culling

i've been book-culling for years -- every year, i give away the books i no longer want that are taking up too much space on my bookshelves. These days, i just borrow most of my reading material from the library -- the books i buy are the ones i really want to keep.
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It's time to start activity-culling, too. Been trying to do too much, more than i can do without seriously increasing the caffeine intake and becoming a coffee addict. i think some streamlining is in order.

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nouwen

"Waiting is open-ended. Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something very concrete, for something that we wish to have. Much of our waiting is filled with wishes: “I wish that the weather would be better. I wish that the pain would go.” For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want the future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair.
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To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control."
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(Henri Nouwen)
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eco-reading

Almost done with reading Pope Francis's Laudato Si. He's right -- papal infallibility, remember? Haha. But seriously. He is right -- the present environmental crisis basically has its roots in human aspiration taken way beyond any sensible, healthy limits, aspiration turned to greed, which in turn is rooted in a mistaken way of thinking about ourselves and our role in the universe, especially in relation to other created things.
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Also reading up on sustainability and the environment in general. It feels good to know what's going on, and what can be done about it. And of course, it's all going to feed into an essay someday. Or, if things work out as i hope, many essays. Eventually. Inshallah.
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cake cravings (2)

i think this is going to be my new thing. A cake (or pie, or biscuits, or something bakery) every other weekend. Next weekend, it'll either be cookies (i'm thinking grated cheddar cheese with cornflakes), or a carrot-and-walnut cake. With cream cheese. Mmmmmmm. i'll test it out on the poetry workshop folks.
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i like this, having just enough time and space to think about building a life. Having the freedom to think about all the different components that make up a meaningful, sustainable life, and putting it all together. Life by design, as far as it's possible for us to 'design' our lives, given all the vagaries of fortune / fate / the weather / luck. Or, as i believe, within the bounds of what Life gives, which, in the deepest and truest sense, is also what God gives.
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松语

Life is busy and full. Taiwan -- a cold green place up in the mountains -- is just under four months away. There are plenty of things to do in the interim -- i certainly can't complain of not being occupied; and i must say that i find most of what i'm doing to be meaningful and (slowly) productive. It's such a blessing to be able to say that, to have gotten to this point in life where i can say that. But oh, i am so looking forward to my bamboo-lined room with a river running beneath it, just under the window. i hope to get some writing done there. And i hope it turns out to be as nice as it sounds.
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duetto

Just heard this piece on the radio for the 2nd time in a week. i think that prior to this week, the last time i'd heard this piece was when i was learning to play it over 20 years ago. Gosh. 20 years.
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Good memories. i remember my piano teacher telling me to imagine two people in an intimate conversation.
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So the first time i heard it on radio just a few days ago, i was driving and in a rush and didn't even get to hear the entire thing. When it came on air again today, i'd just arrived home and so i let the car idle in the driveway and sat in its air-conditioned cocoon while all around was that wonderful night silence i love so much in Singapore, and for about 4 blissful minutes i just listened to this beautifully simple musical conversation. It was wonderfully calming.
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Don't know who the pianist was in the radio version i heard -- it wasn't announced because that's what Symphony 92.4 does these days: it often doesn't name the pieces or the performers. And i can't find a version on YouTube that uses the same tempo as the radio version, which i really liked. And the voices in this version are not as clearly delineated -- the voices in the radio version were both distinct and entwined. i really did like it a lot.
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But i guess this will have to do for now, as a placeholder.
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Edit (27 July 2015):
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Fingers grow stronger with age. As does one's ability to understand music and intuit what any particular piece requires of the performer. 
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So of course i had to go dig up the score for this and try playing it again. Gosh. It really has been well over twenty years. It was quite a revelation - i know now why i was unable to play it properly all those years ago. My fingers were simply not strong enough individually to carry the 2-part melody as clearly as it needs to be articulated. They still aren't -- but i do think i have stronger hands now than when i was a teenager. If i were to take up piano lessons again now, i'd pay far more attention to the technical exercises than i did as a child. i didn't have the patience and discipline back then. Now i know that the discipline is a prerequisite for musicality. 
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cake cravings

