Vol.2(8)

Why things have to happen at once? I received an sms from Prof. Pervushin this afternoon, saying that he has cleared the admin procedure for me and I can start to work tomorrow, as a research officer. I am so thankful and glad that I am finally hired. So, what are all these things about? A month ago, I was surprised to find out that he was inviting application for this position, after my application for the PhD scholarship in Prof. Volker Doetsch's lab in Frankfurt was turned down, and that I was disappointed and really started to look out for a proper job in Singapore. So I sent in my application.

But there was no reply at all. After one week, I sent in another email. As time went by, I was gradually breaking down emotionally. Until the tip of the trough, I "woke up" for a brief moment and sent an application to Dr. Jesuthasan in TLL, for the position of research assistant in a field other than NMR. Surprisingly, I was called for an interview that afternoon, as he was leaving for Europe that day. I thought I had impressed him, as I could answer the problem he posed. He told me to wait for two weeks, and I was expecting to get that job by two weeks. Of course, serotonin kicked in again!

But there was no reply at all, again. The emotional cycle haunted me again.

Miracle happened again at my toughest time. I was called for interview by Prof. Pervushin after a total of three weeks, and I went for it last Tuesday. To my surprise, he agreed to hire me on the spot with the condition of pursuing the postgrad study under his guidance in NTU a year later. And here I am, going into my first day of work tomorrow.

But...why things have to happen at once? This afternoon, after receiving the sms from Prof. Pervushin, I got another two important emails. Dr. Jesuthasan in TLL was happy to hire me for the one-year project; Prof. Doetsch had gotten me a scholarship from the University, which means I could be fulfilling my dream to study in Germany! So, I was in a dilemma, besides the indescribable excitement that has yet to fade, and hence the production of this foolish blog^^

After a few hours of thought and discussion with Jingxian, the PhD student cum my closest mentor in my previous lab, I have had a decision. To compare the two opportunities between Prof. Doetsch and Prof. Pervushin, working as a PhD candidate in Germany receives higher pay as well as being able to travel around Europe, while the future in NTU is uncertain as my application for a postgrad program there next year might fail. On the other hand, the project in Prof. Doetsch's group is more inclined to the application of NMR, which is closer to my ability; while Prof. Pervushin works intensively in the theoretical development of NMR methodology, which is very profound, difficult, and hence with immeasureable potential in the future. To be continued...

Vol.22(7)

Happy Birthday to me!!! Today, 22nd of July, is very special, because it used to be the Leo zodiac; because I was brought up by dear Mom & Dad and have thus survived for 24 years; because I have a group of friends celebrating it with me^^ It was a tiring n boring evening as usual, before I was enlightened by the proof of Wilson's theorem presented by Minh, and then was even more enlightened by Being John Malkovich (1999), and eventually thrilled to death when the faint candle illumed the pitch-dark room, with the lovely song starting to resonate from all direction. The name related to Being John Malkovich is Charlie Kaufman, and I will come back to him next time.


From left: Kean Loon, Tien TJuen, Tzyh Haur, Mun Keat, Me, Marcel, Chang Chi, Minh, Yen Kheng, n lastly, ehm...don't really know her~~
A brief intro: KL is the BIG head here with BIG brain; TT loves kitties till death; TH is the satellite for free food 12-7; MK is a viral expert who likes to play with his MKB - Monkey King Bar; Marcel is a problem-solver as claimed by himself, who could also be a trouble-maker sometimes (no hard feeling huh?^^); CC is a werewolf in suit (trust me, he will admit it^^) and is of course the second 1st class honor in Physics besides KL; Minh is just another innocent freshie who is being brainwashed by us (though we din trick him into taking level 5000 Logics in his first year); and YK is as mysterious as the subjects of his interest, Black Hole & General Relativity.


Here is what I got for my birthday - a DVD video of MC's MSG Concert in 1995!!! Actually, I have already owned the VCD long time ago, but was thinking to collect the DVD rerelease quite awhile ago. It was really a surprising moment with strong emotion~~ BIG thanks to LKL for hunting it across the island^^ In fact, it is extremely difficult to pick a fave from all of MC's ballads that topped the Billboard Chart. So, I won't pick one, but I would like to mention that "Forever" is the most touching song performed by her in the MSG concert. The following video is a duet between MC and Luther Vandross - Endless Love, which was previously sung by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. I remember that during my days in secondary three, I used to lie on the bed after school, playing this song in tape again, again, n again, while thinking of a someone again, again, n again... Basically, just a time-wasting habit.

Vol.2(7)

...a night of boredom, freezes in the frame of long exposure...









...a golden roof sheltering the absolute void within me...
...a green heart could only grow with her love...

突然从 iTunes 的 Shared Libraries 里发现了一首蛮好听的歌，不知道歌名，只记得歌词里动人的三句。

爱你是孤单的心事 不懂你微笑的意思
我在你的心里 有没有一点特别
就怕你终究没发现 我还在你身边

其实，这只是一个很普通的感觉。可能，任何一为在某人身旁厮守的人都会有的感叹。可是，它却为我留下深刻的感觉。因为，我也是一个深爱着她的普通人。


在岩井俊二的《情书》里，男主角，藤井树，暗恋着女主角，藤井树。
在现实里，我却恋上了她，跟我的名字有一处相同的她。
只可惜，她的爱人在澳洲。Life goes on...^^

Vol.2(6)

"...And the beauty of a woman
With passing years
only grows." by Cindy Moraes.

This verse is supposed to reflect on the bond and mutual appreciation between husbands and wifes that (in most cases) only grows by years. Literally, it does tell the reality about some women. Virginie Ledoyen (1976-), Julie Delpy (1969-), and Audrey Tautou (1976-) are three of the most beautiful and talented French actresses. Of course, there are other talented actresses such as Binoche. But...I have to pick three.


Frille

"呢个女仔" is always by my side,
since long ago before my realization of time existence.
We are so familiar with each other,
such that I've never doubted her as my soul mate.

However, "这个女孩" has come into my life,
with all her grace and popularity.
Although conventional is never my cup of tea,
she is definitely not an eye sore to the whole of my race.

Time and place brought my fate to "gadis ini",
of whom I have never been easy with.
She haunted me throughout my teens,
and I am thrilled to leave her now and forever.

With great enthusiasm and anticipation,
I eventually caught the glimpse of "dieses Mädchen".
Her elegance could make all gentlemen bow.
I will never hesitate to reunite our companionship.

"Kanojo" pops up once awhile before me,
always in her most "kawaii" face that melts my heart.
Her voice comes across my mind,
every time I sit before the screen.

"This girl" has proven to be my most important,
without reminder from anyone.
She is my first love, and will be my forever love,
cause we have been bound by this (international recognized-) marriage.


I think I wrote this about a year ago. Yes! It was on 5th June, 2006. It came as a surge that my friend, Tang Wai Hoh, and I competed with each other to write a poem about "girls" at the shortest time. Well, he won, and his was quite an impressive one. This poem "Frille" is not about girls as the title and the contents suggest. It's about something else, something possessed by everyone. It would be fun for my dear blog-visitor to make a guess on their own^^ The only hint for you is - Frille is "girl" in French, and I don't speak French at all.

OK. I can't just display pretty pics of French ladies only and end my blog here. In fact, I would prefer to marrying an asian even if I ever had the chance to settle in Europe. That's because asian beauties ROCKS!!! Just kidding^^ I enjoy cultures of both the East and the West, and even the Mediterranean. But...I just feel closer to Chinese people. That's it.


Lastly, I would like to introduce three asian divas that will stay foever in my heart:
Matsu Takako (松隆子) is an actress in both the Japanese series and the theater, who has also starred on widescreen in one of Shunji Iwai's films, April Story (1998). Besides, she is also one of my fave singers.

BoA (宝儿) has just released her 5th Japanese album, Made in Twenty, and yes, she is just 20 years old. She started her career about seven years ago, but she had to receive intensive training one or two years before that, which means she had really missed out alot of school. Being a current pop diva in Asia, she can sing equally well in Japanese and Korean. But her performances in Japan is definitely better.

