Just 3 hours in 3 days.
May 8, 2010 Me, Myself & I
It felt all sucky, sticky, and shitty when I woke this morning–no, I still don’t blame you Belle–, after a 2 hour slumber, and if not for the incessant licking of one of my cats, Jack, in asking to be fed breakfast, I’m pretty sure I’d probably missed work and slept till afternoon.
But it really began on Wednesday, even though I had enough rest that night.
On Thursday morning, a blitzkrieg salvo of smses meant that the night’s planned project unfortunately had to be stretched, culmnating in whatever little I had to recharge ‘my batteries’ between Friday and Thursday.
What did we do? A poster. A movie poster.
An Avatar movie poster, that never was.
It was completed on Friday night, and it quickly became one of the most captivating ad-hoc project I’ve ever did.
From brainstorming, to conception, to execution, everything moved quickly and it helped that both parties weren’t fans of dilly-dallying on work.
It began with me not agreeing as to how the actual movie poster of Avatar looks like, and so my take that the Blue Alien movie is an essential love story takes centerstage.
It went through a few revisions, a few painted backgrounds before we decided that purple fits best.
Purple is an intelligent, intimate as well as technological, so it was a wise choice on her part.
We couldnt’ borrow James Cameron’s 3D video camera, so we opted for the 3D effect or depth of illusion via paper cut-out and pasting them on top of each other.
It’s not the greatest movie poster ever made, or remotely close to that thought, but I think that it’s a beautiful creation nonetheless, and this from me, a person who sees beauty in the unlikeliest of places.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder right?
Work hogged all of my daytime and early nighttime, and thus I could only afford late nights and wee hours to contribute to this project, and despite the numbness while working at the office, I’m just glad that it manifested well.
It’s been a long, arduous and scintillating journey. One that brought it’s share of scares, concerns and cups of coffee.
But that’s a story for another day, and as of now, it’s time for my overdue beauty sleep.
How I developed a habit of waking up early with a purpose.
Apr 15, 2010 Me, Myself & I
The Accidental Botanist.
I just read an article which teaches how to grow plants and I swear that I’m not turning into a botanist anytime soon, as I stumbled upon it after Googling for “nutrients that plants need”.
The word I was searching for turned out to be Fertilizers, which I eventually read off one of the search result’s pages.
Strangely for a few hours, ‘Fertilizers’ was missing from my head and frantically trying to remember a forgotten term is painfullly irritating, like how you thought you knew a certain phrase a while ago but now just simply unable to put anything to it, the moment that you needed it?
The mind ends up racing in chaos, trying to find that rogue term.
So I was searching for ‘Fertilizers’ because I wanted to start this post with a “These few days, if I was a fledgling plant, it felt as if all my [insert rogue term here] were being taken away from me. — but I ended up with a better gem.
At least I thought it was a gem, because in that article I mentioned earlier, a paragraph mentioned “All plants need these seven things to grow: room, right temperature, light, water, air, nutrients and time.” and I can’t help but to come out with a list of things that a man needs to grow.
And brilliantly ecstatically, I came up with: iPod, EPL, FHM, xbox, DOTA… ok k k.. just kidding.
So where plant needed the 7 things to grow, I was quite certain that we humans too had a list for us to grow, and so I did a simple 15-minute doodling of random stuffs, while watching American Idol. I drew a half eaten cake, some cats, or what might looked like cats, and even doodled a rocket that’s about to launch.
As it turned out, the doodling exercise done on purpose, never really had any purpose, and I was back to when I first asked myself the question: what is it that humans need to grow? Fertilisers?
Like An Epiphany.
Answers like food, family and money are perhaps tangibly more than correct but I wasn’t quite satisfied with them and I looked back at my useless doodles and slowly, I smiled.
I realised that after all that doodling, I was a really bad artist.
Or maybe the pencil wasn’t sharp enough? Bah.
But more importantly, it was also that the doodles didn’t benefit me or developed into anything, that I wished it had. Although I knew I wanted to doodle, I didn’t knew what it was exactly that I really wanted to doodle about.
You see, my doodles weren’t targeted with any purpose, and everything added up, tallied lost and randomness.
As it turns out, there and then, I knew that the answer that’d satisfy me would be…
…read on…
… that humans grow by feeding on purpose!
And not just feeding on purpose, as in feeding with intent to eat and be full, but rather about growing and developing as a whole by having intentions to pursue and missions to complete.
Yes, humans grow by feeding on ‘Purpose’. There, I feel a little satisfied now.
