Eden's Rose

2008-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Jonathan G Cohen (2005) The Economic Effects of P2P. Retrieved November 27, 2005, from http://www.philoneist.com/50226711/the_economic_effects_of_p2p.php

David Blackburn (2005) The Effect of P2P File-sharing depends on Popularity. Retrieved November 24, 2005, from http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2005/11/the_effect_of_p.html

Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz (2007) The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing. Retrieved October 30, 2007, from
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/en/ip01457e.html

2008-02-27T00:56:00.000-08:00

Impact of P2P on the music industry - The two opposing viewpoints

Negative impact:

Depresses music purchasing, negative effect on album sales.

Internet file sharing threatens artists' ability to sell their music through digital downloading because the digital files available from artists are virtually indistinguishable from those available on P2P services.

File sharing reduces the chance of acts being able to produce blockbuster sales.

Reduced probability that any act is able to sell millions of records, and if the success of the mega-star artists is what drives the investment in new acts, it might reduce the incentive to invest in new talent.

Music labels will be less willing to cultivate new talent due to higher risk and diminished returns.

Small record stores forced to close down due to customers turning to the internet instead for music.

Positive impact:

However, the most widely cited paper concludes that file sharing has no negative effect on CD sales.

This paper by Olberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, was published in the Feb 2007 issue of the Journal of Political Economy, and is the only paper which analyzes actual downloads on file sharing networks.

They tracked sales and downloads of 500 random albums of varying genres and after doing so found that illegal downloads would only be a small force in the decrease in album sales, possibly even slightly improving album sales of the top albums in stores at the time.

Also, an Industry Candada P2P study found that P2P filesharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing.

Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, the results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs.

That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about half of a CD.

Next, a paper by David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD student concludes that ramifications are not evenly distributed among all artists; specifically that more popular songs suffer a negative sales impact while less known artists experience a slight market increase.

Artists who are unknown, and thus most helped by file sharing, are those artists who sell relatively few albums, whereas artists who are harmed by file sharing and thus gain from its removal, the popular ones, are the artists whose sales are relatively high.

If file sharing essentially shifts sales away from established acts toward unknown acts, this has potentially very important implications for how talent is developed and distributed in the industry.

Lastly, some researchers believe that massive copying has been occurring ever since the invention of tape cassettes and the increased economic impact of simpler access to copying provided by computer networks does not seem to have been large.

Evaluation:

The effects and impact of P2P file-sharing are highly debatable.

As this is a relatively new technology, the direction of the long-term lasting impact remains unclear and is thus still open to alot of guesswork, opinions and differing viewpoints from the different sectors.

2008-02-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

American Psychological Association. (2004). Eating disorders: Psychotherapy's role in effective treatment. Retrieved July 25, 2006, from http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=50.

Brian Dessent. El Cerrito, California, USA Page created: Saturday, 10-May-2003 http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/

Napster (2004) What is Napster?? retrieved October 15, 2004 from http://www.napster.com/what_is_napster.html

How Stuff Works (2004) How the old Napster worked? retrieved October 16, 2004 from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/napster.htm

Gnutella(2004) retrieved august 11, 2004
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci345266,00.html

2008-02-26T19:06:00.000-08:00

Different P2P applications make use of different protocols for its uses:

Centralised network versus Decentralised network:

Centralised:

BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files.
It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file.
However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers.
The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth.
The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.)
In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible.
BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols

Napster was a file sharing service that paved the way for decentralized P2P file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, limewire, I-mesh, which are now used for many of the same reasons and can download music, pictures, and other files.
The popularity and repercussions of the first Napster have made it a legendary icon in the computer and entertainment fields.
Napster is arguably the most infamous P2P file sharing network to date.
Originally designed to allow college users to share MP3 files they had on their computers, Napster, soon became a network of several million users swapping MP3 files across the internet.

Decentralised:

FastTrack is a peer to peer(P2P) protocol, used by the Kazaa (and variants, Grokster and iMesh) file sharing programs.
The file sharing application Morpheus originally used this network, but was later banished from it because of licensing disputes.
In 2003, FastTrack was the most popular file sharing network, being mainly used for the exchange of music mp3 files.
Popular features of FastTrack are the ability to resume interrupted downloads and to simultaneously download segments of one file from multiple peers.
Also, the search for a certain keyword is "complete": if the search is not stopped or timed out, FastTrack finds a source for the search if one exists.

