spiderpig | Entries tagged with articles

Prologue:

Thailand is Yann Tiersen, dog shit, and groves of rubber trees, their thin bark echoing of eternal fearful symmetry.

The smell of dog excrement plagues my nose wherever I and it goes; my nose is not sufficiently blocked – I can still smell Tom Yum (pungent tang of lemon grass rioting in my nose, no I am not hungry) at temples. It’s funny because I am now a “Spice Girl”, according to Pi Wit.

( Cont'd )

Note: Have yet to process most of the photos so, it's pretty picture-less for now!

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Date of Rebirth - Yoko Kanno

Do any of you know of any one who can do HTML, PHP, Perl, SQL (okay I think I made that up) but basically design, code and maintain a web-magazine?

The job will be unpaid but it'd look good on your portfolio (and CCA record) because we're an official NUS e-zine (HOOKED, otherwise known as the e-zine which spams your inbox fortnightly).

Basically, what we need is someone who can design and code a clean layout which will allow easy access to the different sections of the magazine, good typography etc.; and occasional site maintenence if the thing breaks down.

We're currently on Joomla -- but if you've got a design that works with Wordpress or another no-brainer platform, that's good too. (Personally, I prefer the Wordpress platform, because it's pretty idiot-proof)

Do drop me a line either on Facebook or e-mail me at tan.minqi @ gmail.com so I can hook you up with our Chief Ed.

We need a new layout. Really. (Check out the current one here and nod your head in agreement.)

Current Mood: hopeful

This was how my week initially started out. Quite full, but not certifiably Hell Week yet.

It's Thursday and my planner has just gone haywire from all the scribbling and "let me fit this into here right now".

In anycase, I cannot stand how my family doesn't understand (after 19 years of living with me) that I thoroughly a nocturnal creature. (I say creature because I vascillate between the Swamp Thing from the Desert Blob.) Term break has also screwed up my biological clock so that I never fall asleep before 6am and I promptly wake up around 2-3pm in the afternoon. The good thing about this is I'm usually left eating one meal a day (and midnight snacking, which constitutes as my midnight lunch) so hurrah for twisted weight loss.

I am up to HERE ("here" is basically my height, times three) with work. I don't really know how I'm going to continue at this breakneck speed without er, well, breaking my neck. I just spent an hour on e-mail correspondences (I shudder inwardly) and clearing my inboxes. One freakin' hour! On e-mail alone! Seriously, thank god for Gmail and their lovely tab system. I have color coded all the horrendous amounts of e-mails flying through my inbox (approximately 20 new mails per inbox and I have 2 main ones, and today I had twice the amount) and they all look like a technicolor rainbow from a Willy Wonka candy shop.

And yes, by now i've realized that my userpic doesn't quite match my overall frantic-ness.

But on a happier note (not a happy one, but at least a silver lining in a very grey mass of clouds), I've managed to secure a couple of potentailly awesome articles (it's all up to my journalists now) for my desk. A7X and FFF anyone? :D Plus, going to e-mail SFS for coverage on the AF08. (This one I need to cover. Hello Genius Party?) Yes yes, trying to arrange some stuff for the other subsections but they'll only work once the revamp is done. D: So well.

New moleskine RED 2009 diary should come in by the weekend! Exciting stuff. It's what, two months too early but they tend to run out fast so hey, better get 'em soon! ~~It'll match my brother's red holga haha.~~ Here's to another year of crazy scheduling. =A=;;

Going off to read GE and lecture notes. O:

Current Music: 嵐 - Secret Eyes

( Nerding out. )

My timetable, if anyone is interested in making lunch-dates with me! Wednesdays are taken by my Group B lunch (I'm probably going to schedule it in anyway XD) but every other lunch is more or less free! :D I didn't get my first choices but the timetable strangely facilitates me staying in the Mac Labs more often. :D()() Strange, how the world works.

I'm going to be very busy in the next few weeks: leaving for Vietnam on Sunday with

superoldgranny; Project LaMB press conference tomorrow with fellow anime bloggers (this will mainly be for Tachikomatic Days, unless I get the heads up for HOOKED to feature it); IAHGames visit on Wednesday to check out FIFA Online 2 (this is for HOOKED, and the first Gaming Article ever!!) -- I have to get these articles written by Saturday --; I have to get down and finish my Travel Journal for class by Saturday too, before I leave.

Busy busy busy! Right now, I have to go through the media-pack sent to me and try to formulate some questions for the group interview. I should charge my camera batteries too!

Today saw me, Jasmeet, Immanuel and Jeremy crowding the Mac Labs again - heh. It's an extremely amusing combination and definitely one that distracts me from my work. Seriously, the video spamming (inclduing many of GS's many many questionable videos) and the exceptionally R(A) things that are being said-- *shakes head*

I'm kind of psyched for this semester because it's turning out to be full of exciting opportunities, and everyone knows that I like opportunities (whether I take them or not, is another matter). I have big plans, as usual, but I don't know if I have the energy to execute them. We'll see how.

In other news, I walked up from the Cardiff bus-stop back home today (again, for the 3902434th time in the past two weeks) as a sort of exercise routine and also to well, make myself feel better. :D()() I cannot be this fat lump forever! No one will love a fat lump!

Anyway, off to read my assigned poetry and be a general Nerd. :D

EDIT: Aaaah, the LaMB press conference is on Wednesday!!! And I have my Ethics class during that time! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Norah Jones - Cold Cold Heart

Guess who got made head of the Entertainment desk? Reel-Time, On the Record and Techbuzz (TECHBUZZ <333) are going to be my babies for the next year!

TECHBUZZ! Awesome stuff man. And I can't wait to get my hands on On The Record - I'm so going to inject a fresh dose of English music and ohhhh I'm getting overly excited. But still. Awesome.

Current Mood: excited

Or at least, well hated. XD

Just came back from the photoshoot/interview with the Friday Weekly at the SPH News Centre (my future workplace FTW! I pimped my skills there too!) for an otaku feature article.

I might be getting a full article centered on myself because wtf, I am a girl. XD() But anyway, yeah I have the coolest dad in the world and the reporter was very amused/intrigued by his openess. Yeah dude. Thumbs up to Ultimate Geek Dad!

SO YES. WATCH OUT FOR ME. I should be out in next next week's Friday Weekly (Xin Qi Wu Zhou Kan) so watch out for my huge fujoshi overweightness and a portion of my figure collection. I lugged around 3/4 of my stuff there. :D

I'm churning out articles for the freshie mag (hello freshies I would like to know what kind of tone you'd guys would like to hear in a freshie-mag, plus short and concise vs long and detailed - which is your pick?) and I am wanting Scrivener very badly. I need the corkboard. I need a place to store my snippets and research for food reviews and have easy access to them without hitting alt-tab so often.

I need a fucking Mac. (I've been brainwashing myself with Mac tutorials and holy shit you know, I might actually be more productive with a Mac! Because I won't be waiting for Vista to stop hanging on me.) I have been lusting after a MacBook Pro - because it's a powerful beast and it's sleek. But in any event that I can't get one, I will be satisfied with a MacBook - preferably in black. (Though NUS's notebook scheme doesn't usually offer black macbooks. And I want to purchase my Mac with NUS because they include Microsoft Office and Adobe CS and I'm cheapo like that.)

In anycase, I owe my readers - the very handful of them - an update about SMUN and other happenings but I have to finish writing 3 articles first before I start to write selfishly for myself.

EDIT:

Gaaaaah. I only just realized that Gakuensai is over!? And I totally forgot to place an order for the anthology set!? OMG. I FAIL. SO BAD. :\

Hahahah. Apparently, my VGM article got criticized for having innuendo.

Now if it was for having really lame and blood-vomit inducing innuendo then I totally agree.

"imagine deep sea diving to the Fergie's My Humps and meeting a Sperm Whale along the way!"

I totally don't remember putting it in, or whether I actually intended it to be a really weak dig at er sexual innuendos but hahaahaha. OMG. This is amusing when I re-read the article.

Current Mood: amused

(Well I think this applies to USP folks so, er sorry for the distinction?!)

The inaugural issue of INFUSION, USP's magazine/newsletter/publication/fwaaaa, will be introduced this Friday at 1830! There will be food! And door gifts (for the first 25 people! club passes! something like that!)! And did I mention food?

Plus, you can show up and we can talk about Video Game Music. ;D Which is what my article is about.

And please, talk to the other contributors too! They're all kinds of awesome, more so than me. I'm like, half-awesome.

If you aren't free, please pop by to pick up an issue of the publication! :D

Current Mood: bouncy

Argh. I'm disappointed. Due to a mix-up (which, I must say by no fault of my events editor, who really tried her best) with the coughorganizerscough, I'm now not going for either the Maroon Five press con or concert. ARGH.

If I had a DSLR I probably could fight over the photo passes but oh well. :\ It's meant to be I guess. Can't fangirl over Adam Levine's feet. I wanted to ask some questions at the press con but they're a no-go now too. Press-coooooooooon.

