eye candy

1. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/29/lights.out.ap/index.htm

Hm....why wasn't Singapore involved...?

2. I wanna go Greece one day!

3. ... and Japan

4. ... and Paris

5. ... and Venice

6. ... and Alaska!

yay!

I made a decision today.

Working things out so I can't tell what it is yet, but I'm excited!! :)

Still here

I'm still in Singapore!

Trip postponed to April 10-20.

And it's only half the duration now...

As much as I lurf to travel, am quite relieved to not go for so long this time.

Dad just took another MRI, results to be out April 2. 

Pray that it shows improvement! :)

I saw the moon rise last night over the sea ... pretty pretty. :)

off the wall

Okei, usually you only get to see this pic of me if you come over to my place.

It's hanging on one of the walls.

But here it is ... because the pic after this is oh-so-cute!!!! 

Isn't Caleigh such a precious babe?!

Angel came over with her one day to join the MJ craze, and since I wasn't around, they decided to make the best of it by spoofing the 'lil me.

Haha ... cutest spoof ever!

She's the sweetest gal of her age I know. 

luxu-rain-t

It's a nice-kind of rainy night.

Meaning it's the kind of night that is just nice for strolls when the rain stops.

Or even for sitting at the bus-stop while waiting for it to stop.

Not the "I'm-feeling-so-stuffy" kind.

Temperature's just right. 

It's like lovely Melbourne spring weather. :)

And while we're on this, how would you like to shower under this?!

Wowee right? :)

monologue

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day may come when the courage of Men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day - an hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the Age of Man comes crashing down - but it is not this day!!! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth-I bid you stand!" -Lord Of The Rings, Return Of THe King-

I remember when Jesscy did this speech in Hokkien and cracked us all up! 

Haha. 

Speaking of which, they screened LOTR on tv when we were in HK.

Caro and I settled down in our beds to watch it and then we heard Sam calling Frodo "Far-la-dou"!!!

Yes, the entire thing was dubbed over in Cantonese! 

Haha... As much as I lurf Canto, it was so hilarious.

And although Caro's the pure-bred Cantonese, I'm the one explaining the story to her cos I'm the bona fide LOTR fan who knows the trivia.

Okei, still on a quest for the answer.

It feels like an unsolvable puzzle, for now, but I know when the answer comes, it'll be whoosh like an iVision. 

Can't wait. 

I'm leaving for Taiwan this Thurs, and I realised I'll be gone for 23 days!

Gosh. That's 3 weeks. 

I've gotta have lots of faith for some things while I'm away. :P

Did I mention that one of my recent favourite words is "dependable"?

(It's also a long lost word to me)

A dependable person is a gem.

Specifically a diamond, because you won't be able to see the glimmer until the coal has gone through extreme heat and pressure, which is really fire and polishing. 

You don't recognize them at first, but you can't help but see it through the years. 

Left to its own devices, it takes thousands of years for a lump of coal to become a diamond.

If you don't think you have those thousands of years to live, a better way would be to subject yourself to a crash course in trials and tribulation.

Meaning that, sometimes you may crash, but you still run the full course.

Haha. 

After all, trials will be there anyway. 

Might as well use them to your advantage. 

Hee hee.

Happy Easter Sunday, btw! :)

need a breakthrough

Okei, someone asked me a very simple personal question today.

I gave a rather "correct" answer, but honestly, it was shallow, even empty to my own ears.

I even stammered saying it.

Now I'm provoked.

I need to break through and get my answer to this question.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to guide okei? 

integrity vs. glory

What's more impressive than a person who wins an award?

- Someone who has the integrity to say she didn't.

Phoebe realised that she was placed in the wrong category, which meant that she was not eligible for the win. 

It was entirely the committee's fault *Shachew glaring at their Web site*.

Of course, Phoebe could have kept quiet and simply receive her prize as well as the honor. 

But she spoke up.

- Even if it cost her the prize.

- Even if she has to face and explain to everyone who's congratulating her.

(Trust me, that is one of the worst bits)

There's no embarrassment 'cos the fact is, she's paying for someone else's mistake.

It takes greater character and strength to do that than to win the competition.

Hence, I'm even prouder of her now. 

