whatever

tired tired tired

2006-07-08T02:12:00.000+08:00

decided to toss some frozen food into the oven when i got home tonight to compensate for the rather icky day i had at work.

foraged the freezer compartment and found this.

i was like "huh?" 素肉菜饺子? 到底是素的饺子, 菜饺子, 还是肉的饺子? 难不成是素肉+ 菜的饺子??

(literal translation: [label] vegetarian meat vegetable dumpling
[thoughts in my demented head] vegetarian meat vegetable dumpling? so is it a vegetarian dumpling? a veggies dumpling? a meat dumpling? or is it perhaps a mock meat + veggies dumpling??)

and so i looked at the ingredients list

nb bloody eff-ers. it's a effing vegetarian dumpling lor.

stupid mistake for an irritated person to spot.

* * * * *

what is expected of an intern?

today was another one of those days where i felt so freaking du lan that i wished i smoked.

coz maybe then i would feel better. maybe, by blackening my lungs and shortening my lifespan i might spare myself of some agony.

i was given the task to do the interiors of the lift lobbies of this china-based project.

lift lobbies. doesn't sound impressive. but if you think about it, it's a space that people use almost everyday. and it's a space that's used by quite a lot of people.

thing is, this project has fifteen? (thereabouts, too many for me to rememer the exact number) lift lobbies. and most of them differ by a little bit. some have diff width, or diff length, some have a kink in the floor plan all of a sudden..

was given the task last week. so i've been working on it for two weeks.

to work on fifteen lift lobbies is a little crazy given that we have to

come up with the layout
come up with the elevations
choose the furniture, finishes like carpet, wallpaper, wall treatments, lighting..
and color the drawings

in the span of three weeks.

so i'm doing the layout for eight lobbies and pulling elevations for four of them. so far, maybe 2.2 elevations are out. and they're still subjected to changes if the interior designer decides that the plans need to be amended (high possibility). and i've a total of eleven elevations to pull.

how am i going to render the drawings when the drawings are not out? (next week's scheduled for rendering)

i've never done interiors before. never really learnt it in school. i'm as green as they can come. yet i'm given this rather demanding task (for a effing intern).

because i really don't know what shit i'm doing, and there's only one interior designer around, can you blame me for going to her for advice?

was feeling rather stressed today coz the deadline was slowly but surely making its existence feltas time slips by.

usually i would consult the interior designer at least a couple of times a day, just to get some direction of where i should be heading, some hints of what i should be producing.

despite all my consultation with her, i still can't produce what she wants. today, i was just trying to come up with something maybe try to meet the schedule i've somewhat set for myself.

happened to spot her after lunch, and i just asked her one simple effing question.

how does the effing catalogue you asked me to refer to look like. (there's like 5-6 shelves worth of potential catalogues i'd have to sift through if i only knew the effing name that she gave me. which happened to be wrong btw)

and she tried to brush me off by saying jokingly "i'm not available to answer any questions today. i'm not available. i'm doing something with ABC here"

"can't you tell me what it looks like?"

"i'm not available" (in her effing joking manner. all the while avoiding eye contact with me)

like what the f??

i know you're busy. but will it kill you to just tell me what the effing book looks like?

so i was making my "whatever.-bitch-what-can-i-do-i-momentarily-forgot-that-i'm-but-a-lowly-intern-who-should-be-treated-like-dirt-oops-or-am-i-less-than-dirt?" look. which i'm pretty sure ABC saw. (suspect she told interior designer i got pissed later on in the day)

i know she's busy with her work. but both the interior designer and ABC are going to get help next week to meet the deadline. and i'm doing all the effing lift lobbies myself. i know i only have one task on hand. but it's eight lobbies leh! eleven elevations leh! plus photoshopping leh! i've to photoshop nineteen drawings leh! nineteen!

and i'm an effing intern. do you think i like to bother you all the time with questions? but how else can i learn?

i try to observe and pick up things. but sometimes, the things i refer to are wrong (eg the interior designer's past works which she likes to refer me to.)

so when she asks me why i did something this way (when this way is wrong) i can only go eerrr..
why? coz i don't know any better? y'know, that's why i'm an intern.

coz i looked at your drawings and i attempted to follow your mistakes?

coz i studied architecture and not interior design at a motivation-murdering school?

coz i'm a stupid ass?

take your pick.

i know she's busy with her work (she has a hell lot of it), but if you push me aside when i ask for help, and then i go around producing things that are so fatally wrong, and i don't have time to correct them and rethink through them and i can't finish the stuff i'm tasked with, then what?

i'm just too tired to take her jokes. it's my fourth consecutive day working till past ten. and i'm going back on saturday. and after getting brushed off by her and later told that i've to start photoshopping next monday, i'm going back on sunday too.

not that going back on the weekend will mean that i can start my rendering on mon. i don't foresee myself finishing 8.8 drawings and correcting nineteen drawings by monday.

i'm going to follow my own schedule. i'm going to try draw and design as well as my very tired body can. i will conserve some energy for overtiming next monday to friday. and i will continue to question myself if i'm not being the best intern i can be.

the pain and struggle of coming up with something that you thought was it. to have it criticised and then directed onto a journey with vague directions (which may be wrong). i'm sure there is some delight in all this.

i need rest.

slack week

2006-07-02T02:41:00.000+08:00

had friday off this week coz the company closed as it was the company's anniversary. the bosses had decided to bundle off the perm staff away to bali. and being the lowly intern i am, i don't get to go on the mostly-sponsored company trip.

ah well. not to say i'm bitter about not going. it would have been quite an experience but i'm not really that keen to spend my weekends with my colleagues. i d o see them practically everyday. there is something known as too much.

and coz my only unemployed friend wasn't free, and her brother wasn't free, my plans to go for a daytime karaoke session was dashed (unless i wanted a solo karaoke session. but didn't really feel like it).

and coz the next available slot for a dental appointment with the polyclinic is in december, i spent my off day making up for sleep.

finally got to wake up late. and i managed to go back to bed for an afternoon nap before trotting out of the flat to zf's place to a sleepover.

spent the time at zf's place chatting, learning a bunch of makeup tips and slacking in front of the telly with a rather interesting book.

then came home to take another 3hour nap.

afterwhich i managed to

practise my new makeup skills
iron some clothes (miracle! who? has actually ironed something! considering that i've decided to let the watermelon shirt assume the identity of a shirt that came wrinkled, i think this constitutes a miracle. what to do when you buy pleated skirts. damn my thing for pleated skirts!)
read some blogs.

i do think it's been a fruitful two days. whoopah!

* * * * *

think i haven't blogged about my last dive trip. but nothing really exciting happened. i saw a huge jellyfish. other than that, it was pretty uneventful. visibility sucked on the second day.

and i've decided i wanna try to do rescue diver. there's just something about being in the water that is somewhat beyond words.

when you're in there, gravity seems to have less of an effect.

it's a much cooler environment (literally in that the temperature's so much more comfortable. i can swim happily in a rash guard rather than in a 3mm wet suit. i just tend to freeze when the breeze hits me after i emerge from the water. maybe i don't have sufficient fats. har! only in my dreams).

down there, there're less things grabbing your aural attention and you can really concentrate on the new things you have before your eyes.

the feel of the water all over you.

i really don't exaggerate when i claim that i'm happier in there as compared to being out on land. i really do mean it.

i'm so effing hooked.

2006-06-18T03:28:00.000+08:00

did this dating quiz. couldn't resist though i really ought to be in bed. karaoke session in another 7.5hours! "P

me results are as followed -

Your dating personality profile:

You matched the following traits:

Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate.
Athletic - Physical fitness is one of your priorities. You find the time to work athletic pursuits into your schedule. You enjoy being active.
Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love.

Your date match profile:

You match with men who have following traits:

Shy - You are put off by people who are open books. You are drawn to someone who is a bit more mysterious. You want to draw him out of his shell and get to know what he is all about.
Big-Hearted - You want someone compassionate, someone gentle and kind. A loving, nurturing person will fill that hole in your life.
Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things.

Your Top Ten Traits, Ranked

1. Liberal
2. Athletic
3. Big-Hearted
4. Adventurous
5. Practical
6. Intellectual
7. Romantic
8. Shy
9. Wealthy/Ambitious
10. Sensual

Your Top Ten Match Traits, Ranked

1. Shy
2. Big-Hearted
3. Adventurous
4. Practical
5. Conservative
6. Athletic
7. Intellectual
8. Stylish
9. Traditional
10. Wealthy/Ambitious

i noticed one trait that was missing from both my and my match's list (which was the t o p trait in the guy whom i got this from) - religious. yah, don't even get me started. but do i think the test is accurate? i don't know leh. me? athletic? huh? i'm a true blue bum.

but hey, what's this about me not having stylish as one of my top ten traits?? harumph. i like to think i'm somewhat ooh say k.. harumph

* * * **

argh. there's a bug f l y i n g about in my room. damnit and i keep missing it when i attempt to smack it to its demise. damnit!

2006-06-18T02:57:00.000+08:00

link

a rather queer video clip via boing boing

* * * * *

had the most glorious, fantastic headache today. tormented me while i was sleeping. and miraculously continued to haunt me after i woke up.

one panadol extra didn't drive it away.

a three hour nap plus another panadol extra finally did the trick.

and hence i declined zf's invite to go catch world cup at clarke quay? (didn't really catch the location. was still reeling from the relief from pain i was actually experiencing.)

and i've come to the conclusion that it might be wise to consider grounding myself at least one day a week. where i spend the day entirely at home. sleeping. catching up on my blogs (managed to read quite a few in my bloglines today. whoopah!) watching my taped shows that i'd missed during the week. reading. basically just some time where i don't need to step out of the flat (preferably) or whereby i stray no more than 5km away from my place.

this way, i can maybe squeeze in my chores and still maintain some shred of sanity.

gosh, already i'm experiencing some hints of monday blues as i think about the work i've to finish on monday morning by lunch. sigh.

at least i'm going away to dive next weekend. sigh.

* * * * *

on another totally unrelated note, my new mp3 player comes with a rather irritating programme that i've to use to drop songs into the player.

it's a sony nw-e005f.

i bought it coz of

the price
the design
the fact that it's a flash-based player
that it has a fm tuner

i avoided creative players coz seriously they're quite ugly and they feel rather flimsy.

i avoided ipod coz they just didn't meet my requirements. i wanted a flash-based player with fm tuner capability. and the only flash-based player ipod manufactures is the shuffle. which

doesn't have a lcd screen
doesn't have much functions (including fm tuner, playlists)
itunes never really captured me as it has captured the world. maybe it's coz my comp is rather low on ram. itunes just slows down my computer s o much whenever i run it. and that's why i'm still a winamp user. might switch to something else soon though. hmmm.. consider consider

anyway, so my nw-e005f is not one of those players where you can just drag and drop your mp3s into the player and start playing. likewise the case with ipods i think. so i should just live with the fact that i need to use sonicstage to drop songs in my player

but argh. but it's just so darn irritating that i've to fill in the track details again. did that once so they all look uniform in winamp when i open the playlist in winamp. and now i've to do it again?? argh. or else i can't even tell what songs i'm listening to. ack.

worse news, i can't drop the tracks i've uploaded from one comp to another comp? damnit.

but i've just discovered there's this function whereby the programme can generate random 30minutes long playlists for my listening pleasure.. hmmm..

aiyeee. i so need to play around with the programme and the player. i need more time to slack around. erhg.

upgrading for opposition constituencies

2006-06-14T02:56:00.000+08:00

why am i up at this unearthly hour? coz i'd chanced upon this rather well-written blog. which led me to this petition. it's petitioning for potong pasir & hougang to be moved up the upgrading queue.

if you believe in it, do sign it.

and spread the word.

it disgusts me at times to know that i live in a place where the government resorts to swaying the people into voting for them by dangling such carrots.

2006-06-14T02:31:00.000+08:00

keep saying i'm broke. and yet, there i went buying more tee shirts from threadless. someone just kill me please.

what to do. it's another $10 sale.

* * * * *

a rather interesting piece about the education system in sg.

* * * * *

great. i'm so going to die at work tomorrow.

interesting article + hilarious webcomic (scroll for the links)

2006-06-14T00:32:00.000+08:00

think i'm really suffering a serious bout of pms this month. that'll explain my incredible fit at my mom.

and the extreme shackness i feel.

and the food cravings.

and the super aching boobs. yes. i actually suffer from aching boobs. technically speaking they're supposed to be "tender". asshat. they hurt lah.

* * * * *

read this really interesting article today. click here

it's a pretty long article from nytimes (eight. yes. e i g h t pages. but hey, little miss attention deficit here actually read the entire article. can't be that boring). and being a nytimes article, it'll only be available at no charge for a week or so i think. you are forewarned.

it discusses about rising college fees in the states. some points discussed in the article

the result of rising college fees on students
suggestions for fee repayment
benefits of college education

the article is pretty much US-centric. however i feel that we can draw parallels to the situation in sg.

like the US govt, the sg govt is cutting back on uni subsidies.

i thought the loan forgiveness policy? might be feasible. actually that's kinda similar to the government scholarships the sg government bodies offer now. however, think the current scholarship requirements are rather stringent. and the number of available scholarships is really quite small with reference to the number of students out there.

hence the rather elite status a scholar gets. the loan forgiveness scheme mentioned in the article seems less elitist, but more like a programme to help with the shortage of staff in certain fields.

but i'm sure they'll (sg govt) argue that to earn the scholarship one ought to work hard and get the required grades and all. but academia is only one part of life. if uni is really supposed to help shape one's life, to mould one's mind, isn't it quite sad if one is deprived of the chance to attend coz of financial concerns?

the article also mentioned the australian debt repayment system, which i thought is quite an interesting system.

at this point of time, i'm still undecided about whether i should go back to school. there's the big problem of adding on to my current debt. reading this article just made me think a little about my current situation.

anyway, wanted to share a really hilarious webcomic. it'll be more relevant to singaporean students. but man, it's damn hilarious.

click

2006-06-12T01:46:00.000+08:00

i'm still not really talking to my mom.

me theory is - the silent treatment only works when the party getting the treatment cares. seriously if i gave anyone else the silent treatment they would probably just walk off in my face.

even though i'm not really pissed with my mom now. i just don't really want to talk to her. or to anyone really. i do feel kinda bad for treating her like this. but i really just want some space.

* * * * *

for the first time in quite a while, i actually stayed home the entire weekend (sat-sun). i slept my sat away. waking up for food (twice or thrice) and for more morsels of the lovely book i was reading. but otherwise i was just rotting in my bed. my routine:

woke up at twelve plus.
watched my taped shows till three plus while gorging myself
went back to bed
woke up at six plus seven
continued to gorge on food
went back to bed at eight
woke up at eleven plus to shower, consume yet more food & watch more tv
returned to bed at four.

pretty much followed the same routine on sun. cept i slept less. managed to do my laundry. (argh. my stomach couldn't help but churn at the thought of laundry. ergh) managed to surf the net for a while. finished my book! and cleared some tape.

think i really needed to just rot at home for a weekend.

for someone with no life, i'm pretty amazed at how i have not been able to rot at home on sat & sun for a significantly long period of time (it's long for me. usually my weekends are so free i can kill myself)

my room's still in a huge mess coz i've just slept my weekend away. but at least i'm a little rested now. sigh. it's monday. how the heck do people live like this?

who? is a horrible person

2006-06-07T23:56:00.000+08:00

just totally flared up at my mom.

in my fit of anger, i threw my nice clean laundry on the floor. i flung hangers at the wall. as such, the paint has chipped off my pretty blue wall. f-.

oh yah. i whacked a totally innocent library book on the floor.

it's been an ok day i guess. it's just that at work, i was kinda functioning on auto-pilot mode coz i was really tired from working till nearly twelve the night before. plus i was rushing to get the drawings out for the QS today.

didn't get to sleep during lunch coz went out to get food instead.

reached home kinda late coz i popped by ikea after work (yes, i actually got to leave the office not so late today. seven plus i think) to get something for a friend coz i might be meeting her tomorrow.

i know i replied her sms a few hours later than her actual sms, but i was rushing my work. and it's been.. four hours and she has yet to confirm if she has received my reply. man, i really wish to sleep in during lunch tomorrow instead of meeting up with her. but she's going away on holiday. and the thing i got for her from ikea is something she can use on her trip. ergh.

to think i might have made it home before eight thirty if not for popping down to ikea to get her thing.

i kinda concussed out during my bus ride to ikea. but managed to stay awake when i was nearing the place. and on my bus ride home, i was battling the sleep bug at the end of my trip (the earlier half i was happily engrossed in a very interesting book that will be due very soon).

was kinda irritating to have a couple chatting too loudly behind me all the way from the bus stop to my void deck. i had earphones on. and s t i l l i can hear their effing conversation. if you're that deaf, don't bother talking.

and they had the audacity to accuse the fat cat (the resident cat of the overhead bridge at my place) to be a cat that attacks. well, duh. if you provoke it, of course it'll attack. why don't you tell your friends what a total ass you are to be stupid enough to provoke that otherwise really lazy bummy cat to attack you instead of slapping the cat with the label of "the cat that attacks". asshat.

worse thing is, i was too tired to increase my walking speed to increase the distance between the excessively loud couple and me. so i had to strain to listen to my music while struggling to mute out their effing conversation.

i reached home effing tired. was just looking forward to lying in bed with the rather interesting library book.

and my mom pounced on me. attempting to strike a conversation. like, hello woman? do i not look like i'm not in the mood for a conversation right now? i have two wires coming out of my ears. my hair is tied up. i'm quite sure the wires are somewhat visible. why do people insist on speaking to people who clog up their ears with earphones? doesn't it make more sense to speak when they pluck the earphones out of their ears?

and if they don't pluck the earphones out, do you not get the hint that maybe they don't really want to talk?

when i headed into my room. i see my clean laundry on my bed. fine. so you've decided to chuck my laundry on my bed so you can keep the clothes rack which is probably too much of an eyesore to my somewhat anal-retentive father.

and when i attemptted to dig for clean underwear, i find that my mom had folded my effing underwear.

wtf

you were the one twho wanted me to wash my underwear myself. coz it's *personal*

then you were the one who wanted me to do my own laundry myself. coz i'm old enough

i do all that now. and you fold my effing underwear???!

wtf?!@!

thing is, i roll my underwear. so i really dislike her folding them coz i actually have to unfold them before i can roll them. i mentioned this to her before. but does it register in her otherwise twisted mind? noooooooo...

i'm all pissed off when i went for my shower. only to get more pissed off when i got out of my shower.

i'd wanted to clear my laundry tomorrow or later in the week coz i really wanted to just relaxed and chill with the soon-to-be-due book. i already have overdue books on my hands. i don't really want more. whatmore, this book was borrowed under my brother's card.

but i had to clear my laundry tonight coz it was sitting there. on my bed. f o l d e d. yucks. you made me do my own laundry. so stop screwing with my system! i fold certain stuff. i roll certain stuff. and there's actually a system to where i keep e v e r y t h i n g. your helping is creating more work for me. i thought i told you that. i thought i told you how grossed out i am with my colleague for being the overaged parasite she is. is that not a hint of how i like the idea of independence?

can't i even pretend that i'm independent despite that i'm still living under your roof, and not really helping out with the bills?

so i sat down grudgingly to clear my laundry, when i could be settling other stuff and rushing to bed with my book.

and lo! i discover that she has turned majority of my clothes right side out and rehung them on their effing hangers before placing them nicely on my effing bed!

it's like. wtf>?!?!?@@!>?

it got me really pissed coz i only realised she had practically turned everything inside out when i flipped a plain black tee to realise i had effing turned it wrong side out.

you're fucking making me do more fucking work when i'd wanted to procrastinate the fucking chore coz i've had a fucking week so far and all i'd wanted to do on an early day off work was to relax with a book instead of flinging hangers at my wall and throwing clean laundry on my rather dirty floor.

argh!!!!!!!!!!!!

thing is, i've no idea why i'm so pissed off. i was really ok through out the entire day. too tired to feel irritated at anything.

maybe i was irritated at having to wake up from my slumber on my bus ride. i'd really concussed out. i'm really at my worst when i'm sleep deprived.

and it certainly doesn't help when some friend think replying a sms is optional.

argh. it must be hormones. i'm sounding so uber bitchy and spoilt. well, i did tell her to leave my laundry as it is.

and so i've thrown the hangers in the living room. they're all over the floor. if she likes to clear and tidy so much, i'll let her. tidying things up is somewhat therapeutic at times for me. but not when it's forced (like in the situation i've just so ramblingly described).

eff the world.

suspected pms rant

2006-06-05T21:29:00.000+08:00

had a rather angry day.

ok, rather is an understatement. has an angry day.

i was told that we needed to get the drawings out by today so the interior designer could have a discussion with the boss on today.

so i worked my ass off last friday. stayed in the office till one am. coz i didn't want to come back during the weekend.

showed her the drawings i did today. she asked me to correct the furniture drawn by another intern. usually, she would do that herself coz she always ends up correcting any furniture i draw anyway. but coz she hadn't done much during the weekend and she had a whole bunch of furniture to correct, she asked me to correct the furniture for room X.

and it turned out that the previous intern

drew lines that overlapped on each other. this is not good coz perforated lines that overlap each other end up looking like continuous lines rather than perforated lines.
drew drawers as mere rectangles instead of a collection of rectangles (ie he drew the overall outline of the drawer instead of the parts the drawer is made up of).
forgot to pull out the overall dimensions.
drew the furniture on the wrong layer

and i got snapped by him when i made snide remarks about his messy drawings.

he'd offered me help on friday, but i rejected his help coz i didn't know i would have to clean up his mess. if i didn't have to clean up his mess, i would have completed everything on time coz i actually do plan my time.

and it wouldn't have been such a pain taking over whatever he was doing if he had done a reasonable job in the first place.

but did i tell him this? no. instead i walked away.

coz i knew i was really irritated. and the risk of saying evil (but in my opinion, true) things was really high.

thing is, i picked up how to do somewhat presentable drawings when i started interning. and he has been interning longer than me. and all the mistakes that i spot from his drawings, are mistakes that i had made during my internship. mistakes that i'd learnt from. why is it that i can learn from my mistakes and he can't?

doesn't help that the interior designer delayed her meeting with the boss coz she hasn't finished her bit. in fact, she delayed so long that the boss left for the day and the meeting has been postponed to tomorrow.

so i stared at the f-- computer till one am on friday. friday! for what?

argh.

and then i meet a bunch of asses on the bus. i see young, seemingly able-bodied things (it seems a bit of a compliment to call them human beings or people) sitting comfortably, chatting to each other, ignoring the elderly standing right next to them.

and after i give up my seat to the white hair-ed elderly who did seem a little spritely for his age but hey, he's still an elderly, i get assholes who insist on getting out of their seats to move to the exit while the bus is deccelerating to a stop at the red light b e f o r e their f-- stop.

it wasn't even coming to a stop at his f-- bus-stop!

assholes who insist i release my grasp on the seat handle that would stop me from falling while the bus is deccelerating.

asses! asses!! i'm surrounded by f-- asses!!!!

and i really think my irascibility could be hormonal. oh hell hath who? when pms descends.

but all of it was somewhat soothed by deep-fried chicken and cold beer. think i need another beer to erase all memories of the asses that i'm surrounded with.

2006-06-03T11:20:00.000+08:00

it's the first time in many days (more than seven?) where i actually got to wake up late! and it's not even really late by my standards. hmm.

ah well. it's time for a swim. can't find my sunblock. had to slather my humongous body with my facial sunblock (it's a rather small bottle). where d i d my brother stash my sunblock?

it's nothing but a bitch fest.

