all begins with L

on why i’m at peace: this is a cut&paste so don’t be offended. )

“Alright, here we go.

Eight months on and I am declaring that my quarter life crisis is coming to a proper wrap. After series of interviews, taking aims and pursuing ‘proper’ jobs, I walked away from the last interview feeling utterly relieved knowing that I wouldnt be taking up the position despite putting on a good show.

After an hour of grilling the CEO looked at me and say that I am not one who value sales as much as marketing. I looked at him and went “absolutely.” We all know that a good product is a matter of being communicated, sales is a by-bonus end results. Chey-bah. )

After which I recommended him a good restaurant to have lunch in and he asked me to join him. But then I thought my time with him that day was already over stretched.

I am however meeting him again for possible collaboration. I’m beginning to embrace this mantra of working with people, not for people, even if you’re in a company. And that’s exactly what I’m gearing on with this coffee stint.

True enough, couple of weeks down the road, I saw the present in light. I start to work with what’s around me, my customers, my colleagues, the bosses and just working with the present value.

After seven months I’ve gradually make known to the managers of what I really want to do professionally and right now I’m co-interior designing the new coming cafe these guys are setting up. End of August I’ll be heading to Italy for the Biennale.

Coming back I’ll be starting an introductory course on Interior Design, not a masters nor a bachelor but a starting point. I’m beginning to love London for what it’s worth. Even today taking a new bus route home, I chance upon a road I’ve yet to stroll by.

It hasn’t been easy, I’ve made fools out of myself and still catching myself doing so at times, I’ve gotten quiet lately, perhaps having something to do makes you talk less, and if you talk less then you’ll really find something to do. The equation seems to work at present moment.”

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT CUT&PASTE, SO PAY ATTENTION. )

well, yes the ceo extended a dinner invitation next week. why not. and there’s a new distraction in town. when i get a name, i’ll let you know.

i found an interior design course from st martin which i’ll be signing up for when i get back from Italy. starts in October. Lola leaves London for good tomorrow, i’m quite sad about it actually.

i kinda fought with Sanran, I don’t know how to put it across to him that I can’t be friends with him anymore unless we completely put aside this intimacy.

on a more trivial note, i’m meeting ms. elizaveta tomorrow.

man?women?man?women? is never the question. )

you, i miss, as always.

now what next
for the coming decade

ps. i miss the family

A wiseman (and a very flirtatious one) once told me that all if not most creative directors started out as copywriters.

…was having one of those post midnight table (and green tea) talk with a friend in her bachelorette pad, explaining (examining) my current state of being:

i am now reminded of my state from where i was (not too long ago), not necessarily making great impact but greatly influenced, like a small fish in a big ocean. then years on i took a taste of being a hammershark, in a small tank. glorified, self gratifying, but in realization it was indeed a rather small tank. turn left, and it’s the glass, turn right and that’s it.

now as i throw myself back into the ocean, i am now a plankton in a vast amount of space. not necessarily making a great impact, but picking things up along the way from the highly influential.

to discover, perhaps.

deciding between art & design, is like deciding between istanbul & london.
except that the i can’t quite run into visa issues for the former,
get kicked out, and have a default option.

in three days time
it’ll be my second monthlyvesary in london
i’m still househunting and housemate hunting
this city is filled with extremes
creativity, passion, brilliance
living harmoniously with
arrogance, delusion, hedonism

the product, the result
an economy that permeates dreamers with prevailing dreams
regardless

today i went to view a house
in the east, shoreditch to be specific
famous for its streets littered with starving artist
musicians, writers, peeking into white finished gallery windows

he said, i’ve just gotten out of a twelve year depression
when i renounced the idea of being a film maker
i lost this (he pointed) part of my brain
then four years ago, i decided i want to be an artist
i felt reborn, flagging his arms up into the air
voosh, he said

i am obliged to give him that thirty minutes of my attention
after all he poured me a cup of tea,
with a slice of apple pie which he proudly claimed to have acquired daily
for free

stupid, he said, people throw these away

my thirty minutes was up
i gave him my best wishes
not verbally

it scares the shit out of me

not him,
not the pass expired apple pie,
not the neighborhood

found a few potential homes, all in the south, a stone throw away from the tate, the bridge and the thames.

i need to live near water.

it’s snowing!!!!

i did spit and whine in the morning saying if it’s going to be this cold, god damn it let it snow.
and it did!!!!

i’m happy, just like that.

yea, i’d like to keep this one

as a friend

so i’m a bit hesitant this time around

with the ego

and the libido.

being here earns me the same amount of money as i would back home, and if you think i’m losing out on building a portfolio for the ‘job market’ you’re wrong. every one here is doing the same thing. post graduate, earning and traveling and free falling.

i think it’s called the global market.

it’s five in the morning and i’m deciding whether to put ‘party face’ or ‘geeky face’ for an application for a pr role in a creative digital agency.

i don’t have a suit-face pic.

there’s a certain ritual to ushering in the new year, or rather if you’re a less futuristic person (with a history major) you would say instead, ‘to wrap up the year’. And they are almost accurately as follows:

a) reading old letters/blog post
b) scrolling through phone numbers
c) and delete those you’d probably not need to remember about (or pursue) in the new phase of your life
d) decide whether you really should delete their numbers
e) chart how old your virtual pets are, namely your blog, your flickr acccount, your twitter account, ourchart account, hotmail account??!
f) re reading certain post and stomach a guffaw, re re re reading another post
g) that brings a trip down memory lane that turns into another lane, then goes waaay into the back lane
h) and go “omg C, look what i found!!”
i) and go bloody hell! my blog is turning three!

