This is beautiful.

You are constant
And fearless--
And despite the darkness threatening to consume your whole,
You send your face to the dirt.
And there in the rain and the earth
And all the beautiful complexities of grit,
You see why I can never join you.
Under the gardens of darkness you dig your tunnels
While I take in the sunrise above.
At last the rain stops and I am clean
And though the sun will never reach your face--
In muddy caverns
I still find your passionate ruin entrancing.
And I will keep your place in the sun.

~ By Shawna Howson.

Not Sure.

Lately I've been thinking about..well, just things in general. Friends. Work. Last night I met some of my college friends whom I'm still very close with. Being with them seem so easy and effortless. We got close because of the things we had in common, real friends who have been with me for the past five years or so.

You know you reach a point in your life: when you feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? Or when you feel like meeting new people is exhausting rather than exciting because you're tired of the small talk but the not-so-new people aren't exactly the ones that keep you inspired?

I found it far easier to meet and talk to people that I truly was interested in knowing when I was back in university. Somehow the 9-6 routine does manage to take away the excitement of making some real friends, one with which you don't have to be superficial with.

Work life is so different. Your friends are your colleagues whom you see everyday in the office environment, who you share your lunch breaks with. Take those away, and what's left?

I don't know. I'm kinda rambling. Not sure what I'm getting at. Maybe I just miss college days. Being an adult isn't as merry as it seemed.

Smiley.

Another Week.

Whenever I meet someone new, or in that phase or just getting to know someone, I always like to ask a lot of questions. How do you know someone otherwise, right? So I thought, I can do it here. The problem is, aside from probably 2 of my family members, nobody else actually reads this. (Speaking of which, I have to ask my sisters when was the last time they logged in here) So sad. The story of my life.

What's sadder is asking a question and having myself answer it! But what to do, right? Anyway, I come across a blog in another person's website with some interesting questions. So here's what I'm gonna do. Whenever I feel like it (read: have no more interesting subject to write about), I'll post each question and we'll see.

For someone with lots of opinion (and unable to shut up), this could be fun. You can answer it too and we'll..um, get to know each other better. (although I'm already in first-name basis with both my sisters. How 'well' do you want us to get?)

(You know I'm kidding, don't you?)

So, yeah! Let's get that on next! But first things first, I just would like to write some updates in the past week. Work? You really wanna know? Well. It's going fine, I suppose. I love my customers and all, but sometimes I'm so frustrated I wanna just scream on top my lungs: GIVE ME A BREAK! It's bad enough that these days I have to always work on Saturdays when I'm not supposed to, but even on Saturday night, or on a Sunday, I keep getting calls and texts from customers.

Alright, alright. I'm gonna stop right here. I'm gonna end up complaining more than I should if I continue. So let's move on, shall we? Over the weekend I started watching season 8 of 24, which is pretty good! My friend was really awesome for burning the complete season on CD. I think I have to treat him dinner or something. I've started rereading Harry Potter again. Last night we watched the 7th installment on DVD again so it seems right to read the last book before the movie comes out next week.

I also impulsively booked a ticket to Hong Kong for next year!

I know, it's so not me to be impulsive, but I did it!

I'll get nervous thinking what I'm gonna do if I really have to travel alone, so I'm not going to. It's still a couple months away so I figured there's plenty of time for my friends to join me (or me to chicken out?) It's exciting though!

Met some old friends on Friday night which was really fun!

Hope you had a nice weekend too and we'll catch up soon! ♥

Now this is not worth reading.

You know I'm feeling bored when I'm starting to goof around with my camera and taking pictures and all.

At least Monday is over. Catch up with you soon!

Quote of the Day

After everything, I still believe this world is a beautiful place.

October Highlights

Oh my gosh, this month is passing by so quickly! I almost couldn’t believe when I woke up and saw the calendar the other day. It’s already November?! Shopping malls are starting to put Christmas decorations, and more than once I had to stop myself just to think about what a year it has been!

Alright, so I haven’t exactly found cure for cancer, or won any lotteries. I probably haven’t made significant changes to anyone’s lives but I feel like I have changed a great deal and gone through a lot! Wow, now this sounds like something I should write at the end of the year!

Yeah, fine. I’m gonna stop myself here then. Otherwise I won’t have much to talk about again coming December.

Just thought it might be appropriate to write some snippets of the things that’s been happening this month, since I hardly blog anymore (again, not that I don’t want to!) I hope I can redeem myself (and my typing skills.) Oh, by the way, I’m writing this on my laptop at home on a Friday evening, while the television is playing in mute. The only sound I’m hearing is my own tapping of keyboards and tickles of waters from the pool outside my unit. Ah, complete bliss.

1) Phuket trip (01-04 Oct)
First time going to Phuket and first time travelling with my two dear colleagues! I thought I was going to have a relaxing weekend abroad when I could just lay down in the beach and sun tanned all day long, and got drunk every night. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Reality was, it was a full-packed action weekend, filled with adrenaline-rush, lots of raining and getting wet, body-aching, crazy midnight bar actions involving pingpong shows and serious stripping acts.

Don’t act so innocent! Haha. Naked girl, ping pong balls, birds, needles. Very flexible and multifunctional vagy-gy. Use your imagination. It was hilarious! It was an eye opening experience, I’m telling you. At one point the bird used landed on my lap! I swore right there and then that I would burn my pants as soon as I got home.

A full day trip to Phi Phi island, went snorkelling and swimming by the beach, tried wakeboarding and had lots and lots of tom yum soup and not enough massages. All in all it was a good trip nonetheless. It stirred up my travel bug and I’m already looking forward to my next vacation!

