rave rave rave

my mood's rather lifted yet slightly wistful whenever i think about smu's production of honk! the musical. actually went there to support two friends, one's in the cast and the other's in the music crew (so happy for them. and how i wish i could have the chance to perform again. is it possible for architecture students to squeeze out time for performing arts? *very sad*)

it's [the musical] done rather marvellously, really awesome stuff for only $20. the acting by the cast, especially the cat, ida, ugly and the side characters lowbutt and queenie, oh and margaret chan's cameo. the person who played ida is real good.

everything's splendid, except the chorus singing is cannot-make-it to the discerning ear. my friend kept jabbing my sides and commented that two people who were supposed to sing the same note are 'a major 2nd apart'. can't the chorus just learn their notes properly. it's not some mass chorale singing thing that a mistake made by one person can't be heard very clearly :/

but anyway, actually i didn't really care about the lousy chorus singing when i watched the musical. the characters were so, lovable! that i keep thinking about the musical and characters even now!

rave rave rave!

***

ok, i finally uploaded some pics here... presenting the results of Operation Makeover My House!

From Resized

behind me's the new colour of my wall!

From Resized

this was the colour of the walls before. notice how it just can't match the colour of the pale peppermint green cupboards.

From Resized

gotta clear up the areas around the walls, so i had to transfer all of my belongings to the floor :S

From Resized

and my belongings left behind sticky dirty stuff on the floor!!! :@

From Resized

lotsa dirt.

From Resized

i removed some posters from my wall, stuck them with blu-tack. but i just couldn't remove all of it because they got trapped in the pits on the rough wall. not only that, but a part of the rough lining of the wall got peeled off in the process! O_o

it's the white patch of stuff on the top left hand corner of that photo above.

From Resized

the peeled off part and what's underneath. imagine my stress.

From Resized

ok, so i whitewashed the ugly orange walls first, with some help from mom as well.

From Resized

samurai warrior to the rescue!

From Resized

after 2-3 days of painting (which involved staying up till 2am one night) it's finally done!

ok i put up some posters to add some colour and contrasts to an otherwise bare wall. see how the wall matches with the posters and the zhong1 ruan3 case and brown racks on the floor!

From Resized

i put back my two totoro posters on the wall. one day i'll draw something cool and graphic on the white wall, but for now this will have to do.

From Resized

see, the green matches the cupboards much better.

From Resized

improved! and the windows are actually purple in colour, if you can't see it clearly. nice right.

From Resized

oh, the most unexpected lovely part of the room. my fan colour is complemented so wonderfully with the wall!!!! oh yea, that's my army bags in that corner. no space to fit them in cupboards.

From Resized

jeff's present from egypt to me. i had to display it somewhere outside and airy and not in a cupboard, because the skin over its sound box started to ooze smelly liquid after a few days in a closet. see how it's floating magically from the wall? i actually used sewing thread to hang it up. heehee.

i'll post up a picture of the entire room, when i've cleared it up properly :P the room does look quite nice, if i don't clutter it up with stuff.

yay. success!! :)

day of happiness

(the oriental way of expression which sounds extraneous when translated without grammatical errors)

well firstly... I COMPLETED PAINTING MY BEDROOM LAST NIGHT!!!!!

once i clear up some trash and rearrange my stuff everything'll be done for cny alright awesome.

now secondly... I GOT A THIRD TUITION STUDENT!!!!! *ka ching*

thirdly... had a good time talking with ex-teachers!!!!! aiyo, now i miss school life. and kicks myself for not applying for relief teaching sooner, because i met a school friend over there, and he's known as mr tan to his students :'( blah. and WOW. the changes in the school(s?) - i don't know if i visited one or two schools because the campus and now even the name and organisation are the same - makes me want to downgrade to secondary school just to experience the new systems and facilities and events and feel stressed over school work that will actually all work out in the end.

and all that you know only at hindsight. haiz.

OH! might get a fourth student soon! wow...

honey, i shrunk the kids

ever since my life revolved around the online world until at least 1am every day, i notice i have been - gasp - shrinking! and i didn't have the appetite to eat anything when i was sick, so i lost even more weight.

to many people it sounds like a godsend, but for someone whom already people were saying that 'you should eat more', it's frightening. plus, i think i lost a lot of muscle mass too, owing to not exercising because i wake up with a headache everyday for the past 2 weeks. my current weight is a disgusting *censored* (too ghastly to be revealed!)

need to eat more, exercise more.

