LifeSolo

Life has been busy, but i can't complain too much.

I've been working...

I've been traveling...

Just came back from shanghai, suzhou and guangzhou. It was a tiring two-week trip.

I've been having insomnia and staying up all nights..

I've been reading on uncle kay suan's "technical analysis of the financial market" after losing quite a sum in china hongxing..

I've been watching films and listening to music all night long..

I've been polishing up my french and planning of going to france for a holiday before end of the year..

I've been toying with the idea of doing a master degree in finance, okay it doesn't have to be finance but since i've been reading up stuff on that myself so why not spend one or two years doing a master..

Too many things, too little time.

Let's start from the beginning of the year. The Chinese New Year.

Had reunion dinner in shanghai with E and a bunch of people whom i met for the very first time. The weather was moderately chilly, and we went to the Bund on the first day of chinese new year, with a chauffeur who only speaks shanghainese and a reluctant tour guide following us around. Peace Hotel was closed for renovation, i wondered where the elderly jazz band was performing now. It was insanely crowded at the Bund, packed by people coming from all over china. Shanghai, the largest city of china, the fast-growing economic hub, and the oriental pearl.

I love the small alleys of shanghai.

In the chilly wind of shanghai, i smiled like a blooming flower.

Taking a lift up the famous Oriental Pearl Tower, only to find the view almost the same as what you get from our Equinox. I bet for those who have taken a ride on Singapore Flyer, the view is of no much difference. Really, that kind of altitude indeed provides a fantastic panoramic view of the city, but sadly, all cities look quite alike. There are differences of course, but they are negligible.

Went clubbing at G5, if i didn't remember the name wrongly. It's a new club. The music was alright, the furnishing looks like those clubs in KL. There's no cover charge, but the Moet&Chardon is 40 bucks more expensive than that at Zouk. Every bottle comes with a sparkler, and yes, i burned my finger, again.

The following day was spent nursing the hangover. Once again, i swore i wouldn't do binge drinking anymore.

Harbin.

Harbin is a much more compact and exquisite city compared to Shanghai. On the highway back to the city, the sun shone on my face, and it felt like those good old days when i was on my way back home from school in the afternoon, thinking how to spend the long afternoon.

I'm tired of writing. The accumulation of words makes me feel like throwing up. So let me just put some pictures.

Turning into FM99.5. Instead of the lush music they usually play, the two male DJs just kept talking among themselves like they didn't manage to buy their morning cup of coffee and now are performing the responsibility of keeping each other awake by incessant chatting of nonsense. Enough is enough. Switched to Caetano Veloso's songs that i don't understand a word of. That is even better.

Then here the rain comes, when i'm applying cuticle oil from the dead sea. The lights are on and the curtains are down. The sound of rain bashing the trees mercilessly complements the brazillian songer's sensual voice and foreign language very well. Terra. Terra. Terra.

Pretending the sky never brightens up. I applied the first layer of base oil onto my now polished and shiny fingernails.

After much time wasted, there is only one quiz from iLikeness Unrated left undone. 'Never have i ever...'. None of the listed options sounds unfamiliar to me, which sets me thinking, when E said i'm naughty on a daily basis, he may actually have a point there. But well, if he is to take the same quiz, i can picture him scratching his head too.

The rain is getting annoying. I wake up at 12noon these days, and the rain easily sends me back to sleep again.

They are finally over, together with crowds of santa claus/santarinas, christmas movie marathons, sales, shopping mall lucky draws, carolings, festive season binge drinkings, fireworks, new year's eve countdowns, countless forwarded merry christmas/happy new year messages.

ChristMASS shopping. This year i've contributed much to the retail sector of singapore's already bustling economy. Among all the presents sent and received, it seems that body/skin care products are everybody's favorite. Products ranging from Marks and Spensor, The body Shop, Crabtree and Evelyn, Origins, L'occitane, Molton Brown were hanged hands. The most I-will-never-spend-money-on present i've received, is a set of La Praire products. It sets me thinking, if i use La Praire at this age, then i've really no idea what skin care products i should use when i grow old. And no, suffering from quarter-age-crisis doesn't mean i'm getting old.

Having a headache choosing christmas presents for your loved ones? I've found out some useful websites that can help do the job by taking into consideration the person's star sign. Tried and tested. It worked wonders for me.

