Sunday, February 24

fringe benefits

Armed with a large A3 size colour print out of Katie Holmes (and stunted-looking Tom Cruise that I was too lazy to crop out) and determination to cut my fringe, I went to visit my nazi of a hairdresser.

As usual, he looked pained and insisted that hair poking into my eyes was very nice. But I forged on and insisted on the Katie Holmes blunt-cut bangs. For once, I got my way.

My friend D who happened to have made an appointment to cut her hair after mine, came armed with a similar photo of Mrs Cruise. The nazi looked more pained than ever that she, too wanted, that hair cut. He has a thing about not giving us similar cuts, which explains why he tried to psycho me into growing my fringe.

I'm not sure how he convinced my friend, but she ended up with a cut completely unlike the one in the photo.

Luckily I got there first.

Saturday, February 23

trigger happy

Still trying to get the hang the mind-boggling number of functions on my new toy, but super happy thus far. My compulsive reading of online camera reviews and relentless badgering of my fave photog has paid off.


I love the "food" function, it makes a simple shot of xiaolongbao look good.


Still getting the hang of focusing. Wanted to focus on the spoon, not the chopsticks!


The "face detection" is amazing! And see what being married for more than 30 years does to you? You smile and cross your arms the same way.


My sissy and I look like crap in this photo, courtesy of our dad. He, obviously, hasn't been reading the manual like he needs to sit for an exam.


Of course, the most unwilling and uncooperative subject of my photos has been my doggie. I haven't tried the "pet" function on him yet though.

Wednesday, February 20

it's a wrap


Isn't this the most fab wrap? Simple yet clever. It's from Missoni's A/W 08 collection, but I'm pretty sure I can make one myself. Now, when was the last time I said that?

As if I have the time to sew anything, especially now that I've got my hands on the object of my desire. Final decision was the Panasonic Lumix FZ18. Just got it today and been turning its knobs and pushing its buttons all night. Love it! Especially the 18x zoom. Woot! [Pardon the sentence fragments and random subject jumping. Tired. Been busy with things like work and sale and mahjong.]

OK, now to go mark my students' assignments while listening to Jay sing 献世 in heartfelt, if not exactly accurate, Cantonese on repeat mode. Then to start figuring out what to wear for a week of 10 to 15 deg C weather in Hong Kong. But first, to play some more with my non-shiny [I opted for black instead of silver] new toy.

Tell me, when am I gonna find time to haul my sewing machine [poor neglected toy] out and make anything?

Wednesday, February 13

beautiful in desolation



Ahhh, these are the kind of depressing and haunting pix I would love to shoot if I ever settle on which camera to get...

I've driven my fave friendly fotog mad with my endless camera questions, including "Why do I need wide angle lens?" and "How come don't have pink cameras ah?"

The two contenders at this point in time -- they keep changing -- are the Canon G9 and Sony H7. Any help in making the decision would be much appreciated.

Photos above from etsy seller Still Memory.

jayday! mayday!


While doing a massive load of laundry -- dating back to pre-CNY days -- last night, I unearthed a "new" striped tee that I had taken from the Swirl Swap Swop last month and finally washed it.

So this morning, regardless of the fact that (a) my throat hurt like mad from excessive rubbish consumption, (b) I only had five hours of interrupted sleep because I couldn't stop watching K-drama Queen of the Game till 4am, and (c) I was late for work and had no chauffeur, I just had to do my own private tribute to Jay. And puke-inducing as it sounds, it made me feel 甜甜的. *joooooom*

I told WW after lunch that my outfit was inspired by him, but she had already figured it out all by herself, clever girl. It was what he had worn when he arrived at the airport on his birthday. She just didn't want to say it while we were lunching with non-Jay fans. We're such persecuted folks!

It's a Jay Day also because dear MS gave me a belated birthday present -- her autographed copy of 七里香! So sweet of her to give me "something Jay has touched".

Oh, and the Mayday in the subject header refers to their concert in April. And we're going! So excitement!

P.S. Ignore the giant pile of worn clothes on the left of the photo, please. But note the big green hand proclaiming my love of Jay on the shelf on the right. Doggie's spotty body in the shot is a bonus.

P.P.S. To make this post less "scary fan stalker" and more "fashiony', I'd say I was also inspired by the fantastic Flickr group, Wardrobe_Remix, where people snap and post pix of clothes they wore that made their day. I can spend hours scrolling through the thousands of outfits. In honour of Wardrobe_Remix (and my sissy, who abhors the long-sleeves-under-short-sleeves look):

Striped top -- Mango
Black knit top -- H&M
Black capris -- Zara
Black pointy patent shoes (not seen) -- URS & Inc
Camera phone -- Nokia 6300

P.P.P.S. Check out the incredibly stylish blogger Style Bytes, who makes the supreme effort to get dressed, put on make up (or is her skin really that gorgeous?), accessorise her outfit and shoot a photo of herself, even when she is supposedly ill. When I am sick, I don't even want visitors, that's how bad I look.

Monday, February 4

i like hats, especially cowboy ones


A long overdue post. Sorry, my two loyal readers. I've been very busy (just like what a certain singer says on his latest album).

Anyway, so what transpired on the day of the cowboy hat? The obvious answer would be the breathlessly awaited Jay Chou birthday concert!!! (Notice the unprecedented use of three exclamation marks? The sub in me now has this urge to go back and edit out the over-enthusiastic, unjournalistic punctuations.)

More on Jay in another post. He deserves a long long long post, but it will have to wait till my fever abates somewhat. Otherwise, it will consist of "I LOVE YOU, JAY!!!", "SHUAI DAI LE!!!", "DAI WO HUI JIA!!!", a whole lot of exclamation marks and no content.

But back to that fateful Friday of 18 January. It was also the day I put on another hat and became a teacher -- something I never thought I could do because of my phobia of public speaking, as well as fear that I would be leading innocent students astray.


It's been three weeks since I started -- I take two classes every Friday -- and I'm still marvelling at the architecture of the spiffy new Lasalle campus. There are bridges linking various parts of the buildings, called pods (very space age), and the green "grass" you see is actually astro turf (again, very space age). I wish I could be one of those art students who sprawl on the fake green with their iPods plugged into their ears and their sketch books open in front of them.


Classes are held in a cavernous hall, with mannequins lurking at the back. Sorta like Project Runway, especially with those drama queen students I have. Take this conversation I had, for instance:

ME: So why did you choose to write about this Chanel bag?
STUDENT A (I'm very bad with names): Because it's Chanel!
ME: But what's so special about it?
STUDENT B: You don't like Chanel?
ME: Ya, I don't like Chanel.
[Collective gasp of horror from STUDENTS A-Z]
STUDENT C (Flaming gay boy who wears a pashimina shawl): OH MY GOD! You don't like Chanel!
ME: Erm, ya. Please don't burn me at the stake.


Oh and the course I'm teaching is called Fashion Communication. Basically, I teach about writing about fashion for magazines. I would share the horror stories of marking their written work, but I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of a word that appeared in a 100-word assignment about a Yves Saint Laurent bag -- "kuluolan".