NEW BOOKS!

I found both The Fire Rose and Reserved for the Cat yesterday at tampines' San's Bookshop! So happy. I immediately finished reading The Fire Rose, even tho it cas me to stay up till 3:30am. hehe..... Havent read Reserved for the Cat yet. Am putting off reading it a little. Cause worried it might be the last bk of the series. >.<>

The Fire Rose is a story modeled after beauty and the beast. Where a young and beautiful girl was forced by circumstances to go to a large lonely mansion, and discovers that the master of the place is not exactly human! But that's abt where the similarities end.

This book is part of the collection of The Elemental Masters series by Mecerdes Lackey. Based on Magic which has purely European roots, mainly those of the British. The four Elements are Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Elementals are mythical creatures that are of a particular element and the Masters work magic by learning how to control them.

In The Fire Rose, the Beast is a Fire Master (meaning a magician with mastery over the Fire elementals) who accidentally hybrid himself with a wolf, when he sought the power to transform from men to wolf and back again at will. Slightly different from a werewolf where one is constrained by the power of the moon and has no control over the transformation, nor ability to retain human mind after transformation to wolf. In any case it failed, and he was stuck in a half-man, half wolf form.

With hands turned into paws, there was no way he could flip thru books and conduct the research he needed to turn himself back to human again and therefore seek the aid of a scholar and translator to be his hands and eyes and help him conduct the research.

The scholar he found was a young woman named Rosalind Hawkins, whose father has recenlty passed away and left her a mountain of debts. Therefore, like the scenario in Beauty and the Beast, it was the doting but usless father that cas his daughter to have no choice but to go to the beast. Who had offered high pay for a job as a tutor or governess who noes Latin, Greek and Medival French. Of course the whole thing sounds fishy but Rosalind was in debt, with no place to stay, and needed a means to survive. So she went and then discovered there were no children in the house, and her job was to read and translate ancient scripts into a speaking tube, to an owner who claims to have been disfigured in an accident. And from there the romance unfolds...


I believe it was bcas this book is successful that she decide to write the Elemental Masters Series. The story has many bits that does not quite fit in with the series and the Elementals that appear have much more of a character and intelligence than those in the series. This particular book also tried to insert a bit of chinese magic into the story and forcefully overlap it with Western magic. She must have regreted it for I think she did a better job incorporating Indian Magic in The Serpent's Shadow, which is officially the first book in the series.

In any case, it is totally wrong to say the chinese equivalent of the Master of Earth is the Master of the Dragon, cas according to Chinese lengends and myths, Chinese Dragons are essentially creatures with powers over water, controling the seas and the rains. It would have been more accurate to style them as the equivalent of the Master of Water or of Air (seeing that dragons control weather like Masters of Air do, tho Masters of Air mainly control the Winds and not the Rains, they both can cause storms). It is only in the West that dragons are a creature of mainly Earth and Fire, the Chinese view happens to be opposite.

But then again, the story is based in the West (San Franciso to be exact), and therefore one can hardly expect to find Chinese dragons there, even in the chinatown quarter. So I supposed one can say that the Chinese Magicians in the story are trying to explain theirs titles in a way Westerners could understand. Tho I still refuse to agree that they will proclaim that their rightful title is the Master of Dragon, especially when he claims that his roots in Magic are styled after Chinese customs.

Hmmm....... Personally, I think it would be more accurate to name dragon as the symbol of water, the phoenix for fire (which she also selected), the crane for air (she picked eagle) and maybe the unicorn for earth. Earth is the hardest to pick when I considered, cas lion, tiger, the bull and horse could fit in too. But I personally think the Unicorn would be a stronger symbol of power. The alternative would be to style them after the 四神兽 (four god beasts) in chinese legend, which guards the four pts of North, South, East and West. Which in turn should then make it easier to overlap with the Western idea of magic circle, with the power of each element guarding a certain direction (or shd i say area or land?).

Oh well, this are more or less useless musings since i'm not studying myths and legends for a degree. And if i really were to do so i would starve to death. Why do i only have useless interests and at most average ability and talent in them anyway. Oh well.... watever. Shall just not think too much and read my books.

