idd

ì got a call from the uK today and that sorta threw me off balance for a while. the call came in on my mobile, caller id only flashing "call 1" - an unidentified number.
well this has happened before, with pp calling from payphones and unlisted numbers and of course overseas but i dont know why, i didnt think it was an overseas call. and i DID NOT recognise the voice.
has it really been that long? well yes, about 3 months i think.
but i honestly was confused for a while, altho he thought i was pretending. of course i didnt admit to not knowing!

it was nice to have a chat with this person i hadnt spoken to for a while. i guess i miss talking to pp on the phone. smses and emails whie convenient are just no substitute.

and yes, for once this entry wasnt entirely on work, but work has to come in somewhere and here it is - it was a tiring week. i keep feeling like the office totally zaps my energy. i'm tired most of the time, and i feel like i never fully leave the office. plus i tire more easily when i run and i hate that. why is that really?

but it wasn't a totally hairpulling week and i am still questioning whether this place is right for me - the same issues keep running in my mind but somehow today, i've managed to keep my sanity and not blow my sunday worrying about work.

helped also that had a nice lunch with family at ichiban boshi at great world and went to car showrooms where i somehow bumped into someone i wasnt expecting to see. and fell in love with the mazda rx8. what a beauty! what a 130k beauty! ingeniously its a four day sports car altho when u look at it u immediately think its a two-door. the honda integra (which we also checked out) pales in comparison! but price is steep. also had a look at the mazda 3 which has tt wonderful option to drive in manual, clutchless, much like the alfa. i like that option. i like the idea of changing gears without having to dick around with a clutch pedal. how fun that would be!

of course the final decision does not rest on me. but man that would be some car to drive!

interesting how..

i seem to have lost a good friend to his new girlf!

now that he's got himself a new girl, he never hangs out with me no more! ok not like we got together that often, but it was nice to catch up once in a while, and now it's like...'free for coffee this weekend?'
'sorry no'

!!!

2004

since i seem to b in a somewhat reflective mood today i might as well write a little about how last year was.

2004 was a major year for me. it was a year of change. a new job with a new challenge - i was finally a journalist and i loved it. (i still am of course and i am indeed thankful for having a job this year). i was on my own, relationship-wise but i made so many new and good friends. then i did meet someone who meant a lot to me. but i dont want to talk about him here.

my job took me places - margaret river (just after i returned from a personal trip to see radiohead in sydney) club med cherating and tokyo (this is the crazy part - i found myself on the UA flight back to tokyo just 1 1/2 days after i landed in Sg from tokyo - another personal trip)

my job let me meet people - Colombian artist Fernando Botero, photographer Russel Wong, authors like Chang Rae Lee and Jasper Fforde, film-makers, the beautiful, talent and blind Jessica Callahan, the inspiring Siew Ying of Metta Cats. honestly the list could go on and on.

so i've been very fortunate. of course there were days when i just wanted to pull out my hair and scream but those were far and few.

i've also worked with a good bunch of people. sad to say that we've had to split up and be redeployed in different departments, different papers and some, sadly, retrenched. i hope we somehow remain in touch. an alumni of sorts.

apart from all things new, i've also still had a good bunch of friends to drink coffee, watch movies, go wakeboarding, go shopping and just hang out and talk with. so thank you, if any of you actually read this (probably one or two), for being my friend.

here's what i hope for the new year.
i want to do well in my new job, work hard work smart and not have to find myself stuck in the office way past midnight everyday (*shudder*).
i want a life outside of the office. i dont want work to consume me.
i want to meet more people, make more friends and hopefully meet someone who's right for me
i hope that my family and friends will be happy healthy safe and sound.
i want to write more. and not just for work.
and i want to travel more, although it's highly unlikely that i'll be on junkets this year. so it'll have to come outta my pockets.
i want to continue exercising regularly and eat better. (ever since i've done that organic food story, i've been wondering what kinda crap i chow down on everytime. but if i really worried about that the whole time, that would be crazy. it's impossible to eat healthy all the time. i guess i can start by cutting out packaged foods, which prob comes straight from hell. mwahhahah)
i'd like to watch many more movies, read many more books, listen to much more music. and make the time to do all that (re: "i don't want work to consume me")
and i'd also like to make plans to study overseas. to figure out what is it i really want to do with my life. that's probably one of the biggest mysteries.

butterflies

work begins tomorrow. and i couldn't sleep well last night. i feel like i'm not kicking off this year on a good note. i'm worried about high expectations and not living up to those expectations.

