mariah carey, jugs and knockers

Just saw Mariah Carey on C4. She was prancing around in precious little, twisting about in awkward angles, cleavage … actually, I almost think it’s better described as plates of Jello stuck to a bit of shirt, where the shirt was worn as a dress. Sigh, what has happened to the once soulful songstress who hit notes which only dogs could hear?! I used to like her songs. I had nothing against the soppy love songs and syrupy lyrics she used to write. But now, her videos resemble a corny, low budget, bad porn movie (NOT that I have actually seen any…). Is that what happens to women close to 40, clinging onto youth by a bra strap?! What kills me is her facial expression, presumably to appear provocatively sexy. The result was more like a very cheap hooker on K Road (again, not that I have actually hired one before) trying to get some business. What happened to aging gracefully?! I suppose no one would even consider me sane when I say that I think Helen Mirren is beautiful. Not to mention Nigella Lawson. In the age when stick insects with 2 jugs stuck in the midriff region regarded as beautiful, I can only confess that I am a bit of a radical in this department. It’s INFURIATING how people keep advocating for tolerance of differences, celebrating individuality, yet we have SUCH narrow allowance for acceptable appearance! I am by no means a feminist. I like a man who is strong, decisive and in control, much like my current boss, in fact. He’s tall, wise, dependable, knowledgeable yet sensitive (paused to wipe saliva off…). I feel safe in his presence. I freely admit that I like being protected. What I do protest, is the rigid fixation on youth, objectivification of women into warm blooded sex toys. Having talented singers like MC reducing herself to 2 jugs and an ass, is Shakespearian tragedy material. Hmm, I wonder why I am so looking forward to Thursday’s comedy show with people from work…wa hahahaha.

the art of not travelling

While on holiday, I read the book by Alain De Botton “the Art of Travel”. It seemed like he was not a fan of travelling. He quoted various travellers and philosophers like Charles Baudelaire, who was less interested in travelling than in the apparatus of travel, and Edward Hopper's paintings of hotels, roadside eateries, gas stations and so forth. It was interesting to read it while travelling. “For the traveller, most objects don't come affixed with the question that will generate the excitement they deserve. There is usually nothing fixed to them at all, or if there is it tends to be the wrong thing.” I agreed with him that often, the anticipation of travel was better than the actual place. It is almost as if the anticipation is the actual utopic destination of travel. We are somehow blind to the mundane details of travel. We see the palm trees and white beaches but not the pressing heat and flies. We somehow forget that some mundane daily rituals still need to occur when on holiday. At various tourist sites, we are inundated with facts like, “the church was built in 1412 with marble stone…”, which, has little meaning and will be forgotten within the next 10 steps. Facts like that have little meaning to the traveller and therefore add little to the travelling experience. De Botton then spoke of a visit to Provence after seeing Van Gogh’s paintings of the region. His tour visited various places resembling Van Gogh’s paintings. This allowed visitors to experience those places in different ways – the quiet cafes and cobbled streets brightly lit by gas lamps. He highlighted the importance of art in opening up perspectives and exaggerating various aspects of situations and objects, to illustrate the artist’s perceptions. In painting and writing, details are noted and better understanding of the observed ensues. This understanding of detail will then lead to further appreciation of the object. Indeed, you cannot draw or describe an orchid without studying it closely. The most thought provoking part of the book for me, was the last part. If travel is to enrich experience, it would surely make sense to pay similar expectation of wonder in our daily surroundings, to serve the same purpose. De Botton mentioned Xavier de Maistre who undertook a journey around his bedroom and published an account of what he had seen in Journey around My Bedroom; this was followed by a sequel Nocturnal Expedition around My Bedroom. I loved the conclusion he made "the pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to".