Structured network versus unstructured network:

Structured:

The Content Addressable Network (CAN) was one of the original four distributed hash table proposals (Ratnasamy 2001), introduced concurrently with Chord, Pastry, and Tapestry.
Although intended to be more general, the term content addressable network came to be associated with Ratnasamy et al.'s specific design.
Like other DHTs, CAN is a distributed, decentralized P2P infrastructure that provides hash table functionality on an Internet-like scale.
CAN is designed to be scalable, fault tolerant, and self-organizing.
CAN is built around a virtual multi-dimensional Cartesian coordinate space on a multi-torus.
This d-dimensional coordinate space is completely logical.
The entire coordinate space is dynamically partitioned among all the peers (N number of peers) in the system such that every peer possesses its individual, distinct zone within the overall space.

Unstructured:

Gnutella is a system in which individuals can exchange files over the Internet directly without going through a Web site in an arrangement sometimes described as peer-to-peer.
Like Napster and similar Web sites, Gnutella is often used as a way to download music files from or share them with other Internet users and has been an object of great concern for the music publishing industry.
Unlike Napster, Gnutella is not a Web site, but an arrangement in which you can see the files of a small number of other Gnutella users at a time, and they in turn can see the files of others, in a kind of daisy-chain effect.
Gnutella also allows you to download any file type, whereas Napster is limited to MP3 music files.

2006-12-14T03:26:00.000-08:00

POST BATAM TRIP POST.
i will let someone do the picture summary in detail since im too lazy.
my sd card will make its rounds babes!
cheers!

Album: OST Heart
Genre: unknown
Di sini kau dan aku
Terbiasa bersama
Menjalani kasih sayang
Bahagia ku denganmu

Pernahkah kau menguntai
Hari paling indah
Ku ukir nama kita berdua
Di sini surga kita

Bila kita mencintai yang lain
Mungkinkah hati ini akan tegar
Sebisa mungkin
Tak akan pernah
Sayangku akan hilang

If we love somebody could we be this strong
I will fight to win our love will conquer all
Wouldn't risk my love
Even just one night
Our love will stay in my heart
My heart....

THANKS TO THE HAIRSALON. friends, the real lyrics are here.

2006-09-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

my turn!
indeed, quite accurate =)

The Helper (the Two)

Helpers are warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs.

How to Get Along with Me
Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific.
Share fun times with me.
Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours.
Let me know that I am important and special to you.
Be gentle if you decide to criticize me.

In Intimate Relationships
Reassure me that I am intersting to you.
Reassure me often that you love me.
Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me.

What I Like About Being a Two
being able to relate easily to people and to make friends
knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better
being generous, caring, and warm
being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings
being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor

What's Hard About Being a Two
not being able to say no
having low self-esteem
feeling drained from overdoing for others
not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish
criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should
being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them
working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings

Twos as Children Often
are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism
try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding
are outwardly compliant
are popular or try to be popular with other children
act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention
are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Twos), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Twos)

Twos as Parents
are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't)
are often playful with their children
wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?"
can become fiercely protective

2006-09-03T04:13:00.000-07:00

Got this from dee's blog. it's quite accurate!

and this is me!

The Peacemaker (the Nine)

Peacemakers are receptive, good-natured, and supportive. They seek union
with others and the world around them.

How to Get Along with Me

If you want me to do something, how you ask is important. I especially
don't like expectations or pressure.

I like to listen and to be of service, but don't take advatage of this.

Listen until I finish speaking, even though I meander a bit.

Give me time to finish things and make decisions. It's OK to nudge
me gently and nonjudgmentally.

Ask me questions to help me get clear.

Tell me when you like how I look. I'm not averse to flattery.

Hug me, show physical affection. It opens me up to my feelings.

I like a good discussion but not a confrontation.

Let me know you like what I've done or said.

Laugh with me and share in my enjoyment of life.

