A bit of luck

Sometimes people just need a little bit of luck or reward to turn things around. I was getting super bored playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper since the start of the year. I only played the events and skipped the main quests or daily grinding dungeons which means I only played 2-3x a week after the events were released. Things turned around at the latest FF XII. I was planning to used up my mithril and I got Vaan and Fran's unique weapons. Yay!! Since then I have been playing the main quests again and I have been spending time on it. I think once a gamer is forever a gamer. Once I am going full throttle with gaming, all the my other leisure activities take a back seat.

I am in the midst of doing my second photo book for my Japan trip and I have been procrastinating as I am still halfway through despite already started doing it since 2 weeks ago. This is only for a 40 page photo book. In comparison, it took me 2 weeks to complete the 80 page photo book for my Euro trip. I guess doing this for the second time kinda kills some of the excitement of using the software. The main problem, however, is I feel emo when I see my photos from Japan trip. Aaargh... the memory of the screwed up setting of my camera.. and the memory of my friend's bad photo taking skills. Sigh.. I really need and want to retake those pictures. I am aiming to finish this book before I am going to Australia next Friday but I don't know if I am able to.

Today I received a farewell/thank you gift from a student. That's my first ever and ironically, I am not even her preceptor o_0 I promise that I will never be a sucker for this kind of thing but I am not going to be a hypocrite to say that I don't feel happy to get such appreciation. Well, this kinda teaches me something: it is not a matter of what I do as a teacher but it is a matter of the student :) I am glad that my philosophy is right to do my best in teaching and not to expect anything in return. Because if my objective is to get a reciprocation from students, I think I will hate teaching by now.

Ok.. photobook now.. photobook...

Deadpool

There has been a lot of anticipation for Deadpool, right from the trailers a few months ago. The movie officially opened last week and thank goodness, it is a success and receives a lot of positive comments. Honestly, I am not really into Deadpool. I only know that he is somehow related to X-men, he is an anti-hero (rather than a superhero), and he is well known for his blabbering. It is the promotional material just before the Valentine's Day which won me over as I enjoy self-depreciating humour.

If you are like me and are looking for a superhero movie with plenty of humour, you will be somewhat disappointed. Deadpool feels more like a comedy with a superhero. For an R-18 movie, the superhero plot is surprisingly very childish. The movie is essentially telling about Deadpool's beginning and despite all the fights, Deadpool is simply looking for the guy who destroyed him to fix him. When he does not get what he wants, "bang!" there goes the bad guy.

With the rating, I am expecting a lot of gory spectacles in terms of the fighting and killing. I am more grossed out with the gore due to punching and kicking of the faces as the damage and blood is quite realistic. Those slow-mo bullet shots kinda downplay the level of goreness for the guns. Seeing decapacitated heads flying for the first time is quite disturbing but I am sort of too immune after that. I love realism and when you cut someone's head, blood will surely spurt from their neck like a fountain. Hmm.. it seems that the R-18 is not exactly for the violence.

So it is because of the sex? Well honestly, despite the boobs, butts, and the raunchy sex scenes, this is not a sex movie and the sex stuff is not that long/many. That means, the major reason for the rating will be with the number of times dicks, fucks, and shits being mentioned. I think these 3 words are really overused that there were things I missed because all I could hear were the dicks, fucks, and shits. I support the use of well-placed and well-intended curse words but this movie is really overusing them to the point that I feel that they just randomly include them as frequent as possible just to show that this movie is different from any other superhero movies.

In terms of the comedy, I think I had plenty of laughter. As I mentioned earlier, I like self-depreciating humour so I like the Green Lantern (movie failure) references. Those references to X-men will surely make you laugh too. However, there were moments when I felt bored and I thought that the movie was trying too hard to be funny. It is like there are 1001 jokes here so surely some will hit and some will miss. That explains why some people think that the movie is funny while others think that it is corny.

