Raedarling

On a final note...

2011-09-23T10:24:00.000+08:00

Have you ever been in a relationship that initially was happy but then as the years went by, you found someone else better, the communication got less and less, you stopped telling each other things, you took each other for granted, and no matter how hard you tried to save that relationship you knew that eventually it wouldn't last (despite the lies you constantly tell yourself) and that it would probably be better if you ended the suffering sooner?

It's been a long way.

This blog was founded in 2007, and since then, we've been through a whole lot together. The time when I went into college, the time when my heart was painfully broken into a million pieces, the time I almost failed my A-Levels, the time when I had my first job, the time when I first entered university, the time when I found the love of my life, the time when I first got my internship. My happiness and sorrows, my achievements and failures, my happiest and most depressing moments of my life... All were shared, and it was like my life's journey was etched here, a mark that could stay forever.

I don't know what changed; but I guess sometimes as we grow, our perspective and judgement change with us as we continue to better ourselves by readjusting our goals, ambitions and life's important stuff. As hard as it seems, sometimes, we've got to move on and let go of the past.

Trust me when I say letting go of this blog is one of the most painful and difficult things that I have done in my life. It has been my confidant, friend, and companion for 4 years now, and I thought it would be so much more.

It pains me that our relationship should end here, when I think of my life's journey ahead of me: My graduation day, my first job, my wedding day, my first job promotion, my first car...

My pet's death, my injuries, my sicknesses, my mourning heart, my painful loss of a loved one...

I have always shared everything with my blog but from now onwards, I won't, and that pains me.

Will I ever come back here?

Maybe.

Even though a breakup can be painful at first, but then something magical happens. Time happens and before you know it, you've become your own future and you'll become friends again, maybe catch up with each other on updates in my life...

Who knows? I might drop by for a short visit once in a while. Maybe someday when I graduate, get my dream job, get married, get promoted, or even get a car... Through my happiness I may reminisce of the past and I may come back just for a quick update.

As for now, it's goodbye.

I guess all I can satpy is, it was fun while it lasted, but in the end it becaome more and more of a burdensome responsibility to me rather than being a fun activity.

Though our relationship was short lived, I can proudly say that it was a happy and memorable one which I will remember always.

Raedarlingz, you will not be forgotten.

xoxo

Removal of my braids

2011-09-16T14:45:00.001+08:00

I'm not offended by all the dumb-blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde.

~Dolly Parton

Remember how I did my braids last summer while I was in the States?

You didn't get to see them being made, so at least I'll show you how they're being removed.

It was a painful process. Not only physically painful, but mentally torturing as well, especially when clumps of hair dropped of my own head.

If you're a fellow female, I'm sure you understand that kind of pain.

If the video doesn't load, click here to watch directly from Youtube.

The name's Rachel.

2011-09-15T23:42:00.001+08:00

"A rose by any other name would sound as sweet."

-William Shakespeare-

It's the 6th academic week already (and recess week is coming real soon omg).

=(

I have not started studying yet!!!

Plus, my FYP progress is zilch.

I try to stay in my room to study, but I somehow always end up doing something else.

Nevermind.

I don't think readers come here to read about my rants anyway.

Hey, I know! Would you like to hear about the stupid ang moh lady who pissed me off a few months ago? Yeah?? That'd seem like something people are generally interested in, right? Listening to the plights of others...

So it was back in May when I went to the US to work and travel (and I'm not even done uploading pictures of them yet. I'm such a procrastinator). Upon arrival, I went to check in to the employees hostel. The HR behind the counter asked us for details like travel documents, passports, stuff like that.

After all that hassle shit, she turned at me and said "What's your name?"

I said "Rachel."

"No, I want your legal name."

"Yeah, it's Rachel."

"No, I don't want any nicknames. I mean, I want your legal name as it is in your passport."

"Yeah, Rachel is in my passport."

"Let me see your passport."

So she takes my passport, reads my name, and keys it into her computer (presumably the employee list).

You could tell from that conversation she was pretty stupid.

Why can't an Asian have a first name as Rachel?? Considering the fact that you're in HR and that's an employees housing quarter where international students come in and out each season, I'm sure you have worked with Asians long enough to know that SOME OF US HAVE FIRST NAMES IN ENGLISH, BIATCH.

So anyway, a few days later was our orientation day and guess who was there to conduct it? Yes, teh biatch.

To make things worse, she had a horrible Southern accent which made listening to her a pain to my ears.

Later, she called our names one by one for the printing of our employee card.

You guessed it. She called me by my chinese name, "Jia Ru" because that's what she apparently had on her employee list. So that probably mean that on the first day when I showed her my passport, she MISSED the "Rachel" on purpose, right? RIGHT???

What, now, just because I'm Asian I can't have an English name? "Jia Ru" is more of a middle name to me, so how would YOU like it if I started calling you by your middle name instead?

Ignoring my name on purpose after seeing it VERY OBVIOUSLY PRINTED on my passport (i.e. A VERY LEGAL DOCUMENT) is just plain effin' disrespectful, that's what I'd say.

In the end, my employee card read "Jia Ru Liew".

When it came to name tag printing, I requested it to be printed as "Rachel", when she conveniently announced: "You may use your nick names on your name tags, but not on official documents, okay?"

Yeah, yeah, just shut the F*** up.

For the next 6 weeks of work, whenever some ang mohs saw my name tag, they'd go "Is 'Rachel' your real name?", and I'd have to explain the situation to them.

Liew out.

Zzzz...

2011-09-05T21:45:00.000+08:00

This is what my boyfriend does when I'm taking a nap.

I can't think straight.

2011-09-02T05:11:00.000+08:00

Warning: Do not read if you get easily offended by lame stuff.

I can't think straight.

It's 5 a.m. and I'm still wide awake doing god-knows-what.

Was trying to complete my songs-to-download list (which has been growing longer and longer since 4 months ago), now that I FINALLY have my computer with me, I thought, what the heck, I'll just go and download every single song listed on the "to-download" list.

(I know my grammar probably sucks like shit in this blog entry but please pardon me I ain't thinking straight now; too sleepy you see)

Why did I say "FINALLY" when I said that I had my computer with me?

Been living out of a luggage bag for 4 months now (traveled to the states in May, been living with the same luggage bag since then till now), first time in a very long time that I have a decent place to stay.

For the past 4 weeks, have been homeless; sleeping on the floor, keeping all my worldly possessions only in a luggage bag, studying on the floor, surfing the net using my phone as a wifi router rather than a LAN cable, and using a 9.7 inch screen iPad to surf the net rather than a decent computer, not having even a simple study table or chair for myself.

Pitiful me. You see how NTU treats it's students.

Anyways, after FOUR WEEKS OF TORTURE, NTU finally decides to give me a room *YAY* so you could imagine how happy I was; not that I'm not happy now, I know I'm probably not showing much emotions here cos I'm just too sleepy but trust me, I AM happy.

So this morning I checked my mail and I GOT A ROOM!!! I DON'T HAVE TO BE HOMELESS ANYMORE!!! So I quickly checked in and here I am, in my huge ass room, with my huge ass computer desktop and a bed all to myself. Oh, and air conditioning too.

So now that I've FINALLY managed to download every single song on my "to-download" list (which took me like what - 4 hours?) I guess it's best that I go to bed now considering that its 5 in the morning and I still have lessons tomorrow.

Yes, yes I know this entry is probably gibberish nonsense to you cos I don't even remember what I typed in the first paragraph 5 minutes ago - thats how sleepy I am - so well, I guess I'm not making much sense here.

Reason I'm typing this?

Out of guilt.

I know I've abandoned this blog for some weeks now, but you can't blame me, right? I didn't even have a decent device for long term internet surfing (or whatever you call it, you know an iPad can't replace a good old computer) so as much as I wanted to blog, I couldn't, and now that I have a room, I can so here I am.

Also to kill some time cos I'm waiting for the photo uploads to complete, and then I can shut down my damn computer and finally go to bed.

I guess they're probably done by now lemme go check.

*

Damn it's not done, 2 more minutes left so that leaves me a couple more minutes to type whatever shit I want here till its done.

Speaking of uploading photos, I'm actually uploading photos of my recent visit to the Niagara Falls, and no, I have not forgotten all about it. I know I promised that I would blog about it and I will, just give me some time to sort things out.

Things are getting hectic here, what with Lomolicious (yes that's still going on so who wants a camera, I'll give you a discount if i can) and FYP and tutorials and projects and stuff.

I don't know, life of a Final year student can be fun but...

Okay I know this entry is probably fucked up and you're probably thinking "what the fuck is she saying right now?" its like I'm trying to be witty but I'm not and instead the attempts backfire and I sound lame.

Yeah, yeah, I know whatev.

Sleep.

it's been a while...

2011-08-13T15:30:00.007+08:00

“The Elements on iPad is not a game, not an app, not a TV show. It’s a book. But it’s Harry Potter’s book. This is the version you check out from the Hogwarts library. Everything in it is alive in some way.”

-Theo Grey-

So this is my first time blogging on my iPad.

Yay! *cue fireworks explosions*

I know it's been a loooong time since I've updated, but trust me, I've been trying.

Recently, its like I've got zero inspiration.

Nil. Nada. Zilch.

You know how some people can just spew out words and their fingers dance across the keyboard like nobody's business?

That was me.

Not now, though.

I've been cracking my head thinking of what interesting topics to blog about next (other than merely updating about my current life dramas and such - life in the States, the recent summer break, shopping sprees - it makes me feel shallow, thinking that this is all I'm capable of) but it seems like the older I get, the less my brain thinks.

I definitely hope I won't turn into one of those shallow people who only upload photos of their current lives (clubbing, eating good food, shopping, whatnots), throw in some half-assed captions and calling it a day.

Like, hello? Don't you have anything else to speak about, other than the superficial stuff?

But oh well, who am I to speak, when I myself am becoming one of them?

*cue weird emoticon with the colon followed by the forward slash, suggesting indifference*

I know I'm not done updating the stuff I promised I would like the photos from my previous adventure to the States, my experiences there (and did I mention I would update on my birthday celebration as well?) and so on and so forth.

But those can wait. (Also for the fact that I've not gotten a room - thanks to NTU's dumbass point system - hence I don't have access to my computer yet - hence the blogging on an iPad - and I can't upload my photos online yet. So well, here's to blogging with no pics.)

I'm not gonna half-ass this anymore, not this time round.

I'm gonna put some deep thought into this and come up with a darn good blog entry, and if it's gonna fry a little more than usual of the amount of brain cells I lose each day, then so be it, dammit.

***

So recently, as you know, I just got myself an iPad 2 - duh - and I've been contemplating about jail breaking it, but after the experience I had with my iPod Touch (I still refuse to call it the iTouch cos the iPod Touch sounds so much better *pouts*) where I got too carried away by the freedom jail breaking gave me, modified it a little too much, and fried the entire thing up.

I ended up reformatting the entire device, and then decided that it'd be best for me to just play safe and not venture out into the unrestricted world outside the iOS play pen.

Of course, that would mean that I would need to spend more money purchasing apps, but I didn't think that would be such a big deal, since most of the apps aren't *that* expensive (save for a few, such as Plants VS Zombies, Final Fantasy III, Order & Chaos, etc) and that it would be worth the money since the iPad 2 is probably gonna be around for a longer while than the usual relationships I have with my other electronics.

FYI, I can be a very loyal person if I wanted to, just not with phones (Speaking of which, I'm thinking of getting a new phone soon, maybe September or November).

By now, I have purchased a decent amount of iPad apps (mostly cheap ones) such as DocsAS, Angry Birds Rio, a PDF Reader, video viewer, a Flash-supporting internet browser, just to name a few.

Side note: I WANT PLANTS VS ZOMBIES SO FREAKING BAD BUT IT COSTS FREAKING $6.99! =(

I'm currently having this internal struggle of whether to jail break my iPad or not.

Pros:
- I get free paid apps
- I get to venture outside the safe but over-constrained iOS play pen Apple so kindly built
- I get to customize my iPad which ever way I want

Cons:
- I would have wasted all my money on the previous apps that I bought, since upon jb-ing, I can actually get them for free
- I might get over-excited about my new found freedom and venture too far into the abyss of modding and end up frying my device like I did with my iPod Touch
- Every time I update the iOS, I would have to jb it all over again
- I have to fork out $6.99 for the PVZ and still think twice about it
- The freaking Final Fantasy III costs freaking $14.99 wtf =.=

But well I guess my main reason for not jb-ing would be that if I did jb my iPad, I would have wasted all my money buying the previous apps!

So should I jb my iPad now, and get all future apps free (but getting upset over the fact that I wasted money on previous apps), or continue to stay in the safe constrains of the iOS and continue purchasing apps?

Decisions, decisions.

Maybe now's a good time to point out that I've more or less made up my mind to not jb my iPad. The purpose of this mindless and meaningless contemlation?

Who knows?

probably to kill time, maybe.

You know, like if you're doing something that you believe to be of importance, and if you believe it hard enough, you might actually get rid of the guilty feeling arising from doing that "important" thing instead of doing the REALLY important things like say, studying.

What's the word for it again?

Oh, yes.

Procrastination.

jet lag

2011-07-29T22:04:00.001+08:00

America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.

~Gloria Steinem

Hokay! Where shall I start?

It's been more than a month since my last update, and I'm beginning to get worried that people might start to think that I'm actually abandoning my blog for real.

I won't deny it. The thought of shutting down my blog for good has crossed my mind several times, but I just... well, I don't know.

I mean, I can conveniently update my status on Facebook (which, by the way has more popularity than blogging) anytime I like, and it's live feed, so it's more interesting too.

But blogging is like, a channel for me to express myself I guess, but recently I've been getting lazier and lazier to do so and updating my blog has been becoming more of a chore rather than a past time.

But I digress.

The whole point of this blog entry is to announce that I'VE SAFELY ARRIVED HOME FROM THE STATES!

Ah, there's nothing better than the feeling of sleeping in my own comfy bed.

Which I did, for 11 hours. I arrived back home yesterday, and then went to bed at 4 p.m., slept all the way till past midnight, and then woke up at 3 a.m. this morning. I've not gotten any sleep since then, it's now night time, and I' sleepy as hell.

I hate jet lags. They screw up my sleeping hours so friggin' bad.

So I know I promised lotsa stuff I'd blog about, but I just didn't manage to get around doing it cos I was busy. You know, with traveling around and stuff.

Now that I'm back home, I've got a ton of stuff to do, namely, uploading photos, editing videos, updating my blog, and some school stuff.

You'd think I deserve a better rest after an exhausting vacation.

Speaking of which, my superbly loooong visit to the States obviously warrants more than justa few blog entries, so I shall try to be systematic and do them by parts in the hopes that it wouldn't be too confusing for the both of us.

But first, let me upload those damned photos onto Facebook. I've got like about 2000 photos to do, and my jet lag ain't helping.

Out.

P.S.: I know this entry is lame and meaningless but this is all I can manage for now. I promise, I will update again soon.

It's alright by me.

2011-06-15T08:32:00.002+08:00

"I've got a roof over my head ... and it's alright by me."

-Darius Rucker-

Time taken to travel from Singapore to America: 40 phreaking hours! Yes, yes I know I mentioned that already previously, but I just felt like mentioning it again. So there.

