25 random things

all over fb, people are writing 25 random things about themselves. i love randomness, and am excited about all the random things (about myself) that i could come up with. but am a little embarrassed to put it up on fb, so i shall write it here.

1. i used to have a stiff joint in my left thumb. i could lock my joint in place so that it'd be bent without me using muscles to hold it in position, and my friends would have great fun un-bending it. i thought it was pretty cool.

2. i live in a house with many many people, most of whom hardly talk to each other.

3. my childhood ambitions were, in order, to be a pilot, a kindergarten teacher and at twelve, to simply be a happy person. now, my dream jobs include interior designer, party planner, dressmaker, childcare centre owner, volunteer worker in south america and saver of the world.

4. i don't understand what love is.

5. my favourite foods are icecream, steamed fish, egg tofu, cabbage, and horfun.

6. i am fiercely competitive. i am also a perfectionist. to be honest to the bone, i don't like to be around people who are better than me because it makes me feel lousy about myself. but i hate it that i feel that way.

7. i psychoanalyse myself alot. to the point where sometimes i can't figure out which is the real me -- the me that comes up with the most honest and instinctive response or the me that psychoanalyzes myself.

8. once, in primary 2, i had food poisoning. and i had chicken rice and a slice of watermelon for lunch. i threw up bright red puke all over the (squat) toilet after that.

9. my dad bought me a hotdog and kickapoo for my first recess in primary 1.

10. i liked a boy called renee (i think it was pronounced as "ree-nee") when i was in kindergarten. he was the smartest and cutest boy in class. imo anyway.

11. when i was a kid, i thought that a female molester was called a molesbian.

12. the best memories of my life were of sc dance. i loved the concerts, the rehearsals, the costumes, waiting in the wings, standing on stage, the people... all of it.

13. i don't dare to be honest to myself sometimes.

14. i used to think my parents didn't love me. and i used to hate my name.

15. i used to also think that this life was but a game and the purpose of which was to kill me. i imagined that the water from the shower would turn scalding hot all of a sudden, or that someone would stab me with a knife.

16. twenty five random things is quite difficult to come up with.

17. supercalifragilisticaspialidocious. wait. that wasn't about me.

18. i struggle with God all the time. i doubt His validity, but deep down inside me i know He's here. somewhere.

19. sometimes i look into the mirror and think im ugly. other times, i think im ok.

20. i like to dance but im lousy at it.

21. i am a klutz. and i am extremely careless, messy and forgetful. ive lost my passport, and i think it was cos i threw it away.i cannot be organised for the life of me. in primary school i carried all my worksheet in one giant paper bag and would freak out whenever it was file-checking time. my work table is in a giant mess and creating files is almost an impossible task for me.

22. i screwed up my final project in my first sem in comm school. i couldn't see eye to eye with my group mates, thought that they were being racist, and insisted on my own way and opinion (yeah i know i do that alot). so i made some changes to the project when no one was looking, and ended up making a mess out of it.

23. i love being festivals co-chair! and wish it were my full time job.

24. i play this game where i'd try to make a word out of all the letters on the license plate of a random car that passes by. a more advanced level would be to make up the additional letters by coming up with a mathematical equation that gives an answer which corresponds to a letter in the alphabet.

25. i sleep alot. i think i have a sleeping disease. i can take 4 hour naps. and still be able to sleep at night.

time lines

i think time is like a spiral, going round in circles yet moving forward. i think man invented time so that he could have a chance to become a better person.

imagine if we told time with a continuous straight line. there would be no opportunity to go back to where we came from, no chance to relive the moment.

but instead, time repeats itself, day after day. one, two, three, and then again, so that we have a beginning, an end, and then a new beginning. so that we can say to ourselves, this is a new day, a new year. and with a new time, comes the opportunity to restart and give ourselves another shot at life to do the things we didn't do the year before, a hope for better things to come.

happy 2009!

going off on tangents

last sunday, i kissed and exchanged phone numbers with a complete stranger.

although, it wasn't a very pleasant experience.

*


and on a completely separate note, i never knew that such moronic people in the world existed.

UUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

farewell

i guess my blogging about my tokyo trip won't happen. tomorrow, i start at btmice all over again. i am nervous, more nervous than i was on my first day of work.

if i disappear, it was nice knowing you and it was fun while it lasted.


wish me luck.

the stupid things that shu-en does when she travels

i shall attempt to document my trip, by category rather than chronologically... and first i will start of with: the stupid things that shu-en does when she travels.

well, first of all, i did remember to pack in my phone charger but forgot to bring my phone with me. i don't wear watches, so the only source of time i had was my iPod. but, i didn't bring my iPod charger. yay.

*

day one, i touched down slightly later than we were scheduled to as the flight out of hongkong was delayed. after collecting my suitcase and figuring out where the train station was, i stood in line to purchase my n'ex and suica passes. the time was 9:30pm, there were about 5 people ahead of me, and the next trains were due to come at 9:45 or 10:15. this reminded me of the time i stood in line at the greyhound station trying to buy a ticket for a bus that was leaving in 5 minutes.

anyhow, i successfully purchased my ticket and made it to the platform by about, 9:35pm. there is a sign board that indicates that there are 2 trains approaching, one at 9:45 and the other at 10:15. shortly after, a train pulls in and i hurry to get on the train. one leg in the train and one leg still on the platform, i noticed that there was no one else getting on the train with me. i hesistate for a few moments trying to decide what was wrong with this situation, but decided that i would get on the train anyway (don't follow the crowd right!).

it was only then that i noticed on the sign board that there was a 9:42 train, which was the one that i was on and which wasn't going where i wanted to go. but before i could get off the train, the door closed on me. the train pulls in to the narita terminal 1 station and sits on the track for almost half an hour.

rewind just a bit. when the train pulled into the terminal 1 station, there was another train on the opposite tracks. 2 minutes later, there was an announcement for "ikebukuro", which was where i wanted to go. that other train was the one that i was supposed to take!! i ran towards it and the doors closed on me 2 seconds before i could get to them. thanks.

i take the local train all the way to tokyo station, drag my suitcase up a flight of steps, change trains to ikebukuro, and ultimately get in at 12:30am when if i had taken the correct train, i would have reached at 11pm. and all this while, bj and oishi-san were waiting and worrying for me at the hostel. yay again.

*

weijian comes in tuesday night. he takes the same flight schedule as me, and catches the correct train, and gets into the hostel at 11:30pm. he suggested going to the tsukiji fish market the next morning, and i said sure but we need to camp out overnight if we want to catch all the action since the trains don't start running as early as the fish market starts operating. somehow somehow, we managed to persuade 3 other people in the room to come along with us as well. we dash to the train station and made it to the platform 1 minute before the last train departed.

happy and jolly, we roamed the deserted streets of tokyo while waiting for the fish to swim to tokyo shores, hung out in a park and got to know each other better (since we really had only met each other for about an hour prior to this spontaneous random act) and drank coffee at jonathan's. we joked about how hilarious it would be if it was international fish day that day and they decided not to sell any fish.

4:30am comes, and we trot off to the fish market but noticed that there was hardly a sound. we poked our noses around and a guard came out and handed us a calendar which marked out dates that the fish market was closed. and yes, that day was one of those days. yippee yay.

*

after the fish market, we waited around for the trains to start running again so we could go back and catch some sleep. weijian and i had booked ourselves on a tour of the imperial palace at 10, which meant we had about 2 hours to sleep before we had to head out. but because i drank coffee at jonathan's at 4am, i couldn't get to sleep. yayyyyyy.

and, it took us longer to get to the imperial palace than we had expected, so we missed the tour. woohoooo!

*

perhaps, i shouldn't go on anymore.

tokyo

i'd hate to admit this but i didn't enjoy myself in tokyo as much as i wish i did. it was fun, no doubt, but it wasn't enjoyable. tokyo was or is, in fact and unfortunately, rather depressing.

sure, the food was glorious, the shrines were enigmatic and the streets were buzzing with activity. i can't speak for all of japan but tokyo is at the fore front of technology, modernity and trends, yet somehow manages to retain its past and its culture, all in perfect harmony with each other. just a stone's throw away from harajuku, where teenagers hang out when dressed up in their cosplay or lolita outfits, is the austere meiji-jingu shrine. the toilets are extremely high-tech if you haven't heard already, and people are so polite and courteous that going into a department store makes you feel like queen.

the sad part is that, underneath it all is a sad, sad society. the akihabara mass killing pretty much encapsulates the state of society (and just on the news today, the grandfather who killed his entire immediate family). but also, tokyodites smoke alot and drink alot. in fact, they go to bars everyday after work. that, to me, is rather unhealthy. they hang out at pachinko parlours, slipping in 1000yen bills every 5minutes. they drink themselves silly all night until the trains start running again in the morning. there are streets and buildings dedicated to porn and various sexual fetishes. people read porn openly on trains. host clubs and hostess clubs are rampant. bums seek shelter in the subway stations and in cardboard boxes along the road at night, and lurk in the corners, abashed of their stench and unkempt looks among the young and trendy crowd, during the day.

i had a conversation with a colleague from the tokyo office, who said that tokyodites work long hours (testimony to this, i was on the train at around 11pm the first night and the trains were chokablock full of salarymen) and hardly earn enough to bring the bacon home. the traditional japanese culture of loyalty to employers and employees seem to have been thrown out of the window and there is hardly any job security since companies hire and fire without any qualms whatsoever.

every city has its fair share of problems. but the situation in tokyo seems more dire to me than in say, new york city, partly because i had held japan in such high regard in terms of social development. and walking around the streets, i was more overwhelmed by consumerism and commercialisation than culture. and i felt that all the bright lights and loud noises were merely a cover up.

faded

was just looking through my old photos. such happy, youthful faces. i feel quite the opposite now. i wonder if things haven't changed much and the photos captured plastic, insincere emotions; or if i really have grown older, more jaded, in a matter of a few years.

mind your language

a couple of months back, i commented on the train announcements.

they changed it again!

now the lady says "the train that is approaching platform A will terminate its service at yishun"

i think they got it right this time around =)

asset management

i've decided to put a little more effort into my "beauty regime". i put that in inverted commas because currently, all i do is wash my face in the mornings and nights, and dab on some moisturizer before i head off to work. i don't think that qualifies as a beauty regime, nor a beauty regime.

realised that youth is an asset that needs some investing in less you lose it and regret it.

wandered around dfs today while waiting for my dad to pick me up. i got lost among all the brands (origins, clarins, biotherm, sephora, i dunno wat...) and the types of products (eye serum, mask, face serum, cleanser, exfoliator etc.).

i don't want to be extravagant or vain, but just enough so that im not all dried and wrinkled up when im 40? i know nuts about such stuff though, and don't have much patience either. sigh, can you get the best of all worlds (quick, affordable, effective)?

also, now that i'm working, and will probably be meeting plenty of external clients when i finally settle in to my perm deployment, i think i need to ramp up my makeup collection. all i have now is:
from cvs in charlottesville
- covergirl face powder
- l'oreal eyeshadow (black/gold, brown/pink)
- revlon eyeliner
from sephora
- urban decay eyeshadow base (cos my eye makeup always smudges, too dry/oily eyelids? strange)
from singapore
- bodyshop blush

i feel suaku. any advise?

morning rituals

saigon.

the sun rises above the horizon and you are awakened not by the cock crowing nor the chirping of the birds, but the cacophony of honks from the mass of motorcycles and vans on the road. as the city awakes, roadside stalls start to set up, serving up vietnamese coffee (iced or hot), warm baguettes with your choice of pate or meatballs, or vermicelli. vehicles pull up to the roadside and stall owners have the baguette sandwiches ready beforehand for their regular customers. others sit on squat stools around tiny fold out tables and enjoy their coffee while watching the hustle and bustle of the morning traffic. you, the foreigner, observes this ritual with much interest and attempts to take part in it as well. you sip on the ice cold coffee and enjoy the sweet sensation and the bitter aftertaste. you have been initiated and you think you could live like this every morning. a motorbike carrying two huge blocks of ice, one between the rider's legs and the other behind, pulls up to the curb. you find this fascinating. the rider hauls on block onto the ground and drags it along the walkway to where the stall owner is. you look at what used to be a cup of iced coffee, now a cup of ice.