a.tribute

blank.wall

bleah.
in studio now.
all alone.
studiomates went for dinner.
felt like i should stay and do work.
but.
i have no inspiration.
all i can think of is running back to my room in hall to watch tv.
what is wrong with me?
grrr.

behavioural.cut.up

Ok this is strange... I can't seem to get more than 5-6 hours of sleep a night, no matter how tired I am, or how late I get concussed. So anyway, here I am again, awake and with tons of work ahead of me today. C'mon jan! Chop chop! Let's get cracking!

I was just thinking about the conversation I had with an american friend (with cambodian roots) two nights ago after a beer session. Lakhena (read: lah-kee-nah) was telling me about this pact she had with a particular friend of hers, a concept they termed "behavioral cut-up". Basically what this means is that everyday, both of them have to challenge themselves to do something totally out of the ordinary, in an attempt to keep life interesting, and to push one's comfort zone boundaries. This can range from anything like taking a different route home, to something more majorly implusive like climbing up the 2-storied water tower perched on the rooftop of an apartment building (which by the way, she did, during the huge aki party my sexy jesus-lookalike friend threw at his lovely brownstone apartment last weekend.)

I do admire how she's able to live life on the edge, to cut a mohawk for the heck of it, or to keep a coiffed cut just cos it's so unlike her that it becomes hysterically subversive. I like how real she is, no pretences to be anything she's not, and no concern as to how other people view her. I for one, like to stay within my familiar territories once I've conquered them- I'm no longer as brave as I think I am, nor as implusive, nor as fun-loving. (Is this age kicking in here?!?) Still, I'd like to think I try to challenge myself once in awhile, uprooting to NYC being the major indicator of this.... Perhaps I should go tell the sexy jesus-lookalike friend just how hot he is, or I should go get the cell phone number of this indon waiter (who looks like a skinny thai version of takeshi kaneshiro) working at the Thai restaurant near my place. I'll bet he thought ern was my bf (eeps) becos he looked so forlorn the last time I brought ern there for dinner, that it was almost painfully funny.

So, what's your behavioural cut-up for the day?

Sam's.Meatpacking.District

It's 5.30am- I'd come home slightly less than an hour earlier from a night out in Manhattan's infamous Meatpacking District. Went to take a bath, so now my hair's wet, and I'm as awake as an energiser bunny.

My friend was on the guest list to this apparently very exclusive club called APT, where you had to know the spinning DJ in order to get admitted. And hey, it was Ursula 1000 (real name: Alex) who was spinning, and my friend knew him... Heck, she's even friends with Thievery Corporation!!!

It was just the culmination of a rather surreal night in general. My friend brought me to this really quaint South African bar/restaurant in the Brooklyn area near school, where I had my first LichiCosmo (lychee cosmopolitan- it's pronounced as "leechee" as I've discovered) that was magnificently yummilicious!

We then made our way down to another friend's place near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, a very nice neighbourhood to live in, probably due to the fact that the people here are wealthier and therefore the state of upkeep is generally good. The apartment was well furnished and the detailling was much better than any that I've seen thus far in NYC (ie not falling apart or gross). We chilled out, had drinks, smoked (non-ciggs), listened to music, and chatted about their very active sex lives and my non-existent one...

After midnight, we finally made our way down to Manhattan, down to APT. The music was good, but a tad too hiphoppish for my liking- I can't dance hiphop! The mix of crowd was very diverse indeed- you had the standard whites, blacks, a relatively high proportion of asians, some latinos, and many europeans I'm sure. (Italian men are so impeccably gorgeous!) It was okay, but not fantastic like Zouk back home is... It's just so small and intimate and exclusive and diverse and full of black dudes with the cool grooves and people trying to be blacks, that it kind of made it seem like Stanley Kubrick's film "Eyes Wide Shut", where everyone seems to be in a slow-mo trance-like state; that everything is somehow tinged with a layer of unreality.

