Archive for March, 2008
hey all,
i would LOVE to blog right now, but i’ve been running out of bandwidth over the past few days and hence am afraid to blog anything picture-heavy lest my bandwidth goes completely kaput. i’ve got soooooo many things to write about, like the competition, my visit to the Malaysian Dreamgirls’ house, a particularly weird friend, my Yunnan trip… ahhhhh.
but i guess i gotta wait about 12 hours because my host hasn’t been replying my emails to upgrade my bandwidth for free. niiice :\
just a quick update - no i didn’t win the public speaking competition :( but it was a completely awesome and fantastic experience making it as far as the national finals, so i’m very very happy. made 10 great new friends who are the coolest bunch you will ever meet. hehe we’re going to form our own political party, with Chulan as president. Chulan is Finalist #11, who is 19 but looks 26 :P and talks like he’s 26 too. hahaha. oh Chulan! <3
Faustina Niap and Lin Mei Yi were the two champions. Faustina spoke on.... BLOGGING!!!! hahahaha w00t! i love you Faustina!! best topic ever. i kept jumping up and down in my seat the entire time she was speaking. Joshua's (who looks like Edison, really) speech was my other favourite cos it had the most integrity :) he spoke on racism in Malaysia, and he painted a very accurate picture of our situation. brave move for a public speaking competition :)
okay ah what else to say.
oh.
i'm now at Martian's apartment.
>:(
March 31st, 2008
i’ve been extremely happy giggly over the past week because it’s been such an amazing week. while i was on that lovely holiday with Martian, i kept receiving lots and lots of good news from back home :) some of them i cant share right now cos i don’t wanna jinx anything, but there are some that i can!
like how some stuff that i did were published in the papers three times this week :)
two were about the Nuffnang Pajama Party, which i organized together with Michbaby and is an event that i’m very very proud of. we handled it so smoothly that Stewie the Control Freak couldn’t believe that everything was taken care of each time he called us for updates. haha! high five, Michbaby! though i’m a bit sad that i never got to have my chocolate fountain :( it is my dream to organize an event with a chocolate fountain!!!
whee we made the papers! this one was in the metro section of The Star (20th March 08), written by Tho Xin Yi. online version here. the article features Robb’s now-famous nipples :P Robb’s the guy clutching the Kogepan doll in the upper left photo.
and then the next day, the New Straits Times featured our party too!
another two-page spread :D story by Evangeline Majawat. i love the photo of our Nuffies, although Elaine the schoolgirl was missing. glad they managed to catch a picture of our three ‘I Sleep Better With Chipster’ winners too! click here for online version.
a big thanks to Kim Komm, our fabulous PR agency who made all this media coverage possible :)
we had a really good team behind our party :) but the party wouldnt have been so awesome without the 300 bloggers who came all decked out in their pajamas and other bedtime accessories like teddy bears and adorable bedroom slippers. so sporting! i remember when we were first going through ideas for the party’s theme and i suggested a pajama party, lots of people were like, ‘er…… maybe there shouldn’t be a theme. Malaysians won’t dress up wan lah!’. well, now that the event is over and the pictures and write-ups are all available for viewing, what can i say… :) i’m really glad we stuck to the theme. thank you to the 300 bloggers who brought such fun and life to our theme!!!! thank you for being part of our first birthday and the foundation for many more great parties to come :D
the 3rd newspaper article i was featured in is this one:
this was for the ESUM public speaking competition that i participated in last week. this article, written by Tan Shiow Chin, is coverage of the competition’s semifinals, which i shockingly managed to advance to. ya that’s me in the upper right photo holding a pencil and grinning like an idiot :P online version here, though my individual picture is not in the online version. but you can make fun of my long skirt in the group photo there :P yeah yeah… the long skirt jokes have been coming in droves over the past few days. i once told Skyler that i had to wear a long skirt for an interview, and she went “you mean YOU have a long skirt?” -______-
a bit of story about the ESUM public speaking competition: the first time i participated was in 2006. the first round was the topic Mapping the Global Future, which i did alright in. then i got the impromptu topic of Eco-tourism, which is a hard topic, but because i’d been to camps centered around ecotourism, i managed to do well enough to go to the semifinals. once your name is announced as a semifinalist, you have to get up there and start speaking on the topic ‘Storm in a Teacup’ immediately. i didn’t make it to the finals that year, but was happy enough to have reached the semifinals at least :)
then in 2007, the topics were Dynamic Earth and The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back. i’d already prepared both my speeches, and if you’d read the article up there, you would know that i chickened out of the competition on the morning itself. haha. i was seized with this uncharacteristic nervousness because i felt so unprepared and that my speeches weren’t good enough, so i ended up not competing. it was a decision that i regretted to this day!
