ZXL = Elephant?!

I was compared to an elephant today..not any ordinary elephant..but the imaginery-friend-elephant of Big Bird..yes, Aloysius Snuffleupagus, pronounced snuh-full-UP-puh-gus(If you dunno who/what that is, u're probably not from my era..)

Ok, i dun think she was referring to the size..as much as i might have put on weight, i really dun think i fall into that category yet..

Rather, it was my eyelashes..people close enough(literally) to me would have realised i have, relatively speaking, long eyelashes..

And this i reckon, coming from Choc Lady, is a pretty big compliment..


Does this look like me?

-_-

It's scary how some people can read me..through a sms across continents..a game across the courts..a meal across the table..

Sometimes i think i'm rather aspergers in certain ways..like how i always fail to read facial expressions..

今天是元宵节

Someone was a little confused over 元宵节..ZXL-the-Chinese-festival-expert to the rescue..

In its simplest definition, 元宵节 is the 15th day of CNY, which also marks the end of CNY and also the first sighting of a new moon(technically the time for crying wolf..Ah-Woo?!)Yes, it's another day for reunion..and in some regions(not so much in sg), a day for lantern(that's why we 猜灯谜) and a day to eat 汤圆(though i would think in sg, 汤圆 is more associated with 冬至)

And..元宵节 is also a version of Valentine's Day, seriously..if u dun believe me, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_xiao_jie

So..Happy V Day to you!

But hang on..isn't there another chinese V day..? If your answer is yes, you're right too..there's the 悄节 or

七夕节..which is also the niu lang zhi nu day ---and guess what? It's also considered V day! ( http://en.wikipedia.org/qi_qiao_jie)

My my..aren't Chinese a romantic lot..

Acupuncture..a placebo?

Referring to the article 'Pinning down acupuncture: It's a placebo' (ST, 12 Feb), i was shocked to discover that 'acupuncture is astrological in origin but also the astrology is based on a model of the universe which has the earth at its centre.' Does any of you knew about this??

And the article also mentioned that a study on chronic low back back pain was done and the results showed that real acupuncture treatments were no more effective that sham acupuncture treatments. There was nevertheless evidence that both real acupucture and sham acupuncture were more effective than no treatment and that acupuncture can be a useful supplement to other forms of conventional therapy for low back pain. In other words, it means : Please use acupuncture as a placebo on your patients, just don't let them know it is a placebo.

And the astrology part..it said that the 12 main acupuncture meridians and the 12 main body segments correspond to the 12 Houses of the Chinese zodiac..it went on to talk about the 'qi' flowing in the body..a bit too confusing for me to understand, and too lengthy to type everything out..

Of cos, now i'm left wondering..did my acupuncture do me any good at all? Or is that why my shoulder's still not fully ok yet?!

The Nostalgic, the Intense and the plain Weird

*Dun worry Wei, i'm not trying to rival your movie reviews..just expressing my 1.5 cents here

Caught a couple of movies over the CNY weekend(judging by the number of patrons at the cinemas, i bet every singaporean has caught one too)..

Among the movies i caught are It's a Great, Great World, The Swan and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives. The genre ranged from nostalgic to intense to just plain weird(in that order).

Great World is acceptable for a local production..and maybe it's Great World(one of my preferred hangout in today's context), so i'm more lenient towards it. Am rather surprised by the liberal use of dialects(and how it's not classified as a 'foreign' language movie)

The Swan is a showcase of Natalie Portman's acting chops(pity Winona Ryder though). I didn't exactly like the storyline, a bit too dark and depressing..but i'll have no issues if NP wins the Oscars for the role(as if i'm a deciding factor..ha)

And oh..Uncle Boonmee..the movie got me raising my eyebrows(^.-) and someone asking if we can leave halfway..It left me with more question marks than my economics textbook(Purchasing Power Parity, anyone?) This is a review lifted off 8 Days:

'The 40 year old Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has landed on the world map by reinventing the language of cinema with his mystical tales Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century.

Apichatpong won the 2010 Palme d'Or top prize at Cannes for Uncle Boonmee, which Tim Burton, the head of the jury, likened to a 'beautiful, strange dream.'

