Gesamtkunstwerk

he mused, was as all other things, "to put your heart into it. literally. u can put the water on to boil, while messing around your messed-up life, then chuck the teabag in and pour, then u fiddle around some more and remember u have to add sugar/milk/whatever, and come back and add it. but that's not making good tea. your tea will turn out a... a beverage. artificial.

and worse if u forget and it's now too cool to dissolve the sugar.

now to put your heart into that cuppa tea, first u be calm. sit, if possible. soothe yourself while listening to the water boil. it's paradoxic, but hey, there's yin and yang for u. then think about your day, over the problems, over your solutions. pour. watch the tea coalesce in the water through the steam, and note the steam: it will remind u that he who peers at life looks through a smoke screen. while simmering, search yourself for the need for a cup of tea, for refreshment from a long day, for a break from the bleak world. prayers... are a good idea.

and when u add your sugar/milk/whatever, delve deeper into the metaphor. think about the things that enhance life, as the sweetness enhances the tea. find things to be grateful for, and be so for them. your parents, siblings, girlfriend, friends. spare a thought for those less remembered, like perhaps your dead grandmother, and the other one still kicking. and rather than fret over washing up, be thankful at least for having enough to eat.

stir gently, in a coordinated motion that just clinks the base of the glass, and nothing else. stir in your emotions; now that u're clear mentally, jumble up everything, and forget them. at the first sip, leave the mind blank and only savour your tea, now a heartfelt concoction and a worthy brew. that's ...the key to making good tea."


either that, or take the trouble to see how long it should simmer to obtain its maximum taste.

it's time to take a break.

am suddenly saddled with some more photoshop, from the online elective. but i've started this project with a destructive robot which i'm hoping to air sometime soon. that means whole evenings/nights and half mornings dedicated to photoshop. i'll be a pro pretty quickly. but meanwhile, it's goodyear tyres and my hands are itching to draw something but i Will do some goodyear tyres work before deciding to draw or polish my photoshop (now flash-stage) robot pet while finding some time to sleep.

fucked. maybe i'll scrap the extras. going to do some worthwhile and in the meantime, explosvie work. willing is not enough, u must do. there's an earlier phrase which goes knowing is not enough, u must apply. and from who? bruce lee, of all people. and since it's a nice day for quotes... "when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace", reportedly engraved on a vietnamese cyclodriver's zippo. ... i think... read it from somewhere.

see? it's the nice reversal of concepts and objects in a sentence which makes "nothing is impossible" become "impossible is nothing". bloody brilliant copywriter, that one.

right.

she withdrew into herself, retreated into within and opened her mind to blank space. shrinking still further, she floated out. cross-legged, she was here and back out there, sitting on a couple fathoms of night. being thus far out, she focused back to the little room.

the ripples were there, and no more, again. this guy was a pro with guarding his heart. a twinge of curiosity arose somewhere, and drowned with her concentration, she stopped. what -?

oh. her own. now putting up her own mental shields, she set to work again. she curdled all the embarrassment into a red flush and scolded herself, u're working here!! as so, she replied herself, zooming back in. working methodically she summoned her old tutorials' worth and managed the lad's heart as best as she could read it. she had nearly lost her touch, but true to herself she toiled fastidous as ever, to a minutes-length timeframe. and strove to remember every detail in case someone came over and she had to break her trance. he guarded very well. the image conjured up was small. low-resolution, she chuckled to herself, hehe.

four glass shapes sat, arranged in a classic still life. u wonder if it's a painting, and then whether it's a sculpture, then whether it's real at all. then it seems too real to be real. it's a beautiful piece, made more interesting by the bottles' contours congregating at a sinister, mischevous juncture in their composition. and being glass, as they were, several reflections of the pattern were repeated and scattered about like sinous stars, backlighted by various hues.

hmm... she frowned. either she wasn't neat enough, or it really meant that - he had a sinister, mischevous edge. anyway. she surveyed her exquisite imaging proudly, noting... a huge deep bowl of merriment. the bowl meant it was unbottled, open, which meant this was one of his resources. he was a happy guy at heart. its depths were a simmering crimson, its surface a sparkling ruby pool, begging to be ladled out. it promised to quench thirst, which comes with just looking at it, just like the old ribena ads did. she smiled ruefully to herself. this substance sates another kind of thirst.

a tall, lean jar of lust. it was clear, which indicated er, natural. now then, bottled lust. u could read all kinds of things from that. it was corked very much tightly, as proved by its stopper, which was slightly larger than necessary, and obscenely so. the picture stared back - an amount of clear liquid locked up - in a phallic container at that, and right in your face. she shook her head.

next, a sealed little orb of murder. it crooked an eyebrow up. this bottle was corked with its top removed, and sealed with wax. its wrapping bore a crest too hard to make out. the contents were diluted ink, murky, dormant.

last and largest, the amphora. somehow she had needed that roman vessel, none others were quite large enough. it proved the hardest to fill though, for the blasted thing's neck was that small. it held the remainder of his feelings. unlike the other gourmet beverages next to it, this one was... unplaceable. it shifted colours, sometimes opaque, sometimes murky - like those watercolour sessions where your water always ends up a chocolatish brown, u know? - sometimes crystal. it always changed, always moved; it bubbled, simmered, crashed in tiny waves. she tried to place a few of the emotions in the mix, but looking in was like plunging headlong in and being suspended right there upside down to make it out. u get lost in an instant. it was turmoil. chaos.

she surveyed it proudly. then smacked herself on the side of the head.

and i sat down to write. type.

what a day... kickstarted off nicely with playing truant. i was definitely in my element that time, as proud uni student, as irresponsible teen, as slacker. speaking of teens, my time's running out. and try as i might to hark the periodic urges to Accomplish... i think my zeal is dying.

maybe falafel kitchen drained the life out of me. it's fucking crazy - 2 weeks for a 30% project?! but it happened, it was done, now it's history. i figure it's not good organization, but these things happen in the industry and our lecturers are as thoroughly enthusiastic about The Industry as an octogenarian nun to her chastity. but being a competitive pitch, we were eager as hell to see what others came up with but being also a crammed task, we were duly disappointed by everyone's work. no explosive ideas, just stale strategic approaches and mediocre ads... next to our own mediocre ones too.

what about the tvc storyboard? another competitive project, the winner gets to have his storyboard realized in animatic - it was still unfinished on tuesday, my due date, therefore i was pressed by circumstances to present in another class on thursday (falafel kitchen was on wednesday... see the nice line-up?) but other circumstances intervened to see me arrive near the end, when everyone had presented and the tutor was going through the votes. good or not, mine was not even considered. i knew, but at that point i was past caring. just give me a good mark.

back to my day. i opened another tong-siu to write about artemis, goddess of the hunt, and make little models of artemis merchandise. gave up an hour before class. and the ironic thing was, i was damned intent on having it finished on time (for Once, goddamnit!!! i don't think i've handed in an AD assignment on time this year. at all.) as i hung around uni and dianne for most of open day and there was no excuse i could come up with since dianne saw me free as a bird just the day before. again, i was past caring.

so i got up at 2pm, sent wl to the tramstop, and came back to worry over how to turn plastic forks and knives into an arrowhead. surprisingly i was consumed with it till 6, when i left for dinner at chocolate buddha. now this is where me being in my element really intensifies.

from there the night draaaagggggged out. time was a total void after i finished the shake oyako don, but i took leave of my resolutions to be with wl. left at 10, dropped by kevin's place to pick up some wire (for the bow, to accompany that arrow) where my resolutions dissolved again and i borrowed the complete dragonball gt and stayed past midnight to watch "tremors"... a 1989 thriller. please note 'thriller' by '89 standards.

then i lepaked around some more and eventually finished kevin's flash game character design for him. i don't mind, i love drawing anyway. then he sent me home. then he borrowed some of my comics for research. then i started leafing through my other comics - miller, silvestri, turner, vasquez, azpiri. then it was 4am and i went to lie in bed for 10 mins. then i felt like reading a new comic - sin city 4, maybe. or a new book... one of those obscure authors who've won the nobel for literature... i think his name was gao xingjian. then i did 10 push ups. then another slower 10.

and i realized i was at the same stage with my bow and arrow as i was 12 hours ago. tong-siu again, how sweet! with unfinished work, yet bored as i was, i got more bored

and i sat down to write. type.

terjulang pun, akhirnya. bagai meraikan tibanya bulan yang indah ini, yang terkandung terlampau banyak tarikh akhir bagi projek-projek i (yang terlampau banyak jugak)... blog pertama ni, i menaip dalam bm. kesusahan yang i hadapi skarang ialah -? mindaku giat memikir dalam inggeris. susahnya bukan dalam penterjemahan, dari inggeris ke bm, tapi dalam sesuatu masalah asas iaitu memikir dalam inggeris. bukan saja vokabulari malah struktur ayat, dan berbanyak aspek tatabahasa teknikal yang kecik pun berbeza, maka timbulnya masalah penterjemahan, yang menyebabkan kesusahan i kini kian berlipat-ganda.

apabila u buat macam i ni... u akan fahamlah dengan lebih mendalam, betapa indah (dan rumitnya) sesesuatu bahasa. masa i dalam sekolah rendah dulu, membuat kerjarumah tuisyen bahasa cina... pun sama. masalah asasnya, memikir dalam inggeris dan cuba menerjemahkannya. tiada cara lain yang lebih bodoh, lebih salah, dalam pelajaran bahasa... kalau nak tulis bm, fikirlah dalam bm. tulis cina, fikir dalam cina.

walaubagaimanapun, idea yang amat bodoh ni, terjadi apabila i sedang membaca balik blog-blog lama. teringat idea slash bermain gitar dalam kawasan gurun tu... emosi pemain dalam senario tu agak sama dengan pemain gitar dalam cerita (ataupun "karya" i, heh heh) 'suteki da ne'. jadi cubalah i cari cerita tu... tapi kejadian tu dah lama! bulan mac, sebenarnya... wah...

dan terjumpa pun blog lama i, di mana i baru-baru siap berbual msn dengan ty, terry mereka... dan terdapat idea menulis blog bm. jadi... inilah dia. tapi i rasa keupayaanku sekarang dah hampir habis. alaaaah, terlupa pulak melihat berapa banyak masa yang i ambik bagi tugas ni. lama jugaklah.

seronok pun, walau betapa bodoh idea ni, heh heh heh...