Investigations On A Peanut
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Investigations On A Peanut
When I woke up in the morning, I was pleased to hear only the sound of my fan to my right and the sound of cars in the streets below. Because it is a Sunday, the construction downstairs decided to take a break despite the serious delay in their schedule, and spared the surrounding residence from their sanity-ridding noise every other day of the week. Thank you, to the construction workers for taking a break, and ignore the complains from people such as my sister, who would scream at the top of her voice at home once in a while "Shut up idiots!". I'm not sure which part of my sister thinks that her sound is capable of traveling from the nineteenth floor to the ears of the workers, but she does that very often and personally, I find them more annoying than the pounding of the drills and the machineries.
But this morning, I woke up to another sound - the sound of boxes hitting against one another and clothes being pulled down from shelves and cupboards. With my eyes still half sealed, I peered into the bedroom where I used to sleep, and saw my mother rummaging through the old boxes of toys and textbooks. She was clearing up the cupboard for some reason, and found a couple of things that triggered certain memories that either I forgot, or chose to forget.
With much glee, she handed me a box full of my Mighty Max toys, and reminded me how treasured it was when I was a lot younger. It's not my fault that I grew out of playing with small plastic toys in a plastic castle right? And it is also not my fault to have Max stowed away in a forgotten corner of the house to gather dust. I felt quite bad, just watching the toys piled on top of one another, still retaining those menacing looks they used to have when I was younger. But don't we all move on from our old loves, don't we all have a life to live? It's just the nostalgia that takes over one's mind sometimes, and regrets about how much time and love you have invested into certain things, only to have them end up in a box just because you grew out of loving that thing. It's a retribution perhaps, but that's what life is. That is what life tastes like, and it tastes bitter most of the time.
Surfing through the net, I almost forgot about the reconstruction of other memories in the room until my sister hopped into mine with a black file in her hands. Swinging it around her back, it was my old Secondary School art class file, and with a wave of embarrassment I snatched it from her and flipped it through the pages. She laughed as she walked out of the room, leaving me to flip through the pages of old drawings and ugly sketches of orchids and lady's fingers.
Flipping to the first page, there it was right in front of me...something. I wasn't sure what I drew on the paper initially, but at the corner of the page, in amateurish handwriting, I wrote:
Name: Chin Wei Lien (3)
Class: 2E
Date: 21-2-2000
Topic: Investigate Studies of a Peanut
Oh, okay. So I was drawing a peanut. But what I drew looked nothing like a peanut. It is shaped like one that's for sure, but for some reason it has patterns of a leopard skin all over. I think I was trying to replicate the texture of the peanut shell, which ended up looking like a leopard skin for some reason. Below is another peanut, peeled open to reveal two nuts inside, and I was asked to draw whatever that I saw. To be honest, they look more like testicles to me for some reason. And I think, if a person is capable of turning a peanut into testicles in leopard skin, either he is a brilliant artist trying to tell the viewers some subtle messages, or he is an atrocious one. I think I am an atrocious artist, so that's that then.
I am proud however, of my clothes peg. Reason: Because it looks like a clothes peg. I scored 7/10, the highest I'd ever score for my sketches. Turning to the next page, the confidence that was newly found in my sketches went downhill again as I looked upon the horrendous sketches of two...things. Oh, I think these are lady's fingers that the female art and craft teacher handed out in class. I'm not saying that I recognize these drawings as lady's fingers because they look like them, but through pure memory. To be honest, one of them looks like a chopped finger from a dead man's hand, and the other looks like a sharpen sexual organ for some reason. For the two, I was never given a score. She probably gave up on trying to mark the art piece, but it's not like we gave a shit back then. We ALL gave up on art and craft lessons anyway.
Then came the orchids, the beautiful orchids. I think I did a good job, in fact a great job for a fourteen year old. I remember that afternoon very well, holding the stalk of orchids in my left hand while carefully tracing out the flowers with my right. I had a lot of heart that afternoon, trying to impression people with my drawing and paid full attention to details. From the surface of the petals to the fading of the purple into white, everything. And I was proud, to look upon my work under the light from above as I handed it to Mrs. Heng the dreaded woman with the brushes. And as it turned out, the following is the comment and the score:
A fairly good attempt.
Keep it up.
5 1/2
Do not outline.
5/ 10 1/2
First of all, you have admit it. It was more than just a 'fairly good attempt'. Second of all, you don't go around saying 'fairly good attempt' and then giving a pathetic score of 5.5. Third of all, who the hell marks a piece of work to 10.5? It didn't make any sense at all, or perhaps she was high on the smell of paint in the classroom back then. I disliked the teacher immensely, and the rest of the artworks just went down the drain from there.
So you see, to anybody out there who thinks that I should make it in the graphic design industry should think twice before giving that suggestion again. After all, a graphic designing course is much more than just using Photoshop and design advertisements and artworks. I don't think La Salle or NAFA are very enthusiastic about having students who can turn peanuts into leopard skin covered testicles, or students who can turn a lady's finger into a dead man's finger. Besides, art teachers don't seem to like outlines all that much, and I outline a lot. You can say as much as you want about how fun art lessons were when you were in school, but I have always preferred English lessons. I'm better with words, never the coloring or the sketching. In fact, when it comes to the investigations on a peanut - whatever there is to investigate - I am better off teaching Hebrew to a four year old kid.
The reason why Picasso flipped in his grave.
The mutated peanuts.
The Fingers. Supposedly.
Orchids!
But come to think about it, it looks more like a feather duster now.
