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.

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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.

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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.

d

Trickle, Flood

Happening Things, Things Happening

Things are happening. Little events, miniature milestones, they get put behind me one by one as the deadlines start to clear. Yet, time also runs along very happily with no intention of letting me catch up. I’m sure this paradoxical visage of the passing of the days is a familiar one to most and one that I’m sure I’ve mentioned more than a few times in the brief history of this blog, but so there.

This Week, And The Next

I’m to prepare for about three presentations in the coming weeks. That’s normally work enough, but I also have a paper to write and I need to get started on some FYP things as well as one of my essays. Oh and a test. I have a test on Friday. It is the one postponed from two weeks ago. And I have other personal things to worry about. One this week, and one the next, in fact. It’s all not looking very kind, but that’s the way it goes.

Reading

I have to read. I really do. For one thing, I realise I got the order muddled up and read my texts out of order. Now I have to read Midnight’s Children, which is by no means a short book, very quickly to make sure that I know (somewhat) what’s being said in the lectures.

I also have a huge waiting list again. I’ve recently purchased a few books, and I’ve also received some as presents. Most recently, yesterday I received two from my sister, including Soseki’s I Am A Cat.

I think it may very well be that I will have no space left for reading books not related to work. Or maybe I might be able to squeeze in something before the semester ends. I’m not sure, but not entirely optimistic. If so, I want to be able to do a book that isn’t so short, just to end the semester with a bang or something.

It will of course have a lot to do with what happens in the next few weeks, which I imagine will be rather testing on my moods, and moods tend to dictate my book choices.

Slides

Right! Back to making some slides! By the time you next hear from me, more of these milestones will have passed, and we’ll be closer to some other frightening dates, but till then!

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

In the middle of everything.

Time flies. They always say that, but no, it doesn’t. It more likely sneaks past you like catburglar. It’s been five weeks, and I must say five pretty good weeks, since school began, and this is the last week before the mid-term break. More than slightly unnerving. It’s not that I’ve got subjects and projects to take care of; it’s more of how, in the long-term scheme of things, I was supposed to have had some things done, some things working, but they’re kind of lagging behind.

It’s only going to get more difficult from here, of course. The funny thing about school is how it never seems to get any less busy. It’s on a permanent upward gradient. There’s always something to busy yourself with.

I’m now reading A Heart So White. This is actually one of my texts. I like it so far, but it is extremely long and now I have to worry about finishing it.

I think I’ll have to draw up a list of things I want done by the end of the mid-term break. I’m too easily dazzled by a moderately large number of things to do. Keeping a list makes me pay attention. I know I have to finish at least one other text. I want to get up to speed with my FYP too. And there are at least two tests to worry about. Then I have to do two of my essays, which continue to make my brain hurt. As I think I said the last time, it’s mostly my fault for picking a… uhh… challenge.

Meanwhile though, I have to fend off two looming deadlines for this week. Which is partially why I’m typing so quickly, a phenomenon that you can’t see but can probably deduce from the way my words just seem to run on and on and on.

And a Sonic Youth song:

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Weekend Work

You know that the semester has crept up on you when your weekends are packed with things to do. Last weekend was somewhat the same, maybe slightly better, but yeah, I’ve more or less only just noticed. There’s that familiar sensation in my gut again as I begin to worry about this thing and that. It’s good to be back.

One mostly comforting thing is that I’m beginning to get a better feel for what I thought to be my most difficult subject. I still think it’s my most difficult subject, but it’s not bamboozling me so much anymore. I also realise I ought to step up the pace on a couple of my other subjects lest I get left behind, but it’s just that there are so many things going on at one time that it doesn’t always seem possible.

Oh yes, I have to do my first lab report this week. It’s been a long while since I’ve put together one. I hope that doesn’t impair me in any horrific way. I foresee having to spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

Next week I’m having the first of my project meetings. Somehow it just comes across as being quite exciting. Unnecessarily so, I’m sure, but I can’t help myself. It’s the sort of thing that makes you cry out quietly inside that something’s actually happening.

