Because the new year always needs them.
- Be comfortable in your own skin. Why change who you are? (Cue song by Audioslave)
- As the pastor was saying today: “… if you’re a workaholic, there is a time to rest…”
My unintentionally uncomfortable, awkward chuckle and my friend’s cheeky grin says I need to take a break once in a while. - Running is now part of your timetable next semester. I don’t care how, you just do it Brian.
I guess a last post before the beginning of a new year. This one was from the trip to Malaysia to build treehouses. I’ll probably let most of the pictures do the talking.
Snoozing while we were taking measurements of the old house.
Strange if you could jump into reflections, no?
Purely ornamental. They don’t eat these chickens And I’ve never seen chickens looking this impressive if you ask me.
A very old set of drawers with where the label “screws” means nails, “washer” means nails, and everything is mostly nails.
Sunrise
The original
First time seeing a wild bunny. I think leaving the digital life really makes a lot of difference. You start to see more, you start to worry less about what you’ve got or what people think.
Sanding the prototype bench which didn’t make the cut for the treehouse, but was pretty darn comfortable either way!
Wood
The little girl who lived near the site.
We made her a bow and arrow (Pretty lousy one though). Doesn’t matter, Katniss Everdeen.
The tutor accompanying us, Hiro
The rain was crazy but calming.
The snailboat.
Other worlds.
One of the strange wild bunnies we encountered. This one was more friendly, but I’m guessing that it is because it was previously tamed. Don’t think you see albinos that often in the wild.
After a while you love the heights.
You don’t get night skies like this.
If this was the apocalypse… I don’t know. A lot of things I’ve still haven’t done.
Almost done!
Yeah we worked till the bus came. Even during the holidays, the architecture spirit still persists. Hah.
▲One of my church friends posted this poem up on our Whatsapp group a couple of days ago, something I took note of and kept it as a permanent note on my phone. Just thought that I’d share it again out here today, seeing how it’s been a good reminder for the times you feel that God isn’t around and about why we may ask but not receive.
Wait
by Russell Kelfer
Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate …
And the Master so gently said, “Wait.”
“Wait? you say wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming your Word.
“My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.
“You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply.”
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, “Wait.”
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting for what?”
He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine …
and He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.
“I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You’d have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.
“You’d not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.
“You’d never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
“The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.
“You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I’m doing in you.
“So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still … Wait.”
Architecture readings can get quite deep. ▲
Denial is: When you discredit a photo taken because it doesn’t match what your drawn plans show.
Because you remembered clearly that the step wasn’t there. You could have sworn it wasn’t there. Or because the photographer could have possibly had time to photoshop a step away.
Or maybe aliens.
Whatever. I still believe the step wasn’t there because my drawn plans says so.
- Studiomate: Hey Brian! My Jap quite zai right? *Shows a paper with writing in Jap*
- Me: What does it mean? (I am taking conversational Jap, but I still can't really read much)
- Studiomate: "Please do not do these things on the train". Every page of my sketchbook has a theme; this one is about the stupid things people do on the train. Sleep, eat, makeout, that kind of stuff.
- Me: Your kind of stuff that is. *Chuckles and goes back to work*
- Me: *Pauses and looks up* Wait, when did you learn how to write Jap?
- Studiomate: Oh I learnt from watching porn. Yup.
- Me: Oh. Kay.
My architecture life starts today!
▲I actually can think of a list of things which I want to learn and can actually use, but I don’t have the luxury of time and money, to learn them all (For the curious: Programming - like HTML or C++ -, 3d modelling, screenprinting, fly a plane. I have a few ongoing (albeit a snail’s pace), like typography and Japanese, but ah, I do wish there were more than 24 hours a day). I don’t think knowledge and learning is a waste. I believe it’s the key to appreciating the intricacies of life, how small we are and how little we know.
