[ Me ]
Nickname: Ursula
Birthday: 7th January 1985
Zodiac: Capricorn
Where From: Singapore
Laidback, sensitive, fickle, easily-tickled, fiercely loyal
Manga and anime lover, enthusist, collector and critic/ Coffee lover, addict and expert maker/ Aspiring future wife of famous culinary chef/ Aspiring future wife of a 1.8m tall hunk
My Friendster link:
http://www.friendster.com/vivis
[ Likes ]
Sleeping, dancing, books, manga, anime, chocolates, coffee, Jap food, Italian food, Ayumi Hamasaki, people, my sister
[ Fave Books ]
Harry Potter series, Artemis Fowl series, The Inheritence Trilogy series, The Da Vinci Code, Memoir of a Geisha, I Don't Know How She Does It... and all my comics n manga!!!
[ Currently Reading ]
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
Inkheart
by Cornelia Funke
The Well Of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall
Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Seduced The West
by Lesley Downer
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being
by Milan Kundera
The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
[ The Wishlist ]
My Amazon.com Wishlist:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=yourlists_pop_1/103-2401787-9502236
Phillips MC235 Thin Stereo Microsystem
Kathy Van Zeeland bag
(saw on amazon.com going for bout US$65... Why dun Singapore stock her goods??! >.< I wan it in Topaz colour~!!!)
The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Inu-Yasha Theme Song Collection
12 Kingdoms/ Juuni Kokuki anime VCD sets
GUESS bag (darn, i dun have the $120 required to buy it now and i noe it'll be gone soon, Guess always changing their apparels every month or so u_u)
DKNY gold and crystal-studded watch (very ornamental, more a dress watch then an every-funtion watch. still, pretty~)
Mphosis pale gold SLIPPERS (i run through my shoes and slippers like they cost nth X/)
The BodyShop BLUSHER in Golden Pink
The BodyShop blusher BRUSH
Shiseido eyelash CURLER
Full-length wall MIRROR(s) for my room
A new big every-purpose BAG
Pretty SHOES
A Digital CAMERA
A bloody new PC or laptop with the speed of light and a gazillion GB of memory!! =[
The Sims 2 (PC game edition)
[ The Memories ]
Friday, April 28, 2006
That time of the year again
I have very sexy voice now. The same low, husky, sexy voice i have 3 to 4 times every year.
Yeah, i have THE FLU again.
Wad the hell? And its the exam period too!!
And dun even ask how i got it unless u wan to hear a string of curses and swearings (yes, i have the vocabulary of a sailor and all the pomp and gusto of a wronged politician when irked, so u might not wan to start me on that in person).
But if u absolutely must noe the gist of it (dun kid yaself, u noe u're aching to find out), i got it from sitting behind a big sized guy in lecture a couple days ago (i've nothing against big sizes, as long as the person in question isn't obscuring the view of half the white board or the cinema screen), who in addition to being big and moving around a lot, STANK TO HIGH HEAVENS WITH HIS CHEAP COLOGNE!!!
I suffered in excruciating silence for 3 hours ("Why dun change seats?", my mum asked, the lecture hall was packed to the brim, or why wud i be sitting behind Atilla the Hun?), first choking on the fumes and moving as far back as physically possible from him in the lecture chairs, then discreetly leaning on my hand and covering my nose with my fingers, then sneezing but still only demurely fanning the air in front of me, then, already suffering from a sorethroat and runny nose, opting to hold my breath and breathe through my mouth instead, and when that still din block out the fumes, i finally switched to pinching my nose shut and coughing audibly in the hopes that Atilla will stop fidgetting around at least and stop spreading his pungent odour about.
By breaktime midway through the lecture, my nose was already runny and my throat so sore and parched no amount of water or tea could prevent me from having the sorethroat i knew was developing.
No extra seats available when i scouted round during break, so when i retuned to the same Seat of Torture behind him when lecture resumed, i was already half way through my second pack of tissues and ready to kick the fellow and bruise him where the sun dun shine.
Pls lor, if u have BO or watever, please BATHE instead of trying to cover it up with CHEAP PERFUME can?? n at least if u really wan to use something to cover up the smell, some mild deodorant will do. And if u absolutely have to use perfumes, can u NOT USE CHEAP IMMITATION ONES?!! And if u absolutely, absolutely have to use ya cheap, no-good perfume, CAN U AT LEAST USE IT SPARINGLY so that pple sixteen rows and twenty-seven aisles away will not be able to smell ya CHEAP PERFUME??!!
And a result of that three-hours lecture in the Seat of Hell is this big flu that had culminated from the very bad sorethroat and runny nose i had when i left the lecture. GDI!!!
My sorethoats, depending on how bad it is and hows the weather like at that period and how well i can physically take care of it, will nearly always end up in a very bad bout of flu. Like two out of three times. And when i mean very bad, i mean the Patient-Zero kind, the kind that is so bad and so strong that if lucky, i'll recover from in 6weeks minimum, and if unlucky, very unlucky, half the class, our subject teachers, their immediate family and frens will still be taking MCs at home 6 weeks later. At least, that was wat happened during JC, when first my Econs, then Lit, then followed by both my Human and Physical Geog teachers and my form teacher got it from me or the class in general. (Ok, cue *guilt*)
Funnily enough, it is the frens who spend the most time with me who usually escaped the clutches of this quater-annually bad bout of flus, and those who contracted it directly from me, had to my recollection, spent no more than 10 mins alone with me (my Econs teacher, Ms Lai, whom i sat with and discussed some class work with in the timespan of one very short afternoon and whom later had taken 2-3 days MC bedridden at home and returned to school with laryngitis for a couple of days - cue *guilt* =( , i liked that teacher, and one of my Lit teachers, Anan, who somehow or other got it from me during one of the many fault-findings he had with me - HAHA! cue *snide laughter*). The frens or classmates i had spent the most time with in sec sch and JC were ironically usually left out of the classroom epidemic despite sharing close contact and breathing air no further than 10 inches apart from me most of the day (Xiangling, Hanxiang, Ian, the sec sch gang and JC clique). So wat does this shows? That it definitely pays to be Vivis' friends.
Hahaha, no lar. Probably, proximity builds immunity and thats why the pple who spends the longest time with me on a day to day basis hardly ever catch my cold even though they're exposed to every flu bout every year for several years (though not including my family, who sadly, are usually not spared from successive cases of either mild sniffles or the same heavy, antibiotic-swallowing colds).
But this being exam period, this bout of flu has really come at a wrong time. I cant afford to have med, get drowsy, fall asleep and not study, and i cant afford to not have med and not recover from it before my papers start.
Will visit the polyclinic for antibiotics tml. If only antibiotics can be bought over the counter. It'll save me the many quarter-annually trips to the doctor and the money spent on consultations on top of the med.
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 1:32 AM
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Crack
I like wat Oprah says about Chocolate-covered Macademia Nuts,
"This is addiction. If u've never had them before, beware. Its like CRACK."
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 8:26 PM
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Art Personality
Impressionism : Late 19th century | |
Of the styles of art we picked for the experiment, your answers suggest you like Impressionism. | Young woman powdering her face Berthe Morisot (1841-95) | Horse and cow in a meadow Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) | Two wine glasses John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
| The Marne at dawn, 1888 Albert Dubois-Pillet (1846-90) | Impressionist paintings often appear on mugs, calendars and posters. However, they weren't always so socially acceptable. Impressionist painters were initially criticized for attempting to capture the fleeting effects of light and colour found in nature. Using daubs of pure colour, they painted landscapes, sunlight reflecting on water and flowers and rejected the traditional subjects and darker colours advocated by their teachers. Claude Monet founded Impressionism in Paris during the 1870s and painted for more than 60 years. One of his works, 'Impression: Sunrise,' gave the style its name. Monet once said: "For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment... It is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value." | |
Yes, beauty is fleeting. But they become a memory to live by once captured on canvas or on film.
