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No trespassing beyond this point
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Monday, February 28, 2005

 
Boys getting lusty in this sweltering weather.


Posted by Hello

T sent me this photo via msn just and remarked "Look at those tits." I should have known better when he asked about the girl and commented on her "damn good figure". Nothing to get frantic about though, just the dirty old man in him getting out for some fresh air. He that expectedly lurks in every boy can't hide too well most times.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

 
One night only, but an amazing time all the same.

The midterm break is all but what I'd envisioned it to be. All the task items scribbled in my scheduler before week 8 remain untouched, ranging from promises of article-writing to much-needed revisions alike. I really do need to pull up my socks otherwise I'll be down and out in a less-than-desired dire state in the weeks to come.

Thursday warranted an overdue mention here, I'd gotten off early from work to meet the girls for an all-girls sleepover siesta. Equipped with a vcd player and a guilty supply of food/drinks (from exquisite pâté to economical cup noodles), we spent the night and the morning after (heh!) chatting and watching tv/ movies about a womanizing french politician called edgar (who wasn't so well-liked by the rest), the italian holocaust and some american suburban teenage suicides. I realize I do love girly gatherings, yum (literal meaning intended)!

 

In singapore, it is ironic that meritocracy has to be the greatest stratifier of all.

No regrets about waking up early on a rainy saturday morning and bumping into a pervert on the train en route; alfian, alex and eleanor didn't disappoint alright. Alex is one remarkable character, almost inspiring in his crusade. If all goes well, I'll probably be writing a term paper based on his "How is a government that built its monopoly of power on a platform of standing steadfast against liberalism, now to embrace liberalism?"

I had gone there alone, but ended up in the company of an interesting few comprising of a dutch professor, an aspiring gay activist (other times better known as celebrity-status blogger with an attitude) and an outspoken friend from american studies class last term who is proud of her chosen sexuality. I probably have the least critical mind of the lot, and definitely still have a long way to go. But all is good, I did enjoy basking in a social science environment and the intellectual simulations not in the realm of master tax guides or FASs.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

 
Thank god for jerry bruckheimer.

I think I'd mentioned this before, but as age catches up with me in double quick time these days (not enough sleep doing god knows wot because work just keeps piling up wit the midterm break almost over) I suppose I have more than justifiable excuse to repeat myself.

There is life beyond Desperate housewives (not to be taken as an offhand dissing since I love it as much as the rest of you out there) and Las vegas and Csi (in all its numerous reincarnations). Find time to check out Cold case and Without a trace, both my accidental finds on late nights after long buzzing days. Mark my words, these are real gems! Sadly and surprisingly, they are very much underrated this part of the world, occupying non-prime time slots and no trailer space at all.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

 
So much love J ain't buying into it, something must be up, she insists.

My sister paid for my haircut just before the lunar new year, and now I'm contemplating buying her something she needs (not an extravagant want). Sibling goodwill is perhaps contagious, my friend, as much as hostilities are.

 

Monday marks the start of week 8 and may I comment, tuesday will be equally hectic too.

Like most bloggers, I suffer from the instinctive obstinacy of writing an entry when the mind feels like it, even when the body is already yearning hard for the comfort of the bed. This is such a moment, not iconic for certain.

I'm dead beat now. I was up and about the entire day in business suit/heels because of an interview that I think I fared just ok in; would be good if I could proceed on to the third round but if not, I probably wouldn't kick up a big fuss about it either. Noting the process in general, the interviewers did make things rather difficult for me, then again it was their job and they had done it well, the way it was meant to be.

Dinner with the europe trippers later in the evening turned out to be a bad mistake. All their enthusiastic scheduling and fervent discussion on lodgings and transportation made it all the more blatant that the china trippers hadn't got on to concrete travelling plans yet. The impromptu browse at kinokuniya only worsened my panic - china doesn't seem any fun if 1. I can't go to those exotic places and 2. have made up my mind not to revisit beijing. Frankly, in all respect of my various cost considerations, I would rather backpack to one or several south-east asian countries.

Monday, February 21, 2005

 
Seems just like yesterday when we were still young and wearing jerseys.


Posted by Hello

Sunday, February 20, 2005

 
Necessary evils this world has no lack of.

It's going to be on tv tonight at 10 (and I'm likely to miss it since I'll be at a class reunion dinner). Even watching the trailer alone, I felt the warm burning tinge in my eyes, ack but nostalgia. I had cried watching it then. It has been coupla years since I last watched the movie wit D when it first hit the big screens, and I still firmly believe this is one of cinema's greatest masterpieces. It brings us into a war (civil or otherwise) without the need for a real war it so fittingly narrates, that destroys lives, young men and their futures.

