Tempus Frangit: Time Fractures, Bends & Mends. This Is My Record of My Time.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Goodbye......Dream Weavers
As of 28th February 2007, I am officially resigned from my post at Y2:SPACE PTE LTD.
For some not in the know, Y2:SPACE has been my cave (aka my workplace) for the past 6 months, ever since joining as a fresh grad some time last September. They are simply put, an interior design firm, or interior & lifestyle specialists, as they preferred to be called. I wouldn't really contest those claims, if you do take a look at the portfolio on their website: www.y2space.com, revealing some of the swankiest interior spaces and pads I would probably die for to live in. They are truly masters of their game, and I was only too happy to jump in for a taste of how working for one of the more prestigious interior design companies would be like. Call it my curiosity if you may, for trying to explore multiple disciplines of design itself. As a concept designer, I was tasked with visualizing and expressing the narratives of the underlying themes to the decos.
Alas...after 6 months, it is finally time for me to move on to greener pastures. Much of the work proved too dauntingly monotonous, that I was afraid my creativity would start to take a nosedive to the bottom of the abyss of No-Life Zone. I cannot explain the lack of job satisfaction, but the most convincing reason from me would be that: furniture and fittings do not have a soul, however aesthetically pleasing or interesting as they may be. Whatever message a modern interior space is trying to convey, does not speak to me at all, not to mention the target audience are solely the clients themselves, instead of the general public. Most of anything I do will probably not see the light of day in the outside world, and given my personality, the lack of attention can be very unnerving especially when you spend countless nights working till the wee hours of the morn and sleeping over, just to design places where rich millionaire playboys can bring their exotic catch for the day back to have happy endings on their 10,000 dollar bed. Fuck that shit, and fuck this job.
Rants aside, the only thing that has held me together these few months, would be have to be the warmth I felt from my colleagues while working there. They are fantastic people, truly devoted to their work, and are like family to me. Life would have been different without them. I was happy to leave this job, but kinda bummed to leave them. I guess goodbyes are inevitable one way or another eh? Sometimes I try to stay aloof and disconnected, for knowing the fact that when the time comes for me to go, it would be less painful.
I guess I'm not as tough as I think I am. :)
Here are some of the photographs we took together before I left.
The Y2 Girls. From Left to Right: Doris, Trianti, Apple, Kay, Ina, Peggy & XiuLan. They ALWAYS bully me. Honest! :P~
My farewell gift from all of them. A Vabene watch that merges timeless style with a toy watch-like characteristics. Thanks so much!
Pooh... Puffs!
Leon, Apple & Trianti. We patented the action of going for 3 hour lunch breaks. LOL!
Taking a "Take 5" for the very last time at my favourite hangout spot in the company.
The Vabene watch aside, this is the best gift I received from all of them....an A3-sized card with all their well-wishes written on it. For a moment, I was only too happy and too sad at the same time.
Thanks for the memories at Y2:SPACE, guys. Despite all the ups and downs, we all laughed, cried, stressed out, and most importantly, worked together as a team when the going gets tough, and bonded together like family. I wish all of them well over there, as I get ready to embark on another chapter in my life.
Although this is a pretty late post ever since the event on Monday, Day 2 of the Lunar New Year....Good Vibrations didn't really live up to the hype it was sort of generating ......
...not at least till the Beastie Boys together with Mixmaster Mike came in with their Afros, hats, shades and suits and took Fort Canning by storm!...doing their thang' like a bunch of old boys who never hit puberty; prancing, rapping and jumping around like it just didn't matter, well worth the admission price alone to see them live and loud!
Cut Copy was so-so only, and Jurrasic 5 was really disappointing as their regular sound guy was replaced by another, and the decks the DJ was playing on sounded like total crap...my old Creative Soundblaster shitty speakers could probably churn out more bass than they could.
I am too lazy to edit the photos this time round....so I am just going to leech them from Kay Lii's blog~ HAHA!
Here is me with our favourite arty farty couple, looking like 10 stacks of bak gua put together after the annual CNY cookies and bak gua binge,(hell who am I kidding? I DESPERATELY need to shed some weight even before all that), and soaking in sweat.
Old dogs still have it in them
The day was further satisfied after a trip down to Zouk, and attending to what was one of the best trance sets I have heard in months, courtesy of Agnelli & Nelson, truly refuelling my passion for trance music. After all, it was the very genre that brought me into the world of electronic dance music. I recall hearing Paul Van Dyk's For An Angel the very first time as I was browsing through my previous company's network folders when I was just 18+, working in MediaRing as a beta tester. Mambo nights were since then history. (HAHA! Yes I know.....)
No matter what people may say about the music or the crowd, no matter how cheesy it may be, you cannot deny the fact that trance music does have a mysterious alluring nature to it, unlike house music or other genres, the crowd themselves are not so adamant about the image they are trying to portray, they just want to cut loose and have some real fun, which is something I have learnt to appreciate back in my days in Melbourne, where the staple anthems on the dancefloor are what you call Hard NRG, or Hard Style. It was quite appalling to listen to initially, but twenty minutes into the set with bass-hungry shuffling monkeys, you start to realise that THIS IS WHAT clubbing should be all about, not just standing there like some music connoisseur sipping a Lychee Martini. Dance music without any airs to it. Sometimes I do miss the club scene overseas. I can understand how Wilson and some of my mates over there in Melbourne can fully immerse and sometimes lose themselves with the nightlife over there.
