Star Storm

Graduate school, I'm in it!

2009-08-30T00:56:00.000+08:00

Let's see, it's been... 3 months since I last posted! XD Oh boy, I procrastinate too much.

I've just started my journey as a graduate student, and now I'm 3 weeks into my course... but it felt 3 months already. Haha! Things were a bit rough during the start, but now I'm slowly settling down in the new lab and adjusting to my hectic school timetable.

Although I essentially had a 1-month break after I resigned from the old lab, I was also going for orientation talks, fighting for course modules for the semester, and of course, catching up with friends before I get really, really busy. So yeah, a month was barely enough for me to have a good rest. But nevertheless I matriculated on the last week of July, and reported to the new lab on the second week of August because my new Boss was out of town on the first week. XD

The module registration system at the new University was pretty much a culture shock, because I didn't run into that many problems at my undergraduate University. I guess I've been spoon-fed quite a bit during my undergraduate years, but now I really have to look into the courses offered by the various schools on my own and hope that they'd offer me a place in the class hahaha. I'm pretty lucky this semester... I've been offered 2 modules as planned. Each module has 2 lectures per week, so yeah, I've got classes on campus 4 days a week. The syllabus for both modules are more to the tedious side (lots of memorizing woot...), but yeah at least they are related to my major so I had some foundation already.

For me, the main draw of graduate school is the labwork. My new lab is in a hospital compound situated away from the University campus, and they just relocated to a new building within the compound. I'm actually working in the lab as a rotation student, but I really like it there so I guess I should be staying? Hahaha... The institute is still pretty young, so while there are many research fellows and assistants around, the number of graduate students can be counted by the fingers on both of your hands. XD I'm the first student that my Boss recruited in his team, so I guess I'll have to work extra hard! So far the assistants had been really helpful and the research fellows were friendly, and my new Boss is a really nice person, so I'm adapting to the new lab pretty well. I've just finished my first hands-on protocol in the lab this week, and the assistants were there whenever I needed help and the Boss even supervised me personally at one point, so it was really great. I still haven't got used to the traveling between the lab and campus 4 days a week though (omg so troublesome...), and yeah I've gotta get down to decorating my desk in the lab soon! XD

So that was the gist of what happened in my life during these couple of months. I would be posting more about my school and lab whenever I have the time and energy to. But yep, the baptism of fire has started, and omg I'm a student again!! XD

The Next Door

2009-05-16T01:40:00.005+08:00

It is natural that in life, you close one door to end a chapter in your life, and open another to start afresh. I've decided to be brave and leave my comfortable environment to venture into another place to start from scratch. I'm not regretting my decision, but I do feel sad when I think that I'll be leaving friends whom I spend almost everyday with for the last two years.

Today is the day that I had to break the news. The reaction from my colleagues varied. Some just took it without any reaction, some were reluctant, some were outright shocked. It was tough breaking the news to my Boss. It was pretty obvious that he didn't really like my decision to leave, but he didn't stop me and wished me all the best.

I still have close to 2 months left before I leave to experience the research and academic culture in another institute as a graduate student. I see it as a great opportunity to learn more things and explore other fields that I've always wanted to try my hand at.

It's time to open the next door, step forward and not look back.

[Backlog] A Year in Cosplay - 2008

2009-01-28T17:10:00.002+08:00

I had 16 new costumes and 5 photoshoots in 2008.

From top left, in chronological order:
Shimizu Keiichi (Kiniro no Corda), Liddell (Pop'n Music Best Hits!), Kinomoto Sakura (Cardcaptor Sakura), Kagamine Len (Vocaloid2), Todou Usaki (DOLLS), Mist (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance), Little Dracula (Princess Nightmare), Ookawa Utako (CLAMP School Detectives), Maka Albarn (Soul Eater), Hojo Satoko (Higurashi no naku koro ni), Kagura (Gintama), Alucard (Hellsing The Dawn), Hoshino Tetsuro (Galaxy Express 999), Takatsuki Yayoi (The Idolm@ster), Fumika (Shigofumi), Ciel Phantomhive (Kuroshitsuji)

Some were easy, some were really difficult. Some I tried my hand at prop-making, and some I just couldn't make it so I got my tailor to help me out. But all were equally memorable. I broke out my first tube of Uhu Glue for Vocaloid and haven't looked back since. I realized that I love doing characters who hold guns or sharp objects (the bigger the better!). I've also met more friends in the local and overseas cosplay circle and worked with them during photoshoots. Let's hope that there are many more to come!

Facelift!

2009-01-26T17:57:00.003+08:00

First of all, a very Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!

I hope that there are still people popping by this blog despite the fact that I've last updated 6 months ago! More often than not, I find myself so busy that I can't find the time nor energy to write. Plus, this blog has been stuck with the previous layout since forever and it's getting stale...

So I did a facelift! I'm banned from sewing today since it's the first day of the new year and Mom doesn't want to have scraps of fabric and thread on the floor, so I finally have some time to do some coding and photoshop work. It took me pretty long (almost the whole day!) since it has been more than a year since I last touched html codes. I did away with the old classic template and tried the new xml ones that can support tags and widgets, and now it's much easier for me to add links and edit things. But I guess I still prefer Japaneseque layouts, hahaha...

New and updated links are up on the navigation column on the right (no, I haven't updated my Travel Diary. I should get down to it soon, once I find some time -_-"). I'm more active with cosplaying in 2008, so I've got some online accounts set up for my photos (although in various states of update! XD) and their links are included as well.

2009 is going to be a very busy year for me. If everything goes smoothly, I should be enrolling myself into graduate school real soon, and I'm going to be stuck in a lab wearing a lab coat for the next 5 years! -_-" More on that as I slowly start on my journey to graduate school. Cosplay wise I should still be active in the community, although I'm going to take it slower now. Come visit me at events if you guys are free! =D

Finally, do drop me comments as usual, and comment on this post if you happen to drop by (I wonder who would still hahahaha...) and are surprised that I actually updated and changed the look of this blog! XD

A break... finally...

2008-05-04T15:26:00.002+08:00

Well... not yet actually, I still have about less than a week to go before my vacation starts, but the holiday mood is already in!!

I have many things that I have to do, but the holiday mood is in and I basically spend any free time I have surfing websites about good sushi and ramen, fun places to visit in Japan, and read up about the otaku culture in Ikebukuro (no prizes for guessing where I'm running away to hide for a while :P).

But still I hope that I can cram in some work in the midst of all the procrastination this week before I leave. Boss recently passed me another load of work because that project had been stagnant for a few months, the person-in-charged is on extended MC, the grant's almost up, and Boss discovered (himself!) that it was done wrongly in the first place!! On top of that I've got my on project to take care of, as well as to come up with a draft recommendation and project proposal for my Boss to see. Boss isn't the type to breathe down your neck and tell you to hurry up, but I hope to get the latter done before I leave. orz

Also recently, I learnt that my old boss is going back to Canada where his family is. I dropped by his lab to visit him, and almost cried when he told me himself that he will be leaving. It's just so sad!! I'll miss him when he's gone, but at least I know that everyone will be doing well after they scatter - my old supervisor is already working at the other university commanding a salary that is probably 50% more than what she had when I was working with her, two graduate students are writing their theses and will be graduating soon, the only graduate student still working on his project will be going to Japan(!) to work with a Japanese collaborator of my old boss, and old boss himself will be with his family and working in a lab in Canada. So everyone's happy in the end, I guess.

That aside, graduate school application has started!! Or at least, I started off a little by getting old boss to help me write my recommendations already... he's leaving soon anyway, so I need to get his signatures on the papers before he leaves. I think I'll worry about the rest when I get back from vacation <-- procrastination in action.

So if you still don't know by now, yes, I'm going to Japan (again...) with Mom (again...) and we won't be seeing sakuras (again...). I'm not chasing after bands this time round because I couldn't get the tickets (Emi's quite busy settling down with couz in Canada), so this is purely a fun/shopping/eat-good-stuff vacation. I'm expecting to empty my pockets again; I've changed my money already and I'm so broke!! T^T

We'll be going to extra places this time round, because we'll be in Japan for a slightly longer period than previous. But it isn't enough for me to plan a trip to Hokkaido... orz. So instead, I'm bringing Mom over to Nikko, Hakone (again... because she still hopes to see Mt. Fuji's peak D:), Disneyland (she wants to go, not me...), and Odaiba! We'll be visiting the Fuji TV station in Odaiba... I wonder if I will get to see some actors and actresses? Also, we will be staying at Ikebukuro this time round instead of Shinjuku (budget issues...), but Ikebukuro is such a nice place as well! I can't wait to sink my teeth into the otaku culture and immerse myself in all those comic book stores at Ikebukuro.

So do look forward to new posts and pictures on the (very) stagnant travel blog. XD I'll try to update in Japan itself, but I suppose I'll be too engrossed in watching Japanese late-night TV to blog. XD But new posts will be updated sooner or later... so do visit that page once in a while. =)

Piisu.

GACC

2008-03-23T12:04:00.008+08:00

No, I'm not dead yet... more like, really busy. There are too many things to say, too little time. In the end, I settled on fulfilling what I needed to do, and talked less. *shrugs* But now since that I've some time on my hands (quite an unusual thing now actually!), I'll try to update as much as possible!! Long post ahead, don't say that I didn't warn you. :)

Last year during our trip back from CF on the bus, Xrystal and Ringo asked if I wanted to join them at GACC, to which I agreed; because after I've seen the crowd at CF, I thought that it'd be worthwhile to go back to Malaysia for another event. They explained that every year at GACC, the organizers would invite a seiyuu (aka voice actor) to the event. Last year's was Furuya Tohru-san... who well... I don't really know because I don't watch Sailormoon... But I supposed it'll be quite nice to meet a seiyuu, I thought then.

So fast forward to February this year, and in the middle of work Xrystal dropped the bomb that Morita Masakazu was going to GACC. Not like it'd make any difference then, since I already started working on my costumes (2 sets!! I wanted to drop dead...), but I know who Morita Masakazu is, so it upped the pull factor by a 100 times already. That said, I supposed some people don't watch anime, and it's not until recently that I myself have started looking into the voices behind the characters in the anime that I watched as well. So let's just say that Morita-san stars in Bleach (which is a bloody popular anime - *mumbles* even I hopped onto the bandwagon, can't believe it...), and obviously I knew who he was.

Unfortunately then, I've already settled on my costumes, and I'd rather not change my plans halfway to be a shinigami (you know, those people who wear black in Bleach). Plus, my partner that day isn't familiar with Bleach, and my shinigami wouldn't be the character that Morita-san voiced for anyway, so we sticked to our original plan. Our original plan isn't half-bad either... we'll be going as the Cardcaptor Sakura couple. And for those of you who are still in the dark, yes I'm a crazy Cardcaptor fan (or rather, was... but I'm still a Cardcaptor fan now, just minus the "crazy"), so even if it kills me I'd still churn out an outfit from that series.

And so it was... we brought our barang out to Malacca at the beginning of this month to get ready for the event. 2 days in all, but the seiyuu only appeared on the second day. We went a day earlier to get ourselves prepared for both days, which was a good move because if you don't go on the first day to get tickets for the autograph session (yeah, not everyone can get your things autographed by the seiyuu... so grab those 100 tickets while their hot!!), they would fly off the shelves much faster on the second day. Ringo didn't come along with us because she has to take care of her exams, but she still helped me out in some way or other... be it lending me her pretty pink brolly to complete my lolita look on the first day, or tipping me off about the white socks that I desperately needed for my Cardcaptor costume. Thanks girl!

So anyway, the first day, the 4 of us (Xrystal, Sakana, Yuanie and me... all power senpais; I'm probably the only greenhorn), together with Chocolime, went as characters from Pop'n Music. I'm not really good with the game since it's a rhythm game on PS2 (where you have to tap the buttons in time with the music), but the characters were many and you have a variety to choose from. Anyway it was a team, so we each took our pick and made the costumes.

So here's our Pop'n Music Team! Gashapon figurines!! XD

Day 1 of GACC was spent running around trying to get tickets for the autograph session on Day 2... There weren't many people on Day 1, guess everyone was waiting for the seiyuu to come... We went back early, and went about doing a little shoot at our hotel. Speaking of our hotel... Sakana booked a 2-room apartment-of-sorts which included a little kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms, and 2 toilets!! Just right for the 4 of us, and it was really affordable too! (Note: Next year book the same place...) I shared a room with Yuan, so we got to know each other better during the course of the trip; which is also necessary because both of us will be doing the Cardcaptor Sakura couple on Day 2!!

Many thanks to valho at Toys Workz for the photo. Probably the only one on my hands that has Ichigo, Hard Gay and Kon fooling around behind us as well! (Kon's a bit hard to see... you might need to search for his hand...)

Yuan was one of the cosplayers representing Singapore at last year's World Cosplay Summit in Japan, so it was quite an honour to be teaming up with her for Cardcaptor. Plus, she's a Syaoran fan, and I'm a Sakura fan, so we hit it off from there! We were both female Pop'n Music characters on Day 1 as well, so I hung around with her more; and thanks to Taiko who photographed us on both days, you can see the difference (which is not much though...):

Two days two outfits! Thanks Taiko for the photos!

I preferred my pink dress on the first day to my Sakura battle costume... Probably because I spent more time sewing the pink dress. I rushed out Sakura's outfit about a week before I left Singapore, so it didn't turn out too good. But I've got more feelings for Sakura as a character though... as expected of a Sakura fan. XD

Oh yeah, about the seiyuu. (Uwa I almost forgot his existence!! *gets bricked*) Morita-san arrived at around 2 pm, and stayed till around 5 pm or so, which was longer than he was supposed to stay (not that anyone complained though XD). I guess he was really popular, judging from the crowd that came; after all, almost everyone who watch anime (or maybe, everyone) would have heard of Bleach. Even if they don't, gamers would have heard of Final Fantasy X darou? Well, Morita-san voiced and motion-captured the FFX hero Tidus.

About 10 minutes before the guy stepped into the event hall, everyone was already lining up in two rows, along the center of the hall flanking this red stripe (I think it was supposed to be a red carpet of sorts...), to catch a glimpse of him. Most of us had cameras ready. Those without handhelds and DSLRs, whipped out handphones. I was rather tucked away behind all the heads and bodies and couldn't get my handheld out far enough to take a decent video, but then I spotted Sakana and Xrystal right over the other side of the red stripe, right in front of everyone! So I passed my camera over, and Sakana did a great job (great position they were in, really) videotaping the moment when Morita-san walked past!

Comin' through! Seiyuu comin' through!

Morita-san wasn't someone who really cared about his appearance I supposed, he just came in T-shirt and jeans (and obviously, no make-up). I was standing behind Yuan as he passed us along the red stripe, and after she took his photo as he past she turned around and told me, "Wah! Not shuai one!!" XD But he has a really outgoing and down-to-earth personality. He obliged spontaneously when people asked him to do voices of his characters, hosted his own talk segment really well (no offense to the actual host at the event...), was polite to a fault, talked to everyone who talked to him, and overall, a born showman. Heck, he made us all squeal like seasoned fangirls even when some of us weren't even familiar with him or his work... I wouldn't say that I'm a BIG fan of his, but I was just as high as everyone else and squealing like a fangirl. Uwa, shitsure na... So yeah, that was how well he got the crowd going.

Bankai!

His talk segment was slightly more than 35 minutes I would say... I videotaped the whole thing, and my arms hurt, but then again everyone can find the talk segment clips on youtube nowadays so I'm not bothering to upload. XD Fast forward to autograph session. Like I said, only 100 people get to have their stuff autographed by Morita-san. The rules are very strict this year (as compared to the last, I heard from the rest): only one item to autograph, and no photos with the seiyuu (Like whut? Was it because he was in T-shirt and jeans and his hair was not done up?). Anyway, I bought the Bleach illustration book a few days before I went to Malacca (the last copy I found at Kinokuniya when I went!). It was bloody expensive (well, not bloody expensive but it was above my budget seriously...) so it was the get-the-autograph-or-die situation. We managed to secure quite a few tickets during our first day, so I got a chance to get my book autographed as well.

The rest of my roommates went up on stage to get their things signed first before I did... All of them tried to get some chance to get a photograph with him. XD It was tough, because once Sakana whipped out her borrowed camera (MY camera XD) and tried to press the trigger button the staff started going crazy and went to stop her. ^^; She didn't manage to get a shot... but Xrystal did because Sakana was still lingering on the stage when she stepped up to get her autograph. (Haha, the crazy things we do...)

I'd say that Morita-san has an amazingly young and handsome voice for a man of his age. When he greeted me back with "Konnichiwa~!" I was stunned for a moment. XD But that was his voice only... he looked just like any other average guy on the street. As he signed the cover of my book (oh yeah, it was Kubo-sensei's name on the front I know... but it has a giant face of Ichigo on the front too), I motioned to the official cameraman on the stage to help me take a photo with the seiyuu, to which he was like, "you gotta make it quick" *stares holes into my retina*. So once Morita-san's done with my book and extended his hand for a handshake, I held on and said something like, "Shashin~!" and pointed at the cameraman's direction. I dunno how the picture turned out though... I think it'll look retarded. XD

But anyway, Yuan called out to me when I was getting my book signed, and well, getting a picture with Morita-san looking down at my book is better than nothing ya...

Victory? Lol. (Thanks Yuan!! <3)

And here is my autographed book (which is now rotting away still in its plastic bag... D:):

I wonder how much this can fetch on Ebay... not that I'm selling it. XD

Once we got our things signed, we started doing crazy things, like fooling around with our props and making crazy poses. Guess all of us got real high because of the seiyuu's presence. XD

For photos of our crazy stunts and serious event shots (aka in character), do lookie here!

I'd say that this is the best event I've been to since I've started cosplaying. Morita-san brought up everyone's spirits on the second day as well. I probably wouldn't be doing lots of cosplaying in the coming few years (and you guys should know the reason...), but GACC would be one of the events that I will make myself available for!! Speaking of which, I'm already wondering which seiyuu they will manage to invite for next year. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of my favourite seiyuus would drop by soon. ^_^

Piisu.

Happy CNY!

2008-02-10T13:04:00.000+08:00

Yay minna genki kai?!

Happy new year!! And to my peers... Happy rat year! XD

Seems like my updating has became a monthly event already. I'll try to keep the posts coming! I'll try.

Let's see, well last Sunday I went for a shoot with Chi Chang. Xrys and Ringo came along for the ride as well... it was fun I guess, but it rained. D: And we ended up doing all our shots indoors, and the lighting wasn't that great, but it was fun! It was the first time Chi Chang shot someone else other than me (whom he didn't know beforehand), and hopefully he had fun as well. I've finally held a cello!! Gotta thank Xiang Hong and Kevin for the lobang. ;) Thanks guys!

Click to view the album

This is the first time that I went so far as to get all the materials and props for the character. I even made his backpack!! I wonder why I like the character so much? Hmm... maybe it's because I get to hold a cello? Or maybe it's his seiyuu...? Ah whatever, but I did it haha!

This CNY... we finally started visiting relatives again after many years (since my grandparents passed away). The ang bao collection didn't matter as much to me as before; instead I had a great time chatting and catching up with my cousins since we are all grown up now. It's strange, because we never really talked to each other much when we were kids. XD

Now that the CNY holidays are almost over, it's time to start preparing for my GRE, get hold of people to write me recommendations, and on top of that rush costumes to meet deadlines. It will be a busy period. Ganbaru!

Piisu.

Another year...

2008-01-01T09:31:00.000+08:00

[Backlogged post]

Minna akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!

2008 will be a busy year for me... time to apply for further studies, time brush up my Japanese, time to play real hard before I go back to being a student. It might be a good thing actually, since time would pass real quick.

This year is also the year of the rat, and it's already 2 full cycles!! Oh boy I'm old. T_T

This blog isn't going to get a makeover this year because I don't have energy to do it, and Mr. Derek's busy as well so there aren't any new chibis for 2008. But the Gazette boys are still cute right? XD Also, I suppose I would be cutting down on the number of posts this year because there are just too many things to do... and there's only 24 hours in one day and 7 days a week. But not to worry, I'll be trying my best to blog and work and give tuition and study and cosplay. Hoho.

Kotoshi mo yoroshiku ne!

P.S - A new cosplay blog/album has been set up and updated with a new Meine Liebe photoset from KL (event photos I still don't have the time to sieve through them properly). Click here or check the navigation on the right. Future photos would be posted up there as well. Check here for updates ne?

Piisu.

Tadaima

2007-12-22T19:25:00.000+08:00

Minna I'm home!! I don't think anyone misses me, but oh well...

I had quite a blast over the past month sewing costumes in preparation for the events over the last weekend, and that includes the EOY at the Expo followed (immediately) by Comic Fiesta in Kuala Lumpur and a little private shoot. And now I'm back and uh, I'd say, recuperating?

Anyway, it is true that CF is way more fun than EOY. The people were a supportive and enthusiastic bunch as well. Thanks Xrys for inviting me to go along in the first place. ^^

And while I sort out my photos, I'll leave everyone with the object of my fangirlism over at KL.

OMG it's KONPACHI!!!

Piisu.

Otanjoubi!

2007-11-23T14:40:00.001+08:00

Happy Birthday to me!!

Mah, one year older, but I don't think I got wiser. Hmm...

I've been really busy nowadays, so I haven't been updating. Plus, I've gotta start burning the midnight oil soon to finish up my costumes. I'll come back with posts and pictures after I'm back from KL in December.

Yosh, kore kara mou ganbarou!

Piisu.

Saikin...

2007-10-08T22:23:00.001+08:00

At this rate, I think my posts will be reduced to one per month. =.= Gomenasai gomenasai!

There's not much to say about work, Boss would instruct and I'll just do them and carry on. But now with about slightly more than a month into my contract, I have begun to suffer the toil of the 9-hour work day. My colleagues usually step into the office around 9am or later, but my day starts at 8.30am because I live like, miles away from my workplace and I had to take the staff shuttle. So I start my day like any other admin officer, except that I'm not. =.= Given that I have to be at my pick-up point by 7.30am every morning, I've gotta be up and movin' at 6.30am. Go figure. Even though I try to sleep early now, I still feel tired when I'm working. Especially after lunch. Yawn... And when I start on my sewing projects, it will be worse. T_T

My weekends are chock-a-block with activities. I've filled my schedule to the brim with tuition, fabric hunts, Japanese classes... *drops dead* So I haven't been able to get a good rest at home for a couple of months already. Would be worse when I start sewing...

Speaking of sewing, I've got 3 new projects coming up at the end of this year. Thank you Xrys for inviting me for 2 of them! I haven't even drafted my patterns omfg. =.= I hope to get down to it this weekend, for I've procrastinated long enough... A few weekends ago I thought that I would be able to start, but I ended up in Bugis looking for pleather. Last weekend was occupied by a photoshoot...

What photoshoot? Nah... nothing crazy. It was just a family photoshoot. We finally got down to doing it after months of procrastination. XD Cost us some big bucks... and I was supposed to pay but I forgot to bring my wallet. =.= It wasn't on purpose I swear!! I still have to pay my share to Pa.

Oh... and I've finally jumped on the Bleach bandwagon. T_T It was a case of curiosity killing the cat. I was curious about what a Bankai was ("BANKAI!!" sounded so cool you know), so I watched some episodes to find out and ended up watching even more. =.= And here I am thinking that I can avoid getting into the Bleach craze........

Piisu.

Shigotonin

2007-09-15T23:18:00.000+08:00

In a way, I like work. It keeps my hands busy and my mind off things.

I've been working for about a month now. Boss has been nice so far... actually he's always nice. It was 2 years ago when I first worked with him, and now 2 years later I'm back in his lab helping out again as an employed staff. Boss didn't change much, although the lab itself has changed quite a bit. But like every other job, adaptation is key.

When I first worked with my current Boss, I was a greenhorn having zilch lab experience. So it was pretty obvious that I didn't manage to get something concrete after one year of lab attachment. But now with the training that I had gotten from my previous lab (which I am really grateful for), I'm more confident in what I do and am pretty determined to churn something out for Boss, however insignificant it is.

I'm quite glad that I don't have to handle RNA again, although I'm pretty experienced in that area now (lolol). Instead, I'm now carrying out standard protocols, general techniques that I hadn't much chance to do when I was a student (I picked a pretty specialized area for my FYP, I guess). And I finally get to process animal samples myself next week, so I'm really look forward to it (although I'm not so hot about seeing a mouse get sacrificed in front of me T_T).

I guess that once I started work my life has become more routine... I wake up early, and I sleep early (read: before midnight). I coordinate my work schedule to the official working hours in school because I decided to save a little and take the staff bus, which meant that I'll be in school really early in the morning. When I get back home I'm usually in a zombified mode already... but I do still try to find time to do the things I like.

Currently my whole week's packed with activities (I'm literally busy 7 days a week), be it work or hobbies or Japanese class (oh yeah I'm picking up Japanese from scratch again...) I might need a couple of months more to iron my schedule out and get use to this lifestyle, but hell yeah, being busy is better than rotting and staring into space. =.=

I haven't been updating in recent weeks, but here's a little update on my gadget list. ;) I've got myself a Nintendo DS after all... even before I started work because I wanted to beat the GST hike. XD I had fun with it, but I'm spending less and less time on games because of work. T_T

Both of my laptops decided to go on strike about a month ago, so for a while I was isolated from civilization. While I managed to save Kaoru (the new one which was still under warranty), Miyabi the old lappie died after various attempts to save it. That included me throwing money away to get the problem diagnosed and the hard disk changed... but it still died wtf. The standard of Fujitsu's service is probably at an all time low or something? But in any case I swear that I'm not going to get a Fujitsu again. So just last week I blew close to 2K for a cool-looking and portable Acer for work. The new kid's called Ruiza, and just like the real guy, it's small but packs a punch. ^^ (Yeah I name all my lappies after kick-ass Jrock guitarists woo hoo!)

And yeah, I'm currently broke. Don't ask me out for dinner unless you're the one paying. XD

Piisu.

Natsu Matsuri

2007-09-15T21:55:00.000+08:00

Domo domo... I know it's been ages since I last posted, but Cheez bugged me to post something so I'm sacrificing some precious sleep for this. Work has started for me, and after a month's worth of labwork I've hit a brick wall (so fast... T_T) so it's troubleshooting time. But I'll save the complaining for later.

Three Saturdays ago, I went to my first Matsuri with Shuhui-san. I'm very much indebted to Bjorn for helping me get the tickets for the closed event (arigatou ne~!). I recalled that Shuhui wanted to go last year but she couldn't get the tickets, so when Bjorn asked I got a ticket for her as well. :)

I met my excellent date for the evening close to 30 minutes late because I over-napped. XD I just started work that week and I had a hard time adjusting, so I ended up really tired by the weekend. We originally wanted to take a public bus to the Japanese school at Changi, but changed plans last minute because there was free shuttle. When met Shuhui at the station, she told me that she saw many walked past her in yukata. Well, it's my first Matsuri and I wanted to squat and play the yoyos, so I wasn't really keen on buying and turning up in yukata. I went in t-shirt, berms and slippers. Wee~! XD

The queue for the shuttle was loooong. And the distance between the station and the school was pretty far, so we had to wait a long time before the shuttle returns and pick a new batch of passengers. But we got there before the sun sets. On entry we were given an uchiwa each, but I lost mine later in the evening to a young lady because I didn't want to take it home and she wanted it so...

At the station I had already showed Shuhui our coupons for the Matsuri... for 10 bucks you get like, 12 coupons and one coupon for a main dish. We took it that the latter meant dinner. So our first stop was the main dish booths. They had quite a few main dishes: okonomiyaki, bento sets, crab claws etc. but you can only pick one. By the time we arrived they were left with only the okonomiyaki and the bento sets. While I was craving for some authentic Japanese okonomiyaki, I didn't think that it was filling enough for my dinner (plus I should go to Osaka for real okonomiyaki...) so I ended up with a bento set. Shuhui loves ramune (Japanese soda), so we went over to the drinks stand to check and they do have ramune! One bottle costs 3 coupons though...

