home free; metaphorically speaking.
it's not the weekend but it is. next big milestone is my thesis on world hunger i.e. 'Political Murder' that's what i'm calling it, i know it's advisable to use emotion-neutral terms in academic papers but political murder is what it is and political murder i'm going to call it. if my TA's as cool as he's shown himself to be over the past few months, he'll take it. (more on that later - it's gotten to me, big time, i've gone off food again) anyhow, the paper's only due Nov 12th so i've got another week and a half to mull and procrastinate.

Halloween weekend's over but today was The Real Thing so despite classes, the costume turn out in class was nothing short of awesome. the ninja costume (reverted to that after i failed to locate my Wally jumper) from the weekend didn't seem like a practical idea for a day of lectures (read: suffocation) so today i was a 60's Aviator. borrowed jake's awesome leather/sheepskin ear-flap hat, Michael's brown breeches (the guy's a fucking size 27 can you believe it); threw in a scarf and an old henley, and (naturally) the requisite Ray Bans plus goggles on head and it was a hit. i have a blotchy red rash behind my left ear now though, i'm blaming the sheepskin. goddamn inhygienic Yankee boys.

the Art History major probably isn't materializing; talked to Ting Chang plus Elena after lecture today and they strongly (strongly) encouraged me to take it on as a minor in addition to a Pro. Writing major. figured that this way i'll get the best of both worlds, or colleges, rather. straddling CFA and College of H&SS is as sweet a deal as i could get - all the Rothko/Serra/Ando/Corbusier/Duchamp i could possibly want, without the stuffy nights stuck in studio sleeping in cots and subsisting on Wheat Thins. perfecto.

straddling colleges is one thing; straddling consciousness(es) is another. what of opening doors and not wanting to kick them shut, yet not stepping through; and what of putting one foot across the threshold yet remaining comfortably installed in your plushy armchair with a bowl of popcorn in lap and an endless stream of neoliberalist babble on the television? it only takes one hand to hold on to a TV remote, after all. what of stepping through; and sealing the entrance/exit behind you? and we're not talking pseudo-rugged Jeeps and boho-chic safari gear, here. we're dealing with a stripping of the soul. abject suffering, one can proclaim the ability to bear it - can you watch it though? touch it, feel its sealing brand on your atrial walls? didn't think so. these pages are keeping my hand on the doorknob, though.

here's a plug, but it's nowhere near shameless so..right. the plug. if you're thinking of buying winter shoes, Tom's are your best bet. they're the best bet for some kids with some pretty blistered feet, too. fuck Uggs, do they do anything for fly-bitten toes? or do they just keep yours toasty.

certain phrases do not require captions
captions are for foreign ears; those which these are bound for are not.
come to think of it, neither are the words.

Dan mungkin bila nanti kita kan bertemu lagi
Satu pintaku jangan kau coba tanyakan kembali
Rasa yang ku tinggal mati
Seperti hari kemarin saat semua di sini

strong suspicion that i'm really pushing it
this is actually more lighthearted than it sounds. i'm sitting by lousy lamplight (attempt at alliteration, ahoy!) elbow-deep in Noriega/DuBois/Oboler/Dyer/Said/Benedict, all my leading men and women of the moment. they're speaking to me, that's not quite the problem. trouble is, they're all talking too loud. All. At. The. Same. Time. funny how the Argument Synthesis of all their texts is supposed to be (quote Marcellino): "...an active discourse between the authors. Engage them in a conversation!" hoho, sir, you want a discussion, you got it.

back to how i'm pushing it. i've shelved myself into this nice little groove of giving myself no more than The Night Before to finish my papers. note how the small contribution papers are transiting gently (fucking fast) into major papers with OMFG heavy weightage. and ironically, Katherine the Koolest Akademic Advisor (mmmkay, giving up on the alliteration right now), plus assorted Profs are dropping me emails/pats on the back in class on my 4.0 GPA. ho-kay, don't ask me how the world works. Big Guy Upstairs is either raining down all the good stuff because, well, he's having a good time with the Goody-o-Meter - or, setting me up for a big Learning Lesson In Life (i.e. steaming pile of Shit) when end of semester comes and my GPA drops from perfect to..well, not so. i'm feeling great, though. truly. don't even talk about Argument Synthesis, this is Human Synthesis; i'm retaining the bits of me that make me, well, me: twistedly giving myself 6 hours to conjure some miracle of an essay when i could have had all of 6 days (case in point: blogging while i'm smack in the middle of it). but wait, there's the saving grace. i've read this stuff, i've loved it at first sight, delved into it, chewed on it and digested it, pondered it and gone off on numerous (irrelevant) tangents from it, talked to its authors in my head, and read it and fell in love with it again. so when assignments come, piecing together essays is a matter of piecing together the fragments of thoughts on it that are zooming around in my head. point is, those thoughts are there. and to think, for two years i struggled to get equilibriums/equations/formulae/reactions through the first barrier of my retinae. does anyone know how to spell Bloody Blessed? (oh come on, that one was good, have to admit it)

