porkchoppower

its all a state of mind

2007-09-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. - Helen Keller

-------------------

things have been in a whirlwind for the last 2 weeks. we loved, hated,
regretted, sighed, fought, but most of all ..... lived.
Reality is how you make of it.

And we have decided to ... move on.

coming back to haunt...

2007-08-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

its weird how the past comes back to haunt you.
memories, recollections of a distant past,
things that you have chosen to hide away in dark
corner...

sometimes it reminds you of why things turned out
the way they did, or are the way they are ...

today, i got an affirmation that another chapter
of my life has closed. we definitely have moved
on to other parts of our lives, but maybe this
is a desperate attempt to get a response before we
.... say goodbye

i've wasted enough time ... its time to .....

be me.

new wind

2007-08-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we all went to the kelong at tanjung pinang.
Sitting on the wooden planks, watching the sunset, feeling
the sea breeze in my hair. I should be happy. And then i
think, it would be nice to have that special someone around
here.

Then another new breeze comes by. And i guess if i dont
think about it, it wont be that bad.

The day will come.

happy vibes

2007-08-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

little bits and pieces of happiness!

maximum menthol eye drops!

the strawberry chocolate are damn yummy!

i can eat pocky forever!

its small things like this that make my day. i think i'll be
having sweet dreams for quite awhile!

3 days...

2007-08-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 days, I directed the Handicapped Welfare
Association's corporate video. It was an interesting
experience for me since i took a hiatus from production work
quite a while back, choosing to concentrate more on post and
design. Since, this was a project for a non-profit
organization, I decided to direct the video to keep costs down.

31st July 2007:
We shot at HWA, catching cutaway shots of the
various rehab and social programs that are provided
by the organization. It was tough shooting with my
Director of photography down, but assisted by my
experienced crew, we managed to get most of the
shots that I wanted.

1st August 2007:
With my DOP back on set, we continued at HWA to
get the remaining exterior shots. We braved the rain
to set up the crane and dolly shots. We then continued
by completing essetential interviews with the president
of HWA, and 2 winners of the Infinenon Inspirational
Award. The shoot ended later than we expected as we
braved another crane shot for the HWA basketball team.

2nd August 2007:
We ran around doing mostly interviews today. It was
a humbling experience interviewing the various
infineon inspiration award winners. Its a reminder
that we should be thankful for all that we have in
life, and a motivation factor to achieve even more.

The full albums:
1st & 2nd day
URL: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10067&l=176c0&id=585531571

3rd day
URL: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10117&l=b2211&id=585531571

......

2007-07-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Friday 27th July:
Dinner with the guys at haji lane, had yummy arabic food.
Followed by drinks with randi at blue jaz and prata near
my place

Saturday 28th July:
Its a rarity that i have to work on the weekend, but had
a morn shoot with Takuya in town. Followed by a yummy
lunch at Waraku, Central Mall. Takuya almost slapped the
waiter cos of his poor pronunciation of Japanese. Haha.

Met up with Pam & steve with Pam's hongkie friends for a
yummy dinner at novena. Followed by a muay thai match at
fort canning. It was pretty exciting. An amateur like me
look at them fighting in the ring, and i really wish that
i could get that good real fast. Makes me want to train
everyday. We then had a quick dessert at bugis before
having an early night.

Sunday 29th July:
Sports day! Did yoga with pam, followed by swimming at
the chinese swimming club. I swam 1/3 of the pool! Whee!
I found a technique that works for me. For breast stroke,
i cant breathe every stroke. I'll take one stroke
underwater, then come up for 1 breath. I'm not sure why
this works for me, but it does.

Next week, 1/2 of the pool! :)

its all about learning to be a pretzel

2007-07-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

Ashtanga poses:
i call them my pretzel poses...

lazy weekend

2007-07-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a quiet one.

Saturday was spent attending an Ashtanga yoga
workshop, followed by an utterly sinful full body
massage (complete with ginger body scrub, steambath
and additional 15 min foot reflexology). Had a quiet
dinner at home with my mum and spent the whole nite
online on msn and watching bleach.

Sunday was sports day as usual. Went rollar blading
at east coast park with pam, steff, dave and lewis.
It was fun blading after a 12 year hiatus. The initial
start was pretty scary, but it was a steep learning
curve and by the end of the hour i could pretty much
blade. I have yet to gain back my ability to come to
a T-stop though. Will try that the next time we head
out to blade. Hope its soon before today's attempt
goes to waste. Then it was a short session of pool
at parkway parade before me and pam proceeded to the
usual place to swim. Today we swum at the new block
cos the old block was under renovation and we were
too lazy (as usual) to walk to the other side to get
to the old pool. Today swimming wasn't as good as
last week. Maybe its cos i was really tired. Worked
on my kicking though. But maybe it seems i'm not
cut out for breast stroke. I seem to be able to catch
freestyle better. Let's see how it goes next week.

Me, pam and steve then proceeded to ashton's for
a yummy steak dinner (~yummy) and to coffee club for
tiramisu dessert. I'm sure i'll have a good sleep
tonight. :)

TGIF

2007-07-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Alvin is leaving for UK (that lucky ^%#@$*) on sunday,
so we decided to meet up on friday for dinner & drinks.
We started off with dinner at killiney then proceeded
to bar stop for some drinks.

