Ain't it a Shame I've never had someone who looks like this and who's half as talented? Is there someone or Something in the Way? Wherever you may be, I wish you would Come as You Are in a Heart-shaped Box. Please don't Stay Away. Turnaround, and Talk to Me.
F***. I lost my Nevermind. Now I Hate Myself and Want to Die.
endless, nameless... even in his youth
K song
Grabbed this off Angel's blog. Sibeh lian right? But ai rike. This is one for the Hokkien K song list to be perfected before I hit the shores of Sunny-pore in February next year. Who wants to go K with me?
all things used
Driving around in Sydney can be full of surprises. On one occasion many weekends ago, I saw a hastily scribbled 'Garage Sale' sign stuck on a traffic light post, followed the arrow on it and managed to pick up a huge vintage mirror with a broad stainless steel border with intricate designs, a vintage Regal suitcase and a tiny wooden chair (I intend to place a flower pot on it in a corner of my room) for only $30.
Today, I drove past a used furniture store and made an unplanned stop there while on my way to the beach. Great decision, because I finally found a nice, simple and very affordable bookshelf I've been hunting around for ages. It's made of a dark solid wood and in excellent condition. I love it.
After an hour or so at the beach, the rest of the afternoon was spent doing up a section of my room next to my reading corner - you can see the used bookshelf and vintage suitcase in the picture on the left below, and then practising my guitar (even the guitar is vintage - hand me down from Mama!). Don't I look like a really cultured lady in the picture on the right?
ultimate song list
I went for my first guitar lesson today. It was fun! But wow, I hadn't expected to be given so much homework!
My tutor went through 3 picking and 3 chord exercises with me today. He then gave me a time sheet to log my self practise sessions which I have to show him every time we meet. For a start, I only need to log at least 10min a day everyday until my next lesson. He will gradually increase it to at least 30min daily. When I next see him again in a week's time, I must be able to do the picking exercise at a constant 60bpm (beats per minute), after which he will increase the requirement to 80bpm, 100bpm and finally to 170bpm. He will also test me on the 3 chords. *gasps*
Another piece of homework for the beginner me before next Saturday: I need to develop my 'Ultimate Song List' - a list of songs I dream of playing someday when I have mastered the basics and which he will slowly teach me, starting with the easiest on the list. I'll need to have 10 songs on my list to start off with, and I'll have to start gathering recordings and the notations / tabs for each song.
Here's my first list:
1. Unintended - Muse
2. Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron and Wine
3. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
4. Hotel California - Eagles
5. About A Girl - Nirvana
6. Yellow - Coldplay
7. Stay - U2
8. Warwick Avenue - Duffy
9. More Than Words - Extreme
10. Ana's Song (Open Fire) - Silverchair
are you happy like me?
This is my fourth 100ml bottle now.
I spent two hours in the perfume section of the biggest Myer department store nearest to me, gathering all the test fragrance strips for all that caught my fancy, both male and female scents, hoping to try out something new for myself.
And... I ended up buying the same old Clinique Happy for men. How many years have I been using the same old Happy now? I can't really remember.
What I do remember was how someone dear once made a remark on how he was greatly conscious of the familiar fragrance on his clothes even though he was pretty sure he hadn't put on any perfume before he met up with me, and then realised it was my Happy scent that caught his senses because we both are huge Happy fans. Nice.
Hmm... I wonder if he's still with Happy? Or am I the only habitual sentimental creature?
failure
For the first time in all my working life, I totally and utterly gave up on a task assigned to me. I locked myself up in my room to cut out all distractions and focused 101% concentration on completing it. It had seemed simple enough when I first heard what was required of me. Panic ensued when my mind went blank, blank, blank and everything sounded like greek to me. Never had I felt that something was impossible when it came to work. Even when I got overwhelming projects that were way out of my league, as long as I persevered, I'd eventually progress up the learning curve, steep as they were. This time had been different. I didn't have the luxury of time to find my footing on the overhanging cliff. I raised the white flag and called to whine about it and to seek a replacement for the job. That had been painful - the surrendering. Now I feel like a complete moron. Ouch.
unintended
Because it's so so so so sad it makes me wanna cry, because I really really really like the opening sentence, because I want to learn to play this song on the guitar, and also because it's Beakee's current Muse favourite, I've decided to post it here.
You could be my unintended
Choice to live my life extended
You could be the one I'll always love
You could be the one who listens
To my deepest inquisitions
You could be the one I'll always love
I'll be there as soon as I can
But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before
First there was the one who challenged
All my dreams and all my balance
She could never be as good as you
You could be my unintended
Choice to live my life extended
You should be the one I'll always love
I'll be there as soon as I can
But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before
I'll be there as soon as I can
But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before
Before you
supermassive black hole
I have been playing this song on repeat mode in my car stereo for days now. Together with my fiery red baby's roar through her oversized exhaust, it sure gets the adrenaline pumpin' enough for me to display my race car driving skills.
