tsewei’s blog

my brains must be having some problem differentiating the two.. otherwise, explain to me how did I manage to set the wrong alarm!?!

Was tired in the late afternoon after finishing one essay accusing National Geographic of brainwashing the gullible audience that we are, so I decided to nap a bit and get up by 6+pm to go have dinner. Obviously my brain was already halfway in lalaLand when I set my cellphone alarm to go off, yup, at 6+ AM. Damn smart. *whacks head*

And I only woke up at sometime close to 8pm!! Argh! just missed dinner at the dining halls. So now I’m sitting here in front of my lappietop ranting about it and eating instant noodles straight from the pot and listening to ABBA from my ittybitty laptop speakers. How sad is that? (ok, the ABBA part isn’t sad. Just the noodle n ittybitty speakers part).

sigh, I have got to stop being such a pig and quit having afternoon/evening naps.

yeah yeah, I can hear some of you snort. I can HEAR you!! But it’s ok, ‘coz I don’t believe myself either heehee.

*takes a big slurp of noodles with bits of egg* YUM!

okie, I have got to get back to reading some article about surrealism, dada, and situationists blablablah. Read one page and I am so0o not understanding this academic blabbering.

It doesn’t help that I just found out the movie I’m suppose to watch in class tomorrow, Tout Va Bien (Everything is fine), is by the same half-crazed genius director Jean Luc Godard who gave me the movie A bout du souffle (Breathless) that screwed my brains up trying to ANALyse it for my essay assignment weeks ago. Thrills. *rolls eyes*

But then again, it’s French, and that’ll be enough to keep me happy.

OKAY! Back to work you pig! *I tell myself with my imaginary voice*

gosh, I sound deranged. But I don’t really care.. lalala…
*boogies to more ABBA tunes*

Finally went to watch the opera that I was working on at the college theater. Been working on the electrics crew for the past 3 weeks, hanging and focusing lights, really working hard with my wrench. (Am proud of my wrench-skills. Never use wrench before in my life, k?)

I’m taking theater production as my other elective this semester, and that’s how I ended up with a wrench working on lights for an opera. The theater here’s pretty cool, really professional. And everyone I work with is from the theater school, so everyone knows a lot about what they are doing (and I was totally clueless).

It was really fun, ‘coz I get to climb up to funny corners of the theater to hang lights, carry huge 10-feet ladders, go up and down spiral staircases till I’m dizzy, and of course, use my wrench. The most fun thing is the Genie lift. It’s this machine with a metal box thingy which you can climb in, and then it can elevate u upwards to like almost 20 feet up. You can stare at the ceiling while you go up, and it’s like the world is falling onto you. coolness. heehee.

The Consul is a pretty dark opera. Set in a war era, with lots of secret police (in trench coats) and people fleeing the nation, and people dying, and everyone sings of course. I’m not usually a fan of happy endings, but this time I kinda wished there was one for the story, ‘coz it was really very depressing already without the final death (suicide, in fact).

Lights were cool (of course! LOL). Sets was awesome too. I like the apartment set that the carpenters crew built, filled with little details that made it look real. Love the peeling-paint-on-the-walls look they created. Really portrayed the poverty and the harsh times.

The singing was good too. The entire production and cast are students within the college, and the quality was quite top notch. Wow. Am impressed.

But somehow, I guess I can’t appreciate opera that much. Much prefer plays, and musicals. Opera is a bit too high culture for me (despite classical music education). The only other time I actually really really loved opera singing was the Emma Shapplin concert I went for last year at the Esplanade in Singapore. And it wasn’t really opera. Just that her singing style is opera + infusion with pop/electronica/something. But way cool (Anything with a live band with bass guitars n drums in a classical concert hall backed by orchestra music IS WAY COOL).

Tomorrow’s strike. Means we’re taking down all the lights and sets and everything. Argh. WORK, on a saturday afternoon. I heard there’s gonna be like at least 80 person working on stage. madness.

Must remember to bring my wrench tomorrow.