Bumped into 2 secondary school friends that i haven't
seen in a long time. We were still talking about the
SCGS girls and ACS boys that were in our group, hanging
at far east plaza. Boy, that was ages ago!

Post bar's a really nice place to chill out. Nice
ambience, live jazz music, comfy seats and good service.
I wouldn't mind heading there more often. I had a really
yummy strawberry martini. Next time i'll try the chocolate
one. See how it measures up against morton's! :)

The whole gang then proceeded to zouk. Winebar as usual
was crowded as hell and we didnt even bother to attempt
to infiltrate the crowd. We headed straight to members
and plonked our asses near the bar.

I love the new smoking ban. I smell fresher, I can see
better, and my contacts don't hurt from the smokiness
in the club. It's great!

To come back to this blog entry's title, i really thank
god for the little miracle that happened today. It was
the first time that i had misplaced my mobile in the taxi.
I called several times and called the taxi service to
report my missing mobile. After 5 minutes of calling, my
mobile was turned off. I suddenly lost all hope in getting
back my mobile back. Suddenly, my home phone ran. It was
the taxi driver. He picked up my mobile and was going to
send it back to me. When he did send me the phone, i wanted
to pay him some money for the transportation back. He refused
to collect any sum from me. ~wow. Isn't that a little
miracle or what?! Its human nature to assume that the phone
is gone. But when small little acts like this happen, i
really wonder. Is this a sign?

TGIF

Karaoke night

2007-07-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

Last night was karaoke night. We girls all decided on a thursday
because its a "ladies' night" and we only have to pay for whatever
drinks that we choose. Me, pam, steff, kennie & paul met up at
NYDC at heeren for dinner before meeting Tommy at selegie K-box.
The last karaoke session was a diaster. We ate ayam pengat
(Indonesian smashed chicken with loads and loads of chilli ~yum)
before our karaoke session. As expected, all our voices were hoarse
from the overkill of spice. Lesson learnt the hard way. This time,
NO MORE CHILLI !!

battered and bruised

2007-07-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, i've been into Muay Thai and have been taking
lessons at Fight G, located near Hong Kong street. The
current work schedule only allows once a week, if not
i'll go twice or thrice a week.

Today, we did simple jab crosses and knees. I was teamed
up with a senior and she really did humble me. I've been
quite active in kickboxing & body combat for the past
3 - 4 years, but i got really tired when hitting a solid
target instead of the "air" routines that we do at the
gym. She went on and on like an energizer bunny. I guess
the conditioning will come when time progresses. Teaming up
with someone so far advanced from me wasn't really the wisest
thing to do. She hit a little too hard on several occasions
and i got hit a few times on the arm and waist, got a recoil
from the punching pads directly into my face. And the worse
of all, i got a missed knee to my groin. yes, GROIN.
If i were a guy, i think i would have become impotent.

Battered and bruised ... but not going to stop. I'm looking
forward to the next class.

a little piece of japan

2007-07-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

Little reminders of Japan ...

My very first memories of anything Japanese are associated
to those of my dad. My dad entertained many Japanese
friends and as an only child, i was largely involved in many
of these tourist-ey activities. My memories include: Bringing
a Japanese Auntie to the zoo; following Uncle Maruyama and
his wife to Sentosa and the Jurong bird park. I remember
folding Little Japanese Character origamis using ornately
printed paper.

Later in my school life, i do remember the occasional mention
of the Japanese invasion during History lessons. And in more
recent years, it has developed into a liking for Japanese Culture
in the likes of food, fashion, anime, movies.

I only made it to Japan about 3 months ago in April. It was an
unforgettable experience and i obviously am going to visit
the country again. But here and there, i get fond reminders
of Japan. And of course, i smile.

sports day

2007-07-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

sunday is sports day!

Today me and pam went for hot yoga in the afternoon. After a stopover
at the bubble tea shop to grab a drink, and a look-see-WOW at the
Tod's shop at ngee ann city, we proceeded to the chinese swimming club
for our weekly swimming session. As i told many people on many
occasions, I CAN'T SWIM! Pam is attempting to teach me how to do the
breast stroke, and today (after a month's hiatus) we finally managed to
do our 3rd lesson. As of the 2nd lesson i could only co-ordinate my
breathing and arms. Today i managed to swim 5 strokes until i realized
i stopped breathing and burst out in laughter.

When i got too tired, this swimming attempt was followed by a relaxing
dip in the heated jacuzzi. Then followed by a yummy Japanese dinner
when steve reached the swimming club.

The night wrapped with ken coming to join us for nightcaps at "jazz at
south bridge". As usual i later got hungry and proceeded for macs
before heading home.

Wonderful jazz music & drinks, loving company to end a fruitful day. What
more could a girl ask for? :)

dvd night

2007-07-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

Last nite was the most unsuccessful dvd night that i've ever attended.
The whole gang (me, pam, steff, tommy, dave, ken, J and lewis)
went for dinner at liang seah street then headed over to my office for
drinks & dvd night.

We all got too absorbed in the drinks part and dvd night did not
happen til about 3am when most of the people left.

Lesson 1: When having dvd night, remember to SCREEN dvd.

大哥哥，我已經獨戰了你啊!

Finally

2007-07-13T00:39:00.000-07:00

Finally, i'm gotten my ass down to starting a proper blog.
With this, a new chapter begins ...