trying to break a bad habit (or really not really trying that hard...)

yes, too much free time on my hands have resulted in me having an extremely bad habit of staying up all night watching JE.

it's...well, look, the internet is only really fast in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep and for some strange reason i only find the really interesting stuff after 11pm and by the way, the boys are really more funny when they were juniors and...

it's at times like this that i realize why people have jobs (besides the money).

it makes you sleep at reasonable hours.

(tomorrow, my sis is going to get a surprise when she realizes what i was watching all night tonight. hehe.)

最近寝ないから。。。

最近新しい計画がある。私は教師より、生徒になりたい。
お金がないので、今行けなくて、本当に悲しい(T_T)。
そうして、今働かなきゃ、貯金もしなきゃならない。
たぶん、２０１０年か２０１１年か行けるね？
ちゃんと祈っている！
神様、お願い～～

ああ、今おなががすいた！

終わった！

テストを終わった！でもますぐにPre-advancedの授業を始めます。
私は日本語が上手になりたい。本当に、本当に。

next phase of my life

well, the application has been sent and is completely out of my hands. we shall know next february.

meanwhile, preparation for the JLPT is now ongoing, full speed ahead. my aim is not just to pass but pass in the high 300s, hopefully 350 and above.

and i realize how much i really love the japanese language. maybe even more than my mother tongue.

(does that have anything to do with the japanese boys i follow (so much cuter than the local ones), or the japanese dramas i watch (let's not even compare)?)

not here

presently, i am either

1) panicking over my statement of purpose;
2) panicking over my impending JLPT exam; or
3) rotting my brain watching various JE boys who may or may not be able to act.

take your pick.

*hangs out busy sign*

ただいま！

ただいま！

台湾から帰った！旅行が本当に楽しいね！(^o^)

毎日おいしい食べ物を食べた、太るようになるか？( 一一)

いやだ～～

(the more i study japanese, the more i'm learning that the language is closely tied to the culture. there are certain things which the japanese will not say, and therefore, some statements in english have no equivalents.

i don't know how or when or where, but i want to learn more. one day, i will make my way there...)

絵文字です！(^o^)丿

（アｧｧ｡｡｡やった！絵文字の入れ方わかった！(^O^)／）

最近毎日JEの番組を見てる。カッコイイ男の子を見つかえたから、古いＹａ３とＳＣを探してる。　

（恥ずかしいね～～（*^_^*））

よく日本語を聞く、それはいいでしょう？

でも、男の子の話し方はちょっと習ったんけど、だめですよ。(^_^;)

ちょっと注意しなければいけませんね。。。

日本語大好き！

今日先生はいいコメンをくれた。「先に勉強しましたか？　Intermediate　1 はほとんどわかります」と言った。

（実は今勉強している文法、私もう初めて勉強するよ！）

毎日ドラマを見たり、本と雑誌を読んだりしたら、日本語がだんだん上手になった。

でも、聴解と会話がまだね。。。

(for you, so you don't have to use babelfish)

i had a great comment from my teacher today. "have you studied this before? you can understand most of intermediate 1."

(actually, the grammar we are learning now, i'm learning for the first time too!)

by watching dramas, reading books and magazines every day, my japanese is improving gradually.

but, my listening and conversation are still...

it might have been better to leave well alone

with the help of a few helpful sites, i have had the chance to catch drama after drama without much of a pause.

i watched some good ones, some bleargh ones and a couple of "what crack was i on when i wasted 3 days of my life watching this"?

my sis is a pretty good filter. she does a lot more research and had actually watched most of them herself. some shows she pans, usually due to crap acting or plot.

sometimes i watch them myself to be convinced of it. right now, i'm being scared ****less by the winner of the 57th television drama academy award best supporting male actor.

and i'm writing this down now because i'm trying to figure out if there's something wrong with me that i think he's horrifying scary and amazingly hot in his suits at the same time.

i'm stuck between wanting to slap the crap out of him and jumping on him.

how the heck did you get so good at being a psycho, ryo?

i am just too weak

if there's one thing i suffer from, it's my weakness to influences from my younger sister.

she was the one who started reading manga and watching anime. i followed.

she cosplayed. i joined in.

