In the News:ST website to charge for access

Excerpt from Straits Times

SINGAPORE'S most-read English language news website, The Straits Times Interactive (STI), will no longer be a free-access one.

[...] The managing editor of Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers Division Patrick Daniel explains the reason for the change: 'We believe that we have a good and valuable product that users will be prepared to pay for. It's also not a tenable business model to charge for the print edition, and not for the online edition.'

I first heard about this (Mr Brown's website: No More Free Straits Times Online). I thought that maybe it's a silly rumor started by somebody and actually emailed ST to find out, only to find to my dismay that it is true.

There are a few reasons that I'm actually unhappy about it. Firstly, it was a source of news close to home. I don't like the sensationalist style that ST journalists tend to employ, but I still feel that they are better than The Star. I actually do enjoy some of the columns in Life! Recently, I've also been following the personal finance columns that ST features every Sunday closely-- information about investment, debt, mortgages etc. They were certainly not the creme de la creme of personal finance articles but at least they were actually relevant to me as someone who would be planning my future investments in Singapore. US-based writers would talk about 401(k) and IRA investments which makes me yawn with disinterest. I guess to make a long story short, I actually like some bits of the darn yucky paper.

While it's true that providing news for free might not be a tenable business model, charging a fee for a regional paper is not going to work.

Their decision to charge was based on the belief that they have a "valuable" product. How deluded they are. The site has thusfar generated as much traffic as it had because it is free. A lot of the traffic is generated by overseas Singaporeans who are interested only from sheer nostalgia. If they have to pay, many people would turn to other superior and free news channels. Some distinguished ones that comes to mind are BBC, New York Times, The Guardian Online, Business Week... the list is endless.

One question comes to mind, so if these other news sites are so great, why are there people who visit the supposedly inferior STI website? There are really several reasons: you don't get articles peppered with (sometimes really corny) local aka Singlish contexts that no one else can provide; people who visit the site are people who already own the paper copy but browsing online allows them to make better use of their intermittent breaks between work or in commute. So what happens to the latter group of visitors when they are now asked to pay for the paper? One thing that the people at ST didn't seem to have taken into account is that besides locals no one else is really interested in their paper. Their readers will either get the online version of the print version, but not both, especially not when the online subscription costs just as much as the print version and reading online can be quite a pain. So to a certain extent this will turn out to be a transferring their revenue stream from the print version to the online version. Another thing that I wonder if they have considered is the loss in advertising dollars once they lose their readers.

I guess in general I'm unhappy because I feel that they are making an ill-conceived decision and as a result, I can no longer enjoy my news. To make things worse, even when I am unhappy about the paper, there is really no viable alternative in Singapore. Today is simply too horrible for words. (yes, as I've repeatedly emphasized, I'm a bloody intellectual snob)

Actually, if your news site is popular and truly provide quality, timely news, it might really be a viable option to charge for your product. The Wall Street Journal has had some success with their online subscription model; the NYTimes.com, one of the top 10 most read internet news sites, was considering an online subscription model this January. It's quite interesting that despite its popularity, "for much of its history, the Times barely broke even" ( Business Week Online: The Future Of The New York Times) I thought about it after I read the article and concluded that I would really consider paying for it. I've been reading news off the NYTimes.com regularly and have enjoyed immensely. However, even the Times is cautious about starting a subscription model without furthur data to support it. One of the things the Straits Times conveniently failed to mention is that even though the readers are getting the information for no cost, the Straits Times Interactive generates revenue via advertising. NYTimes for example was reported to be "making serious money".

New York Times Digital (which includes Boston.com as well as NYTimes.com) netted an enviable $17.3 million on revenues of $53.1 million during the first half of 2004, the last period for which its financials have been disclosed. All indications are that the digital unit is continuing to grow at 30% to 40% a year, making it NYT Co.'s fastest-revving growth engine.

Advertising accounts for almost all of the digital operation's revenues, but disagreement rages within the company over whether NYTimes.com should emulate The Wall Street Journal and begin charging a subscription fee. Undoubtedly, many of the site's 18 million unique monthly visitors would flee if hit with a $39.95 or even a $9.95 monthly charge. One camp within the NYT Co. argues that such a massive loss of Web traffic would cost the Times dearly in the long run, both by shrinking the audience for its journalism and by depriving it of untold millions in ad revenue. The counterargument is that the Times would more than make up for lost ad dollars by boosting circulation revenue -- both from online fees and new print subscriptions paid for by people who now read for free on the Web. [...]

"It gets to the issue of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free," he says. "That is troubling."

As more people become more comfortable with reading text online and more people shift to reading their papers strictly online, it seems inevitable that newspapers would eventually have to charge to cover the costs of quality journalism.

System Shut Down

In view of the lack of productivity over the weekend, the fact that the project client will be receiving a progresss report/ presentation this Friday, the fact that I have 2 homeworks, that fact the data analysis I am currently responsible for (which only started one week ago) is really more than I can chew, I predict a system shutdown for the remainder of the week. I.e no more blogging until I can get ALL my work done.

Weeeeird Search Results

Arrrgh, somebody in Singapore did a keyword search on Yahoo for "Singapore malay girls social escort" and bloody Yahoo returned my site as the second best fit!!! *outraged* The same search on Google did NOT have my site listed at all. God, so much for Yahoo's new (by new I mean 2~3 years ago) search engine.

And Mr./Ms Singaporean guy/lesbian looking for social escort, I now have your IP!

Other keywords that would get you my site:

nautidog (Google)
Nike Rabid Panda (Google)
pic-a-blond (Yahoo)
singapore malay girls social escort (Yahoo)
SUNTAN BEACH PPS (Google)
vanderbilt ymca hostel problem (Yahoo)
Bovinely (Google)
link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldwivestales.net%2Farticle1030.html (Yahoo)
link:DdaGRwtJ4foJ:gamehouse.com/ (Google)
Miss Cheongsam Malaysia 2004 (Yahoo)
moochie cooker (Yahoo)

No thanks to Yahoo and their incompetence, all these porn sounding searches are yielding my blog. Dear readers, in case you haven't notice, this is not an R-rated site. :(

7th Annual Chili Cookout

It was fun today at the Chili Cookout. Contrary to what the name might suggest, chili con carne (which means chili with meat) is not hot at all. It could get pretty hot and is generally at least slightly spicy but even by my meagre capacity for all things spicy, it wasn't hot at all. It's kinda amusing that chili to people in south east asia is so different from what it means in America.

It was a great crush downtown where the various restaurants set up their stalls to serve their entry to the chili competition. It cost 5 bucks for 6 tickets and each ticket entitles you to a sample of chili. Somehow, after just three small servings, the chili started to expand in my tummy and about 5 hours later, I was still burping chili. *yum* We are now officially a chili converts.

Hightlights of the festival was a live band, bullriding, lasso rope-in and a tear factor competitin in which competitors ate as much of the chile peppers as they can take. I bet my dad can beat them all hands down in this competition, given that he is one of those chili-padi-munching people.

Poster seen outside the restaurants all around town

View the rest of my pics here.

The Brawny Man Can!!

Haha, the Brawny site now has videos featuring this sensitive, "romantic" guy who can't help being cheesy. It was so bloody hilarious I watched almost all the clips. My darling who took occasional glimpses of them is about to gouge out his own eyes esp at the tortured-poet, puppy dog look the Brawny Man gave at the end.

To quote what the New York Times article said:

Visitors to the Brawny site will find a section for the tongue-in-cheek "Innocent Escapes" videos in which a strong but sensitive Brawny Man offers compliments like, "By the way, you look beautiful today - something about your eyes."

This one clip is dedicated to e*. It is titled "Your hair. It's perfect"

Funny things to notice: How your "eyes" move downward at his butt when he's not looking at you.

Aches and Change

[Edit: Holy crap, I just realized that the stupid expandable post thing, the More... things are everywhere. Ignore them pls unless I mention in the post that you should read it. Will try and fix that... *moan*]

Once again, I fell. At the same spot. Down the same road. I'm starting to see a pattern here: treading carefully, in fact painstakingly, down the most treacherous portion of the path, rejoicing over the fact that I did not fall, only to slip in the next minute at the area which I would classify only as mildly dangerous.

I'm still aching buckets today so I guess it is true that it hurts most when you least expect it.

On a different note, I've begun to really appreciate myself. I don't know how it all began but I feel that my perception of myself has changed. Over every tick of the clock, change creeps in, sometimes so slowly and imperceptibly that you thought that you were the same as before. But if you stop and take a snapshot of yourself right now and compare it to another snapshot of yourself one,two, five... years before, you would be surprised at how you are subtly but certainly different. Most of the primary features that make you you are there but there are also lines that mark you as more mature, more confident, more collected, less frightened, less fidgety, more haggard, more jaded, less trusting...etc (By lines, I don't mean wrinkles :P) So that's what this blog really is about - snapshots of my life -- Polaroids that don't cost you $10 a pop.

P.S: Will be attending the Annual Chili Cookout tomorrow. Will be back with pics. Unless it snows so hard that I don't get to go :(

Fluffy Snow

I wish I brought my camera out more often. Today saw the fluffiest snow I've ever seen. Snow that fell onto the ground with a little *phut*. Snow that came down so hard that people walked around with a thick layer of white on them. This was also the first time I actually carried my umbrella in the snow. The amount of snow I shook off my trusty umbrella before I enter Sage Hall could have made a good sized snow-ball. I really like how the trees look when the bare branches are outlined with snow. It has a very Christmas feel to it. That's what I really wanted to bring my camera for.

