please do comment on my pictures..just click on the link at the bottom of the post. Sleeping? Or x globins got chewed (if someone already did). Love to hear comments on the pics. Gotta go sleep soon, have to sneak back to camp early tomorrow morning. lol.

Really glad I could come home today. Rushed down to capture some shots of kids and their parents enjoying the Mid Autumn Festival. Really happy I was actually present. Found it hard to work with a tripod with flash as I didn't want to alert them playing. Most of the parents were happy to let me into their midst. Presenting my fave shot of all.


Carefully Lighting Our Candles

Cheated a bit on this one cos I cropped the picture. The rest that I uploaded can be found here.

Overall, glad I had an experience like this. Digital means no worries about film. Some pics I took over 5 to get the proper frame. But did not like the lag I got after taking a picture. And of course, the slight blur found in some pictures(used AF). A tripod was cumbersome as I missed several moments when I had to adjust to the correct height and angle etc. Still, I'm as happy as a lark.

Oxymoron of the day: Afganistan Elections

I'm a displaced personnel! This is last week's rant. As you may not know, I've been currently "promoted" due to the leaving of my predecessor last Thursday. However, the succession of duties and responsibilities started months ago, shortly after my Brunei trip. Even then, I was poised to take over his seat. And since then, I've been running my platoon and given more powers/responsiblities/shit by my boss (on top of my other appointments).

When we first came after our course, I felt estranged from the rest because they could be split into 2 distinct groups (which went through a period of heated arguments due to work responsibilites) while I languished in the little corner of mine, doing my own work. After Brunei, things changed for the better as both sides recouncilled while I was slowly groomed for my eventual taking over. [Sounds like the recent change of PM..lol] And I drifted more as I was given more power.

Since last week, I shifted office due to big boss's directions and I felt even more alone. The more senior ones complained that it was unfair I got the air-con room, my friends made jokes about my new-gained title and my men resent me for being a pain in the ass. I mean, I can't please everybody! I'm just doing my job and following commands. I was rather hurt when a friend of mine said, "See la, now PS liao. Big already!" I didn't ask for this title, it was just de facto that things turned out this way.

So please, please don't ignore me. I'm still the same person, I've got more shit then you. And I'm trying my best to handle things as they come. Don't you realise I can't even clear my leave/off as much as everyone of you? Sigh. At least I don't hate my job. The end is near, the end is near - five more months and twenty odd days.

Time flies and I grew up a lot. I am going to write a little chronicle on all my lessons learnt at the end of this. Right from the tearful beginning to the hardened callus I am now. I feel that I gleamed a lot of life lessons from all of this.

-End of Rant-

Back to camp. See ya next week.

No kids sighted playing with lanterns this evening. Tomorrow they'll come out full-fledged. Unfortunately I wont be around to capture anything. Gotta go pack my bags and head back to incarceration.

Japanese Figurine - probably a relic of my parent's honeymoon in Japan decades ago.

Went out with my mom this morning and snapped this pics with my new camera! Click to enlarge.


The hand that brought me up


Traditional Chinese Lantern

Image quality compromised due to hosting service. At least it's free! I love the juxataposition of the bright red and blue.

I just spent $1k + on a prosumer.

Feels surreal but the battery is being charged now. So maybe it's real - that I finally joined the digital front. I'm such an old fogey. Haha.

Bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ20 in matte black. So chic. =)

Can't wait to test it like tomorrow. Or maybe later. Will be posting soon!

(Next stop: new computer!!!)

cw: " know there's something wrong when i begin to think that 5k is a short distance to run and 10k is actually fun."

We've all turned into running machines. Just did 13km on myself on Tuesday because of my guard on Friday (couldn't go for the 10km run on Sat) Unfortunately for us, we cannot take part in next week's half-marathon! I was looking forward so much to it...And it's weird how I managed to psycho myself during the run...

Come on...5 more clicks only.. look here, run to the end, make a turn and it'll be 1 1/2 rounds more...Look at that slob, overtake him!!!

I think talking to myself in my head during runs is not very normal. People would just go, "I give up!" And start walking. My poor knees!

Yes..finally I'm back...XP runs smoothly albeit a little slow on my ancient relic. At least I'm back. Can't run some intensive programs though, due to the little amount of ram I have. Sigh. Some programs these days are really over the top with the graphical interface and all. Slows things down. I love my stuff to run fast and lite.

Things to do:
1. Install all my favourite programs
2. Reinstate my song collection
3. Redo my bookmarks list
4. Increase ram!!

Off to tinker!