We sat down near the entrance of the school and tucked into our bentos. We shared the food because both Shuhui and I picked different bentos, and so we had a wider variety. XD The ramune bottles were cute, but was a bitch to open (at least for me...) because once I popped the bottle the drink just started spewing out onto my berms. =.= But it was good. I think I like ramune too. XD

Our ramune bottles!

As we ate slowly we started observing the people that passed by us... Most of the girls were in yukatas, some were Japanese. There was this cute Japanese couple who were both in yukata... and then there was this guy who showed up in a full white yukata. =.= Shuhui saw him too so I don't think that I was hallucinating or seeing ahem, things... I told Shuhui that he must have recycled his Bleach costume by wearing the inner kimono... Sheesh. >>;

After dinner, we started queuing for the games. I had always wanted to try Yoyo Tsuri (fishing water balloons) because the water balloons are so pretty!! So we started with that game. Each game had a long queue that snaked across the courtyard of the school, so it was a pretty long wait once your turn is over.

Each hook cost us 3 coupons, so we each armed ourselves with one. It was a sad case because the hook was attached to paper (!!), so once you get the paper wet, it would tear before you can fish the balloon out of the water. I was greedy and aimed for a huge purple one (a larger balloon = heavier = higher chances of your paper tearing). I think I got my paper wet as well when I was trying to find the right string in the water... so as I lift up the balloon in one swift move, the paper tore and it fell back into the water. =.= But Shuhui went, "Hey, you took it out of the water! Take it take it!" So I cheated. XD Shuhui managed to get a blue one out with her paper in once piece (!), but it tore when she lifted the second...

With 6 coupons left each, we headed for the Kingyo Sukui (catching goldfish). Again it was a long queue, and 3 coupons gives you one paper scoop. The aim is to scoop the fish (yes, live goldfishes!) out of the water into your little bowl before the paper tears. Believe me, it's easier said than done. Shuhui managed to throw 3 into her bowl (guess you gotta cheat a bit XD), and I managed to throw 1 into mine before I did the crazy thing by trying to lift the fish into my bowl. XD Of course my paper scoop tore. XD But we can't really be cheating because this kid next to me was so desperate for the fishes she actually used the bowl to scoop the fishes into her bag (which was already overcrowding with goldfishes =.=)

With our catch of 4 fishes and 2 balloons, we went to a little corner and snapped pictures with our loot. XD

Like yay!!

I look touristy lol.

Nani kore?!

Kingyo da! (We had 4 fishes in 3 bags)

Because I couldn't bring my fish home (Brian would put it into his mouth even though he's not a cat...), and Shuhui didn't want to rear fishes in her lab (XD), we decided to let our fishes back into the pool. It was pretty silly to throw our catch back, but we caught them for fun in the first place. XD

Fang4 shen1! XD

Shuhui throwing her catch back. :)

After Kingyo Sukui, we still had 3 coupons left, so we spent them all in Yoyo Tsuri again. XD I aimed for a red one this time (and got it!) while Shuhui ended the game with 2 more balloons!! I tell ya, she's better than me with it comes to Matsuri games. XD My uchiwa dropped onto the wet floor when I was hooking my balloon, and some young lady picked it up so I gave it to her. =.= I didn't want to take it home with me anyway... I have 3 uchiwas at home and I have a tough time storing them.

So after we spent the last of our coupons we joined the queue for the shuttle to take us back to the station. It was a fun experience... and hopefully I can return next year (eh Bjorn? XD) in a pretty purple yukata. ^^

Piisu.

Pa and his Engrish 2

2007-08-26T19:57:00.000+08:00

I think Pa must be speaking too much Mandarin these days, because he's been using his Engrish for 2 days in a row!

#1 - Pa has been terribly interested in music recently, and wanted to learn the guitar and saxophone. The guitar is a better choice for a beginner like him of course, so we went down to Bras Basah Complex yesterday to get a guitar.

Pa, holding up a guitar: "I'll ride a Allison and sling this on my back."
Mom: "What did he say?!"
Me: "He said he'll ride a Harley Davidson and sling that guitar on his back."
Mom: *rolls eyes*

#2 - Just now we had bobo-chacha for dessert after dinner. I don't really like bobo-chacha, and haven't ate it for very long, so I was quite surprised that it had agar-like cubes inside the coconut milk.

Me: "What's this?"
Mom: "It's like chewy agar..."
Pa: "It's tropicana."
Mom: "What did he say?!"
Me: "It's tapioca right?!"
Pa: "Ah yes, haven't been using that word for very long."
Me: "Wahahahahahaha!!!"

Piisu.

Private shoot

2007-08-15T00:02:00.000+08:00

July's the cosplay month; and things kinda carried over to August too.

So far in my cosplay career (I don't think you can even call it one yet), I've been to one outdoor photoshoot, and Pa was my photographer. Remember Isshi? I didn't talk much about it or put pictures here (because I was too lazy), so if you guys still haven't seen the pictures, you can go to my gallery. I'm building 2 more at Cosplaylab and Cure, but Cosplay.com is still the best.

So anyway, last Sunday I went on my second shoot with a new photographer in tow. Chi Chang picked up photography like what, a year ago? So it was a great chance for both of us to get something out of the shoot. He's easy to work with, and finds all the right spots to take pretty pictures, so we got some nice shots really early on.

Speaking of early, we agreed to meet at early in the morning in town. But both of us ended up at different stations (miscommunication right at the beginning is no good D:), and I took my time to struggle with my wig, so we started late. XD

It was a hot day, unfortunately, so the mood didn't really fit the anime (supposed to be dull and gloomy). When we started out the sun was starting to burn, and I was in long sleeves and tights so hell yeah, it was hot.

By late morning, the sun was really burning and we melted like crazy. The glare from the sun didn't really help either. The photographer complained that it ruined the photos.

We ended our shoot at the Sky Garden in Suntec City. Btw, don't try to dip your feet into that pool. The water was cool, but there were dead leaves inside and I spent my time sitting there and worrying about bacteria getting into my toes as the photographer snapped the shots from behind my back.

We've got more than a hundred photos from this shoot, and I've got more than enough good shots for the gallery. It isn't practical to publish all of them. But I feel that it'd be a waste so I'm gonna put some of them here.

This one isn't that accurate because Yin does survelliance by touching water and not walls; but this picture's pretty nice.

This is more like it. But the edge of the fountain was slanted, so I had a tough time trying hard not to fall in.

We like this shot.

These shots came out really nice; but for the gallery the subject is a bit too small. It's a waste really, because they looked really good if you see them full-sized.

I personally prefer back shots rather than shots of my face. How ironic. ^^;

One of my favourites.

On the move.

Tee hee.

Cosplayer at work.

Here's what went on behind all those shots. The photog's behind the lens so you can only see his name. XD And that's me trying to hide from the midday sun in between shots. :P

The photog found this sign carved into the rock at the Sky Garden. Ok, who's the crazy pair who did this? O.o

I'll be uploading the best shots soon into my gallery, so do check that place out. In the meantime I've got something new to work on already!! But I'll take a break first before starting on my new project. And I'm starting work next week too, so this is the last week of freedom for me. I'm gonna slack the week away! >D

Piisu.

Convocation 2007

2007-08-09T14:28:00.000+08:00

Off-topic: I'm having some serious problems with my health recently; I've got flu for almost a month, and at the start of this week I've graduated to having stomach flu as well. So do forgive the crappy blogging of the previous and current post.

Our convocation was held on a Monday afternoon, which was quite weird because our seniors had theirs in the morning. So I skipped lab on that day... but still went down to school earlier to take pictures with my parents.

Gifts from Pa (the flowers) and Mom (the graduation bear).

We reached around 12 noon that day, which was like, about 2 hours before the ceremony. But there were so many things to do, 2 hours was kinda short really. I likened graduation to weddings, because not only do you have to pay for your gowns, you have to go through a ceremony, stand around to take photos, and whoa, don't forget that studio shot too!

We quickly got down to business at the heritage center. I didn't even go look for a toilet to robe. I robed right beside our car. >>;

Let's start camwhoring.

More camwhoring.

AND more camwhoring.

It rained around convocation period, so I soiled my heels with mud when I took this photo...

My personal photographer (aka Pa) at work.

Someone was a graduate too! XD

My chibi-sized parents. XD

Trying to be the Statue of Liberty (No I'm not raping that bear...)

I only got with my college gang around 1pm? Because I was dragged away for lunch with my parents, and it was only after that that I could join them to robe (in Zihui's lab office no less! XD). I also ran around to take photos with my old lab and my new Boss... so it was around 2pm when we got to the auditorium lobby. Actually, the original programme wrote that we have to be seated by 2.10pm, but then again I guess they expected that everyone would be taking their on sweet time, so the ceremony commences at 3pm. What did we do in the meantime? Start camwhoring.

Agnes and I stuck in the chaos of registration.

The Uni gang.

We tried to do some silly poses too. Sorry, but my hand movements always turn out to be a blur...

Once we have registered we would have known our seat numbers. So all of us went into the auditorium to search for our seats. My seat was in the middle of a block and it was a tight squeeze in. Since there was still time to spare, a lot of people started going down to the front of the stage to take photos, so it was a tight squeeze out again to join my friends in front.

Transferring electrons to each other.

Watch out world!

After a while, they started to shoo us back to our seats (and it was tight squeeze back again) and all of us sat in silence(!) for about 6 minutes waiting for the procession to arrive. The procession came in to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance (like duh...) and all of us turned our heads to the giant screen on the stage to check out who was coming down the aisle. Our deans and a few of our Profs were in the procession that day.

The ceremony itself was relatively boring, but it had to be done. Our dean and guest both gave their speeches, and then the graduates started going on stage one by one to receive their folders. Naturally, the loudest applause were reserved for the first (coz he's the starting person) and last (oh yay finally!) graduate of the ceremony.

According to my parents, that was me. (Gotta be me, because my hand movements always turn out blur.)

After the ceremony itself, all of us got back to our school and took photos like crazy. :P

Sun Yang and me with a congregation of Hogwarts students behind. :P

Shuhui and I attempted the Haruhi pose but failed because we both don't watch Haruhi. XD

And it started drizzling halfway through.

I love all the paparazzi shots taken by Pa.

Agnes: There's like, food inside!!
Rest of us: Omg, like, no waiii~!

The reception's all about catching up with friends.

Choo choo train!

Us again.

Halfway through the reception, our school gave each of us a little graduation gift.

Agnes is a busy person. :P

We tried to be good Hogwarts students and summoned balloons out of another balloon.

The crowd started to thin around 6pm, and that was when we decided to pack up and leave too. Some of us would still be able to meet each other in school (because we're working/studying there), but there are some who we wouldn't be meeting that often now. Still, this is the point where we step out into society and make our mark, so good luck everyone!

Congrats to the Class of 2007!

Piisu.

Cosfest '07

2007-08-08T11:43:00.000+08:00

This year's Cosfest was held over 2 weeks in July, and it was a total of 3 days. Personally I think 3 days spread over 2 weeks was a little too much; 2 days would be good though. The first day was held in conjunction with a family event in the middle of Orchard Road. While I don't mind having a cosplay gathering in the middle of Orchard Road, it was pretty weird when you have some VIPs and community events going on at the same time. But I supppose it gave lots of exposure to cosplaying here in Singapore.

Day 1
Mom and my 2 aunts went down to join in the fun and helped to take some pictures. The pictures here are what I could get from my camera and Aunt Karen's. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the settings of my camera before Mom started using it, so the pictures turned out super dark. T_T *slaps self* Ok, I shouldn't ramble on anymore. Onto the pictures!

Recognize any character that you love?

Air Gear. (I don't watch that show, so don't ask me who is this. ^^;)

There was a Naruto group on stage that day... but here's an Anbu.

Barasuishou from Rozen Maiden. I saw her when I was in the toilet. >>;

... And for your usual Bleach fix...

Might as well chop down that tree. XD

No idea who she's cosplaying, but I love her dress. :)

Lei Fang from Dead or Alive.

Final Fantasy cosplayers.

Here's Haruhi with a random passerby in the background. I think the 'random passerby' idea was pretty good, really. It makes people remember. Well, at least I did.

Obviously I didn't manage to get lots of pictures on the first day because I wasn't walking around myself to take photos. I saw a couple of groups that I thought were pretty nice, but unfortunately I don't have their pictures in my camera. I thought it'd be a waste not to show here because they were full groups, so here's a couple of pictures, courtesy of Snake Sniper (again. XD)

The whole gang from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu.

The host club from Ouran!

There were others who came in punk/lolita outfits...

Like whoa.

I want to show this because the person in pink is a dude. (And somehow I can hear Cheez go "Wah lau eh!" if he ever sees this)

We got a Nazi soldier in the midst of some cute lolitas as well.

And one more. I love the black coat. :)

And just in case you want to see us...

Thanks, Snake Spiker!

And here's another with Kagome before she went MIA.

Day 2
I didn't go on Day 2 because I was busy sewing my purple dress. And I heard it's a karaoke competition and some open house thingy? I'd go for the karaoke if I'm free, but since I'm busy... Pass.

Day 3
Mom didn't want to go all the way to Pasir Ris with me on the third day... so I went down by myself. And I was half-fainting from the stuffiness in the bus when Mom suddenly called and said Grampa's got a heart attack. It wasn't a joke. He really had a heart attack. I had originally wanted to get off the bus and take a cab to the hospital, but then again Mom was like, "You want meh?! You on your way to that event already..." And I thought, since it wasn't the omg-we-need-a-heart-bypass-immediately type of heart attack, I'd go ahead with my plans. But I did say that if there was anything urgent she'd have to call me and I'd grab a cab down to the hospital. So I'm not so bad ya. XD (Btw, Grandpa's doing fine now, thank you very much.)

So anyway, I finally got down there and it was past 3pm. :P A bit late, I suppose, but I didn't have that much stamina left in me (after sewing for days) to hang around that long anyway. I changed and equipped myself with my little T-20 and off I went!

Ok you fans, all together now... Harry Potter!

Chise from Saikano. I like that gun of hers. :P

More Bleach! Kill Ichigo!

... And more Bleach. (Yes I'll stop now since I'm not a Bleach fan myself)

Double Sugintous! From Rozen Maiden.

This picture is blurred but heck I'm a Hellsing fan, so here's a blurred picture of Alucard! His leather jacket was brown, but it came out a brilliant red on my camera, just like in the anime. O.o

Azumanga Daioh!! Even the Chiyo's the right height. :D

Vampire Knights.

This guy just sat there and had this swarm of photographers surrounded him almost everytime I passed by. But he's got Sharigan lenses. Really!

Tamaki and Renge-chan from Ouran High.

Allen Walker from D.gray-man.

We changed our outfits on the 3rd day. Can you recognize us? :P

It's been quite a while since I've seen a well-done Lulu. I was quite impressed.

Maya!!! From Gyakuten Saiban. Oh, I'm such a fan of that game. :D

Dragonlance cosplayers.

Juclecia from Magna Carta - I like her prop a lot... And hey, I think I saw that guitar-totting transformer before...

Wee! Triple Clouds!

The merchant from Resident Evil.

This sign was found at the back of the merchant's backpack... I didn't know you can stab merchants. Maybe I should start playing Resident Evil...

Sengoku Musou... kana?

It's Kamen Rider!! (Thanks CC. I need those pics. *hint* XD)

Bou greets you with a Nyappy!

I supposed she's a random lolita, but that blood bag on her cross was very interesting.

Kyaaa! Kawaii! If you have kids, you can consider putting them in lolita outfits and it'd be cuteness overload.

So that's about it. I was walking around taking pictures more than posing for pictures. Anyway I wasn't expecting many people to know who I was cosplaying, because it's a new anime. But there were quite a few who knew, much to my surprise. Many came up and asked, "Are you from Darker than Black?" Um, well, my character's from this anime called Darker than Black... The guy who asked to photograph my red eyes on Day 1 was there too with his friends and they recognized me (omfg)! I got very limited pictures of myself on Day 3... but I managed to get hold of this overexposed shot. At least it shows the full outfit.

Thanks, tj!

Piisu.

Some work to do

2007-08-06T00:26:00.000+08:00

I've finally come out of my slacker mode. Ever since finishing my contract at Boss' last Tuesday, I've been gluing myself in front of the laptop or the telly staring blankly at the screen.

My room's still in a mess - and has been like that since the end of the final examinations (omg when was that?!); my workspace is still littered with bits and pieces of cloth and paper since the end of Cosfest (omg when was that?!). I've been doing nothing for about a week or so, but then again my flu has relapsed and I'm down again with a severe cough so I'm trying to get as much rest as I can (by slacking). You know, it is something like SARS, where you cough and cough till you can't breathe. But I'm not down with SARS thank you very much. It's just that I do have difficulty breathing properly when I cough so hard. Gets worse at night. *shrugs*

So anyway, I've finally started to get things done, first by sorting out the photos to post here. That includes pictures from the recent Cosfest and convocation in July. Next I'll have to clean up my workspace. Then my room. And then I still need to get a petticoat done by Sunday because I managed to drag Chi Chang to help me photograph... things. XD I have high expectations of what he can do, so I hope to post some pictures up when we're done with the shooting.

I hope to get everything settled before I get my offer letter from Dr. C. Yep, my old Boss from 2 years ago is going to be my Boss again; and he'll be the "Boss" mentioned here from now on. Looks like I've got another year to hang around school and eat my favourite Yong Tau Foo...

I'll be posting entries on cosplay and convocation soon, so do stay tune for pictures!! And yeah, it'll be a shitload of pictures... I've sieved out a lot but I'm still left with... a lot. Ah well.

Piisu.

A short little preview of convocation.

2007-07-24T22:16:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was our convocation. We've all graduated after 4 years of mugging and stress. Full account later, since I haven't gotten my laptops back (yeah I'm calling them up again to bug them tomorrow). But here are 3 photos as uh, starters, since I can't edit and upload them all. All taken by my FOC photographer aka Pa. The pics are a bit of a crappy quality because Pa's laptop doesn't have Photoshop. Oh well.

They say save the best for last, but since this is a preview, I'll start with the best. (What kind of logic is that? Whatever...) After looking through the pictures from Pa's and my cameras (we both carried Sonys! But Pa's is an Alpha. *kaching*), I settled for this as my favourite shot. And it's taken by Pa, obviously.

Gown, motar board, folder, camera and good company. It's graduation day!! (To the 3 girls in this photo: you can find me on MSN for the original :D)

And 2 more because this post looks weird with just one photo. XD

We are from the School of Hogwarts.

And a boring one of me. Ha! (No I'm not molesting that bear, no.)

Unfortunately Paint doesn't give good quality photos when they are shrunk, so I'll put better ones up soon, when my laptops come back.

Piisu.

Hiatus

2007-07-21T22:26:00.000+08:00

... Not that I want it.

Miyabi and Kaoru are both on strike. Yep, both of them. Then how am I blogging this? I'm using Pa's lappie, of course... but I can't use it to watch and surf much because if it were to go on strike as well, I'll be in deep shit.

Miyabi's hard disk and wireless LAN have gone down... Kaoru's problem, I still don't know. Man, Fujitsu's services are getting a little slow lately.

Anyways, when I get them in working condition again I'll be back with a shitload of photos. Cosplay, graduation etc etc.

Piisu.

Cosfest... some ramblings before the pictures

2007-07-08T21:11:00.000+08:00

I think I debutted as a cosplayer a year ago at Cosfest 06. I think, because that costume was totally half-baked and falling into pieces. Come to think of it, I'd better ditch it so I can make space on my door's handle for more costumes (yeah, I hang them on my room's door handle...) But that was an absolute beginner attempt, with one week (oh yeah I was so brave then) and a rickety old sewing machine which I didn't even know how to operate properly. Pa did the machine work for me... and well, we tried our best with what we had. XD

So this year's Cosfest is a 1-year mark for me... although I didn't really do many cosplay projects in this one year. In fact, this outing is only my third project, because I either didn't have the time to make costumes, or I was just lazy to think up how to make them. :P

Going to a cosplay event with a grand total of 2 cosplay outings under my belt, I'd still consider myself as a newbie, but I'm not as clueless as that n00b 2 years ago. I made it a point to do something anime... and joined a team on top of that, to gain more experience. And believe you me, cosplaying an anime character would get you recognized by more people than do J-rock personalities. And if you're doing a famous anime, well, you get more "I know this character!" from people, as well as more camera hits.

Joining a team was actually fun, even though I didn't quite know my team members. But we just appeared in our costumes, introduced ourselves, and started posing. It's quite spontaneous... and more fun than doing cosplay alone, because you get more people from the same anime and well, the more the merrier, as they say.

As a cosplayer, it means a lot to me to have people recognize the character that I'm cosplaying... because I do hope that the effort that I put in to research and make the costume (and sweating buckets in the process) is worth the while. Inuyasha's a famous anime, and Kagura's a well-cosplayed character, so it was added stress because I didn't have a lot of time to research and make the costume, but I didn't want to make it look like I did a shitty job making it either.

But I knew I managed the costume ok when I was changing in the toilet next to Barasuishou from Rozen Maiden... and this couple of girls in the toilet queue (yes Taka's toilets are extremely busy yes?) looked over and whispered to each other, "that's Kagura!"

I get more "that's Kagura!" when I was out at the Civic Plaza later... and well, everyone seemed to be quite fascinated with coloured eyes, so I suppose that's why they wanted to come take pictures. A reporter (I think) stopped and asked me a few questions and a few photos... and she and another lady both asked me the same question, "where did you get this costume from?" At first I was taken aback, because I do think that my costume looks home-made, so I said that I made it myself (which is the truth and nothing but the truth) and both of them were so surprised. XD

Lots of girls came up and tap me on the shoulder to ask for pictures. I also get this two American(?) kids who came up really excitedly (they were literally bopping up and down) to ask for photos and then left with "Kagura's red eyes rock!!" and I was like "Yeah!!!" >D

Some weird things happened. This guy stopped me and asked to take a picture of my eyes alone, but you can't really decline this kind of request (although it's weird yes). So I did let him take a picture of my red eyes. -_-" A photog asked me, "Where's Naraku?" And I was quite dazed at first, but managed, "Uh... he went on vacation." (Note: Naraku's the primary evil character who created Kagura) And finally, I got this one guy who requested to take candid shots (finally!!) and we settled on looking at my fan. >>;

Speaking of my fan... it was a shitty last minute job, and the only thing in my whole outfit that I really hated. But it did come in useful, because all of us were literally melting in our layered costumes. Didn't help that it was outdoors, and there was like, NO air-conditioning. T_T

Did I mention that yesterday's Cosfest was in conjunction with a family event? So we get MPs and even the MM coming. The MM didn't come till around 7pm, but the MPs were there pretty early. Our group happened to be posing atop the sitting area so it was easier for photogs to take our photos (and it was alot of photogs ok...) and since we were elevated, the MPs popped over and were like, "Wait wait! Let's take a photo together!!" One of them even borrowed Inuyasha's sword to pose. :P

It was great fun really, but I doubt I'll want to do a private shoot with this outfit... Not that I don't like it, but it's quite tedious to wear everything all over again. XD Maybe I'll do it when I feel like it, I guess.

In the meantime, there's another 2 days of Cosfest next weekend (yep both Saturday and Sunday) at Downtown East. Although I'm sick (literally) and tired from the first day, I'm going to give it a shot and try to churn out an outfit in one week for the Sunday event. I'm not a n00b at sewing anymore, so let's hope that this time, one week is enough for one simple outfit. :P

I think you all want to see photos yes? I didn't take much photos, and my lappie's going nuts, so I'll upload pictures later. I'm also trolling the forums for more pictures, because I really didn't take any. Whatever photos in my camera, Mom took those. Matte kudasai ne. But I found this one that we took with the MPs in the forums, courtesy of Snake Spiker. All together now... LOL!

Kudos to them for being spontaneous. :)

P.S -- I didn't ask my aunts, but they volunteered their opinions. So I'll ask anyone who cares to drop a message as well... do you prefer Isshi or Kagura? XD (My aunts both preferred Isshi... but what about you?)

Piisu.

Kyou.

2007-07-07T00:31:00.000+08:00

... Cosfest da.

Yeah, it's been a month? Well, almost a month. For the past 3 weeks I've been working hard on my costume, cutting paper and cotton, sewing at my machine, painstakingly handsewing stripes onto my kimono... etc etc.

In between, I also managed to take time off to go to KL for some shopping and durians... which of course, left me with a bad sore throat and for the first time in my life, I lost my voice. -_-" Whatever that comes out of my mouth would be an extremely hoarse-sounding noise... Hmm. Note to self: Do not stay awake till past midnight for 2 weeks in a row and then stuff self with durians. More about KL next time, if I remember.

My sewing work completed yesterday, and my work officially ended just now when I finished making my fan... or what is left of a fan. (yeah I ruined my prop ok?!) Pa didn't help me at all in this project, so basically I did everything myself. Yup. Including handsewing stripes. *is proud* I got to do some fabric painting, which is really fun... but I doubt I'll get the chance to do it again. I made myself jade earrings, with the kind help of Zihui. :) I made myself a fan (or something that looks like one...) and stick feathers in my hair. So yeah, the experience is really quite nice, on the whole.

I'm not sure if my costume looks like the reference pictures that I worked with, but I don't really watch Inuyasha (yeah I caught a few episodes on Kids' Central but that's it) so the only thing I can rely on are the screenshots and pictures. The only reasons why I took up this project is coz it looks like a challenge, lots of people did it and die-ded, and the character's name is of course, Kagura (Tidbit: Kagrra got their name from the romanization of Kagura... yeah bad excuse hahaha).

Look like her not? (Mine's mirror image, just in case you're wondering why I'm wearing my clothes opposite of hers.)

Ok, maybe that is not a very good picture. XD I'm not very confident about this one anyway... I wasn't even sure if I really want to join the Inuyasha team tomorrow because 1) I'm still sick (from the durians). 2) I'm the only evil character in the team. 3) I don't know the people in my team (yet, anyway). 4) I don't have a full dress trial with my contacts and makeup. 5) My prop suck big time!! 6) I'm surprisingly very paiseh about this costume.

But I went and made all these so I suppose I'll just go and make some use out of the outfit. It's surprisingly comfortable, and easier to move around in, compared to Isshi. And I don't need a wig!! Hooray!

Actually, I did try out my contacts already, though not with my outfit. They were red contacts (yeah red... because I'm supposed to be evil yes?) and my whole view got tinted red!! ><; It's sick... and I realise having red eyes is actually quite disgusting... (how can Asagi keep those red contacts on is a mystery...)

So anyway, if you are free today (yep, 7/7/07!) do drop by Civic Plaza... come and see the cosplayers, and soak in the fun! Remember to bring your camera, and if you see me, pretend that you don't know me. Yep.

P.S -- I'm back to my natural hair colour!! Yeah, it's been 4 years. XD Zihui was so surprised with she saw me today.

Piisu.

Sewing... again.

2007-06-17T20:52:00.001+08:00

Happy Father's Day Pa!! Thanks for the Jack's dinner! (No, I'm not the one treating because I already bought ties for him.)

Before I carry on, a big THANK YOU for the 3 kind folks who dropped messages here. Arigatou ne Shuhui-san... Kenkyuusei no koto ganbatte kudasai! Thanks Ivan, and I'll expect you to come back with the same from Imperial as well. :P Cheez, I'll need your address soon too so I can send that photo to you. ;)

Right... I finally got the time to get my lazy bum down to start sewing... when the deadline's the first weekend in July!! (For those who can make it, I'll see you guys in town on that day!)

Recently bought fabrics...

I was still buying fabric from the usual auntie at Chinatown yesterday, and I didn't expect her to know about cosplay as well. Apparently lots of cosplayers bought from her for years now, so she knows about this stuff. To tell you the truth I was quite embarrassed to say that I'm cosplaying when she asked, but I did anyway. It's just like I get embarrassed when friends want to go down and see me in my costume... it feels weird, but at the same time I suppose I can use some company from familiar faces (I'm cosplaying with a group of people who are strangers to me), so do come down if you're free!!