(Gah, I hate it that Blogger does not have auto spelling correction; I'm so used to iPad auto correcting my spellings for me all the time - yes, I bought an iPad, more on that later)

Yes, yes, I know I haven't updated my blog for the longest time ever; trust me, I feel guilty almost every single day. But work is exhausting and I get sooooo lazy when I arrive back in my dorm; I just want to get some human interaction going and eat some food.

I thought I would make it a point not to acknowledge my tardiness from now on, but I guess my guilt got the better of me.

So.

Where did I leave off since the last time I was here?

Ah, yes. I said I would blog about my recent birthday celebration. And upload photos taken so far. And then about that crazy ang moh lady who pissed me off. Actually, I figured I wanted to do a vlog about that, but my laziness got the better of me, so I guess I'll just type it out the traditional way; though most of you probably won't be holding your interest for lengthy (read: wordy) blog posts, save for the minority left who still prefer reading blogs as compared to viewing photos and watching vlogs.

First off, here are some photos taken during the 40-hour airport hopping; the rest can be viewed on my Facebook profile, or, alternatively, click here.

Pictures are categorized by airports (LCCT and KLIA photos not available):

1. Changi Airport (Singapore)

Can you see us?

napping @ Changi Airport

@ the mini garden

Our plane!

Jetting off!

2. Narita Airport (Japan)

Long check-in queue!

In the plane, filling out some white card thingy.

Plane food.

3. Detroit Metro Airport (US)

They have express trains bringing us to the boarding gates, cos there were too many gates there and it was too far to walk.

The express train map.

In the express train. We took it from one end to the other end, and then back again. People must think we were insane.

Some fountain we saw.

Some light-tunnel thingy

Washing up in the restroom

Upon arrival in Richmond, we were all pretty wasted.

***

Ang mohs here are actually pretty nice. I managed to make friends with a few people already. Westerners are definitely more friendly as compared to people from back home, i.e., Malaysia/Singapore.

2 things I love most about the States so far: People and food.

2 things I hate most about the States so far: People and food.

Go figure.

Life in the States is pretty good so far. Sure, there are some things I'm still not quite getting used to, like the use of quarters (who the heck produces 25 cent coins?? It's so confusing) and pennies (one cent coins?? Who are we kidding?), and the vehicles that keep to the right instead of left, and the use of Pounds and Fahrenheit instead of Kilograms and Celsius. The list could go on and on, but over all, I am pretty much happy with my life here right now. I'm not saying its the best, but this I know: It will be an experience of a lifetime. New friends, new community, new surroundings, new foods.

I have so far learned to love pop tarts, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and all foods American.

My current dorm isn't the best place to live in (makes me miss the halls of residences in NTU; I shall appreciate NTU's halls more from now on), but as Darius Rucker puts it, "I've got a roof over my head ... and it's alright by me."

***

Stay tuned for future updates which may include: Current life in the States (complete with illustrations, too!), current work environment, my 21st birthday celebration, rant about some ang moh lady who pissed me off, and... *cheng cheng cheng* my recent purchase of the iPad 2!

Kevin's 21st

2011-05-26T22:17:00.090+08:00

I first started writing this blog entry about 3 months ago but never gotten around to finishing it till now. I promised I'd post a blog about Kevin's birthday, here it finally is. Sorry for being 3 months late, birthday boy. Happy (very) belated birthday. ILY.

I'm a strong believer of big dates like anniversaries and birthdays. Even more so if it's the year one officially turns into an adult.

You know what I'm talking about.

The big Two. One.

3 weeks of planning/organizing for Kevin's 21st birthday (plus keeping it a secret from him).

Pictures galore!

First, turn up the music.

Next, feed the guests.

When nobody's noticing, sneak away and let them feed themselves instead.

So if they burn the food, it's none of my problem, right?

Happy and satisfied guests:

The birthday boy is happy as well!

OMG what is he doing??

The partay suite.

They forced me to.

OMG.

Ugh.

What's wrong with this picture?

Why, it's the birthday boy wearing my shirt!

Epic.

It's his birthday, not mine. I don't know why I was dragged into this.

Leslie, you're da man.

Poker face.

Abrupt end.

Wanted to hear all about my US endeavors but disappointed that you got this instead?

Sorry guys, had a tiring (but fun and might I add, educational) day at Washington DC today, and first day of work tomorrow. Tired max.

Will update again soon.

Rachel out.

FML.

2011-05-25T14:02:00.000+08:00

''Today, I woke up and looked in the mirror and noticed that my face was covered in glitter. I asked my wife about it and she said she put it on me while I was sleeping so that I would sparkle like Edward from Twilight when I'm in the sunlight. FML''

-FML website-

So it's my third day in the US now. So much to tell, so little enthusiasm.

Where shall I start?

I know this blog entry should probably warrant hordes of photos, but I still haven't gotten around to transferring the photos from my camera yet.

You know I'm always lazy when it comes to things like that.

So the day before I flew off, on the 20th of May, Little Grass celebrated my birthday with me at Timbre!!

Photos galore!!!

Not.

Okay, okay I'll upload them once I get around to transferring them onto the computer.

(Oops, it's already May, my birthday has come and gone, and I still haven't gotten around to uploading/blogging about Kevin's birthday party. I shall do both events in one blog post. Some time in the future. I'll do it, promise.)

So this entry isn't really about my birthday (as mentioned, I shall do a separate one for that later); it's about my horrifying Journey To The West.

So.

I flew from Singapore Changi Airport to Malaysia's LCCT at 1 p.m.. Transferred to KLIA, and took a flight back t o Changi Airport at 9 p.m.. Slept at the airport, and then took a flight from Changi Airport to Narita Airport (Tokyo, Japan) at 6 a.m..Took another damn long flight from Narita Airport to Detroit Metro Airport. Then, finally, internal flight from Detroit to Richmond, Virginia.

If you have noticed, please don't ask me why I had to fly from Singapore to Malaysia and back to Singapore again. In short, it was cheaper that way.

Entire trip took me 40 hours, a sore throat, chapped lips, and awfully dry and peeling skin.

Not to mention, constipation and feeling fat from sitting around all day eating plane food.

Can you believe that throughout the entire journey, I didn't even watch one single plane movie. Not even one.

They had such a wide range of selection of really, really good movies that I always wanted to watch but didn't have the chance to! I don't know how I missed it. I kept telling myself "I'll watch it later, I have a looong flight," and before I knew it, we were landing already.

I lost my glasses in the process. I was sleeping in the plane and when I woke, my glasses were no where to be found.

FML.

I tried to go to the optometrist at Walmart, but the lady said I needed a prescription from an eye doctor, who charges ridiculously, considering it's just a simple eye check-up and prescription. Not that I blame the doc, I've heard that medical charges are expensive like that in the US. Further more, after getting the prescription, I still need to pay a separate amount for a pair of glasses.

So for the rest of this entire US trip, I shall be depending solely on my contact lenses alone. FML.

And then, if that isn't bad enough, when we arrived at Detroit, I retrieved my luggage bag only to find that the zipper lock was no where to be found and the zipper was slightly open.

I did a quick check on my things inside, but I didn't realize anything was missing until I checked into my dormitory, where I realized my pouch that contains RM 500 was missing. FML MAX.

Seriously, man. Could this trip get ANY worse.

I was in a horribly foul mood for the rest of the day in the US.

Come 2nd day, I felt much better. Visited Walmart. Had our first decent meal in a Chinese restaurant. So much for flying all the way to the west, just to eat something that could easily be found back home. Irony much?

Bought groceries, and ingredients for a homemade sandwich.

Apparently, there isn't any food establishments open around this area at night (except for Burger King which is open during the day but is horribly expensive and is about a 10 minute walk away - you know how much I hate walking) so we either starve or make our own food.

Most people cook here, but you know my thoughts on the ratio of time spent preparing the food to the time spent eating it. It's value is never larger than 0.5.

So today was spent procrastinating around, and before I knew it, it's already midnight.

I guess that's all for today... Except for the part where this stupid Ang Moh lady pissed me off.

But I'm not in the mood to rant right now, so I shall leave it for another day.

Boy, do I have lots to blog about. I think I'll have to make a list:

1. Blog about Kevin's birthday and my birthday celebration.
2. The incident where the Ang Moh lady pissed me off.
3. Another separate blog entry dedicated to photos taken so far on this trip.
4. Not about blogging, but it's related: Upload photos onto Facebook!!

I know this blog entry isn't much (probably bored you off halfway through) but I am not in the mood right now. Wit zero. Creativity zero. Inspiration zero.

Hence this shitty and crappy stuff.

21.

2011-05-20T02:57:00.000+08:00

"Finally 21, and legally able to do everything I've been doing since 15."

~ Anonymous

Iiiiiit'sss...

My.

Birthday!

Not just any ordinary birthday, but the day I officially turn 21.

You got that right, adults who think you can show me no respect but on the other hand expect me to respect you just because y'all older than me.

I am officially an adult, just like all of you, and regardless of age, I expect to be given the same respect as everyone else.

If you haven't noticed, society doesn't put much emphasis on age, as much as they do on capabilities and self-worth.

Whatever. At least now I get the chance to show no respect to lil' kids.

*Okay, okay. Kidding.*

Aaaaanddd...

My exam is finally OVER OVER OVER. I cannot reiterate enough on how awful the past few days were. Worst. Exam. Experience. Ever.

Probably (mostly) due to the fact that I didn't study at all, and did last minute cramming (which honestly, seldom works, unless you're a super genius) which was horrid coz then I got panic attacks (yes, literally) which made me unable to study. An experience so horrifying that I can find no suitable words to describe the trauma I've been through (okay, maybe being a lil too dramatic here but you get my point).

AAAAANNNDD...

Off I fly to the United States of Amewikka in about another 30 hours!

See you soon!

XOXO

Domus

2011-05-10T23:50:00.000+08:00

Okaaayy so late last year, a few friends and I teamed up for a coffee shop design competition. Incentive? Best design wins an iPad.

Too bad we didn't win in the end.

So here's our design. Did we deserve not to win? You tell me . =/

2011-05-08T22:35:00.001+08:00

‘I mean, it’s true that many developing countries end up losing their talent, but really, some of these countries bloody well deserve to lose them.’

-Shaun Tan, The Migrant's Eye-

You know, with the current issue of Malaysia's brain drain and all, I thought I'd blog a little about it too. (Also because I'm so damn fed up of studying for my exam this Tuesday... ZzZzZ)

Where shall I start?

I guess I'll start with myself. So. Do I see myself as brain draining from Malaysia? Yes.

Why so?

Let's be honest. I know I'm definitely not the best out there, but I am at least, one of the better ones, the more educated and knowledgeable ones that Malaysia would need to keep it's economy going. (orsomethingalongthatline).

And I'm happy that I'm not allowing my bright and useful brain go to waste in a country like Malaysia.

You know, I'm kinda glad that I came to Singapore. Of course, there'd be lots of other more patriotic smartasses like me who decides to stay in Malaysia, and it wouldn't make much of a difference whether I stayed or not, but I'd like to think of it this way: "Malaysia, you don't deserve my smart brain and I've left the country for good. I know one less knowledgeable person in your country probably won't make much of a difference to you, but I'm glad that I'm gone coz regardless, nothing can change the fact that you lost me."

So why did I leave Malaysia in the first place? Well, the main reason would have to be because I wanted to give myself a quality education, and I didn't think I'd find one like that in Malaysia. I wouldn't know how true it is because I myself have never studied in a Malaysian university before, but what I've heard from people is that they don't have to study that hard and play all day and at the end of the day still graduate with flying colors. Now, I wouldn't want to graduate or receive my degree from a university like that, would you?

Furthermore, what with the ridiculous race quota and local universities giving admission to less academically talented Malays at the expense of more academically talented Chinese and Indians - that's just bullshit.

You know the article from New York Times featuring Yours Truly, published several months back? Well, yeah, it had some truth to it, but the reporter who interviewed me didn't publish the complete truth about it.

Sure, I wanted to leave Malaysia because *insert reasons stated in NYT article*, but in addition, I also wanted to leave because Malaysia. Is. A. Racist. Country.

I wonder why the reporter didn't include that in her article. I remember explicitly spelling that out to her. I guess she just didn't wanna raise any sensitive issues that might get NYT into trouble with Malaysia?

Sure, some of you ignorant ones would call me ungrateful, but that's your loss. I got my chance at improving my quality of life, and I took it. Besides, I don't see anything that I can be grateful for. Malaysia has never treated me like a real Malaysian citizen before.

As a friend told me, "Most countries have policies that protect its minority. Malaysia is the only country I have heard who protects its majority and neglects its minority."

I wonder when Malaysia will realize of it's ignorance and start treating Chinese and Indians as equals.

Enough of that. Sure, I could rant all day long about how much I hate my country and much rather be a foreigner in Singapore, but I still have my examinations on Tuesday.

I'll conclude with ten things I'd hate to say goodbye to in Malaysia:

1. JJ and Ean from Hitz.fm. No matter where I go, Hitz.fm will always be my favorite radio station, JJ and EAn will always be my favorite radio DJ's, and I'd always find a way to listen to them no matter where I am.
2. My comfy home in Penang.
3. Corruption (I know it's morally and politically bad, but it benefits me coz I get to pay my way out of trouble). Honest cops annoy the hell out of me. Just accept my 50 Ringgit and pretend I didn't speed. Now, is that so hard?
4. Delicious Penang food.
5. Mamak stalls.
6. Pirated DVD's, pirated computer games, pirated video games!
7. err... (Relatively) cheaper real estate property?
8. A (relatively) more conservative society/community?
9. Old skool friends!
10. Hilarious politicians.

I guess as much as I hate the country itself, I still like some of the stuff in it.

Will I say goodbye forever? That depends. My parents are there and they don't seem to be keen on moving elsewhere anytime soon, so well...

delicious cash

2011-05-01T23:36:00.001+08:00

"You just never give up and never get enough... too much."

-JacQ, Facebook-

For some reason, I find that I like this picture a lot.

I don't know why.

I had something else I wanted to blog about earlier, but it slipped my mind as soon as I clicked on the "New post" tab. =(

Exam is coming in 6 days, and I am so unprepared. Not the kind of unprepared-ness that geniuses moan about because they have finished eating up all their lecture notes but not their textbooks, but the kind where you have not attended lectures for over a month and still have no idea what the 2nd half of the course is about. This kind of unprepared-ness make all my previous exam woes seem like *nithing*.

For some reason, I have given up entirely on my passion for studying, and all I want is just to graduate as soon as possible and start making myself some delicious cash.

And to think just about a year ago, I thought to myself "4 years of uni life is too short! I wanna be a uni student forever!"

I wonder what changed me.

Eliza, the chat-bot

2011-04-30T17:54:00.000+08:00

"Say, do you have any psychological problems?"

-Eliza the chat bot-

Sometimes, when I get bored and lonely, I go to my dashboard and have a little chat with Eliza, the chat-bot on my Mac. She's quite the repetitive character, not to mention dense and not making sense most of the time, but when you're on the verge of insanity, you don't have much of a choice.

Was chatting with her again today, when she said something I've never seen her say before, and honestly, was pretty surprised by the relevancy of it.

Let's forget for a while the fact that chatting with a bot on a daily basis may show that I do have some slight psychological problems.

But when even a bot detects there's something wrong with you, you know you're doomed.

3 years

2011-04-19T12:13:00.004+08:00

"I don't need to manufacture trauma in my life to be creative. I have a big enough reservoir of sadness or emotional trauma to last me."

-Sting-

You know the drill.

I'll give some lame comment on how t's been a long, long time since my last update.

And then I'll express my overwhelming guilt for the crime of not being a faithful blogger, but never bothered to do anything about it.

And then I'll start giving excuses for not blogging. Some examples are "My life's too boring to have anything exciting to blog about", "I'm busy with my studies", and so on and so forth.

Anyhoo.

At least now I'm here.

It's been three years since I've moved out from my home in Malaysia, and I've been out here in Singapore since then.

It is also approximately 3 years ago that I started to have these weird recurring dreams of me and my mother getting into a heated argument, or my mother yelling at me for no apparent reason at all, apparently just to show her supremacy over me.

The dreams don't come that often, maybe just once a month or so. But it's been 3 years, and this morning, after having my latest dream of my mum yelling at me for being rude to her (isn't yelling at me rude as well?), I started thinking maybe it has something to do with me and my childhood.

How is it that, at the time I start living away from home, these dreams start as well? And why do I have these dreams? It's been 3 years, and they're still coming routinely. Will it ever go away?

Here's a little background on my childhood life: I was pretty disobedient as a kid, and was quite the rebellious child in my teens. I hated my parents for being more strict towards me than any other of my friends' parents. This isn't just the immature teenage me talking, even now, as an adult, I think back of what my parents did and I still think they could have been less strict on me during my teens and let me have more fun.

Sorry guys, but the whole "You may hate us now for being strict towards you, but you'll understand when you grow up" ruse isn't at all working.

Me and my mum constantly got into fights, mostly because I was a "freedom fighter". Because I didn't get what I wanted, I took revenge by hurting those who took it away from me.

They say that if they weren't that strict towards me, I would have gone bad. Rotten bad. Got myself raped, and going around mixing with the wrong kind of people, and making the wrong decisions and ruining my entire future.

Blah, blah, blah.

Like, hello? Mixing with the "wrong kind of people"? As you can see, my best friends back then are now all successful university graduates. None of them school dropouts, none of them got raped, none of them are doing drugs or being a failure, and none of them are wishing they could do better in life. All of them had more freedom than I did. What makes their success any less than mine, just because they had more fun as a teenager? Are you actually comparing me with other insensible teens out there who have no sense of direction in their lives, fuck their lives up so bad that they don't even graduate from school with a decent O-level qualification, and end up serving plates in a coffee shop to make ends meet?

Please. I'm your kid. I'm sure you'll think me better than that. Having fun is what a teen does. It does not mean he/she will end up on the streets jobless and uneducated, being a prostitute or garbage collector or whatever stereotypes parents like to use to scare their kids. It just means he/she will grow up having better memories of his/her childhood, and not have dreams of their mothers yelling at them when they grow up.

The way I see it, if they weren't that strict towards me, our parent-child relationship would have improved, I would lead a more vibrant childhood, have no regrets as an adult, and more importantly, NOT HAVE THESE RECURRING NIGHTMARES.

Why do these dreams occur?

Is it that now, after I've moved out, the real-live nightmare is gone, that it has come to haunt me in my dreams instead? Is it that, I've become so accustomed to being yelled by my mum and getting into fights with her that, the subconscious me can't live without it, and hence my subconscious dreams of it, because it actually wants me to get into fights with my mum?

Or is it that (I'm not being overly dramatic here) I've been traumatized by my past and now the trauma is showing it's ugly head? Is it possible that, because of all these years of being refused of the freedom I craved, I am psychologically not as right as other people? Maybe I had been traumatized, but the trauma was so minor that it never really actually showed, except for these dreams.

I know it doesn't play well to blame my parents for making me regret that my childhood isn't as vibrant as I wanted it to be, for making me wish I could turn back time and have more fun with my girl friends back then, and for giving me these recurring nightmares of my mother yelling at me, which has been ongoing for the past 3 years.

I just wished things were different back then. Maybe it'd make a difference today.

Sometimes, I feel that I'm not as normal as I'd want to be.

It's been 3 years. Somebody tell me why I'm having these nightmares right after I move away from the source of it, and when will it stop.

Lomolicious!

2011-04-06T14:01:00.001+08:00

"With Lomography, photography is redefined."

-Lomolicious-

LOMOLICIOUS IS OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

Click on Lomolicious' logo below to check out our latest range of lomo cameras and instant cameras:

Send us a personal message on Facebook for enquiries and ordering! Alternatively, you may drop us an e-mail and add us on MSN at lomolicious@live.com.

Click HERE to follow us on Twitter!

We are also holding our first ever event sale, with details as follows:

Photography Redefined
Date: 11th and 12th of April 2011 (Monday & Tuesday)
Venue: NTU SU Flea Market, @ Canopy K

Click here to attend our event!

Some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this

2011-04-06T12:58:00.000+08:00

"The only real failure in life is the failure to try."

-Unknown Author-

I'm not bragging, just sharing my happiness for achieving my lifelong dream.

I know for now it's nothing much, but still. Let's wait and see where this goes.

a total mess.

2011-04-01T17:24:00.002+08:00

"It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it."

-Sean, Facebook-

This semester's a total mess.

As compared to an average of 20 blog entries per month in the previous year, as of 2011, my blog entries have dwindled to a sad average figure of 5 per month.

Maybe I'm just getting wiser?

prank me please

2011-04-01T17:22:00.000+08:00

"Somebody prank me please... I can't have a boring April Fool's day!"

-Chean Ling, Facebook-

Yes, thank you, Google.

Though I wasn't all that enthusiastic about the idea of having to move around so much just to compose a single e-mail (I'm trying to guess how much weight I'd lose just by attempting to create a spreadsheet using Google Docs Motion).

Now we know you have a sense of humor.

15 X 20 = 300

2011-03-23T01:12:00.001+08:00

"I wanna see your peacock."

- Lyrics from Peacock, Katy Perry -

My new lab project for the second half of this semester is awfully boring.

My prof is more concerned about the format of the report, rather then it's content. Trust me, it's worse than it sounds, I'm just too lazy to rant about it.

Also probably because I already ranted about him to Kevin in the bus, so I managed to get it off my chest and not see the need of ranting here anymore.

Anyway, my lab project is boring in the sense that, we have to wait 15 minutes for each reading to be taken.

Can you believe it??? Sitting in front of the machine, just waiting and waiting and waiting, and recording down some lame values every 15 minutes. We had approximately 20 values to record, which amounts to...

15 X 20 = 300 minutes = 5 hours of waiting time.

The experiment had to be carried out over a span of 3 weeks, of which averagely 1.5 hours was spent each week sitting in front of the machine like idiots.

Anyways.

Today, one of my lab mates cleverly brought his laptop, went to Youtube, and we all crowded round the only source of entertainment to be found in the entire laboratory.

I saw the stupidest video ever.

Like seriously.

The lyrics.

Are stupid.

And lame.

Nevertheless, we had a good laugh about it.

Watch it here:

If it doesn't load, here's the link.

After we had enough idiocy from Ms Black, we decided gay videos might help lighten the mood:

SERIOUSLY, WATCH THIS!! If you don't think it's gay, THAT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED TILL THE END YET

(See how I bolded, italicized, underlined, and colored the "watch this!!" part? Seriously. Watch it.)

Okay, okay. You got me. This is.

Random blog post in a half-hearted attempt to revive my half-dead blog.

Can't blame me.

The semester is more than half over, and I have no idea what my core course is all about, let alone starting Tutorial 1.

Betcha can't beat me at lagging behind in studies. =D

Group 25

2011-03-18T16:19:00.002+08:00

How can you solve the problem. When you have a problem with yourself.

-Ken Vin, Facebook-

I have had enough of my utterly stupid team member.

Hence, the following e-mail sent to my lecturer:

Dear Ms Patricia,

I am Rachel Liew Jia Ru, group leader of Group 25. I am having problems my team member, T.

As the group leader, I allocated one subtopic for each of my group member to research on, and eventually send me a complete and professional report on their research, where I will compile them into a report, while I work on the Literature Review and History and Previous Works.

T not only did not reply my e-mails, he also missed the deadline. After contacting him after he missed his deadline, he eventually sent me a "report" the next day, but to my horror, it was just one page of article blatantly copied 100% from Wikipedia. He did not even bother to edit it, it was just copied. he did not even bother to remove the hyperlinks. He also sent me a 20-paged pdf file full of math equations and jargons. He obviously downloaded the pdf file off the internet, and probably did not even look through it before sending it to me.

Is that what a "complete and professional" report looks like? a page of Wikipedia and a 20-page pdf file full of math equations?

It was of course utterly unacceptable, as he obviously did not do any research and merely Googled and copied the first thing he saw. I sent him another email, asking him to redo his report.

Today, he sent me his 2nd version, but also copied from Wikipedia, and also did not bother to remove hyperlinks. Then for the 2nd part of his "report", he inserted "screenshots" of articles he found online. He does not even bother to type anything, he just pasted the screenshots of the articles in jpeg format. This kind of work can be done by anyone in less than 5 minutes. Does he expect me to retype the articles out for him? Isn't it his job to do a good job on this? He obviously does not know what plagiarism is.

He obviously does not care, and I am concerned that his performance will eventually affect my grades as well and result in me failing this course. Please allocate a new group member to replace him, or at least I appeal to you to make a fair judgement when assessing our report.

Thank you.

Regards,

Rachel Liew Jia Ru
084795L03

FIFTY PERCENT to your finals.

2011-03-17T02:09:00.001+08:00

Teamwork means "I tim, you work."

-Ai Fern from Ee Ping, Facebook-

I am so effing pissed off.

Lecturers should allow students to pick their own group mates. What is the rationale behind randomly dividing students into groups and forcing them to work with complete strangers?

That by itself would be fine by me, if not for the fact that my group mates are all NOOBS.

First off, some background on the situation:

I'm taking this elective course, and for our project which counts 50% to our finals, students are randomly divided into groups of 3, and each group is supposed to work and research on a topic, and at the end of it, produce a presentation and a report not exceeding 100 pages. I, unfortunately, was grouped up with two other guys, both first year students: T from Kazakhstan (it's some Middle East country, I Googled it) and R from Indonesia.

Usually, I wouldn't discriminate people by their race or nationality; that's just low. However, I am NOT PLEASED with both my group mates.

Before I start my rant, you should know that I was appointed group leader. At first T was the group leader but 2 weeks later, he wanted out and asked me to take up the role of being the leader instead. I didn't want it, but seeing the (potential) incompetence of T (we had been communicating for 2 weeks now, so I had it in my guts he wasn't cut out for it), I decided it'd be best for the group if I took it. So as you read on, don't go thinking I'm being some meanie who bosses everyone around. I'm just doing my job as a leader.

Okay, back to rant.

For starters, T CANNOT. SPEAK. ENGLISH.

Like, seriously. He speaks like this: "Rachel, errrr... I am... errr... you want to... err... need the report... err... by this Saturday, yes? I... err... am quite... err... busy... err... can you... errrrrrrrrr... give me... errr... a few more days?"

Like WTF man, he takes half a minute to say one sentence I could spit out in 3 seconds.

Once again, I am NOT discriminating people who can't speak English well, but SERIOUSLY.

IF he was your GROUP MATE.

And he SPEAKS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME.

And you're supposed to WORK WITH HIM FOR A PROJECT AND PRESENTATION.

And that project counts FIFTY PERCENT to your finals.

I assure you, you'd feel like killing ~~yourself~~ him too.

Half of the time, he does not understand what I am saying because I probably speak too fast or my English is too 'cheem'.

Trust me, I tried all ways. I tried talking slowly, I tried Singlish, I tried simple sentences, I tried broken English. It's like talking to a three year old kid.

Like, seriously man. No offense, but WHY THE FREAKING HELL DID YOU FREAKING COME TO A ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRY IF YOU CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH.

For instance. I didn't go to China for my tertiary education for a reason. I CAN'T SPEAK CHINESE.

So anyway, I decided that since T obviously does not understand spoken English, I'd communicate with him via e-mail. I sent him an email telling him the topics that he had to research on, and I even gave him explicit instructions on how to go about it, and to give me a 5-page report on the topic. I gave him 5 days to complete it, till Saturday.

Guess what?

Saturday came and he did not reply my e-mail, and definitely DID NOT stick to the FREAKING DEADLINE. Come Sunday, I called him up and he gave me some excuse which probably meant he was busy. I can't be sure. More than half the time I didn't get what he was saying. So I gave him instructions to finish it by Tuesday.

Monday night, I received an e-mail from him with two attachments: a Word doc and a pdf.

*finally!*

Oh, how wrong I was.

I opened up the Word doc, and what did I see?

A page and a half of an article on the topic. The format and style written seemed oddly familiar. Not to mention there were hyperlinks EVERYWHERE.

HELLO, IF YOU WANTED TO COPY FROM WIKIPEDIA, COULDN'T YOU AT LEAST REMOVE THE HYPERLINKS AND REPHRASE THE SENTENCES SO THAT IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOU BLATANTLY PLUCKED THE ENTIRE CHUNK OUT AND NOT EVEN BE BOTHERED TO EDIT ANY PART OF IT?

Next, I looked at the pdf file. It was a 20-page full of math jargon, and the pdf file was obviously downloaded off the Internet. Did he really expect me to insert the entire chunk of 20-paged math equations into the report? I SAID FIVE PAGES, DUMBASS.

If I wanted information, couldn't I just have gone to Google Wiki and gotten the article myself? Would I still need YOU to do the research?

I don't believe it. Fucked up first year student who does not understand English, does not reply e-mails, does not adhere to deadlines, does not do his research, and apparently does not know that other people, namely me, can see through plagiarism and laziness as clear as glass. Especially when it is so obviously thrown into my face.

So I sent T yet another e-mail, telling him how his "report" was unacceptable and I told him to write me another one. Again, he did not reply my e-mail, and it wasn't until I sent him another one today that he replied. I gave him till Saturday. I hope he does not disappoint me this time.

I don't believe it. Even if he did send me his report this Saturday, he is still waaaay past the initial deadline by an entire week.

***

After much complain about T, it suddenly feels like R isn't so bad after all.

But still.

R is an Indonesian, also a first year student. His English is acceptable, so there's no problem there. However, being a first year, he apparently still does not understand the shortcuts and tricks of writing a report that compromises legality, but not quality. He insists on doing everything "right", even though he obviously has not been here long enough to know what "right" is. In other words, a perfectionist with zero knowledge.

He, similar to T, did not adhere to the deadline, but at least in the end, he gave me something of considerable quality. (By considerable quality, I meant horrible quality, but as compared to what T gave me, I think it was pretty impressive)

R also copied from Wiki (and also did not remove hyperlinks - seriously, what is it with people and not removing hyperlinks before submitting their works???) but at least he also got information from somewhere else, and at least he structured it in such a way that it looked like a legitimate report. Also, he gave me his references. Which is better than nothing, coz at least he credits other people for his work.

