Dancing for God..

just for fun

2010-04-09T00:27:00.000+08:00

testing testing testing

a word on deferred hope

2010-01-23T02:32:00.003+08:00

what do you do when you try again and again to fulfill your desires but never succeed....??
a) continue to try (according to einstein)
b) wait for God to fulfill the desire (according to Psalms 37:4)
c) give up (according to the writer of this blog)

Hope deferred makes the heart sick
But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life
Proverbs 13:12

(the following anecdotal definitions are quoted from Strictly Come Dancing, TV show from BBC)
Rumba

The dance relies on the age-old premise of the lady trying to {capture the attention of} the gentleman by means of her womanly charms. Incorporating all the elements of teasing and withdrawal, it is considered the most sensual of the Latin dances.

How routines should look:

The Rumba is romantic - there should be good interaction between the dancers to reflect this.

No heel leads: this means that the dancers must not walk on the heels of their feet. It must go ball flat onto ball of foot.

The hip action comes from the flexing and straightening of the legs, it's not just a case of wiggling the bottom.

Routines should include:

Forward or backward walks - as the Rumba is a fairly static dance so these walks are used to help the couples move around the floor.

Spot turns - a turn on the spot which takes three steps to either the left or to the right

Fan position - The girl goes on the man's left side at arms length and at 90 degrees to the man.

Cha Cha

A dance developed from a Cuban Rumba step, The Cha Cha. When the English dance teacher Pierre Lavelle visited Cuba in 1952, he realised that sometimes the Rumba was danced with extra beats. When he returned to Britain, he started teaching these steps as a separate dance.

How routines should look:

The Cha Cha Cha and the Rumba have the same basic steps, they are just danced to a different rhythm. The Rumba is romantic whereas the Cha Cha Cha is bright and lively.

It should be a cheeky dance.

Routines should include:

Very synchronised movements, working in parallel with each other.

Lots of bum and leg action.

The legs should not be outside the body frame.

happi dae

2009-12-22T15:40:00.003+08:00

today is a happy day.. (at least, so far)

happy because
1. dun have to go to work today
2. had a good quiet time/facial mask time today
3. face is glowing
4. have plenty of 爱情的滋润 from my boy
5. listening to my fav chacha song and feeling the beat.. and tho not enjoying the dance with my body, am enjoying it in my spirit
6. just h.a.p.p.y. =D

for every good thing comes from God.

suddenly i rem the scene where jake discovers and wonder at the new world set before him, ready to discover and wonder at even more things in the days to come.

dance... dance... dance all day.........................

2009-09-07T00:01:00.004+08:00

How Nerdy Are You?

Red-faced Asian drinkers at oesophageal cancer risk

2009-03-24T22:44:00.000+08:00

Skin flush after alcohol indicates an enzyme deficiency that puts them at higher risk of getting oesophageal cancer. -Reuters

Tue, Mar 24, 2009
Reuters

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Asians who get red in the face when they drink too much alcohol have a higher risk of getting cancer of the oesophagus, US and Japanese researchers said on Monday.

They said about a third of East Asians -- Chinese, Japanese and Koreans -- have an enzyme deficiency that causes their skin to flush when they drink alcohol, and this trait puts them at higher risk of developing oesophageal cancer, an especially deadly type with five-year survival rates of 12 to 31 percent.

"People are fairly well aware of this physical characteristic, which is sometimes called the Asian alcohol response or the Asian flush," said Philip Brooks of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

"I don't think people are aware that it is a warning sign for being at risk of esophageal cancer when they drink alcohol. That is what we wanted to point out," said Brooks, who worked on the study with Dr. Akira Yokoyama from the Kurihama Alcohol Center in Japan.

Brooks estimates that at least 540 million people have this alcohol-related increased risk for esophageal cancer.

He said the flushing response occurs in people who have a variation in the ALDH gene, which makes an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 that helps the body metabolize alcohol.

People with two copies of this gene variant have such extreme symptoms of flushing, nausea, and racing heart beat that they avoid drinking alcohol.

"They are basically at somewhat reduced risk of developing esophageal cancer because drinking alcohol for anybody is a risk factor for esophageal cancer," Brooks said in a telephone interview.

"The concern is for people who have one copy," he said, because they can tolerate drinking.

"In general, people with one copy have about a six to tenfold increase in the incidence of esophageal cancer."

Brooks said doctors should ask patients of East Asian descent of they have a history of facial flushing when they drink.

And he said university health professionals need to be aware of the link between facial flushing and cancer risk since many young people experiment with heavy drinking in college.

i need to refocus

2009-02-22T00:15:00.003+08:00

i realised also that my life is STILL centering around a certain pivot, which caused me to spiral in to darkness and perhaps even depression earlier.

i had tot that i had already recovered, but apparently not.

i really need to try harder at shifting the pivot to something else.....................

another reason for me to look for a christian bf

2009-01-30T23:39:00.003+08:00

i juz realised sthg tat i took for granted...

and tat is, i am DEFINITELY going to have a church wedding when i get married (as of now i am still single and available, pls dun be mistaken haha)

i have always assumed tat i'm definitely going to have a church wedding, but recently i realised that htis isnt going to happen unless i marry a christian. (cuz my church only allows couples who are both christian to get married in the premises, and besides it juz feels meaningless to get married to a nonchristian before God)

so. another reason for me to look for a christian bf!!!! muahahahahaa

gum gum bubble gum

2009-01-17T23:47:00.003+08:00

Gum gum bubble gum - tat's my new life-changing phrase from now on.

my customer had (wanted to) utter it when i put on the watch for him, and its the first time i heard this phrase. let me say it again: gum gum bubble gum.

i had said worryingly "hmmm it still looks v loose on you..", with a little frown on my face, when he surprised me by saying "oh really? and i was about to say gum gum bubble gum!" and he proceeded to shake his wrist happily, trying to prove to both of us that teh watch is indeed fitting nicely.

i bet you're thinking ok gum gum bubble gum sounds cute, but wats so life-changing about it???

yup, on the surface, it means nothing. but it really gave me a new perspective on life after i heard it. because my customer didn't say "no it fits nicely" in a merely satisfied way, he said (ok was about to say) "gum gum bubble gum" cheerily. and there is a difference you noe, between those 2 phrases.

the first phrase shows that teh customer is satisfied with the watch, but the second phrase shows much more.. it shows that the customer is feeling jovial, even playful, despite deciding to spend $4k on a watch just 20minutes earlier. and teh keyword here is "playful". he's actually feeling playful even though he's spending 4k at one go in really bad times.

it suddenly struck me that this person infront of me, my customer, is (or rather, may, since i dun really know him v well) someone who can overcome bad times and difficulties with a pinch of salt.

and i think tats a v good model to follow isnt it? i'm really inspired to live my life like tat.. even in bad times you are joyful.. WOW. it really brings light into life. and not juz the person's own life but those around him as well, cuz as the bible says, a light on a hill cannot be hidden.

i now realise that being thankful for the good among the bad is good, but not good enough. its much better to be JOYFUL for the good things, to really ENJOY God's blessings even when you're going through bad times. THAT, i believe will really change many lives.

but hmmmm its not easy at all to shine like this for others. then we can only depend on our Lord Jesus to help us be like tat. TRUST, then TRY. =)

PS: ok either tat guy's really inspirational or he's really filthy rich enough not to care about a miserable 4k in bad times. i'm assuming the former.

of dance and romance: choosing a dance partner

2008-12-19T15:17:00.003+08:00

i'm looking for a dance partner.. but i'm worried about romantic repercussions.

i dun want to develop romantic tension with my partners.. i wonder if its possible. i mean i havent developed any romantic going-ons with ALL my dance partners (at least, not when i was dancing w them =p) but all dance partnerships had failed, i htink possibly because somehow i didnt manage to develop any chemistry with them. so now teh question is, if i DO manage to develop some chemistry with them, enough to have a successful dance partnership, will this chemistry also spill into the romantic realm??

i do have some idea of what i'm looking for in a bf/husband, and i wldnt want to get into a rship juz cuz there's chemistry. and neither do i want to deal with a dance partner who feels agony whenever he holds my hand. (because of "so near yet so far" syndrome)

but its an entirely different thing if my bf wants to dance with me.. haha i'll gladly welcome that..

is fuel finally beginning to be replaced by solar??

2008-12-19T14:11:00.004+08:00

GENEVA (AFP) - - A Swiss engineer completed Thursday the first ever round-the-world trip in a solar-powered car after more than 17 months on the road during which he crossed almost 40 countries.

Louis Palmer, 36, arrived back in Lucerne in central Switzerland in his "solar taxi" after covering 53,451 kilometres (33,213 miles) over four continents.

Since his departure on July 3 2007, he travelled through eastern Europe, the Middle East and India before heading to New Zealand, Australia, southeast Asia and China and finally the United States.

He finished his trip after a detour through France, England, Scandinavia and Germany.

"We have achieved our first world tour without using a single drop of oil," Palmer rejoiced at the end of his trip.

The three-wheeler solar taxi, which towed a trailer packed with batteries charged by the sun, reached speeds of 90 kilometres (55 miles) per hour. It had a battery for travel in the night and in cloudy conditions.

"One of my goals was to persuade as many people as possible that renewable energy is ecological, economical and reliable," Palmer told reporters.

His vehicle only broke down twice during the tour, he said, and surmounted the extreme heat in the Middle East and the hazardous terrain in America's Rocky mountains.

The small blue-and-white vehicle carried around 1,000 passengers, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Palmer has previously said the prototype for the solar taxi could be mass produced but that it would need serious modifications.

He said he plans to travel around the world in 80 days for his next challenge, but in a faster car.

The Imperial Pomegranates

2008-12-19T01:52:00.005+08:00

editorials and pictures taken from www.luxury-insider.com..

Meticulously sculpted by Piguet and Meylan to resemble pomegranate flowers, these twin pocket watches were reputedly created for a Qing Dynasty emporer in the 18th century.

The Chinese court's interest in European clocks began in the late Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644) in the reign of the Emperor Wanli (r. 1573 – 1620) when he was presented in 1601 with two clocks, one of which had a chiming mechanism. With this introduction, clocks became a favorite collectible in the Chinese imperial court and were considered highly valuable commodities by both the Kangxi (r. 1662 – 1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736 – 1795) emperors of the Qing dynasty.

Europeans, missionary or ambassadors, were soon alerted of this passion to grow the imperial collections of clocks, and elaborate clocks or pocket watches were presented as gifts and tributes to gain entry to the highest ranks of Chinese society.

This spectacular pair of identical watches was reputedly given as a tribute to Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736 – 1795) by the English royal family during the reign of King George III (r. 1760 – 1820). Legend had it that the pair of watches was taken to China by George Macartney (1st Earl Macartney), who was appointed the first Trade Ambassador of Britain to the Chinese imperial court. He led the Macartney Embassy to Beijing in 1793 together with Sir George Staunton, his second in command.

Emperor Qianlong was well-known for his personal passion of collecting and amassed vast collections of Chinese ceramics, ancient bronzes and seals as well as an impressive assemblage of European clocks. Allegedly, the Emperor loved these watches and considered them one of his most cherished possessions.

This pair of watches apparently stayed in the imperial collections within the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing until China entered a period of political turmoil which began with the Xinhai Revolution, a conflict in 1911 between the Imperial forces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), and the revolutionary forces of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance and ended with the abdication of Emperor Puyi (r. 1908 – 1924).

Chosen by Dowager Empress Cixi (b.1835 – 1908) while on her deathbed, Puyi ruled as the Xuantong Emperor between 1908 and 1911 and was the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty to rule over China. Apparently, on the day that Emperor Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924, amongst the treasures that he took with him on exile were the pair of fabled watches. Supposedly, the minor chips to the enamel work were inflicted on the watches during this tumultuous flight from the palace.

Legend or reality, does it really matter? What matters is the watches are a testimonial to the cultural and political history of China. These watches exemplify the cultural exchanges between the West and China in the Qing dynasty and the desire of the West to gain a foothold in this mysterious country by appeasing its rulers with these objects of great beauty with their elaborate cases of costly materials and tiny movements.

They also testify to the Chinese emperors’ desire to emulate the technology of the West and to better understand the scientific and religious aspects of European cultures that the Jesuits sought to introduce in their country.

Regardless of the perhaps mythical itinerary of these watches, they did in fact weather the passing of time, the rise and decline of the Qing dynasty and the crossing of continents. They bore witness to an extravagant and fascinating way of life in the Chinese imperial court that is now lost forever

More important, these watches have obviously been cherished and treasured since their creation in the 1820s by numerous owners who were delighted by the exquisiteness and beauty of the case and the skilled craftsmanship of its mechanism. For almost 200 years, collectors have been mesmerized by the extraordinary pair of identical cases. Both cases were sculptured to simulate the flower of the pomegranate with the petals emblazoned in rich translucent red enamel, covering a finely engine-turned background of decorative motifs, evoking the veins of the flowers.

No cost was spared in creating the cases which are impressive in their dimensions of 66 mm and thickness of 22 mm, and reputedly inlaid with nearly 1200 natural pearls of varying sizes. The beauty of the cases is matched by a mechanism of such complexity which is rarely displayed by a quarter repeating watch, and is to the best of Christie’s knowledge, used exclusively by Messers Piguet & Meylan.

A watch of similar magnificence with the same special repeating mechanism as the Pomegranate watches, also manufactured for the Imperial Chinese Market was sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong in the Important Watches on 31st May, 2005 for HK$ 3,032,000 (US$ 394,160).

US doctors hail near-total face transplant

2008-12-19T01:37:00.000+08:00

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) - - Doctors hailed a groundbreaking transplant to replace 80 percent of a woman's face, saying Wednesday it is a means for the severely disfigured to "face the world" without humiliation.

It was the world's first near-total facial transplant and the fourth known facial transplant to have been successfully performed to date.

"We need the face to face the world," said lead surgeon and researcher Maria Siemionow of the Cleveland Clinic.

"There are so many patients there, in their houses, where they are hiding from the society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores. They are afraid to go to the streets, because they're called names, and they are humiliated.

"So we very much hope that for this very special group of patients, there is a hope that one day they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things which we take for granted."

Doctors released few details about the patient, save to say that she had been disfigured to the point where she could not eat or breathe on her own as a result of a traumatic injury several years ago which left her without a nose, right eye and upper jaw.

The hospital said the woman, who did not wish to be identified, had exhausted all conventional reconstructive surgery.

They hoped the operation would allow her to regain her sense of smell and ability to smile and said she had a "clear understanding" of the risks involved.

The woman is doing well and showing no signs her body is rejecting the new face, doctors said.

