qian (altessa), girl, 20, bespectacled, sci-fi, bookworm, more? aprilesque is version 7, photoshop7, original art, get your own, more? 5TORM Kathy, Dawn, Yingwan, Weiqi 05S34 class blog, Hui Fang, Jason, Poh Wei, Rachel, Wei Jie, You Jin, Yvette, Zirui friends Wen Lin, Natalie, Elyse, SozoS, Sam archives When browsing through the archives, please keep in mind that they are pieces of who I was, not who I am. People grow, people change, and I am only human. go? lyrics Hotspur - Heads/Tails, Stars of Track and Field - End of All Time, Dashboard Confessional - Hell On The Throat

Ahhh! I finally finished watching LOST. After so long. And I can't wait to watch the third season. Waiting for America to finish showing it before I start though, because I'll want to watch it all at one go. Okay, maybe not, seeing that I didn't watch season 2 in one go, but it bugs me when I watch/read unfinished things. Haha.

A piece of good news! I feel my Photoshop inspiration returning. Mwahahaha. Which probably means that the project (coughcough) is getting finished, and Flann's avatar will get off the ground. I'm having problems doing up Flann's avatar, which is keeping me from roleplaying him. Argh, I'm such a perfectionist in a bad way. T_T

This month's National Geographic has got to be my most favourite issue yet. The cover story's on Saturn! Weeee! Lots of beautiful, drool-worthy pictures inside. And it has a ZOMGCOOL!!!111oneone insert with all the heavenly bodies and their orbits and statistics and... I started reading and I couldn't put it down. Haha. Reminds you how mind-bogglingly VAST the universe is, and how irrelevant our human lives are with relation to the greater forces at work. Like exploding stars, streaking comets, and the million light years we are away from another galaxy. I could go on and on and on. XP

I have a very bad habit of watching all the episodes in a TV series EXCEPT THE LAST ONE. And lately that has been Lost and Koi Kaze. ONE MORE EPISODE! Why can't I just finish it? Because there's always not enough time, i.e. it's too late at night. But tomorrow I'll be like, hey, let's start watching a new series, and the whole thing starts all over again.

<begin psychoanalysis>
Maybe it's because I don't like things to end.
Maybe I don't want to let go of the characters that have engaged me onscreen.
Watching a TV show is much like reading a book.
Except that you don't have to use so much brain power.
Haha.
<end psychoanalysis>

Hmm. Have been totally glued to the computer monitor for the past two days watching Lost and Koi Kaze (which is an anime, by the way). Eyes are kind of swimming. Haha. Oh, and I've been cleaning out my room too.


As you can see, I'm not very successful. YET. It's going to be clean. REAL soon. I promise. Haha.

Right now I just want to dunk my head in a pool of water and breathe.

Because I don't know what to feel right now.
A mix of emotions.
Of failure,
of enthusiasm,
of disappointment.
I'm just tired.
I'm just in need of a recharge.
But I feel like this every night.
Drained.
Of what, I don't know, when there was nothing there in the first place.
But somehow, I just feel so very tired.
Tired of having to carry on.
Carry on living, because I have so much to lose.

It's like every time I try, it's not good enough.
Even in the things I enjoy doing.
It disappoints and saddens me to find out that I'm not as good as I want to be in the things I like.
Maybe I'm not trying hard enough.
Because I don't know what to do.
So I ramble on and on.
The road doesn't seem to end.
There is no solution.
Life is an open-ended question mark.

The half-finished PSD files stare at me.
They mock me because they are undone.
And I want to finish them.
So I can rediscover the joy of completing something beautiful.
So I can remind myself that maybe I'm not utterly useless.
I don't know why I think this way.
Why I constantly need to be reassured.
Why I need to depend on people who are not there.
Or cannot be there.
Maybe my brain is screwed.
Maybe there is a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist.

Reading Ender's Game again. Oh God it's so unhealthy for my young, impressionable mind. Mother will definitely not approve if she knew what Ender is like. But I don't care reading it is like burying your face in a very much-loved blanket or pillow. It soothes me and comforts me in a way I wish real people can.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow

- "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

I have trouble communicating with people, and I think that's the very reason why I feel so lonely. Oh, talk is fine. Talk is cheap. I can talk all day long and not say a single thing. But I can't convey what I'm feeling through my words and gestures, so everything I really want to say stays all bottled up inside.

