Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Changing Shift
CNY - 2O11 (prelude)
KIV
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Repo Man
I like that place because the furnishing and ambience are very oriental, it looks like a chill out hangout for underground people. You know, people keeping to themselves, plus the dim lighting adds to the air of secrecy. Most of the time, I am the only female patron there.
If you like those back croaking / neck croaking type of massages, then you will like this place.
So anyway, they serve coffee / tea & lunch if you care for a meal after your massage.
We are always thrilled. So far, the local fare are like pork cutlet rice, chwee kuey (soupy), Ipoh noodles, and the nots.
After your meal, if you care for a movie, you can pop in to their theatrette and watch a show.
We caught the "Repo Man" last week.
I wished the sound system was louder, perhaps I ought to tell them to turn up the volume or I would be straining to listen to the dialogues.
So anyway, the Repo Man is a sci-fi movie and it highlighted a scary possibility of a world where artificial body organs are on hire. A company (in the movie: The Union) lets you have the organ, for instance- the liver, the lungs, heart and pancreas. To keep themselves alive, most people sign a repayment agreement for the organs, out of desperation. The trouble comes when the client is unable to keep up with the hefty installment. Three months overdue and a repo man will be sent to collect the organ. Most of the time, the client dies in the process.
Small groups of clients become escapists. They jam the scanners and go into hiding.
So the repo man's job is to hunt them and net back all the organs. The organization is purely commercial oriented, profit driven and cold blooded. Their philosophy is that it is a contract and the client signed on the dotted line.
So, Jude Law was the main character- the repo man.
Somewhere along the course of his work, he began to have a conscience and didn't feel good about himself in his job. His wife pressures him to leave his job. More so now that she doesn't want their son to know the truth about Jude's bloody job.
Jude tries to talk himself into continuing his job and fends off his conscience by saying "a job is a job" over and over.
But at the end of the day, he realised that a job is not just a job, it is who you are.
Before he could make amends, he found himself a "victim" of his own organization. He had a mishap and had an artificial heart installed. (his childhood friend who is also his work partner created the accident, thinking that by creating a dependency in the job will force Jude to stay on and they could both get the promotion he was gunning for) Jude however, could no longer have the conscience to continue his repo job and fell back on his payments and became the hunted.
The rest of the plot is not as interesting. He met another woman on the street etc and after loads of running and fighting, they redeemed their artificial organs and wiped out all records of other clients, thus freeing all of them from their giant creditor.
What I've observed:-
- People will do almost anything in a life threatening, desperate situation.
- Your job's principal and yours are not far apart.
- Your closest friend may sabotage you for selfish reasons.
- That I do not particularly like this movie.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday 26th December 2O1O
Christmas at Gong Gong's
When I got to my grandpa's place, I couldn't stop gushing for an entire five minutes.
"Aunt Julie, did you see that!? She's sooooooo cute isn't she?!" Like that.... I repeated this several times until aunt Julie said: "Are you nuts? Didn't you buy her this?" I said- no, my friend bought it. Julie said - Are you nuts? Haven't you seen the dress? I said - yaah, but I haven't seen her wearing it and I didn't imagine she'ld look so cute!
The house was so noisy. Noisy is an understatement. It was thundering. We all inherited my grandfather's loud voice, including me. Including Kiki infact. So, you can imagine it was terribly loud in the house with my grandpa talking on top of his lungs and with the TV at high volume.
Christmas at the Office
Friday, December 24, 2010
The TINTIN Shop in Singapore
Address: 56 Pagoda Street Singapore 059215 (MRT station: Chinatown)
Monday to Sunday, 11am to 9pm
info.tintin@gmail.com
Do visit if you're round the corner.
Cheers! Woof!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Christmas Wish
1) Ear phones - the one i have is not working on one side.
2) GLEE - CDs or DVD, whatever season, I have none yet.
I find their voices (Glee) are fabulous and the rehash of all the old songs are refreshing.
Kiki danced to Glee while watching the "Madonna" episode with me. She practically was part of the Glee cast. It was wonderful. I held her hands and we danced all over the living hall in circles.
I have a rather strong inkling she might be a performer.
She could recite the key words and enact a short song during her music class and her teacher was fairly surprised as it was only the 3rd or 4th lesson. So,, I would like to go further with this.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday 19th December 2O1O
I was surprised that we could borrow up to 12 books at one go. This is cool. I threw in three copies of "Parent" magazines just to browse on other parenting tips.
Guests
She comes over to visit Maricar quite often, about two times in a month at least. Occasionally, she joins Maricar at church since Maricar goes there weekly.
Joy, who used to be a nurse-in-training, is very different from Maricar, almost opposites. She's an extrovert and loves to fill her schedules with lots of social activities.
Most of the time, she would be in a hurry to go off because she frequently meets her other friends and enjoys hanging out with her friends at Lucky Plaza. I've encouraged Maricar to ask her sister to stay on a while longer during her visits as I've always believed that chit-chatting mustn't just be on the surface. Sometimes, just a little more probing would become meaningful.
Kiki seems to enjoy girly-bonding. She sits between the two sisters, listening to their girly-gossips as if she's part of it. Maricar's sister seems to dote on Kiki too. She would read to her, talk to her and carry her. I guess Joy's chatty disposition makes it easy for Kiki to warm up to everytime.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Friends & Gang
Friday, December 17, 2010
Variations
Self-made charts, I am making more of these and have these in powerpoint.
If you want them, please let me know.
Meantime, I've already got these ready for Ryan (22 mths), Wynelle (17 mths) & Nicklaus (6 mths). These are the few children within my vicinity.
Last Sunday, while at my mother-in-law's place, I was telling my MIL how Kiki could recognize pictures and on a spur-of-the-moment, I sketched a wedge of cheese on some scrap paper and held it up to Kiki, half thinking that she wouldn't recognize this ugly-looking cheese as it looked so different from the flash card version she has at home but she surprised me when she said - Cheese!
Wow.
I mean,,, it was a rough sketch and she could recognize it.
Then, the idea came to me to do up a variety of nouns so that her awareness is expanded.
Also, I would also impart to her the concept of relativity as well as concept of context.
For example: you don't just say an elephant is big.
An elephant is big compared to a mouse or a horse but an elephant is not bigger than a blue whale for instance. So, we give variations and range.
In the process of motherhood, I learn, un-learn and re-learn. And I would wish for wisdom, compassion, competency and connectedness.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Home Box Office
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reader
I watched this movie one night last week.
It was a difficult movie to watch but I'm drawn to it.
Janelle's 21st
Janelle's 21st
Singing with actions
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Changing Shift
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Absurdity
Cold in the office, cold on the bus, cold at the mall.
Thrive
Point #6 says- Socialise at least SIX HOURS a day. Hanging out with friends and family correlates with feelings of happiness.
May I ask -- Where do we find SIX hours a day to socialise???
Bren replied me -- "you are supposed to socialise with your vendors, colleagues, all the people you work with"
Me: "oh! you mean make work social?"
Yes, I really think it does mean make your work fun, make your co-workers your friends. In other words, spend your day at work socializing!
I wonder how it'll work out for me. Let me lighten up a whole lot more. I tend to take work too seriously.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
She called me "Mama"
I was beginning to worry she doesn't prounce "M". It was contrasting because she could pronounce many other hard-sounding words but apparently not those that begin with M.
She does "grapes" very well, "cheese" and "carrot" too, but not "monkey" nor "milk". Even for eating, she doesn't say "mum mum" like most babies or toddlers.
So, I had shown her the "Mmmmm" mouthing a few times and the day she turned 20-month, she called me - Maamah!
What a joy.