Dream-coloured pictures

"I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet."- Scarlett Johansson in Lost in translation.

Those are some of my favourite movie lines. Mainly because I've hidden a photography itch away for a long time, I'm afraid of being mediocre at it. There are always excuses.

On Tuesday, I spent the night transferring over 5,000 pictures and photos other people have taken into Ophelia (yes, that's her name now) and fell completely in love with how they looked in iPhoto. It's just so beautiful. Maybe that tipped something over. Yesterday, I talked about going on a photo-taking trip. The conversation just presented itself and I found courage sitting next to it.

I love how Polaroids look. Earlier this year, I thought of getting a Polaroid cam after stumbling across Nectar and light. That tiny idea was crushed when I found out that they were being discontinued.

But today, I found a free Mac application that turns your photos into Polaroids. Now, my world looks incredibly light and delicate.

Just visiting

If you could stay permanently in a 5-star hotel with a partner of your choice, would you? A centrally-located, highly-esteemed hotel with all the amenities you could ever want catering to your well-being. There'll be impeachable service at your fingertips, exquisite food to nourish you and a bevy of high-flying guests to rub shoulders with.

Compare it to an old house. Constant repairs needed, imperfections and limitations exposed, inconveniences and nuisances to face on a daily basis. You always see the same set of people, it's mundane and insular, seemingly trapped in the past. They say that routine kills the desire to grow and innovate.

Some people say that hotel rooms are soulless experiences. Maybe it's because they've stayed in many hotel rooms for short periods of time. You don't get to break the place in that way. I think that if you live in one long enough, you forget what your old life was like. You have the time to put personal belongings on display, establish routines and preferences. You'll get to know the receptionists, the porters, the cleaning ladies. People whose lives revolve around the hotel.

Or maybe it's not like that. Maybe a hotel room can never ever become a home, and you'll just end up being a permanent visitor there.

Zhang Zhiyi in her hotel room, 2046

Three-day field trip

I'll be away over the weekend till Monday afternoon, conducting a cross-cultural research project on a large group of relatively-unknown people in a strange environment. It was a good opportunity to study them up close, plus I managed to get a co-researcher to come along for company so I'm quite excited. Even though she's new to such field assignments, she's very game for such challenges, which I'm thankful for.

Ok lah. I'm attending SIB's 2008 YA camp. Sadly, this will entail missing Chelsea vs Liverpool on Sunday night.

How to score bonus boyfriend points

When a former rival manager comes out and calls your favourite footballer a diver, say:

"He's just unhappy that he was coaching one of the most glamorous clubs in modern football and they sacked him and now he's managing in a league that nobody but Italians watch."

Take that, Mr Mourinho! Besides, see this statement?

Come say hello

I'm a Macbook.

Different people see different things in me. Some people look at me and see 2.1GHz of processing power, an Intel Core 2 Duo chip, 120 gigs of hard disk space and two gigs of RAM. Other people look at me and see a sleek white machine that's only 2.7 cm thick and 2.27 kg light. They love my 13-inch widescreen and its ratio of 1280 x 800 pixels.

Sometimes, when they get to know me better, they see me as the one with Safari, Garageband, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, a talking MS Word and lots of funky widgets.

Last night, a girl saw me, and this girl was different. When she saw me, she saw hours curled up online on a cosy sofa, fresh mornings over creative writing, hammerring out notes in bustling meetings, tweaking pictures by cafe windowsills and intimate nights in the glow of a movie.

When I saw this girl, she saw me too. She came and took me home.

I'm in her room now. Can't wait for her to get back.

I wonder if she feels the same!

Wojtek the soldier bear

I came across the fascinating story of an orphaned bear that was adopted by a company of Polish soldiers in Iran during WWII. As a cub, he clung to soldiers tightly as they travelled across vast distances. The soldiers would wrap him in their coats and woolen blankets and rock him to sleep around a campfire. And as he grew up, he also grew to love drinking beer and chewing cigarettes. Funnily, he would spit out the cigarettes if they weren't lit first! His name was Wojtek (pronounced Voy-tek).

In 1944, his unit was deployed to Italy to help the Allied forces, and animals were not allowed to follow along. To overcome this, Wojtek's friends cleverly enrolled him as a rank-and-file soldier. When the British officers were presented with the bear's enlistment papers at the port, they had no choice but to allow him on board the ship with the rest. And so, the soldier bear sailed off to an adventure that would seal his legend.

Over there, he observed his comrades loading heavy boxes onto trucks. After a while, the bear walked up to a supervising officer on his hind legs and stretched out his paws. Amazed, the officer handed a box to the him, who then effortlessly loaded it onto the truck. He continued, carrying heavy shells, artillery boxes and food sacks, seemingly unfazed by explosions and gunfire nearby. Wojtek was so careful that he never dropped a single shell, food sack or ammunition box.

The battle ended in victory and in honour of his contribution, a soldier's sketch of a bear holding an artillery shell became the official emblem for his unit, the 22nd Transport Company (Artillery Supply) of the Polish Second Army Corps. Wojtek was famous!

Sadly, Wojtek's story ends with the bear living out his last years behind bars, separated from the comrades he loved and fought alongside. The Polish Army was demobilised in 1947, while Wojtek and company were in Scotland. His friends knew that civilian life in Soviet-occupied Poland would be harsh and it was decided that it would be better off for the bear to remain where he was. Thus, he was sent to the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens where he stayed until his death in 1963.

Now I'm very fond of bears, so this story thrilled me. Dear Wojtek, I hope that you were happy in some way during your last years and may you rest in peace...

Further reading/gallery of pictures:

Wojtek The Soldier Bear - In the Ranks of Victors
Wojtek the bear, in particular this and this article.

Shopping online is too fun

I used to be skeptical about whether online shopping in Malaysia would have enough quality products to be of interest to me. However, this has been swiftly debunked by blogs I read and sites such as Tongue in Chic and Little Accompaniments. Now, it's a thrill to get cheap, unique and/or handmade goods without having to physically go out and hunt them down.

Over yesterday and today I've placed orders for two pairs of earrings online and purchased a dress from a colleague's secondhand blog, spending a total of RM80 while sitting in front of my office computer. I'm putting this all up cos I want to cap online spending with the following exceptions: (1) the next pay cycle begins, (2) YMF releases a new collection, and (3) I settle one more item. Will post on this item soon.

Blue Chrysanthemum earrings from Chatterbead , vintage-style earrings from Dainty dreams and vintage floral dress from Underused items.

Geek moment

Encounter by Fumi Watanabe

I got to wander around Ikea two nights ago and in the picture frame section, I saw a print and thought, “Hmm, deer and swirly motives. That looks like what’s-his-name-Watanabe’s style!” I felt so clever when I checked the tag and it was correct. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was to me. I can recognise little-known artists!

A bit of a deflation when I found out yesterday that Fumi Watanabe is a woman though.

Gender bridging

Fergs and I usually converse on the drive to and from work, and every now and then chance dictates that a brilliant insight would be gleamed. Today was one such occasion. It started with me narrating a communication gap between my parents and I stumbled upon a controversial observation: men rarely communicate (or withhold communication) with the intention to frustrate, while women will resort to frustrating communication.

This is because women would withhold from saying what they really want to because they think men should know it, and/or they want their men to be able to pick it up. It’s like we play a perpetual game of “let’s see if you are paying attention to me.”

When men omit something, it’s usually because they don’t know how to say it, or it doesn’t occur to them that they should. In their head, they don’t think it’s worth telling.
Pic: At sea in a teacup by My Folk Lover.
Doesn't the guy's hair look like Fergus'?This makes a lot of sense to me.