Sunshine Brightens Up My Sky

Dear Fenz,

The rain has passed and the sun is shinning again *big warm smile.....

Life is back to almost normal and all that has happened became bygone. I am glad I am given the chance to make amends and I am grateful for the graciousness that has been granted to me. I feel the love... *big smile....

Signing off with lots of hugs and kisses,
Mel

Guilty and Paying For It

Sometimes people do stupid things. They make mistakes and they recover from it. I often eff' up, and I always get over it and move forward. This time, I will too, but just not sure how long it will take before I'm over it.

I made a huge mistake. Something I can't share. Not sure how to get myself out of this ditch. I can only be patient and wait. It is like the quid sand, the harder you struggle, the deeper you go. I can only stay calm and find that rope. It is not going to be easy. But I will tell myself to be patient.

Not sure if I will get forgivness, which I reckon I deserve. But I know it will be a tough road to revovery. Will I ever get the trust, I am not sure. I can only hope time will heal. Time always does wonders. I can only sit patiently and hope.

I don't wish to talk about this... thus I don't wish anyone to ask about it. But I just need to remind myself of the mistake I've made and grow stronger when I overcome it.

Life in Second Life

It's been almost a quater of a year gone by since my Rez Day. How time flies when one is having fun. Oops sorry. What is Rez Day? Here's the explaination.... it is the day you Rez your Avatar in Second Life. It is like an avatar's birthday, but only we call it Rez Day since it is more technically right.

Yes! In Second Life, people celebrate their Rez Day just like you celebrate your Birthdays in RL (RL= Real Life). One very important rule to remember is that behind every AV (AV=avatar) is a real person with feelings, emotion and the ability to be hurt. So though these are all pixels we see, there are unwritten rules of conduct and respect for others to observe.

Moving back to where I started, I mentioned that it has been about three months since I started the game. Through this three months in the virtual world of SL (SL=second Life), I had been awed by many SIMs(simulations) created by different individual people, the ability to recreate beautiful sceneries in the rl, and to make it even better by using computer graphics. That aside, I have also met many very interesting people who are from all walks of life and from all over the globe.

Couple of the more interesting figures would be Ghost Ulich and Atomic Gaffar. (these are screen names and not real names) Ghost is a SL designer and mentor. It simply means that he is a designer of the game, on how the future SL will look like. Basically he works for Linden Lab. Lindens are the creators of SL. They are the minds behind the wonderful creation since 2003. As for Ghost he has shown me a glimps to the future of SL and trust me it is unbelievably interesting! I saw a simulation within a simulation... something any 3D designer would say WOW to.

As for Atomic Gaffar, a guy whom I met just only a couple of days ago, but has since captured a lot of my time and attention. He approached me as a stranger to be his model in SL. He liked my AV and wanted me to pose for him. he sent me a very unintrusive IM message introducing himself and the work he does. Also with it is a link to his flickr gallery, http://www.flickr.com/photos/atomicgaffer/. He is a RL phtographer who has studios in NY and LA in the States. He has brought his photography skills into SL to create a series of works with various themes. A very interesting character who is extremely polite.

After looking through his portfolio, I said yes. We had since spent some of the funnest time just chatting about photography, arts, SL and experiences of RL. One of the highlight was his story on Andy Warhol. He actually does some work for a very wealthy person who happened to be a close friend of Andy Warhol. One day he was invited to his house and Atomic was totally mesmorized by the original art collections there. He then noticed some Cambell soup cans on a shelf while the others went out to grab some grub. Atomic was then really hungry, so he had this funnest idea of eating from a can of Cambell soup when those guys step in with food. But on second thought he did not.

When they returned, he asked the owner about the cans, why did he put those cans on the shelf? The his jaws dropped when the owner told him that those cans were placed there by the late Andy Warhol himself before he died. Those were THE CAMBELL soup!!! Imagine if he actually opened up a can and ate it???? ................... Best story ever! I can so picture that. lmao*

Wassup Mel

It’s been a long time since I put in a decent post on this blog. It has been even longer in the history of two years that I have been absent on my favorite past time of chatting on Stickam. It has been so unusual for me, but I had been forgetting to log into MSN when I’m home. Then there’s shorter sleeping hours, constant tired days and I think I watch less than an hour of TV a week.

All these because of one single new addiction to the virtual world of Second Life (SL). I first heard about this Virtual Reality (VR) game on a local blogger’s webpage few years ago, but never gave it a try. Once I wanted to try it out while I was still in Australia, but my machine did not work with the program then, so it wasn’t until a month ago I finally got it to work on my puter out of boredom. The result….. disastrous!

