dreamless

a dreamless night
is a mere pause
to a spectacular,
detailed,
compelling dream.
Eyes closed,
perceptions soar,
and a new world
begins.

life beyond the circus

there is an existence, where
our roles are being turned upside
down, where our voices become
the other, where the usual ways of seeing
become inverted, as if it makes
no sense,
and freedom becomes the way, of love,
of infinity,
as if we have lost touch with the reality
we grew up with,
and become part of a fantasy that
seems so surreal, so strange,
but yet so
compelling.

fire

the fire is in the distance,
shapeless and formless,
but i can feel it in my mind and heart,
as if i am drawing closer,
to the warmth, the blaze,
even though
i cannot really figure out
how far away i am still,
from the desired hill,
the desired promise
of honey.

exit from a dream

there lies a pattern in my dreams,
with a rhythm that is improvised,
free,
with the color red, like blood,
filling the sky,
till it warms the whole earth,
like a big candle among the stars,
showing me the way around,
through the wilderness, the alleyways,
the deserts,
till i make an exit
from my dreams,
and see a reality
in a new land.

empty space

there is a certain
mystery to this empty space,
filled with an overwhelming sadness
that has no answers,
but a beauty that transcends
colors, language, and thoughts,
a beauty as wide as
the desert,
and as elusive as
a floating cloud.

abandoning the other

there is a desire to run away,
to play in the fields like a child,
abandoning all adult emotions,
all nervousness and complexity,
the questions that have no quick answers,
to keep running, and sees no end
to a beautiful journey,
covered with trees, littered with red berries,
and to find
you,
in the midst of it all.

A red balloon lands itself
in front of the mirror,
and sees beyond
its identity
a land waiting
to be explored,
it goes running
in a circle ,
day and night ,
until it becomes
pure bubbles,
free in its
movement.

winds in the desert

a voice from the wild
follows my path, to the
outside world, and back again,
like winds in the desert.
it has no shape or color,
but a vapor that touches
my heart in a light blue way,
causing me to sing a song
that has no end,
a song that has no tale,
until i look behind me
and my footsteps
vanish and become
again, the winds in the desert.

favorite numbers

i haven,t really been thinking about the significance of numbers until recently. i won about 28 Euros at lottery last week. i felt happy because you know, it was my first time buying lottery ( just for about 3 euros ). i bought it with a friend, thinking we would try it for the first time in our lives, just for fun.
so i was pleasantly surprised to receive this money. it was not too much, but enough to last me for about 2 days here in germany. i am not going to have buying lottery as my lifestyle/hobby/ or addiction, but a spontaneous act in our lives can sometimes surprise us.

i remembered, i was using many Sevens, when i wrote those random numbers down on the lottery paper.. i am not saying that seven is a lucky number but i am saying it just happened that this time round , the results showed many sevens and numbers that have sevens in it.

that was when i started thinking about numbers in my life. i really like 5 and 7 . from a biblical point of view, 7 is a number of completion and perfection. there is a mystery about 7 that makes me feel at rest. the number reminds us that we have got to rest, and not allow the burdens and responsibilities in our lives to distract us. God rests on the seventh day. there is the sabbath. but i think it is not a rigid rule to rest. however, it does our souls, and bodies good when we merely rest inwardly. Religion tells us that we need to do lots , in order to earn credits from God. However, Christ has finished the work, 2000 years ago.There is nothing we can do to earn anything.

Hebrews 4 from the bible , verse10, says " for all who enter into God's rest wll find rest from their labors, just as God rested after creating the world." Besides dreaming, which i talked about it in my last entry, the land of rest is also a beautiful place.

potato chips

living a dream is a beautiful feeling. there are ups and downs, and difficulties, but the dream within, encourages
us to go on.
what is life without a vision, and a dream? it feels like a lost, broken record, left in a second hand store, waiting for somebody to pick it up, to restore it.
it might sound silly, to keep dreaming and living out the desires in your heart, sometimes against logic, against reason,
but i think it is all worth it eventually. i don.t know how, i don.t know when, but the obsession can never stop. once you start, u can,t stop.
it is like eating potato chips, well at least for me. what is your addiction? any food, any drinks, any activity? then add it to your dream, and let it embrace your addiction.
i still believe that God puts dreams into our hearts and allow us to create the details, the colors, the smell of them.


anyway, keep dreaming, keep eating your favorite food.

what makes me happy?

cooking food that i like, cooking for others, drinking my first cup of strong coffee in the morning, blowing bubbles, and looking at them, playing and listening to music, painting with oil colors, gazing at somebody you adore, playing with children and friendly dogs, laughing, springtime, anticipating a white christmas, making things out of clay, exploring a place i have never seen before, going to Berlin, taking train rides in germany, making art n not really caring whether it is perfect or not, dreaming colorful
dreams, and above all, being a "prisoner of hope ".


i hope some of these things make you happy too .

my blue room

i lived for one year here in jahnstraße braunschweig, germany. ever since then , i have moved. this is just a memory of my apartment. the color i can think of is an ethereal blue.

Behind the trees

we all have private thoughts both to ourselves, and to others. we don't talk too much about them, in parties. we talk about them-behind the trees.

i the dreamer

this morning , before i woke up , i experienced some very intense dreams. it was like one series after another. i wish i could remember what they were. my friend is used to writing down dreams.
i wonder if i should. i believe in dreams quite a bit. dreams can guide us. for example, i have been guided by dreams in some difficult decision making in my art school. it was like bread crumbs... thrown from heaven, and we just pick them up...in the woods...
joseph, one of my favorite character in the bible, was intimately connected with his dreams. he never saw them as trivial or foolish ......
dreams can smoothen out the path ahead of us. but there are also the ones that confuse me. i try not to think about them. i guess one comes to the point where one knows how to organize, interpret fairly, whether some are useful in daily life and others are not...
the process continues...
overall, having a nice dream is always lovely.

