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I actually broke a Nokia phone

2 weeks in the new year and I think I’ve settled down a little, more or less. Back to regular blogging!

rinaz.net
The Nokia 3310

My first coloured mob phone, my beloved Nokia 3310 finally busted. It started with the motherboard having problems, making it non-chargeable using the regular method then recently, it wouldn’t ring at all, rendering in many missed calls.

Okay mostly it was really my fault since I’m such a rough person and tend to drop it a lot. Phones should really be built with rubber cushions at the exterior for people like me.

I had to cave in and get a replacement mob phone and decided to finally get a second hand Nokia 7260.

The interesting thing about Singapore is that there are many shops that sells and repairs mobile phones. Just the other day while walking in Jurong East during my lunch break, I counted that there were at the very least 10 of these kiosks selling mobile phones. It made me wonder, if it is such a lucrative business or will it flounder like the bubble tea business during the year 2000?


A big crowd at the mosque for the morning Hari Raya Prayers


Sacrificial sheep which will be distributed to the poor


Boys watching the sacrificial rites

Anyhow, it was 10th January, Hari Raya Haji, and it was the norm for the family to visit the paternal and maternal clans. After the morning prayers, we went to our paternal and then our maternal clan which was located in Tampines.

I saw a mob phone shop. After contemplation, I went in and asked to examine the phone and finally gotten the phone after trading in my old phone for the price of SG$160

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

It was a pretty cool phone with radio features, camera features and voice recorder, among other regular features that is expected of Nokia. To me, once you’ve tried a Nokia, you’ll never go back to other phones. After all, Nokia has the human technology.

I played around with it and here are some of the photos that I snapped with it :





The pictures look fairly decent. Of course not as sharp as a regular camera, a little watercolour-eque but for a phone, it was rather good.

I liked the voice and video recording features too. I made my dearest’s voice into my ringtone!

With the right software, I was even able to create my own ringtones and my own wallpaper. I’m so geeked out at this. Previously, I’d have to pay an insane amount for personalised wallpaper and ringtones.

Using the right cable, the Nokia 7260 uses C4-42 (which you can get cheaply from yahoo auctions) and you could transfer data to and from the computer.

I use the Nokia PC suite for the phone data and the Miksoft Mobile AMR converter to create the ringtones

Anyhow, being a second hand phone, I saw that there were some stuff that’s left in there by the previous owner and going through it, I saw that the previous owner was a Malay female and judging from the pictures that she snapped, she was in her early 20’s. (I deleted all her pictures, messages and videos as wouldn’t be nice to keep them)

But going though the messages was like a little soap opera between her and her boyfriend.

“I luvs you so much! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz! Muakz!”

“Why do you have to see him? That makes me so jealous! You are my girl!”

And stuff like that continued. People should remember to delete stuff like that before giving their phones away.

And speaking of broken phones. Guess what else I broke this week 🙁

Yes. Another shoe. After breaking multiple shoes in incidents such as this and this. My chicken shoes is part of the next dearly departed.

I love my chicken shoes so much. How can this happen? I was just walking home and the seams just busted out. It could be the overly rainy days that we were having that made the glue melted and my shoes fall apart.

Sigh

I’d better take pictures of my current shoes before they go for their eventual death too.



Green Espadrilles from Tinkerbell for $25 dollars


Camel suede shoes from Noda for $15


Purple Crochet ballerina shoes from Mondo for $25

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Goodbye 2005. It has been a good year


Picture snap thanks to Wishfulone

The start of the new year. My goodness, how did 12 months go by so quickly like that? I don’t think that I even got comfortable with 2005 yet! However, there were a number of highlights in the year 2005 to remember by.

January:
Moving in the new school campus for West Spring Secondary, where I used to work at.

February:
Registered for night classes with the hopes to improve myself. After a hiatus of many, many years.

March:
Entered into very bad depression, caused by many different factors, such as the problems with my previous job, and the psychological effects from my severe acne problem.

