Singapore lost a great man today.

So last week, I traded in my Fz7, 12x Zoom and all for the Lumix Lx1, quite a beauty as you can see above. With 2 slrs sitting in the dry cabinet, the Fz7 was collecting dust and it makes a lot of sense that someone else would be making better use of it. With the money from that sale I was able to get myself a compact small enough to carry around everywhere - the Lx1 also known as the Leica D-lux 2. (Although Jaime shook her head at me buying yet another camera.) With an abundance of choices in the compact market, the Leica connection was the clincher for me.

The cool thing about the Lx1, besides its sleek classic look is that it shoots in RAW, so if you are willing to spare the time and play around with the processing, you get pretty good quality from a point and shoot. Another cool thing is it shoots really wide, in 16:9 perspective if you know what that is. I have been carrying it around, getting to know it. Here are some samples.

I was rummaging through the pile of disused books and documents under my bed yesterday, searching for a certain document, when i chanced upon a little blue notebook which looked vaguely familiar. I flipped it open and realized it was the journal of my New York trip back in I dunno,2004? December. I had written it and then when I returned, forgotten all about it, until now and the words don't look familiar, because they were written by someone else, well not exactly someone else perhaps, but a different me, a younger me, you get my drift?

"On this first day in New York, yes the Big Apple, the one of the movies, I have taken care of most of the important stuff, like my ticket to LA, calling up all the people, getting my hands on a subway map. But apart from that, I have been rather unambitious, visiting only the area around ground zero before the evening cold forces the thermometer southwards and I have to flee back to my slummy USD 15 a night motel in Chinatown, where the other denizens, newly arrived they look to be, are cooking over paraffin stoves outside the tiny cubicles.

New York oh New York, this is truly an amazing city, all these buildings which soar upwards; to get a glimpse of the December sky, you have to crane your neck. My eyes have been opened, things shall never be the same again, this is truly THE concrete jungle, the Amazon of them all, Singapore by comparison merely the woods. Ah the streets of New York, everything I have been led to believe, the rumbling of the subway underneath the sidewalk, white vapours rising up from the sewers and from the tops of buildings, F15s patrolling the skies, leaving white trails of smoke in their wake; everything I have been led to believe and then more, much much more, oh are there Alligators too ? Alligators in the sewers. "

For the longest time,  I had the CD in the car, but never got beyond "A Track & a Train". As a result it is 3 months after my Bangkok trip, before I got wind of this lovely lovely track. 

 

Turn up the volume on your speakers. Don't miss this one. Right up there in my stratosphere of great songs,  next to "Impossible", this is Please, Please, Please

And Shout Out Louds are a major band.

It's Monday again. I came home at 3 and put on Amelie, at the same time, doing some work. The part which left the biggest impression on me, funny it did not the first time round, but that was years ago; was the part in the pub where Bretodeau the old man, has just reclaimed his long-lost box of mementos. He downs the alcohol, wipes away the tears from his eyes, and turns towards Amelie,

Life's funny. To a kid, time always drags. Suddenly you're fifty. All that's left of your childhood... fits in a rusty little box.

Do you get it sometimes? I do. I get afraid of growing old and losing my energy, my agility and flexibility, my fitness, my idealism, most of all my sense of wonder.


My first mayday album. Their songs which capture so well the zeitgeist of Youth. But they are getting older too.

The immediacy of grief meant I woke up in tears. The dream felt so real, the replaying of an old Imax recording by the brain, a reflex action for every situation of our lives, but the storage vault to which we have no access to, so designed to prevent us from wasting too much of present to reminiscing.

Candy, my dear Candy, she was excitedly running around the house, I could hear the little clicks her paw-nails made with the floor tiles. I was getting the leash from its usual spot, hanging from the hook in the wall, in the balcony and she knew that meant she was going down for a walk. She bounded towards me and then the realization set in.

:(

First Outing with the Bigma. It was nice and sunny.I am rather pleased with the results.