... sick.

like what my mom keeps telling me whenever i fall sick, i fall sick way too easily. i'm the weakest member in the family, as i get a really high fever on a regular basis (once a year) and will take 3 days to recover.

but the past few months have been really strange. i'm falling ill more often than ever! the last time i fell ill was in october, also because of high fever (39.3 i think). the current onslaught reached another high of 38.9 degrees. strangely enough, i only fell ill once during my days as a trainee in the army. even in school i would only fall ill once a year.

have i been overexerting myself? or has my mental constitution grown weaker? i suppose i need a drastic change in my happiness level haha... aiyo.

anyway, because of the fever (still ongoing) my painting job is put on hold :S and there's only 5 days left! however a friend reassured me that it can take just 3 days to paint a house - he must be a quick worker? - and that my parents heeded my advice and shifted the piano and armchair set and cleared quite a bit of trash :D:D although i realise that my plan for better accessibility and more purposeful functions by shifting the piano and armchairs - the armchair now faces the tv - have also created a large physical void in the living room, making the living room look too empty. argh lol.

hopefully i'll get totally well by tomorrow. got stuff to do!!!

realisation!

i spent an entire afternoon + evening today (friday) out with a friend. met up to buy The Present and to satisfy both of our apparel needs. well, mine was not fulfilled but that's besides the point, 'cause i know i'm awfully picky about clothes and since today i was determined not to buy the cheapo clothes as i usually end up - just to scrimp to spend on more cheapo clothes.

so, most of the trip was about my friend (and The Present), who eventually decided on a SUPERBLY NICE designer label bag. not the flashy sort, but the understated kind that will suit many occasions and his current wardrobe (it's not black in colour!).

i wish i had the courage to spend that kind of money. it's an investment that i can only see my friends partake but not myself, uh-uh.

ok, so we reached home, and had a short conversation online. i'm notice i'm much more interesting online than in person, maybe because i got the time (a few more moments suffice) for my brain to crank up a more thoughtful response. in person i'm usually nodding my head to the person who's talking to me.

"mmhm. yeah. ah-ha... yes yes. that's true."

hoho. have a look at this:

***
friend says:it just occurred to me...a leather bag would have cost only 10 bux more than mine

friend says:how come ah

cliff says:gd pt.

cliff says:which leather bag ah... the one in the shop is it

friend says:yeah

cliff says:i suppose the quality of ur bag muz b pretty good to be only 10 bucks cheaper than the leather one

friend says:lol what a positive way to look at it haha

cliff says:anw leather's hard to maintain la so i don't think u shld get a leather bag

cliff says:it'll prob dry up soon and u'll have a crumbler (haha pun.)

friend says:haha kk
***

i'm so lame. well, here's another part of the conversation. slightly better:

***
cliff says:well, are you going to use the bag anytime soon haha

friend says:how bout asap

cliff says:or just leave it at home to admire the physical form of $180

friend says:haha

friend says:justify expenditure

cliff says:lol
***

wait, but that's not the realisation i had today (friday).

my friend and i also chatted a bit about the near future for a while in the afternoon and evening. you know, university stuff and career opportunities. and i asked him, if music could earn you money, would you have pursued music? oh he's quite a good pianist, not bad at classical and better at pop/jazz stuff. anyway he said yes, and i was like, hey same here!

i've been exposed music not just as a form of entertainment but as a discipline since six years old. at first i didn't like it 'cause the uninspiring teacher (she only had a grade 8 certification) made lessons so routine and boring and would draw out a big 'R' and circled it on the score, which meant i had to repeat playing the song for her the next lesson, which is rather scary to a young kid. it's like, you can't promote from primary 1 to 2!

and i dislike practising the same piece over and over again for anything more than 10 minutes at that point in time, so i just didn't practise much. i mean, yeah, how interesting can 8-16 bars of 2-part homophonic song can get if you don't know much about song interpretation and techniques, in retrospect.

oh, i remember my grade 1 exams - theory and practical! i got 88/100 for theory - which is very easy to attain actually so it's probably an average score. and practical - a whopping 109/150 which is a BARE PASS (minimum score is 100/150 to pass). teacher complained that i was like, one of her worst students blah blah blah, parents unhappy but not angry and blah blah blah. haha.

