03 novembre 2007
Ashes of time
First of all, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately, it isn't always easy to live up to this promise of regularly updating my friends and family on what's going on. Especially when I'm overwhelmed with events and when I settle down I'm either too tired to do anything but sleep, or have some class assignment to catch up on.
So what's been up ? I've been climbing a lot, we went to a party on a beach last friday that reminded me of Jim Morrisson's American prayer and I talked in verse for a long time. As in :
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us. Choose they croon the Ancient Ones The
time has come again Choose now, they croon Beneath the moon Beside an ancient lake Enter
Aikido and Judo are going on as usual. My camera got stolen on a ferry. So from now on photos will be scarce. We had a Halloween party and made the news : http://singaporeseen.stomp
Make sure you read people's comments, some are racist on an unexpected level.
I was dressed up as Andy Warhol, check it out :
20 octobre 2007
This world of ours
Okay here we go : last week end. How shall I start…. “I adore Singapore. I idolize it all out of proportion”… Or better, "I romanticize it all out of proportion.” Hmmm… mhya, let me start over, “I am overly romantic about this place as I am about everything else. I thrive on the hustle...bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To me, Singapore means…” Nah, no...corny, too corny for my taste. I mean, let me try and make it more profound. "I adore Singapore. To me, it is a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity to cause so many people to take the easy way out..." Naaah, this is way too preachy. Plus let’s face it I think I want you to read this till the end. "I adore Singapore, although to me, it is a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it is to exist in a society desensitized by government advertising, television, authority, and overwork." Ah, maybe that’s too angry. I shouldn’t be angry. "I am as...tough and romantic as the city I love.”
Right. Let’s go : I am as tough and romantic as the city I love, inside my Q-tip head, I thrive on the unpredictability of what I do, hopping from place to place like a hormone-crazed jungle cat. Take our lame Thursday evening Judo practises for example. Mike suddenly proposed we go to Kuala Lumpur for a four day week-end climbing trip. “When would we be leaving ?” I asked… “half an hour later.” We grabbed our bags and left the moisture of BoonLay for Johor Bahru, met the Iowa-climber-fraternity guys and took the night train to Kuala Lumpur. We climbed inside caves on Friday while it rained ouside, it felt great to lead and do an overhang after a year or so of no climbing. That exhilarating, death-defying activity has infected me once again. I’m looking forward to that “never more alive than when most at risk” feeling, and actually did a solo climb. We had no route descriptions, but using the Flora was fun and secure in case we messed up. We also used it to speed-climb the routes. Sweeeeeeeeeet.
Otherwise this
week-end was Hari Raya, also known as the Malaysian new year. There were many
fireworks in town, firecrackers to buy, and party people. Mark and Bill got
kissed by a gay Chinese man who gave them drinks, Mike and I hung out on top of
a lamp-post and the gang forgot about us. We also fit six guys in a taxi,
almost did a multi-pitch, threw firecrackers at mark, celebrated Manki’s
birthday, went to a Korean restaurant, had free drinks at a club, messed
around. The gang is awesome. Tank god Mike asked me to join them.
11 septembre 2007
zatoichi
Yesterday I went to the dojo to practise judo with the danes. I was once a brown belt and I wanted to find out how well or how bad I remembered my training after eight years. The practise was ok but lacked discipline and was too much fun for a martial art. After that we went to Clementi for dinner, it's on my way home and I felt like spending time with the judo guys. When we laid our bags down at the food court, I spotted a blind man in the middle of the street. He was fiddling with his walking stick, but staying there waiting to get run over, while cars were stopped at the red light a dozen meters away. I rushed towards him and proposed to lead him off the road, but he pushed me away. Another passer-by tried to get him to safety but the blind man also pushed him away. He wouldn't budge even though we were yelling that he was in the middle of the road. Then cars started coming and people panicked. People screamed, cars wizzed passed, others stopped. Finally three of us managed to pull him off the road, someone else lead him away, and that was it. Why was he in the middle of the road ? why did he want to stay there ? I can only imagine.
05 septembre 2007
Adaptation
Do I have an original thought in my head ? Maybe if I were happier. Life is short; I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. There's something wrong. Oh well. I should work, I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my skinny ass, if my ass wasn’t skinny, I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these wide shirts all the time; like that’s fooling anyone. skinny ass. I should start climbing again, twice a week; really do it this time. Maybe jogging; I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more; improve myself. Maybe I should learn Russian or something. Or take up an instrument. I could speak russian. I could be the screenwriter who speaks russian and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short; stop looking like Kurt Cobain. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that's not true, especially these days. There's almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel like I should apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry... all my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help from them; but I'll still be ugly though. Nothing is going to change that.
- Charles Kauffman ?
04 septembre 2007
trashback
What a laugh ! Someone going by the initials LT is making his appartment more comfortable. Quoting myself, it's amazing how you can forget the worries of life as long as you can afford a few luxuries. Like super powerful megatronic thermo-nuclear feet.
01 septembre 2007
What planet are you from ?
Peace! Loïc and I have planned to go to Vietnam during reading week, but we have visa issues, so we intend to apply directly at the embassy. This afternoon, one of the hottest so far, I spent an hour looking for the Vietnam embassy. I knew the address : 10 Leedon park, a quarter mile north of Holland village. Once at Holland village, I started asking people about Leedon Park, but nobody knew of it, or of the Vietnamese embassy. I then started asking taxis, but in vain. Nowhere could I find a map, and going to a cyber café for such a simple piece of information did not seem worthwhile. I finally ended up calling Caroline, and she gave me directions by looking on google maps. I had to take a small tortuous road that lead into an extremely hyp residential area. Leedon In fact, Leedon park is not a park, it turned out being a simple road, called ‘park’ to make it sound posh. The place was very nice, as I walked, sweaty and moist under the hot equatorial sun, I admired house the likes of uncle Phil’s, from the fresh prince of Bel Air. Some were even better. The Vietnam embassy was in one of these houses, but much lower key. Visa hours are from 9h to 12h from Monday to Friday, so I had suffered for no reason.
29 août 2007
Pulp Friction
Last Tuesday, a number of us received an invitation from the electronica music
lab to attend a gig at a place called the velvet underground. Entry free with a
password (“flash”) and free drinks until 23h. I arrived accompanying Caroline
when the free flow was over, at about 23h30. By that time everybody was
trashed. In particular…. Just so everyone knows: Loïc, Andrew, Devon. Mostly Loïc. Never have I seen someone as wasted
as Loïc that fateful night. It was fun to pin him down after he’d gone too far
and and a real pain to get him up to his room back in BoonLay. The funny part
of the story is that he slept with all his clothing and as when he woke up at
11 am, he rushed out of his room in the same state he had entered it, thinking
he had a lesson at 12. He did the best he could to arrive on time but that was
pointless since his first course was at 14h. His breath smelled like ha had
eaten a beaver or something. I know I shouldn’t take the Mickey and point
fingers, but he was pretty funny, just standing around waiting for a course with a
2-meter stink radius around him. I don’t blame him for reaching outstaying
proportions of alcohol in his blood when absolutely everything was free.
Aikido was
really tiring last Friday, and when I took the bus home, it seemed to cruelly
stop every hundred meters, making the bus ride take twice as long as usual. By
the time I got back the barbecue with the weird Canadian “born again Christian”
chucky look-alike freak was over so I just spent some time copying Chinese
characters in Wyatt’s living room.
The plan
was to go kite-surfing with Freddy in Indonesia the next day. Fate had
decided otherwise. I would be to wake up at 6 am and instead of getting dressed
and leaving, turn my alarm clock off and sleep some more. I woke up
at 12. As you can certainly imagine I thought Freddy would be pretty mad, since
in my sleep I hadn’t answered any of his frantic calls or messages and he had
chosen not to go alone. In fact, to my utter surprise he wasn’t mad at all even
though he had waited two hours for me. What a compassionate dude. I continued
copying characters for about two hours in my usual stubborn and clumsy manner. 小茜 used to say « you write like a
child would » or rather 你写字写得跟小孩一样. I then got
tired and innocently left for WOMAD (an open air festival with music from
around the world). Open a bracket here : WOMAD kicks donkey ass, this year they
had Youssou N’Dour and Asian dub Foundation ! to know more follow this link : www.womadsingapore.com/
You may now
close that bracket.
