War Survival Tips

The war is on.

Here to share 2 war survival tips with y'all.

Tip #1. Minimise contact and communication. Talk only when necessary. :)
Tip #2. Be prepared for any rude comments coming your way. Flare up the moment you are hit and don't feel the least guilty about it. (If people take your kindness for granted, it's not cool. Time to fight back. For people who don't respect girls at all and are bent on humiliating you all the time, don't feel guilty about getting angry.) 

Hurling verbal abuses back in defence is not my forte, so I would just make sure people don't hurl them at me anymore by showing some anger.


If people say things just to upset you and make your life a misery, don't let them win. If people don't change, YOU CHANGE. You are changing for the better, to be stronger. Add a piece of titanium to yourself everyday. :D If you have been made a target all the time, it's time to show that you are not one people can offend and get away easy with.

Have been a part-time educator for 6 years now, and it's time to teach you how to respect women. The Bible says, "Bless those who sinned against you." I'm blessing you by teaching you to never judge a woman and to respect her. 

I'm not going to depress my self esteem because of someone like you. You are so not worth it man.

If you think I'm someone who will never fight you and you can go all out to ridicule me, you're wrong. I'll fight you now, thanks to you pushing me to my limit day by day.

Will share more tips when I discover them. :)
I'm sorry dears, I'm losing myself but I can't help it. I can't recall the last time I got so aggravated. When I spent some nights feeling sorry for myself because of those unkind words people say, I know it's serious. If you don't do something, they will never stop using you as the topic of a conversation where they can get a good laugh.  

Now embracing myself to come face-to-face with the challenges and not fearing them is really all what I've got. 

Gardens by the Bay II

After a weekend of rest, I felt much better. Lol. If everyday is a battle, so be it. Let's put on our armours and fight it! Bring it on. We're formidable and undefeatable!

Got Simba to take me to Gardens by the Bay and here is a short post about my 2nd time there! My sole purpose for going to the Gardens was to use the night scene function of my camera, not really due to its burgeoning reputation.




Simba loves experimenting with new things, so this time he got me a Peppermint Milo from Long Johns, though he doesn't fancy anything with peppermint taste in it at all. Lol. Being a loyal fan of Peppermint, I must say this combi of peppermint and milo is impeccable! :D




Him discussing the possible errors made in his phone bill with me.


After going to Gain City to browse through its collection of air-conditioners (my mum has asked me for sponsorship omg), we went for some scenery viewing. 





He got down on one knee to take a low angle shot of me with the MBS hotel. Really like that I stood out in the picture as it looked so much like I was photoshopped into it.








All of our night scenes shoots failed thoroughly, as we didn't seek the help of a tripod stand. I read online that photo taking at night require lots of stability on the photographer's part. Without a stand, all our photo taking efforts were negated, so please bear with me.




Looks like I would have to make another trip here again after I got a stand. :D




The Supertree Grove.
Standing in awe of the amazing Supertrees. These uniquely designed vertical gardens of 25 to 50-metres tall have large canopies that provide shade in the day and come alive with a exhilarating display of light and sound at night.




I was shadowed by the glow illuminated from the towering Supertrees.




Had to do a little bit of retouch for me to be seen.





Oops, gotta learn how to let ourselves be seen in pictures of the night.
:')

Nights everyone! Gotta sleep! :D

My 2013 Resolutions

Hi dears,

What are your resolutions this year? :)

Wanna proclaim mine by first telling you a summary about my 2012.

I used to only write posts that are happy but as I got older I felt that being truthful to myself, not deceiving myself that I am happy, is also a kind of happy.

My 2012 was bad.

Yes, the severe fall and subsequent repeated falls due to kneecap instability are what made up the most part.

But of course, the physical pain is always more bearable than the emotional one that greatly affects the self-esteem.

Do you sometimes think you should altogether stop being nice? Cos people hurt one another and you even though you try hard to love and accept everyone as who they are.

You are so fat and sorry I have to use the word, fugly, that you scare the hell out of them so they inevitably detest you and gang up to verbally attack you all the time. Your self-esteem is so badly beaten that it has hit the rock bottom, no I mean the bottomless pit. 最后剩下的只有遍体鳞伤。The society is not meant for weaklings like me, so I very much want to hide at home sheltered from the harms the world could bring, which is most of the reason why I just want to be a dutiful wife and wonderful mum and enjoy the simple things of life.

