Toy Camera effect

Gonna fully utilise my weekend. Learnt this new toycamera effect on photoshop which I thought really gave the pic a different feel. Never knew how to use adjustment layers till I read this tutorial. Cool. but I'll have to practise more if not I'll forget for sure since the steps are really complicated for my tiny brain.

Not all pics are suitable to apply this though so cannot abuse this technique! heh. Gonna jog... eat... then do my thesis. That's how I'm gonna spend my next few weekends.

~ before~

~after~

Singapore Flower Festival 2010

Met up with Bec and gang for bec's really overdue and belated birthday gathering. Sean has grown again from the last time I saw him. He was starting to toddle in May when I saw him on my bday, unstable and unsure of the steps he was taking. 2 months later and he's really running most of the time. Bec's definitely gonna lose more weight just chasing after him! haha. This is the rate kids grow..amazing.

Popped by the Singapore Flower Festival too. Love looking at flowers and taking pics of them but ironically, I don't like receiving them. haha. Anyways, click click and away.

~ this flower is just too pretty!! omg. ~

~ a candid group pic... chean and SK were busy fluttering among the flowers so nowhere to be seen ~

~ interesting~

~ some editing I did to remove the noise coz really liked the composition of these flowers ~

Urgh. Fun time over. Gotta start writing my final graduating paper which is due like SOON. Altruism and Group Size. How boring.

Feeling Productive

A relatively productive week.

As I was out the whole of the previous week hosting my 郭教授 from beijing for a transport conference, this week was catching up week. I cleared 200 mails in time to prevent a virtual explosion, replied to pending mails, and to complete the week, suffered several internal injuries from news of another restructure (why always me?!!!!).

Victim of power struggles. They make it sound so harmless and great for my personal development, neglecting how it causes dips in morale among staff.

Whatever it is, I wasn't recruited for the many portfolios I've held now and previously. It's a joke isn't it. I held onto the work scope which I initially applied for, all of 3 months when I first joined. That's it. I lost count of the restructures after that.

I wonder what's my career path from here. I'm doing something I really don't like now. Not the first time, but would definitely be my last. I'll see when my threshold of disinterestedness is met.

On a healthier note, I managed to work out 4 times this week, after a whole week of liaison duties which zapped me out of energy. Feeling really good. Exercising really makes one happy!

Hope I can upkeep to this routine. I must beat ES! He lost like 9KG~ !!

Oh...celebrated my mama san's 55th birthday too! She was so happy that she is finally eligible to withdraw part of her CPF savings. We had dinner at master crab @ punggol, her fave zhi char place.

~ salted egg crab~

~ my kiam pa bro~

~ chilli crab.. not spicy one though. the best is still my mum's chilli crabs~

ES can cook, so can You!

ES imposed a special personal project on himself - to cook a meal all on his own! We checked out some recipes from the Asian Food Channel website and he decided to try these!

I'm only in charge of photography and being his assistant, passing him pots, pans etc. The cleaning up was always the most dreaded part of the whole cooking process, which ES did on his own while I was busy preparing my lemon cheesecake for dessert. No pics of cheesecake coz it took too long to set...and when it set in the morning, we gobbled the bulk of it for breakfast.

~ The stuffed mushrooms were yummy. I liked the filling which was made with garlic, sour cream, cream cheese, pepper, salt and some herbs, topped with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. Bake for about 15-20min @ 240deg. Makes a great appetiser and simple to prepare for gatherings!~

~ hard at work peeling garlic... eeks. I hate chopping up garlic..~

~ our main course was just as tasty just that it wasn't salty enough. This was improvised from clams and pancetta coz we didn't like both ingredients. I love the chicken ham, garlic and olive oil. It is just simple aglio olio recipe which I've cooked countless times..but with prawns. Chile actually = dried chilli. We figured that this is an angmoh recipe so they used dried chilli to minimise spice. I say...go for chilli padi..!~

Overall, 8/10. Good job baby! additional 2 marks for cleaning up = 10 marks! woohoo.