What a Pain...

The tip of my tongue has an ulcer =( That is a most unfortunate location to have an ulcer. Anything you taste will affect it. Even as you try to dislodge pieces of food in your molars with your tongue--the pain will come.

The gum area around my wisdom tooth is also a bit swollen and the roof of my mouth feels sore.

Ugh. I never thought I'd say this, but eating has become a pain to me =( I now eat like an elderly--only soft food, nothing too crispy and no more nuts. Well at least chocolate is still allowed ^^

Killing me softly...

My office is undergoing some major renovation. Which is good, right? New facilities to look forward to, more office space, new toilets (always a good thing), a bigger hall and more rooms to have more activities which means space to grow.

That is, if I live to see that day.

In the mean time, after enduring vibrations, noise, dust and general bad air, it has come to this: exhaust from one of those heavy duty machinery have found an outlet and the outlet is my office. Walk into my office and there's the unmistakeable smell of fumes and exhuast. I'm as finicky about air-quality and smell as I am about my coffee, which says a lot, so I try to not breathe while I'm in the office but that doesn't really work now, does it. I'm being softly killed by asphyxiation when I go about my daily work. GAH. Even my water tastes of the dissolved exhaust *peers into cup suspiciously*.

This is a good time to run errands and not be around the office. But I have work to do. Blast it all.

300 MTV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT1tckShEKc&mode=related&search=
My kind of weather ; )

Acknowledgements: Shannan Hentai Wong for providing the link.

Simple Pleasures in Life

- The sound of brand new strings on my lovely Yamaha APX3. Smooth to the touch, it gives a real smooth sound too!
- A new hair colour at a discounted rate ^-^

Update: 21 March 2007, 6:20pm
- Simple pleasure in life: A new 2GB SD card for my Powershot A710 IS! For $21.70! cheap cheap! Thanks, Mr Bing, for helping me buy this!

I'm a happy girl today!

About Batam and a Headache

I've just came back from a short retreat to Batam. We stayed in Batam Beach View Hotel. The view there is really pretty and I like the service at the hotel--friendly & helpful staff who would go out of the way to help you.

We had 2hours of R&R and I took some photos at the beach. The beach is amazing, absolutely nothing like the beach in Singapore. The sandy area is covered with shellfish, crabs and small fishes. When you stand at the shore and keep very quiet, you can hear them move around. It's indescribable, seeing glimpses of the wonder of God's creation. It's something you don't get to experience very much in the concrete jungle that is Singapore.



It was an enjoyable retreat, with all the ingredients of a good planning retreat--relevant sessions, a good mix of sermons and relevant discussion and feedback sessions, good food, a nice hotel, great view, enough sleep and nice R&R.

Everything was nice, except the boat ride back =( The ferry got stranded in the middle of the sea 15min into the journey. The engine dieded and we were stranded there for a good one hour. I was trying my best not to be sea-sick. They sent another ferry to pick us up from there and we had to transfer to the other ferry in the sea @_@ I felt quite sick, but i didn't puke. This morning I heard from my colleagues many drama stories on the high-sea that happened during that fateful 1 hour. One of them fainted, another was soooo sick that she had to be wheel-chaired out when she reached land, and yet another was holding on tightly to her husband so that she could walk out of the ferry properly. So drama, huh?

Anyways, Saturday was an awful day. After being stranded in the sea for an hour battling sea-sickness, I was picked up at 8pm and was told that Marshall was due to be put to sleep on Sunday, so we went to my granny's to take a last look at him before Sunday. However, as my cousin carried him for his last walk, his tumour started to bleed profusely and as mentioned, we had to rush him to the vet a day earlier than planned. It was heartwrenching but necessary. We all cried buckets, and even now, we still tear when we see his pictures. So, yeah. Dealing with sea-sickness + a death of a family pet = buckets of tears and a throbbing headache that lasted til 2am on Saturday night. We were at the vet from 9:30pm til 10:30pm, just crying and crying and trying to come to terms with his end.

