starbucks And sushi

Afternoon visiting hours are over.

And so you come down to the lobby for a bite of lunch.

This is one place where everyone- staff or patient or visitor- gathers at some point in time. This is where you come for snacks and drinks and meals. A few times already I've sat here waiting, and that's for this one situation alone. A few months ago, I came down more often, particularly when it became too warm to wait upstairs in the lounge where the seats were hard and the heat was burning through my brain and it was stuffy and it was just so uncomfortable that I couldn't even pay much attention to whatever was showing on TV, whether it was a game show, a variety show, a TV drama in English, Mandarin or Tamil.  

I'm here at Starbucks again.

It's crowded here this time. Less crowded that it was the last time, but there're still plenty of people. Staff come here for meetings. Relatives come here to have a drink and discuss each other whilst discussing the medical condition of the patient upstairs. Students bring their books here to study, biding their time between visiting hours. Others open laptops and tablets to get some work done.

I've had a drink at this Starbucks the last time I was here.

Not this time though. I'm waiting for lunch, and we've already decided what we're going to have.

Bowls of Don. :)

I could have trays of salmon sushi, or bowls of Udon. The in-house Umisushi offers me both. I could also have the bento sets, but in the last couple of times I've gone for the bowls of Don instead. I've tried the beef with its runny poached egg on top but today I'm going for Oyako Don. 

It's hard to describe it in words, but this gives me a strangely comforting feeling after having come down from the wards. Maybe because the meal is served really hot. Maybe because there's a roundedness to the whole meal. Here, the rice is warm and fluffy and filling. There's scrambled egg on top which is done just nice and below that are the strips of well-fried chicken dribbled with mayonnaise. And I get a bit of soup on the side with a touch of seaweed.

the Hospital at changi

Twice have I been here.

Twice have I seen the same lobby and gotten lost in it. It's shaped a little like a hexagon and so you find yourself wondering whether it is this direction or the other and where is the d*** pharmacy.

It's funny how all the floors look the same. I don't even remember what number it was the last time I was here. It could have been the other side of the lobby. It could have been downstairs.

There's a lounge area here though, with really, really comfortable cushioned seats and air-conditioning and you can kick off your shoes and curl up against the chairs. The other lounge didn't have that. What it had was a row of chairs and two revolving fans that blasted out hot air, and a TV and where visitors had to swelter it out.

It's been a week or so now. So far it has been all tests and more tests, and what it's like is basically someone coming over to say that this test was done and that test was done. This time the assigned bed is near the window, and from the window this is the view.. 







from one big hole in the ground it starts

It's a huge hole they're digging down there, I say. That must be some building coming up.

I look around at the others in the room. Across me is a male filling in a couple of forms. Besides me is someone with a basket of chicken essence that someone brought up. Next to him is a lean-looking, neatly-attired mister sitting quite upright on his chair. I hear oldies music. Someone here has brought a radio.

He'll be here for that op. It's one that has brought about some sort of discussion about instrumentation and raised the differences between GA and LA and whether one should do one or the other, and why, and raised questions whether it can be done in the first place or not and what will happen if it can't and that's how it has been over the last couple of days.

a long time, oh a LONG time

Guess what, oh guess what.

Four, no, five months it has been since the last post. Not very effective, isn't it? It's as if nothing has been happening in my life but it's not true at all.

Stuff happens that you say you will write about it, but then something else crops up and then you forget and then you remember and then you forget again.

Something has obsessed me. It has taken over my life to such great detail and it's all for the sake of perfection, for the sake of attempting to face something that I never bothered to face before and till now, one and a half years later, I still don't know why I cannot accept it for what it is.

I'm just taking it as if it's a quirk of mine. A quirk that is individualistic and that all of us have, in one way or another, and which we can either choose to embrace, or escape from.

I choose to embrace.

And I'll make a comeback. :)

just Cruisin'

It is you that I'm thinking about every time this song plays on my playlist.

Is it your sunshine?
Is it your space?
Is it your hills?
Is it the square that greeted me each morning when I looked out the window, wondering how the day would pass?
Is it the metro?
Or the homeless with their supermarket trolleys? 
Is it Rite Aid? 
Is it the fact that somehow, despite the many broken dreams and pressures and politics and speed of Hollywood, there's still an element of hope that bleeds out from your blocks and buildings and lanes and beaches and boulevards and sidewalks?

Is it Amtrak?
Is it the orange groves flying past the train window and the accompanying bus ride?
Is it the bed and breakfast along Santa Monica and the apple trees up in the Bay Area?

