Strung out and loving it

Why am I blogging now at the bitchi...I mean, witching hour when I have these to complete by tonight:

One 800-word article to write
One article plan to research and submit by morning
One article plan to research and submit by Thursday (tomorrow's full so it has to be tonight)
One presentation to prepare on the culture and religion of ancient Greeks

Because I need a @#$%^& break!! I need to expectorate a few words that are NOT work-related. So many things are swimming in my head in a messy soup. Advertising, Acropolis, consumer manipulation, Zeus, Sparta, Athens, creative agencies, Greek boys playing leapfrog...aargh!

(The phone rings)

54-minutes later:

By some coincidence (not), my sis called and gave me a more satisfying break. After almost an hour of dirty-minded banter in the style of the Ong sisters and hearing little Sean's adorable chatter, I feel rested.

Now if only this damned headache would go away.

Why do I write?

I was recently asked to deliberate on the question, "Why do I act?", alongside "What do actors do and why do they act?" After sitting through a very long and cathartic discussion of these ponderables and having a week to re-think them through, the next inevitable question became, "Why do I write?"

For those who've seen this post of mine from awhile back, yes, I do realise the irony of asking myself why I write. Because the most obvious answer is, "Because I can," and this is probably the deepest truth in why I seek pen and keyboard to weave words with.

I know I don't write because I've too much to say. Well, I do have too much to say, just that it's not why I write. Maybe it's the thrill of taking unoriginal words, used by millions of people through the ages, and putting them together in an original way - the act of creating something unique, and hopefully beautiful. I like looking at something I'm happy having written and thinking, "I like what I just wrote." And for the lemons that I sometimes churn out, I put them aside, look back on them some time later and, after the initial gagging, decide what it was that didn't work for them.

While putting words together (in English, of course) comes easily enough to me, I'm not the most original of people when it comes to thinking of what to write about. Hence, most of my life, I've been frustrated by not having anything to say but having the means to say it. It's like having a hammer and a trigger-happy arm but not a piece of wood in sight.

I think that's what many wannabe writers struggle with, and I've come to realise it takes a conscious effort to find something worth writing about. Blogging doesn't always count, since it sometimes turns out to be a medium for verbal diarrhoea, or just saying what you have no one to say to. One has to go out there with a mission in mind to discover something you can wrap your words around.

Language is a strange thing. A picture paints a thousand words, as the adage goes, but a thousand words paint a thousand pictures - every person who reads the same thing has a different image in their head. That's the magic of the written word. Put one word next to another, and another next to it, and another...suddenly, you have a thing of beauty, or at least of meaning. Put them together in another way, and you have a new piece of magic. It's all about order, just like music. And sometimes, it becomes music.

Life in the fast lane

Do you ever feel like life is whizzing by at an impossible pace? Ever felt like every time you stopped to breathe, it was either too short a time? And if it'd felt too long, 'too long' is over before you know it.

Every day is happening too fast, even when nothing happens at all. I still feel young, but that won't last too long.

Tomorrow I'll be thirty. The day after that I'll be forty. The day after that fifty, or maybe even dead. What will I have to show for it? Lots, at least to me. But is it enough? It's never enough. I want too much but don't have the means to chase after them all. And if I did, at the end, would I ever wish I'd paused to breathe?

I don't want to die unfulfilled, crying for dreams still on the shelf.

May stocktake

Here's what my month of May has been like.

Wrote five articles for various magazines. Was praised for a long one on a less-than-interesting topic - surprised me as I thought I'd churned out a mediocre piece.

Wrote a script, my first one ever (after an immature attempt at age thirteen), and a commercial one too. Was surprised to have it praised too. Will have to wait long for payment, but am too delighted to even consider payment a big deal.

Am in rehearsals for two musicals (see posts below for more on these). Find myself learning the parts for the role that I had to give up, just to feel how it'd have been like - I'm cracking at the very highest notes on the score. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not doing it. Almost. Sigh. I still miss it, though.

Have just begun Y&W training sessions with a group of decidedly interesting and definitely talented people. Now feeling insecure about doing my monologues in front of them. Intend to wow them by telling them my age instead.

Have brought my SSX On Tour snowboarder to Legend status. Now trying to figure out how the heck I make her a Black Diamond Rock Star (I won everything! What more??). Will spend more quality time with the Xbox.

Met up with six close friends, one of whom I hadn't seen in nine years, and two new friends.

