Saturday, January 26, 2008

What is a 'yoo-nak'?

Right now I'm preparing for Sunday School tomorrow, and the verses that I am teaching on tomorrow are Acts 8: 26-40. This is the story of Philip, the Evengelist (not the Apostle. Don't mix them up) and how an angel sent him on a trip to Gaza. Along the way, Philip met an Ethiopian man who was reading portions of scripture but didn't understand it, so Phillip explained it to him and the man believed.

Verse 27 in this chapter says, "So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians." I wasn't sure what an eunuch was, and from the verse I assumed it meant some sort of palace official. But I did checked it out online just to be sure, and got something quite different from what I expected.

An Eunuch, according to Wikipedia, is a man who was castrated, usually in order to perform a specific social function such as religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs were considered more trustworthy to rulers as since they were unable to reproduce, they would have less temptation to try to overthrow the ruler and establish their own dynasty. It is for this very same reason that eunuchs were entrusted to take care of the ruler's harems. Even if they wanted to try something funny with the women, they simply couldn't. :P

Anyway, after reading the long and rather interesting history of eunuchs, I was left thinking... How on earth am I going to explain what an eunuch is to a bunch of 8 to 10 year old boys? I can just imagine...

"Carol jie jie, what is an....a.... yee-ooo-nooch?"

"It's pronounced 'yoo-nak' "

"Oh... what's a 'yoo-nak'? "

"Em... eunuchs were....er... special men that worked for kings and rulers last time and had very important jobs."

"What was so special about 'yoo-naks'?"

"Em... they were... men who were castrated"

".... What is 'cass-tray-ted'?"

"Err....eh....let's sing some Sunday School songs!"

Hmmm.... well, I actually wouldn't mind explaining the meanings of 'yoo-nak' and 'cass-tray-shun' to them, except that I don't want them going off and telling their parents that they learned two interesting new words at Sunday School. And then the following week, I'll have a bunch of parents pulling me aside after church and giving me long lectures. So I shall start preparing my Sunday School songs now....

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

My first research paper (With a revised and even more long-winded conclusion!)

Title: The Evolving Hypothesis on the Attraction of Male Test Subjects on the Reseacher

Abstract / Hypothesis:
The following research was conducted by Carol Ng (henceforth to be referred to as ‘the researcher’) from the time she began to have interest in members of the opposite sex (henceforth to be referred to as ‘test subjects’) at the approximate age of 13 to the researcher’s present age of nearly 25. During initial stages of research when attractions to test subjects lead to little or reciprocation, the researcher formulated the following hypothesis: “I am completely unattractive to guys”. However, further data collected during the research period of 12 years lead to several revisions of the initial hypothesis. At the present time, the current hypothesis maintained by the researcher which has yet to be disproved is “All Christian guys whom I have liked are Dum Dums, while all Christian guys who have liked me are Wussies”.

Methodology:
The responses of test subjects when the researcher displayed interest in them were observed and recorded (mostly in memory). The manners of which the researcher ‘displayed interest’ in the test subjects include, but are not limited to, the following:

1) Stealing occasional glances to the test subject of interest at any location in which thresearchis in close proximity to the test subject for prolonged periods of time.

2) Expending more time than usual conversing with test subject, compared to with other associates, in efforts to understand the test subject’s interests further.

3) Grabbing or making whatever opportunities possible to be in closer proximity to the test subject of interest just so the researcher can steal more glances at him, or on a lucky day, converse with the test subject.

4) Giving small gifts to the test subject that the researcher would not have bothered to give to anyone else. For example, once when the researcher was feeling a bit daring, she left an anonymous Chinese New Year card in the school desk of one such test subject.

5) Directly asking the test subject to participate in a social activity with the researcher, such as lunch, mamak, party, etc… usually with other associates present but not always. On one occasion, when the researcher was not only daring but quite possibly drunk, a request was made to a test subject to accompany her for a college prom.

6) Directly informing the test subject of the researcher’s interest in him and hoping for reciprocation.

While the majority of the test subjects were chosen by the researcher, additional data was also obtained from test subjects who elected to participate in this research by performing one or more of the following:

1) Informing associates of his interest in the researcher, which eventually led to the researcher somehow obtaining this information from the said associate or from other reliable sources.

2) Making repeated and sometimes annoying requests to the researcher to participate in activities with the test subjects such as online chatting, conversing on the phone, going out, etc, even though the researcher was not comfortable with the test subjects and denied their numerous advances.

3) Directly asking the researcher to participate in a social activity with the test subject without the presence of other associates (henceforth to be referred to as a ‘date’).

