Just to show that I still remember that this site exists.

I won’t elaborate on it now, but I wonder how often and how easy it is for rifts to cause between friends. For example, I might react violently (not literally) to a friend’s action, which could itself be a reaction to something I’ve done earlier, which might be interpreted in a dozen ways. Without clear dialogue and straight-to-the-point talk, it’s often hard to get to the bottom of anything, and the rift gets wider and wider.

Maybe.

Anyway, very busy and tired now.  After a “Pre-final” presentation yesterday, we have less than two days to make sweeping changes (except the good, lucky or indifferent ones) to our work and to print and pin up everything again by Thursday 11am. Exorbitant costs aside,  I am just wondering why couldnt they have this interim (because that was really what it was) a few days earlier, so at least a week to brush up our work…

As for the customary respite after finishing of one project – none! on Friday I just remembered I have a submission for an assignment I know next to nothing about, and on Saturday we leave for Eichstaett, Germany for our next studio project. I reiterate what my tutors tell me that it’s not a holidayey trip – have to choose a site, formulate strategy, blah blah blah. Knowing my tendency to sleep for 15 hours or so after a major period of sleeplessness, I just hope I manage to wake on on Saturday morning to catch my flight.

Anyway, the clock is ticking…..

Studio MSN?

You know how design tutors always go on and on about working together in a studio, where interaction will then happen between classmates…. an exchange of ideas, a “fruitful discussion”, et cetera et cetera and then they moan that “students nowadays” just don’t seem to have that sense of camaraderie anymore, or seem to work together, help each other out, blah blah blah.

But do we not?  Especially in our case – where there is a bunch of Malaysians away from home.  I certainly feel its presence (especially when throwing parties). I think that design discussion have merely moved into virtual space, like everything else these days . Almost everyone I know goes back to do their design work at home, making models or sketching or drafting, but everyone is connected via MSN or whatever, and discussion and idea exchange continues to happen.

In fact, with the unique set of options that comes with virtual chatting, the discussions and exchange is even more varied. I mean, nothing’s stopping you now from holding a video design crit with someone on the other side of the world, except perhaps normal bedtimes, which has no place in an architecture student’s vocabulary anyway.

The major downside is that you can’t draw or to point at things out to explain what you mean or to test ideas, and MSN Handwriting is not exactly the perfect replacement. Will that change when tablets or other electronic pen thingies become affordable for everyone? The laptop and CAD once wasn’t. The internet is our new studio…..

How does that work then? Hmm.

*picture is of the studio me, flora, puisan, peifun attended during our exchange in Ghent….my point is – all I can see is laptops, and the studio can be anywhere. Makes you wonder if one day everyone will be holding tablets instead of laptops and sketchbooks.

Pictures are left intentionally really dark… because the windows and the pitch of the roof just lends itself to really crazy natural lighting in that former monastery and I wanted to show it like it was.

RAW files rocks

It’s a dilemma I could never solve – Me and Flora have 2 DSLR cameras, a compact camera, and about 4 camera phones between us, and my hard drive has been almost completely taken over by the gargantuan amount of photos. The difference is that she has about 248012414 photo albums on facebook and loads of photos in her blog and I have next to none. I take every photo with (usually) the same amount of effort and enthusiasm, but once transferred to my hard drive I mostly forget about them completely. I completely wipe them from my memory and wait for the next opportunity to take more (hence) inconsequential photos. I think I desperately need to do something about this problem. (Being me, I will use design studio as excuse and “reschedule ” it for xmas break)

Anyway, my life is completely taken up by this semester’s studio and sports (must), so I have no time to ramble about random topics like I used to for the past months. Probably won’t even be updating much, and have given up on trying to finish all the feeds my RSS reader is demanding me to read. But I’m not complaining; man, these student days aren’t gonna last for too long!

Some pictures from Guy Fawkes Night

Recession fireworks – they seemed to be shorter and to be honest, quite mediocre. I was fooling around with different angles, zooms, shutter speeds and apertures throughout the display – So with all the settings-changing taking place in between shots I only managed to capture only a few photos.

I wanted to use these 2 couples (yes, it’s actually 2 couples) as a sort of lead-in to the fireworks but now they look like just one, and homosexual, couple. I hope the girls don’t know that their boyfriends are secretly dating behind their back.

Whine

I planned to write a post at 5am this morning, just to show how a year of “normal times”   quickly melted away to the usual cycle of late, quiet nights and terribly tired mornings that happened almost as soon as I re-entered architecture in uni. I failed, because I fell asleep just before that, which just goes to show that I am getting old……. My flat has a extremely comfortable couch. Plus I have a sofa-bed in bed mode in my living room at all times (don’t ask).  That’s bad news by itself, but at least napping without a duvet or cover of any sort will make me wake up quickly enough. The worst thing is that I get up and in my sleep-dazed mode go to my “proper” bed…

Why do I need to torture myself so? Because I can’t concentrate during the day!