so this year, i vowed to redeem myself by making sure i turned up for the competition. i wrote down in my planner to start writing my speech at least a month ahead of the competition, but what with all the pajama party (same day as the competition) and college stress, i ended up writing both speeches only a day before the competition. damn stupid. so yes i felt very unprepared and again, almost chickened out, but i didnt. i forced myself to go and at least try my best.
the first round topic was New Horizons, New Frontiers. i did okay - not as good as i’d liked, and i think i referred to my cue cards too much. Jared and Errol, two guys in my room who spoke before me and thus got to hear my speech, told me that i did well. i didn’t think so lah, but it was very comforting to hear such kind words :) then Jared and i engaged in a long conversation about our mutual kiddy-love for Power Rangers o_____O
then it was time for the impromptu speech. the other 112 participants were getting topics like durian, bittersweet, me myself and i, the perils of smoking… and i got…..
BUDGETING.
YEAH. ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME KNOWS THAT I DON’T KNOW A SINGLE THING ABOUT BUDGETING.
so that’s what i spoke about. haha. i said that i don’t know anything about budgeting, and that’s why i spend so much money all the time and have no savings. i spoke about how i learned to budget quite accidentally - because my dad took away all my credit cards :P then i went into a few more steps on how to budget. anyway i thought my impromptu speech sucked BIG TIME lah okay :( at the end of my body paragraphs, i referred back to my cue cards and realized that i didn’t have anymore points. so i stupidly repeated the first point, and then i said…
“so, yeah, that’s about it. thank you.”
and i sat down. mmmmmmmmmm. well done lah lim su ann, well done!!!
i was so depressed lah and totally disappointed in myself. has all these years of public speaking trained me to end my speech like that? again, Jared and another guy said my speech was good but i didn’t believe them. i later bumped into Samantha and Tara (Thean), also contestants, and poured my sorrows out to them :( i didn’t even bother looking through my semifinals script because i was so sure i wasn’t advancing any further after that disastrous Budgeting speech.
but then they announced my name as one of the 15 semifinalists. oh my god. i almost died from the panic okay. i think many of us hadn’t expected to get through, because everyone (except for like one or two extremely calm people) started scrambling for their notes and cue cards.
as i was sitting in the front row awaiting my turn to speak, i realized how destructively pessimistic i had been. i kept thinking that my impromptu speech was so bad, even though fellow contestants said it was fine and that i was worrying too much :( i actually wanted to leave immediately after the impromptu speech because i was so convinced i wouldn’t be advancing to the next level, so i may as well leave early to help with set-up for the pajama party. well. i’m so glad i didnt leave. i think i would have killed myself if i really DID leave when i’d actually made the semifinals.
my speech on the semifinals topic If I Could Change The World was about the power of optimism :) yes yes the irony of the topic is not lost on me. but i did well. i think the audience liked my speech and i got a lot of really heart-warming and encouraging comments after my round. phew. when The Star’s journalist interviewed me about my topic, i told her that even on that day, i was just drowning in my own dangerous pessimism. it was again, one of those days that i realize how important it is to just look on the good side of things, and that even if bad things happen, i must learn how to accept it and move on with happiness.
something quite funny happened after that. one of the competition supervisors came up to me and said, ‘your speech has matured a lot since the 2006 competition’. i was like, oh! you remember me! and he went ‘yeahhhhh because you’re still SWAYING all the time when you speak!’ hahaha damn malu. i guess anyone who’s seen me speak would know how much i tend to sway from left to right when i speak onstage. my debate instructor used to yell at me all the time for that. haha. incidentally, he was the first person to notify me about my appearance in the above article :)
semifinalists who get to advance to the national finals were to be notified by phone. i was in China during the week they were supposed to be calling us, but i didn’t get any call so i was pretty sure i didn’t get through to the finals.
but then two days ago, i got the call :)
sooooo, the 4th article, which came out in The Star today:
online version here
i will be speaking with 10 other contestants this Saturday at the national finals. 5 of us from the PJ semifinals made it, the other 6 are from the Penang, Johor, Kuching and Terengganu semifinals. i am so EXCITED, i really really am.
and this time, i’m not going to let pessimism rob me from having fun :)
wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am so going to need it!!
