Loopie - Joop

Chinese New Year falls on 26-27 January 2009. So it looks like we can try to go back in Feb again (pending other co-workers travelling plans of course). Hao has just been officially informed that he will not be allowed to take more than 2 weeks off from work - just short trips. i'm hoping to be able to stay longer, maybe a month. so that i can get some quality time with everyone at home. another long 3-day weekend due to Labour Day holiday on monday. yeps, labour day falls on the first monday of sept, unlike in sgp. here all holidays other than christmas and new year's fall on either a fri or a monday so that you get an especially long weekend. that's super great to save up on leave and go for a short vacation. from now till Feb - still a full 6 months to go - so i'm itching to go off for a short break. maybe this time, we could really go to niagara falls. yesterday we went to the dodgier parts of town to look at a second-hand wii. was very disturbed by the st...

Have been really busy these few days - one, trying to run away from food; two, trying to force my ass to the gym; and three, work. Work has been, how shall i say this, very busy. coordinating a conference coming up in Oct. Taking minutes for meetings. Moving office and setting everything up for everyone. i only have one wish - to remain tech savvy as i age. i don't want to rely on someone else to add a printer for me. i don't want to rely on someone else to clear a paper jam. period.

cos it's just appalling what this child - born perfectly normal - had to to go through. she wasn't orphaned, she had a mother and 2 grown brothers but she was offered no love and attention. i nearly retched after reading the description of her old living conditions. how could it have happened? The Girl in the Window

yes yes - he's great! according to wiki, he has a body built for swimming - disproportionately long arms (2m long compared to his height of 1.9m), short legs and double jointed ankles. he's born to swim, i tell ya! besides these wonderful (?) attributes, he's got an earnest smile, washboard abs and a record-breaking 8 gold medals from beijing. woah. an over-achiever at the age of 23 (yawnz, can they get any younger you think?) And dare i mention the 41-year-old dara torres - man! i want to look like her when i'm 41 (no botox there, just loads of exercise). in any case, watching the olympics has made me more determined to head to the gym (more!) regularly. yeps, it's sharlene's step class tonight. onward to a new and healthier body and mind!

Seems like i'm going through them pretty quickly - this one's from a friend - i didn't spend a cent on it this time ( beaming with pride - the martians can probably see the light from their planet, if they really exist ) - it's a suspense/mystery book and i'm hooked on it. i'm on page 196 now. the funny indian-looking picture they'd used on the cover is due to the missing treasure ( which drives people crazy and can destroy the world of course ) being of indian origin, which was stolen from a tibetan monastery. the ever-resourceful and 007-like detective pandegast needs to find it and find it fast because it is in the possession of a brutal serial killer who is onboard an ocean liner doing an atlantic crossing between southampton and new york. yeps, all 4000+ people onboard, frightened to death by the growing number of missing people - which were thrown off the liner and the dead woman hanged for a spectacle. it is getting exciting. if you are intereste...

I consider myself to be a John Irving fan. minus the comic books (that comes in a series), british authors jane green and marian keyes, and of course my favourite romance writers julie garwood and judith mcnaught (i hear some murmurs of agreement, they are really quite good eh?), i don't often end up reading more than one or two books from the same author. So after "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" and "The Fourth Hand", and now "Until I Find You" - i think i can safely claim to be an irving fan. His books tend to always feature a male protagonist, often with a tumultous/traumatising/abused childhood which contributes to his weirdness in adulthood. If you are interested in a good story told by an experienced story-teller, head on down to your nearest bookstore and hunt down this find. you might find it a lot more entertaining than stiller's new movie.

Paper money not based on gold but on golems!! Wow, that is indeed going to cause an upheaval within banking's closed inner circles. an enjoyable read, though sometimes it's hard to keep up with pratchett's mind and prose. maybe it's because i've never read his other books - yes, i'm a pratchett virgin - so i'm not too sure where's he going or what he's digging at. ah well. all in all, a very light-hearted read about an issue very close to heart - making $$.

...book that is. After The Kite Runner - which was highly recommended by jo - i'm starting on another of Khaled Hosseini's book - "A Thousand Splendid Suns". happy to say that the first 46 pages have not disappointed me - Hosseini truly, has a knack for telling stories. it is again set in Afghanistan, like the Kite Runner and i'm expecting it to be a good read.

Last friday was the 8th Day of the 8th Month of 2008, 08/08/08 mind you! Did anything auspiscious happen to you? Well, i heard that the Beijing Olympics started without a hitch, though there were grumbles of how badly dressed the Singapore contingent was - who designed those hideous thingamies? And did you enjoy the fireworks on Saturday? i remember watching the national day parade live one year - sorry, i think it was the ndp preview instead of the parade proper. nonetheless, it was pretty touching to stand in the humidity, sweating in the crowd surrounded by your fellow people - chinese, indians, malays alike - and singing in one voice and one language, not always in the same tune but i digress... i was young-er and it was fun. national day to me now is another public holiday. i don't even get particularly excited about watching the fireworks. yikes. and now that i'm away, and there are no national day songs constantly blaring on the tele, i forget when that "special...

I've been experimenting with wordpress. and i must say i'm impressed. but i don't intend to swop over just yet because blogspot has sentimental value. AND, today is the day i break away from laziness. i'm going to the gym. hahaha.