When its not right

I have to learn to sit down and listen to the voices inside.
When things don't feel right, it means something is not going the right direction.
Or some people might put it that GOD has a better plan for you.

And if GOD really has a better plan for me, then i shall patiently wait.

My house and Cancer

I remembered the stale air that filled our house. From the last few weeks when he absolutely didn't want to eat or talk till the last few days when nothing was heard from him till after he passed away, the house had this strange stale air which stayed around till ... we moved back in 1995. I could not remember the reason why mom and i moved to Granma's. But Granma took care of us, i grew up there, found happiness there and slowly recovered. For some reason, the energy in our house was back. It was filled with the teenage laughter and happiness built by friends.

Death is a scarry and painful process. Why do we have to go through it?

I hate to talk about this but i ask questions like how does a person deal with death? How is the process like? What is in a person mind when he is going through death? Is it scarry? Is it worrying?

How did i deal with it? How did i deal with my dad going through cancer? How did i deal with it from the first day it was diagnosed till the day he left on the 17th November 1990?

All these years, everthing had become very cloudy to me.

And of course, now, its all coming back.

My Fathers

What can i say? They are equally difficult. They love their jobs to death. They are perfectionists. They never talked much. They believe in hard work and they attend to every single detail.

My Father

I never knew him well. I only know that he worked most of his life. He dedicated his life to it and he probably never regretted it. But, one thing for sure, he loved me dearly.

There are only a few good memories with him that i remember.

I turned 10 one year and he and mom were too busy at work to celebrate with me. He phoned back and said :" Ba Ba can't make it back to celebrate with you, but i promised that i will bring you to eat western food coming weekend." Westen food was big deal back in the 80s. It was luxury and i loved it. He was a man who delivered promises. I had my Faber Castell that weekend. 1988, i was top student in my class and i wanted a bike. I got my bike. ( but he never rode with me) 1990, i was addicted to my uncle's video game. Once again, i was the top student in primary 6. Nearing death, he asked my uncle to buy me one. I never got one because i told him that its not good for me.

I also remembered a " conversation" about cancer we had in the living room, with him lying on the sofa . He talked, i listened. I wasn't sure if i asked the question if he was going to die.

Other memories of him were more of the ways he brought me up. I was never allowed to sit with my legs up on a chair. I was never allowed to whistle. I was never allowed to disobey the elderly. I was never allowed to choose and pick food with my chopsticks. I was never allowed to ask my maid to wash my shoes. He was a very strict and serious father.

Despite my disrespect for him being a person who didn't know how to juggle the balance of life, I feel honoured that he instilled in me his principles of being a good human.

Malcolm asked me if i think i lack a father figure during my young adult life. I never thought i lacked anything until i met my father-in-law.

My Father-in-law

If my own father built up the foudation of being a good person during my childhood, my father-in-law fills in the rest for my adulthood.

Despite his seriousness, he surpises people by throwing in a few jokes or two occasionally.
His old fashion attitude to life and his believe in righteouness reiterate the foundation i was built upon. But his wit and determination to succeed in this crude and realistic society is something that my own father never had the chance to teach me.

I don't think i can learn his wit given that his smartness was probably polished from the fact that he had to wheel himself out of the humiliation and poorness that he was in. Its increadibly fascinating to see the ideas and perspective he has of things around. As i know the Peh family better and better, i realise that their success is based on pure determination and hard work. Of course, my father-in-law insightful views to spot potentials are the first step to the success. He told me that, for anything you do, you have to be able to see beyond what other people see. If people see one step ahead, you have to see three steps ahead. Foresights are utmost important.

Determination has been a recipe of success i share with this family too. Never give up until the very last minute should be the motto for everyone. My own dad fought cancer till the very last days. If i had been able to ask my dad to speak, i am sure he would have told me that he believed he won't die. The same goes to my father-in-law, I see the strength and determination in him. I see his positivity and will power to live. I hope he doesn't disappoint me and continue fighting.

My father-in-law and i also share the same view of how important self control is for any person. We don't believe that obese people would be successful. If a person can't control their own eating and living habits, how could you believe him to come out with something good?

Not much else i could speak of this person whom i have only know for the past four years. I can only pray that God give him a few more years so that i could have the honour to be "taught" by him.

Women

There are two women whom i think best describe the important role that women in the 21st century play.

My Mother

She is not the strongest woman i know but she has gone through the good and bad times with my dad and brought me up in the past 16 years all by herself.

