wow! Bintan's really nice! had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend basking in the sun, reading and writing..didn't know we actually have such a spectacular beach and lovely resort literally at our doorstep! This is going to be one of my favourite getaway spots from now on!

see some weekend pics (click to enlarge):

a day at home doing my favourite things...:)... i spent the entire day in my room, watched a heartwarming vcd (When Harry Met Sally), read a couple of books that have been sitting on my shelf since the day i bought them, listened to some really cool stuff (that i have long forgotten about) from my much neglected CD collection, drank lots and lots of water, did my best to keep away from the computer so i wouldn't strain my eyes, did a bit of thinking about rather important stuff, and slept a little...

now i feel great! :)

the awful eye condition has completely cleared, i'm still hoarse but audible, i'm coughing a lot less and my rose isn't running much anymore.. phew, looks like rest and lots & lots of water really works... i'm heading to Bintan tomorrow!!! :)

recalling the halcyon days of studying at the NUS forum, looking out at the lush foliage bordering the compound... (hahaha.. an ex-NUS undergrad wannabe..:p )

logging on for a couple of minutes just to update on my condition...

i have, sad to say, gotten worse ... according to the kind doctor, "heatiness" has driven my phlegm up my system and now my eyes (right eye yesterday and left eye today) are suffering some kind of odd irritation and secreting weird viscous substances... my sister, who knows about such things, says it could be conjunctivitis. The doctor has prescribed "really strong medication" and told me to stop taking the ones he gave me earlier (i.e. the ones that were for plants and small family pets - see below). wow.... you mean it's that serious??

i always believe that everything (good or bad) happens for a certain reason.. i guess this is really giving me a chance to take a break and to think through a couple of things that have been sitting on my mind for a while...

so it's rest day tomorrow and then the weekend follows... and an early night for me today.. tata.. :)

Laryngitis has set in... i have to start mime-ing and sms-ing... thank goodness for sms, what would life be like for a laryngitis-prone person like me without sms??

according to the The Center for Laryngeal and Voice Disorders at Johns Hopkins, i need to "rest the voice as much as possible, increase intake of decaffeinated fluids (particularly water), and use a humidifier". what the heck is a humidifier? is it a "pure humidifier"? or a "whole-house furnace humidifier" ... oh dear.. it also says that "Laryngitis can be secondary to a more serious condition such as benign or malignant growths" if "hoarseness lasts longer than two weeks, or is accompanied by a lump in the neck or blood-tinged sputum"... :O

i hope it doesn't get any more serious than it is now... time for more antibiotics...?

i have just been to see the family doctor and was prescribed a colourful array of medicine with the names Trizine, Febrax, Dhasedyl Syrup and the common Paracetamol. I decided to find out what the Internet had to say about them.. a google search for "Trizine" and its scientific name "Trimethoprim Sulfadiazine" turned out...

Animal Health Products. TRIZINE Injection 50 ml vial. Antibacterial (Livestock). Generic Name : Trimethoprim, Sulphadiazine. ... lifestock medicine...umm...

...If trizine herbicides (atrazine/simazine) were used on the row crop, their residual effects can injure legumes planted the following spring. ... herbicide?.. umm...

Drug-Induced Immune Hypersensitivity Disorders in Two dogs Treated with Trimethoprim Sulfadiazine ... treatment for dogs??

Pharmacokinetics of trimethoprim/sulfadiazine in neonatal calves; influence of synovitis. J. Vet. Pharmacol. ... hahaha... neonatal calves!!!!

Drug Therapy in Pet Rodents... enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, cephaloridine, oxytetracycline, sulfamethazine, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and trimethoprim-sulfadiazine. ... i'm fed the same thing my friend SA feeds her gerbils with when they are ill!! :O

luckily, febrax and dhasedyl syrup are real human medicines... phew! maybe ignorance is bliss after all...

I’m reading about woodland burials in the latest issue of Utne... i think it is the way all of us should be buried when we die (i.e. if we choose not to be cremated or to be fed to the vultures).

The typical cemetery is as environmentally damaging as a golf course. have you see the cemeteries at Choa Chu Kang? They are nowhere as pretty as the ones we used to have at Bukit Brown and Bidadari (which are wonderful places for walks, runs and even picnics - so pleasant and tranquil..). Rows and rows of tightly packed cement blocks, no trees in sight and the precious land area they take up just keeps growing and growing... and since all the bodies were embalmed and stored in super durable coffins, we will take forever to break down.. we should be buried in biodegradable cardboard boxes and returned to the earth as fertilizer.

excuse me for the bleak topic. i go a bit macabre when i am ill.

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, exiled Russian novelist, quoted in Yes! (Winter 2002):

"If it were all so simple!
If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil
cuts through the heart of every human being.
And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

i'm home today with a bad throat infection and aching bones and feeling tired and groggy... i think it is flu virus meets throat bateria (yucky!)... come to think of it, i haven't beeen ill for a while.. maybe my body just needs a break..anyway, this is giving mum an oppportunity to tell me all her day-to-day "auntie" stories... she's now telling me about how people kill themselves or get into trouble over gambling...

- about how stacks of passports are left uncollected from the cruise reception desk at the end of all these "cruises to nowhere" (i.e. gambling cruises). apparently, many people just toss themselves off the deck after losing their money... or when they are unable to pay the loan sharks that prowl these places..

- in genting highlands, "friends of my mum's friend" (haha..a FOAF story) discovered a dead body behind one of the beds as they were adjusting the furniture in the room.. apparently, this dead person had committed suicide in the room, probably as a result of over gambling... they were given monetary compensation for the shock and told to "seal their lips".. haha...

- about people who borrow tens and thousands of dollars from their family, friends, associates and even loan sharks and then escape to foreign countries such as Australia..

i can't understand how people can squander away either their own or other people's hard-earned money on gambling.. if you ever have a chance, stand at one of these poker tables or roulette tables in a casino.. it's amazing how these people just keep whipping out thousands and giving them away...

these are 10 questions you should ask yourself if you suspect you or someone you know may be a compulsive gambler...

Why do you read the newspapers?

Do you read it out of habit (the “bread-coffee-newspaper” daily routine)? Because you really want to know about what’s happening so you can do something about it (you are the “activist" type)? Do you read it because you don’t want to be the last to know if something big happens and even the vegetable seller in the market knows about it (kiasu-type)? Or do you read it for entertainment (i.e. vs. watching TV or listening to the radio)?

I think it’s probably a bit of a mix of each… anyway, I found the papers thoroughly entertainment yesterday … first, there’s the “Joo Chiat Wayang” thing (otherwise known as “The Everitt Road Show” – admittedly, I would have gone to see what’s happening as well (just like the rest of the other 100 kay-poh people) just for the heck of it.. haha…. Makes you really wonder what’s up with the Chan family…It’s rather silly but I’m definitely tuning in daily as long as the local press keep reporting on them… then there was this other random story about a football match that ended up with a 149-0 score when one of the teams started to score their own goals to show their protest against their coach… and then this article about “competitive eaters who want to be known as athletes” for their “refinement of the skill of eating”… frankly, I find this most bizarre, especially when they mentioned this guy “inhaling food through his nostrils” and they said that is “the mark of a champion” urgh!… I’ll rather enjoy food slowly… check out pics from last night’s haunt at geylang food paradise…

so Robert Kiyosaki is a phoney??

i'm admittedly a closet reader of motivational books, especially Wall Street winners on personal finance, management etc... they rank high in my secret list of "Books that have changed my life" (hey, i'm sure you have one too..)... i'm typically Singaporean i guess - constantly on the drive to make ourselves better, more competitive - which is why this sort of books still regularly top the local best-sellers list .. though if you ask any of us, we would all probably agree that it is mostly "packaged common sense"..:p

anyhow, my list would include books like:-

- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki (which i still think is a good book on planning for early retirement and this elusive thing called "Financial Freedom"... i mean, why not? if it is our dream not to spend our whole lives working unhappily or grudgingly and to spend our lives doing what we love to do..)

