New Year, New Resolutions

Have you come up with your new year's resolutions yet?

I have yet to... So its time to start brainstorming 'cos tomorrow's the last day of 2009!!

I've come up with two so far:
1. USE the diary I bought, consistently! Reason being, I love to buy diaries where I can fill in my own month and date - and then I just keep forgetting to use it 'cos I know I can always use it another year! And so I have a pile of diaries now. Not to mention my overpowering urge to buy new ones everytime I spot a cute diary (: My current one's The Simpsons!!
2. Run at least a half marathon, if not a race, at least the distance! I really hope I can do this seeing how I'm having knee problems just running 5k on alternate days. Wouldn't want to injure myself permanently (:

PS the most amusing resolution I've seen is girls writing that they want to get a boyfriend. Well I should write that I must get married on my birthday next year then. Still find it such a fantastic date!! 10 / 10 / 10 (: ah, won't the right man come along ASAP?!! Haha, kidding.

!!!

FWAAAHHHH I just read my blog and it is SO FREAKING DEPRESSING!! TAKE A CHILL PILL BABE (: that's referring to myself. Okay its time to get some FANTAAAASTIC ENDORPHINS running at MacRitchie and of course absorb the SUNSHINE while kayaking tomorrow. Sounds freaking darn good if you ask me (:

*Edit* Its today already. Me and my past 2am sleeping habits agh

Oh and did I mention how fun trail running is? Of course the drizzly cool weather might have helped that day, and the wet mushy leaves and slippery rocks that made me turn my ankle, but oh how I love going uphill! Strangely, yes very strangely, I absolutely detest running on flat ground. Hills definitely make me happy. What good is a BORING monotonous FLAT LIFE?!??? Oh well, it was good to finally have some fun on the hated ground of MGS cross-country days gaaaaah (: Back then, those long long long long long long LONG long six years ago (help, I'm old!) I used to run at a speed just sufficient to let me get an E! HAHA! Did I remember correctly? Well the lousiest grade possible for a pass in NAPFA. How I fondly remember the days, when Suping would strap on her watch and we'd slowly (oh so slowly) do our rounds and then WAAAAAAAA look at the watch and realised crap we might fail if we don't speed up on this last round and then we'd chiong to the finish line and whew pass (:

Okay enough of fond memories hehe (:

Only

You can make me feel sad. I see myself wasting my time. And I can't understand. And despite what I've always said, I really leave it to you now. I'm not going to do anything anymore (: And I'm going to promise myself to do what I've just written.

*Edit*
This song by The Beatles just happened to start playing (:

You're Going To Lose That Girl

You're gonna lose that girl
You're gonna lose that girl
If you don't take her out tonight
She's gonna change her mind
And I will take her out tonight
And I will treat her kind

You're gonna lose that girl
You're gonna lose that girl

If you don't treat her right, my friend
You're gonna find her gone
'Cause I will treat her right and then
You'll be the lonely one

You're gonna lose that girl
You're gonna lose that girl

I'll make a point of taking her away from you
Yeah, the way you treat her, what else can I do

If you don't take her out tonight
She's gonna change her mind
And I will take her out tonight
And I will treat her kind

You're gonna lose that girl
You're gonna lose that girl
You're gonna lose that girl

I'm in LOVE

Came across this link on Ravelry (a knitting/crocheting website) and almost passed it.

Here's the non-Ravelry website, as you prolly need an account to view it:
http://www.helloyarn.com/besottedcarf.htm

Unimpressive huh? But something made me click it...

AND I started viewing the gallery on Ravelry. AND OH MY CRAP it was love at first sight (:



Its XOXOXOXOXOs!! Can you see them? So impossibly gorgeous on red.

I have no choice but to knit this for myself as a Valentine's / CNY present haha. To cover myself in HUGS & KISSES and lucky red for the new year. RED AND RED YESSSSSSS!!

I'm in love (:

Mount Bromo at Twilight

Mount Bromo can be seen in this shot, it isn't blocked by Batok (: See the trail of steam from the crater? Sometimes when you're a lucky photographer, the entire valley is filled with mist and its a GORGEOUS view. I'm not that lucky after all (: BUT lucky enough to reach just before the sun came up, or I'd have killed my uncle HAHA.