April:
Got my canon EOS 350D! And took loads and loads of pictures thereafter.

May:
I was terminated from my previous company. Well, good riddance to them, the only reason I stayed so long was because I liked the previous school I was attached to.

June :
Got a new job in a better, and more established company!
Started my photography classes and my brother’s basic military training graduation.

August
Took a leap and travelled half-way around the world to meet my dearest for the first time in real life.

September
My blog post about my dearest got into Tomorrowsg! Hee hee hee hee!

October
After a long year and a half, I finally passed my Motorcycle Riding Test.

November
My maternal grandfather passed away.

December
After a long engagement, best friend Hema, got married and it was also Cart and my first year anniversary 🙂

Goodbye 2005! It has been a good year, full of interesting and enriching experiences. Some bittersweet. Some beautiful and unforgettable. All that I wouldn’t ever want to trade for anything else.

And what are the things to come in the year 2006? I’ve many things that I planned to do this year, the nimmo and friends webcomics, writing articles for publications, going in depth with photography, trying to learn actionscript and loads of other things …

I’ve many things I’d like to do! But first things first would be my upcoming A level examinations. And I’d like to try to do good this time … and I might have to sacrifice a little.

Anyhow, bro and I was out last weekend with the intention of going to the Vespa Showroom to look at the different scooters that they had there. I’ve always wanted to get green GT200 for the longest time but wanted to see it for real before the actual purchase.

It was a beautiful day. Skies were blue, and big fluffy clouds graced the sky and I was happy and revved up to finally get to sit on my beloved scooter.

To our dismay when we finally got to the building, only to find it locked and closed. It was so upsetting that I had to jerk the gates repeatedly to see if it really was locked. It was as if someone played a prank on us.

We decided to head back and took the bus that will take us home. Fortunately for us, we saw a huge motorcycle gallery while on the way and I quickly asked Nazry.

Wanna go take a look?
I don’t mind
I don’t mind either
Lets go!

He quickly pressed the buzzer and we dropped by and explored the place. Ohh .. there were loads and loads of motorcycles around, in many different colours, shapes and sizes.

There were several men looking around a specific model of a bike and asked the sales person some questions. There were so many bikes! Almost bursting with them that even the exit had at least 10 bikes being displayed outside. Even the walls and ceilings had bikes hanging precariously with metal bars.

At this time, I was feeling quite overwhelmed by the amount of bikes that there was there. There were so many, that I didn’t know where to start. And the signs on the bike didn’t help much either. I couldn’t understand a thing! All the technical specifications were so alien to me, it felt like the first time I bought a computer (I didn’t have much computer knowledge then) and finally just settled on a computer that seemed easy to use.

But nevertheless, I did see some interesting bikes, some with really large radiator looking devices in front of the engines. Some sprayed to look like a yellow cab taxi. And there were even one interesting bike I saw that looked so plastic, I wondered how it could ever even run.

Bro seemed to fall in love with this one


Gosh look at how excited and happy is

It was an interesting looking bike, with footrests. Nazry thinks that it exudes the ‘cool’ factor with the interesting body-frame and the movable seats. Personally, I thought it looks a little odd and a bit flimsy. He asked the salesman, how much the bike costs. “$10k” was the reply. A bit much for me.

We left after spending about an hour or two in there. I think next time, I should ask someone who’s more experienced in bikes to accompany me. It was truly overwhelming.

We went to Jurong Point for lunch when bro felt like playing a game in the arcades. I accompanied him and looked on, while he played this game called “Ghost Squad” and I was amazed to see him shoot down the enemies one by one.

This must be what the army trained my brother for 😛 He was so fast that even before the enemies appeared, he was well prepared to aim and shoot them down. A true marksman.

Bro had a strange costume for his character player though.

A man in a panda costume with a cat stuck behind him. “What the heck is that?” I asked him, with a note of disbelief. “Why, only high level people could use this costume!”, he replied proudly.