Facial transplants are controversial because they carry heavy risks and are performed to improve a patient's quality of life rather than as a life-saving operation.

There are also concerns that the operation could eventually be used for purely cosmetic purposes or as a means of altering someone's identity.

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic stressed that such operations should be limited to a medical context in order to free severely disfigured people from the suffering associated with social isolation.

"The relief of suffering is at the core of medical ethics, and provides abundant moral justification for this procedure," said the clinic's chair of bioethics Eric Kodish.

"A person who has sustained trauma or other devastation to the face is generally isolated and suffers tremendously. The damage to the quality of life cannot even be put into words."

Leading medical ethicist Arthur Caplan agreed that this suffering was sufficient to "risk possibly killing someone to improve their appearance for a better quality of life."

"If there is nothing else to be done, it actually makes sense for them to take a risk that involves death," Caplan, the director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told AFP.

"It's ethically justifiable."

Doctors in France performed the first partial face transplant in 2005 on a 38-year-old woman, Isabelle Dinoire, who was disfigured in a dog attack.

In 2006, a Chinese man underwent a facial transplant including the connection of arteries and veins, and repair of the nose, lip and sinuses. A bear had mauled the 30-year-old farmer as he looked for stray sheep.

A 29-year-old French man underwent surgery in 2007. He had a facial tumor called a neurofibroma caused by a genetic disorder.

The tumor was so massive that the man couldn't eat or speak properly.

The Cleveland Clinic became the first US hospital to approve the procedure four years ago.

The latest operation was the first facial transplant known to have included bones, along with muscle, skin, blood vessels and nerves.

"Multiple layers of tissue from the bone to the skin to the muscle, this all had to be - kind of like a jigsaw puzzle - fit into the appropriate position and put in," said plastic surgeon Daniel Alam.

The woman received a nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw and even some teeth from a brain-dead donor.

Doctors paid special attention to maintaining arteries, veins, and nerves, as well as soft tissue and bony structures, as they recovered the donor's facial tissue.

The surgeons then connected facial graft vessels to the patient's blood vessels in order to restore blood circulation in the reconstructed face before connecting arteries, veins and nerves in the 22-hour procedure.

Good cheer may be contagious

2008-12-07T17:22:00.000+08:00

By MARIA CHENG,AP Medical Writer AP - Friday, December 5LONDON - When you're smiling, the whole world really does smile with you.

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A paper being published Friday in a British medical journal concludes that happiness is contagious _ and that people pass on their good cheer even to total strangers.

American researchers who tracked more than 4,700 people in Framingham, Mass., as part of a 20-year heart study also found the transferred happiness is good for up to a year.

"Happiness is like a stampede," said Nicholas Christakis, a professor in Harvard University's sociology department and co-author of the study. "Whether you're happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviors and thoughts, but on those of people you don't even know."

While the study is another sign of the power of social networks, it ran through 2003, just before the rise of social networking Web sites like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Christakis couldn't say for sure whether the effect works online.

"This type of technology enhances your contact with friends, so it should support the kind of emotional contagion we observed," he said.

Christakis and co-author James Fowler, of the University of California in San Diego, are old hands at studying social networks. They previously found that obesity and smoking habits spread socially as well.

For this study, published in the British journal BMJ, they examined questionnaires that asked people to measure their happiness. They found distinct happy and unhappy clusters significantly bigger than would be expected by chance.

Happy people tended to be at the center of social networks and had many friends who were also happy. Having friends or siblings nearby increased people's chances of being upbeat. Happiness spread outward by three degrees, to the friends of friends of friends.

Happy spouses helped, too, but not as much as happy friends of the same gender. Experts think people, particularly woman, take emotional cues from people who look like them.

Christakis and Fowler estimate that each happy friend boosts your own chances of being happy by 9 percent. Having grumpy friends decreases it by about 7 percent.

But it also turns out misery don't love company: Happiness seemed to spread more consistently than unhappiness. But that doesn't mean you should drop your gloomy friends.

"Every friend increases the probability that you're at the center of a network, which means you are more eligible to get a wave of happiness," Fowler said.

Being happy also brings other benefits, including a protective effect on your immune system so you produce fewer stress hormones, said Andrew Steptoe, a psychology professor at University College London who was not involved with the study.

But you shouldn't assume you can make yourself happy just by making the right friends.

"To say you can manipulate who your friends are to make yourself happier would be going too far," said Stanley Wasserman, an Indiana University statistician who studies social networks.

The study was only conducted in a single community, so it would take more research to confirm its findings. But in a time of economic gloom, it also suggested some heartening news about money and happiness.

According to the research, an extra chunk of money increases your odds of being happy only marginally _ notably less than the odds of being happier if you have a happy friend.

"You can save your money," Christakis said. "Being around happy people is better."

Entry from David's blog again.. a God who knows how to forgive...

2008-12-01T00:56:00.001+08:00

Have you/ us ever thought about how much how much how much we actually need forgiveness in our lives? It's not just some Christian jargon or theology, but something that is so missing and desired for in our empty hearts.

we long so much for someone to tell us, "It's alright!"
we long so much for someone to tell us, "I just appreciate you for you who are, i don't care how much you screw things up!"

we never find ourselves good enough for someone or some people... in fact, we live our lives with this mentality that we're never good enough for ourselves.... deep within, an ache exists - an ache of loneliness, an ache of meaninglessness, an ache of hurt from long ago - something we choose to bury and refuse to acknowledge..

if there ever is a God in this world, He got to be one who displays the FULL range of emotions as His created beings, instead of being an emotionless (or most often angry) vending machine in which we desperately dump in coins at the correct amounts to obtain our desired wants in life.. This kind of supreme being seems..... flat... too flat to be REAL at all... do i desire to worship a vending machine? er.... not exactly...

and when i talks about this God who forgives - you know how wide the range of emotions this word (FORGIVENESS) covers? Just think about it!

does God compensate us for our suffering?

2008-11-30T22:36:00.004+08:00

i'm getting more and more convinced of the idea that God compensates us for our sufferings.. juz like in Job, after that horrible dunno how many years of bitter and terrible loss and suffering, Job received 7 times his original possessions..

one church sister shared how she felt like Job in teh 9 months of "hell" when she worked in a company with nasty colleagues.. then later got into company tat was "heaven".. full of wonderful colleagues who shared close-knit relationships. and incidently, i was itchy-handed enough to calculate the ratio between teh good times she had and the times she lost in that suffering.. and it was really 7 lo.. she spent 9 months in the "hell" job and in her words, "5 and a half years" in teh "heaven" company.. the ratio is roughly equals to 7.. woo....

and for me, i suffered 3 years too..mebbe not as bad as "hell", but bad nevertheless. and now im' feeling so much better than 1 year ago, and even 1 year ago i was feelign so much better htan 1 year ago before. hopefully i will continue to stay in teh light, and even go to brighter places..

Please God, let me see more and more of Your face as the days go by.. amen.

so, for my fellow brothers and sisters who are suffering.. endure, be patient, for ur reward will come after.

my Baby

2008-10-17T13:39:00.004+08:00

yes this is the Liu Qin, 柳琴, the instrument that i played in my secondary school.. and this is 1 song that i used to practice alot.. really brings back memories..

i own 1 of this instrument at home.. but it cannot replace the Baby in my heart.. played that for only 2 years, but it was with me as i went through the peak of my Chinese Orchestra "career" (which lasted for a total of 8 years) the name "Baby" is actually quite apt as i literally had to cradle it in my lap everytime i played it, as you can see from the video.. heh..

unlike the one at home, my Baby's tone is very nice..its notes were melodious and bright.. it also looked v nice, having gold platings on its "pin"s 品, which are basically the ridges seen on the front of teh instrument.. the more you play the instrumetn, teh more friction the ridges experience, the more it is polished. hence it is brighter.. so that was part of the reason y i practiced so frequently, so that the gold can shine brightly haha. the flower on top and teh 2 "windows" 音窗 at the front(like in the teh video) also were made of elephant tusk, and it had a "ruby" (basically an oval red plastic stone) in teh centre of the flower, which made it so pretty.. and its "zhou"s 轴 which is basically teh 4 things you see sticking out at the top which are for tuning the instrument are supposedly made of jade.. possibly its inferior quality jade, cuz otherwise the instrument would have been freaking expensive. haha. but its still jade, cuz i rem they were cold to teh touch.. and it DID cost slightly more expensive, at $1000 then, compared to the $500 one i have at home.

after i graduated from sec school, i returned it (as it was my school property) with its gold brightly polished, and yielding strings.. but a few years later when i went back to visit, the gold was reduced to a rusty hue.. and it felt so hostile to me.. the strings dun yield as easily as it did to me like before.. haiz.

now as i write, i have a mind to buy it back from my school. probably it would cost me between 1 to 2k.. hmmm if i have the money, i will definitely do tat.. now the question is, when will i have teh money?

delicious pic there

2008-10-06T15:22:00.002+08:00

.... delicious.......

and by the way, that guy's a v famous dancer in america. and he's danced q a few times with Mel B, the spice gal..

i can be a drug peddlar

2008-10-04T12:15:00.006+08:00

Juz back from the doctor's.. finally got my Anarex and Prednisolone.. these are 2 of my favourite medicines (yes i actually have favourite medicines, if only because they cure my most chronic discomforts), which also includes DiarrStope. from these drugs i guess those of you who are pharmacists can guess at least 3 of the illnesses that i'm most commonly plagued with. bleah

when i added my newly acquired Anarex and Prednisolone to my drug collection, i realise that i actually have q alot of drugs on hand, more than half of which is off duty, thankfully.

i have medicines for 4 afflictions, namely sensitive nose (my doctors calls my nose the Sensitive New Age Nose, because apparently nowadays many pp seem to be afflicted with sensitive noses), indigestion, muscular pain relief, and acne. and understandably since my Sensitive New Age nose is my most chronic illness (those who have known me for sometime will notice that i'm forever having flu) i have the most medicines for that. i've got 4 for Sensitive New Age Nose, vs 2.5 (.5 because one of the medicine is actually a variant of another one) for indigestion vs 2 for muscular pain vs 1 for acne. GASP about 10 medicines. oh juz realised i havent counted my nasal sprays on my bed, which is another 1.5 (yes i've actually got 2 but one of them is a variant of the other) medicine for my Sensitive New Age Nose. actually i've still got 2 more offduty medicines for my acne. so altogether about 12 to 14 medicines in the last 9 months. that's scary. but think i'll juz be using 5 regularly.. anarex, fenfedrin + prednisolone, rhino/nasa-cort and diarrstope, which is actually the bacteria used in yakult to aid digestion, so mebbe it shouldnt be counted as a medicine.. i'm not taking the rest either because they are deemed to be not so effective or i've recovered from the illness.

another interesting thing..since i've had Sensitive New Age Nose since i was little child, i'm not surprised if the brands of medicines that i've taken constitute most of the ones in the market.

no wonder someone said i'm sickly =( but its not my fault that i'm sickly right? you think i want to be sick meh? in fact 3 out of 4 of the chronic illnesses i mentioned juz now could very well be due to stress. its bad enough to be stressed, worse to be stressed AND sick, even worse to be faulted for being subject to all these bad things. haiz.

anyway on the way to the doctor's i saw an interesting thing..

its a solar panel! possibly cuz of the setting up of REC in Singapore, we may very well begin to see more tapping of this green energy source on our little tropical island. (i'm proEarth!! if REC wasn't located in Tuas, i'd be surfing its career pages now hur hur)

God's reminder for me

2008-09-26T23:24:00.003+08:00

Was doing some tidying this afternoon and came across a card given to me by a fren when i was quite down.. and on the card was written this very apt and true poem..

God knows what's in your heart and what you need before you ask.
Even when you don't know for sure, God knows, because He knows you.
He knows the outcome of every situation, and He's guiding you even when you might feel that you have lost your way.
He knows how much you can bear, and He will give you strength and fill you with His grace and blessings as He walks with you every step of the way..
He is surrounding you with His love and holding you gently in the palm of His hand.

~Sharon Valleau

basically, its what God meant when He said this to me, "you3 wo3 zai4, ni3 hai2 pa4 shen3 me?" (I am in control. No fear)

Trust God!

2008-09-21T17:13:00.002+08:00

Below is a post from David's blog..

Making our own sense of things...

During Touchpoint last week, we heard a message by Chip Ingram - Trusting God when He doesn't make sense... touching on the story whereby Jesus allowed Lazarus to pass away instead of going down to heal him right from the start...

And a couple of days later, as I was sharing with Ben, we were discussing about how things may be uncertain and it is in these moments of uncertainties and out-of-comfort-zone experiences that challenges us in our belief of Him...

We have a knack to look for illumination... we HAVE TO see where we are going, otherwise we will panic... it makes no sense to walk in the darkness at all and hope to get to somewhere.. but i do recall a passage in the bible which deals with this issue:

"Let him who walks in the the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment"

- Book of Isaiah 50:10-11

Let me adapt something from Dr Larry Crabb's book - Connecting... :

"There is an enormous difference between the joy of discovery and the passion to explain. The former gives life a sense of adventure. The latter makes us hate mystery......

For those who enjoy discovery because they know a good God is moving through the chaos toward a wonderful conclusion, mystery poses no problem. It is welcomed. Explain what you can, and relax even when you can't . But for those ruled by a passion to explain, for those who insist on feeling confident in their own plans, mystery is offensive. They want to know exactly what they must do to provide for their economic future, to restore harmony in their relationships, to succeed in their career of ministry. Confusion is an enemy. Uncertainty is a challenge to overcome....

Fire lighters love formulas. They live by them. When they can't devise their own, they turn to experts who confidently tell them what to do to achieve desired results. When fire lighters try to help people, they are more concerned with doing it right than touching others' souls. They trust their own model for helping more than the voice of God, more than the Spirit speaking through His Word into their redeemed hearts. Connecting is replaced by control. Fire lighters work too hard. They follow theory too closely; they depend too much on approved technique."

We can't get by trials in life, or life in general, trying to follow formulas... we do not get through difficult times via formulas.. It never starts with METHODS... it always begin at the heart... every journey we take in our lives starts very first in our hearts, not in our feet... and every help we extend to people starts with our hearts too, not with our hands....

'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

2008-09-21T17:00:00.004+08:00

Aussie 'free hugs guy' to donate kidney to stranger: report
21st Sept (GMT +8)

SYDNEY (AFP) - - An Australian man known around the world for giving free hugs to anyone who asks, is planning to go one step further by donating one of his kidneys to a stranger, a report said Sunday.

