987 FM Celeb Control: Elvin Ng

Finally!!! I thought Shan had forgotten or deliberately exclude Elvin from his podcast list cuz the last time I checked, he had every other Celeb Control episode except the one featuring Elvin.

... enjoy enjoy enjoy ...

d(~.~)b

Part 1

Part 2

P.S.: Hmmm ... strange. Just checked the 987 FM Shan Wee podcast page and the podcast is still not there ...

Off To Jakarta Tomorrow ...

... only for 2 days. And hence begins the gruelling fieldwork of this super exciting multi-country research and film project we call "Across Asia".

Like its namesake, lots of travelling required. Really, I won't mind country-hopping at all if the timeline is not so squishy. Oh well, I'll have to settle for 2 countries then. Hope it'll be Egypt and Pakistan.

Hmm... whatever the combination is, wish there's Egypt in there somewhere. Will really love to see the land of the pharoah, although I highly doubt the chance to sneak some moments off to the pyramids. We'll just have to see.

I'd love to go to Korea too ... and I'm kinda excited about Jakarta. So near yet so far. This will be my first time in the city. Any strange city appeals to me.

And I'm already thinking of the air-conditioned single hotel room with a soft bed that caresses my fatigued muscles and the plump pillows that cradle my brain after an intensive week.

Only in preparation of an even more hectic schedule, all the way till June. Sheesh ...

J'adore Babar

... not that I know any other French elephant, but yeah, Babar is my favourite French elephant, and one of the few cartoons that I adore outside Disney's.

My first encounter with Babar was bitter. Well, none to do with the character or the show, but I was down with food poisoning, thanks to some chicken rice balls that I ate (my grandma was ill too). I've since shunned those things, no matter how famous they've become around the world. I just refuse to eat them.

So funnily now, even as I think of the bitterness of food poisoning, I am smiling, reminiscing the first episode of Babar and the little orphan elephant who was adopted by Madame and raised in Paris to finally return to the jungle to reclaim the throne.
[the story of Babar]



I was in Mulhouse, France when I picked up a set of Babar figurines from a local toyshop. In my haste, alas, i picked the set with Arthur, Celeste's brother, not the one with Flora. It's really strange how they even had such varieties. Well, anyway, I gotta return to France soon to find Flora and complete Babar's family.

McDull Career

Haha ... innocently reflective of what I'm going through now.

Dull = Career

明星好帮手~.~黄俊雄

Woo hoo!!! It's the weekend!!!

And I Had A Bad Day ...

The little boy jumps his own shadow. Then he tries to run from it. Next, he chases it.

Finally, he turns around and smiles at me. A sweet end to a rough day.

Tuesday was utterly bad for me. The day began with this totally uncalled for email from our head of department to the research manager in response to his suggestion that we should relook at certain project objectives to realign some changes which have happened recently. A sincere recommendation met with malicious backlash.

We had a long talk on Monday. He was already at the point of snapping. But he was also totally unsure which path he should take - go or stay. He's a foreigner so that means a lot of complications for his residency status if he walks out of this job and fails to find another before his social visit pass expires. He cannot afford this with his whole family depending on his salary. So when we parted, he was more for a wait-and-see approach, even in spite of his wife's advice to quit because it is obvious he is in immense work-induced agony.

On Tue morning, he told me he had typed his resignation letter the previous evening but was still hesitating until he opened his mailbox and found that email. That was it. No further consideration. He tendered.

I was flabbergasted. I'm afraid for the multi-country research and filming mega project that has been tossed onto my lap, to be handled by me single-handedly. Gosh, how many parts can I split myself? Am I next in line to be royally screwed?

I'm not sure how to take this. It seems like a great opportunity to prove what I can do (and great on the resume too). For now, she seems fully confident of my ability and our relationship has been placid so far. My only fear is that there were people between me and her who were getting screwed and once they are removed (like R will soon be), the missile will have a clear line of fire towards me. Guess I should just do my job dutifully for now, complete the project and then take flight to dodge the missile.

R's departure is definitely a loss to the company. To the department and all of us who could have learned so much from him had he been given the chance to perform the tasks that his job description had prescribed for him but never enforced. He's definitely capable but alas, it goes unappreciated by the people at the helm of the organisation.

Worse, he's not the first. There was a fabulous editor whom our previous manager coaxed from a renowned magazine. He left 2 months after being screwed (I try not to use this word but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent in the vocabulary) real bad by the same people. A fine lady psychologist left 4 months into the job, citing differences with the same people, among other things (although we have no doubt the former played the biggest part).

This must not be a good for where this corporate ship is headed. Maybe it is really time for me to jump ship. Funny, even LG who had been so determined that he would stay for at least a year confided during lunch that he's extremely fatigued and contemplating the 'q' word.

Apparently, the brewing problem has not gone un-noticed. The GM spoke to a few of us to gather feedback on 2 'problematic' persons within the department. One is our head, the other the project scheduler, both very inflexible personalities that have caused crossfire. Seems like there's a consensus from the info that GM has gathered. He mentioned he would discuss the problem with big boss and improve the morale of the team. Sigh ... I wonder if I can stand to wait and see if things would finally change for the better ...

Luckily, aside from 'Peter Pan' whom I met on the way home, I had a good time watching "Before We Fall In Love Again" by Malaysian director James Lee. One of the Executive Producers is Yasmin Ahmad, my film-making hero :)



This is the first part of a trilogy, screened free at the Goethe Institute. The second part, "Things We Do When We Fall In Love", is on the film fest's main programme.

Although I found the actions a tad too slow, the story developed at a steady pace with interesting, hilarious and suspenseful twists. It's wonderful, the way the film-maker captures little nuances that mean nothing to the average person, magnify them with the camera lens and voila, you suddenly realise just how funny you've never looked at things this way and you laugh and you laugh and you laugh ...

Like the scene at the travel agency. Those airline standees are so common; they are often found in several places at travel agencies - behind the counter or in front, outside or inside the main door, in the waiting area. But when you put them all next to each other, with a couple of courteous agents also in that genteel pose behind the counter (because courtesy rules in the service industry), it is an image so bone-tickling that the entire room erupts in laughter.

Today was peaceful. It's good to see a more relaxed version of R. The past few weeks, his brows were always knitted in a frown. I'm happy for him. Hope I'll be able to say so much for myself soon. Very soon.

Did You File Your Taxes? :P

.click to read.

Weekend of Friday the 13th

I'm happy.

Another one of those unexpected random things that inexplicably, thoroughly warms my heart.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, Danny Messer finally realises how important gutsy rookie Lindsay Monroe is to him on CSI:NY. The frantic yell for Lindsay when her cover was blown in the company of unscrupulous diamond smugglers and that countenance of immense relief when he heard her small voice call his name amidst the fog of tear gas ... priceless...

The pair have been chummy since they first met last season when she replaced the fired Aiden (whom I can't stand and whose death became the unit's case later in the season). The chemistry is strong; they are always joking and teasing each other. I'm glad its producers have the good sense to bring the soft side out of TV's most street-smart, coolest CSI franchise - my favourite CSI.

There might be pitfalls though.

Remember Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson? I was a Nancy Drew fan for the earlier books but as her romance with Ned took centrestage later on, my respect for her as a sleuth faded. It was like she belonged to Sweet Valley High more than River Heights where a brainy girl called Nancy was always smelling out crime! Nevertheless, it will be fun to catch the Nancy Drew movie when it hits theatres this summer, for old time's sake.

So as long as workplace romance takes a backseat to crime scene investigation, I'll be rooting for the pairing of Danny and Lindsay. He pops the question next week; what's Lindsay's take on it?

The 20th Singapore International Film Festival kicked off last week. While the number of films in the main programme seems to have shrunk this year with some sponsors backing out, free movie marathons at the Goethe Institute seem to have ballooned, spilling over to the Substation.

