Master of None?

Some people believe humans were once apes. If that were true, then evolution began even further back from now. We've certainly come a long way. Evolving beyond just physical attributes, we built communities and developed new technology. This was simultaneous to yet another evolution - an intrinsic one. We found religion and art and discovered what they did for our souls.

Today, with the power to access knowledge via the internet, I believe there is yet another kind of evolution. We try to become our own doctors, hairdresssers, computer repairmen, plumbers, film-makers; and find more success than we have ever had before, narrowing the gap between the layman and the true professionals, who must strive to stay above it.

I'll have to admit, I want to do it all. I've tried cutting my own hair. I've stared long and hard at the tiny print on instructions manuals on how to construct your computer from scratch. I designed my own website. Through my own efforts, I edited together my showreel. I've also prescribed my own medicine.

My latest "occupation" would have to be the aspiration of becoming a novelist. I spent a little over a month creating characters and plotting their journeys with the furious fluttering of my fingers on a keyboard. Would this "novel" be deemed as true as a professional's? The truth remains to be seen, but the experience is something no one can discount.

More Than Just Recycling Paper

Even though the melting in the Arctic will soon open up faster shipping routes and newly accessible sources of energy, polar bears are losing their homes and dying, sea creatures are choking from a huge swirling plastic vortex larger than the United States of America, and the North Atlantic current which carries warmth from the Equator into northern regions may die out, dropping overall temperatures drastically on both sides. Overfishing itself is causing an imbalance in the ocean's food chain and destroying ocean floors.

Nature is biting back at us. Rising mercury levels in fish are causing health problems to those who feed off them. The rising sea level has caused overflooding and threatens to destroy more homes than it already has. These are but examples of a multitude of problems caused as a result of our exploitations and careless behaviour towards the earth.

As governments and companies shift towards a more environmental focus, consumers must follow suit. Being environmentally friendly is no longer the simple act of recycling paper. It is our duty to be aware of why we need to save the earth. Finding out and eating fish that is not in danger of overfishing is one way to start. Reduce your personal trash. Things that you never thought were recyclable like shoes, bags, used CDs... can all be recycled. Take the effort to find out where to bring them, in your community. Support products with less packaging. It may be more time consuming or more costly especially with the recession in full swing, but the combined effort will make a difference.

On a smaller scale, work with reusable rather than disposable, whether it be towels, cutlery, bags, whatever you can think of. If anything, do this for our children and our children's children. Peace!

What The Shoes Know

My camera isn't really great with close up shots but take a huge step back and SNAP! It does the job. The opening blog shots here were taken from my window seat on the airplane flying into New York. I had a good flight experience this time. Time seemed to fly by quickly. It must have helped that I left home at 4am without any sleep from an entire day of activity. I slept most of the way. But if you know you can't sleep on planes, then better not zombify yourself with a flight like this. Sleep in advance! My experience at the entry point into the US was not so great on the other hand. (Click on any experience for the experience).

What mattered was that I made it through and was soon on Broadway again - catching shows like "August: Osage County" (best acting on Broadway I've seen ever), "In the Heights" (backstage pictures for those with access to my NY 2009 Facebook album), "Shrek" (I won lottery tickets!), "Equus" (I saw Harry Potter naked!), "Dear Edwina" (my friend was in it) and "The Little Mermaid" (even though I had seen it before).

It was also nice noticing little differences in Manhattan like some improvements on the subway, more Wi-Fi zones, things like that. Following the demise of CompUSA, Circuit City is set to follow its footsteps. A couple of years back, Tower Records had been in that spot. (I dug up an old photo so you can make the comparison). I couldn't help but feel the impact of the recession around me.

I spent Chinese New Year in the Big Apple going back to one of my favourite haunts. I didn't know its name for years because I couldn't read the chinese characters on the shop's front and couldn't recommend it to friends. But I finally found it on the paper menu and took a picture. Another place I had been dying to go to was Serendipity - a dessert cafe made famous by the movie of the same. I'm pictured with three frozen hot chocolates, their signature drink! One can choose between the Original, Peanut Butter and Mint.

It was a great ten days spent in the city and I definitely explored it each day. My shoes would attest to that if they were still around. I bought them in the US, brought them home to Singapore and said goodbye to them back in America. My new shoes don't know half this story.

Time to Reflect

"No difference" and "Same old thing" were the two thoughts in my head as New Year approached but because of where I was, I was thrown into it with a celebratory BANG! If you haven't seen it on my Facebook profile yet, here's the New Year fireworks in Singapore by the bay. I was surprised how well it was captured by my camera. Enjoy!


This year my resolution is do to my part to preserve our environment. I'm making a list of simple things we can do, so you'll be hearing from me soon about that. The first show I watched for the year was Cinderella, starring Lea Salonga at the Esplanade. I wrote more about this experience on my MySpace blog, as well as other bits of information that won't be included here.

