This is quite the moving ad from John Lewis. It basically tells the story of a woman's life.
What does this video tell you? Our lives are terribly short, and we grow old in a blink of an eye. Sigh.
Omnia mutantur
10:56 PM
Thursday, April 29, 2010
This is brilliant! Look closely and you'll see why.
"In a regal age ran I! Raw was I 'ere I saw war! Oh who was it I saw, oh who?
Too far away, a war afoot. Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? No, in union, Name no one man. Now do I repay a period won.
Draw, O Caesar! Erase a coward. Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live. Live not on evil deed, live not on evil.
Draw noses onward! Dump mud! Dump mud! Draw putrid dirt upward. Puff in, sniff up! Pull up if I pull up. No, it is open on one position. Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots!
In words, alas, drown I. A day, a day... yada yada..." My dad came back from Shenzhen (where he probably contracted his stomach flu) and got lots of chocolates and presents for my sister and I. It's quite reminiscent of the tale of Beauty and the Beast, the father goes travelling and comes back with presents, and he also meets monsters (in this case, the stomach flu).
Anyway he got my sister a pink imitation iPod and even specially went to get a matching pair of pink earphones for her. This led to her going gaga over my dad. Well to be fair my dad is one of the more (if not the most) thoughtful guys around.
Heads up - the imitation is BETTER THAN the real iPod, in terms of price, usability and bloatware. You don't need to install iTunes to use it, and you don't have to convert everything into an iTune file before it can be moved into the iPod. WIN. And it even looks exactly like the real thing. How good is that?
He also got my sister a necklace with an apple pendant that's studded with rubies from DFS. This led to my sister running around gleefully saying, "You know why you gave me that necklace, daddy? COS I'M THE APPLE OF YOUR EYE!!" before running away laughing hysterically.
No, my sister is not 9 years old.
Anyway, for some reason my father thinks I could keep using more cosmetics, so everytime he goes abroad he gets more from DFS. Actually I do like getting them and collecting them, I just don't know what to do with them, or how to use them properly. Not for want of trying, of course.
Anyway lately I've been thinking about the meaninglessness of things, and how our pathetic struggles don't actually mean very much. No, actually I'm an expert in this field, my major is CNM in FASS.
This is probably exacerbated by personal financial issues - soon I'll have a debt of around $20000 to pay, give or take. So all my pathetic struggles in trying to work will be used to feed the hole created by a meaningless university course that taught me, apart from the publications courses, nothing.
I must say I do regret putting others before myself to do things that eventually didn't give me anything back anyway. I will never get that time back.
But in this rubbish period of my my life I've quietened down enough to appreciate my parents. They dealt with their problems in a more calm and peaceful manner than anyone that I've ever met. They are always more worried for their children than for themselves. More worried that they aren't doing enough and being more of a bother, and always forgetting that their comforting presence in the home is always enough.
I keep forgetting. I had lunch and all I could do was think about the bitterness of mortality and how all this would be ash in time. Already, I miss them and I miss for them. I already hate that now, that sickening, sinking feeling when all I would get to do is remember them.
Here I am, rolling my rock up the hill again and again, trying to get somewhere and only ending up right where I began, my ego and hope a little more chipped away, but I'm only getting stronger.
I can do this.
Omnia mutantur
1:44 PM
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Today I was bored during the rainy hours of the day, and my dad was at home sleeping after taking an MC off work. So naturally, I didn't study for my upcoming exam.
Omnia mutantur
7:04 PM
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
After rushing for about 3 nonconsecutive days with intermittent slacking off, I managed to complete my 5 page website AND 16 page magazine. WOOHOO! Go me. It's a real expensive endeavour though. I believe I spent in excess of $50 trying to print the stuff out and buy stock photos.
And now for an image heavy post of my finished product.
Now I don't want to see Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or Indesign for as long as I live. Especially Dreamweaver. The software is crap for designing webpages. Half the time I was coding by hand.
Other news, my relationship with my cat Furryhead seems to be quite good. She now waits for me to give her dinner at around 8-9pm everyday, and runs to me mewing joyfully everytime. I might be inserting mild anthropomorphication here, but she's really affectionate. I wish I could keep her, but she'd probably eat my dad's fishes up.
The problem is her fur colour though, it's blackish grey, which makes searching for her at 8pm at night in the dimly lit golf greens of my estate extremely difficult. But I suppose it works wonders for her, she camouflages so easily anywhere. Which makes hunting easier I suppose, the other day I was feeding her and I found a gigantic carcass of a rat next to me. It was so far gone that only the spine, bits of fur and a long, long tail was left. If not for the tail I wouldn't be able to guess what it is. Was.
Well the sky's now dark, so it's time for me to go searching for her again.
Omnia mutantur
7:09 PM
Sunday, April 18, 2010
My last presentation in NUS. And the first time someone has got it down on photo! My verdict - I should not grin so much, but smile with my mouth closed. And my forehead is shinier than the Hope Diamond, haha! Oil glands on overload.
Joshua was asking me during the dinner if I kept track of how many presentations we have had throughout the 4 years. We got down to calculating and concluded that the average CNM student probably gives close to 40 presentations by the end of his/her tenure.
