What's cooking in September?

Had fun playing with lanterns with my childhood mid autumn festival playmate last week!

I recall, that our mum would prepare lotsa relevant food items like mooncakes, tea, pomelo and some yam-taste yet horn-look food to offer to the gods on this festival. Yes, i'm from a traditional family that preserves such diminishing culture and I'm feeling proud of it:) if my mum doesn't practice this, how would I even know about the rooted asian culture? :) so, while she was busy with the praying and all, my sisters and I will take wooden sticks and paper lanterns out from the cupboard and started lighting the candles. Our kind of joy was to decorate our many potted plants along the corridor with lanterns but always ended up burning a few :P 

When I grew older, I started celebrating the festival with friends whom would meet at the park and play hide-the-candles. Two groups would play the game with one group walking off to a designated pavilion and walk back to the original meeting point, while the other group would take the time to melt the candles bases and stick in amongst bushes, between slides, at side of see saw etc. the group walking would always walk very fast so that the other group had no time to hide all 10 candles hahaha in case you are wondering why didn't we just text each other when ready: this happened in early 2000s where carrying a cell phone wasn't all affordable for kids yet. I was in lower secondary back then. 

As I grew older, I would spend with closest gf by using candles to decorate the ground saying friends forever Etc, or to celebrate with the then bf.

Then time flies and here come my last mid autumn festival spent at home. I was totally emo the entire year (yet all excited about the marriage) cuz I'm gonna spend the simple festivals with another family after this year's. 

So the best way to wrap the festive season is to spend it with the celebrations' origin: family:) da jie was not feeling well and parents think they are too old for lanterns so that left my er jie and me. Had fun reminiscing the past while reliving the moments, dreaming about future while chatting the present; and managed expectations while we build wish list. At our town's very own reservoir, bedok reservoir, we patronized wawawa bistro while played with our cuteay lanterns. Of course, with two girls around and smartphones, we snapped quite a few pictures! Check them out on instagram.

I will miss my sisters always, and will definitely come home often :'( :)

Here's one for the lanterns:)

Farewell is not the End to a Friendship

Daily office affairs are like the happenings on battlefield. You see how your comrades drag the wounded-you behind the barrels to shun the flying bullets; and how your smiley mates turned against you when the grenade is going to blow. You get the drift yea? Despite the danger, the soldiers marched on and received what come may. Simply because, you can't avoid battles whenever you are on the field. Take it positively, competition only comes for the competent. If you are being challenged, it means you are worthy to be an opponent.

In the different courses of work, I have made fantastic colleagues-turn-friends along the way. Of course the shrewd ones still exist, but the craziest pals in office stole most of the limelights from the daily hoo haas. :)

I just bade goodbye to a super friendly working environment few weeks ago.  Leaving somewhere comfortable definitely was the toughest fight. However, the silent yearning of challenges got the better of me and I chose to go for something a 25 YO would go after. I was afraid of settling in for comfort as the underlining meaning may be "becoming less competent". I came from somewhere that delivers high impact works which drove streams of satisfactions, and that may be the cause for not agreeing to certain work measures in my last boarding. I am still looking forward to serve a true leader just like how I met one in my first job - charismatic, knows what he's delivering, familiar with his expertise and work just the way subordinates will respect.

The journey was like schooling: you meet awesome people who cheers with you, bitch with you, cries with you and dance with you, but when it comes to project work, certain friends may not be cut out to be a fabulous project mate. That doesn't mean the end of friendship if you know how to handle with care, that just mean certain friends are not meant to work together. I'm proud to say, I have met a whole school of awesome friends and project mates in this part of my journey:)

I delivered my last event on my very last day, so as to avoid leaving office at 6pm weeping and kissing goodbye to all the familiar things/people ('cause I was fighting back my tears when one friend left the company, and swallowing my cries when I hugged a colleague goodbye one day before my last day) That worked though! 

Alright, enough of the texts, let pictures take over instead. (I have too many photos for this office of peeps, so selectively gotten some:)

My messy corner

 The staring war between hamburglar and doraemon!:D

Farewell Gift: Agnes b name card holder and a generous Ang Pow with handmade card

  

Farewell

 

Lunch Khaki 

(ok downside of having events on last day is: you don't have enough time to take pictures)

(not full strength some more)

HCJS!!!

