The Reason

I'm not a perfect person
There's many things I wish I didn't do

But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
And the reason is you

I'm sorry that I hurt you
It's something I must live with everyday
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
Thats why I need you to hear

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
And the reason is You [x4]

I'm not a perfect person
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
And the reason is you

I've found a reason to show
A side of me you didn't know
A reason for all that I do
And the reason is you

Animal Farm

I live in urbanised city cum country, aka Singapore, yet really, i am in "animal farm world" right in my midst....lets see, for my neighbours, i have on my left, a family of stray cats and their "extended families" and on my right a cute doggy called Mickey, and on the diagonal right, a family of bats live up the mango tree...yes you heard it BATS! ewwwwwwwww every night when i have to walk home and to pass that tree, that has to be the "highlight" of the day. Well you see, the bats do not just stay sleeping in that tree in the night, in fact they fly, do"death defying stunts", triple somersaults in the air, swooping low and everywhere on the roads..thus i get freaked out and once i just literally stood in the middle of the road and stared at their "performances" for a whole of 5 mins......when the door to my house is just 5ms away....sad i know...but what are the chances of the stopid bats swooping down and hitting me right smack on the face, yeah yeah they may be blind but they have very good hearing sensors on reflective sounds etc...and my sis said " come on, you think the bats want to run into you face!plssss" but, but...what if they slip up just once! It would be sooooooooooo grossed out yeah......

On a sideline, still on the topic of animals, went out with my aiesec peers/mc team mates last night, and the star of the night has to go to our June Lawan who told us that eleplants go :" B-r-e-n-g-r" in thailand..hahahaha, reminds me of the international conferences i went where there was a discussion on what sounds do animals make in your ctys, and you will be amazed how different they all are :D

I am a groupie! :)

Me with Cibelle
Originally uploaded by ying22.

So funny to see myself so excited when i was queueing up in line for an autograph signing session with Cibelle, this cool Brazilian nova jazz artist which i went to see on Saturday. Loved her music and her on-stage presence, where she danced, joked, took photographs of her band..very cool and man does she have a hot body. :) She is real versatile and can sing a range of fast and slow songs, and makes the audience feel really comfortable, as if we were in a pub, and not in the concert hall.

Obviously i bought her album at the concert hall which i cant seem to get from any of the local cd stores ( even HMV ) and stood in line for an autograph session.:) Lastly, what impressed me was she actually came out for 2 ENCORES, which is a rare thing in Singapore i think for western singer, at which i lost a bet with my friend that i had to buy her dinner.:P

The art of "Binging"

The worst thing you could do at your office is to place tuperwares of biscuits and sweets on your desk.Cause u end up binging even though u are supposed to be on a diet.:P

Possible scenarios:
- Hmmm i am bored, that tub of pineapple tarts look very appealing,probably one should do the trick
- What is this report talking about, argh, stressed, need a break, and the
tub looks at you again, and down goes 2-3 more tarts
- Time for tea- time, what do u have? Pineapple tarts
- Accompany food for reading this thick report, perfect!

So yeah....but i rememeber reading from some hr news article on bonding with colleagues,placing some snacks or a tuperware on the table should do the trick, as they drive traffic to your table.:)

Tarts for thought!:)

Lisa Ekdahl-She grows on you...:)

lisa ekdahl
Originally uploaded by ying22.

I know Lisa Ekdahl as the cool swedish singer who sings swedish pop, and of which I borrowed her CD from Rajat in stockholm to have some swedish music for souvenirs. But i never knew her as the english jazz siren till i was listening to her english jazz cd in the car one day and remembered telling my sister, " Who is this, sounds too cute for jazz" then her answer is " She grows on you, wait and see" and true enough, i am now an absolute fan of her songs, and her voice has become a unique characteristic to identify with. But its only recently when someone told me hey isnt this a famous swedish singer u are listening to, plus i finally took out the cd from the car, i was surprised to see that it was Lisa Ekdahl. Wow........anyways she is a looker too, right?:)
Listen to her songs at her website to hear what i mean.

Bush fires in Singapore?

Never would i have expected this to happen in Singapore....very 1st time in my 24 years of existence that I come to know that we have natural disasters too. But bush fires??? Isnt that supposed to happen in countries with dry weather like Down under?Amazing...and I used to boast that Singapore is one of the safest country in the world, from natural disasters.

Excerpt from Straits Times today:

"The Singapore Civil Defence Force has had to deal with 254 bush fires in the first 15 days of this month, or 17 a day on average.

Since the start of the year, 358 bush fires have been recorded, more than six times the same period last year.

The spike is largely caused by the lack of cloud cover.

Last fortnight was the hottest first two weeks of February in the last five years, with an average daily temperature of 28.2 deg C, said the National Environment Agency."