2006-05-27T02:42:00.000+08:00

disclaimer: the following you're about to read should be read and not taken to heart. words come out of who?, who? can concuss in peace. tomorrow is another day. where jay chou is still writing who?'s favourite ballads, where the fishes are still happily swimming around oblivious to who?'s questionable reason for existence. where the sun still burns like nobody's business and where life just goes on despite what we all believe in.

* * * * *

mein gott. i just discovered a link that will bring me directly to the [create a new post] page. i am so dumb.

another example to illustrate my point. i just discovered the repeat button on the karaoke remote control during the last karaoke session.

who? is truly hopeless. tsk

* * * * *

went for a drink at loof after work with a couple of interns coz one of us is leaving to return to school. and we were talking about the people at work.

(i kinda like loof btw. it's nice to be outdoors at night. would like to go back again. preferably with a nicer seat. didn't have much trouble with the barstool we were sitting on. but a nice ottoman would definitely have been more comfy)

like some people to look out for (coz they may be more than they seem). think i might have sounded like i dislike some people more than i really do.

eg, i'm not the biggest fan of my current neighbour. some things that peeve me (a l i t t l e)

thing one_how she loves to tell stories about herself. stories about her family. stories of the many places she's been to. maybe i'm being overly sensitive, but it kinda seems a little 炫耀ing.

maybe it's because i do have some privileged friends and they don't name-drop as much. it kinda gets a little irritating when it seems like all she wants to do is tell you her glorious stories. it seems like she's always able to link whatever you say to something she's done or experienced before. it just feels like she's trying beat you at everything.

a conversation is between two people. it should be a sharing thing, and not really an "all about me/her" thing. she tends to like to get her point through. i feel a little obligated to let her state her point coz it feels like it would kill her if i don't let her tell me her story.

i think i'm like her too. example, i've the tendency to go on and on about diving, but i do try to make an effort to include other subjects.

maybe it's just me having sour grapes. what to do, i've never been to europe, neither have i bought ferragammo boots, nor have i bought "cheap" perfume in paris. i've having sour grapes lah.. whatever lah

thing two_she's damn dependent on her mom and her maid. a n d she's proud of it. she can tell us about how she woke her mom up to ask her to iron her bleedy tee-shirt.

what the f??

i told her if i was her mom i would have given her a tight slap. actually, think i would have slapped her up down left right lor. she's in her thirties and she wakes her mom up to get her to iron a f-- tee shirt??

she acts like a child at her age and is proud of it.

it peeves me coz i just don't get it.

thing three_she's rather indiscreet. and since i'm quite slow when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time, i figured it would be better to keep my mouth shut in front of her.

she's quite ok other than the above points i guess. but because i am who i am, i think it's better to maintain a little distance between us just to keep my back relatively stab free. i'm always saying the wrong things at the wrong time. argh.

do i dislike her? no.

do i like her? not really.

i'm just not really interested in getting to know her better. there may be a better side to her, but there're a lot of other stuff out there that i rather be interested about.

think i also sounded like i don't love the interior designer i work with. people always tell me that she knows a lot and she's good in her job.

she has indeed taught me quite a bit. but very often, she asks me to figure things out myself. so i do that. and figure something that's totally wrong and watch her swallow blood (that she wants to puke) as i show her the crap i've come up with.

the thing that peeves me the most is how inconsistent she is. she'll ask you to refer to her old project. and when you refer to her mistakes and point out that you were following her mistakes she'll ask why you didn't think for yourself before copying her mistake.

thing is, if i knew that was a mistake, i wouldn't have been referring to it in the first place, no? or maybe who? is really dumber than she believes..

and she actually doubted that i could read the measurement of a f-- ruler. i had to bring the f-- tile upstairs to her and let her measure for herself and let her see for herself that who? can actually read the measurement off a ruler.

she may be good at her job. she may know a lot. but for me, she's really not the best person to be learning under coz she can make me feel like i'm the dumbest creature alive.

luckily, i've learnt to just take it in my stride and occasionally throw it back in her face (like when i decided not to argue about the dimension of the tile that i had in my hands, along with a ruler. but instead walked upstairs to let her measure the f-- tile by herself) just for the kick of it.

i'm truly evil. i commit the sins i despise and loathe and i don't cut others slack for committing the same sins.

my weak argument - i try to not commit the sin. keyword here - try

* * * * *

my tolerance of alcohol is getting better. the aloof iced tea i had was nothing. might have loosened my lips a l i t t l e. but it's nothing compared to the chivasgreentea i just made myself. and i think i kinda enjoy chivas.

long live dfs booze!

think i can concuss later. yay..

* * * * *

utterly useless trivia: it's who?s' 222nd post! palidromic number! let's just hope life will be more easy and smooth in future

i survived

2006-05-15T01:45:00.000+08:00

just got back from my dive trip. didn't die. hee

just got out of the shower approx half an hour ago, cut myself the carrot cake that has been sitting my fridge since forever, got myself a nice cold beer, booted up the comp, finally got my nail file, and n o w i feel sleepy. tmd. i really should be eating my cake and filing my nails (quite indecently long now) but.. i'm sleepy.. plus i've got to work tomorrow. sigh

anyway, back to my dive. quite enjoyed my trip. got to know some people. wasn't too damn dao. was a little on the second & third day coz the pillow was too flat as a result, i didn't really get a very satisfying rest. in fact, i felt my naps on the boat was more shiok.

i'm finally an advance open water diver! yippee! now i can go for deeper dives and night dives. i thought the trip was quite good coz i managed to see quite a bit of things. i spotted two nudibranches by myself. and a box puffer. it was one-two cm lor! for someone as blind as me, to be able to spot the box puffer is an achievement. at least to me it is.

and i think i spotted a crown of thorn. a tres poisonous starfish. luckily, i had the common sense to not touch it. if not i would probably be swelling now.

considering if i should go and attempt the rescue diver course next. this coming from someone who's rather scared of water is kinda a surprise i guess. but, being a diver is really different from life in sg.

for the last three days, think the reason for being was the next dive. where i could try out my skills and see how utterly koyak i am (veered during my night dive navigation, but i think my instructor still passed me lah. "P). where i could be in the water. i'm just different.

i jumped off the roof of our boat! on saturday. heee.. that took a bit of courage. coz i'm really a very unfit person. and the treading water after my jump was the more of the killer than the jump

decided to jump coz

an instructor offered to jump with me.
YY agreed when i jio-ed her to jump with me
it was rather hot
there was quite a bit of time before the next dive
there were quite a lot of people to save me if i should go under (i'm assuming they would save me lah)
i just felt like it.

it was a rather good experience. a little unlike me to do such a thing. to jump off the roof of the boat. when i'm not confident of my tread water skills.

still can't really believe i did that.

was making quite a bit of noise after that while i was trying to stay afloat in the water especially when the instructor threw the buoy away from me. aren't you trying to throw the rope to me? where were you throwing the buoy to??

treading water is tiring! must go train up. damnit. and the photographer missed me coz apparently i jumped too fast. must jump before i chicken out what. too bad there isnt\'t any photographic evidence.

enjoy being in the water. i enjoy the sensation of being somewhat weightless. that there's a different set of rules on how to move. the corals you get to see. the fishes (though i'm still having trouble identifying them). the thrill of seeing something you only see in books/on the dinner table.

octopus.. cuttlefish.. (i saw them! but i didn't see the big cuttlefish that YY and group saw coz i was doing my training dive) anemone shrimp.. ok. anemone shrimp doesn't sound impressive. but now when i think about it, to think the divemaster actually found the one cm shrimps to show me, it's pretty impressive. even though i'm always suaning him about not finding things for me to see.

i saw a school of yellowtails swimming in the sea. it was like two dancing yellow ribbons! and i saw a giant sea turtle. should be a really old turtle. it was maybe one to one point five metres long!

my instructor also spotted some shrimp/crab/lobster for me during my orientation night dive. we can't really tell what it was we were looking at coz it was really small. one to one point two cm? and hairy. he's kinda optimistic about them being lobsters while i'm there "are you sure? you sure? lobster leh.."

yes. i'm evil.

i got to play with this fish. i didn't bring any food to feed the fishes. and when i got some from the instructor, somehow, no fish was attracted to my measly piece of bread.

in the end, i caught the attention of this seven cm long fish that's purplish greenish. it would come to me face on, stop around seven to ten cm away from me, swim left/right and swim to my mask again to stare at me. and it repeated this for quite a while so there i was just spinning round and round with the fish. always ending up face to face with it.

i tell people that if they happen to see me, they probably would have thought i kena narcosis or dunno what coz i was just turning round on the spot. but i danced with a fish! ok. i played with it lah.

i guess that's kind of a high point coz i found out that i can move myself in the water. i remembered not being able to control where i'm going when i was doing my open water and during my leisure dive in tioman.

in fact i was the one attempting to siam the other divers on the advance course with me, most of the time. they were doing an open water + advance open water combo course. while i was doing my advance after quite a few leisure dives. should be expected of me to have a better grasp of skills right?

then there was the attack by the trigger fish. i was following my divemaster (i'd separated him from our dive group when i failed to descend coz i gei kiang, attempted to go down with two weights. moral of the story, i can go down with three now. not two. so in the end, he ascended to give me extra weight so i could descend. but by then, we had lost sight of our dive group) just drifting along with the current

was just trailing behind him when i saw this fish swim towards his fin to take a nibble. being the fish idiot i was (i'm a little less idiotic now lah), i thought "hey, fish taking friendly nibble on him.."

meanwhile, the DM thought "huh? why is who? tugging my fin?" so he turned, and alor! turned out our friendly fish is an aggressive fish that's looking for a fight. a trigger fish. and so the DM started fighting with it with his pointer while attempting to shoo me to somewhere safe.

guess instinctively i realised something was wrong, so away i finned to somewhere where i could watch the action. i'm terrible i know. there he was fighting to save his fins and himself and i guess me? and there i was, 看好戏ing.

as we were finning away, the DM turned back to make sure we're safe and he started fencing with his pointer again! miraculously i managed to turn back in time to see the trigger charging at us. it charged a couple more times, before we were finally far enough.

think that did leave me a little traumatized to have that rather sizeable fish coming towards me in my face. when i saw triggers on my dives after that, i would just fin away as unobstrusively as possible. i don't have a pointer to fend myself with lor.

and the poor DM has a lobang in his fin now. ooops.

it's just different being out there. under the sun, in the sea, on the sand.

damnit, i'm hooked.

pre dive

2006-05-09T01:17:00.000+08:00

went for my pool refresher session today.

was late. (was trying to cram in a little bit more work)

basically the guy revised some skills with me.

how to gear up
regulator retrival
mask clearing
finning
hovering
the thing where you borrow the spare regulator from your buddy
controlled emergency something ascend
and i got him to go through navigation. yeah! when i did my open water, they failed to go through that with us. so now i guess i can somewhat navigate? yeah sure..
and of course how to gear down.

it was a pretty short session coz i could remember some stuff. so despite that i was half an hour? twenty minutes? late, i managed to get out before nine.

walked home. now the balls of my feet are hurting.

it's really great to be handling the equipment. also kinda forced me to remember how freaking afraid of the water i am. i still had a little problem with mask removal. breathed in some water again. seriously, if i ever meet with any accident, the chances of my survival is.. something i don't really want to think about.

and my equalising is damn rusty! argh. i was having difficulty just descending down 3m lah! wah lau eh.

and as usual i couldn't control where i was going. i was kinda crashing into the others. sigh.

also i was having quite a bit of trouble hovering, ascending, staying afloat by just finning, and trying to manually inflate my bc while finning. i even got a cramp from finning myself up.

turned out i was using too many weights. in the end i used two and managed to somewhat keep myself afloat by finning and manually inflate my bc. kinda suspicious coz i thought i remembered using four weights when i last dived. hmmm.. ah well.. i'll prob need three in the sea. i think?

after my brief recap, do you not wonder how i managed to survive my previous .. eleven dives? damn. and this time we're going deeper. and we're going to do night diving. please don't let me cock up and die.

then i was guided by one fella. and it was like i was the only one having a one to one session. at first i thought it was coz i was late. but later, i was too busy trying to remember how to dive to be feeling paiseh.

turns out i'm the only person who's having a refresher course a n d going for my advance open water. and everyone else there was having the pool session for their open water course. hmmm.. ah well, at least now i'm a little less rusty.

can't wait for my trip! eep!

* * * * *

J commented today that i'm really a tv addict. well, i've never really tried to deny it. in fact, i go around claiming to be a tv junkie almost all the time. a rather pathetic soppy one too.

caught tonight's grey's anatomy. and teared.

there was this really loving old couple who came in coz the wife had some minor problem that could be solved by surgery. but during the surgery, they discovered she had cancer. when grey told the husband, he looked so pained and he asked grey to keep the truth from the wife coz he didn't want her to be sad and he would rather have her spend her last days happily.

but later grey's supervising erm.. doctor told her that [grey] being the wife's doctor has the obligation to inform the wife of her condition. and so she did. despite the husband's request.

when the wife learnt of the truth, she asked grey to keep the matter from her husband. they had planned to visit venice at the end of the month. where they would go on a gondola and pass under some bridge. doing so's supposed to kinda bless the two of them to be together till eternity or something like that. and she really wanted to do that.

then grey left her. and ran into the husband. who asked if grey had indeed kept the truth from the wife. and grey lied.

at the end of the show, you see the sweet couple leaving the hospital hand in hand. and smiling.

i'm weak. but even as i retell the story, tears are welling up. they're just so damn sweet.

sometimes i look at my parents, and i can't help but wonder why they seem so distant physically. and i guess this does affect me. i don't really like physical contact with my parents. it's just.. weird. in fact, i'm not really a big fan of physical contact with most human beings. my border of comfort zone (with reference to other humans) is quite a bit of distance from me.

once i snapped at my mother for sitting too close to me. i was trying to dry off after a jog. was still dripping sweat (yes, i sweat t h a t much) and she just happily plonked herself on the sofa behind me. emitting heat to my immediate surroundings while i was desperately trying to cool down.

yes, i'm an evil daughter who snaps at her mother. quite a severe case of large? small? comfort zone problem?

* * * * *

it's been damn long since i've blogged such a long entry. there's so much more to ramble on about. but i'm sure people like KM will be happy to read my earlier short entries. i like to imagine that my neurotic, somewhat inane rambling is entertaining someone out there. or maybe even touching someone so that they tear. hmmm. that's a little tough. think i'll stick to imagining myself as a comic relief.

2006-05-07T23:47:00.000+08:00

it's over. i've kinda ran out of oc to watch.

in the period of three days, i've finished 27 episodes of oc.

thursday - 7 episodes. back to back
friday - 8 episodes. back to back
saturday - 12 episodes. back to back.

no wonder i'm so tired today. barely made it out to collect some yummy carrot cake JL & her friend made. (thanks again!) but i'm really rather proud of my decadence actually.

totally collapsed after spending the afternoon backpacking hunting. did end up with a backpack in the end though. finally don't have to keep bothering my friends.

and here's a rather interesting article i spotted. it discusses the effects of differential financial means on friendships. it's rather interesting.

2006-05-06T04:29:00.000+08:00

just watched seven episodes of oc. back to back. o m g.

thank goodness it's the weekend and i can just rot before my computer and get this whole oc obsession out of my system.

and did i mention that the white lotus herbal tea from the stash tea chanakara series is quite good? yumm..

and now, let me try to sleep while i itch once again. for unknown reasons. hmmm..

delight!

2006-05-04T23:15:00.000+08:00

my cousin passed his dad, who in turn pass my dad my barang from the states. the surprise & delight i was in when i got home is beyond words.

i didn't know usd29 of tea is t h a t impressive looking. will post up picture when circumstances allow.

and now, the last two episodes of oc season two beckons..

who? = stupid episode #7823

2006-05-04T01:12:00.000+08:00

in the attempt to boost my immunity (there seems to be a bug going around), i decided i shall pop an orange every morning before my daily mug of joe, for as long as i can remember to before my dive trip.

i believe my hands were not thoroughly cleaned after i waxed my hair. and as experiments have shown, hands with remnant hair wax + sour hand-peeled orange = mild case of food poisoning.

and hence i got off work early today and got to spend precious time with my telly and my comp (i'm almost finishing season 2 of oc. mwaharharhar~) and no time on the console or the display cabinet that's 3+m tall. guess i might be working late tomorrow.

hmmm.. might need to pop more po chai pills then. hmmmm. well, i definitely think a case of food poisoning's easier to recover from than a flu.

how's this for comic relief.

tee shirt frenzy!

2006-05-03T01:08:00.000+08:00

just bought seven tee shirts online. yup. you read right. seven.

well, there's a sale mah. it's only costing me usd90 (incl shipping! what more, they're shipping to sg!), you've got to admit that's a good deal.

anyway, only four of them are for me. the other three're for my brother. and i'm paying for one of his tee shirts. coz it's too gay for him to buy for himself (zoom in to see why he thinks it's gay). but i really think it's a great way to get girls to swoon over his tee shirt. hee

have had quite a good day. here's why

managed to seek advice from my uncle regarding laptops on behalf of my cousin. a n d i managed to convey the info to my cousin.
confirmed with my friend about our diving trip next week. she's going to confirm with the dive operator tomorrow. i'm going to get my advance open water cert!
bought funky yummy tee shirts. having them shipped to sg! (no need to trouble kind-hearted relatives and friends) at a discounted price! go check them out and grab some for yourselves before they run out of sizes.
managing to do all the above a n d catch csi: ny.

though i prob can't wake up at 6am later to jog. ah well, you win some you lose some.

who? = stupid

2006-04-22T01:48:00.000+08:00

ehlo!

it's been rather long (well, it is for me), but here i am! because i've a mouth but i cannot shout in real life. and i suspect this will be a rather long post coz well, i haven't blogged for a while mah.

as mentioned before, my "disappearance" is due to the consuming nature of my internship, my relationship with my telly and my bed. the internet just can't compete with the above-mentioned trinity.

* * * * *

had a pretty icky week. would rate it 2.5/5

had quite a couple of health-related issues. some examples (truth is, i'm listing all):

severe allergic reaction coz i forgot the instructions i read off the hair-removal spray. it's severe enough to awake me from my concus.. sleep.
leaking blood (ok, so the correct term should be menses, i like to use the word leaking, can?)
旧伤复发. an minor injury that i suffered from ten years back (t e n!) relapsed. freaking 旧伤 lah, ten years liao can. this reduced the mobility of my usually rather flexible ankle
eye-ache (suspect it's due to contact lens. @#^$^@)
headache (suspect it's due to pillow)
pimple on butt. this was seriously a pain in the butt (pun somewhat intended). and i'm stuck at the desk all day. o n m y p i m p l e o n m y b u t t. it was more like.. a wart.. a boil.. a growth. it was h u g e. and freaking painful

and basically every one of the things mentioned above tormented me for two days or more (cept for the eye-ache). along with the stress from work. eg being late for work. i really do try to not be late. i do.

i actually had a nightmare that i was late and the hr person was telling me the boss gave me an ultimatum. turn up for work late again and i'll be sacked. that was when i woke up to realise i w a s indeed late for work. the horror, the horror.

work has its ups and downs but i'm learning to let it not bother me coz i need to conserve my emotional energy for other more deserving things (eg for loving diving)

then i just had a pretty terrible session of catching up with old friends.

met up for dinner with Y & K.

during the dinner, K brought up the point that i was very agitated (during the dinner). quite a few times.

maybe i was a little dramatic, a little more vocal, a little more forceful with my opinions, but if you can't relax and let down your guard when you're with friends, then when can one be oneself?

think K found me a little impatient. but i'm the one with poor hearing and K and Y are the ones who were making the waiters repeat what they were saying and not getting the rules of the game till halfway through the game. (we were at a board games cafe)

Y explained that she was tired from working, but K, she was busy messaging on her phone, not catching what the waiter was saying and basically just asking to be 酸ed and i'm being accused of being agitated.

i'm not agitated. i'm just evil. if you hand me an egg, i'll throw it in your face. yes, i am evil.

when we were in Y's car, K got rather irritated that i was 酸ing her about being oblivious to changes along the road. usually she can take more 酸ing. but today she kinda snapped after very little 酸ing. she's usually a very tolerant person.

i guess i haven't been 酸ing her in the past few times we met up. think i toned down a little, but today, i was a little more like my evil o' self from eons back. from the time when we first became friends. i was the evil thing she knew from way back.

and after she snapped at me, i just shut up. coz i realised that i was being a little dramatic and i always believe it's better to shut up than to say something and offend people.

and then, K decided to call it a night (we were adjourning for more food). and after Y dropped her off, i decided to call it a night too.

i asked Y if i was really asking for it. according to Y, i was kinda like my usual self while K was a little less tolerating than her usual self. and she thought probably it's coz K's kinda stressed from all the stuff happening in her life at the moment.

and it's bothering me.

there'll always be this evil bitchy side of me whose mouth is so 缺德 that i'm probably on some top ten bitch list. and if you can't be yourself when you're with your friends, when can you be yourself?

these days, i find myself not really whining to them about my life coz i'd been whining too much in the past few years and there's nothing much to whine about really and i should be thankful for what is not happening to me.

so yup, quite a great deal of less kao-pei-ing to my friends these days. and i don't really share things with them coz the things that excite and interest me don't do the same for them. so when there's some silence, they'll bring up some topic that interests them (being a work-related topic for them) while involving me in the most cursory manner.

it bothers me to realise that i'm not really having a lot of fun when i thought i should be.

when do friends stop being friends? when are friends friends? i always thought K and i don't really have much in common. she doesn't seem to have an evil streak. our interests are as different as night and day (with the occasional similar interest here and there, rarer than rare).

i don't know much about her life coz she doesn't really volunteer information about her problems. and i don't like to probe.

yes, i don't like to probe, please feel free to tell me your problems (if you feel like doing so), but don't expect me to ask you to tell me your problems. i just don't ask people. let's just say, it's not exactly in my nature to do so.

i don't really feel that the bond between us is very strong coz we've never really gone through tough times together. she might have been there when things sucked for me, but i was never there when things sucked for her. it's because i didn't know things were sucking for her. if they were, i would expect her to come and say something. but she doesn't.

so when she breaks her important news to Y and me, i don't feel much coz i can't.

recently, zf said this on her blog, "My girlfriends I made in Singapore are always my best friends. My new girlfriends just can't measure up to them."

but what happens when you find that your old friends' lives are being consumed by their work, their studies, their current life and the person you used to have things in common with is not really the person you laughed with before?

what happens when the person you have little in common with before and have evern less in common with now is considered a close friend (by default, well, that's how i feel sometimes) realise that you're a crappy bitch and decides to give you a slap in your face for being yourself?

what happens when you bottle it all up because you realised that your friends shouldn't have to endure being your hole in the wall (cf in the mood for love) and you self-censor in your blog coz you don't know who's reading what and you've to keep some secrets even though it's slowing killing you?

yup. it's a crappy week. but life is not as bad as it sounds. f-. why am i trying to explain every freaking thing i say?

i blog to vent so i can stop crying at every possible tear-inducing thing i catch on telly. was crying rather vigorously while watching grey's anatomy this week. cried so hard that my eyes were a tad sore the next day. feel rather stupid.

2006-04-02T21:49:00.000+08:00

m u s t s t a y a w a k e.

lesson of the day, zyrtec + empty stomach = stoned who?

but why must i stay awake? seriously, i don't really know.

coz my hair is wet? coz i need to do my online shopping cum research? coz i want to read 木兰花? coz i want to watch coupling? grrr.. stupid allergic reaction.