This is like going back to Taylor’s! Sigh.

Physics & Time Travel & Concrete

Physics was not the most exciting thing I learned in secondary school. Quite likely it was the way that education was imparted in my dear school. Anyway, the stuff this world is made up of and space etc are all super fascinating.

The most important event on the physics calender 2009,  is probably the LHC – Large Hadron Collider trying to do its thing again, in December after breaking down last year. Look, it’s even got its own .ac.uk website, for what reason I don’t know. (except to emphasize UK’s role, perhaps) Some people, though, think that it will not work again, because it’s a freaking jinx when you try to learn too much about what you’re not supposed to. Not some religious dogma, but that theory was put forward by, as the New York Times put it, “otherwise distinguished scientists”. Quite a sardonic remark, but ahem, otherwise an interesting article: here

That pointed me to this time travel article that took up too much of my library time. You know something is possible when it’s now a serious topic for serious physicists and not anymore for just wacky sci-fi writers. Apparently, publishing articles and serious papers on time travel when it wasn’t a socially/scientifically/socio-scientifically? acceptable would tarnish your reputation as “serious scientists”. Time for a career change and write some sci-fi novels then…

Stupid to link them, but you could compare it to architecture. Advocates of new and radical stuff always gets ridiculed/scorned by the purists or classcists or historicists or whatever. (and some already-old stuff STILL gets ridiculed) I mean, stone is an ancient building material and all, but just give up and use concrete, already.

(trying to read books expounding the qualities of stone, and then concrete, right after one another gives me a headache)

That, and buying yet more books from Amazon, sums up my day at the library. Not very productive…

GO go go

Long days without updates always points to two possible factors – no time, or no internet. Guess what, it’s both….

The “exhibition” last week. quote marks because it wasn’t the best of exhibitions I think. But anyway that clearly marked the tempo of the semester because now, at the 3rd week, a tutor suggested (also known as requested) we start moving into 1:100 and 1:50 sections as soon as it’s possible for us laggardy lumberheads…..

It may actually be a good thing because the idea is not to waste valuable weeks at the beginning dithering over rather pointless things like useless analysis – (emphasis on useless; as opposed to relevant analysis), and kinda do everything in one go and as you go; synthesize analysis, concepts, ideas, solutions, problems, context, urban design, urban response, and whatever other technical jargon you have right from the get-go.

Some days I think I should sit down, think things through and do things properly, but other days I couldn’t be bothered, and that’s the problem.

Hey!

I don’t have internet at home, so that’s a convenient excuse for not blogging.

But this post is not about saying I haven’t updated for ages. It’s to say that studying for years and years in university lends you a certain depth and growth in your thought that is different from the sort of lessons you are bound to get in real life. Most university courses are 3-4 years long and it seems that before you know what is happening or start to appreciate the amount of physical (temporal) and mental (intellectual growth) freedom accorded to you by uni life, you are already gearing up for graduation. Those of us who are bound to uni for twice as long, I think, starts to appreciate it and I think that is the start of certain changes to the way you think. Especially after a year out in practice or doing other stuff. I remember I wondered last year how I would feel when I returned to uni. Well I can say I am very happy to be doing so.

4th Year started with a bang with a near instantaneously-given huge amount of work, but so far, as have been discussed between me and several classmates, we somehow face it differently- a more confident, less stressed-out, and more relaxed attitudes. Also helpful (or unhelpful) is the aura of expectation and level of trust given by members of faculty to “Fourth Year Students”, as if the gap year in between have suddenly increased our credibility by huge amounts. Perhaps it’s that sort of action that is shown by members of the faculty that makes us react with real or feigned confidence.

I think that will last only until tutorials starts, anyway. Let’s see if that turns out to be the case.

Time to Board…

The first few weeks of my vacation in KL, when I hit the MRR2 to visit Flora I drove with a tame average speed of 70-90 kph and obeyed traffic rules and was kind and courteous to fellow drivers on the road. Earlier today, when I drove that route for what will be the last time in a couple of years, I stuck to the fast lane and averaged about 50% faster (but still being kind and courteous to fellow drivers on the road if you were wondering).  It is at that point where I can say my re-assimilation into Malaysian culture is complete. ;)

But of course, I will be going to the airport in a few hours, away for another indefinite period of time, and who knows what adventures await me this time around….

Bye home!

Nanshan 南山

I prepared this second Hainan post to be posted immediately after the last one, but was kinda delayed (by 2 and a half weeks) because I had to go to the airport to pick Alex & Xenia up (who were visiting), and subsequently holidaying around Malaysia. ;) Which meant no time to go online!

Anyway, after whirlwind super-fast trips of Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, Pulau Perhentian & Taman Negara, I’ve just sent them off to the station; they’ll finish the rest of their holiday by themselves, and I will be sent to the airport myself (after all this sending of other people) to return to Glasgow late on tuesday night.

Back to the original content…

The huge tourist complex on Nanshan (南山) includes several resorts, dozens of temples and shrines, a huge mountain (hence the name) and some other stuff. It’s the southernmost part of China (hence the name again) and beyond that is the South China Sea and Vietnam.

Anyway, “huge tourist complex” means you have to pay for every single thing -  to enter the temple, to light up some incense, to do this, to do that…. According to the guide, the Chinese government invested millions to promote both local and international tourism for the island of Hainan, and especially on this “religious tourism” thingy in Nanshan. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised then.

Just so you aren’t confused by the previous picture – this gigantic statue of a three-faced Goddess of Mercy GuanYin (a side representing wisdom, a side for compassion and a side for mercy) is built on a mini man-made island, and not on the main island.

And of course, it is almost a pre-resquisite to go over and hug her “feet” and pray for good luck and prosperity and peace and safety and whatever you may wish to pray for.

Hainan

First off, I’m not so pleased with the photos from the trip. But anyhow, I’ll post some up anyway, just because there is a dearth in photos recently ;). It was my first ever time using my dad’s D80 though, so perhaps I get some slack cut…

I love looking out of the windows of anything – cars, planes, boats (ok maybe no windows on those), trains, buses, etc. Of course, I always have a book with me as well, but only reading or only looking out is boring on its own. Looking out of plans is the most challenging because most of the time it’s just blinding white light, but if you glance out every so often you might get something different.

The city of Sanya (三亚), Hainan’s second most populous city. Throughout the trip I was amazed at many things – from the good to the bad – and almost all of it could be found in this city. The thing I am left speechless the most is the “total tourist package”, a meticulously contrived spending sham glossed over by the merest, most threadbare hint of  marketing and packaging. Speaking to the guide about the mechanics of the tourist industry in China, I could only shake my head. I can’t stand the plants on the bottom right by the way.

Me

The pace of development is surreal in its speed, the frenetic pace taking on a comic effect that resembles one of those roadrunner cartoons, where buildings are forever chasing other buildings for height, square footage and garish, stupid features. Dilapidated shacks lie next to concrete monuments, much like shrines to an alien religion. (ok been reading too much JG Ballard)

Driving concerns

When I use the MRR2 to go to Wangsa Maju, where Flora lives,  the distance is about 30km. It takes almost exactly 30 minutes from door to door in almost all congestion-free conditions, costs RM3.20 (return) and I think that’s brilliantly quick. Yet when I use the quickest toll-free way – via Pusat Bandar Damansara, Dynasty Hotel, Jalan Pahang and then Jalan Genting Klang – it takes about 30 minutes as well, and yet I feel it’s such a long and tiring drive that I would (sometimes) rather pay the RM 3.20 at no significant reduction in journey time.

Why?

I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that the MRR2 is one long, long stretch of road, where I can let my more automated reflexes take over the driving, and just make sure no car is trying to kill me. Then I can let my mind wander off to ponder about other stuff. On the various other routes, you have to keep left and keep right, turn left and turn right, queue up in long lanes, inch forward on congested roads, exit this highway and enter that other highway, et cetera. It takes much more mental effort.

Somehow that seems like a flawed theory to me. It seems that I feel that way on the toll-free route only because I am not used to that particular combination yet. If i stick to using the toll-free route, I think eventually that drive will be similarly relaxed as well.

Either way, the part about the perceived length of the journey is interesting. I wonder what sort of other situations, contexts and relationships in which this subtle illusion plays in our lives. I suspect the answer is: everywhere, for eg: choosing which brands of (anything) to buy, choosing where to buy property, where to eat, to shop, to park, to study, to live, to work, and to play. I suppose marketers and advertising executives are intimately familiar with this.

Perhaps it’s worth the while to be more careful in the future to look out for such illusory concepts and not to be swayed into paying RM3.20 every time when all you need is to familiarise yourself with the alternative. ;) To conclude I should also say I know next to nothing about pscyhology, marketing and/or advertising.

Place of Origin

We know cultures, contexts and environments influence people’s behaviour and their personalities. I can say for myself that I managed to contain my habit to procrastinate towards the latter part of my time in UK and actually managed to nurture some sort of efficiency and productivity. I lost it as soon as I touched down in KLIA.

