Hittin' London Town

Blogging to you live from London wahey! I'm currently sitting snug under Lynn's awesome bloodred-brightred-satsumaorange-sunflowerorange duvet. The babe herself's engrossed in yet another game of sudoku, and we're busybusy singin' along to the boyband hits of our primary cacatness of so long ago.

"A foggy daayyy... in London townn..."

Saturday's coach journey was uneventful, if rather prolonged due to lousy traffic coming out of London. Navigated my way to Shepherd's Bush by bus because the Central Line was closed, and settled in to a nice dinner of sweet-and-sour chicken with peas and rice. After a quick shower we headed out to Fabric, this apparently really "happening" club with Sophia and Sanna. Sophia is Apui's friend from Kuching who's doing her AS somewhere near London, and Sanna's a Pakistani girl living in Bangsar going to the same A Levels college.

Goodness - Lynn and I were proper "flirty aunties" for the night, the rest of the group having an average age of about 16-and-a-half. LOL. The boys were cute but rather young and inexperienced clubbers, the music incessant techno throughout the three dancefloors and the entrance/drinks price skyhigh compared to ole Mancunia. Lynn and I abandoned the group about halfway through the night and from then onwards had a ball of a time shakin to the beats.... Haha, the idea of us two classical musicians actually have a great time in a techno club...

Verdict? Better stick to my northern "kampung "where clubbing's concerned. At least the unwanted attention's from dodgy inebriated students (as Phing can attest from last Thurs *wink*) instead of even dodgier men possibly on E.

But other than that, London rocks! Oh man, the shopping's greaaatttt. We get the same variety of shops in Manchester but because of the larger amount of space in London ya do get the full range of clothes, accessories, trinkets etc.

Today (Sunday) was spent sleeping off the previous night's debauchery, followed by a shopping spree. Meeting up with Soph and Sanna in Leicester Sq, I suddenly spotted Yvonne (from Wells) who was on her way to meet Eun-Jung. The square itself was quite crowded with the usual kaypoh tourists and locals craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the fabulously beautiful at the premiere of Poseidon. Had dinner with the girls and Ian at a nice posh Jap place, followed by a cocktail at the nearby Crescent restaurant-bar.

To be continued...

PVS

I've lost a sock.

I simply don't believe it, but I've lost a sock. And not just any sock, but a brand new, wonderfully stripy, adorably fluffy pair Khai Ern gave me when she stayed over last Friday.

I'm sure I'll find it if I did a more extensive search than the cursory rumage through the debris on my bed I did just now. I'm quite certain it's within the confines of this room, probably chucked in the knickers drawer, trapped behind the bed or bundled up in last week's PJs.

But this loss of a possesion - a sock, no less - albeit temporary, has suddenly thrown me off-course. And with the temperature stubbornly staying in the low 10s, I find myself unable to concentrate, incapable of even reading through any wikipedia article on the management in society topics. Even the nice thick Esprit pair my mum just sent me won't do any good - I want that particular sock. With tomorrow's exam less than 24 hours away, I guess you could say that I'm pretty screwed.

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Got a pleasant surprise today when I visited Bonnie's xanga site and saw a rather familiar photo... She'd used one of the shots I took around Wells Bishop's Palace as her background. Wahey! Talk about unexpected recognition. I'd totally forgotten that she had used some of my photography for an A Levels art project. Miss you, Bonnie!

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Lynn and I have both entered a phase of carbohydate craving. Not good. Quite upsetting, actually. I hereby bid farewell to my nearly non-existent waistline. I need to resume exercising in the gym once tomorrow's exam is over. But then I'll be spending 5 days in London with her and I foresee more binging on rice and ice-cream. Hey, us women have needs, ya know. Tom yum fried rice for dinner, anyone?

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I've got cold turkey from the recent lack of any photography on my part. It's great being able to explore the wonderful images posted online by photographers worldwide and especially from Malaysia, but - I'm just not satisfied. I wanna go out there and make iconic images of my own. Images that stimulate thought and emotion. Images that preserve my own memories and and represent a thousand words to others. Images, like those of the great photographers', that make you stop in your tracks and become helplessly absorbed from the very first glance.

One can only keep trying.

Don't even mention the "E" word

Hell starts... right about now. Blow me a kiss for luck =P. Gotta go, ciao!

p.s. be warned I'm only disturbable during weekends and after the 25th yayy. Buzz me aimlessly anytime between that and I might bark, or even worse, bite. Arf! The exams have gotten me a bit barmy, I'm afraid.

Registration Number: 05006474			Degree: BSc Management
	Date	Time	Exam Code and Title	Location
	18 May 2006	09:45-11:45	XSM101 Law in a Management Context (BM1002)	Academy
	19 May 2006	09:45-11:15	XSM101 Quantitative Methods for Management Group Y	Sackville St Bldg Ent Hall
	19 May 2006	14:00-16:00	XAF151 Introductory Management Accounting (AF1512)	Sugden Centre C & D Hall
	23 May 2006	14:00-16:00	XSM101 The Modern Corporation	Sugden Centre C & D Hall
	25 May 2006	14:00-15:30	XSM101 Management in Society	Academy
	07 Jun 2006	14:00-16:00	XAF152 Financial Decision Making (AF1522)	Whitworth Hall

Reverie

Yesterday afternoon was so quiet. It was one of those damp British afternoons that everybody complains about, yet somehow there was a beauty all around that really moved me.

I took a quick break from quants revision, facing the blank wall and closing my eyes. It was a moment almost reminiscent of John Cage's infamous 4'33" as my aural senses adjusted to compensate for the lack of sight. My laptop whirred at one side, the sound soft and unobtrusive. I could feel the light and warmth of the desk lamp on the left half of my face, see the yellowness through my eyelids. Birds chirped intermittently outside on the trees of Whitworth Park Hall. Somewhere in the building, someone closed the front door of their flat. Amazingly there was no indication at all of the usual rock or techno music that faintly punctuates the air from neighbouring flats.

The light rain threw a distinct blueness to the subdued world outside, refreshingly lush compared to the perpetual grey of British wetness. In this hallowed place of incessant worldiness and careless thoughts it was a moment held in stillness. For the first time in more than four months, I felt truly alone. And it was divine.

From the shores of Troy

Oh my, here's the latest blogsome blog I accidentally stumbled upon during my subway-dinner break from revision. Briliant, tongue-in-cheek idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing if this anonymous Homer can keep it up. Darlings, do check out Eurylochus blogging live from the shores of Ilium on his adventures with Academy mates Polites, Elpenor and Misenus as well as General Odysseus, and his insider's blow-by-blow account of the Trojan War.

Under Odysseus

Happy Mummy's Day

"Yay - happy mummy day."

Vincent's MSN has the sweetest message I've ever read on a guy's profile, and got me reflecting for a while.

Here I am, fresh from a shower after dinner @ Nandos, swinging on my red "office" chair, snug and warm in my favourite over-large red hoodie and track bottoms. I ought to get back to quants but I want to blog for awhile about one of my favouritest persons on earth.

I really should start off by thanking my mum for the agonised hours she spent in labour just to have my bawling, bloody, wrinkled, miniature chimpanzee self pop out, not to mention the full nine months of tiresome gestation. Having said that, labour was a mere couple of hours and hardly labour at all due to her immensely high pain threshold. After inducing lazy me, and with a little bit of forcep assistance, I slipped out as easy as a seal flipping from its iceberg into the ocean. The 9 months of carrying me to full term were happily spent waxing fat and contented with daily glasses of pure cow's milk and mahjong sessions with my various aunts. Really, you should see the photos.

Anyway without further ramblings, I'll just say that my mum has been a fantastic mother this year. Every time that I walk away from both my parents and through the immigration counter at KLIA only seems to bring us closer. Sometimes I'm even afraid that we might be getting too close.

Without her, I'd lose my only window to the world I leave behind every time I board that long-distance flight, where every minute takes me further away from my family and home.

Without her, I wouldn't have had so many light-hearted moments to break the oppressiveness of study stress, when everything just seems so overwhelming and I feel like I'd rather run away than face the big world out there.

Without her, I wouldn't have been able to pull myself out of my February Fiasco. What truly helped me through that difficult period was her unfailing support (even when I needed to talk at some unearthly hour, KL time) and a mother's strength to say the right things at the right time, even when it hurt to say the truth and it hurt her even more to watch her daughter come to terms with the truth.

Without her, I'd have less contact with darling Daddy, and miss out all the hilarious and frustrating moments of balancing the dynamics in our fragile but everlasting little trio of a family.

Without her as my anchor, I'm afraid I might lose touch of the goodness in me, the values that make me who I am. And so, as we used to giggle and whisper in the sunlight of my early childhood, I love you from here to infinity!

NEWSFLASH!!!

Falling with amazing panache from his lofty arcadium, Datuk Hon has finally succumbed to the gloriously decadent phenomenon of blogging.

Ta-da! Thou is henceforth obliged to visit Shyanism: Thoughts, Beliefs, Passions for the latest updates on thoughts, beliefs and passions. Okla, more like musings on Starbucks Java Chip, brilliant movies (in his humble opinion), world religion(s), a lack of a girlfriend and human fallacy. The formerly scornful archangel has finally joined us flawed humans in an attempt at voicing his take on life's questions and certainties. *chortle*

Figaro

Goodness, this apek cello uncle is bloody awesome... reminds me why I love the cello so much in the first place. Total versatility. Some people may think that it's pretty easy, just get together a few cellos and voila! there you have it. But as a cellist myself, i see it through different eyes. Perhaps it's the sight of a middle-aged man coming up with rhythms and tunes that are so... youthful. Maybe it's the ease in which he slides around the highest registers of the strings that makes me envious and at the same time, proud. Or perhaps it's the mere idea of anyone creating 37 separate parts for one sole instrument, and single-handedly recording and putting everything together in sync. As they say, the sum's greater than the individual parts.

(Blogger's crapping up my blog. Please ignore the previous scrambled post - the resilient wag's resisting all my earnest attempts to delete it, but there it remains, indefinitely. Might have something to do with YouTube or my completely inability to do any sophisticated html. or CSS coding. whatever. Anyways please follow the link if you want:)

A Cello Rondo


Just came back from watching the English translation of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro @ the Lowry with Shyan, Roy, CheeMun and Colby. Another first! This time at the opera, and I have to say it was pretty darn cool. Most, if not all of the singers from Opera North were stellar, the relatively small orchestra perfectly complementing and never drowing out the singing. Even though I still prefer the vocal sounds produced in Italian, this English version was interesting in that I could understand far more of the repartee and humour than if it was in Italian without subtitles.


I wish I'd have listened to recordings of Figaro more, so I wouldn't have felt so lost in the actual performance. I wish I had read up more on the intricasies of Mozart's crystalline music so I could've recognised more than just the famous tunes. I wish I (and the audience) had the benefit of the lyrics and dialogue (perhaps across the top of the stage?) so we could've laughed more at the ingrained humour in Mozart's opera buffa.

Anyhow, there were some sublime moments during the opera, when soaring voices and instruments merged, transcending unfamiliarity and literary understanding to create pure music.

tears

Woke up this morning with sore, swollen and tearing eyes, so it was another day wasted without any studying. Haven't the foggiest idea what caused it but I coudn't even open my eyes for 10 seconds at a stretch, and even wearing glasses was painful because of the lens contraction or whatever. After getting bored of sleeping (can imagine JJ's shock at this statement haha), been alternating between listening to music, peering blearily at movies on my screen, chatting on msn, and touch typing with my eyes closed.

As you can see, I've had plenty of time today to let my mind wander, get down to a little thinking.

After the glamourous photoshoot last week, I've had a handful of people buzz me over msn just to tell me how hot/sexy/nice/pretty the photos were. Mind you, they're on my contact list but aren't those I have conversations with regularly, and even if I do the conversations are usually initiated by me. Even now, looking over those photos, I think to myself that yes, I will always treasure them as the frozen moments of looking my best in my youth. At the same time, there's this niggling discontentment that only these superficial photos were able to make some people sit up and take notice of me.

The thing is, almost anyone can look stunning with good makeup, the right lighting, and a passable photographer. Thanks for the flattering comments, but I don't want to be praised only for looking like a generic 21st century hot chick. If they have to say anything, I'd rather people say that my smile comes from the heart. I want to hear things like 'Yi-Wen, you write like a dream. You've helped me live through this difficult period in my life. Your playing really moved me. I can lose track of time just by looking at the photos you take." Don't tell me I've grown prettier through the years, instead, that I've matured and improved as a person.

Rob wrote in my Wells farewell book that although I am small, I have a huge personality. However true that statement is, that's something that I'll always treasure and bring with me wherever I go. It's something that means far more to my values as a person than any photogenic image.

Because ultimately, I want to be noted for things that make a difference.

Narcissim is Necessary?

Spent a rather interesting day out with the other Miss Lim - Li Ying - @ Fusion Studios just off Oldham Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter for a "free" makeover & photoshoot session =P. The four hours there started off with a mini manicure - LiYing got a frenchie and my nails got a pearly pink colour. After that it was into the hair chair where first my mini facial, makeup then hair was done. Aiyor the amount of makeup that goes on! Felt like an inch's worth of foundation, concealer, blusher, powder, glitter, shadow, liner, mascara etc etc etc on my lovely face. *chortle* Hair was done astondingly quick - curled around a very hot, slim pair of straighteners, then spritzed and deconstructed. I have to say it was all very professionally done, and looked totally natural in the photos.

My photographer was Sean, a kinda cute, quite sweet Brit guy whose girlfriend's apparently around my height. Had borrowed a couple of dresses to try on during the shoot (thanksabunch Phing!) and we decided on three looks to try out. First up was my black lace top, slashed jeans and white/gold wedges. In the end the initial photographs didn't turn out as good as the later ones, probably cos being photographed as a model took some getting used to. Having said that, I have no excuse. My stint as a 2-yr-old gum gel advert model shoulda sufficed hahaha...

I'm wearing the same dress in the above photo as the one below. Sean switched on the fan in this one, giving a kinda soft, epic Hollywood look to this. Hmmm... just a chance to pretend I was Lizzie Bennet standing on Stanage Edge in Pride & Prej, dreaming of my Mr Darcy mmhmm...