Of late, my house in Petaling Jaya has somehow became a place for animals to hangout, seeking refuge from the crazy city. Which is rather odd, since it is rather impossible how animals are expected to survive in a city choked with haze, with no trees or natural river (or anything natural, for that matter), or not get themselves run over by crazy reckless drivers? How did they even manage to survive to come to my house?!

ok, that’s overly dramatic. But the point is, there really aren’t many creatures in this suburb other than stray cats, dogs, big-ass filthy dirty rats, fugly icky cockroaches and pesky mosquitoes.

But somehow, a rooster ended up at the back of my house. Just like that. One day, my family woke up and found it perched on the fence behind my house. And it’s been there ever since.

My mom thinks it’s “choi san” (”God of Money/Wealth” in Cantonese) since this is the Year of the Rooster, and this rooster auspiciously showed up during Chinese New Year.

The whole household (and my neighbours) have been feeding it ever since.
My mom tells me over the phone: “He seems to like rice. I think it’s his favourite food.”
I think she got herself a new pet.

Then, he started going cock-a-doodle-doo every morning from dawn till morning.
Now she tells me: “If he doesn’t leave soon, I’ll slaughter him for dinner.”
My dad wants chicken soup. My sister Tse Pei says roast chicken is better. =S

Few months back, there was no rooster. Instead, we got a kingfisher.
It was pretty, but my dad was pissed at it. ‘Cause it came to my house to prey on my dad’s precious fishies in the little pond at the front of the house.

We were trying to solve the mystery of the missing fish (”they can’t be dead lah. where are the bodies??!”) when one day the kingfisher swooped down from the jambu tree, flew right at the pond and scooped up a small fish, in one smooth sweeping motion, and flew off happily with his catch. And my dad witnessed it all. Furious that his fish got eaten up.

But it’s pretty neat to think that my house has in some ways been incorporated into the ecosystem, providing food and shelter for these creatures.

Wonder what’s gonna turn up next?

Talked to Grace and Christian online yesterday, and found out that this year’s NTU choir concert was a success, yet again! *cheers!* Congrats everyone!! So happy for you ppl!

Realised I really do miss singing with the choir. It was always stressful preparing for concert, and the worry that things would go wrong could just almost kill you sometimes, but the thrill of performing onstage to a full house in Victoria Concert Hall last year was just amazing. Last year was good, but I heard that this year’s was just great!

The choir did a short 60s musical besides the usual repetoire, and that’s where the fun is. Colorful costumes, snazzy dances and songs! Plus our very own live band this year! Funky!

And check out that afro wig Andhika was wearing! haha.. coolness..

I’m taking a voice class here now as part of my general elective modules, but it’s just nowhere as challenging or fulfilling as singing with the choir back in NTU. I guess I just miss singing with a whole bunch of people, stringing separate parts into a beautiful piece, and just hanging out with them before/during/after/outside choir practice times (mostly involving a lot of makan times )

Sigh.. I miss choir.. Can’t wait to sing again next semester when I’m back in Singapore.

Yay! I finally have a new blog layout!

Got kinda sick of the previous design, so it’s about time I got something new. And apparently WordPress has a new upgrade to v1.5 (not like I really know what that means). Anywayz, yeah! New design and upgrade! *skips around in joy*

Realised this layout makes the page look more pleasing and easier to read, unlike the old one. Yay! (once more!)

Will probably attempt to personalise the mast head design sometime soon. With the help of au yong of course.

I’m seriously too technologically incompetent to handle this tech stuff. I’m ashamed to reveal that I actually took a web design module in school last semester ’cause I really can’t remember much that I learn from CS227.

Perhaps it’s time to upgrade my IT skills. (Or rather, acquire some to start with.)

updated@11pm: forgot to mention that obviously since I’m a tech “e-diot”, it was au yong (NOT me) who did this whole new look for my blog. Must not forget to attribute the layout design to WPThemes too.

Yeah I know it’s a little late, vday is probably over for most of you, but it’s not for me, kay! (NY is half a day slower than M’sia mah, heehee) so, Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

I get to celebrate it for one and a half day this year! Again, ’cause of the time difference, my Vday celebration with au yong starts half a day earlier heehee..

I used to be sceptical of long distance relationships, thinking that it’ll be too achingly painful to be apart physically, and emotionally draining, and I saw it as something fragile that could break easily. But then, if you think otherwise, wouldn’t it ache too, to have let go a potentially beautiful relationship, just ’cause you too easily cower in fear of the distance that separates?

