Holy Shit, man! Skyscrapers!
It’s quite inspiring you know, to be faced with this sight each time I clock into office. It’s the view from the URA lift lobbies, eight floors up. I think it kinda makes sense, that urban planners are daily confronted with the realities of the-things-we-do. In the distance, I spot the soft glaring glows of the unseen steel welders of another upcoming tower of glass, and the sociologist in me imagines that it’s probably a slew of Burmese/Vietnamese migrants, silently building the concrete dreams of a city that wasn’t their own.
Ah well.
I’m swamped with upcoming projects. It helps that they’re all massively interesting but I can’t talk about em cause they’re all pretty much hushhush. But I’m foreseeing myself a few weeks down the road, rushing for deadlines and meetings with the multitude of bosses (of whom I loyally report to). Filled with stacks and stacks of architectural blueprints and concept plans under my air-conditioned armpits, rattling off figures of spaces and things, and trying hard not to exclaim in sudden ecstasy (whilst pointing in the distant distance): Holy Shit, man! Skyscrapers!
That. Would not be a good thing.
Because we’re boldest when we’re standing on
Because we’re boldest when we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.
These soulful swaying waves of easy graces, these silent windswept firmaments of stellar collisions.
Here’s to everyone whose been inexplicably entwined with the story of the year:
You see. I’ve graduated liao.
White is Black
With changes in life come changes in virtual life, and so here at theplanktonsociety, we’ve decided to switch up our blogging template, just because.
Anyway.
Some things about my first week as a civil servant:
1: It’s good to know that I’m surrounded by nice bosses and great colleagues. (who also, incidentally, have the propensity to unload and arrow stacks of work in the general direction of Carrick’s Cubicle)
2: It’s also good to know that my office is in the nearby vicinity of some seriously delicious eating places. (of which, some are worth getting lost for, whilst others, not so much)
3: Last night I dreamt that I was at a bar-be-que with several friends and strangers. Random stranger: “Yo why is that Jay Z record blastin’ up in her’; hey that track is da dope my man! Shalt we declares that the prevailing month be ‘Lost, Delirious, but Mirth is the Definitive Legit Terrestrial Currency’ month? Howabout Them Apples, my brother?”
Carrick: “Them apples sound lovely, stranger dude”.
-
That’s all. For now. Next week: Graduation! ORD LOH~
They’ll Be Dancing in Heaven Right About Now
Those shoes, the hat, that glove.
In the end, we’re all molecules. But man, you made it magic. Brilliant, sheer blazing, magic.
It can’t be helped, I think:
I want you back.
Teardrops on the Fire, Fearless on My Breath
the giant robot elephant trampled
through the crowds and splattered
everyone that was in its way
it carried on trampling towards
its destiny and destination as its
huge metallic feet thumped and
bumped and left destruction behind
its exploding waves of manic fury and rage
a campaign of death and determination
when it finally stopped its revolt
the jackhammer surgeons and electrical engineers
found that all that had happened was
a crushing case of inconsequential chaos
-
And half the world away, people are dying in a revolution.
“Why do we call em civil servants?” and other Obscene Displays of Affection
Why do we call em civil servants? Aren’t servants already civil, by definition? Are there uncivil civil servants? Then, there’s no real need for the “civil” is there? unless it’s for emphasis.
Why “servants”? Servants to who? exactly? To the state? To society? Are civil servants civilian? Or are they un-civilian – are they state apparatuses, rogue agents, or secret personnel of a planned robot revolution? Definitely not the last one. At least I’m sure of that.
What do civil servants actually do? Clearly, they serve. What do they serve? Not food, surely? They serve bureaucracy-on-a stick, as either an entrée or a buffet spread. Perhaps. Maybe. Whatever it is, we know how they serve. They serve civil-ly. They don’t serve un-civil-ly. That’ll be problematic. For everyone. At least. I’m sure of that. Yup.
-
Okay. So. I’ve been way too busy these days to bother with blogging. Not that you lot mind. You guys who care and understand and empathize with all the oddities of our wickedly twisted reality. Life gets busy, we’ve all been there before. The big news of late, if you don’t already know, is that I’m officially registered to be an employee of the state. Hence all that philosophical mambo jumbo in the preceding paragraphs.
“Gee Carrick, what’re you gonna be? Tell us Tell us~” comes the inevitable question of the internetz masses.
Welp.
You’re looking at the beginnings of an “urban planner” baby.
Hurrah.
Don’t ask for job specifics, because I haven’t started work yet. That’ll be in a week. I’m hoping what they’ll do is put me in a lab with a workstation together with the entire SimCity collection + expansion sets, and say “Thou shalt play em games, and write weekly reports on your progress! Good luck~ Don’t fuck up (or we’ll fire your ass ina no-time)! P.S.: Ignore the Invading Aliens.”
In retrospect, I guess all those days spent playing with simulation games were well worth the effort huh.
In any case, I’ll be over at da URA offices for the better part of the next 3 years, so if you’re in the locale, you know who to holler at for impromptu lunch meetings. The first 5 lucky callers will get a lifetime supply of email spam, an open letter regarding the psychotic weather patterns of Singapore, and a ziplock of poignant happy-sad memories. And if it so happens that I’d pack an apple for lunch that day, I may even throw it forcefully in your general direction. Don’t forget to catch, champs!
The Decadent Lifestyles of the Passive-Aggressive Scientists
The yellow-suited radioactive nuclear physicists had just crashed through the wall with their Giant Time-Space Master Blaster(tm) and were trying their best to look inconspicuous beside the pink Palaeolithic Russian hippopotamus. Edward squinted over his box of multicoloured Mardi Gras apparel and went “?”
“Ah,” said one of the unknown men, “look here, see, we can, I mean, I, can, explain-”
“George please,” interrupted a slightly more burly compatriot, “it’s obvious that the last quadratic monograph calculations were wrong. In any case, we should adjourn from the scene of the, aha, incident ASAP. There is no inherent need for explanatory verbatims to passersby. Let’s just reset the thing…here. QED. Now. Time to bid au revoir. Monsieur~”
And before Edward could raise a point of inquiry, the preposterous time travelling scientists were off, the hole in the wall mysteriously replaced by a troupe of disingenuous Danish standup comedians.
For a moment, there was a moment of awkward silence.
Followed by an awkward shuffling of feet.
Then, there was just general awkwardness.
Reserve the Summer Trains; Tonight We Blast Off to the Holy Spaceland of Infinite Eventuality
Apologies for not posting sooner. I’m still reeling from last Friday’s release of results. I’ve also been busy notifying the appropriate people about the news.
Still.
A weekend of constant social interaction, strenuous workouts involving climbing indiscrete hills, and several design projects later, and I’m still left feeling rather high…ever since I’d clicked that NUS results page, and saw this:
In truth, my honours thesis was 4 years in the making. The cumulative journey of waddling through all those lectures and tutorials, with the accompanied experiences of close friends and even closer acquaintances, had ultimately led to an utterly unexpected A+.
I couldn’t have done it without the people involved in my life story, here at NUS.
The profs, the Masters students, the seniors. The Arts camp people (who’re matriculating the newest batch of freshies this week~), the Arts rag people. The people I knew from my Gems and Breadths, the people I knew from my UEs. The people I knew from SEP. And the Sociology people, of course.
That said, I now know what it feels like to come out a winner. How Obama felt when the last ballots were accounted for. How Peter Jackson felt when the call came in for Best Director. And. How the Rag 08 people felt when they finally won the Top Float award.
It’s the feeling of having done your best, going through hell, and coming out the other side freshly minted; the smell of freedom rain pouring over your tired shoulders and your soul released from everything-ness into complete nirvana.
I’ll tell you how it feels: It Feels Pretty Damn Farking Gooood.
Ok lah. Enough of that ego trippin’ shit.
I’ll be taking the rest of the week off for celebrations and whatnot. And then it’s back down to earth, and finding employment in this financial muck of an economy. Ah yes, Reality. You’re an intense flirt, you are.
A Half Dozen Nightmares on Monday
1.
In Maine, Arthur James Ashcroft sleeps. He dreams a dream of an infinite number of deaths. Each time Arthur awakes, screaming and kicking (his entire body covered in sweat and tears), he is greeted with a death more brutal than the last.
2.
In Birmingham, Hank Holtz sleeps. He dreams a dream of being cocooned alive. Hank is blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed. As he lays still in the darkness, he feels the slow itching transformations of his body as it morphs into something large and insectoid.
3.
In Chengdu, Qinglei Xu sleeps. She dreams a dream of a monster beside her bed. The monster is large and silent, and awaits for her to wake. When she opens her eyes, it pounces onto her face, engulfing her with its mouth and suckling tendrils.
4.
In Mexico City, Miguel Ortiz de Domínguez sleeps. He dreams a dream of losing his son. Lost in a nondescript meat grinding factory, standing on a conveyor belt that stretches the room, Miguel is surrounded by a thousand replicas of his son without their eyes. In the distance, his unseen son cries out for him as the line moves towards the violent processing machine at the end.
5.
In Paris, René Perrault sleeps. He dreams a dream of being an immortal. He sees the formation of the rivers and mountains, and the arrival of the first sailing ships. By this century, weary from time, he is in desperation for death, and spends every day attempting suicide, but to no avail.
6.
In Canberra, Beth Streeton sleeps. She dreams a dream of reality in its fullest. She sees the wars and hunger and disease. She hears the crying and pleading and gunshots. She feels the first wave of radiation as the nuclear projectiles are activated and launched. In her bed, Beth cries for the passing of humanity.
