07.26.08

Friday Nights

Posted in Random Thoughts at 1:01 am by littleice

I think it’s always nice when I get to meet up with friends and then eat, drink, chill, talk, laugh, etc. However random the meeting it may be.

When I don’t have to work on Saturdays of course… Which is a rare luxury.

I’m going to be really busy in August cause Jamie’s going on leave.

It’s a weird feeling to see Ronaldinho in front of me and then realising that I’m not watching him on TV. Too bad Kaka isn’t here.

Going to enjoy the sun, sand and sea tmr at Sentosa. Please don’t rain.

07.19.08

It’s Not Work

Posted in Photos/ Videos, Random Thoughts, Work at 4:19 pm by littleice

It’s been two years since GO-FAR and a year since FYP. Dropped Shyam an email to say hello and gave him an update about what I’ve been doing.

Didn’t expect a response since he’s usually here and there and have lots of mails, so it’s either he replies immediately or doesn’t at all. But he gave a pleasant reply two weeks later just before I went off to Redang, which was really nice of him. Said some things in his email that I thought was a timely reminder for me. How do I explain it?  Losing your tokidoki?

You sometimes get a little lost and forget what keeps you going. And when someone else says them to you, it’s like a good wake up call and energy/morale booster. You’ll feel recharged.

“The ONLY way to ensure you never cease enjoying yourself is to continue to recognise the FACT that it is NOT work your are doing or a job you are performing.”

“Whatever it be, don’t allow fatigue to wear your love for the medium/craft. Instead, just manage your time effectively.”

I know all that, but it’s always nice to get someone else saying that to you once in a while.

Anyway, had a pretty decent half-year work assessment a while back. Some of the comments were a pleasant surprise and it was pretty encouraging to read. But as all assessments go, there’s always things that need improvement and I know the things I need to work on more. So… I’ve got to jiayou! :)

I’ve entered my Timor-Leste’s Cristo-Rei photograph in this Seagate Precious Memories competition. It’s always been my personal favourite thus far because of what it symbolised besides being just a pretty landscape image. So if you guys are bored, can go take a look at other submitted entries, and if you like mine, you can vote for it at http://www.seagatememories.com/detail.php?uid=487b8c49c182c. I don’t think there are many other entries, so you can always find mine on the general photo gallery if the direct link I’ve provided doesn’t work. I think it’s number 311.

Jean won this competition called The Rice Project and I think it’s really awesome cause she gets to distribute rice to the tsunami victims along the coast of Eastern Sri Lanka and document the process besides travelling to other parts of the country under the care of the local tourism board. You can view her entry here. Pretty meaningful.

Trust

Posted in Random Thoughts at 2:37 pm by littleice

Why do we hanker for the truth when in our hearts, we know we can’t handle the truth?

In a good way, perhaps the only way of retaining whatever-we-can-hold-on-to is to let go. What irony. Leave things be, it may be better that way. Everyone needs their own space and time.

Trust…

I’ve realised that, but I don’t think they have. We’re all stubborn folks. So what happens next?

I’m scared to find out.

Back from Redang

Posted in Holidays & Travel at 12:15 am by littleice

And missing it already. I think the trip was too short… although there’s really nothing much to do there. I think I may just head back again myself next time.

Just being away and having your mobile phone not ringing for a few days is rather nice. :) We just nuah-ed and got a little burnt. Didn’t even go for our massage. Haha!

But the snorkelling was beeeautiful. There were three complimentary trips out - two afternoon open waters and one morning marine park. We only went for one of the afternoon open waters snorkelling, which wasn’t much, but fun all the same. But the morning marine park one was amazing. I thought I’d be afraid of the fishes and all, but they were so pretty that I forgot to be scared. Haha!

Oh yes, it’s the jellyfish season. They had to continually warn us to stay away from orange plastic-like things. Freaked us out a little to see so many of them floating along the way when the boat was moving, but no one got stung, so it was alright.

Had to thank two guides who led us by hand to see “the things that we would have missed if we were just floundering about by ourselves in the sea”. Moray eels are huuuge! And they look so scary lounging about in the dark corners, glaring with their mouths open. They even brought us past the “safety zone” where the currents were slightly stronger - to a shipwreck, which was so cool. And the schools of ikan bilis that were underneath the jetty… I wish I had an underwater camera then. It was really awesome.

Being on the boat and staring at the blue waters and green forests with the waves splashing, the cool wind blowing and the warm sun gently hitting the skin was “the moment” for me.

Food wasn’t great. Bad to be exact, both the buffet-styled on the second level and the ala-carte restaurant on the first. But then again, maybe it was a good thing that there wasn’t delicious food to turn us into pigs.