Suddenly feeling the need to bake, or to make a cake of some sort. Maybe tomorrow will be cheesecake day. Or something else, if i'm feeling adventurous and want to try a new recipe.
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PS:
A lemon cake. Google has convinced me that i need to make a lemon cake. This one looks really really good.
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PPS:
Mission accomplished. If i could have a cake made ENTIRELY of that lemon-syrup glazing, i would.
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PPPS:
Someone needs to write a poem on 'The Physics of Lemon-Zesting'.
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just a little patience

Well, if this poetry collection idea works out, then i guess it will take the sting off not being able to start work on the essay collection right away. Because, like it or not, it's true -- poetry takes less time than the longer prose forms. In general. Even if each particular poem takes a long time to craft and complete, as HM would no doubt argue, at least the first draft usually happens quickly enough. More quickly than the first draft of an essay or short story, anyway, and definitely more quickly than the first draft of a novel ...! (This is why Singapore's best writers are poets, and also why we still don't have a Great Singapore Novel.)
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i guess, at the end of the day, consciously choosing to be selfish, even for art, is not something i want to do. Being unconsciously selfish, i'm sure i do that all the time. And being selfish out of some inner neurosis, i've done that before too. But to do it as a conscious choice? No. So the essay collection will have to wait.
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In other news, this bit from H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald, which i'm starting to enjoy very much indeed:
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" ... when you are nine, waiting is hard. I kicked at the base of the fence with my wellingtoned feet. Squirmed and fidgeted. And then my dad looked at me, half exasperated, half amused, and explained something. He explained patience. He said it was the most important thing of all to remember, this: that when you wanted to see something very badly, sometimes you had to stay still, stay in the same place, remember how much you wanted to see it, and be patient. 'When I'm at work, taking photographs for the paper,' he said, 'sometimes I've got to sit in the car for hours to get the picture I want. I can't get up to get a cup of tea or even go to the loo. I just have to be patient. If you want to see hawks you have to be patient too.' He was grave and serious, not annoyed; what he was doing was communicating a grown-up Truth, but I nodded sulkily and stared at the ground. It sounded like a lecture, not advice, and I didn't understand the point of what he was trying to say.
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You learn. Today, I thought, not nine years old and not bored, I was patient and the hawks came. I got up slowly, legs a little numb from so long motionless (sic?), and found I was holding a small clump of reindeer moss in one hand, a little piece of that branching, pale green-grey lichen that can survive just about anything the world throws at it. It is patience made manifest. Keep reindeer moss in the dark, freeze it, dry it to a crisp, it won't die. It goes dormant and waits for things to improve. Impressive stuff."
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a most unexpected turn

Clearly this must be a creative phase. Maybe teaching inspires me to write. Because the last time i had so many writing ideas, i was also mired in teaching -- perhaps the mundaneness and the pain (of marking) inspires a need to escape; and the only readily available form of escape is via the imagination. Maybe teaching is actually good for my writing. (!!!!!!)
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Anyway. i've now got a brilliant (and, i think, actually do-able) idea for a poetry collection. Maybe not a full collection, but right now i'd be happy with a chapbook. And totally do-able -- i don't need much extra time for research, and there's plenty of material right at hand. i'm excited. And have already started. And i even have the necessary support framework for critique and general encouragement and goading-on and peer pressure. Let's see where this goes.
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a few thoughts

1. The last time i felt like this about my writing, i quit my job.
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2. Inspiration, if not acted on, can die.
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3. Artists need to be a bit selfish. Maybe more than a bit. That's why so many artists have such screwed-up lives, and are such screwed-up people. (Or perhaps it's the other way round? They become artists precisely because they are screwed-up and selfish? Chicken and egg ... )
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what is faith?

That essay collection. There's almost this aching void where i feel it needs to be. It kinda sucks to just feel so tied down at the moment, with lesson prep, marking, teaching. The thought came to me today: what would faith mean in this context? This feeling of wanting so badly to just sit down and work on something that is not the work i'm paid to do, something that, in a sense, i don't have any duty to do at all; when the work i am paid to do is something in which my responsibility to and for other people is so clear and so specific, and so much more urgent.
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i'm not sure. Would faith mean, giving only exactly what i'm paid to do at work, not do any more, and trusting that things will just somehow miraculously work out for my students? That doesn't sound quite right. Or would faith mean, not worrying too much about not reading enough good writing and not getting enough writing practice, and just trusting that when i am able to focus on the writing in all good conscience, without neglecting my work and responsibilities, the writing will somehow miraculously just happen? That doesn't sound as morally / ethically wrong as neglecting my work; but it sounds wrong anyway -- in the sense that it seems to take the writing-gift for granted. Talent needs to be exercised; otherwise it gets flabby and ineffective, just like an un-exercised body.
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i don't know. i wish i could talk to someone who does know, or who's asked the same questions, and arrived at some answers.
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a quiet mind