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 9:45 PM
Desired love affair
After a lifetime of picking up shit for people and growing jaded at all but the most moving of personal lost and tragedies, i am now only looking for partners who have the least amount of issues and baggage.
You can't really pick ya frens most of the time; they come and go as fate decrees. But u can choose ya partner.
Of cos, this requires a rational and non-judgemental eye for detail and character flaws before u fall headlong in love - something thats much of an impossibilty for those crush or 'love'-at-first-sights to achieve, since the pple in question are already blinded by their intense emotions and fail to see the bigger picture, i.e. the major characteristic flaws, personalities or lifestyles incompatibility that comes with all that good looks/ body/ charisma/ pheromones, watever.
Yeah, back to the subject. Being rational is a barrier to falling in love.
Before u could even feel anything for someone, ya mental brake kicks into action and u start asking yaself jus why u're attracted to or considering a person, analysing the roots behind that very reason to see if it has a healthy source or not, is it because he jus happens to be there when i'm lonely/ available/ frustrated/ in bad terms with family or the pple usually there for u, and u start examining all the person's faults and analyzing if the two of u could ever be compatible and the likely disagreements that could arise if u two do get together. Jus thinking about it is tiring. Yeah, anyway, the gist is over-rationalizing is a hindrance to falling in love.
The bottom line is, u are not rational when u fall in love. And when u're being rational, u tend to anticipate too many problems along the way and u can't fall in love.
I can never acknowledge to myself that i've fallen in love before, not becos i play hard to get, but becos i have always been rational and therefore i cannot fall in love. There is always something else to consider when it comes to the final point of committing to a relationship, and this over-rationalization is my biggiest bane and the poison that keeps me from allowing many possible frenships and relationships from blossoming (and hence my abysmal track record in love).
This, and that i'm satisfied with all my current frenships, which have been able to provide me with all my emotional needs that i've never seen the need to look for a boyfren to do the same. So when it comes down to it, its my sister's and my best frens' fault u may say. Since they've done such a good number on me i've never had to stray emotionally. And hence my abysmal track record in love (again). But then again, i'd never trade them for the world ;)
Its unreasonable to ask for a tussle-free relationship i know, for problems and over-coming them are part and parcel of building a better relationship.
But i'm a little ambitious. I aim to find and build a relationship where me and my partner need not have to fight or quarrel to sort out our problems. I aim for compromis in a good relationship. I'm not of the school of thought where they say having more fights and (especially jealousy-inducing) arguements will add sparks to a relationship and keep it from becoming dull. That may be true very occasionally like a couple of times in ya whole relationship, where (hopefully-unfounded) jealousy is inevitable. But imagine being in a relationship with a person who constantly makes u jealous or make u worried for him/her jus so that he/she may be reassured of ya love and concern for him/her? Isn't that a bit too much? Over-time, it gets too tiresome to continue and u either get too jaded to care which makes the person even more hurt, or u decide to break it off despite the pain it will cause u both, jus to have a peace of mind finally.
Thats why i'm for the idea that the ideal relationship should be one where the two could assimilate each other's differences and compromise through every stage in the relationship, and since assimilating every difference we have is difficult (especially if those differences are beliefs, personalities or even habits that are worlds part), the best thing wud be to find a partner who shares alot of similar values to you. In the long run (for those of us who're looking for a lasting relationship), i believe enriching a relationship (or even a frenship) is more important than making sure its 'exciting' and adding sparks by throwing in vinegar and salt every so often. Keeping the flame going is important and an occasional gentle fanning of the fire is quintessential, but that can manifest itself in many other ways (be inventive, creative, romantic, watever! jus not self-destructive) and it doesn't make sense to blow it all out of proportions at 50knots per hour and create a fire.
Until i can see a way past my over-rationalizing mind and look pass every nitty-gritty detail or can find a problem-free relationship with a person with the least baggage possible, i am content with my frens, my loving but unfortunate sister and two best frens (unfortunate becos they're always being pestered by me. hey, i may not need a boyfren, but i need as much loving and affection as the next person! so they jus have to suffer wif me, heh).