life coach to myself

People ask me how my holiday in Borneo went. I keep saying, hesitantly, “challenging”. It’s everything I thought I would never tolerate – no own room, sharing toilets, sticky and dirt…It was good in the sense that I realised I could do what I didn’t think I could. If I don’t think of it as a holiday, but as a test of my tolerance and limits, a sense of accomplishment ensues. While coming down from Mt Kinabalu, my legs were wobblier than Jello! In the end, I was partly carried off the mountain, oh the shame! On the hike from Camp 5 to Mulu, there were so many times I just wanted to stop and give up. I knew that there was no choice but to keep going. There were days that were dripping humidity. Yet I still had to slap on layers of sunscreen and insect repellent making my already sticky skin gooey- stickier! The obvious question would be, “why am I doing this”. A calm deep voice replies, “you chose it”. Who can I blame? Who is going to pity me, when I choose a holiday of torture? May be that is why I was so determined to reframe it as a challenge and come out happy with my choice. I suppose it made me think again that there are times when we need help and then there are times when we just have to persevere on. I sometimes wonder what I have missed out on, by giving up, because I thought I couldn’t. At the same time, I wondered if I persist in certain things when I should have acknowledged that it was beyond me. Although it did occur to me that the times when I had help, if I was given enough time, I would eventually get there. So may be, if I want something, keeping at it, would get me there. So what is it that makes me give up? The other girl on the tour is a policewoman. She is like fitness reincarnated! I suppose in seeing her, I thought “I should get there by now, she did!” Not accounting for the fact that she is taller, better prepared and used to this type of adventure than myself. The lesson, therefore, may be that if I set myself a goal, keep my eyes on it. That entails not looking at other people on the track but keeping the finish line in sight. Naturally, I am thinking of exams. I might well take longer than some to pass the exam (and to be fair, there are many who are taking much longer than me), but if that is what I want, I need to persevere. The end will be in sight. This reads like a life coach motivating spiel huh! Oh well, I can be my own life coach then  Alright, off to the … haa haa…and comedy festival 

from nigella to borneo to samoa

Haven’t blogged for ages. It took me a while to motivate myself to do this again. It’s weird how people so often find it so hard to do the things that are supposed to be good for them. The need for instant gratification wins over me every time. Nigella Lawson is on TV. I think she is one of the sexiest women alive! I love her accent. She is so elegant and womanly. I love her accent. She gives me this warm fuzzy feeling that I just want to lie on her bosoms and fall into a light afternoon nap. She is what I hope my mother to be. Even her name is cool – Nigella. Apparently her parents were expecting and hoping for a boy, so much so that when it turned out to be a ‘her”, they showed their disappointment by her name. Parents can be so cruel some times. That is precisely why I prefer not to have any children. Her cooking is as warm and full as her. She has no inhibitions. She cooks decadent chocolate cakes. She uses her hands to bite into pieces of pork crackling. The smile of satisfaction has none of the inhibitions of other women. I wish I was her! Anyway, I digress. There are so many things on my mind I want to write about. I haven’t even written about my “Survivor” holiday in Borneo! I will do that later. I went to watch the play “Where we once belonged” last night. It visited my favourite topic – culture and identity. It started off with the Samoan mythical explanations of how the world came into being, then Samoa, then Samoans. It zoomed down into the Samoan way of life, from the beginning to now. I thought it was somewhat cliché towards the end, where much of adolescence was centred on sex and infidelity. Nonetheless it very nicely reflected the loss of tradition as generations strive for what men call “progress”. It’s interesting how it echoed what I thought about on my Borneo trip. It seems universal that man always wants to “have more”, and “have it easier”. Some times we term it progress, and then at some stage, it becomes ambitions, until somewhere down the line, it becomes greed. It seems too easy to loose sight of the cost as we progress down this continuum of desire. So the play portrayed the daily life of a family through the ages. The invasion of western influences creeps into the lives of each generation. The casualties are the spirit of community, the uniqueness of being Samoan, grounded by myths and legends. The most memorable scene for me was at the school. The American teacher asked for the pupils to talk about what each saw on their way to school. The response was “what for” because they would all be saying the same thing! There is no “I”, “I” is always “we”. People might criticise the old ways, its inability to tolerate differences. I think the play is lamenting the loss of camaraderie and relationships in the pursuit of a “better life”. I think of the Iban people whom I stayed with in Borneo. There is no concept of bedrooms. Each family sleep together on the floor. Extended families live on the same longhouse. Each evening they sit in the communal veranda area, chatting and drinking tea. I wondered how “progress” would encroach on their way of life. Would progress mean that each family would want their own space and own house? Would it mean families would “give their children space” and build bedrooms? It seems so ironic to me, that communication is designed to connect people. Yet text messages eliminate the need to talk to people. The internet removes the need to go to the neighbourhood grocer. To be fair, it did occur to me, that the daily needs are so hard that it allows very little time for anything else. It is easy to just let one day merge into another. By the time the family had been fed, washing done, house cleaned, it’s time to sleep. I suppose that was how the desire for technology started, to free up time for leisure and art. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, only when needs are met for survival, would one “rise up” to the need to be spiritually fulfilled and content. I do wonder, however, how true it actually is. If the person had not thought about the reason to carry on living, there would not be a need to survive in the first place. Even in primitive times, there were legends, spiritual rituals developed to explain life. So “lack of progress” does not necessarily mean an absence of philosophical pursuits. So is “progress” truly that much of a necessity? Or may be I just need to loosen up and go to the comedy festival instead 