other than that… i just realised i haven’t blogged since MUSE! LOL sorry… been quite busy at work and all… sometimes i don’t even tweet as much so blogging has therefore taken a very backkkkk step…

will update more once i’m back from my trip… hee!

then i was truly introduced to muse by my obsession with twilight two years back… the author is a big, big fan of the group and in fact their songs have been featured in both movies to date… so since i was obsessed with twilight… i bought the OST, listened to it… then decided to check out muse properly (via youtube videos) and realising that they are indeed marvelously fantastic! as always… i always kinda share my obsession with people around me and since i kept playing their songs over and over, my youngest sis became influenced by me to listen to them…

by this time GHWT was released and the both of us (youngest sis and me) were having much fun playing the tracks inside… till we found muse’s track – assassin – and decided to try it out… hahahaha what a disaster!!! we were playing on hard and i sucked at drums and she wasn’t too good at guitar… so we swapped to play the song… and still was a disaster!! so we practiced and practiced, watched youtube videos of other people playing until one day… we were able to complete the entireeee song!!!! i could still remember the sense of achievement both of us felt that day… ahahhaha what fun!

in the midst of these… muse released their latest album ‘the resistance’… i checked out their now-famous ‘HAARP’ gig at wembley and found out that they are one of the best acts to catch live… but i never thought that i would be able to do that until one fine november day last year when i read my friend’s tweet about muse coming to singapore to headline ‘big night out’ in 2010!!!! hahaha my tweets back to her were almost of the ‘fan-girl’ variety… but i decided there and then that it would be a great present for my youngest sis (who turned 21 last year)… and so i booked the tickets (younger sis had to pay lol) in november and started to countdown to february this year…

to say that it passed in a blink of an eye isn’t exactly true… but finally the day came!! wednesday 3rd feb 2010… i took leave on that day (so i don’t have to rush to the indoor stadium plus did some CNY errands) and went to the event at around 7pm…

as there were standing area tickets… there was already quite many people when we reached and i would say we were lucky to be able to grab one of the last few program booklets and a kids tee for souvenirs… before going in to catch the opening acts saosin (last song) and rise against…

since we didn’t know what time muse was starting, by the time rise against left the stage and the piped in music played… everytime it went quiet the audience started cheering… i was really happy when they were setting up the stage coz i saw two big drums (my sis said it’s called timpanis) which meant that they would play the first part of the Exogenesis symphony (coz i saw the same setup in clip from their gig in Japan… ;P)

but we had to wait till 10pm before the lights really dimmed!! whatever i was feeling at that point – hungry, needing to go toilet etc – disappeared completely when the intro video came on…

my goodness… my youngest sis said that she felt quite surreal watching muse live coz it was exactly like watching the youtube clips we were so used to seeing… but LIVE!! =D i didn’t really recognise the older songs (having only been initiated into the muse religion after black holes and revelations…) but they were still great and totally enjoyable!! i jumped, sang and enjoyed myself quite thoroughly!! i think the band didn’t really expect that big of a response to their gig coz in the few moments that they were talked, words like ‘you guys are crazy!’ kept coming up… lol!!

there were so many moments of ‘lovelovelove’ but the one that really stuck to me was when muse played ‘starlight’ and matt bellamy stopped singing at the point of the first chorus to let us the audience sing ‘your hopes and expectations, black holes and revelations’… it didn’t feel like i was in singapore hearing the gorgeous lyrics reverb around the stadium!

epic isn’t it? (clip taken from someone as i didn’t record this song – too busy enjoying lol)

and of coz they ended off the gig in the exact way i hoped – first part of Exogenesis followed by Plug-in Baby and Knights of Cydonia!!!! i must add that i screamed the most girly scream i could ever do when the first longggg riff from PIB came on (having heard the same in the wembley gig…) XD my younger sis was looking at me with a look of ‘wtf?!’ hahahahaha i just think that song is gorgeous (and the reason how i know about the song? you guessed it… GH5 roflol)… and to follow that with KoC was just zomg lah!

by this time i was just recording the gig for the audio bit… ahahah if you got the chance to watch my videos it’s like seeing an earthquake but in tempo to the song as i was jumping up and down for the last two songs…

EPIC SETLIST:

We Are the Universe (intro music)
Uprising
Supermassive Black Hole
Map of the Problematique
Resistance
Interlude + Hysteria
Stockholm Syndrome
Nishe
United States of Eurasia
Sunburn
Undisclosed Desires
MK ULTRA
Starlight
Time Is Running Out
Unnatural Selection

Encore
Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
Plug In Baby
Man with a Harmonica intro + Knights of Cydonia

after so many youtube clips watching them play live elsewhere… i finally got the chance to hear sooo many muse tracks including KoC live!!!!! woot~!!! the gig was everything i hoped for and more – definitely a dream come true since i didn’t know of them when they first came in 2007…

thanks muse for the amazing gig – you guys RAWK!!! i will remember this for a longggggg time and i hope to catch them again either in europe or singapore!!! =D /mehearts (i think my german friend thinks i’m a bit crazy enthu… and yes i am! ;P)

i’ll just do 2000 – 2005 first… ;)

2000
- graduated from poly and found a job as a writer/producer for vivamusic.com (a now-defunct online portal of music and entertainment news)
- decided to go australia for studies. it was a die-die must go thing… i refused to look at other courses in singapore… i wanted to get out!!

2001
- if my memory serves me well… i started making arrangements to go australia for my bachelor degree studies
- quit the first job that i had after i graduated from poly (vivamusic.com) because of that as well…
- can’t rem but perhaps my ‘sorta’ ex-bf broke up wif me in that year too? hrmmm…
- decided to go QUT for my studies
- attended the briefing session held at my poly and met my friend there… she would go on to be my housemate and one of my best friends =)
- LEFT FOR AUSTRALIA!!!! it was the BESTEST day of my life at that point in time… =D i can still bring up that emotion of being at the airport and eager to just step through the departure gates!
- also it was the first time i took a plane… and the first time i travelled ALONE!
- though my fren and i did make loads of contingency plans (think there were four at one point?) in case we weren’t able to meet up in brisbane…
- first semester in QUT and staying in brisbane was quite fun mixed with a bit of culture shock coz brisbane was soooo much more laid back compared to singapore
- hung out with a bunch of singaporeans (i know… =P) for the semester and we had loads of fun gatherings during that time…
- most memorable was shifting houses in the middle of the night becoz two of them didn’t want to pay the rent for an empty room… hahaha ‘zao lor’
- took a road trip from brisbane to sunshine coast and down to gold coast… roundabouts are not a good place to figure out whether you’re lost or not…
- got together with km

2002 – 2003
- school was fun with alot of projects and no exams… i clever right! ;)
- visited sydney for three days, discovered that the opera house looks white in photos but actually wasn’t… >=/
- volunteered at one of brisbane’s hospitals manning the children’s play area one day every week. seeing kids of different ages being treated for diseases like cancer etc was quite a sobering experience
- helped out at a local theatre production doing the on-screen visuals… it was an interesting experience i must say…
- volunteered as one of the student-editors for the (now defunct) Fineart Forum… interviewed my first artist… i rem he was Japanese and i had quite a hard time trying to figure out what to ask him… lol
- cleaning up the house at the end of our rental was an experience… i think i was semi-high from smelling cleaning liquid fumes in the shower… also a good tip for you: always clean the blades of the fan coz they do check! ;P

2004
- worked at expat living magazines for around three months and decided i didn’t want to do so much writing
- worked at a realllly small home and living magazine that closed down after one month (heh)
- worked at haagen daz as an ice-cream seller… something that i’ve always wanted to do for some strange reason
- worked at borders as a bookseller… another thing that i’ve always wanted to do for some strange reason…
- had more fun at borders compared with haagen daz.. but working at an F&B outlet really showed me what singaporeans are reallllly like… heh.

2005
- worked as a freelance designer/visualiser at a realllly small ad agency… it was fun for a while…
- went back to borders for a while… i think?
- found a job at a chemical company dealing with textile dyes etc… located in tuas and uber out of the way… -_-”
- sorta had some fun creating brochures for them… cut and pasting textiles and liasing with printers…
- in a stroke of coincidence managed to get myself the job that i’m working at now… =D

i started off the year by reading and setting myself goals (which is written on the side of this blog as well)… i would not say i have achieved everything but i’m happy with what i have managed to do so far… the focus this year seemed to be building up my courage and disciplining my thoughts in all ways and i’m happy to say that i have managed to accomplished a bit of both (since this is a never-ending process, i can’t say i’ve completed it right? ;P)

also i made a conscious decision to plan and go to europe for a holiday next year and the process for that is coming along pretty okay… saving money, reading up on the places to go etc… i’ve made some progress in my italian and next year i will have to focus on conversations instead of grammar… (otherwise i’ll be mute in italia next year! lol)

i started twittering which meant less blogging (whistles…) but at least it freed my brain up from storing some thoughts in my head… ahhaha… developed stronger relationships with some friends =D, maintained and had to let go of another (lasted since sec schl days… but it made me feel so much better)

for the coming year i’ll be keeping the three points brought up by steve pavlina in my head… “truth, love and power”…

and as i’m typing my post… my present is STILL not here yet… =( so much for precision and efficiency… sigh i hope it’s not lost in the mail!! =/ *fingers and toes crossed now*

it’s the end of another year! would i say that time flies? it didn’t feel like that this year… time moved at its own pace and i was able to follow it quite closely i must add… none of the ‘omg! it’s the end of the year and what have i done?!’ kinda thoughts in my head at the moment…

next week i will sign up again for italian classes… and this marks the second year that i’m learning italian! at the moment i’m good at listening and reading and terrible at conversations… i know, totally defeats the purpose right? hahahaha i’m just so not used to hearing myself speak in italian and think in the language as well… think that would be my focus in the coming year…

recently stumbled upon the work of  eddie izzard who is a uber-duper funny comedian from the UK… the first few clips i saw of him in youtube were from ten years back – he calls himself an executive transvestite/male lesbian and it wasn’t until i read his profile in wiki that i realised he plays roman nagel in ocean’s twelve and thirteen!! omg!! i watched the two shows sooooo many times and the british-y guy in there is actually a really brilliant comedian!! XD

here are a few clips taken from his past and present gigs that i really liked:

i laughed my head off at this following one… however according to wiki it’s an urban legend… STILL it’s funny like mad!! ‘it’s a slanggggg… he’s american… he’s a donut!!’ ROFLOL

ahahhaha this reminded me of italian very much… the different forms…

you have to check out the rest of his clips on youtube man… it’s blardee hilarious!!

also found out that MUSE will be having a concert in singapore next year!! =D i just booked the tickets for my sisters and me to attend – for my youngest sis, that’s going to be her 21st bday present… for my second sister… she has to pay me back! LOL… am quite looking forward to it coz i’ve seen their live performances on youtube and it’s FWAH… so come 3rd feb 2010… i will be able to experience that FWAHness for myself!

but at the moment… i’m just wondering when i will get that promised present from my german friend… LOL =P august and countinggggg!!

bobby passed away yesterday night. i’m quite upset now as i really liked this crazy/grumpy/funny dog. he was always bullied (at least in my eyes) by the other male dog in the house… so i always showered him with extra attention whenever i was there. i hope he’s having fun wherever he is now… =’(

i was actually scared of him at the start… he would bark and bark at me at the gate so i didn’t really like to go to my friend’s place… but after a while i learnt to ignore the barking and instead recognise that that was his way of saying ‘look at me!! look at me!!’ but in a rather rude way… ahahha

he refused to let anyone touch his feet (not too sure why)… gets super mad when u try to touch his mouth (dunno why as well) and would actually bite when provoked (which was why i still get a bit apprehensive whenever i wanted to give him a small snack)… but when he realised that you were giving him the attention he wanted… he was quite a nice dog (sorta…) and would follow you whenever you go… of coz i suspected that was becoz of the food… hrmmm…

how not to love such a grumpy weird dog?

this year’s september marks the start of my travel preparations to europe next year… yah i know i’ve been talking about it for the entire of this year and it’s only going to happen next year… but i’m really looking forward to it, super excited and nervous at the same time… it kinda hit home when i was digging around flickr for photos of oktoberfest after which i realised that there are 11 HUGEEEEEEASS tents at the event ground during the festival… which gave me a shock… like it really hit home that it’s a damn big event… and that’s only in one city in germany… sigh i think singaporeans can never get their heads around the sheer scale of stuff outside of this little country… i remember going to CES last year and being floored by how big the exhibition halls were… seriously makes our singapore expo look puny in comparison… that’s why i’m nervous… it’s like you’re standing at the edge of the platform where you have split seconds to decide whether to bungee or not (okay i’ve never done that before.. so i hope it feels like that!) *gulp* =P and all of a sudden i might be visiting a friend studying in london (she was like ‘are you coming to visit me? i can bring you ard’) which is reallly tempting coz i’ve always wanted to go london as well! so potentially three countries in two weeks… hrm…

another thing – today my fren drove me to this area in tanglin just to show me a pretty famous house… basically the owner is a billionaire and he has a collection of 13 supercars (ferrari enzo being one of them)… it’s really one thing to see the photos on the internet and another thing to see the row of 5 or 6 rare to uber rare red ferraris and a zonda type f less than 50 metres away…. i have never felt so small or insignificant until today… seriously it was like realising that oktoberfest is one damn huge event all over again… only that this was more of the disparity between different pple in singapore… wow not too sure if humbled was the correct word to use.. perhaps awed would be much more suitable…

in any case… i’m looking forward to what the year ahead will bring! =D

anyway, my italian classes are on hold for two months coz my teacher went home for her holidays (and so we gave ourselves one too!) and will only be back in august… which is good! =D in a year’s time, i would have finished the gamut of courses that is available in the school (level 1 – 4)… imagine that… more than a year ago the only italian words i knew were those related to food… and now i can somewhat understand songs, books and magazines! =)

if you have been following my twitter and flickr (love how both of them rhymes in a geeky way) you would have seen that i went to ipoh and penang for a week-long holiday just early this month… which was great fun i must say… ATE ALOT in ipoh… three girls had to navigate ard penang ourselves in the hot, hot weather… but overall it was a good holiday that i didn’t plan to have.. ahahahah

and if my italian classmates’ plans to go rawa island go through.. then i’ll be going to malaysia again this august… LOL i’m supposed to be saving more for europe – happening in 1 year and 3 months time (cheap thrill countdown…  kekekeke) but i’m really keen on rawa happening because i’ve seen both my italian teacher’s and my german friend’s photos (ROFLOL to the latter – private joke)… it is really a gorgeous, gorgeous place filled wif white sand and the clear waters of the sea… okay i’m not too keen on the sea creatures in the sea.. but i’ll grab any opportunity to nua~! my german friend calls me a lazy bum… hahahahahah…

gah.

/rattles self…

anyway…

• organized a gathering with my italian classmates – emails flying back and forth and as i was just about to suggest that we go eat at carnivore… one of my classmates said ‘i’m vegetarian’… /facepalms… end up having dinner at brotzeit instead… =P (looking forward to the real deal next year)
• did a mad dash trip to somewhere in malaysia… when i say mad dash.. i meant mad dash… left singapore ard 1-2pm… dasssssshhhhhh… stayed there for one hour max… dassssssshhhh (almost ran out of petrol – quite scary)… reached singapore ard 11pm and was super late for a bbq… lol
• thanks to my classmate’s recommendations, discovered laura pausini’s latest album ‘primavera in anticipo’ – love the single of the same name featuring james blunt!