Difficulty Level

I have to say that going into the new course, I expected my classes to be difficult, but it’s still managed to catch me by surprise. I guess that’s how it is, isn’t it? You can’t actually imagine the difficulty ahead of time. You can sort of guess, but the way it creeps up on you and the emotions that fester, well, it just doesn’t work. I suppose it has in one part to do with how hard it is to imagine emotions. I mean, seriously, I find it really difficult to imagine being really sad or angry when I’m not really sad or angry. Okay, maybe that’s just me and my deficient imagination.

I’ve just had a psychoanalytic film theory class which was really quite something. I mean, I liked it, so it was something. And it was difficult, so it was something. So. There. I don’t, as my other lecturer puts it, speak Lacanese, just dribs and drabs, but I imagine I’ll have to pick it up at some more advanced level now.

Love all my classes so far, though. They all seem like great topics with nice lecturers and nice people in the classes as well.

I was supposed to update the birthday post during the weekend, but some really strange things happened during the weekend. I’ll do it tomorrow or something. It is, however, going quite well. At least, better than I expected, though, to be fair, I wasn’t expecting all that much, so the preparations were almost bound to be a success.

Meanwhile, I have received good comments from people who have read my latest short story, meaning they enjoyed it, which is a relief mostly because I’ve never quite written a story like this one before and I was sure it was going to be a terrible attempt. But I guess this is some consolation, even if I win nothing. And I guess that’s really likely because I’ve read some really good Singaporean short fiction recently and I’m sure it’ll be the likes of them who will win something.

In any case, hello. Hope you had a good weekend.

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Groovy

Recently, I’ve become quite interested in the act of performance. I’ve been watching plenty of concert videos (some new and some old favourites) and a common thread running through them is that the performances allow me to understand the music better. When artists make a direct connection with their art and that connection manifests physically via performance, it also helps you to understand their work in a broader way. I often wonder if this has implications for writing. It’s certainly not a straightforward one, but I figure that the abstract something that I feel here will translate in some way to my own work.

I think I’m getting back into the groove of writing again as well. Sure, I don’t have much to show for it, but I do have a title and a title’s important. I’m working on a short story with a deadline. I only added three or four hundred words (to the existing two hundred) over the past couple of days, but I have that title and it makes me think that I have my direction as well. I know where I’m going with this and that’s been missing for the very lengthy amount of time that this story has been gestating. With some luck, it’ll show up over the next couple of weeks. I need to send it in soon.

My textbooks arrived earlier today. I’m going to get started. School begins next week and I better get to work. I’m going to begin with Hamlet.

I have a dental appointment tomorrow. I uhhh let’s just say I strongly dislike dental appointments. I don’t have an outright fear of them, but I really dislike them. I think almost half of it is what you always hear of: the sensation of almost-pain, the machinery, the sounds, the smell of the gloves, et cetera. The other almost-half is the fear of letting someone down, because anything that happens to your teeth is your fault. Guilt complex. I have that. There are other minor contributing factors as well.

Also, it is the end of one July and the beginning of another (Lunar). It’s also the beginning of August. Flip your calendars!

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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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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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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.

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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.

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Just popping by.

I realised I missed Wednesday. It was not entirely intentional, but the best I could probably do is not to make a mess of this entry.

School’s started, yes, and it has mostly been a fairly unremarkable week. On the nicer side of things, I’ve made a new friend, a complete surprise when you realise that all of my classes thus far were supposed to be with familiar people. On the less nice side of things, I find myself conflicted about some stuff, and I also realise it’s going to be a rather hectic semester. To that end, I’ve tried to get a head start on things by tackling some of my texts sooner than I was planning. I’m still not quite sure it’s going to work.

Other than that it has been quite pleasant seeing all the familiar faces. Some of them have come back from exchange programmes and the like, so… it’s been quite a while. It’s interesting, to say the least, to see how people have changed, but also interesting is to realise how I’ve changed.

Tomorrow’s kind of a big day. It’ll be my first day of literature classes, and in fact I’ll have, by my own measure, a whole day of them. I’ve got five hours with an hour’s break in between, and thereafter I’ll be having the last of another lecture series. It’s a busy day, and a big day because I don’t really know what to think going into these brand new literature classes. It is all slightly exciting, well, very exciting, and yet also all rather intimidating. It’s not just the subject, but the people. New people, plenty of new people. Hopefully we will be making many more new friends, but who’s to say?

Meanwhile, I’ve been having a few ideas. I am a little upset at not actually being able to complete my first editing of Singapura, which I should say is still looking for a new title, though the ideas keep that part of me satisfied for now. I’m sure most of the ideas will be quarantined, never to see the light of day again, but we always remain hopeful that one or two of them will have the staying power to outlive the bad ones. It should be said, however, that some of these bad ones are impossibly hardy and make a habit of surfacing like ghosts in idle minds.