2) Wedding dinner at Grand Copthorne (06 Oct)
My dearest former colleague invited me to her wedding reception on a Wednesday night. Although I came straight from work with dishevelled face, it was one of the most memorable wedding I’ve been to! It was great to see all my former colleagues again and you know, up to this point I’ve been to lots of weddings of my dad’s friends, and my sisters’ friends, but not so many of my own friends’. Knowing the bride or groom personally just made the whole evening more beautiful and I even teared up during the procession as the groom was given some tasks to get to the stage. At one point he was asked, “What do you love most about Eileen?” I think I don’t have to recite his answers to tell you that this moment was when I almost cried! The food was some awesome 7-course dinners which made me feel super guilty (but happy). After attending a friend’s wedding I always feel like getting married myself!

3) A ‘passionate’ cruise at sea ! (07 Oct)
Being in this yacht line of business, I have lots of customers asking all sorts of questions you can possibly think of about the cruise and the itineraries they can expect. My boss thought it would be great for me to experience what I’m selling. So he brought us along for an evening cruise with ‘Passion’ to highlight the different islands and activities we can do during the trip. I had a lot of fun! The boat was a 33’ motor cruiser and it could go really, really fast! We sat outside by the deck while the boat was cruising in full speed, and I don’t even want to imagine how silly I must have looked with my hair flying in all directions! I can see why some people just fall in love with the life at sea. People who love boating rarely turn back. You either love it, and try to be near the sea whenever you can, or you don’t and the thought of spending 4 hours in the boat made you feel sea sick.

4) Eat, Pray, Love (08 Oct)
I couldn’t remember the last time I watched a movie, probably since Inception. It was tad too long and I was really excited to see Eat, Pray, Love with my two girlfriends. The movie was delightful and entertaining from start to finish. I haven’t read the book, so comparison couldn’t be made, but I really admired Julia Robert’s character. It takes a lot of guts to really just go away to somewhere foreign and detach yourself from ‘real’ life. Although, at the end of it, one might wonder, which life is real? When your life is made of pretenses, isn’t it almost a sin to yourself to stay?

After which we went to Chijmes for some drinks. Le Baroque really had one of the best live music I’ve ever seen! From “The Empire State of Mind” to “Love the Way You Lie”, I lost track of time!

5) Little Nicolas and more Le Baroque (16 Oct)
My colleague and I have been talking about having a French night out which included seeing a French movie, having a French dinner and talking in French and ending the night at a French bar! Well, so it didn’t exactly go that way, since the only French word I knew was ‘Oui’ and after like, three times saying it, it got old quickly. I realized too that you couldn’t really have a conversation with just that one vocabulary.
Me: “Oui?”
Sam: “Oui oui!”
Me: “OUI!!!”
Sam: “Hm...Oui!!!”
Me and her: “.........”
See what I meant?

Catching the French movie was easy enough. The Picturehouse was showing this really adorable cute movie Little Nicolas! It was a feel-good, funny flick which really got me happy afterwards. We thought of sneaking cans of beer into the cinema but we ended up having the beer before the movie. Classy indeed. Anyway, it was a great night that ended with dancing and beers. (I’m certain the French won’t approve of that!)

6) Halloween night! (30 Oct)
The title pretty much explained itself. I tried being Kat Von D although I think it was more like the ‘Before’ version of her, or perhaps the Kat Von D if she had never made it to television. Kat Von D without the money and personal trainer! How terrible! I had to put on tattoos in both my arms and put on long black wig, heavy make-up and stars at the side of my face, and although I looked ridiculous, it was fun getting ready! When else am I able to dress up like that, right? We went to Clarke Quay and it was packed like a can of sardines! Inside the club I could hardly move and it was skin-on-skin with the people around you all night long! I’m still undecided whether I liked it, but well. Half of Singapore population must have been in that club that night!

Apart from these, I’ve been doing another freelance writing job. I did the last article in basically one day! But my editor seemed to like the writing, so no complaints here. If you want to see, here are my previous published articles for Mind+ magazine.

What a month! November is gonna be even busier as I'm bracing myself for more work. But hey, ready or not, here I come!

Check them out.

By the way, just in case you're wondering what the two big icons are doing in the right side of my blog, well. Those are basically my life these days.

I'm promoting and doing sales for Neo Yacht at least 5 days a week. Add some impromptu, unplanned, out-of-the-way things I'm doing over the weekend, it's pretty much a handfull. Do check out the link and 'like' it on Facebook, because otherwise, we're not friends anymore.

Teehee. Kidding, of course.

And the new project is the online store I'm helping out with. It's very new, so not many people know about it. It'll be really awesome if you can help spread the words to your friends. Check it out yourself too; we've just launched our first collection and it's a really exciting process. Basically we know that some people are apprehensive about shopping clothes online because they aren't certain of the quality since they can't see and feel the materials upon buying. Yet, at the same time, these days online shopping has become really common because people are getting busier and sometimes it's really just a matter of convenience, buying things online and having them delivered to your doorstep without the hassles of shopping. That's the inspiration we have to launch this store. All the garments and pieces that you see here are in good qualities and we don't compromise quality over quantity.

Alright, I know I'm probably rambling. Anyhow, we do have a link to our Facebook page there and the website where you can see all our collections. I welcome any suggestions or comments and supports are deeply appreciated!

Sorry I haven't been writing much. It's long weekend now so I'm gonna try writing something tonight. In the mean time, feel free to browse around and I'll catch up with you soon!