What’s so fun?

• It is highly immersive.

• The graphics are superb if your machine can handle the load and internet speed’s gotta be good.
• Very interactive with thousands of people for you to interact with 24/7.
• There is almost no limit to what you can do in there. It is up to individual’s creativity.
• You can be anything you want in there. It is your SL. So it is an avenue to do things you normally would not try or be what you can’t be in real life (RL).
• It allows people to use it as a platform to showcase their talent. Artists, Musician, DJs, Photographers…
• The list goes on…

Cons to the game

• The amount of money spent and the time is horrible. I mean real money. You can play the game without spending but it is not as satisfying. Alternatively, one can get a job and make money in SL.
• It can get personal for some people. There are dramas and bruised feelings in SL. Gotta remind oneself it is all a mind game played using pixels.
• There are bullies in virtual world. There are what we call GRIEFERS. They send disruptive packages out that causes SIMs to lag and may cause crashes.
• Yes the list goes on too….

So what does it do for me you may ask? I have no freaking idea. Or perhaps I just don’t wish to share what it does for me publicly *smiles Go figure…

Overwhelming Sadness

I never quite felt the sadness or lost when dad passed away almost a year ago because I was never quite close to him when he was around. I reckon I was more shocked than sad that he is gone.

Today as I was at work, I took a short break to look at my ROM pictures, which had just been uploaded. I reminisce on the joyful feeling I had that day. I thought about the feelings I would get when I look at these pictures in the future with my children. I imagined pointing at the pictures telling my kids, "look this was mummy and daddy when we were younger and this is your granny." Then a sudden gush of sadness overwhelmed me when I realised I won't be able to tell them, "..... and this is grandpa".

I recall how my dad loved kids and how he will never get the chance to enjoy the bliss of sitting around with his grandchildren after dinner, watching TV and play with them.

I teared at that thought......

Going Holiday

Got a memo from the head office about a mega hotel room rate discount by the Accor group two days ago. The rates are so good, it has been the top of the list to do for the past two days, deciding on where to go and when.

We had been planning on a short trip, and had been waiting for suggestions from friends on when they would like to hop by Pulau Bersah, but no one had mentioned anything about it. Looks like that will be canned.

We have booked for a trip to Phuket this afternoon for a great value price!! YAY~~~~ Ivy, Magdeline, Ming Hong and Robin will be coming along :)) It would be fun.

Overdue Gathering

Long awaited gathering at my place. Great company, beautiful food, lovely evening.

There was Sun Sun, Rek, Jez, Kit, Allen, Sheila and Jassine. Above is a lil welcome doodle I made for my lovely guests.

The star of the day is Peanut. He's been up to his usual attention seeking self, sashaying around the house and acting as cute as he can be. Felix did not do to bad himself, though he is still a little shy with too many strangers in the house. But at least he wasn't illusive.

Derek grabbing the opportunity to get even from the little bite his got in the afternoon. lol

Tom Yum in the making.

Our specialty for the night. Tom Yum complete with "Fu Zhou fish balls"??? hehe But it's good.

Silent Whisper of the Desperate Cries

This week has been one of the most surreal I have experienced in a very long time. One high after another just don't make a lot of sense. Tell you what this is one post no one is going to understand and in time if I ever read it again I might not even know what I am talking about myself. The conclusion is, I had a wonderful week and it is so good, but I can't tell you why.

I was given something I had always wanted for the longest time on last Sunday. Bliss.....

Yesterday I had a really wonderful time as I was on a natural high. Sometimes you can't have it all. I can't sleep last night coz I kept thinking about possession. I knew I had to talk to someone about it, but you won't believe how hard it is to find someone to talk to about such a topic. But I did and damn it did help. :) Sometimes no matter how well you know yourself or think how smart you are in handling certain matters, you can never be clearer than the person who is looking in through the glass while you swirl within till you are almost drowning yourself and not realising it.

It is not about possession. You can't have it all. So instead of jeoperdising it all, you have to let it go. The only question remains is if you had made the best choice for yourself? Have I?

Magnificent Sunday!

I'm doing the crazy dance around the house all night. I'm so happy I don't know how to contain my elation.

All I can say is that it is a maginifique Sunday! w00t! More to come I hope.

I'm Permanent! W00t!

I had just been confirmed today! w00T!