so many things to say, so little time. Fright Night was insane, never have i been to an amusement park that's one huge haunted ground. and to think, i was only bargaining for fun from the rides. i think i did more screaming walking around between rides than i did on the rides themselves. Disneyworld '09, folks? let's make it happen.

it's officially Cold as Fuck. i caved and bought a CMU sweatshirt; on another day, i caved and wore fleecepants to class. very retro, very Flashdance fleecepants. i know, shoot me now. the smug "i-told-you-so"s / teasing from Jake/Kim/Ji Soo/Lauren etc. were unbearable. they left a permanent mark. bastards, i'm getting ALL my jeans done in the laundry now, ready to wear. never again, i tell you.

i've caved in more ways than the Fashion Department. tomorrow i'm going for (getting dragged to) the Safewalk recruitment. of all things to suggest spending my nocturnal waking hours on, naturally certain do-gooders would suggest walking cold lonely (idiots) people home at 2AM. consolation is, the evil K coerced idiots like Jake/Lauren/Jim/Ming/Hubert/Winny/Kelly/Aaron/Alan/Caleb/Matt into doing it too, so it should be palatable. plus, we're doing community service; someone grab me a badge&flag. on the subject of string-pulling, certain do-gooders, seems to me, have a moral obligation (to the victim: me) to get me paired with someone fun. (Yuds, tell her about the midnight exploring plan.) You Know What To Do. (another way of saying You Owe Me)

mmmkay, on that uplifting note, did someone say Argument Essay? gotta run.

on the spookin' calendar: Fright Night at Kennywood, Schlagmare, Kettlecorn at KDR & Hilloween on the Hill
i'm going to be Wally (i.e. Where's Waldo?), with Yuds being a rival Pippi Longstockings. we'll make quite the cross-dressing pair. anyhow, bring it on, i look better in stripes.
Jake is in denial that Samurais are about as Asian as Asian gets (he still buys into the whole ridiculous Tom Cruise Western Hollywood take on Japanese Samurai culture, oh please) and is determined to be the Samurai of all Samurais. Timi's going to be Tomb Raider (the cornrows are a nice touch), Joe wants to be an oversized Charlie Brown, Matt's going for Charlie Chaplin, Skylar's doing quintissential cowgirl, Alina's doing the hula look, Tiff's a wood nymph (fairy/sprite/ah phooey not like anyone actually knows the difference), Lauren's rockin' the naughty nurse, Charles is going for Bob Marley. Ji Soo, Dan, Ronald, Jay, Izzy & the rest of the Koreans are going as...the Korean mafia, i'm thinking. too cool to dress up. Kim's doing the pirate, eye-patch and all.
talk about a motley crew. i'm still crossing my fingers someone taps into the Scooby gang, that would be..interesting.
bring on the festive horror, happy haunting x)

dreams
&crime

today i sat on the green and breathed in grass, breathed in the transition of seasons. today i learned for the second time in my life, how to ride a bicycle. haltingly, with steadying hands on the small of my back, i pedaled - and after a few failed attempts, there was some small miracle of coming home, of re-discovering something once done naturally with such ease in a time when one had not yet learnt to fear falling. this is what i am re-discovering; feet leaving ground, pedalling towards some indefinable intangible; poring over words of eras, artists, writers, revolutions, movements past, with the same fresh-eyed enthusiasm that i first did sitting on Mummy's lap before i could even read, quietly and alertly with chubby fingers on hers as she turned page after page filled with pictures of The Giving Tree, the Wild Things from Where The Wild Things Are, taking in words that i did not yet recognise but knew i wanted to. today i walked to Negley with a crisp folded white sheet in my hand that said Mid Term Grades, with the same letter printed neatly beside each of five course names. A, it was a familiar alphabet in cherished times in a gracious off-white school building with teachers who knew each by name and schoolgirls in blue running for meepok after class. i have, now, the wonder of re-discovering that small letter, with all the aspirations it paints in curlicues. today, i was reminded of how it felt to come home; we come full circle, us all, we lose grip of things that came as second nature, if only to re-discover them with the rush of familiarity that comes with learning to ride a bike again and realising you never forgot.

