On the Sunday Suharto passed away, Cristiano Ronaldo scored 2 goals to finish Spurs off in the FA Cup as Paul Scholes returned from injury. It was good to see the old ginger hair back on the field. Today reminds me of a song, I told Wanxin on msn after the game had ended, Flying over Bus Stops by the Athlete. I can totally imagine it playing, as we rode through the downpour this afternoon, cutting through flooded country roads, water gushing up all around us, shivering. Perhaps we should have sought shelter for a third time under a bus stop, but if we did, would we have had as much fun?

Gatecrash my Getai anyday

As always, I rely  on the fab 5 to lift my spirits. I know this feeling will pass soon. Everything will be alright, tomorrow will be fine.  

Met up with Josephine this morning to collect some stuff that was still with her that I had to get back; Greenday's Dookie album and Junsiang's macro textbook. I went without knowing what to expect, worrying it would be awkward, but the way our conversation went, it felt so much like the beginning, when we were starting to go out, and I had to keep reminding myself of what had come to pass, so I would not run the danger of having those feelings come back, but those were some wonderful times we had together, and I guess that was why, when she said " You will love New Zealand!" she said it like she knew me well. We did know each other well, well enough to know our paths had to split.

I think back to the ending scene of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, when Joe Barish and Clementine, even after they realise how different they are, how inherently incompatible they are with each other, decide to give it another shot and I wonder how it would be, in my real life. It had to come, as much as I tried to fight it, this nostalgia induced emo.

 "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." 

Vince Lombardi said this, and I agree wholeheartedly with him. I know it's a hard act to follow but I am going to try and live it, at least with some areas beginning with the tiny aspects. The last 2 soccer games, I have run hard, tried as well to be a team player as I know how. After sitting on the bench almost the whole of last season, I had began to question whether I was up to the mark for soccer in Division One. Mind over matter, I told myself to fight those doubts and concentrate on trying to win the game for the team and the results have been positive.  

Yesterday after the game at Meridien JC, the coach came up to me and told me I have been playing well , that I should try to make time and play in more friendly games before the season begins, he said there was nothing wrong with my technique, that I am fast enough and good enough skill-wise, the only thing I need is to toughen up so I am not so easily hustled and pushed off the ball, to play with more confidence so I don't panic and make the wrong decision.  "As a winger you need to be cunning, you are skinny so don't fight with them on strength, when they come at u with their body, you need to know how to get out of the way without losing the ball." 

    

Sunday Colourful Facades.

I have been experimenting with HDR(high dynamic range) rendering and this is a darker take on the soon to be replaced National Stadium.

I am watching Dumb & Dumber again on Movie6.net (Thanks Estelle!) and I realize that they, wait no, I realize that Motorcycle Diaries ripped off Dumb and Dumber! Doesn't the scene below look familiar?

On my free day after lunch, I grabbed my camera and left the house.

Photography and Liberation

"Our personal growth can fuel our photography and our photography can fuel our personal growth."
- Brooks Jensen.

I think I am confident enough to say that this playing around with the camera is not going to be a short term spur of the moment jump on the bandwagon thing for me. There is just so much to learn and in order to learn you just have to just keep at it, keep shooting and shooting.

When unpleasant thoughts persistently clouded my mind or disturbing emotions drained away my vital strength, I felt compelled sometimes to grab my camera and roam the streets or wander in some natural setting. Invariably my unpleasant mood would soon yield to a lightheartedness and a sense of being grounded. It was as though the constriction of being trapped in an enclosed, fragile self had been transcended by a sudden opening into the surrounding world.

No attendance will be taken, but after today's entertaining lecture, I am sure few will want to miss the subsequent lectures. Today, we covered the history of the English language and how it came to become the lingua fraca of the world. I was expecting the 2 hours to be a big yawn, but the lecturer had other ideas, the way she presented her lecture, she had everyone in stitches. Compared to most of the other languages that we find in the world today, English is a relatively new language. Modern English only crystallized midway through the 16th century, thats about 500 years, compared to Sanskrit, Arabic or Mandarin, with thousands of years of history. English was brought to England/ Britain by migrants from continental Europe, and at the beginning it was no more than a dialect spoken by pig farmers and barbarians on a backward island across the channel, as the rest of civilised Europe spoke Latin under the Pax Romana ( Roman Rule). After the Norman conquest of Britain, French was spoken by the Norman Kings and the nobility while the common people spoke a variety of English dialects, a phenomenon which persists even until today, just listen to see if you can make out Wayne Rooney's accent.

