Eternal Happiness

Eternal Happiness
chU 9pm

Main storyline is about Meng Lijun running away from the guy she was supposed to marry, Huangfu Shaohua, and later falls in love with him. A Mongolian prince, Tiemuer, and a couple of baddies and the daughter of the baddie, Liu Yanyu, seriously complicated matters.

Why I started watching the show?
Because it features two of my favourite TVB actors, Lin Feng and Ma Dezhong. (My other favs include Jiang Hua, Lin Wenlong, Lin Jiadong, hehe...) So the plot goes, Meng Lijun was betrothed to Huangfu Shaohua much against her wishes, but by a quirk of fate, she disguised as a man became sworn brothers with him, Tiemuer and Marco Polo. She had started falling for Tiemuer in the early days but as Tiemuer had to conceal the fact that he was a Mongolian prince, many a times she failed in letting him know of her real identity (that she is a female in disguise). Fate has it that she had to fail in getting together with him.

And by another quirk in fate, Tiemuer's absence let to her falling for the so deeply in love with Meng Lijun Huangfu Shaohua. Huangfu Shaohua is the dumb but loyal kinda character which didnt go too well with Meng Lijun at first, also because he was Huangfu Shaohua, but later deeply touched by his love for the person he thought he had never met (Meng Lijun). Some comic relief in the show of Huangfu Shaohua show of him deeply disturbed that he thought that he was gay (Meng Lijun was supposed to be a guy in his eyes and he was so attracted to him/her/whatever).

But things complicated when Tiemuer had suspected that Meng Lijun was a female and too fell in love with her/him/whatever and that he bacame the Emperor. By then, Meng Lijun had taken the imperial examinations and became the top scholar. As she had became well aware of her love for Huangfu Shaohua and Tiemuer and made it known to her that he strongly suspected (but Meng Lijun denied it flatly, though) that she was a female and wanted h/h/w to share his riches (he IS after all the Emperor).

So, our dear Meng Lijun is faced with the toughest choice of any women's life, is it the dumb but loyal who will stick to you forever or the strong and powerful who can provide you with anything you want (but Tiemuer does have an Empress whom he doesnt really like)? As Tiemuer put it to Meng Lijun, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with Huangfu Shaohua as a boring commoner or do you want to share half the world with me?" I would so melt if smeone asks me that question, not that it is a question of marriage but the words of sharing half the world is so so strong by itself. (Tiemuer IS after all the Emperor)

Who do I want Meng Lijun to choose?
As we all know, Meng Lijun will end up with Huangfu Shaohua and this remake of the story of Meng Lijun wont change history, but still, it is something good to choose... hehe...

Side track a bit...
Stupidity Symptoms 8
During the first few episodes of Eternal Happiness, Joan found that the character Meng Lijun was so familiar, so she asked her younger sister where she heard her from. The reply, "You have a book about her, dont you remember?" This is in the context that Joan is supposed to be better read than her YOUNGER sister and is supposed to be smarter, but well...

Back to Tiemuer and Huangfu Shaohua,
Tiemuer IS after all the Emperor, he IS the most powerful man on earth and Meng Lijun did fell for him first, but he has a wife. It is interesting to note that he fell for Meng Lijun even though he didnt know for sure that she is a she and when he had to marry against his wishes, he had many a times tried to wriggle his way out from spending the night at his Empress place. And there is this other sorta funny scene (funny only if you do remember that Meng Lijun is supposed to be a male) where Tiemuer forced himself on Meng Lijun and then the Empress suddenly appeared, greatly disturbed by what she saw. Then the next scene showes her and Tiemuer in the same bed facing opposite directions and she tearing. I do want to feel sympathetic for her, but my heart went all out wanting Meng Lijun to be with Tiemuer. Haiz... You all know Joan, the person who thinks that power is aphrodisiac.

But then there is Huangfu Shaohua the big blockhead who was so distrubed that he might be gay that he ran away and got himself entangled with Liu Yanyu whom I think is just too good a person. Another thing about Joan, she doesnt like people who are just way too good. One absolutely disgusting thing about her that Joan and her sister thought was this line which Liu Yanyu harboured "I want Huangfu Shaohua to be reunited with the Meng Lijun he loves so dearly, and I dont mind staying by him on an equal basis as Meng Lijun." Hello, do you know where you stand, Liu Yanyu?! And you still want to share an equal status with Meng Lijun??! But like all diehard loyals, he is so hard to resist after a long period of time being with him. He may be dumb, but dumb people are easier to get along with.

Basically, Joan likes both Tiemuer and Huangfu Shaohua very much and will support whoever who appears on TV together with Meng Lijun. As an observer, a person like Tiemuer is great for romancing, he is the pinnacle for a perfect boyfriend, but never would one want to marry an Emperor, they just have too many wives and life as an imperial concubine or even as an Empress really sucks. In a later episode, I found out from magazines that Tiemuer would use to status as Empress to entice Meng Lijun, "Just one word from you and I can immediately depose the present Empress and make you the Empress." Oh, man, I would just MELT!!! Okay, so NOW you all know that Joan is a stickler for male chauvinism. (someone commeted that Im SM, but, well...) The other side of the story is not very pleasant to the Empress who happened to hear what Tiemuer said to Meng Lijun, especially that she just found out that she was pregnant and wanted to bring that news to Tiemuer (and for the ten tousandth time, Meng Lijun IS supposed to be a man!).

But Huangfu Shaohua is indeed damn cute. Actually, I think its just Lin Feng. Maybe if someone else acted as Huangfu Shaohua, I wont support him that strongly as I do now... This brings me back to another period drama by TVB. Luo Shen... Cant remember the English translation of the title... In it, a smart woman (note the similarity with the smart Meng Lijun) is torn between two men, one holds power, one holds the gift of literature. Right from the start I was on the camp for the guy holding power and when he turned out to be not so good by means of, well, history, I gave up watching that show. My heart pained for him man... So, it seems like TVB scriptwriters dont like men with power... Well...

You know what, now that Im thinking of it I think that if Huangfu Shaohua wasnt acted by Lin Feng, I would have boycotted this show just like how I boycotted Luo Shen.

With Eternal Happiness coming to an end liao, Id grade this drama series with 4-stars. One to Lin Feng, one to Ma Dezhong, one to the soundtrack (esp the dizi and qin music, and the title and ending songs), and one to power. Yup... Do try and catch the last few episodes of it!

Procrastination vs Pathetism

There is a link between the two P-words that I always use, using them both in theory and in practice.

Procrastination

I procrastinate anything and everything, to those who have yet know. Procrastinating studying and doing my work is like waking up everyday, so natural and innate. But that are not the only things I procrastinate, more often than not, I procrastinate the most everyday things, like waking up, bathing, eating, sleeping. I cant wake up as in opening my eyes and getting out of bed immediately, I will have to hit the snooze button a couple of time, laze around for some time before I can actually pull myself out of bed fully refreshed.

As most people would know by now, Im not a person who likes to bathe. I only bathe when I have to go out, so that would translate to procrastinate bathing until I almost run late.

How can one procrastinate eating? Well, apparantly I can. When Im running late, I would forget that Im hungry and only eat only at the end of the day, after Im done with all my stuff and before I sleep. Sometimes, I can go without eating anything the whole day, but not very often. That is why when I eat, I make good use of eating and stuff myself with lots of food.

At night, even when Im dead tired, I surprise myself by finding excuses not to sleep. I can hang around on my bed, reading magazines that Ive read 20 times over or flipping channels on the tv without actually watching anything or I can just stone. Oh man...

Pathetism

Joan is pathetic.

How so? She can well up in misery, thinking that she is the saddest person on earth, provoking her tears to be at her beck and call but not allowing them to flow freely so that her hurt is accentuated. She likes being emotionally pained. By thinking that she is worthless and that nobody likes her, everybody hates her and she should in return hate everybody on earth.

Joan is lonely. Pathetically lonely. Nobody understands her, nobody can understand her, nobody will understand her. She is like vines on a tree, looking, seaching, finding a support, but everybody just looks down on her cos she is so dependent. But then again, is she really that dependent? Sometimes, she just isolates herself and shuts herself out from the rest of the world so that she can feel lonely, so that she can look for support, like asnake who has a home at a particular tree but not wanting to go there, but wanting something he doesnt know what.

So, am I lonely cos my friends cant make time for me or do it avoid my friends so that I can be lonely and so that I can wallow in my misery that my friends cant make time for me?

I havent noticed this, but everytime I feel pathetic is when I have lots to do but dont want to do anything, in short, when I procrastinate, I feel pathetic. Or it is the other way round? When I feel pathetic, I will tend to procrastinate doing my stuff...

I dont know...

I just read the screenplay for Lost in Translation. Images of the two lonely characters anve resurfaced in my mind. I feel like both of them, in somewhere foreign. NUS is foreign to me, going for classes, writing essays are not what I want, I dont want to be at where I am now, squatting at the lounge of my hostel, tying on my laptop all by myself, with a window of my essay minimised at my toolbar and me not wanting to open it, and worse, with my msn set at online status but nobody wanting to talk to me. I feel like both Bob and Charlotte. And so unlike them who have each other for company, I have just my blog.

Sucks...

And the pathetic thing about me is that i know that I will feel even worse reading the screenplay for Lost in Translation but I still went ahead and read it cos I felt like feeling bad, and sad, and pathetic...

Arent I just so pathetic?

I Need More Time

I need more time. And friends who have time.

I need more time and less procrastination to actually start writing drafts for my 4 essays/term papers/whatever you call them. I also need time to actually go shopping. Not shopping for things I do not want but shopping for things I need. Then there is that great movie coming up The Motorcycle Diaries that I really feel like watching. Well, even if I do manage to squeeze out some time, my friends, loads busier than this poor girl, would not be accompanying me anywhere. Sucks man...

So where have I spent my time on?

Really, I have absolutely no idea. Tests? Maybe. I had EU test which totally sucked. I had never come across a worsely written test paper, never in my 19 years of life. There was my Deutschsemestertest. Yes, those Germans really just put all the words together to form a longer word. All I can say about that test is that learning a new language from scratch is definitely not easy. But we all remember those times memorising is was been; come came come; has had had had; lie lay lay; lay laid lain; go went gone; blah blah blah from our that Primary English book. Then there are those time wasted on that chU 9pm show which Im hooked. And football. Waking up at unearthly hours disrupting my already spoilt bio-system, luckily those matches were not what I consider disappointing performances. I actually enjoyed it comprimising some more important stuff.

