Eventhough promises mean nothing

"If you ever feel empty about us, promise you will tell me"

I promise.
Eventhough promises mean nothing.

But one will find a way to speak of the unspeakable, pry open wounds that have dried, confess fears that have festered - if that is what one wills.

Flying by, not stopping, continueing

Last weekend´s jaunt in the dreamscape filled with yellow mustard seed flowers is fading in my memory. The week passed by in a flash, with 4 hour sleeping nights seeming like just enough sleep: konk out at 11pm-12am and waking up at 3-4am. Maybe this method actually works for me!!!

Life just happened without me. It feels like a few days ago that I was back in Singapore cavorting in Chinese New Year delights, yet all those feelings seem so distant as I grudgingly and drudgingly try to trim the loose ends of my report.

With sweet May holidays waiting to spring in a surprise, am pretty darn sure April is going to fly by just as quickly.

Haven´t had time to go back to my apartment to grab anything Spring savvy. Going to feel silly walking around in my winter coat when everyone is sporting lighter coats in exchange for the warmer weather.

The story about the lone house is true!

Had read about this before but it is not a urban legend that I thought it was! After going to many cities and seeing the landscape being a monotone of malls and hotels in prime strips of land; city locals moving out into the suburbs - taking over four hours a day in transportation like Beijing. It is great to witness China government finally passing new property laws to protect and decrease incidents of shortchanging the ordinary people against developers and money-grubbing city officials.

Yang and Wu have asked the developers to give them a new house and shop in the same location and of the size within the new complex. The developers refused, saying they would only compensate them in cash, or relocate them.The couple insisted that their current house-shop is at the center of the prime commercial district and that relocating them to any other place would represent a huge loss. "I never asked for too much, I was never stubborn," said Wu Ping to journalists outside her holdout house on Thursday. Although it would be difficult to obtain a new house with exactly the same location or size, the family has the right - according to Chongqing's regulations - to get a new house within the current community, instead of being relocated at a distance.

Not gonna win the multitasking beauty pageant

Right on the money this article! After giving instructions for some other project it does take me more time to refocus. Guess it shows that some emails, really should just wait.

In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to
return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after
responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to
other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.

Something strange about me

There was a niggering feeling that something was just not right as I ordered my usual sausage Mcmuffin with warm ginger honey tea. Only as I bit into the soft buns did I realise in my horror that they are NOT the mcmuffin muffins! Being such a creature of habit, things like these just escape my notice most of the time. As much as trying new things scare and excite at the same time, the same Clementi popiah can be eaten with great unwavering gusto for a whole month or more; with no signs of abandonment.

Purvis Street Chatter

After sending DL off to his India business trip it is crazy meeting people time.

First up, one of my favouritest persons LALA! featured here and as you can tell, she's terribly vain and full of herself to pose for the camera heh.

There's something that bugs me a little in all these meetups though...it's really tough to get people to talk about what truly matters to them or how they feel about their lives now. I suppose I'm a little too eager to catch up on the core of their lives, skipping on the inanities of new mobile phone models, quick catch up on who's working where etc. Inevitably, the Miss Moderator in me takes charge. Questions like "What in your life are you most satisfied with?" and "What would you most like to change in your life?" yields all expressions and pondering. Miss Moderator me, thinks nothing about how difficult such reflections are, because it's much easier to just carry on and about daily lives. And it's interesting that with the former question, most state their jobs giving them most/ least satisfaction. With it contributing much to ones self-confidence & esteem. The flip side though, is most of what they would like to change is doing something unrelated to their current jobs. What truly matters to them and gives them 'real' satisfaction is perhaps, still in a distance; jobs just temporarily fill that void (with the presence of realism of needing to survive). I guess it's just my belief that self-confidence should be tied as little as possible how one performs on a job. At some point it will threaten to usurp and consume all one's energies in which a job, is just one part of a full life.