And that's the end of Week 13! Now only one more assignment - Publications! And then I can start applying for jobs in peace.
The CNM honours batch went for a dinner at the NUS alumnus place in Suntec for some BBQ buffet on the last day of school. It was quite surprisingly posh for NUS... haha! All that red carpeting (indoors) and dining amidst the skyscrapers. We were dining alfresco. I just kept eating cherry tomatoes though. I always waste money at buffets by eating this sort of thing and then becoming full really quickly. But they didn't have good desserts either!
I guess I'm really glad and relieved it's over. I detest school so much that I've been wanting to get out since I was 17. It's not the difficulty or the studying... it's the pointlessness of it. Whenever I'm going to school, I am always reminded of the story about the cruel experiment done on the prison convicts, where they were forced to dig holes and cover them up everyday. Eventually the pointlessness of it drove the suicide rate in the prison up phenomenally.
Atticus was saying that he only discovered that I was 'less serious and more jovial' during the dinner. And we've been working together for almost a year? Man. I must look really sad and miserable in school. I never thought I would ever be called serious. Then again my french tutor called me out in class one fine day, "Mademoiselle, pourquoi tu es si triste?" My inner misery must really manifest itself on my face. SO IT'S GOOD NEWS THAT IT'S FINALLY OVER!
Anyway so it's over! And there were lots of photo taking. I never knew so many people owned DSLRs until friday. Then again I never knew so many people in CNM drove BMWs and cars from european makers until friday.
Omnia mutantur
11:50 PM
Monday, April 12, 2010
'We'd given you up for dead.' 'No. One of these days maybe, but not yet.' 'Well, I'm very glad to see you alive. Old friends are a rare commodity. It's been a long road we have traveled together.' 'It has.'
- Octavian and Titus Pullo, 'Rome'
I just experienced an ultimate letdown in a long list of letdowns.
But at least now I know where I figure in the general order of things. Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis. But such as things are, one must forget about the errant stupidity and self-indulgence of fools and just remember the good stuff.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye to you my trusted friend We've known each other since we were nine or ten Together we've climbed hills and trees Learned of love and ABC's Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees Goodbye my friend it's hard to die When all the birds are singing in the sky Now that spring is in the air Pretty girls are everywhere Think of me and I'll be there
We had joy, we had fun we had seasons in the sun But the hills that we climbed Were just seasons out of time
We had joy, we had fun We had seasons in the sun But the wine and the song Like the seasons have all gone
Omnia mutantur
7:31 PM
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Introducing... Furryhead.
Now that I've made feeding her a nightly task, you'll be expecting to see more photos of her, especially since she's come to recognise me and expects me to come every night. =D I'm not about to collar her, though I wonder if this will make her the target of catnappers.
Edit:
Yeah, really I do. Who doesn't?
Omnia mutantur
10:34 PM
Monday, April 5, 2010
OMG SO CUTE! Warms the cockles of my heart.
Anyway, to update, I had an interesting and nice (towards the end) sunday. Unfortunately I don't really carry a camera around, and I'm not in the habit of snapping photos of everything I see, so I'll have to describe everything verbally, and you'll have to take my word for it.
I'll skip over the first unpleasant part where I attended a certain Singaporean church to get my survey done. It was long, drawn out and stupid. End of.
I did get to hear Andrew Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu though. Even if it was sung badly, the music was still good. It's like how Singapore Festival Orchestra can play badly and Howard Shore would still sound nice. Anyway I can't get it out of my head, it keeps playing in my head.
Okay, then James and I went to meet Lisheng for dinner at a spanish restaurant. For some reason I can't remember the name of the place, but it's in Vivocity, and it's quite nice. And it was fun! Because they were talking about nerdy stuff like D&D, and how to pronounce paella in the proper spanish way, and so on. We had Tortilla Espanolas (sp?? which is omelette with potatoes), some yummy mushroom thing, pork kebabs, and seafood paella, which was really quite good.
And then we sojourned to Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar where I got Italian hot chocolate with dark chocolate in it! It was like drinking liquid chocolate, yum yum yum. I think PK would love the place to bits =p
Then we talked about lots of interesting stuff, I was mostly listening to Lisheng's philosophy of religion and stuff about work.
Then on the way back to my house, we saw 3 cats! One greyish black (called Furryhead, because I detected an unusual bump and disrupted fur growth on his head a few weeks back when I was playing with it, and James and I extracted the debris while coaxing the cat to stay still), one grey with black stripes (which usually likes to 'por' people for food by whining near the BBQ pit while a BBQ is taking place - this usually works) and one pure white. I ran out to the petrol kiosk to get packets of catfood (mainly the tuna and whitefish variety) for them, and they ate most of it! This is the point where I go "YAYYY THEY ARE FULL ROUND KITTEHS".
And I went to sleep feeling happy that I had fed the cats in my neighbourhood.
Omnia mutantur
10:40 PM
Saturday, April 3, 2010
I still remember playing truant while I was in RJ to catch this movie. The bad ol' days.
Man what happened to Lindsay Lohan between then and now? She was such a cutie back then, seriously! I was such a fan. Well both of us look equally unhealthy now.
Going down to a certain Singaporean extreme radical church tomorrow to collect survey data. And it's Easter. Go me.
