Trials & tribulation coach us to live life,

We might not understand many things,

The complicatedness of life, love, and finance,

Wisdom and discerning are what we need,

To guide us to the path that we do not know.

Life is like seeing your own shadow in the river bank,

If we see mere pass the shadows, we endure life,

If we get fascinated with our silhouette,

We are foolish but we realise not

Knowing that today is Father’s day back home, I decided to take some time to remember my late great-grandparents, grandparents and my father whose making his way home from London with my mother.Despite the fact that my forefathers are in another realm, I still feel them near lingering next to me and mind you I’m not loony but celebrating their significance to commemorate Grandfather’s and Father’s Day on one date — 19th Jun 2011.

My ideal father’s day is to fetch him from the airport and sit down enjoying the ride home while listening to his stories and my mother’s version of the vacation. Upon arriving home, I will unscrew a bottle of Pink Rose as a celebratory toast to their safe arrival while unwrapping the moments with my relatives with gifts and souvenirs surrounded. With my parents visit to UK and Europe, they are now able to exchange experiences and journeys with the rest of my aunt and uncle’s. Before, it was just my mother’s wishful thinking to visit Europe but it is now a carved memory to add to their many holidays.

The day would be splendid if I were back home. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case because I live elsewhere and I am not disappointed as I have a deep-rooted relationship with my father and we celebrate Father’s Day daily with emails, letters, postcards and telephone calls. As children we reflect our parents trait, character and habit and sometimes this can cause misunderstanding between a child and a parent but a father daughter relationship strengthens and draws closer with the presence of argument and quarrel.

Happy Father’s Day papa!

I do not consider myself to be greatly affected by the changes surrounding me. However, the effect does affect me. Nonetheless, I take control of it. I love and embrace change. It gives me reasons to improve, a chance to think creative and a stepping stone to look ahead. Change, in my opinion, should be everybody’s focal point. I believe it is the same theory why we work towards a promotion and bid goodbye to demotion.

Rearranging furnitures is one of the pleasures in life that I delight in. I neither work well with fixtures nor do I any problems with it. I redesign my room every 4 to 6 months in a year. I would have made a very good interior decorator if I had chosen to study interior design. I believe not many of us are able to make a career with our interest without risking the passion. You either graduate or you loose your pastime.

Last Sunday, I came home with one thing in mind-rearrange my room. It wasn’t messy to begin with and I was all right with the layout. The drawback of this arrangement given to the current season was the lack of sun. It was ideal during summer as it gave me substantial ray to get me going but not for the future. It will only promote me to stay in bed longer which I don’t intend despite the winter chills.

I stood in the middle envisioning the layout I had imagined in my mind. This is, needless to say, the smallest room I have to myself. I removed all the furnitures, bits and pieces, books along with other miscellaneousness. I forgot to consider one thing in the midst of rearranging and I was mindful about it when I glanced my table lamp at the end. Putting that aside, I directed my bed to a corner of two walls overlooking my window followed by my side table and desk.

The newly formed design is not only inviting and becoming but also personal. I started to organise my paperback, stationaries as well as other daily things. Finally the time came for me to think where to place the lamp shade. My initial thought was how egocentric the contractor was. Not having enough plugs can be a cruelty when you have more than one gadgets needing power.

When the contractors were building my room back home, I told my dad I would like to have 10 plugs and 1 television plug. He wasn’t astonished because he too believes in a vast network of adaptors. Coming back to my current room situation, I had to make do with what I was given and there wasn’t a way to put my study lamp on the side table. If only builders had a long term projection of occupants misery. I settled by putting the table lamp on the window sill and was happy with it. This would give adequate light when I lie in bed reading.

Suddenly, I had a brilliant notion how to wake up in winter. As you know, human beings are very much affected by the weather and I am guilty of this. No sun says much about counterproductive. To keep laziness at bay, all I have to do is to switch on the lamp at my first wake and get used to the ray of light. It is natural not to wake up and smell the coffee during winter time.

With this new do, I shouldn’t have a reason to be idle with the exception of sleep in. Guilty as charged!

I felt South Australian lifestyle adapted me well. I ate back the words I had told God and my parents. They were evidently right and I was oblivious to the benefits of my moving. It took 8 months of slow open heart surgery on me to adapt to this new way of life.

Knowing that I was on wit’s end, I decided to move to Adelaide and this move may be one of my very best decision made on a hare-brained mind. I used to be of 2 minds in Adelaide but now I have a mind for this location.

Change is inevitable to improve.

Today, I watched a show adapted from a true story titled ” And when did you last see your father?” I was startled just by the title and decided to purchase the movie.

We all know daughters are well fond of their fathers and mothers with sons. However, the movie portrayed a once warmed bond between a father and son turned cold and distant when Arthur, the father suffered terminal illness and imminent death.

I was deeply moved when Blake, his son spoke his mind when his father passed away.

When did you last see your father? Was it when they burnt the coffin? Put the lid on it? When he exhaled his last breath? When he sat up and said something? When he last recognised you? When he last smiled?

When did you last see your father? The last time he was healthy? Perhaps when he was active? The last time you had an argument about something?

Those weeks in which we tried to say goodbye were like a series of depletion. Each day, I thought “He can’t get less than himself than this” Yet each day he did. So I have been trying to recall the last time I actually saw him. The last time he was unmistakably there in the fullness of being. Oh, him.

I have not gone cynic but I think it crucial to note important sentimental dates when it comes to family and the people you care most.

I have come to understand why my father was so cross when I fail to write a date in my exercise book during my early years of education. He does not only look for this but margin, full stop and corrects my alphabet writing. There must be something clear to distinguish h from n.

So now let me ask you, when was the last time you read a book. Can you remember the title? When was the last time you thought about God, nature, your health perhaps? When was the last time you were happy? When was the last time you felt contented and at peace with yourself ?

Can you remember when? Isn’t it time to reminisce those moments?

We do not always remember days but we remember moments.

Among the top 5 male fashion designers whose names are Tom Ford, Christopher Bailey, Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and John Galliano my top favorite male designer is Tom Ford followed by Christopher Bailey.

The credentials of Tom Ford cannot be fully contained in a paper but seen in their industry work, fashion week, magazine spreadsheets, celebrity gowns and creativity. Every design he creates is an epic masterpiece.

Tom Ford was the brain child for fashion house Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent while Christopher Bailey leads the House of Burberry. Their attention to detail, precision tailoring and simplicity draw me to their craftsmanships. I knew Burberry trough their classic piece called the trench coat.

I fell in love with these designers when I was in high school. Wearing their designs will inevitably portray the wearer as an educated, intellectual and a stylish individual. When the time comes for me to splurge on their
fashion line I shall not hesitate.

I adore Tom Ford when he revealed his Autumn Winter women’s collection for Gucci. I don’t recall the year. In my opinion, he is the most modest, decent and humble yet stylish for a fashion designer cum movie director. Both of them create a clean, simple, smart and a timeless wardrobe. Their designs create an attire draped in style and attention.

Reading Ford’s and Bailey’s interview satisfies me as though I am dressed in their label when in actual fact I am in my home clothes or pajamas.

Tom Ford interview was conducted by Interview Magazine, Time Magazine, New York metro, Harpers Bazaar while Christopher was interviewed by The Guardian, Vogue and Interview Magazine.

CURRIN: Actually, yeah, because you are saying that people associate homosexuality with sex—or oversexed men and sexual relationships. But when you’re making a sculpture or image of a woman, is there a sexual aspect to it?

FORD: It is never even calculated. When I’m making an image of a woman, or dressing a woman—I have a reputation for sex and making a woman sexy, and men as well—but I don’t start out saying, “Oh, I’m gonna make this woman look sexy or sexual.” I simply stand there and put her in front of me and say, “What can I do to make her more beautiful in my eyes? Let’s pull in the dress here, let’s do this, let’s do that.” The end result is something that other people consider sexual, but for me it’s just beautiful. My expression of beauty is something I do naturally. I love the human body—the female body, the male body. I work in a way to try to enhance the body, and so you often see a lot of the body or the silhouette or outline, and that’s what people equate with sex. But I’m very comfortable with sexuality. It’s not anything that’s ever freaked me out. I’m very comfortable with naked bodies. Someone asked me recently about male nudity, and I brought up the subject that, in our culture, we use female nudity to sell everything. We’re very comfortable objectifying women. Women go out and they are basically wearing nothing. Their feet and toes are exposed, their legs are exposed, their breasts are exposed. Everything is exposed—the neck, the arms. You have to be really physically perfect, as a woman, in our culture to be considered beautiful. But full frontal male nudity challenges us. It makes men nervous. It makes women nervous. Other times in history, male nudes have been regarded in a different way. The Olympics were originally held nude. The reporter I was explaining this to said, “This would make a great story.” I explained how when I come home I actually
take off all my clothes, and I wear no clothes until I leave. I eat naked. I do everything completely naked. He said, “That would make a great interview.” I said, “Fine, we have to do it nude.”

CURRIN: How old was the interviewer?

FORD: Oh, 55 or 56. He was in very good shape. Anyway, we did the interview. The interviewer was straight, and I made it a point to desexualize the interview even though I was sitting with my legs wide open, completely naked. At the end of the interview, I put on a dressing gown and he put on his clothes, and I sat next to him on the sofa and said, “Was that sexual?” He said, “Absolutely not.” And I said, “That’s because I didn’t make it sexual. Sexuality is in the eyes, it’s an expression, it’s in a look.” Then, all of a sudden, I looked at him in a very different way, and it made him very nervous.

CURRIN: I wanted to ask if you’ve ever felt any remorse in your work, because that is something I’ve felt before in my work. You don’t seem like someone who feels a great deal of remorse about anything.

FORD: No, I don’t.

CURRIN: I sometimes get the feeling that I look at women to objectify them, and I start to feel guilty. I wonder if that ever plagues you?

FORD: I think I detach the physical from the spiritual. It’s my business to make a woman or a man beautiful, and I’m working with a model in a fitting, and I’ve objectified them to the point that they become an object. They’re something that I’m modeling or shaping or sculpting, but I’m very aware that even though I make them physically beautiful, their soul and personality and character is somewhat detached from that. It’s great when you have a combination of the two— that’s what makes a true beauty. Some people are physically beautiful but yet they’re completely uninteresting, and thus they’re not beautiful. I detach the two. And I turn the same eye on myself: When I look in the mirror, I say, “Well, this eyebrow is starting to sag,” or “I’m going gray right here, I need to fix that.” Or “I’ve eaten too much. I need to do a few more push-ups, blah blah blah.” But that’s completely separate from me as a human being. It’s purely the body that I move through the world in, and people react to it on the surface. So, no, I don’t have any remorse, because I separate them.

FORD: But as an adult working in the fashion industry, I struggle with materialism. And I’m one of the least materialistic people that exist, because material possessions don’t mean much to me. They’re beautiful, I enjoy them, they can enhance your life to a certain degree, but they’re ultimately not important. Your connections with other people are important, our connection to the earth. And that’s why I go to New Mexico as often as I can. And what I find to be the most beautiful thing in the world now is nature—sunsets, trees, my horses.

Q: Do you like being in charge?

Ford: Yeah. I’m a natural-born boss, I have to say. I just like to be good at things. Even as a child, I was boss of my family.

Q: Are you easy to work for?

Ford: I think so. I’m very direct. I don’t have tantrums. I don’t yell or shout. I do expect an awful lot from my staff, but no more than I expect of myself.

Q: Did you know, growing up, that you wanted to be in a position of authority?

Ford: Probably. I think you make these things happen. You find the things that make you happy. I think also that the older you get, the more you become your true, essential self. You whittle away the parts of yourself that mean less to you.

Q: Who or what inspires you?

Ford: Life. It sounds corny, but it’s true. People always ask me how I start a collection, and I tell them that I just look around. What am I tired of? What am I in the mood for? Real fashion change comes from real changes in real life. Everything else is just decoration.

Q: Who are you designing for now?

Ford: I’m designing for me or men like me from ages 25 to 75. I’m designing for an urban customer, a customer who is aware, men who are very appreciative of details and quality and style and cut and who want to look slim. I mean, everything about my clothes makes you look skinnier. You look skinnier and taller. Those are just things that are important to me. It was always the same with women’s too, by the way. I could never make clothes that made a woman look fat, and that’s why everyone always said, “Everything he does is about sex, sex, sex.” No. I take a body and try to accentuate the things about it that, by our beauty standard, we would appreciate and hide the things that we don’t appreciate, and I do the same with men’s. So I want to make sure my butt looks good. I want to make sure my thighs look good. I want to make sure my legs look longer. I want to make sure that my waist is in the right spot. You know, proportion is really important.

Christopher Bailey’s interview

HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY: What inspired you as a child to be a designer? Was it something you always wanted to do?

BAILEY: I really didn’t know that this kind of fashion even existed when I was a child in Yorkshire, England. My dad is a carpenter, a joiner, and I used to watch him make things. So I always imagined that I’d do something where I made things, too. I was really more interested in architecture growing up because I would work with my dad on houses. So fashion was, in a way, an accident. But this world opens you up to a lot of different avenues that interested me. I loved the idea of working in different countries. And I loved the idea of construction and working with imagery. But, yes, I fell into fashion a bit by mistake.

HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY: Okay, so if you weren’t a designer, what would you be doing?

BAILEY: I’d be an architect.

HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY: What do you love and loathe about fashion?

BAILEY: I love the energy, and I often loathe the deadlines.

HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY: What is your biggest lesson in life?

BAILEY: Stay true to yourself.

Speeches about civility will be taken to heart most by those people whose good character renders them unnecessary. Meanwhile, those who are inclined to intellectual thuggery and partisan one-sidedness will temporarily resolve to do better but then slip back to old habits the next time their pride feels threatened.

The assassination of 6 civilians and an injured congresswoman in Arizona, once again, led me to Barrack Obama’s speech. Below are some of my favourite lines from his speech.

“I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”

“I believe we can be better,” he said. “Those who died here — those who saved lives here — they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us.”

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

“If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost,” Mr. Obama said. “Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.”

“let us remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not — but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.”

Finally an opinion which I perceive to be profound.

The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend.
But every sensible person in public life also feels redeemed by others. You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things gradually forward.Each individual step may be imbalanced, but in succession they make the social organism better.As a result, every sensible person feels a sense of gratitude for this process. We all get to live lives better than we deserve because our individual shortcomings are transmuted into communal improvement. We find meaning — and can only find meaning — in the role we play in that larger social.

NY Times.

In order to be a man, he, in my opinion, must posses the ability to compose an appropriate letter, choose his words wisely, act maturely, practice his etiquettes, have a flair for style and poise when dressing and not forgetting to be in a good demeanour.

Now as you can see, I have attached several pictures of a garment. What do you call it to be? Your answer determines what kind of person you are.

According to “Esquire Magazine” (3), the stylish man calls them “trousers,” the unstylish man calls them “slacks,” the antiquated and most likely extinguished man calls them “breeches,” and the indifferent man calls them “pants.”