I am now going to slowly enjoy my recently-acquired-through-dodgy-means Muse albums:
- Showbiz (1999)
- Origin of Symmetry (2001)
- Absolution (2003)
- Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
- The Resistance (2009)
Do you have a favourite Muse song?
Oh baby dont you know I suffer?
Oh baby can you hear me moan?
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I thought I was a fool for no-one
Oh baby I'm a fool for you
good omens
I can't wait to finish whatever I am reading now so I can get my hands on Gaiman's (co-author Pratchett) Good Omens. This is so my kind of book lor.
Synopsis:
The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Anti-Christ.
who is more important?
Scenario:
You are in a senior management work meeting. You have 2 mobile phones that start to ring at the same time. One is from your spouse. The other is from a co-worker. You do not know what either of them is calling you for. You can only pick up one call.
Question:
Which phone call will you answer?
My observations throughout my working years in instances which may not be exactly like the scenario above but could be variations of it:
1) A male usually ignores/hangs up without answering if the caller is his wife/girlfriend/lover or someone from his family such as mother/father/brother/sister but answers the call without hesitation if the caller is a colleague/boss/client/supplier.
2) A woman usually does the opposite.
3) On the rare occasion in 1) when the male decides to do the opposite and realises that the wife/girlfriend/lover/mother/father/brother/sister is calling for something quite trivial, for example, to ask if he is heading home for dinner, he usually snaps at the caller, gives a brief reply and hangs up with irritation written all over his face.
4) A woman usually doesn't display her irritation no matter how trivial a matter her husband/boyfriend/lover/mother/father/brother/sister is calling for.
Note I state 'usually'. It's interesting to note the difference in priorities of the M versus the F but I am not going to go into an epic-battle-of-the-sexes discussion today.
For me personally, no matter how critical a meeting I may be in and how absolutely important it may be that I not interrupt the meeting by answering the phone, there are some very important people in my life that I will not miss any calls from if I can help it - Mum, Bro, Boyfriend (although this last position is currently vacant awaiting suitable applicants). There are ways to pick up a loved one's phone call in the midst of a meeting without being disruptive, trust me.
Sure, most of their calls have not been for anything close to emergencies (yet), but since when can you predict a life threatening incident or when they require immediate assistance? Most people's natural instincts are to phone someone closest to them who are on the phone's quick dial when shite happens even if they have been taught all their lives to call the emergency services (police/fire brigade/ambulance). I really don't want to press the 'ignore' key on my phone and regret that only after something bad happens.
Btw, this blog post was inspired by a real life incident at work when someone in the meeting room ignored a phone call, apologised to the meeting group: "Oh that's just my wife", and then proceeded to answer another incoming call from a colleague just minutes later. I really don't quite understand this. *shrugs*
mama's hand me down
I just signed up for a 5-week guitar course with a private tutor who happens to live just a block away from my place. First lesson starts next Wednesday.
I pulled out my Mama's hand me down super vintage guitar (the same one she used in performances in her secondary school days!) from the depths of my humongous wardrobe with much excitement. It's finally going to see some action after so many years of being locked away in a bag.
One of the strings snapped about two years ago and I never bothered doing anything about it. My kind teacher offered to help fix the strings and tune the guitar for me before we start our lessons proper so I'm gonna go drop it at his place tomorrow. I hope my personal tutor is cute (extra motivation). Heh.
leaving home
This photo titled 'Leaving home' was taken on a city walkabout on my birthday this year and uploaded on Flickr here on July 10.
It had zero views right up to 5 Nov and then quite suddenly, all my Flickr notifications in the past week have been on this pic.
The current stats for this pic stand at:
- 108 views
- 12 favourites
- 6 comments
- added to 2 pools
- added to 1 gallery
And all these happened in the 10 days between 6 and 16 Nov. I am not a hotshot photographer and rarely see any activity on my photostream so I got quite curious as to what triggered the sudden interest in this particular photo. Hence I went and did some analysis on the stats.
So... I discovered it went on the Flickr Blog here on 6 Nov, here on 11 Nov and here on 12 Nov! What a pleasant surprise. Man, I am actually smiling at this.
i don't believe you, flightless bird
Someone at work casually told me one day that there's been a lot of discussion going on in forums and Twilight fansites etc on how this song by Pink is perfect for the 'Edward leaves Bella' scene in New Moon - the second instalment of the Twilight Saga that will be hitting the big screens worldwide in a matter of days.
I love the song. And hey, the wordings in the chorus section are indeed perfect for the above said scene.