I'm back!

I'm back from taiwan!! What a trip! I had fun! Mum blame me for not buying more but i was afraid of the excess baggage charge. And its a real close call u noe, 19.7 kg! When the max weight is 20kg. R's luggage really went overweight. Lucky PF's luggage was light, else we will have trouble. Jerine's luggage was 19.2kg. Also heavy.

Back track a bit. Us 4 girls went to taiwan on monday. 1st time for all of us and R was the only one with experience traveling free and easy. The rest of us hardly travel and the little experience we have is with tour grps or relatives to guide. I think we were very lucky all of us made it back safely in one piece, with only minor incidents along the way. :P



Must really thank R for putting in so much effort to arrange so many things b4 we left and guiding us throughout the whole trip. She was the last involved in our holiday plans but the one who made most of the arrangements and told us what to look out for. She even taught the three of us how to pack so everything would fit in our luggage. Else the three of us prob sit on the hotel floor and cry for a night or at least go without slp just to pack.



And of course, must thank my two gd friends, PF and Jerine. We did it!!! We planned and went on our own graduation trip and made it back safely!!! Hehe... Thanx to both of u for all ur help before and during the trip. Also for all the memories we made on this trip.

To all 3 of u, let's go on a holiday again in future. Tho I duno when we will have the chance again. hehe...

Taiwan was fun and I would like to go again. Even tho my expectations of manga heaven has been dashed. Still a bit disappointed that i didnt even get 1 manga from this trip. NOT even 1 manga, can you believe it? *sobs* oh well.

NEW PHONE :)

Exams are OVER!!

I finished my paper and i'm going home!!! now all that's left is preparing for the taiwan trip and kor's wedding. That means packing, changing money and a bit of shopping!! Play time has begun!!!

Tarot card

saw this test on jerine's blog. was curious so i went try. and when the results came out i went "yikes!!", not becas its wrong or anything but the first two words i saw were "THE MOON". not that i have anything against the card, or the actual moon itself, but i seem to not have gotten over the prof moon scare yet. sigh.... any way, the results dun exactly displease me (despite the suggestion that im in danger of being a nutcase or a druggie) but i like the whole mystical aura ard it.

Hmm... i havent really been practicing my tarot also. Oh well, will start after exams, which is like after the paper abt 12 hrs later. okay, to bed now.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Sick

Fell sick. sore throat, lots of phlegm and feel like puking.

Not gd. Especially when exams are right ard the corner. Like in two days in fact. Lord save me.

I hope its not gastric flu again. I seem to catch it rather often ard exams. sigh...

moony report complete

Finally finished moony report and handed it in. am like not happy with it but dun really care at the same time. I got no idea how to improve on it anyway. Wait for her to call me up and complain bah.

While doing research for moony report, came across something which totally pissed me off. The lesson plan which one of the grps used for the mock lesson was COPIED. It was a lesson plan which won a place in creative lesson plan design in 2003. I was looking thru the award winning lesson plans and I saw it there. The WHOLE lesson was EXACTLY the SAME. Right down to the pt where students are suppose to write a paragraph based on a pic they drew with a circle and two triangles. AM SO PISSED! Everyone work hard to come up with their own and this is wat they did.

Oh well. Exams are coming. Study first. Not like being pissed will change anything. And purposely telling cher is spiteful and might not get the desired result.

Think happy stuff like going Taiwan after exams. Speaking of which, I found out there is a Neko Cafe at Taiwan!!! A cat cafe is a place where you can go to play with cats. Especially for ppl who like cats but cant keep them as pets. I wanna go!!! But its at Taichung. We only spending half a day there. I initially didnt wanna go Taichung at all. Just wanna explore Taipei properly. Now i want to go. I dun even mind if the others get bored and just leave me at the cafe till its time to go back while they explore Taichung on their own. But the cafe doesnt open that early, ard 10am or 11am. Wonder if got time to go at all. Its supposedly the first Cat cafe in Asia. Maybe the world as well.