Rain started to fall again this morning after a long absence. I was on the train heading back to office as it happened. Droplets of rain hit the train window and were dragged down diagonally by gravity, blurring the outside view. Earlier, there was hint that rain might came as dark cumulus formed and hovered in the sky.
I don’t remember when was the first time I became aware of my body’s unusual resistance to caffeine. It was probably around my late primary or early secondary school. I was then living in a small town in the equator, to the east of Sumatra. Coffee, the caffeine infusion was quite abundant there. At home, black coffee was readily
The clock has just turned 7.30 in the morning when Terry got off the public bus. It took him less than half an hour from his place to Fort Canning, a historic park located in the middle of the city. The park had intrigued Terry for a while but although he had been living in the city for a few years, he hadn’t visited the park before. A few times it had crossed his mind to visit but for one reason or another, he hadn’t.
It was daytime when I was thrusted into this unknown place. I couldn’t decide if it was morning or afternoon. All I remember was the thrust brought my consciousness to this unfamiliar and chaotic place. As my consciousness began to dawn on me, I made out that I was inside a dark house.
I had built a few things using Arduino and perfboard in the past. Using perfboard for prototyping is easy for many reasons. First, you are not restricted to the concept of layers — it means you can have unlimited routing cables that stack on top of another. Second, changing a routing is straightforward, you simply unsolder and re-solder it back. For most of my one-off projects, it made sense using a perfboard to deliver.
I visited Lake Toba a few months ago. On the visit, I stayed in Carolina Cottage, a small cottage in Tuk Tuk. Located on the east side of Samosir Island, the cottage has beautiful view of the lake and surrounding hills. It has about 20 rooms and the one that I stayed was a small detached hut with an upsweeping roof ridges. My room was located on the rightmost of the cottage and had two beds with a modest bathroom.
I first began using Arduino micro-controller when I worked as part of the team that did the interactive for a gallery last year. At the team, I was in charge of the electronic design and software integration.
I took a walk along the side-path of the reservoir near my home yesterday. The cemented side-path laid on top along the periphery wall of the reservoir. The wall functions as boundary separating the reservoir and the lower surrounding area. In one corner of the reservoir lies a huge water outlet that leads to a river. Through this outlet, excessive water would be released to the river when the level rise higher than what the reservoir could hold, to prevent flooding roads and buildings nearby.
Cloud, to me, is an interesting thing. It is formed from tiny water vapour, uncountable in number but yet it is almost weightless. The weightlessness of the cloud makes it drift so easily to wherever the wind blows. Its shape changes form as it drift.
I went to China a few months ago and had a chance to visit Hangzhou, a city known for its beautiful landscape. One of the popular landscapes in Hangzhou is 西湖 or West Lake. A lake I heard many times before in historical drama and musical performances.
I stumbled across the work of Michael Kenna, a photographer whose work centred around nature and landscape. As seen from his gallery — lake, forest and tree are his favourite objects.
I saw an old picture of me and my primary school friends standing on stage. Some of us were blowing through flutes and some were singing, for I suppose a farewell event. Our facial expressions were solemn in the picture. Looking back, I wonder what we felt on stage back then.