Visited Geylang today. Heard that it would be the last year that Geylang would be around before it gets demolished for an upgrade.
As a kid, my parents brought me here quite frequently every time during the fasting month and I remember the warm, if a little stuffy alleys of geylang serai, full of people selling clothes, food and other cultural needs.
I’ve always enjoyed walking through these mazes of shops that leads round and around and exploring which little corner that I can stumble to. Sometimes it will lead me to a delicious snack corner full of delicious traditional cakes and sometimes it will lead me to a clothes stall, full of baju kurongs. It was always exciting for me to walk around.
Am a little sad to see these alleys go. We’ll never experience the old style geylang any more from next year onwards. Am going to miss it.
Stall selling colourful scarves and headgear
Lovely kebayas for sale for about S$50
During the fasting month there are many boxes like these – donations are used for the poor and needy
Crowded with other nostalgic people, like me
Man cooking ayam percik (Original one, on a stick tastes better!)
Man selling off lemang (bamboo filled with rice, slowly cooked over an open fire)
I’ve no idea what he’s cooking. But it looks so cool
Selling kuih raya (cakes and snacks)
Kebabs! Mmmm …
Seafood! Mmmm …
Man cooking Dengdeng (what a cute name) a type of thinly stripped bbq’ed marinated meat
Display of kuih raya
Putu bambu (coconut snack with sugar inside) I like!
It was easier for me to take pictures here as compared to Chinatown Most were happy to have their pictures taken. I chatted with some of the shopkeepers and he told me. “One day, maybe in 10 or 15 years from now, those pictures will be valuable”
To me, the pictures are already valuable. But the good memories, is the most valuable of all. I will miss Geylang.
Awesome! After a couple of previous attempts, I’m now a qualified rider on the road! My goodness that took ages to complete. I started in May 2004 and only completed it now. Some people only took a few months to do it but I guess the important thing is, that I’ve eventually finally done what I’ve always wanted to do. So now I can put a tick next to my “to do list”
Initially, I was a little apprehensive. Judging by the dark clouds above me, it looked as if, it was going to rain. I dont feel confident when it rains – roads are more slippery and harder to manage.
I arrived the Bukit Batok driving center at about 7.50am, put on my number tag, 21 and was given a quick practise before the actual test. And just as expected, it was drizzing. I sort of fell off the plank and feeling a little peeved with myself.
Later on, me and 89 other testees sat in the room for our briefing and I quickly scanned the road map for a visualisation of the road that I’ll be going through later. I breathed in deeply, concentrated and then started my test.
The tester waved his hand, signalling that test was begining. I checked for oncoming traffic and did my blind spot and proceeded to the lane change. So far so good, I thought to myself. Let me just turn over at this junction and then go up the slope.
Hey not bad! Easy does it. Dont be gabra (panic) Be cool! Look for oncoming traffic and then go. Not enough space at the road? Just stay behind the traffic light. No problem. No gabra.
I observed the other people at the figure 8 and noticed that alot of the people in front of me didnt check their blind spot. I’ll try not to do the same mistake. And then I proceeded.
I felt so lucky that the bike that I was riding didnt give me any problems. A good bike would either make you or break you. Good bike! Good bike!
Then I proceeded to the plank. Easy does it Marina. Count. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Good … Now you dont need to stay on the plank any longer, thats fine. Carry on to the emergency break.
Speed up Marina. But not too fast. Now decrease throttle! Then clutch in! Good! You’re doing fine. Continue to the road.
Speed up! Speed up! You’re on public road now. Observe your surroundings. You can do it! Its a lovely day to ride. No problem at all. Car in front of you? Signal quickly and try to move away as possible. Wonderful.
I talked to myself and tried to motivate myself as much as I can. And at length, I completed the test and waited for the results.
It was such agony. The waiting. I was complaining to the guy sitting beside me. Just give me the results already! Fail fail lah! Aaargh!
Everyone around me are feeling the same, I was sure. They had the same sheepish/in agony/pained face as I had.
