funny

A day in the life…

So I’ve been doing this awesome photography course run by the Australian Centre for Photography. It was recommended to me by my friend Alana from Little Rock Photography.

Apart from the ridiculously long drive from northern western suburban Sydney to the very cool and stylish epicentre of Paddington, I’ve really enjoyed learning to use our Canon EOS in a way that doesn’t just involve putting the camera onto its Auto setting.

Finally I understand aperture and shutter speed and ISO and exposure compensation and white balance and that funny histogram graph that I’ve been playing around with for five years for work purposes (imagine that – and to think I’ve been calling myself a designer!).

I’ve also found it quite amusing observing the ‘street style’ on Oxford Street. Women seem to look like they just stepped out of a fashion magazine or a style blog. In a one hour session alone, I spotted two different women sporting a black harem style pant suit (they did look good though) and one mother ushering her little child along whilst wearing three inch heels coupled with tight leggings. Boy do I fit right in with my maternity dresses, bulging belly and undeniable waddle.

Anyway, Monday is our last lesson and I’ve actually made an effort to complete the final project – mainly because I feel bad for only completing my ”homework’ once in the last four weeks. (Clearly my diligence as a high school student has worn off significantly in the last fourteen or so years – North Sydney Girls would be so proud.)

The brief was to choose one subject matter that interested me and to photograph it in a variety of different and interesting ways.

It took me almost two days to pick a subject and what did I end up choosing: a mango.

That’s right, a mango. I chose a mango. What was I thinking?

Rick didn’t seem too impressed when I told him (and rightly so), but late on Tuesday afternoon when I was desperately running out of ideas and exhausted from little sleep, it seemed to be a brainwave. Especially as there was one last wilting mango just staring at me from the fruit bowl, calling out to me and longing to be photographed.

Now it’s too late to change. I’ve already done all my shots and I’ve even had the photos processed.

Anyway, below are a few of the shots I’ve chosen to present. Please be gentle and nice as you critically assess. Remember: I was not thinking straight and have had very little sleep.

If you have any cool ideas for a project title, please let me know.

For now, it may as well be A Day in the Life of The Last Wilting Mango.

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Big head, meet your new hat

My head is big. You know that, right? Surely I’ve gone on about it before. No?

Okay, I have a big head.

I don’t know where I get it from. Neither of my parents’ head seems all that big.

Somehow I ended up with the extra large cranium in the Chan family.

Whenever Rick and I take our so-called ‘self portraits’ using our mobile phones, I’m forever trying to position myself further away from the camera in an effort to make my head appear smaller (and Rick’s bigger).

Very rarely do I truly succeed: my head almost always remains slightly larger than Rick’s – if I’m very lucky, we might end up about the same size but almost never does mine ever appear smaller than his.

One of practical down sides of having a grande head (apart from the fact that it’s pretty heavy to cart around every day) is that it’s hard (read impossible) to find a hat that fits.

But half a year ago, during our little adventure at the Four Seasons, we wandered into Strand Hatters at the Strand Arcade on the Saturday and I found the perfect, classic hat that came in a size that actually fit me.

It was the International by Akubra, and it was perfect: classic, crushable, foldable, shower proof (ie. able to be rained on)… and, oh, did I mention that it fit me?

Today we finally returned to the store to claim the hat that shall crown my head for the next ten to twenty years (as long as my head doesn’t keep getting bigger).

When the lady was trying to work out which size it was that fit me, I kindly suggested that it was probably the biggest size they had. As it turned out: nope, it wasn’t the 59cm one (which I think was already a pretty large size), but it was indeed the 60cm one – the largest they had in stock.

Afterwards, we celebrated my new hat (which incidentally came with this beautiful red feather) with ridiculously expensive chocolate milkshakes at Sheraton on the Park – but that’s another story.

For now, my big head rests.

Edit: Rick just read my post and said (word for word), “I think it’s wide rather than big.”

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The glory (and fun) of the third trimester

Third trimester fun has officially commenced, namely (in no particular order):

Moodiness

Just ask Rick.

In fact, there’s this joke I recently read that rings a little too closely to the truth:

Q: My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she’s borderline irrational.
A: So what’s your question?

Shrunken bladder

Enough said. Surely one of life’s worst enemies especially when you’re stuck in traffic with two tired and unhappy kids in the back.

Pelvic pain

Think sharp stabs of pain that renders you immobile. And you guys, I’m already receiving really good physio treatment. Of course, it would help if I actually did the exercises that my physiotherapist tells me to do, but it’s just so hard to find those extra five minutes in the day – you know what I mean, right?

