My guardian angels

This morning 3 min after I settled down at workstation lhp walked over and said to me in a very serious tone, "I have a piece of news for you..." Though I cannot remember the exact words she used, at that point in time I really thought something really terrible had befallen me and was braced for some really bad news.... And so it was a huge relief (though by right I shouldn't be) that the key consequence of this piece of news was that I would have to work v v hard in the upcoming weeks... :P Felt quite sian, but might as well, since I've morphed into the sort who doesn't budge till i'm abt to be burnt by the fire. And I felt so awwww... that my dear "aunties" had decided not to break the news to me yesterday afternoon, since they knew that I had taken time off for a tiny break... It seems like every week I find something to love my favorite few colleagues for.

Took 2.5 hrs time off this afternoon for a relatively impromptu meeting with Ting, back from Cambridge for very short holiday in sg... feels real nice to meet up with good old frens. And a luxury to be able to go shopping on a relatively crowdless weekday afternoon. AND... I found two lovely bargain buys within 2 hrs! Very proud of my efficiency (if only I can also say this for work...) and luck today. But yeah, have been terribly undisciplined with shopping the past few weeks, splurging on items that I cannot resist but don't actually need. Hai.

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This is such a weird thing to say, but I feel so happy and fortunate that my good friends are such "good" and cool individuals. :P

Once in a blue moon, I chance upon really great late night weekend movies on Channel 8... And for some weird reason, they are usually Hong Kong shows with obscure titles... (another great but rather obscure Hong Kong movie was this 秋天的童话 starring a very young Chow Yun Fatt...) Anyway, back to my story... so this late night Hong Kong movie is titled 忘不了and starts off looking rather unpromising (when you get Cecilia Cheung and Loius Koo in opening few scenes, I cannot help but suspect that it's those feel-good, cheesy movies with good-looking ppl) But turned out to be a very very decent and touching movie. Surprisingly, Cecilia was really not just a pretty face in movie and acted really well... I've been wondering how/why some movies really 'touch' me? I figured a key reason is cos I can identify with the characters and feel what they are feeling... And when you are able to feel the same emotions, it's like you sort of go through the same emotional journey as the characters... And cos movies are usually highly drama (and unlike my typically unhappening life hehe), you get to experience these very out-of-world things... within a very short span of a few hours... And even when you see ppl screwing up their lives, you can still somewhat identify with them and like superimpose their experiences on your own, or vice versa... I suppose it doesnt work all the time, esp when you're in a cynical mood and say, just dun buy that ppl can fall so deeply in love... But hey, sometimes it feels good to be escapist right. Ok, I have hopelessly digressed from original intent to talk about movie... :P

Last Mon after sitting thru almost an entire day of meetings I told boss, it must be really tough to be a boss/ top management. The sheer effort of having to sit through meetings after meetings and concurrently appearing interested/engaged/intelligent is simply beyond me! I wonder how my bosses do it... (hee, though I have to qualify that some of them are quite human after all; esp those whose business is just to show face... a couple do drift off to dreamland for a while during the meeting :P)

Met up with 'long-lost' Berkeley senior MY yesterday evening... and had a very pleasant catch-up session. Nevermind that we kinda lost touch for 3 years... when you re-meet ppl you can click with, interaction just seems pretty effortless! It was interesting listening to accounts of work experiences in an entirely different field; and updates on various individuals from Berkeley. We were also both utterly disgusted with how crowded dining places were on a Fri night. That it was the sch holiday season definitely made it much worse. After dinner, we adjourned to Esplanade and settled for dessert at the Cookie Museum after watching a free open-air performance. Though I was really drawn by the European/Victorianish decor (and forgot to look at menu prices before getting seats) thought the desserts/teas/cookies were seriously overpriced. And we were rather pissed that it had an inflexible policy that didn't allow us to share a pot of tea (had we shared, we would have had to order 2 pax and nearly twice the price of the original one pax pot!) Nonetheless, we managed to sample some exoticly flavored cookies, such as Nasi Lemak; Laksa-flavored cookies. Surprisingly, I quite liked the laksa-flavored savory cookies... (supposedly limited edition and usually available only during new year season) but at a pricey $35 a tin, it was definitely not worth the money. The 'Mad Rose' flavor was also very nice, albeit tasting a little like powdered bandung, but yeah; wasnt prepared to pay so much for just cookies :P