Unfortunately, this photo is made up of two composited photos, as the sky was way too bright and I couldn't hold it back well enough with my 3-stop ND grad. Plus, I left my other ND grad at home, silly me. Oh well, time to get another Singh-Ray filter I guess (: Ha! And I met a caucasian at Mount Penanjakan who borrowed my filter and told me he was Galen Rowell's student. What a joker (: And his friend who was munching on a carrot said he's a rabbit. Ah well (:

More shots to come!

Horseriding at Mount Bromo

That's me trotting on a horse and trying to get a sharp and composed photo (: My horse was really small, and kept neighing and tossing its head (prolly angry with its bridle) and my lens kept bouncing on the saddle and I got kinda worried that my expensive B&W KSM CPL would eventually crack into millions of tiny pieces!

But it was impossibly fun, and beautiful in the stunning landscape (soon to be uploaded). It was really necessary to ride the horse to and fro to Mount Bromo, for the distance to walk is extremely far, followed by a long and tiring (or short yet very steep, how contradictory) climb up to look down into the crater.

The horse ride cost about 50,000 rupiah per person after bargaining, for a group of six. Highly recommended (: It was MUCH more fun than the sunrise at Mount Penanjakan, or even the view down from Mount Bromo.

Mount Bromo

I'm back from Indonesia, and this here's my second favourite place from the trip - Mount Bromo.

Well, technically not really Mount Bromo (: I just realised that from this view on Mount Penanjakan, I can only see Mount Batok (in the middle), the smoke from Mount Bromo which is entirely blocked (haha) by Batok, and Mount Semeru distant at the top right of the photo.

But it was really gorgeous and quite cold at the top, where I missed the change of colours in the sky before sunrise, partly due to my uncle who really moves at an impossibly slow speed. Sometimes I feel like killing him! I wonder how my aunt tahan-ed him for 30 years (: My tripod also failed on me countless times while I was trying to take steady photos, and my knee gave way on me many times afterwards from all the kneeling on the ground.

I also need to mention here that I took a butt-numbing 11 hour car ride from Yogyakarta to Bromo, and the air-con was not working throughout the sweltering journey. After reaching around 10pm, I had to leave the hotel at 3.30am for the sunrise. Was it worth it? Most probably yes, I did enjoy the scenery. I did feel that it was the surroundings (ie driving from Probolingo to Penanjakan) with its gorgeous colours and sprawling landscape that was a whole lot more stunning than the view of Bromo though (: Yes, such beauty does exist in Indonesia indeed!

More photos to be up soon.

(:

I'm gonna be MIA, flying to Borobodur today morning!

Some updates:

Went for the Stanchart 10k, courtesy of Stanchart (:

Was unprepared having caught the flu again and didn't train. Needless to say I feel some aches. I also found out that my running shoes were too small for distances > 7km and my toes felt like they were gonna fall off. Still do!

Anyway, got a few laughs with my 'words of encouragement' (:



Now its 1am and I'd better sleep or I won't be able to stay awake tomorrow in Indonesia hehehe (:

*Reminder to self, join half marathon.

i am very pissed

*edit: evening*

and i'm aborting mission

*edit: night*

i feel like i'm necessary only in times of trouble. what happens otherwise?
commencing aborting of mission

Cycling @ Pulau Ubin

T'was a crazy day cycling at hilly and rocky Pulau Ubin (:

I brought seven rolls of 120mm film, all excited to shoot!! But because of all the cycling, guess how many rolls I finished!

ONE ROLL!!!! One roll has 12 exposures by the way. Haha good golly (:

It was fun though, mild ache in my butt.

We ended at Chek Jawa accidentally, cos we cycled to the wrong side of Pulau Ubin!! Haha (: We were planning to hit the quarry first. And then when we went down to see, we realised the tide was rather high. We then decided to cycle to the quarries before heading back to see Chek Jawa again. Unfortunately, the NParks person told us that during this month, the tide would never recede low enough to see the lifeforms on the sand! February is apparently the best time to visit Chek Jawa, so visit Ubin then instead.

So we started on the mangrove boardwalk...



Where I got real bored and shot the sky (:

The boardwalk is the perfect place to shoot macros, there are many insects there: spiders, jumpers, cotton stainers, and grasshoppers! Well I brought my monster instead of my macro lens. So you won't be seeing any insects!

