Paint Stains

I'm nursing a tender calf muscle on my right leg after a weird cramp woke me yesterday morning. Doesn't quite help that this week (which still hasn't ended!) is calling for a lot of walking!

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/328424/1/.html
The above occupied my Tuesday afternoon and evening. But, how often can one say that they are required to drink on the job. :) :) :) And oh, I have no idea why it says "Triple Exchange" on the website when the newscast got it right with "Tipple".

Did a WWII tour yesterday with a class of all-male secondary school students (as opposed to NSmen)--first time, and a truckload of fun. Another tour for all guys tomorrow. With this job, I'm never going to feel lonely or ignored again. ;P

Thought-provoking read about Christianity in the US:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080695

Since starting to do Portrait Days on Saturdays at the Maad Market since October/November last year, this is the first month I'm going to miss out because my allergies are bad, I'm tired after the last hectic week, and a little bit worn out at the format of the portrait drawing/painting thing.

I dunno if this journal is read by anyone who's been at Portrait Day at the Maad Market -- if so, have you seen my work there before, and why do you or don't you think my work is worth paying for? It's just 8 Singapore dollars a pop, and that's very, VERY low. Even though the entire exercise is fun, the $ reward for the time spent there is very little, and quite a blow to the ego, esp when some of my best watercolor work is done there.

(If anyone does want to comment here to take me down a notch, go ahead. It doesn't matter.)

It is JUST WRONG for a so-called Australian bar in Singapore to not play Australian music on Australia Day. YYMV over what Australian music is, but even if it had just been Men at Work on a loop (just kidding), it would have been at least something, ya know?

Work and work has been keeping the days quite packed. Belatedly I've realized that my day job will soon be getting to the point I won't exactly have a lighter schedule during school holidays, not if I'll be leading adult tours more often now. Training has been almost constant. What gets me miffed is that I'm not losing weight even though I'm walking all over the place. It is NOT FAIR.

Layout for the field guide is going at a good speed. It's nice that we found the perfect font. We had to pay for it (not too much), but it is worth every penny. It is in fact a bit amusing that I once looked at an old newspaper in a museum and said, "I want to print something in that font face one day" and I think this is it. We in fact have the option to make "s"s in the text look like "f"s, you know, THAT font (except we're not going that far).

Singaporeans get an unexpected mention in an article on the Organic Consumers website: Who Loves Junk Food the Most: U.K., USA, or Canada?

I thought I had more to cover in this post but it's slipped my mind. Ah well, back to work.

Two pictures are drying on my desk right now, waiting for further watercolor work. But since there's been precious little updates on the Surreal Botany project on my blog, consider this, well, me announcing that we're THIS close to getting the art done for the book! That's 10 left out of 48. What actually surprises even myself is that I do have 38 plant illustrations done already. The past few weeks actually gave me some days where I was able to complete 3 or 4 of them in a day, so 9 to complete before this Friday (when we're leaving for Kong Kong) is looking doable, although I stupidly left the "hard" ones for the last... you know, the ones with the architectural and historical details. (THOSE writers should know who they are...)

Another MAAD Market went by this weekend with yours truly in attendance on Saturday, feverishly splashing up watercolor portraits alongside other artists from OIC. Things started slow, but we got swamped, I think, from 3:30pm onwards, and it was non-stop after that, and it was pairs of people nearly the whole day through. That means actually drawing and completing 2 people in 15 minutes flat. That doubles the work compared to a single portrait, people! Be kinder to the artists, and purchase more pieces when you do that -- credit cards are accepted... all to make it easier to support starving artists, y'know? :)

And alas, I brought a lot of pieces home (as opposed to getting them sold) this time. It ain't a big deal, but even if I say so myself, most of my results were pretty good looking and it sucks only slightly that I just have to bring them home to put them in my "If I ever want to be a courtroom artist one day" portfolio. Haha!

Two plant paintings finished while typing this up. Which means only 8 plants left to go!

Fifteen tours later, I ran into my first group of students who genuinely made me want to strangle them. No love and equanimity for these ones. I thought some of them were really monsters. And they were just 10 years old.

( Rant behind cut )

at least partly, for the difficult kids...

Early exposure to violent TV promotes aggression in boys: study

Study: Educational TV for Toddlers OK (Read: But other stuff is not.)

Sometimes, there are things we never know we can do until we thrust ourselves into the situation.

Consciously or unconsciously, I think my college and career choices were made on the basis of me wondering if I could do [insert job/major here]. If I knew I could do it, that a certain choice was a cakewalk, there was just no mystery and just no attraction for me there. It's the biggest reason my CV looks like, well, someone who could never stick to just one thing. I find little to regret though. The stories I've got...

Well, if myself from 3 months ago had know that the Today Me had to be responsible for 20 to 40 kids at a time, traveling from public place to public place on foot and on buses, trying to control them amidst crowds and cemeteries, tell them stories, ask them questions, make them ask questions, and stay calm under bad weather, mixed-up bus arrangements, mixed-up class arrangements, and various unforeseen circumstances... The Old Me would have slapped Today Me for taking up an impossible challenge, and run away.

The upside is the realization that I'm actually managing to do this. In the very worst moments, I can even stop to watch my breathing, and realize I'm not freaking out.

( However, this does not mean that I don't feel some irritation at the behavior of some kids. )

Finished two botany pictures yesterday, one of which was hilarious.

Monday, converted the US dollars in my Paypal account to Singaporean dollars. And closed my local bank account that was a US currency account. The bank officer was flabbergasted.

