A New Game

... wow, woW, wOW, WOW!



To be released next March/Spring ... Hope it lives up to Dissida ~ Final Fantasy ...

An Anniversary

So it's been a year since I started blogging and the experience's been both interesting and tedious. Interesting because there were times when I really wanted to record an event or a thought then I'd just drop in here and write it down. What's more, I find the idea of sharing my thoughts/ideas etc with other people - friends and strangers -from around the globe pretty novel. Tedious because I didn't/don't really have that much to say (seriously!) I guess that's because, unlike many bloggers, I am not a particularly opinionated person: I don't have an opinion in everything or in anything in particular (I think). So (very) often in the past year I'd found myself unable to find anything (interesting) to write about/discuss while still having this need to keep the blog fresh and updated.

Anyway, here we are! 2010 has flown past so quickly it feels like only yesterday I watched the last Doctor Who Christmas Special. (This year's - titled "A Christmas Carol" - is a one-parter and it's pretty cool, with that new guy Matt Smith as the Time Lord.)

So what've been the highlights of the past 12 months?

1) I've continued to practise yoga and I think I'm more in tune with my body than ever before;

2) I've bought at least 10 phones - Google Nexus, Sidekick LX Midnight Blue, LG GD580 Lollipop x 2, Nokia 7300, Nokia 7280, N86 8MP, LG KF350 Ice Cream and Nokia N97 x 2 - and still have the last three
3) iPad is the Best Buy of the Year;
4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part1);

4) I've proved myself to myself (I know, this one is weird but it's true);

5) I lost one pet dog and gained two;

6) There has been both love and disappointment.

So, all in all, not a year wasted. A theme, I think, also emerged from last year's blogging and it's about learning to let go and about letting go itself. It's hard but I shall continue to work on that in the coming year as I will be working on loosening those hips of mine!!

To all my readers: an early Happy New Year! 

 

An Exclusive, Insider's Look into the Workings of the Media

A friend (in the media) sent me this ... very funny (partly because of the dead pan voice overs and partly those WTF pauses)!!

Part One:



Part Two:

A Leap Forward

Looking to improve? Now is as good as any other time. Last week, I decided to take my yoga practice to another level by signing up for a 30-hour teacher training on Yoga Anatomy, a topic that I've been quite interested in. Knowing what lies under the skin makes it easier for me to visualise what's going on on the inside. Then, I signed up for a four-day retreat in Bali today (on my yoga teacher's recommendation). It's about peeling off the koshas (like an onion) ... hope it is nothing  too spiritual ... Anyway, I'm hoping these events will deepen my understanding of yoga at both the physical and metaphysical level. 

Kiki & Jiji

Here is one cool cat @ 1:26 and 2:44 from Kiki's Delivery Service ~ a Hayao Miyazaki animation ...

The Supernatural?

Have you ever come across something that you just canNOT explain? My mom showed me that "something" the other night. "Come, come," she enthused, pointing at the parquet floor, "take a look at this!" At first, I was just staring at, well, the wooden floor, thinking my dear old mother was finally losing her marbles. "Can you see it?" she asked. Then there it was, this very faint but definite dog paw print. Where did that come from? Stranger still, when we dried to rub it clean, we couldn't remove it. The print stayed. We checked those paws of Batman and Bolt but, dirty as they might be, our inspection gave no further clue as to where that paw print came from, it didn't belong to either Batman or Bolt. Later, my mom discovered there were MORE paw prints (same size) leading from the balcony all the way to our first discovery, which is very close to the "bedroom" (a large open cage) where Ding Ding and Dong Dong (both in doggie heaven) used to sleep in. 

Could it be possible that these prints are theirs? Actually, we are not spooked out at all ... because we still miss the pair very much.

Maybe it is me who is losing the marbles because, quite recently, I also noted things were flying off my bookshelf in my bedroom (seriously!) At first I just thought I'd been careless in placing items on the shelf so they, well, fell off ~ in the middle of the night. But when that happened again and again (CDs last time) ... I just said out loud: Stop throwing things around ... because it's really annoying! One night, I told my mom about this and she simply said: "Yeah, last night the TV turned itself on ..." Now, I never knew Ding Ding and Dong Dong liked watching telly ...  

Hip Hip ... Hooray!

Just returned from a "yin" yoga session (for definition, see earlier post, do a "frisk" search below). It's strange. These sessions are really quite painful -- lots of long/deep hip/shoulder/hamstring opening/ stretching poses -- but I keep going back to them again and again. Perhaps I'm addicted to the sensation that comes After the pain. It's hard to explain what that actually feels like but, take my word for it, it feels GOOD. Tonight there were also many twisting poses, which helped exercise/massage the intestines. I'll spare you the details but just say it was a rather liberating experience.

Talk about being liberated. Earlier today, I squeezed in a quick one-hour class during the lunch hour and it was then I realised yoga has really made me a much calmer person. Fifteen minutes before the class was due to start I was still stuck in the underground. I started to feel very agitated and began cursing under my breath. Then I thought: if running late is going to make me lose my yogic calm, I'd rather miss the class. So I thought, if by the time I get overground and there are no taxis, then I'd just let go. I immediately felt a lot more calm, and when I got to the taxi stand, there was no queue. I hopped onto a cab and ~ vroom-vroom ~ I was at the studio just in time for the class.

SCREAM!!! I am SO late !!!

Funnily enough, we were then asked to write down on a piece of paper things that get the fire within us burning ... well things that make us angry and I put down: running late, wasting time, running late, running late ... at the end of the class we were supposed to set the piece of paper on fire and throw it out of the window ~ which, I thought, wasn't such a great idea especially there were construction workers standing directly below the windows and they looked like triads.

     

WikiWhat?

Now, here is an interesting one. When The Guardian first started reporting on these "WikiLeaks", I thought it had something to do with the Wikipeadia (Doh, my ignorance really knows no bounds) ... but when these "leaks" continued to dominate (and stayed in) the news for more than a week, I started to take note. 

Apparently a huge amount of what are supposed to be confidential "cables" (diplomatic exchanges) from the US Embassy (worldwide) had been leaked to this site called WikiLeaks who, in turn, leaked the leaks to various newspapers (inc. The Guardian and The New York Times) -- yeah we are talking about Leaking of a Titanic proportion here ...

Some of which make interesting, even gossipy, reading (The British Royal Family, anyone?) but most are US observations on other countries that had thus far caused huge embarrassment to not only the US Government but the nations cited in these cables. So they include (according to the BBC): US concerns over China's shipment of ballistic missile components from North Korea to Iran (2007); discussions between various countries on whether they would take prisoners released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility; Beijing's growing frustration with North Korea's behaviour (!); references to Russia as a "virtual mafia state" and - you have to laugh at this one - in 2008, the Moscow embassy described Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as playing Robin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's Batman.

Well, no one exactly knows what sort of damages these leaked cables are causing - a few red faces perhaps - but I hope no one will die as the result (I think this is also a concern among the international community) ... and there is still the debate going on whether these exchanges should be leaked at all. Oh well, they are. But analysts/academics are already saying there really is nothing surprising about these revelations ... they only look "more real" in black and white when printed in the newspapers. 

I'm not sure whether technology comes into all these but I am sure it does, somehow ... now, think of all those email or IM exchanges you have with your work colleagues (bitching) about other colleagues and the bosses ... what if the IT Dept actually keeps them all (chances are they probably do!) Once a colleague IMed another colleague about me ("that self righteous prig" she said) and, yes, she sent it TO me. I thought that was quite funny - I'd done exactly the same thing before - and it's interesting to know what people really think about me ... but a self righteous prig?!?!

Positivity

At the end of one recent yoga class, I was telling my instructor that I couldn't do this pose and that pose, blah blah then he said (calmly): But think of all the poses that you can now do that you couldn't a year ago. He was right. The other day, as I stepped my foot forward between my hands from down dog, I thought: Oh, I couldn't do that when I first started practising. I used o have to use my hand to lift my foot forward before placing it near the top of the mat. In fact, I can now complete a "power" class without feeling completely exhausted; I can keep my spine (especially my lower back) relatively straight when sitting down with my legs crossed or in dandasana (legs straight); I can do quite a deep forward fold/bend; I can do headstand ... the list goes on.

Eww, the beer colour...

We often focus too much on the can'ts

we foget about the cans,

we are obsessed with the haven'ts than the haves ...

time to take a look at that half full/empty glass of beer
again and, err, well, just drink and enjoy it!!

PS I had an awesome class with the Perfect Human Specimen today; we had to go upside down and worked our Core from that position ... it was tiring but most satisfying !!!