Days of Being LJ

I did entertain the thought of writing a retrospective post for 2009 but in between sauntering off with family on xmas adventures, Wicked the musical, loads of food and BBC xmas specials, I really couldn’t be bothered.

Upon reflection I guess 2009 was this:

In the beginning I was fighting fit, tanned but very broody

unemployment was my game and lack of future prospects made me cruddy

somehow an interview in Jan landed me a job in a place I dreamt

but I quickly went from neat and officey to threadlessly unkempt

frustrations boiled and insomnia plagued my Uni rattled body

I realised fulltime work for the next 40 years will drive me potty

so I lost myself in food that was junk and taboo

in tv shows set in Rome, on Battlestars and  in Cylon goo

got back into photography and unleashed my dormant talent

along with a deep abiding love for all special tennis moments

especially those of Federer, painful loses and sweetest wins

gave me excitement on my boring days and plastered a grin

on my ever widening face.

However my lack of grace,

was personified as i tried to emulate the GOAT on an actual court

as i thought skills for the game could easily be store bought

along the way of corporate restructures and freebie film tickets

in the end my friends and family were still the winning wickets

On the cusp of 2010, a month till I’m twenty-four

I need to get this body back to where it was before

leaner, fitter and fighting for those goals unaccomplished

to keep those creative juices flowing and unblemished.

Happy New Year Everyone and Best Wishes for 2010.

LJK life 2009, family, musings, poetry, retrospection

All week I’ve been checking the weather reports, hoping, wishin’ short of prayin’ that it wouldn’t rain on Sunday morning, because Sunday mornings I have my tennis lesson and it’s my 90min of respite and physical joy for the week.

This was to be the first lesson of the term, last week in a rain delayed make up lesson something finally clicked in my groundstrokes and I was in deep anticipation to see if my form would replicate.

Eight minutes out of the house and six more till the courts, the ominous grey clouds started weeping. Although I cursed the weather gods, the weather report was right for once as the weeping turned for the worse into a generous sob.

By the time I got to the courts the generous sob decided to take a step back and let the showerheads have a go. The coach decided to call off the lesson, disappointed, a few of us had a short hit when the weather gods decided to take an ad break, but once the waterfall resumed the others had enough and decided to call it a day.

I decided since I was already slightly wet I might as well go all the way and let the clouds finish the job.

I took to the furthest court, it’s a court without the double alley and every time I look at it I feel like I’m playing some crazy indoor masters event from the 1980s with Ivan Lendl or Boris Becker. The only other people who felt the need to indulge in this bit of wet masochism were on the court on the other side of the grounds, so I was alone and undisturbed.

As I started to practice some serves, the rain started bucketing down again. Once I smacked all four balls to the other side of the court, I dragged my lazy arse across the net for some ball retrieval.

Just before the net I stopped and looked up to the sky, the water was still coming down, in harsh and incessantly heavy drops, lightly drenching everything from my cap, to my racquet and my shoes but suddenly I was struck my this eerie quiet, I couldn’t hear anything but the rain, the water hitting the nearby trees and my own solid breathing. I looked at the grounds and across the courts, the green synthetic grass glistening and almost smelling like the real thing instead of some cheap plastic imitation filled with sand which would stick like glue to your shoes and every pore of your body. A peek of light came through the clouds and accentuated the contrast created by the okra coloured borders of the courts.

I reached out my hands, like the adorning Christ the Redeemer. Feeling the individual warm massaging drops, and in that moment I felt bliss. I sensed beauty, epiphany and contemplation in the one hit. And funnily enough my first thought was SHIT!, I need to capture this moment on camera like if only I would click my fingers and Wong Kar Wai would turn up with Chris Doyle and canvas this moment in my life forever on celluloid.

I was soaked but I felt the most free I’ve ever felt, this freedom bore me this incredible sense of elation as if I was finally defying sensibility, playing in the rain like some naughty schoolkid unafraid of been admonished by her parents.

In those ten minutes of solace I was drunk with both happiness and disbelief.

