slower than I would’ve liked. I’ve got some stuff the puzzle out right now and it’s not looking too optimistic. I’m hoping to stumble on some bright idea by the end of the week. I also hope to finish a model by the end of the week, so it’s not exactly going to be a piece of cake, if I can put it that way.

On the project side, we’re hoping to visit Drama Box this week and get some stuff done at the very least. Watch a couple of plays and obtain a couple of scripts, one hopes.

Yes, I realise I’m writing in a very haphazard manner; I’ve not been sleeping well.

Okay, I’ll be back soon. I already have a couple of ideas of what to be writing about, but it all kind of depends on what happens during the week.

And oh yes, who knows, it might be after the finale of my stressful event the next time I’m here, so, should that be the case, see you on the flip side.

d

Another Week

There goes another week and here begins another one. It’s not got off on the best note–my arms hurt like crazy from some training and I’ve had quite a few things to worry about–but it should get better as the week goes along. It’s going to be a packed week, basically, or perhaps eventful is a better word. Whatever it is, it’s family and friends closer to the weekend, so I’m keeping that in mind for now.

On a related note, tomorrow is a more straightforward day than today was, and today didn’t turn out all that bad.

I put together my new blog as I was promising over the weekend. It’s still finding its feet so I’m going to link to it a bit later. It’s also nowhere near a functioning edition, and in that respect, I actually just set it up as a sort of temporary fixture on WordPress. I’m going to have the hosting worked out when things get more comfortable. That’s the idea, of course; reality doesn’t really like behaving according to intention.

I’m reading Secret Rendezvous (密会). It is splendid. On the back cover, someone describes it as seeming like a collaboration between Hieronymus Bosch, Kafka, and Mel Brooks, and that’s kind of true. I’m about a third through it and completely engrossed in it. I’m just too tired to read now and want to do it justice, so I’m not going to try.

I know I promised to talk about my FYP. I still remember. I’m going to try to do so the next time. I actually have some pictures. I’ll put them up in that post and hope that the pictures are enough to make you happy. I doubt it.

I studied a couple of chess games over the weekend, including one less well-known Fischer game that was quite brilliant. I’m terrible at this, both chess and chess history, but I do enjoy it as a side project of some sort. A hobby, yes. I don’t know why I didn’t say that the first time.

Tomorrow, I’m having classes about Singapore theatre. I’m also going to be discussing with my team members our project for that subject. I get the feeling it’ll be interesting. We’re doing Drama Box, and to end off today’s post on a peculiar note, I’m going to link to them. [via Drama Box]

All right, see ya.

d

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

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.

d

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

Different Challenges

I wanted to blog yesterday, and talk about that culture/arts blog thing, but I didn’t get to it because I was trying to put together my first FYP report, which is proving to be quite a different challenge from the two essays that I’d done just before that. So, now, that I’m taking a break just before lunch, I thought I’d quickly put this together so that this place see the cobwebs.

The two earlier essays were bits of criticism, and it may just be that I’ve got rusty, but I found them strenuous and unfriendly. This puts me in a bit of consternation over the impending examination, but I don’t really have much of a choice except to ride out the storm. In contrast to my fiction, criticism has always been unexceptional but dependable for me. I’m not a great critic by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve usually been able to put together something with some organisation and conviction. It was a struggle this time/these times around, and hence my worries. I’ve since left the essays on the backburner, because I’ve had other things to work on, but I just hope I do okay and get something of a vote of confidence so that I can get things back on track.

(Yes, fiction has always been unstable for me, with pockets of satisfaction and gulfs of despair.)

The FYP report, on the other hand, has proven to be a different beast altogether. The main challenge is organisation, which, one might argue, is the same for a critical essay. The difference is that this early report is mainly a review of the literature that I’ve been through so far, and so it’s pretty much more of the organisation of external knowledge than internal arguments. It’s an intimidating task because there’s a lot to grapple with, and the subject is not entirely familiar. In many ways, the FYP is like a self-study project because it’s not likely that you’ll be assigned something that you’re familiar with, and a lot of these early stages so far have been about learning and learning more.

Whatever it is, I’ve had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to tackle the report. I am an odd writer, and I work in very idiosyncratic ways, whether it is with fiction, criticism, or my lab reports, and so it is that I’ve had to devise an approach unique for writing this report (as compared to my other writing, that is) and that took a long time. I’m still not sure that I’ve got it yet, but this morning it seemed to me that it is probably working. I still have a week to do it, so I’m hopeful that this will iron itself out.

Meanwhile, I’m rereading Beckett’s Texts for Nothing in preparation for my quiz on Friday and reading them a second time really seems to make them a lot more… intuitive.

And with that I should leave you, but only with an irrelevant quote from dear Monsieur Baudelaire, who wrote: “L’amour ressemblait fort à une torture ou à une opération chirurgicale.” The act of love strongly resembles torture or surgery.

d