The Heart Keeps Beating

[ 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 ]

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Long awaited

A slight sprain on my right ankle.
Started acheing when i was strolling ard the Book Fair wif Elizabeth ytd, n limping slightly today so as to walk more comfortably (n more unsightly, but i'm home so who cares). Have no idea how i got it...

All my ankle guards from my basketball days have been stretched beyond repair by my father's constant use n wear even when he didn't need it. They resemble nothing more like ankle guards than knee guards now. Or rather, dirty looking leg-warmers. Amazing...
*ewww >.<*

Ah... a little belated news now, but...
Harry Potter Book 6 is coming out soon~!!!
Titled Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, its gonna be a world-wide release on the 16th of July!!
*does a little jig ard the room*
Finally... after years of waiting... -.-
Heh heh... n Christopher Paolini's second book of his Inheritence Trilogy: Eldest, is coming out on the 23rd of August!! Though i'm not sure will that be a world-wide release date like The Half-Blood Prince...

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 10:55 PM

Sunday, May 29, 2005

World Book Fair

In an attempt to get off my addiction for coffee, i have now got hooked on tea. Milk tea. How utterly fattening...

Have smoked n drank too much coffee (4-8 mugs a day) during the exam period. Told myself i wud have to ease off them after exams...
so have picked up two new habits now - sleeping n tea drinking.
Ho hum.

Anyway, for those who still dunno...
the annual World Book Fair has commenced. Held at Suntec City as usual this year. 27th May to 5th June.
Shall be making my annual trip down to the WBF wif Elizabeth next mon. Think we've only missed going together once in the past 12 or 13 years...last yr i think.
No comic events up yet to my knowledge... but then again, they might do a surprise TV interview like last time...
(-.- got interviewed along wif like 10, 20 over others in the queue lining up to get Taiwanese artist Lin Zheng De's autograph...bout 3 or 4 yrs ago...my was the only one or two interviews used in the TV programme later on -.-... quite a long interview actually, wonder how it turned out... din even noe which show the TV crew was from, only got to know from some pple in sch when they've watched it some days later on Zhao An, Ni Hao / Good Morning, Singapore. Hmmm.)

TCZ Studio (the local comics publisher set up by founder n local artist Wee Tian Beng / Huang Zhan Ming, named after his self-penned n created comics, The Celestial Zone... but i liked his other titles like, Return of The Condor Heroes more actually...shhhh...)will have a place among the comics exhibition again this year, wonder will i c anyone familiar there...
Liz's bro still qt active in the fans forum when i last heard, maybe ask her bout how the rest of the pple are doing later on.

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 1:53 AM

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

A Beautiful Mind

Had jus finished watching A Beautiful Mind.
(Taped it on video since it was shown on Channel 5 during my exam period.)
For those of u not familiar wif the film, its based on a real-life character, the 1994 Nobel Prize winner, the genius (and schizophrenical) mathematician John Nash. The John Nash of the Nash Equilibrium that we have studied in many economics textbooks n lectures.

The last scene where John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) was recognized by the whole tearoom of academia who went up to him and honour him by presenting him their pens, respectfully placing them on the table in front of him, had me crying.

It was an amazingly good film.

Russell Crowe deserved the Academy Award for his performance. He was so robbed man (the Award was given to Denzel Washington that year).
Russell deserved to win for his role in Beautiful Mind more than he did for The Gladiator. Din really like him in the past because of his violent character n bad-boy image (*grimace*). Plus the fact that i coudln't see the justice in his winning Best Actor for Gladiator last time (the show makes for nice watching, but his acting in Beautiful Mind is definitely more impressive).
But his acting in ABM was brilliant.
He's so believeable in his role as the brilliant but asocial mathematician who went from being an up-and-coming young genius in Princeton University, to his schizophrenia that very nearly ruined his academic life n marriage, to his winning the Nobel Prize in 1994.
Of course, the good script also gave him much space to showcase his acting skills. But his ability to really get into his role as Nash so unseamly, to become Nash, is increadible.

I'm still not a big fan of him (his violent side...), but i think he's a trully great actor and his role as John Nash is trully memorable. His performance was simply outstanding. A Beautiful Mind is now one of my favourite films :)
I recommend this show to anybody who havent watched it yet... go lay your hands on the VCD soon.

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 3:13 AM

Monday, May 23, 2005

Spies and Foxes

I have, like practically did an overhaul of my compt these last two nites... (or at least, to someone as compt un-savvy as me, its a big change already).

