Chua's cubbyhole (growing stronger every day! :D)

Random thoughts...?

2010-06-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

I think I just want to at least be able to "feel happy to be living" and "rid myself of inner demons" before I move on to the next chapter, be it the next step of studying or, working at a job.

I tend to write more, or feel a greater need to express myself under turmoil as a way of coping with life. But I do experience moments where I'm happy, and being too occupied with that, I fail to note these feelings down.

It's pretty hard, almost impossible I'd say to put your best foot forward and be bright about the future when you don't feel you're receiving the support you need. So, instead of stopping there and finding yourself in a perpetual tight fix, you might want to look elsewhere, to people who have open hearts, and somehow, overflowing with good intentions, who hold possibilities. There always seems to be someone or people like that around. So find some of them who you can keep contact with, they might possibly be the ones who will spur you on.

Another 3 dreams...

2010-02-27T09:03:00.002+08:00

I had something like 3 dreams this morning. I kept waking up in between them.

The first I dreamt I was with my friends at school, and I was telling my korean friend best of luck with the homework that she had to do before university started. And she too busy to notice that I was depressed. I was hoping someone would notice. I passed her a note telling her best of luck and then no one seemed to notice I was depressed so I started writing on a piece of paper telling myself to hang in there and all the reasons why while sobbing away really terribly. I was feeling really lost and directionless.

The next I dreamt I was in a game, like one of those on the PS2 or 3. I dreamt I was watching the characters in the story. Somehow they could transform into something else or something like versions with upgraded armor or something. Then there was scene where there was a woman threatening a warrior she would kill this other women. She had a knife and she saying a whole lot of things but she really looked like she was threatening to kill herself in the end because she was pointing the knife at herself and it looked like she was going to stab herself in the face. Then I saw a scene with the main character, and he had gained the ability to transform and he tried to transform into another man character and somehow it seemed like he failed, because the next thing he knew he finds himself in this room where this boss that you cannot defeat was sitting on a chair and began lording it over him with some high and mighty speech. And when the boss snaps his fingers the main character disappears almost immediately with these tiny flames at his feet as though he vaporises. At this point I felt like I was controlling the main character and making him jump everytime the boss was going to snap his fingers while he kept saying he can't avoid them forever or something (typical boss language). In the end he got vaporised and everything turned black. I thought it was game over but then I found myself watching the last scene where the boss was sitting on his chair with no one else in the room and it was like that for a while. I don't know if I was scared if I suddenly gained existence in the game and the boss would try to vaporise me, so I decided I'd end the game by jumping out of the window. Then I woke up from it.

The last I dreamt my sister had come home. But somehow there was only me and her back in our house at home, so she had to do the cooking and grocery shopping. I dreamt she bought a lot of stuff back from the supermarket which she left in this corner, which I forgot to tend to and the next day I discovered there was a lot of fish in there and was wondering if they had gone bad or not.

2010-02-19T18:47:00.003+08:00

Before I forget (again), I'd like to post about what I dreamt of last night....

I dreamt I saw a girl but I didn't know if it was a real person or iif t was a picture because it seemed like I could see the brush strokes. Anyway, somehow I felt as though I knew her but when I tried thinking when I last her I couldn't remember. I really felt as though I was looking at her. She had white gray hair, very dark tanned orange skin and she was wearing an intricate black dress with long white sleeves.

2010-02-18T19:11:00.002+08:00

I had a dream this morning. I dreamt that there was a this group of guys, and they were a part of my team. I was leading a group of guys. There was one guy who sort of wore spectacles sometimes, and he was kind of like a doctor. He knew about drugs (the good ones), he would know what to administer at the right time and he was very cool. He would be leading the group sometimes, and sometimes he would be at the back. But he was a leading figure when I wasn't part of the group. He felt like the one who was bringing me to the group. Then there was this guy who was a big figure, he was sort of big in a way that is comforting and he felt like someone whom you coulf feel would be able to protect you in some way. In his arms, you would feel that you'd be able to overcome whatever pain you were going through. And then there was a third guy, he's the one that I met first, and he's really arrogant and scary before you get to know him. He's really forceful and he pulled me by the arm a few times but I saw him before I saw everyone else, and it felt like he was pulling me by force to where I was supposed to be, even though I hadn't known anything yet, which was rather confusing and annoying at the start.

But I was supposed to be a part of their group, and when I took my place, I felt like I wanted to work with them while leading them and I wanted to protect every one of them because they meant something to me. It felt like I knew them all and if I had to do something for the group I would do it.

The guy with the spectacles, the cool one, he wouldn't make me do something I wouldn't want to, even if it was the best thing for me and I didn't know it. He seemed to want the best, but he'd rather you figure it out it was the best rather than the forceful guy who'd try to make you do it.

So as a character, I really respect him for that and I kinda like that about him.

I wonder if I'll continue the story from there...

2009-08-13T13:05:00.002+08:00

Omigoodness... the past 6 days or so were like being stuck in some twilight zone. I'm glad for the moment that I've finally FINALLY posted out the last application for companies whose deadlines are about now (8/14~17.... 3!!!!). While working on the stuff to submit my mind would sorta wander sometimes, thinking what would happen if I was called for interviews and what would happen if I got hired and stuff... My mind's still completely blank as to what I would want to say during interviews.. I definitely know that I'd have something to say regardless or what they ask but it feels like my thoughts won't come out coherently or not even come out at all.. I guess that means I will have to start trying to speak proper Japanese again and phased out all the slangs and all.. which isn't as easy as doing the same to English. Heh. But anyway, I was thinking, even though it's really annoying to rush to post out my applications like this, I think I'd be pretty okay with not being able to get a job this time round. I mean.. I seriously don't think I'm up to standard yet. And if a company is willing to take a leap of faith in me I'd be very very thankful, but if not, well, I would say I'd expected it.

But its not to say I'd be disappointed.. maybe just 30~50% yea maybe.. but I think I'd be happy to really take the extra time (be it the extra 6 months extension period to remain in Japan and look for a job after my student visa expires or the 4 years I'd spend in NUS after going home) to ground my foundation in drawing, and to really experiment and get my hands dirty with all sorts of drawing styles.. ther different styles of the different anime studios.. not just the lines pertaining to objects but the expression of shadows and highlights, maybe movement and timing as well... though I'd say it doesn't really interest me at this moment (cos its so.... HARD). If it was meant to be I'd come back and look for a job again, shouldn't be such a big thing (though it is.. haha).

Anyway, another thing that crossed my mind was about living out a life drawing vs living out a life on the textbook side (Ha.. what I call it). Now standing where I am now, if you'd ask me right now, I'll tell you I nv want to go back. If I really could, I'd want to stay at this point, and live my life out drawing. Seriously, if you'd ask me to choose its that. I mean its difficult and all, and really stressful, even sometimes you can't even see forward, everything looks so uncertain. But somehow, it feels like I'm living when I draw. As if in comparision, doing anything else would seem dead. Its a strange way to put it maybe. But even if this wan't what I was meant to do, I'd be okay.. I'd accept what God plans.. and it doesn't mean I can't draw in my freetime. Heh.

But standing here right now, it feels a little like I was standing atop a mountain, inhaling the good air, in the midst of the majestic scenery surrounding, I feel that there are so many things out there to learn, so many things I haven't seen yet or experienced just waiting for me. I feel a little excited.

2009-07-17T21:58:00.002+08:00

It was some time ago, when I started developing the thought that people here were just more right-minded than left-minded, that I started consciously realising that the kind of atmosphere at church was just different than from the moment I stepped out and all the way till I stepped in again the next time. I just stood watching from a spectators point of view, not trying to claim which side was the right side to take. And for some reason, the kind of atmosphere I sensed in church, though familiar, wasn't a side I really wanted to take sides with. There was a thing about the way of life outside and all around that was part of what life had to be, I felt. The way people did things, or thought, outside of the church. Classmates, whoever, the society. The pastor would always be trying to pull us back into the reality of things, we are God's people, do not succumb to temptation, yes the world is tough but we have God to rely on. Why does it sound like he's making everything seem so tough? Like we ought to resist very strongly.

I don't know if anyone's actually thought of this before, I'd never would have when I was back home though. But say we take the theory that the Japanese society, regardless of whoever wants to get to know God more or not, is a more right-minded society, wouldn't that be very sad to know that it would be almost contradictory to preach the Gospel to them since the kind of activity in church is mostly left-minded? It does sound sad isn't it? It's like as though right-minded people were completely left out of the plan by the church (I'm not saying God). If you don't get what I mean, take for example, the sermons. I can tell you for sure that a right-minded person will never have the concentration to follow a sermon, much less even understand the profounding words being spoke of that come from a book they don't have the slightest idea about. And it's not about not wanting to know enough. It's just, they don't live that way. You really can't force a person who doesn't live that way to follow a path that isn't familiar to them.

So.. I started thinking. I know God loves all of us and He's always trying to get through to even the remotest person living on the most remotest part of the planet. So that's when I thought, there must be a way, that I don't know as of yet at the moment, that God tries to reach out to the right-minded people. The Japanese people, living in their seemingly oblivious world void of the existence of any god or religion; there is a way that God exists in their society, in Japan. I just needed to discover.

As you know (if you read the previous post) that my family came and my mom stayed behind for a while, I started to playback and think through and compare the kind of lifestyle, the kind of thinking and way of life that was me, my family and the kind of society I was in now. What was different? What's the same? What doesn't have to be different? There was something I knew to be discovered between the 2 dimensions that correlated.

I think my mom was really the star of it all. Watching her in her little world, everyday normal life in seemingly obliviousness to troubles that might be lurking. If something did come up, it was shrugged away, dismissed in an orderly fashion. Pch, it didn't need any worrying. Because, there was nothing to worry about. It was as though, my mommy, who wasn't even Christian, was being wrapped very carefully in God's arms, sheltered and shielded, kept safe, and for a reason.

It brings me back to the image I have in my mind, of many a time I have witnessed, of Christians of the church who fret upon how they needed to reach out to all those poor people out there who don't know God. We need to preach the Word more, evangelise, let the world see the light.

But why do we even need to fret? Because He already has them in His arms, and already has a plan for them.

So back to these right-minded people. Why need not we be fretting that they can't reach God through the Word? Because there is something about them (in my opinion and theory) that God so loves about them that us left-minded people, who need to be fed with words in order to understand something would never be able to do.

Left-minded people (in my theory and opinion from observation and deduction) are so caught up with understanding theories and concepts, they read lots of texts and ponder deeply over words, trying to make sense over it, the world they exist in is just completely entirely made up of words. They are less sensitive to the human condition and things like... "things that go unsaid that are undestood between the parties involve". They may be able to concentrate long enough to study the textbook, but all time spent away from the books, including that which is spent with other people is completely almost like as if they turned a switch off in their brains, and they cease to exist in that aspect. Which is why, they always need to be reminded time and again, with a source that is text-base, in order to realise that God exists. That is why out dear heavenly Father who loves us left-brains has made sure that He has spelt everything out clearly and without doubt in His Word, the Bible.

Right-brains, unlike the very practical left-brainers who mostly never fail to follow logic gained from deductions through very serious thought, more of follow their instinct and spur of the moment. Before you start to jump to critical conclusion, what I mean to say is, in other words, they follow their heart. Left brain activity fails to kick in very much, so before an opinion or critic can be formed, they have already carried out what felt right to be done at the moment.

I think it might be typical for a typical left-brainer to have the image of committing murder or adultery because of what is deemed "spur of the moment". Primitive right-brainers, will they never be civilised enough to read and get the idea through their thick skulls and into their brains?? UNDERSTAND THE RULES, FOOLS.

But yet, we do not see through to the other side, like blind fools. We did not realise that they who live on the right side are less blinded by the distraction of words, ideas, concepts, theories, airy fairy ideals, the idea of the norm that was decided by someone that we ourselves don't even know. They are more in tune to their senses, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, sense of touch, the very things that God created us with, the very physical body. They live. Like human beings that have been created by the Father for humanly purposes that he had originally planned us for. Maybe if you needed an analogy, think back to Adam and Even in the garden of Eden. What do you think life was back then?

So I thought, these right-brained people, they live through the body given by the Father. So in turn they live the Father's will through their bodies. Everything that is needed for life is provided by God through their senses. They eat breathe and live God's will through the physical, which God provided for and all the while giving glory to God, just functioning as what the Father had planned us for! How incredible is that?

Remember the part in the Bible that says even THINKING of committing a sin is already a sin. Because if we were already functioning from the input God gave us, we wouldn't even come up with that thought to sin.

That's when I thought, Living on the right-side, that's like being in tune to God constantly. Instead of having to be constantly reminded and then forgetting and then going back to be reminded again only to forget again, He resides inside us. Instead of thinking He is always WITH us, think He is living INSIDE me NOW. He IS me.

I'm not saying that right-siders don't need to read the Bible. All I'm saying is I'm just really happy to know that God has the right brainers in his hands and he has beautiful plans for them, even if they don't know Him yet.

2009-07-13T21:52:00.002+08:00

On my usual pondering lately about why I'm exactly here in Japan again, the fundamental difference between Japanese and Sgporeans, the former exercising comparatively less practicality and thus rigidity in ways of thinking (even though the society can be said to be a rigid one..), seemingly flinging aside all obvious forms of logic in the name of transcience and for the moment fleeting beauty, very things that would spell absolute foolishness in the mind of a typical Sgporean for the chase of deception. What makes them so different in my opinion, is that one chooses more to trust in gut feeling and prides in appreciating the direct surroundings, rather than cluttering the mind with a lot of thinking, about which would make more sense to do or what reaps more benefits logically. Of course, I don't think there's anything wrong with Sgporeans being practical, I think thats one of the traits that makes our society so efficient and educated in many ways. However, that being said, because of such a trait, certain other things are most certainly lacking. The ability to appreciate the moment, and to appreciate what makes us human. To enjoy the physical, isn't also that which makes us human?

I probably seek to leave Sg in the chase of Life. I came to one of many conclusions lately that in essential, it is everybody's goal to seek out a life source. Something that is 'living' in their opinion. And perhaps only such people will find the Life and be people who are truly 'living'. In Sg, I never saw any Life around me (not meaning that there wasn't, just didn't see or sense it), it was like I wasn't living, so I sook out Life. I left Sg for Japan. I saw what I thought was the Life in anime. I saw through and in between, what I thought was the will of the people who made the anime. I felt some kind of Life in their collection of thoughts and feelings all condensed into what we see on the screen. So I knew that there was only one place that I could ever want to go, to go to where the source of Life I thought was.

And coming here, leaving many things behind, I wondered what I was. I wondered how was I going to lead my life. There seemed to be so many questions to ask, I was homeless. No place to rest my head, every waking moment seemed to be blank silence. A deafening silence. It seemed to me even worse than living a life without the Life source. It was being dead. How could I seek the Life if I was dead?

But thankfully, family came, and it gave me the chance to look back to see what living was about, since I had forgotten and had been dead for quite some time already. It is strange that I was once again examining the kind of 'living' that I previously could never have considered living. I looked closely; strange, that living without the Life source could feel so relaxing. It gave me the breathing space I needed to begin life again.

I pondered again what living was. Somehow I felt that before I could chase the Life source again I needed to know what living really was. That was when I noticed something that I wouldn't have noticed had I not left Sg. I noticed how my mom lived. There was an unusual sense of life that seemed to emanate from her presence. She could be doing something so extremely normal and mundane, seemingly boring for anyone interested in more exciting things. But what I noticed, was a kind of Life that was present regardless of situation and context. Like a sort of absolute existence. You could maybe describe it was a sort of excitement over anything that happened. There was a kind of interest in the things that happened or seemingly didn't happen in one's life. Every moment was never boring, never dead. Every moment seemed to be living.

Was that God trying to show me what Living was? I know that true Life is found in the one and only Living God. But I was trying to find out what He had in plan for me, the Life that I should seek on earth. What was really Living on earth? It had a rub off effect on me and I started experiencing what I thought was Living, without really being conscious of it. Maybe Living was really about not being conscious about it.

And as I started living again, I came to yet another conclusion. That what real living the way I should, and how I think should be the way, was not to overshadow His presence with thinking too much. That way, we could then be at peace with ourselves and be more aware of His presence everyday. Not being conscious in a mindly way, but sensing with our bodies, the sense He has given all of us. Without even having to start thinking to realise, we would realise from seeing. Its as though our senses are opened to the light, as how it should be in the first place.

I realise I could enjoy boring quiet moments, moments of nothingness, laugh at something where there was no person beside to hear. I realise I didn't care. Because they do not matter where Life was. Living isn't limited to context, it is absolute and once in existence will continue to exist in any situation (unless killed). It's being still, and being at peace with the self and everything else.

So I didn't need to worry about anything else. I had the Life with me. And it would continue to be with me, as long as I knew God was with me. As I continue to seek the life God wants for me to pursue on earth, I'm thankful He taught me what Living was about.

2009-07-03T16:59:00.002+08:00

My stomach constantly troubles me. I hope the medicine I got from the docs yesterday is going to work better than everything I've tried so far and that it works at the concentration it is at now. Depending on how my body responds I might have to be given a higher dosage or worse, have to depend on it for... ever.... until it decides to stop. Horrors.

Anyway, speaking of horrors, stupid Resistance! As soon as I started getting the hang of the game and controls and drawing wrong conclusions that it was a pushover, I get slammed with neverending missions (thought that was gonna be the end... NO?!??) and TRAP after trap! You get to the point where you start uttering swear words as a kind of reflex, not really in rage but.. those buggers! Just when you thought that was the end they start pouring out in numbers and kinds and combinations putting your judgment of which gun to use and whether to find cover or go frontal to the test. I find myself having to hit the restart mission option time and time again. When is it going to end??

Anyway, been experiencing yet another slump since the family came and after starting seriously applying for A-1 Pictures probably due to not watching anime for a while. I still really wonder what drawing really means to me and what its really about. What does it mean to live a life by drawing? And if God has chosen this path for me how should I live it? It dawns on me yet again that I'm treading in unknown territory and where everything isn't as familiar as I think it is.

I kind of wonder what it means to be happy... but then again, I really shouldn't be thinking too much (or at all..).

2009-06-18T13:50:00.002+08:00

Just deciding like last week or so to try out for A-1 Pictures as well, I`m now stuck with a report elaborating on what I hope to do in the company as well as my resume which together with the few illustration pieces that are supposed to be handed in at the same time are due at the career support centre in my school NEXT FRIDAY... x.x x.x That coupled with my Mommy and Daddy and Brother on holiday NOW at my house... omgoodness. I appreciate there being teachers at the CSC to check our resumes and all but oh GOSH, I do REALLY want to get on with the written part because OBVIOUSLY the drawing part is a lot more crucial and they are NOT complete yet!! Sigh, okay it`s all going to be over soon and really even if I slip up this time there is going to be a next so I`m really okay if I screw up and they don`t call me back for an interview.. it`s just the things that I have to do now! Oh boy. Anyway, this is A-1 Pictures and so far, I`ve only seen Valkyria Chronicles that`s currently being aired on TV. They seem pretty decent and integrity to lines and quality of the series seems pretty much highly intact so far. I feel they can be trusted, which I think is probably the most important factor when considering whether to try out for a studio or not.

Argh.. anyway.. I can only hope that they can in turn trust in me from what they read in my resume and report and hopefully from what they see in my portfolio. I do believe in myself and I hope they will in me too but anyways... if the company didn`t believe in you it`s probably a good thing they don`t call you back cos it`d probably save you a lot of time and pain when you realise you don`t agree with the way they think in the company. Heh.

GRRR. But yea, straightly speaking, A-1 really isn`t on the top of my list of studios but they are worth their money (short history of 10 years and handling productions with that level of integrity and popularity).... yes, they are worth a try. Hopefully, they would be thinking the same way. Afterall, I did dive into this field hoping to find more like minded people and friends.

Okay, I`m just rattling away because I really can`t figure how to change the problematic parts of my report. I don`t think it really makes a difference seriously because I`m sure the reader will be able to tell more or less when he reads the whole thing what kinda person I am.. I sure would like to heck it.

Okay, well, back to reality... more updates to come...

2009-05-21T12:24:00.002+08:00

OMG OMG OMG I.G`s recruitment notice just came up 6 days ago. So excited about it :DD especially after reading up about their animation depts (wonder why its only in English though), it`s making me even more fired up about their round of recruiting this year. No still life, croquis drawings, computer generated art for portfolio submissions make for a rather strict sounding criteria but I guess the upside is that it makes it clearer what they`re REALLY looking for. I pray all goes well and the Lord inspires me on illust ideas and what I should do about my pf. So exciting!!!!

You should read about Studio I.G too, here`s the link: http://www.productionig.com/contents/people/03_/index.html

Please pray for me too! :))

2009-04-14T01:12:00.006+08:00

OMIGOODNESS I CAN'T BELIEVE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEE... I managed to finish drawing all the lines for so many illusto homeworks in SOOOO little time... God is really with me! :D Hehe, I hope I'd be able to continue at this pace in the days to come. You know how sometimes you're on the top of the curve and the next day you're at less than 0.

Anyway, OMGOODNESS OMGOODNESS, it's April, it's the start of the new season animes! Whoot! And the start of the very highly anticipated second series of HAGAREN. I watched it somewhat like I was on Marijuana, the typical side effect of watching any BONES production. They are so hella good. I watched I.G.'s BASARA too, which was pretty good action but it was still so caught in the game-ish kind of atmosphere I really didn't seem to find anything worth praising about the storyboarding. I hope it changes as the story goes along :S. Funny thing is its in the WARRING STATES period and the first thing you hear when Date Masamune takes the screen is 'LETSSSSS PARTAAAAAAYYYYY!!!' and no it wasn't in Japanese! Haha!

Hmm okay let's see.. I watched Satellite's BASQUASH too and it was like Bones Studio4deg high quality funky sh*t and some pretty interesting individualistic expressions in there. Keeping that on my regulars list. Haha okay and then I watched this Ristorante Paradiso. Picture an Ojisan host club.. HAHA. Okay no, it's not what you might think but that is the general idea. The story is based in Italy where this girl from the countryside goes to Rome to look for her mom who practically abandoned her (with relatives) to marry this man who isn't interested in divorcees so she's trying to keep it all hush hush and her daughter intends to look for her and spilla the beans big time. Anyway, she ends up at this restaurant whose mom's BF is the owner of. The customers who are mostly toward middle aged women go there to gawk at the toward middle aged waiters who all wear antique spectacles. Okay I guess my taste isn't really the Ojisan type but I think the character designs are decently good in standard considering its *THAT* type of anime. The preview for the second episode was WAY IYARASHII (questionable). Girl pounced on one of the waiters and attempts to str*p him, like what?! In the second episode already?

Oh man, anyway, with the start of the new animes, I hope to regularly keep up with them, which is ever so important in order to preserve a constant interest and for (obviously) new ideas. Hmmm... okay anyway, will make an exit now :O Here are the illust-o sketches I did, cheerios!

"GIJINKA" (to give something non-human human characteristics) homework part(a) - Jellyfish! Actually started rough sketching at the start of spring break but threw it aside and only semi-finalised the lines on Friday.

"GIJINKA" homework part(b) - Okayama Prefecture! Like I was so what the.. of all things you give me a prefecture, kinda thing. Anyway, looked up Okayama and what its known for producing and some sources said fruits like Cantaloupes, grapes and white peaches. So I thought I'd so something of a prince theme. Drew that today! :D This is really one of my favorites :)

"White Day" homework. White day is a day in Japan (3/14) where the guys are supposed to reciprocate the girls choc-giving tradition on Valentines. So for this one, I drew.. okay you can see what it is! Didn't want to spend too much time drawing too elaborate a picture cos I'm really not quite up to that standard yet so I decided to just capture the girl's reaction. Semi did this during the hols and finalised yesterday.

"Hina Matsuri" (Doll's Festival) homework. It's a festival for the girls whereby families put up displays of Hina dolls and eat certain special foods like sushi rice, mochi and other stuff. I like baking and all so I decided to do a cake after seeing some pictures of special cakes for that occasion. Chose to do it in a kind of From the top view so I could spare myself from drawing the body.. hehe. Anything to save time! I don't have much of it anyways!

"GothicLoli" homework: Gothic Lolita is this outrageously popular fashion style in Japan. Having said that, not everyone dresses like that so don't get the wrong idea. Think Edwardian, Vicorian, over frilly, overlacey, black, white, red, throw in some fusion with punk or rock and hey presto! Welcome to Japan! Did this today! :D

Haha okay and the one that drew a lot of laughter from myself...

"Vesak Day" homework: STUPID TEACHER, was what I thought when I saw this one. I didn't want to draw Buddha, I mean who wants to right?! It had to include Buddha and some flowers so oh well, internalising the trait of anime to sensationalise things and to make viewers think a certain concept might be cool.. I did MR BUDDHA in a lotus enjoying the sunshine! HAHA. Oh man, he looks soooo comfortable. Some *friends* thought it looked erotic.. Haha. But I promise to cover him up properly so don't get the wrong idea!

Hurhur. Okay thats all folks :)

2009-04-02T20:00:00.004+08:00

So proud of my new Toshiba iron :D So pretty and it has a retractable cord, ingenius ain't that?

2009-03-31T23:10:00.002+08:00

Third week into spring break! It's the second last week and still little progress on homework! Woot. Everyone's leaving! Caro and Pablo and Jas and Nathalie have flown home today while I spent my afternoon and evening with Dione. Oh Sobs. My anime game pals Pab and Caro, you guys will be dearly missed especially everytime I discover a new super cool anime or game or when I get excited over Gashapon or the stuff in the UFO Catcher :( And Caro I will so super miss you I bet when school starts again my animation senpai :( Oh Jas, you have been one super duper Singaporean senpai who's just so fun to hang out with yet reserved enough to have a relaxing one-to-one conversation with. I'll really miss having you as a senpai I can talk to. And Nathalieeeee... I know I don't get to see you that often but somehow, I'm just glad for you that your parents came and you could really enjoy spending time with them in Japan and China, and all those nonsensical crazy moments and those over-the-top jokes where you made us rofl, yea, I'll not forget those. And oh Dione.. I can't believe it was our last day today, somehow it was really hard for me to realise that I'll never be able to spend time just talking bad about stupid Watanabe and all the stupid things in school, or seeing you around school and talking in English/ Singlish where nobody else understands. Haha, being with you really helped me to take a break from my surroundings and you have been very kind as a senior to me, thanks so much for all the help you've given me.

Well, sighs. Seniors have left and now we are the seniors. Somehow I don't really see the need to be emotionally involved in it all. It's really not the end of anything, just the start. I really wonder how this school year is going to start. I do have my hopes, but more importantly, I hope for the good of myself that I'd be able to keep my head in one piece to progress and grow in enthusiasm the path that the Lord has set out for me. To set my priorities in life right and knowing that some things (actually everything else) just aren't worth putting God in second place.

Okay okay, so what's been happening the past week and all? Let's put some numbers to them:

1. Started reading Manga again! :DD I'm glad my interest to read has seen a revival especially how hectic schoolwork had ironically destroyed my enthusiasm for it. Started on a new (old) series called Dragon Voice and am so swooning like a fangirl over the guys in there.

2. Discovery of *DRUMROLL* *DRUMROLL* *DRUMROLL*................... even more new recipes! In light of the new school year starting soon and a forecast of hectic school days to come, I have been on a search for easy no-fuss cheap yummy recipes and recipes good for cooking up in bulk and freezing. Also, not to mention recipes that will go EASY on the stomach as I foresee many a late night to come and resulting stomach troubles. And the search has been quite a fruitful (and yummy) one :D

Fruit smoothie recipes for hectic mornings when we have no time to prepare breakfast!! Throw in strawberries, yogurt and other fruit into the blender, whir, and instant stomach filling breakfast that's good for your health. I intend to buy lots of fruits and freeze them in drinkable portions in separate ziplock bags and pull one up every morning. All I need to do is get a blender from Amazon...

