what is water?

Trying to explain Singapore to someone who doesn't live here, is like a fish trying to explain "What is water?"
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there and back again

... and feeling even more hobbit-like than ever.
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Reality crystallises. It does. It gradually coalesces, changes from something amorphous and fluid, acquires a shape and a structure, becomes hard and crystalline. Rigid. Inexorable. There's something about the process, of things settling into a real-ness, that feels both 无奈 as well as oddly reassuring, or oddly comfortable, or oddly something you wouldn't expect it to be, something oddly un-negative. i'm not sure if this is making any sense. But it is what it is.
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duck rice

This blog has travelled so much in the last 2 years. So here i am, in London, in a room on the top floor of a 3-storey house, and about to head back to Singapore in just 2 days' time. i'm so glad i came.
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London has changed so much since the last time i was here for a properly significant length of time. Even my favourite duck-rice restaurant at Bayswater no longer serves duck of the same quality as i remember it. Rumour has it that the chef defected to a rival restaurant, also in Bayswater. Ah well. Too late now to check out the rival place. i guess this just means i'll have to make sure i come back soon, and stay longer. And then i can eat all the Bayswater duck-rice i want.
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a wish

Here's something i deeply wish for myself:
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That i'll never become so deeply and personally invested in something that i am unable to see its weaknesses and shortcomings, that i am unable to take criticism about it because my identity is too closely tied up with it.
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It's frightening, talking to people who've become like that. It's like they can't see reason.
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Is it possible to love something deeply, yet be able to see it truly? To see it real-ly? It is my deepest hope that this be possible.
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SWF 2014

It's the Writers Fest again, and once again i'm so loving the panels and talks. You can feel your brain synapses just lighting up with new ideas and connections. Paul Tan has done such a good job with the festival ever since he took over as festival director. Much kudos to him and his team at NAC.
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