The project is going well. If nothing else, I've gained the confidence to proclaim myself a code-monkey. I've transitioned from being an experienced manipulator of the spreadsheet to a coder who actually writes custom functions and macros. I feel pretty proud of myself really. It's funny how self-esteen can actually get in one's way of being capable of doing a task. Even though I really had the skills to write code, I had never possess the confidence to enable myself to do it. Part of this stems from a fear of making mistakes -- if I expect less from myself, it doesn't matter if I fail. Recently however, I've begun to overcome that fear. I've been trying to hammer into myself that people really do not think any worse of a person just because he/she made mistakes, well as long as he/she acknowledges it.

Interestingly, there was this article written by Mr Baumeister, a professor in the department of psychology at Florida State University. He asserts that there is no evidence that self-esteem actually leads to high achievement. While it is true that there is a relationship between the two, the cause and effect relationship is really that high achivement leads to better self-esteem and not vice versa.

Jan 30, 2005
Forget self-esteem, focus on self-control
by Roy F. Baumeister

When I ran my first research study on self-esteem in 1973, [...] [p]sychologists everywhere were convinced that if only we could help people to accept and love themselves more, their problems would gradually vanish and their lives would flourish. They would even treat each other better.[...]

A generation - and many millions of dollars - later, it turns out we may have been mistaken. [After wading through] the enormous amount of published research on the subject, [...] [h]ere are some of our disappointing findings.

High self-esteem in schoolchildren does not produce better grades. (Actually, children with high self-esteem do have slightly better grades in most studies, but that's because getting good grades leads to higher self-esteem, not the other way around.)

[C]ollege students with mediocre grades who received regular self-esteem strokes from their professors ended up doing worse on final exams than students who were told to suck it up and try harder.

Self-esteem doesn't make adults perform better at their jobs either. Sure, people with high self-esteem rate their own performance better - even declaring themselves smarter and more attractive than their low-self-esteem peers - but neither objective tests nor impartial raters can detect any difference in the quality of work.

Likewise, people with high self-esteem think they make better impressions, have stronger friendships and have better romantic lives than other people, but the data doesn't support their self-flattering views.

Self-esteem doesn't predict who will make a good leader, and some work (including that of psychologist Robert Hogan writing in the Harvard Business Review) found humility, rather than self-esteem, to be a key trait of successful leaders.

It was widely believed that low self-esteem could be a cause of violence, but, in reality, violent individuals, groups and nations think very well of themselves.

They turn violent towards others who fail to give them the inflated respect they think they deserve. Nor does high self-esteem deter people from becoming bullies, according to most of the studies that have been done; it is simply untrue that beneath the surface of every obnoxious bully is an unhappy, self-hating child in need of sympathy and praise.

High self-esteem doesn't prevent youngsters from cheating or stealing or experimenting with drugs and sex. (If anything, children with high self-esteem may be more willing to try these things at a young age.)

There were a few areas where higher self-esteem seemed to bring some benefits.

For instance, people with high self-esteem are generally happier and less depressed, though we can't quite prove that high self-esteem prevents depression or causes happiness. Young women with high self-esteem also seem less susceptible to eating disorders.

In some studies (though not all), people with high self-esteem bounce back from misfortune and trauma faster than others. High self-esteem also promotes initiative. People who have it are more likely to speak up in a group, persist in the face of failure, resist other people's advice or pressure and strike up conversations with strangers. [...]

In short, despite the enthusiastic embrace of self-esteem, we found that it conferred only two benefits. It feels good and it supports initiative.

While I agree with him that high esteem does not get you high achievements, in my case it really does seem that low self-esteem prevented me from achieving what you are really capable of. So perhaps there is a threshold level of esteem one needs to reach your maximum potential though an overdose of esteem creates unrealistic self-expectations and is likely to backfire. Looks like the ancient Chinese got it right when they said moderation is the way to go.

My V-day Pet Peeve

I'm one of those people who abhors the commercial crassness of Valentine's Day. I don't do it because I desire to be different from others. That much I am certain. One of my theories is that the insanity of the whole situation repels my logical mind. The idea of a day to celebrate love is in itself appealing. However, just like the ideal of a communistic world, the idea looks good only on paper.

In the case of communism, if everybody acted ideally, it would be heaven on earth. Therein, lies the problem, people do not act ideally. This reminds me of the prisoner's dilemma in that even though it might be beneficial for everyone to act selflessly, people tend to act to optimize locally. Which is why communism ended in a fiasco. I find it amusing however that people today tend to equate communists to terrorists. Hrrrm, as usual, I digress.

So back to the whole V-day farce, a recent article about the new sport on V-day at the office -- comparing the sizes of bouquets pretty much exemplifies the things I really hate about it.

Quote from the Straits Times Online:

The workplace now has a new sport on V-Day. And size matters in this race to be the object of greatest envy. [...]

According to The Times of London women in Britain too love this game of one-upmanship: Whose bouquet is bigger? Whose present is more extravagant? Who is being taken to a more fashionable restaurant?

Like them, many women here view these displays of affection as a barometer of love. Marketing director Ling Tan, 31, is typical. She recalls her disappointment last year waiting and waiting for that bouquet from her boyfriend of nine months.

'My heart would skip a beat every time a dispatch rider walked through the door. I was hoping that since it was our first Valentine's Day, he would do something special, like send flowers to my office.

'But nothing came till I left at 6pm,' she said.

What made it worse, she added, was watching two colleagues become the centre of attention and the memory of previous boyfriends dutifully [can you see my eyes rolling in disgust here?]dispatching bouquets of red roses or white lilies to her office.

In the end, it all seems like a silly game. It's practically a competition to see who's bf is a bigger sucker to buy me the most expensive bouquet -- yes the one that will wilt in about a week. Some women were in fact so stressed out by it that they forked out money to purchase bouquets for themselves. I can't deny that it is always nice to receive gifts but when it has evolved to something that women expect their men to do so that they can preserve face, the act, and in fact the day itself , has lost its meaning. Love is not a competition. To view it as such is to cheapen the feelings that you do have.

Perhaps more ludicrous is the price tag on this game. Perhaps it is with a little defiance that I refuse to receive any flowers on V-day. (That and my value-for-money-mindedness) When I was reading Cosmopolitan, one of the things I didn't understand was why it is such a faux pax for bfs to buy half-priced chocs for you the day after. In fact, with utter glee, we bought a half-priced box of V-day chococlates the day after V-day last year. Why is it important that he buys it on the right day for double the price? Are the value of the chocolates really double on V-day inself?

What peeves me even more is that some women are aware of how silly it is.

Ms Tan, like many, is keeping her fingers crossed that tomorrow, big blooms will arrive at her office. 'Sure, it's shallow but which woman doesn't want to feel like a princess, especially when most around her are getting special treatment.'

Yet they persist in their expectation that the men act like gallant knights that they've always dreamt about when they were a wee girl. Perhaps it's about time that these women grow up and instead of of imposing their silly ideals on them, accept their men for who they really are.

Happy CNY

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

I spent it doing homework and coding. At least I was eating love letters which is as close to CNY goodies as I can get here. Well, I'm pretty sure I can find pineapple tarts if I look hard enough but I don't like them anyway. I still like love letters best. Are they also called eggroll by the way? I can remember calling it ji1 dan4 juan3 in chinese. Or guey kah pek in hokkien - of which guey is chicken and kah pek has absolutely no meaning to me besides being part of the name of something I like to eat.

Geek-ology

Vyanne has been commenting on how she is, in her own words, a "techno laggard". This is a echo of an entry she wrote 1 1/2 years ago where she lamented that she is such a boring consumer who doesn't try new things. This louder and more recent echo somehow got me to think about how I am also a techno laggard despite being an engineer who knows more about all the cool technologies. I'm somewhat ashamed that I only just started owning a digital camera (1 year ago) and flash drive (2 days ago); I've also never owned a PDA, MP3 player (if I do, it will NEVER, i repeat, NEVER be an iPod), cellphone (imagine that, when I start working, I'll actually own my first cellphone), webcam... etc. I think my consumer habits practically puts me in the same category as the dino-technophile-60-year-olds.

You'd think that most engineers would be tech geeks. Maybe me having an Operations Research bachelor's (what about the bachelor-ettes?!?) degree has something to do with it. Taken from The Science of Better site (a site dedicated to promoting the use of OR through increased understanding), "operations research (O.R.) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions." So my decisions are ultimately measured by how much value am I getting per dollar -- how much value does this product/ feature provide me, how much does it cost etc. can see the engineer in me emerging already.

Somehow, most first adopters of technology are male. Owning the newest, sleekest, fastest piece of technology gives them bragging rights among their peers, establishing them as the alpha male who can afford to pay premium prices for something that he doesn't necessarily need. And it is true that first adopters pay premium prices since economies of scale doesn't kick in until the number of people buying the technology has reaches some critical mass.

Rest

In the silent reading room, we sat together in the plush armchair facing the slope.
He was reading while I rested my head on his right shoulder and slept.

A Renewed Love Affair

Just finished reading "The Godfather". It was an engaging and interesting book about the mafiaso in the United States. Somehow after hearing that one of my project group mate was reading "A Hundred Years of Solitude" -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I felt the need to read again. I think it's a somewhat competitive streak in me. The same one that struck me in kintergarden when I got third and was eyeing the gifts the top boy got at the award ceremony. Well, partly that, and partly because I missed the feeling of getting lost in a book. Of breaking off the reading feeling I've been thrown into another world. Cliche as it sounds, I have often been totally absorbed into the characters and environ of the book I read. So hopefully, this marks my renewed love affair with my "snobbish" (as opposed to thrashy) books.

