it feels sick when...

the person you think is your friend, thinks otherwise.

cfo* is like soooo proud that he participated in Earth Hour on the past 28th March.
my family and i, too, were enthusiastically wanting to participate in this campaign- we started at ~8.35pm (until then we knew that the time shown on the clock at the living room is s.l.o.w.e.r). anyway, we didn't manage to participate TOTALLY, 'coz it's really WAY TOO HOT that we were sweating like crazy. so we on the fan at around 8.50pm. lolx.

in Singapore, i was told that there was a 'blackout of the CBD area'.

on the other hand, in Malaysia, the local television station 8TV (not Singapore Channel 8, these 2 are just so... incomparable *sorry fellow singaporeans) decided to stop its transmission for the 60mins as mean to support this campaign, with the fact that 8:30pm to 9:30pm can be said as the peak prime-time hour.

even the landmarks in the capital of Malaysia, such as Petronas Twin Towers and KL Tower also had their lights off during the campaign. i'm so.. touched!



+++

i got to know that this advertisement tops Viewer Choice's 2008 (local category) organized by the MediaCorp Singapore. i've seen this ad before when i was back in Brisbane when i tried to find out who directed the ad 'The Love of Tan Hong Ming' (see previous entries). this ad is about this single dad (as oppose of single mom) who struggles to bring up his only kid, which in this case, a daughter. i like this ad instantly after watching (that is, back in Brisbane).

i've been wanted to vote lar, but i always forgot the correct format to send sms-es in. anyway, as i always lack of 'lucky draw' luck, i should have just think that i have saved a couple of dollars instead!



oh, i think i forgot to mention. the director is Yasmin something (sorry i cant remember please google it yourself ;p)

i'm dead.

this is the {insert lost count number here} i'm down with sore throat (read: tonsillitis) ever since i'm back from brisbane.

fjmfo* said she definitely doesn't miss the weather in singapore. now i'm kindda agree.

and my complexion!! it's getting from bad to worse -grindddddddd teeth-

i can't talk now. i needda go away and rest.

kjfivj* and I kindly accompanied jtbjai* to science canteen to have his lunch at 4.30pm the other day after we had ours at SP. While he ate his yong tau foo and chicken rice (add rice), I’m practically busy screaming and panicking around trying to score higher and higher and HIGHER on the Geo Challenge proudly presented by FB.
From the original schollies to cabin crew, I’m now a TRAVELER! =)
kjfivj* tried to help here and there with her quite limited geography knowledge, and while eating the mountain-like chicken rice, so did jtbjai*. I guess it’s with their help and more luck that it’s finally possible, especially I got pictures like Petronas Twins Tower and Merlion Statue for the Pic Loco section. Normally I would get questions that seems to me some streets in Hong Kong or Macau (not that I went there before), but it’s in fact in New York. -.-”
I decided to stay as traveler for a while coz the next higher stage is Geography Teacher, which doesn’t sound that appealing to me. So for now, shall just stay as it is!

+++

I’m trying to fix/configure/ whatever you call it my laptop to a bit more.. entertainment funcationable? Like, can at least play sinchan I copied from my brother during CNY. So at least after 2 1 some journal reading I can reward myself a little by watch a short 7 min anime.
But the RealMedia file just can’t be open. Gzzz. I shall try to depend on myself and not to depend too much on IT freak like uftifoh* and find out how to fix it. Later.

+++

Did I mention how stupid I am for not knowing how to disable the touchpad thingy on my laptop and end up having need to type like a.. spider? I mean, there isn’t any little button somewhere near the touchpad that once u press on it it switches from blue (enable) to orange (disable).
I asked around, called almost everyone I know that I think they are IT pro and should know, but alas,no one knows how – for this brand and model that is.

it was until I called my brother ‘coz I was too bored and he gladly enlighten me with the ‘Fn’ button and F(insert number here).
So now I can finally type as per normal, that is my wrist REST on the touchpad thingy.
I love my brother. =)

+++

I truly enjoy my work (for now). I like the own time own target system instead of the rigid 9 to 5 working hour. Oh, did I mention it’s not 9 to 5 but 8.30am to 6pm. That sound increadibly depressing.
And the fact that I could actually do more readings. Those thought and feeling in lives that I think I can mirror or picture myself leading some years down the road. Hey, it might comes handy okie?
Like该要求的时候要求，而不再善良的忍耐。Coz 过度的善良会摧毁它的本身. That is the something that I’ve been stressing on when it comes to contact with people, just that, the author managed to phrase it in a better and definitely sounds more acceptable way to some people.

+++

I was walking with cfo* in NUS after lunch and I spot this jacaranda tree! Erm, not exactly like a TREE, and she’s kindda pathetic with about.. 5 flowers? I guess her biggest dream is to finally bloom like how her friends could in Brisbane.

+++

i met up with qmzo* yesterday from about 4 in the evening until 9pm. to think a 20 something actually with such mature thinking when it comes to relationship/ friendship/ emotions handling. deep down i truly admire her. stories told. drinks consumed. cigarettes smoked (not by me). more stories told. more food ate. another cigarette smoked (again, not by me).
i enjoy talking to her a lot. not that we used to be that close in Brisbane. we even plan to visit Australia together in the near future. =)
hope she is picking up with her life.

this entry is about some of my experiences having need to take long hour public transport from/to work.

1. i decided to walked with kjfivf* to take the shuttle bus to Dover MRT station, which later i will need to change train from green line to red line followed by LRT. since it's off office hour (around 6pm), you can imagine the crowd. i was literally being 'pushed' to board the train. anyway, that's not the most disgusting part in my experience of train taking yesterday.

i changed train from JE interchange and proceed to head north. since i'm alone and need to hug my laptop, i was glancing downward.. and i notice this guy ah pek who is holding his d*** and (i think) was rubbing his -ahem- against the holding pole. i'm almost 100% sure that the lady who stands beside him knows about that as well from her uneasy look.

and apparently i'm not the only one who noticed. the other 2 OLs who are just a few persons away from me is whispering (alright, louder than whisper else i won't hear) about it. for that split second i had an eye contact with one of the OLs, i think she was trying to say--
'that ti ko pek'.
disgusting. truly disgusting.


2. although i really yearn for a seat (especially on the way to work), there are times when people like old uncle that can't even stand properly, lao ah ma with trolly on the way to market, or woman with seem-like-going-to-due-any-minutes belly. if such person boards the bus, i usually will just give him/her my seat (that is, if I got to sit at the first place).

so, when this old ah ma with trolly board the bus this morning, i decided to give her my seat since i'll be alighting in about 5 or 6 stops. but when i get up and signal the old ah ma to come over to take my seat, this middle-aged auntie just squeeze through and take the seat with her big fat ass. and she look perfectly okie (i think her complexion glow even, in any case she might be healthier than me). she doesn't look like she really need to sit down.

i think i have the 'sianz' look on my face and so as the old ah ma. the guy that was sitting beside me still listening to his mp3 and looking outside of the window. i was super furious so i said in chinese,
"Hello auntie, i was going to give this seat to that ah ma"

Middle-aged anutie (MAA): -pretend don't understand me and look outside-

Me (louder, and in English): Hello auntie, i stand up 'coz i want to give this seat to the old auntie.

MAA: but this is not the privilage seat.

Me: So what? Can't you see that old lady need the seat more than you do?

I'm not sure from where i gather such courage to actually raise my voice and refuse to take my eyes off her, until some others also looking/peeping at her that she finally feels uneasy and move her big fat ass away from the seat.

she stands up with the bitchy face and with the (i think) trying-to-tear-me-apart glare. gah, i don't care. the old lady keep saying 'gam siah' to me (i guess that's thank you in some dialect), i just smiled back.

and later when i reached i just alight from the bus.

please lar, even if it's not the privilage seat, have a heart and give the seat to people who needs it more, can? or rather, if people stand up to let other more needy people to have the seat, at least don't squeeze over and take the seat.

I finished reading this translated book by Ichikawa Takuji (市川拓司) in one day.
To say it’s fabulous is definitely an understatement.
In fact, I watched the movie before. Twice in cinema and another time in Brisbane during winter break.
It’s a simple story with simple characters. Too few of them if you must say.
I like the story plot and how the writer carefully described the feelings involved: the parent that hate to but had to leave, the golden-haired child that self-reproached, the lonesome elder, and even the dog that has been taken away its ability to bark. I can almost imagine the wrecked #5 factory, the 4-petals leaves bush, the flower, the rain. The rain that brought Aio Mio from her 21 years old to her 29 years old (which she had passed away then) to be with her son Aio Yuji and her husband.
Probably it’s the time travel plot that interest me, the same thing as the movie The Lakehouse with the space travel plot. It might be that I secretly hope that things as such will happen.
The book/ movie – いま、会いにゆきます　(translated – Be With You or 现在，很想见你)
If you have forgot when is the last time you feel truly touched, I suggest you this book.

i forgot to mention point #3 when it comes to room hunting in SG.

i also miss the daily bus ticket we get to purchase.

i've been travel a lot (whether i'm diligently looking for room or not) due to my current living place at the thunder street.

it's either $1.33 per trip but 1 - 1 1/2 hour -

or, >$1.80 (same destination, the exact amount not known 'coz usually one just happily tapping away his/her ez link card), shorter duration depends on the mood of the bus driver and traffic condition, but then again if you are suey enough you might miss the bus that you should have tranferred to and end up waited for another 20 minutes or so. result: spend even more time and money =S

i do miss the daily bus ticket.

+++

i received satoshi's email earlier this week that says:

"dear joanne

hello, how are you doing?

could i cancel the meeting of us in sg? i broke my arm and i failed to go on a trip. sorry for that.

regards,

satoshi"

poor thing. almost immediately i replied by asking him about the accident and told him not to worry. my effort to type 'daijyobu desuka' in jap using this lousy company computer turned out to be '豇繌媻竺疚物'. anyway, in his next reply he explained what had happened:

"I'm sorry again for not being able to keep a word.

Unfortunately something happened on a wet road, and I slipped. I pushed the road in order not to get injured, when I realised my left arm became something like a leg of an octopus. I'm not sure about the density of the bone; I might have been osteoporosis...... It was lucky, at least, that I have no other injury on my body, nor on my bicycle.

I am now taking rehabilitation at a hospital every single day, and hopefully I would leave the plastic arm holder at my hometown.

Please take care...

Satoshi"



i almost laugh it out when i saw 'something like a leg of an octopus'. not to be mean lar, but i was imagine the octopus leg and i find that super hilarious!

poor guy. hope he will recover asap before his work starts on april.

+++

funny enough, satoshi is not going to transit at SG after all (hmm, is he still going to his NZ backpacking trip?). anyway, the incident of Doc4 forwarded by cfs* and my sudden rush to call jsjt* to on my sister's to-be-formatted laptop and DIG out my conversation history so as to F5 my memory.

i should thanks zfpx lifpoh* to force me to save conversation history zillion months ago. else, really si wu dui zheng. (literally translate: die with no evidence).

i still keep that Doc4 for unknown reason. hurt? no more. more of irk i think. that comes after too-much-to-handle hurt. or like what we always said in malay, sangat menggelikan.

+++

i know i should not keep dwelling on it. they were once the important people in my life. but now no more.

there is a BIG difference between 'clear the air' and 'clear the air AND salvage the relationship'.

thanks tijsmfz* for reminding me. =)

+++

i'm very tempted to watch Departures (おくりびと, hiragana copied and paste from Wikipedia). but i'm still trying to weight the worthiness of this movie of 130 minutes to the very limited amount of money i have now in my bank account and pocket =(



hmm, shall wait till next month. let's hope it's still showing by then. -finger cross-

today it's the 3rd day that i have to stand all the way - from the blk139/140 bus stop (where i board) - to the opp NUH bus stop (where i get off).

and the whole journey is 1 to 11/2 hour, depends on traffic condition.

tired. i am.
=((((((

i was trying to concentrate on journal reading on my research topic but the converstion between tijsmfz* and i keep sort of.. flash back?
esp the 'welcome to the adult world =)'
so it's like what? i'm be reaching 1/4 of century years old and i still dunno how is the adult world functioning? tsk tsk. a bit useless.

+++

i'm sort of lazy to play FB already. it's like, the addiction just died off.
i rather read news/ blogs. from gossip to fashion to branded watch and branded handbag to how-to-put-on-fake-lashes to tarot reading to Mr-Jerry-Ee-with-his-victory-sign-on-his-picture to FF's, my all time fav blogger.

i'm not sure if i posted this link before but this is the post that i almost shout hi-5 over the net!
see Here.

+++

my colleagues and i were whining together yesterday about our OWN project 'coz all this while we thought we will be working together instead of having ONE for each of us. hmm, it's getting more and more interesting now.

i forgot about 99.789% of my biochemistry knowledge. serious. all the enzymes and model andd interactions thingy are so so so 'interesting' -sweatdrop-. anyway, i'm gonna rely on this picture that i actually got from wikepedia.org. for the moment lah, okie.

+++

i'm still waiting for the whoever-that-should-attend-to-enquries to reply my e-mail. it has been 2 days and i've yet hear from them =( how many time zones difference is there between Singapore and Germany? gzz.

there will be LOTS of training. i'm thrill! =D

+++

time to go back home!! =)

I'm given this Acer Aspire 4935 from my department and I’m almost over the cloud coz I think with that I can postpone my plan to squeeze through the crowd at Suntec city IT fair in order to get the best bargain of laptop/ desktop.

I’m almost over the cloud. Yes, almost. Until I realize it comes with Windows Vista. =(

I know I shouldn’t complaine much and should try to get used to it. After all, IT stuff is about getting used to it. But I couldn’t stand any longer when the Internet Explorer keep running into problems and must restart, up to as much as 6 times – each time I was in the middle of serious information research for the project (not really idling around). This really irritates me to the max!

I’ve been trying to install the Firefox instead of keep using the %^&#&^% Internet Explorer but I forgot to ask the CompCentre staff to set my user account to administrator (efcpsbi* reminded me again and again but I just forgot!) Anyway, I think I have to send it down to CompCentre again (and also go engine canteen for lunch). =D

im still looking for nice room near (or not) to my working place.

i really miss brisbane when it comes to room-hunting, simply for 2 reasons:
1. in aussie, things are more web-oriented. owner/co-tenant/ agent will post their available properties/ rooms online. while in SG, many people still rely on newspaper/ notices/ word of mouth when it comes to getting a room. while i'm in jb most of the time for now, how am i going to 'buy' the daily newspaper (and i'm only aiming the CLASSIFIED)?

2. in point 1 above, i mentioned that most people still rely on notice boards. so whenever i go to SG i will go around walking under the sun in the hot and humid weather, reading notices pasted by owners/ agents at the notice board at each major bus/ MRT station. felt totally drained. and definitely NOT happy.

i must say that i'm not very familiar with the market price. but all i'm asking is a decent room^ with decent housemate and no unreasonable request^^.

^ like, at least the room is well-lit, paint NOT sloughed off. and the door, lockable!
^^ like, no electricity after 12. laundry once a week is still bearable. but no electricity after 12??! like, how?! im fully aware the goodness of sleep-early and wake up early. but, no. i still prefer waking up in the night!

anyone have any good recommendation about room please let me know okie? (like friend's friend's friend's brother/ sister, or cousin's uncle's sister's daughter) i will appreciate your help!!

at the mean time, i'll be staying in my mom's brother's wife (okie lar, my auntie)'s sister's co-rented place. though it's quite a distant from my working place, but.. mai hiam buey pai. i shall just stay there for now, until i found a room that i can fall in love with the 1st sight i see it. that day will come, i have a positive strong feeling about this!

oh well, first of all, the CNY. i got a total RM30+ (exclude what my parent gave). record-breaking. correct me if i'm wrong, but i guess this is how it goes if the grands passed away i think.

nothing much other than that. oh, we have had a new member in our family. anyway it's gone now. how? hmm, too lazy to blog. i just wana mark this in my memory that's all.

+++

i went to KL with iris and gang **happy memories flooded** ALOT of fun and laughter that i would laugh to myself silly. And this is the trip that i actually back with least -ahem- garbage -- like those pamphelt, ticket root, map, etc. this time round, TOTALLY none! not even the map on sunway lagoon that i finally went.

i only brought back an information sheet of the hotel we stayed in, the Heritage Station Hotel. i truly lurrrve this hotel, although i must admit i dont dare to spend time alone in the room. reason? see it yourself HERE.

okie lar, i shall clarify here in case any of you decided to stay in this hotel when you travel to KL. the photographers are really good.. hahaa, especially lighting wise. truth is, i personally think that the photo is abt 3.142X brighter than what it really is. BUT still, the history, the ambient, the architecture really amazed me to the max!

sunway is fun fun fun =D except when we take turn to feel tired and drained. i was secretly hoped that i can get some sun-burn. BURRRRRRN, not tan, okie. but no. nothing of that sort happened. =S

i collected another 'angpow' at sunway as well. just one day before chap goh meh came! hahaaa, just little scratch at my left kneecap. well, clumsy me. hmm, yea, cant use kneecap for silly thinking. --update: it's fully recovered now with slightly unsightly scar. time to apply Vitamin-E containing body lotion!

**side track: i've stop applying lotion after bath.. weather here is simply too humid and warm for that kind of luxury (well, it is, from the point of view of the epidermis cells). especially i left my beloved victoria-secret body lotion in brisbane. good thing is i got to know that Edda, Ivan's cousin is selling the lotion on-line **winks** shall contact here asap once i settle down with my new job and new place.

hmm, photos in FB. NOT uploaded by me though, hehee =X

oh well, i cant believe it's been more than 1 month since i last blogged. -sweat-

shall start update now..