15042004
Don't you ever wonder why people stop sending you email updates once they return from their traineeships or trips? Is life really not worth mentioning when you are at home? Or is it because you are living in the same city as your friends, that updates about your life via email seems redundant?

Here is an update of my life, as me, living at home and studying my last year at uni
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Easter break, yeah! I was feeling very sick and burdened everyday during the semester. Lectures with tons of details to revise. They are just horrible. so are the reports. Anyway, I decided to enter a vacuum of space where I push all those worries aside and do art.

Many difficulties were encountered: -not able to draw self-portraits with convincing likeness -What is my style? Should I try conceptual art or abstract expressionism? -I know so little about contemporary art! -Who can I talk to about art making and art theory?

Day-to-day life: Many praying mantis are found lurking around my home. I tried to put them away from heated elements and onto the "love shrub" outside my door. Today on the love shrub I saw a thin male mantis on top of a fat female mantis, their terminalia engaged. Book says their copuation lasts 20-30 min with male hurrying away afterwards. But this pair was observed to be engaged for over 40 min, mostly motionless. Maybe they find their love through stillness and silence. Man, 3 hours later they are still in the same place, the same position! Mantis must have real slow sex!

Highlights of today: Talking to the gallery owner at McPhersons about art, the art world and art making. I don't think I want to be a commercial artist. I like playing with ideas more. I also realised what I lack now: someone to bounce ideas with. I also lack knowledge about the contemporary art scene. So I am going to sit in art history lectures again after the break. Talking to people is such a treasure hunt!

Dreaming about going to Taiwan as a self-taught art course. Ah, my frequent fantasies!

Doing dishes and cleaning the oven to learn about Wabi-Sabi and Zen. Japanese culture is so interesting. -------------------------------------------------------------------

02042004
If anyone wants a free haircut, please let me know. I can't guarentee a professional cut, but I will experiment and try my best. And if you are not satisfied, you can have all your hair back.

01022004
I always lie when asked "How are you?"

16012004
For several months, I have been having trouble with sleep. Even though I might have slept for 9 or 10 hours, when I wake up in the morning, I still feel tired. It felt as if I have been thinking up solutions to math problems all night long.

Last night, i was having trouble sleeping again. Thoughts were running everywhere. Then I remembered reading in a psych text book: if you have trouble fall asleep, get up, drink some milk, do exercise until you feel tired again, then go back to bed. I decided to try that. I made myself some camomile tea, and listened to Jimmy's "Subway" album. I felt a lot more relaxed. When I woke up this morning, I felt refreshed. I didn't have any of the stressful dreams i had the night before, and I don't feel tired at all.

So psychology textbooks are useful sometimes, when you put it into practise.

17102003
To grow up is to get drunk on sensual experience. --- Jostein Gaarder, "The Solitaire Mystery"

I have finally finished reading "the solitaire mystery" more than two years after I initially started it. It's really much more interesting when I can read it without interruption.

10102003
I learnt an interesting fact today. There are two kinds of perfectionists. One kind strives for excellence; they were encouraged to do well by their parents, thus positively reinforced. The other kind does well because they are forced to avoid punishment, in other words negatively reinforced. The latter will never be satisfied, because even when they achieve perfectionism, they still feel that they were forced to do what other people wanted them to do rather than what they really wanted(C Holland, pers comm.). Sadly but true, I currently belong to the latter group (Even though I have successfully jumped out of the two things my parents wanted me to do, software engineering and computer science). Personally I think to change that is to realise I am not doing things in order to avoid punishment, to realise the true meaning of life, for me. Probably not "scientific" but I don't really care.

The last 6 days has been the worst academic days I have had so far. Mentally tired, stressed and later physically deprived of sleep yet still excited. All in order to finish 3 essays, two of them late ones. I no longer believe Andrew's persuasion tactic: that starting things later will force you to concentrate more and be efficient. Maybe he didn't meant it to be like that, but that's my interpretation. Anyway I don't believe that anymore. Rushing for an assignment means I end up maltreating myself, suffer from unnecessary stress and academic work becomes a torture rather than a learning experience. I am obviously a slow person and need time to reflect on things and idea catching etc.

21092003
I may be able to recite wise-sounding sentences, but that does not mean I really undertand them.

26082003
I had an interesting mental health lecture yesterday. The guest lecturer believes that, for the people that are depressed or schizophrenic etc., their life is meaningless. They suffer so much pain and they seem to be going no where. Having cognitive or behavioral therapy or medication is not enough. They need to have a life worth living, "on one's own terms". To achieve that you need to have sufficient automony, where you can make a reasonable decision and the power to act on it.

That sounds very similar to existentialist philosophy. And interesting in that, many who appears to be mentally well does not really achieve that.

24082003
I feel so lucky to be with Daniel~~ :-)

22082003--part 2
After six years, I am finally starting to understand van Gogh. Six years ago when I bought my first Impressionist book, the checkout girl asked who was my favourite artist, I said van Gogh, because he was the only artist I'v heard a bit about. But when I saw his paintings, I was disappointed. They were crude and unharmonious. I like Renior and Monet better.

Several weeks ago I intentionally did some "ugly" drawings. Coarse and clashing colours. Not "aesthetic" by my perfectionist standard, but there was something very truthful about them.

