my ajumma notes

How irritating. People who are definitely not doing the TV nightly reports for the first time in their lives are still calling the Thais 'thighs'. Anyway, why is there just a half-hour report each day? What happened to live telecasts?

I have just learnt that in China, blogspot.com is filtered, i.e., you can't access blogspot blogs in China. Even if you have a blogspot blog. Wow... Have just finished The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie . Am determined to read the rest of the Colonel Race (do read the link - it's a translated webpage {from French}; if you think those Japanese or Taiwanese translations from English are funny, you will be smiling at this translation - it's really weird) books. First read The Man in the Brown Suit more than 10 years ago and it was still great on re-reading. The other one I want to re-read is They Came to Baghdad .

Congratulations, David Nalbandian, for doing what no one expected. He wasn't even on the original slate for the Shanghai Masters and he ends up with a dream year-end flourish, beating world #1 Roger Federer in the Masters Cup Final. Though it was brought up in both Federer's and Nalbandian's post-match interviews that their matches are always 'close', it is nevertheless a great achievement for Nalbandian, currently ranked #12 and 8th seed in the Shanghai Masters, to beat Federer. I can imagine #2 to #11 are all going green with envy, I believe especially Roddick and Hewitt, who were so unceremoniously routed by Federer in their matches against him in the last year or two. Well, it just goes to show that you never know. And I guess this might be happy news for #2 to #11 too, because it tells them that there is hope yet...

Following my previous 'academic'/historical post , here is a literary one. No, no, nothing I produced, but just my thoughts after finishing The Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic (henceforth SDS ) by Sophie Kinsella. I was struck by the striking parallels with Bridget Jones's Diary (BJD) by Helen Fielding, and not having done any PC for nearly 20 years or therabouts, I hereby offer a comparison between the two. First, it appears that BJD is universally acknowledged as the prototype of chick lit . That makes me wonder if SDS was modelled after BJD . Anyway, here goes: Date published BJD: 1996 SDS: 2000 Sequels (is that what books are called too?) BJD: The Edge of Reason SDS: Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Shopaholic and Sister heroine BJD: bumbling Bridget Jones, speaks her mind more than thinks before she speaks, works in publishing house, then becomes broadcast journalist SDS: bumbling Rebecca Bloomwood, speaks her mind more than thinks before sh...

Hmmm... the Tennis Masters Cup is turning out to be rather boring. To be fair, it's not because people are not playing properly or anything but more that this is supposed to be the year-end big match-up among the top 8 players in the world but obviously it's not. Only interested in watching Coria , though he is wearing some horrible body-hugging orange tee with shiny black stripes, and Nalbandian . Anyway, Coria is out, having lost 2 matches already, and I'm sure he is going to get creamed by Federer tonight. As I write this, he has lost the first set already. I must, say, though, his wife is beautiful, with her beauty queen looks. Not that that has anything to do with anything... Last night was Gonzalez versus Gaudio and I thought who cares about Gonzalez versus Gaudio, and there was nothing else worth watching so I turned to Channel 55 and guess what, they are showing a re-run of the K serial Jewel in the Palace . As I said before , this is a really slow-moving show. They...

Breathed a sigh of relief on behalf of Princess Masako at the recent news that the Japanese government was considering legal changes that would allow for girls to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne as Empresses. Then, whoa, there was this piece about Prince Tomohito , a cousin of Emperor Akihito and fifth in line for the throne, pouring cold water on the whole idea. His views were echoed by the Foreign Minister, who happens to be his brother-in-law. It seems Prince Tomohito's views are seen as reflecting that of the imperial family. Well, being conservative is one thing, but he seems to be harking back to the rather distant past because one of his alternatives (to allowing females to ascend the throne) is to bring back the practice of taking concubines ! I suppose that would increase the chances of male heirs being produced, but I wonder what his wife (and mother of is 2 daughters) thinks of that suggestion. Before we slam the man, though, I suppose we should understand that he is bu...

I'm surprised to learn from the Channel NewsAsia report on the Christmas light-up that 'last year's light-up attracted close to 1.6 million visitors to Singapore'. I can't believe that those 1.6 million people came to here just to look at the lights. Okay, this is an old issue but a letter in the ST Forum today, 'Christmas and God of Fortune don't mix' , set me thinking about it. Without actually going into the religious significance of Christmas, the letter writer pointed out that the God of Fortune hat was inappropriate for Christmas celebrations. Well, I just feel it is weird that people are being wooed to come to secular Singapore to 'celebrate' Christmas. Why should they? What are they supposed to be celebrating? My mother used to say that Baby Jesus was in all likelihood shivering in the cold (not to mention His Mother having to endure travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey while heavily pregnant, and finding 'no room at the...

