animation and painting

check out really cool works by Jeff Scher, a hybrid of animation and paintings... http://scher.blogs.nytimes.com/ or his official webpage http://fezfilms.net/remember.html

the old man has moved on

well... when I heard today that the old man has passed way... there is some sort of a strange relief in me. I, like many of my fellow countrymen, respect him and his contributions... but we also would never forget nor miss the latent mess he had left behind for us… So today the dawn of a new era has come, a time in which we are all working hard and anxiously waiting to catch the next wave of development called the post-China world. An important time indeed for our generation to pave the way for a better future of our people and beloved land. The Thais, the Malays, and the Viets are all already in front of us but not very far… can we make it this time?

the god of laptop

well, i am sure you have seen the macbook air right? i am not an apple user but always amazed by their products... so cool... makes me feel stupid right now typing on my "big" laptop...

Some Notes on a Gray Day

4.14 pm. A note to myself. Sometimes I found it a little weird with this architecture thingy that I have wired myself so into. I look at cool buildings and get high. I can call a building sexy. I thought that's the normal, but it is not.

I love the work of Coop Himmelblau and admire Wolf Prix. I always considered my self a student of Eisenman. I was trained in the midst of people debating about his works and theoretical polemics. I claim my historical and theoretical genealogy through him to Rowe, Wittkower, and eventually to Wolflin and Worringer. Corb and Oubrerie would always be "the" spiritual aspirations. And along the way for the last three years I have also encountered characters that provided the other realms of this journey.

But now, in the middle of a gray day, I asked the question, what it means to practice architecture after all these great buildings of my time: Gehry's Stata Center, Koolhaas's CCTV, Herzog's National Stadium, and Prix's BMW, get built. How would I situate my discourse and build upon it in the next twenty years. A question that will continue to occupy me in the coming years. Hopefully it will be an interesting one.

Impact

I got into a car accident today in Csy's car. We were driving out to lunch when we were hit on the driver side by a big Dakota SUV. The car spun around and hit a wood electric pole. The driver’s glass shattered, all the airbags came out, and overall the car was in pretty bad shape, an 8-inch indent into the frame. All that happened within a mile of where I live, an easy and slow residential neighborhood, and is actually on my daily route to work. A police car, a fire truck, and a fire ambulance all came within five minutes, no wonder it is the UAFD. We went to ER because Csy had some minor cuts and muscle ache. But thanks God, there was no major body injury to both of us.

The impact was really shocking and had shaken me quite a bit. It’s not enough to be careful, because you can’t control what other people will do right? Life comes at you fast, hah… it’s so true. This accident adds to the list of people I know that got into major car accidents like this: Ken, Henry, John, Sam, Andre, and now me. What a way to start a new year! Be careful on the road out there.

080101

Well… it’s that day of the year again… trying to write something down. There are so many happenings in 2007 in my life but is there one that is really different, one thing that is not merely a progression in life? So sorting through my journals, I pray and I think and I seek. Is there one thing, what is THE one thing? (Ps. DH, Dec 5, 2007, Chicago).

And finally, I found one. In 2007, by God’s grace, I was blessed with the opportunity to teach and interact with a larger group of young people especially the teenagers in our church. When I say ‘large’ it means 10 to 15. But still, it is the most precious gift I got this year. The experiences are so rewarding, exciting, and always challenging to me. I feel like I am doing ‘not too bad’, you know. Haha. Although a lot of times I also felt lousy and should have done better. I thank God that He opened the ways for me to be a part of their life, to teach them about God, to build their faith in Jesus, to help them find out their purposes, and more importantly to be a good friend who makes a difference in their life.

I tell you, it is the most exciting and challenging things to do, couldn’t be better than that. I have to learn and re-learn so many things about being ‘younger’, not that I am old now but you can say I am just young. Then, I have to update myself constantly about what’s current with young people (the future us, the future “kita”), what’s the latest about teen datings, technology, books, games, musics, hiphop, rap, curse words, sex trends, drugs uses… you know, all those fun stuffs.

So in 2008, there is only one thing that I wish for: to be a better teacher and friend for the young people around me. Hey, what about you? What is the one thing that you are really grateful for in 07 and the one thing that you really want to get in 08? Today and this month will be a good mood to do exercise like that.