8 Weeks of Sweetness and Sadness

 

Holy smokes it's been so long since I've written anything here!

(I'm finally posting this after finding out where my completion certificates are... lmao.)

From July to August for eight Thursdays, I’ve signed up for a baking course, where I, well, learn how to bake! For the first four weeks, I made cakes, and for the latter, I made cookies! 

Cakes

1. An lightly sweet and moist orange yuzu cupcake with a sour custard and an indulgent cream cheese frosting.

2. A batch of chocolate muffins with a raspberry jam filling and a crumble with butter and flour, alongside a marble chiffon cake with matcha, chocolate and butter.

3. A gorgeous lemon pound drizzle cake, which had lemon zest, coffee and chocolate with sweet icing, a swiss roll with strawberry pure filling, and a rich, decadent burnt cheese cake.

4. A pandan chiffon cake and our instructor gave us another cheesecake!

Cookies

1. Butter cookies with candied pistachios and the most beautiful chocolate chip cookies (made even more beautiful with extra chocolate chips)

2. Butter calico cat cookies with charcoal and coffee patches, and an apple cookie with angry-looking sesame seed eyes.

3. Cranberry biscotti cookies, matcha-almond cookies and oat-raisin and chocolate chip. I didn’t know how much I adore biscotti until now.

4. Lemon butter cookies and pistachio biscotti.

From now, I'll share a somewhat frank reflection of my eight weeks here. I like to think it's the beginning of my healling journey of developing my sense of self independent of my friendships, or lack thereof?

Emotionally, I was in a rough place before this baking class. My dad accompanied me to sign up on that Saturday afternoon. I was in the thick of my depressive mood then. Nothing came into my head, and I remembered almost tearring up while taking to the nice salesman. It was not a great time.

That same week, I had an argument with someone I loved and we were unsure of how to act around each other. The week before that, I blocked another friend with whom I had a puzzling relationship with, whom I wanted to like but could never bring myself to. I broke up with them.

The second week, the blocked friend called me and then, while walking home, sent a very 'diabolical' message claiming to wish me well and I felt furious reading it. I didn't cry. I just felt relieved that everything was over, even when I find myself missing them. 

Maybe I'll elaborate on this point another day. My counsellor said that this experience has meaning, and it shouldn't be merely an anecdote.

True, but I'm not the best writer or reflector, lol.

Everyone had to wait twenty extra minutes for me to stuff chocolate chips into these cookies lol

 

Despite adoring the lemon yuzu cupcakes, that first week was actually terrible, though at no fault of the baking studio.

I was supposed to have a partner who’d help me but they didn’t! They apparently decided that helping the instructor was a more productive use of their time, and thus I was alone the whole time. The neighbouring auntie had to step in and help me, including giving me some of their extra icing. They're the reason why I have green and blue icing in my cupcakes.

Not only that, this 'partner' took my cupcakes without doing any work to help me! What the heck!

This plus my general rocky patch with my friendships at the time made that whole experience 'not great', to put it kindly, but I survived and there's something beautiful in that. I could be zoning out, struggling to follow basic instructions, on the verge of tears and still do something!

Regardless, things looked up from then on, when I had (1) an actual reliable partner who indulged me by taking pictures and letting me have fun, (2) the 'partner' stopped showing up, and (3) a new rotation of friendly and knowledgeable trainers.

These cookies were diabolical. They eventually melted together into one black, charcoal mess! They still tasted very buttery, though.

Even so, there were times when I felt a sort of mental cloud, which distanced me from what's happening. I remember zoning out while washing the bowls and whatnot. I remember feeling physically numb whenever I feel dehydrated both from doing the baking task and eating dinner sometimes. 

In all my years of life, I don’t recall ever feeling this way, but here I am, I guess. I felt ashamed as well, because I wanted to enjoy the moment since I knew this wouldn't last. That said, I knew as well that my circumstances weren't exactly 'normal' either, so now I feel guilty for not being kinder to myself... Anyway, all that spiralling's to say that it was all a doozy.

As for something more concrete, for the first week while going home, I remembered feeling sad that I had no one to share these beautiful desserts with. As in:

Won’t it be nice to have friends to share these things with?

Won’t it be nice to have people to grab dinner with after these baking classes? Eight classes, hence eight friends, or maybe a few people over and over again?

