I'm a Thunder Lizard!

Hear ye! Hear ye!

I just broke my record! Woohoo!

I discovered Dynomite eight years ago during my programmer days when I needed some form of amusement as I ate my packed lunch on my office desk. Then I forgot about it as I lived more of the real life instead of the virtual. Now that I have lots of time, it is great to rediscover it again. But I have to warn you that this is quite addictive so unless you have a strong self control and actually have spare time, do not try this! Hehehe.

Thank you Yahoo Games for this wonderful game which keeps me company and helps me pass time on these bumming days. My hubby is also now addicted to this game (uh-oh).

P.S. Don't tell me I didn't warn you that this is addictive. Seriously. Hehehe. ;p

Happy egg-smashing!

Bloody rejected

The title of this entry is supposed to be "My first blood donation" but then after filling out a very comprehensive form and passing the medical screening, it was discovered that I am a mutant.

Waaah! The nurse could not see my veins on top of my elbows in both of my arms and she said my veins were too close to my bones and it would hurt. She advised me to do some weightlifting to help make my veins surface out.

Well, I shouldn't be that surprised, given that last year and 5 years ago, in different clinics, both nurses also couldn't find my vein and they ended up taking my blood sample from the back of my hand.

I asked the nurse in the blood donation to just get it from the back of my hand. She wouldn't hear of it. I guess it's because it would really hurt and would bruise. My hubby said they injected aneasthetics on his vein before pricking him with the big needle for getting 450ml of blood.

Sigh, so much for my attempt to do a noble deed. I feel so abnormal. But hubby said I should still feel good, because if it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have thought of donating blood. He said he'll be donating for the two of us. Awwwww.

Becoming a bumble bee - again!

Yeah, this is like déja vu, isn't it? It didn't feel like it has been only a year ago though. My being a bumble bee last year lasted for only about 6 weeks and this time I am hoping it would be shorter, given that the market has definitely picked up. If last year I was bold enough to quit my job at the peak of the economic crisis and managed to get a job, I shouldn't be scared this time, right? (Crossing my fingers and hoping I don't jinx myself by saying this!)

Anyhoo, I wanted to write about my musings on career, job and those stuff but that needs some kind of melancholic mood and right now I am in a perky, hyperactive state and I need to take this chance to get me rolling and have a good jumpstart.

And so of course, this means we are going to make a list. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we need that list to keep our sanity and focus and make ourselves feel that our existence still has some good purpose, hehe.

So here it goes:

1) Unpack all those things in the boxes - yup, 4 months since we've moved into our new place and hubby and I still have lots of our things in boxes!!!
2) Write the thank you cards for our wedding - it's never too late to say thanks, right?
3) Lose weight and lose that ugly tummy - no explanation needed, hahaha
4) Print out some wedding pictures and finish the album
5) Finish our wedding blog
6) Write vouches for my travbuddy friends
7) Get the critic award in travbuddy
8) Pass the basic theory driving test and get my Singapore driver license
9) Continue learning French
10) Enrol in flute lessons
11) Play more tennis - and to be maintained post bumble bee days!
12) Organize paper documents
13) Go cycling
14) Try on new make up and outfit styles
15) Swim
16) Learn new recipes
17) Think of themes for house parties
18) Learn one full dance song routine
19) Organize my shoes and wardrobe
20) Think of more environmental measures I can adopt in my lifestyle
21) Make new friends
22) Read more books
23) Print out those souvenir pictures for our souvenir frames
24) Job hunt - I almost forgot to write this! hahaha
25) Pray.

Wish me luck! :)

Becoming a bumble bee

In commemoration (haha, what a use of word!) of my becoming a bum soon, I am listing down the activities that would keep me busy and amused. The general aim is for me to make use of my bumming days to look and feel fabulously beautiful (mwahahaha):

1) Have a haircut
2) Go to the gym until I lose 10 kilos and become super sexy :P
3) Swim regularly
4) Play more tennis
5) Enrol in dance classes
6) Watch movies
7) Spring clean my bedroom and the whole house
8) Do grocery shopping
9) Read back log books
10) Write write write
11) Go to the library
12) Wedding planning and preparation
13) Try out new make up styles
14) Whiten my teeth :D
15) Fix my wardrobe
16) Organize my important paper documents
17) Organize my files in my computer
18) Print out and organize my parents’ travel pictures
19) Catch up with people I miss
20) Re-activate my travbuddy and facebook life
21) Write vouches for my TB friends
22) Upgrade/Update myself on my IT skills (haha, how nerdy!)
23) Learn to bake
24) Job hunt (yeah, of course! I'm not planning to bum forever! :P)
25) Pray

Good luck to me! :P

If I were a man...

...right now, what I'd like to do is to sit in a bar, order for a drink and blabber with the bar tender or some fellow stranger.

