Life Goes On... Phew..

Someone said before that he/she can sum up life in three words, "Life goes on". It hits me as I was watching American Idol on TV, watching Constantine being voted out and Scott being the in the top 3 with most votes??? My reaction was probably not as shocked as MJ, but still, like her, felt a bit down, I don't really like Scott, the rest are ok to me.

Anyway, when someone get voted out, again, same like MJ, didn't expect Anwar to go out so fast, well, when someone got voted out, what happens? The world (or America) cried with you for a day, or the most a couple of days, then next week they vote for another person and everyone just go on with their own life, so life goes on...

Next time when things are bad, yeah, life goes on..

I just posted the above in another blog where I was invited as a contributor, there's nothing bad about it, just that it taught me a lesson to be more careful on where I post my blog...

Phew... not a costly lesson, luckily...
ttg

Beautiful Day - A Lot of Prayers Answered

I heard from a friend from I-Do-And-See Camp, though he's not going to the next camp, still it's good to hear from him, and another girl who is also not going to the camp.

KN emailed me to tell me she's doing direct sales, and will try to pay me back... I feel happy to hear from here, and am glad that I didn't push her.

A rather nice I-Do-And-See-Camp just now, been quite quite myself, but it's good just to hear "stories" from the others.. and I get a free laksa, thanks to JS! Though MJ might not say the same thing, the whole day things have went a bit not-so-smoothly for her... But knowing MJ, no prob for her!

ttg

Touchy Day..

First it was the "Short People Got No Reason To Live" which put me in a very good mood as I recalled the car trip to I-Do-and-See programmers creative and innovative camp with three other good friends...

Look at these links..
RAU choir
TheGymphs
Canzonetta (not complete, only a sample)
This one comes with picture...

Thanks to HB yesterday who introduced me to www.alltheweb.com, then only I know where to search for mp3s... before this it was googling and I never realised most of the pages there are commercial pages?? Need to try different keywords to get to the page with free stuffs... now this new-found website is amazing... I know I'll be spending a lot of hours on it..

After that, because of my own cannot-sit-still habit, once I start to get in the mood I just continue to do what I am doing.. so, I went to check out my friend's convo gift again... a self-made CD containing songs, pictures, contacts, a short note from this friend, CK... the opening music is enough to make me feel like crying... and all these songs on friendship(e.g. Alan Tam's Friends), unity (e.g. Eric Mo's Tuan Yuan), the future (My Way chinese version by don't know who), etc..

College days... they were like my family... eating with them at breakfast (which I skipped most of the times), lunch, dinner, supper... the gossips going around, the political issues within our own CCA and between other "communities" in the college... small issues made big... imagine staying in a "house" so big with so many people... the feeling is... I can't describe.. those of us who were there, we would know... how could we put it into words for other people to see/feel?

I still got one more convo CD by Ed, perhaps shouldn't opened or I'll end up not able to do anything because of all these sweet and bitter memories... yes, there couldn't be a beter word to describe this kind of situation - bitter and sweet - you will only feel "touched to tears" when you have put in everything you have...

These people like Emil Chau's songs, like Friends, which is perhaps the chinese song I'm nost familiar with. I am Emil's fan also, once ago, some of my secondary school friends would know that...

These songs... how they evoke those long forgotten memories... sometimes it comes to the point where whenever you listen to a song, you will immediately link it to someone. "This is __'s song. She/He loves it." or "he/she used to play it" or "we used to sing it together" or "we were mad about this song back then"or haha.. this is a funny one... "remember College# 'stole' our song and sing it at the following year's choir's competition?"

"Fei Mau Yuet Peng"(Fat Cat/Garfield Mooncake), I still remember you singing aloud "Blue Moon" as we walked past 7th college... they "stole" our song! hehe.. good to know you... I don't have close contact with musical friends until I meet you, "peng pei kei" (the pancake machine-hmm.. how did the complete phrase goes already? chiu kap mou dik jiong mun yan, yi sap man peng pei kei yat ka?) oh dear... and the time when CK, KY and WL recorded the ppk audio into KY's hp, and set it as the ringtone!