Eventually the testers arrived. And they called out the names of the people who failed. I watched as how disappointed they looked. There was even a guy who crushed his result paper in anger.
“I’m going to call out some numbers”, my tester announced. “19! 20! 21!”
Haaah? Fail again? 🙁
“19. 20. 21. You all pass”
Haaah? I pass? Bluff lah. I dont believe.
“You passed lah! Unless you want to come again next time” Said the guy beside me.
I passed? Really? Wow! Really? Unreal! Wow! Oh wow!
And I looked at the slip of paper in my hands. 8 points. Unreal! From 34 to 26 to 8 points. So amazing.
Woopee! I can ride on the road now. Unreal! Zoom! Vespa GT200 here I come!
Wahoo! Its now been a year since the first entry to Rinaz Bloggariffic has been published. Happy happy birthday to bloggie!
Looking back to this day, about a year ago :
I was helping out with the West Spring technology club students in an Animation Competition. We were also getting ready to move to the new campus.
My computer was down and I couldnt play secondlife so I used my brother’s laptop to talk on the forums and got to know my dearest better.
Started to get extremely stressed out because of my previous company’s antics. Visually apparent from my face. Easily depressed.
One year ago, I’d never thought that I’d experience the things that has happened to me during these 12 months. I never thought that I’d ever leave West Spring and go to Shuqun and I didnt think that I’d take photography seriously. I didnt even think about taking A levels nor did I ever imagine that I’d ever go to Italy and neither did I imagine that I’d fall in love …
As far as maturity goes, I still do stupid things every now and then. Like auditioning for a television programme even though I know that I have absolutely NO chance of getting to the next stage. Breaking a pair of shoes for the Nth time. Setting a date to meet and then cancelling it, and then setting it up again and then cancelling it again. What can I say, I’m impulsive and a little spontaneous.
I dont regret doing stupid things though … We only live once. Life is too short to worry about every single mistake that we do. I want to look forward to the future and learn from the past. I want spend a good day and remember yesterday but just remember … never to linger and dwell too much.
I just want to be happy.
Now that I’m 27, I dont know if I’ve grown any wiser as compared to some years back. Gosh … 27 … I cant even start to fathom that. How did time pass by so quickly? As a kid, I never thought that I’d ever grow up to become 20. Now I cant even imagine being 30. And thats just 3 years from now.
Sometimes I think about the things that I should have done, things that I could have achieved. Goals that I should have accomplished. Just like ‘so and so’. But I know that I can never be like them. I am me. And I’d like the be the best that only I can be.
Anyway, enough with the nonsensical ramblings and lets get down with it. (with MORE nonsensical ramblings)
—
What a week.
I think I got a little too carried away with the graduation video.I was a little frustrated that the program wouldnt let me burn it to a vcd format. I decided to try to do a big no-no which was to try to get a crack for the trial version of the Ulead Video editing program. Before I knew it, I had a few viruses in my computer which I thought my anti-virus was able to pick up.
Confidently, I deleted the virii and thought that it was all good. Chatted with my dearest and decided to restart my computer when firefox decided to hang on me. Compy restarted as usual and went to the desktop as usual. But I couldnt control my mouse anymore and the whole screen just froze.
No matter how many times I restarted the computer, no matter how many times I screamed compy just looked coldly back at me. I was extremely, extremely frustrated. I spent the entire morning editing the video and it was all for naught. All my hard work. How on earth am I going to go to work the next day? Needless to say, I was extremely upset. Stupid virus. I was tired and sick from the flu and sore throat and feeling extremely low.
I was contemplating on reformatting my computer. I was just about to press the reformat key when my dearest adviced against it. “You’ll lose all your work!” and he added “why dont you bring your hard disk to school and see if the information can be extracted”
Which I did, the next day, I asked if Clement, the tech guru (and my current best friend) where I was working at, to see if he could help check out what was wrong with my compy. And he helped to delete away the virii which was *still* residing in the hard disk and extracted a few of the precious files that I was working at.