Why? I want to ask why. And how. Why do I have trouble communicating with people, and how should I go about doing it? But these questions have a very simple answer: open your heart. I just happen to have lost mine somewhere along the way.

I've edited this post so many many times. Every time I read it I have something else to add. This isn't helping though, therapeutic as it is supposed to be, because my writing just doesn't speak back to me. It lies flat and comatose, and I'm half-expecting it to be taken off life support any moment. Yet the words just keep on coming and coming, because there's still a part of me that wants to keep on trying, trying to alleviate this pang that sits uncomfortably in my gut.

I know the feeling too well. It's the feeling of wanting to cry and cry and cry. But the tears won't come. So I blink dry-eyed at this screen, wondering where I've gone and where I should go.

Anyway some less depressing stuff is at hand. I met Larissa at the MRT station yesterday! What a pleasant surprise. ^^ I never thought I would feel so happy meeting people coincidentally. I don't know why I'm so happy at seeing Lari either. It's just the kind of inexplicable happiness that is always good to have, so I shan't question it too much and treasure it.

One thing I've learned recently is that in life, you don't get to do things that will make you happy. But it depends on what your goals are, whether you live in pursuit of happiness or success. For some fortunate individuals, achieving one will accomplish the other, but for people like me, happiness and success are probably independent variables. Things that make me happy don't give me a bright future. Making people happy (hence succeeding at being a better person) sometimes comes at the expense of my own happiness. Wanting to be happy renders me a selfish, self-centered person. Maybe I'm just flawed that way, because the things that make me happy aren't "good" things.

For example, what makes me happiest is staying at home all day, reading all the books and watching all the movies and anime I want. But I can't do that, because I've got to accompany my mother on errands and such, and now that the exams are over and I no longer have any excuse to stay at home. I can't just let her go alone, because that will be irresponsible and unfilial of me. My mother says that I have a very "don't care" attitude. When I don't know where something is, say, where the extra plastic bags are kept, she will say that I should have paid more attention to the things at home, and that I don't know where they're kept because I didn't care enough to find out in the first place. She will go on to say that no one helps her and she's the only one taking care of this house ("只有我管这个家").

And I can't talk back to her, because that will be arguing and talking back. After learning the hard way, i.e. retaliating a few times, I've just learned to keep quiet, to bite back my words and change the subject.

So you see, my happiness comes at the expense of others, and in order to succeed in life, to be a better, likeable person, I need to do things that don't necessarily make me happy.

To me, there are two kinds of happiness. There's the superficial, surface happiness that you get when you achieve material satisfaction, or when you laugh at a joke your friend just told. This kind of happiness is fleeting and transient and does not impact you significantly. Then there is the deeper happiness that occurs at a more emotional level, the kind that you draw on when people ask you seriously, "Are you happy?"

My mother often questions me exasperatedly, "You have enough to eat, clothes to wear and a roof over your head. Why are you so unhappy?" She also laments, "Why can't my daughter be like other children?"

And the number of apologies I give her is never enough.
I don't know how to change myself enough to make her happy.
I don't know how to change myself enough to make me happy.
Because sorry is just a word.

Just added more songs to the right. Check it out. The first is Zombies by The Cranberries. This is the one that we heard while walking down Orchard road past the bar. Many thanks to Wei Jie for the song!

@WJ: I know the song you sent us is titled "In Your Head". But I Googled it and the title appears to be "Zombie" instead.

The second song is Nice Guys by TOKIO. It's J-pop, and it's good. I want to upload more songs, but some of them have titles in Japanese and the website that I'm using doesn't currently support it, so.

Look out for more songs! I'll be adding more TOKIO and maybe some other stuff. I look at my music collection and it takes up so much space, yet I feel that I don't have many songs. T_T And don't look at me like that. Most of them are ripped from my CD collection, which is quite substantial. Haha. I have so many more that is yet un-ripped, because I don't think my computer has enough space. It's running out as it is.

Oh no, it's already 1am. I better go sleep. Tomorrow we're going to my father's office to retrieve our old Datamini computer.

