my.yellow.arrow

check out www.yellowarrow.net

the.big.25

Had a combined birthday party at Grand [a cool bar/cafe near my school] with 3 other friends on 3rd Feb...
I had fun dancing all night long, blowing candles out at 12mn 4th Feb, drinking lichicosmos [courtesy of the bar owner, and made on special request], raspberry ginger martini [courtesy of my housemate], tequila shots [courtesy of various friends], mimosas and vodka shots [courtesy of fellow bday girls], overdosing on chocolate salad and yummy grilled mozarella bite-sized sandwiches...
Went to the Met Museum to see the Calatrava exhibition on 4th Feb [still suffering from a freaking hangover], had a super yummy Sunday brunch at a quaint French restaurant in my Brooklyn area, received 2 unexpected bouquets of frowers from friends- I've never celebrated my birthday this hard or this long before. Wished you guys could have been there to await the dawn of a new quarter of a century with me. It feels scary to be so old... [15 more years to make movie mingming!] I can only say I'm glad I'm not going to be the first, nor the last person to feel this way. At this point in my life, hitting such a numerical benchmark in terms of age merely makes everything else seem insignificant. I do have a lot to be grateful for, and grades have been going pretty well thus far, but then there's no accomplishment I can really lay claim to... or can I? Either way, although last year ended pretty shitty, and this year started out pretty shitty too, I have to constantly remind myself that I have to get as much out of this experience as possible. Good things never last, and thankfully, neither does the bad. So here's wishing everyone a Happy Birthday, cos sooner or later, IT will come, and cos happiness [and the fear of growing old] should be spread far and wide. Have a good year ahead everyone, and till we meet again... [no I don't mean online.. ahaha]

pandora.com

songs/bands to download:

"Neon Golden" and "One With The Freaks" by The NoTwist
"Windowframes" by Paulson
"Rise" and " Ceremony" by Rainer Maria
"Roll To Me" and "Driving With The Brakes On" by Del Amitri
"Tears Are In Your Eyes" by Yo La Tengo
Death Cab For Cutie
"Driftwood" by Travis
"Jump" by Madonna
"Yesterday Is Gone" by Lenny Kravitz
"Innocent Vigilant Ordinary" by The Appleseed Cast
"Blackout" by Lovedrug
Air
Zero 7
"Green" by Sister Hazel
"Rocks" by Loquat
Antour de Lucie
"Always Come Back To You" by Ryan Cabrera
The Trouble With Sweeney


all this after 6 hours of pandora-ing, 2 days of ourtunes, and 3 hours with my friend's sleek black ipod...
have you PANDORA-ed yet? :)

the.story.of.my.life?!?

"Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk"
by Rufus Wainwright

cigarettes and chocolate milk
these are just a couple of my cravings
everything it seems i like's a little bit stronger
a little bit thicker
a little bit harmful for me

if i should buy jellybeans
have to eat them all in just one sitting
everything it seems i like's a little bit sweeter
a little bit fatter
a little bit harmful for me

and then there's those other things
which for several reasons we won't mention
everything about them is a little bit stranger
a little bit harder
a little bit deadly

it isn't very smart
tends to make one part so broken-hearted

sitting here remembering me
always been a shoe made for the city
go ahead, accuse me of just singing about places
with scrappy boys faces
have general run of the town
playing with prodigal songs
takes a lot of sentimental valiums
can't expect the world to be your raggedy andy
while running on empty
you little old doll with a frown

you got to keep in the game
maintaining mystique while facing forward
i suggest a reading of 'a lesson in tightropes'
or 'surfing your high hopes' or 'adios kansas'

it isn't very smart
tends to make one part so broken-hearted
still there's not a show on my backholes or a friendly intervention
i'm just a little bit heiress, a little bit irish
a little bit tower of pisa whenever i see you
so please be kind if i'm a mess
cigarettes and chocolate milk

do.re.mi.fa.SO.

So.
After a weekend of hard partying last weekend, I went through a tough week of school.
Everyone was flipping out everywhere and all sorts of negativity about tutors were getting tossed around here and there. And it was strange because it wasn't actually a very busy school week lesson schedule-wise. I personally felt like school was crashing down on me somehow - perhaps I was just too burnt out from all the partying to handle any form of additional stress in the form of schoolwork?!?

To compound the problem further, I was stuck on my design, and behind in my assignments for all my modules. And while stuck, I had to try to talk through some design logic with some of my studiomates, since most of them haven't had any architectural background, and are basically flailing around wildly. This, coupled with the fact that my good friend (who also happens to be my live entertainment and daily clown) went on her studio trip to Brazil for a week. What a bummer. No one to rant to, studio seemed so much emptier all the time. (Of course I eventually found other people to bitch to and hang out with.. but still... you know.)

