after music madness with Yann Tiersen, i've fallen for Joe Hisaishi.
Hisaishi is famous for his soundtrack music compositions for Studio Ghibli's animes and Takeshi Kitano's movies.

he's middle age, he's bald, but his music is damn good.

youtube bombardment coming up..

having a field day at youtube watching joe hisaishi's concert performance. although not as drama as how yann would play his accordian, this piano piece is as captivating, music from Kitano's movie Hana-bi.





then i saw this video of him performing the theme song for another of kitano's films 'kids return'. an arrangement that includes an erhu and also other string instruments like the violin. very nice.






this the trailer of kids return, music has a different instrumental arrangement






now what has kids return and The story of the first king's four gods, ie the legend, ie the korean drama series that i have watched for four days to finish because of Bae yong joon and its now showing on tv?

watch this





wah kao, joe hisaishi not only composed for both the movie 'kids return' and the korean drama series 'the legend', he also recycled the main themetic song. no wonder when i was watching the legend i find the music so familiar... that's because i've heard it from kids return. duh.

but i still love joe hisaishi lah. ec will kill me if i say this, but he's prob better than yann tiersen at times. y? because i wanna imagine what his mind might be like, storing and producing music like this, that are sometimes gentle and sweet, sometimes youthful and energetic. even when it may sound sad, its a kinda sweet sadness.. ehh quite hard to describe music here. but yann tiersen can sometimes be melancholy and heavy because he likes to use repetitive chords and sequences to compose melodies. his is very much techniques. very ingeneous and i admit very fun to play, but sometimes dark. in other words, through his music, joe hisaishi sounded much happier. also make me the listener more happier. heh. though maybe his music wouldn't be that fun to play, haven't tried yet but keeping my fingers crossed.


other videos to check out - these are composed for Miyazaki Hayao anime movies OST


Princess Mononoke ~ very cool arrangement, it has the piano playing with the violin, erhu and gu zheng






Spirited Away "one summer's day" piano solo played by joe hisaishi






Howl's moving castle- my fav theme song! for now...
performed with a full orchestra






ahhhhhhhhhh...........

so i turned 27 a couple days ago on the 27th...

but before i begin my rant, i have to thank all my friends and family for remembering my birthday, giving me a call, asking me out, treating me and all that. i'm really touched because i didn't inform anyone about it, but everyone remembered.

so i turned 27 a couple days ago on the 27th.
Jiha told me once that 27 is a good number, a good age.

it must be my 'lucky' number.

on my birthday, i fell on the mrt station's escalator while chasing after the train.
stubbed my right toe and while i was flinching in pain, it managed to flood itself in a puddle of blood.

after cleaning up my toe and sandal and taping a couple of plasters over it i decided to take a taxi instead.
n the taxi driver didn't know how to get to my destination.

today, i received some unfortunate news from my friend. very sad.

then while talking about it over the phone, i broke a table in a restaurant as i was leaning on it with my ass. omg. i swear i did not sit on it. feel super bad for the owner.

shit now that i think about it, i should have been more careful, i should have known. earlier today while helping my grandma clean her new apartment, i broke the handle of the spray bottle (with liquid for glass cleaning) and i sorta broke some plastic piece of the window while trying to lock it (but it was fixed back) whoa lao eh. why wasn't i more careful today after breaking so many things in the day?

come back still need to settle my bro's problem. actually it isn't much of a problem, just some things that need to be thought through. but my mom made such a big deal of it, it became a problem because everyone was unahppy.

ok that's just today. actually aside from the troublesome stuff, i had a good time talking to people today.

