the Rain in S'pore

video by me, music by Melody Gardot (c) Verve Records 2009

Airplanes

So many flights in the next six weeks. A few nights ago I went on a booking frenzy, adding something like five flights to my travel itinerary. It took me a long time to figure out where I would be going over the holiday, what with the flooding in Thailand making my original plans potentially infeasible. Eventually I narrowed down my options to either India or the Philippines. I chose the Philippines in the end, which means I'll be getting a beach vacation before I head back home (I hear it's been snowing in the Okanagan? Yay?). So, here's what my next six weeks look like:

• November 13th, fly to Macau
• November 14th, ferry to Hong Kong
• November 18th, fly to Singapore
• November 23rd, first exam
• November 24th, second exam
• November 30th, third and fourth exams
• December 4th, fly to Cebu
• December 5th, fly to Puerto Princesa, bus to El Nido
• December 12th, bus to Puerto Princesa, fly to Kuala Lumpur via Manila
• December 13th, fly to Siem Reap
• December 15th, fly to Kuala Lumpur, fly to Singapore
• December 17th, fly to Vancouver via Shanghai

AIEAH.


image by √oхέƒx™

Music Monday: for the Soldiers

Today isn't November 11th. In fact, Remembrance Day isn't until the end of the week. But that doesn't matter. We've set aside that day to remember our fallen, but our memories and silence are just as potent any other day of the week or year.

A brief introduction to the artist, Shawn Hlookoff. He's a rising British Columbian talent who came to international attention with the release of this song. I remember discovering him as an artist through the local newspaper, and then watching him perform on the Legislature lawn for BC Day celebrations.

It's strange not being in Canada right now, not only because of the seasonal lack I rambled about earlier, but because I have yet to see one of those ubiquitous red poppy pins. Those are another mark of the autumn season, one that, though welcome, is always bittersweet to see.

I don't really want to say much in this post, so I'll leave you with the video below. I hope everyone's celebrations this week go well, and that this song is made meaningful.

Fall Ramblings

I miss autumn.

I want to wear pants and sleeves, I want to put on a toque and a jacket, I want to shiver in the line for Tim Hortons coffee or hocho. The lack of a cool season here is leaving me very confused; I've been here more than three months but it still feels like summer. The weather is still warm, the beach still beckons, and the sole jacket I brought (more of a windbreaker, really) sits unused in my modest closet.

I'm trying to cope, though, to trick myself into believing that it really is fall. I've switched out playlists, swapping the club beats, remixes, mashups, and electropop anthems with more fitting musical offerings of jazz, acoustic, and stripped down vocal performances. It's not Music Monday yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this new list heavily features KT Tunstall, Jamie Cullum, Melody Gardot, and Kings of Convenience. Give 'em all a look, although each will likely make an appearance in the MM posts within the next few months.

Despite my longing for autumn months back home, I'm rather disappointed that I have to leave Singapore so soon. I've only got six more weeks here, three of which will be spent travelling. There's just so much I haven't done yet that I want to fit in: the Singapore Flyer, Marina Barrage, Henderson Wave, East Coast Park, Pulau Ubin. And then there's all the travel I want to do as well. Guess I'll have to come back to Southeast Asia in a few years, eh?

images by masochismtango, blmier2, and Blakkos

5K Recap

I've recently hit a milestone of 5000 page views. Hurrah for me! To celebrate this momentous occasion I'm taking a look back through my most popular posts.

First, though, some thank-you's are in order. Ana Cristina, thanks for sending almost 500 hits my way! Also deserving is Burndtree, who has boosted my traffic with almost 200 hits from his blog. Combined, you two rival Google in terms of traffic sources! Now for that recap.
 
Making Connections - Molly Millions and Quorra receives tonnes of hits daily from Google image searches, with almost 600 page views to date! In it I looked at the similarities between a character in William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and the recent "Tron: Legacy" film. It was a short post, rather hastily put together, and something I will likely expand on when I get back to Canada.
 
Tattoo three, Round two puzzles me with it's place as the number two most visited post on my blog. According to the stats from Blogger, I can once again thank Google image search for this one, with most search terms looking for phoenix or Russian tattoos. Oddly, though, my follow-up post with actual photos of the finished work has little relative traffic. Huh.
 
Zouk is a post from my early days in Singapore, back when I still had lots of time to spend exploring the popular clubs each weekend (not that I don't now, hah). This post is popular because it was posted on the Zouk Facebook page as a look into the Ang Moh (read: foreign) perspective of the popular Mambo Jambo craze. I should probably go back before I ship out!

My True Colours was the third post on my blog, and a long one. Most of the hits come from people looking for the True Colors personality test (durr). It was something we did as part of our RA experience, and the results have proved to be almost creepily accurate. I'm still as green as ever, with little if any blue. If you haven't taken the test before, I highly recommend it. Share it around, too; it's cool to see how your friends (and family!) compare to you.

Well, those are my four most looked at posts, each with at least 100 views. Of course, the stats can't account for posts viewed as a part of the homepage.

In closing, I'd like to put it out there that I've signed up for Tumblr, a micro-blog. I'm not actually blogging on it, but more-or-less just using it for what most Tumblr do: post random tidbits from the interwebs that they found interesting/comical/cute/rad. So it's not a blogging replacement, but rather a companion to this blog. Or something like that.

second image by deadinsane, third image by unknown, fourth image by @llie's @ttic, all other images created by me.