The experience of movement is a profound thing that
is only surpassed by the experience of being moved..

When you get down to it, all each of us really wants is to find that one thing that moves us - that one thing that makes sense of it all and makes it all matter. The need to feel, to connect, to experience and to know is a steady undercurrent that subtly drives all that we do.

These past few days i've been feeling rather charmed by the idea of spending endless hours immersed in alternate realities through dreams at night and daydreams during stolen moments in the day. Strangely i've started noticing that while the validity and reality of these alternate experiences may be questionable, they are becoming increasingly important as a part of my daily life. It's almost as if by taking concious notice of my subconcious, i've opened up the possibility of being a part of this whole other parrallel life.

In time, i'm certain that life will pick up pace again and leave me little time to indulge in such reverie but in the mean time, i shall make the most of it. Good night and do have thoroughly memorable dreams.

Labels: emo, self-reflection, Weird stuff

The lovely Leigh from Entity Dance Collective - Click on the pic, full-view is a must!

The slowest minutes and the fastest days
collide and meet in the strangest ways..

At times, it makes sense for the situation to not make sense. Sometimes, i think the best thing one can do is to just sit back and let life just happen. After all, it seems our lives are too coincidental to be coincidences, too random to really be random. Times like these i'm grateful that i believe in God, in divine intervention, in destiny, in hope and that ultimately, regardless of what i decide or do, whatever will be will surely still be.

Que sera sera
Reasoning won't get you very far
Best look life in the eye
and watch it go by
while reveling in a soliloquy
knowing that whatever will be will be..

Labels: dancer, emo, photography, self-reflection, theatre

Sometimes i miss KL like crazy..
Sometimes i wonder if things really can change - if things will

Sometimes i wonder if i want them to at all
Sometimes i wonder what the world would be like if we loved instead of hated; accepted instead of judged
Sometimes i just want a real 70 sen roti canai
Sometimes i want it at 3am and i want it at a mamak
Sometimes i miss the laid-back attitude summed up efficiently in the suffix "-lah"
Sometimes i wish things were that simple

Sometimes i do miss home and i wonder if it misses me too.



This is the Malaysia i see.
Click Chick supports Malaysian Artistes for Unity - you should too.

Labels: emo, self-reflection

It's time for a clean up, shake down, clear out...
It's time for change, it's time for something new.

It's time i actually got round to doing all the things i said i would do.

Yup. Finally.

Starting with Click Chick v2.0!! Huge thanks to Patricia Low for her lovely camera-angel doodles (*big HUGS*) and BittBox for the Photoshop CS brushes (amazing stuff!).

I'm naming it 'remember the rain' in memory of the many quiet nights spent beside my bedroom window tracing raindrops with my fingers and musing about everything, nothing and all that lies in-between.

Tra la...

Labels: blog template, conceptual, emo, renders, self-reflection, work

"Sails", Sydney Biennale 2008@Cockatoo Island, Sydney.


When the illusion of anonymity is shattered
a certain joy of freedom is lost

Maybe ignorance really is bliss and maybe if we really tried hard enough, we may start to believe it.

It's been a while since i last blogged. I think i finally feel like everyone's forgotten enough about this dusty lil blog so that i can blog in blissful anonymity again. It's strange... thinking that people i know actually read this thing makes me feel self-conscious and yet thinking that no one cares enough to read it also makes me feel a lil dejected. Sometimes i wish i'd just make up my mind *blek*

------------------

The great thing about dreams is that they stay in your head. They stay illusions, they stay impossible and they stay just as we intend them to be. The problem with having great ideas is that on the rare occasion that one has to realise them, in the bright glare of reality they sometimes don't seem that great after all... hmm..

-------------------

In an attempt to distract myself from watching too many episodes of 'Will & Grace' in one night, i took to doing some of those "silly internet personality quizzes" clicking randomly on any quiz title that appeared vaguely interesting (or mind-numbing). After finding out what type of chocolate i am (dark chocolate), what type of brain i have (balanced brain ;D) and which 80s song i am (not telling ;p), i clicked on a quiz titled "why are you still single?" - partly for amusement, partly because it was taunting me - and began randomly clicking away at the multiple choice answers.

After half-lucidly clicking on the "finish" button, i sat, watched the little 'loading' bar slowly turn blue and contemplated all the random useless possible "results" that would soon pop up on my screen. Surprisingly, what popped up next kind of made me stop and think a bit...

The answer to my question apparently is that i "don't want to slow down":

"Whether you're working all hours, busy with school, or planning a cross-country move, it sounds like you just don't have time for anyone else in your life...right now, that is. Your timing may be off in other aspects, too. Chances are, you've met that perfect person who just so happens to be married or planning their own cross-country move. So take a step back for a moment. Is there something underlying this? Could it be you're afraid to get involved for some reason or another, and are therefore attracted to people who are simply unavailable?"

Convicted by a computer.. now that's sad ;p

And to think i wondered why i stopped blogging for so long *sigh*

O_o"

Labels: black and white, breathe, conceptual, emo, Mandy, photography, self-reflection, Sydney Biennale 2008

Following the leader, the leader, the leader,
following the leader where ever he may go..

Sometimes i wonder...
why i even bother at all.



Ever get the feeling that no matter what you do or how good your intentions/aspirations/ideas it all don't matter in the end? No matter what you intend to communicate to someone else it somehow has a way of turning out completely different leaving you exasperated and thinking "what's the point of trying so hard to be nice and likable and good and perfect" when it's perfectly easy to be quite the opposite - almost too easy *blek*...

Another pointless rant about another pointless subject.

Sometimes it feels like i waste too much time living in my head and not enough time actually living O_o"

i need a life.

Labels: conceptual, emo, photography, self-reflection, street photography, Sydney

One of those (surprisingly) rare sunny summer days - shot on Fuji Reala 100.

It started to rain again today..

..and as i looked up at the grey sky, i remembered that warm summer day, under the tree, when the light was just right and the wind was just right and the tree, the light and the wind tossed dancing shadows across the table top. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said.

Sometimes the less we talk, the more we understand.

So i sit and wonder about what the world is doing on this quiet night.

Then i sleep and dream and in the morning, it would all have faded away..

Labels: Australia, emo, photography

My narcissistic moment - basking (literally) in the Sydney sunlight.

I've always loved..
Open doorways and all the possibilities they bring.

The golden light of sunset, the slightest breeze, old weathered doorways with glass panels that catch the soft rays...

Maybe the long grey weekend was worth it after all.

*tra la..*

Labels: Australia, conceptual, emo, photography, Sydney, urban life

Ghosts@Queenscliff, Melbourne.. (yes Albert, i finally dug out my IR filter hehe didn't have a tripod tho...)

We spend a fairly large amount of time in the in betweens..

In between destinations, in between thoughts, in between relationships, life situations, decisions, this life and the next... it's all highly unsettling. At times it feels as if we are merely shadows floating in a dream.

Time passes
Faces change
Landscapes evolve

and still time goes on..
and still we exist..
and still we live and die and live again..

..like a clock that keeps ticking with no hour hand or minute hand.. just the seconds that keep ticking away. No up no down, no past no future.. just time - just moving time.

And so we go on. We wake and sleep and eat and work and live just waiting for that inevitable day of demise before we greet our Maker. I dream of the day when i will have all the mysteries of the world explained to me. The day when everything will finally make sense. But will we ever truly know all it is that we seek? And even if we know, will be satisfied?

Time is a rather cruel concept.. it flees when you need it and lingers when you don't.. maybe time isn't as constant as we think..

I'm rambling.. procrastinating again as you can tell.. Hokay.. back to work now.

Hope you caught the lunar eclipse tonight.. the moon was a lovely murky red-brown colour.

Labels: Australia, conceptual, emo, IR

There are times when i feel amazingly lost & alone..

uprooted

displaced

frustrated

confused

just wondering and waiting for that which constantly eludes me..


