You know that feeling when you've had a really bad exam?

I do.


This was the only thing that made me laugh today. Otherwise, you could probably read how terrible the paper was off my face...

The New (n00b) map of the World

Midnight reminders

Must stop sleeping at daybreak!

Must drink less coffee!

Must eat more fruits and vegetables!

Must MUG!!! Like my life depends on it!

and currently this is my all-time favourite commercial... because I reeeeally want to get a Wii
(If you haven't watched the mac vs. pc which this parodies, head over to here)

What's Wikipedia in Malay?

I love this! I really do!

Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu

Morbid Mathematics

Just a random variable...

Is suicide at MIT a Poisson Process?


What's a Poisson Process? Why, you non-mathematician, you! (yes, I have always been academically elitist, deal with it!)

If Charlotte made shoes...

They'd be pink...

... no surprise there!

Cook your own shoe at the Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ

USA just wanna kay poh China's business only...

This made me laugh out loud (something I don't normally do to avoid disturbing the neighbours) this morning.

Mr Brown's response to the US's response to China shooting down their own satellite.

China Rocks

Click and listen lah!

That's a lot of fresh air

I've shut the door, one too many times. Left the world outside and forgot to put up a post-it saying "remember you used to live".

Instead I hibernate in my room, asleep by 8pm, waking at dawn and contemplating an early morning swim.

Then, Kristina (you remember her, my gorgeous blond German roommate in the first year) invited me out for drinks to celebrate her birthday. And that led to a series of most fortunate events.

Firstly, it pulled me away from my Matlab codes and also led to the discovery of a rather charming bar/restaurant right behind South Kensington station.

The Collection boasts comfy turkish-looking wooden furniture and a reliable selection of exotic food. Popular with Chelsea yuppies and the fashion folk, its a nice place for catching up with long lost roommates and even a spot of clubbing on the weekend. If you're alright with the demographics averaging at 28 years. I'm torn between having to grow up and clinging to my university childhood.

The most amazing thing about this place has to be the restrooms where a very nice attendant told me how gorgeous I am (always a winning point) and the assortment of expensive perfumes at the washstand for touch-ups. How thoughtful! Oh and also the entrance, reminiscent of a fashion show runway which helps add to the model-glam of the place.

Meeting Kristina and her brother at Collection, led on to an invitation to join them for a gig at the Blagclub at Notting Hill Gate. Every Wednesday is Warm Wednesday, and features a live acoustic session in a cosy eastern-influenced room (with not enough chairs in my opinion - my poor poor feet in 3 inch heels).



The artist we had come to see was Stephanie Grace, a lovely delicate nymph with a voice that just melts you. Check out her myspace because nothing I say can do her any justice. My favourite song is ticket. I kinda wish I had bought her cd, but regretfully I didn't have more than 5 pounds in my wallet.

I don't remember much about the second artist of the night. Some girl called Danielle who was warbling like Christina Aguilera on coke. Sorry, I prefer poetic lyrics over warblers.


So I'm back to a music listening mood, and I hope no one caught me cooking in the kitchen with my Creative Nano plugged in and singing along to Chantal Kreviazuk while stirring my pot of hong bak. In the meantime, Lionel has me all jealous because he's bought himself an early birthday present - a Creative Xmod. The demo on cmss 3D x-fi is fantastic. Try the 3D headphone demo (with headphones on, of course!). Lionel has now turned his room into a surround-sound music room, just with a laptop, mp3s and two speakers.

And so it's almost the end of another week - with a hectic social schedule ahead. Lunch with B-landing girls, dinner with GS girls, dim sum lunch with Cheng Chun and Aeronautics folk, clubbing on Monday because I have to chaperone my little brother (no not really, but I like making it sound like it is - haha!). Busy, busy, busy.

Alright I'm out of here.

I <3 Hugh Laurie

I take everything back, Sugi. House definitely brings sexy back. And as a bonus, he's acutely funny too!

Code Pink

Maybe it's rather lazy and convenient for me to sit behind a computer screen and idly click on links to show my form of protest against war. But it's better than not doing anything at all I suppose.
And just as an added note of interest. I have to admit that I don't usually listen to what goes on in church on Sundays. I have a short attention span, but I'm working on it. However yesterday, I woke up from a stupor in time to hear Father Geoff say "and if we're happy about the fact that Saddam has been sentenced the death penalty, maybe we need to re-examine ourselves". His homily for the day was about 'loving thy neighbour' (I *was* paying attention at the beginning). But who is thy neighbour, if not everyone else? Even Saddam Hussein.

Living in Translation

Everyone, please thank Charmaine for having too much time on her hands and providing a full English transcript of the Petronas CNY ad I posted earlier.

See, unlike Xiaokai, I actually care about the rest of my non-Hokkien speaking, non-Malay reading audience. (and if you reply to this with lrn2read one more time, I'm taking off the link to your blog!)

Sidetracking

Remember the original fat guy singing Numa Numa?

Has it really taken this long for the Chinese to catch on?

cringe-worthy

I'm not very sure how nu ma nu ma iei (don't want, don't want, don't take me) got translated into bu pa bu pa (don't scared, don't scared) but its highly entertaining.

Miya-hee
Miya-hoo
Miya-ho
Miya-haha

Kamikaze ala Bunny!

If you ever wondered how bunnies commit suicide, then check out bunny suicides. If you've never wondered, welcome to Charlotte's chronically warped mind.

This is my favourite bunny suicide:

I <3 Yasmin Ahmad

I was surfing around for advertisements directed by Yasmin Ahmad, when I came across this year's Petronas ad for Chinese New Year. (psst... I'm really sorry if you don't understand Hokkien and well, for some of you the Malay subtitles won't be of any use either. I'll explain it another time.)

I really, really like this ad. It reminds me of a grandmother I never had. It also reminds me of a whole part of my own heritage I am missing out on. You see, the only Hokkien part of me is my surname and the only other attachment I have to the dialect is that I was brought up by a Hokkien nanny who taught me to speak Cantonese. And I don't even speak it well!

The Cantonese immersion program has begun, with one episode of a Hong Kong series Lu probably downloaded by accident. I will have to submerge myself fully into it the moment exams end.

In other news, Virgin is having a superb sale and I now own 4 new DVDs. Brilliant timing. I got some soppy flicks which included Steel Magnolias and also The Choirboys. I've hidden them behind the stairs in an attempt to remove them from my line of sight.

MPH is also having a sale. I've put 4 books into my cart and thankfully they'll be delivered to my little house in PJ so I can't read them until I go home anyway.

I need to concentrate on my notes and stop singing to Starlight Express.

Adoi!! Comelnye!!!! *

OKaay! Last youtube post for today... this week... the entire freaking Easter! But this is just too cute not to post!



Alright, gotta start looking for all the time I've wasted browsing through MADtv and Bobby Lee clips.

*Malay for: Oh my!! So cute!!!!

Peanut butter your way to a girl's heart

I stumbled onto a blog which had the opening scene of Meet Joe Black. Sherene and I watched it illegally after A-Level Further Maths, when it was supposed to be lights-out... and gushed about Brad Pitt and peanut butter for days on end. The coffee house scene in Joe Black is every girl's dream, or at least mine (although I have to quickly add that I am happy with what I've got, and no, it doesn't hurt to wish for more romance in my life).

Sherene, the above link is for you!

What's in a face?

Here's what I do on Monday mornings. I have really large inertia when it comes to switching from lazy hazy weekends to workaholic Mondays. I don't abhor Mondays, I just... can't seem to get into 3rd or 4th gear...

So instead of going into labs bright an early last Monday, I was surfing around, snooping into other blogs, reading my usual 'femes' blogger lists... and well, kennysia's introduction to www.faceanalyzer.com was just too tempting. I have since passed it on to Fidel (who I am beginning to suspect is a bigger narcissist than I am) and since he put up his analysis (what's the plural of analysis? analysi?) and so did a few others... here's my own analysis, for laughs. And when I say my own analysis, I don't just mean MY own face.

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The first photo I uploaded is a classic one! My black and white, JC prom photo. Maybe slightly inacurate since it was black and white and not really a photo of my face alone.



So I tried looking for a photo of just my face, which is not very easy because I have lost a whole lot of photos taken before this year. But I found this one - back in my innocent (*snort*) boarding school days. 97% south east asian is a lot better than 100% Chinese in my books!



Alright, so the above is a really old photo, and doesn't really count. So I skimmed through the M-Nite photos and found this - taken right after M-Nite when I was just this close to collapsing from a mixture of exhaustion, elation, and pure sweet relief! I blame the race inaccuracy on the thick layers of make up!!!



Then I tried a really recent photo, and guess what? No difference. I'm crushed!



In a final desperate attempt I decided to go back to photo 1 and zoom in just on my face, and well, I'm quite happy with this analysis. (Just ignore the high gay factor... Amar, CL, no "I told you so"s)



I guess I can conclude that I'm either meant to be a white collar worker, or a beta academic. Wonderful. I'm almost there!

But enough about me. You can bet I didn't hesitate trying the face analyser on my dearest friends! Lionel didn't like this analysis of him, too 'mr. nice guy'



So I tried a more recent photo, which makes him look like a Sunni Arab after he shaved his head and got tanned under the Spanish sun. I think he looks more like the Dalai Lama, than a Japanese Emperor!



Here's Lu! I don't think he'll forgive me for using this photo from Chinese New Year, but not a bad one huh, Lu? Jay Chou, wei....



And of course we couldn't resist testing if Amar is really gay. I guess not. But we'd need more photos to make it really conclusive.