Wednesday, November 10, 2010
went on my first conference. actually it wasn't really a conference, just a graduate workshop. it was held in bandung and it was... pretty interesting an experience.
note, i didn't actually say that the workshop was interesting. it won't be unfair to say it was extremely boring at times. the scope covered was too wide and it was difficult for people to understand what was going on. but that just gave us all the excuse to skip the seminars we weren't interested in and make our own day outside. basically you only need to turn up at two occasions. the registration: to collect your goodie bag with the proceedings, and your name tag which is essentially your free lunch pass. the other occasion is the session at which you are presenting. that is absolutely necessary since it's all you're there for, basically. and really... although it wasn't my plan, that was all i was present for. i wish i had gotten a few more free meals, but the choices wasn't mine to make in the end.
there were three of us from the same school, and i contacted the other two so that i'd KNOW some people before going there. it's easier that way, cos you'd also tend to stick together, rather than just trying to know people there who couldn't care less if you'd disappeared. so the three of us met at the airport here and when we arrived there, we took a cab together to the hotel. until here i was still happily pretending i only spoke english and chinese. i would then be able to wash my hands off all matters. upon arrival, i dragged them out to shop with me cos, after all, bandung is famed for its factory outlets, second to its reputation as the venue for the famous asian african conference. fortunately one of them was quite the shopping buff too, so at least i had a little pressure taken off me. all was well until they were looking at a menu and wondering what those things were. that was when i let slip a bit, cos i was explaining each dish to them. but the truth until spilled over actual dinner. the menu was entirely in indonesian, and they had absolutely no clue what those were. it was a little obvious by then that i understood a little of the language. but when the waitress came to take orders, it was all out of the bag. after i finished talking to the waitress in local language, they practically dropped their jaws. and thus began my accidental duties...
the good thing about being the few who spoke local language was that people remembered you and notice if you, say, lagged behind. the bad thing... or rather, things... is that you end up doing everything. they wanted to go out sightseeing, so i had to ask the hotel front desk what there was. rent a car, i had to ask. how much, what time, etc. and when you actually go out, yes, you still have to talk to the driver and make decisions as well. it's good that i get to make some decisions, but i don't really want to make all either. anyway, after the registration, we left to go to the volcano. it's called tangkuban perahu, and there are 3 craters there. we only went to one that was dead but still gassing, but honestly it was nothing interesting. lunch was fine though. we only escaped padang cuisine. i cannot imagine eating those small little dishes that were potentially left over from someone else's meal. i think that is one experience i can do without. i wish i'd taken a picture though, it'd have been interesting. we eventually settled for lunch at a traditional indonesian flavoured eatery. sat outdoors in a little pavilion, shoes off, little tap by the entrance, in the soft cool breeze of bandung weather. it was a nice feeling, and they really enjoyed it. maybe not so much the food, but they really liked the environment, that i was sure of. but hey, at least they got to try local cuisine. many of the other people who went on the trip didn't get to experience that. now i finally realise why the tsinghua guy was so grateful to me. it wasn't just the conversing with the driver or the planning, it was the chance to experience the city in a more local way, and taste the food with the most local flavour. you are very welcomed. =)
day 1 of the workshop was hence spent on the volcano trip and factory outlet hopping. i didn't buy anything, but it was fun nevertheless. at night the guys were tired and also wanted to prepare for their presentation, so they didn't want to go to any more factory outlets. instead they opted for a quick dinner nearby before going back to the hotel. me, on the other hand, had a date with my shopping buddy. our little "date", unfortunately, was crashed by people who overheard us. you are going shopping? factory outlet? good! i want to go! haha.. oh, can i join? sure...... what else can i say? the more the merrier... then more and more people heard our conversation in the lobby, and asked to join. in no time, we had a group of 10 people who eventually didn't really know if we were going shopping or eating dinner. oh well... shopping buddy and i gave each other the look, and decided we should eat first, then get the people who don't wanna shop out of the way, so that the ones who want to shop can go comfortably. big group looking for a dinner place, eventually made a poor decision to go to an expensive and lousy food place. it looked fancy and comfy (i never fell for this kind of deco though) and an enthusiastic english speaking waiter (i wouldn't fall for his fake enthusiasm either). if they knew i could speak bahasa they may not have decided on this, but nevermind. so eventually we ate there, had to wait very long to order, even longer for the food, and AGES for the bill and change. grrr... let me try and recall who was in the group.. me and shopping buddy, the funny vietnam guy who joined us the first night, a thai girl, korean guy, bangladeshi guy, girl from ntu, 3 guys from ntu who got along a little too well haha... after dinner, the vietnam guy was clearly still traumatised from the shopping on the previous day, and would rather go back to the hotel alone. the rest decided to join us shopping, cos they wanted to see the factory outlets. and so we went... skipped those we went to, and naturally when there was nothing to see, we would gather at the exit. happened for a few places until one where the guys found something suitable. he announced to me, let's spend more time here, this one is good! so be it... i was very bored there though, and my nose was starting to run away... that's where i started talking to the korean guy, and realised his english is fantastic. american english. nice. but he didn't talk much, seemed to talk in mimes. wth, i can deal with that. but i think he was quite thankful to find someone who could really speak english. haha...
next day i went for my presentation. my goodness, the sessions are really so unprofessional. i went to the session before mine to get a better idea how things worked. that session was presented by only local students, but we sure weren't local. halfway through a presentation, the girl decided to just switch to bahasa and carried out the rest of her presentation in that. omg. i have never imagined that would happen. my friend was stunned beyond words and i was just trying not to giggle. i understood quite some of the content, and that made it funnier that my friend was alone in not knowing what was going on cos we were the only two foreigners in that session. haha.. my presentation itself was pretty easy, finished in 12 minutes flat cos the moderator started late (waited for the first presenter who didn't come) and didn't stop the questions early enough for the second presenter. well no worries! i won't hold people back for lunch, i don't wanna get bashed, not even verbally. hehe. i thought my presentation was pretty good, simple and clear in layman terms. people were actually listening. it was over in no time. we toured the campus a bit before going for lunch, and i was glad i got to eat lunch there. i earned those free meals, ok?! saw the korean guy there again. he didn't want to go to the volcano with the others so came to the campus instead. i asked if he came to listen to some presentations, and he replied with "i came for lunch." haha... oh well, not surprising.. the poor kid was alone there, the other person from his school didn't come and that was the person who was supposed to present at my session. where was he to go for his meals alone? he didn't talk to others much too. he asked me what plans i had for the rest of the day, and i invited him to join me and my shopping buddy for, well, shopping. surprisingly he was ok with that. i thought he must have been bored to his guts already to agree to that haha.. but when we went back, it turned out my shopping buddy was not around. =( fortunately, korean guy was still on for shopping, so i didn't have to go alone! (in which case i wouldn't have gone. it's not safe you know...) we turned the other way at jalan dago and went to the other outlets that we hadn't been to yet. along the way we tried, i mean I tried, finding a card for him to make calls back to korea. but eventually he decided he could do without one (what a waste of my effort.. it wasn't easy talking about those things in bahasa) cos no vendor knew how much value could last for how long. he was quite an ok shopping companion, alert when you want to leave, but not stressing you out while you shop cos he'd be looking around as well and not standing impatient at the exit. i managed to buy a blouse for mom. hope she likes it and fits. we passed by a pretty looking hotel too, but just as i whipped out my camera, the security stopped me from taking it. sob. it was the only interesting building i saw. but nevermind, we can go to the opposite side of the road! which we did haha.. bite me. we wound up in a little mall too, where the korean guy alerted me to the almond cookies. then i remembered, kartika sari is well known in bandung. yay, i have something to buy back. bought one box, cos it wasn't cheap. he bought two. after we left, it suddenly struck me that i may need more. so we went back and i bought another two packs, which were cheaper without the box, and had more content too. then we made our way back to the hotel where i promised to open one pack for everyone to try. it was nice! i offered him some, he was in the room next to mine. but that's it. it was weird for me when he asked if i wanna go in. how bored do you have to be... but i guess it was also a courtesy thing. i politely declined, and went back to my room to rest. i was busy charging my phone haha.. then came the city tour! highlight of it must be the split second in the bus when i realised i was sitting in the same row as the tsinghua guy down with flu, and he had a dustbin at his seat. hehehe.... 垃圾生产国不处理垃圾.. hahaha... we went to the geological museum, quite boring... then circled around the city, little paris street (which was NOTHING like paris, hello) and the asia-afrika convention museum. also passed by gedung sate, which i think looks cute haha. finally dropped us at the factory outlet again haha... shopping buddy and i were delighted. he promptly went off to buy his shoes. while i.. managed to buy 2 tee shirts at the outlet! not before arranging the transport for the taiwan girl to get to jakarta the next day... her flight was around noon, while the korean guy's was almost midnight, though from jakarta too. oh well, eventually he agreed to accompany her to jakarta earlier even though he had nothing to do, but i promised to find him some places he could go to in jakarta to kill time. wrote it on a piece of paper for him, hope it worked out haha.
night was the banquet and we got introduced to angklung. cute and fun! they didn't seem to know que sara sara or edelweiss... haha.. there wasn't that much nice food for dinner, but the atmosphere was fun when the japanese participants decided to sing and dance. they really can play.. haha.. after we went back to the hotel, everybody felt a little sad that it was the last night together there, and decided to spend more time chatting and hanging out at the lobby. i hung out with the taiwan girl, she was quite fun to be with and very likeable. brought the snacks down to share too. the china guys played poker while we watched on the side. had a fleeting image of the korean guy passing by the lobby but didn't see him after that. after a while he appeared again, apparently he went to the convenience store to get chips and sprite. haha, and he didn't want to hang out with us at the lobby cos he didn't have enough to share. funny... anyway, we wanted to invite him to have breakfast with us but the taiwan girl said that she asked him already and he declined. "i don't eat breakfast", something like that. but turned out the next morning, he was sitting alone downstairs with his luggage, i spoke to him and found out he merely thought there was no breakfast at the hotel. poor kid... he had gone without breakfast for 2 days already! haha.. no wonder he had to go to the workshop for the food...
anyway, the bus that was supposed to fetch the two of them to jakarta never came. after half an hour, it was time to take solid action. after a long brainstorm with the reception, i decided to let them take one of our blue bird cabs to go to the local agency and catch the 9am bus, while the ones going to bandung airport could take the other cabs. me, and my kakis, would wait for another cab to come, which didn't take long. the hotel isn't far from the airport anyway. phew... at least the taiwan girl caught her flight. nevermind the korean guy, he seems to be surviving pretty good on his own. anyway we arrived at bandung airport WAY TOO EARLY. bored to death. and i was starting to have cramps. such misery. oh and i found more kartika sari at the boarding gate! hehe... but 10k more expensive. -.-
air asia air con was bloody cold. nearly froze to death. but the trip was on the whole a good one. i am so thankful my flu wasn't full blown yet then. =)
. . .
