We hugged for a moment. Out in the parking space. In the blazing sun.
I felt so loved and i wanted you to know that i love you so much.
I pulled myself away and there was a struggle. You tried to grab my hands but they slipped away.
I got back into the car. We waved goodbyes. My father drove the family back to the city.
And i cried. Again.
The countdown...
I wrote this during my previous Melaka trip, before i flew to the UK:
"Today, I am happy. I talked to my grandparents about something at last and i hope this continues on until the weekend. I held my grandma's hand spontaneously. She held it tight, firm, warm and the contact alone speaks more about love than speaking the word itself. She rubbed my delicate, unworn hands and i brushed her old, sagging tissue that's warm and welcoming.
If you ask me. If you know me. I am not much of a contact kind of person. Most of the time, when the time comes for a hug, or a peck on the cheek. I think. I think about the action, about hugging someone, kissing someone. Then, when the processing is all finished, the awkward feeling strikes, uncomfortable laughter entails...
So, today is different. I am finally happy, cheerful and somewhat complete. I talked to her and listened. I am there for her and she is there for me."
**********
"The cement floor is a mix of dirty green and Vandyke brown with lots of cracks, sandpaper parts and cement fillings here and there that filled the broken bits of floor so that it remained smooth.'not entirely, but good enough'. The TV is at a corner. A small, box like one. There's a cupboard and a desk beside it, pressed up against the wall. There's a sofa set with really out-dated printed cushions and behind them is another cupboard, with statues of oriental Taoist gods on the upper most platform, along with incense, candles and oil lamps. Adding to that, a platform for tu-di-gong at the bottom. The cupboards and desks are all mutilated with Street Fighter stickers at random places.
There in the living room of a traditional chinese house in Kampung Lima, came the sound of a boy. Imagine a huge head and a little body, wrapped in a singlet and white pants. He is running to the still dark-haired grandma, who was busy folding clothes at the corner.
He said, " Ah ma, i just ate two giam-gim-zo that i found on the shelves and they taste awfully weird." He said this with tears filling up his eyes and the grandma brushed his shoulders, rubbed his head and massaged his back by raking her fingers lightly along the spine again and again. After calming the boy down, she said smugly, "that's probably because those are lizard shit and i bet they taste way different."
The young 4 year-old then displayed a series of actions which includes flapping his arms wildly, sticking his tongue out, rushing to the table for water. He was having all these emotions at once * embarrassed, disgusted, laughable.* and he was not sure whether he should cry or laugh.
Just then, the grandma laughed and so did the brat. Without even thinking about it. He laughed because he was happy that she was happy.
**********
It was a moment like this today. RARE and almost extinct.
As time strips us bare and sculpt our primordial nature, we evolve in physicality and character.
Everything is temporal in eyes of God. Nothing stays the same and diamonds are not forever. That is the beauty of it.
Architecture is stiff, stagnant, sterile. It does not feel or change (not in an instant anyway). Archiecture can never generate atmosphere without time. The priest that swings the incense in Notre Dame de Paris, the fog that creeps upon the Golden Gate Bridge, the thunder that lites up the Petronas Twin Towers. Architects can only go so far. The building that is created. The baby. Leaves the mother and exist on its own. It becomes another entity and only time can affect it.
Temporariness is sophisticated, ephemeral, atmospheric and ultimately beautiful. Death gives a meaning to life. Change is good and believing that everything that you do will eventually have a purpose is potent because it gives you the courage to do what you love and follow your heart.
An important note on regret : One hardly ever regrets the things he has done, much more the things he did not do.
A lack of courage. A weakening of the heart. A second. That is all it takes and the opportunity might be lost forever. 'Living each day as if it was your last' is hard for me to conceive at first. But a close death experience shifted my views somehow. Being hit by a bus on Oxford Street and came out unscathed certainly made an impression on me.
