.:un.4.ge.ta.ble:.

it was a tiring week!!!

all those customers sure drive me nuts at Daiso. Despite having a Daiso Always $2 signage prominently featured at the entrance of the store, there are still endless requests for the price of this, the price of that. And as always, patient as a cat, I would say "Its $2. Everything here is $2. *makes a invisible circle with the right hand*"

Anyway, its Thursday today.. and my pals from Year 1, Jols and LingLing invited me to dinner. Scheduled to be at Billy Bombers at The Cathay, the venue was changed to Cineleisure and lastly, at Takashimaya. Girls....

haha.. Anyway!!!!!

I had the curry chicken rice and Jols had salmon sashimi and LingLing had beef and onions or something... haha... I liked the ambiance at Sushi Tei (where we were dining). The sushi conveyor belt with the assortment of weird sushi moving around in a huge circle, almost begging for us to "pick me! pick me!" adds up to the delightful experience. There was also a big bowl of wasabi. What a generous pot of it! unlike at some japanese fast food restaurant "ayonihsoy". It almost looked like green tea ice cream haha...

Anyway, my curry chicken wasnt that good. a huge wallop of curry sauce and rice and thats about it. we shared a bowl of sashimi salad too. though i am not fond of raw fish, i found the tuna and the salmon quite yummy. Probably coz I have good company. and rather Crazy ones at that!!! I swear I couldnt have believed my eyes when I saw the surprise in the form of a waiter (with a rather silly hair cut) presenting to me a birthday cake with a lighted candle!

Those Crazy girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only they can think of such a wonderful surprise!!!!

And when I was gasping for air after my initial shock, they presented me with a gift!

It was a beautifully designed shirt! And they truely knew my taste! haha... I guess they inherited my good taste for fashion after 1 whole year together... HAHA nah... not really, they have always been fashionist chicks all along, right girls?

=p

Anyway, the shirt was carefully wrapped in delicate paper by the dainty fingers of a Japanese woman, but more importantly, binded by the love of true friendship.

Thanks alot Jols and LingLing, my friends. I wont forget this day

22.03.07

collection of my favourite love quotes

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." - Oprah Winfrey

"Men always want to be a woman's first love; women like to be a man's last romance." - Oscar Wilde

"A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears." - Woodrow Wyatt

"To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best." - Matthew M. Thackeray

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tze

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Were it not for hope the heart would break." - Scottish proverb

"The love we give away is the only love we keep." - Elbert Hubbard

and my personal favourite,

"Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever." - June Masters Bacher

Lunar Blessings

Yeah... If there's one thing I dread, its Chinese New Year.

The 3 Chinese New Year thingies that irks me.
1. Visiting so-called relatives whom you have not seen for exactly a year (since the previous Chinese New Year).
2. Eat the same disgusting sh*t every year. (The pot of steamboat which you can brew your own poison)
3. Being imprisoned at your relatives' home until the cows come home.

Well... Having suffered for 20 years of Chinese New Year, I sure wasn't looking forward to the 21st one.

However, luck seemed to have changed this time round.

Perhaps as though, with the trotting in of the Year of the Pig, I didn't felt so out of place as I did in my rebellious youth.
Relatives whom seemed almost like strangers in years past became people who I felt a connection to, not just by blood (which is totally overrated). Its nice to see your cousins and aunties and uncles, just to share a tender moment to see how's everyone doing.
In a sense, I felt Chinese New Year was the opportunity to strengthen the bonds of kinship despite everyone's hectic lifestyle. The fact that everyone never failed to show up every year shows the imbedded love and concern we have for each other, just that often, as Asians, we find it hard to reveal our true feelings. Why didn't I notice it before? Perhaps the kid is indeed growing up.

Not to mention the red packets the adults always give us every year. Not just for us greedy kids (I haven't reach my 21st) to spend, but to bless us good luck for the coming year. Boy, do I need it. I realised its not the monetary value but the love which is in the red packets.

And about the sh*t I eat each year, yeah sh*t still is sh*t. But thinking it through, my grandmothers did put in alot of effort and loving devotion in buying/preparing the ingredients and concocting the soup base to make Chinese New Year as successful as possible, not just this year but always. And who really cares about eating sh*t for a day or two when you can share this sh*t with your family members whom you have not had time to meet up the past year. And this year, the sh*t did taste alot better. Thanks alot Grannies! love ya effort! and love u as always!

And looking around, my relatives put in alot of effort (and money) in nicely decorating their homes to make it as welcoming as possible. They also bought alot of snacks and tidbits for bored kinsmen like myself to gorge ourselves out. sighs... Thinking about how I despise the Lunar New Year in the past, I should be ashamed of myself.

Well... no point regretting my rebellious days of youth, I guess, I hope for a good prosperous year ahead as an adult.. arghhh... Wonder what's it going to be like! *quivers*

But sure I am to looking forward to meeting up with my relatives for a feast of Granny's concoction of sh*t next year! I really am!!! =]

***Happy Lunar New Year to all! May this Year of the Pig bring you prosperity and good fortune. And as always, may you and your family be blessed with good health and happiness!***

End of an era

Today is the last Wednesday of the strainous school semester. School have indeed winded down and I am slowly but surely morphing back to my previous self, from the wreck that I have become in the course of this semester.

Stress! Stress! Stress! Stress! Stress!

What's an education without stress? Just like what's a bird without its wings? Can an education really take off without its wings of stress? Oh, for all the blood and tears I shed in Polytechnic. Whatever for? A tangible certificate? Or an unbroken promise to achieve my dreams?

I would like to go for the former. For me, my dreams had been shattered the moment I stepped into this semester. What I had imagined of a course which I so bravely opted for, knowingly its terribly demanding nature, turned out to be a nightmare rather than a dream come true. In my angst and pain, who am I to blame? The school for deceit and providing a false impression? Myself for the naive self that I am? My heart for following a destiny it always wanted?

The last question only reveals that my heart is shattered, like a million pieces of glass. Unmendable, and hurts all who tries to pick up the pieces. I guess only me and I can nurse my wounds. Hidden from sight, hidden from the world outside.

Yet broken and torn, I still had a fun time in school. What I enjoyed most is giving my best to help my groupmates. Despite knowing that the future is bleak for me, I just wanted to help them out to make their journey at least easier. It gave me a sense of purpose and this purpose made healing somewhat easier. I also enjoyed the fun times we shared. I guess, even if one is maimed and dying, friendship is what can ferry him to his final port of call.

So, as the semester ceases to exist, did I regret following my dreams blindly? Maybe. But thanks to those who helped me to see and breathe again. It had been an amazing journey. Blindness do not affect your ability to walk ahead, with the support of your sturdy walking stick, your friends and most importantly, your will to endeavour.

Thanks for the happy memories. Till we meet again.

Ocean deep

The anthem
of the wind giving life,
And random heartbeat of the currents,
mesmorised
Yet the torrents,
found only the tempest of the heart
still tear the spirit apart.
Convinced truely,
The siren's song is,
afterall, only a timeless illusion
A world, deep blue,
A deeper shade, of a lonely hue.
Harbours a realm of secrets
Unforgiving, unforgiven
An eternal wait
Yet the search churned out nothing more
Than all that was once discovered
Yet the dream lives on
Everafter
Comforted by the darkness of the depths
The soothing touch of frozen pain
eclipsed from the virginal touch of Sun
In a world devoid of senses
Where no one else maters
But the anthem of the wind.

To the world and back

24-25 Sept was not just another weekend.

Ok ok, sure, 24th was kinda like any Saturday from the block, but Sunday was real kewl, 'coz I got the chance to visit the zoo!

Man, do I sound like a kid (maaaaaaaaaaa *bleats*)

But it had been an awfully long time since I last visited my animal friends at the zoo and I had been wondering how are they lately.

It wasn't cheap though, the price for the entrance charges came in shades of red and green. Yeah $10 + $5 = a whopping $15! Yikes!

Anywayz, it was incredibly fun to wander around within the perimeter (read: cage) of the zoo compound. Imprisoned by $15, I sought a fantasy enlightment to relieve distant boyhood memories of fun and happiness, of joy and childlike dreams with the animal pals. However, it was sad some of them were no longer able to help us achieve it. There seemed to be fewer animals. I assumed they were somewhere else, somewhere hopefully not six feet under.

But nethertheless, it was still a beautiful, or rather, enchanting experience. I would not imagine a mere walk in the park would live my spirits as I watched the animals at play and rest, with most of them prefering the latter activity. It warmed my heart when, as you watches the animal, it peers back at you, and for a single moment, contact is made. Eye contact, that is. But the split second of the gazing of the animal's eyes at mine gives me the joy that it acknowledges my existence, as much as I acknowledge theirs. This really made me feel in touch with loving arms of Mother Nature, bringing me right into the heart of nature, where politics and economy no longer exists, where technology is redundant, where the world was once beautiful.

My favourite animal had to be the giraffe. Whilst I was there, this really adorable long-necked spottie was sashaying around her enclosure, not minding masses of tiny onlookers admiring her oh-so-natural catwalk. Her long eyelashes and big black eyes sure complimented her leggy feature. Ok, I have to admit that I am not sure if she's male or female.

I was also melted at the sight of a pygmy hippo nudging her dearest whilst she struggled about in the water. The baby hippo was so small and so vulnerable, quavering its tiny ears from time to time, whilst its mommy stayed right beside it, providing it with the shelter and safety that it required. Unfailing to fulfiling the role of Mother as she would do for her child.

The tendency for me to attribute animal behaviour to human characteristics is overwhelming, since I cannot imagine how different they are from us, as are we not, part of them? It is not a mistake to follow that tendency but having the heart, and mind, to treat animals as equals, with as much right to live as I do.

As I left the zoological gardens and all her natural wonders, I could only imagine, I had not entered the animal kingdom with that 15 bucks; I had entered the Kingdom Animalia the moment I was conceived. $15 only brought me back to a place I had forsakened in my pursuit of my dreams. Ironically, a place where my dreams had all begun.

gattaca

It was a great movie. I was touched not merely emotionally but the whole living pressence of myself, my life and all thats me.
The movie, though encircles the solving of a mystery murder plot of a dead space facility employer, reveals the undying truth in life; the way of the living.

It tells, of, a world so unlike of ours, yet runs parallel, where friends, hidden from sight but true to the heart, who would reveal, in times of the desperate, not to forsake you. Friends who would give you their all, not to discriminate, not to judge your physical being or social status, but value the self within, beyond what the mind or flesh can reveal.

It tells of a man, not allowing life to define him, but harness beyond what life could do for him to reach for the stars. The sacrifice, of everything he once stood for, of his identity, of his all, to fulfil life's aspirations was something deeply-felt in my heart. How many of us, choose to fulfil our life and sacrifice our dreams? Can dreams really be something not even life can replace? The man chose a path less taken, one that would mean that existence, a mere genesis in the creation of a state of mind, having left redundant, in its place, the quest for a dream come true.

It tells, of a soul, born to a world handicapped, yet not built to resign to fate, and fights all odds to achieve all that which was beyond his horizon. Knowing that one must fight on, in this long march of life, and problems are mere stones in the way, keep walking and they are left behind, further and further behind. As Vincent, the character spoke, "I never swam back".

The story melted me from within. Some things in life can't be altered; what you are borned with, what you have gone through, but more importantly,
Can't forsake the dreams you have.

Not for others,
not for your life,

Do it for your destiny.