Damnant quod non intelligunt -- They condemn what they do not understand.

I was talking to this artist the other day that supply tattoo wear and such and he told me that his experience in Singapore was not that great because someone look down on him and did not allow him to go into the restaurant because maybe he had full sleeve tattoos. I was not there but it made me feel a bit sad about how people generally judge people just based on their physical appearance.

I think everyone has a right to live their life the way they want and judging a person on their external appearance is plain shallow. First impression and appearance does count a little but I think there are people who are narrow-minded out there. Placing labels on someone's appearance or race or anything else alone sucks and stereotypes are disgusting, the common ones are like if "I'm German, so I must be a Nazi! I'm Muslin, so I must be a terrorist! I'm Arab, so I must be also be a terrorist! I'm a lesbian, so I must has a sex-tape. I have a tattoo, so I must be a bad a**" ......etc

I think as long as you do not harm someone and it is out of freewill, do what thou wilt. Take some time to look beyond the surface, too. Labels are meant for can soup.

I think most people do not take their tattoo or piercing lightly. There are symbolic reasons behind (besides finding it aesthetically pleasing.) And the latter is the point I am going to drive at. Every image carved into the blank canvas of a person's skin stands for or symbolizes something. Individuality is a wonderful and beautiful thing.

However, what looks good to me may not look good to the next but respect the individual's right to display art in any fashion.

Some practices have been frowned upon but I believe it is in a case of damnant quod non intelligunt. (A Latin phrase for they condemn what they do not understand.)

Tattoos and piercing can represent so many things, they can represent milestones-consciously or sub consciously and represent where people are at a certain time in their lives. They can become tributes, or memories.

Go ask them about the meanings behind their artwork that they so proudly display. You would be surprised at what you can learn about that person, if you are willing to take the time.

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On a personal note, I should be reading pages of my textbook and trying to absorb things into my head. So I will perhaps post another time.

Labels: Random thoughts, Tattoo

I was inspired by 17th Magazine's room revamp and I did a bit of room revamp, too. I thought of putting this up and share because I think you do not really need to be rich to have a nice room. Sometimes some thoughts and little ideas makes a difference.

I did this some time back and I am pretty happy with the result, look:

1. The TV


Before: This is my old TV from my sister wish she does not want it anymore.
I hardly watch any TV though but I think it would be a waste if you do not want it or something.


After: I glam it up with little items here and there and make it nicer now.
I am pretty happy with the result and the little angels are there sitting on top of it.


Here is the old TV right sitting in a corner, looking perhaps a bit sorry.
However, I was at the two dollar shop from Dascio the other day and found this:


This cost be only 2 dollars and I have an idea to glam it up on my TV.
It is pretty easy to apply and I cut it and stick to the surface.
I even have some of those left too and I can apply it on other stuff.


Adding my little angels I have got some time back from a shop.


View from the top looks pretty.

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2. The Tour Eiffel!

Guess what......


It works as an accessory stand too and I can put my rings on top.


These are little things I have collected and I like.


Ok, now the tour eiffel how does it works?
It is actually wooden blocks that I made from.
I got this kit from a random shop for only 4 dollars because there is a sale.


It is complete with a "how-to-do-it" and so it is not very hard to do it.


So I just have to put them together and all.
I also glue them to make sure they are secure.


Now it is the spraying part.
I had chosen the black paint to do it.


I bought the cute little cat from Dasio too!
The tour effiel is something I made on my own and am proud of. ;p

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However, these are material things and I think we should count ourselves lucky instead of complaining at times that we do not have the lastest items or something.

I was watching the news the other day and I was sadden by the Myanmar and China Sichuan earthquake and the kids there. Here is some updates from World Vision, do visit the link and see how we can help. I think since we are more privilege than most, so I guess in our own ways, try to make ourselves useful:

[The world vision]

Labels: Photo blog, Raid My Life

For the past few days, the insomniac in me has reared its ugly head perhaps worrying about things and all. However, I am glad and thankful that things are better now and grandpa is recovering, too.

I had my pillowy comfort hugging this yellow bunny and even dreamt of Borat! Gosh, it is kind of weird and funny to think about it but I know things are going to be alright somehow in my heart.

Labels: Photo blog, Random

Today, I was struck by this sense of fragility and helplessness as I was reading the news about the earthquakes in China and thoughts about a friend of my dad that had gone to a better place. At the same time, I also know that most of us probably feel the same way at various points in time in their lives about how fragile things are and this feeling of searching for more in life.

On a personal note, today my mum snapped at me this evening even when I offered her a massage on her back because she complained to me that she was tired and such after a long day. I think she is not really herself today and it has been an emotionally draining or something for the past few days for her since both my grandparents are not feeling too well.

Grandpa is in the hospital right now and according to mum, he is "seeing old friends of his in the past" ( that had passed away ). I have yet to visit him and I know it sounds unfilial but I do not feel going there because the idea of seeing my grandpa tied up in bed and unwell saddens me. ( The nurses tied him up because he wanted to go back home so badly that he tried to escape or something ) However, I will probably visit him tomorrow since there is not much classes for me and I can spend more time with him. Grandma on the other hand is not feeling well at home and this is worrying and so after visiting my grandpa, mum goes to see how grandma is doing at home.

I think it is not easy to see your own parents feeling unwell, suffering in some sickness yet feeling helpless and so a few days back my sister and I offered to bring mum out to town since it was Mother's day. My sister paid for dinner while I got her a bag from the brand that she really liked which burned a little in my wallet. [ Our initial plan was to get her in Far East Plaza get her some really nice food and perhaps a bit of wine and then bring her for piercing on her upper ear at my tattoo artist's shop. ( She has six piercings already and thinks it is nice to have one more at the upper ear but claimed that she is a bit too old for it ) However, she went out with my aunt in the morning so came the backup plan instead.]

Anyway, I do not know but I think I want to spend more time with my family and friends rather than just work, work, work and study and achieve this or that -- knowing how fragile things are at times.

I think most of us are living in the world that encourages us to have more, to achieve more, to have As in the exams results, 5Cs ( cash, car, credit cards or whatever ) when you go to work and so on -- yet most of the things we treasure after all are things that are unseen such as love or time we spend with people we treasure.

The humble community service projects I have made and I have yet to make, for both the benefit of others and myself are little things that keep me away from feeling this sense of frailness and helplessness perhaps ( besides wanting to lead a worthwhile life like some physical validation. )

I hope slowly I can overcome my own ego more and more and reach out to someone else more. I do not know but I hope I can do it better.

Labels: Raid My Life, Random thoughts

Every time I looked at my journal makes me want to drown myself a thousand time or suffocate myself these days.

I feel like deleting it altogether but I have yet the heart to do so or something. So I will most probably changing the template, deleting some old entries, perhaps making some entries private or public or something.

Heck, why do I have a habit of writing things down or penning it down and then destroy them? I used to have stretch books with drawings and random writings but I always end up not completing them or destroying them in the end. Artistic temperament? Perfectionist? Self hatred issues? Or most probably I am thinking too much and am just bored with it since I have low attention span or something or all of the above and so changes soon.

Labels: Rambling

In the year 2007, the artist Guillermo Vargas Habacuc took a dog from the streets, tied him to a rope in an art gallery, and starved him to death, titling his exhibit "Eres Lo Que Lees" ("You Are What You Read"). For several days, the artist and the visitors of the exhibition watched, until eventually the poor creature died. Photographs appeared on the Internet showing a emaciated dog, tied to a wall by a length of rope in a room full of standing people, with the title of the exhibit written on the wall in dog food.

After this was spread by blogs and e-mails, the gallery alleges the dog was not tied up, and was fed with food brought in by Vargas himself. However, upon conducting a probe, the Humane Society was informed that the dog was in a state of starvation when it was captured and escaped after one day of captivity; the Humane Society also acknowledged, in reference to reports that the dog had been starved to death.

Apparently, he wanted to "prove a point" to the people, and the dog "was sick and would have died on the streets anyway". Some people just like playing God. Perhaps the dog would not have died, and who the hell was he to decide the method of its death? And why did the audience not do anything? Cowards watching from the sidelines?

And you know what, that is not all ...

The prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the installation was fun, so Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his fun action for the biennial of 2008."

Click on the following link:

http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition-sign.html

Or if you have facebook there is group here for updates:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10071854626

or just copy it into your browser to sign a petion to stop him from doing it again.

Please do this! It's free of charge and takes only a couple of seconds.

If you want to double-check all the above information you can google the name of the 'artist' to check the facts out for yourself.

Thanks everyone.

Labels: For when we stop standing for what we believe we die slowly in the inside, Petition

My semester has started a few days back but very soon I would be graduating in a semester's time.

To be honest, I am excited and a little bit nervous but generally I think it is a good feeling and a good thing. I like changes wherethere it is big or small from room revamping and bigger changes in life generally. I think I can almost see myself waking up early in the morning sleepy-headed or something at times, heading to work and all. Then perhaps a few years later I would save up for futher studies more and think of school life. I do not know how things are going but I think I am excited and I would be working on my resume soon and hunting for job.

I am afraid and I am excited at the same time but I think I should look at it that I am having my one last shot of youth in the school system ( with occasionally induced hazy happiness hanging out with friends during events before putting on a suit and getting fat and raking in the money at some office's air-conditioned cubicle. )

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Anyway, here are some photos we took during Ana's 21st birthday:

Roxy and Mel.


Me and Su. ( Not sure what we were both doing though. )
I look funny and ugly here and you can go hahahaha and laugh at me.


Becky's ( Ana's sister has the same name as me ) friends.


Mel's cool-lala hair.
She used to shave part of it nicely done too.

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Plus I found something interesting answers from the tutorials which I find it pretty entertaining: Those cannot be mine since I am a business student so it probably belongs to some engineering school or the life science years ones I think.

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Labels: Photo blog

I was reading the news the other day and found something very disturbing:

It is basically about this guy that held his daughter prisoner and sexually abused her for 24 years and siring seven children with her. The children and his very own daughter were kept in a windowless basement dungeon. It is said that the guy Josef Fritzl begun abusing his own daughter Elisabeth when she was only eleven years old. Due to their lack of exposure to sunlight, they are now pale and cannot endure natural light. The oldest child is currently hospitalized and has lost most of her teeth. Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, had apparently been unaware of what had been happening to Elisabeth. It is believed she assumed, due to the letters in her handwriting, that her daughter had run away from home to join a religious cult or something. My question is for 24 years and she did not know?

"Josef F., 73, "admitted that he locked his daughter, who was 18 at the time, in the cellar, that he repeatedly had sex with her, and that he is the father of her seven children," Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, told the Associated Press. "He also admitted that he had burned one of the children in the building's furnace." The infant apparently died several days after birth because it had not been given proper care."

"The Austrian news agency APA has reported that neither the mother nor her children had been provided with any medical care during their years of imprisonment. The suspect is believed only to have provided his victims with clothing and food."

- http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,550177,00.html

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A cold chill went down me as I was reading and I was speechless.

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It does not help with the fact that I was reading The Screwtape Letters by L.S. Lewis, which is a novel about good and evil. I stopped reading it though because I kept thinking about issues and humans in general. I usually read books till the end but this one I decided to put it down or to read another time or just forget about it.

The author suggests that evil is inherent in all of us, it is only the formal "rules" of society that keep the evil at bay. I do not know about that though but I believe all of us can choose to be good or the darker path. I like to believe that people are inherently good, even though I know it is naive of me.

When looking at the biology behind it, it is true that animals tend to do what is in their individual best interest most of the time. However, there are also naturally occurring characteristics that cannot be argued for example say some animals mourn when their mates die -- especially animals that choose one mate for life and there are maternal and paternal instincts that are apparent.

On the other hand, there are also male animals that eat their offspring, or drive them away from the herd/family group to avoid competition. There are also animals that kill their mate after copulation (i.e. praying mantis, black widow).

Complex emotions play a key role I guess such as guilt, love, and hate influence our actions greatly. However, what would our society be like if people were constantly logical? Looking out for one's self interest would be the first instinct of every being. So would all actions be premeditated to the point that actions that could be interpreted as unselfish and "good" were really just a result of cold calculations with the end goal being one's own needs? If that were the case, would it matter why people acted seemingly unselfishly if their actions were considered "good" in that moment?

I like to think that the average person does not have it in them to take a life or hurt someone unprovoked. True, there are people like that out there, but I believe your everyday common person does not act "good" just because of the restrictions our society puts on them. I like to think that people act kindly because it feels good, and that in itself is a reward.

I do not know.

Labels: Pondering, Random thoughts

Adverts because I need more shoes and thus the selling:

Advert for OGGI Singapore

Have you notice there is this OGGI adverts by the advertlets recently yeah? Ok, recently I am kind of curious what OGGI is and decided to click on the advertlets banner to find out more if it is that good as it seems.

And I found out about the offers there:

There are movies at reduced prices from Golden Village!
Exclusively for HSBC credit cardholders 1-for-1 Pan Pizza!
There is this One. Two. Free.brought to you by Marks & Spencer when you Buy 2 business shirts and get the 3rd FREE offer going on!

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But how come I did not know about all these?
Now there is a smarter way to shop:

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Introducing OGGI Singapore!

Have you ever feel the feeling of information overload in some shopping malls and what to buy and not sure where to get the best bargin in town?

Or have you realised there is a real good sales or rebates offers but only realised it when the sales or the promotion period is over?

It is a fact that all of us are overwhelmed by the mind-boggling number of promotions out there. They appear on the TV, radio, papers, magazines, buses/taxis, billboards. They come on your mobile phones, e-mail and web pages. Who can absorb and remember all of them? And when you need them, where do you look for?

Even when you're mobile, you can search our database of cool promotions by sending your search keyword(s) to 8222 9898. It's very simple! Plus it is free too and OGGI Singapore does not sell you a thing and you may just end up saving money there!

OGGI Singapore is basically a website where we consumers and the retailers and check out the lastest offer. It is also categorized nicely for all of us to take a look.

Wow.

Here is a example from http://oggi.sg/singapore itself:

The editors in OGGI Singapore also has the lastest offer too:





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If You're a Consumer... Register

You'll even end up saving money.

Even when you're mobile, you can search our database of cool promotions by sending your search keyword(s) to 8222 9898. It's very simple. ;)

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You can utilize Oggi.sg as one of many media to reach out to your consumers. Unlike traditional media like TV, radio, prints, buses/taxis and the like, where you would just blindly flood them with ads, the web allows consumers to proactively select what they would like to see - increasing the effectiveness of the ad itself.

With Oggi.sg, you can truly measure the effectiveness of your ad. If no one looks at your ad you won't pay a single cent! You can also check out traffic to your ad in real-time, make necessary adjustments and see if things are working as planned. No re-production or re-printing costs.

Oggi.sg reaches out and interacts with consumers on-line and via SMS, so they can reach oggi.sg whether they're fixed or mobile.

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So do take a look at http://oggi.sg/ heh!

Labels: Adverlets, Adverts because I need more shoes

A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages.*
-- Tenessee Williams

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My body holds my soul captive.
My mind holds my body captive.
Society holds my mind captive.

I was reading some stuff I used to write but it was mostly mundane, juvenile stuff perhaps and thinking about which direction in life I should go and so on and I think I cannot help it but I feel trapped yet not sure trapped of what at times. Or perhaps some sleep should keep the hyper active mind away or something. I was reading some of Tenessee's plays and think I like the way how he described certain things in life I guess. And finally I have something I like it very much inked.

Here you go:



I did this at a shop in Far East Plaza by Elson Yeo in thINK tattoo.
The store is at 14 Scotts Road Far East Plaza #02-65 Singapore 228213.
I like my tattoo heh.

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*The last thing "being wild" means is seeking drug-thrills or being promiscuous. Wild is not about silly gang slipping into the school at night. Wild is about real adventure, either in the world, or in the mind and know who you are, by forgiving who you are not. And yeah, I got the phrase Tenessee Williams wrote inked.

Labels: Prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages, Tattoo