Jigsaw Puzzles

When I was young I played with jigsaw puzzles a lot. Those wooden pieces where you just fit them into the board and if it's the right piece, the picture clicks.

Recently I have been playing with jigsaw puzzles too, but they don't need to be cleared up. I have this set of games inside my computer and I can pick a picture to play with any time I want - and even adjust the difficulty of the game. As before, I prefer playing with more 'cartoon like' jigsaws, because actual photographs and scenery are quite hard to do.

I was bored, so I wiki-ed 'jigsaw puzzle' to find out that some puzzles were in 2D or 3D version. That is so beyond my reach.

Somehow all this jigsaw playing reminds me of the Archi Boy's (Thierry's) blog name: Pieces of Me. Especially since he updated quite recently. The first thoughts this name brought to me was that it sounded very much like a shattered glass, then I connected the words to a jigsaw. Then I felt it had very much to do with archi models too, for my (very crude) impression of them were pieces of cardboard and stuff stuck together.

I don't know where my blogging direction is going to, but I'll just have faith and follow the my train of thoughts as I type. Come to think of it, I haven't blogged like this for some time. Usually I sit down with a set of thoughts, and expand them one by one.

But today is different. Completing this blog entry is like doing a jigsaw puzzles without seeing all the pieces I have in hand.

Sometimes I feel that life is like a jigsaw puzzle too. Isn't this statement a little cliche? But that's the way I find it. Unpredictable. Sometimes you see an odd piece standing out, and wonder - how this funny little piece with its different color and texture will actually fit into the whole picture. As of now, it doesn't seem to match anywhere. Do you think these thoughts while doing jigsaws? I do a lot.

But later, the fun part is as you get along, all the oohs and ahhs! It fits, and now you know why it does! :)

(Hey, this blog jigsaw is turning out not too bad afterall.)

I do always think that life is like fitting pieces of jigsaw together. You get the right pieces and they click when you walk along the will of God. In marriage, in finding a job, in building relationships. And how do you know the will of God? We discussed this once a upon a time in Bible study. Just be obedient to God's Word, and you'll be walking along His will!

But there's one new question I'd like to introduce: Why does the jigsaw puzzle, which is originally a nice picture, has to be broken up, only to be built or restructured again?

Everytime I do cartoon jigsaws, I always think that this helps to improve my cartoon drawing, or copying. That's because when the big picture is all apart, to reconstruct it, I need to pay attention to the little details. If it's all there already, I just tend to casually view it as a big picture, as a whole.

I guess if life was not a jigsaw, we wouldn't really appreciate the little details. All those twist and turns that are already made known are no more exciting.

And I guess to some people, if a picture wasn't in jigsaw form, there would be nothing fun nor addicting in it at all!

21 July 2009

I haven't been updating much. I'm at home in Tampin now for a week. Would come back to Singapore by Sunday.

Quite a bit has changed after my being away for about one month. Daddy has bought a new car (that I yet have to ride in). We have a new washing machine. Everyone in the house seems to be in love with Jacob's biscuits. I am, now, too. :)

I went to my grandfather's house and weighed myself on the scales there to find that I have hit my lowest weight record possible. 40.1 kg. Thank goodness it's not 39! But still I suppose that means I have to eat more. But I think I have been eating more nowadays. I'm even having suppers now!

Hmm. Maybe I'll put on weight here instead.

I finally finished my thick book of over 50 Hercule Poirot stories. Lovely! If only I go through my textbooks at this speed, and with this amount of passion! I can't help stating again what a wonderful read these books of Agatha Christie are. The conceited Poirot, with his famous, curled mustaches that cannot stand the heat, he barges in and out of the most extraordinary mysteries and gets every one of them solved! All except for one during his early days.

I Youtube-d and found that there are Hercule Poirot movies adapted from his novel crimes too! And my, some of the lady actresses are most pretty! It's a great pity there aren't subtitles. The words they speak are a bit mouthed in. And the acting, I won't really say that it's spectacular. But for a fan who's true to the contents of the book, I don't think the movies actually disappoint. Unlike other stories that have been adapted into movies and parts of it here and there are being left out - somehow I think they managed to put in all the important details and leave out just the really minor ones.

I'll write more next time, it's time for dinner :) Ta.

Archive Browsing

Just now I have been browsing through the archives of Campus Blog and also the RH Block 6 block. So many memories flooded in.

I saw all the posts I put and the others put in the blog the past two years. I recalled that we used to be CampNUS because almost all of us were studying in NUS. (Now it's not, to be fair haha.) I saw many people I haven't been seeing for a long while. And pictures of myself with short hair!

I saw the crazy old days when we were all First Years hanky-pankying in Block 6 compounds and the kitchenette, the combined dinners, the combined birthday celebrations.

Funny how all these change for me just after two years.

I suppose in a way I have shut myself from Block 6'ers lovely company. And I have not the willpower to keep in touch with those who left Campus, or to persuade them to come back.

I look and I browse and that part of myself yearns to be that me I was once, just a mere two years ago.

How busyness, stress and competitiveness has shaped me! How much university life has given to me, and yet how much has it taken away too.

I have always regarded myself as being soft in a way as being easily shaped by opinions of others and events in life, and I think to some degree I'm right. I've been changing and changing, year after year. And though part of me wants to go back, somehow, I don't want to go back either.

The change hasn't been all bad. I did make new friends. I did learn the importance of being dilligent and taking initiatives. I learned who I must be in order to be a good employee, to fit into this new world I'm thrust into, one I'm still struggling to learn how to survive in. I learned to take up heavier responsibilities. I regained part of my self-confidence I left behind in Malaysia, and at the same time, learn how to be humble.

Yet I begin to find it hard to hold on to relationships, especially those that have passed. My whole anchor to who I am and who I was before this in relation to people is that I belong to my family, and to them I shall always belong. The rest sort of come and go.

Dear friends, I do not understate your importance in my life. I do take friendships seriously, and I try to be accountable for all. Yet, I regret I have not found time to talk, listen and just be there for people, because I am often confused with my priorities - I wonder if I have been spending enough time on myself, even though it is already a lot.

Oh, I miss those days when you can just thrust the care of growing up and thriving in a working world apart, and just be there with your friends for fellowship and fun, sharing experiences with each other. I wonder why although I have placed great importance in many friendships in my life, I have often failed to sustain them.

And most of all, I wonder why part of me just wants to continue with the state I am now and live with it. I'm confused. Am I really like that?

Long-Due Blog and Photos

It's been a long time since I last blogged.

Since then my new roomie has moved in - a year 1 going year 2 civil engineering student, Yiqiao, from China. Very nice girl. She's my fifth roomie since I came to NUS. Tirza you're going to be the sixth! I always get the nice roomies. Hehe.

Also, I went for my first OMC collection last week. It rained, so Yi Shiean and I lunched in a hawker center in Bedok while waiting for the rain to subside and for Shu Yun to come. We had only one item to collect the CD's for Float. At first I wondered if it was a little too much for THREE of us to do that, but later it proved to be very necessary. The CD's were really heavy and there were two big cartons of them. They gave us trolleys to push them downstairs so we did and called a cab.

When the CDs and us reached hall, I called the ever-gentlemanly Yuan to give us a hand with CDs together with another guy. We learned from them that they were actually going to break them apart to use parts of them for the shiny effects. All of us felt a pang in our hearts! All the CDs were brand new, each in a box (that explains the heaviness), and each box wrapped with plastic! Ah well, but the company didn't say we couldn't break them up. And I did ask them for used CD's.

Went to Wai Pheng and Wayne's convocations on two different days. Funny how they belong to different faculty's but have the same convocation gown-colours. In NUS we have different colors for convocation gowns from different faculties. So far I only attended Justin's last year, and this year Wai Pheng and Wayne's. All of them wore gold! What a coincidence.


My hair is messy in both pics :( But anyway it was a good thing we had chance to come to Yeh Yeh and Da Jie's convocation and take pics with them. I almost missed Wayne's! I thought it should be in the afternoon where as in fact, it was in the morning.

Oh yes, there are photos from of the big ice-cream I should have uploaded last time. As I told you, the ice-cream picture of me looked really awful. And Jon said I could upload his instead, (evidence in the chatb0x), so here goes:


Okay, the ice-cream looks small from here but actually it has been eaten a lot by then. Just imagine if he lowers it and holds it by his face - and it's stuffed all the way down with two flavors - coffee and cheesecake! It's a little longer than his face.

After a whole year (or so) of the opening of Botak Jones in Clementi - I made my first trip there.

I was smarter this time. Focused on the food and not my face - so I could actually put up pictures without worrying. This big meal fed Jon and I nicely - totally $9 something from both of us.

I got another book of Hercule Poirot's short stories from the library - Agatha Christie's marvels. I prefer short stories of hers to novels, because the suspence ends quickly. I don't like stories with suspense to drag too long you know. LOL. And this book is really thick! It's lovely to have so many short stories to read, one after another, each one as wonderful as the one to come! I think I prefer Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes. On the other hand, I do not like Miss Marple (Agatha Christie's other detective character), as much.

This is all I'm going to write for today. I have more thoughts but I'll save them up for next time!