Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Came across
this amazing site containing quite a lot of nice photos. Not something everyone can do, but it makes for a great study of lighting and an appreciation of good photography.
Wenky
11:50 PM
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Feels like some sort of quarter life crisis – or perhaps it’s just another manifestation of what’s to come. It’s one thing to know that you need to face up to your own demons inside, and quite another to actually face up to it. I think at the bottom of it all, what really bothers me so much is the psyche of all those involved. It’s a fantastic study of personality disorders, but PDs are something I am quite determined not to dabble in. It’s like Das Experiment indeed. I’m sure everyone has their own demons inside – why, even I go nuts myself sometimes– but for these to really manifest, it’s just sickening. It’s even more alarming when you figure that this organization actually embraces people who let their shadowy side come forth in full, when in fact these people aught to be institutionalized and have a good session with a psychiatrist. So back to the topic. I know I’ll never embrace it or accept it for what it is. It will, I suspect, wind up just like my current posting at best – find solace in certain people, find a silver lining somewhere, and try to convince myself that hey, it’s not that bad after all. But chances are, my mind will start putting up Freudian psychoanalytic defence mechanisms. Don’t worry, I know it’s natural, and not pathological. I remember isolating, intellectualizing, dissociating and repressing a lot of what happened. And I remember one very fateful day 7 years ago, when I actually did an active form of isolation while sitting alone at home. It was all stored away in a very tight black box, with a heavy, rusty lock, and chucked away. Memories were completely erased, a whole period blanked out. And now it’s time to re-examine that black box again. Perhaps doing that was extremely dangerous. I’ve noticed a recent manifestation in level 2 mechanisms like passive aggression and retreats into fantasy – not that I never had them before, but they’re getting more often for now.
So many milestones in life. I seem to have hit quite a few of them already. University, work, marriage, another upcoming stint in the perfect PD-happy society. What comes later? I’m frightened of setting “goals”. In my eyes, they just make you rush through life’s journey so much more, and you miss out on the stroll and the flowers and the bees. You focus on one thing, hit it, get another to be obsessed about, and quite soon enough you find yourself caressing the wooden coffin that you worked so hard to buy for yourself. It’s all very confusing. On a side note, I really adore Discovery Channel’s advert – that the world is awesome. It really is.
Which is why, I started off by saying this feels like a quarter-life crisis of some sort. I can do all the analysis I want, but I wind up still sitting here, taking 1 step at a time to do what is required of me – no more and no less – and know that I will still put up defences to avoid maladapting.
Wenky
12:20 PM
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Saturday, March 28, 2009
Whoa. Time seems to accelerate! The weekend is here again. Still having poor sleep, and still waking up brooding over those few things, but it's getting better.
Anyway, we were up at Butter Factory's opening last night at their new One Fullerton premises. I'd say it's nicer than the old one, but as again the music is totally not to our taste. Pics to come when Felicia uploads them.
Wenky
10:22 AM
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Monday, March 23, 2009
Wenky
12:09 PM
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Insomnia. Been like this for the last 1 week actually, waking hours earlier than I should, always with the same thing on my mind upon wakening. Maybe it's the subconscious working its thing - acknowledging these feelings in the day could help. Not looking forward to the start of another week.
Wenky
6:22 AM
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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Spent the good part of Saturday morning doing up fried Hokkien prawn mee, which was really quite decent for a first attempt, if I may say so myself! Recipe for this, and for our Valentine's Day dinner degustation menu to be up on the food blog soon. (Before I forget how to make them...)
We had an extremely enjoyable weekend at the Amara Sanctuary. It was a getaway of sorts, and really quite worth the money. The only downside however, was the major (to me) glitch during check-in, when they couldn't retrieve any records of us having booked the rooms, when I in fact just handed them a printout. It took them a whole 30 minutes before they could check us in. The room was good for its price. It was on the topmost floor, had a sea view, a couch and a nice bath. The shower consisted of an overhead rain-bar sort of shower, which was deeply inspirational! Anyway, I had a suspicion that they got us a more-decent-than-usual room after I kicked up a tiny fuss about the check-in glitch.
