24/5/13
3:47am
in a mood
remembering how at our recent flat party maybe or at the barbeque at hollaway the other day someone said she went to the doctor about something she felt concerned about and the doctor said "you can just treat that as a party trick"
in a department store the other day with bright lights reflecting off mirrored surfaces i felt aware of an internal monologue that said "everything just needs to be perfect" and i felt frightened then sad maybe wondering when that would change, that voice, when that would go away
sometimes i think i actively want to avoid being around people who move in self-destructive manners because that is not a thing i want to do anymore and i don't want to be reminded of those options and that works most of the time but then when days get exhausting and overwhelming with adult decisions that i have to make and handle alone because that is the way it is now as a twenty-one year old and in the framework of certain relationships between the two of us when i have to make decisions over and over again i feel battered and tired and just want to be quiet in my room alone for a long time
i think what i want to know is why the question on my mind is "what is the point of X" because why do things have to have a point or mean anything and why is it that when i woke up in a place that i had woken up before and when i thought "not everything has to mean something" i felt dulled down to emptiness by that thought, i want to know why we want things to mean something that is still something that since i was eighteen i have not figured out
if everything else is going "fine" and "good" then all i have to do is to keep up the energy levels to maintain what is going "fine" and "good"
been listening to 'this place is a prison' by the postal service all day because the first few seconds/heavy beats are exactly how i feel when i am in this mood like an undercurrent thudding that is part of myself or something going to slow numb inside me that i don't know how to stop i wish i got to see them when they played in london last weekend and i wish i got to see them with stacey. when i listen to this song i think about being in the basement with michael meggie crispin mat and stacey at 4am having been awake for hours and feeling fucked but not in a terrible way and all of us listening to the postal service and feeling not alone because we were with each other even though we were listening to the saddest songs
tomorrow i have to go to the airport but i want the airport to come to me but i will still go to the airport because in the morning i will feel different from how i feel now which is something i have to remember that if only i wait for a bit i will feel different from how i feel now
i want to be happy & excited but not if that means i will be [so sad] later
a person in a movie (?) said that nothing is worth anything if you're alone in the end because people are what make the difference in your life and i feel like that's true and not true, when i think about trees and places i have been when i have not been with anyone else i think of rivers or the sound of the sea when i stood at the edge of it and how i felt when i was underwater but all of that is marked still by the awareness that i was alone, whether or not i felt okay or not okay about being alone
my point is i think that he comes and leaves and this happens over and over again and even if this is the best relationship i have ever had what i need more than a person is stability and maybe i have that, emotionally, because of him, but also i think because i have learnt how to be alone, and i don't like or want to subject to uncertainty, to getting used to being around someone, and then having to be by myself again, even if i know i will be fine; it's not him vs finding someone else who would suit me better, it's being in a relationship vs being alone
then again what else do i have to or want to look forward to
studying / reading / going places elsewhere / keep going
i want to maybe only love things that cannot love me back
"Spoke to Nat tonight, I feel like we've given each other so much that now when we talk, there's no need for clarifications or a setting of context. Our friendship and overlapped lives are context enough, and whenever we talk we can just go deeper into things on our minds. It's a beautiful friendship, really. I guess I can only wish everyone had a friend like her in their lives." —just read this on eve's blog, i feel the same way about her, like i can give her 'my all' and not be afraid that she will do something that makes me feel bad with it. when i think about the fact that someone like her would feel strongly about me my face crumples into something like a smile
19/5/13
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wholewheat pizza with caramelized onions, manchego cheese & sliced potatoes
beautiful room in which i could imagine living in & calling a room of my own
sunday evening, 7:34pm
woke up this morning after a dream in which some of my teeth had fallen out
in my dream i was holding my teeth in my hands and looking at them from different angles,
the wear only partially evident, edges of the enamel small & jagged from uneven erosion
remember thinking that this is the way it will be always now, i can't take it back
can't do anything that will change my teeth falling out
on thursday morning i went to lantana to meet my partner for the aesthetic project
we talked a long time & our thing feels more whole, taking on the shape of its name
walked down to soho & then i sat in soho sq against a tree & finished reading 'what is amazing'
looking up i saw rainclouds & walked to planet organic to get more rye & spelt flour
rowan had an exam on friday so i said "let me make dinner so you don't have to worry abt food"
went back to the flat and talked to kathi for a while before putting the pizza dough together
covered the bowl with a cloth & left it to rise in the oven and waited for everyone to come over
used the cheese i bought from the day my family & i visited a mountain in spain & it was amazing
felt nice being able to make food i liked and to make food for more than just myself
the recipe i used for the dough is from greenkitchenstories.com which is one of my fav food blogs now
except i used a mix of wholewheat rye flour (2/3) and white spelt flour (1/3)
i liked the dough and would use this recipe again
except would make sure the dough is stretched out a lot more
these pizza slices came out a lot thicker than i would have liked it to be
on saturday afternoon rowan and i went to view the flat that we were supposed to view the day before
it was perfect and everything i would want out of a home
two rooms close enough to each other
clean white walls and neutral furniture
small and comfortable with enough light in the mornings
a backdoor to a garden filled with flowers
the only thing is that it's a 2.3 mile walk from school
and that maybe someone else might have already put an offer in for it
have developed an addiction to refreshing flat listings on gumtree.com
something about the endless and unknown possibilities
entertaining the fantasy of living in different neighbourhoods
imagining what it could be like to stay in a place you love
that feels far more attractive than looking at any other social media feed
after viewing the flat rowan & i walked back to euston
squatted on a curb waiting for stacey to come around
in the kitchen i made an eggplant & lemongrass curry with
cauliflower, carrots, cubes of apples, potatoes and red onions
ate that with brown rice. feels really nice/easy to make food i like
we bought cookies & bagels and got on the tube
got off at haggerston & walked towards a pub to meet the guys
something i say often about what i like about london is
the way the streets keep unfolding, that you can feel it
almost, as though each district has a spirit of its own
subtle changes in the streets and in the feel of the place
when you cross one street into another and in the last light
of the evening it is always so beautiful
i think i keep waiting to be proven wrong, is my point
but i haven't been yet
eurovision is an experience that i feel ambivalent about i think