- Who Moved My Cheese? - by Spencer Johson (still my favourite "Change Management" book.. a lot of gems in this one, albeit the large font size, giant pictures of cheese and lots of repetition with regards to mice running around - a must-read 'cos "The only constant is change".. heh heh.. cliched..)

- Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen (simple truth about being happy at work - if all of us followed its principles, i think we will no longer see grumpy salesgirls, stressed out executives and office cleaning aunties who look like they could zap our eyes out with their fierce stares if we forget to lift up our feet while they vacuumed the floor area around us)

- Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (this is the book that is most often accused of being "packaged common sense".. but i personally feel has helped me to prioritise the day's tasks with principles like "Begin with the end in mind" and "First Things First" and to keep relationships with "Seek win-win" and "Synergise".. read it even if you have to read it critically..)

- The One Minute Manager by Spencer Johnson (another book by the same guy who did the cheese book - i finished this one while standing in MPH bookstore but decided to buy it in the end cos it seems to be the perfect solution to my poor handling of our over-reliant staff (who now go through the day in a daze, reacting to our instructions without using their brains)

these are all pretty good books and usually take no more than a day or two (and sometimes even half an hour, especially for the shorter books) to be read from cover to cover. but if you remember what they write, i think they help

our family of 5 brought mom out for a birthday dinner treat just now at Boon Lay Raja Restaurant and this was what our bill looked like at the end of the meal...



the garoupa, fresh from the tank and weighing a respectable 700g, yummily steamed Cantonese-style with garlic, spring onion, chives and soya sauce, cost us only $5.25??? and on top of that, the whole bill had a discount of an additional 25%!!

so our whole family had a filling and very satisfying dinner, 6 dishes in all, comprising a steamed garoupa, claypot egg beancurd, kai lan with oyster sauce, sweet and sour pork's ribs, foo yong egg, and a whole herbal chicken... enough food for a feast, and ended up paying no more than $13 per person!!! we didn't notice the suspicious billing for the fish until we were way out of the restaurant, rubbing our satisfied tummies...

mum says that it was probably a mistake, made either intentionally (by a disgrunted employee) or unintentionally (by a very "blur" cashier). The fish was supposed to be at least $8 per 100g!! now, it was only a dollar twenty five cents more than the price of the peanuts!!

oh dear! i hope the cashier didn't get into trouble in the end.. and i really wonder how many other mistakes were made in the course of the whole night in the rather packed restaurant... sigh... the perils of employing bad staff...

i got a Hidamari No Tami from alb from his HK trip..



he's got a solar panel on the front, and just sits there and rocks his head head side to side when there is light. even the dull carpark light is enough to make him happy. but you should see him when the sun shines... he rocks!

hahahahaha :D

according to Dr Spencer Johnson (author of highly acclaimed change management book "Who Moved My Cheese?"), if you want to improve your chaotic life or to dramatically improve your relationships with others, you need to take these "One Minute For Myself" breaks - short 60-second blocks of "stop-check-reflect" moments and to ask yourself this question "Is there a way, right now, for me to take better care of myself?"..

while this might sound rather ego-centric, especially to most of us who come from Asian backgrounds where we are constantly told to "put others before ourselves" or to "be considerate to others", this simple statement actually makes a lot of sense...

In one minute I can change my attitude And in that minute I can change my entire day.

When I take good care of myself I feel less angry – toward myself and others.

And when I am Happier I work better and I treat others better.

it's an advice i try to heed nowadays whenever i get frustrated and overwhelmed, especially at work... it works... sometimes, it might just mean popping out to get a cold coffee or to rest a tired mind... but in the longer run, i find myself more effective than if i continue to just do and do, getting more and more frustrated and tired out every minute.

Life is lived minute by minute. Those who know this live best.

today was definitely a better day, though it was probably because i hid away from the hustle and bustle and distractions of the main store and worked at my own sane pace at our smaller branch in bras basah... manage to work out more details of the staff training programme ... there's just so much that needs to be done in terms of training... like how to provide superb customer service that truly "delights our customers" (in my own little way, i'm hoping to transform "customer service quality" in Singapore - i think customer service in Singapore really sucks! - though it is still better than in HK, i heard.. apparently, the sales people there actually ignore customers even when they are being scolded, even in big departmental stores..wow..), selling skills (cos sometimes, while providing "superb" customer service to our customers, i hear my staff saying - much to my astonishment - "you can get it cheaper in xxx place" durrhhh????), getting things right the first time (which means they must really know their stuff - like having good product knowledge, being alert etc), phone etiquette, dressing, etc etc etc... and on top of that, we have to think about motivating them... very hard indeed...

brought my damaged slr camera to this wonderful camera repair shop in Adelphi near City Hall MRT (P&G - in the basement) and the friendly uncle - this Mr David Phan fixed it in a flat 1 minute.. though all he did was open up the battery compartment, slide the battery out and then popping it back in again... :p.. why haven't i ever thought of doing that?? anyway, he was astounded at how badly maintained it was (i'm really bad at taking care of my camera). he advises taking off the camera strap before putting the camera in the dry box cos otherwise you put in all the dead skin and sweat and fungus - which defeats the purpose of putting it into a dry box then.... umm..good point... and i found out (quite unexpectedly but happily) that this old lens i borrowed from a friend for long-term use - Tokina AF235 II 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 is actually a really really superb lens! Just a little dirty and needing a little cleaning up but wow, check out the rave reviews! .. so i suddenly have another little treasure to play around with... :)

alb's pics of the powerpuff girls on hong kong MTR station signboards has done wonders to my mood :)

and thanks to Krisalis, i've finally figured out the difference between kopi and kopi-si... hee hee.. looks like i'm not so Singaporean afterall... even though i always pretend to know what i am ordering when i order kopi-si instead of just plain o' kopi... :p

i didn't go to malacca in the end. and i broke my camera.

woke up late both days of the weekend and ended up spending the whole day working on workstuff - planning a training programme for our staff (which is desperately needed 'cos they are just getting from bad to worse - breaking all the shop rules, terrible customer service, etc etc.. grr... we get frustrated everytime we walk into the store.. but we know its probably our fault that we didn't make the system "idiot-proof" - not that they are idiots but most of the clerical and sales staff that we try to employ tend to be rather mechanical and i guess they work best with systems and rules... initiative??.. bleah... ), sorting out all the work and tasks that needs to be done once i get back to the office tomorrow (which is a lot of stuff..), and i helped to sort out some of the administrative stuff at the new household store in United Sq (our sister company of sorts).. and while rushing out this morning, i slipped and fell (cos of the silly rain) and now my slr (which was in my bag when i fell) is damaged and needs to be repaired... grrr.. what a terrible weekend... there's something about working over an off-weekend that somehow gets me feeling down (even if i worked voluntarily)... maybe it was because i ended up not going to malacca even though i was so looking forward to it...

i'm trying to stay positive but i'm fighting a losing battle.. spiralling..spiralling...into gloom and depression.... it was a gloomy day, both literally and figuratively.. where is the sun when i need it??