What I Like About Being a Nine

being nonjudgmental and accepting

caring for and being concerned about others

being able to relax and have a good time

knowing that most people enjoy my company; I'm easy to be around

my ability to see many different sides of an issue and to be a good
mediator and facilitator

my heightened awareness of sensations, aesthetics, and the here and
now

being able to go with the flow and feel one with the universe

What's Hard About Being a Nine

being judged and misunderstood for being placid and/or indecisive

being critical of myself for lacking initiative and discipline

being too sensitive to criticism; taking every raised eyebrow and twitch
of the mouth personally

being confused about what I really want

caring too much about what others will think of me

not being listened to or taken seriously

Nines as Children Often

feel ignored and that their wants, opinions, and feelings are unimportant

tune out a lot, especially when others argue

are "good" children: deny anger or keep it to themselves

Nines as Parents

are supportive, kind, and warm

are sometimes overly permissive or nondirective

2006-09-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

Wahahahahahha i didn't know you still update deedee!

anywaaay let me continue from where dee last left us - her farewell to us before we left for taiwan! and of course, when julie blogs, it equates to photos, photos and more photos =)

before departure!
("lao mei and ame: we promise we'll send you off!!" weeelll, where were they?? ;) )

the horrid horrid wind in taiwan! ok at least the typhoon didn't hit the area we were at, thank God

group shot! looks like some shot in chinatown ya?

ooohhh this is heavenly!! ice grinded to perfection that it leaves you thinking that you're eating ice cream. and the mango. WHOOOOAAAAAAAA.
singapore ice kachang should learn from them!

one of the RARE cute guys we saw. i strongly believe that porks managed to twist the tally of cute guys we saw in HK to the number of taiwanese people we caused to hate us

neoprint! quite a different experience taking neoprints in a foreign country

we came with 3 pairs of birkies. and we left with 8 pairs! they were so darn cheap!! $60++ for madrids!

(conversation when the shuttle bus stopped us outside TW101)
3 of us: -looks up at the (ugly) tower-
porks: wah.
-3 seconds of silence-
one of us: ok. let's eat.
shows just how much that lovely building enthralled us ya?
oh and we only spend a grand total of 40mins in that building. hohohoho so much for tourist attraction.
and don't you think pork's feet is in a veeery scary angle?

the super duper cute baby we met on the train! and he's TERRIFIED of the camera

shopping at shihlin: fills up one whole trolley!

remember the super duper yummy fried chicken that singapore's mac used to serve before they stupidly pulled it out of their menu?? they have it in taiwan!!!! meeeeeeeh!!

and no one can beat the taiwanese when it comes to direct translation

back in sg..........
we went for the nus arts bash at MOS. well, it sucked.

red faces and half open eyelids

till the next photo update!

2006-08-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

GIRLS.

we have started school and we have survived some lectures both boring and whaoh.

lets work hard and play hard.. keep porky out of trouble and stop pigpig from embarrasing..

a very warm welcome to pigpig/lao mei/'hufflepuff'/mrs.ah-ju as a formal friend of bkbm

as we prepare to celebrate the 1st year anniversary of this beautiful union....
lets keep BM-ing and keep workin hard.

whether wedding planner wannabe, monkey lover, chocolate hater or handphone slide-liker, we'll be all that we're meant to be, and by God's grace, be more than that even.

love you girls.

and extra love to our dearest Ame who has all our sp and hugs: )

2006-07-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

BON VOYAGE babes!
(yi lu shun feng)

BKBM/PO158/eden's rose/beaumonde
(friends, i think we have identity crisis)

i think this is the first bkbm pic we have
during the interim between prelims and A's

Lyanna Wong, with arms wide open; )
head and heart and ..what a beautiful soul

happpy woolie, ever patient, ever quirky..
BUT GETTING BITCHY YA.
(h-hello...*scratchy sound*)

' ni qu kan yi kan, ni qu xiang yi xiang,
YUE LIANG dai biao wo de xin'

My lovely girls. Please take care, be safe and have ALL THE FUN possible
in Taiwan! I will be missing you and loving you every day!

If u meet Li hom, i will personally attack each one of you;)

LOVELOVE*

2006-06-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

hello frens!!!

i miss u all!!!! haha...!
and dont deny it, i know you miss ME too ;) ;) ;) -blushes-
HAHA.

my jakarta trip can be summed up by some random words:

food, FOOD and more F.O.O.D.
shopping!!!
grandma and grandpa-ing
GOSSIP
hair dye
tenderloin steaks

and most TRAGICALLY....................evil red itchy bites!

haha, will update in detail!
take care! =))

2006-06-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

Photo time!

our visit to coffee club to surprise dee ends up in.......

and because we stayed past closing time, the coffee club peeps offered us cakes to take home.
we were too paiseh so we rejected them and waited forlornly outside the gates of CC for dee to end work.
but the cakes looked too darn delicious!
so who else to send in but the brave and thick skin amelia ng!

After finding out that we were chosen to have a stall at Zouk/Cleo's flea market, we trudged down to Chinatown to get materials!

that's all for now!
many many many more to come.
trust me.
although my little camera is only 5 months old, it has taken close to 3000 photos!
that equates to an average of 20 photos a day.
gosh.
what disgusting cam whores we all are.

it's only day 1 in London for deedee (i don't think she has even touched down at london yet!) and i miss her already!!!!!

2006-06-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

ZOUK & CLEO PRESENT...

and GUESS WHAT??

BEAUMONDE IS GONNA BE THERE!

so click HERE and see what awaits ya: )

do come down and support us,
this Sunday 4th June 2-7pm
Just call or sms me if you need info yea?

2006-05-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

THIS is what they said about me:/

draw one of your own right here!

julie! they didnt say anything about whether i can draw:/

lets create a street...

2006-05-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

Click here to view my house

2006-05-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

After countless cancellations, incompatible schedules, jinxing and meeeehs, the 4 of us finally trooped down to teo heng yesterday. Yaaaay!

And what's an outing without cam-whoring? ;)

The true lian emerges from within!

Poor deedee had to suffer pork's it's-meant-to-be-a-comforting-gesture-but-i-didn't-have-enough-the-art-of-seduction-lessons-so-i-ended-up-seducing-my-friend-unknowingly finger stroking routine.

Poor unwitting porks singing all by herself while we cam-whored without her ;)

Our expected reaction when we see MD

But how about when we see porks?

So scared that even the camera shook!

The bane of our existence:

It was so hard to harmonise in this song and the words were so cheeem that we repeated the song more than 10 times, trying to master the song...

..so difficult that sitting down on the sofa was impossible cos we had so much frustrated energy!

And after ending off the kbox session with shan hu hai - what else! - we proceeded to simpang for some good ol' prata, briyani, tehcino and milo dinosaur!

No prizes for guessing correctly what song was in our heads while we were eating.
I'm surprised that I didn't dream of it last night.

2006-05-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

hello friends...!
10 May 2006, 7 05pm marks a very very very VERY important occasion!

MY MAIDEN POST!

sadly, i've nothing much to blog about, heh.
you naughty little lulus have talked about EVERYTHING, meeeeeeeh.
and abandoned me on VESAK'S DAY! =(
hahahahahahahahahaaaaahaaaahaaaaahahahahaha!

today was an adventurous day out at julie's house.
ate big ben's after 12638362001907286358 days without it, yumm! :)
purchased an amazing invention..e HAND-HELD sewing machine! haha.

OH YAR!
i have a few little complaints to make!
dont think i masses then u all can bully me like that ah, BEACHES!

1. contrary to POPULAR belief, i am not always in lala land. i DO have my moments of extreme intellect!

2. i cant think anymore! had a long long list! bleah, later..i will continue, haha.

i'm feeling happy =))
maybe cos of the "10% pay rise" from dear ms yong @ Kumon?
maybe cos i got into FASS, NUS??
maybe cos i bought lots of useless stuff from sgselltrade?
maybe cos julie and i have finally embarked on our next swing project?
maybe cos ikea has lots of pretty stuff that i wanna buy for my new room?
maybe cos i am getting a break from school and loving every moment of it?
maybe cos kor kor chen is coming back next week??
maybe cos i bought a totally gorgeous HOBO bag after much trials & turbulence?

or just....
maybe.......

cos you guys abandoned me on Vesak's Day? ;)
heh heh, hahahahhahahahahhahaha!

in any case, i am a happy girl!

lovelove! (:

2006-05-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wahahahahahahhaha
Porks just sent me a message:
"OMG! OMG! OMG! i just saw someone wearing our brocade sash! Goodness me! So scary!! Damn weird!"

So cooool! I wanna walk on the streets and see someone wearing one of our sashes too!
It'll be so much more exciting than seeing MJ students wearing my orientation shirt hohoho.

Anywaaay it was just Porks and I at Ikea/Queensway today. Going to Ikea sucks cos they have too many pretty things and that would mean spending more money! But the meatballs and broccoli and sauce rocks!! Really can't wait for the pasir ris/tampines branch to open!

Such a random post. But it's much more fun posting here instead of my own blog heh

2006-05-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

That day when it was LIKE THAT LOR.

do you remember that day woolie and lyanna, when we were in UNCOORDINATED, coordinated clothes? HOW Silly:/

MEHH

and porks wasnt even there!!

eh, quite a nice picture ya? : ) WHY?!

anyway, none of u are effectively online. bitches.

2006-05-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Since this blog was originally meant to be a holiday blog where we blog about the extensive number of holiday trips we have taken (YEAH RIGHT), I shall kick off my first post with a photo blog of our Hong Kong trip! Sadly, Dee wasn't able to join us. But it's ok! We'll have a BKBM trip very soooon!!

**Image heavy post ahead of you! Wait for the photos to finish loading first! =)

DAY 1

On the 13th of March, 2006, at 5.10am, we took our very first photo outside the departure gate

Do you see our flight? =D

INSIDE the departure hall, well, just to prove that we were indeed going on a holiday and not merely standing outside at the gate, the way we did longingly 4 months ago

The playground was so cute! We couldn't resist taking photos in the tunnel heh

On our way to board the plane!! So exciting!

Ooops porks got cut off. But who cares! What matters most was that we captured the flight stewardess right? Hohohoho

Within minutes of settling down in the plane, Porks started shopping!! And if you scrutinise the background properly, the plane is still very nicely parked in good ol' Singapore ie we had yet to depart!

Sooo disgusting ;)

Beautiful sunrise we managed to catch on the plane

And 3.75 hours later........ we landed in HK!!!!

Our very first meal! Yummy wanton noodles, beef noodles and roast duck rice which was fabuuuuuulous!

It was soooo cold that I had to put on my gloves even though we were in the hotel room! 12degrees!

Cold and miserable, we came out of Esprit empty handed. We were expecting super cheap clothes from them but.... =( They failed us. Tsk

To furthen dampen our mood, we had worm-like CHINESE chicken noodle which tasted like spaghetti and WESTERN baked rice which tasted like CHINESE fried rice.

DEE!!! Evidence: Porks stopped eating before us!!

After dinner, we headed towards Ladies Market. But before we could even shop properly, it started pouring heavily and temperature dropped to 10degrees!! Because we came to HK totally ill-prepared for this horrible weather, we scampered back to our hotel at 8PM, frozen, wet and utterly miserable. What happened to all the shopping we were supposed to do??

And so, we settled down in the hotel and did the next best thing we were good at: CAM-WHORING

Our infamous feet shot heh

Piled up!

We look like demented ghosts from hell with those "tongues"

Ok, 3 photos from our cam-whoring. That's it. The rest are either too ugly or embarrassing to post up. We have a reputation to upkeep heheheheh

DAY 2

A before-going-out shot

Aaaaah, the best breakfast you can get when you're cold and disheartened: HK claypot porridge

After that wonderful breakfast which left us relatively warm and slightly more upbeat, we embarked on our first MTR ride to Tsim Tsai Tsui

Street shot taken by an Indian man who was loitering around the corner of the street. And after walking along many many street corners, we realised that there were Indian men loitering at each and every corner! Scaaaary - and they only approach and talk to ang-mao men. Hmmmmmm

Alas! After some aimless pop-ins and pop-outs of shops, we see a RED sign outside U2! Hoorraaah! A sale!!

But veeery disappointingly, they cheated us! The sale was only for ugly looking sweaters.
MEEEEH!

A very cheena-looking photo taken by a fellow Singaporean.
It's so easy to identify a fellow compatriot when you're overseas. No other citizens speak a mixture of English, Chinese and lahs, lehs, lors but us.

And now, we present to you, HK's attempt to keep itself clean:

You must be thinking, wow! Must be some kind of special looking kind of mat that can do all these funky cleaning huh?
And what do you get when you look down?

A SUPER DUPER ordinary kind of ugly mat which you can find at any carpet shop! Waahahahahaha can you imagine people actually following the instructions??

All our walking finally paid off when we found THE Esprit store which offers a sale whole year round!!!

All happy and satisfied

Yummilious food for lunch!

Our attempt to look intellectual with our map. Well, I failed terribly heh

The place where we almost got kidnapped!!! Haha no lah, but we were mobbed by a huuuge group of Indian men who were trying to get us to eat at their respective stores.
We practically ran out of that place lah!

The MTR station - looks familiar? ;)

More food!

Siamese twins with their identical Abercrombie boleros

And erm, well, because it was to cold to erm bathe, we didn't shower for 2 days!! Feeling so disgusted with ourselves, we decided to clean up a little by washing our hair at a hair salon! That way, we didn't have to enter the freezing hotel toilet!
Sooo cleeever!