then came grade 2. i think i got 93/100 for theory? and 123/150 for practical (yeah i know it's no big deal, but considering i did not put in much effort, the scores were decent) and the teacher was like, i'm her best student now and she never expected me to score that well and, yeah. (in retrospect she must have been a terrible piano teacher.)

come to think of it, i did have a little turning point in my musicality during that time. for the first time i really enjoyed playing one of the exam pieces 'cause it's emotions came to me, so i would frequently explore on the piano myself, different ways of playing it and stuff. and so she wanted me to continue learning from her, but fortunately we shifted house after that and i stopped learning from her. and all the subsequent teachers i had commented that i had the musicality and felt i should continue studying music.

there's quite a lot of things i learnt from this experience, as i typed it all out just now. well, obviously the teacher plays a huge role in nurturing the student, he/she can totally destroy the student's interest in the subject and worse, his/her confidence in the subject as well. another thing is that i tend to be a late bloomer (kind of bombed my studies in primary 4-5 and secondary 1-3 but that's another story).

and the most important thing: had i not been compelled to continue playing the piano since young (it was initally my dad's choice to make me learn the piano, 'cause he talked to this stranger and his daughter at the lift lobby one day and found the stranger's daughter was learning piano from a community club - not a logical reason i know), i wouldn't be what i am today.

so, if i were exposed to architecture since i was six years old, i might have as much passion for it as for music right now! this might sound sad, that presently my greatest interest isn't what i'm going to be studying, but i see it as a positive note? now, i'm really sure i will love architecture and design, the more i'm immersed in it.

already, i am festering a true interest in the topic. reading up stuff and all that. and hey, it's not like i didn't do anything vaguely art- or architecture-based until today. i always liked to look at design things, especially interior design and any visual art, including paintings, graphic, product and advertising design.

when i was young - maybe 8, 9 years old i just loved to draw my impressions of perfect bungalow houses, my perfect bedroom, and perfect treehouses. no, not just a tree with a shack embedded in it, but a gigantic tree that housed an entire village and had a monorail service coiling around the tree as the main mode of transportation, and the basement of the village, where the roots of the tree are, is a totally self-sufficient town centre. i even devised a mechanism for the lift which ran the entire column of the tree trunk - by people/animals (forced labour?? it seemed amusing then) to run on a treadmill!

wow! i was poised to become an architect, an interior designer, and a town planner! come to think of it, it's so uncanny and amazing, how all these bits of self-history turn out to become.

maybe i'm 15 years behind some people in nurturing and pursuing my interest, but i know i'll get there real soon! and i won't be shy the next time people ask me "why architecture?" - which 90-95% of people who ask me "what are you studying in university" will ask immediately after that. the other 5-10% instead say: "cool..."

(:

so, let us all maju in our quests and strive towards our wawasan~~~!

many things

1. i re-discovered winamp yayy. it plays nearly every file type, even those lossless file types like .flac and .ape. having it open up on my computer for a first time in 5-6 years brought back lovely memories of the times with the previous computer. and for some reason, i used itunes and especially winamp more often than wmp at that time, and it's not because i had uncommon file types wmp can't open.

2. gave tuition to my new student = new income!! all i need now is 1 more student or a part time job (even better) to begin to 'break even' this year haha. hopefully i can squeeze 4 hours per week when university term starts to continue tutoring my current students :/ it *should* be possible, assuming that there are religiously pious students in architecture - there can't be none - who still attends church service during term, and that i'm still a free thinker as of now. there can't be absolutely no time to do anything else on a normal school day, can there. you know, like shaving a few minutes off here and there throughout the week should produce enough time to make money, yes? i hope...

FULL PREVIEW OF UTADA HIKARU'S NEW SINGLE

http://islandrecords.com/site/promo/splash/utada/index.htm

have a listen. this is in the current american rnb style - vastly different from all her other releases especially the exodus album.

it's totally billboard top40 standard. hopefully this single will hit top40 when it's officially released :D:D:D:D

ballistic!

advertisement/updates/discursion on cny

ok good, the 'o' level tuition student i tutored for just a month did much better than expected (: from C5-6 per subject to 18 for l1r4 yayyyy. his parents were so worried he couldn't get into a polytechnic, the grades were simply godsend.

er hmm *clears throat* i had a part in the astounding achievement, too. teehee.

anybody needs tuition come look for me okaykay? i can teach up to 'a' level physics, chemistry and maths, and if you're flunking any 'o' level subject i can help with it too!

anyway, i'm having problems choosing a music school to learn jazz improvisation from. too expensive, too far, lesson times too short haiz. howhow.

anybody needs piano lessons? very cheap, i charge cheaper than market rate, and i'm very qualified to teach yes yes?

ok, seriously, if interested comment to this post with your email and i'll get back to you (:

(gah. i need cash flow.)