*You hyperventilate, you limp, you cry. Not because you are injured. Rather due to the shear magnitude of emotions that you felt being brushed by death. It is a hair's breadth away. Aways waiting for you.* I remember Andrew said 'every second that pass brings you closer to death'. It is morbid, depressing, overwhelming but who cares.
Optimism has never been in my vocabulary. But as i walk to school in the rain, among the grey buildings, i smile more often now. Maybe it is because i am glad to be alive. The fact that Golshid called and cried on the phone, the look on Tom's face at the hospital, signs that people cared about me. Everyone should try smiling every once in a while. The slightest lift of the muscles around the mouth could lead to the blooming of the Duchenne smile. And when warmth surges through your pours, it seeps into the surroundings and infects it.
The world is a mirror. Laugh and smile at it and it will smile back at you.
My 2010 Resolutions?
Gain Weight ( )
Get High Pass with Distinctions for MS ( ), TS ( ), HTS ( )
Produce works that are BEAUTIFUL ( )
Create a tailored portfolio ( )
and be god damn proud of it ( ) regardless of its quantity
Travel to Spain ( ), Portugal ( ), maybe Greece ( )
Love can wait. After all, desperation is not sexy.
I signed up at the Tottenham Court Road gym a week after the accident. The subscription is for a year, and i even got myself a personal trainer. So far, i am at 50 kgs. I also bought myself a few knick knacks and got a new haircut. Everything became spontaneous and impulsive which is not the usual way-too-careful-even-if-it-is-only-a-pen-stroke me. Perhaps this is a temporary phase, a residual shock.
It has been a long time. I have let myself get lazy and comfortable, doing what is sufficient to get me through the year, and nothing more. I find myself stuck in a routine where i do just enough to please the tutors. Never to wow anymore.
"Is architecture right for me?" If so, then why don't i live and breathe it,
creating an endless stream of work that makes me happy.
Things that i am proud of takes effort. It means hours and hours of obsession and work. It means getting really close to what I love. It is a tunnel vision and it is very dangerous. I got burnt a few times for trying last year. And i let myself get lost. Conforming to mediocrity. But it is time to pick up the pen and try harder.
Even if no one sees the brilliance or the talent, at least i am truthful to myself.
The truth about depression is that it can never be cured. There will always a lingering that is waiting to revive itself again. It can consume you but it can be controlled as well with enough sleep and food. Neither of which i have enough while i am pursuing architectural greatness. The state of completeness will always be temporal. As one reverts back to the original state of loneliness every now and then.
At some point in your life. You will have no one. Yes, you have close friends who have immediate families and soulmates. Once the schooldays are over, that is when you realize that you are left with no one. No witness. Nothing that will always come back to you. No love. Nothing.
Besides your family, you have nobody. And oh, how i crave for somebody to love.
Ranting over. Let me just bury myself in work before the need for a lover becomes too great a distraction again. Maybe i will be happier when i am at the top of the pack. Maybe then i will be content and you will come and find me.
A short update for this abandoned space. I'm back in London town, moved to a new crib in Albany Street. The room that i live in is way bigger and nicer than the one i had in Barbican so i'm happy. School started last week. The interview for my first choice went well and i got into Unit 3 in the intermediate school. That somewhat restored bits of my mojo that Maria killed mercilessly last year.
The tutors are great. We started our class by having a vist to the Science Museum in South Kensington. It was fun and i like the museum a lot. Went back 2 more times this week to seek inspiration for my project.
This is my unit's website: http://aainter3.wordpress.com/
Basically, this year will be about designing an infrastructure in India that deals with water. nuff said. Heading to India on the first week of November.
“Beyond a certain scale, beyond a certain critical mass, architecture acquires the properties of Bigness and a building becomes a Big Building. Such a mass can no longer be controlled by a single architecture gesture, or even by any combination of architectural gestures. This impossibility triggers the autonomy of its parts, but that is not the same as fragmentation: the parts remain committed to the whole.” 1
I think that when a building becomes too big, program architecture steps in. The idea turns out to be too complicated as it encompasses almost everything and functionality of the building’s organization dominates the form. One example that I will give is the CCTV by OMA, more specifically Rem Koolhaas.