After our wash, for some very strange reasons, we ended up with super uber straight hair!
So intrigued by our hair, we attempted to take photos of it....

attempt 1..

attempt 2....

and after attempt 12686468...

the hairdresser who was probably very amused by us decided to volunteer his service.
And tada!

Pathetic dinner no 2 =( Trying to save money for shopping lah heheh

And we were greatly rewarded!! Had a fantastic time bargaining and shopping at Ladies' Market =D

Night lifeee

Yeah, don't you all just want to be in my shoes? ;)

Because we were so cold and wearing 3 layers of clothes + thick comforters were not enough, Porks had to resort to wrapping her feet up in her sweater!

DAY 3

Before-going-out shot which became a routine

What's a HK trip without a big dim sum feast right? So we went in search of one and found....

The best char siew paus in the world!!!

The aunty frying our chee cheong fun! So cute yeah?

Happy and warm and well pink

Part of our dim sum feast. We just kept ordering and ordering!

Dedicating a entire picture to my favourite sauce: peanut butter sauce with fried chee cheong fun is fantastic!!!! Go try it! But then again, Singapore's standard might not be comparable heh

How can we eat dim sum without xiao long baos??

Our new favourite food: deep fried sugared mantous with condensed milk!

Full and satisfied - notice a bag Porks is carrying? Yeah our leftovers hahaha really ordered too much

On the train

my attempt to capture one of their school uniforms. They're so nice lah, unlike Singapore's blearrgh. So British!

On our way up up up to Stanley Market! The view up there is brilliant

At Stanley Market. Looove that place! Felt as if I was in a quaint little village in Australia, with the perfect weather of 20 degrees

And here, we also found the cleanest toilet in HK! Public toilets in HK are atrocious! To think I thought Singapore's toilets were bad.

So clean!! With toilet paper some more!

And they still have those electrical tram thingy! So cute!

Ly fell asleep on the bus and left me alone to Porks' endless talking for that 45mins ride!! She refused to let me take a nap too meeeeeeh!

Ice-cream uncle!! I thought it was a Singaporean thing to have those motorcycle icecream uncles heheh

Dinner at Langham Place's Euro GoGo! Really yummmmmy food! It was quite refreshing to have some western food after 32784297 chinese meals

Lovely waterfall thingy with a talented violinist playing tong hua in the background haha

Rainbow steps! Porks' lalalalallalala stairs

Ice cream in the horribly cold weather! We must had been mad!

Hahahaha fantastic English they have over there

And because we were trying to save money, we ended up eating our take-away breakfast for supper!

Porks and her aunty who stays in HK

LAST DAY =(

Our last before-going-out shot =( Coincidentally, we all wore the same coloured tops!

Hotel dooor and lobby

HK takopachi! Delicious!

The place we frequented quite a lot to get yummy handmade cookies

Our last lunch

And last ice cream at the same place. Cookies and cream rocks!

We met Candyce at Sportswear Street!

Ly wanted to buy a pair of Birkies so we popped into one of the shops and guess who we met! Mr Hottie! Hahaha while Ly was trying on her Birkies, Porks and I were deliberating on an important question: should we ask Mr Salesman for a photo? It's our last day and we will not ever see him ever again right? But we were too shy lah hehehehheehheheh
But it was bravo Ly who popped the question! He was so cute lah. He started blushing and told us sheepishly in his broken Chinese to ask his colleague to take the photo for us. And Ly was like, er you ask lah. So it was a mini tennis match before he finally asked his colleague. Meanwhile, Porks and I were hiding away in our corner, red with embarrassment. Such cowards haha. And so we finally took our photo, with a huge snigger from his colleague.

Ok fine he doesn't look that cute here. But he IS! And guess what! We were all in matching colours!! Wahahahahaha

Porks' favourite char siew pau

And after craving for fruit juice for 3 whole days, we finally found a fruit juice shop!

Parting shop of our hotel

Cute mr old man! Don't you think he exudes that kind of "I have many interesting stories to tell to my many many grandchildren" aura?

Ly's crush on Langham Place Hotel's uniform

No prizes for guessing who took this photo

Last shot in HK =(

Once again, no prizes for guessing who Ly and I were thinking of ;)

Back in Singapore! Awwww we missed Dee so much that we met up the very next day after we got back

2006-05-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

Deedee has made so many spelling errors!! booboo.
but she doesn't want me to edit it for her.. "authentic," she says.

anyways, what i came to do, really, was to do justice to deedee's description of herself.

Dee's the one with the kindest soul (unless she encounters an extreme irritant, which is very seldom and hilarious at that too) who chides us when the three of us say anything too mean. intelligent and a natural with comedy, she never fails to put a smile on our face. it's just that amazing ability to invoke cheer in our otherwise mundane lives. beautiful inside and out, i don't think any of us would disagree if i called her our angel. =) she is in no way normal, as she claims, however. in fact, there's some truth to porks' nickname for her - Ditzy Deedee!

there.
i think i will someday regret writing the above, when she decides to use that against me.....

this is almost like a mini feel-good session huh. sorry julie & porks, i need to start marking that disgusting pile of exam scripts now so i can only write later.

have fun at lunch later. =(

oh wait, before i go- julie, you've worked another wonder with our blog. thank you!

love, ly

2006-05-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

Given that all other 3 members have failed to give a comprehensive post of the very formation of Eden's rose, (because sometimes in life, people are busy...) I shall volunteer my spare time here in the Meridian Office to tell you about this lovely quartet.

Woolie aka Julie aka Cranium Fart (for a short period of time) is our Exclusive Executive (right, porks?) She is the head and the heart behind Beaum0nde, the silent bitch whose evil lurks beneath the surface. Hates excessive cheese , milk and all things dairy and is a poor victim of the poison that is irritable bowel syndrome. She has the nimblest fingers and the smmm.....smmmartest hands;) Talented flautist and avid Desinger, Julie is the one who generally pulls us all together and tears us apart with her 'HUH's and her three-finger-tap-on-side-of-the-head. She's our woolie and we'll gaurd her protectively, lousy tear ducts and all.

Lyanna aka Ly aka LyLy aka POPPOP( u can TELL it's pork's creation) is our resident teacher. The first to take on teaching in this spell of 6 months, she is the one who's always busy with work and stuff YA! the one with the most fashion sense and fashion power, she always lets in on the good lobangs and indulges us in our silly moods. Once in a while she can be persuaded to be crazy with you, but her natural aversion to Porky's antics of all pitches, mehhs and lengths is a constant source of mutual amusement.. The most focused of us all , she has the wit and the brains and the looks and the heart.. and the.. ah damnit, she's our Lyanna.

Porky Chen aka POrks aka porkehh aka miiiin aka lalalal aka you-stupid-girl is the ah beng magnet of the group and the one who really should have sat right in front during the taboo sex-ed lessons in secondary school. she is a potent mix of naievete and craftiness and she gets on our nerves so often she's like a diamond ring out of the rough. But despite it all, we love her for some werid, unphantomable reason. She will call it charm, but we will call it all things else. Her multiple booboos in one conversation speak of inherent thougt-word connection problems amongst other things. When she's not in LALALALALAL land, she's emotionally the strongest of us all (read, HEARTLESS) , but she will always be the giggling silly sotong porky to us.

Denise Aka Dee aka Deedee(hah, im normal). that's me. painfully irritating with my endless jibes and the lack of ability to let things go. prone to repeating jokes tt only porks laughs at , and generally able to get them to do anything i want them to (when they forget: ) ) The one with the most random things to say and the dumbest abstract ideas ever. Seen sometimes as the cynic of the group, but maybe because im always right next to ms. lalalala-rainbow-fairytale.

BKBM was founded in between prelim and a level time in 2005 at the world's no.1 airport. Established on the mutual ideals of timed breaks and concurrently, lax rules, it prides itself on the ability to eat, talk, listen to music, and study all at once. Never hungry and always shopping, this organisation has since diversified its activities to include dabbling in the business (beaum0nde), education (teaching in school, kumon and tution) and service sector realm (f & b) in a bid to conquer the lesser world. It is an exciting time for BKBM as we set our sights on University days and more good times together. The official language of Bkbm is an incoherent mix of 4 voices trying to irritate each other in the porkeh slang and the group as a whole is adverse to exessive chocolate, prawns, milk, cheese.

Sometimes in life you find a group of friends you know will take you through the best and the worst of days. Somedays in life you feel like you were stupid to say that, but always in life, i know im grateful to have angels like this to claim as my own.

love you girls.
dee.

2006-05-04T05:52:00.000-07:00

Ladeedaa! The BKBM blog is finally up! -clap clap clap-

2006-05-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

Testing