Loose Constrictions

I watched View From the Top on Channel 5 today as I was preparing to leave for capoeira in school. I don't mean to say that it was a fantastic movie, but sometimes, such shows have a somewhat inherent feel-good quality about them fit for a lazy afternoon and you can really unearth such 'gems' every now and then when Channel 5 airs them off prime time.

Gwyneth Paltrow is really pretty in an interesting way.

I watched Breakfast At Tiffany's at Jacq's over a week ago before the midterms onslaught afflicted everybody. I don't know howta put it, but perhaps you can say it's just one of those shows you must watch to be able to say you led a wholesome life. Now I guess I can see why it is so iconic. Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly has an extremely alluring quirky charm. Had to leave halfway through it though; now that it's been planted in my head I've gotta watch the rest of it.

Since the midterms ended on tuesday I've been bumming around and practically flushing time down the drain. If I keep this up I'm gonna regret it sooner or later I suppose, because I do foresee some killer weeks ahead so it'd be wise to start a little early on some school work, and this 1-week's worth of midterm break is seriously too short considering the colossal amount of activities I already have in store.

Tomorrow I'll be joining a street soccer tournament at NUS with the usual saturday AMK soccer people. Khairul thinks we've got quite a chance - I certainly hope so, not so much because it's a duh thing but because all these years I've never really achieved any glory with the sport I love most.

There's gonna be Sentosa on tuesday, capoeira on wednesday and thursday (and perhaps Mambo?), Lift Off @MOS on friday (nudged over the edge by Elizabeth!) and Waikiki on saturday (Farhan wants to make it an overnighter as if the remaining sunday wasn't much-needed enough :\). This formal schedule does not include the informal meet ups with old friends in between dates and some design errands I have to run.

Capoeira has been slowly growing on me and I'm starting to really love it, especially when the moves are beginning to gel and my kicks are getting more polished. Where I shunned many other things because of the commitments and entry-level socialising to be had, I'm actually looking forward to this coming wednesday's trip down to the Substation where I can finally meet the other people all around Singapore who're in this 'family'.

Been at it all weekend in fact, coming down to SMU twice for informal sessions that 'never happened' (because sessions somewhat have to be formally run by maestres), and these sessions have been really fun and effective in speeding up my learning so far. Today, we formed a roda as usual and I finally got to play as one of the active elements in the roda. Liberating stuff, albeit the obvious mediocrity that has to be tolerated haha.

Revived some really old vibes when we went to Marina Square yesterday and Yitwen, Kok and I had to lobo around trying to occupy our time looking at girls and weird people while the ladies shopped their hearts out; determined post-exam-and-everything-else therapy. Perhaps it's just that I've simply not done something like going to town for such pointless, hedonistic purposes for the longest time when I'm ironically so near to it every single day and I honestly miss this feeling. It's just that compared to last time, especially with a small group or a bunch of guys, we/I can never find enough things that would interest us/me enough. You need ladies with the objectiveness of shopping to validate a downtown trip like this.

We went to the Esplanade after that and sat by the river. That spot is seriously conducive for emo-talk.

And I found it terribly amusing in an exasperated kinda way when I saw the merlion 'shut down' at 1am. Angie and I were just getting into the political science zone and talking about how Singapore has a state but no real national identity when we started musing about how Singapore's culture and identity resides in the things we do rather than any concrete, tangible things that the creators of Singapore Inc. would like to have us believe. Seeing the merlion turned off just had me thinking that our national identity indeed isn't the merlion itself, but the fact that we're calculated, we're conservative, we're kiam/kiasu, we've got a water scarcity issue etc all embodied the action of turning the merlion off.

Jack and Rai at Wala Wala's was really nice too.

Time to get some sleep before kicking some NUS ass tomorrow.




Mary had a little lamb and the doctor fainted.

Audio Candy:
Maroon 5 - It's Not Over Tonight