Quick update on my life. I’m back in Singapore, and so far these have happened.
1) I never recalled living here akin to being in a sauna 24/7.
2) My mom tried to buy me a real Louie Vuitton bag, and I actually said no.
3) Took the public transit for the first time in 2 years, found out my old bus card is now obselete, underpaid my fare, got caught by the bus conductor, and received a $20 bus ticket for underpaying.
4) Been chauffered around since then, and it’s slightly unnsettling.
5) Received my old-age-fund (CPF) statement, thought I had a $1000 in there instead of $500, found a $36 deduction for an insurance I never signed for, thought it was monthly, called the insurance and yelled about how the insurance took half my money, and was told that it was only a yearly deduction of $36.
6) Everyone drives at a 100km/h. And I don’t like it.
7) Two weeks back home is kind of longish. Read: Really long.
I’m flying back on March 1st, so I’ve got another week to meet up with friends and catch up.
To be truly and very honest, I think I’ve wanted to be a journalist when I was younger. Well, it was one of the occupations I wanted to be, among the list of careers like actress, tv reporter and fashion designer. I think I could have actually made something happen in high school, only my journalist club shut down a year after I joined, right after I got voted in to be the social coordinator. I remember the 13 year old me was so excited and proud because I was the only one in my grade that was on the executive committee; the rest of them were 15 or 16. Since the shutting down of that club and my re-entrance into choir, I never gave it much thought.
Until I came to Canada. Going into a university with no strings attached or no scholarships bound gave me a new leash of life, as cliche as it may sound. That meant I could be anyone I wanted to be, and try anything I wanted to.
Of course, I was also a naive and keen 19 year old. I wanted to try everything. I wanted to keep what I had spent the last few years of my life doing, drama and choir, and join something new, track and journalism.
I was too nervous during my choir audition that I was slightly hyper-ventilating, that the conductor had to stop and just ask me to sing a song I like. Needless to say, I did not get into a choir. After that, I auditioned for the musical theatre club. The same conductor was the music director. It was a couple of weeks since I was in Canada, so I had gotten a lot more accustomed to life. I aced the singing audition, but didn’t have enough character in my dance audition.
And so, that I ended up training in track team, being the only person who hadn’t done track in high school, and writing for the school paper.
I still remember the first time going into the newspaper office. I was slightly scared. I had joined an emailing list, and never picked up pitches. Well, to be fair, I signed up for culture pitches last year, and my culture editor last year didn’t have a habit of sending out pitch lists. I had dragged Kyrstin along, and finally found the hidden office of SUB 24. She abandoned me, and I walked in. Everyone was busy. Someone asked me if I was looking for anyone, and I meekly responded that I wanted to write for the paper. But because I hadn’t written at all, I don’t know anything about newspaper. I was of course willing to learn.
The person I talked to wasnt too impressed with me, and herded me to Dan, my ex-multimedia editor. That was the day I met Tara as well. But that was the day I decided that I wanted to be a journalist, and this was the place to be.
Soon it became somewhat a routine for me. Every thursday, Tara and I were the Streeters team, she on the camera and me with the microphone, we mastered the art of asking strangers to spare us 5 minutes of their lives to be on a video. It wasn’t easy. A surprisingly large number of people don’t mind being interviewed, but run at the sight of a camera or a video camera.
I also starting writing stories for the paper, mostly of things that I had discovered and found interesting. I remember I did a little snippet about instruments that measured earthquakes, which was mainly ripped from Wikipedia, and I was very surprised that I was credited to it. And it was nice to see your name in the papers.
I got better at interviewing people, and asking them the right questions. I got better that just going for it, instead of being awkward like a normal person. It seemed like anything was possible because as media, you could go anywhere and do anything, with no consequence whatsoever. It made me a more confident person.
During my term with the paper, I have worked with amazing editors, which were part of the reason I stayed on. My photo editor was ever so motivating and encouraging. He never ceased to praise and teach me, and always ready to have an ethical discussion about photography. He also did such inspiring work.
A year later, I’ve grown so much, not just as a person, but as a journalist. I believe there is a link between the two, and I believe that I’m a much better journalist because I am a much more confident person than before.
So below, is an abstract from a recent article I wrote for my paper. I think it’s my best (and most personal) story to date. It was an article entitled, “My first pap smear that wasn’t”
A few weeks ago, I scheduled myself for my very first pap smear test. Now, for those of you who aren’t at that stage of your life yet, or don’t have a vagina, what they do in a pap smear test is they swab the inside of your cervix with a cotton swab and test it for any funky stuff growing, like Gonorrhea. I didn’t think I would be too comfortable with that. A girlfriend reassured me, “It’s only as awkward as you let it be.” Right.