I drafted and cut my patterns on Thursday, and spent the whole of today cutting fabric. But at least that is done, and now I can settle down and do some serious sewing. It helps that all the fabric that I'm working with is cotton (cheap and easy-to-handle), so I probably won't go crazy like what happened with Isshi and Nao. If I have the time, I might squeeze in another outfit for the second day on the 15th.

In the meantime, to prove that Shinhwa hasn't gotten to my head, here's a picture of me in Gazette-fan mode.

With my new T-20.

I found that the package had arrived when I got home early last week, and immediately tore open the plastic and tried the outfit on. This Burst into a Blast outfit that Ruki wore was ordered from Akichuu@lj, because I was lazy to make it myself, and I supposed the quality would actually be better if they were to mass produce it. It's quite affordable, and I would say, pretty good! But the pants were a bit tight. -_-" And no, I don't plan to do a cosplay with this outfit. Sorry if you're disappointed. XD

I hope that the Kagura kimono would get done asap, because actually, I'm more interested in making the other one that I had planned for the 15th. But I can only do it after I'm finish with Kagura's because I had promised to make it.

So... *revs up sewing machine* Full speed ahead!!

Piisu.

Seiseki

2007-06-09T23:06:00.000+08:00

Friday was results day. Actually I wasn't looking forward to it, but on the other hand I do want to know my results - put a close to everything, you know.

Apparently they put up the results at 12 midnight, but I was watching Crunchyroll the whole day and probably flooding myself with Shinhwa MVs (oops... have I sinned?) at the stroke of midnight so I didn't go check until Friday itself. Zihui messaged me early on Friday to tell me that results are out... but it was only after I get myself down to school that I could get access to a computer to check.

My grades for the final two modules were ok... Good enough for me because I managed to pass (yeah that's all that matters; I want to graduate asap). Boss and the markers gave me an A for my final year project, proof that all the effort (and lack of sleep) was worth it. And...

REMARK: YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE DEGREE WITH FIRST CLASS

I saw my degree type and surprisingly didn't feel any great surge of happiness. I did feel slightly happy though, but it's not like the "Banzai banzai banzai!" type of happy. Maybe it's because I had been through lots of stuff recently, and my mood's been pretty down. Seeing the words "First class" didn't help much, really. But Mom and Aunt Karen were like, ecstatic. -_-" And Pa treated us to Long Beach today as a form of celebration. I never went to Long Beach for seafood before, but now I know that the chilli crab is damn good. XD

Anyway, on a brighter note, I found out about the Algorithm March a few days ago... it seemed really popular, and I originally wanted to goof a bit and do it at convocation (like, after the ceremony when we're taking photos), but you need 8 people and Zihui said she'd rather die than do it. So instead of doing it myself, I'll just post the vid up here and everyone can see how it's done. The Algorithm March is part of a children's programme in Japan called Pythagoras Switch, and is shown in between segments, probably to serve the purpose of a quick exercise regime or something. But the interesting part is that the actions are designed such that the people would never hit each other when doing it, and the first and the last persons' actions are in sequence.

Ippo susunde maenarae...

Do try it yourself at home. It's quite fun. XD

Piisu.

Finally...

2007-05-31T22:00:00.000+08:00

... a new camera. And it's a Sony Cybershot.

My new Sony DSC-T20.

Wait, don't I already have a Cybershot (aka my handphone)? Yeah, but that's a camera phone... this is a real camera.

I love Sony cameras since 2 years ago when my Canon decided to not cooperate at the Bund (resulting in dark photos...) while Huijia's Cybershot gave her amazing pictures. But geez these toys are expensive, and I kept putting off the idea of buying one.

But I realise that while my Japan trip did survive on the shitty Canon, my graduation pictures probably couldn't. And I've waited long enough anyway, so I've been looking at Cybershots for a while now.

I've got my first pay today, and while out shopping with Mom at Marina (I originally wanted to buy some nice accessories from Diva) I found out that there was a PC fair going on (first day too!) at Suntec, and immediately thought of the goodies that I could get if I were to buy a Cybershot.

The crowd at Suntec was ridiculous though, as there was the World Book fair going on at the same time. But I managed to squeeze with the crowd at the Sony booth, asked for a brochure, and looked at the stuff that they offered. T-10 was already out of stock and wasn't offered at the fair, but they had the new T-20 going out fast. It was going at $599, but they threw in a memory stick and spare batteries, and some other stuff that I didn't really care about.

That was some big bucks there, and I was rather reluctant to part with my money so fast... I did some consideration, and then returned half an hour later to squeeze with an even larger crowd at the booth. They still had all the colours (black, silver, pink and white), so I had the salesperson bring out the black and pink so I could compare. I originally didn't want pink because everyone's having a cybershot with that colour, but it was really pretty, so I settled for it. I had the guy throw in the pink pouch as well for another 10 bucks, because the free camera pouch that they gave was well... ugly.

So I bought a Cybershot with my first pay, and now I'm pretty much broke. But it's not like I'll buy lots of stuff this month because I'm not aiming at things, so it's time to save save save.

It seems like I always buy some gadgets with my first pay. I bought a creative Zen (which is now rotting on my desk, probably a gone case too...) with my first pay from research in school... and now I buy a Cybershot with my first pay from my interim job. My next gadget would be a Nintendo DS, using my first pay as an official working adult. Just you see. :P

Piisu.

Holed up in bed... and now I have Korean fever

2007-05-24T14:44:00.000+08:00

Hmm... When's my last post? *checks* OMG!! Two weeks ago! D:

I had a bad case of food poisoning ever since Monday (Sunday?)... It felt worst than any food poisoning spells that I had in my life ever, and I knew I had to go see a doctor, but I didn't have the physical strength to do it. I did have the mental strength however, and managed to pick myself up from bed, only to walk a few steps and crash onto a bench at our void deck in cold sweat. Now, I did manage to walk to the doctor's (and back home!)... how, I'm not very sure. But I was breaking out in cold sweat and felt like fainting.

Monday was the worst because I spent literally the whole day in bed; everytime I tried to get up to eat my medicine, or tried to take some food or water, I'll feel like fainting. Actually, I couldn't even walk straight and kept seeing stars, so I actually walked and crashed into the pile of junk at the foot of my bed, scraping my knee. Tuesday was much better, but I didn't have the strength to go to school yet. I went to school on Wednesday, only to feel like someone kicked me in the stomach, so I took a cab home in the afternoon. Today I feel much better, and can pick myself up to get to my laptop and stuff... so I'll be going back to school tomorrow to carry on my work.

Thanks to Agnes who introduced me to Crunchyroll, I've been losing myself in all the videos and animes while I'm stuck at home doing nothing. Most notably (<-- hey is that a remnant of thesis writing? -.-), I've got into the K-wave too! Well, it might just be a slight Korean fever, and the videos that I watch are probably like, 4 years ago or something (read: outdated), but hey, it's Korean!!

Ha! Never thought that a J freak like me would get into the K-wave yeah? Anyway, I started out with groups that I know... like H.O.T (like god, am I so old or what). I didn't know they are visual. Train of thought: Visual = Take guitar and rock out like Gazette (headbanging!!). Boyband = Backstreet Boys-style singing and dancing ("I'll never break your heart..." Shudder). But H.O.T is a visual boyband!! *conflicted* No, I didn't get use to their music. Ahem.

Say... of the 3 or 4 days that I've been watching Korean MVs on Crunchyroll, I did pick out of few favourites that I really really like. Let's just say that it was a missed opportunity that I didn't like Shinhwa enough to go watch them when they came to Singapore. (When? Last year? Or like... 2 years ago?)

Piisu.

Shuugyou!

2007-05-10T09:17:00.000+08:00

I'm happy to say that my undergrad days are finally over. Here's what happened over the past 2 weeks or so...

1) Exam
You know I regretted taking that drug module. And I still regret you know, because when people were busy worrying about what to do for their posters and presentations, I was still mugging and squeezing whatever chemistry I could into my head. (Chemistry?! Ewww... you say. Well, precisely.) The drug paper wasn't too difficult, but it wasn't too easy; it was so-so. I think all of us final years were like, so braindead after our thesis, no one really cared much. I personally just went in and anyhow whack. Dunno how well I'll do though. When we were done with our last undergrad paper, I just filed out like everyone and strangely felt nothing. Like, really, nothing. Must be either I was desensitized, or I was too busy worrying about my poster and presentation. I think it's the latter. Btw, the exam hall where I took my last paper was the place where I took my first undergrad paper as well. So well, we're back in a full circle.

2) Poster
I kinda felt that Boss didn't quite like my first design, but I didn't know why (for my thesis I knew because I was practically writing rubbish). So anyway after I finished my paper on Monday, I settled down to start re-doing my poster again... I managed to finish by Wednesday, and then I had to go down to the bank to get my giro form signed (coz Boss will be paying me for the 3 months that I'm working for him), and then go down to school to dump it to the office and show boss my poster. I realised why Boss didn't like my first design... because I left out some results and he thought that I should just show them or I'll look like I've done so little over the 5 months. -_-"

I got my poster printed on Wednesday itself. After Boss said ok to my poster, I went back home to spell-check and do some last-minute sprucing, and then off I went to Sunshine Plaza. I printed 2 posters - one for myself, and one for Boss (coz he wanted to pin it up outside the office). I met Sarah and gang when I first went... and I had to wait for an hour or so for the printing, so I went to Spotlight and found some fur that I needed (and cost me like, 35 bucks T_T). I'm not saying what's it for though. XD When I went back to collect my poster, Shuhui and gang came in. XD Yeah, it's 10 bucks a poster so everyone just goes there, you know. :P

I went back to school on Thursday to paste my poster... and to pass Boss his copy. He paid for his own copy, much to my surprise. I was like, "ok, here's your poster." And he was like, *looks* "OK!!!" *whips out wallet* "Here 10 dollars!" O.o

Friday was my poster presentation, which totally screwed up. To start off I wasn't prepared and slept pretty late on Thursday. On that day itself I was almost late too. I managed to rush there on time, and then I stood by my poster in Mom's heels (which fitted, surprisingly) and waited... and waited... I expected Agnes' ex-boss would be examining my poster, but I didn't have the slightest clue of who the other guy would be.

And then Dr. R showed up. When he stepped in front of my poster I thought I was going to die. He isn't very lenient; in fact, he's pretty evil. And particular. You get the idea. Anyway I was afraid of him ok? So when he stepped up and was like, "ok you can start" I thought, "omg shit" and started rambling on and on. I thought that we had to keep to a limit of 10 minutes, so I was speaking real quick. But he did interrupt me to ask some terribly difficult questions, and obviously I didn't know the answer. So I settled for a "I'm not sure" and he started doing that evil smile thing. -_-" After he was gone I looked at Xiaofang across the aisle and saw her looking very sympathetic. -_-" Yeah, anyway, that was round one.

Everyone started to fidget in their heels and complaining that their feet/knees/calves hurt. My toes started to hurt too, but there was still round two. I looked around and realise that no one was keeping to the 10-minute limit, so I got pretty pissed because I could have taken my time with Dr. R in the first place and not be so nervous. Anyway, Agnes' ex-boss really came, but he was pretty nice, and I took my time as well so there weren't too many hiccups. Although there was a part where I shot my own feet and offered to name an enzyme... and halfway into naming it I realised that I forgot the name!! And Agnes' ex-boss actually stifled a laugh. D: Sucks...

Poster Day on the whole was shitty. I was very tired, and my feet hurt. The refreshments didn't help. For most people, it was their last day in school, so everyone was in high spirits and stuff, but I wasn't. In fact, after the examination in the morning session, I was seriously depressed. In the afternoon we had some guests, and a couple actually stopped in front of my poster to discuss things. My brain wasn't in working condition, and their questions weren't very simple either (because they were working on the same topic yes). So it was tough, alright, trying to entertain the guests and their questions while being so tired yourself.

I was glad when the day ended... I think my feet had like, lost their blood supply... because I couldn't feel my feet. But everyone did run around and take some photos for remembrance sake...

Me and my poster

With the 3 gals from the lab. Great memories... :)

With Agnes and Shuhui at Agnes' poster...

... we NG-ed, but it was funny. XD

And yep, the Uni clique.

3) Presentation
Most people don't have to do this, and good for them, because those of us who did it had to wait for another 3 or 4 days for freedom.

I started making the slides on Saturday after tuition. Took me a couple of hours, but there was some interruption in between because I had to go back to the hostel to pack up my things. So yeah, I managed to do my slides pretty quickly, and then by Sunday I was like, practising over and over. I also made sure that I search for the answers to the questions that Dr. R asked, just in case I see him again (hey, you'll never know).

I sent Boss my slides and script, and after looking through on Monday, he didn't even ask me to rehearse (wtf?). So I sat in the office for the whole morning searching for information on just about anything on my topic, just in case the examiners asked. And the more I looked, the more nervous I became. My presentation was at 3pm, but I was fidgetty since like, 11am?!

Zhenling and Sun Yang came in around noon time. Zhenling was supposed to give her presentation on Monday as well, but Sun Yang's slotted for Tuesday. So I got changed into my business attire, and we practised a little in the office. Boss has a new accelerated student as well... she came in around afternoon, but I was worrying about my presentation and didn't talk much to her. XD

The presentation went pretty quickly, given that we started late. I went downstairs around 2.45 and Harpreet was like, going into the classroom already. O.o So I sat in the resource room and talked to the others who were there for the presentation, and yeah, 15 minutes was pretty fast? So I went into the classroom, and greeted the examiners (my vice-dean, coordinator and Dr. Z) and proceeded to load my slides. The classroom was very big, and the 3 were like, sitting at one end of the room. So I really had to speak up for them to hear what I was saying.

I ran through my slides, and the vice-dean was like, "Oh that was good! I understood!!" -_-" So he didn't ask me too difficult a question (heng ah...) The coordinator asked a couple, and Dr. Z asked the most difficult questions. >>; I tried to answer whatever he asked, but everytime I answered something, he'll try to come up with a more difficult question!! D: So we were like conversing to and fro (think people playing table tennis), but it wasn't as bad as with Dr. R. Dr. Z is a genetics guy, while Dr. R is a chemistry boy; and I can confidently tell you that my genetics owns my chemistry by a thousand times.

So I came out of the classroom in one piece... and then off I went to settle all the admin work - the access pass and pay issues. Then I had to tell Boss that I'll be taking a week's break (HA!), and I bumped around the lab for a while before I left.

* * * * *

So yep, that sums up the last 2 weeks of my undergrad life. It was tough alright, and I'm still sleeping off the accumulated fatigue. But it sure feels good knowing that you don't have to touch a single piece of lecture notes for at least a year or so. These few days will be dedicated to sleep, shopping, food, and more sleep. And it's time to go back to the sewing machine too. :)

Piisu.

Warning. Stress ahead.

2007-04-25T12:54:00.000+08:00

After I submitted my thesis, I really just feel like lying down in some corner and die. Ok, maybe not die, but I just don't want to do anything anymore.

I just got news about our presentation yesterday, and it's one more extra work for me to do. So the schedule goes like exam paper, poster, presentation. Takes up about 2 weeks, not counting preparation.

It seems like my fuel tank's really empty now, because I can't find the energy to start revising for the drug paper. All I do is sleep, sleep, and sleep. -_-" That, and looking up cosplay photos.

I think it's the stress or what? But it's during this time when papers draw near that I start browsing photos of other cosplayers and thinking about what projects I want to do after I finish exams (and wouldn't be able to get down to it 80% of the time).

My mind is in such a disorganized state now, because not only I've got to worry about the remaining of my academic stuff, I've also gotta worry about my cosplay projects (at most I'll do that one which I promised others already...) and yes, finding a job.

Boss gave me a 3-month contract to finish up whatever's remaining of my project (which is like, a lot...) But in the meantime I'll have to go and look for something else to do. And it sucks, because you have to start looking around in the newspapers and on the internet. But that's not the point I suppose. The point is that I'll be poor after July's over, if I don't find a job by then. -_-"

This is what I call a quarter-life crisis man. Ugh, I'm so going on hiatus. I'll be back in 2 weeks.

Piisu.

Thesis day

2007-04-20T21:51:00.000+08:00

[this post is backlogged because I was too tired to blog on Friday]

I submitted my thesis today.

I never thought that I could even write a thesis when I came into this school 4 years ago.

Instruction was 3 hard copies and 1 soft copy

Took me about 3 weeks to get it done, including an extremely inertial start with me writing a grand total of 3 sentences on the first day (and 1 paragraph after 1 week). Work started to pick up as all the results from Boss started to stream in (and I started panicking) on the 2nd last week before deadline... and of course I infamously stayed up all night to do my first draft...

... which I thought sucked. (and I'm sure Boss did too, although he never said so.)

So anyway, I spent the entire week making it better (you can't possibly write good stuff at 5am). Much of the writing ended on Wednesday, when I showed supervisor my final draft - which she thought was pretty good stuff, and which Boss thought was much better. (I didn't really bother by then because I was so braindead and tired.)

And then I spent the entire Thursday at home fussing over the document because I had to proof-read it myself (and yes I found all sorts of typo and little stuff that people would miss). And then I printed out 5 copies on our new Samsung laser (3 for school, 1 for Boss, 1 for me). Ah yes, I forgot to say this because I was busy worrying about my thesis, but Pa bought a new Samsung colour laser because my Canon's print head started giving us streaky documents. And in good time too, because I could edit till last minute and still be able to get my documents printed out on time.

And that proved to be true because I found another typo at around 9pm on Thursday. So I had to reprint that page. And then, as a precaution, I decided to look through one of the papers that I had made a reference to in my discussion... and I was lucky because I caught a sentence that I had missed when I previously scanned the paper. This sentence was so important because my original arguement was based on the absence of it (see, you miss things when you do things quick -_-"). So my arguement didn't hold, and I panicked again because it was 9.30pm and I didn't know how to explain my results.

And it was Agnes to the rescue!! We had a short discussion (coz she's an expert at Northern blots) and I managed to cough up something last minute. Her name went under acknowledgement, together with Emmie's and Zhenling's because of their help with the Western. I had to reprint a couple of pages because I had to keep within the 5000-word limit so I had to rephrase some other sentences as well to fit.

And much thanks to Ardaka, who sent me that useful program for converting word files to pdf, I could convert the format of my document n number of times without having to keep bothering people to do it for me. Finally I got Pa to match the pages to the content page for me... and I got everything under control. Or so I thought.

Thanks to Emmie who got me into the Murphy's Law spirit, I brought backup for everything on Friday. Blank paper, blank CD, CD marker, soft copy of my thesis on my thumb. Paranoia started to set in as we sat in the office counting (and recounting) our pages, reminding each other that we had to get the declaration signed (which Emmie forgot XD) etc.

Emmie and I settled our stuff at around 1pm, after Agnes came down and we taught her how to use the densitrometer. So we went downstairs to the general office... and discovered that we had to include our project title and name on our abstract page. D: Obviously we couldn't submit our thesis because we didn't do it... so we had to go upstairs again (while cursing), reprint the abstract page... and get this, re-burn our CDs!! D:

Now, I didn't bring Kaoru so I couldn't convert my word document nor burn my CD. So in desperation, I got Boss to convert my edited word file, and Emmie helped burn my CD using Sun Yang's lappie. We checked that everything was under control, and then went back to the general office all flustered.

The office lady went through the stuff that we were submitting (3 items in total) and marked against our names. Then she started reminding us, did you sign the declaration? Did you put your title and name on the abstract page? I did, but I made her check all 3 copies of my thesis again because I was so paranoid by then. -_-"

We submitted our thesis slightly before 3pm... and then with quite a bit of weight off our shoulders, went upstairs and Emmie started packing her things. XD I decided to bump around and went to talk to Agnes, who was still in the common room... Sun Yang was still sorting out her papers in the office. I talked to supervisor and Boss a bit, and then I packed up and left with Emmie. XD

So now that I've got the most important item on my list of to-do things done, I gotta settle down and start revision on my drug module... and do that poster too. Boss actually wanted it in on Friday so he could print for me, but I passed because I didn't have the time to do it!! So I'll print my poster on my own, but it's ok. I can do it with Agnes and the rest. :P I hope that I wouldn't get into the oral presentation list... but I won't be sure until the list comes out next week.

It'll take up another 3 weeks... which means that I can only relax after that. T_T

Piisu.

Mushiba

2007-04-15T13:50:00.000+08:00

I've never had cavities before in my life... well, until now. I think I know why I ended up having a cavity in my molar. It was during the last vacation and I stayed up late, probably watching something on my laptop. And while I was watching I started chewing on some sour ropes. And since I was going to concuss after the show I just switched off my lappie, forgot to brush my teeth, and went to sleep...

... and woke up with a pain in my molar. -_-"

I had already waited pretty long before I got my tooth filled. Partially because I've never got cavities before and I don't know what it felt like to have a cavity. Chewing of food was ok till recently when I feel a dull pain whenever I chewed hard stuff.

So today I went back to the dentist (haven't never been there for more than 10 years -_-") and I got my teeth cleaned and my tooth filled... and am 90 bucks poorer. But at least I can start chewing sour ropes again. And I'll have to remember to brush my teeth before I sleep.

Pics were from one of the Ouran episodes about Honey and his cavity. Screencapped by me.

I thought that Honey biting Tamaki's hand was pretty funny so I screencapped this too. XD

Piisu.

System overdrive

2007-04-14T21:41:00.000+08:00

I thought that the assignment done on my trip to Japan was the worst, but no. My thesis was the worst.

I had promised Boss that I'll show him the draft by today, and at 9pm yesterday, I was just beginning on my Discussions. I dunno why I took so long, but I wrote till 5.45am today. And it was a hasty job, I might add. Probably I spent quite a bit of time trying to squeeze what I wanted to say in 5000 words, and it involved a lot of editing. I had about 2 hours of sleep, then went to tuition (which didn't went too well because I was half awake), and to school to drop my draft off at Boss's. He wasn't in (drats!) so I slipped my papers underneath his office door. -_-"

Anyway, my system went into overdrive yesterday (and this morning), and after dropping my draft I went home and my system crashed. I slept till dinner time, and now I want to sleep again.

And since it was a hasty job done towards the back (my system started hanging around 4.30am), I'll have to go back to take a look at my draft again. *dread*

Writing has never been so torturous (okay, other than the Japan trip assignment).

Piisu.

Paperwork stress

2007-04-07T21:35:00.000+08:00

Remember the time I brought my homework to Japan? I think I'm living the moment all over again, although it isn't as bad as Japan because I still manage to get my sleep.

UGH!!

Now you can't even see the pink colour of my desk because papers are just everywhere. I did clean up a little... but then when the writing starts the mess piles up again.

Maybe labwork has sapped me of all my energy. I couldn't find inspiration to write... and I'm limiting myself because I've just got to keep within that word limit. D: On top of that, my results aren't even all in yet... I've got to wait till Monday for Boss to patch some cells for me.

And then I've got a report to write for that drug module that I'm doing (damn did I regret...) And then after thesis submission I've got to worry about my exams. Oh wait, I've got to worry about that poster too! And throw in that oral presentation, just in case. T_T

Looks like sleep deprivation is the theme of the month.

Piisu.

3-month baby

2007-04-04T22:25:00.000+08:00

Zihui once told me that she doesn't want to be in the lab business once we bunk out of school, because it's like an emotional rollercoaster. Your spirits go way up when you've got results; and when you don't, it's like hitting a low point in your life.

After 3 months of hitting lows, with occasional periods of hope, I finally hit a high today. My voltage machine's working good, and my cells responded accordingly to what Boss wants. After 3 months of troubleshooting, retarded cells, crappy equipment... Ironically, I had almost given up for the day - and I had already stayed later than usual - and was giving a half-hearted shot using cells grown on nitrocellulose (read: Extremely fragile. Handle with care.) and the results just popped up. I saw the curve rise for the first time ever since I started voltage clamping and yelped in surprise (yeah, pretty unglamorous I know...)

And then Zhenling came in... and so did our lab tech. I added my drug, and for a few seconds we saw no response and I felt like crying inside, when suddenly the lab tech said, "hey look the curve's going down now!!" And we called Boss in, and then everyone kinda celebrated. Even as I was cleaning up, Boss dragged one of the graduates in to have a look at my results as well.

Doesn't it sound like someone has just given birth or what? XD I have to admit that it's a fluke, but at least my project ends on a high note. Ok, I'm not ending yet... Boss wants me to try some more stuff tomorrow... -_-"

Now that I've got something, it's time to sit down and think about how I can fit all these things into 5000 words. *grumbles*

Piisu.

JJ

2007-04-01T20:15:00.000+08:00

Recently, I went to Kinokuniya with Mom and happened to see a huge stack of JJ near the front counter. JJ has been a popular Japanese fashion magazine for as long as I could remember. But I've never seen the contents of it. Mom was going on a Japanese fashion magazine shopping spree then, so I suggested that month's issue of JJ as one of her browsing choices. I guess Mom fell in love with what's inside at first look, because from that month onwards she bought that magazine on a monthly basis. -_-"

The latest edition of JJ lying among my pile of half-finished papers...

Whenever Mom buys Japanese fashion magazines I'll definitely have a look. I would say that the stuff inside the magazine's pretty good. It'd help even more if you can comprehend Japanese. If not, looking at all the pretty dresses and blouses and accessories and shoes is good enough. The magazine's target audiences are college student and OLs. So all the things inside are like, pretty pretty. *O*

I've been reading the magazine for about 3 months or so already. And I must say that I've caught on with Japanese OL fashion too! XD Hey, OL fashion isn't just black jacket suits ok. They've got pretty blouses, bows, shorts (!), dresses, fashionable pants etc. And it seems like Jackie-O jackets are the in-thing too, because I saw loads of it in the magazine.

After seeing so much for 3 months, I went on a shopping spree yesterday and splurged on a pretty blouse and a vest yesterday. When I'm low on funds and supposed to be saving up. D: Mom got herself a Jackie-O jacket. XD I guess I'm getting back to being 'normal' eh? I haven't been looking at weird gothic stuff for months! <-- ok, that kinda suck. I better start looking at some to keep in touch with the visual scene or something. XD

This month's the last lap already. I must ganbatte!! Fight-o oh!

Piisu.

Saikin...

2007-03-24T09:57:00.000+08:00

This is a pretty random post.

Quick update on my labwork. My cells are behaving pretty nicely, but now the voltage machine's leaky! *rolls eyes* They like to alternate and make my life difficult, I think. I realise that like Boss, I'm pretty much a perfectionist. All the results I have, I want them pretty. But when you have less than 6 months to get results from 4 different experiments (I mean, four totally different experiments) you would want to lower your standards a little. My results aren't very pretty, and actually I don't really know what to do with them yet, but at least there's a little something that I got with all the work that I put in. Now, don't get me wrong that I'm done with slaving in the lab, because I'll still be working my a$$ off till thesis submission. (And I haven't sat down and write my thesis YET.)

Brian's health isn't too good nowadays. His digestive system's giving him problems again, and he had been having chronic vomitting over the past few weeks or so. This week the symptoms got worse - Brian doesn't even want to eat - and Pa had him warded at the hospital for observation. I'm not sure where's the problem this time around, and Brian isn't getting any younger. I just hope that he would get better soon. But all animals come and go, so it's time to start mentally preparing myself as well.

Now, who's going to NATAS fair this weekend? :P I know lots of people who are going. In fact, all the 3 girls over at Dr. L's are going. Oh wait, Sun Yang went already. XD Hey, it's time for a graduation trip, so it's no wonder why everyone's going. I have to go down to the pet hospital to see Brian's X-rays results, so I'll be going later tonight or something. We'll bring a big bag down for brochures!! XD This time I'll be looking out for info about the other cities and prefectures of Japan, like Nagano, Shikoku, Nikko, Kyoto, Hokkaido etc etc... Mom's pretty on about visiting Narai. I wonder if I can find stuff about those old postal towns. But anyway she's pretty into oysters nowadays, so I'll have to look up info about Shikoku as well. XD

Anyway, a trip to Japan would (of course) mean that I'll have to find a live to go to as well. (Yes I can hear all of you going "Haiyah..." already. XD) After missing Gazette's big live at the Yokohama Arena (aw shucks! *kicks random bucket*), I found out that they are having another one in autumn at *dundundun* Budokan...!!

... But I probably wouldn't go for that one. XD I mean, I've been to the Budokan already. I'm not going to pay another 75 bucks to see the same people at the same place. It's not like I'm tired of them or what (ok maybe I am but it's because I'm busy with work okok?) but watching another Gazette live at the Budokan is just... deja vu. Been there, done that. You know. -_-"

I hope Kagrra would have a tour or something around August or so. As far as I know, their current tour's final is in May, and at the end of Golden Week. Well, that definitely sounds familiar. >_< So I'll have to skip that one too... I guess I'll just have to wait for some nice tour schedules of bands I like. I seriously need to hear Isshi sing live, so I'm crossing my fingers for another Kagrra tour in summer.

Just thinking about vacation has made me feel better already. :)

Piisu.

Old photos

2007-03-17T21:55:00.000+08:00

Mom was digging up some old photos after I casually mentioned that I remembered a dress that she had when I was a kid.

Me: "You know, that one with a white flowery top and black bottom and empire cut with puff sleeves?"
Mom: "Omg you remembered?! Oh wait I have pictures."

And then she dug up some surprises which I don't even remembered taking. I must have been three or four, and my parents brought me to this place where, close to 20 years on, I found myself back there.

Mom said that they enrolled me a long time ago already.

Pa and yours truly in front of you-know-where. :P

Mom and me, minding my own little business.

You know, that carpark never changed. But I'm not sure about the numbers on the lots though. XD

There was no auditorium and (ahem) our school then! (Btw that fountain never changed either...)

I'm not sure if I have that cat still, but if I have it must have been dark grey already. (layers of dust over the years...) You guys should know where this is.

This place is pretty easy to guess too. But I'm not sure if the lamp post is still there though...

Mom said that they brought me there on a Sunday so there weren't any students around campus. Now, you must be thinking, of all places, why bring your kid to a college campus? I dunno, it's probably because we were having some Sunday outing and Pa's an alum so he might have thought up that idea of going back to have a look around for fun.

Anyways I put these pictures up because I'm going to update them very very soon. So watch this space in a few months' time. :)

Piisu.

Pa and his Engrish

2007-03-07T21:35:00.000+08:00

I've been so frustrated since the start of this week. Stress has started to kick in, I'm still not doing anything about my thesis (read: I haven't typed a single letter in my blank word doc), and to top it all off I'm given more things to do (not like I'm complaining about it, but it's a lot of things to juggle at once).

I hate Wednesdays because I still have class when some of my friends don't (no Prof. L it's not your fault. It's my fault. >>;) So anyway, I was feeling horrible since the start of the week, and today I didn't have much appetite during lunch so by the time Prof. L finished his lecture I had this stinging pain in my stomach.

Yes, the gastric's back.

So anyway, I was walking home after grabbing dinner and suddenly I remembered some of the things Pa said before and couldn't help smile to myself. (People must have thought that I was a toot smiling to myself...) It kinda relieved the stress abit. And then I thought that I'd write about it - kinda brings back memories.

Anyway, I always talk about Mom on my blog, so it's time that I talk about Pa a little. You see, Pa is a Chinese-educated guy, so naturally his English isn't too great. He has improved waaaaay lots, believe me. But once in a while, the powderful engrish comes back. This evening when I was walking home I could remember 3 such instances, but there could be more, I forgot.

#1 - Many many years ago, when I was in Secondary school, I had dinner with my parents outside. I was occupied with chewing my food when Pa said, "Hey, eat some cecilia. They are not bad." I thought, "what's cecilia?" Then Pa scooped up some celery and dunked them onto my plate.

#2 - Once, after some tests or exams (that I'd probably done well in), I asked Pa to do something for me. "My pressure," he said.

#3 - Recently, after Pa got his new Sony DSLR, he was pretty excited to test the big cam out. We were all in the lift (just us alone, thank god), and suddenly he turned and told me and Mom in a confident tone, "Let's go to Potential Gardens this Saturday." Mom: ".......... You mean Botanical Gardens is it?"

Piisu.

Stress!!

2007-03-02T20:00:00.000+08:00

Ugh.

It's Friday and I spotted the word "Sianz..." for the entire day in the lab. Normally I'd be looking forward to the weekends, but it seems like I'm not looking forward to this weekend. Must be the back-to-back events that I had lined up for myself, which would fill up my weekend schedule all the way to Sunday night. (Yes I'll get Monday blues next Monday believe you me.)

My system has been on log off mode ever since this morning... Boss must have thought that I was unresponsive when he talked to me today. -_-" And I was supposed to help him do some cell cultures, but I was caught up taking care of my own cells and in the end he ended up doing his own. >_< I didn't mean it I swear, it's just that I'm not doing fast enough and Boss kept poking his head into the room every 5 or 10 minutes. -_-" Shows that my system isn't functioning at this time of the week already.

On top of that, my cells aren't behaving and my voltage machine still hasn't give me any good results that I (and Boss) desperately need.

My thesis is still a blank page on Microsoft Word. T_T And Boss had upped the challenge and asked me to write a paper as well. TT_TT

If this isn't stress, I dunno what is. Just give me a moment, I need to say a loud "ugh".

UGH!!!!!

Ok... *breathes* When this weekend is over, I'll heave a huge sigh of relief, and start on my thesis (and the paper... oh dear...) I hope the procrastination stops here.

Piisu.

La beansprouts

2007-02-22T20:48:00.000+08:00

Beethoven's Op. 24

I stopped playing the piano abruptly 6 years ago. I think I must have been traumatized after having sat in front of the instrument for more than 10 years. So after I finished my music exams I hid my music sheets away and tried to wash classical away from my system.

Ironically, I started to like Jim Brickman, and managed to persuade Pa to buy me a new piano. The old brown Yamaha had served me for more than 10 years (like wtf, I was of higher level then and I was still playing a beginner's level piano) and a couple of strings were broken due to rust. So we got a big black Cristofori, and once the thing came into our house I stopped liking Jim Brickman. And naturally, the big black Cristofori sat in our living room for 6 years, collecting dust and rotting away.

Recently, Mom nagged me to polish it because it was too dusty. And around the same time, Nodame came into my life (read previous post) and I suddenly recalled that Beethoven had a sonata called Spring. It was a piece for violin and piano... And being a slacker since young I never manage to play lots of masterpieces (because I hate to practice), but Zhenling is a diploma holder for the violin, so I supposed that she would have played all those.

So one day in the lab, out of curiosity, I asked her if she played Spring before, and she was like, duh of course. -_-" I dunno what happened, but she ended up digging the sheet music out and started playing on her own at home. And then she persuaded me to go look up the sheet music for the piano part as well. -_-"

And that explains those beansprout notes. Surprisingly I can still read them. XD Now, did I mention that I hate to practice? My fingers are probably stiff already, but there's no harm trying... or the piano strings would rust and break again. -_-" I've played accompaniment for people to sing to, but I've never played accompaniments for violins. So this would be fun.

Piisu.

Last day of my break...

2007-02-20T12:49:00.000+08:00

I slacked pretty much these few days. Actually, I slacked since Sunday because I spent the whole day in front of my lappie. It's tradition (since say, 3 or 4 years ago) that I spend my new year watching a series of some drama. Usually I'll watch it over 2 days - the first and second days of the new year. But I had to go to school on the second day (see below) so I opted for something short. I stupidly went to choose Goong S to watch... and it was a waste of my time because the story got stale. -_-" At least I didn't download it... I watched it off Youtube. XD And the drama is still showing in Korea, so there were only 12 episodes.

That's why they shouldn't have a spin-off once they had a successful drama going on. Spin-offs are seldom good, really... Look at Meteor Garden. Ah, speaking of Meteor Garden, I think I really have a HanaDan overload. I mean, I watched the anime, I watched the Taiwanese drama (with the exception of the Part 2 ugh...), and now I'm watching Part 2 of the Japanese dorama. The Japanese version wasn't as draggy as the Taiwanese one, but I must admit that I'm pretty sick of the story (it's boy after girl and a love triangle all over again...) so I skipped like, 50% of every episode. -_-" I'm lucky that I didn't read the manga, because if that's the case I think I'll go insane.

It seems like the Nodame franchise is going on such a track as well. I was thinking of getting hold of the manga to read, but I'm not so sure now because I might have a Nodame overload... and that, I certainly don't want. Sun Yang provided me a folder full of Nodame manga scans (starting from where the dorama left off), and I tried to read it from my lappie, but I guess the feeling of flipping the pages from a book still rules. I recently heard that there's a Nodame cafe or something... and they serve Chiaki's ryori. XD

Yeah, I was going to talk about me going back to school to work on a holiday, yes? Unfortunately, cells are troublesome and you have to make sure that you change their medium or they'll die. So I didn't have much of a choice. I went back to an empty (and pretty eerie) lab yesterday, and got my stuff ready, etc. I finished what I had to do, and put my cells back into the incubator.

Now, ever since the staff cleaned the incubator, the gas tank seemed to be a little retarded and inject carbon dioxide into the incubator after a short delay. So now, I'd be more clever and wait to check if the gas is really injected into the incubator first, before leaving. (just in case, you'll never know...) And my just-in-case procedure really came in useful yesterday. After cleaning up and all, I went back to check the dioxide counter and saw that it still read as 0.0%. Weird, I thought. Normally, the gas tank would have injected the dioxide already.

So I went to check the pressure meter on the valves. After the experience with my own voltage machine's gas tank, I had already know enough to know how to check the amount of gas inside the tank. I almost had a cardiac arrest when I saw that our dioxide tank was empty. It was empty, on a holiday, and there was only me inside the lab.

Now, Boss has gone overseas, my supervisor's overseas... and I couldn't really get help from anyone on our floor. Because, well, there isn't anyone on our floor. -_-" I don't know how to change the valves to a new gas tank, either. So naturally, I panicked. Omg, my cells are inside an incubator that has no dioxide. What do I do what do I do?

I could only think of one contactable person who probably knows how the incubator goes, so I called Sun Yang. She offered to call her own lab staff to see if I could share their incubators for the time being, but no one was picking up (it's a holiday, after all). I called our lab's technician out of desperation, and after many tries, she finally picked up the phone.

We kinda discussed what we could do, and finally I gave up and suggested that I shift everything to a smaller incubator, which was in a separate room. It'd be a tight squeeze for our dishes (because there are cells belonging to the graduates inside the incubator too) but at least there was dioxide and our cells won't die.

Did I mentioned that my parents drove me to school and they had to wait for me there so we could have lunch together? So I had stress from 2 directions, and I was literally running around so much I almost slipped in my slippers (uh yeah, that kinda rhymes...)

When I got everything in order I called Sun Yang back and settled everything, and she told me, "if you didn't go back on a holiday, the cells would really have died by the time we all return for work on Wednesday." And not to mention, Boss would probably go insane over the dead cells. -_-"

It was troublesome for me, alright, but at least my project was salvaged. If my cells died, I would have die-ded too. Because I need the cells for my experiments. No cells, no experiments. And no experiments, project goes down the drain. This project's jinxed alright, but at least I managed to hold it out for this long. -_-"

Well, since today is my last day of vacation, I guess I'll just slack a bit more. Ok, maybe I'll do some sketches for my cosplay projects lah. -_-"

Oh, and the Travel Diary is updated! The old posts about the China trip are up now. I finally have the time to dig out my archives and search for those 2 posts. Enjoy! :)

Piisu.

New Year's Eve... and Shizuku.

2007-02-17T12:55:00.000+08:00

Off topic: This is my 100th post on Blogger! XD

This morning I went with Pa and Mom to the temple to give offerings to my late grandparents, and it just gets more crowded every year. This year I stepped in and my eyes started watering because of all the smoke from the burning joss sticks. And the furnace was so hot, I had to stand like, a meter away and try to throw the offerings as far as possible into the furnace. But I still littered the ground outside. XD

We got home and Pa wanted me to help him polish Ussan's (our Nissan) leather seats... so I did that.

And then I tried my luck at installing SP2 into Miyabi (for the upteenth time...) I think it's probably New Year's Eve and Miyabi is in holiday mood too, because he was cooperative for once... and now Miyabi's on SP2 as well!! (not that SP2 is better than SP1, but I can now install the new IE 7.0 in Miyabi. XD)

I realise that my mouse was extremely dirty... I mean extremely extremely. Because I use it every other day and at some places the silver coating was coming off and it accumulated all over the place, making my mouse appear cakey and just downright dirty. Actually, my left click turned white already because all the silver coat fell off (white is the colour of the plastic underneath the silver coating). XD So I took out my bottle of alcohol, and armed with my box of tissues, proceeded to scrub the dirt off. But I ended up scrubbing the silver coating off too...

This is a nice, brand new, silver Lapmate mouse that I got when I bought Kaoru. But it's not the one that I'm using now, because my current one still works, even though the coat's falling off.

And this is my current mouse, after some 30 minutes of hard scrubbing... Not only my mouse turned white, "Lapmate" became "Lapma" because I scrubbed the "te" off as well. -_-"

At least now I know that I won't have any silver coat caking on my mouse. Forever. XD But please don't try what I just did, if you value your poor mouse. :P

* * * * *

Shizuku isn't as good as I thought. It's too short and before I knew it, it was over. The songs weren't really mind-blowing either, although there were still the technical chops in the respective instrumental parts (Yay Akiya and Nao! <-- random fangirl moment). Isshi's singing is still as good as ever. But I didn't really like the songs overall. Maybe it's just that they are going the pop way and it's not as interesting as before (when they were still Neo-Japanesque and wore kimono...) The new album isn't sucky really, but I thought that they would surprise me with something... unexpected, you know. ^^;

Fukuya's not in charged of the cover anymore. T_T Izumi did the cover... which surprisngly rocked. XD And did Isshi do something to his face recently or what? Because he became *gasp* handsome. Okok... handsom-er than before lah, ok. XD I noticed that Kagrra's doing more ballads now. Uh, please, just stick to fast rock ok? >>; (Although I must admit that I was really smittened by Utakata when I first heard it. XD)

The Utakata PV has someone who looked surprisingly handsome, someone who played the koto, and a nice imagery of Japanese beauty. Maybe I should say that there's a damn pretty girl inside too. Hope that helps. :P

Utakata's still the best surprise I got from the album, but it isn't much of a surprise anymore because it was released as a single last year. Both Mom and Ardaka like it. It's half zhong guo feng... so Ardaka thought it sounded like it came off a soundtrack of a Chinese game. XD

Maybe that's why Kagrra isn't as famous as Gazette. It's good to be inconsistent sometimes, and surprise listeners with something out of this world. XD I hope the next release would be more special than this one.

Piisu.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

2007-02-16T15:39:00.000+08:00

You know that you have to take a half day off when: 1) Your boss has gone home for the New Year. 2) Your supervisor's gone home for the New Year. 3) Tomorrow's New Year's Eve!

I'll take a good break during the eve and 1st day, and then I'll go back to take care of my cells on the 2nd day. (like wtf...) And after the new year hols I'd better start on the thesis. -_-"

On a brighter note, my copy of Shizuku came today!! I got a mini-poster with the CD... and uh, that's about it. -_-" I haven't watched the PV off the DVD yet, but I saw the ripped version and it's... abstract. I'm still trying to figure out what they were trying to get at. Yay for Kagrra music. :)

Xin nian kuai le!

Piisu.

Hisashiburi!

2007-02-11T21:46:00.000+08:00

It seemed so long ago that I blogged... Sometimes I'd come home and think that I would like to blog about something that happened that day, but then I would either be too tired, or I totally forgot about it after a hectic day at work.

Lab's coming along ok I guess. Right after Boss came back from Japan I got him to take a look at the voltage machine and do something about my gas tank... And we fiddled here and there for two days, and on the second day he gave up and took out a huge plastic bag of pipes and told me to change to thinner pipes. He also gave me a huge box of adaptors so that I could connect the fine pipes to the machine. So I sat there for the whole morning trying to find the right adaptors and fixing the new pipes up, and finally the gas got working again. :) But when one problem has been solved, another pops up. My cells aren't corporating now and refuse to grow in a monolayer... and when they refuse to grow in a monolayer I can't take readings. So for the whole of last week we were trying to come up with funny ideas... including one from Boss where he suggested that I just scrap cells off my dish and put them inside my home-made modules (uh, you can't really do that if you need a monolayer ^^;) So in the end I tried making all sorts of modules, in different sizes, and I hope to start growing my cells in them next week.

Life's pretty busy day in and day out... and it seems like Fridays are the worst. (shouldn't Fridays be like, knock-off early days?!) I was so busy in the lab on Friday that I didn't even get the chance to sit down properly and have a break in the office. Liz got her results on Friday, and because I was inside the lab the entire day, I missed her call. But she messaged me... saying that she got A1 for her Science. Bravo!!

I was so busy on Friday that I even forgot that I need to go down to Kino to buy the latest issue of Shoxx. While I see Gazette on the cover like, every other month, Kagrra being featured on the cover is pretty rare. Maybe it's an annual thing? So I need to get that copy... and I actually forgot until 11.30pm that night. -_-" It's too late to even call Kino to reserve...

So after tuition yesterday, I rushed down to Kino only to see on the shelf not only Shoxx with Kagrra on the cover, but Shoxx bis and Neo Genesis (both featuring Gazette on the cover D:) and Cure (with Ancafe on the cover) as well. Well, I am poor, so I got hold of the Shoxx and Shoxx bis... and then went to ask for a browsing copy to Neo and Cure to look through. XD

Actually, yesterday was Mom's birthday. And Pa had this dinner thingy at the temple that he goes to every Friday to work. (you know, they have these free clinics and physicians go there to work as a form of community service) So he brought Mom and I along to eat... and they had karaoke! On a stage, in front of at least 20-30 tables full of people. Lots of uncles and aunties went up to sing, and I got sabo-ed by Mom as well. -_-" I was probably the youngest who went up?! But Pa went up to sing after me too (XDDD!) and we both agreed that the system sucked. -_-" Well, you can't blame them because it was an open venue; the speakers were all placed at funny places and the echo was so great I couldn't even hear myself sing. -_-" PartyWorld's still the best... Or Cash Studios, if you are on a budget. Ha!

Oh yes, I applied for a place in the halls and got it (surprise surprise!). I don't even know why I applied for it because I don't really have to be in school at 9am to do RNA work anymore, but I still gave it a shot because there's a chance to stay in the new halls! I was offered a place in the newest one (16) and I'd probably be getting my keys tomorrow. I think that it's pretty coincidental, because when I was a freshman I stayed on campus for the first 2 months of my college life (before moving back home XD) and now during the last 2 months of my college life I find myself back on campus again. Oh well, Pa seemed happy to pay for the rental because he thinks that it would be great to experience hall living... and it's a new hall with lifts and air-conditioning, so why not? (Although I'm not too big about the air-conditioning, I think that the lifts are very good. :P)

CNY's just around the corner... so has everyone started spring cleaning yet? Mom nagged me to polish my piano today, which I did, and now it's all back to its shiny state. :P (Oh btw, if anyone has the music score to Beethoven's Spring Sonata, please tell me :P) I also changed the posters in my room. Well, not all... but I took down the Arashi poster (from 2-3 years ago XD) and put up new ones of Kagrra and Gazette that I got from buying CDs. And now the wall above my desk is pretty much occupied by flaming red (Kagrra) and black (Gazette). I think I need to take some time to get use to them, especially that flaming red Kagrra one... (ouch my eyes hurt.)

Now that I'm working in the lab, I got to appreciate the weekends more... so now I feel pretty shitty because tomorrow's Monday again, and I haven't plan my experiments yet. D:

And I better start writing that thesis... Ok, I'll do it after CNY <-- procrastination at work.

Remember to stock up on those pineapple tarts and almond cookies! :D

Piisu.

Nodame Cantabile

2007-02-06T22:07:00.000+08:00

Naze sono dorama mirun dayo?!

Well, at least one of those people on my msn list has been hooked on the show (yeah, that includes you, Shuhui-san...), so I thought that I'd give it a shot when I saw the DVD on sale at PS on Saturday. I was too lazy to download it every week when it started showing in Japan last year, actually.

When it comes to good doramas, I watch it all at one shot. I started watching on Sunday... and watched till 1.30am on Monday (resulting in me having Monday blues at work yesterday). Darn, it's a good show!! I've never really liked Tamaki Hiroshi before this. Somehow or the other, I always mix his name up with Narimiya Hiroki's, and obviously they don't look a single bit alike... I prefer Narimiya, really. But Tamaki Hiroshi did a great job in this dorama!! I think he has improved lots since... Waterboys. XD I see Eita in that show too... was he from Waterboys too? (sorry, too many otoko-tachi to remember who appeared in which show...)

And then I thought that since the dorama's good, probably the anime would be good too... and hell, it's good too!! T_T Osaka-chan from Azumanga voices Nodame. Touya from Cardcaptor voices Chiaki. And get this, Hitachin Kaoru from Ouran voices Masumi!! It's like, all good seiyuus at one place!!

Both the dorama and the anime kinda brought back memories of those piano classes that I had when I was a kid. The theme from the dorama's one of my favourite modern pieces... Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I remembered that I played it on the piano, and boy I sucked. -_-" Beethoven's Pathetique and Mozart's Sonata for 2 Pianos were also featured. Beethoven's one of my favourite composers when I was a kid, but I only liked selective pieces from Mozart. I saw that the dorama featured a piece from Rachmaninov too (which brought back memories of the nightmare of when I struggled to manage one of his pieces... and didn't manage to finish it because it was too difficult for my small hands to play)...

... Which brings me to wonder why on earth am I listening to J-rock now...

Haha! But seriously, it is one good dorama (and anime...) I wonder if Chuangyi would bring in the manga too, because I'd like to read it. Watching these also make me realise that while one can tinkle those ivories with great technique, he still might not be able to bring out the real essence of the piece - something that I did not realise during my 10 over years of playing the piano (I wasn't really a person who appreciated classical music actually. I preferred the Backstreet Boys).

While it's too late to go back to my chromatics and arpeggios (although I think my fingers can still manage them... a bit...), there's always the chance to listen to how others interpret the pieces and enjoy the music, without focussing too much on the techniques, but just as they are. :)

So if you have the time, go check this dorama/anime out. (If you have the Nintendo DS, I heard that there'll be a game too!!)

Piisu.

Monday blur

2007-01-29T22:58:00.000+08:00

People got Monday blues... I've got the Monday blur. -_-"

I guess my brain hasn't been working all weekend, and occupied itself instead with Japanese magazines and latest fashion trends.

So today I was all prepared to do RNA work (yeah, first thing on a Monday morning!), and I got off a pretty good start actually... until I messed up the critical step. It wasn't too difficult really (and I've lost count on the number of times I've did it already...). One thing was that I didn't bring my protocol into the lab with me today, because it was on the other side of the office where there was a meeting going on, and I was pretty confident that I got the steps in my head already.

But then people were talking to me (piangz, and I made it a rule not to talk when I'm doing RNA) and I got kinda disorientated... so I added my reagents directly to a centrifuged tube without separating my supernatant from the pellet. O.o And after I made that mistake, I got even more disorientated - towards the end I even threw away my column before spinning down my RNA sample from it. -_-" I had to rush to find the column in my yellow waste bag. >>;

So I while I checked if my RNA degraded (and I was pretty sure that it did...), I went to the office to record my log... and guess what? I forgot to bring my pencilcase omfg. So I had to borrow... -_-" Mondays aren't good days for experiments I tell you.

I guess I was lucky that my RNA came out in one piece (well, most of it, anyway)... so I carried on... and hopefully I'll see something tomorrow.

Boss came back today, and brought us mochi from Japan! XD I'm not quite a fan of mochi, so I haven't tasted the one that he gave me yet. He showed us photos though... he went touring in Kyoto and Shikoku, and ate oyster buffet at Shido! He also ate tempura while sitting on tatami, and even visited an oden restaurant!! O.o Well, the oyster buffet caught my attention because I saw it once on Japan Hour, so I asked him where he had it... I must plan to visit Shikoku next time. Zettai ni. (Well, not for me anyway. I'm not such a big fan of oysters. But Mom is.)

This week's gonna be a busy one... I'll be meeting people and doing labwork and going for lectures. -_-"

Just let me go shopping already.

Piisu.

Otsukaretaaaaaa....

2007-01-27T22:53:00.000+08:00

First off, I dunno what to write in this entry. I guess I'm too tired. Therefore, I shall crap whatever's on my head.

It just seems like when Boss is not around, I'd be more stressed out and working my ass off. You can call it desperation. While I was all stressed out since Monday, I finally got my RNA in one piece, but that was only once and I had to repeat the same thing for dunno-how-many-times more. *kicks RNA* And while Boss was away, I decided to multi-task (hence the extra stress and fatigue) and start on my voltage machine.

Well, I started on it on Thursday, and on Friday, the gas tank decided to go on strike. I couldn't get it to work, so I called my supervisor over and after many tries, she decided to turn the valves a little and *BOM* something went bust. You can call it a reflex, because even though I had gloves on I immediately put my hands to my ears (and regretted afterwards, but there's nothing toxic on my gloves so it was ok). Actually, one of the pipes got disconnected because of the high pressure, so we connected it on again, and the supervisor turned on the valves again, and *BOM* another pipe went bust. It didn't sound too scary here, but it was really scary then (especially for my supervisor, because she was the one turning on the valves and I was like, trying to stand a mile away from her). It felt as if the entire gas tank was going to explode. So rather than risk our lives trying to get the gas tank to work, I closed shop as far as the voltage machine is concerned, and the supervisor told me that she would get the Boss to have a look once he comes back. But I hope my voltage machine would just work, because it had been problematic for like, a year or so?

Actually, working with the voltage machine's worse than working with my cells and their RNA... because darn it, I'd load over 10 samples and none worked. I got so frustrated on Thursday that I actually went "Nnnnnngh!!!!" in the lab, to which my supervisor went, "well, you don't call it research for nothing." -_-"

So after a week of stress, I decided to get some retail therapy today. Actually, Mom and I were supposed to go down to Chinatown, but then it's lights-up day today, and CNY's comin' so no one's gonna give me discounts for fabrics... so we passed and went to Orchard instead. XD

It's been quite a while since I visited Tangs, but most of the things there are for tai-tais and no way can I afford those stuff. So we popped over to Taka because Mom wanted to get iron-on rhinestones for her pair of new jeans and I knew just the place that sells - Art Friend. (well, sometimes you know these things because of cosplay *winks*) We went around Taka first looking at Guess watches and shoes... then by default we went to Kino XD. I didn't think that I would get anything, but since I was there I might as well go to my fav bookstore too.

So we went... and I told Mom that she can actually browse those Japanese magazines. She got excited and picked one, and we went over to the Japanese book counter to ask for the browsing copy... and I think that it was fated, because I saw the browsing copy of Arena 37oC on the counter (left over by a girl who was just leaving with TWO copies O.o) and guess who's on the cover? Well, whaddya know, it's Gazette! Mom recognized them immediately and instead of asking for the browsing copy of her fashion mag, picked that copy of Arena up and started flipping. -_-"

It's not everyday that you can get Arena at Kino... because they come in limited copies and ah... I hate to reserve that mag because you even have to cheong like crazy to pick up that phone to make a call! But well, the browsing copy's there, and after I got Mom the browsing copy of her fashion mag, told her to hold on to that copy of Arena while I go over to the shelves to see if there are any left.

And man, they must have really wanted me to buy that issue, because there were 3 copies on the shelf (which was previously not there when I checked 10 minutes ago?!). So I grabbed one... and uh, decided to buy. -_-" On my defense, those new outfits were absolutely gorgeous (and Mom agrees!). Mom wanted her fashion mag... and then she spotted an Arashi picture book. O.o (man, she's pretty sharp for her age) Well, I've never browsed picture books, so Mom tried her luck in getting the counter girl to open that book, but they don't open picture books for browsing. (I think the counter girl must be pretty sick of us asking for this and that already -_-") It cost about 45 bucks, so Mom didn't want to get it. XD

I asked the counter girl when the copies of Arena arrived, and she checked the tag at the back and said, "Just today, actually." O.o It's pretty freaky, because I managed to get a copy of Arena (with Gazette on the cover) when they just released it onto the shelves... and I didn't even know about it! (because I don't usually buy Arena in Singapore and so, didn't bother to check for their arrivals) I might as well go buy 4D too. XD

The new volume of D.gray-Man's here too, so I picked it up as well. Gazette must be pretty popular here... because when I checked back at the shelf (after say, 15 minutes), it was already empty. XD And when I was queuing for payment, some girls behind me managed to get a copy of Arena as well. ^^; Yay, at least I got some pictures of those boys in their gorgeous new outfits (and I have a purpose for them... I guess most of you would know already - no, don't think crooked please. XD)

Oh. After that we went to Art-Friend and Mom got her rhinestones. XD And then we decided to bump around the malls and I got a couple of pairs of new earrings. (because my old ones made my ears leak water -_-") We dropped by Far East too... but after a few shops in the basement I got pretty tired because I was looking at the same types of outfits over and over again... so we went upstairs to Athena!

I like Athena actually, even though I've kinda sworn off those Harajuku punk clothing. It is a new shop I guess, because previously I didn't notice it around. I bought a cool jacket there a couple of weeks ago, and Mom got her eyes set on this T-shirt (but they didn't have her size). Well, we went today, and they had her size! So obviously she bought it... and this vest/skirt thing caught my eye too. But I just paid over a hundred for that jacket (which was pretty worth it, really) so I'm not going to waste 80 bucks on this piece. It was cute though... T_T I met the owner... he's pretty nice.

Like I said, I've kinda sworn off those Harajuku punk clothing, but you still can't stop me from looking at them! XD So I'll probably be going back soon to have a look at new stuff. :P If you guys are interested in this kind of things (or are just curious), you can always pop down to Athena. Just look it up in the mall directory. XD Oh, and they sell creepers! :D

Righto. That's all for this week... I'll need to have a good break tomorrow, before going back to the lab to work my ass off again for another week. And Boss is coming back!! <-- double that amount of stress please.

Mata raishuu ni! :D

Piisu.

Unlucky day (Part 2)

2007-01-20T14:26:00.000+08:00

I remembered that I once wrote about an unlucky day during my sophomore year, and it involved Dr. P... >>;

Well, 2 years onward and I had an unlucky day again. Well, it isn't today... It was yesterday. I'm writing it today because I've had a hell of a week and I just wanted to sit down and concuss when I get home yesterday.

This was what happened. I had to be in school early because I've got RNA work to be done. (I'm seriously beginning to have a love-hate relationship with that thing) Having a late night the day before (because Mom wanted to watch Kouhaku and I couldn't surf until she was done), I tried to snooze on the train but couldn't because I was stuck between 2 persons who were, well, rather irritating. One was sick and sniffing, the other was sleeping so soundly he probably didn't realise that his arm was getting in my way. So when the sleeping guy got up and leave, I decided to try to ignore the sniffing and grab some sleep. Which I did, but it was only for a stop because I had to get off and change trains at the terminal. But I was still asleep when the passengers got off, until the sniffing lady tapped me on my shoulder and woke me up. Well, at least she woke me up (remember that incident when I actually overshot Boon Lay? XD) because if I were to overshoot this time I might just end up back at home. -_-"

So I crossed the platform, zombie-fied, to catch the other train to school. One embarassing event is enough, thank you very much. So I got on the bus... and boy the driver was pretty reckless that morning. I was still pretty sleepy then (I didn't get enough sleep and I was bloody tired ok?) so I was trying to shift positions in my seat when he turned the bus around the corner. I lost my balance and desperately held on to the handle in the seat in front of me, but I still bumped into the guy sitting next to me. -_-" Shit, I thought, it's not a good start to the day. My RNA might degrade.

So I got to school, and threw down my bags and prepared to do my RNA work. And when I was changing the rotors for our centrifuge, I thought something was really wrong. Because when I screwed on my rotor, it couldn't turn!! At least my supervisor's already in the office, so I stopped her in the middle of her breakfast (^^;) and asked her to see what was going on. She took one look at the centrifuge and was like, What?! It spoilt again?! Ever since I came here this thing dunno break down how many times already! We tried to borrow the neighbouring PI's, but unfortunately Zhenling's using it the same time as I was (how lucky can I get?!!!) so I had to run to the next lab and use the other Professor's.

I had to walk to and fro down the corridor for at least half an hour during my RNA work... and well, what do you know? When the gel photos came out, MY RNA DEGRADED.

*curses*

Why can't RNA just be nice to me for once and give me some positive results?! Once is good enough, for heaven's sake. And I thought I took care of the cells pretty well, you know.

Ivan, thanks for dropping by ^^ Well, it seems like after a lucky event on Monday, I have a string of unlucky ones on Friday. XD I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.

It seems like I've been updating every week or so now... so let's see what else happened during the week... Boss is going to Japan tomorrow. *envy* For one week!! *envy* He's going for work, but also for a short holiday. So nice. I want! And I dropped my Japanese, because I weighed my options and decided that it wasn't worth my time. They had reduced the syllabus, and I know half of what they would be teaching this semester. Plus, I'll probably go insane trying to juggle my drug module, thousands of Japanese vocabulary, and my project. So darn it, I dropped Japanese. And I had a good sensei!! T_T

That's so much about school. I don't really have much time to look into my other hobbies now... I just hope my sewing machine doesn't go rusty.

Piisu.

Two men saved my handphone

2007-01-15T23:00:00.000+08:00

I'm quite proud of myself because I've always taken good care of my handphone, and never lost it once. Well, I almost lost it today though. It was really a close shave, but I managed to recover it. Thanks to Pa, and that kind cab driver.

I just finished my first Japanese class in school (it's been like what, 3 years?!) and was going to go home when I decided to go to the loo. I held my handphone in my hand because I wanted to message someone, and when I'm done I didn't realise that I left it on the toilet roll holder in the cubicle. So I happily ran after the bus, and was actually thinking of calling Pa on the bus (I wanted him to go fetch me at the station after he finished work) but then got lazy and decided to call him on the train.

So I boarded the train, and settled down to flip through the sewing book that Agnes and gang got for me for my birthday. (Thanks girls!! It's really good!! Got everything I need inside :P) So I finished scanning when the train pulled in at Clementi, and I was going to settle down to sleep when I remembered to call Pa. And I couldn't find my phone even though I did a thorough rummage through my bag. And then I realised, oh shit, I left it in the cubicle.

Momentarily I kinda lost direction and didn't know what to do, but then I realised that I needed to go back and find it even though I'm at Clementi already. So I grabbed my bags and got out as the doors closed. And then I made a mad rush to the taxi stand (which were full of empty cabs, thank god) and hopped onto the first one in the queue.

Recently, cabbies like to ask you which direction you want to take... so this one asked me, "I go by PIE ok?" And I was like, "Anything, I'm in a rush so just get me there asap."

Along the way, I decided to ask to use the cabbie's phone because someone might have taken my handphone... So at the same time I spelt out the reason why I'm rushing back. The cabbie was kind enough to lend me his phone to use, and after many rings with no one picking up, I had hope that no one took my phone yet. So as the cabbie sped down the right lane of the PIE, he started telling me stories about people losing their phones in the cab and stuff like that.

So we got to school in about 10-15 minutes, and I directed the cabbie to the canteen where I left my phone, gave him 12 bucks and told him to keep the change. But he was like, "Wait wait! Cannot!" And gave me a dollar back... which is 20 cents more. "Uh, uncle, you gave me one dollar leh..." "Nevermind nevermind."

So I thanked him and made a mad dash for the toilet... and lo and behold, my black Sony Ericsson Cybershot phone was still sitting on the toilet roll holder. Talk about good luck.

I retrieved my phone, caught my breath and slowly walked to the bus stop to take the bus again -_-" And then since I used the cabbie's phone to call my own phone, and since I had caller ID, I called him back to show my gratitude again. I think he waited in the carpark for me, because once I hung up I saw a blue cab similar to the one I took turned and drove out.

I guess that I'm lucky that I had this cabbie drive me back to school, because sometimes cabbies aren't that helpful. And 12 bucks for a short trip isn't that much compared to the amount that I had to pay for my Sony Ericsson, so my heart didn't ache as much.

Come to think of it, Pa saved me first... and then it's that cab driver. If I didn't think of calling Pa, or worst still, if I decided to walk home myself and not call him, then I wouldn't have realise that my phone's missing until I got home. Now, that would really suck.

Mom was like, "once bitten twice shy ya?" So yep, now I shall be more careful with my handphone...

Piisu.

School's started, for the last time

2007-01-13T00:21:00.000+08:00

I guess I haven't really post often ever since I changed my layout to Gazette... because well, I was busy with labwork.

School has started this week, and for those who have finished their modules, all they have to worry about is their respective projects. For me, I'd still have to take one more module on drugs, and since I'm reading a module during my final semester, I might as well top it off with Japanese level 2...

... Well, that was what I had thought. But when I went for the first drug lecture on Wednesday, I kinda regretted my decision to push one module for my final semester. Probably because the entire lecture theatre was so crowded, both with seniors as well as the Year 3 juniors. And don't get me started on the Japanese. I thought there were lessons this week so I blur blur went for class... only to discover that classes start next week! Ah, baka deshita, watashi! But I had finished lab around that time on Monday so not having Japanese was still ok... and I get to see the Minister Mentor tour around campus on a shuttle bus. XD Don't ask me why he was there... I just saw him on a shuttle bus while waiting for my bus. And no I'm not hallucinating. There were traffic police cars and motorbikes behind the shuttle bus.

I had considered dropping Japanese (again...) because of my heavy workload (although not due to schoolwork directly, how ironic). But then again it's my last semester, and I need free Japanese lessons because I'm currently dirt poor... and I'm just going ahead with it. I guess during exam I'd just anyhow bom. XD

Labwork's been quite ok. While it can be very tiring (like this week, when I had to extract RNA twice), I found myself enjoying it. Heck, even filling up pipette tip boxes are fun. Is there something wrong with me? -_-" But my system would crash when I go home... Actually, I'm already asleep on the train. Anyway, work's more interesting when you have lab buddies like the 3 gals over at Dr. L's who always stock the drawers with goodies. XD I'm sitting with them in the office now because Boss's side is full (and I don't want to sit at the food table XD). My supervisor's busy all week with her papers, but I hope that I would be given something new to do or I'll be extracting RNA forever. -_-"

Come to think of it, I'm kinda stuck with RNA work? At Dr. C's I was doing RNA, and now at Boss's, I'm still doing RNA. -_-" Actually, I don't like working with RNA because you have to work all morning to get it, and in the end they might just degrade in your face. ><

Today Dr. K came over, with some reporters in tow. I wore slippers today because of the wet weather (how long has it been raining already?) and was taking care of my cells when she popped into the cell culture room. My first thought was, Shit! They're here to check! Why am I so suay! *hides feet as far as I could underneath cabinet* You see, we aren't supposed to wear slippers in the lab, but I swear that I wear shoes most of the time ok? Slippers are only for days which are raining or I know that I'd be rather free.

I think I had a look of shock on my face, because Dr. K immediately said, "don't worry, we're just taking photos" and all of us inside the room were like ok... Then she caught sight of my cell dishes in the cabinet (but I had just finished my work with my cells then) and was like, "Oh, she's doing cell culture! That's great!" She then proceeded to explain some stuff to the reporters while they snapped a few pictures while I just sat there and thought, "What am I supposed to do? Pose? Keep my cells? Ok, I'll keep my cells." And then I stood up and kept away my cells and they left. XD

Lab's fun... you get to see some interesting things sometimes. I take it all as training for my future jobs in the labs. XD

The following 3 months are going to be crazy... it's the first week of school and I'm almost dead. And I still have to start work on the costumes... T_T Isogashii sou... Ma iya. It's better than slacking, I guess. :P

Piisu.

New Layout!

2007-01-08T21:51:00.000+08:00

Shinnen akemashite omedetou! Ah, chotto osokatta. XD

Anyway, if you guys are wondering where I've disappeared to during the first week of 2007... well, here's the result! I've been working on a new layout for the blog, and it's now done and ready to go!

Kotoshi no feature wa... Gazetto no minnasan desu! :D

Much thanks again to Mr. Derek who did an awesome job chibi-fying the 5 of them. Kawaii deshou?! *pinches Ruki's cheeks*

Gazette have some really cool outfits and I had a hard time choosing which set I wanted for Mr. Derek to draw. In the end I settled for the Silly God Disco set because they wore it when I went to see them at the Budokan. So I gave Mr. Derek some reference pictures... and this is what he came up with! Applause to the creative talents of Mr. Derek!! *applause*

Try comparing the chibis with the real people? XD

I asked Mr. Derek to make the chibis pose differently from the usual cool poses that the Gazette boys always do (they're chibi-fied after all!). So he made Aoi looked embarrassed, Bandageboy did a kawaii peace sign, Ruki looked pretty shy, Kai did a zhuai(!!) pose, and Cloud looked like he's plotting something. XD Actually I told Mr. Derek to draw Kai doing a zhuai pose because he's the leader of the band after all, and most of the time people don't really pay him as much attention as the rest. Check out that shine in the teeth! XD And remember to look at the awesome detailing that Mr. Derek did on their costumes!

Actually, this is the 2nd and last set that Mr. Derek drew for me... so I'm wondering what I'll do for my blog layout next year. ^^; (Mr. Derek! *hint hint* XD) But really, the guy's busy with his job right now, and I think I've already gave him enough trouble by asking him to help me draw 2 sets of chibis... Hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita Derek-san! Applause for him again! *applause*

Again, if you need chibis, Mr. Derek's the man to go to! The link to his portfolio is under Credits in the navigation bar. <-- shameless advertisement. Oh yeah, Derek, I still owe you a cup of Starbucks/Coffee Bean. :P

With the new layout, there are also new features. Check out the new Travel Diary. The Japan blog is no longer existent - everything has been moved to the Travel Diary. I figured that it's more convenient to put everything under one roof rather than to have separate blogs everytime I go overseas. XD

I'm still trying to get the hang of the new features of Blogger (which I used in the Travel Diary)... so if you see something weird or funny do tell me! In the meantime, do expect the old China trip posts from DX (ah... natsukashii...) up on the Travel Diary soon!

My cosplay portfolio, hosted at Cosplay.com, is also up as well... I've got some pictures up there, and it'll be updated whenever I make new costumes. I know that the Cosplay.com server isn't too friendly sometimes, but I'm too lazy to make another blog for the pictures of my costumes so yep. XD

Last but not least, I've changed my counter. Did you notice? :P

I look forward to updating this site with posts for another year... so remember to spam with your comments whenever you feel like it!

Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

Piisu.

Happy New Year!!

2006-12-31T23:40:00.000+08:00

Ah... This is my last post for 2006. It's about 20 minutes to the new year.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Has everyone made their resolutions for the new year yet? I haven't made my list. ^^; But I'm going to make them real soon before the year's out. There are still some things that aren't really finished (like clearing up my hard disk...) but it's a long process so I guess it'll drag into the new year. :P

2006 will go down as the year that I saw Gazette (whoa, zen zen wasurenai yo), got myself into trouble again for another school year (by landing myself on that list), became less uptight about my grades, started cosplaying, met new friends... I wonder what's in store for me next year. I guess I'll take it at my own pace yet again, and hopefully be able to grab the good opportunities that come along. Ok... maybe I should go look for a boyfriend or something because Pa's nagging at me to get one (as if I'll have time to do it... *rolls eyes*)

But 2007 is going to be another year where everyone's going to experience new things and know more people. Because it's the year that we'll be graduating and looking for work!! So good luck to everyone in the coming year! :D

*business-like Isshi tone* Minnasan, akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! *bows*

Piisu.

Saikin...

2006-12-28T22:58:00.000+08:00

Random post about what's going on lately!

Ever since I'm back from KL, I've been bogged down with work, activities, work, activities... So I haven't really sat down to have a good rest. To tell you the truth, I haven't even cleaned up my room for the new year!! D: And now I'm down with the flu. I seriously dunno what happened. It came as suddenly as the slow internet speed due to the Taiwan quake. >>; And we've just upgraded our internet!! (the offer comes with a free Sony Bravia LCD TV and Pa and Mom were like, yay new TV! While I was like, oh good, higher BT rates. XD)

Lab's been ok. I'm still struggling to get my RNA in one piece. >>;

After EOY, things just got more interesting. I got some invitations from others (very nice of them ^^) for group cosplays. Unfortunately, when you're about to graduate, things start to get messy, so I had to decline... and stick to a couple that I've planned for next year. When I say a couple, it's really a couple. XD I only planned for two, and both are group cosplays. But if I have the time and dedication I might do one individual one. Minna otanoshimi kudasai ne... sono futatsu no kosupure wa cho omoshiroii desuyo. I'm still doing random characters, but sometimes I'd look at pictures of other cosplayers, and I think to myself, maybe once I started cosplaying someone, there's no turning back. But I dunno... I've got some projects that I'd like to do still. It's a terribly expensive hobby... and I'm trying to limit myself so I wouldn't spend that much.

Results are out today. It seems like the marking just gets weirder every semester? That was what everyone was saying. Surprisingly, I checked my grades in the lab today and felt nothing. >>; It's not very good, but not very bad either. Like I said, I'm not really expecting anything already. I just want to get this over and done with and graduate. -_-" Btw, Cheez sent me a graduation photo and it was great (eh, next time spend a bit more and print on photo paper can or not). He wore a purple hood!! Now he'll have to wait for mine XD Our hood's blue and green... which is... not very nice. ^^;

I don't like the new Blogger. -_-" Those templates available on the net are meant for the old classic version, and they don't have the tags and what-not!! So the new Gazette layout might be delayed (actually, I've got no inspiration yet :P). I'll still want to put it up somehow. Mr. Derek did a great caricature of the 5 of them. XD

Currently, I've been trying to get my life back together again in preparation of the final semester in school. Someone told me that I've got a split personality... which is kinda half true (no I'm not THAT schizophrenic yet). During the vacation I'll be another person (aka the crazy kid who loves everything weird), and during the school term I'll be the usual me (aka the nerd). So I'm trying quite desperately to revert back to the nerd version now... I've got, a few days more though. XD

On a more serious note, two of my past educators came back into our radar recently. Mrs Che, our JC biology teacher, passed away a few days ago, losing the battle with leukemia. It's been a couple of years since we all knew that she had the disease, but I was rather taken aback when John buzzed me online two days ago and told me the news. I didn't go to her wake yesterday, but I'll always remember her as one of my favourite Biology teachers (other than SC's Mrs Cha) whose classes I would always look forward to during my dreary JC life. Rest in peace.

Second is our beloved Miss Heng. Well, who can forget Miss Heng. :P She's stepping down as the principal of SC today! (Mom just told me the news.) Someone else whom we don't know is taking over her place in school, but I guess we old girls would always remember her as the principal of SC. She was the principal of the school when my 2 cousins (who are now married) and I (who don't want to marry early...) are studying there. And I would say that SC is the best choice that I've ever made. Or I wouldn't be the person that I am now... and I wouldn't have had the good times with Ardaka and Jo and Hsien and the rest who were there!! ^_^ Ah... happy memories. :)

It's just a couple of days more to the new year... and while everyone's taking leave already, I'm still slaving away in the lab. I hope my work gets done asap tomorrow... because I want a half day and visit Dr. Tan. This stuffy nose is really hampering my breathing. *sniff*

Piisu.

This is bizarre.

2006-12-25T10:16:00.000+08:00

Check this out.

While I think that it's a pretty good idea for pop art lovers, but isn't this a little bizarre? Well, if anyone of us have thought of this idea during our Entrepreneurship project, it'd be quite a blast for us to work out the biz plan. (it's good money, you know! XD)

Seriously, all of us can DIY this in the lab. All you need is an agarose gel and an electrophoresis machine. And are those 2 columns ladders I see? XDDD!

Credits to Go at Jrocknyc who posted about this on his site.

Piisu.

EOY Resolutions '06

2006-12-24T23:12:00.000+08:00

Ah gomen gomen. Osoi da ne, watashi. ^^;

I was in KL for a few days, and came back only yesterday. And then I spent almost the entire night talking with Kai (no not the Gazette drummer... XD) about costumes. She's one of the few cosplayers that I know personally; we found out about each other when I asked to be Kagura for her Inuyasha team next July. It was fun talking to her because we're kinda on the same wavelength when it comes to cosplays, and she's really enthusiastic too so it makes it easier for me to enthuse as well. ^^;

And then Aunt Karen and Aunt Pauline came over today to give me my cosplay photos and play with Brian. I dunno how I can survive without Aunt Karen helping me snap pictures at EOY... She got stuff that I didn't!! So yep, I'm pretty indebted to her for my EOY pics. And she brought log cake!! I must say, that I'm pretty embarrassed myself, that for the 22 years of my life, I've never tasted log cake until now. -_-"

I know that everyone's been bugging me for photos (that includes Grace and Ruth at the recent class gathering ^^;) I've chosen some nice ones out of the many photos taken by Aunt Karen, Angeline, and me. So... without further ado!!

The anime cosplays still prove to be the most popular. :)

Tsubasa Chronicle!! (for Shuhui :D) You just gotta admire them for the staffs and the costumes.

There were quite a few Ouran teams at EOY. And I love all the Honeys!! (You just have to love Honey. He's too kawaii. XD)

Suzumiya Haruhi does the "to infinity and beyond!" pose.

The entire Ouran Host Club gathers for a photo (I spot that the Hitachin twins are missing)...

... And the Vampire Knight team joins in!

The Anbu team from Naruto. (for Agnes!! :D)

Check out that weapon!! O.o

Trinity Blood? Chrono Crusade? I tend to get these types of anime mixed up. ^^;

I dunno which characters they are supposed to be. But they are cho kawaii... so here's a picture. XD

I dunno what team is this either... but they're pretty cool.

And then there's a Disney group! See who you can recognize! :D

Some more Disney goodness, specially for Zihui. XD

AND more Disney goodness. (ok I'll stop now.)

Then there were the video games... I dunno about you, but I always look forward to the weapons for video game cosplays. XD

Sengoku Basara!

The Advent Children team, and a Rozen Maiden in the middle of it all. (FFVIIAC is a movie, but it's from the FF game so what the heck. XD) Where did Cloud go?!

Oh, he's fighting Basara's Sanada Yukimura outside. XD

Here's one for Ardaka! Kingdom Hearts!

I dunno who they're cosplaying... but they look game-ish. ^^;

And finally, there are the few Jrock cosplayers, like myself and Angeline :P As a Jrock cosplayer, I like to look out for the little details. It's what makes Jrock costumes special, I guess. Do check out the costumes originally worn by the bands on youtube, if you have the time! :D

That's us... cosplaying Kagrra!! (Well, Angeline's indies Nao, and I'm Isshi wearing his Urei outfit)

Kai was there too. She cosplayed Kyo from Dir en grey! Uh, I know there are 2 Kyos... XD Kai's the middle one. :) This picture's taken before we kinda introduced and spoke a few words to each other. XD

Like I've said before, Ayabie cosplayers are few and far between. And suddenly an Aoi pops up asked me for a picture!! I wished I've asked her for her name. She did a great job on Aoi's Japanese Caramel Town costume.

Well whaddya know? Gazette came too, in their Zetsu outfits! (I guess they put in their best efforts already... I mean, I've been through it too. So that's a good effort on the costumes on their part ya? :D) I asked them for a picture so we can all be one, happy PSC family. :P

There were quite a bit of lolitas around that day... and is that Rentrer en Soi I see?! O.O

Okyakusan mo aru! Angeline's sis, aunt, uncle and cousins popped by for a visit and laughed like crazy when they saw her. XD (and I should thank Mom, Aunt Karen and Aunt Pauline for coming down to play too. :D)

Towards the end of the day we tried a role reversal too... It kinda screwed up because everyone started snapping our pictures and I was like oh shit no don't do it!! XD So the pictures came out more like candid, omake shots.

And... have you seen mascots and dollfies?

Domo-kun! The NHK mascot. :)

At this angle, all the dolls kinda look like the real thing?! That's Gazette btw, dollfie version. Kudos to their owners who dressed them like Gazette, because it's a really cool idea! (I can't remember who took the picture so I can't credit, but I got it off sgcafe.com. Gomen ne!)

Gee... I just realised that I chose pictures of myself with the same pose. Hahahaha!! I assure you that I've got a few more... but they didn't make it to my list of nice shots >>; Pa told me that that we can do a little shoot around the new year period (whoa how many days of holidays do we have? :P) so I'll work harder with the poses. I wasn't really thinking at EOY when I had many camera lenses in front of me and flashes going off here and there. XD Ganbarimasu!

Did you enjoy the pictures? Comments ya!! XD Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Piisu.

Tadaima.

2006-12-16T21:22:00.000+08:00

We've got some good business today. ^_^

For that I'm happy.

I think the greatest moment was when Angeline and I were looking at some performance on stage and these 2 girls came up and asked, "Are you cosplaying Kagrra?" That made all the hard work worth it.

Today's my first full-length cosplay event so I wasn't too experienced with posing and stuff. We had limited poses (lol), but I think I spent like, half the time there with my back arched. XD So don't blame me from looking tensed sometimes (yes, I saw some pictures already XD). You gotta hold that pose for say, a minute or so? Once someone asks for a photo and you pose, everyone starts coming in with their cameras and snapped away. (Yes, I feel like Mickey Mouse, yes. :P) But it's all great fun.

As for pictures, I can't say I've got very good shots. Because most of the time, we weren't shooting others; we were being shot. ^^; So I suppose I'll search the forums for some nice ones, or you'll have to wait till later. :P (Private shoot lah...) But I'll up some pictures after I'm done looking through mine and Angeline's and searched the forums. Probably by next week or so ya?

Generally, I'd say that this is a successful cosplay. Personal grading: 7/10 (Not full marks because my posing sucks.)

P.S -- Did I mention that we kena some sukebe uncles? XD One came up to us with his SLR AND digital camera and snapped so close to my face I suppose he must have been trying to take pics of my zits or something D: Full report with pics later. I'm beat.

Piisu.

Audition

2006-12-15T23:59:00.000+08:00

Well, well. We didn't do very well today... because of various reasons. We've sung better, I swear.

There was only one judge. The rest of the people in the room were logistics... Either taking care of playing our minus-ones, or video-taping the performance (aiyoh why must still video tape?).

It wasn't really a performance, seriously. The atmosphere was absolutely business-like. The microphones sucked. They were the same cordless mics that Pa bought from Giant (or NTUC, I can't remember). Princess Zoe told me that they gave her a professional mic for solo, but for duets, we used cheapo mics. I suppose you can afford another professional mic right... So yes, I wasn't feeling anything when I opened my mouth to sing (or did I open my mouth? <-- A bad habit of mine...). And I didn't even get to showcase the rest of the song... we were stopped after the first chorus, just like everyone else. Perhaps I should add that the kiam pa judge shook his head when he pressed the bell to signal that we should stop.

Well, at least I managed to pitch perfectly when I harmonized with my singing partner. :P That's already an achievement! And I don't have to worry about this anymore... I can concentrate on my work in school. :P

Partners in crime... of not doing Yuan Dian justice. XD

Anyway, it was quite fun preparing for the thing... we were trying hard to coordinate our outfits and stuff like that. But most of our efforts kinda went down the drain, because we didn't even get to sing the full 5 minutes. Ah well, all in the name of experience!! ^^

And... Tomorrow's EOY. I'm not too confident about my costume, seriously. I did a trial run at home and my obis kept drooping. :P They are too heavy lah... but I already tied them real tight. I couldn't really breathe! Anyway, I'm supposed to be wearing fake nails... but then I tried on one hand and discovered that they hinder my finger movements. And you know, when it comes to conventions like EOY, you gotta whip out your camera to take pictures and what-not. So I won't be wearing my fake nails tomorrow. Instead, I painted my nails white (hasty job, I might add)... and now I'm waiting for them to dry as I slowly type this entry. :P And don't expect me to carry my 50-dollar Japanese fan. It's too risky... So I'll substitute with a 2-dollar Daiso fan. XD

Don't worry though... Fake nails and traditional Japanese fan are on my agenda for a private shoot. I dunno when though... it depends on Pa. Because he's the one who owns the SLR... and he'll be my cameraman. :P

A little preview. ^^

Piisu.

Isogashii!!

2006-12-13T21:08:00.000+08:00

It's vacation, but it seems like my schedule's more packed than semester time. >>;

In the day, I'll be taking of cells in the lab (no joke! I'm practically changing culture medium every 2 days or so) and going about doing my experiments. At night, I'll rush home and hand-sew the stripes on my obi in preparation for EOY (which is this Saturday omg). To add to it all, my audition (with Princess Zoe) for Impresario's this Friday, and we were practicing till late on Monday. So yep, my vacation is being eaten up by various things.

I'll be updating more when the audition (ugh) and EOY are over. Argh. Stress!

You guys would probably want to see the outfit that I've been working on since the start of semester. *thinks back* Yep, that's an awfully long time. But I was doing the things bit by bit... Well, pictures would be coming real soon. The outfit's debuting on Saturday! :P

Oh btw, Pa said that my skirt looks like the God of Fortune. *rolls eyes* I was thinking somewhere along that line too, when I was hand-sewing some squares onto my skirt. I dunno why the designer designed such a funny dress for Isshi. But when Pa sat down on the sofa and looked at me busy sewing the golden squares, he kinda voiced out my thoughts, "Are you going to bai4 shen2?"

Ok, I can't deny that some parts of the outfit do indeed look pretty ugly. I must have been blinded by the pretty sleeves. XD I showed Mom the hair accessory I made and she was like "That's ugly." And I was like, "I can't help it! It's really what's on his head *shows Isshi picture*" Mom: "Ok, but that's ugly."

T_T

I'll probably give the whole outfit a trial run tomorrow or something, if I can finish sewing the stripes. Pa has been helping too, or I won't be able to finish sewing by hand. Pa owns at sewing obis, I tell you. XD

5 more stripes to go!!! Hayaku, hayaku, hayaku!

Piisu.

Eek!

2006-12-09T22:43:00.000+08:00

Ok, Princess Zoe just clicked on the "Register" button, so now I'm up for Impresario. I'm not too confident about performing, but it's all in the name of fun and experience. Hopefully the audition's next Friday, because the following Friday I wouldn't be here. XD

Oh btw, I think Blogger must have heard me. :P I've just gotten beta. But I'm too busy now to work out the tags and new features. I'm writing a conference paper *curses* and I've gotta make sure that I don't plagarise from the miserable few papers I've acquired and ahem, scanned through. >>;

I'll spruce up this site in a couple of weeks' time (after I'm back from KL), so it'll be then that I'll make use of the new features. Till then! :D

Piisu.

Heartache

2006-12-06T23:41:00.000+08:00

Today I went to get my hair trimmed...

... and my wig as well.

Half of my wig ended up on the floor. T_T

But it was funny. Auntie Violet was like, oh, just put it on, nevermind about the nets and stuff. So I stuffed my head into the wig, and Auntie Violet started tugging at it with a pair of heavy duty scissors. XD

All the ladies at the salon were like "sayang ah..." because all thought that it was real hair and I was cutting it away! XD!! Well, shows how good quality Amanda's wigs are. Anyway, it was really long, and when you try to pull it straight everything tangles up. So Auntie Violet was like, "hold on to your hair!!" And we were like having a tug-of-war on the hairdressing chair. She did mention to one of the ladies that she's cutting grass instead of hair. XD

And you know how Isshi's hair is like. It's long at the back, but really short in front. So half of my wig ended up on the floor. T_T But it's ok... at least I got the wig cut similarly to his hairstyle. Well, not totally like his... but something like that. Um, I hope it'll look ok when I wear in next week.

Auntie Violet has been asking me to teach her daughter for TWO years. For the past 2 years I said no because I've got Liz and Ryan and the little guy. But now Liz has finished her O's, Ryan's doing fine... and I've only left with one student. And Auntie Violet's really something, she kept asking for 2 years. ^^; Her daughter's starting secondary soon, so I thought it'd be ok... except that my students would be like, at opposite ends of the island and I can't just settle both on one day.

We'll see how it goes. I don't mind having another student, but it's just that I've still got my project (Sucks. Period.), and a drug module AND Japanese. So yeah, I may die. But I dunno. Hmm...

Piisu.

It's back to the lab...

2006-12-04T21:44:00.000+08:00

Yes, it's back to the lab for me today.

I went slightly later because there's module registration. And I wanted to cheong for that Japanese level 2. XD (free course what, take lor!)

Boss was kinda free I think. Because when I went upstairs he was bumping around finding people to talk to. XD KH popped by with a couple of plastic bags full of something, so I waited until he's gone before I popped my head out of the lab door and waved to Boss. :P

Seems like I wouldn't be clamping cells after all (yay!!). But the project's difficult all the same. Boss was like, oh see which ion channel you interested in just do lah. Any problems find your supervisor. -_-" But he did tell me to just do a couple, because if I were to do all I'd go nuts. :P

And then I found out from my supervisor that this project's jinxed. Because it was supposed to be one of our senior's projects, but she contaminated her cell culture (and that cell line takes around 2 months to grow up properly... *dies*) so the senior changed to another project. And then Boss handed this project to my supervisor, and when she did it, the bilayer machine spoilt. -_-" And now it's my turn.

Eeeeeeeee... Doing the cell culture is already stressful enough. Why must they take so long to grow?! And then I've got to do RNA. You know how RNA works... you talk a little and they degrade in your face! Right, I see a stressful 5 months ahead.

Wish me luck.

Piisu.

Gasp.

2006-12-04T21:21:00.001+08:00

I used some hair tonic yesterday in the hope of making my hair longer, so I'd look more like Isshi during EOY... and this morning when I woke up...

*screams*

It made me blonde too!!

XD

Nah... just kiddin'. I collected my wig from Amanda today. She's a really nice girl... she even waited in town for me to finish lab and go down for collection. ^^; We met for like... less than a minute. She passed me the wig and refunded me some money (I had originally wanted an even longer one...) and then we're on our way. I hope to meet her again at EOY. She'll be doing a Final Fantasy cosplay. If you guys remember an article in the Straits Times in June, Amanda's the one who cosplayed Shou from Alice nine. So yep, she's quite pro lah. ^^

I guess I was lucky at the supplier couldn't get the length that I wanted, because this one is long enough already. ^^; So I saved some money. (Amanda gave me a dollar more and didn't want change. My hands were kinda full then too, so I couldn't pop out a dollar for her either. ^^;) And I had originally wanted a brown wig... it seems like she gave me an auburn one. Well, all the better, because this colour's good. If she had given me a brown one (like, chocolate colour) I guess I would have regretted. So yeah, it's two mistakes making something right. :)

This wig alone won't make me look like Isshi, so now I'm going to get it cut. I hope nothing screws up. Auntie Violet's going to cut the hair on my head twice on Wednesday. XD

I thought it was pretty cool to suddenly have super long hair. XD Mom commented that the quality of Amanda's wig is better than the Chinatown Auntie's. Well, agreed. I'll be ordering more from her soon. (I'll probably be doing Jigoku Shoujo next... tanoshimi ni kudasai ne!)

But putting on the wig's kinda messy. >>; You've got this long strands all over your face and you feel like Sadako. XD At least now I know how I'll look like if I were to grow my hair till it reaches my butt. And I swear that I won't grow it that long. -_-"

EOY's in 2 weeks! I still have an obi, a hemline and an accessory to go! (Angeline got her Mom to sew the rest of the kimono for her already, so now I'll just worry about my own costume. Tee hee.)

Piisu.

Otsukaresan!

2006-12-03T21:16:00.001+08:00

Angeline came over today and I rushed out a yukata (kimono?) for her. Well, not the entire thing, because we only had 5 hours. But I worked hard... I finished about 75% of it already. And now I'm just drop dead tired.

But anyway, before Angeline came over in the afternoon, Mom and I were spending money like crazy over at J8. I guess it just comes naturally after you haven't been out at the mall for about a month or two. Mom got me a palette from Esprit for my birthday... Oh, and she got me a brush too! Eye makeup brush, that is... I'm a sucker for eye makeup (it's natural when you're a VK fan. XD) The salesgirl was really really friendly... we went early in the morning after breakfast and there weren't anyone in the shop. So the salesgirl had all the time to serve us... she even gave me a free trial using the palette! Mom got a pair of shorts at Newbie and a pair of Roman slippers at the new Pazzion outlet here. And Charles and Keith got some boots going at really cheap prices. So I bought a pair. And now I've got FOUR pairs of boots. >>;

And and!

Chou WA ki desune.

I didn't mention it on Friday, but right after I finished my last paper I asked Pa to drive me down to the Creative warehouse and bought another mp3 player. XD It's the new Zen Neeon 2... The front's all black, but the back cover you could choose the colour. I originally wanted pink, but then Pa was like "You're gonna decorate it anyway so you probably won't see the pink at the end..." And so I bought the black one. ^^; I wonder how come Pa knew I wanted to decorate it. :P

I had made up my mind that I'll do some WA flavour decorations... So today I brought my new Zen down to G-mask at J8 to check out their designs. I wanted a purple WA sticker (something that'll probably scream Naoooo!! to those keen-eye Kagrra fans) but the stuff that they offer are more towards red and pink and stuff like that. I didn't want my player to look too beng (ang ang eh...) so I settled for a blue one with chou chou. :) And I opted for glitter backing instead of the usual white opaque one (salesgirl says my player's black and the sticker's translucent so I'll need an extra backing or the picture wouldn't show). So now my player screams Izumiiii! instead of Naoooo!. But it's ok. It's still WA flavoured. :D Cost me a cool 58 bucks too.

Btw, I like my new Zen Neeon. It's certainly more convenient than the bulky Zen Micro. But I'm still glad that I bought the Micro too, because now it serves as a hard disk, and I can use its charger for my Neeon (Creative doesn't give chargers nowadays. You charge direct from your computer's USB. D:)

Angeline met us at the MRT and we walked home together (yeah, we shopped till afternoon. XD) Once we got back I threw down my stuff and got down to work.

When we went to buy the fabric yesterday, the aunties at Chinatown kept telling us to get satin because no one makes kimonos using cotton (like wtf, yukatas are made of cotton don't come and bluff me can.) I gave up because there were so many shades of pink and purple (Angeline's cos-ing Nao, and she chose the hot pink yukata he wore during indies period) so in the end we settled for satin. I hate cutting satin. Can I repeat? I HATE CUTTING SATIN. It's all smooth and runny and ugh so difficult to handle.

So yeah, the first thing we did was to draft out the pattern, which wasn't too difficult because there were 2 pairs of hands. We cut out the paper (Angeline didn't know the difference between shears and scissors so she used one of my cloth shears to cut omg. T_T) and then I got down to cut the satin. Before I actually cut out the cloth for the kimono, I made the obi as well because it was just plain white cotton (yes I love cotton!!) and I just go papapapapa at the sewing machine while Angeline draft and cut out the paper (and used the wrong pair of scissors in the process. :P)

Yeah, so while Angeline sew the last bit of her obi by hand (like, a tiny little hole XD), I cut the satin. And I cut it wrong!! But I was lucky because of a (bad) habit of mine, which was to take something I cut and straight away try it on my body. XD I tried it with Angeline, and we were both flabbergasted that the hem reached up to her calf only. XD When we drafted out the pattern the paper was too short, so I told Angeline that we'll have to extend out the length ourselves on the cloth, but both of us forgot. Thank god Costumy uncle 2's satin has a long width, so I still had enough to cut the right pieces.

Somewhere along the way Brian started humping and scratching Angeline's leg (really sorry about that, Angeline...).

I managed to cut out all the pieces by around 4.30 or so. It was some back-breaking work there, because both of us were hunched on the floor doing the drafting (I was measuring out the kimono pattern and Angeline's drafting it onto brown paper), and then I had to kneel and cut the cloth. Angeline's beginner, so I let her try out cutting for her collar only. XD Once we got the pieces done, we got down immediately to sew it.

Normally I'd draft, wait for a few days, cut the cloth, wait for a few days, then sew. But we're short of time (Angeline's got camp next weekend so we only had today to do as much as possible) so I kinda just rushed out everything. I never thought I'd work this fast. XD I had originally wanted to tack the cloth, but Mom told us to just pin and sew (which is like, twice as fast). I don't really like to just pin and sew because I'm not really confident at my aligning yet, but we were really short of time so I tried it. I wasn't too bad, I think. -_-" There was puckering and stuff, but I'm a beginner and it's satin!! T_T I hate satin. >>;

So I got her front and back done, and while Angeline worked on tacking the collar I pinned her sleeves too. Brian's probably pissed that I didn't bring him downstairs for a walk, because he kept scratching at Angeline's leg... So Mom told us to bring him downstairs and she helped finish up the collar-tacking while we were gone. So we came back, and I cheong-ed to sew on the sleeves. There wasn't much time left, but I gambled a little and tried to attach the collar...

... and failed. :(

I had trouble attaching the collar for my Isshi top... and now I've got collar phobia. T_T I did try though... I managed to sew the neck part already, but then I realised that the tack line was too thick. I improvised a little and carried on sewing (a thinner collar won't make too much of a diff yes?) and I was almost finishing when I got distracted and sew crooked. D: Like, this is the first time I sew something crooked. T_T I muttered "f***" and gave up and took the half-finished garment out to take a look. Perhaps it was good that I sewed crooked, because the tack of the collar had came loose earlier and there was this piece of cloth hanging out. D:

Pa already called us that he was coming to pick us up for dinner, so in the end we gave up and Angeline offered to take the thing home and try to finish up on what I had left off. There wasn't much I guess, about 75% of it is already done. I told her to unpick, re-tack and try again for the collar... and then just sew up a couple of the openings and the kimono's done. Then all she has to do is to paint her obi and make her headdress. :) I guess I'm lucky that Angeline chose an easy outfit? Because if she chose like, I dunno... Gazette or something I'd just die.

Some of the thread that I had discarded when I was making the kimono... XD

So now I'll need to work on my Isshi dress too (still got some ribbons that I need to re-tie, an obi to sew and a couple of finishing touches here and there) but I'm just drop dead tired.

And there's still lab to do tomorrow. T_T Ah... it's gonna be a tough 2-weeks! (hey, how come that sounds so familiar?)

Ah, and before I forget, thanks so much to all those who messaged/ sent cards/ sent belated cards/ dropped comments here to wish me a Happy Birthday. It wasn't too happy, but I really appreciated the well wishes!! Hontou ni arigatou gozaimasu!!

Soshite, saigo ni, Angeline-san, hontou ni otsukaresama! Atashi mo, otsukaresama deshita! ^O^ Yappari kosupure tanoshii desune! (I hope I don't scare her off her first attempt at cosplay when she sees all the work that has to be done into putting out an outfit. XD)

Piisu.

OWATTA!

2006-12-01T14:08:00.000+08:00

WAIIIIII!!!! OWATTA OWATTA OWATTA!!!

The last paper today was so tough, but I was kinda burnt out and my brain juice has been squeezed dry from the previous genetics paper, so I didn't really care and (like what Princess Zoe will say) anyhow bom. To think that I didn't study for a question that came out. D: I didn't expect it to be out, so I didn't study for it. But it came out!! Wtf. I forgot like, 95% of the stuff already. At least give us some warning the next time sheesh.

Up next on my schedule:

1. Bury myself in journal papers eck.
2. Finish my Isshi dress.
3. Help Angeline make her kimono.
4. Try to clamp some cells.
5. Spruce up this blog a little (when are they offering me beta?!).
6. Spruce up my lj a little.
7. Try to clamp some more cells.
8. Start up my cosplay portfolio (separate site comin' up!)
9. Go KL for shopping.
10. Just clamp that cell already goddammit!

Um ya. So I'm still as busy as ever even though the exams are over. But it's good that they're over. I hate cramming like crazy for papers.

Piisu.

curses

2006-11-28T13:36:00.000+08:00

What's with profs and messy notes?! I mean, yeah, put all the info into the notes, but at least organize it properly.

I had 2 sets of sucky notes this semester... one has slides filled to the brim with words, the other's just... well, messy. It's so messy I don't even know what I was reading, which led me to lose 8 marks today. EIGHT EFFIN' MARKS. *kicks random bucket* And I've been having headaches for the past 3 days because I was trying to comprehend a stack of messy notes sheesh.

I swear that if I teach in the future I'll make my students' revision painless and give properly organized notes.

Last paper's on Friday, but I'm not motivated. I've lost all my energy due to the hectic 3 days last week.

I find consolation in that I'll be meeting some new friends in a few weeks' time (EOY!! I get to wear my home-made costume!! Go Isshi!! XD) and I'll be going on a shopping trip with Mom to KL. And that I'll be seeing Boss again in the lab. (come to think of it, I think I dreamt about him telling me not to worry about my papers this morning. XD)

P.S -- Kagrra's going to be changed to Gazette soon!! :P (well, before the year's out anyway.)

Piisu.

Kimashita!

2006-11-24T23:00:00.000+08:00

It's been quite a week... I've cleared 3 papers in 3 days. Yep, that's one paper a day.

I haven't been too motivated (whoa irony, considering we learnt about motivation in our HRM module) this semester, and wasn't too driven to go all out and pia, so I wouldn't be surprised if my result slip would be all Bs and Cs. I'm too tired to care about what kind of honours I'll get. All I want to do is just pass and graduate.

The 3 papers this week... well, what should I say about them? They weren't easy, but they weren't difficult either. So it's neutral? Anyway I'm not too happy about these 3, partly because of the schedule. We had papers 3 days in a row: the first was a morning paper, the second was an evening paper (and on my birthday, no less), and the third was a morning paper.

I didn't quite like the first paper, because I was cheated by the visiting as the first half of the course wasn't even tested (and I went to study for those...) and he gave all sorts of questions for the topic that I HATED. And then I crammed like crazy for HRM, and continue cramming on my birthday just to get questions that I didn't expect, and I ran out of bullshit to write. And then I went home and continue cramming (wtf I crammed for TWO papers on my birthday!), slept at 1.30am only to wake up at 4.30am to continue cramming for the paper today. And now I'm half dead, cranky, and I still have some genetics that I need to cover. D:

But on a brighter note, CdJapan's really efficient. I ordered Kagrra's new single Utakata, because the title song was arranged by Chokkaku (omg Smap's and Arashi's arranger!!) and generally it was a great ballad. And the B-side was good too! XD So yeah, anyway, the single was released on the 22nd, and I even though I opted for EMS, I still estimated my package to arrive next week. But it arrived on the 23rd, and on my birthday too!! :O

So yeah, it's like a birthday present to myself. But I wasn't around to collect my package when they delivered because I was in school worrying about what bullshit to write for my HRM paper. So Pa and I went down to the main post office to collect the package today.

Yatta ne...

Nan ya, kore...?!

Uwoooo!!

They released 3 different versions, 2 limited and 1 regular, but I only bought one (I've seen enough of 3-version marketing tactics already; they're just out to make more money -_-"). CdJapan still gave me a poster to go with my limited edition, which kinda explained why the package was so big. I was kinda happy that the post office lady took out a long parcel rather than a box, because that meant that I got a poster. XD Shopping with CdJapan's easier too, because you pay online, so there's no trouble about international postal orders (like the previous time when I shopped with Third Stage...) Kagrra's releasing another album next year, and I'm so getting it. (But I'm looking for freebies so I'm still deciding between CDJapan and Third Stage. XD)

Go at Jrocknyc already did a review of Kagrra's new single. It's nice to hear from the great reviewer that Kagrra's still consistent and going strong (even though they only hit Oricon no. 12 >>; Why ah? Gazette hit 5th and even managed to go on Heyx3!! I want to see Kagrra on Heyx3 too. T_T)

Ya... 3 down, 2 more to go. I'm already at the brink of insanity already (no, the arrival of the single didn't help one bit). Gah... let's just get them over and done with.

And then I need to catch up on sleep. ^^;

Piisu.

Tanjoubi... kana?

2006-11-23T00:34:00.000+08:00

Happy Birthday.

TT^TT
(Today will be once of the darkest days of my life.)

Piisu.

Hiatus

2006-11-11T10:14:00.000+08:00

Before I go... Princess Zoe and I are toying with the idea of joining Impresario. XD But then again we would be like those unfortunate souls on SuperStar who malu themselves in front of the judges. I doubt we'll even pass the auditions! XD

But we'll worry about that later.

The stuff that we covered this semester is more than I thought. I didn't cover stuffs as thoroughly as I should for the past few semesters already... but this time it's even worse!! I don't think I've time to finish studying even. T_T

I guess I'm getting old... I get more easily tired nowadays, and on top of that I'm slower than ever and I have short term memory. Kill me.

I won't be coming here too often now... I'll see you all on the first week of December!

P.S -- December's a rather eventful month. Haha...

Piisu.

bitter laugh

2006-11-08T21:34:00.000+08:00

Gee... Something tells me that my exams this semester are not meant to be.

When my stomach isn't even fully recovered yet (but it's getting better, thanks for the concern!! ^^), I'm down with... flu. -_-" As if one illness isn't enough.

Don't even ask me how I got it. I thought it was the countless choco bars that I guzzled these few days because I need to fill my stomach before the acid starts corroding another hole in it. But no, because I've got a blocked nose in addition to a painful throat.

I wonder what Dr. Tan would think I'm up to if I were to visit him again. -_-" I tried Strepsils today to rid the pain in my throat, but the stuff kinda made my stomach gurgle again.

*dies*

So now I can't even stress myself out, because if I do I'd probably end up in a hospital bed instead of the exam hall. So yep... wo3 ren3... ganbarismasu!

Piisu.

Fifty-four

2006-11-06T15:59:00.000+08:00

I'm out of school early today because my stomach's still giving me problems, and I had finished my medicine so I had to visit Dr. Tan again.

Whenever I visit him after school, I'd have to take bus 54 from our terminus to the clinic. I last took the bus on Friday, and when I took it today again, the route changed!! At first I thought that because I was blinded by the pain in my stomach, I didn't see the number properly before I boarded. But then a look around the bus revealed that some of the passengers were as puzzled as I was. The bus made a huge round around the terminus before going along its usual route. -_-"

Dr. Tan gave me something stronger today... and said that if it's still no good he'd have to refer me to a specialist for check-up already. Well, I hope that doesn't happen. WHY MUST THIS HAPPEN NOW WHEN I'M IN THE MIDST OF WORRYING ABOUT MY BLOODY EXAMS?!

I believe that it's peptic ulcer, but I may be wrong. Let's hope that my body can last till next month, and after that I'd gladly go for check-ups if needed. -_-"

Piisu.

Pain... pain... Pissed.

2006-11-05T11:54:00.000+08:00

My stomach's been hurting so bad these few days I'm quite sure that my insides are already bleeding.

Surprisingly I didn't get any puking or diarrhea bouts, just pain all the way. It's been like this since Thursday or so, and this morning my stomach's still painful. Pa said that it's probably an ulcer, and when I went for breakfast this morning I was practically hunching over.

The pain's in control when I have my meal and medication, but then after a while my stomach starts becoming gurgly again and the pain comes back. I've tried to lay off my crackers and chocolates for a while, but then it's hard because I'll need to fill my stomach with something whenever my stomach starts gurgling.

It didn't help that the pain kinda slowed down my productivity, and it made me irritated for no reason.

My medication's finishing... so I guess it's time to see Dr. Tan again huh. T_T

P.S -- I showed Mom a picture of Narai and she was like, I KNOW THIS PLACE! Kagrra's video!! XD

Piisu.

Ii na...

2006-11-04T11:48:00.000+08:00

I think I'm stressed. Ever since the previous semester, when I'm stress I'll go surf up some funky place in Japan. And then I'll just stare the pictures of that place and wish that I'm there already. -_-"

Well, this time I'm not surfing for the sake of itineries (which was the case earlier this year heh heh...)

... Okok, it's partly for itineries... I'm already looking for places to go when I visit again next year!!

This time, it's...

Naraijuku!!

Where is it, you might ask. It's in Nagano, about 4 hours highway bus ride from Shinjuku in Tokyo. Ii na... Ikitai!

Narai, like the more famous Magome and Tsumago, are post-towns. Basically, during the Edo period (think samurai), people travel on foot between Kyoto and Edo. And basically, these post-towns help to provide lodging and food, and now these are preserved so tourists can visit!!

I wonder if you can feel like Kenshin for a day if you go walk around these towns.

I heard that there's a 9km hiking route between Magome and Tsumago, but I don't think Mom would like the idea of walking NINE KILOMETRES. Anyway, my original target's Narai. Why? Because I saw that place in a Kagrra PV. XD Uso ja nai yo, hontou desu!

No, it's not because they went there so I'll have to go there too. >>; (Although I'm beginning to be somehow obsessive as the exam period draws closer -_-") No, that's not the reason. Contrary to popular believe, I'm for scenic/historical districts as well... the more ulu the better. XD Narai seems nice enough, and you get to feel like a samurai walking through the town too! So why not? :P

It's nice to get away from the city and telecommunications and just spend a night up in the mountains without TV once in a while. I suppose I'll give Nagano a shot next year, if time allows.

Piisu.

Last lesson

2006-11-04T11:23:00.000+08:00

It's been 4 years since I've taught Liz (and yes Liz, if you're reading this, it's FOUR years) and this morning I had my last lesson with her.

Hmm... Nani o hanashi da na...?

4 years is a long time... I still remember the first time I saw her when I visited her place and she was just Sec 1 (and I was just fresh from JC). We had a rough start, but then things kinda even out because everyone grows and people change.

I wouldn't say that I'm the best teacher, but then again I hope she had learnt something from me. I certainly did learnt lots of things from her.

Let's see... we started out with Maths and Science, and then we evolved to Maths/Add Maths and Chem/Phy, before we finally settled on Chem alone. Phew. And this year she's doing her O's... which would be over before my first paper starts.

Well Liz, thanks for putting up with me these 4 years ;)... I've certainly enjoyed teaching you. Do your best for the O's and get some good grades back for us. Then after that go play hard. You deserve it. That being said, remember to work hard again after that :P Good luck in your future endeavours, and keep in touch!! :)

Piisu.

Onaka itai! ITAI! T_T

2006-11-03T15:25:00.000+08:00

Sob... It's always during the exam period when I get sick. Why ah?

Anyway this year it's gastric flu. T_T My stomach has been killing me for the past 2 days and I still drag myself to school (albeit in a half-dead mode). I can't help it!! I've got profs to visit yesterday, and today it's that malaria presentation so I've to go support my group right?

But then I went to see Dr. Tan after school. He was like, wah, your stomach is so full of gas I can't even press down!! >>; Well, my stomach isn't bloated though... but it's certainly gurgly. T_T So yes, my stomach's still painful... so I shall go eat my medicine and get some sleep before I start on my revision...

Speaking of revision... I don't want to revise!! I don't want to take exams!! *headdesk* Yes, I know it's the last year but I think my fuel tank's empty already. Seriously man, I just want to pass my modules. I don't even know if I can pass them, looking at those notes that I have to read... I can't even understand the NOTES damn it.

More complaints later.

Piisu.

Ramblings about cosplay

2006-10-29T00:59:00.001+08:00

Before I settle down to get ready for the exams (omfg, it's so near, isn't it?!), I really need to get this off my chest so that I don't have to start worrying about my cosplay projects when I'm staring at my notes.

