Oftentimes, before I fall into sleep, my mind is filled with little snippets of interesting dialogue or scenarios that keep me awake. I would think to blog about them the next day but alas, I will lose them all to the deep, dark night and as daybreak comes along, I haul an empty head awake.

The two seconds when I first rouse from sleep is perhaps my most innocent and pure self, (as what Justin had said in an interview). And I think it is true. But the fun only kicks in at the third second when my brain fills up with memories of the long and short term and I remember that yesterday and today are reasons to smile. I’ll need five more minutes to indulge in this semi-slumber. A gratifying way to wake up.

Then there were times, when waking up was a nightmare, when the impending day meant responsibilities that I dreaded or consequences that I feared. There were times when I wished I could melt into my bedsheet and go back into the land of reality. Because, after all, dreams are my reality lalalala… haha! You all know that song?

Recently, it has been ok. The nights are not that bad, the difficulty in falling asleep has become a habit that I can work around. Sometimes I’m kept occupied to the point of drowsiness and it’ll probably take thirty minutes from then. I also know that if I really tire myself out in the day, I’d probably sleep easy. I went swimming on Monday and was dead tired when ten o’clock came around, only to wake up three hours later… feeling well rested. So that was good.

Anyway, there must be a gazillion serious, important things happening in the world right now, yet here I am blogging about my sleeping habits. Haha! Ooh… my nails are growing too, have I told you that? Haha!



Ok, ok, I actually baked yesterday! I took out the trusty ol’ F&N file for reference and ended up with little fairy cakes. Oh, I really mean FAIRY cakes. Hahaha! The narcissist wrote my name on this one! To tell you the truth, this is the only one that I bothered to take a picture of because piping the cream took some effort so later I just spread it all out on top. My tuition kid (he’s only ten years old) got to try some of the cakes (nice or not?) because he had been such a good kid!!! Because he blogged about me!!! He wrote some things that were true (sing well, innocent, patient… the usual…) but there were also some lies (me? cunning? how on earth?). I guess it’s up to me to steer him away from such vices (such as lying) from now. I am, after all, his tutor… heh heh heh…

Oh, and for somebody who totally doesn’t deserve such luxury, I am very lucky. Ming bought me these!!!



I AM STILL A SONY FAN!

I’m back! Yoohoo!!! I’m home!!! Have I announced that yet? I’m back in Singapore! I’m finally home!
Gosh, I just realized that I have not, as I should, announced my arrival with aplomb! But you know I’m back, you know it, and it has been a few months but still, I need to give a whoop (whoop!) and say it again. I’m so glad to be home! So, so, so happy!!!
So glad to be back where I can have a life, I mean like a normal life… like go out and have things to do!!! And be surrounded by onz people!!! I feel normal again, well, almost. Anyway, here are the overdue pictures taken at the airport, the day I came back.















I saw for the first time in my life a live ultrasound scan the other day. Exciting! Jane, I’m documenting this for you! It was with much excitement that the three of us (Daddy, Mummy and Fairy) sat at the waiting area of the ultrasound department. Ok, the wait wasn’t that exciting… while Hendry (Daddy) managed to charm a kid, all I got was an article on eating disorders!!! Argh!!! When I read the article and said, “Wahlao, so scary.” Jane (Mummy) actually replied. “Yah, that’s why you don’t become like that.” Argh!!! Misunderstood again!!! Hendry, what have you been telling her!!! Ok, never mind. Oh and no prizes for guessing who Fairy is!!! Lalalala… hahaha…

Then the Scanner (hahaha, I don’t think she’s a nurse but she’s not a doctor… she’s the person who does the scans) came and said it was Jane’s turn. “Your husband can come,” she said… huh… then me leh??? “Only one person at a time in the room, because it’s the delivery room…” Ok, delivery room DAI SAI LOR!!! But Hendry said he’ll go see first then come out so I can go in. YAY! Thanks!!!

When Hendry came out, he was all smiles… should have taken a picture of him! I went into the delivery room (it’s not that small, dunno why the both of us can’t be inside at the same time) and there was Jane on the bed. It was dark. The whole setting was strangely familiar… like, I just expected it to be something like that, other than the darkness. I didn’t think it had to be so dark. I felt like I cannot talk too loudly.

The Scanner then showed me the lungs and liver or kidney (don’t remember)… but, “Boy or girl?” Jane asked her to show me… so she showed me, “There! That’s the girl part.” She said ‘girl part’, those was her exact words lor… snigger… hurhurhur.

I saw little Luo En’s heart beating… so cute. Who could have imagined a strange gray/black, somewhat bean-shaped image can look so cute and so alive? I can’t wait for June/July to come when Luo En can, miraculously, bring even more joy into all our lives! I know all of you children are enthusiastic to try out your new names too… pigs, moon, hobbs, jeans (??), witch… yeah… hahahaha... It’s gonna be so fun!!! And Jane, we’ll all be here to give you the support you need! I feel so proud of you to have taken this big step! Ganbatte!!!

My cute little guinea pig.

From erm… I think the name’s Eric’s Pet Clinic. I saw (him/her?) it for the first time last October, from the glass window of Eric’s Pet Clinic at Happy Valley. I visited it everyday because something drew me to it. Perhaps it’s the black patch on its other eye, or perhaps it’s the diseased skin. It looked so cute, so pitiful but loveable. I really wanted it, not another guinea pig but only IT. It had that ability to make me want to take care of it and like… play with it… hee hee! Ahhh… in my dreams. Anyway, I visited HK again, two months later and it was still there! Its counterpart Black Guinea Pig was gone but Diseased Skin was still there! I love you, Diseased Skin!

Isn’t it funny how people can sometimes grow attached to something/someone foreign and unobtainable (but familiar), yet be nonchalant towards the near and accessible? Ok, the link is quite a distance away so leap with me.

The actress Xu Wei Lun passed away some weeks ago from a freak car accident and her death came as a big shock to many, moved them to tears. A cute young classmate of mine wrote in her blog that she was ultra sad – tears, anger, bewilderment, the entire package. I know how it is, I cried like shit when Leslie Cheung committed suicide.

I met her for class the following weekend. There’s a new security guard, she told me. He is weird. He freaked her out on her way up.

Yes, I noticed there was a new security guard. The uncle that used to say hello and good bye and on one occasion complained at length about something I couldn’t catch wasn’t there today.

She said the new security guard had entered the lift with her and suddenly gave a big moan. He then went on to tell her that the uncle had passed away. So scary, she said.

The uncle passed away?

At this point, the cleaning auntie came in and said, “He had a heart attack. It was just two days ago.” It didn’t seem like a very pleasant journey.

…..

That Xu Wei Lun was young and beautiful and unfortunate is a tragedy and her accident did remind me that life is vulnerable and should be lived not spent. But I will never see the uncle again on Saturdays. I will never hear more of his intelligible grouches. He won’t be there to ‘bye’ me away with his dismissal wave. And I didn’t even say goodbye... And for me, well, this hits harder.

I woke up earlier than usual this morning, thinking, about my birthday last week. I just had my 20th (yes, WH, I’m one year younger than you, now you know!) and it was good to spend the day with family and close friends. Even better that it was CNY so in a way, I celebrated it with everyone I love (other than the few abroad) on the days that preceded the actual.
I haven’t always enjoyed the whole birthday song-cake thing but this year, I liked it. Wei and WH were there to share the limelight with me and we took many good photos like the one above. Thanks Naoki! Your artistic direction is fantastic!

Anyway, I woke up earlier than usual this morning, thinking about the three saddest moments in my life and they are as below:

1) When my granddad passed away and I saw how sad my parents were.
2) When I couldn’t cope with Belle and had to send her back.
3) When I left Japan in 2002, it’s inevitable but I was still sad.

And I think, hey, I’m ok! My life is actually blissfully cushioned with extended periods of happiness. I tried to think of my three happiest moments but it wasn’t easy. There were too many in the running! I may be melancholic but it seems I’ve never left the humour too far behind, which, I think, is a good thing.

Haven’t been having much of an appetite lately though… which is a bit sianz. I think I took an hour to finish my yong tau fu last night and I didn’t even finish it. Pui!

About 2 weeks ago the girls and I went to Da Paolo’s – HW and Wei’s treat (to quote JY, ‘HW, we love your bonus!’) – and IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE ALL SEVEN OF US GOT TOGETHER. I wasn’t deliriously happy or anything but I was happy, yep I was and I wonder when will be the next time we get to do something like that again. I can’t post the wonderful seven-of-us pic because there’s something wrong with the picture file. Wei, you’ve to send it to me again!

Ok, actually, I set out to blog about something to do with the happiest and saddest moments of my life… and it was supposed to lead on to something fun and intellectual but I completely digressed and lost my train of thought… so never mind. I shall just post this. Till next time! Haha!

ENGLISH OF TOMORROW

EU ANNOUNCEMENT

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

I was paying for my shopping when the sales girl asked, “How did you do your lips? It’s very nice!”

Pleased but baffled, I took out my lip gloss.

“I use this. My friend got it for me. It’s from Victoria’s Secret.” Certainly this lip gloss was nice with a sweet smell and taste but it had never been stunning, in fact, it was almost sheer. My wrong, from now on, ‘it’s very nice’! Heh heh heh!

I wanted to see how ‘very nice’ they were and make sure I do them the ‘very nice’ way again so once I got out of the shop, I ducked into a washroom.

Okkkkkkkkaaaaaayyy…

Thanks to the orange and carrot juice I had from The Fruity Juice Co., my lips were tinged a mild vermillion.

Okkkkkkkkaaaaaayyy…

But I have to say, the colour was quite nice! I am such a leader in the world of cosmetics. I hereby declare that the era of natural cosmetics has arrived.

Feeling sleepy at work and wishing that i can be out at the beach in the shade reading a good book and snoozing. Or shopping at Orchard stretch and taking smoke breaks and coffee in between.

Sadly, i'm confined in my office, tanning under the flourescent light, enjoying the aircon breeze and drinking copious amounts of 3-in-1 coffee. Yawn.

The only consolation is receiving my pay cheque every month but sometimes, the numbers seem so... insignificiant and "Isnt my time worth more than THIS?" would flit across my mind. And then i remember that i'm supposed to be at the age where i've to work hard.

Work hard at waking up early to sqeeze on public transport in order to reach work on time. Work hard at taking instructions and seeing when is the right time to approach your boss to report. Work hard at juggling office politics so as not to get stabbed in the back. Work hard at looking busy when your mind is at the beach. Work hard at day-dreaming about owning your company so that you don't have to work hard anymore.

Am i the only hamster in the rat race?

It had occurred most often while I was trimming my nails. A dislodged piece would fall out from the nail clipper into the Land of the Lost & Found. I remember losing other things, erasers, coins, mostly small things, a few big things.

The door to the Land of the Lost & Found opens and closes on earth everyday to varying degrees but always when you least expect it. Yesterday, I was coiling the wires of my hairdryer, as I tried to secure it with the (what do you call it) metal twist, it slipped my fingers. The metal twist ricocheted off my right foot before it fell to the ground. But it wasn’t round like a ball so it couldn’t have bounced or rolled far. I assessed every possible angle but no, it wasn’t there. Fact is it wasn’t in my room anymore. It had fallen into the deep dark hole that is the entrance to the Land of the Lost & Found.

And so I realized that the Door had opened last night right here in my room, possibly just a centimeter from where I was standing. Had I moved that little bit, dipped my toe in and lost balance, I will not be here now, typing, telling you this. I should then be in the Land of the Lost & Found, finding what I’ve lost over the years and getting myself lost in the labyrinth of things. Aren’t you curious to see the Land of the Lost & Found?

Aren’t you curious to know who you might see in the Land of the Lost & Found?


*Shiver*


(We’ve lost our chatterbox too!)

I'm very much a dog person but was lunching at First Thai (Purvis Street) the other day and spotted this bundle of fur below my table.



The cat was so relaxed, so at ease, so... trusting. For someone who finds it difficult to fall asleep even in my own bed at night (God knows what bad things I've done!!!), the ability to fall asleep just like that is... a miracle.

Oh well... perhaps miracles come in other packages for me, like my nieces.


Any resemblance?


Any resemblance?



Forgot to wrestle my nephews into a few shots... oh well... I shall safe the torture for next time then... hehhehheh...

To tell you the truth (actually, evidently), I haven't been in the mood to blog for a long time... but then here I am, putting in this non-commital blog entry... oh well... better mood next week. I've made my new year resolutions. Three.

conclusion,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know!!! I've long promised Wei to update on our gatherings here... anyways, ta da... three light years ago...


The COME BACK HOME BBQ

As usual, some people were working hard - us sacrificial souls - and others, just eating... you gluttons! Everyone looking fantastic sans make-up... yeah rite...





The HIGH TEA

Was a combine celebration of Ming and JY's birthday... a pity only four of us made it. Jane was abroad and we really couldn't put it off any longer (us busy people... we already rescheduled twice) and WH had cramps... Anyhow, it was quite fun! Alot of talking as usual...





The BIG-O

Starring Spike-D!!! Our long, lost friend!!! This was breakfast at Big-O on a Saturday. Enjoyable! Alot of talking as usual... duh...
JY wields her fork like a knife and cuts her Spike-D with clean and sharp strokes while I fumble with as if eating with a baseball bat. Booohooo... (the picture sizes are not in sync here... gomen, have got no time to photoshop)





More updates next week... will be having steamboat at Jane's!!!! YAY!!!!

Till then!

Remember to watch PSSII on Wednesday (8pm) and yes, if you have loose change or money to spare, vote for the person you deem fit to become the next Superstar (don’t scrimp and save to vote, don’t go on a diet to vote, don’t steal money to vote).

I do not advocate hard-sell to sway your votes because people vote for all sorts of reasons (funny, random, sometimes irrelevant). Some people think the next Superstar has to sing well, some think he/she has to be a looker, some people vote because their friends are voting and some vote for the contestant that looks like his mom/ex-gf/gf/pri-sch-teacher. I remember there was a mad fan of Vivian Chow tens of years ago who only became a mad fan because he claimed he had dreamed of her long before she debuted, she is literally the girl of his dreams.

To me, a huge pre-requisite for my votes would be, a different voice and good singing technique. Because the next winner will be given the opportunity to shine and I wouldn’t give that chance to a lacklustre contestant. But then voice brings you only that far, it is skill –your voice control, the areas of resonance, the colours and emotions you give to the song – that runs the distance and delivers the punch.

In Taiwan, cutesy lookers grow on trees (and theirs are somehow always cuter than ours) so when it comes to PSSII, I wouldn’t put my money into 'one-of-those' so likely booted from (if not the competition) the industry even while I'm shopping for my next pair of shoes. If I’m going to be putting good blood-sweat-and-tears money into the pockets of Mediacorp and whoever owns the 1900-lines, the contestant must be someone duly prepared for show business – in other words, someone who possesses the elusive X-factor.

Which brings me back to the singing.

Because only a confident singer can have the X-factor and only a good singer can be confident on stage (any less and he/she becomes delusional/idiotic). And we all know that confidence is beauty (so there you have it, the looks part). It is only when you know you have the necessary technique that you can put focus in the performance and not be worrying about your flat notes when you really should be looking at the camera.

In this case, it is just plainly so.

Tomorrow night. I will be voting for Carrie (F4: Yang Jiaying). Whether you are voting for her, for someone else or not at all, I urge you to take a look at her performance. Because then, I think, you’ll really get what I’m trying to say.

Conclusion.

而我決定了 在貓的眼睛上 旅行

– 方文山，唸一首詩給你聼 [關於方文山の素顏韻腳詩]


是不是很漂亮？是不是有一種既簡單又浪漫，既真實又魔幻的感覺？
是不是今天的你也想來體驗一下？是否現在的你就要來想象一下？

睡吧，我們，來 做 夢。

Finally!!!



Finally, finally, finally, after the longest time, I got to perform again! This was at the D&D for a company that approached Ming and JY during SF2006. JY was missing because she’s not allowed to perform in public (but in private can… hahahaha. OMG, why do I think I’m gonna be the only one who finds this funny) so it was just Ming and me.

And… performing is still such a thrill. And the thrill is highly addictive, like the smell of my bolster, or like erm… I can’t think of another equivalent. There might have been some trepidation for the first minute or so, but after that, I was so tempted to stay on stage for as long as possible (perhaps until the organisers threaten to tie me up and drag me off). But I didn’t. Which was a good thing because I found Tiffany waiting for me off stage, she was invited to attend the D&D (something like this company is the partner company of her company).



There she was idling at one of the round tables of the banquet hall in the expensive Inter-Continental Hotel when the MC gave an (extremely boastful) intro about two girls who can sing in Mandarin, English and Japanese. Tiff thought, must be some 小歌星who only have one Japanese song in their repertoire. Up went the two 小歌星 and lo and behold, they are her friends ah!!! ARGH!!!

“They are my friends leh!” she told the person sitting beside her. The person was so unfazed.

Tiff and I chatted as Ming took to the stage on her own and Tiff agreed with me that Ming was super Dam Deng! Look how fantastic she was! So natural!



And me? I moved like a fish… learning how to walk. I know because we have the recording (it’s soooo private – locked up in Gringotts – so don’t even bother asking if you can see it). I wept while watching myself. But still, the moment on stage was pristine – the askew pitching and harmonising, those awkward limbs and distorted smiles, all clean forgotten.

And for a while, it was really just me and my voice. And you, of course!

Conclusion.

If I were a Mom, I probably can't say

"I wanna squeeze your neck till it is rubber band skinny, until your breath runs so thin you DIE!!!"

But now I can.

Anyway, today is a day with onz (non-murderous) plans!

The KTV business in Singapore must be getting more competitive these days. In the past it was just birthday cards, today, I received a Christmas card and with it a voucher for Chinese New Year.

The card titters a melody when opened, which is the norm, but they outdid themselves with a hot red glow on the words Merry Christmas. Music and illumination, what lethal combi! The voucher is valid from 17th Feb to 4th March 2007, a little too early to be sent out now. Or can it be that they actually know we’re so busy we plan our KTV sessions months in advance?

Anyway, I’ll be expecting my birthday card and voucher from them soon. Pamper me, Partyworld. Perks for the consumer means business for them. I will be utilising these vouchers.

It’s going to be pleasant days from now.

Sometimes I wonder why the hell I can’t sleep. I can never leave unscathed.

Those sleepless nights.

No matter. It’s going to be pleasant days from now.

Because there’s no point in brooding,

Was chatting with HW today and she said there must be Dementors around us. Yes. I suppose our world is also their playground and they wouldn’t mind giving us a poke or two just for fun.

Ha ha ha! Riddikulus! Ha ha ha!

And we win!


For those gloomy weeks, meet my refuge happy-lunch partners:

To the tune of “Lalalalala…” everybody sing “Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!”

YAY!!!

Saw from JY’s blog that Taka’s Christmas tree is up, so I made my way there with a very sporting H-san who took half of this picture.



And here is my very own tree.

We must have had this tree for nearly twenty years. While putting it up today, it struck me that all these years, my family has retained a very romantic idea about celebrations. Christmas, Chinese New Year, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day and Birthdays, we love an excuse to celebrate!
I must be lucky because my friends too are into celebrating every damn thing! Well, life may not be all about celebration but this sure gives us another excuse to have some cake! v^o^

HW finally got to seal her Time Capsule and the key is dangling on somebody’s keychain. I can’t tell you who. I don’t want it to get opened prematurely. No spell has been cast on the Time Capsule.

WH's pictures and videos have yet to be sent to me so here are the pictures I took with my very fashionable new phone.

Introducing 小虾:
(你知道吗？名字里有蹊跷。)
(This pic is a little blurred because my digicam is running low on batt and is not focusing properly.)



And the wonderful pictures he’s capable of:






My favourite item in the Time Capsule is the Special Report. Different from the others, it’s created from scratch and took us more brain cells to complete.



Other items include an Initial D calendar chockfull of memorable events (some not so memorable, all the more we had to note them down), a CD filled with HW’s favourite songs (altho she couldn’t recognise some of them when we played it…), a VCD of HW in Italy clips (we played the VCD and the frozen moment was filled with, “Why is my voice so low?”, “Yucks! I hate my talking voice!”, “Don’t look! Don’t look!”, “Wahlao, I’m damn off form lor!” from me and JY who, thanks to HW, got our disgusting selves caught on clips and locked into the capsule as well), newspaper clips in Thailand from Wei (Wei, I thought this was very yasashii of you), letters from all of us, blog entries, emails, chat logs etc.

There’s a piece of every one of us in it and I thank God that deep down in my heart (and only deep down, it’s a different story on the superficial, because from day-to-day I am still in denial) I don’t try to forget the person I was(am) when I’m with you girls. I know I will cringe when the time comes to opening the Capsule, my monkey antics once again exposed, it might awaken an inner off form-ness in the future, better me (I will be better). Still, I bravely await the opening of the Capsule, all the time praying for good health. Because we’ve clocked too much mileage together, and to forget is to have amnesia.