The Conclusion to the San Diego Fable

Two years ago, an ugly duckling got lost and cried in the zoo. But the ugly duckling found a friend in the white swan. Life continued then with such a better one, having each other from then on as light. Now, the ugly duckling understands why the string got caught up to its feet. It was not because the string was actually tied up but merely because the ugly duckling was pulling on to it. When the ugly duckling let go, it was like the string never existed.

Thank you, Captain Marvel.

Now, Supergirl can fly.

Yahoo dedma

I guess even my yahoo avatar got tired and called it quits. Eversince I changed my Yahoo avatar to this seemed to be lost in the subway girl some months ago, it has stopped having emotions. You know, when you chat on yahoo messenger, the avatar is supposed to change emotions -- when you type hahaha or put a happy smiley, the avatar is supposed to laugh and similarly when you type huhuhu or put a sad smiley, the avatar is supposed to frown. But mine just stopped changing emotions. It just remained with that blank look no matter how many hahahas or huhuhus I type, it was just purely indifferent. Dedma.

So I thought I'd change it, change the outift and background and save it then itwould be back to the normally emotion changing capable avatar. But noooo!!! It still wouldn't smile.

Finally, I've had enough and I just selected and set it to very happy mode to keep my avatar continuously jolly. Talk about forcing happiness...

Reminds me what I've been doing at work lately after telling myself that I shouldn't let it affect my emotions (that is, I have restrained from being saddened/frustrated by unfavorable happenings nor be excited/motivated by empty hopes) -- I plaster this ready smile on my face even if inside I'm just feeling...nothing. I feel bad for doing this, because I want to mean it when I smile but it is very hard because it should come from the heart, but the heart is currently under retreat.

Oh well, I am being nonsensical again. I just wish I live in the 19th century as a European aristocrat, all I need to think about is how to look prim, proper and pretty (where beauty is about having more cloth to dress the flesh unlike today where it's the other way around) and I don't need to worry about being single because for sure by age 20 I'd be married during this era and atleast during this time men were still majorly composed of gentlemen. There was no quarter life crisis and complications, life was simple.

There's something fishy about this

The fish used to feel trapped in a fishbowl.
One day the fish was able to get out of the fishbowl and be in the ocean.
The ocean was wide and deep.
The fish felt lost.
It made the fish think: which is better, to be trapped in the fishbowl or to be lost in the ocean?

There should be another choice. There must be.

Do you ever feel

Like you want to fly and then when you learn how and you start to soar higher is when you realize that your foot is actually tied to a string in a tree?

Like smiling and jumping for joy but you couldn't because it would cause another to cry?

I do
and I don't like it.

A San Diego Fable

One day, in a zoo, an ugly duckling suddenly found herself separated from her parents and lost among the crowd. She got scared, because losing her parents would make her feel all the guilt, as perhaps she'd been a bad duckling because she did not stick by their side that's why she got lost. Still, she tried to hide her fear and tried to get a hold of herself. She got tired from looking for her parents that she decided to sit down for a while. Then suddenly a white swan sat beside her and she was awed by its magnificence. It was a father white swan, and he seemed to know that something was wrong, so he asked her if she was lost. The ugly duckling hesitated for a moment, as she yet had to assess whether she could trust the white swan and it was safe to talk about her situation. As she felt the sincerity of the father swan, she finally admitted she was lost and she started to cry and it seemed like she could'nt help tears fall down her cheeks. The kind father swan offered to help and from then on she knew that she found a best friend in him. Together, they walked and found her parents waiting for her in a nearby corner. They didn't know that she got lost, they thought she just went to see the Pandas so they were not surprised to see her be back. But the ugly duckling did not tell them what really happened, she thought it was better to stay that way as it would just might spoil a jolly mood. As they walked away, she looked back at the white father swan, he was so grand and he was like an angel to her. She looked at her parents, they have brown feathers, small body and beak compared to the swan. Though she wished she could be a swan, she knew she would never become a swan, but then again, she realized that she could always become a beautiful brown duck, with the heart of a white swan.

Happy Feet

So cute! =)

Turn on your speakers!

The Lost Kway Teow

And so I started with my new job in my new workplace. As I have been warned I will have no team mates, thus, as I have expected I would be spending my lunch breaks with myself. This is something I have to get used to (aside from the fact that my desk is strategically located with the CEO's desk a couple of meters away behind me). I have been used to having my girlfriends cum lunch buddies in my previous work that I need to adjust being alone again, and I always feel sad when I eat alone. So in times when I eat alone, I have observed that I keep myself from being lonely by having
Kway Teow (image also taken from there) or Hokkien Mee, but I am more keen on the former.

