DT in Space The Rock and Talk Show Autograph Session

I'm always lamenting that David's in town at the wrong times, mostly during recess week or exam week, when I'm busy gluing my ass to some random bench and mugging the day away. I was slightly luckier this time round, because my Marketing paper had finished on the dot and I managed to drag Jack down with me to Orchard Central for the autograph session. Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes I bought his concert tickets for the Rock and Talk Show. You don't wanna know where Jack and I will be sitting. ;P

Courtesy of DTFC (my girls!) and Zhicong!

Marketing paper was... *speechless* I had breezed through the MCQs, but the structured questions had me. I attribute this to a lack of practice for structured questions, and the unexpected question angle. Tough luck.


Oh, and do lend your (wallet's) support to the We Are One project; Jack and I each had a brick to ourselves, thanks to Jack's suggestion. I think some good karma might just give us more luck for SSD2210. :P

Hanging by a thread

I absolutely feel like a hermit, sedentary and isolated from the rest of the world during this period. And life has always been as such for the past 4 semesters. How I wish someone would just go spread the word that mugging is carcinogenic, then Central Library might finally be empty for once.

Plus I had given up on the chance to watch DT's guest performance for a concert because 1. I absolutely cannot finish revision for MKT and 2. I guess being with my darling on our 21st month is more important than anything in the world. We were standing at the bus stop just hours ago, marvelling at how time's zipped past, and in 3 months' time we'll be celebrating our second anniversary. Heartwarming, and fortunate to have you, and only you, all to myself, for all of time.



Yesterday was spent rushing to and fro school, and attending DT's press conference. As usual, we, as the public, would get mad with media people for their horrid attitude towards us, and the begrudgement often stays on and grows. Sometimes, these people have to get their facts right; WE are the customers, and your fat paycheck is determined, directly or indirectly, by OUR commitment. If you fail to adapt even to small tweaks, there will come a day when you realise you've got no job. Let's see who'll have the last laugh. (P.S: this is not directed at DT, but at some other irritating PMS-sy person there whom we all have a common consensus about her identity.)

Anyway, David appeared jet-lagged, but he received questions like a pro(even the unsettling ones by Cruz Teng), and never failed to amuse the room with his analogies. It's inspiring to just sit and watch him exude this charisma with his carefully crafted answers (even though some may say it's all the same stuff), and then wonder if he's as ordinary a person as we are. If he is, then why are we subjecting him to scrutiny when he errs or does things that 'deviates' from mainstream? Who are we to judge him, if we won' allow people to judge us? Even as a public figure, he's not accountable to anyone except himself, so it's unjustified as to how fingers have been pointed and haphazard accusations hurled at him.

Oh well. And he even mentioned that he was a 'traditional man' who prefers Chinese ladies. Jack said that once before, too.






Oh, and did I mention that I'm definitely going to catch New Moon after the exams? No misconceptions here; I'm not on Team Edward. He's too commercialised, hyped up, and simply doesn't live up to his reputation as the beautiful vampire. Move aside, Edward, because Jacob's here to steal the ladies. Look, he's even got his hands on Zac Efron's girl.




Joking. Taylor Lauter, the 17-year-old (can ANYONE believe he's only 17?!) who plays Jacob Black a.k.a Wolf Boy in the Twilight movies, has thrown Edward out of the competition. Sorry, but no apologies to Rob Patz. Bedroom hair is no longer welcome in the cinemas.

Hanging on.

I'm mentally exhausted; from all the internal debates going on in my head when I read reading after reading, from reading my antsy handwriting, and from the information I found hard to recall the moment I moved on to do revision for another module. Plus the extra lethargy from the occasionally kneading pain in my tummy, those incessant hunger pangs, my parched throat... studying for the exams has never been so testing before.

But I do know that life with you is never the same. With you to hold me when I need to take a break, to provide me with much-needed jokes, hugs, kisses and companionship any half-dead mugger needs. And I've got it. Or rather, I've got you.

And life is only going to get tougher as I inch hour-by-hour nearer to the exams, excluding the unsolicited events happening next week. Press conference! Will update soon regarding this.

Movie: 2012

I, for one, is skeptical about the Apocalypse.

Just slightly over a month ago, I was (admittedly) angry because Jack was raving on and on about 2012 being the end of the world. Apparently what he saw was the teaser trailer of this movie (I guess). And I had wanted nothing to do with this claim, because it sounded foddy enough, and had wanted to avoid this movie.