Predict A Gift

and

Present Picker

There is still one present left unclaimed on the shelf. Hope it can be sent out by next week.

Christmas Countdown. I don't know whether it's a common practice in other places and how many people actually did it, but if you are not a kid anticipating for santa claus coming down the chimney, that practice is inexcusable. I'm not EVEN talking about installing a Christmas countdown timer on your desktop (crossing off the dates on calendar is so last-century), but crowds counting down the SECONDS to christmas with CHEERS and CHAMPAGNE and FIREWORKS. And they are not even christians. That left me speechless. I love my fellow revelers. What i can't stand is people reveling to a good cause in a fucking stupid manner.

New Year's Eve was much more fun. Was working at this event at Chijmes. Finished the job in the first two hours and then partied away with the retro disco hits. We cordoned off an area next to the stage since the dance floor was just insanely crowded, and danced away with the emcee, dj, photographer and some other friends.

Photos.

Christmas Even Masquerade Party.

New Year's Eve party

Farrari Gala Dinner

Video Shoot for Singapore Cruise Centre. Daniel was my husband of that day.

I like this makeup. It's done by japanese makeup artist Suzuki who speaks better mandarin than english.

Lastly,

Merry Christmas. Heh.

But W volunteered to organize, and i'm always game for new things. So despite my sleep deprivation on saturday night, I was at gallery hotel at 8am on sunday morning doing my hair and makeup and having a hearty breakfast at the same time, finding myself constantly positioning my plates strategically to prevent the hairspray from dropping on my bacon, or into my coffee.

"Partied until morning again huh." Arthur sighed about my under eye circle.

"Boyfriend to blame." I was busy rescuing my broken sunny side up, "He went crazy last night."

Finally got the broken yolk onto the toast, just before i took a bite, i noticed the understanding smile on arthur's face. "We were cleaning up my wardrobe." I found myself adding unnecessarily.

The shoot started half an hour later than scheduled. Arthur doesn't deal well with stress and i finished off the remaining 30% of the makeup myself. Despite the late start, the shoot turned out to be totally enjoyable. Imagine 8 photographers and one model, suddenly you are the focus of the group enjoying your 10 mins of fame in front of the camera.

I admire my courage to agree to bare my forehead. Time to get a new hairstyle again.

The average age of the people present at the party is at least 30, not counting the kids they bring along. It was brought down by a few years after Wendy and I arrive.

I appreciate the effort put in by those people around the BBQ pit, but honestly, the food is mediocre. Chickens wings are not properly marinated, and when it is cooked, it is half with blood streaks and the other half turned to carbon. Black carbon. The beef slices taste like rubber. Fish ball is way too salty. And the prawns? I dare not even try. And there is barbecue banana wrapped in aluminium foil. BARBECUE BANANA!

And the drinks. Since i can't drink beer nowadays, i stick to wine. While i am talking to a russian male virgo, Randy mercilessly pour in about two packs of absolut vodka to my wine, and tells me that is 'sangria', a famous spanish wine cocktail. Of course i have no idea what sangria tastes like for i was never a cocktail person, but instinctively i feel he is bluffing me. Cocktails should never be so nasty tasting. It is a good party starter though cos it hit me very fast. Well, it also might be because i drink on a empty stomach.

So that russian guy. He shares exactly the same date of birth with E. Same year, same day, just like Libo and yingying and I.

"This is not good." I smile.

"Why?" A big question sign printed on his furrowed forehead.

"We will quarrel." I nod.

"How can you be so certain?" He looks genuinely puzzled.

"I have live proof." I nod.

Photos.

Was at this Mary Chia event last week. Wearing Cheongsam and the job scope is to laze around doing nothing, and to play tic-tac-toe on a huge board with customers. The only good thing was there were a lot of photographers there to entertain me.

Me and Victoria.

Then the Safety and Security Asia 2007. I was there, but not as an civil engineer shopping for safety equipment, but an F1 girl playing the arcade race game.

And played it for three freaking days.

I hope that makes me eligible to participate in the F1 game when it's held in singapore next year.

I was told by a friend that i was on Channel 5 news. Was teaching some senior minister of Ministry of Home Affairs how to play arcade race game at the opening ceremony.

Oh birthday. Was working on my birthday, and had dinner with E and his parents at Senso in the evening.

