gambitch - now available in blue

Friday, January 26, 2007

I deserve a major knocking on the head.

Not with a rubber hammer. But a real one.

I'm serious.

I did something wrong. Very, very wrong.

What should have been a simple working trip - simply because I liked doing it - turned into an exercise in self-torment, doing all the things I didn't need to do only because I wanted to be there. Only because I wanted to spring a surprise, and never thought how it could have turned into a nasty one.

I should have dunked myself in cold water that morning. I should have been locked up in a dungeon and made to cry in one cold corner.

Instead, I summoned all the courage of a hot-blooded, impulsive, panicked colt.

Snap decision after snap decision after snap decision, convincing myself that this was worth doing simply because. And in the end, it simply had to bomb on me because of one snap decision too many.

And now I'm hurt for it.

But that's okay. What's not okay is that I made you upset. And I shouldn't have...

And now, I can only respond in the one way I know how.

Withdrawal.

Until the storm blows over.
Until the sun shines once more.
Until you're willing to reach out to me again.

Until then...
Honto gomen ne...

gambitch [ 6:42 AM]

Monday, January 22, 2007

I was suddenly asked to help out with something a few hours ago, so as usual, I said yes and went to help out quite immediately. Once my work was done, this guy I didn't know particularly well decided he'd ask me for a bit of advice. I was actually quite surprised he wanted to talk to me of all people - mostly because I thought we didn't know each other particularly well. But anyway, I plonked myself into the office sofa and listened.

See, this guy is actually working as a temp in the office as part of his schoolwork, and he'd actually like to make a career out of football. He's actually partway into it already, but he kinda faced a bottleneck the previous year and felt he had to break out of it. As is common in situations like these, he decided he really ought to move elsewhere where he might have a chance of breaking upwards. The only problem is he didn't know for sure whether the place he wanted to go to was the right one for him.

To be honest, I felt surprised he would reckon it appropriate for me - a relative stranger - to offer my take on his choices. I never quite thought I was an authority on this matter, so that can't be it. What made him consult me? Is it a guy thing? Does he somehow think that I'm in a better position to offer my opinion simply because I was a male, and I may therefore be better able to read the situation than most other people in his office - who are female, by the way?

But since he asked, I answered. And then I decided to take it one step further and tell him what he really needs to do to succeed. I don't know how I figured this, but there was the guess somewhere that he may have been alone in his feeling of being bottlenecked, that he really wasn't communicating this to the very people he was supposed to work with and trust in the first place - and that'd be his mentors, if you were wondering. That's what mentors are there for in part, to guide and to provide feedback from time to time, so as to verify or dispel the thoughts and suspicions that might fill these young guys who want to do well.

Turns out that, indeed, he hasn't, or at least not enough to reassure him that all was well. I actually felt that all was probably better than he thought, but since he's so concerned about his own future, it's also good to see that he would like to take an active step to break further forward. It's just that sometimes people tend to think along lines like those more naturally than they would think that all is fine wherever they are, and that they just need a couple of minor tweaks through collaborative effort. Can't blame them sometimes.

I'm not sure whether my words of opinion would have strengthened his resolve to seek a new future at a new place. That, to me, is secondary. What is primary for him is that he doesn't end up doing the things that make him believe that he's bottlenecked again twelve months from now. He can do well, and if he doesn't, maybe talking to his mentors would reassure them that he actually wants to do better, thereby making the mentors even more predisposed towards being of help to him.

Wish you luck, mate. Though you'll never read this. Probably.

gambitch [ 3:09 PM]

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Chestnuts? Was a royally fun tickle in the... well, you know where I'm referring to. Yes, cheap pun, but that's also the entire point of this show in the first place. Cheap puns, plenty of spoofs, and anything else that basically makes the audience split in the sides so bad, sewing them together would make them look like they're wearing corsets!

Which of course means I now have my own corset. But that's really another story.

This was the first time I'm actually out there enjoying Chestnuts, which really makes me kind of slow, I know. You mean this show has been running for ten years and I didn't know it? Well, missing the previous editions means I was really missing out big-time on some very good laughter. And it's really bad of me considering how much of a theatre nut I am. Okay, okay, I know the N-word is getting too much of an airing, but I can't help it!

And there are so many things to have fun and laugh about, this show really only manages to include about half of them, maybe less! There's simply too much on offer. To quote the show's director, as he put it in his programme notes: "So many dubious foreign touring productions. So many ambitious local productions. So many Hollywood movies taking themselves SO seriously. So much national-smiling and suspicious-bagging going on. So much silliness just begging to be pointed out and laughed at."

So they sharpened their sticks and had their pokes at a very long list of things. Last year's Theatre Festival, the recent run of My Fair Lady, something about the Hunchback of Notre Dame and various other French productions, a running bitchslap on Brokeback Mountain, Kit and her involvement in Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress, Zhang Ziyi (or as she is known in the West, Ziyi Zhang) and Memoirs of a Geisha, the really ridiculous counterterrorism ad running at train stations, not to mention local theatre's continued weird obsession with sex organs! On that last one, hey, have you guys in the industry got nothing better to talk about? Okay, I get it, sex sells, now get over it!

What I am relatively surprised at is the conspicuous absence of open references to Curse of the Golden Flower, considering this was the hotly-anticipated movie of Christmas! Was it coming too close to the actual production period for it to warrant a mention? Doesn't look like it, given they've made other references to other things, including things even newer than that. So maybe this was one idea they couldn't get enough of a milking out of.

But it was really good to get a chance to just laugh myself silly. If I were to really have to say something bad about this evening, it's how I didn't think of asking more friends out to share it! It's that good, I tell you! Most definitely worth the invitations!

Never mind, there's always next year!

gambitch [ 12:36 AM]