Friday, September 17, 2010
i shan't say i told you so.
we should just have eaten at that first eating house in hangzhou and not fight the service. see, there was nowhere else to eat besides that.
we shouldn't bother continuing down the road when clearly there was no food. i even asked locals who confirmed that. but no, you just won't believe me.
it's harder to walk down the stairs than up, because it strains the knees. but no, you didn't believe me.
watching the sunset i told you folks to sit down on the rocks rather than stand at the edge. see how your knees got strained.
i told you the missing ticket probably just dropped out the pocket and should still be in the car. but no, you just insisted that was impossible. so why is it there then?
i raised the concern that we might be in the wrong queue because the expensive one shouldn't be this long. but no, you just had to try and smoke through it. but in the end we WERE in the wrong queue.
i shan't say i told you so. but you really should try LISTENING for a change.
. . .
Pulau Ubin Seafood 6543 2489
Monkey Fish (steamed/oil/sambal/sweet and sour)
Seabass (steamed/oil/sambal/sweet and sour)
Prawn (steamed/sambal/cooked)
Crab (steamed/sambal/black pepper)
Crayfish (sambal/black pepper)
Sotong (sambal/oyster sauce)
Beancurd (hotplate/hongshao/claypot/minced meat)
Lemon Chicken
Pork Ribs
Sweet Sour Pork
Beef (jiangcong/hotplate)
Frog Leg (jiangcong/hotplate/fried)
. . .
i think it's ok already. all is still harmonious. it's back to just me being the miserable one.
. . .
Thursday, June 10, 2010
shit. shit. shit.
. . .
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
i did not insist, ok?
but i shan't insist that you said i did not insist, and i won't insist that you don't say i insisted.
simply because i don't insist.
humph.
. . .
Friday, May 07, 2010
Disturbing piece of news I read some time ago. Not just on the tragedies caused by the drunk driving, but also how serious it can get when an angry mob carries out justice on their own.
And new word of the day - lynching
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/World/Story/A1Story20100426-212378.html
Brazil housewife lynched after drunk hit and run
Mon, Apr 26, 2010
AFP
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) - A Brazilian housewife celebrating her 24th birthday was lynched after running over a pregnant woman and her daughter while driving drunk, local media reported Sunday, citing police.
Pamela de Souza Costa was shot five times after being caught by a group of residents in the town of Macae, 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Rio de Janeiro, immediately after the accident Friday, the O Globo newspaper said.
The woman she ran into, Silmara Rodrigues, was badly hurt and lost her unborn baby. She may also have to have a leg amputated. Rodrigues' eight-year-old daughter Raissa was killed.
According to reports, Costa had been driving home after drinking at her birthday party when she lost control of her car and ran into Rodrigues and her daughter, who were slammed against a wall.
She tried to leave the scene of the accident but collided with a post. A group of angry locals pulled her out of her car and one person shot her several times before running away.
Costa, who lived in the neighborhood, had three children of her own. She was buried Saturday.
. . .
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20100305-202554.html
Chile prisoners freed to escape tsunami
Fri, Mar 05, 2010
AFP
CONSTITUCION, Chile - Enrique Fritz, who runs the prison in devastated Concepcion, took a major risk last weekend as the tsunami rolled towards town - he decided to free his 103 detainees to avoid loss of life.
"It was a humanitarian decision," he told AFP. "We're very close to the sea, I couldn't leave them locked up to die."
The jail, located just off the town's leafy main square, took a battering from the powerful 8.8 quake that hit Chile on Saturday. The epicentre was not far away.
Click here to find out more!
The roof of the wardens' dining-room crashed to the ground, as did much of the ceiling of the supply room, crumbling around a giant meat slicer that survived the quake.
"It breaks my heart to see the damage," said Fritz, a ranking member of the Chilean gendarmerie that is in charge of prison matters, and who has headed the jailhouse for over 30 years.
"We were the last to leave town," said Fritz, who escaped on foot to the hills after taking a tough decision that could have hurt his career and that went against everything he works for - "letting loose a bunch of criminals and sowing panic among the public was not what I wanted to do."
"But the quake had struck and had rattled them, they were literally climbing the walls," he said.
Fritz said he immediately feared a tsunami and 15 minutes later heard a warning on town loudspeakers urging people to flee.
"So we unlocked the cells and let them out."
Some of the detainees were hardened criminals, he said, but of the 103 prisoners, 70 had already been recaptured with the help of police, some in their homes.
Half of the 70 turned themselves in voluntarily "because they knew we'd find them anyway and that it would them no good."
Because of the damage, the detainees have been transferred inland.
Nine who were hauled in on Thursday were in the local jail, watched over by the 30-odd guards working at the prison.
And had Fritz been in trouble with his superiors? "I haven't heard anything," he said.
. . .
Friday, February 05, 2010
read an article today. quite disturbing where technology is going... here's the best line:
"brain science could bring an era of surveillance that will make the epidemic of CCTV cameras look trivial"
the full article link is here, but i do want to keep a copy to read again in case the article is removed...
Do we want brain scanners to read our minds?
As 'vegetative' patients ‘talk’ to scientists, Professor Colin Blakemore assesses the profound implications this has for the sick - and the healthy
What nightmare could be worse than being buried alive? Conscious, terrified, but unable to communicate through the impenetrable barrier of a coffin lid and a metre of earth. In the past few days, this ultimate horror has been transformed from the stuff of bad dreams and B movies to two very different front page stories.
First, the uplifting images of people being pulled from the rubble of Haiti, up to 15 days after the earthquake. The joy of seeing those individual miracles provided a thin veneer over the unthinkable thoughts about the thousands who must have died, unrescued.
And now there is the extraordinary report from neuroscientists who have used a brain scanner to communicate with a very different kind of trapped victim - a patient in a Persistent Vegetative State. Let’s be clear about what they did. The technique they used, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), doesn’t record brain activity directly. It detects signals related to changes in the flow of blood within the brain, in response to the local demands of active nerve cells, hungry for oxygen and glucose. Clever computer programs turn such measurements into those now-familiar pictures, looking like something you might see in a fancy restaurant in Lyon or Strasbourg - a slice of brain in aspic decorated with red and yellow blobs.
Brains consist of nerve cells, one thousand million of them, each less than a fiftieth of a millimetre in size, connected together by a monstrous tangle of nerve fibres. And these nerve cells chatter to each other by sending tiny electrical impulses, each about one-tenth of a volt lasting just one thousandth of a second. That is the real scale on which the brain works, at least on which its calculations and computations are performed.
The red and yellow blobs reflect the slow and more widespread changes in blood flow that follow the frenetic activity of nerve cells. Interpreting the blobs is comparable to trying to work out the exchange of gossip and banter between the spectators at a football match by watching movement in the terraces from the opposite side of the stadium.
Brain scanning is not going to tell us how the brain works - at least not in the kind of detail an engineer would want. But it does provide a window into the previously private world of the human mind. It can at least tell us which parts of the brain are active as a person sees, hears, thinks, remembers, plans and carries out actions.
Adrian Owen at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge and Steven Laureys of the University of Liège announced three years ago that the brains of some patients in a vegetative state could respond in much the same way as normal, conscious people when asked to imagine that they were walking around their homes or playing tennis. These two kinds of thoughts produced distinctive patterns of blobs, corresponding to the parts of the brain involved in spatial navigation or skilled movements respectively.
Most important, other patients did not show these objective indications of awareness, so there is something special about those who did. But it didn’t prove that those special vegetative patients were actually aware of the thoughts of wandering around the house or playing tennis.
The new results are more compelling and even more disturbing. The researchers managed to train one of their patients, a 29-year-old man whose brain was damaged in a car crash in 2003, to use his brain activity to reply to questions. Wandering was 'no’, tennis was 'yes’. The 'blobs’ reliably and reproducibly gave the correct answers to simple questions. Owen and Laureys have started similar tests on other patients and they think that perhaps one in six will be able to communicate via the scanner.
It was a Glasgow neurosurgeon, Bryan Jennett, who first distinguished vegetative state from coma - the state of profound unconsciousness that can occur after a head injury, stroke or infection. Comatose people sometimes wake up completely, but sometimes progress into the vegetative state - a no-man’s-land of mental ambiguity.
In a vegetative state, patients go through the cycles of sleeping and 'waking’. Often, they can open their eyes, swallow, even grunt or move limbs. But usually they do not respond in any organised way to the presence of others doctors, nor to questions and commands.
The possibility that vegetative bodies can contain conscious minds is not new. Indeed, every now and then people suddenly and inexplicably come out of vegetative states and tell harrowing stories of having heard every comment, and having felt pains and itches that they were unable to respond to.
What Owen and Laureys have provided is the possibility of entering the minds of such people. The questions that they asked were trivial. But they could, of course, be such things as 'Are you in pain?’; 'Are you happy?’; 'Do you want to die?’