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I dun usually fancy watching cooking shows, but I've recently started watching Jamie Oliver's television shows on Discover Travel & Living.... whenever I have the luxury to laze at home on a Sat afternoon. Maybe it's cos of the series I'm watching (in which he does his cooking in a very home-style kinda kitchen, in a casual jacket and jeans) I think he actually doesn't look like a celebrity chef.... Sis says he has a sleepy look. Nonetheless, I think the way he cooks is very 潇洒。。。And his moves are so swift....(like drizzle olive oil also can drizzle so gracefully) and his ingredients always look so fresh and appetizing... Perhaps it's these little things that ppl notice, that contributed to his 'cult status'... :)

Ah, I can finally take a breather! And so this afternoon things slowed down a little and during chit-chat session with colleagues I found out that my DD's kids were called Leon and Noel (reverse of Leon). Quite cool.... if i ever have kids I also want names like that.... :P

Ycc just returned from Tokyo and brought back some anime leaflets for me... hee... and I wanna watch Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea! Opens in Japan July 19 but wonder when it will show here. Coincidentally while surfing on Ponyo-related websites, also found out about a shop in Tokyo (click on 商品について) that makes Totoro-shaped cream puffs. かわいい。。。

Dilemma

Having been in my unit for nearly 2 years, I felt rather ashamed that I've never really thought very seriously about whether SERS was a good thing for the ppl or not. But a voluntary site recce yesterday made me realise that it was a very simple but important question to ask myself, or perhaps any of us doing all the planning... For usual public queries and such, we always quote the standard justifications along the lines of rejuvenation and improved living environment blah blah but feedback from many existing lessees that they were attached to/ preferred their existing residences really came up quite frequently as well. And so yesterday when I was just walking around XXX estate I somehow could really identify with this sentiment. Notwithstanding that I am a young person with an 'old soul' and somewhat fell in love with the idyllic and 80s- atmosphere of the area (complete with those traditional provision shops that still sell diff kinds of biscuits in huge transparent containers with red covers), I really do believe that new is not always better... And looking at the many elderly residents going abt their Sunday morning activities in the area, I really wondered whether they would appreciate a govt who assumes that they will be happier and better off living in a new 30-storey flat unit close by, but ultimately "elsewhere"? And more generally, though S'pore is getting "hipper" these days; I am somewhat nostalgically upset that many places will never be the same as the way you remembered them to be even just 5, 10 years down the road.

have been stricken with a most horrendous cough and runny nose the past few days... and have prob "blown away" half a box worth of tissue in office... i am amazed how my body managed to produce so much eeky substance within such a short period of time. my bad cold came quite suddenly and i figured it was just lack of rest/working long hours that caused it. Dad however theorised that it was cos my bed was placed directly opposite the air-con and long periods of sleeping directly opposite air-con has made my body weak... Sadly he managed to convince mum and now both of them are ganging up to persuade me to shift bed to opposite side of the room... In any case, a miraculous anti-cough drink I decided to try (from Hock Hua Tonic) earlier this afternoon has soothed my irritated throat immensely; nevermind it was funny-tasting... at least i appear to be much better!

perhaps another reason why i am not getting well more quickly is cos of stress from upcoming briefing on monday... And thought of having to brief smthg that I wun have all the answers to is giving me butterflies in stomach. Let's hope that my bosses will save me and I just need to concentrate on delivering my part... *May the pjt-team-briefing-day luck be with me*

This week's 稀游记 featured a S'porean living in Uganda as a beekeeper. And how he evolved from knowing next to nothing about bees into a patient, bee-loving; bee-respecting beekeeper... What originated as an escapist/start-afresh decision from his separation some 10 yrs ago actually allowed him to find a new, fulfilling lifestyle. From his bee-keeping, he also 领悟到 impt lessons about relationships and life. I thought it very interesting how ppl could develop some kind of bond with bees, just like how we build up relationships with people. But though this guy is somewhat an 'expert' now, it didn't come easy and he had apparently been stung many many times before. Once so serious that he was in coma for 1.5 days. This reminded me that most ppl dun achieve success without first being put through some tough trials... Yet I frequently dream of spectacular outcomes without being committed to putting in a commensurate amt of effort to really earn the outcome I want to see... Perhaps I would be a happier person if i would just learn to enjoy the process a little more? :)