In desperation, these men become heros of situations. But who would want to be heros at the cost of such, who rather be common men without the burdens of such that weigh down the conscience and sleepless nights, I suppose. No soldier, I feel, can ever recover fully from the wounds of war, emotional ever more so than the physical. No person should be made to endure through a war. Things change, perspectives hit ground zero, emotions stripped raw as everything returns to the basic fundamentals - survival. All that I'm saying now is probably an understatement in the face of dire reality those brave men have had to go through.

From Wilfred Owen's Dulce et decorum est:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*

* "It is sweet and meet (fitting) to die for one's country."

Saturday, February 19, 2005

 
From Bloomberg markets magazine:

Stronger signals at motorola by Jason kelly

Frost says Jobs has told him motorola should take a cue from ads that use "Hello, Moto" as a tag line and shortern the company's name. While a switch to moto isn't likely, frost says, motorola is approaching marketing more aggressively. He points to a deal with tennis star maria shrapova. In June, motorola marketing manager Oksana mindyuk watched as Sharapova upset serena williams to win the women's tennis championship at wimbledon, england. After the victory, sharapova tried and failed to call her mother in the U.S. on her cell phone, which was from a motorola rival. Within hours, mindyuk had arranged for a courier to send three motorola models to sharapova in the london suburb.

In august, sharapova signed an endorsement deal with motorola, her first worldwide sponsorship, says max eisenbud, who represents the tennis star for cleveland-based talent agency IMG. "They've been working with her on the designs, using her to figure out what's cool," says eisenbud, who declined to disclose financial details. "She helped create the buzz around the razr, since she was one of the only people in the world to have it before it was out."


How do such opportunities come? Not for sharapova I mean. Had mindyuk been standing near her, surrounded by the congratulating crowd or was mindyuk observing her at a distance, noting every grimace and how sharapova had 'hung up' so soon? In a flash, I guess it was the exact timing and the observant someone who had scooped it up carefully with both palms before it trickles away.

I met L at the airport this morning before he set off for taiwan again, god knows when I'll see him again - next year or maybe earlier if I choose to visit him sometime after my graduation. That we'll see, since each is as likely as the other. He too spoke of opportunities, and how I should grab them too. We ended up buying take-aways because I arrived too late for our planned lunch and had some fun talking to the subway boy who was pretty much inquisitive about who we were. Certainly I wish I could say I'm going somewhere too, like L, not having to take the public bus back into the same old life.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

 
The extent of fatigue after eighteen hours, zero sleep.

The midterms were quite a disaster, especially when the rusty brain had failed to take to closed-books as enthusiastically as presumed. I had time to head to the washroom and back, idling over one remaining essay I could not write. Afterwards, the coffee helped perk me significantly, and so had that professor in the sharp suit because I've always enjoyed chatting with him ever since our chance meeting.

On the bus home I fell asleep, headphones in ears. After what seemed like hours floating in and out of heavy/ light slumber, the lady next to me tapped me and offered me her shoulder to lean on lest I fell off my seat onto the aisle. Utter embarrassment, I wonder how many more people had witnessed my nodding concerto this evening. I hurried off the bus when it reached the terminal, hoping to melt into the crowd in an instant no less.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

 
Window shopping: Non-too-small indulgences in the dead of the night.

Definitely the calm before the storm, what dangers await soon enough.

From Gucci:


Posted by Hello

From Louis vuitton:


Posted by Hello

 

Regular consumption of surrealism makes for a critical mind of anti-rust kind.

From David hopkins' "Dada and surrealism: A very short introduction":




Oppenheim once observed that the shoes evoked for her the idea of 'thighs squeezed together in pleasure', in belated recognition of the 'sensual atmosphere' which her childhood nurse had exuded. Possibly she is ironizing the whole issue of female fetishism here. Female fetishism, if it exists, would be predicated on the psychological function of fetishism for men, which is normally assumed to be heterosexual in basis. Dali's object certainly upholds this. Surely there is more than a hint of a lesbian fantasy in Oppenheim's comment. One can easily see the trussed-up shoes, which double as a turkey on a platter, as constituting some form of bondage fantasy on the part of the artist. Posted by Hello




The Papin sisters had committed one of the grisliest and most sensational crimes to hit early 1930s France. A text in the same Surrealist journal, in a section dedicated to 'fait divers' or bizarre new items, told how these impeccably bourgeois young ladies, having been placed in service by their mother in a respectable Le Mans household, had developed a loathing for their employers and had ended up murdering them with ritualistic precision, tearing out their eyes and smashing their heads.

On one level the dual photograph of the sisters, which registered an extraordinary change in their physiognomies, corresponded to the Surrealist's fascination with 'convulsive beauty'; a kind of physical jolt in relation to extraordinary visual phenomena which will be discussed later. However, the Surrealists also sympathized with the violent response to servitude represented by the sisters' act. Believing that accepted morality often served to cover up ethical cowardice, the Surrealists had venerated criminals on other occasions. Posted by Hello

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

 
Must have been a tough one indeed.

