3-day Adventure

It was another adventure to remember.

When it first started on Thursday night, everything went wrong when the bus left Singapore. A tired little girl, missing and wanting to see her boyfriend sooner, a different bus and seat was allocated to her (not as comfortable), and a frustrated boyfriend over the phone at the swapping situation.

But it all changed when she arrived in Penang. Though her eyes were sore from crying and her emotions hurt, it was all forgotten with an explanation from the boyfriend regarding his frustration at the situation - not at her. The bus company were the ones who 'manipulated' the little girl and that's what the boyfriend was angry over.

Everything was back to normal. TLC was put into place and the holiday began. After a late breakfast - Lorong Selamat Char Quey Teow - it was off to the mall for some shopping where the little girl bought a pretty hair clip. Then, they left for the beach. It was going to be their first time riding the jet ski and both were excited. It is an item on her 'things I want to do before I die' list - to jet ski. He was a little hesitant at the start, asking the little girl to take the front, to drive the jet ski. She started off slow, screaming and a little frightened to accelerate. As the waves came against them, she gave up, and her hero came to the rescue. Sitting behind her, he took the bars and started up. Accelerating, OFF THE WENT! She was safe between her hero's arms, screaming with excitment, semi-fear and laughter.



She enjoyed herself thoroughly. They rode out towards the horizon, sped over the sea as if they were skimming the surface, did leaps over the ocean's choppy waves, and drank bits of salt water.

The fun didn't stop. They continued with horse-riding on the beach. Sharing a horse, they rode romantically off into the sunset - NAH, they didn't. It was only 4+pm!



They spent the remaining hour or so lying on beach chairs under palm trees, sipping their cocktails and enjoying the blue blue sky.



Evening came and they set off for home, sitting in a jam for over an hour with rain batting down heavily on the car. Tummies were rumbling and bodies were shivering, but the journey home was not one bit boring - with a chit here and a chat there. When they got home, it was already 8pm! Walking across the street, they had dinner at the hawker centre just opposite their apartment - Penang Laksa, Jawa Mee, Buan Jian Kuey, Hokkien Mee - before retreating indoors for a night in.

The next day was another eventful fiesta. The couple went for Fried Fish Mee Fen (vermicelli) first, then a walk around a mall, before returning home to pick up the parents. Off they went to the southern most part of Penang for Crab Porriage, then made a detour to have Penang Laksa before heading home, oh wait, they made one more stop to buy some fruits from a roadside stall before going back - crossing to the main island via the famous Penang Ferry.



They rested in that night and for dinner - FRUITS.

On Sunday, the family went for dim sum, shopped around, ate Jawa Mee and Rojak at a hawker centre, went to the seaside to dig up clams (or whatever it's called) and picked home a few pretty seashells, saw Penang airport (tourist destination - haha) and then the couple dropped the parentals off at home before heading out again.

Baskin Robbins was the place. Ice Cream was the agenda. After chilling over fantastic ice cream, they got back into the car and went for a car ride in the heavy storm. Arriving home, they decided to have dinner at the hawker centre opposite. From the car to the hawker centre, they walked hand in hand through the rain, their legs and shoes soaking up with rainwater. The little girl giggled and laughed, enjoying every bit of the rain. The boyfriend looked on, smiling at her many expressions.

There, she ate fusion Buan Jian Kuey - Chicken Hawaiian flavour which included cheese, mushrooms, pineapple, chicken and ham. It was AMAZING! She was satisfied. They returned home to pack their bags and prepared for the journey back to Singapore.

Tired and burnt out from the 3 days of intensive fun, the little girl fell soundly asleep throughout the entire bus journey home.

Visit/Revisit

La la la la la. I've got nothing to do (technically I do, but I'm not in the working mood). I don't feel like working at all. I want a break. Can't wait for tomorrow evening, the start of my holiday. Though it's starting off with an overnight coach ride, but nevertheless, I'll be on a holiday. Took Friday off work to enjoy a full 3 day weekend in Penang. It's a recharge holiday. Talking about holidays, let me share with you my list of places I want to visit or revisit!

(1)
What: To revisit
Where: New Zealand, specifically Auckland
When: SOON (March/April 07?)
With: EK
Why: Miss my family, miss my friends, and I want to show EK the home where I've lived for the last 5 years.

The rest of the list is in no specific order.

(2)
What: To visit
Where: Taiwan
Why: SHOPPING! Never been there.

