Authenticity, Careers and Art

Like a track out of Prodigy's best album ('Fat of the Land' I think), this post is probably a wierd mish of skippy beats.

Much as I have learnt from my course in PIM, perhaps the one big lesson that came out of it was that one should aim to be authentic. Being authentic with yourself is the first step in being a better person - when you don't lie to yourself, you will see more of your own flaws and come to view your self-esteem in the right light. In a way, if your ego is the inflated sort (like most MBAs are wont to be) then you most likely need a dose of self-criticism, and see where you really stand as a human being.

Being authentic with other people is a lot harder though. The oft-used cliche of 'putting on a mask' reminds me of how people that I sometimes interact with on a daily basis aren't always being true. Typical casual friends tend to assume a veneer of falsehood as some kind of screen, maybe in some attempt to hide the true self underneath. I guess most people do want their true selves to be 'revealed' in some form or other - they just aren't comfortable enough to want to do that in an obvious way. I believe everyone likes to be heard, and when you can bear to listen to some of the false pompous shit for a while, the true self emerges.

Speaking of revealing, a lot of what I am doing these days is trying to get folks to reveal more - not about themselves, but about their companies. INSEAD's P4s are in the thick of the recruiting season, with 2-3 companies coming every day for this week and next, all in the name of snatching the best MBAs for their firm. The P4s that are job hunting go out of their way to socialise, mingle and network. The P4s that aren't job hunting go out of their way to have fun (and make us job seekers jealous). Cruel, cruel world we live in out here - job search one moment, group meetings the next.

But... somehow, I found time to go to Paris on Sunday. Short trip to see the Musee d'Orsay for free. What struck me about the museum was how they seemed to have a different policy with regards cameras. In contrast with the Louvre (where photography was strictly forbidden), the d'Orsay allowed one to take pictures of the paintings, as long as no flash was used. This meant that one had to grapple with trigger happy tourists taking pictures of other happy tourists standing in front of modern art. How grothesque: go buy the bloody postcards ye cheapskate tourist!

Does it really add to your 'here I am' collection to have a picture of you standing in front of a Renoir or Monet? Like the folks at home are even going to notice. I was really peeved with a particular Brit tourist who shooed me out of his shot while I was looking at a Monet. Like I had no right to be between his phone camera and the painting. Come on... this is an art gallery, not the Eiffel Tower.

Oh, I was guilty of taking a couple of pictures though:

The ground floor of the museum was all sculpture. Rooms to the left and right housed older paintings, some just prior to the impressionist movement.


A clock on the fifth floor of the building offered some interesting picture opportunities. Didn't hang around long though - people just don't like their pictures taken by a stranger that much.

No to no; Pics from Prague

Things have improved - I was able to finally register on the course I wanted, but at the expense of dropping another mini course.

For this period, Psychological Issues in Management (PIM) was offered in 2 sections, and with an initial cut-off point of 80, it was a popular course and in high demand. Furthermore, there was already an expansion from one to two sections and when I checked with the professor, he exclaimed that 2 was as far as he can possibly handle: any more would have been too much of a drain. Organizational Behaviour (OB) courses tend to be an energy-draining affair for the professor: my P1 OB lecturer wept at the end of an emotionally charged period with us.

Still, I'm happy to get to do PIM: after getting a 'No' from the professor, I followed a suggestion from a housemate and approached the administration instead. I guess they like their more enthusiastic students, and I got accepted into PIM. The only snag was that I had to drop something else (a clash of classes - even though I had a solution around it, the lady from the MBA office refused to hear any of it)

Perhaps what I should learn from this is that no 'No's are absolute. There are always ways to work around a rejection and perhaps get a compromise or another way to achieve the desired outcome. Rejection should not be hard to handle - though life may be full of it, there's always something else to go to, or another way to approach it. With the job search activities going on the next few weeks, rejection is probably going to be a frequent occurence.

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My last batch of pictures from my trip in Europe during July. I approached Prague without a guidebook, map, and hardly any idea what to see. Until, of course, a friend in the UK tsk-tsked away and lent me a guidebook for some ideas. I enjoyed Prague, but the problem was I never ventured out of it - interesting nearby towns like Cemsky Krumlov and Kutna Hora were missed on account of my reluctance to spend more money and a little poor planning. Plus I was already stuck in Prague after putting money down on that hostel room.

Shadows played a huge part in the photos I took in Prague. Summer in Europe meant long days and long shadows, and that's what I composed most of the pictures with. Have a look!

Sunset on Charles Bridge - I started getting artistic with the black and whites - there're many of those in the set.