Yes. Every year, they never fail to annoy me to no end. And to make matters worse, my colleagues and my family members get into them and have little sing-alongs. Yucks! I know... they are all part of the festive celebrations and all, but wait till you hear the techno remixes of these songs vendors are playing on the streets. Totally takes the (yam)cake, I tell you.
By and by the way, it's been more than a month since I last posted on this blog. Work is really taking its toll on me, I can really feel my youth being sucked dry doing mundane and routine work everyday. Almost everyday I work till wee hours of the night, go home, with books unread, ideas unfulfilled, and words empty in my head, waking up to a bitter aftertaste like a hangover before going to work in the morning. Thank goodness I will be leaving the company by the end of the month, to fully concentrate on my adverting portfolio as well as a proper job-hunt to land the spot I've always been trying to achieve. While doing interior design has been fun for a while, it's something about furniture & fittings that I cannot relate to, mainly that they lack soul and character to them, aside of being aesthetically pleasing.
Back to my Chinese New Year celebrations, this year has been a really quiet year for most of us. For our reunion dinner, we had steamboat at the restaurant located outside my home along Tanjong Katong Rd, with Day 1 being spent at both our grandparents' homes.
Some pictures taken.
The Pen Cai my mum received from her friend.
Damn!! These Tai Tais sure know how to make use of their afternoon cooking class skills!
Preparing the Yu Sheng
My Grandpa was a B-Boy back then...windmilling & popping to the grooves of Teresa Teng. LOL~
...And I want his super antique storage case! :O
The cupboard mirrors were pretty freaky in a big empty room.
Relaxing by the poolside of the poolside of the house.
My sister counting her 'harvest' in the car
Hope everybody else have a fantastic Lunar New Year celebration this year! :)
The honeymoon start period of 2007 is now officially over for me. Muse came, conquered and left Fort Canning Park,leaving 6000+ fans clamouring for more after an hour and a half. Matt Bellamy just killed the audience with his superb guitar and piano work, crooning and screaming their signature tunes with his trademark falsetto. While the bassist Chris & drummer Dom were stellar with their performance, how can one feel compelled to tear their eyes away from the music machine that is Matt? There may be many who don't like Muse and their songs, but to see Matt on stage is a mind-changing sight to behold. Many musicians don't take your breath away the way he does it so effortlessly, no many how many times you watched their videos on MTV or Youtube. Yun, a friend of mine, told me over MSN how she cried when seeing Matt sing Invincible, and for a while she saw him as an angel. LOL!!!
And before you know it. It's all over by 10.15pm. An hour and a half of Muse just doesn't cut it. We want more!!
Taken from Kurt's blog, here is the setlist for the night.
01. Knights Of Cydonia 02. Hysteria 03. Map of the Problematique 04. Butterflies & Hurricanes 05. Supermassive Black Hole 06. New Born 07. Forced In 08. Bliss 09. Feeling Good 10. Sunburn 11. Invincible 12. Time Is Running Out 13. Plug In Baby 14. Encore break 15. Soldier's Poem 16. Starlight 17. Stockholm Syndrome
While they banged out Stockholm Syndrome, my absolute favourite Muse track of all time, I was so hoping they would play Dead Star. But no matter, Muse rocked 2007 for all who were there!
Arriving at 7.30pm, anticipation for an hour... .....and Muse fired up Fort Canning Park! Me, Mo & Gillian....trying not to faint in the heat and lack of oxygen. Saint Matt Bellamy crooning on his acoustics Whip out those lighters!
Here are some videos I took for the event, Muse playing New Born & Stockholm Syndrome respectively. Matt kicks ass!
With our voices hoarse from screaming, our clothes dripping with sweat, our bodies spent & muscles aching from from jumping and headbanging, our Converses soiled, we went home knowing it's time to snap out of the fever and get back to life.
My start of 2007 isn't complete....not before catching one of the greatest live bands in the world... MUSE....Live @ Fort Canning Park....in about 19 hours from the time of writing this entry.
I still remember how my jaw dropped upon reading up the information in late November, that the legendary UK trio is finally going to play here in Singapore. For the past few weeks, I have been counting down the days...and the day is NOW!
I have already taken leave on Wednesday, for knowledge of the giddyness that it bound to follow after fulfilling one of my lifelong goals.(okay that's a bit far-fetched...for I only started listening to them about 1-2 years ago)
For all who are going, we are gonna have a blast like no other! Here's a video to get everyone psyched up and ready to rock, reminding us why we are paying 87 dollars( or 100+ for the late birdies) to watch Matt, Chris and Dom tear up the stage, and why they are simply the Best Band in The World!
