The Art of Life

Was musing with RBF over dinner about life choices and how they shape the person you become. It's amazing to consider how a million tiny choices that we make moment by moment seem to edge us towards a better or worse path. Only when you look back at all the decisions you have made thus far do you suddenly see clearly how you slowly but surely created the person that you are this moment. How strange and humbling to know your "Yes" and "No" to whatever comes your way leave indentations in our clay-like selves: what kind of life, what kind of self have we sculpted ourselves into?

I always liked the analogy that our lives were like a giant carpet being woven. On one side, you can only see a crazy criss crossing patchwork of threads that seem to make no sense even though you thought you swore you wove correctly. But when you turn it around, you suddenly see the pattern in full glory and all the stuff suddenly makes sense.

Sometimes I think if God left me completely alone to paint the picture of my life with my limited imagination and limited understanding of my character, I would have made one screwy mess of it.

I can totally see how "but for the grace of God, go I".

Without God making me wise up to my inner idiot, I would have turned into one of those girls I hate. I would have become one of those awful, fashionably left-wing, liberal jerks with a smart mouth full of empty diatribes about the unenlightened of society. I would have painted my opponents with broad stereotyping strokes. I would have loudly and intelligently backed all the "right" social causes without the humble wisdom to put in the tough work required in the face of unlovable human beings. I would be a terrible, affected windbag with words of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I would have been a pretentious awful, awful person.

Without God's merciful revelation of my insecurities and healing power of Love, I would have probably gotten myself into countless flings with the worst sorts of men. I would have given up everything for a cheap semblance of affection. I would not have understood what real love looked or felt like. Though I don't really know much of her life, (and I don't want to insult or oversimplify what she has gone through) somedays I think I would not have been that far off from taking the path Annabel Chong took. I read about her and I don't feel disgust for all that she has done. I just think how realistically speaking, it would have been entirely possible for me to have decided to do the things she did. I think of her and wonder what I would say if I had the chance to have coffee wih her.

For me, without God, my life would have been mud. A long wallow in the dark, shifting quicksand.

With God, though...

...My life is on solid rock and one sure footstep after another, I know I can navigate even the most precarious lands though I see no map in sight.

...and my days are sun-kissed where even the most melancholy and tear-filled days are edged with the gold of hope.

To my fellow traveller CL, its good to know yet another who understands the taste of a life sweetened by God's timely and kindly revelations.

How good it is to be Beloved.

And better to know that the good life is already a gift within everyone's grasp.

Oh, that more should reach out and taste it for what it is.

what did you do when you were young?

2 weekends ago, some of us were making the last minutes of sunday stretch by swapping childhood memories. It was amazing how light-hearted and happy we got just by recalling past silliness. Nostalgia has a magic of its own. Somehow reminiscing about the past is such a human way of forming connections: it's always interesting to get the know what someone was like before you had ever met them.

We discovered surprising little links between the hijinks we got up in school to what we were ended up doing as careers. The irrepressible Redbeanfish was devising codes for her little Famous Five gang to communicate in; enterprising CL was once hauled up by her primary school teacher for being an illegal sticker seller: she had rubbed her mother's perfume on ordinary stickers to latch onto the then-popular "scratch-and-sniff" sticker craze' ; I was always creating stuff to share with my classmates: I cut bad albums with badly written lyrics superimposed on popular songs. I created magazines full of hand-drawn pictures of my childhood mates as celebrities exiting out of limos, hand in hand with hot guys. I had a flourishing little business where I made paper dolls for friends and regularly updated the dolls' wardrobes with new fashion lines of paper clothes.

We also discovered surprising propensity for mischief that lay behind mild mannered faces: A used to make flying leaps off her family balcony in defiance of her screaming mother; SpyMaster used to hide snails in unsuspecting provision shop owners' deep freezers, in between launching water bombs on innocent passerbys.

There were also anecdotes of how childhood shaped your ethical outlook: I will always remember how I cheated on my chinese exam in Primary Six. My chinese teacher had seen through my pathetic attempts to cover up and chose not to reprimand me during the exam. Instead, after all papers were handed up and all people had left, she took me aside to tell me she saw everything I did and told me never to cheat again. It was pure grace. I never expected it from a chinese teacher I had always associated with fiercely knitted brow, tightly pursed lips and a red pen of fury. I never cheated on a test ever again.

You gladly leave some things behind in childhood: your secret and ill-thought crush on Jordan Knight from NKOTB, your deep desire to go for a Richard Marx concert, your notion that Richard Clayderman was the classiest music on earth, your ill-fitting pinafores.

But some things you should just never let go: your irrepressible search for cheap fun, your belief that a good day is always just around the corner, the simple presumption that you were creative and the notion that all you needed was to make the most of today. Tomorrow would worry for itself.

As to all my friends: I raise a glass of ribena (or if you prefer, lukewarm banana-flavoured UHT milk in square little cartons sitting in the sun) to all our todays and tomorrows. Grow like a Champion, Grow.

How glad I am for such lovely company along the way. :)

Resolution Revolution aka 2007 Resolutions - Sort of

Most people I know have given up on making New Year resolutions because they just seem so futile and ego-deflating after a while. Another year, another bunch of failures. How can anyone look forward to the new year when come January 2nd, you have already blown your precious list of resolutions by a mile?

I mean just check out this site called 43 things which keeps an updated list of top new year resolutions for 2007. Pretty keen but some rather intimidating stuff!

I was checking out my list of resolutions from a year agoand was pleasantly surprised to find out I had more or less managed to do all of them. I called the list "2006 Resolutions...Sort of" because some of them did not sound like resolutions at all to me at that point of time. It was sort of a half joking, half serious kind of list. I think the main reason why this list was one of my more successful lists was precisely because it was more of a fun than a serious list.

>>1. Get a new Powerbook once and for all. Yay!
Bought me a G5 computer! love it love it love it. Glad I waited so long before getting a new Mac. The Intel chip was worth the wait. ah, sweet hybrid bliss.

>>2. Be a humbler listener and curb instinct to be a holyschmoly smartypants!
Yeah I made a more concerted effort at that, especially with one particular friend. haha. you know who you are. :D

>>3. Actually use my PDA to organise the chaos I call my mind. Got plans? Execute, execute! and use that PDA to help!
YUP. My little PDA is pretty indispensable to me these days. And I used to call myself a non-PDA type of person!

>>4. Spend more time with my family. House not equal as hotel you know.
Yeah I improved in that in 2006. The remodelling kitchen project in December was quite reflective of that. Plus I started coming home at more regular hours nearing the end of year. :)

>>5. Get back in gym rat mode. Last year of gym membership- diedie must chao kuan use to the fullest!
OK this one was in major deprovement in 2006 given the shiploads of work and horrijible MMPORG I got introduced to. But towards late December I was slowly moving back to my 3 times a week habit again. SLOWLY.

>>6. Clean up 1/4 of the chaos I call my room (1/4 is realistic estimation I think)
1/4 was indeed cleaned up. 3/4 is still a hurricane. I think it was severe mark of improvement that I kicked of 1 Jan 2007 by cleaning up my overflowing pile of art materials and bags. The corner looks so INCREDIBLY clean and neat now that I just stare at it and block out the rest of my mess. The clean corner is SO therapeutic to look at. :)

>>7. Adopt a hamster to channel all my lack-of-a-rabbit-affections to.
I have a hamster - HAMHAM - and TWO(!) bunnie wunnie hunnies - Flopsy and Mopsy!

>>8. Share and admit to my weaknesses more often to curb instinct to play holyschmoly smartypants!
Oh yeah baby, I did this too! and learnt some super interesting things about my psychological makeup. Which deserves a whole other blog entry by itself. haha.

>>9. Stop drinking teh si like its the last drink on earth. Must...try....other....drinks.
eh failure. I think its addiction. Although this year, I did add Yuan Yang to my list but not counting it cos it is nothing more than teh si WITH coffee.

>>10. Go on One Good Date. Mwa ha ha. Insert archi insider joke.
well actually, I did kind of go on one pretty nice non-date. Date pretext was not a romantic one at all but it had all the nice ingredients of one: dinner with a cute well-dressed guy; fancy restaurant which I did not have to go dutch for; intelligent, enjoyable conversation sprinkled with good manners and compliments. So even if it was NOT A DATE, I am gonna construe it as one any way so I can rack up another resolution done. heh.

>>11. Love God. Love Neighbour. Feed Sheep.
as usual, a tough one to accomplish. getting there. more on this later.

So I have a theory about New Year's Resolutions.There should always be two lists:

-The perennial one that rarely changes, being full of big-picture, hard-to-achieve goals (like my 2006 #11 Love God, Love Neighbour, Feed Sheep").

- and the fun one that is redolent with easier-to-achieve, light-hearted goals (like my 2006 #7 Adopt a hamster")

The former list is neccessary because it reminds you year after year about what your life's goals are essentially about. It determines whether you are still heading towards the right direction. Although nobody can say with a straight face that they succeeded in living their neighbour perfectly by the end of the year, it does not mean "Love your Neighbour" should not deserve a hallowed place in anyone's list of things to accomplish. As that annoyingly twee little quote goes - "Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky."

But the latter list is just as vital because it reflects the little steps it takes to accomplish the former. For instance, my trivial resolution to buy a Powerbook was silly on the surface. But it did reflect a deeper change that I was hoping to make in myself by year end. You see, I have terrible hangups about money and spending. I used to be fairly neurotic about penny-pinching but over the years I have been learning to spend more on creature comforts and discerning what are areas worth spending money on.

The point is - we should keep the serious former list in our heads for life but every new year we should just draft the fun one and get people to draft theirs just for kicks.

The fun list of resolutions works in its fluffy little way: It is light-hearted, sincere and easy for one to look forward to accomplishing.And some how along the way you accidentally accomplish other resolutions you did not pen down but were still major milestones.

SO, this year, I am drafting yet another fun list of "2007 Resolutions - Sort of"

1. Get in touch with my inner art student again and paint one picture on a big canvas.

2. Do a Martha Stewart and refurnish the yard for my mother so it becomes a cosy ironing/laundry/storage corner.

3. Visit Italy again - Cinque Terre - and revist travelling Europe with that kick-ass hamster girl I have not made enough effort to hang out with more often over the past few years! :P

4. Enjoy my 30th birthday by throwing a semi-big shebang and finding a way to honour everyone that made me who I am 3 decades on.

5. Buy sensible flat shoes for my insensible flat feet. Stop buying pretty but nasty-to-feet shoes. (Cringe)

6. Break bread more often with acquaintances I find hard to get along with. :)

7. Go on mission trip #2: India? Ethiopia? Philipines?

8. Learn to bowl properly. Don't know what a decent average is for a raving amateur like moi, but I will settle for having a consistent rate of 5 closed frames, 5 open frames.

9. Work out 3 times a week, 1 hour each. Build up muscle tone and flexibility again.

10. Read 50 books (graphic nnovels do not count) - actually I have always wanted to know exactly how much I read. Maybe it would be fun this year to actually do a tally. :)

11. Attempt writing some fiction in new notebook with inspiring pictures friend bought me.

12. Publish magazine successfully.

13. Keep better records of how much am spending.


Wish me luck and to kick it off...i shall launch this new signature line in me blog. ha
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now reading book #1 of 50 books for 2007:
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
Verdict so far: cool concept. My first Eco. :)

7 Up

Have been wondering, if the 7 UP documentary people made a story about my life, what would it sound like?

7 Up
was a: shy, colour-pencil toting, paper doll loving Primary One kid
dreamt of being: a kickass magic-using superspy
fell in love with: Bob the Pianist on Sesame Street
coveted: Barbie dolls from Toys R'Us Katong

14 Up
was a: awkward, nerdy Secondary Two girl with perfunctory ugly 80s specs and bad haircut
dreamt of being: Singapore's youngest comic book creator
fell in love with: Han Solo and Indiana Jones
coveted: more Xmen comics

21 Up
was a: wannabe fresh graduate from architecture swinging between idealism and angsty cynicism
dreamt of being: anything but an architect
fell in love with: the boy next door and the not-so boy next door
coveted: a cool job, an uber babe body and a dreamy boyfriend