Went to Zouk to meet Wendy and Jasmine at night, and passed Wendy her belated (for 4 months) birthday present.

Phuture was insanely crowded, and i almost had a claustrophobia attack. Not to mention dancing.

The flaming lamborghini really hit me. Didn't remember much about what happened after that.

Photos were submitted by a photographer friend who works for Straits Times, and those write-up about me is the author's interpretation after a short phone interview, which means, partially accurate. But still, it'll be nice if you guys could vote for me at http://multimedia.asiaone.com/static/multimedia/a1face/octvote.html#octgirl4

p.s. Yeah happy birthday.

Met CS who's leaving for KL this coming sunday and we had chicken rice at a store at Purvist Street for lunch.

After a casting at Changi i went to visit DL. That poor girl was not feeling well and she ordered chicken cooked with some kind of slutty-looking mushrooms for dinner at SIA recreational club. I didn't want to eat of course, but ended up finishing half of it, as usual. It was tasty.

At night. I was wondering what E's mum was cooking for dinner since i remembered she told me she was going to cook something special. When dinner was served, i discovered, miraculously, it was kampong chicken. Since i was the one who said i like kampong chicken few days back, i managed to devour quite a few pieces on top of the prawns, rice, kai lan, and pamelo.

So this is my day with the chickens.

A little bit bitter on my taste buds. It is an acquired taste.

I suspect this is the grey matter of some big fish. It is pretty bad to eat up the brains of other animals, i think.

"So what is this?" I ask the pretty waitress.

"Silver cod fish milt." She smiles.

I'm searching my vocabulary for the word 'milt'. Nothing.

Seeing me look confused, she kindly explains, "It is fish sperm", and winks at me.

So here it is. What is worse than eating fish brain, is to eat fish sperm.

Hmm, tastes better than that of their homo sapien masters i have to say.

Was out with the girls last night. At MOS. It's never my hangout place but the girls love it. When i reached there it was almost midnight. After three vodka tonic, i was still as sober as a judge. It's not right to even talk about soberness, for the whole night i was wondering whether the cute bartender had added in any vodka in the tonic water.

At Smoove. Extrodinarily crowded, we were in a can of packed sardines. The angmoh DJ was playing hip hop.

Not my type of music.

There were a lot of malays and indians around, and the average age for the guys around is 20.

Not my type of crowd.

The only consolation was being with the girls whom i haven't had seen for a while. They were really enjoying themselves. I was only like that when i was in university Year One. Another sign of growing old apart form dehydrated skin.

So it was too crowded to dance, and i so very accidentally stepped on a malay girl's toes. She got all pissed off and was giving me hostile stares and purposely hitting on my hip accidentally using her elbow while dancing. She can only hit on my hip for her head can barely reach my shoulder.

Tolerance is not my greatest strength. When her bangle hit my pelvic bone accidentally again and that kind of hurt, i turned around, stepped back to make some room for her, and gave her a hard kick, on the stomach. She fell down on the floor and was struggling to get up and get back at me.

It was so crowded hence there was no reason not to cover myself conveniently with some guy who turned around to see what happened. I thought those people dancing with her just now were her friends, but strangely they were trying to get a hold of her, instead of me. So i was just standing there, giving curteous smiles when other people looking for the person who initiated the fight. After doing so many photo shoots, i knew how photogenic that smile on my face was.

That malay girl was still struggling to find me, but the tightly packed crowd was not of much help. I was very confused. Apparently this is what happens when a small-sized girl fights with a bigger-sized one. She gets kicked. And now she wants to come back for more. I was speechless about certain people's stupidity, at the mean time i started to regret about my choice of the heels of the day. I should have worn the other pair with patent lether, and of course, thinner, higher and pointer heel. Hopefully that would kick the dumbness out of her head and make her a little bit brighter.

I heard one of her friends scream 'Security'. I certainly didn't want to make a big scene, so we moved to another area of the dance floor before the security guards came. J seemed to be very entertained by my bravery. She kissed on my lips before dancing away with an ABC guy.

Hmm, that was pretty much the highlight of the night.

Sorry there are no photos. My new phone doesn't have flash to take photos in dark places.

1. You run from appointment to appoinment.

2. It's very unprofessional to be late.

3. You have to look the part.

I've been running late for every appointment for the past few days. Not intentionally but old habits die hard. Last time i met Arin when she was in singapore i was almost one hour late. She was very cool about it and told me that i've had never changed.