In fact, as much as i know my dad, i didn't think she had much of a good times with him. He was a workoholic. His only past time was work and he never paid much attention to the family. I spent most of my childhood with my mom. I suppose we were the lucky few who afforded a few oversea trips while my dad was alive back in the 1980s. Dad passed away when his company was just picking up and left it all to my mom. He left without saying few words and spent the last eight months making my mom suffer with him. His stubborness made her life more miserable than all other cancer patients' spouses had to endure.

While every other women of her age went through their mid-life being the pillar of support for their husbands, she went though hers by herself, bringing me up, attending to a expanding company and taking care of her parents and siblings. Of all things that should be emphasised here is her constant "care" towards her siblings and relative who work for her. Other people may not know this but i know that every decision she made, she made sure that her siblings are not left out despite the ill treatment she gets from them.

Knowing that she is not a very strong and decisive women, what she had gone through was double the difficulty level that others had gone through. She is close to 60 now and i would say she did it all by herself and she should be a role model to others.

My Mother-in-law

I barely know her for four years. But i heard a lot of stories of who she was and who she is now. Anyway, she is like an open book, you can read her as she speaks and acts.

She is the classic type of woman who plays the support role to her husband all the way. She always boast that half of her husband's success came from her. If you know her, you would not doubt a single bit of what she said. I don't think i know any other woman who is as extreme as she was, worked full on for the first 30 years of her life, brought up two boys, retired ( yup, retired ) and had the luxury of enjoying life being a full time house wife.

(Not sure if fate is playing a trick on me but i am going through the pain of seeing my father suffering cancer for the second time.)

My mother in law, as hard headed as her husband, is going through the same painful experience that i saw my mother went through 16 years ago. They both had the same equally difficult man to take care of. Sometimes i think its very funny how much similarities there are between the two men who was and who is my father.

She always say that the role of women is very important. Without women, men would not survive. Maybe i have been brainwashed but i truly believe that i play a very important role to the success of my husband.

I hope i can live up to these two role models.

Grey

I personally never paid much attention to grey.
I don't think i own any thing grey in colour either. Oh.. actually our car is dark grey. But, legally, the car is not mine.

Went to PM+C for site visit today and found that all the workstations' colours are grey. The colour made the whole place looked really dull despite the splash of horizontal band of colours here and there. I don't like the concept of using colours for identity of levels and departments. I felt that i was in a childcare centre. No offence to the designer.

Building 35 BBP's new conference centre also had hues of grey for the wall lining. Alastair said to me that the greys look like those for the car park cladding. I agreed.

Coincidentally, carpark's perforated aluminium cladding also consist of three different greys, agaist teraccota red , that is. It will look good. Check this space for pics.

I thought we had this conversation before?

( Picture Taken from Jerry's MSN Space )

What a nice Sunday morning! I love waking up to the kind of gloomy, breezy weather that seems like its going to rain anytime.

Sitting on the sofa with the news switched on, i was going through the transition between the half a awake me to the fully awake me. Of course, most of the time , this method never worked.
I found out something interesting though. Barec Obama ( almost sound like Osama ) is running for American Presidency. He is young enough to look like my brother and he is black. All the rich and famous seem to be younger and younger now, and here i am, almost 30 and still having achieved nothing.

Still half awake, i stumbled to the computer, and started looking at my msn online list.
Hey , Jerry is online again. my mouse automatically rolled over to his msn space pictures of his trips around Europe every now and then. Now, that made me wonder, how does he support himself and his almost wife-to-be. living and working in London and still afford to tour Europe.
Looking at the dates of his travel, he must be making a trips every three weeks or so. First few times, around London and then he ventured off further and further. Paris, Venice, Rome.. all on separate trips. He must have bought the around Europe rail pass, i thought.

Hai.. i really wish to travel to Europe. There so much i could see, so much i could learn, the good and the bad. I wish i don't have to " see" all the buildings on paper anymore but able to touch and smell and feel them.

In my head , i am thinking, how possible could i be working in Europe and travel like everyone else in DJAS did? Could Malcolm find a job easily in Geneva working in WIPO? What about settling down in Melbourne, desiggning my own house and start a family? What about my mom? What about Malcolm's Dad?

I know, i know, we talked about this a few times already. Everytime, the conclusion is that we are better off settling down in Melbourne, have all family members together and live happily ever after. Its more fair to the people around us.

Perhaps , there's another way around my dream to travel around Europe?

Maybe i should stop looking at Jerry's photos, they are really killing me!

