Recently there’s been a huge scandal (note: scandal = not true, obviously) revolving around Oh-chan that made me soooo worried after Adeline, Erfa and Atikah told me about it and after reading the news from several fan sites online. The thought of it makes me feel disgusted at the publisher and its stupid objectives. (I guess nobody cares about the scandal at the point of writing this, wheee) And here’s what makes me happy.. sketching Ohno! Especially for Atikah, who requested it =)

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I can’t believe we dined at Olive’s again – for the 3rd time in a week? Wow, we must like the food too much. In another vcd/dvd shop, I asked if they had Death Note anime and Battle Royale, which the man handed to me after a mini search through the pile of single DVDs in plastic covers. DN anime complete series for 48 rmb.. how could I refuse such an offer?? BUY!

Sigh, life (at home) without internet is like a vacuum cleaner; it sucks. Hence for the need to quickly find a solution that would put an end to this temporary misery. Hah. After dinner Sean and I cabbed down to Metro 美罗城 where we passed by these gigantic Olympic billboards and posters, accompanied by countless spotlights and lamps that brightened the area so much so it felt like daytime.

Evidently, the brightness was more than adequate, that I didn’t even need flash to take this pic. I can’t imagine the amount of energy generated to sustain this level of usage everyday…

Part of Metro was like an IT mall, they sold a great variety of electronic products. We inquired a salesman (not the kind of salesman, but an average guy in T-shirt) about the thumbdrive like device which you could plug into your lappy, connect to the internet and surf on the go. In short, it works like wireless, but the major shortcoming would be the extremely slow speed at which it receives signals. Gosh, we waited like 5 minutes for the Youtube page to load when they demo-ed on the laptop. On top of that, it wasn’t cheap, so was the normal modem =P Hence we gave it up in hope of Linda being able to get internet access for us, paid of course, so that we wouldn’t have to fret over the irregularity at which there’s internet and that Sean is able to skype with Dawn daily :D LOL.

Sean was also looking for a new phone with basic functions that’s cheap but good since his Sony Ericsson one spoilt in the office that day when he replaced his sim card with the local sim card. Bad luck huh, lol. We went around to different stalls asking for the cheapest phone available and after comparing prices and considering for a while, he bought a 300 rmb phone (Motorola I think?) and tested it immediately.

In the mall there was a large food court downstairs:

but I wanted to walk around a little more, and in the process, we saw more restaurants serving Italian cuisine, local food, Swensens and Singapore cuisine! Not sure if it was authentic though, we didn’t browse through the menu. Just when we were unsure of what to have for dinner, I spotted Hoi Lau San 许留山, the very famous café in Hong Kong that Angie and I fell in love with while we were there. I think it’s because Leslie loved mangos too ;) It’s like, a MANGO (Sean told me Dawn will love it :D) shop; almost every item in the menu has mango as its ingredient.

Back home. After a long day at work, we needed some form of entertainment… so I suggested to watch Battle Royale!! Oh the sound system plus the big TV screen is SO GOOD I don’t even want to pay to watch a movie at the local cinema okay.

Bad day. Know why? When the very first line of subtitles appeared, I burst out laughing at how ridiculously ‘unlucky’ we were.. the subs were in Korean =.= and the remote control to the DVD player was spoilt, there was no button on the player to control the subs. *pulls hair and bangs head* So we had to watch on Sean’s mac for the English subs, the cheap DVDs couldn’t play smoothly on windows. ~~ Nevertheless…. BR was awesome, as usual. My 9th / 10th time watching? :D

[ Expenses ] :
48 rmb (Death Note), 4 rmb (drink), 11 rmb (cab), 46 rmb (lunch at Olives), 56 rmb (contacts colution)

Since I haven’t posted pictures for such a long time, and there have been so many interesting happenings in this week alone, I decided to do a super picspam today. Say yay. School reopened in a hurry, I guess no one was really prepared for this block to start partly because everyone’s so busy with their portfolios and interviews.

On Monday we had our first lesson for textiles manip class (the elective offered by Apparel Design) it was my first time stepping into the Print Shop in a long time.

Over the week we busied ourselves with handling pieces of cloths and essentially tie-dying. They’ve a huge dye bar with 4 basic colours (red, yellow, blue and black) and so by mixing, you get even more colours. There are various techniques for tie-dye, but the most common is to use rubber bands to create patterns and flow. First we determine the type of design, do the prep, collect colours from the dye bar with cups and then begin experiment. The cloth can be dipped into the colour, or we use a syringe to inject the pigment into certain parts, then they are left there and dried. We repeat the process on those of which results are not satisfactory; the colours are faded, many areas are left un-dyed etc.

What you’ll end up with is this.. and from my first batch of tie-dyes, I like this one best because it turned out unexpectedly nice.

Before we move on to batik and screen printing, Veronica wanted us to dye a t-shirt yesterday as part of the last tie-dye assignment:

I’ll post it up when I have the completed tshirt.

P4 is such a Pain in the neck. Concepts are reallly a Pain in the neck. P4 is open topic, similar to Final Year Proj, which means we source for and create our own information, formulate the brief, determine the scope of work to cover, and now it’s no longer a website that’s strictly required; we can choose from installation, video or print, as long as it encompasses the key element of Interactivity. The best thing is that we gotta go for consultation 4 times a week?! Crap……..!

On Weds and Thurs we split into 2 groups, took turns to go on a class outing to Discovery Centre and National Museum to view the interactive installations. A CLASS OUTING! It’s something I miss very much from sec school (other than PE). Luckily, we’re back here safe, instead of ending up in an obsolete island, having explosive collars around our necks and weapons to battl…. oops I digressed. I swapped over with Jac, my group was led by Yong while the other was led by Tommy.

Our tickets to Discovery Centre were subsidised. Child ticket!!

At the canteen, there were two vending machines like the ones we have in school. I got a pleasant surprise when I found this! It’s a candy from my childhood where you squeeze the tube and create mini ‘ice’cream cones. (what’s with the name… =_=”) Tastes kinda crappy actually, I have no idea… it’s like eating glucose paste. And I didn’t even bother opening the pack of biscuit cones lol.

We went there on a guided tour.. “Walk in pairs, kids!” Already, there were many things you can interact with physically on the wall and boards. Interaction doesn’t mean it has to be elaborate, something simple also counts.

Here, Syafrin and Qinghui were testing out the blue ‘screen’ background for us. Notice there’s a webcam installed in front of the speaker while he’s reading. The computer then erases the background and replaces it with a video clip. When Qinghui sat there, her whole shirt disappeared, replaced by the video background. Go figure. / Our lecturer Yong explained to us the concept of the touch screen on the ground which senses shadows blocking the projection (from the top) and hence triggers reactions. The projection on the wall was another similar application. / At another section, Esther tested the blue screen for us. We noticed there was an area where the webcam captured, basically a rectangle, and when she crossed the boundaries, it was visible on the screen.

This is another one of the interactive projections where participants circle it and take part in a quiz, with buttons at the side to choose the answers. / In a huge dome like structure, there was a large number of touch screen monitors/kiosks which allow participants to play the game at a certain time. It’s most probably meant for students and groups like us touring the place.

Doesn’t this look just TOO FAMILIAR……. where’s Shinji? :D

Actually in the middle of nowhere, they took us on a tour on the bus around the entire SAFTI site. WJ told me he trained there at OCS before! So cool, the place was really neat and serene. Too bad we went at the wrong time, no hunks to drool at for Momokz. LOLs. After one round, we were back at the centre again. If you’re there, visit Little George the android, talk to him and try to piss him (or the person behind) off like Sean (well mostly) did.

Singapore National Museum showcases a lot more artsy installations, basically in a more mature style because of a difference in the target audience. It’s suppose to be an intuitive tour; we were each handed a device and headphones and according to indications on the ground, if we pressed the number(s), information relevant to the area we were viewing would be played back. Thus you could explore the exhibition individually and skip/go through information that you don’t want/want to hear. There was a 360-degree projection and the audience sits in a circle to view it.

The architecture at National Museum is awesome! Among the exhibits and installations at the site, these are some that might be of interest to you: a magnetic wall with random objects such as spoon, helmets, funnels and bowls you could rearrange (you really don’t want to know what the classmates did); meet David (LOL G and H, fanclub!), a very taaaallll sculpture standing at the main entrance and he’s covered in pink textured cloth if you look close enough; a lightbulb at one of the galleries upstairs.. within the lightbulb, you can see a mini live projection of two feet stamping with complementing sound effects (it took quite some time but we couldn’t figure how it was projected INSIDE the bulb); and lastly…

…a live size replica of the metal pins thing which you put your hand or face through and it forms the shape. Hey presto! The Incredible Hulk! The Iron Man! So cool right!

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Got some more work to do for both textiles class and P4. The utmost important one is to secure a CONCEPT! Argh! On Monday, the team will resume CDI, do packaging for our motifs and tie-dyes, more consultations for P4.. yada yada. In short, it’s another long stressful week ahead. But no matter what, I’m doing my L fanart for this weekend, watching my TV and meeting dear leng loi Claudyne for lunch tomorrow. Omg I spent 4 hours on this post!

WJ, hope you won’t feel so lousy anymore =) Think of Baileys!
Have a nice weekend everyone!

Hurray!
4/5 for oral, 95/100 for written and listening.
I got the same marks as Adeline again! The last time for Jap elementary 1 course we both got 109/110. Next would be… Intermediate 1. I heard we’re gonna learn kanji. Well, just hope we get to sign up for a Sunday class before August.

Many happenings at school, particularly the more.. dramatic ones? But I bet those people would love to stop me from elaborating. So I shall. Wasn’t planning to anyways.

God, can I just whine about one more thing?
(oh aha! it’s “Battle Royale”..)

ITALIAN IS TOO DIFFICULT! MOLTO MOLTO DIFFICILE!!
I’m having severe indigestion from the intensive language lessons everyday.. why didn’t they have Japanese Language Part 2 for CDS?!!! ….allora :(

Drawn on the bus on my way home from school, and touched up when I got home. Don’t ask me how I did it =S My sketches turn out very differently under different conditions. Am trying to get the hang of sketching freely because it forces my eyes to find contours and shadows quickly.