You go, gal. :)

woweeeeee!!!

*clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap*

CONGRATULATIONS 

to 

PHOEBE SUNG 

for coming in 

FIRST 

in 

THE INTER-RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONFIDENCE CIRCLES LOGO AND SLOGAN CONTEST! 

Her entry was picked from more than 13,000 entries! 

Woo hoo .... so proud of you, Pheebs!!

r u men's health enough?

Omigosh!

My mum's cousin!

http://www.rumhenough.com/2008/profiles.php?id=1

starry nite

Keeping a smile on today. :)

Deadlines have come ... :P

Oooh, I managed to take a detour to the beach on my way home last night! :)

I just needed a piece of nature in between the cement-and-steel monsters of Suntec and Marine Crescent. 

It was pretty much a cloudless night so it was nice to see the stars twinkling happily.

It's nice to live in Marine Parade. Hee hee. 

a donno dream

I dreamt of something last night.

Donno what to say about it.

Haha. :P

On another sidetrack, I wanna say this though.

Don't say or do anything to impress anyone.

If you're accepted the way you are, there's no need to act.

There's also no point in being accepted the way you are not.

:)

i miss sipping a hot chocolate by the waterfront

I miss waterfront cafes!!

 

The closest I can get is ... erm ... East Coast Park. :P

But they have neither Koko Black nor cool weather. 

I am so gian to go wakeboarding again ... 

But I won't get to do it til after I get back from Taiwan.

Sigh.

On a sidetrack ... I really don't understand some people!

Haha! :P

But okei, I'll try ....

Ann-ya turns two!

Okei I simply can't seem to make this photo rotate!

It's fine in my iPhoto and all, but then it comes out like that! 

Anyway, if you tweak your head to the left, you'll see the princess sporting the cute lil beret and watch I got her. Hee hee. :)

sonokiaricson

Am craving Western food, for some inexplicable reason.

Anyway, work is starting full-throttle in tandem with the build-up for Easter weekend.

I have articles to write and translate and all the minute things to finish.

Oh, for a completely crossed-out Things To Do List! :P

On a completely different path ... I took the plunge!!
Switched over to a Sony Ericsson w910i.
Yeh, the shake-shake model, but I haven't used that function yet.
I screamed into Serene's ear today, cos she was the first to make my phone ring!
Hee hee.

jae's attached!

A little late, but here's a shout-out to Jae for finding his Angel, Zhongyan! :)
Really should arrange a day to hang out with them and get to know her.
I don't think I spoke more than 5 sentences to her at William and Ally's wedding.
But am very happy for you, amigo! :)

the otters we spotted!

PROOF!

I think I should be keeping the handle closer to my body. :P

Davina looking good! :)

My melb housemate Elaine and a piece of my back and Uncle Robert's arms. 

Hahaha.

The only guy in the group, Louis catching air.

Elaine's colleague, Liling, who turns out to be Louis' secondary school mate...or was it primary school? :P

thinner!

Don't mean to be smug, but I really have lost some weight!

*Clap clap clap*

So happy that I can fit into some of my pants again ... hee hee.

Will post pics of the wakeboarding trip later as PROOF.

Hahaha.

p.s. Congrats to Gary and Huiming on the birth of lil Sophie!

warbleoarding

Am happy we got to go wakeboarding today. :) 

I was amazed, I did pretty well after one whole year of wakeboarding sabbath!

And Uncle Robert agrees. 

It rained towards the end, but the tide was going out anyway, so we were heading back by then.

Will upload some pics tomorrow if I can.

Can't wait to go again, but I think might have to wait till after my Taiwan trip end of this month.

Just finished mahjong with my family.

Now I'm soooooo wiped out I donno if I can fall asleep. 

Beyond the point of tiredness. :P

Ah Ee and family popped by again today and started the mahjong rounds.

Hahaha.

I got us all comfort food from East Coast Lagoon Food Centre for dinner...

Wanton mee with 40 FRIED wantons.

Fishball noodles with extra vinegar (for me).

Pork and chicken satay.

Was gonna get more, but they said Ah Ee already bought like a bucket of Popeye's Fried Chicken in the afternoon.

Anyway, why am I rambling abt food when my limbs are crying out for bed?!