But before I pick my next book at the library, I'm gonna watch the legendary Godfather series. Incidentally, the same groupmate has a copy of it on DVD. Now to get my grubby hands on it :P

A Charmingly Rustic Book

First week of school has been good. All my courses bar one are interesting. Some of them I'd even call fun. In fact, the supply chain class was so fun, I actually considered taking it just to learn and not for credit. As Prof Orman from the Johnson school would say " What? Students who don't want credit? Just want to learn?" That's pretty much the academic version of pigs can fly. All that aside, I'm happy that my last semester here will be exciting.

Today, for the first time, I actually saw the bookstacks in Uris Library. Uris is the building with the trademark clocktower of Cornell. It is also really ancient and archaic. It was a veritable labyrinth to the level 8 stacks where I was hoping to find "The Godfather". I climbed up two flight of dark stairs, enter a small dinghy door that said access to level 7 stacks, zigzagged through the student lounge and the Tower Cafe, finally gingerly walked through a door which looked more like the backroom or kitchen of the cafe than a way to access the precious manuscripts that the library houses. I did however find a copy of the book I wanted. I was initially aghast at its condition -- the fabric on the cover was ripped and threadbare; the words on the spine were so faint I nearly missed the book. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that I really liked the rustic feel of the book when I flipped though the book. Though it has obviously gone through hunderds of pairs of hands, the pages felt soft and inviting the touch. So here it is now sitting in my bag, happily waiting to fill the dreamy scene of a good book and hot chocolate in bed.

Now this is a big thing for me. I'm usually very very very and 5 more very pedantic when it comes to books. The cover has to be pristine. No page can be dogeared. Hands has to be washed so that the side of the book doesn't get grey with use. I handwrapped all my book in clear plastic with a patience that surprises even me. So I was really surprised when this rustic little book charmed me off my feet. And I was reminded of my dreams years ago of owning a quaint little bookshop (which will probably make losses since it really can't compete in terms of selection and price)

Greener Grass, Rounder Moon

It has been snowing furiously for the past 1 and 1/2 weeks. There had been no snow all through December and I was even commenting on how nice and mild the winter had been. Then suddenly, one week before school started, the capricious Ithaca weather struck again. The snowing hasn't let up at all and thick marshmallows of it has accumulated on the cars, lampposts and outdoor structures. In other parts of northeastern US, some people have reportedly been snowed in (My mum frantically gave me a call just a moment ago to check on me coz they saw some video on TV) So even though the temperatures went as low as -20c, it's not quite THAT bad.

As I was walking home, I was thinking that despite how much I hated the weather now, I'll probably miss it when I'm not here. Or rather especially since I am not here! As the saying goes, the grass is greener on the other side. So in my memories, there will be no slushy walks to school that makes my legs of my pants stiff with caked salt; I do not fall down on the sidewalk; my hands never felt frostbitten; my legs won't itch from the extreme dryness; my butt won't ache from walking in the snow day after day.

A Non-unique Me

I've been meaning to post something for a while but ended up doing other things instead. :
Phoenix Trip (Jan 12-Jan 13)
It's been a week since I went for my site visit in Phoenix. Most of the trip was spent at the airport and on the flight. Somehow, the low-fare, no-frill, no meals flights are kinda depressing especially when the flights are more than 3 hrs. It's somewhat sad that natioanl airlines in the US have become nothing more than glorified budget airlines.

Had to get up at 4am, had a 1 hr car ride to Syracuse, endure 7 hrs of the whole budget airline travelling experience, and then went straight to the workshop and finally got to the hotel at 4pm. Was pretty much pooped by then so didn't really get to explore the city of Phoenix. We had a nice dinner at Sam's, a Mexican restaurant that serves some really good salsa and tacos. The weather was also significantly better -- around 17c which is just like air-conditioning.

The worst part of the whole trip was probably the flight back when we were stuck at Atlanta for about 3 hours due to a heavy storm. The whole waiting was filled with a redolent mix of stale food, human sweat and jumpy eagerness to get on the next plane home. Despite their eagerness, I realized that people here actually wait for their rows to be called before entering the gate, quite unlike us Asians who have a tendency to cluster around the gate area, or even start a queue to enter the gate. On the other hand, American airlines also board from the front which is highly annoying since we have to wait for the inconsiderate slow pokes to put their luggage in the overhead.

Project (Jan 14 - the end of semester)
We've been working on our project dilligently. Things are going slow at the moment and for a while, I felt like we were in a slump. Today though, we are actually gonna start coding in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Well, by start coding, I mean two of the group of three (One of them would be yours truly) will try to learn to code in VBA while the last person will start coding.

The Remainder
I've never felt confident about coding in any form. It's not really that I can't do it but my brain keeps telling me that I can't do it. I think I have a horrible brain. It tells me about all the things I can't do instead of telling me what I can or should be able to. It has that irritating nay-sayer personality which makes me a little low in self-esteeem. These years have been spent battling that thing called my brain. I proved that I can indeed swim, ice-skate, write Standard Query Language (SQL) queries and cook more than one dish despite what the horrible pessimist in me has been saying.

Sometimes I wonder if other people feel the same way I do and fight the same battles. I would like to think that it is uniquely me, that I am special, valiant, a martyr and all that jazz. And I remember how upset I was in secondary school (high school) when I first realized that there are people who are similar to me. Well, I can only conjecture that they are the same, but somehow, I've lost the arrogance to think that what I feel and think is above what others might be able to feel.

A Kind Winter

It has been an uncharacteristically mild winter so far. The snow didn't really stay until about a week ago. The first year I was here was also a mild winter and it was all wintery white since mid-December. This winter is good for our car though. Having already paid $350 for maintenance work on the transmission, we were reluctant to face the hassle (and $$ pain) of getting snow tires.

Mom has been worried about us driving in winter but we don't plan to drive when it's snowing anyway. The experience one/two years ago was plenty freaky enough. It wasn't even like there was an accident but our car was trying to get into the parking lot near out house and it skidded so badly. The car slid into a pile of snow and we desperately tried to dig it out with our gloved hands. Really considered getting a shovel after that but we still don't own one as of now. In the end, a bunch of guys saw us and got out of their house and pushed the car out. Quite a memory it was.

The new parking spot we have now is a lot better than the one we had then. At least the driveway is moderately clean and the incline is not as steep so we don't usually have a hard time getting in. No more using the bike lock to smash the slippery ice along the driveway which made our tires spin wildly, trying to find something to bite into.

Anyway, I'll be going for a site visit on Wednesday. Won't be back till Thursday night. Yeah it's technically a business trip. Been starting on the project today. Will need to read more of those yucky scientific journals later.

Ticking Me Off

One of the things people can do to really tick me off is to first accuse me of something I didn't do and when they realize their mistake, contrive of some other way to make what I did seem wrong. A simple "I'm sorry. I made a mistake." would have earned you some respect.

Somehow, that is usually true of the figures of authority I've known -- not that I've known many. They assume that admitting to making a mistake is akin to admitting to a weakness. They are too self-centred to notice the damage they do when they knowingly gloss over their mistakes or worse still, try to exonerate themselves by placing the blame on an innocent party. Trying to make yourself look pristine and infallible does not get you anywhere when everyone knows that you are fallible and just as human as the next. I can't muster any shred of respect for a person who cares more about their face than about doing right, even if they are a genius at what they do.

A Sister in Law is me!

My sis is finally getting married. :) It's not that I've beening waiting to get rid of her, but she and William have been together long enough -- at least 6 years -- and she's definitely not getting any younger. Plus, I've always expected her to marry before I do.

The date of matrimony has been set to November 5th. I can imagine that she will soon have to get busy furnishing her new home and planning for the wedding. The first wedding in our house! It's definitely exciting.

Happy New Year everybody!
(heh heh bo liao post)

Truly too little too late? or just plain whining?

There's this guy who lives in Holland V with a blog which in general was an interesting read. I've also been reading another Singaporean father's blog as well. Recently, however, they've started on this tirade over how little how late the Singapore government and corporations are doing to help the victims of the tidal wave.

Firstly it was about the the Singapore Armed Forces medical team who is on standby to fly to Indonesia with relief supplies by Thursday to provide relief to earthquake and tidal wave victims. Here was what one of them said

Excerpt from Mr. Miyagi

Why so slow? Can't we fly our vaunted medical team there first, then help evaluate what needs to be done? Surely there'll be things to do as soon as you hit the ground, no? Maid agencies here can send sacked domestic helpers back to Indonesia faster than you can blink an eye, man! Not good enough, dudes!

I find it rather naive to think that foreign medical teams can just waltz into a country like Indonesia, start taking charge and "evaluate what needs to be done". While it takes only 2 hours to deploy the medical team to Indon, gathering neccesary supplies to help the injured takes time. Without sufficient supplies, elite medical teams are not going to be of much help. Given the general mayhem, Indonesia might not even have the resources to handle these foreigners and direct them where they are most needed any earlier than Thursday. However, I have to admit that the slowness might be a valid complaint. Afterall, if you think of it more simplistically, there are people who need help and we have people who can help, then there's no reason to delay giving the help right?

What really irked me was the complaint about local "(quasi-)corporations" not donating enough.

Another excerpt from Mr. Miyagi

Some corporations, really big ones, like Pfizer, Amazon.com, Citigroup, Cisco Systems, Bristol-Myers Squibb, have rallied in response to the tsunami disaster by donating generously.

