pics from fullerton chocolate buffet

photos courtesy of erica!


the chocolate dragon and where you can make your own chocolate drink. i was too sick of chocolate by that time to try it. :p

the legendary chocolate fountain. i almost lost my strawberry in it.

update on my new room

so maybe it was time i added some pictures here to liven up the blog! this is my room...with the bare essentials. bed, shelf, table, chair, fan... yeah. looking for a picture to decorate the plain wall hopefully?? the extra mattress is coz my aunt from sydney stayed with us for 10 days.

i don't know what to say!!

checked my school mail and saw this email with the subject: "compulsary visit to bmtc on 17 aug..." i was like HUH?! bmtc is the basic military training centre at pulau tekong!!! where the army guys go!!

apparently my tutorial group is free on wed afternoons so we've been chosen to pay a visit to bmtc and for the ladies, it's a good chance to see what our future boyfriends/spouses go through. that's what the email said.

i can't believe it!!! for a moment i felt like emailing the person back to ask, "is this a JOKE?" hahaha ok i seriously don't know whether to laugh or what. i just can't believe such a thing is happening to me! in poly! i'll post about what happens when it happens. i seriously don't know what to think of this...hahaha.

---------

haha i almost forgot to talk about this, but today on the shuttle bus home with my mum, we saw this man dressed in red from top to toe. no kidding. red shirt, red track pants and red shoes. as if that was not enough, he held a red file in his hand as well. all were the same shade of bright red.

as he stood up to get off the bus, my mum whispered to me...

"better make sure the bull doesn't see him."

hahahahaha my mum is funny right?

home sweet home

attended a wedding today at the old parliament house. that whole area was road-blocked coz of the ndp preview so we had to make one big round to get inside the building. you seldom hear of people getting married inside the parliament house do you...haha me too! it was so different. but i'd definitely still want to get married in my church next time, no matter how exotic wedding locations can get. heh.

so glad to be home now... plus it's a cold night so it should make for a good sleep later. :) saturday night tv is pretty bad, did you ever notice that btw? haha... just a thought.

oh last night i had my p6 reunion and it was so so cool. it was definitely one of our best reunions. plus our teacher could make it!! we had a great time reminiscing and laughing like mad... thank God for a night like that.

to ming'en: WELCOME HOME!!! missed you.

edit -

i don't understand why my double spacing is missing! like suddenly it went on strike. :( it makes reading so much harder, doesn't it? does anyone have the same problem? can anyone tell me how to fix it?

so many things on my mind

what a week it has been!! i'm exhausted from all the work coz it's the last week of the term so the deadlines decided to all appear at the same time suddenly. like so many things clouding my mind and giving me a perpetual headache. things in year 2 sure are different!! but i don't want to complain so i shall move on...

bigger things have happened. first, the IOC. i think it was really cool that it took place right here! but i think all the action was somewhere in the city; i didn't feel affected at all here in my little west coast, so i just followed the papers closely... it was really interesting. and i was rooting for PARIS! erica and i were so disappointed. we so wanted it to win!! and it has tried THREE times already!! they should let it win!! :( our second choice was madrid. at least these two cities had the spirit!

but oh man poor london! poor poor london! the shock and sadness of it all just gripped me there and then and, call me apathetic or what, but i can't really bear to follow the news coz it's just too sad... i remember when the tsunami happened i couldn't bear to know what was happening too... and all the other sad things that happened over the years. i think singapore is really blessed. well and another thing that hit me was that last time when such tragedies took place, it would make me think, "people are suffering over there, and here i am in school having to be concerned about HOMEWORK and GRADES??" that was one of the reasons why i wasn't happy in school. but i think now i'm in a better situation, in poly and all, so i feel like my life is not so unmeaningful anymore. well something like that lah. i don't really know how to express my feelings.

though school has been tough recently, it ended on a pretty good note for me today coz i can see that my friends are making an effort to curb their use of vulgarities. thank God for that!! i'm really thankful to God, my Saviour and my Provider. My refuge and strength.

and how true!

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring. He sends you a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He listens. He can live anywhere in the universe, but He chose your heart.

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

fullerton chocolate buffet

ok the chocolate buffet was pretty nice at the start. the ambience was super good... everywhere was dimly lit, and we sat on these amazingly comfy couches, not chairs. there was this chocolate fountain thing, where you put your fruits and stuff in and get them all chocolatey. i tried that first. and then i ate a chocolate tart and some other small chocolates. i also tried the fullerton chocolate cake. and that was it. i was gone by one and a half rounds. i couldn't even finish the cakes on my second plate!! i was feeling sick and i was seriously missing my bar chor mee by then. hehe ok so i think it's not very wise to bring me to a chocolate buffet... though i DID enjoy it in the general sense... like lazing around and leaning back on the couch and just talking... it felt very holiday-ish. oh what would i give to live in fullerton for one night... hahaha.

i just thought...

maybe i should blog. since i'm kinda tired of always seeing the same old post here. haha. time flies and i'll be having my term break in a week's time. life seems so great during term break... i can just imagine all the rest i'll take, the DVDs i'll rent, the shopping i'll do... but until then, it is sad. :( nobody likes deadlines. haha but aiyah in the end everything will turn out ok lah, as it always does. i'm not so worried about things, i'm just sian about the work i have to do. but having God beside you is a real comfort. in Your presence, that's where I am strong. i just have to focus on Him and not let worry take over me. the things of this world seem so small compared to You, O God. God is in control!! how wonderful is that. :)

some of my primary school classmates are coming back from overseas and we're gonna have a reunion! looking forward to that. and tonight i'm going to fullerton for chocolate buffet with some of my sec 4 friends. pay $28 to GET FAT! tsk. haha. but i'm quite excited about going inside fullerton, and of course meeting up with my friends. ok back to work.

comm issues

haha ok just a quick one. comm issues lect today was a blast. at first the lecturer said we were going to have a quiz but aiyah he couldn't conceal his excitement very well lah haha. we all guessed that it was a hoax, and true enough the "quiz" was slides and slides of pictures of "american pop culture" i.e. friends, oc, spiderman, titanic, austin powers, lord of the rings, etc etc... and as we screamed out their names, he threw packets of snacks to us, as well as american idol t-shirts i think, and oc posters!! the whole thing was quite wild and haha he sure woke us up man, after such a long day. he likes to give us "commercial breaks" and play music videos or clips or commercials... haha quite fun lah. the relevance isn't very great but he insists they're all for "academic purposes". hahaha...

tomorrow i'm going for church camp and i'll be back on sunday. update again then. take care!

new room

my future room...you all (pumpkins) must come on one of the tuesdays where we have a two-hour break! i shall COOK for you!!! hehehehe.

to my grand total of 5 (plus mingen) readers: everybody come!!

cheer up

ok this is the first week of school so i guess everybody has been feeling a little down...but cheer up! things will get better! plus you have the GSS to take your mind off the unpleasant stuff! hehe. yeah it's very important to maintain an outside-of-school life, you know what i mean...then you'll always have little things to look forward to. :) right. so here are some cheers for everybody (hahaha):

fel fel you're so swell
in our hearts you'll always dwell
go go you'll do well
[last line contributed by sam]

sammo hung! sammo hung!
who's bigger than sammo hung!
s...a...m...samantha CHOUSIMRYANTANLEEWONGOLIVERSIEW.....

right. that was nonsense. haha.
now one for debbie...

deb deb you're so fab
don't feel lonely don't feel sad
just give us a call and we'll be there!

ah...lirong, you need one? ask ernest to compose for you lah. :p hahaha.
ok ok here goes...

lirong lirong we miss you
you're always a support you're always cool
next time bring us on the cruise too! (hahaha)

ok i think i should give sam a better one...

sam sam tall and tanned
in all things you must think you can
s...a...m...samantha CHOUSIMRYANTANLEEWONGOLIVERSIEW!!!

hahaha


cheer up everybody

hair, hair, grow again

i cut my hair and now i look like a rectangle. :'(

when i tie my hair up i look like a coconut. :'((

i won't put up the sad rectangle pic but i would put up this:



anyway, can you guess where i took this picture?? hehe.

gonna get a homecooked meal tonight!

we can't move into the new place yet because of some defects that need to be corrected, so we're stuck in yew tee till the end of this month. when my big brother comes back next week, he may have to sleep in the kitchen hahaha. my mum and i went to the salvation army at potong pasir (never been there before) yesterday but it was quite run-down and we didn't find anything there. after that we went to ikea. it was a dreary day yesterday, wasn't it? the sky was dark, the roads were wet... if only we had stayed home, then we could have taken a nice cosy nap. :)

this morning i went for my first basic theory lesson. yeah i finally signed up for my driving lessons haha. next time when i pass then we'll take out the ba zhang (dumpling) plate and paste on the car, front and back, for one year...then hopefully nobody will bully me on the road if not i wouldn't know what to do!!