The past week at work has been a pretty happening one-- aside from the advancement of secretary role, had also been arrowed to be emcee for some MND Family joint scholarship ceremony in June... (Well, not 'cos I'm especially outstanding or anything; apparently HDB scholars take turns to kenah such things...) If you know me well enough, you'd probably think... har?? I too have mixed feelings towards the nomination, since I am really not the sort capable of holding an audience's attention, esp ON STAGE... but yet on the other hand, I'm also curious to find out whether I can do this... :) A personal challenge. What could be the worst thing that could happen? I suppose my poor audience might have to bear with some dreary reading off of script and scholarship recipients... The draft script from last year given to me seems straightforward enough (except for the "2 - 3 min banter with co-emcee on scholarship experience and current job") Let's hope my co-emcee is nice and innovative and saves the day :P

I've been observing the side effects of working for too long under the same boss. Such that even after the boss is gone her subordinates still quote and live by her "teachings" (since they have been so 'well-trained' to do things the 'right' way). Some unfortunately suffer more serious repercussions and get nightmares. While I feel that the lessons 'preached' makes good sense for the most part and somewhat guides one to become upright public sector officers who produce quality work, the penetrating and seemingly lasting influence on colleagues even on the most trivial of things at times make me pretty disturbed. This morning, I was rather surprised that a colleague's tendency to insert two spaces after a fullstop in her writing was a legacy of ex big boss's preference... And I also found myself increasingly disturbed by a colleague's perseverance in delivering the most well-aligned/font size-perfect/spatially well-distributed briefing slides... (Fyi, these cosmetic adjustments are the most potent time thieves). I mean, I think it's good that we have such high standards for briefing materials, but sometimes it works against us and we focus excessively on these trivial micro things and neglect the bigger picture. Deep down I sometimes feel like I am in a very dangerous place, where frequent expectations of standardisation/protocol-adherence will slowly rob me of all individuality and thinking-for-myself abilities...

Just when I thought I could have some peace of mind preparing for annc, my term as co-secretary for a boardwide meeting had to be advanced some 2 months in advance.... hai. Why did my predecessor have to go on no-pay leave all of sudden... :( Oh well, while I know that I'll be super stressed come June (when the under-study would commence, together with a thousand and one other things), some part of me also feels somewhat excited that I will finally have a bird's eye view of what goes on in the organisation... :) Something I am rather sore about is that I'd probably need to shelve any plans for a long holiday till next March (as this is a thrice-a-month weekly mtg). I suppose I shall not be prematurely, entirely 死心 over any vacation... and hopefully I can work smthg out to travel late this year!

"You have a supermarket tripod..."

So I was told by a fellow photography enthusiast whom I shall call Mr A. But more on that later :) Had a spontaneous outing with hj at Boat Quay yesterday evening... to catch the 2nd performance of Water Fools on S'pore River (It was the opening performance for the S'pore Arts Festival the night before). Actually I detest crowds but since the performance looked pretty interesting, was FOC and gave me a good opp to figure out my camera, decided to brave the crowds this one time. Having heard "horror stories"on the swarms of ppl yesterday night and being kiasu S'poreans, we thus decided to meet real early to 'chope' seats by the river...

We arrived at the S'pore River at abt 5.45 pm for the 8pm show. By then, the best seats (ie. front row, on the ground with unobstructed view of river) were more or less taken. BUT... there was like one spot beside this man (Mr A) seated on a foldable chair, with his tripod already plonked sui sui in front of him... Not wanting to settle for 2nd row seats, I recced for front row seats at another stretch of the river, but those didnt have as a good a view as this earlier stretch... In the end we decided on the spot beside Mr A, cos we thought follow someone who looks like expert, our location can't go too wrong lah :P