Now the other choir members of our batch 2001/2002: KW (his bass is damn geng, we were "passerbys" when he sang... I think that piece of recording is with KL.. Speaking abt KL, nearly became enemies with him, but it patched up so nicely after that... hmm.. who else FS with the Garfield eyes, HT (erm, which we never spoke much about after what happened, know the story)... A lot more people in my dearest choir group(and groups, in the few years after that)

We were a bunch of unforgiving people whenever one college sang another college's song in the following year... because... you put in half a year of hard work in practicing that song and next year someone else sings it... well.. it looks childish now... but what the heck... we enjoyed ourselves so much!!

These people are my memories now, sad to say, I am not in touch with them anymore. But I have a new group of friends, which, how funny, despite how bitter my job is, this new "project" in my life and the people in it are just great. I have great respect for them, and now to be able to work together with them... again, can't describe the feeling...

ttg

An Answered Prayer?

Wow... my superior is so nice to me today... but she's not feeling well :(

She even asked me how's my job-hunt, and whether this half-hanging project is bothering me? I felt so touched when she asked that, and she said sorry because I always need to look for her things, as she is an "unorganized person" when it comes to keeping, filing or storing things...

Suddenly I'm feeling so uplifted... :p

ttg

Mr. Rock 'n' Roll, the Alan Freed story

Hmm... how true is this story? I heard his big name before, and I heard of the rock n roll era, but it has never gone beyond that (meaning I have only heard), and I thought I didn't really like rock n roll..

Anyway, it's a nice movie, and I didn't know rock n roll originated from R&B? Maybe I'll do some research...

My mood is better today, after spending some money, my parents' money.. and with no one chasing me directly for something, I took my own sweet time to do the tables and formatting..

ttg

How to Shorten Your Life

"A cigarette shortens your life by 2 min..
A beer shortens your life by 4 min..

A working day shortens your life by 8 hours!!!!..

HAPPY WORKING!!!!!!!!!!"

-anonymous, cited from email chain

ttg

You Like Turtlegurl, Turtlegurl Likes You

Sloganize Your Name must have been quite a common subjectline nowadays. I have reloaded the site quite a number of times, but nothing match You Like Turtlegurl, Turtlegurl Likes You. Perhaps these would come next "Science of Turtlegurl", or "The Turtlegurl Effect". Ah, this is another good one, "Only Turtlegurl has the Answer" (which I don't believe is true, "Turtlegurl doesn't have any answers" sounds more like it)

Anyway, back to you like me and I'll like you. I definitely complain a lot in life, and probably complain a lot about a lot of people in my life, yet if you want to say "hating" people, I don't really see myself hating someone. Not really liking someone would describe what I feel most of the time.

People say I'm a "straight-forward" person, too naive sometimes, and too easy to be tricked. I made this mistake all the time, but then, as long as you do good, I believe somehow the goodness will come back to you.

Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could... So... somewhere in my youth, or childhood... I must have done, something good...

Do your best, kamma will take care of the rest (one of my favourite quotes, my life principle!)

ttg

Encouraging Coach

I just found this blog by Beth Dargis, Encouraging Words. It has a beautiful picture of a single rose with snow around it.

This blog brought me to her website, Encouraging Coach. Wonderful site with lots of resources for personal growth.

And check out Beth's article on Cat Meditation, simply beautiful!

ttg

Light & Easy 105.7 ... then back to primary school days

"I Can Love You Like That" by All4One is now playing... this station plays all the slow numbers.. has lullabying effects to some people, but to me they're my all time favourite songs, and have been my companion when I was studying for my Higher Level School Cert.

Truth is, I never listened to any other stations other than Light & Easy, at least when I am in control of the radio channel. Some people say 105.7 is for old people, well, whatever people want to say.