The best part of the entire night HAD to be when we went out to the smoking area for a breath of fresh air. It was just this small inbetween space hemmed inbetween the structures of adjacent buildings, allowing a sliver of a glimpse of the night sky, and an encroaching darkness creeping in from the far distance and then fading back again. There, looking at the moon through the small gap, the verticality of the buildings creating a distinct claustrophobia, and knowing that this is the kind of incredible space that no architect can ever plan for, simply because it arose out of need and out of spontaneity, I felt this strange inner peace within myself. Until the guy standing a metre away from me puked loudly into the depths below that is. EEEWW.

Right. And I feel a wave of tiredness sweep over me now... High time it did. It's off to bed I go and hopefully I'll wake up at a decent enough hour tomorrow to get some proper schoolwork done. I simply love it how people play hard and work hard here. 5 days to LA!

n.y.c.continued...

@ Central Park with a friend, her friend, and her friend's mom.

Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn Sculpture Park.

IKEA in New Jersey! It's damn freaking HUGE!!! I kid you not.. the space inside is like a warehouse, with stacks and stack of furniture ready to be self assembled... *shudders with delight*

Manhattan skyline as seen from Brooklyn.



























Dwarfed by verticality in Manhattan.



Deserted Metro station. Super creepy, super grimey, super scary.
















The sunrise from my room window at 5.30am. I had just spent a long night in Manhattan, and after hours of walking in heels with blistered feet, bar hopping, unreliable subways and a shady guy following us from Brooklyn's most dangerous neighbourhood, I couldn't be any more relieved to be back home.

Manhattan

Me in Times Square... The great lights beckon! hahaha... Sy and I just had to go do the touristy thing, and boy, was the area packed! Think big billboards and neon lights just like HK except 10 times more dense and 10 times brighter and endless anonymous faces streaming past and all around you. It was so overwhelming that we just stood still at the edge of a sidewalk right in the middle of Times Square, and watched the world literally spin around us.



























Under the Brooklyn Bridge... No Standing Anytime. (You see that all over the place here.. makes me feel like I HAVE to sit down. heh)

Ah... CC makes his mark in Century 21 in Manhattan- the mecca of discounted branded goods... only this time, he appears on SOCKS??!!? (you know the typically furry little balls on the socks the little girls wear?) eeps.

Below: MoMA!!! *drool*


Shopping is no joke ok... especially when the subway stations are located so blardee far away and you have to keep changing lines just cos you stay in Brooklyn and THERE IS NO DIRECT LINE that can bring me from the Pratt neighbourhood into Manhattan. Just to clarify- I didn't buy frivolous stuff... it's all essentials like CK duvet, CK king-sized pillow, Ralph Lauren bedsheets and pillowcase, and a Hotel Collection duvet cover.. hee!


Louis Vuitton shop along 5th Avenue in Manhattan by Jun Aoki... click here to read more about it.

Brooklyn

My room on the 16th floor of Willoughby Hall, facing the school campus and the rest of Brooklyn. (Obviously this was taken some time ago when I first moved in cos it's DEFINITELY not that neat now... heh heh.) What's I haven't shown here is the huge expanse of empty space right behind, that's just calling out for a comfy lounge chair or an excessive futon! (Sy will attest to that for me.)


Balconies to the left when I stick my head out of the window (my housemate gets the entire balcony AND a private bath all to herself!!! Although she's so quite quiet so I think the balcony's a tad under-used... such a pity really... would have been a great place to have friends over for beer sessions out in the cool of the night...)


The middle pic shows the funky roofscape of my school's sports facility- apparently the largest interior column-free space in NYC? while the one right above shows the set of "The Good Shepherd" starring Robert de Niro, Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon, filming on campus right across from where I stay during the first 2 days after I moved in. No kidding! Some seniors said they were hanging around the set and they got to talk to Matt Damon! *faint* The pic below shows them packing up after an intensive night of filming... cool sial... I didn't realise it was a movie set until it was too late! Otherwise I would have gone over to Robert de Niro's trailer (parked right outside my hall) and knocked on his door hyahaha. (yah right.)