I just bought a W800i! Okay, it's not a new phone per se, because it's an old model, but who cares, because I like it better than the newer W810i. I had to pay a higher price for it because they've stopped production of the W800i already *grumblegrumble*. Although it's a so-called older model, it's a better one. I've compared the specifications on the Sony Ericsson site and the only significant differences between the W800i and the W810i are that the former is 1mm thicker but has up to 1h more talktime and up to 50h longer standby time. Yes, 50h more. Eat that, W810i! (Of course I'm just comforting myself because I bought a more expensive older model. Bleh.)

The uncle selling the phone kept on talking to me and asked me if I did my A levels this year and how I found the paper and all that. Apparently his son also took the A levels this year and he wanted to see if his son's opinions corroborated with other people's. I thought that was amusing.

Anyway, went to the library today and borrowed this:


Took quite a lot of pictures today. Well, considering that I usually don't take any pictures at all. There certainly are many advantages of having a camera phone because it's something you bring everywhere you go and is more discreet than a digital camera. Of course, the quality doesn't compare, but when you want functional pictures, camera phones are the way to go.

Met Dawn at Harbourfront MRT and walked around Vivocity waiting for Weiqi and her brother. We saw this sign:



When Weiqi and her brother came, Dawn and I decided to get a cup of smoothies from Boost:


Went to Toys R Us! Second childhood and all that. XD Took some more pictures because I felt like it, LOL.

It's easy to feel so alone.

Went to my Uncle's house today. They brought old pictures along. I don't know what for, because although I wanted them, I didn't ask for them. Maybe they were cleaning up. Maybe they decided to give some to me, I don't know. But I like to think that this was more than just a coincidence.


I just bothered to scan these two photographs. I figured no one else would really have an interest in these black and white memories of people they don't know. I had trouble recognising my father as a little boy and I had to keep asking my aunts which one he was. In most of the photographs it was easy though, because he's the second youngest of the family and all I had to do was to look for the second youngest kid.

It feels odd to see pictures of him.
I am unable to grasp the enormity of his absence, unable to compensate for the emptiness that he has left behind.
The sorrow just wrings me dry.
And a void seems reside where my stomach used to be.
As much as I want to, I know it is useless to question, because there will never be any satisfactory answer.
Because there are no right answers in life.

There is so much I want to say.
So much I want to take back.
So much I regret.
I would give anything to turn back time.
I would give everything for a chance to redo all that I did.
Many people say they don't live with regret in their lives, that given the chance, they'd do things the exact same way the second time round.
I wouldn't.
And that's a sad thing to live with, this regret.
It gnaws on the edges of your mind.
A sweet pain.

I don't understand.
I don't understand.
I don't understand.

Every thought is so fragmented.
Nothing is coherent when it comes to sorrow.

Now that school is over (really really over), there's nothing to occupy my mind. And so I'm left to wander along those long, loudly echoing corridors, walking myself lost. So lost and alone. There isn't anyone any more. There's only me.

Because all that is left is dust and bones.

Today was the last day of my A levels (or rather, yesterday, since it's already past midnight)! Finally, with Chem Paper 1 over, I can start filing all my work away and not look at them for ever. It feels kind of weird that I don't have to go to school anymore, that my days no longer have any kind of structure to them, and I can do as I see fit. Sometimes freedom scares me a little. This reminds me of one of our GP compre passages, I can't remember which one, where the issue of whether having too many choices in the world today is good nor not. I'd say the power to choose comes with strings attached.

We got a rather asinine invigilator today. He kept shouting at people who didn't follow instructions. Bleh. But it was over in an hour anyway, so I didn't really mind. I felt that the paper was in the usual style of the 2006 A level questions, which are, to put it simply, weird. I've made several mistakes already (ARGGHHHHH) so I don't want to think about it anymore. Yvette told me she had the answers to the Physics MCQ and I adamantly replied that I didn't want to hear anything about it, because I know that I'll have made a ton of mistakes and I'd rather be in a state of self-denial so that I can enjoy my holiday in peace. Haha.

Left school almost immediately after the paper with Da En to meet Wei Jie and Jason at Orchard Cineleisure. We reached there earlier than the other two, so we got the tickets to Step Up first and went to the Apple store upstairs for me to drool over all the sexy sleek iMacs on display. We even fiddled with one for a while, but realised that they disabled many functions so that smart aleck's like us won't screw the computer up.