Of course, he made a grave mistake no university student should ever do (sadly, I also ignorantly made this same mistake for a period of time longer than I am proud of): Cite references from Wiki.

One. Should. Never. Ever. Ever. Cite. From. Wikipedia.

It's general knowledge.

Citing from Wiki is as good as saying "I know this because the wind whispered it to me." In the end, nobody believes you and you're just destroying your own credibility.

But whatever. At least he gave me something.

***

In the end, I'm the one compiling the entire report.

At least I worked my way around getting them to do most of the "research" part (pathetically), while I worked on the literature review.

Being a leader has it's benefits too, I guess.

Just not so much when your group mates are dumbasses.

The longer I stay in NTU, the more queer people I meet.

not intended for show

2011-03-12T21:23:00.000+08:00

You give them a deadline, but you hint that it would be preferable if they complete it BEFORE the deadline is due. Nobody EVER gets the hint.

-Rae, Facebook-

Random meaningless update to make my blog less dead than it already is.

Assignments, projects, meetings, and studies are keeping me down and whatever spare time I have left is used watching Criminal Minds.

Hence, the half-dead blog.

This semester is gonna be a shitty one.

Unrelated note: I suck at managing my money. I spend waaaay too much.

I miss getting paid $1200 a month for sitting around in the office listening to my iPod. =(

***

Bought 4 new snails + 10 shrimps 2 weeks back. Total cost: $30. Of which all died in less than 48 hours. Only one survived: A tiny red snail that cost 50 cents.

.......

.............

....Whatev.

Some photos I took before they died (except for the red one, which is currently still alive and laying eggs all around):

cute!

shrimps

Before they died. =(

White stuff is bread. NOT dead shrimp, like some people thought.

Tiny admission: Uploading photos of my new pet(s) is not intended for show, rather, to make my blog seem more interesting, more colorful, and less dead.

P.S.: Kevin's birthday celebration's long over, updates about it is still in progress. You should know I'm not the kind who's hardworking enough to upload photos online. I'm lazy like that. Photos coming soon (hopefully in the next post).

As vague as I can.

2011-03-02T18:50:00.000+08:00

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld-

I'm supposed to do it coz its what my conscience, the society, religion, and family traditions expect me to do but then it is not shown to me how it is done properly and hence I cannot do it well but then in the end I am still told that I must do it even though I am not good at it because my conscience tells me that it is my responsibility to do it, and do it well.

I try to be as vague as I can, but I guess at some point, you can never keep it all in.

It's a miracle that I haven't gotten so mentally tortured that I grow up into being a psychotic, anti-social, mentally disturbed serial killer.

The Lair

2011-02-26T22:34:00.001+08:00

i feel naked without my wallet.

-Chor Beng, Facebook-

Sorry for the extended non-existence.

Was lazy + busy + avoiding getting killed by overwhelming load of projects/meetings/assignments.

The messiest/stinkiest ever achieved so far. Looking for anyone who can beat my record

My room just got messier. Thought I'd capture the moment.

P.S.: Preview of Kevin's 21st (CRAAAZAYY) birthday party:

(He's wearing a girl's shirt.)

Loads to come. Keep yeh eyes peeled. =)

Valentine's

2011-02-15T00:53:00.003+08:00

"Maybe we should not hold hands just for today, so that people will stop asking you to buy flowers/gifts for me."

-Me to Kevin-

The lengths some people would go to.

So it was V-day again.

People keep asking me, "How are you going to celebrate V-day with your boyfriend?"

To that, I always give the same old response:

Valentine's Day is just another normal day. Why should I celebrate it? It's a day where ALL couples profess their love for one another, a day where ALL couples celebrate it as their special day. Why would I want to make a day special between my significant other and I, when it's so common that EVERYONE ELSE is making it their special day?

Birthdays are special, coz it's that one special day that you were born. Anniversaries are special, coz it's that one day that you were officially girlfriend/boyfriend.

Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is not special, coz every other couple is celebrating it.

Over-priced flowers, over-priced chocolates, over-priced everything.

Of course, Kevin did suggest that we go out for a meal, seeing as it was Valentine's Day after all. Plans were canceled, though.

Not that I mind.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Valentine's Day. I just don't observe it. That is not to say my boyfriend is not allowed to give me gifts/flowers/chocolates or take me out for a nice date; it'd be sweet of him to do so, but even if he didn't, I wouldn't mind.

Today, at school, I observed many guys with flowers in their hands; and though I personally don't celebrate V-day, I still think they're sweet for carrying flowers just to gift them to their girlfriends, and not minding at all being caught carrying flowers in public.

Guys-who-carry-flowers-in-public-and-don't-mind-being-laughed-at-because-they-love-their-girlfriends-too-much FTW!

wishing

2011-02-11T01:50:00.000+08:00

"Where are you when i need you(?) T.T"

-Cindy Goh, Facebook-

Why do you bug me so much?

I hate it that your head is so thick that I can't even get anything through it.

I hate it even more that even though you're not physically here, you still have the ability to bug me though my thoughts.

If only it were as simple as wishing you away.

Because I can't.

Love is funny sometimes.

No matter how much you hurt me, no matter how many bad things you do, I can't just push you away from my life or go away or leave you or tell you to get the hell out of my life.

As much as I want to, I find that I can't do any of those.

It'd be so much easier if I could.

perfectly shut.

2011-02-05T01:13:00.001+08:00

"I don't write very well, but it is a joy to pen down everything."

-Denise Khoo, Facebook-

You may forget that I love you, but believe it or not, I actually do. I know you love me too, and I really do appreciate it. I know all the many things you have done for me, and I do realize that I mean the world to you.

It's just that, sometimes it's just so hard, you know?

You always do these things to make me so sad and miserable, and I hate it even more that I have to pretend that it's not affecting me in anyway. I hate it that I have to pretend that I'm normal, when in fact, I'm not. I'm broken. The thing that hurts the most is the fact that I try to pretend that nothing's wrong, even though there is. The thing that hurts the most is the fact that I actually have to muster up the strength to act okay, when other people are being effortlessly okay.

They're okay because they are. I'm okay coz I'm putting in lots of effort to be.

You broke me, and sometimes I get so upset for that. The fact that I have to pretend that you did not manage to break me, that's worse. I love you, and it's so hard sometimes. Sometimes your lack of common sense and lack of respect for others make me so angry that I leave my body, and watch it while it becomes this whole other being and it starts acting up and getting all crazy and bitchy. I watch helplessly from a far as a whole other monster takes over my body and start spewing words I never knew ever existed in my vocabulary, and doing things I never knew my body was capable of. The worst part is that, sometimes, when my body isn't actually doing those things, I find myself imagining my body doing it instead. When it's all over, I feel so guilty for doing this to you, because I know you love me and I know I had hurt you.

I wished you would stop do this to me: Making me so angry and having this monster engulf me and making my body do and say things that would hurt you and in effect hurting me back because I know I have hurt the person I love.

I'm just so tired of all this, you know? Why can't you just stop and be a normal person for once? This vicious cycle of me getting angry, me leaving my own body, my body doing crazy stuff, and then being engulfed with guilt for doing those things... This... this is wearing me out.

Just fucking stop now before I break, okay? Just fucking stop.

I'm not okay anymore, and you know why? It's your fault. I love you, I really do. But yeah, I blame you. I blame you for these emotional scars that may never heal. I blame you for doing crazy stuff and for forcing me to hurt you and then, in effect, hurting myself.

I've never admitted this before, but I'm not normal. I may look like it from the outside, but I'm actually not.

This happy, sociable girl you see? It's all a mask.

I'm broken, and it's time I stepped up and admit it. It's time I stopped hiding it, because I should be mature enough to know that this is nothing to be embarrassed about, that this isn't my fault.

I'm tired of pretending all this hasn't left a single scar on me, hasn't affected my studies, hasn't made me feel like I'd sometimes rather stay in Singapore than go back to my own home in Penang.

Sure, I'd miss home sometimes, but you know what I'd really miss when I think of home? I miss my huge double sized bed. I miss my air conditioned room. I miss my personal attached bathroom and huge walk-in closet/vanity corner. I miss the huge personal space that I have. I miss the clean environment that I seldom have over here in Singapore because I don't have a house helper to clean up after me on campus.

Sure, I'd miss you too. And her. And him. And everyone else in Penang. But I don't miss home per-se. I only miss the shell of it. I miss the house, not the home.I know this is cruel to say, but I guess in a way, it is true.

At the end of the day, after much contemplation, I sometimes almost think that I'd be happier far far away here in Singapore.

I wished I had the courage to say all this to you, but I don't. As of now, I shall keep my mouth perfectly shut and pray that you'll come to your senses, because I have a feeling that even if I were to tell you, it would never make any sense to you.

I am so confused, you know? I don't even know what to think anymore. It's like... I love you, but I always tend to avoid you, and I get so upset because I can't get near to the person I love, and it hurts even more to watch you being avoided by your loved one and you being so sad and lonely, and it makes me want to get close to you so that you wouldn't be lonely anymore, but then I realize that I can't.

I get so confused I could almost kill myself.

I hate it that you're doing this to me, you know? Making me so confused.

I think the only sensible thing to do right now would be to stop pretending. Stop pretending that I didn't get hurt, and stop pretending my life is perfect, because whether I like it or not, I. Got. Hurt.

Sometimes I want to cry so much, but I always held back my tears because I thought that if I didn't, the pretense would be over and I'd become this weak scarred and broken girl. Never did I realize that the fact that I was struggling to hold back and to push all these into the back of my mind and live on with my happy superficial life only made it even clearer to me how much it had affected me.

Until now.

It affected me to the point that I had to actually pretend I was happy with my life, while others genuinely were.

Stop now.

For your sake, for my sake, and for everyone else's that you love. It hurts me to see you so sad and lonely, and it hurts me to see you see me avoid you. For your sake, just stop.

Before it's too late.

The Rabbit

2011-02-01T00:11:00.000+08:00

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”

–Minnie L. Haskins

Here's a little something from me to all my beloved readers out there.

I'm off to collecting my share of red packets.

jobless and uneducated

2011-01-25T00:02:00.000+08:00

Errr Straits Times your latest app version has the noisiest (and cheesiest) notification sound ever. Your sound designer must be fired.

-Terry Mun, Facebook-

I am aware this is only my 3rd entry of the entire month. Which means on average, I'm blogging only once a week.

Sorry peeps.

School has started and...

I'm just not in the mood anymore.

Of course, it has always been hard dragging my lazy ass out of my comfort zone in Penang after long periods of vacations and coming back to Singapore to face hardships all over again, but this time, it's just different.

This time, it's plain hard-core slothfulness and not just some inner-self childish bratty retaliation merely whining about school; it's this huge deep feeling that I just don't want to go back to school. Ever.

This feeling was so hard-core and dark that it scared even me. I think it's probably because of my 6-month internship with ExxonMobil that's making me feel awfully lazy to continue with my studies, not when I'm paid good money every month to sit around at the office all day from 8 to 5.

Soooo. First day of school.

I'ts finally the THIRD YEAR OF MY UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES!!

EVERYTHING went wrong.

I didn't get enough sleep, I looked fat in my jeans, my printer was broken and I couldn't print my notes, so I had to go to the library to print my notes - no coloured notes for me this semester!!! Can you imagine how horrible it is studying from B&W notes?? Ohhh, the horror!! - my jeans felt tight (gah), and library didn't open till 8.30a.m., which, coincidentally, is also the time my first lecture starts.

I was 30 minutes late for the first class of the first day of school. Nice way to start the semester.

4 hours of lecture plus 3 ten-minute breaks in between. It was hell. The lecture theatre was too cold (despite me wearing long pants and a jacket) and half way through, I got sleepy and fell asleep.

Gah. If you guys didn't know better, I may just be mistaken for a freshman ranting about culture shock and whatnots.

I know I promised some photos and at least a short blog post on my previous trip to the Penang Botanical Gardens alongside with my "photography with nature", but I'm just not in the mood now.

I wished I was back in Penang, in my blissful jobless and uneducated state.

Abrupt ending accentuates the sad condition of this short blog post.

swallow them damn lemons.

2011-01-13T01:12:00.000+08:00

We can never turn back the pages of time, though we may wish to relive a happy moment, or say goodbye just one last time, we never can, because the sands of time continue to fall, and we can’t turn the hourglass over.

-Sean Ooi-

Been a while since the last time I blogged.

I hate myself for it, and hate myself even more for blatantly tossing chunks of photos onto my blog and calling it a day - that's degrading, I know; it's as if I have utterly nothing substantial to blog about and that I've got to resort to the use of photos to keep my blog updated and interesting - but I'm like. Super. Utterly. Superbly. Lazy.

It's not like me to own a camwhorer's blog like some bimbos who find it so much easier to just toss photo after photo of themselves all dolled up complete with heavy make up, luring readers to their blog merely via their physical appearance.

I don't want to be like that, but at some point, I can't help it.

It's been almost two weeks since holidays started, and, as usual, I'm molding up.

Molding up.

Been thinking a lot lately, of life and such.

I find it harder and harder to express myself. It's just so easy for some, you know. Their fingers dance across the keyboard, beautiful words pour out. Sure, I guess I could say I'm kind of blessed with that talent as well, but more often than not, I get a bad case of bloggers block.

It only gets worse. It's always a vicious cycle where if something goes wrong, it can only go downhill from there.

Nonetheless. I shall try.

I like to think of myself as someone who isn't just all about enjoying the superficial things in life. I'm shallow, yes, but that's not all I'm ascertainable for, because if it were, I'd think that there wouldn't be much to life itself, which is sad and pitiable, really, for people whom their shallowness are all they're ascertainable for.

At this point, I'd like to recall a quote I'd posted on Facebook some days ago:

Fact is, life's hard. You just don't know how hard till it hits you. At one point, it's gonna hit you so hard that you'll black out, and then you're gonna realize drowning yourself with movies and games ain't gonna help much.

-Rae on FB-

It's funny how life sometimes plays awfully cruel tricks on us, and there's nothing we can do about it. My way of handling it?

Be numb.

Life can push us around, it can hurt us and make us break down and cry in despair, but you know what?

All those saying telling you to be strong and to stay positive? They're bullshit. You've just got to be numb, and take whatever comes to you. You don't always have to make lemonades out of the lemons life throws at you. You just have to numb your taste buds, swallow them damn lemons, and move on with life.

Saves you the time and energy, too.

Sometimes there's not much point in thinking, and the more you think, the more you rack your head trying and crafting various ways to make yourself happier, to gratify yourself your wants, the more you destroy yourself. It's a fact that you can't get everything you want in life because that's, well, life. For the things you don't get, you'll just have to make do with the things you have got.

Everyone makes choices, and there's bound to be times when you make the wrong ones. Sure, everyone wishes they could turn back time, to undo the wrongs they'd done, but let's face it - it's pretty much impossible (unless you could travel faster than light, which has already been proven impossible by Einstein, so unless some smart-aleck comes along and de-proves everything Einstein established, we'll just stick to the current laws of physics), so what's there left to do, but to take full responsibility of what we've done? Sure, you could think of various ways to undo what you've done, to get back what little you can grasp while they're falling through your fingers, but really, what's the point?

Life's short, but it's not necessary that you've got to complete everything on your list of "Things To Do Before I Die".