The moods pretty good this evening. Actually the mood's pretty good every evening since I left MediaCorp, but today is extraordinary. Life can't be any better being relieved from all that unnecessary stress. What makes it even more gratifying is hearing that I dodged a pay cut should I have stayed on in that company. heng ah!!!!!

Rubbing off that blurness from Benny

I created a huge blunder yesterday evening. After going to boss's house, I head home for a little bit before we left house again for a a baby shower. Only when I arrived at my friend's door step did we find out that the baby shower was suppose to be one week later! Huge blunder and very embarrassing. MY friend was staring at me with a blank look wondering why were we uninvited at his door steps. hahaha Well we have another baby shower to go to next week then.

We thought there would be dinner at the baby shower that was not suppose to be yesterday, so we were famished. After having our dinner at Serangoon garden, we went over to another friend's granny's wake. IRONIC

Recently I had been bothered by my tired looking eyes ever since I got back to Singapore. It's probably due to the amount of stress and sleepless nights. I haven't been able to sleep well, waking up intermittently through the night which caused dark circle and eye bags. I expected it to worsen during the festive season. Luckily I found something that worked for me finally!

I had tried a few different eye creams. Both expensive and cheap. I even tried eye treatment from the spa, but still no noticeable result. Recently I read about an eye mask on some women's magazine and they introduced Shiseido's Revital eye mask. Suppose to have won quite a few awards.

A box cost $105, but since I got a $50 voucher from my company's Xmas party, I decided to buy it to give it a try. I use it two to three times a week.(recommend alternate days) To my surprise, I saw results after the second time I used it. The dark circles lightened and I don't look so tired.

It is not drastic, but at least I saw a result that is noticeable. It feels good too after use. It relaxes the eyes and reduce the puffy feeling. Thumbs up to Shiseido. I never liked any of their products actually hehe. I was really skeptical about this one too. But it worked. I'm gonna get more and stock up.

When you believe, so be it!

This is the first time in many years I have experienced or felt that I am unlucky when I indulge in a little New Year gambling. Days back, I read a book about the fortune of the twelve Chinese Zodiac and truth has been told about my tough luck in wealth for the year of the ox. As someone said to me, "It is only true when you believe."

So perhaps I will try my best to not believe in what I've read and prove it wrong today. I will be heading over to my boss's house later and there is no doubt that there will be a gambling session. So perhaps I can test my luck just one more time! hehe Anyway, I had been weary and thus had been conservative in my bets so far, keeping my losses minimal. When you gamble, you have to understand that you can't win all the time.

Now a days when I do blog, it's always an impromptu thing. So guess what? I gotta go get dressed to head out. It is to the boss's, then tonight for the baby shower at friend's place. Wishing you a lovely weekend. See ya!

HAPPY LUNAR NIU YEAR

Here's wishing all my lovely frenz a Prosper Niu Year and Good Health!

Tooey and Tinkerbell

"Hi I'm Tinkerbell. I'm a green puffer with lil black spots on my back. I grow up to 6 inches when I'm older and will eat sea snails with the shell!"

"I love live food, but at the moment mummy gives me dried shrimps which I dig just as much. I'm still tiny now and Tooey keeps hurting me. Hope I live to the day when I'm bigger than him! hunph!"

"I'm Tooey. I'm a figure 8 puffer. I'm called a figure 8 coz I have patterns that looks like an 8 on me. I'm slightly bigger than Tinkerbell now. But one day Tinky will out grow me as I will only be as big as 6cm when full grown, so I better bully Tinky while I can! hur hur hur"




This is our lovely home. It's got a little veggie garden that we can nibble on... a barrel for us to play hide and some lovely pebbles.

Mummy got us a toy too. See that seahorse? Mummy loves us!!!

It's the festive season

I have been looking forward to the Lunar New Year for the past five years while I live my life in Australia. Now that I'm back, I still like the festive season, but I don't think I will be able to fully enjoy it like before. Sad.

First of all, I'm not going to have that many holidays as before. Now I have only 2 public holidays to live with since I can't take leave from my new job.

Secondly, I am not looking forward to be woken up by the noisy lion dance troops doing their rounds in my neighborhood as early as 7+ in the morning.

Then there is also a very irritating neighbour in my area that ..... yes irritates the hell out of me with that fake fire cracker thing going off all night. There is this fake fire cracker thing that emits really loud crackling noise. It is LOUD!!!! And they left that annoying thing on all evening. Don't understand what it does for them? Every evening for the past week or so, they turn it on. Someone shoot them.

But at the end of the day, I better make the best of this Lunar New Year coz it will be my last that I can siam giving ang bao I think.