It was literally like a pressure cooker that was bound to pop anytime, and it finally did on thursday after studio session. Everyone was just ranting about our totally self-absorbant and useless tutor- I think he's scared of me because I openly showed that I wasn't too happy with him though. Good thing thursday nights are spent at the local pub drinking and chilling out with everyone, so that took quite a lot of stress off my shoulders. Finally met the yr one guy from the next studio who's always staring at my back since his table faces my studio and there isn't a partition inbetween to block me haha... He's into Zumthor as well, which is totally cool, and he used to be a sound engineer before he decided to enter the field of architecture. That was a fun night. Beer always makes anything fun. I gave my first lap dance after much persuasion... haha

Anyway, after the tough week I decided I had to be tougher on myself still, and buck up. I decided no more moping and griping about the lack of direction/input from my tutor, and just read more, absorb more and formulate a breakthrough on my own. This I did on friday, where I spent 10 hours of solid work designing a totally new scheme, one which I must say I'm more excited by compared to the previous formalistic one. Saturday was spent trying to catch up on late assignments- did my environmental controls calculations for the millionth time, but the important thing is that I finally completed it! Had studio on Sunday, where I had a positive crit with my tutor, (we forced him to makeup studio for us since he always seemed to be cancelling on us and our fees aren't cheap dammit) but that doesn't say anything at all since he never says anything negative about my stuff anyway.

Anyway anyway, I don't know where I'm getting with this post - it's 12.15am and I'm sitting in studio alone. Supposed to be studying for my test tomorrow, and Lakhena (who got back from Brazil yesterday morning) is concussed in the hammock, and Alma who stays on the same floor in hall as I do, is doing a new model to show for studio tomorrow and I'm supposed to wait for her to walk back together, and I don't really feel like studying, and Aimee Mann playing on my computer is making me very sentimental indeed. Today's a girl's night in studio... Sang's here still and so's Sara.. I had quite a happy day today I must admit... had a chat with my Maya teacher in the morning after class and managed to convey my frustrations about scripting to her, which she totally understood, and at least I feel more positive about that class now... had a fabulous and funny lunch with a dear friend (who came to fetch me home from school last night with a big umbrella because she insisted on testing out her new rain boots hahaha) and a new favourite german friend, whom I met during the Halloween party. I managed to get tix for the screening of the new David LaChapelle movie on campus this wednesday. I went for a totally boring but also hilarious lecture because I ended up playing tictactoe just to make it more bearable. I spotted the cute jap-looking guy from undergrad yr one at the lecture. I managed to catch up with stephen's cute housemate for a while. I had dinner at Thai 101, which was the first restaurant I ate at when I first came to Brooklyn. I finished my Environmental Controls assignment in slightly over an hour. And of course, I blogged.

ahhh.. ok. back to studying. I think I actually do like being a nerd. :p

scenes.from.halloween

So...
Halloween weekend was a complete blast.
It's not over-hyped at all, cos it certainly lived up to its reputation as the best holiday EVER.
Three nights of hardcore partying in a row, endless bottles of beer, humongous hangovers, aching feet, streets full of people in the most outrageous costumes, and tons of fun with strangers, friends and newfound acquaintances.
It was totally awesome- parties in New York are unlike any other parties in the world... I really felt the power and the seductive lure of the city over the weekend. The night scene is really vibrant here, not for nothing is NYC considered one of the greatest cities of all time. Everyone crashes parties everywhere, strangers are easy to strike up conversations with, people congregate in NYC from all over, bringing with them a multitude of experiences and influences. The Halloween parade here is supposedly the biggest in the world, the atmosphere was crazily out-of-this-world. I cannot even begin to list down the variety of costumes people wore, some were sexy/slutty/flesh parade, others were downright hilarious, and still there were those that bordered on the genius.
Indeed, these are the days to be young and carefree; to drink and be merry; to indulge in cultural decadence and spiritual poverty. Happy Halloween everyone! :p The only thing I have left to do is to carve a pumpkin, throw it down from my 16th floor window, and watch it smash to a pulp.

wassup?

Something's definitely in the air today.

There's a weird atmosphere of anticipation that's strangely electrifying and exciting...
I went to the supermarket nearby to get shitloads of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, and as I was there grappling with the shitloads of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, I got hit on by all the Spanish guys working there... "Hola Chiqa" they said, or wolf whistled, or sucked in their breath, as I hastily scurried away. Not once, not twice but multiple times. Wasssuuuuuuup I say. So what if my top is low? Doesn't entitle you to look down my boobs man. So I go back to my dorm, and I meet my classmate Josh's housemate, Will, along the way. He's WAAAAY tall, is blonde, loves all things cowboy, and cracks me up to no end all the time. And because he's like 3 heads taller than I am, I don't blame him for looking down my boobs, cos really, he doesn't have much of a choice anyway. So he's going for the Josh's gig tonight as well. We all have to dress up he says, it'll be loads of fun! What shall we go as? Hmm.. I suggested he go as pinocchio, with the long wooden nose and all, and then he'll have to move like a puppet the entire night. Cool, he says, except for the fact that he'll have to wear skimpy red shorts and that's not cool, that's COLD. haha...

So, it's HALLOWEEN weekend! There's a lot of people milling around the school campus today, an out-of-the-ordinary traffic of coming and going, carrying parcels from the mail office. I saw this girl wearing a humongous ball of lace on her head... I wonder what she's supposed to- just hideous perhaps?