I even heard "All Kinds of Everything - AKOE in short" on this channel a couple of days before . (When Will I See You Again is now playing). AKOE was one of the songs I sang in primary school, for the school choir, I remember that I really liked that song, simple sweet melody. And even the look of the music sheet, yellowish in colour, a bit old. So when I heard this song, it was the first time I hear someone singing it (recorded version)! Sounds really old, perhaps original version? Not that I've heard any other versions, anyway..

My primary school days... I love my music teacher, Mrs. Mak, I wonder where she is now. She plays the piano beautifully, and I love being in the choir under her guidance. Then some other teacher took over and played the piano not-so-nicely campared to Mrs. Mak.

The earlier years of my primary school, music lessons were all taught by Pn. Rahimah. She would play the cassette with all the songs, and we would copy the lyrics on the board and sing according to the radio. I still keep all my small music notebooks from Primary 1 till Primary 3. And I still remember for some songs where "burung terbang pulang ke sarang/rumah" meaning birds fly back to their nests, Pn. Rahimah asked us to "fly" around the classroom, in imitation of the birds! She did lots of those things, asking the class to do actions according to the songs.

Those days, we need to wait and sit at the corridor half of the year before we start our classes in the afternoon. So on the days when we have music lessons, we will sing while sitting at corridor. Quite boring, supposed to stay quiet (at least not noisy) and the prefects would take care of the students' discipline. We would also play the "batu delima", tic tac toe, bingo, writing the names of things that start with a particular alphabet (then calculate the scores based on how many people writing the same answer, I just discovered that this is actually game theory), etc...

My primary school, Purple Primary School (2), shares the school with Purple Primary School 1, and my goodness, we were "enemies" with the Purple Primary School 1 girls though we never meet any of them. (Rhinestone Cowboy playing) We will be cursing them if they leave any bit of rubbish in the desk, if after any school events they left gold dust on the tables. Same thing on the other side, they didn't feel "friendly" to us either. All these childish enmity gone when we joined the same secondary school, Purple Secondary School. :D

(Now & Forever by Richard Marx playing). Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting, the first ever English pop song I heard (as far as my memory could tell me), and the first ever pop music piano book I bought, was chosen because of this song being one of the songs inside the book.

Just now some New Age song is playing. My Christian roommate once told me that Christians (perhaps only applicable to some secs) are not allowed to listen to such music, e.g. Yanni, Kitaro, because they are Satan's music? By now, I think perhaps these music makes you feel so relaxed that you will lose yourself in the music, and that might be the reason why she said the music is not good?

ttg

Picture of My "Lotus in My Backyard"

No play play, the picture of the lotus in my profile was taken in my house's backyard on 21st August 2004. Notice the tiny black dot in the centre of the lotus? It's supposed to be a bee... which was one of the reasons I wanted to take that shot at that time.

Until now I am still fascinated by the speed the lotus stalk shoots up from nowhere, blooms, and then the petals would just fell in less than 24 hours, especially when there is strong wind.

I love this picture, it took me a long time to figure out why my Olympus camera shutter wasn't clickable. I started moving the camera further and further away from the lotus and suddenly can click. Then only I realised that my camera can't take picture of objects positioned too near to the camera...

The reddish and purplish leaves in the background, is now no longer in existence because of our hot weather, too much for the poor plant, "tie shu" in Chinese, I do not know what it's called in English.

And I just figured out how to use my scanner again. Last time I scanned from PhotoShop but uninstalled that program when I realised I didn't need to use it much (only once in a bluemoon) and it was taking a lot of space from my 4GB hard disk. So now I learned that I could actually scan pictured from any photo editor program, a bit late to learn, but better late than never?

ttg

Who Am I? --> Lotus in My Backyard

I like Lotus in My Backyard better. About 12 hours ago I had named my blog Who Am I because I can't answer that question and I thought it would be good to reflect on it once in a while. Anyway, the lotus reminds me that there is a lotus inside me, waiting to bloom, and I need to take care of it or else it will not bloom... so Lotus in My Backyard it will be...

ttg

Lotus in My Backyard

My lotus's petals has fallen yesterday's midnight, just like the song below, and it's now the month of April!