I never plan to have any resolutions, but always get motivated to form one when I read those which my friends come up with. I guess it gives you some sort of direction for the next year, some goals you would like to accomplish. So here’s mine.
1) Stealing a point from a good friend of mine, Stop procrastinating. I don’t know how many times I’ve actually chosen to watch Friends re-runs instead of reading that play for class. I have got to stop doing that.
2) Go to every single class. This is linked to the previous point to some extent.
3) Get fitter. This means that I actually go for all my team practices, and watch what I eat.
4) Keep in contact with friends. Be it dropping them a note on Facebook or meeting them for coffee.
5) Stay dedicated to the things I’ve chosen to get involved wth, or drop out of them. I.e, the newspaper, chinese opera classes, track, rugby, local asian theatre group.
6) Be more involved with the local scene. Go to more art galleries, more concerts, more shows.
Those are the main ones. A year from now, I’ll look back at it and see how far I’ve come.
The winter break this year is shorter than usual, but it’s good enough. Finally I’m sleeping in, and spending my days having nothing pressing to do or any deadlines to make. It’s so idyllic that I’m wishing school to start. So I’ve gotten busy filling the rest of my holidays with coffee dates and gallery visits, to fill my time.
I’ve got some projects I’m hoping to embark on, maybe when the weather gets better. I really enjoy the idea of interactive art, having seen many such installations online or in town. Street art is another thing I’m really interested in. I’ve played around with spray paint and it isn’t easy controlling it, much less create clear solid lines. Art that provokes and makes people think or aware. These are just some of the things I want to work on next year, and get more involved with my local community.
I’m a person who really likes to get involved, with anything, really. I have a wide range of interests, and often like to find out more or get some hands on experience. That’s why I write for the school paper, tried and am training for both track and rugby, singing in choirs, work at several places, am learning chinese opera, volunteer for events, and now, it may seem, I’ve got myself involved with the local asian canadian theatre.
I think it’s a lie when I say I don’t plan to be this busy; to some extent, I do. I like seeing new things, and meeting new people, so I put myself out there. Being with the paper definitely taught me a few things in meeting new people and making things happen for yourself, which is terrific. But I digress.
What I really want to talk about is, the curious nibbet of realisation I’ve had so far. So I had emailed the volunteers coordinator for the local asian canadian theatre about volunteering, maybe with the lighting or sound, something I’ve always wanted to get better at. I get an email to meet up with the founder of the group, and so I did.
And I kind of expected what happened next. Besides being told what the group was all about and checking what my availability was, I was also somehow roped in to help with the marketing, aka put up posters and tell my friends to come watch the shows.
The same thing happened with my other group. They were all so keen for me to get onboard, so I could get my friends to come watch the shows.
To be honest, most of my friends are immensely broke. I lived with some of them, and I was also as broke as them. For an entire month, I survived on rice and onions because I couldn’t afford groceries, though that was a bad month. But you get the idea. No one was going to pay $30 unless it was a really good show. And really, if they did pay that much to watch a show of yours, they would only do so if you were one of the leads at the very least.
I don’t mind helping with the marketing, but I can’t gurantee anything. I hate feeling like I have to do it, being pressured into doing this. And I barely know these people. I hate how they get super excited and optimistic when they tell me how it’s so hard to sell tickets now, and how would I feel asking my friends to come for the shows?
The lady I met with talked about how it’s so hard to get kids from my generation to come out and watch plays, but I don’t think it’s true. Well, not entirely true. I, personally, find it extremely hard to get out of campus and sit on the transit for hours just to catch a play. I usually can’t afford to watch the plays (writing reviews for your school paper = free tickets), and I usually also don’t have the time or energy. I do watch plays, but only if it’s by a really good company, a really good play, or on campus. If plays were more affordable, I would go more often.
All the theatre groups I’m involved with are very niche-d groups; they kind of only cater to a certain type of people, which isn’t bad. It’s just harder to push for sales.
Oh well. I guess that is a problem with most independant theatre groups. It’s all about earning at least just enough so you can put up another show after the last.
Ok. I realise there is no “point” to this post, so I’m going off. Studying for finals really put my off me regular sleeping schedule.
If we got rid of the typical square body that is the camera, how convenient would it be? Granted you would have to re-learn how to use the camera, but it’s going to be able fit in your bag better. It’s going to be less heavier. It now has a handle to grip on.