That cheered me up a little, that my work wasnt completely gone. I thanked Clement for helping me and I installed the hard disk back into my compy. I still had the same problem where it restarted and just got stuck at the desktop. Then I decided to reformat the computer. But this time, I didnt feel so bad since I’ve already saved the important files.
(Why on earth do I have so much issues with computers?)
Anyway, the next day, I found that my mobile phone doesnt want to be charged when I plugged the charger in. “Whats wrong, now?”, I asked it, furiously poking it. I brought it for the mobile phone carts to take a look at. The man who was at the counter fiddled a little with my mobile, took it apart and then fiddled with it some more and eventually concluded that my mobile phone ‘mother board’ had an error in it, making it having problems when trying to recharge. You could get it fixed, but its cheaper to buy a new phone altogether. Anyway, you can use the desktop charger to recharge your battery.
I looked at the mobile phones that was on display. Most of them were above $200 dollars. Which was a fair price for a Nokia 7260. However, I didnt feel like spending any moolah this month after being quite extravagant last month, spending over the same amount over the studio shots. And anyways, I only use the mobile phone for sms’s and calls. I dont really have any need for mms or gprs or camera or those new fangled stuff. My pre paid sim card doesnt allow it either. Undeniably, I’m quite tempted though, the phone looks sexilicious.
The week passed by quite busily with loads and loads of stuff to do, conducting surveys, helping out in alot of things for the graduation ceremony. Teachers came to me one by one to ask me for help in different things (some not related to I.T. even lol!) One teacher even asked me to help edit a password protected document. I had to crack my head at trying to fix that problem. I’m not a hacker!
In the end, I redid the document by scratch. It was much easier to do that compared to trying to guess or crack the password to the document.
Pheeww!
—
Thursday. Accompanied the vice principal and the operations manager to Yishun Town Secondary School to have a look-see. The vp tells me that the school was undergoing ‘PRIME’ which means that the school will be going for an upgrade and the current building will soon be demolished. The VP wants to see what things that could be salvaged from the school.
I was quite amazed by the school. The building looked just like Shuqun secondary. The wings were exactly the same. The general office, the library, the corridor. It was like quantum leap where its the same world, but a parallel dimension.
We walked around the the area and I was just amazed at how similar everything was. Impressive school. I saw how disciplined the students was there and watched the students marching in their parade (reminded me of when I was back in secondary school) and observed the students studying in the library. I wondered to myself if this would be a school where I’d enroll my future kids at. Students here looks extremely disciplined. I didnt even see one student with their tee-shirt tucked out. And I think that speaks volumes about the school.
VP says that its a good school where the principal came from a military background. He’s a disciplinarian where he’s like the stern father who looks after his children with an iron fist. He expects the best possible out of everyone and he puts in a big effort too. He believes that before any one can have a positive attitude, the physical environment has to be perfect. If there’s a small crack in the mirror, he’d pester the person in charge to fix it. Anything that isnt working well is to be repaired.
A nice environment makes nice people.
What a nice philosophy.
—
Friday. Graduation ceremony. Busy day, with the taking of photos and the video taping of the ceremony (how did I become the publicity team? lol) I took loads of pictures that my finger was so stiff after staying at the button for ages.
It was a nice ceremony. I liked seeing the students looking so happy. (during my time, we never had a graduation ceremony! *waves cane around) Eventually, the grand finale came and I was looking at the students faces while the video was being shown.
They liked it! And the teachers were quite impressed too. (really feeds the ego to have people say that)
I still cant convert it to a full movie, so I did the next best thing, which was to videotape the video. The quality isnt so good, but its something right?
I think I’ll end here for the moment. Till the next time. 🙂
Spent my weekend editing the video for the student graduation ceremony. And I must say, that it was surprisingly addictive. A little music file here, some transition there and it was looking kind of spiffy. I liked it.