hilarious and good fun watching other people experiencing it
but mostly that i find it hard to "get into" supporting people/things
that are very distant or far away from me even identifying
with a country i was born in that doesn't seem like a thing i feel
that was something kathi and i talked about today, how it seems like
most teens/of out friends went through an "attached-to-a-cute-musician/star" phase
don't remember being experiencing, i feel like if i had ever expressed interest
in the physical appearance of a musician/star/someone "famous"
it was because it seemed appropriate or bc everyone around me seemed to genuinely feel that way
i never "genuinely" felt that i don't think
walked home from hackney through old street & shoreditch
as long as my phone has battery & i have music to listen to
i feel like i can keep walking, this is what i love about being here
about this city, about being alone, like i can go anywhere
like nothing else matters
i don't ever want to leave it
my feet hurt today though from walking too much
i've destroyed a pair of flats & boots from walking ~3/4 miles everyday
this morning i walked into the kitchen at the same time as kathi
and we sat down to have breakfast together, that's not something
we ever did really, it feels like we've taken this long to get to know
each other this well & feel proper comfortable around each other
only for her to leave london in two weeks, although of course she'll be
around next year, the only one of my flatmates who will still be around
i said "what are you doing today" and she said "nothing do you want to go out"
and i said "yes i have been planning to go to brick lane for a while" and
she said "okay let's do it" and then we talked about ann having a huge party last night
and were laughing about something when christian walked in and i said "hi
do you want to come out with us today" and felt happy when he agreed
feel like the "best" days happen when you don't plan it in advance
and you just decide to do something out of the blue that you
haven't allowed yourself the time for in a while
that i think was what felt really good about today
also the weather, mildly cold, finally the sun in our eyes
took the tube to old street, talking about films we watched recently & what we liked about them
it's strange i guess to have lived with people for so long (not kathi though because we're
usually in the kitchen late at night having tea and snacking/ but christian & ann & jimmy)
and not really knowing what they're like, beyond a vague grasp of their personal habits/personality
so i feel like that was nice about today, all of us grabbing bagels, being hugged by kathi
looking at books together, christian picking out books for me that he recommended
sitting down on the second level of a bar to take a short break from walking for hours
getting carrot & watermelon juices, looking at racks of clothes propped up against vans
on the way home i said "do you feel like you had a good first year"
and kathi said "i have been disappointed by so many people this here, it makes me so sad,
but i feel like you're one of the good things that happened to me" and i hugged her really hard
i feel like i'm used to thinking of people i've met recently
no matter how much time i've spent with them
as people who are separate from me or still putting some kind of distance between them & myself
thinking of people as constructs, "flatmates", "coursemates", "person who.." instead of [name]
thinking now about the way you can choose not to tell someone something about you
especially in a place where you are far removed from home/people who used to know you
and you/they/the friendship could go on for years without certain knowledge of past things
and they would never find out if you don't ever tell them & it's almost like they never need to know
but if you do tell them then you're sharing a part of yourself that's only shared by choice
and that's almost more special i think, that's how i feel when someone tells me something important
sat in a square near my dorms & read till the light went away
a dog came up to me and dropped a ball in my lap so i played with it
feel like i haven't had a perfect weekend like this in a while
time to myself, time to do things that i've wanted to do
reading, writing, eating & making food that i like
waking up early in spite of going to sleep late
being in fresh air/having good conversations
not having memory blurred by the haze of drugs
walking long distances alone in the dark
so close to being near to person i love again
almost surprised by how okay things are
like i told myself it would be this way one day
but now that it actually is, feels insane like
i can't accept it sometimes, like this isn't me
but in a good way too, the feeling that you
can and will do everything you want to do
if only you begin to try
wholewheat pizza with caramelized onions, manchego cheese & sliced potatoes
beautiful room in which i could imagine living in & calling a room of my own
sunday evening, 7:34pm
woke up this morning after a dream in which some of my teeth had fallen out
in my dream i was holding my teeth in my hands and looking at them from different angles,
the wear only partially evident, edges of the enamel small & jagged from uneven erosion
remember thinking that this is the way it will be always now, i can't take it back
can't do anything that will change my teeth falling out
on thursday morning i went to lantana to meet my partner for the aesthetic project
we talked a long time & our thing feels more whole, taking on the shape of its name
walked down to soho & then i sat in soho sq against a tree & finished reading 'what is amazing'
looking up i saw rainclouds & walked to planet organic to get more rye & spelt flour
rowan had an exam on friday so i said "let me make dinner so you don't have to worry abt food"
went back to the flat and talked to kathi for a while before putting the pizza dough together
covered the bowl with a cloth & left it to rise in the oven and waited for everyone to come over
used the cheese i bought from the day my family & i visited a mountain in spain & it was amazing
felt nice being able to make food i liked and to make food for more than just myself
the recipe i used for the dough is from greenkitchenstories.com which is one of my fav food blogs now
except i used a mix of wholewheat rye flour (2/3) and white spelt flour (1/3)
i liked the dough and would use this recipe again
except would make sure the dough is stretched out a lot more
these pizza slices came out a lot thicker than i would have liked it to be
on saturday afternoon rowan and i went to view the flat that we were supposed to view the day before
it was perfect and everything i would want out of a home
two rooms close enough to each other
clean white walls and neutral furniture
small and comfortable with enough light in the mornings
a backdoor to a garden filled with flowers
the only thing is that it's a 2.3 mile walk from school
and that maybe someone else might have already put an offer in for it
have developed an addiction to refreshing flat listings on gumtree.com
something about the endless and unknown possibilities
entertaining the fantasy of living in different neighbourhoods
imagining what it could be like to stay in a place you love
that feels far more attractive than looking at any other social media feed
after viewing the flat rowan & i walked back to euston
squatted on a curb waiting for stacey to come around
in the kitchen i made an eggplant & lemongrass curry with
cauliflower, carrots, cubes of apples, potatoes and red onions
ate that with brown rice. feels really nice/easy to make food i like
we bought cookies & bagels and got on the tube
got off at haggerston & walked towards a pub to meet the guys
something i say often about what i like about london is
the way the streets keep unfolding, that you can feel it
almost, as though each district has a spirit of its own
subtle changes in the streets and in the feel of the place
when you cross one street into another and in the last light
of the evening it is always so beautiful
i think i keep waiting to be proven wrong, is my point
but i haven't been yet