Really pretty floral print, no? Not sure whether I like or dislike the glitter - the style's kind of Brit but at the same time it does open up my eyes. My skin looked so pale throughout this shoot.. aiks.


For the last shoot I Wore Phing's gorgeous WestOne dress with the lace back, and had my hair half pinned up and the fringe straightened, though you can't really see it in this photo. Sean dimmed the lights and pulled down a black background for a minimalist, dramatic effect. Very noir chic. Think this is the best out of all three I came away with. (In Shyan's words: my hair framing my face perfectly. Though he thinks I look too serious. Oi, I was going for a mysterious, sexy look ok.)

In all it was quite an experience, a good break from the intense studying. (Studying? What studying??)

Malaysian Students' Society of Manchester Night 2006

Oh my I'm in a poetry mood again... Think my tastes go around in a very erratic - I'd like to think eclectic - circle. One month it's classic Russian Bulgakov, the next - Rembrandt in Amsterdam, then ballet, followed by full-out Rachmaninov and John Donne's poetry (blame Tristan + Isolde for citing his The Good Morrow), swapping over to "father of New Age" David Lanz's iconic first album Heartsounds, and now easy, languid poems. In the coming months I'll have Mozart's Marriage of Figaro @ The Lowry, Rachmaninov's Suite No.2 for 2 pianos, his 2nd and 4th Piano Concertos, hopefully the performances of Bobby Chen and Krystian Zimmerman with the MPO, and maybe Sarawak's Rainforest Festival. Me and the arts would be like Shahril and his bands, though he'd probably proclaim that his music is the true art of all hahaha.

Saturday saw us all getting dressed up for the MSSM event of the year - M Night 2006! Preparations began early afternoon, with Li Ying, Enn Swan, and Wan Phing trooping over to my little room in various states of (un)dress. 5pm onwards saw two wonderfully patient guys, namely Enn Yong & Shyan waiting in the common room and occasionally glancing at their hypothetical watches. Takes time to curl hair, make up and get zipped into our glamourous gowns, dears. Besides, us girls do it for the benefit of you guys =P. Made a rather head-turning crowd as we tottered and sauntered respectively up Oxford Road from Whitworth Park Hall to Whitworth Hall. At the entrance there was of course the necessary quarter of an hour spent camwhoring, and by the time we waltzed to our table we were so late it wasn't even fashionable heehee.

The lengluis: WanPhing, EnnSwan, me, LiYing =P

The lengzhais? : Shyan, Roy, EnnYong, JJ

Food was biasa-lah, catered by Jati, slightly deviating from the planned menu: prawn keropok, some weird prawn rolls, swimming achar, diluted air bandung, not bad nasi minyak, spicy beef rendang (not!), lousy ayam merah, dodgy sour green grapes, nice watermelon and sweet honeydew. There was a guy all dressed up in matching suit and leather shoes but totally sockless!! (see left for evidence.) Hilarious. After a break camwhoring with Sam & Nic on the stairs outside the hall we took the shuttle mini-van to the Dancehouse Theatre for the "cultural performance" titled Chrysalis. (According to JJ the sign was destroyed by a bus ploughing into the front of the building!) On the way Miss "future-flatemate" Lim happily oggled the fit Malay boys in our van, whereas our own guys followed behind, alone in their own van because apparently no girls wanted to get in with them! Teeheehee...

Phing & I fooling around with my flower while queueing to go in for the performance.

Chrysalis featured two lousy MCs, an ok script with its cliched predictable plot but some hilarious moments, mixed standards of acting, and peppered throughout with "cultural Malaysian" dancing. Highlights include seeing Nunie in both the traditional Malay and Chinese fan dances (really she looks soo Chinese!), QiLian & MingWei looking gorgeous and graceful with their Chinese ribbon dance, the pretty darn good Bollywood dance, and the amusing roles of Shahrin our president. Interval and post-performance saw more mingling and camwhoring.












L: Malaysian Bollywood R: Nunie in the fan dance - she's the one in specs

Instead of joining the horde of Malaysians @ Zoomroom which had been rented by the MSSM for the night, we decided to troop down the road to Revolution - never been to this one, only the Fallowfield branch. No need to comment that our "decent, well-brought up Malaysian students" behaviour degenerated from there =P.

May Day May Day I Luv Holiday

Just a short 'n sweet poem I got off Sue Shen ages and ages ago. Enjoy. =)

You know a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows.
And a dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes.
Trying to learn from what's behind you and never knowing what's in store
makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores.
And I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry.
Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky.
I'll never reach my destination if I never try,
So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry.
Too many times we stand aside and let the water slip away.
To what we put off 'til tomorrow has now become today.
So don't you sit upon the shore and say you're satisfied.
Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides.