Illustrations.

I have to go because now that I am eating regularly again I actually get hungry. I kinda miss my days of non-food reliance. The diet didn't last long.

So, Trond and Rajiv decked out in their "finest" for Eid while I plainly forgot that women are supposed to be adorned and appeared at the house in my grubby clothes. This is akin to showing up at Chinese New Year visiting in your pajamas.





But truth be told, I had nothing to wear even if I wanted to dress up. All I brought are grubby things and I'm feeling too miserly to go buy nice clothes.

As a result, one of Rajiv's relatives stopped in her tracks when she saw me. She pointed at me and said to Eli (Trond's fiance), "Girl?" With raised eyebrows and shocked/bemused chuckle.

Quite the compliment, I must say. And I am not being sarcastic.

And then these are some Kushtia photos. Have better onces (in my opinion) but... am hungry.





The town breaks out in merriment and a festive glow especially in the areas near the Lalon Mazar. Whole lot of sitting around and doing nothing and listening to people sing Lalon songs all days long. Oh and eating, of course.





And then, there was the River.







Will get around to editing the rest at some point in my life, I'm sure.

And my father sent me a bunch of photos of cats as per my request, and as the thumbnails in Gmail started to load slowly I smiled and laughed at the antics I saw and they were mostly of the third and second cat.

Some thumbnails didn't load though and I had to download the whole batch to view them. And I was just smiling stupidly to myself, scrolling through the pics and I reached the ones that didn't load properly in thumbnail before and they were of her and I swear someone must have cast a spell on me because this cat has a ridiculous hold over me and when I saw her face I just burst into tears. And I still do. So I can't look at this photo.




I want to be her paw.

Manyhow, Anywhen

Trond and Eli left this morning. I feel quite sorry that they live so far away and have to put up with an insane amount of air travel and plane switching, and very sorry that they had such a spate of bad luck here that both were admitted into the hospital (not at the same time, thank goodness) and even though they're alright now it must SUCK to have to go back earlier than you expected.

I hope I do not have to see the inside of the hospital here. Fingers crossed.

As it is I can barely breathe at night because of my rabid obsession with ridding the room of mosquitos and I think I should do some research on the long term effects of breathing in the smoke from mosquito coils.

My hatred of mosquitos is at an all-time high. Little fuckers.

Other than that, we finally got a stove which made me do a celebratory dance around the empty apartment because I want my EGGS and I want them NOW. Awesome.

Kushtia was fun in a way that doesn't make you go COOL AND AWESOME. It was fun because it was different and I had to discard my traditional standards of cleanliness.There is no Dirt. Really there isn't.

Plus I'm always bullshitting about how I like roughing it out.

Also, I can now boast that I slept in a small room with eight guys and nothing happened.

Off to Kushtia. Again.

Haven't had the proper chance to write a proper entry because of all the ruckus what with the moving in and the looming project deadlines.

But I leave tonight for Kushtia, Khulna to attend the Lalon Shah festival which I did two years ago but without my digital camera. I'm not too sure if there will even be a difference, but we'll see.

Moving house was a nightmare. It was the third day of continuous rain, always threatening to pour and drizzling constantly. I had already moved the smaller suitcase (filled with food) a couple of days back, and it took me about 2 to 3 days to make sure the lights and fan were properly installed.

So when it came to the big day, I had to lug a hug suitcase in the rain across town. There was a lot of waiting involved, mainly for the rain to subside.

I must admit, that while I was finally squeezed into the CNG with my suitcase, that I felt downright miserable. But in a good way, I suppose. Life is way too easy in Singapore and my pampered ass is getting whooped real good.

I was wondering how in the hell I would get the suitcase across the alley way (too narrow for vehicles to stop and there's no sheltered concourse) and then up to my room (I live a couple of storeys up, sans elevator) since it was so heavy I could barely walk a couple of steps with it.

Then the nice night watchman promptly came to my rescue in the rain, heaving the suitcase up onto his head and brought it all the way to my room. Easy-peasy. I was laughing because sometimes the Bangladeshis really do have all the best solutions.

I used to live in a more suburban part of the city, where things are slightly more orderly (as orderly as Dhaka could get), and next to a main road.

My new place is located in the heart of a not-so-suburban area, but still relatively better compared to the older parts of the city.

This is akin to moving from Sengkang to Geylang, I suppose.

And because of Eid and work, I have been fasting for the last three days. Ok, semi-fasting. I had my first meal of the day at roughly 9 pm every night, and I think its amazing-fabulous because I did not feel hungry the whole day (I drank water, which is why it was semi-). I just did not realise that I could survive on so little food.

Although I did end up behaving like an energy-deprived zombie, so there's no fun in that.