eurovision is an experience that i feel ambivalent about i think
hilarious and good fun watching other people experiencing it
but mostly that i find it hard to "get into" supporting people/things
that are very distant or far away from me even identifying
with a country i was born in that doesn't seem like a thing i feel
that was something kathi and i talked about today, how it seems like
most teens/of out friends went through an "attached-to-a-cute-musician/star" phase
don't remember being experiencing, i feel like if i had ever expressed interest
in the physical appearance of a musician/star/someone "famous"
it was because it seemed appropriate or bc everyone around me seemed to genuinely feel that way
i never "genuinely" felt that i don't think
walked home from hackney through old street & shoreditch
as long as my phone has battery & i have music to listen to
i feel like i can keep walking, this is what i love about being here
about this city, about being alone, like i can go anywhere
like nothing else matters
i don't ever want to leave it
my feet hurt today though from walking too much
i've destroyed a pair of flats & boots from walking ~3/4 miles everyday
this morning i walked into the kitchen at the same time as kathi
and we sat down to have breakfast together, that's not something
we ever did really, it feels like we've taken this long to get to know
each other this well & feel proper comfortable around each other
only for her to leave london in two weeks, although of course she'll be
around next year, the only one of my flatmates who will still be around
i said "what are you doing today" and she said "nothing do you want to go out"
and i said "yes i have been planning to go to brick lane for a while" and
she said "okay let's do it" and then we talked about ann having a huge party last night
and were laughing about something when christian walked in and i said "hi
do you want to come out with us today" and felt happy when he agreed
feel like the "best" days happen when you don't plan it in advance
and you just decide to do something out of the blue that you
haven't allowed yourself the time for in a while
that i think was what felt really good about today
also the weather, mildly cold, finally the sun in our eyes
took the tube to old street, talking about films we watched recently & what we liked about them
it's strange i guess to have lived with people for so long (not kathi though because we're
usually in the kitchen late at night having tea and snacking/ but christian & ann & jimmy)
and not really knowing what they're like, beyond a vague grasp of their personal habits/personality
so i feel like that was nice about today, all of us grabbing bagels, being hugged by kathi
looking at books together, christian picking out books for me that he recommended
sitting down on the second level of a bar to take a short break from walking for hours
getting carrot & watermelon juices, looking at racks of clothes propped up against vans
on the way home i said "do you feel like you had a good first year"
and kathi said "i have been disappointed by so many people this here, it makes me so sad,
but i feel like you're one of the good things that happened to me" and i hugged her really hard
i feel like i'm used to thinking of people i've met recently
no matter how much time i've spent with them
as people who are separate from me or still putting some kind of distance between them & myself
thinking of people as constructs, "flatmates", "coursemates", "person who.." instead of [name]
thinking now about the way you can choose not to tell someone something about you
especially in a place where you are far removed from home/people who used to know you
and you/they/the friendship could go on for years without certain knowledge of past things
and they would never find out if you don't ever tell them & it's almost like they never need to know
but if you do tell them then you're sharing a part of yourself that's only shared by choice
and that's almost more special i think, that's how i feel when someone tells me something important
sat in a square near my dorms & read till the light went away
a dog came up to me and dropped a ball in my lap so i played with it
feel like i haven't had a perfect weekend like this in a while
time to myself, time to do things that i've wanted to do
reading, writing, eating & making food that i like
waking up early in spite of going to sleep late
being in fresh air/having good conversations
not having memory blurred by the haze of drugs
walking long distances alone in the dark
so close to being near to person i love again
almost surprised by how okay things are
like i told myself it would be this way one day
but now that it actually is, feels insane like
i can't accept it sometimes, like this isn't me
but in a good way too, the feeling that you
can and will do everything you want to do
if only you begin to try
15/5/2013
it seems like things are going to accelerate really quickly in the next couple of days and weeks & so i feel like, if only for myself, i should write down things that have been happening/things i have been thinking about before i forget / also because sometimes i feel like if this blog isn't update i feel like i haven't been doing anything #giantupdate
1. generally speaking
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meals i have been eating/cooking for myself: the first picture is one taken on the night of the brainlove festival barbeque of onion rings, chickpea & salad leaves; vine-ripe sliced tomatoes & mozzarella & hard boiled eggs on wheatgerm toast; raw salad box after a 10km run with runner beans, red peppers, spinach, carrots & cucumber; steamed broccoli with grated parmesan & sea salt i had today after my oral exam
in the kitchen the other day i was telling my flatmate kathi i feel like this is the healthiest i have been in my entire life maybe or at least in the past five years or so. and i mean emotionally and physically too. stopped eating meat completely, only eating food that makes me feel good but also not feeling bad about eating shit like ice cream. taking time to prepare really good food for myself and picking out better ingredients in grocery stores that last longer and feeling my body respond to it in ways that we learnt about in textbooks and in psych classes but i never thought really meant anything. kicking out habits that i never thought i would be able to kick letting go of small compulsions that i believed in. there are times i feel like i shouldn't talk about this good streak or name it as a good thing because what if it goes away or i begin to feel something like sadness again or i don't want to fight and then be like haha so much for that peak in positivity so much for filling out mood questionnaires with 'very much looking forward to everything in life' but that's not the point i don't think. for one thing it feels sustainable, not a phase. and i feel like this threads through all of the numbered points and is almost conflated with everything can't really separate it from the rest of the things i want to talk about maybe but also feel like i want to address it for myself individually that this is one thing that has changed since i came back to england after the easter break. 'what has changed', is what i am thinking all the time. what else has contributed to me being able to feel capable of finally taking charge of the situation; living alone, not making plans to do anything else, not having to be accountable to anyone other than myself. i have been back maybe three or four weeks now and sometimes i forget that i even left at all/went back to singapore until someone asks me how long has it been since you went back home and then i remember. in part this involves being open to shit happening and then seeing that shit doesn't happen instead off closing myself off to all shit happening even though it is true that 'shit can still happen'. do you know what happens when you let go of things like this? i mean the compulsive habits that you have? you find that you have SO MUCH TIME to do everything that you want and this contributed i think to being able to study hard and exercise everyday and cook meals that i love and organize my room whenever i wanted to. jesus, it's shit to have taken this long to realize this but better now than never. in that sense things, internally, are getting better
