where thoughts materialise.

So we're into the sixth version of my blog after the last version hung around for a year or so.

Now, a bit of info on this image. This photo was taken one lovely spring afternoon, featuring the iconic Old Well from the UNC Chapel Hill campus. I would like to think of this image as a tribute to my time in UNC Chapel Hill, the awesome friends I made and the memories I now hold dear.

A milestone in my life indeed.

I've dropped the tagboard cos its useless and taking eons to load. But thanks to Angela who helped me set it up, I still do like and will miss the pink interface.

So yeah, it's the sixth one you fellas!

Yours.

27 April 2008

you know you miss my older entries

October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008

Monday, December 13, 2004

I was thoroughly intrigued and consumed reading the special write up on Generation Why in The Straits Time last saturday. It talks about opting out of the silly rat race we are accustomed to, and simply choosing happiness and passion over a perceived stable career. It was a wonderfully good read.

For the uninitiated, Generation Why is made up of well-educated, highly intelligent amd highly driven people who, at the peak of their careers, begin to question whether making money and enjoying its attendant perks is the be-all and end-all of existence.

These people not willing to be bound by social mores, where materialism finally takes a backseat. It is a shift from "survival" - or economic growth - to "self-expression", or lifestyle values. It is, finally, an embarkation of a quest for meaning in life.

It is true. In a multi-tasking, multi-choice and global world, one goal - success - is not enough to satisfy Man's now very complex needs and desires.

The bottom line? It's all about passion and being true to oneself!

I am more determined than ever now. To follow my passion and never compromise my values and what I truly love for some ticket to the rat race.

Please do read the article i selected below. Be patient and read on and you may find some inspiration like i did. It's really worth the read.

* *

Dec 11, 2004
WEE HONG LING, 36
The Mould breaker
Father's death led to soul searching by geographer who is now making art her life

WAS: A geographer and research fellow of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), specialising in satellite imaging and geographic information systems. She became the first Singaporean to study at the International Space University in Stockholm, Sweden.

IS: A self-taught ceramic artist whose works have been exhibited at the nationwide US sculpture show titled Strictly Functional in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as well as the Singapore Permanent Mission to the United Nations. This month, she has a show at Rebus Works in North Carolina in the US.

HER TIP: 'Ask yourself what is the last thing you want to do before you go to bed and the first thing you want to do when you wake up, and recall the last time you did something which made the hours just pass by.'

A RECOVERING over-achiever is what geographer-turned-ceramic artist Wee Hong Ling calls herself these days.

On the phone with The Straits Times from her walk-up apartment in New York's Chinatown, she recalls: 'I was totally spoiling the market. If others did five things to get an A, I'd do 20 to top them.'

The geography graduate from the National University of Singapore got hooked on analysing satellite imagery in her honours year in 1991, and her professors suggested she study the subject further in the United States.

Ms Wee's then-boyfriend, a Singaporean, was reading for his PhD at Cornell University and she flew there to join him because 'we wanted to be together'.

Everything clicked into place - or so it seemed. She enrolled in Rutgers University, and began specialising in remote sensing and geographic information systems. She was awarded a three-year grant as a research fellow for Nasa. In the summer of 1995, she studied at Sweden's International Space University for 10 weeks, where she mingled with 125 other bright sparks.

After that 'most amazing experience' of her life, she secured her Masters in geography the following year in 1996. Still unsure about what to do with her life, she took 'the path of least resistance' and embarked on a geography doctorate at Rutgers - and, true to form, aimed to finish it in four years, half the time it would take others.

By then, she and her Singaporean boyfriend had parted ways. Her current boyfriend is an American teacher.

Then, in 1997, her world changed when her father died of liver cancer.

'It was the pivotal point in my life. It made me question the things I was madly pursuing. How important is a PhD degree? How important is making $100,000 a year after you've lost one of the most important people in your life?

'I started asking myself questions like, 'Are these things really important to me because they're important to me? Or are they important because everyone else around me says so?' she remembers.

Amid the soul searching, life had to go on, so she hit the books and pushed herself so hard that a concerned friend introduced her to a beginner's pottery class to help her chill out. She fell in love immediately with clay.

'My parents were so clean and meticulous, you could eat off the floor in our house. So it was very liberating to be splashing clay and water all over the place. It felt like something I was not supposed to do,' she says, laughing.

The over-achiever in her was so bent on mastering the basics that she persuaded the teacher to give her the key to the studio. There, she spent four hours or more a day sweeping, loading and unloading the studio kiln and learning the essence of the craft.

To date, she has clinched six scholarships - worth about US$2,500 ($4,100) each - to do two-week pottery courses in various art colleges around the US, including the Haystack Mountain School in Maine.

In February 2001, she also studied under the famous American potter Jack Troy, who is a professor at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. At the end of the course, she told him: 'This is something I definitely want to do with my life, but I promise to finish my PhD first.'

She says Mr Troy heaved a huge sigh and told her: 'You don't know how relieved I am that you've said that. No one wants to be the person responsible for your quitting just because you've found a different passion.'

In 1999, she took - and passed - her PhD qualifying examinations, and is on course to complete her dissertation next March. But ultimately, she plans to walk the potter's path. Today, she spends about 60 hours a week on pottery and about 30 hours on her dissertation.

Her sleek, sensuous yet whimsical style is her way of depicting what is most amusing in life to her - in clay. In her well-loved Polar Bear series, there is a 10cm-high sculpture of five polar bears arguing over a tiny fish. The title? Board Room Meeting.

To date, she has fashioned 1,000 pieces and sold about 100 at about US$400 each. She has also happily given away many because 'I keep them only long enough to learn from them'.

In April this year, her work was chosen out of 1,500 entries to be displayed at America's nationwide Strictly Functional ceramic art show. Walking into the exhibition hall, the first piece she saw was a huge vase by Mr Troy.

'Me, being exhibited next to Jack Troy? I could have died and gone to heaven,' she recalls.
She muses: 'If you asked me 12 1/2 years ago how I'd see myself in 2004, I would never have said 'as an artist' because it's so great a departure.

'Very often, my friends ask me, 'With all that education, why are you choosing to be an artist?' My question to them then is: 'Do you expect artists to be uneducated?'

Still, she stresses that she is only able to do what she does because her two older brothers - a human resources manager and the owner of a pest control company respectively - are taking care of her mother and egg her on all the way to 'do what I love'.

She stresses: 'I don't want to give people the idea that they should live freely and do whatever they want. Whatever you decide on, please be responsible to yourself, your family and your community and don't do anything which is harmful to others.'

nimgnoy let the night fall at 10:59 PM

1 comments

1 Comments:

At 11:17 AM, jonathan said...: so now you're into newspaper reports. arrogance and stupidity. i'm your new biggest fan.