Reading week finally, and I feel like I can breathe again. Although I know this is but an illusion because it's not called reading week for no reason. Day 1: figuring out Hegel and his obscure meanings. Not too bad a start, actually, just need to sit down and concentrate. There are just so much readings on this nebulous thinker. And the course structure is such that it probably wouldn't hurt to just give him a miss. But what I've read so far (very little) does intrigue me and so I will keep on keeping on.
The weather has taken a turn for the worse, as if it knew it was November and suddenly everything is cold. The biting cold makes everything a little more miserable than it really is. (is this grammatical?) but things have been steady, and nothing terrible has happened, but the past few weeks have been completely abject and upsetting, just by the lack of sunlight.
In fact, things have been quite good, because i've been getting brainwaves and sudden bouts of creativity and have started playing with the idea of painting my Diana camera again. And also considering binding my own notebooks... it's actually easier than it seems and can be done with little cost in the long run. Really worth considering there. I've added the link to this awesome handbound journal-making duo five and a half who are based in Brooklyn. I've seen some of their work, and i think the notebooks are quite awesome, just that i'm not too fond of the binding style they've used. in any case, the blog is lovely and exciting too. There's a real sense that something is being built: a cottage industry, or maybe slowly, an empire.
This is something that interests me a lot, the idea of creating something, building it, growing it. Which is why I suspect I wouldn't be able to stay long in the legal profession even though I know I definitely want to be a lawyer after I graduate.
Unfortunately it's only at night that I get these brainwaves and the motivation to create wanes after a good night's sleep. In the day more rational thoughts take over, like a shortening deadline and such and such, and then the day is inundated with mundane things commands like eat! buytoothpaste! toiletpaper! dishes! Ugh. daytime and its unromantic emergencies.
I wish a break like READING WEEK weren't so loaded with meaning and expectation like it is now. I can't think of anything that would make me feel better besides a pair of new shoes and/or a new dress, but that will have to wait until I finish reading the handouts. BAH. I would really like a day out to go shooting as well but this too shall have to wait in the wings while I reassume my role as a proper law student.
After all, we can't all be on holiday.
3.11.09
31.10.09
An Extraordinary Sight
A late morning on Charing Cross Road, on my way back from the British Museum. I am walking towards the iconic shop selling musical instruments, walking past the iconic not-subtly-named porn shop Lovejoys, walking past in-road to Soho, Old Compton Road. I witness a flock of flying pigeons passing overhead and I stop to watch. The pigeons, after landing on the other side of Charing Cross road, linger for a few seconds on their new roost, then head back in a big loud cloud of fluttering feathers.
The pigeons fly to and fro for no obvious reasons a few more times, until finally after more than ten times of crossing the road by simultaneous and seemingly spontaneous flight they settle down on the roofs of my side of the road, where they first started. I think immediately it must be a sign. But I might be wrong: no one else is stopping.
The pigeons fly to and fro for no obvious reasons a few more times, until finally after more than ten times of crossing the road by simultaneous and seemingly spontaneous flight they settle down on the roofs of my side of the road, where they first started. I think immediately it must be a sign. But I might be wrong: no one else is stopping.
Not News, but oh so Beautiful
Looks from the Oscar de la Renta Spring/Summer 2010 show. I don't think it's difficult to see why since Valentino retired, he's my favourite designer for stunning dresses.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
27.10.09
Photos from The Book Club
Mentioned a while back about the gig I attended at this new venue The Book Club, where Tokyo band Asakusa Jinta played. They are a six-piece Japanese rock-meets-traditional band doing their tour in the UK and they stopped by the shop to perform one afternoon. Coworker Mark and I were free the following evening after our shift so we went to see them play at a real gig.
He had an awesome and bizarre looking guitar.
This man is the epitome of cool. He had an afro that made his head look twice as big as it really is.
And he wore havaianas to the gig. RESPEK.
For the encore this guy with the mohawk taught us a dance involving the patting of elbows.
Saxophonist and girl of Mark's dreams. Had a super squeaky kawaii voice.
You will recall that I said there were six people playing, including a drummer at the back and one very cool front man of whom none of the photos turned out, unfortunately. He wore a hat with round badges pinned to the brim, a leather jacket embroidered with the words ASAKUSA JINTA and underneath, the most obiang but awesome shirt i ever seen:
which is leading me to suspect that the most direct way to be cool anywhere in this world is quite possibly to be a Japanese rockstar. It is the shortest distance between the points tacky and wonderful.
