A new year, a new board (game)

A new year is a physical reminder that the old is past and the new is here. It is a chance to metaphorically speaking, write afresh on a new piece of paper. It is also not unlike a game board that has no designs - we write it ourselves. So how we write it depends on our wisdom, experience and how situations are presented to us. I hope 2010 is a year of greater listening to God.

To all my friends - Have a great year ahead and i hope to your board is filled with wisdom, joy and peace!

Farewell 2009; Welcome 2010

Good morning, yesterday
You wake up and time has slipped away
And suddenly it's hard to find
The memories you left behind
Remember, do you remember

The laughter and the tears
The shadows of misty yesteryears
The good times and the bad you've seen
And all the others in between
Remember, do you remember
The times of your life (do you remember)....


I play Paul Anka's song in the recesses of my ever-present consciousness as i look back at 2009. I thank God that 2009 was a year of possibilities and lessons learnt. I also learnt that i can construe an opportunity as a possibility but only with the Inner Peace will the opportunity be touched and sanctioned by God - Otherwise it is just a human possiblity. In other words, with a positive paradigm one can see any event as an opportunity but with the Inner Peace from God, one can sense and sieve out an opportunity from a God-provided one - one that brings all glory back to God.

A walkthrough in 2009

Air-Dry Clay Workshops









My 1st flour schnauzer



Nice people whom i got to know




Projects done

Christmas is drawing near!

Some gifts which you might want to consider for your loved ones! What's more, you can customise whatever you want to create. Quality, hand-made clay figurines in equally presentable display cases. Even better, sign up a loved one or a friend to learn the skill! Enquiries most welcome.

It's a dangerous thing - Passion

If you meet someone with passion (now i'm not talking about people oozing hormones), will you be able to identify it? Passion is an urge or desire that consistently calls us to action, often radical action. The person's infectious enthusiasm, doing things which do not cut corners and going that extra mile that ordinary folks would dismiss as - 'foolish' and 'doing extra work' and 'wasting time' or even more damaging like 'spoiling the market' - as in 'don't spoil the market' and other phrases that speak of nothing but mediocrity. In other words, Passion fosters commitment and determination.

Let's dwell on the passion which Tom Hanks displays in his acting. Tom Hanks was voted the 26th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. He received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, presented by fellow Oscar winner Steven Spielberg, the youngest ever to receive that award (12 June 2002).


-Hanks gained 30 pounds for his role in A League of Their Own (1992)by eating ice-cream

-In the same passionate pursuit, he lost 30 lbs. for his role in Philadelphia (1993), in which he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination.

In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar."


It is not just the weight loss or gain that makes him great but the attention which he puts into the acting that makes him a true actor.

Tom Hanks quips: "I love what I do for a living, it's the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don't truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I'm always trying to balance that with what is really important."

Passion will be rewarded, despite the green-eyed monsters preying on the flesh, criticising the every move and lambasting every effort of any passionate individual to buck the trend and do something new and radical.

Tom Hanks once shared a record (with Tom Cruise and Will Smith) as the actor to star in the most consecutive $100 million-grossing movies.

I respect this passion and i emulate the passion for my own life.

Coffee Culture !!!

Coffee and wine were two things which i did more research as i like drinking these two beverages. However, in order to remain sober and sane, over the years, i have chosen the way of the coffee. Drinking wine is still an enjoyable and leisurely thing to do but i don't do this everyday. Coffee - oh, that's a different thing altogether. I must have at least two to three shots everyday. And my knowledge has improved. There's a very informative chart which will help any enthusiast. Now that i have a fully automatic coffee-maker i am still keeping my 15-bar steamer / expresso maker. Thinking about the crema is just pure exhilaration!







graphic taken from http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/2007/08/20/an-illustrated-coffee-guide/

Cycling through park connectors

I definitely believe in putting my best foot in my working life. It gives me satisfaction at the end of each working day. People who have worked for years, especially those who have done both - in the public and private sectors - will testify that it is not just the money, period.

It is the passion for the things one believe in and part of it includes doing the task well, even though the sentiments about doing that particular task is sometimes like, pardon the expression - "doing the damn thing." People who share my sentiments will still say - "do the damn thing WELL!"

After work, there is of course the things that one indulge in to balance the life. Recently, i began to explore the park connectors.(Thus little time to reply to some of my clients and fans... sorry) My verdict? You need to be quite fit to carry your bicycle over the overhead pedestrain bridges to access the park connectors (PCN). Like the one from Bishan to Kallang Riverside Park. According to the measurement done by NParks, the distance is 7.6 km. To enjoy this ride, you will have to take 3 overhead bridges - the longest one being the one at St Andrews Village leading to the Whampoa side.

Of course if your are fit enough and game enough, you might like to get a bicycle that is made of aluminium (light) so that you can lug it across these bridges. I have a foldable aluminium one which looks like the one featured here. It allows me to bring it into the MRT as well. NParks has so nicely put this entire journey from Bishan to Kallang Riverside Park onto Youtube. Watch it here in its full 3mins+ glory plus nerve-soothing, muscle-relaxing music. Nice! Total distance for the round trip? 15.2 km. Can surely burn a few hundred calories off! Enjoy!

Animation (using Nikon D60 animation software)

This is my second stop animation project! Quite easy to do on the Nikon camera!