The Bigma has arrived. For $800, I have got myself some long range firepower. 50-500mm. It's actually cheap for 500mm but yeah, well, its a Sigma. Will be taking it out tmr, pray for good light.

More shots from around home. I need to budget for some home improvement. My clothes cabinet is broken. Was at Ikea for dinner last night with Jaime, where I have got my eye on a replacement at a good price. The government's giving out money next month, and it isn't even election year!

My dad in the midst of his favorite past-time, reading.

Ok this to some of you might sound judgmental but I got a shock today when one of my fellow English Teacher-to-be in NIE did not know who Sarah Palin is. She could be forgiven if she was a Maths or Physics teacher, but for an English and perhaps GP teacher-to-be, you expect a certain level of general knowledge, and staying in touch, with world affairs. And I will bet she doesn't know a thing about Lehman Brothers or AIG and the financial meltdown on Wall Street.

The new English Syllabus that's scheduled to kick in, in 2010 aims to bring the world to our students in the teaching of English. If you don't know a thing about the world aside from LV, Gucci, Prada, online sprees and god knows what, how are you going to do that? For her sake, and for the sake of her future students, I hope she at least knows who Barack Obama is. From the first two lectures of QUE512, the module that is supposed to prepare us for the new syllabus; the one last week and the one that just ended, today, it seems we will be teaching mass-comm rather than pure English. We are supposed to expose the kids to stuff like the use of lighting in movies, how soft light conveys a sense of Nostalgia while dark light, Oppression; the various devices advertisements employ to persuade viewers.

I tell you, it's getting harder.

Slow motion, see me let go.



I have been listening to this song a lot today. Slow Motion, by Third Eye Blind, from the Blue album. It's really haunting. I guess I didn't really pay much attention to it, until today, and the lyrics are well, pretty profound. The band rails at the glamorization of drug use and violence by Hollywood. See if you can catch the lyrics.

We need the Devil to believe in God. That was the message I got from Fallen, the understated supernatural thriller from 1998, which starred Denzel Washington. I watched it for the 3rd time yesterday, with Jaime, our car-movie thing. I might wanna get some good portable speakers for the next time. We drove into Seletar Camp, as close as you get to colonial days Singapore.

Here's a riddle:

"Why is there a space between Lyons and Spakowsky?"

The Biennale is back! On our usual movie day, we went to Old Parliament house instead. With 45 mins left till closing, it didn't make sense for us to pay the $10 entry, fortunately the Showcase Singapore Exhibition was on, for the first 2 days only, so today's the last day. I might go back later! Twenty-three major international galleries have been invited to exhibit the best work available on the primary and secondary markets from around the world. There was some mind-boggling stuff on display, which made us wonder "How did they even think of that?"
We didn't even have time to go through everything in the Showcase. The clock struck 8 too soon. So this is just the tip of the iceberg, the start of a series. I think I will just let the pictures do the talking from here.





In the photo below is my personal favorite from yesterday, titled Cold War, a take on the geopolitical situation in the 1970s, when the world was divided into 2 ideological blocs. It features a world map sculpted out of bronze and connected to an air con cooling radiator, so the bronze is literally frozen cold, and droplets of melted water continuously drip down onto the tray below, like tears from a sad-eyed maiden.

I was going through documents from yesteryear in my old laptop, the Toshiba Protege 4010, the one which sends out tiny electric shocks occasionally from its corners, and groans when i turn it on as if to say, "let me sleep, I have earned my rest"; when I came across these scribbles, well, paintings, I dunno if you might want to call them that, but they were made with Paint after all, and they brought back a flood of memories, of dark musty lecture theaters and korean accented English.

Fridge magnets. From all the visits to JB. It's been while since the last crayfish dinner. I'm thinking of planning one soon.(Serial late comers will probably not be invited.)

In line with the last post, I went around the house, taking photos hoping to bring a new perspective to the familiar and mundane.

