Its hard to say goodbye
The Proletariat Poets churning out creativity.
Post-its flurry, spontaneous poetry and a fond farewell.
Its been a busy week. Managed to finish all the themed readings, a few days of intensive writing and the report, done. One thing I really love about research is the sort of intimacy you get with a contemporary issue...especially one that you might be concerned about or it could be something else you never quite realize the magnitude of. Some things in life just slip away quietly without you noticing. Then there are those that require alot of attention and action, but somehow the world just doesn't care. And of course, I'm talking about climate change.
Saturday (5/7), after school JN and I went down for an interesting event at the substation. This group called the Proletariat Poetry Factory, made up of nine people who obviously love poetry, was giving a "performance" whereby members of the public could order a poem and then pay any amount for it. All we needed to do was to submit the names of the person(s) we were dedicating the poem to and any word that is associated with the person and the poets would start churning out the poems furiously on their typewriters. I mean, how cool is that? There was also a DJ setup whereby a group of musicians called The Board of Supreme Controllers was feeding the poets with some background music. The room was pretty claustrophobic with the nine poets clad in bright red jumpsuits, armed with vintage noisy typewriters and big headphones spinning their craft at one side and the motley mix of musician types, cameramen and the walk-in public filling up the rest of the space.
I thought of a few people who could appreciate such stuff but didn't manage to get all their names down. JN and I got a poem for ourselves each and while waiting to collect them, went to check out the adjacent Peranakan Musuem. Before we left, I exchanged a few words with co-founder Miss Rachel and took a picture with her for memory sake. She seemed like a really nice, genuine sort of person.
I was still reeling from the lack of sleep over the week on sunday. A friend popped by in the evening for a chat and updated me on her diving escapades. Seemed fun but somehow I've never really taken a serious interest in diving...even though several people have asked. Diving seems to be all the rage now. The interesting part is getting close to nature but the not so interesting part is having to learn all those "skills". And I'm not sure if I'll like to carry a 46Kg tank of oxygen on my back and fiddle with all those equipment...the idea seems too challenging and troublesome.
Yesterday a few of us gathered at the airport to send MC off, who is going to further her studies down under. It was pretty emotional for me, though we barely even know each other for a year..but we've had a good times together, burning the midnight oil doing projects, having fun in class and doing silly things. She's like a burst of fresh air, sunshine to a dark room, one of those people you can never forget. The boys were like "hey relax lah.." I mean, she'll be back for vacations and I can go over to visit (though the chances are quite slim at the moment). Maybe its the general concept about people leaving. How you start thinking about the good memories, wondering if they could happen again and knowing that the chances of having the same experience is quite impossible. The months flew past and before we knew it, its over. Time to start another phase of our lives again.
The one thing that keeps all of us going is friendship. So friend, take care and I'll see you soon.
Its been a busy week. Managed to finish all the themed readings, a few days of intensive writing and the report, done. One thing I really love about research is the sort of intimacy you get with a contemporary issue...especially one that you might be concerned about or it could be something else you never quite realize the magnitude of. Some things in life just slip away quietly without you noticing. Then there are those that require alot of attention and action, but somehow the world just doesn't care. And of course, I'm talking about climate change.
Saturday (5/7), after school JN and I went down for an interesting event at the substation. This group called the Proletariat Poetry Factory, made up of nine people who obviously love poetry, was giving a "performance" whereby members of the public could order a poem and then pay any amount for it. All we needed to do was to submit the names of the person(s) we were dedicating the poem to and any word that is associated with the person and the poets would start churning out the poems furiously on their typewriters. I mean, how cool is that? There was also a DJ setup whereby a group of musicians called The Board of Supreme Controllers was feeding the poets with some background music. The room was pretty claustrophobic with the nine poets clad in bright red jumpsuits, armed with vintage noisy typewriters and big headphones spinning their craft at one side and the motley mix of musician types, cameramen and the walk-in public filling up the rest of the space.
I thought of a few people who could appreciate such stuff but didn't manage to get all their names down. JN and I got a poem for ourselves each and while waiting to collect them, went to check out the adjacent Peranakan Musuem. Before we left, I exchanged a few words with co-founder Miss Rachel and took a picture with her for memory sake. She seemed like a really nice, genuine sort of person.
I was still reeling from the lack of sleep over the week on sunday. A friend popped by in the evening for a chat and updated me on her diving escapades. Seemed fun but somehow I've never really taken a serious interest in diving...even though several people have asked. Diving seems to be all the rage now. The interesting part is getting close to nature but the not so interesting part is having to learn all those "skills". And I'm not sure if I'll like to carry a 46Kg tank of oxygen on my back and fiddle with all those equipment...the idea seems too challenging and troublesome.
Yesterday a few of us gathered at the airport to send MC off, who is going to further her studies down under. It was pretty emotional for me, though we barely even know each other for a year..but we've had a good times together, burning the midnight oil doing projects, having fun in class and doing silly things. She's like a burst of fresh air, sunshine to a dark room, one of those people you can never forget. The boys were like "hey relax lah.." I mean, she'll be back for vacations and I can go over to visit (though the chances are quite slim at the moment). Maybe its the general concept about people leaving. How you start thinking about the good memories, wondering if they could happen again and knowing that the chances of having the same experience is quite impossible. The months flew past and before we knew it, its over. Time to start another phase of our lives again.
The one thing that keeps all of us going is friendship. So friend, take care and I'll see you soon.