-----

but wow, if i think about how i dislocated my thumb earlier this month, i have to admit that's a record number of unglam things that i've done within just 1 month.

i mean look at how they happened- i caused a hole in my toe because i was chasing a train because i was late, broke a table with my butt while talking to a friend, dislocated my thumb while i was just trying to sit on the floor.

all these sustained injuries and 'portrayl of strength' were not heroic 'throphies' but are really dumb incidents. well, they did some good in giving a few laughs ...

coincidence? or maybe i'm getting careless.
i have to say, the month of May really is my month.

what i saw outside my house today...


don't really know what insect that is, but i think its a huge moth with a broken wing, trying desperately to fly. but it could only flip around in circles under the heat.

i think i'm getting used to this TO-SG-TO-SG-TO-SG moving about and changing of environment. physically, i wasn't suffering from jet-lag and mentally, being in SG this year was very normal and ordinary. no cultural shock, extreme food cravings or over-emo situations.

soo.. what have i been doing since i've got here... whoa almost 3 weeks liao.
1st week, i was piah-ing my essay -- left over work from toronto... hehe.
2nd week, jia came back to sg n i spent most of the week with her, partying and celebrating her bday TWICE.
3rd week, started hanging out at this new place call the post museum in little india.

in between all that, i met some friends, visited people from my internship last yr, dislocated my thumb, interviewed a few people, baked 2 cakes, had a huge mother's day pot-luck dinner with my extended family, and got hooked onto Bae yong joon's new korean drama. (maybe not so new in korea, but new in sg)

as for my research, i did do some interviews, did a lot of observations attending events, n talking and meeting artists.. , n very little reading...
ok i'm really gonna pull up my socks on the readings and the interviewing otherwise i will die from work overload in july ...
but bae yong joon is beckoning me ........ahhhh!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i did notice some change in sg though, most obvious is that the no. of chinese (from china) immigrant workers has increased A LOT since i was here last yr. i had much more contact with them than i had to last yr. they were selling food at the foodcourt, at the supermarket, at shops in shopping malls... all of a sudden i had to communicate in chinese almost everywhere. felt a little self-conscious of my mandarin because after 8 months in canada, my chinese really cannot make it. n many of these chinese nationals are probably new immigrants cause they can't speak eng at all. i'm already feeling quite handicapped with my half past 6 mandarin liao, but what about the rest of the non-chinese-speaking population in sg? how do the malays and indians and the ang mohs communicate with these chinese people? suddenly i thought, 'whoa.. heng mrt have chinese words and announcments man.. otherwise the china chinese dunno how to look out for suspicious not-chinese,not-malay-looking person leaving black bags under mrt chair and then know to report to mrt personels or dial 999.'


walked around chinatown for abit since i kept meeting friends there (at maxwell market to eat n visit some bookstore)




hmmm.. chinatown quite multi-cultural huh... saw this white guy selling german sausages there at one of those small stalls, somemore ask me want to 'ta bao' anot. he says he has been selling sausages in sg for 5 yrs and at chinatown for the last 3 yrs, been living in sg for 10 yrs. maybe its my ignorance lah, it seems like he is quite famous judging by the newspaper articles featuring his stall pinned up well .. at his stall.. and everyone i asked all know about him leh. thinking chinatown not really chinese anymore...maybe it wasn't in the first place? just all for the tourist. i dunno. but this ang moh uncle made me think that singapore's people are changing.. he is doing something that seems to be very local, vernacular, u know things that only local people know about and do like living in flats and speaking very singlish singlish. its quite common to see malaysians and singaporeans hawkering. but a white person? someone that is often thought to be working in offices, speaking proper english or english with an accent, people who are suppose to be very the 'up' ones in society and live in condos.

talking about singlish, i started to realise that non-singaporeans are picking up singaporean accent... when i first heard it last summer, it was quite funny actually. not that singlish sounded funny, but singlish coming out from the mouth of a japanese, or a bengaldashi, or an ang moh has the most surreal real feeling. foreigners whose english is their 2nd or 3rd language and are learning and practicing english in sg is picking up our accent!! its strange and cool at the same time. i came home one day and ay! ELMA ALSO SPEAKING SINGLISH!! how come i didn't realise?

