East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Once upon a time, my father and mother bought the 'World's Best Fairy Tales' from the Reader's Digest magazine subscription. It was already old when I started to read it at the age of 7. It was beige in colour (not sky blue like the picture here) and had spots on the cover and dust from the silverfishes hiding in its spine. I read the book from cover to cover and looked at the beautiful watercolour illustrations for each story again and again.

One day my aunt asked me, "Which story is your favourite?"

I had thought long and hard about it and I decided that the story I liked best was 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon'.

I liked it because

a. The long title sounded sophisticated
b. The heroine in the picture was the prettiest of all
c. I empathised with the girl in the story who couldn't get what she wanted

My aunt asked me 'why' and so I told her.


A long, long time passed. I grew up, my parents and my aunt grew wrinkles and spots and the story from the book became another buried childhood memory. The book itself mysteriously disappears - either magicked itself away or thrown out by my mother and father or buried in the dust somewhere in the many piles of stuff in my house.

One day, another book came into my hands and told me "Read this fairy tale again: East of the Sun and West of the Moon!". Compelled to obey, I go on the internet and Google.

Lo! and behold! Knowledge and memory comes back to me like a trumpet blast. I like the story now because:

a. East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a Scandinavian fairy tale. It is Norwegian: collected by Peter Christensen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. The Swedish version is called Prince Hat under the Ground. It is about the search for a lost husband - Aarne-Thompson type 425A - similar to the Beauty and the Beast
b.The heroine was the bravest of all - she looked beyond appearances and accepted a monster (a white bear) as her husband
d. I sympathised with the girl in the story

With that, so ends my fairy tale.

Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out.

You can read the story in Surlalune Fairytales here

The Origin of Love (Hedwig and The Angry Inch)

-by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask

One of the greatest movie songs of all time....



When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love

And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

The Bud of Umea

Day 1: Just getting started...



Day 10: Gaining confidence...


Day 18: All dressed and ready to go!

The Year of B Movies and Horror

I'd say this year was the year of Horror and B Movies which was an interesting watch. Threw in a few mainstream and animation to balance out all the B-ness of it all. Nevertheless I appreciate the different viewpoint i.e. campiness is fun.

2008 Viewings in No Particular Order:

Finishing the Game: The Search for the New Bruce Lee (2007)
Enchanted (2007)
Braindead (1992)
Eumranseosaeng - Forbidden Quest (2006)
Muoi (2007)
Chakushin ari - One Missed Call (2003)
Gwoemul- The Host (2006)
Black Sheep (2006)
Eagle vs Shark (2007)
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007)
Bee Movie(2007)
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
[Rec] (2007)
Fido (2006)
Cube (1997)
Into the Wild (2007)
Saw (2004)
Creepshow (1982)
Creepshow 2 (1987)
The Blob (1988)
The Stuff (1985)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Martin (1977)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day of the Dead (1985)
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Dellamore Dellamorte (1994)
Bride of Reanimator (2003)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
The Changeling (1980)
The Birds (1963)
Citizen Kane (1941)
They Wait (2007)
The Mist (2007)
Silent Hill (2006)
Gedo Senki:Tales from Earthsea (2006)
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
The Wicker Man (1973)
House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Juno (2007)
Little Children (2006)
Fragile (2005)
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004)
Dreamgirls (2006)

Tiger in a Cage

The tiger you see madly pacing its cage is nevertheless preoccupied by something that a human would certainly recognize as a thought. And this thought is a question: Why

'Why, why, why, why, why, why,' the tiger asks itself hour after hour, day after day, year after year. It cannot analyze the questions or elaborate on it. If you were somehow able to ask the creature, "Why what?" It would be unable to answer you.

Nevertheless this question burns like an unquenchable flame in its mind, inflicting a searing pain that does not diminish until the creature lapses into a final lethargy that zookeepers recognize as an irreversible rejection of life.

And of course this questioning is something that no tiger does in its normal habitat.