And in time, I completed the video and was feeling quite excited. I pressed convert to wmv format and watched the transfer go by. And then it stopped at 80 percent.
Eh? I must have pressed escape by accident. Then I tried again. And the same thing still happened. And I tried again. And still the same thing.
Now I dont know what to do. I guess I could bring the entire Ulead Videomaker installer to school and play it there from the “preview movie” But dang, I really wanted to share it with everyone.
Oh well
Ooh! Anyways, I just collected the photos which I sent to the printshop yesterday and I think I’m a new fan for Fujifilm printing. The picture doesnt look dark and the quality of the picture looks great! I’m so happy 🙂 I’ll do my printouts there from now onwards 🙂
And speaking of pictures, I saw the most magnificent looking dawn outside of my window this morning while talking to my dearest.
6 am
605
610
615
Anyway, am still kind of bummed about the video. Lets see what tomorrow shall bring.
I dont know who screamed louder. The mouse or me. It was a dark night. We’ve just completed our night class and I was just walking back to the train station with Brandon, my classmate, and I felt something soft underneath my shoes. I quickly glanced down and to my horror, saw a mouse! And I screamed! And the mouse screamed!And Brandon looked stunned, at all the screaming.
I just jumped up! And at the release of the pressure of my foot, the mouse ran away … I saw the mouse scurrying in a zig zag pattern … probably terrified out of its wits.
Man, I wouldnt ever have that kind of experience. Poor mouse. And my poor shoes.
—
Anyway, there were beautiful sunflowers in bloom at my workplace yesterday. I loved looking at the bright yellow colours of the petals. Sooo pretty. It just brightens every ones day.
Dont you feel a little tranquil now? 🙂
—
I just collected the pictures that Juli has chosen for her portfolio. But I wasnt too happy with the quality of the prints. Firstly the pictures looked too dark. (Why do digital prints usually darker than the same image being viewed from the monitor?) But apart from that, there were a few things that I didnt notice while seeing them from the screen.
In one of the pictures, there were some blemishes on them which I swear wasnt there when viewed on the monitor. And on the same picture, she had a moustache! I was so annoyed that I told the lady at the printing counter.
“Eh? Why the picture like this?”
“Whats wrong with it? Nothing wrong what”
“You see lah! She got moustache! Where got people got moustache one??”
“Aiyah print like that what”
“Bah!”
I think I’ll go search around for a better printer. Its no excuse to say that its because its digital, it will be darker. They can lighten it by just a push of a button. Its not difficult really.
Bah. Whatever. (Goes back to looking at the sunflowers)
Carrie : That is some strong coffee. Oh. Well, no wonder you work all night.
Aleksandr : Thats the way I like it.
Carrie : I could need a little milk in this.
Aleksandr : Then its not espresso. Milk will ruin it. Keep sipping it. You’ll see.
Carrie : I need to talk to you about something
Aleksandr : Yes?
Carrie : You know the other day, when I was talking about my friend?
Aleksandr : The one with cancer.
Carrie : Her name is Samantha. I just felt like, you werent very sensitive about my feelings. I mentioned her and your first response was to tell me about your friend.
Aleksandr : Who died, yeah.
Carrie : Yes. See exactly.
Alexandr looks puzzled
Carrie : I’m sorry about your friend. But my friend, is going to be fine.
Aleksandr : Then my friend died.
Carrie : See! You’re doing it again.Not every one dies.
Aleksandr : Then they are lucky.
Carrie : Okay, I … Maybe I’m not being very clear.
Aleksandr : You’re being clear. You dont want your friend to die.
Carrie : Please stop saying die!
Aleksandr : But to be realistic, you must acknowledge this possibility, yes?
Carrie : No! They caught it early, its stage one. She’s having the cadillac of chemo. No! She is going to be fine. And your scaring me isnt helping.
Aleksandr : All I’m saying when my friend died …
Carrie : Hey! I dont know why, but you are not listening to me!
Aleksandr : You are not listening to ME!
