photo parking lot 1:03 pm

all photos in this entry are original, unedited. i also took photos on film SLR.

film or digital?

has the latter made us forget about patience and precision in attempting to capture a moment?

Blue skies. Blue uniforms. The UN. Distinguished or extinguised?

Shapes of the New York Financial District

The peacock that has our eyes glued to the Box; "Friends", "Heroes", "The Office"...

Was television the invention that revolutionised or cripple human communication? Either way, this made a good picture.

Big Bro watching? Really? How'd know he ain't takin' no nap?

Big Yellow Taxi. Symbol of New York I saw only on TV. Now, its like an invasion.

I thought Picadilly Circus was "wow". Times Square was "wooooooahhhhhhhh....."

Abandoned? Or standing watch?

Who needs to assimilate when you see this in New York?

more to come.

Uncle T

The Day of the Black Umbrella 12:14 pm

Dropzone...

London, New York, Singapore. If I had a free choice, where would I settle? For now? For the future? What would be my deciding factors? The big-questions, the small answers? I don't know. Can we build upon stereo-types to inform our choices? Can I say "New Yorkers are... whilst the British are...and therefore..."? Would anything like that make sense or be a fair judge?

I don't know. Too many questions, too many factors. In a way, jumping off the plane of life, the wind guiding my parachute right back to Singapore for the next 6 years makes the above frustrations mere hypothetical scrabble. My landing spot has been determined by other forces. I'll just land and fight till I achieve my objective (which I have to find out).

I'll fight on until I get my next chance to stand at the door awaiting a new drop zone. Where the winds of chance and opportunity will take me, amen.

---

The morning I didn't know what crashed into my Head...

Muffins, coffee. Gorilla coffee. Oh damn! I still have so many more stamps needed on my loyalkty card to get my free 10th. 

It is raining in Brooklyn. Just on the morning I escape from the office-desk entrapment. Wet mops of hair, my favourite Brooklyn coffee place. I will miss it dearly. Red lights, the therepeutic coffee breeze.

Electronic squeezes, big-question taunts, what-if pressures. I'm wading in a drugged morning, a drugged life. I don't know what crashed into my head this morning.

Toilet door swings open, good-looking Brooklynites.

I'm still here...my head hurts.

---

Sunday's Brookyln Life. Missing it.

Prospect Parl. Brooklyn's Central Parl; Manhattanites may disagree. The Sunday sun has brought the amiable crowd to Park Slope; frisbees, writers, football, little boys on kites, clouds, bikes, families...Its so difficult to get a picture to capture the moments.

Sitting here gives me a better idea of how I'll like to spend weekends a few years along. Look, there's the little girl unsure of where to go, ball bigger-than-her-head in hand. Possibly, slightly further away from the weekends of corporate-ads overload; green, blue, white, children's laughter would be nice.

I guess one wants to escape the buttons, clicks, wires, glares, bitching, screens of the weekdays; real nice cappucino please, instead of instant-coffee at the office's pantry.

I don't want to go.

But I do go. McCarren Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Parts of New York you never, I never, saw in the movies: warehouses, factories, empty graffitti streets. Can't ever trust hollywood or american tv can you? But I got down to 3 hours of football with the newly formed Vampire Squirrels FC. We then went for a pint, English-style.

Then it was time go home.

I don't want to go. I didn't want to. But I did.

---

we think too little;

question too little,

be cynical too much.

worse, being cynical

without thinking why.

all pictures in this entry are courtesy of deviantart.com

Uncle T

Getting back into the old habit of thinking and...a escaping a "corporate mindfuck." 12:37 pm

Home-coming away from Home.

What's that? I can hardly remember what is it like thinking and reflecting about my day. Perhaps I should re-kindle that, a home-coming, ironically in New York, and so far from home. Perhaps it is that very distance, or perhaps the anti-consumerism magazine that I was introduced to today "Adbusters". Perhaps I was earning for that one thing that kept me being me.

---

Orange blouse and sketchbook in a metalbox.

She, in her orange blouse, very short denim shorts, sexy legs, mixed-blood heritage, sat next to the last door of the carriage, that metal box the screeched through the bellies of New York. She had a nice diary out, one of those without lines; I like those without restricting lines. She was using a purple pen.

Scribbling away, not caring about the rushed in-outs of the metal-box's commuters, all fatigued from the rushing of day. I was one of them. I took my seat across hers. Then I started to see her eye-shadowed eyes moving up and down. She was taking quick glances at the man-with-a-book. She kept the glances. Up, down, up, down; she was sketching the man with the book, and I was sketching her with my mental strokes.