one only has to climb back on, and lift one's feet off the ground

rare occurrences see dreams being joint property;
once in a while, perhaps once in a lifetime, we cannot call our dreams all our own, for they are shared from some deep-set spring, they are visions reflected in the freckles that are two different irises.

today i re-laid my share of claim on dreams that grew from some sacred spring of starry-eyed aspiring.
tangibles - the suitcases that would have sat ready, packed with a stash of clean empty journals waiting to be filled and the bare essentials of soul travel that would have been bought with the returns of tasks that would have been toiled over, the loft that would have had one special wall for one sole Rothko - tangibles, we must return to the atmosphere, they had to dissipate
but farther spinning dreams, we still lay claim on them
i want to know that somewhere, rightful claim is being laid on what is not my share

catch on, we must spin on never-intersecting sides of the cosmic belt that ties these dreams,
but spin, do, because i have begun and the view is beautiful.

tonight, i have broken this out of deep freeze
for today, these sacred moments.
particular souls will come full circle, the origin is where we will be home.


I have called you children
I have called you son
What is there to answer
If I'm the only one
Morning comes in paradise
Morning comes in light
Still I must obey
Still I must invite

If there's anything to say
If there's anything to do
If there's any other way
I'll do anything for you

I was dressed in embarrassment
I was dressed in wine
If you had a part of me
Will you take your time?
Even if I come back
Even if I die
Is there some idea
To replace my life

Like a father to impress
Like a mother's mourning dress
If I ever make a mess
I'll do anything for you

I have you called you preacher
I have called you son
If you have a father
Or if you haven't one

I'll do anything for you
I'll do anything for you
I'll do anything for you
I'll do anything for you

I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you
I did everything for you

as of last night i'm a Beer Pong Champ, kid you not. eating my words now that all frats have a brain-rotting effect on anyone who sets foot in them.
KDR is probably the only frat house i'll step into; just the fact that Timi and Kim the male-haters deign to spend some nights/weekends there with Yuds (holler, Yuddi!) says a lot already. plus, there's the booze and the hookah.
anticipating my mid-term grades - particularly Crit Thinking, because it's a upper class philosophy course (i.e. i'm one of the only freshies, most others are Juniors/Seniors) and i'm seriously hoping that the two/three extra years of college don't give them too drastic an edge on me. teamed up with Yuds for beer pong against Timi/K last night, and between kicking their asses and..hmm, let me see, oh right, kicking their asses, he reassured me that even as a Sophomore he doesn't know shit about what we're doing in our Crit class so it doesn't make a difference. i don't feel all that much better though. he might just be an anomaly, all that Miller Light might be messing with the brain cells. doesn't help that he watches College Girls Gone Wild during class (HAHA, MADE YOU LOOK YUDS)

i'm thinking...Jeep Wrangler, secondhand, for next year. now all i have to do is race Kim to it. the army green is Mine.

sat on the porch this afternoon and allowed my hair to get cut with $5.99 shears from Giant Eagle. the choppiness is tres liberating. perfect for top downs on Fall days. thanks K, your turn next. right now we're sewing patches ("Carmel is for Lovers") on an awesome sack i picked up from the Strip - complete steal. no more lugging multiple bags to class for Macbook/real books.

how do you deal with circumstance rather than indifference being the obstacle to something potentially remarkable? there is nothing that can be done. why is it that sometimes the hardest things to accept are the ones we have no control over?

must run if we're going to contribute at least a six-pack. picnic at Schenley Park tonight and it's just too lazy a day for me to lift a finger to rustle up any proper food. (hey, someone has to provide drinks, right)

i leave you with the main victim of me/Timi's photo attacking last night:



hey yuddi you so fine you blow my mind HAHAHAHA
have a good weekend folks

been to Snowshoe and back, and in the almost-week that's come in between, we've battled our way through to Mid Term Break. which starts as of - right now. i'm just blissfully waiting for everyone to get off class and join me in...rejoicing, sleeping, i don't quite know. to be fair, we didn't exactly over-tax ourselves over the past few days. Snowshoe took the wind out of my academic motivation sails (thanks ZH) i.e. have slipped into a comfortable routine of hiking over to Negley and lolling on Kim's porch after the day's classes, rocking on My Green Rocker (mine as of Oct 2 2007), occasionally stretching our legs to kick some autumn leaves 'round her garden/pull some Stella out of her fridge. 'tis how a Freshman leads a Sophomore astray. (case in point: she nearly had a hernia when we woke up at 7:10AM Tuesday morning on the front porch and realised she had approx. 20 mins to change, get her gear and head to BreakD before her chem class. i daresay i handled the situation fairly calmly, considering i was dealing with a hyperventilating girl who has been fifteen mins early for everything for the past two years) anyhow, the Soph OCs (OveraChievers) have another redundant fund-sapping trip to God-knows-where, so i'll have to give up my role as Devil's Advocate, at least for the next couple of days. (good luck with Timmi, Kimsters, she'll take over.) come to think of it, i haven't seen ZH/Winny/Shing since the road trip. must make a mental note to, tonight or something.

so the present location's Hunt again, and Jake's half-drooling half-snoring beside me. i'm not even going to attempt to wake him up for his Design Media class and save him from getting yelled at because He Deserves It. bloody fucker, he cheated his Mumsters (jolly Italian woman. shame on that boy) that he needed money for a new sketchboard plus frame (okay, which was true, his did get spoilt) BUT THEN he got sidetracked when me/Hilary/Jim/him were on the way to the supplies store, went into Sunglass Hut and BLEW THAT MONEY PLUS SOME OF HIS OWN ON A NEW PAIR OF WAYFARERS. the bloody idiot has a pair, already. everyone knows he's obsessed with channeling Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but this is getting quite ridiculous. these boys are taking New Age Male to a whole new level. and now he's desperately been trying to sketch blueprints on a board that's split right down the middle and Scotch-taped together.
Scotch-taped.
for all of today he's been sitting on his skinny white ass hunched over a floppy broken sketchboard in the studio wearing his Wayfarers (indoors) and humming happily to himself.
for Chrissake.

anyhow, everything's been great on the Roselawn front, except we're already feeling (very) premature sadness at the prospect of not living together next year. either all the Roselawn Terraces get torn down because they're so ancient they look like they survived the Stone Ages, or we move out anyways because we're paying so much more rent than the people living in ordinary dorms. for what i'm paying in rent, i could easily get a pretty gorgeous apartment Downtown next year, say, two-bedroom. the only difference is i have to drive to school, but driving's been the plan all the while either way. have been online car-lusting with Kim (who wants to switch her rust-bucket Jeep for a Dodge) and i've narrowed it down to a couple (thousand) options. no seriously, i'm getting there. just...a...few...more...looks. then next year i'll probably cut short Summer break and come back for The Reunion/The Apartment-Hunt. can't hardly wait, there's a shebang of places that've caught my eye already. this loft, in particular; exposed ceilings, raw concrete kitchen floors, balcony&fire escape ladder...stop. stop, now.

in an hour or so all the assorted persons i'm waiting (im)patiently for should be done; Fall's taken over the air and they're selling cider on the Strip District streets; anyone who's leaving for trip(s) aren't leaving til tomorrow; the night's promising to be crisp and smelling like autumn leaves -
we could be happier, but then we might be in a parallel universe.

of Jeep tunes;

I would call you up
Every Saturday night
And we'd both stay out 'til the morning light
And we sang,"Here we go again."
And though time goes by
I will always be
In a club with you
In 1973
Singing, "Here we go again."

here we go, again.

having settled the Laundry Saga early this morning (Lifesaver Kim),
i'm at Snowshoe, West Virginia x)
left campus at one. piled up the (huge) load of paraphernelia in ZH's Land Rover, strapped Betty and Stella (bike beauties) on the roof, and we were off. stopped over at Whole Foods (orgasmic encounter with muesli and The Ultimate Salad Bar) and then it was a five hour drive up. and we're here! happily installed in a cubbyhole room at Highland House, complete with fireplace, balcony overlooking the woods (hooka fest) and...tiny, tiny beds and tiny bathroom. can't always win. but it's a pretty sweet deal - budget is the way to go, no matter a couple of nights positioned foot-to-head on the floor.

tomorrow we hit the mountain trails.
i've earned this, goddamnit.
now, for s'mores and smoke x)

