i am alive

by

Yes, I’m alive and well in the States. My uncle has kindly lent me one of their many laptops to work on, check my email etc. The laptops must be really cheap here coz no way is someone going to have at least 5 laptops around their house back in Singapore. Even getting 2 desktops is going to make your mum grumble about the amount of money she has to fork out. Not to mention getting internet connection for both plus the electricity bills.

Anyway, I survived the long plane ride here. No jet lag. Now, don’t be surprised coz I hardly slept on the plane. I always find it hard to sleep sitting up. Too used to sleeping on my side so I need something to lean on. Each time I looked at myself in the toilet mirror, Jiemin’s favourite words come to my mind. “Hello, my name is Jin Ai Kun (meaning always feeling sleepy in hokkien) and I have natural eyeshadow.”

Once, my aunt tried to sneak me in to the business class section to let me get some proper sleep. Yea, my aunt and uncle were sitting in the business class. After 4 hours, I got awoken by a black stewardess. The way she got me to listen to what she had to say…was she rude or what? She wriggled her finger to make me sit up from my lying down position. Then she told me I couldn’t just come and sit here as I like. WTF! I know I look like a kid to you, but I’m NOT!!! So please talk to me politely, it’s not like I’m going to be difficult. I do understand your position as well.

Mum told me to be careful since Asians are a minority here and there are some pretty racist people around. Wah lau, these people wouldn’t stand a chance if they were in Singapore. Simply coz we have a more colourful language and we are smart. So smart that we’ll take your picture with our trusty handphone and post it up on forums so everyone can shame you. And really, we Singaporeans are so kiasu and kaypoh enough to be united in such things. Which come to think of it isn’t always a bad idea since it comes in handy at such times.

The weather here is hot since it’s still summer. But it’s not that much of a killer. It’s hot and dry so you don’t perspire that much. What a relief coz I hate getting my back all wet. The temperature drops in the night to more like air-con temperature so it’s fine to sleep without the air-con or fan and the windows open. Don’t really need a blanket too.

So far, I’ve gone on a tour of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Toured the school on Friday. The campus is HUGE! It’s really a town of its own. The school even owns the airport – not the one I arrived at in Chicago, the little one in Champaign. And what’s even cooler, the top floor of the union house is a hotel. The shops around the campus is called University Town and is catered for the students. 😡

Checked out the Singapore Students Association website for activities as advised by my aunt. Couldn’t find any listed activities on the site but found a link for their forum. Haha…being a typical kaypoh Singaporean, I checked that out. Found out they were meeting for potluck on Saturday. Aunty just announced matter-of-factly that we were going to gatecrash their party. :rofl: Ehz…we aren’t freeloaders ok…aunty bought a cake. Haha…

So I got to meet the Singaporeans in U of I. Sort of felt at home and out of place at the same time. At home coz it’s a relief to hear people speaking like me. All the lahs and lors. Kinda out of place coz everyone seemed come from some top JC. But anyhow, everyone’s nice. And one of the freshmen girls, Man Ling has agreed to let me shadow her for all her classes this coming week.

How come everyone knows what they want to do and I don’t? 😥

hello from Japan

by

Am now in the land of vending machines and oolong cha. HAHAHA…it is Japan lahz. Using the computer at the place I am staying. And damn I hate the keyboard.

So far so good…saw some nice shoes at Harajuku. Not sure if I want to get them but they are relatively cheap. 3900 yen. Saw a lot of cosplayers too. Oh and shops selling lolita dresses…so cool…

Alrighty, shall not park my butt at the computer here too long. Even though the internet is free but not too nice to use so long right?

getting emotional at the movies

by

Watched “Helen The Baby Fox” this afternoon with Sis. It’s a Japanese movie about a boy and his special bond with a blind and deaf baby fox. I’m not going to spill the contents of the movie. If you wanna know more, go watch it. It’s definitely worth it…especially if you’re an animal lover.

I expected myself to tear as usual but this time I actually cried. First time crying while watching a movie. I could feel tears coming to my eyes. Expected it to just stop at there. Next moment I knew, 3 pairs of steady teardrops rolling down my cheeks. All for one scene in the movie.

Rushed down to town to meet 7ners. Celebration for Per’s 21st. Just a small one – dinner at NYDC. After which, we chilled out awhile at the tables on the 9th floor of Cine. Heh…actually we went there coz I had to collect some stuff for Sis at Mise.

