The language of Facebook diminishes our concept of friends. Of what is considered like-able and not. Blurring the private and the public. It exposes us to our friends, real or otherwise, and for some, it exposes them to their siblings and parents. It becomes an extension of the interactions in the real world, or compensates for lack of it. Though I admire how it connects long lost friends and aids long distance relationships, I wonder how deep the connection is. And how true it could be. Sometimes, it's easy to like something even if you don't mean to. It's easy to tag people in photos, even if it is too irrelevant to them (they're not even there at times). Facebook has become routine, and whether it's good or bad is up to how you see it.
Social networks are good, but we need to let them be just an extension of, not alternative to, the interactions we have in real life. Go out, meet friends. Have a beer or two, some coffee afterwards. Experience, hear, the sounds of HAHAHA and see for yourself how funny an LOL could be. Like a person based not on how witty he can be based on his presence in his Wall, but on how he talks and mingle and socialise in person. (Yes, I understand that some people are socially awkward, but does being cyber literate compensate for it?) Go out there watch a movie, catch a bus going to the beach. Hit the bookstores, eat in the market. Avoid the temptation of logging in into FB places. Drop your camera on the way out of the house. Log out of Facebook and experience the world beyond the Zuckerberg connection. As Tokio Hotel sings it: see the world behind your wall.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
April Firsts
This month started off with shisha at Arab Street and ended with a free stay at the Gallery Hotel. Awesome, isn't it?
Except from the vodka vs milk tea moral and digestive dilemma, April went smoothly as expected. For the first time, I tried steamboat in SG! I had two steamboat dinners this month: first one was with Lorena, Melai and Tim and the second one with Thedd. Lots of last minute pigging out around Civic District with (again) Lorena, Melai, Tim and Polo: satisfying our Aston's steak cravings in Suntec and raiding Makansutra at 12 midnight -- complete with walkathon from our house to Esplanade and back.
Career-wise, work is getting better as I am already a confeeeermed regular employee!
Another first: cross-country train ride. I have finally reached Johor Bahru and though they say there are lots of cheaper goods in Malaysia, our sole aim was to have dinner there. We went to Nando's in City Square Mall, because the cheapo in us think that Nando's in SG is overpriced.
Our kiteflying plans pushed through, with KS calling me a diva. That's a first, too. Nobody calls me a diva before. Ever. Alan, Joann, Xanth, Emily, Percy, KS and I went all the way to Buangkok to fly kites at 10am on April 22, but due to waiting time and breakfast, we started kiteflying at 11am. Our kites weren't stable until around 12pm and the weather was too hot for me. So I borrowed Joann's umbrella and stood in the middle of the field holding it while all of them struggled to let their kites fly. We quit after a while and had lunch at NEX Serangoon, with all the jokes about durian and What's next? This is NEX! conversations. We then played Kinect and it was so fun, even though we didn't manage to record any decent scores. After rounds of trying to dance along some unfamiliar beats, we decided to quit Kinect and had round 2 of kiteflying at Marina Barrage.
An addition to the Singapore Turista Experience: I have finally visited Jurong Bird Park. Thanks to Ate Hazel for the free tickets, the looong MRT ride to Jurong East was worth it.
This month also saw me buying less books and more dresses, more outdoors, less Chinese lessons, more green tea and more Han's blueberry crumble. I'm getting more brown from all those outdoorsy activities but I'm less concerned about my skin lately, which is bad.
April started with Apple-flavoured shisha after chicken murtabak in Arab Street and ended with $10 steak lunch at Hooters. Yes, April was foodiliciously awesome and I loved it.
On track for Awesome 2011!
Except from the vodka vs milk tea moral and digestive dilemma, April went smoothly as expected. For the first time, I tried steamboat in SG! I had two steamboat dinners this month: first one was with Lorena, Melai and Tim and the second one with Thedd. Lots of last minute pigging out around Civic District with (again) Lorena, Melai, Tim and Polo: satisfying our Aston's steak cravings in Suntec and raiding Makansutra at 12 midnight -- complete with walkathon from our house to Esplanade and back.
