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A lovely evening with the peeps of Ping.Sg at Essential Brew

Ping.sg is a bloggers community that I’ve been with for some months now. I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled onto this website, but it is a great place for Singaporean bloggers to gain some eyeballs to their blogs as well as finding interesting posts by Singaporeans.

After much contemplating, I decided to go for the meetup last night.

The evening didn’t start very promising. My lion hair decided to puff up and while riding my scooter on the road, the sky decided to rain. I went to seek shelter at a petrol station nearby and listened amusedly to two Indian men chatting amiably together.

At long last the rain abated and I went forward to the journey.

Pic of Holland Village, Singapore

Holland Village! It has been quite a while since I last been here. It isnt really my type of place as I was more of a heartlander, a neighbourhood person. But its a lovely place to go to. I should have brought Cartcart here.

There were heaps of well dressed people and expatriates there getting their groceries, having dinner in nice looking restaurants and people just walking about enjoying their saturday evening.

At length, I reached Essential Brew where the gathering was held. It looked very cosy. The decor was a mix of zen and homeliness. It looked like a good place to spend time with friends.

The first person I saw was Uzyn (Yes thats his real name!) as he waved at me from the room upstairs. As I entered the room, I saw Kevin, NTT and DK whom I met previously from the Nexus meet. As I sat down, I met this very sweet lady. She introduced herself as Tstar. She was very friendly! We hit it off instantly.

I was curious to see Ridz, who was sitting beside her. He was wearing the army uniform.

me : Did you just got off camp, Ridz?

ridz : Oh no, I am doing this because Tstar said that she’ll only come to this meeting if I wore my army uniform. She said she loves men in uniform. I’ve already completed my army training.

me : Ohmygosh. I cant believe you actually did that!

ridz : Yeah, too bad I couldnt find my camoflage cream for the face. I would have put that on too!

I realised later that the man who was sitting at the head of the table was Ebie, one of the owners for Essential Brew. He is a ping.sg member too! He sat with us for a while, but couldn’t stay long as it was a very busy night for him.

Pic of the Ping.sg group

From left to right : Tstar, Ridz, Kevin, NTT, Ebie, DK and Uzyn

Clappingtree arrived shortly after. She told me that she just came from mass from her church and that she lived nearby. It was really lovely to talk to her upclose. She was very friendly, warm and very easy going. The first time I saw her was at the Nexus meet, some weeks back. But I only managed to see her from a distance away and we didn’t get a chance to talk.

Any meetup with the Ping.sg gang will bound to have a plentiful of cheerful laughter. I am always amazed at how friendly these group are. I chuckled at the jokes and conversation. The topics ranged from the Pingnation netcast that Kevin planned to host, to the spontaneous netcast that Clappingtree suggested, to my cloudy drink ( Uzyn : It’s cloudy because its going to rain ) and practically everything else under the sky.

I looked at everyones dinner. Ridz had this yummy looking fish and chips. Uzyn had a plate of cream pasta. I think Tstar had a plate of beef and she looked like she enjoyed it. I decided to have the Vegetarian Verdure Pomodoro pasta. It was pretty good. So good that Tstar and I forgot to take a picture of our dinner 😛

Kevin and NTT had to leave after dinner, due to prior engagements but shortly after, Eastcoastlife and her husband arrived. She jokingly introduced him as her boyfriend. True to as what DK mentioned, she was a charismatic and attractive lady. When she talks, her eyes sparkled and it seemed that everyone warmed up to her.

Actually, I suspected that there could be something going on with Eastcoastlife and DK. Whenever they were in the chatroom, their chatting would dominate the entire chatroom that I got disgusted by it, quite frankly.

But DK explained that he has never met her before and regarded her as his “aunt”. They were both so funny and friendly that it was hard to stay mad at them.

Pic of the Panna Cotta Dessert

Ebie was so kind as to give us complimentary desserts after our dinner. Thank you Ebie! You rock! Each of us had a Panna Cotta with strawberries on top. It looked too pretty to eat. But when I started, it was so delightful to eat that I sighed when it was all gone.

Pic of the Ice Cream Bombe Dessert

We also had a plate of Ice Cream Bombe. I had to take a picture of this really quickly as everyone were eyeing on it. They couldn’t wait to devour it.

And it really was very very good. It had an entire medley of yummy treats like ice cream and lovely crunchy hazelnut bits in it. In no time at all, it was gone!

Rinaz wants more!

See!

It was a very lovely evening, well spent with the group. The night seemed to end too quickly and we had to say goodnight to each other. I waved goodbye to clappingtree, saw Eastcoastlife walk the opposite direction, hand in hand with her hubby, saw chilvarous Ridz accompany Tstar to the bus stop. Uzyn and DK still wanted to to have coffee though.

Saying goodbye

I had to decline as it was nearly 11 pm. My parking was only valid till 10.30pm. Clappingtree said that this was a hot spot for parking wardens. Ack! I really didn’t want to get fined!

I had a really lovely time. It was definitely a great meetup! Here is a short clip from during dessert. Enjoy 🙂

Click here to watch in youtube

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Bras Basah Complex – a great place for arty people

Can you imagine finding these three books at almost unused condition costs in total for about $20?

Woah! Bookpoint rocks!

Wow right? Yeah, thats what I thought so too.

It has been a while since I’ve been to Bras Basah Complex. I used to go there some years ago while undertaking digital design course in a distant lifetime. I love this place as it has plentiful of things for people who are interested in books, design, or just looking at stuff. I used to patronise there to print for posters and name-cards designs.

I think its really worth going there. For $2.50 you could print an A3 sized poster and for $10 you could create a stack of 100 cards which are as beautiful as moo cards.

I stopped by this place on the third floor, called ‘Book Point’ where there were loads of treasures that you could find. You do need a little bit of patience as the place was rather large, and will take a while if you have a specific book to find. I was hooked for a couple of hours in the literature segment looking for some books that I wanted to read. There were some books with some scribbles in them, after all, this *was* a second hand bookshop. But most of them were almost pristine.

I still couldn’t find The Metamophorsis by Franz Kafka nor Godel Escher Bach; An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter which Cartcart has recommended me to read. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep trying to find them 🙂

Exploring the rest of the floor, I found myself at ‘Art Friend‘. My gosh, this is a great place for crafts. There were so many tools for art here, I could go crazy. Everything that you could want for art is here, from painting, to pottery, to sewing, to welding to things that I don’t even know of!

Nimmo and friends

I was almost inspired enough to create my own Nimmo and friends plushie. But the only thing is, that they don’t really have exactly what I want to create a decent sized plushie. I think a better place for it would be at the area near the Sultan Mosque where mum, a seamstress, gets her materials for sewing clothes.

And at length, I stopped by the fourth floor to take a peek at the famed graphic-book bookstore, Basheer. I poured for a long time over their beautiful, colourful and artistically designed books. It’s a great place to get ideas by looking at the creativity of other designers.

That was when I find myself stuck reading this book. Design Basics Index by Jim Krause. It has loads of info about composition, concept and component. Although I wasn’t a designer per-se, I thought that this book was a very fascinating read. On a whim, I decided to buy it.

Design Basics Index

But zomg. This book costs $47! It’s almost as expensive as the $60 computer book that I bought some years ago.

How come graphic and computer books are so expensive?

Anyway, do drop by Bras Basah Complex if you’re anywhere in town. It’s a great place for the creative soul 🙂

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Can we set up a makeover studio?

Last Sunday evening, my brother Nazry and I went to IMM for dinner when we passed by a wedding booth. They were promoting their studio. Bro stopped a while to look at the photos so I looked too.

That was when the owner came up and asked us, “Are you thinking about getting married?” I replied, “we need to think about that first …”

He asked again, “How long have you two known each other?” And bro replied, “We’ve known each other for a long long time ..”

The owner continued asking, “You’ve known each other for such a long time and you’re still thinking about getting married!”

This is what a couple looks like?!

I was amused as bro and I looked very similar. How could we possibly look like a couple? I didnt know what to reply, so I just smiled abashedly and continued to play along and asked him about the bridal packages.

It seemed quite attractive though. For an outdoor shoot with make-up and 2 choice of outfits with a 20 picture album comes up to about $1k. They even do overseas shots, complete with hotel lodgings for about $3k.

Is it worth it?

But personally for me, having taken studio shots of other people during my photography classes, sometimes I feel that some makeover studiots can be a rip off.

Juli and me wanted to set up a makeover business together for a long time now. We spent some time to hone our skills. Juli took professional make-up courses in Cosmoprof while I dabbled in photography.

In October 2005, together with our friend Geri, Juli and I decided to have a makeover session at coverlooks to see how it actually works in a studio.

Picture of rinaz in coverlooks studio

I guess the experience was alright.

But to be honest, we were not too impressed about the whole deal. With no egoism intended, we both knew that we could do better.

Here are some shots during our practise sessions:

Celest makeover with rinaz and juli

Fuzzy makeover with rinaz and juli

Fuzzy's friend makeover with rinaz and juli

Juli’s makeup is definitely more expressive. We are both passionate about doing makeovers.

But I guess the factors that are holding us back is the cost of actually setting up a studio, the equipment and time constraints.

It would really wonderful when it takes off. We can do it, bit by bit. Baby steps.

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The story of a multimedia educator

Once upon a time, marina has just completed her diploma in computer studies. With alot of free time in her hands, she immediately agreed when a friend asked her to do relief teaching in a school nearby.

She found out that she loved it. Oh how she enjoyed teaching! How she loved talking to kids and imparting knowledge to them. Each day, she’ll find new and exciting things to do to share with her kids.

Picture of a note by a student

Then one day, the principal asked her to go to her office. Curious, marina stepped in gingerly where she told her that they have found a permanent teacher and they she doesnt need to report for work anymore.

marina felt as if her heart would break. She bravely smiled and said thank you and then rushed off to the toilet and bawled her head off because she already felt very attached to her kids.

After brooding despondently at home for the next 3 days, marina decided to search for a job. A more permanent job. She decided to teach IT for a secondary school and she was hired by a company to do so.

Her first job started well enough. She went to teach in schools and assisted in websites and other IT related work. But after time, her boss made her teach new things. Things she didnt want to teach. Programming!

Marina said no. She wont do it. She doesnt want to teach someone in something that she is not good at.

Soonafter she got fired.

Next, she decided to work for a private firm just to see how it goes there.

Picture of my table :D

It started well enough. She went to teach businessmen and working adults. But after time, her boss made her work for longer hours. When it got to her working for 7 days a week for a month, it got to the point when marina got severely depressed.

She resigned.

Marina decided to take it slow. She became a part timer and went to teach where she is needed. When the times are good, she found out that she could earn quite abit. But when there was a period when there was no demand at all.

That was when an ex colleague asked her to work in his company.

It started well enough. For about two years, she taught students in computer applications. She helped out in the school competition. She bonded with the kids. Even when the management claimed that their funds were dwindling and effected her pay, she still pushed on because of her love for teaching.

Picture of some vain students

And yet the company maligned her. Even with the support of the principal and staff to back her, she still got fired.

Angry, depressed and emotional. She made a report against the Central Provident Board. She collected evidences for legal actions. But before she started anything, the company folded.

For the longest while, marina wondered to herself about all the bad situations that she was in.

But she is a believer of fate and circumstances. Everything happens for a reason.

Media Club students doing speech day video

Now marina is working for one of the top educational portal in Singapore. Her job isnt easy and does get demanding at times. But so far, it has been one of the most fulfilling ones that she has. She gets to do the things that she loves to do, and more importantly, express herself creatively.

Jean and Marina

marina looks forward to what the future will bring.

The end

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World of Wati

When I was a little girl, an ustadzah told us that in our lifetime, there will be 6 people in this world who are similar to us. I think I found one person who is similar to me.

Meet Wati.

This is wati

Okay, so we don’t look exactly the same. But I see some mannerisms of hers which are similar to mine. She’s funny, she’s lively and she loves photography and video.

Wati is a Singaporean Malay woman who fell in love and married to a UK guy. They recently have an adorable baby boy together and are currently living in Japan.

The larkes

Wati recently dropped in my blog and being curious, I decided to peek in hers and now I’m hooked.

If reading blogs is like seeing a window through another eyes, then this is a great view! In her blog she writes about her travelling experiences, life in Japan, her updates in her pregnancy and her baby as well as other interesting things that she’s discovered.

And its such a treat to watch her videos! I find myself laughing while watching a video of her husband eating a durian and chuckled when watching her teach Malay language to her husband and cringed at the different type of ice cream flavours that they had in Japan. (Horse Meat Flavoured ice cream? Charcoal? Wasabi? Yuck!)

Funny and cute couple :)

Such an adorable family. Do drop by World of Wati. I am sure you’ll love them just as much as I did 🙂

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Shoes is love

I love shoes.

I just got these yesterday :D

I love to look at pretty shoes, running my fingers on them, trying them on. I love how a pair of shoe can transform a woman – how it accentuates the feminine saunter, to the boost of their height.

For just $30, you too could have the legs of a goddess

Unfortunately, I am also an extremely rough person. Its not uncommon for me to wear out a pair of shoe in about a month or less.

My trusty charles and keith rainbow wedges :D

One of the more embarassing experiences I had was when I was wearing a pair of strappy shoes to work. After time, the straps decided to come apart. If you have ever worn strappy shoes, you know how impossible it is to try to put it back together.

I put rubber bands around the soles!

In the end, I had to innovate by using a couple of rubber bands to hold the sole together temporarily before limping off to get a new pair of shoes during lunch time.

In Singapore, there are loads of pretty shoes here. You could go to any shopping center and find nice looking shoes that costs less than $19 sing dollars.

The trouble about these type of shoes is that they arent that well made and dont last for very long. In a short time, it will disintegrate – Heels will just fall out, or the soles will just give way. Here are just some of the shoes that I’ve (accidentally) killed.

:"("

The heels came apart on my first day of wearing these

I still miss my cute chicken shoes :(

The sole got torn up on a wet and rainy day

You put up a good fight, my friend :(

The insole collapsed and a piece of metal jutted out from the heel, making it extremely uncomfortable to wear

After a while, I thought to myself. I’m spending my money on cheap but low quality shoes when I should buy a slightly more expensive pair which will last me longer. But there is a limit though. As much as I would love to have a pair of Manolo Blahnik, its not wise for me to spend $800 for that. Actually, I’ve never paid more than $40 for shoes ever.

Raffia d'Orsay Pumps costs almost 600 dollars!

So when my trusty rainbow wedges are getting rather worn out, I was on my hunt for new shoes. I spotted this pair of lovely brown Marie Claire mini wedge shoes which was just perfect for me. It looked elegant and classic and was comfortable enough for me to ride a scooter and to be on the move.

:) $80, is that crazy?

It was nearly eighty dollars. Though it costs more than what I’d usually pay for shoes, after contemplating about it for a while, I thought to myself, “Why not. It’ll make a good science experiment to see how long it will last”

Its been about a week now and its holding up pretty well. I wonder how it will be like after a month. We’ll see 😉

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My meet with the lovely Myztika

After contemplating for a while, I decided to head to the Nanyang Technological University after work. Luckily for me, Cory and Jean were still doing their presentation when I reached there.

It was interesting to hear about the different segments of Secondlife, like business, educational, social.

Decided to meet up with fellow blogger, Myztika as she was working in the biomedical department, which was nearby. I’ve never met her before this. We only got to know each other through our blogs.

Wow, what can I say? When I first met her, the first thing that went through my mind was how gorgeous she was.

we had to bully a poor indian gentleman to have this pic taken

And she was also funny and witty and a whole load of fun!

She told me about how she, as a Singaporean working in NTU, actually felt like a minority as there were more foreigners than Singaporeans in there.

Thus we did silly jokes, purposely speaking in all sorts of slangs.

me : Ya know? This cawntry is suchha eksselent cawntry.

Mystika : Oh yeah deffinate-layh. Where-ah dew yew leeve?

me : Oh, I leeve in Jew-rong. Have ya heard of eet?

Hahaha!

Thank you for the lovely evening, Myztika, it was so nice to meet you 🙂

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Online Relationships in the metaverse

I am supposed to be doing a sharing session this upcoming Thursday at the Idea Factory for the Secondlife Community meet.

To be honest, after hearing the discussion at the E27 unconference, and seeing participants with their scepticism and disbelief, I’m not very confident about talking this Thursday, in front of all the technophiles I saw on the attendance list. Especially with Cory Ondrejka, the Chief Technology Officer of Secondlife being there.

Wow! Cory is a good looking dude!

(Even if I *am* looking forward to seeing Kevin and his helmet cam)

Kevin and his helmet cam

But I think that during these events, many people focus on the economics and technology segment. I believe that behind every mode of communication, there is a human element. So to prevent myself from mumbling incoherently during the event, I think I should give the topic just a little bit of thought.

Experiencing relationships in the metaverse. Or more specifically, Secondlife Relationships.

Mass Praying in Secondlife

I believe that the feelings that experienced online, could affect a person in real life. These feelings does not necessarily have to be romantic feelings, it also includes the feelings that you get when you get to know the people online, whether it be from blogs, instant messages, virtual worlds or other alternative sites.

Some time back while I was in cybertown, a well loved resident passed away due to her illness. I remember the genuine feelings of grief. There was a eulogy and everyone remembered the good memories and happy moments that they had of her. The feelings of loss, the feelings of sadness, these are all real even if we do not meet these people in real life.

So why should Secondlife relationships be any different from real life relationships?

In Secondlife, I’ve seen how easily and quickly on how two individuals from a relationship with each other. I think that this is largely because people have the freedom to express themselves more. They fashion their avatars as how they wanted it to look and they control how they want themselves to portray. Moreover with the awareness that the metaverse is a platform as opposed to real life, people are less inhibited.

Cart and Rinaz resting on a leaf

But as quickly as these relationships are formed, many of them are quick to dissolve too. A casual survey done in Secondlife shows that the average duration of a SL relationship lasts about a month.

Perhaps these relationships in the metaverse are seen as disposable. With over 4 million registered users in secondlife, there are always many other avatars that one can go to. Moreover, these residents can control their world as real as they want it to be, or to keep their relationships strictly online.

A wedding in Secondlife

A wedding in Secondlife

There has been stories of partners turning out not to be as what they describe to be – some are married, some even not being open about their actual gender. It’s very difficult sometimes to differentiate the truth in the metaverse because of the lines of transparency here.

The dilemma begins when a partner believes the representation of an avatar to be exactly the same as it is in real life. If they are happy in-world, would it be considered cheating when they find the truth about their partners?

I think the most important element in online relationships is maturity. Each individual needs to trust each other and to be truthful about their situation and always remember that behind every avatar, is a real person.

Torley and Jade

Torley and Jade

At the same time, there are also many couples who traversed from online romance to real life romance. It isn’t easy, and it may not be for everyone. But I believe that with trust, patience, faith and strong commitment to each other, the relationship will eventually work out in the end.

Thanks to Secondlife, there has been real life partnership and matrimonies. And that’s a good thing. It shows that no matter how advanced technology is, there will always be a human element prevailing.

Marina met cartcart from Secondlife

Falling in love is natural. And emotions are what makes us, human. The metaverse is thus another avenue where we can express, emote and relate.

—

p.s If you are free on Tuesday afternoon, do drop by NTU, ADM Atrium. Cory will be giving a talk about Secondlife at 4pm. I cant be there though since I’d still be at work. 😐

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Careful! Blogs are not private

King Cart and Queen Rinaz of marina's bloggarifficMarina’s Bloggariffic is read all over the world. I have to admit that its a huge boost to the ego, but sometimes I’m quite surprised at how readers manage to stumble in this humble blog.

But I dont think anything quite prepared me for what happened yesterday.

A parent came over to my workplace to meet me. She was keen on helping out with the parent association segment for the school webpage.

We chatted, and after a while …

parent: You know, I’ve read your blog

me: Oh yes, I manage the school blog too

parent: Oh no, your personal blog, rinasomething

me: Oh! I’m curious how you got the link, I dont think I’ve ever given out my address any teacher before.

parent: I got that link from a teacher so that I can get to know about you more.

I was a little flabbergasted. Then I remembered that a while back, one of the head teachers did a search on google about Shuqun Secondary, the school that I was attached to. She stumbled upon this blog, read it, and for some days, started to tease me about me and cartcart.

But in a way, I kind of anticipated it. Because blogs, unless they are password controlled, arent all that private. Given time, any site can be searched through any search engine like google or yahoo.

I’m just glad that I didn’t put anything too private in this blog!

So, how did *you* stumble to this blog? I’d love to know 🙂

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How well do you know your online friends?

Have you ever came across a blog or a website, you read their posts for a while, and in your mind, you form an impression of them and you believe that you know them.

But I think that it isn’t easy to judge a person’s character solely from their blogs or websites.

True, that the person writes about their thoughts, their joys, their fears. But in blogs, they are what the author chooses to represent themselves. Even in personal blogs, the story might not be complete as there are some issues that might be too private.

There are some things which I know about my blog friends like :

  • I know Sha loves excercising.
  • I know Geri loves photography.
  • I know Ghostrider loves the nightlife.
  • I know Gypsygirl loves travelling.
  • I know Myztika loves being with her friends.
  • I know Shane loves the arts.

But how much do we really know each other? Do we really want to know?

I remember that, as a teen, I bonded with a lot of people when chatting on mirc. One day, we organized a get together in real life. When I went there, I was quite surprised to see there were those who seemed boisterous online, who turned out to be actually shy in real life, and those whom you thought were quiet online turned out to be quite charming in real life.

I think the lesson learnt is to keep an open mind.

And yet, at the same time, we still have real feelings for what we see online.

I remember that when Dynatec passed his examinations, I was genuinely happy for him. And when I heard that Glonan passed away due to her illness, I felt that I’ve lost a dear friend, even if I have never met her in real life before.

How can it be, that we can be so connected, and yet be so disconnected at the same time?