This is not the first case of the finger of technology poking into the privacy of individual lives. We’re accustomed to the claims that the polygraph (which essentially measures the sweatiness of the skin) can indicate whether someone is lying. And DNA fingerprinting can determine paternity or presence at a crime scene. But the advance of technology to see inside the heads (and hence the minds) of living people is opening up a bewildering range of opportunities to invade the privacy of thought.
An American company - No Lie MRI - already offers a brain-scanning lie detection test, based on the different patterns of blobs associated with telling the truth and lying. But, just as for the polygraph, courts are reluctant to admit such evidence, partly because, unlike DNA testing, it has a tangible margin of error. According to No Lie MRI, current accuracy is over 90%? but it is estimated to be 99% once product development is complete.
In an experiment from my own lab, led by Dr Tim Andrews, volunteers were scanned while they looked at photographs of human faces or man-made objects such as clocks and vases. Dutifully, the computer produced its brain scans with different blobs lighting up for the faces and the vases. Then Andrews and his colleagues showed the participants that famous visual illusion that looks like a black pair of faces, in profile, staring at each other across a white gap. But every few seconds, the faces apparently disappear and the white gap in between looks like a large white chalice. The picture is, of course, ambiguous, and a confused brain flips between one perception and the other.
Next, Andrews gave the volunteers a pair of buttons to press, one to indicate that the pattern looked like faces, the other when it seemed to be a vase. He found that, by tracking the strength of the MRI signal in the brain region that had responded best to photos of real faces, he could predict with about 85% reliability what the person was seeing, in the privacy of their conscious minds.
If brain scans could tell us more reliably what people are seeing, whether they are lying, what their intentions are, could they be used to detect radicalisation, or tendencies to psychopathy, to terrorism, to addiction? Such claims are already being made. Governments are interested in the thoughts of their citizens- whether their voting intentions or their propensities to crime. We should be aware of the possibility that brain science could bring an era of surveillance that will make the epidemic of CCTV cameras look trivial.
The commercial world is also interested in to possibility of peeking into the minds of their potential customers. A new science of 'neuromarketing’ is burgeoning.
In a famous 2004 study, a research group at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, did a high-tech version of the Pepsi Challenge, scanning the brains of people drinking samples of Coke or Pepsi. For half of them, Pepsi produced more activity in the brain areas associated with pleasure and reward, and they said that they preferred it. But when the test was repeated, with the participants aware they were drinking Coke, many of them shifted their preference and the change of minds correlated with activity in brain regions involved in memory and decision-making. The knowledge of what they were drinking changed their choice. The bad news for Pepsi is that image and branding are at least as important as taste.
Now fMRI is even probing the unconscious mind - distinguishing between real and false memories, detecting the responses associated with emotions elicited by visual images presented too briefly to be consciously perceived. We need to think now about the broader implications of the new neuro-technology. Not just because it might impinge on our privacy, on evidence in the courtroom or on shaping products to our preferences; but because it will challenge our fundental understanding of ourselves.
To René Descartes, conscious experience was the only thing that he was certain of - 'Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am’. But increasingly neuroscientists are casting doubt on the significance of consciousness. They are revealing that most of what our brains do happens below the privileged arena of awareness, and that conscious states are caused by nerve cells that have already 'made up their minds’, rather than conscious intentions which determine what our brains do.
Astronomy, from Copernicus on, has transformed our view of the place of the earth in the heavens. Darwin changed forever our view of the status of humanity. Neuroscience is likely to challenge our very understanding of what it is to be a person.
Colin Blakemore is Professor of Neuroscience at the Universities of Oxford and Warwick
. . .
Thursday, October 15, 2009
http://entertainment.sg.msn.com/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3639660
Little animated facts
FACT #1
The infamous wildebeest stampede scene in The Lion King, which was less than three minutes long, was hard work; it took Disney's CG department approximately three years to animate that one sequence.
FACT #2
The art director for Beauty and the Beast, Brian McEntee, made sure that Belle was the only person in her 'little town' who wore blue, doing the same for Beast, later on, to ensure audiences saw both characters as being different from the rest.
FACT #3
The wind sounds in Wall-E’s wasteland home was actually recorded at Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada. And the cockroach's chirps were created by speeding up recorded sounds of a raccoon.
FACT #4
The Incredibles director Brad Bird made Spencer Fox, who voiced the superfast Dash, run two laps around the studio to give Dash a realistic out-of-breath voice.
FACT #5
The line "You're on your way to a smacked bottom" uttered by Shrek was not actually in the script. In the recording studio, Mike Myers got so annoyed at one of the directors that he improvised the line.
FACT #6
An average human character, in Pixar's Ratatouille, had about 110,000 hairs rendered. A great number fewer than Remy the rat, who had around 1.15 million hairs rendered.
FACT #7
It’s always a challenge to make the CGI graphics in films look believable, but Pixar animators made the water surface in Finding Nemo so realistic, they were told to make it look more fake so that the audience wouldn't think it was real footage of the ocean surface.
FACT #8
The villain in Up, Charles Muntz, was named after a former Universal Pictures executive named Charles Mintz. In 1982, Mintz stole Walt Disney's production rights to the highly-successful Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series. Because of that, Walt Disney created the iconic Mickey Mouse.
FACT #9
In Cars, Batman Returns star Michael Keaton is the voice of the security guard who yells "Hey, no press!" during the instant replay sequence after the first race.
FACT #10
Bill Murray was initially picked to voice the character Sulley in Monsters, Inc. but producers were unable to contact him and they took his lack of a response to mean "no", begining production with Rosseane actor John Goodman instead.
FACT #11
Although rapper MC Hammer wasn’t a part of Disney's Aladdin, he played quite a significant role in the movie. To capture the movement of Aladdin's low-cut baggy pants, animator Glen Keane studied MC Hammer’s rap videos.
FACT #12
In The Little Mermaid, Disney had to outsource the drawings of millions of bubbles to a China-based production firm, because the director insisted that every one of the millions of bubbles be hand-drawn.
. . .
Thursday, October 01, 2009
http://timesonline.typepad.com/formula_one/2009/09/tim-explains-the-thinking-behind-kimis-move-to-mclaren.html
September 28, 2009
Tim explains the thinking behind Kimi's move to McLaren
Ed writes: Tim is a regular correspondent on this blog and one of the best. Here (in a piece originally posted as a comment) he analyses the choices facing McLaren when making a decision on a team-mate for Lewis next year. As usual it is a thorough and well thought out job by him. Have a read...and let us know what you think about it.
Tim writes: When picking drivers you always have to bear in mind that there are only a finite number of potential candidates. Kimi Raikkonen to McLaren does seem like a slightly odd move, but consider the alternatives and it looks like a sound choice.
Firstly, some context. At McLaren, Lewis Hamilton is at least as well established as any other driver in any other team, if not better. McLaren is now Lewis' team as it was once Mika Hakkinen's team and before that Ayrton Senna's. That's not to say that Hamilton receives better equipment, preferential treatment or any other unfair advantage. However, any driver joining McLaren will be on his backfoot from day one which is what appears to have mostly done for Heikki Kovalainen.
What's more, Lewis has been McLaren's route to success for long enough to influence the team's development curve around his driving style. This isn't necessarily a totally conscious decision, it's only natural that a team will work to provide the optimum package for its most competitive driver - especially if that driver is generally so far ahead of his team mate. It happened during Michael Schumacher's years at Benetton, with Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger declaring the car that won the 1995 world championship to be virtually undriveable.
Hamilton's next team mate therefore needs to be someone who can either take on Lewis at his own game or ignore the internal politicking, while getting the best from a car that is optimised around the defending world champion. Which of the present drivers is best placed to do this?
Starting in the order of championship points, Jenson Button is too different from Lewis and doesn't have a great record with overbearing team mates. Rubens Barrichello is experienced but too emotional, as his outbursts after this year's Spanish and German races show. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber are both under contract for 2010, although the latter might just have the psychological strength needed to partner Hamilton. Nico Rosberg looks fast but Kazuki Nakajima isn't the most challenging benchmark. Rosberg's father has also reportedly warned him off taking on Lewis at McLaren - he should know, he encountered a similar force of nature on its home ground in the form of Alain Prost at McLaren in 1986.
Fernando Alonso is an obvious no-no. Timo Glock has shone occasionally but not consistently enough. Jarno Trulli is too inconsistent and looks on his way out of F1 anyway. Felipe Massa has a Ferrari contract and would need too much babying to thrive at McLaren. Nick Heidfeld and Adrian Sutil would both make decent back up drivers, but neither is really up to take the fight to Lewis on home ground. Robert Kubica would have been an interesting selection and probably wouldn't have been daunted by the prospect, but his form has been too up and down this year. The rest of the field isn't really worth mentioning.
Which all leaves Kimi Raikkonen and the logical choice. Kimi hasn't had a bad year, he's managed to win a race in a less than perfect Ferrari and, despite a few misfires, has had a better season than he's received credit for. All this against a backdrop of being dropped by Ferrari (albeit for a handy payoff) that would have destroyed some drivers and made some others lose all interest.
Raikkonen knows McLaren already and won't be in the least bit intimidated by Hamilton. Their driving styles aren't radically dissimilar (both hate understeer) and Kimi has already mastered the art of driving a sophisticated KERS car (which Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella have both shown to be more difficult than it appeared).
Put like this, the only question is why wasn't Raikkonen considered sooner?
. . .
Monday, September 21, 2009
went to singapore turf club yesterday! it was super fun!
we went in clueless, no idea how to buy bets and what to look at and where to go. but slowly we got the hang of it. we started watching at about race 6 or 7. soaked up the atmosphere when the punters were shouting and cheering on their horses. not like it would make a difference though, haha.
the bets were interesting. You can bet on the winning horse, min $5 (WIN). Or bet on which horse will be in the first 3 places, min $5 (PLA). That's the pink slip. The yellow slip has min unit of $2. You can bet on the first 3 or 2 horses, in no particular order. Or you can bet on the first 3 or 4 horses, in the right order. This will give super payout. Or just bet which 2 horses will be in the top 3. Of course there are other kinds too, but I haven't actually figured out yet how to go about betting that way.