But all such glorious moments must be eclipsed by interruptions and endings and as the rain came down heavier than ever with thunderous vigour, common sense and self-preservation kicked in; the slight possibility of pneumonia and the ruination of a great pair of tennis shoes. I ran for the club-house, rueful that such spiritual bliss couldn’t last just a little while longer…

*written 24th Oct 2009

LJK life emotion, epiphany, spirituality, tennis

I’m tutoring my brother in English for his run up to the HSC, am I qualified? I like to think so since I went through the hell of HSC English in the first place and managed to come out relatively unscathed with relatively okay marks in the process. Add to that I also spent 5 years in uni majoring in cultural and film studies. So I’d like to think that even though I might not have the experience in teaching high school English I can definitely impart some skills in relation to analysing cultural texts in relation to contextual and genre studies. Pretty much the skills you need to get through HSC English anyway.

So currently we’re in our 8th week and at the 4th week juncture I helped him prepare for a speech assessment task which I thought we both did a pretty good job on considering it was only the 4th week.

I come back home today to a pissy and moody 15 year old. Oh no, something went wrong. So he got his mark back for that assessment today, 8 out of 15. What went wrong? Is this a sleight on my teaching ability? Perhaps my skills aren’t as crash hot as I’d thought they’d be. You might all be thinking…shit, LJ; perhaps you should actually pay for a qualified tutor?

I guess to fully answer this question I have to go back to the actual chain of events leading up to the assessment.

The question for the assessment basically asked the student to present their own interpretation of Macbeth as a film and pitch it to a director. To those who know me, you know I could probably personally do this assessment standing on my head. But how would you break your own process down and teach it to another?

My brother and I first work on breaking down cinematic techniques then building them up with textual proofs and contextual links to create his own interpretation. And we get to a point where I’m happy with the progress and figure out that he will be able to answer the question to competent standard.

The first day he was meant to do the speech, the teacher didn’t manage to get to him. Instead my brother came home worried after listening to some of the other kid’s speeches. All the other kids didn’t change the setting or time frame for their interpretation and he did. Was this a restriction the teacher implicitly applied to the assessment I ask him? Yes was the reply, it was verbally stated. I was like, fucking hell what teacher gives you further restrictions which weren’t on the original assignment sheet. Personally if it’s not stated on the assessment sheet it doesn’t count, that’s what the lawyer in me says.

Anyhoo, I gave my brother 2 possible choices:

1. Stick with the original plan. The interpretation which we worked on together which we both knew was solid
2. Change his interpretation to be more in line with the rest of his class.

Of course being 15, kids are impressionable; you never want to stand out or do something different or do something which is not EXACTLY what the teacher has prescribed. He chose no. 2 and decided to change his entire interpretation and I didn’t get a chance to look at his new speech before he presented it in class.

I studied the pencilled comments the teacher scrawled on the back of the assessment sheet he got back today. Each remarked on an area which I covered explicitly in our lessons. e.g.

1. Explore your interpretation through defined cinematic techniques
2. Provide lots of backup from the text of the original work,
3. be persuasive, you’re there to convince the director to use your interpretation.

So in between the 1st and 2nd versions of his speech he managed to lose all of this, or rather did not pay enough attention to develop each aspect to the level they were in the 1^st version.

I think my downfall as the tutor was that I trusted my brother’s analysis of the speeches of his peers. I definitely know that at that age I couldn’t tell the difference between what the teacher thought was an AWESOME speech or a mediocre speech. My brother may not have been able to adjust adequately to conform; rather his conformity was superficial as the rest of his arguments fell apart simply because he didn’t have the conviction to believe in his own work.

So the first question you ask after the initial shock of disappointment is: What if my brother used the 1st iteration of his speech? But even then what if he got 6 or 7 for that THAT speech? (Although I doubt that would happen). Irregardless of the mark I’ve always said that for this assessment we both know that he did the work and knows the stuff and that in the end it was execution on the day.

So what’s the lesson today?

1. Always go with your initial instinct, go with plan A. No one ever wins something starting with Plan B.
2. Trust your ability to answer the question to the best of your ability.
3. Don’t conform for the sake of conforming.
4. Have absolute conviction and belief in what you’re doing, because even if you fail at least you can be sure that if was your best and you did what you needed to do.

Otherwise disappointment will await as you realise your output was shite because you were too busy trying to be the same as everyone else rather than working with your own understanding and analysis of the material.

LJK life education, english, self-belief, tutoring

Wading through the shite of life in a big city, rarely do you get a sense that humanity is positively affirmed.

Today walking out of the Devonshire tunnel to work I was met by fat lumps of rain. I’m a person who always forgets her umbrella at the end of the day so naturally it’s always sitting at the edge of my desk, invisibly goading me every time I go home, as if to say “HA, you’re going to pay for leaving me here tomorrow morning.” And today I almost paid.

I contemplated to the tuneful melancholy of Sigur Ros as I headed towards my inevitable cold shower awaiting in the 100m open path between the tunnel and work. At the edge of the tunnel I surveyed the scene. I could wait, but since its was already 9:20am I was itching to get to work and not have to stay late since this entire week had been incessant about staying late. I had my hoodie on which pushed me towards making a run for it, but before I could complete my mental “Ready, steady, go!” a man in front of me made eye contact.

With his umbrella open he nodded at me. I pulled out my earphones and entered the real world from the dreaminess of minimalistic Icelandic pop.

“Want to share?”, he asked.

“Yeah sure, thanks so much.”, I replied, giddy at my stroke of luck for the morning.

The umbrella wasn’t big and we sure got soaked on both sides but as we made through the usual chit chat of “Where are you going?”, “Where do you work” etc, I thought, wow, this guy was willing to sacrifice his own physical comfort so I could get to work relatively dry.

So we arrived to the foyer of my work (which also doubles as a thoroughfare between Harris st and the end of the Devonshire St Tunnel) and I helped him juggle the umbrella as the sling holding his right arm unlinked. He mentioned he just had shoulder surgery, the result of years of badminton abuse and I remarked how my own right rotator cuff wasn’t so great.

After we shook hands and said our goodbyes, goring off to work for the day, I realised, we didn’t even exchange first names.

I’m still slightly chuffed about the gesture still. So in the million to one off chance that he reads this blog, I’d like to say:

Thanks a bunch, you really made me quite happy for the day and if I ever see you around Ultimo again I’ll make sure to shout you a coffee.

Cheers,

LJK life

Your management’s ticketing fiasco for your Sydney Concert leaves much bitterness. Of course it’s not your fault personally. No, you would never sanction the blatant ripping off of your fans by dodgy computer retailers in Chinatown, or hike up the prices of your tickets, not once but TWICE, or introduce tickets which are about three times the price of VIP Rolling Stones tickets at the Enmore. Really cause you’re so much better, Mick Who?

When your concert was announced people with connections were already booking their tix. Unluckily I missed out, so the week public tix were announced in early April, I rushed down to FuDaChi computer centre at Haymarket. I paid for two $168 tickets. The helpful man at the counter told me that although I was early, he could only guarantee me sections 28-29 since 26-27 were all taken. But he assured me that he will try his best to put me in those sections. He hands me a paper receipt from one of those docket type books, “Come back to collect your official receipt later today.”

I went back after work (luckily work is close enough).

“Sorry, official receipt’s haven’t come in today, can you try tomorrow?”

No worries, I replied, wasn’t too unusual, I’ll pop by during lunch tomorrow.

So the next day I used my hard earned lunch time to trot down to FuDaChi (of course Jay, in your case, some hapless assistant would be given this job).

“Sorry, official receipt’s still haven’t come in, could you try later in the week.”

Okay, see Jay, I don’t get that frustrated, because I expect this of dodgy Asian businesses. So I said, fine. And then I went back in a week.

When I finally got my receipt, I was told. Your tickets should be ready to collect on the 1st of May. Awesome I thought. However my enthusiasm waned when on the 1st of May I was told to come back 1st of June. I was starting to sense a pattern here, Jay, a certain sense of ineptitude. So I leave it to mid-June to go back.

“Oh sorry, they just sent us the tickets and I’m still allocating, can you come back later this week?”