***

random thought: i don't know if i'd enjoy myself this chinese new year period. out of the four days of holiday, i'll be spending 2 full days travelling, including the 2nd day of new year. that means only 1 day to receive angpows (shit). actually the angpow bit not a big issue, 'cause almost any relative who's more distant than my paternal/maternal uncles, aunties and grandparents will probably give a...

...

MEASLY RM2!!!!!

and what can RM2 buy?! yea, if you search hard you can buy a small-sized plate of wanton noodles for RM1.80 in small villages/settlements/wilderness and the other 20sen can buy you an entry to the toilet in kl.

hah, if i sound money-faced, well many of those relatives also got car what, can drive back to their parents' place for the new year. they don't wear scruffy clothes, so their lives can't be terrible, right?

on the other hand, my family gives more than RM2 to our most distant relatives, plus just travelling back costs quite a bit, because our 14-year old volvo (YES IT'S THAT SQUARE 940GL Harmony) guzzles petrol at the rate like how an obese (american?) teen downs coke and beer, and we pay expressway toll fees, little by little for an infinite number of times (why? i'll never understand) from the southern-most part of malaysia to three-quarters the way up north (taiping).

go figure it out with a map of malaysia and its north-south highway. if singapore-melaka is about 2 hours, and melaka to kl is another 1 hour, kl to ipoh is 2 hours, estimate where taiping is on the map given that it takes another 1+ hour to reach there from ipoh.

that, for your information, is more than 600km of travel in total.

ONE WAY. and then, there's the return to singapore part of the chinese new year festival.

the only way out of incurring a loss every chinese new year is to gamble, that is why mahjong is such a favourite activity during chinese new year. and to prorate the angpow salary each relative receives from us by dividing the total sum we received from their family by the number of payees in the family. which is a fair way to settle the finances. well, until you get a family with a brood of piglets and you only got two kids on your side, plus the family only pays RM2 per kid to you.

it's totally embarrassing to give out coins - angpows must be flat. it's to let the payee have fun guessing how much is inside the angpow by various means, like feeling the thickness of the angpow or looking at the angpow against a bright light to see the insides. someone who's experienced in this silly art can tell apart a RM2 and an RM5 angpow. of course things get a lot harder if payer uses old, crumpled paper notes - they're thinner and will screw up your judgement.

on the other hand, if you're to put coins in, the payee would be able to count the exact value of the angpow by feeling it. sometimes it's not so bad - i remember getting at least RM4 in RM1 coins when i was younger; the coins are neatly slotted on a hard cardboard and put into an angpow. neat.

anyway, bulky angpows are ugly if it's not overflowing like santa claus' bag of presents. so, unless you have a thick hide, so you have no choice but to put in RM2 at least. sigh.

oh wait, i just checked the central bank of malaysia's website, and it says the RM1 note will be reintroduced to the public albeit with a new design. so maybe instead of RM2, i may receive a RM1 angpow?

oh, wait, wait. add the fact that we're living in recession now, that's worse. maybe i'll get coin(s), or butter-flavoured toasted melon seeds in my angpow now (they're delicious by the way, not that i hate melon seeds) when recession strikes, people resort to silly things like arson and robbery and giving out bulky angpows.

i'll suggest to my mom to buy melon seeds to save costs.

ah, for goodness sake i'm living in a country with one of the HIGHEST COSTS OF LIVING in the world... *moans* how to stretch your dollar...