I am such a miser, I didn't even feel like betting there. I just threw in $4, cos I didn't see the joy in betting, I could get excited just simply rooting for a horse I picked, without having placed any bet.
first race i saw i was rooting for 7; it came in 2nd.
second race i was thinking 12, 4 and 6, but none even got in the first 4 places. haha. that was the race where xc won 25 bucks, haha... what luck.. he bet on 7.
third race i was rooting for 5, but didn't bet. good thing, cos it didn't do well at all haha...
later on, lx was rooting for 1, 2, 4, but declared that no one else should bet on them cos she's very suay. haha, really, all of them avoided these horses after that. she didn't even want to bet on them, but weimin bought for her anyway, since it's only 2 bucks to buy. who would have guessed, but they actually came in the first 3! haha... so amazed.. xc and i both gave her the thumbs up at the same time. it was really good haha... turns out she won a whole $305 bucks! it was amazing... so high, so fun, so amusing...
we took photos with the winnings, and then they decided that right after a win, it is time to leave. they didn't even let me finish watching the last 2 races. too bad. but still good! we decided to blow it all on dinner, so we went to waraku to have dinner. called zf along. initially he wasn't willing to come out, and i had such a fun time messing with his mind until he dragged himself out and met us there. haha... i wonder if i scared any of them with my manipulation...
i made a reservation at waraku, but we were late. in any case, good too, we managed to wait for a room. haha! dinner was good.. and fun... i had a happy time...
. . .
Friday, September 04, 2009
jia2 is so cute haha...
jia~~ study hard~~Hosanna says:
I thought it's BIDD fubai group, we should setup 2 groups , one is fubai group, distribution news like food, travel, picnic, barbecue, and the one for work, post news we dont like, like group meeting
. . .
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
The Rose - Bette Midler
Some say love it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love it is a hunger
An endless aching need
I'd say love, it is a flower
And you are only a seed
It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you feel that love is only
For the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the winter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose
. . .
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Bali itinerary
05 July Sunday
Flight was delayed by about half an hour since it was raining in Singapore. 5 flights arrived at the same time and the place was totally packed. They insisted that everyone filled in the health declaration form in the small lobby which was so crowded with people from all countries. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
After fighting the crowd for very long, we finally got out and met Daddy at the fetching area. Getting a taxi was not easy. We had to queue at this taxi counter and agree on the price before the driver came and brought us to his cab. Stupid trip cost us Rp50k. Daddy really doesn't know how to negotiate prices.
Yulia Beach Inn was good, along a road that was convenient but not overcrowded. It was late and most shops and restaurants were closed, but the KFC nearby was a 24 hour one so we had food! It was nice..
The family room at Yulia was clean and spacious. Two connecting rooms, one big one small, with 2 toilets. There was a fridge and hairdryer too. Not bad for Rp900k per night.
06 July Monday
Breakfast was included but too lousy. Buffet variety was limited and the food was cold. After breakfast we saw a driver at the hotel entrance, and just hired him since the car looked ok and all. Daddy really doesn't negotiate very well... Pak Ketut is from Denpasar but he gets his clients from Kuta everyday. We told the driver to fetch us at 10.30am while we walked around.
I bought a pink sarong with yellow flowers for Rp25k at a shop that just opened. Nice! Then we went to the beach to play with the sand and water a bit. The beach is wide and comfortable, and the waves were pretty strong. The water was cool! A lot of people trying to sell you mani-pedi services with dreadlocks braiding. Yucks...
10.30am we checked out from Yulia and were on our way to Tanah Lot. Wanted to see sunset there but figured out it'd be too crowded, so we might as well go in the morning. Journey took about an hour, since Kuta was quite jammed.
Tanah Lot was very very hot. On the way in, you are forced to go through a village of shops, selling lots of stuff of every sort. But the prices are not too bad, you just have to haggle a bit. Lap bought surf shorts, 2 for Rp45k. Mom bought a rattan bag for Rp37k. Not bad!
The Tanah Lot temple was nice. Magnificently perched on a rock in the sea, it was quite a sight. There were already quite a lot of people, but not too bad. We climbed up some steps to the cafe area where we got a pretty good view. I'm sure there's where people take photos of the lovely Tanah Lot sunset. But daddy was in a hurry to get back to the car cos he was worried about our belongings. So we didn't linger for too long.
From Tanah Lot, we decided not to go back to Ubud first, but instead go straight to Bedugul since it's on the way and shouldn't take too long. Good choice.
On our way, we stopped by Pacung for lunch. The buffet sucks, but for Rp60k, you get a stunning view of the rice terraces and greenery. No wonder the driver found it weird that I kept wanting to stop along the way to take pictures of mere rice paddies.
Lots of photos later, we left to continue to Bedugul. It was in the mountain areas, which was a little cold (though I thought it was more cool than cold). Pura Ulun Danu, the lake temple, was very beautiful. It was misty all afternoon, but it added to the feel of the temple. The garden was very well maintained too, and the atmosphere was so calming that I didn't even freak out seeing dogs around there. There were lots of tourists, but not overflooding with them so it was still ok.
Kebun Raya Eka Karya, the botanical garden, was just nearby. Initially, we intended to play at the treetop adventure park. But after we got there, it seemed too hard and scary and cold and dark, so we gave up the thought. Instead, we just slowly strolled around and enjoyed the view and fresh cool air. Good thing the whole car can drive in - the place is enormous. The place was very comforting and calming too, I liked it there. We saw a couple lying on a mat on the grasshills. Mom was saying, that would be a perfect place to recuperate if you weren't feeling well.
We left Bedugul and headed back to Ubud. Fortunately, I remembered that Ananda Cottages was opposite Pita Maha, which is way more famous. The driver managed to find our hotel, though he missed it initially and had to turn back. We had a too-sweet welcome drink, and the staff brought our luggage to our rooms for us. Thank goodness, cos the paths to the villas were stone slabs on the grass between two rice paddies. Stable enough for walking, but not so much with luggage! Too bad the rice had been harvested already and the fields were simply muddy water with no green. But the ducks waddling and quacking around made things better. Nice feel!
Our rooms were on the second floor, with air con, and they were connecting via the balcony. Private yet accessible! I loved it. Ok, it was a bit too dark, but on the whole it had the rustic village feel which is very apt for Ubud. The view from the balcony was blocked by trees, but you can see the rice fields in a distance. Not too far though, definitely a reasonable walk there.
At the entrance, the driver found us a local resident who could bring us hiking to paddies and hill areas, so we agreed on the price Rp180k. Still a bit expensive, I would think, but suan le, I just wanted to get it out of the way. Agreed to set off at 6.30am the next morning, and I could just sense Daddy going "aw.... so early!.... how to 自然醒?"
We left for Ubud market in the central area to look for food, but it was all mainly closed. One of the main roads was closed since they were servicing it, and there was this huge hole in the road. We walked in to find food and ate at NOMAD, which is mostly western style food with some local cuisine, overpriced and too many bule. But the atmosphere was fine. We set upstairs in the aircon non-smoking area with only another table occupied by a bule family. The little boy had soft curly hair and kept wandering over, super cute! The older sister was sweet too, and I didn't want her to feel left out so I went over to take photos with her. She was very obliging and really cute too. The food, on the other hand, was only mediocre. Babi kecap was not bad though!
We went back to Ananda cottages and slept early. All was going well!
07 July Tuesday
Woke up super early to go hiking! I wore three quarters and sport shoes, which was the right choice. I thought it'd be cold, but after walking a while you don't feel cold, it was just nice. He drove us to a village before we started walking, and place was quiet and remote. I wasn't so much scared, but I was on my watch. But there were definitely lots of people staying in those houses, and resorts, and all guarded by fierce dogs. Shudder. But at least I knew there were people around and tourists too, so I wasn't as worried as Daddy. We went pass some rice fields, with mountains in the distance and morning sun. Later on we walked up on the hill ridge, with hills on both sides, covered with greenery and spotted with expensive resorts and restaurants. The air was cool and fresh, the sun not too strong yet, and the place was pure tranquil and peace. The paths weren't too bad either. It was installed with concrete slabs, and wide enough for 2 people to walk. Eventually, we went back to the roads and took a long walk back to the hotel. Daddy was absolutely delighted to pass by an internet shop near the hotel. I could just feel it already...
We had breakfast buffet at our hotel. It wasn't included, but at USD5 it wasn't too bad. The food was ok too, though the tables had too many insects... But the view was nice and the place wasn't too hot.
After we washed up, Mom and I went around to take photos a bit before the driver came. Daddy was slow, as usual haha...
We decided to head to Kintamani. Along the way, we stopped at Tegallalang to see rice terraces. Very nice. On the roads it was commercialized, and the driver warned us not to touch anything, and not to show interest in the things, just politely say "terima kasih" and move on. Works just as well if you completely ignore them like I did. Took some steep and poorly made stairs down to this area with a cafe. The view there was even better, and I bet the tourist couple sitting in the shelter of the cafe was having a wonderful time.
Along the way we stopped by Sailand Agrotourism. They planted coffee and many other spices. It was a family run plantation and shop. Daddy bought kopi luwak there, while I merely sipped my first mouth of coffee. Hehe, the $$$ coffee wasn't fantastic, but it was not bad too.
Finally we got to Kintamani. There were many dogs everywhere, and more people selling stuff. Simply driving into Kintamani required road payment. The view was really good. On the left was Gunung Batur and its lava rock covering one side on the slopes. On the right was Danau Batur, touching sides with another mountain which supported a village on its coast. At the end was where they could bury, no, place their dead in the open air, and the bodies won't even decompose.
From Kintamani we drove to another spot, this time with even better view. The lake was in front of Mt Batur, and the sunshine was just reflected of the shimmering surface of the lake. Lovely sight to behold. Several photos later we went for lunch at Mahagiri.
BREATHTAKING STUNNING view.