Consumer Innovation Training Program

Home Visit
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Had such a bad sleep last night, was waking up every 1 hour from 1.15am, stressed that i would oversleep and not wake up when Harald, our AP Director for HR comes to my house for a consumer insight visit for his impending product management training program back in Stlm. So 1.15, 2.30, 4.25, 5.15, 6.10 till my alarm clock rang at 6.30am. Got dressed, scurried down to see the main leads of the insight interview are awake, yes my poor parents, and they are :) Parents...aint they the greatest things! Just not to confuse you further, the purpose of this consumer insight visit is just to know the breakfast, especially coffee drinking habits of a family in a cty and apparently all the top level managers who are going for this trainings in Stlm have to do the interview and jazz up a presentation on learnings after that.

So yeah, I obliged with his request and he came by, had nasi lemak breakfast with us, was impressed with the house my sister renovated and chatted up my parents. It took 1.5hrs. Boy am i sleepy now....was a fun experience i guess and i was quite impressed with my company's effort on consumer insight.

Buffet again

Day 2
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Mahjong

Mahjong
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Snapshots from CNY

reunion dinner


Originally uploaded by ying22.

1)Scenes from Reunion Dinner, where everyone in the big family makes an effort to come home to have this family dinner.

2)Playing Mahjong with my aunt, sis, cousin, and my grand aunt who is close to 90. She is kinda old and fragile,spends alot of her time sleeping actually but not when we set up the mahjong table, paper and tiles, she is up and chirpy in no time :)

Overcame my phobia for cycling!

Its been close to 10 years since I cycled, and that was due to a bad accident that long back, whileI was bringing my younger cousins out for cycling to tend after them, ahem I actually got into some trouble myself by crashing in a tree when I was cycling down slope at quite a fast sleep. And uups past the hump, I lost the balance of my bike and right smack into a tree I went, that left some ugly scars on my legs , blood and all. So after that, I kinda developed a phobia and came up with all sorts of excuses of not cycling when the group wants to, and the funny thing is that my 'deep' relationship with AIESEC started bcoz of my refusal of going cycling and I went to this NLDS OC meeting instead at Macs( I must have been crazy), and that's how everything started. Haha...

Anyways very proud of me, moi, myself, as I cycled from the middle of east coast park to fort road and then back to the middle and off to the far east at the twin jetty and then back to the middle. As Chris ( my ex MC team member, a groovy Motorola design engineer now who designs its mobile phones) calculated we probably done about 5-10 clique!!! Now my body is aching…partly accumulated from fri when I did some swimming and clubbing too, all in the name of exercise!

At this point, I think I should extend my apologies to Rajat, James and Vivianne my chums when I was doing my traineeship in Sweden, ha! We went to this beautiful isle, Gotland, the summer destination which is equivalent to Spain to some Swedes, and again I was hesitant about cycling around the isle, and James piggy backed me with a double bike. Think they will be super surprised or hopping mad? That I finally cycled now…..:) (alright alright, its super steep in gotland, I would have never managed it either ok babes?)

Happy girl now can go to sleep before heading for work tmw morning...

It's the little things

A birthday greeting
A all the best for your 1st day at work sms
A phonecall, be it local or from overseas
An email from friends you haven't seen for a long time


The thought that counts. :)
That warms your heart and brings a big smile to your face.

Shahrin's 27th Bday!

Shah bday
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Yday was Shahrin's bday, so on top of the already Chinese New Year eating, had a yummy buffet of malay food cooked by shahrin's mum and Matthias, our common visiting friend from Switzerland. Happy Birthday la Ah Bang, take in mind its rare that i would do a writeup
for YOU only. :)

Things you dont know about Ying's CHinese New Year :P

1) You see those relatives and family friends of yours only once a year during the CNY, thus you dont really have much to talk about. During the house visit, the young generation would just rely on the older generation to do all the chit chatting and very fast we get bored.

2) Sometimes things do not seem to change year after year, as my dad commented,the furniture of all the houses we have visited have stayed the same for the past 10 years and the funny thing is that when we visit, we always go for the same seats in the household,its so predictable that its almost funny if we dont die from boredom :P

3) Whenever we have to enter a new house for a visit, I have quite a big family so we would go visiting in 3 cars, so being "kids" hehe, even though we arrived first to the visitng house, what we would opt to chill in the car first, and wait for the rest to arrive so that they can enter the house first thus, do all the entertaining haha

4) Another thing is every year me and my extended family will go and visit our ex Chinese Tuition who had tutored all 7 of us ( cousins and all), even though the youngest has stopped the tuition 5 years back? Its actually quite amazing i think for us to still follow this habit, but i guess this showcases how our parents see the proverb of " once a teacher always a teacher" that seriously, and who know maybe when we have kids we would still visit our ex Chinese Tutition teacher on the 2nd Day of CNY.


And today, on the 3rd day of CNY, I am at work, waiting for my boss to come..Hurray!

Xin Nian Kuai Le/Happy Chinese New Year!

Just have to make a small posting about this major festival that's happening across all Chinese related countries right now, to Europeans and Americans, I would say it's the equivalent to your Christmas for us, its that big.:) Have missed Chinese New Year last year, so I guess this year I should more than compensate for it by celebrating it even harder? U think?:P

Other than normal visiting to all your relatives' houses and stuffing yourself on the all too delicious new year pastries, its always a kid's dream come true during CNY, as this is when you get to wear new flashy clothes, and get 'ANG BAO' or red packets with small tokens of cash enclosed in them. So ya, u get 'fattened' literally in terms of your wallet and your figure as well!

Somehow, I don't feel CNY is such a big thing this year maybe its because I am working in an European company that's why my colleagues are not super excited as the locals, or rather I have grown immune to it? Or is this like an age thing, once u celebrated your 21st bday, u don't look fwd to celebrate your bdays anymore? Have never been a super traditional Chinese myself, but I do stuff like buying a new top for the occasion, as we are supposed to wear new clothes for the festival though I have ahem bought tons of clothes when I got back, just that I worn them once already..oh well if it makes my mum happy, so be it. Though its really cool to be in the middle of all those colourful, red decorations, and those cheesy Chinese new year songs, the yummy food that you get when you meet all your extended family for the family reunion dinner ( the eve of Chinese new year, where everyone makes an effort to come home even though they are overseas) and the mouth watering cakes and pastries when u go visiting to different households.

Anyways, Happy Chinese Year everyone, eat up and drink up! :)


PS: Some new interesting traditions/facts that I have never thought about of CNY, posted from the newspaper. Have fun!


FACT: Offering two mandarin oranges when visiting, and receiving two
from the host in return

IN THE Zhou dynasty (1100BC-770BC), it became fashionable to offer a present to a friend or relative, which would then be returned in kind a few days later, says Mr Tong.

This reciprocal practice later morphed into a Chinese New Year custom whereby visitors to a home present the host with a pair of mandarin oranges - which resemble gold nuggets - as a token of their prosperity wishes.

The host, in turn, reciprocates by plying the visitors with another pair of mandarin oranges when they leave.

This exchange symbolises the Chinese saying you lai you wang, which means the congenial, give-and-take relations between two parties.

FICTION: Only married people can give hongbao

THE practice of handing out hongbao (red packets) started centuries ago in China when older folk gave coins to younger family members as yasuiqian (which literally means 'money to suppress ageing') to help them hold off the advancing years and retain their youthfulness.

According to fengshui master Tong Noong Chin, it soon developed into a custom where anyone who holds a job - even the unmarried - gave a red packet to their grandparents, parents as well as young children in the family.

This practice continues today in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In Hong Kong, married people give hongbao in pairs while singles,widows and widowers hand out one hongbao to each recipient.

It is peculiar to Singapore and Malaysia that only married people are expected to give out hongbao. And they do not give the hongbao in pairs.

My friend says...

That I am diagnosed with the medical condition of ADD which is known as Attention Deficiency Disorder.I was so tickled by her creative name- calling imagination that I almost cried from laughing too much, till she told me that it's a real condition, and she didn’t make it up. And now when I search on goggle for this term, I have to say YOU ARE RIGHT, CAROLINE TEE! This term exists but its NOT ME! :P


Just for your curiosity:

Definition: What is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)?

Attention Deficit Disorder is a biologically based condition causing a persistent pattern of difficulties resulting in one or more of the the following behaviors:

Inattention ,Hyperactivity,Impulsivity

Inattention

difficulty attending or focusing on a specific task. People with Attention Deficit Disorder may become distracted within a matter of minutes. Inattentive behavior may also cause difficulties with staying organized (e.g. losing things), keeping track of time, completing tasks, and making careless errors.

Hyperactivity

difficulty inhibiting behavior. These people are in constant motion. They may engage in excessive fiddling, leg swinging, and squirming in their chair.

Impulsivity

difficulty controlling impulses. These people do not stop and think before they act. They say and do whatever comes into their mind without thinking about the consequences. They might say something inappropriate and regret it later, blurt out a response to question before a person is done speaking to them, or have difficulty waiting for their turn in line.

Woman of Leisure (W.O.L) no more

My 1 month vacation has finally ended, (just nice actually, as I am starting to get bored) and I picked up my working clothes and shoes and went back to work again, thus I am woman of leisure no more...

And all I can say from Day 1 today it doesn't look like its going to be a slow start after all, have tons of reading, and well some meetings are already scheduled ahead. So...good luck to me on trying to maintain a balance of my working life and personal life here in Singapore.