Let me start by saying that Kagrra cosplays aren't too economical, if you know what I mean. I had initially set a budget of $150, but then it's too little so now the budget's at $200. Then there's a problem of the kimono fabrics... I spent dunno how long just sourcing for fabrics alone. So anyway, I ended up with heaps of fabric, lots of unwanted chiffon, and some half-done garments (and I've got a wig on the way). -_-" I started on my skirt today, and finished it because I didn't want to worry about it during my reading time. It wasn't as flare as I wanted it to be, but then again I was lazy and didn't want to do a 5-gore skirt. I don't like drafting and cutting, so planning and making a 5-gore skirt would just drive me nuts. So I made a 2-gore (which required like, minimal skills but took me one whole day to complete...)

By the way, I suppose you guys might be wondering all this while what does the outfit that I'm making looked like... It looks simple, but it's not. -_-"

Is that a sucky screenshot or what? Akiya looks like he's going to knock his head on that tree XD

I apologize for not making a good screenshot. Actually, in that PV the frames moved so fast and everyone kept moving and the overall thing is just so foggy... so it's really difficult to find a clear shot of Isshi, let alone a good one. By the way, Isshi's the one on the left... he's wearing a kimono-obi-skirt combo thingy. The skirt seemed like the chima of a han bok to me, just that it's cut slightly different. Urei's the first PV and song that I heard from Kagrra, and surprisingly, I chose it as my first official cosplay as well. Forget about the previous one... that one was done on a fluke. XD

And if you're wondering about the similarity, yes, those are the outfits that Derek drew for my current header. So pretty, aren't they? :D Actually, I love every single outfit for this set... I'd make them all, if I have the money and time. XD

Just in case you are still in the dark, I worship Isshi for his vocal skills. So that probably explains why I'm so anal about the details and stuff... but then again you can't make an exact copy unless you get it from the official costume maker (if there's even one *shrugs*)

The fabric for the center-piece obi before it was cut.

I'm still missing out on a couple of pieces... and my white top is still half-done. XD But anyway, it's time to plan for new outfits!

Because the Urei dress kinda drained my savings for a few months, I'm going economical for the next project. :P I've got 2 characters in my book... and both are called Kagura. -_-" (if that sounds familiar to you... yes, don't ask. >>;) The first one is Kagura Sohma from Fruits Basket... she's the one who's always hugging Kyo and turns into a pig when touched by the opposite sex. :P The other is Kagura from Gintama... she kills for food. XD

Kagura Sohma from Fruits Basket

Kagura from Gintama... I probably will be making the qi pao because I've got the boots to match! XD

Either one's fine... I'm stuck between the two. I'm slightly more biased to the Fruits Basket Kagura, because I think that my qi pao would be out of shape should I go make it (it's embarassing, but I haven't worked with zippers before). :P So I dunno... which one's better huh? Please take your pick!! (must vote ya!! XD)

After I'm done with one Kagura, I'll start preparing for StreetFest and Cosfest next year... I've got my targets ready already. :P

It's Bou from Ancafe in his wa-loli dress for StreetFest... and Kagura from Inuyasha for Cosfest!

Yeah... I'm starting to feel that characters named Kagura are getting old too. >>; I was planning to do another Kagrra cosplay for StreetFest, but decided against it because I'd end up doing Kagrra cosplays all the way and I'll be so bored (and broke). Both the wa-loli and Kagura's kimonos are going to cost me some big bucks... so I'm going to start saving now. -_-" Actually, the Inuyasha one wasn't my idea. I'm joining an Inuyasha team, and I picked Kagura for my cosplay (I wonder if it's such a good choice after all...)

So by the middle of next year I'd probably become somewhat skilled at making kimonos. Anyone wants to commission? I charge cheap! XD (Pst, Angeline's already my first "customer". :P She'll probably be my Nao for this EOY and her kimono's FOC because she's helping me do the sewing. XDDDD!)

Mom and Pa saw me in my half-done Urei dress already... I wonder if they were freaked out or amused. :P Pa told me to go downstairs and float around and see if people get scared. -_-"

As far as I know only a few people did Isshi's Urei outfit (because of the limited reference pictures that you can get... most are foggy or blurred, and even if they are studio-taken, Isshi's sitting down!!) Normally I wouldn't post half-done outfits, but I'm really proud of this one, so you see it here first (even though it's half-done)! ;)

Isshi's half-done. XD

I haven't seen the wig that I have ordered... It's a different colour from Isshi's hair in the PV, but it's the best (and cheapest) I could get... so now I'll cross my fingers and hope that it's not a weird shade of brown. I had originally wanted auburn, but then Isshi's hair isn't that bright either and Mom convinced me that I'll look horrible with yellow hair... so yes. ^^; Hopefully we can get it done in the right style when I bring it down to Auntie Violet's in December (Yes, Auntie Violet offered her help!!! *kow tow*)

I look forward to being that fan-waving diva this EOY (albeit a shorter version - chibi Isshi anyone?!). :P But now I shall go pack up my fabrics, and settle down and start hitting the books. T_T Argh the agony!!!

Piisu.

Kekkon Ome!

2006-10-25T17:41:00.000+08:00

Okie... I'm being bogged down with some work, but then I figured that I can do with some blogging before I burst another blood vessel looking at Malaria parasites.

This post is like, 3 weeks late, but then I guess it's better late than never. I'm not going to post pictures (ok, maybe one... of my parents and I, but that's about it) because the couple didn't tell me anything about wanting their faces up on the World Wide Web, so yep.

Couz Simon got married at the beginning of this month, to his Japanese fiance Emi. Well, for those who have been following my blog, this is the couple who made my trip to Japan a success. In fact, Emi's the one who got my Gazette tickets for me. So I really can't thank them enough.

Pa and Mom went over to my uncle's place for the tea ceremony. I didn't go, because I didn't see the point in going, and because I had to read my bloody HR notes. They came back around noon with one of my aunts. It's seldom that we get my aunts (Pa's sisters) visiting, so I rushed to get ready, and Pa drove us all down to Hilton.

That's Mom and I with Pa... he looks weird in this picture. XD

Couz Simon's receptions a light affair... we had lunch instead of dinner. I haven't seen most of my cousins and uncles and aunties for quite a while already. Ever since Couz Simon's sister got married, I think (that's like, 2 years ago). So almost everyone couldn't recognize me -_-" Couz Simon's father saw us at once we came out of the lift, and he looked at me for a couple of seconds before it hit him that I'm his younger brother's daughter. XD

So the relatives gathered together in a corner to catch up with one another... while the Japanese guests preferred standing at the poolside. I kinda bumped around for a while, then started talking to another cousin who's studying at the same college (it's easier to talk when you have common topics XD). My 2 younger cousins are so big already... one's doing her O's this year, and her brother just got into RI. R-I. -_-"

Mom and I then went to flip at the wedding photos. I couldn't really remember what Emi looked like, because I saw her for like, 30 seconds when we bumped into the couple a few years ago at J8. She doesn't really look Japanese... she looks Chinese more than anything. XD You know, the Miss Hong Kong type. :P And yes, she's pretty.

Lunch was Chinese style. But the Japanese guests got individual servings. When it was photo-taking time, I got introduced to Emi (finally...) I had been telling Couz Simon how Gazette's live rocked my socks off. So when he introduced me to Emi, he was like, "Remember her? She went with her Mom to Japan and you got tickets for her? She was telling me, 'Omg it's so great!!!' *crazy hand action*" >>;

Emi was like, "Oh yes that's you!! Your Japanese must be so great ya?" and I was like, "Um... no..." I asked for a photo with her later, and she asked if I'd like to go Japan again to watch lives. And I was like, yes of course!! (in fact, I'm already aiming at a couple of Kagrra lives already...)

"Ok, you know how to contact me ya?"
"Huh what? Really?! Omg thanks! O.o"
"Yeah sure, no problem!!"

I'm already so paiseh troubling her for the Gazette tickets already... and she's offering to help again? *touched* Gosh, I really can't thank her enough...

I met her parents when we were leaving too... and they too were like, "Oh that's you!!" (It's all Gazette's fault. Really.) Emi's father even told me, "When I got the envelope, I was looking at it and thinking, 'does this person live here??'" XD You see, I ordered my tickets online via Pia (which is fully Japanese... that's why Emi thought that my Japanese rocks) and the tickets were sent to her house in Japan under my name. I guess her father picked them up for me... Her Mom told me to go visit them when we go Japan again. ^_^

Yaaaa.... now that Couz Simon's married, all my older cousins are married already (that is, Pa's older brothers' kids). Actually, when I think about it, it's kinda weird. My older male cousins both married Japanese ladies. -_-" I've seen the other Japanese girl at the reception, but we didn't really talk much because she's not very good with her English (which makes you wonder how she communicates with my cousin...) Emi's more spontaneous because she's been in Canada for ages, and her whole family speaks English (if not how you think I can understand when her parents talk to me?!)

So anyway, now that Pa's older brothers' kids are all married... the next victim is... *checks* OMG it's ME!!!! D: Like, wait long long lor. Anyway, Mom hinted that I should go find myself an ang-moh so that we can have a multiracial family. -_-" Well, personally I don't think that that will happen... so don't hope. Meanwhile, I shall start waiting for invitations from my aunts. XD

Piisu.

Miss me yet?

2006-10-17T17:35:00.000+08:00

I think not.

But let me just settle my genetics writeup, and I'll get back here to update on Couz Simon's wedding (I still dunno if I want to post pics though :P)... and make everyone vote on my next cosplay victim!! (everyone must vote hor.)

Piisu.

Manicure!

2006-10-07T21:35:00.000+08:00

Anyways, here's a picture of my french manicure!!

Silver tips this time!

I'm not so bo liao as to go get a french manicure when our assignment is in limbo... but then the appointment was made very early on (by Mom... I went with her today) and Couz Simon's wedding's tomorrow.

It's too late to cancel... and it's not my responsibility to begin with (although I did ended up with it later, wtf.)

But the point here is that Couz Simon's wedding is tomorrow!! I heard that Emi-san's relatives are going to come over from Japan!! Tanoshii na!

Piisu.

Tsk.

2006-10-07T21:20:00.000+08:00

Please tell me that not all guys are like that. You see, we have this weekly assignment that we have to do in groups, and I ended up with 2 other guys since Agnes dropped the module. We agreed on a rotational system so each person is in charged of the assignment per week... it makes it easier for all of us because we don't have to do the assignment every week. You just do the assignment every 2 weeks.

Well, this week's not my turn. But then the guy in charged forgot to do it. Well, partly it's my fault. Because the guys are supposed to send me the assignment every week for checking, before I send to Prof Bubbles (why does it make me sound like a secretary?!). Well, apparently yesterday I got back home late, and forgot totally about checking my mail. So when I woke up this morning and thought of the assignment, I thought, Oh F***! And immediately went to check my mailbox... and the guy in charged for this week's assignment didn't send me at all!! I got worried, so I called him... and guess what?! He forgot. HE FORGOT.

If you had seen me this morning, you'd realise that I was pissed to the core. I told him to do it as quickly as possible, and went for tuition. When I got home, I told Yanfu, and he called the guy to do it too. So I went for my manicure (damn bad timing can...) and I called the guy again at the manicurist's. Guess what? He's outside and he'd only be home by 7 so he wanted to exchange with me for this week - aka I do the assignment this week, and he'd do it next week. Well, damn you, isn't it a bit too late to tell me TODAY?! When our deadline's YESTERDAY?! I had to go out after my manicure too... so I told him to get Yanfu to do it.

It seemed that we had some time to burn after the manicure, so I went back home before going out, and gave Yanfu a call. He said that we'd do it together this week... fine by me. I've got 2 hours anyway. So I said, ok, I'd do my part, and send you so you help me compile because I need to go out after that. I did my share in record time, and sent Yanfu.

I had to attend something in the late afternoon, and when the event ended, I messaged Yanfu again to ask if he had sent the assignment to Prof Bubbles. He replied, "I will send later" Well, the time is 9.25pm, and he hadn't send Prof Bubbles.

Are all guys nowadays like that?! What is the world coming to man?! I've no idea what these guys are thinking... perhaps any guy reading this can kindly explain? And don't give me the shit about needing to catch up with buddies and stuff like that. An assignment is an assignment, we have a deadline... and if you're late, you jolly well rush to hand in your work.

Gosh, I'm so pissed.

Piisu.

Yasumi ga... owari.

2006-10-01T16:56:00.000+08:00

I never do anything productive for this whole week! D:

Well, we did do up a presentation for our business plan competition pitching. Our idea's good, but then we lagged in our financial department so we got shot down by the judges. Like, really really hard. Didn't help that we looked very amateurish... and the judges didn't know that we wrote that business plan for the sake of marks (read: Entrepreneurship module) so most of the stuff that we wrote aren't actually real. I was kinda taken aback when they asked about our product and whether it is in our labs now... -_-" Well, the whole thing's kinda bizarre. Because the judges knew that we are final year students, but we had amazingly impressive CVs in our business plan. Well, at least, Agnes' got degree in HR and I've got a PhD in bioengineering (Minna! Call me Dr. Ho from now on k! :P). >>; I can't even make out what's real and what's not in our business plan already. Obviously we didn't get into the finals... which is a blessing because we didn't want the business plan to haunt us in the first place. :P

I went for the cosplay workshop just now... I wouldn't say that it sucked, but I knew what the guy's talking about say, 99% of the time? And on top of that, the guy's speaking in Japanese, I could still follow the talk for say, 70% of the time. All of the content is focussed on anime and manga, none on visual kei *disappointment*. The speaker did ask us a few questions though... I tried to answer in Japanese... and failed!! Omg my Japanese level degraded!! Doushio?! Doushio?! *rush around madly* The turnout was sucky... I guess it's a Sunday huh, and they had a couple of such workshops on Friday and Saturday already. I couldn't make it for the Friday and Saturday one... so yep. :)

Speaking of not making it for the workshop on Saturday, well it's coz I was meeting up with the Housewives! (feel touched or not... I take time off leh :P) I rushed off to Chinatown to get my fabric first though... I went back to the Kimono uncle, but he didn't have any fabric that I was satisfied with. So how? Look for new vendors lor! There are 2 uncles who sell what I call costumy fabrics at People's Park. Basically they are garang, shiny fabrics and laces for costumes and (I quote Aunt Karen) belly dancing. XD They also sell sheer, flowy fabrics for dance costumes too. I frequent the Costumy uncle just next to the Kimono uncle (I bought black georgette from him for my Ryouhei costume!), but then he didn't have the fabric that I'm looking for... so off I lumbered to Costumy uncle no. 2. He originally recommended his chiffon to me... which was slightly thicker than the one I bought from the Kimono uncle. But then it's not good enough, and I was going to tear my hair out already when I turned and saw a roll of white crepe backed against the racks. I pulled out the fabric and checked for the transparency... and it is almost perfect. I was in a rush because I had to meet the Housewives, so I whipped out my half-done kimono top (yeah, I brought it along so I can match fabric for colour) and hey! The colours matched!! Costumy uncle no. 2 was already asking how much I want, and I was like, gimme 3m and give me cheaper!! I'm poor pls pls pls!! But then we were bargaining here and there and in the end... I didn't get any price slash. -_-"

I got my cloth and off I ran to the Marina area to meet the Housewives. Hisashiburi na... I haven't met them in a long while. Secret Recipe at Marina sucks... in both the food and the service. Just stick to the cakes and take-out (which I haven't tried before wth). We shuffled around doing window shopping because there's a midnight sale thing going on... and everywhere's like, 30% off. I didn't get any clothes, but I got that Bearyhip doggy cushion that Agnes brings to lab!! XD It's at 30% off too... :P I brought it home and Brian got jealous and started scratching at its face. -_-"

I see that my Kagrra PV is done loading... I actually started loading the entire set of PVs, but I got impatient because I really wanted to see their latest one (which I've NEVER seen before) so I went to load that PV as an individual. XD Ok... I'll go watch now. XD

Argh... vacation's over! Stress is here!! *thunderlightning*

Piisu.

Shimatta!!...

2006-09-28T15:53:00.000+08:00

... ja nai. Demo shinitai ne.

Yay I just discovered that I got the wrong fabric for my kimono sleeves. I went to spend some big bucks on chiffon, and then realise that it's too sheer for my sleeves.

Ah, wth, I need to get new fabric!! T_T

Which means... another trip down to Chinatown!! *dies* I'm gonna get crepe this time... or something like that. Oh heck, I'll pull Pa down to check them out with me.

Tomorrow's the pitching for the business plan!! Wish us luck!!

Piisu.

Yasumi!

2006-09-27T09:56:00.000+08:00

I haven't been posting too often ever since my 1-week holidays started. Well, actually I haven't been posting at all. Much happened over the past week.

I was at Chinatown (AGAIN) with Mom and my aunts when Zihui messaged me to say that we are in the semis of the Business Plan Competition. I know Agnes submitted an application for it, but then I supposed it's with the thought that "Aiyah, we probably won't get in one lor" Right Agnes, right? So we got in... and um, we still don't know if we want to back out or not. XD We've got lots of loopholes as a result of spinning some wild tale about our product, but then again I supposed that it's still good enough to be in the semis. Well, it should be. We slogged till 4.30am on the same day we have to submit the thing! XD

I've been shuttling in and out of Chinatown these couple of weeks... basically to get my materials. I've got them... and the Kimono uncle (I shall call him that from now on :P) had a pretty good substitute for Isshi's obi. I did say that I was going to handpaint it, but then I'm lazy and I don't wanna mess up some good black satin with my shitty painting skills, so I got the substitute instead. :P I guess I'm quite a regular with the Kimono uncle already. His niece recognizes me! And Mom too! Probably because we both wore our Gazette T-shirts (see post below) when we first visited the shop, and she knows Gazette. XD

This is what I've been up to these few days. Pardon the mess.

I've got cotton. I've got chiffon. I've got satin. And I've got kimono silk. Now I need to sit down patiently and make my garments. I spent the whole of yesterday sewing and unpicking seams trying to make a decent collar for Isshi's white kimono top. The new sewing machine's very user-friendly... it didn't jam or snag my fabrics, so I'm happy. :) The chiffon's a bit hard to cut though. Correction. Chiffon's VERY difficult to cut. >< I'd probably do my sleeves today, so let's see how the chiffon fairs with the sewing machine. And today I'll be going to town to source for some good quality wigs. I won't be ordering a customized one from the Chinatown auntie because I'm afraid that it would look like a wig. >>; I've been looking into wigs recently, and I've discovered that a good quality one makes a lot of difference... it looks exactly like real hair!! So I'll need one for this year end... I can't be Isshi if my hair looks fake. *dies*

Oh have you guys seen the dress I'll be making? XD I'll put up a nice shot once someone post a copy of Kagrra's new PV DVD up online. :P It's a pretty white and red and black outfit... might come across like a pregnant dress for some. XD I first saw Kagrra when I watched that PV... so all the outfits bring back memories. Haha!

There's a cosplay workshop this Sunday... I registered for it... but when I called up, they told me that there are only 2 participants. *splash cold water* And I'm one of them. *double splash cold water*

I'm off to continue working on my garments. Sewing's quite therapeutic actually. It's got an "ommmm" factor. You can't make a garment if you're impatient. So slow and steady does the trick. ;)

Piisu.

Atarashii... Keitai!!

2006-09-19T21:27:00.000+08:00

Yep... I've gotten myself a new handphone!! And became 300 bucks poorer. T_T

Well, actually, my old Sony Ericsson's still working just fine... It's just that ever since I saw the Cybershot phone on the Sony Ericsson website even before it's released (yeah they show their soon-to-be-release phones... go check out!) I thought that I must lay my hands on that one. Heck, even the model names are so similar... My old Sony Ericsson's K700i, and the Cybershot phone's K800i. >>;

So anyway, the coolest feature about the K800i was the Cybershot function. I mean, duh, most handphones on the market nowadays are camera phones ya, but then the K800i's a Cybershot phone! It's a 3.2 megapixel Cybershot camera and handphone rolled into one! And it's got auto-focus and auto-flash and red-eye reduction functions!! And it's anti-shake... like how cool is that? Plus, it's 3G... so no more "Searching for network" messages when I go to Japan! XD

All that being said, it costs a bomb when it was first released... close to 500 bucks? Anyway I wasn't really prepared to change my phone so soon, because my K700i has been serving me quite well. But then a few days ago Pa saw that there was a student promotion thingy from Singtel and with it comes a Nokia handphone that he had been eyeing for eons... He has to change his ancient Nokia anyway. He has been using it for 5 years(!) and the battery's breathing its last. So since he could get the phone at 99 bucks only with me around (sometimes it's good to be a student), he suggested that we go and change our phones together. >>;

The process was kinda complicated. You see, the student promotion's for another plan. So I have to change my good ole Classic to iOne Plus in order to get Pa's Nokia. And pay more per month in the process. >>; Then Pa would buy my Sony Ericsson and stick to his old plan. And then we swop our phones. Lost yet?

So anyway, I'm stuck with a new plan for 2 years (I swear I'm gonna go back to Classic once my contract's up) and I get my Cybershot phone. And Pa gets to retain his old plan for another 2 years and he gets a new Nokia slide phone. Actually, we didn't really save too much. If you are just considering the phones alone, paying close to 400 bucks for two latest 3G phones is quite a bargain. But then I changed my plan, and they don't give me free caller ID, so we ended up paying more for the plan instead... And we're back to square one. -_-"

Yep... so now my silver Sony Ericsson's gone. And in its place is a black Sony Ericsson Cybershot phone. The strap hole has only space for one handphone strap, so I forgo my Kitty one and hung my Burberry one alone (you have to get your money's worth when you pay 75 bucks for a bloody handphone strap you know). The backlight's cool... it's purple!! My favourite. :P And they gave me a free 256MB memory stick too... saves me some money for other things. :P

Currently my SIM's not activated yet, so I'm disconnected with the rest of civilization for tonight and tomorrow morning. XD In the meantime I'm learning how to use the new features... My new wallie and ringtone are different from my old Sony Ericsson, but from the same sources. XD I used Fukaya's art (again!) for my wallie - because I'm uncreative currently and didn't bother to go look for new pictures. My ringtone's another tune by Gazette (again!) - because you need something loud to tell you that someone's calling... and to use as an alarm too. XD

Ah... seems like I'm not as excited as Pa in getting the new phone. :P The keys and stuff are the same... so there's nothing much for me to play around except to upload tunes and pictures for ringtones and wallpapers. Pa needs to put in extra work because he upgraded from an ancient Nokia... He didn't even know which button to press when I called him this afternoon! XD

Piisu.

New lappie... and random photos!

2006-09-18T13:46:00.000+08:00

I haven't come online to blog for quite a while already. So many things happened over the last week...

I cleared my Neuro test last Tuesday. But I don't know how well I'll do. I wasn't in a very good mood so I just went in and anyhow hit around... if you know what I mean. And on Wednesday I went for my scholarship interview. It seems like the number of interviewers just increases over the years. During my 2nd year I had 3 interviewers, and during my 3rd I've got like 4 or 5. This time, I've got 6. S-I-X. I went in and haven't even sit myself down when they started asking questions. And since I haven't even settle down and composed myself, I fumbled for the first few questions. And those questions were the you-ask-me-I-ask-who type of questions... Don't ask a Biology student about Engineering. I know nuts about engineering. >>;

And then Pa was there waiting for me after my interview... with his spanking new Sony 10-megapixel camera. I told him to wait for me because the interview's like, 5 minutes, and I wanted to go and carry home my new laptop. So he decided that he'll bring his new camera and walk around campus to snap and trees and birds and water. ^^; I wasn't in a very good mood after the interview, and I hadn't had on makeup... so here's just one of the photos...

Guess where we took this? :P

We went around the gardens and lake to take photos... It was so weird, because during that time everyone's rushing to class and the 2 of us were there taking photos. >>; And I was in long-sleeve so I was seriously melting under the heat.

We also went to cash and carry the new laptop. Yep, it's another Fujitsu, and it's slightly bigger than Miyabi. I christened the guy Kaoru. I also dunno why leh. I guess it sounds better than Aoi or Akiya... for a laptop. XD <-- I suck because I name my gadgets after my favourite guitarists... Hey now come to think of it I should have named the new lappie Ruiza instead. Ah whatever, I'm lazy to change. XD

Miyabi's the one on the left... and Kaoru's the one on the right - with the latest Fukaya art as wallpaper. >D

Seriously, I'd rather stick to my old lappie. I think I hate Windows SP2. And I'm sure that it hates me too. I had a hard time tweaking Kaoru so that I can get my BT to work. Actually, it's not even working properly yet, but I gave up already. *screams* And boy, nowadays if you buy laptops from our school, their software comes packaged not in boxes, but in obscure brown envelopes. When the guy at the shop handed me a couple of envelopes and said, "These are your Macromedia and Office." I was like "WHAT?!" I supposed it's a way to save money... on your packaging. >>;

Now that I've got 2 computers, I don't know what to use them for. ^^; I guess one will be more for entertainment (that's Kaoru) and the other will be for work (Miyabi!! <333)

Ok... then a few days ago Brian celebrated his birthday...

Looks yummy...

Hurry up and I wanna eat it already...

*licks*

We made Brian wear that shirt that Mom had bought from Harajuku. XD

And on Saturday, Mom and I agreed to wear our Gazette tour T-shirts and take purikura. It's been quite a while since we have taken together... I was so embarassed wearing the same thing as Mom... If it's a blouse it's still ok. It's a T-shirt for heaven's sake!! And a GAZETTE tour T-shirt no less. *digs a hole and buries self*

Speaking of the Gazette tour... They've made a DVD out of the Budokan show that I attended. I've finished loading the DVD, but it's a freakin' 3-hour show (hell, they didn't cut anything at all!! Guess playing in the Budokan's so precious that they couldn't bear to cut anything out...). I don't have the time and concentration span to sit through the same 3-hour show in front of my laptop... so I'll watch it in parts. ><; Maybe I'll put up some caps when I'm done... the video quality's great. It's like watching a movie.

Oh yes... I almost forgot. The puris. XD

This set sucks, so we took another one. XD

Aiyah... why they have a horizontal one...

Nothing's more definitive of Gazette than that covered-up nose. XD

Aaaaand a couple of outtakes.

Piisu.

"Eat me and let me die..."

2006-09-09T16:38:00.000+08:00

That's an msn quote from Agnes. XD (Paiseh to kope it, I thought it sounded really good. :P)

Ganbatte to all taking the Immune module. I don't take it myself (because I've never liked antibodies and T-cells and all that s**t) but I can see that the load's really heavy. Jiayou!

The first few days of the coming week is going to be nuts. We have a test on Tuesday (which I'm still too lazy to revise for D:) and then I've got a scholarship interview on Wednesday. Normally I'll be stressed out to bits, but then I dunno... I must have gotten really tired of this paper race and kinda laxed out a little. No good. No good. *shakes head*

Time passes really quickly doesn't it? It seems as if we have just finished our first week of school yesterday. But in 2 weeks' time, we'll have our mid-term break, and then it's gonna be STRESS! all the way till December. I'm kinda worried for myself. It's the last year of schooling and I'm not doing anything extra to make the time spent here more worthwhile. In fact, I'm doing less. And slacking more. Ugh. *headdesk*

And I've been feeling tired since the start of this week. It's not like I didn't get enough rest. I sleep at around the same time every night and when I wake up in the morning I'm still tired. For every single day!! And my right eye keeps twitching... Like I've got excess acetylcholine in the muscles or something. I wonder what's wrong with me...

I think I'm really going crazy. I'm speaking Biology on my blog. D:

*looks at Neuro notes*

I feel like going up to the boss' lab and telling the patch clamp machine: "Just electrocute me and let me die."

Mou... Ganbarimasu kara. Ganbarimasu!! Fighto... Oh! T_T

Piisu.

Disappointment

2006-09-06T19:02:00.000+08:00

I don't really like to bitch about these kind of things openly. But yep, I'm disappointed. Honestly, I am.

Piisu.

Back to normal...