As a fan of both comedy and superhero genre, Deadpool mixes both genres well and I find it entertaining. However, I do think that the movie is over-rated by the fans and definitely it is not the best superhero movie out there. The action pales in comparison with other superhero movies, the plot is non-existent, and the humour may not be everyone's cup of tea. I maybe biased because my favourite superhero movie is still the first Avengers movie: great action scenes and humour that stems from well-timed sarcastic comments peppered here and there. But to remove any bias-ness, I always go back to the same one question if a movie is indeed that good: do I want to watch it for the second.. third.. fourth... times? Unfortunately, my answer for Deadpool is a no. 

WaT... the... T_T

I don't know if people are spending their angpaus or it is because of Valentine's Day but I noticed that the restaurant queues were long throughout the day. Flowers, balloons, gifts, romantic meals.. they are reminders that being single is an informed choice that I consciously make. I still can't imagine cracking my head to plan for these "sweet" things. Sigh.. Will I change? Or will I be able to find a girl who is not into these kinds of time wasting activities? Well, for now, I will enjoy Valentine's Day with the one who truly loves myself, no matter how moody, how fat, how irritating, and how (insert all negative adjectives that you can think of) I am: myself.

This morning I came across the news that WaT is disbanding. Aih... I don't know why I feel sad as I thought they were already disbanding since long time ago anyway. WaT has a special place during my university days and I actually have their albums and singles until 2008. In fact, I still use their song Ready Go! as my alarm tune in my K800i phone. After that, they seemed to disappear and I was not aware that they were on a hiatus. They came back in late 2015 only to announce that they are disbanding this year. I will definitely miss their music. Although their songs do not exactly have memorable tunes, they are pleasant to the ears and when listening to them, my mood becomes relaxed and happy.

The final single.. I have to admit that I find this so so only.

From my friend's facebook wall, I discovered about AKB48's latest single: Kimi wa Melody. I was pleasantly surprised to see old members again, especially Tomomi Itano on the first few second. What is going on with AKB48 nowadays?? Hmm.. apparently their latest single failed to hit 1 million sales on their first week and that was seen as a sign of dipping popularity. I guess the management finally realise that no way AKB48 will survive in the long run and at the rate they keep getting the old members back, it seems that they are getting desperate. The video for the latest single looks gorgeous: pretty girls, gorgeous kimonos, colourful display. What more can we ask for? The moment I read that the person behind this is the same one behind Heavy Rotation, I am not amazed with the amount of fanservice that will happen.

Very pretty MV.. if only the song is as catchy as Heavy Rotation..

And talking about Heavy Rotation, I just found out about the existence of the video below. He sings very well and surprisingly the song still sounds pretty nice when sung by a guy.

Home for CNY

Because in the end Air France completely ignored my email for ticket cancellation and refund, I ended up spending my first CNY home since 2002. People always ask me if I am celebrating and it is always very irritating to answer that I only want the angpaus. I dislike the visiting since I meet my closer relatives pretty frequently even without the need of any special occasions. The thought of going home this time was also more because my dad's birthday happened to fall on Sunday.

As it was in the past, my only impression of CNY is: it is tiring. It is even more tiring this time as I had to fly again at the end of the day. I feel so tired that I am only spending today resting at home. I intended on going to Thomson Plaza for the cash deposit machine but I was too tired and lazy for that. Bleah.. At least I am done with the unpacking.

Yesterday I had a nice surprise of an upgrade to Premium Economy for my flight back. Yaaay!! I guess that helped to reduce my irritation a little bit over my cancelled flight. I honestly do not see myself paying for Premium Economy as the only difference with normal economy are just: more comfortable seat, noise cancelling headphone, and 1 bottle of Evian. Since the headphone is attached to seat, I believe it is not sterilised until each passenger -unlike the lousy headphone that we usually get in Economy class. I can also live without the bottled water as I can always request it from the cart. So yeah, I don't know why someone will pay about 2x more just for the more comfortable seat. Well, I still enjoy the experience nonetheless. Hehe.. Oh ya, the food is also the same as the economy class. Lol..