By helping someone, you never know how much your actions can impact a person’s life, be it a small act of kindness or even something as simple as choosing to hear them out, as cheesy as it sounds. It doesn’t matter if they will be in your life for a short period of time, because you don’t help someone looking for rewards, but what matters is that maybe for that moment you helped them, you might have impacted them in more ways than you can ever imagine (And I do hope in a good way).
It’s a
little
unsettling
how
my
pieces of art
seem to
be
going down the digital
route.
I almost forgot about this folder of photos I had on my desktop which was hidden behind the permanently open MSN Messenger window I usually have docked to the side of my screen (Ye, I am olde school like that).
Most of the photos from here were from the various museums in London. I got to say that the V&A museum is probably my favourite museum around there.
It’s quite sad that Singapore museums weren’t such a memorable experience as compared to the one I had in London. I remembered going to a local museum when I was in Primary 6 (I’m not even sure if I got the age right), but that was probably all I remembered. I can still remember the museum I went to in South Korea back when I was 16. It’s really not a very fair comparison with regards to how recent one visit is to the other and how time has this habit of polishing memories pitted with details into smooth unfamiliar events of their former selves.
I only remembered feeling really disappointed that there were no dinosaur bones on display in the local museum, like how those kids movies and preteen mystery books always portrayed museums to be.
If I remembered right, this display of hummingbirds was an act of vanity by some really rich guy of old times. However absurd it may be, somehow still beautiful in death. It’s really strange though, like as if time froze those birds as they were in mid flight, taking away their invisible life and soul and leaving behind an empty shell of faintly shimmering feathers.
Nothing can match up to the architecture of God. It just seems all too well planned.
When I visit museums, I always wondered, be it a piece of art from the great artisans of the past or a fossil from a million years ago - especially for the fossil, has one ever wondered the fate of its shell or legacy after death?
Imagine, you were one of the many numerous dinosaurs roaming the earth; just another one in the crowd, and fast forward a millions of years (Or even trillions), and suddenly you’re one of the few survivors of your species - an almost perfect specimen stripped of flesh, but still very much alive in the imaginations of the long line of camera strapped people queuing up to take a picture with you.
I mean, it’s pretty unfathomable in many ways, a human less than a century, or even half a decade old, standing right next to something which has been around for years undiscovered, seeing light for what you can’t even describe as a fraction of the amount of time it existed.
Or maybe even scrutinized by eyes barely having seen the world.
That was probably what was in my mind during my entire half a day at the Natural History Museum.
V&A on the other hand, was more of an artist’s paradise. It’s rather unassuming entrance along the Tube’s passageway hid more time and emotions than it’s lighted slow revolving plastic V&A anagram cared to reveal. From stone carvings to…
…Japanese armoury and art. If there is one culture I really admire, it would probably be the Japanese. Their aesthetic view of the world around, the idea of wabi sabi (beauty of imperfection and fleeting moments) and the inspiration from nature; from body armour to enamel glazed teacups. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it leaves me pretty awestruck.
Behind the smudged display casing in an air conditioned room of murmuring voices, with it’s sleek white walls and it’s artificial yellow lighting, something feels out of place, but I am not too sure if it is us.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a live lobster climbed onto the tip of the hilt and just morphed into the metal and jewel motif it is now.
Glass and glass, just that one contains the essence of ideas, spirit and beliefs which inspire, while the other just exists to keep them in.
That’s V&A for you. I didn’t complete the whole museum, but maybe next time when I get to go there again, I will.
This was from the Imperial War Museum across the river, possibly the best war museum I’ve seen by far. It’s touristy auditorium with its typical display of preserved war machines - in coats of drab green or grey paint, all too perfect and glossy, almost stopped me from exploring further, which I am glad I did, because behind it hid a whole collection of memories from the modern wars which once ravaged this world. From your standard rifles and uniforms, to little comforts in the form of letters and more brutal forms of weapons like flamethrowers and punch knifes as well as miniature replicas of hulking battleships. And this is only one photo of everything.
On the way out, I caught sight of this old motorcycle which I would have definitely loved to own if I could.
They don’t make things as charming as they looked back then.