But..... filmophiles are filmophiles, even for cultivated ones like us. Who could resist all that CG and world-of-mouth from fellow filmophiles, even if it means disrupting our study schedule to catch it?

I had stepped out of the cinema after the 158-minute film feeling rather minute, dwarfed by the epic scale of this disaster movie. Where would I be if I were in the movie? The one being hurled thousands of feet into a chasm? The one being reduced to mash by the Air Force One plane? The one who died before knowing what hit? I was bombarded with possibilities, except the one where I survived. Because our small island will probably be melted down even before we could finish singing our National Anthemn. Back to the movie, what I felt lacking was the explanation for all this; viewers would appreciate more showtime to be dedicated to talking about this Mayan calendar, and how it completes its 13th cycle in 2012, 21 December. I know, they had thrown in a madman (played by Woody Harrelson) and his quirky radio program and blog to explain in a trivial tone, but crazy people aren't what we're exactly looking for. What about the prophecies? What about the dispute between the classic Maya and the modern Maya? Why didn't the movie tell us that this Long Count was revealed by archealogists recently? *shrugs* Looks like we're all brainwashed by capitalism. I won't say by who.

I would dispute reviews that dismissed the movie because of its unattractive cast. Despite being made up largely of unpopular actors and actresses, the cast shone as well. Well, you sure don't need Tom Cruise or Will Smith to make an fairly good movie. Besides, the American President in the movie was an African American. Guess what? The movie was shot during the Presidential Elections. :)

Overall, while 2012, as the 'Mother of disaster movies', is undisputed in terms of CG effects (their CG team list is longer than the entire cast and stuntmen put together), but scores a miserable 3.5 for its cliched storyline (Too many repeated ideas from I Am Legend and Day After Tomorrow).

What if I had...

...... died at 8.53pm?


I'm a cautious pedestrian, and even more so after obtaining my license. But being cautious isn't enough when you have motorcyclists and taxi drivers who ignore red lights and the green man sign. At 8.53pm, I stepped onto the road when the green man lit up, and after I checked that the traffic on the lane closest to me had stopped; I had a motorcycle zoom past me just couple months back when I was preparing to cross at the green man. Upon approaching the centre divider, I noticed a taxi speeding down the road, towards the crossing, and this nagging feeling in me told me to slow down and wait for the taxi to stop before I continue walking. And I was right; the taxi had apparently forgot about the traffic lights and had to brake abruptly, stopping halfway across the pedestrian crossing, and 1 metre away from me. 2 seconds faster in my stride and I'll be at NUH now.



And all the way home, I was pondering over the most obscene thought: What if I had died, there and then, and left this world I haven't got time to say goodbye to?

What if I had died on the spot, and never got to spend this Christmas with my loved ones?

And never got to visit Granddad?

...

And never got to grow old with you?



And I took out my lucky stars and counted them all over again.

Mac-o-mania

I'll love to work for MacDonald's PR & Marketing Department; those gurus there sure know what makes Singaporeans tick, much more to entice them to eat MacD's for weeks on end just to collect little stickers and pray that the next sticker they rip open will be Sentosa Cove. Brilliant. They have successfully reduced us to hapless Primary school kids.



Disclaimer: I didn't collect all these stickers by myself; they're the combined efforts of my Mum, Sis and Jack. And I still have loads more repeated title deeds.

As you can see, I'm missing all the 'crucial' pieces, i.e. one from each colour. I have a simple analogy: MacDonald's did NOT print these crucial pieces, or they had printed much lesser than the number of prizes they had for each category.

And you never know. They may not even have Sentosa Cove.

Do you feel cheated now?

Well, playing the devil's advocate, I'll dare anyone say they've one of the big prizes (not the free small fries and milk shakes they use to pacify you). It'll be then that I'll stop trying to splice MacD's marketing plan apart.



And...... It's the end of another semester. It has been an unusually busy semester, so much so that I've grown quite apathetic (sadly) towards family matters. Maybe it's because I'm simply too busy to worry if 2 teenagers and 2 women can feed themselves; maybe it's because these people need to grow up; maybe I'm not the kind of spoon-feeder who can replace my overseas-bound Dad and baby them; maybe because I don't see myself being the family Tibs taxi; maybe it's because I'm just sick of all the shit that's playing out at home. Don't misquote me; I don't come from a broken family, neither is there a Hong Kong drama playing out in the living room. At 21, when I need to find that identity I can bond with for life, I don't see why I have to babysit perfectly normal people with no incontinence problems or physical immobility.

That's when I have to seek solace in school, where I can kill braincells with projects, assignments and readings with size 5 font. And the negative energy channelled to better use. I had thought that 3219 was going to kill my grades this semester when I got back my CA1 and almost convulsed on the spot, if not for the fact that I convinced myself that, no matter how much disdainment I was feeling towards the course and the tutor, I had to put up with it all if I did not want to repeat the mistake in 2219. And hard work paid off, together with my genius of a project group, PROS! Despite liking cars and specs and all, working on Toyota had been the worst issue-tracking nightmare, as we pored through months of newspapers, newswires, Factiva, etc. And all the nonsense, the laughter, the unproductive times, the you-laugh-at-me-laughing-at-you times... Thanks so much, peeps. :)

Thanks, Ms. Lee!

And not to forget, our first and last Exco outing with Xuanyu as the president. I've always been the sarcastic one, and Xuanyu is always not impressed by the crude jokes and words from me. Haha. Take it easy, Julie means no harm!

Exams exams! Comfort food! Comfort food!

I need my MOS corn soup and D-Plus Natural Yeast Bread in Hokkaido Cream flavour!

I feel like I just got hit by a truck; groggy, arms aching, eyes slightly watery, and very bloated. Okay, now I sound like I just drowned.



I remember those long, half-day walks we used to take from one end of Fort Canning to the other - those are dates before this semester came. Then everything was a blur, and we hardly had time with each other. We realised that, being sticky creatures, one always felt out-of-sync when the other isn't around. That's the main reason why we're seldom caught being without the other in school.


With my battered throat (from taupok with spicy Thai sauce the previous night), we had a K-session @ Marina Square. And they ran out of K-Lunch! RAN OUT! You mean you can actually run out of a package? They're either just too lazy to prepare more food, or it's just a gimmick to make you spend 5 bucks more on the K-student package, only to chase you out 10 minutes before time is up. Anyway, K-sessions are always fun with Jack, because he sings the weirdest songs, and as a result I had to come up with my weird list of English songs which I haven't sang for the longest time. I just didn't expect 《那首歌》, which was a pleasant surprise. Of course, it was a good chance to try insane songs like 《武裝的薔薇》,《本來》,《選擇》and the likes, since our performing days in Geyao are most likely over. Once a vocalist, always a vocalist.

Yes, we went kite-flying.

And we spend half the time in futile attempts to fly our gravity-loving kite, and the other half discussing about the built environment. Guess SSD2210 was useful after all, and even more so when we've got a rising skyline in the city area. And the view from the top of the Marina Barrage is just going to get more and more beautiful. Perhaps I'll invest on a DSLR then.

Our hopeless kite.

If you notice that my hair's ruffled, that's because we spent half the time running across the Barrage, trying to fly that damn thing. Jack's hair never gets messy.

Dinner back at Marina Square 興旺, our favourite Hong Kong cafe, with more talk. We talk alot, I realised, and mostly about random things. I like asking impossibly random questions, and he answers them. Haha.



Just a little rant about FOX. Undeniably, I'm a huge patron, but they pissed me off yesterday. As they're currently having this promotion for their sweaters ($26 per piece), Jack decided to get one because he thought it looked nice, and it was a steal at $26. Ok. Fine. So we picked a white piece and he tried it on and yadayada. But when we went to the counter to pay, the sales person scanned it and charged us $39! WTF! Didn't your promotion label state $26?

"Oh, $26 is the price for the pullovers, not for the zip jackets."

And you placed them at the same area? With only 1 promotion tag screaming "$26" there? Subsequently, I went back to read the DAMN FINE PRINT, and it said, "For selected pieces originally priced at $33". How many people would bother to read that, especially when both the pullovers and the zip jackets look the same?! Thanks, FOX. To think you actually did this to your ardent consumer. Your marketing department needs to grow some brains.

Movies study movies study

My life is turning into a glass of plain, cold, metallic-tasting glass of water. Urgh. Of course, my study plans are always warped, and I seldom follow them faithfully enough.





Yes, we're still kids at heart, so Astroboy was a much-watch movie for us. Etched in the storyline, of course, is the moral that everyone and everything came to this world for a constructive purpose, no matter how significant it may be. Don't want to be too much of a spoiler since the movie's relatively fresh in the cinemas, but it really broke my heart to watch a father being torn from inside over whether or not he should preserve or destroy the very memory of his son. Probably a 4/5 stars.

Don't judge.

Spread is an R21 movie, and paints the ugly truths behind galavanting socialites and toy boys of uptown L.A. The movie teaches its audience that trying to find true love in L.A. is like digging for a glass heart in the middle of a trashhole of shattered others. Of course, there's alot of sleeping around, skin, smut, and everything you wouldn't want even your 18-year-old sis to watch, but hey, it's what made the plot so crudely realistic. As an arthouse film, the ending was good; I hate happily-ever-after cliches, which we all know seldom work out in the context of masqueradish Sunset Boulevard. Worth a watch, only if you're open-minded enough.

Short fused

I'm crazily in love with Agnes B, yet too broke to buy anything from their atas-looking outlets.

This will be a reward to myself if I do well for my upcoming exam. :) Ah, I feel much better.

And it's Week 12, a scary week to contemplate over, simply because it's only 3 weeks to my first paper, and 4 weeks til the end of the exams. Bearing in mind that anything can happen during these crucial weeks, I laid down the iron rule of not sleeping past midnight unless I really have to, simply because my body is protesting fervently against this practice. Apart from my deteriorating complexion and darkening eyebags, my voice is also cracking under those sleepless nights. Then Mr. Gui's were-panda myth will really materialize.

And it's going to be yet another testing period for us, when short fuses tend to burn out much quicker and frustrations manifest in the form of hot tempers. But I'll still need you by my side, like I will be, to dispense those hugs and kisses and everything nice when I'm on the verge of spiralling downwards. I miss you, and will do so every time we say goodbye.

Sometimes I wonder if my existence had been a mistake.

Sun-ny-day

I have no idea who invented the weekends; that person sure was measly enough to give us just 2 days.

My financial planning gained some headway yesterday, after opening another account to store away some money which I can hopefully grow to repay my parents after I graduate. Financial security and independence was something I hadn’t worried too much about until I graduated from JC and wanted to seek a comfortable distance from my parents. I don’t see it as breaking away, but more of self-sufficiency. I just hope I wouldn’t spend all my money during the holidays.

Imperial outing! Haha I have no idea why I stuck with their concept of an ‘imperial family’ when all we are is a congregation of insane people. Haha. J Considering the fact that I’m always giving their outings a miss, I ought to hang out with them this time, and see how everything goes. And guess what? I enjoyed myself thoroughly today! Apart from enduring NX’s horrid driving on Orchard Road(and I thought I was the only one), I just found the best place to stalk out those beautiful roadsters! (P.S: Bribe me and I’ll tell you where) Today’s car-stalking was pretty successful, with a couple of Maseratis, GTRs, BMWs and, of course, the R8! Less that a foot away from my camera! *Shrieks* But then again, I think I’m the only mad girl out there who goes all gaga over lean, mean machines, rattles off their model and make whenever I spot them on the roads, and surf car sites for automobile news. I think I’m kinda nutty.

And I flew a kite for the first time in my life! I know I’m a late-bloomer, but I never really knew how enjoyable and challenging kite-flying was, all at the same time. And I really adhere to the adage - maintaining a relationship is like flying a kite; you have to know when to loosen and tighten the string. Everytime you let go and assume that the wind will carry the kite, it fails on you and you’ve got to work quickly to stop it from coming down. Then it’ll be another tedious round of picking up the kite, winding up the string, and attempting to set it flying again. At first you’ll get disheartened, or have your kite strings entangling in those of others, and you kind of lose much of the zeal for it, But when the wind catches your hair in the wind and whips it across your face, all you wanna do is to hurl the kite into the sky, make a mad dash against the wind, and then smile and watch your kite in the sky.

Dinner was sumptuous, with no other more apt word to describe it. I feel like a fat sow now, with too much sashimi and mango salad swirling in my chubby tummy. And I’m thankful that I have a bunch of crazy people to fall back onto when I feel like being a mental patient. Thanks for the laughter, the Leona Lewis joke (I didn’t appreciate it) and the birthday present.