Imagine this picture. Gunung Agung in the distance, solid presence. Forests and tall trees lining the bottom of the volcano. Rice terraces all the way up to where you can see if you pop your head out from the cliff. A small river running down across the rice terraces and fields. Flowers and low trees at the edge of your cliff.
I'm telling you, any camera idiot can take a good photo here. I spent a lot of time wandering around and taking photos. The sky was blue and clear, with some puffs of clouds clearly defined in the sky. Magnificent.
The buffet food was not too bad either. Rp75k, decent food. Even aqua costs money so I merely ate watermelon for water.
After lunch, we headed back to Ubud, wanting to roam around the central market area and shop a bit. But it was quite late, and most shops were closing. Still, we bought some batik pants and shorts, and Lap bought many shawls.
For dinner, we drove to several places but most were uninteresting and unattractive. Finally the driver brought us to Nuri's to eat grilled ribs. It was as good as Tony Romas, and one portion only costs Rp60k.
After we got back, I wanted to sleep early, but daddy wanted to go to the internet store to check some stuff. I didn't want him to go alone, considering it's dark outside and he had fallen the day before, so I accompanied him to this internet place which we had passed by the in the morning. It was very near, and it was quite cheap I think.
That night, we didn't sleep as early. Lap had been scrutinizing her shawls, and we had to calculate the expenses after that.
08 July Wednesday
Initially, I wanted to wake up earlier to take photos around the area, but since we slept late, I planned on 自然醒. Which all came to naught, when mom came and woke me up via the balcony. Just as well, we can go and walk around before it got hot. We walked a bit more of the place, and to the paddy area. The rooster was crowing non stop, and a farmer was bringing some ducks across the little path between 2 fields. What a cute sight...
After lap FINALLY woke up, we went for breakfast, then went back to wash up. Lap needed a lot of time to pack so she stayed in the hotel, while I went with Mom and Dad to Pita Maha opposite our hotel to kaypoh around. We knew it was expensive, and wanted to take a look how grand it is. There were many steps though, really steep and all, so Daddy just sat at the lobby to wait for us.
The floors and stairs were all well-polished. So much so that I slipped on the stairs and fell. Thank goodness my right hand cushioned the fall so I didn't hurt my spine or what. I don't know why they have to polish the stairs and make the edges so rounded too. Before you jump to conclusions about my clumsiness, note that Daddy, after prewarning by my fall, slipped on the same step when he was going up. Tsk tsk...
Anyway, the place is remote and expensive, and way too quiet... It's like a maze in there, and they have too much space... Everything is private and faces the hillside. But it was too tiring, so we left soon. Turns out, this isn't where Mom stayed last time. That one was Royal Pita Maha, which is even more high end. -.-!!
When we checked out, the breakfast charges were not cleared out and Dad wanted to just leave like that. Which we did, initially, until he went back again later to pay it. They should have settled it the first time we raised the issue.
After check out, we loaded all the stuff onto the car and off we went to Ubud market! It's a shopping spree.. We reached early and went to the second floor directly. Better prices, less crowd! We got some pretty good prices. Batiks shorts Rp20k each, long batik pants Rp30k each. Set of top and bottom only Rp20k too. Batik shawl for Rp20k. Cheap and good! Those downstairs are not so good though.. They refuse to give you better prices because there are lots of tourists and customers, so they don't care if you don't buy from them. Oh, I must record this down. The incense and offerings are placed everywhere, even in the middle of the shop on the floor. I stepped too near one and the incense directly poked into my sole and burnt a hole there. As in, my FOOT. Hurts like hell...
Meanwhile, Dad just waited downstairs at the car, after he returned from the payment at the hotel. He was worried about leaving the luggage there... After shopping, we had lunch at Babi Guling Ibu Oka. Nice and cheap! I thought it'd be spicy, but no, it was fragrant and tasty with spices but most of the stuff was not spicy! We simply ordered the special, costs only Rp25k. Couldn't identify a lot of the stuff there, but still tasty!
. . .
Friday, June 26, 2009
on a brighter note, i should record down what i saw on tv last night.... there was this food and travel show where bobby chinn went to taipei. i liked his style, visit and experience local stuff instead of the touristy stuff. this is one funny guy...
he was commenting on how taipei youngsters are into trends and fads, so the business need to keep up by offering new interesting stuff. so to experience it for himself, he went to the toilet themed shop. he just couldn't comprehend why they would want a toilet themed food place. when the waitress explained a bit of the menu items to him, haha... "this is like piles in blood.. this one like diarhoea" and you could see that look on his face. when the food came, he just deadpanned "this is one place you can't complain about the food... because if it tastes like poo poo, well, what can you say?" hahaha... and later he picked up a piece of i-dunno-what that really looked like... whatever they wanted it to look like. and bobby just held the chopsticks, looked into the camera and paused "....... don't ask."
later on he went to some hawker place and had a lot to drink with the street food he was served. one dish was the chicken testicles, which he didn't really like that much. but it was nothing compared to the betelnut. he absolutely hated it and just spit it out. "this is an acquired taste which i fail to acquire... *spit* THIS is why you drink!" and washed wine down his throat.... haha
he also tried smelly beancurd. he was confident he'd be able to swallow it, so he was telling the camera, "now remember, i'm half chinese." and when he really did swallow one, he was so proud of himself, and proceeded to say "ok, i think i've got full marks already, thank you, goodnight taipei!"
this is one helluva funny guy... haha
http://www.pilotguides.com/tv_shows/world_cafe_asia/bobby_chinn.php
World Café Asia: Bobby Chinn
Biography
"I am an ethnic mutt and it did not take me that long to figure it out on my first day of school. I am half Egyptian, half Chinese born in New Zealand, educated mostly in England and San Francisco. I have lived my life like an algebra equation. You find out the answer through the source of illumination, finding out what you do not like versus doing what you think you will like. I tried planning it all out, but it never really worked out that well when ever I did, so I just stopped planning and started to feel my way through it all.
In my life, I have been through many schools on 3 continents and had many jobs. My first job, I was a shoe shine boy at the age of 12 in the financial district in San Francisco. I worked the mail room when Charles Schwabb was called 'Chuck', flew a kite on Fisherman's Wharf for $20 a day, and sold t-shirts on the Wharf. I was an elevator operator in the Fairmont Hotel, until I refused to send the owner of the hotel up a couple of stories. Numerous jobs as part time work in the restaurant industry.
I graduated from Richmond College in London with a BA in Finance and Economics, and worked in many positions in the securities industries, to realise that I really did not care for it at all, much to the displeasure of my parents who paid a fortune for my public school boy education. I left, pursuing an interest in anything outside of wearing a suit and a tie. I sold seafood to the mob and was reintroduced to the restaurant industry. I studied improvisational comedy at The Groundling and ended up doing a little bit of stand up in L.A. and San Francisco. To support myself I waited tables and eventually found my passion in the kitchen. There I worked and trained under some great chefs in San Francisco and France and decided that I wanted to be a chef.
I sustained a very serious injury working as a saucier and was crippled for one year where I was bed-ridden and supplemented my lack of education with cookery shows and cookbooks. I was diagnosed as 'permanently disabled', and could no longer work as a chef.
I ended up moving to Vietnam to learn Vietnamese food with the intention of returning back home to open my own restaurant. 10 years on, I am still in Vietnam having the time of my life. When I am not cooking, running a business, I am travelling, getting inspiration from new ingredients, techniques, from the vendors that are willing to teach me. I also like to enrol in cooking schools where ever I go. Bali, Thailand, Cairo, France, you name it, I am not afraid to fail anymore! In my free time, I play in a band travel, read listen to music."
Travel philosophy
"Travel is pretty much my philosophy towards life. I like to live on the edge, and sometimes you see more that way. No one gets out of here alive, and you are not going to take anything with you when you die, except the experiences that you had. I spend most of my money on services, travel and dining. I like to stay in swank hotels, but eat street food. I like to visit markets, museums as it is an express lane into a culture. I like to eat street food - eating cheap food next to the locals because there is an added sense of acceptance as well as better sense of the people and the culture. I am also more generous in poorer countries, as I fee it is good karma building."
Favorite Places
"If it is a no-brainer: with my family. My mother has a place on the north coast of Egypt, southern Mediterranean. You can see the milky-way at night, and migrating birds from Europe in winter. It’s off-the-beaten-track and it is nice place to getaway from the rest of the world.
I love San Francisco. I hold a lot of memories there and when you leave a place for a long time, there is a nostalgia that comes with age. Best restaurants on the face of the planet.
I love London when the weather is good. Museums, theatre and music, plus it is nice to visit a country where they speak English
Bali, Ubud, Koh Sumia, Thailand, New York city, I can live anywhere, and love it. I presently love Vietnam."
Sound advice
With the philosophy that paranoia is a heightened sense of awareness, the following:
Never ask to get seated as close to the black box as possible, it is not funny and they notify security.
Have an extra couple of scanned copies of your passport with your luggage.
Keep the big notes in the left pocket and smaller notes in the right (depending if you are left or right-handed of course).
When you haggle, always smile and act a little mental - they might feel sorry for you and give you a better deal.
If people that you do not want to deal with come to talk to you, are trying to sell you something or hassle you, pretend to be deaf - they generally leave you alone very quickly.
Never say you are an American, if you look like one, dress like one and are one, say you are from Canada, If they ask you where, tell them a very small town 60 miles north of British Columbia, then make up a name.
When travelling through the Middle East, learn the phrase ‘Allah uh Akbar’ means ‘God is Great’. If you hear someone scream it… duck!
When travelling through Asia, always offer your passport with two hands and bow your head down as a sign of courtesy. Just do it, and observe, it is fun to watch and gives you an opportunity to get a sense of a culture quickly.
Carry a handbag (this includes men). Most terrorists do not look gay so you generally get processed at security checks quicker. It is also much quicker for you to put all your metal objects in a bag quicker then trying to remove them from the stupid silly plastic baskets they give you.