I notice the promotion to Jakarta until 27 March so I believe Air France is no longer flying this route after that. I try both April and July and there is no flight to book. Sigh.. I will definitely miss it and I need to find another airline now. This CNY trip is actually the first time I experienced Air France flights which were relatively full. Too bad they only served French sandwiches for both the trips. In the past, I always got meals consisting of bread, salad, cake, etc.

For the first time, I also bought liquors from Duty Free Shop in the airport. I got the 'idea' because I thought it would take quite sometime to wait for the baggage from a full flight so I could spend sometime shopping. I bought a 200ml Baileys Irish Cream ($10) and a pack of 3 x 50ml Choya Umeshu ($12.80) which consists of 1 bottle of Extra Years, Extra Shisho, and Royal Honey. The cashier told me if I wanted to buy 5 more bottles before reaching the Duty Free limit. How I wish I can!! Haha.. I don't really enjoy drinking and I have noone to drink with. Otherwise I will buy the bigger bottles which are cheaper too. I was actually very interested in the Baileys Irish Cream Chocolate but it was only available as 1L bottle for $20 something. Well, let's enjoy them during the coming Valentine's Day with myself. Lol.

Meanwhile, wishing everyone for a great and prosperous year of the Fire Monkey.

Down.. and further down..

I am not a huge fan of travelling. Not only it sucks my money dry, I extremely hate it when I have to be the one doing the planning. Being perfectionist becomes a weakness as it is very stressful to consider so many factors. I settled the flight last week and while the prices had gone up as compared to when I checked them out in December, at least the timing remains. It was not very stressful. The hotel booking, however, is extremely more complicated. I have to consider price, room type, location, accessibility, presence of tour bus pick up, website to purchase from, any credit card promotion or discount, etc.

In the end, I focused on Agoda and Expedia. For the hotel at Darwin, there was no problem deciding as only Expedia had available rooms for booking. The headache was for the hotel in Sydney: same hotel and same search configuration but Agoda stated ok for room A but no for room B while Expedia stated the complete opposite. Agoda is nice to have free cancellation policy so I decided to book there first. However, when I realised that I could get 10% off at Expedia because of my credit card, I immediately called Expedia to clarify about the room. The service was superb as the customer service guy called the hotel directly and documented their conversation etc in the booking. So yeah, sorry Agoda, I had to cancel and buy from Expedia instead.

Nothing good lasts forever and it seems that AirFrance is going to end their Jakarta-Singapore destination soon. My holiday plan for Chinese New Year is completely ruined as the return flight on Tuesday is cancelled and I am put on Wednesday flight. I can't afford to return on Wednesday because of my work commitment. Sigh.. I booked for a Tuesday flight and they only informed me about this forced change in the e-ticket. It is partly my fault for not checking the e-ticket when I bought it in August last year. I mean who would expect that a flight that you just booked, paid, and everything went through is just cancelled like that. I called and contacted their facebook to hope for cancellation of my trip and full refund but was rejected. Enquiry through their website has not been responded also. Bleah.. I am utterly disappointed.

3 days later, I received another messages for changes to my April flights: they are both rescheduled to Garuda Indonesia flights. Win liao lo.. I think they will seriously close this route. Although the rescheduled timings become earlier and more favourable to me, I still prefer an enjoyable half-empty flights with AirFrance :( Very very disappointed.

Today is also the last day of one of my staff and my colleague. It is quite sad for me as she is the first staff whose OJT I undertook and she has been doing pretty well that at the end of all this, I can proudly say that I am proud with my trainee. She will be an air stewardess and I am happy (and jealous) that she finds a greener pasture. Sigh.. With more and more colleagues leaving, I realise how much I hate my job and the only thing that keeps me hanging on is the colleagues.

I thought my mood will improve this evening in anticipation of the arrival of my photobook. It becomes another frustrating experience as I received someone else's photobook!! I know something is bound to go wrong when I receive 2 different tracking numbers for 1 order. Sigh.. I feel bad for the other person and I wonder is s/he will ever receive his/her order. It is a photobook of a child's birthday party wor.. I am also concerned if my own pictures can also be sent to the wrong address and strangers will have my photos. Sigh..

