framing people

This weekend, I have been asked again to take graduation photos for a group of friends. I am the best person for the job they claim, since I am the only one among them who is not graduating this year. I wondered if this is some sort of conspiracy among all my independent groups of friends to remind me that I am not fitting of mortar boards yet.

I can take jest.

I like taking photos of landscape and architectures. Main reason being, these things do not move. They will always be there. If I screw up a shoot, if I want to try another angle, frame it another way, wait for a better lighting, a better sunset, I can always come back again. So a producing pretty picture is just a matter of time. Here is my confession. The 400 photos you see I lugged around are actually picked out from 2 years of sweat. With a 5% conversion rate, you guys can calculate the numbers of photos I have taken. The number of photos of sunrises I have taken of the Eiffel tower, I can arrange them in sequence beside one another and you will be convinced that sun does not rise up but slide along the Parisien landscape from right to left. One day every month, I would leave school at 4am to catch the sunrise from the same spot at Trocadero. Each time the sun rise from a different spot.

Taking photos of people brings the game to a whole new level. Today, a recce to the Botanic Gardens, NUS and Supreme court gave me a better idea of what to do on Monday. I even made it a point to look at all the graduation photos taken by my friends so that I would be able to direct the shoot. No matter how many time you can tell me that there is no pressure and no expectations at all, I still believe in making every photo count. Not every photo is going to come out nice, I just need practice.

i will to improve. 5 shot 1 kill. someday.

framing lin

On the pretext of showing him around Singapore, I brought Lin to his first visit to Singapore's Botanic Gardens. I thank him for willingly posing for me no matter how feminine the poses are. You can try to imagine 4 girls in the place of lin.

"this one better?"-cj

"or this one better?"-cj

"Evolution garden. 65m years ago."-cj

"gravel path."-cj

"camouflage."-cj

"and i got distracted by pink flowers."-cj

"more flowers."-cj

"circular path to wonderland"-cj

"closed up."-cj

"up"-cj

"benched player."-cj

"peek a boo."-cj

"polarized."-cj

"slope."-cj

wah a damn hot day.

trivial

12:34.56 on 07/08/09

fyp

my prof. his words i surmise..

"work wherever you want, but there's always a desk available."
"stop wherever you think is enough for your fyp."
"choose any topic you are interested in with keywords : combinatorial optimization, model"
"take whatever modules you want, "
"look for me whenever you encounter problems."

my prof is cool.

monday morning

I spent the first working hour of the work week doodling on the research paper. When I finally realized it, a giant ninja pig with pegasus's wings was already wielding its AK-47 and shooting at the hundreds of stick men who are either jumping at it from the abstact paragraph above or throwing stick spears at it from the opening paragraph below. Ninja Pig, watch out for the commandos parachuting from the C-130 flying across the top of the page! It's partially hidden by the "Genetic Algorithm for the Job Shop Scheduling Problem"' Title smoke screen.

One look at the messy scrawlings, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the ninja pig will soon be swarmed by the tsunami of stick men whose population has grown proportionally with time. There is probably as many stick men as alphabets on the page now (Its so much easier to draw 50 stick men than 1 more ninja pig.) .Dissatisfied with the big scheme of things, I decided to equilibrate the balance of power. I drew an axe for the ninja pig and mused about my own lame poetic justice which I am serving; turning stick men into chopped sticks.

Happy with the little chaotic world I have created, I declared the doomsday prophecy to come true at 1015am. I stacked the papers together into a neat stack and slided them into the shredding machines. Goodbye pathetic little stick men, your fate were never in your hands. Not even if you manage to defeat the fictitious ninja pig. your lives were just lies anyway.

Good Monday Morning, Everybody! Let the work begin! Some people just need more motivation to work than others.

in the name of humor

I lamented about how I have spent 2 years in France without picking up any useful phrases. Then one day out of the blue voila! my fellow french intern Cedric sent me the following email.

"Ok guys, now you should learn a few basics in the underground french language called "Argot". I hope you'll enjoy it ;)

so let's start with the very basic words:
-une femme (a woman): belette, gonzesse, greluche, grognasse, meuf, nana, gazelle, ...
-faire l'amour (having sex): baiser, niquer, sauter, forniquer, troncher, tringler, limer, fourrer, ...
-les testicules (man's balls): couilles, burnes, boules, pruneaux d'Agen (Agen's prunes : Agen is a city, very famous for prunes that grow there), bijoux de famille (family's jewelry), roubignolles, valseuses, coucougnettes,...
-l'anus (anus): fion, oignon (onion), rondelle (slice), trou de balle (bullet's hole)

but the most funny thing in french are probably the expressions:

1) Egoutter le colosse (to drain the colossus) : to jack off
2) Faire pleurer le cyclope (to make the cyclop crying) : to jack off
3) Se secouer le poireau (to shake the leek) : to jack off
4) Se branler : to jack off
5) La branlette : the jacking off activity, but it is also used to say that an activity you're doing is very relax/lazy (working here, it's la branlette) ^^
6) Se toucher la bite (to touch oneself dick) : to jack off, but also used to say "I'm lazy lah" (in french : je me touche la bite!)
7) Rouler une pelle (to roll a shovel) : to snog
8) Ca me troue le cul (it makes a hole in my ass) : used to say "this is astonishing/incredible/..."
9) Chier dans la colle (to shit in the glue) : to exaggerate, to go too far
10) Enculer les mouches (to fuck flies in the ass) : discussing interminably on details without a point (Uncle encule les mouches)
11) Chier a la gueule/Chier dans la bouche (to poop on someone's face/in someone's mouth) : to criticize someone (very) badly
12) Pourrir quelqu'un (to cause someone to rot) : to critisize someone (very) badly
13) Avoir les dents du fond qui baignent (having back teeth bathing) : having drunk too much --> being drunk
14) Peter la rondelle (to break to slice) : to sodomize
15) Tailler une pipe (to carve a pipe (the one for smoking)) : to suck off, to do a blowjob
16) Pomper le jus (to pump the juice up) : to suck off and swallow
17) Brouter le gazon (to graze the lawn) : doing a cunnilingus
18) Couler un bronze (to cast a bronze) : to shit
19) Demouler un cake (to turn out a cake) : to shit
20) Je m'en bas les couilles (I hit my balls) : I don't give a shit
21) Une couille dans le potage (a testicle in the soup) : a problem, a difficulty
22) Etre encore dans les couilles de son pere (still remaining in our own dad's balls) : not born yet
23) Avoir la tete dans le cul (having the head in the ass) : being tired or very sleepy
24) Avoir le cul borde de nouilles (having the ass filled with noodles) : being very lucky
25) Se sortir les doigts du cul (to put our fingers out of our ass) : making efforts
26) Taper dans la lune (to hit the moon) : to sodomize
27) Va te faire mettre chez les grecs (go get sodomized by the greeks) : fuck you! (greeks have the reputation to be gay, because of Antiquity stories)
28) Se tripoter la nouille (to twidle the noodle) : to jack off
29) Pisser a la raie (to pee in someone's butt crack) : to critisize someone..
30) Pisser dans un violon (to pee in a violin) : saying things that no one care about (Uncle pisse dans un violon)

There are many many others that are almost not translatable!
I hope you enjoyed ;) "

Thanks Cedric its a damn long list.
have a safe trip back to France! Bon voyage!

humor me

"from boys to men."-cj

"rites of manhood. "-cj

Hahahahahahah.. excuse me. puny.