full of petals

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red

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petals full
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mourning

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pleasant
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Crysanthemums. It's just amazing how it comes with many variants - from dainty daisy-like to pompous pompons. I usually brush them under 'pai ang kong' flowers or as a herb for drink. That is until I received a bouquet from Sunday Skol. After staring long at it, i decided that it's pretty. Here's some taken with my old nikon 5100, compact (with some touch-up in photoshop).

xien xhang jin tian

The beginnings of each day traces its tune from yesterdays shadow. I couldn't smile on Monday. three unhappy events visited me.

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The first visit came in the middle of my sleep. A scream from my tummy. 3 times I bombed the toilet. I was so lethargic the next morning that I went late to work. It didn't help to put a smile on my face when special jungle-iban-style food was served during lunch at office. No, i had porridge. Which I spilled half of it while driving to work btw.

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My 2nd visitor came through a phone call to usm. I called in to check on my scholarship status; the clerk (which I have chased for a few months) gave me another story. I almost cried. Actually i did. A tear or two. But my colleagues aren't around to witness (they were having staff training which contract workers like me don't share the priviledge of attending;p), so i can write whatever i like here.

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Just when I thought the gods had enough of mocking me, another another visitor came in the evening. The atm refused to spit out my money. I keyed in the amount, got the bank slip and card returned but no cash came out. This was at shell in persiaran tujuan. Funny thing was the station attender said banyak-pun ini berlaku. What th?

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But of cause we can let our unhappy visitors punch us into into its mold (which i did. I read 3/4 of my 200 page camera operating manual just to hold my mind) or allow some sunshine to slip through. Some happy things that I can smile at:

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today I vacuumed oasis (youth centre in subang). I feel so proud of myself for doing something uninstructed. (I have to confess that i seldom volunteer for housework though). The funny thing was i accidently sucked a boy's sock inside the vacuum cleaner. The poor owner tried very hard to get it back. In the end he decided to let it rest inside the machine when he saw it buried in dust. It was the joke of the day at oasis! hehe. I even had the cheek to ask why he threw away the other side. (actually, it wasn't an accident. I thought of cleaning his socks that was found lying at the carpet. Didn't know that the vacuum cleaner would eat it up. ophs)

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I got my first dSLR ! that is after 7 hours of camera shopping from pudu plaza to law yat on sat. Well, my colleague helped me decide. Otherwise i would have gone home camera-less and decided-less (as usual). I have started toying with it's 11 AF-points (do we need that many/?), shutter speed and aperture... looking ahead to collect my tamron bag, external flash and a close-up lens (later's a gift. yay!). Macro shots are my favourite... I came across Clive Nichols (renowned garden photographer) on a magazine during lunch just now.

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this purple flower blooms at sunrise and fades in the evening

the title written in chinese pinyin means 'sacrificing today'. It's taken from the lyric of a chinese song. The piece is about dedicating each day for God and crucifying our lifes at the cross with Him. I can't crawl out of bed this morning. But this song shone some eternal perspective on me.

infatuation

the deep dark hours of night...

the moon shines its face on thieves on the garden wall

Tom the squally cat strolls fancifully on your car

Oscar Owl stares into your room and hoot

and mr mole is burrowing under your flower bed..

Strucked by cupid's arrow, my sudden infatuation with childhood stories sent me digging through the book chest to hunt for this book (ecstatic to have find it !!!)... its illustrations and poems so stirred my imaginations and now decades later my memory awakes...

see what creatures are digging below or hiding above (image below). I used to shut my curtains tightly before i sleep in case a tarsier might stare at me;p Strangely, some of the things i dot on as a child which was buried for long began to sprout in recent years:

drawing - fascination with the obscure creatures (usually living above or under ground) - love of cuddly soft-toys - play - cartoons (jojo's circus and strawberry short-cake is so colorful. my eye's so attracted by it la; winne the pooh, rugrats and sesame street has got great character development; won't go for cartoons with one hero or which i can't tell the characters personality apart)...

* image above: bed time story by ladybird; image below: my favorite bedtime stories by optimum books, 1982.

gender equality or inequality?

Do women yap more than men?

We're all familiar with fact that women speak an average of few thousand words a day, while man can survive with just a few hundred morphemes. A new study found both sexes to be not very different after all when it comes to word length.

Using EAR (electronically activated recorder) which samples 30 secs of ambient noise every 12.5 mins on ~400 students, the results on both genders were even on daily averages: women at 16,215 words and men at 15,669.

So there, guys - u can talk one!! hah ! & you can't use your genetic make-over as an excuse for your silence or absence too. nya-har ! However the other myth of women being more 'pak gua' than man still can't be dispelled ;p

*winks*

While Beauty and the Beast is culturally accepted, Witchy and the Hunk might not seem as tempting? Can you even imagine yourself lining up at the cinema for this title? (ya, maybe in horror movies, so suggested a friend). Plus, i realize movies nowadays are shifting from Pierce Brosnan with muscles and charms to average Joe with a hot chick on a mission. (i.e Austin Powers, Transformers). Maybe the producers are making certain sensations more achievable to Joey (whose eyes are heavily glued to the idiot box with a packet of chips)... however, certain expectations on girls are still unchanged.

How unfair hur?

Well, just some quirks for the day la :)

July Blues

the amazing chinese stomach

chinese #1 : Hey look, what's this mysterious thingy? (poke poke)
chinese #2 : bu zhi dao (shakes head)... Let's make soup out of it! maybe it'll cure ah ma fr her illness.

"Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinasaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers." (excerpted from today's The Star, w44)

dad told me that our yellow skin friends turned bones inscripted with ancient chinese text (jia gu wen) into medicine as well.

Humored? how about shark fins, porcupine hair, turtle tails? they're just few doors away in our local chinese pharmacies.

July July

July is mad.

* applications and more applications to go.

* one assignment.

* another english proficiency test to sit for. (my toefl expires next month, so gota retake it again. i find the 2 years shelve-span rather amusing. as if my english level's gonna drop after 24 months.)

* decisions, decisions... should i get married or not ? should i secure a place to study locally first (in case the overseas thingy tak jadi) or continue work...(my boss says "just trust God". maybe i tat's all i need. btw, was kiddin' on the first query)

July July

My parents

Meanwhile, pa & ma are getting more concerned over my safety esp whem i'm out at night. I'm not. Coz i hardly read newspapers. but i can't help it if they do & start imagining things...here's em':

* mom called at 10:50pm last sat when i was out to check on me. Last time it was b4 12am. (says she can't sleep if i'm driving alone. well, one of our neighborhood security guard trespassed a maid, so i guess she lost faith in em')

* So dad offered to chauffeur me for night meetings or outings. (oh no... wic filial daughter will ask their retiring parents to ferry them around? i'd rather stay at home)

I'm gonna be like Rapunzel after certain hour. Can only let down my hair to communicate to the rest of the world ;p Or will think of some win-win solution.

July July

Spain & Rome -music

Joseph Colom was flawless with his fingers last sun. I couldn't tell whether he was on the harp or piano. Well, I was hopping for someone younger with more passion on the spanish piece. But Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Falla was scenically beautiful.

* Dorian Wilson's conducting of Respighi & Falla sounds ting-ling-ly enchanting. lots of fairy sparkles.

* btw, I sat on row N (the premium row, smack right in the middle with plenty of leg space) with a student rate. (can still fake thru as a student ;p).

* i just realize while i'm not a fan of romance (you can count the love novels i've read with one hand. they're not mine anyways), i love art & stories that sends you to a far-away land. :)