Im losing more weight and emotionally wrecked.

Im not eating properly due to the fact that I dont seem to have common breaks with my friends so I dont bother eating. Im like subsistencing on sandwiches from Coffee Club Express and Fuzion every night, and when Im really hungry it will be hot dogs from the snack stall. I had 4 hot dogs on Monday, and another 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday I didnt have any but I had 3 both yesterday and today, so that makes it 14 in a week, not counting that I have a bbq tmr and I probably wont be eating chicken, just stuffing myself with loads and loads of hot dogs. Funny to think that with all the hot dogs down me Im still losing weight.

With no one to go out with me and me being cooped up in my room 24/7, its no wonder that my Stupidity Symptoms seems to have closed down for good. And without me doing stupid stuff, I feel quite sad. Not the boohoo kinda sad, but more on the sad kinda sad. Sad of life; sad of studying; sad of not getting what I want; sad that I got what I want... Geddit? Sinking lower into pathetism... Ya, Im sad, the pathetic kinda sad...

Then there is my pathetic infatuation with a certain German footballer. Pushing the parameters of Joan's emotional limits to saturation.

Blah Blah Blah

Miroslav Klose

Internet surfing used to be a leisurely hobby of mine, but recently I have taken to surfing the net with a dictionary on hand. My dear German-English dictionary. For whom did I slog for? The above mentioned fussballer.

From my meagre knowledge of German and my inadequate dictionary, and English webbies from Yahoo!, I found out that he had just did a hat-trick in 20 min after coming on as a substitute in the second half.

My fettishes (is it supposed to be -es or just -s?)

By now, all my dear friends should know about my fettish for Aryans.
The blond-haired blue eyed defined facial features kinda guys.
This stemmed from some neo-Nazi sentiments... Ya, BUT THEN AGAIN, I must reiterate this point, I AM NO NEO-NAZI!!! many people think Im neo-Nazi, but I cant be one due to my Communist beliefs. Ya, hard to think that this girl is pro-Stalin, right? But I am... I still love Bismarck though, but Im drifting further and further from my original point. The blondes. Owen (and NOT Luke) Wilson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio. All Americans, probably of English descent, but I still like them. If you want an example of an SS kinda Aryan, that will be Oliver Kahn, German (to-be-retired) national goalkeeper. Now you know the reason for my soft spot for him.

Another fettish, the height.
1.82m or 6ft0.
I dont know why but I always thought that an ideal guy should be 1.82, no more no less. Anything more than 1.82 would be too tall, lanky, blah, and anything lesser than that made the person plain short. Maybe it is because 1.82 translate directly to a clear 6 feet and I like round numbers so that became a sorta fettish. Okay, after so much, the main topic, Miro is just nice standing tall at 1.82m. Okay, I liked him even before I found out that he was exactly 1.82, but anw...

Authoritarians.
Joan just has this thing for dictators!
From ancient Chinese emperors to dear Hitler, Joan does have a soft spot for them. Maybe its because power is aphrodisiac. Bismarck was also an authoritarian figure. The father of Deutschland, domineering even the Kaiser then. Stalin. Napoleon Bonaparte. Recently, I have also taken a liking to Robspeirre. Another thing about the authoritarians that make me like them even more, they are all dead. hehe...

The Eternally Depressed (or rather, Repressed)
Think Tony Leung in Wong Kar Wai movies. Those sad eyes and moody feel, that are all knee-droppers to little old Joan.
2046

All of Joan's fettishes, it is of no wonder she doesnt have a boyfriend...

5 Year Egg Plans

The price of chicken burgers in Fong Seng has risen by $0.50. No thanks to eggs...

As we all know (if you dont, 1-you are not Singaporean, 2-you have been living in a hole, 3-you are a strict vegan), we are currently facing an egg crisis. The prices of eggs has risen to such an exorbident amount that you might as well be eating sharks fin, okay, that is an exaggeration, but I think it really comes close. Not only eggs have become so expensive, even with money, you might also not be able to purchase them. Families are hoarding them; hawkers are snapping them up; big players in the food industry have their regular suppliers to count on, so where can little Joan get her daily dosage of 2 eggs?!

And it is not just any egg that I want, although I am getting more desperate by the day, I want to eat Seng Choon eggs! Or Chew's eggs! I want to eat Singapore eggs. I dont want to eat that tasteless Farmer Brown's eggs or whatever New Zealandic weird eggs, nor do I want to eat those disgusting Malaysian eggs, so poisoned with bird flu or Dr M disease. Okay, I am supposed to give Malaysia more face on the account of Badawi, but nothing can stop my passionate hatred for what is across the causeway... lagila...

In light of this crisis, this little egghead drew up a series of five-year plans to build up an egg-pire in Singapore, and if it's highly successful, I can export my eggs and one day replace all the egg farms there distributing eggs in Badawi's territory! hahaha! I will be Queen Mother Hen!

1. Accumulate capital
In the first of my five-year plans, I will be concentrating on the accumulation of capital for the start up of my egg farm and the scouting of interested parties to joint-venture with me. In these first five years, friends, dont be too upset with me if my mind is only on money, money and more money. It is actually quite expensive to start an egg farm. An egg farm is not really a high cost business, but start up costs is much higher than other businesses, just think that later costs would then be at a minimum.

Of course, there is an alternative to this five-year plan. The alternative version is to spend this five years snagging a rich rich husband who can provide me with the capital to start my Mother Hen Egg Farm. That way, the egg farm can wholly be mine and I need not worry about being cheated by unscruplous business partners.

2. Infant care for my dear Mother Hen Egg Farm
In this following five years, my dear egg farm would be at its most precarcious position and special care must be undertaken to ensure the survival and expansion of the farm. With the capital earned from the previous five years, I will open that farm. But I am prepared to to stay in red for these five years. Revenue earned from the selling of whatever eggs I produced will be channelled to research and development. I will be experimenting to produce the cheapest, healthiest, virus-immuned hens and eggs. And by the end of this five years, I shall be successful and finally be able to break even.

3. Aggressive expansion of my farm
This five years will be devoted solely to the expansion of my egg farm. Instead of a little egg farm, at the end of this five years, there will in place be a multi-storeyed high-rised egg farm built. This farm will house 5 million hens, produce more than 4 million eggs a day, enough to feed an egg to each Singaporean every day. This egg farm will be quite unlike other normal egg farms. My hens will be living in clusters of 150-200 in a cubicle, so I will be having 50 000 cubicles spread over 60-over floors. Maybe I can build it to say 80-90 floors with the ceilings to be lower than our normal ceilings since hens are much much shorter than humans. The hens will be allowed to roam freely in their clusters so that they can remain as healthy as possible. For the reproduction of little chicklings, I will have put aside another set of hens and cocks to do the job, they will probably be housed in another wing of the building and not be counted with the 5 million hens.

4. Crossing the seas and oceans
The next of my five-year plans will see me expanding my farm overseas. I will not only be exporting my locally-produced 4 million eggs a day, I will also be setting up egg farms all over the world, or maybe, just currently in the region. In the meantime, I will also be investing on further research and development to stay at the top of the egg industry. By this time, anyway, my net revenue would be billions a year, considering that eggs are an important aspect in our diets.

My eggs would not be affected by regional viruses and diseases as they are all quarrantined in their own clusters hence free from other birds either from the region or from the other clusters. Even if my hens developed some kind of virus or disease, I can just have that whole cluster of hens destroyed and thus eliminate the spread of virus to other hens in my farm.

Singapore will never have another egg crisis ever again!

I will never go without my 2-eggs-a-day ever again!

Hail to all egg-lovers in the world! May all egg-lovers in the world unite!

That Handphone in Your Pocket

Handphones as part of our lives

Do you think handphones have become an integral part of our lives? Or do you think we have become over reliant on them?

Im sure many times, we are all guilty of whipping out our phones to check the time even though we are wearing watches because we also want to check if we have any new messages or missed calls. And when the friends we are meeting are late for 30 seconds, we would without hesitating pull that trusty Nokia or Samsung out to text a whr r u message; and if they are late for like 2 minutes, it would be a verbal where are you question.

This evening I stood at the entrance of City Link Mall and counted the number of people who were using their handphones as they entered or exited the mall. In 15 minutes, I counted 176 people. And this number is excluding the people who were using their handphones around the MRT station but did not enter the mall, and it also excludes those people who held their handphones in their hands but did not use it. Use it as in either talking on the phone or messaging or reading a message.

Actually, Im also guilty of doing so. My handphone not only connects me with all my friends, its my alarm clock and watch; it also provides me with entertainment via radio and games, and when I figure how to use it better, it will also be my camera, video cam and mp3 player. Sometimes, I would also blog short messages of my feelings, my sights ot my emotions to later transfer over to my diary cos I can carry my handphone everywhere which I cant do that to my diary.

But to speak up for those 176 people I counted, the place where I stood could also be considered as an MRT station and there were many people waiting there. It is only natural for those people to call up their friends to rush them.

I didnt expect there would be this many people in city hall this evening. The steps were all occupied and the pillars and walls all had people leaning against them. I had a hard time finding a spot on the wall to lean.

Soci people, many you would like to do a project on handphones among teens? I cant do it cos IM NOT DOING SOCI!!! haha... I dont know why but everybody seems to be thinking that Im doing soci. So Im making it clear that Im not doing it and dont think that I will ever be doing it. haha...

Updates

Updates in Joan's life...

I havent been doing anything that I can include in Stupidity Symptoms.
I havent been able to access the internet from my room in PGP.
Wubai has a new album.
Wubai is staging a series of concerts in Taiwan. Someone fly me there!
Im back at home doing homework for my sis.
My sis lost her Samsung E700.
I have fallen in love with Lin Feng, a rich Hong Kong actor. He didnt get rich from acting, he got rich from his father. Like how envying... My dad says that since he couldnt provide me with luxury, I will have to find it myself via a husband. That is very sad... Cant I achieve success with my own hands? I dont know...
I love Dicky even more. He is better than even the little pink pill.
I have taken to eating sanwiches every day. Goumet sandwiches I mean, and its taking a toll on my little purse.
Champions League is back.