......On the bright side, I have 2 less articles to write and I can concentrate (literally) on my essays. :\

(is trying to make myself feel better but failing)

Current Mood: DEVASTATED

Okay, this kind of self-imposed stress/extrawork is acceptable to me. VS, the forced labour I have to do for *CENSORED*.

What am I talking about ?

GUESS WHO'S GOING TO COVER THE MAROON FIVE PRESS CONFERENCE AND CONCERT.

(Er, provided they don't clash with anything else. I will make sure that they done. I mean, wtf, ADAM LEVINE. I WILL BE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY WITH THE GOD THAT IS ADAM LEVINE. I will go no matter what unless I am bedridden - even then I will force someone to WHEEL ME THERE.)

Side-note: You know, I should invest in a entry-level DSLR since I'm always one of the first choices (okay I'm just being BHB here) for Press Cons and we never have photographers around. My Powershot S3 is lovely but definitely not as awesome as a DSLR. I don't know if normal people notice (I'm odd and my sanity is questionable), but I seem to always see a striking difference in the quality of photos taken with normal cameras and DSLRs. The photos look so much more alive.

Or maybe it's the money gone into the DSLR that's making the photos scream life and emotions. XDXDXD

Anyway, I better go finish up my hard labor LOL before I prepare for the ASKA press conference tomorrow.

Including tomorrow's one, I think I've probably covered about 4 or 5 press conferences/interviews till now? Not bad I guess! :D This is beginning to look like I'm more of an events reporter now LOL. NEVER MIND. TECH COLUMN, YOU SHALL COME TO FRUITION.

Too much work? Not when it comes to articles! I mean seriously, why consider a job in the press when you're not ready to spring into action anytime? Okay, I admit. I gripe a little when they come a little too sudden but I have to take it like a man!

Oh HOOKED, I love you for all these fantasmastic opportunities.

Current Mood: excited

IT is bleeding with a lust for life
As something emerges from you,
"Born to the world" it says, and crys
a babel of languages, a song of woe
in a multiplicate desert where the rain
evaporates before it hits the ground.

IT is bleeding with a lust for life
As it rolls out from your mouth, spills
from your veins and onto paper, everyw
here, on the sheets and tables,
on the blessed ground - sand and grass.

IT is bleeding, bleeding with such a want to live again,
That it cannot bear being alive
it must die
or it shall never feel that desire, that immense
longing to live again if it were but not
six feet beneath the froth of the sea.

IT is bleeding, it has bled for that
Lovely, longing, lust for life
that nothing remains.
not a skeleton of bones,
nor a thread of hair that marks
something which was once there:
an idea,
a thought;
unfamiliar phenomenon.

So anyway, the latest issue of HOOKED is out and yours truly has penned two articles for the Oddball issue.

The Steven Lim interview (interview was conducted by my co-writer but everything else: writing of the article, style, voice, everything else really is me - I must pimp myself!) and the L - change the WorLd review (which I also posted on In Your Basement).

Yeah, that's a heck of a long review but I assure you, it's a good one. ;D

Come to think of it, it's already been a semester and a half since I joined and have been writing for HOOKED. Hmm. O: I have an urge to join the Campus Observer too.

I've become horribly inactive in my fandoms. I am a failure as a fangirl!!!!!! Need to write fics and draw some fanart.

Current Mood: creative

I was very nearly "forced" (note the quotation marks) into conducting an interview with Steven Lim - yes Steven "I will molest your eyebrows" Lim - but I managed to escape because the lovely subeditor remembered that I just submitted my SOLER POWER (omg pls kill me for the extremely bad pun) article last week. So I don't get to do an article for the next next issue! Hurrah!

That being said, I almost wanted to EMAIL interview (wtf, if I actually conducted an interview with Lim, I'd fear I'll come out with very sad eyebrows) Steven Lim, because it'd be hilarious but I'm quite glad that I don't have to churn in work for once. The last time I had an assignment discount was last semester when I did 2 articles for consecutive issues.

(I still want my tech column/section though!!!!!!! Team MAN, you guys need to get your asses down to NUS ASAP so I can have people who will actually write for a tech column. Sadly, with the huge deficit of manliness in the magazine, I will probably never see the column ever exist - unless I drag guys by their facial hair.)

A few days ago, my dad asked me what I wanted to be after I graduated.

I said, "Um... hopefully a columnist on tech, gadget or gaming stuff. Just you know, writing about the things I like... ya... Maybe be an editor of PCGamer or something like that..."

And he replied, "They don't pay much."

The conversation creeped into the territory of "you're following your dreams, as usual" - said as though it was a bad thing - and I'm even more convinced that I should just follow my dream, whatever it is.

I mean, seriously. When I wanted to become a lawyer, I wanted to be a criminal lawyer. No money there. When I want to be a journalist - of any kind - not much money there either. So since my current goal of the above doesn't fetch much monetary renumeration, I mean what the heck. I'm destined to want to do average paying jobs. Getting rich isn't everything, though if I can earn enough to support my ever expensive otaku lifestyle, I'd be more than happy to do some grunt work.

My Windows Live Mail Feed aggregator hasn't been working for the past week so I've given up using it for the time being. So far I've tried Sage, but I'm missing the auto-update feature. Then I remembered that Google has Google Reader and so I'm using that now. Though Sage's customizable interface makes me go squee. :D()

Finished my VGM article which sucks because I can't talk in depth about it since I'm only allowed one page but this means that I'll probably expand it for the new Tachikomatic Days revamp.

I don't have the money to move to a paid webhost+domain yet but I'm just going to go with a visual and editorial revamp. Tachikomatic Days will no longer just be Tachikomatic Days but more of Tachikomatic Days: In Your Basement. Actualy I really just want to rename it to "In Your Basement" but I loathe URL changes. It's going to be more editorial centric and less well, less fluff since I want to plow my way into this sort of thing in the future...

other random notes: There's this girl in my TB class who has the most highest pitched voice ever. You know those stereotypical Japanese girl voices you hear? YEAH IT'S THAT. BUT LIKE WAAAAAAY MORE PIERCING. And it's only like that when she speaks Japanese. I've heard her speak English before and it's NORMAL. And I'm like OMFG? Guys think this is moe? Seriously!

But I think that she's fun and all? She's enthusiastic and all that but omfg her voiiiiiceeee. >_

Current Music: Yuji Hasegawa, Manami Kiyota - Evanescence

I've been blog-surfing a bit and I think I might have found my missing blog-groove that's been gone since forever.

Well not forever but nearly forever.

Rune Factory 2 arrived in the mail today! The artbook looks floppy. I wish the cover was made of better material, but it's free so oh well, I can't be too demanding.

I've completed FF12 Revenant Wings up til around Chapter 6 if I'm not wrong, whilst juggling Nintendogs (I somehow can't seem to not leave it alone), Pokemon Diamond - one more gym badge and it's wooo Elite Four!, Rune Factory and occasionally dabblings in Bleach, FF Ring of Fates and FFIII. Oh Final Fantasy, having remakes on the DS makes me so happy.

Oh dear, I'm slightly (okay more than slightly) nervous. I've been asked by my editor to interview a music group (I'm assuming it's a MandoPop-group) - A PRIVATE INTERVIEW I THINK? - I'm slightly freaking out here. I'm honest-to-God no good with people and these sort of things make me go weak in the kneews, and not in a romantic sense. But seriously though, if I'm even considering working for the media industry in the future, I've got to do these kinds of things so I've got to give it my best shot. I will need to formulate questions. Nice, thoughtful questions.

Ah, I've gotten notice that the group that I'll be interviewing is SOLER who's a multilingual duo whose newest album has songs in English, Chinese and Cantonese (maybe Italian, I'm not sure). INTERESTING. Whew. Okay, they can speak English. I'm saved. Time to get cracking. Anyone here happens to be a SOLER fan?

Sim and Bobo were just over to watch Evan Almighty after a great dinner at Astons. I love Astons. Great food for an even better price. How can you beat that? And just a 10 minute walk away! Though, we only watched a little Evan Almighty. Li Nanxing's charisma distracted us for a good half hour heh. An old rogue? He'd make a good Asian Gambit, I think. Gasp, how blasphemous. No one can take the place of that lovely Cajun.

>__> Okay, time to go and do my other article and revise on keigo. *flops around*

Current Mood: eureka!
Current Music: Rachael Yamagata - Letter Read (Live @ VH1.com)

Hi, does anyone know ANYTHING about Kelly Poon - e.g anything remotely interesting that you would love to share with me, this Kelly Poon noob?

I have a press conference to cover and if any of you are actually fans of her, it'd be great. For example, is there any juicy gossip flying around? I'm planning to ask her questions on her songs on the latest album but if anyone could give me fodder to work on, it'd be awesome. I'll give you nice photos of her! (Because I'll be taking photos of her too. Haha.)