After meeting up with WJ and Jason, we went to watch the movie. The movie's good, and although the plot is rather lacking, being predictable and all that, the dancing is just OMG SUPERB. I recommend the movie on the grounds of the spectacular dancing alone. Who cares about the plot. It actually isn't so bad really, because of the underdog-becomes-a-star triumph which I like, except for one thing which I thought was unnecessary. And it helps a lot that the male lead, Channing Tatum who plays Tyler Gage, is hot. He's not my type, but you have to admit he has a hot bod. XD He can't act, but who needs to, when he can dance like that? And the female lead, Jenna Dewan who plays Nora Clark is just SO VERY GOOD. And she's so strong. O.O Wow. Watching this movie makes me wish I could dance. And Da En kept on saying how he felt very 自卑 (how do you translate that?) after watching it. Haha.

After the movie ended, we decided to head to NYDC to eat. It doesn't serve the world's best food, but I think they have good cakes. Too bad we didn't have enough space left to accomodate cake, besides it was WJ's birthday... and a birthday without a cake? Aww. Nevermind. Happy 18th birthday anyway! Yvette joined us for dinner but not for the movie. Why? You missed a perfectly awesome movie! I'm happy that the last few movies that I caught were all good, The Prestige being an excellent example. Actually, I can't remember any further back because all the mugging takes away some parts of our memory to make space for extraneous facts that we have to regurgitate in our exams.

Anyway after eating and becoming too full (hence forgoing cake, which I was soooo tempted to buy), we were having problems deciding what to do, which is always a problem among us. We walked aimlessly around Heeren for awhile and finally decided to sit outside Taka and just talk, which would solve the problem of actually having to do anything, LOL. After several unfortunate encounters with smokers (argh my lungs), we found a spot where we had relatively fresh air. Talked till about 10plus then went home. On the way to the MRT we passed by the bar at Wisma. It's called Cosmopolitan, and there was a live band playing this awesome song, so we stood and listened until they finished. WJ heard the song before, but he doesn't know what it's called. Bleh.

Took the MRT home on my lonesome ownsome because everyone stays in the east. Bleh. But it was quite okay because I was tired (maybe not as much as Yvette, who was already rather quiet before we decided to go home) and the ride passed in a blur. I was grateful when I got to sit down though, and almost fell asleep when I realised that I had already reached my stop. Saw a Hwachong guy getting off the train and recognised him as one of the people who takes 174 to school. He must've been out celebrating his end of exams too, haha.

Phwoar. It's late already. My mother usually doesn't let me sleep after midnight but she made an exception today. I don't feel like sleeping although I'm tired because I don't really want tomorrow to come. Don't ask why, it's a combination of many things. I guess I'll numb myself through it, like I always do when I have to do things I don't like. It's easier when you convince yourself you don't care.

There's a bug in IE, or maybe my coding isn't strict enough, but the tables don't seem to display correctly and there's a black space above this cell. ARGH. My blog appears as it should be in Firefox, so if you're using it, props to you. XD

*fiddles with template*

OHMYGOD. IE REALLY SUCKS. After previewing my blog in Frontpage and clicking here and dragging there, I finally figured out what was wrong:


That, my dear ladies and gentleman, is something known as a "line break". Theoretically, it should not have any impact on the appearance of your blog at all because line breaks are handled by the tag <br>. But IE had to interpret that line break as a real line break, making the top cell bigger than it's supposed to be and hence causing my layout to go wonky. Rarr. *claws extend*

Oh yeah, I finally figured out how to post music online. If you guys want to hear The Thief, check out the sidebar. I wonder if there's any other unobstrusive way to post music. RadioBlog is good, but it doesn't have this song on it, so I can't post it here. And my paid hosting is as good as gone anyway, so I'm not going to post my RadioBlog up here until I can find a place to host my songs.

I think I shall go do some more Chem MCQs before I go to school. Ehh.

And so does Greyprism, reincarnated in the form of a blogspot account and a spanking new name. It feels different, of course, and it'll take awhile to get used to, but I thought it was a better choice. Yes, I've been using Wordpress (version 1.2 though) ever since my ex-host server decided it didn't like CGI scripts, forcing me to do away with Greymatter, something that I had used comfortably for two years. But Wordpress.com which hosts free Wordpress blogs loads really slowly for me, and the new version more or less requires you to be competent enough in CSS to code a layout from it, which I am not. If anything, I'm still rather table-dependant, a relic of the past. I swear I'm going to learn CSS. Really.

But there's also one thing annoying about Wordpress.com -- it doesn't let you use your own custom templates, which means that I'd have to use one of theirs and it just irks me to use a template that someone else is (most probably) using too. Well, not unless you pay US$15, which I most certainly will not, when I can set up my own blog with my own custom template FREE on Blogspot. I mean sure, Wordpress rocks and all that, but *cringe*, the cost. If I'm going to pay for anything at all, I'll get paid hosting. I mean sure, it's cheaper to spend S$23.40 if you don't need a few hundred MB of space where you can store all the MP3s, images and files that you want, freedom to install any sort of script and to backup your SQL database to make sure you've got a copy of your posts on your harddrive just in case. Besides, I don't think I want to spend my money so frivolously anymore. LOL.

I do have some grouses about Blogger of course. Firstly, there aren't any categories. Waaa! Categories were fun, because I could look at say, all my posts that have to do with music one page. I can't have individual content pages either, so all the stuff that I want to have on my blog will have to take the form posts. Wordpress on the other hand, allows you to create content pages which are actually entries but do not show up with your main blog posts, which is a great function.

But I'll live with it. I mean, it's free. XD

Anyway, I've created a new layout to commemorate the move and I spent all day yesterday working on it. There are many things that I'm still not satisfied with, but I'm happy that I managed to turn something that I initially thought was unacceptable into something that I'm satisfied enough to upload. I initially started with a total blank in my head, unlike other times where I've just got the inspiration to make a layout and everything comes together in a few hours tops, so I'm kind of proud that I came up with something decent in the end. ^^

This is the first layout that I created entirely without Paint Shop Pro. Wow! I'm trying to wean myself off PSP, because Photoshop simply wins hands down. It's just so much more powerful and sleek that I can't see any reason not to make the switch. In fact I cut my teeth in computer graphics (I don't think the stuff I create deserves to be called digital art) on Adobe Photoshop 5 way back then, and was forced to use Paint Shop Pro instead when my (old) computer experienced problems installing Adobe. Then again, most of the pros use Photoshop, and it makes me feel like I'm on my way to becoming godlike if I use Photoshop. XD

This layout features Relient K (as if it isn't obvious enough, hehe.) and their song, The Thief, which is a very nice piano pop ballad that could be heard on my Radio Blog when it was still around. Well, it's still around, technically, until Greyprism dies, but that's in about 3 weeks, but we'll just assume it died already. XP So if you want a listen, ask me to send it to you, and really, I think it's worth it. It's not the best song ever, but the lyrics really struck a chord in me, and most of it is exactly what I feel like saying.

The fox was an afterthought actually, but I like how it turned out, sly and sneaky, the thief in the song. Watch out, or he'll steal your soul. *cackle* But actually he (or she?) looks quite innocent so bleh. Blame my non-existant drawing skills, because I traced over a photograph for that one. Maybe I could have picked a sneakier pose. Hmm.

current | greyprism | dementia
Click on the thumbnails for a full-screen version.


Version: 7
Title: silence, i discover, is something you can actually hear
Date: 17 May, 2009
Description: Drew the gramophone and hummingbird by hand and coloured it in with normal brushes on low opacity, then layered over a white checked pattern. Used a lot of PNGs and made blatant use of transparencies in this one. Post layout wise I wanted to achieve a simple and elegant feel, but it ended up looking empty and without substance instead. Not one of my better layouts, but I still like the illustration I did.


Version: 6
Title: the stars seem closer tonight
Date: 07 January, 2009
Description: Simple layout featuring stars. Got the texture off a free stock site. Used Arial Rounded MT Bold for the typography, which is my new favourite default font thing. My layouts have been getting more and more meaningless actually, made because it's been so long since my last. This is pretty visually pleasing I guess, but nothing to wow over. It could have been a layout for any other site, and that kind of irks me. I should be able to do better. Create things that actually mean something, like I used to be able to do. Maybe I've stopped feeling so deeply?—no, I think I'm feeling more than ever.