Inability to sleep

…despite endless pillow configurations. Trust me, I’ve tried them all. Rick now only has access to about 25% of the surface area on our bed because I need the rest of the space to build entire cities and civilisations out of pillows and blankets in order to have any hope of getting actual sleep at night.

I know I will have to move to the couch soon. But I’m not ready to give in. Yet.

Walking and bumping into things

Otherwise known as clumsiness, which is further exacerbated by the fact that I can’t see past my belly. It doesn’t help that I’m usually unco-ordinated anyway, even when I’m not pregnant. Anyway, if you should see me in the next couple of months, be sure to check out the impressive showcase of bruises on my right leg. (The left side of my brain must be more spatially aware.)

Waddling

I used to think this was a pregnancy myth, but these last three to four years have proven that I take to waddling like a duck to water (pun totally intended).

Rick once told me that I never actually stopped waddling after the first pregnancy. Such are the sweet nothings that he whispers in my ear.

Nightmares about giving birth again

Most recently, I dreamt that I gave birth in a room full of people. They didn’t seem at all bothered. Perhaps they were all obstetricians, I don’t know. I was just glad (in the dream) that the birth had been painless. I woke up thinking that maybe birth the fourth time round won’t be so bad after all…

Good ole Braxton Hicks contractions

What can I say – this must be God reminding me that birth is painful and will be painful so as I don’t go into a rude shock when the baby begins to crown.

Generally feeling big and round and big again

In fact, every time I look in the mirror, I freak out because I know I’ve still got an entire trimester to go and yet I’m already carting around what looks to be a basketball (I mean, just look at the photo above!). What will I be like towards the end of term?

(At this point, Rick always helpfully points out that I usually reach double the size I am now. He even throws in a finger gesture for extra measure. He specifically likes to say, “You get to about here.” whilst pointing at the invisible air about 15 centimetres off the ‘bulgiest’ part of my belly. Ahem, thanks darling.)

p.s. Incidentally, please people, don’t tell my mum I took a photo of my belly. She will freak out. I’m not savvy as to what the exact Chinese superstition belief is, but she’ll probably worry that James is going to be born with a camera in his hand or something un-crazy like that.

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I do art

My two year old never fails to surprise me.

This morning after Rick had left for work, he began running around in hysterics with his shoes in hand shouting “Car! Car! Car!” By the time I’d pulled on my trusty jeggings and was attempting to cover up my racoon bags with Garnier’s roll-on concealer, I had had it.

“That’s enough!” I half-barked at him as I held him by the shoulders and looked him very sternly in the eye. “We will go in the car, but only after mummy gets ready, Pete gets ready and when mummy has packed food for you and Pete. Okay? OKAY!? So stop shouting and stop running around. PLEASE!”

Clearly, I’d lost sight of all the tried-and-tested parenting advice about ignoring or distracting one’s screaming toddler. Instead, I was opting for the irrational I-am-going-to-talk-to-my-child-like-he’s-an-eighteen-year-old-and-expect-him-to-respond-in-kind-OR-ELSE.

And respond in kind Angus did. He stopped shouting, looked at me for a few moments, nodded his head very seriously, turned around and started making his way to Pete’s room – supposedly to help get him ready.

Mum – 0. Angus – 1.

Anyway, this afternoon I tried to re-create art.

Or more specifically, I tried to re-create a piece of art that Pierce Brosnan’s character steals in The Thomas Crown Affair called The Faceless Businessman.

This was my re-interpretation:

Get it?

He has an apple. I have an Apple – phone. (Steve Jobs should be paying me to come up with stuff like this.)

Even though The Faceless Businessman is not actually the correct name of the original artwork* (I know this because my friend Google told me), I shall give mine the title:

The Faceless Mum Who Hasn’t Had Time To Brush Her Hair.

*It is actually called The Son of Man, and it is by the artist René Magritt.

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From rubber ducky to stripes

Before Angus was born, I wanted to create my own nursery artwork. I read The Acrylic Artist’s Bible by Marylin Scott and convinced myself that I would be able to conjure up a masterpiece for my little boy.

So I walked up King Street, bought a blank canvas from a cosy little store called Art on King and lugged it all the way home by myself whilst seven months pregnant.

My goal was to paint a rubber ducky. So I started sketching a rubber ducky.

Two minutes later, I looked at what I had drawn and remembered why I wasn’t an artist.

I flipped through Marylin Scott’s book again and settled on something else that was significantly less impressive but a whole lot more achievable: stripes.