Bubble moments

sometimes, it is hard to create something out of almost nothing. but i guess that is what i have to do, in my work now, and in the future, in art . well, i guess we do not necessarily create things from nothing. there are always influences from artists we like and who inspire us , and there are memories, feelings, emotions and thoughts. these things are not" nothing". but still, the process of creation, most of the time begins with an empty canvas.

the next thing i hope to work on is the theme of transition. life is made up of many transitory moments. very good moments are temporary. i mean, we can have many good moments in life, but they shortly become memories. it is a like a bubble . we see a cute little bubble hovering in front of us, then it vanishes into thin air.
one specific moment can contain very intense feelings, very emotional train of thoughts. when i am in long train rides here in germany, i find myself trying to grasp these moments, to want to contain them in a bottle because they mean so much to me. i find it a very elusive activity. it makes me question, what is the meaning, of creating these moments in our lives, and do they truly add up to something, like a bigger picture, whether it be in friendship, art work, making music, cooking, partying etc. or maybe, what counts most, is the moment itself. it has no past, no future. i don,t know the answer really. but i do believe in a God, and He is in the moment. i guess that is what gives it some touch of eternity, a touch of ethereal color.

whatever it is, the moment can be intense, on one hand, and extremely fragile, like a bubble, on the other. it is about transition. we run through life, going from place to another, like a traveller, appreciating these bubble moments.

racing heart beat

i am doing some pencil drawings now...to get some kind of direction. i am trying to make pictures of certain creatures....that look innocent yet peculiar and odd....ok something like aliens.

hoping at the same time, these lines will carry my thoughts to a neat place......

i will let u know...maybe later...whether i have indeed arrived there. to tell u the truth, i am craving it every moment . my face/ my countenance is altogether calm. nobody can tell. but my heart is beating fast.

thoughts from the night

hello there...it has been quite a while since i visited my own blog and spend time writing down thoughts. i guess, now that i have internet access at home it makes it easier. it is now 3.13 am, and the night seems to be the best time, to write. after such a long pause, there is no compelling feeling to write about anything in particular. quite a number of things have happened, this past year ( almost !). there are several changes in my heart, in the way i look at things and there are still questions, unanswered ones, running in my mind. i mean, i still feel peaceful, with all these questions still existing, so i guess that is good. Peace from God, in spite of unanswered questions. Germany offers me to live life anew, in some ways. i mean, i truly appreciate my life before germany, but somehow, i feel a kind of "newness" here, in this new space. it has been about a year, and i was planting seeds, hoping they will become flowers....

a little update

the art school that i go to




the place that i live


been quite a while since the last time i wrote here. well, big reason is that there hasn,t been internet connection at home, and there still isn,t!
it,s been about three months in germany, and everything is going well. i live in an apartment with a german roomate/classmate ,Nina Peter, from hannover , who hasn,t reall moved in yet. this apartment also uses coal heating ( not electric central heating that i am used to ). i am still getting used to loading the oven daily, with lots of coal and wood. i have an interesting neighbour named Claudio, who only started painting when he was about 27 in this art school and now he is 32. He just sold two of his paintings last month. it is quite amazing that painting is now his central passion, and lifestyle, especially when he had never really done it before the time he first began in his late twenties. he has a big dark cat, who roams around the apartment stairways, and sometimes tries to slip into my house when i am not careful. directy below me is a huge italian family. right above, is Frank, who is a high school teacher, and who loves making things with wood. other than that, i don,t really know other neighbours very well.
almost every friday or saturday, i go out dancing. i feel that the music here is pretty good ! if time allows, i might also take long term salsa lessons. i am also appreciating german beer more and more. with wine, i am still not so good.

two days ago, it snowed heavily, like never before since i came here to Germany. when i came back really late that snowy night, somebody had made and left an adorable snowman on my bike and i had to make a picture, even though it turned out blurry and a little surreal.


classes in the art school resume next week.

new land, new life

just arrived here in germany. realized that i am about 5 days too early because the international student german class had been cancelled. this gives me the time to look for housing that, hopefully, willl last for the next few years. i am now staying put in Hotel Meyers, a traditional- looking place, taken care by a very nice lady and her husband who speak not a single word of english. i am very happy that i survived the journey here, carrying four heavy pieces of luggage, including my german violin, which has found back its home in this country! without those random people coming my way to help me carry my stuffs, up and down the train, and the station here at braunschweig which had no elevator, i bet i wouldn't have made it so well.
for now, things are pretty quiet, both in the hotel, in town and in the school. i hope to enjoy such calmness and tranquility, finish reading 2 books at my own pace, and slowy and gradually absorbing the rhythm, structure and sound of the german language, before the pace of life picks up once again and meeting new faces and entering the world of image and probably, fiction making, and who knows, ( as some friends suggest) even experiencing romance of some kind haha ...

wonderland

it's amazing how time flies.almost three years ago, when i flew back to singapore from the states, shermaine had one kid, day. Now that i am leaving for germany, i am playing with three beautiful kids of hers, day, dee , and lulu !
it's also amazing how these children turn a simple place where i live into a wonderland for themselves. they effortlessly find quite a number of things to do and play with, and don't quite cease to enjoy themeselves. they certainly teach me how to have fun at my own home , or come to think of it, wherever i go!