the first summer

2009-11-11T21:58:00.002+08:00

today's technically the last day of lessons for me except that i've got extra bizlaw on mon for an hour. prof buckhard was quite sweet, he wanted to take photos with the class. hopefully i can take more courses under him. the term definitely flew by, 13 weeks have passed and in another 3 weeks i would have officially cleared my first term at smu. it's kind of bittersweet actually.

exams start in less than 2 weeks time, i need to get out of the house to mug! anyone up for study dates? (:

oh and i finally got the chance to see the lighted christmas decorations on the way home from sch today and i saw the 'snow' at tanglin mall. other days it's not lighted or i'm driving past in my parents car so i can't have a look. i have to say the red decorations look abit like cny. nevertheless, i can't wait for christmas! my absolute favourite holiday (: but first i gotta get through exams first! ):

2009-10-17T00:44:00.002+08:00

school, school, school.

on thursday i was feeling pretty liberated, as i usually do feel on wednesday evenings after i'm done with all my lessons for the week. i thought i just had stats midterms to study for and bgs individual project. what i didn't realise was that biz law readings this week are a freaking 44 pages and i still have backload from previous lessons to cover. not to mention, bgs individual assignment question turned out to be way harder than i thought it would be, regarding google and regulations. i know nuts about google as a company other than google chrome and its search engine. so i've got tons of research to do, sigh.

recess week was last week and i seemed to be the only one having a pretty free week. i only had one meeting throughout the entire week, yay. it was great opportunity to meet up with friends! on monday i met up with the crescent girls' for dinner, delia was teased mercilessly throughout the entire dinner. i've got nice video footage to put up on fb to update anna but i think delia will murder me. wednesday was with bondue group and although i couldn't stay long, it was nice seeing them since i hardly see them around sch. and friday was with good old ac gang to celebrate xk and baabaa's birthday. although only half of them turned up, it was really good spending time with them. winnie brought up the heart-to-heart the gang had by the s'pore river last year and what we uncovered after that. oh man i really do miss those times. and just this past monday, met up with sherwin to celebrate claire's birthday! it was definitely time well spent; photos for both birthday celebrations are up on fb! (:

and this might seem somewhat crazy but we've already began counting down to end of term. which is like slightly more than 6 weeks left? i've got to get through the exams first though! back to studying for stats, it's the only subject which my grades are still relatively okay! ):

2009-09-23T00:05:00.005+08:00

i had my first ever presentation in smu today. i'm not feeling immensely relieved that it's one down, two to go though. the presentation didn't go too well, i stumbled alot and i know i could have done alot better, just that my nerves got the better of me. oh wells. at least tmr's bgs elevator pitch isn't graded so there's no pressure there. momental breather for now! i'm thankfully that readings and homework isn't as heavy this week if not i'll have no idea how i'd cope.

okay i should blog about y camp before i forget about my experience. y camp was about attending this camp with the people at apsn - association for people with special needs. even though i've interacted with mentally challenged people before (minds-lee kong chian gardens sch cip back in ac), this experience couldn't be more different.

firstly, the duration of the camp was way longer: from friday evening to sunday afternoon. secondly, the participants we were working with were really different. at apsn, they were quite normal in the sense that they could hold proper conversation with us. perhaps it was because they were older, perhaps it was because some of them weren't that mentally challenged. and that's the sad thing, some of them aren't that mentally challenged, yet they're ostracized by society. they just have a lower iq but other than that, they're like me and you. they talk about the crushes they have, they have feelings, just like any of us. they attempt factorisation which is what we have learnt, albeit ten years earlier than them but nonetheless, they still have the ability to learn it. despite all these, they're taken advantage of and have a certain social stigma. some others had autism and down syndrome, but they could be pretty adorable in their own unique way.

it was heartbreaking to see some of them crying at the end of the camp. they've built friendships with their buddies (us) over those few days yet there's no certainty that they'll ever see us or talk to us again unless we continue to volunteer and attend y camps. it's quite sad that just 'cause of their limited mental capabilities, their life is restricted by so much. they have no choice but to have their lives revolve around home and apsn (and their jobs if they're lucky), their friendship circle is limited to their family members and classmates at apsn and they don't have any freedom nor say in their life.

the camp was trying and i have to admit, my patience was at an all time low at some points of the camp. but the takeaway of the camp has been pretty big for me which is:

learn to appreciate the simple things in life. seeing the smallest things such as building a sandcastle put a smile on their faces made me realise that too often we're caught up in our hectic lives, that we don't pause and appreciate the simple joys in life. we tend to have those lofty ambitions and are never satisfied with what we have. but we don't realise that the simplest, most uncomplicated things can bring a smile to our faces too

and that mentally challenged people aren't that different from us. they just tend to express their feelings more openly and are more simple-minded. although their mental capacity is limited, but they're just like any other one of us

2009-09-15T14:59:00.003+08:00

it's crazily hectic. whoever said As were the hardest thing we ever had to go through must have been delusional. if i can get to week 7 sane, it'll be a miracle. i've got:

mgmt comm presentation on tue of week 6

mgmt comm graded assignment on sat of week 6

biz law presentation on sat of week 6

biz law midterm test on mon of week 7

bgs elevator pitch on wed of week 6/7

if i can survive through all that plus the assignments and readings, i'll be damn thankful.

i just came back from y camp during the weekend. i'll blog more about that another time, i've got mgmt comm soon

2009-08-26T22:08:00.002+08:00

week 2 is over! it feels almost surreal, no more worrying about readings or assignments till next mon! i can go at a much slower pace (: i'm starting to see the drawbacks of having a timetable that comprises of lessons only from mon-wed. basically i spent sunday to wednesday rushing all my readings and assignments 'cause i only managed to do stats and mgmt comm homework (which are the easiest amongst the lot) last thursday. in the end i still didn't manage to finish one chapter for bgs. on top of the readings and assignments, i spent at least one hour on two separate days trying to get my mac connected to the internet 'cause somehow, starhub doesn't want to connect me.

i'm finding uni definitely more fast-paced and hectic 'cause i've always been a last minute procrastinator. all through pri sch till jc, i've always studied for texts and exams last minute. daily revision isn't my style so most of the term, i'm quite free with the exception of homework and common test and exam periods. now it's a different ball game altogether 'cause uni requires us to read before lessons every week (sth that i've never done. i've never revised after lessons, much less before). the readings aren't really light considering that each chapter is like 20+ pages long and some aren't that easy to comprehend or are quite dry.

the positive thing about this week was that my attention span lasted way longer than during last week's lessons. for most classes, like biz law, it lasted the whole 3 hours! definite improvement from last week which is awesome. hopefully this continues throughout the term!

anna's farewell was on sat night and i must say, it was easily the most cheerful farewell i've ever seen at changi. her church group was even doing cheers there and hardly anyone was teary. once again, photos are on my com and i haven't uploaded them 'cause i don't have enough to form an album. perhaps when i've more. hope she's having fun touring washington! i wanna go traveling too. i'm not sure if i should join the work&travel usa programme that smu is offering. it's rather tempting that you get to tour and travel around usa after your work. imagine all the great shopping bargains and fascinating places you can visit. in addition, some jobs are at theme parks and i absolutely adore theme parks. i told my mum i wanted to work at a theme park (please not escape though!) in the future and she said i could have started working after crescent, no need for me to continue my jc and tertiary education ): i still think it'll be quite fun and exciting to coordinate events at theme parks, say the new universal studios in s'pore. anyways about the work&travel, what's holding me back is the cost, estimated total is around 3k+, possibly 4k! one guy who went to grandcanyon to work last year managed to cover all his costs except for airfare which was 1.2k. another thing is that the minimum work period is 2 months and taking into account the travelling time, i'll be away for 2 and a half months at the least. i'll definitely be homesick and miss everyone back at home ):

2009-08-19T21:23:00.002+08:00

first week of university life is over! yes, my last lesson of the week ended at 6.45 earlier this evening so tmr & friday are free (: friday's vivace though, so i might go back to decide on ccas! i haven't decided what to join yet, i feel like joining sth different, unlike interact but definitely no sports for me!

first week of lessons were pretty alright, i've gotten all my texts! biz law on monday ended an hour earlier (: i have to give credit to the profs for holding my attention for more than the first hour though. in ac, during econs tutorial, my attention span lasted only fifteen minutes before i started counting down to the end of class. it isn't so bad here, possibly 'cause this is just the first week of sch. smu's style of teaching is kinda like dt's where they ask you questions but they don't give you answers 'cause there's no definite one. thanks to dt, i'm quite used to that. there are a whole bunch of nationalities here at smu, my stats prof is from hk, my bgs prof is from germany and i've classmates from portugal, philippines, myanmar, kazakhstan, vietnam and china. quite cool right?

during today's bgs, the prof showed us a video titled the corporation. i think it's the one dt showed us during gp 'cause it's vaguely familiar. while watching the vid, it was eerily silent amongst the class at most parts and i really missed 2aa2! for instance, when a screenshot of viagra appeared, i could imagine the guys in our class passing some comment or when the word 'externalities' appeared, i could have imagined our class groaning. now i know what eug likes so much about our class, it's the sense of camaraderie amongst all of us. like how all the girls are quite tight even though we're supposedly in all different cliques. it's quite sad to think that i'll never be able to experience such light-hearted banter during tutorials again, judging from the lessons i had thus far. for one, classes have 50 students each so we'll never get to know each other that well to be that comfortable around one another and secondly, i doubt anyone's willing to risk their classroom participation grades :/

we had anna's farewell dinner last thu, photo are on fb. i can't upload the photos now 'cause i'm currently blogging on my new macbookpro and the photos are on my com. pity we didn't have the opportunity to meet a very special person. nvm, i'm sure we'll have the chance to meet him in the future (;

2009-08-14T22:20:00.003+08:00

bidding woes are over, for now at least. xiang and i are really not fated for twc and asct this term but at least i managed to secure mgmt comm together with serene and xiang so i have four classes this term. my thursdays & fridays are free, that is until projects start coming in. now comes textbook hunting. i bought my biz law one today (sharing with xiang) since we're required to read the first three chapters by first lesson which is on mon! ): i'm in the process of getting the one for bgs but haven't done anything to get stats and mgmt comm yet. i don't even know which text we're using for mgmt comm!

today was my last weekday of my eight-months long vacation! that's terribly sad. i'm really not ready to start sch yet, it's so hard to gear up into studying mode after such a long break! during these past 8 months i've:

worked and in the process, was forced to use my rusty mandarin which i didn't use for the whole of j2 and learnt all i ever needed to know about property tax and more
gotten my licence!! (:
had an awesome holiday with the girls in sydneyyy! loved every minute of it (: wished it could have lasted longer, nvm, next up would be NY to visit anna, this time with ah-ma and delia!
watched a whole ton of movies. easily more movies than i've watched in the last few years combined!
learnt abit of tennis (3 lessons somewhat considered right)
made new friends & forged stronger relationships (so cliche, haha)

seems like quite a short list for eight months. which is like 2/3 of a year, and if you think about it that way, it does seem like a very long time. oh wells. goodbye freedom, hello sch

2009-08-10T23:08:00.003+08:00

omg my bidding is so, so screwed. first round of bidding i only ended up with 3 out of the 6 classes i bidded for and today, after the second round of bidding is over, i still haven't secured the other 3 classes that i re-bidded for! so now i'm stuck with just my 3 classes which is quite dangerous if you ask me. i've decided to give up on as & ct, it's so popular this term! probably going to bid for one or two more classes for this final round for bidding. i'm crossing my fingers and praying that i'll get my classes!! oh and today, i found out that xin and i are in the same stats class! (:

on to happier things, i've caught GI joe & up! GI joe was good, especially with channing tatum! (: it was jam packed with action! as for up, i thought it was not bad, definitely better than monsters vs aliens and ice age 3 but i think i'm not that fond of animation movies, haha.

last week, went for sushi buffet with yunsan and night safari with the girls! tickets at night safari are rather ex - 22bucks for normal adult ticket and 32 for the adult ticket with tram ride. but since only certain animals can be seen via the tram path, we bought the 32bucks one. i had fun with the girls, i can't remember the last time i really laughed so much. anna's "i see a string" and delia's random comments. really thanks for the great time girls! below are a handful of photos from both occasions, i'm too lazy to upload all onto blogger. the rest are already on fb!
i've decided to get macbook pro! but i haven't gone down to sch to actually get it yet. probably tmr or wed! i still have to get it configured!

perhaps sometimes i'm too sensitive for my own good :/

2009-08-03T21:23:00.002+08:00

omg what the hell i just heard the dumbest thing ever.

have you heard of someone, after being told the person being prayed for already attends church, insists on still praying for the person to attend a different church 'cause our church is 'different' (since we're catholics). like seriously, what the. churches all believe in the same god, in the same jesus. we ALL pray to the same god. we believe in basically the same things, that there's eternal life and that we have to abide by the ten commandments. we don't pray to idols, get your facts right before you accuse us of anything. seriously, people of the same faith should stand united, instead of picking on different denominations, seeing others as 'different'. time's better spent converting non-christians and telling them about the christian faith than sowing discord amongst your own fellow christians.

sorry, just needed to let off some steam (:

2009-08-03T20:53:00.003+08:00

back from bondue camp! it was slack and fun, i enjoyed it a whole lot more than ftb where i was counting down the hours till i could go home. vivien was in my bondue group! i met her last year while studying at greatworld's coffeebean with winnie and the being chased out incident, we later found out she's jh's friend. we both didn't recognise each other first, just found each other familiar. first day we played games which required us to get really really dirty, like roll in the mud, playing captain's ball with a raw chicken and playing ultimate frisbee with peanutbutter & ketchup smeared all over it. there were also gross stuff like where the girl licks the sauce off a guy's nipples for bonus points, i think that was the ultimate gross one. at night we watched abit of shutter and had fright night after that which i thought was quite good. the props, the setting and especially the ghosts' acting! darren kept talking throughout the whole thing and pointed out the ghosts so it wasn't that scary after all. i just screamed once when the ghost like appeared at the side of me.
second day was amazing race and clubbing night. amazing race was rather draining, prob 'cause we walked alot. clubbing night was rather tame 'cause they came down pretty hard on the crashers, nobody getting caught making out or anything like that. just some people being quite high and wasted. our group was rather sober even though we played circle of death and slap jack, our faci was the one who got totally wasted. he puked in the seminar room where we were sleeping so we moved to the study room to sleep. anyways only slept at 7am after some random hearttoheart and had to wake up at 9plus! our facis bought so mac breakfast (:

bestfriend came over just now. she was supposed to be at nus but she didn't know about the formal attire thing so she came over to my house instead since it's rather close to nus. good time catching up, she hasn't been to my house in ages. hopefully sushi buffet this week works out!

i'm debating btw fujitsu & macbook! at first i was set on fujitsu but after bondue, heard about how good mac was at biz presentations and serene said it's quite easy to use so i might just be getting it!