2. housing situation
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tea lights/candles in my room
when i think about the housing situation i feel like a plump bird that has been nesting on top of the gumtree website for days now. sometime in february or even earlier maybe rowan emailed to ask if i wanted to live with her and i said yes and then we thought about other people we wanted to live with and for various reasons we either didn't want to live with certain people or other situations didn't seem like it would work out. that has been a source of stress because i have been the person managing the phone calls and i feel like i have memorized all the 2/3 bedroom camden listings that have come out in the last week but there is 'no other way about it' because admittedly i like being in control of things that affect me & anyway have been managing this in an efficient and organized manner. for a while we couldn't make a decision on whether to live with [someone else] & i felt hesitant of living with just rowan because "the more the merrier" & being with just one other person could go down not very well and if it doesn't then it is almost a more painful situation to be in than if you were in a house with other people whose presence could mitigate the potential awkwardness but today i hung out with her again and we did pilates in her room and i am always laughing around her and happy i don't know just reminded of the ease at which i feel when i am around her and you know we've both traveled to norway together when we barely knew each other and that was an amazing trip so we both said 'fuck it let's just do this thing.'also i found a really beautiful flat today with flooding light and large windows around camden that's a thirty minute walk from school near to eve's place and along the picadilly line towards north london. with a late july move-in date, within our budget etc. a place that seems like somewhere we could call home. i feel really good about that. we're going to see it this friday after rowan's exam. thinking about the way things worked out in the end, how i would prefer a quiet home as opposed to one filled with noise all the time, conversations with one other person other than group conversations even if they are a group of people i like and feel comfortable with. i forget i think, how much a place can affect your mood, even though having moved from one place to another and moving from place to place all the time that is one thing that i should remember. this morning i woke up and i felt like i had to get out of my room—that is not a thing i want to feel in the place i live in next year. last saturday rowan and i and a guy we were planning on staying with went to visit a flat in king's cross and the place was alright, nothing special but when i walked out i felt blank, i couldn't imagine a future in which i lived there but wondered if that was something that i could possibly imagine anyway. but now i can i think. sometimes i feel like, i mean i know that my desire for things to be nothing less than perfect gets in the way of things & you wonder if you should lower your standards because it seems easier for other people to attain their version of what makes them happy & also because obviously the way things are can never always be perfect but on the other hand i feel like it helps maybe to not settle for less because when it does work out the way you want it to it is so, so good. not just in terms of flats. friendships & relationships & grades too. i feel glad that this is one thing that is almost settled. i am going to look at panini presses on amazon in a bit
my favourite amazon review
3. exams & school
so far exams have been alright. i have maybe already written about this but i feel like i want to again just for the sake of clarifying it in my head. i had german two weeks ago and revising for it was alright. i opened tabs to google translate and searched yahoo answers for the way to say things properly in the language and also talked to ben and other classmates about how i should say certain things. for psychology i made revision notes and studied at the bloomsbury theatre everyday and developed a routine that i felt able to sustain and this is something that i feel good about. looking back on that i don't think i've made it through an exam period without having some form of anxiety attack or relying on emotional support from someone else to get through it or then again not getting through the exams at all. i just had my german oral exam today and i panicked about it last night but the thing is i guess to pick up where you left off and keep going. i think previously i would have thought 'okay a bad night will lead into other bad nights' but another thing i have learnt is that the only person i am doing any harm to is myself and i can turn to other people for help but in the end like the poem from bukowski that goes only you can help yourself something like that. that's true. that my life is my own and in that way, the way you can only help someone this much or tell someone how what you would do were you in that situation, that's the only way out of it. german oral was okay i went to school this morning and sat in the halls listening to a ryan hemsworth mix and not really looking at german then thinking of ways to phrase 'i have not been to munich' which is 'ich habe nich nach München gehen' i think. in the room the tutors seemed to be nodding encouragingly and almost surprised that i could recognize what they were saying during the conversation and was responding accordingly. after my tutor switched off the voice recorder she said will you be learning german next year i hope to see you again and i said yes definitely! and i am glad that i am learning this language at one point i felt annoyed because i think in part my choice to learn this language was because ben spoke it and of course it helps that the person i am and want to keep being closest to speaks the language that i am learning but i don't feel like i want to make choices for anyone other than myself. but then i feel like instead of relying on him to learn the language i did it myself which is a good thing and doing things for yourself is always a good thing. the other night after brainlove festival dan got off the bus with me and we sat in the courtyard of my dorms for a long time and talked about language and linguistics and how language is so natural to someone. when i think about children like when i was talking to diane about her nephew and how he can associate a word with a meaning at sixteen (?) months that is interesting to me something i want to understand. i feel excited about learning, that's one thing that i don't think i'll ever stop feeling excited about. the new york times did an article about the course i'm doing at ucl called "in britain, a return to the idea of the liberal arts". i feel good about the fact that my course keeps things open, and that i get to graft my degree to fit me perfectly. the other day my tutor said that "you are exactly the kind of student that we created this course for" and that made me happy because i had to take an extra year to get to where i am but fuck it! ucl is a great school. and fuck conventional paths anyway, what works for everyone or anyone might not necessarily work for you. and for now at least i don't care or am not worried that i don't know what i want to do when i graduate because i know the person i am in two years time will be different from the person i am now. i have a final series of exams from the 30th of may to the 4th of june and these are a series of experiments/oral presentations to a conference hall that will be a pass/fail grading style and the four that i have opted for are: constructing a python code to calculate the nth decimal of pi; exploring the philosophical question of the processing of measurements in scientific experiments; practical session performing gene/DNA restriction analysis & trip to the british museum