Seen less of Kelvin than I'd like, but have come to the realisation that even after more than three years together, he still amazes me.

Still talking to my sis on the phone several times a week. Nice, long, smart-ass chitchats during the bitching hours (we usually talk around midnight or so, thanks to the time difference). Still miss her lots. Can hear Sean progressing really fast in talking (and singing off-key). He'll probably be able to argue with us very soon. At the moment he just sounds so cute. He makes my heart melt each time he says, "I love you, Yee Yee!"

Am still antagonised by the dowager on a daily basis but am learning to deal with it better each day...I think.

Am speaking more with my dad. Trying to make him feel less lonely at home when I can.

Haven't done much personal writing (yes, I know I promised to write about Bali) because of being busy busy busy and generally feeling rather latent. Didn't have time to draft a short story for that competition after all. Will at least write one piece before the month is out.

(P.S. The pain-in-the-ass button magnet above sits on the magnetic photo frame above my desk.)

The New Wave of Singapore Musicals

Another round of highlights from six brand new musicals churned out by local writers and composers. And yes, I'll be involved again. I'll be a nun in Victorian Days and a prostitute in Blue Willow House.

Don't ask me why the poster is pink. I voted for the red one.

Tickets are already on sale at Sistic and go at $25 ($20 for the young, the old and the army boys). I know I originally said the show would be free but apparently things have changed. The venue has been upgraded for one, so I suppose that's why they're charging for tickets now. Anyway, it's supposed to be part of the Arts Festival Fringe or something.

Bali pics

The photos from Bali are finally uploaded. You can find them either at Webshots or Flickr:

http://community.webshots.com/user/andromeda_carina
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76618361@N00/sets/72057594136389240/

I've got far fewer photos this trip because clever me forgot to charge my camera before flying off. AND I forgot to bring the charger. As luck would have it, my friend Casey brought her camera, which happens to be the exact same model as mine. And she forgot her charger too. So between the two of us, we squeezed what we could out of what was left of our batteries before both fizzled entirely.

Enjoy.

My man the Arty Farty

Check out Kelvin's latest entry.

To think my friends called me arty farty back in school. They obviously hadn't met Kelvin. By the time thirteen year old me was playing Augustus Gloop under three sweaters, he was already writing his first play a la Into the Woods! (He's my age.) Even cooler - he was in installation art in Sydney. He appeared sleeping in shiny blue PJs, then as a motor-mouth tour guide by the beach.

(Photo borrowed from Kelvin's blog.)

He even snuck theatre into his media degree! The little sneak found a way to bypass parental disapproval of theatre. Wish I'd thought of that.

Pity that he's done with performing already. He's now my mobile resource for deciphering more arty farties that I don't yet understand. ("Moliere? Isn't that some treatment for facial blemishes?")

Of Mothers' Day and bad timing

My sis told us she's pregnant again, quite appropriately, on Mothers' Day. This will be her second kid, her first being the ever adorable Sean (who turns three in August - and don't we all know he's an alpha Leo).

I'm happy for her, as she'd been trying for a second one before she hits her late thirties, and excited at the prospect of another new, cuddly member of the clan. Well, technically the baby will be a Ginsburg, but is no less of an Ong too.

However, a little part of me is a little disappointed. The timing of everything is just wrong this year. She's due early January, which means I probably can't visit her or can visit her only fleetingly because the Y&W programme would not have ended yet, and I wouldn't be there for the baby's full-month celebration. Again. (I missed Sean's as I was working.) It already sucks that I can't see them this summer but her being very preggers in December means she can't come over for Christmas either as originally planned. I simple HAVE to make up for it right after Y&W ends. That won't be easy at all to fight for...

Went to the Y&W preliminary meeting last week. And was dismayed to find out that the programme would be delayed yet again. Why? Because four others are doing a production! What on earth did I give up my good role for then??

I compared schedules again after that day. Given the number of Saturdays that I now have free because of the delay, I could jolly well have rehearsed my role without much ado! So now, instead of a lead role of a japanese courtesan with lovely solos, I'll now be a diseased, middle-aged whore with a decidedly uncomfortable vocal range which I'll be alternately screeching and bellowing...when I actually am in a scene. Somebody stab me now.

