The Year-end Post (2007)

Another year draws to a close and marks the 2nd year I’m blogging here. This has a been an eventful year of first times; first time travelling away from home for 2 months, first time going to China (and the consequent first time visits to historical sites and eating rabbit, etc.), first time getting onto the Dean’s List, first time (and I hope last time) riding in an ambulance, getting my foot in a cast and using crutches, first time joining a 5km mass run, first time baking things in a real oven, and … other first times I shan’t mention here

I’m really happy to announce that I’ve kept quite closely to my resolutions set earlier this year. Let’s revisit them:

1. To let my ego overshadow and oversize my self-doubt.
2. To work harder at making myself happy.

Yes, I’ve become much more egoistic than I already was. And at the same time I’ve doubted myself less, become more aware of my potential, and fretted less. Apart for that bit of pre-results-release jitters, I was pretty calm and collected, even during the exam period. Is this ego and self-confidence the key to academic excellence this year? I’m not sure, but to me it’s all been good. And I’m a much happier person this year. Despite becoming more world-weary and dissident, I’m a much happier and contented person. Maybe I’ve learnt to rely on my definitions and perceptions of success and happiness, I don’t really care about what the world standards are. So this year I have less emo posts too. :p

Apart from being a happier person this year, I’m pretty happy with myself and what I have done this year. I feel that I’ve grown this year (and not only in girth), and I’ve come to understand myself more, and what I stand for. 

So what about new year’s resolution for 2008? I’m not sure as of now, maybe I’ll put it up tomorrow. Gotta give it some thought, you see.
Now let me list favourite things this year:

Top 5 Favourite Novels (of the 43 read)

1. The Belgariad Series, David Eddings
2. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
3. Wild Swans, Jung Chang
4. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
5. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

Top 5 Favourite Movies (in the cinema, on the net, or on cable)
1. Day Watch
2. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
3. Spiderman 3
4. C.R.A.Z.Y
5. 无极 (Yeah this show came out in what, 2006 but I only caught it on cable recently and I really like the cinematography)

Top 5 TV Shows
1. CSI Season 7 (AXN)
2. Numb3rs (AXN)
3. Engineering An Empire (History Channel)
4. La Crim (channel 44 Le Monde, when it was complimentary)
5. 女人我最大 (TVBS)

Top 5 Fashion Trends I approve of
1. the colour Grey
2. the heeled Oxford shoes
3. the vest/waistcoat
4. the pencil skirts
5. the dress

Well, that’s about it I guess. And I wish all a Happy New Year, and best wishes for the year to come!

The Dante Club

Synopsis: A series of grisly murders in rocking the streets of nineteenth-century Boston. But these are no ordinary killings. Each is inspired by the hellish visions of Dante’s Inferno. To end the bizarre and bloody spree, no ordinary detective will suffice. Enter the unlikely sleuths of the Dante Club: Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields - renowed scholars with the skillsto decipher the develish clues. But can this band of bookish gentlement outwit a crafty killer? A terror-stricken city - and their own lives - depend on it.

I’d have to admit this book isn’t an easy read. I found it hard to be absorbed by the writing style, sometimes skimming over the text (and hence having to reread lines). The plot was all right, a very nice twist towards the end, but nevertheless somewhat not meeting my expectations. You know what they say, “the butler did it!”. That was the exact feeling I had when I got to the end of the book. (Well, it wasn’t really the butler, but you get what I mean.) I like the setting though; the thought of wasitcoat-clad gentlemen and coaches gives it this Old English (ironic, since this is set in New England) charm that I like. Nothing like the boring CIA/FBI “bloke reads” that are everywhere.

Book Earrings

I made this pair of earrings for Sulz and I think it’s really nifty. Since I make trinkets and bind books, why not bring together these 2 crafts and create things befitting a bookworm? The books are real; they are hardbound with blank pages (prolly good for taking down phone numbers or something). I like them so much I nearly couldn’t bear to give them away. I’m so going to make myself a pair and wear them to school once the new semester starts. And I’m so happy Sulz loves them.

