Groove, Sing and Dance like a Teenybopper!

There are a gazillion things I love about the internet and finding songs long forgotten is one of them.

All thanks to imeem.com I’m able to search and listen to all my favourite pop hits from the 90’s and early years of 2000.

I still remember listening to these songs on the radio, on 98.7 fm, and pretending to be a pop star too…in the comfort of my room of course.

And then my dad decided to sign up for cable tv (which we pestered him to, saying the discovery channel would be oh-so-educational) which gave me access to mtv!

That spawned a whole new interest in not only the songs but the dance moves and I suppose, the fashion (which is, well, questionable. hurhur.).

Anyway, here are just some of the songs I found, a lot of which I still fondly remember the lyrics!

– Gotta Tell You, Samantha Mumba
– He Loves You Not, Dream
– Finally Found, Honeyz
– Waterfall, TLC
– Sway, Big Runga
– Torn, Natalie Imbruglia
– All Cried Out, Allure featuring 112
– When the Lights Go Out, 5ive
– Show Me Love, Robyn

(:

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Sometimes all we need is a little reminder…

God does work in mysterious ways, especially when He wants to teach us a lesson.

Today, I got a lesson on trust.

For those who don’t really know, I am somewhat the perfectionist, which often results in me being the worry-wort.

But today, He showed me how my over-worrying affects not only me, but also others around me because I tend to get so worked-up (over nothing much really) and become petty, sensitive and just a plain pain in the butt.

Sigh.

It was a much needed reminder that I still have yet to learn to totally put my trust in Him. Even when I pray, sadly, I admit I still feel so anxious, almost like there’s doubt and incomplete committment and surrender of my worries to Him who knows what will happen tomorrow.

The song “I Will Boast” by Paul Baloche also touched my heart as I was listening to it on my ipod on the way home.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom
Or the strong man boast in his strength
Let not the rich man boast in his riches
But let the hum-ble come and give thanks
To the One who made us, the One who saved us

I will boast in the Lord my God
I will boast in the One Who’s worthy
I will boast in the Lord my God
I will boast in the One Who’s worthy, He’s worthy

Truly, we as man, sinful man at that, have absolutely nothing worth boasting about. We are merely made from dust and have consistently and stubbornly gone our own way instead of following the will of God.

But because of his loving kindness and grace, we, who are made in his wonderful image (Genesis 1:27), are blessed and given special and individual talents from God. Whatever unique skills we have come not from ourselves or our own ability to do so, but everything is from God.

So who are we to be boastful when God is the real reason behind our special talents?

This brings me back to being a worry-wort -who am I to argue with what God thinks is “very good” (Genesis 1:31)? What more can I in my limited abilities as a human being do to measure up to what my finite human understanding thinks is “perfection”?

Ultimately, it all boils down to the trust I have in God. What I desire to have is not half, not 7/8 but one that is wholehearted and genuine. And with this trust and surrender to God, one can surely be blessed and feel the peace and joy that comes from our Heavenly Father.

(:

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Everyone deserves a second chance…

I find it very hard to comprehend why anyone would ill-treat animals. These creatures not only give you undivided love and attention, they also don’t bear any grudges against you.

But perhaps I’m biased since I do own a dog myself, but if you wouldn’t tie a child to a tree and leave him to suffer under pouring rain, I don’t see why or how anyone can do that to a dog.

Sigh. I can’t take another dog in so this is the next best thing I can do. So if anyone has a heart to rescue this poor fella and give it all the love it deserves for the rest of his life, do contact my friend!


And this is the story that comes with it:

“My friend and I found this maltese in beach road, near the army market, tied outside a police post. Was told by the police that he was left there since morning and under the rain for the entire day until we passed by at about 5pm. His fur was all matted and he had a strong stench coming from him. We brought him straight to the groomer to have all his fur shaven off and afterward to see the vet. According to the vet, the maltese is about 8 years old and is healthy except for a heart murmur which is not clinical as yet.

He is very active for his age and loves going out. He is very intelligent and behaves much like a 3 year old! But he may not be able to get along with other male dogs. He got quite attached to my friend and I during that few hours we were together but we are unable to keep him. I’m sure he will be able to adapt fast to his new home. Thinking back about how he was abandoned under the rain really pains me a lot. I couldn’t hold back my tears in front of the guy working at SPCA as I knew that if i were to let him go, his life will end. Every dog, whether young or old deserves an equal right to live. He has many more good years to come as long as his heart condition remains as it is.

Please give this boy a second chance to live life to the fullest. Do consider adopting him and giving him a nice and loving home!”

(If you would like to help by putting up these pictures on your own blog, please don’t hesitate to do so!)

(:

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The case of the mysterious missing money…

Someone please tell me why a whopping $250 is earmarked when I haven’t spent a single cent using my debit card?!!

GEEZ!

How very frustrating, irritating, scary and annoying.

Hopefully I find out what is going on soon.

Sigh.

Especially now when every single cent counts!