Mr A turned out to be a slightly kaypoh but I guess on the whole quite helpful lah... Since he had nothing to do other than wait for the show to commence (more than 2 hrs away) he took an active interest in my equipment... As I fished out my camera and tripod to "mark my position", whatever he could recognise he managed to call it by its technical term, making me feel secretly intimidated and stressed. When I decided to do some random trial shots aiming at the Asian Civilisations Museum across the river, Mr A advised me to make sure I had enough battery life left, else I would waste my battery unnecessarily... He was probably quite appalled I brought along such a pok tripod for my relatively expensive camera and expounded on the importance of a good tripod. How much did his cost? More than $300... And its legs could extend independently of the others, making it a much more flexible tool... (But seriously, I wouldn't want to fork out $300 for a tripod lah) He observed that mine was really basic and light and concluded that it was a "supermarket tripod"... Was damn amused by him and replied, haha yeah, erm it's free, how to compare?? :P Luckily there was another photography enthusiast to his right and he eventually shifted his attention away from us. But yeah, twice more at night he made two very stress-inducing comments -- "Every photographer needs to bring along a torch" (When it was all dark and I was squinting my eyes at my camera manual to figure out a particular function); and "Only uncles and aunties will use flash when taking river scenes" -- I had no idea why cannot use flash and was contemplating trying it out (anyway i eventually found out that flash photography was not allowed). Ok i guess i shall not bore you with more anecdotes involving Mr A, but yeah, maybe next time I will consider sitting somewhere more secluded and then figure out my camera at my own amateur pace....

Anyway, back to the main story! At about 6 something, there were already some 5 lines of ppl seated by the river... Man in black was trying to get ppl to sit down (so that ppl behind them could see) and pushing back the kiasu ppl (who inched right to the edge of the steps).

Cute twin girls among the crowd, waiting comfortably in their pram for the show to start... Hj and I ended up with sore butts sitting on the ground for some 3 hours...

As we nibbled away (sadly) on our Mcdonalds dinner, the sun began to set...

I imagined it must have been quite nice to watch the sunset at the Clarke Quay area...

On the other side, the sky also began to darken... unveiling a very pretty Fullerton Hotel by night.
Opposite the river, crowds were also beginning to form (hehe, I disregarded Mr A's advice and continued to take my random pictures...)

And finally at 8pm sharp, the floating cars, bed, red lady, cleaner, balloon man etc started to appear one after another...




The red lady and balloon man were two of my favorite performers... However, I seriously doubt that anyone (esp those armed with cameras) really caught the storyline. Mr A, who came down the day before, was trying to explain to his companion on the right that part of it had something to do with the industrial revolution... but his explanation wasn't too coherent :P Needless to say, I didn't catch the storyline either :P Not when I was trying out various combinations of shutter speeds, apertures and ISOs for the most part...

I've never been so close to fireworks for a long long time. So it was really cool to see a bright sparkly sky just above me. This was the only vaguely decent shot I got of the fireworks.

The show ended around 9pm and we saw a funny sight while strolling over to the Esplanade area -- What a place to dump your rubbish. Btw, those bottles are PUB-sponsored NEWater. Well many many ppl got amused by someone's creatively mischievous act and it became a highly popular photo opp.

Have been lucky enough to get off work earlier than 7.30pm the past two days, to enjoy the wonderful world of TV. My new resolution is really to knock off punctually EVERY SINGLE DAY (which by my definition is 7.30 latest lah) but yeah, it's not that easy to keep up. But at least now I really make the effort to leave. Hehe but maybe went a little overboard this morning when I declared to lhp at 9am that I wished to be home... ha. I'm also becoming a fan of Belinda Lee's 稀游记 travel documentary on Channel U, in which she finds S'poreans all over the world pursuing their passions... It is really quite inspiring. Today's episode featured a S'porean who spent some years working as a software engineer in Califiornia, only to realise that he wanted to pursue something more meaningful... With his wife's full support, the couple moved to Geneva, where he worked for Schwab Foundation, an organisation that promotes social entrepreneurship around the world...

On a lighter note, we discovered Boss's wedding website while in office today. Yeah, these days you can do up a wedding website for free and inform all your friends abt every single detail related to the big day; including publicly publishing you and your bride's love story. Which our boss did lah. Well... we all took our hats off this very dedicated-to-wife-to-be man... cos we were scratching our heads as to how he found time to do up this pretty elaborate website. And as we were kay-pohing and reading thru 'the love story'... I discovered that the two ladies at another workstation had teared... After lunch, someone 'secretly' asked me how come I was not touched (since i did not shed any tears... and they hypothesized that girls my age would usually be more touched by these things) I suppose one only sheds tears when he/she can really connect with the story; knows the 当事人 well enough to feel for him/her... and it's not so much an age issue. Or maybe i'm just too cynical for my age ;)

In fact, I think the most tear-jerking and depressing incidents that have happened of late are the massive Sichuan earthquake and the cyclone in Myanmar that have taken thousands of lives overnight. Esp the first few days after the earthquake-- pictures after pictures of ruins and victims in the papers (And the sickening playing-up of touching survival stories in the evening Chinese tabloids) just made me want to be escapist and avoid reading abt the disaster news... And it makes me ashamed that I'm frequently so complainy abt life.