"You want to convert your US money to Singapore dollars today? But the exchange rate is so terrible!"

"It's not going to get better anytime soon," I said. And yes, I should have done this months ago, because I freakin' saw it coming. Anything I earn now in USD is worth less and less here. I'm not typing a sob story or anything, just a statement of fact. The US dollar is heading downwards measured against most of the world's currencies.

Saturday morning: had to go to Ikea the second time in 2 days to make an exchange. Buying new furniture is a last resort when I can't find something second hand - like a map chest. It also irritated me that I'd looked for months for something, and when I finally caved in to buy the Alex, the box we picked up on Friday had a badly chipped board - the last board I removed from the flatpacked box, to boot. Punishment for buying new furniture, I bet.

Saturday afternoon: I had very, very fun 5 hours at the Red Dot Traffic Museum that's between the business district and Chinatown here. It was an afternoon of doing quick portraits of people, with the possibility of getting your work bought if they liked it. (You're sitting to be drawn by several artists at one go.) It was my first time doing portraits from life in over 10 years. The challenge? Drawing and painting the pictures in 10 minutes, as opposed to 3 hours back when I was an art student. 10 minutes! hahaha (Results can be seen on my Facebook page, but you'll have to be on my f-list there to see this album. Hollar if you're there.) Really, it was a lot of fun. And very addictive - can't wait to do it some more. Pity it only happens there once a month!

where dozens of emails and projects suddenly surge into my inbox all at the same time and make me panic. This on top of the usual deadlines...

Life is getting shorter by the second! Must work! Must be productive!

Oh, geek alert: As a gift to myself today, I'm registering a new domain name. Hahaha! Have lost count of how many I have.

Oh, artists: Please join http://www.fantasticportfolios.com and upload more images if you haven't yet! The site gets out of Beta on September 1st; and while I've been busy spiffing it up, I'll just feel better if some of the newest tweaks get tested by new content.

The day before Singapore's National Day (her Independence Day), Jason collected his Singapore Permanent Resident Identity Card. It is blue. (Mine, for a Singapore citizen, is a pink card. It also happens to work out as far as our color tastes and genders, I suppose...) Meanwhile, while he was out getting his card and doing bank stuff with IC in hand, I was out doing a tour (solo) with a local school, who had arranged mass day trips for half its students the day before National Day. There must have been over 15 tour buses involved, each carrying over 40 students. It was like a military operation. We had our orders, schedules, gathering points at appointed hours, and etc.

Some minor hitches, but overall , all went well, especially considering the scorching weather and the tight schedule. The class I got was great, and had very capable and helpful teachers. I couldn't have asked for more. I kept fawning over them, I think. The day went by too fast, was in fact cut short unexpectedly, and so I didn't get to tell them the best war stories, which I'd promised them earlier in the day. Thwarted!!! I dare say we all were disappointed. And the students were such a good audience, too. I might get a massive ego from this job.

After that, had a sore throat and minor headache again, but they went away quickly enough. Must have been the high I also got from the whole thing.

On National Day, my parents and I went to watch Royston Tan's 881, that was made out in the movie trailers to be comedic. Which it was. And brilliantly done. CG effects and corny laser weapons even managed to fit in the obiang kitsch-iness of kung-fu-esque face-off scenes. But in the end, none of the trailers or reviews had prepared the audience for the heart that was present here, and done so subtly, with lines so carefully restrained (as opposed to overwrought), that just the tiniest gestures during the quieter scenes were drawing out buckets of tears.

I enjoyed the movie more than the National Day Parade. Not that the parade was bad, but the pacing was spotty (haha, I'm critting it like a movie), and the emcees had some really silly-sounding lines to say. But the military displays were kinda impressive, and I have to give kudos to the way that water, the bay, the bridges and the floating stage were utilized for the show. (I had to wonder if the Coliseum in Rome, which apparently was capable of being deliberately flooded for the staging of mock naval battles saw this kind of technical display. Things were transferring from water to "land", land to water again with nice smoothness.) I didn't like some of the chapters of the show that were such head-scratchers that paragraphs of gibberish had to be spouted to explain them... I'm not unintelligent, thank you, I just think that certain items couldn't make, or didn't have a clear point. Jason also got to understand why I said our parades have a lot of snark potential. There is something Disney-esque about them, if you go for that kinda thing.

And lastly: Dear Singaporean content gatekeepers, I'm sorry if some of you have been scarred by post-modernism, but obscurity of message != Art.

Woo! It's the weekend!

Terribly unproductive week, a fact that I'm still not reconciled with, because this was supposed to have been an easy week for working on FP, prepping for my part-time job evaluation on Friday (that was exhausting, it was not a "test", that hardly covers the physical effort involved) and artwork for a July 10th deadline. I was actually looking forward to it and happy with that plan. As it happened, I didn't touch pencil to paper for 6 days, didn't touch my email (much less code) for the same length of time, and now I'm tired, sick with allergies and now cranky.

The truth remains that the whole emergency trip out of Singapore could have been avoided if a phonecall had been made earlier to the ICA, that I hadn't needed to go, that I *could* have worked during my time there but there is a stupid part of me that demands I act like a tourist when I'm in a "new" place because otherwise I feel like I'm cheating myself and the new place.

FROM NOW ON, I AM GOING TO NAG LIKE THE BITCH I KNOW I AM INSTEAD OF NOT NAGGING.

Apparently nagging sometimes has its uses. Because nagging COULD have avoided the forced vacation last week.

That's all I have time to say right now. Now to lunch, and then back to work.