Shall We Dance?

Shall We Dance?

I just watched the trailer for the aboved mentioned film, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. It seems like a really good movie, but will I spend $8.50 to watch the film in cinema?

Shall We Dance is a remake of the Japanese show of the same title, I can't remember who acted in it, but that show touched me deeply. The script was good; the acting was good; the dance was good; the soundtrack was good, so much that I can hardly find fault in it.

The story tells of a middle-aged, middle-class, white collar, mid-ranking average man who lives his days in a routine until one day while on the train home, he noticed a pretty, young girl dancing by a window. From there, this man developed a hugh curiosity of that dancing girl and would notice her everytime his train passes by that window. One day, he finally summed up courage to check what lay behind the window and the identity of the dancing girl. It turned out that behind that window was a dancing school, the girl was the instructor there and she taught ballroom dancing. In a mist of confusion, the man signed up for ballroom dancing lessons and learnt dancing without letting his wife know. There was actually nothing going on between the man and the girl, but well, most human thoughts are corrupted and we would always tend to think in a negative way.

In the Hollywood remake, Richard Gere plays the man and Jennifer Lopez plays the girl.

From the trailer I watched, it seemed that this remake was trying to follow as closely to the original as possible, but somehow, I didnt experience the feeling of being touched by the show, there was something seriously lacking in this remake.

Yes, Richard Gere's acting was stoic and I could feel his lonliness and craving for something new and different, Jennifer Lopez was as pretty as the original actress and I could feel her passion for ballroom dancing, so what went wrong?

After much thought, I think fault lies with Hollywood. As Shall We Dance is a show focusing mainly on ballroom dancing, it has a limited appeal among the audience. And we all know what a money-minded practical world it is like out there in America, so to widen the audience range, they pulled in big stars to act in the show and they will sell it as the show starring Richard Gere and JLo.

I am not condemning Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez, to give them credit, they are good actors, but are they really suited to act in the show? The male protagonist in Shall We Dance is supposed to be a very very average Japanese middle-aged guy, so he should have equally average looks and my dear Richard Gere is just too stunning to take on that role convincingly. I mean who would believe that Richard Gere is lonely?! As for Jennifer Lopez, she is a great dancer, but she doesnt have the body of a ballroom dancer. No offense to her body, its great, really attractive, but too curvy for a ballroom dancer. Or maybe its because the original actress looked like a ballet dancer that I think that Jennifer Lopez is too big to take on that role...

I havent got the chance to hear the soundtrack for this remake, and for this show, the soundtrack really plays a very important role in dertermining its success, so I shall not say it straight out if this show well-worthed the $8.50.

But if you have yet watched the original version, I would go all out and recommend this film to you. Not for Richard Gere, not for JLo, not for anything other than a really good script.

So, Shall We Dance?

A Thank You and an Apology

Ummm...

Little old Joan forgot something really important... And that is to thank the person who created my problem and tried to solve it, spending much time burning little grey cells. Luckily, its solved for now! Thanks, Zhangting!!!

Another thing, I just realised that some people missed out on my public apology to Eugene in the gaedus yahoo group. So, Joan will make another public, this even more public than the one in the yahoo group, apology.

Joan Ang hereby sends out her deepest apologies to Eugene Leong for all the hurt and ridicule that she unsensibly caused upon him. She is now in deepest regret.

Ummm...

Netscape

Here is Joan posting for her first time from a netscape browser.

Before this, I have never even heard of Netscape, so I guess that is how ignorant I am.

So, what was the problem Joan encountered? Really, Joan still dont even know that answer. She only knew that there were some websites that she couldnt read, namely chinese ones, but the funny thing is that she could read some other chinese websites, so where did things went wrong? Ummm... Point to ponder. And there was the problem where Joan couldnt post her messages on her blog using trusty old Internet Explorer, so here she is at Netscape...

I hate computers.

I thought they were some objects that were made to make our lives easier, but after getting this laptop, I seem to be encountering more problems than before. But Im not saying that the trusty old PC I have at home is free from giving me trouble. That obsolete machine cannot connect to my wireless at home! It's like so amazing. I have a computer that cannot access the internet. And my sis com is not XP, so there was this whole lot problem that occurred ytd when I wanted her to send me a word document.

Note: It is just a WORD DOCUMENT

Basically, my sis couldnt transfer the file over to me via msn or email, then she realised that she couldnt even open the file on her outdated ME since my old com was also an XP. Enter dad who did something, I dont know what, and he managed to open that file. But he still couldnt sent the file to me via email. He even tried to copy the words from the doc and paste in his composed email, but poor me only received a blank email. Then he found out this ingenious but tedious way to send me the doc.

My dad made my sis copy and paste my word doc one paragraph by one paragraph on to msn to me. So I received my doc in conversation form, one para by one para. This is so absolutely pathetic!

Joan's plan for the rest of the month: (contact me if interested in joining me)
The Terminal (after a few months of agony, but Yanling, you still onz, right?!)
Raising Helen(a Kate Hudson show, nice and light-hearted, anyone???)
Kitaro (that musical genius is coming to Singapore!!! Anyone interested in going down to catch him in Suntec Convention Hall??? Tix $68, $108, $128, $148)

Somebody please save this girl from becoming a no-life entity!

TJ Revisited

I went back to TJ today.

I went back supposedly to get my stuff from my dear junior, but in fact it was to say hi to all those teachers I missed and wish them a happy teachers day, although its like rather belated, but anw... I met up with Chen Laoshi, Yan Laoshi, Mr Hasim, Ms Lim, Mr Thompsom, and Xu Laoshi. Missing from the list was Ms Leong. I just couldnt find her! How sad...

Security has been beefed up in TJ. The teachers room is now out of bounds to all except the teachers. There is this auto lock system in the door that can only be activated by a programme pre-programmed into the teachers ezlink cards. This makes me wonder, what about the teachers who drive? Anw, now in TJ all the teachers are carrying a card holder either around their neck or somewhere on their body.

Back to the teachers, Im pretty sure most of you are more interested in thow are the teachers rather than the degrading of the school. (apparently the new security system was proposed by the least favourite person in TJ, OM Chan, sorry Sheena) Well, let me start in order of time I met the teachers.

Chen Laoshi
She becoming prettier, cuter, and younger. I look older than her, makes me feel quite sad... Whoahahaha... She has this new hairstyle with bangs enhancing the brightness of her eyes and framing her small face, so cute, like a hamster... haha...

Yan Laoshi
I really dont feel like commenting about him. I mean, would you if you went to sch and this guy says hi and oh ya have you signed in?! Like come on?!!!

Mr Hasim
He is still as slack as ever. He was making his way away when I went to sign in at 1230, like how slack?! Apparently our dear Hasim is now relegated to teaching GP, but he says that it will only for this period of time, he would be back to teaching History soon (like in about 2 years time). And he is involved in planning of social studies and the history programme for the Temasek Integrated Programme. Well, wish him all the best in trying to worm his way around his apparent busy schedule... haha...

Ms Lim
She changed her specs again. It is now red and as eye catching as ever. Chatted with her about the dress code in uni and apparently, I failed her test. haha...

Mr Thompsom
Actually I was quite shocked when I first saw Mr Thompsom. He had a lot more lines around his eyes and on his forehead, and he seemed to have less hair than I remembered. He looked aged. Quite sad to think of it as so as it was only like 10 months since the last time I saw him and he looked a good say 3 years older. Anw, it seems like his history paper will be scraped in 2006, so its still an open ended question if he will still be around after that. Well, according to him, there is still other stuff he can teach, especially with the new integrated programme and such.

Xu Laoshi
Like all other Chinese teachers, after the revised Chinese language requirement, she has fewer and fewer students now... haha...

Really missing the school and all the teachers there...

The Angels of Russia

The Angels of Russia
by Patricia le Roy

From the blurb: On a study trip to Leningrad, literature student Stephanie meets Sergei, an enigmatic young dissident. Stephanie had fallen in love with a fairy tale image of Russia -- full of palaces and aristocrats; Sergei offers to show her how different the reality is. Even in the supposedly enlightened days of Gorbachev, Sergei is in constant danger because of his political beliefs. So when he asks Stephanie to agree to a marriage of convenience so that he can leave the country she is unable to refuse him.

Despite the platonic nature of their relationship, Stephanie finds herself increasingly attracted to her mysterious new husband. But when Stephanie introduces Sergei to her Aunt Marina, a Russian defected to Paris whilst accompanying her father on a political mission, he appears to know more about Marina's past than Stephanie. Could Marina be the real reason why he has come to Paris? As it becomes increasingly clear that Sergei is harbouring more than one secret, Stephanie is forced to question whether their first meeting was as accidental as it seemed...

Although the blurb focused on the mystery of Sergei as the book's selling point, what got me so hooked on this book was not about Sergei and Marina, but more of Stephanie and Sergei. Stephanie had a fiance back in Paris before she went to Leningrad, but her relationship with her fiance did not seem to be very close. She was increasingly attracted to Sergei. And Sergei, even with his mission on hand, found himself increasingly attracted to Stephanie.

Two people, knowing their love for each other and knowing of the other's love for them, but not being able to be together because of their personal reasons, that damn sad. From Stephanie's point of view, she knew that even if Sergei loves her as much as she loved him she could not openly express her love for him as she had a fiance and he knew that too. Although she did not have any love left for her fiance, because of family and peer pressure, she could not break of the engagement. As she couldnt commit herself to Sergei as much as she wanted to, she tried to control her rising emotions. From Sergei's point of view, not only Stephanie's fiance stood in his way, he had a big secret that he kept from Stephanie and he knew that this secret had to be kept from her. He also knew that the eventual outcome of his secret would harm her emotionally.

For a slight moment, the outcome of the story reminded me of the usual Andy Lau/Aaron Kwok/Ekin Cheng Hong Kong triad movies of the 90s, but in this setting of 80s Leningrad and Paris, both places of romantism, love, and regret, somehow the impact was much stronger than what Hong Kong can ever produce.

The author also made use of much literature and history weaved into the story. I mean, Stephanie was after all a Literature Masters student doing her thesis on Pushkin and the effects of the Decembrists on his Literature and Sergei was very much interested in the Decembrists which became the main topic of their long platonic conversations. But what struck me most was the author weaving in the ancient tale of Ivan and the Firebird as the opening of a chapter in the middle of her story.