//
On the side: This entry was written in two parts during the afternoon and this eveing (becos my compt crashed on me in the middle of writing it!), while in my conversations on msn, coincidentally, my best fren is saying she loves me in the afternoon (as in the time the msn conversation takes place, not the timespan of her love, lolx!), and later in the evening, another good fren is telling me i think too much as usual. Funny how it all coincides with my entry content today. How i dun need a relationship becos having my best frens is love enough and how this entry really was the result of thinking too much, lolx! =p Ah well, at least the result of my thinkiing too much has produced this long-delayed blog update for ya entertainment and enlightenment hasn't it? *smirks* ;P
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 7:01 PM
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Endorphins releasers
Dancing is a really good mood-uplifter.
And now that exams are coming up and i dun have the time to go out for my hour-plus run twice a week (ok maybe i do, but in addition to warm-ups, cool-downs and after exercise showers, which makes the whole activity effectively 2hours or more, time which i cant afford to waste), i find the occasional dancing to the TV soundtracks and songs on the radio a good way to keep those thigh muscles tone.
Though of cos, who needs reasons for dancing?
Some pple need to go to the clubs or be on the dance floor in order to dance. Of cos, the ambience, music and lighting in the environment plays a big role in enhancing the mood to dance. And u can dance with some very good dance partners (ya own frens or otherwise) there which u may not have at home. But i find that as long as there's good music that makes u can't stop yaself from moving to its beat, there can be good dancing anywhere. Yes, even in ya own home living-room :)
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 8:13 PM
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Coffee myth: how true is it?
Recently, i've heard so much about how caffeine will help one lose weight that i cant help commenting about this -- its all BULLSHIT.
And if it is true, i hate to think how even more obese i will be otherwise if i'm not inhaling it at the rate i am now. 3-4 cups a day is regular for me. More if i'm actually studying. Even more come exam time, when i've been known to consume so much i might as well jus shove a funnel and a hose down my throat.
Granted, its weight-losing effect may be offset by all that milk and sugar with the coffee (sorry arh, i drink kopi, not kopi-o). But u wud think that all that caffeine i consume every day should amount to something rite? Or maybe i should jus be grateful that though i haven lost weight from consuming caffeine, at least i havent gained any (i think) from it.
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 8:03 AM
Inauguration. Question-mark.
Be excited. Be very excited.
Because Ursula is thinking of finally going into the manga-translating business.
That is, if Ursula can retreive her nickname back in cyberspace.
It really sucks to use other nicks, which somehow or other feels wierd and irrelevant.
Damn the $#^$&@*&#@~$^% who registered my nick, phoooey!
If i can't get back my nick, am not sure wat others to establish myself with already. Afterall, if i do start translating, aside from my IP address, it'll be wat pple recognize me for already on the channels.
Haha, though another school of thought wud be using my own name. It sounds enough like a nickname no one wud guess for sure. But there's also the probability of Singaporeans getting their hands on those works. Licensing shitez and stuff, you can never be too sure. Not wise.
Ok, aside from all the "contributing to the online-manga community" spirit, i've to admit i've got more selfish reasons for picking up this new past-time.
Since i've entered university, my Chinese has gone to the dogs. My English has gone to the cats. And my writing ability in both (or watever i have of it) has gone to the rats. Not a very pretty picture as u can imagine. So i'm picking up some translating work in the hopes that my once fluent translating skills wud not have left me totally. Though quite truthfully, it is already NO WHERE NEAR the days when i could verbally translate CNN news broadcast from english to chinese and vice versa Chinese news to english at the same speed as the time it is being broadcasted. So i guess if those groups dun mind my rusty and unpracticed translation, we can look forward to my inaugural translation piece soon.
Still, it'll be after exams and in my free time (if i have any left outside of work) before i start scouting around for any groups or freelance works (which is more likely than my joining a particular group, hate being tied down with committments).