Wow, it's tough being a shopaholic without a salary. I must say, though, that I have successfully kept shopping largely to supermarkets and such this year. Not many real sprees this year, except for a few, e.g. the one at Blum . Yesterday, my friend CK and I were supposed to meet at a clothes shop called Cocoon and then go to the museum. We ended up spending the whole afternoon in Cocoon. Ha ha, us girls will be girls, huh? Well, nowadays we non-tai-tais must be on the lookout for freebies , and Cocoon might be a good place to start. If you need clothes, i.e. They have this rack of 1-for-1 dresses, many of which cost $85. Yes, for $85, you get two dresses! We just tried and tried and tried dress after dress after dress. Incidentally, just before this little shopping spree, I had finally started on Sophie Kinsella's The Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic . I'm quite enjoying it. A cute, entertaining book, though there are too many parallels with Bridget Jones. More on that s...

Now, friends, after many years of being overaged for essay competitions, the time has come once again for you to pick up your pens. Young People's Action Party Women (YPW) is organising this competition - 'Writing our future: Singapore 2020' for women aged 17-40. The idea is to 'first get young women to think about the future Singapore they live in (the future Singapore they will live in? the future of the Singapore they live in?) , and then be encouraged to take action as they see more clearly how they can play a role.' The prize: 'an opportunity to have dialogues with prominent leaders and thinkers such as Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan; women Members of Parliament such as Minister of State for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua and YPW Advisor Irene Ng; distinguished diplomat Tommy Koh; and the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Kishore Mahbubani.' Come on, come on, get down to it. Very shortly, some...

The field for the Tennis Masters Cup : Federer, Nadal, Agassi, Coria, Gaudio, Nalbandian and newbies Davydenko and Ljubicic. I know of at least one secondary school tennis team that's going to Shanghai for their piece of the action. Lucky kids. Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick have withdrawn because of injury. On Lleyton's website, it says 'Lleyton will not play again until 2006 due to injury and impending fatherhood.' Anyway, what happened to the ladies? I thought there was a women's masters tournament last year.

Went for our flu vaccine shots today. Weird experience. It was a 'group outing' of sorts -- 6 adults, including 3 foreign domestic helpers, and 5 kids. I mention the 3 non-Singaporean ladies because it all depends on where you are in this world, doesn't it? Many, back in their homeland, might be susceptible to infection by the virus(es) when the pandemic comes but can ill afford the necessary vaccination and medication. But here they are, these 3 ladies, who have, for whatever reason, found themselves working here, and they are fortunate enough to have the jab. I wonder how many employers there are who are getting their domestic helpers vaccinated. According to WHO , the world is ill-prepared for the impending flu pandemic . That is really scary. Then, there is the 'unknown' quality of H5N1 (avian flu virus). Will it or will it not / when will it mutate into a virus that spreads from human to human? Will we develop a vaccine quickly enough to deal with this strain?...

It all began with this tree, felled during a mighty pre-dawn storm: When I saw it, I thought to myself: 'Wah, Singapore the wind so strong one, ah?' People were giving me weird 'Never seen uprooted trees before or what?' kind of looks as I snapped pictures of the poor tree. I also noticed these trees across the road were looking rather autumn-ish. Since I was taking these tree pictures, I decided to take other pictures of trees around these parts. And I also remembered this poem, which I learnt as a song in primary school. TREES by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. Since the summer, winter a...

The bus driver and conductor evacuated the bus and the driver picked up the suspicious-looking bag and flung it away from the bus. He was seriously wounded. But he saved the lives of the passengers. As reported in The Independent . A man picked up a suspicious-looking bag from a pavement and when he saw wires sticking out of it, fled towards a park to get rid of it. He was blown up before he made it to the park. But he saved the lives of many in the crowded marketplace. As reported in today's ST . These guys picked up suspicious-looking articles with their bare hands and saved lives . What would we Singaporeans have done?

Let me do a pseudo intellectual post for a change. I was inspired to read up a bit when I read the report some 3 weeks ago about the sentencing of the 2 men arrested for their online comments. I quote from the ST article (words in green) : Using the 1964 race riots to make a point, he [the judge] said: "Young Singaporeans, like the accused persons before this Court, may have short memories that race and religion are sensitive issues. "They must realise that callous and reckless remarks on racial or religious subjects have the potential to cause social disorder, in whatever medium or forum they are expressed." I am not that young but I don't have much memory of learning/reading about the 1964 race riots, so I decided to look the topic up in the books in my own 'collection' (hee hee, yes, I actually own these books). First, I realise I have lost my copy of Mary Turnbull's History of Singapore ... grrr... where is it? Anyway, I found my Cambridge History o...