Was talking to another friend on msn about her shetland sheepdog who is facing some health problems and we could empathise with each other's heartaches. Dogs are truly a blessing from God, with all their varied personalities and quirky habits. My uncle just bought a new Sheltie today from VivoCity, a tri-coloured handsome prancing doggie who looks a lot like Marshall. We love him already, but he's not and will not be a replacement for Marshall. It's exciting to start anew with this new baby though.. My uncle is going through the toilet training and we're trying to get it to recognize its new name. My uncle told us many many times to not spoil it with too much affection, but seeing how we're all trying to get our turn to carry it in our arms, I think this will be one pampered pooch ; ) Seeing how we loved Marshall to his very last breath, I know that this is one lucky dog to be in this family already =)

Goodbye, good boy.

On 17 March 2007, 8:30pm, Marshall's tumour started to bleed profusely and he was rushed to the vet.

His last meal was chicken and a slice of cheese which he loves.

Good boy, Marshall. You've always been a good boy.

Good bye.

1 hour of my life.

1 hour of my life. Wow, how can I spend 1 hour of my life on a Sunday night? Let me count the ways.
-- Surf the net.
-- Catch up with a friend over the phone (archaic, I know, but I'm quaint that way).
-- Take a nice long shower + a DIY facial.
-- DIY manicure + pedicure with the lil flower sticker thingeys.
-- Read a book.
-- Write a blog post and take some interesting pictures while I'm at it. And have time left over for a nice piece of photo-editing on photoshop.
-- Watch some MTV with my brother.

Notice none of the above includes waiting 1 whole hour for a bus??

SBS!!! Get your act together!!! A whole bunch of us waited for 1 whole hour for le stewpid bus which finally trudged along at 10:15pm!! I was at the bus-stop at 9:20pm and the bus was scheduled to come at 9:40pm according to the lil chart of bus timings they have at bus stops. By 9:50pm, there was still no sign of the bus. So the man sitting next to me started a conversation with me, and apparently he's been waiting for the same bus for a longer time. After an eternity, the bus finally saw it fit to arrive. What's the point of having that bus-timing chart if the only purpose is to mislead commuters like me, who have to pay higher prices for more inaccurate bus timings?!?!!

I thought I had it bad, but the folks at Suntec & Millennia Walk had it worse. By the time the bus got to Suntec, the poor folks there couldn't squeeze on already!! You should see the enraged look on their faces (with misc IT products in their hands..) And it's the last night of the IT fair, for crying out loud!! Please, SBS, have some sense to make sure your buses run on schedule, especially when it's bound to go past somewhere like Suntec on the last day of the IT fair! Helloooooooooo!!! Common sense, non???

A Ramble About a Movie

Yesterday, I took half a day off to recuperate from my event on Wednesday (I lay up in bed for 1hour before I've unwound sufficiently to fall asleep!) and went out with Intuition for some retail and culinary therapy. I was combing through all the shops and boutiques in Orchard Road to find the elusive yellow dress (and it's still not found, darn it!) with a very supportive boyfriend in tow. Shopping is simply not Intuition's favourite activity, but yesterday he was a real gentleman and gamely went along as I wavered about purchases, tried on clothes and didn't buy them, trawled through shoe shops and walked from mall to mall.

However, he did have 1 request of me: to watch a movie. I was like, nooo, I just had a movie event last night! We watched a movie already, didn't we! Two movies in two days is just a whole lot of movies, no?? He was adament, however. I want to watch Music & Lyrics! he exclaimed. I can't possibly watch it with the guys, right? I can watch a guy-movie like 300 with them, but this is a romantic comedy, and I can only watch it with you! he cajoled.

