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It’s been a  little while since my last update, it seems.

I’ll try and be quick here since I’m gonna go 扫墓 later on…

Went for a 2D1N Bintan trip with Yun and Ka Wai on 25th March.  It was a deal that we caught on one of the deal sites (I think it’s www.deal.com.sg?).  It only worked out to about S$60 per pax, which I think it’s pretty reasonable, considering the resort is Angsana Bintan (under Banyan Tree family).  Fong didn’t join us in the last minute, so I actually got the whole room to myself, which is pretty awesome, in a way.  :D  I’ve always like to be alone, if you still didn’t know by now.  ;)  Not that I would mind a whole lot if Fong was there, just that I’m still good if she didn’t go.

Didn’t take a lot of pics while we were there… it was supposed to be a relaxation trip anyway.  On the second morning, when the girls were away enjoying their spa session, I took the opportunity to go walk on the beach, since the weather was really good.  It was very windy; there’s no glaring sun, and the waves just kept crashing into the shore.  I took off my sandals and walked along the beach, and occasionally the waves would crash in and I’d find my legs half submerged in water.  XD  Yup, at some points, the waves that crashed in would actually reach my knees instead of just licking around my ankles.

Took a few photos of the beach and the waves with my mobile as I was too lazy to go back to my room to grab my Lumix.  You can check out those photos and videos here, on my Flickr page.  Just a couple of them… I was more interested in immersing myself in the nice atmosphere than taking pictures / photos.  :D

All in all, it was a rather nice experience.. though I must say I’m not exactly a beach person (especially when there’s a hot sun up there), but it was quite relaxing to walk along the beach when the sun wasn’t shining.  But 2D1N is really kinda short… :(  *sniff*

Oh yeah, I finally got my Westone 4, after a series of delays!

 

Verdict?  Lovely.  Well worth all the hundreds of dollars that I paid…  The soundstage was unbelievable (considering it was just a pair of IEMs, not closed-ear canned headphones), and the clarity was just awesome!  The only ‘meh’ area is their bass… which is slightly lacking, but one can just remedy that by tweaking the EQ.

Now I’m just deciding if I should change my DAP… Sansa Clip+’s SQ (sound quality) is one of the better ones out there already, and I really love the fact that it’s really small and portable.  An upgrade would be Cowon, but none of Cowon’s products are that portable.  Perhaps I’ll just hold on to my Clip+ for now and see if Cowon’s gonna come up with something similar like Clip+, and one that comes with a meaner punch as well.  :P

Recently I got to know a nice girl from EDMW… it was really quite amusing – the way we met each other, of course.  It was all thanks to Starbucks pre-paid card.  XD  Someone made a thread on the forums about it, and both of us responded in the thread… and one thing led to another, and we started to send PMs to each other, and then we moved to emails.  The more we chatted, the more we realised that we have a lot of similarities.  We had similar bad experiences in relationships, when it comes to family members, etc.  The poor girl is now in hospital though, due to her bad bout of asthma attack.  Hope she can recover soon, and then we can meet up for some girls’ talk or something!  ^^

While I was browsing YouTube yesterday, I accidentally stumbled upon this video on this male singer participating in my favourite 星光大道 PK competition… I didn’t catch that few episodes because it was one of those “post-season” shows.  Out of curiousity (because he sang 浮夸, a song that was initially sang by Eason in Cantonese, then recently released by 林志炫 in Chinese), I played the video to see how he sang it.  It was like… oh my… his voice was special, somehow… there’s this… magnetism in his voice that’s impossible to describe.  Intrigued, I started googling more videos on him, and after watching more videos of him singing live at variety shows and music competitions, I’m in love… with his voice.  He’s exceptionally good when he sang live, with just him strumming his guitar or playing on the keyboard.  I mean, really.  His studio recordings actually paled in comparison with his live “unplugged” versions!

Don’t believe me?

All right, this is his official MV of one of his famous songs, 坏人.

He has a nice voice, right?  But seriously, this is nothing compared to his live version.  Watch the video below:-

Or this unplugged version recorded live during a radio interview at Taiwan:

 

I actually teared up when listening to this live version!  Maybe it’s because of the lyrics, plus his raw emotions in his voice… he’s really more suited to sing live… he’s really, really good.  And the best part?  He’s a composer.  He composed most of his songs, and he writes songs for other artistes as well.  Amazing talent.

Here’s the lyrics to the song, 坏人:

那 一扇車門 關出 我們的裂痕
一聲就震斷了回頭的路程

(That car door… Has closed the crack between us

With a thump sound that broke off any chances of turning back)

愛 無法均分 以後 就留給你們
也許用傷害結束 愛才更動人

(Love, can never be split

I’m leaving it to both of you

Perhaps with an ending that hurts, this love can be even more touching)

容忍的人其實並不笨 只是寧可對自己殘忍
既然愛不能恆溫 祝福就給你下一個人

(The person who tolerates is actually not stupid

But he just rather be cruel to himself

Since this love cannot be maintain it’s warmth

I’ll give my blessing to your next person)

**Chorus

你是好人 也是個壞人
對我坦承 只為了朝他狂奔
不能放任 所以放了
這點痛我還能忍

(You’re a good person, also a bad person

Being honest to me is just so you can run to him

Unable to let it be, so I’m letting go

I’m still able to bear this pain)

我是好人 也是個壞人
分得夠狠 你才有藉口轉身
寧願愛 一點不剩
也不忍 看戀人愛成路人

(I’m a good person, also a bad person

With a ruthless breakup, you can then have an excuse to leave

I’d rather not be leaving any trace of love

Than to look at the one I love as a stranger)

容忍的人其實並不笨 只是寧可對自己殘忍
既然愛不能恆溫 祝福就給你下一個人

(The person who tolerates is actually not an idiot

But rather being cruel to himself

Since this love cannot be heated

I’ll give my blessing to your next person)

*Repeat Chorus

三個人從不對等 總有個人必須犧牲
那永恆 ( 那永恆 ) 就等他帶你完成 oh ~

(There can never be three people

There’s always someone who has to sacrifice

That “forever” – I’ll let him walk with you there)

*Repeat Chorus

寧願愛 一點不剩
也不忍 看戀人愛成 路人

(I’d rather not be leaving any trace of love

Than to look at the one I love as a stranger)

 

The lyrics and the story in the official MV just made me cry… :(

寂寞寂寞就好
詞: 施人誠 曲: 楊子樸 編曲: 鍾興民

還是原來那個我 不過流掉幾公升淚所以變瘦
對著鏡子我承諾 遲早我會還這張臉一堆笑容

不算什麼 愛錯就愛錯
早點認錯 早一點解脫

我寂寞寂寞就好 這時候誰都別來安慰擁抱
就讓我一個人去痛到受不了 想到快瘋掉
死不了就還好

我寂寞寂寞就好 你真的不用來我回憶裡微笑
我就不相信我會笨到忘不了 賴著不放掉
人本來就寂寞的 借來的都該還掉
我總會把你戒掉

還是原來那個你 是我自己做夢你有改變什麼
再多的愛也沒用 每個人有每個人的業障因果

會有什麼 什麼都沒有
早點看破 才看得見以後

我寂寞寂寞就好 這時候誰都別來安慰擁抱
就讓我一個人去痛到受不了 想到快瘋掉
死不了就還好

我寂寞寂寞就好 你真的不用來我回憶裡微笑
我就不相信我會笨到忘不了 賴著不放掉
人本來就寂寞的 我總會把你戒掉

=================================

On a side note, hope Japan will get through this nuclear crisis asap, and hope basic necessities and water can reach the survivors at those remote areas.  Temperature is still quite chilly there, and with no power… =/

Our thoughts are with you.  Please be strong, Japan.  I’ll be there to boost your economy as soon as I can!  :3

Was looking at some old CounterStrike beta 5.2 maps… and then suddenly I felt like playing CS again.  :D  Those old maps, that is.  Not the CS 1.6 now.  Those were the good ol’ days when everyone was just having fun playing over LAN and on paGn servers~!

Then I saw news on American’s Alice McGee’s sequel – Alice: Madness Returns, and I immediately recalled the trailer of the very first American Alice McGee game…. and how lovely it was back then when it first came out.  I literally watched it every day at class lab, as I had saved the .mov on my zip disk at that time.  After a quick search on YouTube, I found it again!

So lovingly creepy, don’t you think? Especially the laughter.  Oooh…. my goosebumps.  :3

Was on leave today, and accompanied sis for some shopping therapy.

In the end, we ended up buying some tees from Midooree, a shop which sells 100% cotton tees with very cute, unique hand-drawn designs.  You can see some of its designs on it’s FB page here.  It’s so cute, I tell you!  I fell in love with the pink vamp-bat the moment I saw it.  Like, OMG THAT’S SO KEWT!!!  I nearly wanted to splurge $18 just on the plushie to hang it on my bag, but I managed to rein in myself.  I had to keep telling myself that I have had too many plushies and it’s not that proper for a 30 year old lady to have a rather medium-sized pink plushie hung around her bag.

But it’s so darn cute, omg.  <3 <3 <3

I might just go get it some day if I feel like spending money, so that I can squeal at it every day.  :3

Anyway, after shopping with sis, I went for the company karaoke session.  Our pre-booked room had a speaker-malfunction, so we had to go sing at the hall.  If we wanted to sing, that is.  And it was there, where I finally saw (first-hand) a high-class SPG (Sarong Party Girl).  She was together with another lady way before we reached there, and the moment our “handsome dude” (a new ang-moh colleague) joined us, the SPG started throwing looks at him, which somehow he didn’t caught.

Then when his song came on, he was actually singing it with another of our female colleague, but this SPG had the guts to actually go over to our angmoh colleague, took his mic from him, and held the mic for him.  We were like “WTF who’s this lady o_O?!”  And then she started to sing with him, together over the same mic.  We were all like “O_O;;?!”, and then she was flirting openly and basically throwing herself over him.  Well he flirted back as well, holding the finger that she pointed at him, etc etc.  LOL, basically we (the rest of us) were pretty amused over the whole scene, giggling and whispering behind their backs.  :x  After the song, she spoke into the mic, at him, and asked “So handsome, are these people your friends or colleagues?”  Then he was pretty embarrassed and said, “they are my colleagues, yeah.”  Then she asked “Oooooh, so where do you work at?”  Then he got more embarrassed (since we were at the KTV hall where there were other people around) and said “Um… TPM colleagues, yeah.”  And she went, “Ooooo TPM.” (I’m sure she didn’t know what it stood for anyway, so I didn’t understand why she tried to sound like she knew.)  But yeah, subsequently the rest of us retreated back to our pre-booked room with that malfunction speakers, and he was running in and out of the room, trying to entertain both sides of people, I guess?  XD

Granted, I know generally there are always a lot of girls who threw themselves over Caucasian guys, but come now, this is the NUSS Guild House.  Not some shady bar or pub at Boat Quay~! Well anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen a girl do that… (well I don’t go to bars or pubs, so I’ve never seen SPGs in action with my own eyes before).  And my only word was “wow”.  Haha.  Well to be honest, that new Caucasian colleague of ours is pretty gorgeous.  I hadn’t expect him to openly flirt back though.  He had seemed so mellow and 乖 in office.  :x  But I guess all men like this kind of attention, huh?  XD

On a side note, initially I had wanted to get a GV Max ticket for The Adjustment Bureau, but apparently the reviews ain’t that great.  To be honest, personally I didn’t feel that the plot would be any good either.  It feels very much like The Truman Show (or something… by Jim Carrey).  So in the end, I decided to forego The Adjustment Bureau (despite Matt Damon in it :( ), and booked a ticket to Unknown.  Hope it’ll be a good movie!

 

曾在哪儿听过的话。

曾在书本上看过的字句。

“越懂爱的人，越不敢去爱。”

“在床上躺久了，睡眠一定会来。可是爱一个人久了，他并不一定就是你的。”

“有些人相遇得太早。有些人相遇得太晚。而有些人则是永远都不该相遇的。”

“幸福，从来就不是一个人的事。我们，却总是自己就做了决定。”

“两个本来就不可能只是好朋友的人，却没在一起 – 那就是刻意的错过。”

此时此刻，我真的觉得这几句话好贴切。

好贴切。

*chants IchiRuki IchiRuki*

Isn’t it lovely to go back reading latest chapter of Bleach (while not catching up on the previous numerous chapters) and actually got to see a rather blatant IchiRuki moment?  Awwwwwww…..

It was his memory of Rukia that activated his Fullbring ability.  Oh come now, surely you can’t deny that?  Kubo even drew just the two of them in the freaking one-page panel (page 20, chapter 436).  You know what it means?  Especially after what Chad told him?

Conclusion: Rukia was in his heart all the while.  <3

Can you feel the love~?  :D

Oh oh, and what’s that heart shape doing there? *grins like a cheshire cat*

This was funneh. :D

And this was what I got:

How can I not post this here?! This song is repeating in my browser every freaking day. :D

Oh yes, definitely.

I’m addicted to watching movies alone at theatres.  :D

I caught Black Swan on first day of CNY alone, then The Green Hornet on third day of CNY, alone as well, and today I caught The King’s Speech, alone too.  All three times at Plaza Singapura.  LOL.  They have those single-person seat-row in most of their halls, so it’s really cool to be sitting there alone without worrying about latecomers going “excuse me, excuse me” and stepping on your toes while they tried to toe their way past you to their seats.

Black Swan was brilliant.  The plot kinda kept you guessing on who’s actually doing this and that (although one would be half-guessing the end already, especially if you have watched the trailer and read the synopsis), and there were a few scenes in the movie that made me jumped.  Psychological thriller – that’s how most have classified it to be.  The end was kinda heart-wrenching though, after you pieced everything together.  Natalie Portman really, really held it in together in her and delivered through and through in this film.  I only remembered her in that Star Wars movie (sorry, I didn’t watch that many movies in the past), and I don’t have much of an impression of her back then even though I remembered the name.  But yeah, she definitely showed her awesome acting chops in Black Swan.  Brilliant.

The Green Hornet was more like a … filler movie, for me.  I need to spend the rest of the credits in that HSBC GV card that I have because it’ll expire by end of this month.  So yeah, I went to catch The Green Hornet, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining the movie was.  XD  I mean, just leave your brains at home and go to the theatres to catch it.  And I’m pretty proud that Jay Chou was given quite a meaty role, having almost as much screentime as the lead actor.  Even though Jay’s English suck like hell (I couldn’t catch what he’s saying most of the times – thank goodness for subtitles), he was pretty convincing as The Green Hornet’s sidekick.  I wonder why Hollywood seems to love to cast Chinese actors/actresses as martial arts expert.  Being stereotyped about Chinese Shaolin or something >_>?  Well anyway, I had some good laughs in the cinema, so I guess it’s still good.  :P

The King’s Speech.  Oh man, just like Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush totally blew me away with their solid acting skills.  Both guys have this charismatic screen presence (okay, Geoffrey Rush more, actually), and even though The King’s Speech is not a movie that sets you thinking, I was still totally drawn into the movie.  There were some scenes where it was supposed to be boring – like the two actors sat there and drank some whisky (or whatever alcohol thing) and talked about their lives and stuff – but I just can’t bring myself to be distracted by anything else.  There’s just something about these two actors that made you wanna sit through and listen to their stories, listen to what they have to say, watch their facial expressions, and you really feel it.  You really feel what they are trying to say.  And they were so darn convincing in their roles.  My bladder nearly burst at the end of the movie, and that says a lot about it because I almost always go to loo in the middle of a movie.  I’ll just find some boring scene in between and slip to the ladies, but no, not for The King’s Speech.  I just can’t bring myself to stand up and go to the loo, because I know I’ll definitely miss something.  Predictable plot and ending, of course, but it still left me a little teary-eyed, with a little upturned smile on my face.  It was so heart-warming.  Definitely one of the best non-action/non-thriller films I’ve ever caught.

You know, movies like Black Swan and The King’s Speech are something that I wouldn’t have caught in the past.  Maybe because I’d think it’s too boring for me, nothing interesting, yada yada, you know.  And The Green Hornet will definitely be one of the blacklisted movies on Reko’s list (if it was in the past) as well.  So I won’t be able to catch it either, if he’s still here.  But you know what?  I’m glad I’ve caught all three movies this time.  I think I’m slowly getting my liking for movies back.  Maybe I should buy more of that GV card so that I will force myself to watch more movies (and hopefully, I’ll actually like them – like these three times – after forcing myself to go for them), in order to broaden the genre of movies that I watch.

All right, some movies to catch next… let’s see.  The Mechanic seems good for an action movie (I only took notice of Jason Statham in The Expendables, damn!); I’ll force myself to watch True Grit (not only because it has Matt Damon… but he’s one of the reasons :x); The Adjustment Bureau (Matt Damon again! <3  and it’s almost like Bourne… in a way); I Am Number Four (I don’t like the romance part of it, but the theme seems slightly dark enough to pique my interest); Unknown seems interesting too.

Oh yeah, besides going for movies alone, I think I’m addicted to singing KTV too.  D:  This is crazy, but I’ve been going KTV every week since last year’s Christmas Eve (save for the weekend when I was in Finland in January).  And my urge to sing doesn’t seem to be stopping, at least not anytime soon.  XD  Maybe it was all the pent up desire to sing but not doing it as much as I had wanted to for the past few years. :x

Onwards to other stuff.

This weekend was jam-packed.  I just had to squeeze in some time for my karaoke practice, so I went darn early to PartyWorld KTV at NEX, because I had planned to drop by my sis’ place after that to see if she needed any extra pair of hands to help with the kids as we had planned to celebrate Dylan’s birthday at the Airport.  But halfway through my KTV session, Kelvin messaged to tell me that my sis was having a sudden high fever, and the celebration had to be called off.  So after informing my parents about it, I dropped by my sis place to check on how she’s doing and stuff, before heading back home.  And today – well there was The King’s Speech in the morning, and I went to Ka Wai’s place for a small CNY gathering.  Too bad Fong wasn’t able to make it.  =(

Next weekend will be packed too.  I’m meeting a couple of friends (lovely people whom I met from EDMW :D) next Sat for another KTV session and probably a late movie session as well, and then there’s the postponed birthday celebration for Dylan on Sunday.  Busy busy busy! But… being busy’s good.  :)  Keeps the mind off stuff… >.<  Well, at least I think I’m starting my Year of Rabbit in the right way.  Are you?  ;)

The Year of Rabbit will be here in about 15 minutes time.

Lunar New Year hardly brought about any changes for me in the past, but I’m wishing this time it will. I’m desperately in need of some changes.

I need to shake off unnecessary/unhealthy relationship habits; I need to go out and enjoy myself more with the company that I enjoy; I need to open up to new experiences.

My first step? I’ve booked myself a tix to watch Black Swan tomorrow, on the first day of LNY, alone. Watching a movie alone is nothing new, but Black Swan is not the type of movie I would willingly go watch in the past. It would be the type of movie that I would be interested in the storyline, but not to watch it as a movie. For some reason, I always get sucked in too deep (emotionally) when it comes to live action movies… hence, for such storylines, I usually much prefer to read a novel than to watch a movie.

But like I said, I need to open up my mind more and experience new stuff. So yeah, I’ll be watching Black Swan. Let’s hope I won’t regret my decision. XD

I’d also made a rather large-impact decision before I actually went for the Finland trip. Those who are supposed to know about it have already knew, plus a few others whom I’ve told recently, so I don’t wish to divulge it here. I’m not sure if it’s the right decision, but let’s hope it’s at least a wise one. I think… it’s kinda necessary for now. For me, at least. I’m still having some regrets, most of them coming from the fact that… old habits die hard.

I guess I should just give myself more time to adjust and adapt to the current situation (yeah, even though I’m the one who caused the situation to be like this now). And I guess I’m just really tired. And I still am. Don’t know how long it’ll take for me to recover, recharge, re-energise… I know a lot of you are helping, and I really thank you guys and gals for being there for me. A big hug to all of you. ^^

And as for you (you know who you are), thank you for going along with this, even though I know it’s very difficult for you. Just remember that there is always a silver lining behind every cloud. :) For every thing that has happened, there’s bound to be a reason for it.  Taking a step back to re-evaluate your direction in life is pretty much necessary at this point in time.  The same goes for me.

Well this is the last post by me in the Year of Tiger.  Good bye, Kitty-Cat – see you in 12 years time.

And hello, Rabbit! :D