Sometimes, when i get round to thinking about it in the right spirit, i get really thankful for a job i find meaningful (if painful ... oh the marking ... and the vocabulary lists ... ), and where i can actually make some sort of discernible difference to the lives of the people i serve. i'm thankful that so far, things have worked out so that i've never been in want, and have even had some left over for things like travel to cold green places, and time to think and grow my friendships and read and actually live.
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i have 2 months at the end of this year to sit down and do some serious writing. i guess, now that i'm no longer actively looking for ways to leave this country, i can quiet down a bit in spirit and in mind, and get some work done. i really want to get started on that essay collection. There are things that need to be said. i think those essays need to be written.
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saturday nite thought-bites

It looks like the latest obsession is going to be table-tennis. i'm not sure exactly why it fascinates me so. It's probably at least partly because it's so different from what i usually do -- you can only do so much reading, thinking, and writing before you start suffering from serious brain-pain. And the training -- now that i'm actually getting proper training -- can be pretty therapeutic too: nothing better at the end of a long day than to stop thinking and just concentrate on practising your forehand / backhand / whatever. It's wonderfully mindless, like washing dishes.
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And like washing dishes, you know you're working steadily and systematically towards something beautiful -- clean sparkling dishes, or being able to play with the same style and panache as the pros. (Ok, maybe the same as the pros is a bit over-stretching things. Still, in this case, no harm aiming high ... )
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In other news. Reading the news and reactions to Harper Lee's new-old novel / pre-sequel (?) to To Kill A Mockingbird -- and setting all of this in the context of all the race-related killings and riots in the US over the last year or so, i'm just struck all over again how incredibly racist the US is. (And i don't just mean against African-Americans ...... ) i'm so glad i decided against going there.
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In other other news. Some parts of Taiwan -- the mountainous, foresty bits -- really look quite beautiful. i might just have found my not-too-far-away affordable getaway from Sg Urban Life ...
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the beautiful game

No, not football. Though that's beautiful too. i'm talking about table-tennis. It's going to be years before i master it, i think. In the meantime, my 教练 (i suspect she trains the national youth team, or something along those lines -- i will ask the next time i see her) must feel about me the same way i feel about my students. It's humbling to not be able to pick up quickly enough something that somebody else completely takes for granted. i guess this should really make me more sympathetic towards my students ...
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no continuing city

So my friendly neighbourhood stationery store -- the one i've been buying most of my stationery from for, gosh, almost 20 years (?), has closed down. They've been closed for about a month, but since they're tucked into a corner that i don't pass by very often except to buy stationery, i didn't find out until a few days ago.
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So much to think about recently. The way this country is going, the bloody weather (getting worse and worse -- it's a long-term pattern, and i think it's irreversible), the way the world is going for goodness sakes -- and in the midst of all this, where life is going for me. It's all in little bits and pieces -- not in a bad way, just in a way that i haven't yet been able to fit together and figure out. Maybe i never will. Life isn't always coherent.
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But all this is really making me wish i could just take some time off work (again) and just sit down and write. Just had a really thought-provoking gathering with some fellow writers-who-are-Christians yesterday, and it was such a ... relief (?) to hear some of them say that in order to write, they need extended time away, a space to be quiet and shut out the world around them. i'm like that too -- but you hear so much about those writers who make themselves write for 1 hour every day ... i've tried that; it just doesn't work for me. (Blogging is an entirely different kind of writing altogether, and doesn't count.) The extended time, the quiet space, is important. The only thing i'd add to that is that "a space to be quiet" doesn't necessarily have to be a physical space. It can be a state of mind, too -- and firstly, teaching is not in general a profession that is conducive to a quiet state of mind (is any job conducive to that?), and secondly, my state of mind has just not been very quiet lately.
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Anyway, i just had a brief online convo with an anti-Christian Lit friend about Christianity -- he was thinking about how horrible Christianity is because Christians say things like "Thank God" when good things happen to people -- which he feels invalidates the suffering that other people undergo. So, because we sometimes talk about these things, i explained my theory about how people who think that way are just generally not thinking very deeply about the Christian faith -- because ultimately, it's a faith that is concerned with the state of our souls. Logically speaking, whatever happens in this world isn't of ultimate importance -- success or failure, good health or bad health, suffering or comfort. What matters is eternity.
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"For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." That's always been one of my favourite verses in the Bible. As my friend pointed out, it would make a fantastic epigraph for my collected writings about Singapore. In fact, heck, come to think of it, it'd make a marvellous title. (Collected writings! Haha. Clearly, i need to make time to get to it, as JL said to me once.)
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motivation