Career-wise, work is getting better as I am already a confeeeermed regular employee!
Another first: cross-country train ride. I have finally reached Johor Bahru and though they say there are lots of cheaper goods in Malaysia, our sole aim was to have dinner there. We went to Nando's in City Square Mall, because the cheapo in us think that Nando's in SG is overpriced.
Our kiteflying plans pushed through, with KS calling me a diva. That's a first, too. Nobody calls me a diva before. Ever. Alan, Joann, Xanth, Emily, Percy, KS and I went all the way to Buangkok to fly kites at 10am on April 22, but due to waiting time and breakfast, we started kiteflying at 11am. Our kites weren't stable until around 12pm and the weather was too hot for me. So I borrowed Joann's umbrella and stood in the middle of the field holding it while all of them struggled to let their kites fly. We quit after a while and had lunch at NEX Serangoon, with all the jokes about durian and What's next? This is NEX! conversations. We then played Kinect and it was so fun, even though we didn't manage to record any decent scores. After rounds of trying to dance along some unfamiliar beats, we decided to quit Kinect and had round 2 of kiteflying at Marina Barrage.
An addition to the Singapore Turista Experience: I have finally visited Jurong Bird Park. Thanks to Ate Hazel for the free tickets, the looong MRT ride to Jurong East was worth it.
This month also saw me buying less books and more dresses, more outdoors, less Chinese lessons, more green tea and more Han's blueberry crumble. I'm getting more brown from all those outdoorsy activities but I'm less concerned about my skin lately, which is bad.
April started with Apple-flavoured shisha after chicken murtabak in Arab Street and ended with $10 steak lunch at Hooters. Yes, April was foodiliciously awesome and I loved it.
On track for Awesome 2011!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Revenge of the Feedback Form
We had two errors in our publication in the past two weeks. Ugh. I was partly to blame, I know and I don't deny it. Excuses may come in the form of too much work, too busy or how about, too stupid not to notice? Nah, excuses are for losers. How errors like that can slip without me, us, noticing them, is -- nah, I won't even go there. Of course, my perfectionist side is grilling me on how I was sooo blind to let those errors slip. My humane side is telling me to let go, don't sweat the small stuff because only a small 000.030% of the whole world care anyway (yes, I was that bad at math and statistics). Just do your job better. But heck, I am too scared to go to work on Wednesday and I have a phobia on meetings now.
Skip the milk tea, take the vodka
I haven't written anything about Awesome April. Yeah, it was awesome, except for one day when I refused to drink vodka and beer in a friend's house -- I came to their flat with my bubble milk tea and said that I cannot 'drink' unless I finished that tea (which would take forever because of the pearls). After several Wow Magic Sing moments, my landlady's high school stories with her Kris Aquino-ish lasing laugh and successful refusals to shots of Absolut, we have decided to go home and I almost fainted inside the lift.
The milk tea terribly upset my stomach. I had a blackout. My friends said there was no trace of blood in my face. I had a horrible pain in my abdomen accompanied by cold sweat, and my vision slowly turned into black. I was still able to hear what all of them were saying, I asked Melai to usher me to the toilet. Yes, after minutes of LBM (how I managed to lock the toilet's door is beyond me), my vision turned to normal, I felt cold sweat dripping from my temples and I heard my landlady asking me if I was okay.
There were some gurgling noises in my stomach that night and I woke up at 3am feeling extremely hungry. Yes, I skipped milk tea for a week and I am never coming back to that artsy tea place.
The milk tea terribly upset my stomach. I had a blackout. My friends said there was no trace of blood in my face. I had a horrible pain in my abdomen accompanied by cold sweat, and my vision slowly turned into black. I was still able to hear what all of them were saying, I asked Melai to usher me to the toilet. Yes, after minutes of LBM (how I managed to lock the toilet's door is beyond me), my vision turned to normal, I felt cold sweat dripping from my temples and I heard my landlady asking me if I was okay.
There were some gurgling noises in my stomach that night and I woke up at 3am feeling extremely hungry. Yes, I skipped milk tea for a week and I am never coming back to that artsy tea place.
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