Our life here was just a momentary illusion, and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came from.
- Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
Wednesday, 10 June 2015
Travel Vlog #2
Our life here was just a momentary illusion, and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came from.
- Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
New York
Everywhere you travel to, it's true that you leave a piece of yourself in that city/country. A part of you lingers there -- maybe it's your soul, or maybe it's just a memory -- but it's still there, living, breathing, existing there as part of you.
The most memorable city for me was New York City. Staying in Manhattan for a week opened my eyes to the world out there. The bright city lights that sparkled throughout the night, but also the dark and dirty society that coexisted within the city. To say that New York is the city of dreams may be an overstatement, a utopia created for the naive and the hopeful. Walking through the streets of Fifth Avenue or Lafayette or Broadway you seen skyscrapers that tower above you, with stores like Barney's or Bergdorf Goodmans screaming "money! money!" left and right of your peripheral vision. People of every age, every nationality, strutting down these cobbled pavements hawking their branded wares, but then when you look down you see the homeless clothed in their winter wear on a hot summer day, dirty and without a care. Inequality reeks heavily in the streets, yet nothing can be done for it is too far entrenched to be salvaged. The underground is horribly unreliable and sewage is bad, yet for those that have never been there, all is amazing and sparkly.
People always shoot the beautiful parts of the city -- the juxtaposition of new and old in the muted palette of old fire escapes in Soho; but if you turn to the opposing street, it's the dirty and drab Chinatown where perhaps I don't wish that my apartment even had a fire escape.
Everything here is glamourised; the coffee, the food, the buildings, the people. Superficial happiness should I say. Things are over priced, people give you fake smiles, I don't really know anymore.
However to qualify, New York sure does have a certain charm of independence. It's not a city to start a family in, but it's a city where you find yourself or should I say lose yourself in. Imagine a day where you wake up and grab a coffee at the cafe down the street before heading to work. Perhaps having lunch in the park before heading home to go for a run along Brooklyn Bridge with the sun setting at late hours. There after enjoying a cozy night with friends at the nearby bar, or the uptown sushi restaurant, or crying over the new episode of your serial with a tub of Ben and Jerry's. Eating salad is the norm and you do lots of walking. When it's time to visit home you can spend hours in the car on your phone just because you're stuck in a jam on the way to JFK airport. On days off you can shop your woes away or you could lose yourself in one of the biggest museums in the world. Everyday, you can do whatever you want however you want, because it's an open society, it's New York, it's America. There are tons of people so nobody knows you, or the chance is low, but you can start anew.
Leaving off with a positive thought about New York, which is how I'd like to remember my stay as doing all those things as said above. It was truly an experience.
The most memorable city for me was New York City. Staying in Manhattan for a week opened my eyes to the world out there. The bright city lights that sparkled throughout the night, but also the dark and dirty society that coexisted within the city. To say that New York is the city of dreams may be an overstatement, a utopia created for the naive and the hopeful. Walking through the streets of Fifth Avenue or Lafayette or Broadway you seen skyscrapers that tower above you, with stores like Barney's or Bergdorf Goodmans screaming "money! money!" left and right of your peripheral vision. People of every age, every nationality, strutting down these cobbled pavements hawking their branded wares, but then when you look down you see the homeless clothed in their winter wear on a hot summer day, dirty and without a care. Inequality reeks heavily in the streets, yet nothing can be done for it is too far entrenched to be salvaged. The underground is horribly unreliable and sewage is bad, yet for those that have never been there, all is amazing and sparkly.
People always shoot the beautiful parts of the city -- the juxtaposition of new and old in the muted palette of old fire escapes in Soho; but if you turn to the opposing street, it's the dirty and drab Chinatown where perhaps I don't wish that my apartment even had a fire escape.
Everything here is glamourised; the coffee, the food, the buildings, the people. Superficial happiness should I say. Things are over priced, people give you fake smiles, I don't really know anymore.