So yesterday i was on my way to the fitting for the starhub tvc. I scheduled three appointments in a row in the afternoon, with the hope that the traffic would be smooth. But of course Murphy's Law states that things will always go wrong in the given situation. So you can guess that the traffic was a mess in town that day. The stupid streetdirectory.com i always refer to before i come out of the house showed me a real long way to get to Henderson Road, i could get there much faster if i just followed the way i know. But well, it was the fear of getting lost, which has been my favorite activity ever since i started relying on myself to get around.

Oh by the way, streetdirectory.com is very helpful for those who can't read maps. It gives detailed direction of how to get to your target place, and the maps are of high quality. You can choose whether you want to go by 'shortest distance' or 'shortest time', and preference of 'major road', 'minor road' or 'nearest expressway', and distance and traveling time is automatically calculated. It's only available for singapore, malaysia and indonesia though. For the rest, try maps.google.com.

So i was about half an hour late and Esther kept calling me to tell me that client was getting impatient and they were all waiting for me while i was stuck in a jam. That was certainly not a pleasant feeling.

Reached. Got changed. Talking to the stylist. Until now i'm still wondering whether that was a man or woman. She appears to be a woman, with colorful dress and well manicured nails and a bangle from Cartier, but when she talks, the voice belongs to a man. I was observing her while she was styling my dress. The bone structure seems to be of a woman, but the boobs are very small. Negligible. She carrys herself very femininely. Or maybe she is just trying too hard. Very tall, wearing flats, but still a little bit taller than me when i was on my 3-inch heels. That makes her at least 1.78m or 1.80m.

That is a pretty good illustration of the people in the fashion industry. Who you are is not important. Not important at all. The only thing matters is who you appear to be. If you can appear to be a woman while you are actually a man, what is impossible?

Again i've deviated from what i wanted to say in the beginning of this entry. I'm not disciplined enough to talk about punctuality after all.

Good night everybody.

Before the clock ticks over 12 noon, good morning everyone.

Taking CTE instead of Bukit Timah, and when i mysteriously end up at Paya Lebar, i realize i'm on the right highway, but in the wrong direction. Impatience kicks in. E is waiting for me for dinner.

I never understood why in the middle of the night when there is barely any traffic on the road people still religiously wait at the traffic light. So at a small T junction i conveniently overlooked one, and made a right turn. At that time, i certainly didn't notice the ominous dark clouds gathering overhead.

Now i guess everything exits for a reason.

One motorcycle made its appearance out of a blue, and clearly it was speeding.

At that split second i started believing in repentance. So the motorcycle stopped when the distance between us was 0.1cm. I stopped too.

The poor guy who was almost killed under my wheels is a stocky malay young man. Sincerely i delivered my apology. Undoubtedly it was not accepted. "You almost killed me. I don't care. I need to take down the registration number and make a police report." was the reply.

"Pleeeeeeease. I've lost my way and i've already past my curfew time. My mum will scold me if she knew this. She has a terrible temper." Sob.

"I don't care. You beat the red light and you almost killed me."

Seems that i can't charm my way out of this situation. I check the side mirror, the makeup for the photo shoot isn't too thick. It must be the race then, i think to myself.

"You see, nobody gets anything if you make a police report. There must be a better way that we can settle this."

"I don't care. You almost hit me so you have to pay the price." That malay guy has no creativity at all. PM Lee must be very disappointed because of his disability of thinking out of the box.

"Oh? How about monetary compensation?" I hear myself. I know that i certainly don't mean that.

"I don't care. I'm sorry. Bye~bye."

Did i just detect a slight tinge of relish in his tone?

Saying byebye but he is not moving.

I finally realize that this has nothing to do with creativity. He's simply DUMB. If he was not dumb, then the reason for not leaving must be waiting for me to offer an amount for him to consider. That is simply EVIL. If that was true and he makes it so easy for others to see through his intention, then he's simply an IDIOT.

I'm amused by my own thoughts and smiled. At the same time, my patience runs out. I get into the car and advise him, "if you want to make a police report, please please find a witness first. otherwise my words against yours, the policeman won't even bother."

"You follow me to police station," he gets furious, "or you stay here and wait for me".

