31 days of Christmas

continuing my somewhat yearly tradition of taking a December-themed photo set, last month saw me brandishing two rolls of expired Kodak Plus X-Pan 125 black and white films in an attempt to photograph the 31 days of December in the year 2016. the attempt wasn't that big of a deal - mostly exercising my patience and diligence in taking on average two photographs a day. the hard work, however, did not pay off. out of the 75 odd shots, i reckon only 7 or 8 shots are exposed properly. this is hardly surprising, given the expired nature of the two rolls. it does break my heart though, that the time, effort, and money spent to take the photographs and getting them developed is completely flushed down the tubes. it is the sad inevitability of playing with expired films. in hindsight, had i known the photos would turn out this ghastly, i'd have experimented with push/pull developing those films. alas, what's exposed and developed is history. i cannot pin it entirely on problems with the camera's light meter. on the contrary, with years of exposure to photography, the red lights should have been apparent to me when the camera tells me to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/60 with an F-stop setting at F/2.8 in a dimly lit room! on ISO125 for that matter! in fact, the last time i used the Canon AE-1, the photographs turned out rather decently for an expired colour film. i doubt that it is the camera's fault, but these X-Pan films did expire sometime in the early 2000's (or was it the late 90's?).

a harsh lesson learned. enough with the expired films in my dry cabinet. the next time i am hit by a wave of film nostalgia, i either toss out RM30 for a fresh roll of film, or weather out the storm and return to my trusted full frame DSLR. but in all honesty, sometimes a little flushing of film nostalgia out of my system is healthy for the photography enthusiast in me. it does help me take my camera out with me everywhere i go - if i ever go out, even. i don't blame the films. the risks were there, i just decided to take my chances and hope that i get some good pictures. next time, we'll take the road well traversed.

Canon AE-1

Kodak Plus X-Pan 125 (Expired)

29 Dec.

Estranged

only two days left to 2012 and i feel like i fucked something up when i'm not even sure what was it i did wrong. years ago it was apparently okay to write publicly in an online blog, but with the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and all these other stupid social networking websites it only makes people more estranged to each other. keeping in touch? more like keeping us in despair. the dangers of knowing too much made me put Facebook on hiatus once, but then i realized how childish i was and ultimately i decided to attempt to not make this internet persona too personal. i'm not afraid to admit i have failed a few times, and i'm still trying not to make it affect my state of thinking too much. but even then, i guess people are more complicated than just sweeping things under the rug - it's still there. and reflections such as what i'm doing here never helps but to only leave evidence under the digital rug.

i may have made a mistake undertaking this project. but i only have two days left in December. i cannot, for some reason, understand what is it that caused such repercussions. maybe the next two days will be the last time i make a diary entry.

28 Dec.

Camaraderie

i can't seem to find a proper way to convey my appreciation towards my friends in this holiday season without sounding corny or too needy. i would just like to say how much i appreciate all the meals, coffee, inside jokes, life problems, fun, and ennui we have all shared together over the past year and years prior to that as well. i feel like i have been quite an asshole this year, and somehow i don't feel like i deserved any kind of good will for my behaviour. however, i am really grateful that i have friends who are able to somehow tolerate my shenanigans and strange behaviour. i promise i will try to keep it together and hopefully we get to have more coffee sessions together. even though everyone is busy with their own schedules and life, it fills me with a deep sense of happiness when everyone is at the same table laughing over an inside joke and just having a good time.

oh well. i tried but it's just won't come out as anything else other than corny.

27 Dec.

Eternal happiness

when it comes to being 25 and owning a Facebook account, there is an almost absolute guarantee you will encounter entries of engagements, marriages, and the obligatory baby photos of your peers. for the last few months it became very apparent that a chunk of the cool kids are now well on their way to the eternal happiness of betrothal. seeing how the year 2012 is the year of the dragon, a huge wave of my peers find themselves registering for marriages in what appears to be in hopes of getting knocked up in the next few months and pushing out dragon babies. for some reason it is good (i mean it in an arbitrary sense) to have your kids born in the year of the dragon. well if i had dragons for kids, a la Daenerys Targaryen, i'd kind of flip out, but the symbolism of kids being born in the year of the dragon isn't any different than having your kids being an aquarius, or an opiuchus. from how i view it, it's just a group of people following trends. it's like how one kid decides to buy from Gap, and then the others decided they want to buy from Gap as well when every other brand asides from Gap also have their clothing made in the same child labour factories somewhere in Indo-China.