Room was alright, but couldn’t sleep very well. I’m someone who can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere, so for me not to be sleeping means something. And there was nothing on the television that we could understand, so we had to resort to watching the 24-hour reruns of “Summer Holiday” aka “Xia Re De Mo Mo Cha” which was filmed in Redang back in 1999, starring Richie Ren and Sammi Cheng. But we were quite happy watching that la. Brought books to read, so with or without television programmes were alright for us.

Bus trip was long… More than 10 hours to and fro respectively. But it was a really comfortable bus with movies and games. Nice bus uncles (two of them take turns to drive us during the trip - we happen to get the same uncles during our return trip) who alerted us to toilet breaks, food stops, what to bring down the bus at the customs and estimated destination time-of-arrival, etc.

Anyway, long story, but we met a group of friends (four guys and three ladies) on the bus trip back. It’s always nice to have eye-candies for such a long bus trip back. The one slightly more ang-moh looking one looked like Brad Pitt can? And for the longest time Diappy and I kept trying to guess where they came from. Cause they looked Chinese and spoke Mandarin, English, Hokkien, Cantonese and another weird Western language that wasn’t French, German, Spanish or Italian. Thought they were from Hong Kong, or maybe Canadian-born Chinese, and was about to ask them directly and stop our guessing when the bus uncle told us at the customs that they’re from Holland. :) But having decided to be anti-social throughout the entire trip, didn’t converse much with them. And now I’m irritated with myself cause I think I should have been more shameless and asked for an email or something. At least I’ll have friends there if I decide to go Holland right? Well, too late.

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring along Hui’s Nikon Coolpix, so didn’t get any photographs from the trip. Just beautiful images in my head. Mei, I think it’s a nice place for wedding photos wor… Haha!

All in all, a good trip. :)

And now, back to work. 62 unchecked emails.

07.15.08

Redang

Posted in Holidays & Travel, Work at 2:18 am by littleice

Need to clear my leave before August so I’m on leave this week. Short trip to Redang with Diaperdog… 15th-18th July. I think I really need to get away. Warm sun, beautiful sand, cool sea… a nice massage, a good book, snorkelling, eating and basically nuahing…

Can’t wait. :)

Went for the Blue Moo drinks training session. It was fun learning to be a shaker and learning how to mix the drinks. And Danny’s office is beautiful. I’d love to work there if I was into marketing research, but unfortunately I’m not. :)

Oh yes, I’m now a huuuuuge Kettle Chips Honey Dijon fan… And I can’t find that flavour anywhere! *upset*

07.02.08

Tokidoki

Posted in Random Thoughts at 11:40 pm by littleice

I’m now a fan of Simone Legno’s Tokidoki

Tokidi means “sometimes” in Japanese. “Sometimes” because everyone waits for moments that change one’s destiny. By simple chance or meeting a new person, tokidoki is the hope, the hidden energy everyone has inside that gives us the strength to face a new day and dream something positive, that something magical will happen to us.

How beautifully put.

My wisdom teeth extraction went fine. It was surprisingly alright and not as nightmarish as I imagined it would be. But that is another long story when I’m more free to write it down.

06.04.08

“Not” Counting Down

Posted in Daily Happenings, Family & Friends, Photos/ Videos, Random Thoughts at 1:28 am by littleice

Just sent Tortoise Hui off at the airport. So envious. She’s heading to Olomouc, Czech Republic, with Meridian JC choir for a choir competition. I miss Vienna, Austria… and the air-conditioned weather.

I’m trying very hard not to think about the coming Friday… So far, I’ve been rather successful. Dawn (who’s currently on leave enjoying her church camp) asked if I am looking forward to my “off” days?

I told her, “I like work. I don’t like pain.”

Blood test wasn’t too bad, although the needle was poked in for more than five seconds.

Went to cover a profile for Dawn’s Sundown Marathon story and I think running at night is so much better than running in the day. Although I still don’t know how marathoners do it. My maximum distance covered so far is 5K. How do people do 42K? Not to mention there are people who signed up for 84K?!! Was waiting at the end point for the newsmakers to finish their 10.5K and saw a few familiar faces.

Covered Singapore versus Uzbekistan. It’s not nice feeling photographing your country being thrashed.

It’s so exciting shooting sports because it’s fast-paced, unpredictable and emotionally-charged. Plus the competitive atmosphere always gives me goosebumps and an adrenaline rush. But you really need to be fast to keep track of the action and anticipate possibilities. There’s so much happening all at once and you can’t be too greedy. After covering my first soccer match, I learnt that photographers aren’t allowed to move about once the half begins. So you have to choose which side of the goalpost you want to station at and stay at that side until half-time, then you can choose to switch sides if you want to. Plus my 70-200mm cannot zoom quite close enough without a converter, so when they asked if I had any close-ups… I had to say “that is my closest close-up” I got. Sigh. We need to get a converter.