***

random: say, do you turn on the computer and the first programme you open is msn messenger? and do you sometimes scroll up and down your msn contact list, hoping to pick someone to start a conversation with, out of boredom?

now i understand why some people (especially the elderly?) love listening to the radio, and i heard this little story that an old man can't get to sleep without the radio turned on. in the end, after holing up yourself at home for so long, you need some companionship here and there. and my mood was slightly better when i turned on the radio. you hear happy voices, listen to random tunes and expand your knowledge of songs.

on the other hand, i got this problem of staying around too long online at night. it screws up my schedule a bit 'cause i'd wake up at 9+am and be physically and mentally unfit for exercise. then, by 10+am when i'm ok, it's too hot to exercise already. plus i'm still busy clearing the house up bit by bit, so i've not been exercising as intensively as last time. oh noes.

my blog's more and more like a garfield comic strip - same topic, every time. haha :x

oh yea, i think i will post some 'before photos' of my house soon *gulps*

200th post

yay, the blog's not dying yet!

significance of today:

1. it is the eve of my conscription two years ago - a reminder not to hate my uneventful life?
2. it is the eve of the o level results release... D: will update tomorrow regarding this, hopefully it's good news.
3. i got another 'lobang' for myself yay!
4. i shifted quite a lot of things in my room, probably won't be any more major readjustments in my room now.

argh! i seriously need advice on what colours to paint the rooms. my living room's mostly wooden furniture (dark brown), with some blacks and a silvery metal-and-glass dining furniture set. help??? advice from anyone is fine, just tag at my board cancan...

SOS SOS SOS SOS

life's little lessons... and progress of OMMpH

i have something embarrassing to say.

i always have this, fear, of doing something out of the ordinary. like talking to strangers about things other than asking about a product or directions. you never know if your approach is taken kindly or not, even if the other person is someone whom you know. unless one of two things happen: the other person talks to you first and dominates the conversation by asking you things, or you totally trust the other person that he'll respond favourably to whatever you say.

so, in the case of neither, you'll take your time to digest what you're thinking, ferment and distill out something palatable to the other person's ears . well, that's my rather, timid approach to conversations and human relations (well, as opposed to human-object or human-animal relations, of course.) you wonder if simple questions like "so what are you doing now" and "where are you studying" will irk him because they are prying questions that dwelve into his life!

and personally, if someone keeps asking me "so whatcha doing" every alternate day i'd wouldn't be terribly excited to talk to him, and some more, i can't be doing something radically different every day so the question becomes even more personal 'cause i'm expected to answer based on what i'm doing at the moment! and then, the question becomes a sneaky surveillance device, manned by this stalker who's peeping at what you do at home. well, if you're a really damn close friend, or more than a friend, then any damn answer (the honest one, usually) will do. like, "oh, i just had a shower" or "i'm lying on the bed now with the phone between my ear and the pillow".

but would you have a stranger know that you're on a bed now with a phone between your ear and the pillow? ok, not stranger, but an acquaintance, perhaps. firstly, you would be a boring person too. secondly, you'd just feel uncomfortable, as mentioned earlier.

anyway, so i dislike talking to people whom i'm not so close to because i'm afraid i'd offend. and i shall now recount what just happened that opened my mind a little!

it's a really simple, everyday event. you attend a friend's birthday party, meet up with ex-classmates, chat with some of them, and then, you go home on public transport. and then you manage to find a seat and remain happily planted until you reach your stop, or when...

... somebody-who-needs-it-more-than-you (looks familiar, right? yup, on mrt carriages) comes along. in my case, it was an elderly man. i didn't notice him for a while, honestly, 'cause i was looking down and was listening to my music player. for a brief moment i looked up, and glimpsed at a bald patch of head [ed: what sort of expression is that?!].

i told myself before, i resolved to give up my seat to a somebody-who-needs-it-more-than-you should he come within proximity. and there he was, within grabbing distance. then, the discursion between the left and the right brain started! (something like the bad idea bear from avenue q) i took off one of the earphones, ready to ask the elderly, but! wait...

come on clifford, he needs the seat... no, others around will stare at you, you weirdo... no, it's not weird at all, he needs the seat...

*hands break out in cold sweat*

and it went on in my head for almost a minute! luckily the good side triumphed, but there was the next obstacle, do overcome the inertia, of the force associated with the mass of yourself that keeps your bum planted firmly on the seat, to create an upward resultant force starting from the thighs and the calves, which would accelerate you out of the seat and home towards the someone who would eventually plant his bum on your vacated seat.

the effect my own mass has, i mean, inertia, was multiplied almost infinitely by perceived shame should i actually stand up and ask if he'd like to sit down. considering that my frequency and intensity of exercise now is not enough to improve any aspect of my physical well-being, standing up was a much harder event than imagined.

but i still did it, hurrah! it went something like:

*tap tap tap on elderly's shoulder*

" 要不要坐？" (do you want to sit?)