Shall I go as a punk rocker for the gig tonight? Many friends have said that it's so becoming of me, or that I'd fit right in to the role.. (I wonder what impression I'm giving out here... rebellious punk?!!? gosh) And I still have to meet the singaporeans (whom I have talked to online but never met before) for a steamboat dinner gathering???
The 1/6 of a six-pack of beer role is reserved for the party tomorrow night with the Germans...
and then there's the Halloween parade at Greenwich Village to go to on Monday, and somehow we'll have to find time to go to the Met Museum this weekend cos there's an ongoing exhibition on Calatrava, and he'll be giving a talk sometime.

This is so not a good weekend to try to get work done.
I'm going off to the mail office to try to collect my boots (again) cos the UPS website says that they have been delivered! yey... flighty bimbotic jan.... Trick or Treat!!!

What.I.Do.In.My.Spare.Time

I can so see this becoming the cover of a rock album...

midterm.review

MoMAstore.giannings

Isn't this glass ball necklace absolutely SUPER SUPER CHIO?!!? It's apparently made in the tradition of Murano, the ancient center for the production of Venetian glass. And it also happens to cost a freaking 75USD, although that didn't stop my schoolmate from getting her delicate hands on one!!! oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh... *swoon* It looks fantabulous in real-life as well... *faint* Ishallsaveuptogetmyownishallsaveuptogetmyown!

L.A.

+ me and hobbes in the car, hobbes driving me back to where my studio mates are, after a visit to sci-arc
+ Morphosis' Caltrans perforated panels close-up shot
+ my studio (and a garbage can, from bad camera aiming on my part) at mulholland drive
+ Hollywood! in the faint distance
+ Caltrans

L.A.

(in order of succession)
+ Frank Gehry's Disney Concert Hall
+ Evan taking a pic at Disney
+ Evan's reflection in titanium panels
+ External staircase leading to Disney rooftop garden
+ Disney Hall front facade
+ LA's downtown and adjacent mountains as seen from airplans
+ LACMA's tar pit just opposite the site for my project
+ Rocky Mountains as seen through the eyes of a super excited jan sitting in airplane

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.)

nostalgia-is.it.a.beautiful.thing?

Feeling nostalgic tonight, and tragically so. Perhaps it's the combination of meeting up with friends repeatedly over the past few days/weeks, having people constantly ask when you're leaving, and gushing about how exciting it is that you get a chance to go away; perhaps it's the result of meeting people whom you haven't seen for a long time, and feeling the reconnecting bond of shared experiences, a renewed effort to keep in touch, knowing full well that the surge could scarcely last long enough to matter, that everything will change, just as lives have to move on, people to grow; perhaps also it's meeting those whom you care about, but yet feeling like a total stranger and leaving the camera with the fully charged battery right at the bottom of the bag. Reality is finally sinking in with a resounding hollowness, and it's hitting hard to home and to the heart. There's too little time left to squeeze in everybody, too little time to say what I want to say, too hard to say goodbye with a cheerful smile and a jolly wave- all I've been doing thus far, and with great success, is eating what I want to eat. Am I just going to leave just like that? With so many strings left untied? So many ends unresolved? Been looking over past photos, though few and far in between, but all I can wonder is where did all those days go to? Went for EH rag preview today, and wondered how did 3 years of my life flitter by without anything much to show for it? All the blood and tears, toiling over hall projects, partying hard and going bonkers, sharing laughter, slippers and detergent, singing National Day songs at 3am, watching TV while eating packed dinners, suppers at Fong Seng and behind behind- all comes to nought when everyone leaves and goes their separate ways. It's hard to tell where the thin line between maintaining ties and remaining in the past begins, and even harder to pinpoint exactly where it ends. 3 years. In aki, in hall. 2 years. Slogging on inconsequential projects in office. What really counts at the end of the day? Apparently not the hours spent together, nor the jokes shared. Memories are sweet but are they ever enough? When rough patches appear, what will it take to smooth everything over? Friendship is a gift and it always will be. To all who have touched my life in some way or another, who have extended me a helping hand in one form or another, who have presented me with the gift at one time or another, THANK YOU. It's hard to say goodbye, armed only with a bagful of apprehension and unknowns. Still, the time is nearing, the distance apart ever-widening. It's silly I know, to have worked to hard to fulfill a dream, only stammer and stutter in hesitation even before it all begins. Yet this feeling is real to me, as real as the tears that fill my eyes, and only as real to you as you make of it.

I leave you now with some encouraging words from a good friend- to continue believing, and hoping, and praying, and loving:

and who are they to judge us, when they themselves are full of flaws?

close friends, good friends... are those who will talk to you objectively

and love you with all their heart

it's not about accepting your flaws (that's not possible)

but being able to help you become a better person

and to bring the best out of you

bring out your dreams

gear you on

let you think the unthinkable

dream the supposedly undreamable

and you feel you like you're on top of this world

and you can do anything

everything

whatever you want