That again proves me assumption of him being an idiot, perhaps evil and dumb too.

My patience really runs out.

I drive away and show him the middle finger.

Acting out Ruth in front of camera gives me a great kick. It certainly gives the phrase 'camera whoring' an accurate description too. Strangely, reading out her lines gives me the same feeling as throwing myself into luxury Egyptian Cotton bed linen of 1000 thread count. The comfortableness. The laziness. The sexiness. I wonder how many people like acting simply because the idea of living some lives they would never have the chance to in real lives fascinates them. For me, i don't like acting. I just like the character.

Later upon my enquiry, the director revealed that Mediacorp has sent down quite a few actresses for the casting of the same character, among some other students from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. All of them make a living from acting, so sadly the conclusion is that the chance of landing the role is very very slim. The director is a young aspiring well-educated seemingly successful decently good-looking man who just came back from the states. Since he gave me his card, maybe i should call him to arrange a private audition. What you say?

After the casting E and i started drinking margarita at 3 in the afternoon at holland village. All the way to 4am the next morning. Was very tired and sleepy. I think i'm getting old.

Bought a bottle of lubricant from ColdStorage. Lubricant for my contact lens. What did you think it was for? And i forgot to pay for it. Blame on the alcohol. Well, still, i'm such a thief.

Four photo shoots, including one bridal shoot which was darn amusing, and 5 days at the Tempus the watch exhibition consistuted my working life.

I was stationed at Harry Winston at Tempus event together with QiQi. Before that i've had vaguely heard of the brand Harry Winston as some high-end Jewelry brand from America, but when i looked up on the internet i realized that comparing to this unfamiliar brand, Tiffany&Co is really very, very affodable.

So the first day i was modelling a 1.9 million dollars diamond watch, or rather, a full diamond bracelet with a hidden dial where you can tell the time from. With 754 diamonds, totalling up 75 carats, the watch is at least half a kg. I wonder who would spend that hefty amount of money on this heavy piece of jewelry. This is not the most expensive watch at the exhibition though, the most expensive one is a 4.5 million torsion clock but that's a big machine.

This photo was taken amateurly using my phone.

Some other photos i've gotten back from some photographers.

Photo curtesy of Brian Koh.

Photo curtesy of Willis Liu.

Me and QiQi, my partner for 5 days. She is a very spontaneous and easy-going girl who has been modeling for about a year. And she is 1.73cm tall.

The whole event was very fun although standing on 3-inch heels for hours was certainly beyond the fun part. Have met a lot of people too. Serious watch collectors, celebrity watch makers, millionaire watch dealers, top socialites, prominent ones from singapore's high society, and of course as any other event, no lack of idiots who make a total fool of themselves.

That perhaps makes another good blog entry.

Another day, folks.

I must have looked very sober, and thank god that a quarter of the bottle of the vodka was stolen earlier on by the ugly girls at the table, or i may have ended up finishing it. I'm going to church this sunday to praise our lord. Amen.

Okay darlings, enough photos for today. Good night and sweet dreams....

Anyway, now i've recovered, so am eligible to advice our islanders to watch out for the flu bugs.

Yeah.

A Reuters article found on CNET touches on the censorship issue as it pertains to Flickr:

"While Beijing routinely censors online information it deems politically sensitive, Flickr--which has reportedly been blocked in United Arab Emirates--remains accessible in China, the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States, with about 137 million Web users."

That was 4 months ago. Now it seems that nobody in china is able to access the images hosted on Flickr. We are not talking about those who use proxy servers.

I'm not surprised, since Beijing is renowned for censoring all kinds of content on the Internet, specially those that could lead to sites that contain pro-democratic messages, or Fa *** ****, or ***** independence, or Tian An Men ****** Incident. I don't want my blog to be tagged and banned. It seems ridiculous but now we know ridiculous things do happen. And quite often.

Yahoo is going to come out with the chinese version of flickr. "The new site, written in traditional Chinese, will target users in Hong Kong first, before moving on to Taiwan. The feature set will be much the same as the existing Flickr, Yahoo said."

I guess most probably Yahoo will face with the same dilemma as Google - trading morals for the huge money making opportunity of the Chinese market. And the new site will be flooded with soft porns.

So i've moved to shutterfly. Hélène, Ying, Tong, do let me know whether you can see the photos in my last post.

Me. Bored.