KL with its many distractions, inconveniences and prevailing work ethic/ social culture has over the years encouraged and worsened my procrastination. As soon as I came back I slid effortlessly into who I was before I left. But the past two years are not a dream, they came and went. I can see how kicking this terrible habit can change my life, and now that I am back I am going to kick it at the damn place of origin, before I return to Glasgow.

Parking Spaces

I should say first of all that I am a student of architecture and know next to nothing about business or making money.

Anyway, it’s a Malaysian pasttime to go out in droves to the shopping malls. Before they step foot in the mall, they first have to engage in a desperate battle for survival in securing a parking spot, either in the mall’s provided spaces or, if it’s after 6pm or a weekend, anywhere at all. (no saman mah)

On weekdays mornings and afternoons, it’s so easy to find a spot in 1 Utama or the malls in Mutiara Damansara. There is an abundance of choice parking spots for you to stake your claim on. I remember a time when it was the same for Midvalley, but that’s not the case anymore. I say that based on “research”. My “research” is that I went there three out of the past five weekdays in the afternoon and at least 70% of the parking zones were full. [Edit: Flora thinks at least 85% were full]

There are these convenient LED signboards around the Midvalley Ring Road that shows the availability of parking spaces in different zones – Green for plenty, Red for full, and Orange for somewhere in between. There are maybe 5 or 6 of these zones. (Clearly I am not an observant person). When I arrived in all three instances around 2pm, most were red, and maybe a couple were orange.

Though I have no idea of the demographics of the people who visit Midvalley on a weekday morning/afternoon, I’d daresay that a substantial number visit for work-related reasons (that includes visiting or appointments with someone who is working in one of the adjacent offices, but not those who work in the mall), and not for the traditional purposes associated with a shopping mall.

I think that made the vital difference in driving up the demand for car parking spaces. And now people will gladly park at the Gardens’ Premier Zone to save the hassle of meandering through the endless car parks. Not only that, I’m sure most people will pay an extra RM1 or RM2 in normal parking zones if it means saving time. Man, I can just imagine someone laughing all the way to the bank.

(Note to PJ malls – You have a lot to learn!)

Finally, when I left at about 6pm on Thursday and 7pm on Friday, all five (or six) zones as shown on the LED signboards were green.

Driving

While weaving my way through KL’s long snaking trails of traffic, Flora remarked that a person’s driving was indicative of their personality and character. If that’s the case, your car on the road is representative of you. And if life is a journey, driving might be seen as you making your way through life.

What does that say about traffic lights then?

Perhaps traffic lights and how drivers react to them are analogous to how people face and overcome obstacles in their life. Think of the people who wait patiently for the light to turn green, and they arrive at their destination safe and sound, albeit a tiny bit slower. Also, think of the people who blatantly drive through red lights to meet accidents, to meet a police roadblock or traffic police, or worst of all, to get away scot-free.

And think of the people who take advantage of courteous drivers by switching lanes abruptly, or the people who cut into lanes abruptly, cutting queues at the last possible moment, clog the traffic behind them so they can shave 15 seconds of their journey. What do that say about their characters and personalities? What about drivers in your communities; How does the quality of driving in a city reflect the character and personality of the city?

It’s always your habits that reveal the most about you. The next time you drive on the road, keep an eye out for different sorts of drivers, and on yourself, and notice what you are revealing to the world.

Good Trips Bad Trips

When you go away on holiday, especially if it is to a different country, you suspend your life temporarily whether you want to or not. Even more so if you switch off your wifi-enabled email-receiving GPRS/3G/EDGE/GSM/WTV capable smartphone and refrain from surfing the net. That’s good when you need a break but obviously not when you are on a roll. It’s a bad trip when it disrupts your rhythm.

Anyway, I spent the last six days in Hainan island in China without a phone and internet access. I completely and thoroughly forgot about everything I have yet to do in KL/Glasgow. Whether the trip itself was fun was another matter, but the point is it was a different experience and a different trip in more ways than one, so this infusion of fresh input is fascinating to say the least.

So, it’s a good trip. Especially when our return flight fell on the one, single calm day in between two typhoons storming past in that vicinity. Harmless superstition says that’s because we visited the gigantic Guanyin statue in Nanshan (and hugged her “legs”) the day before our return, resulting in endless “临时抱佛脚” jokes.

On a long, long night

Thunder rumbled. The familiar sound of rainwater hitting the clay roof tiles and the polycarbonate skylight soon started to reach my ears. It’s been a long time since I last heard that sound. I remember only one thunderstorm in Europe; that was last year, in Ghent, and the smell of the damp wood in Johannes’ ancient and creaking house where I lived in reminded me of my grandma’s old shophouse more than ever.