Dumb fucking shit keeps happening to me.. No wonder my resting heart rate can be 101.

Another free USS trip

I just came back from another free trip to Universal Studios Singapore and I am so shagged! It is another free entry as an appreciation for my involvement in the APG in December. After a similar one for SEA Games, I was very reluctant to go again. Not only none of my friends were going, it was held on a Friday and it was only from 7pm to 12am. I used one of my friend's ticket to ask another friend and as it had always been raining in the afternoon for the past week, I told her that I would cancel the plan off if it was raining this afternoon.

Apparently it did rain but I told her that I would still go to Vivocity and if it was still raining, I would just eat dinner there. We ate at Fish & Co and there is a reason why the last time I ate there was many years ago when my friend was not even in Singapore yet. Haha.. It was raining when we started but it stopped when we were done so in the end we still went to USS. Yay!!

USS is ready for Chinese New Year although the CNY decoration is only at the Hollywood area (which is essentially the first area where public enters). It felt very quiet for a Friday evening and I realised that this time the whole USS was 'reserved' just for us as everyone was seen wearing the yellow wristband which was the entrance ticket. Whee :) That was unlike the previous appreciation event which was on a Saturday afternoon and USS was still open to the public. Unfortunately, my friend was not interested in the rides. If I went with people who like those things, they would be over the moon as all the rides were only 5-20 minutes queue long.

At the entrance, we took a picture with Woody Woodpecker and the girlfriend. The queue was like only 5 people. Lol. We then went for Shrek 4-D adventure which was a waste of time (boring, too much talk, and I found the 3D was too hurtful for the eyes). As we were going back, there was a Madagascar meet & greet. We had no idea who the characters are and we just took photo for the sake of getting photos. I think USS character meet & greet is like very poor thing as people are not interested to take pictures with them. We also saw Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop and noone was queueing to take pictures with them. Ouch!

Sadly because USS was 'reserved' for us, a lot of eateries were not open and the whole area was quite dark in the evening. Not that I cared since my main reason for going is to take photo souvenir for team NILA. I wore a green shirt and the backdrop of the photo was also in green!! When I compared with the photo I had for SEA Games, I realised that I was actually wearing the same shirt so of course the same disaster was repeated: I blended in completely with the backdrop the photo turned out horrible. Haha.. This time I saw 2 of such photo booths so I had another try on the other photo booth and nothing could help my blending in. Lol.

I could not use the $20 voucher as we were already full from dinner. I did not regret eating Fish & Co as we were both so hungry earlier but I admit some of the food were very tempting T_T I just had an ice milo as the milkshake was already unavailable. Meh.. It was only past 9pm. I feel a bit emo because I cannot share the photos taken with the characters as my friend was also in the picture. Not that I am worried that people will think we are together but because I am afraid that her boyfriend in Korea will be jealous!! After all, he did not let her go for a holiday to Australia just with me.

But looking at the positive side, it was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience to visit USS as an 'VIP' as the whole place totally felt not crowded. Hehe..

The finale of my APG experiences :) Thank you for all the memories

Our Times

This is very late! I watched Our Times (我的少女時代 is the Mandarin title) in mid-December which was also already quite late. I had to shamefully admit that I watched this online through a link that a friend shared. I felt ripped off as the proclaimed HDRIP quality turned out to be an illegal recording in a cinema -complete with shadows of people going to the toilet. A week later another friend shared a link to the HD version. It is really HD but I do not want to re-watch it haha... I actually wanted to watch it in the cinema but between free stay at MBS vs watching this in cinema, the winner is pretty clear.

Our Times had a lot of hype, particularly for the reference to the 90s. I belong to the 90s generation too so I am quite interested to see what the hype is all about. People also compare this to You are the Apple of My Eye. That is not exactly appleaing (meant to be a pun :p) to me as the only thing I remember about that movie is that there are funny scenes and the last kiss. I totally cannot remember the plot which means the plot is completely forgettable.

