Preparation Season!

All right, there has been too much ranting on silly things on this blog. I shall stop complaining and whining away here. Well, at least for a while.

Banks in the states are either closing down or merging. But who am I to comment about the world economics here?

If you are asking me what have I been working on, I have only one word - READING. yep, I've been working on building my good reading habits again. After all I have more than 30 unread books on my bookshelf. Most of them are hard to digest and follow so I'm gonna read those easier ones to kick start my reading habits.

Two weeks later I shall start to get back working on my monologues again. It's important for an actor to work on monologues. Anyway the casting season is over, I shall prepare myself for the next round of audition season.

Currently I'm re-reading this book The Last Empress- The she-Dragon Of China by Keith Laidler which I had given up reading two years ago because I thought it was a little long winded for me at that time of my life. However this is actually an interesting book because the author is NOT a historian. So a few things here and there may not be as accurate and based on speculations which provide readers a new point of view. Anyway, I'll finish reading it this time. Who knows I maybe cast as Yehonala (CiXi) for my next role? An actor must always be well prepared or at least try to be prepared.

Being Adventurous

Sometimes over worrying kills not only your brain cells, it also kills your courage to move on to a greener pasture hence destroying all great possibilities one could have ever accomplished. Why be so afraid to lose? What is really there to lose? Why be afraid of the unknown? Why stay in the comfort zone to whine and wonder about the other side? What doesn't kill you strengthens you.

Rant

I need to RANT!! I really don't wanna talk about this here BUT.... ARRGH

My room is still in a mess. I hate my wardrobe! All my clothes seems to have shrunk to a much smaller size. Okay I admit, I myself is to be blamed for this tragedy BUT how can I resist sweet offers from dear friends and love ones? Lately Jacq has been baking so much and she has been stuffing me every 2 days with yummy cheesecakes and muffins from her up and coming FAT KITCHEN. Mom always get me Char Siew Bao from my favorite stall every Sunday for supper. Sam sends me her killer chocolates almost every 2 months from Europe. Prince spoils me with ice cream and desserts every week and my tummy needs to be filled with prata 3 times a week for supper. My nieces feed me with sweets everyday. Besides all these, there are so many dinner parties & invitations with really good food, how can I ever resist? Something must be done!! But I really don't want to spend 3 hours in the gym/pool every day to burn all these fats. But still something must be done! Okay, I shall only eat salad in the day and save my main meals for dinner and start to spend one hour every day to workout. Strictly NO supper!

I brought my nieces to Chinese Garden to see the Hello Kitty Lanterns. It was beautifully, costly. $15 for adults and $10 for kids for the entrance fees. I mean I am fine with the entrance fees and I think its quite worth it because I know my nieces are gonna enjoy themselves and so do I. BUT, those kiddy rides! $3 for a token? Some kiddy rides cost 2 tokens which means a good 6 bucks. Kids are always kids, so one ride is never enough and I have two kids with me. Plus the drinks, food and toys... ARRGH I felt bad I had to do some budget control on them because seriously I would rather save the money and bring them on a overseas trip so that they can learn about the world. I'm such a bad auntie to my nieces....... ARRGH

My super CPU is back. Everything has been upgraded and even had a new casing. The only thing recycled from my old PC is the motherboard and the fan. I'm happy with my new CPU but I really gotta stop spending money.

Seriously I think all these are what I call "positive stress". No big deal actually when I choose to look at the other side of the coin. I just need to laugh at myself for my silly thoughts. What I am so called suffering is really no big deal compared to those who are really suffering from the third world countries.

Have I not enough to eat? ABUNDANCE! Have I not enough to dress? A ROOM FULL! Have I not enough to enjoy luxuries? PLENTY! Then why am I ranting so much?

Now that I've found my balance, thank you for listening.

I'm having fun!

Finally finished my two days shoot today. A bit tired but happy. I'm happy not just because of money but I'm happy because I'm working. Working means I get to practise my craft as a actor. The crews and director are friendly and easy going. They took great care of me. Matter of fact is, this has been a fun and enjoyable shoot. Prince and I had dinner tonight at Raffles City with a very good and veteran actor whom I call him PaPa "P". Food was good and we even had a bottle of sake.

About 4days ago my blanket flew away after I hung it to dry on the pole/teck ko. I had used three clips to secure it to the pole but apparently it didn't work. I was just relaxing in my room when my mom came running to my door to inform me about my missing blanket. The pole was still there but the blanket went missing. Thank goodness the pole was still there because I live on a very very high floor. I decided to conduct a mini "CSI" while ironically I was wearing my CSI t-shirt I bought from Las Vegas. I looked outside the window at my laundry area but I didn't see anything below my apartment. I figured out it must be the "work" of the strong wind as it had been very unusually windy lately. I then decided to go downstairs with my two lovely little "CSI Assistants" whom both process the IQ of a 4-5 year old kid. ( Okay, both my lovely nieces are truly 4 and 5 years old. )

ANYWAY.............

