Busy Pretending to Be Busy
Hey, I missed you blog! It’s been what- 2 weeks since I last posted? Two reasons. One being that HotSpotShield has been erratically connected and disconnected which makes accessing China-banned websites a pain in the you know where. Two, I’ve just been very busy with a lot of things:
1. My new bike
Yes, after how many months of longing, I finally got myself one. Nothing flashy and expensive, just a simple and small bike, with a basket in front for my bag. Since it isn’t shiny new, it blends with other people’s bikes (when parked) and, hopefully, will not encourage bike bandits. And apart from saving so much on cab fare, I’m thrilled to be living like a Shanghai local going to the office, supermarket, and wherever else my poor legs can pedal to. Oh, and nothing beats the feel of the wind on my face and the breeze blowing my hair. And Camera Obscura’s French Navy playing in my ear. I just LOVE bicycling.
2. My new iPhone 3G
For a good two weeks now, MacCarthy- my lovely lovely whitebook- has been jealous of the attention I’ve been giving my shiny new toy. No matter what the Apple or Iphone (or both) detractors might say- the iPhone one heck of a gadget. I am crazy about it. It has replaced my iPod (actually I gave my old one back home and have not been able to buy a new one since I got back in SH), my MacBook and my Sony Ericsson K800 mobile phone. With the many things I can do with it like iTunes remote, Facebook, YM, Last.fm, WordPress, E-reader, Mewseek, I sometimes forget it’s a mobile phone. Even though I wasn’t exactly planing on buying it this month, I don’t regret that things happened so fast and I already have one. I am enslaved by my iPhone. Even if it does have a sucky 2MP camera – for which I downloaded a handful of applications for taking somewhat better photos, which leads me to the other thing that kept me busy recently-
3. The 99RMB Daytrip to Fengjing
A miraculous thing happened. I had a Saturday off, as well as my most favourite friends at work- Ross, Chi and Cris! This has never happened in the last 6 month with my previous editing job and the crazy work skeds I’ve been getting. And it just so happened that last Saturday was the 3rd Saturday of the month and we were able to join the 99RMB daytrip to Fengjing organized by China Spring Tours. 99RMB! That’s the cheapest any trip outside SH could get, and we got it. Even if we had no idea about the place and what to expect, we had so much fun. The bus ride to and from Fengjing was pleasant, the free lunch was surprisingly delectable and the chance to go on a trip with new faces (other SH expats ) was a much-needed breather from the usual and sickening faces we see everyday at work. (Peace, colleagues!). This was the day I decided to break-in the iPhone camera. Some photos turned out well enough- thanks to the Camera Bag app and Photoshop. Here’s a link to the photos taken that day with the iPhone on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023663&id=1097858568&l=c365ac5f56
4. I can Photoshop!
Since some of the iPhone photos only looked good in the iPhone, I had to resort to some retouching and subjected myself to a cash course on Photoshop. I’ve had the program in my laptop, taking up the largest disk space for the longest time and I told myself, if I’m not able to learn how to use it, I’m gonna have to delete it. Thanks to this little Fengjing Fotoshop project, it’s staying.
5. I am single and free again. Really Single and free. Finally.
Self-explanatory.
So that’s about it for now. My 2 weeks worth of activities, packed in 647 words.
Silent survival
everyday, i drown myself in coffee, coke and cigarettes.
everyday.
everyday, i listen to songs that make me dance.
i dance when i’m sad.
everyday, i do distracting things to keep me from wondering about you.
but i still do.
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Update 050709:
And I really hate it that i still feel this way because I end up writing crappy stuff like this.
The Pillow Book: “You and you alone can see what feelings hide within my heart.”
I finally got hold of a DVD copy of the Pillow Book. I have been looking for it ever since I heard about Ewan Mcgregor’s “exposures” in it.
More than that, I have also been searching for a copy of the book this film was based on: The Pillow Book (Original Japanese title: Makura No Soshi) of Sei Shonagon, but to no avail.
The Pillow Book is Sei Shonagon’s diary where she recorded random list of things, observations and musings during her time as one of Empress Sadako’s ladies-in-waiting during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian Japan. The reason I became fascinated with this classic piece of literature is best described by David Greer in a nice Kyoto Journal article:
“She complains. She gloats. She finds fault with others. And when she does, the millennium separating her from us vanishes”
You can read the full article here, while the following are translated snippets from The Pillow Book which got me hooked when I first came across them:
Things That Make Me Happy
“I know I shouldn’t think this way, and I know I’ll be punished for it, but I just love it when bad things happen to people I can’t stand.”
Things That Don’t Have Any Redeeming Qualities
“Ugly people with disagreeable personalities.”
Things That Irritate Me
“Just as a woman is about to tell me something really interesting, and I’m sitting there just dying to hear it, her baby starts crying.”
Things That were Good in the Past But are Useless Now
“A man, amorous in youth, enfeebled by age”
Things That Look Hot and Uncomfortable
“Fat people with hair plastered on their foreheads”
Things That Depress Me
“People who wear clothing out of season”
Things That Make Me Fondly Recall the Past
“On a rainy day with nothing better to do I go through old things – I find a love letter that years ago moved me deeply.”
If I were to write my own pillow book now, it would only be filled with so much longing. And that would be oh so boring. So scratch that.