For two people who are more or less best friends ('more or less' -- because i stopped 'believing' in 'best friends' somewhere in secondary school ... ), my Artist Friend and i disagree a lot. And often get into long and involved debates over these disagreements. We're so different. i think we've both learnt a lot from each other -- the differences have been enriching rather than divisive. But that's only because we've been friends so long and the friendship has been tested and proven true over almost 2 decades -- we only started realising how very different we really are in the last few years.
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So motivation. My Artist Friend needs to believe in a Vision. She needs to aim for something higher and better than what is likely, given Reality. If all she can see is a Realistic Possibility, she just doesn't feel like there's anything to work towards. i'm the opposite. i don't like being fed Unlikely Visions (read: lies). i want to know what's Real, to work within the bounds of what i know to be practical and possible. Being fed Unlikely Visions (read: lies) just makes me cynical and skeptical -- in fact, i find it de-motivating. Of course, that then begs the question of how we define Vision, Possibility, and Reality in the first place. i suspect that, given my general idealism, my spectrum of 'likely' and 'possible' probably includes what some people, especially some Singaporeans, would see as 'unrealistic'. (Which should give an indication of how uber-idealistic my Artist Friend is ... ) But that just depends on the price you're willing to pay, right? Which in turn is dependent on how much you value the goal.
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Ah. Ok. Let's not go there. Life is complicated enough without over-thinking things. Here's something fun that i re-discovered today while marking vocabulary exercises ...... It made me LOL at my desk, even though i must have watched it at least a dozen times and more in the past.
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limits

Gosh. Hardly 3 days away from this blog and already i feel like part of me has stopped existing or living, or something. i think i can't actually think when i'm not writing, as in, only when i write can i think coherent thoughts, make meaning, make sense of this crazy world and my not-quite-so-crazy-but-still-enough-of-a-handful life.
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i've been thinking about limits, and boundaries. Looking at what's happening everywhere these days, i can't help but think we (ie, The Human Race) have really over-reached ourselves, pushed life and our environment and, generally, the world that was given to us, to its limits and beyond. That's why the weather's been so bloody awful recently (8am this morning and being outdoors felt like being in a sauna ... ), that's why Climate Change, that's why Greek Default, that's why Stupid American Gun Laws, that's why ISIS, and Tunisian Beach Shootings, and Charlie Hebdo, and Screwy Sexual Ethics (pun intended), and, well, basically everything that's upside-down and crazy in the world today.
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This thinking about limits thing is also partly because of convos with my Artist Friend who thinks she is superwoman (and more ... ), despite clear evidence that she is not. i think life is teaching her that she has limits, that it's not true that she can do and be everything she dreams and wants. Which is a good thing. For one thing, learning about limits makes us less prone to making self-destructive mistakes -- and she's taken more than a few wrong turns in the past. For another thing, too much self-assurance is just off-putting in general. Humility is a good thing.
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On a related note. It's so hard to tell the difference between healthy aspiration and unhealthy arrogance / ambition -- where does wanting that Ignatian Magis (wanting to do better, to do more, in service of God and others) end, and greed begin? Especially when what you want seems to be for good intentions? (The road to hell is paved ... etc.) Is there any way to tell before the (sometimes irreversible) consequences set in?
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Wilting slowly in the heat. Need. To. Go. Somewhere. Cold. (Not that there are too many of those places left nowadays. 38 deg celcius in Paris??? Insane.)
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