FUCKING FUCK, SHOOT ME NOW
washing machine in our basement went bust so i'm here in the fucking Maggie Mo laundry place at 3:49AM and i've got four different washing machines loaded up with my stuff and it's all drenched in detergent AND MY FUCKING ID CARD ISN'T WORKING ON THE MACHINES I'VE SWIPED IT JUST ABOUT FIFTY TIMES AND NOW I'M STRANDED HERE WITH FOUR LOADS OF DETERGENT-DRENCHED CLOTHES
no wait, wait for it, it gets better.
the entire Intersection just left for a overnight field trip at some nearby arts college (except me: only fucking non-College of Fine Arts major in the entire Intersection dorm area) so i can't borrow anyone's card to swipe because only the Intersection kids get authorization for this laundromat.
christ, and up til now it was such a good start to the weekend.
this is the result of Not Thinking. so typical. go out and splurge on Morton's to celebrate end of the Nightmare Paper Week, get all good and stuffed, drive up to Southside and drink Stella/smoke in the freezing cold for a couple hours, come back...and land myself in a steaming pile of shit.
i'm weighing my options now. a) sit in Maggie Mo Laundromat sulking on Kim's laptop and wait for some Intersection kid who forgot to get on the field trip bus today (hoho fat hope) to walk by so i can grab them and get them to lend me their card (at 4AM in the fucking morning hoho good luck) b) take out four sopping loads of clothes dripping in dark blue detergent and schlep it to Donner to wash at Joe's c) call Kim and get her to lug them with me to her's or d) leave my clothes here til the morning when the Interdowesnik buch gets back.

d) sounded like the most promising option til i realised i cleverly put ALL my sweaters/sweatshirts/jeans in the wash 'cept what i'm wearing right now, and i need to pack them for the Awesome Snowshoe Road Trip me/Winny/Shing/Zhi Hao are going on tomorrow morning.

on a lighter note, big love to Lu and Ser. i'm still reeling from the shock of the call; congrats doesn't say enough. THAILAND '07, WATCH OUT, MY GIRLS ARE DYNAMITE. your news made my day. Lu, i reserved the right to say I Told You So and i'll say it now gladly - all those nights we sat on the roof talking about the Games, those weren't just dreams. go get 'em. Ser, you/i know you were always ready for this. love x 1000000000000, i'm proud of you two. knock 'em dead. i'm there, front row, dead center x)

Jesus A Christ. laundry, how?
tomorrow, i will laugh about this. (i will. I WILL.)

back row, third unit, corner monitor. it's become my mainstay spot at Hunt. right now, there's a little brown ring on the white Formica of the desk from the bottom of my Ginger's coffee cup yesterday night. i'm sitting here with two tall, satisfying stacks of books from the 4th floor flanking my screen. all checked out, all mine til November...er, something-th. (must make mental note to check) roamed the aisles with Jake til the cows came home, before hauling all my loot down here. it was incredibly difficult not to be greedy - Jake had to physically wrench three large Tadao Ando volumes (combined weight = Tristan Tham) from my cold relentless fingers. i settled (for now) for a slim journal of interviews with Ando, a documented discourse on Autonomy and Ideology - the Positioning of Avante-Garde in America, a fat juicy Rothko volume (naturally), a chronicle of a lifetime of Sandra Blow's 2.5D paintings and, wait for it, the Catch of the Day - Team 10:in search of a Utopia of the present. lust describes what i felt when i found it in the Stacks-4 aisles. their utopian vision, underground workings, nonchalance to formalized membership/project documentation...it sends these delicious chills down my spine. mystery:defined.

i've indulged in documentation of 4 of their major project meetings, so far. most of them pre-1969. my fingers can't help creeping to the back pages, post-CIAM scandal. but i....shouldn't. getting down and dirty with my Crit Thinking essay, in a couple more minutes. i'm on a roll. Witch Hunt essay (Monday), check. Tony Smith: Light Up! essay (this morning), check. Eating the Other essay (Friday), aforementioned Philo essay (Friday), in the works.

I think the idea of a 'finished' picture is a fiction. I think a man spends his whole lifetime painting one picture or working on one piece of sculpture. The question of stopping is really a decision of moral considerations. To what extent are you intoxicated by the actual act, so that you are beguiled by it? The decision is always made when the piece has something in it that you wanted. - Barnett Newman

to be brought to mind, the next time i just can't let that goddamn last word, last line, last paragraph, rest.

we're getting closer.

my savior tonight came in the form of Jay - am happily installed with his trusty Dell in the Margaret Morrison Yellow Studio blissfully observing the nocturnal species that is The Architecture Majors work away like the ruler-wielding, graphite pencil-championing sketch-churning machines they are. i have to say the CFA students are a unique breed; the archis, in particular, are renowned for regular all-nighters, subsisting solely on the clash of music from the various portable music devices on every drawing table, various varieties of portable food (i.e. Wheat Thins (these are my people), Teddy Grahams, Skittles, etc.) and the manic drive to finish the model/sketch of the day (night). they have cots here, actual cots for sleeping in, right here in the studio for chrissake. i call it Genius. me, i'm content to sit and...absorb. am rapidly assimilating into their culture simply because their sleep patterns mimic mine so uncannily. i sit and write, Jay/Winny/Paul/Arthur&co. draw, everyone is content. the Rotunda is a huge pull-factor too; a step on the radiator/a random chair, a boost from whoever happens to be conveniently around, and voila, you're in your own little Balcony Universe. genius. granted, access to the Rotunda is supposedly prohibited (apparently, the Deans of CFA were anticipating suicidal tendencies manifesting themselves in the crazed kids who stay all hours drawing feverishly) but when the cigarettes call (which they often do, for at least 3/4 of the CFA population) one has to answer. and where better than the balcony, just a climb-out-the-window away?

please excuse me, it's one of those nights. when all academic writing has been done and i cannot resist a little indulgence in descriptive writing, chronicling observations that have no purpose whatsoever. increasingly, words are becoming a release. which is odd, because being here in this context i've been writing more than i've ever done in my entire existence, thesis papers, argument summaries, interpretation essays; yet it only spurs me to...write more. odd, how the complementary functions of the emotional plane interact with that of the intellectual.

earlier i made a trip downstairs to the vending machines hidden in the basement of the CFA building (hidden because they destroy the gracious, grand aesthetic of the CFA's traditional architecture; snobbish bastards) and subsequently made a trip to the correspondingly old bathroom. as much of an oddity as this may make me sound, one thing i love about campus is the bathrooms. idle scribblings on stall doors and walls that you peruse, equally idly; it's an old school, old world institution. i read the marks left by generations of Tartans; etchings in black or blue Biro alluding to a certain crisp youth and naivety, despite our insistence on maturity, etc. one said, "I hear all these songs in my head, and it makes me sad."

achingly simple eloquence is the order of the night.

there is but one word for this moment
to quote Papa Steven Haurissa, "Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeesebun."
as of approx. thirteen hours ago, my laptop's been cut off from the CMU server. i.e. No Internet Forever and Ever (45 days). the nice gentle bombshell dropped early this morning after an ego-swelling talk with Marcellino about my Du Bois essay, when i swung by Hunt to check my email. i'm inclined to align myself with Skylar's blatant assertions that CMU is a fascist institution (Bee,129). i suppose i brought this upon myself. being blissfully unaware that accumulating a small wealth of Sartorialist/Facehunter/Nylon photos every night constitutes downloading beyond the xxx MB limit (still don't know how many i'm allowed. So Shoot Me.)per day, i've been indulging in click-happy hoarding. just goes to show, you reap what you sow. (so far, i've accidentally made three different keyboards in three different college clusters Sticky For Life; two words - iced tea.)

will have to trudge all the way out here every day to get my 'Net. alternatively, i could wait for assorted peoples to appear on my doorstep proferring their laptops. (insert pregnant pause/pointed look here)
i know what i'm going to be fantasizing about tonight.

Mac/Vaio/Presario/Dell, you my leading guys.
(come on Kim, come on)

a pack a day keeps the existential moments away

i'm in the bowels of the Hunt library. i've never understood the conception of that phrase, being in the bowels of a certain place, it conjures the sensation of being in the biological throes of a living, breathing entity. a la the Hunt library as a pulsing entity of the collective anxiety of that particular essay due tomorrow morning, that particular sketch due in studio, that particular algorithm to crack before lab session tomorrow, that particular model to be built, that particular stack of notes to be miraculously assimilated. and then, there's the allusion to being situated in the bottom half of an entity's physical anatomy. ew, gross.

check the digression. for me, it's That World History Paper. Moon, Sun and Witches - Witch Hunts As The Ideological Arm Of A Spanish Political Conquest For Dominion Over The Andes, that's what i've ingeniously titled my paper, presently consisting of...two pages and three lines. don't even ask how much i have to go. i'm focusing on the glass-half-full school of thought at this moment. now, if only it were really half full, instead of a third.

i wish i had time to offload the collective strain of the past few days in a few blunt, well-aimed paragraphs - but i don't. the witches of the Andes are calling me. i'm clocking in to say i've been expending energy at an alarming rate but hope hasn't been flowing through the drainage channels. i.e, Still Going Strong. i hope you all are too; we never know if we're getting close, but we always know that we're getting closer.

i've had a flash of inspiration, my last line (for extra punch), i'm thinking along the lines of 'goddamn Spaniards, burn in Hell'. Hell, or Hell's eternal fire?

i've just come back from The Lives Of Others; Das Leben der Anderen. more about that at a more opportune time; it was well worth the dollar, and the short midnight walk to the UC fumbling for cigarettes along the way.

anomaly in the hour of rest - last night i fell asleep at an anomalous 10:45PM, which saw me jolting awake at 4 in the morning and scrabbling for my glasses/book bag in an erroneous panic that i was late for class. it felt like a special treat, of sorts, to discover i had a good eight hours more til Critical Thinking.
the order of the day started well. my sleep had been punctuated with visions/embarassingly bright hopes of the Guggenheim/Tate-related kind; Elena and the Profs dealt me an A for the Duchamp paper, allaying some of my apprehension re: being devoid of art interpretation skills, the folly of lack of background, etc. anyhow, this morning i treated myself to Maya Lin. it came in the mail yesterday; ordered it on Amazon last week after being intrigued by the 20min clip Prof. Chang teased us with in lecture. the TV at the Maggie Mo Lounge didn't even deign to load the pre-historic video casette copy from the library.

like her work, the profundity of Lin's aesthetic spoke for itself; explaining it any other way than the form it was presented in would detract from, rather than add to, its impact. i won't attempt to. suffices to say it moved, and removed me - from the cluttered plane of vision i've grown so accustomed to seeing things through. A Strong Clear Vision, indeed. when one encounters art work of such simplicity and yet explicit site specificity, it confronts one's concept of public art; art which maintains the integrity of the artist's original vision yet is profoundly tied with the consciousness of a said Public. like i heatedly expressed to Kim, it was a gratifying contrast from Serra's ethos of public art - that merely of a private work set in a public space. it neither fulfilled the function of space definition nor resolution of any public concern/representation, save to treat the public as a form of human traffic. i was indescribably...moved by Lin's resolution on all fronts, there isn't a better word for it. a decade of her art work and 86 minutes, was all it took me to come full circle (pun intended).

"All I was saying in this piece was that the cost of war is these individuals, and we have to remember them first. And so it's really the people, not the politics, which is what this piece is about. Because it's only when you accept the pain, it's only when you accept the death, can you then come away from it, can you then...overcome it. And literally, as you read a name, as you touch a name - and the pain will come out, I really did mean for people to cry - you can then...have to, of your own power, turn around and walk back up into the light, into the present. But if you can't accept death, you'll never get over it. So what the memorial is about, it's about honesty. Which is also what the Civil Rights piece is about; you have to accept and admit that this pain has occured, in order for it to be healed, in order for it to be cathartic."

"We went to visit the site. And I guess I just imagined taking a knife, cutting open the earth, opening it up, pointing one end to the Lincoln and one end to the Washington; and having names be chronological. Someone had sent off for the preliminary booklet and it came back, and the booklet said, you know, words, the names of the fifty seven thousand dead must be on the memorial. And I said, 'Perfect.' And that's what the memorial would be - the names upon the black surface of the earth; the earth polished."

"My work originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings. And this can include not just the physical, but the psychological world which we live in. This desire has at times led me to become involved in art works that are as much politically-motivated as they are aesthetically-based, creating works which focus on some sobering realities of our age. But an artist fights to retain the integrity of a work, so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is, and should be, the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar. It is that collection of those singular, personal visions, transformed from within the mind's eye to the public, which has throughout time, throughout our history, come to form a definition of who we are, and in a way, why we are. It is a dialogue with not only our peers, but with people in times both before and beyond our time. For although each of us can defined by the brief, physical time that we as individuals exist, we have the ability to make that time extend far beyond our physical existence. We are part of a collective consciousness, connected to one another through time by our works, images, thoughts, and writings. We communicate to future generations what we are; what we have been; hopefully influencing, for the better, what we will become." - Lin

'nough said.

i've got two history papers due in the next six days; one World History, one Art History. time for the conception of a strong, clear vision. (couldn't resist)

if we haven't forgotten, we cannot forget; and if we cannot forget we cannot lose.

the links between people are so tenuous and yet so beautiful. this silvery web of human connection has made itself tangible, visible, yet again, in the face of recent events. we find ourselves each other's safety net, just as we were five, seven years back. when we were rash teens high on ourselves and each other - and yet, reality was born of frivolity. reality in real human ties. i'm yet again reminded how tangible what we had was. does thank you suffice?

we cannot lose.


from the safety of friendship, there is the levity, too -
chance encounters continue, i bumped into Kar-men on the bus to Southside over the weekend; turns out she wasn't doing the sophomore attachment in Spain after all, and she'll be on campus all semester - she didn't have time to tell me before i came in for orientation week. that's one more lunch companion on the list. i'm almost certain she won't mind my recent rabbit-like food preferences.

Hui Ling's brother is at CMU as well - that was a flyer from left field, i didn't see that one coming. i've never been so pleased at being knocked senseless before. "you look like an SCGS girl" - that's all it took for the whole shebang to come out. he was appropriately amused at my enthusiasm re: Hui Ling. four years my senior, through and through SCGS Kim Gek, darling of the entire staff/faculty/student body, gorgeous, my prefect mentor (oh ho ho), in short, Object of Admiration all round. was appropriately amused, as well, at my offence at the comment, "My sister's all that? She's alright, I guess,". i gushed about her/other random unrelated issues to which he had completely opposing views, and he expressed those views - each of us blissfully ignoring each other's lack of consensus.
and shamelessly abusing each other's opinions.
all of this, over black coffee (no sugar).
i smell the birth of a beautiful friendship.

this one was the cherry on the sundae, the icing on the cake, whatever floats your boat (it floated my boat): KENNETH GOH IS AT CMU, lisa, KENNETH. of all long lost friends, The Guy Upstairs throws me Ken. this completely redefines the meaning of God-send. he was Mr Big Brother during the swimming days, back when him, Mark, Gary, Daniel, Leslie etc were ruling the pool. and then he was suddenly All Grown Up (when did that happen?! remains a mystery to date); one minute he was spitting chlorine water at us in the pool after training, the next he was off to Cornell, then Harvard - then it was the suit and tie, we caught news of him from Uncle Siong, described as a "promising entrepreneurial talent". and then, tap on the shoulder a Saturday afternoon lounging on the Carnegie Cut - spin around, come vis-a-vis with Big Brother circa. '98. as fate has it it's his first year here at CMU too. Carnegie's grad school; doing a PhD. thank god for his habit of over achieving - it's gifting me with two good long years of time lost.

this morning, i had a long discussion with Ting Chang (Prof., Crit Art History) about a small budding notion that's been growing on me steadily. her receptiveness touched me - i'm working by the light of a steady new glow. i won't write more, though, it seems to precious a gem to share in trivial words. selected ones, let me paint you an over-phone picture.

reflections of the past couple of days strongly recalled the quiet moments with my Dad that i loved best. how he would tell me, in his quietly intellectual, unassuming way, stories of the people who came into his life at the most serendipitous times, opened slat windows and sky roofs when doors seemed to shut. i'd always amounted these accounts to humility - he was ever one to downplay his own talent. it's crystallizing now, what he had been trying to share with me; the warm realization of fuzzy faces in the backdrop of your life that will materialize, focus into prism-symmetrical clarity at moments when they fit best. they will not always be familiar faces, returning - although often times, they will happen to be, which makes their appearance so much sweeter. not on your call, or anyone else's - call it the order in the chaos of life, if you will. they stroll to your side, when you need them (one may not be aware of this need) and perhaps, if the chaos permits, you can keep them for awhile, or longer. who knows what they're here for? if only for a gait in step with yours, a familiarity in conversation of worlds long past.

i will pen this down on paper later, perhaps, if i have the energy -

"Thank you Daddy - when you told me your tales, fortune assimilated from your life to mine. These are my serendipitous others, and with the love and anxiety and frustration and your soaring regard of me you harboured quietly, you sent them to me, companion travellers on this second chance train I've leapt onto. I got your card in the mail, with the package, in Mummy's gentle script of a sophisticate with rough hands. "Thanksgiving came early! We love you. Shine like the star you are." Thanksgiving did come early, how did you know? You've sent me angels, and love - a body could very well survive, just on one of the two. I love you."

i'm spent. and, as an afterthought - Chong Wei En Lisa, you make me Very Gek, you understand? goddamn lucky i love you so much. you don't fear for your own wellbeing, i know - you know i don't use violence on you - so you just keep in mind X's vital organs are in peril if you two don't keep it in check. GO INTO YOUR RESPECTIVE CORNERS, NOW (love)

We are always living in twilight

xxx, Shu