the stupid haze... :(

i've got a great excuse for staying up late.. I'M DONE WITH MY EXAMS!! :) x 1,000,000... the whole experience has been most painful... the lessons were fun, of course, and meeting new and interesting people and learning new stuff but the exams... urgh.. i so hate exams.... think i am going to stay off serious studying for a while.. in the meantime, i will pick up pottery and maybe learn spanish... :)

good pal SA asked me if i would go through the whole experience again for a million dollars.. durrhhh??? for a million dollars?? of course!! i'll do a lot of things (not everything though.. :p) for a million dollars!

discovered the very cosy and fun "original" Brauhaus at 101 Thomson Road B1-12/1, United Square (not to be mistaken for the better known but newer and international Paulaner Brauhaus at Millenia Walk) which the very chirpy and middle-age but still spunky owner (we didn't get his name) told us has been around for more than 13 years! There are apparently some 200 different types of beers from around the world (a very believeable number judging from the impressive beer list) and we even got to try this really nice chocolate beer (from Belgium) on the house! definitely a place to hang out again on one of those nights where you just need a place to chat and laugh with a bunch of good pals... (got to warn you though.. it's not really "yuppie-hip".. it has its very loyal clientele.. mostly middle-agey... :p)

may be heading to malacca for the weekend to chill out... :)

i don't know what to make of the news about the Canadian woman who tried to sue Air Canada for discrimination against obese people (she said she was humiliated and suffered physically because she couldn't fit into an economy size seat and that her obesity was in fact a disability which was discriminated against)..

i asked my sister (who is a nurse and knows everything about diseases and other such medical stuff) if obesity is a disability (such as blindness and celebral palsy) or if it is largely (i didn't say always) due to a person's eating and lifestyle habits... in which case it cannot really be blamed on genes and society and hence you can't go around sueing people for not accommodating you.... she told me that genetic reasons do play a part but it is mostly due to poor lifestyle habits..

i found something on the net on "Disability Due to Obesity" .. it says that approved obesity-disability cases in the US are entitled to disability payments from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and obese people do have certain civil rights as it is recognised that "obesity is a disease" .. they are covered under this law known as Obesity Law.. umm....

i pity the airlines then.. squeezed (pardon the pun) on all sides... sued by the ones who can't squeeze into the seats and sued by those who are squashed by obese people sitting next to them...

A poem by Eugene McCarthy

VIETNAM MESSAGE

We will take our corrugated steel
out of the land of thatched huts.

We will take our tanks
out of the land of the water buffalo.

We will take our napalm and flame throwers
out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches.

We will take our helicopters
out of the land of colored birds and butterflies.

We will give back your villages and fields
your small and willing women.

We will leave you your small joys
and smaller troubles.

We will trust you to your gods,
some blind, some many-handed.

malaysia is going to cut off our water supply!!! :O we are all going to have to depend on Newater then and nothing else!!!

oh dear!

live your dreams...

".... we shouldn't snore through our dreams - we have to live them out. When our dreams and our projects come true, almost without realizing it, we gradually overcome the fear of death. Because the terror of death is the fear of dying without having lived."

this made me cry...

eeps! :O spotted the wrong questions for the exam! :O

but don't fret.. i should still be ok.. as long as the lecturer accepts my somewhat "manipulated-to-fit-question" answers.. :p but harmed a lot of innocent people along the way 'cos they trusted my "vision" (yes, one night, as i sat at my desk... THE QUESTION suddenly flashed before my eyes!! wahahaha...) and focused on those specific topics that i suggested.. oh well.. so much for having "visions"....

back to the old-fashion way of studying then.... :p

Watching TV just now just made me feel really edgy…

- Discovery channel was showing a lot of beetles feeding on a dead frog and then an alligator in ambush waiting to pounce on the newborn of a hippo
- Animal planet was showing a monkey falling into a river with a big cobra in it
- Channel 5 was showing BG Lee’s speech at the Asia Pacific Summit and they showed secret video footages of the JI (terrorist-related) group training
- Channel News Asia was talking about the death of mutual funds
- CNN showed the latest bomb blast in Israel that killed 15 people (suicide bomber)
- BBC News was showing interviews with people regarding the Monash University shooting
- Channel U was showing a drama series where a little girl of 7 was brutally molested by her mother’s boyfriend
- Channel 8’s drama series had a little boy kidnapped and badly bruised, who escaped and got caught again
- AXN had a movie on about some war thing
- Some other channel had segments on animal testing
- And yet another had a bunch of American politicians shaking hands and smiling
- And yet another news channel had an aerial view of police cars stopping white minivans in Washington DC
- Only Suria looked harmless but then.. I DON’T WATCH SURIA!!!

I thought watching TV was going to make me feel better but now I feel even worse…

I think I am going to bed now... :(

today's google searches that lead to my site... "fancy+name+for+sea+garbage" (huh??),"pics+of+bali+bomb+blast", "bali+bomb+pics", "kuta+pics", "pics+of+bali+blast", "bali+bomb+blast+pics"... this is very depressing....

and this one takes the hat.. "steal+a+handphone".. did i ever teach anyone how to do that on my blog???

a point of view from the distinguished Indian writer Arundhati Roy

Friday September 27, 2002
The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>

Recently, those who have criticised the actions of the US government (myself included) have been called "anti-American". Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. The term is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they're heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.

What does the term mean? That you're anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to free speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?

This sly conflation of America's music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the US government's foreign policy is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It's like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire. There are many Americans who would be mortified to be associated with their government's policies. The most scholarly, scathing, incisive, hilarious critiques of the hypocrisy and the contradictions in US government policy come from American citizens. (Similarly, in India, not hundreds, but millions of us would be ashamed and offended, if we were in any way implicated with the present Indian government's fascist policies.)

To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not good, you're evil.

If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

Last year, like many others, I too made the mistake of scoffing at this post-September 11 rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. I've realised that it's not. It's actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war. Every day I'm taken aback at how many people believe that opposing the war in Afghanistan amounts tosupporting terrorism. Now that the initial aim of the war - capturing Osama bin Laden- seems to have run into bad weather, the goalposts have been moved. It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas. We're being asked to believe that the US marines are actually on a feminist mission. (If so, will their next stop be America's military ally, Saudi Arabia?) Think of it this way: in India there are some pretty reprehensible social practices, against untouchables", against Christians and Muslims, against women. Pakistan and Bangladesh have even worse ways of dealing with minority communities and women. Should they be bombed?

Uppermost on everybody's mind, of course, particularly here in America, is the horror of what has come to be known as 9/11. Nearly 3,000 civilians lost their lives in that lethal terrorist strike. The grief is still deep. The rage still sharp. The tears have not dried. And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person who has lost a loved one surely knows that no war, no act of revenge, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory.

To fuel yet another war - this time against Iraq - by manipulating people's grief, by packaging it for TV specials sponsored by corporations selling detergent or running shoes, is to cheapen and devalue grief, to drain it of meaning. We are seeing a pillaging of even the most private human feelings for political purpose. It is a terrible, violent thing for a state to do to its people.

The US government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people. That's a fairly accurate description of the man. In 1988, he razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq and killed thousands of Kurds. Today, we know that that same year the US government provided him with $500m in subsidies to buy American farm products. The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the US government doubled its subsidy to $1bn. It also provided him with high-quality germ seed for anthrax, as well as helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. It turns out that while Saddam was carrying out his worst atrocities, the US and UK governments were his close allies. So what changed?

In August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait. His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he acted independently,without orders from his masters. This display of independence was enough to upset the power equation in the Gulf. So it was decided that Saddam be exterminated, like a pet that has outlived its owner's affection.

A decade of bombing has not managed to dislodge him. Now, almost 12 years on, Bush Jr is ratcheting up the rhetoric once again. He's proposing an all-out war whose goal is nothing short of a regime change.

Andrew H Card Jr, the White House chief-of-staff, described how the administration was stepping up its war plans for autumn: "From a marketing point of view," he said, "you don't introduce new products in August."

This time the catchphrase for Washington's "new product" is not theplight of people in Kuwait but the assertion that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Forget "the feckless moralising of the 'peace' lobbies,"wrote Richard Perle, chairman of the Defence Policy Board. The US will " act alone if necessary" and use a "pre-emptive strike" if it determines it is in US interests.

Weapons inspectors have conflicting reports about the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and many have said clearly that its arsenal has been dismantled and that it does not have the capacity to build one. What if Iraq does have a nuclear weapon? Does that justify a pre-emptive US strike? The US has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It's the only country in the world to have actually used them on civilian populations. If the US is justified in launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, why, any nuclear power is justified in carrying out a pre-emptive attack on any other. India could attack Pakistan, or the other way around.

Recently, the US played an important part in forcing India and Pakistan back from the brink of war. Is it so hard for it to take its own advice? Who is guilty of feckless moralising? Of preaching peace while it wages war? The US, which Bush has called "the most peaceful nation on earth", has been at war with one country or another every year for the last 50 years.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then, of course, there's the business of war. In his book on globalisation, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Tom Friedman says: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Perhaps this was written in a moment of vulnerability, but it's certainly the most succinct, accurate description of the project of corporate globalisation that I have read.

After September 11 and the war against terror, the hidden hand and fist have had their cover blown - and we have a clear view now of America's other weapon - the free market - bearing down on the developing world, with a clenched, unsmiling smile. The Task That Never Ends is America's perfect war, the perfect vehicle for the endless expansion of American imperialism. In Urdu, the word for profit is fayda. Al-qaida means the word, the word of God, the law. So, in India, some of us call the War Against Terror, Al-qaida vs Al-fayda - The Word vs The Profit(no pun intended). For the moment it looks as though Al-fayda will carry the day. But then you never know...

In the past 10 years, the world's total income has increased by an average of 2.5% a year. And yet the numbers of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million. Of the top 100 biggest economies, 51 are corporations, not countries. The top 1% of the world has the same combined income as the bottom 57%, and the disparity is growing. Now, under the spreading canopy of the war against terror, this process is being hustled along. The men in suits are in an unseemly hurry. While bombs rain down, contracts are being signed, patents registered, oil pipelines laid, natural resources plundered, water privatised and democracies undermined.

But as the disparity between the rich and poor grows, the hidden fist of the free market has its work cut out. Multinational corporations on the prowl for "sweetheart deals" that yield enormous profits cannot push them through in developing countries without the active connivance of state machinery - the police, the courts, sometimes even the army. Today, corporate globalisation needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries, to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. It needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. It needs nuclear bombs, standing armies, sterner immigration laws, and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that its only money, goods, patents and services that are globalised - not the free movement of people, not a respect for human rights, not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons, or greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, or, God forbid,justice. It's as though even a gesture towards international accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.

Close to one year after the war against terror was officially flagged off in the ruins of Afghanistan, in country after country freedoms are being curtailed in the name of protecting freedom, civil liberties are being suspended in the name of protecting democracy. All kinds of
dissent is being defined as "terrorism".

Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the war against terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters. So, it's hard for me to say this, but the American way of life is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.

Fortunately, power has a shelf life. When the time comes, maybe this mighty empire will, like others before it, overreach itself and implode from within. It looks as though structural cracks have already appeared. As the war against terror casts its net wider and wider, America's corporate heart is haemorrhaging. A world run by a handful of greedy bankers and CEOs whom nobody elected can't possibly last. Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power: 21st-century market-capitalism, American-style, will fail for the same reasons.

first exam paper down (1/3).. urgh... :( ...e-commerce management... spotted a couple of the right questions but was quite blank in my head (i.e. not much facts and terms memorised cos there was just so much to remember!) so had to literally write whatever i could come up with on the spot (which meant quite a bunch of cancellation here and there, a bunch of roughly scrawled diagrams, and poor spelling, grammar and sentence structure was atrocious.. ).. oh well, it's over anyway... sigh.. exhausted now...

Limited time period- type exams are such a bad test of our ability.. they are so far from reality.. in real life (especially now that we have Internet access readily available), we can always do research on-the-fly, refer to facts and diagrams to substantiate our arguments and most of all, we have more time than just the miserable three hours!! I still prefer projects anytime.. even if we need to work for weeks to get them done.. i think we tend to end up learning a lot more, read a lot more broadly, understand concepts a lot more deeply, and ultimately, be more satisfied with our work...

oh well, got to work with what i have now anyway... 2 more to go and then i'm done! :)

talking about "scrutinising your site stats and being amused and maybe annoyed by the keyword searches that have led some people to your pages" (see karen's latest post), i just realised i have been getting a couple of hits from google from people looking for "bali terrorists pics" and "bali tragedy pics" and even "who bombed bali"!!!..... oh my... you reckon i'm being tracked??

:O

i finally received a call from my friend in Bali and he's totally fine!! :) phew! what a great relief!! told me he usually doesn't hang out at noisy places like that and the bomb site was actually quite far from where he lives so he wasn't affected much..

heard the phone lines were all jammed up over the past couple of days with people calling home to all parts of the world telling their families they are fine so it was really hard to get through. .. must be so frightening for the loved ones of these people who are wondering where they are.. especially for all the Brit and Aussie backpackers who usually leave home for indefinite periods to travel around the world.

a nasty incident like that has shrunken the "visitable" world for so many of us globetrotting backpackers... it's frustrating...

i wonder when we will see a world free from wars, fighting, terrorism and terrorist activities again... as far as i know, bombs are still going off in all sorts of places, killing civilians and disrupting lives... US is still threatening to bomb Iraq, Saddam Hussein is still as defiant as before.. doesn't the future just look so terribly bleak now.. :(

i'm gonna pray for peace, and for wisdom for all the leaders who are responsible or able to influence in one way or other in what's happening in the world now.. do join me if you can... and may God keep us all safe..

is it just a frightful coincidence that both incidents that have just happened (and definitely are still terrorising) the world at this moment involve minivans?? :O

and also that the bali blast occured exactly one year, one month, one day and one hour after last year's Sep 11 incident?? :O

i hate spooky coincidences..

:(

More than two dozen countries figure on grim list of Bali .. it's a global tragedy...

searching for info online for name list of those dead or missing... umm... found an unofficial list about the Aussies and some unknown nationalities... can't seem to find anything else...it's so surreal looking through lists of dead for someone you know... :( ...

i'm still waiting for the phone call.. :(

update: Smaller bomb was used to draw revellers on to street - A small bomb exploded near Paddy's, which drew people outside ¨C allowing a subsequent massive blast a few seconds later on the opposite side of the street to wreak maximum casualties. ... how awful!!!

huh? they think the US bombed Bali...

i'm suddenly thinking that it isn't safe to visit anywhere anymore....

maybe they will bomb KL when i am there!? or there will be a sniper gunning me down??.. or maybe i will be thrown off an overhead bridge, assaulted and left for dead?!!

the world is getting way too unsafe... :( ... i really wonder what we will feel and say, when we look back - fifty years down the road - as we explain to our grandchildren reading about this period in their history books...

or maybe none of us will actually live that long!! :O terrorists may one day suddenly set off a global chain of massive bombs at every single chinky or white or african or whichever nation that doesn't believe in what they believe in and we will all be blown to smithereen, left to float as dust in the atmosphere for eternity!!! :O

sniff...

i'm suddenly overwhelmed by a massive feeling of dread...

i just realised i have a friend in Bali and he actually stays in the Kuta area! Oh no!... and this is how the bombed site looks now!!

i don't know if he is ok 'cos i don't hear from him very often.. and they don't seem to have identified all the casualties yet... oh dear oh dear... :( hope i get a phone call from him soon... :,(

it's terrible when a distant tragedy suddenly becomes more personal... :(

the haze has only gotten worse.. and there NOTHING we can do about it!! :O



everything has turned topsy-turvy... the weather is all funny, our noses have all gotten stuck and we are all feeling ill... and just yesterday, an auntie strolled into our shop (which is on the 4th floor) with a Cold Storage (which is in Basement 2) shopping cart... and i don't think she was headed towards the carpark (which is on the 6th floor).. nor the taxi stand (which is on the Ground Floor)..very bizarre.. made me feel like we are part of Cold Storage...and reminds me of the ah pek i saw a couple of months back....



maybe it's a senior citizen thing... maybe next time my mother will do that as well... :O

do you feel as depressed as me when you wake up in the morning and see haze?



what is the world coming to..? :(

every day, as we flip the newspapers, we either read of wars that are going on, bomb blasts here and there (why did they have to bomb Bali?? why do they have to bomb anywhere for that matter??) or about wars that are about to happen (read: Iraq)... yesterday, out of the blue, i suddenly asked myself: Do you think there could be world peace after all ? - and i caught myself thinking spontaneously "Don't be silly!"... but as i said it, it struck me what a terrible terrible statement that was...i mean... if no one believes there ever could be World Peace..

then how and when would it ever ever happen?? We all have to believe that it is possible! That one day, we will all stop fighting - that all places in the world will be safe to visit and more money will be used to save lives (diseases, droughts, floods etc) rather than to take them away...

what a depressing morning...

almost 8 hours of continuous studying.. feeling very dazed now... hopped from HDB void deck to NUS and now back home.... the nomadic student.. and was craving for potato chips while i was studying but couldn't find anything to eat at NUS.. why don't they have vending machines for snacks??? (non sequitur: on the other hand, see amazing vending machine in Washington DC) - almost wanted to grab the unopened bag of potato chips sitting on the next table... grrr... studying can really drive one to madness...



fireworks at esplanade was pretty good... though i have to admit i was a little annoyed that i thought it was already over after the first half minute or so and gave up my vantage spot and packed up the tripod...only to have it start again some two minutes later, this time even more spectacularly... don't think i will have such great pics after all (which is a disappointment considering we were there since 8pm waiting for the fireworks) .. oh well, but glad i caught it anyway... how do people take such great pics of fireworks anyway?? (note: this is not the same esplanade)

mugging away in a freezing cold library on a cheery and bright saturday afternoon surely has a way of making even the most determined and hardworking student heave a sigh of self-pity... even the butterflies look happier, flittering in the sunshine, around the colourful flowers, relaxed and carefree... and the koi fishes in the courtyard pond looks happier too, swimming round and round their little enclosed worlds...

but i'm going to the opening of the esplanade tonight! :) i'm going to join the 100,000 people there to see the fireworks and squeeze with the sweaty and kiasu crowds.. so that.. so that.. hahaha.. I CAN TELL MY GRANDCHILDREN NEXT TIME THAT I WAS REALLY THERE WHEN THEY OPENED THE ESPLANADE!! :D..

oh well.. lame... :p

i'm planning on going to kl after my exams.. it makes the big "E" a lot more bearable.. and i think kl is a nice place to just chill out, stuff face and walk around and test out the new Sigma 24mm lens i will be buying... and not because some of these british expats have concluded that kl is better than singapore..

hmph... fancy a whole country losing out to one single city in Malaysia... there are things to do in Singapore, you know?? and check out how exotic we look...

and btw, we lose out to Tokyo too.. :(

just got my $$$ for my latest art reproduction effort and it was more than i expected!! :)

think i shall go get my Sigma 24mm F1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF MACRO AutoFocus Wide Angle Lens finally.. :D.. start taking pics around Singapore and set up web gallery after my exams...

happy :)

… the freaking out bit sounds a bit like me when I am in my shop and eavesdropping on my staff talking to customers.. :p

A storekeeper heard one of his salesman say to a customer, “No, ma’am, we haven’t had any for some weeks now and it doesn’t look as if we’ll be getting any soon.”

Horrified at what he was hearing, he rushed over to the customer as she was walking out and said, “That isn’t true, ma’am. Of course, we’ll have some soon. In fact, we placed an order for it a couple of weeks ago.”

Then he drew the salesman aside and growled, “Never, never, never, never say we don’t have something. If we don’t have it, say we’ve ordered it and it’s on its way. Now what was it that she wanted?”

“Rain,” said the salesman.

Have you noticed how annoying MRT station announcements have become of late? No? Then you are like me (and probably all the other “zombie” commuters), oblivious to them after a while… Until a good friend of mine, who just returned from the UK, pointed it out to me, I didn’t realize how much more irritating it has become recently (especially now that it is all pre-recorded, in this woman’s voice with this really fake or weird accent, and can be repeated at will.. or should I say.. at the whims and fancies of the station people??).

As I took the MRT train home today, and waited but briefly (I should think no more than two, three minutes?) at the Orchard station, I caught no less than 6 different announcements, with at least two to three of them strung together, one after another. The problem is, they all start off with the same “ding, ding, ding” chime.. and then the woman-with-annoying-accent saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention please”… followed by a short pause, and then one of the following, or their many possible variations .. “May we remind you that eating and drinking are not allowed on the trains or in the station at all times” Or “May we remind you to allow passengers to alight from the trains before boarding” or “The train on Platform A (or B or C or D) will terminate at Yishun/Pasir Ris/Changi Airport/whatever) or something else… and all of them ending with “Thank you for your cooperation”…

one could certainly go mad just listening to them, going on and on, especially at the end of a tiring workday and when the trains just don’t come... I wish they could just get the announcements over with quickly, like how they do in London with the short and chirpy “Mind The Gap!”. and leave out all that unnecessary chime and pseudo-politeness…. Urgh.. very annoying…

oh ya, and when you finally get onto the trains, you get a whole new set of announcements.. oh well..

plucky Wendy finished her bicycle trip from Bangkok to Singapore (2000km). well done!

i'm studying for my exams (yes, again...) and won't be updating this very much for the time being...

in the meantime, let me leave you with some useful pages people have been sending me...

How Stuff Works - Learn how everything works! (how toasters work, how tv works, how cds work, how whatever works!! "Impress your friends! Improve your love life! Land a better job! Get better grades!"..err... ok...)

Marathon Training - "Oprah did it. Al Gore did it. George W. Bush did it. They all finished a marathon. And you can, too, as long as you follow one of our marathon training programs. For beginners, intermediate runners, and advanced runners." ... Second Link Bridge Run on 20 Oct and Singapore Marathon in December... more reasons to keep running...

tonight's blog is dedicated to the lizard i accidentally squished in the door frame when i closed my front door just now. sorry.. i really didn't know you were there.. :(



the new baby clothing store LIFEbaby across our artshop is amazing.. zen meets baby clothing (otherwise known as the "New Asian-style" - made by the same people who started THELIFESHOP); staff dress in complete black and soft toys are made of black and white leather... check out their logo..

... cool...

have been reading Fortune magazines to prepare for my Strategic Mgmt exam and read that Pressman Toy, which licenses the right to the very popular eighties boardgame Master Mind is planning to change the box cover design - removing the Bond villain and his slinky henchwoman.



i sat there for a good fifteen minutes, cracking my brains trying to remember how to play the game. i remember being quite good at it and playing it with my siblings. and i remember a bunch of coloured pegs. but how to play?

i still can't remember.

some of that stuff that's deep in the recesses of my brain. hidden in the folds of all that grey matter.

oh wow, look! someone pretty serious about the game!

If you are the type of blogger who, like me, thinks of new stuff to blog about throughout the day and yet has no ready access to the computer till you get home, you would certainly have experienced what I am about to describe. As I busied myself throughout today serving the mass of new and old customers who have just discovered our beautiful new store at Takashimaya, I knew that I would blog about how excited and proud I am of our new place and how glad I am now that the shop has kinda settled into place nicely. Then, I went down to the Takashimaya Food Hall on Level B2 for a quick pre-dinner bite, enjoying the really yummy $2 Beard Papa Cream Puff from Japan (melt-in-the-mouth), followed by a mango salad (spicy and shiok) from Tuk Tuk Thai Food Stall, before walking around enjoying the wonderful sights and smells from the different foodstalls there, I knew that I wanted to blog about what a wonderful shopping mall I think Takashimaya is. It’s the best!! But then, just about an hour ago, I got home, flipped open today’s copy of Life! and now I know I want to blog about Kelvin Tong’s article instead.

How true it is indeed that October has a way of getting most of us, in particular the natural procrastinators like myself, to start thinking seriously, and getting off our armchairs, to finally get started on some of those stagnating new year resolutions set some 10 months back. He writes: “October marks the start of catching up; the beginning of that final push. And, of course, it signposts the looming end of yet another year…. a resigned acceptance that (we are) now on to the last leg of the year; a period of what is left, rather than what is ahead..”.. Isn’t it so true.. we all think to ourselves: “Oh dear, it is October already!”… gloom … and then invariably it starts to rain.. (monsoon season.. time for the brollies..)

what a long day that went on forever... woke up at 6.15am for the sheares bridge run and am still up now, back from work and after my shower - waiting for my hair to dry... i am utterly pooped.. sheares bridge fun run was great! - one doesn't get to run on the left lane of ECP every day! - but got stuck for more than 2km behind "sludge" of slow-moving people so am not-at-all pleased with finish time ... can't believe there were apparently 50,000 people there today! i know a bunch of people who actually completed 21km (the half marathon) without stopping.. wow... maybe i should make that my aim next year?? :p ok lah, see how.. can't be too ambitious..

the artshop at takashimaya is officially open! (click for larger image) - don't we look fantastic??



so can i expect to see you there when you next swing by kinokuniya bookstore or the library@orchard?? btw, newly-opened but already tremendously popular Spanish label Z A R A on the ground floor uses the same escalator as our store!! :) that's another reason to drop by!

my group scored 86 marks for our e-commerce project! hooray! ... funny how we spent the whole 3 hours after our presentation this afternoon moping over how badly we thought we did compared to the other groups, and how much harder we have to study for the exams now (the project - white paper + presentation - takes up 30% of the marks).. wow wow wow! what a relief.... all that hard work and sweat was definitely worth it..

sheares bridge run is tomorrow... pant pant... and after that, kai and i will pop into the new artshop and paint one of our walls dark burgundy! hehehe... let's see how we surprise our first customers on Monday...we will be the funkiest artshop in Singapore!!

Had the most surreal experience yesterday lunching at the Takashimaya staff canteen. Just in case you don’t know (and I bet all my ten toe-nails that you don’t), there is actually a place in Takashimaya shopping centre (yes, Orchard) where you can get a decent meal (three dishes and rice) for less than $2.50 and a soft drink for less than a dollar (other than at Cold Storage) Ever wondered where the typical cleaning auntie gets her lunch? Ha! No, she doesn’t always ta pow from home! Hidden beneath the posh interiors and polished marble floorings of one of Singapore’s most “high-class” shopping centres, behind giant pots of artificial bonsai plants, away from the view of Prada swinging fashionable tai tais and expat ladies, is this very spartan, but cleanly scrubbed staff canteen (with cheap flourescent lighting, rows of grease-stained tables, bare walls, and plainly-tiled floors) which only the low-waged town workers (salesgirls, security guards, cleaners, waitresses and underpaid retail managers :p) know about… i practically had to weave my way through a maze of unmarked passageways, walk through doors that only read “Exit”, surreptitiously follow this guy in Cold Storage staff uniform, before finding this really surreal place that looks a complete world apart from where I just came from… strangely, I thought of the Victorian soup kitchens that Charles Dickens mentioned in his classics like Oliver Twist as I joined the proletariat masses for lunch… haha.. call me if you ever want to see this place.. it’s really amazing…

Stumbled upon this article “The Singapore adventure from 1996-1998” by this chap called Jochen Kern while randomly surfing the net. Get a dig of this sentence.. “This hotel was the champion on food cost which not fit in the frame of the lost paradise " Value for Money " concept”…. Huh?? Read more of his strangely worded account at http://cordonnoir.com/singapor.htm

incidentally, World Animal Day falls on October the 4th in Singapore as well! what a day to about!

i support the

i want to remember myself as a dreamer and an idealist
i want to be remembered as a runner, photographer, traveler, adventurer, diver, artist
i want to be remembered as a child of God.
i want to be a linguist.
i want to be a writer.
i want to be a strategist.
i want to make a difference to the world's less fortunate.

I’ve got a friend who (rather bizarrely) eagerly looks forward to the day she dies because she is excited about what others will say about her (not that she would be able to hear anyway)…

But hey, here is someone who is really confident of the difference she has already made in others’ lives! Good for her! As for me, there’s still a long way to go in every aspect of my life..

Have you ever wondered what you would want others to say at your funeral (or even what you would think about on your own deathbed)?

Sorry for morbid topic. There is a funeral wake at the void deck of the neighboring block… strange inspirations… oh well…

i think i have much to be thankful for.. so i should be supporting this year's World Smile Day - Oct 4

the grey smiley is to reflect my current "burnt-out" state..

legs are aching...

and feeling really tired from waking up at 6 something over two consecutive days. followed by hard labour (running and packing yesterday, and packing and carrying today)

and feeling the pressure of time - got to finish painting glassware, doing project presentation, and moving shop - all in this week.. then exams will come and lecturers haven't given us a clue on what topics to focus on, telling us everything is important and need to be studied.. and that exam questions will be broad to test our "thinking skills".. umm..

this is a difficult period..

totally pooped..

woke up at 6.30am for the terry fox run at sentosa (from bridge to beach). turned out to be tougher than a lot of us expected.... (heard this woman loudly declaring to her running mate "This is NOT a fun run. I repeat, this is NOT a fun run") did the 8.8km route that covered some interesting off-the-beaten-track spots (such as the golf course, earth satellite station, maritime museum and even the ferocious merlion) and discovered that Sentosa is amazingly undulating... the uphills and downhills were endless, and the weather was stiflingly hot... very testing.. think i am quite well-prepared for the sheares bridge run next week.. :p.. once again, the camaraderie was wonderful.. :)

then popped into artshop for more packing.. the place is a big mess now, with boxes and plastic bags everywhere, of all shapes and sizes.. we are all getting into the mood for the big move to takashimaya next week! see what the place looks like now, before the furniture moves in next week.. a blank slate ready to become the best art shop in the world! :)




come visit me from 1st October.. we're one floor above kinokuniya bookstore or one level below the main entrance of the library.. :)

lost my mobile phone today.

searched everywhere!

i looked in my bag… not there.

i checked with coffee bean & tea leaf where i had my eggs ben breakfast. not there too.

i called my colleagues at the artshop where i was briefly this morning. nope.

finally i cancelled my sim card. m1 told me they will replace it for me on Monday.

went for my lessons at SIM with a heavy heart.

sigh. more expenses. unnecessary ones.

and i was sad to lose Kam Kam, my cute mobile phone accessory.



but just an hour ago… i found my mobile phone again!

it was sitting in the car – right next to my handbrake.

how did it get there?? i don’t remember putting it there!

another close shave. another moment of embarrassing stupidity.

thank you God for the phone and the lesson.

and thank you reader for hanging around. listening to my blabber.

Kam Kam thanks you too.

my sis made me read her blog while i was having dinner just now and i almost lost my appetite.. eeks... it's not really yucky, just medical stuff but i'm not good with stuff like that, so... urgh!

i'm glad i didn't choose to go into Nursing.. oh well, how silly, of course i wouldn't since i can't even handle injections.. and i'm talking about witnessing them (not actually taking them.. :p)

:D woo hoo!!!

I'm finally #1 on Google search for "hweeling"!!!

you have no idea how long it took me to reach this position!! there are easily 2000 to 3000 hweelings in Singapore (maybe even more!! i personally know at least 10!), let alone the whole world!!! and i'm now No. 1!!!

wahahahah!!! World Domination!!! :D

said goodbye to my oil painting teacher Lydia Miller today. she's returning to her home country Australia after a stay here of some two years with her very loving and wonderful husband. it was a touching moment indeed...

what struck me most as i wished her well and we mused over how quickly the two years have passed since she came to our artshop (rather by chance - as she likes to say - "i don't know why but i just thought i'll come in and i'm glad i did" :) ) was the sheer amount that has happened for her since then... she held no less than 5 exhibitions (three here, two in Sydney), painted more than 200 paintings (at least), transformed her style of painting from Western abstract style, to a more fusion style, and now one leaning definitely towards the exotic East. Through us, she taught no less than three scores of complete beginners (including myself) not just the art and technique of oil painting but also the love and appreciation of it... she also built a community of sorts with local-based oil artists, some of them through contacts from us... yet i was totally surprised that she thanked us profusely for our part in making all this happen.. and all i ever did was to approach her (two years ago as she was just "another customer" standing at the oil paints rack) to ask if she was interested in teaching and telling her that i was interested in setting up a course and learning from her if she did.. isn't that amazing? :) ... i'm glad i approached her.. i really am..

i realised how blessed i am to have met so many wonderfully remarkable and inspiring people in my short 27 years - many of whom have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of art, music, writing or whatever else they feel drawn towards.... people who have taken the "road-less-travelled" and given me the inspiration to do the same in my life... every single encounter a life-changing one in one way or other.. their passion shows through their sharing of what they do, their never-ending quest to make themselves even better, even though so many of them have already spent a good 15 to 20 years of their lives already being so amazingly good at what they do...

farewell and thanks Lydia!

b r o t h is one amazing restaurant! Big thanks to Daniel for the generous sharing of this wonderful discovery.. :) - we had foie gras, snails, NZ steak fillet, and salmon steak (skipping the wines 'cos we were suspicious).. i can safely say each is in a class of its own.. almost the best i've tasted - at least in quite a while (consider that i have been surviving on sub $2.50 lunches).. and the setting was just so nice, double storey shophouse tucked away from the hustle and bustle of club street, tanjong pagar and maxwell market... decorated in a simple classy way.. you simply have to check it out.. loved it.. :)

i can't believe i almost completely missed the terry fox run this year! publicity has been terrible!! how can they expect to raise enough funds with this pathetic amount of publicity?? run is this sunday and i only got to know about it, like, yesterday?? enjoyed the camaraderie, sweat, and squashy cheerful crowds last year so will definitely go for it again this year. run around sentosa.. umm.. sounds fun.. :) sounds like good exercise too, just before next week's sheares bridge run... pant pant..

exams are coming round... grr...don't panic don't panic!!

festive mood in the artshop now.. we are going to move upmarket to Ngee Ann City in the next few days (just below the main entrance from the library@orchard - i love this library! - and up the escalator in Kinokuniya)... but don't worry, we ain't gonna increase prices .. :) can't wait for all the exciting tie-ups with the library@orchard, kinokuniya, and doing all the fun stuff we have always been doing but better (like art courses, mini art library, new art and craft products... we're going to see a whole new bunch of people, and get to reach out to a lot more people now who have never enjoyed doing art in their lives (not counting the bad experience in school, that is..:p)... it's nice to know we are making a difference to the lives of these people.. :)

btw, see pic of fluffy rabbit taken by alb (of his colleague's rabbit)... So cute!!!!

vs
Battle of the Mutant Po(s)

... ok ok.. just taking a break from another artwork mass reproduction project again for another wedding... roses roses and more roses... zzzz....

oh dear, mum just told me there was a news report tonight about another dive accident somewhere... another dive casualty... sigh...

mooncakes and pomelos... it's the mid-autumn festival again!! :) ... i have eaten... umm... an aggregate of 4 full mooncakes (at least??) since the start of the festival.. yum yum... i love the ones with double yolk and lots of melon seeds, especially the snowy skin green pandan ones.. yum... they are selling them everywhere in town!! Decided it was more than a snack and I should do a bit of study on the historical background of this custom so i surfed the net and found this.. (pardon me for my ignorance.. .but i really do get all the Chinese heroes mixed up.... i mean, there is this guy who was thrown into the river by some enemies and that started the dumpling thing, and then there is another story of Chinese households trying to stuff the mouth of some deity on New Year's Eve with sticky paste cake, and then now this story about Chu Yuan-chang leading the Han people of theYuan Dynasty to overthrow the Mongol rule by distributing mooncakes with the message "Revolt on the fifteenth of the eighth moon" hidden inside.. very confusing...

random pictures from a "drive-by photographer"..




exams are coming again... trying to get a bit of fresh air and sunshine before hibernation period starts... grrr....

lack of sleep is wrecking sheer havoc in my life...

remember the incident where i left this huge mounting board of fragile tiles on the roof of my car and then drove off unaware? a few days after that, i left something in the laundry and it was churned to unrecoverable shreds by the washing machine... and today... sigh... today, i left my Strategic Management lecture notes (a thick stack of notes, mind you), on Bus No. 14 on my way to work (it brings me to Dover station where i take the MRT) and only discovered it missing much later as i was getting off the Raffles Place MRT Interchange to switch to the Northern line...

fortunately, it proved worthless to anyone and made its long but safe voyage from near Clementi (where i left it behind on the bus seat) all the way to Bedok Bus Interchange and was kept by the very kind bus uncles from SBS Transit who contacted "Lost & Found" .... pretty amazing how i'm learning all these lessons of late... and fortunately relatively inexpensively.. except for the bus uncle who "extorted" $10 from me to donate to the President's Charity Drive before returning me my file.. didn't mind it though, it's for charity after all and i did learn a lesson to be more careful...

THANK GOD for watching over me...

i'm having a stomachache again (and once again, it is accompanied by the "detox" kind of symptoms... you know... diarrhoea, stomach churns..)

And there is no doubt the No. 1 suspect: Newater

had another swig of it during the reception at the opening of Naked Perfection exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum and overheard a very eager (and seemingly knowlegeable guy) explaining loudly and confidently to his small audience how "distilled water" (such as Newater) is used by slimming and fitness centres in their health and detox programmes. According to him, distilled water is "so clean", so stripped of impurities and minerals, that it literally "scrubs" your insides as it passes through.. umm... no wonder i suffer so much every time i drink it but feel healthier afterwards.. (or is it my imagination?? :p) you think Singapore has an exportable health product here?... :)

anyhow, the exhibition itself was interesting - on nakedness (or nudity?), a rare theme indeed in still awkward and somewhat conservative Singapore. Aimed mainly at showcasing the various cross-cultural attitudes towards nakedness - with an emphasis on the Asian perception of the naked human form - presented in myriad forms and mediums (painting, sculptures). Clearly absent at the opening were the "hum sap" (i.e. lecherous) old men you would normally find at Yangtze Cinema staring unabashly at movie posters with semi-clad women.. instead, we had well-heeled executives and elegant ladies in cheong sums and the usual who's-who in the local art and design industry, mingling and discussing the finer points of each art piece, occassionally exclaiming in their posh accents the "brilliance" of this artist, and the "cleverness" of that, nodding and smiling.. most of the pieces were abstract representations of the human form rather than realistic studies - with a few even going beyond that into what they call "allegorical" forms, supposed to represent two things at one time...

quite good. go if you can find time.

I read an article last night about the Sept 11 incident and it felt as fresh in my mind as if it only happened yesterday.... i'm feeling sad again... it's unbelieveable that a year has passed since that awful day and the emotional impact on everyone's lives is still very much there.... :(

my mind has been wandering of late... due in large part to my continuing lack of sleep, in small part to the restlessness i have been feeling towards everything (in general) ... when i'm not rushing about getting things done or meeting people or working, i stop and i'm suddenly thinking of all the possible life paths i can take from this very moment on (or more realistically from the end of this year).... i have categorised these possible life paths into a general few... (a) the typical life path (the one most of my peers appear to be taking now), (b) the outrageous life path (charting new grounds, living life on the edge-style), (c) the dream life path for me (if i wasn't afraid of anything at all).... etc..

i'm struck by how possible any one of these life paths is to me, being the multi-personalitied person i am... so possible i could visualise it to the day-to-day details.... one side of me wants to accomplish something BIG, and yet another side of me wants to drop everything and take to the roads - spend some time seeing what life has to offer - get out of the rat race, get away from peer pressure and all... and yet another side of me still sees the possibilities of just living the way i am living now...

such is my personal response to life's myriad possibilities.... bizarre...

“STORIES MAKE US more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving. Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Madeleine L’Eagle, author, The Writer (June 2002)

and hence i blog.

daniel, i completely empathize …. some days (and especially of late), it suddenly strikes me (out of the blue) that Life (with a capital ‘L’) really isn’t about being constantly amused, or constantly finding and seeking happiness… or having a good laugh (though that is important too).. of being contented...or even having a good life (“good” being relative, of course)… for me, it’s really about seeking and finding fulfillment and purpose in what i do… to have that inner glow of knowing i have made good of this short stint on earth, walked and lived well this period of time that the Great Creator granted to me (and not to, say, any of the other possible combinations of X and Y chromosomes that could otherwise have existed in my place)... but then again, it's not easy to always know what to do next and we all struggle a little in the in-between bits... it's funny that thoughts like that always strike me during a continuous and extended happy phase of my life (i.e. good food, good company, good fun etc etc).... i begin to ask myself: If the rest of my life is going to be exactly like that, would that really make me happy?

funnily enough, the honest answer is usually a 'No'..... restless creatures we all are..

hi! :) i'm back!

in my brief but sudden and unexplained disappearance, i encountered NEWATER, late nights and a bucketful of unforgivable stupidity...

a) the NEWATER – first encounter…tastes like normal tap water, except really flat - no "body"... i still prefer Ice Mountain Pure Drinking Water anytime.. and for the very last time (to those people who have been asking me repeatedly)- No, there is no taste (not even a slight ammonia taste), and i didn't buy it (who would?? it's going to be tap water next time, you know??), it didn't cause my stomachache (i blame that on overeating, poor diet and alcohol) - and i don't think the "orange label one" is a different flavour from the "blue label one" – durrhh??? you think it's Pink Dolphin or what??



b) late nights - or should i say early mornings (:O??).. have been sleeping at an absurd hour (4 to 5 am) over the past three nights working on different things - trying to finish business plan project, then trying to migrate company website to new webhost (free online webhost very very unreliable and threatened to delete my files for exceeding bandwidth and storage space), and then creating new layout for company website (very fun but highly addictive) and editing pictures in photoshop..

c) unforgiveable stupidity – making one of the silliest blunders of car owners.. leaving something on the roof of the car and then driving off… nothing new to me of course, having heard about (and even witnessed!) handphones being left on top the same way… in my case, it was a mounting board of rather fragile decorated tiles and I didn’t even realize it until I got to a carpark far away. When i got there and found my boot empty, I suddenly recalled why the taxi uncle behind me was gesturing so strangely to me while I was driving, throwing his arms in an upward manner… went back an hour later to the scene and retrieved the wreckage from the road (quite embarrassing..) and managed to save some of them miraculously…

very zombied now.. and a new week beckons... :(

yippee! i won a badmarsh & shri signs cd from the british council contest at womad!! and during class today, i suddenly found that i have a $70 Visa receipt from buying 2 cds from hmv the other day so i can swap it for a free hawaiian pizza from pizza hut tomorrow and eat it for lunch! (ya, don't miss Visa's latest promotion!! :) fantastic!)

i love freebies.. more so now that i just suffered a sudden paycut, and had two unexpectedly huge expenses this month (hospital bill for my bad backsprain and dead car battery.. :( ).... have (both consciously and subconsciously) started on this personal expense-cutting campaign... (ok ok... ignoring the fact about the $70 for two cds thing i just mentioned.. :p)... found that i can actually live even more frugally than i am already doing (in my opinion, that is..).. for example, i even tried to stop using Shell VPower for my car for a while (which didn't really last 'cos i could really feel the difference in the acceleration and power, and i found that i actually really hate lagging behind everyone on the road. awful feeling... the laggard feeling.. love driving so must make driving enjoyable, if not don't drive at all.. so.. back to VPower.. :)). then i cut back my lunch budget from $4.00 - 6.00 to $1.50 - 2.20 - which, believe me, is a real challenge since i am working in town.. but not too bad, it just means i stop eating burger king and macs value meals, and start eating beehoon and egg from Cuppage Plaza, or rice, one meat, one veg (+ drink ice mountain bottled water in office).. then there is less driving to town so i save on ERP and parking, walking instead of taking feeder buses from mrt station to home, eating cheaper dinners out (i.e. famous hawker food rather than Swensen's, for example), cheaper forms of exercise (run run run.. it's FREE!!!), watching less movies, buying less books... oh well, something like that....

oh ya, and am trying to earn extra bucks from doing freelance artwork mass production.... i.e. if you need someone to paint glasses or tiles or something like that for corporate gifts or something, call me.. i'm available for hire.. what to do.. times are hard.. :)

why blog?