And he looked triumphant as he completed the entire game.

Anyhow, it was a lovely and relaxing day. It was pretty good. And I enjoyed myself. Before I go, I think I’ll post a picture of my mum, just because I like this picture of her.

Goodnight!

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Working at a job, Jobbing for a work

A quickie post for today …

For since, you can see the mental state of my mind by how my work table looks like … Extremely messy! As compared to how it first started. Yeah, its been quite a busy time for since the N Level examinations results and the new student registration and the incoming orientation.

I guess the kids at school were kind of stressed out because they were on the roof trying to prepare for the student orientation programs!

But seriously, it was always nice to see the kids being proactive and dilligent. I was leaving the workplace and I happened to chance these NCC (a uniformed student organization) kids hanging large banners around, trying to promote their club.

There were still alot of kids around practising their volleyballs, wushu as well as other various organizations there, practising, even though it was close to late evening time.

I even happened to chance upon this little cutie while at work! Isnt she adorable? I was photographing the new student registration and took a picture of this sweet little girl while the parents were talking to a form teacher 🙂

Oh I love her eyes and her baby curls. And she was so friendly! And smiled at anyone who’d pay attention to her 🙂 Oh I would have just kidnapped her!

Anyhow’s I attended a function, by the company which I was working for. And I have to admit that all these years that I’ve been working in the training company, I’ve never had anything like this before.

It was lovely to get together with the various trainers from other schools as well as staff from the different department. It made me feel that we were a close knit family. I didnt feel so alone as I felt in the previous companies that I worked with. And that was nice.


The head honcho and dad of the company, spoke a few words of encouragement and motivation to his family.

It was nice to be recognized for what you do. It was nice to at least be acknowledged as a person rather than just a “staff who works for you”. I was really heartened.

Going to log off now. But before that, always remember that

Guess what song I sang ..ROFL! Well, till the next time 🙂

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Of what dreams may come

I had the most interesting dream this morning.

I dreamt that I was sleeping in bed and I opened my eyes to find my bedroom door opened. I didnt liked sleeping with the door open so I rose to shut the door. I realise that the door was green, and there was a dresser beside the bed and outside the window, where the moon was shining brightly was familliar swaying of trees, still buildings and the soft sounds of the passing of cars onroads.

I was back in my old house again.

The house that I lived in for over two decades before it got demolished. I wasnt frightened. I felt safe and protected. It was a place I was familliar with. My sanctuary. I was happy even, to see everything as it was. And I wanted to explore to see more.

So I opened the door.

I see a little boy and a little girl which looked like my siblings, only younger. They didnt notice me. And my father, sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper, quietly. He doesnt notice me either.

But what struct me the most, was that in front of me, was my mother. Except she was younger. Much much younger. In her 20’s. She had shorter hair and she noticed me and she looked little stunned but she wasnt frightened and instead she embraced me and asked me, “How old are you?”

27, I answered.

“You could have been. You could have been.” She replied, with a tinge of sadness.

—

I’ve always been interested in dream analysis and interpretation for quite a while. Even though I am just a novice at this, I find it absolutely facinating, how the mind works when your body is at rest.

The mind, free from the boundaries of the waking logicalities, uses both the left and right sides of the brain and forms dreams when we are in our deepest state of sleep – the REM.

These visions of dreams can be a symbol of many things:

It could either be something that affects you in your daily lives. When you go to sleep hungry, a huge probability that you’d dream of food. When you are anxious about the examination that will happen tomorrow, dreams of going to the exam hall in time are very common.

And there are times when you dream of a deja vous – when you dream of a scene and then forget about it for a while and then one day you stop for a while and look around and realise that where you are at right now, is exactly like a dream scene you dreamt a few months ago.

And sometimes dreams can also be messages from the brain or other sources, in form of dreams to what it cannot translate during the waking hours. You may have problems with a very difficult situation. After pondering about the problem, decide to go to sleep for a while to try to solve it later. And while you are dreaming, you find the solution to your problem.