The first part of the day was spent enjoying the sun in the infinity pool right on our floor. There were these 2 very well-tanned women who were already using the pool, and I thought they weren't much of a looker - you know how overly-tanned girls are like, with dry and taut skin and bad hair. It wasn't until a whole 30 mins later when they emerged from the pool, did I realise that one of them wasn't wearing any top at all. It is, after all, very alarming to have topless women, so I took a second look to see if mine eyes were deceiving me. It turned out a lot worse than having topless women in the pool - the "topless woman" was in fact a
man. With long hair and a slender frame.
We also prepared ourselves for an impromtou pre-wedding photo shoot (amateur shoots, mind) and Yx did a remarkble job of getting herself all spruced up in less than an hour. I think I shall release the photos on our wedding blog instead of here.
We were at a slight loss regarding dinner. We brought a bag of nachos, and that was about it. And the nachos were eaten up long before dinner. The hotel's restaurants were as usual extremely expensive, so we were left with 2 choices - the regular bars/grills at Siloso Beach, or this place called Suburbia, just near Ficus Station. We settled for the latter, and I'm glad we did. Apart from good service attitudes, the chef also knows his stuff. Bouillabaisse that was served with real rouille (I was already impressed. Most places try to pass off a mere fish-and-tomato broth as bouillabaisse) and I had duck gizzard confit salad. Prices were good for the quality we got - $15 or so for starters, $28-36 for mains, and they do give very decent servings. I had a very nice rib-eye with foie gras and risotto, which was very pleasant. The steak, I figured, was not one of their fortes, but good enough to be more than just average. It's a great place to be for the ambience, and if you are stuck on Sentosa and are torn between a lavish meal and a mediocre one at the bar which will probably also cost you $15-20 for mains anyway. Will most certainly be there again for casual dining.
The following morning's breakfast at Shutters was pure bliss. Shutters is Amara's western restaurant, and Yx and I had the pleasure of attending their 2 chefs' debut dinner some months ago, and I was particularly awed by their herb-and-truffle butter. The breakfast spread today was spectacular, and was fit enough to work as brunch/lunch. My only grouse? No oats porridge. I would have loved porridge with brown sugar and mandarins.
Wenky
7:06 PM
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Thursday, March 19, 2009
Been feeling extremely annoyed with certain people at work, and I think it showed. I most certainly didn't crack and get as extreme as it could, but I'm glad they are leaving me alone now. I can see something else that's not just concern, that's why.
Today's the big day! (No, not that big day .. but still big nonetheless) I'm glad I'm making this decision. Montyelm, I've made a choice, as you can tell from my previous post. It's like playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - and I choose to take what's already on the table. Thanks also to Yx for being an astute third party observer, that I'm coping right now, but I've been better before.
Wenky
7:15 AM
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
I've probably seen enough of the blatant politics that goes on here, to make a final decision. Thanks for putting your trust in me, it's always nice to be appreciated, but I will have to think about 10 years down the road. And my little sanctuary in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Wenky
7:22 AM
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Alas. Heading to the camp today. I just had to do the nasty job of SMSing my boss and colleagues that I mistook the time - I thought it starts at 1pm, when in fact I'm supposed to be there at 9. It'll be a briefing of sorts, and from what I learnt from Choon, it doesn't sound particularly fun or pleasant. (Duh..)
It's downright awful to have to think about this. For some 7 years I've shelved the entire issue away,and I suspect my brain has also blanked out a large part of it. Was it that awful? I suppose it was, at that time. A young person, full of aspiration, dying to start tertiary education, but instead being forced into something downright silly. Just a place where people treat you like you're dumb, and where you're not even supposed to think or to reason. And where you're taught to do things that have absolutely no meaning to you at all, but yet everyone treats them like they're the most important thing in the world. Like keeping bedsheets uncreased. These are the very same people, I strongly suspect, who have
bedbugs in their beds at home.
Wenky
6:54 AM
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Shot taken by Yanxian. Post-production by me.
Wenky
6:43 AM
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
Don't quite know why, but things are stagnant right now. I'm not talking about my ROM - it's everything else actually. Yx thinks I've run out of steam, but I never did have steam in the first place; I think what was previously done was just me. Something more sinister is brewing in me. I think I need a getaway. It's like you have a thousand and one things to do, so many small little details in life to attend to, and you just pick at them one by one, at your own leisure. Just don't have the energy or discipline to sit down and get them done and over with.