to learn to recognize the major rock forming minerals & understanding the sequence of rocks associated with the evolution of a mountain belt. i think maybe at first i felt disappointed that they were more science/math-inclined than leaning towards the humanities but that is the whole point of this course i feel, to expose us to the interdisciplinary aspects & anyway challenge myself to be open to things that might not be immediately natural/easy to understand to me. i've also more or less finalized the modules i will be taking next year: gender & politics, political philosophy (nozick & rawls), intermediate law, philosophy of mind & cognitive science) for my major pathway & [either biological bases in perception and behaviour or language and cognition]. which is grafting my interest in philosophy with language and desire to make meaning out of the things i do with the scientific component of my course which ties the internal to the absolute i think, justifies the search. another thing is that i applied for a position as a transition mentor for my department not being sure if i was suitable for it because at times of course i am not the best at coping with things but i am getting better and then two or three weeks ago i got an email saying that i got the position. and then last week i got another email saying that it's a paid position which is really cool. it involves being responsible for a group of first years and helping them when they first arrive at uni and monitoring their academic progress and because i did tutoring over the past two summers in singapore i feel like that's something i can do and it's also something i can put into the university 'resume' thing so i don't have to worry about graduating having not been involved in school much. i also received an email from my programme director which says 'putting someone in charge of work placements in touch with those who have secured internships in the summer of their first year for and it seems like there are only 8 of us who have done so which is not really an indication of anything but it maybe is a good thing that i have internship plans the summer months ahead. the email from the person says 'following on from Carl’s email I just wanted to say that I am really pleased to be working with such a forward looking group of students. By getting an internship in your first year you have already proved yourselves to be highly motivated, driven, and conscientious – all qualities that employers are looking for' and i would like to be that kind of person i guess those are all things i value not for a career's sake but because the things i do mean something to me. so looking back on my first year i feel like things have gone better than could have been expected and this makes me really happy
4. 9 days to ben
—ben on skype
the other day someone said 'but when ben is here you'll forget that i'll even exist' and i wanted to say 'that isn't true' but on the way home i was thinking about it and the thing is it is true not in any way because the other person is a bad person but because and this is something i am reminded of whenever i speak to ben that he fits me in a way that i don't think anyone else has before that makes all other kinds of intimacy emotional or otherwise seem trivial and minute in comparison. it's easy to forget especially when i get busy with exams and managing other things and when it gets hard to find time to talk. "at all times anyone can be an open door" is what i was thinking when i thought about him but then you have the choice to close the door whenever you want to and i guess that's something that's not always easy to remember given the distance but it's something i do want to given the fact that reading every poem i've written in the last twelve months since i've met ben every poem i have written has been a poem about him. it's easier to be alone of course because you have less things to manage and the only person you have to be accountable to is yourself but then the things you do out of loneliness also make you want to hurt yourself and if you want to stay alive even if that's not something that's always something you want but if you want to view that as the only choice then yeah that's something to hold onto
5. eve
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salted caramel double chocolate cake i baked for eve's birthday over easter break in singapore
last week i went over to eve's house with a spinach and smoked salmon salad & rosemary thyme flatbread that i baked and we brought blankets to the park outside her house and read books in the sunlight and two nights ago after having sat down for a long time outside torrington place i decided to look for eve and then we sat in the park for a long time lying on each other and talking about things. later we met again at the bus stop outside warren street and walked back to my flat and ate a tub of ben & jerry's in bed and i gave her her belated 21st birthday present which was a teapot and a birthday card and she fell asleep in my bed while i edited a video i guess i just wanted to say "happy birthday eve i love you so much" somewhere on the internet
6. internet friends
from the reading we did two months ago before easter break
basically my family in england
6. art exhibition—an aesthetic project
several months ago eve and i decided to apply for a London-based art exhibition which is called 'an aesthetic project' headed by singaporeans and putting singaporean 'artists' and 'non-artists' together in pairs to collaborate/produce pieces of art and it is finally coming together. my partner is a girl called sze who i worked and lived with in venice during the venice biennale internship two years ago so that is cool. every three weeks or so we have been meeting up to discuss our project/art thing and we have picked phrases/words/abstract concepts that seem relatable/applicable to anyone/everyone who is alive and experiences things and are both writing about them though stripping the words of anything/names/towns/places that would make it identifiable as a singular experience. interested in how the specific moves towards the general, the idea of the black swan fallacy. it is mostly the idea of twinning experiences expanding over a singular identity and are exploring this in the form of texts which is i guess the way i feel i best express myself, through 'writing'. there is a launch night of sorts on the 31st of may and if you are around it will be nice if you come down. we are getting sponsored by the singapore international foundation and the national youth council wow those are big deals i guess it seems good to be doing things like this at least once in your life
HOUSE GALLERY
70 CAMBERWELL CHURCH STREET
LONDON SE5 8QZ
7. music
here is the vinyl of mat's album 'not even doom music' that stace passed to me when she came over on sundy afternoon. two weekends ago we watched mat play at the clapham zine fest on a saturday night and again last weekend at brainlove festival
in ~2 seconds from mat riviere on Vimeo.
feel genuinely excited that mat's making music like this and then that he is someone that i know "in real life". on twitter today he posted a link to an article he wrote on the quietus which gives you more context about the songs on the album. i really liked reading that article, i feel like that's the kind of thing that's interesting to know or what i am interested in knowing when i look at a piece of art/writing/music. and that's also something i think about/talk to eve about, whether context is important or necessary when approaching a "piece of art". i feel like it definitely helps me to appreciate it more. makes it more personal. but i also feel like his songs stand alone
rowan ben and i are going for field day two weekends from now, the day after ben comes/the weekend when rowan's exams are finally done. really excited to go for a music fest with ben and also with rowan and to listen to mount kimbie / wild nothing / animal collective / how 2 dress well / daphni / everything everything / four tet / king krule / TNGHT / etc
1st june bc ben wants to see juan maclean
4th june ben & i are going for ryan hemsworth (!!!!!!)