To order beef noodles or linguine arrabiata, that is. I ended up with the (cheaper) former only because I'm in self-inflicted poverty these weeks and in the weeks to come. I still love you pasta, in the weirdest valentine's declaration ever.

Note: While posh restaurants are exceptionally crowded come the fourteenth day every february, common sense should have dictated yet another phenomenon too but I was slow to realize as usual - that food courts would turn out to be the best places to beat the crowd.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

 
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Check this out!

Friday, February 11, 2005

 
Just like the usual Cny, except that mom keeps saying I look like the red-haired Ah seng selling chicken rice in the hawker center.

Needless to elaborate any more, it's been hectic these coupla days. With a record seven households in two days (and many more hong baos exchanged on behalf of the many, many more households linked to the visited households), I'm glad to say we've completed lunar new year visiting for the year of the rooster. Sister asks, what's the use of spring cleaning up our apartment to a twinkly shine when we get only one family visit so far.

Unlike most other families, mine gets few visitors during this festive season because we used to spend the new year at grandma's in malaysia. So other relatives take for granted that we aren't around, even now. Back to her query, I would agree very much so but of course mom is the sort who prefers her home to be squeaky clean All Year Round if not for everyone's busy schedule. Well.

Relative: "Finished school?"
Me: "Graduating this may."
Relative: (Looks over to parents) "You're going to have it good soon."
Parents: [Insert typical chinese response]

As usual, we've done our obligatory mingling and have answered the same old questions. This year singlehood feels more blatant than ever when most of my (younger) teenage relations have gotten attached and such are the topics that get to be the subject of fervent discussions among mothers. Nothing is expressly mentioned actually but I guess I rather be caught in a couples-filled street on valentine's day than the silent jeer. Ack!

And I seriously wonder how my generation will be able to carry on the annual tradition in the future especially when my sister and I spend more time watching numerous tv programs in the comfort of relatives' living rooms rather than engaging in small talk. We do get comfy with some of our relatives but others are merely a little more than strangers with an assumed ancestral link. A pity in fact, when my extended family is considered much smaller than the average singaporean's.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

 
Learn to ride before you drive, says he.

I have yet to get my license, and I've always thought I will be good at driving. Certainly, the natural inclination and passion.. no, not with regards to specific models and features of cars. How else wouldn't it be possible? I guess I didn't know better.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

 
'Tis the season for firecrackers, spring cleaning and the reunion dinner.


Posted by Hello

 

From FinanceGates.com:

Thaksin Shinawatra has become the first Thai Prime Minister who succeeded in winning a second term and a single-party mandate. Estimates of final results on Monday, delayed by complaints of fraud and cheating, gave his Thai Rak Thai party (which means "Thais Love Thais") about 370 out of 500 seats in parliament.


My adoration for all things (ie. indie movies) thai has extended somewhat to a chance observation of its politics in recent days, especially wit all that coverage on elections not football. When both academics and analysts alike are critiquing his populist policies to be shortsighted, Thaksin certainly has got quite a fair bit to prove in the coming term.

I just read a review the other day on how the brilliant gdp figures were all built on debt-fueled expenditures, not a smart sustainable move - now we know where 'populist' comes in. His single-party government idea sounds more than vaguely familiar in this part of the region, yet if it works I guess rather that than another 1997. (Have we spotted the trend finally; how we always succumb to it in the face of economic stability, a more urgent issue a result of globalization?)

On another (wholly unrelated) note, we know he is among thailand's richest, yet I don't see the justification for his son to flaunt it all in a major fashion faux pas. Not to say that his sisters look anything resembling elegant fashionistas, pantongtae should at the very least learn from their understated teenage school girl styles.


(Source) Posted by Hello

Monday, February 07, 2005

 
Pre-cny schedule.

1. Clean windows (two rooms instead of the usual houseful due to parents' generosity)
2. Tidy up messy remains of rooms
3. Drop by the library to get my relevant books and pay fines before it closes for the festivities
4. Shop for new clothes and footwear
5. Get a haircut, hopefully a nice one

I wonder if I can succeed in getting all of these done within the next 24 hours. This stress ain't no fun!

Update: 3. and 4. ranged to be unsuccessful attempts at being efficient. 5. went extreme, now I have a dramatically-different brand new look (keep the reviews coming in)

Sunday, February 06, 2005

 
Herstories unfold in little pieces.


Posted by Hello

 

A lousy haiku for all borders patrons.

Old man. Magazine.
Sleazy cover he's staring.
Ewwk, gross! I'm leaving.