The days leading to my flight back home was long and tiring, and I was physically drained from all the heavy lifting, packing, moving, lack of sleep and unpacking. It was exacerbated by a slight asthma problem that appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t get much rest and was looking forward to being able to recuperating when I arrived.  On the day of the flight itself, and on the plane I hardly slept at all. Thus I was hoping that like two years ago, the effects of jet lag would be minimal.

It wasn’t.

I went to bed at 3am, but fell asleep around 4 and woke up at 4:30. The rain started at 6:30. In the two hours between me waking up and the rain starting I tried a variety of things; walking about my room, reading old comic books, playing games on my mobile, reading a book. In the end I picked up my Ipod and started listening to some Spitz. The last time I listened to the Japanese band was during my last days in the office, and hearing the familiar songs created a weird temporal link to dates, places, events and people halfway across the world. How strange.

Everything Flows

My favourite-est food in the world has to be fresh fish steamed with soy sauce and all the variety of vegetables etc that goes into the dish. A huge freshwater catfish (Ikan Baung or Pak Sou Kong) was the main dish of my first dinner in KL after 2 years, and it was lovely, to say the least. ;D

I just love garlic and cili padi as well and have slowly eaten less and less of them in the UK because I could hardly finish them before they became un-fresh and consequently crappy and I had to throw them away. In the end I just kinda stopped eating them. Yesterday the garlic and cilipadi were extremely fresh, and I was happy.

Everything looks the same and works the same, but distinctly different at the same time. Many metal and wooden objects have taken on a faint patina of age, plastic and paper products have yellowed, the walls are weathered, framed photographs discolored, faces aged, voices filled-out.

I am reminded of Heraclitus, who lived 2500 years ago and said that “Everything is in constant flux and movement, nothing is abiding. Therefore, we cannot step into the same river twice. When I step into the river for the second time, neither I nor the river are the same.”

OK, so that wasn’t exactly what he said (it was actually “On those stepping into rivers the same, other and other waters flow”, which is too deep for me to understand….), and not nearly what he meant, but it is close enough.

Add-On

The last post was meant to have some accompanying pictures; I wrote it last week and scheduled it to post at a later date, intending to put pictures in at one point. Well, I procrastinated and didn’t, and forgot about it until Tristyn wrote a fast comment and then I realised it was already published. So in the midst of a packing fervour…

There really is no reason to pack 3 magazines and 2 books for a 10 hour return trip other than having a variety to choose from. ;) All of these were in various stages of completion. What can I say, I am fickle. What’s ironic is that I left them all in Glasgow and instead borrowed one of Charlie’s books to read on the way back.

Taking the train is by far my favourite mode of transport. Among all of the countries me and Flora have taken the train together in, she thinks UK’s scenery is the most beautiful. While I personally think that what little I saw of Norway was stunning as well, I have no reason to argue with her.

From the cultivated farmland of the south to the (relative) wilderness of the Lake District to the Scottish Lowlands, looking out of the window on a Glasgow-London trip is never boring. Unfortunately traveling at 125 mph doesn’t make for great picture-taking, so clouds are the easiest.

These pictures were actually taken on the London Paddington- Bristol route, but I saw similar cooling towers on the London-Glasgow route. I had no idea what these were the first time I saw them.

I guessed they were cooling towers of some kind, and 5 minutes on wikipedia showed that they were “natural draft wet cooling hyperbolic cooling towers” belonging to Didcot Power Plant, a coal and gas fired plant near Didcot Parkway, one of the stations en route.

A year of Glasgows and Londons

On an extremely hectic day in late July 2008, we rushed to Glasgow Central train station late at night and took the Caledonian Sleeper to London Euston. We arrived in the morning, dazed, tired, and with too many suitcases and bags. Fogged with sleep, we made our way to Nicholas’ place in Belsize Park where we crashed for a few days on his hospitality and figured out what to do next. A few days later we found a temporary flat in Camden Town, and we moved in immediately. Later, I found a placement in the nick of time and in November we moved to Hertfordshire, to a small town in Enid Blyton land.

In September 2008 I went to Heathrow airport with Flora (detouring first to have a good look at the then recently launched T5) to pick up my Manchester-bound sister and holidaying parents. The next day, we took a Virgin Pendolino up to Glasgow Central and spent nearly two weeks travelling about in Scotland. Later, me and my parents drove down to London in a rented MPV via Manchester, dropping my sister off at her uni on the way.

Two weeks ago I left work early on a balmy Thursday afternoon, took the FCC plying the Great Northern Route down to King’s Cross like we always do, walked to Euston and repeated my earlier journey up to Glasgow Central, this time alone. I met Charlie at the station just as the sun set, about 11pm, and spent the weekend finding a flat. I chose the best one available  (not many) and returned to London, feeling sick for most of the train ride.