what makes you a singaporean? every national day the newspapers never get tired of asking that question. answers also always the same, top 2 popular answers are food and language ie singlish. work-permit holders and PR are also speaking singlish leh. how? wah maybe we have to re-think the '4 official races' thinghy.

so errm... i think not only singaporeans must learn to speak good english hor..

vesak day coming...

i walked past the buddha tooth relic temple one night and



the lanterns are offerings that a devotee can make with a donation of $50 per lantern. a lot hor.



ultimate kua zhang lah. omg.. how much money is that?

the tooth relic temple is very popular. jia, dj and i went into their souvenier shop, its see no touch- very the expensive lor. if u believe in the tooth relic temple, u must be very rich.





this last picture, i also took today. was at little india again..
its a huge tent set up for vesak day with a buddha statue in it. i'm not sure what they r doing there, maybe its for people to worship, maybe they are also giving out free stuff like food. and this tent is right next to a mosque.

i go there quite alot.. little india, i think i should start taking more picture of it. there are some things that u can only see there. like on sunday, its a sea of south asians, u can hardly walk in a straight line. actually u don't, u just have to keep dodging people. but as long as a sea of people are crossing the road at the same time, u don't really have to follow traffic light. so many indians and bengaldeshi u won't belive it. where do they hide to in the weekdays? at about 11pm u see these buses come to pick them up, have numbers on them some more. macham tour bus going to malaysia, then toilet break. so u better not get up on the wrong bus, otherwise u end up in wrong 'hotel'. oh but lucky got 'tour guide aunty' shouting your bus no.

when i take the mrt to dhoby gauht, little india and farrer park, i also think lucky the mrt got tamil words and announcements.

...as i always am when writing papers.

to help with my major project proposal i am reading this book- 'handbook of the arts in qualitative research'.

i guess it would be much easier if i just decide to write a major paper instead of a project, since i have already written almost everything i need for a major paper in previous essays. like my advisor said, i have the topic, i have the theory, i have the words, all i need is the last bit of development and putting a paper together would not be difficult. n then i can graduate and cha boh back to sg.

but after brooding over this thing for awhile, i think that if i am to really do a paper instead of a project, i will regret it for the rest of my life.

however i lack the most important part of a major project. the project itself. how do i turn my paper into a project?

hence am 'speed-reading' through this book..
in it i rediscover that art-based research can be used for
1. data
2. inquiry
3. interpretation or representation

now somehow i am obsessed with no. 3.

how can you present the results of your research in non-written language? it is possible it seems or as the book says. some knowledge cannot be written out and in history it is known that knowledge has also been transmitted in non-written forms, through embodied forms. for example through dance, storytelling, images, songs etc. with that said, poetry and lyrical proses are also used to express things that cannot be expressed with objective writing. not that it is dissing academic writing or anything but i think the book is trying to say that there are different ways of knowing and that people has depended too much on one way of knowing that we have neglected the other forms, the different senses that we can activate and express with which are equally important. one good example the book gave: how can you comprehend the world of an alzheimer patient or the lives of people whom it has affected outside of the patient? a socialogist took pictures of little bags of rubberbands, needles, etc that her mother hid around the house while she had alzheimer and which she had found after her death. i imagine what a person will feel and think when viewing these pictures in an exhibition.

the thing about art-based research is that it cannot give a definite answer to a posed question. instead it poses more questions. at the same time it is more easily accessible to people who may not acquire the skills to understand difficult academic journals.

as i was saying... i am obsessed with no. 3: art-based research as interpretation and representation.
i have kinda decided that i will interpret/represent my research in an art-based form(s). at the same time i would like to use art to inquire further developments in my topic. (ya its a bit hanging there)

as i am thinking of this, i suddenly realise that the little exercises that i have been working with prof honor and jiha were doing just that, inquiring.
the one we did last week: think about before and after you came to canada and draw 2 pictures that shows how you were before and after. of course, we talked about what we drew after that.

honor meant for the information in these exercises to be useful for me to look deeper into the identity issues that i am questioning for her course. as i read the book, i came to understand that. and all this time she has been asking me, 'was this helpful?' and while i knew what she meant, somehow it didn't register in my mind that informations from these drawings are to be used to think deeper into the problem. no. 2: art-based research as inquiry! haha! now i know.

