meh/mrp/ugh

feel like it's time to make a list of what i'm thankful for/what makes me glad because i've just been angry or irritable at everything lately (oops sorry ryan ha) and just really tired i guess. maybe it's burnout? i don't know. i've been thinking about how fleeting relationships are - like there are moments where i think i'm going to be friends with someone for a long time, or hope to have them around. and then time passes, and when i turn around, i realise we started taking steps away from each other a while ago, and we both didn't realise it till it's a little too late. maybe life'll have us walk in a circle back to one another - but really, the chances of that happening are very slim. and i just become a lump of sadness for a while, before it passes, and i realise that's just how life is sometimes. people come, and people go. and mum used to tell me that all the time, and still does now. i just pretend i don't hear, and want to hold onto everyone ya know. but i can't. no one likes to be held onto. or obligated to stay. 

anw i'm supposed to write about things im thankful for and not relationships i'm sad about lol:

having the motivation to make 2 drawings, and 3 paintings today and yesterday

waking up today and feeling okay

caro treated me to breakfast for lunch on saturday for my birthday

i got to hang out with sam a little and teaching went relatively well, we all made it through so that's all that matters

sitting with shelby by the lake today, the fog was really really beautiful, it felt like a dream

baking with liah and feeling 5 years younger as i sat on my bed and let her do my makeup (she's actually really good), made me miss my sis a little

parents constantly texting me to ask how i am

ryan letting me always annoy him

liz and me complaining about inertia to get any work done together

my blankets

having lindsey in art ed with me

netflix and spotify lately

ok i'm done i don't know anymore there probably is more 

i should go to bed

i used to be able to write full-length essays in chinese

每当我煮面线都会想到小时候爸爸妈妈上班时，我放学后会在阿妈家等爸妈放工后来接我，想到阿妈煮的鸡蛋猪肉面线。面线好吃是好吃，但味道没怎么特别。对我来说呢，它的特别不在于味道，而是在于它含着童年的回忆。阿妈当时候比现在年轻，健康，活力，我去她家的次数也比现在多。I also feel like as a child, there was less pressure or no pressure at all, in being what you are. like you don't think so much about it. nowadays, i'm so conscious about what i should say to ah mah, how to communicate with her with the limited hokkien i can converse in - conversations usually are just asking her how she is, and she'll say she's fine, and she'll ask if i have eaten, and usually the answer is yes, and she'll ask if i want something to eat or drink. i think about the language barrier at times, and how maybe it is a little more specific to singapore - having the younger generations embraced english a lot more, and maybe chinese, but our grandparent's generation mostly still using dialect, that is slowly phasing out. i think about how maybe communication then, isn't limited to words. i feel like much of how i communicate with ah mah is through touch, or how she communicates with me, or expresses her care and love - in her smile, her holding my hand, her asking me to "take care", asking when the next time I'm back in singapore is, how long i am staying, when i leave again. 

being so far away from home, the way my parents or my sister tell me about things happening in the family, is both distant, yet so close. distant in that everyone's lives (obviously) still carry on the way they do, i'm just missing out; close in that i can imagine myself being there when they tell me about things, as though i had never left: sunday night dinners at grandma's, supper with ice-cream/watching a tv show with my dad/mum/sis, saturday mornings waiting for mum to wake up so she can cook us a hearty breakfast, some weekday evenings going out to eat/shop with the fam, dinner tues and thurs night just with dad and the sis cos mum works those nights, dinner mon wed fri altogether, dad always finding snacks to eat right after dinner.

i turn 22 soon, and mum and dad celebrate their 25th anniversary. 

i thought about what i would tell my children/nieces/nephews about my four years in chicago, i remember working at moe, and finding out rachel did her undergrad at kings in london, and it's just weird because it just feels like a separate entity of your 'actual' life in some sense. like a dream or something. everytime i go home, it's like i'm not sure if i was ever away, and when i'm here, it just feels very separate from home. i feel myself in both places, but different separate versions of myself. i feel like friends from home would find the person i am here foreign, and vice versa for my friends here - i am susceptible to fulfilling the demands of what people expect of me - i feel like i always have been. yet, the concept of self is never really that solid is it? i feel like that's constantly changing, and we just do our best to adopt the most authentic version of self that we know how to/ think is necessary.

