December 2007

A summary of the last month of 2007~~

1: Spent the first 5 days of December in Hong Kong...

2: Got sick right before and during exam...

3: Fried 2.5 out of 5 exams...

4: Had a 3 hours interview with Altera (first formal interview I ever have in my life...)

5: Have 6 more interviews scheduled in January 2008, 1 of which is a second round interview(OMG...)

6: Got an ice blue NDSL (verrrry preeettty)

P.S. Think I haven't touched ANY papercraft for almost 3 months now... DOT DOT DOT...

...

It's been a busy month for me...

Aside from the usual piles of midterms/ quizzes/ assignments/ projects/ lab, a lot of things happened during this month...

Originally it should have been a happy month, my sister's birthday, parent's anniversary, college puzzle and not to mention I won the grand prize from an PEY info session raffle (first time ever in my memory... my jaw dropped at the mention of my name *cough*). Then it came all of a sudden a news from HK about my grandma...

Haven't really recovered from the shock, my flight tickets are now confirmed and I'm flying back to HK on the 29th (next Wednesday). I had always looked forward to my trips to HK, but this one is definitely going to be an exception...

R. I. P. My Dear Grandma

The Right Brain vs Left Brain Test

Question: Which way is the dancer turning? Clockwise or counter-clockwise?

According to an online article, if your answer is clockwise, it indicates that you use your right brain more, meaning: you are creative, emotional and adventurous. Otherwise, you use your left brain more, meaning: you are logical, math+science loving and practical.

At first glance, I see the dancer turning counter-clockwise. Then I tried hard to imagin seeing her turning clockwise in my head. The key is focus on visualizing the location of the lifted leg, whether it is pointing towards you("in front of the body") or pointing away from you("behind the body"). Try to think hard to reverse the location of the leg that you see. In other words, the moment you see the leg pointing towards you, try to imagin it pointing away from you and vice versa...

Another way is to focus on somewhere else on screen, then use the corner of your eyes to look at the dancer and at the same that imagine her turning the "other" direction. Keep doing this for a short while until you actually see her turning the "other" direction at the corner of your eyes and its time to move focus back on the picture^^

After some practice, you can easily switch between both direction!!

See original article >HERE<

Space Invaders

Was watching random YouTube videos this morning and came across a very original human-as-pixels stop-motion version of real-life Spaces Invaders... (thats the best description that I can come up with...)



... I must say I'm impressed XDDDDD

First Week

My happy first week of class has just ended... (I always promise myself a work-free full week at the start of each term XDDDDD) Here is how I spent my free times last week:

1) Watched the whole "My Boss My Hero" Japanese drama with my sister.

"My Boss My Hero" is a VERY VERY VERY hilarious Japanese drama (10 episodes). Its about a 27-years-old tough gang "boss" disguise himself as a 17-years-old high school student under his father's order or he will lose his "boss" position in the gang. The drama centers around ridiculous events that take place in the high school like "pudding" fights and innocent first love *cough*. Anyway, I found it very very hard to describe the craziness and funniness of the drama in words XDDDDD.

2) Made a teddy bear papercraft from Canon





The teddy bear actually comes with two more accessories, a sailor's hat and a watch. I don't really like the watch because it looks very fake. For the hat, since the model looks good even without the hat, I got lazy and decided to make the hat "later" *cough*.

P.S. First time taking picture with white cardboards as the backgrounds, the results look pretty good and neat^^

3) Random unproductive stuffs which I don't remember...

Rubik's Cube

*cough* was working on the gundam model until I got distracted by this: Rubik's Cube...

Got the Rubik's Cube template >HERE<

I tried my best to make it as precise as possible. And guess what, the finished model is actually "rotate-able"!!!!! ...with some difficulty of course...>_>

SD Hi-Nu Gundam - Part I (Head)

Seems to me that Japanese/Korean paper model designers devote a lot of their time on designing gundam models...

Straight from Wiki: Gundam (ガンダム, Gandamu) is one of the longest running series of anime featuring giant robots or mecha, created by Sunrise. Gundam is the collective term for the Universal Century (UC) series like Mobile Suit Gundam and series in alternative timelines, such as Gundam Wing. The name "Gundam" itself stems from a variety of theoretical sources, most commonly attributed to a need to conform with common giant robot naming conventions during the 1970s...

Well to be honest, I don't know much about gundams either. But after seeing so many fabulous gundam models available on the internet, I ask myself: "why not?" then I started building my first gundam paper model. I chose the "SD Hi-Nu Gundam" designed by the same designer as my Luffy model.



Here comes the Part I:
Head

Turns out that gundam models are much harder than I expected, the head alone has quite a number of small parts >_> And it doesn't help that I decided to go with thick cardboard on this one... (I want the finished model to look strong^^)

Anyway, I can tell I'm going to take my time with this one... Maybe I can make some smaller models in between when I get bored XDDDDD

New Sunglasses!!!!

Weeee!!!!! I just got my 1st pair of sunglasses~~ I started wearing glasses when I was in grade 1 or 2, til now its 10+ years already. And yet this is my first time getting a pair of "true" sunglasses (not the clip-on ones!!!!!) so excited XDDDDD

Too bad its been quite "rainy" these days...


A very red case...


containing a pair green-ish sunglasses.... what a "perfect" match of colour *cough*


cool~~~~~

One Piece: Luffy

My latest papermodel project was a character called Luffy from a Japanese anime - One Piece. Finished it almost two weeks ago, just too lazy to post it here XDDDDD




Well to be honest, I don't know much about the anime One Piece another than the fact I know how the main character looks like and I know quite a number of people who just love the series... But that doesn't stop me from making this nice-looking papermodel^^

About a month or two ago, I saw posts on a number papermodel sites about the designer hosting his files on this website (apparently he also designs gundams too): http://yobee.egloos.com/. I have to say this is one of the best anime papermodel I've seen so far! It looks really "real" to me^^

Anyway, here comes some photos I've taken on my new lovely addition to my model collection^^

P.S. btw, this is my first time using http://www.slide.com, seems pretty cool site for making online slideshows, it grabs images DIRECTLY from flickr too!!!!

The Legend of Zelda: Link

I have just finished another model today! I chose a much smaller model to build this time: Link from the Legend of Zelda game series.

I'm always a fan of this nintendo series and I own about four Zelda games (...only). Currently still playing the Twilight Princess and taking my time to explore the Hyrule and the Twilight Realm (Go get a wii and play the TP!!).



Of course my new model is not anything as complicated as the Link from the Twilight Princess, its only a "cartoon-ish, Wind-Waker-ish" version of Link. The model can be found >HERE< from PaperKraft.net. Apparently this model came out with some Japanese magazine for the promotion of the "Four Swords Adventure" and is out of print...

Howl's Moving Castle Gallery

Here comes my completed HMC gallery!!!!!

P.S. I just LOVE the amount of details featured in this model >3<

The Making of the Howl's Moving Castle

Finally determined to write my first papermodel post...

I got interested in papermodels around a year ago and made quite a number of small models after that. I started working on the Howl's Moving Castle (Flying Version) during the winter break last year. It is my biggest project so far and I just finished it a few days ago. Took me around half a year to make it but I'm still proud of myself!!!!! (at least I didn't give up midway...)

The HMC is a free papermodel released by Epson some years ago. The download link is no longer on the official site but I found my copy >HERE< (3 pdf files are included: original template, guide and english instruction).

Shrek 3

Just watched Shrek the Third today with my family. Very good movie indeed!!!! Although the plot is somewhat predictable, but there are many many funny scenes (death of the frog king, shrek's fatherhood nightmare, snow white's classical style singing...) that made me laugh through the whole movie!!!!!

Favourite character of this movie: Shrek and Fiona's babies!!!!! Awww... they are so adorable XDDDD









P.S. Also loving Prince Charming's "soft and bouncy hair~"

"Duck" mama

Got home today at around 7 as usual, baba told me that the "duck" was GONE as well as the EGGS?! I was like... wth?!!!!! Apparently at around 4pm today, mama got home and looked at the porch and she got excited because the "duck" was there sitting on the eggs but she didn't take any pictures... Then baba got home about 2 hours later and of course first thing he does was to go look at the "duck" XD. However, "duck" mama was not there and SO were the eggs!!!!! He told me about this on the way back from the GO train station and I got REALLY disappointed :( We thought maybe: 1) the "duck" somehow carried 9 eggs with her and moved to a new place, 2) eggs hatched within the two hours and somehow they "ate" the shells and left..., 3) some wild animal came over and ate everything, 4) our neighbours took it for fun......

After dinner we decided to go look at the porch for one last time (Yes, we've got a curious family here XD) and got ready to take picture of an empty nest TTnTT. And... WOW, I see the "duck" mama sitting there AGAIN?! But wait... what about the eggs? Apparently, when the "duck" mama left the nest (for food?), she must have used many feathers to cover the eggs such that it is hard to see the eggs and thats why baba didn't see it. It's very likely that last time baba scared the "duck" mama away so suddenly that she didn't have time to cover the eggs. Well, thats only what we guess, since we didn't really see the eggs today, maybe "duck" mama came back but wasn't sitting on anything, who knows...

Anyways, here comes our "duck" mama!

New family member?!

LMAO!!!!! Just this afternoon baba was watering the plants at our front porch and suddenly some "duck-like" animal flew away from behind a tree. Wondering what is it doing, baba said "maybe it was hatching its eggs". Of course my dad was joking but when he took a closer look here is what we found...









LOL~~ 9 "duck" eggs currently resting peacefully at our front porch. HOME SWEET HOME XD

P.S. Wondering if I can witness the hatching moment of the eggs myself^^

B-Day Presents [part II]

Went to have dinner in Joons - a very tasty Korean "table-top cooking" chicken restaurant yesterday with Jamie, Helen and Xiaomu. Haven't seen Xiaomu for quite a while and the first thing she said to me was something like "Your hair so messy"... *cough*

Got new presents for my B-Day^^, a set of body spa thingy and my high school graduation yearbook XDDDDD (was prepared for the worst case in which I will get it back when I graduate from University. Xiaomu! You are not two years late, you are actually two years early!!!! CHEERS!!!!!


I can't believe it when I first saw this^^ Xiaomu did such a great job in drawing out my dear Jack's poster! I know from now on you will be drawing me new Jack posters EVERY year, right? Thanks SOOOO much in advance!!!!


By the way, according to xiaomu: spa thingy => good shower => relax => healthy => gain weight! Maybe I should consider taking shower twice per day LOL

Celebrating the birth of Bamboo Forest

Since I'm being pushed by Angela to create a blog so that she can see my stuff, I've decided to create one on my birthday (which happens to be today XD). I have no idea what I'm going to blog about or will I even remember I've created this blog after maybe a few months... But at least for now I'll try to at least post some stuff up...

Speaking of my birthday, my family didn't really have any celebration. After all, no longer "little" girl any more... But I did receive two very special presents this year, one from Angela and one from Jamie >3<
A bunny amigurumi (crochet doll) handmade by Angela!! Should visit her blog http://iamaknitnerd.blogspot.com/ for more pictures of the doll so cute (and her brother too XD) THX "Dai Po"!!!!!


My dear dear dear new JACK wallet XDDD, thanks Jamie!!!!! (but now I have trouble deciding which wallet to use :P must alternate between weeks~~~)