cold fish

striking the stuck-up pose while on the cable car up to the summit of ...damn! what's the name of that hill? in langkawi. company trip. short. quite tiring. but the view up the summit was awesome. cooler and more refreshing than genting.

never take for granted...

i received an sms from sensei today. mr. robert choong, a great benefactor of yoshinkan aikido, and a gentle man, passed away this morning. we'd just been with him a week ago during the aikido festival.

i was stunned. shocked immobile. terribly, terribly sad. not only because i know sensei thought very highly and very much of mr choong, but also because i felt he was a very kind, gentle soul. and i'd just spent time with him last week, for god's sake!!!

i'm bad at receiving news about death and even worse when at consoling people. what to say? what to do? how to say? what to feel? especially when the news comes unexpected.

here's to a great man, and to all who knew him, i'm so sorry.

tables

we finally found a table we think is perfect for our space. we made a compromise: a cross between my desired round kopitiam table and a rectangle one best suited to the space and preferred by rizal. we went for an oval teak table with a marble top. plus kopitiam chairs.

perfect!

now we'll just have to wait for a sample of the chairs before we confirm on them. but the deposit's been paid on the table and we also got an antique looking lamp to replace the common looking porch lamp we have.

i also have my eye on a 50's style dressing table in the shape of a kidney bean. it would look so weird in my bedroom (everything's square) but i think i gotta have it. it is just too cool!!

who knew we could find such gems in taman tun? almost right by applied imaging too. thanks to ivan, of course. damn! now i have to see him about the introducer's fee. such a spud.

close encounters

i should have had my guard dog with me when i went dancing on friday...

it was my first night out in yonks. and i ended up being plastered to a pint sized peruvian. no need to wonder why, the phrase pint-sized is enough for anyone to harbour a guess: i was one of the few who wasn't towering over him.

all i know is i was trying to look over everyone's heads to catch a glimpse of anita leading the men (it was her b'day) and when i tried to go up to her to wish her a good one, this...person grabs my hand and asks me to dance. how did he even pick me out? of course i go onto the dance floor, i'm a polite person and always willing to dance with anyone. little did i know what was in store for me...

let's just say i couldn't escape the following few salsa tunes nor the merengue nor the bachata. and it only ended after i'd made desperate faces to c.lai when he passed me dancing nearby about coming over to rescue me. which he did, thank gawd, bless his soul!

i got honed in on by this pint-sized guy for a few more times that night. even june was contemplating coming over to do a quick rescue but by the look of my animated conversation, she thought i was having fun. talking was better than getting plastered. to this person. i must remember make desperate faces to my friends even when i'm talking.

it got to the point i made sure i was dancing with someone, anyone for most of the night and not just sitting down. and when i did sit down, i made sure to be either a) animatedly talking to someone or b) looking totally bored out of my wits or c) looking at the on-two's dancing away.

i need higher heels...

foiled!!

my plans for a nice and pleasant dinner has been foiled. by my very own father. the details are too tedious and irritating to get into so i'll skip it. i'm wondering...should i go eat on my own or grit my teeth and have dinner with them as planned. dunno. but am hungry...

at least i'll be heading down to salsa havana for some skirt swirling tonite :)

found film

i dropped off my roll of film at the lab yesterday. and found the four that i misplaced during the move. yaaaaaayyy!!!

audio groove

it never ceases to amaze me how you can associate a particular song with a particular time of your life. for me, music is a very strong stimulant for my memory and times gove past. i'm not talking about yonks liek 20 years ago or anywhere near that far back (am not that ancient).

the songs i remember take me back to college or at most, secondary school days. anything more than that and the years tend to blur together. i could hear a certain song on the radio and my goosebumps are activated and i'm hurled back 10 years ago into A-levels days. I can even remember what occassions they were, who was there and what i was feeling then. It's uncanny and can be quite frightening, i admit.

here's a list of songs that jive my goosebumps:

Simply Red:
For Your Babies
A-levels, WMU sunway days. Hanging out with the guys and especially, there was one particular night we were out clubbing with eugene (fatty) and they played the dance version of this song. i remember fatty saying something about mick hucknall's eyes and how they were the most exceptionally blue eyes there are. and i remember myself wondering, 'why is he talking about mick hucknall's eyes? is this a guy thing that i don't know anything about?'.

Stars
reminds me of A-levels and the guys. more of the guys and derrick in particular. have no idea why but i think someone mentioned it was one of his favourite songs...

Breathe: Hands to Heaven
A major goosebumper, this one. winter of '95. we'd just begun hanging around with the guys: loong, kit, derrick, chee chuan, rizal, david, et al. it was on the way to the movies near crossroads mall at westnedge. i can't recall who was driving but i was stuck in the back with the guys and almost scrunched into a corner. then the song came on and i moaned and announced to everyone that i absolutely loved the song and had this feeling in the pit of my stomach. almost like a stomach ache. i remember coz the guys liked the song too (they were into the boyband, a cappella stage).