she studied japanese. so did i.

then she got into j-dramas, specifically those starring johnnys. i resisted for a long time, before succumbing briefly to the saccharine-sweet cavity-inducing crack known as proposal daisakusen. for most of the run, she waited for me to get home on tuesday nights so that we could both watch the subbed episodes. (it ran on japanese tv on mondays.)

we had a lot of fun swearing at the lead character. when the run ended, so did my interest in j-dramas (except for a slight continuing interest in the lead actor known as "yamapi").

she continued her obsession with the boys. the rest of the family rolled our eyes as she continued to giggle to herself every night as she got her fix. at times she would share her joy with me, where i would watch politely, laugh a little, and forget all about it.

then one day she said she was going to watch kurosagi the movie (with yamapi in the lead) and i decided to go with her and sat down with the drama box set to finish it in 2 days before going with her to watch the movie.

and continuing that with finishing nobuta wo produce in 3 days.

and somewhere along the line starting to watch all the NEWS clips in crunchyroll.

and suddenly being able to identify all of the boys in the group.

and out of the blue, giggling to myself as i watch a particularly funny clip.

and mentioning it to her to suddenly get a complete education in johnnys with her suggestions on which clips i HAD to watch.

now i have all the NEWS albums in my mp3 player, i have watched more dramas than i ever imagined i would actually be able to sit through...and i can tell most of the bands apart. a couple of times, i even got to tell her and show her some clips she missed.

...

i seriously scare myself.

i draw the line at buying any je products. may lighting strike me before i do. >.<

忘れた！

日記の書くことを忘れた！

文法は本当に難しいよ。

会話の練習が要る。

でも、だれと練習する？

練習します！

私は日本語を練習したいですが、今日から毎週に二回ぐらい日本語で書くん。

でも、言葉があまり知っていないんですが、ちょっと難しいね。。。

アァァァ、もう習う、もうわからないんです！

working hard...

毎日日本語を勉強しますから、疲れています.

でも、クラスは本当におもしろいですが、頑張らなければなりませんよ！

宿題を書きに行きます！

strangely sad

maybe it's not so strange.

after all, i did invest 2.5 years of my life here. that's a huge chunk of my working life.

i will miss it.

i will miss knowing my clients so well that i can learn to anticipate their requests.

i will miss solving problems with my colleagues, brainstorming to find out the best way to deal with a tricky request.

i will miss my corner in the office.

i will miss my colleagues and all that we shared.

and here i was thinking that it was the men who asked for too much...

my government wants people to have more babies.

they want more women to be back in the workforce.

they also want us to tighten our belts and realize that salaries will never match inflation.

so i was wrong. it's not the men.

it's just my government.

happy national day in advance, everyone.

battle of the bulge round 5655989586

i swear, there is nothing worse than getting on the weighing scale and seeing a 1.5kg jump.

water retention, probably, but it irks me, because i constantly weigh my worth by the number on my scale.

it doesn't help that i have an extremely screwed-up digestive system that kills me on an almost daily basis.

it's a self esteem problem.

indulging my inner fangirl

recently i've been obsessing over something. it has led me to spend hours every night on the computer, giggling like a schoolgirl, swooning like a mills & boon heroine and wibbling like a completely starstruck moron.

i had been the fan of sytycd when the first season was broadcasted here in...was it 2006? i remember rushing to the gym after work on mondays and aiming straight for the threadmill right in front of the monitor showing channel 5...and being really pissed off the one week some idiot got there before me. (he got the evil eye from me that night.) i would suffer through the static on the receiver just to hear the music that they dance to (and switch it off when it's some boring stuff...like hip hop. ew). of course, now, i only have some fleeting memories of nick's spins and melody's high extensions (also apparently known as HMVs. don't ask.)

yet, i didn't have any interest in it for season 2 and beyond hok's unceremonious exit in vegas due to his visa problems, i have no remembrance of it whatsoever. (benji who?)

then season 3 started showing here. i wasn't going to watch (i didn't even know they were showing it), except that my colleague and friend started to gasp in excitement about it to me, seeing that i'm a dancer, so to join in the discussion, i started to watch it online. except i made a mistake and watched the season 4 auditions, which got me hooked. (please go google danielle chorizo. especially if you watched season 2.)

