credit list 2006

to my complain group, without you i'll die speechless:
chris wee, sam wee, jon ng

to my working partners, to whom labour with me till late night:
chris chew, michelle proctor

to my late nights buddies, without you all my working nights wouldn't be that enjoyable:
edmund kee, robin lai, ying

to my part-time boyfriends, for your company over lunch, dinner and movies. thank you for taking care of me, fetching me around and paying all the bills. with you guys around who needs a boyfriend:
justin, daniel tan

to my family, to whom i know always stand by me and understand me. thanks for showering me with love i never give and making me feel so special all the time:
shirley bong, yong howe, elaine ho, alvin lim, ps lee choo

to my life partners, for sharing your life with me this year:
anna, fei meng, sien lee

and to you:

photo by anna

steph

you had been all the above to me this year. this year had been difficult for both of us when God took away what matters the most to both of us. the fact that i can sit where you sit because i understand how you feel makes me feel that all i went through this year is worthwhile. the thought of all that happened this year leads to your salvation cause me to be at the verge of tears. those words that you echo me touched my heart "no matter what your choice are, i will support you", "we will be here for you", "let's walk thru this journey together". i know they always said it is easier to be just friends than to live together but all the travel trips we had this year cause me to realise that i enjoy living with you.

i know i had told you this but i need to let the whole world know this. if there is a 'best friend award', i will surely give it to you. honestly if i am a man, i think i had found the one i can live with forever. thank you for this year.

---
and to all you out there, do not feel any less. i know if time and space allow us, you will love me as much since i am so lovable.

i was looking for love, not to realise it has always been around me

christmas eve

this christmas morning, i can't open my eyes like i used to every morning. my bottom and top eyelashes stuck together, it is scary. i am scared... not only that i lost my voice. then i remembered what happened the night before. so i went and took some water and wet both my eyes slowly to removed the dried liquid around my lashes. i can see again.

it is the first time in my life there are liquid that come out from my right eye. i still had not figure out whether it is because i rubbed my eyes too much, contact lense or they are just too tired. but no kidding the liquid just keep coming out the whole day. i named this sickness after weng onn "weng onn's eyes" because he had that all the time. my friend name it 'eye flu' because like running nose it is really irritating but it will heal with much rest. i still remember at some point it was so difficult to drive because for a while my whole right eye will be covered by that liquid and i can't see with my right eye. the side of my eye has a crack because i keep drying my eye yesterday... ouch. but i have to say this is really quite an experience.

the part about me losing my voice is just simple, i am already having sore throat but i top it up by spending the night at laundry. as usual being the talkative me i need to shout to make myself be heard. and to end the night off, i need to shout for the countdown that i never had for quite a while. why didn't i the last few years? oh i was at home... like i told someone christmas had never been very memorable for me.

i will tell you more about my dates (yes plural) this christmas eve, but i need to go rest now. for those of you that are faraway, i know you want to buy me a christmas present very much because i had been so nice but to make it simple for you just uphold me in prayer. for this season i better not watch any korean series... better not cry anymore if not i might have a korean series ending, the girl normally get blind haha!

living a celebrity life

Newborn, originally uploaded by annaiam. photograph by anna

i have to say life had been pretty cool having a photographer around me all the time. it is like every significant moment in my life are no longer just memories but recorded down. isn't that just sweet. anyway that is baby brandon, he is only two days old but look at the amount of hair on his head. he is the joy of one of my thursday bunch girls.

what's with me and babies this year, my goodness i am seeing a whole new generation of kids birth in front of me everday.
---

i had been having sore throat, running nose and cough since i came back from bangkok. the latter had remained and got worst. so bad till i was woken up now at such ungodly hours. it is not that bad in the day compared to the night. maybe i just need to sit up to sleep. let me go try it out now :) good night.

i cried 2 nights out of 3

Seated, originally uploaded by annaiam. photograph by anna

i am only here for 3 nights and i cried for two nights. i once told someone this, if you are hurt just cry... cause if you have not cry enough after 10 years the same wound will still haunt you. looks like i had not really cry enough.

they scolded me i need to let go. i really dunno what to say anymore. what else can i do? i am already not initiating any conversations. i am already meeting more guys than i had in years. does it really mean i need to get a bf to make you believe i know he will not come back to me.

they gave me 101 reasons why he doesn't love me anymore. these are just some of them:
1. if he does, he would have come back already. the theory is if a guy doesn't come back after 3 months, he wouldn't.
2. if he really likes me, no one will be able to talk him out of pursuing me again.
3. if he really does he would had given me a chance to change whatever he doesn't like about me.
4. if he really does he would had sit down and talk it out with me what we both can do.
5. if he really does, he wouldn't be cruel to me.

ok point taken, i know he will not come back but that doesn't mean i need to be cruel to tell him i know that.

these are things i am recommended to do:
1. lower down my expectations of a bf
a. good looking: "i don't really look for gorgeous guys, just average looking only." "no, i think all your ex bfs are pretty good looking" one of them stated. blessed are you if you were once my boyfriend haha... :)
b. someone that loves God: well someone that loves God will love me too, this is pretty hard to explain.
c. romantic/caring/thoughtful/sensitive: why 4 words because even our walking dictionary cannot find a word that fully describes it. i had always use the word romantic and probably a lot of ppl think i am just asking too much, how can a guy drop me a surprise every month. i will give one more attempt to explain this, it is just simply one that wants to take care of me and make efforts to see me smile.
i am not being picky but i had not meet one that i can love yet. is it so easy to find someone you love? if so? why should you feel special when i say 'i love you'. but yes girls, i will not do this anymore ok.
2. stop waiting, hoping or crying and get a new guy soon
i had been going out with a lot of guys. so much so i had crash dates. i brought two guys for drunk before dawn - the musical, one on my left and the other on my right (that was tough, i promise i will never do that again). i cannot fully promise you the rest but i want you to know i know he is not coming back. i am still waiting but i know he is not the one i will see.

---
still playing this song on my itunes over and over again. i know my expectations might be unrealistic to many, but i am still waiting for a day a man that will come up to me and says he will love and take care of me. that he wants to be that prince in the fairytale that i embrace.

a whole day of photo shoot in thailand

:), originally uploaded by annaiam. photograph by anna

my selected bangkok photos. i know i look good, but a good photographer makes me look even more good.

relationships

The pure relationship, how beautiful it is! How easily it is damaged, or weighed down with irrelevancies--not even irrelevancies, just life itself, the accumulations of life and of time. For the first part of every relationship is pure, whether it be with friend or lover, husband or child. It is pure, simple and unencumbered. It is like the artist's first version before he has to discipline it into form, or like the flower of love before it has ripened to the firm but heavy fruit of responsibility. Every relationship seems simple at its start. The simplicity of first love, or friendliness, the mutuality of first sympathy seems, at its initial appearance--even if merely in exciting conversation across a dinner table--to be a self-enclosed world. Two people listening to each other, two shells meeting each other, making one world between them. There is no others in the perfect unity of that instant, no other people or things or interests. It is free of ties or claims, unburdened by responsibilities, by worry about the future or debts to the past.

And then how swiftly, how inevitably the perfect unity is invaded; the relationship changes; it becomes complicated, encumbered by its contact with the world. I believe this is true in most relationships, with friends, with husband or wife, and with one's children. But it is in marriage relationship in which the changing pattern is shown up most clearly because it is the deepest one and the most arduous to maintain; and because, somehow, we mistakenly feel the failure to maintain its exact original pattern is tragedy.

It is true, of course, the original relationship is very beautiful. Its self-enclosed perfection wears the freshness of a spring morning. Forgetting about the summer to come, one often feels one would like to prolong the spring of early love, when two people stand as individuals, without past or future, facing each other. One resents any change, even though one knows that transformation is natural and part of the process of life and its evolution. Like its parallel in pysical passion, the early ecstatic stage of a relationship cannot continue always at the pitch of intensity. It moves to another phase of growth which one should not dread, but welcome as one welcomes summer after spring. But there is also a dead weight accumulation, a coating of false values, habits and burdens which blight life. It is this smothering coat that needs constantly to be stripped off, in life as well as in relationships.

Both men and women feel the change in the early relationship and hunger for nostalgically for its original pattern as life goes on and becomes more complicated. For evitably, as the relationship grows, both men and women, at least at some degree, are drawn into their more specialized and functional roles: man, into his less personal work in the world; woman, into her traditional obligations with family and household. In both fields, functional relationships tend to take the place of the early all-absorbing personal one...

But though both men and women are absorbed in their specialized roles and each misses something of the early relationship, there are great differences in their needs. While man, in his realm, has less chance for personal relations than woman, he may have more opportunity for giving himself creatively in work. Woman, on the other hand, has more chance for personal relations, but these do not give her a sense of her creative identity, the individual who has something of her own to say or to give. With each partner hungry for different reasons and each misunderstanding the other's needs, it is easy to fall apart or into late love affairs. The temptation is to blame the situation on the other person and to accept the easy solution that a new and more understanding partner will solve everything.