Version: 5
Title: MUSIC (MAKE)S ME (BELIEVE)
Date: 01 January, 2008
Description: Features Koyuki from Beck, extracted from a scan by Mangascreener. As far as originality goes, this one features the least amount of original work, seeing that the scan is the main focus of the layout. I like the bold colours though, which I actually stole from the scan as well. Hehe. This layout is similar to version 3 in that both have the coloured stripes, but this time the background doesn't tile properly because I couldn't be bothered.
"Aprilesque" can be seen edited onto Koyuki's pant leg, which I thought was cool.
There's nothing much to say about this layout actually. I made it so I wouldn't have to stare at my magic schoolbus in the new year. LOL.


Version: 4d
Title: my magic schoolbus of escapism
Date: 01 May, 2007
Description: Why version 4d? This was actually my fourth attempt at remodelling. The other attempts are either half-done or too horrible to put up, so I won't. :P The actual layout is really simple. a bit too simple, actually, for my tastes, but it works. There's no fancy gradients or anything. I did liberally use brushes, textures and stock images though. I am however, proud of the schoolbus I drew, because it's just so cute and awesome!
Let me indulge a bit in explaining what it represents: There are two ways of looking at it. One, the bus is running away from its tedious everyday job of driving on roads day in, day out, polluting the environment, etc., and it wants out. So it develops wings and flies away from it all! Hence the theme of escapism. The way of looking at it is a bit more morose. There are red splotches on the wings which can be blood, and it might have died from some unknown injuries and is thus flying up on angel's wings to heaven.
Then again, you can say it represents me going forth into a new phase of my life. :D
Credits: Brushes, stocks, textures.


Version: 3
Title: strips & leaves
Date: 25 January, 2007
Description: I got tired of the purple layout. :P Besides, I was inspired by a colour combination I saw at COLOURlovers, so I made it. As with the previous two layouts, this one required a LOT of tinkering before I got it to look right. I like it though; it's probably the best out of the three layouts I've done for my new blog so far, although it is a little generic. PLUS, I used a brush. AGAIN! I'll try not to use any more next time and return to my old philosophy of creating everything myself. :D
Credits: Brush.


Version: 2
Title: fly me a rainbow
Date: 18 December, 2006
Description: A refreshing purple colour! I seem to be spending a lot of time on my layouts at Blogspot, while previously on greyprism, each layout usually took me 1 to 2 hours max. :P But I really really really love the header image for this version. I especially like how the clouds turned out. I was searching high and low for a nice cloud brush, but most of what I could find were those "grunge" type brushes, which are absolutely not my taste, so I drew these clouds myself. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the most important thing: the birds. The lark was the first thing that inspired me to make the layout, and I had an image of it soaring in the skies. The rainbow came later. But I love the effect I achieved!
Credits: For the first time, I need to credit other people. I guess I got sick of my own inability to make proper things, so I had to steal other people's to assimilate into my own and pass it off as mine. D: But anyway. I got the lark picture here and the bird brushes here.


Version: 1
Title: The Thief
Date: 16 November, 2006
Description: First layout for my blog. Inspired by Relient K's The Thief. Features a doorway with light streaming into a dark room, with a fox peering around the corner. Predominantly black and orange. The fox was a photograph which I re-CGed, and the doorway drawn extensively in Painter. I liked the actual image but not the overall composition of the layout, which I had some problem with and only settled on after quite a lot of tweaking.


A collection of layouts from the defunct greyprism.org is below:


Shade: 19
Title: none
Date: have to find out
Blah: Finally got a screenshot of it up. This is the only layout I used for greyprism which "violated" the rule I set for myself: to only use things which I have created. I--horror of horrors!-- downloaded the picture of a tree somewhere and manipulated it. Yep. It's a simple layout I felt no particular attachment to. It lasted for a really really long time because I didn't have any time to remodel, what with A levels and all.


Shade: 18b
Title: blue skies
Date: 11 March 2006
Blah: This features a photogaph I took with my Nokia 6020, so the resolution isn't that great, but it's a lovely picture of the sunrise. The location's somewhere near my house, and I was on my way to school in my dad's car (yet again... the car seems like one of the places where i take the most photos). The buildings you see are actually a primary school. I absolutely love the colours of the sky though, and this picture makes a great phone wallpaper because my profile name just comes right above the dark coloured land. Heh. This layout looks a bit more professional, if you ask me, and it has really teeny text. I dunno. I was in the mood for teeny text. I actually wanted to go with big, readable Georgia, but somehow, it came to this. Often it's the design that's taking you for a ride and not the other way round. I made another layout prior to this, hence version "18b", but the other layout was too restricting. I might put up a screenshot of it sometime.