For me, not having any major problems in every area of my life is a major satisfaction. Nowadays, the little things I leave till they reach 'critical point' before a spontaneous decision solves it in a snap - easy peasy *dusts hands* Another one is having all my friends (uni, ex-colleagues, friends I made in Shanghai) make time to see me whenever I'm back in Singapore...especially for this year, I can say with great pride that all of my secondary school friends are now a decade old!!! WOOOT!!! And for him, who washes away all the day´s weariness with a simple kiss or caress...

Hmm and what to change....maybe I'd change falling sick so much and a sick tummy. Trying to be less of a worry wart and stress myself too much about work as well. But as I´m still a work in progress, I´m sure there are many things to change as the year progresses...

Countryside girl

By this time tomorrow hopefully I will be frolicking and running across fields of rape flowers in Wuyuan in Jiangxi, a la Sound of Music. Am all set with UNO, toilet roll and two cameras (*runs around trigger happy with lomolito). It will be great to wake up not hearing honks or drills or exhume gases bombarding my sense.

And I really have got to post up pictures for previous trips to crab eating, Singapore and others...

Plummetting

I've been stressing myself out after the promotion by heaping all these expectations of making every project perfect, the burden of responsibility feels heavier. Answering external emails quickly, sitting on colleagues to ensure there are no mistakes; and when things still go out of control it really pulls me down. So much so that I couldn't pick myself up from a miscommunication screw up (which involves missing a deadline - it was due Friday and I only learnt about it Friday night). As such, this Sunday evening is WORKING - TO SAVE MY SORRY A*SS time. And it is not even peak period yet. A change in strategy is needed, but just let me get through this week. Please.

Edit: More projects came in. In the end my manager said, just delegate. Shouldn´t feel that other people are very busy. My job is to analyse more...yes...new strategy! hehe...

Been having dreams of ...

...translucent, all-mighty powerful military men who now use their powers to capture dangerous sharp-teeth baring fish (delicious though!) for the village...

...having a deadline (which I am preparing for a credential meeting in 3 hours and updating my blog now), while at the same time trying to come up with a brilliant salad for a party this weekend...
*note to self: tomato, chilli/mango + coriander tastes mighty fine!

...being so suffocated by a cousin that I shouted at her to leave me alone...
*in real life, there is little familiar feelings from me to her, it jolted me awake and left me a little worried how intense it felt.

***

"I dreamt of giant crabs attacking the city and they were dropping bombs against them."

"Wouldn't they be bbq crabs then?"

(ignoring previous comment) "...it was unsuccessful, so they tried luring them to a building that was a full of flames."

"Wouldn't they be bbq crabs then?"

Nothing is gonna bring me down

Still very much in a holiday mood and am so glad the week passed by so quickly. I think I'm still buoyant from all the kindness of my friends (to put up with my schedule and lateness hahahaaa...) And was so pleased to catch up with my prof-turned-friend and his sparkling family; always living life with such fullness!

A little something for everyone - My Singapore home

(Left-Right) Invisible Flying hand kungfu used only for mahjong; old shophouses in Jalan Besar; a strange, loud laughing angmoh over Cheese naan in Little India.

(L-R) Wafer-bread ice-cream man with sweet corn, mint choc chips, raspberry and durian flavours!!! And where will you be able to find anything that leaves the aftertaste of unabandoned childhood joy? For 80cents!!! Next up, St. Joseph's Church at Queen's Street. All earthy undertones, from it's calm blue and white colours matched with deep comforting wooden chairs - large, with ambracing air of serenity.

(L-R) Singapore Arts Museum...bringing it closer to the masses by being in the centre of the city and being so affordable to see amazing artworks from across SE asia - with its lunchtime & Friday evenings free entry. Once I even learnt swing dancing there in the chapel (it used to be a old St. Joseph's Insitution, Catholic school).

And on the right izzz fooooood...'nuff said. Local hawker centres, cue to the longest queue there and guaranteed good food.