People put you down. People hate your skin. People hate that you are fat. People hate your hair. No they hate everything about you. You don’t understand why they treat you this way, why they are so critical over how you look, when you tried your best to be their friend. But you must know that kindness is at times not reciprocal. People only see the speck of dust in your eye but not see theirs. As much as you want everyone to like you and accept you for who you are, a few still detest you.

I could only run back in tears to Simba and be in the comfort of his words. I wanna quit these asap but why am I still thinking of others before me so much so that I have to live in misery for another few more months?

Dear Simba, I want to be like you. I want to be as kind as you, as nice as you, as forgiving as you and as beautiful as you but I’m sorry I can’t. Ultimately I’m not you. :(

So the year of 2013 is a brand new year and a significant one cos it’s the year I decide wholeheartedly to love myself more.

2013 will start with this first and most important resolution: Love only the right people. This resolution was quoted from blogger PXDKitty. Here are two of her encouraging posts you can read: To only love the right people and Everything happens for a reason.

She also said these,

“People who matter don’t mind, people who mind don’t matter.” (I don’t know who came up with this quote but it is so inspiring and comforting. I should really live by this.)

“You will meet a lot of wrong people in life so that when you meet the right ones, you can appreciate them better.”

Second resolution: To do everything and anything for my knee to not suffer another dislocation.

Third resolution: To do something I enjoy. To choose a job I like, not to accept one in a haste and regret later.

And lastly, Fourth resolution: Work is secondary. Kinship, worthy friendships and Simba are primary. 

Oh oh one more before I forget: Wear less make-up. Use the right skincare products. :D

Thanks dears for listening, tears have dried up on my face now (disgusting I know lol). Friends, if you are also suffering from low self-esteem, I know it's hard to love yourself knowing by heart all your flaws but you just have to start trying. You could love yourself more. I love you, so please start now.

The day we counted down to 2013.

Happy New Year dears! How did 2012 pan out for you? I hope it was great!
2013 will be a marvellous year, don't you think? For this year, let's make our resolutions as realistic as possible so that we can really achieve them and next year when we look back and summarise our 2013 we will have endless achievements to be thankful for! Let's be critical on themselves and do some self introspection to make our lives in 2013 wholesome alright?

Tell you a secret, Simba has a new year resolution that has everything to do with me! I'm feeling so touched since he had always been persistently keeping mum about all his past year resolutions and birthday wishes, but this year he chose to voice it out. (Something u may not know about him is that he is pretty strong-headed! No matter how much I tried to talk him into telling me something, he just won't reveal a single bit of his past wishes.) 

Talk about serendipity, I didn't go to school with the expectation of meeting someone but I met the most wonderful person in there! He is more like than a friend than a boyfriend, the thought which never fails to amaze me when I think about it. Him being a boy friend more than a boyfriend gives me lesser burden of keeping up with his maturity in the relationship. Lol. I guess his awesomeness has something to do my biological imperative to seek hypergamy; he is someone I look up to and will ask for advice whenever caught in dilemmas.

Jun Wen has gotten a iPhone 5 and installed Whatsapp. Now you can add him into our whatsapp! I find it funny to teach someone how to use iPhone 在这个年头.

Spent my last day of 2012 and first day of 2013 with Jun Wen! What's so special about 2013 was that this was my 1st New Year's eve spent with him. Cool~

I made the decision on where to dine this time. In the pursuit of impressing Simba, I went through a few food blogs, filtered out restaurants that are out-of-the-way (normally those themed and unique restaurants are not too convenient to find), and finally got down to Poulet at Bugis+.





The queue was ridiculously long and while waiting we were presented with the menu so that we place our orders first.





Still waiting at 8pm in the queue and he was undeniably famished. :D






When we were given seats after about 20 minutes of waiting.

It was pouring when we were about to leave the house and he brought along our free Body Shop brolly (Yes, I bought enough xmas gifts from The Body Shop to qualify for its membership and its valuable good quality brolly!).