Tzatziki Sauce! This is one very clever recipe! It tastes almost identical to sourcream but so much cheaper because its made of yogurt! So economically friendly and stomach friendly too, esp if you use low-fat yogurt. Strain yogurt through coffee filters to get a firmer yogurt, mix with salt, black pepper, lemon juice, garlic and leave to mellow in the fridge and hey presto! Wonderful sourcream like dip that goes great with veggie sticks, chips, breadsticks, or as a sauce in sandwiches!! :D So yummy

And the newest that sounds promising but have yet to try (will try soon though am so excited.. haha) Tofu burgers!!! Veggie burgers def sound cool to me because I don't have to deal with stinky meat that expires fast, rots in your digestive tract (haha) and a pain to clean up after. Not to mention all that grease that seeps out from the ground meat patties, gross. Anyway, the genius behind veggie burgers? Contains proteins from the main ingredient: either beans or tofu so I don't have to worry about my protein intake if I don't take meat. A lot healthier to make, and since you can make patties out of them, you can go ahead and make a bulk at one go and freeze them to pull 'em out on school days for a quick sandwich to make for sch or a quick dinner item.

Lastly, I hope to be able on the weekends to make lots of Roomali Roti dough and fry the rotis up and freeze them so I can defroze them on a school day to use as wraps for sandwiches. I can see this perfect plan all coming together now... bwahaha.. Sandwich wrap, check. Burger, check. Sauce, check. Hahahaahaaaa... now I just need some of the sandwich veggies and I've got it all set.

Also, am trying out a new way of doing things in the kitchen in hope of speeding things up and reducing the weekday hassle over meal prep. I have been washing all my vegetables and fruits immediately after I buy them and storing them in ziplock bags so I can pull them out straight and cook immediately. Despite that, certain veggies still need to be cut upon usage, like onions and tomatos (can't imagine precutting them) but I think this might help when it comes to the leafy veggies.

Haha okay, so many reforms in the meal department but as for the animation dept I can't say the same. Haha. I think I have been stressing myself out too much the last year worrying about homework and deadlines I think I really need a break from it all so that I can continue working on my course in sanity. I decided I think it's important to sustain your interest in anime and games and what really made you enjoy animation in the first place otherwise there would be no meaning in doing anime. And then, I decided that it's important and only right that I be who I am in my natural state even if it means that I may seem antisocial running home everyday and usually refusing to hang out with people on weekdays because there's school the next day and frankly I really love playing games and reading manga on my own time rather than waste time on shallow conversations or tiring myself out with company. It's really who I am, not that I don't like people. Yea, who's to care about all these distractions of irritatingly bothersome people who can't leave me alone around me and the down right mean over-dishing out of hw all the time? It really isn't worth losing more years of my life over things like these. I'm really just going to be who I am and honor God as I think fit. And I pray that God would guide me and show me the clear path I need to walk, to give me the strength and soundness of mind to deal with temptations and grant me the endurance during the grueling moments, especially when there's nobody around to confide in.

Wow, it sure isn't going to be all flowers and sunshine on the road ahead, but I'm not alone. I hope I never forget how to relax (so important.....).

2009-03-17T00:41:00.002+08:00

ONE WEEK has passed since Spring break started and I'm slightly amazed-cum-slightly horrified that I have been willingly and conveniently shoving aside the ton of homework dished out to us even more conveniently by the teachers. Anyway, I think this past one week has seen some progress in destressifying the self. A lot of the friends I hang out with here or appreciate hanging out with are seniors leaving for home at the end of this month so with the holidays here, what better excuse than to spend lots of time just having fun in spending time with them before they go back.

That coupled with the fact that it does get rather lonely at times living in such a spacious apartment gave me a very good excuse to 'throw' a party for my senior friends today. It's my first time really planning for a party even though it was just for 5 people and I couldn't stop worrying myself whether the food would be enough. I kept thinking it wouldn't be and kept rearranging all the different combinations of foods I could make and thinking up a menu I could go with. Which all in the end burned down to over-thinking. I planned a menu with like a starter of snacks in the form of crackers and hard toast and veggie sticks with dips, the main of wraps with toppings like veggies, ham, egg mayo and tuna mayo, an extra snack (since people are always more interested in snacking at parties) of popcorn and chocolate cake as desert. And everyone was full after the wraps we had to bypass the popcorn! I even thought it was missing a hearty dish and was even contemplating a soup or curry. This is so funny. But all in all I think I did learn some things about party planning:

1. Foods that your guests are not accustomed to eating on regular basis will not be popular. Even if you might think they taste pretty good. I guess people are just not very adventurous on average. I made an avocado dip I thought went pretty well with the crackers and basically I felt I was the only one tucking into it. My guests weren't serial consumers of tuna or thousand island (some not even knowing what thousand isle was) so there were a lot of leftovers of those. Foods like the egg mayo and ham, foods common to us everyday were devoured though.

2. When buying drinks, buy a KNOWN brand. Haha. I say this because I bought a bottle of 'Cola' that wasn't Coke and NOBODY opened it. I think they were scared to try it.

3. Everybody has a sweet tooth so there's ALWAYS room for dessert. When full, people will reject snacks and fruit but where there's chocolate cake or brownies, they will find the space to fit 'em in.

Anyway, for the wraps, I used this recipe titled "Roomali Roti" on allrecipes.com and it was exactly like the Roti Prata they sell frozen at the supermarket! I'm sure it was missing the fatty ingredient that makes Roti Prata taste like Roti Prata, which I think is ghee, because they tasted a lot less flavourful, but other than that THEY WERE EXACTLY THE SAME. So yay, I made Roti Prata and I can make it everytime I eat curry from now one :D One more option to rice and bread. And it was so simple to make. The dough only needed 45 minutes of resting before shaping rolling and frying in the pan.

Then for the chocolate cake, I actually tried out this Chocolate Mayo Cake recipe, also from the same site. Mayo was like the highlight of today's menu. I had bought the large size Mayo bottle and was planning to make full use of it. When you can buy a lot of something cheaply it's always more cost effective to include recipes and that make use of it in your menu isn't it? So tuna mayo, egg mayo, thousand isle (which is actually a combination of ketchup and mayo) and of course, we have to have the Mayo cake shouldn't we?

Apparently, this cake has a bit of history dating back to the Depression where mothers baked this for their children when eggs and the like were very expensive (and mayo wasn't? oh well...). In the gist of it, instead of eggs and the oil component in cakes mayo is used in place. And when it baked up and I tasted it, I wouldn't have been able to tell it had mayo in it. It tasted like a chocolate cake! Which was a surprise and a relief because that meant it was edible and my guests would eat it and I didn't have to throw it away.

It was such a fun and I wouldn't have been able to imagine before that it would've been just that holding a party for people to fill up space in my house, eat the food I cooked, play and be completely undisturbed by my washing up and making sure everything was in its place. Even though some might say its as though nobody cared as long as they had free food and someone's house to bum around at, I was just contented to cook all those different recipes, even springing up those new untried recipes that some of them didn't try (maybe because that meant I got to try all sorts of different foods too), and to clean up after everyone(maybe because I'm so used to washing up) and having them completely ignore me while I did the work I had to do. Maybe I just enjoyed being busy doing something and being distracted from the food rather than just sitting at the table and chuck everything down and get really stuff in the middle of it all (maybe thats why they got so full so soon?). Haha.

Anyway, all in all, this was really an experience in itself and this won't be the last time I throw a party. Hopefully more adventurous and cooperative friends will be more gracious to leave me with fewer leftovers in the future.

2009-02-15T01:01:00.002+08:00

It is 2.05am 15th Feb, my birthday, hehe.

Some people might think its very SAD to not celebrate your own birthday but I guess I kind of accepted the situation I'm in already. Anyway, thinking I might not have the time for celebration today thought I'd at least blog to 'commemorate' what little memory I might have of today.

Hmm. I'm going to stay up to try and get my storyboard done for this story our teacher gave us about this woodcutter who finds a wounded crane in the forest. It's due on Monday and I've only done about 30 pages, which is slightly less than the half way mark, which is also why I don't think I will have the time to do anything tomorrow.

Anyway, what I particularly remember about this week was.. Friday! The 13th! I spent the whole of Thursday night decorating the sugar cut out cookies I baked and wrapping all the cookies. I lost a lot of sleep over that and while I was doing all that I really wondered whether there was something wrong with my brain for baking so many cookies. But in the end I was happy I did because when I went to school a lot of the girls brought cookies and cake and chocolates to give away so I had something to give in return. To backtrack on my baking history for the week, I baked banana choc chip muffins on Sunday and froze them, baked most of the cut out cookies on Wednesday and one batch of chocolate crinkle cookies (they taste exactly like brownies and have a really professional looking crinkled look but are real easy to make!). I bought a rabbit cookie cutter just for those cut out cookies and I realise how much work cut out cookies are to make! The dough has to be chilled to be firm enough to roll out, gets soft and sticky easily, and you can't bake too many at one go. So it took a lot of time just to finish baking all that dough, but they tasted nice annd buttery when done plus they were in cute rabbit shapes :). Okay and then on Thursday evening, I baked up the rest of the existing dough. Decided to frost the cut out cookies so I made a frosting, and with colored chocolate rice and chocolate icing pen I decorated the top of all the cut out cookies (There were so many!)

Okay so besides being all happily hyped over the giving and receiving of baked goods in class on Friday, I kind of enjoyed class and the teachers (weird way of saying but..). Had a really long talk with my Brazilian friend during lunchbreak about old cartoons and shows like Mighty Max and Scooby Doo and Batman and about European languages that made me really feel like studying some of them! He devoured the banana muffins (yes I thought they tasted deliciously banana-y too so I really wanted them to taste them too!)! The teacher we have on Friday mornings loves talking to him about European countries and stuff there like scenery and buildings and just stuff basically related to things like that. It's the same teacher who corrected the waves and stream for me, the same teacher I aspire to be if I could. His name is Hane sensei and I will promptly refer to him by that name from now for convenience. Anyway, I asked what they talked about and he told me the sensei loves Europe and has gone there a few times and he bikes to get around. And I thought wow, still so genki at this age! Haha.

Anyway, funny thing was, Hane sensei returned me my stream animation in class that day and somehow later during class, this guy from the Netherlands came to look-see (he was accompanied by a few of the sch staff) and Hane sensei wanted to show how the foreign students were coping with our work so he asked me back for the stream so he could have it run through the quickchecker for them to watch. Personally, I just find that there are some things not quite fanciful with the movement but the sensei had to say he thought it was good and he gave me an A for it. SENSEI! SHHH.

Speaking of Hane sensei, I gave him some cookies during breaktime and he asked me if they were manjyuu (japanese sweet pau) and I was like I'm really sorry, but I don't know how to make manjyuu. Haha. He seemed to be really nice that day, I was trying to understand the concept of the dog's skeletal structure on paper and he gave me some points even though I hadn't asked him anything. He even drew out some pictures for me which were pretty helpful. Actually, since the week when I openly said during Kinoshita sensei's class (the other movement teacher we have on the same day who happens to be really good buddies with Hane sensei) I aspire to be like Hane sensei, I've been getting some vibes that Hane sensei KNOWS. And that might be why he seems (I think!) to be a lot friendlier than what I remember. Which to me feels rather awkward, I really kind of wish he didn't know. Kinoshita sensei is such a siren!

Speaking of which, I'm still stuck doing his storyboard for the animation he wanted us to make; the one where I'm supposed to make the camera revolve a full circle around a guy serving tennis, which is so crappily hard. Again I wonder whats wrong with me for choosing such a difficult movement. Even a forehand would have been a lot easier even though tennis in general is prob really hard to do. I bought a tennis magazine a few weeks ago that had shots of tennis players movement meant for image training so that day I decided I'd really study the serve before I started drawing because I still couldn't visualise in 3D where each part was supposed to be at. I took notes too. Good thing the sensei was busy with something else and wasn' t there more than half the time as somehow I feel I can't concentrate with him walking around and peeping over my back. He is such a distraction!

Anyway, I had to pop off to the toilet at some point and when I returned, Horrors! The both of them were standing around my seat! I wondered what they were nosying at and Hane sensei started asking me what I was drawing, because he seemed to have noticed the tennis magazine there. He had to mention that he thought the magazine was really good material (he's so into collecting material useful for visualising movement and for designs). He previously asked whether I knew who Nishikori Kei was, and I realised after some checking up that he's the new Japanese tennis star who is said to have the potential to make it to the top 10. And he happened to be on the cover for that issue. Anyway, I felt kinda embarrassed they were there because my storyboard (also known in JApanese as an 'E Conte' no its not french) is so completely sucky and not near completion. I previously caught Kinoshita sensei looking through my Croquis book which wasn't even the one I use for Croquis, it was supposed to be for Mosha (where I look at existing images and try to duplicate them). And he was daringly sitting on my seat and flipping away without telling me anything! Sneaky! Keep your paws off my Croquis sensei! Haha. Maybe I should be happy he at least looked a bit because he's the one who tells us to draw lots of Croquis (like ten pages a day during winterbreak, hellooo?) and never asks to look at them.

Kinoshita sensei had to give us another one of his speeches just before class ended that day and he asked us how many of us were actually thinking of looking for jobs in the studio because lots of people didn't really seem to be serious with their work and I guess he was wondering whether they weren't that serious about it all. I guess the crux of his speech that day was that he wanted to tell us to be more decisive and to actually think about things and more importantly decide and make our own conclusions. It is okay to still be in the midst of deciding what we want to do but he said, we will really have to make our decision after summerbreak in our second year. Not only is time wasted when we can't decide whether we want to do something and therefore not put in effort during class, but its also troublesome for the teachers and for people in the studios because when the students can't decide they tend to drag their feet and not follow through properly and everyone's time and effort is being wasted. He had to add that he used to be like that until an experience changed the way he taught. He asked us to guess what it was (and no it wasn't a life-threatening situation) and he said it was something that all of us were going to experience in time to come. Nobody could be bothered to guess, haha, not surprisingly I know I wouldn't have been able to guessed it either, but he said in the end, it was about Love relationships. And I was like... Hmmmmmm... I see, kinda thing. Interesting. And he told us to write down what we think were our strengths and weaknesses and ask our friends to evaluate them casually, which I thought was another interesting part of his speech. He said at the place where he used to work part-time, the boss had told him to do the same and when he showed the boss, he said he felt his weaknesses were his strengths and what he thought were his strengths were his weaknesses. Hmmm... Interesting. I always think Kinoshita sensei's speeches are interesting and always impart some important points. Even though I'd say that everyody thinks different and lives by their philosophy I like how he's someone who thinks about things and shares about his experiences. I mean, how many japanese people are willing to tell you what they REALLY think?

(It's 3.30am now!)
Okay! So that was Friday! Can't believe I long-winded Friday now I have no time and energy to talk about anything else. Let's see.. (in summary)

1. I bought a Chocolate Fondue set a few days ago! I think it's really cute, it's red and comes with everything, candles, piercing forks, spatula, and even 2 bars of milk chocolate! I invited a friend the other day and we had chocolate fondue! But I realise I don't like eating fruit with chocolate! And it's way heaty and unhealthy eating so much chocolate at one go. Terrible for health. Maybe I should try eating something healthier with the set. I really like the idea of whatevers in the pot being kept nice and warm over a candle flame. Maybe I can try eating warm oatmeal or wheatbix with fruit, haha, while watching TV! Keeps the mixture warm while I eat intermittently! Haha! Lame! Sorry! But will try one of these days probably, before the weather turns warmer.

2. Had another friend over for dinner and desert today! She's also Singaporean and studies in the same course. But she's graduating soon and going back to sg, boohoo. She's prob the only one I can talk to about what happens in class because she knows the teachers too and she's also studying Animation, while the rest of the peeps I know who speak English prob wont have the patience to listen to me talking about what funny things the senseis did. She bought cake and they tasted so heavenly good! Nothing like the cream cakes in Singapore! In fact you can't begin to compare because they're completely on a different level. She bought them at a shop near school so we agreed we'd go buy cake together after school one of these days and enjoy our cake! Yay!

3. After chocolate fondue, I decided my eating habits have been getting way out of hand and I need to control them better. Which is actually hard to, because eating out of anxiety is just such a naturally human thing to do and you can't not eat when you're with company because they'd feel weird and then there wouldn't be anything to talk about. Plus, you just tend to eat more when you live alone precisely because there's no one else to eat the leftovers! Pah! Let's manage ourselves better! Poor digestive system, just hang on there a coupla weeks more and I promise I will eat good properly healthy meals three times a day, exercise, and drink lots of water T.T

Okay it's 3.50am! Horrors, and still left with more than half of the E Conte and a very full stomach from dinner and cake. Going to take a nap and wake up and hopefully work on my E Conte. Oh yea it's my birthday, haha. zZZz!

2009-02-07T18:34:00.003+08:00

I think this week ended off really lazily; I feel like I've been slacking off towards the end. I started Sunday and Monday night sleeping only 6 hrs in total trying to finish this illustration on Photoshop that was supposed to be due Monday. Next time I'm not going to care and just submit it within the week since there doesn't seem to be any problem even if we go over the deadline.

TUESDAY
Anyway, it wasn't so smart to deprive the body of sleep because I woke up Tuesday morning with my head spinning (and I REALLY mean spinning) and I had to put myself back into bed as it would've been too dangerous to go to school in that state. So I went to school late on Tuesday, in time for the second half of lessons. We had to draw our bedroom, in proper perspective and proportion and draw in two people -one sitting one standing. Well, I sleep in the living room so, I can't really remember the no. of tatami mats made up the floor size (they measure floorspace by tatami mats in Japan). I know the two bedrooms are 5.5 and 6 in the apartment I live but the living room.. Ah well, decided to heck it and go by feeling and the rough draft I did the night before:

WEDNESDAY
Wednesday sketching class, the teacher had a bench dragged into the classroom and made us draw people doing stuff sitting on the bench. He would have us draw one person at a time to make up a complete scene. Like for the first drawing, he put on a spiderman mask and sat at one end holding up a pen and for the second part he had another guy sit at the other end with his mouth open (like he was gonna eat the pen). Most unfortunately I had to go pose cos my name was drawn and I had a guy classmate lie on my lap (!) not literally of course. The teacher gave me a katana and said I could choose between wanting to kill him or protect him, like a bnodyguard. Anyway, second half of the day, we finished watching the remaining bit of The Magnificient Seven, I know it already sounds trashy and some people might say the same too. It's a American movie with a plot based on and mostly almost copied from The Seven Samurai but I kinda liked it! I think its my first proper Cowboy movie I watched and I kinda liked watching what cowboys looked like on screen. The teacher also gave back the results from this test we did like last year.. its the kind they might make you do when you apply for a job. It's got general knowledge questions, math, english, japanese lang and this essay you had to write. And I really can't believe I got an A for it, in spite of writing it in my less than perfect Japanese. I think its incredible, they read the entire essay sectioning it commenting on anything that should be or shouldn't be in there. I was kinda surprised but, I think that made me wake up to the fact that knowing how to speak and write properly in order to convey your thoughts is important, even if there weren't any tests for it. Have been feeling recently like I've been lazying the language cos I couldn't be othered to and suddenly realise that I couldn't remember a lot of words. Okay anyway, after that, the teacher started giving his lecture and he's the one we can't stay awake listening to even if out lives were at stake. So I started drawing, beats doing nothing really (yea, its not finished):

THURSDAY
Then Thursday was totally unproductive. I was late for class and not knowing how to get started on our background assignment I practically almost left the whole canvas blank (on photoshop). Instead, my classmate from Brazil ended up explaining to me how you start by deciding on the color of the sky and determine what color the buildings will be based on the kind of light that falls on them. Color just completely escapes me at this point of time. He recommended this tutorial which is totally the bomb: http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_2/return_fire-escape/return-fire_escape_01.asp This guy has vision and impeccable knowledge of colors and perpective. He knows which lines are the important ones which you can see makes a picture look so real without having to touch it up. The sky's the limit.

FRIDAY
And on friday (yesterday), I was still trying to finish my stream animation (a mountain stream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CZgKyoizT8&feature=PlayList&p=A7AE4C2C788E9A12&index=0 a bit like this I guess) that my teacher helped me out correcting the day before. His class was just next door. When I checked it with the computer (using this program called Quickchecker) I realised for the second time how incredible he is as an animator. He makes the bits of reflection on moving water look like they're melting into a new shape that so makes it look like the kind of moving water you'd see in a stream. Out of his hands come life, like seriously. I'm just wowed everytime. Anyway, managed to hand that in, but haven't yet started on the dog walking which I wont have time to do in class anymore since he just started on dog running. Looks like I'll have to complete it during springbreak.

Anyway, during afternoon class, we practically didn't have class when the teacher came in and gave us a long speech in another attempt to wake us up from our daze. Apparently our senpais have been giving the school a bad name, how they get hired and quit within a few months, not bothering to go to interviews and not declining job offers until the last minute. He said quite a lot of important things but I really had to go to the toilet. He went on and on for like 1 hr 20 minutes until he finally remembered to give us a break. Anyway, he wanted us to know that you don't get hired and quit within 1 - 3 months saying its not your cup of tea. He said you wouldn't know until you've been there 3 years, or if the job is tough, at least 5. At this rate, he said there'd really be nothing to expect from this generation of animators, since there'd be so few people rising to the top. He wanted us to know that we have to work hard, not dreading at it but working at it, and there'd be people who're out to bully you just to see how long you'd last. In the world of grown ups people get pushed around and there are always people who would take advantage of you at any opportunity there'd be, so he said, you have got to know how to bear it and carry on (such a japanese thing). And then he said, there are two types of 'working hard' of which are separated by one factor: Stamina. Stamina will allow you to bring the fruits of your hard hard labor a step further and allows you to keep going on. Without, you can only achieve that much with your hard work and that would be all that you'd be capable of doing.

Well he talked a looootttt.. and then he made us tell him our vision for the future. And I had to start. And he said don't tell me your dream is to stand atop the merlion and scream (like what's with the Japanese and the merlion?). Finally decided I'd say I wanted to be a really good pro. And he said like what. So I said I wanted to be like that teacher (the one who drew the waves and stream) because I could feel something everytime he drew and I wanted to be like that. He's actually quite good friends with that teacher so I kind of wondered if he told him (he was teaching the class next door again). Apparently he used to have a fanclub full of high school girls but he wasn't interested in all that stuff then. Haha.

If I wrote everything that was said down I'd never see the end of this post. Something seems to happen everyday even when nothing happens, which is interesting I guess. I wonder though whats going to happen next year when we start job hunting. That's gonna open a whole new chapter to living here. Guess I better do something now, it's 10.20pm already.

2009-01-30T20:39:00.002+08:00

It is Friday night, ONE week from when our year end projects were due. It does seem longer than that, those days of toil seem so far and forgotten probably since they're too painful and tiresome a memory. I think the start of this week sparked a changed of direction in my thoughts. Monday morning lesson I listened to my teacher talk about the inefficiencies and unfairness in Japanese anime studios when my Brazilian classmate and friend brought up the fact that animators in America get paid so much more than in Japan. In fact, another friend of mine added that even a TV extras get paid more. What I remembered from his reply was, basically, nothing has changed since the Edo era. And I thought, how very true that was. The rich and those in authority are still corrupt, if not in entirety living lives in which corruption is a tradition, siphoning off money so the poor remain poor. The director gets the most money while the ones at the end get peanuts, struggling to pay off bills and the rent. It is rather strange, is it not, that in this time and period no laws have been set in place to protect such a group of people or no unions have even been formed to fight for any rights. What I make of it all is that the abused remained abused living lives of ignorance and when they finally make it out of the hole they in turn abuse the next generation thinking its all supposed to be the natural way of life. And why, perhaps because it is all a ploy of the government and those in authority to nurture a society that DOES NOT THINK, and therefore, do not know how to retaliate or speak out when the odds are against them. What I observe is INDIFFERENCE, to right and wrong, to beings other than the self and the meaning of things, one of which more importantly is Life itself.

Okay now that I've spat that all out and wash myself of thinking of these faceless beings, let me move on in topic. I never fail to always question myself the meaning of being here and studying what I study now. And it seems now that my eyes and thoughts are on something else, more than about meeting deadlines for assignments and feeling the dire need to improve. It's like I'm looking for something and it does not lie in school or what it provides for me. It's like I'm waiting to realise what I am here for and at the moment I haven't yet met with what or who I'm supposed to meet.

Okay anyway, side stepping those thoughts again, besides that interesting little talk with the teacher on Monday (you rarely hear a Japanese with opinions as noble as his - if there was a teacher whose words you could trust I'd think it'd be him) a teacher who works with us on moving objects, like the expression of wind or moving water and animals just really moved me with.. I don't know.. with just who he was. I had asked him to check my animation on waves and while he sat down correcting the movement he pointed at one point to one of the bends in a wave and said it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He said, these things don't appear out of nowhere, "the shape has to be given birth". Those words just came right out and pounded on my heart. It was like a sneak attack and I took a heavy blow. I really felt the weight of those words. And while I watched him patiently erase my lines, correct and put in some color to differentiate the bends, every one of those 14 pages, I watched him "give birth" to a wave and give it life across each page, as though it were a child and finally towards the end of the last page where it disappeared out of the frame, as though he was sending it off after its journey to where it had to go. As though he was finishing his journey with the wave. I was so touched just to watch him scribble. Because I sensed that with every line he put on the paper was a sense of responsibility to the shape he was giving birth to. Every line had weight and was given life. He could have just told me straight in just a few sentences what exactly looked wrong with my animation or correct just a few lines to give me an idea but what he did was sit out through the entire thing correcting it in entirety. I almost felt slightly close to tears when he got to page 13 and seeing this slight bump that was supposed to be a wave I placed in there that seemed to appear suddenly, he gave it more shape and colored it in a different color, then realising he had to give meaning to it, he went back again through all the pages a second time to plot out its life until page 13, meaning he had to erase and redraw in part what he had drawn out until then. And he did so without uttering an extra word or complaint, and he didn't do what I thought was the obvious - erasing away that extra bump. Instead, it seemed like he was trying to give meaning to what we had tried to make of the waves, he was trying to justify them rather than setting an absolute standard of what was right or wrong. It was there and than I felt like there was a strong pillar supporting me and propping me up. This is probably the first time I've been so awed by someone firsthand. Just watching him draw for one hour, I felt like I got to know more about his character. You know people rarely like to display care and concern outright and I guess he's the same but how in the act of drawing can exude such warmth really was quite an experience in itself. If it's close to anybody I want to be like, I would hope to be someone like him.

2009-01-07T22:53:00.005+08:00

Somehow just before I hopped into bed (or sofa) last night I suddenly found some excitement in going to school today. Probably hoping that being surrounded with classmates would give me more drive to do what I had to do. The first half of the day was sketching class and the sensei started off with the usual croquis. In his attempt to jerk the class back into focus he reduced the time from the usual 4-5minutes to 2min30sec and made some classmates do some radical poses in a bid to spark our interest perhaps.

I think the 1 minute speed drawings on posemaniacs.com has quite helped to imprint through my thick skull how fast I have to draw and which details are more crucial to be drawn in and others to be left out within a certain amount of time. I guess when you've worked at 1 minute 4~5 minutes seems like pssh. Most of all, it helped me keep my fingers and brain on the go cos one thing I realised about drawing is that its like a clock that resets itself to zero when you sleep and when you start a new day anything could happen. So doing croquis everyday and not just once a day but a few times at least would I guess keep your brain from forgetting the feeling of sensing the lines and perspective.

Anyway, at the second half of the class, the sensei asked us to form groups and draw our friends' faces, each facing front, left and right. And then he showed us how to express lighting. He even did one where the light source came from the bottom, and if you can imagine, sort of turns a person's face slightly scary, as though they had some evil intention or telling a ghost story.

Some pictures I took from my current croquis books:

(In class today)

(In class today) Sensei helped me do the one above, where the lighting is from the bottom. Kinda hiliarious.

(Second half of school today) What happens when you can't find someone to draw for croquis...

(During winter break) Those 1 minute things on posemaniac.. give it a go.

(Winter break) Did some hands too... basically anything see in front of you can be done for croquis.

(1/5 After New Year Party) Courtesy of Changyang. Tired junior from the hostel I used to stay at who volunteered to pose.

(1/5 After New Year Party wee hours of the night) Courtesy of Monica and Mita. Had no space on my book..

That's it for now.. I know I will regret posting these up some day though.

2009-01-06T22:55:00.002+08:00

Wah, I can't believe I'm actually back here on my very underutilised blog after what, a year or so of absence? I think my English has really gone wayyy down the drain after being here for so long and speaking almost close to nothing but Japanese everyday. Sometimes I even forget the words I want to say or even how to structure a sentence (SCARY!).

Hmmm. Thoughts... I don't know what to say or how to begin. Just so many things have happened and are happening. Overall morale at the moment is well... not very cheerful to say the least. Downcast skies and a gloomy forecast for the near future, a downtrodden spirit, close to fallen warrior. Haha.. Why am I such a sad existence. The more I draw or dwelve into the artistic realm it seems as though I get further away from what I try to grasp. Why does it feel like such a forlorn relationship? Strange.

Anyway, it's the night of the last day of winter break. I'll have to wake up at 6.30am tomorrow morning to go to school. Thus the madness will start again and so will depression, probably. However hard I try to do my homework it always takes such a long time, not to mention not being able to achieve the results I try to work towards. Maybe its just Art? But, it does feel like its killing me, a little everyday.

Hmmm, anyway, not much time to elaborate further I guess. Have got quite some things due tomorrow and haven't quite completed yet. Hopefully, I will update again soon and will be able to add more description to my puny little situation now.

To anyone who reads this, thanks for reading. After all this time of keeping quiet, thanks for bothering to even check.

2008-03-29T01:11:00.000+08:00

The slightly more than 3 weeks I've spent back home in sg so far I've met up with some friends, people who would bother come see me since basically, I couldn't bother to go look for people, really. A rather sluggish habit but seriously, I don't care. The remaining 9/10 of the time... let's see... I worked on re-establishing a decent relationship with the PS2, finding no better an excuse to stay up those late nights again, Pssh I'm on holiday anyways. Then the weekends go to the brother since I only get to see him then. We went to Botak Jones which really does serve up good quality food, we watched V for Vendetta on dvd (interesting :)), then for no reason really I patronised the ice cream man who passes by our house on sundays, 4pm (he's never late!) and I made my brother have some ice cream too. We exchanged some 'gifts', some 'peace offerings', so now the green Cactuar plushie's sitting in his display cabinet and I've got an extra action figure - Cloud Strife FFVII to bring back with me to my alone apartment.

Anyway, aside from the things people have been telling me: You look fairer, your complexion has become better, You look the same, You never changed, you haven't put on extra weight, I know the 'me' that grew up in sg still remains very much intact which is probably why people say they think I've not changed at all, I don't think I have either, but I know something that's changed and its perspective. I think logically anybody would be able to understand that being immersed in a different environment from the previous one is definitely going to let you see the same images in a different light. I'm just experiencing it firsthand.

One of these experiences was when I looked through my old drawings, stuff I did actually had pride in and kept throughout the years even though they weren't many and I would take them out once in a while to have a look again. I know I've been taking them out time and again probably not frequent enough for me to get tired of them yet still for some reason I still experience just a slight tinge of nostalgia and a wee bit of fascination at the art (if we can even call them that) I call my drawings. Anyway, this time round, what surprised me when I looked at them again was how much potential I began to see in those drawings I made as a kid. I thought, How different my life would be if I were to be sent to study Anime in Japan at that time! Why I might've become a regular Japanese kid, and by this time or a few more years to come I'd be finding it commonplace to be a Mangaka's assistant or finding a job at a studio. I would've thrived, I thought.

Taking that walk down memory lane, and examining every so often the kind of person I am, I've come to believe that a lot, if not most of the person I am today was shaped by Anime. I wonder how then could I feel that kind of comfort when being in Japan, it was like returning to my own element, yet I know that it isn't home. And whilst being in sg, although I grew up here, the kind of understanding I hope for can never be achieved.

Oh yea, I remember the pains of growing up and going to school. Why have I started feeling now that I've been misplaced? When I was in the netball team in sec school, our team had reached the finals and as it was quite commonplace for classmates to say "Hey you guys are gonna win right?" I said "Yeaaaa! We'll win alright!" Next instant I was crying at the finals ground because my team mate who also was from the same class said it was non other than a sign of complacency and "You're not even playing anyway."

Then again, I'm not saying Japan's my home either. How can you expect to be warmly welcomed in a place you didn't grow up in, and therefore cannot understand to the very depths? Yet I know I can't remain in a place which I do not understand or agree with in its concepts and way of life. I began viewing myself as striking similarities to Kino, from Kino's Travels, who would travel on her motorrad staying not more than a few days in each town she passed, witnessing the lives of different people yet not participating in them or passing judgment, just enough time to stay for a while and hop back on her motarrad to continue her neverending journey. Though I wonder if I could accurately see myself as a traveller since it's only been sg or Japan.

I remember telling a friend over ice cream last week, there is a kind of freedom from being in a place where nobody knows you. It might not make sense but, this freedom from detachment I think was what made me feel whilst I was in the car one day looking out the window and seeing this maid walking side by side a primary school kid while carrying her bag, that this image was strangely reminding me of the Entourages in Ergo Proxy! Whom their owners depend on for every single aspect of their lifestyles such that when the Entourages broke down or went insane, there was no chance of them returning to their once orderly lifestyles. And what has that got to do with freedom from detachment? It's because I know I wouldn't have been able to see things that way whilst I was still in sg; tell me who didn't grow up with a maid?! (I mean absolutely no offense to anyone) And then, even though I felt like I wasn't a part of where I was, I was still a part of it, in contrast of being able to detach myself somewhat now and watching the 'me' I was or the environment within the confines of myself and not a myself immersed in the environment.

I realise also that when watching shows, films, animes whatever now, I find somehow that I've become able to enjoy the process first, whilst almost leaving for granted the afterthoughts and significances that manage to come by quite naturally thereafter. I find the film connects and knowing why it connects, making it good (even though good is a subjective word).

I wonder if I can call those days behind me. Instances where I watch a film and find I didn't like it when it was still playing because of elements I felt were "too unrealistic" and "dumb", or times of restlessness when things I define as symbols I pull out from the pictures overcloud any other vision. Or when I totally don't see anything, which I believe btw, is symptomous of looking at a scene and not even being able to make any sort of vague deduction of how it might be related to the whole picture, hence the eye sees each scene at face value and not registering in the brain. They do seem a bit rarer now.

Hmm, I think, maybe I've learnt to build things up, not tear them down, learning to see why things are good and how it should be praised, not the things that it isn't and therefore why it isn't good enough. Really, how I could even feel for a moment that there was something special in me which produced those pictures and could POSSIBLY eventually become something big, escapes me since I have a rather lousy impression of myself.

2008-01-06T00:12:00.001+08:00

The fact that I have only 6,000yen left from my supposed 40,000yen self-declared monthly allowance just hit home today when I realised the scarcity of notes in my bankbook holder. I have stopped using a wallet and been shoving all my notes, receipts, notification of impunctuality (haha, from the train station when the trains are late. I need to collect them when I go to school), point cards and misc other &^*#$%^ in there. I suppose its time to get a proper wallet... hmmm... Burberry might be good... And there you go, the reason why I only have 6,000yen left now. That nasty spurt of over indulgence that started probably once the christmas mood kicked in is starting to be very inconvenient indeed. I know I really can't help the New Year sales and bill payments and gifts and souvenirs and seasonal necessities but I wished I could've pulled the reins on my expenditure a bit better. Yeesh.

It might be the influence from the highly consumeristic nature of the Japanese society, everything they can possibly materialise into a sellable product they have gone ahead to do so and any possible gimmick they can pull out of the hat to make sales better they have executed, I have noticed especially recently, that my spending nature has become increasingly independent of any scarce rational thinking. Bye-bye to 7,000yen at the Jump Festa because I felt I couldn't walk away empty handed and making excuses that I should get souvenirs for other people. Not that I regretted spending on them, but the process of parting with my cash without proper consideration bugs me. 15,000yen on New Year sales shopping, I'd say it again, not that I didn't need the clothes I bought, I kinda like them, but then again you see, I only KINDA liked them and so bought them, not carefully considering the fact I am spending money that I receive by God's good grace.

But I think just to sum the 2 weeks of frivolous spending up, I was granted the opportunity of going to the Ghibli Museum today, because a classmate had mistakenly bought tickets at an unfavourable time and thus generously gave them to a few of us. Before I left the night before, I kind of pondered for a while, what the museum might be like, in terms of importance of holding to their beliefs and inspirations. In other words, I was wondering whether it'd be a place they try to sell themselves to consumers who go to the museum expecting to see a good show, buy tonnes of goods of Totoro and leave without the slightest impression being etched in their hearts about what the studio strongly believes and holds to which translates into their work.

I guess I was rather disappointed to see the hustle and bustle of the crowd, that wasn't very big, thank goodness the tickets separated entry according to time period that limited the numbers inside a little. The general behaviour of the crowd, in my opinion, somewhat lacked basic mannerisms say, not to push or block other people's paths. The big turnout at the Cat bus area meant only for kids with tonnes of parents just scrambling to get their children there. Yes I know Miyazaki meant to include kids when he had this museum in mind, but I just felt that the whole atmosphere was somewhat being (and what the Japanese would say Shouganai (cannot help it)) bastardised. I guess it felt like an idealistic notion in stark contrast to the obvious reality of things.

I left with mixed feelings, probably. On one hand just hating the taste of consumerism in the air but still when one managed to ignore it for a while (rather and highly impossible amidst the crowd) and focus on the surprisingly simple yet pure and honest animations and drawings, one can't help but feel that the essence of Ghibli's good will towards their cause is contained within the very sheets of cels or film joined to run smoothly into a piece of animation that overall never lacks the ability to touch the heart of a person of any age.

It really isn't easy living in Japan, I mean, living a life of integrity. I left with the feeling that to become an animator of such a studio, knowing full well what you're working for, what you want to accomplish and using all means to execute that piece of work in hope that those good intentions might reach through to the people on the other end, you've got to leave behind this materialistic world that skims only the surface for higher planes.

P.S If you got confused at the first para, no, I did not buy a Burberry wallet. I can afford one but no, I didn't buy one and thank goodness at that!

2007-12-22T21:04:00.000+08:00

One of those rare visits again to the blog. Decided I'd like to type out my own comments on those trial game plays like what game magazine editors get to do all the time. Hehe.

I've been called an otaku one too many times by my friends already, it's not something I'm that proud of but well, where a situation calls for something to be done, it has to be done. Namely during a game convention, where it goes without saying to be on scene at least 1 hour before it actually begins.

This time it was the Jump Festa 2007, wow, my first time attending! :D And my third time this year going to Makuhari Messe, a whopping 2 hour journey from my hostel. Since it was scheduled to open its doors to visitors at 9am, I had to take the first Rapid train on the Chuo line, which required me to set off at (yawn) 5.35am so just I could reach the halls by 8am.

There were already tonnes of people just pouring from the station all heading towards the same destination, quite a number who were already frantic at 8am in the morning to beat the queue. When I got there, damn, I really can't describe how many people were already there. I was already starting to worry that I might miss the chance to get a ticket at the square booth to catch the exclusive video game footage in the Close Mega Theater, like what almost happened at the TGS 2007 if it wasn't for the generosity of a kind someone who offered me her ticket since she said she couldn't make the time.

I didn't run (but boy did I walk like lightning) to make the queue outside the hall but I couldn't help but give into the temptation to when I got in. I was determined not to let the chance for exclusive trial game playing and viewing yet un publicised video came clips slip me by this time. Not the third time no way.

Good thing was this was the Jump Festa. People come here for the anime, the game booths play a somewhat secondary role. Or so that's my theory, because when I got to the Square Enix booth, I could still see some space at the end of the marked out areas for queues. In fact I took a glance over at the Capcom booth and the DMC4 queue wasn't that long either.

Learnt my lesson from the TGS and went directly for the Closed Mega Theater, expecting them to be distributing tickets for the individual showing times, and they were. If you missed getting a ticket (because they give them out continuously until they're all gone) then you'd have absolutely no chance of getting in for the entire day. I got one for the 10am showing and it was about 9+am when I got my ticket. Turned a swift u-turn back to the Dissidia Final Fantasy queue after making a quick decision to try that out instead of KH 358/2 (Roxas and Axel's side of the story to KHII) since I own a PSP and not a DS. Despite the 60 min estimation on waiting time on the signboard, the queue moved fairly quickly and I was probably in the game playing area within about 30 min or so.

Dissidia's general gameplay system involves versus combat. For the trial session, you were made to choose one character out of 5 FF characters made playable including Squall and Zidane. The other chars come from the older FFs of which I'm not too familiar with. As expected of SE, the gameplay requires some technical skill and getting used to the controls. The terrain on which the chars fight on is 3D, with pillars on which your char can run vertically on provided you press the triangle button when the blinking arrows indicate the path you can choose to take other than on solid ground. There were also slopes and steps on which you could get your char to slide on either to get closer to the opponent or dodge a blow or something...? I don't know.. they got pretty annoying after a while because half the time I didn't know where I was sliding towards. In addition to the HP bar, there's a 3 digit number that I suppose has got something to do with your attack power. By successfully advancing towards the opponent and hitting the square button, your char can steal some of that power indicated by the change of the numbers. And when you manage to steal all of your opponent's power, that is, when the number hits 0, its indicated as 'Break' and your char's attack power will in turn increase significantly. Besides the usual attack and jump, pressing R + X + direction away from your opponent, this will allow you to dodge an oncoming attack. Your char does something like a backward somersault forwards and while airborne you can use the opportunity to launch an attack.

I didn't really get the hang of the system and controls and therefore wasn't able to fully utilise all the tricks available but if I remember correctly (or got the right idea of what was going on) there are some kind of power ups made available once in a while on the terrain which helps your char power up something like a power gauge which when full allows your char to enter some super mode to deal critical damage..... or something. I experienced some scenarios not explained on the manual which described the general controls and gameplay system, whereby after receiving damage and in the process airborned, you could press X to counter (?) can't remember exactly, but it was in response to receiving damage. And sometimes it was followed by either a prompt to press the square or circle to further attack, but I really can't say for certain.

Half the time being all confused trying to figure out where the opponent was while Squall climbed the pillars and the next half of the time trying to get to where the opponent was without getting hit, in the end, I managed to clear all the stages of the trial session which involved fighting all the playable chars. I certainly wouldn't have made it through if it was the normal difficulty cos I notice I was probably hit more times than I actually hit anyone. You could choose from two modes, can't remember the exact names but I bet it was something like simple cum easy mode and advanced cum normal mode or something.

If Dissidia was just to be a one-to-one combat game I probably would give it second thoughts as to whether I should buy it, but the Close Mega Theater provided greater depth as to the overall flow of the game. There is story and there are definitely more characters, some that look like obvious baddies like Sephy and what looks like an Edea from FFVIII. Some memorable cutscenes included Squall going head on with Sephy, a breath of fresh air from the usual stagnant scenes of Cloud vs Sephy and a Tidus playing some kind of a supportive role to Kuja during some combat scene followed by the former running at some ultra super high speed dodging some flame balls being hurled by... I can't remember who. Its really nice to see them pay tribute to the old FF chars in comparison to the recent emphasis on the FFVII compilation. Enough of CLOUD AND SEPHY ALREADYY!! Let me relive those days of playing FFVIII in secondary school with the stoic and stubborn and thus annoying at times Squall and those days from Spira and Sin's toxin!! Yea to Dissidia! Woohoo!

They also showed some clips from the 3 new KH games slated for release next year. KH coded for the handphone has a very basic fighting system it seems, from what I notice about the command bar - it only has the attack, magic and item commands. The clips offered some clues about gameplay including a High Speed Mode whereby you can zoom Sora around those pesky heartless and thus take them out more effortlessly. In addition to that, the Crash mode (? hope I got the name right) converts the current 3D battlescene into 2D (like rockman). The battlescenes seemed to involve destructible blocks which you can smash. No idea what the story for Coded's gonna be about but Sora was in the same clothes he wore in KH so it seemed pretty nostalgic, like we were going back to where everything started and tracing things back where they started.

KH Birth by Sleep involves Roxas, in his Twilight Town image with some unknown black haired fellow who seems to be a really good friend of his. 'Cept for some baddy-looking bald evil yellowed eyed guy (is he Xehanort? GASP!) who seemed to be arguing with the black haired guy about the use of the keyblade, while the latter saying it should be used for friendship.. blah blah. Yes such idealistic notions, oh the beauty of friendship. What striked me about the fighting scene was that the command bars were actually chargeable gauges, not sure what for but they were undoubtedly charging. I couldn't read off the Japanese that quickly, worse still it was in Katakana, but I did remember seeing a 'Fire' command undergoing charging so that might be an integral part of the gameplay system. Ooh can't wait to find out what its all about. Wonder when they'll make birth by sleep trial playable. Good thing again its for the PSP so I am sooo definitely going to buy that when its out.

Haha okay, and in addition to the KH spinoffs there was this completely out of nowhere irrelevant out of place game called The 3rd Birthday, hahaha, its name in itself a laughable mystery, I find. They showed a girl dressed as a bride walking down the aisle of a completely empty church and when she gets to the front, a shadow of a man appears at the doorway. He whips out a machine gun and showers bullets all over the place and the bride takes out a handgun, swiftly turns round and fires some shots. A ring flies outta nowhere and falls to the ground followed by blood spreading all over the floor. Whose blood I don't know, and then the man is seen carrying what I suppose is a woman as he turns to walk out the door... Right.. okay. NEXT!

The FFXIII cutscenes were more or less the same ones from the TGS closed theater, this time providing greater emphasis on the chars' expressions. Save for Agito, one can see the very distinct influence of foreign actors and films as depicted by the character designs. At the TGS, besides the very gloomy dark protagonist from Versus XIII they revealed a girl who based on the protagonist's reaction when he confronted her (by brandishing a sword, while she in turn morphed out some weapon) must have conflicting interests, and a joker looking Huckleberry Finn equivalent blond goofball touting a crazy looking shot barreled shotgun to boot. This time they further revealed a gang of other guys, about 2 or 3 more, who look like they're in cahoots with Mr Huckleberry. One of which looked very latino, and another one who looked like one of those smart brained baddies in Hollywood flicks, wearing spectacles and always the mastermind behind carefully planned attacks on the authorities. HAHAHA. The voices were muted but from their lip movement I don't think what they were speaking was English because it looked too strange coupled with such English speaking looking faces, I couldn't help but feel that Versus's different influences weren't very properly geled together, making it thus look a tad bit awkward. It's like they look like Caucasians but yet their movement looked a bit Japanese, or looked like what a Japanese thought a Caucasian from a Hollywood film would behave like. Now thats insightful. And also upon full body view, the chars look part Caucasian part gamish part Japanese and you could tell exactly which part of them looked like what. Like their proportions are definitely not realistic (long limbs and prominent but yet modest looking muscle - typically game char design), their clothes look like what a Japanese person would think looks cool, but they look Caucasian so.... you might be able to imagine, this could be the result of what a Japanese trying to play stylist for a Hollywood actor might turn out to be like. So funny yet confusing yet strange yet insightful. Oh they even threw in a scene that looked like the big leaders of the world in suits discussing recent spates of terrorist attacks round a table as in the movies. And there must always be a bearded guy!

Okay so enough of amusing myself with Versus XIII, FFXIII showed more scenes of this other girl who looks almost alike as the protagonist herself. I would say she bears some resemblance to VIII's Selphie, green eyes, cheerful disposition. Particularly notable was a closeup of the protagonist's face while she was confronted by some foot soldiers. Again what I would describe as a partly confusing mix between eastern and western influences. Her facial expression wasn't distinct and changed ever so slightly, shifting of the eyes, opening closing of the eyes, lip movement, and all to summarise one scene. The look from her eyes gives her a rather sleepy eyed dazed look, a somewhat lazy expression but mixed with determination at the last spurt of facial muscle movement where her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. But I'm quite sure I saw some what I describe as very darty movement of the eyes. I think its probably impossible for anyone to really tell what she was thinking or what kind of emotion she had while giving such a fzcial expression.

Other impressions from the Jump Festa... not much to say the least really. Having slept a meagre 1+ hour or so I was already suffering from the zombie withdrawal symptoms at about 1pm. In fact when I woke up that morning I was thinking What?! Already??! I contemplated trial playing DMC 4 again since I quite screwed the first time up with the controls and wasting valuable game playing time, and they were giving out some crystal strap again. But nah, too much queueing makes Jack a dull boy (does such an expression even exist?! HAHA). They had started extending ticket distribution te Dissidia and KH 358/2 somewhere in the late morning whilst I was wandering around the halls so by the time I decided I wanted to attack the queue for KH the gameplay tickets had already been completely distributed so no KH for me this time round. Another lesson to be learnt. No space for breathers in between, just do everything you came for first and relax later on.

Not one to leave more than an hour before closing time, I decided what the heck, lets just play FFIV on the DS even though its already out and I haven't that much of an interest, just so I could get the clear file they were giving out to those who trial played the game. For KH, they gave out a handphone strap and for Dissidia, a UMD holder with the game's logo on it. For those who entered the Close and Open theaters, they gave out a clear file with the FF 20th Anniversary logo as well as a pack of Christmas and new year themed postcards, really really cool with an assortment of game designs. You get random designs so you can't get all of 'em by just getting one pack. Since I was there alone, I really couldn't be bothered to go attack the queues for the same event again so I decided to heck it.

Despite part of me wanting to go home and sleep, the other part just thought it was ridiculous to come all the way to Makuhari and go back at 1+pm so the most obvious thing to do other than trial game playing was to purchase character goods. It's really incredible, this Jump Festa. They've got all the big merchandise companies down with their limited edition or early launch special anime merchandise of all the popular Jump anime. Naruto, One Piece, Prince of Tennis, Reborn, Bleach and others I can't keep track of. So you could be walking over to the Bandai booth and see a whole assortment of all the Jump character merchandise and then you walk down the Animate booth and you see a whole different assortment of the same characters. If that wasn't enough, there was a limited entry area for purchase of limited edition Jump Festa limited merchandise which you had to go all the way outside to queue for again. Queueing, I tell you its part of being Japanese. It's in their blood. They have a Queue gene that imprints the idea that queueing is part and parcel of daily life in their minds.

I think part of me was screaming out to be filled by retail therapy. It's like a little voice that echos out at the bottom of your heart that goes " I don't care what but just BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY! And MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE! WAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't you stop". But there wasn't really anything I thought was worth buying. Anime merchandise has come to the point that its just so predictable, they always produce the same ol things over and over again, same kind of average designs on characters. I just bought the ones I found rather amusing, like a Gintama file with a classroom scene in the usual chaos of character interaction. I bought a Naruto versus Sasuke themed wall clock (like wth right, wallclock) with a background of some mystical legendary animals like two gods waging war against each other. And then just to kill more time after buying the limited Jump goods that involved queueing both outside and inside again, I decided to hop into the SE goods queue since I saw a Cactuar plushie and I thought what the heck lets go queue again and get that for the brother. As a result of that spurt of unfounded urge to spend, besides the stuff above, I ended up with a black and white Naruto vs Sasuke themed Noren (piece of cloth hung over doorways in Japanese homes) and a small souvenir pack of custard cakes that says on the packaging, I was at the Jump Festa 2007!

What I thought was interesting too was a 2000yen priced One Piece themed Pirate Bento with rather satisfying-looking contents with what looked like a chicken leg which you had to hold up in one hand to bite off from, and skull shaped rice.

All my trips to Makuhari always end up exhausting and two out of the three times I've been there I had to go alone which is rather... sad but oh well, you know what they say. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And I got to play Dissidia and enter the Close Mega Theater and be entertained more than I bargained for.

Guess that sums things up as 'a good day' :)

2007-10-26T21:39:00.000+08:00

I just watched a music video clip of cutscenes from FFVIII on youtube and am rather surprise to realise that I actually like FFVIII more than VII, even given the advanced graphics and unsurpassing texture quality and realisticism, VIII, for that moment seemed a lot more likeable than what VII is what it is now. I find Squall's and Rinoa's facial expressions a lot more expressive. Despair and sorrow just pierce through your heart when Squall called out to what seemed like an illusion of the back profile of Rinoa, when he slumped down in fatigue and hopelessness on a dry cracked ground wishing he could see her and watched a white feather descend from the sky. Relief when Rinoa watched Squall in her arms come to seemed like liberation from a thousand woes. You can't help but move along with them in their emotions. I don't know if its correct to say this but, maybe the camera angles and sequence of shots or selection of scenes just made me think VIII was just artistically beautiful. It was just a beautiful quiet story told of its characters and how they reacted in the ever changing series of events and twist in plot. There seemed to be minimal distractions from flashy scenes with cool gadgets and mecha or fantastic stunts. Just space for the appreciation of character development and interaction.

Even a video clip of X, which I happened to chance upon again on youtube made me think the old FFs all had some kind of nostagical something that the current projects lack.

2007-10-21T23:27:00.000+08:00

Another one of those long awaited (if any of you have even bothered keeping track by now) blog entries I'm writing now.

The weather has gotten considerably cold to the point no sane person would leave their doors and sliding windows open. It's been about 17degs thereabout average temperature and it's time to take those trenchies out of the closet.

I went for one of those things you gotta go for as a foreign student today. What they call an international student exchange la dee dah fancy name event where we got to have some kind Japanese people dress us up in kimonos and parade around for an hour or so, whilst at the same time popping in to check out what Japanese tea ceremonies, playing the shamisen (and that stringed instrument its name just escapes me) are like.

I'm quite a fan of the shamisen, thanks to anime, which does so well publicising its own country's history. The oh so cool olden day blind Japanese person who would nomad around playing his shamisen whilst telling a story with it, which historians say was one of the ways historical events were retold and thus passed down the eras. I won't forget the blind shamisen player in Samurai Champloo who almost got Jin and Mugen there with some very high skilled sword wielding.

Anyway, I did get the chance to play a bit of it, and it's pretty fun too. Just three strings brings down the complexity level quite some, I think. Apparently, depending on which finger you press down on the strings produces a different note when the string is strummed. Oh and did you know the highest quality, most expensive shamisens are those made out of cat skin? :(

Onward to rather sticky matters, all of us in school were made to write speeches for the Bunka sai (school festival cum open day) of which each class sends a representative to participate in the speech contest. And whoop de doo *twirls finger*, mine, rather irritatingly, about what might happen if a Singaporean made friends with a Japanese, was picked on by those terrible classmates and now I am stuck with a speech I haven't memorised yet. Pah.

The turn of the weather marks the occurence of a long awaited event, if which I could, usher it personally into dawning on myself. Realisation over self-criticism was the gift from God today. Realising and somehow somewhat therefore becoming more open to the idea of humility, which thus leads also to view people and the world around me less harshly, receive them with greater patience, tolerance and sympathy. And to a less burdened soul. Instead now I view 'them' with appreciation and part admiration as well, more than the shifty glances I used to give and strange bizarreness I thought was 'their' thinking and behaviour. It led to realising that maybe I should learn to appreciate the way of thinking that seeks to preserve one's self-interest, in the sense of respecting what's best for one's well-being and preservation of one's passion. Perhaps its time to leave seeking to create a soothing physical environment made of peers we can have fun and joy hanging out and talking with in the back seat and start putting in a bit more considerable effort into looking after myself.

2007-08-06T14:45:00.000+08:00

Hahaha. Okay I'm so sorry for leaving you guys in the dark for sooo long. I think it's been about 3 months since I last blogged. I think there were too many things going on and all sorts of emotional rollercoaster rides I was going through as well that I couldn't really find a time when I was a bit more calm to write things down in a consistent manner.

Anyway, my summer break started on the 28th of July, so for the entire month of August there's no BLOODY school! Woooooot. I don't know, lessons were starting to get boring as we moved up the ladder, currently studing advance Japanese and it's all about studying about the environment and reading newspaper articles, doing summaries, all that boring stuff so even though I'd absolutely nothing planned for the hols I was still happy that they were coming.

For the past week of summer vacation.. what have I been doing, hmm, let's seee. First of all, melting day by day because there isn't a fan in my room and the really hot summer season has officially kicked in! Just one or two weeks before there were some heavy rains because of the rainy season but now its really hot and dry. I would run down to the meeting room at least for an hour a day just to enjoy the air con cos I'm just too stingy to turn on the one in my room.. I don't want my electricity bill to soar this summer man. But now, Wahaha, I bought an electric fan!!! So happy with it. I went to this huge store called Don Quixote which has many outlets all around selling absolutely everything from branded goods to electrical goods to toiletries. You name it, they have it. And at cheap - reasonable prices to boot. In fact I was enticed by a few other electrical goods they had like a takoyaki cum sukiyaki teppan (hot plate) set which was.. cha-chang! Only 1,900yen! That's hella cheap :D

Hehehe. Okay anyway, what else.. I've had a lot more time nowadays to look up anime movies and stuff related to games. Guess what, a new model of PSP is coming out on the 20th of September and I am so going to buy that, muhaha. I felt so lucky and blessed that I hadn't gone out to buy one before that because the new model is going to be slimmer, lighter and has a range of new colours to choose from which look a lot better than the current ones. I am also, I must say, VERY tempted to buy a Nintendo DS as well cos absolutely everyone has one!!! Must! Have! My! Own! DS!!!!

Besides games, I've discovered quite a lot of anime movies that I will definitely want to watch, at least 3! Each one coming out from this month to October. And also, the not-to-be-missed annual TOKYO GAMES SHOW 2007! Which showcases hella lot of games and animes and other stuff like works by animation schools; the school that I'm going to next year is going to showcase some of their works so I would really like to check that out. Oh so exciting isn't it.

Then, the Japanese language school I'm attending now arranged for all the people in the school who are going to the same college next year to go for the open campus together. So we're going on the 17th of August. The open campuses in Japan sound really hands on (at least for the specialised training colleges) whereby you participate in actually implemented class programs and lessons, like in my case, design a character and some other stuff like that. It's all very tailored to the specific course and we are all going to take the full day course (there's morning and afternoon courses for those who decide they want see what other courses offer). And the school provides lunch as well! How convenient. Anyway, I'm quite excited to see what the campus ground looks like cos it looks ultra big and really scenic in the website. It's got a swimming pool, tennis courts, football fields (because they have sports courses). And I see their advertisements everywhere! On the train, on tv, in the karaoke lounge, wah lao.. Haha. They must be really rich.

And as for now, I think I am going to try to find a part time job for this summer because there are just too many things I would like to buy. Like all the donuts from Mister Donuts and all the flavours from Baskin Robbins 31, the PSP, the DS and all the games... haha. But if I don't manage to get one.. then :( too bad I guess, I will live as a poor starving student this summer. Haha. Heard there are a coupla Singaporean restaurants around here so I'm thinking of calling them soon and asking if they need part timers. My speaking in Japanese is really subpar, I have this habit of chewing on my words, haha, if you can picture what its like.. so I hope everything goes well *crosses fingers*. Alright, hope this update suffices. Am going to make a phone call to the restaurant now.. Eeeep! Ciao Cara! (Bye darling in italian, as taught to me by my italian friend :) hehe)

2007-04-22T00:59:00.000+08:00

It's been quite a while since I last blogged. Many things have happened that have kept me on my toes and sleeping late at night only to wake up at 6.30 the next morning so yes I am actually just having enough rest to tide me through the days' events.

The weather has been acting up. It was really warm the Saturday before during the cherry blossoms viewing cum picnic event that the SSAJ (singapore students association in japan) organised at a really huge park at GyoenMae (Shinjuku). The park is just gargantuan in size, at one point of time we lost one of our friends and not having any handphones yet we were prepared to throw in the bucket and leave her to her own means of entertaining herself. But amazingly, somehow she managed to find us in the end. Weird. Okay anyway, it was a nice surprise to see all the cherry blossom trees in full bloom since the start of the blooming period was much earlier this year and we weren't expecting to see such healthy clusters of flowers. The sun was shining very strongly, you could even feel HOT and we had to take off our jackets. Hard to believe especially when just the same morning at Sagamiohno it was still rather chilly, but still not all that bad. The temperature was rather bearable then.

And like a display of its tantrums, it started raining abruptly the next two or three days, the temperature, of course, dropping to some very cold temperatures, the kind that leaves you scurrying from place to place as quickly as possible. The tricky part about this weather, was that in the morning when we set off on our bikes to the train station it was cold and windy but it was always clear and bright, but after classes ended till when we got back to the train station, it would always be raining. It took me a few days to get used to riding a bike through narrow pavements sandwiched by the kerb and building or some other obstacle, sometimes another cyclist coming from the opposite side which is definitely scary since you don't want to crash into the other person but at the same time, the both of you would be barely touching each other. I think the Japanese are really a kind of get-up-and-go type of people. Whatever happens, life goes on. They just take the matter in stride and get on with their lives. As such, you see some pretty amazing feats of life, such as, Japanese people riding bikes whilst carrying umbrellas. How they do that so well is very much a mystery to me. Thinking that I might just simply need some practice at it, I proceeded to try doing so... ... with much unglam.

Firstly, with only one hand on the bike, that would mean braking becomes more inefficient. Turning corners requires ultra slow speed in order for you not to roll off your bike and onto the street. And okay that might not have been so bad... until you realise that there are other road users besides yourself, such as cars for example, that absolutely insist on driving through those narrow alleys, other cyclists or pedestrians where the path becomes very narrow, or even without such external factors a seemingly innocent lamp post or one of those short poles sticking out of the ground would be bound to leave you frantically steering to avoid hitting them at best. Of course the worse instant would be if you fall down. Anyway, I had my umbrella flying off to where it pleased on my first try, then I decided to be a man and take the rain as it was, later on deciding it wasn't very pleasant to ride even in a drizzle. So the next day, I had another go at it, practice makes perfect doesn't it?

Even on streets without obstacles, my one hand bike riding has wobbling tendencies, at which if I'm not paying attention, I might even find myself on the road the next second with a painful behind. I think the ultimatum comes near the end of the journey back to the hostel, where past the traffic lights of the main road and entering the maze of houses, we confront this thing of a mini hill where you have to peddle hard and quickly to ride up it, followed by the slope down thereafter which makes the bike go very fast downward. It was quite dark already, and somehow I had managed to ride up quite haphazardly, but still managing to ride up the mini hill with just one hand to properly steer and the other trying to decide between shading my head from the rain or holding onto the other handle. So I suppose this other guy decided it was a good idea to pop out riding in the opposite direction and without his light on so that we sense this looming shadow. Haphazard bike riding takes up as much space as it wants, cares not for other things around and goes wherever it wants, so there I was wobbling up the hill, wobbling toward the other cyclist, I tell you you can't insist on going another way when your bike decides to go the way it wants to. So it seemed to want to make friends with this other bike, hobbling ever steadily toward it, taking me, the innocent spectator along with its fancies. But just at the last moment, when it decided it had had enough of saying hello and when the other cyclist sensed the inherent danger of crashing into each other and thus became wobbly himself, my bike just narrowly scraped through, neither of us touching each other. But I bet that must've been a rather strange way of saying hi to someone you don't even know, as though I thought it was a good idea to cycle INTO people.

Anyway, the weather forecast has been rather accurate. I checked it on my phone (haha yes I have gotten my paws on one!) and it said the weather would get slightly warmer and why yes, it did today, much to my delight. The handphone I got was from Softbank, that offered an attractive sounding plan which allowed you to call or sms other Softbank users for free. I had a friend who convinced me that everybody was changing to Softbank and now that I use Softbank, he became the only person I knew who used Softbank.

This phone is rather amazing in itself, imo. I was enticed by the built-in TV, which apparently is absolutely free for you to watch. No subscriptions whatsoever to watch TV on your phone. The screen flip-flips nicely horizontally and the picture is clear. The programs you watch even come with subtitles (in Japanese of course) specially for phone users. You don't even get to see subtitles on your TV sets. This is useful if you haven't got your earphones on and you're watching TV on the train where silent mode is necessary, or if you're like me, learning Japanese and can't catch everything you hear. The only dumb thing that is pissing me off now is that outside Tokyo, I can't seem to receive any tv signals so that would mean outside Tokyo, which is at home, I can't even watch tv on my phone, which isn't supposed to be the case. Still, you can check the tv programs for the day on your phone which gives me the opportunity of running down at such and such a time to catch a program in the common room.

People here don't key in friends' details on their phones, they beam their details over through infrared or if more convenient, bluetooth though I haven't really tried out how that works. But yes, this infrared is very convenient indeed, especially since here in Japan they don't call it sms but email, where to send messages you have to specify a handphone email address to send your message to. In your details page, fill in all the important information like address, email add for phone and web, handphone number, landline number, you can even add a picture of yourself. And watch all this information transfer with a snap of your fingers to your friend's phone.

This phone also allows extra storage capacity in the form of a micro SD card to a maximum of 2GB, which you insert into it. The phone itself comes with about 17MB free memory. Expect to store in hoards of music, videos or episodes which you can watch as and when you like and when the tv doesn't work. Or simply fill them with tonnes of pictures you take using the phone which has a 2.0 megapixel camera, not to mention the kind of options it comes with such as altering exposure and turning on a light if it's too dark.

I thought today I had better prepare for when I receive the micro SD card in the mail which my mom will send to me because the price of one here is absolutely ridiculous (at least 5,000yen for a 1GB card, at least 8,000yen for a 2GB card), and buy the proper usb cable to connect my phone to my laptop for data transfer when I realise when I got home, that although my laptop isn't rigged with bluetooth (what some of the other people use for convenient data transfer without physically connecting their phones to their coms), it comes with an infrared port which meant I didn't need to buy a 1,000+ yen cable.

The silly thing again is that somehow, the phone only accepts .3GP, .MP4 and .M4A file formats for music. And I thought mp3 was so universal, why in the world these weird formats. Which left me no choice but to search online for some freeware that allows format conversion of music files. I learnt that .M4A is a type of music file for Apple users, termed a type of 'lossless' format which supposedly means no loss of sound quality. Anyway, just a technical issue, I test trialed some songs and they finally reached my phone safely through the infrared and into my music folder, if which not, I would still not be able to listen to them even though they're in. Oh my and the sound quality is just unbelievable. Such clarity. Ladies and Gentlemen, you need not carry your boom boxes around anymore. This phone packs all the punch despite its size. Like an mp3 player (well mp4 more accurately speaking), it has all the stuff it needs, like options to create playlists and tinkle with sound effects (Bass/surround/karoake/rock/hall/hiphop...). Other impressive but not so important functions at this point of time include, tv recording and voice recording. The phone comes with this very thick handbook that supposedly tells you what you can do with your phone. And with some rather complicated illustrations of the phone being connected to a power outlet and either your PC or discman, I suppose it even allows you to record music playing on another portable audio player. Wow. That's all a little bit too much, but I think it will be rather fun exploring all the different things I can do with my phone. Anyway, ohmygoodness the excitement!

Okay besides the sakura viewing picnic, the Singapore Embassy held a reception at its HQ located in Roppongi, the hip and happening place with all the clubs and designer boutiques (I saw the stores for Louis Vuitton and Yohji Yamamoto's collection for adidas, Y-3) and we got to eat lunch for free! And a very good lunch at that too. CHICKEN RICE!!! IN JAPAN! Oh my goodness, I couldn't have asked for more. Roti prata and those chinese noodles that you eat in restaurants. And we got to see a lot more other students as well as talk briefly to the embassy people even though we really had nothing to do with them. But the ambience was very nice, the place was furnished very nicely even the garden and pond outside exuded a calm Zen-ish sort of atmosphere. And somehow it was nice just talking to the other students especially hearing from those who live in obscure areas about how different things were. It was just nice to hear about various experiences each person had. Coping with the cold, sickness, living far from schools, mugging for entrance exams (not us, the undergraduate students), inefficient heating systems (haha! Hot air rises and the heaters are at the ceilings). Also located in Roppongi was my senpai's school, Hollywood Beauty School or something like that that looked like a very seriously cool shopping centre with glass walls. Roppongi just gives one a kind of relaxed, laid back, where-the-rich-dwell kind of feeling. Maybe because it was a Saturday.

Then I've been hanging out with the Africans from my hostel. They really just crack me up. No actually one was from Uganda, one from Benin and the other from Brazil and ohmygoodness they are more auntie than me in the supermarket talking between themselves about meat and taking quite some time to decide what exactly they wanted to buy!! I found myself just laughing out loud at everything the Ugandan said (he has a name and his name is Ronald) because he is in all seriousness putting forth and opinion which just sounds quite preposterous, you can't help but laugh very loudly.

Alright this is a very long post indeed, since its a sunday tomorrow I can afford to sleep late for once this week so there, I hope that was entertaining enough and I didn't put you to sleep halfway.

2007-04-09T15:27:00.000+08:00

Haha. Okay it seems everybody likes to look at photos (and photos only) so here's more of them to keep you guys entertained. I realised I don't take many photos outside, of buildings and such, maybe because my camera's XD card keeps acting up or I don't want to look like a stupid tourist. Bah. Anyway, here's what I've been cooking and eating the past few days. Thanks to Judy who introduced me to Japanese curry. Haha.

See the red tape-ish thing across the glass? That's the 'Thrift Mall' area. It spans a few shops selling those vintagey quirky knick knacks, clothes, shoes. I bet imported from England and other countries like that. Very flea market-ish feel. It's one floor down from the 100 yen shop so we took a look around, some of the stuff aren't that expensive.

My first home cooked dinner. You guessed it, instant noodles from the 100 yen shop (3 for 100 yen! What a steal. Hahaha). Ham. vegetables and mushroom I got from this cheapo supermarket that the seniors recommended us to go to (called 'Taiga'). They keep playing the same cheesy jingle instore that goes "Suki Suki! Onaka Suki suki!" blah blah blah and then it goes "Char Siew Tonkatsu Hambagu!". Yes its catchy after a while but moments later and thereafter it gets very annoying especially when you're a poor starving student trying to do mental sums on which product on the shelf is cheaper.

Yesterday's dinner of leftover pasta and... ... what's this??

A steaming pot of miso soup! With mushrooms and chicken meat! And dinner is served, next to 'Two Moons', the red Indian on the postcard. I bought it at a shop called Titicaca that looks strangely touristy because of the prints and batik-ish stuff they sell there.

What the kitchen area looks like now. It's rather small and cramped especially after I've stocked up on cooking utensils. There's only one fire so meals tend to get cold easily if your meal consists of two parts you need to cook separately.

My lunch today :) I bought the Japanese curry in a packet which I poured over my dish of fried onions, chicken, carrot, potato and mushroom, all heated up of course. And what better way to wash it all down than with a cuppa milk. Not quite ready to cook rice myself so I had bread instead.

2007-04-07T21:04:00.000+08:00

Some pictures I took so far:

This is my room! Or more like apartment. It's got everything including a washing machine, toilet, kitchen area, fridge and even a balcony where you can hang your laundry to dry. Here's what it looks like from the door.

The toilet is quite cramped, I hit my knee on the sink the other day. And there's the stove and fridge. It gets a bit squeezy in the fridge after I did grocery shopping but maybe its cos I didn't dare put my food on the areas that haven't been cleaned. It's so dirty inside but I decided to spare you guys the gross pics I took of the inside.

And this is the bedroom. The desk is quite tiny but other than that, there's tonnes of storage space! The second pic is the view from the back of the room. If you draw the curtains, there's a sliding glass door which you can unlock to access the balcony.

Froggie bin! It was left behind by the previous owner. So many different spreads and sheets and I don't know thingamajigs, there were 4 of them. So I called a senior in to help me.. Help! Help!!

That's us walking out from the hostel. Sensei is the man wearing a blazer in the front. He takes care of our needs in the hostel and he's really useful to have around when an applicance malfunctions, for eg, when my washing machine hanged on me. The second pic is the view of the hostel from the front. The entrance is rather small.

That blue car never seems to leave that spot, so I kind of use it to make sure I'm going in the right direction. There's another very similar looking blue car parked at a house that also always seems to be there and that's where we turn left to the main road so it serves as a very important road sign indeed... Oh there's Moji, my bus partner on the way to the municipal office. We had our alien registration and health insurance cards done there. She's from Mongolia.

Cherry blossom trees! They were everywhere and I saw many on the bus trip. Sometimes you see only one or two amidst other green trees but other times like this, you'd see a lot of them together.

My lecturer for the Japanese film module used to say that when you see cherry blossoms just a few flowers at a time, they don't look pretty. But when you put a whole lot of trees together, they look really nice. So enjoy!... The overdose of sakura.

Mmm yes. More! More! More! There were lots of petals scattered on the ground.

We were at the post office opening our postal bank accounts. That's either Yan or Tong looking at a poster. I can't tell them apart!

Suspicious looking cat that was right in the middle of a big empty playground. It was actually just crouching there, looking left and right. By the time I took out the camera it decided it was thirsty.

2007-04-05T17:17:00.000+08:00

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Okay brace yourselves for a fairly retarded post. As I type, I`m using the com in the common meeting room and people will start arriving and their presence seems to obviously hint that they want me to get off the com so they can use it...

Anyway, I`ve started unpacking in my room. Those who have not heard yet, my room is actually like a one room apartment, fully self sufficient. One step in and you see the washing machine and stove and sink to your right, toilet to your left. One more step in and you see the refrigerator. Many more steps in and you`re in the bedroom. The entire place is rigged with so many cupboards and drawers so theres actually tonnes of storage space. I was completely appalled the day I moved in, firstly at the floor because it was so dusty, then at the kitchen stove for all the dirt. And lastly I was most appalled at the fridge, it was SOOO dirty, I wish you could see it but you can`t cos I`ve not uploaded the pictures I`ve taken so far because this annoying computer doesn`t allow you to plug in devices like a thumbdrive in which I transferred the photos into.

The seniors recommended buying most of our stuff from the 100yen stores. There`re 3 altogether around our district. The nearest and smallest which is actually a 99yen shop which is probably great for buying the usual stuff, `cept there isn`t much variety to choose from, say two brands and that`s about it. The next one is at the train station, which is about 20 minutes walk from the hostel. That`s pretty far if you`re gonna lug home a few big bags of shopping. The shop is called DAISO, yea guess it`s the same one we have in Singapore, `cept its cheappppppeeeeerrr here, cos 100yen is about 1.30SGD. They do stock items priced more than 100yen too though. The last one is just opposite the station. This one`s the best in my opinion cos its so big, it spans 2 floors. The things are arranged in proper categories and there`s quite a range to choose from. Bought my pot and pan from there. Notice I didn`t say pots and pans cos yknow, I`m not that rich to buy so many things at once.

There are some really cool vintage shops one floor down the 100yen shop. They have that vintage feel, you know, psychadelic colored clothes, old-ish stuff that look inspired from decades before. Some of the clothes are reasonably priced as well and there was a lot of nice stuff. I saw a bag that looked very much like that ASOS bag I wanted to buy, it`s like the Jimmy Choo one, and it costs about 4,500yen, which is about SGD52, and I really wanted it, but no way was I getting it cos I`m not here on holiday. But if its still there next month I might get it if I have enough money:) I felt there and then that I would love to take Fang around cos I think she would really like the place, think she`d go mad over the quaint shops and snazzy buys. There was a shoe shop near the station that stocked mass manufactured shoes like those plain white maryjanes for going to school and a few other variations that I thought looked pretty nice. Woulda definitely been a haven for peeps in Singapore who like customising shoes like that.

Right, as of now, 2 days after I`ve moved in and cleaned up (`cept the floor), it feels a lot more homey. It just lacks proper internet access before I start to see my room as MY room. As I have mentioned before, it is rather retarded to use the common computer because people could hop in anytime and use the com for quite long, or its really just impossible to use the com in peace for like an hour or so. The teacher in charge subsribes for the internet, which is the same line as the one in the meeting room. We could tap into this line with his permission and pay a one time payment fee of 2,000yen to use the net for as long as we stay here, definitely a much cheaper alternative than subscribing for a personal line ourselves, for which we`ll have to pay 12,000yen initial payment (spread over a period of 1 year or so) and 2,800yen per month at a flat rate. Of course, I`m hoping the rest of the students don`t have laptops or aren`t MMORPG fanatics who will sap up phenomenal amounts of bandwidth and leave the rest of us waiting for our browsers to load. A senior has recommended that a few of us students living on the same floor subscribe for a personal line and share the internet among the few of us, but that seems a little more troublesome so I think I`ll just take the easy way out first, get the teacher to buy a cable to hook my laptop up and I`ll see how things go.

A list has just been put up for bicycles on sale and the teacher has asked us to write our name down on which bike we`re interested in buying. They are all second hand and cost either 4,500yen or 5,000yen. Three of them were left behind from students before and are therefore free. Sure a bike comes in handy I guess. Japan has a kind of bike riding culture. You see people cycling on the streets all the time. I think I`m quite fine without a bike. Afterall, I`ve lugged my grocery shopping and 100yen shopping for a good 20 minutes walk (if you exclude the time walking from shop to shop) and you gotta pay a fee for parking at the station. Parking your bike outside a shop to buy stuff is fine I guess, but you risk having your bike taken even though cases like that are really rare (senior says "It`s really weird if your stuff gets stolen.. it`s just really weird because nobody steals around here.") and having to learn how to ride properly without banging into people or a wall or lamp post or car because houses and such are packed so closely to each other and those bike riding Japanese are so capable of weaving in and around people, I wonder how they do it. Btw, one thing I`ve noticed is how the motorists here have the peace of mind to drive so blooody close to pedestrians. It`s annoying though. They drive through alleys where people are walking on both sides. My friend was crossing a zebra crossing and one driver just turned into the road just barely missing her. I`m curious to find out the accident rate around here.

Visited a store today selling second hand manga, games and soundtracks today. As in other stores, there was so much stuff and you have to really read and look at the signs on each shelf or dangling from the ceiling to know whats where and whats going on. Even though the things are organised properly, it is rather tiring for the eyes to discern whats of interest because there are just too many details. Anyway, most manga sell for 105yen (about $1.30SGD) and are unwrapped. Though I`ve seen very new-looking manga before, these definitely do not look new but are of readable condition. It`s the kind where you buy a book for dirt cheap and don`t bother really taking good care of it. Some PS2 games were selling for dirt cheap especially the older ones like about SGD30 per game. I`m not sure whether they were selling new PS3 sets but the price they quoted was somethinkg like 57,500yen, which is slightly cheaper than the release price of 59,800yen quoted by Sony. I do hope I can get one in the near future...

Anyways, I`m feeling hungry now. It`s 9.18pm here and I`ve yet to eat dinner yet. Intending to cook pasta with the pasta and gravy from the 100yen shop and the onions, ham and mushrooms and other stuff I got from the supermarket. Other people are also waiting to use the computer so I`m going now. Do hope the teacher buys the cable soon.

Cheers!

2007-03-27T23:33:00.000+08:00

It's finally the last week in Singapore, home sweet home (as difficult as it is for me to say it) before jetsetting off to Tokyo, of which I have not the foggiest idea how the whole place would be like when I arrive. My schedule is almost fully booked. I am so sorry to Joey for pangseh-ing him at the last minute when we were supposed to be baking cookies at his house, I'm sure it is rather annoying to have someone back out of a meeting at the last moment. Still, I'm happy to have been able to thrift shop for toiletries at chinatown with Huiboon today. I think my eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets when I saw the prices. Besides stocking up on the essential stuff like shampoo and shower gel, I seized the opportunity to buy that tub of hair treatment that a certain individual in Cozycot had raved about called Ritzo Selecin that at $6.50 is VERY affordably priced (sorry if I sound like a salesgirl here). I really hope very much that it works wonders for the very dry ends of my hair. I also got that tube of L'oreal color treatment that works pretty well at smoothing out the hair and making it less damaged and brittle. It was 5 buckaroos! How could I resist!

I'm looking forward to Thursday. It's the time I'll spend with the cousin sorting out the stuff she wants to hand down to me which sounds exciting especially when I hear brands like Country Road and a Charles and Keith bag in nice chocolate brown that looks brand spanking new. Oh and I'll get those leggings altered to knee length with laced stitched on when we pay the tailor a visit. And we're gonna do fun stuff like taking digital photographs of myself which we can cut out to make passport size photographs so I save lots of money since I'll be developing about 10 photographs to bring with me to Japan.

Anyway, all in all, everything's happening so fast and I'm hardly able to sit down and grasp the sense of excitement I should be feeling at having the rare chance of studying Animation in Japan, the land of the Playstation and Square-Enix. Somehow, I also hope that even if daily life becomes full of excitment, I'll still be able to keep my head (Somewhere along the way we lost our heads) and be the kind of person that I am.

2007-03-22T01:45:00.000+08:00

It's been about 4 months since I've been to lessons and as a result the brain hasn't undergone frequent usage. You know what they say, bodies at rest tend to remain at rest. I know I've become really sluggish and lazy even though I don't exactly feel it, and you know, the scariest thing is, I don't actually feel like doing any proper work at all. I feel unusually contented at remaining idle; not the good idle which is when its constructive daydreaming, but the bad idle, the kind where you begin to strangely take on characteristics resembling a rock. Or more like, a pile of eating, breathing, telly watching, computer using gloop that stays in one spot and wakes up every morning, eats and goes back to sleep only to wake up the next morning to start the same thing over and over again. It scares me.

It's getting closer to departure day and I've finally started to do something about packing and clearing my room. If there's one thing I sorta regret now, it's not watching more anime and drawing more when I had those few months of free time. The inertia is just so inconvenient, I feel like if I'm not careful it will slowly eat me up on the inside. Anyway, the one saving grace would be the fact that I gave some of myself to playing the Kingdom Hearts Series which I can proudly say am just about to wrap up (all 3 games) once I defeat the supposedly easy Xemnes and watch the secret ending. The sad thing is that I won't be able to complete Final Fantasy XII of which a church friend of mine has very generously given to me since I won't be able to take my dear friend the Playstation 2 along. But at least I've got Final Fantasy VII Pc Version that's gonna keep me interested for just that little while longer with the whole FFVII gimmick.

I just pray pray pray that God, you might give me the strength which I have no control of which sleeps within me (which I believe and very much hope is there), to ignite that passion like those old times for it is what I'm going to Japan for. I know I'm not able to, but by Your grace anything is possible so allow me to glorify you, Lord, in my very own way. Thank you and Amen.

I wonder how many of you actually have seen my art before? I'm willing to bet not very many have, but yet strangely, those very ego boosting rumours about how well I draw have been rather rampant. These aren't everything, of course, but I hope they will give you guys who haven't seen my art some sort of an idea and to show you guys exactly what it is that I do. Thanks and enjoy.

Notice the vest and high waisted tulip skirt, so the rage when I drew this last year, I think.

Random guy in traditional Japanese clothing, inspired partially by the dudes from Peacemaker Kurogane, an anime revolving around the Shinsengumi and Jin fom Samurai Champloo. I admit the only influence from Jin is the bracelet. I was going for the half-opened-eye, no care whatsoever kind of look. His face looks rather flat though.

Inspired by Saya from Blood+. I watched one episode and decided it was crappy and I didn't want to watch it again. She's got the typical schoolgirl look. I particularly wanted to draw the ultra short mini skirt.

Exact copy of an androgenous looking male model's face out of the Tangs leaflet. I have a thing for androgeny. An exact copy meaning I looked at it and drew it out as similarly as I possibly could. He looks more like a guy here but I'm quite sure he's gonna look like a really handsome girl if you swop the nice crop of hair with.. I don't know... longer wavy hair?

