Georgie

Caught a glimpse of georgina today! At mum’s insistence, the pair of us went to the temple early in the morning to pray for Angeline’s smoth delivery. Apparently, the baby’s too small in size and her amniotic volume was not sufficient to carry the baby to its full term. So Dr Woodworth suggested a premature inducing of birth via medication. But the thing was, georgie came to earth when we were just about to leave the temple! such a spoiler. My mum HAD to go temple of all the days. *slaps mouth*

So we made our way to Thomson Medical Centre; one big amazing race ensued when helpful staff attempted to guide us to many places (ward, observation room etc) and we eventually found the happy and relieved couple at the labour ward. There and there I saw the little crumpled and red mass of a human being.

“So jiao jiao one!”, My mum exclaimed in delight. Yes, jiao jiao is the word. Georgie looks awfully small; her head could be cupped in my palm. For all that I say about babies (their cuteness overrated!) I could not help but smile when i met the little one though.

Aunt at 20

“your niece will be arriving tomorrow.” My bro informed me when i reached home, after a long day of float building. Took me a while to get it, but now i’m so excited><

Not that I’m a fan of cute things alike, be it babies or animals. To me, cute stuff are simply over-rated. i grew up too quickly to appreciate all that. Just felt pretty wasted that I won’t be around to see the baby kicking around at home. The baby’s gonna reach earth at about 10-11am. I’m flying to Taiwan later at night. Quite excited for both stuff.

Today I barely did much during float. The last bit always bore me. We discovered artic blue spraypaint, thanks to nic & meiyian. Eggy did a fine job with the translucent gear. I found that to be one of the most challenging stuff to do. Thus, i was secretly impressed. Boon managed with the curvy boxes thing. It was really hard to do, but i’m glad we started on it. Kuanyee takes on what ever “saikang” jobs I asked of her without complaint nor reluctance. Plus, she’s creative too:)

Gonna have a well-deserved rest after 6 days of super intensive float building! Doubt I will sleep well though; georgina’s coming.

Floating Monday: The Ending Credits

Whee~ Yesterday saw an unexpected turnout, with friends the likes of Annabelle, Huijing, Ziying, Boon, Mel, Syazzy, Shymin, Chieh turning up for float building. Meiyian, Yeemay, Kuanyee and Nic despite having their hands full on logistics, also came to lend us a hand. It was Liyong and Justine last day today. Hongyi’s failed dance meeting turned out to be in my favour instead, him helping us a great deal with the cutcancutcan’s manly job. Eggy who was biji with costumes (or going to be) was a big help too; she’s alot more creative than she thinks, i think. keke. Let’s see..who else..(have to mention everyone involved just in case ahem, float ic’s watching.)

Learnt that delegating job seems like a super slack job but no! it was not! Have to keep racking my brains and visualise everything just so i can dispatch people to do stuff. Hur hur hur, okay lah..it wasn’t that hard. I’m just overwhelmed by the sudden team of reinforcement. Ureshi~

We accomplish alot and it might seemed like everyone’s going around minding their own business (be it can cutting, producing 5×5 squares, making buttons and knobs, painting) But when the final product is assembled together, I imagine we will all be proud of it:) 

Syazzy, Liyong and Hongyi were extremely fast with the scissors; the cans being rectangular sheets in a flash. Liyong also went to help eggy with the insurmountable task of creating buttons. The pair of them were such perfectionists I find it hilarious. They worked on the little playback, flash buttons and 4 silver and black buttons with so much care and effort. Huijing, Ziying and Annabelle mass-produced the 5×5 squares and I was very impressed by how well they did them; not a mm less or more. Boon ingeniously created the crank that’s functional! Yeemay made a very impressive button, exceeding my expectations. Mel did very pretty video and camera mode symbols. Meiyian done a great job on the button too! Shymin was skilful with the manipulation of the yakults bottles. The zoom thing was very outstanding too, the product of Kuanyee’s effort. Chieh… gosh,can’t exactly remember what he did. but yeah, he was a great help too. hur hur hur.

Okay, credit roll ends here.

 

Mr. Sam

Hoping to paint Lord Iesada (aka Kitamura Kazuki) one day. Trial Mister Samurai looked very japanese painting-ish, with that eyes and plump face. Couldn’t make him more good-looking that i want to…groan.

Cut my hair today! So funny, i had to rehearse my lines several times because I want to be very specific on what and where to cut. In chinese. She asked if i really want to snip off my treasured locks several times. She must felt it a pity hur hur. My fringe finally thinned out and i liked it so much better now

Watched Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari 2008 today. Streaming was a pain, chinese subtitles in the ass. What to do for an el cheapo like me. hyuk hyuk.

Ooku – Hana no Ran

Naturally, I would be following up with this sequel after completing Ooku – The Inner Palace (The Final Chapter) Apart from Kanno Miho, Rina Uchiyama is probably the second person I feel that looked best in kimono. Handoku was the first ever japanese drama that I have watched (but it was not as addictive or impressive enough as compared to Slow Dance to induct me into this jdrama obsession) Rina Uchiyama starred as a medical intern/doctor, opposite Tomoya Nagase then.

So..back to Ooku. This series, poised to reveal the ugly nature of the women imprisoned in Ooku through sly schemes and vehemous tongues. Compared to the 2003 version, which focused heavily on the love stories, painting the antagonists in a much favourable light towards the end, Hana no Ran is going for the raw deal: of bitch fights & inept men.

Rina Uchiyama, in spite of her dazzling beauty and not to mention, ample screen time, failed to capture the role of Lady Atako with finesse. In other words, her acting fell short in standard to her co-actors, namely the openly vehement Koike Eiko, the ousted Fujiwara Norika & horny old man Tanihara Shosuke.

Kazuki Kitamura is here too! yay. I have yet to complete this drama, hoping hard that he will have a greater part in the show later on ><

The Professor & his Beloved Equation

The Professor & his Beloved Equation placed Terao Akira as the mathematics professor who having sustained head injuries in a traffic accident, can only carry 80 minutes of memory. Nevertheless, his love for numbers (prime numbers, amicable number etc) , children & baseball (him being a loyal fan of the Tigers and Enatsu) makes him a very endearing and inspiring man to the people around him.

Fukatsu Eri (!! how else would i know about this movie?) is the female protagonist, a very capable and patient housekeeper assigned to look after the Professor. Her son, root (name given by the prof) later joined in and stayed at the house every day as well.

Each morning, without fail, Eri and Akira would repeat the same greeting.

E: Good morning! i’m the new housekeeper.

A:What is your shoe size?

E:24cm, factorial of 4

A:My,what a noble number… Do come on in.

As the prof doesn’t remember what happens the day before, he repeats himself incessantly and asked the same questions over and over again. (ie. You have a son? How old is he?) Have I neglect to mention, that the teacher who played Root (Hidetaka Yoshioka) is one cute dude with an outrageous curl of hair, resembling that of a root symbol.

This movie reintroduced numbers from a very different perspective; every number having an adjective to describe and almost a soul of their own. 284 and 220 are amicable numbers. Root will always share his friendship fairly. (bad translation, but root divides numbers into 2 equal numbers) i is a modest number, hidden from the visible world. And lastly,  e^πi +1=0

 

Ooku – The Inner Palace

One of my favourite past-times for the lazy bugger me on a long weekend is an uninterrupted japanese drama marathon, snacks on hand, feet propped atop the table.

First caught Ooku on cable a few years back, but the jdrama bug hasn’t bitten me yet so It left barely an impression. Revisited the series recently, only to discover what a touching and great drama it has been. (For it to churn out 2 more sequels and a nostalgic special do spell something)

Anyway, I just want to say that the relationship between Lady Tokuko (Kanno Miho) and His Highness Iesada (Kitamura Kazuki) moved me to bits! The love stories here are all very compelling to watch, and at the end of it all, you don’t harbour any bad feelings towards the antagonists. The Kimonos and elaborate settings were visually enthralling, and Lady Tokuko captivated me with her brilliant acting and beauty.

Her jaded highness.

Lord Iesada, the shogun i want for myself too! I watched Kitamura Kazuki in several shows but they were all forgettable parts (densha otoko special, galileo etc) This one gets the prize. No birthmark however hideous can villify this mysterious looking actor.

Whee, close contact. Ferget the sword.

All nighter fer float: The Visual Evidence

So, progress at work. Liyong & Justine slogged away, in spite not wanting to be in float in the first place. I am very impressed, for I always avoid doing stuff I disliked or can’t do.

On Friday! Where we dialled 6241-241. Here’s another way of using the 2,500 chicken rice boxes.

Saturday, love the weekend. Breakfasted at crystal jade with mama & kongkong, and aunt anne’s family. Joanna’s very easy to talk to. Friendly’s the word. For some reason, our conversation veered from dental to rule no.4 and hostel the movie. Was reminded of my convo with Qianli yesterday.

All-nighter fer float

Spent the night like a concussed, catching up on much needed sleep. It was an extremely biji week, days spent in the heart of FOD. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday were all dedicated to float building. Wednesday was an exception, but it was no breezy deal either. We triapsed to Sentosa for precamp. groan.

So on Thursday, I had this crazy idea to stay overnight at FOD. Just so i can put do more float stuff. Our progress were remarkably dismal. For all the hours we clocked in, we only managed a teeny weeny bit of stuff. (not that we were inefficient, but the work was just extremely tedious)  Thursday saw fresh faces. Kuan yee stayed to give us a hand. Mel came in the afternoon to help, bringing a huge bag of buggy cans, much to our delight. Qianli took over Mel’s place later on. Eggy dropped by to help us paint. Only Liane, Jac and I were a constant, k.

Eggy stayed till 10pm. I had fun chit-chatting with her, while creasing and manipulating alum foil and listening to good music, namely from my ipod. Wen hui came by at about 9. That sweet guy. I was rawther worried about putting an all-nighter alone so i asked if he could accompany me. He was really nice, helping to cut cans and do all the little stuff to make me feel assured.

After Eggy left, we took a break and settled on the couch for Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. You could recognise a Tim Burton film just from the CGI introduction, Danny Elfman music, Helena Bonham Carter and of course, Johnny Depp. Not bad, i would say. I love it whenever Wonka snapped at Mike Teavee for his incessant mumbling.

You don’t mess with the Zohan was next. It’s a very screwball guy comedy with alot of unapolegetic crude jokes. I laughed when the terrorist was going to call some hotline and his friend was giving him the number. An extremely long number.

Watched abit of Shooter after that. Xiaoyan & I watched before and I pretty much liked it. Mark Wahlberg’s eyes~ Lights off at 3am. Managed to finish the little rectangle in the cassette.

Eyes flitted open at 7am; darn aircon couldn’t spare me a little more shut-eye for the hardworking bob the builder. It was off to Fongseng for cheese prata and bandung. After bidding goodbye to Wenhui, I went to pgp to meet qianli, so that he could loan me his hp charger. We ended up talking about horror movie/ thriller (sixth sense, village, shutter, body 19, orfenato)

Back to FOD, where today’s attendees include Liyong, Justine, Liane, Jac, Kuanyee, Patrick & Serena. Frankly, I was disappointed. ( was desperately hoping my appeal (via email and sms) to the class worked.) Kuan yee and Serena were a great deal of help. Kuan yee being creative with egg cartons and borders while serena having fun spray painting with 18k gold. I couldn’t stay long even if i wanted to, my creative process slowing to a stop by 3 plus and I was reduced to cutting cans into patterns.

We waited til 7 so that we could scavenge for food at the dental audi ( Mr lim gave us a tip off that there was a dental seminar, and that spelt f-o-o-d for us) We spent a long time deliberating how to go about getting the food. In the end, I went up to Dr Chin YF and asked if we could have a little of the leftovers. (the dessert was bubur hitam disguising as hot cheng tng) The dentists there were really nice, enquiring about float and foc details. They asked us how we thought of year 1 so far and stuff.

Headed back home with Justine and liyong where we laughed like mad asses on the bus. Overworked is the new drunk.

Last night I had this bad dream. It was a class outing at a field. And someone from my class was groping my ass. shiver up me spine. :S

Precamp

Initially I wasn’t too keen on precamp, cuz the float workaholic in me is counting the hours i can clock in before flying to taiwan, and precamp alone just rob me of a good 7-8 hours. But yeah, it turned out better than i hope, & i was grateful for the break as well.

Amazing race: Justine and I were pretty hyped-out, considering precamp’s but a walkthrough; not the real deal. At Fong Seng, right after i deliver the last bite of prata into my mouths, justine and I stood up and make a mad dash , just so we didn’t have to pay for our food. The lazy huijing and meiyian just sat there and shout “they haven’t pay for the food!” Felt like those period time guys where they ran off after eating.

We were an hour late at eggy&hongyi station, making a big big detour to buy aston’s fries at PGP. We gave helpful hints to our buddy OGs when we met them along our way. We convincingly told them that the station is actually not at fongseng but at elsewhere. we skipped shuyan & shahira station on the pretext of helping logistics just so we can hitch a ride on liane’s car to sentosa. God, we were making enemies as fast as rabbits mating.

Games.  Hardly played the games for I misinterpreted “a set of change” as loose change as thus neglected to bring clothes to change into. So no wet games for the hamburger girl.

Fright Night. The main highlight. It’s probably the most redeeming part of precamp. Clad in embarrassing village costumes with a headtie to match, drawing baffled stares from passer-bys when we actually looked more at home with the forest surroundings than them bikini clad babes.

We made a short trek up to dragon trail. Boon’s my pard’ner. Liyong and Hongyi were alone at their stations so they came and join them. Whoever can stay alone by themselves under conditions like this either got no legs, or have names that starts with !.

We had htht hur hur. Quite funny cuz talking with them about stuff like that in that setting is really hard to imagine. We looked creepy with red and green paint smeared across our faces. The orangey glow would have looked romantic, if not for the fact that the glow was produced by miserable tea lights surrounding the urn of ashes with mini joss sticks repelling mosquitos away from us.

Our job satisfaction comes when our unsuspected victims scream their lungs away. Really, now i kinda regretted not appearing the least bit afraid during my fright night. Imagine what the seniors would think of me. “that girl very kill mood eh. not fun at all”

 Boon did some improv when it comes to our class pairs. I told shuyi and lihong that boon went to toilet so there will not be any grabbing of legs. Then as they exited out of the pavilion, boon sprung out on them. Screams ensued.