Reflection of some logs on the Vltava River - for what purpose I still can't fathom.


I have a theory that a city big enough to have a metro train system is too big. Prague has a smallish metro system and people still get around alot on trams. They're kind of romantic but watch out for the pickpockets.


Too bad I couldn't get this guy right where I wanted him in this picture. I don't understand why seeing a photographer meant you have to avoid the space he is trying to capture.


Mum was trying to show her toddler the beautiful rose stained glass window in the church. Nope, I don't take pictures of rose stained glass windows because they're too common (on the web)


Under the Bench. Neat thing you can do with lines in a shot, but the bright parts just wash out when you up the contrast on the picture. I like it nonetheless.


Another sunset shot done at Charles Bridge, with the unnecessary areas of the bridge darkened away to highlight the people walking under the bridge tower.


Sighs... the flares ruin an otherwise perfect shot. Maybe I should get my photoshopper friend to do something about those flares.


At the tower overlooking the town square, and looking out at the rooftops of Prague.


Fishing for sunshine.

Google-Addled and Familiar Sights from London

A couple of weeks back, I decided to make this website contribute a little to the greyscalefuzz get-rich-and-retire fund by adding Google ads. Making this blog a somewhat more commercially viable enterprise was just an exercise in seeing what that new-fangled Google tool could do. And I ended up being more interested in what ads they pulled out with the words written on my entries.

One thing that caught on immediately was my brief reference to the D_a Vin_ci Co_de - lots of links to Christian websites debunking Mr Brown's wild theories. Another one that was more recent gave me a link to a site that had a detailed theological explanation of Jo_hn chapter 1. Interesting stuff - I think it is good to know that a true reading of the bible need also involve some understanding of the context, and the language it was originally written in.

(Oh, in case you're wondering what explains those underscores... '_', I'm trying to see if they fool GoogleAds - I don't really want the same results returned again, like a broken record... that annoying thing)

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London.

I kind of liked and disliked London all at the same time. I've always liked old cities with a lot of history and culture behind it. Everything is in English - the signs, the announcements on the Tube, the maps. Everything is immediately understandable and not too much of a cultural shock. I can actually order a quarter pounder, fries and coke light without tongue twisting in excruciating French, or getting all signy-pointy with Spanish counter staff.

What I hated though was the whole hustle and bustle of a big city - I think any city with a population in excess of 2 million, and owning a subway system qualifies as a big city. And cities having subways are annoying in the way that they swallow individuals up and spew them out in mass quantities at precise locations within them. The crowding makes people short on temper and short on courtesy at times - I've never felt more small and insignificant. I've never felt more swallowed up than in London (perhaps I might feel the same in Tokyo; I've certainly felt that in New York)

Pics:

The London Eye when your eye cannot see the whole of it from the bottom up.


A small pic to show you everything London: the double decker, Big Ben, part of the London Eye, and the unholy mating of the London Cab and Hello Kitty (pink cab, bottom right)


Squinty-eyed me 'flying' on the London Eye. Didn't help that I seldom trusted strangers with my camera, so I held it by myself.


Kids, this is the Tower Bridge. NOT the London Bridge of that nursery rhyme fame.


My favourite pic from London does not show anything Londony at all. :) A couple holding hands and walking away. Ahhh....


Picadilly Circus (did I get that right?) Busy junction et al.


Scene from one of those ubiquitous Tube stations. Someday, I got to go back and get a better shot at these places - damn hard with people walking all over the place and shoving you towards the tracks.

See other pics of London here

Of Reading Lists and Postcards from Barcelona

Given the time out from full-time student life, I've come to appreciate the fact that I can finally read fiction work again. It sounded strange when I first verbalised it to myself: as a student in uni, I consumed fiction voraciously. Textbooks were full of gibberish and the only thing I counted on were notes and scraps of paper.

Then that monster known as work came along. Consulting is not for everyone, and was definitely not for the fiction afficionado. So I compromised: I read less. Still, I could consume enough books to satiate that lust for stories. I read stuff from all over, and it was during this time that I started liking Margaret Atwood's feminist gab and David Mitchell's dreamy sequences.

Along came biz school and this time round, reading anything other than the required cases for class is a travesty. What's more, the profusion of reading material on the net (I speak of blogs, newspapers, whatnots) meant that my whole day is spent in a constant infusion of text into my brain. I just did not have enough bandwidth to consume fiction as well, and it was on a sad note that I stopped reading anything interesting (hey, some business texts are interesting in their own right - just go read Blue Ocean Strategy... but they aren't stories).