How sweetly bloom the cherry trees
Beneath the April sky
But soon, too soon, their brightness wanes
For they must fade and die
And all their petals bright
Soon on the ground we find
For while the world doth sleep
There comes the midnight wind

::Lyrics by D. Hunt, Tune by Datuk Dr. Victor Wee::

Numerical notation for the above song: Mortal and Immortal
See The Magic of Numerical Notation for the notation system I'm using. I usually like to use "dots" i.e. "full-stop ." to indicate the octaves higher or lower, but here it's more convenient to use the system recommended by the above-mentioned site.

Time: 3/4, Key: C

5 | 5- 8 | 7- 9 | 8- -7-8 | 6- -7-6 |

5- 8 | 4 5 6 | 5-- | -- 5 |

10 11 10 | 9 10 9 | 8- 8 | 6- 6 |

5- 3 | 2- 4| 3-- | -- 3 |

6- 7 | 8- 6 | 7-- | - - 3 |

6- 6 | 5- 4 | 3-- | - - - |

10 11 10 | 9 10 9 | 8- 8 | 6- 6 |

5- 3 | 2- -4-3 | 1-- | -- :|

This was one my favourite Wayfarer's songs, a local Buddhist music group. The reason I liked this song was most probably because of the cherries and flowers and month of April. I have the full collection of the Wayfarers cassettes back then (still on my cassette rack), which I think until now still remains the same, except that the songs have been recompiled on CD. The recent years have seen talented and inspirational youths making new music and giving life to poems inside the pink/brown/dark blue Buddhist Hymns book (colour of book depending on the version/date of publication of book), published by Buddhist Missionary Society (Malaysia) and edited by Datuk Dr. Victor Wee.

I used to play the cassettes day and night, so much that I can remember almost all of the tunes until now, though I'm bad at singing out the songs with the proper lyrics. Anyway, to compensate, I can play the song on the piano anytime! Come to think of it, my cassette player has been resting for quite a long while.

Talking about the piano, I don't know when I started to have the ability of recognizing the chords and the notes of a song when I listen to them, and able to write them down without testing on the piano. The notations will just appear in my mind. It enables me to play many of the songs I like (quality of improvisation aside), and to "compose" some SATB arrangements for my college's choir team, (again, quality of arrangement aside).

Hmm... must have developed them when I'm forced to do so... when I tried to compose something for my secondary school "choir team", which we never sang as the choir team was never properly formed. Maybe it wasn't a choir team after all, just some kind of performance we wanted to do, and everything fell apart when the headgirl back then transfered to another school.

Then when I was in university, another long story, let's leave that for another day/blog.

ttg

To Blog or Not to Blog?

My very first post, which I guessed my enthusiasm to blog is kind of dampened by the fact that I waited almost one hour to create this blog and to wait for this page to load before I start posting. Well, perhaps I should really get streamyx, I've been telling that to lots of people but somehow never get myself to do it. I probably won't do so at the moment. Too many things swimming in my head, officially jobless now, happy and yet feeling so lost...

I used to love to write, long letters, then long emails and perhaps long online chats, and then I do not know what happened, no more broadcasting my feelings/thoughts/views but kept them to myselves. Perhaps now I have NBTD (a phrase I learned recently, oh dear, everyone knew what it stands for except this poor girl who asked "What is NBTD" so openly to everyone in the email reply list!

I have been thinking to blog for some time, so actually got quite a lot to write, but since it's already 1am and my tired organs doesn't help much, not forgetting daddy will soon be knocking on the door and saying why am I so disobedient as not to listen to him to sleep earlier, kidney repair function works from 11pm to 1am, etc...

Yesterday (22nd April 2005) another white lotus bloomed in my house's small backyard garden. One of my favourite sights, I even took a picture of it with a bee, I mean I took a picture of a blooming lotus last year, somewhere in August of September. If I have a digital camera, I would take picture of every lotus that blooms!

That's all for the opening post, kinda messy as I am drifting into dreamworld already. ahhh... my favourite activity, it always feel so good to just sleep and put everything aside...

ttg