Over here, our very own very big quasi-corporation, NTUC, 'expresses her deepest heartfelt condolences to the families of victims affected by last Sunday's tsunami that struck many parts of Asia, following the earthquake off the coast of Aceh, Sumatra.

Additionally, 5,000 food relief packages worth S$50,000 and weighing some 1.5-million tonnes have been sent to Colombo, Sri Lanka by NTUC Fairprice, which is working with Mercy Relief to raise up to S$100,000 for tsunami victims. [...]

As some Singaporeans are wont to say, very big corporations here must have very good reason for not being as generous as say, Abbott Laboratories. But you know what? Right now I just feel like telling some large local corporation they're a fcuking ntuc.

Errrm hello? the corporations he quoted as being generous make a hell of a lot more money than most of Singapore's "corporations". They are also more international. It's Pfizer (world's largest drug maker), Coca Cola, Pepsi, Cisco (!!!), etc. I don't think Singapore has a single company comparable to these giants.

Yet another excerpt:

There are a lot of people and corporations who have helped, or tried to help, even if they've been a complete moron and donated a pair of high heel shoes (I read this somewhere but I can't find the link). But [...] I am not about to pat these people on the back and say well-done, especially when they can do a whole lot more. What some of these giant local corporations (quasi-corporations included) are doing right now is akin to someone witnessing a person getting seriously hurt in a car accident and then merely leaving a packet of tissue paper for the victim.

Really? Who are you to say how much people should donate? If they don't want to or cannot afford to (which is realistic given that Singapore is still recovering from the economic downturn), these companies might need the money to grow and stay competitive. Who can really say how much another person can afford to donate and should donate? Instead of scrutinizing about whether other people are doing enough, why don't people just get out there and do something about it?

I'm personally so inundated with news of people dying that I believe I've become immuned to it all. Most people are only really concerned because the proximity to sudden death reminds them of their own mortality. A lot of the sympathy is really about "It could have been me". There's nothing really wrong with that. People are generally genuinely sympathetic but to an uninvolved person, this is yet another statistic. Another blip to the daily occurences. Life goes on.

During the Sept 11th incident, Americans got really worked up; Asians were mainly apathetic (So many people died, how sad. Next). Most people on this side of the globe who do not know anyone holidaying in the disaster struck areas are still worrying about their Christmas gift returns. This is the nature of humans. It is not that we are cold-hearted. We are all merely overloaded with information. It is not possible for a person to grieve over every single tragedy big and small. So we grieve only for the ones closest to home. Just like when we are bombarded with a multitude of sounds, our brain just shuts down and focus only on the most salient ones. This is the way humans are.

Article from Reuters

NY Times calls U.S. aid for tsunami "miserly"

NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) - The promised U.S. relief for South Asia's tsunami crisis is "miserly," and a U.N. official who criticized Western nations for not giving enough aid to the needy was "right on target," The New York Times said in an editorial on Thursday.

The senior U.N. relief official who chided wealthy Western nations for being "stingy" with their aid was not "misguided and ill informed," as President George W. Bush said on Wednesday, the newspaper wrote.

U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland made the statement in reference to general aid supplied by the wealthy countries, but later praised the rapid international response to the tsunami that hit 12 countries on Sunday.

The Times said: "We beg to differ (with Bush). Mr. Egeland was right on target."

"But the $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid.

The Times chided Bush for waiting until Wednesday to express his sympathy to leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia for Sunday's disaster that has left an estimated 120,000 people dead and millions homeless. The president announced the increase in U.S. aid to $35 million on Wednesday, saying it was "only the beginning."

The Times added that it hoped Secretary of State Colin Powell was embarrassed to announce "the initial measly aid offer" of $15 million. "That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities," in January.

Although many Americans believe the United States spends a great deal on foreign aid, the amount is less than one quarter of 1 percent of its budget, the newspaper noted. U.S. spending on development aid in 2003 was $16.2 billion, less than the $37.1 billion from the European Union.

The newspaper also urged Bush to make good on U.S. relief pledges and noted that U.S. relief for the Bam, Iran earthquake a year ago still has not been delivered.

Disaster Strikes at the Most Inopportuned Time

I've counted my lucky stars numerous times that Malaysia and Singapore were not close to any fault lines -- no volacones, no earthquakes, no hurricanes behind your backyard -- and are thus not subject to the whims of mother nature. I guess I was wrong. A 9.0 earthquake in the ocean sent tidal waves strong enough to kill tens of thousands, reaching even Penang and Langkawi which I had thought were safe havens from nature's wrath.

Excerpts from BBC Online

Disaster Toll
Sri Lanka: 13,000 dead
Indonesia: 4,500 dead
India: 3,500 dead
Thailand: 839 dead
Malaysia: 44 dead
Maldives: 32 dead
Burma: 30 dead
Bangladesh: 2 dead

Asia battles earthquake aftermath
Survivors and rescuers are battling the devastation left by sea surges that wiped out entire communities, killing about 23,000 people.

The death toll is still spiralling upwards and mass graves are being dug even as people hunt for the missing.

The extent of the damage is still not known in areas worst hit, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Thailand.

International aid efforts have begun amid fears that disease could spread through the disaster zone.

Survivors may have little clean water or sanitation as they try to build shelters and bury the dead after Sunday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake sent huge waves from Malaysia to Africa.

"This may be the worst natural disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas... so many vulnerable communities," UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland told CNN.

In northern Indonesia, nearest to the epicentre of the undersea quake, the vice-president said he feared fatalities in the worst-hit province of Aceh could rise as high as 20,000. [...]

Aftershocks

The number of dead has also soared well into the thousands in Sri Lanka and India, and thousands more may have been killed on the Andaman and Nicobar islands where reports say entire communities were swept into the sea.

Packed holiday resorts in Thailand were also badly hit, and the waves killed people in Malaysia, the Maldives, Burma and Bangladesh.

Thousands are missing and many more thousands forced from their homes by the worst earthquake in 40 years that generated a wall of water speeding across the oceans.

Hundreds of fishermen are feared drowned off the coast of Somalia, officials said.

Aftershocks have also been detected, sparking warnings from Indian and Sri Lankan weather officials of further, smaller surges, also known as tsunamis.

Sri Lankan rescue workers have been combing the coastline by ship, plane and helicopter, searching for survivors and pulling the dead from the water.

About a million are now homeless. [...]

In Thailand, bodies were still being taken to makeshift morgues in the resort of Phuket.

Many are said to be clad in swimsuits, with people dragged to their deaths as the tsunami smashed into beaches without warning. [...]

Sunday's tremor - the fifth strongest since 1900 - had a particularly widespread effect because it seems to have taken place just below the surface of the ocean, analysts say.

Experts say tsunamis generated by earthquakes can travel at up to 500km/h.

No more Toys "R" Us

I don't wanna grow up
I'm a Toys R Us kid
They've got a million toys at Toys R Us
That I can play with
From bikes to trains to video games
It's the biggest toy store there is
I don't wanna grow up, because if I did
I wouldn't be a Toys R Us kid.
More games, more toys. (Oh boy!)
I wanna be a Toys R Us Kid

When I was a wee kid of 12, going to Toys "R" Us was one of my biggest dreams. Being able to run amok along the aisles and aisles of toys and pick anything I want was probably my deathbed wish at that time. The Toys "R" Us store was in Subang and since we lived a good 45 minutes to an hour away, I never got to prowl those fantasy aisles. The first Toys "R" Us I ever visited was in Singapore. e* wanted to go buy a toy for her JC classmate so we visited this dinghy one that was located along Orchard Road. The ceilings were grey from age and the once pristine tiles worn from the years of ponding feet. Still, Toys "R" Us remained to me what a child's paradise should be.

Recently however, there has been news that Toys "R" Us has fallen from grace. Once the biggest toy store with a leading market share of 20%, it is now lagging behind mass retailers like Walmart and Target. It has supposedly indicated in August that it may sell its toy division in favor of concentrating on it faster growing baby supplies division, Babies "R" Us. What? How could Toys "R" Us no longer sell toys? This is outrageous. It's like Coca Cola selling their soft drinks division and concentrate on selling napkins instead.

Recently, I've been walking the Target toy sections but can't really seem to relive the joy and excitement of browsing toys anymore. It could be the trend where most toys are based off some movie like Lord of the Rings is putting me off. The Bratz dolls and alien-teletubby look-alike toys aren't making it more appealing either. Or as I've said before, it could be that I've grown old. No more Toys "R" Us kid for me. :(

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody. Haven't been feeling motivated to blog recently. Life is enjoyable but nothing really out of the ordinary is happenning. Most of the time, darling and I are playing on the MUD. I figured nobody is really is interest in my game achievements.

Anyhow, have a happy Christmas everyone. Enjoy the well earned holiday!

Beamers

I can be so silly sometimes. As I've mentioned before, I play this MUD. And now I'm beaming so happily that my cheeks are aching just because I did this special quest and got an item nobody has. I think it's really the collector in me: instead of stickers, erasers and stamps, I now collect virtual equipment.

When I'm happy like that, I beam like a silly cow.

Darling is off grading some finals. He had to choose to grade the hardest question of them all. So I can't share the beamer-worthy news. *beams happily*

Wheee it's over!

Haha my finals lasted all of 20 minutes. For an exam scheduled for 2 and 1/2 hours (standard exam slot), it had 10~15 MCQs (MCQs!!! Haven't seen them for a while) and three short questions. Yups only three of those and they were really short too.

Heh heh shouldn't have bothered reading all those notes.