- in 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn

Spring Days

Winter died in Umea on April 15th, 2008. I remembered it exactly as last Tuesday cos I woke up and the snow mysteriously evaporated overnight and the sun was shining and the sky and endless blue. The sun continued to shine till today thus I'd expect spring was here for good. This change was sudden as it was snowy and grey not a few days ago; and strange for me being from a tropical country with its eternal steamy summers.

Suddenly people started to act strange; they'd begin to sit outside and bask in the sun despite the still chilly weather. Everyone wanted to go outside, like worms being unearthed waving their bodies about. Then there'd be a million runners about in the evening walks.

Suddenly the birds were everywhere; seagulls, terns, crows, finches. You'd hear them bursting into song when it was silent among the trees none too long ago. A flock of birds sail through the air, not a cloud in the sky.

Suddenly there'd be the smell of shit in the air. Serious smells, like the kind you get in stables and farms..maybe it's earth but I don't know the difference. Then you feel like burning something for a bbq.

Yes, goodbye Cold, Enter sun...

Ronnie Taheny

I just admire singer-songwriters like Australian Ronnie Taheny. I knew about her through Joe for a songwriting project in school. I got her wonderful "Ronnie and her Bloody DVD" and watched it hungrily. She reminds me of that character who went off into the wild in Alaska. Wild, wandering, evanescent, generous, and beautiful. Her performances are power packed and assailing. Go and watch her, and you'll know what I mean. Great music too bordering between rock, folk and pop but never any of these.

Her lyrics are deep - in fact the best part of her songs. When asked about a good song, lyrics is what she's particular about....and she's damn right about great songs (see an excerpt of her song 'Photograph' below)

Touring extensively all over Europe now, she was in Germany when I got hold of her. I'd love to go to one of her gigs and see her live but I have to make do with her DVD now...LOVE YOU RONNIE!


Photograph

Of all the days you keep

which ones keep you from your sleep?

Ones you’'d call your photograph?


A phase that comes and goes

while deep inside the emptiness grows,

Proof of your own photograph.

I'’m tired and I'’m worn-out

and it seems I’ve lost myself a reason

For trying to stick it out.



I say I'’m civilised which means

I'’m a savage in disguise,

A dark tormented other half.

And this crusade I’m in wakes an ancient voice

that sleeps within,


Destroying my own photograph.

I'’m tired and I'’m worn-out

and it seems I'’ve lost myself a reason

For trying to stick it out.



But I will live, each day I live

in the hope that I'’ll find my own photograph.

And I will live, each day I live

in the hope that I’ll find my own photograph.

My Pet Pig

This is Pigg
Pigg is round
Pigg likes to eat
Pigg eats chocolate frogs
Pigg likes to eat bamboo
Pigg also likes to eat candy
Pigg dislikes chips
Pigg also dislikes eating truffles
For some reason Pigg likes Pork buns
Maybe Pigg is a cannibal
Or even worse, a zombie
Because zombies are blue and so is Pigg
Zombie Pigg doesn't look happy
Maybe Zombie Pigg wants to eat other Piggs

Favicon, Flavicon, Fiovicon

OK FYI in case you were wondering, I didn't get sick after eating the snow and it's been 24 hours already. Nevertheless I had a great time eating that thingy.

I've been tinkering on my blog - didn't like the "Tic Tac" template provided by Blogger 'cause the margins were too wide so I thought I'd follow the 3 column-style provided by this great blog (Tips for New Bloggers) Special thanks to Jiann for recommending this site who's got a nice blog himself too.

The thing that kept me most occupied was trying to figure out how to make the Favicon show. In case u didn't know, a Fav - Eye -Con is the little piccy next to your url in the address page. I made my own out of Paint and generated it as an .ico file on any free Online Favicon Generator searchable on Google. (it's a blue frog in case u were wondering) . Thought of ripping some cartoon off Google Search Image but it was more fun to create one to fla-vi-con my blog. Sometimes the thing doesn't show for reasons unknown - so if you're reading this, do me a favour and tell me if it's still there. There are loads of rubbish sites out there (decepti-Cons) and I couldn't figure out why it didn't show. Apparently Blogger rejects .ico files unless you've uploaded one in your cache in googlepage creator. And another quirk is that Googlepages can't recognize the file if it's called 'Favicon'. So if u plan to upload your .ico file, rename it.

