Mish mash of thoughts

I haven't had a byline in two weeks. And that's terrible. But I should get three this week. The thing about my job is that when the supplements are not happening, I don't really get stories to do. Which means I need to get off my butt and start thinking of stories for the Recruit pages, which is what I did. At the same time, I've got like four more stories at hand that I'm juggling but that won't get published till much later, cos that's when the supplements are happening. Again, it looks like I'm very free.

Well I shouldn't be complaining, cos after all, this job allows me to relax during the weekends! I don't carry work worries home, so I thoroughly enjoy my weekends :)

Talking about weekends, I went for Jem's 23rd birthday celebration at Sculpture Garden at Waterloo Street yesterday. So funny to be amongst a whole group of guys younger than me. Jem got a special "pouch" for one of his pressies. Haha, yar a kinky pouch-like underwear, which incidentally my bro has as well. But I digress. The guys forced him to wear it over his pants. The ever amusing Jem used this huge heart-shaped flower attached to a pole (another of the weird presents) as a prop for his dragon dance, which he was forced to do while wearing the two-sizes too small pouch. The guys actually thought he could wear a size M!!!

So imagine this teddy-bear-like guy raising that heart-shaped thing, going "tong chang tong chang, tong chang chang chang" around tables in a romantically lit private area of a restaurant. The guys held a $100 note each - there were eight such notes, which were Jem's earnings from doing a wedding video - and stuffed it into the waistband of the pouch-undies as Jem danced past them. Haha. He wasn't allowed to get the money unless he did that dance.

Sporting Jem :)

Mayday madness: This picture is courtesy of Ms Lok who interviewed them!!! Arghhh!!! (oh the picture below was taken by Jaz by the way at the Alive concert we attended recently.) Anyways, in this picture, taken at M Hotel, clockwise from top left: Masa, Monster, Stone, Guan You, Ashin. I'm gonna say something really teenage-y now...hahahahaha. MAYDAY ROX!!! WOO HOO!!! :)

Mayday madness: I get extremely irritated when clueless pple compare Mayday with tuneless and talentless F4 or even 5566 for that matter. So here's my intro of this pop-rock band that has inspired me for so long. Mayday is a five-man band made up of (1) Ashin - lead vocalist, sometimes rhythm guitarist, main songwriter who's also written songs for many other artistes including Steph Sun and Fish Leong; (2) Masa - bassist, backup vocals, sometimes pianist, sometimes accordian player (3) Stone - guitarist, mostly lead nowadays, also does loops and recently began to compose songs (4) Monster - guitarist, recently started to compose songs that are pretty good (5) Guan You - drummer, backup vocals. Ashin, Masa, Stone and Monster go way back when they were in high school, jamming together as friends. Guan You only joined much later. They are incredibly talented. Ashin used to be much the backbone of the band cos he was the composer but in recent years, the other band members have started to strut their stuff. Ashin, Stone and Monster should about 30 yrs old this year and Guan You, around 33. Masa is the comic of the group, and the youngest at about 28 I think. In this picture, L-R: Monster, Stone and Ashin. Way cool :)

Chalet-type house in Changi (2): This is the kitchen. There's Leo on the left, Power the Shetland sheepdog under the table, and Ah Wee standing on the right. Notice the beautiful mosaic tiles. Reminiscent of the past huh?

Chalet-type house in Changi (1) : This is the rabbit's house I was talking about in my earlier post.

House-visiting: Visiting people's houses can be a very interesting thing to do. Over the long weekend, I visited two houses, one in Changi and another in Stephen's Close. The picture shown here is of the Changi house in St John's Crescent. Sounds so ulu right? It sure is. It's near Changi prison and is only rented out to prison wardens and their families. My friend married a prison warden and they decided to move into this really old-style chalet type of house cos the rent was really cheap and you can never find such a house in Singapore anymore! They pay $300 a month for it. The entire row has about 6-8 houses I think and only some are occupied. Yup, all by prison wardens, some of whom have lived there for 10-20 yrs. The floor of my friend's house is paved with mosaic tiles that you find in the kitchens of the 1970s. I remember running on such tiles in my grandpa's Mandalay apt when I was just five. All the windows have louvres like what you see on the doors in the picture. There's natural light coming in in the day, and when night falls, you simply step out onto the grass patch that slopes down to a road where few cars venture. That night, I looked into the clear sky and was amazed at how bright the stars looked! Little pollution and little light from buildings around lah. The evening air was so cool it felt like I was camping in Pulau Ubin or something! If I had a kid, I'd definitely camp outside under a tent with him for fun :) This house also has an adjoining hut-like room in some sort of a backyard that I think the owners used as a kitchen in the olden days. My friend actually lets her rabbit sleep there, but this rabbit had apparently gone off to flirt with her neighbour's rabbits for some time already! My friend also added some touch of old to her house with, for eg, ship oil lamps that her dad helped her get from a real ship. She hung them on her windows. I love the house - so old, so unmarred by urbanisation, so quaint. Really peaceful.