----

thoughts-
a writing practice: inquiring into the middle world.

sometimes i think that i have to make art my life in order to grasp for myself the channels of peace.

yet the research that i do, how is that connected to the peace that i am trying to find, and trying so hard to understand?

is the middle world of my theory a way for the people to balance power or to understand power or to empower themselves so that they will have a peace of mind? if we can comprehend the power structure and struggles that are working itself in the society, and if we interject that with our abilities, will we be happier? even if that provokes aggression, ignites anger.

maybe anger and agression will be present in the other party. maybe it will be present in ourselves because of that. however i think that the doer, the protagonist, the provoker, the interjector herself should remain calm, as calm as the particles in water and air. unabashed and unafraid by the waves and winds because they understood the fact that they are within and posessed the elements themselves.

if we remain calm as we ride the waves, will the others see?

simple may be beautiful but i think that things will always seem complicated the way we see it.
we are walking down this needlessly complicated road, i feel like i am walking down this friggin maze of a path.

the middle world is only plausible if the protagonist is able to balance the official and unofficial world with patience, understanding, repose, confidence and acceptance.
are there examples of that?

----

my most favourit-est place in school ~ mr stong pond. (somehow think stong pond is male)

so sometimes i go there to take a breather and take some pictures at the same time. because i've now got my new flashy digi cam bought in sg last summer.



early fall...



i was quite surprise that the campus 'authorities' let nature claim the land surrounding the pond. there was no land mowed grass with its funny stripe patterns. there were instead very very tall wild plants/grass. i kinda like it.. actually was like some kind of natural fence.



begining of sept- mr stong was not in very good shape. the pond was drained out of all its water and some construction was happening. i thought that they were going to close and reclaim stong forever!!

it was later that i learned that stong was actually being 'revamp' into a larger and more efficient water control area. in fact stong pond was suppose to help control the water that is to flow into mr black creek which is an underground river. reason that stong was being enlarged is because it hadn't been doing a very good job and i believe there were other reasons also that black creek had over-flowed, flooded and distroyed some roads a couple of years back. so i guess stong pond can't be eradicated because of its importance to black creek. on the other hand, i felt a bit dissappointed that the pond is man made. or issit?



late fall...



the pond is back with its mowed grass and got water liao!





leaves were falling off the trees. it was a beautiful day that day. tried to read a little but that didn't work out because i was too engross with the leaves, the setting sun (although it wasn't evening yet), the sky, the breeze and the rustling leaves. so my camera when clicking non stop. decided i should just lie down and take a break. beats reading and falling asleep in the library.








canadian geese! a flock of them landed nearby! by that time i thought i should leave liao. i think canadian geese make the most unpleasant sounds.. like a broken trumpet. and they shit everywhere. but they are quite adorable lah especially when they try to siam u when u r chasing them n taking pictures. heheheh


Winter...





its january and snowy. u must b thinking, xiao ah? so cold still go to the pond. just finished one of my essays and needed a de-stress before i start the second one. i mean it wasn't that that cold so i decided to spend some time out doors. again it looked like evening, but really, it waasn't even 4 o'clock yet. but then these are the times when the sky looks the best. so i have to say it was actually quite a beautiful day.



the pond. it was frozen and snow fell on top of the ice.. it actually looked like everywhere else. could have missed it if u didn't know a pond was there.





this made my day. (^_^) someone drew a heart on the pond using her footsteps.



the end of the chronicals of mr stong pond... for now.

i'm shocked too.