Sketches of Gehry - Part 1

I don't understand why people sees him as GOD. I never understand his building. Too messy, too out of no where, too sculptural for my liking. Worst of all, i didn't like his design process. Its fine to work with model but sticking one card board here, bending it there and turning it around 360 degrees doesn't justify the making of a good building. Its almost like, i want to make a super large sculpture - the kind of object you see on the street and wonder what it is ,turn it into a building. Then, the only thing left to do is to stuff some "functional" spaces into all the nooks and crannys and all the strange spaces that's been created as a result of a strange looking sculpture.

Oh well, i only saw half of the documentary. Maybe its too early to criticise too much.

And there's one building of his i like : Disney Ice

So clean and white
Sexy curve there
Dancing Trusses

Carpark 4-5's Cladding

I can't describe how i feel. I am proud of myself. I am euphoric. I am living my dream. I saw it for the first time, not on paper but a 3-dimensional object. I touched it. I pushed it. I walked around it. I admired it from far; i inspected it up close. Its in production now!

Japanese Toilets

Halftecture OR
Halftecture OJ
Halftecture OO

Shuhei Endo? Who? Dunno. But I like his recent work called Halftecture OR, OJ & OO. No one knows where the name came from or what it means. I like Halftecture OO in particular because of the pure geomeric form. Thumbs up for his creativity in testing out the same material in different forms. More Pictures Here.

"Sewage Pipe" Hotel

How cool is this?
The Bridge in BBP, Canberra was almost made of a part of a sewage pipe to get the circular form happening.
Austria, i will come to you one day.
To book the hotel http://www.dasparkhotel.net/ .
Its FREE! Well, you can pay as much as you wish for their cleaning and maintainance cost.
To read more , go to Architecture Review

Things i need to learn to do...

I always get inspired with the chicken soup articles that i subscribe to, and for months i have been just hitting the delete button without reading them because i simply didn't have time.
Today, i read one which entitled" If I Were Lucky". I didn't think it has nothing to do with the subject lucky at all but it does have a list of things i think are the things i need to learn to do . I need to learn

the art of letting go
not to look at the watch and keep rigid rituals and joyless appointments
not to ask for Perfection
not to worry
to travel the world ( the three months around the world tour that we are planning )
to sit outside the house and look at the sky and the people who goes by
to turn up the music loud and dance or shut my eyes to enjoy the moment
to spend time doing nothing
to sit back and relax....

The most well earnt $500 dollars

I have been teaching for a 5 weeks vacation swim program at a local pool. I started doing it because i needed my 20 hours practical experience in order to sit for an exam and qualify being a swim teacher. But i didn't know what i was into until today. It made the whole experience so much more meaningful and enjoyable.

Essentially , this vac swim program is organised by Royal Life Saving Society of Australia in Canberra. Every lesson only cost $3.50 for each child. Over 5 weekends, the kids will be taught how to swim and survive in the aquatic environment. What impress me most is the cost of each lesson. Usually, with programs like this, each lesson will cost about $ 10 to $ 12 dollars. In short, it is like a charity but for kids to learn to swim.

I heard from my co-ordinator that this program helps those family who don't have spare money for their kids to learn swimming. She saw that some families who came last year are here again this year. I am happy that i am part of a great cause and i am happy to see that so many other instructors are so dedicated to teach kids to swim without getting paid much.

I love love love the kids. I also started to learn some of the kids related syndromes that are affecting our kids today - ADHD, Cystic fibrosis, Austism, Asperges, Asthma etc. It is very rewarding when they progress in their lessons each week.

The kids make me feel really happy. They are so pure and angelic. And they make me smile with their funny stories and behaviours.

I don't earn a lot out of this but i think it is one of the most meaningful $500 dollars i have ever earnt.

Its not because i am different, its because i am special.

The moment when a human cry because of architecture is the time when u know the architect has succeeded. That's how i feel after watching " My Architect" - the documentary about Louis I Khan, ( known as Lou in this film )

" Very sad" is the emotion that Malcolm has for both Lou and his son. He also thinks Lou's buildings are very solemn and melancholic.

I wonder how he managed to keep three " wives " ( live four lives ) and has three kids, without the wives knowing each other's existence until he passed away. It also puzzles me why he kept his private lifes so secretive. Did he know that it was very disrespectful of women? I think that's the way he keeps himself sane; by having many women in his life while keeping himself ever so inspired in architecture. Wait... could it be the other way around?? arrghhhh....

In another perspecitive, this film also reminds me of the relationship i had with my dad. I never really knew my dad. He passed away when i was as young as Nathaniel Khan when Lou passed away. Well, my dad is no architect but i think he is as close to one as can be. Over the years, i have learnt quite a bit of him from the stories i heard from relatives and friends of him. I know i am living his shadow eventhough he has been gone for 16 years now.