I am pretty glad that I did not watch this in cinema. Honestly, I felt so bored for almost the whole movie. Our Times does not offer anything new or unique pertaining to the 90s settings or high school love stories between a delinquent, a shy girl, and the most popular student at school. Although it is quite expected that the bad boy will end up falling for the shy girl (and vice versa), it is quite cute that he does not have the guts to confess. This is only revealed near the end when the boy leaves for America and leave behind a cassette recording for the girl.

The last 10 minutes, however, make all the yawning for the earlier 2 hours worth it. The girl is big fan of Andy Lau. After the boy's confession and fast forward a few years later, it seems quite random that we leave the lovey dovey part and back to the girl fangirling again. It is funny to see her frustrated for not able to ever get a ticket for her idol's concert for the past many years. So it is a big nice surprise when Andy Lau really makes an appearance (as himself!!) in this movie. It becomes to an even bigger surprise that the whole Andy Lau thingy is actually a fulfillment of the boy's promise many years ago to have Andy Lau sing for the girl. So manly tears are shed at this point and the music also creates the appropriate tear-inducing atmosphere. The movie ends with an exchange of "Long time no see" and although that does not give any closure to their love story, it makes the ending memorable. I can particularly relate to how they feel as there was no internet and international phone call was so expensive in the 90s. When someone moved overseas, you could simply lost all contact. When you unexpectedly meet that someone now (especially if it is someone dear to you), you will definitely get the 'feel'.

Oh ya, I am not a fan of Jerry Yan but I have to admit that I like to see him here as the adult version of the bad boy. 

The soundtrack

Chicken overload

After tongue, stomach is the next body part which may lead you closer to hell. I can't believe that I skipped church this weekend just because of my stomach. Oh God please forgive me T_T Well God is distant so it is alright to sometimes prioritise myself over God. But no, I followed my stomach desire when it also meant that I would be eating poison.

Egg is a poison to my body and I have proven it during my end of year holiday that eggs really triggered acne breakout. After bombardment of various salted egg cuisines in my facebook, I lost my restrain last night and I kept thinking about salted egg popcorn chicken. Sigh.. I can't remember who shared it but on my facebook newsfeed, I saw about the Chicken King which is located at Toa Payoh. I pass by the area daily so if I want I can get it after work but a part of me keep urging me to try it today and keep my weekdays for diet.

Since the beginning of this year, my sleep cycle has been completely destroyed. I could no longer take a 1-2 hour nap in the evening as I always overslept until 2-3am :( which means that I may not brush my teeth (eww!!!) and put on my acne creams. I always shower before dinner as I hope that it would keep me awake longer and I don't need to take a nap. It does not work but at least I still shower :p The same thing happened last night and I fell asleep while waiting for the uploading of my photobook. I woke up at 1am and only slept again at 4am. I woke up late and because I played game too long, I skipped my usual 1130am mass. I thought I would eat my salted egg popcorn chicken for lunch and then go for my Japanese class. I played game longer than expected that I did not even have time for lunch. I only bought Kkuldak popcorn chicken at Plaza Sing before my Japanese class.

After class, it was a tough decision between going for evening mass vs having dinner. Obviously I chose dinner with the excuse being not having proper meal since lunch yesterday. I bought the normal ($5) and the salted egg popcorn chicken ($5.40) from the Chicken King. The normal one is pretty good, even better than Kkuldak, as they are not dry and well marinated. The salted egg turns to be as I expected: over-rated and nothing special. Booo!!

So yeah.. 3 servings of popcorn chicken a day. No more of it for the next 3 months!! Haha.. Time to get back on diet again.

Photobook

In the era of digital photography, gone are the days of printing photos to keep in a photobook. Although it is nice to be able to browse through the pictures digitally, nothing beats flipping through a photobook -just like how I can never enjoy online manga as much as reading directly from a book on my hands. There is this online photobook website that has perpetual discount codes from groupon but I only finally got the 'mood' to properly do one this year.

