Take a leap of faith

I'm utterly disappointed that the music that attracted me to watch "The Leap Years" wasn't originally composed locally, which I thought was. And how did I found out? I wanted to hear that music from the trailer again so I did a search on youtube. Then I saw all those comments made under the video. The music was the one of the main reasons I wanted to watch the movie this badly, to hear it play in those running scenes. To think I was wondering why didn't it play in the movie at all. Now I know it's originally by Ryuichi Sakamoto from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Anything with good piano and strings, I love~
[Edit: I just found out that this song has vocals o.O, is called forbidden colours and dates all the way back to 1983]

A saint once decreed that a man must agree to a woman's proposal today.
Give me a sign, whether to meet me at eight at the same place you sit, and fulfill the tradition of February 29.

But anyway, I did enjoy the movie very much [I could be bias cos I only found out about the music thing a few mins ago. Haa!] Singapore was filmed beautifully. It sort of gives me some kind of hope that Singapore can be a romantic place too other than Paris? It's homely too, to see those familiar surroundings and there's cantonese dialogues too. [Slight spoilers below]

Li-lin and Ananda were charming. Especially Li-lin, there's this air around her that, I don't know how to say. I just like how she moves, how she talks, how she smiles.. so graciously? Geez I sound like a lesbian here. I'm a sucker for destiny-love stories like this. It gives me a feel-good feeling stepping out of the cinema after that, and I'm still feeling good about it [though partially because I'm looping Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence] And a plus, Li-Ann's friends were cool too. I like how KS managed to snap out of her one-sided love saying Li-Ann's obsession for the promise's like a mirror reflection for him, how it'd never work out. Nice line there.

Well, my initial intention of going Orchard's to go for Kino's interview but in the end I didn't and went to watch this instead. Because I didn't feel like it? Strangely after the movie, I have a strong feeling I'd like to work in a bookshop like Kino. To be able to read books and well, be more exposed to books made me feel motivated all of a sudden. I did think of this before the movie but it didn't perk me as much. [Probably because Li-Ann's a literature teacher and that influenced me?]

Now you know women are fickle. haha.

Crossroad

It has been about 2 months since I handed in my FYP? Throughout these two months, I'm either at co or going out with my friends. Just last Saturday I was with XZ and gang watching sodagreen perform live at Botanic Garden. I was very impressed by "Ah Gong" who can play the keyboard while holding the violin at the same time and even sing too! Not to mention dance. And Tuesday I was suddenly "Mama" to my 3 juniors. I had alot of fun this holiday, I am happy =D

As much as I want to earn money, I'd hate to leave this fun life I've led for these past weeks. There's alot of things I've been wanting to buy. I need to buy myself an erhu if I'm ever gona continue my co-life. That'll cost about 500 bucks? There's also the overseas trip with SPCO, I need to save another $1500? I've been wanting to get a portable harddisk to store my files, a good digital camera to take pictures with, extra ram for my com? I need to get out of my laze soon and get a proper job before (if successful) I get into NTU. I hope I can leave my Weds and Sundays empty if I'm gona work. That doesn't seem quite possible. Hmm maybe Sunday at least.

I'm starting to miss my kids already though I've just seen them yesterday. Haven't been going out with my classmates group for a long time, I mean with all of us 6 present. I'll miss the almost every weekly Saturday outings with kor and dasao. Ok, I'm getting a little sentimental here, it's not like I'm not gona see them again -.- Ah I hate crossroads.

Come on snap out of this, I'm gona go out with Ama later!

Anyone else but you

It all started with this poster I happened to chance upon while researching for poster designs during my FYP. That alluring red-white stripe shirt caught my attention and made me curious what kind of person Juno might be. Never did I think it'd come to our sunny shores this February till Kat mentioned the film's name. Juno. What's that? A Horror movie? I said. Sounding familiar, I finally recalled this poster.

I don't know why but I want to see this quite badly. I like the publication designs, those orange stripes. I have a feeling I'll like the style of the movie. Ok, maybe I just like stripes. Seeing the plaza sing female toilet covered with those pretty orange stripes from Juno, and a big wall poster at the end of the toilet spurred me on. Hearing the movie scored a Grammy award for best screenplay, this is it. I must watch this movie. After much trouble of asking around, [I was even determined to watch this by myself], I managed to find a friend who want/can watch this with me today. Slight movie spoilers after pic.

This is the toilet I was talking about

I have mixed feelings. I walk out of the cinema feeling weird of all that's happened in the movie being a tad too "normal"? Sure it's a slice of life movie, something that can happen to anyone's life and it being just as close to real life as it can be. I did laugh during some of their conversations, it is funny if I understand the slang jokes. Then it hit me it's this teenage pregnancy taken too lightly thing that it's like part of everyday life, once the baby is born, you send it away, your life goes back to normal. The usual negative side of teen pregnancy is missing!
The negative side as in like, discrimination from classmates because of the big belly, strong emotions because of this baby thing, and difficulty coping with the situation? Everything seems to be solved so easily here in this movie. You just laugh at their dialogues. [Ok there are some crying but it isn't much.] That's what I was a little disappointed about, it's a little too easy for a troublesome issue like this? Oh well, this is a comedy after all la.

But I must say I like the colours, what Juno wears and some of the characters. I like their quirkiness. I was afraid it'd turn out like superbad[the movie] initially, [superbad was really bad] but luckily the humour didn't go too overboard.

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Anyway speaking about movies, The Leap Years caught my attention too. The MUSIC. I was at my com as usual when this awesome climatic violin piece of music plays, I couldnt help myself but walk to the TV wondering where it's from. And there it is, a trailer of "The Leap Years", a Singapore made movie! I might catch this just because I like that trailer music. ^^''

It's raining quite heavily now, good time for bed! ;)

A long summary of events

This is one of my busiest weeks since I left school? Need to rush my portfolio then suddenly got some freelance work, co performances and visiting ongoing. But I really enjoyed myself being occupied with so many events, so I wana jot everything down!

Ahem.. to start where I left off last Friday:
Sat: SMIT Annual Dinner and Dance @ Meritus Mandarin

Pang is late again..


Ok she's here now! ^^


PangLang Production Level 3 Production without Blennden.

• The first number called for the lucky draw was 002 and so I won 40 bucks popular voucher! This's the first lucky draw I ever won something and I got my prize from my juniors' hands! haaa.
• Brenden, Jia, Amy, wished you guys were here!
• We waited from 6.30pm to 8pm before we were allowed to go in. Ah if I've known this I'd have come later.
• The emcee was great bringing up the atmosphere, played games that we all could somehow participate too.
• Went home aboard the last train and the last bus.

Sun: Gek Poh CC Concert @ NTUC Auditorium

Happy family ^^

While we were bored...

Our flowers from Sam.. and my adorable 小瓜们


Pretty auditorium!

• To our surprise the auditorium was much beautiful than we expected. The back of the stage and the side of the auditorium is made of see-through windows! You can see the beautiful esplanade outside! But most of the time the binds are drawn down to cover it.
• My favourite song is the 传灯!
• Thanks to Sam for the flower and my dear Yishanisdrug, Mervynishalfdead and Jingshiisdead who came to support =D

Mon: Gathering at XZ's house, Performance at Hotel Inter-Continental

SPCO alumnis!

XZ's dining area got TV!

• We had a mini steamboat cum gossip and fondue session !
• I ate so much fruits dipped with the chocolate, I "laosai-ed" when I reached SP. I wonder if it's because of the fruits or the chocolate.
• Performance was torturing, we were there waitingggggg for our turn to start playing while the guests dig in their abalones. No microphones and in the end, no dizi :/
• Last but not least sorry I couldn't attend the mahjong session with Jia and gang :/
  

Tues: Steamboat at Yishan's house

• Her Mom kept offering us food to eat! 喂到我很饱！
• Then we watched "The Host" on her purple TV. The front part was rather exciting but it kind of dragged after that and got boring.
• Slacked and chit-chat after that. =D
  

Wed: CO practice + meeting + Supper at Clementi

Thurs: Portfolio submission
I've finally submitted my portfolio yesterday after walking, walking and more walking with my coursemates. NTU is so big and the directions weren't really clear, we just kept walking.

Everything's so last minute, I couldn't edit my video till on the 21st morning. Luckily Jasm reminded me again? that I could download the trial version of Premiere Pro. Everything I tried failed, I was even thinking of going to school to edit. Damn I'm so blur.