So summer without an internship was a kind of blessing in disguise. I've read David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (I like his previous work better), Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in a Time of Cholera (I never thought I would touch that novel, to be honest), and Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (very weird stuff in this book... very very indecipherable). And due to the dearth of good fiction around the house, I'm actually reading the Da Vinci Code (after having seen the movie).

The Da Vinci Code reads like a person driving a car with both the accelerator and brake pedals depressed: start-stop-start-stop-start-stop-start... the protagonists find some new clue, and then the action stops at a critical juncture, and you ask yourself "Gee I need to know what happens!!!" and so you read on. Until the next critical juncture. Ad nauseam. Very useful device to convince the reader that you have an engaging and interesting book (but seriously though, the book reads like someone throwing his high-school history+art+bible lessons at you, wrapped around a treasure hunt story).

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Someone once said that there were only 2 kinds of stories in the world: "A man goes on a journey" and "A stranger comes into town". Every other story is a variation of the 2 themes, a combination of both, or a sluice of something in between. Try looking for these themes the next time you read a book.

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As promised, here are the photos from Barcelona. While there, I met up with a friend who was learning Spanish there (lucky guy) and he introduced me to some of his classmates, one of whom was Italian. That Italian lass and I sat glued in a pub watching the World Cup finals: I cheered for France; no questions who she cheered for. And for my efforts in cheering the losing team, the Italian lass gave me a lesson on what Italian hooligans sing about (they were everywhere in that pub and sang the lewdest songs!), and of course, goaded over their goddamn undeserved victory.

Anyhow, photos:

Go to Barcelona, if for nothing else, thn to see Gaudi's irreverent artwork

La Pedrera

Parc Guell

And the Sagrada...

...with its interesting doors.

The only place where skateboarding can be done around gothic buildings...

...and demonstrations take place outside the mayor's office regularly.

Art, in whatever forms it assumes, is always being restored. The lady here is painstakingly restoring a letterbox carved during the renaissance for the building formerly used by a lawyer's guild.

Port Vell, where a shopping centre's front arcade features mirrors on the ceiling. Perfect for the narcissist in all of us; and a strain on the neck.

Oh yes, the bridges also tend to break up often. :)

Also, do not miss Las Ramblas for the street performers - to be honest, I find them all a tad too touristy and profit driven. Much preferred the occasional guitarist or opera singer I encountered around parts of the Gothic Quarter (a maze to certainly get yourself lost in).

Due to space constraints, check out the rest of my Barcelona impressions here.

Home and Postcards from Provence and Cote d'Azur

I'm finally home. I can finally enjoy having uninterrupted Wi-Fi and the peace of mind to slowly upload my photos, sort through my clothes, and work on relationships. This is all the next month is going to be about: relationships.

One of the things you learn from Negotiations Analysis class is the usage of a framework known as the Seven Elements (our instructor, Horacio, absolutely swears by it). One of the elements is Relationship, and it is about considering how you can, and should, build the relationship in any ongoing negotiation that you may have.

Make no mistake about it: destroying the relationship, be it through the careless use of words or inept outbursts of emotion, is detrimental to any negotiation. It is not about being tough and acting tough - negotiations are also primarily about building the bridge between you and your counterpart and working towards a value creating outcome.

Hence, my focus for this summer: relationships. I am already starting by mending the most important one, the one which my future happiness and life depend upon, though the subject of which is somewhat depressing. I never realised how much distance can break a relationship. I never realised that feelings of longing can be so satiated with a simple meeting of hearts. I never realised how much some values meant to other people - too often, I held values with little regard, thinking them hinderances rather than morally upheld principles. I belittled the power of an idea, of a principle.

Next comes the next most important relationships: my parents and my grandmother. My parents have aged before my eyes and I have been blind not to see that ageing process. It is a slow, slow loris that creeps upon you unexpectedly, pouncing on you in the most unexpected way. He is 60, she is 58, and they have reached the point in their lives where the roles have somewhat reversed: he's forced into retirement and whiling his time away; she runs her own business and works insane hours. I'm amazed at the ingenuity my mother has displayed; I'm saddened by my father's spiralling descent from the peak of his success.

My grandmother has few years left, and the dignity to live it has gone from her, for each day is as uncomfortable as the next. Unable to speak properly for the strokes have atrophied the right side of her body. Unable to walk, to eat by herself. Worst of all now, she's unable to control her defecation and urination. I know people who'd rather die than live through a life such as hers - our dignity seems to supercede our quest to live. But she lives on and she has lived well by all accounts. Few years are left to her - she is 90. She wants to go on.