I think the grey skies are getting to my head.. too many cold, rainy days on this island make me miss the warm hugs of home.

Just wallowing in a big bout of emo-ness at the moment.. i should sleep it off.. *blek*

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Thought you had
all the answers
to rest your heart upon
But something happens,
don't see it coming, now
you can't stop yourself.
Now you're out there swimming
In the deep.

Life keeps tumbling your heart in circles
till you... Let go.
Till you shed your pride, and you climb to heaven,
and you throw yourself off.
Now you're out there spinning
In the deep.

And now you're out there spinning..
In the deep.

In the silence,
all your secrets, will
raise their worried heads.
Well, you can pin yourself back together,
to who you thought you were.
Now you're out there livin'
In the deep.

Now you're out there spinning..
swimming..
In the deep.."

- In the Deep, Bird York

Click this (http://youtube.com/watch?v=U_FRluQgYpI) to hear the song.. shtoopid blogspot won't let me upload vids today..

Labels: conceptual, emo, photography

"We are all, in a sense, in a constant state of 'becoming' rather than 'being'. "
- Harry Stephens

I was in my Theory of Form class today and of all the things that Harry said, this statement struck me the most. Life in a state of flux is, ironically, life at a constant.

The idea that our 'being' (as in 'existing') is inextricably linked to our 'becoming' (constant state of change) is amazingly fascinating... with that in mind, people then are not so much finished works of art as they are works in progress.. completely incomplete if you will.

I've been quite into this idea recently.. quietly watching life unfold.

One of my favourite times of day is walking down the main walkway in uni when the sun is setting. Watching the sky sink from a brilliant blue to a golden haze, i can't help but wonder why it is that people only want to see the end product.. if only we appreciated the beauty of the works in progress, we would see the whole sunset not just the dark night sky...

Labels: Australia, conceptual, emo, photography, sky, Sony Ericsson K610i, Sydney, UNSW

I'm in the mood for random musings tonight.



In the mood for talking to myself in the quite spaces in my head. In the kind of mood that's warily accompanied by a mellow thumping feeling that resides in the deep crevices of one's heart. The kind that evokes long sighs for reasons beyond one's understanding.

Maybe it was triggered by the ethereal lushness and driving pulse of Steve Reich's Tehillim which we went to see performed today. Maybe it was the fried chicken. Maybe it was spending the day home alone or watching people cuddle on the streets to keep warm or spending too much time undulating between sleep and wake or the funky cold weather or a myriad of other random things. Regardless, it's insisting on being unleashed in some form and a blog update somehow seemed to make sense (?)...

Life in Sydney has been a different kind of same since i've come back. Kick starting a new sem seems a lot harder this time around and mulling about in dream time has seemed like a far better option than trudging around in the light of day.

Too many thoughts and emotions floating around inside while everything else feels like sinking. It is a wonder that the human heart can feel two completely opposite things at once. There is a part that stretches to break the tide and reach into the warm dry light of the sun and yet another that longs to give in to the soothing murky blue embrace of the waters.

Suspended somewhere in between, you find yourself - detached from place and time - watching the silent world pass by - a part of yet apart from. And it is then that you know that all we see is but a dream. A temporal imagining of life as we want to see it.

In a sense, at any given moment, everyone leads the same life at the same time in the same way. And yet, we all come away with our own individual versions of a perception of the truth - truth that is translated into memories that willingly alter their form with the rise and fall of the tides of time.

The fragile mist of our existence in this Earthly life fills me with a longing to understand that which is beyond all this. It fills me with an unending curiosity of what is to come. What is beyond the temporal. Each time an unanswered question passes me by, that deep thumping inside grows heavier and longer as once again the limitations of my own comprehension confronts me and reminds me that i am only human.

Labels: black and white, conceptual, emo, music, photography

There a strange sense of altered reality
when you spend too much time watching tv and movies...

Everything else seems heightened, dramatic, surreal and displaced. You're not entirely certain if what you feel and think is entirely your own or whether it may be just another product of your overactive imagination, fed largely by illusion.

