The above shot was taken in the ferry. The blonde lady was covered in freckles and was wearing a shirt that reads, “Crazy Horse”. While stopping over in Kuantan, I bought two Chinese magazines, which I will never fully understand, for only RM3.50. They came with travel guidebooks of Tokyo and New York, complete with pictures and maps. I still like imagining being someplace else.


I’m not so fond of beach photography so I took pictures of the ground and shadows instead. And that is my sister holding my ice-cream for me (she’s so useful). Unfortunately, the heart-printed paper wrapped around the cone says nothing about the taste of the ice-cream.


Here’s a Hokusai inspired shot. I’m too lazy to scan all the underwater shots, so that will have to do. A small blacktip reef shark swam across my face and was enough to send shivers down my spine. Darn those shark attack films!

Ten toes are itching to dive into sand and my lungs are dying to choke on salty breeze. To heighten the experience, I got myself a disposable underwater camera and a brand new roll of film today. Will be trigger happy from 18/8 - 21/8.

I was driving home from work today when Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ was playing on the radio. If the car could steer itself I would’ve closed my eyes and I would be in the passenger seat of a red Honda Charade. It’ll be 7am and I will be in my blue and white baju kurung. Every morning the same thoughts and imagination will play in my head: if only I’m on my way to the airport so I can leave this place. I will go to school only to wait for recess so I could sit by the drain with my friends. We’d dig up an ant hole, hoping to find something bigger, the queen perhaps. In the midst of probing the earth, we’d exchange ideas of what could happen if we were suddenly taken away in a helicopter and flown off to another location. We didn’t really care where, as long as it was not here.

I’m not much of a morning person, the times when I wake up earlier than 8.30am are usually when the bladder beckons. But lately I’m enjoying these sleep interruptions as they give me an excuse to lean on the window and stare out on the road I used to take to school. The sky is right, the colours are blue and yellow, the weather is cooling and the birds still sing the same song. And to my limited senses, the lingering scent of carbon monoxide only speaks of one colour—school bus orange.

Seven years later, the red car is sold off and I’ve not worn a baju kurung since. We don’t see each other much these days but I’d like to believe that in our own ways, we’re still digging the ant hole, hoping to chance upon something bigger. Something bigger than ourselves.

I was flipping through Granta 80: The Group and I found these really beautiful photographs by Susan Meiselas. I like how the pictures tell a story in its simplicity. They also make me want to take more pictures, but moreover I find the gaps in between each picture to be little pockets of time in which you fill with your imagination... and I think that’s precious. You’d make up stories and characters and chart their lives through paths you’d like them to take... and maybe conjure up an imagined life separate from your own.

And I suppose the whole coming of age thing fascinates me as well. Up till now, despite being close to a quarter century old (well, almost), I still feel like I just turned 21. I don’t know what state of mind I was in when I was 21, but I’m glad to be where I’m at... yet I miss being 21 so much. And to remember those nights my sister and I stayed up to tell stories to one another, or the time when I was bullied by some obnoxious girls on my first day at school, or when I punched a boy... or the time when my dad kicked me out from home... all are good. I wonder how my life will look like in photographs considering I’m behind the camera most of the time.

Here is our final screening (maybe) of Kit Ong's The Flowers Beneath My Skin.