I discovered the joys of the photocopying machine in the library in grade school, and it was awesome. The ability to make copies of things just by sticking it into the scanner was pretty sweet. It did end up with me photocopying my face a couple of times, with my friends standing around looking as innocent as possible, shielding me away from the mean librarian, who no doubt, would ban us from the library if she knew what we were doing with the machine.
Now, with the purchase of a new scanner, I was eager to try it again, and here are some of the resulting pictures:
The last one is my favourite.
And here’s the self portrait I did.
Yeah, the photo quality’s not too good. It’s done in acrylic on canvas, with a paper collage centre. I sewed the flaps back so they would stay bursting open like that. First time working with canvas; it was an interesting experience.
Next: Painting all the walls in my dorm room. I should clean my room before that happens.
The great panic creator towards the end of the term was definitely my school affairs – I had a thousand work paper due a week before the term ended, on a topic that I really couldn’t grasp my mind around, a drama presentation on Chinese Opera, an art I definitely bragged knowing more about that I actually do and the first final three days after school ended on a subject I had no confidence in.
And in this time of stress and panic, my creative side decided to come alive with ideas and whatnot.
I participated in a internal school art competition on the topic “What is Technology?”, which saw me working on a self portrait of myself, opening my jacket to show not skin and flesh, but a mesh of gadgets and technology. I did turn out really ugly, much to my irritation, but hey, I hadn’t painted in a long time, and I’m not too great doing realistic looking things. I have a photo of the finished product somewhere in the office, I’m sure.
But yes. End of the term very quickly, and strangely enough, I started making friends with people in my classes. I guess I will still be seeing the choir people, and the drama people, so that isn’t too big of a loss. It’s just an amusing concept. Finally you get used to the people in class, you have to end it, because it’s the end of the term, end of the time having to see each other.
Looking back, I think one of the most inspiring classes I’ve had all term was the last drama discussion group, where a whole bunch of us gave our presentations, including myself. I was so nervous, that I was pretty sure my presentation wasn’t moving in too linear a path, though it was really cool to watch. I talked about Chinese Opera a bit, showed some more insight to the art, demonstrated a bit of the singing and movement with the water sleeves and showed how Chinese Opera has been performed in different circumstances.
To put things in perspective, here’s how Chinese Opera is done traditionally:
Here’s Chinese Opera done in same manner stylistically, but in English. It’s taken from a comedic movie, but I can’t figure from what:
And here’s Chinese Opera reborn as a western opera, much like a Verdi, sung in Mandarin.
I did get a 8/10 for the presentation, so I’m pretty happy with that.
But just sitting in that class, I realised what a diverse and talented group of people we were. One of the guys had his film in the Whistler Film Festival this year, a whole bunch of them are actors and actresses, and it’s just really interesting. To be honest, I hadn’t been to the discussion group too often, due to injuries and whatnot, but that day, I felt a sort of connection to the group. These are the people I would like to be around.
In other news, I’ve become, in Kyrstin’s words, “a disgusting tv junkie”, which is a couple grade higher than your regular run-of-the-mill, “regular tv junkie”. The reason why she says this, is that I’m obsessively following the following television shows:
Glee
How I Met Your Mother
Dexter
Desperate Housewives
Dollhouse
The Office
and filling in the blanks in my Futurama and Friends watching. I also watched SyFy’s special two day mini series, Alice, which I have to say was really fantastically done. The whole re-invention of Wonderland and the romantic plot line is amazing, though more about the re-invention. Really. You have to watch it if you haven’t yet.
I don’t think that’s a disgusting amount of television to watch. On one hand, I now understand cultural references, and can embark on the ardous journey of making my own witty cultural puns, and on the other hand, I’m getting inspired. Really, though you could also understand that to be having increasingly more hopeless romantic notions of the world, which I don’t believe is a bad thing.
With two more finals to go, I can’t wait for all this to end and actually have time to myself for a couple of weeks. No obligations, no expectations, just pure Kathy time. I really can’t wait for all the plans I’ve planned for myself. Think of it as a reward, and motivation for next year. It’s always during finals period where I just want to sit down and make something with my hands.
Speaking of which, I still have to get my hand fixed up; I haven’t been able to touch the guitar for two months now, and it’s started to really bug me. Hand physiotherapist, here I come after finals.
Ferrofluid liquid. I still can’t grasp my mind around how it works. It’s so bizzare!
Another stop motion video. Love how they manage to depict the World Wars, and you can tell who’s attacking who by the country each food came from. I wonder what background they made the video on.
This is crazy! How do you fit such a small picture on your tooth?
35 books, all hand-made, all that meticulous work. That’s a lot of patience. The video’s really got me pumped to make my own book too! Got the link off a great artist I know, Jane. Check out some of the work she’s done here.