Rivarol's famous sentence

Ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas francaisl ce qui n'est pas clair est anglais, italien, grec on latin
(Whatever is unclear is not French, whatever is unclear is English, Italian, Greek or Latin)

English's rise began when an independent minded English King, Alfred, proud of his roots, compared to Jack Neo and his attempts to make Hokkien hip again by the lecturerer, decided he would standardize the English spoken and began translating latin text into the West-Saxon dialect of Old English.

From that beginning, a series of accidental events would ( To be continued, when I feel suitably motivated to continue...)

In the evening, after the workshop at NIE, I met up with Winnie, Gwen and Uncle Ed and we crossed the border for a sumptuous crayfish dinner at Taman Sentosa. It was Gwen's first time, crayfish virgin; and boy, was he hungry.

The menu looked interesting, but although I was curious as to how it would taste like, ultimately we decided against the HK Style Cad Fish.



We love the crayfish and we owe it all to Uncle Edmund, who introduced us to this buttery delicacy.

So full, he had to stand up in order for his food to digest properly haha.

Turns out Liangting, you have a secret admirer! A friend of mine, quite a pretty girl just confessed she had a crush on you, she thinks you have this mysterious aura about you, I think she still did, until I let slip the part about your 3000 dollar ring. I shan't say anymore lest Sabrina slaps or kicks me using super poke, but yeah she's attractive and working and no shes not a 'xiao mei mei' but I know you and Sabrina are going to be happy so that's that.

Right. Kenny & Sandy too. Anyway I learnt how to correct lens distortion using photoshop ytd. Here's a sample:

From this:
To:



If you can tell the difference that is.

: )



I am sorry Daniel, I think I like the chipmunks' version better.

So it seems like time for some reflection. We are into the New Year - 2008 , Singapore Flyer scheduled to open, Formula One coming to Singapore and all, if you believe the government, its gonna be an exciting year!. Like everyone else, I have high hopes that this year will be better than the last, after all it did start off pretty well, on new year's day I did a couple of my favorite things, like driving windows down, along the countryside ( yes there is some of that remaining in Singapore), visiting Sungei Buloh, farm-hopping, taking photos, ice cream at Island Creamery, etc etc.

But then I wonder, when the euphoria from the fireworks; all the clicking of champagne glasses, wears off, maybe in a month's time, when the year doesn't feel so new and novel anymore, and we are back in the grind of life, how much of this __________ (I can't find a word yet, mistaken? ) optimism will be left ?

Caught My Blueberry Nights at vivo with YP and J after dinner today, and I absolutely love it; well worth the $9.50. I am so glad I decided not to heed the bad reviews I got from some of my friends. A whimsical love story, or more accurately a whimsical story about a love story about to happen, gorgeously shot as you would expect from Wong Kar Wai - wide aperture atmospheric scenes, it begins(and ends) in New York where we find Jeremy(Jude Law), running a cafe. Jeremy meets a broken hearted Elizabeth, played by Norah Jones. She confides in him, and as her relationship with her cheating boyfriend breaks down, she spends long nights at the cafe after closing time, talking to him, eating blueberry pie. Then she abruptly leaves on a journey which takes her thousands of miles across America.. Along the way she waitresses at small town diners; at a casino, where she meets interesting characters; their stories and the long journey across the country, along which she makes sense of her feelings and experiences by sending postcards back to Jeremy who misses her and desperately tries to get her by calling all the diners in all the places that the postcards come from, to no avail , help her to finally move on and find her true self, taking her full circle back to the cafe back to New York where Jeremy is waiting.

Like what they say, travel is the best way to mend a broken heart.

On the journey home, with my earphones a snug fit, I am feeling very much the way the song goes. It has to be Hugh Grant, because the singing is so bad, they wouldn't allow it otherwise.
A very belated birthday dinner for me, with O and M, with M whiny all night because I was late but I am glad O liked the calendar I got her from Japan. They agree that perhaps what happened was for the best, the slate now wiped clean.