As you can see Jay, my patience was running out. So I waited…again.

After work today, I tried my luck once more. Luckily I received the tickets…but…don’t you love how there’s always a “but” when dealing with Chinese, Jay?

“Sorry but we could only put you in section 36″

“WAh???”

“Sorry, the company only allocated these tickets to us, 不好意思”

I was absolutely dumbfounded. I had to think of what to say

“But, but…who got these sections then?” I pointed to the original sections I was promised.

“They were probably allocated to the sponsors.”

What, but didn’t you advertise yourself as the “THE ONE AND ONLY OFFICIAL JAY CHOU” concert store? Did you not promise those sections when I bought the tickets. You never mentioned section 36. HELL, if you mentioned that I would have gone to ticketek, paid the extra 8 bucks per ticket and received my tickets without any hassle long before you received your tickets.

See Jay, they used your name but they misrepresented the product. The lawyer in me would have gone ALL s52 of the TPA on their asses, but I didn’t. Instead I walked home, tail between my legs, the bitterest taste of gall in my mouth and two $168 tickets, which are worth about $60 each in actuality when compared to similar seats in a normal concert. See section 1, in the picture? I got 1st row, section 1 for $120 each to see the the Chili Peppers…Chili Peppers!

Hell I’m used to being ripped off for Chinese concerts. I’m the person who spent around 1k chasing Jacky Cheung around Vegas. I can hack it.

But Jay,

this is just 太过分了, I even sat through Secret for crying out loud, doesn’t that mean ANYTHING to you? I was going to respect you at your concert but you leave me no choice but to snipe at your lack of live skills next Friday night.

sincerely,

Your ever snarky psuedo fan

LJ

LJK life anger, chinese, concerts, dumbfuckery, jay chou, mandopop, music

Firstly I’d like to apologise to the one reader who still reads this blog for not writing any new posts the past couple of weeks. I just had nothing meaningful to say, and I’m usually a person who adheres to the rule that when you have nothing meaningful to say then you should keep your mouth shut or in my case, your keyboard quiet.

The past few weeks have been passing in a haze of inconsequential bored stupour and last night was to mark my exit from the haze and entrance into the next couple of months of festivals (Vivid Sydney, Sydney Film Festival, Sydney Winter Festival etc). Except my plans of checking out the light installations and maestro Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings tonight, ended in complete failure as the city was drenched in a downpour. I mean who puts on a festival featuring outdoor installations during the WETTEST month of the year? Who? Vivid Sydney that’s who, even the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday commented on the total lack of enthusiasm summoned for the festival. Methinks I’ll be disappointed by the actual offerings anyway.

Anyhoo, work…has been bitterly pleasurable as always. On the bus home I thought of the perfect metaphor to describe work. Work is like my 12km trek through the German countryside from Neuschweinstein to Schwangau to Fussen. I wanted to walk to Schwangau to check out the big ass lake and once I got there it was nothing but a huge gloried mud flat, lined with thick stringy trees. But once I got there it was too far to walk back to the bus stop, so I trekked back to my hostel in Fussen. During dinner that night with my newest hostel buddy I realised that even though the lake at Schwangau was a total dissappointment , the 12km trek was one of the greatest experiences of my life, it was something to boast about, and an interesting story to tell. I think work is akin to this, agony, frustration and disappointment during the journey but hopefully by the end I’ll have had a great experience, something to boast about and some great stories to tell.

Yesterday I experienced my first corporate restructure. As a background tidbit I’d like to add that one of the major things I learnt through my formative teen years after my parents delved into takeaway retail is employer/employee relations, albeit mostly from the perspective of the employer. Yet no doubt in such a small business any type of industrial relation is greatly magnified and so very soap operaish. I’m not unaware of restructures, and certainly in the last couple of months my mother has been harping on about how the recession is a great time to restructure any business.

However I didn’t expect to experience such a thing so early into my very new, and very first full time job. When entering fulltime employment you expect a reasonable period of total stability after your initial whirlwind induction into the next 40 years of your life servicing the economy. The restructure didn’t happen directly to me but I’m one of many who are directly impacted upon.

The first reaction is purely emotional. Sadness hits, then anger. “Well shit, this is a great way to end a Friday and start the weekend” you think. Then you feel heartache for the person involved. I had a good rapport with this person and obviously that creates an emotional attachment, but even more so because I’ve been in this position such a short time it’s hard to lose someone who you like and look up to so soon in the process because just as you thought you were settled in, that stake of stability dissappears.

It’s that emotional investment which impacts the hardest. You know this person, you like this person, you may be even quite fond of this person. Some people are clearly shocked, most are deadly quiet. Some take it on the chin in a “yup, okay” fashion just so they could get out of that awkward situation of disbelief as fast as possible. I had mixed emotions when I hurriedly put my head down and headed back to my desk. I wanted to comfort the person on the way yet I couldn’t, like if I did I’d break this unspoken code of “this is none of your business”. Sitting at my desk I definitely contemplated some alone time in the bathroom, just to collect my thoughts and process the numbness.

The emotional reaction than gives into the rationalisation:

Well I totally understand why it was done. Cutbacks need to be made, businesses need to move forward in this economic environment.

But how do you remove this human element? On a late friday afternoon, this is not the type of surprise you’d like to get. What shocked me was the abruptness. However perhaps I didn’t see it coming because I didn’t get the entire back story, but I couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t the only person shocked by the ramifications.

I guess this is why it was done late on a friday, so all of us can come home and rue over it for the weekend and cool over any overly emotional reactions. Yet humans are social animals, and we hate losing a member of the pride, no matter how little time there was to bond there is still that residual loyalty, and this has certain emotional impact on the remaining team members

So what now, how do you go about things during the turnover period? The mantra is that it is just business as usual. But there is no doubt that the situation will effect team morale, even if it is in the short term. But how do you approach work? Do you act as if nothing happened and on the last day give them a hug and say, “It’s been nice knowing you, we’ll miss you and good luck for the future”? It just seems insincere in a way. Or do you look at them with mournful eyes the entire time, empathising with the unfairness of it all but rejoicing in the fact that at least it wasn’t you? Perhaps that’s an even more insincere act.

Things have a habit of working itself out through time, but this is definitely something I didn’t want or expect to experience 3 months in. Although I’ll get over it, does make me wary, even if it’s an irrational wariness. However I don’t think it’s exactly healthy functioning in an overly wary environments, but we’ll see how it goes in the next couple of months.

LJK job, life corporate restructure, emotion, recession, work

Last week on went on a glorious road trip with my favourite allies and I think I’m finally coming down with the physical results of drinking, talking, eating too much, and sleeping little.

It didn’t also help that this week has been fairly tough at work with a few deadlines, meetings and various issues. Yesterday I got up at the crack of dawn to attend the opening of a new concept store in Bondi Junction. It was fun but it didn’t do much for my plans of avoiding sickness these few weeks.

Every day my urge to travel and go frolicking in awesome places of the world continues. I hope to embark on a longer snow trip this year and work on my abysmal snowboarding skills but I can’t help but feel envious every time I’m bombarded with pictures of far off picturesque locations such as Chile on facebook.

Most depressing is the sudden realisation now that I will only have 4 weeks of travel time a year, 1 week in the snow and another planned for the Australian Open early next year may mean that I only have 2 weeks to frolic around overseas. That doesn’t do much for my plans of driving around Lake Garda ala James Bond, languishing amongst the olive groves of Sorrento and perhaps a side trip to Spain?

Yet I can’t help thinking all these wants and plans are just a method of compensating for my own loneliness. The more I see all my friends paired off and walking into the sunset the more I feel like the need to go out and collect new hobbies and experiences to fill that void in my own life. It’s sad but the brutal end will come as I pass out, face pressed to some cold pizza , vodka by my side and Alsatians nibbling at my toes.

Anyhoo for the positives in the future, the ABC will receive $167 million of extra funding over the next 3 years. A bulk of it will go to producing new local content (up from 20 hours to 70 hours) as well as content for its new Kid’s Channel in the pipeline. Methinks I should really start writing my opus, a dramedy based on my experiences at Uni. It’ll be totally compelling…to me and my friends that is.

But now is a good time to be creative, to start off that slam poetry, create that TV show and make money and fame off my perculiar blend of geeky ethnic youth intellectuality.

If none of that works…perhaps I’ll go become a roving travel guide.

LJK life conversation, creativity travel, drinking, friends, photography, plans, road trip, writing

So a quickie then…

I graduated on Monday, officially. I now hold the following 2 degrees (yay):

• Bachelor of Arts in Communication
• Bachelor of Laws (2nd Class Honours)

Can’t believe I managed to finish everything but there it is. The ceremony itself was a cattle call as expected, 5 secs of walking across a stage, tipping your hat, shaking hands with the Chancellor and getting your Testamur. I was also slightly pissed off that I couldn’t get 2 colours with my gown, I mean that’s why I totally did 2 degrees in the first place. I was also one of 3 arts/law students (compared to like 17 who got 1st Class) who went to the effort of getting 2nd Class Honours, I think everyone else decided that should they not manage 1st Class, they might as well give up. Although I wish they’d just put it as Honours, 2nd Class sounds so degenerate.

I think my parents were quite excited at seeing me graduate, I think they possibly had more fun than I did, except they didn’t get to frolic like a Jedi knight.

Anyway, the start of Uni seems almost too distant in the past at the moment. If I knew how droll life would be outside of Uni I guess I would have had more fun in Uni (although I think I held a pretty high fun quotient in Uni anyway). But I guess the good thing about being out of Uni is having a steady income, which is also bad cause you always find new and exciting ways of spending the money. (Hi sierrasnowboard.com)

Now that  I’m a proper graduate, the really Asian way to go about things is to go get a Masters or something now, however I think I might wait a few years until I’m absolutely pining for the intellectual stimulation of strolling the academic hallways.

LJK life education, graduation, Uni

I’ve been harbouring all this residual rage and I don’t know why. I should be totally happy and content at this time. I have a job, a stable income and creative pathways to pursue…so why am I fucking angry all the time?

This anger and resentment came to a a head tonight, after a particularly frustrating basketball match, where I didn’t play particularly well, armed me with enough rage to turn me into a customer from hell (albeit with good reason).

I got to the parking lot after the game with teamates in tow, bitching about the game and what not, handed over my ticket and a dollar for the fee, thought nothing of it, saw my change and picked it up along with the ticket.

I get to the gate, shoved the ticket in the machine, it tells me with robotic precision:

“You owe $4.00″

AW HELL NO!!!

So parked my car, pressed the intercom and all I can hear is the attendant’s thoroughly uninteresting phone conversation in Shanghainese. There was no way to reach him, so I bolted up to the ticket office. Of course at this point I really should have reversed my car and let the others behind me go. However I thought it was going to be a relatively short ordeal, I go up, he let’s the gate up, everyone is happy. Obviously it was not so short an ordeal, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging this.

Anyhoo, I apologise to all those cars waiting behind me (Vero & Seets in particular who watched the start of the proceedings with great amusement)

I get to the office, guy asks…where is your ticket? In the machine I reply, hurriedly also explaining how I paid etc.

“You haven’t paid.”

“Yes I HAVE, I was just here.”

So he hangs up the phone and agrees to come down and once he does, takes my ticket out of the machine and says again,

“You haven’t paid.”

“Yes I have, would you like to see the two 50c coins you gave me as change for my 2 dollars?”

No response….then finally:

“Okay I’ll go check”

So he motions me to reverse out of the way and takes my ticket back to his office. I bid farewell to all the cars behind me and I park my car and wait for him to come back.

What seems like an eternity passes…I’m still sitting in my car. Why is it taking so long?

I decide to trudge back to the ticket office. I walk in and find Mr Dumbfuck counting all his coins for the day. Any better and I’ll be having four and twenty blackbirds baked in my pie.

I was speechless, the scene incredulous. Was he counting all his coins to make sure that he had ONE dollar extra for the day? I inquired, still slightly dumbfounded.

