June 27, 2006

Study Abroad Programs


Ever thought of studying in an interesting environment (e.g. in the Mediteranean or Cyprus) where you study and travel at the same time? Well, there are study abroad programs in Europe which offers a wide variety of courses that will definitely be a great experience.



Learning spanish abroad in countries like Argentina, chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Spain, Guatamela, Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Panama, Ecuador, Uruguay or Venezuela will be lots of fun too. You'll be able to learn the language and get an in-depth view of the country and the culture; meet new people, speak to the locals and speak like the locals. It's a whole new experience. Plus it makes learning Spanish easier and quicker.

Not enough by just eating and speaking like locals? Well, try dancing like them too. Take up intensive tango classes in Buenos Aires. It's something different too...

June 22, 2006

Little store of craft

I've always wanted to have my own little store that displays and sells all my hand crafted products. I find it very interesting especially each and every product is a unique piece of art by itself. None of each is the same. That way, only people who appreciates my design will be there in my store, admiring them. Then these people will eventually form into a small little group of friends with similar interest.

Maybe that'll be my retirement store or a hobby store. Hmmpphh.. Isn't it great to dream.. It's always fun to talk about dreams especially with those of similar interest.

June 18, 2006

Super Wish List

Now that i am in the mood of surfing for musical box, i found many gorgeous items which i cannot afford. So i shall keep these items here in my blog for viewing purpose. One day when i can really afford all these, unless i find a better one, i will have these items below in my collection.


The first one will be an incredible item i have come across; the 'Up right Grand Reuge Music Piano Box' in burl walnut with inlaid brass and pewter produced in Switzerland by Reuge Music. This one is $1,575 (try converting it to ringgit Malaysia).


My next unaffordable item is the limited edition of just 150, the Crystal Little Mermaid 72 Note Music Box etched by the most experienced craftsman Paul Butler. This piece produces flawless sounds (i don't know how flawless the sound would be, so i would really like to have the opprtunity to listen to it), plays 3 different songs whereby the mechanism sells for $750 without the box. This piece comes with all certificates and booklets, original packaging, mint 100% guaranteed condition! It is a must have. Oh, and the regular price by the way is $1,875.

I am sweating profusely already, even in an air-conditioned room.

Carousel Waltz


Now that is an amazing combination, a musical carousel waterglobe! The hand painted miniature carousel inside the globe actually rotates slowly when the music (carousel waltz) plays. Plus there are tiny flakes of glitter shimmering in the waterglobe. What a beautiful visual. I'll just list this down in my wish list.


Oh well, maybe i'll add another one to the list: transparent swiss musical paperweight with 18 note swiss movement.


...and the attractice golden platted Royal Red Fabrege Egg which produces beautiful sound of an 18 note movement (Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake).

Elegant and charming collection

I have always wanted to collect musical boxes, musical carousel, water globe or anything of the same type but it makes it difficult for me to get beautiful ones as they are mostly very expensive. When my sister was in Europe travelling, she saw one small (width is smaller than my finger) and very finely crafted musical box and thought she could get one for me, but well well, it was almost 200euros. So finally, she didn't buy any of those for me. Ouch!!

So far, i have only one musical carousel and two musical boxes, which one of them is a gift from a friend. Ain't that so sweet... :) My dream is to be able to have a glass display of my elegant and charming collection of musical boxes in my home, one day.

June 17, 2006

Male Biological Clock Ticks, too


It is a new trend that most couples or individual (men or women) are waiting longer to have children as they would like to enjoy their young adulthood. But they should realise that their biological clock is ticking. They might face trouble getting pregnant as they age as fertility decreases with age.

It is known that late pregnancy for women could cause birth defects in their children but does men know that older men's sperms could lead to possible genetic disorder that might pass on to their child, causing birth defects. The link between older men's sperm and two genetic disorders are dwarfism and Apert syndrome which causes facial and skull deformation.

Research showed that as the risk of infertility increases in time of men's age, risk of miscarriage of his wife would also increase, regardles of her age.

Isn't it great if there is a device that tells the time left in the biological clock of an individual for future family planning of oneself? So when one knows the time they have left, they could plan their future ahead and with modern medicine where freezing of eggs and sperms is possible, couples could preserve their fertility if they would like to start their family later in life.

http://www.extendfertility.com/female-biological-clock.htm

June 15, 2006

Trip to Redang

Woooo.. weeee... After years of wanting to go to Redang, i have finally been able to make my trip there with some colleagues. I was very excited, as usual. It's just me, always being excited each time i visit somewhere out of Penang, or places i haven't been to. I guess that is normal, right. Well, whatever it is, we decided to drive down to Merang, Terengganu and take the boat over to Redang instead of taking the plane which will be rather expensive. We took off from Penang at about 2.30 or 3.00pm and got there at about 8.30pm.


Throughout the whole trip, the iPod was playing non-stop with chips passing around. That's Beng in the picture on the left, with the Cheezel rings, which Shirish (in the middle) renamed the Cheezels to 'Cheeselets'. :) The one on the right would be me, exploring different ways of comfortable sitting in the car. Try the reverse sitting! It's quite comfortable actually. Both me and Shirish were taking pictures of each other at the same time, if you realise.


That picture on the left is the place we stayed in for the first night at Merang before we take the boat over to Redang the next morning. The room cost us only RM10 per person. The room is kinda small but who cares, it's just one night. One small issue we had was that there was no sink in the toilet! Where are we gonna brush our teeth? We figured that out somehow.


The next morning before going to the Jetty, spent some time at the beach. Look at the pictuure on the right; it says Moto Beach. Can't help it, that's what the company has done to themsince they've all been in Motorola for years; leave a trademark whereever they are.