Anyways. ?????I somehow got stuck with the busy January schedule I didn’t manage to ‘blog’ until right now. Another quickie sketch of Nino-chan when he was little because I was wasting time the school library, bored and without internet connection.

So, Nino’s big big news indeed shocked all the fans; they’re to release a SINGLE (yeah we all heard the preview already. Step and Go, interesting…). *kills Nino* But the real big news should actually be Ohno Satoshi holding his very first art exhibition from 21-29 Febuary at Omotesando Hills, Tokyo. SQUEEEE, everyone’s dying to go. And dying to grab hold of this, which is sadly out of stock currently. Ohno’s art book.

—

est ; says:
OHNO’s EXHIBITION!!!
and we can’t see it omg
ka;fakjsdflaksjdfl;kasjdfkajslkfasj
? Adel says:
DIES DIES DIESSSSSSSSSSSSS
maybe we cld go to japan tgt for a holiday and then see it
hahahah
est ; says:
its in feb
21 i think
? Adel says:
OMOTESANDO HILLLZZZZZZZZZ
OMG DIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
omgomg kill meeeeeeee
—
? Adel says:
i feel like hopping on a plane now
est ; says:
hahahah let’s go!!
? Adel says:
hahahaha!
rob a bank!

—

Here’s my msn nick 1 or 2 weeks back:
“LET’S ROB THE BANK, FLY TO JAPAN AND SEE OHCHAN’S ART EXHIBITION! like now.”

And here’s Erfa’s:
“Ok Ovie!!! Let’s DO IT!!! *goes arms self*”

—

I could have been there for Ohno’s exhibition! Once in 10000 years my dad takes leave.. well he told me he’s gonna take leave from 3-7 March and asked if we all wanted to go to Japan. OMG by all means, even if there’s Project3 going on, I’ll go, but. I’ll miss the exhibition by 3 days?! Right, I’m so serious about my nick.

Last last Saturday. Yiliang invited me to volunteer for the reading programme organised by YMCA, so I went in the morning, expecting nothing of what I had actually experienced. Lots of girls, yes and hardly any guys, of our age went together to the school of the beneficiaries, somewhere near Meridian JC. Oh yeah, it was good seeing Yiliang again, I could hardly remember how he looked like a couple of years ago =P Most, if not all of the beneficiaries are in some way or another physically disabled and they have problems speaking or understanding. It was all very strange, and I found myself quite lost, until I made friends with a few of the volunteers. The reading programme actually involves us splitting into groups along with the beneficiaries, interacting with them and helping them learn by doing things like scrapbooking, doing worksheets and stuff. The level of activities conducted depend on their learning abilities, hence the purpose of grouping them. I was only beginning to learn how to befriend these people. And how to be a friend…

We all parted at YMCA, I took a short walk around PS before travelling to school for the TP Open House ’08. Meeting with Claud and Cathleen, yummy! Claudy came back from Korea recently and she brought stuff for us. Looking at the both of them and how tremendously they have changed (for the bettaaaaar and prettier) over the years, I realise I’m way behind them in terms of dress sense and uhh everything else basically. *depressing*

We all toured around Design, introducing the courses and design works to them. The feeling wasn’t as great as last year’s open house, probably because I was involved then. Got them to see our IMD kiosk games at the Hereafter lab (why was the location so isolated?).. Cathleen hadn’t got a chance to play it properly because my game screwed up! BIG TIME! Fonts, alignment, everything. It was undescribably…. URGH.

Amid the busy block, I’m glad I found time for art (whether crappy or not), and for a movie with Qinghui and Hajar. Qinghui was telling us how excited she was for American Gangster, so we suddenly decided to catch it at TM one evening after our group meeting for INWA. Exciting!!!!! Not. The first half went by really slowly, it was not until the latter half that the pace picked up and it ended rather well. Oh mine, now I can’t even recall any names; only gunfights, city streets of the 60s, all sorts of gangsters, blue magic, Vietnamese drug dealers, nude women packing drugs in an underground drug ‘factory’ =.= and the jail sentence: 70 to 15. Haha.

Anyways. Yesterday I was reading the horror movie reviews at mandiapple (favourite!) and got around to watching 9 Souls, from the same director of Blue Spring. I still like Ryuhei films =) or rather, IN films.. 9 Souls, although highly recommended, I found it hard to watch. Took about one whole day with two breaks in between to finish the film on croll. It might take a few viewings to understand the characters more, and to figure some of the symbolism portrayed in this non-mainstream movie. One last art for the day: young Ryuhei Matsuda in black ink. I attempted lineart and manga style, using just enough lines to show his features (hair is not counted) without having too many stray pen strokes. When I see this I always relate it to robots.. but after brainstorming for so long I gave up trying to incorporate robot and machine parts into this. Don’t know how to draw leh! Here’s Ryuhei for you, the stoned, robotic stare.