The horrors of bad english

Talking about the things that girls do to their hair --> "blowjobs on wet/dry hair and styling"

Horrible images swim in my head.
My cheeks are aching from laughing too much.

White Christmas

This winter turned out to be really warm. So far, it has snowed about three times and everytime, the snow melted within a day. No snow storm overnight like last year (and no power outtages as well). No calf height snow to trudge through. For once, Christmas here might not be very white.

Had to send the car for some transmissions related repairs. That was a pretty ouchful US$320 but at least the little baby is okay. Pretty reluctant to shell out another $300~$400 for snow tires though so we'd probably not be going out much over winter. Which means I'll be stocking up on food soon and start the hibernation!!

Heh heh darling keeps asking me what I'd like for Christmas but I honestly can't think of anything I really care about. A quiet dinner at home sounds like a pretty good plan.

It's funny thinking about how I've changed. When I was younger, I've always wistfully think about celebrating Christmas -- throwing parties, decorating the Christmas tree, exchanging beautifully wrapped presents... A lot of things I've wanted to do has melded into the shadows, no longer consequential. If I had known, I'd become a docile little housekeeper 6/7 years back, I'd be astounded. But back then, I also didn't know the blissfulness nor contentment I know now.

Somehow I feel more certain about my future. Not so much about what I'd do but just confident that the future will be good and full of joy regardless of whatever I chose to do. I feel that I can trust myself to overcome whatever obstacles that fly by my way, to make the right decisions when the need arises. It's a good feeling to have. :)

Unlucky Feet

I've been really feet unlucky of late. First I stubbed my big toe and broke a big chunk of the nail. Then I kicked some rock as I was walking. There was bleeding under the nail and now I have an ugly patch of blood clot on that toe. Hmmm it might just be the same toe too! And then a couple of days ago, I was running to the bathroom and kicked my little toe. The skin right below the toe split and I now have a plaster over it. Bah me and my horrible feet luck. I have a lucky halflings foot! Or rabbit foot. Or whatever.

Laptops a Hot Fertility Issue

Interesting story about laptops and fertility.

Men who regularly balance their laptop computers on their laps when working may be jeopardizing their ability to have children, according to a new study from fertility researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The potential risk comes from the heat generated by the laptop computer and the close position of one's thighs when balancing the computer on one's lap, the researchers found. This heat is transferred to the scrotum, where the temperature can rise several degrees, putting users within the danger zone for testicular dysfunction. [...]

Scientists have known for years that an increase of even 1 degree Celsius in testicular or scrotal temperature can decrease the production of healthy sperm by as much as 40 percent. In the Stony
Brook study, researchers found that test subjects who sat for an hour with running laptops on their laps had a median increase in scrotal temperature of 2.6 to 2.8 degrees Celsius.

The 29 volunteers, aged 21 to 35, were also asked to sit with their thighs together for an hour without a laptop. This resulted in a median increase in scrotal temperature of 2.1 degrees, suggesting that the act of balancing a laptop computer is just as much to blame as the
heat generated by it.

The most hilarious line in the whole article though, has to be this:

The tests did not measure the volunteers' actual sperm production.

First it was handphones in the pocket, now it's laptops. Heh heh Singapore might need to ban both to give the population a hand in acheiving their baby targets :P

Smoker's are dumb!

I've always thought that smokers are dumb. Apparently, now it's official. Or at least according to this study.

Excerpt:

Researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh looked at how the cognitive abilities of smokers and non-smokers changed over time.

They found smokers performed significantly worse in five separate tests. [...]

It would appear that the well-worn cliché that 'smoking stunts your growth' may be true when it comes to intellectual development Amanda Sandford, Action on Smoking and Health. [...]

Current or former smokers were found to perform less well in the tests even after factors such as childhood IQ, education, occupation and alcohol consumption were taken into account.

The effect appeared to be stronger in current smokers according to the study, which was also published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. The researchers suggest a "small but significant" negative effect of 4% linked to the combined effects of smoking and impaired lung function - itself linked to smoking.

It has been suggested in previous studies that there could be a link between impaired lung function and a negative effect on the thinking processes, but it is not clear what the mechanism for that might be.

Dr Lawrence Whalley of the University of Aberdeen, who led the research, said the explanation could be that smoking causes oxidative stress - cumulative damage caused by molecules called "free radicals" - to organs including the brain.

"Ageing neurons are very sensitive to oxidative damage."

The Nerd Theory

I've always thought of the whole idea of popularity was something not so smart people come up with the differentiate themselves. If you know you can't be the best at studying, why not invent some concept that you can be good at? This guy's theory presented an interesting alternative: nerds are unpopular because they don't care about being popular. Being of the nerd school, I'd say it's pretty interesting.

Excerpt:

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Why? [...] Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?

The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly. Why don't smart kids make themselves popular? If they're so smart, why don't they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, just as they do for standardized tests?

The answer, I think, is that they don't really want to be popular.

If someone had told me that at the time, I would have laughed at him. Being unpopular in school makes kids miserable, some of them so miserable that they commit suicide. Telling me that I didn't want to be popular would have seemed like telling someone dying of thirst in a desert that he didn't want a glass of water. Of course I wanted to be popular.

But in fact I didn't, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things.

At the time I never tried to separate my wants and weigh them against one another. If I had, I would have seen that being smart was more important. If someone had offered me the chance to be the most popular kid in school, but only at the price of being of average intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn't have taken it. [...]

And that, I think, is the root of the problem. Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school.

Alberti, arguably the archetype of the Renaissance Man, writes that "no art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it." I wonder if anyone in the world works harder at anything than American school kids work at popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residents seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally take vacations; some even have hobbies. An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year.

White Hair

Did I also mention that I saw two white hair at the top of my crown the other day?
TWO!!!
Bleargh.

x_x

This week will be the death of me. Gah, and this are just the projects.
Finals are coming next week.
Can't wait for winter break.

Old Wife's Tale

Read on the New York Times that pregnant women should avoid cats. The article was saying that while it sounds like one of those old wife's tale, this claim is actually scientific because cats can carry a disease that pregnant women are exceptionally susceptible to. I got a bit curious and decided to hunt around for other old wife's tale.

And here, in exact replication, are some of the more interesting ones I've found. According to the mole one, I'm supposed to have a "warm, enthusiastic temperament" and I'll also be prosperous with a happy marriage.

Excerpts from Old Wife's Tale regarding pregnancy

Another old wives tale was that a woman could expect to lose a tooth for each child born. Today's hygiene and dietary thoughts help to forestall this possible dental problem. Yet even today, it is known that pregnancy does affect and weakens women's teeth and so this old wives tale is not mere child's play but has some basis in truth.

One peculiar superstitious thought was that a pregnant woman should not look at a hare. This chance meeting could have the child risk being born with a deformity. Yes, it is not a pun but hair lip was felt to be one of the deformities that could result. The Elephant Man's grossly deformed body had originally been diagnosed to been a result of his mother being frightened by an elephant at a zoo during her pregnancy; hence his nickname.

Edit: Old Wife's Tale info regarding divination significance of moles, which was replicated here has been removeded due to kill the spaminess it resulted. Go to the link to read the specifics :)

Stresss Makes You Old

Now we know why all the mountain folk can live to 100++ years. I'd be surprised if there's any life less stressful. Heh heh the next big beauty product would be relaxation packages. If you're gonna pay a couple of hundred on anti-aging cream, you might as well spend the same amount at a spa for the same effect. The next time you give yourself a break, think of it as an investment to your health. *wink*

Excerpt from NYT: Too Much Stress May Give Genes Gray Hair

[A] team of researchers has found that severe emotional distress - like that caused by divorce, the loss of a job, or caring for an ill child or parent - may speed up the aging of the body's cells at the genetic level. [...]

The researchers found that blood cells from women who had spent many years caring for a disabled child were, genetically, about a decade older than those from peers who had much less caretaking experience. The study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggests that the perception of being stressed can add years to a person's biological age. [...]

He said the research provided some of the clearest evidence yet "of the price in wear and tear on the tissues that everybody pays during a stressful life."

"And we know as we get older," Dr. McEwen continued, "we have a greater tendency to put on fat, to develop heart disease and diabetes." [...]

"When people are under stress, they look haggard, it's like they age before your eyes, and here's something going on at a molecular level" that reflects that impression, said Dr. Blackburn, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics.

Forgettable

Haha, today is his birthday and we both forgot about it until his friend shouted Happy B'day to him on ICQ. Kinda like the way we forgot about our 2nd or was it 3rd anniversary until 4 days later. We're both so horrible with dates.

We must be oddest most uncouple couple. We don't exchange gifts nor celebrate "special" couple days. But we trade lots of hugs and kisses even after 3 ++ years of being together. Somebody commented in her blog some time ago that the way her friend kept stroking his girlfriend's arm/ hair over dinner was a sure sign of a new couple. She must have been sad. That, or she don't know what she's missing.

All good again (sort of)

Darling is all good now!

Prelims wasn't all that great but at least it's over. Time for some pampering!

I miss him

Even though he's really right beside me, or just in the next room, I miss having him energetic and happy.
I miss having him do all those little distracting things I usually wave aside.
I miss having him frequently ask for hugs and kisses.
I feel slightly emotionally crippled. Maybe because I'm tired. Yesterday's sleep was short and fitful because he woke up repeatedly during the night. I keep having to take cat naps during the day to get enough energy to study. And when I wake up, I have the sensation of being jarred back into reality.
I wish I had more time to take care of him.
If this is how I react when my darling is sick, I don't think I'm ever ready for kids.