As the Kway Teow is a common food in Singapore, I should be able to find it in any food center. So when I went to the food center at the back of the building where I work, the first thing I looked for was for a Kway Teow. To my surprise there was only one store selling Kway Teow, so even if the line was long I queued and waited. Then my turn came and Auntie seller took my order, I said I'd have a Kway Teow and since I could not clearly understand what Auntie was saying, when she asked me something I just said yes like I usually do so to make things simpler. But then after saying yes I had a feeling I made a wrong answer. When I got my order was the time I realized what Auntie seller asked me -- she was clarifying if I wanted "the soup one", to which I answered yes so she gave me a big bowl of Kway Teow SOUP!

Awwwww nooooo!!! =(

I wanted the fried Kway Teow, I thought it was standard that when you say Kway Teow, it's FRIED seafood Kway Teow. But well too late, so I ate the Kway Teow SOUP. In fairness it was delicious, but still I am not into soups because for some reason I always have my tongue get "burned" from eating hot soup so it takes me eternity to finish a bowl of soup because I have to eat slowly to wait for the soup to cool down a little.

Anyway, the following day I went back to the same store to get myself a FRIED Kway Teow and guess what, it didn't taste good so I was sooo disappointed.

Awwwwww noooo!!! =(

I really don't know what's the point of me writing about my obsession on Kway Teow. Just that I got frustrated that I couldn't have a nice fried kway teow that day, moreso I got lost after deciding to take the bus going to the mall I needed to go to after work and then when I got a taxi finally I was unfortunately stuck in an unusual traffic jam that the only thing I could say to Uncle taxi driver to strike a conversation was where I could find the best fried Kway Teow in Singapore. He looked like he was amused to know I like Kway Teow and so he seemed happy to think about it and finally said in the restaurants in the East Coast.

But then again, when I think about Kway Teow now, suddenly, I don't feel like having one anymore. Suddenly, I just lost my craving for it.

Awww nooooo!!! =(

What kind of car are you?

I was blog hopping one day when I saw an entry with a link to Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

And here's the result:

I'm a Mazda RX-8!

You're sporty, yet practical, and you have a style of your own. You like to have fun, and you like to bring friends along for the ride, but when it comes time for everyday chores, you're willing to do your part.

*********
Hmm, so that's me if I'm a car I guess. =)

Anyways, this made me realize again how much I would like to have a car of my own since I started to be aware of my interest in driving (which was since I was a kid and I had this fascination on driving bump cars!). Though yes I've been driving since I was 17 but I've not been driving a car, because what we had was the family utility vehicle, a '97 Toyota Tamaraw FX
(photo not our actual vehicle but looks the same and taken from http://www.cardomain.com/ride/730702, I believe this model was exclusive for the Philippine market and is currently already obsolete as of now). It's not really fit for a little gal like me. I remember my classmate in college freshman year who, after walking me to the University parking lot and saw my "wheels", couldn't help but gasp "Foyan, you have a big car!"
Hahaha, I know.
But really, it was not big, I was just small for it. (Imagine what I would look like if I were driving a big van/truck in Texas, big there is actually reeeeeally BIG!).But in fairness it was powersteering and the seat was high enough and the rear and side mirrors were big enough so it was easier actually to drive as compared to a car where you seemed to be eaten up by the car seat if you're a petite person so it will be a challenge to see beyond the dashboard and rear end plus the side mirrors are small.

It's not that I have not tried driving a car at all and that I am not proficient in driving a car. I did learn to drive using a car from the driving school. Then in Oct 2003 we finally bought a second hand '98 Mitsubishi Lancer GLi (photo on the left is our actual car) although I only have been able to drive it for just brief moments due to I dont know how to explain it but it happened that my only bro got to use it while I got the FX.
If I stayed back home last year and did not resign from my job, by now I would be driving my own brand new car. It would have been either a Toyota VIOS or Honda City,the only cars I could afford at most. =( But well, I had to go, as I had a more important priority. It's just sad that in Singapore it is almost impossible for me to get myself a car, as it is tooooo expensive that even only a few of the local population has cars. So right now I could only wish and dream I have a car. Anyhow, you really can't have it all. Wuwuwu =,(

Love in Animation

Oh my God, I'm in love!!!

I fell in love with him from the very start I met him and I fell in love with him more when I got to know him better. I had a boyfriend then, it was actually my boyfriend who introduced him to me, but my boyfriend then didn't know I fell in love with this man.

But I stopped seeing him when my life started to get busy with figuring out how to pass my major subjects in College, then I started to work after college, then my boyfriend and I broke up, I focused on my career, I had another boyfriend who turned out to be a major ego and heart breaker and then left my home country last year to focus on career again. I never thought that seeing him again would bring back the feelings I had for him like the time I was so in love with him.

I am so thankful that after one tiring day last week, as I sat there flicking on the TV remote, I saw his familiar face...

Meet the man of my dreams...the emperor Hotohori

Isn't he gorgeous? Gosh, I was just influenced by my boyfriend then to watch these Animes and I particularly got hooked in watching Fushigi Yuugi (translated in English as Curious Play).
I think it was school vacation on my college junior year that I started watching it so when school resumed I remember it was showing at around 7:30am each weekday and I could not watch at that time since I had to be on my way at this time to school to get to my 8:30am class so I asked our maid to record the episodes in VHS tape!

hahaha, yeah, I was that addicted. I envy the lead character there, her name was Miyaka, who was a student who together with her bestfriend, was absorbed and trapped in a book they found in the school library. So when they got inside the book they became part of a story and met all the characters where so much love triangle stories revolved unto. I was so much wishing then that I could be the one absorbed by the book and meet Hotohori so he wouldn't get heartbroken for having lost Miyaka to Tamahome, he could have me all for himself, hahaha.

So if I were in anime' , I wonder how I would look like? Which reminded me that my schoolmate in highschool, Abel, gave this as a birthday gift to me 10 years ago...

That's me in anime' form wearing my highschool uniform, hehehe. So cool eh? =P

How do I look? =)

I was really touched about that gift and I was indeed a fan of his drawings that aside from that drawing I asked a number more of drawings from him and up to now I still have them with me. And it's amazing that after 10 years when I had a chat with Abel on Yahoo Messenger just this week I was at last been able to know what the Japanese character beside my portrait meant. I thought it was my name but he said what was written there meant "Michiko Aino", a character inspired by me from a story he was writing then. Gosh, I was so flattered to learn that he made me a character in one of his stories, I am so honored. He was actually surprised I've kept this drawing all these years. But why wouldn't I? It's one of the best gifts to me that I will cherish forever (thank you so much, Abel ! ). ;-)

How to become a mushroom

***********

Rule 1: Learn to love the dark and avoid sunlight.

Rule 2: Learn to spend at least 8 hours inside your room (without sunlight coming in of course).

Rule 3: Always wear dark and dull colored clothes. Do not wear bright colors!

Rule 4: Keep your privacy bubble implemented at all times. No person 6 inches within proximity.

***********

With acknowledgement given to the brains of the Rules -- her highest mushroomness, Miss Nina.
Wisdom shared to novice one rainy mushroom night in Border's bookstore.

I am Flor..ence?!

What's in a name? Rather, what's with my name?

One day in office, while I was busy trying to be a diligent information systems analyst, I heard a voice from a distance...

"Florence...", the voice said. I thought it was just my imagination so I dismissed it. But I heard it again, "Florence?" Then I realized it was my local colleague on the other side of the office cubicle calling me. From then on, he has been consistently calling me Florence. I don't know why he pronounce my name as such, Florianne doesn't at all sound like Florence, does it? He must know how my name is spelled, he receives emails from me and sends emails to me. But I didn't mind because he's way too senior to be corrected anyway (hehehe =P ). Besides, it is my mother's name and I like her name anyway. Still, only the first four letters are the same, ya know.

Then one day, I heard another voice say "Florence". When I realized it was from another collegue (and he is one of those very few "cool" local colleagues) from the side of the cubicle behind my desk, I then thought he must have heard my name pronounced as such by my senior collegue so he has adopted the same.

However, the funny thing is that in church as well, when our head local catechist introduced me to my class, she introduced me as.......you guessed it right, "Florence"! So I realized, the mysterious pronouciation of my name must be because of the local language.

But here's the weirder thing, during our Department's Chinese New Year gathering, when the emcee called out "Florence" as one of the seven finalists for best dressed staff , although I did hesitate for a moment before standing up, I already had an almost sure feeling that it was me he was referring to. Well, I was half hoping that maybe there was really a Florence in our department although I know there isn't from our staff directory..but just to be sure though before I stood up and got up to the front. The finalists were then asked to walk around the place (imagine me trying to suppress my itch to do something silly like do a catwalk or make a pagent-like wave...just to make the event fun, ya know, ahihihi =P). Then the rest of the staff were asked to give their votes by dropping a toothpick in one of the seven bowls with each of the finalists' names. After the winners were announced and we started queueing to the buffet table did I take a peek at the names in the bowl and guess how was my name spelled...F-L-O-R-E-N-C-E !!! What the?!?!

So, the whole department now thinks my name is Florence and I am quite sure that name stuck in their minds (because I had the second most number of votes, tee hee =P ) but it will puzzle them that they couldn't find me in the staff directory.

But that is the mystery to my name and the locals, so c'mon, let's hear it one more time:

give me F-L-O-R-I-A-N-N-E ................what do we get?

FLORENCE!!! wuhu!