One of the few most vivid memory i had with my dad was him teaching me the dos and don'ts about being a human. He emphasized a lot on being morally right and respectful of others. Other memories of him was sadly about him suffering through the last few months of his life. Funny enough, I think i am learning more about him now as i draw and draw on paper, sketching and finding the solution to a construction and architecture problem. ( He used to sketched on a piece of napkin in a restaurant whenever he can )

I think the best thing about watching this film to me is i finally understood something very important about myself, One of the reason why this blog is kept " alive".

I have finally understood my existence.

It answered my questions about why i am so different, why i can' be like the people at work, why i tried so hard yet i can't be what the society needs or wants me to be?

The asnwer lies in this simple equation : Its not because i am different, its because i am special.

I just need to keep working hard on what i love to do... be it architecture or not.

Our Reliable Canon G2

It has gone through its life with us for 4 years now. Pretty much gone through our courtship since 2002. Been to a few big and small holidays with us. Also went through a major operation to resurrect its lense when i accidentally drop it in Vic Market while doing my assignment. And now, when both Malcolm and I are still very much in the Post-Wedding mode, looking at wedding photos, figuring out how the pro do their blurring shots, we have come to rediscover our faithful camera and the wonder it can bring us in the future.

Here are a few beautiful tests.

Our Wedding Favours : Handmade Chocolate

Unfortunately, this is the only picture i have of the chocolates i made. ( with a little help with some friends and my mom) They are pretty similar to this http://sookyan.blogspot.com/2006/07/chocolate-chocolate-chocolate.html. But the amount of work and effort i put in is definitely more than i imagined. It is by far the most challenging project i have ever put myself in ( well except for my stupid architecture degree ).

I borrowed some moulds from the place where i learnt how to make this. The lady was very nice. She was even asnwering my calls on a weekend when i had problems with making them.
My kitchen was a total chocolaty mess for two weeks. Malcolm was giving me " THE LOOK". He was not happy at all.

To make each and everyone chocolate, I have to
1. Temper http://sallys-place.com/food/columns/williams/choc_tempering.htm the chocolate buds to the correct temperature with the help of a kitchen themometer.
2. Use a paper piping bag to make a nice motif on the mould.
3. Pour in the melted chocolate into the mould and quickly tip them out again to make the shell.
4. Fill in the chocolate ganache, premade before.
5. Fill up the mould to cover the filling.
6. Wait for them to set
7. Turn over the chocolate to reveal the shiny chocolates ( if they are made correctly )

Also Thanks to my aunties who made the lovely yellow decorations for the boxes.

Mellow Yellow - Am i a trend setter or what?

Taken from Canberra Times. Thursday.12th October 2006.

I didn't know that the " yellow" theme of my wedding will turn out to be loved by so many. I got comments from friends saying that they love the yellow, the flowers, the cake, the tissue balls etc. I wanted yellow because i thought the farm will be green in spring, and yellow will go well with it. I wanted yellow because its a happy colour. Happy colour for happy occassion. I wanted yellow because its a spring colour. The wedding is in spring and spring is a good beginning to everything beautiful. Above all else, i wanted yellow because i didn't want red, purple and pink.

I was surpised myself when i saw how stunning my bouquet of yellow ranunculus was when the florist delivered it. The slightly green petals in the middle of each flower matched perfectly with the green berries. Yellow and green, match made in heaven. I was even more stunt when i saw each table centre pieces. They were so "perfect". And of course, the array of yellows scattered on the bridal table decorated with dodger vines made me speechless. I don't think i have seen so many yellow flowers gathered at one place before, perfectly matching the yellow tissue balls at the backdrop and the tables.

No, my favourite colour is not yellow. Perhaps, i should change my mind from now on.

Another favourite

I just love the angles that the photographer took this picture from. Can't be any better than this two pair of hands holding each other, forever.

Excellent Food

Many thanks to the staff at winehouse for catering for our wedding. I love the seafood and absolutely love the dessert. Well done guys!

My ever so elegant gown

The blue sash and the brooch made me looked like i am one of those princess from the royal family. I would not say this is my favourite gown. I still think i could have done better if not because of the limited choices in Canberra.

Moments like this.....

No, its not one of those deliberate poses that i wanted the photographer to take. She captured Malcolm rubbing my sprained thumb in between meals. ( clumsy me, twisted my thumb while i was trying to push the car door opened ) She was really fast and sharp. I am really happy with those "moments" that she managed to capture. She even took the photo of Malcolm taking the ring from Andrew which happened in a split second!