Nad was holding my bag of mags when she walked out of the mrt at her stop. Didn’t even realise until she turned back and called out for me. That’s not the only thing I forgot. Just now when I opened my bag to get my digicam out, I saw the tiara still sitting in my bag. SHUCKS! I forgot about it. And I was damn happy I remembered to bring it out unlike for Nad’s birthday celebration. Even when Sof asked where it was, I happily told her it was in my bag. *sigh* And I had to forget about it later…

The tiara’s supposed to be passed on to the next 7ner celebrating her 21st. So why is it still stuck with me?! I have bad memory…*wails*

killing the spam

by

Another bout of spam comments. Don’t know whether to say it’s gone worse or it’s just as bad as the last time. Although there are considerably less spam comments than the last round, this time some have actually passed off as approved comments instead of getting filtered out for moderation. So I thought heck, it’s time to get a spam filter.

Yep, got it installed so now you’ll have to fill out this extra field when you wanna post a comment. Nothing too difficult. 🙂

We met Huishan (台湾妹) to chill out at TCC in Citylink. Then later met Jiemin for dinner and a movie, The Lake House. The movie’s supposed to be a remake of the Korean film, Il Mare. I think it was a good movie especially the last part which got everyone excited and going “oh~~~”. Alright, no spoilers. Go catch the movie.

Ending this entry off with a photo I took of the sky yesterday evening. The sun was setting and casting this pink glow in the clouds. The sky was a nice shade of light blue which complimented the pink.

 

per and the sexy osaka man

by

Yesterday was Per’s birthday. I already sent her some 迷路兵 photos which can be considered as birthday present part 1. So here’s part 2…you get to “pose” with the self-proclaimed “Sexy Osaka Man”. お誕生日おめでとう!!!

(Ok…birthday girl requested not to post the photo just like that…so follow the link to see it.)

Actually I already wished her the moment it reached 23rd. We had a video conference.

We were having so much fun clowning around. I was trying to mock-whack Sis but she said it didn’t look like I was whacking her. Then she tried throwing a punch slow-mo at me. As her fist hit the screen, I decided to “catch” that blow. Started waving my arms about and moving backwards as if I got hit and am losing my balance. And it ended with laughing fits from both sides. :rofl:

We had dinner together – Sis, Per and I. Uma Uma Men (again). And we had some birthday cake!

23rd is also Mysty’s birthday. Mysty-chan お誕生日おめでとう!!! Hope you’re having a good time in Virginia with David. 🙂

And as you can see from my little calendar in the sidebar. Today’s Fumihiko’s birthday. お誕生日おめでとう!!! In case you’re wondering who’s the guy, Fumihiko came to visit TP with his schoolmates. I was paired up with him for the self-introduction session. We wrote messages for each other on boards. Knowing that the Japanese students had a difficulty with English, I told him to write his message in Japanese and I’ll write mine in English. And we can both go figure out each other’s message somehow. With my close-to-nil knowledge of Japanese language, I took time to read his message, half guessing the kanji. But I’m proud to say I more or less understood what he was trying to say.

performances and all

by

I was too tired to blog on Saturday or yesterday.

Saturday, we were supposed to watch Lucify perform at the *scape event. But both of us overslept so gave it a miss. We still went down later and managed to catch the appearance of the 10 finalists of Singapore Idol 2. Not that I wanted to see them. Sis wanted to see Jonathan Leong. Please tell me what’s so good about him?

We were supposed to meet Carol but we had to leave coz Mum called to say that grandpa had a fall and has been sent to the hospital. Went to the hospital. Waited around. Got hungry. Bought toast from the machine – the same one found at Mediacorp. Quite tasty. Waited some more. Managed to see grandpa before they found a room for him to get warded into. 

Pardon my bad memory but my memory of grandpa sort of stops at the time when I was a kid. The photo on the fridge magnet on the refrigerator. Perhaps that’s what the mind does best, block out all the bad stuff and only leave the good memories behind. I think that was the time when we were closest to our grandparents. As we grew up, we sort of drifted apart. So when I saw him lying on the bed, looking all thin and frail, I couldn’t help but wonder when did he become like that? He hardly responds. We wonder whether he even recognises us coz he has dementia. So sometimes he registers, sometimes he’s off.