wish i could be going for this with stace
on saturday night after most/everyone left we played the slowed summer ryan hemsworth mix and ~4/5 of us danced together in the bar at 1am that was really great
feel like i am going "all out" / going to be financially & physically/emotionally drained but / um i've worked hard this past year and / literally "you only live once"
today i said wow i can't believe we're going to venice together and he said i was just thinking about how we haven't really dated in a traditional way and every time we hang out it's been a kind of insane honeymoon do you think that's weird and i said only if you think it's weird and he said no i don't not really and i said i feel like with anyone else they wouldn't want to do things in a way i wanted to but you do and it's perfect
8. a list of other things/plans in the next few weeks:
cooking for rowan tomorrow so she doesn't need to worry about food while she prepares for her exam, meeting zhuoxuan, spring breakers with eve, flat viewing, cooking for flat with kathi, trap night at the nest, flat f [dinner? picnic?]
24th onwards:
picking ben up at the airport
BASc strawberry picnic
regression sessions with eve/max/rowan
field day music fest seeing mt kimbie
dinner with flat f
british museum
hampstead heath
matilda musical
visit laurens & vicki in brighton
exhibition opening
stu's party
future disco at corsica studios
ryan hemsworth/toro y moi at koko
BASc end of year summer ball
venice for three days biennale (!!!)
melin & marc coming down to london
ben leaving
—
packing up and moving out of dorms
going to rome & vienna at the end of june
leaving london on the 3rd of july
going to bangkok with family after getting back to singapore
starting a seven week internship
three weeks to travel before coming back to london for second year
i don't know how we are ever going to top how perfect this summer is going to be
ps if you're reading this all the way to the bottom congrats and thank you and stace & i are doing something cool together (writing-wise) so there will be more info on that but i am so happy that it's coming together and that if anyone i am doing it with her
it was bright & sunny for two days last week but this week it was all rain again / going to wake up and go to sleep for nine mire nights/get ready to play really hard & then it'll be summer for real when you get here
it seems like things are going to accelerate really quickly in the next couple of days and weeks & so i feel like, if only for myself, i should write down things that have been happening/things i have been thinking about before i forget / also because sometimes i feel like if this blog isn't update i feel like i haven't been doing anything #giantupdate
1. generally speaking
meals i have been eating/cooking for myself: the first picture is one taken on the night of the brainlove festival barbeque of onion rings, chickpea & salad leaves; vine-ripe sliced tomatoes & mozzarella & hard boiled eggs on wheatgerm toast; raw salad box after a 10km run with runner beans, red peppers, spinach, carrots & cucumber; steamed broccoli with grated parmesan & sea salt i had today after my oral exam
in the kitchen the other day i was telling my flatmate kathi i feel like this is the healthiest i have been in my entire life maybe or at least in the past five years or so. and i mean emotionally and physically too. stopped eating meat completely, only eating food that makes me feel good but also not feeling bad about eating shit like ice cream. taking time to prepare really good food for myself and picking out better ingredients in grocery stores that last longer and feeling my body respond to it in ways that we learnt about in textbooks and in psych classes but i never thought really meant anything. kicking out habits that i never thought i would be able to kick letting go of small compulsions that i believed in. there are times i feel like i shouldn't talk about this good streak or name it as a good thing because what if it goes away or i begin to feel something like sadness again or i don't want to fight and then be like haha so much for that peak in positivity so much for filling out mood questionnaires with 'very much looking forward to everything in life' but that's not the point i don't think. for one thing it feels sustainable, not a phase. and i feel like this threads through all of the numbered points and is almost conflated with everything can't really separate it from the rest of the things i want to talk about maybe but also feel like i want to address it for myself individually that this is one thing that has changed since i came back to england after the easter break. 'what has changed', is what i am thinking all the time. what else has contributed to me being able to feel capable of finally taking charge of the situation; living alone, not making plans to do anything else, not having to be accountable to anyone other than myself. i have been back maybe three or four weeks now and sometimes i forget that i even left at all/went back to singapore until someone asks me how long has it been since you went back home and then i remember. in part this involves being open to shit happening and then seeing that shit doesn't happen instead off closing myself off to all shit happening even though it is true that 'shit can still happen'. do you know what happens when you let go of things like this? i mean the compulsive habits that you have? you find that you have SO MUCH TIME to do everything that you want and this contributed i think to being able to study hard and exercise everyday and cook meals that i love and organize my room whenever i wanted to. jesus, it's shit to have taken this long to realize this but better now than never. in that sense things, internally, are getting better
2. housing situation
tea lights/candles in my room
when i think about the housing situation i feel like a plump bird that has been nesting on top of the gumtree website for days now. sometime in february or even earlier maybe rowan emailed to ask if i wanted to live with her and i said yes and then we thought about other people we wanted to live with and for various reasons we either didn't want to live with certain people or other situations didn't seem like it would work out. that has been a source of stress because i have been the person managing the phone calls and i feel like i have memorized all the 2/3 bedroom camden listings that have come out in the last week but there is 'no other way about it' because admittedly i like being in control of things that affect me & anyway have been managing this in an efficient and organized manner. for a while we couldn't make a decision on whether to live with [someone else] & i felt hesitant of living with just rowan because "the more the merrier" & being with just one other person could go down not very well and if it doesn't then it is almost a more painful situation to be in than if you were in a house with other people whose presence could mitigate the potential awkwardness but today i hung out with her again and we did pilates in her room and i am always laughing around her and happy i don't know just reminded of the ease at which i feel when i am around her and you know we've both traveled to norway together when we barely knew each other and that was an amazing trip so we both said 'fuck it let's just do this thing.'also i found a really beautiful flat today with flooding light and large windows around camden that's a thirty minute walk from school near to eve's place and along the picadilly line towards north london. with a late july move-in date, within our budget etc. a place that seems like somewhere we could call home. i feel really good about that. we're going to see it this friday after rowan's exam. thinking about the way things worked out in the end, how i would prefer a quiet home as opposed to one filled with noise all the time, conversations with one other person other than group conversations even if they are a group of people i like and feel comfortable with. i forget i think, how much a place