(3)
What: To revisit
Where: Korea, Seoul
When: Soon-ish
With: EK
Why: Coz EK says he wants to experience Korea's night life which he didn't get to do when he was with the tour group. And I want to go before all my friends in Korea forget about me.

(4)
What: To visit
Where: USA
When: Within the next 3 to 4 years
With: Whoever
Why: Coz James is there to be my tour guide! Must make use of resources. AND I WANT TO GO DISNEYLAND!

(5)
What: To visit
Where: Venice
When: In my lifetime
With: The person I love
Why: WHY NOT?!

(6)
What: To visit
Where: Japan
When: In my lifetime, hopefully when I'm below 30
Why: I want to go Harajuku/Shinjuku and dress (for one day) in those outrageous colourful outfits with wild hair to say 'been there, done that'.

(7)
What: To visit
Where: Germany
When: In my lifetime
Why: To rent a fast car and drive along that 'no speed limit' road. That is, if that's in Germany. I think it is.

(8)
What: To visit
Where: Hong Kong
Why: Just a place to go I guess, heard shopping is good there.

(9)
What: To visit
Where: Europe
Why: To see the castle among the clouds, to see the leaning tower, to see Michaelangelo's work, the list goes on!

sunnyside DOWN

This morning, I wanted to make breakfast for EK. He stayed over to keep me company in an empty house as my grandparents had gone on a church retreat. Thinking whipping up some eggs and sausages for breakfast shouldn't be too hard, I started the cooking at 7am.

The sausages were ok - not pretty but OK (had to dispose of the first 2 sausages).

The sunnyside UP became a sunnyside DOWN. It was a disaster. First, the egg stuck to the pan - HOW MUCH OIL DO YOU NEED TO USE?! Then when I tried scooping the egg off the pan, the sunnyside was disturbed and the runny yolk broke. It looked terrible on the plate - very sad in fact. I can manage a scramble but not a sunnyside up.

I was so disheartened and embarrassed, I went crying to EK. Tears were balling down my face as I cried about my atrocious cooking, swearing never to cook again. EK was most encouraging, even apologising for not waking up earlier to help. He came out and ate the egg. When I saw him eating the ugly and probably gone cold sunnyside up, I broke down again. It must have tasted terrible. I felt so bad. He felt even worse seeing me crying like that. He said it was nice. But I know he was only being nice.

WHY AM I SUCH A BAD COOK? AM I DESTINED TO BE A TERRIBLE HOUSEWIFE? I CAN'T EVEN SERVE THE MOST BASIC SAUSAGE AND EGGS, WHAT ELSE CAN I COOK?!

Beautiful.

Today is beautiful. I'm not stressed or gasping for air. The things I thought might arrive late was waiting for me in my mailbox when I arrived at work. Ahhh...everything is going great!

I'm in a fantastic mood today. This week is going to be a short week for me at work since I'm on annual leave on Friday. Taken it off to visit Penang and Langkawi! Going to hit some beaches and ride some waves - on a jet ski hopefullly!

I'm also alone in my little corner of the room as one account executive is somewhere in Anerica, roaming the streets and another is sick in bed. So I've cranked up Corrinne May and am enjoying my privacy - sketching new trinkets!

Ah...what a drastic change in tone, emotions, everything. From my previous 'Sob.' entry to this 'Beautiful.'

Indeed. Today, yesterday, the day before yesterday hasn't been great days for me.

Today, I didn't do well in my presentation. Yesterday's was better (even my boss says so). Sigh. And the horrid thing is, I was presenting to the general manager of my client company. Yesterday was only to the executive director. I don't know if we will get the job, but from the looks of their stern expression, I can only hope and wish and pray.

Yesterday's drama? Please, have a seat and LISTEN! Apart from spending my frantic morning from 8am to 10.30am getting ready for my presentation at 11am, and the slow computer which plays up just at the crucial moment, I also had to deal with another crisis. Another client of mine has got a hugh event next Monday. I'm in charge of handing all their 150 handouts folder (we still have missing pages which will only come tomorrow), their info cards, all their signages, etc.