* * * * *

was out with JQ today. and i mentioned to her about JL thinking my life is a little miserable. and then JQ said something about having the impression that my job wasn't turning out to be a bed of roses.

erm. have i been giving that impression? oh dear. let me try to clarify again.

ok. interning is not as bad as i have made it sound.

i can't really help it if i feel that it's a little torturous to have to get into the office by a certain time coz i'm a nocturnal creature and the late night tv shows are such sirens to me.

true, i find it somewhat of a pain that i don't really have time to read the papers, surf the net, watch the telly and slack these days. that at the end of the day i'm just tired and not really raring to go at doing the stuff that i've been meaning to do (eg book SIFF tickets - how to book when i don't even know what i want to watch? argh!! -, alter a top, dye some clothes, make some bracelets, blog, stuff.)

it's a little tiring trying to meet up with certain expectations. some of which are a little erm.. *cough* unreasonable *cough*. just a little. but hey, that's the challenge right?

it's a little of a let-down when i can't meet up to some expectations.

it's a little fustrating when someone accidentally turns off your computer and you haven't been saving your work. (thank goodness for the auto-save function)

there's all sorts of stuff that screws with you coz it's really rare to be able to find yourself working in a perfect job. there's always some politics. some gossip. some rules.

i a m kinda enjoying myself.

it's great that i've a rather regular income.
that i learn new (photoshop/autocad) tricks.
that i learn stuff that i ought to know but i don't.
that i'm forced to mix with people. (i must i must i must be less anti-social)
that i've to be somewhere every five days of the week to do something.
that i can afford to spend more money on my friends.
that i can afford to spend more money on myself.
that i d o enjoy the stuff i'm doing. even if i do feel like a cadding monkey or a photoshopping monkey at times. if i've to be at the computer all day to earn my keep, i really wouldn't mind cadding or photoshopping.

it's not what i really want. i think. but i guess all this is a path to helping me find out what i want. and what i can do to get what i want.

what i really want is to travel. to live in somewhere other than sg. to experience a different life. a different culture. to dive. to see the corals. the sharks. to feel somewhat weightless. to be so filthy rich that i can give to charity as much i want. to find someone who loves me and whom i love. to like myself for who i am. to be a person that i would like. to know who i am.

i think interning at an architecture firm can be considered a definite step to achieving some of the above things i want. at least it's helping me to be a little less financially handicapped.

blogging about the shit stuff from work helps me to get over the things that i need to get over in order to somewhat resemble a human being.

really, people who are reading this, i am not as miserable as i sound. i may be itching like there's no tomorrow (oh yah, i'm having some bizarre allergic reaction to something. i don't know what though. the heat? the humidity? the moisturisers i bought from the states? the washing powder? the shower gel? i really don't have a f-- clue. i do know that i itch though. maybe it's time to seek professional help. think i'm already on my third box of zyrtec. tmd.) but otherwise, i'm really doing quite ok.

sorry if i've made anyone worry.

i'm happy?

2006-04-02T12:03:00.000+08:00

JL passed me some homemade quiche and a handmade card/letter this morning.

i actually woke up at 0850 to receive the goodies. (ok, so i only woke up coz JL called me before she left her place. but hey, at least i heard my phone - that alone is quite a feat considering i went to bed at 5am - and dragged my entire body out of bed) and surprise! i managed to resist the call of my bed by a shower and my drug of choice - coffee. and lo and behold, here i am blogging at the incredible hour of.. ermm.. 1055?

JL mentioned that i sounded sad from my blog in her card/letter. well, it's more like she's sad about the shit i get in life (which she finds out from reading me blog).

hmmm, i thought i display anger, fustration in my blog and sometimes i share useless things eg this [via popgadet]. this is so funny in a geeky way btw.

do i sound like life is treating me like dirt? coz it's not that bad really.

i kinda subscribe to the "motto" of [blogging] because I have no mouth, and must scream.

good stuff do happen to me. i just don't blog about them. don't really know why. coz i don't want to seem like i'm gloating? coz there may be people out there who's having a shit day and who just happen to chance on my blog?

or maybe it's coz i've learnt to feel happy from the smallest things. things which seem a tad pathetic to blog about. but just to convince people who happen to drop by that my life is more than bad stuff, here's some of the times when i feel some sense of happiness

when i catch a mtv by one of my favorite singers, shot in a city i like a lot. on a rare sunday morning no less.
when i chance on this and decide to buy it coz it's cheap
when i talk for four hours on the phone with my good friend and realise that despite the physical distance we had between us for the past five years we are still great phone kakis. i'm so glad she's back.
when i hear a song i like on radio or on the telly. even if it's a horribly beng/lian/uncool song.
when i get to sing to my heart's content at the karaoke
when i receive a letter from a friend

the last few years had been rather rough. but i also feel that i had a part to play for making my own life shit. i'm tired of whining and complaining excessively to my friends.

realised i was turning into my dad. who kinda goes on and on and on and on and on and on.. whenever things piss him off. a little like a stuck record.

and it's a pain. and i don't want to be a pain to my friends. and so i blog. if you're not interested, if you don't like to read long-winded whines, don't read. (it's a little hard to tell someone who's kaopei-ing away "stop! you're being a pain." i'm really trying to make my friends' lives easier)

i blog to stop myself from going crazy.

i blog hoping that whoever reads my posts might get some laughs (you have to admit there's some obscure hint of humour in the shit that happens to me or at least in the way i tell my stories).

really, i blog coz it's all about me. m e. ME. M E!!! mwaharharhar~ (can you see me inflating with ego and bursting into hysterical maniacal laughter like one of those super villains here?)

i thought it was rather coincidental that i caught 杰伦's 逆鳞 mtv after reading JL's card/letter. he's the "one of my favorite singers" i mentioned about earlier on. wasn't really impressed when i played the mtv while at karaoke the last time. but today i caught the lyrics which i thought somewhat describes what i feel about life.

这生命对每个人
都不公平也没道理
只能扑向泥泞迎向
那阵骤雨由不得你

如果生命对每个人
都不公平也没道理
那就让我带着孤寂
继续前进直到光明
继续前进

life may suck but whatever happened has happened. whine if you want to, mope if you want to, just remember to move on coz life goes on.

what lau eh. so bloody not negative. can't believe this is coming out of me.

2006-04-02T03:14:00.000+08:00

what should a girl do when she's craving for cake at 3am?

* * * * *

i'm sure my dad will think people who indulge in this are bums with too much time in their hands who're just asking for trouble. but i think it makes life a little less dreary.

link

2006-03-30T00:49:00.000+08:00

got this from here (via cowboycaleb). i like this one

(ComradOtter) "A train station is where a train stops. A bus station is where a bus stops. On my desk I have a workstation..."

and i think this is a rather interesting tee shirt

* * * * *

i've this strange (and rather silly) thing that i kinda believe in.

i think when my left eyelid twitches, someone is thinking badly of me (eg who? is so irresponsible.. who? is such a bitch..)

whereas when my right eyelid twitches, someone is thinking fondly of me (maybe who? is a rather thoughtful person..?)

and my left eyelid twitched rather a lot on mon. in fact, it just twitched. sigh.

celebrity lookalike

2006-03-19T22:33:00.000+08:00

as i check the regular blogs i read, i found this from here.

it's a face recognition thing. and here are my results.

with a photo from 2001, i look like these. i think whitney, brandy and elizabeth are there coz i smiled with my teeth in this photo. but enrique??

with a photo that dated back to 2003, i look like these celebrities. lee ang?? kathy bates?? thank goodness for emmanuelle beart. chiohbu..

with a rather pleasant looking photo taken some time in 2005, i look these

apart from ms huston, i think the results are rather flattering. though i don't know who janie tienphosuwan and nina hagen are. according to google, janie's a thai celebrity and nina's some mother of punk.

and lastly, using a photo from 2006, i look like them

methinks ha ji-won is rather 有性格的. wonder who she is. leslie cheung??

ooh.. song hye-kyo is a chiohbu! and how come bic runga looks malay?

and notice how maggie cheung appears in all?? ahem. wonder if that means i look like her. ahem. har~ seriously, i like maggie. she ooze charisma. it's such a bloody honor to look like her lah.

i also tried this family photo taken in 2001 where my extended family was included. it was rather amusing to see all the celebrity draw-a-likes.

i think i look more or less the same in all these photos (afterall, if my primary school teacher can recognize me after 7years? my looks probably haven't really change much these few years too) so i was amazed that with the family photo my #1 celebrity lookalike was grace jones.

scary!

but most of us had really.. erm.. lined (wrinkled) celebrity lookalikes. must be the photo.

but it was also the photo where i looked 52% like kaneshiro takeshi! drool.. and 47% like jay chou! omg. i like takeshi and jay mah, so it's kinda nice to think i look 47-52% like them.. sheesh i know.

and my brother looked 49% like jay chou! laugh! coz he (my brother) looked rather toot in that photo.

all in all, i think the results are rather flattering. at least most of the time i don't look like a guy. must be coz the photo i used was one when i was spec-less (unlike lmd). still, no matter how flattering it all is, i still feel like scrubbing my breast with steel wool.

but i have to admit, the website is awfully addictive.

* * *

got this from here.

my monster name is wicked slayer.

note what i feast on.

Your Monster Profile

Wicked Slayer

You Feast On: Starbucks

You Lurk Around In: Las Vegas

You Especially Like to Torment: Pop Stars

What's Your Monster Name?

harassed

2006-03-18T23:48:00.000+08:00

woke up at eleven (the time when i was supposed to be in town meeting a friend), with a headache today. managed to get out of the house within 45 minutes. and amazingly the bus arrived within five minutes. i thought i was experiencing good bus karma today.

what wishful thinking.

i found a window seat at the upper deck, somewhere near the middle-back area of the bus. i took a seat which had an unoccupied seat directly behind of which.

a few minutes later, i heard a cough behind me. i didn't remember seeing anyone else come up to the upper deck. and i remembered the seat behind me was empty when i sat down. so i was a little puzzled why anyone would move into that seat. what more, my row of seats was the one in the sun. i thought perhaps i was mistaken.

when i looked at a building as the bus went past it, i turned a little and saw that there was indeed someone sitting directly behind me. strange, but what the heck. no big deal right?

it is a little irritating to always find myself so coincidentally sitting or standing directly in front of someone who coughs or sneezes or expels dubious gas without covering their orifices (i know they don't cover their effing orifices coz i always feel their odious expulsion brush pass my skin. euw.). but, no big deal right?

later, i decided to get into a more comfy position to catch some shut-eye. my preferred pose is a slouching pose, where my body slides a little off the backrest such that my head can rest on the top of the backrest. and i like to tilt my body such that my legs can stretch to the leg space of the seat next to me (a pose only possible when the bus is not crowded). so my back would be partly on the backrest, and partly on the window.

at some point of time, i realised that the backrest was poking me. i thought perhaps i was a little off my usual position. i moved a little but still felt it, but i ignored it. it was like the bean under the many layers of mattress (there was this fairy tale?).

halfway along the trip, i got irritated with the "bean" in my seat. i opened my eyes and looked. and there were four brown stubs.

they were the fingers of the passenger behind me.

i moved immediately to the aisle seat. i looked behind. the fingers belonged to this fattish stubbled indian man with a pot-belly in a rather shabby shirt (it had holes). and his eyes were closed.

was i being overly sensitive? maybe his arm just stretched while he was sleeping. but really, were his arms that long? i wouldn't know. i'm a girl. my arms are short. it's definitely not natural if m y arm was sticking into the seat before me.

but his fingers were touching me! at my back, at my bra! near my boobs! they could have been touching my boobs! i dont' know! i was sleeping!

i can still feel something touching me at that spot now. eeuw.

i really couldn't decide if i should make a fuss. coz it could really have been a misunderstanding. and i might seem like i was discriminating against him. coz he's a different race from me. coz he's shabby looking.

there was some furore when someone made a generalised accusation at the bangalore workers in sg. and i don't really wanna be caught in something like that.

but they were at my back/boobs area!

after quite a fight in my head, i decided i shall hurt those fingers with my jack-knife before i alight. i would have loved to cut them and draw some blood but i was thinking more along the line of giving them a hard poke with the screwdriver. harmful but not too harmful.

but he alighted before me!

i watched him walk away from the bus. and as my bus moved off, it overtook him and i continued staring at him very intently with anger and somewhat regretfully coz i couldn't carry out my act of revenge. a little relieved too coz i might have been mistaken.

that was when i saw him look up. and for a couple of seconds we maintained eye contact. and that was when i knew. the fucking asshole did it on purpose.

i cannot describe how disgusted, offended and pissed off i am.

i know now that he did it, coz he looked back at me. why should he if he didn't? i was 3m above ground level at the very least. and of all the passengers on the bus, he had to look at me.

once again, i was shooting sabres from my eyes. and as the bus drew away, i thought i saw a smile float up to his effing face.

i don't want to be racist. but it's the second time i'm harassed by an indian (or whatever race they are. they're dark-skinned) on the bus.

both times, they occurred when i was trying to sleep on the bus. why? can't i sleep on the bus in peace?

both times, the culprits were dark-skinned. i can't help but squirm if i have had two H O R R I B L E experiences can i?

is it not sufficient that i've to suffer from the bus bitches that i've to suffer from bus perverts too? (let's tell the story of bus bitches another day)

i just feel like scrubbing my left boob till the skin comes off.

sigh. i feel like cutting a chunk of my skin off.

and this is why i don't really like physical contact with people. anyone. friend. family. seriously, anyone.

coz more than ten years back, a effing pervert harassed me on the bus and made me felt like ripping out the skin on my shoulder (long story).

coz today a fucking pervert decided touching my breast/bra/back gave him a rush. coz i'm so disgusted that i feel like cutting off a chunk of my boobs (which is not a good idea since they're not very big to start with).

i hate bus perverts.

and please anybody, try not to touch me. at least not any time soon.

interesting links

2006-03-13T00:04:00.000+08:00

all the following are via boing boing

ugly = criminal to be?
i guess you can say you've been warned. so don't be surprised if i end up on some wanted list.

link 02
rather interesting advertising erm.. thing?

chocolate skulls
i can't decide if this is disturbing or not

link 04
bizarro story

russian roulette - chocolate style
this is appealing in a scary way.

link 06
the point of this is, xeni actually liked the song! she listened to it 40 times?? hope she was exaggerating.

i've to admit, 杰伦's 霍元甲 song is catchy. but really it's quite funny too. YX couldn't stop 霍霍霍霍 - ing after watching the movie. it was a little amusing and a little 欠打

link 07
i hope this is not the case in sg? hmmm.. but come to think of it, when i think of the ice machine at the cafe i used to work at.. hmmm. i wonder

3d rooms
i think this is really cool

quack medicine
indeed

tattooed bananas
i tried this before. coz JL showed me this trick. it's actually quite a neat trick

fedex logo

2006-03-12T01:45:00.000+08:00

do you see it?

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000273.php

the couple from hell - a pms rant

2006-03-08T00:30:00.000+08:00

* * * warning! this is a super indulgent whiney post. please skip this if you've maxed out your daily prescribed dosage of whinesandcomplaints. but then again, i think in the heat of the moment, i've managed a little evil humour.* * *

JQ was a little surprised when i mentioned that work isn't going very well the other day. think i'm kinda stressed from work. can feel my stomach dreaming of rupturing.

it wasn't so bad in the first couple of weeks when i was working closer under A. i personally feel that A is really quite good at teaching dumb interns like me. A's patient. and quite organised.

i've been working under B for the last few weeks. and will be for the near future, i think. my fellow intern, JB feels that B is good at her job. but working with and attempting to learn from her makes me consider hara-kiri or something to similar results.

B gives me instructions. B gives me tasks. B tells me what the aims of the tasks are. but B doesn't really tell me what my tasks aim to fulfil in the end.

i try to complete my tasks, and maybe do more than required (so as to impress). but it's hard to exceed and impress when you don't know what you're ultimately working towards. this is partly why i enjoyed working with A. A gave me a view of the big picture. whereas currently, i think i'm somewhat in a fog.

for example, today, i found my extra effort for task X to be t o t a l l y in vain. all that bloody staring at the computer monitor. in vain. i don't think i have enough blood to puke out to express my tui-ness. to think i could have spent that time doing other more constructive things. puke blood

and when i don't go all out and meet the requirements coz i want to check with her before i find myself in another situation where i feel like raiding a blood bank j u s t so as to have enough blood to puke, she expresses disappointment at the things i bring to her to seek advice before working my guts out.

really, there's only that many times i want to feel like ripping my guts out in a day. but to have her sighing at my attempts to seek advice seems to evoke similar reactions from me. alas, i only have t h a t many internal organs i can mentally rip out in a day. it was a very mangled up me that walked out of the office today.

B is very overwhelmed with work. as such, i can understand when she gives me instructions that requires quite a bit of follow-up. eg the materials she gives me is incomplete. the base reference has some giltch.

it's just that when i approach her with my 琐碎的 little queries, i can feel her veins constrict. and that makes me want to solve things on my own.

but i'm from the batch (of students) that is reputed to have weak foundation.

and i'm working in something that i didn't get a degree in.

and it's the first time i'm attempting to design furniture that lookslikeaparticularbrandedfurnitureyetisdissimilarenoughtoavoidcopyrightsissuesand(this i find out today)stillevokesthefeelthebloodyexpensivebrandedfurnitureevokes.

maybe that's why i'm finding it a little fustrating to work with her. she may be good at her job (as JB says, which i think i agree a little), but i don't really think she's a very good mentor.

first she tells me not to refer to pastproj-1 coz it's not really relevant to what we're doing. today she asked why i didn't refer to pastproj-1 for a particular detail i showed her. the detail i showed her was hardly worked on coz i didn't really feel like killing my unicellular brain after i had my internal organs rolling in the dryer. so i was hoping for some ray of guidance before i hit the rocks. but instead i find myself ramming into the rocks when i thought i was still some what lost at sea.

s i g h. kind of felt like just throwing my entire self into the dryer then.

so, in order to save my soul, i left work rather early today to go catch brokeback mountain.

little did i know that was to be another ordeal.

really, i should stop feeling awkward and ashamed of watching movies alone. there're creatures from hell out there who only reveal their true selves in the movie theatres. and they are the ones who make me love watching movies alone.

i sat between this guy monster from hell and a somewhat benign being during the movie. the benign creature left her seat twice during the movie. this was somewhat of an irritant coz the bloody cinema did not, i repeat myself, d i d N O T dim out the lights during the freaking movie.

usually, one can hardly see the interiors of one's bag when the movie starts. but today, i could see what kind of handbag the female monster sitting a seat away was carrying. what kind of crap is this?? who designed for the lighting?? the dim lighting is sufficient to ruin the experience of going to the cinema to catch a movie and yet not bright enough to illuminate the row alphabet??! who the heck designed the bloody cinema??~!!@!

benign creature was really a mild irritant as she had the aisle seat. in fact, she's an angel compared to the couple from hell. let me list the ways they effing irritated the hell out of me.

male and female monsters took turns to relieve their malfunctioning bladders. or maybe they had other urgent medical problems which they could only attend to by leaving the theatre. my word of advice - don't visit the cinema then. but let's just assume they have weak bladders. first, male monster, who's directly beside me, struggled out (coz he's f a t. i'm so politically incorrect. but he's such an effing irritant who ought to be.. terminated) to relieve his effing bladder. o n e minute after he returned, female monster decided her bladder needed to be relieved too. there she went, struggling out while blocking my view of the screen.
while female monster was relieving her bladder (or maybe she was powdering her snout), male monster decided to indulge in his secret fetish - sound effects. he started breathing r e a l l y loudly. it was loud enough to drown out the tender whispers between jack and ennis. if not for subtitles, i wouldn't know they were whispering. it was as loud as some of the sound effects in the movie (such as the rippling of the stream? the stirring of the beans in the pan? i'm imaging all this. coz i couldn't hear the subtle sound effects with puff the magic dragon next to me)
then female monster's phone rang during the movie. she had some cheesy kylie song as her ringtone. to silent kylie she began an effing phone conversation. she repeated her every sentence twice coz she was attempting to whisper into her effing phone (but obviously she'd failed. she managed to n o t convey her words to the caller but to her poor disturbed neighbours in the cinema instead). but does she learn a lesson? no!
coz kylie got another chance to promote her song while i was trying to enjoy the movie. so yes, it was another very irritating phone conversation coz some people actually lack a brain.
and female monster only discovered the silent function when male monster pointed it out to her after her second effing phone conversation. maybe he felt my sabres stabbing the air around them. yes. they were sabres. n o t daggers.
then male monster's bladder decided to fail him a second time! o h m y g o d.
also, male and female monster decided they couldn't bear to have a plastic drink bottle between them, so they happily occupied the cup-holder that ought to have been mine. his fat arm is fat enough to shoo my arm off the arm-rest but not fat enough to overcome a mere plastic bottle? why is this so, fate? why? so between the two of them, they have three arm-rests and three cup-holders. really. has it ever occured to them to n o t buy two drinks then? maybe then they won't need to visit the loo so often.

i tried to passive-aggressively take over a rightful arm-rest (i couldn't appropriate the cup-holder coz some thing had a plastic water bottle nicely settled in), but failed coz male monster was not only fat, he had fat skin too. he just couldn't keep his fat arm to himself and h a d to wrest for the arm-rest between us. i guess he's so fat that if he took over too much space from female monster he might just kill her. i guess he's illiterate too. and maybe that's why he didn't realise what a favour those slimming salons could be providing for him by bombarding the island with their slimming ads day after day.

so through out the movie, i had to constantly battle for the arm-rest and try my very best to drown out puffthemagicdragon. yes. i really do believe male monster thinks he's the reincarnate of puff the magic dragon.

actually i think i only attempt to fight with him for the arm-rest coz he's so damn F U C K I N G noisy. usually i'd just admit defeat and not use any arm-rests. but damnit! male monster is such a F U C K I N G asshat!

he was puffing away for a t l e a s t half the movie. try puffing away when you're watching a movie next time to get a feel of how d a m n irritating it is.

worst of all, he has this puff-laugh. where instead of laughing, he would puff out air with extra force. this is torture coz he would puff-laugh at e v e r y o t h e r thing which NOBODY else finds worthy of any (audible) reaction.

that is how he managed to disrupt at least half the movie for me. an attempt to simulate my experience:

... (this is when you actually get to appreciate lee ang's work)
puff. puff. puff. puff.
...
PUFF
puff. puff. puff.
...
PUFF
puff.
...
puff. puff.
...
PUFF
...
puff. puff. puff. puff. puff. puff. PUFF. puff.

and the story continues.

when he PUFFed when ennis got punched near a pub, i really wished i was punching him. alas, he's fat enough to flatten me. and so i'd to 忍气吞声 and shout here.

i've got no mouth. but i have to shout. (quote from cowboycaleb) and hence i blog.

if i had magic powers, i would conjure up a clothes peg and superglue. i'd pinch his malfunctioning nose with the clothes peg and superglue the clothes peg down so he can realise he is nothing but an ugly asshat and not puff the magic dragon.

then i would superglue his lips shut so he'll realise he could have attempted to breathe quietly through his mouth rather than through his faulty snout. i'll superglue it so well that he would wish he didn't use his hideous mouth to make out with the female monster while ennis and wife attempted and failed to have sex. it would seem that naked breasts or failed sexual intercourse turns him on. my my, the things that turn on such creatures.

anyway, i would watch him turn blue and laugh in his ugly face with utmost joy as he croak in his fat skin when he discovers he's not puff the magic dragon.

it seemed the excessive lighting wass really not a problem for them. it didn't seem to bother him that i knew he was churning out a hell lot of noise through out the movie. neither did it bother him with my constant refusal to surrender the arm-rest. but i guess the lighting was not sufficient enough to highlight all my sabres flying at their wretchedness. however the lighting was dim enough for them to feel comfortable making out while i was sending sabres at them. one can never know what creatures like them are thinking, can one?

i am so avoiding this cinema in future. what the hell's with the lighting???!!!

and this anecdote is also the perfect reason why one should watch movies alone. you never know when your friend might reveal his true (monster) self when the lights go off (or in this case, d i d n ' t go off).

