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I’ve tried countless of times to try and write a really great entry about Michael Jackson. But then I realised that he is one of those people that you simply don’t know how to go about writing about his greatness. To put it simply, words can’t describe him.

All I could do really, was to compile all of my favourite songs of his into a playlist, starting with Ben, which I believe has the ability to make people tear just from the simple lyrics and more importantly, the angelic voice of Michael Jackson.

His passing came too sudden, I believe all his fans were eagerly anticipating his comeback concert. Everyone was waiting because everyone knew that he would make a comeback some way and that it would be grand.

When I was in the car, and I heard his passing on the radio, I believe everyone around felt the same feelings. Shock, sadness and just a mixture of emotions that is simply indescribable. I believe the news only really settled in when people saw it reported in the news, when the facts of his death was being described.

I won’t go about recounting his achievements, because they are there for all to see. But I will count the 5 things that I love about Michael Jackson.

1) Him singing Ben

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msqfQpoFTYk&feature=related[/youtube]

How many of people knew this song was about a rat? How many people thought this song truly related to their lives? I could always listen to this song for hours on end and never get sick of it.

Simply because this song is beautiful, is innocent, is everything we love about Michael Jackson.

Because this song oozes with beautiful emotion, because this song makes us cry if we really listen.

Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for
With a friend to call my own
I’ll never be alone
And you, my friend, will see
You’ve got a friend in me
(you’ve got a friend in me)

Ben, you’re always running here and there
You feel you’re not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind
And don’t like what you find
There’s one thing you should know
You’ve got a place to go
(you’ve got a place to go)

I used to say “I” and “me”
Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”
I used to say “I” and “me”
Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”
Ben, most people would turn you away
I don’t listen to a word they say
They don’t see you as I do
I wish they would try to
I’m sure they’d think again
If they had a friend like Ben
(a friend) Like Ben
(like Ben) Like Ben

2) HIS MOONWALK

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7MmEMrCRfc&feature=related[/youtube]

How many people have imitated his moonwalk since he debuted this move on his performance for Motown?

Yet, how many people can truly acheive the perfection with which he does his moonwalk and how many people can get people screaming just for that 5 seconds where he does the moonwalk.

He was a great dancer and his moonwalk, unparalleled.

3) For being famous, but not forgetting about the poor people around him

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iwimKsLJTA&feature=related[/youtube]

Many people tend to remember him for his great songs, for his great moves but I think along the way, people forgot to mention that he was just a great human being with a great big heart.

He was awarded the humanitarian award for the effort he put into fighting AIDS in Africa and the Presidential Humanitarian Award for helping people overcome alcohol and drug abuse.

There are just countless of deeds that he did for people that shows that he may be rich, but he’s never forgotten the poor or the less fortunate.

And who can forget that he co-wrote a charity anthem “We are the World” with Lionel Ritchie.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Huyc1rjSs[/youtube]

4) For all the inspiration you’ve sparked through your great songs and your great dance moves.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SlWIaYkFI4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmN0dwDR1wo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkGOiS75Lwk[/youtube]

There are so many great songs he wrote, so many great dance moves he created. From what he wrote, people gained the inspiration to write. From the way he danced, people created new dance moves.

He inspired others and without a doubt, everyone loves him for that.

5) For simply being him

Throughout his life, he didn’t try to copy someone else’s moves, someone elses writing style, song style. Everything he produced, it came from him, from his heart.

For simply being the way he was, doing the things he loved best, he inspired us and he made us love him back.

Though he is gone, the memories he created, the songs he created, everything he did, will carry on forever into future generations.

And the only words I associate with Michael Jackson: Talent, Genius and mostly indescribable.

Becauses its impossible to put into words everything that he did and the person that he is. We will never have another Michael Jackson, so we will never forget about him. (:

My holidays have been extended by a week due to swine flu. Stuck at home for elearning next week, wondering if its a good thing or a bad thing. I think going back to school is much better then elearning but then again its good for the school to test the elearning system just in case you know. (:

Ok, enough of my rambles. Now to upload some of the ROM (Registry of Marriage) and photoshoot photos. Which are all very cool and very nice.

I don’t really know the order of the pictures so I’ll do it based on what I think happened first. HAHA.

Starting with the ROM pictures…

The justice explaining that marriage is important, sacred and making sure they understand what they’re getting into. That its not just a shotgun marriage etc.

A close up of the Justice.

And on a random note, the justice that married my father and mother is still there doing the exact same thing! Marrying people off to each other!! Cool isn’t it, even after 20 plus year!

Them saying their vows like I will always promise to love you, cherish you protect you all these sweet mushy stuff. I think I’m going to write my own wedding vows in the future, I kind of don’t really like the current one. Abit too cheesy, I like to put my own twist on it. (:

After saying the vows, they help each other wear the rings (kind of like looping each other together forever). And the classic ROM or wedding shot of the wedding rings below…

I think its important for you to find out which hand and which finger to place the rings on, especially the males, cause you place the rings first. HAHA. My aunt forgot which and there was quite the commotion. Believe me.

The couple signing the marriage cert first. Then passing it on to the witnesses and the Justice.

The witnesses signing the certificate. (I don’t know who these people are! HAHA)

The justice saying the few final sacred words, “I now pronounce you man and wife” or somethng to that extent before passing them their wedding certificate.

And…

YAY! They are finally officially married, wedding certificate and all. (:

I love the wedding certificate casing nowdays, nice shiny and gold! Much better than my parents era. Those were the days when gold wasn’t common eh.

Now some random pictures of the very beautiful “wedding set” that they purchased. Very beautiful and cute!

All these shots are very nice and artistic huh! Taken by the brides brother who is a semi professional photographer, he carries one of those SLR cameras that look really cool where you can adjust the zoom manually and all that high gadget stuff!

Now its some picture time with the people who attended before heading outside for a quick shot with the scenery there.

They look like a family already don’t they? Though the baby is the bride’s sisters! But I’m sure they’ll form their own family soon.

random shot of the bride.

a very cute shot of the baby! (:

Then they head outside to take some shots to remember this beautiful beautiful day where they can officially call each other hubby and wife. (:

A very cute shot of them sticking tongues out at each other! Very candid and I like it because its not so stiff and more natural I guess. Shows the playfulness of them huh!

I don’t know why my cousin hardly smiles, I think he thinks its nicer to smile without teeth. Most of the shots were like he really wants to burst out laughing but he is controlling hard, those kind of expression if you catch my drift.

But he is very happy of course! He married such a beautiful wife. (:

And what has got to be my favourite shot from the ROM pictures…

I like this shot because its a good representation of marriage. Theres a long road ahead and you’ve walked half of your life alone, but now you have someone beside you, to hold your hand and to walk down the rest of that long path with you.

So yea, I think this is a good representation and the leaves and everything, I just really like this picture!

Ok, so now for the photoshoot pictures. I picked those that I liked, which is alot!

Staring with the studio pictures…

I like this last photo because I always like to take something near in focus and the one behind slightly blurred out, I think its the coolest effect and makes everything just look that much cooler.

The great thing about this photographer I think is because he managed to catch some shots where the really natural expression comes out, where you can tell the smile is from the heart and not from just faking it. So yea, some of the best shots were them with their most natural expression.

An important thing about being a photographer, is being able to make your subject comfortable, so comfortable you’re able to take shots of them in their natural state, which is often where most beauty lies.

I personally like this picture alot, the colour of the flowers and the angle of the shot is really great. So yea, one of my favourites. (:

My mummy loves this photo and she wants me to replicate the exact same pose (crazy lady) but I do agree its one of the best photos. (:

People used to be superstitious about not wearing black but even black now can look very sleek, chic and cool and matched with gold, I think its really quite the perfect match for a gown.

Time to head outdoors for the photoshoot! (All these photos were taken in Singapore)

I didn’t even know there was a railway track left in Singapore, but I really like the idea of taking photos there! Railway tracks are one of the best scenic spots to do photoshoots to me.

awww. so in love. (:

I find the next few pictures tell a story!

Groom: “Will you marry me?”
Bride: “Let me think about it first. I have alot of suitors you know.”
*Groom kneels from winter to fall to spring and back to autumn again*

Bride gets touched.
Bride: “Oh all right, I’ll marry you since you outkneeled all your competition.”
Groom: “YES!”

Together forever. THE END. AWWWW~~~

Ok, fine that was lame, I’m bored aren’t I! Haha

Like this photo as well, foreground blurrish, background clear.

I like the heart shape here! So perfectly drawn!! haha

And ending off again with my favourite shot (It was so hard to choose!!)

I just love this photo because of the backdrop and the whole effect is just super sweet and I just really like it!!

Nowadays photoshoots are so wonderfully nice! You have like a billion costumes to change into and you get to go to beautiful places and they photoshop the backgrounds to make them look so marvelous

All done in Singapore! Don’t even have to travel to overseas to get snow as your backdrop! So yea, I really love all the photos and it shows us all that Singapore does have scenic spots to take photos no?

Anyway, the final editing in the book was done marvelously and I think the memories of the photoshoot, I will safely say, can be kept forever. (:

FINALLY UPLOADED EVERYTHING! (:

Its not the end that matters but the process of getting to the end.

Today I’m going to post lots and lots of pictures, about 50 plus pictures on my cousins wedding and I will upload the ones on my cousins ROM and his photoshoot pictures another day cause I’m lazy to resize them all! HAHA.

So today there shall be less words and more pictures, which is preferred by everyone no?

These are the pictures taken before, when we had to go collect the wedding cake from the groom’s house:

This is the basket where you store all the dowry that you’re supposed to give to the brides parents according to what they have formerly discussed with the groom’s parents.

Normally dowry includes money, jewellry (prefably gold), food etc. You catch the idea. For the money, you have to accept the amount and then give a little back to the groom’s parents. Its kind of a courtesy.

Some of the stuff that went into the basket:

I think its jewelry inside these packages, I’m not really sure.

So you can pretty much request for any food that you want, like you see here, the brides’s parents requested for pork leg I think. And we brought home pork leg ourselves!

I wonder if you can make totally unreasonable requests like eh, I want a billion oranges and ehhh… 2 thousand clothes sewn from fine silk or something.

HMMM.. i think nobody would want to marry me after that though. BOOO. ahhaa.

But a girl can dreammm…

So when I told you we were going to collect wedding cake, what exactly did you imagine? Did you imagine something like…

this?

This is what we got:

Its kind of a Teochew cake kind of thing which we totally didn’t know how to appreciate and we didn’t even know how to go about eating it. HAHA.

So yea, apart from the peanut brittle and what looks like lao po bing, we didn’t really eat anything else. BOOO. Anyway, something really special I found was this…

On the can of each pork leg, there is this “XI” word, which is kind of the word you see everywhere during chinese wedding, meaning happiness or something to that extent.

Isn’t it sweet??? All pork legs have that nice little sticker on it!

Now on the day of the wedding, we head off to the groom’s house for the tea ceremony!

The groom picks the bride up from her house first, which is pretty much where all the fun happens, where you get to make the groom do horrible things like eat wasabi and say sweet stuff like i love you in 500 languages or something. Ah, so lucky to be me. (:

While waiting for the groom and bride to arrive, took some pictures of my cousins:

The couple have arrived and the tea ceremony begins!

First, they serve tea to the parents and collect red packets filled with lotsa lotsa moolah! Then they serve the elders according to seniority, the most senior getting served first.

Starting with my eldest uncle. Followed by my aunt.

Then my PARENTS! (:

My mother kept wanting to be called XIAO JIE (Miss)! Totally in her dreams. In the end, she got some really oldish sounding title like DA YI or YI MA or something. Ah well, HAHA.

My mummy was smiling so widely till her mouth couldn’t even close. If I got married I think she might have a permanent problem closing her mouth. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THAT DAY! HAHAHA.

Lastly, my youngest uncle and auntie.

Because my cousins are all younger or of the same age as this cousin, we all don’t get tea served to us. AWWWW SHUCKS.

But all of the people have to give them red packets when served tea. And if you are the one carrying the tea, you get red packets too! DAMN! I shoudl have done that instead of standing there taking pics! hahaha.

Then its picture time!

They are too busy looking at the professional photographer to even be bothered with me…

With the grooms side of the family.

With all the best man.

With bridesman and best man.

They head off to my cousins old room to check out his past living conditions:

Them on his old bed.

My cousin LOVES xiao ding dang. To the extent he has one whole collection of them even in his new house. And he apparantly hugs this very grotty one for years on end, explaining why it looks like a 100 years old.

After they left to take photos of them in various scenic spots, we remained in the groom’s house and took more pictures of my cousin.

We also used this special machine to weigh how much body fats we have! And apparantly I’m in the healthy range! WHOOPEE!

My cousins learn aikido, which is why they normally adopt some kind of fighting stance. Not because they are obsessed with fighting!

After that, we headed to the bride and grooms new house for a buffet. And when we got there, we bumped into them downstairs!

And they’ve changed into the 2nd attire for the day!

Some pictures of their dog inside their house:

Its a schnauzer and its name is CANCAN. Cute name huh?

Which leads me to think…

Is my mixed poodle silky terrier a.k.a silky poo cuter or the schnauzer? SAY MY DOG!

And since we’re comparing.. how about..

My cousin and the brides sisters daughter? Whose cuter? HAHA.

I didn’t manage to catch her in her 3rd outfit for the day but here and some pictures of her room:

The room is pretty much decked out in bright red and pink. And no, we didn’t hide chickens under the bed to see if their first child would be male or female. And no, we didn’t get kids to roll on their bed so they can have children soon.

Anyway, they had this framed photo of the photoshoot they had for their wedding at the top of the door:

Alrighty, I’m done with updating! I’ll update the pictures from ROM and the photoshoot another time. I shall end with my favourite photo from the photoshoot just to give you a sneak preview:

WAH LAO, TODAY IS A FREAKISHLY FUN DAY LEH HOR?

HAHA. sorry for my lameness! I’m putting this as my first sentence because…

Notice the new LISTEN NOW located at the top of each entry? Try pressing it!!

Now you can not only READ my posts, you can hear them too!

So if your really busy, you can choose to:

1) Upload it to your ipod and listen to it!
2) Listen to it while your surfing the net!

I tried listening to it and I have to say that the reading is quite clear, though the pronounciation sounds abit odd and the tone of the voice is like monotone but then its really quite a cool feature no?

Haha! Thats why I tried to type a really singlish sentence so that I can listen to it over and over and laugh at the person trying to pronounce it! HAHA.

I know your all going like LAMEEEEEE. but then isn’t it fun?

The only thing is that the man’s voice isn’t sexy enough to listen to it repeatedly. Maybe I should create a programme like this and do voice-overs. My voice over the phone is very sexy one ok!

HAHAHA. my mom’s one is even better. HAHAHA.

ok, sorry for my lameness!

Friends come into your life for a reason, for a season or for a lifetime. It doesn’t matter why they come into your life. You should cherish them all the same.

Thinking of them that way, makes it that much easier for you to tell yourself to let go. Of good friends and of bad friends, because they came, they treaded and they left. For the good for the bad, its always for something, for an impact, big or small, long or short.

Just something I read about in the mail and I found it pretty enlightening and very true.

anyway, TRY THE NEW FUNCTION!!! SUPER FUN! HAHA.

MY LG KU990R HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! I’m so blogging it after I’ve used all the features and know it at the tips of my finger!