😦

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Fashionably Green

First it was the Anya Hindmarch bag, then the Cole Haan Market Bag, and now its Marc Jacobs!

I suppose it is fashionable to go green, or at least to be seen as green since I don’t really know how much these designers really care about the environment (or the amount of paper they waste while scribbling down their ideas and designs…) but I do know that the enviro-friendly bags they make are pretty sweet.

Here’s are two  I came across while surfing around from Mr MJ:

Tada! How cute are these two? Especially the penguin one! The one of the left is the “Miss Marc Goes Green Pole Shopper”  and the other is “Miss Marc Goes Green Earth Shopper”.

But unlike the one from AH and CH, this one takes the cost of going green to a whole other level – it costs a whopping USD$128, which roughly translates to about SGD$197.

Gosh. With a price tag like that, I hope that some of the proceeds are going into helping some green movement or campaign.

Looks like this is one bag I’m gonna have to give a miss. There are definitely a million and one other and much cheaper ways to care for the environment!

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A Lit Student watching Cartoons

Out of all the cartoons on Disney Channel (yes, I do have and watch Disney Channel), the one I enjoy the most is Phineas and Ferb.

To quickly run through the whole theme of the cartoon series, its basically about two stepbrothers (obviously Phineas and Ferb) on their summer vacation. Everyday, they would think of what to do and then build/construct/design outrageously impossible and over-the-top extraordinary inventions to help them achieve their goal for the day. Inevitably, they would annoy their sister Candace whose only goal seems to be to expose their unbelievable inventions to their mum. But, somehow or another, the inventions would disappear before their mum can get to see it. This is in part , most unintentionally, thanks to their undercover agent and pet platypus Perry  (a.k.a Agent P) and his enemy Dr. Doofensmirthz.

Ok, now that all the obligatory introductions are out of the way, here is one of the songs Dr. Doofensmirthz sings (one of many in every episode) that was particularly hilarious:

What I find so funny about it are the little quirky details – like the fact that Perry becomes unsuspectingly clasped to the seemingly harmless and ordinary looking chair, Dr. Doofensmirthz telling Perry “No Pressure”, how Perry effortlessly slides out of the clasp and picks up a musical programme sheet, how the round hat manages to stay/fits on Dr. Doofensmirthz’s cone-shaped head, how Perry claps at the end of the show and puts his arms back into the clasp, and the fact that Dr. Doofensmirthz has to pay his dancers at the end of his show (unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video on YouTube that captured this part).

I suppose I like how this cartoon is rather intelligent, in a sense, that compared to other cartoons  (popeye, road runner, power puff girls etc. etc.), this one has its almost grown-up jokes of irony and satire whilst others are just about fighting bad guys and well, more fighting of bad guys.

Heehee.

I’ll put up more when I do remember to find them on YouTube.

Looks like cartoons, even on Disney Channel, aren’t exactly for kids anymore.

(:

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Don’t Celebrate too Soon!

The interview went well. I actually didn’t feel nervous talking with the interviewer. (whom I suspect is the director of the school, but I could be wrong. I didn’t bother to ask.)

But I won’t take the credit and say I was confident because I was definitely shaking up until the interview started. And then it just faded.

I think it was all the waiting around and anti-climax of the whole process which God allowed to happen. (It just proves the power of prayer! And a very merciful God….)

First of all, I waited like almost 10 minutes all alone in a quiet classroom. And then the HR girl walks in and hands me both the form to fill up and a writing test.

Both at the same time? And she left without telling me how long I had to fill them both up.

So after a while, its about 4.45pm and students start streaming in because there’s a class scheduled to take place at 5pm.

And because of that, I have to grab all my stuff and move out. Good thing I was just about done with my writing otherwise I’d have to do it on an uncomfortably low side table.

The HR girl takes my papers away and then I wait patiently for another 10 minutes without any idea who is coming to interview me.

10 minutes later, my interviewer walks in.

By the time we actually start, I’m already tired out, super sian and just dying to get it all over with. (Note to self: if HR person schedules for interviews to start at sleepy 4.30pm, request for it to be rescheduled.)

So blah blah blah, he asks questions, I essentially bluff my way through (oh admit it. you do it too.) and he shakes my hand and the whole saga is over.

But wait (pun intended), there’s more waiting to be done as he asks to have some of my magazine articles photocopied.

As expected of all good interviewees, I smile and say “Sure! No problem. Take your time with it. There’s no hurry.” And lo and behold, he took my words to heed and the HR girl only came back to return my portfolio a good 10 minutes later. (How long does it take to photocopy a few pieces of paper!)

Of course by now, I’m just itching to get out and find my mum who has been patiently waiting for me. (There’s a whole lotta waiting going on…)

And so we take the train home.

And my mobile phone rings when we are exiting Hougang station.

And I can’t find my phone so I rummage through my bag.

(Here’s the connection with the title.)

And I find the “Visitor” tag that I had to exchange my IC for at the reception.

GAHHHHHHHHHH.