He kept repeating for me to wait, that he has to check. Enraged I spouted a string of phrases trying to censor the obscenities rising to the top:

“What do you mean? I need to leave, I can’t wait for you to finish counting ALL your coins for the day (5c pieces too, mind you), just give me the ticket. Look I’ll give you the extra dollar and just validate the ticket.”

He keeps counting and still tells me to wait.

“No it could be my mistake so I need to check.”

“If it’s your mistake then it’s YOUR problem, fix it in your OWN time.”

“So you can’t wait?”

I look at him like he was the biggest dumbfuck in the entire world

“NO!!!!”

So finally after bouts of half yelling and pleading with exasperation, I get my ticket.

I get in my car absolutely pissed off at the guile of this person. And what is the lesson today? Don’t drive when you’re angry.

Whilst reversing I forget to check behind and I run into a concrete post. big dent on the left corner of the rear bumper, cracked plastic on the tail light.

I knew some sort of shit was going to go down today, I had a pretty shitty day at work too, it was bound to blow into something big and when I heard that BOOM from the bumper, that was it.

So from one Shanghainese to loathe to one to love, I came back home and consoled myself by watching Zhou Li Bo with my parents. A post on him shall follow later, but for now all you need to know is that he is a very good Shanghainese standup comic.

I guess I could have been calmer and more patient in dealing with this situation. But there’s only so much calm and patience one has and my reserves are drying out.

The entire time I just felt like ripping into him in Shanghainese (a brilliant language to rip into people with), but I didn’t cause that could be construed and being a cunt to your own race, and I don’t like doing that, but if I had, it would go like this:

eh, pang you, nong le gaou sa a? non le gei di fen bi? Jiauo ghoo deng le gei, deng nong di wei zen le? non na neng ga 13 di? doo ming zhz nong ce cu eh jiauo ghoo deng. zen jing ming, ba ghoo piao zhi.

mando translation:

哦，朋友，你在搞什么？你在点数硬币， 叫我在等待，等你点完了。你这么那么十三点？他妈的，是你出错还叫我等。神经病， 把票给我！

LJK life anger, basketball, conflict, dumbfuckery, emotion, life

So I’m at the start of another weekend and I feel so happy that I won’t have to go to work until Monday. I have no idea how I’m going to deal with the next 40 years of my life but I’m hoping that somewhere along the line I can subsist by only selling photos, poetry, advice or whatnot and languish at home with my pretend cats emulating the best of Judi Dench in Notes On a Scandal.

I had dinner tonight with Lam and his Voice Actor whom was participating in Lam’s Media Arts Project this semester. I stuck around to help a bit afterwards and since I had my trusty camera, took a few production stills. It made me realise how much I did miss the production side of things, the tangibility of the equipment, the fiddling of knobs and buttons…Problem solving on the run. I really like the awesomeness of production technology and overall I miss collaborating with different people, actors, crew etc. However I’m sure that if I was working on a freelance project, I’d be bitching about it forever so perhaps I’m just happy being miserable?

Anyhoo, because my mobile ran out of battery earlier in the day it meant I couldn’t contact anyone in the city to hang out with so I just decided to head home on a lonely Friday night, since Lam was bound to spend ages recording his script. Got to Wynyard and missed my bus by 5min, the next being another 25min wait, so I hopped on a 273 instead and decided to walk from Crows Nest back home and perhaps take some piccies along the way. Google Maps tells me that it was 3km exactly. So I legged it and tried some long exposures at the freeway overpass on Miller Street and at the Tower Bridge at Northbridge. I felt a tad of a ditz with my tripod and camera on a freeway overpass on a Friday night but I think it turned out for the best really.

Some favourites from tonight:

I think some of the reasons why I’ve taken up this period of photography with such aplomb are:

1. I haven’t properly photographed using an SLR since 2002.
2. Sometimes I enjoy looking at the world through a camera lens. I’ve done it consistently for the past 10 years of my life. There’s no sense in stopping now.

LJK life, photography filmmaking, judi dench, long exposure, photography