The Silent Room

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Small Talk:
I missed you – you, the one reading this right now. I’m happy to see that you’re still dropping by from time to time :)

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So yeah, I’m blogging again. It’s been a while, and man… I really miss writing.

When was that last post, ah, 4th February. What’s that, almost four months? Damn. It sure felt like forever. It may as well have been. A shitload of stuff has been going on and I’m not even sure where to begin. What I can tell you, though, it’s been a crazy, crazy ride. Physically and emotional exhausting, to say the least.

The One Paper

Some would argue that with just one subject for an entire 5-month semester is an easygoing life. I desperately beg to differ, as my life the past few months have been anything but easygoing. The one subject I’m taking – Design Fundamentals – isn’t exactly a fire-and-forget type of subject. I’m surrounded by classmates easily 3-4 years younger than me, and as the oldest, I’m expected to deliver ‘quality’ artworks and ‘radical’ ideas. It’s hard to be different when through your whole life you were taught to be like – and be compared to – others.

It’s been pretty good, so far. Still, as experience has taught me, things could very well take a different turn when you least expect it.

Leaving A Legacy Behind

Sometimes I read back my commentary as a society president and see myself to be somewhat gleaming with conceit.

Though it was never my intention to come off as such, it can’t be helped that I am proud of what I’ve done over the past three years or so. People have surprised me with all sorts of characteristics. Pride, apathy, ignorance, persistence, motivation, greed, and lately, enthusiasm.

Running a student society, raising it from near-collapse to an over hyped identity, seeing events perform, seeing them fail, seeing them happen, and seeing them fold. An appropriate way to describe the experience would be to liken it to an emotional rollercoaster. There have been happy times, and there have been sad times. Moments overflowing with glory, and moments filled with rage and bitterness.

At times, I find myself asking “Have I done enough? Is there anything else I could have done?”. That’s when my heart would twist and eventually split in two. One part would be cursing for not putting in enough effort and passion. The other part would be cursing for caring too much about something that won’t last.

It took us a lot of effort to bring it up this far, and in the back of my mind, it could go further and higher. Unfortunately, I am tired. As are many of my current staff. Not only are we tired, but many of us are in our final years in university. They have final year projects, industrial training, and life after graduation to look out for. They can’t afford to be spending anymore time on something that they will inevitably leave behind.

They would all be leaving this to the new members, taking with them all the knowledge and experience they have gained over the past few years. I don’t know if the newbies can handle it, let alone carry it further.

Graduation Syndrome, Part Two

Me? Six years in this bloody university, and I still haven’t started on my degree yet. Everyone else around me seem to be zooming ahead in their lives. There are some friends I keep in touch with, some I try to stay in touch with, and the rest… I’d be lucky enough if they respond to what I wrote on their Facebook wall.

People were talking careers, cars, investing, setting up families. Some of them talk of hitting it off with one chick and the next, changing from one job to the next, looking for one client after another. Talk of politics, talk of money, talk of agreements and talks of all sorts of subject I could not relate to.

The best I could do was smile, nod and repeat the last two words of every sentence uttered towards me.

Scraping and Hacking Away

I don’t have a degree. I don’t have a steady-paying job. All I have is a collection of cheap designs and a coarse personality, tuned for smooth conversations. I have a career history, a half-baked portfolio and a few years of work experience that have absolutely nothing to do with whatever I’m studying at the moment.

At the time of writing, I’m currently learning a whole bunch of skills that ‘might’ be of interest to prospective employers in the future. Corporate identity, branding, modern minimalism, and bit of video production, all which have two things in common: they’re made up of fancy words and a whole lot of bullshit. Since design, marketing and advertising is mostly about wordplay and bullshitting, I guess it’s a good way to start.

Clicking and Shooting

I haven’t been shooting much, even after purchasing a dSLR. I just haven’t been giving photography as much as attention as I used to. Probably its because I have so many other things that occupy me free time.

I miss driving off to some random place and just walk around with my camera, clicking away without permission, without care and without worry. I miss attending gigs, challenging myself to get shots that would look better than Albert’s, hanging out with old friends, pretending to be cool. I miss walking around town, spending hours and hours shooting pointless pictures that don’t mean anything, only to keep it for vague meanings. I miss post processing pictures with passion, showing it off to friends, discussing techniques and gears.

I miss photography. I should update the Phuket Travelogues soon. I owe you that much, at least. In fact, I’m already setting up plans for another low-budget trip abroad.

Digital Escapades

I’m running a dual core PC with 2GB of RAM. I can play most of the games that came out last year with ease, but for some reason, I just don’t feel like playing much games these days. Occasionally some jewel would appear, like Prince of Persia, and I just HAD to play it. Then came games that I wanted to play, but never really found the time or the effort to play it.

The last console I ever owned was a Micro Genius, the pirated version of the SNES and a Sega Master System, both of which have failed to function some time around 1998-1999. I have never owned another console ever since. Not a Playstation, not a Playstation 2, not even a portable console. It’s not like I don’t want to buy one – it just never crossed my mind.

I’ve always known for a long time that I’ve been missing out a lot on console games. One title in particular was the Ace Combat series. I remember playing through the first and third installation of the game on the Playstation, and I have yet to come across any flight simulator that could ever be as in-depth and engaging as Ace Combat.

I tried my hands on a Playstation 3 at a friend’s place, and got to play the one game that I really wanted to play on a console; Little Big Planet. I won’t bother trying to review the game here, but I can say that after trying it that one time, I felt an irresistible urge to get myself a 40″ HDTV and a PS3. Also, an original copy of the game – purely because I believe the developers deserve every last dollar for that shining jewel.

Return to Writing

I can’t help myself. Even though I promised myself not to blog until I fixed ‘certain things’, I just can’t help but pour myself out like this. I can’t take it anymore. I have to let it out somewhere, and these are things that can’t be shared over mamak tables. I have to etch this, write it out and put it up for people like you to read.

At times like this I would churn out massive walls of text and ridiculously expect anyone with half a functioning brain to read through it all and empathise. At very least, now I’m blogging again. Although I might not be blogging as regularly as I used to, I think I can still make enough time to share stories, misadventures and ideas with you once more.

There’s still so many things I want to talk about, so many stories to tell, so much emotion I have vent out elsewhere. All those would have to wait, though. For now, I guess it’s appropriate for me to say “Honey, I’m home!”

This room probably won’t be so silent anymore :)