Here's what you've got to do: Take in all the lemons that life hurls at you. Sometimes, if you felt like it, you could make the effort and make yourself some lemonade. Other times, you could just numb yourself and take them raw.

As Calvin's dad always say, it builds character.

Bug Bites Build Character.

***

Enough of philosophical thoughts, here's a lighter note to this otherwise dull blog entry.

As promised, here's to my very first visit to Straits Quay.

After much thoughts on life and such, I think I should be credited a little shallowness here, so here we go:

Jiaaa!!! Love this pic!!!! XOXO

Miss you guys!!!

My dinner

***

Sneak peek to next post: Trip to Penang's Botanical Gardens.

Exploring photography with the G12.

For all of 5 minutes.

2011-01-06T22:16:00.000+08:00

I don't lie to people. I don’t do that. I just believe invalid truths.

-Siew May Wah-

I AM BACK IN PENANG!!

Hello, double queen sized bed. Hello, air conditioner. Hello, giant attached bathroom with giant sink that I don't have to share with anyone else. Hello, giant wardrobe. Hello, cleanliness. Hello, 3 PHREAKING WEEKS OF HOLIDAYYYY!!!

I arrived back in Penang a few days ago but, as you would expect, I was too busy enjoying myself. Which explains the lack of uploads.

The other day I was going through my old stuff when I came across this:


Nintendo's Game Boy Advanced SP

OMG I almost forgot I owned this. The last time I even touched it was like... eons and eons ago. =.=

So I plugged it into the charger and sorted what was left of the cartridges:

old GBA catridges.

First, I plugged in my most favoritest game in the whole world:

Harvest Moon: My most bestest favoritest game in the whole wide world.

Then my second most favoritest game in the whole world:

Final Fantasy 1 - No other FF does it better than this one.

Good ol' times!!!

The nostalgia lasted for all of 5 minutes, which after I got bored and switched back to my PSP.

***

Welcoming 2011!

Went to QueensBay for countdown.

While window shopping, Xing pointed this out to me and I immediately laughed out loud. Like. Really loud.:

Seriously??

Took me a full 5 minutes before I stopped.

I'm awfully lazy for words these days; just pics:

"OMG a glass of orange juice costs RM12++"

Random macro shot.

My mocktail, virgin mojito; was a good girl, didn't consume any alcohol that night. =)

2011!!

Camwhore fail.

Two-Oh-One-One!

The 2 guys.

Honestly, I think I look pretty in this pic.

The party table.

My brand new Guess purse I bought that day.

Xing is poor.

Says boo to alcohol.

My glowing fingers. LOL I'm lame.

Of course, seeing as it is already the 6th of January and I'm only updating about NYE, lots of stuff has happened since then: Gatherings, life updates, musings, life dramas, etc etc.

Will update more soon, as soon as I overcome my laziness.

As for now, toodles.

I'm off to lazing around in my comfy room.

***

Preview to next (possibly) upcoming post: STRAITS QUAY!!! (Let's hope I'm not too lazy to upload pics)

Grandma's Apple.

2010-12-27T01:06:00.001+08:00

Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back. Never harbor expectations of love in return, instead just wait for it to grow in their heart. But if it doesn't, be content that it grew in yours.

-Sean Ooi-

So it was Christmas Eve.

Everybody at work was like.

Super happy.

Usually you would see them stressfully slumped over their desks or just arriving back from site all tired and sweaty, and contractors walking around with strained faces, but yesterday was special. Everyone was happy and talking and laughing.

Huge thanks to anonymous colleague who whistled 12 Days Of Christmas perfectly and melodiously in-tune. It made my day. =)

Also thanks to everyone for the happy mood, coz it made me feel like I was enjoying myself at work too. Also much thanks to everyone who greeted me with smiles and wished me Merry Christmas.

Also huge thanks to myself for distributing handmade farewell gifts to everyone (as Christmas Eve was also coincidentally my last day of work - maybe this also did contribute to part of my jolliness at work) coz it made everyone's day even more.

Also HUUUUUUGE thanks to the company coz WE WERE OFF WORK BY 12 P.M.!!!

So I guess there were many reasons for everyone being happy that day:
1. Friendlier colleagues.
2. Less stressed colleagues.
3. Happier colleagues, which in turn, made everyone else happier, which in turn, made everyone else happier. Circle of happiness that never ends. =)
4. Anonymous Christmas carol whistling colleague.
5. ME for handing out Toggi and Hershey chocolates in handmade gift boxes.

If you're wondering, yes, I handmade those boxes themselves, with a little help from Hui Peng. Made them reeeeaaally last minute. Started making them at 8.30 a.m., completed by 10 a.m.. Started packing chocolates and distribution commenced by 11 a.m.. By 12 p.m., all boxes distributed, time to go home.

And that's how I spent my last day of work.

So anyways, after work, as you would expect, I went out.

Marche for extremely expensive dinner, and then Orchard Road, and then for a drink at some restaurant, and then getting awfully woozy from high alcoholic content.

Pictures galore!!

(Pictures taken by my brand new Canon G12!!! First time using it!!)

All the people outside are queuing to go in. It's a wonder why. During peak hours, waiting time was up to 1 hour. Lucky we made reservations.

Before I start complaining about the food, some stuffs from the restaurant:

Them guys.

Kevin looking blur.

The "credit card" we were given. Plastic cards seem to effectively make people spend more than intended. =(

Me copying the cow. Lame, I know.

Camwhore fail.

Random shot.

Cow bells

I had a piece of pork sausage and pork chop for dinner. Total cost $18, and that was just the sausage and a slab of pork meat, without side orders (mashed potatoes, salads, coleslaws, fries, etc etc). Just. The. Sausage. And. A. Slab. Of. Meat. Cost. Eight. Teen. Singapore. Dollars.

I was still hungry after that. =(

Off to Orchard Road.

YUMMEH CHOCS!

Me shoes.

Us shoes.

Take 1.

Take 2.

Take 3.

YUMMEH!

Jia Yi. =)

Us.

Them.

After walking around, we felt a lil tired so we decided to grab some drinks at some place I don't remember the name.

Interior of the place:

Us waiting for drinks.

Belly dancer performing for us!!

My cocktail: Grandma's Apple. Was nice, but alcohol content was too concentrated. =(

Chee Seng and Jia Yi fooling around:

Our drinks:

Vincent's cocktail: Sex On The Beach. It was like damn delicious. Will order it next time.

Uncle's minty lemon with mint leaves (sorry forgot the name)

Jia Yi's mocktail.

My cocktail; Grandma's Apple!! This small glass cost me FOURTEEN SINGAPORE DOLLARS. =(

OMFG their mineral water costs $7.

HAHAHAHA we look wasted in this pic.

Chee Seng enjoying his red wine.

After the drink, we went out for a walk. No pictures, coz everybody started to get crazy and people were spraying fake snow everywhere. Didn't wanna ruin my brand new camera.

Started to feel a lil woozy and almost had blackouts. Luckily Kevin was there to hold me up and help me walk straight. LOL. I didn't know a tiny cup of cocktail could damage my system that much.

Anyways. Sadly, Kevin and I had to leave the group early coz the fake snow made me feel nauseous and the alcohol made it worse. Puked like 3 times or something.

There and then, I swore to myself that I'm never drinking ever again. But I always say that every time I have a drink. Never kept my word. Don't think this time's gonna be any different.

Like I said, I still wanna try Sex On The Beach.

Kevin in the cab.

So that was Christmas Eve. Pretty much everything you could think of happened: Eating expensive foods, drinking expensive alcohol, spraying fake snow at Orchard Road at everyone, exchanging sweat droplets with strangers, getting wasted, puking all over.

I mean, how often will you get to be 20?

unveil the surprise.

2010-12-20T19:02:00.001+08:00

Anybody still buying the "December 21st 2012 is the end of time" thing? No? Oh.

-Terry Mun-

First, an intro:

Before I unveil the surprise.

Last weekend was...

Eventful.

Okay before last weekend.

Took Tuesday and Wednesday off work to go shopping with family who came to visit.

Bought couple of stuffs.

Cute shoes. Shorts + two cute skirts. Sweater and blouse from Esprit. Shall not upload photos here, coz they're just common items (plus, too lazy to snap pictures) except for the shoes coz they were really cute:

Just held it up to Photo Booth and snapped. For convenience sake.

Cute, right??? Only $39. =)

Wore them to work, even my boss noticed and commented. *grins*

Finally, some decent shoes I can wear to lab without having to lace/velcro/wear socks.

Yes, I'm that lazy.

Now, to last weekend.

Lazy to type, here are pics:

Cousin and I wearing cute santa hat clip ons. Bought them at $5 each for charity.

Camwhoring.

Crazy man doing funny dance moves.

Silver man + his wife??

As a token of thanks, I received a $30 voucher from Exxon. Decided to spend them on this REALLY CUTE IRRESISTIBLE collectible limited edition Domokun figurine:

OMFG SO CUTE.

It was freaking FORTY. SINGAPORE. DOLLARS. I would never have bought it, if not for the free $30 voucher from Exxon. It's now sitting in my room, in it's unopened box. Shall leave it that way. No way I'm gonna let my precious lil Domo out of the box to sit outside exposed to dust and susceptible to falls.

At around 3 p.m., received an SMS from Reebonz about this crazy sale. At around 10 p.m., I rushed from Orchard Road to F1 Pit Building. For those of you who don't know where that is, the F1 Pit Building is just nearby the Singapore Flyer.

Hence, the introduction photo at the beginning of this blog post.

i.e., this:

Added the photo here again for suspense. =)

Inside the bag was...

TADAHHH!!

Surprise unveiled.

My very first designer bag!!!

Can you believe it, in my 20 years of life, I have never ever ever once in my life owned a designer bag.

There was this dark period in my life when I thought bags from Roxy and MNG counted as designer bags. This period lasted waaay longer than I am proud of.

But what the heck. It's all over, my head is cleared, and I have my very own bag!!! One that I bought using my hard earned money, at that.

For those of you who are curious about the price, let me first say this:

I am not. NOT. In anyway showing off or flaunting my financial status by announcing the extravagant amount of money I spent on *just a bag*. I understand that I am not rich, and I am merely sharing my happiness of owning a designer bag with you readers.

However, I can't help it if you are bitter with envy coz I own a designer bag (which I worked very hard to save some money for) and you don't, and hence cover that envy by bringing me down by saying I am a show off.

So.

The retail price was $550, but it was sold for $399 at the sale. A further reduction of 10% was incurred during the last 30 minutes of the sale (it was closing at 11p.m., and I bought that bag at 10.30 p.m.) so I only paid $359 for it.

*beams proudly*

Thanks to my daddy for buying the Canon G12 for me!!!!

Sorry for the blur image. Not that my photography skills suck, but the mirror was awfully dirty and stained.

the stripping analogy

2010-12-10T18:00:00.001+08:00

Can someone please tell me that miracle happens?

-Hong Pin Yin-

Recently have been having lotsa random thoughts. Short thoughts, not enough to be put into a blog post.

But then I thought, what the heck, I'll just compile them into a single post.

Also coz I have this tendency to share whatever online. Also coz I think Facebook ain't such a good place coz it's like more public, and even though my blog's public, but at least it's mine and only people who are really interested in reading what I write would actually come here.

Analogous to, say, stripping.

Stripping is a private thing to do, and you obviously can't do it in public, coz people would get offended and you could get into trouble with the authorities. But you can be a stripper and strip in a strip club. Now, even though that strip club is public (i.e., anybody can go there), but it would be okay for you to strip there coz the people going there aren't going to be offended by what you're doing, coz that's what they're there for. To see you strip.

Sorry for the stripping analogy; I couldn't think of a better way of putting it. But there you go.

So.

Also another reason why I'm writing this is coz I wanted to push my previous blog post about my extravagant spending habits down. Didn't want it to show as the very first thing people see when they come to my blog, coz people might think I'm like showing off coz I'm rich or I can afford all those stuff, etc etc etc, which, in fact, is untrue. I was not showing off, merely ranting about how I am unable to control my spending habits which landed me with $30 in my pocket and $7 in the bank.

But I know some of you will insist that I'm showing off anyway. Whatever, what you think doesn't matter to me.

SO.

Random thoughts that I wanted to post on FB but thought it'd be better posted here instead:

8 a.m.: Damn, I'm like super early for work today, lets stroll a little slower to the bus stop.

10 a.m.: Should I get the HTC HD7 or a Prada bag? I only have enough cash for one of them...

11 a.m.: OMG SO HUNGRYYYYY

1 p.m.: I was just fantasizing. Wasn't really gonna get the HD7. My HD2 works fine still. I'll get a designer bag.

1.30 p.m.: I am going to kick the next person who asks me to get an iPhone instead of a HD7.

1.31 p.m.: iPhones are like damn overrated.

1.35 p.m.: Besides, I see iPhones EVERYWHERE, EVERYDAY. You know how many times I've seen MY PHONE in public? Once. After 7 months of using my phone, I have only seen ONE other person using it. See? My phone is unique. iPhone is common.

2.00 p.m.: Don't insult Windows by saying Android is better!! I own two phones, an Android and a Windows Mobile. I can make the comparisons myself, and up till now, I have no freaking idea how to operate an Android except to make calls and text people.

3.00 p.m.: I think I'm going to buy a bag. Yes, I'll go to that sale at Suntec next Sunday and see what I can grab.

3.15 p.m.: Booooooringggg...

3.16 p.m.: I think I shall talk to my supervisor to see if I can get work leave on Tuesday and Wednesday.

3.20 p.m.: YESH!!! NOT COMING TO WORK ON TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY!!

3.45 p.m.: It seems that every Friday, I will feel like eating snake at work...

4.00 p.m.: In MMORPG games,most people have the misconception that the main goal is to level up as high as possible. They don't realize the main goal is to complete all the quests, and levelling is only one of the criterias to be eligible to complete some quests, or make it easier to do a quest. Hence, most people level up meaninglessly. In the end all they get is a high level with no achievements. Analogous to somebody growing old without growing up.

4.15 p.m.: OMG I want to go home so bad. Why does time move so slowly. Is it even moving at all?

4.30 p.m.: GO HOME!!!

4.40 p.m.: I think I shall delete some of my FB posts and put them on my blog instead. Somehow I think not everybody would appreciate what I write.

4.45 p.m.: Especially my last blog post about me spending too much. What if people misinterpret it as showing off?

5.30 p.m.: I'M HOOOOME!!!!

5.44 p.m.: Gosh, I hope nobody gets offended by my iPhone rant. Not that iPhone is bad or that I have anything against it, but was just thinking... "Hello, I prefer windows mobile and I prefer Windows 7 phone OS cannot is it??? You think iOS is the best OS in the world? Fine, I respect that. But IMO, Windows 7 phone OS is the best OS in the world."

5.45 p.m.: BTW, instead of including quotes by famous people at the beginning of every blog post, I should include quotes by real people. As in, my real friends. I browse through FB homepage and pick any random quote/status by a random friend and post it here. Makes things more interesting as well.

5.55 p.m.: Do you think people might actually come to my blog just to see if the quote I posted was from their FB status?