Note: Inspirations drawn from an unkempt stranger (not book-reading kind) with a dirty odd-looking bag who took a magazine (of two topless females in a sensual embrace on the cover) off the shelf and shuffled off hurriedly.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

 
I dreamt I was in taiwan last night, did you dream of me too?

From 35togo:



With A's wacky conversations on dreams recently, it is a wonder I only started dreaming last night. My sister (of frequent dreamer fame in our family) was half a world away, in some small american post-floods town taking care of an elderly, in her own respective dream last night.

Friday, February 04, 2005

 
Certainly eventful in an exciting way.

At the lecture today, I saw mr bertrand fort in person and found him extremely familiar. Definitely puzzling, I doubt I have met him elsewhere before yet he was so familiar, so attractive and distinguished in a middle-age sort of prime. Not forgetting that french accent of his, he makes for an appealing man.. I like him, as much as the whites and camembert cheese at the reception! Oh I guess well a little bit more.

Later in the evening when I met A at the mitre, he had brought along his friend, who'd happened to be the head instructor at Obs during both my times there, as a freshman first then a facilitator the following year. He was still the same as I'd last seen him - atheletic, tanned, good looking minus his oakleys now.

The two men made excellent conversationists, I enjoyed their company and the exchange of opinions on various issues. It's almost surreal how just a street away and a week ago, fair weathered friends were exposed when I'd least expected. This time we even got permission to explore the second floor of the creaky old building (haunted in some parts) after a coupla rounds of heinekens and tigers. Absolutely wicked!

Thursday, February 03, 2005

 
Feeling the heat - part two.

From: [undisclosed]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:17 AM
To: [undisclosed]
Subject: RE: Inaugural BAcc Yearbook_Individual Contribution


Hi people under my care,

By the way, pplease keep to the dateline .. cos there's alot of peer pressure from the other efficient whippers who by now are mass mailing on the number of people under their care who have submitted, I'm feeling the heat.. oh, and I'm supposed to relay the message that your matriculation photo (refer to your matric card or oasis.community if you've forgotten how bad it looks) will be used on your page if you don't submit by the deadline. No this is not a threat. You have the option of having 24 i/c sized matric photos or one super big enlarged one with your name in full below :)

Happy holidays! And don't be too stressed.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

 
Feeling the heat - part one.

From: [undisclosed]
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 1:39 AM
To: [undisclosed]
Subject: Inaugural BAcc Yearbook_Individual Contribution
Importance: High



Hi people under my care,

This will be the first of many (I hope not) emails hurrying you to submit your individual contributions (Yes one whole page all about you) for the yearbook. You have got two choices, detailed as below.

Option A (not recommended because some poor chap will have to devote his leisure time to design YOUR page; for the artistically-uninclined, uninitiated, busy and bochap)

Send all of these four things, in no particular order:
1. One big photo of yourself, preferably with a close up of your face down to the hundredth decimal place of your pimples and moles; resolution: 1600 x 1200
2. Three to five smaller photos, need not have facial close ups but if you want to I probably can't do much about it anyway (e.g. eating in food haven, with friends hanging out in town, studio makeovers - anything goes!); resolution: minimum 640 x 480
3. Thoughts about your SMU experience (i.e. first impression of school/ security guard/ prof gan/ booklink auntie/ size of gym, memories, afterthoughts); need not be lengthy but if you must, 100 words is the maximum
4. Heartfelt messages/comments for placement in your BAcc friends' (at least four) pages; be nice keep within 20 words


Option B (recommended; for those who want to leave their mark in unique way complete with style and a dash of personality! So glam!)

To design your own page, you submit Option A's 1.-3. to yourself and arrange them to your liking on an A4 size background (e.g. Microsoft word, convert to pdf when completed as desired). Try to keep design to about two colors (we are trying to keep printing costs low) and submit Option A's 4, along with self-designed page. Attached is a sample page (real contribution, see, other people are very efficient compared to us).


Email to [undisclosed] (inform me at below cell number if inbox is full, alternative arrangements will be made) by 11 Feb 2005, Friday. I know everyone's tied up in something/everything/ weird things... For your info, I have yet to do up mine, so that's encouraging. Let's all try to make an effort ya!

Hope to hear from you soon, and do not hesitate to contact me should you have any queries.

 

*

(source)

Last october, I had my first taste and now I can't get enough of retro thai arthouse films. I was channel-surfing when I caught the remaining thirty minutes, I want more! A return to the good 'ol past - Wisit sasanatieng's combination of cinematography, colors, dialogues will almost certainly blow you away like it did for me. Look no further, there is more to Thailand than tom yams, buddhas and strip clubs.

* It's quite hot in Thailand. (meuang thai rawn maak)

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