other news... we got the letter telling us we can collect the digi cam already! yay!
plus... we've been out all day for so many days, the last time we ate at home was DAYS ago. finally mum's cooking my favourite soup tonight. :O)
and finally... i've started on this book called "the heavenly man". really powerful book. i seldom read Christian books somehow, but i can't seem to find any novels these days that don't have sex/vulgarities in them at all...so i think it's about time i helped my dad read some books in his library haha. he doesn't actually have a library, but he has a lot of books. and at the new place, we're gonna store them in the bomb shelter. yeah felicia you can sleep with the books!!! :)

shopaholic blue horizon

to fel: haha the bomb shelter. anyway your new haircult looks really nice.
to lirong: no digital camera yet. :( my mother is going to call up the insurance guy tmr. haha.

i'm down to the last book in the shopaholic series. feels a bit like i've been living in london these few days haha. does anyone here know a real shopaholic? a shopaholic sounds scary, just spending money like that. i guess i know someone who's something like that...i get some of the clothes that she passes down. haha.

so we went to blue horizon today. it still feels a bit surrel, finally getting the keys after so long. or rather, it doesn't feel as exhilarating as it should probably be because it's just like when i was waiting for my first paycheck but it came two days late so by that time i wasn't excited anymore. haha. but nonetheless, it's still GREAT that we're finally another step closer to living in a proper nice home.

the last episode of the jap show "good luck" on channel u was today... i really liked that show!

david tao / enter the phoenix

thanks to sam, i got to go to david tao's showcase at expo on sat night. opening act by wild was painful :P ah tao was wonderful, as usual. his voice is really very, very good. AND he might have a concert here again at the end of the year! that's certainly something to look forward to. :) plus he might have a new album out at the beginning of next year. things are looking good!!

watched enter the phoenix last night on channel u. it was surprisingly good. i mean when it first came out i wasn't interested in it at all coz...never mind. but yeah it was pretty good!! now if i have to, i don't mind watching house of fury. heh! yeah stephen fung is a director to look out for.

we are getting the keys on tuesday...

really sun, sand and sea

REALLY went to sentosa today with sam and fel! but i was late!! so sorry!!! well, of the three days that they were free, i thought today sounded the best since i have a case of monday blues sometimes (so lame right) and friday = almost weekend = more people = not what sarah wants.

so we first laid our mat out under the shade, but then we realised that our whole purpose in going there was to tan so we moved the mat out into the sun after a while hehe. then we flopped around the mat turning here and there like sea cows (ok i'm actually really just talking about me, the other two are as slim as ikan bilis). finally we went into the sea (?) where we soaked for 3+ hours until i felt like kiam chye. tried swimming a bit with me calling out "small strokes, ok, small strokes!!" due to sam's long arms and legs that threatened to get in our way hahaha. after becoming dried prunes we got out and washed up, then proceeded to sakae sushi by bumpy tram/foot. my first time there, and i liked my teriyaki chicken don pretty much.

when i reached home my parents said i looked "very healthy". indeed i am much a changed person, burnt in all areas that could possibly be burnt, including my pocket. very grumpy about that. as my parents said, SENTOSA = SO EXPENSIVE NOTHING TO SEE ACTUALLY.

update sparingly

blogging is like cooking. i'm not good at it. hahaha. today my mum asked me incredulously, "you mean you don't know that you've got to add the mushrooms in last??!" she was the one doing the cooking lah, i was just checking in on her. mugging is like cooking too. i'm not good at it either. hahaha. got my results today, thank God for everything good and not so good... i mean maybe to others a D+ and C+ is bad news but for me it's just great. i mean it's like all my grades were as expected, as deserved. i'm pleased with them. though i think i'd better put in more effort in year 2??

went to ikea yesterday and finally ate at their cafe. fell in love with the decor!! i mean like duh it's in ikea it'd better look good right hehe. went to rjc today and it was my best trip there ever. i think next week i'm going sentosa with the pumpkins. gotta even out my (pathetic) tan left over from long long time ago.

time for an update

hi how's everybody :)

special hello to BAIFERN!!!

just came back from rgs band's syf competition. they played some jap piece which was really moving at some parts and powerful at the others. and they got gold with honours!!! that's really great, for all the effort that they put in.

so i've been really busy this past week coz my thai friends came. thank God that my holidays came at the right time and so i could be with them everyday! i'm already missing them so much...i don't even have the mood to shop anymore haha. this past week has been just wonderful. on top of having fun with them, brushing up on my thai, and doing the most walking i've even done in an entire week...it was all in all a very fruitful and meaningful trip for both them and me! and praise God that three of them decided to accept Christ and join the family of God. it was my first time actually witnessing somebody's salvation and it was so beautiful. the angels are rejoicing in heaven and so are we. :) the joy and privilege of having God in our lives and knowing that He is in control of everything is indescribable beyond words.

Phrajao uai phon kha

(God bless you)

i'm freeeeee!!!

wooohooo!! did my exam yesterday and now i'm officially out of school until may 24th. i've waited so long for this day to come man. it's been an interesting first year, though quite tough sometimes. feels good to finally get a break from everything school. yesterday we went to kbox and stayed there for more than 5 hours. haha if you remember, this is only my second time at kbox. we sang 99% of jay chou's songs, some david tao (guess why), etc etc. we sang love potion no. 9 too! haha. and bon jovi's it's my life and s.h.e.'s superstar. those 2 songs were great fun. after fel left, debbie and kai-lin went into cutesy overkill and sang cyndi wang's ai ni. sam and i preferred to gush over wang lee hom and david tao hahaha. it was fun lah. thanks guys :) [but we forgot to take pics. with the pumpkin!!]

the most random entry of my life

hi there. this is supposed to be a very random entry. i'm just waiting for 8 o'clock to come so that i can watch my tv show and kill time in a better way. channel 8 for two hours should be good. it's the last episode of you are the one! seriously i think channel 8 should work on their drama show titles. they sound all the same. but anyway i like their 9 o'clock shows so far, like my mighty in-laws, my lucky charm, and this one now.

life's been very happening i guess. like i didn't expect to fall so sick. i mean all along i was secretly hoping to be sick so that i could lose some weight the easy way out. but i wasn't THAT serious about it, it was just a thought. and when it really happened, haha my mum and i couldn't help but laugh about it. but i should have thought more specificially about what kind of sickness i wanted. something like fever would be just nice. not food poisoning and fever and a really infected boil that needed to be operated on. i chose LA instead of GA and so i was conscious throughout the operation. this whole thing was really quite an experience... but the doctors and nurses were all so nice that i don't mind going back. though of course i hope this never happens to me again. but i mean they're really nice. (they're from alexandra hospital, in case you wanted to know!)

so it's been more than two weeks of really bad sleeping postures and stuff. but at least now the boil's gone so i can walk properly and it doesn't hurt so much to sit again. haven't used my ez-link card since last monday though. while it's good to save that money, i sometimes wish i can go outside for a while. next week maybe. read a book, wrote a letter, and watched the third harry potter movie today so all in all it was a good day of rest. which was what i've been needing.

can't believe that i've endured one year of mass comm poly life. what a year. it's almost over, just gotta edit the film, take a make-up test, one exam on the 29th, and i'll be freeeee. then you'll see me at ikea everyday shopping for the new house! haha. it's soooo near... it's coming soon... our very own little NEAT COSY HOUSE! i already know the new address so i'm gonna inform my penpals soon. ask me if you wanna write to me at the new address too! :)

alright then, it's 7:51 pm. time to get ready! till my next wave of inspiration hits me and i blog. cya!

bao fu

the school year's coming to an end, there're less classes now, but i still have two hurdles to cross. final speech with sam ryan chou sim (do you still want to be mrs chou now that... ?) and bauhaus, another graphic design project. bauhaus was an unconventional german school of art & design way back in the early 1900s. you can see its influence in a lot ikea designs. incidentally, i was flipping through the ikea catalogue today with my mum, dreaming about our new house. sigh, so near yet so far.

anyway, i've been thinking about the bag design for bauhaus. and i've just come back from asking my mum about bag designs in the past. she had launched into an enthusiastic description of a brown paper bag but that was 1960s. i wanted 1920s. so she said, "oh that time they didn't have bags lah. they just took a piece of cloth..." i said, "mum, i meant in ang moh countries lah." haha so cute.