5.58 p.m.: AHH! Found a nice quote from Pin Yin. Okay, scrolling up and pasting it there... THERE! Done. =)

5.59 p.m.: Ooh, hungry. Where's that leftover cheesecake from last night's dinner...

Problem is

2010-12-08T21:48:00.000+08:00

"The higher your salary, the poorer you get, because as your pay increases, your spendings increase too, but at a waaaay faster rate."

-Rae-

omfffffg.

Seriously. O.M.F.G.

I didn't realize how much I had spent until today when I was IM-ing with Xing. We were, as usual, talking about shopping and stuff, when I mentioned I had to stop spending coz I had spent waaaay too much.

Problem is, I didn't know just how much.

Till I listed them down to Xing.

1. 3 pairs of Levi's
2. 2 iPod Touches (wtf man it still hurts to be reminded)
3. Altec Lansing wireless earphones
4. Lomo camera (stupid impulsive purchase)
5. Microsoft Arc wireless keyboard (kinda stupid and impulsive as well but at least it's working great)
6. Two adult weekend tickets + express passes to Universal Studio
7. Kevin's early birthday present.
8. Tamagotchi (okay, not really considered a big spend, but it's pretty significant to me)

Last but not least...

9. The. 21". I. Mac. With. Genuine. Windows. 7. &. Microsoft. Office. For. Mac. &. Apple. Care. Plan.

Came pretty much as a shock to myself too.

FYI, after the iMac purchase, I continued surviving for the next two weeks with $7 left in my bank and $30 in my wallet.

I know, my spending habits suck. It's lucky that I don't have a credit card; I'd totally go waaay over the limit if I had one.

To think that I still need to get that Prada.

=.=

P.S.: Designer bags sale coming up @ Suntec Convention Centre on 19 Dec!! Definitely attending! Click HERE for details!!!

Louis Vuitton

2010-12-06T19:53:00.001+08:00

“A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water”

-Nancy Reagan-

Disclaimer: Controversial post ahead. Do not read if you are a cheapo or easily offended. You were warned.

One of my Facebook friends was tagged in an album, supposedly advertising fake Louis Vuitton bags for sale.

The seller claimed the fake LV's to be "grade AAA" and to be 90% similar to the real thing.

For those of you who don't know what "grade AAA" means, its actually a term black market sellers use to describe the quality of their "designer" products.

Let me explain.

As it turns out, the original LV's are too expensive to buy, so people start duplicating fake replicas. The quality of these fake designer bags vary, and hence, the grades. Grade AAA is the best (and most similar to the real thing), followed by grade A, etc. I have no idea how many grades are out there, coz as far as I am concerned, THEY. ARE. ALL. FAKE. PERIOD.

Note that these Grade AAA *FAKE* LV's don't come cheap either. Say, the original LV cost $5000, the Grade AAA replica might cost you $500. omgwtf

If you asked me, $500 is a whole damn lot of money. Good money, which, IMO, ARE NOT WORTH SPENDING ON FAKE DESIGNER BAGS.

God, if you were ever one of those people who buy fake LV's, I despise you.

Let me get this straight.

I don't despise people coz they're not financially capable to own genuine Louis Vuitton bags (heck, I don't have that kind of money myself), I despise people who are not financially capable of owning genuine LV bags but PRETEND THAT THEY ARE.

Like, hello, if you can't afford a Louis Vuitton, DON'T PRETEND THAT YOU CAN.

Buying a fake replica of LV? That's just low. I don't care if it's Grade F or Grade A or Grade AAA, to me, its still the one thing:

ITS. A. FAKE.

Obviously a fake. DUH.

As I said, Grade AAA LV's don't come cheap either. Instead of using that large amount of money buying A FAKE DESIGNER BAG, why not use that same amount of money to buy yourself a GENUINE BUT CHEAPER DESIGNER BAG?

Fine, so you can't afford that $5000 LV. Neither can I. That doesn't mean you can spend $500 to buy a Grade AAA fake replica LV. If you asked me, I wouldn't take the bag (urrgh. fake stuff.) even if you gave it to me for free.

Why not put that $500 to better use, for e.g., buy a CHEAPER BUT GENUINE designer bag, like Herve Chapelier or Longchamp or Kipling? These lower-end BUT STILL DESIGNER (i.e., branded) BAGS cost the same as a Grade AAA *FAKE* (have to emphasize more on the word fake) LV, but have one huge advantage: At least they're GENUINE.

Isn't that so much more worth than wasting that kind of money on something fake?

And, if you argue that you've got no money to buy those cheaper but still genuine designer bags, then where the heck would you get the money to buy a Grade AAA *fake* LV?

And, to you who argue "Hey, I have no money at all okay??? My fake LV only cost me $50, and it's like damn fake, not even Grade AAA okay? Is being poor a crime?"

My answer to that is no, being poor is not a crime but owning fake designer bags is A HUGE FASHION CRIME, regardless of your financial status.

Unless, of course, under certain circumstances like:

1. Your sister were getting married and she said "Only ladies using Louis Vuittons are allowed at my wedding."

or,

2. The country ruled a law saying "all citizens must own a Louis Vuitton or will be beheaded."

or,

3. Your best friend is dying and her dying wish is for you to carry a Louis Vuitton.

and since the bride is always right and the country is law and its your friend's final breath, and you had absolutely no money to buy a genuine LV, then only would you be allowed to get a fake LV.

Back to point. If you were really that financially incapable, then instead of using that $50 to buy an extremely fake (not that there are degrees of fake-ness in a bag - lol) LV, why not use that $50 to buy something simpler, like a vintage bag or other common ones like Juicy or Roxy or even Zinc?

Or, if you can go to Bugis and get those non-designer-but-also-non-replicas-of-LV's bags for only $20 or something.

The way I see it, somebody using a $20 vintage bag is waaaaay more respectable than one who uses a $500 Grade AAA FAKE Louis Vuitton.

I'm off to get a Longchamp for myself.

Toodles.

P.S.: Do not shoot me with stuff like "people want to buy fake bags also cannot arr? Why you want to criticize so much?" Coz I would just retaliate with "This is my blog and I want to say bad things about cheapos because they are a cheapo cannot arr?"

Photoshoot!!

2010-12-04T11:47:00.001+08:00

"Anna will always gild the lily, and I'll be the one saying, 'Anna, does that outfit really need a birthday cake on the shoulder?'

-Steven Meisel-

The other day, Kevin and I had our couple photoshoot. Photos courtesy of Patrick the awesome photographer and JacQ his amazing gf.

Thanks a bunch, guys!!

Here are pics, enjoy!!

Full album on my Facebook. =)

like newtons law

2010-11-25T19:22:00.000+08:00

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

-Murphy's Law-

So the other day I was IM-ing.

(me in red, friend in green)

murphys law states that if u ever make a slight. reference or compliment of something good , it will become bad.
like for eg if u say "wow today is a sunny day" it will rain
ok from now on, i shall keep saying u're ugly ok?
so that the opposite will occur for u
ha! u can never outwit the murphy law
u cant purposely say something just to make the opposite occur
murphy can read ur mind and know when u are lying and when u are not
lols so powerful
is he a god or sth?
no
he is a law
like newtons law
like how newton knows how much force u are putting on an object (and hence he knows how much acceleration to put on it), murphy knows what your thoughts are
or like thermodynamics law
u are a science student u should know =S
so can u prove murphy law by numbers?
u prove to me zeroth law of thermo by numbers first
i'm sure some textbook will have the proof =)
and u know, i dun eat textbooks, so i cant regurgitate the proof out now
so ur point is some textbook has thermo law proof but doesnt have murphy law proof?
so can u help me find the proof?
the proof that murphy can tell whether u are lying or not
i dun eat textbooks either
sorry
lols
but where u learn abt murphy
is he some philosophist?
not much is known about the mysterious man who
founded this law based on mathematical theories so fundamental that even einstein did not understand his works
okay i go back will wiki him
his great works were hence rejected by the phycists and scientists of his time, turning instead their attention to einstein, as einsteins theories were much easier to comprehend.
not wanting to accept that they were of a much lower academic level than murphy, they rejected him and banned him from writings and records of all sorts
hence, not even the vast sea of Google has valid and true records of him
the whole world has ridiculed him as some sort of mythical creature, despised by the world of science and only regarded by old wives tales
wow u're so good

I got bored.

Sorry.

Not as good as buying a sweater from Burberry, but close enough.

2010-11-17T09:45:00.001+08:00

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.

- Steve Jobs -

Last weekend was like - full of excitement and surprises.

AFAX ANIME FESTIVAL!!!

It was the first time I attended something like this and, and, and, OMGTHECOSPLAYERS!!!

There were exhibitions, products for sale, and even 2 lil' cafe's inside!!! One with cute guys in suits serving lady customers (don't remember the name of the cafe tho), and another cafe (School Days Ver.) with really cute high school girls serving drooling (not literally but you get the point) guys. I wanted to go in (actually, I preferred going into the high-school-girl-cum-waitress-cafe coz the girls looked cuter) but the queue was like. damn. long.

A friend who actually went in, had to queue outside for 2 whole hours. @.@

Their food weren't cheap either. A piece of cake for $16. *Double @.@*

They even invited an anime voicer celebrity and had this anime dubbing session, which I unfortunately missed. Bummer.

Anyways. Despite their products being insanely expensive, I managed to grab some cheap ones.

You know how much I LOOOOVE Domo-kun?

*Don't? Now you do*

OMG DOMO-KUN MERCHANDISES MAKE ME DROOL!!

I also managed to take some photos of the cosplayers. Sorry for bad quality, I was using my phone (good quality ones stolen from Marcus' Fb):

School Days Ver Cafe

OMG EFFING CUTE

MY fave!! Riku!

Last but not least...

MY BELOVED DOMO-KUN DVD!! ONLY $15!!

Will go again next year!! Reminder to self: REMEMBER TO COSPLAY.

***

So after working for 5 months now, I unwittingly saved up enough to buy...

iMac!!!

Apple wireless keyboard! Nice.

Before removing protective wrapping.

Voila!

I love my new 21" iMac!

xoxo

ATTN: I am selling my Microsoft Arc Wireless keyboard. Original price $89, now going for $75 only!!! Only 2 weeks old, still in good condition (I take good care of my electronics, btw, I even had a keyboard protector for it), with 1 year warranty and still in full packaging. A very good kyboard, very satisfied with it. Would never have sold it for the world if not for the free wireless keyboard that came with my Mac.

Given a choice, I would have chosen the Microsoft Arc over Apple Wireless keyboard anytime (personally, I think the Arc has better touch and better ergonomics), but the Arc is black, which doesn't look good with my silver Mac. So well...

Actually, if you wanna buy my Apple wireless keyboard, I would consider it as well. Original price $98, your call.

To help you decide, here's a link for Arc VS Apple.

Arc review here.

Please buy 'em off me!!! I'm broke after all this gadget shopping!!

Right. Back to my Mac...

So Kevin and I explored around with the Photo Booth, as with what people usually do when they first get their Mac.

I always thought people posting photos of themselves and their friends/boyfriends goofing around and acting in Photo Booth are lame and plain show offs. Yeah, yeah, we know you've got an iMac. *scoffs*

But honestly, it was sooooo funnnn!!!!

Aight, I'm off to JP to learn my knitting!!

Yes, I'm taking up knitting. Coz Kevin's 21st birthday is coming and I thought I'd knit him a sweater.

The knitting set (needles, wool, whatnots) cost me $276.

Including manpower fees, Kevin's sweater is worth more than $300, i.e., RM 700.

A RM700 sweater. Nice.

Not as good as buying a sweater from Burberry, but close enough.

I should totally get this patented.

2010-11-11T18:24:00.000+08:00

“Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.”

-Bo Derek-

So I’m blogging at work coz I suddenly felt awfully damn guilty for not updating in like forever, and I know I wouldn’t get to it when I get home later – heck, after-work hours is precious playtime, wouldn’t wanna waste it on blogging of all things – so I thought to myself, what better way to pass time than taking a break from work and using that time to blog instead?

BTW, this is my lunch time, so technically I’m not slacking at work either. Some people use the time to eat, I use the time to blog. =)

Did some calculating on my finances last night. FYI, life was so much more fun and less stressful back when I just received pocket money from parents. I spent a consistent amount of money on living expenses, didn’t splurge, and didn’t stress out on having to save all the time.

Well not literally but you get the point.

Logic: Receiving money from parents is easy. You know that money isn’t yours, so you don’t splurge. You spend a decent amount of money every month, and don’t ever dream of owning any of those luxury stuff coz you know your parents would never allow you to use their money on those.

Of course, prior to work experience, I thought that was a bad thing coz it confined me to spending only a limited amount of money every month and limits me to the luxury I can afford. I wished and wished I was working, and then I would have the right to do whatever I wanted with the money I earn and save up to buy really cool stuffs like designer bags, clothes, Apple products, Alienware, etc.

On the other hand, if you’re earning your own money, you’re free to do whatever you want with it. Hence, you’ll be more prone to splurging and impulsive buying and not saving up. Also, the money you’re earning is probably more than the money you receive from your parents, hence, your financial status is suddenly boosted a few notches up. Not a good thing if you’ve been making a mental wish list of all the expensive stuff you want but know you will never have, coz all of a sudden, you’re granted the opportunity to have them. It’s easy and safe to have an expensive wish list if you know you’re never going to afford any of them. But when you’re earning your own money, you start playing around with the thought of getting those stuffs you had always wished for and suddenly, you’re thrown into the Pit Of Confusion and Prioritizing, which, trust me, is pretty tough to handle.

So.

Did some calculating on my finances last night (which pretty much stressed me up – who knew keeping track of your expenditure/earnings would be so stressful?). Found that after 5 months of working, I managed to save up a pretty decent amount. Which pretty much shocked me, coz as far as I could remember, my expenses were always up to the limit.

Knowing that I’d never keep to budget and spend the money as soon as I received it, I had concocted up a special formula to avoid over-spending and leaving myself in budget deficit: Over-estimating your daily spending and rounding up to the nearest-highest hundredth. E.g.: If you spent $50 on shopping, assume you spent $100. Sure, your apparent cash at hand drains away pretty damn fast, but at the end of six months, you’ll realize that “hey, I’ve got an additional few thousands turned up out of nowhere!”

I didn’t expect my technique to work very well. Rounding up to the nearest-highest tenth for expenses below $100 and to the nearest-highest hundredth for expenses above $100 – I thought I’d only saved a few dollars, but to my surprise it turned out to be a pretty hefty sum.

Sure, most people would say my technique isn’t ideal and it’s still best to calculate your expenses to the exact decimal and stick to budgets and saving plans, but you know me. I always exceed my budget and spend more than I can afford.

There’s this theory I read in some book saying that the higher your salary, the poorer you are. Logic being, if you get a pay raise, your daily expenses would get a raise as well; problem is, while your pay may increase linearly, your expenses increases exponentially. This theory pretty much applies to me, I guess.

Hence, my new method to save. It’s proven to be working, too. I should totally get this patented.

I was poor. But then, I stopped being poor and decided to be awesome instead. True story.

No wonder adults keep telling me life is short. Life is short, when you're working.

2010-11-04T21:25:00.001+08:00

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

-Dodie Smith -

Note: Crappy meaningful-like-but-not-very-insightful-in-fact-it's-damn-shitty-now-that-I've-re-read-it blog entry ahead. You've been warned.

I'm becoming this superficial and shallow female who doesn't give a damn about deep thoughts.

(I've recently resorted to calling myself a female coz I'm currently in that phase in life where you don't know whether you're a girl or a woman - hey, that's a deep thought!)

Or maybe it's just that I've been contemplating on small, individual thoughts, those nitty gritty bits worth mentioning on Twitter, but not enough for a blog post.

Or maybe I'm just lazy to pour my thoughts out.

Or maybe it's updating Twitter is waaayy more convenient.

See? Twitter is damaging the true potential Blogger could achieve.

I'm rambling again.

Gahhhh I'm becoming this superficial female who only updates her blog with material stuff and shoes and clothes and gadgets and shopping trips and foods and whateverissuperficial rather than real stuff. You know, thoughts. Contemplations. Stuff I used to blog about back when... waaay back.

Growing up and earning your own money and working and not studying and not having a life destroys your inner self, the part of you which still thinks deep thoughts are insightful/romantic/meaningful/etcetcetc.

I have to get out of Industrial Attachment ASAP.

Ever since I started IA, things have changed. It's been only 4 months now (OMG TWO MORE MONTHS TO FREEDOM!) but I feel like IA has changed me. How it managed, I don't know.

It's like, before I started, I was sooooo extremely excited to be able to finally gain some working experience in a real company as a real engineer (okay, half-engineer) coz - let's face it - being a temp secondary school teacher doesn't count as a real job. No, not dissin' school teachers out there, just sayin'. Besides, IA is different. You get to work in a real industrial-involved company, not some sappy school where everyone tells you (or in my case, as a teacher, I tell everyone) to obey the rules, study hard, yadda yadda.

So when I first started, things were going pretty smoothly, till work came in. I was this stressed, confused little insignificant intern (actually, I still do think I'm an insignificant intern, but at least I have gained experience) whose job is to keep out of everyone else's way and does her paper work well.

Then, my first month's pay came in and I got excited and got carried away by shopping and spending and buying ipods.

(The unfortunate incident still haunts me and forever will . I've implemented a strict no-liquids-in-my-bag rule ever since that... that *thing* happened to me.)

Went for movies every weekend (Kevin and I implemented a at-least-one-movie-per-weekend policy - and that means going to the movies, not renting some DVD's for home movie) till one fine Saturday night, we were at Cathay Cineplex looking at movie posters when we realized "shit, we're run out of movies to watch."

We've stopped going for movies ever since. Allow some time for movies to accumulate before we go on a movie marathon again.

So anyways, three months later I decided that I had had enough. I stopped spending abruptly and started keeping track of my expenses.

Damn, it was hard.

Who knew keeping track of your spending would be so stressful?

I felt like I was putting unnecessary restrictions on my spending habits and I hated it.

So anyways, last week I screwed that plan. I gave myself a compromise. I'll spend whenever I feel like it, provided I don't overdo it.

So speaking of change, yes, I've changed into this superficial and shallow female who doesn't contemplate anymore but rather, spends her time calculating how much money to spend and how much to save and what new toy to buy.

Also, I've changed my perspective on working life.

I always knew I'd loathe working life and wished uni life was forever, but I didn't know how much I actually hated it till I experienced it.

Seriously.

You work, and you work, and you work, and you have no life.

Time flies so fast, a month feels like a week and half a year feels like a month or two.

I know time flies but I never knew it could go this fast. No wonder adults keep telling me life is short. Life is short, when you're working.

I can't wait to get back to studying. I miss that crazy stressful moments where you wanna breakdown and cry coz you cant understand a word your lecturer is saying. I miss those times where you spend sleepless nights studying and cramming for an upcoming quiz. I miss those times we'd be dissin' a lecturer coz of his weird accent. I miss freaking out coz exam's a week away. I miss being a student.

Okays, I guess contemplation's done here, time to watch How I Met Your Mother!! SEASON SIX IS OUT AND IMMA HAPPY HAPPY GURL!!

Will leave the calling myself a female (i.e. unsure whether to call self a girl or a woman) till next time, when I feel like talking about it.

For now, feeling proud of self for being able to belt out a somewhat 'contemplatious' blog entry (albeit being crappy), after all those superficial ones.

P.S.: A superficial sidenote: up to date, I have collected 5 Tama figurines, and I am finally eligible for my secret special item!! I know I'm childish, sue me.

Microsoft Arc =)

2010-11-01T18:49:00.001+08:00

As you know, Microsoft eventually kind of grabbed the gold ring out of Apple's hands, I guess.

-Andy Hertzfel-

After newly establishing my "no-spending-unnecessarily" policy, one week into practice, I'd broken it.

I thought being thrifty and keeping track of where your money goes to was supposed to be easy, a natural talent like eating and breathing. As it turns out, it was harder than I thought.

Screw it, it's just way too stressful, what with having to put unnecessary restrictions on my own spending habits and keeping track of my expenditure (gosh, I'm worse than my own mum). Not being able to treat myself to nice stuffs when I'm stressed out makes things worse.

So anyways, I and bought Maple a-cash cards, and these:

Mametchi

Ringotchi! (ringo is apple in Japanese =) )

Tama figurines!

I know I just bought my last one not too long ago, but I guess it's a sort of addiction, you know?

I had only two more figurines to collect before being eligible to claim my "special item"!!!

So much for "I will not fall for Bandai"s tricks and get tricked into spending more unnecessary money on tama accesories!"

=.=

***

Lappie keyboard went insane few days ago; wouldn't respond to my typing, regardless of how hard I hit it. (yep, I'm one of those tech geeks who physically torture their electronics when things don't go their way).

Hence, went keyboard shopping. Was hunting for cheap flexible keyboard (another one of my crazy budget ideas) when stopped in mid-tracks by this really, really, really cute and gorgeous wireless keyboard - Microsoft Arc:


BEAUTIFUL BABY!

I really was considering dumping the cheap flexible keyboard idea and getting this beautiful hot thang instead when I flipped the box and...

HOLYMOTHEROFCOWS $89.90!!!

Okay, I know it wasn't that expensive, but still. My budget was below $20. So anyways, I decided to be a good girl and not buy the expensive one, and finally settled on a cheap, flexible keyboard which cost only $16.

Which didn't type well.

Half the keys I pressed on the flexible keyboard didn't register on my screen, coz well, it's too soft.

Only then did I realize I had been too hasty in deciding which keyboard to buy, as I Googled and found that cons of a flexible keyboard outweighs its pros. Biggest one being, 60% of the keys you press don't register on screen.

After 2 days of frustration, I thought, what the heck, I'll just go get the $89 one. The Microsoft Arc.

So that's my story of how I came to own a Microsoft Arc wireless keyboard (which, mind you, would have cost me only $89 if I hadn't been dumb enough to buy the cheap flexible keyboard in the first place, totaling my expenditure on a keyboard to $115).

Another lesson learned: If you wanna buy something expensive (the quality kind of expensive, not the crazy kind), go for it. If you buy the cheaper version, you'll regret and end up spending more money buying the expensive one later on anyway.

At least it applies to my shopping experience.

So anyways, I'm too lazy to snap pics of it (not when you get prettier pics of the keyboard just by Googling), so here's one I got from the net:

Notice that it's just about 12 inches long. Very cute =)

The funny thing about it is that it's arrow keys (up, down, left, right) are all merged into one single button. Kinda annoying when you wanna play games like Maple Story or worse, AuditionSEA.

But whatev. I love my new baby.

Here's a video of the unboxing, as a bonus (not me unboxing mine, I meant a video ripped from Youtube):

Tama-Go Faceplates

2010-10-24T13:21:00.002+08:00

So I got bored and decided to design a few Tama-Go faceplates of my own.

Feel free to download them and print them out for your own use:

Firstly, just for laughs:

Tama-Me!!

Secondly (and this is my personal favorite so far):


Tama-Elfen Lied!

Lastly (kinda crappy, but whatev):

Tama-MapleStory. =)

NOTE: to use these face plates you must print them at height: 2.77in width: 2.214in.

I'm still an ameteur at this, so pardon the flaws.

I do requests, too! Do drop me a comment if you want any design done. That way, I'll get more ideas, and YOU get the design you want.

Cheers!

UPDATE: New faceplate!! Chobits! Fave of all time. Even beats Elfen Lied. =)

Tama-Chobits

lightning never strikes the same place twice, but your electronic device can get drowned twice.

2010-10-22T20:38:00.002+08:00

Remember my Tamagotchi I bought few months back?

This one?


Mine's the white, with Kuchipatchi (the green character)

So anyways, as you can see, each Tama-Go (that's the name of this Tamagotchi edition) comes with a faceplate (which is changeable; I'll explain why later) and a figurine which can be attached to the top of your device.

Upon purchase, you get a default figurine and faceplate, however, you can buy extra figurines and faceplates at $11 each. Each figurine unlocks more games on your device (Bandai's smart but evil way of extorting cash out of poor innocent Tama fans like me) and lets you buy even more items. The biggest catch is that if you have connected up to 5 figurines on your device, you get a special secret surprise.

Well, at the time of purchase, I scoffed and told myself I'd never fall for Bandai's evil plans to extort even more cash than I have already spent on the device alone ($49.90).

1.5 months later, I was strolling along the aisles of Popular bookstore when I saw this:

OMG VIOLETCHI IS SUCH A CUTE FIGURINE, PLUS, THE FACEPLATE IS PINK!!

I just had to have it.

For goodness' sake, it was PINK! PINK, I tell you! How could I resist???

At the time, $11 didn't seem like such a huge amount anymore.

Bought it instinctively, and attached it onto my tama right away.

From plain ol' green guy...

To this cute thing!


You can see Kuchipatchi lying at the back.

I'm officially addicted to collecting Tama-Go figurines.

While Googling, I came upon this website.

Custom faceplates!! Now, I can save the trouble of measuring my own dimensions. I can just download a template, PhotoShop it to my own liking, and VOILA! My very own custom made Tamagotchi faceplate!!

Today, at work, my boss saw the tama on my table and he was like "what's that?"

When I told him it was an electronic pet, he was like "electronic what??"

So then I explained, and he was like "Wasn't that popular 10 years ago? Is it still popular now?"

And then he was so intrigued that he asked to have a look at it.

Lolness. My boss is cute. =)

***

MY IPOD TOUCH IS FINALLY HERE!!

This is the 3rd iPod Touch I have owned in 3 years, coz well, my previous two went for a swim and never survived.

Know the saying "lightning never strikes the same place twice"?

Apparently, it doesn't apply to electronic devices; your iTouch can get drowned twice.

Don't think it'll happen thrice, will it?

My lovely, precious iTouch.

So far, have spent $1500 just on buy iTouches.

***

Transparent iPhone4!!!

Randomness. LOL.

***

The Astronomical Society went for a star gazing trip to Pulau Ubin last weekend. Was really fun and educational, but damn exhausted.

Spent all night looking at stars - I saw the Orion constellation!!!

We were supposed to see the Hartley comet, but the sky was too cloudy that night. =(

Made a few friends - stayed up till 4 a.m. chatting and star gazing.

Slept at 4 a.m., woke at 6.30 a.m., just in time for the picturesque sunrise.

Photo of the sunrise:

Don't expect gorgeous pro-photographer-wallpaper-like quality. Just casually snapped this with my HTC.

Best part of it all?

I slept under the stars.

Not even in a tent, but literally under the night sky. Moon, stars, and all.

Great experience. Will go again next year.

Replay

2010-10-18T21:25:00.001+08:00

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

-Lord Byron -

So I unleashed the creative writer in me.

Read here.

Replay.

P.S.: I know some of you may not like it, nor may you agree with my style of writing or the idea or plot, but what the heck. I just thought I'd explore something new, something different from other authors.

Donkey Ears

2010-10-12T21:42:00.000+08:00

So today I went and bought this book at Harris for $26.70:

I feel so intellectual. =)

Lotsa stuff to update; no time, no motivation.

Firstly...

Cousin's wedding!!!

Here are a few randoms taken by my bro's EOS 500D. I didn't take any pics myself coz (hate to remind myself of this awfully shameful fact) I do not own a camera.

There. I said it. I do not own a camera.

*Well, unless if you wanted to call that lomo toy of mine a camera...*

Not for long, though. I'm getting the Canon G12 as soon as it launches!!! Gah, when will it EVER launch in Malaysia/Singapore?? Been waiting FOREVER!

Anyways. There you go. Pics. Just a few, not a lot. Sorry. Bro took like hundreds of 'em, but I thought I'd only pick those with me in it, since I'm the one blogging about it.

Okay, here's a bonus pic for you guys:

On cue, lets all go "AWWW!!"

Gratz to my lovely cousin and my new cousin-brother-in-law!

Did I mention? My bro FINALLY got his very own cellphone. Yes, at the age of 17, his very own cell. Personally, I would call it a bit late, but as long as he's happy not owning a cell phone for the last 17 years of his life, who am I to judge?

His first phone's a HTC Wildfire.

Like wtf, first phone already get smartphone. Lucky him.

So anyways.

WENT TO UNIVERSAL STUDIOS SINGAPORE WITH KEVIN!!!

Reason: 2nd anniversary. =)

Spent $280 on entrance tickets; 2 adult weekend passes at $72 each, and 2 weekend express passes at $68 each.

72 x 2 + 68 x 2 = $280.

Nice.

Express passes weren't that useful anyway, coz most of the rides were only 15 minutes waiting time tops, save for a few popular ones which had insanely long queues, and if not for those godly express passes, we would have stood in queue for over an hour for the water rafting, 50 minutes for *some ride - I don't remember the name*, and another 30 mins for *some other ride*.

But still, paying $68 just to cut 3 long queues (out of like, 20 rides or so?) wasn't really worth it.

On the bright side, there was a special route for express pass holders, and we felt like VIP's, breezing by all those pitiful people who had to stand in queue for, like, ever. I almost could imagine them staring at us lucky express pass holders with begrudging envious eyes.

LOL.

My favorite place was FAR FAR AWAY!! OMG it was like damn fairytale like - kinda romantic too, in it's own way.

Made me love Shrek oh-so-ever-more.

We visited the Talking Donkey, and he married us!! Yes, the Talking Donkey from Far Far Away actually MARRIED US!! YAY!! Donkey wise, WE ARE OFFICIALLY MARRIED!!

He (the donkey) even had us stand in front of the crowd (which clapped and cheered for us *grins*) and asked us the big question, and then Kevin and I had to say "I do", and then the donkey insisted that we kissed, but regrettably, we didn't coz at that time I guess we were kinda shy coz of the crowd.

And then there was this B-boy dance group on one of New York's streets, and they dragged me up as a volunteer for free dancing. =.=

So scary okay.

Luckily I managed to do a few moves, which I personally think it'd do for an amateur. Had always wanted to be a dancer, but never had the courage to do it. AT least this time, I was forced into it, and admittedly, I kinda enjoyed the attention as well.

(Ugly pics of me dancing at the bottom, feel free to scroll down and laugh at them.)

I kinda liked the water rafting ride, too. The end part got some of the people in our boat soaking wet, but fortunately for Kevin and I, we didn't get wet at all. =)

Bought souvenirs too!!! Kevin bought me a pillow from Far Far Away, and I bought him a mug that says "Universal Studios Singapore" on the front.