That night I even had a dream that I couldn't submit my portfolio on time! I got on this bus seeing some SPCO members inside, with vic, merv, shan, jjing then we were talking talking till I realise the bus was heading into some ulu jungle, it's going to Malaysia and not going to stop! I was like banging on the windows, damn sad I couldn't submit my portfolio.

------
After this much fun, what's up for next week I wonder.

To colour correct

Browsing the NTU website yet again and realising that the course that I want to go to is 4 years long with no advanced placement. That kinda dampened my spirits for tonight when I thought it was 3 years! Another 4 years my parents have to work hard to support me and my bro when they're already in their mid-fifties now, if I ever did get in. Thinking of that made me feel bad when they hoped I'd go work. It wouldn't have mattered if I were some rich gal living in an apartment with an open garden rooftop. ha.

Today
I'm finally done filming for the video submission with great help from Jasm and her stuffed toy friends. It wasn't so bad speaking in front of the camera as I thought it would be. After that I head to Kat's house for movie-watching: Just like Heaven and Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers is just really amazing amazing amazing, that being something that happened in real life and not made up. I have only "amazing" to describe what happened, the freedom writers and Ms G.


Yesterday
was spent planning for my video and hanging out with Kaixian and Xingzuan @ River Hongbao. Other than stalls selling food, some amusement rides , the usual zodiac "statues" to take pictures with, first time experience using those on-the-go toilets, we chanced upon HCI's CO performing on stage for about 30 mins!

Kx bought us both flowers =)

That's 臭豆腐, actually I quite like that smell. Initially feel it smells like sewage but eventually I grew to like it because it's delicious! Crispy on the outside and soft inside. Miss those sessions eating smelly beancurd with my dear SPCO seniors. I miss that redhill porridge too! [I'm quite hungry typing this post now ^^"]

Us watching the performance. Recognised a few songs like 好汉歌，晴雯曲，刮地凤.

The day before yesterday
We had a little outing after our sectional practice. Wang lao shi's so nice to offer to drive us there! We had our dinner at Lerk Thai and enjoyed myself with Gaohu1, Erhu1 and Erhu3's company. =P
---

Adding the pink to the green is totally wrong.

Words I'd like to take back

Many a times, I find myself at a loss wondering when to start talking, or enter a conversation.
I wanted to talk, but couldn't find the right words to say.
Couple of times blurted out words I wished I could take back or could have rephrased, disguised better. Ever experienced that?

Words voiced purely out of pique.
Was it worth my effort getting so emotionally fed up for? What's passed is passed, though unacceptable sometimes. Anger has to fade eventually, like a passing storm cloud.

Words voiced on a sad rainy day.
Only to cringe, thinking back what you've said the previous day, "What was I angsting about yesterday?"

Words voiced out of assurance.
"Will you be there?", depicts the insecurity you tried to hide inside.

Words asked out of concern/curiousity.
"Was I being too much of a busybody?" It's not like everyone should tell you their business.

Words voiced that failed to be heard.
The most painful, that your words didn't reach out to make people listen. Was I too soft? Did my speech lack confidence? Was I even sure of what I was saying? Shows your weak influence over people. How embarassing.

Brocoli or Cauliflower?

I need to talk to more intellectual people that give me proper longer replies.
Not in a serious way, but just to really continue on the topic without laughing it off.

The negative side of emoticons
It's really overused sometimes this "lol" and "haha" or whatever laughing expression, though I use them alot sometimes. [I know it's contradicting] So much so that the words said or rather typed previously seems to get brushed off easily? And thus the topic ends.

The =( face is starting to irk me for some reason, I feel like punching that sad face to make that mouth turn the other way. Ok, sometimes the =) face irks me too, doesn't it seem evil when used with : I want to punch you =)

Even the ^^ face, it's like looking at me pervertedly [I think I post about it before] but I find it just fine for now- it's looking curious ^^ Ah.. the perspective when viewing it in a different mood.

The positive side..
Of course it makes the whole conversation more light-hearted and cheery, why would we use them in the first place then. Afterall, it replaces our face that can't be seen behind the moniter or rather, conversation. When we laugh, we lol. Whether it's the same face you see typed on screen though is another question. ;)

This is a very random post.

Medieval tea party

It's a warm sunny Sunday afternoon, eventually I got sleepy not doing anything much by the computer. About an hour later I woke up sleepily and pop over to my computer desk to find some blinking msn conversations. Right there was the conversation I had with Veron just now with the new added: Okurimono! and a nudge that failed to wake me up. But she's offline already.

Anyway she was trying to send me this medieval tea party picture:


We were talking about this lovely piece of music from Granado Espada [Gasp a game!] previously:

Eenterleckchuarl: granado espada song makes me think of a peaceful afternoon, staring at golden rays of dust floating around. Very mellow and nice.
Ling: hmm i imagine staying in an european castle, afternoon drinking tea
Eenterleckchuarl: close enough lah ^^
Ling: those.. how to say ancient europe times?
Eenterleckchuarl: medieaval ^^ haha
Ling: Ah yeah. medieaval
Ling: medieval rather
Ling: no a
Ling: ^^"
Eenterleckchuarl: there're two spellings ^^ i think
Ling: oh?

It feels nice waking up from a sleep and surprise! Your friend just drew what you had thought [With her golden rays too ^^] just now. It made my boring afternoon a better one! Thank you ;)

I used to be very fond of game music, RPG music to be exact, especially from Final Fantasy. I'll even dig up the old FFs' music to listen, ahh those times when Nobuo Uematsu still compose the soundtrack for the Final Fantasy series. I even thought of buying the expensive imported cds from HMV. But I stopped playing games when I reach poly? I'm guilty of the FF12 that I've yet to complete, being a fan or rather used to be, of the FF franchise. Hearing that coming from a game brings back pleasant game music memories.

Listen for yourself and see what image you come up with? :)

"You are my DESTINY"

This is yet another long drama rave again~

I can't believe I watched Golden Bowl again, after that post I made I couldn't help myself and continued watching, only to get me hooked on to watch the next episode. I may have watched this before but I forgot much of the plot already and I did miss some episodes back then. After watching everything, I now finally understood it's charm..

It's the dialogue.

Unlike most romance dramas, lots of "weird situations" take place like- a contract to be a rich bachelor's pretend girlfriend as the girl needed money and the guy need to please the mother/grandmother. Sounds familiar? And the romance takes flight from there along with funny situations as the drama goes on.

[Minor spoilers ahead]


Random Shu shot

As I was saying unlike most romance dramas, there isn't much situations other than the bowling competitions that somehow is held every episode for various reasons. Yet I must say it is a romance drama! And how did the love developed? Through witty, teasing and sometimes sarcastic conversations between the two leads, [which I must say kudos to the script] I felt the love far more strongly though subtle as it is.

[Slightly more spoilers ahead]

Random Hitomi shot

Everything is ambiguous from the start. We know Agutagawa Shu had a girlfriend but where is she? Is she dead or has he been dumped? As Shu describes she's billion light years away. Sakura Hitomi is a housewife but her husband had no screentime at all for say the first 3-4 episodes? It made me wana stay on to the next episode to just see whether her husband's gona be shown at all. But of course most importantly whether Shu, [a charming nice gentleman 'semi-pro' bowling hero who only wants to be ordinary] and Hitomi's [an woman who has alot of pride being a good housewife yet adorable, bowls as well] friendship will ever develop futher. The side characters have their little stories too and they're funny.

I love the talking scenes. Just asking how the other is coping with life, how is your husband doing, confide problems, casual talk while bowling. As simple as it is, it felt real and I like this light-heartedness.


Random talking shot

It may get corny at times when he wins another match again. Then the "template" repeats with variations each episode. But this worked for me for some reason. It's this "episodic match" that we get to see frank developments between the two. Ahh..

There's also something I noticed about the pace, the scene "jumps" when there's a surprising twist of events. As in for example x kisses xx, xx runs away. The scene jumps to the bowling alley and the match begins. Wouldn't it be more normal if they show their reactions individually first? But they chose to show it through talking again as they meet later in the match as though nothing happened. Sometimes it appalled me why the scene jumps so much forward but the talking later makes up for it. This drama doesn't show much character angst if at all, [like maybe the gal later cries at home alone blahblah] but you know what they're thinking inside.