Carrie : Are you kidding me? All I’ve said is, Please. Dont. Talk. About. Your. Friend. Who. Died.
Aleksandr : Her name is Sophie.
Carrie : I’m leaving
Aleksandr : What are you talking about? We’re having espresso!
Carrie : No! We’re not having espresso. WE are not listening!
Aleksandr : Sit down. Finish your coffee.
Carrie gulps the hot drink
Aleksandr : Its hot
Carrie grimaces and coughs
Carrie : I’m leaving. You know, I asked you, not to mention your friend. Now all I can think about, is your friend. And my friend, has nothing to do with your friend.
Aleksandr : I think you’re acting like a child.
Carrie : And I think you’re acting like an asshole.
Aleksandr : Maybe you should go right now.
Carrie : I’m already going!
—
Some weeks later
—
Aleksandr : I didn’t think I would hear from you
Carrie : I was upset. Now you know, I need you to not talk. So that I can say this without you confusing me. Samantha is my friend, she’s my family, my insides. She will be fine, because she has to be fine. That is how important she is to me. So, for you to say that she just might not be just … its feels very … hurtful. And really uncessesary.
Aleksandr : Let me explain. My friend who died.
Carrie : God!
Aleksandr : Wait. Wait. When she died. I was suprised. The amount of pain. I didnt want you to be surprised like I was.
Carrie : Well, you could have just said that
Aleksandr : We are different
Carrie : Yes we are. I need my relationship with a little bit of milk.
Aleksandr : Its clear who the writer is, huh? Your friend will be fine.
Inspired by my smiley stress ball. Everyone needs some cheering up every now and then. Smile!
Some teachers at Shuqun asked me to film a montage in preparation for this year’s O level batch students. Initially, the teachers wanted for the students to go to the resource room to make their dedications. Unfortunately, not many people turned up (actually NO ONE turned up) that Pauline, one of the teachers suggested, why not have an impromptu live shot.
And I did, we went around while the students were studying and revising, filmed them in their natural environment while some of them commented here are there. I liked the ‘live’ shots.
It was funny, looking at some of the kid’s antics. Most of them were covering their faces, some of them ran away from the camera. A few weren’t shy and were acting really crazy like laughing maniacally, some were rambling incoherent words.
I cant wait for to edit the footage.
And at the same time, I had a bit of fun (and mischief) playing with the camera. Really. What else would I do? Exams were over, I had no classes, teachers wee too busy to allocate me with any of their IT related stuff. I could make another flash course packaging : But I just had no materials at hand at that time.
So I did a short clip around the office. Played around with Win DVD Creator but I thought that software was quite limited in the editing capabilities. I didn’t fancy it too much but that’s the only video editing software that the school has.
I went to Download.com and search for a recommended software. And I came across Ulead. I really like that software, so simple to use with alot of options like colour adjust and customizable titles. Very nice
I was able to do this in a shorter time compared to the software at school. Tried to compress this, the best I could and its a little big though at 15 megs for a 3 min clip.But its a whole lot better than it being a 90 meg clip in the initial stage. I think I could download Ashampoo movie shrink to compress it even further.
—
Faizal, one of the art teacher saw me fiddling about with the video camera and we had a chat after that. I realised that he knew Amin, Zurainah and Hisyam, all of them teachers from Westspring Secondary, the former place where I worked at. And he started talking about how filming and then asked me if he could perhaps use the video camera for his art class.
“What kind of video camera is this?”
Oh this camera uses a Hi-8 tape (old technology)
“People now use DV”
Maybe you could persuade Mr Gopal (head of departments for IT) to buy some, that’ll be great
“And we could have a special room with a proper computer to do the editing”
That would be so nice.
“I’d like to show the students abit about film. Its part of the options students at ) level could do”
Wah really? I didn’t know that! What about A levels?
“Yes, its just not widely known as some art teachers aren’t very familiar with these, but the ministry of education is pushing art teachers to implement them”
How about 2d animation? And digital design? *excited*
“Yes, that too. In fact, there are many forms of art that you can take for the examinations.