28 UP
was a: gal with a pretty cool job
dreamt of being: a better person
fell in love with: God again and again
coveted: a kinder mouth and a more honest heart ( a classy funky wardrobe and a swinging singleton appartment of my own. lol. )

I wonder what's gonna happen in
35 UP, 42 UP and 49 UP? :)

Isn't it scary to imagine how your life would look like on film? I hope mine makes for a good indie movie at least - haha. I want it to have a cool-indiesque score like High Fidelity. Plus injections of classical music for the more tear-jerking moments.haha.

perhaps 70 UP will be
was a : mischievious, classy old woman with cute rabbits
dreamt of being: nothing but her own strange self
fell in love with: God again and again (and the old man next door)
coveted: a good, peaceful death (and a fabulous jacket)

lost in translation

surrealkitty
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

been reading a book about understanding conversations between mothers and daughters and why they are always so fraught with tension and misunderstanding.

The title of the book says it all - "Are You Wearing That?!" heh. Was immediately amused because my mother has said that to me a few times before and that naturally led to a crossfire exchange. I remember I hated wearing skirts and dresses before university and my mother would always give me despairing looks if I walked out of the house in yet another pair of pants.

There was once in JC when I was rushing out to catch a play and just at the door, my mother yells, "GO WEAR A SKIRT!" My 17 year old smart mouth answers back, "FOR WHAT?! I AM LATE!" Then, she delivers the clincher," You want people to think you are LESBIAN is it?!" Of course, that did not go down too well with my 17 year old ego. :) Argument naturally ensues and to save time, I grouchily leave house with dress on and think nasty thoughts of Mother Nazi being 1) evil and always looking down on me 2) anti-homosexual.

At 29, I quarrel a lot less with my mother. It comes with growing up and understanding how human everybody is. I think that's the first marker of being grown-up - realising your parents are not superhuman and perfect, and learning to be more gracious towards them.

I think like the author of the book, I start to see that the stuff that comes out of a person's mouth may be a poor reflection of the stuff that WANTS to come out of a person's mouth.

In other words, there is the Message and then, there is the Meta-Message. Apparently, this is key to understanding women-to-women conversation: one must listen hard to the Message and even harder for the Meta Message.

"Are you coming home to eat?!" , "You think this house is a hotel?!", "You think you grow big now got wings to fly is it?!" and assorted nuggets of typical furious chinese mother-daughter exchanges can be translated as a sadder "I miss you. I am scared you don't like me or care for me anymore. Why are you so cold to me?"

Learning to concentrate on the Meta Message - the unspoken volumes of thought that get lost in translation - really helps cover a multitude of harsh exchanges.

If anything, it has stopped me from reverting to my 17 year old self that sees my mother as the Moral Police, the Weight/Dressing Nazi, Incessant Nag. :) It has helped me concentrate on seeing her as a human being hoping to communicate to another human being - one that she helped bring to life by a strange twist of fate.

where were you in 1984?

80s
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

I was in front of the computer screen and television a lot. :)

Just did a random cut and paste up job from google images based on the theme "STUFF I WATCHED/PLAYED IN THE 80S/90S".

how many do you recognise? :)

2006 Resolutions...sort of

In no particular order.....

1. Get a new Powerbook once and for all. Yay!

2. Be a humbler listener and curb instinct to be a holyschmoly smartypants!

3. Actually use my PDA to organise the chaos I call my mind. Got plans? Execute, execute, execute! and use that PDA to help!

4. Spend more time with my family. House not equal as hotel you know.

5. Get back in gym rat mode. Last year of gym membership- diedie must chao kuan use to the fullest!

6. Clean up 1/4 of the chaos I call my room (1/4 is realistic estimation I think)

7. Adopt a hamster to channel all my lack-of-a-rabbit-affections to.

8. Share and admit to my weaknesses more often to curb instinct to play holyschmoly smartypants!

9. Stop drinking teh si like its the last drink on earth. Must...try....other....drinks.

10. Go on One Good Date. Mwa ha ha. Insert archi insider joke.

11. Love God. Love Neighbour. Feed Sheep.