Evidence of him being a farmer, Sonic the Hedgehog, a Smurf and unleashing the Katniss Everdeen in him (practising archery on virtual birds) all in just that pad. iPad.




The Prata Factory which is located behind him was empty; you can't find a single customer in there. 
Love his shirt. Chose it for him during one of our vacations. Am feeling downright guilty of being his personal shopper for the past 4 years or so; now his collection of clothes are all that I have approved. Lol. Omg. But of course he would reject everything and anything too loud and fanciful and make critical comments about my fashion sense afterwards. Everyone has different fashion choices and I respect that. But to me, if you always dress casually, you are missing out big time in your twenties and thirties as you only have now and a couple more years to dress up!




The amazing french roast chicken!




Dinner is served soon after. The roast chicken with mushrooms dipped in cream sauce was the speciality of the restaurant. Every part of the dish was omg awesome!

Regardless of how disobedient his stomach is, he would always wait patiently for me to finish snapping pictures of the food. I think that's very cool of him. Lol.




Told him to take a picture of the dish requesting for it to appear as appealing as possible and this was his work. If you couldn't make out what the dish was, give me a high-5!





My turn to be revengeful about the time he took blur pictures of me. Lol. Now he is blurred.




What's a New Year countdown without the New Year Horsey Look? Anyway, I was told that the expressions Simba make resemble an impression of the Dark Knight Cinema killer James Holmes and was asked to be more wary of him. Lol. Do you think so too?





The tiramisu which has earned itself high ratings in hungrygowhere.com but PH recalled that it was only mediocre. I, on the other hand, thought it was good and worth a try. :D

The roast chicken was the best I've ever tasted and I urge you to try it for endless times.




Other than Cineleisure and 313, Bugis+ has become my next favourite place to shop in! It carries some brands that I really like and they are New Look, Lowrys Farm, Sephora, Bershka, Furr Muse and Pull & Bear! Everything I love all in a place. How cool is that?

I think I have told you about Furr Muse several blog posts ago. Furr Muse was set up by a group of young local designers and has apparels so inspiring and creative that may just sweep you off your feet. Being exaggerative here but let me tell you proudly that a fashion blogger, Pxdkitty, loves the shop too! I was so proud of myself when she said in one of her videos, "Let me show you a shop of my preference and it's Furr Muse. I think if you are a guy and you like Furr Muse's designs, you have really great taste!" Yea! I'm not a guy but I chose some shirts for Simba to buy in there before, and always lured him into the shop whenever we passed by it.





Random shot #1.




Random shot #2. He hung the umbrella over his neck. I used to do it too. Lol. We are such cool kids!





Couldn't hold out his love for the umbrella any longer and flaunted it in the sheltered mall. I very much wanted to walk away at that moment.

My initial plan for the night was to try out an Irish Pub since none of us has ever been there but I wasn't very sure of its actual location, so he suggested heading to Dempsey Hill to seek some ambience for the countdown.

The reason that we chose La Salsa Mexican Restaurant & Bar was simple; it closes at 2am. The other bars close at 1am, which was pretty early since it was already near 11pm when we finished our window shopping at Bugis+.



We cabbed our way there only to be rejected by the waiter as the policy of New Year's Eve in the restaurant was that the diners have to spend a minimum of $50 per head and we wouldn't be able to drown ourselves with that many alcoholic drinks. As we turned away, the waiter saw my knee brace and feeling both touched that I came all the way for the experience there, and sympathetic like everyone else, he let us in despite their policy. Lol. How nice!

We were both given door gifts once we entered.




Party hats were also given. He put it on as soon as the waiter handed them to us but I found it too embarrassing to wear since they were nothing like a fashion icon. I told him that he didn't look good in it (I mean who will look good in the shimmering gold bowl-like cap?) but he said he wanna be part of the atmosphere at all times!




My Long Beach Party drink was a mix of gin, rum, sour mix, tequila and vodka which tasted abit like cough mixture. This is why I always hate broadening my choices for drinks! :D
I forgot his drink name but I remembered it having some pineapple and tequila taste which was absolutely refreshing and edifying (Exaggerating again)!




Truffles fries were a recommendation from the waiter and a good one. It's like the Macs salty fries, only better.