2009-07-27T19:31:00.009+08:00

finally back with an update, here goes:

two thursdays back, yunsan and i decided to explore tampines seeing that both of us have never been there. we managed to cover tampines 1 and tampines mall (or at least i think that's what it's called) in the span of the 6 hours we were there but stopped short of century square 'cause we spent a whole lot at the other 2 malls. we did pedicures for only 10bucks (!) at tampines 1 but mine was subsequently ruined at ftb during rafting. it was my first visit to uniqlo and i wasn't that impressed i must say, it's more hyped up than what it has to offer. i bought my notebook from artbox and clothes from cache cache (first time seeing it) and cotton on. managed to catchup with bestfriend on all the happenings in her life, time well-spent (:

the guys, chenxi and i went to winnie's house two saturdays ago and serene, eug, baabaa and i went again last saturday. winnie's house is quite cool! never seen anything like it and it's so near town! it's just opp clarke quay. the first saturday, we played our usual monopoly but this time it was the spongebob version, quite cute! we ordered pizza in, the guys went to buy drinks and caught hostage which is quite an old movie i think. chenxi left early! but at least finally managed to see her. photos! rest of them are on fb

then last saturday, it was mahjong at winnie's. from these photos you can see the outside of winnie's house. winnie's mahjong tiles are really pretty! you can't really see from these photos but they're violet and purple sparkles.

i caught harrypotter too, think the death of dumbledore wasn't much of a climax and it looked really fake. hopefully the movie does more justice to the last book! i also went to ion on friday where i saw more familiar shops like artbox and cache cache and the usual topshop, mango, zara. but there's rubi though! really happy that they brought rubi in and they have size 35 & 36 here, unlike in aussie! (:

and finally, last thing to update about is ftb! ftb didn't turn out as bad as i thought it'd be. the planning, simulate and execute wasn't bad at all, it was more of a natural process. the thing though, is that after every activity we had a debrief and that's quite anticlimax and the whole mood just went down i suppose. my team was hundred and they were really quite enthu, we worked quite well as a team and we didn't get on each other's nerves so yay (: i hated the sleeping arrangement though. they put 5 girls in a tent and it really was a squeeze, you just have to lie on your back without moving if not you'll hit the girls beside you. i took forever to fall asleep on the first night and woke up like 5, 6 times throughout the night. so when the team decided to have a talk again on the second night, i joined them since i was quite sure i'd hardly get any sleep. surprisingly, i wasn't as drained as i thought i'd be from the lack of sleep, i barely got two hours on the second night. we did rafting where we had to build our own raft from barrels and poles and i forgot the knots i learnt in guides ): it was quite fun albeit tiny bit scary that i may fall into the ocean, to go out on the raft we built although one barrel came out midway. oh last day it rained so we didn't have final challenge and instead we had indoor games which suited me just fine. running 3km around east coast for amazing race wasn't my exact idea of fun. tunneling left me with a four bruises while the mrt game that consists of slapping&pinching left me with three more. easily the most number of bruises amongst the five outdoor camps that i've been to.

bondue camp coming up as well as hopefully, sushi buffet with bestfriend! praying that she doesn't have to relief teach tmr!

2009-07-13T21:28:00.002+08:00

i've finally changed blogskin! i've been using the previous one for like forever. i quite like this skin, the cupcakes & cookies look so pretty and delicious! i'll probably stick with this skin for a while till i get sick of it.

anyways finally, finally managed to drive parents' car yesterday after pestering them everyday since i passed driving. mum's very apprehensive about me driving, she kept trying to dissuade me and thinks that i'll crash the car or sth but dad allowed me to drive to crescent and back yesterday night (under his supervision of course)! parents' car is rather diff from the honda city at bbdc though, the steering wheel is so much harder to turn! hopefully i'll get more chances to drive the car and practise my parking!

last week had first tennis lesson with dee at keppel club. the lesson was only about half an hour for me but the next day i had muscle aches! this just shows how out of shape i am. i haven't ran since may! 'cause the track near my house has been closed for construction works and i need the track to know the distance i've ran if not i won't have any motivation to run. (excuses, excuses you may say) i really do need to get more exercise, will probably do so after i quit which is like this friday! finally, after nearly 8 months working which is just unbelieveable. i know i've been saying i'm gonna quit and this time i really do mean it, joyce and i submitted our resignation forms today. i really want to just laze around and wake up late, to just take a really good break and catch up on sleep before sch starts. since the end of As, i've had just a handful of days lazing around at home. the rest have been spent working, driving and going out with friends which is rather crazy if you think about it, considering that As have ended 8 months ago. gosh.

friday we sent jamie off and sherwin spent the day at sentosa! pictures are on fb. i managed to get slightly tanner which is quite an accomplishment since i hardly get tan. sat was a great day, i had sushi for lunch and found the red rock deli chips selling in s'pore! (: the ones that i bought aussie and was craving for them after i finished the two packets i brought back to s'pore. i met the iras ppl to celebrate minfong & thengsiong's birthday at fish&co too. easily the longest dinner i've ever sat through, from like 7 to 10plus! it was quite fun (:

last week of work! oh man i hope i can sustain through the 3 consecutive days of working!

2009-07-06T21:23:00.002+08:00

i got my licence today!! (: really unexpected 'cause my second last lesson i still managed to mount the kerb. thank goodness my instructor made me do vertical parking like ten times over for my last lesson on friday, since vertical parking is definitely my weakness. i improved and voila, managed to do vertical parking today in one attempt and didn't hit/mount any kerbs in the circuit! in fact, i didn't accumulate any points in the circuit! my twelve points were all accumulated out on the roads. i was really nervous during the test, my legs were shaking and i kept debating whether to turn on the wipers and demister since it drizzled during my test. i was so nervous to the point that, when the tester told me to off the engine, i did so without putting the gear to 'p' or pulling the headbrake up first! but all's well, licenced to drive now! (:
all that's lacking now is a car, seeing that my mum is very reluctant to let me drive my parent's. anyone wants to sponsor me a car? i'll gladly drive you around for free! (:

i've caught transformers and i love you man these past two weekends and i'm ashamed to say that i think transformers is the better of the two. haven't caught a good comedy/chick flick recently, there's certainly a dearth of them. all i've been watching recently, with the exception of i love you man, are action movies. hopefully there'll be good comedies and chick flicks released soon! oh and i've spent a good chunk of may's pay, nearly 20% of it on zara sale. not regretting the items i bought but feeling quite broke, can't wait for june's pay to come in!

2009-06-16T22:41:00.003+08:00

i'm officially slacking right now. i've been working two days per week for the month of june which is totally fine by me. maybe if i'm lucky, i can escape cpf deduction this month. i do need the money for food, entertainment & shopping but i don't really mind getting a much lower amount in lieu of the time i have to enjoy myself.

first week of june was spent at my granddad's wake after he passed away from cancer. i've never been involved in a wake before, this was the first one in my nineteen years of my life. it was quite an eye-opener with the chinese rituals and a really tiring experience, i kept having to nap once i got home from the wake. it also threw my schedule down the drain and since then i haven't been running/exercising

past two weeks have been spending time meeting up with friends. met michelle, dee and lilin for lunch at marina and we caught night at the museum 2. (pictures below!) also met up with the guys who have pop-ed recently. caught terminator, which in my opinion, is a rather gloomy movie. haha.

i just received smu's email yesterday and boy, it was then that reality hit and i realised that sch starts in two months time ): there's a whole bunch of stuff to do to register and all. i'm not really looking forward to orientation. ac's orientation for me wasn't that a pleasant experience, i know everyone says it's fun and all but it's just so darn draining and tiring. you need a whole lot of energy to undergo the entire orientation. or maybe it's just me. like today, after i had driving, i shopped around the marina area and after that met the guys and dee for sushi dinner. satisfying day since i bought a new top, got a cute stitch (the guys caught it at those prize-catching machines!) plus spent time with great friends but i'm feeling rather drained now. oh man, hate feeling tired so easily. perhaps partially it's psychological.

2009-05-19T23:49:00.002+08:00

it's been pretty boring and mundane for me recently. it's just work, driving and meeting up with friends for lunch and shopping (which miraculously, melissa and i didn't buy anything, prob 'cause i'm still contended with my haul from sydney)

work is insanely boring. it's supposed to stimulate my brain, having to handle all the enquiries and all but i have a feeling my brain isn't stimulated, after the endless repetitions. i hate to think what happens when i start uni in aug when my brain has hardly been used from As. anyways, coming 25th, it would be 6 months at this workplace. yes, SIX MONTHS which is unbelieveable. neither joyce nor i considered working here this long. i remember thinking, when they informed us back in nov that there was a payrise in feb, whoa feb? i'm definitely not planning to stay that long! but now, it's mid may and we're still here! gosh. and i don't really have a definite idea of when to quit. initially back in the early days, it was mar then it was mid may, end may and now it's first week of jun. just the other day i felt like quitting but really, the flexibility of this job plus the pay is a big bonus. not many other jobs offer such a slack schedule with this amt of pay. it's either 5 day work week with this amt of pay or 3 day work week with a much lower pay. here, you get the best of both worlds. so i guess i'll stick around for a while longer unless they don't want us!

eug commented i sounded like i was making mid year resolutions in my last post. i made a few more goals whilst at work, in between calls. i think that's what happens when i have to much time, i think and feel rather unaccomplished of what i've done from nov till now. basically all that i've accomplished is driving (just learnt parking today!) and having an awesome holiday with friends. one of my new goals for may is to run once a week since being lazy me, i stopped running in may. i accomplished that last week and this week so hopefully i can keep it up! i was quite proud of myself last week since i totally detest running and really suck at running, but managed 2km. i know that's less than 2.4 but still, it's exercising (:

2009-05-05T20:53:00.002+08:00

i've decided that i'm gonna try to:

1. live more in the present moment. i'm forever living in the past (reminiscing memories) or the future (looking forward to the end of work/school; dreaming). i'm gonna try to learn to savour the current moment even though it may not be my exact idea of ideal but hey, whoever said life was perfect which brings us to point no. 2

2. stop picking on the nittygritty and look at the bigger picture. remembering and cherishing what i currently have 'cause i have alot to be thankful for, if i stop focusing on what's not perfect (:

3. be less cautious. sometimes i do think i'm too cautious with my decisions, it hampers possibilities and perhaps, even limits fun. time to live and let live a little.

hope i'll make the right decision regarding uni! i've always been blessed to be able to make it into the school of my choice (crescent and ac) and i hope this time, the school of my choice is the right one for me

2009-05-03T23:17:00.003+08:00

i've been on some slacker mode even since coming back from sydney. i've been volunteering to take leave (sth i usually don't do) and hence the 2 or 3 day work week. lower pay but i can't help it, i'm bored to death in the office especially after coming back.

