Monday, January 30, 2006  11:00 PM
Gem
Gem's my two and a half month old Maltese puppy and also the latest addition to the family. Without a doubt, he's in the limelight this Chinese New Year as he bounces around, attempts to chew everyone's fingers off (the poor baby's teething) or gazes up at you with those irresistable eyes. I have to say, Gem has placed my house as the "most-highly-anticipated-to-return-to-next year". All my relatives are enamoured. I've had offers to pay to take Gem home, threats to steal him and imploring tones for me to give him up. Haha. And suddenly everyone that visits my home adopts baby-talk.
"Gemmmm... come here, darling..."
"Aren't you a little cutie... *proceeds to tickle the dog*... you like this, don't you?"
"Gemmi Gemmi, ohhh you are sooo cute! OUCH... stop biting, sweetheart."
Even my aunt - who usually could not care less about dogs - is enchanted.
My dad was apprehensive when we first got Gem as his two hind legs suffers from a muscle problem since birth, and so he walks a little funny, although people just assume it as the way he bounces around now because he's just a puppy. But I'm really glad that he's opened up to let himself love Gem and it's quite obvious how much he cares for the dog now. :)
I never thought I would get another dog since my shih-tzu died three years ago but Gem's a little furry ball of life who is so easy to love. I remember picking him out from a litter of five puppies at the pet shop. His brothers and sisters were frisking around for attention but he was just sitting there, staring up at me with those huge eyes of his and I knew that he was the one I was going to get.
I kind of get a thrill from watching him snuggle up to the little kids who treat him nicely and then proceed to try to bite some random evil aunt's fingers off. And I'll apologise and flippantly tell them that he needs a bone because he's teething but we haven't got one because all the shops are closed. It's as if my dog reads my mind.
Talk about telepathy.
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Saturday, January 28, 2006 10:37 PM
The past week
Another reunion dinner is over and I'm sitting here typing on my laptop as I await tomorrow. The reunion dinner is something I look forward to yearly, despite the small family I have, and yes I love my family but I have to admit that the food is what I get excited about the most. The steamboat is simply one of a kind, and the food that I eat every reunion dinner is something that can never be gotten elsewhere. The only difference this year is that I've an addition in the form of my more-than-happy-to-play-celebrity puppy, Gem. For half an hour before the dinner started and for two hours after that, he was the centre of attention, frisking around and capturing everybody's hearts. Talk about being an attention grabber. But more on him later. The past week has been pretty hectic, as all the deadlines are being thrown at us all at one go, and I'm ready to murder a few people such as Kilkenny himself who decided to ruin our Chinese New Year by setting a deadline right in the middle of it. And his excuse? "You think you are suffering cos you have to do it, but think about it... I actually have to mark during Chinese New Year." And why is he not smart enough to just let everyone off for once. So my group members and I spent countless hours at the library during research this week, of course not forgetting to take a few pictures.  Me pulling a pseudo 1874 - thanks to Jan
 My hawker groupies!