At first, there is the idea of skyscrapers. “Is it nothing more than the constant and monotonous repetition of a piece of land in the vertical direction, whose only aim is the profitable multiplication of value of the ground and whose only means of expression are reduced to striving for absolute height and dominance of the skyline of the city? Is nothing left but the self-referential quality of a vertical line, with a decorative top sprouting a flower, pagoda style or modernist composition? Is higher the better all that remains?”2 Here, Rem manages to surprise the world with his radical and revolutionary design. He redefines skyscraper through a programmatic approach, bringing CCTV from temporal ambition of a nation to a monumental iconography of functionality.
When a building is too big, it becomes impossible for it to retain only one purpose. Just like how Burg Dubai turned into part hotel, part office-space and part residential. Making the voice of China, one of the largest television stations in the world is no different. Whereas the West chose to give in to “economical and psychological straitjackets, fragmenting TV making into individual parts and subject it to laws of what seems financially and typologically ‘appropriate’: the production studio would be hidden in the inexpensive, industrial parts of town, administration and management be located in the skyscraper dominated financial district, and the creative guys moved to the hip areas.”3 Rem Koolhaas’s wants to build a structure that would encompass every process in television making.
As such, the table is turned. CCTV develops into a manifestation of Bigness: “a theoretical domain at this fin de siècle: in a landscape of disarray, disassembly, dissociation, disclamation, the attraction of Bigness is its potential to reconstruct the Whole, resurrect the Real, reinvent the collective, reclaim maximum possibility.”4
The architects played with the building blocks much like a Lego piece, finding the logic in different combinations through a programmatic methodology. As such, you get program production at the lowest floor, with the broadcasting station beside it; news department in Tower 2, situated on top of the broadcasting station; multi-business in Tower 1, leveled on top of program production; plus, administration department capping off Tower 1 and 2.
Still, there is the lack of contact between the departments. So, Rem adds interconnecting loops and strategically placed communal areas to promote direct exchange, reminding the employees of their mutual dependence. In this sense, Rem manages to redefine the television industry, its organization and what it is like for the people working there. One other positive outcome of the loops is that the evacuation of the building is surprisingly fast in the event of an emergency and there are now, alternative escape routes if one section of the tower becomes inaccessible.
“Only Bigness can sustain a promiscuous proliferation of events in a single container. It develops strategies to organize both their independence and interdependence within a larger entity in a symbiosis that exacerbates rather than compromise specificity.”5 “It is the one architecture that engineers the unpredictable.”6
Through this series of progression, comes the resulting weird asymmetrical form that is truly avant garde in the world of architecture. A form that is excellent in terms of its “stiffness, redundancy, robustness and torsion capacity.”7 And if you rid the building of conventional vertical lines, the form begins to play with the viewer as he moves across the city: from gargantuan and intimidating up close, to miniscule and camouflaged from far.
“Where architecture reveals, Bigness perplexes: Bigness transforms the city from a summation of certainties into an accumulation of mysteries. What you see is no longer what you get.” 8
It is now a form that redefines architecture, the direction and the ambition of a country.
And from CCTV, is it not that “the artificiality and complexity of Bigness release function from its defensive armor to allow a kind of liquefaction; programmatic elements react with each other to create new events? Bigness returns to a model of programmatic alchemy”? 9
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 495, 499, 500.
Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, CCTV by O.M.A., (Introduction: Made in China), p.4.
Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, CCTV by O.M.A., (Introduction: Made in China), p.5.
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 510.
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 511.
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 511.
Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, CCTV by O.M.A., (Structure), p.56
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas. and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 501.
O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas. and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, (Bigness and the problem of Large), p. 512.