Traitors! Camilo and Abdul were supposed to meet me at 18H00 at City Hall, however they traitorously went to Boon Lay to enjoy a nice cool refreshing shower instead. It’s ok though, I have good karma these days, and so does Peter so no wonder I randomly met at City Hall the I learnt of Camilo and Abdul’s devious plot. Peter proposed that I join himself, Wyatt, Clement and Alistair for dinner and a night out in the city. My answer was shy, but I did feel like meeting Clement and Alistair, whom I had heard of through Wyatt. Clement is a cool enjoyable inextinguishable source of useful information about Singapore. He always knows where to go. Alistair is a British law student who speaks in an unnerving manner, he shares this custom of eloquent but distorted, queer, and witty speech with Peter, so being around both of them at the same time is tough on my poor little sensitive brain cells. We had Mexican food in Holland village, then coffee next door, and finally a little beer. Wyatt and I insisted on us not going home. We wisely followed Clement’s advice and headed for a place called the timbré. The timbré is a part open-air bar built around a British courtyard. The stage for performers is on one side, the bar on the other, trees and tables in the centre. The band was really talented, they played popular American rock songs, and were basically having fun performing, so it was enjoyable to watch. Drinks weren’t expensive so I treated myself to a White Russian, just like the dude, duder, el duderino.
Wyatt was amazing; He got up and danced on the stage to Prince’s “Kiss”. Prior to that he had held up a sign saying “get up, Dance!” with no avail. We got served, he served everyone, his moves were too inventive, too quick, he was having so much fun, nobody could have served him back. That was the coup de grace, it made that night unlike any other. The concert finished with the two guitarists and the bass guitarist getting up on people’s tables to play (wireless guitars). They finished with a song by Ray Charles, to which Peter, Wyatt, Clement and myself danced to.
“Oh, Funny shtory”, coincidence, we took a night bus back, and at Boat quay Akram got in, he had just been playing a gig at the Homeclub. Akram is a member of the electronica lab at NUS, and he knows every band on earth. It’s actually quite impressive.
Since this
was her first day we took her out, we started with Arab Street. It reminded me of morocco,
all those signs, shops, decoration, with one notable difference: it was calm
and not oppressive. We casually drifted in the streets and shops around the
mosque, and for the first time in two weeks, I took pictures of my own. We ate
at a Turkish place that gave my belly-ache. Whatever we did after that is of
little importance. We saw a fat bird sculpture by Botero and Camilo got all
excited because he’d finally spotted something of Colombian origin. Excited
like… humm… like Martin when he’s about to eat the pizza.
We decided on going to a getai that night, after all, this is the peak of the
ghost month so this should be the most festive time. We inquired and found out
through one of the waitresses that there was one where she lives, and she
invited us to join it.
We arrived at the place (near redhill) at about ten... And witnessed a drunken
crowd. Boy was it fun, people dancing, cheering, singers just like in the
movies, free drinks and food ! they were extremely welcoming and surprised to
see foreigners. All this kept a strongly present religious backdrop with
decorations, burning prayers in a bonfire, altars, incense, so on so forth.
When it ended at 23h a guy I befriended invited us to go up watch something, we
didn't quite understand what but didn't feel in danger so went anyway. We entered
an apartment totally redecorated with Taoist offerings to the ghosts. In the centre
was a man smoking opium in front of an altar, he was to become an avatar to the
ghosts. People around were casual and telling us to take photos if we could,
but in the red gloom of the room a flashless photo made no sense. After being
inhabited by different ghosts for approximately an hour the avatar predicted good
fortune, and lottery numbers... Some of the ghosts were really violent, others
sad, it was all very unpredictable.
I met a man there whose business is passing
people illegally into the US.
He'd been all over the world, it was interesting talking to him.
We gave fond goodbyes and made promises of coming back. What a day.
It is at these times when I look back and regret none of you are with me. I
truly miss you,
Thomas.
They're not that interesting, but you might feel like checking out the poor singing of getai performers on these videos :
26 août 2007
Angry White Pyjamas
I feel I
should write something explaining why I’ve chosen to practise Aikido.
The credit mostly goes to Bert for passing me “angry white pyjamas”, the book by Robert Twigger. The book tells the tale of his time in Japan, aimlessly drifting from one useless job to another. With incentive from his room-mates he one day decides to practise a martial to discipline himself and chooses Aikido. He rapidly becomes obsessed with budo mentality and technique, and decides the only way he can truly experience aikido is if he signs up for the 11 month senshusei intensive training course with the Japanese riot police. The course consists of four hours of training, five days a week, in addition to dojo-cleaning duties, special training weekends and demonstrations. The training is rigorous, sometimes agonizing. The intensity with which they practise is vividly described in book, but beyond that are lessons of discipline and respect, and many interesting thoughts and observations on mid-nineties Japan. The frank and honest description of the sport attracted me. It wasn’t the usual advertisement-ish description we get for martial arts; it was a difficult, frustrating and demoralizing experience.