Crabby wabby

Since I'm in such a bad mood, I'd might as well write about nice stuff to cheer meself up. I shall talk about last night's scrumptious seafood dinner at Jumbo at the East Coast Seafood Centre!

It was a send-off dinner for our beloved boss, who is leaving cos, let's just say cos he's being unappreciated by the company. It was a most wonderful dinner - great food, great company and great seaside ambience!!! Was so stuffed man. We ordered:

1. one huge chilli crab - the pincer was almost the size of my hand, no kidding.
2. one slightly smaller black pepper crab. YUM.
3. two plates of greens - dou miao and sambal kangkong.
4. mussels in oyster sauce
5. two plates of fried youtiao stuffed with prawn paste
6. fried baby squid, so crisp and delicious
7. lotsa of satay
8. sweet and sour fish
9. Tiger beer!
10. errm...I can't rem the rest liaos. I think that was it!

there were about 17 of us, and it was so fun! this beats all the "forced" bonding sessions we had to have in the past. Seabreeze/landbreeze was blowing, hands soaked with finger-licking-good chilli crab gravy, conversations peppered with jokes and teasing. I've never had so much fun with my unit before.

And our boss loved the scrapbook we made for him. Funny scribbles, weird pictures (muscular naked man with boss' head superimposed onto it), 8-line poems, lotsa lotsa cute photos.... Hmm....actually feel quite sad now. Such sweet memories he had with the department and now he has to move on. We'll all miss him very much.

Sob.

Wait a minute, this was supposed to be a happy entry.

Help, I don't need somebody

I'm so frustrated! How do you help someone who doesn't wanna help himself??? Don't you just get so irritated when pple obviously know there's a problem with themselves, but don't wanna admit it and don't want help from others? Lives wasted, loved ones get the shit.

Sucks man.

I'm in a foul mood today. Hope Naruto cheers me up later.

Once again...here's lil Ethan!!! He can sleep through noise. Undisturbed slumber. Can fight with the sassy slumbering gal. :)

I'm a godma!!! Haha, well not a very effective one. I'm feeding baby ethan who's one week old already. Eh, he was pretty good in the first few minutes, but I think I didn't hold him comfortably enough, so err....he started fretting. Oops. But he's soooooooo cute!!! Yep, he's the scion of the Chan family. Kekeke. Picture courtesy of his mummy :)

Mayday Mayday

My legs are killing me and my back is suffering!

Stood from 7.30pm to 11pm just to catch four songs that Mayday was singing at the Alive concert just now. Wah laus. Can dies. The organisers were very smart. Put them as the last item so that the crowds would stay. And why not? The rest were not big names. Oh there was this horrible ABC guy called errr...Jeremy something from Taiwan who looked like a wimp. Bleah.

Well, to give the other artistes credit, some were really quite good. Like Chou Pi Jiang - a local Chinese rap group - who opened the show. Actually I feel quite sorry for them. They are really talented. I remember about five years ago watching them rap in Hokkien at a cafe performance and I thought to myself, gosh I never knew Hokkien rap sounded this good. And from Singaporeans! Cool guys. But somehow, they've never failed to charm Singapore's audiences. Hmm...I guess they would have had to be lucky like Steph Sun - win the Taiwanese audience over, then you'll receive some sort of recognition from Singapore. CPJ's been around for more than 10 years I believe, but who has heard of them? I wish things would look up for them!

Oh there was this Malay rap group who performed alongside CPJ and later did their own item. They were REALLY good. Sing much better than Taufik. Was really impressed. But one of the guys quite gek seh, kept trying to keep up the black-style "wassup wassup" type of coolness. Yucks.

Anyways, so it turned out that everybody was waiting for Mayday and we had to like wait for the minister to give cheque to Red Cross la, some ex Echo boy to sing the new song penned for the tsunami victims etc etc BEFORE my beloved Mayday finally came on. Me and Jaz had to squat for a few min before they were on just to soothe our aching backs. Jaz said mus save energy to sing and jive along to Mayday. Haha.

Mayday is the best. I think I'm so enamoured by them cos they remind me of my lost dreams! I've always wanted to have my own band, sing my own songs...Mayday's band members are around my age and slightly older and they kinda represent my never-to-be-fulfilled aspirations! They sing of hope, letting lose and enjoying life, fun, living life to the fullest etc. Especially when it's in Hokkien. THEY ARE THE BEST.

Oh, some of their ballads are pretty nice too. Like the recent one composed by Guan You called Superman. Here's a very loose translation of some of the chorus lyrics. You know, these metaphoric lyrics are always more beautiful when phrased in Mandarin. So anyways the song goes something like this. Forgive my clumsy translation:

Why is it always easier to save the world
But I'm helpless when it comes to saving our relationship.
Why is it that I'm able to fly and touch down on this earth?
But I have no idea how to get into your heart...

Sigh...quite sad right?

TV addiction - good or bad?