26 Dec.

Christmas present

there was this mad scramble to get Christmas presents and i haven't felt that rush since i stopped buying birthday presents for her. but the feeling of giving a gift absolutely trumps all the worries about whether the recipient will like the present or not. provided that it was done right. there was something missing when i handed her all my gifts to her. i never quite knew if she actually liked any of the gifts i gave her, though there was once where she liked the birthday card so much because it mentioned god and Jesus or something. maybe it was a very one-sided exchange - i've only ever received one gift from her, and the years after were just hand shakes and well wishes. in the end, i never knew her that well, and neither did she about me.

for me, the real pleasure of giving gifts is knowing what the recipient wants, and making the effort to look for it. i don't see myself as the best present giver, but i try my hardest to make my recipients really happy when they unwrap their present(s). it's the least i can do after all they have done for me.

25 Dec.

Three

i may have mentioned before how i promised myself to go sightseeing during my December break, but nothing materialized save for the morning photowalk in Putrajaya a couple of weeks back. i'm not very motivated when it comes to doing things for myself, and i need a little push in the right direction to get the ball rolling. fortunately on Christmas i had the opportunity to go down to Melaka, even though it was my third visit there this year. i'm quite happy i made the trip, but on the other hand i could've easily made the trip to anywhere in Malaysia by myself had i given myself the push. i normally don't find any reason to push myself unless i am supposed to meet a dateline, and it bums me out that there are many things i have not done because i constantly tell myself that there's always another chance later.

at 25, i suppose i still have some years left before the reality anchor touches the sea bed. guess i should pick up the pace and start crossing off items off my list.

24 Dec.

Suburbia

back when i was a kid, i read this issue of the Uncanny X-Men where the members of X-Men were spending Christmas eve in New York city, shopping, dating, hanging out, and stopping rogue mutants. ever since, i've always had this mental image of the ideal Christmas for me - living in New York, walking around Manhattan, observing the Christmas lights with a light snowfall and just taking in the ambiance of Christmas in a metropolitan city. my love for New York city obviously has not waned over the past few years, and observing Christmas in such a city has always been something of a dream of mine. of course, i am aware of how romanticized New York (or any other cities in the world) is, yet i suppose i'll never be able to shatter this image of New York until i walk on the five foot paths of Manhattan, get blinded by the neon lights of Times Square, or even take a stroll in Central Park, maybe skate a little bit in Rockefellar plaza.

but i'm here in Puchong. in suburbia. it's certainly not New York city. there's no such thing as a light snowfall, the Empire State Building, or the subway. i have my family here in suburbia. we're shopping for groceries in our suburbian hypermart. and we're going out for dinner in a hotel for Christmas eve. the weather is rainy and cold - my favourite kind of weather (when i'm not out on a photowalk) and it somewhat adds to the Christmas mood for me. as much as i want to be in New York for Christmas, being there alone is meaningless. family is where Christmas is. this is the perfect Christmas for me.

seasons greetings, and have a joyous and merry Christmas.

23 Dec.

Firework

it shouldn't come as a huge surprise when things don't go the way you planned them. when i'm doing some kind of activity, i'd prefer to roughly plan it out and if possible see through it meticulously. experience has taught me how this rough planning never succeeds - leaving me to simply follow the beat. it obviously frustrates me when things don't get off on a running start. for instance, if someone was late, or if there was a shitty traffic jam, i'd get absolutely worked up and want to pull my eyelashes out. though i guess when the pieces finally fall into their respective places, and when things start rolling along, i forget what i was so worked up about.

which is why i never liked planning gatherings. the last few have been hell, since i took up arms to be the guy who initiates outings. i get very frustrated when people do not reply my call for outings, and i get worked up for days prior to the outing because i need to make bookings, update the others, correspond with the drivers, etc. so when someone holds your planning back by being the only asshole who doesn't reply until you send five hundred and eighty-seven text messages, it absolutely tests my patience.

i guess i should step away from the organizing bit and be the backseat passenger. but when everyone else doesn't seem to care, well, you don't quite have much of a choice unless you don't mind staying at home playing Minecraft.

so if you're reading this, do me a huge favour and please check your text messages, your FB messages, and/or your FB wall and reply to me ASAP!

