talkYing

Trip to HK07

2007-10-11T00:05:00.000+08:00

Been 7 years since I last visited this Pearl of Asia, had an enjoyable time reconnecting with friends and creating close and related friendships that was never possible.

Thanks for all your hospitality and friendship.

Hugs!

Join and Help Afghanistan Now-Jahan

2007-08-25T00:08:00.000+08:00

I was happy to see a photo of Shazia from Jahan's July-Aug distribution photos yday. She looks well and with her mum by her side, she looks taken care of. I am present to the fact that through my sponsorship she is able to have an education and not be roaming the streets.

Would like to invite you to partake in Jahan's program of helping children inside Afghanistan find their way toward self-sufficiency. Click on this link to see the kids waiting in line for sponsors and an education.You can make a difference in their lives.

month of july

2007-08-24T23:24:00.000+08:00

have to say with the facebook phenomenem, i dont feel that inclined to update my blog after that :P

i missed europe alot, my trip back to stlm was a dream reunion of all sorts, from fredrik and johana's wedding, to seeing pple whom i love and missed alot, and those familiar and hangouts of where i used to go in stlm, it was like almost that i have never left to have the same pple with me at my fave joints, yet inside myself, i know that things have changed and pple too. But stlm has always been the place that I found peace, tranquility with myself and it will forever be my place to find myself should i be lost or need to seek refuge :)

turning 27...i used to think pple who say the age is just a number are just deceiving themselves of how old they really are, now I am beginning to think otherwise, maybe its because i am a part of that turning 30s gang where all my hair will slowly fall out ( seems more so for the guys) and am in the denial stage or maybe I have really seen through the age= youth, what you can and can not do, the age to wake up to be responsible and do adult things like buying hses etc is just a myth. took me some time but i have to say I am happy to be 27 and happy to be alive. Photo taken with my family celebrating my bday. I had a great bday celebration back in Stlm as well with my close friends, thank you for that!

Friends leaving... after 5 years Cecilia Tam, one of the longest running ex trainee has left our sunny isle. Before that Jessica Tsai left as well, both my dear asian aiesec ex mcps, both dear friends that I have known since my aiesec days, and how our relationships took a turn when they came to Singapore to work then our friendships cultivated to a more stable day to day one and then they leave to pursue their lives. Ceci I still remember when she first came and started the whole DHL Singapore network which is now bursting with trainees currently, while I was mcp, that seems like a long way back my dear.how much we have changed since then. :)Photos are from our girls farewell weekend from sentosa where we rented a room and partied in sentosa, it was an eating non stop weekend fiesta allright :) LITERALLY! :) Jess and Ceci, I missed you already!

dust

2007-07-25T23:06:00.001+08:00

Never knew how much space my laptop takes up of my table, only when i brought it downstairs so that my dad can try to link it to the scanner, i see a faint greyish, dusty rectangular mark in the place of the usual humming machine that i have

Guess I just read books, wrote stuff when I didnt have a laptop back then...doing more constructive and self development thingie rather than wasting my time on addictive facebook...

Going to the chapel and we'll

2007-07-25T23:06:00.000+08:00

going to get married..Going to the chapel and we'll going to get married

My dear Finnish Vietnamese friend Mr Lam Ngoc Chau left 2 weeks ago to go back to Finland to marry his better half Rikka :) Guess how time flies that he has stayed in Singapore for 2 years and about 6-7 years ago was when I first met him, when he was here in Singapore as well for a company traineeship and hung out AIESEC trainees in Singapore back then like Sandy, Grace, Jenny back then. GD grief thats long man...

Will miss you Chauie and have a great wedding with Rikka in Aug!

Cant believe

2007-06-28T01:05:00.001+08:00

that I am finally going back to Stockholm next week for a well deserved holiday.:)

Didnt realise how much I missed the place till I looked at the website on what new happenings are there, they have a great tourist site btw

Will be meeting Viv, Rajat, Gokce, Nisarg, Ira, Ana, Aloke,and the whole gang for Fredrik & Johana's wedding. Got increasingly excited as I started planning my holiday trip in my trusty excel sheet ( yes I am anal). I was so excited that I called my fren in Taiwan that I told him I was going! and reconnected with him after a year long of non communication and found out that he was going to get married end of the year...:) Texted Rajat in London, called Viv in Canada, and chatted with Ana and found that she is attached, gosh the world is really evolving and not standing still, so many "new" developments happening to the pple I know.

