I have moved.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I've opted for something simpler with a better user interface.

I'm not doing too well. I have come to believe that I've developed a love-hate relationship with Penang. Once, the island gave me my worst bout of flu that landed me with 5 stitches to my head (a long story which involves very strong medication and a lot of pain). This time it's diarrhea. The uncertified doctor in me (thank you, Google) suspects it to be either traveler's diarrhea or stomach flu.

Dirty eggs from the ochien (fried oysters, probably dirty too, in egg batter) store in Penang.

And while perusing Google and Wiki, I discovered what caused a certain trauma to my bowels 5 years ago. I was hungry for some cheap hawker style fish and chips so I stopped by the nearest store. A few hours after eating, I had some "interesting bowel activity." I will spare you the details, but it was not at all date-worthy. Some people however, had it worst. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the fish was sold as a knockoff version of cod. I don't really understand Mandarin but I believe this is about the fake cods.

Lesson in inconvenience: Avoid escolar, also known as butterfish, oilfish, Hawaiian walu and white tuna (served in sushi restaurants, but the portions aren't substantial enough to cause a reaction) or cheap cod meat or Chilean sea bass. Or just avoid cheap fish and chips. What you save in dollars, you pay in embarrassment and excessive use of toilet paper.

Since we're on the topic of fish, it's only fit for me to share about my recent nasty encounter with fish. At my last bite of a stir-fry fish fillet meal, I found what looked like a strand of noodle in the meat. With some simple fork prodding, it turned out to be a cooked roundworm. The same kind found in the feces of a dewormed pet. This is gut churning, but it's also called education.

I have downed 2 tablets of Zentel since the encounter.

As for my souvenir from Penang, I'm setting up a date with the doctor.

People. Tut tuts. Bells. Chimes. People. Chili powder. Sandalwood. Lights.
People. Too many people.

And the occasional "Konichiwa!" and "Mushi mushi" from street vendors who assumed I was Japanese.

I never thought Chiang Mai would be so commercialized. Almost every business is geared towards tourists. American bars, Mexican food, dim sum, sushi, a three-storey Starbucks and several used books store with English, Japanese, Dutch, German and French books (one hung a Trainspotting and Che Guevara poster over the cashier counter. Can't try any harder for touristy effect).

There were also posters and billboards of their king in various dignified poses throughout the city and its outskirts. Many also sport orange colored silicon bands embossed with "Long Live Our King."

Thailand was never colonized, yet in a sense it has.

Escorts with "extra services" were advertised openly behind tut tuts. And then there were the old farangs with young Thai girls.

Armed with a hook-and-hammer-like apparatus, elephant trainers scratched and nicked the elephants' thick skin to subdue them. The elephants painted on canvases, tote bags and t-shirts with the 'help' of their trainers.

Clap clap. More bananas. More sugarcanes. Whack whack. Clap clap. And pose. Click. And pose again. Click.

It's the way of life for some and who am I to judge. I'm only another sojourner in this thing called life.
On the really plus, plus side of things is that there were many coffeehouses all around Chiang Mai. Locally grown and roasted fresh.
I also saw the borders of Burma and Laos, visited an opium museum and saw the Golden Triangle. It was at best, interesting and informative. At worst, depressing.

However, I loved the bamboo raft ride which lasted almost an hour along the Mae Taeng River. It was quiet, far from other tourists and it rained. The only thing that wasn't drenched was my camera. Awesome.

(Taken just outside the Burmese border.) I will try to upload more photographs from Chiang Mai here.

Next: Staff retreat in Penang.

I couldn't really sleep the other night and I'm sure it wasn't because of those political (or anti) videos I was watching online. One of the things that went through my mind was about the holy and profane.

My thoughts were everywhere and quick, I probably should've written it down when it was fresh. But here I am, trying to piece together a string of thoughts that will most likely end up looking like a tangle of hairs collected in the bath drain. So here's the untangling: I thought about Moses and his encounter with the burning bush.

Holiness and profanity. We remove our shoes when we enter into someone's home (Malaysia and Asia, at least). We don't carry in dirt. We leave "where we have been" when we come Home. The building/place isn't holy, we are. When I enter into the life of another, I need to remove my shoes because it is holy ground. The burning bush lives in us... and encounters like this happens everyday. The profane becomes sacred. When there isn't such a thing as ordinary, only blindness to see beyond the apparent. I need to acknowledge the holiness or sacredness of and in another...

I will be leaving for Chiang Mai tomorrow morning. Have a great weekend, people.

I’m on a terrible adrenaline rush lately. At work, I mean. I love it when I’m inspired and feel completely lost when nothing amuses me. So I have been designing, constructing and moving pixels. Rush, rush!

(That reminds me of a very old Paula Abdul song I heard on the bus to school, circa 1991. And... dare I say it… Beverly Hills 90210. Thank God for puberty.)

To add to all the rush, my boss came back with a souvenir from New Zealand.
I’ve also been keeping consistent with my 2008 Moleskine weekly notebook. I keep it as a journal for everyday and random thoughts, but most importantly, it’s my weekly menu. It’s a log of what I’ve eaten and what I will be eating and drinking.
Some excerpts:

Sunday, April 20
Sushi. No Country for Old Men. Waffles.