However to qualify, New York sure does have a certain charm of independence. It's not a city to start a family in, but it's a city where you find yourself or should I say lose yourself in. Imagine a day where you wake up and grab a coffee at the cafe down the street before heading to work. Perhaps having lunch in the park before heading home to go for a run along Brooklyn Bridge with the sun setting at late hours. There after enjoying a cozy night with friends at the nearby bar, or the uptown sushi restaurant, or crying over the new episode of your serial with a tub of Ben and Jerry's. Eating salad is the norm and you do lots of walking. When it's time to visit home you can spend hours in the car on your phone just because you're stuck in a jam on the way to JFK airport. On days off you can shop your woes away or you could lose yourself in one of the biggest museums in the world. Everyday, you can do whatever you want however you want, because it's an open society, it's New York, it's America. There are tons of people so nobody knows you, or the chance is low, but you can start anew.
Leaving off with a positive thought about New York, which is how I'd like to remember my stay as doing all those things as said above. It was truly an experience.
Friday, 5 June 2015
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Procrastination of the mind.
- Kazuo Ishiguro; Never Let Me Go
'It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open up to.'
Am I an ostrich burying my head in the sand? Basically, I just don't have the courage to face up to the decisions I have to make. I've always hated making decisions. But this time, I'm scared to make the wrong move - a move in which I'll have to bear the consequences later on in life. Thus, the pushing pushing pushing of thoughts out of my head; doing everything but the very thinking, or should I say pondering of my future. At the tender age of 19, I can't say I'm still young and unaware, because this age calls for maturity, reason and understanding - things I'm still not really sure I actually possess to a sufficient degree.
'I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.'- S.E. Hinton; That Was Then, This Is Now
Maybe this quote has a certain flaw - maybe when we're kids, we didn't need the answer, we just needed an answer that led us to the next step. Today pastor talked about faith in action, a faith so strong that we just needed to trust God to take us each step at a time, a faith that didn't need to bring us so far into the future, but just the next step. And I think this was what we were bestowed with as kids, but yet lost as we grew up with the world.
Rational mind, mature reasoning. Ending this with a thousand sighs, like always.
Sunday, 3 May 2015
1 am woes
Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel uncomfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!” It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love.
-Thought Catalog
-Thought Catalog
Working blues
Work has started and its worser than banking days. The hours, the lack of friends... It just cumulates to an unhappy atmosphere that I can't wait to get out of. Now I know the feeling of being bounded by contracts. The feeling of obligation to comply to a task that you barely want to adhere to.
However, this job is indeed an eye opener. An eye opener to the life of immigrants - people who have come from far - just to work for a basic wage, a wage we singaporeans deem as low, but to them its a catch that will never be offered back home.
It's hard to do what you really want to do; it's either you do it for less, or you forgo it totally.
However, this job is indeed an eye opener. An eye opener to the life of immigrants - people who have come from far - just to work for a basic wage, a wage we singaporeans deem as low, but to them its a catch that will never be offered back home.
It's hard to do what you really want to do; it's either you do it for less, or you forgo it totally.
mundane life
Ever since I've ended my hectic junior college life, I've become a bed-potato/movie junkie/person-wallowing-in-a-mellowed-nature-of-existence.
1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Hunger Games - Catching Fire
4. The Notebook
5. Pitch Perfect
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
9. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
10. The Perks of being a Wallflower
11. Crazy Stupid Love
12. Love Actually
13. Ted
14. Easy A
15. Les Miserables
16. The Proposal
17. Inception
18. Killers
19. The Wolf of Wall Street
20. One Day
21. The Vow
22. When in Rome
23. The Theory of Everything
24. Lost in Translation
25. Kingsmen: The Secret Service
26. Somewhere only we know
27. Back to 20
28. Ode to my Father
29. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
30. She's the Man
31. Avengers
32. Fashion King
33. The Con Artists
34. Dragon Blade
1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Hunger Games - Catching Fire
4. The Notebook
5. Pitch Perfect
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
9. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
10. The Perks of being a Wallflower
11. Crazy Stupid Love
12. Love Actually
13. Ted
14. Easy A
15. Les Miserables
16. The Proposal
17. Inception
18. Killers
19. The Wolf of Wall Street
20. One Day
21. The Vow
22. When in Rome
23. The Theory of Everything
24. Lost in Translation
25. Kingsmen: The Secret Service
26. Somewhere only we know
27. Back to 20
28. Ode to my Father
29. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
30. She's the Man
31. Avengers
32. Fashion King
33. The Con Artists
34. Dragon Blade
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