All started from when one of my irc mates mentioned how slow my irc download was. n inconsistent. Esp when compared to my normal on-web http downloads... i was averaging a speed of 5kb/sec on Mirc compared to 280kb/sec fot http dls.... -.-
Tot it was the norm for irc dls to be alot slower than http dls actually... apparently it shdn't be the case.
n we checked wif an online test of my cable speed n it was perfectly fine... so we noe the prob doesn't lie wif my cable connection.

Anyway, to cut the story short... i downloaded Spybot-Search n Destroy and discovered...230 'spies' on my computer!! -.-
didn't even noe was tt considered alot anot initially, but that mate said she had at most 20 'spies' ever. ok...

Anyway, got rid of all of them wif Spybot, then downloaded Sysreset in place of Mirc (about the same actually, except it facilitates easier choosing n downloading or files), and switched my Internet Explorer browser to Mozilla's Firefox. Whew~
n there's still the prob wif my Norton anti-virus i'm trying to fix now (oops. shd i say it here? pls dun send me any viruses!).

but oh... Firefox is so cool!
its so much easier to use, faster, n a darn lot prettier than Internet Explorer (they have many choice of skins u can dl from) =)

Anyway, after destroying all the 'spies' we checked out my irc dl speed again... onli a slight improvement, no significant changes still - 5kb/sec to averaging 7-8kb/sec (though on average my whole compt system is working faster already).. Sigh... still dunno wat the problem is. Even she is perplexed =/ possibly viruses?
stupid Norton... haven checked how it was holding up since tt repair-guy helped me install it bout half a yr ago. it seems fine then, so i dunno was it an unsuccessful installation on his part. or prob one of my 'spies' done smth to it...

Truth be told, i was more irritated by the fact that the spies have slowed down my compt by this much than them spying on my stuff. Sure, i have stuff i wan to keep confidential, but nth on that are so scandalous they haven seen on anyone elses com. Any boy wif a cache of porn in his pc wud surely beat me.
Stupid spies... to think i lived wif 230 of them throughout the past 6mths (or longer, since i dunno bout their existence too before i repaired my com).

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 8:20 PM

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Exam over~

Exams are finally over~!!!!!
Din go out to celebrate as most pple think i wud, but went home to catch up on some much-neglected sleep. Sleeping rawks!

Have slept from ytd till today (wif occasional toilet n supper breaks), but am still tired... din sleep really well too... all the maths n econs formulas and socio n ibm theories keep running around in my brain -.- damn irritating.
looks like it'll take some time before my brain gets used to not having to mug everyday again. n have to start adjusting back my sleep patterns (used to jus taking 1-2hrs naps to fuel my studies throughout the day, so i prob onli slp bout 3-5hrs max. from naps a day).

oooh, n have i bloated!
my sis says i'm pale as a ghost n my face is even rounder than before. thanks man!
but really, my face looks as if i have water-retention or smth. the last time i look into the mirror n my face was so bloated / swollen was when i was suffering from side effects from a type of anti-biotics back in sec sch... -.-"
bleaaah.
Gotta go out soak in some vitamin D next week n go jog off a few pounds (or at least this bloaty look, since my weighing machine tells me tt my wt hasn't changed actually).

The joy from ending the exam still haven't sunk in actually...
suddenly feel as if there's so much time on my hands n nth to do.
(stupid theories n formulas still running around everywhere i look)
no mood to do anyth strenuous now anyway. trying to take my much-overdue break.
catching up on my manga tt i've neglected the past 3 weeks or so.
have yet to pack up all my notes i've strewn in various corners ard my room. probably later tonite (strictly speaking its after midnite n i shd call it morn, but wat the heck) or tml.

looking forward to meeting up wif some pple next week...
but with how i look now... damn.
ah well. good frens wun mind.
but i'd better wait for the swelling to go down abit over the weekends first...dun wan to scare them silly n make them awkward for trying not to comment on my wt increase =/

lethargic...

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 12:35 AM

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Exam stressz~

In the midst of exam now.
mang de kuai gua le.
survived on bout 8hrs of sleep in total during the whole of last week's exam period (mon to thurs). can die i tell you...

Felt like vommiting from lack of slp on the last day.
look like a ke4 yao4 de (drug addict) after that... esp in my glassy eyed state of 'awakeness' when i attended to the technician who came to my house to fix my cable. bloody hell. had trouble looking at things without all their hazy edges n still had to listen to him talk bout wats wrong wif my SCV pt n need wat kinda repairs n how n wat n when.
all the while i'm staring at him trying to focus my eyes n trying my best not to puke on him -.-

Fark university of london. dunno how to plan exam schedule...
Still have 2 more big papers to go...
at least this time they're spaced out.
but no time to study for my mon's socio paper le... (wat am i doing online still?!!!)
craps.
wish me lots of luck ~.~

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 6:27 AM