I will also spend 2 days in London where I will meet up with Lizhen,Dimi,Rajiv, Rajat, Emma, Heather, Adrian etc as well, I have no idea how many pple I know are in London...amazing

So if you are in Stockholm from:7-21 July, London from 17-19th July, we might bump into each other.;)

Everyone is going to die one day

2007-06-24T16:33:00.001+08:00

One of my friend's dad just had a heart attack and another one just passed away due to cancer.

How fragile life is, the true impact of it will never hit us till we have the 1st hand experience I fear.

Everyone is going to die one day.

Would you live your life differently had you know that your last day is near?

under the weather

2007-06-23T20:29:00.000+08:00

a day of sleeping, sweating under the blankets, self medication, eating the same duck porridge from lunch to dinner, how cheap my meal is my mum commented

started with the sore throat now the flu

tried the gurgling with salt water idea from my boss for the 1st time in my life, not too bad i always imagine that it would be like drinking sea water when you are kinda drowning.

back to zzz land ago right after i pop these pills, the beige and the red pill.

Hippy bird day HL and GA :)

2007-06-20T23:29:00.001+08:00

Birthday gal HL on the right, taken at Ray's wedding, ( the last guy from our class that we expect to get hitched, beat all guys to it). Thanks for the invitation to your bday bash, had great fun :)

Robin, our HCJC junior, the ultimate slacker who quitted his 9-5 job at a top IT firm to pursue the life of flight, beauties and travel, a grand plan he has made...all in the name of being a slacker...incredible..in training to be a SQ pilot. And yes Bu, have to ease off the use of my derma product, my face is getting considerably fairer.

Mr G. Alacadagli, shown here with the 04 bday present when we got him an electric kettle, for this turk loves teas. Belated bday celebration to be coming up soon on the 7th :)

far sighted

2007-06-20T23:29:00.000+08:00

had a taste of being far/long sighted today when i went to the national eye centre to do a retina eye check. Due to the stingy liquid that was squirted into my eyes, ( 2wice) to dilate my pupils for the check resulted in- wearing my shortsighted glasses, and yet i cant bloody read the queue no and fine print in front of me. Man, a taste of old age with far sightedness...funny...

skypeout

2007-06-18T23:29:00.000+08:00

i know i am a laggard in many things, fashion is one of them
and i just discovered the joy of using skypeout which is 10 times cheaper than using Singtel's V019 :)

SkypeOut is the great, wallet-friendly way to call phones and mobiles direct from Skype.

Sacred Monsters

2007-06-10T23:29:00.000+08:00

Was lucky to get free tics from Sandy's friend Austin, who actually bought the 2nd most ex tics to catch Sacred Monsters here in Singapore, a part of the Singapore Arts Fest, unfortunately he couldnt make it and I got to benefit :)

What surprised me that apparently Singapore's Art Fest is rated the 2nd best of its kind in Asia, trailing behind Japan's, that I didnt even know! And he actually wanted to come to Singapore just for this Arts festival from Taiwan!

From fearing that I would fall asleep in this dance performance to being totally memerised and inspired. Straight 90 mins just breezed past without me realising as my eyes were glued to the stage. With haunting vocals and indian traditional music at the background, chinese and indian dance forms infused into modern ballet by this incredible duo, the effect was AMAZING! They had 3 rounds of standing ovation at the end of the performance, which is rare here in Singapore.

Intro:

SACRED MONSTERS will bring together Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan in an exciting exploration of the boundaries between two great classical dance forms, kathak and ballet, with additional choreography by Lin Hwai-min, Artistic Director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Taiwan and kathak guru, Gauri Sharma Tripathi, as well as live music specially created for them by Philip Sheppard. FYI: Sylvie Guillem is perhaps the world’s most celebrated ballerina.

Ballet Reviews:
Did I say that the dancing was fabulous? It's more than fabulous, particularly in the duets choreographed by Khan. In the first of these the pair join hands and create a looping Moebius strip of movement, their arms as soft as newly rolled pastry. In the last, Guillem wraps her legs around Khan's waist and the two of them sway and weave like mating cobras - an erotic temple-carving made flesh. The music, from sources as diverse as the avant-garde Czech violinist Iva Bittova and the Corsican composer Toni Casalonga, is intriguing and atmospheric.

Watch a snippet for yourself here:

This is definately the BEST dance performance I have ever seen in my life, thank you Austin!