Falling

My darling's sick and I'm falling into pieces.

Blogger Ate my Last Post!!!

Well yeah it did. First time it has happened but frustrating nontheless.
The next few weeks will be hectic what with the end of semester rush to finish projects. So posts will be even more sparse than this recent week :(

Yesterday, I was at PMall. The after Thanksgiving crowd was amazing. The queues were longer than normal and everybody was holding on to some purchase of some kind. It's been said that Thanksgiving marks the beginning of Christmas shopping. Whoever said it was stating the obvious. There were kids everywhere, clutching their new-found treasures. Is there pre-Christmas gift giving going on? It's like everyone is on some mad shopping spree. An inner shopping demon released in each on of them.

There was a santa booth near the foodcourt and kids would clamber on the lap of this guy in a Santa suit, all padded up and bearded. Wonder how many times he cursed inwardly when some would puke/ urinate on him? Some lady was taking pictures of kids with Santa with a poloroid camera. Good emotional push there to make parents fork out money so they can get pics of their kids with santa.

A couple of girl scouts set up booths to sell cookies in the mall. They actually package them into nice paper boxes but I don't know the commercial look of it kinda puts me off. Did girl scouts actually bake them? Or did some cookie machine in a factory bake them? Judging from the lack of overwhelming response, I'm guessing the Atkin's dieters have made a significant dent in their sales.

Christmas is definitely upon us. I'm surprised that the choral groups haven't started singing their Christmas carols yet and there were no jingly jangly Christmas songs blaring from the store speakers as well. Well, even more surprising was that I walk away from the mall with nothing new in tow.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving is the equivalent of Chinese New Year's eve. Americans across the country gather with their families for reunion dinner. It's the day of roast turkeys and roast turkeys and .... more roast turkeys. Last year, we joined the Singaporeans for Thanksgiving dinner. (Or was that 2 years ago)The turkey was kinda dry and the gravy sparse; stuffings aren't really my kind of thing -- too much starch; the alcohol was cheap ( I wasn't exactly expecting pricey vintage wine. Anyway, most alcohol taste horrible to me. Even champagne tasted bad. :( ) I guess it was never really about the food. Unlike Chinese.

Break Time

Thanksgiving break is here!!!

(Well technically two more classes and one more homework to go. Plus homework and a prelim due after the break)

From exercising to needles

Bah I just found out today that the track at barton is only 200m per lap. And I thought I was running 400m. Man, I'm seriously unfit. I ran a total of 1080m. That's the total mind you, not what I ran in one stretch. I was pretty much pooped after about 2 1/2 laps. Oh well, at least I actually ran. It has been really irritating when doctors commented that I should exercise more when they try to locate my vein
for blood samples. That happenned twice. Sheesh can't you appreciate girls with some meat? Must be the prevalence of those anorexic types in Singapore.

Blood tests have always make me nervous. First there's the problem of locating my vein. The nurse or doctor would smack the tender inner arm furiously, trying to make the vein visible. It's like a screwed up gopher game -- instead of whopping the gopher that pops his cute little head out, you whoop the arm till the veins pop out. After the good arm exercise I give the nurse or doctor, they have the luxury of piercing my now variegated skin with a hollowed needle. Until now, I still squeeze my eyes tight when the doctor whips out a needle. Yes, even when I'm not the intended victim.

My first time was when first got to Singapore. I was nervous. I was so nervous that the blood gushed out and splattered the whole tube. I was rewarded by having to do it again. Actually I don't see what's wrong with blood geysering out. The whole tube was going to be filled up anyway. Maybe this is their way of providing disincentives to nervous patients.

Mudding

Been really tired this whole week. Not much sleep and quite a bit of stress. Esp over my entrepreneuship group project. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. Part of the lack of sleep can be attributed to the fact that I MUD.

Crash course on MUDding. MUD stands for Multi- User Domain. They are usually text based adventure games. Pretty much like an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game) without fancy graphics. Imagination provides far better graphics than current technology for MMORPGs can anyway.

Taken from Wikipedia,

"(In a MUD),Players assume the role of a character, and see textual descriptions of rooms, objects, other characters, and computer-controlled creatures or non-player characters (NPCs) in a virtual world. They may interact with each other and the surroundings by typing commands that resemble plain English.

Traditional MUDs implement a fantasy world populated by elves, goblins, and other mythical beings with players being knights, sorcerers, and the like. The object of the game is to slay monsters, explore a rich world and complete quests. "

To sum it up, it's a nerd thing. MUDders are pretty much a dying breed. In the MUD I play, racewars and player killing are the main features. The races are divided into the good and evil. Close to 100 people at any one time are sitting at their PCs typing furiously, cursing when they die and rejoice when they loot the corpse of the opposing race. A lot of people MUD because they enjoy playing with some of the others whom they have come to know. I dislike quite a lot of them actually. To me, this is like an RPG that I can play together with darling. I'm probably also satisfying my dragoness cravings -- I have a tendency to gather hoardes of equipment.

As I've somewhat hinted, some of the players can be real dinks. There's this guy, he's self-centred and basically a big bully. But he knows how to lead some difficult zones. So I heard. I've never followed him around before so I wouldn't know. What surprises me though is not only the number of people willing to put up with his boorish attitude, but the people who started justifying their own behaviour and started saying that he is actually not a bad type. Suuuuuure. Whatever. I'm not going near that shit with a 10-foot pole. The MUD is such a accurate reflection of people it's sometimes scary. Perhaps it's because most people are anonymously behind their PCs, allowing them to exhibit behaviour they would normally curb because it looks "bad". Plus doing something like climbing the MUD "ladder" doesn't seem quite as ack-ifying as climbing the corporate ladder. Sure, we all wish for respect from people we meet but I wouldn't pander to people I dislike so I could be in a band of so called elites.

Hmmm so judging from my MUD behavior, I have an aversity to interacting with people; I don't care about being the creme de la creme (well at least not in a text based game!); I like to hoarde; I'm more insecure than I think. Well,except for the hoarding part, the rest sounds pretty accurate :P Haha so keep your trinkets safe before I release the dragoness within me and take them all away.

Withdrawals

4 days away from my blog and I'm starting to experience verbal diarrhea. Firstly, ten thousand interesting things are begging to be said. Well at least they sounded interesting to my abused and traumatized, steamrolled- by- exams brain.

As I was typing out an email to my team members, I noticed how verbose it was. Part of the email was regarding our meeting with the advisor today. One of the team couldn't make it so I was providing an update (almost blow by blow) The summary of the 45 minutes meeting grew too long for an email so I had to put it in a word document. Then I was outlining what I think we should be working on and that became another mini essay in it's own right. I even wrote in point form. Dang it! I can only conclude that the few days of thinking in math and formula speak has resulted in withdrawal symptoms -- namely one excessive verbosity. Maybe not so much verbosity, I just seem to have lots of things to say. Wait, that's the same thing... errrm.... yeah.... it's good wordiness not bad. Like "good" cholestrol instead of "bad". Well, guess who's going to be working hard on the written part of our project? Might as well put this wayward talent to use.

Highlight of the week:
At the end of one of my prelims, the fire alarm went off. For a full 10 seconds, the students froze in their scribblings like deers caught in headlights and the prof looked stupendously at nothing. Nobody did anything. We stared at the professor and he stared back. It was actually quite a cinematic moment. Luckily, there was only 5 minutes of the exam left so he asked us to scribble down what we think we would have done, promising to curve the grades up a little.

I haven't read the time traveller's wife yet since I didn't have a chance to drop by at the library. I'm now reading A Thousand Orc by RA Salvatore. Been reading a lot of his books with the drow Drizzt Du'orden over the summer. Under the influence of darling, I've been reading a lot of fantasy books. But I've always enjoyed the fantasy genre just that I never knew what to read nor the time to do so. Next up, I'll talk about my MUD obsession :P After dinner maybe.

Akindled Passions

I was about to start on my homework when I saw a lined sheet of paper with my scrawl. It was something I wrote while sitting in class on Friday (obviously not paying attention) and I started thinking about what plot I could possibly use for my novel. Well, actually I thought about it on my way to class and when I was in class, I figured I shoud write it down before I forget. The theme was change - how different people view and handle change, about whether change is good. As a member of the movers club, I've been through three different countries and cultures. Going from not-very-swinging single to firmly attached was a significant change as well. I feel like I can actually write this book. Now I just have to think of a plot. And characters. And setting. Which is basically everything. Hrrrm. Doesn't sound that promising but I'm feeling optimistic about it somehow *beam*

The other thing I wrote was some ideas on how to formulate my MEng project as a simulation model. I didn't realize until now that I'm really looking forward to working on it. That I thought about it at the same time I worried about one of my greater passions, writing, was significant. At the very least, I liked my team members. I actually feel like I can trust them which is a far cry from my other group last year.

Well, probably won't be posting until Wednesday. Two prelims and a problem set between Monday to Wednesday. More of my quantity-not-quality ramblings later.

I celebrate my sensibleness

I almost bought something today. It was a styling set with 3 different ConAir brushes, a wide tooth comb, a pair of flat hair clips, a pair of crocodile jaw clips, some hairties and a cheap plastic vanity mirror -- all in an attractive millenium metallic blue. When I saw it, I felt like I just needed to try out the different types of brushes: the round spiked mace looking one; the flat, oval based, shaped for spanking one and something that was in between.

My mind started ticking away the moment I laid my eyes on it.