the chatterbox is perpetually down and the blogger comments are too lay chey. sigh.

comments

hi all,

heh, kinda got tired of the chatterbox always being down, so i decided to make use of the blogger pop-up comments. hopefully this works better. post some comments, guys!

philos

i thought i'd better just update a little bit. just came back from my youth group's post-vday event, called the philos project. philos is greek for brotherly and sisterly love. the door gift (actually they only gave it out at the end) was homemade brownies and i just ate them, at approximately 11 pm, which isn't good. but it did taste pretty good... haven't had brownies for a while. and chocolate is always good when you're down. or even when you're up.

and today my dream came true when i finally got to see my favourite boys, jeremy and joel, again. haven't seen them for weeks!! i kept missing them at church. yesterday i called their mum up for a chat and i got to hear joel sing "He's Able" in the background. i've never heard him sing before! it was amazing. and i was told he was holding the Bible while singing. heh that's so cute!

this week ended well coz i handed in my graphcomm project and did my persuasive speech. 6 more weeks to go! we can do it!

five girls and an extra boy

clockwise from top left: sam, debbie, lirong, me, felicia... and sadly, terence.

burnt again

two weekends in a row to west coast park and i've achieved a respectable tan (any kind of tan is respectable for me lah) which has left a healthy glow on my face and i'm positively radiant all day long...lol yeah right. ;) basically my church youths had games yesterday afternoon, very fun games indeed, and i was looking at blue horizon and thinking, next time i'm just gonna this close to the park. this close to macs. this close to a healthy lifestyle. ok the middle one is kinda out of place hehe. but yeah we're this close to getting our dream home... just a little bit more...

last week we rearranged the entire living room at 11:30pm (inspiration comes at odd times) so as to give me a proper work table near the window. it worked pretty well, just that the table's also our dining table and where you dump basically everything else. so some four days later i'm back here at my mini japanese table, squatting down and typing away on my laptop to bring you guys my monthly update hehe. the good news is, my graphic design project deadline has been extended from this friday to next monday!!! thank God for answered prayers. :)

my weekend with kids

two consecutive days spent with kids have left me burnt out. literally. yesterday we did filming at west coast park with four kids and it was like a zoo with lots of melting ice-cream and mood swings. but it had its good moments lah. and i still love my kids. well i got burnt! this is quite a phenomenon and something new to me. haha check it out man, while it lasts.

today after church i spent the afternoon helping to take care of some 17 hyper kids that left me feeling very old indeed. this care group has an amazing number of kids (17 is not their full strength) and now they're serious about starting a kids programme while the parents do Bible study. so i'm in for the long haul. i like the idea actually and it helps that the kids are so cute, though they ask me questions like "are you married?" and once they know my age they classify me, like "oh, so you're still a teenager". haha.

and guess what. i've gotten addicted to solitaire showdown and i've dragged fel unwittingly into playing this with me till our eyes pop out and fingers drop off. but it's fun. please play with me. haha thank you. no no please don't play with me. i got work to do. haha sorry.

davidtao.com

david tao has a website!!! i had no idea. heehee ok it's not so bad coz he just launched it on dec 22 last year only. the website's really cool! you should all go check it out. i wanted to register as a "david's club member" (lol) but my mother told me not to be silly. ok... and he has a diary! again my mother said it was written by his secretary. sigh, she forgets who brought her to his concert in 2003. haha. anyway, the most important thing is that he's got a new album! i had no idea as well. where have i been??? it's called "The Great Leap" or 太平盛世. i bet it'll be a fantastic album, as usual. hehe. I CAN'T WAIT!

"Outstanding singer/song writer David Tao has not released a major album for over 2 years, but now he's back and guarantees to attract the attention of music devotees everywhere all over again. The acclaimed Asian R&B expert teamed up with Li Zhuo Xiong to offer you the phobic lyrics of his latest principal track Ghost that describes a person's fears among a mass media driven society that is getting too close for comfort. Also watch out for Susan Says that skillfully combines Beijing Opera sounds with David's exceptional contemporary music style. Continuing to offer you his usual high-quality work, David's new long player presents his first installment in a new musical trilogy that should not be missing in your collection."

-yesasia.com

(i cited my source)

cooking / valentine's day

haha i do like to cook but i think i shall only seriously try it out after we move to blue horizon. the kitchen now is really small and cluttered. not enough room to take any kind of disaster from me. and you know where's our microwave oven? in the STOREROOM. don't think you know of anybody who cooks in the storeroom right. :p hahaha.

you can get valentine's day gifts at budget prices here. forever friends bears and roses and chocolates and what not. though i think most of you who will read this are girls...but um, just spread the word for me. support mingen's bro's enterprising effort. thanks. :)

tiger cup

another pic from the tiger cup experience... that's a lot of us! haha. we entered the stadium very early, like 5:40pm. the match was supposed to start at 7:30 pm. people over there were practising the kallang wave many many times... then jai the singer came on and sang a few songs, like knockin' on heaven's door (the song in windstruck too heh). the national anthem was weird. never heard that kind of version before heh. the newspaper said it was too folksy and something else. people booed the indonesians. so bad. :( talk about a gracious society...

one of the girls fell in love with lionel lewis and it was hilarious. while everyone was cheering for him for yet another good save, she was shouting "i love you lionel!!" lol. my hero was indra. when he scored in the sixth minute i was overcome with joy. then someone fouled him and i almost fainted. i also got to see agu's famous back flips. flip, flip, flip. heh.

after the match we went to al ameen for supper. now i finally know what a milo dinosaur is all about. but it's so ex...$2... i can make at home myself ah. hehe.

yay for singapore!!!

WINDSTRUCK

windstruck was good man. i love it! i'm so glad that there are at least two good movies in the world - my sassy girl and windstruck. i've had enough of hollywood! :p i watched it at mingen's house this afternoon...a good start to my hols. but oh man i cried so much. i cried from the time the guy died all the way to the end of the movie (i remember that's what happened to lirong too). no happy ending though. i wanna sue them. anyway, i've borrowed lots of movies from mingen to watch during my hols. very excited... (and lirong! now i know how come you know about the animation thing on the top corner of the pages in a book... haha)

can i ever live without God in my life?

don't feel very productive this week. anyway, went to watch the match on sunday night and it was pretty good. it was nice to see the stadium filled with red. i'm really glad singapore won coz they'd worked so hard! and this is me outside the stadium looking rather ah soh with the handbag and handphone sigh...(i rather like the "wind in my hair" effect though. lol.)



and the answer is no.

even worse but at least there's shrek... 2

just when i thought the week was picking up... heh well as you all know i did a really bad speech today. i bet this will haunt me forever. i wished i had just turned around and flung myself onto the whiteboard hehe. but to give everyone credit, you were so encouraging and sweet about it.

the other irksome thing today was that i went on a wild goose chase for the tickets to this sunday's soccer match (gonna watch it with my friends from church). haha man...what a journey. first stop, west mall. then the 7 eleven right at the other end of the bus interchange. decide to take a train to bukit gombak. locate 7 eleven but cashier tells me the nearest s'pore pools outlet is at WEST MALL. decide to go home before i explode. haha. later i take a train down to bukit batok again, post letter to korean penpal, find out that there are outlets at the ntuc downstairs and outside of west mall (two chances!). ntuc turns out to be shop and save. !!?? tickets sold out at the outlet outside. feel very weird at the outlet where everybody is buying 4D and toto. finally return home and watch shrek 2 to cool off.

shrek 2 is super funny!! i enjoyed it a lot more than i did for the first one. and i love it when i think the movie has ended, but no wait there's more! a whole singing extravaganza and far far away idol. lol. the way they made the whole movie was really smart.

so yay i'm ok now... haha. i know i shouldn't habour all these negative feelings inside me and i'm trying not to. i'm trying to let go...and give it a break. because everything happens for a reason and God won't put me through anything more than i can bear! i can do this!! hahaha.

all bad but over

finally it's wednesday night and i'm feeling rather qing song. haha what's the english equivalent for that? i'm not sure. oh, it's relaxed. lol. today i was writing random chinese words on the back of my sab notes just for practice... i like to do that when i'm bored or want to be distracted. heh. and also coz i'm so scared i'll forget all the words i know (which ain't much, but...). that'll be such a waste after ten years of struggles!! but already i'm starting to forget. anyway, fel joined me and we started writing jap and thai words... heh she remembers so much of her jap even though she took it way earlier than me! i have wasted my parents' money. :( sigh... i must dig up all my notes and start revising! especially my thai, coz my friends from chiang mai are coming in april!! yay!!! haha.