'There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to think that the reason it matters to care so passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.' - Susan Orlean
I want to be passionate about architecture. Just as Xavier Chassaing is passionate about his stop motion film. A splendid video project based on a composition of 35.000 photographs using the technique of live projection mapping and stop motion hardly sums the film. When you look at the film you feel something. Something primordial and singular. A feeling, a passion that is so powerful that it translates through the work of the artist.
The amount of dedication is beyond astounding. Not to mention the perfect execution. Talent does not exist in this realm.
This kind of art puts the students in AA to shame (except for Wataru *winks*)
No one does finished art anymore. It is an ideal that is thought of but never really taken seriously. AA is more about mass production of ideas. Quantity over quality. And i am conforming and producing more work which lacks in terms of technical execution. Frankly, having 3 tutorials a week, and working in 2-day-'staccatoes'... is not doing it for me.
The moment of creation which is almost orgasmic is sliced up so many times and influenced by so many parties that the primordial voice becomes diluted and lost. The art withers and so does the passion.
Well, i finally had a good day in London, even when i still have not get my accommodation yet. Since it's Sunday and none of the accommodation offices were open, i ended up hanging out with Anna the parasite and her mum. Spent the day lingering around the National Gallery, having loads of meals, one of them in a crypt under a chruch! Could ya believe it? A place where dead people once stayed. It's kind of cool in a odd way. Then after that, i went to China Town, tag along my mum, shopping for shoes along Regent Street and that is about it really, just nice to do something to take my mind of accommodation.
So far, everything is up in the air, fingers double and triple crossed now. AA accommodation office was not that much of a help, ISH is full and i will try a few student halls which is going to be expensive tomorrow, for the last few rooms. After the start of Introduction Week, i will call up a few landlords to check on the properties if i manage to find the time for it...
10080 minutes left in this place that I have just begun to identify as my home, my space and my comfort zone. Here is where almost everything happens my way, the way I like it. Here is where I am a dictator; with my subjects scurrying around to fulfill my demanding orders. Here is where all the things that I like best reside… my collection of books, cds, dvds, stamps, figures, coins, notes, concert tickets, key chains, trophies, not forgetting that kick arse four poster bed that can fit all the junk in my room and still have space for me to squeeze in, the silk comforter that makes me feel very relaxed and sometimes sexy *weak laugh*, the pillows that are always there when i have my urge to hug/pinch/kick/punch something, that wardrobe that is too small until nothing closes anymore but still lurking about because the tyrant decides it is time to start saving money (since he will be moving out soon anyway *shrugs*).
I am scared shitless right now, entering adulthood. Perhaps, nothing will ever be the same again after this. I have always complained about this shithole of a country that I am stuck in. Yet, for all its unfairness, secretive hideousness and outright discrimination, I find myself trying to grasp its imaginary leash or to tie myself somewhere, when it is time for me to leave. Not so much for the food, the stunning beaches and the somewhat bearable weather but for the family and friends that I have connected at this spot.
Sabah was different because home was near and I knew that the expedition is only for 2 months plus. Bearable. This is different.
I know that I will be making new friends there and there are some that I made already. But I guess circumstances change and the meaning of friends will change as well. Like how things between me and the other Raleigh venturers seem to stop after Raleigh because we ran out of topics to discuss. I have no close friends here anymore but that did not matter much because I realize that most friends are only temporal and you’d switch this set of people around you as you progress in life. Think I hit a brick wall with Min Sern, Yu Yang and Jon because the conversation through msn seems awfully dry. Maybe it is due to the fact that we are looking at different directions or maybe, I just could not be bothered to try any harder. I do not know. I am not much of a msn person.
I think what I will miss the most; and the nagging monster that is currently munching up my heart is that I realize that the COUNTDOWN has REALLY STARTED for my grandparents. Maybe it is 10 now or even 5 but that is just not enough. NOT FUCKING ENOUGH! Each year that I will come back will mean one more chance of seeing them, one more chance of thanking them, making them happy and a BLESSING in itself. Consequently, each visit will bring me down the numerical order until it finally stops at zero. Nothingness. I fervently hope that they will stay healthy as time passes, even though i know deep down inside that nothing stays forever.
"If I could take off a few years of my own life in exchange for yours just so that you will live long enough, I will…"
There is no real dilemma between choosing to fly off and to stay with you. Because I am selfish. I want to be extraordinary and brilliant.
But most of all, I want you to be really proud of me.
Before you tell me, I know that this site looks half dead. So, to entertain you loyal readers out there *not many I suspect* and also to show you guys my heartfelt appreciation, I’ve dug up some OLD-interesting-stuff/shit that I wrote and then burried back when I was in PM 13.
* * * * * * * *
In a life as stagnant as mine, to be able to amuse myself would be an evolutionary marvel. And surprisingly I must say, I am still capable of pleasing myself with my very own theory of evolution. Henceforth, I put forward my very first theory – Song Jie’s Theory of Evolutionary Magic. Which might be my thesis in the future if I could only care enough to develop and dwell on it. And it’s closely related to natural selection and human evolution. The whole idea struck me like a thunderbolt one day while I was reading a story book about magic and natural selection just manage to weave it way into my mind (Must be due to Neng’s thesis, still cannot forget how the dinosaurs go extinct. Damn those Chinqius >.<) The idea is rather simple really and I’m still working on it. So, it’ll have a rough texture to it, like a piece of gem within this layer of ugly molten rock on top of it. Maybe it’s just a rock after all…not a diamond, not a sapphire, a useless piece of rock. Only time will tell.
Have you ever wonder how the world of magic came about? And why is it that so many cultures in various parts of the world talk about it. Just like how the archaeologists stumbled upon two real dragon bodies, perfectly frozen in time in the mountains of Transylvania. And just like how scientist are able to explain the principles behindtraditional medicines which were once a mystery. Maybe it’s just the same. Maybe, magic can be as tangible as the clothes that you are wearing. Of course you’ll say “ya, right.” but that’s only natural. Humans are skeptical.
Okay, first you guys probably know what’s Charles Darwin Theory of Natural Selection right? So, I would not touch on that. Saves time and effort *I’m a lazy piece of skinny arse* So, my theory is that the key to magic, how some people have a tendency to draw energy from their surroundings and able to channel them to do wondrous things is that it is coded within our genes. Our DNA. Yup, genes is the key, the unit of inheritance, the segment of a DNA that codes for a specific polypeptide.
You know how the selection pressure or predation pressure can cause the extinction of a species or cause particular alleles to decrease in frequencies? I propose that magic is coded within our genes and act like pair of alleles. Either you have it or you don’t. And many centuries ago, the world could have been beautifully freckled by these kind of humans. Most of them could have been healers, a fraction of them necromancers and maybe the majority of them do not know how to unlock their abilities. During that Old Time, people respect magic and honour it. Thus, there’s probably a selective advantage for the magicians and they tend to pass on their traits and abilities because they are able to coexist with normal humans until their reproductive period. They are basically fit behaviorally and psychologically.
And as such, they should have been quite a lot of magicians these days right? Yet, that is not the case. Where have they gone to? We don’t see or come in contact with people with extraordinary abilities these days. Which might be due to “birds of a feather”….BUT, maybe it’s because of how our religion changed since then. Just like how Christianity came and affected the ways of the Old, how a religion can change a person’s belief and thus change the existence of another, like Merlin or Queen Mab in King Arthur *maybe they were real* Or perhaps it’s the subsequent burning of the witches. The selection pressure could have went against these magicians. Their natural ability becomes their ultimate disadvantage and downfall as they are shunned and sometimes burned by the community. That’s probably one of our weaknesses as humans, we tend to judge and condemn what our rational mind can not comprehend.*erm, go read about witch hunts and their trials and you'll see that they were horribly wrong and unjust*
'Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft vary between about 40,000 and 100,000.The total number of witch trials in Europe which are known for certain to have ended in executions is around 12,000.'