On Saturday, we caught a documentary on 60s rock 'n roll band LOVE at the Goethe Institute. We had no idea who they were, but the almost-2-hour narrative-documentary was mostly poignant because it wasn't till the end that we all realised most of the band members who had been interviewed were already dead.

A combination of 'being at the wrong place at the wrong time' and drugs did them in. It left me to wonder ... what is it in the entertainment business that leads so many promising young talents to drug addiction which brings them eventual damnation? That's a constant pattern, past and present.

Some great music from the band's repertoire, and great punch lines from frontman Arthur Lee, made LOVE fun to watch. We skipped the 141-minute classic from German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder but would return later for the KAFA animation (Korean).

We adjourned to this cozy arty eatery on Killiney Road for a 2-hour girl chat and Japan appreciation. Pauline had just returned from a great trip to Honshu. Her stories left me heady with wanderlust. My recent obsession with Murakami, Death Note, Studio Ghibli, etc ... and my sister's constant praise for Hana Yori Dango (HYD) have put me in a very pro-Japan mood. After the KAFA screening, which featured some quirky, some interesting stories, I headed for Daiso to grab some Jap snacks for a late-night screening of HYD2 at home. I also picked up some udon noodles which I'd cook for dinner because Pauline's pictures of the noodles have stimulated my salivatory glands beyond control!

So that's the weekend for me. Not doing anything very much but kind of fulfilling.

And oh ... there's almost nothing to update on Elvin Ng, until an hour ago (ugly shirt by the way ... very un-Elvin). He was at the Ritz Carlton attending a Gucci fashion show the very night I was supposed to attend my company's birthday bash for March-April babies, which I had plotted for a month to wriggle out of, which of course, I did.

Hmm ... no wonder there was a funny feeling that maybe it wouldn't be too bad if I went; with so many people also attending, the chance of any private conversation with boss would be close to nil. In any case, he had already cornered me in the office earlier that week for an 'opinion-sharing session'. And the food was bound to be good. And I might bump into a certain celebrity.

Elaine, it's a whole new journey for you tomorrow. Enjoy the ride! I'm sure you will :) See you next Sunday.

Okri and Murakami Lore

No pun intended. I don't know why I put it there. Maybe just for fun lor.

I've jumped straight from the African spirit realm of Ben Okri's The Famished Road into the surrealism of Haruki Murakami's Kafka On The Shore. These two books are where you can find my nose buried in these days; everywhere I go, every single waking moment when I am not researching or writing about some impoverished Asian nation. Both are vividly delightful works, the words paint a thousand imageries that play in my mind like a movie reel rolling onto the projection screen.

From Okri's prose I imagine the illustrations of fantasy artists the likes of Alan Lee spring to life - a three-headed monster battling a beautiful maiden gliding on sparkling water as smooth and reflective as the surface of a mirror. From Murakami's words, the entire Studio Ghibli seems to be unleashed on the pages that my fingers flip with constant urgency. Compared to Okri, Murakami is a much easier read.

I've decided to rotate between Okri and Murakami for the follow-up novels of Okri's chronicles of the akibu Azaro and Murakami's countless other fantasical wonders.

The beauty of both books, I find, lies in the words that appear to be so simple that they are profound, that after reading it once, you instantly return to it to find that there's a deeper meaning that you can relate to, one way or another.

I shall quote some from Murakami's Kafka, for inspiration's sake.

"In travelling, a companion, in life, compassion," she repeats, making sure of it. "So what does it really mean? In simple terms."
"I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going."

"Even chance meetings are the result of karma."
"Right, right," she says. "But what does it mean?"
"That things in life are fated in our previous lives. That in the smallest events, there's no such thing as coincidence."

"What I'm trying to say is your problem isn't that you're dumb," Otsuka said, an earnest look on his face. "Your problem is that your shadow is a bit - how should I put it? Faint. What I think is this: You should give up looking for lost cats and start searching for the other half of your shadow"
"To tell the truth, Nakata's had that feeling before. That my shadow is weak. Other people might not notice, but I do."
"That's good, then," the cat said.
"But I'm already old, and may not live much longer ... You die and they cremate you. You turn into ashes and they bury you in a place called Karasuyama. Once they bury you there, though, you probably can't think about anything anymore. And if you can't think, then you can't get confused. So isn't the way I am now just fine? What I can do while I'm alive, is never go out of Nakano Ward. But when I die, I'll have to go to Karasuyama. That can't be helped."
"What you think about it is entirely up to you, of course," Otsuka said, and again began licking the pads of his paw. "Though you should consider how your shadow feels about it. It might have a bit of inferiority complex - as a shadow, that is. If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."

"When I drive, I like to listen to Shubert's piano sonatas with the volume turned up. Do you know why?"
"I have no idea."
"Because playing Shubert's piano sonatas well is one of the hardest things in the world. Especially this, the Sonata in D Major. It's a tough piece to master. Some pianists can play one or maybe two of the movements perfectly, but if you listen to all four movements as a unified whole, no one has ever nailed it. A lot of famous pianists have tried to rise to the challenge, but it's like there's always something missing. There's never one where you can say, Yes! He's got it! Do you know why?"
"No," I reply.
"Because the sonata itself is imperfect. Robert Schumann understood Schubert's sonatas well, and he labeled this one 'Heavenly Tedious'."
"If the composition's imperfect, why would so many pianists try to master it?"
"Good question," Oshima says, and pauses as music fills in the silence. "I have no great explanation for it, but one thing I can say. Works that have a certain imperfection to them have an appeal for that very reason - or at least they appeal to certain types of people. Just like you're attracted to Soseki's The Miner. There's something in it that draws you in, more than more fully realised novels like Kokoro or Sanshiro. You discover something about that work that tugs at your heart - or maybe we should say the work discovers you. Shubert's Sonata in D Major is sort of the same thing."

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

Discovering Tests Once More

I've only been to 5 written tests my whole working life so far. Looking back, I can really tell how valuable those tests are in helping me imagine myself in the role I apply for, probably more than they are to the employers in screening out unsuitable candidates.

The first written test I have ever taken was at Marshall Cavendish, for an editorial position for school books. Hehe ... it seemed like a natural choice at that time since I was so hell bent on a writing job, even if it's math and science textbooks. But on hindsight, the test really showed that I had no love for scrutinising grammatical errors or correcting sentence structure. I passed the test, was called back for an interview, during which the interviewer cautioned that I might be bored to death editing school texts given my background in the creative industry. I actually agreed with her during the interview.

The next three were for corporate communications positions in Citibank, the Singapore Land Authority and the Alliance Francaise.

Citibank posed serious questions; I don't even remember half of them now. As far as I can recall, I wrote something about leadership. I think I answered intelligently although I remember racking my brains and wondering if it was what I really wanted, spending my time writing up masterpieces that put this leader of the banking industry high up on a pedestal.

SLA required me to write an opinion piece on cab drivers. I think I had to choose from a few choices, just like the English composition exam back in school. How typical of the civil service.

The Alliance Francaise test was at least practical and the dossier they gave me, very interesting. I was to write a press release for two separate exhibitions by a couple of France's most renowned photographers, Henri-Cartier Bresson and Robert Doisneau. I eventually went to both exhibitions last June and gained insight into photography as an artform, especially snap-shooting that Bresson is so famous for.

Last Friday, I went to what must have been the fun-nest written test at Mediacorp. There were three parts that we had to complete, a piece each on concept, critique and script-writing. For two hours, I was in la-la land, especially the concept part, dreaming up sequences that I would like to see on tv. I think I provided reasonably interesting story ideas and sound critique, so I'm just now hoping for them to think likewise.

I pray hard

for this new hope

it will blossom into something beautiful

it will fulfill a dream

ten years in the making

Entertainment is something that I really wanna do.