* * * * *

how do i know when i'm losing it? when drinking gin on the rocks burns my wrenched stomach but fails to woozify my brain. i guess it's time for more booze.

i'm only on my way to alcoholism coz i want to stay off the path of blackened lungs. so don't bother lecturing me about my drinking.

hell hath a-pms-who? provoked.

seeing 万芳 live

2006-03-01T01:34:00.000+08:00

the 重逢 concert was pretty ok. enjoyed meeting up with V. it's been so long. and it seems like every time we meet, we're at some performance. there was the 重逢 concert a couple of years back. this bossa nova gig some time back. and in april, we'll be catching the 黄舒俊 gig.

we do meet up once in a blue moon for karaoke, but seriously doubt i'll be asking her out for karaoke in the future after hearing how she's just perpetually tired these days from her work.

万芳 shocked me with her exuberance on stage. i guess it's coz i pay more attention to her heart-wrenching ballads, so my impression of her is someone who's really 多愁善感, and maybe more depressed, you know, like 林黛玉 character. i guess it was all 一厢情愿 on my part.

when she showed such joy on stage, it was just a little hard to connect what i saw with what i'm used to believing.

she was like a really happy child. she was so excited to be singing with her friends.

think i used to express my joy so uninhibitedly when i was younger. i'm somewhat more reticent now cept when it comes to anger and sadness? (in other words, i'm a temperamental bitch) i don't know if it's coz i've stopped experiencing such great amount of joy or if i've just learnt to be more inhibited. nevertheless, it brought a smile to me to see one of my favourite singers enjoy herself so much.

2006-02-26T17:37:00.000+08:00

link

this was what happened one night this week. i was photoshopping in my sleepdreamwhatever it is. don't think i was very stressed though. just a little sick of photoshopping.

was a little grossed out when i woke up fifteen mintues after i'd finally fallen into my famous blackouts coz i had to. why? coz i had to go back to work, back to more photoshopping.

it's been a while

2006-02-26T17:27:00.000+08:00

i miss blogging! in case anyone hasn't noticed, i've been out of action for at least two weeks. during the short two weeks of absence from the net, i've accumulated four emails and 116 pieces of spam. such tragedy.

anyway, i haven't been logging on for a while coz after i stare at the computer screen for eight hours or longer at work, my own computer screen loses some of its appeal (ok, a lot of its appeal) when i get home. and instead i'll embrace my telly. even then, the time i spend with me telly has decreased by a great deal. sob.

been at the office slogging away coz it's still kinda like a probational period. and i hope to do well enough to scam a bit more pay from them. especially when i realise that my doctor friends are earning double of what i'm earning. and next year they'll be taking in triple what i'm taking in.

i don't really think they'll really understand what it's like to be me. yes, you've got tons of school fees to pay back, but at least you can afford to eat at fancy places every now and then and you can afford to buy yourselves something nice and expensive every once in a while.

but it's what i chose so i can't really complain. it's just that i feel kinda bad for making them hang out cheap with me all the time. but then again, we don't hang out a lot so it shouldn't be that bad.

i've been going home late quite frequently coz i was helping out on a rush project. in fact, this week, i left the office after eleven 3 out of 5 days. in fact, i left at 0130h on one day. and as a result, i went to work two hours late the next day. but hey, it took me 35 mins to get out of bed and into the office. so i think that was quite good.

working as an intern has made my life a little more fulfilling since i know i'll be pocketing some proper money at the end of the month. and i guess it also gives me a little more purpose to life.

am i enjoying it? so far it's ok.

the people i work with are decent. there's supposed to be some politics in the air. but i've decided i'm blind, deaf and dumb in that area (or i will choose to be) since i'm only a lowly intern. i only want to learn more about the trade and not really get involved in whatever scrambled shit there might be.

it's almost fun rushing for datelines. but it's still to early to decide if i want to do this for life. and i better go. i'm catching a concert with V. 万芳 is performing! omg. if you know me long enough, you'd know that i'm one big stupid 万芳 fan. i think this is her official website. but it might not be. go google her if you want. i've almost all her albums. i don't have her earlier albums. only those i started collecting after i decided she's the one.

yippee! i'm going to see 万芳 live!

very short post

2006-02-13T02:03:00.000+08:00

crap. still can't get my printer to work. think i'd managed to kill the new ink cartidge my mom got me and now i need another new color ink cartridge. crap. must spend money. crap. guess i won't be printing anything till the end of the month.

crap.

* * * * *

first time i turned on my comp for a while. first time i'm blogging after a while.

after staring at the computer at work for eight hours or more, i tend to prefer to come home and stare at the telly instead of at my comp. i miss reading blogs, surfing for useless stuff. and blogging of course.

now, after checking out some blogs, shopping for accessories, a little telly, i'm all ready for bed again. mein gott. i'm turning old so fast.

rosh katan + rosh gadol

2006-02-05T19:27:00.000+08:00

hmmm. maybe it's wasn't such a good idea to go karaoke-ing when i'm coming down with a sore throat. feel rather weak and icky now.

anyway, was checking my bloglines and i came across this article about rosh katan & rosh gadol via deadprogrammer. they're terms used by the Israeli army.

rosh katan can be translated to "small head" and rosh gadol to "big head". rosh katan is used to describe someone who follows instructions full-stop. without taking the effort to ponder the purpose behind the instructions.

whereas rosh gadol describes someone who follows instructions and follows up to his actions, and thus ensuring things happen smoothly.

you can read it in detail yourself. i'm just giving a very general overview.

just thought it's a little coincidental to read this when i'm starting my internship. methink rosh gadol is applicable not only to the Israeli army and the IT industry, but to everything really. i think it can probably be viewed as taking the initiative.

sure hope i'll keep that in mind.

second day at work

2006-02-02T23:30:00.000+08:00

woot~ (another new word i've recently added to my vocabulary. quite a nice sound to it, don't you think? think it sounds a little owl-y. go check out www.woot.com for interesting deals. changes daily)

work was ok. i managed to get in before nine a g a i n. wah lau eh. to think i ran across the traffic junction while trying to gobble down a slice of bread. all for getting in earlier than any of the people i'm working with. [piak forehead]

after attempting to snooze a little at my desk, i approached the architect who had arrived and she started me on creating a template for the project i'm involved in.

when the associate came in, she gave me a couple of books to scan. she dropped a few more books with me after lunch. so basically, i spent my morning and half the afternoon scanning and saving images.

a little drudging i guess. but hey, it's only my second day. i'm cool with doing slightly brainless work. at least i can do it. while i was scanning away, two persons interrupted me as they had something to scan too.

one of them wasn't familiar with using photoshop to scan. so i managed to help her. i ahem figured out how to scan all by myself. but then again, it's not that difficult coz i've used photoshop to scan before. but not the same brand of scanner lah.

the other girl thought that terminal wasn't connected to the network and nearly ran off for help before i stopped her. i'd thought so at first too, but after clicking around, i learnt it wasn't so.

so i guess that's the edge my uni degree gives me. [roll eyes]

after all the scanning, the architect gave me the task of generating elevations of the interior of the hotel room.

first time i heard of elevations for interior. simi lai de??

i know i'm doing an interior design project, but i've never done it before. was quite stressed out coz i know i know zilch. had to asked for help from the architect almost five times. she's really very approachable and nice. feel so bad for kacauing her so often.

later, the technical girl next to me gave me help too. i even called another architect on the phone for help (on advice from the technical girl). and later, this architect came over and started drawing and explaining things to me. she even passed me an dwg of hers for my reference.

basically the technical girl and the other architect made me rather stressed coz they were pointing out all the details that my drawing was lacking and how the conventions were wrong.

later my architect popped by before she left and told me the details would be required in an aki project but coz we're doing an ID project, they're not that crucial. i'm just generating the dwgs so they can get a feel of the space. wah biang!

and in the end, i left the office at nine after not completing two drawings. but then again, staying for more than three hours allows me to make a little transport claim and dinner claim.

i don't consider the dwgs complete coz they lack the architectural details, but the architect seemed not really disturbed by that. think i probably don't need to stress out too much on the details for the current drawings i'm working on, but i feel that it's good to pick them up. afterall, as my stay lengthens, i'm sure their expectations of me will rise too.

oh, and did i mention that the big boss hovered behind me while i was trying to make head and tail of the lines on the computer monitor before me?

i was staring at the monitor for a good deal of time coz the plans, sections and elevations available don't really tally. i was also trying to make sure i used correct layering.. correct convention... yada..

anyway, i was staring rather intently at the screen and was probably running my unicellular brain cell at a speed faster than recommended when i noticed a guy walking towards the rather cramped "aisle" behind me from the corner of my eyes. it's really just some space between my row of chairs and some bookshelves behind me. i have to say, the shelves make great extensions for my table. i just happily chuck things there to keep my table clutter-free.

thing was, i naturally thought said guy was trying to move down the aisle (even though no one in the right mind would do so coz there's a much roomier option to taking said path) and i just continued staring at the monitor and squinting my eyes at the rather baffling drawings.

when he backed out of the aisle, i realised that it was big boss, again from the corner of my eyes as i was still staring intently at the monitor. [piak forehead] how oblivious can i get?? don't know if he decided not to kacau me coz i was looking rather stressed. har~

well, i definitely can't be slacking when i'm glued to the computer coz i can't access the internet.

think that sums up my second day at work. tomorrow will be more intense eye-battle with my flickering monitor. now it's time to soothe my eyes with the telly screen. mwaharhar~

* * * * *

and if you're reading this on 3feb or 4feb. go check this out. i think it's cool~ even it's not 3/4feb, you can still see a small thumbnail of the droolicious item.

visited countries/states

2006-02-02T00:05:00.000+08:00

aheheh.. instead of going to bed like a good leetle gir.. ok good young lady (har~ me. a lady.) i decided to tackled a little of my bloglines blogs. got this from mimi in new york.

here's the countries i've visited. they don't have HK on the list though.

click here to create your own. i'm sure everyone is capable of making me jealous. i wanna travel more!

and here's the american states i've visited.

click here to create your own version.

* * * * *

oh. and i love the photos function of google desktop. nothing like an everchanging photo frame to remind me of what i have enjoyed and am working somehow for.

新年快乐! and my thank yous

2006-02-01T22:58:00.000+08:00

aheheh.. it's a new lunar year! 新年快乐! it's the time to binge on yummy 年糕, kueh baluh and other stuff.. yummm~

was supposed to blog about my job search adventure during the long cny break. but the lure of new year goodies and my bed proved too strong and hence the rather delayed posting. so here goes..

* * * WARNING* * *
this' a long post. i've added some headings to facilitate your reading. do skip through the post at will. you might wanna go ahead to the thank yous (at the bottom i think) and see if i'd mentioned you in the thank yous

how it all began..

after nua-ing forever, i decided i had to buck up and get an internship. it's something i've been telling anyone and everyone forever. for a year and a half actually. and with the passing of my 25th birthday, i realised it's time i put things into action. for heaven's sake, i don't even have a bloody life insurance lah. and hence the reduced blogging activity and ahem.. incommunicado-ness on IM for the past one month.

below's a breakdown of the happenings in the past one month.

week 01 - this was the week where i forced myself to conjure out my portfolio. once and for all. actually only got to print the wretched thing on 16jan coz i couldn't make it down to the printing shop in time on 14jan.

week02 - the week i spent doing up me resume and cover letter. great torture it was. the surfing i did to find out how to write a bleedy resume and cover letter. and then to discover i might need to do thank you letters. tmd.. on fri 20jan, i finally cold-called ten firms to ask if i could email them my resume and stuff. in the end, i managed to arrange for four interviews in all.

week 03 - interview week. had two interviews on tue (24jan), one on wed (25jan) and one on thu (26jan).

summary of me interviews

interview 01 - rather informative chat with the interviewer. but think he thought i was asking for too high a salary. didn't get back to me after the interview.

interview 02 - again, quite a nice chat with the interviewers. one of them seemed rather impressed with some of my stuff. surprised me there. the most hopeful interviews. got an offer from them the next day by phone.

interview 03 - the firm most recommended by my peers, by those who h a v e worked there before and those who h a v e n ' t. thought i sounded a little desperate to work for them. generally didn't think the interview went as well as I02. so was rather surprised when they called me while i was on my way home to offer me an internship.

interview 04 - heh.. i was late for the interview. it was the only interview that was in the morning mah. and partly coz i had somewhat decided to accept firm 03's offer. just wanted to go for this interview coz i was too lazy to cancel it and i thought it would be a good experience. considering that i was late, and that my circumstances are somewhat.. unimpressive (bumming around for 1 1/2 years in totally unrelated fields) i was really thrown off guard when the interviewer offered me the internship on the spot with the highest remuneration rate among all the firms who had decided to offer me a job.

there's some kind of pattern. from I02 onwards, the interviews went from good to not so good. my luck with the buses went from good to not good (that's why i was late for my last interview. actually i had to take a cab for I03. couldn't catch a cab for I04 coz it was rush hour. there weren't any empty cabs on the road). and strangely enough the replies from the firms got faster.

in the end i decided to accept firm 03's offer coz

good references from peers
their works looked promising
firm 02 had too little people. 不够人气
good references from peers

so i called firm03 on 26jan afternoon (after I04) to tell them i want to accept the job, and horror of horrors! the person told me they were having another interviewee that afternoon and they would like to confirm with me after that interview.

and so i was greatly traumatized as i was k-ing at the karaoke by myself.

my first solo karaoke session

oh yah. 26jan. the day when i went to the karaoke all by myself. a first for me. kinda refreshing experience. i got to hog the mic the entire time. mwaharhar~ think i enjoyed it quite a bit.

anyway, i was worrying and k-ing like crazy. but eventually, firm 03 got back to me to tell me i'm in. whoopah! (erm. got this from chandler - friends? chandler thinks whips go whoopah! instead of swish! it's so damn amusing that i kinda got a little addicted to it_)

and today was my first day at work.

first day at work

good news is, i was on time. yes, i managed to get in before nine. but am terribly sleepy now coz i didn't go to bed early enough last night.

spent the morning doing nothing really coz i wasn't assigned anything. and i couldn't do much. i have no internet access. only 3 terminals have internet acces. so i can't access cowboybar. i can't blog. i can't email. i can't read blogs. i can only access a very limited number of projects the firm is working on or has worked on.

spent the afternoon sending files to plot. basically was shuttling between my seat and the plotter.

oh, met the big boss for the first time. chatted a little while. he scares me a little. afterall he i s the big boss. however, i think he's not t o o scary.

generally the workplace seemed rather.. amiable. think the proportion of male to female is a little off. the lady sitting next to me was telling me that she finds it a little.. slightly undesirable coz the high percentage of females tend to make the environment a little gossipy sometimes.

then i sat in on two discussions and found out a little more about the project that i'm helping on. it's some interior design/aki project in TW.

as we had to wait for the architect?associate? (for the first discussion) and the big boss (for the second discussion) i ended up going home two hours after the official working hours. if i'm not wrong, think the first discussion only began half an hour before the day was supposed to end.

am terribly sleepy now. yawn

yup, that was my first day. first day and i had to stay late. to think i was contemplating about popping down to the topshop sale. sigh. but then again, i wasn't doing anything in the morning. believe i'll be at the scanner tomorrow scanning stuff and photoshopping. please don't let me screw up. how?? my photoshopping skills are rather koyak.. argh. but let's let tomorrow sort itself out.

thank yous

got to thank a lot of people. like all my friends who would nag me a little when they know that i'm bumming my life away. but most of the time they just let me bum my life away, it's kinda good coz i'm a little numb towards external pressure anyway. it's not very good coz i just stagnated since no one really nagged at me. would like to thank some people specifically:

Y - for the free air ticket to the US of A. it really opened my world. i fell in love with a city and learnt new things about life and myself. also for hosting me, for lending me the money to go niagara falls and MI, for the harry potter, for the j.crew top, the target skirt, for all the yummilicious dinners and a lot more.
X - for hosting me in boston. guess seeing you working hard at your phd was inspiring for me. and thanks for getting me addicted to ahem.. shopping. and the really pretty bracelet you got me from UO!
HX - for hosting me and showing me around a place with erm.. nothing much to see. well, it's interesting to see how you guys settled in and tried to cook.
ZF - for not 追究 ing regarding my 放 ing 飞机. "P and of course for your call on my birthday. really miss talking rubbish with you on the phone.
JQ - for helping me proof my resume and my cover letters. and of course for the karaoke sessions. and not forgetting the shoe-shopping trip.
YX - for remembering my birthday and treating me to karaoke. and for shoe-shopping with me.
JL - for remembering my birthday and giving me a most lovely present (muji vouchers!). and for shoe-shopping with me (yah lah. i went on f o u r shoe shopping trips. i most cmi) and for ikea-ing with me.
YY - for remembering my birthday, for the lunch and for the present. and for meeting up with me after eons of missing each other. the trip to chinatown was.. fun i guess. a tad crowded for me. and my necklace broke! tmd. i haven't even worn it once lah. the problem with having a messy dressing table.
TJ - for going to sentosa with me on 大年初二. horrible crowd but at least we got a l e e t l e tanned. was really nice meeting up with you. would love to meet up again but i really wonder with me new job.
S - for emailing me on my birthday. congrats on your job too! i'll reply your letter asap. ahem. when i'm not feeling too sleepy lah..
my brother - for proofing my resume. for pointing out how i need a job coz i'm too well-versed with the tv schedule. for just being there and amusing me. oh! and for having friends who enjoy my culinary experiments. my latest choc fruit cake was well received by his friends but not by our relatives. philistines. "P
KM - for remembering to meet up with me while she's back in SG. woman! it's so nice to have you around. you're damn entertaining lah.
JN - for calling out of the blue. i thought you had disappeared in outer space. it was really nice talking to you. thanks for sharing your bizarre dreams. i pray your cousin won't meet with any trouble such that she has to call me. but if she needs recommendations for where to shop.. where to eat.. feel free to call lah.

there's prob a lot of people i'm leaving out. like my mom. i must thank her for not nagging at me to get a job for the past 1 1/2 years, for lending me money to go to the states, for shoe shopping with me, for letting me bum in relative peace. for accepting me and my bumminess.

i'll probably never express my thankfulness to her, and she'll probably never see this. a little pointless but they do say it's the thought that counts.

though i do think it had rather pleased her that i'd managed to get myself employed before cny. yes, i noticed how she "subtly" mentioned to my aunt about my employment. and how she managed to update Y before i did.

i do think this internship is going to be hard work. i must try to keep at it. and hopefully manage to negotiate a better pay after this month. but being employed i s doing some good to my self-esteem and i believe it's doing wonders for my mom.

ah well, if there's anyone else i'd missed out, gomen! sleep deprived brain at work here.

last of all

who's got a UOB card? go shopping at topshop with me leh. sheesh. i'm thinking about cashing in on my paycheck even before the first week of my first month is over. [piak forehead]

2006-01-25T21:54:00.000+08:00

went for my third interview today. thought it didn't go very well coz i think i sounded a little desperate to intern for that firm. i'd heard really good things about this firm. and i thought it'd do me good if i intern for them.

on the whole, i don't think i interviewed very well. don't think i displayed a lot of passion about aki. it's hard to speak about aki when i'm so.. unsure of what it is. i'm really still bumbling around, hoping to find a path to take.

i left feeling a little apprehensive coz i thought i sounded desperate to work for them and uncertain of my future.

so it came as a surprise when they called me while i was on a bus on my way home. they'd decided to offer me the internship.

and firm 02 from yesterday called me earlier this morning to offer me an internship too. i really think it's coz interns are cheap labour rather than coz i interviewed well. and probably coz i chose a time when students would have had returned to school and thus leaving aki firms a little lacking of interns.

or maybe firm 03 decided to offer me a position cozi told them about my other interviews. during today's interview, they asked me if i'd applied to other firms and if i'd had any offers. i told them about my schedule of interviews for this week and that firm 02 had offered me a position liao (only coz they asked). yes. i'm really honest coz i'm not really a very good liar.

no matter why they decided to offer me the position, i'm glad. thinking of accepting it but i'm still going to go for my last interview tomorrow before accepting any offers. i guess it's a good chance to practise interviewing skills.

but i don't really feel like checking out the last firm's website though. i'm l a z y.. i didn't really researched about today's firm either. just thought i should apply there coz it's recommended by my peers. and also coz the last two firms which interviewed me didn't really asked to find out how much i know about the firms.

can see why i'm so tempted to not prepare too much for tomorrow's interview. they all seem more interested in finding out about me. and it scares me coz i don't know what i'm doing. i'm just hoping to get some exposure and experience and hopefully decide what to do with my life.

and there's no way i can make that sound better than what it is. sigh.

* * * * *

on a slightly different note, i now have seven blisters on my two feet. and one that had erm.. burst? open.

my feet looks mangled. utterly mangled. i actually brought along a pair of my slippers to slip into after my interview today. think i'll do that tomorrow too.

i know i look weird with a pair of bright yellow slippers while i'm dressed otherwise like an OL. but too bad. when your toes bleed, i believe it's better to surrender a sense of style and basic fashion sense and just embrace beach slippers.

2006-01-24T20:39:00.000+08:00

aiyee. haven't been blogging for a while.

found out last friday that i'd gotten myself four interviews this week instead of one. so had been caught in the whirl of interview frenzy.

managed to get a pair of somewhat more professionalgrownuplooking pair of shoes for the interviews after four trips to town. f o u r. wah lau eh. i was so sick of looking at shoes.

technically, they're slip-ons with heels. i had succumbed and bought a pair of pointy toed things coz i was too picky about the open sandalswhateveryoucallthemheels. and the one pair (of open sandalswhateveryoucallthemheels) that was within budget and didn't disgust me too much with the design had too little padding for the sole.

will post a photo of my interview shoes when i'm less overwhelmed by the preparing for the interviews. haven't really done research on the last two firms who are interviewing me. haven't figured out how to go to their place either.

bought them despite my aversion to pointy toed foorwear. i think they look like witches shoes. and walking around in them has only reaffirmed my belief.

they hurt. like hell. got two huge blisters now. @#%$^#

why do women wear heels? yes, it makes the legs look good. but our feet are built flat. my feet were just sliding into the narrow things and blistering like there's not tomorrow. damnit! i still have two more interviews. omg. some one kill me please. heels are.. torture devices. they are designed such that your feet will slide down and into whatever material they have at the front. and because there's such a thing as physics, blisters form. !@%# to think i bought them coz they felt comfortable. !%@#$!

anyway, the interviews went pretty ok. the two interviews i had today weren't as scary as i thought. and even though i might not be hearing back from them, i thought they were a pretty good experience. never went for an interview with an aki firm before. wonder why i always thought they will cut me up like minced meat.

firm 01
think the guy thought i was 狮子大开口ing when i asked for sgd1600 for remuneration. well.. the rate last year was 1300-1800. and the economy is better. anyway i'm willing to succumb to 1400. but think they're only paying their current intern 1250. hmmm..

but it's better to ask for more and settle for less no? rather than ask for a low pay and then regret it later. i don't mind a heavy workload as long as i get to learn stuff and earn some ok money. i have loans to pay off. sigh

we had a rather pleasant chat though.

firm 02
seemed like a really small firm. both are only the two partners were around. wondering if they've got any other employees. but they were really nice. well, one of them seemed rather reticent. while the other one was a little more loquacious in comparison.

they seemed impressed by my grades. they think my grades are rather good cept for my design grade of course. but seriously, they're just B's. everywhere you go, you see B's. so i had some A's in my O's and A's results. still they weren't enough to get me a scholarship. so.. big deal. but of course i didn't say that to them. i'm not t h a t stupid yet.

and they were rather happy with my 3d rendering. this rather shocked me though, coz i always found them not to my satisfaction.

all in all, think this interview went a little better. when they asked my about remuneration, i just quoted them the rate for last year. i hope they offer me more.

but then again, the other firm i'm going to tomorrow is reputed to be inspiring to students. might be better if i got a job there instead. still have many things to do.

haven't been reading my bloglines either. i've some 400++ new postings i've yet to scan through. i wanna read! but i can't!

but i've been reading a little of those personal blogs. they don't have like doubledigit of postings in one day. so it's easier to read them.

