Monday 27th November 2006

niece talk

HL recently mentioned to me that her niece, M, had just graduated from her kindergarten and J suggested getting her a gift. Being the more practical ones, we both thought the idea silly. I mean, why spoil the children that way. They should be thankful they got to go kindergarten at all. (Oh boy, that sounds like wat an old maid would say. lol)

I was feeling a tad guilty too since I had not bought my niece, P, anything for her birthday this month. :P Sorry kiddo. I'm sure me being there a day later was "present" enough. hehe...

Anyways, P has been up to some new tricks of late. Having been stripped of her daily privilege of cable cartoons, she is currently engaged in a John Travolta mania, watching Grease a million times, asking me trivia questions (like wat's the girl's name? wat's his fav phrase?), memorizing and employing some of the dialogue ("Hey, baby..") and singing all the songs in the movie. She has even gotten obssesed with signing his signature and gushed on and on about Face Off, Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Michael & Phenomenon. Her mom is getting a tad worried about her mentality.

Although such fascination with such an old man is abit skewed, I'm actually secretly quite proud of her 'weirdness'. It sure is more interesting having a kid who keeps singing old songs rather than one too modern to be comprehended. Then again, the evil minnie me is extremely tempted to get a copy of Battlefield Earth and let her watch Travolta in all his bushy and big bad glory.

Wednesday 22nd November 2006

Kites

I had always found the saying "cutting a kite loose and let it fly" extremely inappropriate. The small percentage of engineer in me is totally uncomfortable with it's analogy supposed to mean giving a person freedom. Isn't the point of a kite to be tied to a string in the first place? I mean, part of the skills of flying a kite is knowing when to pull it taut and release more string, getting the right direction and angle, trying to give it the right amount of tension for it to soar as high as possible. If the kite string is broken off, it'd pretty much fall. If u are cutting a kite loose, I'd rather think it means u r giving up and planning to destroy it.

Currently reading: Daughter of Ancients (Book 4 of The Bridge of D'Arnath) by Carol Berg- I chanced upon this book in the library. I had thought the adventures of Koran, Seri and Gerick over when they managed to destroy the Lords, bring back peace and save Gerick from becoming the Destroyer. Turns out a new problem might be brewing. Totally cool. I like the way the author take turns writing the tale from different people's point of view.

Just finished reading: Kil'n People by David Brin- I was a bit worried I'd get fed-up with this book after reading 'For Us, The Living' (another science fiction about the future which I found terribly boring.). Thankfully, this story writer is way cooler. His story about dittos (carbon copies of ourselves dat last for a day) and the implications this technology brought about is totally fantastic. He blended science, astrophyscis, theology, economics and social ramnification in an absolutely engaging way, never getting too tedious.

Wednesday 15th November 2006

karen

O.k. Karen, u can stop reading now. Shooh-shooh. *hehe*

Attending the FEM course, I thank the stars and moons out there that I decided to take up engineering instead of mathematics N years ago. While everything engineers do are intuitive and with an objective at the end, a mathematician is so full of abstract ideas, it's a wonder anyone can come up with anything useful.

lol, L just handed me an old book of mine I've already forgotten I had. This was a quote I wrote inside....

"A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's.
She changes it more often."-Oliver Herford

Tuesday 14th November 2006

hanyah?

I spent a few days earlier this month with 3 families on a short trip. There were... oh, I dunno, about 10 kids between the 3 families, in all height and sizes.

During the trip, I find the adults rather contradictory at times. Sometimes, they'd be complaining that the older kids spend so much time sms'ing, they hardly have time to chat with them. But when the kids are not messaging, the adults are blithely talking and ignoring them. They ask the kids to be more independent and yet fret when they go off on their own. They mentioned the importance of children going to bed early but our dinners last so long, the kids are left trying to stay awake towards the end. And the most ridiculous action was many of them commenting about one of the kid's rather big size and advising him to eat less. But during meal times, the very same people are always pushing more food to the poor kid, saying he should eat more to get full. Huh?

Monday 11th November 2006

Clementine

Today, during the tediously long maths lecture the bunch of us have signed up to endure (Introduction to Finite Element Method (FEM)), I have had a silly smile plastered to my face thanks to the song that I have kept at replay in my trusty CD player. I have put it here as my fav song this month. Amazing how a song u like can help eliminate Mr Yawn from visiting. Keep the volume small enough to still hear the lecturer and I believe everything's kosher... no?

Anyways, every memorable song usually comes with a memorable story. This one came with the drama series Spring Waltz (Korean). From the fan sites, I gather that the favourite is LoveHolic ( which is a very sweet & cute song dat all girls are bound to love), but old fashion me found this one here much more durable to long listening pleasure. heh.

About Spring Waltz, it's supposedly the last instalment by the director (Yoon Suk-Ho) who brought us the other 3 seasons. Luckily, unlike Autumn, everyone is still alive at the end... (bar the drunken father). I wept like crazy for very much of the show and ran out of tears the last few episodes. My favourite parts are when the lead guy is composing music. lol... I think it is always enjoyable to watch a cute guy doing something dat I myself suck at. Ah... *stop a moment to remember favourite scenes...*

Oh... where was I? Yes, the drama. It's a rather twisty love drama involving childhood loves. The theme got us talking, P grumbling that childhood love story is so unbelievable, HL saying it seems rather overrated and silly me quietly thinking how grand it would be for such a love to actually exist. hehe... too bad I don't hv any such heart wrenching experience b4. (stooling convent schools. *grumble*) Oh...digressing again...ehem... ok, summarising it in as boring a manner as possible: it's once again 1 girl (Alice) loved by two very pretty guys (Jae-Ha (aka Su-Ho) & Phillip), one of whom used to be the girl's childhood love(Su-Ho) who dissappeared after she went for some sort of operation. The said guy(Jae-Ha) is also loved by another girl(Lee Na) who was Jae-Ha's childhood love. If u got it so far, then u won't find this story dat confusing. I wasn't too bored so I'd grant it as pretty engaging but I won't elaborate as I'm too lazy to spare the details. In short, J & LP: must watch!

My ratings for the drama: [CS = contented sigh]

Visuals: 8 CS ~ loved their colourful clothing, especially with the stark winter Austria background setting and the green fields and yellow flowers.
Drama: 8 CS
Actors (cuteness): 9 CS (not the full 10, coz after awhile, Jae Ha looks abit like skinny Ah Beng & Lee Na should have taken more care with her choice of glasses.)
Music: 10 CS (I'm listening to the OST now and it's way better than Goong's. Instead of keep rehashing the same song, they give us more than a dozen good songs. *melt*
Tug at heart string moments: Enough to make me complete the drama in 2 days
Thinking back (aka press forward button) moments: still too much
Story flow: a few jerks here and there, but still enough to be believable.

Ok, ok... I think I've listed enough. Just want to end this summary saying the lead girl is very pretty. HL totally loved her white and even teeth and fringe, I loved her long locks and sweet laugh. Towards the end, she looked very much like Kyoko Fukada. V. pretty girl. Hope to c her in other dramas soon.

If u want another summary, check out this girl's website:

Friday 10th November 2006

tepid waters

Sigh! November is such a boring month. At least back in October, I've heard about the many adventures of friends who went for their annual holidays. V went NZ, LP, S&A went HK, J&LR went Japan. In November, everyone seems to be back home, dragging our heavy feet through a thoroughly unexciting month. *melt into a puddle of muddy waters.*