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Like most people out there, I was reading fairy tales when I was young. Most of them ended with ‘…and they lived happily ever after…’ or something similar. My reading material changed a lot as I grew older but one thing remained the same: a happy ending. It’s the same when it comes to the movies and drama series that I watch. Most of them have happy endings. I love happy endings. Who doesn’t?

I would like to believe that ‘Happily ever after’ exists in real life but I know that it doesn’t.

Note: I blurred the license plate of the car on purpose.

I took those photos around one month ago when it was Chinese New Year.

We were in the car going somewhere (I forgot where..) when I caught sight of the mashimaro on the white car which was parked there. So cute! :love: I love Mashimaro! (Des gave me a mashimaro soft toy on my 21st birthday in Shanghai. He brought it from Singapore. I was surprised but very happy. ah.. this brings back many memories.. The good old days.)
I excitedly took out my camera but only managed to snap this photo as we drove by. I couldn’t tell his dad to stop the car so that I take a better photo. :faint:

Minutes later we were stuck in a traffic jam and suddenly, I saw the mashimaro car again. It was in the car lane next to us. Lucky me! More pics! hehe :cloud9:
Read the rest of this entry »

I know that it should be ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ but I was thinking about hugs early yesterday morning after he said a simple goodbye to his parents and me at the airport. He said something like “Okay, I’m going now. Bye.” He turned to wave at us and then he left. I didn’t have time to react. It was too fast and unexpected. I was surprised because he went straight through the door without lingering, without giving his parents a chance to say a proper goodbye, without hugging anyone, without hugging me. Maybe he just wanted to avoid an awkward goodbye scene with his parents. Also, many Asian people(the more traditional families) don’t hug. I reckon that he should have made the first move and hugged them. His parents will never say it out loud but I’m sure that they would have been pleased.
If his parents weren’t there, I’m sure that he would have at least hugged me. (He’d better!!! Grrrr)

What I’m used to: longer goodbyes. I remember when I went back to Mauritius in 2005 & 2007 and when it was time to leave and go to Shanghai, mum was talking to me at the airport, telling me to take care of myself, to be a good girl,etc . Then I hugged all the persons who came to see me off and went in, turning back to look at them through the door,waving at them and maybe even trying to hold back tears. I was expecting to see something similar this morning. The first time I ever hugged my mum was in 2004. My mum and I didn’t get along very well during my teenage years. In 2004, I applied for the scholarship to go to China to study and upon receiving news that I got it, I hugged my mum. She was surprised but my hug kinda broke the ice. We get along much better now.

A hug doesn’t sound like much but to me, it is just what I need to prevent myself from collapsing on a particularly bad day. Hugs do wonders for my mental health. And of course, not just any hug but a hug from him. I’ll miss that.
Till we meet again……

By the time I finish writing this entry and hit the Publish button, it will probably be past midnight. He seems to hate it when I write about my feelings but I like writing. I need to write.

I was going through all the recent photos taken on my digital camera earlier today and I’ve realized that we don’t have any photos of us taken during his one month back in Singapore. Just the two of us. Nopes. No photos. He’s leaving on Monday morning. I don’t know if I’ll see him before he leaves because he never mentioned anything about it.
I’m not sure if I should even mention anything. Around one hour ago, when Liz and Colas were telling him to have a nice trip back, I was wondering if I should wish him the same thing too, today itself.

Something I’ve always wanted to do: have our photo taken at one of those photo stickers machines. I took photos at one such machine once in Shanghai with two gal friends. Never with him. I asked him before. I think he said that he didn’t want to. He has 2 (or 3) photo stickers in his wallet but they are old ones that he took with other people. It doesn’t take a genius to guess how I feel.

I got quite alarmed when I saw that my blog got nominated for Mauritian Blog of the Year 2008 organized
by another Mauritian blogger. I requested to have my blog removed from the list and I’m still waiting. What’s so alarming about that? Well, I don’t like my blog to be listed anywhere where many Mauritians might be visiting. One thing I noticed is that apart from 2 Mauritian blogs I’ve been reading, I don’t know the other bloggers. Ah.. and most of them seem to ‘know’ each other and are currently in Mauritius. To me it feels more like a local Mauritian Blog of the Year contest. I know some Mauritian bloggers who are overseas and who have been blogging for a long time but none of them were nominated for that Mauritian Blog of the Year thing. The ‘newer’ bloggers know each other and the ‘older’ bloggers know each other I guess.
All this got me thinking about the good old days..

I wrote about Mauritian bloggers back in 2004. (See old entry written on 19th August 2004 -> Mauritian bloggers. )
Like I mentioned in my About page,
Why this blog?
I tend to bottle up my feelings. Writing is the only way to make me feel better…
This blog also allows me to let my loved ones know what I’ve been up to.

They are still the 2 main reasons why I write here. (Also, maybe Email and blogging, Getting in touch with old friends as well.)
Most of the bloggers from back then have stopped blogging by now,some are on hiatus but a few are still updating their blogs. I’ve been on hiatus a couple of times already and I don’t update my blog as often as I did a few years ago but my blog is still alive even if I only update it when I feel like it.
I don’t maintain a list of Mauritian bloggers anymore and I have to admit that I don’t keep track of what’s going on back in Mauritius. At some point ( I don’t remember anymore. Maybe around year 2006?), there were more and more Mauritians blogging. I got an email from Stephane who was asking me if I was interested in having my blog syndicated in the Mauritius Blog Tracker. I said yes. That was on the 9th April 2006. On the 24th April 2006, I emailed him because I wanted to have my blog removed.
What I wrote in my email back then :
***
Hi!
I’m sorry but I’ve changed my mind about being tracked. I’ll be keeping the link to the Mauritius blog tracker because I enjoy reading some blogs tracked there but I’d rather not see my full entries(plus photos) over there.
It just feels too weird. I didn’t write with the intention of having Mauritians read my entries. As you may have noticed, some of my entries are like journal entries, i.e kinda personal and detailed. Most of my blog readers are people I’ve met in China or know online. Mauritius is a small country and gossips spread like wildfire. I hope you understand this and delete my entries there. (not to mention that linking directly to my photos might bother my friend who’s hosting me).
Thanks

aline
***

Now, more than 2 years after I asked to have my blog removed from the tracker, my feelings still haven’t changed. I’ve just visited the Mauritius Blog Tracker website and I noticed that the list of Mauritian blogs listed there has become longer. (Of course, not all Mauritian blogs are listed there.) I think it’s great that so many Mauritians are into blogging now. I’ve been reading a few Mauritian blogs from the Mauritius Blog Tracker but still, I can’t help missing the old Mauritian bloggers. I wonder what they are up to and why they stopped blogging.

Anyway, good luck to those participating in this Mauritian Blog of the Year.

-edited on 23rd Dec 2008 @ 11:58 pm-
The blogger organizing the Mauritian Blog of the Year finally removed my blog from the list. Hurray.

I woke up with a start this morning. Maybe I was having a nightmare or something but the first thing which came to my mind was : ” Argh. I forgot the clothes in the washing machine!” :faint:
I was doing the laundry yesterday and while waiting for my clothes, I was working on a new ‘project’ and uploading photos to Lynn Boutique facebook group. Somehow, I forgot all about my clothes. I’m washing the clothes all over again today because they smell a bit weird after being left overnight in the washing machine.

Something to look forward to after sitting at the computer all day: Meeting Lisa later at Vivo. Going to have dinner there and do some shopping!

I enjoy reading blogs of other foreigners in Shanghai and I came across Fred Lin’s one day. He posts some food photos sometimes and since I love food photos, I usually visit his blog to see if he has any new food photos. I also enjoy listening to his songs. I know that he has released Piano Spa 4, an instrumental album sometime back in April. When I went to Singapore in August, I went to look for it but to my surprise I found his newest album Piano Spa 5 instead. :laughing: I was looking around in a music store and the cover caught my attention. When I went for a closer look, I saw that it was Piano Spa 5.


One of my purchases from Singapore, Piano Spa 5.

There are 3 cds in all and I’ve just started listening to it today. (I had misplaced the album after I took the photos in September. ) I’m currently on the 2nd cd. I should buy more instrumental albums. It’s a pleasure to listen to.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and it was like any other day for me. For the first time since 2004, the boy and I are both in Shanghai for the school holidays. The one month winter break is going to end next week. Usually the boy is back to Singapore at this time of the year. Yesterday was our first Valentine’s Day spent together. Knowing him, I didn’t expect any gifts or any flowers and I was right. I’m dating a guy who doesn’t have a romantic bone in him.
:faint:
We saw many girls carring big bouquets of roses and I jokingly asked my bf where mine was. He was like “Oh? You want flowers?”. He would probably buy me roses if I asked him to but it doesn’t come naturally to him. I teased him quite a lot but the truth was that I didn’t want him to spend money like that. Flowers will just wilt anyway. Furthermore, we are both only students. I still think that Valentine’s Day is over-commercialized. Spending the day together was enough for me and I noticed that he was nicer to me than usual.
We intended to go have dinner at Bakerzin in Raffles City. (near People’s Square) I love Bakerzin! When we reached Bakerzin, we were told that there were no free tables until 8 p.m . A lot of people had called to make reservations. In the end, we had to go somewhere else for dinner.

Something which happened yesterday:
As I was going inside Raffles City,a woman carring a baby tried to steal my purse which was in my handbag. I felt a tug on my bag and immediately turned around. The woman hastily removed her hand from my bag and walked out of the door. I lost sight of her in the crowds so I just turned my attention to my bag. The zipper on my bag was half-opened but luckily, nothing was missing. My bag was quite in a mess as usual and my camera & purse were at the bottom, underneath my map of Shanghai (which I was carrying around since the week before, when a Mauritian friend came to Shanghai) and other things. I suppose that the woman couldn’t find my purse among all those things. Well, it’s a good thing that my bag was so messy then. After that incident, I was more careful and chose not to open my bag unneccessarily. Therefore, I didn’t take any pics yesterday. My camera didn’t leave my bag at all.