. . .
just feel like writing today.
michael jackson died of cardiac arrest. this is like the one of many deaths i've heard in recent months. there have been so many that i'm feeling so depressed.
first it was my senior. it was such a shock. i had to read it on the papers online. and late. it was just so sudden. all the things that haven't been said or done yet. the one affecting me most was how he always said he wanted to see in person one of the profs in the dept, that we should point out and show him if we ever see him in the canteen. but it never happened. every time i see that prof around now, i think of my senior. what a pity. it's even sadder than missing company for lunch. upon comparison, lunch company seemed so much more trivial a matter.
his was the third death at ntu in 25 days for that period of time. it was a highly depressing period. and then recently there has been another suicide of an ntu student. he was a local student who had been under immense pressure, who couldn't seem to pass his exams and graduate. it actually got so bad that he couldn't cope anymore. nus had its share of tragedies too. an exchange student died in hostel, and more recently a phd got killed in a traffic accident while he was crossing the road with the green man on. there's been so many deaths on this level.
even more depressing was the disappearance of the air france airbus 330. whole plane simple disappeared on the radar, and i had been hoping they'd land safely. turns out... they couldn't escape tragedy. all on board died in the crash, some debris had been found, and some bodies too. but the rest of the people on board are still missing. couldn't even find their bodies.
farah fawcett died after her battle with cancer. michael jackson simply collapsed and died in his rented home.
it's quite sad for michael jackson. sad, ironic, yet twistedly good for him, in some sense. we always say, death cannot solve your problems. yet here, for the time being, it seems solved to a certain level... there is no denying his talent and power, he is still THE most famous king of pop. there's no fight on any level. yet his talent and accomplishments had been so overshadowed by all the scandalous news. his numerous plastic surgeries had changed his face beyond recognition, not even like a normal human anymore. it had made him a standing joke in the world, a laughing stock and receiving end of snide remarks in all forms of the media and small inane conversations. he had been dogged with rumours and reports of child molestation and the like, serving as more ammunition used on him. various collaborators had started suing him, and his lifestyle had landed him in endless debts. he was actually so in debt that he had to put on 50 shows to raise that money. not that he wouldn't be able to do 50 shows, his talent and fan base (despite all the scandals) would be enough to guarantee audience numbers. but to be forced to do it despite him not really wanting to... (of course i dunno how true this is) it's just so tragic. someone of that calibre, being reduced to such state... he was in such a desperate need to make a comeback.
yet he didn't have the time to do so.
and YET, it seemed that with his death, all that wouldn't even have been necessary in the first place.
his shocking death jolted people out of their cynical and coloured view. suddenly, everyone could once again clearly see his talent, and remembered his achievements. suddenly, everyone realised how they had missed the music he made, the dance moves he put on, his unbelievable rise to fame at a young age. instead of the usual snide remarks and butt jokes, now everyone seems to want to pay tribute to him, and respect. the treatment he so wanted, the reason for the comeback, all suddenly bestowed upon him when tragedy took away his chance for a comeback. lose the chance, but gain the result yearned for, guaranteed. who would have thought? it was a gamble for him, there was no guarantee. but now there isn't even the need to anymore, though he doesn't have the chance anyway. it's sad for him, yet in a twisted way, bittersweet victory.
=========================================================
if you were to die today, what would go through your mind? how do you want to be remembered? who would you want to speak to?
i don't think there's anything i want to say to anyone which i haven't done yet. i think people i care about all already know how much they mean to me. it may not be mutual, some of them may not care as much, but at least i have let them know.
but there's no way i can die without worrying and missing people. dying is not scary, even with the unknown. it's leaving behind the ones you love that is scary and miserable. you'll never be able to see them again, and you don't know whether they can cope. makes me wonder, is it any less horrible if you die without knowing you will? like, not even the conscious mind to see memories flash through? i guess it will be... that's why they always say, to die in your sleep. but of course, if you had gone to sleep with a heavy heart and troubled mind..... that's a different matter altogether...
what would you see in the mirror of the erised, anyway? i thought of this yesterday. the mirror only shows you your heart's deepest desire. no matter what it is that you'll see, you're bound to feel miserable, i think. bcs it would be your deepest desire only bcs you cannot seem to achieve it. and seeing it in the mirror, your conscious mind can only torture you by telling and reminding you that you can never attain that. ever. or, how difficult it would be to achieve it. if you have the mirror in front of you, do you actually want to see it? can you live normally and peacefully?
. . .
Friday, May 22, 2009
"Dance (While The Music Still Goes On)"
Oh, my love it makes me sad.
Why did things turn out so bad?
Was it just a dream, everything we did, everything we had?
Baby, give me one more
Dance while the music still goes on
Don't think about tomorrow
Dance and forget our time is gone
Tonight's a night we borrow.
Let's make it a memory, a night of our own
A thing to remember when we're all alone
So dance, it's our way to say goodbye
Yes, all we have to do is
Dance while the music still goes on
This is no time for crying
Dance, don't you hear them play our song
God knows that we've been trying
But we didn't make it 'cause nothing's the same
We just couldn't help it, nobody's to blame
So dance while the music still goes on
And let it be our last goodbye
Yet it seems to make me sad.
Why did things turn out so bad?
Was is just a dream, everything we did, everything we had?
Baby, give me one last
Dance while the music still goes on
Just like the night I met you
Dance and believe me, when you're gone
You know I won't forget you
Our love was a snowbird, it's flying away
You tell me it's over, what more can I say?
So dance while the music still goes on
It's gonna be our last goodbye
Dance while the music still goes on
Don't think about tomorrow
Dance and forget our time is gone
Tonight's a night we borrow.
Let's make it a memory, a night of our own
A thing to remember when we're all alone
So dance while the music still goes on
And let it be our last goodbye
Dance while the music still goes on
This is no time for crying
Dance, don't you hear them play our song
God knows that we've been trying
Dance while the music still goes on
Just like the night I met you
Dance and believe me, when you're gone
You know I won't forget you
[fade]
. . .
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
We went there on 3 May. The weather was pretty good. It had rained heavy the night before, and the air was fresh the next morning. The strength of the sun doesn't matter too much, since there is plenty of shade around to keep you from direct sunlight.
We took bus 184 from the bus stop at Clementi MRT station, and dropped off at the stop opposite Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. The moment we got off we could see the peak of the hill. It was really insignificant. Like wjb commented, 这哪儿是山，这是小土坡吧... We walked on straight and then crossed the overhead bridge (this is where the sun matters) to Hindhede Drive. To get into the nature reserve, we had to walk along the road (there wasn't really proper pedestrian walkway) and it was quite hot walking along the road. We were already wet with perspiration by the time we reached the visitors' centre at the nature reserve.
At the visitors' centre there's a toilet and water cooler. Fortunately we went in there first, because there wasn't any other toilet in the rest of the nature reserve. We got the map from the centre (we had to share, the staff were unwilling to give out too many) and embarked on our little hiking journey.
There are 4 labelled routes we can take - blue, red, yellow, green. Blue was the shortest, and didn't even go to the summit (granted, the summit was really low). Red will bring you the direct and well cemented path up to the summit. Little obstructions and difficulty, although there is a portion of extremely steep slope where you need to be careful. Yellow is largely the same as red, until near the summit where it makes a detour to the jungle fall valley. We didn't take that route, but from the map and the contour readings, I would expect a lot of climbing up and down. We'll try that next time. We took the green route, which comprised of little cement path. Most of the time we were walking in the jungle. The path was not exactly well-marked, but it is obvious where you should step and climb. Along the way, there were arrows directing us to different paths, and we had to constantly refer to the map to make sure we were heading in the right direction if we intended to follow the green route. No doubt, you can still try out other paths, which is what I intend to do next time, but care will have to be taken to make sure we don't get lost. The green path consisted of a lot of steps. I don't mean cement staircase, but metal strips constructed along the steep slopes to prevent mud from flowing so that it creates steps. The steps are not of regular sizes and heights, so there is no momentum to speak off that can keep you walking easy. We were panting and perspiring like mad. Can't imagine who suggested singing along the way. Nobody had the breath to talk, much less hum or sing. And in any case, visitors are strongly advised to keep quiet in the nature reserve and not disturb the animals in there. Back to the steps, some were about close to 50cm in height. Quite taxing on the legs indeed. Shoes with good grip and good fit are really important. With slippers it was hard to even walk properly, worse at the steep steps.
After half a litre of perspiration perhaps, we finally got to the summit. It wasn't exactly too tiring, but really gets the perspiration going. It won't make you ache and sore immediately, so you can still look forward to the trip down. There was nothing to see at the summit, only a shelter and 2 benches for you to rest. One rock which reads: 163.63m height. Dot dot dot... No toilet there, no view of the surroundings or valley. So after a short rest, some drinks and snacks, we went back down, this time taking the red path. Although the red path posed little challenge as compared to the green path, I actually enjoyed it better because this time I no longer have to keep my eyes glued to the ground and watch where I'm stepping to make sure I don't fall down the slope or what. Instead, this time I can enjoy the surrounding sights and smells and sounds. There were lots of information boards around that were interesting to read. It's a nature reserve after all. I took a little more pictures on the way down. It was a very short trip though.
We took a rest at the visitors' centre again, and bought some Walls ice lollies from the shop there. The rest of them wanted to just sit there and play cards, but I was more interested in visiting the very-near Hindhede nature park. The girls were interested to go too, but the 2 guys just wanted to sit and rot at the visitors' centre. Tsk tsk...
Hindhede park was very near, very small, and quite comforting. The playground was simple and fun, there were plenty of tables and benches around, and a big piece of grass to roam around. The rest of them found a spot to sit down and play cards, but I wanted to just go around and see. I felt even closer to nature than at the nature reserve itself. I stood alone on the cement path and listened to the sounds. Heard some rustling and spotted a big lizard in the grass. It was very shy and went deeper and deeper into the trees. Saw butterflies that didn't only flutter about the flowers, but also crawled around on the pebble ground. With their wings wide open! They weren't resting then, just scouting around. I spotted a squirrel too, it was munching no end. Hung upside down for a while too, it was so cute. Heard sounds of birds that were unfamiliar, but couldn't see where they were. Initially I couldn't identify the flapping sound (not like a bird's wing flapping, but like paper). Later on I spotted a yellow bird perched high on a tree, with an insect in its beak (it looked like a butterfly) and slapping it on the tree branch, presumably to kill it before eating. Interesting! I won't call it brutal or gruesome, this is after all nature...
I also walked to the quarry alone. It was beautiful... There was an information board there too, telling of how the quarry pond was formed. The granite quarry was excavated until the late 1980s when quarrying ceased at the Hindhede quarry, leaving the pit 18m below sea level. Water from rain and surface run off filled the pit and turned it into a large inland lake, and by 1996 it was 14m above sea level. There are many jagged edges of the pit that are now covered by water and are unseen, so it is highly dangerous for unauthorised use of the lake. The igneous granite formation is non permeable, so the water level is rising at about 3m a year and will continue to rise, and will later on overflow.
After some time we left the park and on our way out, saw A LOT of monkeys. They were just sitting around and enjoying the attention, hopeful that some visitors will give them food. But that's forbidden, and nobody should try that, or they'll eventually turn aggressive. Already, now they are not afraid of humans. We cannot afford any action that encourages them to come any closer to us and start depending on us for livelihood. We took the same route out and this time I didn't have to cross the road. There was a bus stop opposite the Courts and I took 184 back to Clementi MRT.
I'm glad I finally got down to keeping a record. Perhaps the information will come in useful the next time I decide to go there.
. . .
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
万芳 - 就值得了爱
千里的路 若是只能
陪你风雪一程
握你的手 前尘后路
我都不问
荒凉人世 聚散离分
谁管情有多真
茫茫人海 只求拥有
真心一份
就值得了爱 就值得了等
就算从此你我红尘两分
我不怨缘份 我只愿你能
记住陪了你天涯的人
就不枉青春 就不枉此生
哪怕水里火里
一场爱恨
爱不了一生 梦不能成真
也要让痴心随你飞奔
. . .
容祖兒 - 逃避你
世界最遙遠的一種相距中
明明迷戀 然而又不知怎向你形容
呆想 只會越盼越凍
我怎麼可得到你認同 我不清楚 不太懂
世界最遙遠的一種相距中
明明情深 然而亦不敢親切地抱擁
呆等 感覺被我斷送
縱使看不清所愛面容 仍未敢伸出我手觸碰
逃避你 卻又期待我可跟你做情人
而用情的深可天昏地暗
逃避你 愛是遙又遠得很
而我始終不敢靠近 還是不相信能和你合襯
世界最遙遠的一種相距中
明明留戀 然而讓輾轉的掛念撲空
回憶 心裡越載越重
卻不珍惜這一次重逢 我的思想像完全失控
如共你從沒開始 不會有終結
誰人在意 情在我心的深處不可以停止
容祖兒 - 心淡
想不起 怎麼會病到不分好歹
連受苦都甜美
我每日捱著 不睬不理
但卻捱不死 又去痴纏你
難道終此一生
都要這麼 不可爭一口氣
很謙卑 只不過是我太過愛你
連自尊都忘記
跌到極麻木 只好相信
又再爬得起 就會有轉機
若我不懂憎你 如何離別你
亦怕不會飛
由這一分鐘開始計起 春風秋雨間
限我對你以半年時間 慢慢的心淡
付清 賬單
平靜的對你熱度退減
一天一點傷心過 這一百數十晚
大概也夠我 送我來回地獄又折返人間
春天分手 秋天會習慣
苦沖開了便淡
（說甚麼再平反）
只怕被迫一起 更礙眼
（往後這半年間）
只愛自己 雖說不太習慣
畢竟有限 就當 過關
. . .
Hopeless Devoted to You - lyrics
Guess mine is not the first heart broken
My eyes are not the first to cry
I'm not the first to know
There's just no getting over you
Hello, I'm just a fool who's willing
To sit around and wait for you
But baby, can't you see
There's nothing else for me to do
I'm hopelessly devoted to you
But now there's nowhere to hide
Since you pushed my love aside
I'm out of my head
Hopelessly devoted to you
Hopelessly devoted to you...
Hopelessly devoted to you
My head is saying Fool forget him
My heart is saying Don't let go
Hold on to the end
That's what I intend to do
I'm hopelessly devoted to you
. . .
Friday, November 07, 2008
this is not good for me... my head is so full, it's so filled up and occupied and all... i shouldn't be thinking so much...
i'm thinking too much...
i need a clear head to work properly and get on with life.
. . .
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
went to sit in an oral qe presentation today. not too bad, but the examiner was extremely harsh and we were all surprised. no doubt, that examiner was a professor who's very good at his work, but we didn't expect him to be that difficult on the candidate. but they passed him anyway. turned out, the prof thought it was an oral defense exam rather than a qualifying exam, hence he asked such tough questions! haha... so funny...
anyway, i saw this product being used during the presentation. and i think it's damn cool! check it out: http://www.pac.com.sg/index.php?mod=product_details&id=127
it's a 4 in 1 wireless media presenter. there is a laser pointer at the tip, it has controls for powerpoint and media player, and the best thing is that it works as a wireless mouse! it's like the trackpoint kind of mouse, highly convenient and operable on one hand. very very cool gadget!
. . .
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Teenager in Love - Dion and the Belmonts
Each time we have a quarrel
it almost breaks my heart
Cos I'm so afraid
that we will have to part
Each night I ask the stars up above
Why must I be a teenager in love
One day I feel so happy
next day I feel so sad
I guess I'd learn to take
the good with the bad
Each night I ask the stars up above
Why must I be a teenager in love
I cried a tear
for nobody but you
I would be a lonely one if you should say we're through
And if you want to make me cry
that won't be so hard to do
And if you should say goodbye
I'd still go on loving you
Each night I ask the stars up above
Why must I be a teenager in love
. . .
Crazy
crazy for feeling so lonely
I'm crazy
crazy for feeling so blue
I knew
you'd love me as long as you wanted
And then someday
you'd leave me for somebody new
Worry
why do I let myself worry
Wondering
what in the world did I do
I'm crazy
for thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying
and crazy for crying
And I'm crazy for loving you
. . .
Monday, October 06, 2008
recalled my invigilating duty last week.
invigilators reach earlier to distribute the papers. i did a quick job, as usual haha.. most people would walk down between 2 rows of tables and distribute the papers on both sides. it saves the effort of walking an extra time, but i still think it's not that great a strategy. it takes too long to distribute on both your left and right hand side. if you can walk, might as well just distribute on one side while you walk down cos it's a LOT faster that way. so needless to say, haha, i did the job fast. the chief invigilator gave some instructions to us, but nothing i didn't already know. i specifically asked him whether the students are allowed to have their mobile phones on the desk. NO. great haha.. bags? on the sides. air con? yea... it'll be turned on soon...
when the doors were open the students flooded in. a large number of my monday class students were in my invigilating section and it was fun to see them. some of them were delighted to see me there and greeted me with a huge wide smile. some are glad to see someone they can freak out at, and they rushed up to me and asked if the paper was difficult, had i seen it yet.. haha.. poor kids.. most of them were just happy to see that i recognized them, and gave a polite but delightful smile.
as they settled down i started to fully appreciate the need for invigilators, and the junior invigilators came to understand what they needed to do. i went around checking where they placed their belongings. bags at the side please! mobile phones on the floor! haha... A LOT of them just placed their bags at their desks despite the instructions. when the junior invigilators saw me making rounds, they started doing the same. good job! a student requested for some scrap paper to level his wobbly desk and he is lucky he asked me, or it'd never happen..
here's the boring part, invigilating and roaming the students while they're all deeply engrossed in their test. as we walk around and take attendance, we take note of their calculators (check if they're programmable or graphical - not allowed) and whether they have anything they shouldn't have with them. generally ok, but here's something i found.
a student
brought it
a tamagotchi.
*faint*
it's a maths test, why would you need to bring in your tamagotchi of all things?
at the end of the test we went around to collect the papers. i did that very slowly cos i wanted to make sure that all of them have shaded their matric numbers already. as i collected the papers i was disappointed to see that some of them had left an mcq question empty. WHY?! just shade anything, there's a chance it could be correct you know... you won't get penalized for a wrong answer anyway.... tsk tsk
after the scripts were counted and they could leave, i braved the frantically leaving and packing crowd. making sure they've brought all their things with them. this is like a treasure hunting session i tell you. we found numerous matric cards which we managed to return to the students by quickly announcing over the speaker and asking the student to come forward and get it. but the biggest haul of the day has got to be the mobile phone we found. one student left his phone behind, and i was tasked with tracing the shrimp and returning it to him. damn.
initially i tried calling the mom, but the mom didn't pick up. called his last call friend, found the name, told the friend to tell him to call back this number to arrange picking up the phone. it was only until i got to the bus stop that he called when he realised he left it behind. silly boy... i told him to collect it the next day during MY tutorial class in engin. heh. when i got to the train station his mom called from home, and imagine her shock when a stranger picked up the phone instead of her son. haha.... but she was glad to know i'd be returning the phone.
the next day he came to my class, tsk tsk, poor manners, but i didn't make things difficult for him. not TOO difficult anyway. hey, it's only right to veify that he is the owner right? i made him recite his home number before i gave him the phone.
did he say thank you???
. . .
Saturday, October 04, 2008
i went ice skating last tuesday. it was alright, relatively fun. i don't need to have a lot of friends going together. in fact, i think it's perfectly plausible for me to go alone, skate a an hour or two, and then leave and go home on my own. but people would find me weird. that day i went with yy, just the two of us. she'd always try to get a whole big bunch of people first before going, but this time she couldn't find anyone. it's strange. despite the longest time she had to go around asking, actually no one came. last time it seemed that she knew so many people who could ice skate, but they were apparently just too busy to go. turns out, people just aren't interested in ice skating at all. i like going cos i just enjoy it. why don't people like it? i find it quite therapeutic to just keep gliding on the ice, despite the fact that i can't even stop (of my own accord; crashing and friction doesn't count). i had also asked around, but last tuesday most of my colleagues weren't free so they didn't go. and 626 sort of sprained her ankle so she couldn't go either. but really, i prefer it that only the two of us went. at least we can chat properly. she told me about how her beijing trip went, and i thought it was pretty enjoyable listening to what had happened and what she saw. imagine if a whole bunch of us went together, then i doubt we would have been able to talk at all.
yesterday i asked the rest of them again whether they wnted to go ice skating next tuesday. jj and xh said yes immediately. i asked lx and she was surprised i still wanted to go just one week after the last trip. i wonder, why is that even an issue? it's not like it's tiring. and the place is going to be shut down soon. if we don't go now, when else? i tried to get more ppl to go, so i asked the sma kids as well. they were ok with it initially, but after that they realised they have a class at the same time so they can't go. lx suggested that we ask dxc along since he is from the north and most probably knows how to skate. well i asked, but turns out he's not interested at all. apparently, knowing how to skate is different from skating well. erm, yes, then don't go. you have plenty of chance to go in your hometown, unlike me here in singapore. i'm going to go a few more times before the place closes down.
actually they planned to go swimming this week. we agreed on a tuesday, that we'd go on thursday. wednesday was a public holiday, then by thursday it seemed they totally forgot. don't bother talking about swimming, they weren't even around that day. hello? i brought all my stuff all the way from home and you folks don't even turn up? what a waste of my time and effort. so disappointing. and i was rather pissed off too. well actually, more than just a bit. i was mightily pissed off. if you can't go then shouldn't you at least inform me earlier so that i don't have to bring all my stuff? you couldn't just have done that? dammit. and now you still talk about swimming next week. forget it. i don't want to do that again. i'm telling you, if they back out on tuesday, i think i'm still going to go. i hate all this last minute back outs. i've made plans, and if things can go according to plan, i don't see why we shouldn't just do so. of course, you could say that i'm being very inflexible like this. but why should you be so fickle in the first place? how hard can it be to stick to your plan? why must you change your mind at whim? i hate that even more.
i think i demand this of people. don't change your minds at the last moment. not unless you have a perfectly good logical reason for that. the world doesn't spin just for you. don't expect people to change their plans (i mean the ones that have been made, not your desires) just to suit you.
it's highly annoying.
. . .
why did the leaves turn yellow?
they were usually green, maybe not all, but the bushes were always green, and the bright green shade too. but yesterday night, they were all turning yellow. why? is it because spring is gone?
. . .
it's pretty sad how i don't ever dare to keep a diary. is there any way that's possibly safe for you to keep a record of your innermost thoughts and not worry about others getting hold of it? i seriously doubt so.
but is it over-paranoia?
i know why people keep diaries. i would like to do that too. but i don't think i will ever dare to.
. . .
Thursday, October 02, 2008
do you have a song to make you sad?
i always thought "the winner takes it all" by ABBA was a pretty sad song. listening to it alone makes me sad. but that was nothing compared to watching meryl streep perform it on mamma mia! the movie. i dare not exaggerate too much. after all, the movie is a funny one, the feel good happy kind. but when she did that song, watching her, hearing her, it was close to heart wrenching. just almost ya?...
do you have a song to make you sad?
i have. i don't know why, but listening to John McLaughlin's "So Close" makes me extremely sad. very.
maybe songs are exceptionally sad (sadder, if you will) after you've watched it in some context.
do you have a song to make you sad?
. . .
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
feeling blue.
i don't like being like this. turning into a person i don't like to be and i don't want to be.
i need a clear mind. get out.
. . .
Friday, July 25, 2008
十年前后 - 李克勤
后悔去爱着他 自己掌掴吧
明知喜欢清水 竟去转喝绿茶
望见他的创疤我仍未怕
感觉像得到天下
像只井底之蛙要离开最美初夏
发现到冬天气候更差
十年前彼此不够迁就
十年后只会做好朋友
是我关键时候
不珍惜你 眼白白让你走
爱情甜酸苦得我自己感受
照亮长夜最后只有白昼
不必强求 谁救我不如自救
就算奏过受难曲
也死得冥目
童话似的恋爱
竟也可怕结局
是我不知好歹没留住你
今天你心有所属
若再死心不息最后只有万劫不复
看着你开心我便满足
十年前彼此不够迁就
十年后只会做好朋友
是我关键时候
不珍惜你 眼白白让你走
爱情甜酸苦得我自己感受
照亮长夜最后只有白昼
不必强求 谁会妄想望天可打救
我自行内咎 愿你走
事实上当初分错了手
怎么配做你的诚实膊头
十年前即使拼命迁就
十年后相信亦会分手
任哪一段时候 不可拥有
永远最美丽最优秀
爱情甜酸苦得我自己感受
照亮长夜最后只有白昼
不必强求谁救我不用自救
. . .
i just feel like writing today.
boss gave me a day off today, told me to just rest through the weekend and start work again next week. i'm not sure why EXACTLY, but i am quite sure it's because he is on leave today and he is afraid that i am going to be looking for him since i'm working on the stuff. ha. initially i had no plans to stay at home today since i have so much work to do, and i am probably not going to work much at home. sugarpie asked me if the work i don't do today will have any repurcussions, whether i will then have to work through the weekend. it won't, at least not that soon. whatever i don't do today, i can do some other day. but i am not a person who likes my work to snowball. i am potentially a workaholic, despite my constant griping about the importance of a balance between work and life which seems to be lost in this society. whatever i don't do today, i am going to have to do another day, on top of the work i have to do on that day. but since i didn't do it today, the time today is lost, and i won't be able to have it back. so work snowballs, time diminishes. what's the point? where does the improvement in life quality go? can i actually feel it? i probably barely feel any improvement, but when the day comes that i need to do what i didn't do today, i would be kicking myself and regretting it. i don't like to regret things i did or didn't do. i have enough of that without consciously creating more issues.
but i still took the day off by not going to school today. doesn't mean i'm not working at all, i'm just working from home and saving on transport time and money and effort. i have to admit i'm not working much though. but i still am. come to think of it, i probably wouldn't be working much even if i were to go to school today. and today is a good day to stay at home bcs of the weather. it's been cool all day, threatening to rain but i'm safely tucked away in the comfort of my home. when i woke up in the morning i had no idea i would be staying home today. i turned off the alarm once it rang and dragged my ass out of bed without delaying any time. i ate and showered and all, but as i was drying myself (still on time up to here), it occured to me that it would be quite stupid to go to school today. boss already gave me the day off, so he's not going to see the effort i put in. i'm not feeling too well (still some discomfort though nothing major), sugarpie is on MC and not going to work either, and the work i want to do today can also be done at home (it's enough, considering that i don't work much at home ANYWAY). it's the perfect day to stay home, what better time to? it seemed the most rational and right thing to do, so i made a conscious decision to stay home. see, i don't stay home out of laziness, i actually consider and then decide with rational reasoning. although this reasoning may not hold for others, this i am still aware of.
up to now i haven't been able to get much work done. everything distracts me, and i'm not even talking about tv. i was packing, cleaning, organizing, eating, drinking, rotting, reading, everything but working. hehe. but i managed to figure out how to run LVQ using the toolbox. not too bad lah, still got SOMETHING done. hee.
listening to hacken cd 1 now. the songs are all quite nice. there are some that are not my type, but i am very forgiving. after all, it is not advisable for an artiste to stick too closely to one style. you need to diversify and reach out to as many market segments as you can. it's just more commercially sensible to do so. i can skip those songs i don't fancy, since there are so many more that suit me. =)
i should get back to work. there are lots to do, and later on i intend to rot in front of the tv. there is just so much to watch! backlog ah backlog...
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i'm truly not someone who can blog. i can't do it regularly. i would think that a large motivation to blogging is to 'answer' to your audience. people blog when they know there are people reading. they will write something even if they are extremely tired (or have no good material), as long as they know somebody may be reading it. maybe there are some who blog as a diary and just want to record down what happened in the day.
i just can't.
it's this mentality that i don't want to tell too much to anyone. i don't want people to be able to read into my thoughts. i don't want to leave an obvious trail as to what i did or where i went in the day or week. i can't even bring myself to write down anyone's real name on this page that no one reads. obviously i'm not going to post any photos of people here. the weird thing is that i don't think i even want to post ANY photos here. i don't want any information to fall into the wrong hands and be used against me or my family or my friends. think i'm paranoid? then brace yourself for what's coming next. on the other hand i wonder if blogging could come in handy if i suddenly disappear one day and my life turns into a CSI worthy event. what would the investigators see? nowhere to start on. no doubt there are certain routines and habits of mine to start on, after all no one is entirely random and whimsical, but i don't keep a clear obvious track of my daily life. the records i keep are barely understandable to others since i tend to 'encrypt' them.
what is wrong with me?
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Thursday, May 01, 2008
MIKA - Grace Kelly
Do I attract you?
Do I repulse you with my queasy smile?
Am I too dirty?
Am I too flirty?
Do I like what you like?
I could be wholesome
I could be loathsome
I guess Im a little bit shy
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you like me without making me try?
I try to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
Ive gone identity mad!
I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like
Gotta be green
Gotta be mean
Gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you like me?
Why dont you walk out the door!
How can I help it
How can I help it
How can I help what you think?
Hello my baby
Hello my baby
Putting my life on the brink
Why don't you like me
Why don't you like me
Why don't you like yourself?
Should I bend over?
Should I look older just to be put on the shelf?
I try to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
Ive gone identity mad!
I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like
Gotta be green
Gotta be mean
Gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you like me?
Why dont you walk out the door!
Say what you want to satisfy yourself
But you only want what everybody else says you should want
I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like
Gotta be green
Gotta be mean
Gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you like me?
Why dont you walk out the door!
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Went to KTV today, sugarpie picked this song and I couldn't help singing along with it, falsetto (failed) and all. It's fun!
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