Just read an email from a good friend. Thought she pointed out a really interesting point about TV addition.

I'm addicted to Naruto and she, hk drama serials. She actually re-subscribed to cable channel 55 again cos she was sorta suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Haha. She said vegging out in front of the gogglebox after work every night helped her not to think too much about work/love/life. If not, she'd be msn-ing me and talking about mostly work and love. Yeps, those are our two fav topics and we somehow never tire of them. Haha. We can actually delve into long conversations online, trying to figure out solutions to fix relationship problems. :)

And you know what? She's so right about the great part about TV addiction! This whole week Leo has been extremely busy with work and I find myself not thinking too much about his absence. Usually I'd start feeling neglected (*sheepish look*) and I'll complain and then make him feel bad (yar, emotional blackmail - the strategy of all girls!)..blah blah blah.

I mean, of cos I do miss him but you know, Naruto is never far from my mind! I visualise Sasuke fighting before I hit the sack; I contemplated switching on the TV again after I'd brushed my teeth and was about to get into bed; I even dreamt of myself using chakra to fight. Well, maybe it's cos I watched the anime from 8pm to 1am. Eeps.

I don't have a life!!! But at this point, I kinda don't really care! :)

Naruto!!!

I'm so dead!!! I'm hooked onto anime again!!!

Sheesh. For the past four days, the moment I reached home from work, I'd slot in one of the Naruto VCDs and watch for hours straight on. Die!!!

Left work at 10.45pm yesterday, reached home past 11pm, and then watched Naruto till 2.30am. Couldn't tear myself away from the TV actually, cos the kiddo ninjas were in the middle of their very exciting Chuunin exam.

I love Kakashi!!!! :)

From sec school to now: It's been at least a decade since we gals became pals. Well, since RGS, we've always called ourselves the foursix girls, cos we were, well, from class 4/6. Here's some of us at the Boxing Day party held at my house. Love the nice light coming in from the window on the right. From L-R (back row): Eug, Wynne, Piggy, Fanyin, me. From L-R (front row): Siska, Jilly Bean, Anus Ng (hahahaha), Karen

My cosy corner: Took this picture yesterday after I finished moving all my stuff. Yeps! My space all to myself :)

My cosy corner

Finally. The move is over.

I've shifted everything to my new seat at the former Streats. And I'm mighty pleased about this new "home" of mine. Some pple are pretty envious of the space I got, and how cosy my cubicle feels and looks.

It's hard to explain, but I actually get all the space to myself, unlike many pairs who have to share a much larger space, which is divided into two halves by a low cabinet in the middle. So, I've got this little cosy corner all to myself, which has an extra partition where I can pin up all the photos I have. This is my favouritest part :) Can't imagine a cubicle without some friendly faces smiling out at me. Hee.

Made a trip to Konota today to get more photos printed so I can display them for moi to see. Oh, I found out a really cool thing. I never knew that the terminal where you slot your memory card in to develop digital photos was so advanced! You know you can infra-red pictures from your Nokia phone to this terminal??? Cool man. Wonder how the resolution is like though.

Anyways, back to my cubicle. I was supposed to get this cramped space a few metres away but cos of some preferences of a colleague, who preferred my seat, I was allotted this cute space.

Oh better still. It's far away enough from the big bosses, yet close enough to hear the office gossip/talk/unofficial throwing of ideas by my supes. Yippee :)

The one good thing about...

... living in Punggol! Walking has never felt this good!

Just returned from a 40-min walk around my estate. With so much open space to walk in, it actually feels quite liberating taking a brisk walk here! Felt extremely lethargic after an accidental two-hour sleep. Plus my mum didn't wake me to go swimming! Well, I would have chickened out in this terribly cold weather too.. :)

So off I went walking. In this sleep-inducing chilly weather, I didn't even really sweat. Haha. Wonderful!

Listening to some great pop-rock now. Ditched my balladish Penny Tai CD - too slow la. Must get into the high mood so that I can feel determined enough to clear my room later. I can do it!!!

New beginnings, or not?

Funny how it never feels like a new beginning every time the clock strikes 12 to usher in the new year. Worse still, this year, bad things have happened even before you could say: welcome 2005.

For one, the tsunamis hit. Just a few minutes ago, another quake hit off Sumatra.
At work, MAJOR happenings. Morale's really low, people feel like quitting.
Though this doesn't affect me, but Streats' closed and if you tune in to Channel i today, the screen tells you it's ceased transmission. Family-wise, MAJOR happenings too. But I can't say much.

So much for happy new year.

Here I am spending the first day of my new year waiting to attend a wedding dinner of someone I don't know too well. Spent quite some minutes deciding how much money to give, cos you know, Chinese dinners can burn a big hole in your pocket.

Sounds so depressing, yar? But, I'm going to make the best of my time this year. Well, I hope! One thing's for sure - I've understood myself a lot better over the last year. Hope to be a more objective person in 2005 and the years to come. In other words, I need to learn to be more detached about things.

May 2005 make me a better person :)