Won’t it be nice to spend some of that precious time with someone?

I felt this strong ache, this lack that I wanted someone to share my life with. I felt that I didn't have friends I could ask to go out, following some circumstances that I can't be bothered to explain now. A part of me felt missing and very unsettled, so I was reaching for a source of comfort that my nervous system only knew how—companionship, but was very upset upon knowing I had no one to immediately fulfil that ache and soothe my nervous system. 

Then, I realised something in the coming weeks when things got better.

Perhaps I only feel this way because I can't find meaning in the present. It's a real privilege to have a life so wonderful in the present moment, that I don't feel the need to find other people to validate it and/or make me feel better, even if it's on paper. 

Maybe that's the beautiful part of existing. It sure is lovely to have a witness, but I guess it's also nice to have little dates that are just for me. To share in my joy with someone, is to give a little bit of it away. I don't think I'm quite ready for that level of vulnerability yet. 

I could be inhaling copium, and I'm nowhere near healed or enlightened, but I've been realising that it's freeing to give all my energy to my present moment and then going home to rest. It's lonely, but at least I'm not losing hair, feeling nauseous or tight-chested whenever I get anxious. I guess I have that much going for me nowadays.

Getting icing on my lemon pound cake

At first, I had this love for giving people stuff. Nowadays, maybe I feel selfish, I find myself thinking, "Huh? Give people for what? I wanna eat this!"

It's a genuine thought, too. Maybe the temporary burst of selfishness is my sub-consciousness giving myself the permission to finally just give myself little gifts. Plus, those chocolate muffins were so delicious. They made my every morning a million times happier, and that counts. So yeah, I got over my initial hesitance haha

My favourite things from this baking experience were the chocolate muffins with raspberry jam filling and lemon pound cake with coffee and chocolate. 

The chocolate muffins tasted exactly like the kind from Starbucks, and the jam was that perfect sour touch to the whole experience, and the crumble on top was delightful.

The lemon pound cake featured, well, lemon, but the icing was slightly acidic from the lime juice we used with the icing sugar. A very gorgeous cake and perfect for a slower morning.

As for the cookies, I fear I might not be able to finish it all. I love the chocolate chip cookies in my earlier gif. They're crunchy, and it had a slightly burnt taste. The chocolate chips really gave it a perfect bite. The cat cookies were a fan-favourite among the people I gave it to. They all said it was buttery.

My real favourite are the biscotti cookies. They tasted like bread, not too sweet, but very addictive!

Hairnets sure are a little strange

What do I want to now that everything's over?

Something I learned from the first week was that sometimes having no partner is better than a terrible one. It's not just my experience, but I noticed that sometimes your partner can hijack the whole baking process and you won't get to do anything. That's no fun, either, right?

Lately, it seems I'm too tired to compare myself to others. I'm on my own path, my own healing journey and I have my own lessons to learn. I have a story that's mine alone to write, and I want to focus on that. Sure everyone's ahead of me in some way, but I guess it's better late than never. I yearn for the day where my nervous system can finally rest and not be so, well, nervous.

These eight weeks have been a reflection of how my friendships have, for the most part, fallen apart, while also offering the chance for me to rebuild my own sense of self that's based on solo dates and a lot of nights surviving my own crash outs and self-doubt.

May the next set of eight weeks be better than the last.

These gifs are so fun!

A drawing!!

A sketch I'm finally happy with!

His outfit is amazing. I love the shirt and the thing draped over him. He looks like royalty and I think that looks super cool.

However, his face and hair look a bit odd... I think I need to redraw everything. Yet, I see potential in this. I think the trees would look nice with some snow. His hands are also nice. 

This is something new, aesthetic-wise, like it's very wintry even if Singapore never experienced a lick of snow, but it's very pretty and I can't wait to see it coloured!!

Stars, universe and humanity

I was more than halfway through William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, when I came across a peculiar passage where Heat-Moon reflects in the desert. Here it is:

Stars shone with a clarity beyond anything I could remember. I was looking into—actually seeing—the past. By looking up into the darkness, I was looking into time. The old light from Betelgeuse, five hundred twenty light-years away, showed the star that existed when Christopher Columbus was a boy, and the Betelgeuse he saw was the one that burned when Northmen were crossing the Atlantic. For the Betelgeuse of this time, someone else will have to do the looking. The past is for the present, the present for the future.

