My picture book

As I’ve kept this site mainly picture-free and mostly painted in words, here’s a little visual/audio peek into my world – My Picture Book

Guess…who’s coming??

Val is! Together with Jasmine!
Soooo uber-excited!
Planning an entire list of places to take them to on their 3-week escapade to the Paris of South America…is about the best distraction from work and other things clogging my mind.

On another note, watched La Bomba del Tiempo (literally: the timebomb) perform for the first time. a group of 30+ performers-musicians taht play to improvised rhythms directed by invited guests. Really awesome – best thing to do on a Monday night after a long day of working on an Argentine public holiday – can’t think of anything that could have beaten three hours of standing watching this amazing group perform. I felt so energized, so inspired to watch them grooving in their element, in a job they love and that brings so much joy to those watching. Totally made my Monday.

La medida del amor, es amar sin medida..

Today we celebrate Abuela’s birthday (after being born 82 years ago on May 26, 1929).

It’s really quite amazing to be able to share the company of someone who has reached that milestone in life and can say she’s been through the Great Depression, World War Two, the birth of the Internet, the widespread epidemic of addiction to computers, as well as the rise and fall or Argentina’s economy. For someone who has lived substantially in two different centuries (almost the majority on one and at least a decade in another), she must have to right to speak about the flaws and benefits of the many generations she has been a part of and contributed to. I think her mind must be like a mega hard disk drive with coves of knowledge, secrets, observations, experiences that a person of my age and generation will not be able to comprehend.

It’s a great honour to have her tell me stories about the past, about the way people lived, her advice, her little quotes of wisdom, her funnily honest comments, and to eat her love-cooked food. She’s one of the people I love the most in Argentina, (among many others that make me realize this place is also home, despite all the complaints I have, and despite the fact that I see my real family once in an entire year). She reminds me of my grandmother, who feeds me with an abundant amount of food each time I visit her because that’s their way of showing love, in the little things, despite being able to understand the world of technology and fast-paced lifestyle my generation thrives on.

One of the first phrases Abuela quoted me in my visit to Buenos Aires in 2008 was -
“La medida del amor, es amar sin medida”.
This translates into – The measure of love, is to love without measure..

I suppose if after an entire life of seeing war, depression, transitions and death, if someone like Abuela tells you to keep on loving the world, it is worth doing so. I hope she has many many more years on earth, to keep enlightening people and brightening their days everytime she sees them.

Feliz Cumple Abuela, te quiero muchisimo.

Couple of things

i miss having a home thats really mine.
miss that circle of friends you can call anytime and know they’re yours
miss being in a country that I love more than complain about
miss my family, because no matter what, no other family can replace yours

kinda homesick, that’s about it

Life is a movie of countless frames

To direct: to point direction
Direction: position or manner to follow to reach destination
Destination: goal, aim, final place of intention

Co-director: Someone who directs a project together with another
Project: piece of work, art, fruit of a labour
Another: A person other than the original person, proof that human beings are sociable, not meant to live in isolation

Co-direct my life with me. May every frame have both our signatures imbedded, that every viewer sees the fruit of the labour that is my life.

Rhema: For out of you will flow rivers of living waters, that shine ever brighter into the darkness.

Definitely, Maybe

Yes, definitely, maybe, my sister Val will make her grad trip down South to Buenos Aires and spend some weeks or even a month here! The thought just thrills me, not just because I get some Singaporean company, but also cos it’s been a REALLY LONG WHILE since we spend celebrated our ya-ya sisterhood!

WOOHOO!! Definitely. Maybe. Definitely!
Look at Val and I supporting Ron in our Lim Family cheerleading squad!!

B/W, all over again.

Isn’t the combination of black, white and an astonishing burst of colours so damn beautiful?
I love how words paint the pictures in our minds, and then when you think you can’t imagine anymore, there you have it, the picture, all perfect.

Colour.Me.Beautiful

Letter to a stranger

Hey you, yes you sitting on the sidewalk with your half-broken sneakers and mud-stained face. What are you staring at? What has captured your attention so much you look half-dazed half-awake with your eyes opened? How does it feel to sit on the floor, hands out, begging for money every day of your life? I often wonder as I walk by you, if you understood the definition of “dignity”, or if perhaps in the dictionary of your life, such a word never existed, doesn’t exist, and never will? What does it feel to have your pleas for some coins completely ignored, or have passersby move that one little inch away, a small yet obvious act of rejection and clear intent of avoidance? Are you stoned to the looks of disgust thrown your way by people who cannot understand your lack of effort to live a better life, or have you just hardened your broken heart because some previous event has smashed it to bits you are now just held by the glue of trying to live day-to-day?

Don’t look away stranger, I see you, sitting at that café day after day, always dressed to the nines in your elegant boots and damn fine trench, your make up always perfect, like your gaze, a frozen lake on a midwinter night. Yet something about the flawlessness of your posture and gestures seems to hang a hammer over you, as if you were about to crack under the slightest bit of pressure. What is it that I can’t seem to identify in you, that makes me return over and over again to decipher the puzzle my eyes just saw? That’s it, I know now, its this impeccably stunning air of sadness that surrounds your, so dark that it seems to be glowing, as if it were emanating from your very presence. Your large sorrowful eyes, doleful and all-knowing, which throw side glances every once in a while, as if you were watchful of a potential stalker, yet no one ever comes up to you, except for the waiter, who cannot avert your beauty, but at the same time looks terrified of you. What is it that draws my attention, and so many others, that lures but repels, that loosens then tightens, that simply cannot be defined?

How about you then stranger? The guy whose blog I read once in a while, but pictures show a lot more about himself than words ever would. I love those bright light-saturated photos, taken off a street in Paris, New York, or even Korea. The styles of the people you encapsulate in your lenses vary to such extents there is no way to categorize them. But each of them has a light-heartedness that is part self-confidence and part whimsicalness. The pictures inspire me, but not so much in the sense of taking professional pictures, but more to put things into pictures through black and white words that spill from my imagination and observations of life.

There are a thousand strangers I would love to talk to or just write a letter to, but today just three. I’ll speak to you again.

Blood is thicker than water, isn’t it?

When a family holds strong, united, it’s a covalent bond that can’t be broken, but the moment there are cracks in the surface and the tear is apparent, has it become an ionic bond that can be easily broken and never fixed back again?