'Tis a strange feeling.. like floating into a deep blue sea. It's all at once calming and frightening, real and unreal, comforting and strange, exciting and saddening.. and you feel alive and dead all at once.

'Tis a strange feeling.

'tis not strange in an appealing way...

Labels: conceptual, emo, photography, sky

Taken at the boardwalk @ Darling Harbour, Syd one lazy Sunday afternoon..

I love lazy days where i feel alive and free
and can believe that anything is possible...

This song has been buzzing in my head the whole day.. but i don't mind, i like it! Dale sent it to me the other day when i was feeling down and i have to say it's quite infectious in a hippie-make-love-not-war way. My mom always tells me that i've been born too late since i'm into weird old stuff like snail mail and vinyl records and yes i do love flowers in my hair *happy sigh*



Been in such an amazingly happy mood today.. i think i've been getting enough of sleep :) it's the loveliest thing to wake up to blue skies, spend the morning talking to friends and family, have a slow walk through uni when it's quiet and you can hear the leaves rustling as the wind blows, gorge yourself on fish and chips with some friends under a tree in a little park and watch the beginnings of an early sunset, have warm milo when your fingers are freezing... then go home and zzzzzzzz and wake up when it's dark and have the house to yourself so you can sing happy songs like no one cares... *tra la..*

tis simple things that make me happy...

Labels: Australia, black and white, emo, Ilford, photography, street photography, Sydney

"And i find it kinda funny, i find it kinda sad, the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had..
i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take, when people run in circles it's a very, very mad world..."




For some strange reason, this song has been stuck in my head the whole day. A classmate of mine used this song for a photo presentation and it just stuck.. i'm not in a depressive mood, no. It's just sorta.. contemplative. Like taking a step back and looking at the world and realising that it's a really, really surreal and strange place. We are a peculiar species.. we keep thinking we're so different from each other and yet we share habits, thoughts and emotions that are so similar that sometimes i wonder why we ever saw a divide in the first place. In a rather floaty and thoughtful mood lately. I think the combination of lack of sleep, long walks barefoot all the way home, some long conversations and too much tea & coffee has brought on a strangely sedated state of consciousness.

It feels like i'm dreaming when i'm awake and sometimes it feels like i'm more awake when i'm dreaming... this might actually work out for the better though. I've got this really interesting assignment where i've got to study my dreams and translate them into a collage of sorts *fun*

Anyways, i've been spending too many nights in uni on my 3D Max project (remember the white one i loaded the other day?). FINALLY, i'm done with it... a total of 30+ rendering hours later and this is what that model looks like now... i'm quite happy with it since it's taken me long enough to try to figure the program out :)

And now, i am going to go sleep. zzzZZzzzZzz....... enjoy.



The lounge-ish area.. sunshine through the window *whee*


A close-up view of the cocktails, bottle and candle holders i modeled.. had some fun playing with the depth of field in this shot... i love my pink cocktails!


An overall view of the bar area..


A closeup of my bar area (*whee* handles handles handles*)...


I love the reflections on my shiny black glass bar top :) this render took 7+ hours to render *ugh*... O_o"

Labels: 3D Max, bar, emo, lounge, self-reflection, UNSW, work

I am a tofu...
Really, i am...



I'm not hallucinating, not on meds or anything.. i just effectively feel.. like a tofu :D

I think the combination of too little sleep, too much dreaming and spending the past few hours with Jerms and Werns at the acoustic labs just listening to random pieces of (really interesting) music has completely drained me of anything useful and productive tonight. Seriously, take a listen to the track i put up.. float away on a cloud.

Two highlights: 1) for the first time i screamed my lungs out in the silent room at the labs.. like really just let loose and screamed.. haha didn't know i could scream that loudly :D ; 2) i got to sing with other people again after a long long time (like not the sunday morning church type but the jazz type..sorta).. the hallways in the Old Main Building are really nice and echo-ey at night when it's quiet..haha if only for a song or two it was great to just get it out there... *la la la*

Went shooting today at the Hillsong Church's REACH 2007 project @the Minerva High school in Sutherland. Twas fun but i got paint on my crumpler *grrr*... too sedated to process any photos tonight. Back to work tomorrow but for now i shall revel in this moment of calm. 'Tis rare these days...