He opened the door gifts like a kid opening up his Christmas gifts under the Christmas tree.
And yup that was my party hat which I refuse to wear. Red hat with yellow stars? Over my dead body.








Playing with the contents of the door gift and keeping up with the beat of the music played by the band.










The interiors of bars would always be dimly lit but our photos turned out to be quite bright even though the camera was set to no flash. :D





The masquerade mask was also part of our door gift.




He also took some candid shots of me and this is one I like the most.




Lol. Magician waving his wand.













It was almost midnight and we counted down to 2013!
Found a full-length mirror for a photo of us while the others in the bar danced to the beat of the music celebrating the beginning of a new year. :D
He said I dressed like a pregnant woman this time. Lol. Flare dresses are only for people who knows how to appreciate them. I like flare dresses cos they remind me alot of Victorian fashion. I'm always fascinated by dresses of the Victorian age; they make the girl look so cute!





Checking out Facebook for updates of how friends spend their last day of 2012.





Nice effect. He was sipping away his first glass of cocktail and already having in mind the next thing to drink. 




Moved to another spot with better lighting. Like what I've said in the last entry, DSLR doesn't require you to do any retaking since most of its works are so nice!












Our next order was his Magners beer and my Butterscotch liqueur. My liqueur was in a glass barely filled to the brim but was satisfying since the aroma of Butterscotch makes me so adequate!




I saw some people wearing the party hat this way so to make him look less silly, I told him to wear it this way too. But somehow, he reminded me of the farmer in Hay Day. #muahahaha




This was worn with much reluctance but the effort made him happier. 








Since our main objective of the night was to eat as much as we can and not worry about either gaining a few pounds or burning a hole in our pockets, we ordered desserts too. This dessert was like goreng pisang with vanilla ice-cream at an exorbitant price. 




Dempsey Hill.


And that was how we count down to a new year! Hope your New Year was wondrous too!

ZR, 1 Photography Skill Point

I'm sure by now some of you have heard about Zoe Raymond. If you haven't, here is the Facebook link of the story. (You need to scroll all the way down to start from Chapter One. It's in Chinese from Chapter 2 onwards by the way and if you click on "translate by Bing", the translated English is horrendous and hence still not understandable. Reading in Chinese will convey the emotions of the author more vividly, so yea  加油了 my friends!）

In summary, the Singaporean blogger Zoe Raymond stole Yuki's fiance Alvin just 2 months before their marriage, that led Yuki to create a personal blog entitled "Alvin & Yuki" on Facebook to pen down her story, with one of the posts describing how she came to know about the 3rd party but still kept quiet about her knowledge hoping that Alvin may come to his senses someday. The blog was so well illustrated and detailed that it garnered to more than 15,000 likes within a week, which included 16 of my friends, and has now won over 24,000 people's hearts, inevitably making ZR the most hated blogger ever.

I first came across this saga about 2 weeks ago when one of my friends liked a photo of Zoe Raymond side by side with a picture of Lao Fu Zi (老夫子）on Facebook, and there were several comments ridiculing her, especially on how ugly she look. I found it very disturbing and hysterical as I've been a loyal fan of her blog for 3 years now and on her blog she appeared to be such a sweet girl, so how can anyone possibly hate her? Of course every celebrity blogger no matter how nice will have haters but all along, but Zoe Raymond is one who makes the least amount of enemies. Hence having sprung on the rude comments led me to intuitively google "Why do people hate Zoe Raymond?" Again lots of hateful comments in forums came up and one of these led me to Yuki's page.

I really sympathise with Yuki. She was highly anticipated bride-to-be but yet just before her wedding the one she wants to be with for the rest of her life betrayed her trust and her world crashed instantly.

You know, when you began an agreement to start a relationship with someone, you are actually opening yourself up to the susceptible world of hurt. In some way or another, he/she may hurt you, it's just the case of whether the hurt inflicted on you is mild or severe. In her case, perhaps it was mild or almost none throughout the relationship but became so severe near the end of it that she couldn't deal with the sudden blow and tried to end her life.