anyways, thanks to everyone who wished and celebrated my birthday! really didn't see the surprises coming (except for a few giveaways, but it's alright!) and i really really liked the presents! most of the clique birthday celebration photos are already on fb uploaded by jas/row so you can check them out there! i have very few photos since my cam batt was dying. and i'm still waiting for one more possible birthday present, hopefully i get it soon (;

watched xmen: wolverine and taken over the weekend with winnie and the guys. both were pretty good movies in my opinion. at least they didn't had me constantly peering at my watch wondering what time it was. we ended up at smu's settlers after taken for dinner and games (:

i really do miss the girls (and melissa too, since she's probably gonna read this and complain that i don't miss her, haha) and all the fun we had on the trip. ultimate tourist photo with sydney harbour bridge (took this from debbie)

sydneyyy

2009-04-22T20:45:00.048+08:00

i'm finally done uploading the sydney photos! it took a few days to upload all of them although it's not plenty compared to the amount of photos debbie and anna took over the week. anyways here goes!

tuesday - the day which we did tons of walking! first we checked in at our hotel then we walked to darling harbour to collect our apt tour passes for the next day. we explored darling harbour and had sort of a picnic lunch of fish&chips. we then headed back to the city on foot to look for a movie theatre and caught monsters&aliens in 3d. the cinemas there are huge, the rows extend all the way from a to x! next was grocery shopping at woolworths then walked back to our hotel to dump all the groceries and off to circular quay and the rocks where we had nice italian dinner.

notice the size of the cruise compared to the opera house!

wednesday - apt tour day! we went to this quaint town called leura, saw the blue mountains and three sisters and visited the wildlife park. the following photos were taken in leura, with the pretty autumn colours and all (: next stop was blue mountains which has been described as grand canyon but with vegetation three sisters the letter box was cute!mock version of the scenic railway that we tookcablecar but we didn't take it final stop: the wildlife park! the koalas are just so darn cute. and so is the baby joey below!thursday - official shopping day! melissa met xiang and i for breakfast at macs while deb and anna enjoyed the buffet breakfast. we headed first to the direct factory outlets at homebush via trains. the factory outlets there are pretty good, there were steals like tops and dresses going for 2 for 15 or 3 for 10. i bought denmin shorts for 10bucks, xiang bought nine west wedges for like 40 bucks! after which we returned back to the city to shop at the now double floor supre (it used to be three floors!). one thing i learnt on this trip there, i can't buy shoes from aussie unless i shop in the kids dept. they definitely don't carry my size there, way too small. sitting on the upper level of the train

friday - royal botanic gardens and chinatown with more shopping!half of my buffet breakfasti find the please walk on the grass and talk to the birds part rather amusing. anyways we heeded their advice and ended up taking quite a few jump shots on the grass itself. self timer didn't work out well as you can see for those pics with all four of us so we ended up doing in pairs (:bats hanging off the trees in the gardens itself! we think they're fruitbats and they were making a racket which is weird since i thought bats were nocturnal. anyways the gardens are filled with trees that has bats hanging off them! yes those are bats flying around in broad daylight. this looks like a scene out of a movie when the bats are gonna take over the world or sth. pretty creepytaken on the way to chinatown, breadtalk rip off i suppose? haha. after lunch at regal where they served dimsum (beancurd is one of the dimsum items there!) we headed to market city to look for the other outlet of jaysjays. we found supre and smiggles but no valleygirl. we were rather desperate to find valleygirl by then so we ended up asking the cashiers and after heading to one of the nearby malls, we found out valleygirl was been taken over! at least the city outlets had been, sad. anyways we took away sushi back to our hotel room for dinner.

saturday - markets day! we took the bus to paddington's market and headed back to the city for paddy's market after that. paddington's market was really good, it's like flea markets here but a hundred times better. they sold really lovely paintings/photos of the beach and sunset that i was so tempted to buy back. the artpieces there are really nice, i would have splurged on them if i had the money! the clothes there were really unique too and xiang and anna bought scarfs at a bargain of 5-10bucks! paddy's market was disappointing compared to paddington's. it was more like bugis st in s'pore complete with the tourists stores selling t-shirts but with less clothes stores and having a fruit and veggie section. needless to say we didn't spend much time there.

the following pics were taken on the ferry to manly. we caught the evening one so we were lucky enough to view the beautiful sunset. and of course since i'm obsessed with sunrises/sunsets, i took a lot of sunset photos aboard the ferry.(mel took this photo) pretty aren't they? i've got a whole lot more but it'll be insane to upload all of themmel and her concoction. you don't want to know what's inside exactly. it's ingredients and sauces from our thai dinner this is mel's sch at night, the s'pore flag is hanging in the bottom row on the left. we walked a long way up there and it was quite scary at times 'cause the path was just pitch dark. but we saw all the pretty stars in the sky along the way, sadly none of our cams could capture them. oh and the sch is apparently where nicole kidman and keith urban got married.

sunday - last full day in sydney! we took a bus to bondi beach to go to the bondi market there. i bought a bag at the market (: it was also braided hair day so melissa braided anna and debbie's hair. xiang and i did our own and it was pretty messy compared to theirs!
xiang and anna with their frozen coke from macs. it's quite nice actually, i prefer it to the regular coke since it's less gassy

following pics taken at bondi beach after it rained, thus the pretty rainbow. the wind was really strong and it was quite cold. worse still, anna xiang and i were wearing shorts and the sand was blowing against our legs. it was quite prickly and you could say it was an exfoliation session for us taken in the hotel lobby while waiting for rain to stopus in marriott's liftmelissa with her facesxiang and i with our basking robbins icecream. the cup i'm holding is tea & scones and banana & strawberries which i shared with debbie. i wanted to try their cotton candy which was bright pink and purple but debbie hasn't keen after i shared with her cold rock's bubblegum (bright blue) last time!

the following are random pics taken around circular quay which is where our hotel was located:we find the look left and look right signs on the road rather amusing. haha us with the sign outside our hotelmy hair after a day of being braided! you can see part of the bed behindon the flight home (:

totally no mood to work since i've been back and i'm still waiting for nus and smu ):

2009-04-13T19:04:00.003+08:00

good friday was spent with the winnie, xin and the guys at iluma (again, after going there for like three consecutive days in a row). we watched fast & furious 4 which was pretty good. initially when i saw iluma on tue night it kinda reminded me of some mall along hollywood blvd i saw in the states 'cause the facade isn't like your usual kind of mall in s'pore and i was pretty fascinated with it. but after the subsequent days spent there, the novelty of it wore off.
anyways pics we took that day:

haven't been working since last thu and not working till next tue (: flying off in a couple of hours time, back on the 20th (:

2009-04-02T19:38:00.005+08:00

it's been two weeks since i updated! actually i'm quite lazy to update and wouldn't, if not for lilin's prompting.

last wed was leave day for me so i met dee, lilin and jh at ikea for lunch after driving. we spent a whole lot of time persuading lilin to catch shopaholic with us but she wasn't keen on it so we watched hotel for dogs. it's such a cute movie, love the dogs! after the movie we met xk for dinner at billybombers to use our voucher. anyways managed to use my cam for the first time to take proper photos and here they are:

suki sushi and shopaholic on sat with serene and the guys. surprisingly, we didn't have to do much to convince eug and baabaa to watch it although they were initially unenthusiastic about it. oh and saw baabaa for the first time since he went in, almost didn't recognise him! shopaholic was quite okay, one of the better chick flicks and pretty hilarious at some parts. naturally it doesn't follow the book closely but i didn't mind as much as harrypotter and twilight. perhaps 'cause it's been ages since i read confessions and can't remember the details and the scenes.

i've been starting at work at 8 this past week to take over jh's slot and it's really a pain to get up at 6 to go to work. i told myself that my job had better not start at 8 next time and if it really does, it had better be somewhere near holland or that i had better have my own car by then so travelling doesn't take a long time. but doubt i'll get my own car by then, my parents told me i have to save up for it and pay with my own money! (like the cam) that'll take me super long 'cause cars are so darn ex in s'pore especiallly with coe, road tax, insurance and erp. goodness, think i'll be 30 by the time i get my own car?? or maybe someone nice can sponsor me one (;

2009-03-15T23:08:00.006+08:00

this week i managed to accomplish quite a number of stuff, let's see:

mon was suki sushi buffet with lilin michelle and serene! we were testing lilin on her jap spelling at her request and as we were testing her, we learnt the days of the week in jap! (getsuyoubi, kayoubi, suyiyoubi, moguyoubi, kinyoubi, doyoubi and nichiyoubi!) serene picked it up really fast. actually i think learning jap is quite fun, i wouldn't mind learning how to speak it, not so keen on learning how to write it though. pity my parents aren't willing to sponsor me for jap lessons, they think i'd rarely get a chance to use jap

tue after work, i headed down to ikea to meet the girls to plan our sydney trip. debbie and i borrowed the exact same guide books! we managed to work out our itinerary in under an hour with most routes planned out. that's what i love about the girls man, we really are fast and efficient, we definitely work well as a team! we're heading down to get our visas and day tour package tmr! (:

this weekend, the guys and i headed down to both nus and ntu open houses, the it fare and caught race to witch mountain. i bought my cam at the it fare! i got the blue one since orange and pink were sold out. it's still quite pretty right? (:

the only bad thing is that now i'm left with less than half of feb's pay. after the open houses, i'm definitely less keen on what i previously wanted so i guess i'm leaning more towards one university now, hopefully i can get in! i've more or less made up my mind about university applications, now all i have to do is to actually get down to writing and submitting them which naturally i'm procrastinating. darn the write ups, i really hate such topics.

oh and i'm back to a four day work week now (leave on mondays) which is good i guess. i quite like the flexibility over here, it's definitely a huge plus point (:

2009-03-01T17:04:00.002+08:00

it's the start of mar. happy birthday ah-ma! goodbye to feb, 1/6 of the year has passed already, it's insane.

what do i say about feb 09? i think it has got to be one of the most emotionally draining months of my life ever but it's also one of the months which i've reflected the most. just to share a couple of thoughts i've had throughout the month:
1. expectations are evil. okay not really but expectations are a killer most of the time. we expect a certain amount out of ourselves, we expect things to happen and sometimes, we even have expectations of our friends. when our expectations aren't met, we feel sorely disappointed and crushed. when our expectations are met, we merely feel contended or worse still, we may feel that it's a given. i've learnt over these years that it's better to have lesser expectations. that way you don't feel let down 'cause you weren't even expecting anything in the first place. but sometimes, rountines create expectations unknowingly and of course, expectations do serve a good purpose which is to drive and motivate you. however, right now in my life, i'm better off without any expectations (especially none regarding results!)

2. sometimes our pride gets in the way. it hinders us from possibilities and no one is better than anyone else. in my opinion, it's just a matter of differences personality or character wise. first impressions are deceiving so we shouldn't judge someone till we really know them. even so, we still shouldn't judge. i know i'm guilty of judging people at times and i'm trying not to.

3. does it really get better or do you just bury it deeper? i heard this line on private practice and it's true how sometimes we just bury pain, we just don't want to face it, we run away from reality and basically escape instead of getting the wounds heal. i have an inkling that some others are facing this scenario as well. what i can say is that although things aren't looking bright, there's always light at the end of the tunnel (:

2009-02-27T21:04:00.002+08:00

see, lack of posts means nothing to lament/ponder/rant about. life has been pretty good recently. heart-to-heart with xiang really helped. i managed to get an answer to some of my pressing questions, the ones that i frequently wondered about and she told me what i told dee. i just didn't realised that it applied to my scenario too. so long as i remain true to myself, things will be alright (:

work situation is slightly weird. i'm officially working a 3 day work week from next week onwards, i'm off every mon and wed so i'm taking the opportunity to have more driving lessons. i suppose it's good in the way that we've got time to pursue other things and it's not just rountine work everyday. i know some people may be envious 'cause we get our balance of freedom and work! btw i'm amused at the social situation at work. i've just recently known of unexpected couplings with mostly one-sided affections, it really does make the workplace a whole lot more interesting and entertaining. pity i'm only seeing the girls on tues from now on.

i found out in these past two weeks that i've got the same f21 wallet as winnie (both yellow!), the same denim skirt as grace (exact design, both same size!) and the same cotton on top as xiang (both grey!) which is kinda scary is case we meet up and we're both in the same thing. but it shows we've got really similar taste. good taste (;

oh oh and i got my supp card today, it looks quite pretty (:

2009-02-16T21:26:00.004+08:00

there's a correlation between my mood and the number of posts. when life's smooth i'm pretty lazy to blog but when i hit a rut that's when all the posts start appearing regularly, for instance now. notice the last post for just last friday. anyways life these past few days has been at such a low point that all the previous 'symptons' are back and i've to fight to hold back the tears. hopefully it's swinging back up soon. no use crying over spilt milk (so cliche but so true) and no point regretting and thinking of what ifs. gotta get that dreamer out of my head which i'm getting slightly better at, with constant encouragement and reminders by my dearest friends - i truly love you guys for keeping me sane (most of the time) and just being there for me (:

today i started asking myself what makes me happy. i actually wanted to do a list but the result was that i drew a blank. sure, retail therapy makes me happy but it's only a momentary thrill and if you don't know me by now, i rather relationships than possessions. being with friends makes me happy but sometimes even while with them i just can't entirely enjoy myself. being together with someone does make me happy but of course that's out of the picture for now. joyce suggested inner peace, that when you attain inner peace you'll feel happy with yourself. i suppose that's true except that in my case, one, sometimes i fool myself into thinking i've achieved inner peace and two, when i do attain inner peace, i'd feel contended but not happy. i suppose most of the time i feel blessed, i feel fortunate that i've what i have but i don't feel happy. i feel that happiness is the occasional moments in life that we all live for - it's dependent on one's definition of happiness too, the more stringent the criteria, the less happy moments we actually experience. with the changes in my life now, it's been a struggle to attain that inner peace, much less feel happy. but i've got to try, mind over heart.
just alot of food for thought, i've been doing some necessary soul searching recently in order to get the dreamer out of my head.

and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

2009-02-13T20:20:00.003+08:00

this post's title is taken from alex's valentines gift package to the girls today. i googled it and apparently it's lyrics from a beatle song. i like it and i'd like to think it's true. it doesn't really apply to me currently but it gives hope and hope is what i need in circumstances such as these. mind over heart is the way to go now, to psych myself and stop being such a dreamer.

anyways back to valentines today in the office, everyone was giving out sweets and chocs and i kinda felt abit guilty for not buying anything but i wasn't quite in the mood. valentines in the office isn't the same as valentines in sch and i'm not as close to them as i'm to the ac friends. for the first time ever, i missed ac and the simplicity of those times.

i had my second driving lesson on thu since i didn't want to waste away my leave. luckily i managed to book a slot on wed night. it was quite embarrassing 'cause i mounted the kerb during one of the turns and the instructor was going, 'turn the wheel to the right!' and i was like 'i can't, i can't!' other than that it was quite fun. the instructor was really nice, she spoke to me in a mix of mandarin and english and sometimes i ended up replying her in mandarin which turned out to be not a good idea at all. 'cause, horror of horrors, i logged on to bbdc just now and discovered i had been transfered to a group where the first language choice is mandarin!! omg, i've got to find a way to transfer back to my old group without paying the extra charge. ):

2009-02-07T23:39:00.003+08:00

i really do not wish to look back upon this period of time and feel only regret. i can certainly recall periods of time where i feel like i've wasted my life away, especially j1 and hold few fond memories of those times. while i try to live life with the least amount of regret as possible, perfection cannot be achieved and the inevitable does happen. those memories are tucked away in the far corner of my mind, never to make an apperance again. i hope the decisions i make now won't lead to a similar episode.
my mind's playing mindgames with me, making me overanalyse the smallest detail and causing me to doubt myself, to wonder what the actual situation is. it really is exhausting and sometimes i wish there was a switch to just tune my mind out. i almost wish i didn't care, almost. 'cause i know deep inside, i'd rather.

2009-02-06T23:43:00.003+08:00

the awesome card debbie made for xiang. happy nineteenth! (:

work, work and more work

2009-01-23T23:12:00.004+08:00

joyce and i were just talking about how jan has zoomed us by. it's near the end of jan and it just seemed like it was yesterday that it was the turn of 2009! it's scary in that way 'cause when i look back and reflect on what exactly did i accomplish in jan, the result is that it's virtually nothing except working. work has been really boring but i suppose all jobs are boring after a while. the great thing about this job is that if you're not busy, you can do your own stuff like read books or mags but i suppose the pay isn't that good since the hours are relatively short compared to other desk jobs and the darn cpf deduction ): can't wait for the pay rise in feb!

work has also opened my eyes to different kinds of people. i must admit i'm not used to it. i've been brought up in an english speaking environment and most of my groups of friends converse in eng, with the exception of the conversations i have with ah-ma. but i'm perfectly comfortable with her speaking in mandarin and me replying in english. i've grown so used to it that i don't even notice it but people do comment the manner we converse in is funny but it works for us (:
at work though, quite a number of them converse in mandarin and when they talk to me, naturally i reply in english and the subsequent replies by the other party switch from eng to mandarin and back again. it's pretty weird that way and i'm still trying to get used to it. they also have pretty different mentalities from me like they may be more traditional. i guess it's all about keeping an open mind.

one thing work has done for me though, is to revive my chinese. i know i suck pretty much at it. in dec when i had to start conversing in mandarin on the phone again, i was really rusty. most of the chinese words flew out of my head after 1 year of not using it and i really hated receiving chinese calls. but right now i'm more neutral to receiving chinese calls and my chinese vocabulary has expanded although i still communicate in broken chinese. my mum is very pleased that i have to communicate in chinese, she's all for conversing more in mandarin since she thinks china is gonna be a superpower with job opportunities and all.

speaking of job opportunities, that reminds me that i'm blessed to have this job although it's boring and doesn't have a very good pay. everyone's saying that unemployment rate is going up and i know it's quite tough to get jobs now for those who are waiting for results. the additional point of this job is that it has pretty good credentials. i have to thank joyce and hannah for getting me this job. (:

this post seems to be all about my job which is pretty apt since it's what my life revolves around now. it isn't exactly healthy since i should be having a balance and focusing on my personal life and what i want to do as well. so far it's just driving, shopping and movie outings (caught twilight, transporter 3 and ip man) so i'll probably have to be more active in pursuing my other interests. oh and planning for sydney trip! (:

2008-12-31T21:48:00.006+08:00

it's the last day of 2008! i know i always say this, but time really does fly. especially when you're in jc for only two years, all the more time seems to zoom past you and you wonder where all the days went! the time in ac has been eye-opening one. i suppose i've been living in a sheltered environment in crescent and it's surprising to see how superficial and vicious people can be at times but then again, i suppose that's just the ugly side of human nature. nevertheless, the time in ac also has been amazing one and i'm glad to have met so many great friends in aa2 that i know we'd have friendships for the rest of our lives (:

for me, 2008 has been a whole lot better than 2007, with the exception of the US '07 trip of course. nothing in a long while would beat that trip. but overall, i'd say 2008 has been a year of liberated freedom, opportunities, cementing and building friendships. i'm very blessed to have experienced everything that has happened this year and am truly thankful that i had to chance to strengthen friendships with my best friends. i'd like to think i've grown more mature (i know a certain younger sis would like to dispute this point) and i probably have, in terms of my way of thinking (hopefully!). everyone who has played a role in my life in 2008 has made it a blast and thank you for that. so here's a huge thanks to my best friends for being there for me every second of the day, for the crescent clique (i'm especially grateful, read the next paragraph for more!), the clique girls not forgetting michelle of course and the big clique for the fun and laughter. you guys made it a memorable 2008! (:

monday night was spent with the crescent clique as our belated chrimas meetup and gift exchange. we took advantage of the waraku ladies night offer and went shopping for each other's christmas gifts but what really warmed my heart was the realisation i had. that you guys never judge but only accept and support the decisions that each of us make, no matter how unexpected or shocking they may be at times. it's 'cause of this unconditional love and support that i've experienced all throughout crescent and now that made the time in ac a little of a culture shock (the superficiality of it all particularly). i really love you guys for never judging and i know i can always turn to you guys when i need out of the superficiality. i really do treasure our friendship (:

to end off this post, here are photos of the people who made 2008 such a great one! thank you guys!

2008-12-06T00:31:00.004+08:00

recently i feel that my practical attitude has been dampening spirits. i used to get quite irritated by people who used to do that, by being overly practical and realistic and eventually killing whatever fun plans we had but now i think i'm becoming one of them. shucks. the practicality is part of who i am, i remain realistic most of the time (and occasionally accused of being pessimistic) probably 'cause of my upbringing, largely thanks to my parents. these days i'm becoming increasingly realistic and i find it easier to click with people with the same realistic attitude as me but at the same time i hope i'm not becoming unfun, boring and pretty much killing plans. i guess a balance does need to be striked.

work has been improving. it's not dead boring as the first two days and i'm pretty much on my own now. chinese definitely has to be my downfall. i can hardly communicate in broken mandarin and i made a mistake today that had quite a few of the staff laughing at me. it was a tad embarrassing. besides that, we've been more independent too. whenever our lunches don't concide we'll just get lunches to eat in on our own which is kinda weird 'cause the girls were all so paranoid about lunching on our own when we started but we've gotten use to it. dee is leaving soon though ): so it'll only be the three of us after that

prom photos! (courtesty of eug) i've only got a few 'cause i didn't bring my cam. maybe when xiang sends me hers or sth i'll upload more (:

three day holiday! time to recharge my batteries and have fun before the week starts. pity i don't have exciting plans on for the weekend.

2008-12-01T21:33:00.002+08:00

i absolutely love christmas, it's my all-time fave holiday hands down despite getting red packets for cny! it's the heartwarming feeling that i get, the receiving of christmas cards, the preparation of christmas gifts, the playing of christmas songs, the meeting up with friends and spending time with love ones. yet somehow i don't feel excited for this year's christmas, i've been dragging my feet to get christmas cards. maybe it's 'cause it's the state the economy is in, maybe it's 'cause i've to work on christmas eve (urgh), maybe it's 'cause it's the general mood around me (with orchard road's sparse christmas decorations, it's hard to get into the mood) and maybe it's 'cause it's the way things are. i suppose it's the combination of all the factors.

i really lost track of the numbers until my dear cousin reminded me. perhaps girl talk tmr would help ):

hols part II

2008-11-26T19:24:00.002+08:00

it's been a fruitful holiday so far. i've spent my days shopping, working, watching gossip girl, attempting to exercise (think my stamina has really gone downhill, not that i had much to begin with in the first place), signed up for driving, playing mahjong and daidee with the gang online and just hanging out with friends. i'm proud that i haven't slacked away my hols yet. i always have a tendancy to do that, just staying at home doing practically nothing, so it's great that my schedule is packed for now. no precious time wasted!

on mon the gang celebrated the belated birthdays for the oct & nov birthday babies - chenxi, eug, baa baa and xk. we celebrated it with suki sushi buffet (yum!) and we played guitar hero & rockband after that. rockband was pretty fun! more interesting than guitar heroes 'cause there's the drum and mic too! and thanks to winnie's superb convincing skills, we got to play both for a pretty low price! we took a while to find a place to cut the birthday cake and finally settled at indochine at wistma. photos can be found at facebook and maybe winnie's blog when she uploads them there. (:

today was the second day of work and i must say it's been pretty boring so far. hopefully it'll get better when the real thing starts! hope they won't split the four of us up, or worse still, me being alone, apart from all of them! that would be the ultimate horror for me. imagine if we all have different lunch times! ): praying that won't happen!

celebrating anna's birthday after work tmr. can't wait (:

after As!

2008-11-17T21:45:00.003+08:00

so the big As are finally over and it's ultimate freedom for the next few months! it really feels quite good except there's this lost feeling 'cause suddenly there's no aim anymore. i really need to draw up a to do list so that i don't end up wasting my months away! there's a whole bunch of stuff that i'd like to do, both practical and inpractical. stuff that i never had time to do with the school year going on and everything. like exercising and learning to drive - two of the more practical and slightly more impt agendas!

i've been shopping these past few days and it's more shopping in the days ahead. sunday was spent with the gang buying presents for the birthday people at bugis and boy did we spend a super long time shopping. apparently xin and i walked past zx without even realising it and he didn't say hi to us! well at least the day was well spent, we managed to get majority of the birthday presents. today was spent shopping with denice, jill and joyce at wistma and far east. whoa jill and joyce were super fast and efficient shoppers and they bought a whole lot more than denice and i did. i tried on a few prom dresses but they're all too big ): hopefully i can find one soon!

can't wait till physics and bio end so i can catch up with best friends (:

2008-09-19T20:25:00.002+08:00

it's been all about sch these past few days. timed tests and all during lectures for almost all the subjects. it's been pretty boring and nothing interesting to blog about that. we lead such dull and mudane lives.

winnie got her iphone and we've been spending a whole of time playing with it. especially tap tap and taboo. we've all been victims of her iphone's relatively fast photo taking speed so there's a whole lot of unglam photos of us in there, esp chenxi and serene.

photos we took in class the other day (not with the iphone though):

less than 1 and a half months to As. i've lost track of the exact number of days. i feel so unprepared and sometimes the motivation to study just slips away ):

the last stretch

2008-09-12T21:44:00.006+08:00

prelim results are back. i didn't do as badly as i thought i would, especially for econs essay and physical geog. i'm a teeny bit disappointed with my gp comprehension and math but all in all, it's quite okay considering how little i wrote on my papers. however, they're nowhere near the ideal results that i need to achieve. with these results i doubt any university would accept me so i've got to get much better results! we'll all put in the effort needed and much much more and we'll work hard together! (:

so after feeling rather empty after receiving our results, we weren't in the mood to go home so serene, winnie, joyce, jh, eug, baa baa and i headed down to ikea to eat to make ourselves feel better. denice came by with sam baey soon after. we ended up playing air soccer (and making a ton of noise)! we even took a vid of us being so retarded and all but at least the craziness and fun made me feel much better after that. thanks you guys (:

i've finally changed my hairstyle and cut bangs! ys had been telling me to cut bangs quite a while ago (considering that she has seen me with my bangs and all back in p6) and i wanted a change in hairstyle but never got down to doing it. so after i watched a whole lot of people change their hairstyles (serene, winnie, jas and denice) i decided to go for it. denice and winnie were pestering me the entire time in the hairdressers to go all the way and cut my hair short but i didn't go that far. the comments i've received so far about my hair is that i look cuter (i don't know what to make of this 'cause i certainly wasn't going for a 'cuter' look), younger (like some primary sch kid according to some people!) and better with this hairstyle. i'm not entirely used to it yet, i guess it'll take time.

our class has fallen ill with the flu. i think i'm recovering from it now (hopefully!) after coming home to rest after lunch yesterday instead of studying with the usual group. unfortunately, serene and denice probably caught it from winnie and i. it's annoying when falling sick delays your studying plans (not that i have a studying plan, yet) and you want to study but you're in no condition to.

denice and i re-wrote the lyrics to miley cyrus' 7 things. this version is tailored for dee's benefit. haha. i like the original lyrics of 7 things although i'm not a miley fan. we came up with it in under 15mins. so here goes, our version of 7 things:

i probably shouldn't admit
but sometimes i'd feel so sad
when i think about all the goods times
that we both have yet to share
it could be awesome, it could be special,
it's not possible for me not to care
and we’re sitting at the void deck and I can’t help but look at you,
now that you’re here, so near

the 7 things i hate about you, the 7 things i hate about you.. oh you
you're fat, your frowns, you're ignorant
you see me, you like her
you make me laugh smile, you make me hide
i don't know which side to like
your friends they're pigs
when you act like them
just know it sucks
i wanna be with the one i like
and the 7th thing i hate the most that you do
you make me like you

it's torture and it's painful
as i wait for you to know
what i need to find out is how you feel about me
when you mean it, i'll be happy
when you reject me, i’ll be saddened, miserable
oh i'm not telling you
you have to know it yourself

the 7 things i hate about you
you're fat, your frowns, you're ignorant
you see me, you like her
you make me laugh smile, you make me hide
i don't know which side to like
your friends they're pigs
when you act like them
just know it sucks
i wanna be with the one i like
and the 7th thing i hate the most that you do
you make me like you

and compared to all the pretty things
that would take me years to write
i probably should throw in
the 7 that i like

the 7 things i like about you
your hair, your eyes, your deep deep voice
when we meet i'm mesmerized
you make me smile, you make me hide
i guess that's both i'll have to like
your eyes on me when our paths collide
everthing's a blur
i wanna be with the one i like
and the 7th thing I like the most you do
you make me like you

yes, i've been doing such nonsensical stuff like rewriting lyrics and watching just like heaven since term started. i'm going to come up with my study plan by tonight! so i'll feel the urgency to study rather than read at my leisurely pace. less than 2 more months! and i just found out the guys are mugging right now! i think that's just the trick to make me feel like i've got to study!

2008-09-08T20:35:00.002+08:00

sch has reopened! we've got a brand new timetable which means we end by 2.10 everyday and brand new classroom locations to go along with it. we're not exactly thrilled having to return to the NLs. especially today, when it rained after geog tutorial and we had to get back to the main building. i guess new timetable is okay except i don't really like having little breaks here and there. i'd rather a long break at one go.

finally found a new template. it's not exactly the one i wanted though, the others had problems with the html codes and all but i quite like the simplicity of this one without being too plain. eug says it's quite pink, that i have to agree with.

last friday went out shopping with xiangyi and met debbie and ah-ma for lunch after that. i didn't manage to find my hairband, only bought one item. at least xiang bought relatively more. we went shopping for ah-ma's formal clothes after lunch! haha it was quite fun 'cause debbie and ah-ma absolutely refuse to wear other clothes so at least this time we got to pick them out for her! wished i could have stayed longer with you guys and hunt for ah-ma's shoes and debbie's dress (;

i feel like i have to race against time. try, try i must!

musing

2008-09-03T23:13:00.004+08:00

i guess i'm making a decision now that i should have made a little way back then but i guess as the saying goes, it's better late then never. to move forward, and not just remain stagnant there or even move backwards like what i've possibly done. sure, distractions do help but it's momentary escape from reality. i need sth more concrete than that now and i know it. i know i've got to be fully determined this time, not just some half-hearted attempt. i know i've got to psycho myself into it and all, to convince myself because it's for the best. it's amazing what dawns upon you when you're not blinded or distracted. thanks to those who have offered advice (both practical and spiritual) and those who have simply offered a listening ear. you guys know who you are. i really do appreciate it and i know with the help and support of you guys, i'll be able to do it. the journey may be slow but i'll eventually get there.

let time and let's start moving! (:

prelims are over!

2008-08-29T21:23:00.003+08:00

yes as the title says, prelims are over! they've been long over, since tuesday but i've been too lazy to update. i dread the results 'cause almost every single paper was screwed for me especially phy geog and math paper 1! oh wells, just hope for the best.

i've been going out almost every single day and spending alot of money in celebration of the end of prelims with the aa2 people! i've been watching movies (murder of the inugami clan, love guru, money no enough) three days in a row(!), i've played a whole lot of pool, photo hunt and foosball (the table soccer thing) at cine and i've bought twilight and a sundress! we celebrated winnie's belated birthday too!

serene, winnie, xk, jh, eug and i went to serene's house today after teachers' day celebration. serene and winnie decided to get brand new hairstyles! the rest were trying to convince me to cut my hair but i'm quite undecided over it. i like my long hair for now. it was quite a interesting experience 'cause all of us excluding serene live in the west and we hardly or have never stepped foot into serangoon (with the exception of eug). met xiang after that back at holland's haagen daz to talk and catch up. it was nice and i should focus on the positive and not dwell or fret over the negative (:

dark knight and prelims ):

2008-08-06T21:34:00.006+08:00

so it's study break for us from tmr onwards. we officially had our last pe lesson of our lives last week and our last national day celebration today. this period of time truly marks the end of alot of things for us in the s'pore education system. stress and pressing exams not withstanding though.

so despite prelims being less than a week away, 14 of us went out to celebrate joyce's birthday today. (i think this would validate amanda's point that i'm quite free) since we were in town pretty early and most restaurants weren't open yet, we settled for carls jr at ps. after much deliberation, joyce, dee, row, jill, jh, baa baa and i went to catch the dark knight at cathay. although i'm not one who appreciates and enjoys action blockbusters i must say the dark knight was quite a good movie! a little long but highly entertaining and rather gp-ish as row was saying. it's conclusion was sth like what dt would say! jill and i were hiding behind our hands during some scenes though. so yeah i didn't regret watching dark knight! you should catch it if you haven't!

talked to xiangyi over msn yesterday. she's right, i really should focus on my prelims and stop thinking about it for now. she also pointed out sth that i found a little comfort in so that's probably why i felt better today. on sunday during mass i had this sudden realisation for my actions but today i felt this sense of calm, that i know i did the right thing. so no more thinking about this for the time being. time to concentrate on prelims!

okay i really ought to be off the com and studying instead ):

2008-07-29T22:50:00.003+08:00

more people in class are falling sick, denice is doing round 2 now. i hope i don't end up like her, i can't afford to take a few days off again. i'm so dead for prelims.

mel called just now to bring incomplete surprising news. her story's sounding alot like mine (admittedly a whole lot more compressed time-wise) although as long as she doesn't end up like me she should end up fine. haha. and she ended up using "i'm not being pessimistic, i'm being realistic" on me when i accused her of being such a pessimist. which is ironic 'cause that's exactly what i told her several times on the us trip, (certainly brings back fond memories!) and she replied "pessimists would think they're being realistic". melissa lim! i won't forget and i'll be waiting! and don't worry, i'm okay (:

2008-07-27T21:43:00.004+08:00

i've been sick this past two days. this is one of the worst periods to fall sick, with 2 weeks to go to prelims. i hope i recover soon, i need to tackle the large stacks of notes for prelims!

anyways photos from debbie's birthday celebration:

take #1 with the self timer produces hilarious results

classic photo! hahaha

2008-07-25T23:26:00.004+08:00

okay i'm settling for this rather simple, basic template for now after the previous one had problems with the background. will hunt for a nicer one after prelims (:

2008-07-20T20:51:00.003+08:00

this past week:
been studying with the usual group but i realised that i lose my studying momentum once i do math 'cause i'll take forever to figure one question out and i'll get discouraged after that. doing math isn't productive for me 'cause i'll cover so little ground in such a long period of time! they've been trying to expose serene and i to chinese music as well which is saying alot since i hardly ever listen to chinese songs. cultural exchange, as winnie calls it.

today:
i went to the uk and us university fair at suntec with grace, serene, row, jh, joyce and jamie. i saw alot of crescent friends! jeanette was saying we could have a 2c1 reunion there. it's nice to see friends after such a long while. it seems like most of them (both crescent and ac friends) want to go overseas! i wonder who's gonna be left in s'pore after next year. i guess everyone has more or less decided what course they want to pursue. i think i've somewhat decided, hopefully i can get in.

speaking of which, prelims are in 3 weeks time. oh the horror. i'm nowhere near prepared and i really got to get my studying momentum. no more lazing/slacking around so i should really go do h geog which is due tmr

2008-07-13T19:45:00.004+08:00

econs mock yesterday. i was insufficiently prepared so my answers were really short but it's okay. at least i was made to touch my econs notes. if not it'll probably be left as the last subj to be revised. 'class lunch' after that at crystal jade and 'studied' with the usual group at bk. despite just finishing econs mock, we managed to read a bit of econs. somehow along the way we lost interest and the five of us were crowding around my phone to play text twist. winnie's super fast at it!

i finally received some of the photos from debbie's birthday that we took like last last fri. we watched get smart and it was quite okay, a tad predictable but then again which movie isn't.

the cute card we got her the birthday cake: oreo cheesecake!

birthday girl with her birthday cake (:

(more photos when i get the rest!)

i was sorting the photos into the respective folder when i realised that in my pictures folder, there are various subfolders named like "debbie's birthday" "anna's birthday" "xiang's birthday" and if you click on one, it'll be further subdivided into "16th", "17th" and "18th". it's quite nice to see how we've always celebrated one another's birthday for so long. i'm really thankful for you guys (ah-ma, debbie, anna, xiang and delia!). you guys are essentially what i've gained the most from crescent, you know me inside out and you never fail to touch me and brighten up my day with postcards and random ecards to let me know you guys care (: i love you guys (:

2008-07-08T19:37:00.004+08:00

it's harder to move on after more revelations are made but i shall listen to michelle, denice and winnie. come what may, i hope i'll be able to face it. it won't be easy but i'll try my darnest.

mon

i went to the m's house bright and early in the morning. we played with their wii and watched st trinians. (sorry had to leave early!) my aunt sent me down to sim where i met michelle and we cabbed to town for suki sushi buffet with the girls! (: there was such a long queue outside, luckily the rest arrived earlier. we shopped around for grace's dress after that

my favourite girls (:

if i say it like i mean it then maybe i'll believe it like it's true

kiss the pain goodbye, let the tears run dry

2008-07-06T15:37:00.003+08:00

the storm has been weathered. i do hope that i'm correct in using the past tense because i hope i've faced the worst and that things will get only better from here. while i know it won't be easy i hope to keep my schedule packed so that i have less time to think. perhaps you could say it's my new form of 'living away from reality for a while'.

i used to sleep away my troubles but i found out last night that it doesn't work for me anymore, 'cause i couldn't even get to sleep in the first place. i didn't want to cry myself to sleep and thoughts would just start popping up in my head. thankfully i've got such great friends that i can turn to at 12, 1am. thanks michelle for being there for me the entire time and chenxi for telling me it's alright to cry. it was really comforting.

thanks to denice, eugene and winnie too. your concern and spitefulness, albeit wrong, really touches my heart to know you guys really truly care. without the five of you, this would have been so much harder to face. when you guys are there for me by it via sms or msn, it really seems that it will be so much easier to get through it.

with such an awesome support network, i know i will get through it (:

blessed

2008-07-03T23:23:00.002+08:00

last fri on the way home from celebrating debbie's birthday (sorry no pics, yet) i realised how fortunate i am to have friends who know me inside out. friends who know instantly when i'm in a bad mood and have a black face. friends who ask if i'm okay the moment sth that they would know affect me happens. friends whom i can talk to about anything under the sun without worrying that they'll judge me. and over the past two days, friends who suggest sites for retail therapy when they know i'm really down and friends who offer the shopping money. hahaha. but really thanks so much guys. even though things aren't back to normal, today's a much better day than tue and wed (:

legion retreat

2008-06-13T22:23:00.003+08:00

the past two days (wed & thu) were legion retreat/fellowship gathering or whatever you want to call it since it was no longer a camp. small turnout but we still had fun!
on wed, it was just five of us, angelina, errol, amelia and dom. it was pure entertainment 'cause everyone was targeting dom. amelia would get into this physical fights with dom, smacking him really hard on the head and she even told him, you remind me of this poem during psle english listening compre: fatty fatty bom bom, today cannot go home. (hahaha!) angelina would be annoying him by going 'dominic!' every two seconds, she kinda shouted in ikea 'dominic you suck!' and she kept telling people who walked passed us 'don't need to be scare of dominic'. errol would be making remarks like 'dominic, don't bang down the car' when a car was approaching us. it was seriously hilarious with the billard comments and all. we all pretty much laughed like mad. oh and we scrapped our original schedule to walk at telok blangah to go play pool at safra instead.
thursday had seven of us: deanna, errol, angelina, amelia, kelley and christabelle. we played pictionary, cherades, marfia and yo check it out yo in church before leaving for ecp, ian joined us too! the funniest was when errol had to do 'sex in the city' for cherades under movies! haha omg, hilarious stuff! amelia, angelina and i were just sitting there laughing our asses off (and ian was videoing him!), refusing to say the movie title so errol had to continue doing actions (ahem, haha) to let the others guess. cycling at east coast after that was nice, it gave me time to think. all the rest of them got tanned though, except me! it's unfair.

alright denice's self-made quiz (haha):
Qns : Which song will you first play whenever you turn on your mp3/ipod?
Ans : currently, metro station's shake it and click five's summertime

Qns : Which actors will you go crazy over?
Ans : eh, not really go crazy over but the closest to it is channing tatum!

Qns : Which singers will you go crazy over?
Ans : uh again, not go crazy over but best looking is kyle from click five!

Qns : Which bands will you go crazy over?
Ans : the click five! (not hi-5!!)

Qns : List 3 countries where you think the best-looking guys come from.
Ans : um. australia, US and.. italy?

Qns : List 3 countries where you think the best-looking girls come from.
Ans : US, japan and.. i don't know where else. haha

Qns : What is your weirdest dream?
Ans : i can't really remember but it had to do with all my friends knowing one another

Qns : What is your deepest, darkest secret?
Ans : haha like we'll all post our deepest darkest secret on our blogs.

Qns : What do you do during your free/stoning time?
Ans : msn, listen to music, daydream and think of unrealistic situations that i'd like to happen, haha

if it's real we'll make it true (:

2008-06-05T00:27:00.006+08:00

studied today, didn't get much done but it was very nice (: at least i was made to touch my much-dreaded topic of ap/gp/summation. if left to my own devices, i think i'll wait till the very last minute before tackling that. totally hate that topic.

i'm in urgent need of speeding up! hearing that baa baa has already completed h geog makes me panicky. i don't mean to sound degrading or anything but when i heard it i just realised how behind i really am!

i watched narnia: prince capsian with serene and the guys yesterday. it was quite alright i guess, considering how i've never read the books or watched the first movie. we (denice, serene and i) all think ben barnes looks like kyle! must be the whole click five thing.

and speaking of click five, denice sent me the photos! so here goes:

us with the poster! serene and denice are 'red and loud' too! hahain our seats before it startedwith the singtel hand things

and again, with serene wearing it this time

all five of them on stage!

different lighting, different song i suppose. check out the sea of cameras!

with the spotlight on kyle!

click five concert!

2008-06-02T20:27:00.003+08:00

to end off the first week of school hols, denice, serene and i went for click five concert yesterday! it was surprisingly around half full, not as many people there as i expected there would be. nevertheless, the concert was awesome! they certainly have great stage presence and a whole lot of energy! it was too bad they didn't have an encore. (okay apparently they had an "encore" which consisted of four songs including jenny after the crowd chanted 'we want more' but how could that be their encore! how could they have a concert without performing jenny and headlight disco! i refuse to believe that's their encore!) they performed most of their songs on modern minds and pastimes, a few new songs (summertime, so it goes and more!) and the old favourites (just the girl, catch your wave and good day). when they performed their singles like jenny everyone was on their feet! it was really great. kyle's voice is quite good even at a concert! you know some artistes/bands, they don't really sound that good live 'cause their songs sound so different? but click five sounds amazing live! my ears were kinda blocked after that though. i didn't bring my camera so didn't take any photos, when denice uploads them you can go to her blog to see!
click five's on 987 now! they performed summertime live! (:

okay during the first week of holidays i didn't manage to get much studying done, i gotta pick up pace!

start of hols

2008-05-22T23:10:00.003+08:00

oh yay david cook won! he looks like duncan james from blue don't you think? denice says he's a fatter version! i was thinking that the judges were pretty biased towards david archuleta on performance night, especially simon! i think david a's quite boring 'cause he tends to sing the same kind of songs. david c's more versatile! yay i'm glad he won.

technology problems have been solved! dad got the com repaired so the com can start up and it doesn't hang anymore! (: except that i had to go hunt for my itunes cd to reinstall it and add all my songs back into the library. i got a new phone too! finally able to play all the fun games (diner dash, o.c, grey's anatomy..) on my phone, no longer the only idiot in class unable to play the games 'cause my phone doesn't support them. the new phone's pretty! but i'm getting used to it since it's sonyericsson.

start of sch holidays since there's no sch for us tmr! yay. calendar's looking pretty empty right now. that's a first for the holidays, usually it's somewhat packed. i guess that's good since i'm supposed to be studying but i'm not in a studying mood at all which is really really bad. i'm supposed to be slightly panicky about the tall, huge stack of notes i have to cover for geog, about my inability to solve majority of the math questions and my inability to think of points to write for econs essays. and that prelims are in about 2 months time. however, strangely enough i'm quite calm. this is really quite bad. i need someone to stress me (slightly) and put me in a studying mood.

annoying com

2008-05-16T22:20:00.002+08:00

my com has died on me, somehow it always hangs when windows is loading and i can't even get to the desktop. ): so now i'm stuck with my parents' laptop which is on a sucky wireless connection that doesn't enable me to log onto msn messenger and hotmail. the situation is driving me mad and making me absolutely annoyed. if anyone does know what's wrong with my com, pls do let me know! i can't survive with this sucky connection

i actually planned a list of stuff to do during this long weekend. but my mood went down the drain when i couldn't get the com working and now i don't feel like doing anything. i hope i can accomplish the stuff on the list, i have the tendenacy to overplan and end up not meeting my targets.

all-david finale for ami! david a's cute but i prefer david c's songs! i think it's gonna be a close fight, exciting!

belated 18th celebration

2008-05-11T21:51:00.003+08:00

yesterday made me a happy girl again (:
studied and shopped around for mother's day present + father's birthday present with jh
belated birthday celebration for delia and i at mahattan fish market with the usual crescent ppl (ah-ma, xiang, debbie and anna)! delia got tricked and she didn't see it coming, so she was really surprised to see all of us! anna noted that debbie names guys after colours, hahaha. thanks for the dress! (:

photos! i think we were supposed to pose blowing the candles out 'cause anna and debbie didn't get a shot of that. haha
delia and i cutting the cake
six of us (:
delia getting her wish for once - to be the tallest, haha
and again! haha (:

(:

2008-05-02T20:33:00.003+08:00

i'm happy (:
apparently i was smiling to myself like some idiot at certain points of today. denice thought she was hallucinating when she saw me do that! haha gosh. i gotta keep myself in check. but nevertheless, it's a refreshing change and i'm really happy (:

interact cip tmr at amk! gosh. so far, so early, so long and so tiring! i hope i survive it. in debbie's words - we might as well intern as karung gunis. haha!

thanks for 18th

2008-04-29T19:58:00.010+08:00

thanks to all who made my 18th such a great one! it was much better than my 17th! (:

thanks to hazimah, lilin, maddy, eug, errol, jh, deanna, yunsan, denice, abigail, ann, serene, joyce, alyssha, amanda, andrea, alicia, ariel, hitomi, xiangyi, jill, delia, ah-ma, raechelle, dom, melissa, jasmine, michelle, tisha, xk, jeanne, julia, michelle (cousin) , nat and debbie for the birthday texts, phone calls (mel's all the way from aus!), msn, facebook/friendster messages and e-cards! (:

to yunsan, winnie, xin, chenxi, jh, eug, xk, mx, denice, serene, grace, lilin, jasmine, ann, joyce, zx, marianne, maddy, claire and jill for the cards and presents! (:

photos from the april birthday celebration for xin, jh and i!

winnie and i at pasta de waraku

xin and denice
at candibar
chenxi, serene and i
the girls (:
eug, mx and jh

xin and the cake
me and the cake
girls again (:
group shot, excl eug who's taking it
this time with eug, without jh

i think this photo is amusing
serene and chenxi again (:
there was a more scandalous photo before this!
xin looking at her presents
winnie and denice

us again, haha
last girls photo before chenxi left
and then there were five
the guys and jh's birthday present from us, haha
denice and i

animal farm, don't ask.
i took this group shot!
playing scissors paper stone
more of denice and i

following five photos are the girls attempts at getting our cd album cover! (but failing)

the guys getting it right on a candid shot! (going after the purple dino, haha)
winnie proposing to denice!
you hardly see winnie with this expression, haha
the white bag i'm carrying was their present for me, thanks! (:
by the s'pore river, before 'heart-to-heart'

2008-04-19T22:38:00.003+08:00

late april's coming! that means all the birthdays are coming, including mine! (:

i feel abit accomplished, 'studying' today was quite productive compared to last week where i ended up stoning! i need to get into studying mode more often, i realised once a week is simply not enough!

stayed back with denice, ann, joyce and eug yesterday. denice's identity is at stake, she's gonna be exposed soon! all thanks to the hairband! haha. i think we should get winnie to stop wearing her hairband, he might get the wrong girl!

i'm no longer confused! for now that is. but it's a great feeling to not be confused anymore and to stop pondering over such minor stuff. (:

i've been feeling quite disconnected from legion recently. previously, the feeling would disappear rather quickly but this time, it's been lingering. i feel like leaving legion soon.

this post seems like such a disjointed post. haha

2008-04-16T23:51:00.002+08:00

i've been confused for a number of days already and i've spent precious time thinking.
in an attempt to focus on work and studying, my new mantra has been and will continue to be: whatever happens, happens. whatever doesn't, doesn't.
but of course, sometimes a girl can dream, can't she?

2008-04-11T20:52:00.003+08:00

this week has been crazy, i spent most of the time rushing to meet deadlines and ended up falling sick midweek. i'm glad it's all over!

sat

i went out with my 'dearest cousin', melissa who's back for 2 weeks. we spent most of the time talking instead of shopping. haha, i kept laughing at her. i think we're pretty alike when it comes to relationships. she bought back dolly (which i just realised i've been so busy, i've yet to finish reading it) and a top for me (:

anyways after that was to her house for dinner and meeting up with the rest of the cousins. amanda ng! i haven't seen you in such a long time! we need to meet up soon okay?

sun & mon

sherwin-5000! jasmine, claire, joyce, denice and i were rushing to meet the tue deadline of the sla project. so we ended up staying over at denice's house on mon night to do it. it was heaps of fun, laughing at each other, playing pranks, videoing and taking unglam pictures of one another. it sure took the stress out of rushing to meet the deadline. i'm glad we did the proj together and no matter what the outcome is, we are still sherwin-5000! (:

tue & wed

tue was a mad day and we were running on less than 4 hours of sleep. the library printer was not cooperating with us so we went down to coro to print our wrs before heading to tanjong pagar to submit our proj. joyce and i headed back for geog soc mtg. wed was geog quiz. we had quite a few screw ups but all in all, it went okay and ksl was quite nice about the whole thing.

fri

today was release of pw results! our entire group got A (: subway and cold rock after school. denice, chenxi and i ponned interact again. haha.

2008-03-29T22:20:00.008+08:00

today was funorama xix! my legs are aching like mad. i think it's 'cause of the accumulation of the past few days activites, mostly funorama prep.

on thursday, the whole class had blue slip to go sell our leftover funorama tickets. grace, eug, ann, row and i were assigned to the queen astrid area to go from door-to-door to sell our tickets. it didn't seem like such a bad idea until we were walking under the hot sun with almost no shelter and sales were moving extremely slowly. we walked for at least two hours, covering half the sixth avenue stretch and came back sunburnt ):

on friday, while the rest of the class did the stall preparations, denice, jasmine, lilin, row, winnie and i went to shaw centre to sell more tickets. sales were not too bad, rather decent but we were standing for another two hours. winnie and i paired up. lonely uncles, haha. after that it was back to school where denice contributed to a seriously entertaining/hilarious moment, involving click five's happy birthday. winnie and i were laughing so much. after that denice, anna and i had ushering cip at s'pore flyer charity event. more standing/walking. we rode on the s'pore flyer and boy does it move slowly. we missed the view of the sunset ): but the city skyline view at night was pretty nice too.

denice, anna and i on the flyer (: we were saying the bg of this photo looks like a club but since we're wearing sch u, it looks more like a neoprint

again, with the blurred city in the background

and we saw these at the build-a-bear shop:

baa baa and chicken(big)! hahaha. mx looks innocent here.

xk! hahaha

orange, red, pink! (i doubt you can see my red hairband) this is the only photo taken on funorama day that i have. when i get the other photos, i'll do a post on funorama!

