Ambition

I'm still trying my best to take as many pretty photographs and pictures as I can to go with my blog posts. I personally find it so much easier to appreciate a post with nice pictures put in because as cliche and as old as it gets, "a picture speaks a thousand words". At least if you're not one to sit through a whole mass of text, you can probably just admire and appreciate the photos and get a hint of my feelings through them.

So this panorama shot was taken from my bedroom window in the evening as the sun began to set. It was such a quietly majestic and calming scene - I just had to capture it because no two skies are the same. Yours truly went through a lot of trouble to shoot this. I had to grab the window grille key to unlock the grilles and get them out of the way.

Most of you would know that panorama shots require you to move the camera horizontally across a length of scenery, so in order to capture as much as possible, my upper body was hanging out of the window pretty precariously! And mind you, I did this whole upper-body-hanging-out-move-phone-from-left-to-right action not once but SEVERAL times to get a satisfying shot. But it was worth it.

My favourite shot is one where I caught the light of day and darkness of night together in a transition, although it's a pity that the resolution isn't clear. The silhouettes of the HDB apartment blocks added to the whole romantic ambience of the picture :D

Recently I've begun to have a clearer idea of what I want to do in the future.

Previously I've never known what I wanted to do. I only knew what I didn't want to do. I also had various changes in fuzzy goals and ambitions throughout my school life from primary school till now.

I started off with the dreamy and naive desire to be a svelte and pretty air stewardess as a young girl. Then at the end of my primary school life and starting secondary I wanted to be a pediatrician. Somewhere in my first year of JC i had considered joining the army, and now I've more or less got my sights on a journalism career or something related to Mass Comm! More specifically, I'm working towards applying for the SPH undergraduate scholarship next year. It won't be easy - this year only 7 received scholarships from SPH in the undergraduate sector.

It'll be pretty awesome if i can get the scholarship and get into that line of career. Reading some "testimonies" by previous recipients of the scholarship, I realized that I would actually very much enjoy myself. Generally from what I gather, a journalism career involves more understanding and clear conveyance instead of superb language skills. After all, the whole point of the news industry is to convey accurate news and useful information to masses. If i get the scholarship I'd most likely attend an overseas university because I'd want to experience living abroad and being exposed to a different environment and people.

Also I've always wanted to understand and experience as far and as much as possible the different situations faced by people from all walks of life, and journalism would involve getting close and personal to all kinds of people and events. Now that I have a clearer idea of what i want to do, I've been putting in more effort in my reading, getting myself to read the TIMES magazines.

Not only that - I've somehow had the urge to kickstart a daily exercise regime to start slimming down and be healthier. It's not like I've never been motivated to start exercising - I tend to lose motivation after about 2 weeks or so. So hopefully this regime keeps up! I don't think it'll be too difficult since I managed to get a silver for my NAPFA miraculously despite not training at all. Perhaps the fruits of my labour from my military band days have not been completely wiped off.

All in all, I feel much better about myself now since I have a direction now.

Animals

Before I delve into a rant-questioning expository, I'm gonna lighten my mood by posting up photos I took today at Drury Lane,Tanjong Pagar!

I met my sister near her workplace at Tanjong Pagar during lunch break to have an early birthday meal with her before she gave me a brief tour of her office.

Drury Lane serves all-day brekkies though we only had their pasta specials so I can't comment on the brekkies there:( 

 I'm sure everyone has seen these little ornamental dolls somewhere sometime in their lives before, but most don't actually know what they are called!

These are called Matryoshka Dolls, also known as Russian nesting dolls :) While waiting for our pastas to come, i decided to take photos of these cutesies.

The place has a really chill atmosphere to it - perfect if you just wanna sit round and talk to friends over coffee. They apparently serve interesting flavours of tea as well, like Creme Brulee-flavoured ones.

Near the entrance they have a large section of the wall decorated with used coffee packages - kinda like a hall of fame. It's mostly for decor though, because i highly doubt people would actually stop and take a look at them.

My pasta : Smoked Salmon with avocado, spinach and mushrooms with a cream base. I confess it's actually my first time trying smoked salmon. I'm not a huge fan of raw delicacies like sashimi (yes I know I'm missing out on life) so it took me some time to get used to smoked salmon since it tasted a little like sashimi salmon. But it was pretty good though I kinda got scared - they were really generous with the salmon.

My sister's pasta: Beef salami with asparagus pasta tossed in truffle-oil aglio olio style. When it first arrived we were kinda unimpressed since the presentation wasn't too inviting and the pasta portion seemed small even for relatively small Asian eaters like us. The taste was okay and the portion was filling enough, though it was disappointing that it was a little cold by the time it arrived. Stacey didn't finish the last few strands of pasta because it was all drenched in oil.

This area has shophouses EVERYWHERE. Literally everywhere I went there would always be shophouses around. There is an endless variety and number of cafes and restaurants here to try - a great haunt for cafe-hoppers who enjoy the vintage or hippie concept of cafes, or authentic Jap ramen and Korean cuisine lovers.

As my sister walked me to Outram MRT after lunch and a tour of her workplace, I saw this row of shophouse office that caught my eye. What i find really interesting are the fire escape ladders attached to each balcony. I wonder if they actually work.

I was also happy that I got to see my sister's workplace at the productions company Free Flow Productions. Think creative, fun, spontaneous and colourful yet classy as the concept for the interior of the office - pretty important for a bunch of people who need a working environment full of inspiration to get those creative juices and sprightly ideas flowing, kinda like Google albeit less exuberant. I didn't get to take a picture of the birthday girl (or lady, because 26 isn't that young anymore!) so :(

Anyway!

Recently there has been so many issues surfacing on social media like Twitter raising controversy as people all around voice their aghast opinions about LGBT, the MH17 etc.

While it's seen as being rational and morally sensible to question the seemingly unreasonable like

"How can you limit the freedom to love!"

"What,your religion says love the sinner and hate the sin, but you're just contradicting yourselves because it's how they are!"

"Humans killing humans!"

I beg to differ.

A whole fucking big bunch of whywhywhy. But it's inherent in human nature to question, to feel a sense of discomfort towards injustice and inequality. I don't mean to say that curiosity and a well-working moral compass is bad.

I just have an issue about people - too many people in fact - jumping to conclusions and stands, being strongly opinionated about what is deemed as fair and justified. Exactly how many of these people actually bother to understand both sides?

Think about it - nobody (most of the time) would do things that are unreasonable to themselves. So while you go all being righteous and talk big about human rights to this "freedom" and basic sense and reason, you fail to understand that the opposition actually understands where you're coming from but choose not to agree with you simply because they have their own reason as much as you do your own.

I do not have a stand with regards to LGBT, but being someone raised in a Christian family attending church services every Sunday, I at least understand why Christian (and maybe Muslim groups) are against LGBT even though I have not yet made a dedication or choice to accepting Christianity and therefore sometimes wonder if LGBT was indeed that serious. It would be too lengthy to just attempt to explain why.

But there are more people out there who have not made much of an effort to understand the religious rationale and therefore follow the masses or just their moral compasses to voice disagreement. And this is also just because they want to keep matters secular.

Many people mistake "secular" for "reasonable". If I were a strong Christian with  true faith (Note: not those who lightly introduce themselves as Christians and are just saying that for the bloody sake of it), I'd probably also be supporting the Wear White campaign even if my consciousness is the same as when I'm writing this post. That's only because as a Christian, I would have dedicated my life to God and therefore since it is implied in the Bible that it is Man and Woman and not otherwise, I would follow on his Word and reject the idea (NOT the people I strongly emphasize) of LGBT because MY reason now is simply God.

LGBT controversies and debates will not end very soon - no one can see the end as of yet I assume. Every single one of us are animals following our instincts to survive in the world. The hopes and dreams of a free-loving community or a religious and God-loving people will remain as wishes. Just because you assert that your argument makes sense and is reasonable doesn't mean that your opponent would agree humbly and back down. THEY think the same as you in that aspect.

In the end no one is willing to back out and thus you see such animalistic behaviour.

18

Soooo today I'm gonna write about how my 18th birthday went :)

My birthday was on Friday 4th July and i kinda celebrated my birthday that day, but i had so much fun during the weekend break i decided that my birthday was celebrated for the whole week!

So on Friday mom and I went to Kimage at Funan to get our hair done. I don't know if it's just me, but going to the hair salon is exciting because you always look forward to having a change in your looks. I went there last year in Dec to get my hair permed, so Friday was my second visit. Mom went to get her hair dyed cos her white hair was getting obvious, and I went to get a trim and cut since my curly hair was getting out of control with split ends ugh.

Mom looking step playing with her phone while waiting for her hair to get done.

My hair took pretty long to do - the hairdresser was a trainee so she had to consult her mentors repeatedly while i just sat there awkwardly and tried encouraging her by smiling (albeit awkwardly). In the end i felt like my new hair resembled that of those rich stuck-up antagonistic women in those Korean dramas LOL.

It seems like selfies with moms are getting more popular nowadays so here you go haha.

Then at night my sister took me to dinner at my old workplace Cacio e Pepe! It felt great to be back and my bosses were so nice and welcoming. Okay I'm gonna entice you with food pics now LOL

 Italian antipasti platter with carpaccio, calamari, honeydew with parma ham, caprese, portobello mushroom and grilled vegetables!

Vongole pasta!

Truffle cream Tagliatelle

 My date for the night LOL

Oh and this is my birthday cake hahaha. My bosses surprised me by suddenly bringing this out. Turns out my sister had called beforehand to ask them to reserve a small cake for me awwww.

So it's Lava cake with ice cream for desserts!

My sister Stacey :)

And my bosses Jack and Bee!:)

My sister was testing out her new camera and she sent me this picture cos it came out nice! I can never smile properly i look kinda angry in the pic tho.

After dinner my sis and I took a cab home but when we reached our doorstep it turned out that NONE OF US HAD A KEY and our parents weren't home yet. Ugh we called mom and she asked us to just hang around and wait before they came back. So we went down to 7 Eleven where i got a flavoured Korean beer just to celebrate my legal-ness this year haha. While waiting for our parents my sis and I just sat and shared the beer while talking. Fun times, fun times.

On sat after doing the household chores with my sister, my family and I drove to Teo Heng at Ten Mile Junction to KARAOKEEEEEE!! haha recently my family (my parents esp) have been into karaoke as a hobby so my sister decided to book a room and have some quality family time.

Choosing songs..

Haha my sister and I laughed cos while mom sang the first song my dad grabbed the tambourine and started playing along as you can see, with a goofy grin HAHAHA

Turns out, 2 hours weren't enough for us but we couldn't extend our time there cos' the room had already been booked after us.

My family met up with my eldest sister and my brother-in-law at Taman Jurong to eat STINGRAY for my birthday dinner! But i don't have pictures cos' i only remembered after finishing the food and getting ready to go home. The food was really good and I was hungry so :( no pictures.

On Sunday it was as usual, going to church and all. But i decided to make lasagne for dinner for the family from scratch. Okay not really, i cheated with the meat sauce by using Preggo tomato sauce. But in the end it turned out pretty satisfactory and my family liked it so :)

Just feast your eyes on that!!! Bet your mouths are watering haha

So today I was supposed to hang out with mom but she had a headache so i went out myself to shop for stuff. I needed to get some face stuff so I went to Etude House. Since i spent more than 50 bucks there i was entitled to a free makeup by this makeup artist over there, so i ended up having to sit in the store while this makeup artist Ron did my makeup with many customers walking by to look which was AWKWARD. I felt more awkward when i swiveled my eyes to the corner and saw my band junior looking at me rather amused. 

AWKWARDAWKWARDAWKWARD.

After it was done i thanked the salesgirls and the artist there then quickly went to the toilet.

And i was shocked.

The makeup was thick!!! I do put makeup like cream and eyeliner but this was THICK. And i never had my eyebrows drawn on before so i wasn't used to it and i felt like i looked like Ernie's brother, Bert.

I went home and mom helped me wipe off some of the brow makeup so that i won't look so intimidating cos you know, the brows kinda made me look angry somehow haha.

I'm not gonna clean off the makeup yet cos mom said it was nice and wanted me to go take my passport photo after dinner later like that so yeap. I decided to take a couple of selfies just to be shameless and show you, and also to kinda keep a memory of it:

I like what Ron did for my eye makeup, though it kinda hurts cos i can still feel the tension on my lids from the lash curler pulling. But i feel great - it's like celebrating my 18th birthday with some great makeup done up, bringing out the vain female in me.

So this is how my birthday celebrations went! Yeah i didn't celebrate with friends cos i didn't make plans with them and i guess most of them are busy, but i had great fun celebrating with my family over quality time and food.

Krona's Circle

WADDUP.

haha CT2 was over last week and i spent most of my weekend break slacking alot - mainly playing Sims 3 and rewatching random Soul Eater episodes on Youtube, aside from having my 18th birthday celebrated with my family :)

But for today's post I'm not gonna write about my birthday yet - prolly tmr haha.

I was watching Soul Eater again and came across one of my favourite episodes where Maka tries to understand Krona and establish a friendship with her. It's there, below. My favourite part starts from 12:27 till the end but you're welcome to watch the whole episode LOL.

Oh and Krona's A GUY. I know, it's really misleading cos Krona has this girly lavender hairdo and WEARS A DRESS?? Plus the voice and the name hahaha. 

Even though the video's up i screenshot my favourite scenes about Krona's circle (and added my commentary wewewewew)

So we're here in the sand dunes of Krona's world which is apart from what's happening in real life (for the show that is)

Krona's really depressing huh, and even her words are like the sad lines of a melancholic poem: "No ideals spring forth from the ground I kick up; The light of a lifeless sun beams down on me." But this is how i feel when I'm terribly bored and restless too LOL.

 And so begins a series of questions by Shadow Krona to our lil' Krona, to which lil' Krona constantly passes... (i didn't put all of them up!)

And poor Shadow Krona disappears feeling dejected. Just look at how many questions Krona passed :O

So lil' Krona cries and cries and cries...

Oh it's our adorable chibi Maka!!!

And she growls too LOL.

Krona's all like "holy shiet who's dis terribly cute but freaky girl'

If Krona was Singaporean she'd be lining her spot with tissue papers.

Maka, you look like you did that on purpose you are horrible.

 Actually Maka's pretty mean LOL. If i were Krona I'd be all BITCH GTFO MY CIRCLE NOW

Crap. My circle's gone.

So back in real life Krona gets a rejection reaction and her body kinda became all spikey cos' her space had been invaded. But Maka manages to get through to her and suggests that they be friends. ISN'T THAT SO CUTE.

And look, even Shadow Krona's happy :)

There's always this struggle between my consciousness and my thoughts, like Krona albeit less depressing. Usually at night before i fall asleep and when i face my own self, I always ask questions that i struggle to answer myself, but end up ignoring them because it's just so easy to not acknowledge them.

I also hate it when people try to break my circle of defense even though i know that I'm only shutting myself out from the world. And sometimes even relationships can't erase the line i draw because it always feels like i will be on the losing end, or that i'll just be plain sick and tired.