March 26th, 2008
i am at a loss for words tonight. a million and one things to blog about, but i can’t find seem to find the right degree of concern or earnest. i’m breathing in all this distraction that seems to morph into fatigue as it makes its way through my bloodstream and coils itself around my vital organs. squeeze. sleep. so many wonderfully good news, not yet any bad. but i’m waiting for it to come; precariously, hardened, accepting.
there is a pack of honey dijon-flavoured Kettle Chips on the table. addictive? iconic. i once knew a man who hated chips but loved this particular brand. this man now sleeps in the next room. and i’m going to join him now, because i’m at a loss for words tonight. sleep. and what will tomorrow bring? i have my alarm set for 10.30 a.m: that’s 12 hours after last night’s 10.30 p.m - an hour that was spent at the food court in Changi Airport eating taiwanese rice and this really awful-tasting barley drink and a pill. it was homecoming, all right. we giggled and laughed the entire day, mostly sleeping on the plane or making fun of each other. i really wanted to blog about this really stupid thing that he said during the flower market trip, but i’ve forgotten what it is. memory like a sieve. sucks. maybe when i wake up i will remember.
yknow, i’m blogging in this sleep-deprived state that feels almost like a drunken high. i wouldn’t be surprised if i’m slurring my text. and so i shall take my leave, but not before enclosing herewith a picture of the place we’ve been in over the past 5 days. he took this from the balcony while i was asleep. he crawled back into bed with me and said he wanted to show me something, but i pleaded for 5 minutes more of slumber, and that was that, because we both fell asleep and woke up much much later, when all the snow was gone and we had missed out on a wonderful breakfast spread that we later learned had mantao and these really delicious rosti potatoes.
isn’t it beautiful? we were up in the mountains; couldn’t breathe right for almost three quarters of the time we were there. they call this place Shangri-La, heaven on earth, but heaven isn’t really heaven without altitude-sickness pills, warm gloves and those little oxygen tanks Martian kept inhaling from.
he told me to pack for the winter, but blissfully obstinate as always, i brought 3 short skirts. i thought one pair of jeans or my leggings would be warm clothing enough, but obviously i was drastically wrong. i wouldn’t even have brought my wooly pink jacket if he hadn’t forced me to pack it in on the morning that we left. so yes, i near froze to death. but it was a very nice near-death experience. i caught a glimpse of heaven :)
goodnight now :)
March 24th, 2008
i will always remember that moment where i tried to disappear into that corner outside the lifts, and the minutes leading up to that moment. i will always remember that sense of estrangement, that betrayal, that nauseating distress that was scratching its way out of my stomach and into my mouth. there is the quiet kind of loneliness that you feel in the never-ending expanse of your bed in the dead of night when you can’t seem to sleep.. and then there is this kind of roaring raging angry loneliness when you realize with a thudding clarity that trust is hurtful and dangerous when placed into the wrong hands.
slivers of that moment haunt me when i step into lift lobbies. or when i am back there. and even sometimes when i dream, especially that particular dream last sunday that felt like a grotesque hall of shame that i was eternally trapped in, thinking to my dream self over and over again, how could this be happening to me.
all i can do after i lock the door behind me each time is sigh. here we go again, these wooden floors. i wish they sold resilience by the bottles over the counter. i would break my piggy bank for a lifetime supply of the stuff.
March 20th, 2008
i am currently back at Martian’s apartment, where there are simply not enough snacks or tissue paper. sometimes i don’t know how he exists in such impoverished conditions. i got so fidgety that i couldn’t stand it and went to the supermarket this afternoon to buy some Hello Panda biscuits and tissue boxes back -____- oh and i also found PODS!!! did you guys know that Singapore now has PODS!!! i am munchin’ away with much joy.
i’m eating and sleeping properly again, as i always do when i am back in the care of Martian, and it feels good. the other day i woke up feeling faint and i only realized a while later that it was because that i hadn’t eaten for 2 whole days. i was so busy and stressed out with the pajama party and the public speaking competition (more on this soon) that i simply forgot to eat. incredulous. i think i need to take better care of myself :\
there are so many things i wanna blog about, i don’t know where to start.
okay first topic: advertorials! i saw Michbaby’s post about people who complain about advertorials, and she really hit the nail on the head when she said it is irrelevant whether or not a blogger is being paid to write a post. i cant agree more, and really and do not see why there are people who insist it is only ‘right’ that bloggers write ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ at the top of each sponsored post.
alrighty, i can’t speak for other bloggers, but i will only write about products that i actually use and like, or if i think this is a product that i want to tell people about. every word that i write in my advertorials is purely the truth of what i think of the product; clients CANNOT tell us to write good things about the product if we don’t actually like it in the first place. take my LipIce post for instance - i mentioned that i love the product and i have been using it since i was young, which is the truth. does putting that stupid ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ sentence at the top of the post change anything or lend some kind of validity to my opinion of the product?
some girl mentioned somewhere that i should ‘give room for readers to make judgment based on the fact that part of the reason i am writing about this is that i am being paid for it’. aiyah what is this overreaction lah. yes, we write about certain things cos the brands pay us for the post, but seriously, what is the relevance here if the sole purpose of following a blog is to read the blogger’s opinion? so you’re getting the opinion wat! -___- and you are being exposed to a good product that the blogger genuinely likes and wants to write about, why are you complaining!
look back on all my food posts and restaurant reviews- would it have mattered whether or not i was paid for it, if at the end of the day people who read the post got to know about this certain restaurant and its services, and became more aware about KL’s food scene? same thing, yes? just like i choose to blog only about restaurants i LIKE, i also choose to blog only about products i LIKE.
and it’s not like the brands give us a whole press release that we merely copy and paste onto our blog. we actually take the effort to explore and write about the products creatively and truthfully, as per our own opinion. so i dont see why there should be a credibility issue.
at the end of the day right… this issue of ‘THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL’ is such a small and itty-bitty thing that i don’t understand why people wanna throw a big fuss here and there. i think there are bigger things to worry about in our world, rather than ‘why is this blogger getting paid for a post but then no disclaimer!!!11′. sigh damn petty lah.
second topic: Malaysian Dreamgirl! i’ve been following all the 4 episodes, and here are my favourites so far:
this is Fiqa, a Malay-mixed-Chinese girl with really stunning features and a quiet confidence. i was very impressed by how articulate she was in her audition, and i really like her type of look - intense, cool, with a little bit of androgyny thrown in. i warmed up to her even more when i saw in Episode 4 how she told her aunt not to let her mother watch an upcoming episode where she would be dressed in really tight shorts. so sweet :)
Valerie, who came onto the show with this really big frizzy ‘fro and with all this PERSONALITY :) from the episodes i’ve watched, she’s very bubbly and likable, and very unique. definitely the kind of girl who’s special without even trying, and the sort whom everyone wants to get to know. for her makeover, she got her big hair cut off, and she’s got this sleek slightly-pixie cut now that really complements her eyes and facial features. it’s great!
Jean, my favourite from the very beginning. not only is she so cute, she’s also smart. she’s studying pharmacy in IMU, and from the way she talks, you can tell this girl has substance. i immediately sit up when the camera is on her and she’s giving her opinions, because i know it’s going to be a good answer - no waffling or ‘dont know lah..’ kinda answers, but strong and spot-on opinions, but never aggressive. i love how she can look both cute and hot - she looks so adorable in the sportswear shoot, and then how stunning is that B&W picture? so yes, you can imagine how disappointed i was when she announced that she pulled out of the show. yes, Jean pulled out. my favourite pulled out. i can’t believe this T____T it’s really a great loss to the show. you can read her note on her withdrawal here.
some other random commentary: i actually like the camerawork on the show! it’s pretty good, especially the editing. but there are some parts that gets draggy and a little bit filler-ish, like the part where the girls went to Bar Savanh and there was like a good 1 minute of them doing nothing but dancing. and the judges can be a little bit long-winded sometimes. also, where is Sazzy Falak!!
okay who’s everybody’s favourites!!! faster say!!
third topic: Martian and i are going somewhere cool (literally) today.. :) hehe. our plane leaves at 7 a.m, and i’m supposed to wake Martian up in about an hour. i’m very excited cos i haven’t been to this country in a very very long time, nor have i been to this part of it. actually i didn’t even know that part of the country existed until Martian booked the flights on a whim. ahhh i can’t wait!!!
eh actually i was given the task of researching the trip but i haven’t done it. shit shit shit see lah shouldn’t have spent so much time eating Pods today :\
March 19th, 2008
Previous Posts
