kitchen stories // 12th august 2007 + 29th march 2008.

this is one of the first things i remembered seeing after getting home from being away in sweden for six months last year. i wanted to get a cup of water from the kitchen but was startled by this weird waving panda instead. my auntie had cut him out from a magazine and stuck him there to stop people from accidentally banging their heads against the sharp corner of a metal rack..



my auntie also has a practice of wrapping up all the vegetables and whateverthings in brown paper to supposedly help them keep better in the fridge. and she has this cool habit of sticking a leaf or some small characteristic part of the vegetable or whateverthing on the outside of the brown package so that she knows what is inside without having to unwrap to have a look. on one of my many late nights staying awake, i opened the fridge to check it out as part of my night time routine and was shocked to find these papers stuck outside two of the packages. i was like "wah!! aeroplanes!!" haha and then, "hrmm rocket lettuce??" and haha as i type now my auntie is scarily coincidentally unwrapping those two packages in front of me..and hrmm damn, no toy planes for me and not rocket lettuce either...just some regular cabbage or cabbage cousins.



on the same night/early morning, i leaned against the stove drinking my cup of water and was zoning out when i found myself staring at the floor, specifically staring at my old swimsuit from more than half my lifetime ago lying there on the floor. wah haha it is now the kitchen rag lor. really reduce reuse and recycle siah...though my inner designer quietly doubted the absorbency of an old swimsuit.

* * *

hrmm and kitchen stories is also one of my favourite little movies. i caught it at the film fest here some years back. it was a norwegian film about swedish researchers observing norwegian men in their kitchens so as to optimise their kitchen usage or something like that. and currently i forsee myself spending many late nights getting water and food in my kitchen really soon since our thesis is due at month's end. the calm has ended, let the storm begin!!! God be with us all no matter how things turn out. all the best!!

the rain after the sunshine // 24th march 2008.

big light in the sky. (somehow the word gloombloom comes to mind..)


even the guy in the tv also kenahs the rain in a moment of suspended reality.


the big light in the sky that moves.

i've always lived in the sky almost all of my life. and as long as i've had a tv, i always end up finding myself spending some time watching it reflected out there in the middle of nowhere. not sure why, but it's always been somewhat therapeutic. maybe i am a secret television addict who doesn't watch tv much otherwise.

cospolaroidexpensive

18th march 2008
this is part of many ongoing necessary personal projects spontaneously generated to momentarily distract ourselves from work. this was inspired after a dapow dinner at the aircon place cindy calls her lao di fang where we discussed how pigeon could take photo with his favourite photocopy shop auntie.... since polaroids are running out, we decided to turn to the most old school and most black and white of all neoprint machines. come to our studio gallery and add to the project! haha.

here comes the sun....(doo-doo-doo-dooh~)

6:14pm


6:18pm


6:19pm

blue skies gave way to a glorious sunset on 15th March 2008 after many days of nonstop rain and greyness. i love my roomwithaview.

but the livingroomwithaslightlackofaview is also not too shabby lah...


6:20pm, same day.

and then of course it rained for days after that lah. oh well! but it's oke. i shall be thankful for both the sunshine and the rain.

airshow

finally got to go after many years of wanting to go, thanks to an unexpected but most welcome 8.30am morning call amidst my zonkedoutness from the past week of hosting friends from abroad. much thanks to hun, her dad and his friends.

because i am feeling nostalgic.

because i am feeling nostalgic before going for darkroom printing in school tomorrow with hun, and words are failing me, i dug up these old photos.

i feel like i am at a long drawn out moment before i have to make some big decision and yet am not even sure if i will manage to reach the point where i will have to make that some big decision.

oke lah, will try to enjoy this long drawn out moment as much as i can.

say :no: to negativity! oh, wait...

haha oke oke. positivity, yeah!

cambodia and then christmas.

blessed christmas.

after being : : far, but not away : : for most of this year, i still felt like i needed to be : : not far, but quite away : : this school break. as part of our traditional class trips around southeast asia (somehow meeting up in milan when we were on exchange doesn't quite count as a class trip), we headed to siem reap and phnom penh for a short trip this december.

our trips had taken us from thailand, to vietnam, and now to cambodia. there are certain similarities but in some aspects the differences were stark. experiencing a place tends to be quite personal though. for me, cambodia was really hot - it was crazy hot weather everyday even though it was supposedly winter, but yet it was still a great place to be because of the people. the people were quite possibly even warmer than their weather, and there was this overwhelming feeling of goodwill wherever we went. we heard a spontaneous life story out of every person we talked with and really felt a sense of 'they really don't cheat your money siah' from the generous helpings of ingredients in the dishes we ate everywhere and the filled to the brim fill until cannot fill bottled water. i hope to go back again soon and learn to be as helpful to the people there as they have been with us.

hrmm and i should also apologise for previously thinking that people who pronounced phnom penh as PPPh-nom penh instead of Nnom penh were odd, yuan lai that's how the locals pronounce it!

blessed christmas once again, and hope that you all are having a restful and inspired holiday season, with a power and meaningful year to come!