well yeah the first part of this week was kinda bad but it's all over now. especially glad that the debate is over! that was a dark cloud hanging over my head since last week. :p and today for aerobics we did pilates! at first i was really glad and excited coz 1) it means we're just on the mat, no running/squatting/stretching/stepping/etc etc; 2) i don't even have to pay and i can learn pilates!; 3) pilates will help me get my flat stomach. well point 1 is no longer counted coz even though i did none of those things i still almost died. point 3 is also invalid coz i didn't work my ab muscles at all - they went MIA on me. only point 2 is the saving grace. haha...

what can i do

went out with the pumpkins (hee) yesterday and it was fun! i really enjoyed myself. we went jalan-ing around wisma, taka... oh man, so many good stuff at good prices! i had to literally DRAG myself out of the shops. in the end i just bought a lilac sleeveless top from U2 for $10. it's an investment ok. it'll last me for a long, long time. :) oh but we didn't get to take neoprints! we ought to! haha. sam and fel were in their kbox mood and went crazy singing songs... sent terence running across half of takashimaya... lol but they sing well.

this week felt longer than usual. guess that's because we spent more time in school. but i remember monday was nice. we had a good brunch at macs. i like it when we can all just relax and laugh a lot. tuesday after school my group did filming at ahhihh's void deck. that was quite an experience. and now the weekend has come...great...but i've got work to do. :( i feel like watching movies instead. heh.

doesn't really feel like 2005...heh

oh well i just got home...didn't sleep the whole night. let me start from yesterday. i went down to school around noon to hand up the graphcomm project... what a load off my shoulders! thank God for the last minute inspiration that came on thursday. oh before that, i almost got cheated by the photocopy auntie at bukit batok who wanted to charge me $3 for binding!!! :p haha. good thing i mustered up my courage to tell her "no, thank you" and walk away. the shop in school charges only $1.60!! i'd have been so gek if i'd really paid $3. heh.

yeah then after that i met mingen at suntec coz i wanted to buy some presents for my mum but in the end, couldn't find anything. (thanks mingen for accompanying me!) instead, i bought some necessities for myself, like a handphone pouch for my precious handphone (don't want anything to happen to it again) and socks for my aerobics. btw, dorothy perkins is/was having a very good sale! i was overcome with surprise and then joy haha. tried on quite a number of clothes but in the end, RESISTED entirely and walked out of the shop empty-handed and wallet still intact. nowadays shopping doesn't interest me that much anymore... :) there was a really cute handbag going for around $29 though. but it's ok. it's a matter of whether it's a NEED or a WANT!

then at night i went down to church for my masterlife (this Bible study) retreat. at 10:30 we went to the sanctuary for the watchnight service, which was just beautiful...i wish we'll have more of such services in future. just singing and praying to the Lord. so wonderful... i cried for the year that had just passed. so many things had happened to me and this was truly an extra special and meaningful year for me. after the service the masterlife group continued with the retreat in the form of card games like dutch blitz and phase 10. it was my first time playing these games, and blitz was really fun! apparently it's a game made up by missionaries(?) who didn't want their kids playing those kind of poker card games... :) smart idea! phase 10 required a lot more warming up heh. our brains weren't functioning too well by that time of the night. it was a while before the game got into momentum but after that it was ok. just prefer the adrenaline rush that blitz gives.

ok i better catch some sleep now... can't believe 2004 is over.

movie list 2004

lists!! i like lists!! did you see today's life!? there's the top 10 best & worst movies of 2004. unfortunately, i happen to have watched stepford wives. with my mother, no less. and now she's blaming me for taking her to one of the lousiest movies of 2004. hahaha no lah. we didn't like it after we watched it either.

managed to get the black laptop cover today from the computer supplies shop in my school. paid $19.50 for it. if you think i've overpaid, please don't tell me.

had aerobics today again, and we did mostly kickboxing. i was feeling so healthy...

and then i came home and indulged on ang ku kueh and fried chicken wings.

ferrero rocher overload

ferrero rocher is my absolute favourite chocolate. it's tastier than that tennis player ferrero. i eat it whenever we have it. we don't normally buy it, it's usually more like people give it to us, especially at Christmas and New Year. i eat it when i'm down, and i also eat it when i'm in a good mood. either way, i eat it a lot and i can just imagine all that fat. good thing i have aerobics tomorrow.

lugged my heavy laptop to school today and then to west mall after that. didn't manage to find a black cushion cover for it but got a black cardigan (for myself) from dano at least. been scouting for one for a long, long time. i've been hearing so much about the sales that are going on, i feel the lure of shopping malls, but i just can't bring myself to go on a full scale shopping spree. not when i've graphcomm to worry about, and other stuff... hmm.

... big sigh. i've never seen such a big tragedy before. 24 000 people dead and counting. so terribly sad!!! and the thai king's grandson was one of the casualties!! oh man that's so sad. i like the thai king you know, no matter what terence says. :p actually we have a lot to thank God for. singapore's safe from all these natural disasters. no earthquakes, volcanic erruptions, tsunamis... i feel really sad for these people. big big sigh.

anyway, check out today's life! section. there's a list of 10 good books to read. i love it when i get such lists. now i can go book hunting and hopefully end up with many good reads.

It's a Merry Christmas Eve

today was kinda a surprise! went to sch with kailin and only had like ONE HOUR of class when it should have been three. Christmas eve, that's why. but actually they shouldn't even have school on Christmas eve! :p anyway, went to check out the school bazaar and it was pretty interesting and cheap...bought two glam bracelets. thinking of who to give them to...

oh last night i watched shrek on my laptop. borrowed the vcds from my (ex) piano teacher. it was quite funny, in the intelligent way...but it wasn't SUPER funny...coz i guess i watched it too late. after i've heard all the gushes and praises from everybody. it was like that with finding nemo too! you know how you hear about how GOOD a movie is, and you end up having sky high expectations or something...anyway, somehow the movie just wouldn't feel as interesting, amusing, or wonderful. on a side note, right now the one movie that i wanna watch is nobody knows from japan. (mingen!! shall we go??)

rum&raisin brownies can get you drunk

haha yeah i dunno HOW it happened but i think i got a little tipsy after gleefully gobbling down two yummy-looking brownies at somebody's house last night. the kids from my church went carolling and i decided to tag along halfway, and it was all really going quite well... i mean, the kids were singing really really WELL and the food at the homes were good... but somehow those brownies just didn't sit down too well with poor old me. all along i've preferred chocolatey fudge brownies, and now i know even better to steer clear of rum & raisin brownies!!! there was this funny thing going on in my head, but good thing i was sober enough to hold a decent conversation with the people who gave me a lift home after that. this is still a mystery to me. i can't figure out how i can get drunk on those brownies when i'm always fine after eating mee sua with dom...fa guo lang jiu. haha.

aerobics

AEROBICS. yes that's what i'm doing for s&w. sigh. what on earth did i get myself into... i thought i was so clever to pick a sport that just requires you to go "and 1, and 2..." with the lady on tv. aargh!! i was so wrong. hahaha man it was such a torture. i thought all my PE days were far behind me but no, they're BACK. :( i did all sorts of exercises in a blur, just kinda kept asking myself what had i been thinking...haha. the first hour was excruciating. the second part was better coz we finally got to sit/lie down on the exercise mat and do some yoga and pilates. but no spiritual stuff for the yoga lah. the teacher knows. heh. i like her...and the best part is, she's guaranteed us a flat stomach! my mother is happy for me. thanks.

i found a new route home! just take 61 from outside my school to bukit batok mrt and then take the train to yew tee. at least 1/3 faster than my [bus to clementi then mrt to yew tee] route. very happy now! :)

anyway, just got news that we're gonna be moving into the west coast condo next march. that's so soon! like we packed everything up just not too long ago, and now we have to do that again. and this time i really want to get my room right. the last time i decorated my room was when i was 5, and that was why i ended up with pink furniture. not that pink isn't nice.

