sobs…

The symptoms were all there I suppose… It no longer ran as fast, was plagued with persistent problems, fainted a couple of times… Guess it’s about time…

My trusty ol’ laptop died… I don’t really know how it happened. It was still fine 2 days ago. Didn’t touch it yesterday cause I was too tired. But I think it was because I installed an update and when I tried to start it up this morning, I got the DEADLY BLUE SCREEN!!! Sigheth… and it’s a public holiday today… so can’t seem to get the computer repair men that I know.

I’ve spent many nights with my trusty ol’ laptop. Churning out papers, mugging for exams, watching and laughing at xman videos, chatting late into the night, completing many games and even spent 5 months with me in Switzerland, being my gateway back home… I’ve been trying to will it to work. But it’s still not responding. Sigh.. I’ll miss it.  

Am just thinking if it would be worth it to repair or to just get a new computer. Another laptop? or a desktop? Given that a desktop is much more stable, but i’ll lose out on portability. But I don’t really need to move my computer around since I’m at work everyday and only need it. Plus, a desktop is cheaper as well. Decisions. Cause I guess even if the laptop can be repaired, I would probably want to replace a few things like the hard disk, the processor speed and stuff which makes getting a new one more practical. Sigh.. if only my laptop can awaken from its coma now…

Cats…

I just came back from watching ‘Cats’ at the Esplanade Theatre a couple of hours ago. Thanks so much for the invitation! It’s a production with very nicely choreographed and coordinated dances, with fun and catchy songs. In my opinion, it’s a rather ‘light’ production compared to other heavyweight musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. But I enjoyed the show very much and the songs are now echoing in my head. I’m actually rewatching some scenes on youtube. Hahaha… nice memories… 

When I first heard that Cats was going to be staged in Singapore, I wasn’t super keen on catching it cause I didn’t feel like it. Maybe cause I didn’t really know the story (and I still don’t think there is a very strong one). But now that I’ve seen it, I would probably wanna catch it the next time it comes again. It’s a happy kinda show and I really liked the songs and the dancing. The performers were all so sleek and feline-liked. I especially liked the dance scene for ‘The Jellicle Ball’. They were all so coordinated and very very graceful. 

As mentioned earlier, I didn’t feel like there is a strong storyline and I don’t see a protagonist in this production even though it is about the cat ‘Grizabella’. Instead, the parts were rather spread out among a few cast members who had their own solos and dance sequence. It just got a bit hard to differentiate the cats after a while cause they look rather alike.  

Hmmm… wish another musical can be staged here soon. I wouldn’t mind if Lion King comes… or maybe Wicked the Musical. I heard they are pretty good productions, but I haven’t had the chance to catch them yet.

Walk Away – Kelly Clarkson

I’m bored, i got this off facebook and decide to put it on my blog so less people can read about it… 

1. Put your iTunes/Napster/Zune Player/WinAmp/etc on shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

4. Tag 10 or more friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got it from.

——————————————————–
IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY?” YOU SAY?
孙悟空 – Mayday

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
怕 – Kary Ng

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Wake Me Up When September Ends – Greenday

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
사랑이 오지 않아요 – Junjin 

*eh… i dunno what this means… translation please? I would love to know my life’s purpose…*

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
The Street – Shinhwa

*erm… nice motto? But this is a nice song…*

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
仰慕者 – Alan Tam & Hacken Lee
*Wahahahahs… ok

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
The Show – Lenka

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
All Out Of Love – Olivia

*Not that desperate lor…

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Lydia – F.I.R.

*Not very apt leh.. I dun have a friend called Lydia.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Hey Oh Tonight – Norwegian Recycling
*Tonight what?

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
你有心 – Jade Kwan
*Bleak huh?

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
疼你的责任 – Pin Guan 

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
榜样 – Kevin Wong

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
幸福 – Fang Hao Wen

*that’s nice to know…

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
I Wanna Love You Forever – Jessica Simpson
*That’s pretty sweet.. I’ll try to remember that

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
无条件为你 – Fish Leung

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
易爱难收 – Chris Wong

* So I fall in love easily?

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Which Star You Want – Kim Jong Kook

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
你要的不是我 – Lin Junjie

*That’s kinda true….

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
What I’ve Been Looking For – Zac Efron & Vanessa Hudgens (Yes… I have the soundtrack of High School Musical)
*looking for death?

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
光芒 – Jane Zhang

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
寂寞广场 – Vanness Wu

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
明天 – Lin Junjie

*true.. it’s Monday tomorrow…

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Mockingbird – Eminem

*what does this mean?
WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Isle Of Inisfree – Orla Fallon

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
心愿便利贴 – From the soundtract of Fated to Love You

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Everyday I Love You – Boyzone
*Why would I want to change that? 

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Breaking Free – From High School Musical…

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Walk Away – Kelly Clarkson

Weekend rendezvous…

Weekends are for slacking, for resting, for detoxing and for trying to forget the bad things that happened during the past week.. and i guess for looking forward to the next weekend…

The previous weekend, the gals came over for mahjong on Fri night… We finally managed to finish 1 round with all 4 winds… but I guess we are getting old.. or at least I feel that I am. I need much more ‘recovery time’ after staying up the whole night. Hahaha… and that kinda concluded that weekend. 

As for the weekend that just went by, surprise surprise… I spent Valentine’s Day at home in the afternoon and went out for dinner with my parents at night… Just another Sat I guess… But Sunday was more happening… went to watch Breakout! which I thought was pretty cool albeit a little too short. It was only 1.5 hours and that was including the encore! But it had quite a cool story-line with bits of sexual innuendo, exhilarating dance moves and funny parts… A nice way to chill and forget the stress of the past week!

Bidding Goodbye

In case your first instinct was to wonder if I’m gonna stop blogging (not as if I’m blogging a lot now, but…), no no no, have no intention of announcing a hiatus. 

Sent my lil sis off at the airport last night. She left for Australia to pursue further studies… Though she’s 19, she’ll always be my lil sis… When someone has been an integral part of your life for a long long time, it’s hard to just not have her around all of a sudden. But this is just part of growing up and something that invariably comes with our choices and decisions.

It’s gonna be kinda weird with the house being quiet (she’s usually the noisiest one around) . Will definitely take some getting used to. I’ll miss her weird antics, chatting with her till late at night, our swimming sessions, the random meals and occasional shopping and just her I guess. 

Guess on the bright side, I can look forward to traveling to Australia… =) and… I’ll probably appear online more often to keep in touch…

Pincushion and others…

A couple of weeks ago, I went to this Chinese physician to consult him on a nagging back problem I’ve been having on and off for the past few years… He recommended acupuncture… so, after poking many many needles into me, he told me to just rest there for half an hour or so… as I was lying there, I just felt like a pincushion with so many needles sticking out of me… 

Anyway, Chinese New Year kinda came and is almost gone… Just loads of eating. and had relatives over on both the first and second day. So was kinda busy. It was nice catching up and just meeting relatives that I kinda only meet once a year, including my cousins. But… was also tired out by the ‘hosting’. Felt that the long weekend went by in a flash. Before I know it, it’s back to work with loads of activities being lined up the next couple of months…

Oh.. and I signed up for Yoga classes… Starts in end Feb… Hopefully will be something that I can pick up…

Welcoming 2009…

Heh.. couldn’t resist the urge to add this in… I’m glad 2009 is here cause the sporting cycle is starting again! Ok,it’s probably only like tennis and F1 to look forward to. But better than the off season where there was minimal news.

2008 has passed… Really?

I was on my way to work yesterday when I realised that 2008 is well and truly over. The realisation just hit me like a wall and I just felt overwhelmed then. I don’t exactly know why, but maybe it was the end of a ’symbolic’ year. It was a year of transition for me and many of my peers.

From a student with a rather carefree lifestyle, being able to sleep and wake up at odd hours to a working adult, keeping to a rather regulated lifestyle and only having weekends for myself. From someone who was reading and writing papers, makign notes to study to someone who takes instructions, writes emails, plan and organise events, meet people. It marked a change from a poor struggling student to someone with earning power and is now able to pay for things on my own. From meeting friends, schoolmates regularly to seeing my colleagues more than I see my family… It was truly a year of changes.

Other random highlights – The Beijing Olympics came and went. Justine Henin retired. Tavia Yeung won Best Supporting Actress at the TVB awards ceremony. These are all things of the past.

I kinda hibernated over the new year. After counting down with my family sans my brother on the 31st, we went out to buy Wii on the 1st. And instead of going out on 2nd Jan (was on leave that day), spent my day nuaing at home and playing the Wii. Mahjong with the gals on Sat was cancelled no thanks to a fever that made me sleep half the day away. Too bad I didn’t fall sick enough to get an MC on Monday…

So yeah… hence, it was only yesterday that the thought that 2009 is here finally sank in. It’s a new beginning. More challenges at work. New things to tackle. This is also the year tt my sis leaves for Aussie – in about a month’s time. I just realise that my brother is starting his 2nd semester in SMU. I started work and he started school on the same day. The only diff was that he had the December hols off while I still had to work (albeit with more breaks) and he has this glorious 4 more months of holidays to look forward to.  

Maybe it is better? At least 2009 won’t be fraught with uncertainties like 2008. At the start of 2008, I didn’t know where I was heading. I knew I would probably be working, but not as what. At least in 2009, I just have to stick to my job. Well… on the work front, 2009 is off to quite a hectic start… a lot of things to handle. All a learning experience. I think I need to be more confident in whatever I’m doing – but it’s hard when there is no one to guide you along. It’s kinda a chicken and egg issue huh? Work is kinda like solving a big and complicated maths problem. There are many steps and you kinda know how to do it. But if you miss a step, it could be inconsequential to the answer you want or it could cause you to arrive at the wrong answer. I try not to screw up the small steps – perhaps for fear of looking stupid more than fear of being scolded. But everday is an experience. No one would be there to guide you along all the way, 100%. Everyone has better things to do and everyone has their individual styles. Live and learn I guess.

Merry Christmas!!!

Wishing one and all a Merry Christmas! Love, peace and joy for you and your family!!!

New look…

Logged onto wordpress and realized they changed the layout of the dashboard and blogging panels.. Haven’t really explored it, but am liking it so far… 

There’s really nothing much to blog about nowadays… It’s just bad news everyday in the news… What of recession, retrenchment, economic meltdown, cases of fraud and cheating… was tickled though at the guy who pretended to be a wealthy man and had nicknames like ‘rich man’ or sth when he chatted online… Like.. putting ‘pretty gal’ as a chat nickname doesn’t make me one right? Hmmm.. whatever happened to internet safety and of the million stories/warnings we heard before that anyone can be behind the screen?

On a lighter note, Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat! Hee.,, I kinda miss caroling. Maybe i’ll go catch a performance one of these days. I haven’t exactly done my Christmas shopping yet… and… it’s Christmas next week! Time just flies! Looking forward to the BBQ with the gassy gals!

Shall end this posts with a couple of pictures of Ana Ivanovic, a Serbian tennis player who posed for a calendar for Verano, the distributor of Peugeotautomobiles in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. (picts courtesy of Women Tennis Blog) 

 

 

I like how the colours of the accompanying items stand out in contrast to the model… It’s the end of the year… Most of the sporting seasons are over (except for soccer I guess…). Well.. not long before tennis will start again I guess…

The end of another long weekend…

There should be 3 days for the weekend everyweek… So that there’s enough time to go out on one day, have some quiet time on the 2nd day and just chill out on the 3rd… 

 

Am being addicted to having long weekends and am contemplating if I should take the coming Thurs/Fri off. Ha… I sound so lazy…

 

Christmas is creeping up on us… I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping. And also, not sure what to get… realize the list gets longer especially since I started working. Oh well… 

 

My laptop gave me a scare last week. When this blue screen appeared saying my com had encountered a serious (or was it fatal?) error. Sigh… I hope I don’t have to find a replacement for my laptop anytime soon cause it means more money… I would rather save up for a trip…

 

I played scrabble with my sister today. It had been a long time since we actually took the board game out from the cupboard where it was stored. It was such an intellectual activity… when faced with 7 letters, I kept having the feeling that my vocabulary shrank… Boo… I just couldn’t make good(?) words… In the end, it became like who could utilize the board more with the special squares and the double letters play. Maybe one day we should get together and play monopoly.. That’s really a game that doesn’t end… 

 

Tomorrow’s the start of a new week… may the week go by with little fuss…

*poof*

Here goes another weekend… But I definitely feel more rested than the last… plus I got the chance to catch up with quite a few people… so all’s well… 

I bought quite a bit of scrapbooking stuff.. maybe it’s time to start on my exchange collection. Cause the photos i developed are still in the box it came in, lying on my table. Am not superbly artistically inclined, but I guess I can do something nice to them. 

I should try to grab on to fleeting thoughts… I would walk along the streets, see something that I can blog about, but forget all about it the moment I get home. Maybe my brain is underworked and is deteriorating. 

Today, i thought about the future – about the plans I have, about how they can change and what will happen. Talking to friends who are applying to grad school or have plans to further their studies soon make me wonder why I’m not doing the same now. I thought about how I didn’t bother pursuing research when looking for a job. But at the same time, I’m contented with what I’m doing now and am still in a ‘will-do’ mood when it comes to my job. Just walking down different paths I guess… maybe we’ll all meet at the same destination.

Tomorrow is a work day… may this week fly by with minimal fuss.

Sporadic blogging

I’m at a loss as to what to blog cause I haven’t blogged for such a long time. Hahaha… so many things to say, so many things to update – and I don’t know where to start!

If anything, kudos to the Americans for breaking racial barriers and electing the first African-American President into the White House. Technically, isn’t Obama half an African-American cause he came from a mixed parentage? But then, this is a pretty sad article - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_re_us/obama_racial_7. I hope everything will go on smoothly. 

Went cycling last weekend. We did the usual ride to Safra from Macdonalds at East Coast. Then realised that the park connector was now open. So we went ventured towards Pasir Ris Park, but didn’t make it all the way there since it was about 8km away and we didn’t have a lot of time. But should go back one day with ample time to try out the new route. But I ended up aching and feeling stiff for the whole of Sunday though. 

*Oh… my sis just turned to me and said she wanted to be mentioned in my entry… so here goes.. Hi Ginny!*

Anyway, after that, had a satisfying ktv session with the gals last week. It’s been a while since we ‘霍霍霍-ed!’ and caught up with each other. It’s so hard to meet up with people once we all started working. Oh well… another phase in life i guess. 

Every week’s becoming a routine. Monday – Work, come home, slack, repeat till Friday. Weekend – slack, go out, rest. Monday – and the cycle starts over again. Need to find sth to engage in so that there is something else besides work. Now, I’ve just been watching dramas online, reading and listening to music after work. it’s hard to find a light enough book (besides trashy romance novels) that can be easily digested after a long day at work. Oh well…

A couple of nice new albums… Jay Chou’s Capricorn is out. Better than the last album me thinks. But there are still a couple of crappy songs. Just heard 林俊杰’s new album today and I think it’s pretty good.

And so I’m at the end of my entry cause I can’t think of anything else to write about even though I’m sure there were many other occasions that is worth mentioning. Oh well… shall try to blog more often.

*poof*

- blows dust off blog -

Well… not much interesting stuff to blog about anyway nowadays. I’m enjoying my work. It’s just been 1.5 months, but I feel as if I’ve been there for a long time. Somehow, the phrase ‘days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months…’ seem very apt to describe how things have been since I started working. Hopefully, I will stay long enough for it to translate to ‘and months turn into years’.

Days blur into one another. But that’s fine with me. A nagging factor would be that I have this tendency to wake up in the middle of the night – and only when the next day is a working day. It’s kinda annoying. I wonder why.

It seems that there is nothing, but bad news nowadays. There was the melamine contaminated milk issue which saw many products being pulled off the shelf. I just can’t help but wonder when it all started. Pulling products off the shelf now doesn’t really help as we’ve been eating M&Ms and Oreo cookies all along.

And then the whole financial crisis thingee. Stock markets dropping like there is no tomorrow. And well.. panic selling I guess. Was reading this New York Times article on why the US stock market was still plunging despite the $700 billion (*gasps!*) bailout plan and what not and I spotted 2 familiar names… Kahneman & Tversky

“…a series of groundbreaking experiments in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. In one test, they asked students to choose between a sure bet of $3,000, or an 80 percent chance of winning $4,000 (meaning there was a 20 percent chance of winning nothing). Most students said they would take the $3,000.

The same question, framed differently, asked them if they would rather lose $3,000 or accept an 80 percent chance of losing $4,000 (with a 20 percent chance of losing nothing). In this case, they said they would take the riskier bet.

In other words, they were willing to take a bigger risk to avoid losing money than they were when they stood to make more money…”

Sounds familiar huh? Risk aversion, Framing anyone? Wahahahas… I miss school…

Days turn into weeks…

Welcome to Gillian’s infrequent updates. Here, you will find snippets of my life depending on when I feel blogging what I did. 

Major headlines: I’ve now been working for weeks in plural. I’m still in a ‘I don’t mind my job’ state.. which is pretty good and still adapting to stuff. So yep. Oh.. went for a photoshoot today so that my department’s website can be updated with me. Quite interesting. The photographer went like “ok.. pose, cross your arms, tilt towards the front.. yada yada…” It honeslt doesn’t feel that it’s my 3rd week there. I fele like I’ve been there for a long time already. Does it mean I’m settled in already?

In Lifestyle:

Caught Turandot on Friday night. Ok… I’m not claiming to be some arty farty person. But my personal opinion is that it doesn’t exactly deserve the acclaimed reviews I read on Today (Monday’s Today) and today’s Life. It was not bad… but to say like it was the best thing that happened? (Or maybe they meant it as the best production put up by SLO?) To be fair, Life reviewed Saturday’s performance which could have been better than the Friday one. It wasn’t bad. In fact, I like the stage design, it was nice. The singing was ok. For me, Calef (Lee Jae Wook i think) was the best that night. But even then, there were some parts where he could be better. But the Chinese subtitles were a lil cheesy. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I understood Italian. Or if it was in English. But overall, an enjoyable performance.

Went to the night Safari on Sat. I never knew so many people visited the night safari. It was packed… and we had to queue for half an hour to get tickets in. Maybe it was a Saturday night, or maybe it’s the first weekend of the holiday. But yeah.. it was still packed.

Entrance fees were exorbitant! $22 for the admission only. $32 for the tram ride! *gasps* I guess they are encouraging ppl to take the 2 or 3 parks combi (including the Zoo and Jurong Bird park) cause the bundled packages were much cheaper.

Anyway… it was pretty dark. Everything just looked brown and like furry. And some of the animals were hiding. Ok.. granted, the porcupines were cute. I didn’t know they were so big. Like Siyi put it.. maybe we are used to the porcupines we see in Enid Blyton storybooks from the past. 

In Sports news, the US Open tennis tournament is on.. but due to the super HUGE time difference, I haven’t really been able to catch many matches cause they start playing when I go to bed. 

In other leisure news, my brother bought a new PS2 game – twisted metal black which is a newer version of a game we played when we were much younger. So I spent a couple of hours the last two days maneuvering a car and trying to blast other cars to pieces. Sounds violent huh?