references to the previous seasons intrigued me, so with the help of the internet, i got my hands on copies of season 3 (so that i don't have to wait an entire week to watch one episode. i mean, really, mediacorp, is there a need to drag it out so much by showing the performance show and the results show on separate weeks??) and started to watch like a maniac. somewhere along the line, i fell in love with a couple of dancers and that was it for me.

hi, i'm lillyelf, and i'm a sytycd-addict. my poison of choice are dominic from season 3 and mark from season 4. i can bring myself to watch dom and sabra's rumba and hip hop and mark and chelsie's argentine tango forever and ever.

...

this isn't the end.

somewhere between relief and panic

you know how some days you swear the people around you are being stupid on purpose?

this is one of those days.

*mmphgfh*

i can't wait to leave.

UNEMPLOYMENT RULEZ!

where are the kids?

so i've been making some plans for next year, which includes taking a course.

and i just received the pre-course task, which tells me to "think about 2 children of different ages that you know". i'm supposed to fill in the things they are interested in, what they enjoy doing.

and all i can think of is "holy crap, i don't know any kids!"

no nieces, no nephews. no neighbor's kids. no children of friends.

nada.

great...it'll be a great start with making things up for a task that i fully intended to go into my portfolio for the award. if i had known earlier, maybe i would have switched to the other course for adults instead.

the world is stupid.

staying at home cramps my style

this blog is in danger of being loli-fied.

probably not that soon though, because i have no more money.

anyway, i just bought a second hand JSK(jumper skirt) today. (i asked the seller to guess my age. she guessed 20. *huge beam*) you would have thought i would be jumping for joy. but no, my mum has to pick on me about it.

yes, mum, i know you think it's a waste of money, but it's MY money i'm wasting. gawd knows how much i work just to be able to afford the things i want. it's not like your LV is worth anything besides the status symbol. i bet you wouldn't have said anything if i had gone to...to...burberry and bought some super expensive dry-clean only clothes that i would wear only once a year or less.

and also, most people don't wash their GL stuff so much because it's not meant to be washed that much. our jeans are already overwashed, leave my GL stuff alone! (i still remember what you did with my bodyline skirt.)

and get used to it. once MM gets their international shipping page working, you're going to see a lot more GL stuff. and no way are you putting them in the wash.

money is not everything

but it sure can buy you happy things.

i just had my "oral exam" with the big boss, and got my "results". i've got a nice bonus and an okay increment. and also was told of a potential "ang pao", if i stayed a little longer.

i've already been so bored in my job that my bonus is all that's keeping me. After this, i know i will leave.

but the money...it does make me think a little, because if i'm going to start yet another expensive hobby, i will need some.

...

nah, it's not worth it.

closet loli

i just realized i'm a closet lolita.

if only i bought that MM dress! then maybe i wouldn't be feeling so unfulfilled right now.

=(

plotting my escape

the last trip that i just took a couple of days ago just convinced me of one thing:

i HAVE to go. i NEED to leave.

how else can i explain the feeling i have of not wanting to get back here? even the previous trip didn't give me this feeling.

perhaps because this time, i left when i was needed the most, when i had a whole crapload of work to do. i left anyway, and the world didn't end, and i had a great time, and i didn't want to get back to work.

and it convinces me that i have to leave now, before the good gets marred with mistakes and errors.

just a little more...

the pillowman

if at age 5 (or 7, or 9), a soft entity made out completely of pillows appeared in front of you and told you about your horrible life which was to come, all the way to the point where you are about to kill yourself, would you choose to end your life there and then to save yourself from going through it?

i was very fortunate to be able to get a pair of tickets to the second run of the pillowman by srt, which started last night. my colleague had watched it last year during the first run and raved about the brilliance of the play. it had garnered a number of nominations in the local theatre awards, and i was curious to see what the hype was about.

it was a good play. there were plot twists and thought-provoking moments aplenty to keep your mind working, but honestly, i was less than impressed by the pace of the play. as my sis puts it, "i got your point, now get on with it".

