mending walls

'Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

-'Mending Walls' [Robert Frost]

suddenly missing my p1 group members! haha. but the poem has nothing to do with our project, it 'just so happens' to be related. :)

Bjark Ingels on TED
an architect from denmark.
quite interesting!

neu rooms

aye

i have been moving to my neu room in block 4 and now my arms don't really feel like arms anymore! and the neu rooms are awesome...the tables are longer, the shelves are longer, and everything is just so new! The only thing i don't like is that the drawers are shorter so i cannot stuff my drawing board in (i think my drawing board will go to grandpas after this, hehe) but that is about it so far. :)

neu things are so nicenice...

you see jap, i update! what about you?

ee, this so funny!! I love zee avi, and this is so funny!

Happy Birthday Malaysia!

Selamat Hari Jadi, Negaraku.

:)

sometimes i wish...but never mind...



i like that Malaysia is so dumbly crazy :)

cinema paradiso

ennio morricone!! *LOVE*

i miss randy :(

aiya. okaylah, i think whoever it is no need to be a cellist, but it would be nice lor...and i don't need to be married in scotland, but could be nice lor...

how i know...

life is so unpredictable that i get scared sometimes.

Ask

Had my first Japanese tutorial today :) 'twas really funny, and i think i contributed to the jokes unintentionally (i announced to the class i was Malaysia ala "watashiwa mareshia desu" the right way would be "watashiwa mareshia-jin desu") you see i so patriotic. and i was late for class due to my scalebar shift (hmm, scalebar shall close at 5.45pm every Tuesday from now on) and now i learned a new word: "okurete sumimasen" which means "I'm sorry for being late" for the wrong reasons.

but very interesting experience. i'm glad i took jap, cos it opens up ways for me to be silly and everyone forgives me cos everyone is just as blur as me :) and hai!! i shall add desu to the end of every sentence because that is polite.

i hope i can keep up with the workload...

and to be cryptic:

Ask

Ask the loveliness of the earth,
ask the loveliness of the sea,
ask the loveliness of the wide airy spaces,
ask the loveliness of the sky,
ask the order of the stars,

ask the sun,
making daylight with its beams,
ask the moon tempering the darkness of the night that follows,
ask the living things which move in the waters,
which tarry on the land,
which fly in the air;

ask the souls that are hidden,
the bodies that are perceptive;
the visible things which most be governed,
the invisible things that govern—ask these things,
and they will all answer you,
Yes, see we are lovely.

Their loveliness is their confession.
And all these lovely but mutable things,
who has made them,
but Beauty immutable?

- Augustine
Sermons 214.2

My walk back and forth from studio has transformed into something quite lovely. a short walk it is, but i just love it. I think it's the many different sights i see as i walk along this route. the different flora, the steps leading to small stairwells that contain a table and benches. i really wonder why people do not sit there...perhaps ingrained in people are the idea that stairwells are places of transition rather than spaces to stay? oh but i want to linger! to meander and enjoy the different flora that embrace the spaces, spaces that are open yet enclosed by soft edges that express a sense of privacy to those who choose to stay.

i love also the high columns that support the bridges in engin. it cannot but hit me that if the architectural language were just changed a little the space might bring to mind the idea of the movement of time, the gargantuan supports that yet seem small and unnoticeable because of it's relative size to the building itself. and i don't know why but i do love the seemingly impractical slanted roof that sits above the meandering stairwells that i love! yet i suspect it may have structural importance.

well!! my writing skills cannot do justice to the feelings i feel when i walk that path. and every little bit of that path brings me a different, new delight! i saw new mushrooms today, clustered along with delicate yellow flowers as i walked in the slightly cold, misty morning sun...oh so beautiful it is.

if i could choose i would want to be a poet foremost, a musician second...but since all failed i figure i shall try my darndest at being an architect...and if that fails...i shall ask the Beauty immutable...and perhaps the striving was the destination itself.

sunday

i've been kind of low the whole weekend. and whenever that happens, i become kind of unproductive. haha. anyway, i've recovered, and i'm all up to anything again! what with my absolutely adorable new homepage to greet me when i turn on my com..

cute, cute right???? SO CUTE!!
anyway, it's good i'm all gung-ho again :)

okies!! chop chop!! time to tackle my growing backlog of unfinished work due to my largely unproductive weekend. i feel really irresponsible.

this is absolutely gorgeous. images via dezeen.

urgh, i've been a leetle more productive than yesterday, but still, it wasn't quite the productivity i had last week! it's like last week everything was interesting, life was great despite the late nights...and then now i feel lethargic and miserable and unproductive...haih
life is made up of ups and downs, glad times and sad times...i guess i'm going through a down time, and glad that an up time may come in the future...and anyway, 'tis the down times where i learn the most, and self discipline has to be at it's foremost (although i must say i have made a poor show of it).
and the joy of the Lord is my strength
...cos joy is happiness regardless of the circumstances.

and one thing i am grateful for is my groupmates. i've been really lucky this semester, getting groupmates who are understanding and fun to be with. no one slacks (not too much) and we get things done. grateful for this blessing.
my group really rocks. thank God.
i just hope it's sustainable. i'm so tired.

four great gates

"all that glitters is not gold, often have you ever heard that told"

kitschy may describe the cover of the purple cloth bound book with golden print upon it's spine that stood upon my shelf back home and perhaps still does.

but the contents of the book were rich, so rich. rich enough for me to feel the strangest longing to find and devour that book again in one sitting, taken with with spiced dark chocolate and eastern pastries and sweet dried dates.

scheherazade's spell is still strong, at least upon me.

enamored as i am by the cold mysteries of the scottish lochs, enamoured am i also by the raw heat of the yellow deserts.

of the architecture that climate inspires:

"The Persian Dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires:
But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow fires."

of the lives of the nomads:

"The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and red,
The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O Caravan, O Caravan!

And one who licks his lips for thirst with fevered eyes shall face in fear
The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan!"

and of the western gate, the threshold to the sea:

"I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!
I hear you high in Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.

The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea,
The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming sea."

and this is just a little of the poem which inspired this post. i do not understand this poem too much, but it is a beautiful one. a poem which transports me elsewhere, words strung together into a perfectly orchestrated symphony. poems using words as music uses notes and never has the relationship been closer.

been taking the back way to school more often now that i'm in block 5. and the shortcut through engin is extraordinarily beautiful in the silence of the night. i take the long way sometimes, because i love the landscaping. and the excitement of passing shelob's stair even though i know what lies at the other end. and the visual pleasure i get from the delicate blue flowers grown there with the blue "just so".

and the rain is awesome. do you know what i feel like now? i want to visit ando tadao's church on the water and sit there from morning to evening and just sit there and say nothing and feel.

but i will do the next 'best' thing and do my japanese homework. :)



gorgeous song. quite unrelated to the above posting, but gorgeous. the bagpipes! and the feel. makes me feel like i'm reading the viking series by diana wynde jones again. and brings back form six memories.