05.31.08

Stupid Fear

Posted in Family & Friends, Random Rantings at 1:24 am by littleice

I’m a coward. I’m scared of needles. Injections are fine. But not the ones that are poked and has to stay in you for more than five seconds.

I’m the kind who believes in self-healing. Don’t like going to doctors or dentists (unless I realise panadols don’t work). They scare me. Don’t ask me why.

And for not going to the dentist ever since I’m forced to go in secondary school, I believe that my impending wisdom teeth surgery (I’m taking out all four of them) this coming Friday is my karma. Plus a probable root canal and more followups with the dentist for cleaning and fillings.

I’m going to be seeing a lot of needles. Sigh… Blood test tomorrow to make sure I’m okay to go under general anesthesia. I can’t imagine being under local anesthesia and feeling the dentist pulling out my teeth and cutting my gums, etc. (Mei… you have my respect, aka ”you’re crazy!”)

So far, I haven’t taken any leaves nor gone on MCs since work started. And now my teeth is forcing me out for at least a week.

I was still praying I just had gum infection or something else that is not a wisdom tooth problem. That is, until I saw the x-ray. *#$!@?!*^…

Then again, it’s going to be quite sad not being able to eat anything solid for sometime. I love food too much. Going to have to stock up on those instant porridge and instant mashed potatoes.

And did I mention I was going to be all alone at home? It just happens that Tortoise Hui is away in Czechoslovakia for choir competition, and my parents will be away in China for their much-deserved holiday.

But dear Mei offered to come and stay over for the first three days to look after me… Super touched. At first she mentioned it and I was saying I didn’t want to trouble her (cause I’m not going to be very good company, there’s absolutely nothing to do at my house, and she’s going to be so bored). Then after a few days I got a message from her saying she already applied for leave on Monday?!! Super duper touched…

This will reassure and stop my mum from continuously saying that she wants to cancel their holiday trip. She keeps reminding me to call my aunties, call my neighbour, call her friend if anything happens. It’s adorable how she’s so kancheongly-paranoid. I AM already 24 turning 25.

It’s quite funny actually. For the first time in my life, I feel like such a baby. But I do feel loved.

Trying very hard not to think about the coming Friday until the moment comes. My super-highly imaginative powers scare me. And I feel ashamed for being such a coward. Just look at what the people over at Myanmar and Sichuan are going through.

05.01.08

Sigh

Posted in Daily Happenings at 5:38 am by littleice

Bad vibes came true.

But they weren’t playing well at all. Oh well… At least I got to watch the match on television.

Happy Labour Day guys.

04.30.08

Bad Vibes

Posted in Daily Happenings, Family & Friends at 6:55 pm by littleice

I don’t have cable at home, and I don’t know who in Hougang/Sengkang will want to watch soccer matches with me in kopitiams, so I have to resort to staring at the gamecast on soccernet.com to get minute-by-minute text updates of the match. So pathetic… Sigh.

Anyway, I guessed that Man U would win. Bleah. And I have a bad feeling that Liverpool will lose. But I’m hoping my bad vibes aren’t going to come true.

Diappy is happily in Boracay, enjoying the sun, sand and sea. So envious. She deserves a good rest from work, although I don’t think anyone else in the family is too pleased that we don’t see her more than once a week. Tortoise seems rather angsty and upset with her…

I really shouldn’t be all soppy, but it was Caroline’s last day with my paper yesterday. I’m going to miss her, really… But I’m glad she’s back in ST. Went out to Holland V for drinks with her and Jamie after work, and it was nice talking outside of work. Sze Yong’s last day on Thursday I think… Sigh. But yay for him that he’s going to travel to cool exotic countries.

For the first time since their honeymoon, Daddy and Mummy are going to Kunming, China, together by themselves in July. I’m just happy that they’re talking the time off to get away from Singapore and have fun without having to worry about us. Maybe without us three rascals tagging along, Mummy will be less worried nag less, and have more fun. Haha!

I want to plan for a holiday too, but no ideas where I want to go (I want to travel around the world!) and who I want to go with. I’m not sure if I like travelling overseas alone. But if I’m desperate enough to get away, maybe I will. Haha!

Meeting the JC choir peeps for some fabulous chef Zhangjin’s cooking later. A nice night of good food, good company, games and fun! Yay! I hope Zhangjin’s place has cable…

I don’t want to have to stare at gamecast on soccernet.com tonight.

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