I have been reading up during the one week break. Some notes on photography:
A photographer composes his shot, deciding what to include, what to omit; and how to arrange the elements within the frame. Good composition or arrangement of elements within the picture frame is vital to the task to achieving high impact. Images that have balance, order and rhythm are pleasing to the eye. Some of the aspects which go to make up a strong composition - Balance, Line, how to divide up the frame and depth of field.

Balance
Usually, placing your subject off-centre will be more dynamic, leading the viewer's eye around the picture the balance is created by using another feature for contrast, one ideally of a different shape size, or colour. Two shapes of equal size compete for attention, cancelling out the interest in each other and the emphasis is lost. Two unequal shapes will take the viewer's eye across the picture from one to the other Colour contrast also helps, e.g balance a pale area against a strongly coloured object. For some pictures, symmetry also works.

Line
Strong lines in a photograph serve to direct the eye towards an object. Good placement of lines can guide the viewer, connecting different areas of an image together, creating movement and depth. Linear direction affects the overall mood of the image. A diagonal road in an image will be more interesting and exciting than if it went straight across the frace. Diagonal lines tend to impart a feeling of motion and vitality - they seem to be rising or falling, or moving from or towards the viewer. They instil your image with a vigour that vertical and horizontal lines do not.

Horizon line.
Where you place your horizon line gives emphasis to a particular part of the image. Placed towards the bottom, it gives importance to the upper part, vice versa. Placed across the middle, equal importance is suggested ( symmetry) This may create tension because the eye keeps moving back and forth unsure which half of the frame is more significant.

All points noted, the most important thing is to keep shooting and then study your images and think about how you can improve them, what you have done well, what you have not done well. Starting now! Go shoot.

In life, we often arrive at junctions like this, where a decision has to be made. One of 2 paths has to be chosen. For once, I am sure I made the correct decision.

This was taken in KL back in April when I got the Mayday concert in Genting to make up for missing the one in Singapore the next. With hindsight, I realize I wouldn't have met Jaime if I hadn't gone to Genting, because I would have given diving a miss, such is my fanaticism for Ah Shin and the fab five. So in a warped sort of way, where I am now (Bliss), I owe it to them for scheduling that wonderful makeup concert up among the clouds. Grateful also, I am, to Abel for coming along with me on that quixotic chase.

700 years into the future, humans have despoiled and so polluted the earth that it is no longer fit for living. The surviving humans have taken to 'cruising' the cosmos, in a giant mothership- the Axiom, on board which, all, yes ALL;, without having to lift a finger, all their needs are taken care of, by robotic helpers and they are relegated to couch potatos who spend their lives glued to TV monitors.

Not to give anything away, the movie is about a robot who develops a heart - Wall.E. The little robot is the only one truly living, for it has learnt to love. The humans may be alive, but as the Captain points out, they are merely surviving. WALL-E falls head over heels with a robot named EVE. In order to win her heart, Wall.E embarks on an intergalactic adventure, and in the process, to quote Andrew Stanton, (who came up with the idea for the show) " WALL-E's pursuit to win EVE's heart, and his unique appreciation of life, becomes mankind's last hope to rediscover its roots. In short, it's going to take a robot's love to help make the world go round."

After you've been working for awhile, you realize how wonderful it is to just have a day off. You start appreciating the long school holidays you had as a student, (that's the the good thing about being a teacher, you get the same holidays as your students! haha) where you stay up at night, pwning friends or being pwned on DOTA, not have to worry about being late the next morning. With so much time on your hands, you could wake up at 11am, if you so wished to, brush your teeth, put on a DVD, lie down on the couch, become a potato for the next 2 hrs, then have brunch, after that to aid digestion, you could take a nap, while your friends in the banks, UOB, ABN AMRO, Barclays, Philips Securities, rub their eyes in front of their computer monitors, as your accountant girlfriend (yes it's confirmed now) pores through yet more data. And then in the evening, sick of staying home for most of the rainy day you could go down to the void deck, sit, and enjoy the evening breeze, practise your hokkien chatting with the old grannies, or take photos of your favorite stray cat. Ahhh...... the perks of being a teacher.