can affect your mood, even though having moved from one place to another and moving from place to place all the time that is one thing that i should remember. this morning i woke up and i felt like i had to get out of my room—that is not a thing i want to feel in the place i live in next year. last saturday rowan and i and a guy we were planning on staying with went to visit a flat in king's cross and the place was alright, nothing special but when i walked out i felt blank, i couldn't imagine a future in which i lived there but wondered if that was something that i could possibly imagine anyway. but now i can i think. sometimes i feel like, i mean i know that my desire for things to be nothing less than perfect gets in the way of things & you wonder if you should lower your standards because it seems easier for other people to attain their version of what makes them happy & also because obviously the way things are can never always be perfect but on the other hand i feel like it helps maybe to not settle for less because when it does work out the way you want it to it is so, so good. not just in terms of flats. friendships & relationships & grades too. i feel glad that this is one thing that is almost settled. i am going to look at panini presses on amazon in a bit
my favourite amazon review
3. exams & school
so far exams have been alright. i have maybe already written about this but i feel like i want to again just for the sake of clarifying it in my head. i had german two weeks ago and revising for it was alright. i opened tabs to google translate and searched yahoo answers for the way to say things properly in the language and also talked to ben and other classmates about how i should say certain things. for psychology i made revision notes and studied at the bloomsbury theatre everyday and developed a routine that i felt able to sustain and this is something that i feel good about. looking back on that i don't think i've made it through an exam period without having some form of anxiety attack or relying on emotional support from someone else to get through it or then again not getting through the exams at all. i just had my german oral exam today and i panicked about it last night but the thing is i guess to pick up where you left off and keep going. i think previously i would have thought 'okay a bad night will lead into other bad nights' but another thing i have learnt is that the only person i am doing any harm to is myself and i can turn to other people for help but in the end like the poem from bukowski that goes only you can help yourself something like that. that's true. that my life is my own and in that way, the way you can only help someone this much or tell someone how what you would do were you in that situation, that's the only way out of it. german oral was okay i went to school this morning and sat in the halls listening to a ryan hemsworth mix and not really looking at german then thinking of ways to phrase 'i have not been to munich' which is 'ich habe nich nach München gehen' i think. in the room the tutors seemed to be nodding encouragingly and almost surprised that i could recognize what they were saying during the conversation and was responding accordingly. after my tutor switched off the voice recorder she said will you be learning german next year i hope to see you again and i said yes definitely! and i am glad that i am learning this language at one point i felt annoyed because i think in part my choice to learn this language was because ben spoke it and of course it helps that the person i am and want to keep being closest to speaks the language that i am learning but i don't feel like i want to make choices for anyone other than myself. but then i feel like instead of relying on him to learn the language i did it myself which is a good thing and doing things for yourself is always a good thing. the other night after brainlove festival dan got off the bus with me and we sat in the courtyard of my dorms for a long time and talked about language and linguistics and how language is so natural to someone. when i think about children like when i was talking to diane about her nephew and how he can associate a word with a meaning at sixteen (?) months that is interesting to me something i want to understand. i feel excited about learning, that's one thing that i don't think i'll ever stop feeling excited about. the new york times did an article about the course i'm doing at ucl called "in britain, a return to the idea of the liberal arts". i feel good about the fact that my course keeps things open, and that i get to graft my degree to fit me perfectly. the other day my tutor said that "you are exactly the kind of student that we created this course for" and that made me happy because i had to take an extra year to get to where i am but fuck it! ucl is a great school. and fuck conventional paths anyway, what works for everyone or anyone might not necessarily work for you. and for now at least i don't care or am not worried that i don't know what i want to do when i graduate because i know the person i am in two years time will be different from the person i am now. i have a final series of exams from the 30th of may to the 4th of june and these are a series of experiments/oral presentations to a conference hall that will be a pass/fail grading style and the four that i have opted for are: constructing a python code to calculate the nth decimal of pi; exploring the philosophical question of the processing of measurements in scientific experiments; practical session performing gene/DNA restriction analysis & trip to the british museum to learn to recognize the major rock forming minerals & understanding the sequence of rocks associated with the evolution of a mountain belt. i think maybe at first i felt disappointed that they were more science/math-inclined than leaning towards the humanities but that is the whole point of this course i feel, to expose us to the interdisciplinary aspects & anyway challenge myself to be open to things that might not be immediately natural/easy to understand to me. i've also more or less finalized the modules i will be taking next year: gender & politics, political philosophy (nozick & rawls), intermediate law, philosophy of mind & cognitive science) for my major pathway & [either biological bases in perception and behaviour or language and cognition]. which is grafting my interest in philosophy with language and desire to make meaning out of the things i do with the scientific component of my course which ties the internal to the absolute i think, justifies the search. another thing is that i applied for a position as a transition mentor for my department not being sure if i was suitable for it because at times of course i am not the best at coping with things but i am getting better and then two or three weeks ago i got an email saying that i got the position. and then last week i got another email saying that it's a paid position which is really cool. it involves being responsible for a group of first years and helping them when they first arrive at uni and monitoring their academic progress and because i did tutoring over the past two summers in singapore i feel like that's something i can do and it's also something i can put into the university 'resume' thing so i don't have to worry about graduating having not been involved in school much. i also received an email from my programme director which says 'putting someone in charge of work placements in touch with those who have secured internships in the summer of their first year for and it seems like there are only 8 of us who have done so which is not really an indication of anything but it maybe is a good thing that i have internship plans the summer months ahead. the email from the person says 'following on from Carl’s email I just wanted to say that I am really pleased to be working with such a forward looking group of students. By getting an internship in your first year you have already proved yourselves to be highly motivated, driven, and conscientious – all qualities that employers are looking for' and i would like to be that kind of person i guess those are all things i value not for a career's sake but because the things i do mean something to me. so looking back on my first year i feel like things have gone better than could have been expected and this makes me really happy