Shade: 17
Title: seventeen summers
Date: 28 January 2006
Blah: Features lyrics from Robbie William's King of Bloke and Bird, which I have been obsessing over for some time. It's lime green, bright and cheerful and all that. I don't like it personally, but it's refreshing. A tree is in the main picture of this layout. For some reason, I have a liking for trees. I drew one in version 14 and 7, and there's a Christmas tree in version 2. Heh. Nothing much to say about this layout, really.


Shade: 16
Title: By The Lamplight
Date: 29 November 2005
Blah: Greyprism really really needed a remodel. Very badly. As you can see, it's been about half a year since I remodeled anyway, and it being the holidays, I don't think I have much of an excuse. The layout keeps the same... layout. O.o Just changed the picture and the colour scheme. Oh, and I used Photoshop to make the title picture for once, and only used Paint Shop Pro to draw lines, something I still can't figure out how to do in Photoshop. >.<


Shade: 15
Title: Clouded Stars
Date: 22 June 2005
Blah: The cloud... thing was done on a whim. I don't have much to say about this layout, though it's rather similar to version 5 where I used the same stars in the same colours, plus a so-called night theme. Except that that was grey. This one's more bluish-purple. And I brought back the side bar, plus put up SOME form of content. Haha. I kind of like it at the moment (because I just made it). I don't usually do write-ups just after I make a new layout, usually just before I change it, but I was doing up on for version 14 so I was thinking, let's just do 15 too. XD


Shade: 14
Title: Aflame
Date: 01 May 2005
Blah: I love the picture. It's of a burning tree, hence the title. The layout almost didn't turn out like this. It was going to be green and hilly, but Painter 7 screwed (correction, my computer screwed) and I lost my picture because silly me didn't save. Yeah, so in the end I came up with this. I can't say how much I love the picture. It's gorgeous. Haha. I seem to be flattering myself. But that's not the point. Er, this layout was rather hastily done, no content at all, just my blog and the lovely layout. Yes.


Shade: 13
Title: ## here comes the rain again //
Date: 15 March 2005
Blah: The picture I used was one of the very first I took with my dad's digital camera, and fits the title perfectly because it's of raindrops on a windshield. The lyrics and title are both from Greenday's Wake Me Up When September Ends, which is a hugely awesome song. I like the colour scheme on this one, and how the yellow complements the grey. Somehow a bit like me, nowadays, when I try to brighten myself up by wearing brighter colours even though I'm just as dull as all the grey in the world.


Shade: 12
Title: g.org
Date: 10 December 2004
Blah: I made this to try my hand at looking professional. I was intending to expand the site and add a lot more content, but in the end I didn't due to lack of time and pure laziness. Also, my server went down for a month (the whole of January and some) and that wasn't exactly a big carrot for me do to anything more to it. I personally liked this layout a lot because it was clean, and it was also the first time I had a calender in my blog. Nothing much to say about it though, because it didn't really leave a deep impression on me.


Shade: 11
Title: { checkmate ;
Date: 23 November 2004
Blah: This layout is made because I wanted to incorporate a chess piece in it. The picture of the knight in the shape of a dragon can be found here. I like the picture itself, but the layout isn't satisfactory. Ah well, at least there's something I like. ^.^ Um, I tried to get the "goth" look, but apparently I can't do intricate patterns. Yeah. So it's a little plain, and it's still red and black. Red and black are one of my favourite colour combinations. Okay I'm digressing. This layout uses layers again. I could have done this with tables, but some screw up with the HTML made me change to layers. When I was done, I couldn't be bothered to code it back to tables again, so there you are. Oh, and this layout will not view right on an 800 x 600 resolution, I'm sure.


Shade: 10
Title: t r a n s i e nce
Date: 01 October 2004
Blah: Again, did a new layout because I was sick of the last one. It was made to sort of celebrate the end of my preliminary examinations, so yeah. It features a splash page, one which greyprism didn't sport since the first version. It's very minimalist and white, with a touch of mauve. If you ever bother to try and read the lyrics on the splash page (it's unreadable in the main pages), it is part of the song "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. I think it's an awesome song. ^.^; Odd that it's blue eyes and the layout is... mauve. Or purple or red or whatever you want to call the colour. I like this layout, personally, and it will stay because I'll be mugging for another month or so until the end of my GCE 'O' Levels. Yup.


