Yeow Shun's wedding~

It was so much fun at my "爷爷" Yeow Shun's wedding~ Honestly, I haven't laughed that much for a very long time. I laughed until my cheek hurt. And there were soooo many funny stuffs during our badminton session (with ah Yap, ah Qiang, Patrick, CK and me) yesterday noon. I was actually very happy these 2 days.

Anyway, so, tis the day we celebrate another friend's greatest day, the wedding day.

I went shopping with ST in the afternoon, we got what we've wanted, very happy. We're one of the very first who arrived at the dinner. We saw "小胖" already there. Oops, no lah, it's "晓芳". Not that she's fat.. It's my "aging" hearing ability misheard Yeow Shun(YS) said "小胖".

We were too early and there's nothing to do. So we played with photoshoots. hehe...

By the way, all photos in my camera can be seen here : My album

ST and Yap, the loving couple.
ST and me
Me, pretending to be a wine connoisseur~ I love this pic~ cos it didn't show my recently-regained-double chin!!!

Now ah Yap's turn. It was so funny, we all can't stop laughing. People might be looking at us... as if we never drink red wine?... hahahahaha....

Then KR came. We continued the "acting". (Because the photo in my camera, KR doesn't like how she look, the photo in her camera, I don't like how I looked, so... I resort to this. kekekekekekeke)

Long time no see, Yoke Teng and Yong Kang. There were many SAB friends that night. Time flies... over 10 years never see each other... man...

The "Four Beauty"..... ST, me, KR & MS.

Yap and ST. Very nice photo.

Now it's "The 6 Beauty". KR, YT, ST, YK, MS and me.
YK and ST.
The "minis"... Siew Lee and me.

SL and ST.
Now, before you said "photographer so lousy, couldn't even take a photo with ppl in the center", I did it on purpose. With the bridegroom and bride's name shown behind as a background. Always take photos with people in the middle is bbboring.

YK, me, YT and gigi. For your info, Gigi isn't that short, and I ain't that tall. He "adjusted" his height to suit me. kekeke...

The "hardly seen" CE (my Shixiong) and KR.

My camera is not meant to be used by the "ordinary people". Just kidding... People might just say, my camera is lousy therefore no anti-shake. But nolah, using slow shutter speed mode, no matter what brand of camera, anti-shake or no anti-shake, you must have steady hands in order to produce a nice photo. 3 photos were taken. But all of them blurred.. So no choice. From left (standing), the groom YS, Patrick, Gigi, me, CK, (sitting) ah Qiang, Ki Shun(? forgot how to spell), CE, KR, Patrick's wife Xin Hui and Qiang's wife and our long time friend Xiao Mei.
This photo is from KR, better.


Every time I see Shi Xiong, must take a photo.

A photo of Gigi singing, with the bride and groom in the foreground.

SL's turn, as the star for that moment. I sang too. I hesitated for a long time, to sing? or not to sing? I wonder if it's by my own courage or the influence of alcohol and made me go "Ah what the heck, sing sing lah". hehe Don't have my photo in my camera.

Finally got a nice photo of the couple. They marched in too fast.. didn't get to catch a nice photo until this one. The bride was just so pretty. And the groom is handsome too of course~

Now here goes the fun.

Gigi... red wine really isn't supposed to be drink like this man, a waste of the wine. hahahaha.. Next time we should use beer lah.. If people see us drinking wine like beer, bottoms up bottoms up, they'd shake head.........


The couple sang a song~ They're good~

The man on the right, Kai Long, he doesn't know Dickson (center)!!!!!!!!!! And yet he hugged him like an old time friend and drink and drink and drink..!!!!!! I gestured Dickson over, "你们很熟啊?" knowing fully well of the answer. Dickson said, "Ehm, 我不认识他!" hahahahaha...

I love seeing Dickson get high and drunk because he'll "harass" (in a good, clean, fun way) people and talk and talk and talk. He gets excited. And it's soooooo funyyyyyy....

Check out Gigi's expression!!!! He got excited too, rrreally excited.

MS was "down" under the influence of alcohol. She didn't want her husband Dickson getting drunk so she drank his share. And Dickson, because he drank liquor first (which he really shouldn't, now he knows) then wine, so he's "down" too. People in this photo all "down" and puke. Did Kai Long puke? I think didn't. Must ask SL who sent him home.

I drank my fair share of wine, because I am Gigi's "fixed target". hahahahahaha.... I felt my heartbeat went up, so I gulped down a whole glass of water. Then I was ok. whewww... once my heartbeat goes up, I know I am on my way to "cannot walk straight" condition.

I felt so bad for when MS was down, she still have the time to worry about me putting her photos in my blog... she asked KR how... if I really do that... I felt so bad.. Like my blog has given people big pressure... haha... sorry, MS, I won't lah. I dare not even take photos of you people drunk and the scene at that time.. I was afraid that I'd be condemned by our friends. ahhahahaha... So I didn't take photos of the scene.

Look at Gigi's expression.... I almost couldn't hold my camera still because of laughing~!

I must mention, Dickson asked for CK and Yap's phone no. when he's drunk (btw, I reallly thought he's ok and that's he just high instead of drunk~! haha... ). The truth is he intended to thank them for helping out him and MS. He was drunk and yet he still remember to do something as nice as this. Good man~! But the funny part is, he kept pressing the wrong button, CK and Yap wanted to help, and got scolded(sort of)~ ah... hahahaha.. soooo funny..... Oh, and Dickson called these 2 numbers the next day and asked, "May I know who are you?".... hahahaha..... I forgot to ask Dickson he saved these numbers using what name....

MS, you tell everything when you're "under the influence of alcohol".. did you know? Must take care ah. You said a lot of "sorry" but it's oklah. Don't worry, small matter ;)

At that time, MS talked in English, mainly because she talks more in English in her daily work life in SG, I supposed. Then, Gigi wanted to coax MS not to worry, no need to say sorry, Gigi too started talking in English. Then Kai Long also started talking in English~! Suddenly everybody started talking in ENglish... it was soooooooooo darn funny.....

I'm sorry I have to tell this in my blog, but this is the best one~! hehehe... I was told Dickson, when kind of drunk, asked YS's mother who was standing beside, "Auntie, you want to drink or not?". AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH............................. too bad I wasn't there to witness this....... man........... Dickson, Dickson, you're the best~! If I were there, I'd sure pull you aside. Though what's done cannot be undone...

It was such a fun, great and memorable night. I thank you all for that great night~! When will we have such a fun night again, guys??

Couple? So what?

Many times in the train, when there're empty seats on my left and right, and a couple or family came in, I'd move to another seat so that the couple or family can sit together. Most of the time people do say thank you, sometimes they don't.

One day, it happened again. A couple came in. I was in a foul mood. And I was watching documentary using my bro's gadget.. dunno what's the name, I only know how to use it, I don't care about the name. "Maxian" or something. And I didn't budge my butt. I just remained at where I was sitting.

I know the guy was expecting me to give up the seat I was in and move to another. I chose not to care.

The girl was sitting on my left, the seat on my right was empty. That guy was standing in front of his girlfriend. His girlfriend then asked him whether he wants to sit. He dare to say out loudly, "No seat leh". He meant for me to hear it.

The hell with you, I thought. I was in my foul mood. Why should I give the seat to you and watching you lovey dovey in the train. If I give him the seat I was being nice, if I chose not to give him the seat, it's my right. I don't want to give him the seat. So sue me.

It felt so... good

I was so brave today~~

There I was, queuing with the lot of people outside Kranji MRT station, waiting for a bus that seemed like it's never gonna come. I was seriously considering walking from there to the checkpoint. By bus, it takes about 10minutes, I guess it'll take about 30minutes to walk? But then I wasn't sure of the road, it's quite simple, but being an-always-lost-queen, I didn't want to gamble.

So, as usual, people are eyeing chances for them to cut queue. It's a norm. About 1+ year ago, I told myself I will not let anybody cut my queue again. I must at least make some noise about it whatever the outcome may be. However, since then, nobody cuts queue directly in front of me but far ahead, so there's nothing I can do about it.

Then today, well, actually it happens everyday, every time when there's long queue. Some people were standing outside of the queue. You know the tricks, they'd either slowly "blend in" to the beginning of the queue (no, those ppl in the queue won't complain) or, they'd come right in when the bus comes. 1000 out of 1000 times there won't be any complaint. As long as you are able to live with your conscience you can cut queue everywhere you like and you won't be stopped.

I've had enough.

The bus came. People outside the q, naturally moved right in as if they WERE in the q. I then shouted "HEY, DON'T CUT QUEUE LAH!". I shouted loudly. Those people, guys and girls, caught in surprised, stopped for a mere one second (perhaps less than that) and continued to get onto the bus. Seriously, do you think I was really hoping that my action will cause them to move out of the queue? Ppplease.. Not at all. These "thick face" people would never move out of the queue just because some crazy woman was shouting at them.

I wasn't angry. I've passed that phrase. People are "trained" to get used to this. I just wanted to make some noise, wanted to make them know that their inconsiderate action has not gone unnoticed.

So people continued to get on the bus. I wasn't finished, and I yelled again "STUPID PEOPLE!".

Then when I was about to get on the bus, another young woman came cutting the queue, so again, I yelled, this time, in Chinese ,
"小姐! 排队啦! 每个人都在排队!" (Miss, queue up! Everybody is queuing!).
She too was caught in surprised by someone yelling at her. I bet she's done it a million times and not once had anybody chided her.

She was stunned for a few seconds, then she probably felt very disgruntled, so she retaliated ,
"关你什么事啊??" (what's it got to do with you??).
Now that's a stupid statement. Hello? You're cutting my queue, duh... So then we exchanged "conversation" :

I said LOUDLY, "什么不关我的事? 我在排队leh! 每个人都在排队!".(What nothing to do with me? I am in the q, everyone is in the q!)

(we're both in the bus now)
Then I think she said "多事", "cheebye!". (busybody! "cheebye" is foul language which means vagina)

Then I said very loudly "没文化!" (uncivilized!) (I should have answered : why? you don't have cheebye is it?)

I was all "geared up" in preparation for her next retaliation. But she didn't say anything back. I was glad she didn't continue this "conversation" with me, because it won't be to my advantage if it continues. The people in the bus would probably got fed up and yelled at both of us to shut up. Nobody would come to my aid just because the girl has cut queue. They'd only think we're both disturbing their peaceful mind in the bus.

When I was in the q and people started "gathering" around the beginning of the q, I was contemplating what I can do. I was even thinking about going up there, pulling those people's backpack and drag them out of the queue one by one. But of course, I didn't.

When there's no q, you'd have no choice but to squeeze with all these uncivilized people in order to get on the bus (so you become one of them). Else, you'd probably managed to get on the bus after, say, 5 hours. But when there's a clear q, I cannot accept people not queuing. It's just plain uncivilized. Hong Kong author 倪匡said, the practice of queuing is the most civilized thing in mankind. Very true.

I once heard some Singaporeans said (at the bus stand after Malaysia checkpoint), "Why won’t people queue up?". Yeah, why? Well, because they are uncivilized. I really despised these people. Such a disgrace. Understandably, everyone wants to go home fast, everyone wants to get on the next bus, but for God's sake, QUEUE UP! Then everybody will get his/her chance!

I was so proud of what I did. I had done similar things (but not as loud) before but it's always when I was with a guy. Because chances of me being beaten up is a hell lot lesser. Haha...but this time, I was alone and I was so brave. All the time, I talked loudly with my head held high. I didn't even care if anybody was looking at me.

I am feeling so good now for what I did. Even though I didn't cause them to go back into the queue, I thought I had done the right thing. I wonder how those queue cutting people felt when I yelled at them. They certainly did not expect that. Do they have the slightest guilt? I doubt so. And the young woman who quarreled with me, I wonder how she's feeling now. Feeling very angry that someone chided her? Is she having a sleepless night because someone has yelled at her in public like that? Or she doesn't mind it at all and is sleeping very soundly right now? She must be at least felt very angry when I yelled at her that she没文化! hehehe.........
For she'd probably never imagined in her life time that someone would scold her as "uncivilized"! Wahahahahaha… I am feeling sooooo fine right now......

Dive trip dream yet again

Yesterday I dreamt we were on our journey to a dive trip, again. This has becoming one of my most frequent dreams already.