that said, the parts that interested me most were the stories within the play, written by the lead character, katurian. morbid, gruesome, disturbing, the tales had children suffer through pain and hurt and no happy endings. imagine a little girl who killed her father by putting razor blades in apples and then being choked to death on little apple men. imagine a kind little boy getting his toes cut off. imagine a little girl being crucified and buried alive with 3 days' worth of air. if you can listen to these stories and not be affected, then you have a stronger stomach than i do.

in the end, probably the story of the pillowman was the mildest...and it left the deepest impression on me.

so the question at the top of this post...would you?

random things i get peeved about 3

contact lens that tear in the eye.

this is the freaking second lens i've used in one week. what the hell is wrong with it!

argh...i wanna get lasik already!

3 march - hina matsuri

happy 29th feb!

lame-ness at its max...

hey, you only encounter it once every 4 years. (even though it's an extra day of work this year. (-______-);;;

here's something that amused me (and a few colleagues) yesterday:

o(^^ o)(o ^^)o

(o ^^)oo(^^ o)

\(^o^)/\(^o^)/

japanese emoji dancers!

random things i get peeved about 2

people who think they know more than they do and unabashedly showing off their ignorance on the bus in loud conversations.

yesterday, i had the misfortune to stand next to a young couple on the way home. as we passed by an mrt station, they noticed that work was being done to open some shops at the station itself. a note of that led to the proposition that the company should purchase more trains => which "the men at the top" would not do because they drove to work and therefore does not know about the problems of the common man => the whole issue of elitism => the woman proclaiming that the reason why she did not want to go for further studies because she didn't "want to be an elite".

i snorted at the last statement. thankfully, i was plugged into my mp3 player, having frantically dug it out in the middle of their discourse on elitism, and i turned up the volume to avoid having to listen any further.

miss? if only you realize how dumb you sounded there. maybe you'll learn not to talk so loudly on a crowded bus again.

blogger's block

i have been struck by a bad case of blogger's block. as a result, none of my blogs have been updated lately.

since i have nothing to write, here's a meme.

Three Things You Want To Do Before You Die:
1) live overseas for a year or more
2) learn 10 languages (10 is a nice number)
3) get married

Three Things You Want To Do Really Badly Right Now:
1) get out of work
2) get my eyes lasik-ed
3) a ds of my own

Three Names You Go By:
1) karyn
2) min
3) whatever comes to my mind at the spur of the moment (don't ask :P)

Three Screen Names You Have Had:
1) lilgirl
2) lillyelf
3) sapphirenite

Three Physical Things You Like About Yourself:
1) butt
2) lower legs
3) (somewhat) flat tummy

Three Parts Of Your Heritage:
1) fujian chinese
2) hainan chinese
3) indonesian chinese

Three Things That Scare You:
1) being alone
2) in the dark
3) after a horror movie

Three Of Your Everyday Essentials:
1) mp3 player
2) knitting
3) pupe.jp ^^

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1) top from forever 21
2) shoes from urs
3) watch from skagen

Three Of Your Favorite Bands/Musical Artists:
1) my chemical romance
2) rascal flatts
3) jay chou (what's that smirk for?)

Three Of Your Favorite Songs:
1) i don't love you (mcr)
2) i'm movin' on (rascal flatts)
3) 退后 (jay)

Three Things You Want In A Relationship:
1) security
2) love
3) plenty of hugs

Three Physical Things About The Preferred Sex That Appeal To You:
1) height (1.75m and above only, pls)
2) nice smile
3) strong features

Three Of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1) knitting
2) gaming (present preferred platform: nintendo ds)
3) pupe-ing

Three Careers You're Considering / You've Considered:
1) banker
2) EFL teacher
3) dance teacher

Three Places You Want To Go On Vacation:
1) Hokkaido
2) LA
3) Paris

Three Kid's Names You Like:
(bleargh)

Three Ways That You Are Stereotypically a Girl:
1) i love to wear dresses
2) i can't pass a mirror without looking
3) i check my weight almost every morning

Three Ways That You Are Stereotypically a Boy:
1) i have a natural reluctance to shopping without a purpose
2) skin care routine? what's that?
3) pass me the controller to the ds...and the ps...and the ps2...and the wii...