And thus, along with the propaganda against witchcraft and wizardry, anything related to paganism are forbidden. Maybe that’s how the allele frequencies decrease. These people simply do not survive until their reproductive age and pass on the trait to their children. Perhaps they got killed. Perhaps they end up hiding in the woods and remain single + miserable for the rest of their lives. Who knows? And so, the allele frequencies fell like a dead fly after breathing in your toxic aerosol spray. I’d presume they are close to extinction now. Maybe they ended up inbreeding for a few centuries and thus, although they still have the trait, inbreeding makes they vulnerable towards diseases and recessive traits which end up killing them as well. *Life sucks right?- I know*
This is all just a theory that I propose. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about it. We’ll see. I know I’m also implying that these skills that we have are coded in our genes so, it’s really hard to accept or explain. There are always exceptions right? Like how two parents who can’t draw ended up with a Chopin, Chardin in the family. So, I’ll need to refine it. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to crack the code for magic. Maybe David Blain is one of them. There are things that we can’t explain now, but maybe in the future it’ll be clearer. Maybe I’ll end up incorporate the genes within mice, insects and produce magical creatures *better work on my mad scientist laugh before that* Maybe I’ll be able to prove that magic is a form of energy. In which it can never be created of destroyed but can be changed from one form to another. That’d be cool. *even though I’ll be stealing, erm scratch that… BORROWING that idea from Eoin Colfer*
I could be a Nobel Laureate for my thesis and research. The chances are hopelessly slim but *I’m hopeful ;}*
*I like to dream big*
Accept or challenge the theory as you see fit. After all, what’s a theory if no one challenge it. *wink* And you don’t have to remind me that I sound like a deranged lunatic. I know that already.
* * * * * * * * E N D Photo- Fetish by NuclearSeasons
One of my favourite sculpture artist EVER! Love his grotesque miniature models to bits. Gothic + Hard Rock + Architecture + Neo-Classicalism + DETAILS >D. One day, i will attend one of his exhibitions and commission one of his work myself, perhaps another palace of hedonism *muahahaha*
Possibly my last 10 days in Borneo, in Raleigh International Sabah Spring’08 Expedition. Go on now, ask me how I feel. And I’ll tell ya that it feels so surreal, this experience of a lifetime is just flying past me. Before I know it, it’s the last phase, last few weeks with people whom I will never meet again.
Serendipity. Chanced coincidences. Fate. They only played a minor role in this story. Sure, they brought us together but free will and spontaneousity speaks so much more. I love Tampasak. Doing hard core work from 7.00 am till 5.00 pm is not much compared to the amount of satisfaction that you get when you nail the last piece of floorboard; when a wall is finished; when the veranda’s done. Wish I had more personal time and time to mingle with the locals, the community and the kids. Today, James and I went to Divani’s sister’s house for lunch because I was invited by Christopher. Hated the fact that I can’t have lunch with the locals whenever I want just because the brits think it’s unfair. *sigh* Carpe Diem, Seize the Day. I want to do so much to make each second memorable but that resulted in less time to reflect on it, to think twice, to rest, to linger and to savour every single moment: every single fibre of thought, emotion and feeling. Yesterday, I joined Jonny, James, Ed, Guy in their communal strip show for the loop. Yieks. Can’t believe I actually stripped abso-fucking-lutely naked to the tunes of “lady marmalade” with a bright yellow helmet over my *beep*. Surprisingly, I don’t have a hard on being an exhibitionist and it was all over before I know it. *haha* *weak laugh* Today, I finished a wall ++, played badminton with the locals. Got defeated.Rematch tomorrow. Played volleyball too. Really wasted. Wish I could do more but fearing I will not enjoy each moment that much. Carpe Diem is really tiring. Written during the Chruchstep Club gathering.
