Unintentionally ended up in a hospital ward today, to visit a friend of a friend who have had all four of her wisdom teeth taken out. Until today I've been lucky enough not to have a reason to visit a public patients' ward.
What I saw and heard was a heart-breaking, painful reminder.
Opposite my friend's friend's ward was an elderly couple, with the wife lying in bed recovering from what seemed to be a serious operation. Next to her bed was her husband, clutching her hand while she was asleep, looking on with an expression between loving concern and aching sorrow. When the wife woke up, she said with desperation, "I don't want to die!"

Perhaps I'm easily moved, but at that point I almost cried. An acknowledged fact finally hit my core: when you marry a person, you also implicitly carry the obligation of watching them die. "Till death do us part". How little this almost trite phrase means to modern marriages. Once again I realise how great a feat my grandparents have achieved, staying together for 60 years, and their love for each other is still going strong.

The story with the couple in the hospital has a happy ending. I looked away, as I fear I might be intruding such an intensely private moment. When the wife was speaking with fear and panic, her husband reassured and calmed her, "You're gonna be OK. The doctors said you're gonna be just fine." Even though I wasn't looking, I'm sure they hugged, ever so gently.

The Dorm Room Restoration Project:

Been packing for days now as I prepare to move dorm and leave for the Grand Tour. In the process, I've also ripped up half of the "quality" cardboard walls [you'd think a $68 million dorm would have concrete walls], as I dismantle all things attached with brute force. 3M clear mounting tape does a good job of sticking things to the wall, almost too good for my nomadic existence. Now nearing the end of packing, I've left half a dozen fist-sized patches where the paint + cardboard has ripped off.

What to do?
- retain bits of tape that has patches of wall stuck to them
- rescue bits of wall
- glue bits of wall back to hole with glue stick
- fill in cracks with Tippex (or white owl, whatever you call it); white crayon would be better, but darn I packed it away.
- smudge xs tippex with fingers to smooth out the meteor hole

am sad, sad student

Am shocked and saddened to learn the passing of a relative today. What made it worse was that it happened over two months ago and I didn't know anything about it.
Rest in peace, Mable.

1 bad final takes 1 whole week to recover.....

since the arrival of my extended family, I've done nothing (well, almost nothing) apart from eating. Tis the upside and the downside of being part of a closely knit Chinese family I guess. You meet up with family, you eat. You can't think of anything to do, you eat. The weather sucks, so you eat, yet again. Am feeling like a walking piece of blubber. *urgh*

other things I've been up to:

a) packing up my 130 ft-sq room, which is taking forever and ever and ever.... packed 8 boxes, and 18+ more to go. Room is looking messy + sad with all my decorations gone and cardboard boxes strewn everywhere.
b) went to see matrix reloaded + x2, one after another on Sat. then went to eat with Yao + Taka + Zhenye @ Biba [now cheesily renamed Excelsior]. was a lovely lovely treat, in spite of previously delicious bread selection went MIA. (Foie gras! foie gras!) In my gastronomical bliss, I fell asleep at Yao's before the start of Farewell to my Concubine. Apparently I was kicking everyone off the futon when asleep [my true nature?!]. SORRY! Only to wake up the next morning not knowing where the hell I was or what I was doing there. :P
c) am enamoured with my new phone. Thx mum! At last won't have a ghetto phone that dies after 5 mins of talk time.
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random movie personality test:

If I were an X2 character, I'd be Professor X:

You are Professor Charles Xavier, leader and founder of the X-Men. All that psychic activity in your head must have burned your hair off from the inside. You've confined to a wheelchair - the perfect disguise, for you are probably the strongest mutant on the planet. You do not resemble anyone from star trek in any way. honest.

~maybe there's a brainiac somewhere inside of me undiscovered..... [via slytherinkk]

spring fever in full swing:

22'C outside 24 hours to go till structural theory final 0% revision completed

where's my brain?! marco~~~~

15 mins of me messing around on camera + 2 cans of red bull + a whole pack of Chips Ahoy Chewy Chocolate cookies + 1 m&m ice cream sandwich + 1 parmesan eggplant sub + 1 exacto blade + 3 pieces of tissue + 271 live-action images + 23 hours of editing (or 36 hours without sleep)

= a 3 min 41 second video for my final project.

The last 30 or so seconds took me 16 hours to make.
Why DO I do this to myself?!
am even more shocked that the class seemed to have liked my vid, cos when I told my mum about my idea, she was like,"errr..hmm." Prof's girlf's raved on and on, which made me really embarrassed, since my pieces never have much intellecual thought process behind them. so i "errmhmm...yes" in response.
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Respect to Nina Yuen, a video classmate whose work is highly inspirational. We are both taking Joe Gibbon's* class for the second time. For me she is sort of a heroine-artist. Prof's girlf said she sees a parallel between our work; I am both surprised and very flattered by the comment. Nina's work constantly amazes me, and it's always a pleasure to watch. Her videos just overflow with lush colours and joy (even when the stories are bittersweet or a little tragic), verging on comedic ridiculousness.

* joe's filmography [1][2]

blogshares - geek toys for geek boys [via silent dreams]

the problem with this post-millenial organic curvy architecture:

Police blame curvature of Frank Gehry building in complicating shoot-out [from NY Times]

virtual tour of building
[requires Quicktime VR]

guess we have rethink the direction of new architecture given the current administration's fad with homeland security...
or in the more sophisticated words of Arindam Dutta, a prof in the dept:
"The prelude to introducing compulsory right-angles in buildings as the next amendment to the Patriot Act."

a lovely story with a little frisson from NY Times for all lingerie lovers.

*gasp* Bjork is performing in Verona, Italy in June!!! In a Roman amphitheatre! ^o^
o mi god o mi god. should I go should i go?
still need to sort out my summer work / travel arrangements.... is it London > Barcelona > Italy or London > Italy > HK or London > Italy or Italy > London??? the summer job is now in the air too cos haven't heard from boss in weeks.

cool beans....

went to a lecture yesterday by Rafael Vinoly (the other finalist in the WTC design competition). lecturer was wonderfully entertaining and delightfully bitchy. Is really preciousssss when you hear a rockstar-caste architect peer-bashing with such genuinely unabashed vindictiveness. Needless to say, we got to hear all the dirt that happened during the competition.

Classic quotes + anecdotes:

"This is not supposed to be public information, but I'll make it public now in this intimate room."

~ Vinoly on the fate of an unallocated $1.2 billion in the WTC redevelopment budget, when speaking to an audience of 300+.

"So Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic for New York Times, called everyone he knew. Everyone. There was Peter [Eisenman], people from Zaha Hadid's office, Norman Foster's, Rem [Koolhaas]'s....everyone. For some reason of seniority I suppose, the meeting took place at Richard Meier's office. Even though he is as old as some of the others present. [sic] It was a carnival where no one knew what to do or what was going on."

~ On how the whole competition got started after a year of planning cluelessness post 9-11

"Richard Meier has absolutely no sense of humour"

............ooooh

"I suppose he's the owner of death or something..."

~ On how Lower Manhattan Development Corporation had to sought out Daniel Liebeskind for the competition, after Liebeskind said "no".
~ the ultimate insult on Liebeskind's design [with the "wedge of light" every 11 September would ensure that there are no shadows cast on the site between 8 to 10.30 am, the "Park of Heroes", tracing in the ground the paths taken by New York's firemen, and the reconstructed "original" foundation walls] -

"When you're telling people what to think, it is no longer architecture."

Vinoly's insult is perhaps not unfounded, after looking at the design for the Victoria & Albert extension.

When it comes to media-lard-worthy schemes, architecture is just as dirty as any other business. For the full details of the bitch fight between Vinoly and Liebeskind- check out the article from The Observer.
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excellent panic mode flash toon. if having PMS attack
[via geisha asobi]

My first, and last, All-American prom experience:

Mike + Jen, Me + Bro, randomly seated with the Sixers

highs:

+ Haha. Got so many compliments on my dress it's enough to satisfy a lifetime's quota of vanity. highest thanks to Auntie Eugenie for giving me the bestest dress.
Comment from my bro's female friend, "Your sis looks beautiful! But why does she look so dorky at school?" Prooves the adage �H�a��� :P
+ Found out how big of a pimp my bro really is. He tried to teach me latin dance, with all the fancy swinging and spinning. Now I know why he gets all the girls.
+ Took a pic with my childhood crush ;D Finally fulfilled the goal from, hmm...when I was 10 and at the summer camp in Kent, UK.
He looked so shocked when he saw me! Guess he's never seen me polish up from my geek girl / nerdette self outside of school.
+ When my best mate Jenn showed up to the ball to everyone's surprise after "boycotting" the do for weeks
+ For the first time in college, I saw my freshmen yr roomate Joyce on the dance floor. You go girl!

lows:

- Bro of course went M.I.A. when they were playing all the cheesy tunes that I like to dance to.
- Jenn refused to come down from her high table of decorum and self-consciousness to boogy with Jen, Joyce et moi.
- Bro's brief stab at real-life My Fair Lady [or Pygmalion, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on] / Taming the Shrew [ie. try to teach me how to latin dance] was a huge failure, given my stiff arms and shoulders (according to him *cough cough*), his vertically-challenged height and my innate malco-ordinated clumsy nature.
- Bro seemed to know more ppl at the Ball than me. *hmmmph* Guess I hide in my snail-shell too often.
- Got "inched" by Alison, a buddy from past video / studio classes. "You got a hot date there!" knowing that I brought my bro along :(((

pix pix pix:
[pardon the low res quality...nicked them from the photography company website as am ghetto and don't have a digital camera]

Jen!

Sarah, my DUSP / Mexico City fieldtrip comrade

All the ringcomm love we can give: "03 is OK!" ;D

Muahahahaha..... mum i think I might have found myself a rich husband *jkg*

Have successfully wasted the whole day fantasizing about decorating my 300 s.f. grad dorm studio apartment next year.

If I were to miraculously win a sweepstake, here's my shopping list:

1. Chic / kitsch inflatable furniture by SoftAir

- Y O Y don't we get Ikea a.i.r. or any traces of Muji over here?!!! *frustrated*
[for a rough English translation of the Muji page, feed the URL to the Excite Japan translator]

2. Mod space age white chairs by Ron Arad,

Verner Panton
(1)
(2),
Arne Jacobsen , the egg chair etc etc.


3. Misc. bits and bobs from Target - for happy stylish student ghettoes nationwide.