TVB 42nd Anniversary Awards Ceremony. 

- My Favourite Female Character Award (for Yiu Kam Ling – Beyond the Realm of Conscience)

- Best Performance Award

Heh… Am happy that her hard work over the years have paid off and she is being recognised and rewarded. Granted I’m not a super die hard fan of hers, but I like her acting.

Was just reading the latest cover story on Time Magazine – The Decade From Hell and why the next one will be better. Taking a retrospective look at the past decade, Andy Serwer made his arguments for why this had been the worst decade ever despite the absence of a world war. (think 911, Iraq & Afghan wars, global financial meltdown, Hurricane Katrina… ) While this comes from a very ‘American’ perspective and the focus is on priblems that afflicted the US, it did touch on other events that happened around the world. 

Found this slideshow on the Time website which shows the 10 worst things about the worst decade ever.  (http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1942749,00.html)

Looking back, seems that A LOT has happened over the last ten years. Or maybe the past ten years was when I was conscious of things happening. Interesting read nonetheless…

So what have I been busy the past one and half months besides work? Heh… Was trying to keep up with this TVB productions, Beyond the Realm of Conscience or 宫心计. Basically, it is a palatial drama that talks about the power struggles that goes on in the ‘back’ palace. You have maids trying to move up the ranks, and concubines trying to win favours. This is show about good against evil and asks if there is a need to scheme and plot against one another in a bid to gain power. 

The story talks about how two palace maids moved up the ranks in the palace with both of them eventually becoming concubines of the emperor. I especially like how the promotional materials contrasted the behaviours of two female lead characters, played by Tavia Yeung and Charmaine Sheh with the following lines: 

后宫之中，难免用计 – In the back palace, it is inevitable to scheme.

后宫之中，何必用计 – In the back palace, there is no need to scheme. 

Heh… Of course, I was attracted to the show cause one of my favoured TVB actress, Tavia Yeung has a lead role in it where she plays the scheming character. Had to see how she fared in an evil role… She has been on my radar for quite a few years and am glad she is being given more opportunities. I think she looks especially good in ancient dramas cause she has this ‘古典美’ aura, although I don’t really like her costumes and make up in this show. Towards the later part where she turns, evil, she was just too heavily made up, supposedly to show that she is evil, as compared to a lighter (purer?) make up for the good characters. 

I enjoyed the first half of the show, where they introduced the characters and set the tone for the story. But towards the end, I felt that the series got dragged down by poor editing and bad pacing. There was very little character development for Tavia’s character, where there were very little explanation on what made her turn evil. She started out being just protective of herself and would only retaliate when she was bullied. Later, she started scheming a little, but it wasn’t spiteful or malicious. Towards the end, she just turned into this deranged concubine who went all out to kill everyone for very petty reasons.  

Also, the script wasn’t fantastic. Besides the 180 degrees change of Tavia’s character in the show, a previously spiteful and spoilt concubine played by Selena Li (another new and ‘decent actress) also suddenly became demure and virtuous. The show also focussed quite a bit on Charmaine’s character who was the personification of goodness.  While the scriptwriter tried to showcase how good she was, it got a bit irrational and ‘forced’. The show became too choppy towards the end where the producer tried to sew up all the subplots and storylines. It’s like the focus is on this character in one episode and then it shifts to another one in the next episode. 

I think this series was overhyped and there was way too much publicity even before the show aired. Like how Tavia was touted to be the winner for the Best Actress award for this character. While I think this is a breakthrough role for her and have always thought her acting was solid, I think there were instances in the show where I felt that she was ‘acting evil’ instead of ‘being evil’. Or maybe she was just let down by bad editing. There were some scenes where I thought she was outstanding. But it fizzled out cause the scene was cut short or that there wasn’t any explanation as to why she had to do it. But anyway, I could empathise more with her ‘Ah Yuet’ character in Moonlight Resonance.

I loved the performance from the supporting cast though. All the veteran artistes were superb! Yeah… so I guess that’s it. decent show, but not fantastic. Just got to see another side of Tavia. 

Heh… so here ends my thoughts on this series. Am suffering somewhat from withdrawal symptoms from the show since it just ended last night. Hahaha… (gosh… i think this is one of my longest post ever!…)

Came across this website (http://thefuntheory.com/) from a video I was sent… I like the idea of making mundane, everyday stuff fun! It’s part psych, part marketing, part creativity! Maybe SMU students can find ideas for their CT projects from here… 

Watch this video for an example:

Other than random online surfing everyday, I’m doing quite well I guess. Running two virtual restaurants on Facebook (Restaurant City & Cafe World), trying to squeeze in a good book occasionally (The Last Lecture, The Little Prince, My Sister’s Keeper), doing a myriad of other stuff after work. 

Started tennis lessons about 2 months ago. Am quite liking the game. But I guess I need to build up more stamina. Can’t run for balls if my coach decides to hit at some extreme angle or into the corners… 

My sister’s back for 3 months… so I gotta share my room again. Just when I’ve gotten used to having my own room and leaving my stuff all over the place, it’s like we have even more stuff around the place cause she’s back. It’s interesting how we just adapt to having one more person around. It’s as though she never left. 

Just checking in. I’m running out of things to say…

Nice remix of the songs. Especially like how they did it acapella style. =)

Encountered a roadblock today. Not really able to think now. Maybe I’m numb. It’s like looking forward to something that did not materialise.

Should I still press on? or should I turn back?

Went for a short getaway to Batam over the weekend (yeah.. wish I could have written Bali or Bintan), but oh well, Batam is nice in its own rustic way I guess.

Scenary wasn’t exactly picturesque. Maybe it was because we didn’t have the bright blue sky there. But the trip was relaxing, the company excellent.

What else to expect from a group of 7 gals besides knowing how to pamper ourselves by starting off with a spa/massage immediately after we arrive. Then it was to A&W for dinner and shopping. After that, it was back to our rooms for noisy card games, photo-taking with weird and wacky ideas and the filming of a pringles commercial! *wink* Went for a city tour the next day where it was just going along with the flow. A frenzy shopping trip in a supermarket and then it was home.

A short two days which felt much longer. A wonderful weekend well spent which left me recharged and giving me that extra boost to tackle the work ahead.

I started work one year ago on this date…

It’s been a thrilling ride so far. Been exposed to a lot of new things, picked up new skills, had many new experiences…

I guess I just wanted to post on my first year anniversary…

To many more wonderful memories to come….

Can’t believe I suddenly had the impulse to blog today because I had a blah day today… Oh wells, it was just one of those lousy days whereby things didn’t go very smoothly. Bitched enough about it I guess. So I see no need to harp on it. Time to move on…

Been plain lazy the past few months I guess… see no need to blog about a boring life. It’s been mainly work. Trying to re-regulate my work-life balance. And trying to pursue other things in life. Played badminton with some colleagues yesterday during lunch. Not a bad idea to spend Monday lunch running round a court. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at picking up deutsch again. But didn’t because the class I wanted to attend was full. Now, I’m unsure of the practicality of it.  Maybe Korean or Japanese or perhaps even French would be more practical.

The most exciting that happened was me making my annual ‘pilgrimage’ to Hong Kong about one month ago. Shopped and ate a lot. Had a good break and didn’t feel like returning to work. Mwahahahaha…

This year’s been a pretty uneventful year so far. Caught a couple of theatre productions (Cats, Breakout, Sing Dollar). Read a couple of books… watched a couple of movies. And that’s about it.

Oh… and random info of the day – my laptop is back! bigger (memory space!) and faster!!! yay! Ok.. it came back about a month ago. But I’m glad its back!

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…