And on Monday, I repeated the whole process again, this time with Flora, and again with a large number of suitcases and bags. We signed the lease for the new place, moved some of our stuff in, and returned all the way down south.

And next Monday late July 2009, it will be one last, conclusive journey (for the foreseeable future anyway), this time with a dude in a van, and with all our tons of stuff we have.

All told, it’s been exactly a year of travelling up, down, and up again, and what a year has it been!

Leaving #4 Language

The first time someone asked me if I was “alright”, I answered yes and wondered if extreme distress was plastered all over my face.

After fifty repeats, I finally accepted that it was just the local way of greeting. It was disconcerting, and until now I must say I still feel strange when I use it (out of necessity). Yeah yea, it’s probably the same all over the UK, but I didn’t spend too long here before gallivanting off to Belgium, so I wasn’t used to it.

I find it faintly ironic that the English, having invented the english language, find it rather difficult to understand it in any other accent. Though, you could argue that having invented the language, it follows that however they speak it must be the “proper” way to do so. As far as my inconclusive experiences shows, it’s best necessary to speak in something that is at least faintly similar to the accent they use, or else be prepared to repeat countless times and then see your attempt at establishing communication dissolve into helpless despair.

The “you alright?” greeting is sacrosanct. Every single conversation in almost every possible situation is first preceded by an automatic and natural inquiry if someone is “alright”. It’s more perfunctory then the “lahs” that Malaysians use. But I suppose that is probably a more civilised starter to a phone conversation then “Ei, where are you??!?!?@#!@” as Malaysians are wont to do…

The most annoying thing is after finally getting to grips with the quirks of the language here, I now have to re-learn everything when I head back up north!

Leaving #3 Badminton

When I was in Belgium, I used to sample Ghent’s nightlife quite a fair bit, mainly due to the influence of my housemates and classmates. With the help of alcohol, meeting people was easy. Because of the massive language barrier, conversation in badly-broken English rarely went beyond who I was, where I was from, what I was doing in Ghent, and vice versa for the other party. I usually saw them only once. Even if I did see them again I could hardly ever recognise them. Meeting new friends was easy – so was leaving them.

It is/was different here. It was sad that I only got to know a few colleagues pretty well (a minuscule percentage) but I managed to make a few friends out of the local badminton club, a group made interesting by its disparity. With my relative ease with the English language (as compared to Dutch), I was able to have quite a few conversations in between games. It’s surprising how much information can go back and forth during those few minutes……

Anyway, with my total lack of social life here, I attended these badminton nights religiously, and I like it alot. Long story short, the whole point of this post is to say that I’m gonna miss it!

Capoeira in St. Albans

Now that the academic year has ended, the capoeira classes of the University of Hertfordshire’s Hatfield campuses has closed for the summer. Some weeks ago I went for the more adultish class at St Albans, which is even further away.

St Albans is an old, old city, complete with Roman baths and stuff. It was once known as Verulamium – the third largest city in Roman Britain. In fact, it’s one of the first settlements in Britain with a name. That’s quite an old age for a normal, everyday big town in the UK.

History is evident in its streets, but as far as I can see, modern development has gone on relatively unconstricted by its historic past, especially if you compare it with say, Bath. It’s  interesting to see how an ancient city evolves to suit the times, taking on a weird character with old, new, and faux-old stuff plonked together side by side. It’s like the old blankets in my grandma’s home,  old blankets patched up repeatedly over the years with different types of fabrics and patterns.

Verulam, the name later chosen by Francis Bacon when he took over the barony, has been similarly adopted as names for local clubs,  societies, small businesses, etc. Is this motley pastiche a better fate compared to being museumified and fossilized, stuck  in an environment suffocated by tourist hordes and tough building regulations? I don’t know.

Disclaimer: My knowledge of St Albans is limited to about half an hour of walking around trying to find the correct bus stop, long waits for buses, 4 bus rides and Wikipedia. That’s a rather limited scope, to say the least.

Anyway, I was talking about capoeira. This group is filled with serious, tough girls and strong and buff guys, and I feel out of place.

Discussing the Divine Comedy

This is  “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante”, an 2006 oil painting by Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An. The title is lifted from Dante’s opus magnum The Divine Comedy, or divina commedia in its original language.

If you have ever shown a passing interest in literature or the arts, it’s almost impossible not to come across references to Dante’s work. Written in the early 14th century, it has served as inspiration for all manners of artists and sculptors and playwrights and writers and what have you for the past 700 years, and from that above painting, is still doing so. Anyway, the painting features a great selection of historical figures and influential personalities ranging from Qin Shi Huang to Steven Spielberg.

The painting first surfaced as an anonymous viral internet hit earlier this year, and netizens had much fun guessing the identities of the people featured in the painting, as well as solving the mysteries behind it – who drew it, why etc.