A weekend of indulgence

Today marks the end of my very enjoyable and guiltily indulgent long weekend. But will try to make sure I spend less money next weekend.

Lunched with C at Japanese restaurant Tampopo at Liang Court after reading good reviews in the newspaper. This restaurant had received rave reviews for their ramen; and an online blogger recommended a certain 'black pig' pork cutlet. We thus tried these signature dishes; and they turned out to be pretty yummy! Today I shall try to be a pseudo food blogger...

C's miso ramen. I stole a bit of the soup, which was very flavorful... According to her, the noodles were very springy too.

The agedashi tofu we had as an appetizer. Though the tofu was very soft, I thought it was too pricey (at $6.80 for 3 pieces of tofu!) and not that worth it.

My 'black pig' tonkatsu... It was actually quite fatty but well fried and tasty. The menu even had a random picture of a black pig in some farm, with a one-liner to the effect of "Our pigs are not subject to stress"... For some weird reason, I had imagined (b4 coming to the restaurant) that the black pig pork cutlet would be black. Apparently only the skin is black... Hehe, the weird ideas I have in my head. It seems that pigs, like humans, dun thrive too well under stressful conditions either!

Though had to lug huge camera around all afternoon, I really got a kick taking pictures of my food, amateurish my attempts might be. I can totally understand why Chubby Hubby loves his job.

Hair Trivia

Today I decided to treat myself to a scalp treatment using a discount voucher I found in Simply Her. And got a free 'scalp analysis', though it was actually kinda gross. Pores (i suppose they are rightly termed follicles) magnified many many times just look quite undignified :P Basically they stick this special camera device into your hair and immediately your scalp and magnified hair strands are shown on a screen before you. Then (I dunno if it's a standard tactic to scare customers or what) the hair consultant points out how unclean and befitting a treatment your scalp is. So anyway since I was there for the treatment I just went ahead with it... Post-treatment they go through the same procedure, i suppose in hopes of demonstrating the effectiveness of the treatment. And so while 'scanning' through my hair I realised, hey, how come some follicles seem to have more than one strand of hair? And there and then i made the discovery of the day... the hair 'consultant' attending to me told me that up to 3 strands of hair can grow out of a single hair follicle! I was somewhat pleasantly surprised when told that, cos like... you would assume that one strand of hair grows out of a single follicle right?? Else just have more follicles lah, why want to be so 济济。But apparently, no leh. But my curiosity stopped at that... I guess Nature has its own 'way' and I'm content as long as my hair follicles do not go on strike prematurely :) Anyways, apparently one treatment is not enough to cure my unclean scalp and I'll need like 10 treatments or more to ensure complete cleansing, so says the hair consultant. Seriously, I'm beginning to realise that one can splurge on all kinds of treatments from head to toe and if I dun exercise some discretion and self-restraint in guarding my money I will very easily end up super poor and unhappy :P Hai, one can be vain, but not stupidly vain lah hor.

Accuracy of Death (死神の精度)

The weekend is finally here! I shall try to catch this over the long weekend :)

The day has been most unsustainable. And if I work 14 hrs everyday like I did today, my eyes would become the smallest in the world in no time... And the silliest thing was-- hours were spent making trivial changes and touch-ups to briefing materials. If we are slightly slip-shod, we'll receive subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle hints from boss that we weren't tactful and thinking enough; yet frequently we aren't even given ample time to think through issues properly in the first place. Not that it's entirely his fault-- boss has to meet bigger bosses' deadlines and everyone's just like rushing to get things out. Why on earth is everyone pushing so hard. Though we pity boss (who's resigned to always staying up to clear our materials) sometimes I cannot help but pity ourselves too. And most of the work i'm doing is scarcely helping me remain a thinking creature.
Can I just study for life?