Okay, we're going further back in time. This one I drew on cheap foolscap paper when doing math problems over and over again just bored the crap outta me. I'd say it's got the typical samurai-anime-style, guy with thick hair and typical ponytail look. Think it's Peacemaker Kurogane again.

Possibly done when I was 15 or 16. I tried following these steps to drawing a face. Step 1: Draw a circle, step 2: draw 2 horizontal lines dividing the circle into thirds, step 3: draw a vertical line down the middle, step 4: fill the eyes nose and mouth according to the lines. I think the faces just ended up looking not so correct but hey, everybody's gotta start from somewhere. I only liked the face in the second pic. Because of the crappy quality I don't think you can see why I like it though...

A tree! Possibly my first attempt at drawing an inanimate living thing. I had help from the How to Draw Manga book. I didn't dare ink the leafy areas probably cos you can't possible trace anything from there.

I think I could call this one of the better drawn ones. Very very Rurouni Kenshin feel, if you ask me. The thin neck, eyebrow and eyes just made me think that way. Check out the bloody hand. The hand shape reminds me of the art from RK too.

This is one of the characters thats been with me ever since sec4. That's almost 5 years. I have a name for her. She's Kurenai and she's the kind of stoic, strong leader kind who has great tasks thrusted upon her. The unwilling heroine who just takes what life gives her and moves on.

It's a good thing I decided to color the lines in darker so you can see more detail. I have a story for this picture too that revolves around an apocalyptic, dystopian, parallel world where humans are oppressed and go in hiding, forming underground communities to escape from a race born by human greed through eugenics. This race is an amazonian type that has a larger frame, long slender limbs and pale skin. Two worlds exist in parallel so there's that world, and the other is where this race lives in proper communities, where they establish schools reminisce of those in Naruto or Garden from FFVIII where kids are brought up and trained in proper combat because they gotta defend themselves from those monsters that dwell in darkness beyond the outskirts of the communities, who area actually people of their kind whose hearts or souls have turned bad. Kind of like the concept of Norg, the Shumi from FFVIII. I think the nicest looking thing in the picture is the demon looking thing.

2007-02-22T16:27:00.000+08:00

I'm adding on to my list one more reason to learn my Japanese properly. I just remembered KHII was released in a Final Mix+ version today, meaning its got a Japanese language interface coupled with more events, bosses to fight and new maps, painstaking for one who doesn't read Japanese on a daily basis and completely unplayable for those who don't know the language at all. What's more, KHCOM, the game essential to knowing your way round KHII made for the gameboy advance with therefore, subpar graphics and gameplay system that is absolutely driving me nuts at the moment was remade and packaged with KHII Final Mix+ as a PS2 playable game (!) with proper CG graphics (!!). That means being able to have Sora run around the whole space of the screen and not just like, flat on a.. 2D screen. You get what I mean.

2007-02-16T02:14:00.000+08:00

Crap, I feel like a real asshole now.

But more of that later. Let me share a glorious experience I had today. Namely with a large cake, and the CNY cookies clogged refrigerator. This afternoon, my maid interrupted my pissified mood carried over from yesterday to tell me that there's this strange man at the gate. So anyway, in this type of situation, I will go check out who the stranger is. I poked my head out from the gate and spotted this Angie cake van. Apparently, the troubled fellow told me he had come to deliver the neighbour's cake but since they weren't in, he had called them and they said to leave the gargantuan bugger at my place. Technically, the size of that thing didn't strike me till it was placed into my hands and I was nearing the refrigerator but anyway, I felt it was very strange to be collecting a cake on behalf of a neighbour. We were that close?

Alright, so I opened the fridge door and before I could make this cake vanish from my hands I realised then that this cake had become a liability. On closer than usual inspection, the fridge was completely packed to the brim with more useless stuff than I had remembered. Jars of CNY cookies even slided horizontally in to utilise full space, a left opened can of who knows what, boxes of stuff that aren't meant to be eaten by anyone living under this roof, cartons of soy milk.. everything was cramped in like some squatter settlement. And I had this hugeass cake in my hands that was to somehow join this neighbourhood. Furthermore, since this cake doesn't belong to anyone here, I'm not allowed to do what I would have done otherwise, taken the easy way out and do a half bait job in getting it in.

I got down on my knees, sorting and organising, trying to make 100% use of any space inside, which later turned to squashing and throwing around because this cakebox just had to be of a certain size, being able to only fit on either one of the two out of 4 shelves in the fridge. Correction, I mean only one out of all the shelves, because I just remembered how I slided the box in and it had to refuse to move in anymore, making the fridge door uncloseable. That was when I realise the mission was far from over and my violent side played a more active role. May I add that some words that should have been censored made it out of my mouth. When the task at hand becomes the sole purpose of living for that moment, other things naturally fade in importance.

Fortunately, the box made it in before my actions became too rowdy and cracks start appearing on any of the other boxes in there. But by then, I had already slammed the door shut ready to erase all memory of the past 15 minutes or so. Imagine, it's your birthday and you have to shove a cake into a fridge which isn't even yours.

Anyway, back to why I feel like a complete asshole. I more or less ruined my day being pissed at my brother and sister from yesterday, feeling underappreciated, lonely, and still overall just annoyed that no one ever cares, and that "Insensitivity, it owns the world and all its people" if you read my nick on msn. I remembered the pissed off replies I shot off yesterday because I couldn't be bothered to talk to them properly anymore, or to talk to them ever again, because they were just so mean to me so I would be mean to them too. So when my brother asked me if I wanted something I'd just say No without considering, when my sister said happy birthday I said Pooh! And unhappy at that, the kind of look that says as if you would care. I felt like they owed me something.

I was beginning to feel the effects of loneliness today, it eats away at your heart and makes you restless and bored. My sister began to close the door yesterday night and before she left to go out with the cousin, she said sorry she couldn't go to the birthday dinner tonight so I said it's alright. I guess that counts as an apology.

But I felt so shitty and useless when I had dinner with just my parents because I felt like a loser :( and as though I had no friends. The brother was working as usual, not like I would've wanted him there cos it would be awkward cos I treated him like crap yesterday (not that he didn't treat me like I was anyway!). On the car ride home, I had to become all restless and began recounting aloud to my mom the kind of monetary privileges the brother always got that I never got, relating them in somewhat crystal clear detail.

Anyway, when we got back home, the mother came to my messy pigsty room that I keep procrastinating to tidy up and handed me this very obese looking angpao, adding that she'd give me the rest later on cos frankly, it's CNY and it's not very smart to give away all your monies before it even starts. So there, she pierced the first arrow into my guilty heart. Every boss in a video game has a weak point which you exploit endlessly and at every opportunity to defeat him. If you're looking for a way to defeat me, then this is it, to weigh my heart down with guilt by giving me things I don't feel I earned or deserved and at an expense of your own.

The next beating came a short while after when the brother came home from his job at the furniture shop. You know how when you aren't on good terms with someone and when that someone is around, you become more aware of his/ her presence? Anyway, before I could psych myself to ignore the goings-on around the house, he conveniently popped himself in and handed me a huge ass box with a fine looking Sora inside. Not half as huge ass as the stupid cake that wasn't mine today, but huge ass to be something GIVEN to me. That was completely unforeseen and I felt very sheepish as he wished me a happy birthday and gave it to me. I think like, a large piece of my heart was blown away at that instant, not by wind but by something like a shotgun that left a wide gaping hole, or something. I didn't know how to react to that, this wasn't something that I deserved or earned, and to make things worse, I hadn't been the kindest person yesterday. He got me this with his money, the money he earned from the lousy furniture shop job (haha.), which he certainly didn't have to, completely out of his will, so that I could be happy for a while, because I always talked about Kingdom Hearts like some mad fanatic, how I beat Sephy the hardest boss ever, how leveling up forms is key, how good the Fenrir is especially when you see it in action. Shit, I'm crying, it's just even worse when you put it in words isn't it? And there I was thinking nobody cared, when I have a huge Sora standing right here on my table.

The sister, who came back also a short while after also came bearing good gifts, a nice box of Guylians choccies. By this time, I knew the anger had to end. They were pelting me with gifts, and they just wouldn't stop! Anyway, that box of choccies confirmed the fact that I was a completely asshole. I'm looking at it at the corner of my eye now, it's just lying there on my table
making me look so dumb.

I'm just horrible okay? You happy now? I succumb to the dark forces more often than everyone else and I just love to think that nobody likes me when in fact thats not true okay? There, I said it. And I'm sorry okay? But I still don't think it was entirely my fault, so there!

-
We all want things to be given us without having to say it.

-
Not saying it doesn't make you less of an asshole than the one who says it.

2007-02-15T00:58:00.000+08:00

My first Threadless Select tee and boy, it looks so fine. I just got a bundle of my tees back from the tailor's today, together with 2 other pairs of jeans and 1 pair of Mango pants and woah the tees fit quite snugly but the longer length just completely flatters my figure so I'm pretty satisfied with his work. Ya anybody who wants to alter their jeans or tees go to Express Altering #4-40 Far East Plaza and have fun with the tailor. He has that signature look, the 'Do I know you?' expression whenever you pop your head in and say hi but he's really quite nice and talks to you after a while. Anyway, take a word of advice from me, the online shopping queen and don't EVER get jeans or pants from Old Navy. The cut is just, completely baggy and I'm not sure whether altering can make them look any better on you.

Anyway, today has been quite eventful. I will give credit to my siblings for being able to just completely piss me off today. There is definitely some kind of conspiracy between them the way they naturally gang together to make me blow my top to outerspace. Some will say don't be so petty but I'd throw one right back atcha with it's the little things that count. I think the little things more often than not betray one's innermost thoughts. Take for example, if you didn't mean it, you really wouldn't have said it. Their insensitive remarks are just so cutting sometimes it all adds up after a while, I don't know what I did to deserve such a whacking.

I don't want to hold it against them but their remarks just make me wonder if they have anything such as.. I don't know... maybe, a heart? I'll just run through a few instances for those who are dying to know the dirty details and maybe you guys can judge for yourselves.

Even though it's quite obvious that I've been a Christian for a while, my sister makes no qualms showing her disgust for the religion. Words like 'brainwashing' have been used to describe the services I go for at church, 'ewww' as a response to the subject on speaking in tongues. Not to mention the evermore annoying habit of loudly declaring "She's praying" to all at the table whilst I quietly say my grace. Think I can overlook the last one but I mean, the point is, is it really standard procedure for you to openly attack a sibling in such a way? And so indiscreetly as well? Come to think of it, I wonder what she's been eating because since she came back to Singapore, she has really upped her level of being annoying. I'm beginning, strangely, to vaguely remember her being rather loud and annoying generally when she comes back on holiday. I mean it in no disrespect whatsoever, and definitely not as an attack to her personality, but to a peace loving, silence worshipping person, it's just well, plain annoying. What's she on I wonder, crack? Or it's the weather maybe? If so, then I'd probably hibernate in Japan...

Okay, on to sibling number 2. Ohh he makes me sooooo mad I could just go I hate you I hate you I hate you and you're so hateful you're so hateful you're so hateful forever without meaning it but being very angry whilst yelling it. The damage is dealt in the form of seemingly fraudulent slips (am I using the term correctly?), but then again, sometimes I wonder whether he actually really meant it (which is alarming! - the fact that he might have meant it!). He absolutely refuses to let go of the insult that I am fat. He just relishes at the opportunity to say that I'm fat, just because he is like, a stick and therefore definitely thinner than I am. What? Are you trying to show your happiness and confidence about your absence of fat? If so, that's just plain annoying. Okay this sounds petty but, I assure you, the context with which this seemingly harmless comment was made really makes it look like he's just using it to get back at me, in a not so harmless way. Secondly, is it really hard to deduce that using the adjective "fat" on a female subject is very very rude and should not be used unless the main objective of saying it was to attack or to insult? I'm sure it's not. Men, think about it, even you would know better right?

Anyway, oh the way the chemistry between them is so good they achieve astounding levels of pissing me off when they synchronise. My sister has the need to hog the toilet when its time to go out, leaving me with close to 0min to prepare myself at all. Today, she just had to insist on doing it whilst she stuck me with accomplishing the painstaking task of finding the address of some Ebay seller embedded somewhere within the links. My brother just had to point out the fact that I was still in my PJs, further aggravating the situation because as I said, she's damn using the damn toilet and I can't damn use it got it?? And she's making me do stuff cos she can't damn do it her damn self okay?? Anyway, after rushing myself with what little time I had to haphazardly change out of my clothes so that we could quickly leave the house for lunch; we were way behind time, the two of them just had to simultaneously go do their own thing while I was already raring to jump out of the house already. One moment they're complaining I'm the slowest person, I'm always the last person, look who's first now, dumbass. I distinctly remember it being like that for quite a while when it comes to going to school. My brother'd be the first to wake up and I'd be the last to wake up and in the end, I'm out and about outside the house and waiting for him to slowly put on his shoes so my mom can drive out of the house. Today, his memory just had to fail him that he's one of those first-but-last type serving to make me angry because he absolutely refused to stop doing his thing and just go out and put on his shoes even though I made obvious my intention for him to do so. In other words, he's ignoring me lah! And at the same time squeezing in some other callous words insisting that I'm the true last person. Okay whatever, talk to the hand. The sister, what's she doing on the other hand, it truely baffles me what kind of wonderful conversation she can carry out at this time when we're already late. Dragging her feet around here again, can I say one more time, Who's the last person now, dumbass? Certainly not me so don't damn label me the last person damn you hateful people. Wait, and for the finishing move, just to put the cherry on the top, she comes bounding down the stairs after taking her own sweet time doing her own agenda with the damn brother getting up from the computer and following her outside to put on his slippers after seeing her do so. Oh my goodness, am I some second rated citizen?? How come she go out put on her slippers then you will go do the same but when I ask you to do it you ignore me? So hateful. And like, his timing is just so spot on, when he goes off to walk next to her, both of them talking their cute little conversation while I'm left trailing behind like some peeved dog. So hateful.

Anyway, the result was that I absolutely did not want to talk to them at all for the whole day and I completely ignored them because who likes to be ignored? I'm just observing how they'd like to be ignored cos they did it to me and apparently it seems very fun for them to do it on me and with such dead accurate timing. I think for someone to ignore you especially after dropping such obvious hints that you're seriously unhappy with the way they conduct themselves can't even be called a friend at all, much less family.

If they don't appreciate me, like how it's been so obvious to me today, then I'll be less of a nuisance and stop socialising with them. It is afterall, the default defense mechanism against such hurtful behaviour. When someone hurts you, you stay away from them. So yea, since I am so annoying and always the last person and always dilly dallying and so ugly and fat, I'll just do you guys a favour and stay out of your lives. Decided that's only the sensible thing to do.

2007-02-13T01:17:00.000+08:00

While everyone's stuck in the university studying, here I am free to run (period). Life has been contrary to what I had expected, I haven't been able to reach the state of boredom yet. The past coupla days I spent yanking out all my clothes clogging up the tiny wardrobe and folding and stacking them nicely so that my sister could have a share in the wardrobe space. One wardrobe to two girls seriously... does not make any sense. Anyway, that aside, I spent almost at least a few hours on the playstation playing Kingdom Hearts II everyday. There are still a number of missions, mini-games, leveling up and bosses to fight so that's been keeping me quite happily occupied. And when I'm done with that I could always move on the Final Fantasy XII. I just managed to beat that pesky Sephiroth today. I confess, my palms start to sweat and I get all fidgety when I attempt to fight him but with more levels and new skills yes, I quite delighted in watching him get whack by Sora's keyblade. You go Sora!

I met up with a friend just a few days ago and we talked a bit about anime and games and what we liked so much about them, what we liked to see in them. And I just had to go on about the primary school kids I had to relief teach for two days. Kids these days are surprisingly not all as different as us than we think them to be. I decided on relief teaching as much as I dread all kinds of work so as to earn some money to hopefully eventually be able to buy a PS3 when I'm all alone in Japan. I need a companion! So far I've worked three days, that's $65/day deducting the 20% for !#^$%*# CPF that's just above $150 far from my target of $717.60 and strangely I'm having so many appointments with people lately, I don't think work is very possible in the days to come. Speaking of days to come, it's almost CNY and I've gone back to the online forums to find stuff to complete some outfit in mind.

Oh right, I went to the Zouk flea market with Fang and Justin (like why in the world he wanted to go.. beats me) and I bought a topshop shirt in size 6 for $8 that fits pretty well. My sister hates it and Justin thinks its something his grandma would wear, my mom says she likes it (lol which reaffirms his point) but that's what it's supposed to be like I think, vintage print. I got a nautical looking elastic belt, well worn judging from its elasticity and general appearance, that screams Captain America/ Wonder Woman because it's blue red white horizontally striped.

See? My life is exciting right?

Moving on, Justin and I went to Penang Place for dinner one day, can't quite remember which day that was, but I just completely exhausted my stomach's capacity, which is quite normal for me to do so at Penang Place. Auntie Hannah was so nice, I got to eat for free in the end, which defeated the purpose of having dinner with Justin since he was supposed to pay.

Let's move on to the present shall we? I saw a notice on sgselltrade looking for size UK10-12 girls for an indie-styled clothes photoshoot just yesterday. The post says the models get to keep the clothes and get paid $125/day. Since I suppose it's Joanne who's in charge of this; Cheryl knows her and she's pretty nice too, judging from some miscellanous emails I exchanged with her in the past, I thought well why not? I think I fit the bill too. The last time I 'spoke' to her, it was about gothic clothes, I had something of a goth craze at that moment in time, hyped up enough to think about getting a dress tailored in the style of Sena Robin.

Oh sheesh, I'm being bitten by mosquitoes as I speak. I woke up a few days ago with two itchy red blotches, one on each cheek of my face. It's clearly my turn to suffer the wrath of these annoying insects; my mom and brother complained of mosquito bites previously while I was quite happily undisturbed by them for some reason.

More CNY shopping in the next coupla days to come; I've bought an Urbanoutfitters jersey skirt, waiting for it to arrive in the mail together with my brown houndstooth Forever21 shorts. I've been needlessly stocking up on long-sleeved clothes, since it would be Spring when I arrive in Japan. I hope to stretch the $105 my mom gave me as cny expenditure, anyway, meeting Fang at Ikea for lunch tomorrow (meatball goodness!). Peace out!

2007-01-26T18:40:00.000+08:00

Schedule:

1. Take a bath.

2. Check for driving test dates.

3. Beat Organisation XIII's no. IX.

4. Have dinner.

5. Do quiet time.

6. Sleep.

2006-12-13T19:47:00.000+08:00

MY GOODNESS! Square-Enix would be the death of me! When I firsted started Dirge of Cerberus the overall mood was: happy happy, trigger-happy Vincent Valentine, run around shoot the bad guys, collect the items and ammo, save the hostages! YAY! Then it got draggier and draggier, the levels became longer and longer and not to mention this little tricks they keep pulling at you that become increasingly more agitating and annoying and then they leave you confused, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. By the time I had moved out of Kalm (that's where we had little encounters with civilians) and into the phase of defending the WRO headquarters from the pesky Deepground soldiers, okay that wasn't so bad. It's kinda fun running up the different floors, sniping soldiers from afar before they shoot at you. But going on into the phase of attack, where the main objective most of the time was to protect the WRO soldiers, the game throws all sorts of things at you: sentry robots that bash through the wall without warning, flying at you and your men and exploding in your face, funny things dropping out of the sky, bullets flying in from the roof when before that was dead silence, weird little presents in the item boxes that you're supposed to destroy such as more bad guys hiding inside, locked walls that shut behind you leaving you in a tiny space with tonnes of baddies appearing outta nowhere (and I really mean nowhere!!!) charging at you not to mention giving you an ass-whooping at the same time. They really upped their crazy antics a notch by providing this weapon called the Blasting Machine Gun. Vincent Valentine has 3 main guns: Cerberus (handgun), Hydra (rifle - my fave), Griffon (machine gun). The Hydra kicks some serious butt with high accuracy coupled with a long range (though very heavy as a trade off). The Cerberus is really light, fires rapidly and is pretty accurate as well. The damn machine gun has the lowest accuracy and I wonder whether its for that reason they give you so many damn machine gun bullets in relation to the rest just so you gotta use the lousy gun. Anyway, this Blasting Machine Gun is really one heck of a funny gun. Every shot fired from that gun that hits a DG soldier makes him fall flat on his face, which is actually pretty useful when facing a horde of angry charging soldiers on crack. It is also amusing, I must add to see the elaborate falling action, or should I say bouncing action. At one point, I had the Sniper Scope equipped just so I could zoom in (and thus fire more accurately) on some trigger-happy rocket launching soldier that just refused to expire. Of course, I had my trusty BMG equipped as well, and with shot after shot I was treated to the sight of watching him bounce up and down in zoom everytime I fired. So anyway, this Square-Enix, they really are something. In the game, we have the normal DG soldiers that pop after a few shots, the conveniently easy ones that expire after one shot, the bulky huger ones carrying huge-ass swords ready to swipe (or sweep) you into the air on close range, the stupid more agile ninja looking ones in purple spandex that jump all around threatening to take a swing at your neck, the rocket launching buggers, the persistently annoying commanders with ridiculously rapid firing guns that shower you with an endless spray of bullets... hmmm I think that's about all... but NO! Wait! When all this isn't enough, a new breed of soldier, I bet just for their entertainment, pops up. This is the new improved DG soldier. He has an invisible barrier completely nullifying the use of bullets. WHAT?! Then what am I supposed to use? Haha, but that is the question. Melee him to death! What with all the surprise attacks draining out the life in me, the more frequent stampede charges from absolutely all walks of life (we have the robots, all types of soldier, flying mines... whoopee), Vincent runs into a huge room where... yes you guessed it, the door shuts behind. Suddenly the Mission Objective screen pops up, which isn't really good news most of the time. Previous mission objectives included: Save the surviving WRO soldiers! Defeat the Deepground Commander! Avoid the aerial mines! Destroy the robotic assault units! Assist the WRO members! Defeat the sentry robots! Okay yes, I think you've got the idea. Notice how they always end off with exclamation marks, not surprisingly, these little mission always leave me on the verge of a heart attack. But this time round, the game isn't about to be beat with mission ideas. Poor Vincent who starts talking to himself only around mid-game when the game antics surge in intensity and er.. bombasticity, is greeted by yet another onslaught of a painful elaborate mix of baddies. The Mission Objective that appears on the screen simply reads: "Defeat 100 enemies!". Oh my sky, I thought. This is really... the top of Mount Everest. To make things extra annoying to the pulling-out-every-single-strand-of-hair point, the game developers have decided to locate the MP point (you need MP to cast magic, particularly useful against thick-skulled foes) in a cozy little nook, by which you need to have Vincent first crouch down and slowly inch his way into this cozy little nook in order to recharge some of his MP gauge. My lord, the baddies come in bitesize batches which aren't so bad until they start appearing on opposite sides. Then they start sky dropping the sword wielders and bouncing ninjas that come charging at point blank range. This is where again, the trusty little Blasty comes in handy, one shot fall down trick, if you remember. These really large soldiers characteristically take more shots to put down so after a while of blasting with the Blasty becomes a little tiring and tasteless. What better way to expend that huge supply of lousy Griffon bullets then to have these soldiers fall down with one shot, quickly switch to the Griffon, fire a quick flurry of machine gun bullets, then whip out the trusty Blasty when they get too close again. These little victories amidst the more prevalent chaos and slight agitation mixed with adrenaline experienced between different parts of the game gives one a feeling of slight confusion: Am I enjoying myself?... Hmmm, I wonder... .... And it also makes one wonder... what in the world am I doing playing this game... ... ...

2006-10-06T11:55:00.000+08:00

I hate the traffic police. The way they quack at you after the driving test, actually makes it seem as though they know how to drive. At the standards they mark you down, I'd say almost the entire car-driving population in Singapore don't know how to drive.
I'll tell you a secret. Know why there are so many maid abuse cases around here now? Well, that's cos they deprive them of their drivers' license, and then they implode from pent up madness and insanity, which compels them to attack or fly at the nearest 'outsider' around themselves. It's a cycle of madness, such viciousness, when a person tries to lord what meagre authority he has on an innocent person, the master-slave game becomes contagious and the latter is thereby infected with the disease, which voila, manifests itself in such ill behaviour in society.

The world lives for itself. People who play such games are just cowards. They glorify themselves and prop themselves to illusions of high status, living in a world of their own very misleading hallucinations.

2006-09-29T23:05:00.000+08:00

My first attempt at applying the Kosé Sekisho Whitening Mask:

It's a black, gooey, viscous liquid that oozes forth with great enthusiasm when I peeled off the seal. Although I'd read the instructions thoroughly before squeezing out the liquid I still managed to drip it on my tee-shirt. There goes another one. Anyway, after some painstaking effort to even it out over my face (it insisted on sticking more onto my fingers) it started to solidify like it should. I probably only gained full light of the fact that it was solidifying when I realised after a while I couldn't laugh or eat the pieces of watermelon I had in a bowl. With my mouth only able to open slightly ajar, I resorted to forcefully prod the fruit in with the help of a toothpick. I also realised that I could not, period, jester my mom or brother or dance while making funny noises in front of them like how I would have liked to. Finally, 30 minutes passed and it was time to peel the mask off. Slowly, slowly, it gets a bit pricky at the cheeks and chin but wooh, it feels good to peel it off in one whole piece and to get it off my face. On close examination, if you're lucky, you'd see the little white-ish blackheads stuck on the mask. I also noticed that my pores look less dirt-clogged and seem to have reduced in size. Yay. Now go to Kosé OG and pay 34 dollars for a tube of the Kosé Sekisho White (or should I say black) Mask and have fun yourself!

2006-09-26T21:47:00.000+08:00

With my driving test coming up in one week's time and with the seemingly not so competant instructor I have (I'm taking private, that should explain everything) who makes me stop at the roadside so just he can jump out and buy his breakfast, lunch or kopi and who talks on his handphone frequently while I'm on the road having just enough time to scream at me when I'm in any sort of trouble and who calls me a slow and blur person, and with myself having driving lessons two times a week up from once a week, and considering how much my mom is paying for lessons and how much time I have to sacrifice for the usual ol' go straight turn right turn left u-turn crap, I am almost at my wit's end. Actually, I've already crossed the end. It's annoying having to go through all the crap above, but it's just infuriating to hear your own mom agree with the instructor and talk about you in earshot over the phone saying the same things he calls you when you're driving. I can't help but scream everytime something like this happens. More likely directed at the mother, since she is the one who falls ill for such unwholesome behaviour. I don't think you'd like to hear your own daughter on the phone associating adjectives like VERY slow, VERY dumb, VERY outdated, not knowing what is going on most of the time, does not even know how to use the remote control, VERY gossipy over the phone, talks very loudly regardless of all life around her, not to mention slow on my allowance all the time, with people such as yourself so it's not very much to ask for you to be a little more considerate about other people's feelings especially when they're from the same family does it? It's probably because of growing up in such an environment that I'm someone who is acute to the things that are going on around me, including the possible implications of actions and who might become affected by them, in positive and negative ways. I would outrightly say I hate people who have no manners, who are rude, insensitive and ignorant, and who do or say things out of their own interest without first acknowledging the opinions or feelings of those around him/ her. It is really this kind of action that pushes me over the limits, and drives me to burst out in rage because I absolutely cannot contain such behaviour. It is so unbecoming. And because of that, I constantly have to suffer the drawback of such outbursts - the guilt that comes afterward. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a kind of cunning mechanism to get people like us to stay quiet under verbal slander.

2006-09-19T23:29:00.000+08:00

Every little step I take, every little piece of the world I see serves to constantly remind myself of the one thing that is important to me (besides God :) ). And that is that I cannot trust anyone to show me or teach me what animation means to me other than the one obvious choice I have left, and that is to go to Japan. My hopes have been betrayed, Singapore is definitely not the place to gain any useful skill or knowledge. The heart and passion and the giving that comes with such passion is so obviously missing that it sort of pains me to see how horrible they are at it. It is one thing to be not so good at it and quite another to hurt a person through such methods of "teaching". It is quite demoralising, but to stay strong, I need to control my thoughts. This is not animation.

2006-08-23T21:05:00.000+08:00

時々こんな日がある。今日は初めて経験したではない。寂しげ、悲しげな日昔にほとんどあったんだ。別の人はわたはしのことを全然気にしていない感じがするんだ。どうしてのか、前に考えた。そして、こんな考えがあった。どうして他人はわたしのことを理解しなきゃいけないの。わたしは何の権利でこんなことを思ってんの。他人のことを最初に考えるべきだ。これを考えたら、すぐわたしがわがままな人と思ったんだ。でも、考えれば、考えたほど、わたしは別の人はそれぞれの趣味、好きなもの、そしていろんな話したいことがあるんだと決めたんだ。多分問題はわたしとわたしの側にいる人が違いすぎるかもしれないから。仕方がなくて、自分で生活をするのを納得した。辛くても、これは本の世界だと何度も自分に伝えた。

でも、だんだんいらんな経験が加えてから、人は一人で生きるのは到底無理だと考えた。どの人でも、必ず誰かが必要なんだ。しかし、結局何も変わっていない。わたしは今と最初にいったところと同じだ。どうしたらいいんでしょうか。わたしは思いに側にいる人を伝えたい時、なんとか、いつもチャンスがない。別の友に喋りたり、なんとかわたしについての思いがべつに興味ないみたいで、聞きたくないかなぁって、他人にとって面倒臭かなぁって。まあ、とにかく、わたしはこんな人に話せなかった。話せるもんか。

わたしは“あの人”を探している。思いが伝えられる人、わたしを認める人を探しているんだ。どこかでいるんだと信じているのだ。でもさ、その話をぬきで、今側にいる人を話したいことを話すようにしてのも重要だ。わたしはわたしにとってがんばっているんだ。それでも、時々こんな日もあるんだ。

こんな誰でもいない、自分で一人で旅している、重い荷物を持っている感じ。

わたしの人生には嬉しい、楽しい日もあるんだ。それにしても、わたしはどうしても、肩がとても重い感じがしているんだ。

2006-08-13T21:41:00.000+08:00

I usually don't like hanging around them kids. But anyway, so they said he looks like me when I was young (that doesn't mean I'm old either). My cousin took this as a kind of comparison pic, only fast enough to catch the motion blur of my other cousin's little head swerving toward a direction other than where the camera was.

2006-08-02T18:13:00.000+08:00

I can't help but feel very strongly against Apple/ Mac users. Animators, character designers and all other people who use Macs because of their special characteristics (which I seriously do not know of) apart, the possession of a Mac is quite hard evidence that one isn't a thinker.

I find it quite a trend that people who buy Macs get them for one of the few reasons below:

- everyone else is buying them. Therefore if they get them too, they're more likely to fit in or, no one would give them the 'funny eye'.

- the mac looks good. They buy it for the 'style'. Though I wonder what style is left after everyone else has gotten it.

In fact, I think to buy a Mac because of the so-called 'fun' factor is one of the lamest reasons. The Mac has been degraded from a tool to a mere plaything. A mere thing you tick off your list of to-get-goodies from say, a shopping spree. In fact, the Mac becomes somewhat of a vulgar remark. To have a Mac next to you is equivalent to saying 'Look, I have a Mac' in an utmost derogatory manner. I really can't express how much disgust as well as pity I have for these poor people.

For goodness sakes people, buy a Mac because you did your homework and found that you liked its combination of specifications more than all the other good brands out in the market, that it provides good after purchase support, that it is a reliable or a good performer, and not because you have more cash than brains to spare.

2006-06-20T21:15:00.000+08:00

It always seems that whenever I reach out to touch something, I end up always getting hurt. A fragile being, yet hard on the outside, baked to hard perfection from scarring events. There is rarely a beam of sunlight, a ray of hope, that penetrates the dark gloomy sky. It is always raining, always dark, always despair, always hopelessness. Perseverence has long withered away, there is no such thing that exists. Instead, trudging on like a lone wolf, the only thing I await, is the end.

2006-06-20T01:48:00.000+08:00

I am so troubled right now. And why am I not surprised there isn't anyone around to help me through this. What could they do anyway. Say awww, that's real bad, don't think about it too much, oh dear, that is bad, pray about it. Then walk away and forget about it. Yaar those are real friends there. Why am I still here I wonder.

If God is someone who likes us to be honest then he is the most awesomest person ever. Because that's what I like too. Honesty. If you don't want to listen. Then don't pretend like you care. Drop the bombs on me now.

I was watching my current fav Jdrama on TV. Its amazing these Jdramas are. I'm beginning to think only the Japanese know human emotions. And how to handle them with TLC. They seem to be the only people who understand more than anyone else. I think if I had a family next time, I'd definitely want it to be like in JDramas.

I am so not going online shopping ever again after this nasty incident. I am going to stick my head where I can see where I put my money. Like REAL shopping, at least they usurp my money in a less ruthless manner. Or stick my head where people can't swing choppers at it. Like in irc, watching anime, playing PS games, studying japanese, working at PP, drawing characters, applying for scholarship, modelling furniture on 3DS Max, watching Aijou Ippon, watching Desperate Housewives, watching Project Runway, reading memoirs of a geisha, reading 40 days of purpose, watching the WC on tvunetworks, reading manga, tidying my room, listening to my mp3 player, listening to my FFXII First Press Limited Edition OST, plan itinerary on the UK trip. gosh. God is a wonderful person. He has given me so many things to do.

Too bad I'm startin to think he is THE only wonderful person around. That can get kinda depressing thinking about that.

2006-06-13T01:21:00.000+08:00

My first battle scar in years:

I had underestimated my opponent, the flight of steps leading to the back gate, and had run and pounced on, and attacked it full force without considering the potential dangers and how ill-equipped I was ( wearing slippers). It got rather painful after a while which left me limping all over the place. Essentially, the blood spilled more on the inside than out. Full of pride, I showed it to my brother who wanted a second look.

I realised thereafter he was more interested in having a closer look at the bump (or should I say hump) that had developed from the injury. What a healthy, nasty-looking bruise.

This brings me to recollect the show I watched on TV about supermodels. I heard they insure their legs for millions of dollars. Heidi Klum's legs had a value of a couple of million each or so. A scar, could easily scrape the value by a few hundred or thousand dollars. Imagine, they'd have to keep their eyes on where they place their feet on. No over enthusiastic jumping/ pouncing/ kicking/ sliding/ whatever possible movements they could do with their legs. What an extremely cautious life they must lead!

2006-06-09T16:14:00.000+08:00

I think I need some excitement in my life judging from the kind of things I do nowadays. I ordered some mineral makeup samples just so I could try out the blue-eyeshadow-overkill Lil Mayar look. Lil Mayar is the protagonist in a new anime called Ergo Proxy by manglobe. She's a typical goth and has intense navy blue colour surrounding the outline of the entire eye.

Okay, so I did the best I could. I think I need better quality foam head applicators. The ones I used were too rough and tended to rub a bit of colour off the areas that I'd already applied on. Mmm, the makeup smelled nice..

I don't wear makeup at all so, the mops got a bit of a shock when she turned around to see large dark panda like circles over my eyes. My brother who didn't say anything for a while finally decided what to think of it: disgusting.

I thought it was okay though. Even though the colour came out to be darker than I expected. Very gothic-looking.

I also got a gray pvc bag wrapped parcel in the mail a few days later. I thought it looked very... threatening. Like a bomb, to put that more specifically.

Okay, so it couldn't have been a bomb because I was expecting it. The very much delayed (release date pushed back from 19/04 to 31/05) Final Fantasy XII First Press Edition Original Soundtrack! Hurrah!

I did think, how impulsive of myself, since the soundtrack wasn't composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
Oh what the heck! It's still FF and all these years of painfully watching the first press editions sell out must have left deeper a scar than I'd thought.

They generously stuffed nice green paper inside the box...

And there was an advertisement pamphlet of some sort plus the invoice inside the box... Cool...

The OSTs all bubble wrapped nicely!

Well, cdjapan says "Special case, 28 page booklet, super picture labeled discs" included in the first press edition so, well, at least this is how it looks like on the outside! I'm not ripping open the plastic just yet so you gotta wait.

2006-05-16T01:51:00.000+08:00

Ha, I've managed to squeeze a bit of my brain juices into action thus the existence of this post. The most horriblest thing long holidays does to you is to reduce the importance and meaning of your very existence into mere dust. I was pondering about the fact that a friend mentioned she'd be quitting her job at the start of june and kept harping (well not exactly, but enough to make me realise) that it'd all end soon. Then it kinda dawned on me, that almost half a year has passed already! A part of me highlights the 'almost' and is scrambling to find something to do that would make this first half of 2006 somewhat special and most importantly, something I wouldn't look back and find regrettable, or a waste of time. Despite, my almost busy nature everyday of the week, there's this big vortex inside of me that seems to be sucking away everything. Emotions, thoughts and, I fear, my sanity as well. Such that I see nothing except that big black empty hole within myself.

I think I have come to understand myself a little better. As extreme as I made myself out to be, swaying from one end of the spectrum to the other in mere minutes, emotions like anger, elation and hurt climax upon the triggering of minor events, there is a need for some sort of moderation in my life. This has been stressed during my years in JC and now, once again after. It is a kind of irony I feel. Hours of mugging non-stop where you see nothing but homework in everything that you do. You read the papers, surf the net, watch the telly all for the sake of doing that piece of assignment or prepping for that paper. All your daylight hours haunted by the nagging feeling of the piece of homework left undone. Day or night does not matter anymore, the only sole purpose of our lives was to finish that homework, scour through the lecture notes, do those tutorials, write those essays. Don't even talk about freetime, sleep was a luxury. And what was sleeping anyway? The only solace, where we could drift our minds off from this world, disturbed by such a torturous routine, reduced to mere respite. You could equate sleep as the turning off of a switch, only to be turned on say 5 hours or less later on when it was time to get ready for school. Oh the agony of being forcefully corrected into drones. Time and time again, it was not difficult to see the problem of such an insane education system. Moderation is key my dear friends. Surely anyone can see that it's not a healthy lifestyle to be forcefed with nothing else but what the higher ups deem as good and wholesome for the economy. A little leeway does wonders for the heart and mind. If you'd let the mind wander a little, you'd be surprised as to what it could come up with. Instead of restricting us poor souls into focusing every bit of energy into swallowing increasingly larger volumes of input, it would've been wise to let us stop, take a break and take in the sights and sounds. Breathe, smell, taste, touch, see, hear. Maybe we would even have felt an inkling of joy in the harsh studying environment. Education Nazis!

But now, when crazy exams and study routines and timetables have come to pass, it is time once more to reexamine this concept. Where time was previously non-existent, it is now behaving somewhat like a vacuum. As seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months quite quickly whiz pass at their usual speed, it feels like this could go on forever. As if stuck in a different dimension that keeps no log of time. Moderation again! Moderation! Maybe it is a secret ambition of mine, to attain harmony and balance with all that is around me and surrounds me (and sometimes, drounds me).

Prolonged periods of keeping that head down in the books won't do you any good. Neither will extravagant lengths of free unscheduled time.

2006-05-12T22:49:00.000+08:00

Don't ask why. I just know it is and somehow, it's what I gotta do. There isn't anything else anyway and if, if it isn't what it is supposed to be then that's it. I will have to deal with it. When you leave people alone, they walk down the path towards their downfall. But even if it is my downfall, there is no place else I can call home.

僕は旅人ですから。今も、昔からも、そしてずっとこのままに... ...

2006-05-09T02:03:00.000+08:00

Today I discovered a scruffy looking fellow that had plonked itself right in the center of traffic. I was at the Bukit Batok mrt station walking towards the interchange, going home from the coocoo driving centre (passed my FTT! :D) when there it was. King of the block. Sprawled comfortably on it's stomach, paws stretched out with an alert, wide-eyed look on its face. Didn't look as though it was gonna move soon. It wasn't actually scruffy, I think it's what you call calico. Its fur is a splash of black and different shades of brown such that it looks real dirty. Something like the tortoiseshell just that the latter has a base of white whilst the former has a base of black. I woulda gone up to it if it wasn't smacked right in the center of the path leading to the 7-11. Road block eh? Swiftly on my way, I just managed to catch a short glimpse of a somewhat curious man bending down and instinctively semi-poking the feline in the nose with his rolled up newspaper. What an exciting day for a cat!

I associate cats as friends. A very natural thing for me to do would be to assume any cat I see is a friend. Sometimes the poor fellows, unable to discern friendliness from nosiness hiss and hop quickly away, but no worry, I have yet to meet a bad cat.

Speaking of calico cats, I had a skinny one bounce after me the other day on my way home quite late at night. She was a skinny one but quite healthy looking. I heard the consistent jingling of a bell and realised I was being followed! Lovely lovely cat who couldn't get enough. Rubbed against my legs and bounced up and down against the wall. Took a few playful swipes at my hair when I bent down to rub her fur. What a silly fellow. Followed me right up to my doorstep but refused the dried cat food I offered. In the end, I had to entertain her for quite a while since she wouldn't go but I had to leave her behind because she's not my cat! Had a clear tag and collar round her neck and so, that was my only relief. That someone would care for her when I go.

2006-05-01T00:51:00.000+08:00

Hello. Another bout of absence due to an absolute lack of excitement which leads to a lack of motivation to blog (or talk) about anything. I wonder who reads this blog anyway now that Joey's gone to NS. Anyway, Cheryl pm-ed me a link to a colorgenics test online. I thought it was one of those 'click here!' viruses that circulates on msn at first. Results below:

Everyone feels despondent at times and you are no exception. You are feeling so depressed because it seems that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and you don't quite know which way to turn. So like the proverbial ostrich you are trying to bury your head in the sand. But that won't work - you have to face reality.You are very self-sufficient and methodical. You presume to know where you are going but need to find a person who will recognise the way you are, not be too demanding and who is, as they say in Italy, 'Simpatico'.You are confined and trapped in a distressing or uncomfortable situation and seeking some way out. Whatever you seem to do to resolve the problem hasn't worked out. Fortunately you are able to gain some aspect of relief from someone close to you.For some time now your hopes and expectations have been denied and because of this you are becoming withdrawn and introverted. Continual disappointment has manifested itself in you becoming both suspicious and restrained you have become withdrawn from others and have receded more and more into yourself. You seem to have lost your innate enthusiasm and imaginative nature, for fear that you may be carried away by it only to find that you are wasting your time. You are loath to trust people, as in the past your trust has been misplaced. You seem to be keeping yourself cautiously aloof from others. At this moment in time your attitude is to trust nobody - until they can prove themselves to you.At this time you don't particularly like yourself. Everything that you have tried to do seems to have gone wrong. This makes you feel that there is no point in trying to start again. Apart from being stressed and tense, you are angry with yourself and have unadmitted self-contempt. Your refusal to admit that you and you alone is the basic cause of your problems leads to you adopting a headstrong and defiant attitude. If you take stock of yourself, smile a little and let go, everything will turn out OK. Have you not heard of the cliche 'smile and the world smiles with you - cry and you cry alone!'?

Awww. I just like the colour black, ain't my fault right? Personally, I feel really yin and yang-ish. I'm a black and white person. I even reckon that I have the responsibility to balance out energies and keep things within the vicinity in harmony. I would say the results are preety accurate larhs, just I'm not that depressed and sad and suicidal and I want to live in total darkness where the light doesn't come close to shining- ish as the results seem to depict. Yeesh. But its preety accurate nonetheless. Do it, and tell me what you got.

P/S. I HAVE heard of that cliche before, dummy. That's why when I cry, I cry alone and I don't expect people to cry with me. Why should they?

2006-04-18T00:31:00.000+08:00

Tonight is such a horrible, bad night. Stupid night. If it was something I could actually get a hold of, I'd kick it really really hard, just so you know how pissed I am right now.

Somehow, I think it was bad from the start because I took a nap at 9.30pm and when I woke up, it was already 5 minutes to 11.00pm. I missed Desperate Housewives!! Argggh. How can you take away my Monday night tv priviledges. Stupid nap. Anyway, I think it sorta led me to ponder on the fact why I felt so irritated then. Maybe it was because I hadn't taken a bath for 2 days in a row, and when I finally did today, I came out of the shower still feeling so unclean, like I hadn't scrubbed properly? That's way disgusting. And was itching. Dumb everything.

Anyway, I caught Grey's at 11, so okay, that's good. If I hadn't, I might've just crashed my head into a wall without thinking of the consequences. But, somehow, my mood was disrupted. And my brother was studying upstairs so that means I can't leave the volume on at the normal level, I gotta turn it down. So I had to sit so close to the tv, and I didn't like that. I wear spectacles, my degree is high enough, I don't want to aggravate it anymore. Even the normal watching distance is already too close. Darn it all.

And then, I was just too distracted while watching Grey's. Instead of focusing on the drama between the characters, yknow, their interaction with each other. I was distracted by the patients. All the while, I just kept noticing how painful everything must be. Almost flinching. And there were these two people brought in, they had a pole right through their bodies, they were stuck together. In PAIN, YES. Then the doctors realise, they gotta move one person outta the pole so they can operate on them separately, but the person whom they move is most likely going to die from bleeding, since their organs are punctured by the pole and what's stopping them from bleeding to death is that the pole also plugs the wounds. And since the man stands a higher chance of living, less damage it seems, they decide to move the woman out. Means, she's most, likely, going, to, die.

At that moment, I couldn't take anymore emotional slaps. I just broke down and cried, and cried for her. That life is unfair. That she didn't deserve all the pain and now, death. That there was no more hope left for her. She's just going to go like that and that's how it is.

I am so tired now. I slept at 5am this morning. I had to go to work. I have to go to work tomorrow, and almost everyday for the rest of the week now. That sucks. I feel quite USED. When other people were around I didn't get any work, now everyone's gone, I gotta work my ass off. That sucks. I need my pay so I'm not allowed to complain. I forbid myself to.

Aside from how uncomfortable I feel from feeling not-cleaned-properly, is also the fact I can't seem to figure out why I have keep having constipation. It's dumb! It's not like I'm not eating my veggies and fruits! In fact my diet hasn't really changed. What in the world? I'm totally not eating meat anymore. More fruits! More veggie! More water!!!!! And how my stomach, more like bladder, feels weird after leaving the toilet. It sucks.

Then my ma had to go use MY bathroom tonight. She never uses my bathroom. And it's just so annoying. I left my phone in there and was wondering if someone or someones might've sent me a message that I need to reply to and there she was occupying the toilet. Well, it's cos the bathroom area (place where you get in and shower) in my parents' bedroom bathroom was under repair? Like huh? Since when. We never REPAIR toilets around here. And my hairtie and clip was inside. If I hadn't had tears streaming down from my face amidst all the hair on my head that drapes down into and over the vital features of my face, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have been so pissed over the fact she was occupying my toilet. And when you're pissed and annoyed, merely holding yourself back from a slow death to insanity, the last thing you need is for that someone, who is causing the direct disturbance to make (un)wise comments from inside the toilet.

Anyway, no I'm not done yet, don't you dare run away. So ya, I go downstairs and my brother, the one who caused me much discomfort from sitting so close to the tv, happily popped by downstairs and went up again once his program was done without turning off the tv? What in the world? I always get this feeling that he's just letting other people clear up after him. Which is so rude and annoying. Okay, and he gives the reason that he thought I'm still watching? I think that's valid, but the sheer ignorance of the presence of people other than YOURSELF is getting to me. If you didn't know whether I was still watching, why couldn't you have opened your mouth to ask? Is it because you want other people to clear up after you, or you're just dumb and stupid that you don't sense that there are such things known as OTHER HUMAN BEINGS around the house? Sheesh. Ignorant. Anyway, this family is full of it. To tell the truth, I think I'm the only one who takes notice of other people, their possessions, their feelings, their existence. Like I'm the only one who acknowledges that and it is a tiring feeling to feel that way so much of the time. Coupled with not getting reciprocated.

Okay, and I think my mood's really down also because the stupid spree organisers are taking so bloody long to mail out my stuff?! It's not like I'm not paying for postage, they just are so damn slow. I wonder why? All the previous sprees I've joined, they mailed out stuff at most 2 days after you pay for postage. I think now, it's probably 4-5 days. That's just plain annoying and so inefficient. I don't mean no rudeness to these people, but when they start deciding to all do it at the same time, that's just infuriating. And also the fact that I feel cheated when one of them charged me $3 for postage, received the mail, stamp said $1 and she used poor quality paper, not even an envelope to mail my stuff in. Quite frankly, she charged me about twice what I should pay. Dishonest. Furthermore, to aggravate matters, the tshirts I got in the mail that day had rather inaccurate sizing, a mistake on the place-where-I-got-them-from's part, not mine, and I had to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. The quality-checkers must be seriously underpaid. It's not the first time I've encountered this.

Sigh, yeap, I think that's about it. Honestly feel better releasing the steam here. Might've popped a moment ago, and that would've been bad. It's not good to get angry you know even though the people whom you're angry with deserve it. The Father's orders yknow. Lol. If you know what I mean and whom I'm referring to. There are many things to be thankful about, just gotta focus on them, be a good girl. Spend more time on QT.

Goodnight. Typing on blogspot is laggyand it's getting to me. Thank you Lord for all that you've done for me even for these times when I complain, but still I know that you do many things for me.

2006-04-01T23:36:00.000+08:00

It has been a rather turbulent time for me. Laughs out loud. Lotsa little ups and downs. I would say the downs seem to outnumber the ups though. Have been and still am in a state of boredom-cum-tardiness-cum-tired of living-ness. It's the kind of feeling like you're living still yet you can't say you are.

Have been rather put off by all the small petty things that have happened and accumulated recently. Things from work, things from my parents, things from the course I'm doing... and also ultimately, the fact that my future remains very much undecided gnaws away at every little ounce of strength I have left in my hear soul and mind to open my eyes each morning to meet the new day.

Never have I thought the day would come when I'd look back and actually wish I was in a more school-class environment. Lessons are so boring at animation class, always feel like sleeping in the morning. Lols. And I must admit I am rather agitated by the fact that it's being carried out in typical singaporean style. Singlish and all. Chairs are horribly squeaky such that they make loud noises everytime you (and anybody else for that matter) squirm. The teach says the word 'itself' like there's no tomorrow, maybe I should keep count of how many times she says it but its plain annoying everytime I take notice. The classmates are working people and seem to drone away at whatever we're to do. There's no fun at all. Hellllooooo people people. Animation is fun. I know it's the part where learning seems more tedious and technical and monotonous but for pete's sake don't make learning a pain in the ass. I am so sad to say, this is Singaporean education for you. It doesn't seem to change regardless of which course you take as long as its within the island. It kinda sucks. And the most horrid thing it did to me was to create that insecurity that studying animation in Japan would be like this. How dare you! Insolent fool!

So yea it's been tiring constantly worrying about such things. Been reminiscing about Cowboy Bebop again tonight. Bebop's a real fun and more than pleasant memory to me all this time. It's something I can remember with a smile on my face, cos they're just peeps having their own fun in their own style and way. And more than that actually, more human to me than most humans, lol, through their emotions. It's, almost something I could reach out and grab.

Luckily, my mom decided to save me from myself and tuned to NHK tonight. Upon hearing the magic words 'manga' during the newstime I rolled myself over to the telly as fast as I could, was on the swivel chair if you're wondering. And there was this short section dedicated to something about the manga culture in japan and france too actually, telling of this book called JAPON published recently I should think that contains french and japanese manga in japanese french and english. And it was a soothing sight, to see mangaka on tv doing what they do best, not because it's a job or for fame or popularity or money, but it's something that they do from the heart. I want to go to Japan! I'm sorry Japan I doubted you even a little. Warukatta. Gomenasai.

Anyhow, I feel that these events that have happened, they prompt me to lower the pride I have in me and bring myself back to earth. However much I hate it and feel that I have the right not to (lols.) I must, to survive, and make this time more fruitful.

This has been a rather sucky post but the footprints are a must to leave.

Shout out time!

I wanna thank Yimp for reminding me the things to be thankful for and that what I'm going through now isn't really shit though I keep insisting it is.
I wanna thank my Sister for there's something connecting us beneath the talks, chats, and fun stuff that's called family.
I wanna thank my cuzzies who remind me that downs are part of life too and I'm not alone.

2006-03-14T18:23:00.000+08:00

I am. Trying to get everyone's ultimate weapons. I think it's only the right time since the Dark Aeons have sprouted all over Spira. And now, I am confronted with the most ridiculous, most crazy feats.

I adjourned back to Thunder Plains to pray to the glowing cactuar stones and find myself jiving to the beat of the lightning bolts. Goodness gracious. In a good mood I could dodge 50 consecutive bolts without flinching. Tidus got hit the next instant when I blinked.

Anyway, I managed to find the last glowing cactuar stone which was hidden in some nook I didn't even know existed (it was on the map anyway. Maybe I'm just slow and dumb). So after Kimahri got his Spirit Lance, I tried to continue on and maybe get Lulu's Sigil as well. Alas, this time I went till 96 bolts before getting hit.

It is terribly taxing and disappointing as well after Tidus gets hit. So it's off to Macalania! Where I attempt the butterfly mini-game.

It is one thing to keep failing at it over and over again. But 'tis another when you find out it wouldn't have been SO DIFFICULT if you had attempted and completed it earlier in the game! Egads!

Okay, I was like this: close to ripping out every strand of rebonded hair on my scalp. Who knew it was so so hard to catch those 7 blue butterflies in 30 seconds.

Luckily. with the help of this page it has left me a little less clueless as to which route I'm supposed to take right at the end before grabbing that 6th butterfly, the part where I ram into a whole bunch of red ones.

But that's still not enough, you gotta have a lil bit of skill there. Or should I say a whole LOT of skill.

Okay, why am I writing this? It's because I've completed that first butterfly mini-game (yes I still have another one to go! Argh!). Right at the part where Tidus glides pass the 15th red butterfly, you'd encounter the 3 red butterfly sandwich. It's by far the only difficult part of the mini-game. At that particular corner, in order to move in between the two red butterflies as indicated on the map, position Tidus at the centre on the path.

The way the butterflies flutter around make some sort of silly illusion that the red one to the left of Tidus seems too darn close and as such one would be compeled to swing further to the right where the red butterfly there gets you.

The trick is: Don't look at the butterflies! Look at Tidus' feet! Once you've successfully travel through the first 2 insects at that corner, the third won't be a problem. Just lean towards the edge of the path, pass it easily and grab the 6th butterfly.

Now's the moment where time runs out. I got pass the first obstacle and ran out of time, can you believe it! Argh. The 7th butterfly is fluttering itself nearer the right side of the path (Tidus' right). So make sure you keep leaning towards the right after collecting the 6th and move quickly to grab the 7th. The reds won't be too much of a problem here.

Now. To meet my fate. The second butterfly mini-game.

I am going to have butterfly nightmares tonight... ...

2006-03-05T22:46:00.000+08:00

I am listening to Cowboy Bebop CD Box Disc 3 as I type this. Probably one of the most funkiest music I've set my ears on. Yoko Kanno rocks.

Anyway, here I am. I'm typing this because I need to leave more footprints than just emo ones. And for others (please wave if you're there) who need to know if I've got anything other than angst in that ill lil heart of mine.

Sigh, anyway, right now. I've got my eyes on animation and games. It's not even Digital Media Design or interactive media design or design or what nots. Its hardcore Games and Animation. Means being a key part of those production crew that churn out your PS2 games or whatever game consoles you'll have in the future or probably someone involved in animation like Disney, drawing those frames or the next anime you might catch on TV or download if you like things fast.

Why? I. Seriously don't know? I don't think of anything quite so much as these. It's all I have. It's all I think of. It's all that this worldly world could ever give me. Everytime the world hurts me, or someone hurts me, or I just fell down and cut myself. I'd run to these places. And I would watch these people, characters, tell me their story. More so than just the colourful pictures and slick cool moves cleverly and skillfully choreographed, they are the things that mould me, that make me ME.

If you'd really actually want to know, we can start from the beginning. I was 12, first contact was with one of the Ranma movies. Nekonron in China, that was the title. Before that, I had never even heard of this popular series. A boy doused with water becomes a girl. Another becomes a pig. A girl called SHAMPOO (can you believe that? lols.) becomes a cat. My goodness. What preposterousness. And there we go, a girl who finds an ancient scroll has to become the wife of some strange (but cool) looking gentleman who has chopsticks and a bowl of rice as his weapons. Bizarre indeed. What a bizarre world. But why, why did it leave me craving for more anime. Maybe it was the delicately crafted scenes, how one scene led to another. Maybe it was the themes, the behaviour of the characters, their chemistry, the imaginative too-good-to-be-true world in which such wonders happened in. Maybe also, a kind of longing to be in such a place, or live one of the characters' life.

That started some sort of clockwork in my brain and the next, since the Lord allowed, I tore out the pages of Anime Festival 1999 from the SCV magazine all set for the times and dates of virtually every single anime described in the book. I read and re-read the descriptions, scrutinised the pictures, got myself prepared for every one and diligently caught all of them, though I didn't understand all of 'em. I was exposed to the highly complex and confusing as well, Ghost In The Shell. Didn't understand that at all. What puppetmaster are the babbling about and the next moment it's almost the end, two severed cyborg heads in a tent or something, talking to each other. What? I didn't get it but I liked it somehow. There were a whole lot more that I did understand and enjoyed, stuff like Twin Signal, Yamato Takeru, though they never showed that again. Basically, where characters talk big and/or talk a lot accompanied with sparse or staggered periods of action were probably the ones I didn't understand. But anime is anime. Anime is so different in itself. You've got this and that and you've got those telling a story of friendship, perseverence, courage (courage is a common one) then there's romance, most stories have at least one part about romance, and there's feelings. Lots of it. People crying, people laughing, people dying, people who give their lives to other people or sacrifice themselves for a certain ideal. People who betray, people who live for themselves, live for their loved ones.

Need I say any more? They are my teachers, teachers of the harsh reality, teachers of emotion, teachers of relationships, teachers of character. They told me to have courage even in the face of death. They told me to fight for what is right. They told me to trust in myself or my friends in the worst situations. They taught me that life is precious (lols. Quoted from rurouni kenshin by none other than kenshin himself), more importantly, which is why we should make the most as well as the best we can of it. Man, hell if I wasn't quite so dumbstruck and had kept in touch with at least some of my 'teachers' over these past few years I might've been able to rattle on about all the other wondrous things they've taught me.

But you get the idea, they are the things that have shown me the way, that have held my hand and taken me along that bumpy path of life even before actually experiencing it. They've lovingly cradled me and let me peep out from my little cubbyhole to witness the bewilderment, pain, love, incredibility that is life. That is us. That is the world around us. That is the strange phenomena that occur in some special people's lives.

Anime has given me a heart, a heart that knows there is warmth even in the coldest hearts. Given me eyes to turn to the truth of situations. It is intense, diverse, emotional, interesting, disturbing but because of all that, was it able to educate me on the core topics of life, ways of life, and maybe death as well.

Violence only leads to more violence. Kenshin said that. Naruto's worst experience was being alone, not being recognised by anyone, being an outcast. Maybe it is mine too, or my worst fear. No one can truly be alone. That's probably one of the greatest truths.

I guess, it is my time to give back what I have been greatly blessed and endowed with. The experience to be taught by one of the greatest teachers ever. Maybe, it isn't such a foreign concept anymore is it? It would probably be, my greatest homour ever. To create with my own scrawny hands the beauty and tragedies of life depicted as part of an anime, with the purpose of educating not only the young, but touching those who perhaps have lost the purity of childhood or waking the innocence within any individual who has the patience to stay.

Don't you see? It is almost blasphemy to reduce it to mere entertainment, mere time-while-awayers. It is an art that blesses souls and probably, gives you meaning living in this deceptive time.

2006-02-23T02:29:00.000+08:00

Your Stripper Song Is

Master and Servant by Depeche Mode

"There?s a new game
We like to play you see
A game with added reality
You treat me like a dog
Get me down on my knees"

Yawn, dancing is so boring without a little spice.

What Song Should You Strip To?

Your Ideal Relationship is Casual Dating

Maybe you're looking for love...
But mostly you're looking for fun.
You could get serious with the right person.
For now, though, you're enjoying playing the field.

What's Your Ideal Relationship?

You Should Learn French

C'est super! You appreciate the finer things in life... wine, art, cheese, love affairs.
You are definitely a Parisian at heart. You just need your tongue to catch up...

What Language Should You Learn?

Your Japanese Name Is...

Noriko Shijo

What's" your Japanese Name?

You Should Drive a Bentley Azure

You're all flash, and you love to show off to anyone who will watch.
And you're such a high roller, this is just one car of many for you...

What 2007 Car Should You Drive?

*points to above* this one isn't v accurate :

You Are an Emo Rocker!

Expressive and deep, lyrics are really your thing.
That doesn't mean you don't rock out...
You just rock out with meaning.
For you, rock is more about connecting than grandstanding.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

Yea! So true!

What Your Underwear Says About You

Your underwear is probably really, really old.

You're sexy, in that pinup girl, tease sort of way.

The Underwear Oracle

Who Should Paint You: Andy Warhol

You've got an interested edge that would be reflected in any portrait
You don't need any fancy paint techniques to stand out from the crowd!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Your French Name is:

Liana Ratelle

What's Your French Name?

You Are a Rainbow

Breathtaking and rare
You are totally enchanting and intriguing
But you usually don't stick around long!

You are best known for: your beauty

Your dominant state: seducing

What Type of Weather Are You?

I don't seduce!

2006-02-19T20:27:00.000+08:00

Go now, if you want it
An otherworld awaits you
Don't you give up on it
You bite the hand that feeds you

All alone, cold fields you wander
Memories of it, cloud your sight
Fills your dreams, disturbs your slumber
Lost your way, a fallen knight

Hold now, aim is steady
An otherworld awaits you
One thousand years, you ready?
The otherworld, it takes you

Go into the sand, and the dust, and the sky
Go now, there's no better plan, than to do or to die
Free me, pray to the faith in the face of the light
Feed me, fill me with sin, and get ready to fight
You know you will
You know you will
You know it, you know it, you know it, you know it, that you will
You know it, you know it, you know it, you know it, that you will
You know you will...

Fight, fight, fight
Fight, fight, fight
Fight, fight, fight
Fight, fight, fight!

Hope dies, and you wander
The otherworld, it makes you
Dreams, they rip asunder
The otherworld, it hates you

Free now, ride up on it
Up to the heights, it takes you
Go now, if you want it
An otherworld awaits you

2006-02-19T00:26:00.000+08:00

For my own entertainment, not yours.

A job description to Island Creamery should probably read this:

Part-time or Full-time vounteers required

Job description:

You will not get paid for the time you spend here, however, you will be given incentives of $6/hr for the total amount of shit the boss makes you eat.

Points to note for a most fruitful experience working here:

Persistently insist (preferably like a dog) that you be taught how to scoop the ice cream even if the boss says it is your first day and you will not scoop any ice cream or do anything else other than lovingly bond with the cash register.

A good idea of how to treat customers would be to behave the total opposite of how the boss behaves toward you.

Anyone who shows the slightest sign of discomfort such as a raised eyebrow, blank face or prolonged silent treatment to none other than the boss will be fired immediately.

Things to bring along which you might need to use:

A clothes peg, preferably large enough to clip your nose with should you find the neighbourhood rubbish centre sweeter smelling than the cloths you will be provided with to wipe tables.

A personal watch, as we absolutely will not inform you when your shift is up because we desperately require people to eat additional shit for 2-3 hrs even if they do not intend to. For this reason, you will find a clock in total non-existence within the compound.

Remember, it is not how much you can do. It is how much shit you can and are able to eat that is key. If you are one who is able to:

Eat the amount of shit given to you in record time,
Show absolutely no signs of puking whatsoever,
Beg for more shit to be bestowed upon you,
And even lick the boss' boots thereafter,

You are the one we are looking for! Call us now!

2006-02-18T15:45:00.000+08:00

It is today. It is only today when I can tell myself not to deny the fact. To deny it any sooner would've ruined my life but now, it is time to let it out. Not to pull anymore covers over it and bring it out into the bright light.

I had never had any friends at all. I have none. I am my only confidant.

I returned seeking to understand better the tie between myself and the institution. But instead, I relived the horrors, the absolute reason my life was a living hell back then. Why? I am, and always will be an alternative genre. I am, and always will be alone. I am, and always will be different from these things we call people. Amidst the utter chaos, I realised how everything was back then. I'd forgotten but now I will remember. Following people around like a dog. Things that don't have a heart. Things that don't listen. Things that can only talk about senseless, useless, utterly superficial, stupidity, moronic other things. If it wasn't about how our lives were shit or how homework was shit it was about boyfriends, girlfriends, who's hot who's sexy who's with who who broke up with who. This world only exists for itself. It cares not for substance but fleeting beauty and deception.

It was full of lies. And probably still is now.

I thought, maybe, I could remember how I'd grown stronger back then. How I'd known more than I had before. I guess it was never about the institution in the first place.

Elevate, I need to elevate myself from this whirring blur before I become engulfed in it's lies and deception and become one of it's kind.

2006-02-16T18:30:00.000+08:00

It was my birthday yesterday. As it is now no longer my birthday, I have lost the special priviledge of doing anything I want. However, since there is absolutely no excuse for me not to do it, I shall rattle away to my heart's content since I am fully entitled to do so. :)

Yesterday started out a bit anti-climax. What with the stupid driving test I had to do, which I failed as well, that's even more disgusting. How can you do this to me? On my birthday?! Since the test is computerised (all you who have yet to learn) I suppose the computer you do the test on checks the number of correct answers at the speed of... ... a computer and tells you immediately if you've passed or failed the test. I must admit it was a quite a challenge to accept the big orange box with the words FAILED in caps right after I pressed on the submit test button. Oh the computer is touch screen btw. Okay alright, let's not dwell on that. We still have a long day ahead. It's only ten in the morning!

As I walked home from the bus stop, the resident stray Mr. Friendly followed me home. Usually 'tis I who would keep a lookout for him and give him a pat or two on his little black head when I see him. Today, however, 'twas him who saw me and came running after me! How strange! I'd didn't think he (or any other cats for that matter) actually recognise people save for their voices. Anyway, what a nice surprise. He came up to the gate and rubbed around till I gave him some food. Mr. Friendly is sorta blackish grey with a white underneath and white areas on his face, paws and some other areas of his body. The unique pattern on his body seems to me as though Mr. Friendly wears blackish grey stockings or footless tights, as his hind limbs are blackish grey except the immediate paw area. He is rather a long, slender, tall-ish male compared to other more muscular, larger tomcats. Even his features, such as his nose seem longish. Ht emits a one-of-a-kind cat call that I can identify straight away.

I had to go out again for my driving lesson, how utterly convenient. With Mr. Friendly close at at my heels I set off towards the bus stop again. He stopped after we left the security of the HDB flats. Anyway, I was uncommonly late that day because the buses decided to bail out on me. It was a good driving day. The car didn't stall! Yayness. What an accomplishment. The only booboo I'd made was forgetting to do that left turn.

What a way to start a birthday! I went home rather tired and not wanting to do anything at all. It was hot and I didn't have anyplace in particular to go to nor anything in particular that I would've been excited to do. I got down to continuing my game on FFX where I re-updated myself on my standing of the game (weaponry, position on the sphere grid, item count). It's quite monotonous now because I had decided to stop for a lil to assess the situation of my characters and no. and type of items I needed and did not need (in the case of weapons). It is mighty tiring to decide what's good and what's not good or what I should do cos once you've chosen you've got to live with that decision for the rest of the game. Sometimes, I give myself a break from thinking and leave the presistently annoying problem at the back of my mind and conveniently forget about it only to realise a few relaods of the game later that I still have yet to make a decision. I think this is a game I will have to keep a log of, to enable to do things in a systematic manner so as not to continually fluster myself.

Well, anyway, the most unexpected thing happened next. When I mean unexpected I really mean 1.not anticipated. 2.totally unthought off. 3.absolutely unforseen and. 4. happening or coming quickly and without warning. Haha. I was up to my usual devices, entertaining myself in that "little world of mine" (says Jemmie) when I heard the squeaky creaking of the backgate. I'd thought my mom came home but Lo and Behold! A rare visitor popped up and stood at the backyard.

Huuuuiiiibbbboooooooooonn! Haha. Wth you doing here?

I greeted her in my oversized reebok t-shirt, fbts and way too nerdy glases. That is like soooo. Paiseh. Anyway, it was so out of the blue I didn't quite know how to react to her presence. Ask her in and er... ... Where's that secret planner thing I keep around the house for when guests unexpectedly pop by? It just felt kinda weird and all. I, without much consciousness of mind opened the fridge to rummage around for something. I thought, when guests come you should give them something to fill their tummies with. Hence, I remembered what our fridge is currently famous for. Loads of chocolate. I took out the packet of factory clearance chocolates my sis brought home from the uk, they're pretty good, and we munched on them while plonking ourselves down on the sofa to watch Freaky Friday on Disney. Huiboon insisted we light the lone candle she brought and stick it into the melting slice of Delifrance chocolate cake she bought earlier. And that I, the birthday person, had to sing together with, her, my own birthday song! How appalling! Hahaha. And I, had to make a birthday wish before extinguishing the tiny flame. I felt so lost for words because it seemed all too childish, unusual, dumb, silly,weird, funny, mad, horrifying, unforseen and just so I-don't-do-this kinda thing. But it's tradtition! I know. We gotta follow the rules yknow. I didn't exactly know what wish to make because I never prepared myself what to wish for. I never really wished for something on my birthday. Something I really really wanted. Not materialistically. Something what dreams are made of. The flame was threatening to extinguish itself without my help so I had to rely on my spontaneity to wish for something (which wasn't exactly a something in the end actually). Laughs, I even had to cut the mini-cake after that, followed by us digging into the really smooshy cake. It was really nice and chocolatey.

Well, thanks boon for doing something about this occasion. Something, I myself would never have bothered about, much less other people. I'm glad that you came, though I wasn't quite prepared to celebrate with you. It's your presence that counts. :)

And at night, the wee hours of the night when the night owls start hooting, I caught the biggest one online on my MSN list. The previous conversation I had with Cheryl was mostly about threadless. This time it started with makeup, specifically a broken MAC shadestick going for cheap. We talked a lil 'bout makeup in general and she said she wanted to try out this brand called Barry M. And then there was a whole lot about spree-ing and organising due to the sudden presence of a post at sgspree about the notorious !#$^*&% whose name I shall not mention here for it spells bad news. Apparently she had disguised herself under a new nickname and organised a spree, which everyone was afraid she might end up running away with all the money. And cheryl told me about a new site which you could watch anime without downloading the episodes manually. Is that ingenious or what? The sound of the naruto opening was like music to my ears, because it has been almost two years since I last heard it and well, it is actually music afterall. And I told cheryl that you could catch Gray's Anatomy on channel 5 (cos she loves that show and she didn't know they had it here). It felt like, I give you something good, you give me something good too. Anyway, she's just such an easy person to talk to. A little stoic, it's always nice when I see a 'haha.' here or there. But mostly keen to listen. Cos I'd be like this this this this, you wanna see? Or that that that, you know why? And she'd be like, show me. That's why I never get to sleep when she's around and we talk on Msn. She really seems to devote herself to threadless. Passion + stoicity = Strangely funny. She's a cool person.

2006-02-09T00:07:00.000+08:00

I have a tee-shirt. It says:

The first time I set my eyes on it, I thought: Hey! That tee shirt is so... me. And I wanted it a lot. Now that I have it (that's me wearing it in the pic), I think that it's message is simple but it has many meanings. It could mean, you're talking way too much yo. Just shut up and let the man speak. Or, it could be, hey, just listen to what I have to say. Listen to my story. Or maybe, it's: you're talking way too much and you don't even know what you're talking about. Why don't you be quiet and listen to other people. The more I looked at it and think about its message or messages, I think this is really actually an emo tee in disguise. What with the cheery yellow background and almost over enthusiastic V sign, it hides the wearer's sad intention of making known his or her feelings of being underappreciated by everyone else and too often wishful thinking that people could just sit still and listen to what they say when most of the time their opinions go unnoticed or in and out other people's ears. Almost a declaration of their loneliness and the depressing fact that no one will ever listen.

2006-02-02T18:18:00.000+08:00

My GAP spree stuff just arrived today. I think my mom's pink bag is superbly beautiful and it's the exact same colour as her M&S shoes! But she says it's expensive for a bag of that kind of material (Hellloooo. Price-wise she's stuck in the last decade. It costs about $28).

I love my velour jacket as well. In the loveliest shade of majorca blue :) (What kinda colour is that???)I was afraid that I wouldn't quite like to use it because it doesn't come with a hood and it didn't seem to have pockets in the front when I saw it on the website. However, rest assured, GAP stuff are always functional. It came with hidden-out-of-site pockets with zips in the outside and extra pockets on the inside :) How cool is that. Totally unexpected but very nice. It fits perfectly and I'm glad I took S. Btw, my cam can't take colours very well. I assure you it's in the loveliest shade of majorca blue :):):)

2006-01-28T01:31:00.000+08:00

It's not hard to get emo when
your dad's an asshole, who gives stupid replies
And your bro's a bastard
who don't give replies (or a shit) half the time
When you've just had a haircut
That screams black black bleak
And you're listening to James Blunt lament on the stereo

Maybe it's time I don't stop the l'il fella that's yelling within me
Take up some paper, pencil and maybe some black eyeliner and lipstick while we're at it
It's. Good to feel this way sometimes. I think.

2006-01-20T01:50:00.000+08:00

You wanna know a secret? All these years, there have been somethings that have always remained true, I think. And until someone or something incredible comes by my path, I guess these things will forever be true. Sometimes, people say it's not true or sometimes, you really don't wanna be like that or think like that. You don't wanna stay so depressing all the time. It's just, these things are for real and they're there all the time, you know? When they say it's untrue, either they don't know or they're in denial. It's hard. When will I find someone?

2006-01-17T14:24:00.000+08:00

10.01.06 Marat News

Marat has today advised of his withdrawal from the Australian Open. Despite the knee allowing Marat to now practice extensively on court and he was feeling much better than before, a decision had to be made that he was just not ready to play Grand Slam tennis. As Marat said:" I am very sad that I cannot go to the Australian Open to defend my title as Champion. I have been working very hard and it is a lot better. In my heart I know I want to be at the Australian Open to try to play but I have had to listen to what Peter, my team and also myself are saying that it would not be right to go to a Grand Slam and put so much test on my knee right now. I am sorry to all my Australian fans but I will be back next year!"Marat intends to keep working on his fitness and it is intended that he will make his return in Marseilles on the 13th February.

And I was looking forward to watching Marat Safin back in action during the Australian Open. It's probably quite a special grand slam out of the four because that's when I really started watching tennis and that's when I saw Safin defeat the mighty Federer. And at that time he really clawed his way to victory, which really inspired me. It was a lovely memory.

2006-01-12T22:44:00.000+08:00

I had a most horrorful moment just a little while before. Let me uncover the ordeal in systematic chronological order. Today, like most of the days earlier was cold and rainy so I was in my soft cottony giordano trackpants. Since it was cold, I had postponed the idea of taking a shower until the night. As I approached the top of the stairs, I noticed the shelf directly next to it was uncommonly.. neat. I noticed that the books were very straight and the smaller books put together. But alas, as to whose books they were, it was very jumbled indeed. My pop's and bro's property were invading my section of the shelf! Intruders! Invaders! Who dares trespass on my property? Who? WHO? Then I saw Tidus. Which looked stranger and stranger by the second because as far as my memory permits, the figure in it's plastic box was always kept within a paperbag and therefore for this reason, you would never been able to see Tidus. Petrified like a yelping dog I wailed for my mom who was half asleep in front of the TV, blasting away switched to the channel NHK. I wasted no time demanding an explanation when she finally popped back to reality. Next instance my maid was sent up the stairs because my mom thought it would be logical to ask the person who rearranged and cleared up (I refuse to say 'tidy up' because as far as I'm concerned it's a mess to me! What with other people's books next to my cds and magazines? Preposterous!) the shelf to answer the questions. My back was bent and eyes still fixed on Tidus cos I haven't heard anything yet and am kinda in the transition state leading to the worst part. On asking the simple question - where is the paperbag that covers the figure? my maid said she threw it away already. Oh my goodness. I tell you the moment I heard that I was like stunned. Kinda like when you hear really ultra bad news and you're totally speechless. Then (I don't know what she was doing but..) she went to my mom's bedroom and started aimlessly checking if the paperbag was around in a pile of my stuff that I assume she took from my shelf amidst rearranging and left on my mom's small cupboard. There was the bowl with a cockroach printed on it which Judy and Jia gave me on my 15th birthday, which she without a care in the world or even knowing what was that opened up. My Final Fantasy VIII PC Version box which I always made sure nothing dented the box even the slightest bit, which I had tucked away in a corner on my side on the shelf, opened up and left open with the sides at the opening of the box (the flaps. When you open the box there's the lid and flaps.) bent and seemingly cruelly dealt with. That's when my sanity started to wane. Y' wanna know how I really felt at that moment? I was like almost crying inside already.What did I ever do to you that you have to do this to me? Why do you have to do this to me?? I never did anything to you... For a while I stared blankly into space, oblivious to my cat's routine annoying calls for food, and it didn't feel so bad. But the next thing I knew, sadness and pain turned into rage. There was something welling inside of me and I just had to get rid of it somehow. I kicked the cupboard. I kicked the toilet door. I slammed the box of gambling chips (like what're those doing on the shelf?) on my side of the shelf. I grabbed my head and let out a growl, stomped into my room. I punched the wall. I felt like I had to break something then I'd feel like nothing happened. Sat down and stared at the table in front of me. In the vacuum-like moments that passed, I heard my mom and maid talking downstairs about the paperbag. My mom was asking what was going on and my maid was like there's nothing inside the bag! Just some dirt so I threw it away! They just went on and on and my mom was like where's the paperbag? And there was a mini scuffle downstairs as (I make out) they embarked on the mini 'get-that-paperbag' search. The vacuum that surrounded me was shortly interrupted thereafter by my mom's presence at the doorway. 'Nah'. And she asked whether it was the right one and placed the badly crumpled, good-for-nothing-else paperbag on my table. I didn't say anything. My mom casually mentioned something like why do you want such a (useless. Not said but implied.) paperbag anyway? They don't get it, seriously they don't. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE PAPERBAG. IT'S NOT ABOUT WHY DOES SHE WANT THAT INSIGNIFICANT PAPERBAG. IT'S ABOUT WHY THE HELL ARE YOU OPENING AND (get this.) THROWING AWAY THINGS THAT ACTUALLY BELONG TO ME?? And you don't even tell me beforehand you're going to touch, heck, throw away and take out and violate my stuff? I was so angry. Do you have any idea what you just made me go through? Let me give you an example. If you could just picture one of those poor Ethiopian farmers who work backbreaking hours tending to their fields, doing anything, desperately trying to make whatever measly amount of seeds he plants take root and grow despite the droughts, despite the cracked grounds, locusts and the rampant diseases. And finally when it's harvesting time, when he sees the field of crop matured and ready for harvesting, the fruit of his labour, another farmer who's just as poor as he is comes up and lights his entire field ablaze. With the fires roaring, what's left after a while is field of charred grass. His entire harvest burnt to the ground. Can you even imagine what the expression would be on his face? The anguish. The searing pain tinged by betrayal. Seriously, you don't get it at all. Please spare my things in the future. They don't bug you at all. They never came up and hurt you. They never took anything the belonged to you. After some moments after the punch in the wall, the worst was over and the welling had stopped. The sensation within gradually faded and lost control over me and I was sane again (whoopee!). Wah lao, luckily she didn't take my Final Fantasy CDS out of their plastic wrappings man. Luckily she didn't rip the kinokuniya plastic bags off my PS2 Famitsu magazines man. If she had... I woulda run away from home.

2005-12-30T01:44:00.000+08:00

I've been to the cinema. And I have seen.

And my impression of the long-awaited, highly anticipated flick is that it was just. Okay. The acting was subpar. A rather wimpy effort. What with the breathtaking scenery, animation, makeup done by none other then the very same people who did LOTR, I felt the acting was not good enough to carry all these "eye candy" to a higher level. I wanted a rich triple layered chocolate fudge cake but what I got was a... holey chiffon cake with tasteless thick cream smeared all over. The witch was the biggest letdown. She had the look, the dressing all perfect. Her gaze is almost enough to send chills down your spine and make you understand the real meaning of ice cold. But what's this? The scenes with Edmund were dull and without impact when in actual fact these would have been the best parts to make the audience feel the cruelty, the cold and hardness of the witch's character. Could have been improved on. Oh come on! She could've used two hands instead of one to drive that sword into Aslan! I think Aslan's roar was about the only saving grace. Aslan could've been bigger and therefore more majestic looking. Even so, his face was good. Full of kindness, solemness and love just as the Aslan depicted in the book. There were many scences that could have been done better and many other things that should have been there to give a greater impact. All in all, costumes were fantastic but the actors seemed to be having too much fun during the making of the movie instead of making the characters they play come to life.

2005-12-23T22:44:00.000+08:00

Mmm. Yum. Nice smooth fresh cream topped with strawberries on a soft blueberry sponge cake. I couldn't peel the damn plastic off so by the time I was done with it, I was all prepared for a Got milk? advert. Hung the mistletoe up above the door to my room. Definitely not trying to suggest anything though.

2005-12-19T16:46:00.000+08:00

Wow. I just spoke to a complete a****** over the phone just now. Well, it was actually this girl who wanted to sell me this set of 7 books. She quoted me a price a few days ago which I know I can get the complete set compiled into a single book for less than that. Anyway, it's a set of books which should be more costly than the single book right. And she gave me the impression that it was spanking NEW. Turns out she had to travel ALL THE bloody WAY back to the house which she kept the books in and the books weren't as new as I thought. I mean, what for should I buy those books if they're gonna cost more than a brand new unopened one and if she has to meet up at such a horrendous time, making me travel all around the world just to go to where she was. I politely said I wouldn't want them anymore since I'll have to travel all the way from home and at such an odd time if I could buy the book myself at about the same price (And it would be new btw). After that, she called my handphone and started spewing the words "Irresponsible" repeatedly. Saying she had to lug the heavy books around and that she wants to get rid of them asap cos they're too troublesome to be bringing around the whole day. What kind of a person who wants to sell somebody somethinng calls them irresponsible and acts so rudely in front of them? Bear in mind that she told me the books were new before I said I was interested in them. I told her that and she said OK that was something nobody expected. So? Whats the bloody problem then? I didn't expect they were gonna be used and old so shouldn't you at least be aware that I might say no? I did tell her in the beginning that I am very particular about the condition of my books. Besides, she said she lived near town. So. Maybe she wasn't thinking that she may actually drop her stupid heavy books at her own house on the way since she's at town? Come on. Use your brain man. What a dumbass. Anyway, I'm not the kind of person who'd pay for something I really don't want. In the end, she decided to lower the price somemore cos "she really didn't want to lug the heavy books around" (and that "she had been carrying them around the whole day already" Please.) I said ok. Since I'll have to borrow the silly kinokuniya card from someone before I can buy the book I want. And I apologised for "making her carry around her HEAVY books" and that "I'm really sorry cos I didn't expected something like (as preposterous as) this would happen". I really didn't have to yknow. And she really deserved to have the phone slammed down in her ear for being so angry and impatient at someone. You really can't assume that everyone's gonna want whatever rubbish you're selling and that people are going to bend to whatever demands you have. I mean HELLO? you have to lug the books around? What about me? I have to travel all the way to town later just to meet you at your odd timing. It's dinnertime yknow? And I might as well get myself a fresh unopen book rather than your musty ancient books that you bought how many dinosaur years ago? Sheesh. Anyway, her tone of voice rapidly changed to a cheery one when I relented. She said Nvm. it's ok :). Ok what. You should be apologising. What a spineless freak.

** Can you believe it? The first thing she said when I picked up the phone was to tell me I was irresponsible. Didn't even give me time to explain my case or even state how troubled she would be or even say that it would benefit her greatly if I got the books from her. Man. Who's the rude one lah. By right if you did that to anyone else there would be absolutely no chance anyone would buy whatever you were trying to sell. A very inexperienced, unreasonable, unprofessional and disorganised person with absolutely no manners indeed.

2005-12-18T01:57:00.000+08:00

My first week of work has just gone by. I cleared plates, prepared noodles, made a few booboos, washed the van they use for catering with Jem and her siblings. I found a cockroach lying splat on the floor during open hours one day and being my excited self, just had to share the excitement with Jem, to which Jem's older sis Debs expressed utter interest in finding out what was going on. Hehe. I don't know if it was still alive though I thought I saw the feelers twitching. Next moment, Debs had her foot on the insect and that was it. A muffled crushing sound that made me feel a tad uncomfortable. I muttered "What an untimely death." that Jem thought was quite funny. Anyways, how's the food? You ask. Mmmmmm :) I like the seafood soup, char kway teow (everyone goes for that), the noodles too. Now I just wish there were some other people I know who'd like to work there... ...

2005-12-09T03:24:00.000+08:00

Been singing out aloud in my room this evening. The trick is to put on the earphones and not remove them so you won't have the slightest idea how loud or passionate it all sounds to the rest of the people around the house. The songs I sang tonight. Some of the lyrics made much more sense than ever before. Stuff like "Could You Bite the hand" and "Heaven's not Enough". Maybe when you sing it to yourself it clicks better in the brain huh. The lines.. (oh. my mom just popped out behind me and bugged me. its 3.31am yknow. great. she totally disrupted my train of thought)

"..Didn't know the pain of leaving yesterday really far behind.."
"..Some people live free , some people just want more, some people have what others want but some go without.. As for me I've got all that I need. Don't got much but I got what I need..."

2005-12-06T20:31:00.000+08:00

Today was the day me my bro and mom went to Funan to check out the computers and collect our old pc from the repair shop. It's also the day I realise my entire 50gigs of anime have been completely wiped out. On the day we left our com at the shop, all of us each wrote down the files and folders we didn't want erased. And as I scrolled down the measly list of what was kept (aka what's left in the hard drive) I just knew it wasn't there. Much displeased I asked what had happened and the store keeper fumbled to say a whole lot of things relating to how it wasn't his fault. Do I even care whose bloody fault it is? Where is MY COLLECTION? The size of what was left only amounted to a mere 3gigs. My mom said so what do you want to do now? Leave it here and collect it next week? Ha! Like it even matters right. They wiped out everything already. EVERYTHING! What's there to wait about. Take it home now lah. There's NOTHING we can do about it right. Anyway, to make it seem like he did care, the storekeeper rang the guy who did the damage and asked for the specifics. Turns out MY folder was corrupted or something insane to that extent and he couldn't save it. So instead he decided to wipe out absolutely everything without telling us anything at all. Thanks. Thanks for a great job done. IF YOU COULDN'T BLOODY HAVE DONE IT THEN SAY SO YOU INCOMPETANT FOOL. Ugh. I was more disgusted than angry at that time. I didn't want to say anything anymore. To be annoying my mom started making unnecessary comments and the storekeeper tried offering some unneeded consolation by half-heartedly apologising which my mom actually responded to. I had to prod her out of the shop. I wasn't exactly angry or sad yknow. My mind was okay. But the mind and body are separate. They really are even though they're physically connected. My heart was feeling the pain. Felt down and really weird. What do they care. They're not the ones getting hurt in the end. Tch.

2005-12-03T23:03:00.000+08:00

It has been about 3 or 4 years since I danced to the song of Spira. And as I start the game yet again, retracing my footsteps, it feels kinda... weird. Maybe it's cos I've listened to the same tracks over and over again. But I know it was never the same when I tried it out the first time. I think the characters just don't seem as impactful as I saw them. And I thought about it. I think I'd always been looking up to them as role models. Wanting to be just like them. But now, they just seem to be any other person. It's.. something I've never really felt before. Maybe my head's still foggy from the recent 'haze' I've been through (or still going through). Maybe it's Sin's toxin. Haha.

2005-11-15T21:55:00.000+08:00

Tuesday the 15th. There's a launch party shopping spree event I'd really want to go to this Saturday. I hope my mom will let me. Just thought I'd post up a few pics for the fun of it.

This skirt is so Yuna-esque. Don't you think so? I think it's cos of the pleats. Really love this.

Man, this is so cool. Its being auctioned at ebay now for like 99 pounds. Its actually a wedding dress yknow. Would so love to try it on. Lol.

2005-11-12T11:17:00.000+08:00

Wooot. PS3 in March 2006?

That means I gotta start saving NOW.

2005-11-02T23:54:00.000+08:00

I feel myself falling away. I'm getting closer to the ground and it feels like I can't pick myself up anymore. Is this fatigue already? My mind's locked up. I can't bring it to full alert mode. No motivation/ fear/ inspiration/ determination. No eagerness to embrace. Am I going down just like that? I am afraid what might be coming if this keeps up. But, it looks like the flesh is weak. Too weak to respond to imminent danger. Need to wake up NOW.

2005-10-31T22:47:00.000+08:00

Can tab count: 2

In preparation for post A's, I have started to request my friends for can tabs. All because I came across this article on someone's journal on how to make your very own soda tab belt. SHHH! Don't tell anyone. Cos everyone would wanna start making their own and no one would wanna give me their tabs. Anyway, I spied my dad's left-opened-for-very-long can of malta in the fridge and got my first can tab! But I noticed it's a little less rounded than the normal tabs so I probably won't be able to use it. There was this can or Shweppes Soda Water in the cupboard where we store lotsa rubbish as well as dad's canned tiger beer. My brother said how bad could it taste, so I opened it to drink, and collect my 2nd tab. The soda water was very bad. My brother loves supplying these type of comments but when it comes down for a real man to do what he gotta do and stick to what he says, he runs. Needless to say, I'm left to down all that nasty soda water by myself.

2005-10-24T20:47:00.000+08:00

Heh heh. Just checked my mail and Threadless sent me an email saying they'd uploaded my pic to the gallery! More importantly, I've got my first STREET TEAM POINT!! Woohoo! Just felt I had to share the joy :) Feast your eyes on the pics below. My pic's the first in the Odd but Cute gallery page (for now). I made sure I got the Final Fantasy VIII set box in the pic too.

2005-10-22T22:12:00.000+08:00

Haha. This is cool enough to make me post it on my own blog. Makes me sound like some futuristic ninja. Lol. Found out about some shops I can go look around at after my exams. Opptshop at heeren and Vintage Cherries at Anchorpoint. Posting here so I won't forget about them. I also wanna get a Lacoste pique polo badly.

2005-10-19T23:53:00.000+08:00

It's slightly more than two weeks to the exams! Anyway, I spent my whole day in school today with Chris and Hui boon and we ate like hungry ghosts during dinner at the canteen. There was yummy baked lasagna/ rice, sour and spicy beehoon, chicken wings, spaghetti, chicken macaroni, cookies (but we never got to eat them :<) and fruits. Not to mention the veggies that Hui boon had to avoid letting the too helpful helpers put them onto her plate. Yes, I do hope you guys can come to my house for dinner when we're all not busy anymore and eat chicken rice, mee siam.. whatever my mom cooks :> I felt a bit sore all over today. I think it's because of the rain and cold weather.

2005-10-12T20:59:00.000+08:00

I have learnt that there is nothing that can happen if you yourself don't first initiate something. And I am thankful for today. For today I have seen many things. And even when it seemed dismal at first, it is amazing the way God unfolds his plan. I am thankful. I am sorry. I am happy. I finally got to see myself through your eyes. For that I am thankful. I am sorry. I should have done something. I should not have expected you to do something first. I should have said something. I should have brought it up. I should have cared for you first. I should have... ... It wasn't about you. It was about me.

Thank you, Chris.

2005-10-11T23:06:00.000+08:00

People are just so full of shit. I've had enough of shit from people today. People who are just so selfish, conceited and hard-hearted. Don't know whats with today but I've had just about enough of all this shit. Want to know what the hell is bloody wrong with these damn people. So stupid and narrow minded. Even talking to a wall is more pleasant than these ignorant pieces of shit. What the hell is wrong with you man. The way you talk and look at me. It could just make me believe there was nothing to begin with in the first place. You know i had enough of leaving the damn door open for you. You're just standing there refusing to come in. You know what. Forget it, I'm not going to bloody care whats coming later. Just forget it, its over.

2005-10-10T15:56:00.000+08:00

I'm at the school library now. Supposed to be doing math with Ian tatt but just got too tired with all the figures after a while (y'know stats? the numbers just keep swimming around in ya head). Oh and too bad the seller on yahoo auctions won't let me buy the Sephiroth figure by itself, rats. I smsed my bro a while back asking if there was a package in the mail for me today and he said no. Maybe it really is lost. Went to 1up.com to look up FFXII.

WOo. Balfear is the sexiest thing around. Lol.

2005-10-07T16:38:00.000+08:00

It it inevitable that you will be pierced by arrows and swords if you choose to be the shield.
It is inevitable that you will be stretched and joints pulled and broken apart if you choose to be the glue that holds the pieces together.

It has been an eventful morning and afternoon. Alas, that doesn't mean well. Just too many things to worry, think, ponder, reflect about as well as other not so pleasant feelings that I have experienced since the start of the day and maybe from last night too. These are the moments I feel most empty inside, the empty shell. These are the times I wished I did not have to go to school anymore.

2005-10-05T22:46:00.000+08:00

I wanted a Hershies nugget
but I got a box of Royce.
What this entails, I have no idea.
I'm happy alright
But this happiness,
will it die down,
will it spiral into euphoria,
or even change its form totally?
I think it would be wise to keep a watchful eye.

I opened the fridge today and saw, nicely tucked away under the fat cups of Meiji yogurt, a box of Guylian.
And just when I've been thinking a few days ago how nice it would be to sink my teeth into my favourite Belgian chocolates. There must be something special about today. Really.

And indeed, my instinct proves right. Y'know 4 years in a girls school. With close friends I've been with who have zero interest in anime, manga and the like. My growing interest in online shopping for apparel and accessories and fashion. All it took was one visit to cdjapan.co.jp to make me regret spending all my money on anything other than games and anime. The initial eupohoria was sheer madness. You know, much like one of those graphs with a maximum turning point at one million units. Fortunately, those type of graphs taper off towards the end. Still, maybe I'll be investing more in my OST collection in future.

2005-10-02T21:57:00.000+08:00

Oh man. I have a serious craving now for all things Victorian. It's so serious, I think if you got me a victorian dress I'd wear it in a snap. My first encounter with such dressing was probably two years ago when I watched Witch Hunter Robin. Till now, I'm still fascinated with the dress Robin wears. Let me describe it to you. Its entirely black. The bust area is like a corset and it has two straps over the shoulders so it forms something like a tank. Then the part under the corset, the flowy part of the dress is very thick and fluffy (haha. I'm not good at describing. I know.) and flowy just like victorian dresses you know. And inside she wears this black long sleeve victorian type shirt that has those lace at the end of the sleeves as well as at the collar, which is very high, almost to the chin. I told my friend I'd like to wear that. And she said it's probably very heavy and uncomfortable, especially the corset. And she mentioned something about wires. Haha. I have my eyes peeled on Multiple Marmalade. I am craving to know more about their designs.

2005-09-30T22:35:00.000+08:00

Hee. Just thought I'd blog about some rather mundane things today. Hi there, I wonder how many of you actually read the posts. Please leave a comment so I know you're there. Anyway, let me share with you what I did yesterday. After school ended at 1230, I took a bus (actually its two if you know) to orchard road to meet my mom at shaw centre where there was an Isetan private sale. Gosh, there were so many people going in. The throngs I tell you. Inside it was really crowded, people would be brushing pass you, rubbing against you, hitting, bumping into you. I was rather annoyed so I decided to bump back after a while. My mom and aunt were there. They got lotsa Clinique cosmetics (actually it was my aunt who got the most) which I saw them taking out after. My mom gave me a bottle of mascara and body butter that came in a small package I suppose, that you get free when you purchase a certain amount of cosmetics. They were dividing them out, there was lipstick, lipgloss and some other cool stuff. I smelt the mascara. It smelt nice. I had an exciting time at the jewellery and accessories section where I spent most of my time admiring all the things I never had the time or bothered looking at. Pearls, brooches, bracelets, earrings. I kept looking at them. Sometimes the salesgirl would say would you want to try it on? And i'd say yes. Then she'll help me put it on and she'll ask whether it was to match with a dress. I said no. But after a while I got tired for that and i said yes instead. There wasn't much change in their response. Oh well. I got quite alarmed everytime I realised the necklace I was trying on costs well over one week's allowance. Sometimes its over two weeks and my heart would skip a beat and i'd just take a quick look and ask them to take it off. I liked this pair of black pearl earrings but i decided in the end it would look better if my hair was brown. So I didn't get them in the end. My mom surprised me. She asked what i was looking for and I said a pearl necklace. So we went around 2 or 3 counters looking, trying on the pearl necklaces. Mom! Its over 100 dollars! Expensive... But she went about like that was normal. I got to know a little about pearls cos my mom loves asking the salesgirl questions. There are freshwater and semi-cultured pearls. And pearls don't like perfume and sweat. Liquidy things. The amazingly perfect spherical ones are actually made from grounded powder. I took a fancy to the light pink ones. There were the usual whites, and some pretty darker pinks, and the artificial-looking dark greyish, and the horrendous other colours I shall not bother mentioning. My mom would look for light pink pearls then she'd talk to the salesgirl. I would be gazing around then my mom would suddenly pop in and ask me to take a look at some pearls. They were oddly shaped I said. Weird-looking, because all the pearls I'd ever seen were so.. round. But as i tried them on and took a look at the mirror they looked fine. The salesgirl was pretty good. She said they looked more fashionable (though I cringed at that word because that would mean it wasn't my type) because of their irregular shape, that they were more natural because this was their real form, taken from the shell i guess and not shaped from powder. They were chemically treated so they don't mind touching perfume or water. It was either that one or the other more expensive one (you know how I keep my eyes on the pricetag). Thinking how my mom might be getting a little carried away with this, I said (when the salesgirl wasn't there to hear. Though I realised she was just behind me after a while) these are expensive, you actually want to pay such a price for this? But my mom kept harping on the 30% storewide discount. Expensive as they are you'd never be able to get them at such heavily discounted prices. I felt bad. As I always do when my mom pays for something expensive. You know she even wanted to get a pair of matching earrings for me. Anyway, I said she'd have to wear them too, I mean, she's paying for them right? Hee. We got 40% off the necklace. And an additional 3% discount from the Isetan store card. Man, I didn't think I'd be one necklace richer by the end of the day. I played around with the necklace when I got home. I really liked it. The best part is that the clasp is so easy to take out and clip together. :) Thank you mom. I didn't think you'd buy something like that for me.

2005-09-29T18:30:00.000+08:00

I want to see Martin again. I wonder how he's like now. Don't recall much but he's probably the first friend I'd made. I remember he lived at the house right at the end of the street. Used to go there everyday I think. I'm not sure. I remember woody wood pecker, his mom, the balloons in his room and how the whole lot of us were supposed to use tennis rackets to burst them but I didn't quite fancy the idea of bursting balloons. I don't remember anything about him which is pretty strange. I wonder whether I was a friend or just that girl down the street who played at his house. I don't think I said goodbye either, though I can't be sure about that. I know his name's Martin. I wonder where he is now, what he's up to. Just curious perhaps. Wish I knew..

2005-09-17T12:16:00.000+08:00

If you could take my hand

Take my hand.
Cos i don't know how long i can keep it there.
Let us hold on and not leave the other behind.
If only you'd be willing to turn my way,
and take this chance. I know things will take a turn.
So hurry up, open those eyes.
My hand can't be there forever.
I want to hold on to you,
through the storm, through the rain, through those rocky times.
Never let go even when i bleed.
But you gotta give me your hand.
Let me know i'm the one you trust.
So take my hand,
don't turn back.
Look forward, and we'll conquer this madness together.

2005-09-15T21:38:00.000+08:00

Hey mate. Physio must be really tough on you so hang in there. I'm sure once you're able to hit the courts you'll find the strength and vigour to play great tennis. Looking forward to seeing some explosive action in your next tournament :)

Taken from maratsafin.com
14.09.05
Marat is so determined to get his knee better and play again - he is working on it everyday from 8am to 12noon. Now for those who know Marat well - that is quite something! Marat does not like getting up early and even his management are amazed at his dedication.

09.09.05 Marat Update
Marat had his consultation with Dr Lohrer on Monday in Frankfurt and his first session of treatment. He then went to Moscow to attend the funeral on Wednesday 07/09 of his friend Leonid Nerushenko who died tragically on Saturday in a motorbike accident. Understandably Marat was very upset by the death of his friend and as he has been away from home so much lately, felt he wanted to stay near to family and friends. It has been established that the same treatment is available in Moscow so Marat is happy that he can stay at home and continue his treatment. The course covers 5 hours a day of Physio, shockwave treatment, gym and massage and will last 5 weeks.
Therefore it is anticipated that all being well, Marat will be fit for the Japan Open in Tokyo on 3rd October.
We will keep you informed of developments. This is a very hard time for Marat dealing with the death of a close friend and his injury and knowing he has so many points to defend. So keep him in your thoughts - he needs all the love and support of his fans to help him through this difficult time.

2005-09-13T23:23:00.000+08:00

I went to the gym in school today and didn't bring my towel. Running at 7.1km/h on the treadmill i thought i could run forever. I don't know if they call this the runner's high or maybe its just a case of running so slowly that the pace seemed manageable but i went on for about 25 minutes, the longest i've ever gone feeling so relaxed. I want to run again! Maybe this time i'll try going on for, uhh, 40 minutes! I've never found this much pleasure in running >:D

2005-09-10T12:56:00.000+08:00

It has dawned on me that i need to become more capable. Stronger, in another sense of the word. I came to this notion after reading the Prince of Tennis 12. Ryoma's being in my understanding. I think i know what sort of person he is, and i want to be something like him. In the face of overwhelming odds, nothing really matters except your will. Being unfazed by the external, and totally in tune with the internal. What prevails in the end is your passion which will surpass whatever's in the way. The amazing thing is his outlook on things which ultimately derives from his passion within. Me, i'm not very able. I can't even multi-task. Give me a little bit of pressure and i break down. I need to get better. I need to subject myself to greater forces that will stretch my limits, tear me down, heave me against a wall and break my bones so that i can stand up stronger than before, and take beatings twice, three times as hard.

Oh and btw, if anyone has the time, go create an account at threadless.com and vote 5$ for this design. Its just the best thing i've ever seen in a long time. I'd kill to have one of these.

2005-09-08T20:52:00.000+08:00

Hey

I knew this day had to come someday. But i chose to put it at the back of my mind everytime something more interesting came by. I didn't want to think about it. The day, despite bawling madly, i'd have to hand you over. And now, it's time. I haven't thought of what to say or do. I tear, not because i'll see that empty rug and miss you in the days ahead. Its cos i worry of where you'd be going. None of us have been there before, none of us know where that is. But don't worry, i'll pray hard. That He will take you to someplace more magnificent than you could imagine. Maybe you'd get to see Momo! I hope you'd be smiling, laughing, dancing paw in paw, rolling around, sprawling, having fun. Having so much fun that you'd forget about us, that this place ever existed. So don't run away anymore, we want to give you a proper burial. Don't dwell on the things that are to come in this world, instead i hope you'd embrace all the wonderful things that are coming your way in that place where kitties go when its their time. We love you and wish the world for you. The Lord be with you always.

2005-09-06T16:10:00.000+08:00

Ask a s2pid question, get a s2pid answer. I'm thinking of the time when we were all getting ready for the choir farewell. All the individual sections preparing gifts for their respective juniors, the painting of the wooden frames which we were going to give the teachers. I think those were one of the few times i really enjoyed being with the choir. Our choir had that certain chemistry sometimes. I just know that people would wanna be in the choir if they knew the fun we had as the 2005 batch. Anyway, we were all at the north lodge painting frames, taking photos, making a lot of noise, eating, drinking, talking about totally unrelated things, opening windows and calling peoples' names then ducking. Lianglin's suggestion for the manufacturing line: certain groups doing the same thing. Like one group of people sticking all the black paper on the board of the frame, one group painting the first coat of paint. I just found it amusing at that time the way he called it manufacturing line. Then people were picking up the frames and sticking their heads within the frames and taking photos of themselves.. like hello? we're supposed to be painting here.. Haha. I can't forget the moment when Grace and Lianglin had their El Grito whistling duet. All of us were so amazed and we tried to add in the missing sections. Aww, but none of the altos knew how to whistle. Josiah tried to be the bass but he couldn't control his whistling either. Then when the guys left to rehearse the song they were gonna sing for the girls the next day (which was really nice :>) it was me Grace, Joyce, Mindy left to do the details on the frames. Ok, but all this had nothing to do with the first sentence of this post. What i am actually referring to was the day when i had to lug around that paperone box that had the alto junior notebooks in them. They each had the same lovely quote from Aristotle in them which i really liked. Anyway, i was going into the library and the librarian auntie saw me with the box and she asked whether there were kittens in there. Naturally, i answered yes. Which gained me a rather bewildered look from the librarian herself.

2005-09-01T23:46:00.000+08:00

The exams ended rather abruptly. I was still studying til the wee hours the night before so when the last mcq paper ended, it felt a little weird. All of a sudden i don't have to study anymore! Thats good i guess, but its bad also. Because all this while i've been charging ahead, head buried in books and all. Now that there's no need to do so, its like i've lost any reason to live anymore. Today was a wasted day because of this. So much free time but yet i don't know what to do with it. For these next few days, or even the week ahead, i want to just severe connections with anything outside and just live in my own world. I want to have a conversation with myself. It has been overdued far too long. Like an empty shell that watches the world go by, it pains me to see myself like this. It hurts when i can't define who i am. Everything i've had to let go so there's really nothing left. Just need some respite for the soul. Please try to understand.

2005-08-27T20:37:00.000+08:00

Ahhh. Just had a sumptous western dinner. As i dug into my lovely potato salad, beef strips, peas, salad, soup, egg, fish and garlic bread, i felt like a king! It was entirely homemade (except for the potato salad cos my mom claims she can't make potato salad), oh the wonderful feast. My mom has been so nice ever since me parents came home from their UK trip. I don't ever want this to end. Too bad the prelim results will have to come out someday.

Anyway, i felt i absolutely had to blog about this unhappy affair which i am going to elaborate now. CHEET. My brother being the annoying tang that he is brought his whole truckload of friends back into our cosy little abbot. Not that they were (or are.. since they're still here!!!) wreaking any havoc, no, nothing like that at all.. they are just the rudest little things around! My mom went to the extent of asking the maid to prepare some garlic bread for them since they are still bloody here its 8.49pm now. What kind of 123456 people will stay so late in the first place. And my maid went to toast like 5 or 6 extra pieces of french loaf with lovely garlic spread on them just so these ungrateful fools have something to feel their disgusting little tummies with instead of all that unhealthy junk food they brought with them. But instead of accepting like any person with manners would, they said no. Will you believe that? I mean, i know sometimes its only polite to reject offers because you don't want the person to have to go through more trouble. But this has already been prepared for you and we let you people come and invade out house and stay so long and yet you scum won't take the garlic bread. Hell, i saw all the pieces of garlic bread left and i thought man, just one person a piece ain't gonna hurt nobody. I mean, wth are we going to do with all this leftovers. So i told my brother to go tell his friends to just eat it, its not like you're bloated right. Of course they said no again because they're such fools and my brother being as airhead as ever decided not to press them. He told me "they say they don't want." Hell i don't fcare whether they want or not! Just eat the bloody things! If you're educated at least show you are for goodness sake. Anyway, i was silently pissed with them. I'm also another fool for not taking up a broom and chasing them out of the house with. My bad. I cannot stand such rude people, really. Just completely blows my top off to the far ends of the earth.

2005-08-24T13:16:00.000+08:00

Here's a bit of amusement. Ever wondered how the boy beater tank got it's name? Karmaloop's explanation of a boy beater tank:

"This is called the Boy Beater because it is the best fitting tank top you'll ever own, and as such, it will necessitate beating, sometimes with a stick, sometimes with a broom, all the wanna be cassanovas off of your lovely self."

Lol.

2005-08-23T19:47:00.000+08:00

Hey.. Ever had the feeling of deja vu? Its weird. Suddenly hits me outta nowhere that the exact same thing happened in the exact same place at the moment. And when I try to recall what or when it was somehow i'd never quite figure it out. Sometimes, maybe it never did happen before but why that feeling of familiarity i'd never know. Maybe it appeared in my dreams and when it happens in real life, it gives me the feeling that i've exprienced such a thing before. Weird.

Hmm. Many things have been darting around in my head these past few days. Lotsa thoughts and little observations and conclusions about things around me. Pweet.

My cat who had kidney problems earlier went back for a blood test about a week ago. The vet said her kidney is deteriorating despite us putting her on a prescription diet. I don't think she's gonna live very long, I mean, thats according to what my mom seemed to imply. We may even have to put her down. My sister in UK told my mom over the phone today that there was this owner back there who had a cat with the same problem and she refused to put the animal to sleep. So guess what happened, the poor cat had to suffer, threw up blood. Man, i'd rather she go to cat heaven early than cough up her guts. Sick and horrifying. I'll be unable to sleep or eat for a whole week. Yep anyways, i've been really nice to her since then. I'd give her a nice rub everyday. I'm sad she's going soon. Though i've never been really close to her. She's been with us for bout 8\9 years already. She's family, man! And even though she seems more afraid of me, creeping around suspiciously everytime i'm around. I still love her. I think we all do. I remember those days, the crazy old days. She was sleeping on the rug outside, snoozing like a baby. And i attempted to sneak up and pat her on the head. Silly thing could not discern my good intentions. Ended up jolting up in a snap once my hand came in contact with a few hairs, mauled my foot pretty badly. Haha. There's a slight whitish spot there now that reminds me of this incident. I had a good laugh when my mom said she looks like a clown because her nose is totally black, like this big splat of a mistake on her face. Ha! That reminds me of momo, when i said her eyebrows were all joined in a straight line. You know my mom said ever since momo left, she hasn't been eating well. Cats have feelings too you know. They know what you mean when you say something to them. Its going to be hard when the time comes to say goodbye. Its always painful. Today she looked so tired, lonely, sad. She used to run upstairs everytime my maid comes up to put our clean clothes into the wardrobe, cos somehow its this coocoo habit of hers to follow the maid around. Well, she doesn't anymore. She used to go crazy and chase all the 'little intruders' out of the house (if you know what i'm referring to). Now she can't do that either. Her kidneys are 20% functional. I really wish i could do something for her and she would understand that she has been a blessing to all of us.

2005-08-19T18:41:00.000+08:00

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?
But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

bah. Its true its true! And i thought i was normal. :( Just knew i should've chosen fight for the damn parking lot.

How You Life Your Life

You have a good sense of self control and hate to show weakness.

You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations.

Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot!

Some of your past dreams have disappointed you, but you don't let it get you down.

How Do You Live Your Life?