3rd day of school

this morning was so nice to sleep in...nice and cooling. i was snug in my bed until about 9:30 and then i got up and went to eat rotiboy. haha my mum had been so excited to let us try it and finally i did but i detected butter in it! and she says she's the butter expert so if she says there's no butter that means no butter. anyway, i didn't finish it. i don't like butter. :(

yesterday there was no school so i met ahhihh at raffles place for lunch. she's having her law attachment somewhere there. i found out that OUB plaza is quite a cool shopping place! yay. i bought something from there.

later i have school from 1-5. really thank God that wednesdays are gonna be better from now on. i mean, nothing can beat cats and iac right? heh. this sem it's starting a business and sports & wellness. i wonder what sport i'll end up with! maybe ballroom dancing. haha. ok that's not a sport. maybe it's under the wellness category.

my last days

school's starting next week! tsk. haha. i love my bed man! this bed in yew tee is so nice that it makes me just want to sleep all day. for every morning now i've been waking up at embarrassing hours such as 10:45 am... so last night i thought that it'd be nice to catch the early morning sun just for once, so i set my handphone alarm to 8:30 but the bed was really too nice to resist and i woke up at 9:20, which is still an improvement, according to my mother. heh heh.

singapore idol finals! i was so torn between taufik and sylvester, right down to the last minute before the results were announced. then i realised that i had to make a decision as to who i was supporting or else i wouldn't know who to be happy/sad for when the results were (finally) announced! and my dear mother was happily supporting taufik and refused to sit next to me during the nerve-wrecking suspense gurmit's "i'm really gonna announce the results - soon" then commercial break then back to the show... unless i said i was gonna support taufik. so taufik it was! anyway he's really good and i'm so glad he won. i'm so glad that he and sylvester are buddies too. and sylvester is gonna make it big in the chinese market for sure so i'm glad for him too! yay yay yay! HAPPY ENDING!!! i love happy endings!

the wedding

haha hmm...was kinda anticipating my cousin's wedding for the entire year and it came and went...but it sure was memorable. and touching. and lovely. here are some pics:


me walking down the long...long...aisle


the whole wedding contingent

the changi project

hehe tues night i went to changi airport to play...haha it was a night out for the youths in my church. about 30 of us turned up and monopolised burger king while waiting for the game to start. haha ok no lah... but anyway then we launched into this fast and furious treasure hunt sort of game...whoa i don't think i've ever run so much in one night before. yeah i RAN! haha... it was really quite fun lah. but running around the airport is no joke. lol and one other team tried to form an alliance with us. hahaha they think what - we're in amazing race ah?

the funniest thing was when we were all looking for the name of a coffee blend and suddenly i realised it was spelled out on the poster right in front of this boy from another group, but i wasn't sure if he'd seen it... turned out he hadn't (so blur) and my group quickly covered up the poster while his group started to realise what was going on and so it ensued in some scuffling around the poor starbucks poster... no the FUNNIEST thing was when the same group was engrossed in this other poster and we stole their trolley and ran with it right to the other end of terminal 2. running with a trolley is no joke either. and we had like so many strategies to like avoid them lol... we hid behind walls, acted as the telephone operator when they called, sent out scouts... but in the end they didn't catch us or else it'd have been more fun.

we reached changi village at about 11:45 and had supper there. i saw the roti tissue which looked like a party hat hehe... and i saw milo dinosaur for the first time too... hehe yah i've been living in the jungle. anyway we left at past midnight and travelled home on this hired bus. the uncle was really nice, didn't complain at all. coz we had to send people off to their homes and in total we made about 7 (?) stops around singapore. some people bunked in with others, or else we'd have had to make more stops. my mum picked me up at bukit batok and we reached home at about 3+, slept at 4... woke up at 1:15 pm the next day. heh.

so that's yesterday already. late afternoon, we collected the gown from chinatown and bought a pair of white heels from charles & keith at citilink, but last night at the church rehearsal i was like wobbling down the aisle in those heels so i think i might have to go change them... yay charles & keith has an exchange policy! as long as you have the receipt, the shoes are still like in original condition, and best of all, i can go to any branch i want... so that means causeway point, which is just 3 mrt stops away. :)

weddings

it takes a lot of work to get a wedding going, don't you think. the amount of planning you have to do is...enough to make me think twice about getting married early. i see how much my cousin is doing for her wedding and i'm like aiyoh... poor thing. hehe i mean yah lah i don't mind getting married early coz all that stuff about waiting till both are financially secure or something doesn't really bother me...coz money is not important to me in that sense...as long as you're contented. but since i haven't even found anybody yet there's no point thinking about this NOW.

my point is, at first i thought it'd really be a mammoth task to get married. but then, after spending so many days shopping for my bridesmaid gown, all that wedding dreams are filling my head again hahaha. the gowns are really nice you know! i'm not talking about those obiang ones with lots of beads and sequins and dunno what else, i'm talking about those gowns which are really sophisticated and classy and beautiful!

sigh so you know my mum and i walked up and down orchard road till the poor lady was about to drop...the next day we hit chinatown and though the results were more encouraging we were nowhere nearer to getting a gown... but we did make a lot of friends with the shop ladies who were all so friendly and helpful... it was like, "ok ok next time when i get married i'll come to you" so yeah that's how this whole wedding thing started. i wish i could help them, like give them business, you know.

but anyway, you can only get married once. i mean, you SHOULD get married only once. and i've still got so many more years before it's my turn. dunno if they'll still be at the same place anot. haha ok back to my story. then just as we were about to join my dad for dinner, we actually came out of the shopping centre through the wrong door, but then we decided to walk on to see what's ahead, and lo and behold.... a bridal boutique was just across the road! although it looked a little upmarket (one of our most oftenly used words this week), it turned out to be the best deal we'd ever got. so thank God! just when you think you won't get what you're looking for, it turns up at the most unlikely place. must trust in God to provide.

hey i wish all of you a good week ahead. :) don't hesitate to call me up or something if you ever need a listening ear or a shopping buddy! or an exercise partner, or a movie date.... ok ok. haha.

i'm loving it!

heh yes i'm loving my new place. it's small (read: cluttered) but cosy. and breezy too! plus, no more rats or lizards. and i love sitting in my room listening to david tao, mayday, jay chou, fir, fish leong, and the korean singers. the only thing that's a little more undesirable is the toilet. people outside can hear me when i'm shouting to my mum or somebody from the toilet!! haiyoh. and you know usually the stuff that you'll say when you're in the toilet aren't that kind that you want other people to hear. hahaha.

yesterday i played badminton! wow it was good exercise. and last night i met some of my friends from dcg (the youth version of sunday school in church) together with my teacher and we had dinner at spizza at habourfront. it was soooo funny!! when my teacher went up to order dessert (and he dances salsa), the waitress shook her hips (later she said she ate too much cheese) and my teacher spontaneously wiggled his butt. there and then. yes. we just cracked up and i forbade him to come back to our table but he's capable of anything. haha sigh...but i like such dinners. and i hope it'll be like a regular thing.

anyway, probably going out with my mum later for more gown hunting. mingen and ahhihh are going to japan today! ahh.. i feel it in my fingers, i feel it in my toes... WANDERLUST. take care everybody. there's enough love in the world to go around. and believe in God.

today's my mum's birthday!

heh yup...so cool right. i gave her a card and a photo of the two of us which she has to return to me later so that i can put it back into my photo album hahaha. my brother and his girlfriend bought her a nokia handphone and a swensens cake. so we all know who's gonna get a bigger share of the inheritance sigh.... haha no lah.

and today i woke up at like 7 to swim! aha i almost died. haven't swum since church camp in june if you remember...hehehe. i went with my dad and we did 10 laps. my arms were like lead after that. sigh...i really need to work out more. did i tell you, i went to the gym on sunday night! whee...i'm finally on the path to a healthier body! :)

yesterday i went to queensway with mingen and sigh i think i spent a bit too much. not good. oh i saw daniel ong and jean danker and after that i saw joanne peh. all my life i haven't seen any celebrities and suddenly just in one day i see three. hey sam's in taiwan now right?? happy holidays sam!! say hi to ah tao for me! ahaha.

tomorrow is my korean penpal's university entrance exam. did you read about it in the papers two days ago or something? it's serious stuff man! everyone goes to work an hour later than usual in order not to cause traffic congestion, the police are there to control the traffic, candidates who are late hitch rides in ambulances or are escorted by the police to the exam venue, planes can't take off or land during the listening tests, the military can't be noisy.... and those who set the papers have already spent dunno how many days in confinement, so have the people who printed the papers... wow.

where is capitol building??

yesterday was a very happening day but i don't want to go into details coz it was too happening already hahaha. anyway, the main thing was i went out with ahhihh again. and we shopped till we dropped but didn't buy anything. for me at least. i must have tried on a dozen daniel yam gowns coz of my cousin's wedding. if anyone knows where i can get a nice, cheap, full length white gown, other than at daniel yam, please let me know asap thank you very much! and then we went on a long exhaustive search for capitol building because of felt. you know the new shop that sells australian wear that was featured in urban that is straits times new fashion magazine? yeah. we combed capitol CENTRE and peninsula plaza, but no capitol BUILDING. actually it was right next to capitol centre but nvm.

