I apologize for the long hiatus. Didn't have anything I felt like blogging about. NTU Sem 1 went by like it never happened. Fast paced life and a lot of things happening but nothing particularly significant. Exams ended just yesterday (finally!) and I indulged myself by watching this movie called Spider Lilies:
- you need lots of patience to sit through it. There is no climax, no real plot, no real conclusion. It's a movie that sets you thinking about some things and that is all. You may just sleep if you're tired. I'm actually surprised that this movie had good box office sales because its not suited for the mainstream audience. I suspect many people were curious about Rainie Yang acting in a lesbian arthouse movie and just watched it for that. I'm actually surprised by Rainie's decision to act too. But if you do watch it, please forget Rainie's pop star idol side because you'd be disppointed holding such expectations. She has proven to me though, that she can really act (surprise!) but that was through an idol drama that is currently playing.
- there's nothing in this movie that grips you (at least for me it didn't). But it is very tender and realistic with a good theme so I like it.
- the nudity is mild and I'm surprised its R21 because I think it should be M18. Less gory and more restrained than your usual R21s.
In general, this movie depicts the part of sociey that is usually neglected. The 2 main characters encountered a drastic turning point in their lives due to an earthquake. One of them became a tatooist and solves real problems in her life with shallow means. She uses her tatoos to give her clients confidence and comfort. She wears her tatoo to lessen her guilt. But these solutions are only skin deep. She and her clients, have never faced their problems. How many of us do that? I think many of us do. I read somewhere about Cancerians escaping into their virtual world and oh no, i'm cancerian. It's true to some extent I guess but I've improved on it. Usually, I can't and don't bother comprehending the reasons why anyone will want a tatoo or find out what the job of a tatooist is like. Through this movie, it seems like the job of a tatooist is an emotionally draining one.
The other main character lived in a world that lacked love after the earthquake. Gradually, she learned to live in a shell and found joy in the virtual online world instead. She makes a living by giving out "special shows" to perverted men. And its a part of society that is hidden but definitely thriving. I don't have an answer to the question why any girl will want to ruin themselves by offering such sex shows or services. Money? they were cheated into it? Or like the movie character, voluntarily do so out of pleasure?
Both characters eventually meet when the webcam girl wants to get a tatoo to spice up her sex shows. Jade (webcam) recognises Takeko (tatooist) as her 9 year old crush. As you an expect, both characters were very love deprived. Despite some initial obstacles, they made love. But for entirely different reasons. My guess is that Jade thought that her love is finally accepted and that the relationship was real. On the other hand, Takeko seems to be very confused and lusts for her lost relationship with her ex.
I think the actors did well in portraying their roles. The point that I'm not very happy about is the lack of close-ups for Takeko. Her role is very complex and she has many dilemmas. However, her character's pain isn't very well portrayed I feel. (I don't see her eyes clearly with so few close-ups). Rainie's role as Jade was more straightforward and she did a good job. Rainie can't act sexy though, that's for sure.
I like joining contests :D especially when i have a knack of winning some stuffs. When I was younger I won a full set of faber castell art materials which includes their stationeries, water colours, pastel etc from Nestle. and then I've won books from coke before. I also won this handphone eating clorets. the coolest thing was this bag of star wars collectibles. the best thing in the bag was this pair of limited edition twin posters which I DUNNO WHERE IS IT NOWWW but I'd take a photo of it when I finally find it. my latest prize is this autographed fahrenheit cd and autographed ToGetHer poster. I wonder if I should sell it.. shld i?
Here they are:
I compared Jiro Wang's signatures and they are different! clearly the one on his album is hastily signed. Perhaps there were too many to sign at the qian chang huis. And then me and my sister noticed some ink stains on the reverse side of the album and we wonder if it could be left by fahrenheit when they were signing it cos its their marker stains! :D
There were many surprises for the night. But I think what was most impressive was the Band's performances. I mean I know nothing beats contemporary dance and choir but Band was impressive because of how fast they rose. Last year they didn't even have their own percussions (they had to invite cjc to be their percussionists) and when they got silver, many of us thought it was fantastic results for them. This year they got gold with honours and I think I understand why. Their performance has been hair-standing. especially "with heart and voice". and their jap song was totally cheeky! whichs shows alot of versatility but above all, it was a joy to listen. Same goes for CO with their "euphony of bonds across time". Another very touching piece with a huge sense of camaraderie filled with reminiscence.