The tale of Ivan and the Firebird by itself is a story that puts one into a long heavy thinking mode. Its presence in this story made me think harder on the effect it had in shaping our thoughts of Stephanie and Sergei.

Im starting to feel drawn to Russia... For more on Russia, you can look into my archives on the review I did for Russian movie The Return. Try look for this book if you feel drawn into my review. Joan Ang gives it 5-stars and 2 thumbs up!

Buying a Piece of Hope

I tried to buy a piece of hope, but apparently, it was sold out when I went all the way down to look for it. Rmb the bottle of anti-stretch mark essence that I broke (for those who dont, there is the archives), I bought another bottle. Maybe I just like deluding myself, submering myself in own-created fantasies, like finally one day being able to remove all my stretch marks, ya ya, haha... I realy tried to search for my own piece of hope, but, well, the word there is but.

In the English language, a pull stop can never come straight after the word 'but', or 'and', ya, but, ya, but...

It has been three weeks into my uni life proper but it seems like ages. Im busy every day, but dont know what Im doing. Wake up, rush for lectures, tutorials, go for ecas, do readings, sleep, then its the next day liao. In between all that, I tried to find some eye candy hoping to spice up my pathetic life, and the result, sinking deeper into pathetism. What a sad life...

Usually, for the past eight years, whenever the end of August arrives, Id prepare to send a card to a certain someone, but this year, things have changed, on my part. I wonder if that person would notice the change... But for now, Ive got Jakob Walters and German vocab to fill up my time and before that, Ive to bathe and get ready for Union Ball.

Union Ball is in about three hours time and here I am typing away on this thing thinking about my pathetic life with a face of oil and a body of grime and a head of hair that stinks when Union Ball in in like three hours time. Staying in school really screwed up my biosystem. I dont eat unless people ask me out to eat; I don't bathe unless Ive got to leave my room for lectures or stuff; I dont sleep unless I need to wake up early the next day. I just visited my dentist on Wed, basically, I didnt have a very good time with him cos I don't usually brush my teeth unless I eat, so on times I dont eat, I left my teeth to rot. The height of pathetism!

Okay, maybe I should stop myself from sinking into further pathetism... Hey! It will be Union Ball soon! Ya, and I will be missing out on Arts Bash at the same time, so even though I cant go and show my support to you guys, all the best! To Xinyi, Ken and Slyvia... I would really have went for Arts Bash if not for the fact that Ive already spent $50 on tix and $102.60 on a dress... That brings me back to depression, Im broke. Uni life is expensive; Joan is a spenthrift, somehow uni and Joan dont seem to look like a very good combination. But then again, to think about where all my money went? It cant have gone into food cos I havent been eating much, maybe they all went to support my pathetism...

2 Stupidity Symptoms

Stupidity Symptoms 7
One day, Joan accompanied Friend A to look at laptops as Friend A wanted to buy one. But before Friend A could actually make the order, Joan had to leave. The next day, Joan woke up and was still worried about her friend getting a laptop, so she decided to message her friend, but for unknown reasons, Joan messaged Friend B asking if she had bought the laptop. A very confused Friend B replied Joan “no”. Joan did not take much notice of this until the next day she woke up and with unknown reasons, she realised that she had messaged the wrong person!

Stupidity Symptoms 7
With her political science lecture the next day, Joan decided to visit the computer lab and print out the notes beforehand. But that that time, there wasnt any new lecture slides on the IVLE, so Joan decided to do some other stuff before checking the IVLE again. After 2 ½ hours, Joan went up onto the IVLE to check again and spotted something new. Without hesitation, Joan quickly printed out the notes seeing that they looked vaguely familiar. That night, after retreating to her room, Joan wanted to read through the notes before her lecture so that she wont get lost the next day. Holding up the notes reading them, she saw it becoming more and more familiar, then she realised that this wasnt the political science set of notes but notes for her another module, Politics of Southeast Asia. And the dumb thing is that she had already printed out that set of notes and had her lecture the day before!

blog hopping

Recently, I’ve been doing quite a bit of blog browsing in my free time. I would blog hop via links on my friends blogs, even visiting blogs of people I dont know and I wld browse through the recently updated blogs on the link on blogger main.

What different people put up on their blogs tell a lot about them. Some blogs have no links of other blogs in them and the blogowner conceals his identity, these blogs mostly contain vented up, frustrations. Some blogs are brightly coloured, with avant-garde designs and a whole long list of links of friends, these blogowners usually pen happy thoughts or some mundane everyday happenings. But of course, Im stereotyping...

Ive realised that there are lots of Singaporean bloggers out there, or rather, its an unusually high ratio of population to bloggers. But sad to say, Im generalising again, that most of those Singaporean bloggers I came acrossed are young Secondary school girls who are so madly in love with 5566. I was browsing through the blogs the day after their performance here and came across no less than 10 blog entries of descriptions of handsome 5566 all attached with feelings of euphoria and those who didnt go that close to the stage, feelings of envy and some jealousy. I mean, dont these girls have a life?! Then again, what am I preaching when me myself dont have a life to speak of when I can sit in front of the computer for hours reading abt other people pathetic life?!

I also came across a friend’s blog who had an entry of a story titled Castle in the Clouds. Look on top of this window and spot the similarity. I dont like his story, mainly because its sad and pessimistic. As most friends wld know, Im a pessimist trying to act like an optimist, hence Id want not to like pessimistic ideas. Anyway, back to Castle in the Clouds, where did I get this title? Les Miserables. Why did I choose this as my title? Look through my archives, I think Id mentioned before, or look through my archives there is a certain trend of my entries.

Another interesting blog I came across is one of a New Zealander living in Taiwan and married a Taiwanese there. He talks mainly about socio-political issues in Taiwan and relates it to other parts of the world. I like his writings and some of his ideas although I oppose him on one big major issue of Taiwanese independence, but its only that. The blogging world is big, for other no-life people who like reading blogs, one advise would be not to continue reading blogs by sex-starved teenage girls and just browse through the big big world of blogs and experience another kind of culture.

I like my blog. I like my Stupidity Symptoms. I like my movie reviews. I like building castles in the clouds. Please let me save the complete image of the castles in my memories.

*sudden wave of sadness floods me* am I trying too hard to be an optimist when all I can be is only a pessimist?

*another wave of uncertainty breezes by me* will I have to suffer a same sad ending as the story I read off my friend’s blog?

*with an unnatural pang of resolute* blog-hopping is detrimental to one’s emotional being. Getting upset over someone else’s feeling is pathetic. Getting angry over someone else’s different opinions is pathetic. Getting worked up realising that Singapore’s teenaged girls are shallow is pathetic. In short, Im just pathetic.

*slumps back on my rickety computer chair*

Arts Orientation Week

Arts Orientation Week is finally over!

I now can have the time to do stuff I didnt have the time for during the past week. After almost one and a half months of solid procrastination, I went down to collect a reserved book from Marine Parade. One and a half months, really, Im amazed that the shopowner still recognised me. Also collected a pink top from Esprit which I bought about a month ago, but my size was only available about a week ago. Well, the top wasnt as impressive as I thought I had seen, the colour of this top seems a bit dull quite unlike the one I set my eyes upon. Anw, it was on 50% discount so I shouldnt complain.

I had also found time to change the skin of my blog to welcome a new page in my life, my university life! My previous blog I thought was a bit too depressing, but then again, this blogskin isnt very cheerful either, so never mind me Im just talking nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, maybe this is a good time to add in more Stupidity Symptoms...

Stupidity Symptoms 4
Friend A and Friend B were chatting about Friend B’s very funny and lame jokes. Friend A wanted to hear more lame jokes from Friend B but Friend B was too tired to tell any jokes and instead asked Friend A to tell a joke for a change. When Friend A couldnt think of any jokes to tell, Joan came by and announced that she had a joke to tell. Joan went, “I give you a J; I give you an O; I give you a K; and here you go an E!” Friend A and B immediately turned their heads away from poor Joan.

Stupidity Symptoms 5
How long would it take for a person to get from Lt11 in Arts Faculty to Prince George’s Park in NUS? Especially when that person drives... Well, it took Friend to an hour to get from Lt 11 back too Lt11 when the intended destination was PGP. And, yes, dear Joan was the one giving directions to friend. After an hour reaching back to point zero, both Joan and Friend took a 5 min shuttle bus ride down to PGP.

On a more serious note, I think I really need to apologise to that poor friend who tried to drive down to PGP. Wilson, to boost your inflated ego a bit more, Im really very sorry, the whole fiasco was my entire fault, okay? So blame me, shoot me, eat me up! But of course, as we all know although Joan doesnt like to use her brain, she is actually quite smart, so was in entirely Joan’s fault?

To dear friends who want to be updated on Joan’s uni life, well, I will be staying at PGP blk 26, level 6, so feel free to drop by and bunk in if you have any early lessons the next day. Btw, just to add some salt to the above mentioned group of people, Joan’s earliest lecture is at 10am, the rest are all aftn lectures.

I will be doing History, European Studies and Political Science exposure modules, and German language, and a Singapore Studies module Politics of Southeast Asia. On this note, Id like to make used of this opportunity to thank Yingling for helping me monitor my bidding and helping me to secure my SS mod as I was practically in school the whole day. A big thank you, Yingling!!! Hugs and kisses and flowers all for you!

I would also like to thank my OG mates for being so sporting and fun! And also to give them credit for being able to endure my endless nonsense, think the JOKE joke, and I also have a CHEER cheer and a JOAN cheer. All of you are just so cute!!! You are so cute that I want to grab your head and kiss you! Haha... But I havent actually done that yet, Id only grabbed some people’s head and shook them when I got so exasperated with them, it wasnt really a good thing though.

I really hope that we Gaedians can remain in close contact even though we all have different timetables.

race, religion and political direction

History repeats itself. Within the period of one blog entry, I find myself right in an almost similar position.

And this was after I promised Victoria that this would be an interesting blog entry. Sorry Vic, you will have to listen to my grouses again, but this would be slight different.

The following words might offend some people, so if you think you will get offended, well, I guess that will be it. Today, the Gaedians played Truth and Truth and I ended up pondering over one particular question even though it was not directed to me. Thinking abt it, I guess, I wont dare to say the truth in front of them knowing that I will definitely offend some people.