That'll be us, heading to the Jetty. One pic we took, it shows how crative the ppl there were. They used a rope as the mini speed bump. And that's me in yellow... i'm not quite sure what i was doing at that time. I think i was trying to squeeze myself through that tiny space between the car and the pole.


Yeeha!!! The boat is taking us to the island, with the Terengganu and Malaysia flag flagging high above us.


The lifejacket's all torn, so i suppose we'll have to depend on ourselves to float in case the boat sinks. How about the little boy there who might not know how to swim? He's looking into the sea, praying hard that we'll not have to use the lifejacket for any reason. Or is he looking at the sea water that looks like beer froth, thinking "Can't wait to get my hands on a pint of beer and not think of anything else."


At last, we got to the beautiful island without having to use the torn life jacket. The clean, white sand, transparent water and the clear blue sky is just perfect for a long weekend vacation. That's the resort we were staying in; Redang Pelangi Resort and the place we hangout during lunch, dinner and tea with the perfect view.


So what is there to do in an island other than relaxing, getting ourselves tan, kayak-ing and playing beach volleyball? Snorkelling is the main entertainment in Redang. There are amazingly beautiful fishes and corals of different patterns and colours. I saw so many kinds of fishes; box fish, morray eel, sea snake, christmas tree coral, giant clam, sharks, geisha fish, Nemo and tons of other fishes. Can't remember all the names. If only i have a camera that can go underwater. At least it'll be in my memories, if not printed memories.

The guys were going scuba diving and us girls (me and Linar) tagged along in the boat and went snorkelling instead. That's the boatman on the left, me in the centre and my feet + boat on the right. That was a very good snorkelling spot where there's only the both of us there, since it's not a commercialised snorkelling area, unlike the Marine Park where there were more snorkellers than the fishes. The snorkellers were all floating above the water, covering the whole snoekelling area like dead bodies. So the taggin along was pretty great for us to explore different snorkelling sites.


That was us when we were relaxing, playing cards, eating ice-cream, playing congkak, chilling and chatting.


The great view where we have our dinner every night, then looking at the pictures Beng took during his dives with Shirish and lastly, found ourselves a quiet spot. The resort we were staying in were having open karaoke nights which we thought wasn't doing any good to our ears so we went looking for quiet spots and found ourselves one that's on a higher ground.


It's my feet again while i was observing people around me and before i was about to take a nap in the sun. Then later, the guys went for a night dive and us girls were just chilling and had some girl talk. :)


Later, we reserved some food for the guys for dinner after their night dive. And wow, look at the amount of food their eating. Oh, and that pic in the right, i named it 'Broccoli on Rocks' while i was kayaking early in the day. I might use that name for a new drink i'm gonna create later on.


This is the last day of my trip, on the 5th of June and shall i say that i am lucky or unlucky? I had diarrhea on the last day of my trip, having to wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. It's like peeing through the ass hole, except the colour and texure's a little different. Well, don't want to get into details here. Because of that stomach ache, i had to sit around and wait for the boat to take us back to Merang instead of walking around, enjoying my last few hours walking on the fine white sand with breeze blowing through my hair. Aaaahhhh.. Thanks to Beng for his little tablet, it helped me control the diarrhea a bit so i could get back to Merang by the boat and sit in the car for 6 hours for the drive home and also to accomodate the extra stop to pee and to buy the Terengganu's famous Lekor which by the way i couldn't eat at that period of time with the sick stomach.

Good Malay Songs


Any of you who are interested in romantic Malay songs, here is a link you can go to: Sad Angry Babies. There are only four songs for download; Sabarlah, Free, Sayang and Kau. The first time i heard these songs was in my friend, Gin's house. According to him, Melvin likes the song so much that he went over to Gin's to transfer the songs. You'd know how nice this song is. Lucky no guys played it in the car for me, i'll melt in no time. :)

June 12, 2006

Jucebox

This is where i'll be posting some design related stuff. So check it out.

Fastening papers


I was just using a stapler and i realised that a stapler which performs a simple stapling action is such a complicated product. The next time you use one of this, look at it closely. You'll be amazed.

As i was exploring the stapler from all the views, i thought... could the stapler be simplified in anyway? Well i suppose so, but it needs lots of exploration and experimenting. Maybe there's no need of simplifying the stapler. Just create a new product that performs similar function; secure pieces of papers together.

June 09, 2006

Muji Award

I think this Muji Award is an interesting and challanging competition. It is definitely challenging our creativity.

The theme is "Sumi", meaning corner or edge or end in Japanese.

The objective is not to design something that is placed in the middle of the room, but towards the edges, not at the centre and not directly around the centre; you should look for somewhere that evades the eye, send us an object designed for that place, and name it as you wish.
We are not asking for any particular genre, it could be anything from furniture, stationery and office equipment, to everyday items.


Entry period is from 15th May 2006 and must arrive by 31st August 2006.

Prize money Gold prize winner (1 award) 20,000 US dollars
Silver prize winners (3 awards) 3,000 US dollars
Bronze prize winners (6 awards) 1,000 US dollars

Plasma Pong


This is a really cool game. You inject plasma fluid and blast shockwaves into the playing area. The fluid effects on the ball really makes the game exciting.

June 07, 2006

French Kiss origin





Why do people refer kissing as french kiss? Is it because the first people who started exploring kissing were the French? If it wasn't originated from France or by the French, why french kiss and not cuban kiss or russian kiss? I was curious and went on googling about it.

What i found out was that the specific origin is unknown and it dates from about 1920s. It might be derived from the idea that the French are sterotyped for anything dirty. Just like how people use phrases like "French letter" as condom or "Pardon my French" for apologising for bad language.... I am not sure about french fries though. I'll check that up later when i have the time.