Twitter Outage

Trying to blog via my mobile phone. Blogging is starting to sound a little foreign to me. Almost like a friend who's drifted away.

I promise myself I'd be back at this space when I've gotten myself a new macbook. Blogging on anything else is just frustrating somehow. Don't mention blogging, I'm not even motivated to upload photos anywhere. They're just waiting and wasting away in my camera.

I want my photoshop, my garageband, my final cut pro, my indesign, and my microsoft office that doesn't crash under a little over average pressure. :(

I've got so many things I've learnt about myself and my progressing life that I wish to store on here...but I just have zero motivation to type it all out on the laptops that crashes or under the scrutiny of colleagues at work.

I miss talking to myself about what's happening around me, to me and to everyone I love or don't even know.

Twitter's been dealing fine with my sudden outbursts of random thoughts and rantings. But I do miss writing freely and as long as I want to. Like now. Really therapeutic.

Oh yes, the title. Twitter's down and there's no reason for it yet. But times like this, reminds me I'll always have my blog to fall back on (except on days it's doing maintenance) Ahem. Yes.


Hello me, I'll hear from myself soon...when the next massive Twitter outage happens or when I get my macbook. Whichever comes first. ;)

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010.

2009 marked a very important year in my life.

It was the year I finally graduated . It was a year I finally had time to spend with the friends far away from home, and was allowed the chance to open my eyes to the world out of Singapore. (Thank you, Christopher, Manuel and Tony for hosting me and my friends in Germany. Thank you, Shelleys, for the best Irish hospitality one could ask for, time and time again.) It was also the year parents of both sides finally met. :)

It was the year I felt new found hope for my future. A year of painful lessons and revelations, of beautiful experiences of love and joy - A story of growth.

I've made a couple more new great friends, little surprises along the way, and kept the old ones close at heart. (Thank you, facebook)

By the end of 2009, I can finally see what I've been working towards - I can see my future with much more clarity now.

2009 is a year I will continue to hold close to my heart. So thanks all for being a part of it, big or small, they've impacted my life in one way or another. I shall use these experiences to keep improving myself as a person through the next decade.

Thank you for always believing in me, you guys know who you are. Love each and every one of you reading this and I wish you guys the best for the new decade. Let us remind one another in darker times that Life is not for the weak, that we have to keep battling on through the bad times, to earn the good. Never give up. That's the only way we learn to appreciate what we have earned. We all know this deep down inside, we just need to be reminded once in awhile. So keep reminding me when necessary, and I hope to return the favour.

I've got so many things to say, I'm on a roll here. But I'm sure you guys already know what's in my heart. ;) I shall end the monotony with a cliche: Happy New Year, and have a blast! More love, less hate!

Lovelovelove,
Nura

Happy Xmas & a Merry New Year!

Happy Xmas & a Merry New Year!

I've got loads of beautiful town Xmas photos but obviously I'm lazy at uploading photos especially after my macbook died. Sigh.

Here's to a refreshing better year ahead!

This amuses me to no end

٩(-̮̮̃•̃)۶ ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶ ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ ٩͡[๏̯͡๏]۶ ٩๏̯͡๏)۶ ٩(●̮̮̃●̃)۶ ٩(•̮̮̃•̃)۶ ٩(-̮̮̃-̃)۶

(◡‿◡✿) (｡◕.◕｡) (◕‿◕✿) ƸӜƷ

God

Everybody, pray for me!
But I'm Atheist.
Then pray to your Atheist God!
Oh alright, I guess that's myself.

Micro-blogging

Twitter is seriously making it difficult to blog long thoughtful coherent posts anymore.

I never knew I could ever talk in short sentences online. I'm all for the details, I lap it all up, but lately, with the existence of Facebook statuses, Twitter and the equivalent, it seems like the attention span of people on the internet is decreasing, including mine.

In the first place, lots of people are resorting to internet journalism instead of the good old print newspaper and the articles online are always encouraged to be as succinct as they possibly can be. From "Ireland is losing (insert specific amount) of money and increasing debt due to (insert various reasons), and the few ways they're attempting to deal with it is by (insert solutions)", it's now enough to just say "Ireland's losing lots of money".

At least the message is more accessible with the Internet and micro-blogging but are the information enough material to build your opinions on the particular subject matters? Because most people end up just skimming through the statuses and Twitter updates and not bothering to read up on the issues more, and in the end the only message they get is "Russia causing problems" and have that little thought lingering in their minds, and forming unjust opinions on Russians. Just another example.

That's a whole long thought process I totally typed out as I speak (in my mind). I hope it makes sense to you anyway. You can catch my random spurts of little thoughts on Twitter (link on the right).

Decisions

I'm slowly realising how scary decisions can be. I'm petrified at making a decision, simply because I know how every big decision has the ability to make your life completely change its course.

And how could we tell which is the right path to take so early in life? Suddenly, I feel as though I've been making a series of mistakes in making choices in the past year. I was offered a job right after my graduation but I've already pre-booked my tickets to Ireland and Europe for 3 months, to spend time with my friends and my loved ones there. Afterall, I've been studying all my life, I thought I deserved that break and I really do miss them. The job though, wasn't willing to wait for me, which I totally understand. I went on for my break and came back jobless. Back then, I thought it was a good choice, but was it really?

Then I got offered a couple of interviews. One of which was a good organisation recommended to me by a friend. The bosses seemed to like me, even explicitly said they wanted to hire me, only to have things screwed up when they lost my portfolio (which they've found only recently), and the upper management suddenly decided not to hire anyone and even retrenched people in the company due to the lack of funds.

So I was left hanging again. Finally, I had another job offer from this very big organisation, which would definitely add a lot of weight in my resume. After going through a series of interviews with them, and tests, they claimed I was hired. Claimed. I've yet to see a single contract yet. When they told me I was hired, I was estatic of course. I even rejected two temporary positions at a well known production company and radio statio (because I figured, a permanent position is better, and the benefits of this permanent position outweighed all others.) only to be left hanging on a thin thread again, seeing they keep delaying my 'deployment' with no exact estimate of time I have to wait. You can say, it's just my luck, but the fact that I've rejected two temporary positions, and now seemingly left with nothing again, doesn't make me feel very good about myself. It's been making me feel terrible. It's almost getting tougher and tougher to be positive but I know drowning in self pity will not get me anywhere. At times like this, it's so tempting and so easy to give up. But I shall not be tempted, and I shall be easy. So I've started sending out cover letters and resume to companies again but I'm losing hope of coming across 'real professionalism' in huge corporations.

I don't have the luxury of depending on my parents or anyone while waiting for a job. Money is depleting or should I say, have depleted if not for some kind souls still giving me money on Hari Raya. You can only imagine how it will affect my self esteem if my luck doesn't pick up any sooner. I'm someone who hates the dependency of people in welfare states. So you could only imagine how I'd hate having to live off anyone. And it's quite amazing how the new year is silently creeping up on us and is only a month away. What a complete waste of time.

Money isn't everything but it will buy me a plane ticket to be with my partner again. Money has been the reason I've always come closest to ending the relationship in the last 3 years. Which is why sometimes I wonder - Have we succeeded in this long distance relationship so far? Or have we failed in giving it up? I could never have done any of this if it was with anyone else. He's been so patient and understanding, I've come to realise it'll be very selfish of me to even spare a thought of ending this beautiful relationship... I'm sidetracking again. :(

It'll be his turn to come down next year. I wish things will be different then and my 21st year will turn out to be something worth remembering.

Work culture

What I've noticed in the Central Business District in the evenings - Mondays to Thursdays, from 5-6pm, the Western expats would form the majority of the people in the MRT stations. Basically, most of them leave promptly at the end of their shift. You'll see more Asians casually strolling out of their offices at 8.30pm.

On Fridays though, the Asian workers tend to rush off for family end-of-week gatherings etc, while the majority of the Western expats would linger around a little longer, crowding the pubs in the area by 8.30pm.

Amusing differences in work cultures.

Leap Year (2010)

Riyan told me to check out the trailer for the American film Leap Year, sometime ago. It's set to be released in 2010 - I'm presuming sometime in February. (Ok duh, leap year).

Once I told him I was done watching it, he exclaimed, "It's so bad, isn't it? It feels like I'd just finished watching the entire film."

Go watch the trailer and you'll get the point. :D

Swiss bans Minarets

Completely unnecessary and even deemed extremely racist poster of the campaign banning Minarets in Switzerland. Photo of a Muslim woman in a Burka' with a Swiss flag and minarets in the shape of missiles.

The right-wing party claimed "Supporters of the proposed ban say minarets represent the growth of an alien ideology and legal system that have no place in the Swiss democracy."

Well, 'democracy' does not mean promoting stigma against any one religion or culture and breeding intolerance. Democracy does not mean cornering a minority and threatening to destroy their way of life.

"Alien ideology?" This alien ideology or simply put, Islam, has been around much longer than the modern people of Switzerland. "Banning minarets is as good as banning the cross on a Christian place of worship. They're just symbols", a friend of mine said.

"Posters have appeared in many Swiss cities showing a dark, almost menacing figure of a woman, shrouded from head to foot in a black burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.

The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam. The United Nations Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets.

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Switzerland, said that there was a political message behind Sunday's referendum.

"The reality is, as was described to me by a Swiss resident who is not a Swiss citizen, this is the right-wing Swiss People's Party sending out a message to Muslims: 'Know your place in Switzerland'," he said. "They believe, the right-wing People's Party, that if the Muslims get their mosques and their minarets it will follow on that they will want, perhaps, separate schooling and there could be a campaign to turn Switzerland, of all places, into a place that practices Sharia."

The Swiss government and business leaders have opposed a minaret ban, saying it would be harmful to the country's image abroad and disastrous for the Swiss economy."

-Al Jazeera English.

I wonder how much of an economic bloom Switzerland expects from this. And who's the one being the 'extremists' in this case?

ENG: http://tinyurl.com/yl3coo7
DE: http://tinyurl.com/yf9nugu
FR: http://bit.ly/7dxhQo