R.I.P Knut

This is specially designed for my favourite polar bear, Knut. I found all these photos online, most of them my favourites of him. I still remember when I first heard about him, I used to follow his blog daily. It was in German, but I always tried to read it. Fortunately as his popularity raised rapidly, they made translations available... and I could understand it more easily in English. I still think the best was in its native language as they might have quoted what Thomas said. I watched all his baby videos and browsed all his baby photos, and I felt like I know him... even though he was in Berlin and here I am in Singapore. His close relationship with Thomas also deeply touched my heart, how humane has Thomas made him. After the sudden death of his zookeeper, I also gradually lost touch with Knut's blog. But whenever I hear news of Knut, it never fails to bring a smile to my face. Knut is gone now :( Suddenly. Forever. I know I will miss him and his name always deeply engraved in my heart.

March sucks big time!

I really am beginning to hate March... It's the worse month so far, everything bad is happening.

With the horrifying earthquake and triggered tsunamis, threat of nuclear meltdown and danger of radiation in Japan, and now everywhere else are beginning to get earthquakes too, e.g. Taiwan and Manila. Then my boss got ill and travel plans cancelled. And now, even the cute polar bear has to die!??

My sister shared this link on my wall and this morning when I read it, my heart ached. Knut, my favourite polar bear has collapsed and died! How could it be?!! He's only so young! It was devastating when his keeper, Thomas died... and now suddenly Knut's gone forever too.  

Dear Knut, I hope you've found peace and a happier place to be in. You'll always be in my thoughts. Auf Wiedersehen!

Violent teddy

Knut. This video has my heart almost jumped out... Little bear is getting violent, even though he still is very very playful. Can I say it's violently playful? Fortunately, he still doesn't hurt people and I hope he won't. But afterall, he's a bear, a carnivore. He eats meat, and I hope he will still recognize his daddy and friends after he has grown up to be a big polar. I can't help but am falling in love with his laughable gestures.

Knut visits the zoo

I can't help but to share this... It really brightens my day and I can't help giggling watching this naughty bear having his zoo tour. He's so curious about everything, like me! And I love the part where he and the wolf(or fox) are looking at each other/touching on the glass panel but couldn't do anything... and he rolled himself on the ground. Watch him play with the bird too :)))

Such a clever little polar bear, love ya!!!!!

Knut, Knut, Knut

Spiegel says:

"Knut Steadily Getting Less Cute

It's a tragic fact of life. Celebrity polar bear cub Knut, now almost five months old, is gradually mutating from a fluffy porridge-lapping cub into a heavy bruiser with a penchant for meat off the bone. But the visitors are still flocking to see him."

Now, at least someone (some animal) is also gaining weight like me! Little Knut gains about 200g every day and now he weighs a chubby 17kg!

"Knut's faithful handler Thomas Dörflein has taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts or pullovers and gloves to protect himself when he handles Knut. But the polar bear cub immediately obeys when Dörflein has had enough and tells him to stop biting him with the stern command "Aus!""

Little Knut will soon become a big polar bear and be no longer the once-so-cute-baby. He might chomp and no longer bite harmlessly and innocently. How scary when that day arrives... Right now, looking at him playing with Thomas (his keeper), kissing his nose, cuddling together and pulling his pants; Knut appears to be such a perfect and fun-loving companion. I do feel something about his small but affectionate gestures...

Picture copyright belongs to Getty Images

O Knut, ich mag dich sehr!

My baby bear

Following the news some weeks ago, or was it months - that the Berlin Zoo wanted to kill the little polar bear because the mum has abandoned/rejected him. The situation landed poor baby in an abnormal growing lifestyle and there was huge discussion of whether it should live. Poor bear, I can adopt you!! Ship me to me, you can live with Tommy.

Quoted from Spiegel.de:
"Well, not quite. Animal rights activists, as SPIEGEL reported Monday, aren't so enthralled with the polar bear baby. They are concerned that Knut, who is being raised by human hand after his mother rejected him, is in danger of losing touch with the bear necessities. Some would like to see him dead.

"Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws," animal rights activist Frank Albrecht told the mass circulation newspaper Bild, whose front page headline Monday read "Will Sweet Knut Be Killed by Injection?"

Berlin Zoo is allowing Knut to be raised in such a way that the bear will have a behavioral disorder for the rest of his life, Albrecht believes. "In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub," he adds."

Here's a BBC's video of Knut (which has translated the interview which was done in German to English). A better resolution one of CNN's one on youtube (this is a combination of both English & German), you can't help but feel so touched when you see him kiss his keeper. This famous little bear is also on Wikipedia now!

It has since caused a stir... and look how many blogs are being set up for this little baby, named Knut. Unfortunately, most of them are in German. Here's one of them.

But my personal preference is this one with pictures and videos of baby Knut. Look, he's so playful... I saw him briefly on the news the other night on TV, and he's soooooooooooooooooo cute! Now I wish I live in the Zoo. I shall bookmark it so I can read about his life very often :))))

Now they are even selling it on eBay, oh my, when can I get one!!

Boycott education fees

Uummmm after looking through the Boycotting photos (©Patrick G. Stößer) in Germany, you can't help but... think those policemen (polizei) are so cute/cool!! Hehe, actually I meant you'd go thinking why do we have to pay for education.

Education is a right isn't it. Sometimes I think about that too in Singapore. Though it is tried to make possible with government grant and bank loan, still how many of us are working to pay them off in future. Why is education not free! And why have the companies and government placed emphasis/favouritism on people with a degree education - whom will automatically be paid higher! Even if scholarships are provided, only the top students are getting them... University education should be made affordable without creating a financial burden to us or our parents, and even be a worrying issue for our future kids. Talking about this, I'm thinking of taking NSW when it's ready... but since it's an australian university, I'm not so sure how much SG government is subsidizing.

p/s: Please visit Marcus's blog for more related posts.

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The 6th day

My oh my, it's a week soon... Time flies too fast that it makes me happier without wearing a watch on the wrist. The only time I checked the date was doing a right-click on my computer taskbar. Scheisse, it's 29th May already!

5 days in Braunschweig, counting out the arrival day since it was spent in Hamburg and the rest of the night sleeping away ;)

Let's look at what we (or rather me) have done so far:

1. Shopping with an intent (Scheisse, guess what? Love at first sight (okay, I just happened to saw it while I was in the city one day, so I came back with money the next day, heheh), and it fits, so I got myself a little pink dress! Looks so perfect for strawberry picking)!! I'm so lucky, so far, I only found 2 dresses (including this one) that I really fancied on the first sight.. God, this is rare.

2. In the nature. We went to the lake, the water was too cold for me to swim, so I was rather tanning under the sun! This is what I called nature, not artificial man-made. And the mini botanic garden looks more impressive than Singapore's. Oh, I nearly wanted to take some of the roses home!!

3. Asian cooking. Of course, I'm not that great, I bought the spices back home. It made them taste a little funny, a little too salty. But Flo likes it, so ermm... who cares so much!

4. Pick our baby pineapple and savour it! Flo grew it, so we are so proud that we have the honour to mmmm... swallow it into the stomach.

5. Social parties. I met people I knew from the last time. There was a BBQ where Gerrit celebrated the birth of his little baby, Joshua - no, didn't get see him, he's still in hospital with mummy. Then there was a drink with his friends, dancing and chatting. There was this man who can speak minimal Mandarin, that was enough to stun me!

6. Baking time! Woohoo!!! I never can do this at home without an oven. This is my third time baking but first for making cookies. Chocolate chips cookies (with walnuts and almonds)... lecker! It turned out pretty well and we shared with the neighbours (an Arab couple), watched their Arab-style wedding video!

7. Xbox. I'm really bad at this but it never stops me from playing!

8. Sports... Damn.. I can't count this in because we didn't make it to my first squash session. The damned place decided to wind up early as we were the only customer :´( I'm going to try it no matter what!!

creepy-crawly

It feels like this having to countdown to January...

In January, I'm finally landing my ass back in old "sunny" Singapore. Thinking about it now, I kind of look forward to seeing my mum, dad and my sisters; not forgetting my good friends back there. Somehow, I still feel creepy - creepy that Christmas will pass and then January will come. Will I be back? Will I be able to continue my dream living out here, in a totally different cultural environment? I'm kind of enjoying it, really. I guess most people do love to start afresh in a new place, getting out on their own and making another place feels like home. Tell me if I'm wrong. Then you must be one of a kind - boring kind! Not adventurous!

It has been almost a month in Germany. Many people have been wondering what I've been doing here, don't you people eh? I can't explain but time seems to be gliding faster than me trying to glide in the Xbox snowboarding! I've gotten used to Germany like how I had done that once in London - some routine and some itching feet. I still like to get out of the house, and when it gets too cold I'd rather hide with my candlelights.

Some of the things I've been trying to do in Germany:

(i) travel - as and when
(ii) learn German - (sorry la, not much progress) still in progress
(iii) be a housewife - this one is boring but I'm good at it now, especially nagging
(iv) live with a man - (challenging) learning to argue, yell at each other, love and do things together
(v) get back to some creative hobbies - (seems like I'm still as bad at drawing, damn!) photos/homepage design/drawing
(vi) cook - not like a housewife okay, experimental Asian style and some German of cos!
(vii) not to gain weight - (haha, tough one) with the winter, hardly any outdoor sports; too much chocolate/cheese/sausages around
(viii) shake leg - relax la (okay, my Singlish is actually improving while I'm here, funny)
(ix) have a white Christmas - (sobs) looks like snow only comes after that
(x) be a whole new person - better, positive & carefree =)

I must buy all the HARIBO sweets when I come home (damn, too many to choose from), this is driving me nutsssssssssss