Get a life

24 hours a day is not even NEAR enough to accomplish what I set out to do.

The problem is it’s not a very ambitious list, any ol’ superhero can see to it in seconds. Failing that, any robot is also overqualified for it.

But poor, lousy, lazy mortals like me are struggling.

And that explains the sorry state of this blog.

January – April are what I presume to be the busiest months of my life, ever, so I can’t vouch for regular updates here.

*disclaimer – it’s not really that bad as I make it sound. It just feels that way to me coz I’m just very bad at it.

Such a nice January day outside; and as usual I am chained to my desk at home…

Ok, the previous post was borne out of a period of “heightened emotion” and melodrama. I won’t fault anyone for ignoring the last bit ;)

It is generally understood, and accepted, that every action has a reaction, has a consequence, or leads to other actions, et cetera. The point is that everything that happens around us constantly reflects some other thing that happened in the past, or will be reflected by something in the future. It is all a giant internconnected mass of actions. With all these actions and reactions and consequences going on, it’s a miracle that anybody gets anything done at all.

What miracle can that be? Might it be that this boils down on our control of actions? Now that I’ve said it, it might seem startlingly obvious, warranting at the very least a good smack to the forehead. Yet I strongly suspect many of us go about our hummingbee lives without consciously putting that into practice, though all of us practice it daily reflexively. Tightly controlling our actions lead to limiting/creating the reactions they cause, and the conseqeuences we have to face, as well as  the joy we might experience. Life is making a decision after another decision after another decision; realising the simple fact that our actions will control the changes in our life will make making decisions easier.

Of course, controlling our actions is easier said than done. Thus the role of discipline comes in. By definition, a disciplined person has greater control over their actions, leading towards a greater control of their lives and a greater chance of realising their ambitions and dreams. Successful people often cite discipline as a key factor,  as well as hard work. Hard work is basically a disciplined, conscious choice of choosing to work as opposed to play. So, let me take a short cut in my rationalising (save time) and skip to my point: a disciplined, tightly regulated control of our actions permeates every aspect of successful life.

Success means different things to different people and at this point I would emphasize that my use of successful life is by no means specific and can be applied to any number of your favourite definitions.

What’s the point of all this rambling, and what is it doing on this blog, I hear you ask. Well suffice to say 2010 started with a bang – of highly undesirable and unlucky events; perhaps as a reaction to the high point that was 2008 and 2009, quite easily the two most interesting years of my life so far. I’m going to take this very bad start as an auspicious indicator though – with such a start, 2010 can only get better. ;)

Disclaimer: I am an architecture student and don’t know about the secrets of success. Flora will probably shoot my theory down in a minute.

I stand by paralysed as another year rolls by.

It is rare for me to leave my blog un-updated for such a long period of time, unless if I am busy with uni, away traveling or I don’t have internet access.  I have had friends over for some days now, and have been on some day trips, but internet access is with me all the time, literally, so it isn’t that. Plus it is holidays.

Rather, as I slip into a new decade, I find that this blog grows less relevant to me day by day. It’s not that I am no longer interested in writing, blogging, or sharing my opinions or ocasionally posting my photos; In fact, it is the exact opposite.

Anyway, this is merely a filler post as I work on possibly the most relevant post ever on this blog. As I have more urgent priorities (sadly) than that, it might not appear fully just right now, which is a bit of a shame because I think when I finally get a chance to finish it I will have lost the spirit of most of what I so desperately wanted to share.

Happy new year All~

Questions

I love books. I buy books all the time. I buy far more books than I can read. At any given time there’s lotsa books lying around that I’ve not gotten around to reading yet.

I love bookstores too.

But like others I’ve stopped buying books from bookstores, preferring to buy almost all my books online.

And now, Borders is the first to fall victim to this trend. If you live near a Borders (who doesn’t?), it’s time to go searching for bargains.

Borders displaced the independent bookseller. Amazon.com (or .co.uk) displaced Borders. What next?

When all the bookstores go, will books be next?

Random green thoughts

So, I’m back from Germany, and amidst a slow weekend and monday sleeping off the always late and occasionally booze-filled nights in Deutchland, I’ve been catching up on the news and events of our dear world.

Aside from Tiger Woods and his many mistresses (I bet some of them are fake), the UN COP15 (15th Conference of the Parties, or whatever) starts today in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is garnering a lot of interest. There are the advocates, who strongly claim that the Climate Change Conference is going to be the last chance to make things right. There are also the skeptics that say that all this treaty talk is stuff and nonsense and that we are looking at the wrong direction. When both of the links I supplied point towards the same newspaper – TIME, you can be assured that divergent opinions are many and each are reasonable in their own right.

I wonder what does that mean for future architects/town planners/developers. Strict targets on reduced carbon emissions will probably manifest in the form of ever stricter building regulations and building codes on all new build and refurbishment projects. Perhaps to tighten the net there might be stricter controls and actual restrictions based on LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment)and all that less-quantifiable stuff, such as restricted variety of materials based on their sources, restricted construction mehods or whatever.

For most practical purposes I assume that the construction industry of most countries have a of a dark side to them, if not entirely corrupt. I know nothing about economics, but I do  know that for the big players of such industries to adopt greener practices are nearly always far more expensive and less profitable then maintaining the status quo.

The firm where I worked at last year did a lot of work with a huge, well known conglomerate with the usual thick goo of bureaucracy to wade through to get anywhere important, and the usual slick and grandiose statements of sustainability, social responsibility and whatnot. Based on my limited time and observations there, I can safely say that most of the executives dealing with the day-to-day work of the actual construction work, those executives who are not related to the PR department, have probably never even heard about “those statements”, let alone integrate them into their work.

Perhaps it will be a race to see who topples them from their perch first – tightly-controlled and stringent building regulations and codes that cover as many quantifiable elements as possible, or entrepreneurial start-ups with small money and big ideas.

While we’re on the subject of the last link, I wonder how switching the fundamental way we transport ourselves change the way towns and cities are designed.  Is it just a case of replacing every petrol station with a charging station/equivalent, or is it necessary to resdeign entire swathes of infrastructure and the city? It would be interesting to find out.

Away for a week

You know what’s the problem with technology? It’s irritating when I have to pack for a week-long trip.

It used to be I packed my wallet and my mobile and its charger and my keys and I was good to go (excluding general stuff like clothes toiletries etc). Then I owned a camera. That came with its own charger. Then I owned an Ipaq player (remember those?) so I had to bring all my discs and batteries. Then I switched to an ipod, and that of course came with its accessories – earphones, and batteries/charger. Then I upgraded my camera and now have a whole host of cameraey stuff to bring, like extra sd cards and microfibre cloth and dust blower and lots of other little things.

It’s getting to the point I have to first pack all my gadgets and their accessories before other stuff because they just take up so much time and I don’t wanna leave anything/bring unnecessary stuff.  It matters, because I remember too clearly the Oslo trip this March where I lugged a heavy tripod all the way across the North Sea to find out I left the crucial screw/fastener/whatever-it’s-called at home. And all those electrical converters……

Anyway, the last 9 weeks felt like a whirlwind just passed my area. I think, with all the momentum we have gained from crashing through a short 9-week studio, that we should really keep up/maintain this momentum and keep up the adrenaline because, my friends, it’s just the beginning….

In a few hours we (except for Tris etc) leave for our week-long trip to Eichstätt, Germany… don’t know where that is? No matter, because I gather that it is quite in the middle of nowhere… As our resident German expert A. Schumm put it: Eichstätt?? What did you guys do wrong that they have to send you there???

Yeah, I am looking forward to it too ;)

P.s: So much so that I am not sleeping this night and spending the last hours cleaning the flat and blogging…..

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.