Made some friends this week. Lovely thing. Lovely people. I hope I find friendships to last this semester, though the way things happen, I’m not particularly optimistic about it. Two of those new acquaintances asked me yesterday: “Are you Singaporean? Because you look Korean.” My word, that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that. It was funny mostly because the two of them were thinking the same thing. And if you don’t know what I look like, I promise that I don’t.

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Attractiveness

Weekend was spent trying to get a hold of things. If they weren’t picking up the pace earlier, they’re certainly switching gears right about now.

Ah yes, and now, an assortment of random things:

I woke up yesterday with the most curious mix of joy and sadness. There was a curious disappointment that I had to deal with but also a number of things that made me quite glad. The disappointment is associated in part with a new friendship; the joy is composed of an eclectic mix of sources.

One of them has to do with a somewhat attractive idea that occurred to me in the morning. It’s a philosophical idea that I’m sure has been discussed to death since the time of the ancient Greeks, but I’ll latch onto it for now and see where it takes me. I might be able to glean something from it. Attractive ideas are always exciting. That is, ideas that make you go, Now that’s something to think about. Whether or not I mess it up eventually is a question for later. For now, the purity of it and the fact that it might well lead me to unchartered territory make it all very exciting and of course very attractive.

Spent my morning yesterday setting up a new printer, which was straightforward of course except for a little quirk that stumped me for about half an hour. It’s always the little things that get you, isn’t it?

I had a calculator that died. I think the battery died. It’s the first calculator that’s ever died on me. Fancy that. Though I bet loads of people get through their entire lives without calculators dying on them.

I wrote a new short story. Did I say that already? I wrote it last week. I don’t know what to do with it. I was thinking of a certain competition but I just missed the deadline by a number of weeks. Oh well. I’ll keep it in reserve maybe. I’ve never quite written a short story like that, but it feels right in that it feels like I know what I’m doing. So far, people seem to like it, which is as much as a raconteur can ask for, I suppose. Though I did receive complaints about my generally minimalist punctuation.

I might have to watch some heart surgery soon. That just sounds brilliant in itself. Looking forward to it.

d

Second Week Anxiety

Oh hello there. The second week is coming and going like no one’s business. Things are certainly picking up and I can only do my best to try to stay ahead of them. I’ve had a few surprises, a couple of disappointments, and mostly had some pretty pleasant days. Not bad for a school term, especially considering how the second week’s not even over yet.

I have to admit to being more than a little anxious about a few things, looking ahead, but that always happens, doesn’t it? School manages to do that to you with its distinct blend of repetition, overloading, and quaint unpredictability. You’d think that one would have grown used to it by now, but that really can’t be further from the truth. Of course, the uncertainty is ramped up a little this semester with the final-year project and my other subjects.

My timetable’s mostly fine, though I think that by the time the final-year project kicks up a gear or two, it really wouldn’t matter all that much. I hope I manage to hang onto some of my friends. Figuratively, of course.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Jeff Beck of late, as well as some Freddie King. Two brilliant, brilliant men. Sometimes it’s nice to remind yourself of why this or that musician has such and such a standing among all of your favourites.

Meanwhile I’ve taken a break from reading my literature texts and have started on Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map. I like it so far, though that’s not very far at all. It’s like an existentialist’s Chandler novel, which sounds like a perfectly good proposition to me. Everyone seems to say that it is all rather “disquieting” and I think that would be right up my alley as well, so I’m fairly optimistic about it. I’ve never read any of Abe’s work before this, so I hope that this turns out to be a good introduction.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ve been enjoying the Youth Olympic Games. I caught the weightlifting the other day and a bout of taekwondo. I also watched a tiny bit of football tonight. I find that I ask very silly questions about sport (as an institution) whenever I watch these things. Like, what exactly are we celebrating/discerning from a competition? Is it natural physical talent? is it a form of artistry? or is it that vague term “the human spirit”? Well, I’m sure it’s actually a combination of things like these, but if we don’t actually know specifically, or if we don’t agree from sport to sport, how do we draw up our rules to represent what we want out of our sports?

Oh, it’s late. I begin to ramble when it’s late. I’ll be back.

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