The actress Hitomi was 42 when she acted in this drama and Takeshi's only 29 but they still had good on screen chemistry! She was totally kawaii with her smiles despite her age.

This pretty much sums up my raves ^^"
I guess I'm a person who prefers dramas with subtle realism developments maybe? That's why I love Hero and now Golden Bowl. Geez I've been backtracking and raking all the old dramas to watch.

---

*laughs* I'm actually drama watching on New Year's day. Well I'm pretty much done visiting already. Talk about it next time? ^^"

On the eve of new year's Eve

For a good few days, I seriously thought New Year's Eve was yesterday until my Mom said

Mom: We're going to xxx's house tomorrow to 拜拜
Me: Aren't we going visiting tomorrow? ..Wait today's not 除夕?

Anyway we had a small performance yesterday @ the Vanda room, this time without dizi, yangqin and pipa! Goodness. But we managed to scrape through and it wasn't toooooo bad. Phew. Then we headed off to Weishan's house to celebrate her birthday. Her parents cooked all of that yummy food!

Had alot of fun drowning in the music at the study room with them playing the piano, cello and erhu. It made me feel glad that I picked up at least 1 musical instrument in my life, to be able to play along or just sitting there listening them play's lovely too.

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On an unrelated note, recently I've been reading up on Takeshi Kaneshiro. Them playing the theme from "Forbidden Love" made me wana watch that much hyped drama back in the year 2000. Kaneshiro-san only starred in 3 dramas and I've only watched "Golden Bowl". It revolves around bowling [sounds boring], but it's light-hearted and funny! The chemistry was good even though a salaryman and a housewife combo's kinda weird. This was shown years ago back in my secondary days, I remember staying up late at night just to watch this! And the music, I think I have a thing for oldies used in dramas. So yeah, it's good though a little corny sometimes. ^^

Shu rushing for work, laughs at Hitomi's dressing as they came out of their houses at the same time, with some 60s western music perfect for the morning playing at the background. Adorable.

I wonder what would it be like if Takuya Kimura and Takeshi Kaneshiro both star in a movie/drama, these 2 talented actors! [Seems like names with TK initials are often dashing leads D=] I'd love to see them act together!

Konnichiwa!

Testing 1, 2, 3 and tada!

I've finally completed this after I started planning since Thursday. Tell me what you think! ^^ More info on how I came up with this's in the About section as usual. Don't overlook the comment button at the end of every post too! I like long comments ;)

Well I had my first Japanese lesson yesterday, and it feels like I was back in primary 1 again, learning how to write hiragana stroke by stroke, how to speak. It was fun studying with my adorable sec school friends again ;) Most surprising of all, I saw Yuru (Another SPCO alumni) in my class! Very small world indeed. Learning so many things in 3 hours's a bit taxing though, plus there's homework to do. But I'm eager to start working on it as I'm now 1 step closer to read my Hero guidebook. wahaha :X

After the lesson I was totally drained out, very tired. It's more draining than hours of co practice! Not to mention I was out the whole day since 9am. Oh well at least I get to rest at home today and thus completed this skin at last!

2 roads

I was busy these few days happily working on a new blogskin, shopping for CNY clothes, going for practice at Gek Poh when I didn't even realise the NTU talk was today! Damn it I wanted to go.

Since after my FYP presentation I've been wondering whether to study further or work.
Which road i should I take? Whether it'd be rocky with obstacles down the road, whether I can survive another 4 years of studying media, I do not know. For a long while I kept wondering whether my interest for design or media is still there after these 3 years in SP when I felt lazy and jaded many times.

These days opening up photoshop again to plan design for a new blogskin, editing our SPCO concert video, I kinda found that passion again. The flame is small but it's still lit! Well media's the only thing that I have much knowledge on, what else can I do then? Play erhu? I've got no interest in business, no interest in experimenting cells or going to a workshop and start hammering things.

I want to go to university because I want to learn more things but on the other hand, I'd probably be a very poor student? I don't know if I can keep my passion burning, whether my skills are up to standard with the industry, whether I can take the stress of coming up with ideas, ecetera ecetera.

So many doubts but I'm still thinking of taking a multimedia-related degree. If it turns out I couldn't get in, I'd be happy to work too. Kaching $_$