so last christmas i suddenly had a craving for my grandma's yong tau foo. the one that is pan fried with yummy gravy, not what we commonly see in the hawker center -boiled with soup and noodle kind.
anyway, called my parents to ask for the recipe. a month later mama reported that my recipe costs them 11SGD in phone bills. she said 'that one very expensive recipe! it better be good!'

i think i must have been possessed by my nai nai's fiery spirit or something. i was damn determine to make it from scratch the way she made it. JX ask why don't i just buy some fish paste and mixed that with mince pork after all the fish paste is already all mixed and flavoured. Nooo.. i have to buy 2 makerals, de-bone them, mince them, mix them with mince pork and corriander and shallots and green onions and a whole bunch of stuff that i can't even remember now. and i was mad that i had forgotten the slated fish. for that 3 plates of yong tau foo, yong brinjal and yong la jiao, i think i cooked the whole day.

and this was the result of my inexperience and exhausting attempt. looks good, taste ok. something wrong with the flavouring or texture of the meat i should say. can't figure that out. but on the whole, i was happy because it at least looked really really really like real thing!





stuffed tofu, brinjal and chilli before they go into the wok.







and now when they are cooked and served!

fwah!
and then after that yong tau foo experience, i suddenly very on about making food. Jx ask me again, 'why u so da zi zuo these days?' ehhh.. i dunno why i think its the yong tau foo syndrome didn't wear off.

anyway after that i decided to make oreo cheese cake for valentine's day. it was really meant to finish up the ridiculously big package of oreo cookies i bought on a wimp because it was cheap. and the cake was also really meant to be nicki's bday cake but i couldn't make it in time. so it turned out to be a valentine's day cake for us girls to ravish.











it was a little over baked. and the color of slightly burnt cheese sorta looked like the top cheese coating of some baked pasta. some said it tasted a bit salty, some said that it was too rich. but then again i don't expect to get it perfect on my first time.

wait .... i think this might possibly BE the first time i baked a cake! and all by myself. ....
!!! i think it is!!! wahhh! lucky people got a taste of my virgin cake. (why do i feel so cheesy today (-_-;) )

aihh.. if i could i would want auntie and jia to try it. afterall i think auntie must be the best cheesecake baker and the one who made so many for me that i had to fall in love with cheesecake.

on my list for the next tea party in singapore... axia's oreo cheese cake. heheheheh..

Jason Grote wrote this essay about a theatrical direct action against Disney in NY new year's eve 1999, orchestrated by the performance artist Reverend Billy.

it is quite a big performance in that more than 40 people were involved staging a 'disturbance' in the disney shop by singing a song parody entitled 'whistle while u work for fifteen cents and hour' in a very disney tune (15 cents is the said amount being the average salary of disney's subcontracted indonesian sweatshop workers.)

of course reverend billy isn't a real revernd but an artist/activist preaching against the evils of capitalism, consumerism and SHOPPING. n he really talk like a reverend. which makes it super funny.

Jason Grote who was part of the performance also writes with humour. .

'I have noticed that there is a collective upswell of emotions that seems to occur at demonstrations, or at least at the good ones. i think it would be dangerous if i were to feel it more often: a mix of inspiration, sentimentality, camaraderie, self-righteousness, righteous anger, abject fear, and what i think Che Guevara must have been talking about when he said that the true revolutionary was guided by great feelings of love: a deep,abiding compassion for everything and everyone. it is an enormously SEXY feeling.'

'with uncanny impersonation of an actual evangelist, Bill says comical, poetic, baffling things like, "We want to put the 'odd' back in God" and , "We believe in the God that people who do not believe in God belive in".'

!!!

ahh yes. inspiration for my proposal.

and.. reverend billy website: http://www.revbilly.com/

---
just the other day, i found out why my advisor, prof honor missed our 'date' and made me wait for half an hour in vain.
she said, 'oh i did turn up but i was late. i was being a naughty girl and decided to join the rally on a whimp.
u don't know the rally at vari hall!? (roll eyeballs) some one wrote black racist hate messages on the walls across campus. and i just have to go to the rally u know.'

i gave a 'axia shock!' face.
i shock at what precisely?
sympathise with her but i am like 'whoa lao!' at the same time.
can't really tell, prof honor is playing with my feelings, i swear.

ps. happy cny!

update: i am still writing my BLOODY essay.

maybe after i print it out i should splatter some red paint on it, then give my prof.

taking ssooooo soooo long to write it, the essay plot now is ultra thick, machum detective conan.

this is yann tiersen.

i love his video.
he's a musician who not only performs music. there is a multi-level of performance happening in this video.

the video ss long, but my fav part is in the very first music video.

1st - he plays the accordion (and piano)... he composes the music.. we hear him performing through his music
2nd - as he plays his body performs, we see him expressing himself through body language
3rd - the camera moves around and we are lead by it, seeing only things that it wants us to see. that is the video is performing. because if it were to move in different ways and record in different angles we will have a different impression of the song through the video. so the video performs.

this is such a good topic! if i have time i will write one using performance studies to friggin analyze it.

* yann tiersen's video from his latest album (i say latest, but actually its from 2005. the last album he made, dunno when coming out another one)

 

Les Retrouvailles

still writing another paper.
and my title for it shall be

don'ch play play: performing opposition tactics in official and un-official cultures of SIngapore

mua hahahaha...  i think if a singaporean reads this will think its a joke.
ok lah its not. i seriously thinking of using don'ch play play.. its a good word wat, for my subject. this kinda thing cannot play play.
maybe the other half of the title need a bit more thinking. (hmm maybe opposition tactics can be replaced with hidden transcripts)

anyway i got side tracked from writing my essay again.. because i was listening to this.

the best ever rendition of yann tiersen's music in piano and accordian. nobody can beat this Dave guy on youtube.
just looking at him play only is hypnotising... its performance all right!


La Valse d'Amelie piano - part of amile soundtrack.



La Valse des Monstres one of my favourite yann tiersen accordion songs.



L'Absente (climax) - this one must watch. power!



Comptine d'un autre été: L'après midi
i've been trying to play this song, and i've listened to a whole bunch on youtube. and i tell you this guy is the best. he plays this so well that i can't differentiate his playing from yann tiersen's playing.. win liao...


and then some more play with so much feeling.. but i think yann tiersen still win in the 'play until body look like having orgasm' section.

this guy waiting for me to stalk him only. he is on myspace and has a blog.

british, yann tiersen fan, in a band, play accordion, piano, guitar,
he friggin played all of yann tiersen's song by listening ! omg... muchum nodame.  ok.. maybe that's why his playing sounded so much like yan tiersen's playing (unlike nodame), because never follow official sheet music, which is i think the sheet quite different from yann's actual performances.

what else..  oh yah.. he looked damn good looking 1 yr ago. now he just have permanant bad hair days.

fav gintama line of the day
gin san: you're a hundred years too early, kid. Alcohol is for after you get hair in a bunch of other places.

title for ep 53 of Gintama:
~Stress causes baldness, but if you pay too much attention to keep your stress down, it'll stress you out more, so there's really nothing we can do after all.~
(all said very quickly so they can fit into the 3 sec of air time for titles)

axia: Hahaha HAHAHA! if you're bald, you're bald! (have to tell my bro that)

alternative version for students who study too hard:
stress causes constipation. if you pay too much attention to keep your stress down, it'll stress you out more and u'll just look scary and  permanently constipated. just like baldness, nobody wants to catch it from you so they siam.

there's really nothing you can do about it!


ginpachi sensei (in ultra bored voice) : oi oi.. aren't you suppose to finish up 'gramsci is dead'? xiaxia, go stand in the hallway!

omg, everyone should watch gintama if they are stressed outta their brains.
lame-ness can cure everything.  

this is even better sia.

have the anime/comic characters of saiyuki inside somewhere in the middle somemore. which is my fav part because its friggin like the comic book lah! they even got a kid to do sun wukong part. and posing the exact same poses as were drawn in the manga. whoa lao these pp really have alot of time.

and jack sparrow at the end! hahaha.. which is not so much like johnny depp, because no matter what not angmoh. and jack sparrow already got johnny depp to portray liao. not like its an anime.. can wow at the 'real life' version of it.

i think the deathnote characters here were better cosplayed than the film depiction accept the wedding picture abit duhh.. anyway.. are they all the same bunch of cosplayers?
gintama one is part of the one that i posted below.. still as fabulous. katsura my fav.

gahh.. my past obsessions catching up on me...

ok. i have to quit watching these soon.

as i was looking at gintama cosplay, i saw bleach cosplay! (no need to study liao) not as 'real' looking as gintama cosplay (all 3 characters are almost flawless lah!) but still very good. my favourite is kuchiki byakuya, the 6th captain. impressive accomplishment on the hairstyle. soifon also quite nice. and the bad guy with the fox like face-- forgot his name.. also quite good.

anyway, how come they got so much time to become professional cosplay-ers? omg look at their costumes! look at their photo composition and photoshop-ing, breath-taking scenery, very good quality wigs and graphic designed posters! don't they have to read a book and study??

ok. same gintama cosplay but can embed.

my fault for having to write essays in the holiday season.. bleh..

fav quote of the day from today's bulk reading

~ we cannot wait for 'everyone' to choose to live in non-statist, non-capitalist relationships, or we will very likely wait forever. Nor can we force socialism on anyone, since that would violate our commitment to respecting the autonomy of individuals and groups. Hence there is no choice for those of us who desire to live differently but to begin to do so ourselves. 'That is the task', Landauer observes in one of his better moments: 'not to despair of the people; but also not to wait for the people'. ~

from the book 'gramsci is dead: anarchist currents in the newest social movements' by richard j.f. day.

and i just barely passed the halfway mark of the book.

i thought that was some good advice. 'not to despair but also not to wait' ... hehe . the book is getting interesting so i think i'll continue reading it instead of just skipping to the last chapter.

and.. someone cosplayed one of my fav anime gintama! with amazingly closely followed costumes.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1638357WBsCB4wz

 

i started to read the news in the mornings again.. online.
with my teh and toasted bread slices or biscuit to dip them in.
this is my moment of 'connecting to my roots'. 
and also my prof was talking about myanmar to me and then she stopped, saying that i probably know more than her.
actually i don't.
so i've been more deligent on reading news these days.. trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with myanmar.

anyway most of the times i read today online, but today there wasn't much news on it so i somehow found myself in another site that provides 'free singapore news' links.

click on one of them and it turned out to be a FREE article from straits times.

(we all know that ST started charging people to read its online  stuff.
which i think is ridiculous. everyone in singapore can buy newspaper for 60cents n share who want to pay to read ST online? then i realise that the target market is probably people like me. sian. so i never read ST anymore... unless its 'free'.)

this particular news is about the repeal of the penal code 377A. the few big names in the gay community and friends has been very active and creative about it. got rap even.

 Anyway first line says "NOMINATED MP Siew Kum Hong has filed a petition to Parliament on behalf of a group that wants the Government to repeal a law that makes gay sex a crime."
to me its interesting news, any attempts to express a differentiating voice from the gamen is. this case some more straight on file repeal. who wouldn't be interested? agree or don't agree, you'll also want to kaypo.

so i read and i also read the coments by other fellow internet users like me.. who want to read news for free.

the comments i have to say are shockingly one sided. one sided in that:

1. lets not argue with the gamen. if the gamen say majority are conservitive and we should not do away with this law... then the gamen must be right. because the gamen act for the good of the people.