This week, dear Fel also got the car as her dad jetsetted off to Indonesia and therefore she drove to school, and played driver to us for two days. Not surprisingly, all of us got super excited at the prospect of having a car at our disposal and on Thursday afternoon during our four-and-a-half hour break, we decided to head down to Ikea for lunch. Of course, there was the pre-drive chatter and excitement about how we should "drive past the bus stop and glance out at all the people waiting at the bus stop while in the car" or "get Luqs to sit at the bus stop so we can casually pick him up so that everyone will see us".  So Fel drove us out of school and we did drive past the bus stop, even though I don't think anyone saw us. Lunch at Ikea was the usual with yummy meatballs and chicken wings. Then came the highlight of the day (or scariest moments in Fel's driving anecdotes). There was this huge jam out of that crammed Ikea carpark and we were on the slope heading out. But because of the jam, we had to keep stopping on the slope. Fel was driving an auto car, and normally, once you let go of the brake and step on the accelerator, the car should move on smoothly. But for some reason (maybe we were too heavy), the car rolled back. Now this happened three times and I'm sorry dear for screaming my lungs out. When Jan screams, it's a natural reaction to follow. I know we weren't helping at all. So finally, our poor driver had to use the handbrake method - which should not apply to an auto car. But! Thank you Fel for driving us around the two days and I really really really appreciate it! :)
 The backseat kids - Jan the screamer, Luqs, Mel and I
 Jan and I had to wait in school for our dads to come pick us up yesterday evening, so we decided to go explore her hall rooftop. Which is a wonderful find! It's perfect for suntanning, for long talks, for pizza parties, for drinking wine under the stars, and as you can see, for picture-taking. :)
And the photo below is for Luqs. He's the guy that designed my blog template and also the one who recently helped me add the 'Flickr gallery' link. He IS a sweetheart. So here's a photo of us which I absolutely love - I call it Konfrontation. :)
The next two days will be LONG. My Chinese New Years' are typically like that. We start early in the morning and only end late at night. And...even though Martina Hingis got out in the quarter-finals for the women's singles, I'm still super proud of her and guess what?! She's in the mixed doubles finals with Mahesh Bhupathi.
I really hope she wins. :)
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Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:48 AM
Jing's birthday
 Happy Birthday, Jings! :)
 Me and the birthday boy. The gang full and satisfied. Bobby Rubino'sWe celebrated Jing's birthday on Thursday night at Bobby Rubino's at Chijmes, which I must add, is a beautiful place - so Cinderella castle-ish with all that sculptures and fountains. Bobby Rubino's was a good choice for food as well; the Chicken Gordon Bleu which I had is a MUST TRY. Take it from me. :) So it was all wonderful company and as usual lots of silly conversations and childish antics such as discovering that the back of our placemats were printed with this maze for children to amuse themselves while waiting for their food. In typical fashion, we found ourselves fascinated by the game and quickly scrutinised the problems. Luqs actually whipped out a pen to DO the maze. The pictures are evidence. Haha, they're all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/glamqueen. I think we got the waiter pretty irritated but looking amused at us due to the unsurprising number of photos we took that night. If film cameras were still in rage, we would all be broke. The bus ride home was reminiscent of our bus ride from KL back to Singapore just two months ago. As usual, succumbing to sleep and not focusing on your whereabouts leads to frantic "We're here?!" when the bus stops and you gaze out of the window to surroundings that just seem confusing to your sleepy brain. And so, we scrambled out of our seats and down the bus when the bus was totally empty and the bus driver waiting - yet again. Anyhow, I hope Jings had a memorable 22nd birthday. :) Skipped Chopra's lecture today to watch the fourth-round matchup between Hingis and Samantha Stosur. The first set was a breeze, but the second set left Jings and I watching on nervously. My heart was ready to jump out of my body anytime as the tiebreak unravelled itself to be one of the closest-fought ones ever. I was shrieking and pounding my fists in agony. Haha. I hate watching Hingis play because I suffer from unnecessary near heart-attacks but I still find myself inexplicably drawn to the television when she plays nonetheless. She plays Kim Clijsters next though, and it's going to be a tough one. For a comeback queen who has not played professionally for three years, I don't expect her to make it to the semi-finals but if she does, it'd be a definite story to tell. We had a mini pre-Chinese New Year celebration today in Fel's hostel room crooning Jay Chou and eating her yummy homemade pineapple tarts, cashew nut cookies and chocolate chip cookies. It was soooooo funny how we ate and ate and sang like nobody's business. Haha. My bed calls. Three hours of sleep last night has not done me any good. Gahh.
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Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:35 AM
Confounding conversations
I apologise in advance if the next few entries in my blog are going to sound like what some stupid jock would write on his blog, but Martina Hingis is not out of the Australian Open just yet (and Venus is, haha) so I feel the need to make up for the three years that I could not blog about her. I watched a little bit of the re-cap of the Hingis-Zvonareva match yesterday - yes, I didn't actually skip tutorial - and when she won, I was all choked up with emotion. That reminiscent sunny smile when she won reminded me so much of the good old Hingis days. And this is only her first-round win. She beat the 30th seed 6-1, 6-2 which is super impressive if you ask me. Her shots were perfectly placed, and the commentators (good old Vijay Amitraj) could not stop talking about how she used her wit and intelligence to win the game. It was obvious that the crowd was all about Hingis yesterday. They cheered loudly and nodded appreciatively after her every winning point! Haha. Hingis's playing Emma Laine tomorrow on Vodafone right after Juan Carlos Ferrero's match; my favourite male and female player playing back to back! And this time, it falls within my draggy four-and-a-half-hour break! Yay. :)
I was struggling with alot of emotions and sorting out my thoughts today after this particular conversation with a friend. Life, love, future boyfriends and husbands, being too nice that people start to take you for granted. I've come to realise that I cannot accept someone if he only treats me well. Even if he gives me the world, but is completely oblivious to the feelings of the rest of the world, I'd not be able to tolerate that. I do realise that if someone has feelings for you, they tend to be biased towards you and there's inevitable preferential treatment, but that still does not justify ignoring and hurting other people.
And won't that also make the entire world hate me then? Especially if I welcome this admirer's advances with open arms and am completely blind to the state of his friendships with others? I hope I'll never be that girl; I shouldn't, I hope. With all that perception in me, I'd better not sink to that level even if I am lovestruck. I will not.
People taking me for granted seems to be what my friends have been telling me lately. Am I being overly nice? I don't care for reciprocation or recognition of what I do for others; I really don't. As long as I'm happy with what I've done or what I'm doing, that's fine by me. But of course there's the other side to view this, that people will continue to make use of me and expect me to always be sacrificial no matter what the circumstances. Then I become a pushover. It then lead me to think: Am I this naturally good-hearted person or am I simply one of those sickening people-pleasers? And if I am the latter, I do not want other people to see me as nice because that's not who I really am. But I am going to take this friend's advice - I will not let myself suffer at the expense of others and I will treat myself better even if I'm going to feel bad after that. While there are some that love and appreciate me for that, some do not realise it. And it's to those people especially that I'm going to try to keep this vow.
A side note as I'm glancing at the television: Maria Sharapova's legs are damn nice. And Hingis has got to start wearing ankle socks.
And a certain someone's a year older today. Too bad I can't do some flashing words or rollovers on your name, but still - Happy Birthday, Jings! :)
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Monday, January 16, 2006 11:20 PM
Martina Hingis
It's been about three years since I've seen that familiar face and name on screen in a Grand Slam draw. In case you don't know what I'm getting at by putting up the second pic, it's the Australian Open first round draw and you are supposed to be looking at Martina Hingis vs. Vera Zvonareva on Rod Laver Arena starting 7.30pm Melbourne Time. They gave Hingis Rod Laver! That means that her match will most DEFINITELY be aired on Star Sports and it also means I have to find some way to skip stupid Vandana Chopra's tutorial at 4pm to make it home by 4.30pm Singapore time which is when the match starts.
I can hardly believe she's back on courts again. Martina Hingis was, and still is, my inspiration to pick up tennis and train like crazy three times a week when I was thirteen. I remember first noticing her on television in 1998 playing Lindsay Davenport in a Wimbledon (?) match and I admired the way she hit the ball, the way her ball always goes across in such crafty angles and the smartness of her game. She was unlike the power players, namely the terrible sisters Venus and Serena Williams, who only relied on sheer strength. Hingis played with such finesse and such grace that I became a fan all at once. Staying up all night to watch her in the US Open in 2000 and talking to Sam on the phone for five hours that night just discussing Hingis and her match, running down to the canteen during the 2001 Australian Open with Cheryl just to make frantic calls back home to check whether she had won or lost and ending up skipping the entire recess, setting my alarm at 3am in the morning just to catch the unearthly French Open matches that she was playing - I can remember every single moment vividly in my mind. And that heart-stopping Serena Williams match during Chinese New Year in 2001 or 2002 or something; where she came from two match points down to winning the match. That was seriously one of the best and most thrilling matches I've ever watched. I was screaming, squeaking and feeling my heart jump out of my body at the same time.