I’m glad I changed my mind and decided to give it a chance. Sometimes it’s not easy, but it’s definitely worth it to see the relationship and feelings grow.

Thank you, to a friend who told me: “What’s distance, as long as there are mutual strong feelings?”

Thank you, to another friend who told me: “5 months or 5 years apart.. Does it matter? How often do you fall in love?”

Thank you, to my darling au yong, who told me, and continues to tell me everyday that he loves me.
I love you, too. *muakx*

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
and because I don’t believe in paying the 983% inflated prices in the market out there, here’s a cyber-gerbera for u all.. heehee

post-script: curse Pos Malaysia.. the cardS I sent still hasn’t arrived at his house! But the nice thing is, the one he sent to me arrived precisely today. Opened my mailbox this evening and the red envelope was lying right there. =)

Saw La Jetée during class last week for my Media Aesthetics and Analysis class. A French classic made in 1962, its poignancy and its impactful images stole my heart right from the very beginning.

La Jetée is unconventional in the sense that it uses photo-montages, a simple soundtrack and a sparse (yet powerful) narration to tell its story. Absent are the usual fancy camera moves or quick edits and special effects. In place is a series of photographs, in black and white, freezing a particular moment, a particular motion, a particular personality, weaving a melancholic story of a world of destruction and war, memory and destiny. It’s the best illustration of what “less is more” means. Stripped to the bare essentials of cinematography, it had more to show, and to tell, in its full 28 minutes, than the usual 2-hour blockbuster.

The movie portrays a post-apocalyptic world, where humans were driven underground because of the destruction we have brought upon ourselves. Scientist then designed experiments to send people backward and forward in time to search for a way out to save themselves. Sounds like a science fiction story, but it is really more than that. With the technology, our lead character had a chance to go back in time and romance a woman he remembered from his childhood in the pre-war years, a chance to share little moments here and there of the peaceful past with the woman whose image was clearly etched in his memory, a woman whom he knows will eventually die. But there’s a little twist to the movie at the end, of which its beauty I will not reveal here.

Found out that 12 Monkeys was actually inspired by La Jetée. No wonder the story is similar. But La Jetée is by far superior. But then again, it’s probably an unfair comparison, since they are essentially different in the way they tell the story.

I am entranced by this movie. Must get my DVD copy. But read online that a french copy is hard to find. And I don’t want a dodgy English dubbing. sigh. Maybe I’ll go steal the reel that the college has here mwahaha. (yup, and have no way of viewing it later. right.)

“Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. Later on they do claim remembrance when they show their scars. That face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had he invented that tender moment to prop up the madness to come?

The sudden roar, the woman’s gesture, the crumpling body, and the cries of the crowd on the jetty blurred by fear.

Later, he knew he had seen a man die.”

I am so inspired. Feel like making a film myself too. sigh.

The year of the Rooster is just round the corner, but things are pretty quiet here. As expected, since this is NY, not Malaysia or Singapore.

It’s a bit early, but me and my roomies Elizabeth and Xiaorong got something going for our CNY here! We managed to cook up a decent chinese meal for dinner today! Not the American type of chinese where everything’s mushy, soggy, and exceedingly sweet. But the typical chinese cooking that I’m used to: lots of garlic, oil instead of butter, and prawn sauce!

It was nothing extravagant. No abalone. No tiger prawns. No mushrooms either. Just some asparagus, chicken, and prawns. And most importantly, rice that isn’t all sticky! But that was enough to make the night happy and cheery for us! Eating chinese food the way it’s suppose to taste is just heavenly. Especially after a strict diet of potatoes, pasta, and bland boiled brocolli. haha.

Thanks to Anne for her wonderful Coke Chicken recipe. Elizabeth remembered the recipe from long ago and proceded to whip up a nice dish. heh, if only I paid more attention last time.

to everyone out there, wherever you are: Gong Hei Fatt Choy/Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

note to self:
steal sunkist-type oranges from dining hall the next two days to masquerade as mandarin oranges. Oh the power of self-deception! LOL.