Gin Blossoms: Hey Jealousy, Allison Road, Found Out About You
will take me back to when i first arrived at Western in Kalamazoo. especially living in the dorms and the crisp, cold air of winter. of having mtv on the tv most of the time, of visiting the then-boyfriend and staying over in his room. of trudging from the halls to classes in the freezing cold. of camaraderie with the gals in our rooms. mostly recollections of mtv.

Cranberries:
Dreams & Linger
ditto the above. it was during that same time that mtv and the local stations were blasting gin blossoms that cranberries was getting as much airtime. ackley-schilling hall (wait a minute, was ackley schilling the then-boyfriend's hall??). bernhard centre.

Ode to My Family
practicing and then singing back-up for eve on ... what was that performance night??? urgh, can't remember but that's also where things sorta kinda started getting messed up in the relationship department.

GNR: Sweet Child of Mine, November Rain
WMU at the new campus of sunway college at sunway. at that time, it was so new, we could smell the paint and breathe the dust. november rain especially reminds me of the madd club performance we did at the british council. i didn't perform. i helped organize but i remember timothy & band performing november rain and ms. andrea and her drama people doing harry connick jr.'s heavenly. it was less than, but i've loved that song ever since.

Art Garfunkel's So in Love
evie, sheila and me doing renditions of that song on guitar with the madd club at the old sunway campus. i can't remember what for, but we were raising funds. and we were going around the canteen area holding up victims and subjecting them to our harmonised version of that song. "so in love are we two, we just don't know what to do, so in love, so much in looooooove....!!" and of course, eve and sheila fighting to do seconds while me with the less than perfect voice singing lead.

UB40:
Kingston Town
my first crush in college: kingston. urgh, it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. he was skinny and pale and...well, kinda arrogant. but i was young then...

Red Red Wine
party at honey's place in d'sara kim. first time i met...shit! what's his name??? anyway, we were dancing to red red wine and took a break to have a piece of b'day cake. honey's uncle (for the life of me i don't know why) slipped a piece of candle into ???'s cake. so halfway eating and talking to me, ??? as graciously as he can spits out the candle and later that night i learned that honey's uncle had slipped the candle in on purpose to see if ??? would notice. he thought ??? was so into our conversation he may not notice. oh well...

Blind Melon: No Rain
another one of those countless songs that remind me of my early days at Western. Ackley-Schilling, my first winter, my first time out of the country for a long period of time without the parents and without supervision. FREEDOM!!!




there's more and as i go along or when any particular melodies strike me, i'll take the liberty of writing down those memories...

ganja

driving to work in the mornings is hazardous to my health. the moment i step into the car, my eyelids start drooping. it's as if they are weighed down with ball bearings. and as the journey progresses onto the highway and closer to the office, i have to fight off the urge to knock off there and then. my head starts to sway and my mind starts clouding up with thoughts of sleep. it's like someone sprayed the whole car with sleeping gas and it's making its insidious way into my nervous system.

i feel like i'm on a full dose of polaramine and am going under. it never amazes me how my want to sleep kicks in everytime i'm in a moving vehicle. and it never ceases to cause me wonder that i'm behind another vehicle (sometimes quite close) and blanking out for seconds at regular intervals. it is, i must admit, rather scary.

maybe it's just a phyiscal reaction to work.

time for...CCCOOOOOOOOFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

back again...for the time being

wow! i've been gone so long? it just seems pointless to blog here and then at my lomo site. tedious. i'm not given to tedium. i abhor tedium.

so what's there to say? not much really. most of what i want to say i've said or am saying on lomo. oh well...

i suppose i'll try to drop by here more often.

welcome back...to myself

it's been a while. it's different here than in lomography. i blog quite faithfully there, i would say. but that's only because my pix are there and they illicit some sort of reponse from other lomo freaks. here, its...i dunno.

there's a lot of stuff going on in my head. and as i like to think and say, "if i've got nothign good to say, better not say anything at all". which explains that most of the stuff in my head are far from good.

so, anyway...

i'm reading haruki murakami's "norwegian wood". i try, i really do try. but everytime i pick up an asian writer other than an indian writer (usually the ones which are translated), i find the style and language stilted. i'm quite sure it has to do with the translation. i can imagine if i were reading the original in japanese it would not sound quite as bland or boring or weird as reading it in english. japanese and chinese writing i think are better read in their original language. somehow the subtlest hint or nuance that the language suggests is lost in the translation. and i think that is why somehow murakami's work in english don't hold me transfixed as the reviews make it out to be.

or it may be that my mind is too simplistic and used to the style of children's books in the likes of Spinelli, Pullman, or Blume.

i just don't know...