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Unavoidable questions.

I’m beginning to realise (well, okay, maybe not beginning) that every time I finish some project, I end up asking the same few questions. Sure, they’ve evolved a bit, transformed a bit, but I’ve still been asking myself the same things in essence each time.

• Is it any good?

Probably the most obvious question anyone can ask. The trick here is that it isn’t usually accompanied by the most obvious answer. It’s certainly tends to be less good than you would want it to be, but how far is it from that standard that you hold for yourself? More importantly, perhaps, how do you measure stuff like this?

• Did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish?

This time, I’m not very sure, primarily because this project hasn’t been as straightforward as I thought it would be. This is probably the most immediate question whenever I get done with anything, and in this case, it can only be answered when I take a second look at it.

• What exactly did I accomplish anyway?

Assuming, of course, that I accomplished anything in the first place. The icky bit about this question is that I don’t like to deal so much with the grand ambition of this or that, but rather the act of writing itself. You shouldn’t let your designs control you, in a way. So it’s not exactly phrased very well. I think a better question would be what I’ve managed to say with what I’ve written.

That applies for the previous question too. Have I said what I wanted to say?

• Is it frivolous?

This question has been popping up with increasing frequency. There is a narrow margin of difference between the absurd and the frivolous. I have not managed this line very well.

• Who would want to read this?

Often, I have no idea. I’m not sure if it actually matters to answer this.

• Why isn’t it the same as what I saw in my head?

Oh. It’s usually easy to answer this. The main reason, I think, is that ideas and images occur to you in a flash (in a manner of speaking), whereas writing takes ages in comparison. There’s also the small problem that I don’t write as well as my imagination would want me to. And so on.

• What’s the difference?

That is, did it change for an appreciably justified reason? Or did it just change because I didn’t manage to live up to the promise?

In the end, most of these questions will just remain questions. I’ll get to work and attempt to master the project eventually; whether or not I succeed is a different story. Answering the questions is probably not all that necessary, yet they get asked time and again. Funny thing, that.

A side note: On Wednesday, my mom told me she was going to dye her hair, as she always does, because the white strands had been popping up. And I just thought to myself, One day, she’s going to stop dyeing her hair. But until that day, keep fighting, mom!

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1.0

This will be a really short blog entry. At least, I hope it will be.

Yesterday at about 3p.m., I concluded work on the first draft of my current project, Singapura. I made a printable copy thereafter, though I haven’t got to printing and binding yet.

So that concludes about six or seven months’ worth of writing.

Now I just want to take a good long break and enjoy what’s left of the holidays. I have some movies to watch, some games to play, some people to meet, and some books to read.

Of course it won’t be all play, because there are a few things I have to take care of. I need to follow up on this and that, start making preparations for the school term, complete some chores, and so on.

And of course there’ll come the time when I ask what I’ve actually managed to accomplished, having written all of this. I don’t actually know and I don’t want to think about that right now. But we’ll get to it.

And of course, I’ll print. And edit. And print. And edit again. And so on.

But for now, it’s time for a break.

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Meetings, footie, miscellany.

Meetings + Writing

Today begins a series of meet-ups over the course of the next two or three days. I’m looking forward just to not working. I’m in the final stretch and I really need to take my mind off of it. In a sense, I don’t want to mess up the last bits and have to do them from scratch a second time.

It’s mostly eating and walking around, though I think I may have to keep my eye open and do a bit of shopping. I’m not very sure how it’s all going to work out, but I’m sure that’s not actually a big problem. It’ll work out!

Meanwhile, as I stitch up this first draft, I’ve got to get to emailing to see where my first project is.

FYP

I also have to start picking my final-year project. I’ve printed the list out and narrowed it down slightly, but only very slightly, and greater narrowing-down must take place shortly.

Music

Recent things on my jukebox: Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief., Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Arcadi Volodos playing Liszt, Sonic Youth’s The Destroyed Room, Buddy Guy’s Skin Deep, and Coltrane’s Blue Train.

Book Club

Book club appears to be on its last legs.

World Cup

No, I don’t usually talk about sports here, but this World Cup appears to be turning into a farce of some sort. The refereeing appears to be horrible; the playacting is in its full glory; BZZZZZZZZ; the goal count is pretty low; many teams appear to be playing some kind of anti-football; and then there’s this French mess as well as discontent in the English camp. The surprise results are sort of nice, but that’s about it.

Admittedly, the sport is too big to suffer too heavily from this, but you have to wonder if any of this is going to be on FIFA’s meeting agendas. And even then, there’s no guarantee that anything is going to be happen. The sport has had the opportunity to improve refereeing and has flatly declined the use of more referees and new technologies. Governing bodies also don’t seem too interested in dealing with playacting. And the inflated egos of players in the past ten years will only worsen with the power shift towards them.

It’s a sport that I love watching, but certainly an embarrassing one at times.

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