Then perhaps, the relationships that come next: friends. I'm not an initiator. Never has been one to initiate and start something going. I'm the classic tortoise - living in my shell of a house and hoping someone else invites me to the party. Perhaps I want to do something on my own this time. Perhaps I want to reach out, cast my net, and widen that small social circle. Perhaps I want to build stronger friendships.

Perhaps.

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BTW, photos from my trip in Provence and Cote d'Azur below. I hung out with a cool Shanghaiese babe, and an opinionated Beijinger dude. They made the trip really fun (and really tiring as well!).

Old busker playing an accordian. I dropped in 50 cents and asked him not to smile at me.


That disgruntled codger shut his windows on me after spying me taking this picture of him.




She didn't really like me taking candid shots after a while. Such a poseur. :)


Yes, walking among lavender is hazardous to health.


We 3 spent hours searching for the perfect field. We never really found it but this one takes the cake for being the most expansive we found.


My dear friend's 到此游图. He wants one at every significant juncture we reach. :)


Living here = strong calves. Gordes is magnificent.


Pont du Gard - part of an old roman aqueduct that now is a UNESCO world heritage site, and place where tourists dip themselves in the river at low tide.


My attempt at being artistic.


My attempt at being artistic once more.

The changing of the guard at the residence of the Prince of Monaco. The ridiculous affair requires the guards to slap their sides when standing to attention. Several of them were actually portbellied. I fear for the Prince's safety.

See the full set of pictures from Provence and the Cote d'Azur

Postcards from France - wished you were here!

I usually express myself better using words than in pictures. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (if you considered impulse buying THAT), I bought myself this kick-ass digital SLR that was all the rage two years ago (sobs... its now an old bird).

My trusty Nikon D70 has weathered it all: pelting rain in Lake Inle, dusty sands from the ruins of Bagaan, biting winds up on the Empire State Building of New York, balmy weather and curious stares in Bali, sweaty summertime in France, and other charming parts of Europe.

Now, where was I going with this? Oh yeah: the weekend last, me and my housemate did a little trip up to Reims and Luxembourg. Being tourists while poor students at the same time don't make for a good combination: for one thing, its hard to justify all that expensive food I've been eating. What's more, Reims is champagne country: it sucks when all I had in the beverage arena while at Reims was one glass of champagne. That silly Tattinger shop stopped accepting tasting visits when we got there (Gawd... my housemate was sooooo mad).

Anyway, first up on the itinerary was the Notre Dame in Reims. The Notre Dame in Reims was where the King of France was crowned. If you saw 'Joan of Arc' the movie, there is most likely a scene where Joan attends the coronation of her king in this cathedral (it is grand and probably looked a lot grander in its heyday).

Long hallways, high arches and rose-shaped stained glasses: yup, I'm in a grand French cathedral alright

So that's what I look like!

After enough cathedral gazing (you do that a lot in Europe, alas), we went a perambulating around the little city. Had lunch al fresco in some roadside restaurant that had amazingly good service for a French restaurant (side note: no tipping in this country = expect bad service). Anyhow, our stomachs satisfied (I had champagne from champagne country!), we went to the Palais du Tau - a little museum housing some of the art that has been taken out of the Notre Dame (for one reason or another). There were a lot of tapestries (boring carpets that people hang on walls - easier on the neck I presume) but I was more interested in the sculptures:

This was one of my favourites: it's Adam and Eve. Eve's eating the forbidden fruit and so is the serpent on the tree of knowledge.

Eve and the Serpent, this time rendered with legs.

A gargoyle.

Nice little effects with a reflective surface and some butts.

After Reims, next up was Luxembourg. The drive there wasn't too bad, but Luxembourg was a little tad boring at night. The first thing to do upon hitting the little hotel was to turn on the dingy TV and watch some soccer. It was Italy vs US in a match of send-offs galore. Did a walk about town at night and then caught up on sleep. Somehow, that hotel we booked was near the red light district - it was right next to a strip club - but nothing as exciting as Geylang here (it's boring Luxembourg, eh?). Morning came and this time, we went to see the town proper:

Some cheerleader performance in the middle of the day.

Pity about this photo: I couldn't get the sky to be any bluer because it was done near noon. The sun just washes out the colours there.

I have this thing about taking reflections of buildings off of spanking shining cars. Incidentally, Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita in the world - it shows: everyone here drives an expensive car.

I thought it apt to point out that the cute statue couple under the umbrella seemed to be having a much better time than the old couple on the bench. Maybe that's what marriage does to you?

This was my favourite picture from the trip - it's the opera house of Luxembourg, and its interior was designed to give it a web-like effect during the day. Nice...

To see more from this set (and others), check out my flickr pics.