22 Dec.

No other picture?

as the caption of the picture above implies, i didn't have any other picture for today. i'm seriously doubting my capability of taking a picture a day in 2012. i'm getting lazy and uninspired - even though there were a lot of interesting things to photograph in the mall today, and the fact that i was feeling a little bit chirpy from the cold weather and all the shopping mall decor should've contributed to at least more than one picture.

yet all i have here is a picture of a bird nest bun. i tasted really good, nevertheless.

again, today i find myself playing Minecraft and actually looking forward to continuing my journey after dinner. playing Minecraft feels like an adventure in the wilderness - living off the land and surviving in the wild. despite the blocky graphics, the game has some interesting sceneries in it. i'm viewing this vista and mountain range, and i'm breathless at its epic scale. playing this game is akin to being chucked in the middle of, let's say, the Himalayan mountain range, or Alaska. i'm somehow imagining myself in one of those beautiful landscapes i often see in movies and Flickr.

i guess i'm basically saying how much i wish to travel into the unknown, maybe with god mode turned on or something, and perhaps living there for a while. i don't know. i'm not quite built to last outside my packaging, but i'd sure like to try adventuring sometime in my lifetime.

21 Dec.

I Mine, Therefore, I Craft

yet another unproductive day, thought i spent the afternoon watching the Terminator for the first time ever (despite already watching all its sequels). two things i learned from the Terminator; the first being surprised at how ripped Arnold Schwarzenegger was back in the day, and that the the Terminator in itself has a time traveling premise. it never quite occurred to me that there are many movies out there that utilizes time traveling as a plot device. usually the special effects, story, and aliens make me overlook the underlying time traveling plot device. it's been some days since Steins;Gate and i still find myself intrigued with time traveling.

maybe i'm just in some science fiction phase. having noticed Yuki Nagato reading Dan Simmon's Hyperion, i recalled there being a list of books recommended by her, so i looked that up and i plan to read most of it. kinda strange how the mannerisms of a fictional character could affect me like this - pulling up a list of books recommended by an anime character and wanting to read the books highlighted by her. i'm pretty sure that list was compiled by the author of the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels, but i suppose it's quite an interesting list, nonetheless.

20 Dec.

SMiLE

what happens to all the fictional characters in movies, books, TV series, and in our minds? do they continue living their mundane lives after being highlighted in their respective stories? or do they stay frozen in the final frame of their respective story-telling medium? at the end of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. when the gang leaves their apartment for the last time, do their lives move on or does their story end at the frozen frame of their empty apartment until the end of time? and whatever happened to Joey in his failed spin-off comedy? when he got canceled, did his life in Hollywood literally got canceled or did he finally made it and got a Golden Globe? or did he somehow got reincarnated in another life called Episodes?

i don't know whether to believe in heaven or hell, let alone the afterlife. when i reach the last pages of my story, is my consciousness going to be frozen in my deathbed or will i be taking a trip to somewhere else? what is somewhere else, if not fiction? when science is the ultimate nail in the coffin to religion, what else is there to believe but what you perceive up to the moment you die? will i really be taking that eternal sleep or will i feel every single cell in my body slowly disintegrate and become dust?

--

i'm not being a nihilist, and i certainly don't believe that getting into the afterlife requires some kind of membership to a collective. one can't help but feel like there really isn't any meaning to life if one isn't purpose driven, but what happens to the people who do not believe, yet do so much more for the goodness of his/her species rather than being martyrs? don't they deserve that better place just as much as those that belong in the collective?

19 Dec.

Favourite Books of 2011

from the top: Too Much Coffee Man Omnibus by Shannon Wheeler; the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa; I Kill Giants by oe Kelly & JM Ken Nimura; Habibi by Craig Thompson

i've never made a list of favourite books i've read because i consider myself a slow reader - taking months to complete certain books at a time. but when it comes to really engrossing reads, they take no time at all and i find that i've read some really great books this year.

the Too Much Coffee Man Omnibus was clearly one of the most entertaining reads ever. Shannon Wheeler's observation of popular culture and and transforming it into satire is more than just satire, it is a smart and sharp commentary of herd mentality. TMCM's nihilistic point of view on basically everything  (popular culture, social norms, religion, politics, etc.) certainly made me pause for a moment to reflect on things in life, and how worthless they actually are when viewed in a different perspective.

having watched the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi movie, i was certainly looking forward to reading the source material, and the novel doesn't disappoint. Disappearance, ironically, is more of a character study of Yuki Nagato. giving Yuki human characteristics in this novel bore such a deep impression within me that i can't help but sympathize with her after reading about everything she has gone through in the series. i'm very impressed by the author's approach to humanize Yuki, and ultimately i'm left understanding her so much better than i already have.

I Kill Giants was a real surprise read and it touched me how well the story was written about a girl escaping the harsh truth of reality by delving deep into her fantasies. the plot is very well crafted, leaving the reader clueless as to what actually is transpiring in reality for a great deal of the book. but as the story unfolds, you start understanding the reasons for the girl's actions and thoughts. this was no doubt, a heart-strings tugger, but a very well executed one.

finally, the epic i have been waiting since i finished Craig Thompson's Blankets, Habibi is, for a lack of better words, an epic read. so much work has been put into crafting this book that it is simply impossible to ignore the effort it took to intertwine story telling, arts and culture, parallel parables, and a tragicomedy all in one book. every page in this book left be breathless with its intricate artwork. it definitely baffles and impresses me how a person could actually make a book like this. for the craftsmanship alone, this book is worth the read.

18 Dec.

The Last Level Where the Last Boss Sits and Swirls His Wine Glass

i am more than halfway through this photo essay project and i still don't see a clear objective to it other that to emote how i feel on that particular day. today i felt empty as i left Comic Fiesta, Day 2, and headed to the parking lot to go home. it was at that exact spot about 10 feet from the parking lot where i felt like i didn't have a purpose for wandering this parallel plane of December on which i stepped in on 1 Dec. there is no ultimate goal other than to briskly waltz through December and welcome January like any other Monday after the weekend. i suppose my emptiness comes from the realization that i don't know myself very well. this comes after something Arif said about me having so many circle of friends, and after digesting his words, i not only learned about how i'm more social that i take myself to be, but rather how i never realized that fact until he pointed that out to me. that's not the only time someone told me something about myself that i never knew, and i guess the emptiness stems from not knowing myself intimately.

so maybe i came into December to find out who i really am, and hoping to fill up that void of unknown. i do know now that i'm hyperboling this notion to levels of pretentiousness, but i am imploring myself to let it slide until i learn what i am.

17 Dec.

Passion

today, i found myself rediscovering a long lost passion for anime. for a period of time, i rode the anime wave and considered myself a part-time otaku - religiously following a handful of anime series at a time, and collecting merchandise related to any of my favourite anime series. i didn't have the privilege of discussing my interest with a large group of people (as with most of my interests for the following years to come), so when everyone else grew up and decided to pick up girls instead, i was left metaphorically alone with my inevitable waning interest to anime, comics, and video games as a whole. as i walked into the convention hall where Comic Fiesta 2011 was held, i was literally stunned by the amount of people who turned up not only as normal visitors, but all in costume as well.

it shouldn't be quite a huge surprise when it comes to conventions like this - you go all out for the biggest social gathering of like-minded individuals. i guess what left the biggest impression of all was how young a lot of the cosplayers were, and at such a young age they are capable of creating some really elaborate costumes and personas to go with it. their passion, and most of all, their determination really impressed me. i think about these kids and how they have their friends who were, and most probably, still are really into their hobby, and encouraging each other to reach out for their dreams. having a group of like-minded friends who share the same passion as you, it seems, can definitely take you a long way - albeit maybe a little bit faster than having keeping the passion to yourself. i'm just conjecturing.

browsing the booths, i picked up some A3 prints done by local artists. i guess when people start appreciating what you love doing most so much so they would even pay for your work, it shows how much passion one has for his or her work. like how a cosplayer's costume is so well made that everyone wants to photograph that person with his/her costume on. i wondered what would've happened if i were still an anime otaku - would i be in one of these conventions in a Gundam costume or perhaps manning a booth where i'm selling my artwork?

all i have left is my photography, and if that dies like a lot of my other interests as well, i don't think i could live with myself.

16 Dec.

Infinity

i spent the whole day watching Steins;Gate, an anime about time traveling. it was absolutely engrossing to the point where i had nearly forgotten about my Friday night plans with the dudes. it kind of intrigues me how much time traveling is such a paradox to itself. you go back in time and kill a person before he commits atrocities, and in the future without that person, the need to go back in time to kill him isn't required, thus you don't go back in time to kill him and ultimately he does his crazy shit and, well you get the picture.

consciously, the idea of going to the two extremes of time (i.e. the beginning and the end) definitely interests me. the age-old debate of the existence of Jesus or missing links related to evolution would be silenced once and for all, bringing a whole new era of temporal evidence, or perhaps the crumbling of social/religious beliefs, and theory transforming into hard facts. these kinds of controversial issues stir the mind of a kid who grew up reading strange comic books and enjoying science fiction movies/cartoons to no end.

and yet, subconsciously, the thought of going back and undoing/redoing certain past events always comes to mind. what if i said that? what if i did that? what if i had flushed the toilet? what if i had said hi? what if i had told myself to save yourself from all the anguish by shutting your trap? what if? what if? what if?

in life, there is no such thing as a save point. i am consciously aware that everything i say, do, and think has its consequences. deal with it, because there's no way to reload the game from the last save point. i just hope that after all that happened, you know that i'm by your side.

15 Dec.

Self-portrait

cartoons and comics have always been a huge part of who i am ever since the first time i started reading Doraemon in elementary school. i found myself totally engrossed with the world of comics, clipping newspaper comic strips daily and compiling my own collection of daily funnies in a scrap book before graduating to more pulpy stuff like the X-Men and their related titles (despite not understanding much of what goes on in them. i was nine, after all). my love for cartoons is also a given, having still enjoyed episodes of Spongebob Squarepants in high school (for its sheer absurdity) and in my college years, Teen Titans and Flapjack (for the general mindfuck-ness of it). quite recently i discovered Adventure Time, one cartoon that seriously unearthed my love for cartoons simply because it is awesome, childlike and adultlike at the same time. i watch these cartoons, and i think about how awesome it is to be the guys making such wonderful and ass kicking shows. they may be cartoons, but you will get a punch in the gut for its seriously whacked out adult humour - something i notice to be prevalent in modern day cartoons. the more i think about how these guys who make these cartoons and how they conjure all this craziness into cartoons, the more i believe that they have the best jobs in the world.

i now believe that being a cartoonist beats being anything else in the world. unless you're a spy or an astronaut. or a travel show host.

14 Dec.

Ohai

the first half of daylight was spent at a park, leisurely drifting from one section to the other. i haven't noticed how quiet this quaint park in Putrajaya is. having previously been here with my buddies for photowalks, i tend to get too distracted by the others to really notice the tranquility. the sun was about to reach its noon high, and though it got hot real quick, it still felt good to feel the warmth. i'm still rather stupefied by how nobody ever visits these parks, even on weekends. the only people there were the park cleaners and a bunch of people doing some kind of team building activity. even then, there wasn't anybody else there. i guess everyone else is stuck in their cubicles, viewing spreadsheets and wasting company time via Facebook and/or Twitter.

i'm not bragging about how much free time i have, but yeah.

the second half of daylight, however, involved a lot of traffic lights, traffic, and no parking. any other day, i'd resort to pulling out my eye lashes from all the double parking in narrow roads, but yeah.

13 Dec.

Paradigm shift

i was lying face down on my bed, thinking about doing something for the next 15 minutes before lunch. that was when i thought about last year's photo book, so i spent the next three minutes flipping through it. the phrase "magnum opus" flew past my brain and i realized how soon it is to call any of my photos my magnum opus. i haven't been taking photos that long, and i sure haven't quite nailed down a particular visual style in my art yet. but looking through my old photos, i can see the embryonic stage of some kind of style which hasn't made it on ink and paper yet, so i thought about how i should DIY my own photo book from scratch. judging from my procurement of new cameras and my foray into film, i'm pretty confident that i have enough material from this year to compile into a small photo book, once again. there's definitely been a major paradigm shift in my medium of photography for the past year, and i can definitely grasp a theme and concept.

then i thought about finishing my current roll of film after lunch, when the weather started acting strange and i decided to postpone my little photo walk to tomorrow morning in favor of Suzumiya Haruhi.

12 Dec.

Dream observer

my dreams are like the movies i have watched more than once, where i can somehow recall the dialogue and the pivotal moments when something is going to happen to the character(s) - the deus ex machinas, the Chekov's guns, the plot twists, the denouement. oftentimes in my dreams there is no denouement - anything close to that is just me waking up and reaching for my cellphone to find out what time it is. i'm living a waking dream where there's plenty of stories without its denouements, and sooner or later it will eventually just fade into nothingness. it's as if any form of resolution is absolutely unnecessary, and somehow the entropy dissipates into thin air, leaving nothing nor any form of guilt. for better or worse, some moments that you sweep under the rug never come back to haunt you, like my dreams that don't mean anything but merely an interpretation of my subconscious. maybe my dreams are looking for a form of denouement for everything i have been observing in my waking state.

11 Dec.

Snow globe

today i don't have much to say because i did nothing more than watch sitcoms which oftentimes degenerates my mind into a zombie-like state. all i want to do is watch more episodes and before you know it, i've already caught up with the latest episode - and at quite a cliffhanger for that matter. it's kind of like if zombies had run out of live humans to eat, they'd just stand around in the middle of the street, staring into the void.

right now, i feel like my December is turning into quite the zombie-like state. when all your friends have real lives and no one is able to accompany you on adventures, it is the opposite of mathematical.