Other potential but discreet displays of interest by test subjects such as numerous glances at the researcher and exceptionally positive body language when conversing with the researcher which did not lead to the test subject performing one of the three actions listed above are classified as invalid data due to high ambiguity. This data is therefore not included in this research.

Results and Discussion:

The behaviors of all test subjects are divided into six main categories as follows:

1) The Go-Getters: Test subjects who directly expressed their interest in the researcher although the researcher did not display any signs of interest in the subjects.

2) The Reciprocators: Test subjects who responded positively to the researcher’s displays of interest by directly expressing their interest in the researcher.

3) The Waiters: Test subjects who responded positively to the researcher’s display of interest but waited for the researcher to directly express her interest in him. Also can be classified as a slightly different form of a Wussie (refer below).

4) The Dum Dums: Test subjects who did not respond at all the researcher’s display of interest and therefore is assumed to have been completely oblivious to the researcher’s displays of interest towards them (the Oblivious Dum Dums) OR did not have had any interest in the researcher (the Uninterested Dum Dums).

5) The Wussies: Test subjects who were found to have had interest in the researcher but failed to directly express their interest to the researcher.

6) The Annoying: Test subjects whom the researcher had no interest in OR met only once OR met online (usually through ICQ), but continuously requested the researchers to meet up, chit chat, go on dates, or perform other activities with the test subject although the researcher denied all their requests.

Within the first 5 years of the research period, which is when the researcher was still in secondary school, the results for the number of test subjects that fall into each category are as follows:

As shown in Figure 1 above, test subjects fell into only two of the four categories above. While the researcher selected a reasonable number of test subjects (too many to remember) on which she displayed interest in, all of the test subjects, although still remaining friendly to the researcher, failed to respond positively to the researcher. Therefore all test subjects in which the researcher had interest in are classified as Dum Dums. This observation, coupled with the fact that the researcher was not particularly hot at the time, lead to the formulation of the initial hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 – I am completely unattractive to guys

However, another small group of test subjects did display obvious signs of attraction to the researcher…. But these test subjects were all either subjects who decided to randomly chat with the researcher on ICQ, customers she sold movie tickets to while working part-time at GSC cinemas, or unknown groups of males in the street who do that annoying wolf whistle to anything females that walks pass them. Therefore these test subjects fell into the category of the Annoying, and lead to the formulation of hypothesis 2, which states:

Hypothesis 2 – I am completely unattractive to guys who are not annoying

In the following 5 years of research that coincides with the time when the researcher was in college and university, the research data appears slightly different from before, as shown in Figure 2 below:

As before, the number of test subjects that fell into the category of Dum Dums (both Oblivious, and Uninterested) who did not responds to the researcher’s displays of interest were STILL too many to remember. Meanwhile the Annoying group of test subjects showed an increase, possibly due to the researcher’s drop in weight during this research phase, which would have resulted in an increase in the researcher’s hotness, since, as we all know, weight is inversely proportional to hotness.

However, within this phase, the researcher also came to know of at least two test subjects whom she did not have interest in but they did like her. However, the researcher only obtained this information through known associates or other means, but the test subjects in question never revealed their interest in the researcher to her personally. Therefore, these two subjects fell into the unfortunate category of Wussies. But this new data allowed for a revision in the earlier hypothesis to:

Hypothesis 3: I am not completely unattractive, but the guys who like me are wussies

It also was during this phase that two test subjects whom the researcher already knew quite well (and therefore did not fall into the Annoying category) not only displayed signs of interest towards the researcher, but also directly requested the researcher to go on a date. Both subjects displayed interest in the researcher before she was ever interested in them, as such, both are classified as Go-Getters. Interestingly, both test subjects were non-Malaysian males…one was from the UK and the other from Australia. Unfortunately for the UK test subject, the researcher merely found him interesting as an associate but not as a date due to his penchant for uttering foul language every ten seconds. On the other hand, the researcher agreed to the date request of the Australian, who was significantly more refined. Unfortunately, the relationship was unsustainable due to several factors, a major one being distance once the researcher returned to Malaysia, and also that he was non-Christian (as was the UK test subject). Of course, results from these two subjects lead to another revision of the hypothesis to:

Hypothesis 4: Caucasian guys are significantly less wussy than Malaysian guys

In the phase after the researcher completed her studies, which was 2 years ago to the present date, although the time period is significantly shorter than the previous two phases, test results returned were still quite interesting:

The number of test subjects in the Dum Dum category sees a highly significant drop from ‘too many to remember’ to merely one. This is partially due to the fact at this phase, most of the attractive eligible test subjects have already been booked for permanent research by other females, and therefore are not qualified as data in this research. Research on the single Dum Dum subject here is, in fact, still ongoing and therefore the subject should still be unclassified. However, since there is no category for ‘Others’ and the researcher is too lazy to make one, and the subject has yet to respond to the researcher’s displays of interest, he shall for now be classified as a Dum Dum until further notice.

The subjects classified as Annoying have also shown a drop in numbers, but nevertheless are still there… an unavoidable bunch of insignificant insects out to bug the female population.

Within this phase, although there were no other Go-Getters…however, one test subject (who was one of the few non-annoying subjects I met online) was found by the researcher to be quite attractive. The subject also responded with interest to the researcher. However, the subject did not directly express his attraction to the researcher first. Instead, due to certain circumstances, the researcher made the decision to meet the subject at his location, and was also the first to directly express her attraction to the subject. Although the subject responded positively, since he failed to make the first move and instead waited for the researcher, the subject is classified as a Waiter. Which differs only slightly from a Wussie in that the researcher actually had interest in the subject. That relationship was also unsustainable, and we aaaallll know what happened there.

Is it interesting to note that of the six main categories, no test subjects could be classified as Reciprocators, ie. Subjects who responded positively to the researcher’s displays of interest by informing her of their interest in the researcher as well. Another interesting statistic is that out of all the test subjects selected for this study by the researcher, at least 13 subjects were Christians out of which 4 were Catholic, while only about 3 test subjects were non-Christians. NONE of these who selected for study displayed or expressed interest in the researcher.

Conclusion:
Ok, enough of the referring to myself in third person. All in all, throughout the second half of my life, I have had crushes on at least 20 guys (and probably more that I can’t remember right now). More than three thirds of these guys were Christians. But who were the only guys who had the guts to actually ask me out on a date? Two Caucasian guys who were non-Christian. Out of 20 eligible Malaysian and mostly Christian bachelors whom I liked, gave hints that I liked them, and to a few, even told them personally that I liked them, NONE of them returned the feeling. Except for one. But that ONE guy whom I met online also didn’t have the guts to come and meet me first…. I had to be the one to go all the way to him. And I was also the first to tell him I liked him…THEN only he responded in kind. So technically, of all the Malaysian and mostly Christian guys I liked, either:

A) They had no interest in me whatsoever, OR

B) They kind of liked me but were waiting for me to make the first move, OR

C) They kind of liked me too but were too shy to tell me coz’ they were waiting for some time to figure out if I was the ‘right one’ for them.

I’m sure most of these guys go under (A)… which I can understand. I will be the first to admit that I am hardly attractive, especially when I was in school. So I can’t really blame them for not liking me....though I will still classify them as Dum Dums, just coz' it makes me feel better. But since I have been asked out by two guys and been in two relationships, I know that I am not completely repulsive to the male species. So it’s those guys that fall under (B) and (C) that I have a gripe with, and I will bet my bottom dollar that out of those 20 guys or more, at least a few fell into one of these two categories of Wussies. And from my observation, I am not the only girl who has this problem, especially when it comes to Christian guys. I know Christian girls older than me who are waiting for a suitable God-loving Christian guy to come into their life…but no takers. I know several Christian girls who are going out with non-Christian guys. I know several Christian aunties at church who are married to non-Christian guys. But I know very few Christian guys who are going out with non-Christian girls. Why? Here’s my theory:

The Christian guys want to go out with Christian girls, and the Christian girls also want to go out with Christian guys. But most girls still subscribe to the age old belief that the guy should make the first move, not the girl. Therefore they drop hints, give signs, do anything to make a Christian guy realize she likes him, except of course, tell him. So what do the guys do? If he doesn’t like her, he won’t do anything. Fair enough. If he does like her and has the guts, he makes the first move. Great for the girl. But if he likes her but doesn’t have guts, he sits around and waits. Waits for what? Maybe waits for the girl to make the move. Maybe praying for God to reveal to them whether she is ‘the ONE’. Maybe waiting for God to drop a big bright neon sign in the shape of an arrow pointing to the girl, flashing “SHE IS THE ONE. Go get her! Right now!”. But if the sign never comes, they continue waiting. And even if the girl is brave enough to tell the guy she likes him, like I did once or twice, he stills sits around and waits. And while the guys wait, the girls also wait for the guys. And while they both wait, eventually some eligible non-Christian guy comes along, fancies the Christian girl and asks her out. And while the Christian girl would prefer to be with a Christian guy, eventually she gets fed up from all the waiting, and goes for the first eligible guy who comes along. Even if he happens to be a non-Christian. And that’s why so many Christian girls end up with non-Christian guys, but usually not the other way round. And this, unfortunately, seems to be my problem as well. Now don't get me wrong... it's great if a guy takes the time to wait and consider whether a relationship is right before jumping into it....but eventually the waiting and thinking has to stop, and some *action* is required. You don't have to straight away ask a girl to get together with you... but it won't kill to start with something really simple like going for a drink, or a movie...heck, even a late night at the mamak, just to get to know a person better.