and then i visited sandy and her boys at night. her boys are getting cuter by the minute! jeremy the baby laughs so easily it's such a joy to look at him. we had teriyaki pizza (not bad!) and green tea. haha ok.. and i watched the champion! very sad! i think jeanette aw acted really really well last night. oh! and i FORGOT to watch singapore idol last night!! i don't know what i was thinking!! and i heard sylvester sang david tao and jay chou!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what was i thinking.

oh last sunday was nice. i attended the main service with my mum and it's been a long time since i got to do that coz usually i attend the youth service. and the worship was good, and the message was good too, it was about husbands and wives haha. and later all the old couples were like giving their own interpretations of the message lol. "the pastor said husbands should not lead their wives into temptation so from now on we shall not bring them to shopping centres!" haha...

aiyoh don't know what i'm gonna have for lunch man...
me: what's for lunch? got chicken? fish? pork?
mum: no....
me: then what kind of meat you have?
mum: human meat....
sometimes i think my mum should start her own blog. she has a lot of nonsense inside her dying to get out hahaha. and if my dad co-blogs with her it's gonna be even more hilarious!!! oh btw he passed his fire safety exam! now he's officially the fire safety manager of his company! lol...... what was his boss thinking, subjecting an old man to a round of courses and exams on fire safety........

moving house...going, going, gone

hey, so sorry for not BLOGGING on my humble BLOG at BLOGspot for so long. hahaha eh wr... now i dunno if i still wanna BLOG anot. :( see lah you... haha. but anyway, better update yah. i was busy moving house and i tried to stay away from the laptop hehehe... i was pretty successful!! sigh moving house was a nightmare. and it hasn't even come to an end yet...one last lap to go! well due to the lack of MANpower, with one brother overseas and another suffering in army, my mum and i had to do a yang men nu jiang and take care of everything. and my mum kept telling my dad not to make me carry all the stuff -- "i don't want our daughter to become muscle-woman!" hahaha. but anyway, i think i got muscle already leh. :) i dunno, i haven't had time to grief over this whole thing yet, coz very sian with all the packing and stress and messiness. my new house feels like some hong kong hotel room hehe. if we keep the curtains drawn and the air-con on lah, but this won't last for long i know. soon i'll have to face reality and go AHH!!! I HAVE MOVED. heh. well so i think i shall post this pic of me with my beloved bolster, which i've had with me since i was just a bay-bee. see how it has shrunk to nothing more than just a piece of cloth. haha no lah not so bad lah...i love my zu zu! i guess when i was a baby it served truly as a bolster but over the years it has become more like a... neck-warmer. hehe. oh well i don't think i can keep it any longer, it's time to let go. i can do this!!

dizzy woozy

heh due to my latest diet plan, i was in a state of dizziness yesterday but totally clueless as to why...thought the world was coming to an end or something...until my mother realised and then it hit me too! aha lack of carbo... oops. anyways, been sleeping in everyday and the weather's been perfectly accommodating! it rains every night, there's cool breeze, mm so nice to sleep. ok let me see, the last time i went shopping was sunday night, bought a pair of slippers only. i'm thinking of revamping my wardrobe. haha and i announced it to my mother over supper at maxwell market on sunday night, and sought her utmost support. lol. think she almost choked on her porridge... ahh once i move to yew tee, i'm gonna check out all the shopping malls in the north-south mrt line man. causeway point, junction 8, toa payoh, leave no stone unturned. lol. time to visit all the places i stayed away from when i was tucked away in my little west coast abode. hehe... well surprisingly i was just having a rather meaningful conversation with terence and it was helpful...haha. ok going to yew tee later. my library books are overdue. oops. yay lot 1 shopping mall has a library! next time do research would be very convenient. actually, moving to yew tee is good coz it's near everything. but moving out of my dear old house is heartbreaking. yeah so anyway, happy holidays!

suntec all night

today we sent my brother back to army and then my parents had a concert to attend so since i didn't want to be alone at home again, they dropped me off at suntec, where i walked the whole night until now i'm positive my feet are drawing up a lawsuit against me. sigh...but it's ok, coz i bought them new slippers! hehe :) just that these are the exact slippers that fly all over the place each time it rains. but i still like them! so i bought back the maroon/brown (egyptian) ones. which in case you didn't know, died on me as i was on my way to the post office some weeks ago. haha yeah...maybe i really shouldn't wear slippers. anyway, guess what - the suntec ebase doesn't have my size for that top anymore! whoa so fast!?! i better hurry... i shall not hesistate anymore. haha yeah right. sometimes it's fun shopping alone but sometimes it's not. it depends... oh i had roast beef for lunch and i almost died. i know what you all are gonna say but sigh, i just cannot make it when it comes to all this funny angmoh food... :p i shall stick to asia from now on. asia! asia! asia! be it fashion, food, or education. haha. sigh my poor brother in army... i don't remember it being this tough!! this was his last weekend at this house. think we're all pretty sad about it. and we DON'T want to talk about it. lol. i've been video camera-ing stuff this past week and it's been quite funny! my mum got into this whole singing and line dancing mood, like she was giving a concert every night... lol. and when my brother came back for the weekend he too was rather hilarious. so we shall await my wonderful piece of work with abated breath!! haha goodnight!

rj open house and singapore idol

dropped by rjc today to catch up with all my friends and it was pretty good! nice to see all of them again. i miss my sec 4 classroom life. and aiyah today's a rainy day lah. :( but very good to sleep too. anyway, after Bible study i was on my way to the bus stop when it started pouring! kinda like a scene out of a chinese gongfu movie. i heard the rustling of the trees, and i looked up, and the next thing i knew, it was raining cats and dogs. so i decided to forgo my pride and i broke into a clumsy jog which was disrupted by my lousy slipper. yes it slipped off my right foot again. hrrrumph. the bus stop never seemed so far away as it was today. are SLIPpers meant to be SLIPpery and cause unsuspecting people like me to SLIP??? this is the third time in my memory that it has happened to me already. why me... poor me... sniff sniff. ok on to singapore idol... i really think sylvester's good. but how come he's always in the unsafe group? poor guy... looks like i gotta whip out my handphone and start voting for him... and that'll break my record of not voting for anybody at all ever since such a thing came about. i shall wrap this up with a nice smile :) and say goodnight everybody! sleep happily on this cool rainy night... yum yum.

sky captain and the world of tomorrow

whoa lots of things happened today man.. i'm so tired now. anyway, the main thing was i met ahhihh at lido and we watched the abovementioned movie. it was quite *silly*.. sorry! heh. but the whole retro feel was quite cool lah. haha i don't know why but they gave gwyneth paltrow such silly lines! oh and i was glad we got the new seats! the last time i watched at lido my seat was rocking back and forth :( you know how it is with me and rocky chairs... i get groggy. hehe. ok then we went shopping for a while and i saw this really nice top from ebase but it's $19 so i'm still thinking about it... btw charles and keith is having a sale! you should go down now if you need shoes. lastly, i really love mangoes! heh. just ate it. we have a mango tree outside my house yeah so according to my mum, they taste the nicest when they've just landed on the ground and we immediately pick them up. so means i gotta hang around my dear old tree and wait for my lovely mangoes to drop down... sigh...

lost in freedom

wassupppp...heh. first day of freedom but i dunno, just sitting here feeling kinda lost. all the things that i said i would do AFTER THE EXAM...suddenly my mind is blank. hahaha. anyways the disastrous exam is good and gone, no it was bad but now gone, and school's ended for real now. no more miserable holidays disguised in the form of study break. i mean last week was meant for studying yet there were no classes so means holidays right? i was totally confused man. ahaha ok what am i talking about... yeah tmr i'm meeting ahhihh for shopping and movie! maybe my liberation will come then. what movie is good?

thank you God!! and i love wr!!

hey man...just gotta testify of God's goodness to me! only last night i was languishing in a pool of utter helplessness, wondering how on earth was i gonna come up with an interactive map for pulau ubin zoological gardens. lol. sigh... seemed that all hope was gone, i had no one to turn to, my deadline was friday, and i had a marketing exam to mug for... terence gave me phil 4:13 "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." and i was like, yeah i know... but... haha o me of little faith. i even quoted joshua 1:9 back to him! "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." but yup. and my kind thai friend was "analyzing" the assignment for me, in his words. haha he was so nice, but i guess i felt that there was a limit to how much he could help me. i saw wanjun's one and wow, her stuff was flying all over the place. i was like, oh man, how am i gonna do that?! seriously, last night i was down in the dumps. then fast forward to this morning, i decided to message wr, coz somehow i had this feeling in me that she might be able to help. turns out that she's DA PRO at flash mx. yeah in fact award-winning flash mx expert. lol. praise the Lord man... she's gonna come over and help me tmr. she kept saying, don't worry, i'm the pro, very easy one, sure can. hahaha i love her man. i'll cook you lunch tmr!! hahaha kidding, kidding, still must come ah! and once again, thank you, Father, for showing me Your grace in time of my need.