Honestly, it is not an easy thing to do and it is very tiring. I have been doing it for the past 2+ weeks and sacrifice whatever free personal time I have. Haha.. I started with the photos from my Europe trip in 2013 and the most difficult thing to do is the selection of the photos. Initially, I did for a 40-page portrait photobook as the available groupon discount code was for that. It took me a week to complete and by the time I wanted to get the groupon discount code, I realised that the photobook website itself is running a promotion for 40 and 80-page landscape photobook!! It was the last few hours of the promotion and luckily it was for the discount codes only and the timeline given to use it is until May. Landscape is always a better orientation for a photobook so I decided to re-do everything T_T There went all my effort for the past 1 week and I spent another week to do the 80-page landscape photobook. I hope it will turn out not disappointing. I will only write about my experience (especially with the use of the software) after I receive the end product. Haha.. Biasness detected.

I actually bought 2 more codes for 40-page because I am planning to do more for my Japan trip and Korea trip but after these past 2 weeks, I should take a rest doing these photos until Chinese New Year. Lol.. As a new customer, they emailed me a discount code for a free small photobook. Hehe.. I thought I wanted to use this for all my personal narcissistic photos but I realised I don't have enough photos to make a 40-page photobook. Lol.. Well I still have until end of this year to fill this photobook. Lol.

I finally completed my 3rd consecutive working Saturday since the beginning of the year with company's Active Day. That was the first physical activity I did since before my surgery in 2014!! Wow.. I played frisbee for a while and I still think that it is one sport which looks simple to play but very tiring to play. I ran out of breath and simply gave up on the last point despite at 1-1 condition. Well, we played for fun anyway. I also completed the 2km walk (jogging or running was forbidden as this was meant to be a walk assessment) and all my body is aching until now. I hope it will kickstart my exercise habit again.

Small surprises

The things are no big deal. But because I totally do not expect them, they become pleasant surprises for me. After I reached my room on Sunday, the first thing I noticed was a missed registered mail from Singapore. I did not order anything locally. I was very curious and at least it was an excuse for me to leave work on time on Monday. And what a great a surprise it was: a Christmas card and a pair of Cathay's Platinum Movie Suites tickets from my financial advisor!! Hohoho... Cathay's Platinum Movie Suites is something similar to Golden Village's Gold Class. I have been to Gold Classes for a few times and I am looking forward to try Platinum Movie Suites. Just nice that in 2016 there are plenty of super heroes movies coming out.

Yesterday I received an expensive looking item from Switzerland!! Wow.. Again, I did not order anything from Switzerland. It was Swissotel membership card. I really did not expect that the card will be sent from Switzerland directly. I will definitely patronise Swisshotel again --when the rates are reasonable. Haha.. 

It has been challenging to become a better person this year. It is hard not to feel upset when you try to help but the other party does not appreciate your help. That happened to me on Monday.. yep.. just the first working day in 2016. I keep reminding myself of Mother Teresa's "Do good anyway" even when others do not appreciate it. Oh well.. I have gotten over it but urrgh...

My resolution to set aside a few minutes everyday for prayer has been working so far despite the great effort to fight against the ZZZ monster. I can't seem to recover from my 3-hour sleep after my flight back on Sunday. I have been able to revert back to my diet to lose weight. It has been very challenging and I am feeling hungry every evening :( In the past, that 1 glass of cereal was sufficient. Clearly my stomach has expanded and I need to adapt back to this 200kcal dinner.

I was honestly surprised to find special appearance of Atsuko Maeda and Yuko Oshima during AKB48 performance in the 66th NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen. It was so difficult to find the video of the performance but yesterday I found it on Youtube!! Yay!! My guess that AKB48's popularity is fading with graduation of their famous members finally become reality. Something must be terrible if they had to call 2 of their former members for a national TV performance. Honestly, the performance was rather rubbish and it was only made interesting because of the appearance of Acchan and Yuko. A part of me feels quite sad that these 2 former members actually overshadowed the current members for this performance but no doubt that they have more star power than the current members. Anyway it is good to see both of them look much fresher in this performance than when they were still in AKB. And I think nothing tops AKB48's performance in 2011 (i.e 62nd NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen).

Mickey and Minnie Mouse also appeared with V6 but sadly the song chosen was rather disappointing.