I can hear many of you there go: *Gasps* "Jac is into this whole Twilight shite too?" *Faints*
Okay. I am indeed quite embarrassed.
After seeing how so many of my friends have succumbed to this teenage romance trend (both the book and the movie), and not having anything I really wanted to read while browsing in Borders, I picked up the first book of Stephenie Meyer's bestselling Twilight series purely out of curiosity.
I hadn't been able to put it down and gave up an entire night's sleep to finish it. Six days later, I completed all four books in the series and the movie on top of a very busy work week jam packed with meetings. That was a lot of sleep lost. I amaze myself sometimes.
And my verdict?
1) The movie sucks. I'm referring to Twilight of course. The about-to-be-screened New Moon looks more promising from the trailer, but all trailers are made to impress, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I would probably go catch New Moon just for comparison's sake. I don't think Robert Pattinson is as hot as everyone says although he definitely looks better in his vampire self than in his human self IMHO. And they probably should send the whole cast to acting school or something.
2) The books are something else. I wouldn't say much about the language or writing style, what do you expect, it's YOUNG ADULT fiction. What I find intriguing is the many refreshing theories on vampires and werewolves. The one that took me most by surprise is the author's explanation for vampires avoiding sunlight; that had me chuckling and letting my imagination wander to visualise the whole 'Edward and Bella in the meadow' scene. I found the rendition of that scene (many scenes actually) in the movie extremely disappointing because I actually saw something more magnificent in my mind.
3) So what about the love-love romantic shite? I have never been into romance fiction much and was initially a bit put off by how much focus was placed on this area for this series. But after a while, I kinda got absorbed into the whole Cullen family bonding thing such that even the overplayed Edward-Bella-Jacob love triangle became tolerable and got more enjoyable as I progressed to the 3rd book.
So if you have condemned this series just like I had initially, you may want to give it a chance after all. If you have near-zero tolerance for anything romantic, you'll probably need a bit of perseverence to be able to progress through the books to appreciate the sub plots and mythical storytelling before you get sucked into the world of vampires, werewolves and half-half beings.
Here's sharing with you my current favourite song which happens to be the song Edward and Bella danced to at the end of the Twilight movie.
one more on schmap
Remember I posted about the two out of three photos that were published in the Schmap Sydney and Melbourne guides?
Today I got another email informing me that the third shortlisted photo has also been publised in the Schmap Canberra guide. It was taken with my humble old faithful Sony T-5 when I went for the Floriade Festival for the first time in 2006.
Now, this is one photo that I really like because I thought this scene echoed the emotions I felt right then having just arrived in Australia and trying to fit into the whole work culture.
I titled it: "I may be the smallest, but I'm definitely the brightest." See it on Flickr here.
golden crow, black tie, purple dress
Back in September, I wrote and submitted a paper to nominate our recently established subsidiary company - Australian Airline Pilot Academy (AAPA) - for the Best New Business in the 2009 Golden Crow Awards presented by the Wagga Wagga Business Chamber. I was thrilled to receive notification that AAPA was one out of four finalists and a group of ten of us attended the black tie awards event with much anticipation.
I got quite stressed over what to wear in the days leading up to the event. I didn't have a single piece of formal evening gown in my entire wardrobe and was quite sure I wouldn't be able to fit into any of the cocktail dresses (considering how much weight I'd gained in the last one year) decent enough for such a formal occasion. In the end, after pulling out and trying on every single outfit I own (and surprisingly found myself fitting into most of them without difficulty), I decided on this royal purple satin dress with a pair of light gold 3-inch heels ensemble which I wore for a formal dinner at Sydney Tower last December. I was still feeling a bit jittery that I may be under-dressed for the occasion but was immensely relieved upon arrival at the venue to see that most other ladies wore short to knee length cocktail dresses too; only a few rare spottings of long gowns throughout the night. So it wasn't that formal after all hey.
Time to announce the award winners. *drum rolls*
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"The Best New Business Award goes to..."
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"The Australian Airline Pilot Academy!!!" *applause*
To be more specific, we were a joint winner with another company. No matter. We got our own trophy with the sparkly GOLDEN CROW okay! How awesome!
The best moment for me that night was not when we were announced a (joint) winner, nor was it when we received the trophy on stage, but when one of our Directors and GM made their respective short speeches back at our table; they expressly conveyed their heartfelt thanks and recognition of all the hard work I had put into not just the submission for this award but also all that I have done in the pre and post establishment of the Academy to my current efforts in expanding and progressing the company. It's a far cry now from the Mangalore days when I used to have these *gasp* bread delivery nightmares!
Finally, a group photo below with the boys in their dashing black tie outfits. As they are all quite camera shy and don't like their pics appearing in public sites, I had to mosaic their faces.
^.^V
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