Saturday, March 31

Been down and out lately. But it's also been a fun time for me, afterall, it's EASTER HOLS! : D

But damn that I got injured just the day before easter hols was to start for me. On a luckless Thurs night, to add on to the numerous scratches on my hands; a fingernail that's been accidently cut downwards(exposing the soft nail) by a keyring; a twisted right ankle; a slightly bruised right knee and a scrapped left knee.... I topped it by spraining my left ankle badly and bruised up further for my right knee. Thank God for Maine's wonderful nutmeg oil (squirrel brand). With regular rubbing, I think my ankle will be fine by the end of 2 weeks rather than 6 as predicted by the hospital doctor!

My swollen left ankle..gross ain't it?

Itty Bitty injuries on my legs~

Ever since the sprained ankle, all the food supplies have been shifted from Ter's to mine, and we've been having daily dinners at my place. We had yummy laksa, bak ku teh with you tiao, abc soup with loads of ingredients, curry with prata, etc etc. And we baked our very own Bread & Butter Pudding! (maine's recipe)

The absolutely yummy Prima Laksa with a glass of coke~
And our hot Bread & Butter Pudding straight from the oven, with cold custard to top off with!

And after yummy dinners, we sit down for a game or two. Of Poker, Catan or Mahjong that lasts deeeeep into the night. Either that or we chat and joke around.. which also lasts for hours on end : )

Now you see Maine.................................................................................. Now you Don't!
























Our bottle of JD bought by Jacky. Kids, see the effect of alcohol? nOoOoooooo, bad boy!

Unlucky Jacky got a lovely smooch on his head by the extremely hyper ter!











err.... didn't know he had a fetish for sharks. my poor poor sharkie! got sodomised that night.. *shakes head and sighs*




























More wacky panda pics. Looks quite real doesn't it? :D










And so goes on my lovely divine easter holidays. Juz watched TMNT yesterday, hobbling step by step. and the movie was good too! the company on the otherhand, is better than good. Ter, Maine and Jacky. Fabulous start of the hols, unfortunately, Ter & Maine'll be graduating this sem. *sigh* But at least I still get to hang out with them for 2 more months. Bemoaning comes later, first comes the fun!















And so.. Just want to wish folks out there a Happy Easter! (Easter eggs from dear jacky)













Song of the day: This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race by Fallout Boy

Labels: Alcohol, Bread and Butter Pudding, Dinner, Drinks, Easter Hols, Games, Injuries, Laksa, Panda, Sharkie, Sprained ankle

Monday, March 19

It's the absolute last bits of winter right now.. the transition stage from winter to spring. How melancholic it feels, as one savours the little left before it's gone. Those cliche sayings about how you should treasure things/people while they're around, don't wait till their gone. I did, yet it doesn't make the end seem any more pleasant.

Anyway, I've got my tickets booked, I'm ready to go back home at a snap. Although I've been in Singapore for alll my life until recently last year when I came over to UK in Sept, I really love being here. Apart from the people back home - yes, my family, my gfs, my squash buddies, jc friends, poly friends, sec school friends, colleagues, etc etc. Love and miss them so much! Somehow.. I feel that in future should I be uprooted from Singapore to stay perhaps in UK, I would do so without any hesitation, especially if my parents can be here too. Guess this is the first time I've voiced out something like that.. I would miss my babes soo much though :X

Still, the prospects of being home are sooo lovely! *grins happily*

Pirates of the Carribean part 3 (UPDATED) - May 25th, 2007. promised to catch the 3rd part with my squash buds last year after part 2 and shall do so this summer!

The Simpsons Movie - July 26, 2007. I totally heart this series! can't wait to watch this. Shall drag jacky to catch it with me whether he wants to or not.. :P

Shrek 3 - May 18, 2007. Loved the first, missed part of the second.. Can't wait for the third! Yay!

Song of the day: Tell Me Baby by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Labels: Movie, Pirates of the Carribean 3, Shrek 3, The Simpsons

Tuesday, March 6

Yup, it's me once again. Have got some more fabulous things to share about the grandstanders - our 'public servants'! Quotable Quotes:

“Retrenchment is good for Singapore. If there are no retrenchments, then I worry for Singapore” Goh Chok Tong

“We started off with (the name) and after looking at everything, the name that really tugged at the heartstrings was in front of us. The name itself is not new, but what has been used informally so far has endeared itself to all parties.” Mah Bow Tan, spending $400,000 of taxpayer’s monies to rename Marina Bay as Marina Bay.