Dreams has even been a source of inspiration for many. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series has admitted that the characters as well as the scenes like the quidditch game and the train station, was inspired by a curious dream that she had.

But coming back to the dream that I encountered, there are a few interpretations that I can think of.

Dreaming of a house, represents yourself. The bedroom symbolises your emotional life and your privacy and relaxation. I dreamt about the old house, where I was very comfortable in. In a way, I suppose, I miss the “old life” when the world seemed a whole lot simpler.

Siblings or children in dreams are usually a representation of ourselves. Could those children actually be me? Or what I could have been?

Dreams about mothers are usually symbols of the nurturing aspect of your own personality. Dreaming of conversations with your mother, means that you may have unresolved issues.

What I am most intruiged in is why does is my dream-mother young? And why is the entire environment so realistically real? It was as if I had stepped back in time, about 10 or 20 years ago and met my mother, in my present self. Everything was so vivid.

Am I becoming like mum?

Or maybe in the back of my mind, thats the point where I know, the rest of her life will be etched.

Maybe she wants to have a different life?

Maybe the person who wants to have a different life is me.

This dream is intruiging me.

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My best friend is getting married!

Back in Jurong Institute, we’d always tease each other about getting married.

1999 Hema : I’ll never get married! I can’t stand relationships! Boys are horrible!

1999 Marina : Don’t say things like that, those who say that they won’t get married, are usually the first to do so.

1999 Juli : We’ll see who’ll get married first.

1999 Marina : The first person to get married, will buy each of us dinner

ON!

And then Hizam’s wedding came up.

Hizam was our classmate in Jurong Institute and one of the first person to get married. The teasings started.

“When is it going to be YOUR turn”

2003 Hema : I don’t know, but I just started seeing this guy and he’s seems very serious about me

Jump over to February 2005

Hema : Ladies, I’ve got news for you. Chan and I, are going to get married! I’m so excited!

Juli and me : Oh my goodness! We’re so happy for you!

I had a lovely evening yesterday night at Hema and Chan’s ROM reception. Juli and me met up and went to Chandni restaurant at the Golden Landmark hotel where the reception was held. We arrived a little late as we were trying to find a suitable gift for the couple.

About 30 mins late but we reached just in time to see the couple signing the papers.

Hema looked so beautiful and lovely and stunning and Chan looked so happy. It was so amazing to see, friends, good friends, growing up from a studious classmate to a beautiful lady.

Met up with a few other classmates, Vai, Hizam and his wife, Maya as well as Shifaa was there and had a lovely time catching up with them.

“What are you doing now?”
“How are you?”
“When’s your turn?”


From left to right : Juli, Vai, Hizam, Maya and Shifaa

We teased, and joked with each other and I couldn’t help thinking how far we’ve progressed since school days and how we’ve matured.

Vai was talking about his trip to South Africa, going there alone. Hizam was talking about his daughter, saying how the ladies of the house demanded alot of his attention and how Shifaa was talking about her experience as a teacher in a special school.

I can’t imagine this conversation happening back in school. It was more juvenile, more carefree.

We had lovely buffet dinner.

As always, I wanted to try everything. So, as usual, I took just a little bit of everything. My plate always looked heaped at the end of the table.

Delicious.


A slice of the wedding cake

The DJ made us play some silly games. Like who has the biggest tummy contest. Poor Hizam got sabotaged and got prodded by the groom who was the judge for the contest.




Support from the sympathetic wife

And the best sari contest


Feeling so out of place

Dancing contest

It was a lovely night. Good friends. Who could ask for more.

I’m so happy for you, dear Hema Sayang 🙂 May you and Chan travel many many journeys together.

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To reality

Dear reality,

I know we havent really been the best of friends and I know how sometimes I’d blame you for a lot of things.