Ice Kacang in Umea

What do u do when it snows like crazy and you've got peanuts in your cupboard? Make some 'Ice kacang' of course.

"Snow Nuts" translated literally is a popular Malaysian dessert in all its sugary, unhealthy glory. After coming back from Scharinska at 11pm, had a whim to eat some snow so I went out with a bowl and went to a spot where I thought there'd be the cleanest snow - on an outdoor table where no dog could reach.

Before that I filled the bottom with corn, peanuts and jam. After scooping some snow, I poured some dark corn syrup on it...yummy.

Famous Traitors

Judas Iscariot

George W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

People who don't follow their dreams

Marcus Junius Brutus

Brad Pitt

Mary Queen of Scots

Anakin Skywalker

Sandy Stranger

Briony Tallis

Xenophobia

After being in Europe for 16 months: 1/3 divided almost equally between 3 different `European`countries , personally this author feels that an important part of the experience has yet to be spoken about. Not to downplay the positive aspects of the course, the one thing that none of us have really mentioned was the sometimes unpleasant incidences of discrimination felt.

Some examples:

Incident 1:

A few of us boarded a bus to go to school from the apartment. None of us spoke the language as it was within the first few days of our arrival. One of us (who was dark skinned and obviously looking foreign) was poked on the shoulder by a male passenger on the bus. The passenger pointed at our friend and indicated him to move away . At first our friend thought it was a friendly gesture, but then it seemed apparent that the passenger was gesturing him to ´go and stand in the corner away from me´. Our friend quietly moved away without a fuss. Another one of us who spoke a little of the language was cheesed at this and told the gentleman ´The bus is for EVERYBODY´

Incident 2:

One of us related about an experience at the post office. Although she didn’t speak the language, she attempted to buy stamps by saying ´francobollo´. The lady at the counter was not very happy and pointed at another counter. Apparently they didn’t sell stamps at the main counters in the post office. Upon arriving at the correct counter, she attempted again to buy stamps. The gentleman behind the counter was also quite unhappy for no apparent reason and showed it by throwing the change on the counter at the poor girl.

Although the above incidences seem trivial, the sum of such occurrences in the life of the foreign student in Europe is stressful and ugly.

According to Piper in Boxill (2001), when we say a person is a discriminating person, we mean that he/she has refined tastes and subtle convictions: that he/she exercises the capacity to make fine distinctions of a thing and base positive and negative valuations on these actual properties. However judging a person inferior based on race, is a failure of perception to distinguish finely the properties he/she has or has not i.e. which is also a failure to meet the challenge of cognitive discrimination by confining the range of judgement to those objects and properties to only known pre-existing categories and concepts.

It would seem naïve to say that the world has progressed and racism and discrimination are being tackled especially in ´developed´ nations what with ´globalisation´ and international-understanding-whatnots tiding the foray. However the level and intensity is still surprising despite the ´supposed´ advancement of these societies.

All in all, cognition does not win over emotion still.

References:
Piper, A.M.S., 2001, ´Two Kinds of Discrimination´ in Boxill, B., (ed) Race and Racism, New York: Oxford University Press

White Teeth

Snow quietly fell overnight as if God tipped gigantic amounts of vanilla sugar everywhere. It's all white and powdery and looks prettiest on the giant trees. Feels like Christmas' in the air even though the end of February is approaching. I like walking in it the most i.e. feeling my foot sink into the stuff, jumping, stomping around in it but risk looking like a stoner stumbling on the sidewalk. Sometimes feel like yelling 'whee' and throw myself in mounds of pristine unbroken snow or maybe scooping some and putting it in my mouth. Rule no 1 of eating snow is, 'Don't eat yellow snow' which are always canine-markings saying 'MY space'...Some are just splats on white but I saw some funny ones today in undulating waves like some crazy art doodle, then realized it was the poor dog trying to keep up with his walker while spraying. Other wise, snow is great. Never get tired of it.