2. gay is wrong. if this code is repealed then gays will run rampant and do whatever they like. they'll turn all our children gay!  (some one actually said that!
the overall sentiment was expressing the fear that 'gay-ness' will spread like wild fire if the law was not there to control the gay population.)

so where are the other sides of these two arguments? not one post was about pro-gay or pro-repeal of this code. the voice for pro-equality is also missing. it really makes one think that everyone in sg are very conservative by reading all these very emotional comments.

i cannot bring myself to believe that there are no people who wants to repeal the code. even if it is a minority, its an audible minority. you have blogs, and that video rap. and people signing petition.

but on ST, we don't hear their voice in the postings at all.
yes, we all know that there are forums that are anti and forums that are pro to the cause. the petitions and rap video don't show you the anti side of the argument too.. True, when you are fighting for what you believe in, you probably will not think to give a 2 sided arguement.

my point is, its ST. THE NEWSPAPER in SG. who many people take to be the representative to the people's opinions.
would this be mis-leading?

questions come to my mind
- who reads online news
- who regulates the postings
- who are the people who posts

*********
i guess i just find that a bit disturbing. although i know that ST is really quasi-state. everytime i see it in action it makes me feel queezy.

this is the news if u wanna read it.

bestest film i saw so far ever since back in toronto..
and because i lazy, time for bad liao.. all synopsis are cut and paste from video source.


Jap film "GO"
Go for freedom. Go for love. Go for fight."

'Go' (大 暴 走 / 2001) is a coming-of-age tale about teenager Sugihara (Yosuke Kubozuka), a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean who struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him. He fights against this tide by fighting for his right to live, to love and to be recognised as who he is.

Based on the award-winning book by Kazunori Kaneshiro.



watch it at crunchyroll.com
http://www.crunchyroll.com/showseries?id=2167

-----

anime "mononoke"
luuurve it for its art, mysteriousness and supernatural-ness
very very very pretty with ingeneous ways of presentation.

Based on the third arc of the Ayakashi~ Japanese Classic Horror anime that aired last year. Many have said that the third arc - which was about a mysterious medicine seller faced against a cat monster that was murdering people - was the best of the three, and this new series involves the medicine seller’s encounters with five different monsters from Japanese folklore over the course of 12 episodes.

if like me, a crunchyroll fan,
can watch mononoke here also

http://www.crunchyroll.com/showseries?id=5161

some people must be asking: going back to toronto liao, now then post pictures!?




the first picture my new Lumix camera took after my bro help got it for me at the PC fair.
my bed! the best bed ever with fantastic, just-nice firm-ness for my back.



this year's picture of chubby. she wasn't feeling well when i took this picture. later i found maggots in her paws! there was a huge hole! how did that happen!!! but fans of chubby fret not. after multiple trips to the animal clinic, she's much better now.



the new family oven- the first thing i baked in it were these lemon meringues.



after they were done, my ma said that the meringues looked like chubby's sai. :(
despite that they look like lumps of shit, they actually tasted quite good, that is before they lao hong and turn soft and soggy.



Dramabox's 2007 tour. jia and i watched their play at chinatown. too bad their forum theatre lisence was disapproved. but i did catch it later at another venue.



more to come later...

some very very overdued pictures i took in toronto from my cell phone.



shadows of fallen autumn leaves on the pavement



winter- just alot of snow





found my keys! - after loosing them and having a pile of snow fall on them in winter.. spring melted the snow and a kind soul found them, hung it up on a stick, hoping i would walk down this path again. n of course i did walk down my regular route to the train station. was a nice surprise.





spring/summer-- raining ice and flood!
hailstone the size of marbles or a little larger fell on the day before i move out of the apartment. n then rain water almost flooded our basement. -water did come in but we unclogged the drainage pipe during intervals of heavy rain. almost freaked out because water came dangerously close to all my packed boxes.







miscellenous pictures

keroro... kero kero kero...


some rice balls i made.


end

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