Also particularly impressive was the Choir. The song about thunderstorms reallly made me visualise the weather. like, the sounds, visuals and feeling on the skin. it was out of this world cos i felt like i was experiencing weather changes in the comfort of my seat at republic cultural centre! and dance. i think I don have to mention how good modern dance is with their expressions. getting gold with honours for 3 consecutive years is fully justified.
It's been really surprising because I didnt expect AJC's performing arts to improve so much. It wasn't jus the gold with honours performances, guitar, indian malay dances and harmonica all showed a higher level of sophistication and great improvement. I'm just baffled at why they appeared so-so the previous years and suddenly improve by leaps and bounds? Well, still. thumbs up to the efforts of the aj juniors :D
Went for acting classes today! It was good. I think something good can really come out of this. Hopefully I'd be able to overcome my nervousness and blank-out-every-2-sec syndrome.
Recent events have made me realise that this is a pressing issue. Nope, pepper spray is banned. and I don wan to have it confiscated every time I enter supreme court. Electrocuters are banned as well. Does anyone have any ideas? Please let me know. I'm inclined to ship them in truckloads and distribute them to all who matter.
This will be a short summary of all things notable since my last post:
University:
I've been accepted into Economics at Warwick but it is out of the picture because it's expensive. Gap year is out of the picture as well. Christine gives good advice; if I haven't got a plan, don't waste time. And nope, I do not intend to try applying to the US universities cos its too much of a hassle and even if I do get a place, what abt fin aid? Cost is worse than UK. I may consider applying to UK again because its less of a hassle and my attitude now is: if I get into a university worth my bucks, cool. Otherwise, I'm staying put. Don't wanna detract too much from what I'm suppose to do.
I can't decide between acct and econs. Lets just say its a dilemma between what's safe and what's interesting.
Work:
Work at the bank ended in March. On hindsight, banks are devious. I'm not an Obama fan but I applaud some of his initiatives. There's sense in them. The thing about being a customer service officer is that you're always caught in between. You sympathise with the customer but you have to speak well for the bank. Sometimes I feel like a sinner.
Work at the law firm has been.. slack. On some days we have absolutely nothing to do that we can actually jig around looking at wondergirls' NOBODY NOBODY BUT YOU *clap clap* / find random stuff on youtube. On other days we're stretched. But its really COOL anyway this job. I love it. But no, I don't wanna be a lawyer.
Random:
1) Hugh Jackman <3<3<3!!! OH such soulful eyes.
2) I really enjoy the company of CHL!
3) I wonder where Sylvester Sim is now. I supported him then and I still do. I know his flaws but he was really charming in a few episodes. Tried humming the song he sung which I liked alot but seems like no one catch my ball. Found the songs here:
--> this one is quite funny.
4) I should really try to keep in contact with old friends, especially the softballers.
5) Caught up with HK dramas lately. The Gem of Life is really GOOD.
6) Realise I haven't accomplished much this past 5 months. Did some shopping but still hafta get my new specs and contacts. Read non-fantasy books.
7) I'm going for acting classes! Considering if I should go for driving classes too.
8) AJ gave me this non mihi solum award. Its quite random cos this is the first year they're giving it out and I'm the only recipient. It's suppose to recognise public spiritedness and I didn't know it existed until 2 weeks before. Well, I'm honoured :D
9) I'm sorry for clogging up your friend's page. I haven't learnt that link thing..
- Music:Survivor - Tohoshinki
It has never been this bad at work. Got my first complaint by a customer today, whom I'd say is not worthy of being addressed as "sir". I've mentioned that you can tell a character of a person by how they treat service staff. While there have been cases when I have been personally attacked by customers, been forced to agree with unreasonable comments and demands, this guy is really the worst. My colleague told me that I most probably had the best temper in the cust svc dept and if I slammed the phone, it means something. If you insist on your way vehemently, you're being unreasonable. But if you treat service staff as underlings, it simply shows how you lack basic respect for others, behaviour that is both ungentlemanly and snobbish. I applaud myself on how I managed to stay cool thruout your 10min call, only showing my frustration when I put the reciever down with force. And for that loud thud, you complained. I'm just glad my manager did not apologise on my behalf because I know I did no wrong. Review the phone conversation for all you like. To any listener, its clear how stupid you are. Do not claim that you are clever when you make such silly mistakes and order people to correct and explain on your behalf. And please, do not scold my fellow colleague guai lan. Its vulgar. Also, do not insult me because I always do my best for customers.
Even for you.
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I think the MAS is screwing things up with the new Moneylenders act. Crises have always been caused by excessive credit. Why do people not learn?
promised myself to do a book review on the books i read. Well I tried to read books like, "the dollar crisis" or "the essentials of risk management" but the first book i finished was fiction. For the rest I didn't survive past chapter 3. This one I finished in 3 days. This book is an adventure titled "ravenheart" by david gemmell. It was well written. The suspense held the reader's attention for a good duration. The climax subtle yet far-reaching. The themes appealing to those who wanted to relax and fantasize about a world ruled by righteousness, honour and courage. It draws you away from the haste and pragmatism of living in reality, how thinking with the brain rules over the heart, how good deeds are done for the sake of clear conscience, not the cleansing of the soul. Living by conscience isnt bad, but its somewhat more passive? it involves righting the wrong but it doesnt involve striving to love, being forgiving and resistant to hate. Although the couple falls in love as fast as the lovebirds in twilight movie (which means, in an instant), their love was what I desire; steadfast and mutual. It feels good reading the book and for a moment when you put it down, you really think that perhaps such a world do exist. I hope it does.
Rejected by UCL and LSE for econs. Left with 3 choices. Hopefully they will be successful, althought they may not matter anyway.
which i spent with hazel cheryl leyi! Its a day well spent with ntu talk, movie marathon, food food and more food. Thank you hazel for hosting! Love the room, the slim dvd player, tins of chocs and that kway tiao. haha I like that duck kway tiao. But its really far from my home.
As I always say, good food + great company = fabulous life. I like hazel cheryl and leyi for they are unpretentious people. We don't exactly attempt to blend in to our respective colleges, we don change ourselves to be accepted and we don club. We could stay quiet and be totally at ease with one another. I realise I don look for friends who make alot of noise. Its not that its bad, bt its just a personal preference. Because I love friends who listen. And I in turn, listen attentively. I love chatting with them, straightforward conversations about our little things in life. Genuine concern for one another.
Only human - K
Only Human by K
Theme song of 1 litre of tears
English translation:
On the other shore of sadness,
It is said that there is a smile.
But before we can go there,
is there something we’re waiting for?
In order to chase our dreams,
We can’t have a reason to run away
We’ve got to go,
To that far away summer’s day
If we find it tomorrow,
We can’t sigh
Because like a boat that opposes the stream,
We have to walk straight on.
The wet roads shine.
Only the dark will teach,
a stronger and stronger light.
Be strong, go forward, move ahead.
This blog is friend-locked.
Maybe after being a logisitcs head and having thought long and hard about what I could have done differently, I'm particularly sensitive to how my big boss runs her dept. I ponder about the dilemmas she may have, but if she had any, she clearly didnt show it. She even connects with you. From the studious, nerdy, to the ambitious to those who were there to kill time. Kudos to her. I should adjust my benchmark about certain aspects.
I love my colleagues! I spend most of my time laughing away that I thoroughly enjoy my work and can remain totally at peace when someone is shouting at me for his stupidity. Its the energy level everyone has, the crap and random mutterings of the most irrelevant and unexpected things that cheers me up.
I will be friendlocking my blog for good but I realised that If i wanna friend-lock all entries, I had to do them 1 by 1, all 100+. So I gave up on locking the previous ones. This blog will be locked from the next entry onwards. There is just no point in having a blog when I usually have to leave out what i wanna say. To those w/o livejournal accs, go get one! You don hve to blog, you could just use it as an acc to read oth ppl's blogs =)
cool things I've done:
1) Learnt the basics of the banking database system
2) its like a hacker's programme! like codewords aplenty and numbers are information
3) able to recite the promotion details, eyes closed
4) Managed to get customers to go from, "i'm busy" to "that promotion sounds attractive"
5) Although NO ONE has called in to book, I have faith some will, they sound genuinely interested.
6) 120 calls in 1 day today!
7) The target set by the boss is 500 a day. That's frickin impossible.
8) and for the number of calls made, the boss targets 100-200 bookings. That's madness.
9) Managed to sound happy over the phone when I'm seething with anger inside.
10) Discovered this cool chicken rice stall today.
11) Survived on heels. (low heels, but still heels. at least I don hobble lol)
problem now: what to wear for tomorrow?! shit. I better go try on some clothes now. Cant join taugei in pet society for today I guess.
during my previous piano lesson,
teacher: how do you spell breathe?
me: b r e a t h e
teacher: ohh sometimes its so easy to forget such simple things...
when i was playing the piece,
teacher: you should breathe at these places too! do i have to write breathe everywhere??
me: so I'm suppose to breathe?
teacher: yarr
me: *takes a deep breath and continues playing*
teacher: noo I meant you have to rest the slur!!
I'm really free these days. I log onto pet society multiple times a day cos I'm usually at a lost of what to do. Come monday I'd be working and when that happens I suppose I'd stop bumming. Upon calculating, I realised I have to wake up at 7.15am daily. That's a challenge. I wokeup at 2pm today partly cos I slept too late reading blogs. Anyway, here's something I chanced upon which was really interesting, creating my own mangatar! (manga + avatar = mangatar)
I think I look like this:
Does it look like me? Only I couldnt find the right lips so this one is fuller, for the nose this was the fattest available and I couldnt find uncombed ah beng draping down hair with a disgusting almost center parting so I took this one.
With university looming in August/september, I have a grand total of 6 months ++ to do some things which i always wanted to do but end up not doing with studies and cca and what not drowning me.
A plausible to do list:
-Earn 5K from work and law attachment (which is my total savings now)
-Relearn German
-Obtain distinction for practical piano for the 1st time (about time I learn it seriously rather than borderline passing every grade)
-Brush up on my math (A levels yes) because I'd need it when I study economics
-Not exactly keen on learning driving. Should I?
-Read the 2 books beside me by Jan 28 and read up more about economics.
-Do a book review for each I've read for fear that I'd be a dory.
-Come out with new targets as I work...
Xiao niang re was a disappointment. Abrupt ending. Underdeveloped storyline. Missing naration. The realistic ending was a saving grace. Along with some good acting by the cast (except chen xi which is unacceptable considering he's the lead?) and the emphasis on the culture. This show could havebeen much much better. They could have showed more of the cooking, the beading work. and I'd have liked it if they showed yue niang making yuzhu recover to give robert his retribution. or be more realistic and show how yueniang and juxiang survived when thrown overboard the ship, not jus float ashore?? sigh.
And oh no, I wonder if Ms quek is too busy..
Just a few random comments:
1) I suck at bridge. but when i play it again, I don wan to play with ppl who call you stupid because it pisses me off and I know im not.
2) I've sorted out ALL my stuff. I'm ready for university.
3) Writing personal statement takes alot out of me. Somehow I cant write fluently anymore. I keep pondering if what I'm writing is acceptable then reason that I should jus write what I think but I am only going to write ONE afterall. It has to be the best..
4) I'm meeting my recruit agent this monday. Seems promising. Wish me luck =D
5) Stuffs to buy: Working blazer, bag, watch, new specs, casual shoes (which means I havent been shopping yea)
6) MEETing CHRISTINE YEAA
7) I miss softball but I have no wish to strain my hand anymore
8) It kinda rhymes
9) I wan Bak Kwa
10) No i shouldnt think that, I havent even exercised after A's.
11) I'm slightly disappointed that some parts of the little nonya completely don make sense to me. How is it possible that the Tua Ji will realise that she's wrong on her own? and after this show, I'm quite convinced that Qi Yu Wu cant act. He couldnt show anger and he couldnt show mesmerism. I thought pierre png makes a better lead.
12) But on the whole, the little nonya is good. It still doesnt match up to the price of peace, stepping out and fu man ren jian though.
13) I agree Twilight is overhyped but I think its really not bad! Maybe ppl should watch it first before they condemn all things that are popular and hyped. Disliking it doesnt make them special.
14) I jus remembered, on new years eve we didnt countdown at all. Nobody had the sense to tune into the radio and everyone was waiting for someone to start the count and POOF! FIREWORKS! Then some ingenius friend of mine asked if the countdown is over. lol.
15) I didnt know sherry prays at temples. Come to think of it, what's her chinese name again?
16) I'm writing in point because I've lost my ability to write in paragraphs. This is bad.
17) I'm done for now. Update over BYE.
Cruise 2008 on Superstar Libra
As with all cruises, the primary thing you do on the ship is to eat. 6 meals a day. When you're done with breakfast, its time for morning tea, then lunch, then afternoon tea, then dinner, then supper. You ge the idea. Its non stop. And for the other times I was free, I laze around in my comfy cabin and watch national geographic channel, WHICH EDUCATES. Seriously, I recommend this channel to all who wish to become smarter. They have some crappy shows bt most of them are very well explained and illustrated, they make resonance seem very easy to understand! And the best thing is they start straight from applications of concepts (Like I watched this one about the 7 biggest obstacles bridge building engineers had to overcome) and their application of physics concepts and mathematical calculations were amazing. Engineering seems very awesome all of a sudden lol.
But then there was this show on natgeo that was very well documented as usual but I felt very uneasy after watching the show. It was called the "last voyage of the Gustloff". Now, What is the Gustloff? Well the gustloff is actually a ship called Wilhem Gustloff. Its like, a titanic of 1945. It's a grand, dream ship, but it sunk, and along with it, 10 000 people. No one knows the actual number unlike the titanic however, because this was a marine disaster during the baltic wars (i think). There were about 20% army personnel and artillery, and 80% of them were refugees who were trying to escape the soviet. It was quite depressing to hear about how the refugees have fought to get onto the ship. Most of them, came from east germany and had to travel west to get onto a ship to escape. The only way was to cross the icy cold lands. During the journey, the german army was using the road to travel west as well and killed all wagons of refugees (containing only women, children and elderly, all men were fighting in war) along the way. In fact, if any wagons dropped into the ice waters by accident, no one would stop to help. The reason given was, they couldnt because the cold was biting into their skins and they had a journey of 40km. So for the lucky ones who made it into west germany, they had to squeeze their way somehow onto the ships. Getting onto Gustloff, one of the last ships, was a very fortunate thing to them. Initially they kept records and tickets were given to people to board the ships. But the refugees started to push their way in and by the time the ship set sail, there were more than 10 000 people on board. That's more than 10 times the capacity on superstar libra. Then hm, they died la. And there were many saddening stories, like how families gaveup and shot themselves before the ship sunk. Or how the captains saved themselves first despite the attack being their fault, and were totally dry upon rescue. Its worse when you're watching all the tragedies and horrors of a sinking ship when you're on a 20 year old ship that creaks and creaks...
Hm, libra is old. But compared to virgo its much more heartwarming. The management staff clearly puts in alot of effort to make the trip enjoyable. Although they fall short of many things especially in entertainment (pretty lousy i gotta be honest) but they tried rreally hard. and not to forget the wonderful service i recieved onboard the ship. The waitstaff are fantastic. Truely, world class service. Food. satisfying. So all in all, a happy trip yea? And i met my pri sch friend on board! what coincidence.
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