Enjoyed ourselves to the max!!

Just one thing, I took pics using my lomo.

Awfully bad move.

Lesson to learn: Never, ever, ever bring a toy camera into some place you've paid hundreds to get in, just to snap some crappy shots out of it.

Anyways. Scanned the pics, here they are:

The pics suck like hell. I swear I will never use a lomo ever again.

P.S.: The donkey ears were a souvenir meant for my cousin, but I took the liberty of wearing them first. Heck, how many times do you get to wear a pair of donkey ears without getting weird stares?

why don't they ever make smartphones pink?

2010-10-05T22:57:00.001+08:00

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

~Ambrose Bierce~

So yesterday the artistic side of me got the better of my sensibility, and I ended up doing this to my HTC:

With flash

Without flash

I know you're probably gonna say something along the lines of "OMG you crazy freak, you allowed your raging creativity to destroy yet another one of your precious electronics!"

To which I'll reply:

"Do I look like I care that much about what happens to my phone anyway?"

Well in fact, of course I still do care about my phone - heck, I spent $888 on it, why wouldn't I care? - but well, it's been with me for about 6 months now, and let's face it, as long as it's still working on the inside, you can't expect me to still care about what happens on the outside, right?

Of course, when you first get a new phone you'd be like "omgomgomgomg my new phone!!" but after a while you're gonna realize that duh, it's just a phone, dude.

Besides, black/grey isn't the most attractive color to be used on a phone.

Seriously, why don't they ever make smartphones pink?

together two years

2010-10-05T22:20:00.001+08:00

And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

-1 Corinthians 13:13-

Happy 2nd anniversary, dd!!

We have been together two years, been through thick and thin.

I'm not good at words, but you know how I feel.

~XOXO~

Malaysia's Brain Drain

2010-10-02T10:04:00.000+08:00

“We don’t get it right, we are in serious trouble.”

-Malaysia's human resources minister, S. Subramaniam-

Hey lookit, I'm featured on New York Times!

If you wanna see my ugly face broadcasted all over the world, click!!!

Heh heh. I'm famous. =)

Mr Z

2010-10-01T19:07:00.003+08:00

UPDATE: Okay, so at the point of writing this, I was kinda pissed so my judgment might have been biased. To be fair, the said person is, in fact, pretty nice at nice times.

"One who gets the job done by doing it is called a worker. He does all the hard labour but is never recognized for it. One who gets the job done by delegating the work to others is called a manager. He does no work but is recognized for being able to manage the work well, and hence gets promoted"

-One of my colleagues-

It's been a long time since I've updated. As usual, coz there's nothing much to blog about; how would you expect one to have a life when all she does is:

7 a.m. : Wake up, go to work.
6 p.m. : (note that it's been 12 hours of my precious life gone, and my
real life for the day hasn't even begun) Arrive home, dinner, shower.
7 p.m. : (my life starts here) Check mail, Facebook.
7.30 p.m. : can only do one of the following coz not enough time for all -
oh, how sad my life is: computer gaming OR watch TV series OR watch a movie
11 p.m. : get ready for bed, procrastinate going to bed.
Approx. 11.30 p.m. / 12 a.m. : Finally get to bed.

See?

And this is just my internship. I'm dreading real working life.

However.

Have finally got stuff to update today.

Has been happening for past few weeks already; been getting on my nerves, but today is the last straw and as nice a person as I am, it is OVER. MY. LIMIT.

I know I rarely get angry, but when I do...

Having great talent in speaking politely with hidden stabs is just one of the few things I pride myself of.

It's advantageous coz then people can't hold it against you for being rude or uncivilized or unreasonable (well, I WAS polite and I was JUST speaking my opinion, and I HAVE reasonable basis for my arguments) - think politically correct - but on the other hand, they'll get the message that I'm pissed and hopefully realise that as petite as I may seem, I AM capable of retaliation.

So. It all started when there was this guy, let's call him Mr Z, contacts me a couple weeks into the start of my internship. Incidentally, I had begun my internship at such a strategic time, a critical time when Mr Z needed some stuff coz the deadline was just on the time when I started working.

Me, being new and all, of coruse was still very blur about my job around here, and of course took my time to learn about what to do. Mr Z, on the other hand, was getting pissed coz I was not responding to his e-mails. What he didn't know was that, I HAD NO ACCESS to my e-mail yet because I was new and the process would take a while before the database could
recognize me.

So then, he kept sending me e-mails, and I kept not replying him. In the end, he got fed up and called me. Well, I answered and being new and all, I was still feeling scared and tried my best to be nice to everyone. (Not that I'm not nice to everyone now, I still am, but braver now =)) So then, he sort of "lectured". "Lecture" as in, you know the times when you were young and your parents lectured you on something wrong that you did, and
you found that you could not answer back, so you just shut up, listened, and patiently waited for the lecture to end? Yeah, that's what he did to me. Treated me like a child and shit like that.

Lectured on why he needed it so urgently, and on why I have not done it yet, and that I will NEED TO DO IT ASAP. Like, hello, who the heck are you to lecture me on my first week of work? Of course, at that moment, I didn't think that, I just assumed he was in a position to do so. As you can expect, it wasn't his concern whether I was blur about the job or not, by hook or by crook, he wanted it done.

So anyway I ran to my supervisor about it, and - God bless him - he was very kind about it and helped me talk to Mr Z. Eventually, seeing that I was still new and all, my supervisor also (very kindly) helped me get the job done.

So well, the first impression I had on Mr Z wasn't all that good.

A month later, Mr Z contacted me again, telling me there was a mini "project" that needs to be done. The previous intern had been working on it, and I was to continue his work. He arranged for us to meet, and when I met him, my image of him totally changed. He was very friendly and smiled pretty often, and he was even nice to me. Not rude or angry, like the last
time when we talked on the phone. So well, I naively assumed that maybe he was just having a bad day the last time (do I hear PMS?) and that in fact, he may be a nice enough guy to work with.

He then explained to me about the "project", and told me there was a process I would need to learn before embarking on this. He knew the process as well, don't ask me why he did not personally teach me about it but instead told me to learn it from other people.

So anyway, I went along and learnt it, though not very well, coz I wasn't allowed access to it, so I couldn't have hands-on, but only listen and learn from explanations by others. At least I had a rough idea about it.

Then I came back to Mr Z, and told him I had learnt about it. He asked me several questions, to some I could not answer very well, and to which he concluded that I did not learn it well enough and told me to learn it again. ZzZZzzz.

So I learned it again, and came back to Mr Z. I think it's essential that I point out here that I DID learn the process very well, and I asked lots of questions and at the end of the lesson I even asked is there anything else I need to know?" and made sure I knew everything. Would it be really my fault then, if Mr Z asked me something that I was not even taught? I
already tried to learn everything and asked all questions I could ask, is it really my fault if there was some question left unasked, because of the mere fact that I myself DID NOT EVEN KNOW THAT QUESTION/PROBLEM EXISTED?

I learned the process THREE FRICKIN' TIMES and even after that Mr Z insisted that I didn't know enough. Well, how can I, when I MYSELF AM NOT ALLOWED ACCESS TO THE SYSTEM, HENCE I CANNOT HAVE HANDS ON, AND HENCE AM MERELY LEARNING BY LOOKING?

If Mr Z was such a pro about it, WHY WON'T HE TEACH ME? WHY TELL ME TO
LEARN IT FROM OTHERS INSTEAD, BUT WHEN I TELL HIM I HAVE FINISHED LEARNING IT, HE INSISTS THAT I HAVE NOT LEARNED ENOUGH?

If you think I have not learned the things you expect me to know, THEN YOU TEACH ME YOURSELF LAH, ASSHOLE.

So anyway, I had also discussed this "project" with my supervisor, and my supervisor had already approved of my work and was very satisfied with what I have done. But IDIOTIC MR Z KEEP FINDING MY FAULTS.

WELL, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT I'M DOING IS WRONG, WHEN YOU ARE NOT EVEN FROM MY DEPARTMENT, AND WHEN MY OWN SUPERVISOR HAS ALREADY APPROVED MY WORK?

There was even once when he scolded me through the phone and I still had to act happy and polite and all, but when we finally hung up, I ALMOST CRIED. Scratch that, actually there were tears already, but then I had the flu so nobody noticed when I took a tissue to my face.

So then most recently, I discussed about the "project" with my supervisor, and my supervisor corrected some of my mistakes. I discussed it with Mr Z, and Mr Z agreed about what my supervisor said, and even gave me further instructions to do according to what my supervisor told me to do.

So I went and did it, and then I forwareded the final result to Mr Z and my supervisor. Because of the time Mr Z scolded me (for something that was utterly not my fault, FYI) till I was on the verge of tears, I was still kinda fuming so this is what I said:

(if you can't read the fine print, click on the image to enlarge)

And then, do you know what that asshole Mr Z replied?

Here's what he said:

Like WHAT THE FUCK??

I find so many things wrong with this email.

Firstly, I DID THIS BECAUSE IT WAS WHAT MY SUPERVISOR ASKED ME TO DO, AND WE HAD ALSO DISCUSSED ABOUT THIS, AND YOU AGREED FOR ME TO DO THIS. NOW I DID IT AND YOU ASK ME WHY??????

Secondly, EXPLAIN WHAT SHIT? Have you EVER explained anything to me? You have been making me run from this guy to that guy, forcing me to learn everything by myself. But YOU? YOU DID NOT EXPLAINED NO SHIT TO ME.

Thirdly, do I give a fuck whether you are disappointed in me or not? If you didn't know, MY SUPERVISOR AND BOSS ARE VERY HAPPY WITH MY PERFORMANCE. I don't give a shit if YOU are disappointed in me, you don't mean shit to my working life. Just because I am a student and not a permanent employee of the company does not mean you get to kick me around like I'm your student. If anything, it is MY SUPERVISOR who has the right to ill-treat me, not some nobody like you.

So anyway, I was procrastinating about calling him when my supervisor called me over and said that he would personally explain the situation to him. Which at that point, I heaved a huge sigh of relief, coz who knows what shit Mr Z will say to my face again if I called him?

Here's how my supervisor saved the day:

You may tell me that I should tell my supervisor about Mr Z, so that at least my supervisor could save me, but I can't coz if I do, both my supervisor and Mr Z would view me as some weakling who can't even stand on her own shoes and needs her supervisor to back her up.

Which is definitely not the impression I want others to have of me.

So anyways. That's about it. The problem isn't completely solved yet, but I'm praying it will soon enough.

I'll update again if there's more news about him.

But oh, well. What does it matter. My internship only lasts 6 months, anyway. Besides, at least I now have a taste of what the real working life might me.

It's gonna be a bleak road down my career.

Curlies

2010-09-23T21:55:00.000+08:00

"The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life."

- Carl Jung -

Remember the other day I mentioned that I curled my hair?

M1 Broadband Mobile is so friggin slow that I couldn't upload anything (plus, I was too lazy to take photos of myself lah), but few days ago I got camwhorish at my office during lunch time (got awfully bored) so here are some pics off Facebook:

I know these may not be the prettiest photos, but I just wanted to show off the hair.

And mind you, I was bored at work.

Another bored at work pic:

Sometimes, even I get amazed by what my hand can do with a piece of paper and a pen.

You know what I think about art?

I think the results are best when you've not planned what you're gonna draw. Like, you just allow your hand to dance across the paper and 15 minutes later, voila! Your hand creates a masterpiece of its own.

I'd like to believe that art does not come from the conscious mind, but instead, the subconscious.

Meaning, when I first picked up that pen, I didn't know I was to create an anime girl with boobies. It just...

Happened.

P.S.: About the part where I said I hated bimbotic homicidal bloggers, as much as you might use this post against me by saying I'm one of them, no, I'm not, coz I don't do this in, like, every other blog post. In fact, this is only one of the rare times I actually bothered to snap some pics of myself and upload 'em.

P.P.S.: Have been feeling pretty artsy lately - hope I can upload more of my artworks, please be gentle on criticisms as I'm no art student.

perm + recolor black roots + hair treatment

2010-09-19T23:02:00.000+08:00

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

-Alfred Hitchcock -

~~Permed~~(omigosh the word 'perm' makes me sound so old - I'd rather use the term 'curl') curled my hair yesterday.
Always wanted to give it a go, but never had the guts to - besides, hair was never long enough for it.

Had pretty much received comments from various people about how overly-long my hair is (though I don't think it's that long), hence thought it might be the best time to shorten hair without snipping 'em off.

Another reason why wanted to ~~perm~~ curl hair is that felt hair was too little, hence ~~perming~~ curling it to make it look "more massive". Or more. Or thicker. Or more volume.

Yep, think that's the word. More volume.

After curling.

Observations:

1. Hair has become significantly shorter. Not a good sign, but thank God for fast-growing hair.
2. Hair seems to have more volume. Nice. =)
3. Hair feels like there's less volume. (Note: word play - 'seem' and 'feel') Probably coz the hair stylist layered my hair a lil before curling it, coz she said curled hair looks nicer when layered. A bit of a bother, espcially when I wet my hair and it becomes all flat and matted. Nevermind, hair grows back.
4. Look slightly older, but I'd rather call it mature.
5. Overall, pretty satisfied with the make-over. At least it's something new. Been getting awfully tired of the same old hair-style lately.

Sorry, no photos up. Too lazy to snap new pic of self just for the sake of blogging about it. Will upload one of new curly hair when feel like it. Won't be long. Wait.

Speaking of hair styles, have been considering getting cornrows/mini braids.

Not now, of course, have just gotten new perm (curl), wouldn't wanna spoil it so fast. 'Sides, wouldn't do to wear cornrows/mini braids to work. Supervisor mightn't like it and decide to give a bad grade for internship.

Might get it at the end of the year (or beginning of next year), or when my curls grow out, whichever comes first.

Which do you think I should get:

1. Cornrows - mini french braids that stick to scalp like so:

Or,

2. Mini braids - braids that grow out of head like normal hair, just thicker, like so:

Difference between 'em both is that one sticks to the scalp, one doesn't. So which is it, cornrows or braids?

Personally I think braids are much better coz cornrows make one look more bald; what with my already low hair count/hair densitiy.

Though it wouldn't hurt for me to hear your two cents.

Btw, perm + recolor black roots + hair treatment cost me $140.

Not too bad I guess. Cheap + pretty good hair salon just outside Boon Lay MRT Station.

***

First time in life, realised that had watched all movies screened at cinema; was at Cathay Cineplex today when Kevin and I realised we had ran out of movies to watch.

Excluding horror movies, of course.

Hence, had no choice but to brace ourselves, and against better judgement, bought two movie tickets for Devil.

Yeah, sure we always had the option of not watching any movie at all for the weekend (and hence saving us 20 bucks), but for the past consecutive 8-9 weeks, had been watching one movie per weekend, and we weren't about to make this weekend any different.

The weekend feels incomplete if not gone for a movie.

Anyhow.

Devil is a movie about 5 people stuck in an elevator, and 1 by 1, they die off.

You guessed it.

Killed by the Devil.

Almost regretted settling for this movie just because we couldn't find any other better ones to watch.

Whatev.

Work tomorrow.

Nights.