(不知道自己在干嘛）

writing about the mundane seems to be a thing

i don't really know why i always feel the need to have to put thoughts out. when it just exists in my journal, it somehow doesn't feel enough. it may be? i don't know. but maybe it's just an artist thing.. like the need for my art to be in the world, or to exist beyond my bedroom, or my apartment. greg was talking about his music the same way - like there's just something about having it out in the world - beyond yourself, that seems important. somehow. i wonder if i have learnt to question it less - i don't think so since i'm still writing about it. but i feel like i used to think it, and prevent myself from putting stuff out/up because i don't understand it. but maybe, i accept it a little better now - that urge/impulse/instinct.

alexa and i did handstands/cartwheels/somersaults and rolled down the hill today at the park. i felt like i haven't felt the freedom to run around, and jump and feel the freedom of simply being in a while. we sat atop of the hill - a pretty sad hill, with concrete and weirdly placed rocks, and an odd piece of art work that is missing several components, and watched as cars and trucks drove past on the high way. the sun was really shining. i lay on the grass, letting my skin take in all that it'd been deprived of the past few months. the lack of sun probably does contribute to why i feel sad all the time, along with other factors. but in that moment, i wasn't sad. it was really nice to share this park i've held so dear to my heart with someone else. alexa seemed to appreciate the sad beauty of it the way i do, and it made me smile. we stood by the quarry pond thing for a sec, there were two geese, and maybe 5-6 ducks. they weren't showing off their somersaults today though, they kind of just hung out in a corner. the water was kinda cold. 

had a much needed discussion at greg's place yesterday with courtney and anca. i don't think i am in a coherent enough state to type about it right now, but it just put into words a lot of struggles and frustrations that i thought i was alone in, and was somewhat of a reaffirming nudge that i was exploring my faith and my art well, and to keep doing it, maybe with a little more company. i made a painting out of blackberries on my paper plate.

i kept trying to think what i did on friday, but realised i spent practically the whole day at home, writing an application for submitting some work for a show, that probably has minimal probability of actually getting chosen. applications frustrate me, because most of the time, they feel like a waste of time. but it's just doing it again and again until something happens right? i don't know. i remember sam telling us about having a folder where she keeps all her 'failures'. when you look back, they probably carry a more positive significance than it feels in the moment. maybe not. i'll let you know when i feel more successful. tricia texted me to ask if she could come over, and if i could help alter her dress before we headed for the bfa opening. i don't think i did a very good job. it was decent. but definitely not the best. i think i did her makeup a little better than i did the dress though. and people look at your face more right? it was surreal, for me - going to see her show. she must have felt it harder/everyday i know she's thinking about graduation. i don't think it was so much the show itself, than what it represents - some sort of a time-marker or a recognition that you have come this far in school, and got through classes, and made work, and friends, and know yourself at least a little better and have grown. i think about when me and tri first skyped to talk about living arrangements, i remember where exactly i was having that conversation. i'm going to start crying (good luck holding it in tricia if you're reading this), and living together, and eating red velvet cake together. we always bought two because it was 2 for $5. whenever one of us was sad, the other would buy it. it made your poop red - there was that much colouring. walgreens. i think i'm going to leave the rest for writing an actual card for her which i really need to do. but tri, i am so proud of you, and you should also be so very proud of yourself. i love you very much.

also!!! sarah and mychaela visited/are visiting. i got to see both of them on friday and that made my heart so full.

(photo by jo)

i want to write poems again. but right now, writing about the mundane seems to be a thing. i mean, i have been making work about the everyday for a while now. maybe i'll get poetic again eventually. 

the thing i am most proud of myself right now: you know that moment when you finish eating, and you have a choice whether to quickly slip the dish/pot into the sink and pretend it doesn't exist, or to actually stay and wash it, i am proud of myself for that tiny bit of willpower to push me over the middle to actually wash my dishes. it's not a big deal. but it is though.

(feeling too much)

burning eyeballs

i think being in art school has allowed me to be myself and discover myself more than any other place has. hope and i were having a conversation the other night talking about whether us and our friends would be happier in a 'normal' college or not. hope and i agreed that we wont. i think the me from a year ago wouldnt have said that. i was afraid, i didnt know how to exist, what to be, how to act. i'm really good at conforming to the expectations of others, or the expectations of a certain setting. it was easy to get by in school at mg and ac and church, i feel like i knew how to be who people expected and wanted me to be. but at saic, there's no 'right' or 'expected' way to be. every individual is so different, and the freedom and liberty to be just that is so daunting initially, but now, i am ever so thankful. when you're not constantly trying not to disappoint others, or prove anything to anyone, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, the self becomes so much clearer - like when winds blow and the fog clears a little. it's weird cos i go home sometimes, and people give me weird looks or i feel judgment burning from their eyeballs like i've lost myself or something but i've never felt more myself.