These internet detectives built a comprehensive list of the personalities, and someone has cleverly linked each face to its own wikipedia entry, so if you have ever harboured dreams of becoming a brainy smartass, this is the place to start. That link also points to a larger image, because with the small one posted here you can’t even see Einstein’s hair.

Crazy, and appealing to a history geek like me. Here is a related article, as well as the full list of names.

Leaving #2 – Garden City Idyll

Last week came with a few of the most beautiful summer days so far this year. I had my regular badminton club night on Tuesday, and I left home earlier that evening to deposit some bottles for recycling en route.

It was still early when I arrived at the sports hall,  so I stepped out into an outdoor terrace adjacent to the badminton courts. The terrace looked out into Gosling’s outdoor velodrome + six-lane athletics tracks.

The sky was an azure shade of blue, so devoid of clouds it was a little surreal. The kids’ athletics club session was just wrapping up, with older family members coming to pick them up. Sports cars parked by the roadside with tops down, and a breeze blowed gently in the evening air.

Now that the kids were gone, a group of adult friends took to the tracks, first jogging in unison and then each breaking into their own individual paces. The only sounds were chattering voices and the thuds of shuttlecocks behind me.

It was such an idyllic scene, where, as Milan Kundera says, “everyone is a note in a sublime Bach fugue”. I immediately wished I had a camera or at least a phone camera to record the moment, to help consign it to my memory. Later, I was happy I didn’t.

A picture would only have managed to show a velodrome, an athletics track, a blue sky, kids and some sports cars. Instead, without an actual visual representation to overshadow or eliminate the abstract elements of the scene,  I will bring this scene, idyllic setting and all, intact in my mind as I leave this town and return to the city.

Look ma, slimy houses

A lecturer once told me (along with the whole class) that after a point in history where technological innovations in architecture and construction were leapfrogged by other industries reliant on the latest technology, later innovations in architectural technology had all come from those industries. His list of examples included aerospace engineering and the automotive industry.

Well, this trend is apparently still alive and kicking. The link points to an article about a Harvard GSD program experimenting with flexible fabric as an exterior material  (for both cars and houses) instead of metal. This time the partnership takes on a twist – instead of modifying existing technologies for a different industry, it’s sort of a convergent approach towards new possibilities. Plus it’s probably one of the several instances where a direct link between the two industries are clearly evident and actively sought for.

Right now, I wonder if that’s becoming less relevant. The environment is quite rapidly taking precedence over everything else as being the first and foremost element to consider when doing almost anything. I mean, it can only be a win-win situation to cut costs in the name of the environment, as Sainsbury has shown here…

The recent passing of the Climate Change Bill in US with a vote of 219-212 should be a great victory, but I  couldn’t help noticing that it was an awfully slim margin. The first conclusion is that many people just still don’t care enough, and casts the planet’s dire situation in harsh limelight.

I saw an article about an experimental biologist researching protocells to be bio-engineered and slime to be used in architecture. If that is an indicator of things to come, the next generation of breakthroughs in the construction and building industry might just come from nature and the natural sciences. At the very least, this cross-pollination will only make things more fun. Now that people are trying their best to colonise the moon, it’s almost forgiveable if you start having sci-fi fantasies of intelligent, living buildings and of course, mass space travel.

Dusty

Last week I went up to Glasgow to look for a place to stay for next year. From the few viewings I am happy to say I have picked one, though honestly I hadn’t much of a choice; it had to be selected that day. There weren’t more time and it was too much trouble to organise a second round of viewings.

Some weeks ago we started packing. That involved turning the house upside down, causing the air to fill with dust mites.  I am slightly allergic to dust (like who isn’t), but in my case I’m talking actual physical reactions, and very unpleasant ones at that. As a result I have been feeling rather under the weather lately, exacerbated by the long hours on the train ride back…

3 weeks to go, and our tempers are starting to feel a little frayed at the edges. So many things to do….

The Elgin Marbles

Remember when I mentioned that I was surprised to see bits of the Parthenon lying about the British Museum? Well, they were chiseled out from the ancient Acropolis ruins and brought back to London for Lord Elgin’s amusement (he was the UK’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire who ruled Greece at that time), and he sold it to the British Museum in 1816 when he found himself out of cash. It has been there for nearly 200 years, but for the past few decades Greece has been asking for it back.

The Brits has long said they were in a better position to preserve and protect it, but last weekend, Greece’s perfect answer has opened: The new Acropolis museum, designed by architect Bernard Tschumi and which I understand was delayed for years. It seems the Greeks have taken the opportunity to get some pre-opening publicity by stepping up their international efforts (clamouring) to retrieve the Elgin Marbles and to place it where it “rightfully belongs”.

Seems like it’s causing quite a furor. As anyone who has stepped into London’s V&A Museum will attest to, London’s museums are full of stuff belonging to other cultures and civilizations. If the Elgin Marbles goes back to Athens, this will probably set a dangerous precedent (for the UK anyway) for other recently-capable-again countries and governments to try to get back their own treasures. The same principle probably applies to the Louvre etc.

So far, the British Museum’s response is to offer a three-month loan on the condition that they will be recognised as the owners. Greece’s answer was that they (British Museum) can borrow anything they want in return for relinquishing their claimed ownership of the Marbles.

Makes you wonder if the Louvre Abu Dhabi (by architect Jean Nouvel), due to open in 2013, will try anything similar, what with reports of secret buyers snapping up all the good stuff.

The debate goes on, and I for one will be watching this with interest.

Special Day

Today is a special day. A year ago something special was given into my care. Fragile and helpless as a silkworm or its cocoon, strong and precious as the silk fibers that it produces. Its many intricate layers require careful handling.

I was a temperamental person and subject to volatile moods. I was impatient, had a short fuse and always waiting for the slightest reason to trigger it. Yet when that object came into my care I had to change all that lest the object was irreparably damaged.  I had to learn patience, tolerance, understanding and to control my temper. I had to learn to proceed with sense and caution, reason and rationale. I had to learn to give and not to take. Along the way it became my motivation and inspiration, and my source of happiness. It was the biggest responsibility I have ever held. One I have no qualms about holding, one I am honored to hold.

I hope I can continue to hold the responsibility for a long time.

Summer Sleeping Habits

I didn’t sleep well last summer, couldn’t sleep well this summer. Born and bred in an equatorial country, I must say that my sleeping habits has not come to grips with this phenomenon that the sun would have the audacity to rise before 6am.

Every morning, I wake up at 5. I go back to sleep and then I wake up again at 6. I go back to sleep again, and then I wake up again at 7. Then again at 8. By now, I should have been accustomed to these changes, but 21 years of reflex take precedence over my sleep-fogged mind – Every time I open my eyes and see bright daylight, I jump to my phone to check the time, worried that I slept through my alarm. Every time I return to the bed annoyed after finding out that it’s merely 4:45am…

Either I need curtains, or I need to sleep at 10pm….. :)

Leaving #1: Resignation

I submitted my resignation letter a week ago.

Of course, there’s nothing overly dramatic about that. I have known for ages when I would quit exactly, so as far as I’m concerned it’s old news. Making it official triggered some psychological responses though, responses that were initially hard to grasp. I wasn’t exactly sad, because I am far too happy about going home, to be continuing my studies, to be moving to a new place again, to feel any sadness.

There was the usual apprehension and a slight knot of worry as I mull over the logistical issues of packing and moving. There was also the usual wistful pangs as I contemplate leaving the life I have chalked up here and the people whom I have been lucky to met.

Most importantly, there was also something more, something that I can’t find the proper word for. It’s not exactly “regret”, because I think the word “regret” evokes a very strong, powerful emotion, something with very serious and far-reaching implications. Yet it could be construed as a oversimplified, very mild and harmless form of regret – something that perhaps can be described as, after having grown in the past year, having looked back and learnt the lessons and spotted the differences, the usual thoughts surface: if only………….

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Can’t get finance? Why, they’ll be happy to get it for you, it seems.  I pass this used car garage every morning on my way to work. Having nothing else to look at I constantly scope out the prices of the offered cars and wonder if I can afford one. The signboard was posted late last year/early this year, when the economy plunged into free fall.

This double-carriageway road is well-used and busy, and is liable to clog up with traffic during the morning rush hours. Not that you can see it from that picture . On that particular morning, cars travelled at perhaps 10 mph. IF they even deigned to get on the road in the first place.

Because travelling at 10mph is rather slow – and it was apparently not possible to go much faster – the office announced that people can start leaving at lunch. That was funny because some people only managed to get in just before lunch, after hours of inching through the snow.

Staying was obviously no problem for me, so I stayed and worked on. By 3pm the office was nearly empty. I left at 4:30, not because I was bored, but there was only one more person in the office, and I had a feeling he was waiting for me to leave so he could leave.

My office in all its steel-clad glory. Bullnose canopy, aluminium louvers and aluminium-framed glazing, white render walls, some jutting-punching-through volume kinda thing, as well as the plain silver steel panels – almost standard elements and materials used in much of the firm’s earlier work.

Sometimes when I look at this building it seems that the message that they’re trying to say is – This is us, and this is our work. If you like what you see, come on in.

I have to say, it does get a little repetitive drawing the same things over and over at times. It does seem like there’s been a little bit more variety recently though, which is definitely not a bad thing in my book.