Then this Monday I saw some flower paintings by van Gogh. In one of the closeups, I saw the subtle range of colours, and how, although the contours were jagged, they describes the form with complexity. and of course, the rhythm in his brushstrokes. I liked his impasto work, how it creates a kind of energy. And the shimmering dots he put around portraits and the pattern he creates on the walls.

I also suddenly noticed today, that spring is here. Pink and purple flowers are blooming everywhere. Plum and cherry and the unknown ones that might have been in Taiwan as well.

Careful studies of paintings reproduced in different books also reveals a problem: each reproduction seem to be slightly different. I wish I am in Europe like James and Anita and Edwin.

22082003 --part 1
Some people have insecurities. It can be expressed in many forms. Some aims for success, wealth and status, they fear of poverty; some have problems with loneliness, for a large part of their life, they have been socially ostracised, or should i say, they have ostracised themselves, withdrawing socially due to some unexplainable fear, like the fear of being laughed at, being seen as an outsider, or just de-valued by others, even though deep in their heart, they crave friendship and understanding.

So there is the contradiction. One part of me wants to break out of the cage and see the world, the other part fearing the rejection, the consequences and forming the restrictive cage. I am my worst enemy.

Freud has something called "Defence Mechanisms", the ego uses them to distort reality so I experience less anxiety. Among them, are repression, denial, projection and regression. Regression strikes me. Last year, when I was in China, my mom and grandma left me in their friend's home, while I was sleeping, to do something they knew I wanted to go to. When I woke up their friend told me that they left because they didn't want to wake me up. I had a flashback. I felt exactly like how I was 15 years ago, helpless and powerless. and I started crying. How funny, an 18-year old crying just because her parents left without letting her know. She refuses to understand why they didn't want to wake her up, all she could see was,once again, they've rejected her, neglecting her wishes and left her in this boring place, wasting her life in waiting, useless waiting.

"Here I am, once again, here I am." "At the end of the day, it comes back. It comes back, to me."

12072003
When I hear other people say they have "nothing to do". I automatically attaches an image of a carefree feeling, empty, like a pure white room, yet full of flowing air and sunshine, of vitality, spontaneity and freedom.

But in my reality, it's not like that. It's void, hollow, yet no freedom. I feel the pressure of absence, that something ought to be there but isn't. I feel I am wilting in the day to day things. Wanting to escape, just like I want to escape when I have too much to do. That happens in long holidays, I feel trapped in the empty white room with no doors or windows.

My white lab coat is now my "magical art coat". When I put it on, it puts me on a mood for making art. Ha, then i should have a hat for studying stats, a sock for reading biology, a dress for writing letters to friends etc.

28062003
The Crave production team finished their final performance on Saturday. And I am no longer playing the xylophone. After seeing it more than ten times, I still think it's an intriguing play. Even though, my feelings towards it have changed since the first time I saw it.
Some of my friends saw it. "I don't understand! Exlpain, Xin!" I don't know if I understand or explain it. As Gerard said, "It's probably meant to be that way".

Why is it so important to know exactly what happened? To be bogged down by the details of things?
I liked Crave because it focused on the feelings, expressions of their psychological states rather than telling you about what has caused those feelings.

Isn't dance all abstract then? at the end of the dance, do you ask: "What has happened there? What does it represent?" What do YOU represent then?

When I saw it last year, I was stunned by how people can talk about that kind of deep feelings and pain so openly, without any attempts to cover it up. "Depression is inadequate, a full scale emotional collapse is the minimium required to justify letting everyone down." I have similar feelings sometimes. When I want to avoid a harsh punishment, I'd wish for an earthquake, a deadly disease that leaves me only one year to live. Would my parents still get angry with me over a failed exam? They'd feel blessed by the simple fact that I'm still alive.

Sometimes I think of their speech as random, pulling different strings in your heart, in the same way as colours in abstract paintings. "I feel nothing, nothing. I feel nothing." "Black on white on blue." "I dream as i wake" "I have no dreams" Only a hazy picture is sketched, interwoven, between four lives.

"And although she cannot remember, she cannot forget"
"No one can hate me more than I hate myself"
"You can only kill yourself if you are not already dead"
"What ties me to you is guilt."
"-It is not acceptable for me to be me
-You are losing your mind in front of my eyes"
"Has it ever occured to you that you are in the wrong place?
No.
Never.
Now"

Ah, and I also liked the rhythm of the interwoven voices:
" No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
No.
Yes.
"

24052003
Do you ever feel bored? a kind of emptiness?

I had an enlightenment on what Existentialism in an art history tutorial on Jackson Pollock.

"According to Sartre 'being' meant coming to terms with the anxiety and despair involved in
confronting the freedom to 'be', and in facing the absurdity and meaningless of existence. What
relevance or meanings were given to existence had to be personally determined by the individual
self in its encounter with the moment, with life and what it throws up, because, as Sartre
maintained, none existed. To uncritically accept pre-established values, whether moral, religious,
political or aesthetic is to act in what Sartre calls bad faith and is an abdication of the
freedom of choice and of 'being'. To 'be' is to accept the basic conditions of existence which consist
of insecurity, temporality and change." (from Alan Wright's handout for ARTHIST307)