" 不要了，谢谢，谢谢。。。" (no, thanks)

and then, i felt happy for myself. that i achieved something i thought i would not be able to do! (ok i've offered my seat to people a couple of times, but rather occasionally, mostly because there aren't many chances to do so)

and so i was happy for a while, until i saw the old man waddling towards a vacated seat, and sat on it. D:

realisation: i must phrase my question properly to make him not feel embarrassed to take my place!

it should be "hey, there's a seat there", especially when you're behind him and he didn't know you vacated the seat!

the old man countered my politeness with his politeness, and left me surprised when he took up a seat when not offered... interesting local mannerisms...

***

in other, self-centered worldy issues (i ought to mean the world to myself sometimes, right?), my mom and i cleared the left hand side of the balcony all the way up to my piano which is on the left side of the living room!

i wiped the walls and ceilings with a damp cloth to prepare it for painting, and rearranged some furniture, namely the redundant $1000 swing in the balcony (yes my balcony is rather large, to accommodate a swing and more), the computer table and the piano. the computer took me nearly the entire freaking day, 'cause i had to disconnect every single wire, extract each component from the desk, clean the floor and the computer parts, then reattach the computer parts together at its new location.

plus, i refurbished the computer table with bright colours that i now find very very VERY GAUDY!!! oh noes. too ashamed to let you all see it. lol...

never mind, i'll use chinese new year as an excuse to dress the table in such crazy colours. but the very nerve-wrecking question remains: what colours to paint the rooms in?!?! i can't believe how hard it is to find the perfect combination of colours, there are actually more constraints than i had imagined. must be bright to reflect light around the room, must not be most shades of green (mum's demand: money-plant green represents greed and envy), must go well with the existing furniture colours and materials, a mish mash of black laminate, a bit of silvery metal, some glass/mirrors and mostly polished wood.

i was thinking a neutral/lighter shade of green with a hint of brown in it, a bit like olive green but lighter, on the shorter wall of the living room, plus a creamier colour with a good hint of yellow/orange on the longer wall. or a colour close to mauve (a browned shade of pink, if i must describe it, and it's not a name of a fruit). 'cause i realise - after the creation of the Disastrous computer table, that strong colours may not go down well in the living room, given the current furniture plus i don't think my family is adventurous enough.

i'm taking any suggestions anyone offers.

in other words, HELP???

new day, new ideas

i just received the letter from the university to request confirmation of my course (yay). and then, i checked the special term courses available, and realise there isn't any for me in june or july. looks like i may not take special term...

anyway, that gave me a brainwave and i just created a new, flexible daily schedule for myself to follow! i listed everything i want to do, and set myself a target of doing each of the activity i want to do at least 20 times per month! which equates to doing any thing at least twice in every three days... sounds achievable, right? hopefully with the flexibility i will be more motivated to push myself to do things yet feel free.

the progress of OMMpH (Operation Makeover My House - the 'p' is added to make it pronounceable) is nearly zilch today, except that i am learning how to do site research and building study from a book, and practising it by using my apartment as a case study. so far i tried to draw part of the living room from a certain perspective. maybe it'll help me understand the design concepts behind the house...

ahhh, my friends are either earning money or spending it on learning. so envious lol. after calculating that i spending more than $10/day if i go out at all (there's always something to be bought out there), i've decided to stay at home as much as possible to prevent further 'leakage of resources', except when there's something i ought to attend to - this year is the bumper year of birthday celebrations for me - and i realise a LOT of money will be spent on birthday bashes, which intensifies the urgent need to find ways to open the floodgates of money into my (spending) wallet. howhowhow. this year will confirm spend a lot of money...

so, sorry guys, i might just refuse to go for gatherings because i ought to stay thrifty before i get a job! in the meantime i'd better get going to sleep. i got a schedule ahead of me... (: *hopeful smile*

road block

argh!!! *crashbangbooooom!*

i'm beginning to face the reality that it might not be possible for me to transform my house into a showroom. there's simply TOO MUCH stuff to be thrown out of the house. how i wish i could post the photos up here to prove my point, but then you'd have a totally horrible impression of me after you see how messy my house is hohoho. let's just say, the clutter i could clear from my room ALONE is already between 6-10 plastic bags full, plus a box-ful of other items. probably will photograph the areas just before the paint job to record what it's like before haha.