JQ has finally decided to blog again. read this really amusing article which she linked to on her blog. you mean there's an american version of grammar? i always thought grammar is grammar. hmmm. ah well, just like i never knew you've to use the plural form when you talk about countries.

eg SG have won xxx medals in the SEA games. or Italy have been overwhelmed by the amount of pasta consumed by her people on a daily basis.

mumblejumble of a sleep-deprived bioform

2006-01-19T16:34:00.000+08:00

* * * warning : this is a potentially incoherent posting coz who? has been awake for more than 24 hours * * *

it's been a while since i last blogged. some updates

finished the portfolio. think it's rather substandard. but i can't really give a damn
trimmed my hair. not that anybody can really tell. but my ponytail has shrunk at least 30% in diameter. it no longer swings pendulously from my slightly oversized head. and finally my fringe has been trimmed by scissors not welded by yours truly. sigh, my hairdresser is.. beyond words.
slept and slacked a lot
conjured up a cover letter, an email version of a cover letter, a resume and an email-friendly version of the resume. lots of thanks to JQ for beautifying my horrendous english. (can see why i need help right)
shortlisted 10 firms to cold call and ask if they want an intern.

there's still tons of things to do. such as

the actual picking-up-the-phone-and-asking-if-anyone-wants-cheap-labour
shortlisting more firms. what if all 10 don't want an intern?
editting the cover letters and resumes and proofing them again

then there's also "frivolous" stuff like

conjuring up a chocolate fruit cake coz i want to get rid of the dried fruits that has been sitting in the fridge for too damn long and coz i have let a chocolate blob fan wait in vain for chocolate blobs. not that i'm going to be making them any time soon. what with cny coming and limited fridge space. hope he won't mind a choc fruit cake instead
tidying my room - an ongoing project that has been ongoing for too damn long. plus cny is nearing. and i'm really kinda tired of living in piles of stuff
visit ikea to get the $4.90 shoe-rack and magazine boxes
make dodecahedron (?) calendar
make "whiteboard"

watashi wa shindei imasu.

this whole getting myself prepared to go out there and get an internship has been a most eye-opening experience. who knew aki students' resumes are so fanciful. who knew the portfolio is but o n l y one hurdle. who knew that it's t h a t difficult for me to paint myself in a favourable light.

and then there're all those scary thoughts like --

willthey a l l tellme"wedon'tneedinterns"
whatwillisayaboutwhati'vebeendoingforthepastoneplusyear
the thought of facing someone questioning me about my actions/inactions
the thought of someone looking at my stuff which i'm not particularly proud of.

it's a really scary time. it's kinda exciting too i guess. but really, i'm freaked out of my life. maybe it's more accurate to say it's been like an i-jumped-into-a-washing-machine-that's-in-uncontrollable-spin-mode experience rather than that it's an eye-opening one.

doesn't help that i'm hopelessly addicted to my bloglines.

2006-01-13T04:35:00.000+08:00

got myself a new toothbrush from the store room yesterday. used it for the first time a couple of hours ago, only to discover the brush head's ridiculously small (compared to my old one). the packaging said it's a toothbrush for femalewomencan'tremembertheexactterm. are the jaws of females t h a t much smaller than the males'? sheesh.

anyway, thank you JL and JL (yes, too many of my friends share the same two-letters initial. and i'm too sleepy to think of alternatives for them at the moment) for the sms bday wishes. even though JL1 doesn't know about this blog (i think) and JL2 doesn't know the url of this blog (i think), though i was surprised to find out that she knew i have one.

thank you S for the email bday wishes.

thank you ZF for the call. i miss talking on the phone with you. and i'm really really sorry i'm not there right now. think of all the fun we could be having in the sleet! i'm really sorry.

thank you Y for the msn bday wishes. it's nice to chat with you on msn. pity you can't be around for cny. i really wonder how the reunion dinner will turn out this year. hmmm.

even though probably more than half the people i'd just thanked above don't read my blog, i still thank them here. why do i do such silly things?

yup. i'm a quarter of a century old. don't feel any wiser. the body is starting to feel old though. like the knees. sigh

do i feel any different from yesterday? or the day before that?

i. don't. know.

talking to ZF, i learnt that xxx has gotten married. and yyy is getting married. and zzz has gotten married too. they are people whom i know from gossi.. chatting with friends like ZF. i know some of them personally, and some of them, were probably just people from the same jc. most of whom are people i'm not really close to.

and i guess i'm kinda relieved i've a rather small group of friends i keep in contact with and are close to. it's so small a group that none of them have gotten married yet. this must be the only time i'm glad that i can count the number of friends i have on slightly more than one hand.

yes, i see it creeping up on me.

it bothers me. that's i'm all alone. but last year, i realised that there's a lot of things that are more deserving of my attention.

it bothers me that i'm all alone. that i've no one to share the things i love with. that i've no one to run to when i'm scared and lost and feeling like crap. but i guess there're other things that i want to resolve first. it sucks to be alone. but if others are happy getting married, enjoying couplehood, good for them. me? i've got to learn to be happy by myself first.

who? happy (25 & 1/365) th birthday.

happy bdae zf! also, about my legs + weather + things to amuse

2006-01-09T16:06:00.000+08:00

dear zf

congrats on your submission of your thesis. guess you can go skiing now. you are, aren't you?

apologies for me still rotting in sg. and happy birthday! (just in case you check in here and your IE [heaven forbids you to use that, don't you know?] decides to not crash too soon)

* * * * *

the soreness in my thighs has greatly reduced. thank goodness. though i still feel like i'm learning how to walk

with every step i take, i can't help but have this on repeat in my mind "lift your knee. lift your knee.. lift..". every now and then, one of my legs would give way a little as it touches the ground. it's ok coz it hasn't caused me to fall. yet. but the range of motion i can manage with some ease has greatly increased. yippee..

for example, i can somewhat toss and turn in bed.

i'm one of those who cannot fall asleep while lying on my back (except on occasions where i'm r e a l l y r e a l l y tired). my preferred positions: on my side, on my belly.

on the first night of sleep i got when i found myself cruelly disabled by my overworked muscles, i found myself falling asleep on my back. coz it hurt too much to roll on to my side. apparently my thigh muscles have been responsible for all my tossing and turning.

the two times i woke up (once in the middle of the night coz of a tummy ache and the second time when i woke up for the next day) i found myself to be still on my back. don't think i ever found myself waking up on my back before. couldn't help but wonder if i had been on my back the entire night. could my muscles have been t h a t hurt?

my brother was rather amused by this anecdote which i shared while driving him back to camp.

anyway, i can toss, turn, sit on the floor (with a little difficulty), sit with one leg curled under the other (with some help from the arms) and get up from sitting/lying position with less difficulty than before. yup, i still need to press down with my arms when i want to get up - quite like a really aged person, but hey, it's taking significantly less time than before

* * * * *

thing is, i want to wax lyrical about the weather. the weather now, according to my weather.com extension is "light rain and 25degC. looked like rather heavy rain 15 minutes ago when i looked out though.

yes, i know i'm crazy. it's horribly wet. i don't recommend bottoms that are full-length coz they tend to get wet in such weather. in fact my ankles are feeling the chill right now.

but it's only these days where i get to wear my sweaters/jackets.

i know the sun is nearly nowhere to be found. i know the rain wrecks havoc for everyone - especially those who work in the open like my dad. but the temperature is so.. amiable. it's just right.

i've always preferred cold weather to hot weather. this is all with reference to sg of course. where cold weather is not really cold while hot weather can be utterly inferno-like (what with the almost 100% humidity) and is practically the weather we get 3/4 of the time. as i somewhat quoterephrase from someone.. when it's cold, you can bundle up, but when it's hot, there's only that many layers you can strip off.

something i hope to achieve before i die: to experience the (near) epitome of both cold and hot weather (don't want to freeze to death o r to die from burning) and decide once and for all if i do prefer cold to hot.

* * * * *

things my girlfriend and i have argued about
this is a rather amusing (but really lengthy) article

an alarm clock which i would like to own just to see if it works for me. though i highly doubt so.

aching even more

2006-01-08T02:27:00.000+08:00

despite a good long sleep (that lasted twelve hours) and a nice one plus hour nap, i am still aching. in fact, even more muscles are aching (with reference to yesterday).

i realised that the 9 1/4-pushups did do some damage. so did the 2 25sec plank exercise. i am unable to laugh and walk at the same time coz it would induce too much pain. this, i found out when i was attempting to confront my brother who was smiling at the sight of me walking through the living room - at an insanely slow pace. he thought i was trying to sneak across the living room. something which i thought was damn absurb, why would anyone sneak across the living room? but anyway, he was smiling coz he thought it was a pathetic attempt to sneak across the place.

some of the other things i find myself incapable of doing include

sitting down on the floor - it takes me at least 2 seconds to sit down on a chair, 3-5 seconds if the surface is soft eg couch, bed. and around the same time (or maybe a little longer) to get up from these things.
moving at a speed faster than brisk walking.

a brief surfing on the net has informed me that i've hurt my muscles. and there's nothing i can do cept rest. though stretching may help a little. f- when will i be able to move like a normal person.

falling asleep

2006-01-06T14:53:00.000+08:00

when the sun goes out, you cannot sleep. and now you're falling asleep.

f- lah. can you sleep when the sun goes out?

yes. who? has a habit of talking to herself. am i showing tendencies to develop dissociative identity disorder aka split personality? do i care?

* * * * *

just did some queer quiz that claims to analyse one's personality through asking one ten questions about one's drawing of a house. here's my drawing.

the background came coloured. but lost it somehow. i only used black, grey and light grey to draw and was too lazy to undo and stuff. too lazy to add colours also.

i am only trying to stay awake here by entertaining myself.

but you should see the drawings others have done. tmd. mine looks so cheapo lah. no colour.. little strokes. dun get them man, very shiok to draw with a mouse meh? just drawing those few lines kiek-ed me out of adding details.

anyway, here's the analysis of me:

You are sensitive and indecisive at times. You are a freedom lover and a strong person. You love your house and family. You are a gifted artist as well. Once you have a problem, you need a friend with you. Your life is always full of changes. Once you have a problem, you need a friend with you. son.

You will avoid being alone and seek the company of others whenever possible. You love excitement and create it wherever you go. You have a strong personality and you like to command, influence and control people.

You are not a romantic person by nature. It also safe to say that others don't see you as a flirt. You don't think much about yourself.

eeeh.. think it's another one of those that semi-accurate semi-not. like, hello, son?

if you want, you can try out the test too (it's kinda fun if you like to draw).

click here and you'll be adding your house on my street (kinda like.. indicating that you know me.. you linked from me)

click here if you wanna try it but don't wanna be on my street. you'll also get a brief intro to the site from this link.

* * * * *

and later i did this test to determine my harry potter alter ego. the results are as such, i am

Ron Weasley

70%

Severus Snape

70%

Remus Lupin

65%

Lord Voldemort

60%

Draco Malfoy

60%

Hermione Granger

55%

Ginny Weasley

55%

Sirius Black

55%

Harry Potter

50%

Albus Dumbledore

45%

to think i tied for weasley and snape. the test decided to categorise me as weasley after asking me one tie-breaking question.

2006-01-06T10:18:00.000+08:00

after a good night of n o sleep, i find my thighs aching.

the quads are sore. the hamstrings are sore. when i walk down the stairs, i find myself jerking involuntarily with every step. i suspect i look like a string puppet from afar.

but my arms are ok. probably coz i only did 1/4 of a pushup instead of 1 pushup for every pushup the article called for. aheh.. makes me wonder if my legs are just more hardy then my arms.

there seems to be more incidents where my legs ache than those when my arms ache. perhaps my legs let me push them more than my arms. like this other time when i overdid it with blading and ended up with pain in the legs the next day that was so impairing that i had to call in sick. but generally, i don't push my body very hard one. aheh.. just look at the snail-like speed at which i "jog" at.

but maybe my legs are not just "for show". hmmm

you see, once, when i was was attired in berms and high-cut boots (thus exposing my calves), a friend suddenly popped this out of n o w h e r e

"who? how come your legs so muscular ah?"

i was like "wtf??"

my legs, or more precisely, my calves were less defined then than they were.. 3-4 years before then. the calves muscles reached a pinnacle of definition and pronouncement in my jc days. after which, i believe the muscles have shrunk, lost definition and basically i don't look like i can kick butts (the way i did in jc - i only l o o k like i'd muscular legs in jc. they really weren't that strong. it's all "for show").

maybe my friend asked that question during the time when i was visiting the gym. but i think my legs don't look much different then as compared to say.. today.

my legs just look.. well-packed. they're actually rather weak. f- lah. i've got damn ugly legs that let me overpush them.

* * * * *

rather incoherent post. but that's what you get when you cannot fall asleep. incoherency and enlarged facial pores. the michelin man can probably swim in my pores with ease today. la la

walking lump of fat

2006-01-05T21:35:00.000+08:00

a copy of my brother's men's health has been dwelling in my room for around a month coz there's this exercise workout in it that i thought would be worth trying out.

just did that.

and now, my legs are wobblier than jello. and my arms are wobblier than my legs.

it's a weight-free workout, which i thought would be something nice to try out since i'm a little broke to visit the gym (which is also why i'd started jogging around my place. man, i hate jogging). and it's practise-able with some innovation and commonly-found furniture. (eg instead of a workout bench, i use my bed)

i follow the number of sets and number of repetitions of a set recommended in the magazine. but i drastically cut down on the times i perform an exercise in each set.

eg magazine says - repeat [exercise A] 12-15 times. this is one set. repeat this set twice.
i do - repeat [exercise A] 3-8 times. this is one set. repeat this set twice.

basically i cut down the repetitions by.. 30-70%. and still my arms are wobbling as i type this.

i know the workout's targetted at males, afterall it is an article from men's health, so it should be ok that i ahem alter ahem the workout coz i'm a ahem weak ahem female.

wonder if i'll keep to it though. it'a already hard enough to get myself to jog once a week (yuck yuck yuck). and this is rather tiring. i've sweated gallons liao lor. and there wasn't even exercises that target the abds. hmmm.

need to scream

2006-01-04T22:35:00.000+08:00

been trying to make my computer more secure. tried to install a firewall a couple of weeks back, but think coz i didn't know how to configure it, my firefox couldn't access a damn hell lot of websites.

today, i tried to keep my comp safe from spyware, and i see this

"To get updates, you must first validate your Windows software. Validation assures that you are using an authentic and fully licensed copy of Windows."

and i think i shall stop tinkering now. how the f- do i know if it's authentic and fully licensed? damnit lah. stupid microsoft.

why i need to scream reason no. 01 - because i'm a 电脑白痴 and coz microsoft is e v i l.

and to those of you who are still stubbornly using IE, here's an article that will hopefully convince you to make the switch. (you can ctrl-f this [Microsoft code "has no bugs"] to get to that part of the article. it's a damn long, but informative article.) if i have the know-how, and the money, i would probably boycott ms.

* * * * *

during the weekendnewyearbreak, my mom went crazy and decided the living room needed to be spiffed up. and she started rearranging the furniture. this was the original floor plan. note this is a horribly not-to-scale and totally amateur rendering of a floor plan. pains me to admit that i drew that. well.. i blame it partly on the really blunt and notniceatalltowritewith pencil that happened to be lying around.

usually my brother and i would occupy the three-seater sofa seat coz the two-seater's unofficially my parents' seat. kinda awkward to watch telly when your seat's not facing the telly. that's why my brother and i would lie on the couch now and then. but anyhow, we got used to this.

but later on i realised the distance between the two-seater and the telly is better for viewing and i would sometimes occupy the two-seater instead (when my parents are in their room) besides, it's nice to be able to prop my legs up when i watch tv.

this is how the living room looks like now.

can you see why i need to scream?

ans: the coffee table is in the middle of nowhere. n o w h e r e.

it's not even that in line with the two-seater (as i'd mentioned before, lousy not-to-scale drawing this is)

one actually has to get off the two-seater to put something on the coffee table. or to get something that's is on the coffee table. eg the newspaper.

one actually has to get off the three-seater and w a l k to the coffee table.

in the past, i could sit at the coffee table and eat in front of the telly. sometimes between the coffee table and the three seater couch, sometimes on the other side of the coffee table. (refer to the old plan)

but now, when i sit at the coffee table to eat, it's like.. the telly is too damn close! it's like! in. your. face.

i've resorted to eating on the three-seater. but that meant dropping food on the couch coz i've to place food on the couch. and it meant me thinking twice before i make a drink to drink while watching telly. coz i've nowhere to put my drink. it just does n o t make any freaking sense.

it drives me mad just to think about this. it does make the living room look damn spacious. at the cost of driving me stark raving mad.

did i mention that the dining table is j u s t far enough so that one has to get up if one wishes to place one's cup of nice hot milo down during a show?

i personally would prefer to coffee table to be in position 1. actually i moved it there last night. it felt good to have a place to put my drink. and prop my legs.

but i moved it back before i went back to my room coz apparently my dad thinks that the coffee table at position 1 would block one's entry from the main door.

i didn't really feel very blocked. and i'm probably the fattest member of the family?

this is why i m u s t move out. i've always thought that i lacked some common sense and logic. or maybe i'm just plain stupid.

but my dad! his logic is just. warped.

actually think i would feel happy even if the coffee table's at position 2. a t l e a s t it would be in line with the two-seater instead of being out of line with e v e r y t h i n g. yes. currently it's not in line with a n y t h i n g. not even the telly.

i couldn't help it but said something along the lines of "you can't reach the newspaper on the table. you can't something something" when i walked through the front door just now. when my parents were both in the living room.

my dad was sitting on the floor, leaning on the three-seater watching soccer. my mom was on the two-seater reading papers.

so thing was, i commented directly that i think the current arrangement of the furniture sucks. by speaking out loud to nobody in particular. this is coz my dad and i don't talk to each other. long story behind this. too exasperated to write about it.

and my dad's reaction, if it can be termed as that, was to turn off the telly and do whatever stuff he does and went to his room.

true, the distance between the three-seater and the telly is great now. but the coffee table has suddenly turned into a monster eyesore overnight.

it's in the middle of f-- nowhere.

why i need to scream reason no. 02 - my parents insist on placing the coffee table at a spot that makes me wonder why the heck we have a coffee table in the first place.

2006-01-03T16:22:00.000+08:00

happy new year! kinda late. whatever lah. the rather witty jpeg you see above was gotten from gothamist. go check out the artist's other works. they brought a smile to me face.

suffering from an on-off headache. brain is more mushy than usual - hard to believe, but true. so i'll just share some interesting clicks i've been looking at.

a rather informative article from nytimes. teaches you facts about penguins and cuteness (duh). here's an excerpt --- "Cuteness is distinct from beauty, researchers say, emphasizing rounded over sculptured, soft over refined, clumsy over quick. Beauty attracts admiration and demands a pedestal; cuteness attracts affection and demands a lap. Beauty is rare and brutal, despoiled by a single pimple. Cuteness is commonplace and generous, content on occasion to cosegregate with homeliness." --- read all about it here. limited run. but really, what do they mean by this --- "The 6-month-old, 25-pound Tai Shan - whose name is pronounced tie-SHON and means, for no obvious reason, "peaceful mountain" 1. the 'an' in shan should be like the 'an' in can't and not as 'on'. 2. even i can understand why tai shan means peaceful mountain, tai shan being shortened from tai ping de shan. sheesh, just because you're too dumb to realise that tai shan is in chinese is no reason to go around proclaiming that there's no meaning to a non-english name. stupid stupid.
don't click it is an interesting project. go check it out.
for the saboteur in all of us. click
some people really have too much time on their hands. click
i love my csi, but i love to laugh too. click for an amusing prediction of telly trends.
remember silly putty? ever seen a 250lb piece of silly putty? click
you mean they don't look like that? why? why can't i bring myself to photoshop myself?? click
a damn funny piece of writing. click
know how to whistle? learn how to today! i picked it up somehow when i was a kid. i produced my first whistling noise by sucking in air instead of expelling air. these days, i whistle like most normal people - expelling air. i can still whistle by sucking in air though.but think i've less control over the sounds i make. by expelling, i can somewhat whistle a tune. think that's kinda hard to achieve with my unorthodox whistling.
another reason to love biology. click

why i write

2005-12-29T15:46:00.000+08:00

came across this interesting article where the author discusses writing as a form of self healing. it brings me back to the question: why do i blog? i've blogged about the raison de blogging quite a couple of times. and i still find myself questioning myself every now and then.

i guess i agree with the writer of that article that writing is kinda self healing. that's why people keep journals, no?

i used to. periodically. i always get kinda lazy after a while and stop. it happens when you're one of those who exerts an unnecessary amount of strength just to pen down your words. only realised this when i looked at my hands some years back to see t w o crooked fingers (not forgetting six straight fingers and two normal thumbs) staring back at me. and the only possible cause for said crookedness is writing with a pen/pencil with an abnormal amount of force.

when i flip through my old diaries/journals, i'd cringe at what i wrote. the drama! the pettiness. the pain.

i've contemplated destroying them (or at least the really horrible bits that makes me wanna dig a hole and live permanently underground) just so that no one will ever find out how insane i am. but i just can't.

they remind me of who i was. and what i don't want to be.

blogging has kinda become the substitute for journal writing for me these days. typing is.. easier than writing, no? but fully aware of the potential danger that i'll be subjecting myself to, i practise self-censorship. besides, excessive linguistic errors tend to ick me.

and that's why blogging isn't as effective a self healing tool for me. think it's more like a tool for me to hone my skills at expressing myself.

and is there a point to all these words? no.

what service??

2005-12-29T12:18:00.000+08:00

went to this pub near my place two nights ago.

didn't know it's a pub before i entered the place. it looked like a cafe. plus, it's in a rather residential area.

always wanted to visit it coz

it's within walkable distance from my place.
the decor of the place looks interesting
it's within walkable distance from my place. - this is a great great incentive. i mean, how shiok is it to enjoy a drink and chitchat with your friends, and then be able to take a nice good shower and plop down to watch some good o' cable telly after a short walk of less than ten minutes. this includes the climb of seven storeys of stairs.

i love the decor of the place. very strong color theme. and they have nice lounge-y furniture. quite good a place to chill out. but, the service sucked.

howtheservicesucked_01

a couple of friends and i walked in after dinner. we were the only other people there besides this one table of three girls. after giving us the menu, the waitresses (yes, more than one) repeatedly approached us to get our order.

we needed time to ponder over our decisions - can't help if we're indecisive females right?, but in the span of less than.. five minutes? we were approached by two different waitresses and asked if we were ready to order. we were approached at least f o u r times. F O U R.

we were the only other customers there besides the other table of girls who looked like they'd been sitting there for quite a while, but you didn't really need to shower us with t h a t much attention. we know how to get y o u r attention when we need it.

didn't help that the xmas eve menu and new year's eve menu came with the regular menu to confuse a newcomer.

coming to ask us repeated if we were ready to order would not hasten the decision-making process. coz everytime you come to ask if we're ready, you disrupt the decision-making process. argh.

true, if we ordered before 2100, we will get a 20% discount, but y o u didn't tell us that, w e saw it for ourselves from the menu. so what's your hurry? you trying to save money for us? hmmm..

howtheservicesucked_02

one of my friends tried to order something off the xmas eve menu. however, items from the xmas eve menu were not available on any other occasions cept xmas eve.

"bread and butter huh? what is that? is that a drink?"

i've been at the serving end too, that is so not the way to react to a question from a customer no matter how stupid the question is.

i'd realised that there were different menus and decided that i should just not peruse the special menus since it was neither xmas eve or nye, but not everyone are as observant as me. that horrid waitress just made my friend feel stupid.

i can explain why the management would include the special menus despite that it's neither xmas eve or nye, but i can't understand why the staff is not aware of what is available in their menus and why the staff feels that the problem lies innately with the customer.

damn f-- rude.

howtheservicesucked_03

my other friend didn't feel like ordering a drink and told the waitress so. and they got into a slight discussion over this. apparently it's the "rule" that every person ordered something.

i don't frequent pubs (i mean, look at the people i hang out with. eg, these two friends of mine.) so i thought maybe it's kinda like an unwritten rule for pubs since they don't really have cover charges. but when i checked with my brother (who does frequent pubs. well, at least more than me), that is not the case. at least he gets away with it.

then wtf?? i ordered something. my other friend ordered something, after you made her feel like a nincompoop. it's not that the place is crowded and we were taking up valuable money-churning space.

ergh. what horrid horrid service.

i really liked the place for its proximity to my place and for its funky decor, but i can do without their "service" anyday.

2005-12-28T01:51:00.000+08:00

wanted to blog about this tomorrow. but, i've got to get this off my chest.

* * * * *

i was at a bus-stop earlier on when i stepped on a l o t of ants. they were just there. in quite a scary number. kinda like the amount of amok shoppers on orchard road just before xmas.

they'd started crawling on my legs and shoes before i realised i was getting bitten. it was painful.

i scooted to a seat that was ants-free and began to de-ant-ify myself. i looked like an idiot (if you didn't know the pain i was suffering from)

and later, a guy was standing nearonnearon the ants. he moved around a bit. for some stupid reason, i didn't inform him of the ants. luckily for him, he was wearing boots. they looked new too. think he managed to escape in time. without realising the danger he was in.

but the guy after him was worse off. he was wearing slippers. i saw him over the ants.

w h y d i d n ' t i t e l l h i m a b o u t t h e a n t s ? he was wearing slippers for heaven's sake! damnit who?!

it's this crazy shyness thing that i hate myself for. years back, i used to be afraid to pay for purchases. i just didn't enjoy interactingtalking to the cashier. i was just uncomfortable at the thought of having to talk to a stranger. i'm crazy. used to drive my friends mad.

and today the slippersguy suffered for my craziness.

i'm really sorry. i must f-- change this nonsensical bit of me. i'm really really sorry.

click to entertain

2005-12-26T00:03:00.000+08:00

as i patiently wait for the vcr to finish taping the latest episode of csi: miami before i watch it, i shall post up some of the stuff that i thought i should share in the spirit of christmas. i wish i've tivo or some time-shifting recording device. sigh.

first-up, a most hilarious clip by some students of UMich. wish my college life was as entertaining. click - via boing boing
synchronized christmas lights. the clip takes quite a while to load (it did for me even though i'm supposed to be on adsl.) but it's pretty darn worth it. click here for the clip and here for some additional read-up. i would recommend doing the reading before watching the clip. - via thesneeze
the roomba is one of those indulgent items that i dream of owning one day. but after watching this, i have second thoughts. but then again, why should i? click - via.. cannot remember.. boing boing?
when i was in nyc, the subway's announcements would always baffle me. actually, think the public announcements baffled me when i was in boston too. come to think of it, most public announcements escape me. be it in sg or in any other foreign land. always thought the problem was in me. and now i wonder. click

ok. n o w i can watch csi: miami.

* * * * *

aheheh.. let me just add a couple more things..

just in case you need any convincing to watch the latest wallace & gromit movie, here's a short clip by aardman animation. i love the erm.. large cat. i love its accent. click
and in the spirit of christmas, let me share this lovely photo of a dancing display they have in a supermarket near my place. ain't it so wonderfully deliriously happy looking? too bad my phone (and my brother's phone - took this photo with my brother's phone. my phone's charger died remember?) can't take video clips. it's just so amusing to watch these biscuits bobbing along to the xmas tunes.. that really made my day.
and last but not least, i found 红豆糕 in sg! 红豆糕's something i've always wanted to try. it was the thing 袁怺仪's character sent 刘青云's character to buy in the movie - 新不了情 so as to draw him away as she took her last breath on earth. it's one of my all time favourite movies. i even remember the vendor asking 刘's character if he wanted the 黑的还是白的红豆糕. in his hurry to accomplish his task, 刘's character just got one of both. when i went to hong kong in 2000, i failed to find it. cept in the supermarket. didn't buy it. my brother did though when he went earlier on this year.. or was it last year? hmm. anyway, he concluded that the one he had in hk was way tastier than the one i bought. well duh.. but, that didn't stop him from gobbling down two pieces of 红豆糕 though. but good lah. it really wasn't very nice and i didn't really want to have more than one piece. the 红豆糕 from sg. see it's neither black o r white. it was.. orangey. wonder how 刘's character would react if he sees this mutant of a 红豆糕. aheheh..

help!

2005-12-25T20:48:00.000+08:00

"I don't know why but your page seems to cause my IE to crash. so i click on stop before it is fully loaded
coz am happy just to read the recent entries. but sometimes it even crashes when b4 even your entries are visible. what could be wrong?"

oh dear, you mean you don't get to read the old entries? what goodness are you missing out on? ahem.. sorry about the shamelessness. seriously, don't think you're missing out on much. probably stuff you're better off not reading about anyway. so back to your crashing IE problem.

eh. i haven't a clue why. maybe i'm secretly a hacker who's out to ruin microsoft? yah.. i wish. i'm too much of a 电脑白痴.

hmmm.. does anyone out there who happens to be reading this blog happen to face this problem too? i use firefox, and my blog doesn't cause my firefox to crash.

not that i think i'll be capable to do anything to stop my friend's IE from crashing. just because my blog does not use a standard blogger template doesn't make me a.. templatetweakingIEkillingwhiz? i just follow instructions and copy and paste one..

so anyone out there with the same problem and maybe some solution?

..help?

dreaming of a white christmas

2005-12-23T02:08:00.000+08:00

i want snow.

i want to be able to layer my clothes.

and no. i don't look anything like that.

i read lifehacker

2005-12-22T22:35:00.000+08:00

omg. i love lifehacker. i really really do.

along with boing boing. and gothamist. they really are great at compiling info.

however i suspect most of the useful computer programmes i discovered this year are from lifehacker (and m a y b e boing boing and gothamist. they each generate different types of usefulinteresting info). today, LH introduced me to quickrflickr

and now i can put many pictures in my blog with great ease!

here are some shots and descriptions that i'd uploaded and updated as i'd mentioned earlier on. in case you're too lazy to click and see the entire set.

hmmm, though i think the descriptions will make more sense if you read them in sequence (as in the set).

the interiors of the stata center. i like the use of vibrant colours.

another museum. but think there wasn't any exhibition going on.
or was there?

more jellyfish!
i'd only uploaded erm.. maybe 5% (or is it less?) of all the jellyfish photos i took.. heee..

holocaust memorial

don't you love the way the lines on the building seem to warp and thus creating some weird visual thing?

yum..
yes, it was damn good.

sigh. so chioh.

Posted by Quickr Flickr

2005-12-22T16:17:00.000+08:00

just updated my photos in flickr.

now the photos i took while i was in boston are up.

yes, i know that's only one week worth of photos. i'll work on it.

so click here or click on the flickr badge that's somewhere on the right.

ick many

2005-12-22T14:34:00.000+08:00

ick_01

for the past 24 hours, i've been suffering the waterinthenose feeling. and when i spoke to the drinks stall auntie to buy me a cup of barley after my lunch, i knew i'm down (but still standing up) with some stupid bug. well, at least when i'm sick i don't sound like my usual self - a little girl. yup, i've a.. rather high-pitched girlish voice. ick.

* * * * *

ick_02

was walking to find lunch. phone rang. number withheld. hmmm. fourth call that has its number withheld my phone has received in the last week. first call i answer.

middle-aged chee ko pek (MACKP): string of hokkien. my command of hokkien is limited to 1. wa buey hiao kong. 2. wa buey hiao tia

who? (w?): 请问你找谁?

MACKP: 找你 lor

who? inner voice01 (IN01): wtf?

who? inner voice02 (IN02): wasting my money. tmd. i want to hang up

who? inner voice03 (IN03): it's rude. hang on.

w?: 请问你是谁

MACKP: mumble 朋友介绍 mumble

IN01: wtf?? what stupid friend do i have?

IN02: wasting my m o n e y!

IN03: it's rude to just hang up.. it's rude to just hang up... it's rude to just hang up... it's rude to just hang up...

w?: 我不认识你

MACKP: mumble.. 上床就认识了

IN01: WTF??!?!!?

IN02: WTF??!?!!?

IN03: it's rude.. wtf?

and that's when i hung up.

is there anyway i can actually get the bastard? phone harassment? isn't bad enough that a girl hardly gets any calls (yes, i repeated shout on my blog about my lack of a life), why does she have to suffer phone harassment??

* * * * *

ick_03

and less than five minutes later, as i was waiting at the traffic light, a car whizzed past me. and what did you know. a quarter of me was drenched. T M D

my top got wet. sigh.

my newly washed jeans got wet. guess it's back to the washing machine. and to think i was hoping i could get it nice and soft.

my h a i r got wet. argh!!

m y f a c e got wet. f- lah. when i don't bring facial wash, this happens. great, i'm sure i'll get some pimple outbreak.

at least the water was clear. sigh.

yet, despite all the ick things, i'm quite.. calm. and not highly irritated. grossed out. but not irritated. wait, i a m irritated by MACKP.

TOO ENG, TOO MUCH MONEY NOTHING TO DO ISSIT? nb.. if you didn't withold your number, damnit, i might just buy a phonecard and hound you till you cry.

and this led me to think suspect the amount of influence hormones have on my mood. see, no gila hormones and i can be as un-bitchy as.. eerrm.. a carebear?

2005-12-20T22:04:00.000+08:00

my phone's charger died. died.

yes. i flare my nostrils and sneer at the death of my phone's charger.

peach here peach there peaches everywhere

2005-12-20T02:10:00.000+08:00

i tried the absolut peach my brother bought from his friend. o m g. it's so peachy!

added it to my milo and it turned bitter. not surprising since i'm quite generous with the vodka, but then, i'm v e r y generous with the milo too. anyway it was bitter yet peachy. quite unlike absolut vanilla. which i thought was rather a let-down. the smell is so faint lah. even my bath and body works moisturiser smells more vanilla-y. cheat money one.

however, i'm pretty sure i'm immune to absolut now. no effects whatsoever on me. drambuie on the other hand.. but it's too darn sweet.

* * * * *

was kaopei-ing to my brother the other day that there's nothing good on telly. there used to be something to watch every night of the week. but now

monday: used to catch lost season 1. now, there's csi season 4 - which i've watched. have yet to decide if i would follow 4400 and numb3rs.
tuesday: house. key highlight used to be arrested development until it got bumped by jamie's school kitchen. and it's just easier to watch house than to attempt to follow the story of my arrested development.
wed: used to be nothing. might catch new season of antm though.
thu: nothing
fri: nothing
sat: nothing
sun: repeated csi/csi:ny/csi:miami i can't tell if they're showing the miami season 2 or if they're done with it. crazy axn.

yes. i'm a bloody junkie. i don't give a damn. at least i don't shop non-stop.

as i was watching numb3rs, i realised something. numb3rs is rather engaging. it's somewhat geeky. all that talk about mathematics. but if you think about it, that's the appeal of house and csi. (at least for me).

there's always a problem.

house - bizarre medical case
csi's - crime
numb3rs - crime? (only caught one episode)

then a scientific solution

house - medical
csi - forensic science
numb3rss - mathematics

it's pretty much a similar formula. it intrigues laymen like me, but probably irks a little the pro's (eg my cousin M who was rattling off the impossibility of the symptons house faced) for me, the use of science is the main appeal i guess. and the problem-solving.

that's why mystery fiction is one of my fav. but what i don't get is, did they just chance on this formula recently? or was the x-files an example of a show applying said formula? didn't watch x-files. don't know.

i guess i like to see reason, science win at the end of the day. yawn. might continue this weird rambling when i wake up. we'll see.

peach yoghurt..

2005-12-19T22:42:00.000+08:00

finally got myself to break open the pretty packaging and use one of the portions of the peach yoghurt face mask JQ got me from hk.

i guess it was coz i stepped into the shop today. it was so.. sparsely stocked. it didn't really looked like it was ready to sell things. i was wondering if they were r e a l l y going for the stark, clean but somewhat indulgent look (each shelf was.. more than 50% of empty space. considering they're located at a prime area which probably costs a hell lot of rent i would call them indulgent) when i spotted some utterly empty display slots. now i just suspect their stock is not complete.

sigh, the things they do to cash in on the xmas shopping frenzy.

back to the mask. it's from thefaceshop. a korean brand. can check out the website. but it's a little leh cheh to maneuver in the website coz of the way they'd structured it. maybe it's just me.

"DO NOT EAT"s were printed on the mask pack (yes, there was one on each portion). and when you open it, you so totally get why. even though i've washed the thing off my face for half an hour, it's still making me crave for some yoghurt. (or maybe it's the VS moisturiser.hmm..which usually does nothing for my appetite though) anyway,

i t s m e l t s o g o o d. and so edible..

and my face does feel "revitalised, soft and well-hydrated" after. har..

* * * * *

i have to talk about orchard road. i was only in two of the malls earlier on. wisma atria and taka. these two buildings practically equates orchard for me. and most of the time, i'm only "in" wisma coz it links the train station to taka. it's like.. a transit place. what to do, taka has kino and library. but now, wisma has thefaceshop. drooool..

anyway, it's a monday evening, but the (two) malls were thronged! all these people, with all those shopping bags.. with all these noisy NOISY kids. it was quite a task to maneuver a slick path amongst the crowd. a skill which i usually have no problem exercising.

all the consuming. it's scary. it's just.. so.. economically-centric. maybe that's why i like 清明节. it's one of the rare occasions when i feel a bond among my family. my dad, my mom, my brother and me at the cemetry. i'm really going to miss the cemetry.

2005-12-19T00:30:00.000+08:00

my colleague just asked me a question, which was posed to her by someone she was on the phone with. (i'm assuming this a someone we're trying to scam into turning up at our office for some presentation - presented by our company)

QN: is the carpark (of our office building) difficult to drive in if one is a lady driver in a big car?

maybe it's my colleague who's phrasing wasn't that strong. but wtf???

true, certain carparks are rather stint spatially. what can we do, we live in sg. i just feel it's unreasonable to avoid certain carparks coz they are a tad tight to maneuver in. my mom used to piss the hell out of me whenever she gave me that excuse in the attempt to stop me from using the car.

i guess for me, i feel that that is a conquerable fear. unlike another fear i have.

i avoid this particular carpark coz i got into an accident there before. nobody got hurt. but three vehicles (not including m i n e) did get a little erm.. hurt. i avoid that particular carpark coz i'm afraid my family car will get recognized and in turn kena scratched (in revenge) or what not. that is paranoid. but legit. well. it is to me.

but i guess it's a legit fear (tight carparks) too. it's just that it's so wimpy.

i get it if you fear busy, crazy streets. i get it if you fear roundabouts. coz timing matters if these fears. and you can't really slow down or stop coz then you'll be causing a jam and probably accidents.

but carparks can be tackled with the slow and steady method. (it was precisely speed that got me into my accident) carparks c a n b e conquered.

and so what if you're female? you managed to get your license right?

and what the heck constitutes a big car?

i hate to bring this up repeatedly, but i

am female
drive a stationwagon (some of my friends are amazed that i can drive one coz it's not a sedan. just coz you passed your driving test in a sedan doesn't confine you to a sedan for life right?)

the car i drive (which incidentally is not mine, it's technically the family car)

has no power steering
has no reverse sensors
has no power windows (this is significant especially when one drives past one of those ticketing thing)

all in all, the car's pretty lok kok (don't need to bore you with a l l the havenots). but hey, at least i've a car to drive. so i make sure i can drive it. coz i can't change the roads i drive on. and i'm very thankful for my parents for paying for my driving lessons. i know it's not a skill that everyone has. and i appreciate the fact that i have that skill so i make sure i drive sufficiently to keep that skill. and i try not to wimp out on every scary thing coz i don't want to wimp out on life.

just coz there's a preconception that women drivers aren't as good a driver as men drivers doesn't mean you have to subscribe to that belief. heavens sake's, have some faith in yourself.

kungfu hustle

2005-12-17T02:09:00.000+08:00

discovered a new thing today. and that's yahoo widgets. but i'm a little too lazy to discover how useful it is. tomorrow lah. or later on in the year. not much of it left.

* * * * *
just watched kungfu hustle.

in the first half hour, i thought it was a damn weird movie that i'm watching. the fact that it's a nominee for best foreign film in some award (golden globe?) baffled me.

but at the end of the show, i have to admit, it's pretty brilliant in some ways.

i thought the soundtrack to the film was really quite apt. for a negligent film watcher like me to actually notice the music and think it's not bad is an achievement.
the computer effects were quite effective after some getting used to. for a while i thought wah lau eh. machum like watching tarantino.. eh wait, now it's like watching matrix. the effects are really quite 夸张, but after a while guess i'd just accepted it and sat back, and enjoyed the laugh (wah lau eh. the bird stephen stepped on looked like some 烧鸡 to me lor. maybe i'm just hungry). it reminded me of computer games and comics/graphic novels. which i thought was kinda cool
i love the bit that emulated western musical films. the bit where the axe gang was dancing to some really musical-like music. yesterday - scrubs. today - kungfu hustle. when will they stop making fun of musicals?
slow-motion's used quite a bit in the film. but i thought it's good coz i never understood why anyone would watch a 功夫 film or a 武侠 film and enjoy them. it's like i can't see anything cept a flurry of motion. really. it's like swish swish swish.. c'mon! slow down for the common folks. so the generous use of slow motion kinda pleased me. at least i can s e e for once flying kicks and stuff.
the incorporation of the commonfamous kungfu styles. it's neat to see everything condensed into a queer bizarre film.

i feel that it's a pretty good intro to kungfu and wuxia shows and the hongkong filmic trend. or maybe it should be called a summary. there's the 1930's gangster era theme that was so popular in the.. 80s? and then there's the kungfu theme (eg famous kungfu masters hiding away in order to seek a normal life) and there's the childhood thing.. how who we are today is a result of this one significant childhood experience.

it's really.. eye-opening after all those past stephen chow movies i grew up with. kungfu hustle is like a part tribute to the high points? in the hongkong film industry.. and a part attempt to break into the foreign market (which i think is just intrigued and somewhat besotted with kungfu. please, there's more to the eastern culture than that). and also something that attempts to attract the younger generation (as i watched the film, i could just imagine what i saw in the screen as something that sprung from a graphic novel).

it's pretty amazing that stephen chow wrote, produced, directed a n d acted in it. i see him in a new light today.

* * * * *

and why is it that drambuie has more effects of me that vodka? they are both 40%.. or.. 80 proof.. or whatever. and why is it that drambuie is able to knock me.. dizzy while the same amount of vodka can't? and drambuie is too damn sweet to drink. it's totally effing sweet. stupid brother. anyhow buy.

2005-12-16T16:01:00.000+08:00

wah biang eh. it's damn effing hot.

weather.com tells me it's 33degC, but it feels like 40. while forecastfox tells me it's 32.

my fan is blowing out warm air.

sigh. it's december for heaven's sake. why is it so effing hot? why??

Northeast winds prevail, sometimes reaching 20 km/h. Cloudy conditions in December and January with frequent afternoon showers. Spells of widespread moderate to heavy rain occur lasting from 1 to 3 days at a stretch. Relatively drier in February till early March. Also generally windy with wind speeds sometimes reaching 30 to 40 km/h in the months of January and February. - "North-East Monsoon Season - December to early March", courtesy of nea

true, we do get strangely strong winds that amaze me. notice how they carefully avoided mentioning of the effing temperature and the humidity. coz it can be summed up as such

Temperature: Diurnal range: Minimum 23 to 26 deg C and Maximum 31 to 34 deg C
Extremes: Minimum of 19.4 deg C and Maximum of 35.8 deg C

Relative Humidity: Diurnal range in the high 90's in the early morning to around 60 % in the mid-afternoon. Mean value is 84%, During prolonged heavy rain, relative humidity often reaches 100 %.

i didn't effing know the temperature is constant throughout the entire effing year. my geography teacher will be so disgusted with me. but what the hell.

* * * * *

i actually woke up at 9am today. but after gobbling down a slice of yummy bread, i went back to sleep coz it was damn hot, only to wake up four hours later, just in time for lunch.

should be getting on with my work but i really want to write about the dream i had during my.. four hour nap?

it's pretty long. made up of strange segments that don't really link up to each other. coz every time i drop back to sleep after getting awaken by the alarm clock, i think i start somewhere new.

i was diving in a dream. i think. all i remember is getting out of the water onto the dock. and getting into a seemingly compromising position with a fellow diver. our oxygen tanks got hooked? tangled? he was not cute. he was a caucasian. he had a mole on his face, a big one. i did not think he's cute. yet i thought he was flirting with me and i was contemplating if i should too. J, my diving buddy was in the dream too. yes, my diving buddy who abandoned me and took her advanced cert without me. harumph.

think i was at shaw lido. meeting people? but i saw 吴奇隆. in a white.. cardigan like thing. and nobody recognised him.

i was in a car, going up the circular slope in some multi-storeyed carpark. M, a sec school classmate was there. i was n e v e r close to her. yet we were hanging out with a bunch of people. apparently we were on our way to dinner

somehow, we managed to make this other group lose a fella from their group (dreams don't have to make sense. mine seldom) and they were quite worried. the impression i got was that that fella hasn’t been in sg for long. i guess they were worried he would get lost.

anyway, so their group split up to look for him. and this guy was accusing us of causing all this trouble, so we felt obliged to join him in the search. somehow we got to asking if we were hungry. (i know this bit is totally out of point. maybe it’s coz i don’t remember everything from the dream, that’s why everything seems so disconnected.)

anyway, so we joined this guy (who was kinda cute i think) and we went asearching at some restaurants coz apparently lost fella mentioned something about wanted to grab a bite at this chinese restaurant or his fav restaurant.

so were nearly got ushered into one of my friends’ (let’s call her QuestionMark coz i can’t put a face to her. but i know i’m close to her) frequent haunt in that mall of what not which happens to be a Chinese restaurant when i asked if it was possible that lost fella was in h i s fav restaurant rather than QM’s fav restaurant. and cuteandangry guy was like oh yah! and we ran back to the restaurant we had walked past earlier on. we ran coz we were nearly ushered in by the enthusiastic er.. waiter? maitre d’ of QM’s restaurant. i felt kinda bad. he looked really happy to see our big group.

cuteandangry guy asked the maitre d’ like person at lost fella’s restaurant to look for lost fella. but the maitre d was like “we don’t admit people in tee-shirts” (lost fella’s in a tee-shirt). cuteandangry guy managed to get maitre d to look into the restaurant. and he/she returns shocked to announce to us that there were e l e v e n people dressed in tee-shirts in his/her restaurant.

so cuteandangry guy were arunning in to look for lost fella. while my friends and i looked in. he found him, apparently cuteandangry guy’s other friends found him too and they happily sat down while i dragged my friends away to QM’s restaurant despite that i fancied the décor of lost fella’s restaurant. was darkly lit.. looked classy somehow. QM’s restaurant was.. bright.. and bustling. but i felt bad for QM’s maitre d. and i didn’t think cuteandangry guy was no longer angry at us for causing him to lose lost fella.

and i woke up. haaar~ weird dreams eh..

ok. must do stuff.