A few days later, we had this hanging on the wall:

Whilst I’m not proud that my rubber ducky got reduced to stripes, one has to be realistic in life and realise when one is incapable of painting a rubber ducky.

Not convinced? Reckon I could’ve tried harder?

Here is my so-called ‘sketch’ of a rubber ducky (I say that with air quotes because it almost doesn’t really qualify as a ‘sketch’).

Friends, I rest my case.

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This is why I’m not a model

As part of my on-going ‘Aperture migration’ project (I say ‘on-going’ because it’s been two years now, and I am still tagging and rating all the photos I used to store in iPhoto), I came across photos from a studio shoot that the Good Company kindly organised for me back in 2007.

I thought I’d share a few that makes me chuckle.

(I should warn you that none of these photos are particularly flattering. I’m not the most photogenic of people, in case you haven’t worked that out yet by the lack of photos of yours truly on this blog.)

Here I am looking all happy with my double chin.

Double chin joy

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Won’t you join me on a tour…

…of the flora on our street on a beautiful Spring day? It could be very educational. You never know.

First up – shoes on!

Essential black flats

I go everywhere in these black flats. Even when we go for one of our more adventurous afternoon walks (ie. around the block and maybe thirty metres into the bush), I insist on wearing these pointy flats every time. Even when Rick makes not-so-subtle suggestions like, “What about your Scarpas?” Scarpas, honey!? Who needs Scarpas (or any other hiking footwear) when you have these black pointy leather flats from Wittner?

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The subliminal benefits of laughter

This one is from the archives. I wrote it back in 2003, and I feel all warm and fuzzy every time I read it:

Given my fear that my parents would hit the roof upon discovering that I was going out with a non-Asian, their reaction came as no less than a big surprise. A very pleasant surprise, but nonetheless a big surprise.

I came home last Tuesday night after seeing a movie with Rick to be confronted with the age-old question by my mum in the bathroom: “So who did you watch the movie with?”

Options that immediately flashed through my mind:

1) A friend?
?2) A good friend?
?3) A special friend? ?
4) A very….eerrr…special friend?
?5) My boyfriend?
?6) My boyfriend whom I’ve never told you about?
?7) My boyfriend whom I’ve never told you about and who also happens to be caucasian?

Before I could come to any sort of rational decision, I was betrayed by something I had absolutely no control over. My laughter.

That’s right. Instead of telling my mum the ‘solemn news’ in the mature way that I had envisioned, I started giggling like a silly schoolgirl. And of course, once you pop, you can’t stop.

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What I saw

Today was Rick’s day off, and we had hoped to spend the afternoon at the beautiful Balmoral Beach. However, it began raining heavily after the boys woke up from their nap, so instead of heading east, we drove up the F3 freeway to Bobbin Head. Despite the persistent rain, we had a lovely time driving around in the car: Pete munched on a Rusk stick the entire time while Angus was curious about everything that he could see outside his window.

This was what I saw from my window:

1) Gorgeous boats on the marina

Boats on the marina

2) Gorgeous husband running to find the gents

Husband running to the gents

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This is why I’m uncoordinated

I am utterly spent. I feel like I’ve just spent three hours at the gym. Instead, I’ve spent forty-five minutes at Gymbaroo with Pete and I am simply wasted.

They should make it clear on their website that parents are required to be fit. And strong. And fit again.

I will never forget our first lesson three weeks ago. Ten minutes into the baby exercises, our lovely leader Di had instructed us to lift our babies upside down by clasping our hands around their thighs. Naturally, I was the only mum who couldn’t do it. Poor Pete was crying hysterically with his face planted on the gym mat as his chronically unfit mum struggled to get him even one centimetre off the floor. Of course, it didn’t help that Pete is a 11-12 kg nugget baby or that I was laughing hysterically the whole time at my own incompetence.

Strangely enough, we weren’t just hanging them upside down for the fun of it: Apparently, it is good for babies to have lots of upside down time. And to have bare feet. Both help to promote mobile development, balance and co-ordination.

I was at once embarassed, mortified and enlightened when Di told us this. Embarassed because I was the only one (yet again) taking Pete’s pants off there on the mat so that I could in turn take off his Bonds bodysuit in order to achieve ‘bare feet’ status. Mortified because both Pete and Angus were almost never allowed to go bare feet by their Asian mummy. And enlightened because I finally understood why I myself was so uncoordinated: I’d spent my entire life in slippers while my typically Asian childhood had been filled with Kumon exercises and maths timetables instead of hanging upside down off trees, monkey bars and the like.

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