"I could use the wide tooth comb for after I've washed my hair. I'm already losing enough hair from lack of sleep. Not gonna lose more to a brush"

"Those hair clips are too chunky. The matte color won't look good on my hair either. Will have to write those off"

"Hmm, the jaws hairclips look kinda cute. But too big/ugly to wear out of the house. Might not even be comfortable wearing in the house. NEXT!!!"

"Elastic hairties. Could always use more of those. Wonder if they are ouchless. Hate it when I pull my hair removing elastics."

"The metallic blue is just so irresistable"

"Well, it's only $7.99... This could be my Christmas present. Nevermind the fact that I never care about nor have XMas presents"

So I hung on to the box and it's ribbon trimmings. Until darling commented, "Hey, it's made in China" Well most things in the US are made in China so there's no reason to balk at that comment but I did. Images of the crudely made souvenirs and jade passing off as "genuine oriental flavor" in Chinatown popped up. Somehow the matte metallic blue looked tacky and it failed the "Would I bring this home (aka Singapore/Malaysia)" test. In fact, it would be one of those things that get junked without third thought (second thoughts might be about how I've only used this for 6 months) One of the good things about moving around is that you're forced to keep only things you really value. And since there are no room for junk, it's good motivation to curb impulse buys. Like this one.

So in the end, I put the box down. I instantly felt great for not frivolously spending the money. You know when you buy something you really like, you feel happier as time passes by as you validate your purchase. In a similar manner, I'm feeling darn good right now for NOT purchasing it.

For the past month, I've been basking in the afterglow of my various purchases only to find out today that I can derive the same amount of pleasure from abstaining. Interesting.

However, I'm still somewhat miffed at the less than pristine reputation that sensibleness has. People have the impression that being sensible equates to being boring. If I think smoking is disgusting/ irresponsible/ reprehensible, am I being boring by not doing it? Would doing something I obviously do not want to do make me an interesting person? If there was something I truly, really wanted to do and I didn't do it because I thought it was "sensible", I'd be pretty stupid. In many cases, people think of being sensible as doing things that they think other people think is right. That I believe is trying to exonerate yourself from the responsibility of making the decision, blaming it on an external factor like the virtual societal pressure. To me, being sensible is about doing things my way, the way that makes sense,both logically and emotionally.

NaNoWriMo Part Deux

I didn't explain NaNoWrimo in my last post. It's short for National Novel Writing Month. It's a month where people who ever had thoughts about writing a novel join a competition to write 50,000 words in one month. Namely in November. The prize for winning is that you have written a book. The whole writing thing is about quantity not quality. It jolly well could just be writing a bunch of nonsense for one whole month, averaging 1,633 words a day. It's just suppose to get people started. It's for people like me who would say "Some day, I'd write a novel". What they are trying to get people like me to think is "Why not today?"

I'm a horrible procrastinator. I also have an inability to make myself do things I don't really want to do even if I have to do it. Inability is probably too strong a word since I've actually done those things. Melodrama at work. Lack of talent is probably more like it. Most things don't get done unless I have to. Sometimes, there is this surge of enthusiasm in me and I'd start cleaning/ cooking/ washing up/ emailing people... nothing that is really sustainable. Sometimes I wish has more willpower. Most of the times I can't be bothered. I'm happy as I am -- whimsical.

Well, at any rate, I'm not really ready for the whole writing thing this year. Next year, I promise I'd try. Meanwhile, I'll hunt for a plot and some potential casts to my story.

NaNoWriMo

My new nickname in the house is bloggerbot. I'm a bot that blogs.
Johnny is the graderbot ("Graderbot, online). He's a bot that grades.
Moocow is the softtoybot. He's a bot that softtoys.
We are family of bots. People who bot-ify ourselves.
Not really.
I'm just being.... retarded.
Thinking of doing the NaNoWrimo.
But I'm already 10 days into November.
Can I really do 50,000 * 20/30 words in the remainder of the month?
Maybe.
Am I ready to do that?
Not really
So should I try anyway?
I guess.

I'm such a procrastinator.

In Memory of Days Warmer

Overnight, all the remnants of summer had been stored away. Even the most stoic had discarded their handy flip flops and opted for something closed-toed. The goose-down jackets were whipped out in preference to the lighter summer coats. Suddenly, winter was here. In this ulu (translate: faaaar away from civilization) little college town, there are only two seasons: winter and not winter. And now that not winter is gone.

In preparation for my return in under a year, I've stopped looking at warm clothing altogether. Looking at the things I've accumulated so far, I'm gonna have some trouble bringing them back. Somehow it's Singapore all over again, an enforced spring cleaning that makes you evaluate all your belongings, give them some value and then discard the ones at the bottom of that list. Thinking about it alone gives me a headache. In the same thread of thought, I was reminded of the fact that I'd need to find a place to stay in Singapore as well. That's like a whole new headache altogether. Suddenly I'm really not looking forward to graduating.

On a different note, I'd be going to Phoenix in January to look at our clients repairshop. My feelings are rather ambivalent at the moment.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

The very first snow of the academic year is here. The bulk of it melted within an hour leaving only a thin veneer of white powder. We drove down to turn in my homework which I had forgotten was due today until this morning. Well, at least I'm forced to finish it so I have less work left for the week now. If only I screw up the motivation to finish the rest...

I've become a lot more health conscious lately. Somewhat regularly exercising, cooking with olive oil, drinking low fat milk (lots and lots of it), using moisturizer with SPF... haha well, prevention is definitely better than cure. Won't really want to end up being those old ladies buying really expensive anti-aging cream in desperation. No real cure for wrinkles anyway. Nopes, Botox doesn't count. I'm determined to grow old graciously and accept my age whatever it is. Clinging on to youth that isn't there anymore is way too silly for someone old. Their immaturity makes me wonder what the hell they've been doing all these years besides seeking an elusive perfect self. Don't even get me started on women who need plastic surgery to feel more confident. If you really hate yourself so much you'd rather look like something else, I don't think you need surgery, you need to see a shrink.

Hrrrm, for that matter, most of you should have noticed that I've been a lot more fashion conscious as well. Not fashion in the I- must- follow- the- lastest- fads- and- get- those- bloody- overpriced- Manolo- Blahniks- and- Prada items. Just more interested in clothing and accessories than previously. I guess it's a result of the imminent work life. It appears that I'm preparing myself for the next phase of life. Or could it be I'm turning into a *gasp* girl? Whatever. I'm enjoying myself so it doesn't matter why or how. As long as I don't turn into one of those credit card swiping, debt- laden kids who spend way way beyong their means.

Insomnia

Wednesday night: Slept at 1am. Woke up at 8am
Thursday night: Slept at 1am. Woke at 8:30am
Friday night: Slept at 2am. Woke up at 7:30 am

Not much of a pattern there but I'm definitely losing sleep. And all that is voluntary. I'd wake up, lie in bed with my eyes wide open for all of 5 minutes then decide I can't fall back asleep and hop out. This is making me grumpy.

Evolution

Check out www.bugmenot.com if you are sick and tired of registering for websites to access content (like the dumb ole straits times)

It's Friiiiday! The chill has finally caught up with the reddening trees. The past two days were colder than ever and there didn't seem to be heat in the house. I had to pad around in my black cotton pants, a t-shirt and my hoodie, instead of my usual semi-dressed state. I hope the landlord didn't decide to turn off the heat in a stroke of genius to reduce utilities.

Sometimes people do the most redundant things subconsciously. We are such imperfectly inefficient creatures. I wonder how anyone can think homo sapiens are the elite of the earth's creatures. It was raining hard yesterday when I walked to C.town Bagels to meet Johnny for lunch. I clung on to Johnny's flimsy aluminium silver umbrella as the wind tore at it. I switched between hands to give the hand holding the umbrella and thus exposed to the deadly chill some respite. Two Asian girls were walking towards me. They were chattering away rapidly in what in my mind translated as Korean or Japanese. I couldn't understand what they were saying. Not exactly. But it's amazing how universal the distress call of a damsel can be -- the increase in verbel velocity, the frantic flick of her hand across the chic brown leather bag and her brows furrowed towards it. The act of backhanding the raindrops from her bag was so earnest yet so futile.

We're a race surviving on our intelligence. The brain singularly consumes more energy than any other part of the body. It uses up a significant portion of the energy we gather each day. (Maybe the next revolution of dieting is to stimulate brain growth!) We're born defenseless and stay defenseless for a long period of time. We have no natural weapon besides a sometimes sharp wit. We built our empires on knowledge. Yet, there it was, that hint of inefficiency. As a race, our evolutionary path should be selection of the more intelligent. Either that, or start growing claws and bigger teeth. Or at least longer and faster limbs.

Somehow, it appears that our own intelligence is hindering that evolution. University degree holders marry later and have fewer fertile years; well-educated career women do not have as much time to nurture their offspring. On the other hand, a stay-at-home mum has more time to take care of the kids, making them less likely to be screwed up; Intelligent people who are more likely to succeed spend a lot of energy being successful but it does not mean they will procreate more than less intelligent people; The hoi polloi will cry foul at what they construe as social engineering but shouldn't our goal as a race be to ensure its continuation? As we stay stagnant or even regress with our cries for equality (for who?), could other more single-tracked and efficient species one day overcome us? Fortunately, not within my age but that's really just trying to exonerate myself from my duties as a human being. So does that make me more amenable to procreation? No sir-ee!

Directing Anger

Something from Self magazine, October 2004 issue:
"A new study finds that knowing when to vent (and when not to) may make you less stressed."
Okay makes some sense so far.

"Your guide: Someone cuts in front of you at the grocery checkout. ZIP IT"
Snort of disbelief. Let's read the rest of it before outrage takes over.