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise;

give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

hi everybody!

heh. just thought i'd be friendly! :) promos are ending this week huh! that's good. too bad i can't celebrate with you guys coz of the exam on monday!! hey pumpkin squad all the best for flash and marketing!! ahahaha. i still dunno what's going on for flash btw. what are we supposed to do???

yesterday i baked brownies! pillsbury tastes better than betty crocker btw! heh oops i don't wanna cause the downfall of betty crocker. anyways, i was all ready to start baking and then i realised that i didn't have eggs! so i started off on an adventure to hunt for eggs. the all-elusive eggs. i walked to the provision shop outside, but they were selling high-class australian eggs at $4.20 for 12. walked to 7-eleven, they were out of eggs. though the guy did tell me that they were selling for $3.95. but i don't know if he meant 10 or 12 eggs. so i was thinking of taking a bus down to the market or shop n save at ginza but in the end i just bought the high-class eggs. as advised by my mother!! i don't make important decisions regarding important food products like eggs without my mother ok. haha. ANYWAYS, i gave some brownies to my brother's girlfriend, brought some over to surprise ahhihh, and later today i'm gonna take some to visit sandy and her boys. spread the love man!! hehe. last night for dinner i got to eat fried egg! like after 2 months! whoo!

hey i kinda like lin jun jie's music now! heh! his album is nice. especially 江南，豆浆油条, 子弹列车，and 美人鱼。 his voice is kinda high leh. haha sunday wr and i went late and missed his mini-concert, and we didn't have the singaporean version of his cd obviously, so couldn't get his autograph. but it's ok lah. so paiseh to like get his autograph. heh. been seeing a lot of wr yah! fri, sat, sun. after standing around for a while, we went to heeren, where i bought a dress from flowers in the attic! okok i shall lock myself up in my house from now on so that i won't spend anymore money. DON'T CALL ME TO GO OUT OK. i shall keep myself busy with flash, marketing, and moving house.

bye everybody! :)

dan the hero

i'm in a terribly good mood today!! coz i received a letter from my korean penpal!! like finally!! i hadn't heard from her for so long, and i missed her so much. i was going to put up a notice here to find her! though that wouldn't have worked actually. anyway, she's very very nice, and she's given me so many nice presents. awww. yay!! and today i was productive! i did so many things! though none of them involved the flash mx assignment i have to finish by friday or the marketing exam that i'm gonna have next monday. heh. anyway, this is dan the hero, new and now ex-father of a $1.50 strawberry plant.

D'OH!!: hello
D'OH!!: :(
D'OH!!: its raining and al
D'OH!!: a blizzard out there
D'OH!!: my plant will not live to see a moon rise
SARAH: hello
SARAH: ohhhh
SARAH: hehehe
D'OH!!: oh well
SARAH: sorry.
D'OH!!: a parrent must do what a parrent must do
SARAH: parent lah
D'OH!!: Let go
SARAH: do what? kill it?
D'OH!!: i am lettin go..
SARAH: hahahahaha
D'OH!!: haha
D'OH!!: yea
D'OH!!: its big enough to survive on its own
SARAH: u mean it's out there now??
D'OH!!: i've taken care of it for exactly 3 hours and 20 minutes
D'OH!!: yeah
SARAH: how many songs have u sang to i?
SARAH: *it
D'OH!!: one
SARAH: which was?
D'OH!!: You are my strawberry,my red strong straw berry
you make me hungry when theres no food
i want you to know that i'll always love you
pls wait for me when your ripe
SARAH: lol

he's so cute! haha. he's my little brother who's living in NZ now. and here's his story of how he bought his beloved strawberry plant.

D'OH!!: hi sarah
SARAH: hey dan
D'OH!!: :)
D'OH!!: i just went to a chinese fair
D'OH!!: fare
D'OH!!: anglican church galla
D'OH!!: baught a strawberry plant :)
D'OH!!: gonna grow it in my garden
D'OH!!: shower it with love,singing,and growth
D'OH!!: when it blooms i'll mail you some straw berries
SARAH: HAHAHA ok
D'OH!!: :)
D'OH!!: yeah
SARAH: hehehe so cute
SARAH: it might not grow if u sing
D'OH!!: yeah
D'OH!!: true
D'OH!!: haha
D'OH!!: maybe it likes metal music
D'OH!!: ha
D'OH!!: haah
D'OH!!: i'm worried the birds will hurt it
D'OH!!: i might buy a net
SARAH: hahaha strawberry metal
SARAH: lol... seirously?
D'OH!!: take care of my little young one
D'OH!!: it was so funny
D'OH!!: cause i was at the galla
D'OH!!: and i had 1:50
D'OH!!: $1.50
D'OH!!: i wondered what to buy
D'OH!!: something nice
D'OH!!: something pretty
D'OH!!: something happy
D'OH!!: my first thought was food
D'OH!!: then
D'OH!!: i saw a cute little plant there
D'OH!!: on the table
D'OH!!: said straw berries
D'OH!!: instantly i imagined myself in a straw berry plantation eating straw berries and sharing them with my family and friends
D'OH!!: so i knew i had to get it
SARAH: HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

he's a bit challenged in the spelling dept yeah. hahaha kidding dan!!! if YOU would like to meet dan the man the hero the one looking for another strawberry to fill the void in his heart, please take a queue number and i shall get back to you shortly.

hmm...should i go to town?

i shall decide after i'm done with this post! aha.... yup i've come home from radio. it was quite slack and so i occupied myself with stuff like walking from the radio studios to the library to borrow a stapler... hehehe yah. then i came home and guess what! my mum cooked macaroni chicken soup! like when was the last time i ate that man! hehehe that's like my all-time favourite. i can eat it for lunch, dinner, next day's lunch, next day's dinner... hahaha yah. but my mum said she paid like one and a half times the usual price for the chicken, and somemore it was a skinny chicken. haiyoh this bird flu is more serious that i thought man. the last time it came, i was so blur about the whole thing. it was only when i didn't get to eat chicken or egg for the whole of september (!!!) and even now that i realised hmm... what happened to all my chicken and egg. i've been eating a lot of pork! every day is some pork dish or some pork ribs soup... but still nice lah. :)

just now i was flipping through my classmate's copy of seventeen... my dress from gg<5 was featured inside!!! hehehe i feel so fashionable yah. :p then i saw some really nice and pretty affordable earrings that are from far east... so i'm thinking of going down... coz i also need to get a birthday present for my good friend and some other presents... hmm?? still haven't decided yet. hehe. lazy to get out of the house again...

oh! yesterday we went up to the yew tee condo to check things out. lol. ok i found many good things about moving to there! number 1, the mailbox is very wide!! this means that i'll no longer get crumpled or bent or folded copies of my dear 8 days. :-D hehehehe. number 2, there's a shopping centre just one mrt stop away, and in there, there's sembawang AND ts, which was where i bought my jj lin cd... haha yup, to prepare for this sunday's concert so that at least i'll know what's going on. :p he's having some mini-concert thing at cine, terence gave me free tix so i'm going with wr!!! yay!!! i'm obviously high today right. hahahaha. ok and number 3, it's more for my dad lah, his favourite mobil petrol station with the 5% discount on petrol is just one street away from where we're gonna live... hahahaha.

it's raining metal!!! there are workers at my neighbour's house throwing metal or something down every few seconds... it sounds like big thunder metal stuff coming down from the sky. i woke up this morning feeling quite lost. yes it's been going on the whole day! hahaha... how come so much things to throw?? i also don't know how i came to the conclusion that it's metal they're throwing down. but anyway, that's not the point. 那不是点。 hahaha.

the terminal

wow i'm in such a good mood today man. hahaha. i woke up all happy and sunshine. maybe it's got to do with the fact that today marks the first week of NO MORE CATS & IAC!!!! haha yeah, and that the proposal essay for writcomm is finally over. ahh... i've been released from all that worrying and stress of this term. it's ending... the rest of this week is really gonna be much better! coz our radio project that's due tomorrow is more or less done. terence came to record with me and all that's left on my part is the paperwork...WHICH i'm gonna be doing in chinese!! erm...