How exciting! I’d like to give it a shot, taking art as a subject at my A levels. I think it would be a whole lot of fun. Why not? I think I’ve got the aptitude for it, even if I never took the subject at O levels. Some people are just naturally gifted 😛
Speaking of A levels, I has a chat with Karen, my economics classmate during breaktime yesterday. It was going to be our last econs class for the year.
Karen: Aww … after this, we wont be meeting each other anymore. It was nice to meet you
Brandon : We’re still going to meet each other, maybe for study groups or just an outing
Me : Wah, don’t say like that, its like we’re going to part and go to different countries. I don’t feel so ready for next year A level exams. Time passes by so quickly.
Karen : Yes, don’t forget to register by march or you’ll never be able to sit for the exams at the end of 2006.
Me : (mouth wide open) March? Wah so fast …
Karen : don’t forget to save up for at least 1k – you know, for every subject you take, its about 100dollars plus. And that doesn’t include our study fees.
Me : (mouth still wide open)
I still want to give it a shot. I’ll just say good luck to me.
—
While on the topic of smiling, don’t you find it interesting that when you smile at people at random, they will small back instantly? Even if they are complete strangers and don’t know them. I find myself smiling more and more. (maybe its the fasting month which mades my mood a little more happier?)
I’d smile at the bus drivers, and they would smile back at me.
I’d smile at random as I walk along, and some of them would take a while, but a smile would eventually form.
Heck, I even smiled at the uncle who was mopping the floor at Burger Kings and he gave me the biggest smile and immediately his eyes lighted up and he quipped a “Eh? Its you!” and then a split second later saw that I wasn’t the person he mistaken for.
There was one incident, that was super funny to me. I was walking with Hema at Sun plaza a while back and while she was at the toiletry shoppe, I went outside and looked around. I glanced at a guy and looked a little and smiled a little at him. And he came up to me!
Guy : Hey I know you. What are you doing now?
Me : Hey man! How are you? I’m teaching computers to kids now.
Guy : I gotta go now, a bit of a rush. You take care okay.
Me : Yeah, you too. Take care okay. Nice to see you.
Bye! (waves)
Hema coming out of the shop
Hema : Who the heck is that guy?
Me : Beats me. I’ve never met him before.
Oh well, the world has interesting people. Verrry interesting people. Maybe I’ll just keep on smiling and see what other interesting scenarios that I can be in. Muhahahaha!
After months of preparation, honing our skills, we are now all up and ready for our venture. I think what spurred it up was the fact that Diyanna, one of the girls who modelled for my photo-shoot recommended me to one of her friends.
I quickly thought about it. Juli and I already made our pact to do a makeover venture for a long while now. Initially, we were both apprehensive because both of us were more of a hobbyist rather than a professional. But now that Juli’s already a certified Makeup Artist by Cosmoprof and I’ve completed my photography course from Coverlooks. So there shouldn’t be anything stopping us. We should start our dream as soonest we can.
Actually, how the idea for a makeover venture started casually over dinner after Hema, Juli and I purchased our tickets for our Thailand trip vacation. I don’t remember what was said, but we all decided that we wanted to do something together. I don’t want to do something that’s always related to school!
Lets do something we like to do.
Well I like photography, and you do great make-up.
Hahaha .. Maybe we could do makeovers for people.
Yeah and we’ll call our business “HeJuMa Makeovers”
Ewwww!!!
I first noticed how good Juli was with makeup when she did a makeover for a mutual friend. One fine day, she offered to do a makeover for me while we were going out for a day in town. She dabbed a little here, and there. Put a little colour here and there and when she was done, I looked in the mirror and I really liked what I saw. Every stroke she did complemented my face. And it looked so natural and nice. There are some people who slap on their makeup too thickly and some people whose make-up just didn’t look right. Juli’s style is perfect.
