lundi, juillet 30, 2007  Thus ends the month-long birthday celebrations for me - perfectlyin a shower of yellow flowers from two of my favourite funny guys. (addendum: and books too! with "renewable" extras...)  August will mark a return to our regular programming - hopefully more insightful that this one month of "hey, I had YET another party to celebrate my birthday!" Wish me neurons, people. Libellés : personal [Thusly, it ends] |
dimanche, juillet 29, 2007 M.A.P. 2007: 40 people on the 3rd floor  1st row: Lawrence, May-Ann, Shini, Fang Ting, Crystal, Pamela, Diana 2nd row: Po Boon, Frieda, Meiyen, Evangeline, Joshua, Jaclyn, Xiumei, Wai Mun, Jiaying, Priscilla, Zhizhen 3rd row: Weilong, Jeffrey, Joshua, Weicheng, Lijie, Kevin, Jason, Eunice, Vanessa, Soojin, Matthew, Mark, Sue, Jared, Su-Lynn, Daniel Not in picture: Simone, Eugene, Zibing, Qiuyan, Huifen, Mervin Libellés : christian, personal [M.A.P. 2007: 40 people on the 3rd floor] |
samedi, juillet 28, 2007  Put it out there, might get stomped on. You know the risks. Libellés : personal [heart: life's pulmonary] |
vendredi, juillet 27, 2007 Bad to the Bone: Mulder and Scully, Booth and Bones  This is my new Mulder and Scully, and I am loving and adoring the UST now: I've forgotten how fun it can be. It's just like being 16 again, watching yet another pair of inevitables try very, very hard not to jump the shark (because that causes ratings to peak, then fall drastically, leading to the demise of the show.)David Boreanaz shows another side of himself - other than the broody, hulking Angel from Buffy) in his happy, quirky depiction of FBI Agent Seeley Booth, who - thankfully - does NOT have a basement office, and is at the very worst, a devout Catholic boy (whom quite a few of us want to rumple.) Emily Deschanel plays Temperance Brennan, who does everything that Scully does, except more rationally and with an almost fanatical devotion to agnosticism: until, of course, the proof shows up. Together, they form quite the forensic puzzle team: loaded with lots of innuendos, lots of moments, lots of UST, and touches of angst here and there. There's a character arc as well, but it fits in well with the overall plot, and doesn't detract from the stories being told when they DO come to the forefront. The bonus is, Boreanaz and Deschanel really do have good chemistry together: watching them on the show and in real-life interviews produces proof of this. It's fun to watch on-screen, and it looks like they're having a good time on the set as well, which translates to very a very watchable series. Libellés : television [Bad to the Bone: Mulder and Scully, Booth and Bones] |
jeudi, juillet 26, 2007 A first for me... NUS ARI 2nd Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies  Dr. Anthony "Tony" Reid giving the opening keynote lecture.jpg) One of the sessions I attended; this is what I did on the next day The NUS Bukit Timah Campus is a little hard to get into, but once you're inside,the quadrangle is beautiful: it's like the quadrangles in Cambridge colleges... beautiful. [A first for me... NUS ARI 2nd Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies] |
mercredi, juillet 25, 2007 Innocence: Lost, lost, and lost. .jpg) It really was a good film, it really was. I suppose we lost because the topic that we selected as a theme didn't match the overall theme. Which was actually what I articulated, but was shot down, so I shrugged and moved on..jpg) That pretty much became the theme of the entire production - conflict, shrug, move on, conflict, shrug, move on.The other films had interesting messages, but poor delivery. Some had great delivery, but mixed messages. Our comments from the judges were that our passion for the message did not come through strongly enough... which was a fair enough comment. .jpg) That's our little participation placard on the left. Despite my general indifference to the entire project on the whole (due to different reasons, a lot of them formulated even before we started shooting), I feel annoyed for losing to a certain team though... their film was complete shite, they took a horrible attitude to the Q&A session, and they were part of an underground conglomerate group which produced and edited three of the entries: a pretty sneaky but brilliant strategy.On the bright side, I was half an hour early to the judging, and managed to catch yet another lovely day beside the Singapore River... I swear I'm a tourist in my own country, but the river's really pretty and peaceful when you've got time to burn. Libellés : films, personal, singapore [Innocence: Lost, lost, and lost.] |
dimanche, juillet 22, 2007 Harry Potter: Seven Points for The End of the Affair  (spoiler-free... mostly)1. Yes, I queued up outside Borders from 5am till 8.15am, when we finally managed to procure the book. 2. Year: 2007, Birthday: 27th, 2 beloved friends, 7th book as a present. 3. Yes, I cried. At many points while reading the book. Tissue casualty count was quite large. No, I'm not a wimp, you just don't understand. 5. I feel vindicated about a certain controversial character. 6. Mrs Weasley is my hero: "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" rocked my socks off. (Don't worry, this is not important to ANYTHING, just funny.)  7. I want to say that some of my favourite characters died, but really, they're all my favourites, even the baddies.With the end of the series, it feels like the ending of a very long-term friendship... not exactly death, but the parting of ways with a long-time, close friend who's migrating permanently somewhere where you can't visit or call to. I wish I could say that this was my first time, but I feel like that for some of my favourite books - Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence made me cry at the end, Pullman's His Dark Materials made me bawl a few years ago (it really tore me up inside), and so did Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. And - to my great embarrassment - Lackey's The Last Herald Mage series - specifically in Magic's Pawn when Tylendel is Repudiated by Gala. Massive tissue casualty count there. To a certain extent, it feels like an amicable breakup: it hurts, but you accept it, and wish it could continue, but it's not possible, and you know you have to let it go, but you keep going back and reading old letters, and relive the good (and bad) times, and you're afraid to go out and invest that same time and energy into someone (or in this case, something) again... but I hope kids will keep reading after this. The bittersweet taste of a series ending (or relationship) never really fades, but the pleasure that it brings while living it... better to have loved, some say. I concur. Libellés : harry potter [Harry Potter: Seven Points for The End of the Affair] |
jeudi, juillet 19, 2007  happy birthday to me! Libellés : personal [Happy Birthday to Me] |
lundi, juillet 16, 2007 Transformers: More Than Meets The EyeGuns! Destruction! Explosions! General mayhem! Stupid pseudo-philosophical commentary! Guns! Destruction! Explosions! Cars! Trucks! Ships! Robots in disguise! Die Hard 4.0 Bruce Willis! Justin Long! Bruce Willis! Justin Long! Guns! Destruction! Explosions! Domestic terrorism in the USA! Explosions! Guns! Techno-speak that I actually comprehend! Guns! Explosions! Sinister French (not Russian!) assassins! Shooting! Bombs! JUSTIN LONG AND BRUCE WILLIS! Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix It's Harry Potter. 'Nuff said! Libellés : harry potter, movies [Three Movies] |
 Not that I didn't have a good time, but buying a whole new wardrobe when not expecting to buy ANYTHING at all brings buyer's remorse to a whole different level.With the girl sitting on a stool, pointing things out that I have to get because "it's only $10", and "you look good in it waaaat", typical consumer reasoning (for me, anyway) flew away on a jet plane and didn't come anyway near the Chatuchak "no-fly zone" during the time we were there shopping. Thank goodness my parents gave me money... I should probably count this as my birthday present from them. I still cannot believe I spent it all, and then changed some more money, then spent it all as well! I'll be spending the next month or so in a foetal position, rocking and moaning. Libellés : humour, personal, travel [Bangkok: Buying Guilt] |
jeudi, juillet 12, 2007 Back from the villages: forty degrees of heat Cambodia was a complete blast: I don't regret going, neither do I regret anything that happened on the trip. As a exploratory mission trip, I'd rank it a 10/10 for success: we went to see things, meet people, bless people, and fulfil God's commission. All done. So I'm back with stories of bugs and 40 deg heat and mosquito nets and fevers of 39.4 deg plus flooding. Preparing ministry props at my house ... which we NEVER used.  Food, food, food! Breakfast at MSC's conference room is always a fun affair.  Recipe for mixing cement: 5 parts sand to 2 parts cement powder, add water to texture... or was it taste? :-)  The best porridge I have ever had... the food MSC provided for us was fantastic!  I was in charge of blowing 100 balloons... after 30, I co-opted the rest of the team to help out.  Fried spider! Yum yum. We bought some to try, but forgot to eat it in time. By the time we got to the rest house, they were oil-soaked and too gunky to eat...  Simone and me! My twin sister, lost at birth. A precious discovery in the midst of a dry and dusty land...words cannot express how much I love this girl.  Our two eligible bachelors, Jeff and Weilong, whom we were hoping to sell. Lelong, lelong on a pony cart ride!  Cooling off in the January dam that Pol Pot built... again, I say that there's something magical about a large body of water that makes everyone happier.  Posing on Kristin's birthday in the middle of Esther's proposed waterfall. A little bit decadent for the town, but who am I to stand in the way of big dreams?  Khmer food: think Asian food, just less spicy. Lots of coconut!  What are the chances of going to a place as off-the-wall as Cambodia, going to Angkor Wat, and then meeting someone you know? This is Liean and me at Angkor Wat; we were mission trip mates the previous year (exactly one year ago!) to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam! (No, I DO NOT KNOW HALF THE WORLD.)  Beware of elephants! (You can smell them a mile away anyway...)  While waiting for the sunset atop the Angkor, Gracia and I played two rounds of checkers/"dumb" using a scratched-in board, and coloured stones.  Sunset atop the Angkor!  The S21 Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, which was a very grim place to visit.  Travelling in the van which took us all around Cambodia... sharing very heartfelt discussions with both Joyce and Gracia, while still maintaining the madness that made the trip so insanely fun!  Ministry near COSi  The guys after a hard morning's worth of building. I'm in the background with a 3-day old 39.4 degree fever.  Weilong literally lifting a finger to help me as I frantically made more friendship bands for the kids...  Gracia sharing  Our team! I drew this.  Our fake soccer team...  ... proud of our lovely jerseys  The girls' sleeping quarters... mosquito nets galore. Very hard to manoeuvre!  I'm blind without my glasses, so I'm not staring into blurness, Lawrence is probably looking at Shini, and Jeffrey just has the funniest expression on his face!  Me sharing the wordless book... or wordless friendship band to the schoolchildren.  The builders and the building!  At COSi, in a little town one hour out of Phnom Penh, meeting Mei En, my St Nicks schoolmate, and Melvin, a friend from Campus Crusade, who were also there on mission trip. (No, I DO NOT KNOW HALF THE WORLD. Hmmph.)  The flooding starts...  Flooding!  Thank goodness for wonderful hotel rooms!  Treating ourselves to a good breakfast...  Central market, which is something like Chatuchak Market  Sitting on their version of the tuk-tuk. I'm a pro at talking price! Haggle haggle haggle... Libellés : christian, humanitarian, travel [Back from the villages: forty degrees of heat] |
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