Why do I think of the conference center in San Diego where embarrassingly I ran to a corner and cried because everything was just too overwhelming for a noob thrown into the sea, and I was just flapping my fins trying to look like I could swim really well?
Why do I think of the convention centers at Moscone and how one literally ping-ponged from one center to the other whilst having lunch and dinner meetings along the way?
Why do I think of Andy Serkis and his performance as Gollum in LOTR and Andy Serkis now?
And why do I think of the convention center in Las Vegas where the heat didn't get to everyone and we talked about consumer gadgets that make our lives happier and better and easier?

It's been a long, long, long day indeed.

I think of how video game technology has evolved.
I think of how motion capture and facial capture has evolved.
I think of how greens have come so long a way.
I think of layering and texturing technology.

I think of the Pacific Ocean spreading out into the horizon, her blue tint gorgeous and beautiful in the sun.
I think of seagulls flying from one end of the pier to another.
I think of a hot cakes breakfast on a Sunday morning with the TV on and an evangelical speaker bringing doom and gloom and how there's another evangelical speaker now on prime-time TV bringing a message of salvation, unmerited righteousness, undeserved blessings and finished work.
I think of martial art choreography and how it has grown and how I'll still be able to have soup dumplings and pork ribs in sweet sauce and char siew paus because there was never an intention to 'go home and get out', and it was really, really all about the beauty, strength and art of martial arts.

Like the Pacific Coast Highway with her turns and curves, there has always been a view. Sometimes the view has been frightening enough. Sometimes the view hasn't been pleasant. But there has always been a view and the ride that has taken me thus far will take me further still.

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Skies opened that Day

From where I sit, I can see that the skies are cloudy still. I can see that water droplets still hang from the leaves and buds on the trees that line our roads. i can see the puddles on the pavement that haven't evaporated. 

Maybe the nation still cries. 

It has been a week since the nation mourned the passing of her founding father. 

The very first day they lined the streets outside the Istana. They lined the streets again outside Parliament House.

In the four days following, there were sites all around the island for us to leave tributes, words of condolences, words of thanks, bouquets of flowers and to pay our respects.

But you didn't need to go to any of these designated locations to know that the country was grieving. There was a silence that fell over the entire atmosphere. There was that unifying sense of loss that affected everyone in one way or another.

And it wasn't just the people.

You walked into a mall and all of a sudden you realized that the usual crowd-hyping music had been replaced by a playlist more somber. You walked past a store with its shutters down and read a note saying that they were closed for a day out of respect to the nation's founding father. A road that was usually lit with colorful blinking LED lights shut them off for a day, leaving it darker than it had ever been before. And all the OOH- nearly every single one of them- at bus stops, malls, buildings, even at cinemas, blanked out their programming, leaving screens black with a single line of tribute.  

There were those who expressed their grief openly. There were those who tried to go about their daily lives whilst acknowledging what they felt, believing that this is what he had worked so hard for. And many queued for up to ten hours to pay their respects at Parliament House, with lines snaking past South Bridge Road, High Street, North Canal Street, Carpenter Street, then afterward when logistics was better organized, into the Padang, the WWII Memorial Park and the Queen Elizabeth Walk.

 

sunset of one's time

I went to write a few words of thanks in the condolence book at the Tanjong Pagar Community Center. Because I believed that  the constituency would feel his loss more than any other constituency in the country. I believed that there had been the place he started, and since he began, he'd not left, and so he'd been there for a very long time. I believed that his presence there had been there year on year on year and it would have been felt more strongly there (during the annual dinners, especially) than anywhere else.

Four hours have passed since the gun carriage turned out from Parliament House to UCC.

And like four days ago, the people turned out in full force, armed with umbrellas and raincoats, lining the streets all the way from South Bridge Road to Cantonment Road to Bukit Merah to Queenstown, to Commonwealth and finally, to Dover.

Despite the rain.

