it's 6pm here and it is already dark. it feels like it is 9pm. i look out my window and all the tiny squares are lit up windows, like boxes that other people are inhabiting. and for the first time all quarter, i feel so profoundly alone.

and i want to tell you i'm so sorry, but i don't know how and i wish i didn't feel this way.


tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

i'm sorry, i think i might have lost it.

+ posted by M @ 8:08 AM

...	Thursday, November 05, 2009

it never occurs to you how much you need something until it's broken.
of course.

which is why here i am eating cold spaghetti (a usually wonderful kind of food that has been butchered by american popularization in general). no, i'm not xenophobic, there are some things about american culture i truly don't understand. perhaps specifically american middle class culture. but that's another topic for another day.

also this happened a few days in the summer when i was out of power because my roommate didn't pay the electricity bill for 9 months and i realized just how essential lights were. i mean, really. also, we have been living without heat in our apartment for a few weeks now because we want to save money, and it is actually kind of killing me. our microwave is broken, in case you haven't figured it out, and i haven't had time to cook for two weeks and i kind of hate myself for it.

i've received certain messages of alarm from people RE: my last blog post. it's so weird that you friends still check this place considering exactly how sporadic my posts are. i'm trying to make the promise to continue again, but we know how that always goes.

no, i don't dislike theater. and i don't always dislike that it's my life now, basically. but sometimes i really wonder if i'm going down the right path, and sometimes i don't think so. i'm drawn to costumes because i don't have to be in the rehearsal room and deal with actors, but i like thinking about characters and clothing them and people and the choices they are making when they wear a certain shoe or tie. i'm pretty open, as a designer, to talking to the actors about their feelings when they try on a costume. i like to get any hint of 'yes, this makes me feel powerful' or 'this makes me feel _ like my character' so that i feel i've actually contributed to their performances.

there is a whole ritual that i've created when i start costuming a show. everything must go in a certain order, of course, because i like to know exactly what i'm doing at a certain time ... but more than that there's the ritual that happens when i'm starting to build a piece of clothing. i think i've built more than any other student costumer at UT has attempted in the past two years, simply because it's so much easier to pull from stock. but it's in my personality to want things to be exactly a certain way and the only way i can get that is if i create it myself. even then it doesn't always turn out how i've planned.

i lay out the fabric, i put pushpins on all four corners and sometimes in between, i pin the pattern pieces to it, i make sure everything is smooth. i look at it over and over again, checking for mistakes. i take a deep breath - and then i cut.

+ posted by M @ 1:12 AM

...	Wednesday, November 04, 2009

I'm not sure what it is, about being sixteen or seventeen, and how everything you feel is so intense and beautiful and scary at the same time and how it seems like your world will end or begin with one single gesture.
I wish I could feel that way again.
Now my life is just theater, and cutting fabric, and talking to actors about how tight their costumes fit, pinning things, sewing things, sitting on a couch in a room and discussing matters I mostly don't care about anymore, trying to do my work and failing miserably at it, thinking about people and thinking about when I was younger and everything seemed so frightening and new and wonderful.
I want to take a year off, go to Barcelona and sketch cathedrals with charcoal. I want to sell portraits on the street, I've learned what I've always known about myself - that I truly enjoy sketching and that more than that I enjoy sketching portraits. There's something so intimate and vulnerable about creating portraits of people, and I love studying peoples' faces, noticing the way their lips curve when they speak or the colours of their eyes, and people are so expressive without even knowing they are.
I just want to fall in love again, and be complete. I try to think about the last time I felt that way, and it is so painful and so beautiful at the same time. I don't talk about enough, but I'm writing about it so I don't forget. At least I'm trying.

+ posted by M @ 11:24 AM

...	Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Chicago in the Summer!

Today I spent 5 hours glue-ing torn out pages from books until I eventually accumulated strips amounting to 130 feet. These strips will be joined together tomorrow and muslin will be glued atop of them. And then I will baste aligning pairs of stitches through the muslin and gather them to make ruffles. These individual paper ruffles will then be arranged into tiers on a muslin skirt (which I will already have constructed) and then voila I will have a dress made out of yellowing pages of a book found in a thrift store.

And it all makes perfect sense to me.

I find it so funny that I cannot understand a single word in Physics class no matter how hard I try yet the matter of making clothes out of old books is as natural as reading.

This is my first real job in the Chicago theater scene. And sometimes when I feel lost, I just think: I made it out here, I'm making a connection to this place, I'm getting out there, I came here to do theater and I'm doing the best I can to break into it here and I'm succeeding most of the time. It hasn't been easy, and I've definitely been blessed but I've also worked so hard. The hours at the sewing machine, the hours in the theater, the hours spent in tech - they're paying off.

I'm not interning on this job (though I will be at another company next week), I am in fact assisting a professional costume designer, and the show is in fact very legit. I am not getting paid but no matter I never got paid in Singapore anyway. Also, I am working for someone I absolutely love working for. I am excited, I almost feel like this is the first step towards truly becoming part of the Chicago theater community and really just ... staying here.

at this moment I feel like I never want to leave this place, that I don't want to go back, that I just want to call Chicago home and stay in America forever, but at the same time I know there are so many complications and so many problems with this idea.

Chicago is just so wonderful in the summer. The lakes, the neighborhoods, the sunshine and the cool breezes. And there is so much theater, everywhere, all the time.

I feel like I'm getting closer to knowing what I want to do.

+ posted by M @ 11:03 AM

...	Monday, March 30, 2009

I don't know if I've ever been so excited for Spring. I've always thought of myself as a Fall person.

And I still very much am, I just think I really needed the quarter to come to an end, and the promise of possibilities with a new one. I learned a lot about myself last quarter. I learned that I could master the sewing machine and enjoy it, I learned that I was capable of more things than I gave myself credit for, I learned that people thought more highly of me than I thought they did, I learned that I've grown to become respected and integrated into the small theatre community we have at this school. I've also learned more about what I expect from people and what I should really expect. I've learned that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things, so much so that it can be annoying (but maybe deep down I've always known that).

Thing is, I don't expect a lot from people on the surface. I'm not one of those people that expects her friends to drive her to the airport all the time, or to help her with physical and material favors like moving boxes, groceries, etc. But I am the kind of person that expects a reply to my invitations or to my friendliness especially when I feel I've really put myself out there. I've come to realize that the friends I've made here are rather unreliable. Example, R. Now this is an example that has been bugging me for the longest time. Just ask Yil and Chal, I swear I would mention it once a day at least and say - why do people not reply me? Do I not deserve replies? Am I just not that important to anyone? I have called him and his girlfriend several times this quarter, I have invited them over for dinner, we have talked about getting together and it has never materialized. Granted, one time was my fault because I fell asleep when I was supposed to go to Nora's for drinks and woke up to 23 missed calls, but that is no comparison to the effort I've put in to make a connection I think.

I don't really take it personally, because I've come to realize this is pretty much how they treat all their friends more or less, and they don't mean anything bad by it ... but I think it's difficult not to have some sort of stability in my relationships with people. In short, all the relationships I have 'cultivated' right now are more or less unstable. Maybe it comes down to the fact that they all smoke too much weed, and I don't. Who knows?

There isn't really a person I can call up at the spur of the moment and talk to about my life because I'm having a bad day. I basically do not talk about myself at all, as Toby has told me, and that is a problem. I am surrounded by slightly self absorbed people who like to talk about themselves and their school and basically don't really listen - rather you know they are just waiting til it's their turn to speak. And I think that was why I felt so especially sad after Chal and Yil left. And then I wanted to be 16 again, in the safe haven of scgs, arms linked with everyone and holding hands and touching and talking.

I guess if you asked me what I did over spring break after they left, I really have no cause to complain. On Friday I had a very productive day. I went to campus to buy a play I needed to read for class, then I went to the costume shop where I altered a pair of my jeans for no cost and pulled some costumes for my upcoming Tesla project. And then I went home, made dinner, and set out on the CTA to go to Lincoln Park to watch a play by myself (this is not an uncommon occurrence. I've watched at least 6-8 plays in chicago by myself so far). The play was something I needed. Our Lady of the Underpass, written by a young Chicago playwright. It was funny, moving and tragic all at the same time. Most of all, this is the kind of theater I've been missing - culture and location specific theater. And you know what? It made me think about going to church again.

I went home, but then proceeded to get persuaded to go to some gay club in Belmont. I ended the night at 3.

Yesterday, I spent the day sleeping and cleaning and then I went to chinatown where I got groceries and had a very good chinese comfort food meal. After which I was kindly given a lift to Sam's apartment in Belmont where we caught up, played word games and I met new people who actually do theater.

I feel like on paper my life sounds fairly interesting, and I always manage to find myself in situations that very much juxtapose what I was doing previously. I.e: Having dinner in chinatown with the Singaporeans - playing fortune origami with a bunch of gay men in a belmont apartment. And a friend went so far as to remark, 'but you have so many friends'. Which maybe I do? It doesn't feel that way.

But still, I'm waiting. I'm still waiting for all these relationships to take root, I'm waiting for some sort of fulfillment, some sort of growth. And I feel like I've been waiting for a long time but I know some people would just say I was being too demanding.

In short, I guess I'm just whining like a 17 year old, 'wah wah people don't care about me like I wish they would'.

And I hate that. I hate it when people angst, I hate it when people wallow, and I think my long-suffering brother has heard enough of my whining these past few weeks. I'm not the kind of person that indulges in self-pity and depression, nor do I want to be.

So with Spring, I resolve to continue to rise past all of this, to continue with my self-discovery and to continue striving for happiness. No matter that I've not got replies or validation from others. I've put myself out there and I've grown from it. And that counts.

I resolved at the start of this year to be happy, and I think I'm getting there.

+ posted by M @ 6:34 AM

...	Thursday, March 19, 2009

I used to be smart.

And then I became a Theater and Performance Studies major, and now it's all 'omg 9 hours a week in the costume shop, making a silk vest!' and 'look, i can hang a light! and no, gel is not what you put in your hair!' and 'yeah, i know what someone means when they say they want to stage something in the round or on a short thrust!'

On the other hand it also means that I have forgotten how to properly use terms like 'metaphysical' and 'allegorical' and other English-y stuff.

I find myself writing my papers with the same words over and over - 'to evoke a sense of awareness in the audience'. I've used the word 'awareness' like 10 times at least so far. I've realized that English majors and Theatre majors approach Theatre in very different ways. I often find it frustrating working with English majors because they are so textual and theoretical all they want to do is do tablework for 5 hours when really we need to be thinking of how to make the text theatrical rather than analyze it to death. It's all well and good thinking about Ruth's relationship with Teddy, but really so much can be conveyed using gesture and expression that sometimes words are irrelevant.

Did I just say that? Words are irrelevant? When did I become so invested in physicality? I used to be all WORDS WORDS WORDS TEXT TEXT TEXT. Why bother with design, the script should be strong enough to stand on its own, right?

I'm not sure at what point I switched over to the dark side.

I used to approach plays like an English major, and you know what, I think there is some merit to that. Because, after all, I still attend the University of Chicago, and what is our slogan other than 'that's all well and good in practice, but how does it work in theory?' Sure, I can understand how something should be staged, and think about stage picture and how design works cohesively into the production, but if I can't write a 10-page paper analyzing a monologue, what am I really worth here?

There's part of me that wants to become all Intellectual again so I don't feel stupid when conversing with English majors, and then there's part of me that's all like - you guys are wrong and do not live in the real world, we shouldn't be talking about plays for 10 hours, we should be staging them. Now.

+ posted by M @ 4:26 AM

...	Thursday, February 12, 2009

A fence, at its simplest, is a line. It is the definition of desire. On one side, there is what we want; on the other side, what we don't. What belongs, what does not belong; accepted, unacceptable. Of course, more than a line, a fence is also a barrier. It not only designates, it separates. It ensures no mixing, no mingling, no internecine traffic. A fence is not unlike an ocean: over here, the island of us; over there, the island of them. Except that a fence, unlike an ocean, can be moved. You can put it where you see fit. Likewise, if a location is unacceptable, a fence can be removed. And where are you then? How can two distinct classes exist - food, bad, desirable, undesirable - if there is nothing to delineate them?

- Out of Eden, Alan Burdick


this, my friends, is from the book i read for bio

+ posted by M @ 5:58 AM