Instead, you get photos of YS shooting insects (:



He's carrying my heavy 1l orange Nalgene bottle with the Spongebob and Jellyfish stickers!! What a sweetie.



Do you spot the jellyfish? (:

Then, we finally reach the coastal boardwalk!



I call this, naked tree and dead tree.

This one's: balding tree, dead tree, rock and boardwalk.



Boardwalk and skiessss (:



It was really beautiful and sunny during our daytrip, and only when leaving did it get real cloudy and gloomy.

Fortunately, I was wearing the cycling helmet the whole trip (yes very mountain turtle) which provided me shade AND kept my head cool in that glaring hot sun (:

This is what I looked like, walking around with a cycling helmet hahaha.



A couple enjoying the boardwalk.



And then we left the boardwalk!! Lots of cycling. We had lots of water breaks too (: There was a time where we had a nice fresh sweet coconut at this stop after the Chinese cemetery. I had fun talking to the auntie in Chinese (: Well pronounced Chinese I might add. And she told me I was very fair ):

While back at the 'town' area and enjoying some cold drinks, I took this shot (: Its such an old school building. Abandoned I guess. And those are our rented bikes (:



Another old house, next to a big old tree! I've always always always wanted to take a photo of this house. I didn't manage the first time I went ):



Stack of boxes outside another old house.



That's all I have (: Till the next time I go shooting!

The Ladder Theory

This is actually unbelievable.

And funny.

Unbelievably funny.

A girl says any of the following to you:

• "You're like a brother to me"
• "You're like a big teddy bear".
• "I feel like I can talk to you about anything"
• "You're so nice"
• "Can you help me with my homework"

Ladder Theory Explanation: You are on the friends ladder. So Sorry.

I had completely forgotten about the Ladder Theory till I read someone's post, and good golly does this bring up fond memories. And about kicking guys into the abyss when they try jumping from the Friends to Boyfriends ladder was just hilarious. And so true. It means you're an intellectual whore, by the way.

For the unfamiliar, you can read more on the Ladder Theory here.

*edit* I had to add this in:

Many women want to argue this point and say things like " I have lots of guy friends." Maybe.
There are exactly 3 cases Intellectual Whores has identified whereby a guy and a girl can be friends:

1. The guy is gay
2. The guy does not find you attractive
3. The guy already has a woman much higher than you on the ladder

Even Nietzsche knew this. Most guys know this intuitively.

Singapore Botanic Gardens in B&W (Part 3)

Here's the continuation to Part 2.

This flower was about 2 cm in diameter, and I was trying to do a macro of it. When lo and behold! A bee landed on it. And so I happily depressed the shutter, only to worry about the possibility of wrong exposures and narrow DOF too late (:



Here it is, without the bee. I think I still need to practice on better macros with my monster.



The famous bandstand. The thing about digitising negatives is that, its so hard to get any shadow or highlight areas in which can be obtained by dodging or burning in the real darkroom. Hence the sky is blown out here, although my print still had cloud details.



Bonsai tree



A couple (?) enjoying time together under the shade of a large tree



Family leaving the gardens



This one's prolly my favourite image from the whole series. Its a frangipani flower, fallen into the bush. The photo's dark, the flower's decomposing... It just speaks out to me.

Slides

Fujichrome, otherwise known as slides. Or this roll, otherwise known as Fuji RVP 100, or Velvia.



I cannot begin to describe my love for slides. For Velvia, the ultimate of slides. Till I try Fortia perhaps (: Shooting slides is a whole different obsession from shooting B&W. A different way of looking through the lens is needed. The imagination of colour, or monotone. The knowledge that B&W can be dodged and burned effectively, while slides are a one-hit wonder.

Okay I think I'm ranting. The above and below are shot at Punggol.



I love how the railings are blue, with the torn parts white. The blue skies with puffy white clouds seems a reflection almost.

An old red scooter at the end of the path



I have a fascination with how people love to leave their mark on plants. Although plants don't have feelings, its just plain sad ):



The handsome boy (:



Lalang



I love this shot (: The photographer came to Marina Barrage toting this huge tripod and his gear, and it was pouring!! The clouds were already crazy dark and gloomy. Had to lift my camera up and kinda over the railing to get this shot. It was fun (:



Before it rained and I was chased to the shelter...

I try to study for my paper later, but memories just keep flooding back.

I always remembered playing with her using the long toilet roll. How she would attack it like a crazy nut and bite and bite and bite. She'd rush up the roll, and start chewing the edges when she reached the top. She would always bite and spit all the toilet roll cardboard bits on me. And how I would put her down and she'd climb back up and do the exact same thing. How I would poke her nose and get amused at her not being deterred and still biting. She lived to bite on things.

And her last days, she was just wobbling. Always trying to run, but failing, falling to one side, struggling to get up. Trying to escape. She wouldn't even bite the random objects given to her.

Why her? Why did she have to suffer? She was the baby of the lot. She was the youngest. She was the most energetic baby, always jumping up and down while cow waited by the door and cappu slept. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO LEAVE US

*edit*

because it was her time to go to a better place

I still can't believe she's gone

Fatter Lumpuru's in Hamster Heaven

Rest in peace, dear fatter. My sister cried for you which means that she finally loved, although she lost too. But we're glad you're free from suffering though you've been taken from us so suddenly. We miss you a lot already. We hope you didn't suffer much.

There are some things I noted today... There's a photo which parallels the Fatter Mommy RIP photo below... I'm wearing the same shirt I wore to Ah Gong's funeral... It was raining when we buried Fatter... There are many what-ifs I kept thinking that would have kept Fatter alive, but I've finally woken up to my senses instead of being in denial and checking the Internet furiously for proof she was alive. I even thought of hibernation, for her body was limp. But I guess my brain kept ticking out the fact that Singapore is too warm for hibernation. I still wonder if we buried her alive. I guess I'll get over that soon. I'd also like to note that when I cried out to my mother, why did fatter die, she's the youngest, my mother just walked away. She was also smiling as she tried to take a photo of my sister crying at the burial. Sometimes I wonder if we're blood-tied. Or if when I died she would cry, like how I accused her of not crying at Ah Gong's death.

But anyway, enough about my ranting. Although I should be studying, here's a bunch of photos to remember Fatter by. I didn't take many, and you seem to be suffering at the hands of the chubby, but oh well.











This photo above, scarily, has some parallels with the one I uploaded when Fatter Mommy had gone missing.























goodbye fatter, we miss you...

):

Things are not looking good...

Fatter is losing her balance more often, and Cappu seizured twice today. His second came with lots of screeching and he was much too tired and kept sleeping on my hand before eventually going back to his cage.

I hope they get better, otherwise I'll stay back and look after them before going for the exam tomorrow, instead of the plan to study with Miak from the morning.

*pray they get better*

Get Well

Soon Fatter Baby.

May your tumour shrink and you be walking strong and healthy again!

things to do:

find my lost forms / fill in again
photocopy everything
statement
proof of grad
degree audit

do jap paper

mount all photos, journal

finish 402 ppts

Singapore Botanic Gardens in B&W (Part 2)

Here's a continuation to the first part here.

It was at the Ginger Path where I ended, and ran to a nearby bench to put in new film before running back to my previous spot where I was kneeling on the grass timing my photo just before a family walked past.

This here's a pretty ginger flower alongside the path.





Then I walked on and spotted this lonesome looking bench against a plain backdrop of leaves. I was happily fiddling with my camera, when this girl came along. She saw me aiming at the bench, and saw that there were other benches, but she sat down on my bench of choice! WHAT LUCK. First I have an angmoh family parking themselves in my photos, making me wait forever for them to leave before taking a photo, and now I have a girl blatantly sitting there. Ah well, life throws you boulders sometimes.



Then off I went in search for a cool drink, being parched from the heat. I found an ice cold Snapple, and a pretty tree with leaves settled on its trunk.



Next stop was the Cactus area.



I cannot emphasise what suffering one goes through, juggling a monster camera, a huge spotmeter, a swinging sling bag, and a bottle of Snapple. Imagine what happens when you need to change the lens. AAAAAHHH. What a fun experience it was (:



Someone told me I could sell postcards upon seeing this photo (: he made my day!



It was a tiny white flower, and behind it was a bench. Where two banglas were sitting. And as it was low on the ground. So I had to figure out how to slant my camera really low on a tripod, bend my body like rainbow and peer at the screen, without letting the banglas catch a glimpse of my leggings-clad butt. Ah well at least it ended up nice enough!

Some random cactuses...



Vandalised ):



And we end with a lonesome bench! (:



Till the next post (: