villa.wellness.

As ch aptly put it, my second shot at being a household name. Heh. For those of you not in the know, stay that way until further notice. For those who already know, shut up, don't spoil the surprise. :p

i.love.my.job!

[Courtesy of kullwee the CrapChannel administrator, on one of his many madcap moments... to be sung to the tune of 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing']


I'd like to teach the world to love
Their perfect company
The wonderful pay,
Is great they say
And feeds my family.


His msn nick for the day - I love my job! the hours are great, the pay is fabulous! come join me!

haha.. totally and entirely warped. Okay I must be real bored to be blogging about such insignificant stuff... Actually I DO have a lot to say about the weekend that just passed... but all those words are eluding me right now. [read: I'm just too lazy.] Later then! :)

i.n.s.e.p.a.r.a.b.l.e

Inseparable
- Natalie Cole (I loved it when Jasmine Trias sang it during AI... it somehow came back to me today, especially the chorus part.)

Inseparable, that's how we'll always be,
Inseparable, just you and me
It's so wonderful to know you'll always be around me

Incredible, what you are to me,
Incredible, you bring out the woman in me
With your style of love, inseparable, yes, we are

We're like a flower to tree, like words to a melody of love
There's no way we can break up, no words that can make us blow our thing
We're just inseparable, that's how it is, inseparable for the rest of our years
It's so wonderful to know you'll always be around

mamma.mia

On saturday night, I met my sec school kakis for dinner at Waraku, a Jap restaurant located at Starhub Centre that serves excellent Jap food. The food was really yummy, especially the cold soba noodles and the paper steamboat with a special spicy soup. Mmmmmmmmmm... After dinner, we were supposed to pick up Grace's Ozzie theatre director friend, and adjourn over to Chinatown so that he could try the famous Frog Leg Porridge from there. The meeting place was the carpark in front of Somerset Mrt, the time 10.30pm.

Right after we were introduced to Darren in the car, we were on our way out of the carpark when we heard a sickening bumper-to-bumper crash at the front left corner of the car- the car directly in front of us had stupidly tried to reverse into a parking lot without first checking if there was any car behind, and it all happened so fast we had no time to react nor reverse backwards to make way for the retarded driver. The long and short of the whole matter was that the stupid shit refused to pay for damages, and we ended up trying to make a police report in fear that he would somehow manage to gain the upper hand on us, seeing how it was his back bumper to our front bumper... What a drama mama night! My first experience stepping into a police post, and what a sight it must have been! 5 secondary school friends and one angmoh. We spent the rest of the night chatting/snacking/beering/wining/desserting at my friend's place, where Darren proved to be a real charmer, as all ABCs are. (Oh and did I mention that he directed the Australian version of Mamma Mia when the musical made its way there? :p) His quotable quotes for the night- 'I come from a nation of alcoholics', and 'The circle of life: Wedding, Birth, Death. Nothing else in between.'

Just as a sidetrack, I wonder what's up with all these accidents I've been getting myself into nowadays. Right after Saturday's eventful night, as my dad and I made our way to church, we passed by a police cordoned-off area at the block of flats adjacent to ours. And we all know what that means don't we? Something fatal happened to someone. Sent shivers down my spine it did. They say bad luck happens in threes... well mine seems to come in multiples of threes. Sheesh.

and.so.it.is.

The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice -
the most heart-wrenching song on earth, my favourite song at the moment.


And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

hello.s.t.r.a.n.g.e.r.

Tonight during dinner a sudden realisation hit me. I felt rather sad when it did, because it was an obvious and simple conclusion yet it took me such a long time to realise it.

Some people, no matter how long you've known them, or how much time you spend around them in their company, remain strangers at best. You are never let into the intimate details of their lives, not knowing what they like or even what they are like as a friend. You hear stories about them but you do not comprehend; you hear their voices but you do not feign to listen; you see them within the company of close friends but there seems to be magnetic fields from opposite poles that repel you away from them. Distance is not as acutely felt in the physical as it is in the lack of emotional and spiritual connection. We become slightly more than mere acquaintances but ever so much more differentiated and alienated. With each shared experience, we draw further and further apart, until the gap inbetween overwhelms me with despair at times. Melancholy rushes over me in waves when I am in their company. 'Friends' for four years but I can hardly even remember a single heart-to-heart conversation, nor a moment of true friendship. I know nothing about them, just as they know nothing about me. If ever I were in trouble, would they lift a finger to help? If ever they were in need, would I offer mine in return? Strange then, that within that very circle are other people I really care about. Strange then, that one who is deemed talkative and loud in the company of some, should be reduced to a background shadow lurking around in the company of others. I am not their priority, and for the same reason, they are not mine. Why should one be made to feel so insecure all the time? Doubts of self-confidence and of stability in friendship, nagging concerns of the lack of group acceptance that never seems to fade away no matter how I try to ignore them. Why do I still hang around even when it becomes painfully obvious that I would much rather be somewhere else, with someone else? I couldn't help but wonder what went wrong along the way... Was it me? Was it them? Or is it just that we were simply not meant to be? Is that elusive connection a result of incompatible personalities or does it just stem from an ingrained disinterest over the years of forged friendship? Somehow I feel that if we all tried hard enough, and started to listen to one another more, this sinking boat might still be rescued in the nick of time. However, as inertia sets in, and things settled into a comfort zone, the likelihood of that happening is practically zilch. We can only keep up the pretence, until life leads us in our various routes, eventually splitting us apart and granting us the chance to starting anew all over again. It is the feeling of a bird cooped up in a cage, about to be set free.

VOTE.for.KERMS

If the subject title of this post doesn't say it clearly enough, let me repeat myself then. It's time to vote for Kerms at http://www.todayonline.com/! (So that she can win her iMac and I can get my cute musckle guy's number... hehehe) Voting ends on 27th Feb and everyone can only vote once, so please please vote for kerms and not joshua!

I've cast my vote. Have YOU? :)

RETARDI.c.a.d.

Today was a day of immense frustration due largely in part to the TOTALLY RETARDED programme ironically titled INTELLIcad. Well done. In order to save money, kiamsiap boss has decided to buy a lower-grade and supposedly similar cadding programme for the whole office. I think the price for an original Intellicad is about 300 bucks compared to a a 5000 for the autocad equivalent. After using the programme for 5 mins, I realised the reason (or reasonS) for the enormous disparity in pricing. Let me count the ways I hate thee:

1. Intellicad does not allow you to move n object based on a numerical distance. You have to click on a base point first and then click on a point that indicates the new position. Which means that even if you knew the exact distance of required displacement, you would have to first draw a line through that point of displacement (if there isn't already an existing one marking the position already) before moving the object to a point on that line. Alternatively, you could just agah-agah, which totally defeats the purpose of a computer drafting programme doesn't it?

2. Same thing goes for the stretch command, which becomes rendered rather useless since I have to offset the exact amount of stretch before I do it, I might as well complete the job with extend and trim. If stretch is done without a proper reference point, the object stretched goes into weird far-out shapes. (Now THAT is real originality for you!)

3. Intellicad requires you to click on a real point in order to indicate the direction for offsetting a line. Which means that if you wanted to offset a line to the right by 100mm, and there wasn't any other object to the right of that line, you would first have to draw an additional line on the right so that you would have a 'real point' to click onto when the offset command calls for it. Whatever happened to the computer's sense of directionality?!!?

4. Intellicad's undo button DOES NOT WORK. Period. This one is a real killer because anyone who has drafted before knows how immensely important the undo command is in autocad. With the undo command, there is nothing to fear. You draw, and if it looks wrong, it can be undone without any damage to the rest of the dwg. Not so with Intellicad though. Its undo command has its whims and fancies, jumping to another part of the drawing when pressed such that you CANNOT see what the hell you are undoing, skips many steps (ie the entire morning's work can be undone by just using the undo command ONCE.), and somehow seems to be able to undo everything except THE very one you want undone. I have since given up on undoing stuff. Now, I find it is less painful to delete and REDO.

5. Intellicad's response is absolutely retarded. Unlike autocad's smooth panning command (unless working with huge file sizes), Intellicad pans in jerks and stops, often jumping in the direction OPPOSITE of the one in which you are panning towards. Makes me feel like I have to pull the entire computer monitor along in order to see that part of the drawing that I want to see. Come on dammit! Commands take awhile to register, quick-saving files takes even longer (I can nod off while saving), programme hangs on simple delete commands, and every single command comes with an irritating pop-up box on the right hand side, that lists relevant commands that I have never seen before in autocad.

6. Intellicad 'misplaces' objects rather too frequently. When block entities are exploded, more often than not, certain portions of the block goes missing into the black hole that is the model space. Hatches also disappear without warning, and I really have no idea why it becomes like that.

7. Intellicad does not allow you to copy/paste objects based on a reference point. Which translates to flying objects all over the place whenever the paste command is used (especially when you're dealing with more than one drawing file at the same time that need to be referenced together.) Objects also rotate to weird angles even though the file which the object was copied from has exactly the same ucs as the file that the object is being pasted into. Zoom extents to find the flying objects take a long time, and this can get very very boring for the cadder as progress becomes slow and torturous.


I hate thee retardicad. I want to quit.

dishy.men

Here's a question for all you korean serialisers out there: Who is dishier? Lee Byung Hun (All's In) or Kwon Sang Woo (My Tutor Friend)? Check them out for yourself-

Lee: http://www.popscast.com/detail.asp?code=a_m&star=70
Kwon: http://www.popscast.com/detail.asp?star=1269&mode=view&photo=10324


Ch INSISTS that Kwon is dishier based on his height advantage over Lee, and also his imPECcable six-pack... but I think Lee wins just on face-value alone. What do YOU think? What will be the outcome of this Lee vs Kwon debate? (Ok I'm sure there are a lot more sites with yummilicious pics of the both of them out there, but I'm just too lazy to check for them right now, and besides, contrary to popular belief, I DO HAVE WORK TO DO OK!)

As an entertaining aside, after telling ch that I need a dishy guy with a six-pack to lean on, a gorgeous face to look at, and nice biceps to hold, he asked in return what they have to look at. "My boobs!" of course was my swift reply. The only asset I have to lay claim to. hahaha

"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Hoot hoot!"
"Hoot hoot who?"
"Hoot hoot we are jan's big knockers!"

This just totally kills me hahahaha.

ouch.

Have you ever felt so tired you couldn't even lift a leg to climb another stair, legs all wobbly and feeling absulutely jelly-like? Have you ever felt so sore you couldn't bend an arm to take off a t-shirt, and you curse at the thought of having to crane your arms behind your back just to put on a bra? Have you ever had to control your laughter, and to straighten your sitting posture so as not to aggravate your aching abs? Well, as sadistic as it may sound, I would like to experience all of the above everytime after a gym workout, because without a doubt, it would have been a GOOD one. The rush of adrenaline after, the tautness of muscle (albeit sadly temporal), the feeling of satisfaction at dispensing great amounts of energy, is one that nothing else in this world can compare to. (Except perhaps Godiva/small blue boxes tied with ribbon, as ming hrh would lay claim to.) The human body is indeed an amazing one- the amount of extreme pain one can tolerate, the will that the mind has over the body, the hidden resources of strength that emanate when there comes a need for it. I love the sharing of jokes with gym-buddies during, the healthy glow of after, the relaxation of muscles in the steam room, and the knowledge that I have yet again, completed my day in the best possible way. Now to deal with the aches that are bound to surface tomorrow. :)

c.o.r.n.sters.

Just some snippets of conversations I've had with friends today...


[Scene 1] - Killiney Kopitiam after lunch

Forgot-who-liao: It's painful leh...

CC (playing with his food, stabs a bone marrow with his fork, and waves it around): Bone-piercing pain!

Everyone: *groan*



[Scene 2] - NSIAP Office on msn

Boh (after kenna-ing arrow from yl to do impossible psd patchup work): She's mad... wants me to shift some interior columns in the perspective... in photoshop

Boh: She thinks I'm shen

Jan: You ARE shen what... psd shen

Boh: SHENjingbing

Jan: ............ haha erm... yeah exactly.


[Scene 3] - NSIAP Office on Outlook Express

ming: jan gym later?

boh: pa boh speaks: jan is free to gym with you. no need to take number today

ming: how come u keena become pa again? haha

boh: i moonlight as her PA.. she pays well..*gulp she just visited me in my little corner with mangoes.. such a understanding girl... *gulp*gulp*blink blink

boh to jan: visit me with peanuts! then i can say she pays me peanuts! bad corny joke day...ok back to psd-ing

jan: *groan*



With all these bad corny jokes flying around me everyday, how could you guys say that I am corny, and make remarks over my bad jokes?!!? I am reluctant to claim credit for all of them, and for influencing my friends to become fellow cornfields-in-the-making. I won't I won't I won't. Heh. *grins* Keep it up guys!

i.love.macky.mac

I promised kerms to do this for her: post an entry on my blog advertising her blog on Today's Test Drive A Mac competition. For three weeks ( I think it's coming to an end already right babes? go go go!), she, along with 9 other contestants, got to test drive a Mac computer FOR FREE. (That's right... ABSOLUTELY FREE.) From what I understand, each of the contestants got a choice of which Mac to test drive. Some requested for iBooks for portability reasons, Kerms, on the other hand, got to test drive a 20-inch iMac, that lucky lucky girl! Says the wide screen is damn damn nice... *green with envy* (I'm sure it is, looking at how charm's humongous plasma can transform the SATC experience...) The test drive comes with a catch though- they've each got to keep an online blog journal based on their Mac experience, with a minimum of 3 entries per week. At the end of it all, the top 3 bloggers who receive the most votes will eventually get to go home with a Mac computer of their own! Reading their entries make me feel itchy to get a Mac of my own, afterall, as ch says, we are all superficial beings... something so chio just has got to be desired! *rubs hands with glee* So here's the link to her blog, go read it and PLEASE VOTE FOR HER ok? I cannot reiterate the importance of doing that more... So that I can invite myself over to her house to play with her macky when she does get it FOR GOOD. :) (Although she has one heck of a cute droolsome-looking tech-savvy programmer competitor, we all know where our loyalties lie don't we? Behind you all the way kerms!) It can only be accessed via the todayonline webpage, so look for the link to the Test Drive A Mac competition. Also, you need to register with todayonline in order to be eligible to vote. Here goes!

http://www.todayonline.com/

rooster.booster.

I think what boh said about people being especially unlucky during the reign of their particular Chinese zodiac sign has some element of truth in it. This being the Year of the Rooster, bears bad omens for the rooster in me waiting to be unleashed. Pokpokpokgaehhhh!

1. Biggest loser at mahjong on my first ever attempt to play alone. 25 buckaroos! Or was it 30? I forget. Whatever happened to beginner's luck?

2. Witnessed an accident at the corner of Shenton Way and Cross Street while walking to RP MRT after work. Saw the poor motorcyclist literally flying out of his seat and landing quite a few metres away, as if in a surrealistic slow-motion clip off an action movie. It was the first accident I'd ever witnessed close up in my life. Reality came crashing down after that as, in a split second reaction, I had to jump out of the trajectory of the hurtling abandoned motorbike (which continued on its journey towards the pedestrian pavement where I was standing on after the car hit), and look on in frozen horror as the bike unsteadily teetered past and collided into a stationary parked motorcycle, before ending up as a crumpled heap barely 2 metres away from me. Yikes. (- -") After the initial shock, people started gathering around the injured motorcyclist, who was lying on the floor on his side, and unable to get up. There was no blood, thank God, or I would have fainted there and then, but as I plucked up my courage and went forward to offer my help, it was to be my virgin call made to 995 as well.

3. Supermega bad days (as evidenced by the post prior to this).

4. Saw a helmeted guy sprinting at top speed across the road, as I was making my way to my busstop from the direction of P.S. He was running so fast he actually tripped and fell just as he reached the pavement, sending his helmet flying off his head. He didn't stop to get it back, instead he picked himself up in a real hurry and continued his sprint on the pavement TOWARDS ME. At that point in time that I saw three other helmeted policemen chasing after him, the world flashed before my eyes in an instant. I realised some things concurrently:
I was all alone on the darkly lit, wide pavement; the bad guy being chased was running TOWARDS ME at topspeed; I SO did not want to become a hostage of any sort just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I hopped up a slight slope away from the pavement and from the scary guy, watching him run past me (phew) with the policemen screaming STOP HIM a la HongKong movie style. I must say this is the first time I'd ever seen policemen running on the streets looking like they were doing their job. (ooooo macho men!) After a bit more running, they managed to catch up with the elusive escapist, and pinned him to the ground in typical drama-mama fashion. I wonder what he was running away from, and I suspect it was merely a booking for a traffic offence, because the policemen let him go after a mere 10 min duration of booking/interrogation/pinning, and he went back to retrieve his helmet lying just beside the road. Such a crime-busting, heart-racing, law-breaker-chasing scene it was, and along the streets of Singapore!

CC says I should go pray or something since I seem to be so suay. Bleah. I declare I've had too much drama in my life recently. Can I please have less action?

thesis.extraordinaire?

The culmination of a bad day in general. I probably woke up on the wrong side of bed today, having spent a sleepless and unbearably humid night tossing and turning in bed for endless hours, wishing and praying that that blardee damned mosquito would stop sucking my blood in the darkness when my eyes could not feign to see it, and just drop dead and die immediately. I took a cab to work ( yes yes.. AGAIN. No wonder the measley bonus ain't enough to cover all my additional uncalled for cab rides that somehow bring me to a place I have to desire to be in), and first thing in the morning I became pissed at a good friend whose comments/internal joke/haha humour I got overly-sensitive about, interpreted in the worst possible direction, reacted in the worst possible way, and ended myself up in the worst possible dilemma. All meant in good fun, but meanie jan spoilt everything for everyone as usual. I seem to find myself at the giving end of such dramatics very often recently, and I can only apologise for adding too much 'spice' into everyone's life in a negative way. Please forgive me, (esp ming, boh, cc and those who have stuck with me thru thick and thin) I am trying to change. I snap and I bite often, but I almost always regret it the moment I do. Don't know what's overcome me nowadays, my mean streak has started to get the better of me. Where has the 'nice' in Janice gone to I wonder? I remember being a happy and loveable kid with a big heart once. Shaddup jan, shaddup, for the love of God, and learn to take life with a pinch of salt. "Learn to let go, there is no need to be thinking too much about it", Ch says, but me the petty little xiaoqigui resents that he is right, and that I am too proud to do so naturally. Oh, that pride would be my downfall, me the scum of the earth, the muck of the sea, the jam with the higher sugar content with enough insecurities to sink the Titanic a thousand times over. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. And whispering into the crack in the wall, I let go of this matter. I must learn to be nice all over again. And as a final crackdown to send me spiralling down to the depths of darkness again, Jon my darling boy informs me that he has some comments about the way I write on this blog. "Too detached', "disassociated", "cannot feel your personality" encapsulated the gist of it all. "It's almost as if you were writing a thesis all the time", he ventured. "Thesis extraodinaire?" (haha I SO wish jon... this comment will tide me through when I actually do start on my thesis ok?) Well thank you my dear, I will learn to take criticism constructively and not personally. I will not get angry, I will not bite. *SMILE* Perhaps I should learn to write more casually so that it's an easier read. (Lahs, lors, aiyohs anyone?) Not so introspective so that my friends feel like a part of my life. Write like how I feel and not how I process my feelings from my brain. Write about happier stuff? Or not write at all? This is me, believe it or not, meanie petty jannyjam, thesis extraodinaire. Tomorrow will be a better day! Will the idiotic mosquito drop dead and die now please, and can all the cabbies refuse to drive me to work tomorrow?


P.S. I guess jam has replaced lulu, and you guys can all stop laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the title of this post now. IF you even managed to make it through that whole paragraph above. :)

left.on.a.jet.plane

Certain events, often deemed as milestones on hindsight, have the power to alter one's course of life drastically, be it for the better or for the worse.

I suppose this can be considered one of them, although at the moment I'm really not too sure about the extent of impact it'll have on my life. What I do know for certain, is that someone's life is totally changed, and that person is my mom.

She left for New Zealand last evening, to join some friends (and some strangers) who were looking to expand their business, in a partnership that would take her away from her family for months and perhaps even years. Computer-illiterate once, she had to pick up new skills fast, and venture into new territories (by her own standards) boldly. Granted, she's still not exactly considered computer-savvy, but the amount of determination and dedication expended on her task at hand was undeniably admirable for a fifty-three coming to fifty-four year-old housewife. In her new job, she's got to adapt to an entirely new culture, a different way of thinking, and integrate with a new way of life. She's got to learn how to manage people of various nationalities, and look at things from a macro-level while keeping an eye on the nitty-gritties. She's got to be prepared to defend herself against vicious back-stabbing and company politics when the time calls for it, and not let herself get stepped roughshod over like she normally does. Being overly nice really doesn't pay equal dividends sometimes. I feel as if she's almost like a young, helpless, domesticated pup unleashed into the wild and set free to act as hunting prey for scary animals.

Where does love begin and where does love end? Knowing how much my mom wanted this, we could only learn to let her go. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find herself in the world, to carve a niche for herself, to garner achievements under her belt, now that her three chicks have grown up, ready to leave the coop and fly away. Really, it's the least we could do for her, setting her free to pursue her dreams, and dragging her down no longer. Not that she considers us chores or undesirables, I'm certain she does not. But the irrevocable fact remains that by putting us, her family, first at every point in her life, she has consciously let her own aspirations take a backseat, a supporting role. Not that this business venture was decided upon out of pure selfishness, in fact, wanting to provide more adequately for the family played a huge part in her decision. Somehow, I sense though, that this time round, she wanted it for herself as much as for the family. And that's a good thing.

They say you never know what you have until you lose it. It's only been barely a day, but already the air in the house seems so musty, the floor so dusty, and the walls silent without echo. Everyone chips in to help out with the housework but I wonder how long can this fervour last? Soon, I suspect, the house will begin to look like a hurricane just hit it, the heap of washing/folding/ironing will start to pile up even further, the ants and infinite number of pesky creatures will have a ball of a time on the unvacuumed floor. What else can we do but try to cope as best as we can? Everyone, be it daughter, son, father or mother, has a right to lead their own lives as they deem fit.

After all, it's never too late to start living.

f.i.n.a.l.l.y.!

On the 14th Feb 2005, 5.00pm, my sister's bf finally proposed!

He caught her unawares in her room (still wearing grubby tee and shorts), and entered toting a ring+matching earrings (read: blingbling!), his fluttering stomach, a beautiful bouquet of 24 red roses, a guitar, and revised lyrics to the Adam Sandler song "Grow Old With You". (collective Awwwwwwwww......)

Here's what he sang to her (I managed to convince him to pass them over to me.. heh):

I wanna make you smile
Whenever you're sad
Go to the gym
When I'm getting fat
All I wanna do
Is grow old with you

I'll get you Buscopan
When your tummy aches
Do your markings
If they're newspaper cuttings
O, it could be so nice
Growing old with you

C: I'll miss you, kiss you
Give you my quilt when you are cold
Need you, feed you
I'll let you hold the remote control

Let me do the dishes
In our kitchen sink
Do the cooking
When you're ironing
O, I could be da man
Who grows old with you

I wanna grow old with you.

There's physical evidence because we documented the entire process... Photos coming up once they're uploaded and passes the censorship board! Heh. :) This is a really special Vday (although it was spent moping at home and taking countless naps).

indie.s.e.x.y

You Are Independent Sexy You drive men crazy with your "playing hard to get act" Except, it's really not an act at all. You're a strong, sexy woman with her own life and interests. And makes men even more interested in you! What Kind of Sexy Are You? Take This Quiz :-) Find the Love of Your Life (and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.

I think a major flaw in this test is that it automatically ASSUMES that you are sexy. Just what kind of sexy it seems. But what if you aren't sexy AT ALL? Kinda puts things on a whole new level of flightiness doesn't it? Now where are those men? Happy V Day everyone! Hope we all don't get left on the shelf and get hooked up with someone (anyone!) before we hit the big 40.

arh.chee.tek.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Spatial Intelligence

You've got a good sense of space and how the world around you looks. You can close your eyes and "see" images. You have innate artistic talent. An eye for color and shapes, you're also a natural designer. Since you think in pictures, visual aids and demonstartions help you learn best. You would make a good navigator, sculptor, visual artist, inventor, architect, interior designer, or engineer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Got this off kerm's blog... She got the same result as well. She says architects have got fine minds? Seems like we're both destined to stick with architecture eh babe? *grin* Or perhaps I should consider a career change to a visual artist? Hmm. Interesting stuff this is.

beautifully.human.

Beautifully unashamedly human. Listening to the strains of Jill Scott's soulful vocals on her second album, I start to wonder what it really means to be beautifully human.

I am a boisterous river
I am a mountains story
I am a quiet healing
I am a fragrant flower
I am a moonlit evening
I am a peaceful nod
I am a writer's thinking
I am a welth unfathomed
And if you don't recognize my presence
I am here.

In my myopic perspective on life, being human constitutes the presence of flaws and cracks within the seeming perfection we all aspire to grasp. It is a very negative depressing outlook, much akin to saying that the glass is half empty instead of being half full. It is about the intolerance that we constantly feel towards people we care about, it is about the flagrant flaring of tempers and constant sulky disposition that clings like a black awful muck, it is about selfish endeavours at the expense of others, it is about a reluctance to let go and let love take over.

I am a source of power
I am excited journey
I am the rock of patience
I am a whisper singing
I am unbraided freedom
I am thought for the blinking
I am love unshattered
I am the great orgasm

Being human is one thing, but being beautifully human is another. The notion of being beautifully human does not in any way negate the flaws that we possess, but it talks about embracing those imperfections as qualities that make us all unique. It isn't a flauntering of the negative, but a quiet acceptance of being who we are, and knowing what makes us human. It is an acknowledgement of our shortcomings, supplanted by a conscious decision to keep them in check. It is embracing what life has to offer, imperatively rooted in a sincere appreciation of what God has given us. It is Grandma Sophie in Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, it is Mr 'boing-boing' Turnip-head, it is Calcifer at the very end.

Be Beautifully Human. And be proud of it.

mimi.lala.lorlor.

jan, elsie cha-cha + jo: Three beauties hamming it up in front of the sneaky cameraman (ie. dad. Again.) Green is the new red!

good.batter.bestest!

super chio half-french cousin ailing who's studying art history in france is oh-so-hip-and-funky... keep batting those lovely eyelashes babe!

excuse.me.are.you.a.model?

super chio half-french cousin ailing striking an inpromptu pose for the sneaky cameraman (ie. dad)

auntie.jan.

baby kyra, jan + jo: Maternal instincts coming into play finally? eeks. I hate babies.. I really do. Especially when they scream their lungs out and all eardrums within the radius of 1km pops as a result. Fortunately, baby kyra here is as docile as a deer, due in no small part to the comfortable 'cushioned' arms she rests on. :)

first.kiss.

jonah and luohan sitting on a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G *muak!*

jonah+jan

gong.xi.fa.cai.

Annual traditional bai-nian-ing to parents in living room on the 1st day of Chinese New Year before setting out for relatives' houses.

happy.c.n.y.2005!

Woah. This has become such an unfamiliar feeling. (Blogging that is.) It almost seems surreal that I can get to do this in the comfort of my own home and in broad daylight! Hmmm... where shall I start from after such a long period of inactivity? There's been too many things happening around: Yvette and nik leaving for aust, work, movie outings, work, gym sessions with ch, work, birthdays that have come and gone, work, cookout at boh's (read ch's blog "two marthas, six manslaves, one janice..." where I was condemned as being inept in a kitchen setting), work, beer+chix wings+peanuts, work, diet pineapple tarts + yummilicious jap green pea cookies, work, russell wong's exhibition, work, celebrations at little bali with sec sch kakis, work, wonderfully manicured nails + torturous eating at crystal jade immediately after........ Gosh. How ever can one fit so many activities into a single lifetime?

It seems to me that I have nothing much to say nowadays (hence the silence on this blog). Nothing as funny and entertaining as ch, nothing as whimsical and fluffy as ming, nothing as thought-provoking and deep as yuwen, nothing as everyday as leesh, nothing as been-there-done-that as elyse, nothing as crappy as crapchannel kullwee, nothing as sincere and honest-to-the-heart as stacey, nothing as straightforward and emotionally-grabbing as kerms. Nothing. Zilch. Great... Now the word 'nothing' is even starting to look weird on me. I don't even have nothing anymore.

Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year to one and all, Gong Xi Fa Cai, Hong Bao Na Lai (That must be the only Chinese phrase I really understand heh). May you be prosperous as you spread your fortune to me. :) Time to look forward to collecting all the red packets even though the numerical value of the total sum collected seems to diminish and wane into inconspicuous existence by the year. Time to reiterate one's goals in life/plans for the future/current standing in the big bad working world to the high heavens, time to put on that smile and greet countless strangers with great zeal and energy (some of whom have been strangers you meet every year since you were born). Chinese NewYear. It's so tiring I cannot believe we put ourselves up to it annually. All the same, this year's celebrations are especially poignant to me, considering how I might not get to enjoy the entire process again for the next few years if all goes well in the area of overseas education. I'm not sure what I'll miss more though: the money, or the child-like anticipation of it? *grins*

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! I'm glad to be a Chinese I really am. (Slitty eyes and flat nose notwithstanding of course.)