Or maybe, just maybe - there wasn't much to be bothered about in the first place.
Wenky
7:04 AM
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Sunday, March 08, 2009
It's Shroom Day today!
Who says rainy days can't be fun? OK, I confess it was sunny today (too sunny in fact), but I just thought it would be amazing to go out and check out whether this spate of rain has brought out any mushrooms. Spent 2 hours up at Kent Ridge and down on my hands and knees, and took this selection of shots.
As you can imagine, I was actually half-lying on the ground most of the time to take these shots, not to mention the horrible heat and humidity and the occasional bug, but I think the results were well worth it.
Wenky
8:19 PM
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Saturday, March 07, 2009
I might have mentioned this earlier, but my balcony is playing host to a nesting pair of pink-breasted green pigeons this year. It's a very nice surprise, as these birds are uncommon in urban areas (not that any house at the foot of Kent Ridge can really be called urban). They made a rudimentary nest amongst the tangle of branches in the bouganvillea tree, lined with Tillandsia usenoides from the same tree. The babies finally hatched some 2 weeks ago, and there were 2 of them.
This morning my mom came shrieking to my room, saying one of the babies had fallen onto her car and got stuck at the windscreen gutter. The poor thing had barely a few feathers, and when I returned her to the nest I found it empty - mommy pigeon was sitting on the wild cinnamon right opposite my house, together with the other baby. They were weaning! Mommy is teaching them to fly, but I suppose this kid was just a tad weaker/more scared.
It's always a heartbreaking moment when baby birds start growing up and fly off. The same happened to the sunbirds the other time, and boy did I miss them. The nice thing though, is that they've always returned to the same place, just to check it out. I'm going to watch if this little one that fell down makes it - if it doesn't, we might have to adopt it until it can fly on it's own.
I'm trying to spruce up my garden to make it more bird-friendly. There's already a wild pink banana that sets the birds fighting for food when it fruits, and I've made an order for giant sunflower seeds to grow so that they can pick at the giant seed heads when they're dry.
I wonder what it'll be next year - a pair of peacocks outside my bedroom window, perhaps?
Wenky
9:31 AM
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Thursday, March 05, 2009
The set of earphones and sports armband really helps. =) Going to be super-busy today, and going for a scan later in the evening. Have loads of 心事to rant about, but maybe not now.
Wenky
6:52 AM
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Monday, March 02, 2009
It's been quite a lovely weekend; one of the rare ones where I actually feel rested after. Friday was the engagement party that the guys threw for us. It was quite a whirlwind of stops actually - we settled dinner at Seafood Harvest at Bugis, then threw down a couple of drinks at Helipad before proceeding to Attica for the real fun. I have to apologise, however - I admit I didn't enjoy myself 100%. I was down with an extremely nasty .. something. Might have been the lactose intolerance acting up again (in which case this woud have been a mighty huge episode), or what I suspect is a gastric ulcer. It's a vague epigastric discomfort, pain score 8-9/10, relieved by domperidone. In fact I made it worse when it first started, by taking Buscopan - I initially thought it was tummy cramps, but I ended up with ileus for 1 whole day instead - I'm not kidding, there were NO bowel sounds at all. Thanks, everyone, for being such great sport!
Saturday was spent doing wedding stuff, we finally completed the crystals on the dress! Oooh, and I almost got struck by lightning later in the evening. We were at Sime Darby Centre for our usual dance class, and as it was pouring so heavily I dropped Yx off at the porch first. After parking, I hastily headed towards the porch with an umbrella. No sooner have I stepped into the porch when I was blinded by a white-and-red flash and simultaneous booming noise. I turned around and saw that this rain tree just 5 metres away had all its bark blown onto the floor, and a cleave on its side revealing some of the whitish inner layer. I think I must have gone into shock for a moment, cos I started running into the girls' toilet shouting for Yx to come out right away. Seriously, lightning at a low-lying area like Bt Timah? And I wonder why it hit the tree instead of the building just metres away from it. I brought back a piece of the fallen bark as a souvenir, ha. And subsequently learnt that one of the merlion's ears got hit too.
Wenky
6:43 AM
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