Straits Times report dated 26th Jan, 2003-

“More than 3000 Singaporeans have applied for a government assistance scheme in the first two weeks of the year …but no one has qualified.”

“Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don’t understand this” - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, post-2006 General Elections

“People support CPF cuts because there are no protest outside parliament.” - PM Lee

"If you want to dance on a bar top, some of us will fall off that bar top. Some people will die as a result of liberalising bar-top dancing. Not just because they've fallen off the bar top, but because it's usually a young girl with a short skirt who's dancing on it, who may attract some insults from some other men. The boyfriend starts fighting. Some people will die..." - Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister of State for National Development

“I don’t think that there should be a cap on the number of directorship that a person can hold.” - PAP MP John Chen who holds 8 directorships.

“It’s not for the money because some of the companies pay me as little as $10,000 a year.” - PAP MP Wang Kai Yuen who holds 11 directorships.

“Cutting Ministers’ pay won’t trim fat. You’re getting a bargain for the ministers’ pay. As a surgeon, I worked half as much and made 5 times more.”- Ng Eng Hen, PAP minister (Ng Eng Hen alluding to how hard the PAP is working for our welfare, but not so hard that John Chen and Wang Kai Kuen can’t find the time to hold multiple directorships)

“Only 5% are unemployed. We still have 95% who are employed.” - Yeo Cheow Tong

“Singaporean workers have become more expensive than those in the USA and Australia.” - Tony Tan

Contrast this with a report from the Straits Times, 1st July 2005- “Nearly 300,000 Singaporean workers earn $1,200 or less in gross monthly income. Half of them, or one in 10 workers, earn even less - $900. They are the group most vulnerable to retrenchments and fallout from economic restructuring. Many already struggle to make ends meet and have little or nothing for their medical and retirement needs.”

“But that does not change the hard facts of the ground, which is that the average Singaporean, the 90 over per cent who retain their jobs, have had good income. And for most of them, their incomes have grown even in the most difficult years that we faced in the last five years.” Mar 2005 Budget Debate, Lim Hng Khiang.

Contrast this with a Straits Times report, 19th Feb, 2005-

“Monthly incomes for households in the bottom 20 per cent fell 3.2 per cent a year, from $933 in 1998 to $795 in 2003.”

“…I regret making the decision because, in the end, the baby continued to be in intensive care, and KKH now runs up a total bill of more than $300,000…”- Lim Hng Khiang. (Just think how the parents would feel after reading this!)

“We are not considering a casino, but an IP- an integrated resort. IRs are quite different. Infact, they should be called leisure, entertainment and business zones.” George Yeo

Anyway continue to support the PAP for more good years. Afterall we did have a huge increase in the number of millionaires in singapore. Besides the men-in-white are always generous every 5 years. (term for parliament is 5 years)

Compiled by Minority Man at http://www.insanepoly.com/

Labels: Government, PAP, Politico, Quotes

I must be nuts. Blogging so much all of a sudden.

But I just had to share this really sentimental quote on my friend's msn nick; Alvin-my childhood friend/srjc ex-classmate. His gf -Grace, and him broke up recently, because she's going overseas to further her studies: for 6 years.

" I don't offer beautiful words, expensive night outs or a sensual experience..all I have to offer is love which is silent and forever..."

So much love expressed in a sentence.

Labels: alvin, love, MSN nick

It’s yet another rainy night. Is it a result of the change in seasons? It’s spring, the wildflowers are out, but I don’t feel particularly joyful even though I've got 2 of them right beside me.

Photos of my gorgeous daffodils.














Probably because I watched 2 of the squash videos uploaded on the blog. I mean, I’ve seen it before, in the editing process. But watching them 1 after another, I can’t help but feel a pang of loss. That I was a year early in graduating. That I wasn’t part of the later process where the fruits of our labour are reaped.. coz I was already gone.

I really do miss the times where we hung out together. Humble beginnings where our seniors didn’t really care about squash. Ngee ann squash club was ready to be closed down, and the 3 of us – desiree, amanda and I had to start our own recruitment drive, gather more people and prove to them that squash should stay open..