He had an awesome and bizarre looking guitar.
This man is the epitome of cool. He had an afro that made his head look twice as big as it really is.
And he wore havaianas to the gig. RESPEK.
For the encore this guy with the mohawk taught us a dance involving the patting of elbows.
Saxophonist and girl of Mark's dreams. Had a super squeaky kawaii voice.
which is leading me to suspect that the most direct way to be cool anywhere in this world is quite possibly to be a Japanese rockstar. It is the shortest distance between the points tacky and wonderful.21.10.09
The Inspector Is Calling
Then the sudden realisation dawned: Nothing planned on Thursday evening!
True -- there was a property tutorial to take care of, and it would be good to show up some people in her class... especially that one particular annoying guy who obviously thinks he's smarter than anyone else.
But then The Inspector Calls! And so conveniently located and timed at Aldwych. And tickets so inexpensive, at 12 pound fifty. And a limited 8-week run! 0_0
Besides, this week has not been fantastic anyway with regard to homework and tutorials.
And so temptation won.
True -- there was a property tutorial to take care of, and it would be good to show up some people in her class... especially that one particular annoying guy who obviously thinks he's smarter than anyone else.
But then The Inspector Calls! And so conveniently located and timed at Aldwych. And tickets so inexpensive, at 12 pound fifty. And a limited 8-week run! 0_0
Besides, this week has not been fantastic anyway with regard to homework and tutorials.
And so temptation won.
20.10.09
Floundering
Not a good week for focussing on schoolwork at all, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The temperature has taken a plunge, it's difficult to get out of bed and out of the shower, it's even more difficult to get out of the house. No surprise then that all I really want to do is sit on my couch under a blanket, with a warm cup of milo.
It doesn't help that I've discovered a new online game called Sushi-no-suki, which is essentially diner dash in a japanese sushi bar. Not absolutely hooked, but still fairly distracted.
But no undone tutorial passes without consequence. And even if I get away with it in class a nagging sense of guilt follows me, especially when I think about the coming vacations and my early departure to Singapore (I miss some classes, but minimally). These pangs I have come to know as the screams of sensibility: the constant ruler against which I measure myself. At this point I've got one trust tutorial to finish (90 pages of reading, extraordinarily) and half a trusts tutorial. Both to finish by tomorrow. Also, I should get started on the property tutorial on friday and the Law and Social Theory next Monday. Not much of a hurry, you'd think. But it's Hegel week, and already my tutor has advised that Hegel should be appreciated like poetry: not necessary to understand everything, just get the general feeling.
gulp.
On the bright side, this has been a fabulous cooking week. Recently we just had the culinary fabulousness of Asian Home Gourmet's Pineapple Rice (YUM) and then yesterday we had tagliatelle with mushrooms and pork (not bad at all). Today we are having braised chicken with eggs made from herbs packed lovingly by my grandmother, who above all other concerns cares for our dietary well being. I am also mentally counting down the days... and am filled with optimism.
This weekend has also been a blast. At work we've had the honour of having Tokyo traditional-rock six-piece bank Asakusa Jinta play in front of the shop, on Newburgh Street. Really quite awesome. I have the dubious honour of gracing the newsletter on the Lomography website. Mark my colleague and I then went for their gig at The Book Club the next evening, a new venue that opened not long ago. I'm normally not really into the venues scene and to be honest I couldn't name you more than five obscure-but-not-obscure bands here in London. Which is why it's cool to have colleagues that are really up to date with this: Lucy and Mark for instance are freelance photographers for local gigs, a job which I think though saturated is still VERY VERY COOL.
Anyway the band was not bad at all, and really out of this world. I'll post photos as soon as I can.
Yes, after I am done with the readings.
It doesn't help that I've discovered a new online game called Sushi-no-suki, which is essentially diner dash in a japanese sushi bar. Not absolutely hooked, but still fairly distracted.
But no undone tutorial passes without consequence. And even if I get away with it in class a nagging sense of guilt follows me, especially when I think about the coming vacations and my early departure to Singapore (I miss some classes, but minimally). These pangs I have come to know as the screams of sensibility: the constant ruler against which I measure myself. At this point I've got one trust tutorial to finish (90 pages of reading, extraordinarily) and half a trusts tutorial. Both to finish by tomorrow. Also, I should get started on the property tutorial on friday and the Law and Social Theory next Monday. Not much of a hurry, you'd think. But it's Hegel week, and already my tutor has advised that Hegel should be appreciated like poetry: not necessary to understand everything, just get the general feeling.
gulp.