Despite the very heavy rain.



the voice IS still

today the voice is still
today the voice is no more
whispers none, sings none,
thunders not, inspires not,
for when a road ends,
when the gates close,
upon a life, then we see
all we have,
all we know,
rests in a life lived.

in the distance north,
in the distance south,
in the distance east,
in the distance west,
from every side,

from every corner,
whatever stands,
will still stand,
whatever breathes,
will still breathe.

the voice today is still,

to be heard no more.
the voice that was the face
and the presence
the voice that loved,
that tried to love,
the voice that in solitude
feared, trembled, struggled,
fought, argued, pained,
yet amongst others
stayed not to waver.
 

in our solemn grief

for who, whom, why, what,
ask not,
the voice is still,

do one need, we ask,
yes. no. yes. no.

one voice.

hundreds and thousands and millions.

one voice.

here, there, everywhere, anywhere.

no more.

smiles, waves, bows, nods, shakes,

see none will we now.
 

we say, we still do see

there is a whisper.

in the wind.

there is a silence.

in the trees.

there is a story.

in the waves.

a whisper that belongs.

a silence that respects.

a story that will and shall say goodbye.

grief there will be

tears there will be

for the regret

for the pain

for the sorrows

that shield not

the farewells from

voices not silent.

the Lines that got Cancelled

From time to time memories pop up, and when they do, we start the entire journey of reminiscence.

For some of us, we take it step by step. We move forward and backward in our memories as if we were replaying a VHS tape and watching the scenes take place backwards. For some of us, we operate our memories as we would a DVD player where we choose the section that we wish to see and jump straight to it. And there are those of us who factor our memories as online streaming where the past and present are merged into an ongoing download with no buffering but we leap to the very second that we wish to see. 

Today I'm suddenly remembering my very first press release. 

I didn't know how to write one. I didn't know the right way. Thank goodness there were lovely colleagues who guided me on the essentials and straightaway I plunged into writing out a single paragraph. (It's usually a page but the boss said a paragraph would do)

Now, I knew it wasn't good. It was, like, sub-par of the sub-par. In other words, I had no frigging' idea what the frak I was writing. No style, no composure whatsoever, but still, there was this wee little bit of hope that there would be at least one thing right, wouldn't it? 

Ha!

It came back to me cancelled from top to bottom. Line by line by line, the boss had rewritten and restructured. She had given it a new voice. She had inserted new vocabulary. She had turned the grammar inside out. She had shifted it from a passive voice to an active one. There were additions, subtractions, replacements, words of engagement, words of action, words of description, words of the present, words that would make a very busy person stop and do a double-take.

Ten lines, every single one of them crossed out neatly, and I can see the black lines of the pen she used.

But I learnt what it meant to have a seller's voice from her.

Because that's what a press release really is. More than the product or service that our clients are offering- they can well do that with marketing, no- we're selling an angle, a story, a perspective.

One that with Media and what the potential is, we'll get that perspective going somewhere.

looking at the Set

At this very moment, right here, right now,  I'm (technically) not supposed to be writing about the set.  

Not because of an NDA or anything, instead what I'm supposed to be doing is to throw my faculties on plot development and storyline. 

But there are times that you do have some parts down pat whereas the others are drifting mists in the wind, and there are times when in some sort of irony, you find yourself looking at the very neighborhood that inspired your characters.

Very often we find ourselves having to visualize what the actual scene looks like; very often we find ourselves having to put our mind to the layout and everything and visualize them as they 'live' out their universe. Few are the times when we're actually in the midst of the neighborhood where they're meant to dwell in and you realize, with a stunner, that oh man, they're REAL people. 

I mean they could be around me right now. They could be hovering over my shoulder watching what I bang out on my MS Word. They could be walking along the pavements in the hot sun, hurrying their way to their destinations. They could be in their cubbyholes right now, plugging through another day at work.

They could be this person I see strolling in front of me, clutching plastic bags from the supermarket.
They could be this person hunched over the table as he munches on a piece of toast.
They could be this person who is now dashing across the road with an umbrella over her head.
It could be anyone.
It could be the person standing at the front of the convenience store waiting for another.
It could be the one who is staring at the menu placed in front of the little diner.

There are two, if not more, worlds that exist in what we do, and frequently, depending on the medium and style that we choose, the two worlds don't merge.

But today, for the first time I realize that sometimes it doesn't necessarily have to be a particular style that plops you in the center of the action. You don't have to have a particular style in order to plop yourself in the center of the action. You just need to plop yourself there first, spin the camera around, and there, you have a theme that speaks not of your voice, but their voice. You cease to be a storyteller. You cease to provide an opinion or direct the flow of thought.

Instead, you become an observer who simply reverses the position of the camera, give them the mike and seek out the thread that binds them together. Is that also a storyteller? Does an observer become a storyteller? Or is the observer simply an editor?

We'll have to see.

But for now, the skies are getting grey. There's a curtain shade of sorts in front of me which makes the world before me look like it had vertical stripes dangling from something up above. The offices are there, the rows of shop houses and cafes are there and I'm seeing time and people stream comfortably, easily about and around me.

three Granite quarries

He suggested that we go take a ride on Pulau Ubin.

I said, fine. let's go. That's what we wanted to do for over a week or so already, and since we didn't have our bikes and we had to rent, might as well go to a place where you feel is somewhat worth renting a bike. So, over to the eastern seaboard we went, hopped onto the bumboat for $2.50 a person and sailed onto the waters, the diesel engine making  bup-bup-bup sounds along the way.

(I mention this because there's a very distinct sound that diesel engines on these ferries make, and they remind me of islands, lighthouses, chalets and coconut trees.)

Two bikes we rented from one of the shops in the town center, and off we went, passing through the main road which has tree roots popping right up through the tarmac and then wound our way around here and there and then past some spanking new research center that looked weirdly out of place in the kampong atmosphere. Into this pathway of trees we headed next, and which I remembered, because there was one time I biked on it by night and that was the first time I had an inkling of what real darkness was and I didn't have a bike light with me then and it was so dark I couldn't see s***.

Anyway, we reached this place that once used to be a resort of sorts but which is now no more, and the State has posted one big sign on the main gate claiming its territory.

Up a couple of granite roads after that, and can I say that I'm terrified of granite paths when I'm biking, especially when I'm going uphill and down? I mean, I feel the BUMP when I'm going up, and there's this duk-duk-duk feeling when I'm going down. And I'm terrified to brake for fear of toppling over, and I know not to jam the brakes, and so for the entire friggin' time I was basically controlling my handlebars like mad, letting the momentum carry me along whilst attempting to keep my sense of balance and direction. 

Which, poor unadventurous rider who is scared of scrapes that I am, was not finding it very fun at all.

It was more than a bike ride. There was plenty of hopping up, hopping down, logical thoughts, making slope assessments on the ball and plenty of hiking, which I found wasn't really that bad after a while. And there were no crises, nor any bicycle jams, other than on a downslope when on my left, there were these ladies who had decided to brake for some reason, and on my right, one group had decided that yeah, we'll just gather here whilst we figure out where to go next, and riders behind had to control speed, control direction, and control gauge all at the same time- not the mention that behind each incoming rider rode another coming up right behind.

Each ride has its rewards.

This one, no less.

The cliffs are beautiful. The granite walls are high, solid, harsh, cold, impenetrable, but they're beautiful. From where I stood- when I safely arrived- there were trees on top of those cliffs, foliage surrounding them. There were beautiful creatures too. I saw a huge brown caterpillar trying to cross the road. I saw a flying fox. I saw a few critters hidden here and there amongst the leaves.

The colors of the waters in the quarry are breathtaking. At Ketam quarry it is a blue. Over at the other quarry, it is an emerald green, and over at the third quarry, there's a current of emerald green with a dark algae green current running through it.  

I think we went over all the passable roads. I've not explored Pulau Ubin long enough to know the ins and outs. Neither do I know where the hidden paths and the little roads are. There are little lanes that lead you to a temple, and there are little lanes that lead you to the Outward Bound Campsite. And there's a road that directs you to the Chek Jawa wetlands, on which you have to go on foot. 

Maybe one day I'll go look for the house on the other end on the island that they say is built in the Tudor style and which used to contain a really huge fireplace.

But for now, we were done, and we finished the ride off with coconuts and a diet coke. :)



chasing the Dime



I picked up this book again.

 

Partially because I'd not seen it on the shelf for such a long time, partially because there is always something intriguing about the Internet world of vice and porn, and partially because it really isn't always about the Internet world of vice and porn, but is really about people whom you know- or people whom you think you know.

 

If Henry Pierce knew- really, really knew- about Cody Zeller and what truly went on behind his hacking abilities... then there'd be no story in the first place. There'd be no story development at all. He's a chemist (of sorts), this Henry Pierce, and his world is about nanotechnology and proteus and building the biological electrical charges for molecular technology to work. His world is about patents and burning carbon and lab work. His world is about draft patents and investors and shares.

 

But his world grows beyond the familiar when a telephone number assigned to his new apartment turns out to be the same on a advertisement for sexual services belonging to one Lilly Quinlan, who has since gone missing. And so, from the website where an alluring, come-hither photograph and description lead to the offices cum studios where the girls can advertise, to the post office, to her f*** pad (her place of work), to her own home that she rents, to her mother's place in Florida, to another f*** place where there are smoothies to be sold across the road to Domino's Pizza because the girl she works with- Lucy LaPorte aka Robin- likes pizza but hates smoothies...