When I woke up in the morning, I was pleased to hear only the sound of my fan to my right and the sound of cars in the streets below. Because it is a Sunday, the construction downstairs decided to take a break despite the serious delay in their schedule, and spared the surrounding residence from their sanity-ridding noise every other day of the week. Thank you, to the construction workers for taking a break, and ignore the complains from people such as my sister, who would scream at the top of her voice at home once in a while "Shut up idiots!". I'm not sure which part of my sister thinks that her sound is capable of traveling from the nineteenth floor to the ears of the workers, but she does that very often and personally, I find them more annoying than the pounding of the drills and the machineries.
But this morning, I woke up to another sound - the sound of boxes hitting against one another and clothes being pulled down from shelves and cupboards. With my eyes still half sealed, I peered into the bedroom where I used to sleep, and saw my mother rummaging through the old boxes of toys and textbooks. She was clearing up the cupboard for some reason, and found a couple of things that triggered certain memories that either I forgot, or chose to forget.
With much glee, she handed me a box full of my Mighty Max toys, and reminded me how treasured it was when I was a lot younger. It's not my fault that I grew out of playing with small plastic toys in a plastic castle right? And it is also not my fault to have Max stowed away in a forgotten corner of the house to gather dust. I felt quite bad, just watching the toys piled on top of one another, still retaining those menacing looks they used to have when I was younger. But don't we all move on from our old loves, don't we all have a life to live? It's just the nostalgia that takes over one's mind sometimes, and regrets about how much time and love you have invested into certain things, only to have them end up in a box just because you grew out of loving that thing. It's a retribution perhaps, but that's what life is. That is what life tastes like, and it tastes bitter most of the time.
Surfing through the net, I almost forgot about the reconstruction of other memories in the room until my sister hopped into mine with a black file in her hands. Swinging it around her back, it was my old Secondary School art class file, and with a wave of embarrassment I snatched it from her and flipped it through the pages. She laughed as she walked out of the room, leaving me to flip through the pages of old drawings and ugly sketches of orchids and lady's fingers.
Flipping to the first page, there it was right in front of me...something. I wasn't sure what I drew on the paper initially, but at the corner of the page, in amateurish handwriting, I wrote:
Name: Chin Wei Lien (3)
Class: 2E
Date: 21-2-2000
Topic: Investigate Studies of a Peanut
Oh, okay. So I was drawing a peanut. But what I drew looked nothing like a peanut. It is shaped like one that's for sure, but for some reason it has patterns of a leopard skin all over. I think I was trying to replicate the texture of the peanut shell, which ended up looking like a leopard skin for some reason. Below is another peanut, peeled open to reveal two nuts inside, and I was asked to draw whatever that I saw. To be honest, they look more like testicles to me for some reason. And I think, if a person is capable of turning a peanut into testicles in leopard skin, either he is a brilliant artist trying to tell the viewers some subtle messages, or he is an atrocious one. I think I am an atrocious artist, so that's that then.
I am proud however, of my clothes peg. Reason: Because it looks like a clothes peg. I scored 7/10, the highest I'd ever score for my sketches. Turning to the next page, the confidence that was newly found in my sketches went downhill again as I looked upon the horrendous sketches of two...things. Oh, I think these are lady's fingers that the female art and craft teacher handed out in class. I'm not saying that I recognize these drawings as lady's fingers because they look like them, but through pure memory. To be honest, one of them looks like a chopped finger from a dead man's hand, and the other looks like a sharpen sexual organ for some reason. For the two, I was never given a score. She probably gave up on trying to mark the art piece, but it's not like we gave a shit back then. We ALL gave up on art and craft lessons anyway.
Then came the orchids, the beautiful orchids. I think I did a good job, in fact a great job for a fourteen year old. I remember that afternoon very well, holding the stalk of orchids in my left hand while carefully tracing out the flowers with my right. I had a lot of heart that afternoon, trying to impression people with my drawing and paid full attention to details. From the surface of the petals to the fading of the purple into white, everything. And I was proud, to look upon my work under the light from above as I handed it to Mrs. Heng the dreaded woman with the brushes. And as it turned out, the following is the comment and the score:
A fairly good attempt.
Keep it up.
5 1/2
Do not outline.
5/ 10 1/2
First of all, you have admit it. It was more than just a 'fairly good attempt'. Second of all, you don't go around saying 'fairly good attempt' and then giving a pathetic score of 5.5. Third of all, who the hell marks a piece of work to 10.5? It didn't make any sense at all, or perhaps she was high on the smell of paint in the classroom back then. I disliked the teacher immensely, and the rest of the artworks just went down the drain from there.
So you see, to anybody out there who thinks that I should make it in the graphic design industry should think twice before giving that suggestion again. After all, a graphic designing course is much more than just using Photoshop and design advertisements and artworks. I don't think La Salle or NAFA are very enthusiastic about having students who can turn peanuts into leopard skin covered testicles, or students who can turn a lady's finger into a dead man's finger. Besides, art teachers don't seem to like outlines all that much, and I outline a lot. You can say as much as you want about how fun art lessons were when you were in school, but I have always preferred English lessons. I'm better with words, never the coloring or the sketching. In fact, when it comes to the investigations on a peanut - whatever there is to investigate - I am better off teaching Hebrew to a four year old kid.
The reason why Picasso flipped in his grave.
The mutated peanuts.
The Fingers. Supposedly.
Orchids!But come to think about it, it looks more like a feather duster now.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, April 15, 2007 at 1:48 PM.
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6:03 PM
hey i drew the exact same things in sec sch art classes!cept for the peanuts.hahaha...i think my orchid looked nicer than urs...i got 81/100 for that.lol