But even after grousing over everything, I still do expect the sacrifices to be well worth it. My life is actually going pretty well now, and, for the first time, I actually feel happy with the life I'm leading. I'm writing (and getting paid for it), I'm performing, I have a wonderful man, am expecting a brand new person in the family, have great friends, have enough free time, have a healthy baby (my IBM) - what's not to like? And now I'm at the brink of Y&W, which I'm really excited about in spite of its unfortunate timing. I'll keep telling myself: at the end of it, it'll be worth it and more. It better be.

Looking up

Was walking home from Great World City this evening, happened to look up while waiting at a traffic junction. I saw this lovely sight and decided to snap it. It doesn't look like much in the photo, but it was a nice reward after a long, blazing hot day.

The interesting thing was, there were two other people waiting at the same traffic light, one a young man, the other a middle-aged guy in a business suit, presumably going home from work. They both saw me looking up. The young man ignored me after a moment's examination. The other man stared at me curiously and watched me take out my camera, snap the picture and keep my camera. All the while, it didn't occur to either of them to look up at what I was looking at, even the guy who seemed so interested in my camera wielding.

Doesn't anyone look up? Don't they want to see how shades of white and blue and grey can mingle to form works of living art during the day? Don't they want to take a moment to regard the countless silver and red eyes that wink at them during the night? Don't they want to consider the fact that many of those stars are long dead but we can't tell because their light is still reaching us from across the cosmos?

Makes me think of the scene from The Fisher King when Jeff Bridges' character is climbing up the side of a building while trying to break and enter. He looks down at the oblivious pedestrians below and remarks, "Thank goodness no one looks up in this city."

Birthday trivia amended

In my earlier birthday trivia post, I'd listed three neat events that occurred on my birthday. I just found out another neat event:

2003 - The musical "Wicked" premiers on Broadway at the George Gershwin Theatre.

"To those who'd ground me, take back a message from me:
Tell them how I am defying gravity"
from "Defying Gravity", Wicked

Sacrifices

I touched down around noon on Monday after my work trip in Bali. I arrived with high spirits as I'd just been informed a few days before that I'd been accepted into an actors training programme that I really wanted to get in and had auditioned for more than a month ago. The programme would last nine months, starting from May. I happily said yes.

The moment I turned on my mobile phone, a message beeped in. It was from Stella, who wrote the two musical productions I'll be in in June, asking me to call her back. I reckoned it was urgent.

Calling her back, she told me that the good news was that our performance venue had been upgraded to The Esplanade recital studio. The bad news was that extra rehearsals would have to be held on Saturday afternoons as well as the shows had to be moved forward.

My heart sank when I heard that. The training programme's sessions would also take up Saturday afternoons.

My role in one of Stella's plays was a pretty choice one, one that I was very happy to hear I'd landed. Now, I risked having to drop out of it entirely. Moreover, I realised my summer trip to my sister's in California would lie right smack in the middle of the programme.

I had to make some tough choices.

After I told Stella about my situation, a compromise was reached and I swapped for a different role. While I'm somewhat disappointed, I'm relatively content that I get to stay in the production anyway.

Deciding not to take my summer trip and celebrate little Sean's birthday with the family was by far a much more difficult choice. I was going to spend a week with my sis before my parents arrive, after which we'd spend another three weeks there. That little bit of time together was hard-won, as it always is. But I figured I sacrificed years' worth of leave purely for family, it was time for me to do something purely for myself.

I miss my sister and Sean like the dickens, but I have to do this for myself. Telling my sis wasn't easy. As expected, she was upset, as was I. I know I have her support, though, and I hope I can make up for it the moment the programme is over.

Forgoing the trip is the biggest sacrifice I've had to make. But that's how I balance the good things that are happening to me right now. My life is good at this point in time, and if I can't have the best of everything, I'm still happy.

The last of this branch of Ongs

I've always liked this family portrait of my grandfolks, my dad and his siblings (the only one missing here is Auntie Siew Eng who I think was married by then). My dad is the tallest one at the back.

And hence you behold the last of this line of Ongs. Only my aunts have sons, and neither are Ong. The rest of us cousins are girls, so our kids will be unlikely to be surnamed Ong as well. Not that I'm for the patriarchal system of passing family names from father to son, just that it's interesting to note.

The duck has landed

Just back from the event management gig in Bali. Touched down earlier today, am bombarded with lots of things to settle that are yet unsettled, am lacking sleep and my complexion is close to mutiny. More on the trip coming up soon. For now, just this snapshot of the view of Kuta Beach from the promenade of Discovery Mall, just next to my hotel.