... But can the pure relationship of the sunrise shell be refound once it has become obscurred? Obviously some relationships cannot be recovered. It is not just a question of different needs to be understood and filled. In their changing roles the two patners may have grown in different directions or at a different rates of speed... It was an end in itself and not a foundation for a deeper relation. In a growing relationship, however, the original essence is not lost but merely buried under the impedimenta of life. The core of reality is still there and needs only to be uncovered and reaffirmed.

(if you don't like long blog, start here)
... Perhaps, as Auden says in his poem, this is a fundamental error in mankind.

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

"It is alright to wish to be loved alone," he said, "mutuality is the essence of love. There cannot be others in mutuality. It is the time-sense that it is wrong. It is when we desire continuity of being loved alone that we go wrong." For not only do we insist on believing romantically in the "one-and-only"--the one-and-only love, the one-and-only mate, the one-and-only mother, the one-and-only security--we wish that "one-and-only" to be permanent, ever present and continuous. The desire of being-loved-alone seems to me "the error bred in the bone" of man.

from the book Gift of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
---
as in any relationships, we as a person too need some time alone. that in quiet place we may find ourselves once again. may you find that secret place before the year end that you may embrace all relationships in its purest form in the year ahead.

I remember i once said to you that with all i have, i want to see the image of Christ in you. to see the beauty and the glory of God formed in you. today, i want to renew that promise to you. for it is an eternal promise.

i sleep like a baby through the night

there was a book i read about courtship very long ago. it mentioned do not plan or discuss anything too far ahead because it hurts when you don't get there and those memories linger.

1. do not plan your wedding date, eg: 7 july 2007
2. do not plan a particular place you want to have your wedding
3. do not plan the names of your kids
4. do not plan your next year trip
5. do not imagine the morning sunrise you will see together on mount k

---
every once in a while, i will have difficutly to sleep. either i am too tired and my brain cannot stop functioning or i am too free and i took too many naps in the day time. i have a technique to make myself sleep instead of toss and turn on my bed. i normally hug my smaller bolster i had since i was 8. i will try not to move, put a big bolster very close to one side of my body. why do i do that?

this reminds me why. i went to visit baby samuel yesterday. after playing with him for a long while - he talked 'in his own language', he laughed, he crawled for 1cm or more - he got tired, he wants to sleep. he will cry for a long while everytime he wants to sleep because he wants to be carried but we refused to pamper him. but then i can't bear seeing him cry so i put a pillow very close to his side, i rubbed his hand to remind him i am still around. he really stopped crying, faster than i can imagine and soon fell asleep. i guessed that pillow is like a hug to remind you someone is near.

i ask myself way?
i sleep like a baby through night
maybe it helps to know
you'll be there tomorrow

we could be in love by lea salonga and brad kane

my childhood prince charming

i used to think the both of them look really good. i think that was the time i begin to fancy shoulder length hair guys.

i used to think if i got the money, i want to go for their live concert. the passion of bon jovi throughout his whole concert and that cool deep voice of kurt cobain.

i looked at both of them... i was not sure if i miss their songs or i miss the days of my youth but i walked out with both of their cds.

kurt cobain, nirvana – come as you are


bon jovi – livin' on a prayer

you are worthy, love who you are

i just watched The Joy Luck Club again. i wanted the dvd in the first place was to remind me this lesson but i think it slipped my mind. so now is the time to refresh my memory.

she is meeting her ex husband tonight. she don't know if she is still hoping for something but her mum knows.

"why do you still want to make this pie for him? you think he will see the pie and feel sorry for you – for taking you for granted? when you give him a gift why do you have to beg him to have it. he will take you more for granted. you need to know what you are worth."

she loves him. very much. even though her act of love go unnoticed. it is ok, to her that is the selfless way. as she tried harder and harder she didn't know she is giving up more and more of herself. she became the "yes woman". she has no more opinion of her own left, all she wants is for him to be happy. but that is not what his husband wants, he cannot bear staying with her anymore.

we live in a world where divorce is a norm. how do we keep a long lasting relationship if no one will give way? if both stayed head strong it will explode, if only one party give in it will still fall apart. i guess it is really difficult isn't it? the fear that it will fall apart gripped us and makes it even more hard to sustain a relationship. why is this movie so beautiful? because all the good intentions are make known. sometimes that is all you want, that the person you love know how much you really care.

he knows she found herself again when she said this:
"it was not your fault. i was the one that let you know my love is not good enough for you. that your love is worth more than mine. i was wrong."

a diamond is actually just another stone, it doesn't has any good value but it is us women that give worth to it. when we know we are worth something, that is when ppl can begin to value us once again. remember the person who chose you, he loves who you are in the first place. so make sure you do not lose yourself in the process.

good morning

i woke up.

i read something.

i cried.

i felt that no one can put those words together better than her.






i just want you to know it was hard to let go, but i think that is the best way out. thanks for letting me find myself again.

that was really nice but don't like me

man: i know i will never be the person inside your heart. i just want to love you and be there for you. i am really happy for you if you can be with that someone you love and hopefully loves you the same too. if he hurt or fail you, remember you can always call me. you will always have a place inside my heart.

woman: i will never accept him, but that is the sweetest thing a person ever said and honestly i feel really secure because i know no matter what happen i have a special place in someone's heart. isn't that what every girl long for? but then of course we are a bit picky. we just want a place in that someone's heart.


CASE 1
cy: don't like me. i am not ready for a relationship and i do not want to be in a long distance relationship.
y: thanks for telling me dat!!! now that i talk to u so often on the msn... honestly do you think i have any motive talking to you?
cy: i would like to think no but i am sure you come online more than you used to
y: yes, i do. in all sincerity... i really do enjoy talking to u. i mean its really strange. btw i like challenge, i like hard to get girls :)

CASE 2
a: i lost a lot of weight already, give me a few more months i will have the body of your ex bf.
cy: no, pls don't try. don't work out for me, work out for yourself.

CASE 3
c: do you need him to be a christian if he (d) wants to court you?
cy: (i look at d) no, i won't be with him in the first place.
d: *laughed*

i had been going out with a lot of people and probably some girls will scold me for being stupid for saying any of the above... "why do you burn your own bridges, no harm having guys go after you" or "why ru so picky? he has got everything the look and the money." i had told them not to waste their time, i mean remember guys only talk when they are interested. i am happy to be your friends. of course if you still want to like me, i am honoured to be your choice. to be honest, it does feel good to be desired again eventhough i don't intend to jump into any now. i do enjoyed being fetched around, not paying for anything the whole night, and getting all the attention. i mean i am a girl after all :)

---
TIPS: for girls that are looking for good man.
1. y is a really nice guy. romantic both with words and action. i would say he has his ways around girls.
2. a can do anything for you, even if it means going to the gym... i am sure he will do a lot more. surely a gentleman.
3. d is a gentleman, good looking and big time in his career.

DISCLAIMER: i would like to think that none of them had any motives for treating me nice. i just want to caution them not to even start thinking since they are such nice guys.

A SECRET: "i am not ready" is such a good excuse for turning a guy down. honestly, i might suddenly be ready when i meet the right guy haha.

more than finishing the race but the journey

the year is coming to an end, people are beginning to ask me how is my year.

i used to feel that God allowed me to go through a lot of test of persistent. i was almost sure that i will pull through every time because all i need to do is beat my physical body to do it. determination is a virtue to me, call me stubborn if you want to but if that is really what i want, i rarely give it up for the sake of pain. i mean man of honour is one of my favourite movie, finishing the journey is part of the happy ending i embrace.

the greater test has not come till this year when i had to deal with people more than i ever deal with in my entire life. just when i thought i had master how to do life, which of course is never the plan God had for me; it got harder. when i realised that it is no longer about my persistent to make things right, it is no longer about my desire to see friendships work out, it is no longer about how i change to make myself more lovable. it is painful yet beautiful to know that all we can be is to begin to love who we are and except people as they are.

i really know God as a relationship God this year. in a race we hurt some, step on some feets, see some too tired to run anymore, see some sitting injured at the side of the road. i am not meant to run alone, that is an easy race to run. hopefully to see when we pass the finish line we are not a bitter, lonely person.

for some of you that were in the journey camp you will remember that beutiful moment after all of us passed the finish line. to look at the end of the road, a group of them carrying back our injured brother. when all of us clapped and cheered them on to the finish line. there were not running, it is no longer about the race anymore but slowly step by step... they walked and walked pass that line. i don't know how to say it better but like band of brothers, with tears on our eyes we can hug each other... it was a tough journey but we had finished it. smiles on our face because no offence matter anymore, we had saved each other lives, we had stayed with each other and now it is finish.

with that picture at the end in mind, love and grace i believe will help me overcome all broken relationships. without hardship there is no depth in our friendship. i will see you at the end, i promise. i will not rest till i make peace with everyone. so the end of this year is not the end at all because this is my journey, love you all.