Many may simply find this gentle, beguiling, mysteriously hypnotic movie strange.(i guess i fall into the 'many' category)

A dying farmer, Uncle Boonmee, returns to the jungle in northeast Thailand to spend his last days clsoe to his loved ones and is visited by the ghost of his wife, by his long-lost son in the form of a red-eyed monley spirit, and by memories of his own previous human and non-human incarnations. The last involves a pricess having sex with a catfish under a waterfall(yes, one of the eyebrow raising moments for yours truly)

We are the sum of each other, passing through death and rebirth into interconnected lives of shifting states of being. The Buddhist precept of transmigrated souls informs Apichatpong's animist fable, even as the director, who is possibly better known back home for his anti-government stance, maintains a sidelong glance at his country's concrete troubled politics with allusions to the Laos-Thailand tensions and the 1960s Communist suppression.

His is world of commonplace, matter-of-fact magic, where the mundane is at the same time made sublime. (rated:4/5)'

It was the high rating and the fact that it won the top prize(didn't really take the fact that Tim Burton was the head judge into consideration) that got me curious about the show. Other than the fact that i understood probably 15% of the storyline, it was extremely slow-moving(and i'm generally ok with slow movies, so i thought) with some pretty amateurish effects(of cos this is no Hollywood production)..so i really dun quite understand the rave reviews about the show.

Oh well..i guess there's always the King's Speech and Winter's Bone to look foward too, at least they won't leave me with tired eyebrows..hopefully.

The Look

Ever had those 'Who is he/she? i definitely know him/her' moments?

I had them just now..while was queuing up at the supermarket with 3 pairs of chopsticks..this person suddenly caught my eye and our gaze locked for a split second..and since then, i've been besieged by those thoughts..who is she to me?

And while fussing over my cat just now, the lightbulb came on - She was from my sch! That's right and that's all.. she is to me. Someone from the same sch. She wasn't even a friend, we never spoke before and i didn't know her name. She was probably some friend's friend's friend, afterall it was just 2 or 3 degrees of separation in school, isn't it?

She was in the next class, so every morning(at least those mornings when i was in time for assembly), she would be sort of standing next to me. In fact, i would notice if she wasn't around; it had become, more or less, a habit for me to look out for her during assembly. (and before any of you had any thoughts running, NO, i did not have a crush on her)

Of course the fact that she was in the next class meant that we would bump into each other quite frequently. Most of the time, we would sort of 'acknowledge' each other with a 'look'. This looking business continued throughout school and after graduation, we went on with our own lives and i kind of forgotten about her existence.

Throughout these years, i have bumped into her twice maybe? By 'bump', i meant she saw me and i saw her and we exchanged 'the look'. My guess is she probably went on to a decent job(going by her dressing) and maybe even married with kids(going by national statistics). If she ever wondered about me, she would be thinking 'why is this person always in tshirt and shorts? no need to work meh?'

It's been more than 15 years since we first looked at each other(literally)..For me to recognise someone after so long is quite a feat (esp if the person changes her hairstyle). Hmm..she didn't change that much..maybe just 120% of what she used to be..and a bit more matured of cos..and i, well, looked the same..plus some 10 years..

but i certainly recognised the 'look'.

(almost) a record..

That i can publish 4 entries in a day(ok, 2 were 1-liner kind..but the other 2 were quality posts with substance k), with a couple more waiting to be edited in the drafts..and then i get distracted and start another new entry(like this one).

I just have a couple of interesting nuggets to blog about:

1. I saw a perfectly nice round egg yolk..for sunset yest(this is nothing new, but i like sunsets so there)

2. 'Do you have children?' No, i don't 'Why not?' I'm not married 'So get married!' But i have no one to get married to 'Then find someone and get married!' This is a conversation i had yesterday with one of my students..a 5.5 years old boy, SDU should hire him as spokesman, or rather, spokesboy.

3. 2 parents were kind of arguing over their timeslots for me. This is rather amusing for me, not that i'm so hot in demand..but considering i'm just someone just cycles along with their kid..i can so imagine their claws coming out when it comes to something more 'essential'(in sg context), like tuition teacher..

Don't let a minor injury change your life, mood, body

A minor injury, as the saying goes, is an injury to someone else. When it is your knee, back, shoulder(yours truly), there is nothing trivial about it. Especially if the injury is keeping you from working out consistently for the first time in years.

I'm not exaggerating when i describe this injury as life-changing. It has changed my daily life, my mood, my body - and none of them for the better.

I'm losing my shape(whatever shape it was anyway). My appetite has waned somehow. My mood is down, not having experienced the euphora of having a shiok workout for months.

It is small comfort, that the experts say that, psychologically and physiologically, everything i am experiencing is typical and predictable. And there are ways to fight back.

'2 parts of your life have been disrupted' said Frances Flint, a sports pyschology consultant. 'That good feeling' from the workout itself is gone(see???), along with the 'my time' that is usually built into one's schedule, away from work other stresses.

So true. That simple joy of moving, of washing away the day's aggravation into a shower of sweat, has given way to longer sessions in front of my pc(blogging lor..like now). Gone as well is the camaradarie of tennis/badmintion sessions with my racket kakis.

Shawn Talbott, a nutrional biochemist, explains that there are 2 things occurring when we are suddenly deprived of exercise.

First, working out helps our bodies get rid of cortisol, a hormone we produce as a result of stress. When cortisol lingers in the bloodstream, it signals the brain to go looking for sweets, which produce the same sensation as exercise. Hence some people start craving for junk foods.

Second, exercise produces endorphins, the hormones that yield the 'runner's high'(to me, it'll be the player's high) and other pleasant feelings.

'You exercise and your get this hit of brain chemicals, and it makes you want to do it again and again and again', said Talbott. 'And, when you can't do it, we have people who literally get depressed'.

Flint said it is crucial to continue working out(ok, so i'm not wrong is going to the gym..) It is important, said Flint, to do this at the same time of the day that one used to work out. Overall, the effort will give 'the same biomechemical effect' as one's previous regime.

The other critical move, is to take control of the situation. Find out as much as you can about the injury and possible therapies(well, i tried accupuncture..)

Being actively involved in your care, instead of being a passive recipient of treatment. Banish 'negative self-talk'

Some athletes also like to visualise the affected area healing - they believe it speeds the process.


(The original article by Lenny Bernstien, appeared in ST, 29 Jan 11. It has been 'modified' to relate to my personal 2-months-and-counting shoulder injury)

Back to Basics

*This entry is dedicated to someone who claims she doesn't know how to save $$

'..Most of us are familiar with the temptation to 'enhance' the quality of our lives. It can be something as enjoying a more expensive cup of coffee to buying a brand-name piece of clothing, a new set of cutlery, changing the furniture or upgrading to a bigger home and a more expensive car.

Before you know it, you find it hard to move back to the previous sate, something that Dr Ariely terms the pre-ownership state. Moving backwards is deemed a loss, 'one that we cannot abide', he explains.

What we also need to note is that once we are 'anchored' to the more expensive cup of coffee or a higher standard of living, it affects our future preferences and decisions as well. So in the case of coffee drinking, you will find that it has become a habit to pay more for coffee.

What is the lesson here? Understand that our first decisions can translate into long-term habits. By firstly being aware of this, Dr Ariely suggests that we can train to question ourselves on our repeated behaviours or decisions. Ask how we began having that habit or buying that item and how much pleasure are we really getting out of it? Could we spend the money on something else?'

Came across this article in ST couple of weeks back. It struck me cos it kinda explains what i've been trying to do..just that i didn't know there was a term for it - 'Pre-ownership state'.

Things like..i refuse to get into the habit of driving everywhere and try to take public transport when possible. Till today, i have people who seemed puzzled when i tell them i took the bus down, their common response is 'what happened to your van?' and when i reply it's just at home, they will look even more puzzled and continue asking 'so why didn't u drive?' and their expressions sometimes turn to those of disbelief when i say i just feel like taking the bus. I guess to them i'm taking a step backward(esp in sg, when driving doubleups as 'status' for having 'arrived'..never mind that i'm just driving a van).

But i must admit that i've also fallen prey to the habit forming thingy, such as my preference for higher-end/gourmet bread, ditching those neighbourhood bakery bread for (much more expensive)foccaccia and ciabatta @_@ Can i still go back to those kaya buns(ya kun excluded) days?

I guess i'm digressing from the topic of saving(it's MY blog rem? i can say watever i want)..It's just the way our society is wired..to upgrade, upgrade and upgrade..i'm not against upgrading, but like what Dr Ariely mentioned, how much pleasure do we actually derive from the upgrade? Every now & then, you'll hear things like 'things are better back when things are simpler'..so is the upgrade really for the better? Or has it become just a habit to upgrade?

Let's see how long i can resist all this 'upgrading'..

First thing first

I've updated my header..think Pooh was up there long enough..time for him to enjoy his honey break..haha

Hare-py New Year!

Gong Xi Fa Cai to all my readers out there!

Gimme some time to tidy up my drafts and i'll be back in business of rambling about everything and nothing..