The question was what of a guy turns you off.

The politically correct answer would be some bad habits like smoking, or some character flaws like arrogance or something along the lines.

Joan’s offending answer, three aspects of a person can turn me off and that was the reason I steered away from this during lunch and dinner today with the Gaedians. The three aspects are race, religion and political direction. Just mentioning this any of these three things alone in public can have me detained by the ISC. The following things I am saying can see me as Chia Thye Poh number 2.

Im anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Christ, anti-Malay, anti-Indian, anti-Malaysia, anti-America, anti-bananas (both figuratively and literarily), anti-Bush, anti-Japanese. Some people also call me a neo-Nazi which Im not, but Im definitely a Nazi-symphatist. Im also a Communist-symphatist. I support great war leaders such as Bismarck, Stalin, Hitler, and closer to home, Chin Peng. A small paradox here, Im pro-Lee Kuan Yew, but anti-PAP; Im pro-MCP, but anti-BS and Lim Chin Siong.

So, shoot me if anyone is not happy! Send for the ISC to capture me and imprison me in some barrack in Sentosa!

Himalayas to the Marianas

Remember my imagery, from Himalayas to the Marianas?
Hehe... That was what I felt in the last 24hr...

I started out at Himalayas with a very blissful dream, a dream in which I felt peace, comfort and serenity. But the day evolved into one which brought me right smack in the centre of cold, harsh reality. Then it pushed me right down into the Marianas. Only that this time I knew it wasnt pms.

Its amazing how little control one have over self. One may think that he seems to be controlling his own fate but is he really controlling it? Or is fate controlling him?

From an ancient Chinese tale:
There was once a flag in the middle of a large field. A gust of wind blew across the field and the flag swayed with the breeze. A sage asked his disciples which was causing the other to move. The first disciple answered that it was the wind causing the flag to move. Upon hearing that, the second disciple blurted out that it was not true as it was actually the flag causing the wind to move. The sage answered that in fact neither moved, rather, it was their minds that moved the wind and the flag.

Well, to me, I think that all the answers can be true. What really moved is what you want it to be moved. If you want the flag to move the wind, then so be it; if you want the wind to move the flag, then so be it; if you want neither to move, then so be it; if you want both to move, then so be it. No one can stop you from thinking so.

The moral of the story? Fate and self runs parallel to each other, pessimists will let themselves be controlled by fate and the optimists will try and control fate. I’m a pessimist trying to act like an optimist. I know I can control fate, but I dont want to, I don’t know why, I just don’t want to.

I wanted to feel happy before I slept last night, so I had that nice dream and woke up feeling happy, after some occurred events, I let myself sink deeply into decadence, hence my sad feelings now. I know I can always stop these bad thoughts by keeping my mind clear, but I dont want to do so, I want to let my mind explore the range of my feelings.

Pathetic...

The Return

I went to watch The Return.
And lo and behold, it was screened in cinema 6 of Cathay Cineleisure. In my last entry I described it as small 100-seater cinema, but ytd I counted the number of seats inside, 100 was a very rough estimate! There were only 68 seats inside that tiny room!

The outline of The Return is rather similar to Japanese Story, only more enigmatic, more engaging, and more sad. Sad as in it really invites your heart to bleed for the characters. My heart bled for the father, for the two sons, and also for the mother. The only regret that I have is not being able to speak the language. I felt rather short-changed by the translation. I dont know why, its just a feeling I felt while watching the characters talk.

I caught the trailer of In Terminal.
I think that will be the next movie I will be watching. Anybody wants to join me? It seems to be about Tom Hanks as this foreigner whose flight is delayed at this American airport. His passport was also held in custody of the officials rendering Hanks to have to stay confined in the airport. Seems like a funny film and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Steven Spielberg both add to the watch factor. This film seems to be in the same category as Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg’s previous film and I think that the legend is quite suited for these kinds of films!

After reading Jasmine’s regular Additions and Acquisitions, Joan is prompted to start a personal regular on her blog.

Welcome to Stupidity Symptoms!

Stupidity Symptoms 1
Joan and Friend were on board an MRT. Joan suddenly develops a craving for ToriQ’s yakitori. Joan turned to Friend saying, “I want to eat chicken! Chickee chickee chickee ckickee-en! Quack quack quack quack...” Then Joan stopped suddenly as a wave of thought swept past her and she burst out laughing. “Wrong wrong wrong wrong!” After laughing for another short moment, Joan turned back to Friend and said, “Let me start again. I want to eat chicken! Chickee chickee chickee ckickee-en! Cock-cock-cock-cock-kay...”

Stupidity Symptoms 2
Joan and Friend were at Taka’s Kinokuniya. Joan went over to the shelf carrying Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (its a Jap comic) 1-5. Joan disappointedly said to Friend, “Hai... Number 6 not out yet.” Friend walked over to the outer shelves and spotted Tsubasa 6 and called Joan over. Joan proceeded to the shelf and upon seeing the filled shelf of Tsubasa 6, exclaimed, “Whoa so many 6 arh?!” Then as Joan left the shelves, she spotted a trolley of comics, all new arrivals. She went over and took a closer look and saw a pile of Tsubasa 6, exclaimed, “Whoa! Even more 6 leh!” Then moving her eyes to another ple on the trolley, she spotted yet another pile of Tsubasa 6, exclaimed, “Whoa! Really a lot of 6 leh!” Walking away from the trolley Joan noticed that the whole of the next shelf of the trolley was filled with Tsubasa 6, exclaimed, “Whoa! So many 6s!”

Stupidity Symptoms 3
I dont know if anyone noticed this but outside the library in Takashimaya there is a frame circling the escalators. And on that frame, there is a door. The door isnt locked and anyone can open the door. This day, Friend pointed out the door to Joan. Utterly amazed, Joan stretched out her right hand and placed it on the knob. Turning it, she opened the door as if she were Alice opening that little door to a whole new world, only Joan opened it to what she could see from the sides cos the door was standing in the middle of nowhere. Walking through the door, Joan bore a totally amazed look and allowed the door to slam behind her.

That will be it for the brand new Stupidity Symptoms. All acts will be fresh. If they are not freshly done, then it wont be included, so you guys need not find the over-told glass door stories here!

I want to watch a movie.

I want to watch a movie.
The last movie I watched was Around the world in 80 Days, a purely feel-good movie which I didnt think was very well worth that $6.50 I paid for, but I was feeling pretty bad when I watched it so it sort of helped me regain my emotional balance.

I wanted to watch King Arthur.
Ever since I saw that trailer like 3 months ago, I was waiting for that show to be released. The trailer was pretty decent, I must admit, so even though the cast was pathetic, okay not really pathetic but there isnt well, a cute guy, I was looking forward to the show. However, it seemed like King Arthur garnered rather bad reviews. If the show isnt going to be good, I dont think it will be worth it to watch it. I was supposed to watch it with the girls on Fri but it turned out that no one other than Yingling was interested so the girls decided not to watch the movie after all. Well, now I sian jit buah liao... Might not watch the movie. Well, Yingling, if you want watch it, give me a call, if you also sian jit buah then suan lor.

Presently, there are two well reviewed movies, Taegukgi or Brotherhood which ST Life! gave it 4 stars and Vozvrashcheniye or The Return which ST Life! gave it 5 stars.
Hmm... One Korean and one Russian. Does this measure the pathetic quality of Hollywood films?

Brotherhood
I swore not to watch it after watching the trailer for the like 1001st time. The trailers were everywhere, on tv, on tv mobile, and worse still in K-ster when after every hour or show there would be a pause for the trailer to be shown twice!
But I like war movies. And I like Jang Dong Gun. So, well, if anybody wants to go and watch can call me along, but only on a $6.50 day. Im not very inclined to let the advertisers have the misconception that over-exposure can lead to increased box office takings.

The Return
I caught the trailer when watching Japanese Story. I like the pace, the emotional intensity and the cut of the trailer which I guess speaks volumes for the actual show. This show will be exclusively showcased in Cathay Cineleisure. Cathay Cineleisure really brings in lots of pretty decent movies like, ya, Japanese Story, Zatoichi some time back and earlier this year there was Last Life in the Universe and so many more alternative films. I just hope that The Return wont be screened at that pathetic cinema hall where I went to watch Japanese Story. Cinema 6, I think, a small cinema at the back of some hidden stairwell and with like only 8 rows seating about 100 or so people. Anyone wants to watch this show can also ring me up!

busy busy week

Ive reached the height of procrastination. And much higher in contradictions.

Ive got a couple of outings with friends lined up this week and a whole lot of other stuff Ive got to do too. In chronological order,
wed morning go down NUS to register for some German Language course
wed aftn visit the library
wed aftn help Huijing play a prank on her friend
wed night chiong session with psycho ppl
fri aftn movie and shopping session with the girls clique
fri night dinner and chiong session with velut ppl
sat pool party with psycho ppl

According to schedule, there doesnt seem to be any clashes, but I dont think my pysical self can take that. In fact, other than the outing with the girls, I have yet cfm my attendance in any of the outings though I have to go down NUS on wed or thu by hook or by crook to register. Reason for my procrastination? The battle between the heart and mind. Heart says go, mind says dont go. Its getting like real bad that now my mind is even telling me not to go out with the girls this fri.

I need sleep.

I havent been sleeping much since I came back from union camp. I cant sleep at night, I dont know why; I tried sleeping in the day but the lure of tv is just too great; when I attempt to watch tv, I start to feel drowsy. My bio clock has gone all wrong.

Scanning down the list again, if I only visited NUS tmr morning and go mia for the rest of the activities, would I be able to fully adjust my bio clock and end my dumb procrastinations? Well, I did promised Huijing that Id help her even though I dont support what ahe and her friends are doing. It will be nice to meet up with the psycho people either on wed or on sat though both would just probably reduce me to a panda. Its been ages since Ive last seen the girls, but movies on a fri? That I dont think is very worth it even though Shuhui let me chose my fav cinema. Velut ppl... I thought we had just met up like ytd, but still chilling out on a fri night would prob ease my nerves.

By now most of my friends shd know that Im claustrophobic, I dont like to be in places where there are a lot of ppl. Even though aft going to arts camp and union camp have eased my nerves a little in crowds, I still feel a tinge of unhappiness in crowds and esp strong pangs of rising tempers aft leaving the crowed place. Is that a legitimate psychological disorder? I dont know...

Right now I just want to curl up behind a good book and enjoy, but procrastination kept me away from the lib, I prob not go to the lib too tmr but I need to return books. Seems like I will need to have to pay fines again. Am I such a loser?

Union Camp

For the past 5 days, I checked myself into torture camp. I got a place into union camp as a replacement. The news came very suddenly, only the day before, and I seriously was considering not joining it, but, well but, I didnt know why I went for it in the end.

Met many familiar faces there. Chong Han, Xuzi, Pam were also there though none in the same group as me and hence we didnt get to talk, except for Chong Han who ended up as one of the 10 guys whom I speed-dated. Yes, dont laugh! More on that dumb thing later cos that was really dumb. There were also many other arts campers back there including my sp replacement from arts camp who was a councillor in union camp. But the most familiar face in union camp was that of my cousin. Yes, my cousin. As how he put it, I was his mother’s brother’s daughter, so he is my father’s sister’s son. And he happened to be a councillor in my group.

Union camp was quite similar to arts camp, and I am not going to compare them as they both have their pluses and minuses. Though my sp replacement, from a councillor point of view, thought that this year’s union camp, unlike last year’s, was better than arts camp. All I can say is, well... I preferred arts Sentosa activities, or was it that it was with Velut that I preferred it. But union camp had this pool games which took place in the swimming pool where we went to different stations to play water games. I thought that that was my favourite game in union camp.

But then again, union camp had quite a number of sponsor activities and the dumbest of all was SDU-sponsored speed-dating where 10 girls sat in a row and 10 guys rotated to speak to each of the girls for 2 min. Yes, 2 min!!! Like, what can we know abt a person in 2 min?! One thing Id learnt from this is that never to join SDU and even if I join, never will I join its speed-dating activities.

The funny thing was that I seemed to become hyper on the last day of camp and when I left for home I wasnt inclined to sleep immediately, only slept at 1 last night but spent most of today sleeping. Haha...

Procrastinated so much today. It was as if I was paying back my procrastinating debts today just like I was paying back my sleeping debts. Haiz... Was supposed to do so many things to day, but... After 5 days of not doing any procrastination, I felt compiled, or rather, I felt the privilege of finally being able, to procrastinate. Sad...

Going Up the Roller Coaster

Im on an emotional roller coaster ride.

After dropped down into the Marianas Trench and was starting to dig, I suddenly find myself thrust up onto the Himalayas.

Possible reasons for the change?
* end of pms?
* acquisitions? One OP pouch, one OP Kids tee, one Happy House tee, one Giordano Dry-Tech bra top
* learning a new skill? Rollerblading
* 2 karaoke sessions in 4 days? Esp the second one, 6 ½ hr of singing, like, wow.
* good meals?
* watched a feel-good movie for a change? Around the World in 80 Days, mindless, senseless, funny, and a cute Luke Wilson and a cuter Owen Wilson. Really, Jackie Chan, who is he?
* mindless soccer? After dear dear Germany crashing out, and me getting over that tragedy, Ive seemed to feel less stressed and nervous over the Euros
* Dicky Cheung? He is my Panadol when I feel terrible, so with me back on track, being able to watch endless repeats of his shows and my on my vcd collection, I naturally feel better.
A packed schedule to keep my thoughts from running wild?

Aged

I realised that I seem to be on a different mental frequency of my peers.

Maybe its due to my complicated emotions different perceptions that people dont seem to be able to understand me.

I knew I was different that day when I read that stupid article by this columnist for a certain Chinese entertainment magazine. To translate it, it went “If I were 18 this year, my subject of fantasy would not be Wu Bai, but would be Zai Zai.” I was 18 when I red that article and pretty much in love with dear Wu Bai, so can I not get offended?! It seems to me that there are many people out there who share the sentiments of that columnist and with their broad generalisations slam oddballs like me. Or rather, they think Im weird.

I think my problem is that somewhere along my growth, I stagnated. And after that, I most immediately aged a couple of decades.

To a certain XX,

My life stagnated after we parted. I didnt know what to do without you even though you were never actually by me. I felt that during my 4 years of sec sch life and 2 years of jc life, I had just shut myself emotionally from the outside world, no thanks to you. Not really the physical you, but the memory of you that really haunts me.

At the end of last year, I decided to push memories of you out of my life, a move friends say should have been done long long ago. I really dont know why I procrastinated doing this. Maybe Im just self-degrading?

Well, half a year past with you successfully behind me, yet I seemed to have aged a good decade during this half a year or so. My attitudes towards love and life; friends and family have also changed. My emphasis towards various values has also shifted.

I know its not your fault. Its really all mine. Yes, Im that sad.

Im that pathetic.

Emo Day

Ive just awaken from a 3-hr nap and my specs are missing. I cant see what Im writing and my eyes re so near the keyboard that Im like breathing in dust. No one is ard to help me look for my specs. Shd I call my sis and ask if she had seen them? Or shd I just remain blind? I dont know...

I dont know... is how Ive been feeling these couple of days, being in a web of dilemma. I want to do something yet also want to do another thing; I dont seem to know what I want or what I dont want; I just dont know...

Arts camp proved one thing that Ive been dreading to realise: Im weaker than I thought. Injuries amassed: aches in my shoulder joints, back, upper arm muscles, thigh muscles, knee joints, calf muscles and ankles, a cut on a finger, a blue back on my hand aft someone stepped on it and not to mention all the symptoms I experienced from pms, nauseous, cramps, loss of appetite, blah...

I hate being weak. But can I help it if my constitution is weaker than others?

Not only my constitution is weak, I also suffer from a fragile emotive make up. I think too much. I let my thoughts run wild and not keep a rein on it. I often find myself mixed up between reality and fiction. Television affects me badly, a good movie affects me worse, and the last two movies I watched were emotively-charged critically-acclaimed ones, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Japanese Story.

I need to relax my emotions badly, but I cant seem to decide how to do it.

Torn is exactly how I feel. How can one feel happy when one has a grandmother undergoing series of operations? But how can one feel upset when one just welcomed the birth of a cousin?

Refer to my past entry on the excerpt of Harry Potter on the roller coaster of emotions. I cant help wishing that Im not a female and not a female Pisces in that matter. But then again, only a female Pisces can handle this whole load of emotions. If I were Ron Weasley, I wld have burst the moment I had emotions.

new blogskin

Ive removed everything except for the blog...

Any comments can be directed to my email account. Friends can msg me. I might bring back the tagboard if I change the blogskin the next time, but in the meantime, I will stick with this.

I wonder if there is anyone out in the www, other than my dear friends, reading my blog. Any soul can somehow find my blog appearing in some search engine for some search. And it seems that Im the only one who is using the moniker jal4eva as my blog was the only result that showed up when I typed that in Yahoo! search engine.

jal4eva. Ive used that since primary school like thats 7-8 years liao... Wow... I think Im the last living person who stuck to one and only one email account for that amount of time so much so that 85% of it is spam nowadays. Haiz...

I like Yahoo! If you are sick of your lousy hotmail account, turn to Yahoo!, it can only change your life for the better.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Its a Tuesday night; its a ulu movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; its into its second week of run; its one whole hour before the movie started that I went to buy the tickets, you would think Ive no problem getting decent seats for the show, dont you? Then you are so very wrong! I got front row seats! Like, wow... So, Singaporeans do like this sort of films, so overflowing with emotions.

Okay, to give credit to the show, it did garner excellent reviews. A certain critic with i-weekly said that that was the best film she had watched this year. The film was written by this fantastic screenwriter Charlie Kaufman who also wrote other excellent films like Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. Charlie Kaufman’s pieces characteristically feature characters with complex emotions and Eternal Sunshine was no exception.

But what struck me most of the film was that Jim Carrey is really an actor. Id always thought that he was merely a comedienne and nothing more, although I do admit that he is somewhat cute when he grins, in Eternal Sunshine, Jim Carrey was Joel. After watching Eternal Sunshine, I dont think I can ever see Jim Carrey as himself again. He just so convincingly transformed himself into Joel!

I think Im in love with Jim Carrey. Or maybe Im in love with Jim Carrey’s vivid portrayal of Joel. Or maybe, Im just in love with the magic that comes out of Charlie Kaufman. Just like I fell in love with Nicholas Cage after Adaptation.

I like men over-brimming with emotions yet too shy to show them out directly, and these are the main similarities of Charlie Kaufman’s male protagonists. From past television shows and movies from America to the Far East, this category of men are most likely to stay loyal to the One he loves and would put in their whole heart into a relationship. A current example would be that Cao Pi (Zihuan) from that 9pm channel U show.

Back to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, cant go on digressing about men if I want to properly introduce this film, can I? Basic plot of the story, Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet) and they clicked at their first meeting, then the story goes back to the day before when Joel returns home to execute a memory erasing of Clementine, then probes back to Joel finding out that Clementine had erased Joel from her memory. From there, the story goes backwards in time and we learn of Joel and Clementine breaking up, them quarrelling, them falling deeply in love, them first meeting each other through the process of Joel erasing his memory.

I wonder where on earth Charlie Kaufman got the idea of such an interesting narration of events from end to beginning. He did it with such good effect that my feelings for the characters linger on even after the show end.

An example, Joel’s meeting with Clementine in the opening of the show. Clementine asked Joel if she knew him. “No, I dont think so” was his reply. Then she introduced herself as Clementine and asked him not to make fun of her name. He gave her a blank stare and asked why anyone would make fun of her name. “(Its that song) Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine” she sang. “I never heard of it” was his reply.

This scene didnt evoke any emotion from me when I watched it, but after watching another scene, memories from this scene pricked my heart as it ached for both characters.

That was the scene when Joel first met Clementine. Their real first meeting. She introduced herself as Clementine and asked him not to make fun of her name. Joel went like, “(Its that song) Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine”. She laughed. That probably made him fell in love with her. I dont know.

In Eternal Sunshine, people have their memories erased so that they can carry on with life and not be burdened by past sad memories.

When I wanted to forget someone by pushing him out of my mind, I found that the harder I try to get him out of my mind the more stubbornly he stayed there, then I tried to forget him by coming to terms with it and it worked, Im a lot happier now.