another hit of reality: i'm facing this situation ALONE. come to think of it, if no one has bothered to clear their mess after this long - my father says he 'doesn't remember when he chucked the old computer into the unused room', well that's since 2003 and i remember because it's still in the house!? - i don't think they'll be helping much, if at all. my mom has long given up on doing a thorough cleanup of the place. and family members, namely mom and brother, have expressed resistance in recolouring the living room into a shade other than white or off-white, is that even a colour?!

hey brother, apparently you were the one who decided on painting our rooms light orange (i had no say in it 'cause i just didn't want a say then), against the (rather ugly) peppermint green-and-black all-in-one bed-wardrobe-table-cupboard installation, which is stuck in my room because the previous owner decided on it and nailed the damn thing in place such that my room is in the weirdest shape possible (you really should have a look at my room). damn, i should have been selfish too and not let you choose which room you wanted (lol).

good grief.

ok, also good i guess, i got a hell lot of storage space. the cupboards fill up the top quarter of a wall which is, to my estimate, 3 metres long or longer(NO KIDDING). if you think my room's big, well it isn't, because part of the 3 metres is an aisle owing to the really large master bedroom toilet cutting into the otherwise four-sided room. so basically, my room's an odd L-shape.

sometimes i wonder if i got any sense of style, haiz. i have few fab clothes (most are trash), i've never cared about how the house really looked till now.

oh haha. speaking of clothes, is there any other charity apart from salvation army that accepts second-hand garbs? i must clear the clothes i don't wear haha.

anyway, i am inching towards something (i hope). got a very limited paint catalogue from the diy shop at lot 1, borrowed 4 books on interior design and painting too.

...

i stop and breathe in deeply. breathe out.

ok, at the very least, even if my makeover had failed, at least i should have been able to clear a good amount of trash from some of the rooms (: and thank goodness i have this blog which i somehow treat it both as a public and private one, to vent frustrations on or else i could just dieeee X_X

new year resolutions

need to find alternative resolutions if my cashflow remains to be non-existent D: else, it should have consisted of going for courses haha.

anyway, i am resolved to (nearly) single-handedly do a budget makeover of my entire apartment before chinese new year! the place is in BAD NEED of being spruced up. probably will be damn good practice before my university term starts, hoho. and i do hope to invite friends over for gatherings, till now i never dared 'cause of the sad state of the house haha!

already at the brainstorming stage of the Big Plan. realised it's actually really, really hard to place any appliance (tv, piano etc.) that requires electricity in the most pleasing manner (function, aesthetics - especially to hide the cables neatly). gah. plus, some of the furniture are in conflicting colours!!! most of the furniture my parents bought are in slight variations of dark brown (reddish dark brown, plain dark brown). luckily, my piano is also dark brown in colour.

and there's the ugly tiles in the balcony, kitchen and toilets. worst are the full irremovable bedroom installations in the master bedroom and my room, and they're in really awful, 80s colours and patterns YUCKS. and i need to find out how to paint over those plasticky surfaces. aiyo.

haha ok. will update my progress here as the days pass.

happy 2009

stayed out until 1-something last night, but i didn't watch the fireworks display, though. although i had wanted to reach home before midnight so that i could sleep better, i convinced myself to bum around with a few friends instead and i feel much happier now!

just sharing our "simplicity of our selves", things like 'i love fish and chips at fisherman's wharf (opposite central)', 'i love ice cream', 'oh let's go to jazz@ south bridge for live jazz or the asian civilisations museum to get freebies', or even 'let's go listen to a choir sing in a church'...

and when i lamented to one of my friends that i've good friends whom i try to keep in contact with but it doesn't work out, she said "it's like that la...", i felt enlightened, somehow. so strange, the realisation that there's no such 'bff' isn't bothering me (yet). or maybe it does bother me a bit now, aiyo...

maybe it's just escapism, but our lifes are sometimes meant to be lived that simple, right? haha i'm beginning to wonder if the fullness of my stomach is linked to my emotions.

'cause i realise i'm always freaking happy when there's good company and, more importantly, GOOD FOOD! and the converse is true too... hmm (:

ANYWAY, happy new year!