It's so scary to think how someone whom you thought you know dearly change in a flash, and it happened so quickly that it caught you off guard. Being betrayed must have hurt big time, and I would never understand such pain until I experience it myself (but choy!). But agreeing with others who left encouraging messages on her page, it's good news that at least she saw his true colours before marrying him than to be deceived later when a child comes along in the picture. She is hurting now, but ya I'm sure a fine girl like her would find someone more deserving for her. Well, I really admire her courage for writing her personal thoughts and feelings out for thousands of strangers to see as I would not have the courage to do that if it is me. :D

As for ZR, she is getting most of the attention and blame since she is well-known by some people to be a successful entrepreneur beforehand and now they found out that she had a history of stealing boyfriends. If it wasn't for that history, I would think that perhaps Alvin already had problems with Yuki and Zoe Raymond came at the time to say, "Hey Alvin, I am a more suitable girl for you." But no, from the look of it, she seems like someone who enjoys flaunting her victory over another girl by taking away her beloved, which may be her everything, from her. I suppose she loves winning every guy over and so to her Alvin is just a chess piece (手中的一个棋子); she will dump him as soon as she finds another relationship to destroy.

For me, after my last failed relationship, the feeling of distrust is still stuck with and haunts me even after so many years, and no matter what I do now, I am wary of putting in all my efforts in my current relationship. I tend to form a shield all over me and remind myself not to be so trustful of Simba. This  is just in case someday he may turn his back on me just like what Alvin did to Yuki, and I will be forced to take everything into my own hands. Whether or not I will be sprung on the bad news in the future, I always prepare myself so that I would know how to take it better later.

Emotional things aside, I recently earned myself a skill point in photography. It's like the Sims game where the characters you created practise for example painting over and over again to earn ART skill points. Lol. I went online and watched a short tutorial video on how to entirely focus on an object so that the background would be blurred out.

Here are a few casual photos of my work:




I initiated the self-learning by placing a set of skin care and health supplement products on the table to set the background. The pocket-sized bottle of SK-II is in focus while everything else behind is blurred.

The 30ml sample bottle of SK-II at $25.90 was bought online as I've been dying to try it out since there were a widespread of good reviews about it and what made me click on the "Add to Cart" button ultimately was when Jun Wen told me that the new intern in his company started using it and his face became so radiant that it looks like the glow was from deep within. The Facial Treatment Essence, also known as Miracle Water, must be miraculous!





Another effect I tried was to blur the object in front and make the background in focus.
:D

The closer your camera is to the object you want to focus, or the more zoom you subject the camera to, the object is comparatively more in focus and stood out. In contrast the background would appear significantly blurred.





Took my NTU grad bears from the shelf by force to make them part of my photography project. Intended for the standing teddy to look more prominent than the other 3 bears and although it did appear in focus, the 3 bears in the background weren't that blurred. Failed.




Randomly assigned some of my jewellery to participate as well. Was quite pleased with this since the fine details of my piece of ear ring are photographed and the background which contained my necklaces, other ear rings and hair clips, was blurred till the extent of becoming tiny specks of light. This was the result I wanted to achieve.





This keychain was bought for us by our work supervisor as a souvenir! Really liked the shadow this keychain created.




My fave photo was this one where my watch played the main lead. It suffered quite a few scratches because of my carelessness lol. Look at its poorly maintained strap!


It was a Friday again. As I was still keeping up with my enthusiasm to try out the new camera especially when I read up about how to take a night scene photo, I wanted so much to visit Gardens by the Bay again and hopefully take a nice good photo of the man-made tree. But my plan was rejected by Simba since it was a long walk from the MRT station to the park and my legs might not be able to take it, so we went to Bishan instead after much compromise.



We tried the new Creme Brulee MacFlurry ice cream! It felt great to have ice-cream after so long and this was a strongly flavoured one! Simba was over the moon when I agreed to share one with him since I have stopped dieting after my surgery (but will continue with it after I recover).

The DSLR has saved us time for any photo re-taking since we got pretty satisfied by the photos taken of us. :D




It's still Christmas in Junction 8, and Simba was still caterwauling in the departmental store as the Christmas music played in the background.

We dawdled about in Junction 8 but stationed ourselves at a spot outside BEST so that I could use my newly acquired skill.













Only when the subject is near enough then would the background be completely blurred.





I continued my practice when we reached home which made him quite irritated. Lol.

Hope I have passed Photography Basics 101.