Shade: 9
Title: illumina
Date: 01 August 2004
Blah: Was getting sick of the yellowish-brown of shade 8, and I haven't remodeled in eons, so I put up a sort of filler layout. It wasn't difficult to code, actually. It's just a simple table with three rows. Yeah. The picture above was made from two photos overlayed. Um, yeah. Nothing really special about this layout though, except that it's probably the first layout in tables that I've done in a very long time.


Shade: 8
Title: t e s s e r a c t
Date: 23 May 2004
Blah: Inspired by the novel "Factoring Humanity" by Robert J. Sawyer. The colour's not what I usually do - it's a sort of dirty-yellow - but I think it's good. The tesseract itself was a little painful to draw because I simply couldn't get a perfect cube out right. I have calculation problems. XD Well, I love it, and I can't deny it, because it's so simple, yet... nice. Yes. Haha. Okay, this was not a good description of the layout, so sue me.


Shade: 7
Title: g r e e n
Date: 03 May 2004
Blah: It's green! And it's supposed to feature a potted... plant. If you couldn't tell. No particular thing that inspired me to make it. Just drew it. ^^ Gotta love Painter7. It's the most super-duper. WEEEE. It's nice-green, isn't it? My absolutest favourite shade - after grey and blue, of course!


Version: 6
Title: sea of blue
Date: 10 April 2004
Blah: Did this in 5 minutes. Almost. Coding took me about 20-30 min. Basically because there were some bugs in my coding and I had to weed them out. *nods* It's a light-coloured layout for a change, haven't had those in a while. The window for text is pretty small, though. Well, I don't really have anything to say because this layout was a spur of the moment thing, so yeah. We'll leave it at that.


Version: 5
Title: ~ bahn j'ahk ~
Date: 15 March 2004
Blah: The Korean words on the image read "bahn j'ahk" (romanisation), which means "twinkle" in Korean. ^^ *starts singing the nursery rhyme in Korean* It's so cute. Yeah anyway, the whole thing is grey to represent gloomy skies. Because I like gloomy weather. Haha. The only hint of colour would be the tiny yellow stars which represent hope! Wee. I like this layout because it's got Korean on it. Haha. Might stay, mightn't. Depends if I have to time to remodel. ^^


Version: 4
Title: / xpacemen
Date: 01 February 2004
Blah: For the first time, greyprism.org debuts as it is, not Dementia, not anything else. Wee! And it has it's own little logo. A grey prism! <- just in case you didn't know what the triangular thing was. The Blue Circles and Stars represent the Spaceship in Space. The Spacemen are in those Spaceship. And the words, even though you can't see them, are from the song Superman by Five for Fighting. Awesome song! I kind of like this layout, personally. It would stay for a long long time. Yeah.
Version: 3
Title: graphic manipulation {magic wand}
Date: 01 January 2004
Blah: I was rather fond of this layout, at first. Actually, I still am. It's so... pixelly! Actually, I stole hte magic wand from PSP7. SHhhh! Don't tell. T.T Anyway each of the sections had it's own colour scheme, like blue, red brown, etc. It was really pretty. However, the server ate everything, and I decided it was time for a remodel too. So this one went. I made it with a thought it my mind that it would last. It would have, but circumstances have shortened it's lifepsan. Aww.


Version: 2
Title: have.yourself.a.merry.little.christmas...
Date: 30 November 2003
Blah: This layout is courtesy of Elyse as part of our Xmas Xchange! Thank you for the wonderful layout! I appreciate your effort! XD


Version: 1
Title: morningroad
Date: 23 November 2003
Blah: This layout used chromeless windows, and had a splash page, though there was an option to use a normal popup should the browser not support chromeless ones. Made use of a picture I took on the car along the SEMBAWANG flyover on my way to school via Mandai Rd. I love the colours in the picture and the effect of the sun. First layout that uses frames that I have made in a long time.


Dementia was Greyprism's previous incarnation, and these were my past layouts. Hover over images for version number and layout title.

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