So troublesome I tell you. Now I have to go all the way back to United Square to give them back the tag that I never even bothered to hang around my neck (And hence forgot all about it. Yes yes. I admit it was my own fault.) and no one else cared whether I had it on or not.

Boo.

I knew it was too early to celebrate the minute I was freed from the freezing cold room.

But all in all, God really did and does work in our most nervous moments. He never ever leaves us and is there all the time, even if things don’t turn out the way we want it too.

Including the tag I forgot to return.

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the delicious taste of snail mail

Sms, instant messaging, email… let’s face it, with technology heavily ingrained in our everyday routine, we have been accustomed to the concept of having things happening in an instant.

The minute we click “send”, your client receives an email reply with all the necessary attachments. The minute we press enter, your friend receives details of a 21st birthday party and almost immediately replies with a “Yes, I’m going!”. The minute you click “confirm transfer”, $25.99 leaves your bank account and goes into the account of a blogshop owner.

But interestingly and oddly enough, the very last example exhibits how the fast pace of technology, or more specifically the Internet, collides with the archaic and traditional way of communication – that is the use of snail mail.

Take for example, (based on the humble experience of yours truly) an order of a year’s subscription of drool-worthy Aussie magazine Delicious from Amazon.com. With a few simple clicks of the mouse, the subscription was added to the basket, checked out and paid for. All this happened within a few minutes in December 2008.

But only today, on 28 January 2009, did the first magazine arrive at my doorstep and into my outstretched and excited arms (courtesy of my dad. Of course, like all mail, it ended up in the mailbox first.)

Personally, as much as it was painful waiting in eager anticipation for the magazine to reach sunny Singapore, it is a much welcomed feeling amidst all the constant bombardment of “Now! Now! Now!” and “I want to see it in 5 minutes.” It also reconnects (if I may use a technology related verb) us to the oft-forgotten trait of patience, something I’m very sure our parents had a lot more chances to cultivate than we do now.

In that period of time that that the waiting game took place, it also created a silent hype around that particular item we’ve been anxiously looking out for and ultimately, making us treasure it fully when its finally within our reach. Trust me on this one, I’ve already read the magazine twice and I still want to flip through its mouth-watering pages another time.

Well, now that I’ve given you a little lesson on life (and a blog post which has been long overdue), if you would so kindly excuse me, I’m going to feast my eyes (pun intended) on the luscious pictures of rib-eye steaks with wasabi butter and hotcakes with orange ricotta all over again.

Yum.

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Now I know what they call it HAPPY birthday…

An absolutely pleasant surprise, a delicious dinner, a decadent birthday cake, not one but two presents and a whole lotta love.

That basically sums up my 23rd birthday. Thinking about it makes me smile all over again.

My brother certainly wasn’t lying when he said “spoil market” because it was JY who orchestrated the entire thing. From telling me “we’ll have dinner, just the two of us” from the start and misleading me (literally, he told me we were going Pariss to eat. Waraku is at the other end.) right up till I saw my parents in the restaurant and then bluffing me again about not having a birthday cake when one from St. Pierre appeared (Grandma Stroobant’s Flourless Belgian Chocolate Cake from St. Pierre no less).

As if all that wasn’t enough (I was already totally beaming and grinning like a cheshire cat) he presented me with an envelop (naughty fella used his company’s envelop). On the top it says, nicely printed in stylish curvy font, “To satisfy the Literature Worm in you”. Flipping over was an invoice from Amazon.com with an order of “The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus 16-Ton Megaset”. But wait, there’s still more! While I was a clapping my hands in sheer excitement he presented me with another envelop. Similar to the first, this one read “To satisfy the Foodie in you.” Again, another Amazon.com invoice. This time it was for a whole year’s subscription of Delicious magazine.

What really touched me is not the presents but the fact that he knows exactly what would make me happy and puts in so much effort. He remembered how I said I was upset about no birthday dinner last year and this year obviously made it a point to ensure one would take place. On top of that, the presents were not something I told him I wanted. Rather, he paid attention and noted the things I liked. Especially the Monty Python Dvd set which I think I seldom mention or only pointed it out when we were at HMV once or twice. His generosity also overwhelmingly shows how much he loves little ol’ me which in all honesty can be very annoying, unreasonable and just plain stubborn.

Above all, i thank God for being so gracious and giving me such a wonderful person to love and be loved by. Of course not forgetting my amazing parents for the “stawberry and chokolat” chocolates and my brother who so generously gave me $40 worth of Kinokuniya vouchers. To Elliott too for coming and adding in his signature witty comments, making the dinner and car ride home even more memorable. Thanks also to Janet for the present (which I’m excited to use before the sale ends)!

Special thanks to Ally for cleverly deducing it was my birthday yesterday from my msn nickname today and treating me to a yummy lunch at Sushi Tei!

(:

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’tis the season to be…

exhausted and flat out broke.

and I’m not even done with buying Christmas presents.

sheesh.

so much for being jolly.

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