Ok, so the next question to ask is if all the eligible Christian guys around me are kind of too 'duh' to ask me out, why don't I look elsewhere, like visit other churches? This is another problem. See, one thing the church always teaches is that church hopping (a.k.a. visiting different churches every other week) is not good. Every Christian should be rooted and faithfully serving in one church, so that they are settled and can grow spiritually in that church. So of course, church hopping for the purpose of meeting new guys is even worse, coz' we're *supposed* to be going to church to meet God and not to check out members of the opposite sex. Which I do agree with....somewhat. However, the problem remains that if I continue to stay in my church which I love, and the eligible guys who are not already taken all continue to be so 'duh', and no new eligible guys come to my church and decide to stay put, then I will be happily serving in my church for the rest of my life...but with zero love life. *Sigh* But of course, some folks of big faith will always say "Trust in God...if you are meant to be with someone, you don't have to look for that person... he will bring that person into your life. So just pray lah... and wait..." And wait... and wait some more.... But when I think about it, that sort of follows the same logic of some people who fall sick and decide they don't want to see a doctor coz' they have such big faith that God will heal them. So they pray... and wait.... and pray some more... but then, some of them still end up dead. And I don't get it. Where does it say in the Bible that if you are sick, no need to go see the doctor coz' the almighty God will heal you where you are? The bleeding woman didn't sit around at home praying for healing... she went out when she knew Jesus was around, and fought through a crowd just to touch his cloak in the hopes of being healed. And she got healed! BUT even though she had great faith, she also had to DO something...which was go out, fight through that crowd and touch Jesus. In Genesis, God could have easily made the land prosperous right where Abram was...but God told him to grab his family and everything he had and make the long journey to Canaan. In Joshua, the people of Israel could have all sat in their tents praying fervently for the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down, but instead they had to circle around it 7 times first. Even Jesus, before getting hung on the cross, prayed that he would have this burden taken away from him. But He didn't sit around waiting after that... He got up and did what he had to do. I imagine if Jesus decided to sit around waiting, all we Christians would be gone case lah. In short, in practically every story in the Bible, people are called to pray AND called to action. So wheeeere, pray tell me, did we Christians get the assumption that in the area of finding our life partner, we are just supposed to just pray about it and do nothing, expecting to God to mail us a godly life partner in a nice package with a big bow? HMMM... there's something to think about... And if anyone can give me a good, logical and Biblical answer to this, I will happily post it here. Coz' right now, I can't for the life of me, think of one. What I do also remember is the story of Ruth. I like this story. You know why? Coz' in this story, Ruth actually went after the guy, Boaz. And he responded by taking her as his wife. I won't go through the whole story now, but you can read it here. But the point of this story is that Ruth didn't just sit around praying and waiting for Boaz to get some divine revelation to marry her. She. took. ACTION.

So anyway, back to my research paper and my final conclusion. And what is my final conclusion? The conclusion is this:

All Christian guys whom I have liked are Dum Dums, while all Christian guys who have liked me are Wussies

So far, this hypothesis has yet to be disproved. And as for the researcher, she has made a resolution to never again make the first move on a guy because it seems to just be a complete waste of time and energy. She will continue to give ‘hints’ to guys she likes coz’ she still has some itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit of faith left in the Malaysian Christian guys….however, this faith is diminishing at an alarmingly rapid rate. But so far it seems, if she really wants to be with a guy, she will have to emigrate to Australia, UK or some other country with Caucasian guys who are significantly less wussy are more likely have the guts to ask her out for a date. If not, she will probably have to accept the possibility of becoming an old spinster living home alone with the cats and baking fruitcakes.

References:
Don’t have any and they’re a pain in the rear to write anyway.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

I wish I could be....

I always thought that people who wished they were someone else were really silly. Like those people who go on those ridiculous makeover or plastic surgery shows in order to look like some famous celebrity. I mean, I can understand if you strive to be like someone else because they have certain characteristics or lifestyle that you admire...but to completely want to be someone else... just feels so wrong. It's not just saying that you want to improve on yourself or your life so that it is like this other person's character or life that you admire, but it's pretty much saying you're so totally unhappy with who you are that it doesn't matter if you lose your own identity and uniqueness as long as you can 'become' this other person. I suppose those kind of people suffer from some severe form of low self esteem... which is pretty sad.

But anyway, since I started working at Accenture, which is approximately four and a half months now, I have been able to enjoy listening to internet radio through my laptop while I am at work. Which sometimes annoys the guy sitting behind me, coz' sometimes when he calls me, I can't hear him coz' my ears are plugged into music, so he has to make the extremely difficult effort of moving his chair one metre behind in order to get my attention....but this is also the same guy who has one of those pens with four different coloured inks and perpetually annoys the hell out of me by clicking and releasing the pen repeatedly throughout the day.... so the loud music helps to drown out this annoying clicking noise and keeps me sane. But back to the topic...

Among some of the internet radio stations I like to listen to are some Christian rock stations... which is really refreshing to listen to coz' you'd never hear Christian music on local radio.... the closest I get to hearing Christian music on local radio is songs with very, very subliminal Christian messages such as "Dare You to Move" by Switchfoot. And maybe "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence... but they declared that they are not a Christian band, so that may not count. So I'm pretty glad I get to listen to Christian stuff online... and one of the songs I heard online and really, really, really like is "Whispers In The Dark" by Skillet (the song is on my blog's music player playlist, in case you didn't notice).

It's not exactly the kind of song most people would enjoy, given that it sounds like rather hardcore rock... and usually I wouldn't like hardcore rock if there's a lot of tuneless and mindless screaming, and the instruments are used to make noise rather than music. But I reeeeaaaallllyyy love this song coz' for one, the guitar riffs are amazing and the whole song is just really catchy. Two, I like that even though the song sounds really dark and depressing, the lyrics are actually about God being there for us in our loneliness and sadness, and basically being our 'light in the dark'.

Another song by Skillet which is pretty good is called "Yours To Hold", which is much more relaxing slow rock song. Yet another song from them is this very Hillsong-like live version of a song called "Who Is Like Our God?". Basically the first 3 songs I heard from Skillet sound so different... but they were all really good. So I thought, wow, I think it's actually worth getting their album. And I thought I'd just do some reading up on this band.

I was expecting Skillet to be the typical rock band where all the members are guys, especially since the lead singer is a guy. Then I found out that the band consists of two men and two women. One of the ladies, named Lori Peters, plays the drums. The other woman, Korey Cooper, plays the guitar and keyboards as well as sings backup. The lead singer also happens to be her husband, John Cooper, who also plays bass. And they have two kids! The other guy is some fella whose name I can't be bothered to remember... coz' I too busy being at awe at the fact that a Christian rock band that plays such hardcore music consists of two women....neither of which are on lead vocals. In most bands, the female would be the vocalist and the musicians would all be guys (examples being the Cranberries, Evanescence and Sixpence None the Richer). The fact that Korey can play such great guitar riffs, AND be married to the lead singer, with two kids, is even more awesome! And the lead singer is a pretty hot looking guy too. Just look at the pic. :)

Ok, so he's not so incredibly hot that just the sight of his pic makes me sigh and drift off into Lalaland where I imagine us prancing in the fields (celebrities don't really have that effect on me anymore), but he's hot enough. And being the lead singer and bass guitarist of a band just increases his hotness factor at least tenfold. Korey, btw, is the woman on the left.

So now, I've decided to become a total hypocrite and say I want to be Korey Cooper. Though not in the sense that I want to look exactly like her... but I want her life!!! I want to be in a rock band and play really good electric guitar and be married to a hot guy who happens to be the lead singer of my band!!! That would be sooo COOL! Plus, since they're not superbly famous, I wouldn't have to deal with crazy paparazzi invading my privacy every chance they can get... which is in unfortunate price of super fame that I know I wouldn't stand. And of course, the fact that they are all Christians with very obvious Christian themes in their music, makes their life even more cool. :) I could live without the two kids though.... not exactly a priority in my life right now. Though I can only imagine how interesting their kids' lives must be...they probably got a baby guitar on their first birthdays and learned how to play it before they could walk or something like that. Haha... But since becoming Korey Cooper is a wish that will never come true, the most I can settle for is downloading all Skillet's music and playing air guitar in my room. :P

Though, I may have a chance to live my rock band dreams soon enough... at least for one night. My company has this annual dinner coming up in March, and apparently all the new joiners (me included) are expected to put on a performance during the dinner, and one of the things we can do is play in a band. So I informed one of the committee members that I am interested to be in a band as a guitarist (and possibly singer)... but they need to find other new joiners who are also willing to form a band. And I wouldn't know them, so it kind of be like one of those other silly reality shows where they audition a bunch of singing wannabes and put the best ones together to form a teeny bopper group like Spice Girls. Of course, in this case, there's no auditions... and we are (thankfully) not forming a teeny bopper band. I just really hope the other people can actually play their instrument pretty well, and that we get along well enough to perform well. And the really cool part is that we get to rent a studio to do our practices before the annual dinner... and we and claim the rental charges from office! Wah liow!!! I don't really like my job... but I reeeaaaallly like my company. It's good to be in a company that makes too much money for their own good. ;)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Things I learned from the bible today

I learned a few things from reading the book of Job today:

1) Blaming God for anything that goes wrong is a sin --> Job 1: 22 - "In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God"

I knew it was a sin to CURSE God or use God's name as a profanity, but I didn't know that just blaming God for things that go wrong is also a sin.... or maybe I just thought that it was probably not the right thing to do, just never thought of it as something as serious as SIN. Hmm...

2) I learned what is a weaver's shuttle --> Job 7: 6 - "My days fly faster than a weaver’s shuttle"

I know what is a weaver (a person who weaves cloth) and the shuttle I know is a space shuttle, so I didn't quite know what weaver's shuttle is. So I did some online research and found this info:

"Life" is often times compared to a web that is woven by a weaver. With an instrument called the shuttle, he inserts the filling into the woof of the material. With a rhythmic pattern matching the continuous succession of moments, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of a life, the weaver throws the shuttle from one side of the web to the other until it is exhausted of all thread, and the web becomes a finished product.

So now I know what a weaver's shuttle is.

3) Job really did not like egg whites --> Job 6: 6-7 "....Does anyone want the tasteless white of an egg? My appetite disappears when I look at it; I gag at the thought of eating it!"

Obviously Job never tried HARD-BOILED egg whites... They taste pretty good!

Sunday, January 06, 2008

My New Red Blog :)

I have red car!:



I have red phone!:


I have red camera!:


I have big red Bible!:


I have red gerbil????:

Ewww...I should be locked up for abuse of picture manipulation programs....

Now I have an a brand new red blog!!! :) Well, it's not completely new... the website is still the same... and I kept the tagboard and hit counter.... but everything else is completely changed. And I finally managed to get my blog template to work! Woohoo! *Chicken dance around my room in celebration* Ok, credit doesn't completely go to me. I have to thank my more technically savvy Bernard for solving my template woes. Apparently it was only the Blogger preview that made my blog looked all messed up. So he added a few things in, and though it still looks messed up in preview mode, it looks fine when saved as the actual template. Yay! Thank you, my big duhduh brother!

So after all my hard work relearning html, scratching my head at how to make things look the way I want it to, as well as googling everywhere for cool programs and stuff to add to my blog, here's what I ended up with:

1) The picture of the girl in the title head was hand-drawn by yours truly, and yours truly also coloured it using Paint.net, which is a very cool and FREE (which makes it super cool!) program similar to Photoshop. It's the same program I used to make my gerbil red too . :P

2) The words "Crimson Shadow", which is my new blog title, just coz' it sounds neat, was made using the font generator at Cool Text Generator. I then made it transparent and pasted it on top of the red and black background, which was made using Adobe Illustrator.

3) The ticker showcasing the artsy farty pics I have taken is a nice little thing I got from Twango, the site I use to keep my photos and videos. For free. I did a LOT of research to find this photo site...it has practically everything I could ever want, and no other photo site also lets you post videos for free. I could go on forever about how great it is, so I shall refrain....for now.

4) My blog background, which is actually mainly the flowery swirly things on the left, is just a nice background I got off the net. It was initially a different colour, but after much editing, I made it how it is now. The resolution isn't too great coz' I enlarged it... so I *might* change it later on...if I feel like it. :P

5) The most cool music flash player on the right sidebar is something I made at My Flash Fetish. The player plays the songs I choose from sites that store the selected songs...so I loaded my files at Fileden and made the player linked to those songs. The slightly sucky thing is that the music might take a while to load, so it sounds choppy at first. But if you put it in 'Pause' mode, go take a shower, have your dinner, or watch some Korean serials on your laptop, by the time you're done, it would've fully loaded and plays smoothly. :) The songs start off nice and easy and progress slightly more hard core, so don't get a shock if you hear a bit Evanescence-ish stuff coming out.

All in all, I'm quite proud of my changes. It certainly does look a lot better than before, when it looked like some kids splattered paint on the background. But before this, I really didn't have a solid idea of what I wanted for my blog... until recently when I thought about it, and suddenly had a very good idea of what I wanted it to look like. Well, it pretty much came out the way I envisioned...so hope you guys like it too. If not, at least you'll have no problem remembering what my favourite colour is! :P

Thursday, January 03, 2008

New year, new things, new possibilities

Ah...another year has kept up on us all yet again, and if you're like me, you're wondering how come the time moved so fast. And then you realize it's coz' you're getting old. Hahaha. Happy new year, everybody! And everyone says it's the time to start afresh and all that jazz... well usually I start off the year feeling quite blah...and I almost did this year (especially since I celebrated my countdown sitting in front of my laptop. How very un-exciting!)...but right now I am feeling, well, not so blah. Coz' for one thing, I got a very nice Christmas present from my mum, which is that absolutely beeaaauuuutiful Sony Ericsson W660i phone I was handphone lust for a few months back. Well, my mum actually gave me most of the money to go and buy it coz' she asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I wanted that phone. I didn't really think she would seriously give me money for it... but she actually did! Though the phone coz more than Rm100 than what she gave me, so I just paid the rest of it. Just imagine, I first saw it at the end of August and it was love at first sight for me... and now after 4 whole months of waiting for the price to drop, I got my dream phone! Woohoo! It's just such a pretty girly red and gold phone with flowery engravings on the back. And the funny thing is I set my ringtone as "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven.... so you see this girly girl phone, but once it rings, this headbanging rocker song blares out of it. :D For my message ringtone I currently use Yoda from Star Wars saying "Hmm... a message from the dark side you have...". Which is rather unoriginal...soooo I plan to do a voice recording on my phone (yes, it records sounds! Whoopie!) of one of my Sunday School kids saying something like "Carol Jie Jie, you have a message! Read it now! Why you never read? Hellooo...." Hehe, that would be cute. Unfortunately the kid I wanted to do the recording wasn't around last Sunday at church, so I still have to settle with Yoda for a while... And another really cool thing about my phone, which I was like so "WOW!" when I found it, is this neat little application that shows how to play most of the weird guitar chords, and even plays a sample note so I know what it should sound like. For a hapless guitarist who rarely remembers anything more complicated than a minor chord, this is like Godsend!!! Before this I really liked the phone... but just coz' of that, I really LOVE my phone. Eeee hee hee heeeee!!!

Ok, enough of giggling like a schoolgirl. Another new thing I've been working on has to do with my blog. As you may have noticed, for some reason, my blog pictures have decided to mysteriously disappear off the face of my blog. So instead of fixing that issue, I decided to completely revamp the look of my blog. Which I think is long overdue, coz' it kind of looks like a five year old drew the background... but I was either too busy or too lazy to bother to relearn html, css, xml and God knows what other weird scripting languages they use to make these things. Anyway, over the weekend, I just sat down and did it...copied my original html, and edited it to change the background, the title picture, the colour scheme...eeeverything! The only things left untouched are my tagboard and my hit counter... which I may or may not change, depending on my mood.

So I saved my new html on notepad, opened it using Explorer and refreshed it when needed to check whether my changes came out correctly or not. So after a painstaking two days of working nonstop on this little project, it finally looked like how I wanted it to. So I copied the new html, pasted it onto my blogger template, clicked 'Preview' and TADA.....!!!

It came out ALLLL wrong.

Basically everything was all over the place. The sidebar was too wide and the words overlapped the space where my blog entries are supposed to be....while my blog entry column is just one small koochi little box in a corner. If you were in my living room at the time, you probably would have heard loud wails of despair coming from Carol's room. Apparently, the people at Blogger decided to be smart and add some new scripting language specifically for their templates... and since my html didn't have it...whammo.... my lovely template became a big mess. *sob sob* :'(

Well, my hard work hasn't gone to waste. I just need more time to figure out what is it I need to add... worse come to worse, I have to grab one of the blogger templates and add in my new scripts so I don't break whatever annoying scripts they need to make my blog appear like it should. Which is going to be a long and painful process which I don't have time for til this weekend coz' of that time consuming thing called WORK. So my grand launching of my new blog look will just have to be postponed... *hopefully* I can get it to work by this weekend.

In other, more gossipy news, my ex recently sent me a comment here telling me it's been a while since he visited my blog and it seems I've been "quite spiteful" in my last few entries. And he went on about how there was no chance for us to be friends anymore (because when I broke up with I told him I wouldn't mind being friends) coz' it would just be an "empty hollow relationship". And he also said that I need to stop hanging onto him coz' he's stopped hanging onto me. And I found the whole message rather amusing, though not very surprising as I have heard plenty of rather illogical things coming out of him, especially when he's angry.