 

In LA this may happen to be, but perhaps, this IS everywhere.

 

And that makes this one story so compelling.

 

Because in every society there are layers which we don't see. Where on the external there are societal benchmarks and morally right behaviors, beneath the layers in the cities, suburbs, and communities, there can be opposing needles on the moral compass.  Where there can be brains, there is also brawn. Where there can be patents and research in cold, clinical labs on one end, there can be implants and leather masks with zippers at the mouth in dingy, dirty basements. Yet, they co-exist.

 

It's not as if the worlds don't merge. They do, which is why it is remarkably surprising when you find out that the upright character in your community turns out to have a hidden fetish for unbridled lust and power.

 

It's an unending debate- this problem of vice and pornography and plenty of thoughts abound regarding this. But the point it, it doesn't matter what you feel towards it. Whether you judge it, venture into in, like it, hate it, condemn it, accept it, support it or are already part of it, this place is there- and it isn't going away anytime soon. Whether or not you sympathise with the girls because they're just wanting to earn money and get out and go to school, or whether you think they entered with their eyes wide open and therefore knew what they were in for and they get what they deserve, these two worlds are just going to stay. 

 

What then do we do since we don't know whether it can be correctly identified as a problem and we don't know the appropriate solution? What then do we do since we can try as hard as we might, but still face the tsunami of overloading issues?

And what then do we do since no one's talking, and no one's saying anything and we don't know what is, or what is not, and how they are, and how they are?

Do we just leave things be?

Do we just let it happen on its own?

Do we intervene, or interfere?

Is this something that should be entirely eradicated? If yes, what happens thereafter? If no, how then should it exist?

 

These are hard questions, to which few, if not no one, can balance the answers. These are questions that rely on a set of beliefs, a directive for living, and given the complexity of the human character and personality, there is no way we can go please everyone.

 

In the meantime, there are human beings inside there. People who have stories they may want to tell. People who have stories that they don't want to tell. We won't know which is which, but given that not all of us have the opportunity to venture into the deepest unknowns, there are also some of us who do.

And I'm glad that for those who do, their avenues of expression and (fictional) information) offer us a little glimpse into their worlds.

a cup of Frozen Yogurt

I've made my first dessert round at The Line's lunch buffet and on my little plate I've had a slice of Earl Grey-infused cake, a slice of durian mousse cake, a slice of rich chocolate cake and a couple of profiteroles doused under a running chocolate fountain.

But I'm not done with dessert yet.

I'm standing in front of a frozen yogurt dispensing machine with a paper cup in hand, waiting impatiently for the fella in front of me to hurry up and go away.

I wonder how many twirls I can do before I lose balance of my cup. :)

It's not new; frozen yogurt. It's been there for a long time, but just like ice cream, it's one dessert that's impossible to grow tired of. 

It's a dessert that's there when you don't want ice cream or cake or a whole bar of chocolate. It's a dessert for the days when it's been much of a downer and you want to perk yourself up. It's a dessert for the days when you want to really, really, really stuff your face with a whole tub of hazelnut ice-cream but... can't.

Maybe it's the fact that the palate's all tart and sweet and sour at the same time. Maybe it's the fact that there's this part that melts into refreshing juice when you place the froyo on your tongue. Or maybe it's so versatile that you can place as many toppings as you want- fresh fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, smarties, cookies, oreo bits, wafers, meringues even, and sauces like caramel, chocolate and strawberry.  

 

This trend of froyo has caught on for a while now. There're new outlets and new brands popping up in our malls. At one time there was just Yami Yogurt with her plain, peach and macadamia nut flavors. Then one day there was Red Mango and Yoguru and now there's Llao Llao, which is like the hottest thing in town. They've opened quite a few outlets here and there and to date, there's a long, long queue at nearly every outlet. It's not hard to detect whether there's an outlet in the mall or not. Just look out for the people walking around with plastic cups and tall, green spoons reminiscent of the aloe vera leaf. 

I'm a lazy queue-r so I've gone to Yami Yogurt most of the time. I take the plain, and then I put toppings of chocolate chips and sunflower seeds that make me feel healthier but like a birdie nonetheless.  

This afternoon I had mine plain with zero toppings. Two cups, two twirls that I ate dine-in, and one that I sneaked out for the road.

Because I felt like it. :)




froyo shaped like a... um... ear

soft... and soothe...