My travel journal

My colleague Rebecca and I have been planning our trip to Europe since last year.  One day, we were lolling around on the office couch (working, obviously) when we realised that we had photography, a love for coffee and wanderlust in common.  And so, after slogging for seven months without a break, I'm finally off on a month-long adventure with her!

As much as I love my current Muji spiral-bound dot grid journal, I felt like this holiday deserved its own book and so I've pulled out one that I've been dying to use since my colleagues got it for me for my birthday last year: A leather-bound Kikki K travel journal!

While I don't normally like travel journals that are fussy and full of maps and random forms that I have no interest in filling in, this one suits me perfectly.  It's full of blank, lined and gridded pages so that I can draw and write whatever I please, but also contains cute quotes and doodles.  

Instead of forms, there are a couple of pages with prompts such as "describe your day on a plate" and "what are your surroundings right now" which I find very charming.  And of course, a back pocket filled with stickers never hurts!

I'm trying to pack very lightly for a month so I'm not bringing my laptop and probably won't be blogging (though I might queue a couple of posts).  I hope to be back though, with stories to tell and pictures to show.

The stories, at least, I can now record obsessively.

Revolution 19

Sometimes, I think that until I can listen to this song without feeling any pain, any sadness, anything at all, my karmic debt to the Universe remains unpaid.

Tulipmania 2014 Part 1: In miniature

Since we got a family pass to Gardens by the Bay last year, my brother (practically a professional photographer) has been wanting to go down and shoot the flowers.  A couple of weeks ago, Tulipmania presented a great opportunity and one Saturday afternoon, he asked if I wanted to join him.  

We sought respite from the heat in the pleasantly chilly glass domes and while HS shot on film, I brought my 35mm workhorse and his macro extensions - little black plastic rings that can turn your lenses into macro ones by introducing some distance between the camera body and the glass.

I took wider shots obviously, but I also really enjoyed the different perspectives the macro extensions gave me.  I could get right up close to a flower and see the delicate filaments of its stamen or the soft, mint green burrs on the edges of succulents.  It was an entirely different world from the sweep of glowing tulips or the harried weekend throng.  Through the macro lens, the rest of the world falls away, falls silent.

I'm free to focus on the perfect symmetry of cactus spines or the heavy yellow-gold crush of pollen in the heart of a flower.

Occasionally, I pulled out to look at the bigger picture, like here with the sole bloom on the edge of a succulent.  I never realised how these plants reproduced.  Colour buds in the middle of them, startling in its vitality.

Standing there with my nose in the flowers brought to mind my favourite haiku.  Oddly enough, it's by Dean Koontz:

"Whiskers of the cat,
 Webbed toes on my swimming dog;
 God is in details."
                              -- The Book of Counted Sorrows

On y va!

Every morning before French class, we greet each other with cheerful "bonjour"s and "ca va"s.  There are about twenty of us, surprisingly close in age but from completely different backgrounds, united by a single purpose.  

There are those who are married to Frenchmen and want to be able to communicate with their in-laws, two girls who are going to France in September to study pastry making, a young sommelier, and Edie and I, there because we think it's beautiful.  And it is beautiful.  Really tough, but beautiful.

Every time I encounter frustration in conjugating verbs or trying to remember the appropriate article for masculine or feminine objects, I learn something that submerges the frustration in awe.  Today, it was the moment we were taught that a "lucky draw" is called a "tirage au sort".  Literally translated, it means "pull your fate".  Last night, Shirin, who is extremely fluent, told us that "I miss you" is "Tu me manques".  The order of the words is different from the English (You, to me, are missing) she said, because that it means that you are missing from me, thereby implying that I am incomplete. 

And that's more or less why I've always wanted to learn this language.  Because it sounds pretty, but it means pretty too.  Sure, it's confusing that everything has a gender, but it's also whimsical and poetic that, for example, the sea is a woman and happiness a man.  

On top of that, apart from English and Mandarin, which I absorbed when I was too young to remember it, this is the first time I'm formally learning a language from scratch.  As an English tutor, it's fascinating.  I've always wondered how people would teach someone a language that they didn't know at all.  And I've never been so aware (or respectful) of grammar before.  

Mostly, I'm just happy to be a student again.  A teacher needs to be on the ball; in complete control of every aspect of the lesson and watching everyone out of the corner of each eye.  In this class, I just need to be a massive sponge.  I can write notes with my own unintelligible musings, pronounce things to myself as many times as I want, turn things over in my head again and again. 

Edie and I have lots of fun practicing random verbs and senseless questions.  After class, we wander round separately, speaking French in our heads.  As I was walking the dog today, I had an entire conversation with myself about a writing instrument.  

"Where is the pen?  He has the pen.  Do you have a pen?  Yes, I have a pen.  What is this?  It is a pen.  But where is the pen?  She has the pen.  Does she have the pen?  No, I have the pen."

Then, I turned my attention to singing.  

"Do you sing?  Yes, I sing.  Where do you sing?" and so on.

I love it.

I look forward to class every day.  For some people, it seems like a meeting point of their hopes and plans.  For others, a celebration of the ability to speak, read, understand, dream.

...And also, on a more shallow note, I get to use my amazeballs new Smiggle crayon highlighters.  Why didn't I have these growing up so my stupid leftie writing wouldn't keep smearing fluorescent yellow and green up to my elbows?

Now if only I could do something about the teensy right-handed writing desks they have in class...

One down

I have always wanted to learn French.  

When I was a child, I thought it sounded beautiful and when I was older I ended up meeting a bunch of French people when I went on exchange.  They taught me a smattering of charming but utterly useless french phrases (I love icecream!  I don't like octopodes!  I will not sleep with you unless you have a condom!  What?  Every girl needs to know how to respond to "Voulez vous coucher avec moi?") and I vowed that one day, I would properly complete my education.

Finally, thanks to Edie who signed up first, I'm going to be taking a one month French crash course starting tomorrow!  It'll hopefully come in handy for the trip I'm taking to Europe in June; maybe I'll be a little more proficient at reading menus and asking directions than last time.  

Now that it's the night before, I'm all hopped up on adrenaline.  I feel like it's my first day at school!  And I'm so happy to be fulfilling an old dream at last!

My students told me that Typo was having a discount on a pack of five French-themed exercise books and in celebration (any excuse!) I headed down yesterday and grabbed a pack.  For $8 something, I got five A4-sized Minnie Mouse/ Parisian notebooks for class.

Retno loves Minnie Mouse, so I'm giving her a couple.

Hopefully the rest of them will soon be full of notes... en français!

Now I just have to learn salsa dancing and farming and I'm set for life.