but the most immediate concern on my mind today is story ideas. i've been wracking my brains to think of some... any... anything at all. but all i come up with are things more for the lifestyle section. frivolous trivial matters. i've been trawling international papers to see if anything there can be translated to sg terms.

my situation is currently quite hopeless. but 'm going to say fkit and go shopping later. i need some brainless activity. and new clothes.

meanwhile, here's some food for thought. Saw it on Alas A Blog. The gist of it:"How can we stop the obese from becoming more obese? Pretty simple. Stop feeding them!"

sila evason hideaway

here are some pictures of the fab resort on koh samui which thankfully wasn't affected by the tsunamis.


this is the resort seen from the beach which is shared with another hotel. (we stayed on the sunset view side. this is the sunrise view)


view from the balcony area (on the lower floor)


this is the gorgeous infinity pool (and not the villa's pool which is also an infinity one but a little blocked by greenery)

lesson learnt

this is actually something i learnt some time ago and totally forgot on nye. me and tequila are not a good combination.

so i began 2005 with a hangover and a queasy stomach from the alcohol (it's really the tequila)

but dec 31 was interesting.

uni friend got married and it was a bit of a military affair with that lovely guard of honour thing. but chinese wedding dinners are chinese wedding dinners. the usual food, the usual waiting for an hour before the show got on the road, and well, honestly, it was boring. oh and plus ENYA was on repeat for the later part of the night.... sigh.... it was as bad as stepping into cold storage and hearing damn cny tunes this evening..

but after that, headed to chjimes to join some pp for their late dinner (which took ages, but i suppose it was because of nye and all) we ended up running back to swissotel and up to the 55th floor because we had this phobia of counting down in the elevator. we made it. with a couple of minutes to spare. pity there were no fireworks because (1) we had the most perfect room for catching the fireworks (just facing the padang/esplanade (2) without the fireworks u cldnt really know when to say woohoo happy new year.

plus i pity the fireworks pp who must have planned a lovely show only to have their job cut out of the picture at the last minute.

anyway, pp brought plenty to drink. no champers tho!

it was nice to just hang around, chat, listen to music. and altho some started leaving four of us were left watching the sun rise and then we really had to crash cos it was too bloody early . but checkout was 3pm thank heavens. so we had til then to sleep in. but of course i woke up feeling crummy, dragged myself home and went to sleep somemore, not having eaten anything since the night before. lucky mum had a great dinner of pumpkin soup, pork chop, omelette, salad and almond jelly for dessert.

happy new year, hope 2005 will be an eventful one.
i know mine will be = new year new job. freaking out a little bit with the prospect of that, you know, being in 'the big leagues" as EVERYONE kept reminding us (well, as least the 3 pp who will matter the most to my career)

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.

so goes Frank Sinatra's My Way.

well, the end of streats is tomorrow. the last issue of Streats will be on Dec 31.

desk is packed and it's time to head out the door.

it's been a great ride.

clearing up

i'm sitting at my desk at work, facing a half-empty shelf, a big cardboard box sits next to me, and it's slowly filling up with all the stuff I need to bring upstairs to my new office.

we were busy taking photographs this evening. farewell photos which hopefully will turn out good.

and yesterday, there was a farewell party at the usual central mall area. bad food, good company and plenty of fun (well there's always fun to be had with freeflow of alcohol).

as a friend said, a bittersweet party.

i dont know how it's gonna be upstairs. i hope it'll be a challenge. i'm up for a challenge. i know i've already faced this one challenge in this year's job. let's see how next year goes.

me and mr botero

best of the best

thought i'd just write up a list of some of the best movies i've seen this year. (in no particular order and i might add more cos this is all i can remember watching at the moment)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
how could i not love a movie with such a title, and written by the brilliant Charlie Kaufman too. jim carrey and kate winslet sparkled in this absolute gem.

- The Incredibles
ok not as funny as i thought it would be but definitely entertaining especially that bit about superheroes and their capes. who can resist?

- Last Life In The Universe
this thai-japanese film startled with its quiet charm. a little dark a little obscure (and some people have complained about how slowmoving it was) but i loved it.


- Spider-Man Two
sequels usually suck this one didn't. it actually somehow managed to do better, maybe cos i cldn't stand the green goblin in the first one

- Collateral
similar to the way Road To Perdition surprised me some years ago, I went to see Collateral not expecting to like it. i just wanted to see how Tom Cruise did as a bad guy i think. but Michael Mann's beautiful tribute to Los Angeles just took my breath away. ok, maybe some of the violence also helped with that. but one of the nicest surprises for me this year movie-wise.

- Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban
sequels usually suck. this isn't a sequel but the third in the series and it was simply THE BEST, thanks to the brilliant Alfonso Cuarón, who's also responsible for one of my favourite movies Y Tu Mama Tambien.

- Open Water
this movie had some bite and i'm including it because it was a small indie movie with no budget that somehow popped into my head when i was swimming in the sea at Koh Samui. and that's the mark of a movie. one that you don't forget, even if it's just to think of sharks and other creatures swimming below you.

- Zatoichi
i loved this samurai film by Takashi Kitano. funny, action-packed and with a blind samurai who has a shock of blond hair. how could i not include this one?

- Ocean's Twelve
i hesitate to include this cos it wasn't as intelligent as the first one and it seemed to push too much screen time to the other actors but it was still entertaining all the same, with plenty of eye candy to go round.

wait can i include the ROTK?
i can't remember when that came out, but nevertheless, it was a good film. i finally got to see the extended version and although a little bit too long, was of course good, especially since you get to christopher lee, who got cut from the movie release.

also included in this list should be Before Sunset, but I DIDN"T SEE IT!!! don't ask why.
There were too many movies I missed out on, including Maria Full Of Grace, Mean Girls, The Return, and Kill Bill 2 (although i later fell asleep watching it on dvd)


BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
- this award goes to Alexander. i was expecting bigger and better but what i watched was a film that was deflating right from the start.
Alfie is also a disappointment. It looked promising in the beginning being very stylish and of course Alfie being a charmer (plus its a Jude Law movie!) but it got so boring towards the end, you begin wondering if there's a plot to this or is Alfie really just going to spend the entire movie going from girl to girl? I just HAVE to watch the original Michael Caine version now, to see how different it is.

MEANWHILE,
I'm waiting the opening of the following films:
Mar Adentro
Closer
We Don't Live Here Anymore
The Aviator (yes it's got leo dicaprio but he looked good in the Vanity Fair spread and hopefully this film will redeem him. he was after all quite brilliant in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? which brings me onto the next reason why I want to see....)Finding Neverland (JOHNNY DEPP!)




ALSO....

Best album in my books is Juanes' Mi Sangre. But Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous is just the next notch below. I know these albums won't make critics top 10 lists (most of them list The Streets, Animal Collective, Kanye West - whom i also love, Franz Ferdinand, Madvillain, Nick Cave and the like) but I thought these two albums showed how both Colombia's Juanes and California's Rilo Kiley have grown, developed for the better over the years. Three cheers.


2004 was a good movie year, may 2005 be even better!

food blogs!

i'm so excited to discover these amazing foodie blogs. yes, might be abit late catching on but they're definitely worth reading every so often.

Pim
Chocolate and Zucchini
Shiokadelicious!
Domestic Goddess
101 Cookbooks
Tiny Fork
The Grub Report

island in the sun

just got back from a short holiday in koh samui. and what a place! the main area of chaweng is just full of old white men and their thai girls zooming around on motorbikes. the beaches there are decent, with waves that come crashing right near the cafes during high tide. we moved to the choeng mon area after the first two nights (we arrived mon night at 10pm so decided not to waste good money and instead spent first two nights at cheapo place not too near the beach) to stay at the fabulous Sila Evason Hideaway. Worth every cent! and more! the pool villa was just beautiful, and like all the other villas has a view you cannot believe. even the reception has such a gorgeous view, and i cant begin to describe the view from the main swimming pool. it was a decadent two days. hit the gym, swim, lunch, swim a bit more, a massage at the spa (where the treatment rooms... wait for it... also have amazing views!

unfortunately my camera battery gave up on me the day i got there - that is, i actually have to go get a whole new lithium-ion battery!
damnit!!!

long time no bother

it's been a long time

and i've been a lucky person. i will not use that word that i hate 'blessed' - i see it used too often in quotes from newsmakers. 'i've been so blessed' tends to be the catchphrase of the year.

anyway, i've had an amazing few weeks.
i got the chance to meet Colombian artist Fernando Botero twice and listen to his dialogue with Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming as well.

Botero is a delightful, warm and charming man. and i wish i cld've spent a little more time with him but i knew he had been speaking to reporters the whole day and honestly, that the story wasn't going to require too much from him. it was after all my third Botero story! streats ended up doing 5 stories on the man and the exhibition. overkill

also, i got the chance to interview writer Chang-Rae Lee, who's written Native Speaker, A Gesture Life and Aloft. I only got the chance to read Native Speaker halfway before my i/v with the korean-american. but i am so glad i decided to rush down to the library in between assignments and pick up his book. it is a magnificent book. his writing is truly eloquent although the storyline is a little wanting at times.
when i read his words, i just want to sit and breathe it all in, slowly.

there are some books you want to race through, the storyline pushing you to read fast to find out more. soon. quick. now.

but this is one book to savour, to sit and think about and to wonder at the brilliance of such a man.

i'm always delighted when i find out that people who have found fame are just down-to-earth, easygoing characters. they're easy to talk to, to get to open up and do not seem fatigued by what must be the umpteenth interview they've had to sit through. they pay you their fullest attention, careful to understand your bumbled question and they think their answers through.

i also spent the later part of hte morning (after interviewing lee at the ritz-carlton) talking to the owners of Bunalun, an organic food store at Chip Bee. they were also a delight to talk to. not the preachy type of people as some businessmen can be but interesting and frank about their products. and no, organic food is not just about brown rice. they have chocolate mousse too! and i assure you, it is delicious. and chocolatey. and you can bet that i'm going there again.
(they have a lunch menu at $15 for a tart, two salads and a dessert) truly delightful. Tony even sat down with edwin and i to have lunch, asking us about the way the food tastes and just chitchatting about different things.

sometimes i love my job but then when i have to get into the office and write a boring-ass story, i just want to get a gin and tonic.

i left the office earlyish on friday, the story wasn't writing itself (none of the above stories though, something entirely more boring - 3d animation!) and will have to punish myself tmr by going back to the office to finish it up.

late nights

i've been kinda pushing it the last few days...
on wed night went to not only the official opening of the very classy italian restaurant Capella, at Chjimes but also to the Heineken green room sessions at Velvet where the Thievery Corporation was playing.
It was an awesome night, ending only at 315. on a wednesday night... what was i thinking?
But too much alcohol and good music and friends also hanging around, how could i leave?

so paid for it on thursday. thank goodness i didnt have a morning assignment. so i crawled into work at 1045. i actually didnt fare that badly but my brain was so fried that i took ages to finish one story (ok it was quite a long one) and then i had to crawl to my 2pm assignment which fortunatley turned out to be a tiny story.

and then i did it again yesterday night.
it's a sunday morning, i managed to make it here again at 1045.
actually i have no idea why i took so long to get here. i did wake up at 9am.
but last night, was taken to this little dim sum place at jln besar. cheap and not too bad. we had the usual - char siew bao, the yam puff, siew mai, beancurd prawn roll, pork ribs and then finished off with some ice kachang. all for less than $12. not too bad. and plus it's open until really late. left at about 2plus and it was still quite packed.

but i think i'm getting tired of the holland v thing (we were at essential brew before going for supper) - too many people, too uninteresting. and somehow coffee club was closed, kfc was being renovated and tons happening. maybe too much happening. what happened to it being a nice laidback place? plus the crowd is getting younger and younger. or am i just getting older?

blog entry

ah cant be bothered to think of a right title.

but plenty has happened this past week. i'm sure everyone's heard the news of the closure so i dont want to elaborate on that.
just please dont call it a merger bt the 2 free papers. its not a merger. its more like the closure of one paper - the better one.

i dont know what's going to happen to me at this pt of time. i'm hoping for the best.

i've been thinking a lot abt life, love and relationships. (i'm reading Sex and the city afterall)
all of my conversations with friends seem to be about men. why are we all so hung up on men? i am a very guilty party as i'm always moping about the disappearance of that one man. time to get over him! plenty of fish out there... er... right...??

some weekend

this was an amazing weekend, something unforgettable.

it all kicked off on friday night at brewerkz at riverside point, where about 15 ex-classmates from Class 6F of Henry Park Primary School gathered, along with our form teacher Mrs Ong.

I was a little amazed at how some people hadn't changed and others were unrecognisable. But it was good to see everyone and learn that everyone was doing well in their chosen lives. There were 4 classmates who were married, one pregnant, several in the medical industry, some more in the engineering field, others in the academic field, accountants, civil servants, insurance agents and more. Mrs Ong said she was proud of how we had turned out and it was good to hear that, and also to learn that she's still at the school, but now the HOD of English.

ABout 8 of us adjourned to a hotel at scotts road for a drink at the quiet lounge where we read aloud from autograph books and chatted until 2am.

And then I was up again at 7am on Saturday to pick up the girls to go wakeboarding at Punggol Marina. I think everyone had a great time, despite the aching bodies after.

I know I did and I found myself liking wakeboarding more and more. I was more relaxed and having more fun than the last time. My body didn't ache as much as the first time so that's fantastic and neither did I get sunburnt for a change! Am looking forward to doing this somewhat regularly although weekly would bust my budget so badly.

Saturday night was spent at Suntec, sitting through 3 hours of Chinese pop music/acting/hosting at the Next Big Thing finals. I got a good laugh out of a few of the contestants and especially William Hung with his majorly idiotic comments which bordered on 'i think he/she was good' 'i liked it' only offering one criticism 'he could've sung better' which brought on plenty of Sniggers. Hearing Hung say that would be like Bush teaching a primary one kid to read.

so i had to drag my ass down to the office on Sunday avro to file my story and rewrite another story and then be reminded to write a column ASAP.

i'm having problems with writing a column, and i think it sorta boils down to inexperience. I'm not talking about inexperience in writing but not having lived life to be able to comment fully on it. It's like what a film-maker I interviewed last week told me, that film courses should never be an undergraduate/diploma course because at that age you can only teach the technical aspects, that the stories, the narrative produced by those youngsters will never be of any mettle. Simply because they have not lived life yet. I know I haven't lived my life yet. I think it's only just started this year. I do not count my previous contract job as a job. Because it was going nowhere and it had the shortest learning curve imaginable, which all too quickly plateaued.

But can I not write a column? No, because this would all seem like an excuse to anyone who hears this.

a little lost

i was watching the trailer of Lost In Translation just now, trying to gain some inspiration for my travel story on Tokyo, which I've foolishly volunteered to write. (perhaps not foolishly, it will after all serve as a reminder, a way of preserving my visits to that metropolis).
but watching that trailer, although without sound because i just have a crappy soundcard-less PC, i realised just how i much i enjoyed the film. i caught it once in the cinemas and again on a friend's dvd as i had missed the first 20 minutes of the film.
despite having only seen it twice, i laughed at some parts of the trailer even though i couldn't hear what was going on. it put a smile on my face this afternoon. i want the dvd. i think this is one more movie i could watch over again.
i love how it was filmed, i love the relationship the two seemingly incompatible heroes have. i love how tokyo looks.i just want to go back to July, to be back in Japan. to be on holiday. and to only worry about how to maximise my time there and minimise my spending!
i need a holiday already. july seems like ages ago.
i guess Lost In Translation is a sort of symbol, a representative of my holiday in Japan. something i'm trying to cling onto, to embed deep into my memory.
i hate the way i forget things, how i can only recall some of my previous travels. i wish i could close my eyes and have all my holidays, all the good times appear in front of me. like a film reel, a home video screening in my mind.

sunday blues

how can sorrow be sweet?

he's somewhere on his way to bangkok right now. to begin a journey that i would think is a little scary but also very exciting.

getting together

i got the most interesting phone call the other day.
the voice, with an american accent, was unfamiliar.
the name, Kaixi, a little more familiar.

she was my primary 6 classmate.
hadnt seen her or heard from her for 13 years.
and there she was, on the phone, asking me if i'd like to be part of a reunion of sorts she's organising.
having only met a couple of my pri-sch classmates over the past few years, i said sure.
it's supposed to happen sometime next weekend. exciting.

so when i checked my email this morning, i was pleased to see that kaixi's actions have sorta spurred on another of my classmates to contact us. he sent us an email encouraging our participation.

coincidentally, a classmate from Uni also sent out an email suggesting a reunion sometime next year in january to mark the.... er... 1000th day of our graduation or something of that sort.
i guess since uni wasn't that long ago, its not as exciting. plus, in my line of work i keep meeting ex-classmates, from PR agencies, other magazines/newspapers. just the other day at one press conference (which included lunch), there were four of us from the same year sitting at the same table of ten. 'mini class reunion' we joked.
but it would indeed be good to catch up with people and find out how they're all doing. and what they're doing.

and just for old times sake

change your mind

yeah so i thought i might change the template of this blog to something a little cleaner, easier on the eye. but too lazy to change the actual template so just leaving this as it is courtesy of whoever it was who put it up on blogger. thanks!

might add in some more stuff to the sidebar later tho.