Now… As to what Aikido is ! I have trouble explaining, and I'm not too sure yet. It was developed in the late nineteenth century but derives from many samurai moves and rules. There are many traditions in martial arts that are explained by Samurai heritage. No techniques are offensive, that is part of the philosophy of the art, however the techniques mostly comprise wrist, arm, and joint locks which are meant to be very painful. Just like in judo most techniques blend into the attacker’s motion and redirect his momentum before rendering him harmless. Also, when countering an attack one must retreat but embrace it and move in. Not out. Here is a short demonstration :
In Japanese
Aikido is written合気道. 道 means
« way », so litterally aikido is “the way of the aiki”. As far as I know 合 is pronounced hé in Chinese
and is a musical note; whereas 気 is the traditional kanji for 气 which is used for air, gases, angriness. So
according to my insignificant knowledge of Chinese 合気道 would signify the way of the angry
musical note. Hence, 合気 doesn't make sense in Chinese... This is why I turned to wikipedia to grasp
the Japanese meaning:
**opening wikiquote**
合 - ai – joining
氣 - ki - spirit
The kanji for "ai"
represents a pot with a lid on it. Hence, "ai" symbolizes to two
things fitting together. Aiki should not be confused with "wa" which
refers to harmony. The kanji for "ki" represents a boiling pot filled
with rice. Hence, "ki" symbolizes energy. (See the qi main article for further information). Thus aiki's meaning is to fit,
join or combine energy. However, care must be taken about the absolute meanings
of words when discussing concepts derived from other cultures and expressed in
different languages. This is particularly true when the words we use today have
been derived from symbols, in this case Chinese and Japanese kanji, which
represent ideas rather than literal translations of the components. Historical
use of a term can influence meanings and be passed down by those wishing to
illustrate ideas with the best word or phrase available to them. In this way,
there may be a divergence of the meaning between arts or schools within the
same art. The characters "ai" and "ki" have translations to
many different English words.
**closing wikiquote**
As you can imagine I've been told and I believe the teachings of Aikido are much wider than just self defense. Particularly in the branch of Aikikai, which is what we practise. The objective is to know and develop our bodies and minds through discipline, technique and respect. As least that is how I feel. There are many rules in the dojo but besides the sensei, all the students are equal. This is something I appreciate, so far I've practised with a black belt and a brown belt, as well as people with completely different shape and girth as my own. I honestly have many more things to say, but I don’t feel like writing any more today. I’ll stop here.
24 août 2007
博客
这是我的中文练习: 我要写一些事儿放着我的博客。但是不知道想写什么。想法都什么没有。好，为了没有别的办法我要告诉你们我最近干什么 。礼拜一没有课。我去ICA拿我的 student pass，可是我忘了我的票所以我要等很久，最后 (两个小时以后) 他们找到我的student pass。真麻烦。
别的日我只取大学学习。我也去aikido。。。太苦了。
我试图忘我的女朋友，但是太难，总是想着她啊。我真的很可怜，希望她一样想着我。 用电话跟他有联系又很奇怪的感觉，因此我决定我只要写信。
Blerk，我的中文很坏。停止打吧 ！
21 août 2007
Training day
As usual I'm dead tired. Friday, dinner at Indochine, then a jazz bar, we said goodbye to Florence. I said goodbye. Got back at 3 am. Saturday. did I do anything? I pondered, I woke up at 7 am and and went to an event called "run nus". We were supposed to run around the campus. I went with Loïc, Morten was finishing the 10 km race when we arrived. Then rain poored down on us, so we didn't run. We just got our free t-shirts and won prizes. Loïc won a jacket for eating a piece of bread in 18 seconds. I went to the airport. came back. couldn't sleep, turned msn on, the network was unrelyable. sunday morning, msn, skype, spent time doing nothing on the internet. Lazy sunday. Life is too short to spend sundays in front of my computer searching for videos on youtube. I did a little chinese. We watched 28 weeks later. Loïc did something very stupid with his computer and lost all his data. The next day he ruined two 300 Go hard drives. The man is cursed. On monday I collected my student pass (the day had to come). Took care of a little administrative business at NUS. Got home. Did nothing. turned msn and skype on. routine. On tuesday, I received this :