Anywayyyy…

I realise I have only a thousand photos of food pics that i’m supposed to upload but am supposedly busy (lazy) to do so. So this post will be a mish-mash of food pictures, mostly of the food cooked at home. All of the dishes cooked at home are relatively simple and if you want the recipes, feel free to ask me for them. (:

Starting with 2 dishes eaten outside,

Fishball Noodles from Giant

Kway Chap from Kopitiam

Kway Chap from Kopitiam

Both weren’t fantastic at all, so I wouldn’t advice you to try them.

Moving on to some dishes cooked at home.

Starting with the easiest…

Chicken Bao

Nahhh, we didn’t wrap these bao ourselves, we got it from…

Lele Chicken Bao from NTUC

Bought it from NTUC and I would strongly recommend you NOT to buy it. The skin is hard as nails even after you steam it, worse if you leave it out.

The filling isn’t fantastic and xiao long bao is supposed to have some kind of soup inside it, but this one was very veryyyy dry. So don’t bother buying it!

But if you do decide to buy, please read the instructions…

It says DO NOT DEFROST! My mummy happily went to defrost it, causing it to become a huge lump of bao. Which means I had to eat a huge rock for breakfast. Not good.

Century Egg porridge

Relatively simple to cook porridge, just that you have to add enough water and leave the rice to boil till its nice and soft. But no matter what porridge you eat, I would recommend that you add…

SPRING ONION, PARSLEY AND GINGER! But add according to how much you love these ingredients. Food without condiments for me isn’t very nice at all. So yea.

And because I love to eat eggs with maggi mee, my mummy and I decided to try out how to do poached eggs as per Gordan Ramsey’s method.

The result?

It was rather successful, so if you want to try it, you can watch Gordan Ramsey’s video here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbAQgJF3d7E[/youtube]

You definitely have to ensure that your water ‘tornado’ is spinning fast enough and that its not bubbling. I tried this I think 2 or 3 times to acheive the results in the pictures. (:

MACARONI! One of my favourite dishes but the dish my mother hates to make because of the hard work. But my mummy’s macaroni is really the best, if she says she’s number 1 no one can beg to differ!

The soup is spicy enough because of the black pepper, it has a chicken infused taste to the soup plus the condiments and the finely shredded chicken. I’m not kidding, its the best macaroni in the world and I ain’t bragging.

In case your wondering how much work can it be, look at the amount of chicken we use to cook macaroni..

Thats how much chicken meat we have to shred!

Speaking of chicken,

My mothers latest creation, sort of a chicken herbal soup is also rather to my liking. I don’t like herbal stuff, like all the red dates and everything but eating this is really not bad at all. The only thing is that the soup is rather oily even if you remove the chicken skin.

So my mummy is currently finding ways to cut down the oil.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE FROG LEGS, PLEASE SCROLL UNTIL YOU SEE THE WORD SAFE!

Some of the basic ingredients to make black chilli sauce frog legs will be spring onion, ginger, dried chilli and a specially concocted sauce.

So you have your frog that comes with the body and of course the leg. You have to chop them up and you will get something like this..

All chopped up and ready to cook!

Some people hate frog legs and can’t understand why others can eat them but I guess its a large part of culture. Like if I told you some parts of Africa eat hamsters, you’ll go ew, but then again thats their culture.

Spring Onion Frog legs

Black chilli sauce Frog Legs

The recipe is not perfect but the frog legs were fresh and the meat was cooked till quite tender. You can buy fresh frog legs from Sheng Shiong Supermart, I would recommend you not to buy from giant because my dad found…

2 ROTTING FROG LEGS!

But maybe its because the weather in Singapore is freaking hot these days, like 34 degrees celsius hot. OMG. I can’t live without fan/aircon now.

SAFE!! The frog legs are over, you can read now!

And a fruit I’m not sure if all of you have seen before. Its called MANGOSTEEN! Its a decent purply colour and the inside looks gorgeously white.

It actually tastes like grape just without the seeds and the texture is abit different. Very sweet and very nice as a after dinner snack. (:

And i’m going to end my post with a sneak preview of whats coming.