It seems this year is starting out to be a slower year for me than the previous one. At the risk of sounding conceited - how does one top a year of leading roles in three major productions? How should I measure success anyway? But before I worry about that, I booked myself a two month vacation back to the US. New York & Florida for some sun and Disney fun! It's actually been a great few weeks of food, company and partying already - even before I've left. I've enjoyed steamboat, Lebanese cuisine, Shanghainese (pictured signature dish from One on the Bund), Peranakan and good old Christmas turkey.

I reactivated my World of Warcraft account and am now back to my old online gaming hours. I got my little gnome character, Mabina, a new hairstyle and colour. That's her flying on a gryphon (pictured above)! Yes, I don't have A life. I now have two! I also recently hosted Swatch's Spring Summer 2009 Collection Launch and since they are letting me choose a watch, I'm gonna do some endorsement here. I picked "Fine Steel" from the Age of Rust series. It's chic but casual at the same time and has really cool orange trimmings.

To Be Or Not To Be

Being in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" has been such a wonderful learning experience for me. I auditioned for the show not thinking I was right for the Prince at all. I have Hossan Leong (our director and great friend) to thank for believing in me. It did take me a long while to be comfortable with this character through the rehearsal process. And sometimes "not getting it" can be very frustrating because I expect a lot from myself. Nonetheless, I believe I found him before the show opened. Is there room for improvement? Of course! There always is.

A week before the show opened, I fell ill and lost my voice. Having to use it every day didn't help the recovery. Up till this point, my voice hasn't fully recovered. It's not like I'm doing a terrible job but just that I hadn't been forgiving myself for not being in top form. But then I finally realised it was unhealthy thinking and past a certain point I chose to let it go and focus more on giving meaning to the songs than to sing it beautifully. After all, what's a show without heart?

The whole process from rehearsals to the stage has been so enriching. And the many hands that have gone into making the production possible have to be thanked, including Wild Rice founder, Ivan Heng, who's created such a wonderful and nurturing platform for local artists. Not forgetting the audience because without them and the energy they bring to the theatre, there would be no show.

A Different Sort of Farming

As of April 2008, there were about 16 million active massively multiplayer online game subscriptions according to www.mmogchart.com. (Trivia: 10 million of those subscriptions were for World of Warcraft alone. With less than 1.5 million players, RuneScape was a distant second). With such a growing population of online gamers, it's no wonder farming gold has become huge thing. A recent article in a Singaporean newspaper featured this recent trend but did a poor job at it. Not only had they failed to define the term, they cast it in negative light.

Every online community has an economy that, like in the real world, has a currency - usually in-game gold. For obvious reasons, acquiring gold is necessary for in-game survival (the more the merrier) but it's not necessarily wrong. What's wrong is if the player acquires gold through unethical means like hacking into another account, duplicating items, etc. What's wrong in addition to that, is selling the unethically acquired items for a profit.

This is where people get confused or misunderstand. I think it's perfectly okay to sell items acquired ethically for a profit. But because of these no-good doers, the term gold farming (now intrinsically associated with exploitation) was coined and among other repercussions, eBay now doesn't allow ANY virtual property auctions to be listed. Another case of greed in human nature destroying a perfectly great way to transact.

Cos really what's the harm in paying real money for some in-game gold to improve virtual game play, especially if one doesn't have the time to hunt for gold? Likewise, if a player has more time on his hands and acquires in-game gold fairly, why can't he be allowed to sell some of it to make a real profit? The time he's put in for the hard earned gold should be worth something shouldn't it? In shaping new law to govern online behaviour, let's not forget that there's more to internet crime than "farming gold". It comes in forms of bullying, harassment and discrimation just to name a few. Perhaps an equal emphasis should be placed on solving these problems as well. 

Respect For Ants

Most of what I've seen on the screen about ants have been in animated features. It started with the 1984 movie, "Gallavants". It's so ancient, I couldn't even find a clip of it on YouTube. To date, there are about four ant movies I can think of - and all in the animated form. There is no shortage of documentaries about them either. After all, ants are easy to personify and are certainly not strangers to us. Then again, how well do we know them?

A recent viewing of "Ant Bully" got me thinking about these insects. As pesky as it may be, it is no mean feat for a species to find their way into our homes and adapt to living in a new environment (this concrete jungle we've created). How many other species can claim to have done that? And they are so selfless. Despite the perils attached to scouting for food, forager ants work really hard at keeping the colony fed. They use their long thin antennae to pick up on pheromone trails left by other ants and to detect food scents, which explains why they tend to follow a certain path (often times the shortest route possible). Pheromones are also used for warning purposes. That's why other ants seem to know when one ant gets crushed. An alarm pheromone is sent out.

In many ways, ants set good examples for us. Here are some clips from documentaries about ants:

So the next time you see an ant, think twice about saying goodbye to it. Say hello. If it's on my table, I usually just blow it to the ground. And don't worry about it falling to its death. Beyond a few centimeters, ants stop accelerating. This means to say, they can fall at any height and survive. Besides, they have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies. Are you an ant convert now?