Reality, I wish that things were different. Simpler. We wouldnt be the way that we are right now.

But things would never change would it? You’d always be the same. Harsh and cold. Unfair, most of the times.

Sometimes I wonder why it is this way. Its so funny how you treat the nice and people so bad and let the nasty people get away scott free. How come?

But reality, no matter. I am queen.

And as a queen, I will be able to get through all these, with poise and with dignity. And with strength and with grace with all my regality.

Maybe in time, you’ll change. And we’ll be okay.

Anyway, got to go. We’ll meet again soon

Love,
Queen Rose Marina Regalia
Kingdom of Rinaz

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May I have your support please?

Thanks for all the wellwishes. The family is doing fine. Quite a few things to ponder about these few days. *hugs to all*

A slow and lazy day today, didn’t do much except for a bit of housework and other mundane things. An easy Sunday. Initially, I wanted to blog about the typical Singaporean sunday morning. How families would stroll about their nearest hawker center or coffee shop to have breakfast together.

I love hearing the morning chatter from the throngs of people that come around as well as the ever moving stallholders who are busy preparing their food and drinks. I ordered a national favourite, the Roti Prata along one of my favourite drinks, Teh Halia (Ginger Tea).

Didn’t take any pictures though. Really wasnt in the mood to ask for permission from the stallholders for a picture.

Anyway, my prata and the accompanying curry was still wonderfully piping hot when I reached home to eat it. I’m sure my dearest would love a Singaporean breakfast. It’s such a treat!

Anyhow, being a little anti social, I spent the entire day cooped up in my room doing nothing but silly internet stuff.


Didn’t even touched my uncompleted flash animation :

Like neopets. I don’t know what got into me that possesed me to play neopets after a hiatus of many years.

I started playing in 2001 after seeing some kids playing it in the computer lab. Curious to know what the appeal was, I started. It didn’t take me long to get addicted to it. The games were nice, and the activities there were engrossing. I liked taking care of my pet. And this was what he used to look like.


My lupez2k

He doesnt look like that anymore though because of my persistant laboratory experiments on him.

I have to admit that although it has absolutely no value in the real world, I’m quite proud of the so called achivements that I’ve done on neopets. Yes, its childish. But look!

Trophies!

And look!

A high level pet

And I’m quite proud of my paintbrush collection

Anyhow, I stopped playing neopets because of the fact that Neopets took away a lot of the games that I liked and changed a lot of the activities there. It just took away alot of the fun-factor for me. Moreover there was a sheer amount of advertising in it. Every page had at least two banners. Finally I lost interest in it eventually.

Later on in the afternoon, I tried to learn a bit of Italian with this wonderful software called The Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software. Unlike other language softwares that I’ve encountered, this one’s easy to learn. You pick the picture that describes the text.

Il toro calcia l’uomo. The bull kicks the man. Easy.

But when it starts getting to this bit here

Uhh … go left. Go right. No go left. Turn behind. No no no … turn around three times and click your shoes and wish for no other place but home. This is hard!

I had to stop that software for the moment. It was much too confusing for me. Anyway, I came this podcast a few days ago and though that it was quite interesting. It was about a man’s encounter in Italy and how his language learning came in handy.

Later on, I logged in Secondlife for a little bit to say hi to an old friend, Duo. He showed me his dance floor. I must say, that it looked groovalicious 🙂


Rinaz Bijoux hits the dancefloor!

Totally unrelated to today’s post, I thought I’d also include one of my mini obsession.

It started in 1913 when a Lady called Mary Phelps Jacob created this using two silk handkerchiefs and a ribbon. And since then, it has evolved to many wonderful designs. Some curious and some amazing.

What I am talking about, ladies and gentlemen is the wonderful brassiere.


One of my latest buys and the entire set costs only $50 SG dollars!

It’s funny how I used to be embarrassed to step in any lingerie shop but now, friends would sometimes be frustrated when I stop by my favourite Minoshe shop and won’t step out till hours later.

I love Minoshe for its cheaper price and the regularly updated designs. A bra and panty set usually costs less than $30. Which I think is awesome. I’d never buy expensive undies any more.

I had an unpleasant experience of buying a bra from an established lingerie shop. It was kind of expensive but it didn’t last very long.  After a while, it tore and wasn’t good any-more.

See, just as pretty as any Victoria’s Secrets 🙂


I love the different colours. A lot of pink ones lately.

Some of my newer buys. Couldn’t help it when Minoshe had a promotion – Buy two get one free. 3 sets for under 60 dollars.

While I don’t normally wear lacy stuff, I couldn’t help but to get this adorable one. It looks so sweet. I don’t quite fancy the ribbon on the panty but I can cut it away I guess.

And lately I’ve been quite paranoid about my lingerie by the fact that I only hand-wash them and hanging them separately. They always get missing if they are left to be washed in the machine. I don’t know why but since one of my nicer ones got missing, I didn’t want to take a chance any more.

Still, for some of the lovely designs from Minoshe, sometimes they do come out with odd designs.

I thought it was really ugly. The only reason why I got it is because I liked the black chemise that came along with it.

Okay, time to get back to trying to understand heads and tails to what the Rosetta stone software is trying to teach me. Till the next time 🙂

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Atukku

I remember how you’d love to drink a bottle of orange yakult in the mornings.

I remember how impressed I was when you were reading the Chinese newspaper and talked to your friend so fluently.

I remember your attempts to make me amused with your rendition of the national song.

I remember how interestingly blue the iris of your eyes are.

I remember the way you talked, always gentle.

Alas, you’d never drink your yakult anymore. Nor read the Chinese papers. Nor sing that silly song that you made up.

You passed away yesterday night.

Though we werent so close mainly because we lived so far apart. I still cant help but feel like my heart is being dented. You were a good man. You were a wonderful grandfather.

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I’m not gorgeous but its okay

Oh sweet! Look at what was just delivered this morning. Yay!


The coy and demure pose

Tried to call up the vespa showroom but there was no reply. Thought it would be nice to try out the different scooters before making my mind up about which one to get.

I dont mind slightly heavier bikes. (Not too heavy though!) Because they are more stable but I don’t think I could get a bike which is too tall. If the balls of my feet can’t touch the ground, that’s no good.

Anyway, been looking at tomorrow.sg when an article caught my eye.

In a nutshell : A blogger here in Singapore was nominated as the hottest blogger Apparently, she was noticed by a local talent agency to sign her up with MTV.

I read about that a few days ago but I didn’t think about it much. She’s a very pretty girl and she’s very lucky to be signed up with MTV.


What an adorable face

I mean, I wish I was as pretty as she. But I’m not. So I pretty much abandoned all my hopes to become the next popular pop-star/TV host/singer/ and just forget about it. (Haah? No more Marina Carey? Boring)

However, I wonder why talent agencies or TCS or any local media here seem to favour more of the Caucasian look and then the Chinese. There is very little, if none at all Malay or Indian actors and actresses, models used for advertisements.

Even Taufik Batisah, the winner of the Singapore Idol competition, seems to be completely non existent in the TCS 5 world. Save for the one drama series, Shooting Stars and the 7-11 commercial. Sheik Haikal, Norleena Salim, Kumar … Where are they now?

My classmate, Adi, believes that the reason being is that Caucasians have much more appeal than the other races. It all boils down to marketing, people with more appeal, generate more revenue.

But I feel that the lesser fairer races also have their own special appeal. Who is to say that Indians and Malays don’t?

It makes me sad to see biasness in the media when in actual fact, most Singaporeans are in a melting pot. We interact with each other in daily life, we have best friends with each other, we even form relationships with each other. So what’s up with the one sided view?

Yes, I would like to see more diversity in races in the media. What can be done to promote it? I wish I knew.

I’m still hopeful though.