On the bright side, this has been a fabulous cooking week. Recently we just had the culinary fabulousness of Asian Home Gourmet's Pineapple Rice (YUM) and then yesterday we had tagliatelle with mushrooms and pork (not bad at all). Today we are having braised chicken with eggs made from herbs packed lovingly by my grandmother, who above all other concerns cares for our dietary well being. I am also mentally counting down the days... and am filled with optimism.
This weekend has also been a blast. At work we've had the honour of having Tokyo traditional-rock six-piece bank Asakusa Jinta play in front of the shop, on Newburgh Street. Really quite awesome. I have the dubious honour of gracing the newsletter on the Lomography website. Mark my colleague and I then went for their gig at The Book Club the next evening, a new venue that opened not long ago. I'm normally not really into the venues scene and to be honest I couldn't name you more than five obscure-but-not-obscure bands here in London. Which is why it's cool to have colleagues that are really up to date with this: Lucy and Mark for instance are freelance photographers for local gigs, a job which I think though saturated is still VERY VERY COOL.
Anyway the band was not bad at all, and really out of this world. I'll post photos as soon as I can.
Yes, after I am done with the readings.
13.10.09
Man With A Pipe
Emerging from the dark recesses of the Strand Building (I kid you not: we were in a classroom carved out of a small walkway: no windows, just one door - the first people to die in an emergency) after Law and Social Theory class, I exit the revolving doors into the courtyard between the King's building and the much more beautiful Somerset House.
A few meters from me, a man in an olive suit and a red tie smokes a pipe and walks in circles, lost in thought. Exactly the kind of man to be roaming around the front of the Law Faculty building. Some people notice him and start to smile as they walk away. But he does not care about what others think. I'd like to think he was answering one of life's greatest problems. Perhaps he was on the brink of a major discovery or he was about to unravel one of the toughest knots in contemporary law. It might be possible: after all, brilliant minds have passed through the doors of King's. Like Desmond Tutu, Virginia Woolf, John Keats, Alain de Botton, and all the other names of whom we are reminded daily as we pass the campus.
It is a privilege that bears down heavy upon me. To be honoured with the best tutors in the world but to know that making all the intellectual fireworks in the world will not make me happy. It's so easy to wish otherwise (some say underachiever, others think not brilliant enough). It absolutely guts me for instance that had someone else perhaps been in my shoes he/she could be the one that solves the problem of world hunger, or create a viable world model for world peace. I wonder if W.O. Bentley for instance knew that he would one day found the maker of some of the most beautiful cars in the world.
Nevertheless I walk away a little bit on air, even though I know full well he might just have been wondering what to have for lunch, because I might very well have witnessed one of the most important moments in someone's academic life. My back straightens a little, with a renewed strength of opportunity and hope that few other moments can lend.
A few meters from me, a man in an olive suit and a red tie smokes a pipe and walks in circles, lost in thought. Exactly the kind of man to be roaming around the front of the Law Faculty building. Some people notice him and start to smile as they walk away. But he does not care about what others think. I'd like to think he was answering one of life's greatest problems. Perhaps he was on the brink of a major discovery or he was about to unravel one of the toughest knots in contemporary law. It might be possible: after all, brilliant minds have passed through the doors of King's. Like Desmond Tutu, Virginia Woolf, John Keats, Alain de Botton, and all the other names of whom we are reminded daily as we pass the campus.
It is a privilege that bears down heavy upon me. To be honoured with the best tutors in the world but to know that making all the intellectual fireworks in the world will not make me happy. It's so easy to wish otherwise (some say underachiever, others think not brilliant enough). It absolutely guts me for instance that had someone else perhaps been in my shoes he/she could be the one that solves the problem of world hunger, or create a viable world model for world peace. I wonder if W.O. Bentley for instance knew that he would one day found the maker of some of the most beautiful cars in the world.
Nevertheless I walk away a little bit on air, even though I know full well he might just have been wondering what to have for lunch, because I might very well have witnessed one of the most important moments in someone's academic life. My back straightens a little, with a renewed strength of opportunity and hope that few other moments can lend.
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