After the hospital visit, we rushed down for 静爆乐团’s performance at Telok Ayer CC. I never knew the speaker’s corner looked so grand. All along I thought it just consisted of a signpost to mark out the area. The speaker will have to bring his own chair to stand on. Building a damn speaker’s corner is so blardee ironic. Talk about freedom of speech. Haha…by the time you get to the end of the rules and regulations, you can crush up your paper filled with the points to rant and rave about. Just pack up and go home.

Ah, but I have digressed. So I suppose the speaker’s corner is now used as a stage for performances like the one we were there to watch. 静爆 sang “Wake Up (拼了)” AGAIN. I’m sorry lahz, but I CANNOT STAND them singing it. *jumps up and down, hands covering ears* If you STILL don’t know what I’m talking about, check out one of the older entries. And guess what? I actually took a video clip of them singing it. Till now I can’t understand why I took that clip. *shakes head in denial*

Yesterday, Sis being all sore that we missed Lucify’s performance the day before, made sure we didn’t miss their appearance at Bishan J8. Haha…but they didn’t perform. All they did was pose for photos and answer a few questions about how they felt being in the grand finals. Is this some sort of promotion for the grand finals?

So, the 4 groups had to pose for photos. Cuifang decided to make them pose ala neoprint 16-shot style. Except they only had to pose 4 times, each pose lasting for 5 seconds. 迷路兵’s 4 poses were so original. :laugh: Who would have thought of that? Didn’t take photos of J3. Sorry manz, I don’t really like them. Too many photos so click to see each set.

  1. Lucify
  2. Soul
  3. 迷路兵

At night after shopping, we went to watch Defuse perform at Youth Park. It wasn’t the best performance as Leonard announced that they would be taking a break after that performance. Sort of like on hiatus. Reason being his vocals have been affected by all the smoking so he needs the time to heal. His words could have made you go all teary if you were a big fan of theirs (I’m not lahz) but the way he said it, somehow I got this very very bad feeling that they might disappear after going on hiatus.

You hear those words, you expect him to have finally understood how his band members felt about his smoking habit. Saying all those stuff about him realising that his smoking has affected his vocals and sort of regret not listening to his band members advice. The next minute, he’s at the corner lighting a cigarette. -_-||| What’s the point then?

 

Anyway, Leonard’s Hello Kitty guitar is cute. :laugh:

windows live messenger

by

I remember Pwen asking whether anyone has tried the new Windows Live Messenger. Not that she directly asked me, it was part of her MSN nick. :rofl: At that moment, I was thinking it’s just a new IM, MSN works fine for me so why should I download another program? I used to think, the more the better so I had almost every IM…ICQ, IRC, Yahoo Messenger, until I realised everything just took up space and I hardly even talked to the people in my friend lists.

Just yesterday, I was desperate for reading material in the loo so I just picked up a copy of Digital Life on the floor. It’s kinda ironic, I study IT stuff, decide that I’ll probably not go into the IT line but still opt IT stuff as my reading material. Anyway, that’s not the point. There was an article about Windows Live Messenger in the newspaper. I found out from the article that Windows Live Messenger is just an upgrade of both Yahoo Messenger and MSN. So it’s actually MSN Messenger 8.0. And this is supposed to link both IMs together…

“The tie-up means users of Yahoo Messenger and Microsoft Live Messenger (an upgrade for MSN Messenger) can now see and chat with one another across the two instant messenger (IM) networks.” – The Straits Times, Digital Life 18 July 2006

Before you rejoice, here’s the catch. Yes, haven’t you been warned to read the fine print before?

“Both users must have the latest versions of the software. Otherwise, you will find yourself adding contacts who seem to be perpetually offline (even though they are available).”

Not like I care anyway since almost all my friends use MSN. This upgrade boasts to have better features…

  1. Nicer background colours and you can change the colour scheme quickly.
  2. Drag-and-drop file-sharing folder.
  3. Able to send offline messages.

Alright, I admit point 1 is like “wow!” to me. But doesn’t MSN Plus already do that for me? And is there going to be a conflict of programs when I install the new upgrade? Point 2 is just blah. What they meant I guess is something like sharing files between computers on the same network. So, you won’t need to request and wait for acceptance of files. Well, I haven’t explored that bit and I think the usual method works fine so yea… Point 3 is a good one. With ICQ, you’re able to do that but not with the current MSN. And trust me, it comes in handy at times.