Astronomers say that when telescopes of greater range can be built, ones that can look down the distant curves of the universe billions of light-years away, they might show existence at the time of creation. And if astrophysicists and countless American Indians are correct in believing that a human being is composed of exploded bits of heavenly matter, billions of galactic atoms, then astronomers may behold us all in the stellar winds; they may observe us when we were something else and very much farther away. In a time when men counted only seven planets, Whitman recognized it:

“Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I knew I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time.”

In his writing, there's a sincere reverence for history. He gives textual space to describing the landscape, sharing the bits of folk-knowledge he picks up along the way and explaining the history of a certain place, no matter how many centuries ago. 

It's enjoyable to hear him rattle on and on about fun facts. It makes this great country called 'America' feel more human, more 'lived in', for lack of a better word. It feels less of a global superpower with uncanny dominance over the world's economics and culture and more of someone's home.

That said, this passage about the stars scare me, somehow. It's a very profound appreciation for the past as a concept. I guess that's a good reason why I enjoy the passage. There's something humbling and universal about confronting history on such a scale.

—

1970s American culture has this peculiar aversion to the past. Writing about how no one cared that industrial cities are declining in his book, When America became Suburban, Robert A. Beauregard describes the American character as follows:

With city living once again desirable and with many of the once-industrial cities enjoying renewed investment and even population growth through the 1980s and 1990s, it was easy to forget the urban trauma that had transpired a few decades earlier. Of course, Americans have never been wedded to the past; the future is more beguiling. Nevertheless, a sense of history, a sense of unavoidable and myraid ways in which the past implicates the present, is essential if Americans are to grasp who they have become and how they arrived there. These are the raw materials of a national identity (18)

Beauregard writes this because this is the time of mass consumerism. People wanted to live in the suburban areas and enjoy consumer products, to get new jobs and all that. 

Another relevant case can be seen in Lauren Pearlman's article, "The Bicentennial and the Battle over DC’s Downtown Redevelopment during the 1970s", where the government refused to hear about what the local people wanted and instead wanted to build the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Bicentennial Civic Center, which promises economic growth, jobs and tourism! Indeed, the 'future' beguiles.

At any rate, Daniel Bell said something similar in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, when describing modernism. However, his description injects a crippling loneliness as a result from the insistence on detaching oneself from the past:

The emphasis of modernism is on the present or on the future, but never on the past. Yet when one is cut off from the past, one cannot escape the final sense of nothingness that the future then holds. Faith is no longer possible, and art or nature or impulse can erase the self only momentarily in the intoxication or frenxy of the Dionysian act. But intoxication always passes, and there is the cold morning after, which arrives inexorably with the break of day. (50)

Sure, Bell might be referring to a lack of reverence towards literary/cultural tradition. The 'high art', the 'great canon' dominated by the likes of Renaissance paintings and epics like Homer's Odyssey. However, I think Heat-Moon's appealling to something more fundamental than that: a deeper sense of humanity.

Heat-Moon's vision of the 'past', as rendered through the vast darkness of the night and 'billions of light-years' is an apparently isolating one. His descriptions remind us of our inherent 'smallness' in the world, where our lives will eventually end and it will not make any difference in the 'grand scheme of things', so to speak. It's easy to feel desperate and lonely with this realisation.

Yet, Heat-Moon insists that being connected to history is humanising. Others have experienced this vast expanse just like us. Christopher Columbus saw the same skies when he came to America, and as rootless as we seem, we're all connected to one greater story as started from the 'time of creation' and that we have 'heavenly matter' in us. Even if we play an insignificnt role, we are still part of a larger lieneage of human and natural history.

Everyone wants the hit new thing, but it gets tired and lonely after a while. Heat-Moon appears to say that it's more fruitful to find meaningful connections in natural sights we take for granted. That's the way to keep us humbled, while also inspired.

Bird Park pictures

Today, I went to the bird park with my dad, and I took lots of pictures! Check them out!

Every image here is accompanied by a caption I wrote :)

Elegant, graceful, flourishing. A beautiful duck on a rock, in the repose of faint sunlight.

A cheeky rainbow bird.

An unassuming purple-bodied dove-like bird.

A cheeky bastard hiding in the shadows. The orange tones have a quiet shine to them.

Flourescent red.

Background perfectly in focus. A diva. Ate.

The lone observor of the sublime

Big and surprisingly mild-mannered with balding necks and heads.

Watchful reds. What are they looking at?

He does not approve of the photographer's gaze (mine)

Inquisitive parrots with bright orange spots on bold green and blue bodies.

Why do you look so surprised? What have you done?

A tiny nobleman staring ahead. A fun-sized soldier.

This bird is either very soulful or very scared.

Food! Food! Food!

He has orange lipstick. A very inspired choice.

Last but not least: a stunning spread of pink flamingoes in gorgeous, warm morning sunshine. The spread makes them look like they're posing for a still-life. Absolutely gorgeous.

Aren't they just amazing? Birds are such beautiful animals. They come in a ton of different sizes, colours and even sounds. I just think they're neat :)

Today, I shall complain about how antisocial being antisocial is

Out of the eleven chapters in The Americanization of Narcissism, I've read the fifth one titled, "Independence." It's a great read, in the sense that Elizabeth Lunbeck tries to combine different arguments. 

On one hand, she's telling us about Freud's philosophy about the infant. She elaborates on how the infant is a symbol of peak self-reliance, or self-absorption as I come to understand it, how the infant can live completely untouched and unbothered by external reality because of their maternal figures' unwavering attention.

Yet, on the other hand, she also us why it's very hypocritical of Freud to say that. Freud had plenty of friends to support him. Plus, as misogynistic as he comes off, Freud depends on the women in his life. Freud just also isn't a very good person.

She spends the remaining ten pages of this chapter detailing how Christopher Lasch criticises the American trope of narcissism generally centers around the individual's inability to find meaning, purpose and happiness without (buying) tons of stuff.

Lasch makes these critiques under the assumption that everyone wants to be like Freud's vision of independence, and Lunbeck sort of implies these views are quite reductive to how people actually make sense of their identities. I appreciate that, but that's not what this rant will be about.

What I am complaining about though, is the idea that people can be totally self-sufficient and isolated. It hits a little too close to home for me and I'd like to share my truth with you.

—

When I see the self-help rhetoric around, I think that people always say stuff like, "Oh, don't care about what other people say! Just focus on you!" That's a few years ago. Nowadays, when it's from women-influencers, it's, "The magic is in you. You don't need anyone to make your life better."

(Let me preface all this by saying everything here is my opinion!)

The advice is attractive. Proponents of such rhetoric say this with such confidence, that you can get everything that you could ever want—not just happiness but confidence, beauty, success: everything good in the world—from yourself. You don't need anyone for that!

You are your own best friend and biggest fan. Don't listen to the noise and focus on yourself. Focus on your own journey and stay in your lane. Focus on your own growth, your own hustle. People come and go all the time, and all that remains is you and only you. 

However, I went through this thing called life and I realised that's not really true. Perhaps the reason why such rhetoric is attractive, is because the people say it with confidence. The confident tone is what's attractive. Not necessarily the content, itself or alone. 

To trust people is to be vulnerable, and that's incredibly terrifying (even to me!) so it's safer to just say you can do it alone. To trust people to help, means giving up your vision and autonomy for a little bit, to put your pride aside, so it's safer to just say you can do it alone.

In other words, I think people want to isolate themselves and delude themselves into a myth of independence because they're afraid of human relationships.

Of course, there are the people who are genuinely self-confident and that's not really a problem. I want to be like that! I want to be so sure of myself and my whimsy that I can spread joy to others.

Till then, though, I'm eyeing a specific group of people who dismiss my worries of being lonely with words like, "I don't need anyone. I'm okay alone."

I don't sincerely believe people like that are happy. At the very least, I'm not happy when I talk to them and ask for advice. It just feels so empty and hollow to hear those words. We need friends. People only talk like that when they have a stable support group to welcome them once they've come out of isolation.

I don't know. I feel like I'm close to a revelation but I want to write my fan fiction. I think the point here is that, there's no such thing as a truly independent life. You need people, and it's perfectly okay to admit that. You're not being whiny or immature. You're only human. It's okay to be lonely. That's just life, and you're not a 'bad person' off the gate. Relax.