Saturday, April 26
Homemade zaru soba with tempura battered sweet potatoes, long beans and carrots. Soba-tsuyu sauce. An Inconvenient Truth.

Tuesday, April 29
Starbucks coffee + tomato cheese basil sandwich. Job 38. Barbecue pork rice + chinese tea. Tom Yam fried rice.

Thursday, May 8
Green tea. Black pepper burger from Burger King. Bleh. Milo. Rice with pickled cabbage, vegetables and tofu. Add ribbon to dress.

Wednesday, May 14
Bavarian Kreme from Dunkin Donuts. Dark chocolate (70% cocoa, as seen above). Maggi goreng. Now I smell of onions. Yuck. Coffee bean roasted chestnuts. Mmm.

On a side note, I have to mention how I dislike J.Co and Big Apple donuts. I don’t get why Malaysians line up to eat trash. There. I. Got. That. Out. Of. The. Way. Finally.

And some things that inspire:
1. Julia Rothman
2. Style Me Pretty
(Because I will be photographing and designing for a friend's wedding soon.)

Hello. It's time for an overdue break.
A few things I've been contemplating on:
[=] and [•]

Grace and forgiveness does not mean fairness but similarity.

And a whole lot of centering.

Love.

Good driving music is good music.

Good driving music makes you want to keep driving because you don’t want the song to end without really ending.

But I wasn’t listening to anything when I was driving home from work the other day. I don’t even remember the conversation I had with my sister in the car. We probably talked about what we had for lunch or Juno or Be Kind Rewind. I don’t usually take the direct road to get to my house, I’d skip my road and take an alternative route that follows a big curve. Every time I drive along the curve my mind would picture something really sinister. A middle-aged jogger with multiple sweatbands, a kid on a bike or someone’s ugly toy dog running towards me, at my blind spot. I always anticipate to anticipate something totally imaginary right there.

I followed the bend and as usual, there was no middle-aged jogger, kid on a bike or scraggly dog. But by the road I saw a man squatting, hugging his daughter. He had his back to the road and her little head peeked over his shoulders.

I slowed down and they were still holding each other.
I passed them and they were still holding each other.
In my rearview mirror they were still holding each other.
As a blur blob in the horizon there were still holding each other.

Maybe a car before me almost hit her. Maybe he saved her. Maybe he was leaving and she did not want to let him go. Maybe it was someone’s birthday. Minus all the drama, maybe they just like hugging a lot.

It felt a lot like flipping through a book and reading a random sentence from it. Out of context, like real life. Sometimes.

I suppose that is how being still is… to be embraced and protected just because.

I’ve been on a hiatus, I know.

Too many things on my plate, really. Too many mouths to feed.

A little tired, yes.

And contributing to this tiredness would also be my putting off of coffee, tea and any chocolate drink. Those black and brown (and sometimes green) liquids of hope had to stop filling my cup. At least for three weeks. A few more days left for the putting off to end and when the putting on begins.

I’m not counting, but fasting really makes one more aware of one’s lack… perhaps a more heightened awareness of one’s cravings. Maybe it’s called withdrawal, but I like to think of it as an education of one’s daily necessities. What I will die without versus what I will live without.

Besides work and needs, I was in Singapore for a little distraction.

It rained as much as Seattle.

Being lost while commuting on the MTR and bus made hell in my stomach that sounded like a waterfall of gastric juices. It took me ransom for food, or else I would be treating stomach ulcers. The signs said no eating and drinking allowed. A wee step closer to a breathing ban.

Múm was a saving grace though. They made music about berries, marmalade and a horse to bless everything that grows. The kind of imagery Iceland conjures.

(I shouldn’t have dropped my melodion classes at six.)

Happy Good Friday and Easter. Although personally, I like thinking about the day in between.

I hope you like the new header.

I've been coughing for 3 weeks. My nose is leaking and my eyes are watery.

Being busy and busy coughing.

Being busy.

I had no idea what I meant until I wrote that. I'd rather be busy being. But this is what's been going on. There are too many things to get done and it's only the end of February. My mind might know the dates but my body is convinced that I've gone past July.

Wordless music best describe me right now.

Sand dunes. Mild sun, cold breeze. It doesn't smell of the ocean but of wood. Brown and green. Blue and white. Amber. Open fire. Sparks escape the family fire in random fashion to evaporate into the cold air. Where I want to be.

We frosted 120 cupcakes last night.

I found a quote from a book I may want to pick up:

Antonio Monda: You believe firmly in God, but you live in a world where suffering, injustice, and tyrrany exist.
Elie Wiesel: It’s the great torment of my entire existence. The question I don’t know how to answer and that I don’t think anyone can answer. But even in these terrible moments I see not an absence but, rather, an eclipse.

That was how they introduced themselves. And the crowd went wild.

It was amazing (and I need more adjectives).

Note to self: one more reason to know that I have lived.

*Explosions in the Sky in Malay.