Then he got up and left. And that intensity in her eyes left her too. She never saw me see her see him.

---

The Cat and I.

I awake, startled, by mewing. And as my eyes adjusted to the non-dream reality of the room's darkness, I see the cat on my belly. It wanted to play. It was 3am. I shrug that reality conveniently away.

Again, I was roused, this time more subtly but I couldn't really put a finger on the reason. But I didn't need to put any finger on the reason as it become quite apparent that it was my nose that was on the reason that got me awake; the cat's nose was on mine. It wanted to play. It was 4am.

Living in the house of this lovely couple, the experience came along with having 4 cats in the house. Not just any cats, but ones that were flea-struck and now being quarantined in the house. In rebellion, they shit everywhere, peed on my suitcase (very much smells like overnight rubbish in the streets on a summers morning, but just that it lingers far longer on the fabric of my luggage) and disturb you at odd hours.

But somehow, just somehow, I can't bring myself to get angry. The cat is looking at me now with its emerald eyes saying: @#%GHHYTim &*&(kk *U 

---

My first..."they were at MY table"

Since I'm at work on weekdays, there is not much to share. Awaiting the weekends where I can put up pictures as well and do things that I have been daydreaming about the whole week. 

But Clarins so far has been a pleasant experience. Had dinner with 2 fellow interns this evening at a french restaurant Cafe Charbonne. One of the best meals in a long time. And for the first time, a dinner with 2 very beautiful French girls.

And yes, these French ladies were actually eating with me, not at the neighbouring table, as its been the case all other dinners in French restaurants. We all get our firsts.

---

"Corporate Mindfuck" everywhere. Beware.

Quote of the day: We all need to pull out of the "corporate mindfuck" that advertisements, corporate pimps and consumerism has plunged us into. Lest our mindscape becomes a total desert. 

Uncle T

Comeback...all the way from New York! 1:21 pm

Pictures will follow in the next entry. Gotta sleep now la.

My fingers seem abit raw typing into a blog template. It has been eeeeeeeeons since I blogged.

Arrived in New York last night. Took a New York Cab from JFK into Brooklyn where I will be putting up for the next couple of weeks. Finally, after watching them on TV screens all these years, I was finally in a yellow cab on the other side of the screen, reality. Surreal I must say, when I saw the Manhattan skyline. "Wow" just escaped my mouth.

New York is different. Perhaps its the saying that is playing tricks on my subconscious, but I really think the grass is literally greener here.

After having lived and breathed (hence the blackened sinus) London for the past 2 months, I do have some basis of comparison. New York is different. Perhaps brighter, bigger, taller and more daunting; crossing streets in New York actually instills fear of being run down.

New York seems to embrace consumerism whilst London merely seems to give it a generous tap on the shoulder, typical of a reserved British sociability. In New York, there are stores selling things of things that people don't actually need, but want. New York creates desires you never knew you had. To put things in perspective, I spent the most of my afternoon in the NBC Experience Store browsing paraphernalia of "30 Rock", "Heroes", "The Office", "Friends"...as well as rummaging the Hershey's and MTV Store. I bought a Hiro Nakamura bobbing head figurine (Limited Edition).



Talk about buying what I don't actually need, but want.

Anyhow, I start work tomorrow. And my journey of New York continues. Despite getting lost on the subway, ending up in Harlem, I keep my eyes, mind and ears open to the smells (urgh!) and teeny bits New York has to offer.

Seeing things that I only saw in movies and TV, and heard in songs really made for a moving experience today. "...I'm in a New York state of Mind" -Billy Joel.


Uncle T

Back home...home? 8:27 pm

I just got back last night. There are so many things to do.

mails to clear (approximately 600-odd);
things to check out after the trip (history, design, freitag etc.);
of course, my 3 assignments due;
new year resolutions;
news to catch up on;
the list can and will go on...

The world moves too fast, too quick. At least my world does. Perhaps its about time management? No. This world incites speed and zooming-about. If only every night could be a Viennese one, and every morning a Swiss one, and every afternoon a Parisian one.

Dreams keeps our voids from cankering and being consumed by darker obsessions, so its okay to dream. I miss mee pok tah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wakao.

Back to laundry, then work. Hope I create the time to upload photos. But sometimes I ask why does today's web-ised world encourages the sharing of our lives, emotions and entirety with the world through blogs, online-statuses, facebooks etc. Can't really answer the question, so I'll allow myself to be led by the sweeping wind of societal norm. whee!