CHINGAAAAY!!! We were very lucky to get tickets from the tourist centre at Heeren, it was all sold out at Sistic! Except for four similar acts it was very vibrant and all the performers looked like they were sincerely happy to be there, which is very contagious. Love the bubbles that surrounded the dancers.

Sentosa - 'Glass-bottomed cable cars' sounded so attractive and I was a little

worried of the height. A bummer that it was frosted!! There was tropical rain intermittently, the silver lining was that we devoured Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey while waiting for it to stop. Fort Siloso remains very well-maintained. One could almost imagine Brit soldiers climbing through lookouts, desperately loading runs into the machinery; yet in the end still having to dump them into the sea so the Japanese could not use it.

A special mention goes out to National Museum of Singapore which was totally revamped last year. It reminded me alot of the Metropolitan Museum in NYC with its dome like structure featuring a video of Singapore from dawn to dusk. Followed by a real treat for history buffs! Even DL who was a history buff was overloaded by the sheer amount of details heh...it was done in true Singapore style - if must do, lagi die die must do the best! I suggest going through the initial section of Singapore before it was founded by Raffles really quickly. All the interesting information was that Indonesians, Malaysians and a group of people called the Bugis occupied this place. (Previously I was posed a challenging question on the origin of the street name Bugis and sheepishly I made up some imaginary answer of it being part of a name of a governor general heh...but it did sound historical like ya? *looks around for some comforting affirmation*) The current exhibit on 'A Singapore Album' is one of my favourites, featuring diverse range of Singaporeans - Jewish, Peranakan parentage, Adrian Pang with his wild child hairdo (my favourite picture of his wife with red pixie hair while they were in theatre). The next event in mid-March sounds exotic with its emphasis on Arab culture. Chekkit out.

So to all those who say Singapore can be covered in a week...BOOO! to you (double confirmed by french chick who we met en-route Sentosa).

Next trip, I hope we can cover the less touristy spots :)

Belated New Year resolutions

Since CNY just passed, I figured I'm not too late with these thoughts as well :)

1. do everything in moderation - i.e. stop stuffing my face with irresistable good food, watch too much tv
2. exercise more, winter weight BEGONE! (and see resolution 1.)
3. Making my house more like a home and also invite more people home rather than just meet at parties/ clubs irregardless of how house looks like but of course no xiao qiang around. i.e. more quality household items like candela lights! http://www.vessel.com/ heh...
4. be more giving and keep in touch better with my parents and friends overseas
5. travel more
6. find an ad hoc NGO to work with
7. save more
8. learn spanish hahahaa...for obvious reasons
9. gather some equally bizarre and spontaneous people to blow liquid bubbles at passerbys in a street in Shanghai
10. read more

Some are easily achievable, some take a little more determined moving-ass from me heh...

Happy 4th monthlyversary

In the past few years I have said to myself, the next time I am part of a couple, there will be no love-mushed brain. No way some guy is gonna have an effect on my work or other parts of my life.

I am proud to say my predictions are a half-truth. On one hand, I have evolved into a mushysmoochy genie whose words will liquify you into mush instantly upon hearing me speak in mushysmoochy tones.


On the flip side, there are little sleepless nights when he goes away (I concuss, wake up to find drool heh...okay not so romantic so I'll stop. yes, I do miss him terribly though) and I'm still who I am (sometimes I tend to do wot I think the other person would like me to do). It's also hard to find concrete reasons why I do love him (because someone keeps asking!). But I do.

Being with you feels so ordinary,
there is no ache when we are apart or skip in my heart or
churning in my tummy.

Everyday is so ordinary,
feels like living an ordinary life - walking the same streets to
work,
popping into regular restaurants during lunch,
sleeping at the sametime each night.

But if ordinary means,
neverending smiles by just looking at you,
delighting in silly-nonsensical conversations, rolling over to hug your
belly and savouring snugness;
then being ordinary is what it should be.