First of all, where in my last few entries have I been 'spiteful'? The closest thing I can think of my mention of his post alcohol-drinking toilet-puking episode during our New Year's celebration last year. I don't remember insulting him when I mentioned that. I do remember saying I enjoyed the rest of my holiday with him aside from the toilet puking incident. So I'm not exactly sure what his definition of 'spite' is. Far as I know, mentioning potentially embarassing incidents about my ex, unless obviously made in malice, isn't spite. I can give some very good examples of what spite is in terms of our previous relationship, but I'm afraid I will degenerate into ex-boyfriend-bashing, so I will just leave it to your imagination.

Secondly, I don't know where he got the idea that I haven't gotten over him simply because I still mention him in my blogs. Err...hello? I like another guy and I've written quite a bit about my crush on him.... that *should* be a pretty good hint that I am over him. Of course, initially I did feel weird liking another guy so soon after the breakup, and I did feel it was being 'disrespectful' to our previous relationship. But respecting the memories of a previous relationship is NOT the same as still hanging onto him... I realized it wasn't going to work out, broke up with him for good reason, and got over it. I don't really see much point in hanging onto someone I know I can't be with. But I'm also not the type who must completely erase all memories of my ex in order to move on. I can still talk about previous relationships without falling into whiny emo depression. And I can still still happily be friends with my first ex... we keep in occasional contact through email. So I don't understand what's with his refusal to stay friends...but if that's the way he wants it, I told him that there's no point of him still coming back to read my blog (and reading between the lines when there is nothing to be read...though of course I didn't say that to him. :P). If we agreed to be friends still, then fine, I don't mind him reading my blog. But I just find it strange and creepy that he would still read my blog when he keeps telling me he doesn't want to be friends anymore. Like if he wants me out of his life, *why* is he still reading my blog? It kind of suggests that HE is the one who is still hanging onto me.

Of course, when I told him that, I kind of expected him to take it the wrong way. And I was right! In his reply, he totally blew up at the suggestion that he's still hanging onto me... and also said something along the lines of "For the record, yesterday was the only time i went into your blog, ok" Err... yessss, I'm sure it is. I have had this blog for 3 years now, all the time without any incident. Immediately after the breakup, I suddenly get several incredibly nasty comments on my blog from some anonymous people...or person. What an amaaaazing coincidence. Also an amazing coincidence that I was not born yesterday. He also wrote in extra large, bold red letters (which kind of suggests he was pretty mad) telling me to stay out of his life. " Clear enough for you? Don't reply! Ok? I will take it as a yes." Well, I didn't reply... not because I feel threatened in any way by this spitfire of an ex, but coz' I don't really feel like wasting more time and energy trying to talk logic into an illogical person who only knows how to shout and insult me when all I did is suggest that he's still hung up on me. I mean, if you wants to call me things like "childish" and "immature", then please at least support your allegations by picking apart something I said in a logical manner to prove that I am childish or immature so I possibly skulk over the possibility of you being right. But if all you do is call me names and then rant on about how I am not worthy of your family and therefore I shouldn't even think of contacting you or your family ever again (which, btw, I have less than zero intention of doing), well, I know kids in primary school who are just as good at name-calling.

Anyway, I shall let him happily assume that he scared me into silence, or whatever it was he was hoping to accomplish by his email-yelling. Unless of course, he comes back and reads my blog again and realizes I feel nothing more than amused at his immature outburst. BUT he did mention that he didn't care what happens in my life anymore... which I assume means he won't read my blog anymore. So if he actually doesn't read my blog anymore, then I can happily write whatever I want about him here and my blog will still be free of nasty comments. If he does still come back and reads, I will probably have more interesting comments to deal with... but then it would REALLY prove my point that he's the one who is still hung up over me...not only is he volatile and illogical, but he'd be a hypocrite for insisting he's over me and yet reading my blog. How sad would that be... hmm....

I was hoping this relationship ended on better terms and not like this... but I'm guessing that I breaking up with him must have really bruised his ego and now he wants to find any little small reason to hate me... and quite possibly make me hate him so I will say something incredibly insulting about him, and then he'll REALLY have a reason to hate me. Well yes, I am quite peeved that he is behaving like this, but I still prefer to remember the good times. I took down all the pictures of us together in my room... but kept them away in an album. The way his temper is, I wouldn't put it pass him to take any pictures of me and or anything I gave him, throw it into a pile and burn it up to ashes.

But anyhow, since the new year brings renewal and refreshing, this incident, as sad as it is, also makes me glad for the possibilities of new and much better relationships to come. Hahaha, now THAT is really corny crap. :)