We were all dedicated people who over-stayed our squash trainings till the courts got locked up, going out for suppers together – jianny (jian hong), yongren, gary, desiree, me. And other players like baozhu, gloria, grace, josephine, kenneth, michael. We didn’t have much then, but we didn’t really care. While we trained, we could listen to the dragonboat guys participate in their twice-weekly mass orgy in the gym.

Then the new batches came in – shwu huey, kathleen, ven, trina, krystle, serene, yu shan, lynn, joyce, miao qin, leslie, bryan, jonas, luke, weizhong, ryan, zhengjie, skye, stephen, dion, sam, mike,jian qi, gaston.

The best times were during IVP, where we trained harder with a coach, squashed almost everyday and were tight as bunch. Of course, with more people, there’re just more bunches, but still, it was all good. Met many people from NYP, TP, SP, NTU, NUS, SMU. Yvonne, Denise, King, Damien, Marc, Aldren? from TP. Calvin Gay, Yu Xuan, Sarah, and some forgotten names (but not forgotten faces), from NYP. Hansel, Ade, (plus the kingkong lookalike) from SP. Leo and Ian from NTU. (plus I rem the gd players like Poh Kwang, Woon Kwang, the puking chinaman, the national player from India, Wynne, Gracie, etc)

We tried our hardest but up against the university teams, we couldn’t hold up with our amateur skills. We were once top amongst the poly teams, but lost to the universities. Such a shame. Luckily for the later batches, they only had to compete amongst the poly and ITE teams and came in 2^nd & 3^rd for guys and girls.

Reminiscing the past is not really all that fun, coz.. everyone has moved on. I miss all the good times but while I know it’ll never be the same again, at least I had all these beautiful and glorious moments once before.

Labels: Daffodil, IVP, Ngee Ann squash

Guess what took place on Saturday night (03/03).. Lunar Eclipse!

Am I like..the only one who's excited about it? yeah, i know it happens far too frequently (unlike the solar eclipse), but still, it's pretty cool! It's such a strange co-incidence.. how I got to know about it.

Earlier that evening, happen to note to ter about how big & bright the moon was, juz before we went to the comp labs. Was suppose to stay there throughout the night, but there was some virus in the computer, and I went home instead (didn't want to get my files infected). On my way back, I saw that the moon looked partially blocked, but still, I took no special note of it.

Back home, I logged on BBC news as usual.. hey presto! Lunar Eclipse that night! and all i had to do, is glance out the window and there is was, in full splendor. Thank god guildford isn't full of bright lights like singapore~ thank god my room was in the right direction! thank god too, that the eclipse ended just before it got hidden behind the building.

Anyway, got my buddy terrence & stephen all excited about this eclipse toO! and I did promise to share the photos on my blog, so here they are:











Snapped at 10.12pm. The eclipse started at 8.18pm where it enters the penumbra, so i'm actually 2 hours late! It entered the umbra at 9.30pm. Well, it takes a while for the moon to get 'bitten' more and more so it's really not all that bad..!

(also, I didn't realise my digicam could zoom in x12, hence the very small moon :P )
But if you double-click and zoom in, the moon's actually 'cut' already!

























Left: Taken at 10.45pm.
Proper zoomed in shot.

Right: Taken at 10.51pm






















Left: Taken at 11.03pm. Realised that the air in guildford smells really sweet! The bright yellow wildflowers 4-storeys straight below my window, are blooming beautifully.

Right: Taken at 11.12pm























Left: Taken at 11.19pm

Right: Taken at 11.26pm. Totality! (Total eclipse of the moon)

























Left: Taken at 11.27pm

Right: Taken at 11.30pm















And after almost 30+ shots, my fingers were so cold from sticking it out of the window to snap the photos, my left leg started cramping and I was getting a little tired. Thank god the moon start to move out of the position of total eclipse. And I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when it started getting brighter! *laughs*














Left: Taken at 11.40pm

Right: Taken at 11.43pm
























Left: Taken at 11.50pm

Right: Taken at 11.56pm















So therein lies my 1st photographed lunar eclipse! Didn't really get to enjoy those in singapore, due to the bright lights. But I really did get a kick out of this one.
It was fabulous ( :

Labels: Lunar Eclipse 2007