Uncle T

the morning randomness.... 6:22 pm

...scribbling on frozen windscreens...
...easter candles and Mass on a weekday...
...what a gentleman. not many of us left these days...
...christmas cards left on the parish table. waiting...
...wandering about the times when their white hair was black/brown...
...closing my eyes and images rushing in, forcing a smile...
...the sweet coincidence in His plans...

To school!

Uncle T

The Rediscovery of...... 6:35 am

I'm gonna discover; rediscover something that I once knew. I think the last time I truly felt it was....15,16? I'm gonna find it back now. It's somewhere....I just know it. Gotta find it.

Debate. One of the best ways to learn is debate, discuss, dispute. Ask questions. Ask questions of questions.

Some people deem it lonely. Solitude, perhaps? Amidst the cold. Was this not what I asked for?

You awake daily with the hope that you bump into a stranger, a book, a phrase, that will change your life forever. That hope is powerful.

Uncle T

Random spurts from the library 3:04 am

As usual, been ages since I've blogged. Funny that's how often I start entries these days.

In the library in week 1 of the holidays. Trying, which is the key verb, to do my assignments before I head off for a long, and costly, holiday this Sunday.

Do you not sometimes get the urge to tell the world how you feel inside? Perhaps those urges manifest today in terms of blogging. And mass school murders.

Filled with trepidation about this holiday. Nice, rosy things tend to upset; we often set too ridiculous expectations to such things; like holding an ice ball and hoping it would last forever. But on a happier note, the holiday would be with Yong :) Darling, let's have a splendid holiday! (considering the amount of money we are spending on it).

But I think first we have to see what we define as a "good holiday".

Miss my housemates. They are good people. Miss people back home.

Uncle T

Simple thank-yous 3:48 am

Such simple things that make you rethink your existence; how simple actions are not mere moments that should be lost in the dustbin of mundanity. So cheem, but if you think about it, rather true.

Watching fireworks from my window, with a few boxes of our own in the flat next door. Played regional floorball tournament last weekend, a day I've waited for close to 8 years to play a sport competitively.

You see? Simple things bring so much meaning, if only we, I, spend just a moment more beyond that moment of unconscious action to think about the act and the preceding journey that led you to that.

So cheem, but if you think about it, rather true.

Uncle T

Random Clouds 10:07 pm

I have not been updating my blog. Of late too, questions about people and social circles have cropped up. What is my blog for? Who reads?


Anyhow, watched Coventry v. West Ham, my 3rd football game in this country :) Sadly, Coventry lost. That very night, I was moved by blind loyalty to cheer the side that obviously played better but lost, in my view, from the lack of the touch of quality.


I'm diseased. With a seemingly drawn out and nagging nigbigzitthwart that makes me ineffective, scared of facing reality and inefficient. Its making me ask silly questions too. I need to refocus, and re-centre. Its just that the core is currently a vacuum.





Uncle T

Description, no prescription. 6:45 pm

A unified, universal perversity,
Where social morality echoes through the
Empty chasm of mortal existence.

What fills it is that perversity;
The one we shun and denounce,
But which is closest to our tarnished souls.
Desire, lust, greed, fear, impatience, betrayal,
All which the religious is quickest to admonish.
Yet, the halo is often a social accessory
That is quick to come off in the confines of solitude;
Is it not easy to forget He/She is there.

O peversity that cankers.
Who to blame for it? The Fall?
Cannot be us, can it?
I want to banish it,
Yet it is I who willingly latches it onto my existence.
It hurts greatly trying to remove its tenticles.

Uncle T

How is it like to be a potato? 8:27 pm

How is it like to be a potato?
With people, cooperations and schoolkids alike, wanting you so bad?
With mothers enticing children to swallow greens with your presence?
With being confused for being a green when you're not?
When you wield the power to pump the tyre around the girth?
When you, after being processed thoroughly, are my favourite unhealthy snack?
How is it like, Potato, being so renowned?

Or should I even be asking you that?
When you are grown in one place, but harvested by people from the South?
When cooperations process you being your intrinsic self?
Should I ask Chemicals and Salt as they perhaps are the cosmetics of your barren self?
Or should the packaging which you are in after being pulped into chips?



Uncle T

My Own Blockbuster 6:50 pm

I don't reckon that it will be considered an epic. Ever.

Yet, it had it poignant moments, and moments which I hope will stay in that portion of my grey matter which governs my daily life, my daily choices.

As I sat in the cinema seat expecting a family comedy, there were two episodes in the movie that moved me:

1. When you pray for courage, does God give you courage? When you pray to bring your family closer, does he make your family closer, or does he give you the opportunity to love them more?

2. To change the world, you can't really do it in a single act, but by cumulating small "Acts of Random Kindness", you possibly can.

Funny to make a reference to Mother Teresa and a Hollywood flick in the same breadth, but the former's personal letters have recently been published, revealing that Mother Teresa indeed suffered till her very last breathe the torment of knowing God being there yet not feeling His presence, does tie in with the second episode of the movie that I found moving.

Very often, especially being fresh out of teens, it tends to get easily cynical and jaded, and things like "change the world" and "world peace" tends to snugly belong to the bosoms of Miss Universe candidates. But the movie reminded me that "to know that one life has breathed because you lived, this is to have succeeded" (R.W.Emerson), and I don't need to be the President of the US (okay fine, bad choice of benchmark) to benchmark world-changing success.

How often do we complain, us with religions, that the Divine does not answer our prayers, or so we think. I think He answers our prayers with many opportunities that are carefully hidden in the little crevices of daily life, however routine however extraordinary, and that episode in the movie thoroughly reminded me of that, enough for me to blog after so long.

It does not need to be an epic, a blockbuster by capitalist standards (box office sales), but simply that those episodes in the movie spoke to me, it is my blockbuster. The cynic may say those are carefully crafted moments in order to win over your epiphany-tear-jerking points. I say that through the script writers, the director, the actors and even the script itself, those episodes were indeed those crevices in life that we often miss that contains so much inight into life; my life in this case.

Morsels that turns into a banquet. 5 loaves and 2 fishes, for the 5000.

Its my blockbuster. Do you have one? Look beyond the popcorns perhaps the next time you pay your $7/$9.50. You may just find yours.

Uncle T

Youth Bulge Theory 2:05 pm

I stumbled upon an article today that gave an alternative perspective on the war in Afghanistan, using youth-bulge theories and demographics as a source of wars and violence in general. The article can be found at: http://opendemocracy.com/conflicts/democracy_terror/islamism_war_demographics_rage

It is not scriptures from holy books or poverty that drives the conflict in Afghanistan, the article says. Rather, it is the "youth bulge" that spurs this violence. In fact, poverty alleviation actually can actually fuel the violence, given the youth bulge condition present.

To better understand how poverty alleviation with the youth buldge condition actually fuels violence is to first understand youth bulge. Youth bulge theory posits that, based on the study of history, shows clearly that when 30% or more of a nation's male inhabitants are in the 15-29 age bracket, the result is chaos, violence and upheaval. This creates a huge pool of economically superfluous young men who, because of humanitarian aid, are not in hunger, fed, but out of jobs. To get those limited positions in society, they will fight for it, and for fed and able-bodied men with no jobs, starting and sustaining fights on the basis for survival is not hard to fathom.

However, in order not to appear as cold-blooeded killers fighting for themselves, many of these men take lofty stand-points to come across as "honourable executioners" of the elites. Hence, because of this adament inclinations to use religious rhetoric as a cover of their cause, an appeal to rational interpretations of religious scriptures will hardly dent their violent "fanaticism".

Looking at Afghanistan's "reservoir" of fighters coming from its burgeoning young males, greatly outnumbers the number of soldiers NATO can put on the frontlines. While the article does not provide any solution, it leaves me guessing what kind of solutions the West and other policy-makers may put forth in light of this demographic-driven war.

Any solutions to suggest?

Uncle T

........... 12:18 am

Orders kopi peng and duck noodles...

It is about 2 weeks since I have arrived back home. Well, back to work tomorrow. You know your life needs a booster when work is like army; the only thing you look forward to the whole day is book-out. It has not reached that for me. Not yet. Not when its merely 2 weeks on the job. Wrong. Job connotes paid labour. Training, learning is the word.

And learn I do indeed. So much to learn, something new everyday so long as you keep your mind open, and ears willing, one will grow wiser with everyday that you're one day closer to your final bed.

Watched Harry Potter today; nothing life changing after all the cinematic magic; just that dull thud of reality that my life can never be like Harry Potter's no matter how much I will it. Often known as fiction. Pure fiction.

"Thoughts shape words, words shape actions, actions shape habits, habits shape character, character shape destinies." Such wise words He offers when I ask Him for guidance. And this came from an email floating around my inbox today. Listen, and you will here His voice. Clear out the scepticism and nurture faith. Only then will we start to His whispers that were all along there.

Uncle T