Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that while rules are made to be broken, there are some that are vital and important and should be abided at all times. Now, I share some of my suggestions with you:

Rule #1: Around Christmas, you are NOT allowed to buy things for yourself.
OK, we’re not talking about groceries or whatever you need to live your daily life here. I’m talking about that sweater you’ve been admiring, the DVDs you’ve been drooling over, or whatever it is that has captured your fancy. In short, I’m talking about the things that the people in your life could buy you as Christmas gifts. Recently, I had dinner with some friends and during the meal, one of them mentioned something she really, really wanted. I try to take notice when people express these things and made a mental note of it. Later in the week, when I was doing my Christmas shopping (online of course), I ordered said item. I received notification of its shipment yesterday morning. In the afternoon, said friend emailed to tell me and another friend that she had ordered said item and was SO excited. So I had to basically ruin the surprise and beg her to cancel her order. SO, stop buying stuff for yourself, people! Especially if you’ve dropped hints about wanting said item. Someone is probably listening—and it ain’t Santa!

Rule #2: Talking about complicated dating relationships should be kept to generalities when being discussed in large groups.
First off, let me say that the idea behind manners and common courtesies is that by having this proscribed pattern of behavior, everyone is on a level playing field, knows what is expected of them, and because of this, won’t feel uncomfortable in social situations. That’s the IDEA behind manners and courtesies, but it’s often not the way they get played out today. Anyway, recently I was in a large group of people when we asked another person in the group about his complicated relationship with his girlfriend. OK, that’s fine, because he’d shared about it previously and we all genuinely care about him. He talked a little about the state of affairs; we listened and expressed concern and care. All is good, right. Then, someone in our group said something about his relationship status on Facebook. He joked, saying “Yes, we’re together on Facebook.” The person responded, “Well, your page says that, but hers says nothing.” Awkward. Crickets. Talk about a downer. He probably worries about that fact a lot. I mean, I would. And I’m not sure a conversation with a large group of people was the place to bring it up. I think it’s fine to talk about that in private if you’re really good friends and stuff. I would want to talk it over with my closest friends! But in a large group conversation where some of the people don’t know the situation or the people involved very well, it’s just kind of iffy.

Rule #3: Christmas sweaters, no matter how much you LOVE the season, are a fashion don’t.
You can defend it all you want, but just leave your Christmas sweaters at home. Please. Large sequined poinsettas, twinkling Christmas trees, and dancing snowmen parading across your midriff don’t say Christmas to me or most of the population. Granted, I have a few Christmasy shirts, but they’re rather low-key and honestly, I don’t really wear them. My fashion advice is simple: if your top looks like your Christmas tree threw up on you, don’t wear it. If all you need is some tinsel and a light-up star for a hat to look just like your Christmas tree, STOP!

I’m sure I could come up with much more, but this blog has gone on long enough. Let me know your additions in the comments!

My friend, Camille Le Doze, a ceramist, called me last week asking me if I could take a few photographs of her pieces before they get sold. I never really did still life but I thought why not give it a go… So we spent yesterday afternoon trying to capture the essence of her creations. The real challenge was to avoid reflection in the objects as their beautiful enamels can sometimes act like a mirror.
Here is one of the picture :

If you would like to see more of Camille’s work and you are looking for Christmas shopping ideas, she will be exhibiting this weekend with many more artists at Saint Mandé, you can find more details below :

It seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, in that same category as opening another bottle of wine or giving your phone number to the guy who’d later become your husband.

It was a bit of synchronicity really. My husband saw a gingerbread kit at the supermarket. Then my neighbour – who makes Martha Stewart look lazy – announced she was making a gingerbread village.

Never Trust a Company That Can't Spell "Easy"

So, I took the plunge and purchased a gingerbread train assembly kit with an “E-Z Build Tray.” I should’ve known better than to trust a company that can’t spell easy.

***

“You’re in the middle of what?” my husband asks. I believe he nearly dropped his cell phone.

“Putting together a gingerbread house-thing,” I say, starting to doubt my already-weak confidence.

“Good luck with that,” he says. “I’ll be home soon.”

I pick up the box to see what I’m in for. Now, you know you’re in trouble when the instructions on the back direct you to watch a video. This isn’t an “add water and stir” muffin mix; this is a twelve step program. Since the nicely-manicured hand on the video constructs the train and caboose in just over two minutes, I am optimistic. Plus, given the gingerbread is pre-baked and the icing is pre-made, what could be so hard?

If the video doesn’t scare me off, the phone should when it rings again. It’s my neighbour – the Martha Stewart one who’s not only crafty but also kind and beautiful. She has just finished baking her umpteenth batch of cookies, bonding with her children. Can her daughter come over and play?

“Of course,” I say, before realizing there’ll be a witness to the carnage that is bound to happen.

I watch the video two more times, answer the door when her daughter arrives, and start peeling the plastic off the kit.

“Have you done one of these with your mom yet?” I ask, making conversation.

“Actually, my dad’s the one who usually makes it.” Excellent, now I’ll be compared to her dad, not a gourmand like his wife, but a let’s-build-a-dresser-and-paint-the-room-on-my-day-off type of guy.

I reread the directions on the box. The volume level in the kitchen is rising in direct proportion to the amount of candy that’s being pilfered from the gingerbread kit.

“Quiet,” I yell. “I need to think.”

This whole experience is bringing me to my knees.

First, I’m supposed to snap the pieces in half. I do this and the pieces break, but not where they’re supposed to. I end up using the icing to glue most of the pieces back to a recognizable shape. I let the kids eat a couple of wayward hunks.

Then my eight-year-old neighbour says, “You cut the hole on the icing bag way bigger than my dad does.” Uh oh.

Icing is everywhere: all over the pieces, all over the counter, all over me. I am now putting icing on the wrong pieces, and eventually resort to smearing it on with a knife. I construct something that resembles a train. You just have to use your imagination.

Finally, near exhaustion, I tell the kids to stick the candy on. They take pieces out of their mouths and plunk them on the icing.

If you tilt your head, it almost looks straight

“Is it leaning?” I ask, tilting my head.

“Yeah,” my neighbour says. “You forgot to let the icing dry first.”

“Okay, you three, go play,” I say. Then I lick the icing off the knife, eat the rest of the candies, and look up to see my husband walk in.

He examines our construction. “Nice outhouse – no offense. Do you know it’s leaning?”

This isn’t the first of Elizabeth Scott’s book I read, but the third. The other two were rather average, but had potential, and it was nice to see the potential finally come out in Stealing Heaven.

The bookflap reads like a bad romance. Dani, raised a thief by her mother, moves with her mother to the town of Heaven, where she meets friend Allison, and love interest Greg. Oh wait, Greg is a cop, and Allison lives in the house Dani and her mother plan to rob.

What it actually is it an extremely emotional tale, and fairly realistic tale. Dani is stuck with a longing for a real life of her own, and wishing to break free from her life of crime, but is held fast by her Mother’s expectations of her. She’s also stuck taking care of her mother who behaves as an immature teenager. Over the course of 300 pages, what starts out as a simple hit and run job turns into a coming-of-age where Dani learns what she really wants, how to break free of her mother’s control, and how to fight for it.

Another note of praise is how realistic the development of the relationships are as Dani changes from wary to curious.

It’s an extremely fulfilling read.

The book left me with a few complaints that lead to be not giving it a perfect rating, mainly that the ending was rushed compared to the slow pace of the start.

Still, anyone who enjoys teenage literature, and slice of life most likely would enjoy this

Kyaaaaaaaaa love love love love love it love this ch love it !!! i’m not going to write anything about it so YOU better CLICK ON THE LINK and READ or YOU are GOING to MISS something REALLY GOOD !!!!!!!! but I can say that it’s about ren trying to make kyoko forget the kiss ^_^ hihi

CLICK ON THE LINK NOW AND READ

Skip Beat! Vol.25 Ch.149: The Poison Flower

I really, truly need to become a better manager of my time in the mornings.

Because today, a whole myriad of issues led to me leaving my house at 6:51 a.m. when I supposedly get to work at 7 a.m. (Not today!) The thing is I got most of my lunch ready last night. But I didn’t think about what to wear or if I needed to iron or any other things like that. Here’s some issues I faced this morning:

• I’m out of coffee. And I really wanted some this morning.
• My hair has a mind of its own and like William Wallace, believes in freedom. It would not be contained or controlled this morning. So I have a kind of wild mane and not in a good way.
• My face is so dry that it hurts. Nothing appears to be working.
• Breakouts really can put you in a bad mood.
• Ironing pants at this time of morning really stopped being cool awhile ago. Yet I make no effort to fix the problem.
• Something I wanted to wear turned out to be in the dirty laundry. So I had to rethink wardrobe options.
• This sweater needs a necklace, but which one. . . .

Needless to say, I was late, not that I or anyone else, for that matter, really cared. But I was in a pretty bad mood when I left my house, which honestly, was heavily influenced by dissatisfaction with my hair and appearance. Then, after some drive-time praying, I was reminded that in the long run, these things don’t matter and have no eternal value. Today is one day.

One day.

I can choose to face it with joy or be overwhelmed by miniscule circumstances that don’t really matter. So, I’m making a concerted effort to be joyful today.

Even though a part of me would still like to crawl back into bed.

The only exercise I ever get these days come directly from carrying my kids. So while the stamina to run distances is all gone now, my triceps are at their tonest ever.

It helps (or doesn’t, depending on how you see it) that Yue is a heavy weight for his age.  It helps (in this case, I rather it doesn’t) also that Yu has always been a clingy kid who would insist to be carried everywhere, the moment we step out of the house.

Two intensive work-out sessions on my triceps occured lately.  The first happened during the family’s ambitious outing to view the Christmas lights in Orchard Road.

After bring dropped off at Tangs by Papa, who proceeded to park the car at Orchard Central so we could all hop onto it at the end of our “Orchard walk”, Yu clinged to me pretty much like an epiphytic orchid! So I ended carrying Yu down Orchard Road from Tangs to Paragon, where we stopped for dinner.

This Mama attempting to be Super Mom outside Paragon, Orchard Road

The second happened yesterday. I was to work at the Singapore Marathon, while Yu was supposed to have run the kids dash.  Because Papa was away, I brought the entire family, along with Ah Ma and the maid, to the Padang where the marathon end point was.

As with previously year, carpark lots around the Padang vicinity would be taken up during the morning itself as tens of thousands of runners descent upon the area. We found parking at Riverwalk but had to walk all the way to Raffles Place Shopping Centre to access the Padang. And yes, I carried Yu ALL THE WAY!!

I am thankful that Yue appears to be a much more compliant baby. He would sit in the Maclaren as long as there were things he could watch, and he was well-fed and comfortable. But still, I’ve benefitted much from putting Yue in my Ergo baby carrier, which I love to bits (I’ll write a post on this another time). 

Yu, on the other hand, never really could sit in the stroller for long when he was younger. As with many other things he does, he only began to want to sit in it when Yue came along and there was competition! Ahh..but I digress.

When we got to the Padang, I was too exhausted so Yu never got to run the Kids Dash. It any case, it’s highly likely I would have had to carry him all 750m if we did!

Because Yu wanted to buy a wrecking ball crane, I brought everyone to Raffles Shopping Centre. After I settled everyone at Gloria’s Coffee in the basement with food and drinks, I made a sprint for Riverwalk  for the car. It was not another 45mins more before I made it back to join them for a quick gulp down of the refreshments!

When we got into Robinsons’, I dismissed the maid (it was her off day anyway, and I merely asked her to help out since sir wasn’t around). So it was just me with Yue in my Ergo carrier, Yu running wild in the toys section, and Ah Ma running after him. And all 4 of us made it back home in the afternoon, exhausted but alive!

So what is it that I really want for Christmas? With all the carrying, walking, carrying, my body is longing for a good rub! So all I really want this Christmas is a good massage!

(ahh..need the hint be more obvious?!)

My mom’s birthday will be on December 12 so we have the perfect gift for our mother. Since she work so hard at home and work and give the support for my post secondary education, we decided to take her to a spa and message treatment. We don’t know where will we find the perfect spa or how much will we spend on the gives, but we all agree to split the money in haft. My sister says we need to find the perfect spa treatment for mom but I don’t have that much money since I rarely go to work, thanks to my school.

Also, we will dine in mom’s favorite restaurant. She likes beef soup. Then we go to the movies that she want. She doesn’t know what movie she want to watch, but I don’t like watching on big screens.

Yes, it will be the best birthday we will ever give for our mom. Happy Birthday!!!

Ok.  I’m not sure why I allowed myself to be talked into 3 hours of adrenaline-popping slugfest with zombies on crack.

I was bad at the original L4D and seems like I broke another personal best at dying and shooting my own mates in this one ._.v

How on earth did they fit so many zombies into 1 bloody town!

The GOOD:

• This version seems a bit more realistic in terms of graphics and the physics
• You can headshot the scary witches and tanks now!
• Chainsaws, crowbars… even frying pans are available for melee lovers

The BAD:

• There are waaaay too many zombies!!
• My aiming sucks
• I scream too much

I don’t mind playing this again.  Preferably somewhere I won’t get recognized for all that screaming and cussing at the zombies (I must be the only one who tells the zombies to “go away!” and “what’s wrong with u?!” before blasting them to bits -.-)

Got home at 3am+

It’s been in the 30s and 40s here this week, and we even saw snow! Look at this blizzard! It lasted almost a half hour!

We’re behind on our pimping due to all the holiday festiveness and turkey-induced coma-ness! Here’s a listing of our recent conquests, available for your reading pleasure!

• Sean Grigsby’s “Upon a Midnight Clear” in Living Dead Press’ Christmas is Dead anthology!
• Kevin Wallis is featured in a Special Issue of  Morpheus Tales!
• Kevin Wallis’ “The Thing in the Tunnels” in Leucrota Press’ Abaculus III!
• Lincoln Crisler’s limited edition nonfiction collection, Slice of Life, is available for pre-order!

Happy holidays from our family to yours, and thanks for reading!

What u’ll be when u graduate from college?

Pekerja atau wirausaha? Sebagian mungkin berpikir akan lebih baik untuk menjadi wirausaha setelah lulus kuliah nanti. Tapi sebagian besar masih melanjutkan dogma bahwa setelah lulus harus bekerja di tempat yg berkualitas, atau tempat kerja yang sudah dicita-citakan. Mana sih yang lebih baik? Saya ga bisa bilang yg ini lebih baik, atau yang itu lebih baik, karena saya belum merasakan keduanya.

Tapi kalau saya pribadi yaa,, hmm.. Setelah lulus saya akan mencari pekerjaan, berarti saya menjadi pekerja ya? Iya, betul begitu. Kenapa saya ga milih jadi wirausaha? Yaa, saya mah tau diri,, jadi wirausaha itu kan butuh modal, baru juga lulus kuliah,, dpt modal darimana saya klo ga dari orang tua? Kasian orang tua.. Lagipula wirausaha itu harus melihat prospek yang bagus, menjanjikan, ada target pasarnya, lokasi, de el el..

Jadi rencana saya seperti ini, (mungkin agak lebay, tapi ya begitulah hidup), saya berencana kerja dulu sambil mengumpulkan uang (yang nantinya bisa utk modal wirausaha jika ada prospek yang bagus dan menjanjikan). Sembari kerja, saya juga menggali pengalaman, bertemu dengan orang-orang, membangun koneksi dan jaringan.

Apa yang sudah saya lakukan selama kuliah ini? Well,, saya berusaha mencari nilai yang bagus (walaupun IPK tidaklah segala sesuatunya, tapi setidaknya berarti sesuatu).. Saya sudah mendapat IPK yang bisa dibilang lumayan tinggi untuk melamar pekerjaan. Saya juga menerima beasiswa prestasi dari kampus (jika itu bisa dihitung sebagai nilai tambah). Tidak hanya IPK (yang identik dengan teori dan no skill),, saya juga mencoba mendapatkan skill.. Saya menjadi asisten laboratorium LabSI dengan tujuan memperoleh pengetahuan lebih dan membangun koneksi (juga untuk menghias CV saya nantinya dengan adanya pengalaman menjadi aslab). Selain itu, dengan adanya mata kuliah softskill seperti ini, sungguh sangat membantu. Membuat blog, paper, tulisan-tulisan yang saya harap berguna nantinya.

Lalu apakah menjadi PEKERJA hanya butuh semua itu? Menurut saya sih masih ada yang kurang.. Namanya juga jadi pekerja,, pasti awal-awalnya punya yang namanya BOS (beda sama wirausaha dimana kita jadi bos sendiri). Kita harus bisa adaptasi dan tahu etika. Harus bisa latih emosi dan tahan banting. Terus yang namanya kerja, pasti ada rekan-rekan atau partner gtu kan.. Nah, berarti ada tuh yang namanya kerja tim, kita harus bisa melebur sama orang, jangan selalu dominan (nanti bisa dijauhin loh), tapi juga jangan diem aja di pojokan (ntar dijauhin juga krn dianggap ga gauL). Yang namanya bergaul dan punya teman itu penting, punya pengetahuan luas juga penting, jadi kalau diajak ngobrol apa aja tetep nyambung.

Apa yang saya lakukan selama ini untuk itu semua? Well, menjadi mahasiswa yang ceria dan berusaha punya banyak teman. Menanamkan sifat adaptasi dan berusaha menganalisa perilaku teman-teman (karena well ternyata kepribadian orang itu sungguh sangat bermacam-macam). Selain itu, saya berusaha bisa dalam segala bidang. Mau itu olahraga (tenis meja, tenis lapangan, basket, dan olahraga lain yang kira-kira akan menjadi bahan pergaulan pas kerja nanti) ataupun have fun (main DDR, pump, games, belanja, nonton bioskop, karaoke), karena pastinya yaa, dalam menjadi pekerja, pasti kita punya yang namanya waktu luang setelah kerja atau misalnya ada event-event kekeluargaan yang diadakan oleh kantor, nah kalau kita bisa semua-semuanya kan enak tuh.

Bagaimana dengan pilihan wirausaha? Ya, saya belum merasakan secara real menjadi seorang wirausaha sejati. Selama sekolah dan kuliah ini, saya menjual pulsa dan pakaian via situs jejaring sosial (bisakah itu dihitung sebagai wirausaha?). Yang telah saya alami, pas di awal-awal sungguh butuh yang namanya modal (selama ini modal awal saya pasti dari orang tua). Selain itu, setelah ada modal, kita harus cari supplier yang termurah dan bagus. Kalau barang yang mau dijual sudah ada, kita masih harus mencari target jualan kita. Untuk mencari pelanggan itu,, susah-susah gampang, kalau sudah dapat kita harus bisa mempertahankan pelanggan agar jangan sampai pindah ke kompetitor. Tentunya kita harus selalu punya sesuatu yang menarik untuk pelanggan (seperti diskon –yang maaf saya ga bisa kasih terus menerus-, atau promo-promo tertentu). Menurut saya, untuk ukuran saya nantinya yang baru lulus kuliah, menjadi wirausaha yang sesungguhnya sepertinya agak sulit.

Jadi,, menurut saya nih yaa,, saya lebih memilih menjadi pekerja nantinya setelah lulus kuliah. Kenapa begitu? Karena, banyak hal yang bisa kita pelajari jika menjadi pekerja, banyak bertemu orang-orang, klien, nasabah (pasti menyenangkan). Kita juga bisa menabung jikalau nanti mau menjadi wirausaha. Tidak menutup kemungkinan bagi saya jika nantinya setelah menjadi PEKERJA, saya juga menjadi WIRAUSAHA.

Yang terakhir dari saya, jadi apapun nantinya saya, saya harap itu akan membanggakan orang tua saya, saudara-saudara saya, berguna bagi agama, Negara, nusa bangsa, dan lain lain. AMIN.

Bagaimana dengan anda nantinya? Akan menjadi apakah anda setelah lulus nanti?

For starters whiteboards are awesome.  Seriously.  Do I need to say anything else?

Companies that make then abandon video codecs are a pain.  not much to go on with this one.  Guess I’ll get to play with virtualdub in a VM at some point.

See first line, designing networks and systems is fun.  On the plus side of this I keep getting reassured that I should be the one getting promoted out of my current position first. I will refrain from being excited about this until it is a fact and not speculation.

I have figured out how I can get my home lab setup without having to have a physical firewall/router box.  it looked much less impressive in Visio then it did on my note pad.   The idea came to me after a network guy and I re-tooled the network for a test environment we have at work.  Short version, we are adding a separate firewall and adding a DMZ network to the existing setup.  Then removing its ties to the current firewall.

2003 MCSE material is boring.  I mean really who actually uses windows software RAID?  This and a million times this.  There is at least a whole chapter devoted to windows RAID.  And really, it makes me ill to think about people actually using it.  I mean dynamic disks are cool and all.  But who isn’t running their servers in a corporate environment without hardware RAID?

I think where I stopped for the day was when it was showing me how to use the defrag utility.  I would skip these chapters but the tests like to pull little obscure things from random places.

Way-back-when, my husband and I used to go on a date every Thursday. That was when we viewed this parenting thing as a phase, a blip on our couple-o-meter.

After hibernating for four weeks following the birth of our twins, we resumed weekly dates. We’d take our newborns to restaurants in our neighbourhood in Bangkok – where we lived at the time – and the lovely Thai staff would fawn over our babes, take them into the kitchen, and bring them back every ten minutes to show us they hadn’t dropped them into a vat of Pad Thai. Meanwhile, we’d stare into each other’s eyes, trying to think of non-baby topics to discuss.

Thursday: The Day Formerly Known As Date-Night

(cc) Adapted from Joel Lanman, under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

Fast forward a year. Vivian and William are now one and we’ve moved back to Canada. Soon date nights become like our disposable income: extinct.

In the four years we’ve been back living in Canada, we’ve managed a few dates, each one ending with the refrain, “We need to do this more often.” And we need to. How do I know? There are a number of neon signs that indicate it’s time to go out with your beloved. Here are five:

Mr. Darcy 1, Edward 0

1.  You watch Bridget Jones’ Diary and BBC’s Pride and Prejudice for the twenty-somethingthtime.

Whether it’s Mr. Darcy or Mark Darcy, it doesn’t matter. Colin Firth is the thinking woman’s Edward. We don’t need teen vampires with transluscent skin, we need Colin. Or maybe we need a date, even with our own husband.

2.  You’re looking forward to cozying up with your heat bag.

Seriously, if you’re in your thirties like me and you’re addicted to a wheat bag (it warms my feet faster than my husband), it’s time, it really is.

3.  Romance means watching an E-Harmony commercial together

So my husband’s flipping between the basketball game and the comedy channel, when an E-Harmony commercial comes on. For whatever reason, we watch and provide a running commentary.

Commercial: “Are you looking for the love of your life?”

Me:  “Nope. Gave up on that a long time ago.”

Husband: “We don’t need E-Harmony, we need E-Sarcasm.”

4. Your kids suggest getting a babysitter.

My kids love getting a babysitter. A week ago Vivian said, “It’s a great day. I was the class leader, and you put candy in my lunch, and we get a babysitter!” My kids love their babysitter because she plays tag, does crafts, and builds castles for hours on end. It’s one big playtime. I’m pretty sure she never says, “It’s time for independent play,” or “I need to work on the computer now,” my two favourite dismissive phrases. It doesn’t matter that, when my husband and I do hire a sitter, we can enjoy an Italian meal in fewer than ninety minutes.  We’ve perfected marriage-style speed dating.

5.  You write blogs posts in bed. G’nite.