goot better best

via moodboard

you should see the sea of girls wearing asymmetrical-hem skirts or dresses here. i wonder who decided the style should be the only thing to wear this season. i really don't think it's for everyone. the one i linked is a tame version. i've seen some seriously slanting hems on other girls and i just feel they're not flattering. what makes things worst is the chiffony material they come in. i guess the point is for us to look like pretty birds? count me out.

now the skirt above by goot looks so much better, no? the cut is slightly A-line; the look's sharp and clean, nothing flighty. 

ok lah, i think i'm just being biased. i suspect that those unflattering skirts are so common recently because of the fact that many girls buy their clothes from local blogshops (which surely take cues from the fashion world?). of course they buy things from other places but i believe my suspicion's quite accurate. 

so what, right? i also buy things from some of these shops sometimes. but i usually buy from gmarket since things are cheaper there. heh.     

  

讲来讲去

today's a day of nerves stretched to breaking point... ok, i exaggerate. things were finally resolved but i was left disappointed. i grew the guts to ask the middle managers some questions. i think i might get more disappointment. worst case scenario is i don't get answers and end up being labelled a rebel. i don't hope to win here. i already lost. i just wanted to understand why some things happened.

  

or maybe i did win. i mean, not to say this whole thing's about winning and losing, it's just a way of illustrating the struggle. i should be thankful that the task was completed, despite the blockages along the way. 

i'm pretty sure i won't understand one word when i look back at this post in the future. lol.

nautral

it's nautral, indeed. your eyes did see right.  

the pants are my first real purchase from a local blogshop. i gotta say i liked them plenty even though they're not real paper bag pants. one of the buttons has fallen off, barely halfway into the day. it's sewn on tight, actually. maybe the thread's too thin the knot's not big enough.    

my look today should be part 80s grunge? it's the cropped top. it's a recent flea find. it's not preloved but brand new. i bought it only cos it reminded me of the fashion of that time. i could layer it on a long racerback top. i don't usually buy inspired or pseudo vintage unless the price is right. this top cost ten bucks. 

a few colleagues kept saying i looked cool everytime i wore the shades, to which i replied they could achieve the same (too). shades have that effect on everyone, yes? lol. one colleague said my style's "cool" and "korean". i was quite tickled. the irony's that i never got caught up in the whole K wave. i told her my style's really caught in a time warp ("八十年代") and she expressed surprise. she's just a baby, i guess.

i can't say i adore grunge fashion. i wasn't very trendy at that time cos i was a late bloomer. the recent 80s comeback gave rise to more inspired or pseudo clothes. just wear anything floral (with exposed zippers), put on a pair of martens and tie that sash in your hair. anyway, here's a tip we could use to give our dresses or skirts a twist:

show some leg

oh no. i'm back to wanting to buy more vintage dresses...

a-muse-d

Odylyne Holiday 2010 from Odylyne on Vimeo.

i think i first saw this on Kingdom of Style on bloglovin'. i've just begun following her recently but there're like 20 over posts that i never bothered to read since then (other popular blogs suffer the same lack of attention, really). i just saw this post on wottoncool; found the clip familiar so i decided to check it out.

verdict? i just don't wish to look at another such clips if i can help it. lol. i do like some of the clothes featured (time to dig out those bareback leotards that i'd meant to wear?). i just wish the images remained static :P   

seriously, am i normal?  

final destination

 

 

 

 

 

was inspired by colleagues to take out my stars to mark my boxes. i'm going to miss the swing space. it's not spanking new but it's just so right... it's ironic that the open-concept at the renovated old space is not to be. at least not to me. it's more than ever like a labyrinth. and imagine if people change their desk locations on a daily basis. reminds me of hide and seek. surely that's not the bosses' idea of collaboration? ok, i'm really jesting but i will admit i'm not so excited about it. i'd kept an open mind about the changes to be expected. i'd also tried to stave off reservations about the whole idea as time went by. i'll know soon if my mind's changed. i'm really quite stressed with other ongoing stuff already. interestingly, i just did a module on group behaviour at school. the human tendency for uncertainty reduction will definitely be challenged soon. means what? more stress. am not whining but stating a fact.   