The beautiful Juli on the phone
The fact that she has an impeccable taste in style and fashion makes it all the more sense that she’d be a perfect makeup artist.
On a whim, I thought of Geri to be our PR. I noticed how she interacts with people, as well as her experiences in the sector. She was very good at promoting something that she is really confident in.
I remember how confident she was while showing me some courses for Mindworks: A design school that she was working with for some while. All her promises about the institution was true. Nothing hidden and I thought that was a great quality.
I have full confidence of our combined abilities. I know we’ll do great.
So now we’re open for business! Come on and contact us, you know you want to 😉
Found a whole folder containing some mp3’s in my work computer and decided to dump some of the songs into my mp3 player. While listening to them on on the bus on my way to night class, I was totally gripped by one of the songs. It was called She’s Gone by Steelheart
Man, my eyebrows just arched whilst listening to it. Really. Really really. I was like:
She’s gone,
Out of my life.
I was wrong,
I’m to blame,
I was so untrue.
I can’t live without her love.
In my life
There’s just an empty space.
All my dreams are lost,
I’m wasting away.
Forgive me. Girrrrrrrrl.
uhhhrrrrrllll
WRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!
LADY! WONT YOU SAVE ME??
MY HEART BELONGS TO YOU!
LADY, CAN YOU FORGIVE ME?
FOR ALL I’VE DONE TO YOU
LADY. OH LADYYYYYY.
OH LADDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
Arrghh!!!
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Ahh .. Back to normal and feeling sheepish.
—
Anyway, I was a little early to night class and my General Paper teacher, Mr Chako was there. His eyes were swollen, poor thing. It hurts just to look at him. He told me that he had an infection and the bad thing was, he was allergic to anti-biotics.
And he still went to work after given a few days leave.
Really gotta hand it to the man for being so dedicated to his work. He still felt sorry for himself though and mumbled a “Gosh, I feel so aged and tired, not like you, you’re young and pretty”
Huh? What?
“Pretty, you’re pretty and have good features. If you dont mind me saying, if you have no zits, you’d be stunning”
Uh .. Okay, thanks.
For the next few minutes, we talked about zits. I thought that zits were because of genetics. My mum had zits, and my grandmother and though I never seen her before, probably my great-grandmother and the one before and the one before. So therefore, I’d get zits too.
Mr Chako disagreed. He believes that pimples are treatable through medication and other remedies. And he began to talk about tetracyclene and facial regiments such as saloons and spas.
Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll never go to facials. I hate the extraction method that they do. It was super painful. I must have cried at the end of every session that I stopped and just gave the salon the cold shoulder.
And currently, I’m seeing a doctor for my skin malaise. It would take a longer time, but at least, there’s no painful poking involved. I asked him if zits were caused by genetics and he replied
“Well, the formation of pimples may be formed due to family genes. If your parents had oily skin, most probably you would have it too. But if one of your parent have oily skin and the other has dry skin, you might have combination skin where you have a T-Zone.
Oily skin may cause pores to block and form acne. However, acne is not a hereditary problem”
Hmm .. ok then. Anyways, I’m not really so bothered by zits now that my skin is getting better now as compared to last year.
I hated looking at myself in the mirror. I couldnt help thinking of how ugly I looked and how aweful everything was around me, coupled by the stress that was due to the company that I used to work with.
People around me would always comment about my face and that made me feel more aweful than ever. Juli must have seen me at my lowest peak at the beginning of this year when she asked me out in the Kinokuniya Bookshop. She asked me to dress up to meet a friend which I did. But my heart really wasnt in it. Because all that I could think of was how ugly I was, how broke I was to do anything about it, how my job sucks and how bleak everything else was.
I was just psychologically broken.
I mean seriously, how would you feel if you had a face like this?
Sucks I tell you. Just plain sucks. I’m glad that I’ve got it over me, for now. The doctor says that these problems will stabilize when I reach about 30 years old. So I guess theres something to look forward to, at that age, after all. Not only will the skin condition stabilize, short sightedness would also stabilize.
I want to be 30, and flirty and fun
I know its pretty superficial and people would go about the cliqued saying of “Oh, its the inside that counts the most” It still affects someone, anyways. It doesnt help the soul at all.
—
Speaking of beauty, I was watching this interesting DVD that I borrowed from the library.
In series 3, it talked about the topic of beauty and interestingly enough, it says there is a mathematical ration to what equates to a beautiful shape.
In it, there is a golden ratio to the proportion. 1: 1.618
In a beautiful shape and face, the upper body and the torso would be 1 : 1.618 and this can be seen throughout the entire body as well as face.
Not sure how accurate this is, but I’m not going to start with my non symmetrical face.
A mask done by using these ratios
Fits Kate Moss’s face perfectly
—
And speaking of faces. Look at what I got from the mail today!
My fave vanity shoppe! With a new branch! In *MY* square! It must be a good sign of times to come 🙂
Third time’s a charm, I hope. It would be nice to finally clear the traffic police test and get it over and done with so I concentrate on other matters.
I flunked my tp test twice already. The first time was due to the rain which made everything slippery and the second was a matter of pure carelessness by me. So I hope my third time would leave me more optimistic.
It would be so disheartening if I dont do well. But I’ll never give up. Went through so much just to let go when the end is so near.
Was back from the Bukit Batok Driving Center for a self practise. It wasn’t anything that I didn’t already knew. So why is it that I keep doing silly mistakes during the actual test itself?
Farid, a colleague of mine, whom I was replacing for the school found out that I was taking riding lessons too. He retold about the time when he was taking the traffic police test. The night before, he visualised the circuit and the road. What to do in every instance and every gestures.
I think I’ll give it a try too. What’s there to lose anyway.
Starting point.
Signal the lights to the left and look out for the traffic.
Look to the right, and then look to the left
If all is clear, blind spot left and proceed
Watch out for pedestrians at the zebra crossing
Accelerate to at least gear 3
Before approaching the bend
Signal right
Blind spot right when touching the bend
At the end of the bend, another blind spot
Go in the right lane
At the junction
Shoulders must be aligned to the white line
Blind spot to the right and proceed.
Avoid wide turning
After the junction
Signal to the left
Blind spot left
Accelerate to prevent wobbling
Change lane to the left
Before turning
Blind spot to the left and look far.
Stop at the stop sign and look out for traffic.
Blind spot left at the middle of the junction
Get to at least gear 2
Slope
Kick down to gear 1.
Signal right
Hold rear break
Open throttle, release break and proceed downhill
signal left and look out for incoming vehicles
Traffic lights
Front tyre must NEVER touch the yellow line. (instant failure)
Check front road, left and right and accelerate
Signal left as soon as you leave the yellow box
Figure 8
blind spot left
go to gear 2
let go of clutch
control throttle
use read break to control speed
Press the clutch slightly just when about to go out and look right
Crank
Signal right before proceeding in
Go to gear 2
let go of clutch
control throttle
cancel signal
look right
Traffic light
Look left and right
Signal right while in the yellow box
Check blind spot
Change lane to the right
accelerate
T Junction
Look left and right and repeat till lanes are clear
Blind spot right
Turn right and kick gear up
Accelerate
Signal left
blind spot
change lane to the leftmost
Blind spot again as approaching the outermost bend and enter
Cancel signal
Plank
Kick to gear 1
Look at the plank
proceed and then look far
Balance using rear brake
Slalom
Kick to gear 2
use rear brake to control
Blind spot right when approaching end
Emergency break
Accelerate up to 35km/h
Go to gear 3
When you see the red line, close throttle
Break front and rear
Clutch in
Kick down to gear 1
Check back
Proceed to the road
Road is a little easier for me. Similar to the circuit, but you have to check with other traffic and the pedestrians too. Give way when needed and accelerate whenever possible.
Hope my assessment check-list doesn’t go up too much during the actual day.