I was having a conversation with my atheist friend the other night and I think we share a lot more in common about faith than we once thought. It’s not our beliefs in the existence/nonexistence of God that found common ground but that we both agreed that we can’t fully know God and His thoughts. I guess that when we say we do, we’ve missed the point.

Do I sound like a heretic already?

I could write a disclaimer here about how I believe in Jesus, but won’t. There are better places to do that. Not here. I’m glad we had that conversation. Among the stuff we talked about was that we both agreed that a selfless Buddhist would probably make a better Christ-seeker than a bigoted Christian.

On another note, I’ve been so caught up with the busyness of work that in between that and my coffee breaks, I managed to relieve myself from some stress by indulging in some randomness:
The CD Album Cover Game from Damien Correll

1. The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

When I’m not designing for work, I’m designing to relieve stress. Amazing.

I’ve also bettered the frosting recipe (it’s chocolate mint cupcakes this time). My sister got a little bit carried away with the decoration and the piping nozzles. I call her ribbon cupcake ‘Louis the XIV.’ She also made one that resembled his baroquesque wig. Too grand for a photo.

I should sleep now. The sound of raindrops suicidally slamming their tiny bodies on my window is too tempting.

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I had many dreams. When I was a teenager, even more. And when I became an adult (maybe not physically but perhaps mentally), my dreams aren't so 'grand' anymore. Here are some of them, fulfilled (√) and unfulfilled (×).

[ √ ] have a dog and a cat
[ × ] learn Japanese (I took a class for two months before the teacher quit on us)
[ √ ] make a short film
[ × ] complete writing a screenplay
[ √ ] do a full storyboard
[ × ] be like Michel Gondry
[ × ] be like Wong Kar-Wai
[ × ] visit Europe
[ × ] travel Tibet
[ √ ] go to Hong Kong
[ √ ] visit India
[ √ ] climb the Angkor Wat
[ × ] ride a horse in Mongolia
[ √ ] travel America again
[ √ ] visit NYC
[ × ] go to Africa
[ × ] grow taller
[ √ ] put up my work in a gallery
[ √ ] snorkel in the sea / swim with wild fish
[ × ] sew my own clothes
[ × ] space travel
[ × ] dance without feeling / looking awkward
[ × ] make perfect soft-boiled eggs without the timer
[ × ] experience Death Cab For Cutie / Sufjan Stevens / Sigur Rós / Arcade Fire live
[ √ ] catch Explosions In The Sky live (this February 19th, KL)
[ √ ] catch Múm live (this March 13th, Singapore)
[ × ] have my art/photographs published
[ √ ] own a retro looking Polaroid camera that works
[ × ] get a Hasselblad
[ × ] go to Afghanistan
[ × ] study overseas
[ × ] have my own dark room
[ × ] go vegan (I can’t give up steak, cheese, sushi and hamburgers. I’m sorry.)
[ √ ] not step into a certain mall for a year (a personal protest)

More to be added.

Here are some cupcakes my sister and I frosted at midnight. I followed an American recipe and found the frosting too sweet. There's a possibility that one cupcake has as much sugar as a can of Coke. I will do better next time.

I found this interesting.

I know I can be fickle. This is the second - and hopefully the final editing done to the blog template.

I need to sleep. If only I knew creating two columns for my flickr badge would take me more than an hour.

Html/xml/css/ihavenoidea is for geeks.

Next: cupcakes!

So I changed my blog header. And I had my first paid photo shoot last weekend for a hospital's cancer ward. Not the most creative or uplifting, but some extra cash will come in handy. I'm looking forward to this weekend, however.

Pirates. Children. Eye patches. Gold chocolate coins. More chocolates. Yes.

Múm in March. Singapore. Yes, yes.

2008, you are looking up.

A couple of nights ago I received news that someone I knew from high school passed away. This was not the way I imagined 2008 will begin for anybody.

We mostly sat together in class. She would talk about Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Leonardo DiCaprio. We were fourteen. Once when we were waiting for the school bell, she told a group of us about her parents' Catholic beliefs and how they called a priest to exorcise spirits from her house. It was a lady with a flowing red dress, she said. The sky was thundering and raining heavily outside and we had a sudden power failure. We screamed and giggled. I remember those moments vividly. Mostly of her smile, liveliness and cool stationery.

Death is never polite. It didn't sink in until I saw her obituary in the newspaper today. She was still smiling beautifully.

I know how to feel but I don't know what to think. Births and deaths are peculiar ways to gather people together... when you were born, adults gather around to see when you'd take your first step. When you're dead, friends and family gather around you hoping the doctors made a mistake and that you'd resurrect. Sans zombie-style.

In many ways I wish I knew her beyond high school. I regret having such shallow memories of her, but they were good ones.

I suppose when you pass away your story doesn't end with you. It starts with the people you loved and those who loved you. They will tell your story for you and others.

If I'm able to contribute anything to the storytelling of her life, I'd retell her house exorcism story.

Ng Shu Zanne, 1983 - 2008.

You are loved.

For all we've lost, Iron & Wine's The Trapeze Swinger.