Someone from Jap class knows Lin Yutang!

This will be a hybrid post on my day so far:

I finally went back to Ikoma this morning, after a close-to-6-months break from Japanese class. Felt half jittery; half excited-- jittery because I've totally 荒废ed my language studies this first half of the year and I wasn't sure if I could remember all my kanji pronunciations/ grammar usage; but excited 'cos I could study it all over again. Turns out that I did forget quite a bit of stuff, but I can still understand most of the class... so YAY for me. And I really enjoyed the 2.5-hr lesson. Actually I always wonder why I like taking Japanese lessons so much. And I can never really pinpoint the reason. I guess it's a combination of factors -- my love for the pretty characters (yeah I am mad, but writing the beautiful characters prettily make me happy, eg. the cute little curves); the interesting passages we read (with wide-ranging topics, from psychological experiments to strategies behind supermarket item display to child rearing anecdotes); the explanations for choice of words/images in japanese phrases or idioms... Strange enough, I dun usually get REALLY good at the things I like. One would think that people normally try to master what they like to do, but for me, I just can't get the nitty gritty grammar rules into my head. And so I muddle my way through Japanese, never really bothering to tidy up my imperfect understanding of the finer grammar rules...

So anyway, when class ended and we were all about to leave the classroom, a fellow classmate noticed my copy of Lin Yutang in my bag and shared excitedly that.... her dad was an ardent fan of Mr Lin... to the extent that he would hunt for out-of-print editions of his texts! Er... quite interesting to know that I share similar reading preferences as someone's dad (that someone is like in her late 30s/40s...), but nonetheless pleased to find out that this someone else appreciates his wise, unpretentious words too :P

The third item on my list is a frivolous purchase I made when walking through Borders after class. I really didn't enter Borders with the intention of buying a mug, but this super-cute Mutants Mug by Paperchase (yeah, beats me why they sell mugs too) just caught my eye.

Inaugural mug shot from my Canon 40D :)

PS: Alas, I discovered that 75% of the magic is in the lens...

Langkawi (4)

When I returned from holiday, some ppl asked me whether I went snorkelling? Nope. Swimming? Nope. Sun-tanning? Ha, absolutely not. How come you didn't turn very dark? Er, cos I was kiasu and vain and applied a lot of SPF 50 sunblock? Ha everything cited above was just to illustrate ppl's expectations of an enjoyable 'beach holiday'.... But then this time round despite having not engaged in any of the 'typical beach activities' I still enjoyed my beach holiday... Doing v simple things like sitting at the beach, taking random photos, dipping your feet in the gentle waves by the beach & feeling the wind blow in your face while on a pretty rocky speedboat.

The "black beach" ycc recommended- The sand was pretty black (apparently due to mineral oxides) but there was still a sprinkling of normal sand. And when the waves came and receded pretty sand trails (like those above) were created. But aside from the black sand, this beach was rather dilapidated and somewhat disappointing...
Beras Basah Island -- The last destination on our Island Hopping tour. The beach was not too bad lah and waters pretty clear. But the weather was scorching.... Eventually we gave up walking abt and sat in the shade watching various human activities going on in the sea... including a circle of Chinese courting couples (presumably) creating quite a commotion in the sea... Actually we thought them really comical, with all the ladies piggybacking on the guys. Then weather so super hot... pity those guys... I also concluded after observing things going on in the sea (not just at this beach and certainly not intentionally) that it is a rather popular location for intimacy.
In comparison to the youths in the sea, thought this was a much wiser strategy! Chatting in the shade by the sea...

I really liked the shadows made by the leaves from this huge sap-dripping tree (so we thought)...

Just to end off my Langkawi posts with a picture of my good old chio (AND comfy) sandals :) I will keep dreaming about my next holiday from now till... dunno when. So 不争气 hor ;) I hope to be blogging about the autumn leaves in Japan next time.

Thrice more I broke my 7.30pm resolution this week. Very sad and tiring. And just now after a meeting at MND the 5 of us commiserated with one another (over fried fish meat soup at Maxwell Food Centre) on the sad state of affairs and impending no-life weeks ahead. And I listened to tales of sweetly patient husbands waiting hours for wives to knock off, of disappointed children who turn in without seeing their mummies. Let me get a windfall overnight...

Hai, the future seems bleak.