More quarter-life crisis musings. This has nothing to do with Singapore or Southeast Asia.

My ideal job title is to be a professional Yumi. A professional Yumi does what a Yumi wants to do and is paid to do so. But since that job title does not quite exist yet, I wonder if maybe I should go into either the visual arts or writing, or some fantastic combination of both. When I am not thinking about either of those things, sometimes I wonder if I am meant to be an academic and lock myself up in an ivory tower translating Japanese literature into English and vice versa. This might actually not be too bad.

I feel less burdened not having to take studio classes this quarter, and I can't tell whether this relief stems from being able to fully absorb myself into words and essay-writing, or the complacency of not having to torture myself by the aesthetic challenges that studio classes inevitably present. A part of me dreads having to go back to taking studio classes once I am back in the States, and I wonder if this is a temporary thing.

I read a phrase in a friend's information booklet for a visual design school and under the components of fine arts, it described painting as "visual research," which couldn't be more accurate. Approached correctly, art is a valid science that requires vigorous methodologies, experiments and constant intellectual questioning. Truly great artwork does not spring spontaneously out of fanciful, sporadic sweeps of inspiration; the process of art-making is and should be considered research, however dull and tedious it makes it sound.

At this point in life, visual research for the sake of visual research doesn't appeal to me. As I've been telling a dear friend of mine, the more I think about it, the more I realize I love art best when it is framed under the context of narrative--whether it is in film, animation, graphic novels or even some fantastic paintings that aren't necessarily included in the cloistered world of musuem space. Art in terms of storytelling. Art that inexplicably seduces you into that grand narrative sweep that words alone can't quite do.

So where to channel my art-making outlet in the greater context of collective culture, if at all? The answering of this question, for the time being, is on temporary hiatus. I only hope that I will be brave enough to rise to the task when I do think I have an answer.

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Very recently, I named my writing muse Bob and my drawing muse Rob. Bob and Rob tend to lead very separate lives, and do not mingle with each other too much. Bob is quite predictable and is more of a nine-to-five regular working man who reads the paper at breakfast, while Rob is the kind of fickle bitch that comes and goes whenever he damn well pleases, the muse equivalent of a charismatic asshole boyfriend you love to hate and hate to love.

Bob and Rob are quite wary of each other. I am hoping that one day they'll at least want to hold hands, but that might be asking for too much.