As Joel tried to erase Clementine out of his head, he found himself wanting more and more to keep memories of her alive that forced the procedure to get more complicated. But the ending of the film echoes my personal experience to a certain degree, they are a lot happier after they finally come to terms with each other.

Memory erasing, is it ethical?

In a scene from Fruitsbasket, a Japanese manga with an anime version, two characters Hatori and Kasa had such a turbulent relationship that Kasa was on the verge of breaking down. Hatori erased her memory of him so that she could carry on with life happily. She did just that after her memory was erased, but Hatori kept his memory of her intact along with all the pain. Ayame, Hatori’s best friend once remarked to him, “I want to see you hundreds of time happier than Kasa.”

In another scene from the same source, Momiji’s mother, for similar reasons had him erased from her memory and continued her life seemingly normal, but Momiji had to endure the stigma of his mother treating him like an almost stranger.

Personally, I thought that it wasnt fair for Hatori and Momiji to suffer emotionally in silence when the latter’s mother and Kasa could carry on with life happily. I dont know why, but I just dont find it fair.

But in Joel and Clementine’s case, maybe it was better for them to start anew literally. Maybe it was due to Charlie Kaufman’s wonderful script that made me think so. I dont know.

Go watch the film and share with me your thoughts.

Judgment at Nuremburg

D-Day special: Judgment at Nuremburg at 11pm on Central ytd

Aft watching that, I started thinking about the basis for the trials of war crime. What exactly amounts to a war crime? Are they against the law? The trials for war crime charges the defendants as acts against humanity. But in another perspective, some of those war crimes were carried out as executions, ie legal and dignified, of people who were seen to be ought to be put to death during the war era. As it was acted out according to law, the defendants actually hadnt broken any law and shdnt be found guilty of anything.

Hitler came to power through democratic means. He became his party’s leader, then through elections, his party emerged as the largest ruling party, it was only after that then Hitler slowly through the passing of bills and amendments to the constitution – all agreed and signed in favour by the legislation – that he cld become a dictator. The defendants were not guilty for crimes, but shd be guilty for the toleration of the decadence of their constitution.

However, if this were so, then wldnt there be more Germans guilty? The Germans who voted for Hitler; those who put Hitler into power; those who readily allowed Hitler to pass his Enabling Act. Not only are the Germans guilty, other countries who saw the rise of power of Hitler but did not intervene to put an end to it shd also be guilty. Russia who signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler shd be guilty, Britain who had an appeasement policy towards Hitler allowed him to become bolder in his demands shd also be guilty; America, France, and other European nations all had a part to play.

In the show, the judge finally found the defendants to be guilty of their charges and sentenced them to life imprisonment. But as the Cold War and the Berlin blockade prevailed, America was desperate in finding an ally with Germany, most of those prisoned war criminals were freed not long aft. It is interesting to note that to the vast Germans, these war criminals were heralded by them, they did not see them as guilty, thus the Americans by freeing them gained the popularity of the masses.

At this point in the show, I became extremely disgusted by the hypocrisy of the Americans. Personally, I dont think that the war leaders shd be found guilty of committing those acts against humanity, but if the Americans were to find them guilty, then they shd jolly well let them serve their sentence and not act accordingly with times.

Personally, I think that in circumstance were right and wrong cannot be quantified, the war leaders in order to preserve their dignity, shd commit suicide. In Japan, aft the war ended, throngs of Japanese war leaders committed suicide as they thought it was a great shame to be tried. Likewise, as defeat loomed near, Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler all committed suicide. Goering committed suicide just before he was tried for his war crimes.

Such committing suicide not only cries out “innocent!”, but also allows one to leave the world with one last shred of dignity. They wld die not as war criminals or defeated foes, but as great leaders.

Faye Wong World Tour 2004 Concert

Faye Wong World Tour 2004 Concert

I wouldnt say it was an amazing experience, but it was indeed an interesting one. Wangfei’s vocals were well worth the ticket price. She had about 6 costume changes, but unfortunately most of her costumes were rather simple. Simple yet elegant though.

The only thing that spoiled the concert was that I was not in a very good mood.

It isnt that Im in a bad mood, but my emotions seemed to have run way out of hand lately. Everything around me is affecting my emotions. Television, radio, shopping, reading, writing, etc. Can someone help me to stop my thoughts from running wild? Please...

At first I thought that this mood swing was merely pms, but it escalated into I dont know what. Unlike normal mood swings, I dont feel of ups and downs, I feel of down and downer. And unlike pms mood swings which lasts only a couple of days, this has been going on for a couple of weeks liao. I think I might need help.

My mind is so jumbled up that I dont even know what Im thinking about. I want to talk about the tv shows Im watching, I want to talk about the songs Wangfei sang ytd, I want to talk about my new handphone and how to download mp3 songs, I want to talk about the weird dreams Im having, i want to talk about I dont know where to start.

Id really wanted to enjoy myself at Wangfei’s concert ytd. Really. I tried to block everything else that came to my mind. But they seemed to have came back to haunt me doubly after that.

Tsk...

A Roller Coaster of Emotions

Roller coaster of emotions.

An excerpt from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

** "Dont you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?" [Hermione] asked.

"No," said Harry and Ron together.

Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.

"Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she cant work out who she likes best. Then she will be feeling guilty, thinking its an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she will be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably cant work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so thats all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's been flying so badly."

A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, "One person cant feel all that at once, theyd explode."

"Just because youve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesnt mean we all have," said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again. **

Sometimes, I really wish I have the emotional range of a teaspoon. Being able to feel about so many things at once; having to think about so many different or even related things all at the same time; feeling so bad about myself, all put a strain on my emotional balance.

If people who think of so many things at once would explode, I would have exploded before the period in the first line. But wouldnt exploding be better? There neednt be that much after Ive exploded... I dont know...

I Went Yesterday...

I went yesterday...

After much consideration, I decided to go. But with hindsight, Id rather not have gone. It was a compete fiasco. Like, what duh?!

Staying at home is still the best. Just me and my computer and/or my darling jotter book with all the wonderful characters of my story... I was supposed to be doing my story ytd when I was all hyped up and totally in the mood, overflowing with creative juices, but, well, its all gone today. My pathetic muse is lazier than me...

Haiz... Today will just be another day... Procrastination seems to be setting in liao, wonder if I will actually be working on my story anot later.

I guess I will stick to my moods the next time. Ya, really, why bother let sudden changes change your plan? Just stick to the original plan and I know I will certainly be comfortable with it!

Sucky Day...

Umm... Rather disappointed with the effect of this new blogskin. The dimensions are weird, and I cant seem to be able to fix it. The html writing for this template is not as clear as the previous skins I worked with before. Haiz...

Ive seen this pix before, and also other works by this artist. Found them to be quite interesting. But it does seem weird on my blog... It makes me seem as if none of my friends are true friends. Maybe I will keep it for some time, until I find a blog that expresses my feelings.

Okay, I just received a call from Zihui and I am like totally pissed!

We girls were like supposed to go West Coast for a day of fun outing tmr, but I just heard that its pushed forward to today (?!) later at 3 (!!). Like, what is the time now?? I hate being totally unprepared! Now, Ive got nothing to wear; Ive not taken my bath; my pathetic handphone is not charged; Im in a totally foul mood! Man, man, man... Damn it, man! Seriously considering if I should go anot, and Ive less than an hour to think abt it, what shit is this!

I think Ive got pms. Probably getting my period soon. Oh man, if its coming later, I really wont want to leave my nice comfy room with all its security.

Time is ticking.

Go.

Dont go.

What fuck lah!

Next time, friends, dont put me in such a spot. Dont make last min plans; dont make last min changes to plans; dont plan on gng to somewhere without air-conditioning; dont piss the hell out of me; dont only think abt yourselves!

piss piss piss

**Needed: Someone to accompany this little girl to Faye Wong’s Concert
Price: Negotiable
Please, someone, reply to this notice and contact me...
Im getting desperate...**

Sometimes, people think little of what they say, they dont realise that something, little to them it may seem, but actually pisses the other party off. This would be like putting a frog into a pail of water and very gradually increasing the temperature. The frog in the water cant react to the subtle increase in the temperature of the water until it is too late, the poor frog would already have been cooked. Likewise, the pissed-off party would not immediately show his unhappiness but would slowly and subtly launch his revenge plan condemning the oblivious “frog” into eternal damnation.

This would be in stark contrast with outright pissing people off. When you knowingly and openly piss people off, it would be like immediately placing a frog into a pail of boiling water. In this circumstance, the frog would instinctively jump out of the water before much damage can be done. Similarly, the pissed-off person in this context would launch an open rebuttal against the “frog” thereby allowing the “frog” to work out a defensive plan.

So, what exactly is the point of my frog theory?

Well, I would like to warn people to watch their speech and not to unknowingly piss me off. Im the kind of person who gets pissed of easily even though I sometimes wont show it, and I harbour grudges.

What would piss me off?

Comments on my weight.

Okay, not all comments would piss me off, so the exact answer of the above question would be, ignorant comments on my weight in an ignorant tone.
Those people who are pissing me off with their ignorant comments on my weight are basically friends I’ve made from March 2002 to May 2003, so that would be all those people in TJ.

Examples of piss-worthy remarks:
“Oh, Joan! Are you still eating?!” I mean, we go out for lunch, for dinner together, and you see me eating as much, if not more than you and you still got the cheek to ask if Im eating?!
“Joan, I think its time to stop your diet. You lost enough weight.” My crash diet lasted only the whole of May 2003, one year ago, and after that I continued by eating regular portions of food (note: regular as in what you and everyone else is eating!). Besides, Im not the kind of people who can stare into a delicious serving of whatever and say I cant eat it as Im on a diet, NEVER.
“Joan, can you stop losing weight?” Some things are beyond my control. Im eating well and happily, never munching on carrots, or lettuce or tomatoes ever in my life, esp if they are raw. Double the yucks!
“I must take Joan as an example and lose some weight!” Really, are you so thick to believe that losing weight is in everyone’s blood? Its not something any Tom, Dick or Harry can do.

History of Joan’s Weight

Ever since I was young, I was tall and skinny. It is naturally so, hence it will also be so. I was 40kg throughout my first two years in secondary school, then I started eating at an exponential rate. Fast food would be ordered as a meal up-sized, buffets would see me downing what could feed a family of four in Ethiopia for at least half a month, snacks about the portion of one big bag of Lay’s became almost an everyday affair, the list goes on. It was no wonder that I ballooned and graduated from Sec 4 with a weight of 55kg.

The situation worsened during the period March 2002 to May 2003 when I did nothing in TJ other than eating in the canteen or scope and sleeping in the library or scope, I think I did try to fit in some lessons between eating and sleeping but that was negligible. Hence, I reached my peak in May 2003 with an impressive weight of 63kg.

I am a naturally thin person, so it was not difficult for me to lose the excessive weight Id built up over the horrific 3 ½ years and I did so only by cutting back on my humongous diet, so if you are the kind of people who are already fat in the first place, I suggest that you dont try to emulate me. Its no use.

Another thing about me is that Im small boned. Even though I may look thin, and I may be weighing very little, Im still covered with fats around my tummy area and upper thighs and even on my upper arms. Note: fats are less dense than muscles and bones. So, it is of no wonder that I weigh lighter than what people think.

And my stretch marks... My stretch marks didnt appear after I lost weight as most people think. They appeared during my 3 ½ years of exponential weight gain and merely deepened after my weight loss.

Now I weight 47kg. It may be a little on the light side, but Im still 7kg heavier than I was supposed to be, so please, all those people who never saw me in my 40kg stature, stop your ignorant comments and accept the fact that the world is loads bigger than you think!

All Hope's Gone

**I still need someone to go with me to watch Faye Wong’s concert.
Anyone interested? Dont hesitate, just call me up!
Price negotiable, just treat it as accompanying me... Please? **

10 min ago, I dropped my bottle of anti-stretch mark essence and onto the floor it went in pieces. The essence splattered all onto the bathroom floor; the glass bottle shattered into tiny bits.

When the bottle broke, I felt that whatever hopes that I had harboured in it came crashing down with it.
Is Something Up There giving me a hint not to place my hopes in it?
Is that same Something also telling me not to continue to buy anymore hopes?

Should I buy another bottle and continue my therapy to at least see if that thing works?
Or should I take a hint from that Something and just put the whole issue behind me?
Should I also forget about buying my other hopes?

Buying a Piece of Hope

**I still need someone to go with me to watch Faye Wong’s concert.
Anyone interested? Dont hesitate, just call me up!
Price negotiable, just treat it as accompanying me... Please? **

These few days, my life seems to be rotating round a singular concept, buying a hope. What I have been doing lately have been pretty much trying to get out as high a percentage of hope as possible. What is hope? How do you actually buy hope?

I dont really know the answer of the above two questions myself, but an example would be the bottle of anti-stretch mark essence I just bought. It is a widely know fact that these sort of commercial products, like bust-increasing cream, slimming gel, blah, are not known to be that miraculous, but I still bought a bottle to try out. The $19.60 I paid for is what I can call buying a hope.

Sometimes, I dont use money physically to buy a hope, but my actions and the real value of my sacrifices make it that I am almost as if I were buying a hope. Using opportunity cost to buy my hope.

Why do I need such hopes? I dont know that either...

I just know that my ultimate hope is to find a someone who can provide me with all the hopes that I need to go through life... ...

Or that my hopes can slowly one by one materialise into reality... ...

At the Ritz

For the past 4 days, I took up a short stint as a guest relation officer at Ritz-Carlton Hotel. After those 4 days there, I can only say life is tough.

To some, being able to work at Ritz-Carlton sounds glamorous, ya, Liyun, you sounded so envious while Im like more envious of you students. Behind the facade of such a beautiful and classy lobby that guests see when they enter the hotel are complicated, winding staff passageways where I always got lost. Collecting my pay was also tough as there were like so many bureaucratic procedures that I have to follow.

Work there was almost a big killer. I had to stand all day, opening the big glass doors for guests with such a big smile that my face was cracking. Well, actually, what cracked was not really my face, but my 2-inch thick makeup. The makeup was thick enough for stage makeup at Kallang Theatre so much so that when I met Jiadai on the train after work she asked me if Id just had a performance. I dont know if it was PMS but, I was so drained out after work that I felt like dying. My colleagues expected me to know what to do, but I didnt, and after asking, they made me feel stupid. I dont know, but I thought that the people working there spoke in a tone that sounds superior which to my ears made me feel stupid, and they were ALWAYS asking others how were they and I hate it when they ask me that cos you cant really expect me to answer “Shitty!” and I really cant bring myself to answer in their model answer of “Excellent!” cos I really feel shitty.

At the end of the second day, I felt so so bad that I thought I was going to burst. Thanks, Vic, for lending a listening ear! Tuesday night was one of the most remarkable nights ever in my life. After feeling so bad, another chain of incidents really lit up my life again! First there was the nice chat with Vic, then I met Jiadai on the train. There I was chatting animatedly on the phone with Vic when Jiadai messaged me that she was on the same train as me, but no matter how I looked I couldnt see her, finally I heard her voice and went to chat with her. When feeling down, friends are the ones who can provide you with the comfort you would need. Really. Thanks Jiadai! Things didnt end there, just when I was feeling loads better, I met Alexis at the MRT station! He just left camp and was going home cos he had an interview the next day. It was really great catching up with him at the bus stop. That is really what I like most about 4B, you can put any two 4B people together and we can just talk, well, almost all... Its nice knowing from Alexis that basically all the 4B people did very well for the A levels, many people got like 3As 1B, the rest also did reasonably well. Its also nice to know that Alexis applied for dentistry (?!) and was given an interview, all the best to you, Alexis! And also good luck to you over in the army, dont get sent into military jail (although you seem to have half a foot in it already)! Really, after the nice catching up with him, bad feelings? all thrown out of the window liao!

Okay, back to my job... What I liked about the job was meeting lots of different kind of people, being able to lead them around the hotel, rendering them all the help that they can get, and also going around to check the state of the rooms to see if they were all in order. I even went into the presidential suite! but it was to do the most unglamorous job of sending a message... haiz...

In my short (it seemed really long then!) 4 days there, I also learn many things like having to control my temper, even when I think Im right I must also appear to accept that Im wrong. The high points during my work there... I received a nice big tip of $10!! I didnt expected it cos I didnt do much to that pair of guests, just led them around and answered a couple of questions, gave them advice on where to go shopping, so the tip was very sudden. Well, rich people are just rich people... How envious can I get?! The funny thing was that the guest slipped the tip into my hand while we shook hands so Id thought that the piece of paper was some rubbish that he wanted me to help him throw away so I didnt thank him for that tip... Well, in Ritz-Carlton, there isnt any dustbins, so our poor staff always have to improvise as portable dustbins... sounds stupid, but the threat of terrorism outweighs stupidity...

I also got to meet some famous people and one of them was Prof Tommy Koh! He was at the hotel for some UN seminar or something and when he was leaving, I held the door open for him! Sounds pretty unglamorous, but hey, its Prof Tommy Koh leh...

In all, it was an eye-opening experience working there, but Im not in it anymore, my poor legs are all spoilt from prolonged standing, my poor toes are in blisters from the stuffy shoes, my torso is stiff from the prolonged upright posture that I have to maintain to look good in that uniform, my shoulders are aching from all the opening and closing of those heavy glass doors (note: shouldnt it be my forearms aching? I used body weight to open the doors, so its my shoulders that ached... must rmb that someone failed her IFAH, so it was almost impossible for her to use her forearms to open the doors), my face has deteriorated from the heavy use of cosmetics, my head hurts from the tight bun that I have to put up... hai...

But the most pressing agenda I have now is to find someone to accompany me to Faye Wong’s concert... Im getting so desperate that Im willing to negotiate the price of the ticket and suffer a loss... Calling, if you are interested, do not hesitate to call me to negotiate a price, really...

help

I desperately need someone to accompany me to Faye Wong’s concert.
I have with me tickets to very decent seats and it costs only $135, a far cry from the original price of $150.
Ya, its very decent even for the seats in the same price block.
Please somebody out there, consider this deal carefully.
Its Faye Wong... ...

help

Faye Wong World Tour Concert
2 June 2004 Wednesday 8pm
Anybody wants to go and watch with me?
Its $148+2 but I can pay using citibank credit card so there will be a 10% discount.
Its Faye Wong!!!
Okay, please, please, somebody, stand up and volunteer to accompany me to the concert, please! Hey... I can get 10% discount leh...

ting wen

Well, I have decided not to find work anymore. I will just lounge around until the Taiwan trip and make further decisions after. In the meantime, I will probably be rendering help to Adeline for the upcoming Temasek Nite Lu Yuan Zhi Ye, people, must go and watch hor...

While helping Adeline look for suitable music, I went through my cd collection again and listened to some music that I had seemed to have forgotten. Sharing with everybody some really nice listening pieces,

*In the Mood for Love Original Soundtrack
Good to listen at night cos the lounge music of Yumeji’s Theme, the dadada dadada dadada daa very popular one and the Ang Kor Wat music relaxes your mind and body and puts you to an easy sleep. The Shanghainese Operas on the other hand adds to a sad night of recollections if you are still not sleepy.

*C’est la Vie – Chyi’s English album
As we all know Chyi soothing voice is for easy listening and in this album where music is kept o a minimum, it is easier on the ears and is good for relaxing at any time. My recommendations, Forever, and At Seventeen

*Pocahontas Original Soundtrack
A Disney classic. Need I say any more?!

*Fearless vs Future – an Aaron Kwok ep
A very Aaron Kwok mix of a few songs in both Cantonese and Mandarin so its only for die hard fans like me. Most people know I am like crazy over Faye Wong and Wubai but not many people actually realise that I am also a die hard fan of the Heavenly King whose dance moves are to die for. I think I must have surprised dear Jiadai when I sang a whole lot of Aaron’s songs when I went ktv with her and Zihui...

*Golden Flower – a Karen Mok Cantonese album
This album is completely produced by Wubai who used about only a synthesiser, only occasional tracks include proper instruments, bta, ya. It is a very experimental album which I dont think will appeal to many, but one thing can be very surely concluded, Lin Xi is a godsend genius! And Karen is a weirdo, like who would wrap oneself in Clingfilm as a photoshoot outfit?!

Try listening to the above albums! You can borrow from me, ya?