♥show your love♥

for 3+ years now, i've been involved in fund-raising for PC. what i do is really quite minimal, it's mostly admin stuff, and playing the 'chaser' rather than doing the thinking and moving. i've stopped counting how much i dug into the pockets every year. once or twice, i did gripe about the futility of ever escaping this. it's definitely easier to just donate money than sacrifice the time and effort to come up with an activity to raise the money. even so, i was at one time starting to resent why we had to keep donating. especially when our pockets were not deep. yet i did also feel the unfairness for the higher-level people, who're kinda expected to dig even deeper. it's like an unspoken rule. so some people would refuse to contribute at all. tbh, i've secretly wished that the department fail to raise the targetted sum. i guess we won't be penalised if we never did achieve it. but we always managed to raise what we're tasked to raise. and we usually exceeded the amount. i guess i was curious to see what would happen if one department really failed to raise the money. would they be 'marked' for it...?     

anyway, i suppose you can say i had too little faith in our kind... i tend to take it personally since i'm the rep.  but that's missing the entire picture by bitching about such petty issues.

since 2 or so years back, we'd kickstarted the fund-raising real early. made sense anyway. it's a mad rush this year, what with the office renovations and the transformation (we have to get busy again moving back to the old office space). my spirited colleagues put up a great event this year. i mean, they did great every year, for the past years. many of us still resorted to selling foodstuffs as it's low-effort. but that also meant  small profit margins. i once tried consigning uncle tony's sunglasses and potted cactus from a guy also named tony. it wasn't a huge success... (you see, i 'd felt like a failure. it's quite an experience doing it, though. maybe it'd be a better success if someone else did the sales and marketing  :P)  oh well!

back to my colleagues. they sold confectionery and flowers  and ice cream and sang songs. it's the song dedication and performance that drew in the big bucks. the big boss was so touched someone dedicated her a song (it's the smaller boss under her supervision and the song's Carpenters' Close To You) she dedicated a song to each cluster. that's about 20 songs (sorry i can't recall the total number of clusters...). apart from this, we received support from some very generous donors. i  can never have thought up all these. sometimes i wonder if i can ever achieve anything worthy of mention. i'm not saying this to thrash myself. it's just the truth. 

i leave you with this clip i recorded, of the bunch who'd put in much time and energy to raise funds for the needy. well done, guys!  

more than words 

i received those pretty flowers from some colleagues. very touched. thanks for the lovely gesture. 

b.s.

question to women in my age group: do you buy clothes from blogshops? you do know what blogshops are, don't you? i don't refer to these although they don't differ much... did those in singapore start out similarly? incidentally, it was on Style Sample Magazine where i read of the BS phenomenon here and in malaysia. (maybe SSM borrowed the term for that post title?) i somehow managed to read the full text of the research paper. it was quite hilarious. my dory memory cannot recollect most of the article already. sorry.     

those who know me know that i snub on BS clothes. snub is my own choice of word, to illustrate that i really don't embrace them the way some women do. but i'll also be honest that i recognise that it's pure condescension on my part. a BS shopper might even find a few BS items in my wardrobe. i actually don't know if i do own any BS items since i really don't follow the scene. but i do shop at flea markets and while i avoid clothes that i suspect are BS stuff, i'm mostly guided by prices. so maybe i've picked up some BS items that were on clearance or were pre-loved. 

i shan't detail why i'm not crazy about BS. i'm modelling a dress that's sold on a  popular local BS, btw. lol. i have no idea if it's one of those crowd favourites (i doubt it) that'd get snatched up by BS lovers once  a collection was launched, or whether it even went on B.O. (that's backorder, btw), or whether it's one that's failed to impress and nobody wanted it for such a long time that the owner put it on clearance. does anyone know? have you seen this on many girls many seasons past? lol.

i do like the dress quite a lot. one minor gripe is the fall of the skirt part (see pic on right). it's not so obvious on this style. what i abhor about typical BS clothes is the way the dresses seem to be made for flat-chested girls with short torsos and large buttocks (yes, we're pear shaped but what about our chests?). and the skirt part is basically put together by sewing the sides up; the end result is a hemline that's not straight across but curved upwards at the sides, with the sides sticking out obstinately instead of falling naturally on the hips of the wearer. i've seen such disasters on too many teens and young women. i could cite more fashion mistakes. like, the use of wrong belts. it's painful to see why they do that to themselves... 

ok, i better stop this rant already. i could well have made some baseless comments. i can totally understand why some girls could still rock in BS clothes (there's a reason why some girls are making good money being BS models) and the clothes are likely made for a certain market that won't likely stop following the scene, not until another phenomenon takes them away. 

oops. i'd really just wanted to say this dress ended up in my wardrobe thanks to the advice of my personal style guru. she really has an eye for the right stuff for me. it's like she knows me better than i do myself. she's almost always right on the money.

+++++++

for the record, i don't believe in superstitions. i suspected the twitching was likely due to my bad habits of long hours of being on the computer, of not exercising, of not sleeping enuf. or it's caused by stress, as is usually the case for drollgirl.

answers

as if on cue..... would i bank on this type of hope than on a lottery ticket? what're my chances of a strike? :D

so those 不三不四 or rather 非一非二 seats on the new buses are meant to accommodate either two children or an adult and a child. hah. and do they put up some form of notice to tell us commuters? i mean, they're supposed to be good with signages, no? well i always see notices about penalties for not paying full fares so can't they put something up for this? but it's common sense and maybe people living in nanny states have long left that mental capability at home. i don't take those seats anymore. i'm small and i just always have big people squeeze their butts with me on those narrow seats. never mind if they're females but sorry if i don't feel like being cozy with a male stranger. again, i want to qualify that i'm not against big people. i actually feel for normal-size men who might worry about bodily contact with female passengers if they're sandwiched between them. note the operative word. i do really wonder about the cultures of the current society especially since the mixing pot has become more and more rojak now. chivalry is almost non existent on public transport, if you ask me. the men are the ones who fight to get up the bus, grab that seat and get down the bus with the women. bodily contact with the opposite sex? what's that?

^see the motif on the side of the dress? i do think it's adorable :P

i have long legs today. but i think i shall be content with imperfect legs every day. i missed a bus cos i didn't dare to run and risk breaking something. the next bus took a while and i had to stand in those heels until we reached town. thankfully it was an express bus.

minty

same date 3 months back, it was minty too. i think i've liked such shades forever. maybe it's gotta do with the colour of the uniform of the 'missy' at the hospital. or the hue of the wall of my first home (where there might exist a clean patch w/o me and my bro's work of art). even the quilted bag's of this tint, which i didn't notice initially.   

i really would like to replace the cellphone but i'm being wasteful since i just had it replaced not too long ago. i have to confess i have a new thing to worry about now. the economy bounced back too soon; i was feeling cocooned in the valley but it seemed we're out of the woods already. not a good thing, if you ask me. things seemed to operate differently in this country. the property prices never dipped but crept up when elsewhere it was downhill. it's really hard for many of us. my heart sank when i read MM Lee's remarks in the small daily. he just has to let out a fart and the wind sends people and things scrambling. not from the smell, if you get my drift. sometimes, i really wonder how long i can stay in this place. the last time i felt this way, it was his son's message at National Day some years back. i'd felt truly threatened.

i can only trust in my Father's providence. in His mercy, i will have a space in Goshen.

get the game on

quite an eventful day today, and a meaningful one at that.

i'm in that place again, where the disquiet is deafening. i don't usually want to write like that but i really do feel this way. it's totally unlike the pregnant silence of Jesus before Pilate. but maybe the analogy is suitable? i'm the one who gets to decide her own destiny and that's really the decision each one of us has to make as Jesus stands right there before us. we put Him on the Cross anyway. He was going to do the Father's will anyway.

now that i've received the Gift, what happens next? it cannot just end there. i realised i've been looking at His sacrifice in the wrong light. it's certainly not in vain, for whoever believes on Him will surely receive His salvation. what matters now is whether i'm going to live my time here in vain. do i want to stay on that ledge forever when i know what awaits at the top of the mountain? what's stopping me? the fear of pain, a sis-in-Christ suggests. it WILL be painful, i am assured. i know, i respond. perhaps that's really the reason i'm in that same place. she gives another analogy via board games. i can't really recall the details now. it's about getting into the game that we're put here for. what strikes me with such power is:

"i can even shout hallelujah when i slide down (snakes & ladders) because i know God's there to catch me, that He'll be there with me."

i'm not in that place of utter and complete rest yet.  

+++++++

sneaked these photos in the washroom :P

i really don't like how inconsistent my perm looks.

^the *scarf*

^my fave oxfords from tibet circa 2006

almost every item has been repeated. the bag's dug up from the store room. dunno who owned it before i claimed it as my property. it's a substitute for the elusive suitcase i'd always wanted. but such bags are so difficult to use. how do men use them? i guess they're for people who don't take public transport? i added the strap from another bag, else i can't imagine how i can possibly use it. for those guys who wear laptop bags and travel on buses or trains, some seem to be oblivious to how the bags always knock me. hard. i also don't appreciate it when people wear their backpacks on their backs instead of taking them down when the bus or train's crowded. and i haven't even started on those who don't wash their haversacks. i dunno if their fart would smell better..

ok, i went off the tangent again. that's it for now. cheers.

superial

i really don't like to rant much on things beyond my control. but it's happened 2 days in a row, and this is my space, so i shall log it in.

why can't people not speak softer when they're in a conversation, say, in public places? are they hard of hearing? or they want to show off? sorry to burst your bubble, woman. it's su-pe-ri-or, lor. not su-pe-ri-al, lor. and what's new - it's always about work. why do people do that at all? i don't get it, lor.