2006-09-03T21:34:00.000+08:00

My parents came home yesterday from Shanghai. And hereby I end my days of doing housework and taking care of Brian and the house all by myself. >>;

I rushed from tuition back home yesterday to clean up the house, and then rushed off again to the airport to pick my parents up. Thank god the car's available for me to drive around. :P

Mom bought all sorts of stuff for me... from clothes to a couple of necklaces and belts to Puma sports shoes!! And Pa bought a silk dress for me from Hangzhou, and a Mickey Mouse pendant and a one-gig thumb! And of course my Xiao Long Bao... they bought a dozen but I only ate 5 for supper yesterday. (I forgot that I still have my Xiao Long Baos and I ate a full dinner. T_T)

Soshite!

I was helping my parents load their bags into the car when Pa turned and opened his camera bag to show me what was inside. Like omg, he bought that Sony camera that he had been eyeing. I had been bugging him to buy because I get to make use of it too (professional cosplay and scenery photos!! XD), but then I never thought that he would run off to Shanghai to buy it. >>; Mom told me that she bugged him to indulge himself in something that he likes, so he went ahead and bought the camera. It's a professional 10-megapixel (!!) camera and comes with 2 lenses. And it's 300 bucks cheaper than what they were selling in Singapore (promotion period's over now anyway XD) So now Pa's playing around with his new toy... He kinda looked like a paparazzi walking around the house with a camera slung around his neck.

I went with Mom on a cloth shopping spree today. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get anything. Singapore just doesn't sell kimono fabrics, does it?! We went to Joo Chiat, and then Katong, and then to Arab Street!! And everywhere I see pretty prints, but not oriental enough for the obi that I need for my costume this year end (damn Kagrra and their pretty kimonos). So we figured that we need to go back to Chinatown to hunt again... I just need a close substitute. I don't want to handpaint that obi!! I'll just die!! Note: Arab Street sells really pretty fabric. And they come with a price too. Like, 45 dollars a meter. I don't have such money to indulge myself on such fabrics for my costumes.

Next week's going to be a stressful week again. T_T Argh just let me die already. It didn't help that I just visited the airport yesterday. Everytime I visit the airport, I have this urge to leave for vacation. Mom's still got a free ticket on hold for me... so I shall reserve this one for a visit to Taiwan end of this year. :P

Oh btw, everyone's releasing new singles and DVDs and what-nots. Just what I need in this time of stress. :D First up is Kagrra's new DVD, and then Gazette's and Alicenine's new singles... and finally Kagrra's new single a day before my birthday!! It's not too good actually. I will be suffering from severe stress and depression from my papers that period of time. T_T But it's always great to hear new songs from Kagrra. I'm looking forward to their new single more than Gazette's! XD

Piisu.

Home alone

2006-08-31T21:17:00.000+08:00

Because Zihui's been wanting to see what Brian's like when he's sleeping...

*snores*

He heard a sound...

Since Pa's away, Brian's sleeping with Mummy these few days! XD So far he's been cooperative... except for that short period this evening when he went all diva on me and refused to wear his leash to go downstairs. And now instead of hanging out in the living room by himself, he's stuck his butt to the side of my bed while I type away.

Aunt Karen and Aunt Pauline dropped by yesterday afternoon to see how I was doing. I'm very grateful actually, because I was so bored at home alone and there's no one to talk to. They brought lots of food with them, so we had a lunch and dinner party. XD Aunt Pauline also calls me every night to check if I'm ok. I'm big already lah... But I guess they're still worried. :P

So I was doing laundry again when Pa called. Again, I didn't pick up the call because my phone's on silent mode... So I called back. And guess what?!

Pa: "Hello? Oh we're back from Hangzhou!! We're going shopping now!! Actually we're crossing the overhead bridge!! :DDDDD" *Mom talking in the background*
Me: "Ok... and I was washing clothes and mopping the floor!!"
Pa: "Aiyah don't work so hard lah. Do a bit a day! :DDDDD" *Mom talking in the background* "Oh wait wait wait. Your mother wants to talk to you! :DDDDD"
Mom: "Hello? I went Nanjing Road and there was nothing!! But we went Hangzhou and I bought stuff you like!!"
Me: "Oooh!! Really?!" *happy that there's presents* "Got fake Birkenstocks? I want fake Birkenstocks!!"
Mom: "Don't have. But tomorrow I'm going shopping for the whole day so I'll see what I can get!! Your father bought a silk dress for you!! :DDDDD"
Me: "What huh?! Oh wow thanks!!" *happy that there's expensive presents :P*
Mom: "Okok we'll be back on Saturday! See you!! :DDDDD"
Me: "Ok. See you!"

Well, at least there's some stuff for me. XD Meanwhile I shall just rot at home and take care of Brian. T_T

There are more presentations coming up next week. Omg when are these going to end? Oh wait. They don't end. *faints*

Piisu.

Second honeymoon

2006-08-29T21:52:00.000+08:00

Yes, my parents decided to abandon their pathetic daughter (aka ME) and go on a second honeymoon to Shanghai. Like, how sucky can my life get?!

Since we got Brian, we couldn't really go on a long trip overseas together as a family. So we take turns, like when Mom goes to Korea, Pa and I take care of the house (and Brian). When Pa goes to China, Mom and I take care of the house (and Brian). And when I go overseas, Mom and Pa take care of the house (and Brian). Or like when Mom and I go Japan, Pa watches the house (and Brian). So now my parents are enjoying themselves in Shanghai, and I gotta watch the house (AND BRIAN!).

Seriously, I'm not too used to watching the house by myself. I mean, Brian I can handle. But handling Brian and housework and making sure that everything's nice and the door's locked etc etc etc... now that's a lot of work. I'm practically doing 3 people's chores for the whole of this week. *collapses*

It's times like these that I get extra paranoid. Did I switch off all the switches? Did I off my router? Did I lock the door? Did I change the newspaper linings in Brian's toilet corner? Is that amount of rice enough for Brian so he won't go hungry? Oh my god I must make sure that Brian's water bottle's filled! And I must water the plants! etc etc etc

In fact, I was so stressed out yesterday that I didn't even finish half of my plate of rice during lunch. I surprised even myself. -_-" I think I'm going to slim down by the end of this week when my parents come home...

Pa called, but I was so busy doing laundry and ironing the clothes that I didn't hear my phone ring. So I called back, and guess what?

Me: "Hey pa, you called? I was busy larh!!!"
Pa: "Oh yeah! I'm in the MRT now!! I just went up to the Oriental Pearl with your mother and we're going back now!! :DDDDD"
Me: -_-"
Pa: "Okok! Wait I pass to your mother!! :DDDDD"
Mom: "Hello? Oh how's everything back home? How's Brian? :DDDDD"
Me: "Yeah we're fine. Everything's fine."
Mom: "Oh your father just brought me up to the Oriental Pearl... I got a T-shirt for you. I can't really find stuff that you like here yet :DDDDD"
Me: "Uh ok..."
Mom: "Okok so we'll see you on Saturday :DDDDD"
Me: "Yeah ok. Call back!!"
Mom: "Bye! :DDDDD"

Now you see how pathetic my life is... T_T

We (aka me and Brian) are getting bored at home... therefore, if you're free, spam my msn!! XD

Piisu.

First-time lecture

2006-08-29T21:10:00.000+08:00

Today I cleared my nightmare presentation. You know, that one which you have to give a talk in front of the whole lecture theatre. It something like giving a lecture to a class, and it sucks, because I was so bloody nervous yesterday I almost had a nervous breakdown. On top of that my parents went off for vacation yesterday too... So it's double the stress.

Anyway, everything went ok, except the part where Prof Bubbles decided to be slightly nasty and asked me some question that I wasn't really prepared to answer. I mean, yeah duh, I noticed the results are like that. But I dunno why!! They didn't say it in the paper!! What was I supposed to do? Go google a protein that has that mass? And in the process I'd probably get zillions of trash hits (and no answer)?! So I got honest and told the entire lecture theatre that it wasn't mention in the paper. -_-" Like, it's the best answer that I can think of. I don't want to beat around the bush and pretend that I know the answer when I actually don't. If it means that my marks will be deducted, well, so be it. *shrugs*

I tried my best to explain the stuff... hope you guys understood what I was saying. It's something like giving tuition! XD But if you have switched off, it's understandable too... because personally I would have switched off by the time the 2nd presentation starts. XD

Good luck to Zihui, Xiaofang and Jingyun for their presentation next week!! Erm, who else reading my blog is going up too? Good luck to you guys too!!

Piisu.

Apple?

2006-08-27T16:29:00.000+08:00

I'm never a fan of Apple and Mac. While everyone's rushing to buy an iPod, I'm going for Creative Zens. But recently at our school's notebook fair, I was tempted to buy a MacBook. Partly because I wanted to see what GarageBand is like (yeah that's a lame reason...) So anyway, after I watched this vid courtesy of Ivan, I'm glad that I stuck with my good old Fujitsu and Windows.

Stolen from Ivan... Thanks! :D

Lol!!!

You probably realise that I'm blogging more nowadays. I recently discovered that the frequency at which I blog is directly proportional to how stressed out I am. So you'll probably see me writing more unrelated stuff here this semester than ever... Oh yes, and I'm setting up another page for my cosplay projects. I'm revving up my sewing machine once I'm done with my papers for this semester (oh god thinking about those just makes me want to puke). Why aren't there comments? I'm getting despondent when my blog's quiet for so long... T_T

Piisu.

Oh yeah!

2006-08-26T23:18:00.000+08:00

I stole this from a friend at lj...

Like, how cool is that? Darth rocks man! Woo hoo! XD

Piisu.

Bikkurishita yo!

2006-08-24T19:46:00.000+08:00

I wasn't really expecting an email from the school. In fact, I checked my mail because I was expecting Yanfu to send me a draft of his assignment (we are supposed to hand in tomorrow! >O) But I received a mail from Irene (the school secretary)... and when I read the subject title I thought, "Maji?!"

Maji ka yo. Mou... Hontou ni bikkurideshita. T_T

And I thought that I can slow down a little and not be so stressed in my final year. But now I am almost certain that I'll drive myself insane by the time December comes.

Argh!!!!!!!!!! Iyada! Iyada!! *cries*

Piisu.

Byouki da...

2006-08-24T15:47:00.000+08:00

It is a nuisance. For days, I've been walking around with this inflamed throat, and then 2 days ago I started coughing badly. I've already visited Dr. Tan when my throat got inflamed (the pain just wouldn't go away and it was irritating me a hell lot), and before the week is out, I found myself in his consultation room again.

Mom passed the flu bug to me... and at the wrong time too! I'm bogged down by assignments, presentations and deadlines for these few weeks, and now I'm sick. Doesn't help that my parents are going off to Shanghai next week, leaving me home alone (yeah home alone!) with Brian. So next week I've gotta take care of Brian, do the housework... and on top of that, take care of my assignments, deadlines and that presentation on Tuesday!! Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. I must take care of myself too.

Unfortunately it is a dry cough this time... and it would take a longer time to heal. *sigh* And everytime I cough my head would hurt... So don't be surprised if you find me getting irritated at everyone... I'm irritated at myself too.

I was going to write a long post complaining about how sucky our school's admin is getting, but then Dr. Tan's cough mixture is working...

... Knockout in 5, 4, 3, 2, zzzzzzz.................

Piisu.

TokiDoki!

2006-08-20T18:29:00.000+08:00

It must be the stress. *nod nod* That, or Mom influenced me with her TokiDoki infatuation. T_T

Despite me being sick, Mom pulled me down to Taka early today to look at the new TokiDoki bags... The new print wasn't publicised at all, so we didn't know about it until Mom got the call.

So I was half-dead and coughing like crazy when I reached Taka, but I must say that the new prints were very nice. One is bright pink and features the signature TokiDoki girls at the airport, while the other is bright orange with some monkeys and birds on the inside.

I thought Mom was going to buy, so I was waiting for her to take her pick... (then I can take for free mah :P) but she wasn't touching any. The prints were too bright for her, and she just bought THREE TokiDoki bags so obviously she wasn't going to buy anymore (for now :P).

I loved the pink backpack and the sling bags... and I heard that the entire TokiDoki range is going to be phased out very soon, so I bought a pink sling bag. The backpack is nice too, but you can't see the prints if you look at me carrying it from the front. So the sling bag it was. And it's cheaper anyway. Still, my pocket burnt and my heart bled. T_T

But the print's got a very traveler feel to it... so I guess I'll bring it out for vacation? Ah, heck. I'm going to carry it every weekend. It cost me close to 300 bucks. Like, shit. I just spent my savings for the previous dunno-how-many months. T_T

That's it. I'm dirt poor now and I can't buy stuff for this month and the next. T_T

Now if you're wondering why I'm spending so much on a TokiDoki bag... You'll probably understand if you look at this. I'm a sucker for Japanese pop culture prints. Damn Fukaya!!! T_T (Just in case you don't know, I'm a fan of Fukaya art. Check out that awesome cover he did for Kagrra's new DVD!)

*cough* *hick* T_T

I'm sick, I'm poor, I'm stressed ARGH!!!

Piisu.

Gadget time!

2006-08-19T22:22:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, buying stuff all at one go isn't a very good idea. I bought my current lappie when I first started out my life in college, and my current Sony Ericsson during my second year. Now that I'm starting on my final year, it's time again to look at new models of gadgets to buy.

College students have the priviledge of discounted prices on computers, and since this is my last year, why not grab the chance and buy a new one? Besides, Miyabi's recently having all sorts of problems: Its processing speed started to slow down, my IE is giving me all sorts of "Send error report" pop ups etc etc. And I need a DVD burner! CD burners are no good nowadays. :P

I was figuring out which brand to go for... would it be the good ole Fujitsu? Or new kid on the block Toshiba? I went back to school with Mom and Pa today... Pa made the choice for me 3 years ago... but the choice is mine today. Both Toshiba and Fujitsu have almost the same features... but Toshiba's offer ended yesterday. Fujitsu's still good, but the new model's a weird mix of black, silver and white, which I didn't quite like. But I thought, oh what the heck, at least I know that the Fujitsu would perform if I take good care of it... And it's lighter than the Toshiba. So I went with the Fujitsu again.

Then Pa needed to get a new handphone, so we went down to Courts to have a look at all sorts of models. Actually, everyone's wanting a new handphone... Pa wanted because his ancient Nokia is breathing its last; Mom and I wanted because we want 3G phones. I had been eyeing the K800i even before it is made available here... Yep, it's Sony Ericsson again. Why am I sticking with old brands?! But it's a Cybershot phone, and it's anti-shake and auto-flash and it's just so good! It's literally a 2-in-1 gadget! So anyway, we looked at the phones... but in the end we didn't buy any. We ended up looking at LCD TVs and Mom bought a cordless phone for the house instead. -_-"

Fastforward to dinner time. I was still sticking to my Cybershot phone... Pa loved his Nokia and Mom likes her Samsung. (Yeah, we love our current brands of phones :P) So we were shopping around the handphone shops in AMK (there were bajillions...) and suddenly Mom wanted the Nokia Pa's been eyeing... and then Pa wanted to switch subscription to a rival service provider because of a good offer... and then finally, both of them realised that that Nokia phone wasn't too good afterall! XD

You see, 3G phones should have 2 cameras... one for pictures, and one for video conferencing. Apparently, the one Pa (and Mom) wanted has only one... for pictures. There was none for video conferencing!! XD Mom gave up the Nokia and wanted Samsung back... while Pa... I dunno. But I hope he finds a model he likes soon because his ancient Nokia is literally dying.

I still love my Cybershot phone. XD It's slightly heavier than my current Sony Ericsson, and it's all black and cheapo looking... but it's a Cybershot phone! >D So yeah, no complains... I'll probably get myself one when Pa gets his new phone. Then we can video conference! :D

There are just so many things to buy now... On our list: Laptop, handphone, LCD TV, camera. Well, I've gotten the laptop, so it's now the handphones. Pa probably would want to get a new TV for the house, because our old one died a long time ago and now Mom is surviving on this mini Akira. Then Pa's been itching to buy a pro camera... for fun, I supposed. But then it's good because I'll have a free cameraman for cosplay photos! XD

With so many things to get, it's no wonder that Pa's complaining the whole day... I heard from Mom that the laptop is on a loan basis. Well, I didn't sign up for the school's laptop loan scheme, but I guess I signed up for the FATHER LOAN SCHEME though. Ah, crap. T_T

Piisu.

Assignments. Presentations. Tests.

2006-08-19T00:14:00.000+08:00

I remembered that when we had lunch with the Dean a couple of years back, we were told that our senior years (meaning, year 3 and 4) will have less workload than our junior years (meaning, year 1 and 2). Like, just delete that comment already. Maybe the Dean got it mixed up that fateful day and he meant that the senior years are 1000x much more workload. Because it is exactly what we are experiencing now.

Almost every single module has an assignment, presentation or test. The number of papers that we read every week now is probably comparable to what we read per term in year 2. The presentations now aren't like those that we have in year 2 or year 3. They are solid, 15-30 minutes presentations, mostly in front of the entire class (read: entire cohort). Don't be surprised if you see me in front of the lecture theatre with 2 guys giving a presentation on mitosis and spindle fibres a couple of weeks from now. It's part of our cell biology module. I'd probably be a nervous wreck... so please bear with me.

We have a couple of tests in the books, and bucketloads of assignments to be handed in every week. And they still expect us to read a bajillion papers on top of that?! Like, give us a break man. I'm already sick. And it's just the second week of school. Can you imagine what it'd be like come exam time? I'll probably end up in the asylum after my last paper...

Life is currently in the pits for me... I need some good entertainment. Where's my that sewing machine?! I want to go shopping! I want to try jamming! Gah, I'm babbling nonsense.

Piisu.

The first week of school...

2006-08-11T12:46:00.000+08:00

... sucks.

I guess it just sums up everything. Not only do I NOT have a good rest during the long 3 months vacation (yeah what an irony...), I return to school to more work and more kids *rolls eyes*

Even before the 1st week is out, you can already see the theme for this semester. Kiasuism. Where did the good ole days go?! When everyone didn't rush to buy books, when everyone didn't rush to do labwork, when people didn't rush to compete for assignment slots?!

Now let's see...

Prescribed electives. These are making me so confused. You are supposed to choose 5 out of 6 (or 4 out of 6, depending on whether you want to do the module in the 2nd semester). It's obvious that they aren't going to be a piece of cake. You can't escape that horrendous exam schedule either. So just do it. It'll save you lots of unnecessary worries. ;)

Why are people rushing for assignment slots still escapes my juvenile logic. Our nice prof decided to give us instructions via email on the first day of school. So some people who checked during lunch on the first day immediately went to the office and register for the slot they wanted. We, as normal as ever, spent our first lunchtime over well, lunch. At the canteen. Like duh, if there isn't anything we expected to be in our mails, obviously we go eat right. By the time all of us checked our mails at night and realise what was going on, it was probably too late. We knew that there was obviously a rush for slots (previous years of experience of kiasuism in school *tsk tsk*), so intuition kinda just took over, and Angeline and I went early (well, we aren't exactly early EITHER. We arrived at our usual labwork time) and took a look at the list. Obviously, the slots that I had wanted were filled. Angeline was lucky though... So no choice, I registered for a slot that I didn't really wanted. Like, got choice meh?!

Then during the first lesson of the second day, Prof. Bubbles (well, he isn't called Bubbles... it's just a nickname we coined for him. Powerpuff Profs, anyone? :P) came into class and told us to get ourselves into groups of 3 for presentation. Then he flashed a piece of paper. And before he could finish what he wanted to say, you see this mad rush for that sheet. Agnes and I didn't really know who to group up with. There were the 2 of us, but we need 3. So I got Jiangang to come over and join. So we got 3, and since Jiangang's a guy, I got him to open up the crowd for me so that we can pass. :P We got to fill in our names, but writing on that list was virtually impossible because there were at least 4 or 5 hands holding pens attacking at the same time. I believe that piece of paper was like kiam chai by the time we were all done...

After all this, I didn't even have the mood to sit down and blog about National Day. >>;

The day after National Day wasn't too great either. Dr. S sent us all a mail on the eve of National Day, at night. It was about our Final Year Project (FYP). I wasn't too worried about this, because I've got my good ol' boss whom I'm still working for. But then there was external projects and all that stuff, and basically Dr. S made it clear that projects are not confirmed unless they are the external ones that you sourced yourself. While I didn't mind trying out for external projects (I want to work for a Japanese prof omg!!) I'd rather continue working for the boss. Besides, joining a new lab means another period of adapting and orientation, which I didn't really want during this critical period. I knew of many who approached the boss for projects already (he's a popular target larh... and seeing the latest rise in kiasuism in school...) and even though I did tell him that I'd like to do my FYP at his lab, I'm not sure if he could remember. Call that personal insecurity ya. I need to know if he could keep me in lab, or I'll have to go find myself a Japanese prof to work for. Friends around also told me to go approach him again. Mom told me to talk to him too. >>;

So yesterday I decided to be a bit more thick-skinned and go look for the boss in the morning. I decided to be straight-forward, because I don't see the point in beating around the bush (I've got lecture too!!). So when I got into his office, I immediately mentioned FYP. I guess he kinda expected it, so he almost immediately replied that Dr. S told all the profs that they cannot commit. I knew that, of course. But I just want to make sure that he remembers that he gave me a project to work with already... Well, he remembered alright. >>; (Should I say 'phew' here? Phew...) Me having worked for the boss for close to a year at his lab, and him having seen me bumping around with the tubes and pipettes, we kinda had this unspoken mutual agreement that he is going to give me this project, and I'm going to do that project. Oh well, that's great for me. *throws confetti* What I need to do now is to cross my fingers and hope that the FYP committee gives me this project. The boss even asked me if he should go talk to Dr. S about this... But I guess it isn't too fair to the rest, so I told him that it is ok. I'll just make sure that when I apply I'll write about my experience in his lab. I did also ask him (because I'm just plain ba1 gua4) how many people have already approached him to ask for projects... he said about 3 or 4, but even though he says ok doesn't mean the school will say ok!! XD Yeah, that's how it works... so now I'll cross my fingers, and hopefully I'll land that project that the boss assigned for me.

On top of all these things, I still have things to attend to and think about. I've got cosplay (hey Cheez, you may not be too far off after all. I planned to make a fusion kimono...), my tuition, and other commitments too. And then I've got to think about whether I want to try for A*STAR's scholarships (just the thought of the interview is scary enough). Ah, choices, decisions... It just makes you want to remain as a kid huh. It's so ironic, because when I was a kid, I can't wait to grow up. And now that I'm grown up, I want to be a kid again. Sheesh, this is getting out of point.

Piisu.

Saigo no jugyo no hajime...

2006-08-06T10:56:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow is going to be the start of another new academic year for us. It's going to be a special year too... All of us are now seniors. That is, we will be doing our final year in school, and after that everyone would go separate ways. Some would do research in labs, some would go teach, some would go into the private sector, and some would probably open their own businesses.

Even though it's going to be a special year, I guess I don't feel any different. Maybe it's due to the fact that I've been in school for almost my entire vacation and didn't feel like I'm having a vacation at all? Maybe. Or maybe it's because I'm sick of being a student already. I recalled that I was much more enthusiastic when I was a freshman and sophomore. I guess the enthusiaism just gets sapped out of you when you get older. At least, for me, it is. -_-"

So when classes start tomorrow, I'll gather my notes, go to lectures. Sit, listen, and sleep... probably. I'm not looking forward to my exams, but then again I want to get them over and done with asap. Paradox? Yeah. >>;

Just 2 more semesters to go... my parents kept nagging for me to take this semester seriously and don't repeat my mistakes for the past few semesters. Pa even told be to grow up a little and think about my work before I go and play. Well, it's the last year, of course. I would try my best. That's all I can say.

And there's another problem about what you are going to do once you graduate. Unlike some of my friends, I don't hold a scholarship with a bond. The good thing is that you don't have to work for the company to which you're bonded to, but the bad thing is that once you graduate you'd be without a job. Should I go be a project officer? Should I go teach? Or should I just go do something else? Where am I going to do all these things? Etc etc etc...

You see, these are the problems you face when you reach the final year. I kinda like to push back thinking about all these things during my first few years in college, because I didn't really like thinking about all these things. But then again there comes a time where you have to think about them. And the time is now.

So friends, don't be surprised if you find me less enthusiastic and more irritated this semester. Of course, I'll try my best to keep my cool (Yeah I know I'm a firecracker... If you've met them, I apologize for all my outbursts these few years... T_T).

Let's hope that this would be a smooth last full semester for all of us.

Ganbarimasu kara. Minna mo ganbarimasuyo!

Piisu.

Sukoshi no yasumi...

2006-07-30T22:36:00.000+08:00

Finally...

The business plan's done and handed in (although there was a heart attack for all of us on Friday when Joy told us there was one part not included) and now I get to take a short break before school starts again. Short break ne. Sukoshi dake. :S

So Mom and I went down to JB to do some shopping today... It has been quite a while since I stepped into JB. My passport reported that I last crossed the causeway in January... That's like, more than 6 months ago?!

I went on a spending spree (as usual *rolls eyes*). Retail therapy's quite good when you're stressed. :P I think I'll have to dress like a Harajuku-ian for the entire week judging from the stuff I buy today. >>;

Btw, Malaysia's having their great sale now so go go go!! XD

So let's see what I've got to do for next week:
1) Clean my room (AGAIN >>;)
2) Make some felt crafts before my free time runs out
3) Burn anime (Ouran!! <3333)

I've discovered that my hearing sense isn't so sharp after all. Anyone who doesn't have any problems hearing harmony lines in songs? Teach me how you do it!! Oshiete kudasai yo! T_T

Piisu.

Stress isn't over yet...

2006-07-24T11:44:00.000+08:00

And I thought my nightmare would be over by today. Well, it is good and bad. Good because we can never finish that business plan by today. Bad because we would have to keep working till Thursday before we all get to take a break.

The Entrepreneurship module's not too bad in my opinion, except that they had pushed us a little too much so all of us were tired and dreary during the lessons. What did I learn about property law? Close to zilch. -_-" That's why I'm going into overtime right now so I can do a writeup on patents.

Our presentation's down the drain, so everyone's working extra hard for this business plan. I hope it works. We are pulling in all resources we can get. I never thought that I'll be meeting people to discuss figures, but that's exactly what I'll be doing tonight, with Angeline. Doing business just sucks (though the money's good... IF you do make money...)

Piisu.

Star Storm

Graduate school, I'm in it!

The Next Door

[Backlog] A Year in Cosplay - 2008

Facelift!

A break... finally...

GACC

Happy CNY!

Another year...

Tadaima

Otanjoubi!

Saikin...

Shigotonin

Natsu Matsuri

Pa and his Engrish 2

Private shoot

Convocation 2007

Cosfest '07

Some work to do

A short little preview of convocation.

Hiatus

Cosfest... some ramblings before the pictures

Kyou.

Sewing... again.

Seiseki

Finally...

Holed up in bed... and now I have Korean fever

Shuugyou!

Warning. Stress ahead.

Thesis day

Mushiba

System overdrive

Paperwork stress

3-month baby

JJ

Saikin...

Old photos

Pa and his Engrish

Stress!!

La beansprouts

Last day of my break...

New Year's Eve... and Shizuku.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Hisashiburi!

Nodame Cantabile

Monday blur

Otsukaretaaaaaa....

Unlucky day (Part 2)

Two men saved my handphone

School's started, for the last time

New Layout!

Happy New Year!!

Saikin...

This is bizarre.

EOY Resolutions '06

Tadaima.

Audition

Isogashii!!

Eek!

Heartache

It's back to the lab...

Gasp.

Otsukaresan!

OWATTA!

*curses*

Kimashita!

Tanjoubi... kana?

Hiatus

*bitter laugh*

Fifty-four

Pain... pain... Pissed.

Ii na...

Last lesson

Onaka itai! ITAI! T_T

Ramblings about cosplay

Kekkon Ome!

Miss me yet?

Manicure!

Tsk.

Yasumi ga... owari.

curses

bitter laugh