"Put your heart below your head. Fail to do that, bam, you're dead!"

Not Giving Up Yet...

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever."
- Lance Armstrong

About three and a half months into capoeira now.. And frankly, I did not progress as much as I want to. Maybe I forget too easily where I was at, a total klutz that didn't even have any confidence on my athletic ability.. Seen from that perspective, I can say to myself, "Not bad, Shiela, you've certainly improved your strength, your flexibility, your stamina.."

But I'm surrounded by capoeiristas who are good, great, passionate, inspirational, that well, the only way to look is up.. And I can't help constantly feeling like a noob huhuhu.. At this stage I appreciate how difficult capoeira can actually be.. To listen to the music, move with the rhythm, maintaining the form while reading your partner's moves and responding, all at the same time..

Am still lousy at synchronising my movements with the music.
Am bad at low ground movements.
My kicking form is not always correct.
Cannot read partner's moves.
My senior just said I jinga like a robot huhuhu...

But..

I love capoeira to the point that I desperately desperately desperately want to be good at it..
For a lot of things in Life I'm content to just watch from the side and be awed by their beauty or coolness...

Not for this capoeira thing.. I want to be right smack in the middle of the roda translating my passion into graceful movements!

And so..

The journey is gonna be long, no kidding.. It's nevertheless a very fun journey, and I've convinced myself that I can only get better..

Axe capoeira!

"Most people are stronger than they know. They just forget to believe in it sometimes."
- taken from a CS friend's blog, M.V

Sentosa

..After being very, very prejudiced against Sentosa for a very long time (Sentosa = the epitome of everything artificial in Singapore), right now my perception of it is a bit better. When one visits it after staying away for 5 years, and then only with a high-octane-fun group of friends, then it is actually enjoyable.

Alright, the next scheduled visit is in 2015 =D

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
- Reggie Leach

Everything Bad is Good For You -Are Books Bad or Good?"

"We shouldn't teach great books. We should teach a love of reading."
- B. F. Skinner

Am currently reading the book "Everything Bad is Good for You: How Popular Culture Makes Us Smarter" by Steven Johnson. Well, it's an interesting enough book, and hardcore gamers will find a lot of reasons to justify gaming other than just improving motor co-ordination. The part that arrests me the most, however, is where the author compares gaming to reading (seeing as reading is often viewed as "good" and gaming as "bad") and argues that perhaps this perception might be different if games are invented before books:

Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of game playing - which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements - books are simply a barren string of words standing on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices.

Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new "libraries" that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers.

Many children enjoy reading books, of course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The reading craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans who suffer from dyslexia - a condition that didn't even exist as a condition until printed text xame along to stigmatize its sufferers.

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion - you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today's generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they're powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, pariticipatory process; it's a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learnin to "follow the plot" instead of learning to lead.
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I thought that was a very well-written paragraph that would cheer many a non-book lover hahaha.. As for me, well, it made me think of how even people who do not like reading view reading as some sort of sacred intellectual activity.. Especially parents of non-readers!! Growing up, it's pretty weird how my mom's friends would tell her "I wish my son/daughter likes reading as much as your daughter.." and she'd be kind of proud.. They didn't know I used to spend a disproportionate amount of reading time on comics! Guess I got lucky, I was born with a love for books.. Once, my mom asked me, "Please help make your brother love reading too! He needs it for his English!" I was stumped.. How does one make a reader? I think it's no exaggeration to think that it's like trying to make a boy behave like a girl, for these things just cannot be imposed upon someone!

"Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can."
- William Feather

A Moon, Some Friends, The Sea

Somehow, after capoeira mini-training and supper, I ended up agreeing to go and watch planes taking off near Changi boardwalk with three capo friends.. Besides, one of them was so kind to "tumpang" me on his motorbike.. Which was how we ended up chatting and staring at the sea until almost 4 A.M.. and well.. The orange moon, the stars and the sea wind created a perfect atmosphere to talk 'deep' things... so...

Me: *After elaborating on the bad points of staying in Singapore, and in turn got 'served' some bad points about Indonesia* "You know what, only in the last one year have I felt like I can be in Singapore, like this can be home instead of just a place of transit.. Though I'd still prefer not to stay.."

T: "Wow, only one year? How long have you been here?"

Me: "9 years.."

T, F & K: "Nah Shiela, you kena the LKY trap already! Oh no! Don't stay, why stay in Singapore.."

Me: "Hey! Don't talk! You know that capo and capo friends are major reasons why I stop thinking of Singapore as just a place of transit and start really enjoying my life here! I'm just glad I can find a group of Singaporeans I can click with!'

K: "Well, this guy's half-Filipino, this one's half-Jap, and I'm hardly Singaporean.. We really don't count..."

Me: "Uhm... ya hor... Aw shucks..."
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That aside, despite usually thinking of Singapore as just your efficient but inhumanely sterile city, last night (and morning) was the first in a long, long time I felt that Singapore still holds some magic. You know, the kind of magic that makes you feel a place is quietly glowing, and you just want to stay calm, not wanting to disturb that beautiful quiet.. That magic abounds in Paris, so much so you can't escape it. In Hanoi, it was of a more down-to-earth, grittier variety, while in Singapore... well.. it's so rare that I learned to treasure the few places and people that makes me feel such magic..

OK we're veering into cheesy territory, forgive me.. Ah but, I'm glad to have found another little unusual piece of Singapore, and of course, glad for the company. It's always rather funny how people you've known for years remain acquaintances while some people you've met for just awhile become trusted friends.

To end the night, my friend "tumpang"-ed me all the way from Changi to Toa Payoh.. and hey it was such a great experience riding through deserted highways across half of Singapore haha..
The wind, the noise.. And it makes me happy how things and buildings that usually look familiar now just passed as a yellowish blur (dim road lighting, mind you).. I felt like I was in a different Singapore, one more calming, and interesting..

Hm.. I 'kena' the LKY trap, indeed...

Project RLH: April Book List

"Books are for people who wish they are somewhere else."
- Mark Twain

That Mark Twain quote can't be truer.. Hahaha.. Anyway, here are the books finished in the month of April.. Not as many as I would like to due to submission and exams, but still there are really good books among them.

1. The Man Who Loved China - Simon Winchester

2. Chicken Soup For The Soul: My Resolutions - Mark Canfield & Jack Victor Hansen

3. The Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

4. South-east Asia : The Graphic Guide - Mark Elliott (must read for backpackers!)

5. In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan (very interesting book which I wanna write about but haven't gotten the time.. Soon..huhu..)

6. Cambodia - Rough Guides

7. The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten

8. Unkown Capoeira - Mestre Ricardo Cachorro

9. Why The Chinese Don't Count Calories - Lorraine Clissold (It's about Chinese food culture and it's a very good book to curl up with during rainy days..haha.. and now I'm so proud about Chinese food =p )

10. Thailand - D.K Travel Guides

11. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris

12. Edible Aroids -S. Chandra

13. Aroids - Deni Brown

14. The Cultivated Aroids - Monroe Roberts Birdsey

I was in El Paso one afternoon, changing out of my swimsuit, and a young man said, "Excuse me, but aren't you..." When I was changing out of my swimsuit, I mean that I had nothing on. No socks, no T-shirt. My underpants were in hand. I guess the guy recognized me from my book jacket photo. The full length naked one on the back cover of my braille editions.
- David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

-

Sh: "So, you're a vegetarian?"
Me: "Yeah.. but don't worry I'm not standing on a moral high ground.."
Sh: "Religious reason? or personal choice?"
Me: "Choice.. for me it's like we're standing on a junction and you choose to turn left while I turn right..haha.."
L: "Well except there's more food on the left.."
Me: "Yeah.. well..."
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And since we were in a middle-eastern joint, here was a sample pick-up line for a middle-eastern situation, suggested by a fellow CSer:
"I'm the falafel to your shawarma..."

=D