It seemed just like yesterday when she was still playing and winning career titles. It does not seem like she has been on a three year hiatus, although she has and the rest of the tennis world says so. In her last year playing tennis before she took a break, Hingis played mixed doubles with Roger Federer in the Hopman Cup and won the title for Switzerland. And that point in time, Roger Federer was a nobody and I remember thinking cynically to myself whether Federer would be pulling Hingis down. Look at where Roger Federer is now. When Hingis left, Maria Sharapova wasn't even on the playing field.
I would LOVE to see Hingis play Sharapova in a Grand Slam final one day. But I guess first I'll have to make plans for tomorrow's match. I cannot wait. And, Venus is out of the Australian Open already. Yay. :)
What they say about the Hingis comeback
Serena Williams:
"She was part of our group, like myself and Venus and Anna (Kournikova), just a lot of young kids that kind of came up around the same time. I actually kind of missed her when she left. It's really nice to see her back, absolutely.
"She has dreams of coming back. I think that she's here, and even making that effort is amazing. She dreams big. I think if your dream big, you can reach lots of goals."
Venus Williams:
"I think she's a great player. I'm happy she came back. I think a lot of people are happy … Her fans are extra happy. The sky's the limit for her, really for anyone on the WTA Tour.
"We all start on the same playing field. We all have the same opportunities to do whatever. It's an open game. So I think as long as she works hard, she could do fine."
Lindsay Davenport:
"I think it's great. I was very outspoken a few years ago in my disappointment that she did quit because I always enjoyed her as a player.
"I enjoyed competing against her. I enjoyed having her around. I think it's great that she took the time she felt she needed away from the game and realised she really did miss it and is coming back.
"I wish her all the success. It will be interesting to see if she can adapt her game to the different level of play that we now have than three or four years ago."
Maria Sharapova:
"I honestly think it brings so much more excitement to the game and so much more attention.
"Obviously now she's not seeded, so sometimes she can play a seed first round. It's just kind of that unexpected great player that you can play maybe first round, like it happened last week. It brings a lot more excitement for sure."
Mary Pierce:
"I'm happy. I love Martina. Played doubles with her for a year in 2000 and had a great time. I'm personally just happy to see her back because I missed her.
"It's tough in the beginning to come back, physically and mentally. I think in about two or three months it will be easier to tell.
"She's a champion. She's a great tennis player. It's pretty open right now, so it's a good time actually for her to be coming back."
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Saturday, January 14, 2006 12:51 AM
Against all odds
Your eyes are definitely not playing tricks on you.There are no moving flash butterflies or flowers like I mentioned in the last post. That's because Luqs has changed the blogskin! Haha. If it's possible, I actually like this blogskin better than the last one because it's definitely more me. Gorgeous and glam and funky all at the same time. :) I think I have defined my identity pretty well.
First, though, the week has been so hectic that I'm glad it's finally come to an end. (There is a comma after first and though even though I still argue that it looks weird and wrong, but I learnt that in my Basic Media Writing class today so sue the ex-BBC teacher of mine if you are protesting violently.) I need to get away from things as well before I go completely crazy and infuriated. This weekend is going to be my recluse. Maybe I should try the whole no-handphone-and-laptop thing that Jules recommended when she went to Tioman.
This Canto song by Kelly Chen has been on repeat on my iTunes for weeks now and I think the lyrics are so meaningful and apt and it touched some inner chord in me after I spent about an hour deciphering it. It just sort of applies to my life or something. I doubt anyone is actually going to read the lyrics because it's way too strenuous on the mind but I'm going to put up the link anyway. For the more cultured bunch. :) And you have no idea how much trouble and the odds I fought just to get this up. Chinese words turned to gibberish on my Blogger. The link which I got these lyrics from suddenly disappeared. So, if you click on the link, you'll see my last resort. Haha.
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=86881412&size=o
Thanks Jings for trying to help me anyway. Really appreciate it. :) I suppose your 'angmoh not destined to be Chinese' friend found a way out after all.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 1:02 AM
Tribute to Luqs
I love Luqs! Just look at my new blogskin. It's beautiful! And it has flash too, the butteflies actually flutter about. Still pictures are yesterday's news. I can see some people on my tagboard are jealous already. Haha.
Thank you Luqs! I owe you a treat. Seriously. :) Even though you might have done all this out of guilt.
  
  
(I don't think any of the links work. Because I'm a computer idiot and I don't know what I'm doing. To view the pics properly, just head down to http://www.flickr.com/photos/glamqueen - I've done up all my December photos there too.)
Went to Geylang for supper last week with Jings, Luqs and Jan. The ambience was actually pretty quaint and good for picture-taking, but none of us brought a camera, so here are some shots taken with random handphones. After days of learning to use the bluetooth technology, I've managed to get some pictures up. Although it's a tedious process because my handphone does not actually have bluetooth, and I lost the CD-drive to my laptop so I could only install the bluetooth to my dad's laptop. So the process is like this: Infrared to dad's handphone - Bluetooth to the dad's laptop - Thumbdrive the photos to my own computer - Upload. Beef Hor Fun and Tau Huay are seriously the perfect supper treats. But the funniest part of the evening had to be how Jings, Luqs and Jan missed their train back to school because Jings suddenly decided at the eleventh hour, when the last train was five minutes away, that he absolutely had to shit. As he rushed back down to the toilet, I watched Luq's and Jan's horrified and disbelieving expressions as they watched their last train come and go five minutes later. It was worthy of America's Funniest Home Videos. Haha.
   
   
I've been on a Ministry of Sound overload lately, and one thing that never fails to happen is taking pictures in their oh-so-gorgeous restroom. Went with Jan and Mel last Wednesday despite having a Thursday morning 9am lecture the next day. Bo, Shu, Nick, Adrian and Mark were there too so it was great being able to hang out with all my friends at one go. Jan, Mel and I headed off to Gotham halfway to get free drinks cos we were so broke, before coming back and hitting the dance floor and doing all sorts of stupid things and laughing for no reason. It was brilliant - somehow all the cares just disappeared for that one night and it was the most fun I've had for a long time.
I was talking to my neighbour (who has been calling me Amanda for as long as I can remember, and I never bothered correcting her, and it seems too late for that now) the other day and she was telling me how she wants to send her son abroad to study but he rejected the offer. It made me wonder if I made the right choice staying in Singapore. I like my course, I love the friends I've made, but I feel stifled in Singapore. I want the independence and the freedom that comes with going abroad and to be able to grow up and explore things on my own. I was all ready for University of Melbourne - I had their acceptance letter in my hands. My neighbour was saying how she thinks that in University, it's a time for kids to finally grow up and experience living with their friends. And I desire that kind of freedom. I don't want my father calling me when I have early morning lectures to make sure I've woken up - I'm sure I've gotten to the stage where I can be relied on to wake up for my own lectures and make my own decisions. I know he cares for me and stuff, but still it gets annoying. I want to break free. My mom thinks that I'm growing up too fast. But I think it's high time. Maybe it's the fact that I'm an only child which makes it harder for my parents to let go.Which is perhaps why I so badly want to stay in hall this semester. My German neighbours next door (they have the cutest little girl, Juliana) have put up these bright, joyous Chinese New Year couplets on their door accompanied by decorations. A few metres away, the Christmas holly is still on my door. It's highly ironic how they seem more excited by Chinese New Year than we are. Haha. I've got a comment thing at the bottom of each post as well as a tagboard to give people more options! Haha. If you like giving long insightful comments, the "Your thoughts?" buttom is perfect for you. But if you're like Jan and like to leave me random crappy notes about how she loves herself, tagboards are the way to go.
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Saturday, January 07, 2006 12:24 AM
By faith.
I am the girl who holds everybody's little secrets and is about to burst from knowing too much.
I am the girl who wishes I could tell somebody all my problems and they would find the right words to say.
I am the girl who thinks too much about other people's problems and as a result derive a splitting headache from it.
I am the girl who has random crushes on guys and the guy likes my best friends back.
I am the girl who guys love to confide in about my best friends and how to get closer to them.
I am the girl who doesn't know why I'm not the one who some guy talks about with my best friend to get to know better.
I am the girl who detests being boring and nice.
I am the girl who used to have such low self-esteem and thinks its all catching up with her once again.
I am the girl who thought it was all in the past but suddenly realises that people still do have mean things to say.
I am the girl who sometimes feels like no one really understands her.
I am the girl who is all trigger-happy on the surface and is scared sometimes to open up because she has an oversensitive personality that thinks about what other people will think of her which annoys her to the core.
I am the girl who stares out into the night sky and feels the loneliness creeping up on her.
I am the girl who thinks too much.
I am the girl who tries to have faith, who used to think that faith was the only thing keeping her sane, but is starting to get cynical about it.
I am the girl who believes that God is the only one who can truly love her for who she really is.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006 7:24 PM
The New Year 2006.
New Year. First day of school. I feel my heart palpitating already.
Talk about the worst way to usher in the New Year. The Sentosa Siloso beach party was $20 down the drain, and not a single cute guy to make up for it. The music was good before the clock struck twelve, and also when we were milling around trying to orientate ourselves. But by the time we made it into the foam dancefloor, it changed to head-pounding techno for the next two hours. Blame it on bad karma, whatever, but standing in line for forty-five minutes to get into the foam dancefloor and getting groped by surreptitious figures with roving fingers can really get you annoyed, pissed and disgusted at the below average-looking male population present that night. There was a massive overload of foreign Indian nationals who swarmed the entire place like bees, and they were mostly the ones pushing, fighting to get near the foam producer (whatever it's called) and doing the groping. I spent most of the time on the foam dancefloor staring around in horror at the scene.
And to the MTV VJ's hosting the event that night? Get a life. You're not twelve years old. Or, get voice surgery. You have successfully managed to burst my eardrums with all that screeching. The night only started to get better when we moved to Delifrance for a nice hot cup of cocoa and pastries. The music in the familiar bistro was heaven to our ears and we all figured that it would have been more enjoyable if the party had been held in Delifrance instead. New Year's Day was then spent in church attending two services, then returning home to sleep before watching "The Family Stone". I thoroughly enjoyed that movie, it left me all fuzzy and warm but yet a little depressed at the same time. I laughed at Sarah Jessica Parker's valiant attempts to please the Stone family and her awkward throat-clearing sessions, I cried when they portrayed such raw scenes of Diane Keaton's struggle with her sickness. The person in Nanyang Chronicle who gave it two stars obviously hasn't had a good Christmas in a long time.
Today marked the start of the second semester. It feels rather surreal, really. It seemed like just yesterday that it was six weeks ago and I was euphorically finishing up my last exam. Stepping into school this morning, I made a mental note to cross out several back-to-school outfits. I saw three girls wearing tops that I own! My heart literally sank. Jan and I have made a pact though - to be trendsetters, to create a style of our own, not to succumb to the brandedtshirt-jeans-shortskirt look that the entire world thinks highly fashionable. But I suppose, it's all in the course I'm doing. I probably would not have this problem if I had enrolled in engineering. Lectures were boring, Pieter Aquilia was funny with the super sarcastic air to her humour, Lee Wai Peng was simply annoying (Sabrina the teenage wiich! How was she ever a newscaster?!). Had a good catch-up with the usual people at our favourite nearby shopping mall - thank God for the fact that some things never change and for the plans to set up a dream tuition agency with the professional website with plenty of videos and rollovers.
What a start. I cannot imagine what tomorrow will bring.
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