On a dark and stormy night, Alvin...

Alvin's trying to be placid. And I totally support that! I am an avid supporter of placidity-niceness-all-round.

So Alvin, these are some statements for you to practice your "placid-ness" on.

1. I believe that Journalism can change the world. And Truth comes with a capital "T".

2. I believe that there is a white-picket-fences-happy-ever-after.

3. I believe that optimistic people are the smartest people around.

4. I believe in the good in people.

5. I believe that you can always trust and depend on your friends to be there for you.


For the record, three out of the five are accurate (as far as what I believe anyway). Chew on THAT.





It isn't easy, I don't need to pretend that it is.

At various points in my short life so far I always end up back at the doomsday-teenage-pessimism statement of "you can't rely on anyone for happiness but yourself".

But I think during this return trip, instead of arriving on a dark and stormy night soaked and miserable and lonely, its coming back wrapped in a neutral-beige white wrapper with a twig of wild flowers and scrawled in friendly pencil-writing.

And that really isn't such a bad thing.

I'm all a-tingling with the prospect of being able to spend a full day reconfiguring the blog, colours/words/tags/sidebars/table widths etc.

The way I'm with tech is the way i was with science (aka physics and chem) in secondary school - I don't know/understand what I'm doing, but I manage to get it done anyway.

Its a real blessing I suppose, since the periodic table scares the shit out of me and don't even get started on what's protons and neutrons and electrons and covalent bonds AHHHHH.. but I still managed to get an A. The wonders of blind mugging.

But ya I like fiddling with HTML (have not advanced) and seeing what's there to do.

Manbitch Alvin: the 565 was part of the template design lah. Don't ask me what it means.



Am procrastinating at Macdonalds (oh the horror!) but sigh I have been sold out by the 24-hourness of it all because I hate having to stop studying when I don't want to.

And hows-the-curry PH is here as well, cursing at Greenwalt.

"Ya lah, and then the girl with the mole fly up and push him down into the spikes."

It's quite something to wake up and hear your mom say those words. Damn these Sunday morning period dramas.

Procrastination Version 3.2

After a crazy 12-hour marathon photoshop/indesign orgy I'm glad to announce that I can start studying.

I don't know how certifiably Singaporean this makes me, but I actually like studying. But only and only if there's a really nice open air bench (with a wall to lean on), a coffee machine/shop nearby for emergency purchases, and a good buddy to watch my things when I need to go to the toilet.

Its just so calming. Everything has to be so organised, files books notes readings... coffee on the right, laptop on the left, the occasional food binge/surprise from visiting fellow-studiers.

I still think the best study place in the whole of Singapore is the canteen in St Nicks. Imagine a huge auditorium with really really high ceilings, rows and rows of benches which you can push together to form a little island for yourself, and an always-open drinks stall that you can buy Ribena at 50 cents, over-looking the track and field... yeah.



I miss Xanga's protected posting. Does it exist on Blogger?? Am I a total tech idiot?

And oh yes, it was time for a change. Kitschy my ass!

Bondhu

Below: Nabir, Nazrul, Mr. Foreman. Saiful cooking in the room.

Although the photos don't show, I think Nazrul minus is moustache and plus a nice fancy get-up, would look very good in some portrait shots.

I've been quite a fan of Break.com (i refuse to use their old name), since they've an EXCELLENT video collection of college pranks.

I'm a big fan of pranks.

I've been following the one below.. its not hilaroius compared to some stand-alone stuff they have, but still! I love the continuity! If I lived in a dorm, everyday would be a nightmare! I'd love it!

Part 1: Crap Attack!



Part 2: Revenge of Milk



("I talked to Jason tonight and he told me the whole house lives in a constant state of paranoia. They cant shower, crap, eat or anything without fearing someone will jump out and scream. Round 3 tomorrow! ") AW man.

Part 3: Revenge.. again..



Heeehee.

Erm. Yeah.

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy. You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

I swear, ignore the horrible cutesy title and just take the test. It's fun because they only ask questions about animals, and I keep trying to figure out how they linked it.. It IS fairly accurate, and I really like the questions - only because they are the ones I ask people all the time - and no one has bothered to really ask me back, which is silly because I ask the questions because I like the questions.. but nevermind.. go!

Scram cat.

I love Bucky.










Look at his fat tummy! My god!
I wonder how may cats Darby has in real life.
I wonder if he looks like Rob.

I would like to come back as a Bucky in my next life. It ain't so bad. No matter how nasty I am, my fat furry tummy will set people at ease!

But I don't want to be Catbert though.

(ok just found out Darby doesn't have pets, his Boston apartment landlord doesn't allow or something.)

This is not cool.

Now I know why most Singaporeans dislike having to look at their cleaners in the eye. If I were responsible for throwing down that kind of rubbish, I wouldn't want to face them either.

Today the guys had to take out all the bins from the chute so that they could turn on the water supply which automatically flushes the rubbish chutes from the top floor.

Pretty cool. I never knew it was automated.

What's NOT cool, is that once the bins are out (since you can't have water collecting in there, and besides the point is to wash the area inside) whatever rubbish that gets thrown down within that half and hour has to be picked up.

I tell you, there are only 6 or 7 chutes in my block. And within that time, I saw Nazrul pick up about 3 or 4 diapers, and two sanitary pads, and a packet of half-eaten Macdonald french fries which was obviously much too heavy and torublesome to put into a plastic bag first before throwing it down.

Now the way Nazrul works, you'd think he was channelling the spirit of a bulldozer. He's efficient and fast.I always have to run to catch up with him.

And he's not going to bother walking to and fro to get extra equipment (like steel gloves and a gas mask) to clean things up when he's just trying to get the washing job done.

And just in case you think that they're used to the smell and the dirt, well Nazrul's face is scrunged up in a perpetual frown of disgust.

But yes, in the name of time and efficiency, everything is picked up with his hands.

I salute this guy lah.

I stink.

I'm just tired of talking. I'lll try not to talk about myself, I'm tired of that.

And no lah, i don't stink.

I did spend 12 hours sitting in a rubbish dump and being around rubbish in general, but I don't think I stink. The cat had a real good time sniffing me up when I came back though, in that quizzical way that seems to mean "where the hell have you been?".

Nabir and Nazrul has been working at my blocks cleaning and doing the stuff that no one wants to do for the past 3 years, and I have never said hello to them till this week.

When I tell them I want to do something about cleaners because we Singaporeans don't appreciate them enough, you guys really should've heard the kind of laughter I got in response. Not spiteful, more tragically amused.

"Singaporeans 1 is good, but 10 will be bad."

We're pretty shitty people, as I've noticed. Nazrul tried to prove a point I think, and shouted out a cheery HELLO!!! to an auntie bringing her kids home from school, and she had this confused look of disgust (why the hell is he talking to me) on her face.

And you know the funny thing is, the rubbish dump doesn't stink. I could sit in there all day. Sure it's not the cleanest place ever, but its like a little covered up hole, it gives me anonymity and safeguard from all the prying eyes following me around.

Photos to come, I promise.

Taking a hiatus from blogging (not that I was ever very regular), but yes. Shall spare all of you the doom and gloom!

"You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, yet you're terrified that somebody's gonna put you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in a cage and you built it yourself." - Fred darling.

I really do think it's the walls that you built around yourself that are the highest and the most impenetrable. Rapunzel rapunzel, let down your hair.

Am stuffing myself with chocolate eclairs and durain cream puffs - the frozen kind. Which taste nossogood, but is very convenient and because it's all in the freezer, I get to eat 'em still very cold and quite "crunchy" which I like! Compared to warm and gooey.



And my mother just told me how my grandparents and uncle and aunty spent five hours hunting for the cordless phone handset all over the house, and the house next door (where the other set of grandparents stay), and in the kids' school bags and everywhere and everywhere..

Only to find it in my grandfather's pocket.

I really shudder to think about what kind of amusement I will provide for my grandchildren when i'm that age - given that at the age of 21/22 I take about 3 trips on average to leave the house proper without having to go back because i forgot my ezlink/handphone/rubberband/money/sweater/tissue what not.

I really have to stop finding excuses for my utter disrespect for punctuality.

Things that make Jess happy.

I'm simple that way. Er, I think.

This has been happening a lot.

I type things, finish the blog, then delete everything and just don't feel like posting it.

What? Jess not feel like talking?

Ya, so out of this world right.

We're the very finest university in Asia! Really! We is really the bestest!

Lucky for Ah Mooi, no one reads emails from Career Hub. Not that I believe, or want to believe anyway.

So credit goes to the girl in the west, who's still giggling about it (an hour later).

Bumboat

Bumboat
Originally uploaded by elsija.

This is gonna be one of the last photos I take for the sake of taking for the sake of "pretty-ness".

Foul.

I'm in a foul mood. Not stormy grey sky foul, but black and lighting and thunder kind of foul.

I am quite upset over the presence of this under the block of flats across the road:


I just rattled off a rather unhappy letter to AVA, and CC-ing the top honchos in the division, courtesy of this, just so they will have to reply me. I hope.

They'd better not be culling anything in my area because I haven't seen these two for the past two days.

And I'd really hate to think that something happened to them the day after I considered getting them collars.














Whereas this one hasn't quite learnt how lucky it is. But it's getting fat.

I think its funny how all the wires are calling it a "colonial law".

I also think it's funny the way the judge romantically recalled the racial riots.

But what was the funniest of them all was how the judge said the Sedition Act was a "red line".

More like a red sea, if you ask me.

How do you draw a line with this set of vague laws that is of no use unless they want it to be used?

And technically, I now could be charged with 3(c) "[bringing] into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Singapore".

Hee.

I did a search for my name in Google Images just to see if by any chance people had used any of my photos.

Hee.

Just a very small number, but makes me happy enough. Given that they were just sitting there and someone thought they were good enough to pick. Cheap thrill?

Aw fuck it! i'll just let myself be happy about this without any reservations or guilt!




Funny thing is, even though there's no money. It feels so much better than seeing a text article of mine being picked up and reproduced. I don't know... it's so much more powerful, and it means so much more to me I guess.

Hm.

Lars and Rajiv are probably having a whale of a time in Oslo now.

Thinking about how much it would cost for me to go there makes me shudder..


Lars, I really think you should come to Singapore. I really cannot stress it enough. Oh bring Rajiv if you have to, although I hope by now you've weaned him off his intense idealism and head-in-the-stars (which u like, but I have no patience for sometimes) because I think Singapore might depress the poet in him.


If I like photojournalism, but I like to take my own sweet time to do it, does that make me lazy? I refuse to feel guilty for wanting time.

He's busy competing with the sun to be the centre of the universe.

Quote above from Lords of Dogtown, which you should watch, like immediately, if you haven't already. It's so raw. I like.

Tonight is a funny, discombobulated kinda night. I wore pink today. The girlishness feeling is taking a long time to wear off.

I'm so totally into gossip/bitch sites now, no thanks to addictive Junk Feud which I check whenever I can because dammit that girl updates like nobody's business.

I'm also totally devouring everything on McSweeney's site. I can't stop myself giggling! Help!

Hehhehheh.

Currently devouring:
THE PHOTOCOMMENTARYOF AN EXPENSIVE CAMERA IN THE HANDSOF AN AMATEUR.
BY SEBASTIAN GALLESE

I don't want to get sued for copyright. So here's just a very very very small extract.

"I don't want to sound condescending, but I think if you unrolled a spool of unused film, the sun would expose a better picture."

Its so much like William H. Robinson's stuff that I get confused. Same kind of humour. But one American, one British. I dunno lah.

I've got his book of Absurdities which i stole from my uncles house, if anyone wanna borrow.

In other news, colours photos are up.

Meulaboh, Aceh, Indonesia

Meulaboh, Aceh, Indonesia
Originally uploaded by elsija.

Busy, busy busy busy. I wish I could just sit and edit all day. The photos are piling up! And I haven't even scanned in the rest from Bangladesh. =(

I blame my cat for my procrastination. Lazing about is contagious.

Random question. Who's the one behind the camera taking all those beautiful photos of Furong Jie Jie?

Shirts.

All these shirts constantly fuel my fantasies of having my very own t-shirt printing machine and a never-ending supply of plain t-shirts. Make a new one everyday! Depending on your mood!

If I had the money, I could print myself a brand new t-shirt everyday... and it'll line the walls of the Museum of Jessica's Utterly Incredible Projects to show how I felt everyday for one year.

I liked this one too:




This is one of the few lines they came up with that wouldn't offend people in a bad way. Shitty Americans will do anything for the shock factor. Some of the taglines were downright nasty nasty nasty. Already, they've come up with spoofs for H. Katrina. Nasty people.

Nellie the Equatorial Penguin

I have a dream of creating a comic strip titled "Nellie the Equatorial Penguin".

Nellie was conceived pretty much in the likeness of the cute baby penguins in that frenchie movie, but peppered with a dose of Cartman's nastiness/idioticness (since we wouldn't have to travel far to make the physical-similariy connection), and lives miserably at The Pole and dreams of better days in a place where she just wouldn't feel so damn cold all the time.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaa can we moooove i'm coooold...."


I like Nellie very much already. She would hide a blasphmous pink hawaiian pineapple keychain under her fat arms and sneak looks at it from time to time to think of her warm happy place. And her neurotic mom (is there any other kind) thinks she has some kind of drug problem because she's always sniffing and shivering.

Headache, body aches, lerthagy, no motivation, sluggish culture...

Maybe withdrawal from not realising sooner that Aceh would likely be my last trip overseas this year.

Did I tell you, that up on a poster on a temple wall was my Chinese "Boar" zodiac reading which said "this will be a year of travel for you."