I dreamt that I've just got into the van, then was told that Gab were not coming because he sprained his ankle. I got angry with him because he didn't tell ME he wasn't going.

I even dreamt that Isabelle was going with us too~! This, no doubt was because SS told me yesterday she hopes to bring Belle along to Manado some day.

Alex, Winnie, Hazel, ST had also appeared in my dream. hahaha... I told Winnie about it, she said I really miss diving huh. hahaha...

TV 1 and 2

I'm almost 30 years old and stupid TV 1 and 2 has not improved the slightest bit since my childhood days. Same old ugly background, outdated make up that looks like they're still living in the 80's, poor visual quality, damn lousy co-ordination, you still can see the tv broadcaster or show host didn't know what to say or do when the camera is supposed to switch to another scene or commercial.

I really cannot understand why they cannot improve a bit. Everybody improves, TV3, the new NTV7 and 8度空间 have done some good jobs in all their programs. Just can't understand...

Dream dream dream

If I thought about my Miko on Friday nights when I'm back in JB, and Miko is left alone in Singapore, I'd sure to have nightmares, about Miko running away or something. I hate this, I don't usually have nightmares...

Yesterday my odd dream started with me taking the lift to another level in my company. But the lift wouldn't stop...... It went from 6th Floor to 100+(th) floor, to 500+(th) floor..... finally stopped at 1008th floor.......................Exactly like 卫斯理小说........ It's a horrible feeling. When I came out of the lift, I was in another place already, far...from my company.

Then the image changed with me and my Miko in a high floor room, suddenly the wall with windows disappeared! And Miko jumped out!!!!!! But luckily there's extra walk space extended out so she landed there instead of fall to her death. But! There was a cat there!!!!!!!! And I rushed out to block between Miko and the cat, suddenly the extra walk space I was standing shrank until it's only one foot square big!!!!!!!! Now it's my turn who could have fall to my death....... Miko went back in the room safely. I couldn't remember what happened next.

I didn't stop dreaming after that. I dreamt that I was kidnapped. I sms my ex-boyfriend and asked for help but nothing happens. Nobody helped me. In the end, somehow I freed myself. It was a lonely dream.

These are not comfortable dreams…


I took a nap this late afternoon. And it made up for the nightmare. I dreamt that I was at Sipadan again. And the shower area is out in the open, with no doors and walls, just some shower heads in a garden, very very beautiful.

I was about to take my shower, in bikini of course, not naked out in the open. But I did have dreams that I shower naked out in the open. I wonder what that means subconsciously. And SS (Shirley) came to join me. The garden was really really beautiful.

Next the scene changed, I was swimming in the sea, with snorkels. The ocean is of deep blue, very deep blue. I was swimming expertly around a big ship. It was all so very serene and peaceful. I always dream about diving and seeing all sorts of marine creatures that I hope I can see in my life time. This is one of my happiest dreams.

And I always dream that I can fly. It felt very very real because I actually felt that I need to use energy in order to make myself fly. It's not effortless but requires strength in order to bring me higher. Sometimes I dream I fly above land, sometimes above the ocean. When I fly above land, usually I am in a scene where I am escaping bad guys. When I fly above the ocean, I could see many marine creatures in the sea. And people living harmoniously with marine creatures. My favourite dreams, these are.

My dreams are always repetitive around the same "topic",namely, flying, diving/swimming, finding the correct lift to take in a building, having exams (usually Malay), toothache/pluck teeth and frighteningly climbing staircases to extremely high places. Other than flying and diving, the rest are not so comfortable dreams. I'll wake up in a very happy mood if I had dreamt that I fly or dive. I wish I dream of these everyday.

What a beautiful shark... died.. so sad..

Oh my God, the fisherman have captured a thresher shark! The beautiful thresher shark... what a shame..................

Copied from Sin Chew Jit Poh newspaper:

怪鯊魚尾巴魚鰓特別長
updated:2006-10-03 19:56:31 MYT


（亞羅士打訊）吉打港口漁民出海時捕獲一條長約10尺，重30多公斤的鯊魚。漁民趙時新用驚奇地說，漁民一般只見過100公斤重的魚，尾巴長1尺至1尺半，但這條鯊魚只有30多公斤重，尾巴和魚鰓卻有4尺半和20多吋長。

這條罕見的鯊魚，是進江漁行東主蕭清獅的拖網漁船所捕獲的，並於週二早上10點多載返吉打港口。（光明日報‧2006/10/03）

Safe journey, bro

My brother is going on a journey, I bought him many birds with my heart for a safe and fun journey.

I actually feel lonely even days before his departure. When I go travel, I don't have any worries about my trip, about what's going to happen, etc etc. And I think it's nonsense for my mum to worry that much. However, as I grow older, I worry more. I worried for my bro's safety. And it's kind of difficult to take. Now I know how a mum would feels when her children are away... Therefore I think we all should call home more often when we're having a holiday.

I tend to forget about everything back at home once I'm on a holiday... Not only that I tend to forget about my worries and troubles in the city, I'd forget, basically, everything else, including my family. That's really bad. I mean, I do call home, but I don't think about family that much. I even forgot everything about my pet when I went Tioman for one week. But this year, when I was at Sipadan, I did worry about my Miko a lot. Cos she was obviously very upset when we were transferring her. And that time, she did not get to stay in her own cage but has to be transferred to the caretaker's glass enclosure. Sadly, it's going to happen again, perhaps, at least once a year. Cos I'll be going for diving again and I'll have to leave her with the caretaker. It breaks my heart seeing her in distress... And I'd feel REALLY, SERIOUSLY guilty... Geez, I am feeling EXTREMELY bad now even just to think about the next time I'm gonna have to leave her for 10days...

What to do... if only I am living with a family member and my Miko will be well taken care of... But too bad, that is not the case.

My Favourite Books

Now that I've posted about my favourite songs, I might as well talk about my favourite books too.

They are Life On Air - Memoirs of A Broadcaster by Sir David Attenborough


and

Next of Kin - My Conversations With Chimpanzees by Roger Fouts


For animal lovers out there, these are absolutely fabulous books that you MUST read. I was suggesting to Banana Booze , the only person I could think of that might be of slightest interest, to read these books. I couldn't think of anybody else... there's nobody else whom I can share my thoughts about these books with... I thought of Banana Booze, so I MSN him and like a mother nagging a son to do this do that, I was telling him how wonderful these books are. And like my brother who couldn't find any to share his love for anime and comics with, I felt the same "loneliness" not being able to share my love for these two books. And so, blogging is my best channel, though hardly anyone reads my blog. hehe...

Life On Air, as the name implies, talks about Sir David Attenborough's life about wildlife film making from young till now, well, till the book was written of course. It is really interesting. He told of the development of film making, the encounters, the interactions with animals. The best anecdotes among it, I thought, was when he's supposed to be talking about the importance of the "opposable thumb" of gorillas. There he laid among a few gorillas which Dian Fossey was studying (he didn't just "barge" in with the gorillas, they spent about a week "introducing" themselves to the gorillas).

Excerpts from the book :
I crawled slowly towards her (a female adult gorilla). She looked at me in such a placid way that I was encouraged to crawl a little closer. I lay on my side and turned to look at the camera. That inevitably meant that I had to turn my back to her. I didn't like doing that. Martin (the cameraman) seemed to be ready. There was a noise from behind me. I turned and saw her heaving herself towards me. She stretched out a huge black hand, put it on the top of my head, and looked at me with her deep brown eyes. This didn't, after all, seem to be the right moment for a chat about the opposable thumb. She removed her hand from my head and pulled my lower lip to look inside my mouth. I felt a weight on my legs. Two youngsters, the size of chimpanzees, were trying to undo my shoelaces.

I felt in no way alarmed or even threatened. I had, it is true, crawled towards them, but it was the female who had made the first physical contact. She and the youngsters seemed to have accepted me as a welcome visitor, almost as a member of their group. My overwhelming feeling was one of privilege. I lay there for five minutes, almost holdin gmy breath with delight. The female resumed her feeding. Eventually, the youngsters got bored with my boots and galloped away to look for something else to investigate. The female followed them and I crawled back to my companions.

"Well, we got a bit of it, " said John.

A bit? I had been there for five minutes or more. Was there a camera fault or something?

"No," said John, "but I was waiting for you to say something about the opposable thumb. Martin only had about fifty feet in the camera before he would have to reload and I didn't dare take any general shots in case you started to speak and we ran out of film. And anyway, the way you were playing with them looked so extraordinary that viewers would have thought they were tame gorillas in a zoo. Then Martin said why not take a few feet to give the boys in the editing suite a laugh. So, yes - we did get a bit."

Very funny, I thought.
The truth is, there hardly are any chance for human to be so close to the gorillas and the gorillas were so calm and comfortable to the extend that they allowed their youngster to play with the human.

There are countless interesting anecdotes in the book. Well, actually, the only less interesting part of the book is when Sir Attenborough talked about BBC's administration. Basically everything in the book is very captivating.

Then, Next of Kin. Chimpanzees are one of my favourite animals. The book talks about the research of teaching chimpanzees human sign language. They did so in a non-forcible and non-rewarding way, to make it short. That is, they did not use "reward" when the chimps used the sign language. Using reward will condition the chimpanzees to use sign language only to get food, etc. In the end, the chimps learned to communicate with human volunteerily. They even signed to themselves when they were alone, just as we human would talk to ourselves at times. This showed that they do not use sign language to get rewards but really have "adopted" this human language into their lives.

It is totally fascinating. The dreams of human to communicate with another species, HAS NOW CAME TRUE.

The most famous chimpanzee, Washoe, even taught her adopted son Loulis sign language without being prompted by the researchers and without any human interference.

One of the researchers failed to visit Washoe on a regular basis as she had had a miscarriage. She stopped seeing Washoe for a few days. When she returned, Washoe gave her a cold shoulder. The researcher signed sorry to her, and she signed to her, that her baby died. Washoe has had her babies died twice. She understood what that means. She looked at the researcher intently, looked away, and looked back in the eyes of the researcher, and she signed "cry".

Amazing, isn't it? Clearly, animals felt grief as we human do. Chimpanzees are known to grief to their death. Not only chimpanzees, many other animals, meerkats, wolves, dogs and many others. In my opinion, there should not be any doubts that animals have emotions. Anyone who ever owns a dog will know that. But unbelievably, there ARE people who still believe that human are special and "superior" because we have emotions and animals don't.

It broke my heart and cried (yeah, I really did shed tears..) when I read about bio labs that were existing in the 80's. The cruel and unhumane treatment to the "subjects", the animals that so unfortunately landed in bio labs. I have no idea if such cruel treatments still exist in our time now. But it's really sad to even read about the condition in the lab, let alone eye-witnessing it, which the author Roger Fouts and Jane Goodall did.

Roger Fouts went to visit a chimpanzee, Booee, whom Fouts couldn't save and landed in one of the many bio labs then. He hesitated before going because it was going to be an agonizing visit as he knew damn well there's nothing he can do to get Booee out of the lab due of many factors. But his visit was going to put on air (the 20/20 of ABC) and it'll be a great chance for people in the world to know about the suffering of chimpanzees in the lab.

Booee knows sign language. He hadn't seen Fouts for over 20 years or so. Fouts hoped Booee doesn't recognise him but, he did.

Excerpts from the book :
I hesitate for another moment, then entered the room in a low crouch. I approached Booee's cage uttering gentle chimpanzee greetings.

A big smile lit up Booee's face. He remembered me after all.

HI BOOEE, I signed. YOU REMEMBER?

BOOEE, BOOEE, ME BOOEE, he signed back, overjoyed that someone had actually acknowledged him. He kept drawing his finger down the center of his head in his name sign - the one I had given him in 1970, three years after NIH researchers had split his infant brain in two.

YES, YOU BOOEE, YOU BOOEE, I signed back.

GIVE ME FOOD, ROGER, he pleaded.

Booee not only remembered that I always carried raisins for him, but he used the nickname he had invented for me twenty-five years earlier. Instead of tugging the ear lobe for ROGER, he flicked his finger off the ear. This was like calling someone "Rodg" instead of "Roger". Seeing him sing my old nickname floored me. I had forgotten it, but BOOEE hadn't. He remembered the good old days better than I did.

I gave Booee some raisins, and the years just melted away, the way they do between old friends. He reached his hand through the bars and groomed my arm. He was happy again. He was the same sweet boy I met on that autumn day decades earlier when Washoe and I first stepped onto the chimpanzee island at Lemmon's Institute.
....
....
....
As we signed back and forth and played CHASE and TICKLE through the iron bars, I forgot about the cameras and the millions of people who would be watching this. For one wonderful moment I even forgot where we were. But only for a moment.

I MUST GO NOW, BOOEE, I signed after a while. Booee's grin changed to a grimace, and his body sank. I MUST LEAVE, BOOEE. Booee moved to the back of his cage. GOOD-BYE, BOOEE.
....
....
The 20/20 show was broadcast on May 5, 1995. Its portrayal of Booee, a nonhuman person trapped in biomedical research, affected a nationwide audience more powerfully than I ever could have imagined.
....
....
Donations poured into ABC from sympathetic viewers hoping to fund Booee's retirement from research. LEMSIP was besieged once again by a public that demanded amnesty for chimpanzees. In October 1995, five months after the 20/20 broadcast, LEMSIP gave Booee and eight other adult chimpanzees their freedom. They were shipped by truck to the nonprofit Wildlife Waystation, in California, where they settled into a new "retirement home" that has large, airy and sunlit rooms with sagebrush views.
....
Booee still carries the incurable disease that LEMSIP researchers gave him, but he has no symptoms yet that we know of.

A few months later, Debbi and I went to see Booee in his new home. He was so happy to see us. We spent the morning grooming, playing and signing. When it was time for us to leave, Booee wasn't upset. He stood at his enclosure and calmly signed GOOD-BYE.

2 years ago, the first time I read until here, I couldn't "forbid" my tears from running down my face in the train. (I can't believe 2 years has passed since I bought the book...) When I re-read it again now, I still had tears running down my face. I cannot imagine how heartbreaking it is when the author visited Booee and had to leave...

Animal study is a tough study, especially behavioral study. It's not all glamorous and fame. They spent years and years in the jungle, at sea, recording every tiny details of the animals behaviour in order to understand them. Love animals as I do, I seriously doubt that I'd have the capability to do just that. It takes tremendous patience. And I salute all the scientists out there for dedicating their lives trying to understand animals.

Tagged?

I've been tagged by Banana Booze for 7 favourite songs.

That, reminds me of just how old I am... Because none of my favourite songs are current... AND some of them are a bit.. eccentric, perhaps, in some people's eyes. For instance, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "Kokomo"... But of course, it doesn't matter what people think, for I don't care. Anyway, my favourite 7 :

1. Kokomo - Beach Boys
2. The Lion Sleeps Tonight - Beach Boys
3. I Can See Clearly now The Rain Is Gone - Johnny Nash
4. I don't Want To Live Without Your Love - Chicago
5. It's A Wonderful Life - Black
6. Hands To Heaven - Breathe
7. Eternal Flame - The Bangles

As you can see, they are OLD. But they are absolutely my all time favourite which never fail to put a smile on my face whenever I hear them. The first 3 songs, are very "Caribbean". It makes me happy, rrreally happy when I hear such music.

Then I'm supposed to tag 7 people to do the same thing? but that's a tough one... I don't know that many people who has a blog and who reads my blog............... all I've got is :

1. Chee Khun's 心晴加游站
2. Whimsical Utterance
3. Souplad
4. ....

7. ...

The above, of which, 2 and 3 had been tagged before.. so no point there to tag them again. and... I guess that's it. Hohohoho.. pathetic.

Little bastard / 小王八

I was at mrt station on Friday, as usual, scanned my Easylink card to pass the gate. Then, a teenager followed closely behind and stepped on my sandal. He didn't even say sorry! And that's a small matter, the bigger issue was, he cheated. He didn't have his Easylink card scanned, means he didn't pay. What a little bastard! Now he's a 小王八, 长大之后就会变成大王八 (he'll grow out to be a big bastard!)

I strongly believe he did this always and not because he couldn't afford the fare. He had a friend who's already passed the gate and waiting for him. I wasn't walking very fast and he almost couldn't pass through and therefore stepped onto my sandal. And he said to his friend "lucky..".

Take note if you see anybody waiting near the gate the next time you're going to take the train. Perhaps you'll encounter the same. It is not uncommon.

Such little bastards. A disgrace to the society.