The first panic attack came when the printers discovered incompatible fonts which displayed wrongly on their computer, which made text run out of place, which means - NO PRINT. So it came back to us and that whole afternoon, I was sorting out and converting the powerpoint slides to PDF but there was drama with technology which delayed the whole process. AND THE JOB HAD TO GO TO PRINT SOON IF NOT WE'LL BE LATE LATE LATE!! What happened? I finally found a computer (at the other end of the company) having MS Powerpoint. Yes, can you believe that only selected computers in our office has MicroSoft?! Then, after converting the slides to PDF (2 slides per page), the PDF came out blank as an error message detailing 'no such fonts installed' flashed in front of me. Thinking it was converted wrongly, I tried another several times. Still failure. So I returned to my computer, dishearted when I realised that same file that opened with errors on that computer opened fine on mine. So back I went to that computer to convert the remaining files, which was a tiring process of running to and fro to check because there were still other problems which I shall not go in detail. Finally, all was done by 3pm and passed on to the printers.

The second panic attack for the day was when I heard WE DON'T HAVE THE WHITE RING BINDERS. The supplier called our printers to say they didn't have enough ring binders - we had already ordered from them the quantity. They played us out. So at 4pm, I was off with our production manager and a staff from our printers to a warehouse to look for the binders. The good news? She had the white binders. The bad news? She only had 100. We needed 150!!! So all the way till today, I was worrying about this, until lunch time, when the printers informed us - ALL IS SOLVED.

The day before yesterday was another mad day, getting ready all the handouts that were going into the folder, organising the layouts, liasing with our clients to get the last minute information, etc etc etc. YEA. SOB.

Oh, and my boyfriend has left the company for 'greener pastures'. Yesterday was his last day. SOB to that too. AND I DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO ATTEND HIS FAREWELL LUNCH. Of course I'll get to see him at other times. It just means we won't see as much of each other coz we won't have lunch together, we won't bump into each other's paths while running around the office, we won't...basically, we won't see each other from 8am to 6pm. But of course, there's 6pm till bedtime to see each other...still...

Sob.

Inspiration

The lack of it is detrimental, especially in the creative/design industry. Sometimes I feel like I've got IT. Other times, I feel like my existance is worthless.

Where do you go to find new inspiration?

In the advertising world where there are so many messages flying around, nothing is truly new - just tweaked. In the design industry, a new look is often bounced off someone else' design - a new material here or a new colour there.

With an urgent deadline to meet, the creative team struggle to produce something of inspiration quality. It doesn't help when your boss has sold your company to your client with impressive archives of our previous achievements. On top of that, there is a lack of motivation (yet another recruitment TVC), a lack of time (storyboards, creative rationale and costing have got to be sorted in a matter of days), but most importantly, a lack of inspiration (especially when the client comes from a very specialised industry).

Somehow, I'm thankful I'm not part of the creatives. Of course my contributions are welcomed, but at the end of the day, I've learnt to accept that I'm just not gifted in this department. I wish I can be more creative, but...

Where do you go to find new inspiration?

In the design industry, with the lack of knowledge on good material suppliers and a lack of proper training by those who have been in the industry for longer, I find myself at a disadvantage. However, those are the least of my concerns. Inspiration is the key to producing something of beauty. The most challenging part is finding inspiration to design something with the materials we have. Sometimes I think to myself, though I have the materials, I may not have the gift. That's why I'm still exploring. I don't want to give up too soon. That's why I'm still searching for that spark.

And when inspiration do hits, the next challenge is converting this bit of inpsiration into reality. Sometimes, your inspiration ends up being tweaked and compromised due to limited materials, the texture of the materials, and the possibility of such a design.

So really...where do people go to find new inspiration?

It's boils down to stealing an idea here, ripping a tagline there. Nothing is truly new. Just tweaked. Revamped. Amended.

Do you agree?

Bored of me yet? You've asked me to update, hoping to hear some juicy details about my life perhaps, but you end up getting an 'article' on Inspiration. I find these last few entries of mine have been rather ambiguous. Please be patient. It's not easy opening up after disappearing for so long. Stay tuned for the next episode...

Insightful News/Useless Blabber

I'm back!

I'm sure all of you must have missed me? Well...at least some of you? Anyone at all? No? (Please excuse me as I wrote this paragraph without knowledge of my very active tagboard.)

Anyway, I've finally decided my blog have been left stagnant for far too long. Time to pick up the slack and write a good article or two. However, the fact is, I never write good articles anyway so why not end your reading misery - especially with my limited vocabulary, atrocious grammer, and world 'unimpacting' news.

But once in a while, I do feel like writing. I do feel like expressing my brainless imagination. I do feel like telling the world what I've been up to, even if it's really nothing.

So here I am, back in the act. And I'll try to keep this promise of updating my blog a little more often - hopefully with some insightful news and not useless blabber.