Nothing else much to say, only that I have proven myself right in believing that there is just no logic or rationality behind the chemistry between two people. Language schmanguage.

Bedside Picnic.

Haven't had time to post. Moved into new place. No internet in the house. Work is piling up in mountains. Eid is almost over. Rained for three days. Back to hot now.

House is ok, empty. Roommate is nice, but language barrier poses problems. No stove yet so no cooking yet.

Having a hangover because I had too much of my own bottle of tequila yesterday. Feeling shitty, hence the shitty post. Rather inappropriate considering the muslim festivities going on.

But it was a nice picnic by the bed.

Ami amar biral ti kay miss korei.

So the lights are working (finally), and the fan is fixed (finally) and the bed is there - which mean I'm all ready to move in.

This would be my first bona fide apartment, since hall doesn't really count. I didn't expect to have to fix up an entire room from scratch, learn about where the hell to get ceiling fans from, how many locks it takes for a house to be considered safe, and why a 10TK starter is a world of difference from a 5TK starter.

Really, having lights and a fan made me squeal like crazy.

Plus I'm making a trip to stock up on alcohol tomorrow, so things are looking up. So even if the power gets cut again tomorrow (like the previous two nights), I'll be christening the dark and hot room with a good strong drink.

Although I kinda wish I had one right now to say goodbye to this guestroom and its lovely aircon in the corner.

And if you're going to visit, let me just say first that furniture and electrical appliances such as a fridge or television WAY overrated. At least I've figured out that basic living means having lights, fan, bed, working toilet.

I'll probably be able to wriggle out a table and chair from some place, I think.

Oh, and the sentence above means "I miss my cat very much." Which I do. I could be an actress here, really, because all I have to do is conjure up her face and I can cry on demand. It is stupid, but it's true! I've been testing myself at various times and various locations and it really works!

--------------------------------------------------

I told him that he stressed me out because he had accomplished so much in life.

And I really was jealous. In a healthy way, but still jealous, nonetheless. The places he has gone, the things he had done. I explained to him that I have high expectations of myself this trip because everything I've done so far seem to have ended in a failure of some sort. And I know I shouldn't have such expectations so at least then there'd be nothing to fail. But I can't really help it.

And then he held up his wrist to show it to me, and told me that high expectations can be a dangerous thing.

UPDATE: Just had the first lesson at the university. This is just so fucking difficult.

Ok Jess is in whiny mode for the next couple of days while she does some serious character-building exercises. Pardon all the angst please, people.

I had the internet, water supply and electricity die on me in the span of one hour.

Fuck.

Anyway, great article below from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Singapore, a friend indeed to Burma

The island-state may have much to lose if Burma's generals don't retain control, writes Eric Ellis.

SINGAPORE is not just skilled at mandatory executions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras on Orchard Road. It also does a very useful trade keeping Burma's military rulers and their cronies afloat.

Fishball.

So everyone says that I'm fat now. They don't mince their words here.

"Jessica! You are fat!"

I am not only fat, I'm also a mess of perspiration. I can feel it under my scalp, tiny waterfalls, all freakin day long. Its not particularly hotter than Singapore, and I really don't know why its so bad.

The locals say they don't sweat because it's fasting month and they don't drink water.

I want fasting month to be over. I can't be politically correct about consuming my water for much longer. Feeling embarassed because I'm thirsty and then disappearing off for a few minutes to drink in isolation. I just don't want to offend anyone or make their fasting even more difficult than it already is.




Before I left one of my (many) mentors (self-proclaimed, they've no idea) told me to "shoot my ass off".

Seeing how my job is more or less desk/classroom-bound, I think I'm going to have to.

By the way, I am loving my job more and more. I've always thought I'd only be fulfilled in a job that requires me to shoot all day. Well that's true, but I think other things could fulfil me as well, and this would be one of them.

Doing something I believe in. Who'd have thought.

So I spied the four thrashing around in water as I sought shelter (both literally and metaphorically, I do miss my capitalist comforts) at a restaurant. I ran across in the rain as soon as I found a plastic bag (not so easy in this country) but they saw me and stopped.

So I gave in, happily, to their camera-whoring. My feet were soaked in mud and the rainwater seeped into my hair and my camera was about to drown and still the euphoria of getting back in the game was worth it.



Goodnight. I'm exhausted.

Not Bringing Him Home, Don't Worry

Dhaka Calling.

I am exhausted.

I don't know what to say because I'm so tired.

The city comes to me differently the second time around. No wide-eyed wonder, no naive elation at the days to come. If I must be honest, I had dread in my stomach. I had it all through the journey, sulking to myself as if I hadn't done this out of my own free will.

But then we hit the highway, and the hot sticky air enveloped me and the fumes hit my face and all around me was life, bustling and as raw as I remembered it. I couldn't help but smile.

I'm all geared up.

The feeling of buying your own gear? Fantastalistic.

The feeling of buying your own gear with your own hard earned money? Priceless.

I swear I've had enough beer over the past few days to drown a small elephant.

And also, I'm running on a delightful 160GB 1GB ram thanks to a delightful bloke named Simon who operates out of a pub. Which may explain the beer intake. Which would change to sake if I were not leaving in a matter of days.

And without even meaning to, I've realised that there's just no changing the way I'm wired. Its not a case of old habits die hard, its a case of a leopard not changing its spots. Or a cat and her whiskers. Or some other animal-related analogy.

The point is there is just not enough concrete in all the world to block up my soft spots.

10 Days: The Art in the Lie

"The bigger the lie, the closer you are to the truth."

I had a chance to interview Zadok Ben-David yesterday. I don't usually like sculptures because I know squat about art but his stuff is.... well, go see for yourself.

And his statement is really killing my brain. My brain has been doing a million squats and the muscles can't take no more.

This is why I know squat about art. And why my perverse love for all things theory is ultimately going to kill myself because, let's face it, I use so many brain cells trying to understand long words and convulated sentences its almost mental suicide.

And plus I have a shitty memory. So it's all for nothing since I forget what I read almost instantly.



And I leave in 10 days, in case the title didn't already send off the proper implications.

Just call me 'cher!

As I listen to Johnny Hates Jazz I almost choked when I read that Marks and Sparks make cat food.

Interesting morning so far.

Idiosyncrasies

Cat 1: I will eat, but only after a 15-min exploratory walk round the neighbourhood (corridor).

Cat 2: I want to eat, but you must cajole and coax me repeatedly and sit next to me and stroke my back constantly or I will stop eating.

Cat 3: I'll have what they're having. No, no don't give me my own stuff I'll want their stuff.

This is why I now wake up one hour earlier to feed the fucking princesses. It was my own mistake not to have started them off on dry food and dry food alone, but I suppose in typical asian fashion, my mom and I feel a lot more affectionate when we engage in the act of feeding.

I have two puncture wounds on my calf, not unlike (i lurb double negs) a vampire's love bite. Only that it was inflicted by Cat 2, who was trying to get at Cat 3, who was unfortunately under the blankets next to Calf 1.

What a painful morning.

I have been attempting/doing an enormous amount of cooking since the folks left town. I constantly overestimate my appetite, and I think I always end up cooking enough for two.

And it exhausts me, entirely. Picking up after the three cats exhausts me as well. Cat 2 and Cat 3 are not getting along, and I've always been woken up by snarls.

Cat 1? Oh she's above it all.

I could never wake up on time for work, but I have absolutely no problems waking up at 6,7,8am to feed these idiots. Case in point, its a saturday, and i'm blogging at 930am AFTER breakfast and AFTER feeding them (which takes about half an hour or more cos they're fucking princesses).

But I am enjoying this, oh you bet I am.

Why Press Releases Can Sometimes Make Me Laugh

"Imagine a camera that triggers its shutter only when a smile is detected.

Or imagine shooting something that suspiciously looks like a head jutting out of the water while on holiday at Loch Ness via a 17X Smart Zoom-equipped camera."

I didn't hear my phone ring when a mysterious person called from the Shangri-la late at night.

Who on earth could it be? (Assuming it was not a wrong number, duh.)

Happy and bubbles and love and freedom and all that.

Impossibly cheery, despite the stuffed nose and sore throat (which seem to have miraculously cleared up in a matter of hours). I've always enjoyed moving desks. I loved the excitement in Pri/Sec school when we would switch desks every so often. I just loved the newness of it. And plus I work better because I happen to become very sucky when I fall into routines.

So we had a major internal moving day in office today, and although I'm now squeezed into a dark and cold and rather claustrophobic corner (since I'm leaving soon I get the lousy seat, and I'm ok with it), I had a helluva time rearranging my desk and creating symmetry on my very asymmetrical desk.

And also, the weather has been lovely. Ok, wet shoes are not lovely. But still! I like being made to wear jackets. Jackets and sweaters and coats and boots. Happy days.

And also, Parents and Brother are off to Shanghai. Do you have any idea how much I love having the house to myself? Do you? Do you know what kind of plans I have with DVDs and wine? DO YA????



And also, there are his photos.








I can't remember how I came across the Poloroid Kidd's beautiful, timeless photos on some obscure website which listed neither his name nor the context of the photographs. Some argued that the photos were from an American Apparel catalogue. Others thought it was Diesel. Most agreed it was likely to be a mix of "real" people and models.

It took me a while, but I finally unearthed the truth.

So now I'm infatuated with Mike Brodie aka The Poloroid Kidd, and I feel certain I've seen and heard about his work before, and I feel a bit silly that I haven't come across him before. I suppose if you've to spend time to search for details things are seared a little more clearly into your brain.

I don't think i'll be able to explain myself very well, but its got something to do with reverance and friendship, and the absence of voyeuristic gaze. And Respect. A whole lot of Respect in his photos and almost no exoticism.

Well, at least to me anyway.





And you know who has it best on these rainy days don't you? Our fur-covered friends.

881.

I thought I'd try, but I decided that no words would sufficiently describe how much I am in love with Roystan Tan's 881.



I just feel so goddamn proud, you know?

I wasn't particularly surprised to read that Roystan loved getai as a kid, or that he's Hokkien-speaking. I suppose this is what happens when you do something from the heart, something that comes from the very essence of who you are.

This is the one film that I would very, very proudly like to label as a Singaporean film.

Not too sure about the effectiveness, but I really the art work on this series. Anything that's not fluffy bunnies and fluffy kittens and fluffy cute fluffies.

American Lynchings

When murder becomes art - what are we to make of it?



Collector James Allen published a book titled "Without Sanctuary", featuring his collection of lynching photographs collected from all over the America.

There's a website as well, with about 80 photographs. They're about as explicit as you could possibly get. Thank god the quality's lousy.

I found it to be an interesting commentary because you see the same photos today emerging from other countries. Someone already drew parallels between the Fallujah incident in Iraq (concerning four US private military men) and some of the photos here.

Castration, mutiliation, decapitation, burning of dead bodies and dragging charred corpses through the streets. It's the same thing, repeated decades later with different people.

I'm constantly amazed at human beings' lust for blood. And not figuratively either.

Go tally up. I scored 19/60. My favourite is No. 11.

I'll be Outta here by October.

Too fast, too fast.





Forgive the insanely huge photo.

What am I going to do without them? I will go crazy, my god.

Consensus

People can really surprise you.

I am utterly exhausted at this point, having spent the last three hours talking to my parents about Bangladesh. I am impatient and stubborn and easily irritable - exactly like my father. So conversations between us tend to, erm, get slightly heated.

But really. You'd think that living with them for 23.5 years would mean that there's very little they can do to surprise you. Oh boy, was I wrong.

It turns out that there was just one niggling thing, one issue, one point of contention that he had which was the cause for his resistance.

Just one.

After hours and days of arguing, you can imagine my shock when that little nugget of truth finally wriggled out. He never wanted to say it.

All that talk, and it was really just about that???

I can't believe it. And I can't say it either, because its really not going to make him look good.

Well, all I can say is this - he's usually wrong about mw, but this time, he was spot on. His one and only worry turned out to be the only valid worry.

I apologise for all the cryptic-ness in the last couple of posts.


Nothing is confirmed, but after tonight's debacle, things are finally moving in the right direction.

On a Friday night

It's been quite a while, and I must say, my tequila is tasting extra special tonight.

It's a strange feeling to be drunk in your own home. I don't typically blog or write when I'm drunk because all that comes out is emotional and depressive rubbish, but I am thankfully neither emotional nor depressed, so there's no real danger.





I found myself wanting to attend the NDP, true blue kiasu Singaporean that I am, because I wanted to see for myself how they would do it in the new location.

I perversely enjoyed the defense display. I might not have if i hadn't already watched Transformers twice (the movie made me love metal), but I really thought it was quite bizarre when the machine guns mounted on the boats started to fire blanks.

Well at least this year they made it real clear - we can kill you if we have to.

I never really got into the mood, even though it was much more picturesque than the Stadium. It was just too different and foreign.

And I really really hated the fact that they renamed the Kallang Wave. And the hosts were screechy and very irritating.

What I do like is the location, ironically enough, because I could see how hundreds of other people thronged the coastline along the Esplanade, One Fullerton and even Marina/Raffles Place area. At least everyone had a great view of the fireworks.

I don't think I'll ever want to attend NDP again. Unless I'm shooting, of course.



Sat down at Dhoby Ghaut to take in the scene before going home. The two of them were already going at it, and by the time I noticed them, the girl was discreetly trying to wipe away some tears. I have no idea what they were arguing about, but it looked like a employee-employer argument. I did not envy the girl. That is no way to spend a Friday night.



And look, I understand loitering and loud laughter and cursing at the top of your voice. I understand! You're 15 and you want to be heard. I'm still doing the exact same thing.

But I really, really don't understand spitting. I don't get what is cool about it. As long as you're not 70 years old with a chronic phelgm problem, you really shouldn't be ejecting spit in public.