So, I was telling Nad that I was worried about the conflict of programs but there I was downloading the installer for the upgrade already. Haha. Guess I’ll just install first and rant later if anything goes wrong. :rofl:

Installed. Got any difference mehz? Other than the colourful background (which you can change the colour of it) of the main window, there’s not much difference. For a minute, the upgrade shocked me coz I couldn’t see my MSN Plus options on the chat window. Don’t tell me the dreaded has happened? After some exploring around, I finally found out that my current version of MSN Plus doesn’t work on this upgrade. Which means, I have to upgrade my version of MSN Plus as well. Upgrade done. Yea, NOW I’m happy. 🙂

Nad wanted to see how my MSN windows looked with the upgrade. So I took a screenshot and sent it to her.

She replied saying that she was happy with the current look of her MSN windows coz they were cool. Was puzzled by her statement. How could the normal MSN windows look cool? Asked her to send a screenshot.

Ah…so she’s using some skin for her MSN. That’s when I saw it. She was having video conferencing with JW (who’s now in Australia) and he looked kinda nerdy with his specs. Laughing, I told her about it. The next moment, she sent another screenshot.

This time, both were smiling. Ah…she told him about it. Hahaha… Thought it would end here. But no…coz the next moment, she sent another screenshot.

*pengz* Can’t believe they are so eng to do this. Yea…*waves back*

a taste of kyoto

by

I met Per and Wenling on Tuesday. We went to Chinatown coz Per wanted to look for beads. You know what, Nad? I wish I knew about the 2 shops in People’s Park Centre earlier so we wouldn’t have spent a bomb on beads when we working on our O’Level embroidery. Wah lau…definitely cheaper than A’NBC lahz. Plus they have more choices like crystals and stuff. Blah…

Anyway, we had a super early dinner. Hmmm…can it even be called dinner? We went to the é”…è´´ place again. The é”…è´´ and 小笼包 there is deeeeeeeeelicious. Not to mention the prices are affordable. I’m ok with gyoza but sometimes I don’t really like it if the taste of the chives inside is pretty strong. This one is perfectly fine. No strong taste at all. 🙂

Wenling left us, Per and I continued to Bugis. Just walking around…then Per said Juliah was going to come meet us. When Juliah arrived, we went to this relatively new Japanese place under Ajisen. It’s called “Kyoto Sabo Ajitei”. Looking at the menu, I definitely couldn’t resist it. Hungry again. :rofl: Per and I shared a curry rice set. カレーライス~~~ :love:

Then came desserts. All the desserts looked good! Per and I decided on a parfait. Juliah had ice-cream with dango. Glad we decided to share the parfait coz it was kinda huge. Definitely worth the price. There’s pieces of warabi mochi and konnyaku jelly at the bottom. On top, there’s a mountain of macha soft cream with pieces of peaches at the side. Oh, they also have the sweet sauce dango that I love. But that’ll have to wait for the next round. :laugh:

 

 

unleash the anger in you

by

Nothing much going on these few days. I’m trying to download Massu’s new drama and still clear out my hard drive. It’s an ongoing process… :laugh:

We had a farewell dinner for JW on Wednesday as he’ll be leaving for Australia tomorrow. Went to Eatz19 at Bugis.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Hokkaido fair at TM. I don’t really want it to end yet I want it to end. Don’t really want it to end coz I love the food!!! :heart: The purin, dango, onigiri, soft cream, croquette…KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~~ But I also want it to end coz the crowd irritates me. :glare:

Talking about people who irritate the hell outta me. I was paying up for some stuff at the express lane at NTUC when this uncle at the counter next to mine bent over to tell the cashier he wanted Winston cigarettes. She couldn’t find the right box in the rows of cigarette boxes. So he was exclaiming pretty loudly “Winston…WIN-STON”…hell, he was yelling it right in my ear. I HATE HATE HATE people yelling right in my ear. :angry: :angry: :angry: FUCK MANZ. UNCLE, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR DAMN WINSTON CIGGIES AND GO TO HELL LAHZ! Or maybe that’ll be the last pack you’ll ever smoke coz after that I hope you get lung cancer and die.

That’s much better now. I believe you have to let the anger out… *smiles sweetly*