"In general, blowing up at a stranger is a bad idea, says Pam Brill, author of The Winner's Way (McGraw Hill). Not only do you not know how she will react, but you also don't know the reason she is rushing. (Wouldn't you feel bad if it's because she has a sick baby at home?) Instead of griping, grab a glossy and chill"

My take on this: Firstly, it is not correct to cut someone elses line. Period. Secondly, it is downright rude (somewhat akin to spitting into someone's eye) to cut a queue without asking first. Maybe you do have a sick baby (note: sick babies should be taken to a clinic, sick babies should not be left at home alone and sick babies left at home are not dying babies who can't wait 2 minutes more. Also sick babies do not deserve a rude and self-centred parent), or you have to catch a flight, or you have to buy that bottle of spagetti sauce or you'd drop dead. Whatever the reason, I'm sure you can spare the 2 seconds to tell the person you're cutting in front "I'm sorry. I'm in a rush and I'm about to pee in my pants. Is it okay if I go ahead of you?"

By keeping quiet, we're condoning what they do, sending signals to queue cutters that it's okay to do so. I mean, they have to wait in line for a shorter time and no downside at all to it ("not like it'll appear in my testimonial/report card/transcript"), so why the hell not? Some people might not even be aware that they have done something wrong. So by telling them off, you might be doing a service to others who are suffering in silence. I'm not saying make a scene, scream at the guy and give him hell in general. I usually prefer the more unoffensive way which starts with an "Excuse me, but ".

Some of these people can be pretty thick-skinned and I find them usually self-centred. If I made them unhappier by forcing them to lie or find a lame excuse for what they did, I hope that I have discouraged them from doing what they did a second time. Like the dumb CS100M consultant who ALWAYS sits at the PC with the scanner in the computer lab on Fridays. Usually, there are notes telling people to NOT use those PCs unless they need the scanner or the lab is full. In two consecutive Fridays, I found him sitting there when I needed it. So I asked him nicely, "Do you need to use the scanner? Coz I need to scan some pics." He had to gall to ask me, "Oh do you have many to scan?" and then vacated his seat. However, he left all his personal items at the PC, expecting me to scan my pics and then scram. So after a few irritated minutes of scanning, I stood up and told him that he should not have used this PC in the first place. He defended himself by saying when he came the lab was full. Well, it isn't now!!!! And it's somewhat dubious that he always comes into the crowded lab and voila! there's one space left and it's the one with the scanner. Well, seeing him all apologetic and awkward pretty much made my day.

Yesterday, we had a team meeting for the MEng project. Some measly little OR580 people were in our meeting room, so we opened the door and told them "Sorry, we've booked this room". One of the guys got up and said "oh okay. Is there any other empty room around?" He walked past me out of the door and said "Next door's empty, could you guys use that instead?" We relented given that there were three of us and we decided to be nice. But that made me pretty ticked off so I retorted "Next time, make sure you book the room". I mean the gall!!! If you are using someone elses resources and caught red-handed, you should jolly well apologize and scoot off ASAP. Not ask the owners to find an alternative. So what if you had 2 laptops plugged to the wall. Are 2 laptops too much for 4 guys to carry to the room 3 steps away? Learn some courtesy, boy! Next time I wouldn't let you off so easily.

At any rate, I've felt pretty good about voicing my thoughts instead of keeping them inside and building this volcano of anger towards humanity. So onward with the verbal abuse of people who treads on my toes.

Idiot Count: Idiots told off so far -- 3 (imagine a Mac's "Hamburgers made" boards they used to have outside their chain)

I've been conspired against!!!

*waaaaah* I was going to bid on this Victoria Secret bra in luscious rose. Being the "savvy" ebayer that I am, I was going to snipe it to increase my chances. For those not familiar with the eBay lingo, sniping is to place a bid seconds before the auction ends. And to my dismay, as I clicked on the "Place a Bid" button, a horrible death sentence announced to me in the form of a pop-up text box initiated by Mozilla -- "The document has no data" What what whaaaaaaat? Another furiously click on the refresh button followed by the "Place a Bid".... the same window appeared. How can it be that as I was about to place my bid, the link just go dead?!? And then the auction ended. As I clicked on the old page which still told me I had 10 seconds left, I was able to place a bid. On the auction that just ended 2 seconds ago. *sigh* I really wanted that particular style and color too!!! Super grouchy now...

Busy busy busy

Looks like life will be getting more exciting in the months ahead. The MEng project is starting and with it the ensueing conference calls with the sponsor, group meetings with the rest of the team, weekly meetings with the project advisor, read-up on the subject and all the little details like booking a room, filling reimbursement forms. Next semester I'm absolutely taking the minimum number of credits possible. And no more 8:40am to 4:30pm (with a 2hr lunch break) tortures hopefully. Today is one such day. And I still have a group meeting from 5pm to 6pm. *groan* At least my teammates this time are not utter morons. *dances in relief*

A Parent's Wedding

Read a piece about a girl who had to attend her cousin's wedding. The wedding was held at some archaic Chinese restaurant whose mouth yawns open daily to artificial rocks, probably waitresses in cheongsam and prides itself on its "traditional" fare of shark's fin and abalone. (Haha really traditional fare probably be fish! and meat! and lots of veggies! What luxuries they were then!)

Waitresses in cheongsam might look like this! 

The bride's mum trekked to Chinatown and got the young couple a tam tui (chamberpot or potty). The Chinese one looks sort of like a fat vase the size of your butt and comes with intricate designs like a cockerel or flowers or some scenic Chinese drawing. The last time I used that was when I was 5 when I was too short to let myself out of the bedroom in the middle of the night. Wonder how my parents can stand the smell of ammonia right in the room where they sleep. The last person I saw using one was my grandma. Hers was full of urine and phlegm. I stayed far, far away. My paternal grandma and our family didn't get along very well. To put it simply, we didn't like her and she didn't like us. Too bad our other not so responsible relatives thought the same. So my family and an aunt's had to take turns taking care of her.

To me, she was a representation of everything I hated about the old Chinese: sexism (she wanted to name my sister dai di which stands for "bring brother"), mindless traditions (if you're born in the year of the tiger, you can't attend the funeral or enter the bride's room), hierarchy (the oldest person in the household is practically king; mother-in-laws get to bully daughter-in-laws; my grandma seems to think this applies to her except she's so old she can't remember much so her advice were pretty much useless but she would insist on people following it). By association, the fragile tam tui became a container for all evils, a Pandora's box waiting for the unsuspecting victim of blind tradition.

Generally, I love tradition. They are beautiful things that have characterized my childhood. Folding red packets to decorate the house on Chinese New Year; staying up till midnight on chuxi (the night before Chinese New Year) to welcome the new year (see, chinese also have countdowns). Children staying up till midnight on chuxi is supposed to be a blessing bestowed upon their parents, wishing that they will live a long (and fulfilling) life; lighting candles and lanterns during Mid-autumn festival; eating ba zhang (Chinese dumplings (?)) during duan wu or Dragon Boat festival which commemorates Qu Yuen; dong zhi (winter solstice) when mum and I would make plates and plates of pink and white tang yuan ; I'd wake up at 7am for qing ming so I could go with my parents to pay respects and tidy up the graves of our ancestors; not forgetting the hungry ghost festival which is the only time I ever get snacks when I was young!

Those were some of the traditions I would love to preserve. Others like the silly chamberpot can pretty much suck my balls. But the entry really got me thinking about my own planned-to-be-nonexistent wedding. Yups, no wedding dinner, no wedding ceremony, maybe not even a white wedding gown.

I did find another dress I wouldn't mind wearing for my wedding though. 

I thought about the various day long affairs when my cousins got married and how very, extremely bored I was. Being a bored and tired bride isn't exactly my day of fun. Paying a bomb to be bored is pretty much asking me to jump off a building. Paying a bomb to be bored, make small talk with relatives I hardly care about AND feeding them shark's fins is pretty much like a "Kill me now" message. I can think of so many other ways to spend that money: renovating my house, having a lavish honeymoon, luxurious dinner for close family and friends, making a bigger downpayment on the house, buying myself pretty things that I can wear for more than one night... the list pretty much goes on and on and on.

Most women think of wedding as their one big day. In America, brides-to-be starve themselves silly to look good for that day. Planning a wedding is a 2-3 month affair and everything looks Hollywood wedding wannabe. I personally don't particularly care about being fawned over with the customary "You look pretty". Every bride is pretty as far as I'm concerned. Given my lack of interest in a lavish affair, some might wonder if I had gone through some trauma. After all, every little girl yearns for her own wedding. I guess I'm just not every other girl. Me and my sister had never played bride and groom when we were young. I didn't even really care to get married until I met darling. And as I said, weddings bore me. It's pretty much something I attend out of sheer need and petulantly think every other minute "Are we done yet?" I've yet to attend the wedding of a close friend so maybe those are better.

But while I plan my spartan ( and sacrilegious) wedding, I have to worry about my parents. For the Chinese, a wedding is pretty much not for the children but for the parents. Think of the newly-weds as the centerpiece, placed on some pedestal and displayed to relatives. The parents, want to proudly show relatives "Look at how well my child has married". Or they are expected to show it. If we didn't have a wedding, it might be construed that we married badly or in disgrace (like having a pre-marital fetus in tow). I don't know, I could go along with the whole ugga-wugga to make them happy; on the other hand, parents just want their child to be happy so perhaps I should do things my way? What do you guys think, would you want a traditional Chinese wedding or a walk down the aisle or both?