Go Ahead, Take Away My ‘Fertilisers’.
I was just feeling how work have been sapping away my energy lately, forcing me to stay up in the office till late and having to wake real early the next day, so I can rush and cram in more working hours for the day.
I’m never a fan of waking up early, but lo and behold, I’ve been reaching the office before 9am daily, this week, and just to put my point into perspective here, to prove that I’m not gloating about being an early riser or eager-worker, for the past few months I’ve been reaching office between 10am and 11am.
Yep, guilty as charged.
So you could say that just by being in before 9am, was quite a feat for me, and all this after wearily chasing my customers (and vice-versa), after sitting hours at stretch glued to the computer screens and after not having much rest.
I was mentally growing weary with little sleep to go and irregular meals, and so what if it rained mercilessly on me last night, I rode shivering on my bike, in my drenched clothes and shoes, on the way home.
The thing is that I managed to wake up early, shrugging off that desire to catch a 5minute wink.
As it turns out, not long after washing and dressing up, I was off to work — early and purposefully.
I knew I had deadlines to meet and customers to not disappoint, and that somehow propelled me forward.
Waking Up With A Purpose.
I suppose I’ve grown slowly away from that lazy fella who hits the snooze button as often as a certain David Ngog misses the chance to score for Liverpool, and THAT is a hell damn lot.
For a long while I’ve been looking for a magic pill to help me wake up and reach work in time, like others do, and I’ve always envied how they do it, and for the past few days I’m glad that it was no pills nor new ringtone.
I’ll guiltily admit that for a long time I’ve not instilled a purpose to need to reach work early in the morning, but rather to haphazardly just wake up for the sake of waking up.
In the context of this blogpost, in the context of being an early riser and in the context of how to stay refreshed even when you’re sapped of energy, I suppose it helps to have a purpose.
I know it has helped me that little bit more in waking up, getting my engines running and enduring the day.
Go ahead, try waking up with a purpose.
What Weekend?
Mar 8, 2010 Rants
Of course, I’m thankful that there’s a project for us folks at the office and production to be working with, but I certainly wasn’t subscribing for it to take place over the weekend.
The weekend, a time when most of us will be enjoying waking up as late as we ought to, but I had to wake by 9am. No, not because of work though, but because I had a rendez-vouz with Jake Sully and Neytiri at Lido, Shaw House that morning.
Yep, it was Avatar-mania all over again, even if it’s in its 13th week of showing here, it still feels fresh and thankfully, the theatre wasn’t that full, or else my movie experience will be spoiled with blatant ringtones, baby wailings or musings of crackers’ packaging being ripped open.
But I did head back to the office, after the movie to continue with my workload, which somehow bloated up as the weekend approached.
And I guess it made me tick off a customer, or should I add the verb, ‘irritating’ to it, as the fella kept sending me horrendous artworks for print, again and again and again.
Yes, I can be patient, and it has its virtues, but I suppose being firm and direct has its fair share of virtues too. If that fella is too slack to tighten his strings, and starts giving me a hell lot more work than I should be bothered to do, then I make sure hell goes back to where it came from. Fair enough?
This line I’m in, there are just some blokes that aren’t cut out to be here, and I think it’ll even do Singapore’s productivity much good if these deadweights take up another hobby, other than ‘harassing that good looking and helpful FA artist at the printshop’.
On a separate issue, and totally unrelated to these musings above, I think I’ve hit the jackpot in ‘How to become an early riser’, after almost years of battling the sleeping monster everytime my alarm goes off.
I reach office late, EVERYDAY, but a few years back, at my old company, I always come on time. Usually, as latecomers get fined. Heh.
So now I’d have thought that setting my alarm to go off earlier would make me wake up earlier, which it did, but after which I’d only go back to sleep again, considering that there’s time to spare.
Which then leads me to waking up late, and reaching the office late again. Bravo.
BUT I think I’ve done enough to give myself credit, in rising to the challenge of being an early rise, these past 2-3 days, and I’m still fishy if this new technique I’m working on is really working, because if it is, then it’s really really great news.
News which means, I get to work early, get more productive earlier, and gets to go home earlier too!
So just how do I do it?
Well, let’s just say I’m not prepared to reveal much details yet, because I fear it might just sound silly — yes sillier than sending horrendous artworks for print — unless I give it a few more days’ test, to report on its effectiveness.
Awww, you wanna be an early riser too?
PS: Have you seen my blogpost where I muse on who really should be given the Oscar’s Best Picture? Guess you haven’t, so here it is. And the winner for the Best Picture goes to..
