zants.

there was an ant track in the art room.

i destroyed their path by flicking water from my brush bottle all across their path.

now they are dead ants in dilute acrylic.

gotta get my head out.

naptime.

  2pm-330pm.

dream one:

i wake up and clamber out of under the table. my huge square canvas was supposed to have my painting. but now there was a huge sbs-colour scheme truck face. david says, "ahah ryan while you were sleeping i painted your painting! Now you can't diss junyu and i for painting for each other!"

dream two:

we're all invited to a gala dinner. not before david and i scramble and fight in the newly renovated year 5 art room, second storey. a couple of new art students are looking at us but we do not care.

dream 3:

we're all gathered in the year 5 studio room. Z is in a summer dress. very nice short hairstyle. looks strangely like emma watson. sien asks, "hey ryan, ryan! (bites lip, raises eyebrows) should i tell her about my point system?"

"yeah sure."

(sien runs off after her.)

a week left.

today, i woke up at 9.40am.
all i recalled at that moment was dreaming about junyu and the rest of the art gang at wahchee.
i don't remember the plot of that dream.

i finished cooking and eating breakfast at 11.40am.
i fell asleep again for another 1 and a half hours.
this time i dreamt again about the art people and the art room.

i woke up at 1 to have lunch. it was hearty.
fell asleep again at 140. short nap till 2.
can't remember what the dream was but it was about art. again.

over-saturation?

david's right; let's take this slow.

anyway i'll miss it nonetheless.

35 more days.

; i am overtired

of the great harvest i myself desired.

~ after apple-picking | robert frost.

beauty.

only in subtlety do we appreciate strength.

slowly dissipating.

i love it when they seem so distant, vast, and magically still,

that they make the sky seem even more so.

observation.

i think a child just might have the best observation skills around.

when we're born into this world,

everything is fresh, new, unfamiliar, and most of all,

uncomfortable.

by sheer instinct babies react to anything they're not comfortable with.

they're on high alert for just about anything, albeit their mother's embrace.

all too often when i see babies, or even young children, their eyes are wide, alert, and darting.

and it is this unfamiliarity, this sense of fresh exposure, that allow their traveling eyes to capture their surroundings.

as we grow, antiquity and familiarity moss over the world, like a veil of dust.

our eyes droop - we look at our feet - and the child-like shine we once had disappears.

and perhaps only returns every once in a while we play tourist.

even the artists, as much as we strive to observe,

grow bored,

grow tired,

grow old.

we attempt to observe the usual in unusual ways,

but might fail to re-capture the freshness, magic, and enchantment little children all too plausibly see everyday.

as children, we observe what we genuinely want to, what we need to.

as we become old, it is likely we observe what we think we want to,

what we think we need to.

conditioning is inevitable, yet somehow necessary.

we shall make do.

let's not grow too fast.