Romantic comedies are widely considered chick flicks, are they not? Other romantic comedies Intuition & I have watched are: Along Came Polly, The Perfect Catch, The Prince & I, Somethings Gotta Give, and Pride & Prejudice. All at his request! It has never failed to amuse me that Intuition is the one who enjoys romantic comedies, while for me, my choice of movies tend towards fantasy (LOTR, Narnia, which he also likes) and animation movies (The Incredibles, Shrek, Toy Story, which he don't mind watching). But my guy likes chick flicks, so I go along and have grown to enjoy them. They're good for mindless harmless entertainment, when you want to destress and leave your brain somewhere for an hour or two. Perhaps the only trouble is when you compare your partner with the swoonworthy yummy lead in the movie, which does lead to some expectation management :P

Music & Lyrics was great fun however, and even though the ending is predictable (the guy and the girl always, always, end up together no matter what), the ride to the end was enjoyable. What really got me in stitches was the MTV that was produced just for this movie. Basically, Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is a 80s has-been, so his popularity has waned and he's a happy has-been. Until a huge break comes along for him and he needs a lyricist PRONTO! That's where Sophie (Drew Barrymore) came in as a talented lyricist who writes beautiful lyrics effortlessly. What I liked about the movie, besides Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore's likeable chemistry, is how it lampoons the current pop idols and the trends that were so, so hot in the 80s! As a kid who grew up in the 80s, I found MTV they throw in (starring Hugh Grant) HILARIOUS! It tickled me to no end. If you grew up in the 80s too, you must must must take a look at this MTV, if not the movie! Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0A7dtdc-nU!

Perfect Ice-cream Topping!

My uncle received a batch of passion fruits from a staff, and my aunty brought a few for us to try. It's the first time I've ever seen / touched / smelled / tasted a passion fruit. It has a fragrant yet pungent smell, weighs very little and is rather sour. There isn't much of it to eat, really. It's not fleshy like an apple, or juicy like an orange. It's just a lot of seeds in their sacs swimming around in some passion-fruit sauce, so basically when you eat a passion fruit, you pretty much slurp up the seeds.

I didn't care very much for the taste of the fruit. I passed one to my colleague who has green fingers and asked if she'd care to plant a passion fruit, and she agreed. The next day, she told me that she ate her passion fruit with ice-cream and she never enjoyed her ice-cream so much! Coming from someone who doesn't take ice-cream, it has to be really good. I had a stash at home, so I tried it with the Chunky Monkey ice-cream from Ben&Jerry's and I must say that it is the perfect ice-cream topping. Its fragrance just blends in beautifully with vanilla-based ice-cream. Next time if you need to serve ice-cream to guests, here is a great topping that smells totally exotic and tastes wonderfully exquisite.

I'm Back!

Sorry for my disappearing act! The last time I posted was *gasp!* LAST MONTH! I've been busy reading other blogs and busy going out and busy looking for the elusive yellow dress for a friend's wedding. (Said friend wanted her jie2mei4s to wear yellow because she's going to have a garden wedding at Sentosa, so blue is out cos we'll blend in with the sea and sky in the photos, green is out cos we'll blend in with the garden, pink is out cos everyone else had pink as the theme for their weddings, so we're left with yellow, cos it'll look great in the photos against the green and blue backdrop. BAH!)

I also just came back from a company event which was held at the Suntec's Eng Wah cinemas. My organization had a simple appreciation event for the folks who volunteered with and donated to us--a movie & dinner event. Here is some griping on my part about Golden Village. We initially approached Golden Village to have our venue, but their prices were high, service was slow and reluctant, and I had to chase the sales person for EVERYTHING. And then they dropped a nice surprise for me when I was trying to confirm my booking--I may not be able to screen the movie of my choice. Even though it's being screened. Because they wanted to maximise box-office sales, because it's "release week". Even though I will be buying all the seats in the hall. Every single seat. On a weekday night. With popcorn & drinks. For every.single.seat. But NooOOOoo, they can't confirm. This was about 3weeks before my event!!

Fuming, I called Eng Wah, and their service was eager and prompt, they gave nice discounts, threw in freebies, confirmed my booking immediately and didn't throw their weight around about not being able to confirm the movie of my choice because it's the release week blah blah blah. And we had a pretty nice time tonight =) I'm so glad I switched.