2008-03-25T19:33:00.004+08:00

everyone's busy with fun-o-rama nowadays! so here's the unproductive thing we did yesterday.

we were supposed to go winnie's house (again) to fill the cans with sand and the paint the outline of the igloo. but it started pouring immediately after we filled them so denice, serene, winnie, mx, eug and i were stuck under this shelter at the park opp winnie's house. we ended up playing games and taking photos (trying to recreate the poster of step up 2, haha). omg it was very freaky 'cause at first, we heard the faint croaking of frogs. then it grew louder and louder like they were coming nearer to us and it was impossible not to hear it. when the opportunity arrived and a frog came out of the bushes, trust eug to to go catch it and bring it back to the shelter. needless to say, the girls esp me were screaming. he did this twice! oh man. and all the while when we were stuck under the shelter, xk, row and zx were back at winnie's house figuring out the perfect oreo milkshake recipe.

anyways photos!

the four girls! notice how soaked we areserene, winnie and baa baa

all six (:

denice and winnie

again

winnie's always the one making the faces. haha

serene and i

the banner they did last thu!

the backdrop we did last fri

2008-03-21T23:20:00.007+08:00

i'm running on 1.5 hours of sleep from this morning, after returning from overnight vigil and before going for 10am mass and surprisingly, i'm not tired. it's partially because i was kept awake by great friends (denice, winnie, lixin, eug and mx) while doing the banner painting for funorama.

speaking of overnight vigil, it was certainly a different experience. i've never stayed awake for an entire night. to be honest, the vigil did seem to speed by and it wasn't a drag or anything along those lines. the activities weren't boring and i'm glad i've learnt/gained sth out of it. so the two things that are stuck most clearly in my mind are:

1) we can't make all the choices in our lives, but one that we can make is that we can choose to forgive

2) the greatest act of love we can do for others is to sacrifice

it was a good time to reflect on my involvement in church and where we're at now. i also realised that i love the serenity at night/wee hours of the morning. i was looking at the sky with the full moon and stars at 4am and it's so peaceful and so quiet that it instantly relaxes you, filling you with a calm. errol and i were looking at the sky just before sunrise too and it's just so refreshing to be able to take time to admire it because usually we're just too busy. (:

my involvement in church is becoming sth that i ponder on almost everyday now. sometimes i wonder if i'm too involved, like when i head down to church twice, thrice a week (mainly because of youth lenten campaign!) and that i should take some time to focus on my studies instead. other times, even though i know i'm being too involved, i just can't help it and i feel that i want to be involved. it's all complicated. i hope that i'll be able to find the best possible solution to it soon.

anyways, moving on. i'm thankful that i have such great friends whom others would think it's unlikely to share problems/secrets/matters close to the heart with. surprising in a way but i'm really glad for our friendship (:

term results were returned! for once, and shockingly, i passed math. granted it's an E but i'm happy about not getting a U. i hope it'll stay that way, i've no wish of returning back to my string of Us with math. results were more or less the norm, nothing spectacular (but thankfully, nothing bad) with econs, geog and gp. thanks goes out to the study group and to those who've constantly encouraged me prior and throughout the whole of terms (:

okay and finally, row tagged me for some quiz thing so here goes..

5 Things found in your bag:
wallet
ipod
handphone
contacts casing and suction
home and legion cupboard keys

5 Favourite things in your room:
computer
radio
my box full of letters/cards from friends since p1
photoframe and message on plastic frame - the birthday presents from yunsan for my fifteenth!
and uh. my bed?

5 Things you have always wanted to do:
(this one is almost similar to rowena's!) watch the sunset/sunrise with a love one
go on a holiday with my close friends
just sit by the beach (would prefer those overseas!), watch the waves and enjoy the breeze
have more time to spend with best and close friends!
learn the drums! (some may find this surprising, haha)

5 Things you’re currently into:
songs by leona lewis/taylor swift
romance/comedy movies that leave you with this indescrible, almost hopeful feeling
spending time with great friends from 2aa2 (:
daydreaming (still)
striking the balance between sch and church (again)

there's supposed to be 5 friends that i ask to do this but nvm about that.

might be selling easter chocolates in church later before easter vigil, still undecided on whether to go. gp essay needs to be done, so much for a long weekend.

2008-03-15T22:02:00.003+08:00

holidays are almost over and it's back to sch next monday ):

on thursday, we (deb, anna and xiang) went to celebrate ah-ma's belated birthday. we watched leap years which was my kind of movie and it was nice but i didn't love it. i realised i've been watching alot of movies recently but i didn't love them. anyways, we took a few photos, mostly of the elmo balloon which we bought ah-ma but i'm too lazy to upload the photos. after which, i went to marina to meet the aa2 ppl (denice, mx, eug and jh) for sakae (again, haha). and in between, i somehow managed to fall sick and by the time i reached home i felt like i was running a fever.

i set my alarm to wake me up at 8 on friday to go to sch for geog soc stuff but i felt really sick so i went back to sleep. needless to say i was really late. after settling the geog soc stuff it was off to jurong point for lunch before going to nie for the stupid geog lecture and all the while i felt like i was still sick. i couldn't taste anything for the whole day so i didn't have much of an appetite. but thankfully after coming home to sleep before going to church for overnight vigil mtg, i felt much better.
when i went to church and i saw that it was lighted, i suddenly remembered that there were stations of the cross, which i didn't attend a single one throughout the whole of lent. that reminded me that i didn't give up anything for lent this year and i felt kinda guilty about the whole thing. i think it was 'cause terms were in the middle and i was just too caught up with studying (excuses, i know). on the other hand, i've never really talked about my faith to others in my entire life and i realised that after coming to ac, i've been doing more of that which is good of course.

so today was spent at nus open house with jamie, jh, xk, mx and eug. i've more or less narrowed down what courses i'm considering but it's a different case of whether i can get into them! i met ian on the bus back and while talking to him, he told me sth that surprised me and made me reflect on my responsibilities in church. bk at holland after that and we spent a really long time deciding where to go after that. it's always like that, us taking a long time to decide like the time when we went to watch 10,000bc. anyways we ended up at safra playing pool which i suck at. haha. eug brought up that i was the only girl there amongst the guys(jamie and mx had left) and like how it wasn't awkward for me which is really weird since i've never imagined myself to be the kind of girl. i think that's the result of 10 years of education in all-girls schools. anyways most of the time when i'm with the guys, i'm usually saying 'shut up' and 'go away' because they're constantly pestering/bullying/teasing me. but i guess they can be nice when they want to be, which is like occasionally. haha.

okay i'm off to edit the slides for overnight vigil. i can't believe good friday is less than a week away!

2008-03-11T11:27:00.004+08:00

yesterday was (supposed to be) denice's birthday celebration with serene, winnie, eug, mx and xk. we decided to catch the sneak of step up 2 since it was a movie everyone was mostly agreeable to. step up 2 was okay, not fantastic or anything. i suppose since the first one was better in terms of romance and the dancing and hence expectations were higher for step up 2. and probably since channing tatum is the male lead for the original (; michelle and her friends caught step up 2 at the same screening (:
after which, we wanted to play pool but all tables were full so somehow, we ended up playing monopoly at cine. should have seen the guys' faces when we told them we were going to play board games. haha

today we're supposed to be bowling and playing pool! but i've decided not to go, 'cause every single day of my holidays has been filled up already and today is the only day i get some time to recharge. besides there's still bscyouth mtg later tonight. last night, i realised that even though it's after terms, i'm not exactly relaxed since there's still so many things going on! for example, youth lenten campaign, sla spatial challenge, ccas (even though most of the time they're slack) and other personal stuff. i can't wait till most of them are over.
samantha from incall called me this morning to ask me whether i could work! tempting for the money and i want to but i've got no free time! ):

oh and i'm currently loving leona lewis' album spirit. i went to hmv while waiting for ann on sunday and i listened to some songs, they're pretty nice! current fave artiste for the moment (:

2008-03-08T22:24:00.004+08:00

i spent the last two weeks with some of the aa2 people every single day (namely winnie, serene, jh, mx, eug and xk). be it studying for terms, celebrating after terms by watching a movie (10,000BC), or simply hanging out. it certainly was alot of fun, with much laughter over crazy, minor, sometimes even lame stuff. i'm glad i got the chance to spend time with them. i think we're less clique-ish this year, in a way. so that's good (:

we got back our chinese results yesterday. unexpectedly i got an A. my parents, and i think everyone else was shocked too. i feel weird about it. anyways to all those who didn't get what they wanted: cheer up, and strive on. i know you guys can get the grade that you want (:

apart from that surprising result, i heard another piece of uh, news yesterday. i can't believe my dearest cousin is making me wait till april. melissa lim, it had better be good, whole and complete. haha. can't wait to see you!

i wanna watch juno! serene, hurry come back from malaysia so we can go catch it together!

2008-02-17T14:39:00.012+08:00

okay i've finally found time to update! photos from pretty long ago

CNY with my dearest cousins! (:

with mel and maddy
alicia, ethel and i
the girls! we're missing amanda though ):
my 'uncle' was smart in borrwing two more wii consoles so that we could play! (: as you can see, my cousins are thrilled and having tons of fun
alex, ariel, mel and i

sending mel off on the 11th ): mel left for trinity on the 11th, but it's okay, she's coming back to visit in early apr (: i think at least 20 girls sent her off, comprising of cousins and friends.

alicia, andrea, mel and i in the car on the way to the airport

at t3 with the cousins who went to see mel off!

sla spatial challenge training! omg. it was a complete day of laughter man. it was so much fun spending the entire day with them and the course ultimately didn't feel boring! (:

before the start of the course denice and i with the complicated program we have to work with
during break! joyce was so excited about the puffs, haha
joyce and i at sakae jasmine, denice, claire, joyce and i (:
in the lift. the cargo lift was freaky, it moved up without the doors closing!the awesome team (: at raffles place
this looks like some class photo, haha

by the s'pore river

valentines in ac made me miss crescent guides very much. brings back memories of running around, selling of the pretty balloons and all. but valentines in ac was a blast, i love the atmosphere that we had.

terms in 2 weeks! need to get at least some studying done! ):

2008-02-14T20:35:00.002+08:00

happy valentines day!
valentines in ac was great! (:
i've got a number of photos to upload (cny, michelle's house and mel's sendoff) but i've been way too busy/lazy. i'll upload them after the 17th. this week has been, and is still a hectic week!

2008-02-06T23:41:00.000+08:00

yesterday, serene, winnie, chenxi and i went to catch 27 dresses. it was really nice, it was so sweet! (: serene and i rushed down to bsc after that but we were terribly late for ash wed mass! class reunion dinner at crystal jade la mian xiao long bao followed. the turnout was quite good, all the girls came, the same can't be said for the guys though. abastainence from meat was terrible 'cause all serene and i could eat was hot and sour soup noodles without meat. oh and what serene said when liting jabbed and cut a xiao long bao into two has to be the quote of the week: no xiao long bao deserves to be treated like that. haha omg.
the waitress at crystal jade was pretty pissed with us 'cause we were making tons of noise so we moved to essential o brew after that. the class eventually left, leaving denice, serene, winnie and i. same four that were in holland v till late for two previous friday nights! we made denice prank call and it was hilarious.

(we took many more photos but i don't have them yet!)

today was xiangyi's birthday! we went to raffles city's sushi tei for lunch. hey girl, (i know you're reading this!) i'm glad you had an enjoyable time, enjoy your eighteenth! (:

five of us at sushi tei (:

deb and anna

anna, deb and i

at ben and jerrys (:

(again, more photos but this time out of fear that deb or ah-ma will kill me if i post them, haha)

happy chinese new year, enjoy your holiday! (:

girl talk

2008-02-01T20:59:00.000+08:00

i feel overwhelmed everytime i look at my schedule for the week after cny. 16th's packed with events that i have to forgo some stuff! ):

tue, the girls went to bugis' seoul garden (again!) to have grace's birthday lunch. we spent a long time there, as usual. after that, grace, serene, denice, rowena and i went to bugis street for some window shopping. it was so cramped there and it was terrible navigating with our bags. i doubt i'll go back there anytime soon, despite the cheap prices.

thu was grace's 18th! rowena didn't see grace sitting in front of me so she was all like "they're bringing in the cake now so 1, 2, 3 we sing happy birthday okay" and grace heard the whole thing, it was quite funny. we bought her a black forest cake and balloons! (:

i had an awesome time with winnie, chenxi and denice today. thankfully we didn't go with the guys to ikea so we had girl talk! we ended up not going for interact but that's alright. it was great talking to them, it's like we're all on the same wavelength and it was hilarious with winnie's imitations, talking about tough guise (haha!) and "i was waiting for you to say!" (omg denice!). talking to the girls left a smile on my face (:

2008-01-26T23:13:00.000+08:00

trust - it's essential.
because you can't have everything.

dynamics are definitely changing. circumstances are just confusing me.

i find myself getting irritated with some people more often than usual. at first i thought i was pms-ing, but i'm not. either my tolerance level has gone down or people have became more annoying.

my feb-apr calendar looks pretty full already ): with youth lenten campaign and a whole lot of school activites. it's a little overwhelming actually, i hope i'll be able to find my balance seeing that terms are in between and that i didn't take on more than i can handle!

i'm currently addicted to songs from carrie underwood's some hearts. i know it was released like quite long ago but andrea brought it along to usa and i found myself missing the songs after we came back to s'pore.

Some hearts, they just get all the right breaks
Some hearts have the stars on their side
Some hearts, they just have it so easy
Some hearts just get lucky sometimes

emails

2008-01-10T23:36:00.000+08:00

maddy sent me the link to a vid of california screamin'. it made me miss our whole trip alot, the simplicity of it all, being carefree and not having to worry or analyse situations. i miss the adrenaline rush of the ride too (;
if you're interested, here's the link: california screamin'.

another email, this time from lilin. to summarise it, it's about people being in our lives either for a reason, for a season or for a lifetime. it was meaningful to me 'cause i hate it when people kinda slip out of your lives when you used to be close to them once. the thing i took away from the email is that certain friends may be in your lives only for a short period of time but during this period, whatever you've experienced together is real and after you've drifted, don't regret or think it's a pity but treasure the memories. and of course there are the people who are in your life for a lifetime (:

2008-01-06T22:26:00.000+08:00

[part 3: monterey bay, disneyland and universal studios]

monterey bay: where..
the aquarium is pretty cool
and there are gorgeous houses overlooking the pacific ocean in this closed community that you have to pay an entrance fee. the cheapest house is like US$1.8m and the most expensive one we saw for sale was for a cool US$28m.

sardines swimming together, it's quite cool to see them swim in and out of formation when they sense danger

i think these are called egg yolk jellyfish

reflection of the moonlight on the ocean

mum and i

here are the photos taken in the closed community

seagulls aplenty at the coastline

waves coming in

waves crashing onto the rocks

look at the waves!

the famous cypress lone tree

mum and me

seven

i love the view, love this photo. it's very oc-ish. haha.

disneyland: where..
we hardly took any photos 'cause we were busy making our money worth by going on rides
and the adventure rides ("roller-coasters") are not scary at all. i personally preferred disney california adventure where the rides were more thrilling. california screamin' was as fun as the roller coaster we rode back in las vegas, the one at our hotel.

either cinderella's or sleeping beauty's castle in the background

front of disneyland. i have a photo of me taken at the exact same spot 13 years ago!

with marianne and madeline on tarzan's treehouse.

feliz navidad! inside it's a small world ride. it's spanish for merry christmas, btw.

it's a small world

universal studios: where..
we went on a studio tour and got to see the sets of ghost whisperer, heroes, desperate housewives, too fast too furious and war of the worlds!
but other than that, there were barely any rides which sucked. there were more of shows

film site of war of the worlds!

okay i'm finally done with the photos and a summarised version of my entire trip (:

2008-01-05T23:02:00.000+08:00

[part 2: yosemite national park and family visiting in san francisco]

yosemite: where
it snowed quite alot but was warmer than grand canyon
the whole place looked like a winter wonderland
and on the final day, there was enough snow for the ski hills to be opened and we got the chance to do outdoor iceskating! (:

the seven cousins attempting to make a snowman

partially frozen lake

the great view behind our lodge

winter wonderland

i love this shot, it looks quite candid except for us crouching down.

yosemite falls, spot the rainbow!

different angle of yosemite falls

el capitan

i was trying to stop

the intermediate skiing hill i think

san francisco: where
my parents and i skipped sight seeing in the city to visit relatives
and i met up with nicole! (didn't take any pictures with her though)

in the front yard of my cousin's house with my aunt, uncle, cousin, niece and parents.

the bottom section of their christmas tree and the amazing small town they created underneath it!

you can see the merry-go-round, hot air balloon, big ben and the train tunnel

the train on the train tracks and the iceskating ring where the figurines really move

right side of the charming town

us trip photos!

2008-01-04T22:33:00.000+08:00

here are the photos taken in us! [part 1: las vegas and grand canyon]
(i realised they are quite small so you might want to click on them to see the enlarged version)

las vegas: where..
the hotels are really cool because the decor is made to look like a specific theme
there are really cheap buffets
and there are jackpot machines everywhere even in petrol kiosks!

our first california sunset on our drive to vegas

the vegas hotel we stayed in, where everything is designed to look like new york!

the exterior of the hotel made to look like the skyline of ny. see the roller coaster tracks? we had complementary tickets that came together with the reservation of the rooms to ride it! it was fun!

the lobby - the casino! these jackpot machines are only a fraction, there's tons more.

the ground floor where the cafes are. i love how the "streets" look.

even the vending machines have a ny theme!

our limo (;

the bar at another hotel/shopping mall, the venetian. more jackpot machines in the background

the gondolas in the venetian, the guys rowing actually sing.

the interior of venetian

inside another hotel/shopping mall, caesars palace (where celion dion had her concerts)

the fountain at caesars

grand canyon: where..
despite the lack of snow, it's really cold. i washed my hair before leaving the hotel room and while waiting for the sunrise, icicles started forming on my hair.
and there's nothing else really interesting.

grand canyon

sunset at grand canyon

we were freezing while waiting for the sunrise.

first rays of sun on the grand canyon

i forgot what's the plateau's name

that's the sun setting, there was a crowd filming the process of the sunset!

that's all for now. way too many photos to upload one shot

2008-01-03T21:55:00.000+08:00

school has started and it's surreal being j2. but i love the new timetable - 4 days ending before 2pm! (:

i'll upload the us pictures later on, but for what's it worth, it was a great trip and i'm glad that i got to spend time with my cousins despite the "crazy" antics. unexpectedly i didn't get homesick, maybe it's 'cause of the presence of the company i had (:

just a short update to keep this thing alive. i'm off to do chem now ):

first pay cheque and day before leaving!

2007-12-11T00:41:00.000+08:00

i've been busy the past few days. a quick recap:

thu
i went to collect my first pay cheque with ann! i got more than i expected, which is of course good. ann and i went town to shop around after that and i spent a fraction of it on two pairs of earrings from topshop. couldn't resist, i just felt like spending.

fri
met up with best friend! we shopped around town and bugis and caught up on current/past happenings over lunch at sakae. too bad her eyecandy wasn't at artfriend, she was devasted. eh, yunsan! i know you're probably reading this! when you see your eyecandy tell me alright! haha (:
oh and i attended advent reflections in the evening. it was quite meaningful, i admit i'm guilty of focusing on the commercialised aspect of christmas (the presents!) and not the spiritual aspect of it. it was a good wake up call.

sat
legion mtg and preparation for parish carnival. we created our own version of lom idol which doesn't involve any singing. it was rather fun, having almost all the legionaries there.

sun
parish carnival. it rainned and was super muddy. errol's impulse buy turned out to be a hit with the young kids. haha. hairspray was quite messy but i think they had fun with the hairspray nonetheless.

and today. i finally completed my 50 economic geog questions and 28 christmas cards! my left hand's aching now from all that writing of personal messages on the cards. i'm flying off tmr! or rather, today. i'm not bringing my phone along so don't call/sms but email instead alright?
what regina said was quite true. not everyone gets the chance to travel to usa so i should be thankful and appreciate the opportunity rather than feel reluctant (:

holidayys

2007-12-06T00:30:00.000+08:00

i think holidays are a time to spend more time with church friends and cousins. during the sch year, i hardly meet up with my cousins save for cny and the occasional birthday celebrations. and for church friends, mostly it's just legion meetings and baby's baptism, we don't really get the chance to hang out.

so it's great that we get the holidays! like yesterday, almost the whole legion (plus leslie and dom's friend) went to east coast to celebrate deanna and dom's birthday. it was fun and i'm glad i went in the end (i was rather reluctant at first). the bus journey sucks though, i hate the hour-long 196 bus rides.
today deanna, errol and i endured yet another 196 bus ride to concourse to buy hairspray for parish carnival. it was quite hilarious with the two of them around. errol's "four downs" and us laughing at errol's actions. OMG. oh and i have some ridiculous photos of errol (;

i have an unbelieveable amount of stuff to do before leaving. econs e-learning, geog questions and christmas cards! gosh. and that's just the more impt stuff. busy busy.

2007-11-30T12:31:00.000+08:00

coming up with questions for geog quiz is unbelievably hard, more so when it's on my least favourite topic of geog: economic geog. i need to speed things up, i'm only at 8 out of 50 ):

the thought of spending christmas out of town is saddening to say the least. before yesterday, i thought it would be okay, it's just one christmas that i won't be celebrating in s'pore but i just realised the fun, the joy, the warmt and just basically that great christmas spirit in church that i would be missing. christmas is, by far, my favourite holiday season and it really sucks that i can't spend this year's in s'pore. ditto that for new year's but new year's isn't that bad since it's not my favourite holiday.

but at least i might get to see nicole in san fran! making plans as i blog. can't wait to see her! (:

okay i really need to get my homework out of the way. not much time left for me to get them done!

parish retreat

2007-11-29T23:50:00.000+08:00

maybe it was god's will that i didn't have any projects this week so that i would stop working and go for the parish retreat. i didn't go for tue's one (went for flu jab instead, urgh) and i nearly didn't go for today's one either! i was supposed to join denice, jill and joyce to watch enchated but in the end, i felt guilty and besides errol was giving up his movie outing too.

overall, i was glad that i went. despite being pretty bored and getting irritated at times, it was still a great time to bond with my the other legionaries and get to know some girls from the sec 1 & 2 cath class.

the past few legion meetings have been pretty rocky for me. i realised that currently, i'm the one who has been in the legion longest! meaning all the others who were in legion when i joined left and the vibe is totally different now and i wasn't entirely comfortable. thus, i've considered leaving early. but after today, i no longer feel that way so i guess that was what i gained most from attending the parish retreat. hopefully i'll still feel that way during sunday's meeting.

i had a scare just now, and i was berating myself for not trusting my sixth sense that a breakup couldn't be so clean and smooth? but thankfully it's over now and i really want it to remain this way. for now. i'm adjusting really easily back into my old life and i miss it.

oh and i really like the amazing race's lorena and jason's positive attitude! especially jason's after lorena couldn't accomplish last week's roadblock. it's really a pity that they're gone when i started liking them. i think i really ought to learn to be more positive. unlike today when i got irritated easily during the telematch. so that shall be my aim (:

anna's birthday celebration

2007-11-22T23:54:00.000+08:00

we went to swensens for an early birthday celebration for anna today since after debbie leaves on the 24th, either one of us won't be in s'pore. i'll just let the pictures do the talking:

anna's birthday cake and presents!

us in swensens

christmas tree at taka

slack hours!

2007-11-19T22:18:00.000+08:00

i love slack hours at work.

like last friday afternoon, joyce was changing capital letters to small letters and i was playing with my hair (i realized that the office has alot of static with all the electronic equipment around) while waiting for the phone to ring and only around 3 calls came in. that was after we reached our target and we were sent home early; the company couldn't pay us for sitting around doing virtually nothing.

or like this morning! when the template wasn't ready yet so we couldn't make calls. we sat around and chatted. i wish more days were like that!

that's quite a fat hope. on the bright side, denice is joining us tmr! yays. (:

first job, three and a half days later!

2007-11-14T21:02:00.000+08:00

okay so the last post so a pretty incoherant one. i pretty much wrote it with only two things on my mind: sleep and heroes. so here's one to write about my first ever job!

i'm certain i've never spoke so much chinese in my whole life in a day. broken chinese that is, it's an english and chinese mix. i'm surprise they understand what i'm saying, considering how my pronounciation is off. and my mind takes a while to translate whatever i wanna say in english to chinese so when i speak, it's peppered with an awful lot of pauses and uhs. worse still when they speak chinese and go like a bullet train! i've got to ask them repeat. at least the current project is over! hopefully the new one tmr wouldn't have so many callers asking if i can speak chinese but doubt so since the chinese advert's gonna be in the lianhe zaobao. i think.

still, despite my constant grumbling about having to speak chinese, i can't deny i've learnt quite alot! like chinese terms for criminal report, job fair and basement! (don't laugh okay. my chinese is really quite terrible, haha)

oh and i realized i've earned more than 150 after eugene asked me. the amount's snowballing! (:

on another note, amazing raze 12 airs tonight on channel 5, yays. (:

2007-11-12T23:43:00.001+08:00

i'm really exhausted and i need sleep but first i've got to read the synopsis of heroes and nbc's heroes site is really getting on my nerves. i gotta find other sites so that i can read to know what happens, can't sleep without knowing.

new job's okay i guess. i wish denice were working with us though. at least i'm lucky to have jill, joyce and ann to have lunch with! the real downside of it is having to converse in chinese. the first few initial conversations were okay since it was a different experience but after that it grew irritating. i hope i don't have much of such phone calls tmr. it sure doesn't put me in a good mood.

okay i found my heros site on bbc. reading and then bed (:

first post of brand new blog

2007-11-07T20:22:00.000+08:00

hey
i'm finally back to blogging after a 6 month hiatus. as the end of my j1 year comes to an end, i felt like putting my thoughts down onto paper so here it is! plus, i thought new times so it was time to say goodbye to juzadream and start anew with this one! thanks to michelle, denice and jianhao who helped me come up with the blog url! managed to incorporate all the great ideas into this blog (:

so right now it's party planning (can't wait!) and working soon (first time!). hopefully the hols would be an eventful one! (: