Cosfest 2009 was good, but it didn't seemed as crowded as the previous year. It was still filled with lots of uncles and aunties though, which I personally feel that they contribute nothing to the event, except cynical stares.

Rest of the pictures that I took can be found at:
http://gallery.me.com/blackalice#100318&bgcolor=black&view=grid

There are these 2 girls whom I always see at the events, and they have been wearing the same dresses for 3 years already. At every event Cosfest and EOY, for the past 3 years, these 2 girls have always been wearing the same black dresses with a patch of white lace at the bottom.

I have no idea why they do that, but seeing them wear the same black dresses for 3 years really is an eyesore. I mean, we are humans, right? There should be some sort of progression. At least wear something nicer with each passing year. A dress requires to have a certain cut in order to look nice, and not hang from your body to almost your ankles and with a line of white lace. It may be forgivable 5 years ago, but this is already 2009. Everyone's costumes and dresses are all so pretty already. Don't they feel out of place?

In anyway, details for EOY has been released. I'm still feeling a little anxious, but I'm sure things will work out well. It's really going to be quite a challenge as the date draws nearer, but I'm sure everyone will have lots of fun.

On a side note, it makes me wonder whether there is any justice here in Singapore's motor insurance industry. It's filled with lots of dirty rats and idiots, who definitely needs to be axed.

My head hurts a little.

Been a while since I updated; slightly over than a week.

Ridiculously, this fever is still persisting a little, but on a general note, I'm feeling better already. Thanks so much for everyone's concern. Apart from my not-so-good stomach, I really almost never fall sick. I eat proper meals and have sufficient sleep. I have no idea why this sickness hit me so hard.

I so what want to drive out, eat lunch/supper with people, chiong DOTA with friends, go party, cycling with Ling and perhaps even catch a movie or two.

And, welcome back Feli! When I recover, please let me treat you to lunch!

Sunday is Cosfest, and I hope to see everyone there then.

Initially, Ling was supposed to accompany me to KL to attend Animangaki, but she caught up with a slight fever so she ended up staying at home, for fear of being quarantined in Malaysia (that's a scary thought).

I drove a total of 700+ km in a single day (2 ways), and arrived at the event just before 12 pm. I stopped once just outside KL for a petrol stop and for lunch. Pumped a total of about 140 RM of petrol (est. S$60) for the entire trip. My current oil tank has a mixture of Esso F1, Shell V-Power and Esso 8000 now. Unfortunately, I was caught for speeding (easily settled though), and I was averaging around 140 km/h, and tried my top speed of 186 km/hr for a while (my ECU has a speed cut at 185 km/h).

And I must say that my new GPS toy is AWESOME. It is a fantastic Malaysia navigation tool. I didn't even get lost at all, and got there earlier than predicted!

Met with the president of Animangaki / SUAC for a short talk, and my estimation for the entire event turnout was about 1,000 people.

Also met up with Aiko at Sunway College to pass her her bonnet.

It's been a while since I took so many pictures during events, and the album can be found on Facebook located at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=271240

Just 2 of pictures that I took during the event (more at Facebook):



The second group of girls really surprised me, because upon asking them for a group shot, they later asked me to help me take pictures of them as well and I was handled with like 4-5 cameras.

What was more amusing is that when I passed one of them my Black Alice namcards (I ran out of EOY namecards, and I haven't said anything about BA yet), they were like.... "BLACK ALICE!!"

My goodness. The Malaysians actually know about our shop here in Singapore. They later asked for a few more cards which I gladly passed to them after getting more from my car. One of them even told me that she went to the old BA at Red Dot Building, but was closed and didn't know how to get to the new location.

That was probably my most surprising discovery on my trip... that word had actually spread so far. Just yesterday, I received a call from Pamela representing Yishun Country Club on an interest on whether I would want to open a BA cafe.

Wow. How did these people hear about us? Perhaps it is the little things that make all the difference. Word about Black Alice seems to be spreading a little, and I'm really happy for Loli fashion as a whole. What also shocked me was that Pamela did not refer us as "cosplay", but rather "Loli fashion".

Wow. Talk about general public education.

I pray that the day will come... just like anime was so commonly mistaken as "Japanese cartoons" previously, it no longer is now. People know what anime is. That the day will be when Loli be commonly known as Loli fashion, and not "cosplay". We're still a little far, but bit by bit, I think we are getting there.

God bless the Lolita.

Monday was the last day of my Pre-Advanced II Japanese classes; kinda sad if you ask me. The earliest that we will be resuming lessons will probably be end 2009 or early 2010. There is another class available, but I don't really like the teaching style and culture there though.

There are full time lessons, but I don't think I'll be taking those up again.

What I really want to do now is to teach though. Unfortunately, RP/ITE hasn't gotten back to me on possible teaching positions. Some people have been asking me why I would want to take time to do teaching... do you have too much time? Is the common question that they ask.

I love imparting knowledge to youths, and to people. Perhaps that is also the reason why I start BA, why I decide to take over EOY and why I want to pursue teaching. To many people, it sounds ridiculous, but I was heavily influenced by GTO back in my secondary school days. Of course I don't imagine crazy things like smashing student's homes, but rather by being a positive influence to them. I'm sick and tired of half past six teachers... I met so many in my Poly days.

I still have some free time in the afternoon normally, but I hope it wouldn't be this way for long.

On a side note, I'm heading to KL this Sunday to attend an anime event called "Animangaki", and will probably also be attending another event called GACC in August (Melaka). Will be there to see how events are held there, get some contacts and catch up with a band that probably will be coming to perform for EOY2009. Hopefully it'll be an insightful trip.

Man, June is already almost gone and July is just around the corner. EOY is really coming up very soon. In less than 3 weeks, I'll be announcing details of EOY, and I'm sure the public will have many questions for me. I just hope that I have a fantastic answer for every one of them.

Had a haircut at Mazu earlier as well, and also left reservation items for our customers at Black Alice. Angelic Pretty has been a little slow at replying lately, so I hope they get back to me quick so that the next series can be released as soon as possible.

Kinda excited about my KL trip this coming Sunday. I love road trips.

Alright, it's time for dinner. Ling has prepared a nice meal for both of us.

Perhaps some of you have never heard me say this before, but....

Ling is a good girlfriend, but she is a fantastic wife.

Ling and myself went for Natassya's graduation at Swisshotel yesterday (Raffles Design), and I must say that I was very impressed with the design skills of the students that graduated there. We also met up with Jourdan, Edric & Leah. Jourdan was really busy with collecting name cards... he mentioned somewhere along the lines of: "consolidating talents to hire" for his company.

We later went for the runway done by the graduating design students; wow; impressive.

Another thing that I was very impressed was that Indonesia girls are really very pretty. Raffles Design has a lot of Indonesia students (both my friends Natassya & Willy are), and as a result, there were a lot of Indonesians gracing the graduation ceremony. Some of the girls really look lovely. Their make up, hair and fashion sense puts our Singapore girls to shame.

Jourdan later told me that in Jakarta, all the girls groom like that. That was one thing that I never knew.

Street Festival was a little hot and humid, but it was still good nevertheless. But somehow, it doesn't really feel as fun as the previous years. I don't know if it is because I am growing old, but I have a feeling that the reason is partially linked to the mixing of cosplay and Jrock together. The idea doesn't stick. I still preferred it when it was simply just Jrock, punk, Loli and that sort of thing.

Speaking of which, I saw some really いたロリ(Ita-Rori's) during Street Festival. いたい is the Japanese word for "pain". If you want to do Loli, please do it properly. Please don't use 15,768 meters of lace and call it "Loli". It's not. Lace != Loli. I only hope that these people would go learn more about the fashion. How can people actually make clothes like these and sell?

Ok I better stop. I sound like some chief examiner of some Loli exam or something.

Of course, that was just a very small number. I saw lots of pretty Loli's; probably one of the prettiest ever during Street Festival. Weirdly though, there weren't many people who were dressing up; there were significantly a lot more casual people this year. Nevertheless it was probably the smoothest and most well executed Street Festival, and the bands' standards really increased over the years. Thumbs up to Cedric and Emerson for such an awesome event.

Street Festival Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87509&id=90512457182

You know, I always drive past Drama Center @ National Library. And each time, I will always say... "this is the place where EOY2009 will be held... it's an awesome place."

Just a couple of days, I decided to take a picture to capture the thought:


Every time I drive past the structure, I always imagine how EOY2009 will look like; how the events will be going, the number of people attending the event and how much it'll be a blast. I have a feeling when EOY2009 is over, I'll probably be so happy that I'll drop tears of joy.

On a side note, it was my Japanese teacher's (Matsuyama-sensei) birthday last week, so we celebrated by buying a cake for her during our lessons:




Matcha cake!

It's a pity that our classes will all finish on 22 June, which is just next week. I hope that when my Japanese classes are over, I will be given a chance to teach part time perhaps in ITE, or in a Polytechnic. It has always been my dream to teach.

Finally some time to sit down and blog a little bit. My eyes are hurting a little from staring too long at the computer today. Been working through my work since morning, and finally completed most of it. Street Fest is tomorrow; quite a lot of work to settle because of it. I still prefer to go to events doing nothing (that means no booths and stuff), and simply just to snap and enjoy.

Loliday was fun, even though I couldn't stay for long due to a wedding happening on the same night.

Applied to teach part time in ITE; let's hope we get a favorable response. I've always wanted to teach, and one of my greatest inspirations (I know this is going to sound darn stupid) was GTO. But on a side note, I love to impart skills and influence people, especially people who are younger than me.

It was my birthday 2 days ago... thanks everyone for the birthday wishes.... I received so many these year! Probably the most ever in 26 years! Ling bought me a new red iPod shuffle; it looks really sexy. Watched Terminator: Salvation as well; pretty good I would say, although a little depressing at some parts.

Alright; it'll be a short entry today. My eyes are really tired, and I have more stuff to do tonight.

See you guys tomorrow.

I finally started a Twitter account and I believe it's a great tool for keeping people around you updated, and great for business as well.

Some people had some concerns with privacy, but come on, let's face it. Privacy doesn't exist. It's an illusion. Anything you do, own, did and/or said is searchable these days. I'm sure all of us have searched for our ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends on Facebook. I tried searching my mobile number on the internet, and my name pops out.

I consider it an advantage though, since I become very transparent to people all around me. They know my plans for EOY, Black Alice, my inspirations, my desires, dreams and visions. Friends around me and know what I am going through and can give me support when I need it. I'm no superman; just human like everyone else. While I may have a tough character built that never says die, there are times when I need support as well.

I'll be in Vietnam from Sun - Wed, and I've intend to switch my Japanese classes back to part time, probably to 2 times a week. I can handle the full time lessons actually, but it really isn't fun. My teacher is a little bit of the serious type, and knowing the joker that I am, I really prefer crazy teachers. After all, learning is supposed to be fun. When it is fun, you enjoy it and become more productive at it. When it's not, it really drains the energy out of you.

That also brings me to my next point; I know this sounds weird, but I applied to be a part time associate (read: lecturer) at Republic Poly. One thing for sure is that I lack the paper qualifications, but I still applied anyway. Apart from business, I really love teaching as well. I want to impart things to students and change their lives. But I only want to do it part time.

I truly believe that every individual can pursue their passion, sharpen their talents and yet, still get paid for it. I do not buy into the ideology that pursuing your passion means that you get no money out of it. Yes, it may start of that way, but everything can be developed. One fine example, look at Google.

They started out free, with the ideology of reorganizing the world's information when they first started. Audacious? Yes. But have they achieved it? Not completely, but they are getting there. Getting there is powerful enough. As a result, they sell ad space for webmasters who in turn write better content for Google, and/or make more sales, and the cycle repeats itself. Google gets more close to their vision with monetary aid. By actually selling their Adwords service, they actually not just benefit themselves, but they also benefit tons of merchants around who make money out of advertising on Google.

Of course there are 2 sides of the coin. Some people think Google destroys the world, some think that it builds it. Some think that social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter corrupt our next generation. But let's face it, whether they build or destroy it, they are going to be around for good. More social applications will be developed.

Instead of pinning on the bad things, why not focus on the good? Because of social networking applications, privacy is shattered with a chance to always connect to your past friends. You no longer need to lose contact with anyone. Through Facebook I contacted my old friends, Dave, Andrew and Luke, who used to help me so much when FantasySquare was at its peak. Dave is now situated in USA, and Andrew and Luke are in Australia.

Could this happen without Facebook? Probably yes, but it'll be so hard to keep in contact. Facebook facilitates the process.

Woot~, as usual I digressed and wrote a lot. Perhaps deep inside me, I really love writing too.

Now before the keyboard gets the better of me, I better go eat my lunch and prepare myself. I need to drop by office a while, and then meet Kaixin for tea at Temasek Poly.

Nope, I am not dead. Been almost a month since I updated my blog, and while this isn't a perfect time to be blogging, I just realized that there is no perfect time.

First of all, full time Japanese lessons have started, and if there is one Hokkien word to summarize everything, it would be... "shiong". I have lessons everyday between 11:30 pm - 2:30 pm, which is crazy because you realize you have no time to eat lunch. Parking is also a killer. If you're blessed, you can park at the public lots (only a few) for $1/hour, or otherwise I'll have to park inside Shaw, which is about $2.20 an hour (more than 2 times more).

Finished watching Code Gease and R2 recently, and I must say that it's an amazing series.