Zombie

Zombie - "is a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will"

Last week was Zombie-Marathon week. Watched 7 zombie movies within 2 days, namely the 3 seminal Romero classics (Night of the Living Dead (1968),Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985)) and the brilliant Shaun of the Dead. Fell asleep with visions of flesh eating dead scrounging for the flesh of the living.

Useless fact 1: To kill a zombie. shoot them in the head or smash the brains.
Useless fact 2: Zombies don't move very fast so you can outrun them.

There's even a Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.Very detailed stuff on zombie causes, strategic tactics on fighting zombies, defending against zombies, attacking zombies etc. (you get the drift)

Rue the day you watch a B grade slasher films but the zombie genre is somewhat addictive. Zombie information is rampant out there and you begin to wonder if they are real. Too late, you realize after watching all those zombie movies, that you've become one your self. Mwah hah hah

Finding MSPME

Thus ends the MSPME 2006/2007 course. It has been a wonderful, tumultous, roller-coaster 16 months for the 26 souls who braved leaving their families, jobs and homes to arrive in Europe in 2006.


Hedi and myself attended the final theses seminar which belonged to Vara and Bharad which incidently was the last session in the whole course at 5pm on January 15th, 2008 in Room S305. Especially difficult to fathom as we had laboured over so many hours of classes, assignments and case studies.


All of us successfully received our Masters degree in hand at our graduation dinner on the 16th of February 2008 with a nice dinner and ceremony at E Pub. The co-ordinators from each university i.e. Dr Paul Gardiner from Heriot Watt University, Prof. Antonio Calabrese from MIP Politecnico di Milano, Prof. Anders Soderholm, Tomas Blomqvist and Monica Palmqvist from Umea University witnessed this moment which was pretty nice. The miracle of the moment according to Anders was actually seeing this event happen after years of planning for the course. It took so much time to co-ordinate and wait that they(the co-ordinators) were beginning to wonder if any students would come at all.



Words can say so much and it's impossible to express the precious moments in the past 16 months. Many tears were shed and sad good byes said in the last few weeks. A course-mate smsed me after returning home saying "We were not just coursemates, we have become family"



Last week my Creative Songwriting group wrote and arranged a song within 2 days which I find pretty fitting. So I've made a short presentation on my personal-view of the last 16 months with it.

Finding

Travelling in the space
Of your open mind
You will find a place
See what lies behind
And when
You see a glimmering
You just find

Bridge

Silence
Can bring out your art
Listen
You will feel your part
And when
You hear your heart
You will find

ps. Special thanks to Malin, Maja, Amanda, Olov and Elina for this track (it was all recorded live on a little mp3 player therefore apologies for the sound quality)

2008 Curriculum Vitae

Fiona Wan...professional pole dancer, song-writer and musician. Manages musical and movie projects with international training in project management in the UK, Italy and Sweden. Extensive marketing and sales experience in financial services in the Asian Markets. For consultation call +46 7 333 1357

The New Year

Here we are, another year before us.

The year 2007 has been the first time I've spent the entire year away from Malaysian soil. It was a year of firsts for me. And it was two fold.

I spent a lot of the year in self-reflection. And I found a lot in giving to others and also in being comfortable with solitude.

I spent the New Year in a rather unexpected way. It was a nice surprise too.

While surfing I came across an apt quote: "The best way to predict the future is to INVENT it" How apt.

My MSPME Experience

"How are you na?" says Jasmine. "Na" being the Indian equivalent to the particle "Lah" like how Malaysians do.

"Ok la....whassup?" says me

"How's theses getting along?"..says Bakthier. Yeah theses, writing, assignments. Trust the Uzbeks to get serious or un-serious like Kirrill....and dammit I still don't know how to spell his name.

"OK.Going to IKSU later...jajajaja"...says Isaac. 'Jajaja' is the Mexican way of saying "Hahahaha"...you know cos the 'J' is a 'H' in Spanish...don't ask me why.

'Snap snap snap' sound in the background. It's Hedieh doing her hand thing ...I am not sure if it is an Iranian thing as I've never seen it before. Ernesto, the Prada-clad-always fashionably dressed-Mexican is very adept at doing it now.

There's a wailing sound in the background...like a very excited cat or a howling dog. It's actually Minh when he's all worked up about something. I am not sure if all Vietnamese sound like that but Nga (the little wonder) and Tau (the wisest among us all) doesn't make that noise. But I've heard Vilma do it too....so it must be Filipino in origin.

"Haaa....another cake ?"...says Amy. She's seen the amount of cakes on the table.

"Yeeeeeeehh..." says Meng. She's the sweety in the group - sweet like a smartie and likes cakes too. Meng also has the funnniest MSN messages next to her nick...today it is saying "Dear Santa, I need a final theses"...don't we all.

"At least someone eats the cake....no one has eaten the pasta" says The Queen (who is always right)

"Hey watch it....No one is going home without finishing the pasta" says Han (the Malaysian guy)

"Don't worry Han, I will eat all the pasta for you" says Philip.(Hahahahah) Philip will eat for a friend, you can count on him. Duo Li our other Chinese compatriot might not though....he once told me "You shouldn't eat food when it's cold. The salt in the food will stay in your stomach"

In the corner, a conversation is taking place:

Ghaz: What? Who said that?
Vara: (Shaking his head from side to side - which is either a yes, no or I don't know)
Bimal: This is Bimal.
Vanessa: I don't get it!
Jene: To hell with it, let's dance!


In the other corner, a drinking session is taking place:

Tiago: Hahahhahaha
Priscilla: Hahahahaha

And there goes yet another MSPME party.Lots of good food cleared from its plates....dishes piled on the table. Someone usually washes. We laugh and joke about stuff that happened in class. Take lots of pictures.....We were ordinary people with extraordinary talents. Ate a lot, shopped a lot, traveled a lot, worked a lot, studied a lot, partied a lot,shared a lot....26 people from 12 nations...who dragged 1500 kg of luggage all over Europe, baked 122 cakes, had 49 birthday parties, missed 52 flights, spent 2000EUD on shopping, stayed in 330 different hostels, dirtied kitchens in Milan, Edinburgh and Umea, submitted 780 assignments, wrote 395 exam papers.....If that wasn't a whole lot, I don't know what is.

Guess I have to make another video about this (Fiona, 2007)

Christmas in Stockholm

Twas the eve before Christmas
Lit candles cos it was cold
Cleaned the room a few days ago
Washed out dust and mould

Its quiet around here
Just the plumbing a-whirring
Nobody in the corridor
No student a-stirring

Another day in December
Named Christmas so seeming
Apparently celebrated widely here
but not without meaning

The city awaited
The white-driven snow
All that blanketed Stockholm
Was frost, freeze and thaw

Frenzied shoppers rushing
On Drottninggatan; Vallingby
bumping each other like pinballs
Siau-wei, like for free

So sitting here in the room
Overlooking the city
The lights wink back at me
Saying a calm and peaceful

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Stockholm Syndromes

Hanging out with Sezar in Stockholm has been funny...was in Drottninggatan with his mate Stefan for a meal..It was a surreal evening where we discussed books, the theory of evolution in relation to specks, how wasted time is also karmic, procrastination is sitting in front of the tv and growing a belly which is the same as showing sacrificial love so you could tell your mate ´I did it for you´.

All the while I had a view of a dimly lit shelf of tiger striped and cheetah faux fur while a little girl with a Santa hat came around asking for letter for Santa and we gave her our receipts. Out the window it was cold but people were still walking around finishing up the Christmas shopping. I had a view of the door to AIG Europe.

The importance of recognizing the signs came to mind.