Damn. Think I shall not reformat my computer now. Having troubles backing up my files. Maybe I should have bought the thumbdrive the other time when I visited Sim Lim. Haha.

For now, I shall just live with this horrible derelict of time as it is...It's always sad to see something cherished gets buried in the sands of time. A computer has become such an extension of a person - his personality, his works, his office files, his photographs..It would be such a tragedy if a virus wipes up everything in a hard drive! Man...

Head over to pizzadadonato.com.sg to see what I have been up to. Heh. Having problems with the simple cgi script though. Argh.

Anyway, gonna reformat my computer now..don't know if this old system can handle xp but I'm gonna try anyway. If it doesn't I'm seriously screwed cos I've got no portable backup except for some files I sent using yahoo mail. Sigh.

Purge.

Another break from work but somehow, it always doesn't feel enough. What will happen next time when we're all out in the working world, where we work non-stop? And weekends that are only a brief respite?! Man. That feeling sucks. Anyway, I wasn't born to sit down and relax. I am a self-confessed workaholic. Pathetic.

So this weekend, I'll try to finish up my current project and everyone will get to see it! Unfortunately, the boss disagrees with me on certain design aspects but I got to cater to his taste (even if it makes things look ugly). He's paying me. No wonder designers hate their jobs if clients do not like the work shown and make changes that are totally awful. All the creative energy gone to waste. Sigh.

Still curious about how people feel about my title graphics...any comments?

Been starting on a thinking-out-of-the-box reading program lately. Current book I'm reading now is Guy Kawasaki's Rules for Revolutionaries. Oxymoronic as the title sounds, it's actually quite a no-nonsense, straightforward book. Well, in some cases, most critics would probably say that he's citing the obvious. Well, I beg to differ..if not for self-help books like this, who's gonna help out a clueless guy like me who absolutely hates the idea of a teacher or someone overlooking my shoulder? haha.

story below has no meaning or whatsoever. it'll probably leave some scratching their heads and wondering, what the hell was that? i apologise for i'm completely bored and just got off a staring-at-ceilings routine.

anyway, been looking at laptops and such and i'm so enthralled by the ibook. just bidding my time and see if this phase would run its course. if it doesn't then i'm so getting an ibook. lol. ah..the sleek lines!

so right now, my to-get list includes a Nikon D70 (complete with flash and stuff) and an IBook (with all the software i love). This would set my bank account by $6000, which in my opinion is a little too much to swallow. So I'm dreaming the Singaporean dream, to strike 4D or Toto; which I think is very sad...Had a little debacle the other day about this issue, how the American Dream is to be able to achieve anything one dreams of, being a popstar, millionaire, political figure etc; while the Singaporean Dream is to strike lottery every week. Tsk.

(Any special number to buy this weekend?)

He sat at the work desk, staring at the fluoroscent lights above him. It felt a little familiar: that strange calming feeling within.

Ceilings.

He had been looking at different ceilings lately; thatched zinc roof with huge metal beams, ordinary pastel-coloured ceilings with white fluoroscent lights, the top of a tent with mosquitoes buzzing around. It gave him a slight sensation of vertigo and he would stop staring for a while. But the weird compelling urge always came back. Why was he so in thrall with staring at things above him?

Perhaps the slow movement of time forced him to go into distant lands in his mind; to places and times he had missed while growing up too fast. And the most comfortable position was to have his head tilted back, finding a spot on the sofa, hard bench, office chair or plastic seat he was currently resting upon. Dreams and fears would flood his overactive brain, spilling into his life as unfounded optimisim and pessimism. Those feelings of euphoria and dread; apropos of nothing; strained his boring existence. And then he would stare hard at nothing and stopped whenever nausea took over.

Sometimes, he would occupy his time with some reading materials, to distract the buzz in his head, to silence the voices that made him cry. Reading actually worsened his condition, causing him to lurch further into his subconscious, guilt and regret often manifesting in anger towards himself. Could I have..? I should have.. were often repeated endlessly in the void. And he would lash out at people, screaming, hurting and clawing. How could reading hurt anybody?

Coffee and cigarettes were elixirs to him. Poisonous as they were, they created a chemically induced pseudo-paradise within him; where rules did not matter and pigs flew. He would smile and bounce around, postively reacting to any trouble that would have angered him if he had been staring at the ceilings. The acts of drinking or smoking made him calmer around people, while his hands jittered with the effects of the drugs. Two hours later, the chemicals would wear off and he would fall - drop deeper into the hole he thought he had crawled out of. And he would sob in a corner, wondering when things would be better.