After I got downstairs, my blanket was still no where to be found. I thought to myself it must have flew its way to Johor?! LOL Just as I turn my back to head back home, I SAW IT.
My blanket was nicely hanging on top of a tall tree. So how tall are we talking about here? Picture this, it took me a 4 step ladder and two poles/teck Ko that were attached together to extend the length to the maximum and a good 15minutes to "rescue" my blanket from the tree top. As a friend mine put it jokingly, GONE WITH THE WIND! I actually thought this incident was funny and also heart warming as both of my nieces, my dad and I worked together as a team on this "rescue mission".

My Chinese Poem: 寒潭望春

有心栽花花不开
肥田树枯水月寒
春去秋来时景迁
秋水难留又一梦
明月看似冬无限
鸳鸯寒潭望春临

I must be watching too much TVB period drama to come up with something like that. Feel free to correct my chinese poem.
Have a great weekend.

Serious Cravings

I wanna eat Bak Chang. Those with salted egg, pork and mushroom. Where can I get good Bak Chang? The one at Joo Chiat road is too far for me........ Arrgh. Finally I ate my last piece of Sprungli Chocolate Truffes. Anyone knows where can I buy this brand of chocolate? Dim Sum!! Where can I get really really good Dim Sum besides 126 at Geylang?

Yep. It's all about food. Maybe I'm just too hungry now.
I shall just shut up and go cook instant noodle, my favorite unhealthy happy food.
But before that I wanna share my "secret recipe". :P

Here's what I usually add into my instant noodle besides the usual egg and crab sticks.

1) One Table spoon of sesame oil
2) One to two table spoon of Chinese rice wine/cooking wine.
3) One tea spoon of ready made deep fried onion.
4) Whatever vegetable available in my fridge. Best is fine slice cabbage and bean spout.

So, what do you usually add into your bowl of instant noodle?

4 Birthdays and a box of mooncake

Recently I met my childhood friend/neighbour Siew Lan while doing a show at Suntec City. I haven't seen her for 15 years at least. I was rushing at that time so I quickly gave her my contact number and rushed back to the stage. I didn't expect her to invite me to her baby boy, Victor's first birthday party. I made effort to turn up even I had another birthday party that happened on the same day.

I was nervous when I got there and had to calm myself down for a good 15 minutes before I took the lift up to her apartment. I mean, seriously I haven't seen SiewLan for so long and I felt a little weird. But then I recalled the good old days. The days when we were both little girls, having fun with play pretends, using blankets to create costumes and playing badminton at the playground. Yet now we both have grown up and she's a proud mother to a beautiful boy. The best part of the party is I met another of our childhood friend/neighbour, Hun. Lots of flashbacks came into my mind as 3 of us updated each other about our lives.

I headed off to another mass birthday party after Victor's. Yep I use the word, MASS. We were celebrating the birthdays for 3 friends at one go. We had dinner at a German restaurant at Raffles City and then followed by kopi and tea till late. Can you imagine the big bag of birthday presents I carried that day? LOL

So it's mooncake festival. I'm so glad they have this mooncake "convention" at Raffles City. This made it so much easier for me to make my festive purchase. Met an old friend at one of the mooncake booth. I didn't recognize him until 10 minutes later.... He looked so different. I was ashamed of myself for being rude. Rude in a way that I didn't recognize my own friend. He gave me huge discounts for my mooncakes and that made me felt even worst.

This has been a heart warming week indeed, from meeting of childhood friends to celebrations of good old friends. I've got a callback from a production house so this means I may have jobs coming in which is good. Gotta save money for my education and spare some to pamper on my nieces. It's school holiday now. I guess I shall bring the girls to the beach or do some trekking in the jungle for a change.

Randy Pausch - Really achieving your childhood dreams

This ENTRY has been EDITED.

Here's something I wanna share with you on Life Lessons.

"The Last lecture" by Randy Pausch is truly amazing and inspirational. The speech was part of a series that the computer science professor Randy Pausch and other professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical talk.

Prof Randy Pausch age 47, with pancreatic cancer had died at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia on 25th July 2008. His last lecture titled "Really achieving your childhood dreams" became an internet hit with 6 million viewers. He had also published a book and it made it to the top of the non-fiction best seller lists.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Randy :

Remember, the brick walls are there for a reason . The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.

Check out his book THE LAST LECTURE

Transcript from the speech by Carnegie Mellon University CLICK HERE

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