Office's work com decided to screw itself up, and I have no idea what happened, but I'll need to go back tomorrow morning to fix it, hopefully before my Japanese classes.

I mean, this is ridiculous. I have to juggle work and school, but I definitely don't need a computer to be screwing me up at this point of time.

On a happier note, Angelic Pretty gave us distribution rights (I secretly think they love speaking to us in Japanese) for Black Alice, and we had an awesome anniversary party. We're having a makeup class later this month, and I just sent out the mailing list a couple of hours ago.

Speaking of which, my car is undergoing waxing/cleaning by some external party in my house carpark, and should be ready in about 2 hours time. Will damage $48; hopefully they do a good job at it.

I have no idea what is wrong with the computer, but I hope it is nothing serious.

What an awesome timing to screw up. Indeed Murphy's law applies... what will screw up at the worst timing will screw up at the worst timing.

Nevertheless, life has been good to me, but I can definitely do with better cashflow and money. I play less DOTA recently also, since I hardly have any late nights.

I guess, God is stretching my capacity. He's really good to me though. He gave me almost everything I want in my life; live in my dream house, dream wife, drive my dream car, my dream jobs (I am the boss of 3 entities), our dream marriage location at CHIJMES and go for our dream honeymoon.

I secretly think that God's blessing is bias sometimes. He's really good to me.

"For God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that you can ever ask or imagine. "

"Beyond imagination" is indeed the keyword. Everything I own far super-ceded what I had envisioned.

I love you, God.

Just a quick update before I take a shower and head out for lunch.

Met up with quite a few people over the last week, talked quite a bit, heard from various people and had a great time with all of them. All those who took time to do lunch with me, thank you so much; I had lots of fun.

I got the inspiration to accept credit cards after Grace informed me about the customer, as well as during Emily's lunch. I contacted one of the banks, and they gave me a good rate for accepting Visa/Master at Black Alice. I'll be signing the documents later this afternoon. Probably from next week onwards, you'll see credit cards acceptance at BA.

Caught up with some of my army buddies yesterday at Hougang for dinner and DOTA. We had an awesomely fun and stupid time. Lame DOTA is fun. I'm pretty competitive when it comes to DOTA, but I decided to let my hair down a bit yesterday. I love killing Roy; awesomely fun. I think he enjoys killing me too. And yesterday I tio first blood from Jason! He's been secretly training.

All has been good lately; I feel that work has changed quite a bit for me recently. It seems to be getting more personal and fun these days.

I really enjoy spending time with people, hearing them talk about their plans, dreams, wishes, about Loli fashion and everything else under the sun.

On a side note, Hendrick also advised me on some of the issues that I need to address for EOY. It's great having a friend who is in events management. I'm surrounded with many talented and capable individuals.

Alright, random update but I have to go. I'll be late for my lunch appointment at this rate.

I couldn't believe it, but one of my friends actually asked me and Ling to be her make-up artist for her company's fashion runway. I initially thought that it was just her, so I wanted to take the challenge. I checked with her today, and I realized that they were actually looking for someone to draw make up for ALL their models for like $600 for 3 evenings.

I seriously think that she has more faith in me, than I have in myself in the area of makeup. After hearing that it was for the whole team, I kindly rejected her offer, and told her that I don't think I have that level of skill.... yet. She really "see me very up".

Still feels good though. Perhaps one day when I'm really better and more experienced, I really can do makeup and get paid for it.

I think... I really have a very good makeup teacher, and I love drawing makeup for girls.

Nice personality test. Definitely worth a try; go, go, go!

Abi: I just realized that our personality bars are in complete opposite directions. Lol.

Teresa and Jasmine hosted an awesome tea party last Saturday at Marche, Vivocity.

Turnout was fantastic, games were awesome and we really had a blast. Lolitionary was amazing... guessing brand labels, prints, people, etc.... really fun.











I had tons of fun.

A big thank you to everyone who came down for the event. I hope you had as much fun as I had!

Credits to Shu, Jasmine for the awesome pictures.
EGL complete entry can be read at:
http://community.livejournal.com/egl/13159111.html#cutid1

It's been a long time, and I caught up with Drix and Ben yesterday night at Hougang. Chilled out, and then later went to play some LAN at Hougang Plaza.

I accidentally got a parking ticket of $20 though. I'm normally a very law abiding citizen; I certainly did not expect them to come at 1:35 am to check my coupon(s), which I only placed for an hour.

Been quite a busy week meeting people and stuff, but I'm slightly more free the past few days. I think the next few months are going to be pretty fun. I think I need to go for a short trip soon, probably Taiwan or Hong Kong in mid 2009, or perhaps a more rural trip like Vietnam.

Things are falling into place, and although 2009 is pretty tough, it has been really fun since the beginning. But I seriously can do with a better income though. Now that I'm married, there are quite a lot more bills to pay.

I hope 2009 will be a year of breakthrough.

And for all the Caramelldansen fans, here's one from SOS Brigade (Haruhi):

I started what I wanted to learn recently... make up. I just had my first lessons last week, and will probably have another one next month.

Make up is surprisingly fun. It kinda reminds me of doing web pages, because we always have to try many varied colors and combinations.

Special thanks to Kaixin and Steph, who so kindly volunteered their time to be our models.

And I think, I need to get my hands on some Majolica eyeshadow sets. Always loved those.

The Japanese Yen is recovering a little, and it's trading about 62-63 Yen per Singapore dollar currently.

The next few months should be really fun I reckon.

2009 is a little tough because of the downturn, but it sure is one hell of a fun year.

And I have so much irritating people that keep pressing my door bell and try to sell me all kinds of stupid stuff until I decided to write a notice and paste on my grill door:
"If you're here to sell me anything, do NOT press my door bell or disturb me. I am NOT interested!"

I passed my JLPT3!

Unbelievable. I did it on the borderline... 252/400.

God is really good to me. I crashed course in Sept 08, and did JLPT3 in Dec 08... and I passed.

I was telling all my classmates; "if I pass, you all SURE pass!"

I'm the weakest in class, but I still hung on anyway. The persistence of hanging on... a pass in JLPT3.

Speaking of which, I'll be most probably switching to full time lessons in the late morning - early afternoon at Ikoma from April onwards. A little crazy with 15 hours of Japanese every week, but I really can't have my Mon/Thur nights all eaten off like that.

I think I'll miss my classmates and Matsuyama-sensei (she's one of the craziest teachers in school) though. They make learning so enjoyable and fun.

Been a while since I blogged.

The past 2 weeks have been pretty crazy, with many meetings in between. Met up with countless amount of people, but it was fun nevertheless. Venue for EOY has more or less been confirmed, and I will release more details out in time to come. All I can say for now is that it's going to be very good this year. There's going to be quite a few major changes in the way we handle, the scheduling and events, but definitely it's going to be for the better.

Years ago when I started attending EOY in 2005, I never expected one day to be the organizer of EOY.

Was supposed to go cycling with Ling on Tuesday, but we changed our mind and decided to do kite flying instead. Woot~, the last time I flew kites is when I was 12 I think. 13 years later, and I still remember how to do it.



And the recession seems to be hitting a lot of people; it's quite a tough time for a lot of people I think. I certainly hope things get better from here.

It's like... I can feel despair everywhere.

Just got back from lunch with Alanna, and here's the final entry of our Japan trip/honeymoon; it was really a very enjoyable experience.

( Final Entry on Honeymoon in Japan )

In conclusion, I can only say that Japan was a blast. I hope that during my next trip, I'll be able to go attend a concert or something, experience the Tsuji market and Japanese culture once again.

Ling made it so fun, and it was really awesome.

The most unforgettable moment of our trip was still the meetup with Akinori Isobe. I think... I can understand a little of how Momoko felt. I think Ling really felt it... just like how Momoko did. Except that it wasn't a movie... it was real.

I miss Japan already.

I've been pretty busy lately as well, and have been involved quite some planning for all my entities. Let's hope things will get better from here.

But today, I want to revisit the crazy experience in Japan, especially the Love Hotels.

( Day 4-5: Osaka & Kyoto )

Finally I have some time to sit down and blog. I've been rushing through work and stuff that I needed to catch up since I got back, plus I had my new home/renovation/wedding/honeymoon plans all packed together in the last month. It really has been quite crazy.

Ling has wrote about Day 1 (Tea Ceremony Day) of our wedding, and because there's so much too write, I shall write on our honeymoon instead. It can be read at:
Wedding Day 1: http://nothingling.livejournal.com/81854.html?style=mine

I'll/Ling will write more on Day 2 of our wedding at CHIJMES in another entry...

---
( Honeymoon in Japan : I love Love Hotels )

I love Love Hotels. Their prices are fantastic. While they might be a little off town (about 4 km off), a car equipped with GPS is hardly any problem. And their facilities and products used are just... wow.

In my next entry, I will share more on day 4 onwards... share my love for the carousel room, and most of all, our personal meet/visit to BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT in Tokyo to see Akinori Isobe and Fuyumi Isobe (the owners of BTSSB) in person. That was probably the most memorable moment of our Japan trip.

I really love them; they are such nice people.

Till then.