Just something from the Feb 2005 copy of Reader's Digest before I return it to the library. There is this small section entitled 'Exercise Without Realising' (feel odd about this title - thought one has to realise something ). Here's what it says. We need to take 10,000 steps per day to maintain fitness and some things we normally do are equivalent to a certain number of steps. Examples: (15 minutes of action for each particular activity) standing while watering lawn = 600 steps clearing and washing dishes = 900 steps standing while cooking = 950 steps shopping with trolley / general house cleaning = 1,400 steps spreading soil with shovel = 1,950 Just for comparison: playing frisbee = 1,200 steps playing table tennis = 1,600 steps Guess most of us won't have much a chance to water the lawn or spread soil with shovel, but maybe we can wash our dishes with more gusto to increase the number of 'steps' we are chalking up! (Reader's Digest took this from ...

Single in Singapore You don't know what you're in for Just pray that some day You'll find who you're looking for Who wrote this? Answer: Dick Lee These lyrics are from 'Single in Singapore' from Beauty World . Never in my life would I have thought that one day I would be defending Dick Lee, though I wouldn't really call myself a 'fan' of his. I should think many, many Singaporeans know who he is. I'm one who has had the privilege of watching the man himself perform. That was way back in the mid 80s when my friend pulled me along to a 'lunchtime concert' at NUS. I stood throughout the performance in the crowded LT 13(?) and I was enthralled. He was so talented as a songwriter and, as a performer, so unassuming and boy-next-door, so Singaporean . It was just him and the piano, nothing else, and it was such an entertaining lunch time. Years later, I watched Beauty World (the one with the original cast, including a friend of ours and the hus...

Every now and then, we see one of the media companies blowing, and sometimes blasting, its own trumpet about being the best this or best that. Which is all rather silly because we all know that there isn't much, or sometimes any, competition here. Well, today was TODAY's turn to do it in an article 'What keeps this newspaper ticking?' At least they had the 'humility' not to put this on the front page and to give the article a fairly innocuous title. We are told that according to a Nielson Media Research survey (July 2004-June 2005), 1. TODAY is 'the only English daily to gain readership'. The stats: TODAY gained 13,000 'new readers' TNP lost 59,000 readers ST lost 26,000 readers It wasn't written in this article, but somehow, I don't see people 'defecting' in large numbers from ST to TODAY. Well, maybe some people did but some of the 13,000 'new readers' could be people who read BOTH papers, no? Also, TODAY is free ; you ...

Just found out that the UN celebrates its 60th anniversary today. I've read so many articles about the faults and weaknesses of the UN, and also some about the work it has done. I'm sure these are all over the Net, and elsewhere, for those who are interested. So all I'm going to say is at least some work is being done and no one can deny that the UN has some significant achievements . Anyway, caught this news not in the ST, not on CNA, but on a China (English Language) channel, CCTV International . This channel has excellent programming and documentaries on a whole range of topics. I also hear that even the equipment used by this channel is superior to what is used here... hmmm...

The son's first ever exams will be upon him starting tomorrow. Apart from the 4 days of PSLE marking, we also had the weekend and, because, of all things, the poor boy had a >38 degree fever for about 2 days, we had today as another 'revision day'. Maybe I shouldn't say 'poor boy'. He was not the least bit bothered about the fever or the exams. He would much rather be doing this: (drawing aeroplanes) or this: (listening to my Dick Lee CD!) Even watching birds hopping in the drizzle was better than this: Too bad, boy, you have those exams coming up...

The one that takes the cake today is 'Making a spectacle of yourself' by Sumiko Tan, or, as 'advertised' on the front page of today's Sunday Times , 'Why I don't like to wear glasses'. Did that make you rush to read what she had to say about her glasses? Summary of article: 1. She had 'recurring styes' (always wondered how the plural was spelt) in her eye and had to stop wearing her contact lenses for a bit. 2. She is 'shy about being seen' in spectacles. Some reasons: thick lenses (800 degree myopia), makes her feel like an 'awkward school girl', loves wearing sunglasses of which she has many pairs, glasses are 'a bother when you exercise', vanity, influence of 'pop culture' (e.g. people with glasses usually not portrayed at all or portrayed somewhat negatively in movies etc). 3. Sunglasses 'give me attitude' and are cool. 4. She just made a pair of prescription sunglasses. This is a feature article writte...