Spoof of wikipedia

2007-06-07T23:29:00.001+08:00

Hows this for news?

-Lukewarm tea and stale biscuits lead to an academic boycott.
-Under intense pressure from various family groups, Alabama geology classes make alternative "Paul Bunyan" theory mandatory
-Emos the world over voyage to Swiss death clinics
-Typhoid Marry! TB carrier and wife's first kiss
-Match Game and A Troll in Central Park star Charles Nelson Reilly dies at 76

And Yesterday's featured article:
Rounded head, stretched tail, as white as silk, they are alive, yet they hold the most magical history humankind could ever find. Sperm usually come in groups of two or three million sperm cells. They support each other, all the while fighting their way to individualism to reach the so-called egg cell. Sperms are like hippies: they all stink, all of them are the same, but we can't just have enough of them.

Most sperm cells can live up to five days, although this lifespan may vary greatly. Some people, usually aged 15 to 22 have sperm cells aged only a day, sometimes two, and when these sperms die, they need to "ejaculate" them out, literally. Others, however, can hold their sperm up to two weeks, while old people can hold theirs up to a year, possibly two. This data may seem interesting and convincing, but it does not represent the demographics of people who play World Of Warcraft and The Legend Of Zelda.

Hahahaha ,find this site Thank TY.

life..oh life

2007-06-07T23:29:00.000+08:00

in one of my reflective moods again

met up xy and her baby boy yesterday, god this cheeky fellow can now walk, laugh really mischeviously, make sounds like "grrrr" and then walks to pple for hugs after 1 spoon of rice/cornflakes/peanut butter sandwich then run back for the food ( seriously we counted, without fail at least 10 times and he gets bored of what he is eating really fast hence the variety the mother needs to have on standby). How all 4 26-27 year old women and man, just looked at him, lavished all our attention to this 1 year old and when his grandparents came, yeah them too. The beginning of a new life, a whole new future wide ahead just waiting to be shaped, an empty canvas just waiting to be painted, partly determined on how his parents decide to raise him up. Funnily though, could anticipate how this energiser bunny will bring such joy and headache to his beloved parents in the near future.:)

back at home, my grandaunt whom we are all very close with as a family had a fall last week and is now hospitalised for a possible hip operation. At age 92, she has seen the rise and fall of Singapore, worked as an ex matron nurse, lived through the japanese occupation, survived through the death of her husband, brought up her kid and supported the growth of her sister's 7 children till they themselves have children. My grandaunt who used have her wild days of smoking back in those times and many more I would imagine. Strong, independant, wise woman, very smart and lucid, even for her age who will win us some monies during our weekly sunday mahjong sessions at grams. After her fall, we talked about the quality of life, of whats left in her years in this world, and how she would want to live, factors to consider before the operation, pros and cons.

Cant help but think that life goes on, in a full circle

The eye scare

2007-06-04T23:58:00.000+08:00

Well since I was bespectacled at the age of 13, I have been a frequent wearer of contact lenses since I was 14. From permanent soft lens of 12 odd years till the recent monthly disposable lens. And for the 1st time in my 13 years, do I have a serious red-eye syndrome the past few weeks when I wore them, popped them in and in a few mins later, the eye goes instantly red...save for the pupil...scary....

Tried it once, stopped for a week, tried again and red it is, bingo! Was adamant you see that this cant be happening to me after 10 odd years of no problemo..But freaked out I was to see a red eye staring back at me and the horror stories that Caroline (aka Ms Pharmacist) told me about pple going blind, losing their cornea or contact lens going to the back of the eye, that I decided to make a trip down to National Eye Centre finally to get a peace of mind... hopefully.

Turned out that even though I had monthly disposable lense, which the sales lady told me that i didnt have to clean them, I still have to! ( even though they are disposables) The threshold of the protein level accumulated in my lens has been reached, creating the condition of conjunctivitis.

Under doc's orders I have to go without contact lens for 1 mth and have daily eye drops. Oh yeah my cornea is a alittle scatched but doc says no worries and it will heal ( WHAT!)Another thing is that frequent contact lens wearer will have red circles around their pupil which signals the lack of oxygen to the eye, something which was conveyed to me by a shop optician a few years back as a serious condition, but the doc says its normal dont worry abt it.

Thats bursting a few myths at the same time just from 1 trip to the professionals. So yeah, just sharing my experiences so you wont be as 'naive' as I am.