—

Here's a smaller section dedicated to Lasch because it somewhat relates to my thesis.

I suppose Lasch's views are also off-putting for a similar reason. Indeed, it is rather sad that people need to buy stuff to feel something. However, his argument seems to blame the people themselves and not the broader system that envelops them. 

Putting aside the context of America basking in the glow of post-war prosperity, we have reached a state in culture where, in Robert G Dunn's words in his book Identifying Consumption, "The triumph of consumer culture means that, while every sale and purchase is at bottom an economic event, the object of consumption today is increasingly culture itself" (6). We are in an age where what you buy is who you are, and you buy things because of who you are. Lasch's criticisms are simply not nuanced enough to account for why people act that way.

Besides, there's nothing wrong with being attached to things. I love my books, my figurines, my clothes, my ipad, my waterbottles, my glasses chain—stuff like that. They reflect who I am in a very efficient way. 

Plus, being able to buy stuff on your own is also a flex. It's not just a mindless indulgence, it could also just be a celebration of money people have. Money means freedom and, in this capitalist society, happiness too. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the money you've earned here and there. I think Lasch is a party-pooper.

Anyway, I just wanted to say my two cents because I feel oddly passionate about it. 

Some cool art I've done lately.

Here's some cool art I've made recently!

My calendar spreads

 Something I love about drawing is being able to create worlds through my art. I love being able to create a coherent body of work that represents something. Thus far, I love how the colours look together. 

Sure, they might be quite different from each other individually but together, they sort of melt together into this warmly-lit soup with blue water. It's a delicious set of colours. Everything is so intentional and creative, I love it! I LOVE BEING A REAL HUMAN ARTIST!

My latest illustration

He's a new one to the collection. For the longest time, I keep thinking he looks like an older version of Mark Lee from NCT. Looking at i t more soberly, however, I'm glad this is not true haha. The beauty marks on his face and chest, no matter how small, are a nice, delicate touch. He somehow feels more real, if that makes any sense.

These are just some rough thoughts for now. I'll elaborate more on my Substack! Yes, I've revived it to share my art in a more poetic, intentional way :)

Culture is such an interesting thing; "Tracking Bigfoot" Review/Quick thoughts

Just this morning, I've read an interesting article called, "Tracking Bigfoot Through 1970s North American Children's Culture: How Mass Media, Consumerism, and the Culture of Preadilescence Shaped Wildman Lore" published in 2011 by the independent scholar, Dr. Joshua Blu Buhs. It's a very pleasant read on how the Big Foot/Sasquatch myth is depicted in American media and how adults and children interpreted it.

For adults, the Big Foot/Sasquatch myth is used to teach children to be self-disciplined, to not be afraid of, and reign in on their desires and become better people. The myth entered popular thought during a time when fathers went out to work while women stayed at home. People wondered over whether mothers are equipped to raise their sons, and so stories like these became popular.

For children, fixating on this cryptid means hours spent collecting merch, talking to friends and even researching the subject by reading books and watching movies. It's about taking initiative to learn about something and become an 'expert' in it, to feel more 'adult-like' and form an independent identity outside their parents.

This much is interesting enough. The popular legends and stories people watch on television, read or share with friends, reflect the concerns of the time. Everything has context and no work of art—whether trashy or 'high—lives in a vacuum. Hence, Buh's arguments demonstrate why the Big Foot/Sasquatch myth matters to people.

However, the interesting thing is how Buh relates it all back to one thing: consumerism. I'll return to my adult/child binary to establish this. 

By 'reign in on their desires', I mean finding comfortable conclusions to resolve these tensions. In Buh's view, and also since American society cared about this, this means relieving the Oedipus responsibility young boy-protagonists had in their respective narratives. However, one must also be comfortable with these desires and 'let them be', so to speak. The implicit solution to be 'comfortable' with these desires is to channel those urges into being a consumer.

The idea of 'fixating' is easier to relate. It means buying merchandise, buying books and buying movies to watch. To participate in this culture of learning more—to feel like an adult—children must spend money and be a consumer early. From a young age, they are taught that you need to buy things to express yourself and, potentially even maintain social relationships.

I find this profoundly fascinating. It implies that the Big Foot/Sasquatch myth ultimately works to reinforce capitalism and consumerism, to emphasise that you need to buy stuff to participate in mainstream culture. I doubt this is what Buh means but that's what I got, at any rate. It's a very pleasant read overall and I got a lot out of it!

She's such a cute girl!!

Look at what I drew this morning!

Isn't she so cute? I struggled a lot with drawing her hair, so I've decided to give her a headscarf instead. It fits her so well! It's giving cottage-girl and also rich lady—we love that.

She's in a woodland forest, resting her arm on a rock. The question is, what kind of dress should I gie her? I'm thinking a classic white dress, but I don't know how to do the folds and stuff... I'll figure that out when we get there. 

Also, her face, while pretty, looks sort of manly. I'll work on her smile so it'll be more delicate and dainty.

Overall though, she's so cute! I'm glad I picked up my pencil to draw today :)

I've also drawn Whitebeard yesterday!! I keep thinking his hair looks a bit weird but his face? Handsome. I think the hair looks weird because of the perspective, but I can't be bothered to fix it lmao.

My art, my truth

Update: 1:20pm, 9 November. I really like this man I drew yesterday! It has nothing to do with the contents of this post, but I really need to scream about it, so here it is. The clothing folds look so delicious. His glasses and headband make him look so domestic and cutieful. I want him to be a retired knight living a cosy, easy life in his garden.

For the longest time, I've been stumped over the question, 'Why do I draw?'. I never had a reason deeper than, 'It's fun, right?'. It's sort of shameful, as it implies that once it's not fun anymore, I won't create anymore. Granted, I do think of giving up the moment I struggle with articulating a piece, as in I want to stop drawing completely. Yet, my stubbornness wins, and I try again.

On and off, I've developed a deeper answer to that long-fated question. I think art is a gateway into the artist's soul, their minds, their worlds and their truths. Once you get a whole body of work, you can see their 'brand universe', to borrow the language of luxury marketing, the things that matter. 

This is the same for literary works, too! If you read/view enough work from the same writer/artist, you'll see recurring tropes, common themes they like talking about or just little quirks. It feels intimate to get into someone else's work, to see the depths of their imagination and perspective. I think that's what makes art so wonderful—the feeling of closeness.

While writing this, I'm reading about the idea of a gaze as put forth by John Urry, which essentially states that people view the world differently, which means people have different ideas of Truth and pre-conceptions they try to fit 'the world' into. It's an interesting idea, and it relates here.

A whole catalogue of art and writing directly illuminates the creator's 'gaze' on the world around them,  or at least what's in their heart. Naturally, it's fun to just make art for the sake of it. However, I want to create things that touch on ideas I have from my real life, like the plants and animals I see, or my ideals on how life should be.

I like relaxing, since I barely do it. I also like nature. Maybe the Truth I'd like to create in my art is to show off a healling, tranquil relationship with nature. It's not exciting or splash-page worthy but it reflects the sort of person I want to become and the life I want to lead. Idealistic? Maybe, but that's what art is for!

None of this made sense, but I enjoy writing, so here's my third blog post of the month!

Sunflower lady

 

 

  

During my internship some months ago, I took these gorgeous pictures of sunflowers! My boss had a home garden, which she grew lots of flowers and other sorts of wild shrubs. She'd cut them and let the florists use them however they want in the arrangements.

As the social media girlie-pop, I got to take pictures! Perhaps too many pictures!

Months later, long after I've left, and I'm still obsessed with them. I love the hints of purple the bougainvillaeas bring. I love the dashes of pink and messy, sharp textures of the little pink weed-like flowers. The terracotta brick floors are adorable. The dark shadows make the colours pop a lot more!

I need to clear my phone's gallery, so I want to take the time to memorialise them in a proper art piece. Inspired, I want to draw something so whimsical and bright and yellow. I'm thinking of a lady whose hair is made of flowers, not unlike the cloud goddess.

Either that, or maybe someone immersed in a field full of them. Though, that idea might not be so fun. Besides, the focus is on the flowers and colours—not so much the environment, if that makes any sense.

I SAW HORNBILLS

 

Aren't these so cool! I saw them sitting on a tree while on a walk with my dad. They were so polite and well-behaved. No one actually noticed they were there, which I thought was kind of odd but figured it's for the best because I don't want them to be scared off.