2005-12-12T20:28:00.000+08:00

have been sitting too damn long in front of the computer and n o t doing anything constructive. eyes were starting to hurt. so decided to go look out my window. and hark! the neighbouring block of flats' corridor lights were down.

not really a very common sight in sg.

but actually the first thing that caught my eye was the color of the sky.

it's prettier than the photo.

but really i'm surprised that my phone could even take such a rather decent photo of the night sky.

see, it even managed to capture the really bright star in the upper right corner. north star?

and here's another shot that shows a little of the clouds. should have gotten a proper camera to take the shots. but lazy lah.

so pretty..

ps the photos were taken like an hour before i blogged this. now. it's just dark outside.

2005-12-08T21:40:00.000+08:00

ACT I
SCENE I

(girl is on the top level of the building waiting for the lift. lift that arrives first is the one that is directly facing the toilet entrance)

(girl enters lift)

(lift descends)

(lift stops and door opens. seeing no one outside the lift, girl presses 'close door')

(lift descends)

(lift stops and door opens. lady in pink strolls across open door towards the toilet)

LIP
amy, are you done?

(girl presses 'close door'. she catches a glimpse of LIP turning to look at the closing door)

SCENE II

(girl walks along and voices start in her head)

VOICE1
that was mean

VOICE2
...

V1
anybody else would have kept the door open.

V2
...

V1
you weren't even in a hurry.

V2
...

V1
she had this.. i've-been-wronged look. she looked like she would haunt you down.

V2
it's done. look, so she might bitch about me. curse me. she might close the lift door in MY face if she bothers to remember this. isn't it my fortune that i dont' really try to rush into the lift most of the time?

(v1 continues to berate while v2 remains untouched)

end of ACT I

* * * * *

ACT II
SCENE I

(v1 berates while v2 remains indifferent while girl walks to her bus stop)

MAN (standing some 50m away)
miss! Miss! MIss! MISs!!! MISS!!

(girl finally realises someone is trying to get her attention. girl stops with a furrowed look)

(man approaches girl)

MAN (whispers now that he is 50cm away from girl. unaware that girl is half deaf)
whisper whisper

GIRL (irritably hashes up hopefully a reply that has answered man's question. girl is unsure if she was asked a question in the first place and is annoyed by man's sudden decision to not shout at the top of his voice but instead whisper like she's wearing some overly sensitive hearing aid)
i'm kind of rushing home

MAN
i whisper tourist from china whisper whisper
whisper friend whisper late/not here
whisper money whisper food whisper

GIRL (disgusted, says in a curt, rude and utterly not tourist-friendly manner)
i'm broke myself

(girl walks off and continues on her way)

V1
that was mean. maybe he was really broke and needed money. you were mean TWICE in a row!

V2 (muttering)
i know. i feel bad too.

V1
so anti-tourism board

think about it, what if you were in his shoes.

you travelled when you were broke too

V2
hmmm...

V1
imagine how you would feel if you had met you?

V2
...hey. i was broke when i was in the states. my friend was late when picking me up. i didn't go around begging,

V1
asking

V2
fine, asking for money for food. i would rather starve. it's so.. prideless.

in fact, i would have asked to borrow a phone to make a call to my friend. not that i would lend my phone to a strapping tall stranger who has longer legs than me even if he did ask. i could never outrun him if he decides to run off with my obsolete but nevertheless functional phone.

in fact, i could have asked the hotel i just walked away from if i could use their phone. aren't hotels supposed to be hospitable?

in fact, why couldn't he have gone to a restaurant and order and eat and wait for his friend to show up with the cash? do i look like a cash cow? do i even look remotely approachable with my hands stuffed in my pockets??

wtf?

he deserves it

V1
... still

V2
really?

V1
...

end of ACT II

* * * * *

ACT III
SCENE I

(girl continues to walk to her bus stop)

V1
seriously you've earned yourself some pretty bad karma. considering all the crap that's happening to you, more bad karma does not bode well

V2 (sulks)
...

V1
bad karma..

V2 (continues to sulk)
...

V1
..bad karma..

V2
...

(girl turns back and sees her bus approaching. and she breaks into a sprint without a second thought.)

(girl runs like almost never before - all the while keeping her mouth closed. and makes it on to the bus)

(girl pants with her mouth closed so she wouldn't look too pathetic. and ends up over-inhaling, stretching her lungs the way she did when she tried to play around with her buoyancy underwater)

(girl finally catches her breath)

V1
why did you keep your mouth closed the whole time?

V2

why did i run?

V3
it just felt right

V2
this can't be bad karma. i made it to the bus while somewhat maintaining maybe a shred of dignity? damn. i must be digging myself some damn deep grave. fuck.

V1
you're so screwed

V3
ooommmm..

end of ACT III

2005-12-08T14:39:00.000+08:00

another sleepless night.

my thoughts feel like water running out of broken tap. i try to capture the good ones, but it's like trying to fill a sieve with water.

since the boss is not in yet, i shall blog away! coz my thoughts are running amok!

* * * * *

think i've been pushing some of my friends away. think i haven't been keeping as in touch with some of them as i would like to.

thing is, i'm in a rut. and i know it. i know i should get out of it. i know there's an urgency. it's like a malignant cyst. (think calling it a tumour's kinda erm.. hyperbolic) i know the prognosis. i just can't bring myself to excise it out of my system. i'm the kind 死到临头才可能，或许, 会觉悟.

i hate meeting my friends and telling them how i'm still living with my "cyst" when they ask "so what's up with you". i hate it when they give me the prognosis that i know so well. i hate sounding like a disappointment. i hate to let them know i'm still living like.. a vermin? a parasite? i hate to feel so aimless, so stagnant when they tell me everything that's up with them. i hate comparing myself with them.

i find this quote from 亦舒 super appropriate for me:

在得意的时后, 我喜欢见朋友, 不得意的时候, 情愿一个人

and it doesn't help to jokingly call me a slacker.

i know you're joking. but that's doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

i'm really afraid i might just thrust the surgical blade into those who care enough about me when they don't stop with the prognosis dispensal or the joking.

i don't want to hurt anyone. but i don't know how to tell you that you're hurting me either.

:: 0945h

i'm a temperamental person. have been since young. as i aged, i tried to tone it somewhat. the best i can do now is to keep to myself when i'm in one of those moods. but still, it's rather obvious from the words that (sometimes are forced to) spill from my wretched mouth.

being in the rut now is really really taking a toll on me.

i don't want to share all the crap i'm going through with my friends coz they don't deserve it. i put myself where i am today. i know. you know. and you can't help but dispense your advice. that's what friends go, i guess. but your advice is killing me.

you can't help but want to share your life. that's what friends do. but knowing how great everything is for you while i'm.. not near anything close is killing me.

YX: i'm sorry i was so curt on the phone. when you're too busy for me, when i'm too ashamed to see you, when i can't help that the cable tv, the computer, the internet, the library books, my bed have become my best friends, when it just seems more pleasant to hang out with inanimate objects that fact real live living people who keep reminding me what a mess i'm in even when they don't mean to. when even the weather feels like it's got a personal vendetta against me, i really hope you understand why i chose to hide away rather than dash out at a last minute notice.

C: i didn't really mean to snap at you. but sometimes, your enthusiasm suffocates. when i try to push myself into a forgotten corner so i won't hurt people, you prod at me to get my attention. i really tried not to express any.. irritation. but as the saying goes, a leopard never changes its spots? my temperament still needs work. looking at you is sometimes like rubbing salt in the wound.

and i wonder if it might make a difference if i've a typical guy friend. i imagine he would just pop by when i need a friend and just sit with me as i watch cable and eat junk food and drink. no talking. that's the problem with female friends. you know, how females must share and communicate.. and talk. (all this is stuff i get from trashy female magazines.)

i enjoy that - talking.. communicating.. sharing.. just not when i'm stuck in a rut. that's when i need a silent friend. or just someone who won't press for any response from me.

oh yah, not getting any sleep at night is no help at controlling my temperament. really, i should just tattoo "rabid when deprived of nocturnal snooze" on my forehead. too bad my forehead's kinda small.

:: 1352h

what's worse that having friends who are ask "so what's up with you" is to have acquaintances ask the question.

scenario 01 - i spill it all and embarass myself while creating a most awkward situation where said acquaintance won't know how to respond coz really he/she doesn't give a shit about me.

scenario 02 - i spill it all and said acquaintance emit strange sounds that sound somewhat empathetic.. somewhat 敷衍 and and i think to myself i am going to avoid you till i get out of my rut. which doesn't seem like anytime soon. i can't believe we're going to reenact this scene over and over and over and over again. damnit. i will terminate all possible 寒暄的机会

scenario 03 - i spill it all and make said acquaintance feel so mighty good about himself/herself. yes, let me show you my hideous "cyst", let me shout it in your face that i know my "cyst" is bloody ugly. yes, if it would make you feel good.

scenario 04 - i smile politely and attempt to act shy/dumb but will probably end up projecting a dao impression.

* * * * *

i practise quite erm.. stringent censorship on myself.

coz i know there are consequences to blogging. i know there are consequences when you put things online. you never know when it would bite you back.

i wish some of my friends would read my blog. so they'll know how important they mean to me. so they'll know how sorry i am for being who i am. for the way i treat them.

but it's.. so. degrading to keep bugging anyone to read. i mean, some people just don't read blogs. sometimes i think it's coz my writing ain't their cup of tea. hey, some people's blogs aren't my 杯 of teh either.

took me a while to decide if i wanted to blog about being in the rut. i can't help but feel a little sad if a total stranger who just so happened to chance on my blog reads it and actually got to know the works in me when the people i wish would know don't.

i know i'm the one creating the distance between us. it's called a vicious cycle. i wish things are not the way they are. and i'm just trying to change myself.

i just wish you knew that i didn't mean to hurt anyone.

:: 1439

2005-12-08T10:20:00.000+08:00

so far, i've checked the price of stash tea, read a couple of blogs. and i managed to add some contacts into my gmail contact list. not bad for a sleep deprived morning.

yup. i've a gmail account. all thanks to my brother. but i haven't really "activated" it in that i haven't sent any mail from it (except one just now to my brother. so that doesn't really count coz he already knew i've the account) or told anyone my gmail add. hmmm.. in fact don't think i told anyone that i have one.

i'm still happily using my singnet email. lazy to change lah. no rush what. plus i'm lazy to figure out the tricks of gmail. and besides, yahoo mail is quite competent.

yah lah, besides my singnet email account, i've a yahoo email account too.

in fact, used to have a hotmail account. used to have a tare-panda account too.

yes. you read right. the add was muahchee at tare hyphen panda dot com. think erm.. server? (i'm a tech 白痴 i don't know what's the correct terminology plus i didn't sleep last night k.) is.. non-existent liao.

so all in all, i only use yahoo mail and my singnet mail. gmail is for when we terminate singnet. i can't wait.. right now it's like bombarded with spam every day.

yes.. gmail is like my concubine in waiting.. sheesh. the things that happen to your mind when you don't catch some shut eye when the sun goes out.

i'm a tech 白痴

2005-12-08T01:23:00.000+08:00

i have to admit, it's taking me forever to enjoy itunes.

it seems to be t h e mp3 player that e v e r y o n e is using these days except for me.

i find that the programme is a little big. also it only updates the id3 tag(?) when the player plays the song (cf to winamp which updates the tag when you load the file to the playlist). this in particular is a big pain in the ass for me. coz i like order. i'm anal. i admit it.

i guess another thing for me to not switch to itunes is coz i don't have a single ipod/ipod mini/shuffle/nano. so generating playlists isn't really something big on my list of requirements for a mp3 playing programme. and we can't really buy music from itunes in sg (i think)

but thing is, i can alter the volume of the tracks. nice..

i shall try to accustomise myself to itunes.

* * * * *

fwah. the lightning was so freaking bright i saw its reflection off my lcd screen (which is directly opp my window). that's a first. see lah, night time liao then rain, then daytime hot like hell. !@%^#

yes yes, i know rainy nights make great sleeping nights. but hey, alcohol works too.

but gosh, i can actually smell the rain. yum..

grumbles about the effing weather

2005-12-07T18:34:00.000+08:00

seriously, what the heck is wrong with the effing weather?

it's december. there's supposed to be rain, winds, general wetness.

why is there instead horrible days of intense heat and light and unbearably high humidity such that within four hours i had to take two showers?

and now when it's approaching nightfall, it threatens to rain? like hello?? nights are just generally cooler, can't you just dispense the rain (and coolness) in the day instead?

!@#@%^$#^

click away!

2005-12-05T16:07:00.000+08:00

goodbye moon
this is a limited run link above (unless you wanna pay to see it). don't think i've read the book myself in my childhood. nevertheless, it's still pretty easy to get this parody. that's one thing abt the americans, (imo) they tend to overdo things.

pigeon washer
just thought this was rather amusing

10 best books of the year
very limited run. nytimes' list

glide effortless
very limited run. a new (useful?) tool

scratchless cd-r
cool!

streetwars
i want to play too!

good and bad reasons for believing
quite an interesting read. wonder how my christian friends would argue it. if i ever have kids, i would want them to read this one day.

self-healing paint
and what would vandals do now?

un-gift guide
i kinda live by their rule of thumb and that's the reason why most of my money goes to (edible) groceries and food. quite like the design of this blog.

and that's all for now

chestnuts

2005-12-05T11:08:00.000+08:00

last thursday i caught chestnuts with my brother. it's almost becoming a decxmas tradition for us.

it all began in 2003. by some chance of fate, i'd caught a glimpse of an ad for chestnuts unloaded - the curse of the black pearl bubble tea. and since i had really enjoyed pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl, i thought this (chestnuts unloaded) looks interesting.

i asked a friend to go with me, but when i reminded her about the show a couple of days before the show, it dawned on her that she had something on that day. moral of the story - read your smses carefully.

not wanting to catch the show alone and not wanting to waste the ticket, i asked my brother if he would go with me. the choice of candidate was due to that my friends aren't that into theatre (at least that's what i believe) and usually they're rather busy and it's rather irritating to ask n friends and get n "sorry got something on"s (i always seem to be the only person i know with no life).

was kinda queer watching the show with my brother, but jonathan lim and sean yeo were so hilarious that when i asked him in 2004 if he wanted to catch chestnuts again, he agreed.

and when i asked him again in 2005, he agreed again.

he mentioned that he had failed to explain to his friends what chestnuts is (according to the programme - a parody). likewise i wouldn't have known it's a parody but now i do. but then he said his friends wouldn't know what a parody is. actually, neither did i. so, for the records, according to dictionary.com, a parody is "A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule"

in more layman terms, it's a spoof.

in the 2005 chestnuts, they spoofed star wars ep. 3, rent, stomp, the maid, local productions (according to my brother they were rather ridiculous flops, i didn't watch any of them so i can't really say) such as missing and full circle, music compilations, the theatrical scene, the government, the buangkok cows and more.

example one - star wars ep 3 (this was only one of the rather many spoofs on the subject)
hossan dressed as yoda (yes, you read right, yoda. he was on his knees to imitate the lack of verticality) and sang this.. rather famous musical song. it's famous enough for me to know it's a musical song but i'm suaku enough to not know which musical.

but with the help of google, i can confirm now that it was climb every mountain from the sound of music.

mountain.. every climb...
stream.. every ford..
rainbow.. every follow..

example two - celebrity mom spokeswomen for slimming parlors.
ah boy (jonathan lim) complained to his mom that she's fat and ugly. and how she's an embarassment when she's standing next to his friends' moms. and ah boy's mom (hossan leong) responded by selling ah boy for $500 and using the money to lose the extra baggage (pun intended) so now ah boy can be proud of his mommy.

i shouldn't give anymore examples, coz you should go catch chestnuts to realise how f- entertaining they are. also coz i can't really remember all the jokes. and also coz they're funnier when you watch them.

they were.. so.. hilarious. and shameless, and politically incorrect. i think everyone should watch it if they can. c'mon, next year's chestnuts is titled "chestnuts ten years series"! (yup, it's their tenth anniversary next year)

i don't look forward to the day when my brother's friends realise what a gem they're missing out on. who will then accompany me to watch chestnuts?? sigh, why are some of my friends so.. er.. prudish? did i forget to mention that chestnuts is a little risque? so even if my friends are into theatre, it might not be as enjoyable when the person you're watching the show is offended by the risque bits.

* * * * *

since i'm on the subject of theatrical stuff, JQ reviewed rent so much better than me. argh. and to think X suggested i turn to writing for.. a potential career choice. cannot! think i gave up any morsel of hope of writing for a living eons ago. just because i blog a lot doesn't make me an aspiring writer. it just means i need a shrink.

anyway, my pathetic take on rent was really subjective coz

i'm really not exposed to enough musicals
i thought it would soothe my nycsick (y'know, instead of being homesick, i'm nycsick?) - that's why i'd described watching rent as like dipping my feet into the water.

i caught rent with the hope that i would learn more about the place i like so much. and so it didn't really matter that it was no longer as relevant. it soothed my nycsick. that's all that mattered.

yup. i'm a pathetic loser.

i am damn inpatient. but she's crazy.

2005-12-03T17:36:00.000+08:00

decided to blog a little before i force myself to jog. yeeach.

* * * * *

was deeply pissed off by a crazy woman (CW) yesterday.

yesterday, decided to visit an atm to withdraw money (duh).

CW was in front of me. beep beep beep beep beep.. pause beep beep beep beep beep..

unusually long strands of beeps. ok. nenmind. i take damn long when i do funds transfers. serves me right. this is karma

atm card spitted out. but no money came out. CW re-inserted her card. beep beep beep beep beep..

it's coz i take damn long when i do funds transfers..this is karma..

card spitted out. again no money. i think.

and i also think hey maybe it's my turn! surely i don't have t h a t bad a karma but no!!! she sticks in a n o t h e r card.

i coughed. in case she didn't realise there's someone waiting in line behind her.

beeep beeep beep beep beeep..

card spitted out. card r e i n s e r t e d. a man joins me in the queue (this is significant coz it's a rather.. ulu atm)

beeep beeep beep beep beeep..

card spitted out. but this time, she moved away from the atm. phew you think? no! she hovered right next to the atm, and browsed through the brochures.

i waited for 15 seconds. she continued browsing at a spot where no one in the right state of mind would want a total stranger to be hovering about when they are keying in their f- PIN number. so i stepped up to the atm.

i refused to insert my card in the machine and just waited while she continued browsing for another.. 30-60 seconds. it was the f- longest 30-60 seconds i'd ever spent at a f- atm. i just stared at the atm while she browsed.

"excuse me" i said to CW. she looked at me. maybe she mumbled sorry. can't really remember. still too pissed off. she continued to select some brochures for another.. 10 seconds. and t h e n she moved off.

took me 30 sec to withdraw my money. and i had to suffer.. 3? 5? minutes of psychosis???

what's 3-5 minutes? well, it was 3-5 minutes of melting in the f- humidity while suffering from the inconsiderate actions of a troubled person (she was talking to herself. or maybe to the machine) with no manners.

need to leave before there's no more sun. i need some vitamin d.

2005-11-28T17:11:00.000+08:00

caught rent the other day.

rent's about a group of friends surviving in the big apple. just in case you didn't know. actually that was all i knew about the musical before i caught it too.

despite that i knew it's about a bunch of people living in ny beforehand, in the first half of the musical, i was rather thrown off the path coz the plot was just not that obvious to me. (yah lah. i'm pathetic, i need a real solid plot to scream in my face P-L-O-T before i get it. whatever k) the introduction of the various characters proved a little too complex for lil' o me.

plus i couldn't catch the lyrics.

"you can't?" my brother asked when we were talking about the musical

"can you when you're listening to songs?" i asked

"er. no."

"then?"

i think if i knew the songs before i watched the musical it might have helped clear things up a little. for example, i didn't know their apartments got padlocked till JQ informed me so during the interval. supposedly joanne sang that right before the interval.

think i must have shocked the people sitting next to us with my pathetic level of comprehension.

yes, i'm t h a t dumb.

but by the second half, i was more settled in. i was more comfortable with that the musical is about this bunch of people living in the Village. erm. if i didn't remember wrongly that Alphabet City's i n the Village. and i started to enjoy the musical more.

i have less problems watching movies with "unobvious" plots coz usually they come with subtitles. i am such a total failure without subtitles. that's also why i like taiwanese serials more than hong kong serials - coz taiwanese serials come with subtitles.

plus, i actually recognized a song in the second half.

coz i haven't really watched a lot of musicals (this was my.. second musical if i'm not wrong) i can't really tell if it's good. despite that i thought the plot was not.. erm.. obvious, i did enjoy it.

the reason why rent is described as being about the life of a bunch of people living in new york is coz it's

about a group of people living in alphabet city
about how they struggle to live in their apartments
about how they meet love, lose it and how they live with it
all in the span of one year.

i liked the anger, the despondence the characters felt. i enjoyed the glimpse into the characters' lives.

it was finding a small river on a hot sunny day and deciding to dip my feet in despite that i was running late.

shocked by the coldness of the water when i first dip my feet in, but later enjoying the relief from the heat the water skittling past my overheated skin brought, running my feet over the smooth pebbles a little absent-mindedly, greedily taking in the coolness of the pebbles that came from the running water. watching rent was something like that.

sorry i can't say it clearer.

overheard in sg

2005-11-28T10:35:00.000+08:00

woman #1: "that's the world trade center." (referring to a photo of the world trade center, new york by yann arthus-bertrand)
woman #2: "is it still there?"

go see it!

2005-11-26T16:17:00.000+08:00

almost forgot to post about this. there was this really cool art.. erm.. gig? thing? in nyc. has ended. but still it's really cool!! yip.

coz new york times charge for accessing their archived articles, i really hope you catch it before it gets archived. but i still prefer nyt to st. for one, i can read quite a number of articles for free on the net just by being a member (which doesn't require payment). try doing that with st. @#!$ it's not like i don't want to support the local papers, but when they're so money grubbing..

anyway, here's an excerpt from the article, which hopefully you can still access in entirety from here. but if it's archived by when you want to read it, you can ahem contact me ahem for the article.

and in case you have problems visualising how exciting the entire thing is, you can see the photos from here.

read on!

* * * * *

Sometimes - never often enough - there's magic in new art. You'll find a sweet, rude shot of it, at least until 10 tonight, at Leo Koenig in Chelsea, where the Vienna-based collective Gelitin is in residence. Over the past week, the group has turned the gallery into a sociable, raunchy, pixilated all-night version of Santa's workshop, pumping out free art on demand, and turning the image of a money-choked, object-clogged New York art world on its head.

Gelitin itself has remained all the while invisible. What you'll see while visiting Koenig, at 545 West 23rd Street, is a sealed, space-hogging wooden box, the size of a small house or a pre-1970's mainframe computer. It has two extensions; one like a cabinet, the other like a top-loading chest. You are invited to place an object, any object, into the chestlike extension. Close the hatch. A yellow light goes on. You hear a sliding sound and a clunk. Your item has temporarily disappeared into the big box, just as dozens of others have, including wallets, photographs, specially made items (artists have brought their own work) and, memorably, a 2-year-old child. (The daughter of another Koenig artist, Erik Parker, spent a few hours in the box, emerging delighted but respectfully mum about her experiences - the Gelitin team had sworn her to secrecy.)