KTV Virgins no more :)

2007-06-03T23:29:00.002+08:00

Dimitris finished his last leg of the Asia tour in Singapore and we have the honour of "deflowering" all 3 of them at the same time :).

Chau, Brenda and Dimi, with the help of Ceci....haha by singing our fave chinese, cantonese and of course enrish songs :)..

Chau, think you can go for Eurovision next year as the exotic Vietnamese/Finnish export;)

For those who want more of Kanako-san

2007-06-03T23:29:00.001+08:00

dumb me

2007-06-03T23:29:00.000+08:00

itchy fingers try to change blog template and i lose all the links to other blogs...

sorry ah mat ( look i mention you again, you still lead being the most mentioned person in my blog) you no longer can use my blog as a portal to read cy's blog :P

Kanako was in town

2007-05-25T01:06:00.001+08:00

IMG_4212
Originally uploaded by ying22.

After her last visit which was1.5 years ago...strange though I felt it was longer, and there were this group of AIESEC friends that I last met when we were still in sch and now everyone is all decked out in work clothes, and yet again all feels surreal...:)

Have to admit, I "inherited" the "REALLY?" questioning tone from Kanako, she was the pioneer and I am the copycat who kinda made it my own in a way. :)

Fat Free Water?

2007-05-20T22:35:00.001+08:00

10-05-07_2121
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Have you seen this Fat Free Water? Incredible how these kind of claims can be made on mineral water...hello? Does water have fat in the 1st place?

Threading for the 1st time today

2007-05-20T01:17:00.000+08:00

So what is threading and how does it work differently for plucking of eyebrows?

You Give Me Something + Weddings

2007-05-19T23:58:00.000+08:00

Weddings weddings, photos from them: one of Dear Addy who is the most relaxed and humming bride that I have ever seen and my colleagues's Lu Lin big bash :)

And as I am making this entry,James Morrison's song : You give me something, is playing on the background, befitting you think? :)

'Cause you give me something
That makes me scared, alright,
This could be nothing
But I'm willing to give it a try,
Please give me something,
'Cause you give me something
That makes me scared, alright,
This could be nothing
But I'm willing to give it a try,
Please give me something
'Cause someday I might know my heart.
Know my heart, know my heart, know my heart

Thanks HL.

born into brothels

2007-05-17T23:41:00.001+08:00

born_into_brothels
Originally uploaded by ying22.

think i read abt this movie from Suzanne's blog a year or 2 back, and it finally came to singapore now.

Endearing documentary which shows the lives of children born in the red light district of Calcutta.

Not overly dramatic and sensational, the documentary brings out the quiet sadness of one's fate, the optimism to struggle against societal views and the suffocation of talents when the right opportunity is not given.

Makes me wonder how different life could turn out, if one is born in a totally diff kind of environment..

Apparently this doc has spun off into a foundation of helping children living in red light areas worldwide to get an education.

Aviva World Badminton Open 2007

2007-05-07T23:58:00.002+08:00

My 1st badminton match up close and personal, and it has to be the world championship finals. We have top seeders like the No.1 and 2 of the badminton circuit gracing this event in Singapore, which I find incredible...apparently i think we tried to get Mr Woods down previously for this Asia Golf tournament but he charges like $1-2 Mil for appearance fees, talk about being a celebrity. :P

Anyways the prize money for the Aviva open even though for a world championship seems far much lesser than a tennis or golf open, think the prize is only USD200K? My group of spectators conclude that probably badminton is still an Asian sport with the exception of Denmark (this lone scandinvian cty) ha, hence not as wealthy as the other european dominated sports maybe.

Kudos to my cuz Yiru for getting us free tickets and due to her links with the thai team, was cheering for the Thai players all the way! And the matches were really exciting, some players seem to make time stand still as they slowly glided through the court effortlessly to deliver the life -determining smash, unbelieveable.:)

Face recognition

2007-05-07T23:58:00.001+08:00

Which celebrity do you resemble most? After this news came out on the paper today, think this site is getting alot of hits from this tiny isle :)

Have a go at it...its entertaining. As you can see, I had alot of fun with it, trying with diff photos of me to see if I can get a higher % of resemblence and yeah I look like a guy at the last one.Ha!

http://www.myheritage.com

Did I tell you that I was a fan of Jacky Cheung before and god Enid Blyton?! Haha