 

I will always miss the most random stuff we did, like making Tee shirts, covering our cutesy with jackets saying 'brr it's cold!' in the middle of the night, or running after ice cream man just to get our childhood tastes, and the #bkkcraze! too much to pen down, I'll recite in my heart instead:) ANJJ!!!! (ai ni jiu jiu)

Mayday Ignites Our June

I grew up listening to Chinese Pop. When there was no cable TV, channel 8 was my best friend and I can safely say that I am a TV kid;) 

I knew Mayday from channel [V], whose programme of 封神榜was aired on Channel 8 in the 90s. The ever first song that caught my attention in this MTV-music ranking show was 疯狂世界. After which, the next best impression took place when I reached 12 yr old (year 2000) and they got to go serve the nation. There was this advertisement that featured their 展别演唱会VCD, and they showed the humbly-dressed boys at an open air concert, asking weeping fans to go home as there was no more encore for they had finished all the songs that they had. Somehow, it left a very deep impression in me. 

As i progressed to secondary school, I started to listen to their songs in proper. Having myself educated in a Chinese School where Higher Chinese was made compulsory and surrounded by Mandarin speaking friends who loved singing as much as I do helped to escalate the lyrics understanding and appreciation to a sky high level. Boy, I never feel disappointed listening to their songs, as the lyrics are always reflecting everyone's inner world. I was then convinced to listen to their songs whenever there is a new album. Wasn't a Rah Rah fan, but more of a silent listener who likes the way the are, the bonds they shared.

I admit that I was a huge fan of Jay Chou during my secondary school times, and his songs accompanied my growing-up phase; but Mayday was part of the elements that grow with me too. Jay Chou's albums have fantastic lyrics by 方文山， where he paints a beautiful story with great usage of words that suit the poetic songs. Oh yes, they were very useful for my 造句too!:P Mayday's lyrics are written towards a more modern writing-style, where the combination of few simple words draws attention to big ideas. 

Why Mayday? Well, that's because their songs unleash the rebellious us in a positive way; because their songs push us out of our comfort zone and give us strength to pursue things that seem absurd but leave us no regrets after doing it; because their stories give us hope that we only live once, and got to make it real interesting so that you'll never think you wasted a lifetime doing nothing; because their never-ending concert surprises make you wonder, wow they are now here, what's next for future concert?; because they are significance of inspiration, motivation and realization；因为五月天带来的，是热血，是执着。是青春，是永恒。

I found this in my old blog which lifted a paragraph from Krys' old blog back then:

在人生的交叉点，往往有个十字路口。它留了四条路，无论选择了那一条路，都要不顾一切的走下去，哪怕是走错了路。。。true enough, we choose a route through analysis or gut feel without knowing what's in for our future. 哪怕途中发现另一条路比较顺畅，你还是要硬着头皮让你选择的这条路更加亮丽=)

15 June 2013 - Singapore Indoor Stadium

On a lighter note, we went to Mayday's concert - 诺亚方舟 last night! I attended the concert with my best concert companion who also went through the same growing up phases as me. We have too much in common, that we share the same laughing point, even though no one seem to understand what we are laughing at. Safe to say, my lifetime concert partner!:D

Singapore was the last stop and they are heading back home today. I attended the Outdoor Stadium concert in Singapore years ago, and i must say, the concert last night was 10,000 times better! The concert was scripted and the flow fits the theme. The animations featured JJ Lin, Jerry Yen and Ariel Lin. The audience was each given a Mayday Light Stick. What awed ALL OF US was how the lightsticks were controlled by a central station! When the first song was being sung and all of us were waving our light sticks to the tempo, the sea of blue (which represents Mayday) was switched to red to suit the song at chorus all at one go! We were all surprised! They could even make the unison colours turned alternate to create the colourful effect! Ok enough for the lengthy entry. Let the pictures speak on behalf!

一片蓝，一片五月天的蓝。阿信on stage

If you wish to witness the magical moments in the concert, some fans have uploaded the video clips;) such as this.

There was a guy who planted his friends with a big board "MARRY ME?" at the exit. Everyone was busy snapping photos and looking out for the female lead. Look at the paparazzis! haha anyway great ending to the night!

Features of the entry (some from mine, some from other fans):