what to do when your taco falls apart

clare and i got out of class early today. it was weird, we didn't know what to do with our free time. the concept of free time was bizarre. haha. i think that is a little worrying. we decided to go to this taco place in south loop. the sun was out today. it was cold, but the sun was out. we ordered and sat down. i watched the way light fell on the people sitting by the window. i hadn't hung out with clare like not in class, and just the two of us, in a while. i thought about freshmen year, and how we used to do everything together. we walked past this burger place where we once had a meal and both passed out for a couple of hours after. clare says she thinks they drugged the burger or something. the burger was amazing though. clare also recalled the time where we went to this really fancy weird yarn place where we could hardly afford anything. the two people who sat at the taco place, weren't the same two people sitting on clare's dorm room floor eating blueberry bagels. i mean we are the same people, but we are also not you know? i feel like we've grown into ourselves a little more.

compassion show opened today, curated by my roommate ryan and his whole team, and i have a piece in it. it's my first time showing work, and before tonight it didn't seem like a  big deal? like it just seemed like installing for a crit. but when i went to the opening tonight and had people say they really liked the piece, and seeing how they responded and related to the work, my heart melted a little. like it just reminded me that it is important for me to make. like it just makes sense. and it just makes the world a little less lonely. i sat with tricia and julia on the floor, and tricia started crying because the feeling of graduating is daunting and also, just the idea of leaving all of this too. it makes my heart ache. as i am writing this too, i hear ryan and his friends hanging out in our living room talking about things that matter, and just having good conversations (i like being in this weird position of feeling like i'm part of the conversation but without having to be physically present cos right now i honestly don't have the capacity to be that present anywhere). i think about the lives we have built up for ourselves here, and i hate thinking about having to leave. i know there's the internet but it won't be the same ya know? but in any case, time moves on, and things continue to happen. i guess it's simply breathing and being grateful for all the things that have been and looking forward to other things that will be good too. different but good. 

i think about familiarity, and our bodies getting accustomed to the spaces that we occupy - the friends we make, the places we eat at, where we live - this is kinda weird but i just get the image of an awkward slime blob, that slowly relaxes and blobs around. and just when it starts to get comfortable, the whole scene just crumbles under it, and it falls into a different environment, where it is initially awkward and sad and kinda anxious, but it gradually finds its place again. 

writings from close to a year ago

found these journal entries i wrote on a yellow notepad during the roadtrip we took over the summer - the most exciting trip i've ever done with people i love very much. but idk i think they belong somewhere in the world that other eyes can see:

day 9/18

joseph, ryan & junyu are in the room laughing. tricia is making and eating instant noodles with hope. im just sitting here. im definitely pms-ing. i think i take chances to be sad. perhaps all of us revel in sadness? like art school kids. like i say it's a place for all the weirdos, i'm definitely one of them. one that thinks too much.

ryan just asked what i am doing. joseph said ting is recharging. and i don't know. it makes me touched that he knows how i function.

undated

we sat in the car & listened to firewood by regina spektor today after driving back from UCLA. it was just this moment we shared, together, but quiet, but at peace and it was surreal. one of those moments when everything seems to have stopped just for us. like when rachel & me sat in her car under the stars. i'm not remembering other moments at the moment. like when me & hope sat at el matador watching the waves. like sitting on the sand dunes watching the sunset at warren dunes.

resolving conflict

ryan - rough picture

jo - other details

ting - nitty gritty emotions

jun - universal picture

tricia - cry

jun "ya, you got the plan and everything but you forgot tricia and tingyan have to climb the rock, then ryan have to stand on the mountain for a while."

ry "we did that yesterday tho"

jun "but were people happy? no"

LOL i died.

moments

zion

smoking with tricia outside the accomodation (i don't smoke anymore)

antelope

on the beach 

cooking pasta for everyone, dinner, breakfast

grand canyon

sitting over looking the canyon

walking with tricia

jenga at tonyan cafe

yosemite

sitting with jo and tricia by the fireplace

climbing rocks with tricia

peeing lol

lying on the rocks with tricia by the stream

la

gallery hopping with hope and ryan

sitting with hope on the beach

gallery hopping with jun, hope

dinner with jon

beach by myself

eating ice-cream with tricia

tickling hope

undated

you're never going to be able to please everyone. i feel is one of the hardest things to hear and truly internalize. and i feel like we'll never truly understand it. we were made to like please? or desire affirmation. the desire to be enough. was the fall inevitable? God knew though? i'm having a hard time processing because i feel like i grew up with knowledge of the bible but now i don't know how to process the world without it but then if it's the truth there's no way to process the world without it.

constantly being in between. education and art, america and singapore, devout christian and art school rebel, confident independent individual and insecure wreck, logically put together and emotional mess.

how do you not compare or feel like you're good enough. there's no way to compare but we still do anyway - like the trajectory of our lives.

i've come to appreciate just spending time with people. not having to have deep conversations or what i considered ' deep'. yet those are great if they come up. but just sitting and knowing what is important to someone, what someone gives their thoughts to.