the flings, the affairs, the trials, the pursuits, the fantasies that partially morphed into bitter sweet realities, here we we go again.

if the adrenaline of having a crush has an inverse quantum relation to hunger, i’ll be one to attest to it.

when i made plans for london ten years ago, i didn’t know you would take me seriously, down to the nitty gritty details of

a) the starting from scratch (or rather from negative) bit
b) the being homeless bit
c) hopefully i don’t have to go through the ‘washing dishes in chinatown’ bit

from british american tobacco to a few digital media companies, and two starbucks outlet. the starbucks bit is quite hard to swallow. *avoid shoe flying from purist coffee friends/fans. their baristas are seemingly tripping twenty four seven.

“HELLO, HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE? (BIG SMILE), TALL? GRANDE? (BIG SMILE) DRY? (BIG SMILE) WET? (BIG SMILE) I’M SORRY? (BIG SMILE)

creepy.

here goes

i am putting up in central london at a friend’s place. days have been spent shooting emails and perfecting my resume, knowing that at the end of the day i’ll meet a random person in a restaurant/bar/bythestreets/outsidemydoor that’ll give me the job (that.i.want.).

but for productivity sake i have submit the self to delusional means of job hunting.

the festive season puts no one in mood to talk about work, let alone employment. so i’m taking a chill pill to embrace the led lights that lid up X’mas and the remnants of an ending year.

this city has been welcoming me well, london is a place where i find comfort in familiarity - food and old friends. this is also the place where I find people of a spectrum of different culture and nationalities binded by similar dreams and ideals. it’s good to be able to c.o.m.m.u.n.i.cate.

i’m not an expat anymore, i’m not a foreigner anymore, here everybody is. and to illustrate a simple example of a reality check:

i walked into a bar last night to gate crash a couchsurfing (network of international travelers) party, but i did not take down any number. unlike in istanbul, i’d just walk into a cafe and find the most international looking crowd (slash english speaking) and chances are that’s where the party is. so yes, without any number and a vague memory of who the host of the party is, me and a friend ended up with our small corner chatting the night away. i can’t possibly go up to each table and make an enquiry. everybody’s a foreigner, everybody speaks english.

doosh.

so there, i am glad to be here.

As a few of you have been told/heard/read,

An attempt to renew my visa at the Greek border has resulted in an exact opposite outcome. It turned out that I have overstayed a single entry visa. Completely unaware of it being a ’single entry’ thus that has made me illegal since my student residence permit expired in October.

I will need to leave the country asap and will not be able to come back for at least three months. On top of that I will have to pay a fine for each day overstayed. I’m quite lucky to not be deported immediately to a Greek island, it would have been a sexy (mis)adventure but begging the custom officer and telling him that my whole life’s possession is in Istanbul was a wiser move.

The bright side is that I have a working visa for London and would not have to go back to the far east. The decision made is to fly back to London next week and utilize the work visa for a slightly longer term.

Definitely did not see this coming but am doing my very best to be very objective about the situation.

I’ve made Istanbul my home and it will be so whether i’m physically in it or not. Perhaps to start here from scratch is rather ambitious and in the last couple of months it has been extremely challenging if not foolishly so. With a new language to grasp, I am reduced to a five month old baby, it has improved but only to buy more groceries and impress parents to marry off their sons to me.

The stint I have with the agency has never been a stable affair, especially so since i lost all my clients to the global crisis. Perhaps London would be a more practical option despite the economic crisis. If anything would have to work in contradiction, I’ll be one to embrace it. Perhaps why i am not half as emotional as i was when i left the city the first time around. i have found a home that i cannot live in for now, like everything else in Istanbul and of Istanbul, life as it is, is an oxymoron.

The amount of money I have earned this year and spent it almost all at one shot (by default) could fund a couple of weddings, in a few Turkish village.

A fortune reader once told me that I have a knack for earning alot of money quick, and also spent it all in a jiffy. I have to break this curse, for the second half of the equation that is.

i chose a city to live in for all its ideal intangibles, at the expense of ideal tangible acquisitions. two and half months on, i found myself struggling to find an equilibrium.

on one hand I have come so far as to having a decent conversation with the waitress in my new found spot - which turns out to be another pseudo french cafe playing turkish folklore and with chinese proverbs quoted at the back of its menu. i accidentally brought the french friend there and she almost could not forgive me, it’s equally blasphemous to bringing me to a malay restaurant in london.

on another, hurricane-globalcrisis came sweeping and i lost two of the only clients i could deal with (with baby turkish). two and half months on, i found myself with a deferred paycheck which value wouldnt even match a month’s worth of washing dishes in chinatown london.

to justify the self: networking darling networking, an office with my own desk over looking the bosphorus, golden sunsets on my right shoulder, having time to write this entry at office hours (in mids of random research on mobile and internet convergence) and perhaps a useful third language in the near future.

with neve campbell look alike sitting in front of me charting her future from a tiny cup of coffee residue, life could be worse than this.

so I woke up today, put in a little extra effort to optimism and settled on a verdict that there must be a silver lining in heavy winter clouds. the sun is brighter today than yesterday, literally.

she saw a lion in my cup. and a name begins with s.