Labels: acapella, emo, music

Sunset Silhouettes@ The Opera House
(Taken with my Sony Ericsson K610i cameraphone)

I hate Mondays..
I really really really do...

This one was considerably more vicious than the rest.. One of the worse things you can wake up to on a Monday morning after a week of Easter hols is your hp ringing after you've only had 2 hours of sleep, your friend on the other end of the line talking frantically about some submission deadline that you thought was one week away which is in fact 20 minutes away for work that you haven't done yet and won't be able to do in, well 20 mins.. or one day for that fact... *ugh* i justifiably have a reason to diss Mondays.. especially the mornings ;

I should really blog about happier things, like my box of Krispy Kreme donuts in the fridge or the fact that i've nailed making my own salad dressing and full salad from scratch or that my plant is still alive or that i had some killer pancakes at this 24hour place in Syd (like Paddington's Pancakes back home only bigger, badder and on speed)...

But i shan't because i'm a pseudo-emo-artistic-brooding-person who has a subconscious need to sound well.. like i'm brooding - which i am.

*Sighs*

At least this does give me an excuse to go to Kikki.k and buy some gorgeous (but freakishly over-priced) wall planner thing... i need to sleep (or shop).

...and i still need a hug (withdrawal symptoms - *spasm spasm*)

Labels: Australia, black and white, conceptual, emo, photography, Sony Ericsson K610i, street photography, Sydney, urban life

"Hugging has no unpleasant side effects and is all natural. There are no batteries to replace, it's inflation-proof and non-fattening with no monthly payments. It's non-taxable, non-polluting, and is, of course, fully refundable.." - Anon.

I need a hug.

For some strange reason, i woke up this morning and just realised that it's been a while since i've had a good hug...

Allow me a moment to brood..

Taken with my SonyEricsson K610i cameraphone @ O'Week 2007

Labels: Australia, black and white, emo, hug, O-Week, photography, street photography, UNSW, urban life

There's something quite magical about being on a boat.
Something quite adventurous and exciting :)

Taken on a ferry ride from Manly beach to Circular Quay. All of us out on the deck got suitably soaked about 5 minutes after i took this shot. Thankfully my camera was safely in the bag by then! *phew* Before i took this shot, i was drawn to the lovely way the blue blue sky matched up with the blue tops the two were wearing. When i looked through the viewfinder however, i knew it was going to be in black and white..

Been a long day today (and i don't necessarily mean that in a bad way.. went to church saw, had Vietnamese beef noodles (yum!), went to see an amazingly random photography exhibition (you have no idea... O_o"), had a listen to some good music, had a lazy walk along the cliffs at Maroubra Beach, went to uni for a group meeting and stayed there till 10pm... and it's only week two!

This is going to be some semester..

Labels: Australia, black and white, emo, photography, Sydney

My first view of Australia from the sky..

Australia is really big..
really really really big.

And yet, in all it's vastness, it is still incredibly detailed. There seems to be so much to see, so much to do, so much to learn that sometimes it gets a tad bit overwhelming.

I never realised how different things could be after crossing a wee bit of sea to come over here. Took it for granted that since we speak the same language, the people, culture, place and just lifestyle in general would not be that different after all. But things turned out strangely foreign - not foreign in an obvious 'i'm in a different place' sort of way, just in a way that feels as if the same situation has a whole different translation over here than at home. The feeling of not knowing what to expect, what is expected of me and what i should expect is pretty nauseating.

Along with the inflating sense of adventure and curiosity that comes with being in a new environment, i'm also discovering a new sensation - that of realising that i am in fact, very very small. *bleep*

Labels: arrival, earth, emo, photography, self-reflection, sky, Sydney