Ha Ji-won (河智苑) might be best known as the lead actress in Sex Is Zero (2002). Well, I can't probably say she is the best actress on widescreen, but she did have some solid performances in drama such as Damo (2003) and Hwang Jiny (2006), of which the latter had won her KBS Drama Best Actress Award. Her acting in Duelist (2005) was pretty cool too. After all, I am attracted to her angelic face and heart-melting smile in Love So Divine (2004) and Daddy Long Legs (2005).

Credit to the three angelic divas, they are well known for politeness, diligence, and most importantly, lack of celebrity rumors. My best wishes to them for meeting the ones who care for and love them forever.

Vol.2(5)

It has been raining in the morning for two days. It was such a pleasure standing by the opened window, enjoying the synchronized sound of raindrops hitting the surfaces while immersing myself in the soothing ambient temperature. I long for rainy days, but not this moment, as it glooms the prospect of my future even more...






Taking photos of little kittie is not as easy as it may seem, as they like to move around and it is best to take at the lowest angle possible. It becomes an even daunting task when using a camera like mine which is without any built-in anti-shake or stabilizer. The interesting thing here is that Singaporean kittie are pretty picky^^ As a reward for posing patiently for me, I went back to take a bread for her. After licking it once, she turned away, raising her eyebrow with a cynical stare on me. Opps... Does this story tells us about something else?...

Vol.2(4)

These were summer flowers blossoming on Feldberg im Schwarzwald, embracing the joyful hearts from the distant East. Do take note of the persistent barrel effect with wide zoom on a compact camera...





"OMG! Where's my Mama?" Although it sounds weird, but the lady at the far left, Frau Antigone, happens to be her owner. Being too mischievous to roam around has to pay the price of losing her Mama. Poor doggy^^


http://leoe.blogs.friendster.com/leos_annalen/, just for your information: my old blog^^

Vol.2(3)

I read from Friedman's "The World Is Flat" that the Internet flattens the World and enables individuals to create their own virtual contents and new kinds of business. It is certainly true to certain extent, as I have just come across Google AdSense. Business is itself a morphing monster, actively changing its form while rampaging through villages to snatch their gold and virgins. Please don't take this description so literally as it bestowed a negative image upon people making business. They are just norms, being tiny magnets oriented to the magnetic north - i.e. gold and virgins.

I myself don't have the business wits, nor the desire to take the challenge. Being a blog of words instead of pictures, the probability of people attracted to it will surely hit the rock bottom. I do realize it. In an effort to advertise my blog, I promise I will post more and more pictures of, quite pretty faces, as well as information that might be useful for some people.

To start, I will tell my experience on transforming into a more serious photographer (definitely not a pro, just a hobbyist). It all started when I owned the first camera, a slim snapshooter Konica-Minolta, and brought her along to Germany for a 5-week immersion program three years ago. I learn things with purpose. My purpose of photographying is to explore the beauty of visual sense by means other than drawing or scupture, of which I am no good at all. Now I have my baby EOS Kiss X Digital (Canon 400D) with 18-55mm kit lens and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. Since then, I have yet taken any satisfied photo. Photography involves certain technicalities as well as the visual sense. Using a snapshooter, I could afford total focus on the composition, though that might not be good enough for a complete photo. But at least, my expression is there. However, with the EOS, my neurons were congested with so many other considerations every time before I could press the shutter.

Understanding the operation of an dSLR is simple. With a fixed lens, there are basically only three degrees of freedom, i.e. aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, in order of decreasing significance. Aperture not only determines the brightness, but the depth of field of the scene. Two extreme examples of DOF is the hyperfocusing of an object in front of you and a mountain at infinity, and also the blurring of background when taking portrait. Shutter speed is related to capturing fast-moving objects (of which I have yet to encounter), and lit-up city landmarks at night, while ISO is only tempered with under low-light condition. Compact-cam users may wonder what's the difference between a dSLR and the PowerShot series, which offer both aperture and shutter priority. Well, dSLR produces better quality photo with its larger sensor, besides being adaptable to different lens with focal length range from 10mm to say 300mm, while at the same time, extending the aperture to as large as f/1.4. Simple enough?!

Of course, there are more about photography than the stuffs above. Different filters, composition, lightning, macro, flash techniques for night trail, post-processing, photojournalism-style, etc. It's a definitely life-long learning process. Happy learning^^

Vol.2(2)

I would probably write my blog every day as I am still unemployed, just like having a very long vacation. I believe I am writing a blog too long too wordy. Sorry man, can't help.

In fact, I have watched not more than ten Jdorama in total. Well, having met the best is much more precious than meeting a million. Top of my list include "Long Vacation", "Love Generation", "Beautiful Life", and "Hero". Why? An obviously biased selection - three of them feature MT and Takuya. I can't possibly vote them all-time best, but I would like to share my thoughts how they touched me and every other audiences who followed the show. First of all, I want to condemn the korean series on lacking creativity and strong plot, being repetitive, melodramatic, and most importantly, filled with unrealistic characters. Be aware that I am comparing them with Jdorama. K fans may argue that Jdorama suffers the same problems. Yeah! Please watch LV once and try to find a Kdrama that offers the sort of music, down-to-earth characters develop not only emotionally but in a social context, as well as interesting angle of shooting for highlight purposes and some other editings. From my experience in Kdrama, the director must have spent only a quarter of effort, while the screenwriter was compelling on very weak plot and trying at every opportunity either to saturate the young ladies with fantasy of millionaire hunks or to make them sob for the end of the world.

Question? How many Kdrama have I watched to date? Less than ten, but most are representatives, highly recommended follies from the K fans. Opps! Am I pushing it too far? Actually, I was a fan of Kdrama, as I am a fan of Ha Ji-won. Therefore, I did not watch them with prior prejudice but open-mind. Just that I feel closer to the charaters in a Jdorama. LG used to be my fave, so much so that I longed for the crystal apple at any cost. (Of which I did get it for around S$20 four years ago, and had given it to a gal^^) But...Even before finishing with the last episode of LV yesterday, I began to realize that LV noteworthly surpasses LG - in terms of music, editing, and most importantly, it talks about issue that resembles my current situation - a shy knight bachelor wandering in the mist at the foot of a castle in hope of rising to the history and marry the princess, uaware of the angel's blessing. Well, I am 24, unemployed, and a bit lost in spirit at the moment. She used to give me BIG support, but we are not as close anymore. Anyway, I am sure things will get right after I have my job. Credit to LV, I am really touched by the last few episodes when Sena eventually opened his heart and played the piano after receiving the "miracle" Minami created for him^^ Trust me and get the chance to listen to LV OST. I was lucky to be able to download them from my friend's iTunes. "Don't worry, be happy." - LV

Vol.2(1)

Hi^^ My plan to set up a blog for sharing pictures and moments snap-shot by my baby EOS Kiss X has finally been realized. Apology for the lack of spectacular photo showcase at the moment, as I am still struggling with the manipulation of the baby. Today, I suddenly came across with another baby, the Elise, on the internet. The grit and determination just emerged within myself, "I will own this baby in five years!" But..."What the heck?! I don't even have a job yet." In fact, I have stopped fantasing about driving this cute little Elise or the howling M3 for sometime, perhaps for four years already. On one hand, driving a machine of racing on the road is a sheer thriller, with its demand of technicality and courage. I used to have "the" instinct of driving, and I drove pretty fast. On the other hand, it's not quite a smart idea money-wise to buy an Elise for family's daily travel. The conclusion is: my teenage dream has gotta be stopped just right there. I would have either unleashed the power of an M3 before my 25th, or I would be contented with a safe and reliable Toyota in the future.

I have been following up the classic drama "Long Vacation" in VCD. It was my last year in high school when I started to learn piano after watching this epic. Yeah! It's more than an epic as I am wacthing it now, but, of course, teenagers may agree the converse. (I stopped the piano lesson after completing my first grade^^) I discovered that I have a totally different perpective on the BGR that are being portraited in the show, as compared to say 7 years ago. OK. I need to catch the last bus back home. Come back to u tmr^^