So its still a couple months away. (So as always, procastination is actually the bigger handicap than a lack of time in my case.) Time enough to either get attached or detached from certain channels to broaden or narrow down my choices of groups and genres to translate for. DO. NOT. PISS. ME. OFF!
(Hmmm, my dun-take-shit attitude reminds me of one of the more established channels wif such a rep. But same-poles repel. I am not impressed.)
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 2:53 AM
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Wats kinky in a name?
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 3:02 AM
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Through the sands of time again
Recently i've gotten to thinking - though its actually more of a sudden revelation that got stuck in my head ever since - that Uncle Tan was alot like a surrogate father to me in secondary school.
And not jus to me. To all of us who had been under him before, through watever P.E. classes, sports or after-sch programs. We look up to him, wan his respect, feel elated when we've been entrusted extra responsibilities, wan to live up to his expectations, wan to make him proud of us, and feel hurt when he's dissapointed. Since when have we started calling him Uncle Tan? Why not Mr. Tan? I dunno... its been that way ever since i can remember.
I noticed i'd unconciously refered to him in the present tense still. I guess his fatherly-figure influence is still resonant in my life. (Could he be the replacement father figure for my own inadequate father that i've subconciously sought? Thats argueable. Ok, enough with all that self-analysis b.s.)
And if Uncle Tan was my surrogate father, then Tom Chan must be the surrogate brother (and an insufferable one at that too) that i've always picked a fight with. The sparks (and i dun mean the good kind) that flew whenever we came face to face. The quarrels, the fights, the tears, the consolation, the reconciliation... its little wonder that people who've heard these anecdotes/stories when i relate them think we had something going on (it had happened more than a couple of times already, even with close frens whom *i tot* shd noe the truth).
He's also another teacher that i cant recall ever calling Mister, except the couple of times we were in company with other teachers (if n when i decide to give him face lar, which was rare, thats y i can't really remember more than two such occasions).
He was pretty young still (then lar, now old with the start of a pot belly le, but couple that wif his never-grow-old-jimmy-lin-zhiying kind of face, damn salar can??), and was a new addition to the sch when we were in Sec. 2 or 3, so that was another reason why i never quite felt he had the authority of a teacher.
Its still quite funny when i recall our fights then and how much i used to hate him. I felt then that he was the evil existence bent on turning Uncle Tan against me.
While Uncle Tan brought out the best in me, he brought out the worst in me.
And i hate that Uncle Tan saw this hostile and un-agreeable side of me when i fought with him. I lose his respect, i weren't that unique student he tot i am, i'm not special, i see his dissapointment and his anger at my defiance, and i hate Tom Chan even more becos of it.
Tom Chan was evil, and i never recall hating someone as much as i did then.
The fight in the car park as half the whole school looked on from their morning classes, the face-offs when he caught up during break/recesses, the retaliation and rebellion when i first knew he was going to take over our class for P.E. in place of Uncle Tan and when he became one of the teachers in-charge for basketball, the fights, the ensueing shouts and raised voices.
Did i hit him before? Did i even dare? I dun recall but i wun be surprised.
But then i had always known he wun retaliate. (Wat could he do? Make me run more rounds? So? I'm tough! Come on la! - ok lar, was tough then. Make me run half of wat i ran then and u'll get ya wish n see me in a hospital.)
That was all in the past of cos.
In the long run, he really was like a surrogate brother in retrospect.
The fights, storming to class in angry tears (omg, did i really cry in class for everybody to see??! I cant remember, i was too angry then), turning the class boys against him (seeing their cute classmate (moi, who else? Lolx =p) crying in distress will have that effect, not to mention Tom Chan was making it easy by trying too hard with the class as the new teacher), then as time went by, patching up and feeling guilty for making the class dislike him and tried to recompensate by taking the lead to tok to him and volunteer (I dun even remember when or wat was the turning point. But maybe crying once too often in front of him makes it easier to go look for him when i have problems. Since i'd already let down my armour in front of him, there was no need to put up a front. And for his part, he had not let me down yet; though imperfect, he had always been generous with his time and resources), and looking for his opinions during and even after i graduated from secondary sch.
I guess, there's never a certainty with the chance meetings wif people in ya life and no unchanging hate or love.
Isn't that always the case?
//
Reality check:
Wat business have i to keep living in the past when exams lie in my very near future??!! X/
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 2:16 PM
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Those were the days my friends, we thought they'd never end....
I'd finished re-reading my Slam Dunk manga collection a few days back, and it has sure brought back many memories from my primary school days.
Ok, many is quite an understatement. Its more like a waterfall of memories, the sounds reaching a crescending pitch that blocks out the little everyday noises and experience. Its all i can think about watever i do these days. Each memory suffuses all my senses as i lose myself in them.
The most vivid memories of my primary six days was from when i first introduced Slam Dunk to a couple of frens in my class. Word spreads, the books exchanged hands (mainly from my own collection, and later on a few other classmates who decided to collect the set also and later loan the others), and soon part of, or the whole class was immersed in Slam Dunk mania, which indirectly bred a new love for the basketball sport in our class. Although i may be one of the first to start the basketball craze (games before sch, games during recess, games after sch), i was still more hooked on soccer in comparison then (soccer before sch, soccer during recess, soccer after sch).
But the most vivid memories were not jus from playing those sports in and out of sch everyday. Its from the little games and 'nicknames'-calling that started as a result of reading Slam Dunk - our re-naming various classmates as certain characters from the manga and calling each other the various nicknames reserved for these characters, and our enacting of certain actions and scenes from the manga.
I remember calling Elizabeth "红毛猴" (hong2 mao2 hou2, literally meaning 'red-haired monkey') and the two of us stiffling belly-aching laughter in the middle of class; i remember Chun Kiat kicking a can at a basketball court (re-enacting his part as 宫城良田/ Ryota Miyai in Slam Dunk kicking a basketball in tantrum) saying "我踢!" ('i kick!') and scolding the ball "笨 球!" ('stupid ball!'); i remember our basketball match against the gals from 6BB who had written our class (6AA) a 挑战书 (written challenge, i mean, how childish is tt?? but then, we were in primary sch) to challenge us to a match and then sorrily lost to us; i remember the many basketball games we bring to the nearby community centre many a saturdays.
I remember chasing after a football and many a metal cans and plastic bottles which serve as footballs when we dun have one during recess and break-times; i remember running bare-footed across the sch's now non-existent soccer fields, sans our outer-pinofore (for us gals); i remember sliding after the football in the mud after a rainy day and getting all muddy; i remember stepping on the mimosa plants near the goal-posts to see them close their leaves tightly in the defensive-mechanism nature has given them; i remember the bunch of us going to the canteen to get our 30cents curry with potatos, fizzy drinks and ice lollies during breaks in the game.
I remember getting hit by a soccer ball hard in the face and the very guilty perpetuator apologizing over and over again to me for days; i remember the heated arguement (though for watever reasons i now forgot) between David and Hamzah, and the slapping incident with Jessica which left our class temporaily split between those who sided Jessica and those who sided the perpetuator; i remember bringing the football games to the nearby void-decks and street-soccer court nearly every weekend after our bunch's saturday visits to the library.
I remember the boys in our class who broke a ceiling light in the sch staircases while playing football and the music from the teachers after that; i remember how all the teachers from other classes wud threaten our class that we wud fail if we continue to play like that, and then surpassing the whole sch's expectations with our batch's history-making results.
And i remember the smell of our fertilized soccer field whose fertilization process lasted for less than 2 months during our primary six final days while we still play in the adjacent fields, but whose sweet, cloying odour is etched into my memory and forever serves to gently but surely bring back the memories of those football-chasing days. Even now, its a conditioned response to grow suddenly nostalgic whenver i smell fertilizer (yeah, i jest u not).
Yes, apparently i've been very lost in all these 'childhood' memories when i shd be devoting my time to say, more maths or POA revision.
Does anybody else remember?
+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 1:17 AM