Juan Mann, who came to worldwide attention in 2004 after a video of him dispensing free hugs in Sydney's central business district appeared on YouTube, expects to undergo surgery next year.

"I am young, I am fit, I am healthy, I have two kidneys," the 26-year-old, who does not use his real name, told the Sun-Herald.

"I don't really drink. I don't need that second one and someone will be able to get out of hospital."

Mann will face psychiatric and physical tests in hospital before he can make the donation, the process of which will be filmed and later broadcast online, the paper said.

"I will never meet the (recipient); I will never know if the transplant is a success or a failure; I will never know if my kidney kills the person," Mann said.

"Apparently once you give your kidney you will never feel whole.

"(But) I'll get a cool scar and apparently chicks dig scars."

Mann, who spends about one day a week holding a 'FREE HUGS' sign above his head in Sydney's Pitt Street Mall, has inspired free hugs movements around the world.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

zegna's "finest" wallpaper

2008-09-14T22:49:00.004+08:00

"finest wallpaper"???? hahahaha.. it juz tickles my funny bones...

i din think wallpaper can be "fine" as well.. they really try hard to "fine"ify all their products... haha...

another amusing thing.. there's only juz 1 wallpaper.. of cuz its the "finest".. haha..

a word about healthy Dating

2008-09-14T17:13:00.003+08:00

here's an excerpt adapted from
Boundaries in Dating: Making Dating Work by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend.

"Dating is ultimately about love. People seek it through dating. When they find it, and it matures, they often make deep commitments to each other. Freedom and responsibility are necessary for love to develop in dating. When two individuals allow each other freedom and take ownership of the relationship, they are creating an environment for love to grow and mature. Freedom and responsibility create a safe and secure environment for a couple to love, trust, explore and deepen their experience of each other.

Simply put, many of the struggles people experience in dating relationships are at heart caused by some problem in the areas of freedom and responsibility. By freedom, we mean your ability to make choices based on your values, rather than choosing out of fear or guilt. Free people make commitments because they feel it’s the right thing to do, and they are wholehearted about it. By responsibility, we mean your ability to execute your tasks in keeping the relationship healthy and loving, as well as being able to say no to things you shouldn’t be responsible for. Responsible people shoulder their part of the dating relationship, but they don’t tolerate harmful or inappropriate behavior. "

peugeot's stylo error404

2008-09-14T00:15:00.005+08:00

as per angelus's request, here i am to post sthg..

this is now my 403rd post.. and i rem making a hoo ha over my 100th post on my blog last time.. how time flies.

anyhow, you know sometimes you try to get to a webpage but you're shown error404 and you're super irritated/frustrated? i came across peugeot's page for erroneous links, wah it really reduces teh negative emotions with its super stylo layout.... but then peugeot is known for its support for design. in fact it was precisely while i was surfing the entries for a design competition organised by peugeot that i came across this stylo error404 webpage.

now where did the error code disappear to? its found on the car plate number. fun and quirky. but at the same time some pp may not be able to spot that, since its not at the usual and prominent place. and for techies who need techincal information to troubleshoot, this little lack of usability may prove to be a source of inconvenience and of cuz irritation.

as someone (i forgot who) said in a human factors seminar which i attended recently, when human factors clash with the aesthetic/mechanical/etc design of teh product, it simply means that the design is not finished yet. the design muz keep on improving such that it is wholistic, being attractive, functional, and easy to use, all at the same time.

anyway, here's teh entries for the design competition. there're some really cool cars here.. and there's even a sg entry, which managed to garner 1200plus votes. not bad ald. =) (but no, the sg entry is not called alexandra road..haha)

Enjoy!

random tots

2008-05-20T20:41:00.003+08:00

my life.... its been so different these 3 months..

without him.. without dance.. and i'm finally seeing a glimpse of light in my work in a v long time..

and how i've grown so much closer to You oh Lord..my days are filled with light and joy becuz of You..

i really really miss him.. and dance.. but they cannot co-exist.. and i'm not sure if i want to go back to the days of darkness..

teach me O Lord, where i should go..

SolidWorks helps in cinematic technology

2008-05-20T10:55:00.003+08:00

hello!! haha surprised to see a new post, aren't you? yes i've been neglecting this space, AGAIN.

i've been wanting to post on quite a few occasions, but those occasions all involve putting pictures up, which is quite troublesome for me especially when i dun have bluetooth on my comp. and i'm reluctant to use cable cuz this means my phone is turned off for a while.. (as if he would call anytime, ha)

anyway, this is something i wanna share with all of you - SolidWorks helps in breakthrough design of something that’s close to the heart of the consumer i.e. YOU. (not that SolidWorks seldom helps in breakthrough designs, just that those designs that involve SolidWorks are mainly in the backend – production machines which are used to MAKE the consumer products instead of BEING the consumer products themselves, meaning that consumers find it hard to sense the power of SolidWorks. but this time the SolidWorks-aided-revolutionary product in question is closer to all of you, the consumer, tat's y the hooha)

Just imagine, whenever you enjoy a movie that involves some action-packed scenes, it may be thanks to the power of SolidWorks. Read on to find out why.

(and yes I discovered I’m really prone to occupational hazard – last time I kept on yabbering about usability, and I still do, and now I rave about the power of SolidWorks. Haha)

‘Snakehead’ camera system, designed in SolidWorks, soars in new Bond film

New aerial periscope system puts movie goers in the action

CONCORD, Mass., May 12, 2008 — A breakthrough movie camera system called the Snakehead, designed entirely in SolidWorks® 3D CAD software, is resetting the boundaries of cinematography, immersing viewers more deeply than ever in hair-raising aerial action.

With the Snakehead, pilots for the first time can fly as aggressively as they dare without sacrificing the drama of the shot. SpaceCam Systems, Inc. of Los Angeles debuted the Snakehead last month in the canyons of Baja, Mexico, for the upcoming James Bond film “Quantum of Solace.” The month-long shoot was “wildly successful,” according to veteran aerial cinematographer Dwayne McClintock, also a mechanical engineer who co-designed the system. “We shot some astonishing footage, like nothing you’ve seen before,” he said. The Snakehead also worked “flawlessly” on a TV commercial in which a Jeep rolled out the door of a cargo plane 10,000 feet above the desert sand.

With a 360-degree remotely controlled spherical range of view, the patented Snakehead is the first plane-mounted gyroscopically stabilized periscope, compatible with various movie and HD cameras and providing super high quality resolution. The lens system maintains a level horizon, solidifying a frame of reference to keep viewers in the story. Traditional aerial cinematography approaches – for example, a fixed periscope on a Lear jet – distract and sometimes sicken viewers by depicting a seemingly lurching horizon. If the filming plane needs to adopt the point of view of a chasing aircraft, however, Snakehead operators can turn off the stabilization to convey its maneuvers.

“As they will see in the Bond film, the Snakehead puts moviegoers in the middle of the action instead of just observing, or worse, being virtually tossed around in the theater,” said McClintock. “The Snakehead is by far the most challenging design I’ve ever attempted. SolidWorks software’s efficiency made the work so much easier than it could have been. SolidWorks let us design a better product by cycling through dozens of iterations and working with flexible subassemblies. We had many original crazy and weird-looking parts that, thanks in large part to SolidWorks, went together seamlessly the first time. The Snakehead exceeded our expectations.”

In the Bond filming, a Piper Aerostar 700 with Snakeheads on the nose and tail filmed two planes in a aerial chase sequence and dogfight.

SpaceCam collaborated on the design with engineers at Ballista Inc. of Westlake Village, Calif., which engineered the optics, also using SolidWorks software. The Snakehead posed several significant design challenges for the combined team, including battering from weather and debris, mechanical rotation, and image inversion (Ballista used SolidWorks to create a fourth, “derotation” prism to keep the filmed image upright in the periscope).

“What I like most about SolidWorks is the flexibility,” said Walt Caldwell, vice president of production and operations for Ballista. “Whenever you start a project with nothing but an idea you wind up in a different place than you thought you would, constantly making multiple iterations with major changes. SolidWorks lets us quickly change a component and replace it with a new one, and all the mates and parent/child relationships are intact. SolidWorks makes major changes easy, without having to start the model all over again.”

“The Snakehead is a revolutionary product,” said Rainer Gawlick, vice president of worldwide marketing for SolidWorks Corporation. “It’s inspiring to see our software help launch an innovation that will have a resounding impact on cinematography and entertainment.”

Ballista and SpaceCam rely on authorized SolidWorks reseller GoEngineer for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.

About SpaceCam

SpaceCam Systems, Inc. is the leader and industry standard in aerial and specialized gyro-stabilized cinematography. Its office, design, and manufacturing facility is located in Westlake Village, Calif. SpaceCam Systems provides: gyro-stabilized camera equipment services to the film, television, large format, and commercial industry; SpaceCam camera systems; specialized helicopter bracketry; and Snakehead camera systems for fixed-wing applications. A variety of camera options are available, including 35mm-4 perf, 35mm-8 perf, 65mm-5 perf, 65mm-15 perf, and numerous HD cameras. For more information visit www.spacecam.com or call 818 889-6060.

Ron Goodman, the president of SpaceCam, was the chief engineer and inventor of the Snakehead. His career-long commitment and dedication is to the advancement and betterment of gyro-stabilized image capturing.

About Ballista, Inc.

Ballista is a privately owned company that specializes in the development of display products, medical devices, and illumination-based systems. Its offices and manufacturing facilities are located in Westlake Village, Calif. Ballista provides custom product development and manufacturing services for the assembly and test of optical systems. Included in these services is the qualification and management of suppliers and warehousing of finished goods and order fulfillment services. Current products include high-performance display systems and light delivery systems for medical, scientific, and entertainment applications. For more information, contact: info@ballistainc.com, (805) 497-6541 Ext. 222.

About GoEngineer

GoEngineer represents market-leading products such as SolidWorks, CAMWorks™ and COSMOS® software, which deliver the 3D CAD and CAM tools that enable design teams to create innovative products; PDMWorks® software, which provides the control of up-to-date design information; Z Corporation’s™ 3D Printers, which help teams quickly and effectively communicate product concepts to create better products faster. And Agile Advantage™ is distinguished by its ease of use and implementation. These products are leveraged by GoEngineer’s unique JumpStart® Services designed to bring streamlined engineering processes to businesses with support from local application engineers and a toll-free hotline. GoEngineer has 11 training centers and offices throughout the Western United States. For information, visit: www.goengineer.com.

About SolidWorks Corporation
SolidWorks Corporation, a Dassault Systèmes S.A. (Nasdaq: DASTY, Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) company, develops and markets software for design, analysis, and product data management. It is the leading supplier of 3D CAD technology, giving teams intuitive, high-performing software that helps them design better products. For the latest news, information, or a live online demonstration, visit the company's Web site (www.solidworks.com) or call 1-800-693-9000 (outside of North America, call +1-978-371-5000).

## ## ##

SolidWorks is a registered trademarks of SolidWorks Corporation. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright (c) 2008 SolidWorks Corporation.

Proof that God exists (anecdotal)

2008-03-29T00:34:00.006+08:00

proof that God exists:

for who else can, and will create such beauty?

hamster-powered paper shredder

2008-01-08T13:31:00.001+08:00

i'd love to have htis!!!

its a cute distraction, and is functional.

its a hamster-powered paper shredder!

read more about it here

poem

2007-11-23T00:29:00.001+08:00

My tears have dried,
no more can i cry.

Your love for me has faded,
like the withered flower its so jaded.

Your sincerity's just a lie,
I'm once bitten, twice shy.

Our obstacles run deep and wide,
from them we can never hide.

Let me find rest in Jesus,
in your mom's hatred i'll suffer.

You ask for an enlightenment,
in this message is the answer.

So stop procrastinating,
your passion and talents are waiting to be discovered.

be careful of holiday blues

2007-11-23T00:18:00.001+08:00

came across the following article.. it may be written in US context and for people who already have their own families but we can still take home some of the ideas in there..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The holiday season officially begins this week, although you may feel like it has been here for a month already. For people with depression, six weeks of enforced good cheer can feel like six years of torture, complete with its own soundtrack. What do you do if you just don't feel it inside?

Holidays Got You Singing the Blues?
By: David Sternberg

It's the most wonderful time of the year, right? Jack Frost is nipping at your nose, the turkey is roasting in the oven and your neighborhood is aglow in festive lights and holiday cheer.

So how come you're so miserable?

You may be experiencing the "holiday blues," a combination of sadness and stress that affects many people this time of year, beginning with Thanksgiving and ending around New Year's.

A major contributor to the "holiday blues" is the unrealistic expectations many of us have of the holidays, due in no small part to movies, television and advertisements.

Hollywood has long portrayed the winter holidays — particularly Christmas — as a time of magic and wonder ('It's a Wonderful Life' and 'Miracle on 34th Street' are two examples). This creates a fantasy to have a sort of Norman Rockwell experience.

But when our lives, sometimes messy and complicated, don't match these media messages, it's easy to feel that we have failed in some deep and meaningful way.

"We have such high anticipation for the holidays and very unrealistic expectations," says Atlanta psychologist Marjorie Blum. "It leaves us with this feeling of dread when our idealized views are not met."

Instead, Blum notes, "we need to expect imperfections in events and in ourselves, and expand and develop new traditions."

Tradition and expectation are often intertwined at the holidays, and when the two are at odds, it's easy to become frustrated or disappointed.

"We have traditions we like to follow at certain holidays and when someone wants to deviate, it gets those who want to retain them bent out of shape and uncomfortable," says Jannette Robert Murray, a psychotherapist in Spokane, Washington.

Another factor for the "holiday blues" is family. For most of us, the holidays mean getting together with our families. For some, unfortunately, our family is not the Hallmark version but a source of tension and conflict in which longstanding grudges often get played out.

So, while we may work hard all year at avoiding our family, at the holidays we come face-to-face with their foibles, whether it's our uncle's drinking problem or our mother's not-so-subtle jabs at our parenting skills or relationship choices.

Family tension can often sap us of energy, which can already be in short supply at the holidays.

That's because we are busier than ever this time of year — cooking holiday meals, shopping for presents, attending parties, and traveling or hosting family and friends.

The increased social demands of the holidays typically affect women more than men.

"Women are so used to doing so much for everyone around them, and the stress becomes even greater around the holidays," says Linda Stolarz, a psychotherapist in New York.

"At the holidays there are so many more people to take care of, and add to that all of the shopping and cooking to do. And if you've also got work stuff to take care of, it can become a very stressful time," she added.

Making matters worse is that the good self-care we practice all year flies right out the window at the holidays. We stay up later than we normally do and don't exercise as often as usual. On top of that, we tend to overindulge on sugary and fatty foods and alcohol, adding to our lethargy.

Compounding matters is the stress of increased traffic on the roads, large crowds at the malls (particularly if we waited to the last minute to do our shopping) and long lines at the airports and train stations.

Finally, self-reflection plays a role, as many of us look back on the previous year to gauge our progress in different areas of our lives.

Sadly, we often give our losses — anything from the death of a loved one to our youngest child leaving the nest — considerably more weight than our gains. These losses are often exacerbated at holiday get-togethers for a variety of reasons.

It may be the first Christmas or Hanukkah without a loved one or we may feel as if we "should" be happy because it is supposed to be such a joyous time

Yes, the holidays can be a difficult time, but there are several things you can do to keep yourself happy and healthy. (If, however, feelings of sadness and stress continue into the new year, you should consult a mental health professional.)

1. Eat and drink in moderation
The holidays mean lots of parties where rich food and alcohol often take center stage.

"It's a time of celebration and letting go," says Blum. "The problem is our bodies are not geared for that all or nothing kind of behavior."

While it's tempting to have that third martini or second helping of pumpkin pie, the downsides are numerous and significant: hangovers and weight gain, to name just a few.

2. Set limits and boundaries with others
If family members are a source of stress, decide to spend only part of your time with them.

Just because Aunt Sarah and Uncle Robert are in town for the Thanksgiving weekend, it doesn't mean you have to spend every waking minute with them. Give yourself a break; set aside some time for yourself or with friends.

3. Ask others for help
As natural caretakers, women tend to take on most, if not all, of the social responsibilities this time of year.

You will burn yourself out trying to do it all. Aim to be more of a manger than a one-woman show. Enlist your spouse, siblings or children to help cook, shop, pick up relatives at the airport, etc.

4. Maintain a regular exercise or self-care regimen
Even at a reduced amount (say, 20 minutes of brisk walking a day versus your usual 45 minutes on the Stairmaster), exercise will help keep you feeling good physically and emotionally.

excerpt from Courage and Calling: community as conversation

2007-11-19T00:22:00.002+08:00

We need the grace of community. We discern our vocation in community, and we fulfill it as we are anchored in mutual interdependence with others within community. Furthermore, we negotiate our vocation with others – with our spouse, with the community of faith, with people with whom we live and work – taking into consideration their actual needs and circumstances. No vocation is fulfilled in a vacuum apart from the needs and experiences of others with whom we live and work. Having a vocation never means that we are freed from the obligations and responsibilities of communal life. All vocations are communal in character.

This is not all good news; the community, even the community of faith, can be oppressive. The traditions, expectations and cultural patterns of family and community can easily undermine our capacity to become our true selves and to discern our vocation. Some people may wonder, when they consider their own context, whether it is even possible to genuinely discern vocation in their community; they may well think that their only hope is to get away and find solitude and strength and encouragement elsewhere.

We can so easily get caught up in the expectation of others. We must be wary of people who have something to gain if we fulfill their expectations, who all too easily equate their expectations with the expectations of God, whether they be parents, pastors or other authority figures. There may be times when we need to make a break, if we conclude that the personal integrity is impossible because of the oppressive character of a community.

This is where solitude is so critical, for it is in solitude that we encounter the one to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance, the one who alone can give us security, identity and purpose. This is why we cannot live merely in community. When we do, we are easily consumed by communal expectations rather than living our life in response to the voice of God.

But even as we recognize the dangers of community and affirm the need for solitude, we must come back again and again to our critical need for community, for life lived in the company of others. We are not walking – and cannot expect to be walking – this road alone. Some form of authentic community is necessary to grant us the capacity to discover ourselves and to embrace vocation.

By community we mean the capacity to live in communion with others. This communion is a means of grace, and as such it is the very stuff of life. It is really remarkable that God says that the creation is good, very good (Gen 1) but he also states that it is “not good” for Adam to be solitary (Gen 2:18). In other words, Adam needed more than God! He needed the company of others; only through this company could the radical aloneness of the human soul be overcome.

It is in community that we learn to honour one another – to honour without flattery but with a love informed by truth. It is in community that we learn forgiveness – the capacity to bear with one another, as Christ has borne our sins and forgiven us. And it is in community that we learn how to serve and be served, how to give and receive. It is in community that we love and receive love. Without community we remain fundamentally alone, one-dimensional and disconnected – not only from others but from ourselves and God.

Ultimately conversation is the greatest gift of community and the fundamental means by which community is in the Spirit is attained. It is conversation that sustains marriage, friendship and congregational life; it is conversation that enables us to work together effectively.

Most of all, though, it is in conversation – with friends and with family members, peers and with people who are older or younger than us – that we grow in wisdom, grace and strength. It is through conversation that we are encouraged, that we fill one another with courage. When we are encouraged, we are able to overcome our fears or at least keep them at bay – and know that our fears do not drive the engine of our hearts and lives.

Conversation involves two simple acts or elements. The first is the discipline and grace of listening. There is probably no greater service that we give one another than to listen. When we listen to others, we attend to them, honour them, accept them and respond to what matters most to them. Nothing so demonstrates that we love other people as does listening to them.

Of course we listen only when we resist temptation to say something, to teach something or worse, to tell people what they “should” do before we have really heard them. The death of conversation comes when we speak before we listen, when we speak before others have really spoken, when we jump to conclusions or make premature assumptions about what they are going to say.

Then of course, conversation includes speaking. But speaking must be without innuendo, complaint, or sarcasm. It is the word spoken without pretense or posturing, the word that is the truth plainly given, without exaggeration, without flattery.

Some people seem unable to speak without being patronizing; when they speak they are seeking to control or to cover their own fears. It is bad enough to speak to children with a condescending tone; but for some people patronizing speech has become a pattern, a habit of all their speaking. It undermines any possibility for genuine conversation; their words are no longer connected to their eyes, let alone their hearts.

When genuine conversation happens, it is life to us. In the listening and speaking of conversation we have the capacity for intimacy. Through conversation we come to the honesty and humility to accept who we are and to confront our innermost fears, forcing them out into the light and finding that they are not nearly as terrible as we imagined.

Through conversation with another we come to terms with our joys and sorrows; we acknowledge and live through the pain of anger, mourning and discouragement. Without conversation we are alone – alone in our fears, and worse, alone because we are disconnected from ourselves. Ironically, the truth is that we are connected to ourselves only when we are connected to others; we are capable of true self-knowledge, knowledge that enables us to know and accept the call of God, only hwen we are in communion with others.

When we are consistent in the quality of our conversation with everyone – spouse, family, colleagues and others – God, in his grace and wisdom, grants us the special friendship of a few people, perhaps two or three. We cannot find intimacy with everyone; we cannot hope to and do not need to share our deepest fears with everybody. But in the race of God we can respond intentionally to a few people – likely, but not necessarily, our peers – with whom conversation becomes increasingly honest and true, without pretense or posturing. In my relationships with the few men with whom I have this kind of friendship, we can pick up where we left off even when we have not seen each other for a year or two. I count these friendships – just three or four along the way – to be among the most precious gifts that God has given me, second only to the joy I have in married life and as a father.

still wishing for a future that's not possible..

2007-11-01T13:12:00.001+08:00

i'm listening to 被风吹过的夏天by JJ and Jin Sha..

i haven't listened to this song for a few months.. i havent dared to.

and just now i came across it in my music playlist.. i thought i could listen to it now.. but it turns out i'm wrong.. still flooded by memories.. still wishing for a future that is not possible..

haiz.

I MISS DANCE!!!!~~~~~!!!!!

2007-10-21T01:28:00.002+08:00

♥ "Dancers are the only athletes who aren't allowed to show how much it hurts."

♥ "Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to the paradise of that achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration; there are daily small deaths. " Martha Graham

♥"Dancers are the athletes of God." George Balanchine AND/OR Albert Einstein

♥ "Nothing happens in the body without happening in the brain first . . . dancing is 95% mental." Bobby Boling

♥ "Dance is the hidden language of the soul."
Martha Graham

♥ "There is such a difference when you're dancing to music you really love, when there is this meeting of music and dancer that fuses into one. Those are the experiences we live for." Alicia Alonso

♥ "Dancing allows me to explore myself in so many ways, to learn about my limitations and strengths, my ability to cope with adversity and to go farther than I thought I could. You find out what you're made of." Andrew Asnes

♥ "The heart of the dance is the heart of the dancer."
Ghazallah al-Badriyyah

♥ "Dance till the stars come down from the rafters.
Dance, dance, dance - till you drop." (Wystan Hugh) W. H. Auden

♥ "Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances." Maya Angelou

♥ "Dance is about never-ending aspiration." Judith Jamison

♥ "....great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion" Martha Graham

♥ D… Discovering New Friends
♥ A… Appreciating Your Talents
♥ N… Never Saying Never
♥ C… Confidence & Compliments
♥ E… Exploring New Heights

I MISS DANCE!!!!~~~~~!!!!!

juz being boliao..

2007-10-09T20:58:00.001+08:00

haha got to know about this celebrity lookalike website on wenjun's blog.. its definitely an ego booster! haha!

but wenjun is right, its not really accurate.. think i only look like song hye-kyo and josie maran below only because of the angle in which i tilt my face. haha!

and i notice that teh celebrities i look like with the 2 pictures are all different! but quite a few jap/koreans eh. or issit cuz the database got many jap and korean celebrities?? oh btw thankgoodness no male celebrities showed up .. haha

personality quiz

2007-09-23T01:56:00.002+08:00

Your Flirt Quotient

You are 20% Flirt

Are You a Flirtatious Woman?

fail ald lo.. who dares to say i'm a flirt doesn noe how to do maths...........

personality quiz

2007-09-23T01:53:00.002+08:00

You Belong in Spring

Optimistic, lively, and almost always happy with the world...
You can truly appreciate the blooming nature of spring.
Whether you're planting flowers or dyeing Easter eggs, spring is definitely your season!

What Season Are You?

so contradicgtory to my previous post.. haha

personality quiz

2007-09-23T01:51:00.002+08:00

You Are 12% Happy

You know that there's more to life than how you've been living it.
Life can be rough at times, but most of your unhappiness is self-inflicted.

How Happy Are You?

personality quiz

2007-09-23T01:17:00.002+08:00

You Are Lavender

You are a sweet person with a very soft personality.
People become easily entranced with you. They seem to glow around you.
You have a quiet energy that can keep you active late into the night.
Even if you aren't the life of the party, you definitely keep the party going.

What Color Purple Are You?

personality quiz

2007-09-23T00:56:00.002+08:00

Your Love Is Represented By a Pink Rose

You see love as something that should be light, fun, and whimsical.
People fall in love with you easily. And you tend to fall out of love easily!
You express your love through attention and shared experiences. You love people more than they realize.

What Rose Represents Your Love?

random tots in MOS bugis

2007-08-13T19:30:00.001+08:00

I’m now sitting in MOS burger.. and I’m amazed at this lady that’s sitting behind me now.. her voice is sooooooooooo sharp!!!! like someone who’s juz swallowed helium you noe?

what makes it worse is she looks like she's in her mid 30s.. not some young teenagers. In fact her voice is even more high pitched than teenagers!
I’ve always knew my voice is high-pitched.. but err do my voice sound like that in real life?? I really hope not. =|

And. I am getting FAT. FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT. Its not so bad if I’m getting fat all round, including my arms, thighs (yes my thighs are too skinny..) and of cuz a certain part of the female body heehee. BUT. Its only my TUMMY tats getting bigger and bigger!!! With all the fats. me having a not-so-good digestion nowadays doesn’t help as well. So my tummy gets even bigger with all the bloatedness. bleah

juz one sms.. haiz.

2007-08-03T00:59:00.002+08:00

i'm hopeless.. really hopeles.. juz one sms.. and my walls are breaking...

my visual DNA.. its accurate!

2007-08-03T00:54:00.002+08:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

read my visual DNA.. its really accurate! wow. i'm impressed.

i took a pic with edmund chen!

2007-07-15T00:43:00.001+08:00

In reverse chronological order..

-today, Saturday 14th July -
view from manhattan fish market at clarke quay. had a v filling dinner today with serene and desmond. =) bought clothes AGAIN (like the 12th 13th pcs of clothes over the last 3 weeks) worth a total of 47.. for 1 dress and 1 top... not too ex lar =p

wedding service programme.. eh i juz cant get it to rotate to teh right orientation..went to pastor lijuan's wedding today..i was really really emotional.. dunno why i so emotional also.. a group of us presented a song to her, and while singing i was crying.. i guess its cuz the lyrics of the song really reflected how i felt..and tat is gratefulness for the wisdom and change in life that she inspired in me, through her love and care.. thank you Lijuan. i will miss you..i know He will bless your marriage richly.. and also your ministry, no matter in which part of teh world you're serving in... oh btw take a look at the satin flowers at the corner of the programme.. nice!

-Friday, 13th July-
a book mark that i juz bought for myself on Friday, 13th July. Stained glass is one of my favourite forms of handicraft.. and on the bookmark is engraved the last paragraph of my favourite christian poem. reminds me to that He is always there with me even though i may not be able to see Him..

LV wallet! but dunno whether is real or fake tho... haha i really hope its a fake cuz its a gift!! wld feel bad to receive sthg so expensive =p. received this on Friday before helping the sender to look for a birthday gift for his girlfriend at tampines. haha i'm thinking if he can give me the LV wallet he most probably wld think its cheapo to give his gf the gifts which i suggested.. which cost like ard 50 bux each haha.

-Wednesday, 11th July-
heehee happened to be at lido on teh day of harry potter premiere.. saw lots of stars! dawn yeo, hong huifang and family, and of cuz edmund chen and family.. i heard zoe tay was there as well but i din see her.

2007-07-06T13:04:00.000+08:00

recently I have decided to do some slight improvements to the page to make it more user friendly. this is becuz i am now workignin a web usability firm, and how can someone who is working on usability have a lousy interface???

but. i'm kinda busy at the moment, (cuz i've been piled with some miscellaneous work by my oh-so-dear boss who thinks since i'm not handling any project right now i'm super free.) so will be doing the layout changes mebbe over the wkend or later. hmmm i'm not sure when tat later will be haha. but in the meanwhile you can notice some links related to usability/ergonomics on the "friends" section, but (after working in this usability firm) i realise that my blog page isnt exactly a very usable design so heh its not a surprise if you take some time to actually spot the new links =p

now drinking my favourite milkshake i.e. avocado milkshake! havnet drunk anything close to my fav crystal jade avocado milkshake other than this one. hehe. i bought this at a stall in alexandra village market. hee hee.

2007-07-03T16:14:00.000+08:00

Your Beauty Element is Air

You're quirky, fresh, and fashionable in a surprising way.
You have a beauty that's all your own, and it changes as quickly as the wind!

What's Your Beauty Element?

huh??

2007-07-03T16:12:00.000+08:00

You Communicate Like a Woman

You empathize, talk things out, and express your emotions freely.
You're a good listener, and you're non-judgmental with your advice.
Communication is how you connect with people.
You're always up for a long talk, no matter how difficult the subject matter is.

Do You Communicate Like a Man or a Woman?

of cuz.. i'm a woman wat.

2007-07-03T14:41:00.001+08:00

The Part of You That No One Sees

You are balanced, peaceful, and sincere.
You're the type of person who goes along to get along.
And you're definitely afraid of rocking the boat.

Underneath it all, you fear your world falling apart.
You'll put up with a situation that you don't like in fear of changing it.
Disruptive and forceful people intimidate you - and sometimes exploit you.

What's the Part of You That No One Sees?

2007-07-03T11:13:00.001+08:00

You Are 12% Nerdy

You are definitely not nerdy - in fact, you probably don't know any nerds.
You probably care a little too much about your image. No one will know if you secretly watch Star Trek reruns!

How Nerdy Are You?

2007-07-03T11:11:00.001+08:00

You've Changed 32% in 10 Years

Ah, the past! You may not remember it well - because you're still living in it.
While you've changed some, you may want to update your wardrobe, music collection and circle of friends.

How Much Have You Changed in 10 Years?

2007-07-03T11:09:00.001+08:00

You Are Sunshine

Soothing and calm
You are often held up by others as the ideal
But too much of you, and they'll get burned

You are best known for: your warmth

Your dominant state: connecting

What Type of Weather Are You?

2007-07-02T17:39:00.001+08:00

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are a warm hearted and open minded person. It's easy for you to forgive and forget.

You are a very grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it.

You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you.

Your near future is likely to be filled with great successes and accomplishments. You just need to figure out how to get there.

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

2007-07-02T17:01:00.000+08:00

You Are 36% Lady

You tend to make up your rules of etiquette, throwing all conventions aside.
And while you try to be a lady (sometimes), your behavior is often quite shocking.

Are You A Lady?

2007-07-02T15:37:00.001+08:00

You are a Dark Red Rose

You represent unconscious beauty and deep passion.

Your vibe: sophisticated and worldly

Falling in love with you is: wildly carnal and forbidden

What Color Rose Are You?

2007-06-03T20:46:00.000+08:00

a post that i typed but din post a few weeks ago..

SURPRISE!!! i'm BACK!! bet all of you didnt expect me to post entries, ever again.

well, i dunno y but i juz feel like writing about some thought tat i had just now.. and mebbe the fact that i'm kinda stressed over work contributes to teh blogging mood as well..

you noe, i htink i'm crazy.. i'm currently watching htis bridal channel on the internet where they show dozens and dozens of bridal fashion shows, real weddings, weddign tips, and things to buy for your wedding... haa..and i'm glued to the computer screen now lke i'm glued to teh tv.. the gowns juz wow me.. tey're so pretty!! i've seen a few that i'l really like to wear on my wedding.. and i' boggled by the many things tat you can/shd by for a wedding.. like wedding favours (i din even noe wats tat!! do you??), table placement cards tat guests can bring home as souvenirs.. etc.. i wonder how much those weddings featured in this channel cost.. haha..

but i'm crazy to be watching htis channel now.. cuz its not like i'm getting married anytime soon.. in fact.. i'm kinda depressed over my love life.. its been so messy these past few months.. actually, i havent had a smoothsailing rship since my first one.. i wonder why He is putting me through all these.. mebbe every guy tat comes romanticaly into my life is a test for me.. and i keep failing all the tests?? haa dunno wat i' talking about.. or am i just meant to lead a life free of romantic relationships??

right now i'm facing some problems with this guy.. and i feel so helpless.. there are so many things that i'm upset about..i suspect alot of times i'm just being sensitive and over demanding.. but am i really wrong to want to be loved/pampered by the person i love?? after all, EVERY gal needs pampering.. (it just depends on how much and in wat way the gal wld prefer) and mebbe i shldnt expect him to love me the way i love him..

haizzz...all these times my friends have been there to support me..thanks to all of you.. i really apreciate it.. =D

anw, back to the topic... i was wondering why pp spend so much time and effort on their wedding..which is just one day and which will be followed by back-to-normal life (esp for caucasians who mostly live with their partners before marriage). but now i think i know..guess the only reason that i'll want to make it special would be cuz i'm holding it with the someone i love.. its just like why i really enjoyed gg to the URA (urban redevelopment authority)..you noe?

i used to think pp make their weddign special juz cuz its the norm to do so.. now i think mebbe not..

2007-02-03T16:21:00.000+08:00

Your Boss Isn't Psycho, but Your Boss Stinks

Your boss is probably not mental. Still, your boss is not competent or professional.
You may want to transfer departments or get a new job, before your boss sucks out your soul.

Is Your Boss Psycho?

wahahahahaa

2006-11-29T12:39:00.000+08:00

hey my pirouttes are back! so strange. its gone missing for i think at least a year.. then suddenly come back again.

for those who dunno wat i'm talking about, i'm talking about the link at hte bottom of each entry which says "do a pirouette!" (or "(x) pirouttes!"). this link is like the normal comments link, where you can post comments on my entries. i put it in when i started this blog, but along the way it went missing so i replaced it with the normal comments link from blogger.. tats y you also see the normal blogger comment link at the bottom of each entry, beside the pirouttes.

yup and i rem explaining why i call it pirouettes.. cuz pirouettes are short spins in ballet jargon. so i guess tat'd be an apt moniker for short paragraphs of comments from my frens, which keeps with the theme of my blog, which is dance .

anw. there's a reason why i havnet been blogging for soooooo long. 2 months plus infact. haha no its not cuz my comp's down again, nor have i finally gone for a holiday (but went for short cruise tho), its also not juz cuz i'm lazy........ its cuz i'm superstitious.

haha first i'm caught up in material stuff (refer to jeffrey's comments in the previous post), now i'm superstitious.

anw yeah.. i din blog cuz i was superstitious.. dun ask anymore.. if you noe wat i'm talking about, good. if not, it doesnt matter. haaaa

anw i'm actually at work now. i guess most of you would probably noe tat i've found a full-time job ald, but for those readers who havnet been keeping touch in me much (dun worry i'm equally as guilty of not making tat contact.. so lets forgive each other and of cuz do sthg about it). I'm working York International, now known as johnson controls and actually the reason i'm coming up here is for work also.

haha no its not that my company encourages us to blog (yes in fact i shldnt be doing this now). its juz tat i was thinking it'd be nice to record down some work stuff which'd come in handy later. of cuz, this is juz experimental. oh wait come to htink of it, i realise it may not be a good idea.. most prob even if i do start this idea, i wont be able to keep this up for long anw. cuz everytime i open up my internet browser, i have to log in and i guess this (besides letting the mgmt noe my online whereabouts, also)increases the inconvenience of me accessing this webbie. which defeats the purpose cuz the purpose is for me to check back regularly wat i've recorded. haha. oh well. ok nvm forget it cuz i realise the blog can only display 5 entries at a time.. which means i cnat access data tat i recorded 5 entries ago. haa.

ok back to work for now.. tho i'm kinda dstracted by something. and becuz i'm superstitious, i cant disclose wat that something is.. oh well mebbe there's no need to be superstitious le.. heh.. ok nvm i noe you're not catching any ball but juz let me ramble k. haiz.

2006-09-17T17:49:00.000+08:00

my new desire......

hmmm but cons are lack of radio and camera light. plus will be prone to smudges and stains and scratches on its mirrorlike finish.

to accept it as it is, recognising its flaws as part of its character, or to reject it and look for another one?? tat is the one question tats been plaguing me nowadays......haiz. =(

and oh, it is sony ericsson Z610i. (yes i am a loyal fan of SE phones)

2006-09-17T00:25:00.000+08:00

when will i learn to stop being so gullible???

2006-09-11T15:32:00.000+08:00

finally!!!!!!!!

i can finally post sthg on my blog. if you have been faithfully checking back on this blog you'll have noticed tat altho there is an 27th aug entry, you din notice it the previous times you checked.. tats cuz there was an error publishing tat post which says sthg like archive limit exceeded which made me htink my blogging days are gone forever till i open up a new blogging account.

so does this mark the start of my comeback to the blogosphere??? i really dunno. i'm blogging only cuz i'm in school and im' lazy to go cadcam lab to explore solidworks, which i set for myself to do. arrrrgh talk about being developing a disciplined lifestyle. heh.

yes i realised there are many things i wanna talk about right now floating about in my mind.. for eg why am i in school, which points to the fact tat i havent found a job, and also the possibility tat i may stop dancing at least for now.. and.. etc etc mebbe i'll juz list them in pt form and elaborate accordingly. haha

ok why am i in school. i signed up for a dreamweaver workshop, which turned out to be a lecture w no handson. but it was a demonstrative lecture, as he showed us how he did certain things. so tho i din really practice much i guess i'd have some basics if i decide to really delve into the macromedia world (yup i've also some basics in flash ald, thx to cow)

then i also tot to use the printers in teh lib to print out some giro form for my internet connection at home, as the printer in my house is practically non-existent from teh day it died on me. i dunno y, but printers keep dying in my house. this is at least teh 3rd printer tat's died in my house ald. issit hte curse of my house or juz me???

and about 40min later i'm gg to meet brian, my dance partner. i think this mtg may possibly mark the end of yet another failed partnership. sadly, unlike the previous ones, this one failed (more accurately, gg to fail) not becuz of events which led to mutual dislike, but becuz some of my priorities clash w dance. and obviously since we're partners his progress in dance depends on me as well. and as i really dun wan to be an obstacle to his passion i think its only right tat we break partnership. besides in terms of competition results we're not performing very well too. so ya.. i may juz be out of the dancing circle very soon.. will miss dance of cuz, esp when i hear latin dance music, but i guess this is the best solution, at least for now. cuz well i realy dun wanna give up my other priority... hee.

and haiz still no job. why why why................so far i've only gone for interviews from dell and smrt taxis. am i really so lousy?? this fren of mine, kimberly has had 15 interviews so far im' really envious of her. she's had 2 offers but both are offering paltry amounts below 2k. but well its not really surprising cuz i think most of the companies are small enterprises, which i dun really care for anw. so ya i' not taaat jealous yet. =p

i'm really hungry.. think i'll go eat now.. ~ciao

2006-09-11T14:16:00.000+08:00

test

2006-08-27T23:24:00.000+08:00

wow........ its been like 2 months plus since i havent blogged....... i wonder if there are any more pp reading this webbie now..heh..

well for those who havent been keeping in touch w me, and have been wondering which country i have gone touring, the answer is zilch. haha. havent been visiting any places, juz tat my modem died for like close to 2 mths so its kinda inconvenient to blog. and after i finally got my modem set up, i've been lazy to blog.. so only came back now..

many tots and experiences on my mind now..the past 2 months has really been interesting.. i feel that somehow, i have transited into teh next phase of my life - the past is the past. mebbe its got to do with my graduation, but mostly not.. some changes have crept into my life, and tho i'm usually a sentimental person, i welcome these changes, and am expectant of what it brings.

hmmm as my mind goes through wat has happened the last 2 months, i realise there are really many things i can blog about.. like my convocation, and sore lack of interview offers (not a single one, HAIZ.. wats wrong w my job applications..), the many many places i went w my oh-so-lovable pet mouse, the headnshoulders promoter job tat i did (head & shoulders juz added a new shampoo variant into their repertoire, and its called natural shine. contains tea tree oil, hence the nice smell and skincare benefits tat comes along with aromatherapy oils. from wat i noe its the only shampoo w tea tree oil. ok and i wont go further into y everyone shld use H&S Natural Shine.. have been doing tat for 6hours plus every wkend for the past 3 weeks. haa), and, most recently, the very disappointing performance i showed at the lion city dance comp yesterday. really makes me wonder whether i'm suitable to be a dancer after all.. for once, i'm undecided whether to continue dancing. and for once, i shed a tear becuz of dance. juz thinking of it makes me melancholy again. haiz.

time flies.. i shld get back to doing wat im supposed to be doing online, and tats to send resumes. haha. haiz i really hope i can get interviews soon.. hmmm someone juz sent an sms to remind me to trust an unknown future with a known God. Amen. i really thank God for the love tat He has shown me through the pp that he has placed in my life.

anw till the next entry, which hopefully will be posted up soon... hee. ~ciao

2006-08-05T23:47:00.000+08:00

taken from a friend's friendster account..

a ger asked her lover who was gifted with a pair of wings, to spend more time wif her. The lover restricted himself frm flyin. So afraid tat her lover might one day still fly away frm her, the ger asked him again... to give up his freedom to fly n realli settle down wif her. All these yr, the lover wanted to protect himself by keepin his wings as he was being cheated so mani time. Knowing her fear, the lover chopped off his wings even though he was still uncertain if the ger realli wan to settle down wif him anot. Hopping tat she will be his last love n realli settle down wif her. The wings was removed...the lover returned to her days later....but could found oni a note which was left behind for him....." I waited for u for so long, i noe u wun give up ur wings for me. I already left wif someone who dun hav wings"
dun ever make someone fall for u ...when u dun intend to catch him in the 1st place. It is the most terrible thing to do to someone in their life.
One day, u might be the one who is going to fall for someone else who is not there for u at all... maybe u had already fallen...n still thinking tat the one u fallen for will b there for u at the end of the fall. ......mayb not...

dun ever make someone fall for u ...when u dun intend to catch him in the 1st place.
how true.....this is the reason why i'm so bitter.. so hurt..

the least you can do now is to apologise.. but you dun even want to do tat.

2006-08-02T23:14:00.000+08:00

here it comes again......... merry go round.. only this time it isnt so merry.

dunno why i'mfeeling so sad.. isnt this the best way out for us?

i'm wondering if i'm juz making a big fuss out of things.. wat's so bad about someone not caring a hoot for me? not like i dun have any friends. bleah.

yes spring is approaching.. but the cold winter winds are still blowing.. still blowing.. my eyes are threatening to sting..

2006-07-15T00:24:00.000+08:00

dear.. why do you leave me grasping at memories.. that are so elusive...

my heart is broken.. after being torn apart so many many times..

why do you lie to me all these while..? why do you like to lead me on to nothing at the end..?

the necklace.. its colour has gone dull....
woodlands library.. i can never be back there again..

i jus want to hide in the corner.. pls dun disturb me..

dear all: I AM OK. no worries.

2006-07-02T13:17:00.000+08:00

this is again a draft which i typed and din get to post.. i forgot when i typed it..

and again, this is also from another gal's blog.. specifically, shakeyourbooty's blog. think its written by her.. its a beautiful poem. tho its not written by me, i completely agree with it. its basically how i feel..haha yes this is one post tat is not written by me, but which i agree with, unlike the previous post tat i quoted from somebody else. heh.

"To speak of love in its rawest form,

You need to know it true

I write of something and yet realize

That I really have no clue.

Love is not jealous

And definitely not unkind

But a precious treasure

Extremely hard to find.

I see love as a fantastic gift

The best one ever could give

But I think I have not learned

Just how to let love live.

I dismiss comments vehemently

The ones I sometimes hear

That I take love too lightly

Even when I draw one near.

But it frightens me to think

Of giving my heart away

Maybe it’s a subconscious prevention

Of getting it hurt some day.

The strength of love maybe lies in weakness

Of vulnerability

And if I’m willing to offer that

Then you’re the one for me.

The voice of love is one that speaks

When logic screams otherwise

The one that makes one act in ways

Against all other cries.

The feeling of love may overwhelm

But may also die away

And it’s commitment, if it’s been made

That urges one to stay.

And that sat me down to think

Of what I really fear

It’s losing love after commitment’s been made

To one I once held dear.

I don’t know when that day will come

Or if it ever will

A day that I will finally learn

How to love until

You’re in so deep there’s no way out

And yet you feel complete

And fulfilled in all ways possible

Now there is love replete.

To love in a way in which there is

Plenty of room to grow

One in which I am completely myself

Maybe that is how I’d know.

When one becomes a better person

To him, and all around

By dismissing practicality,

With two feet on the ground."

2006-06-22T12:18:00.000+08:00

here's an article from career central june 2006 which i found to be useful. it is about job burnout, a condition whereby pp dread gg to work at the start of everyweek. haha and i actually tot monday blues was unavoidable. anw, i typed all this out lo.. pls at least scan till the end of the post to make my efforts worthwhile.. =p besides thats where the solutions for job burnout are, so it will be worth reading too..

STRETCHED TOO THIN?

"In today's fast-paced world, experiencing job burnout may be a phenomenon which is common and even understandable. as teh pace of globalisation increases, singaporeans ahve to constantly prove their worth in a global marketplace to keep their jobs.

Often, employees stretch themselves beyond breaking point to out-perform their colleagues or to meet the expectations of their employees, in the hope of securing tat promotion or salary increments. there are those who have survived retrenchment, only to find themselves putting in extra hours to cover the work of those who've left.

What is job burnout?
Job burnout occurs when a person pushes himself too hard and subjects himself to stress or long hours of work without taking breaks or sufficient rests. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines burnout as "exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation, usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration".

The causes of job burnout are diverse and different for everyone. even if you are not putting in extra hours at work, you may suffer from burnout if your work does not pique ur interest at all. also experiencing job burnout does not necessarily mean tat you detest your job - it's possible for you to experience burnout even when you're working in your dream job.

Jonathan Yue, 25, who was working as a logistics assistant, shares his job burnout episode. "i used to work in a local firm and truly liked the nature of my job. however, my bosses tended to give me tasks where i had no idea of what i was doing or even why i was made to do them. if the task went fine, that was the end of the matter. but if any problems occurred, i was answerable to them."

Jonathan adds, "at first, i could deal with their work attitude and the way i was treated. however, a few months later, i began to feel more stressed and unhappy. i smoked more and became moody. for the sake of my health, i decided to quit and find a new job."

Symptoms of burnout
Feeling moody and stressed are some symptoms of job burnout. others may feel like skipping work and spend teh day hiding in bed while soe may come to work late, unkempt, fatigued adn irritable. others may waste their time checking mails instead of cleawring up their piling work. you may also experience forgetfulness, random bouts of crying and an inability to concentrate. you feel bored with your work, and cant recall why the job used to appeal to you. even your wonderfully witty colleagues and bosses start to sseem like annoying creatures that simply would not leave you alone.

Gordon Phua, 26, suffered from burnout in his previous job as a programmer because he was severely underpaid. he felt depressed and had to drag himself to work only after a few weeks into his new job. he says, "i simply felt like sleeping. perhaps it was escapism because i wanted to evade the issues that were making me unhappy at work. in the end i quit my job because i could not deal with it. it was simply not good for me."

Burnout solutions
Although Jonathan and Gordon resorted to quitting their jobs, be aware that this is not the long term solution to the problem.

to begin, you have to examine the reasons that may have caused you to feel burned out from your job. Begin by asking yourself the following:

1. When did you start feeling like you are suffering from job burnout? is there a particular period or date?
2. What were the significant events that ignited these feelings? were there any restructuring, retrenchment, change in management, job scope or changes in the industry?
3. where do you feel that you suffer most from job burnout? is it in the office or at home becuz you have to rush out the extra work tat you brought back?

once you have determined the cause(s), it is time to list down the ways you can overcome job burnout
Here are some suggestions that you can adopt to make your like at work a calmer and happier one:

1. Reach out and ask for help. Speak to your boss or colleagues about what you are feeling and ask them for help in resolving hte problems you are facing. your boss for eg, has the power to modify yoru job scope to suit your feedback, extend deadlines where possible and increase your pay if you give justifiable rasons. your colleagues can also help wiht your workload. even if it does not solve your problems, you will find listening ears which may help you feel less depressed about work.

2. switch depts. if you have reached your maximum potential in a job and feel that you are no longer "growing" on the job, it is time to request for new challenges or more responsibilities in the same company.

3. pick up a hobby. you may be feeling the sting of job burnout simply becuz you do not factor in "fun times" into ur hectic life. picking up an exciting hobby like salsa for eg, will help you be refreshed and allow you to tackle your job with new-found exuberance.

4. go on dates. go out with your partner, friends, family members after work or during the weekends and allow yourself to be swept away with social affairs instead of living, htinking and breathing your job. having a break may just make you a better performer.

5. take a holiday. go to a far-off island in the middle of nowhere, clad yourself in beachwear, sip a margarita and allow nature to soothe your frazzled nerves. even a trip to nearby bintan or batam may be the antidote for your burnout.

6. leave time for yourself. whether it is reading or jogging, always have some time to yourself to unwind from a stressful day at work. this will give you peace of mind and leave you recharged mentally and physically. those happier at work are those who have a well-balanced life with time for themselves.

If all else fails, find a new job! it is better to change jobs and even accept a pay reduction if it will return your sanity and make you feel better."

heh heh.. typed this in about half an hour.. so pardon the typos.. =p

2006-06-20T12:37:00.000+08:00

yet another quote: "anger is only a way of punishing oneself for another's misdeeds"

2006-06-19T12:07:00.000+08:00

ok....to everyone who's been reading my blog..i juz wanna clarify.. tat the post "no sex" was not written by me, but by some other gal i happened to chance upon the net. which means, i dun necessarily agree with what she said about not blaming the guy for being pissed off w his wife juz cuz she's not having sex w him. following the blog post are some of the comments posted to TAT blog, which i think are worth noting.. and following the comments are some of the lessons tat i learn from all the comments..lemme post my tots below again, in case some of you are so disgusted by the earlier part of the post tat you dun bother to read to the end.

lessons tat i learnt:

1. post partum depression can make moms resistant to sex
2. post partum depression can result from work overload yet little recognition for the workload.
3. to men, sex is an expression of love, juz like how communication is to women.
4. that is why men feel unloved when their wife refuse to have sex with them, and tend to find sex outside of marriage when it happens.
5. hence, sex is one of the (many) important factors for a successful marriage.
6. however, although sex is a means of expression of love, juz as important as communication, it is not the be all and end all of intimacy between man and wife. Intimacy can be, and shld be, achieved by many other means.
7. also, sex is juz a subset of marriage. There are many things to marriage besides sex, marriage is a convenant to love, no matter wat happens.
8. (hmmm can I then say that sex is a subset of intimacy, which is a subset of marriage??)
9. verdict: as with all other conflicts, both parties have to be understanding towards each other and work together to maintain the good relationship. In this case, the wife has to understand the husband needs sex to feel loved, otherwise the husband might stray, the husband needs to understand tat if the wife does not want sex, it is becuz she is really bogged down by the fatigue of looking after the newborn child ALL DAY, and/or tat she is depressed and hence not in the mood for sex.
10. hence, wat the husband needs to do, is to alleviate her duress by helping her with the chores, and making her feel loved by romancing her, by assuring her with respect to any doubts tat she might have, including but not limited to doubts about her attractiveness.
11. and wat the wife needs to do, is to well, enjoy and delight in the intimacy tat sex brings to the marriage, and not see it as a chore.

and sorry if i have disgusted you by the many times i throw the word "sex" ard, but really, isnt it sthg natural, even sacred between a MARRIED couple? juz cuz it has been abused by so many ignorant teenagers, and single pp who have no reservations about sleeping around, it doesnt deserve to be robbed of its purity and sacredness as the ultimate expression of love between a man and his wife. sex is meant to be exclusive, sacred, wonderful. it is not meant to be abused, taboo nor shameful.

another point, i dunno if you have noticed, but i'm definitely not promoting sex as the ONLY way to have a successful marriage. note points 6, 7, and 8 in the paragraph above.

so there. hope this post clears all misunderstanding.. haiz. so many feathers ruffled for nothing.

2006-06-15T00:15:00.000+08:00

came across this blog post.. guess this wld be one of the probs tat most of us wld be facing a few years down the road.. its worth a few tots..posted some of the comments which i tot was worth looking at too..

go here to access the blog itself.

"No Sex

I had lunch with a guy I work with who told me the unwelcome information that his new wife, who just had a baby, hasn't had sex with him for 8 months now. She didn't want to have sex while she was pregnant, which he didn't like, but assumed would end when she was no longer pregnant. There was nothing physically wrong with her, and no doctor made this reccomendation, she just decided that's the way it would go down, so to speak.

It's been five months now, since the baby was born. She's fine, the baby's fine, and she still won't have sex with him. He told me that he feels like he is falling out of love with her. If they don't have sex, he doesn't feel like he's in love anymore.

I can't wait to read the screaming comments I get on this blog post but here's the deal, I take his side in this. His wife is lucky enough to be a full time stay at home mom, while he is working 12 hour days, so I just don't buy that she is too tired, and furthermore (here's where I'll be really unpopular) so what?

You heard me. So what?

I am tired of women who marry a guy, expect him to be faithful, and then refuse to have sex with him, and then act all surprised when he wants to end the relationship.

Every sex expert out there will tell you that men bond through sex. Cuddling is what that do when they can't have sex, or want to get to sex. If you don't have sex with the guy in your life, he stops loving you.

And I don't blame him.

Sure, your his partner and his friend and his confident and a lot of other things but if you married him, you made him promise to have sex with you and only you, and if you don't have sex with him, you are a terrible wife, and he may very well leave you.

And I don't blame him.

Marriage is a deal. Sex was part of the deal. When you break the deal, don't be surprised if he breaks the deal, because the fact is, you broke the deal first.

Now go ahead and start yelling at me."

and the comments:

"An idea, remember what attracted each other and then never forget it. Don't let that flame go out. and, as far as relationships, anyway, learn and share everything together. Be each others best friend and always be there for each other."

"Wow. I agree with all the moms out there, as I am a mom of two myself. No childless person, or even a parent of a baby that is on a "perfect schedule" has any idea how much getting up every 2hours through the night only can affect your daytime mood and happiness. Then throw in the fact that SAHM get very little validation for any work they do...and bam you are ripe for low self esteem and depression. I really agree with the poster that talked about things in life taking away sex temporarily (cancer, babies, depression,etc). If you love your partner then you see there is more to any person than their sexual parts. intimacy is built into healthy relationships in so many other ways. NO ONE should ever feel they need to do something they don't want to do. I am more outraged by the response posts to this than the actual blog. Dont bargain with sex. to withhold, or to unwillingly "put out" is wrong. Sex is to be enjoyed its not a tool to use to punish or keep any person. They need help with their marriage...not sex"

"Maybe if the husband during his FREE time, instead of doing something fun -went HOME and took care of the baby so that his wife could get some UNINTERRUPTED sleep. There is no greater libido killer than RESENTMENT! I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that during hubby's down time he isn't helping his wife at all and only thinking about himself. I personally, would rather have my two front teeth pulled than give one minute of PLEASURE to a man that I was ready to kill because he was do DAMN SELFISH. I don't even need to know the whole story. The mere fact that he's male and the wife doesn't want to have sex with him (and I'm guessing he is young) pretty much tells me exactly what is going on. Why do all men have such a hard time learning that if you want your wife to want you, surprise! YOU NEED TO MAKE IT GOOD FOR HER! All women love sex. There is either a hormone problem or her husband sucks in bed. When it's done right, that is, and not by the 3 minute wonder."

"First of all, the Grrl Genius isn't trying to steal this man... don't you people bother to read her posts? Or are you too lazy... so lazy that having a couple of kids is all you can handle in life. I've got two children, a full time job, and yes, it can be exhausting. But I have a great sex life with my husband. What sort of marriage would I have if I didn't even want to make love for eight months? BD"

"As a gay man, I believe I've done a little more research in this area than most of you. To a man, sex is an expression of love, the way communication is an expression of love to a woman. If a man refused to speak to you for eight months, you would certainly feel unloved, no matter what his excuse. Refusing sex for eight months sends your man the clear message that you don't love him. That's what this is all about."

"You know, in the past, I'd have disagreed with you. But now I'm living with a roommate whose dating life consists almost exclusively of providing sex that men aren't getting in their marriage. (They also, incidentally, often begin such relationships by having just the type of discussion you had with your co-worker.) Now I realize that it's much easier for a man to go looking elsewhere for sex than it is for him to work on any problems that may be causing the "dry spell." There are plenty of women who are happy to provide it.

So I agree, not with the principle of what you're saying, but with the facts: it's laughably easy for a man to first find someone who is sympathetic to his unhappiness (and does not care about his wife's side), and then will provide what he feels he is lacking. You may think of it as an expression of love and feeling close to each other, but he can and will get it from someone he neither loves nor feels close to.

Trust me."

"I think you are an absolute idiot!!! There is a lot more to marriage than sex. Does "for better or for worse" ring a bell? I think that you and your friend both throw the word divorce around like it's nothing. If he wasn't committed to his wife in the beginning then he shouldn't have married her. But he did and he has to realize that marriage goes a whole lot deeper than sex. What if one of them had some sort of an accident that prevented them from having sex again!?! Would you say divorce is the answer? I can't tell you how much it urks me listening to people like you who obviously don't have a clue what a real deep committed relationship is built of. Oh, and finally, this guy shouldn't be talking to you about this....he should be talking to his wife. Hearing about it from a third party (YOU) is completely unreliable because you don't know the half of it. It's none of your business and you shouldn't be giving him advice. You don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"If we can all agree that IF there is no medical problem (POST PARTUM), then she is heading for "other" problems because men DO equate sex to intimacy. And to all the mothers out there, "For better or worse" means things that are OUT OF YOUR CONTROL and sex isn't one of them. Why all the accusations towards women like us who are not married? We are just telling you the absolute truth, they will go somewhere else - even the good ones - don't KID yourself. And why all the screaming at Grrl Genius? They are co-workers who are friends. Better yet to talk about it to someone than act on it with someone. I know as well as everyone else here, women use sex as a weapon and if they take it to such a degree, men will retaliate. You may not like it, but is is the way the world is. I have a hard time believing all these moms who claim that it's because of the babies. I'm going to bet they weren't that hot to trot to begin with. All this man-bashing is a joke when it is women who have the biggest sexual hang-ups. Single, 38"

"The problem is that married guys only see the goal-sex. They figure just because they are married the wife has to do it. Well, if the guy would stop being hung up with the fact that his wife isn't 'putting out' and start trying to romance her again, maybe he wouldn't have that problem. She needs to feel beautiful, but she might feel ugly and useless because she feels she is failing him. But truthfully, he is failing her. He needs to be more mature about the situation and focus on her needs. There is always two sides to a story, don't judge her, she is a new mother. Everything is new to her, obviously. He must also be new at this, so someone should explain things to him. Sometimes we see only the thing affecting us and not the other party. He needs to listen up!"

lessons tat i learnt:

1. post partum depression can make moms resistant to sex
2. post partum depression can result from work overload yet little recognition for the workload.
3. to men, sex is an expression of love, juz like how communication is to women.
4. that is why men feel unloved when their wife refuse to have sex with them, and tend to find sex outside of marriage when it happens.
5. hence, sex is one of the (many) important factors for a successful marriage.
6. however, although sex is a means of expression of love, juz as important as communication, it is not the be all and end all of intimacy between man and wife. Intimacy can be, and shld be, achieved by many other means.
7. also, sex is juz a subset of marriage. There are many things to marriage besides sex, marriage is a convenant to love, no matter wat happens.
8. (hmmm can I then say that sex is a subset of intimacy, which is a subset of marriage??)
9. verdict: as with all other conflicts, both parties have to be understanding towards each other and work together to maintain the good relationship. In this case, the wife has to understand the husband needs sex to feel loved, otherwise the husband might stray, the husband needs to understand tat if the wife does not want sex, it is becuz she is really bogged down by the fatigue of looking after the newborn child ALL DAY, and/or tat she is depressed and hence not in the mood for sex.
10. hence, wat the husband needs to do, is to alleviate her duress by helping her with the chores, and making her feel loved by romancing her, by assuring her with respect to any doubts tat she might have, including but not limited to doubts about her attractiveness.
11. and wat the wife needs to do, is to well, enjoy and delight in the intimacy tat sex brings to the marriage, and not see it as a chore.

2006-06-14T14:50:00.000+08:00

"people may not remember what you did for them, or even what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel."

tat is so true.......

2006-06-07T20:58:00.000+08:00

juz to update on a previous post regarding my results, well i passed everythign!! thank God.. really.. i really wldnt hve been surprised if i din pass everything..

yup altho the results were far from ideal, with lots of Cs and even 1 D, i'm still qte happy.. cuz me passing means i stil have a chance at getting an honours, however small tat may be. and even if i really dun get any honours, well at least i saved an extra sem and the financial and time costs tat wld go along with it.

but well the only black spot is tat i seem to be doing badly for all my fav subjects, which happen to be the ones i'd be depending on when i'm applying for jobs tat i wld prefer. heh. but its okie, im sure He would bring me through. =)

2006-06-07T20:17:00.000+08:00

a quiet fire burns deep within me,
its so deep you cant see.

but have faith and do not doubt,
even tho my passion is in shroud

patience is but everywhere,
juz be brave and its in your hands.

take hold of it,
and one day you'll see

the fire deep within.

2006-05-29T17:51:00.000+08:00

I AM BACK!!!! yesh no worries my dear readers, all's well with the queen of - err... which word rhymes with "well"... err dell?? since i'm applying for position in dell.. ok nvm.. all's well with your favourite belle :p

yup, have been so busy since the end of exams. which is ironic isnt it? im' supposed to be having my holidays now.

but i guess, precisely its my holidays, tats y i've been gg out with friends more often.. but cuz i'm also having my GE, and tying up the loose ends of my fyp, im' really up to teh neck with activities.

lets see.. what have i done in teh past 2 weeks? oh wait, its actually 3 weeks since the end of the exams... been so caught up in activities that i've lost track of time..

hmmmm i went out with mouse, rainne, serene, jeffrey, shao, long, xiu, angelus and the ny clique, raymond, dawn, ruizhen, michael, and attended a bday party of one of my dance frens.. Not in order of preference, choronological sequence, frequency or anything else. hmmm did i miss anyone out??? and more to come include jc gathering, church camp, gg out with yugui, and my twinkie group. haha i seem to be gg out alot.. but actually for most of the pp in teh list i hve only gone out w them once in teh last 3 weeks. yup.. so have room for more, so dun let anything stop you from having a catch up session w me ya? hee......but hmm do let me noe a week in advance, so i can leave tat time slot for you. :)

oops i sound like i think i'm so popular.. disclaimer: tat is not the case.. i'm really juz an antisocial, weird and dao brat who really needs to do less things alone. haha.

moving on from meeting up with frens, i have also recently juz got a new hairstyle (haha i paid $126 to have a neater head of hair), started (but not ended, hee!) shopping in the GSS (great singapore sale, for the uninitiated) , gone back to dancing (learnign waltz every tues and fri now, ooooh i'm so excited at teh tot of it!), and started a regular swimming routine. i'm aiming for at least once everyweek, but so far only 2 weeks have passed so i cant really comment on my consistency yet haha.

hmmm after the stock take i realise why i feel like i have been neglectign my work.. becuz tat is really the case!! haha....not tat i havent been doing my fyp and ge, of cuz, in fact those 2 are the reasons why i'm back in school now.. bleah. have been busy with fyp even after the presentation cuz of some modifications required by my moderator. then needed to submit my abstract to the library as well.. as for my ge, needed to do presentation, write up, which is due very soon but which i havent done. haa.

not tat i'm complainign about my GE tho.. cuz seems lke we've got a watered down version of the GE as compared to the sessions held in normal term. (i'm taking it now, which is the special sem I) compared to the normal sessions, which got much less presentatins and essays to write (juz one presentation and essay to write for me), but more field trips. in the short span of 4 weeks, we've had 3 days of field trips, and in those 3 days 5 destinations. ie Urban Redevelopment Authority, Jurong Town Corporation Summit, Biopolis@one north, the industrial estates under JTC, and Jurong Island. really enjoyed myself in those field trips, they were so informative. i feel like i noe more about sg now.. there's more to this tiny red dot on teh map than juz shoppign centres, schools, housing estates.. offices.. i've a *slightly* wider perspective of the urban landscape in sg now (the ge's title is sthg like "urban planning and landscapign sg")

speaking of which, i even discovered that there're FREE HOLLYWOOD movie screenings at biopolis auditorium every month! ya they managed to convert the auditorium into a movie theatre..with good sound, good seats (no lovers' seats tho). and its really free admission, even for the public. i even saw a teenage couple there lo. obviously not biopolis staff. not bad ya.. juz tat biopolis, which is at buona vista, is a bit far for pp who live in teh east, and also teh movies they show wil most likely be those tat were screened slightly earlier.. for eg they screened juz like heaven 3 days ago. teh movie was shown islandwide somewhere in dec last year. oh i muz mention the parks in biopolis too.. in the daytime they make biopolis a great place to work in, and in teh night time, its juz perfect for a quiet stroll with erm a good company. cuz the landscaping is good, and cuz its on top of a hill you get a fairly good view downhill, which is the buona vista/holland v area. the ambience is juz right for a bit of waltz-ing, heh heh..oh click here to check the schedule of the movie screenings.. oh i realise they show the world cup too. heh heh.. do go and check the place out if you have time and happen to be in the west area..

wow i have blogged so much.. i think i shld get back to writing my resume for dell, and gettign started on the writeup for my ge.. heh heh.. and of cuz, prepare for my presentation for tmr morning.. urrgh its strange how i'm always bloggign when i'm supposed to be busiest with work. heh..

take care guys.. till the next post..

2006-05-12T20:02:00.000+08:00

i feel sad............

why do i feel so sad.......

why am i hanging on????

not like i havent been through this before..

why do i feel worse this time...

but.. i'm okie.. no point being not ok...

2006-05-06T13:25:00.000+08:00

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!EXAMS OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!

finally my exams are over............besides 3 papers spread out over 2 weeks, i also survived 3 consecutive days of papers.. fluids, management of product development and electrics/electronics (epm).. all heavy weight papers mind you.... hmmm but sadly i think i have a HIGH chance of failing the last two ones.. cuz by the end of my fluids, i was already in holiday mood.. dunno y, was quite tired out by the fluids, so din really have the drive to continue on with prod devt and epm. and the worse thing was, i felt tat the epm paper was easy.. so i guess many pp's gonna score very well and becuz of the bell curve (which helps us most times but harms us sometimes), i'm gonna fail it. arrrgh!!! gonna lose my honours, at the last lap. haiz. more time and money gonna be spent too. if my school fees were like in $50 per sem, of cuz i wldnt be upset. but we're talking about a few thousands here... =(

shucks y am i so negative. cannot cannot..cannot be negative..if so negative then how to find job? hmmm but actually i'm not being negative, i'm juz being realistic.and actually i'm not really bothered by it lar, cuz i always noe He has a good plan for me, plans to prosper me, and not harm me. =) but its juz tat i dun like to deceive myself tat things are nice and perfect, i uphold authenticity, within ourselves, within our relationships and within our perspectives. to be realistic is to face truth headon, and not to deceive ourselves or run away from problems. but tats where the similarity with pessimism ends. becuz facing truth does not mean being intimidated by it. it does not mean losing hope.

hmmm i seem to be contradicting a recent post of mine. but well, it takes courage to face the truth.. sometimes i have enough, sometimes i dun. haaa..but i noe watever probs tat i m running away from, i have to face it sooner or later.

ehh wld like to blog more, in the mood to do so but gotta go off now.. till the next entry~

2006-04-22T19:51:00.000+08:00

i think im getting flabby... and fat........ at the wrong areas. arrgh. one of my frens commented that one good thing about exams is that they help us to lose weight. tats not true for me. i need to munch when i'm stressed, tats y i need tidbits when studying. which also means, if i were to study outside, i'd prefer to study in cafes/canteens rather than in libraries.

and i wanna say, i din forget.. im juz protecting myself..

2006-04-21T23:48:00.000+08:00

how long more???? how long more before this exam ends???

these few days, i have gained some experiences, experiences of how far 300km is, and how hard a wooden block feels to a soft warm heart.

i have underestimated my knowledge of fluids. i look at my notes and discover many alien things. i spur myself to make sense of them, i implore my notes to let me understand them, both to no avail.

it is at times like these that my mind wanders, and my heart follows. but they are both lost, or rather, they do not want to find themselves, for they are afraid of answering questions. eg, questions that ask them to find the pressure at the end of the adiabatic pipe with friction (tats a fanno flow, btw), and other types of questions.

numbness sets in...........i shall attempt to befriend my fluids notes again.

2006-04-07T19:42:00.000+08:00

phew! today has been a tumultous day for me. but thanks to His grace and providence, everything was sorted out in teh end.

it started off with a disgusting sight i saw on my way to school. was on my way to teh bus-stop and through my peripheral vision, saw this little boy (i presume) doing his business by the side of the pavement i was walking on. he had his shorts pulled down to about his knees (cldnt ascertain the details cuz upon noticing the sight, i immediately pretended to be too busy smsing to realise anything) but the worse thing was, he was facing the pavement, not away from it in a half squatting position. means if i actually turned my head in his direction (which i definitely din, of cuz) i wld have an almost full frontal view of everything. my goodness. in fact actually i cant really say he cld be excused by his juvenility cuz i seemed to see sthg black down there, means he shld have been past puberty???! on the other hand his height was like a child. but well, i shall give him the benefit of the doubt. but anw thankfully i only had a v unclear view through the corner of my eye, and it only lasted for less than sec cuz i immediately looked away so din see anything. so only suffered minimal visual pollution. heh. but strangely i was abnormally calm, when i shdnt be, cuz in a way i was almost exposed to indecent behaviour by some adult male??? i juz pretended to be oblivious and continued walking to the bus-stop
w/out missing a beat. in fact when i got to the bus-stop i saw a lady looking at me, with juz a slight hint of weird expression on her face but i continued to pretend nothing was amiss. a while later i stole a glance back at where i spotted the sight, but thankfully i was spared teh awkward sight cuz the "child" was no longer there. for a moment i tot mebbe i was imagining things but a subsequent whiff of the smell of fertilizers confirmed otherwise. heh. oh well. i really do hope it was a boy there, but still, given his height he shld be at least 9 yrs old? tat's ald too old for doing business in public isnt it? and i hope he din cause any stress to any other lady.

soon after i got on the bus, my nose started behaving like a malfunctioned tap. kept on sneezing and blowing my nose. thankfully i ate lunch shortly after, so gained some energy to prevent it from being worse.

i got to school and started to finish up my fyp project. in fact i juz needed to type the contents page, print the whole thing out, photocopy the appendix, and bind the whole lot together. i estimated a maximum of 1 hour to do tat, but in the end it took me 3 whole hours. why? cuz

firstly, i discovered that detection of my thumbdrive by my comp was lost midway. i couldnt save teh work that i opened from my thumbdrive, neither back into the thumbdrive, nor onto the desktop. the comp kept telling me that there was insufficient space to do tat. subsequently i discovered that the things in my thumbdrive all disappeared. immediately i tot the thumbdrive i was using had been corrupted, AGAIN. (yes its the 2nd time that happened to me in a sem, and no this wasnt the thumbdrive tat died on me the first time. haiz dunno y i keep having this thing with thumbdrives.) i also realised i may not be able to submit my report today after all. i cld still print the thigns that were open on the comp, but there were other things to be included tat was lost together with the rest of the data in the thumbdrive. so i had to redo them, and i wld take at least 3 hours to do that, which is more than the time i had to submit the report. so i called up my prof and told him teh "good" news. well he sounded ok about me extending the deadline (again), not angry at all. i'm thinking whether he was hiding any daggers behind tat frenly exterior, like "yeah be a bad gal for all you want, i'll juz deduct marks from your report when i mark it" or was it juz cuz he was too used to my bad gal behaviour and was expecting me to extend the deadline anw?

and together with teh prob of not being able to submit my fyp on time, was the complication that actually this thumbdrive wasnt mine.. it was lent to me by someone (to provide a temporary substitution for tat first thumbdrive tat died on me) and all his stuff was inside! i was qte lost then, and needed some help. initially wanted to call him, but he's been kinda busy lately and i have this feeling he wldnt really like to be disturbed so din really feel inclined to trouble him unless absolutely necessary. so i called up my project mate, and he suggested that i get another thumbdrive and save the work tat was open on the comp before it got lost as well, and to try the dead thumbdrive on another comp to see if the data can be read there. as i was alone and thus had no one else to borrow thumbdrive from, he helped me borrow a thumbdrive from his fren who was in the lib as well.

so i got another thumbdrive, but it wasnt of much use cuz again there wasnt enough memory to save it into the thumbdrive. and things took a turn for the worse when again the comp suddenly cldnt detect the new thumbdrive even tho it was plugged into the comp. it disappeared from windows explorer altogether, altho the hardware was still happily blinking away from the comp's usb port. somehow i also cldnt "safely remove" it from the comp. which means, i'm stuck with another possibly dead thumbdrive, which again, wasnt mine. =S i called up my proj mate again and this time he was at a loss too. for a moment i really cldnt think of wat else to do, then, i tot mebbe i cld log off and hopefully the comp can regenerate the data in the thumbdrives tat were plugged into it. and tats wat i did, and thank goodness, the new thumbdrive recovered =D. but my fren's thumbdrive still seemed empty =|however, this time, i cld safely remove both of them.

i changed comp and voila! both the thumbdrives cld be read!! all the data tat appeared missing was back in where they were supposed to be. felt it was truly God's grace tat made this happen, i was really thankful for tat.

so i began to do up the content page again (since the work i did on teh other comp was lost) and started to print my report out. but probs kept occurring (like empty cashcard, wrong print jobs, etc), causing delays, however they were easily solved/taken care of. i made ALOT of trips to and from the printing machine, and wiped out my cashcard in less than an hour. i spent about $35, and got 1 colour copy and 2 b/w copies of my report, which had slightly over 70 pages each, and about 20 pages of rough paper (the result of wrong print jobs).

but by the time i was done, it was ald 6pm, my prof had gone home. cldnt submit it to the general office either, as it was closed. so can only submit it on monday, which means i have to specially come back juz to submit the report to my prof, cuz my lessons have ended. haiz. all the way to ntu juz to hand in something... if i had other things to do in the west it wldnt be tat bad actually.. but oh well i guess life's like tat.

yupz tats all for today.. had to endure a drippign nose teh whole time too. but at the same time i also experienced His providence, not juz in the thumbdrive fiasco but also in teh other less major probs tat i encountered today..for eg there was once i had a print job which cost $6.30, and the balance in my cash card read $6.40. it was jus nice loh. somehow, i juz kinda felt it was miraculous. =D

so yeah, tot i shld thank and praise Him for today before leaving school, and hence this entry. started writing 2 hours ago, but feel its worth it. thank You Father, for Your faithfulness and providence and companionship. i know i'll never starve with You around, and even tho i forget sometimes, You're still here looking out for me. Father i pray that You'll constantly remind me of Your love, may i fear and revere You, and worship You in the way tat is pleasing in Your eyes. thank You for always listening to my prayers, in teh name of Jesus Christ, amen.

2006-04-02T21:37:00.000+08:00

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out.
Your heart is open to where ever love takes you!

Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out

Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking

What turns you off: fighting and conflict

Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

2006-04-02T21:17:00.000+08:00

of late, i have been thinking about cutting my hair short. and changing my hairstyle in the process. tats cuz i cant stand my frizzy ends.. was hoping the short length will concentrate the nutrients tat is sent to my hair, and thus hope tat my hair will be smoother, with less kinks and frizzes. cuz tats wat happened to a fren of mine.. her hair had split ends and stuff.. but due to some reasons, she decided to cut it all off.. to a shoulder length. she stayed with this hairstyle for several months, refusing even to grow it out for dance. but when she did become too busy to go teh hairdresses, she discovered wat grew out was a head of hair tat is so soft.. so smooth.. so dreamlike. and i want tat kind of hair!!!! so ya. wanna cut it short.

but its a good hair day today, and suddenly i felt like letting my hair grow grow grow.. till my waist. imagine having smooth, straight hair tat reaches till the waist.. tat is so feminine!

hmmmm but tat is juz a passing tot. firstly cuz i think i'm too short for hair of such length and secondly, i muz admit i have more bad hair days than good ones, so i really need the haircut. heh. besides i dun really like to have too long a head of hair. cuz well it looks tooooooo tame. i htink im' tame enough, dun wanna appear to be more tame than i ald am. otherwise i'll be bullied by pp. haaa. seriously dunno why i suddenly for a moment wanted long long hair.

crazy me.

2006-03-31T01:14:00.000+08:00

referring to laser beams, my m462 prof said today, "There will always divergence, it is just whether you can tolerate it."

and it struck me, how full of truth tat sentence was....

2006-03-28T23:25:00.000+08:00

why am i doing this to myself...??

2006-03-27T18:44:00.000+08:00

juz wanna drop a note of appreciation to all those who have egged me on to finish my fyp asap from time to time.. thanks guys, i will. =D

2006-03-25T22:10:00.000+08:00

"The ancients used to convey "love" with a combination of three pictographs.

The overall construction of the word is deeply meaningful when one considers how the pictographs for "breath" and "heart" are positioned above the "friend" pictograph.

Is this because we believe love to be a breath of life to the heart, built on a foundation of friendship?"

~ from www.tigerbeer.de

2006-03-24T01:42:00.000+08:00

if i am a material, i guess i wld...

have a very low modulus of elasticiy..

have a very low yield strength..

exhibit a high amount of plastic deformation...

be approaching necking point..

and be prone to strain hardening.

as for my tensile strength.. well.. i really dun wanna noe....ever.

2006-03-21T01:54:00.000+08:00

Your Eyes Should Be Violet

Your eyes reflect: Mystery and allure

What's hidden behind your eyes: A quiet passion

What Color Should Your Eyes Be?

ya! tats it! a quiet passion... i like. =)

hmmmm but i htink purple pupils look a bit scary. hehz...

2006-03-21T01:27:00.001+08:00

Your Birthdate: January 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations.
You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you.
Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans.
You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot.

Your strength: Your ability to gain respect

Your weakness: Caring too much what others think

Your power color: Orange-red

Your power symbol: Letter X

Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

aiya i super no confidence one.. heh.. and i dun get bored by mundane tasks.. i'd rather have boring jobs than stressful jobs anytime manz. heh. hmmm and shld i change my name to Xylvia????? hahahhaa............hmmm idea eh..

2006-03-21T01:27:00.000+08:00

Your Birthdate: January 10

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

2006-03-16T03:21:00.000+08:00

doubts. fears. low confidence. disappointment. asphyxiation. wild tots. fears again.
disillusioned.

pain...in the shoulder and.. somewhere else..

2006-03-16T02:29:00.000+08:00

from the blog of a fren of jasmine's:

"Desperate and helpless and longing, I cried.
Patiently, lovingly, my Lord replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate;
And the Master so gently said,
'Child, you must wait.'

'Wait? You said wait?' my indignant reply.
'Lord, I need answers. I need to know why.'
Is Your hand shortened or have You not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming Your Word.

'My future and all to which I can relate.
Hangs in the balance, and You tell me wait.
I'm needing a yes, a go-ahead sign,
Or even a no to which I can resign.

'And Lord, You promised that if we believe
We need but to ask and we shall receive.
And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry,
I'm weary of asking, I need a reply.'

Then quietly, softly, I learnt of my fate
As my Master replied once again, 'You must wait.'
So I slumped in my chair defeated and thought,
and grumbled to God, 'so I'm waiting for what?'

He seem then to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And He tenderly said, 'I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun;
I could raise the dead, cause the mountains to run.

'All you seek I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.
You'd not know the depths of My love for each saint;
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

'You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.

You'd never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove.
You'd know that I give and I save, for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

'The glow of My comfort late in the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked of an infinite God
Who makes what you have last.

'And you'd never know, should your pain quickly free,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dreams for that loved one overnight may come true,
But oh the loss if I lost what I'm doing in you.

'So be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though often may My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious of all is still, Wait."

2006-03-12T20:37:00.000+08:00

darn. and i told myself i'll get back to my laptop before nightfall.

2006-03-12T20:32:00.000+08:00

What Your Face Says

At first glance, people see you as warm and well-balanced.

Overall, your true self is reserved and logical.

With friends, you seem logical, detached, and a bit manipulative.

In love, you seem mysterious and interesting.

In stressful situations, you seem sad and helpless.

What Do People Think Of Your Face?

hmmm really??? and i tot i was like an open book.. so boring. and i'm logical and detached meh?? and i always tot pp think i look dao.. haa..

2006-03-12T20:13:00.000+08:00

You Are Likely a Second Born

At your darkest moments, you feel inadequate.
At work and school. you do best when you're evaluating.
When you love someone, you offer them constructive criticism.

In friendship, you tend to give a lot of feedback - positive and negative.
Your ideal careers are: accounting, banking, art, carpentry, decorating, teaching, and writing novels.
You will leave your mark on the world with art and creative projects.

The Birth Order Predictor

right about the 2nd born.. heh.. and looks like i m really in the wrong course..

2006-03-12T20:05:00.000+08:00

You Are 30% Boyish and 70% Girlish

Even if you're not a girl, you're very feminine.
You're in touch with your feelings, and your heart rules you.
A bit of a emotional roller coaster, one moment you're up and the next you're down.
But no matter what, you try to be as cute and perky as possible.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

and i tot i was more boyish... i think i grew to be more girly over the years.. or shld i say.. more womanly.. heh heh..

2006-03-12T00:44:00.000+08:00

Today is a happy day.. cuz I met 2 of the few pp that I like most.. hehe.

I finally met rainne today, after weeks of saying that we'll meet each other. Really had a good time catching up with her, and glad tat her crazy working hours hasn't caused her to look any less pretty than she was before she graduated. But more importantly, im glad that months of not meeting up hasnt eroded the frenship between us, despite our shared characteristic of being "high maintenance" in relationships (that means we need to keep contact with pp often to stay connected to them). But it was a pity that we cld only meet for 2 hours tho, otherwise we cld have shared more. The blame goes to my fyp. Haiz.

Anw, we ate lunch at subway. Its having a promotion.. if you order the "hot" sandwich, which is basically the same sandwich but toasted, you'll get a free upgrade to the meal, which includes a drink, and either 2 cookies or 1 pack of chips.

After the wonderful lunch, I went home for a short while to do my fyp before meeting him. Havent been meeting him too often nowadays, as he is ultra busy these few weeks - and of cuz I haven't been too free either, wat with my fyp and 7 other deadlines in 3 weeks..faintz. And hey I din noe that if we put 2 asterisks around a word, tat word becomes bold in Microsoft Word, and juz to digress, the French name for "word" is mot, and back to the topic on hand - yup he is indeed really so busy his days are super duper packed. So packed that one sms per day is the max that he can send to 8133 xxxx. So mentally tired that he forgets how nice small hands can feel. And so fatigued that holding more than one file in his hands is a problem. Haiz, he is so ke lian now. And he has to endure this for at least 2 more weeks.. or shld I say he has to endure this for another 2 months. Cuz after 2 weeks the heat will still be on, juz tat it will come from another place. But i'm sure he will emerge stronger, yes? And yes I have to endure these 2 months too.. and actually I’m kinda apprehensive about wat happens beyond these 2 months.. will I get a job I like? Will I even get a job in the first place?

Anw, back to the topic of meeting him..i keep digressing. we had wanted to watch a movie, but strangely there wasnt any good timing for the movies we wanted to watch. And there were no other decent movies when we went. So we decided to just shop around for his shoes, but tat was a fruitless trip too. Like the last few times tat we met up, he was deadbeat and needed to find a place to stone. and since I wasn’t hit by the shopping urge then, we wandered around.. wandered, wandered and wandered to wheelock place. Cldnt find any nice stoning places, so the next natural thing to do was to eat dinner. We ate sakae sushi, and he treated me. For no special occasion, and even tho we have exceeded the mid-class food consumption rate that he'd prefer to have. Thanks dear, that's sweet of you..

And of cuz I ate my favourite japanese dish.. the fried tofu in some sauce and garnished by fish flakes (so I was told). Wld eat it whenever I have the chance. A pity it seems that we dun share the same food taste, so he cldnt appreciate it as much as I did. But well I din really appreciate sashimi too.

Yup tats about all tat we did…we went home after the dinner. I mean, he sent me back home, before meeting his client. tats another nice thing he did today. So for today we spent a short but precious 3 hours.. which translates to a short but precious 6 hours for this week.

The green tea icecream was eaten fairly quickly. But why use allegory? Shy? Din wanna cause hurt? or juz dun wanna face up to the truth?

2006-03-10T18:30:00.000+08:00

and happy birthday to my mom!

2006-03-10T18:28:00.000+08:00

You Should Be With a Water Sign!

Your best match is a Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces

Why? You crave intimacy and connection in your relationship
And while most guys can't open up enough for you, a Water Sign can
Not that you're whole relationship will be soul gazing
A Water Sign matches your goofy sense of humor - and desire to help others.

What Sign Should You Date?

wow........ this is interesting..... very interesting indeed... heh.......

2006-03-10T17:59:00.000+08:00

You Are a Skin Deep Sweetheart

You may be supermodel gorgeous or a plain Jane.
It really doesn't matter, because you're confident and secure.
You don't go out looking like a slob, but you are low maintenance.
You have better things to worry about than whether your nails are the right shade!

Are You Obsessed With Your Looks?

yup i agree.. hehe..

2006-02-24T20:56:00.000+08:00

hello kitty airlines

tat's it. if ever i go japan, i'll take the taiwanese Eva Air!

2006-02-24T19:30:00.000+08:00

currently in teh library... hungry.. tired.. stressed.. eurrgh. and trying not to feel faint.. =S