4. 9 days to ben
—ben on skype
the other day someone said 'but when ben is here you'll forget that i'll even exist' and i wanted to say 'that isn't true' but on the way home i was thinking about it and the thing is it is true not in any way because the other person is a bad person but because and this is something i am reminded of whenever i speak to ben that he fits me in a way that i don't think anyone else has before that makes all other kinds of intimacy emotional or otherwise seem trivial and minute in comparison. it's easy to forget especially when i get busy with exams and managing other things and when it gets hard to find time to talk. "at all times anyone can be an open door" is what i was thinking when i thought about him but then you have the choice to close the door whenever you want to and i guess that's something that's not always easy to remember given the distance but it's something i do want to given the fact that reading every poem i've written in the last twelve months since i've met ben every poem i have written has been a poem about him. it's easier to be alone of course because you have less things to manage and the only person you have to be accountable to is yourself but then the things you do out of loneliness also make you want to hurt yourself and if you want to stay alive even if that's not something that's always something you want but if you want to view that as the only choice then yeah that's something to hold onto
5. eve
salted caramel double chocolate cake i baked for eve's birthday over easter break in singapore
last week i went over to eve's house with a spinach and smoked salmon salad & rosemary thyme flatbread that i baked and we brought blankets to the park outside her house and read books in the sunlight and two nights ago after having sat down for a long time outside torrington place i decided to look for eve and then we sat in the park for a long time lying on each other and talking about things. later we met again at the bus stop outside warren street and walked back to my flat and ate a tub of ben & jerry's in bed and i gave her her belated 21st birthday present which was a teapot and a birthday card and she fell asleep in my bed while i edited a video i guess i just wanted to say "happy birthday eve i love you so much" somewhere on the internet
from the reading we did two months ago before easter break
basically my family in england
6. art exhibition—an aesthetic project
several months ago eve and i decided to apply for a London-based art exhibition which is called 'an aesthetic project' headed by singaporeans and putting singaporean 'artists' and 'non-artists' together in pairs to collaborate/produce pieces of art and it is finally coming together. my partner is a girl called sze who i worked and lived with in venice during the venice biennale internship two years ago so that is cool. every three weeks or so we have been meeting up to discuss our project/art thing and we have picked phrases/words/abstract concepts that seem relatable/applicable to anyone/everyone who is alive and experiences things and are both writing about them though stripping the words of anything/names/towns/places that would make it identifiable as a singular experience. interested in how the specific moves towards the general, the idea of the black swan fallacy. it is mostly the idea of twinning experiences expanding over a singular identity and are exploring this in the form of texts which is i guess the way i feel i best express myself, through 'writing'. there is a launch night of sorts on the 31st of may and if you are around it will be nice if you come down. we are getting sponsored by the singapore international foundation and the national youth council wow those are big deals i guess it seems good to be doing things like this at least once in your life
HOUSE GALLERY
70 CAMBERWELL CHURCH STREET
LONDON SE5 8QZ
7. music
here is the vinyl of mat's album 'not even doom music' that stace passed to me when she came over on sundy afternoon. two weekends ago we watched mat play at the clapham zine fest on a saturday night and again last weekend at brainlove festival
in ~2 seconds from mat riviere on Vimeo.
feel genuinely excited that mat's making music like this and then that he is someone that i know "in real life". on twitter today he posted a link to an article he wrote on the quietus which gives you more context about the songs on the album. i really liked reading that article, i feel like that's the kind of thing that's interesting to know or what i am interested in knowing when i look at a piece of art/writing/music. and that's also something i think about/talk to eve about, whether context is important or necessary when approaching a "piece of art". i feel like it definitely helps me to appreciate it more. makes it more personal. but i also feel like his songs stand alone
rowan ben and i are going for field day two weekends from now, the day after ben comes/the weekend when rowan's exams are finally done. really excited to go for a music fest with ben and also with rowan and to listen to mount kimbie / wild nothing / animal collective / how 2 dress well / daphni / everything everything / four tet / king krule / TNGHT / etc
1st june bc ben wants to see juan maclean
4th june ben & i are going for ryan hemsworth (!!!!!!)
wish i could be going for this with stace
on saturday night after most/everyone left we played the slowed summer ryan hemsworth mix and ~4/5 of us danced together in the bar at 1am that was really great
feel like i am going "all out" / going to be financially & physically/emotionally drained but / um i've worked hard this past year and / literally "you only live once"
today i said wow i can't believe we're going to venice together and he said i was just thinking about how we haven't really dated in a traditional way and every time we hang out it's been a kind of insane honeymoon do you think that's weird and i said only if you think it's weird and he said no i don't not really and i said i feel like with anyone else they wouldn't want to do things in a way i wanted to but you do and it's perfect
8. a list of other things/plans in the next few weeks:
cooking for rowan tomorrow so she doesn't need to worry about food while she prepares for her exam, meeting zhuoxuan, spring breakers with eve, flat viewing, cooking for flat with kathi, trap night at the nest, flat f [dinner? picnic?]
24th onwards:
picking ben up at the airport
BASc strawberry picnic
regression sessions with eve/max/rowan
field day music fest seeing mt kimbie
dinner with flat f
british museum
hampstead heath
matilda musical
visit laurens & vicki in brighton
exhibition opening
stu's party
future disco at corsica studios
ryan hemsworth/toro y moi at koko
BASc end of year summer ball
venice for three days biennale (!!!)
melin & marc coming down to london
ben leaving
—
packing up and moving out of dorms
going to rome & vienna at the end of june
leaving london on the 3rd of july
going to bangkok with family after getting back to singapore
starting a seven week internship
three weeks to travel before coming back to london for second year
i don't know how we are ever going to top how perfect this summer is going to be
ps if you're reading this all the way to the bottom congrats and thank you and stace & i are doing something cool together (writing-wise) so there will be more info on that but i am so happy that it's coming together and that if anyone i am doing it with her
it was bright & sunny for two days last week but this week it was all rain again / going to wake up and go to sleep for nine mire nights/get ready to play really hard & then it'll be summer for real when you get here
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