Need for a relationship?

This evening I was just chatting with KL about how at this point I don’t see the purpose and need for a “relationship” with someone, i.e. getting attached with or without the intention of furthering into a matrimonial sort of relationship. I really don’t see why I should have a partner? To change my lightbulb? Nope, I can do that myself. To listen to me rant about shitty project mates? Nope, I have FRIENDS who would gladly listen to me. To buy me flowers and teddy bears? Nope, I can buy myself flowers and I hate teddy bears. To hold me close when I’m cold? I can bring my own sweater (but you have to admit guys are very warm creatures). To make me chicken soup when I have a cold? Nope, I have a family who can do that for me too. So really, what is the point?  And what’s the point of marriage? Must two people who are in love get married? Is a legally binding contract the only assurance of and excuse for fidelity? Is there then no true love if they are not married? Is having children the only reason for marriage, then?

Ya so I still don’t care about romance at this point in time (my other friend says that I’m already jaded before I even started). Maybe one day my internal clock will go ding! and force me to start hunting for someone to spend the rest of my life with.

Exam Results (Sem 1 07/08)

Results for this semester:

AR3222 History and Theory of Western Architecture - B+
EL3204 Discourse Structure - A- 
EL3255 English in Southeast Asia - A- 
EL4216 - Lexicology and Lexicography - A
GEK2500 Living with Chemistry - B (but I’m going to exercise Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory option on this one so it doesn’t affect my CAP)

Current CAP:  4.18 (But I expect it to rise to 4.22 after I get them to disregard GEK2500)

For certain modules, I did better than expected, like the dreaded Southeast Asia one. But I had expected an A+ from Lexicology (greedy me).  You know after I came out of my architecture paper I knew I screwed it up because I answered a 50-mark essay question wrongly - I mixed up my concepts. So I guess I must have done pretty well for my term essay. And one starts to wonder what grade I might have gotten if I hadn’t screwed up that question. Oh well, it’s all over now. I’m really quite contented, because I was so worried for my results that for the past 2 nights I have been having nightmares about getting D for Southeast Asia, and there was even a dream where I got F for a module that I did a couple of semester ago.

And so to reward myself I went to get myself a pair of shoes from URS that I’ve been eyeing for some time. I swear to you shopping is my greatest weakness; it’s harder for me to resist shopping than to resist good food, seriously. But that’s story for another day

Happy 2 Years to this blog

and here’s the mandatory Christmas post.

It’s quite an irony my blog shares the same (supposed) birthday as Christ isn’t it.

But anyway I looked at what I said last year about Christmas, and I think they still hold.  I don’t lose or gain anything by not celebrating Christmas. It’s really become quite like just the other religious holidays in Singapore, like Deepavali and Vesak Day. The only difference is, Christians and non-Christians alike are jubilant for what, the birth of Christ? Or did something else happen on 25th of December that I don’t remember and needs to be commemorated?  It’s strange, isn’t it, the forces of globalization and commercialization.

So 2 years blogging here.  You know I was watching an episode of Numb3rs earlier and they were saying something along the lines of, if all the people whom you know have died, and you have nothing left in this world to mark your presence, you technically didn’t exist. Well, that’s quite in line with what I said last year about recording our own mortality. I try to leave traces of myself here and there for fear of being entirely obliterated from the face of this earth (seeing how I’d probably remain a spinster - in all derogatory sense of the word - by choice). So there, my blog, and my footprints all over the internet is a mark of my presence and existence. Sounds rather bleak and extreme, I know. But that’s quite the truth isn’t it.

But all things negative aside, people should go out there and have fun in company, if that’s their thing. Merry X, where X stands for whatever you are joyous about today.

Which ultimate beauty am I?

Here’s a quiz I did and I felt that the results are too funny not to share:

Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?

You are smart and sexy!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Heh. A Librarian! A librarian! And if it were possible, I would like a dragon as a pet. And a killer whale. I am so tickled by the results.

(3 days to doomsday)

Blood Donation

I went to donate blood for the 5th time in my life yesterday. It was my first time donation at a venue besides the national blood bank, and my first time donating blood in an … MRT station. The HSA is having a blood donation drive at the Dhobby Ghaut NEL MRT station from 21st to the 23rd of December, from 11am to 5pm, and they are aiming to collect 600 bags of blood within these 3 days. As we know, festive seasons usually result in a high amount of traffic accidents and violence under intoxication, so the hospitals will need a lot of blood to save lives.

And at this blood donation drive, they teamed up with various sponsors including Canon. They took pictures of each donor and printed them out on cards as Christmas gifts to us. Here’s mine:

And a closer look at the picture:

(Pardon the fat trotters as pointed out by red arrows)

That’s me giving my bag of blood to save 3 lives (or so they say). I don’t exactly remember the first time I donated blood, just that I genuinely wanted my blood to be useful to people in need. It’s kinda like at least if I’m not able to do big things next time to help people or to better the society, at least some of my blood, which my own body has manufactured, has saved some people’s lives.

So, I have given a gift to help save lives for Christmas this year, what have YOU given, you pilgrims of the commercial Christmas? (I just can’t help but dig at those non-Christians who celebrate Christmas.)

National Treasure 2 : Book of Secrets

I caught this film on Thursday at the GVMax (but had no time to blog about it, you see). I love it! Although true, it is not as good as the first one. Maybe my expectations of it was too high. Nevertheless I enjoyed it tremendously. I watch this show at the GVMax, reputed to be the largest screen in Southeast Asia or something? Well, I wasn’t half impress. I thought it would be bigger. And the theatre isn’t terribly big either; only teenagers who have never been to Shaw Prince or Jade would think it’s big. Older people like me (hoho) who’s been there would feel, well, it IS bigger than your usual cinema, but nothing spectacular. However I must admit that the sound system at GVMax rocks.

Anyway, about this movie. How can I talk about it without giving spoilers? Well, let me try to be vague about it. What I didn’t like was the fact that SOME characters are so deus ex machina, and SOME characters aren’t behaving the way we believe they should. And there are some loose ends that really ought to be tied up, and I believe they owe us an explanation of certain things. Vague enough, I suppose? What I did like was the span of the chase; 3 countries? We see a big budget that’s not only used to pay Nicholas Cage, but actually spent on filming the show.

And I want to watch it again

Lolita

Synopsis: “Awe and exhilaration - alongwith heartbreak and mordant wit - abound in Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert’s obssessive, devouring and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful babarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love - love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.” - Time

 My goodness. I FINALLY FINISHED THIS BOOK. I can’t decide which is a a more excruciating read, this or The Historians. I restarted (i.e. read from the beginning again) this book at least 5 times, each time unable to be captivated by the story and giving up. This time round I brought the book along with me to Genting Highlands, thinking that it being the only source or entertainment on the coach for 8 hours will force me to actually read the book from start to end. Alas I was distracted by cheap Crayon Shin comics sold in Malaysia and this book remained half-read as of last Tuesday. Over the last couple of days I skimmed over the text, just wanting to finish it. And I have, albeit painfully.

Anyway, I as the reader with no scholastic literature background fail to understand what’s so nice about this book. And it doesn’t help when I am holding secondhand copy that is previously used and annonated by a literature students, filled with notes in the margins I totally cannot agree with. I just can’t see why this book is good. In fact, I hated it. What’s so interesting about a paedophile trying to victimize himself as powerless to a nymphet’s charm?

Now I’ve gotten this out of the way, it’s time to head back to another excruciating read - The Dante Club. Either I’ve been picking up lousy books or I’ve lost the love for reading (I think it’s really the former). Pfft.