I hope I don't go 'warbling' down stairs tomorrow.

Am off to bed now. 

Good nite!

mahjong revelations

Actually, I needed to come home after service to sleep a little earlier, cos it's been a crazy week, I have work to finish, and tomorrow is another long day.

But my CG was going to Aston's for my sake!!

So how to not go?! 

Had a yummy dinner and happy fellowship with them.

My CG is always, always happy around food. Haha.

Then when I got home, my parents were playing mahjong with my auntie and all-grown-up cousins Rachel and Rebekah! 

I also want!! 

Uncle was coming to pick Ah Ee and the gals up, so I took over and continued with Dad and Mum. 

Then I called Jon and he was just one bus stop away from coming home, so he joined in the next round. Hee hee. 

He's the fastest in the family and he knows all the combinations and what-nots. 

As Jon said, it's kind of a nice feeling to be playing with family, just the 4 of us. 

We usually play with the coins from our flea market float, then we pour it all back at the end of the game.

Anyway, I won a few times. 

And then I realised that Dad hadn't won a single game since I sat down to play.

Well, I kinda started playing to let him win. 

Yeh, I know I'm the most unprofessional mahjong player ever.

But I got that from Dad. Hee hee. 

He'd excuse us from our Monopoly debts all the time, cos he couldn't bear to see us go bankrupt. Hahaha.

Anyway, we were only playing one more round, and I tot it'd be nice for him to end off with at least one win. 

Plus, Mum kept winning when she was dealer so there were like increased chances...haha.

Then, in the midst of all the cards I was giving up, I realised that the more I didn't want to win, the more my key cards would turn up!! Haha.

At one point, I ended up with all those big cards, and I had drawn them myself...eg. fa cai, bai ban etc.

I voiced this out loud, and Mum and Jon agreed.

(Dad can't really follow the conversation unless we speak slower and specifically to him. Plus, he was concentrating so hard on his cards. So he didn't know I was plotting to let him win. :P)

Jon added, "That is the essence of mahjong it seems. The more you don't wanna win, the more you tend to win."

And I thought aloud, "That's like life, isn't it?"

It seems the more you wanna do something for someone else, the more it's likely to happen for you instead.

I just didn't expect the principle of sowing and reaping to be so obvious in one game of mahjong.

Anyway, Dad finally won the last game, with 3 sets.

Yay. :)

I'm finally off to bed.

Tuition tomorrow morning.

And praying it doesn't rain, cos wakeboarding is on after that! :)

Then coming home for another mahjong date with Dad, Mum and Jon.

Think Dad had the same feeling about playing with family too. :)

3 men and a google-lady

I watched 10,000 BC tonite and found Tic' Tic to be sooooooo familiar!

With Google, answers are never far away...

CLIFF CURTIS (Tic’ Tic), one of New Zealand’s most successful acting talents, is perhaps still best known for his role in the family drama “Whale Rider,” for which he won his third New Zealand Film Award, for Best Supporting Actor.

  

See, I knew I watched him somewhere!

I liked Whale Rider so much, and Cliff Curtis played such an emotionally stirring role in it that I donno how i forgot it was him. :P

I think I have this thing for Maori-looking actors.

Just look at how long I was stuck on Jason Scott Lee! Hahaha..

He's still tops though - he can put on the almost perfect mix of arrogance and cheekiness.

And eyes that speak.

Catch him in The Jungle Book and you'll see what I mean.

That was when he was younger though .... He's mellowed a little since, I reckon.

Then again, he's still individualistic enough to do his own thang and take off to become a farmer in Hawaii!

Speaking of which, I'm waiting for The Dance Of The Dragon (starring JSL with Fann Wong and Jang Hyuk).

I imagine it's so named because JSL's most famous role was as Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

I wish I could have watched him in London's West End Stage production of "The King and I"!

He'd definitely be able to carry King Mongkut off.

.

Okei, a decade down the road, I'm gushing again ... but he really does have screen presence.  

Am also waiting for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!

Think I'll take my parents to catch that ... Dad'll enjoy it. :)

Okei, I have other thoughts about 10,000 BC, but I think I'll save them for my HT article. 

Heh heh. 

taking off in my imagination

I asked my CG yesterday, what are some things you can lust after?

We came up with money, flesh, status, people, material stuff ... the usual lah.

But no one thought to come up with WANDERING!! 

Hahaha. 

Okei, corny is the word.

Yes, I'm stricken by wanderlust again!

So want to travel and explore and see more of the world.

Won't get to go anywhere for a while, but if you have breathtaking pics of farflung places, just send them my way! 

I saw a few pics of Iceland recently ... woo hoo, it looks so travel-able ...

Then again, the photographer is REALLY exceptional lah.

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow ... 

cab tales

We've been looking for a missing box from Taiwan since last year. 

Packed in it was Dr. Ulf Ekman's Chinese books and some other books we bought for reference.

After a whole year of searching and pestering the ushers, turns out it got misdirected!

Anyway, it was found recently and sent back to my office.

Imagine my joy to open up and find 2 of my books inside that I bought from Eslight!

One is a Chinese book that I tot was rather inspirational ... and looked easy to read. Hee hee.

The other is called "Tales Before Tolkien"--A collection of classic stories that inspired J.R. Tolkien! 

Woo hoo .... felt like such a great find all over again! :)

And guess what, I called for a cab to take me from work to cell group meeting today.

The extra charges alone were $7 and by the time we reached Cassia Crescent, the meter read $17+! 

But this cab driver was really .... donno how to describe ... interesting?!

We were chatting throughout the journey, but he was interesting cos of something else.

When we passed by the ERP gantry, he told me not to worry, he'll absorb the cost.

Then he stopped the meter a few cents before we reached the block, saying, "I'll give you a discount."

When we finally arrived, he said, "I'll knock off $3 for you."

I took it with a pinch of salt, cos I was paying by NETs and I didn't see how he was going to do that.

As I expected, the metered amount came up on my NETS transaction, with no discount whatsoever.

THEN! Mr. Cab Driver took out his wallet and plucked out $3 to return me!

My eyebrows went as high up as they could, and of course I said, "It's okei!"

He was providing a service after all, and the cab fare hike is hardly his fault.

But he insisted, even going, "Take, just take! It's a good thing I got to send you here, cos I get to stop for dinner. I'm hungry now, passing by the food at the hawker centre."

 

I gawked all the way up.

I've never met a cab driver so thankful to take me, he even reimbursed me. 

Gosh. 

parkRoyal fun

I attended one of the most enjoyable wedding dinners tonight.

As Qinwei aptly puts it, "It's been sooooo long since I've been at a wedding dinner I really enjoyed."

Very spontaneous and warm and generally an awesome feel-good vibe all throughout.

When the couple is well-loved, everything is taken in stride, and even unavoidable technical and performing glitches turn into occasions for laughter. 

And I lurf their well-written wedding vows, esp. Will's!! 

Oohh ... Maybe I can get hold of the words ... heh heh.

Anyway, am glad I was invited.

Here's a big congratulations to William and Ally! :)

Shopaholic goes to town

1pm: Uncle Robert: Sharon, the weather doesn't look good.....I'll monitor and call you again an hour later okei.

2pm: Uncle Robert calls. "Sharon, no point lah. The water is choppy and it's still raining ... Will be a big waste of money and time for you guys to go out in the boat today."

I trust his judgement, so we called it off. 

And he was right. 

It was still raining 3 hrs later.

Anyway, since I had freed up my tuition time slots for the wakeboarding, it means I now had a Sunday afternoon free! 

And so ...... Elaine and Yinqing and I lugged our barang barang on a detour to Orchard!

I wanted to go to Hello! at Ngee Ann City to check out new mobile phones, and YQ wanted to get a bag ... so we thought, why not we hit Tangs first, then just cross over to Taka?

Man, it took us FOREVER to get to Taka! Hahaha.

Cos we are true blue gals of the shopaholics genre you see. :P

Far East Plaza and Wisma will somehow squeeze their way in.

Sigh. I thought, okei we get to save money by not going wakeboarding.

But I ended up spending 3x as much as I would have if I had gone wakeboarding! 

Contemplated taking a pic of my buys to post here, but that would be incriminating evidence. :P

Pay Day has come.

So has Pay-bill Day.