Take a seat. Eventually - the wait can be from a few minutes to more than an hour - a light on the other extension goes on. Open the door, and you'll find your object joined by a brand-new, handmade "duplicate," or at least something that more or less resembles the original. Both items will elicit admiring responses from the other people waiting their turn. And there always are people; the show has generated an avid community of shared interest. When the ooh's and aah's have subsided, you can take your new art home.

from the article "Insert Object, and Out Comes an Artful Replica" by Holland Cotter, new york times, 23 nov 2005

* * * * *

anyway, the other article i'd wanted to blog about was actually this. to think i was just wondering what goes on in one's mind as one is sitting on a bus.

and this one is for the ipod owners out there.

this one will show you how design does matter in everyday life.

this one will bring you links to click on to watch the ads. it makes me wonder if i'm really as open and tolerant as i wish i am.

did you know now bubbles can come colored? whee..!

this is a review of a book by maureen dowd, who wrote this. the article by dowd has been archived and can only be accessed if you wanna pay for it. by there's a short excerpt here.

and here they demystify erm.. those.. erm.. 杂技 acts? to think it's all physics..

i'm wearing a mask

2005-11-25T16:49:00.000+08:00

i feel tightness in the chest. wtf

maybe i'm really less fit than i imagine (is that possible?? i already think i'm. a glob)

and now i'm coughing? wtf

could it be the construction work downstairs? damnit lah. i feel like shit. lungs quite damn tired from expelling all that air can. f-

* * * * *

and so now i'm in my room with the windows nearly entirely closed. wearing a mask (courtesy of jq - who was trying to get rid of the heavenknowshow many masks she has). in the pathetic attempt to overcome the above feelings.

* * * * *

oc mix 5's.. weird. shall reserve further comments till i've given the cd a couple more spins.

2005-11-23T16:23:00.000+08:00

got this from mandrake, who got it from snowystars.

* * * * *

This was written by Andy Rooney from CBS 60 Minutes. Andy Rooney says:

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 30 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over 30 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over 30 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 30 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over 30 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be appreciated.

A woman over 30 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over 30 couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 30. They always know.

A woman over 30 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 30 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 30 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 30+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologise. For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free”. Here’s an update for you.Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realized it’s not worth buying an entire PIG, just to get a little sausage.

* * * * *

but is that what the majority think?

when i was watching the madonna music mtv (live8 concert version) it occurred to me again (yes, it has happened before) why most women fear aging. madonna may be toned and fit, but argh, her skin still sags! and i really get why women get so freaked out about age.

but then again, i also realise there's only t h a t much one can do to fight age, and being a slacker that i am, i'l prob surrender rather easily (like the way i surrender to the mess in my life)

i don't really know a lot of females who are 30+, but is that what it's like? will i really be more self-assured, more confident? it's just that sometimes, i look at the people i'm surrounded by, and i get rather freaked out coz i don't want to be them.

but i don't really know what i want to be either. i hate it when people ask me about my five-year plan. f-. since when is that an essential. i don't know what i want. and i know that i should know. it doesn't help if you ask me about it. argh. bad patch.

je suis aloysius snuffleupagus!

2005-11-23T16:00:00.000+08:00

jq took it. decided it's a good alternative way to entertain myself while i kill more brain cells with drudgery at (part-time) work and according to the sesame street persona test, i'm

snuffleupagus

i'd scored 41% organization, 46% abstract, and 45% extroverted

i am somewhat organized, both concrete and abstract, and both introverted and extroverted. *wtf.. seriously to be so.. on the fence is.. hmmm.

the test measures 3 variables.

First, it measures how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. *i always thought i'm kinda anal (about things being clean and tidy), but then again when i see the mess i'm facing, i usually just surrender without a fight. even though i find cleaning, clearing, tidying therapeutic, the sloth in me is quite contented to live in a mess than to tackle it.

Second, it measures if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type.

Third, this test measures if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert is somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. *eeeh.. thinking more about herself.. isn't that selfish? or egocentric? first time i see someone use introverted to describe thinking about oneself.

ok, a more indepth analysis of my results..

"You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren't totally obsessed with neatness though. Aloysius Snuffleupagus (and all Snuffleupagus') is not sloppy by nature, but he moves so incredibly slowly that it is impossible for him to be totally organized."

*omg, snuffy has a first name? snuffy has a last name?? snuffy is really aloysius snuffleupagus??? aloysius????

"You both are about equally concrete and abstract thinkers. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren't afraid to explore your dreams and desires... within limits of course. Snuffy generally has very basic interests, but he explores his abstract sensitive side when he plays his snuffleflute."

*snuffleflute??

"You both are somewhat introverted. Originally Snuffleupagus was very shy and was only Big Bird's invisible friend. However as he has aged he has started to build new friendships with new characters. Like Snuffy, you probably like to have some time to yourself. However, you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations."

*invisible friend? i am snuffy?

i'm still totally freaked out by social situations whereby there are people i don't know. so that bit is shit. but i do appreciate time with my friends. if only they've the time for me. and if only i've more money to hang out with them.

it's just a test for fun, but i think i've learnt more sesame street trivia than learning about myself.

good day

2005-11-21T21:27:00.000+08:00

i consider this a good day despite that i had to part time. despite that i developed a headache in the later part of the day, and am still suffering from it. despite that my bag felt ridiculously heavy. despite lugging around groceries in the library and not really finding books to borrow. (wanted to borrow at least four books so as to take part in some luckydrawcontest - prize: mirrormask gala tickets)

coz it's a cool day. the temperature was just perfect. according to forecastfox it's 25degC now. the dj on radio said the temperature for today ranges from 24degC to 28degC. if sg's temp hovers at 25 a l l the time, i would seriously like sg a lot more.

it's just dumb to have long hair but have to keep it in a ponytail almost all the time coz it's too freaking hot to let down one's hair.

f-. headache. it's time for food therapy.

2005-11-17T21:39:00.000+08:00

in case anyone's been following, i haven't been blogging for a couple of days. kinda rare for me since some times i can blog multiple entries in a day. long story short - i'm being plagued by a f- eruption.

yup. your eyes are fine. i'm suffering from a f- eruption. (here comes the long story)

over 12 moons (and a couple more) ago, i busted some good money to extract an overly eager wisdom tooth.

said wisdom tooth's counterpart, being a 方向白痴 like your truly, couldn't tell up from side, north from east. thus managed to get itself jammedimpacted such that it refused to emerge out of the gums.

overly eager wisdom tooth tried to free its directionless mate. alas! its effort only managed to cause much pain for me as its effort only managed to leave a f- toothprint on me gums, while directionless mate continued to pushgrow (in vain) at me molar.

and after more than 12 moons, directionless wisdom tooth finally manages to emerge from the labyrinth of gum tissue. but alas, its soulmate is somewhere in my room (rather than happily in my mouth)

worse! it's still somewhat off in its sense of direction.

after suffering more than three days of irritation, i've concluded that i'm not suffering from teething pain. directionless wisdom tooth is somehow erupting off the X.

@#!@%^&@#!$%

guminnercheek tissue are sore. teethbrushing is seldom so precarious an action.
i can feel a f- ache when i move my jaw.
as guminnercheek tissue semiclings to directionless wisdom tooth, i've taken the precaution of chewing on unaffected side of my mouth. coz i fear rotting bits of food in my mouth. and damnit. the tongue gets very easily bored by whatever i eat
i try to avoid talking coz for some reason, moving my jaw gives me the delusion that i might somehow bite the sore guminnercheek area. great. i'm delusional.

think a visit to the dentist is inevitable. f-. this will definitely cost a hell lot. argh. f-.

* * * * *

the wisdom tooth thing has been causing me a suitable amount of grief and strife. also been providing me with a really lame excuse not to be working on me portfolio. f-.

i also blame it for my rather nasty mood. evilbitchynasty thoughts have been the bulk of my thoughts for the past few days. been cursing to myself quite a bit too. guess that's why i haven't been blogging. no point in spreading my whatever.

but it didn't stop me from reading voraciously. managed to read quite a few blogs while part-timing. finished neuromancer, rule of four, quite a few comics.

this kinda made my day today. sigh. i'm not the only person going though a tohellwithallofyou phase.

my verdict is out

2005-11-11T15:26:00.000+08:00

surprisingly it's edible.

it's kinda a little too moistmushy - probably coz i'd added a little too much creamed corn than called for. might decide to throw the first batch back in the oven to dry them out a little

the use of creamed corn really gave it a very corny feel. - felt like i'm eating those.. steamed corn thing. not bad if you like steamed corn.

cornmeal gives the muffin a very.. wholemealhearty feel - my jaws are a little sore from the chewing. i don't think non-fans of wholemeal bread will like it. but i guess that's why i like cornmeal muffins. i love stuff with grainy bits like wholemeal bread. and my cornmeal muffins.

maybe a little more sugar might be good. - but it's really quite ok now.

on the whole, not bad lah. considering how i kept forgetting to add this and that in. at least it's not greasy like the raisin muffin i had.

2005-11-11T14:50:00.000+08:00

i'm a horrible cookbakerwhatever

just attempted to make corn muffins.

first ominous sign - coz of my inability to decide which recipe i want to follow, i decided to adopt whichever parts of the two recipes (i have) i feel like.

second ominous sign - i don't have vanilla. and since only one of the recipe called for vanilla.. extract? too bad lah.

third ominous sign - forgot to mix the butter in before i pour the dry stuff in.

fourth ominous sign - forgot to put in the baking powder, baking soda, salt (and butter) before adding 2 cups of flour + cornmeal to 1 can of creamed corn.

2 cups of flour + cornmeal to 1 can of creamed corn is super hard to mix. have a sneaky feeling the baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter (i added a f t e r i added the freaking flour + cornmeal) won't be very evenly distributed. hmmm.

fifth ominous sign - i forgot to add sugar till the last minute. hence another struggle with the already super resistant batter. and to think one of the recipes warned against overmixing. well, it's either overmixing or notsweetoverlysweet muffins.

yipes

first batch is out. keep your fingers crossed.

* * * * *

chey. not cooked yet. but both recipes said 350degF for 20 min what. [sulk]

click away!

2005-11-11T01:44:00.000+08:00

rather interesting read. especially so for someone so f-- plagued by sleeping problems.
decided to read this coz of the title of the article. found it rather queer for it to be under the category of "home & garden". not that i would know where else it might fit better in. thought it's sweet how love can transcend taste. some times i criticise my friends' taste, but lately, maybe it's coz i don't see them as often as i would love to, i tend overlook such things more. but still it pains me to see.. bad taste. i can't help it! i like pretty things!
i know this is under my mustclicks. in fact it's the only thing there now. but this particular one has some entries that just do more than make me laugh

like the one about the streets with names. think it might be unique to manhattan. i heart manhattan.

today on my way home, i spotted someone that i guess kinda qualifies as a celebrity.

the said "celebrity" is violet oon. i'm guessing she stays at B- V- or is that estate called B- H-? this is pure speculation from where she alighted from the bus.

it's like celebrity sighting in sg - violet oon
while celebrity sighting in manhattan - eddie cahill + melina kanakaredes

yes, i'm that shallow. i'll rather live in manhattan than sg coz i can see famous good-looking people.

there're more reasons, but let's save that for another time.

then the other wednesday one liner i like is

Chick: I make it a point never to run to public transportation. It's a rule that I live by.

this is something i try to live by too. serious. but key word is t r y. just dashed for my bus on my way home. c'mon, it was so badly stuck in the jam i overtook it twice or thrice on foot? but still had to dash to get on to it.

i would say i run to public transportation less than half the time. it's just so.. ungainly. besides, the bus gods like to screw with me. it's more than once when i dashed only to find out there a faster bus behind the one i got on.

public transportation. love it, hate it, live with it.

click away!

2005-11-08T16:37:00.000+08:00

reached here from here.

sometimes, it doesn't stop

2005-11-08T14:46:00.000+08:00

knn

sunday night/mon morn managed to sleep four hours or less before i had to part-time.

mon night/tue morning managed to sleep three hours or less before i've to part-time.

wonder what's going to happen tonight/tomorrow morning.

no wonder i'm cursing so much. @#$@!

but let me wax lyrical about alcohol. in case you didn't know, i talk to myself all the time. maybe i exaggerate, but at least 1/3 of my waking time.

sometimes, there's w?A talking to w?B. sometimes, they talk as if i'm a machine that they're running.

but most of the time, it's just like a running commentary of everythinganything that's happeningabouttohappennothappeningwhatever.

and there are nights when the running commentary just won't stop. like the last mon night. and last night.

a gulp of absolut vanilla neat at four plus am burnt. @#$! seriously i burnt from mouth to oesophagus to stomach. but it did manage to ruin the running commentary. it slowly ran out of juice and i finally managed to lose consciousness at five plus? i remembered tossing and turning for quite a while after looking at my alarm clock at five am - all the while thinking hey.. the running commentary ain't so rabid now! har! take that!

suffering here now. body needs to sleep. mind wants to adjust to normal sg time. i must stay awake. tmd.

2005-11-08T14:17:00.000+08:00

"... Now I crave what I didn't have. I crave that definitive strategy created by pushy parents, by ambitious teachers. I wish someone had sent me to law school so I could be pouring over intensely boring corporate cases deep into the night, surviving on Red Bull and chocolate melted from the neon glow of a striplight in a windowless office. I wish I'd taken upthat PhD so I could be sitting in my Cambridge college droning to my spotty, upper class students about the literature of Postcolonial India, exuding the academic stench of sherry and pomposity. I wish I'd met the love of my life at 25, so 26 never happened the way it did. I wish something, someone, would hand me the strategy in neatly typed, large print, step-by-step instructions, Spanish on one side, English on the other. I gravitate to the successful, those in my age group who have two-bedroom apartments with wooden floors, flat screen TV's, bare brick walls, partners who look like they just stepped out of J Crew, clean, safe, nice. It makes me feel comfortable, even as I stutter, embarassed, over the words in conversation which mark me out like a Cain as unworthy of their upwardly mobile existences. "No, nothing so far. Sold a few big articles, but not yet writing with JJ Abrams. Still dancing to scrape by."

I wish I'd planned a little better, strategized a little more, said no to those last three glasses of wine. I wake in the morning and the alcohol and pneumatic drill outside my window drag me to the depths of self-pitying despair. I order the Bouncer outside to bring me orange juice and bagels, and he looks at me. ..."

got this from here. and the blog entry just blew me away.

some things i came to realise after wantonly using up the earth's resources for.. 24 years and nearly ten months (yes, i have to think before i remember how old i am), i realised that i didn't have pushy parents (like mimi).

but i've yet to come to a decision if that's good or bad. but i do know that

i wish i had the courage, the strength and the wisdom to take a year break before entering U.
i wish i had pushed myself more when i was in U.
i wish i had pushed myself more when i was in sec school and jc.
i wish i had the desire to attend U in a place other than sg.
i wish i had the determination to strike out a path on my own rather than to have compromised and done aki in nus.
i wish i had just gone ahead and gotten an interior design diploma instead.
i wish i knew what i want. not that that's any really a whole lot clearer now.
i wish to have met that someone.
i wish to have done the past a whole lot differently.

and maybe, like mimi, "i wish i'd planned a little better, strategized a little more".

2005-11-07T21:56:00.000+08:00

bloody hell.

spent one entire hour trying to conjure up orange flavored popcorn. o n e h o u r. s i x t y m i n u t e s. knn.

the one hour is inclusive of two attempts to conjure up said popcorn. it also includes time i spent scrubbing the @#$%@! pot in order to attempt a second time. (badly burnt the first batch) knn.

to think all i wanted was a fuss-free dinner. fuss-free my foot. @#$%!#

* * * * *

and then C unloaded his unwanted comics on me.

knn. this is the thanks i get for lending him comics. and now i have to lug his unwanted comics to salvation army. luckily he always offers to help me buy dfs booze. @$%!

* * * * *

and i just discovered the cool del.icio.us!

tres useful. especially when one uses desktops at various spots (eg home n outside home. yah lah. i dun have laptop. 我是穷人 happy?)

and what more, now i get what tags are! sheesh, to think i never understood tags even though i use flickr every now and then. my conclusion: del.icio.us does a better job at giving instructionshelpwhatever.

even better, i just realised the purpose of the bookmarks toolbar folder in firefox.

yes. i'm t h a t dumb.

click them!

2005-11-07T17:20:00.000+08:00

1. there i was, happily indulging in puzzle pirates, and there they were, doing this.

2. they only wanted a little chicken..

is that your butt??

2005-11-07T14:29:00.000+08:00

imagine receiving an email with the above in the subject line. notice the double question marks.

apparently HX sent photos of his apartment in michigan back home to his family. his family members (including, horror of horrors, his extended family) noticed a butt that is "distinctly female" in one of the photos.

JQ (HX's sis) thought hey, that looks like w?'s butt (instead of the very general thought it's a female butt). and thus she sent me the photo to find out for sure.

it was with much trepidation as i clicked on the icon of the jpg.

my butt? i don't remember mooning. e v e r. seriously i'm a really boring person with absolutely no life. somemore, i haven't been drunk in public for a long while liao mah. where got so suay kena caught in malu photo?

what photo did the guys take that is causing such hoo-ha? h o w did the photo framed my butt to cause such a commotion?

is my butt t h a t big??

never thought i would be traumatized by those four words and two punctuations.

and then, the moment of revelation.

tmd. it was like a view of my back from mid torso to mid calf lor. i wasn't even in the foreground for heaven's sake. i was in the background lor.

biang.

true, HX and all his flatmates are all guys, but is it that surprising to find a female presence in the photos? surely they'll have female friends popping over?

stupid JQ. scared me for n o t h i n g. succinct, my foot. (her excuse for the subject title)

and for the record, my butt looked normally sized in the photo. heng sia. quoting from JQ, it's distinctly female coz it's "round".

hmmm. is that good?

the conclusion JQ n i came to was that the photo just needs captions (really badly).

if not for the fact that i was present when the photo was taken, i wouldn't know what the photographer was trying to say with the shot.

if not for the "short and succinct" subject line, i would have just gone "huh? erm. what's the point here?" instead of zooming into the figure in the b a c k g r o u n d that took up.. 1/8 of the entire photo?

if not for the fact that HX's family members didn't realise the focus of the photo was the wok that took up 2/3 of the foreground, they prob wouldn't have paid a n y attention to yours truly in the background.

lousy photo lah. and my butt is not obscenely offensive. har :p

musings on a muffin

2005-11-06T20:51:00.000+08:00

had a sweet secrets raisin muffin. it was

a little too greasy for me
not sweet enough - i couldn't really detect sweetness in the muffin. but there was plenty of sweetness from the raisins. luckily there were plentiful raisins so it kind of balances things out.
had lovely moist raisins - yum
a little crumbly - in comparison to the one they sell at the hawker store at my place which sees a stupendously long queue a l l the time. will try to review it one day.

weird how i am crit-ing the poor muffin.

but it's way better than the muffins one gets from using the jiffy muffin mix. they usually end up too dry. wonder how my corn muffins will turn up. looking forward to churning them out this coming weekend..

my life story. almost

2005-11-05T17:25:00.000+08:00

click

amuse thee

2005-11-04T15:14:00.000+08:00

something amusing click

something else that's rather amusing click

bilingual

2005-11-03T20:39:00.000+08:00

someone once told me that he envied that i'm bilingual. and i thought "so?" coz quite a huge proportion of the population in sg is bilingual. (ok, we have to note that there are those who aren't. like the more elderly portion of the population. and those who have really.. argh!. sticky corner.) ok. a lot of people i know (which isn't a lot really) are bilingual. so it's not a big deal to me.

but this article showed things a little differently.

i've always had a slight preference for chinese over english. coz it's the language i grew up with. reading traditional chinese comes naturally to me despite being educated in a simplified chinese system.

over the years, i've kinda lost touch with the language coz i use english more. i watch more english tv shows. and that is why i stubbornly refuse to give up chinese pop.

there're just some things that one can convey through chinese that one can't with english. like the noun, 背影. i've struggled forever to find a suitable synonym in english. let's say the sentence goes something like "就这样, 默默地望着他渐行渐远的背影" (ok, technically that sentence sounds a little awkward too)

maybe it's coz i'm not super fluent with english but how to i translate that?

"and so, silently i watched him disappear from my sight?"

where's the pain, the longing (which i would subtly hint from the rest of the text if i've actually bothered to think about them) that the line in chinese would have reiterated in the english translation? where's the poetry? the imagery? (ok. don't know what i'm talking about now. i didn't do literature.)

maybe i'm just not as bilingual as i wish i am.

thunder and lightning

2005-11-02T11:25:00.000+08:00

thunder vs lightning

which scares you more?

as i was driving my brother to camp last night, i found out i'm scared of lightning. especially lightning that lights up half the sky.

for me, it forebodes seriously heavy downpour. some thing i'd just experienced last week while in my cousin's car. every swipe of the wipers rendered the windscreen visible for.. 1second? and wipers should only wipe at a rate that's not too fast so that the wiping action will not be the thing that's obstructing visibility. at least, imo. so effectively, one can only make out what's beyond the windscreen in 1-2seconds intervals. scary

yes, i'm scared of driving in crazy storms.

plus, lightning is more dangerous than thunder, no? lightning is a bolt of electricity that can kill if it happens to make contact with you while you're.. erm.. grounded? (my physics sucks) and thunder is just.. vibration of sound molecules?

that's why i don't get why my cousin, Y, my friends YX and K are scared of thunder. it's just noise, isn't it?

the last time i met up with YX and K, we were picnicing at a seaside park. at night. what to do, they actually work. when we decided to leave, it had started to rain, and thunder was rolling at a rather frequent interval. thunder managed to freak K so much that

she ran away from the umbrella YX was holding.
she started running zig-zagingly to the carpark (which could be reached in a straight line movement)
she forgot which side the car was parked.
she couldn't remember what YX's car looked like.
she started screaming "is this your car" at 3? 4? cars before finally hitting the jackpot.

it's how i imagine a headless cockroach would behave. seriously, it's just noise isn't it?

(but K was really petrified. it's kinda mean to describe her action like that of a headless cockroach. but YX agreed. amazing what fear can make a person do)

drool drool..

2005-10-31T21:06:00.000+08:00

eep! so chioh! but.. ex also. but coz ex, got free shipping!

argh. but why don' they have it in charcoal/pink when they show it in the blownup below???

2005-10-31T16:22:00.000+08:00

evil humor

bitch on the loose

2005-10-28T15:31:00.000+08:00

dear lady boss

i'm sorry if you're too dumb to figure out how to change the ink cartridge even when instructions are printed on the cartridge's packaging.

i'm sorry if you don't realise that by putting off the required change of the ink cartridge would cause the printer to flash a warning window on m y computer screen at every half minute interval.

i'm sorry if you're blind and didn't see me changing the ink cartridge just so i can get on with my work.

i'm sorry that i didn't inform you that i'd already changed the ink cartridge coz you didn't think that was important or simple enough to attend to. I really didn't think it was worth shouting to the world about.

i'm sorry if you can't tell if your printouts came out correctly. Seriously, do you actually think a bluish picture on your monitor would be printed out pinkish?

yours most sincerely
w?

btw, the bitch referred to in the title is yours truly not the lady boss.

2005-10-28T11:48:00.000+08:00

ever have such a horrible day that you wish the day didn't exist?

i find myself so filled with bitchy thoughts that even i can't stand myself.

f- pms.

entertainment

2005-10-26T20:53:00.000+08:00

link 1

and to think i always thought my face is quite elastic.

and this was the one that started it all. click on the link that says "watch this movie!"

2005-10-23T20:05:00.000+08:00

made these the other night. was a pretty quick thing since i used a mix. just needed to add an egg and some soya bean milk (coz i don't have milk at home). but they're a little dry. think i shall try to make them from scratch next time.

corn muffins

meanwhile, guess i should post this link up. it's a new side project of mine.

* * * * *

yesterday my brother surprised me when he revealed that he knew abt overheard in new york from my blog.

w?: i thought you "don't read blogs"

brother: think i was bored

he was sufficiently bored to read my blog? won't that bore him further? hmmm. kinda disturbing. have i been rambling on weird things? hmmm.