well last night was nice... i went to watch the terminal with my parents at cine! the movie wasn't that great at first but it got better by halftime. i don't know, many times i was like torn between feeling sorry for tom hanks and laughing at his, silliness? no lah but it was really really sad...his predicament. but then later he became so so cute and funny, so i was laughing whole-heartedly already. but then it got really sad again and i ended up crying lots and lots. :( anyway, gupta the cleaner was so cute! "do you have an appointment?" hahahaha... and he was so busy during the romantic dinner! doing all his circus tricks...lol. i also liked the part where tom hanks kept going to see the lady officer. did you see the way he walked?? soooo funny!! the kiasu walk. hey this is like one of those rare hollywood movies where the guy doesn't get the girl in the end right? you know when they kissed i was like, oh no, don't tell me the movie's gonna end here. :( but then haha, yay, there was more...

if you see a helpless person in the airport who doesn't know the local language and needs some kind of help, whether dialling the phone or whatever, you will help right? if you pick up a handphone anywhere, you'll return it to the owner right? if you see someone lying on the road like he's in trouble, you'll help right?

we must be more compassionate!! ok ok? :)

david tao is the best!!!

haha yes i'm listening to david tao again... he's really good you know. each time i listen to his songs i'm just so amazed at his talent. the music that he makes is great. there're so many layers to it, each time you just discover more and more. (haha i bet you people are dying already, but...wait...there's more...) i think later i'll watch his concert dvd again. hahaha... aiyah i just feel like relaxing today, it's been a tough week. i have been looking forward to this day for so so long, but i don't actually feel 100% liberated coz the writcomm essay that's due next week is lurking at the back of my head. ugh!! yeah i'm worried about that. but it's silly to just keep worrying and doing nothing about it. anyway, things at school are slowing down a bit... next week i won't have to go to school for three out of five days. after that i have a marketing exam on the 18th. and then i'm free! but like everyone's been saying, if this is not counted as busy, then i don't know what year two is gonna be like man.

may i say, NO MORE CATS AND IAC FOREVER!!! finally, after an excruciating 14 weeks, they are out of my life and will never come back again (they'd better not!!). this calls for a celebration man! haha no no. i dumped all my notes but my mum picked them up and she said i might need them for next time, and i was like, no way man!!! hahaha. yeah so on wednesday i was actually feeling quite lighthearted. plus my jap test was over. i think there'll be no more jap for me, though it's nice and my teacher is really good. but i just don't want to spend any more time in school if i don't have to. hehe. anyway, the japanese are really really creative man. the way she taught jap was so amazing. all those teaching aids she had were so good! and i don't mean like transparencies or powerpoints. i think they're already beyond that. hahaha.

on thursday i took a three-hour outing to citilink mall in a bid to use up my charles & keith coupon before it expired. but alas, NO MORE STOCK. it's always like that you know!!! don't tell me all the women in singapore has the same shoe size as me and the same good taste as me!!! :p ok i was just kidding about the last part of course. but sigh, all the way there and no 收获。haha oh but yesterday my classmate kailin and i bonded over the topic of shoes. haha i guess it's true man, that if there's anything that can get two girls to click, it must be the topic of shopping. (or maybe food, in lirong's case. hahaha.) anyway, she told me that espirit has very nice slippers and they're super comfortable and can walk long distances in them and they're cheap too! and she was so sweet, when she was shopping at the espirit in mandarin hotel yesterday evening, she saw them and called me just to tell me that i could find them there. plus she checked that they had my size! so nice right!!!

oh sorry about yesterday's post...i mean, there was no post. somehow my exact feeling at that point was just to be uncontactable. and then after that i didn't know what to write already. you know how you're so easily contactable through your handphone and msn? sometimes i just wish technology never existed. things would be much simpler then. yup, i just want a simple life!!

i want to be uncontactable.

officially sick of mooncake!!!

hehehe yup stuffed myself silly with mooncake yesterday and today... mooncake is officially out-of-bounds for me man... haha that's actually not too great a problem, since there's not much left, since i've practically eaten up everything... awwww. last night my relatives came over for dinner. lots of food man!! plus my favourite hockchew fishball soup!!! :-D then i took a ride on my cousin's bike, but it was my uncle who rode it lah. it felt so good! the wind blowing through my hair... so breezy! (haha yes i wasn't wearing a helmet.) but too bad my mum doesn't allow me to ride with my cousin like, for real, yeah. too dangerous. if not he could send me to school coz we go to the same school!! well my parents had an accident like one week before their wedding last time. yeah so the reality of it is pretty scary lah. but haha the first time i rode on a bike actually, was when i was in thailand. i was carrying so many things behind, and each time we made a turn, i was like so stiff! haha. but now i'm fine yeah. ^__^ i just don't know how to get down from a bike gracefully yet. hahaha :p i will master this art one day. and i'm also wondering, if i should ever get the chance to ride for real... how to wear the helmet ah? and how to take it off without messing up my hair? hehe... i need motorbike for dummies.

the moon wasn't very bright or round last night huh... the sky was rather cloudy. i didn't do much except to eat (what else) and watch TV... wanted to watch the beautiful mind vcd but my relatives were talking too loudly hehehe. that's my family. all of them talk so loudly that whoever wants to be heard has to talk louder than everyone else, so in the end... well you can guess yeah. hahaha. my cousins had like DORAMON lanterns!! i was like HUH?!? haha wow... gone are those lanterns with just flowers on them or something. and i finally found my snowskin lotus seed paste mooncakes, but with egg :( so i just dumped the egg :p heehee. apparently people pay more for the egg. but why???? hahaha. saw some weird mooncakes, like pandan, black bean, and durian. i almost died when i ate the durian one today but nvm. i like durian, but it should just stick to being a fruit don't you agree!!! haha. last week i ate durian wrapped in crepes. what is the world coming to...

Our hope is in the Lord!! :)

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God hath promised strength for the day
Rest for the labour, light for the way
Grace for the trials, help from above
Unfailing kindness, undying love.

God hath not promised we shall not know,
Toils and temptations, trouble and woes;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.

But God hath promised strength for the day
Rest for the labour, light for the way
Grace for the trials, help from above
Unfailing kindness, undying love.

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain, rocky and steep,
Never a river, turbid and deep.

tuesday, aka adventure day, was one big rainy lunchtime man. lots and lots of rain. and maybe you don't know this, i mean, of course you don't, coz you've never seen me doing it, but I'M REALLY BAD WITH UMBRELLAS. haha yeah, just like how i'm really bad at crossing roads. i can't hold on to an umbrella for nuts man. so anyway, we started off with a search for clementi avenue 5 since terence's really bad with the roads in clementi and i have a bad memory ok i admit that. had no idea how to get to fel's nice doctor's clinic. but don't worry we got there safe and sound in the end. then it started pouring. :( poor pumpkin was flooded with mud and fallen leaves. went to ginza for lunch. wah! so many cars lining up to enter the carpark. it was a dreary day... but hey fel, sam, deb, lirong (err, and terence??), i look forward to coming to school everyday because of you. :)

OKAY OKAY... haha :)

so the horror week came and left. got through the writcomm essay, socpsych test, etc... felt so liberated after that. this week was not as bad. heh ok actually, it was, but nvm, coz it's over. creation of alumni website, jap test, radio stereo project, marketing quiz... all over! :) we had like 5-6 hr breaks on monday and tuesday and we spent all of that time stuck in the school library or the alumni cafe doing work (sort of). couldn't go out for lunch in the pumpkin - not that i missed the pumpkin, i just missed the lunch ok - until yesterday. yesterday was so funny!! hahaha. really really nice. :) had the marketing quiz. it wasn't that bad after all, in fact i did quite well. (not to boast!!) but so happy!! coz like i'm so not used to getting good grades. hehe really!! and somemore i couldn't finish studying...and i was stressed about the template...but God carried me through... :) marketing teacher was of course being funny as usual, wanted to call sam coz she was late for class. he was like, "so where's the troubled one." hahaha. i was so afraid she'd roll down the slope if she picked up his call. hehe. but she was too blur to realised her phone was ringing. hahaha classic sam!! practised all those lines to suan him back but when the time came, speechless! hahaha. :p had prawn mee at adam road, then ice-cream at venezia gutherie house. so nice! i ate tartufo. then later at socpsych, we had to do role-play about assertiveness. haha very funny. had a great time.

later i'm going for hcjc's mid-autumn festival. 中秋节 is here!! i'm so happy. i lurve mooncakes. hehe. i like the bing pi (snowskin) kind, without egg, lotus seed paste. hahaha. like placing an order now like that. eh nowadays got so many weird variations, what PANDAN, GINSENG, LONGAN, huh?? mooncake is mooncake!!! heh.

my dad was out of town for most of this week so everyday we would come back and report how many times we had thought of him during the day. hahaha! sounds crazy right? haha just kidding lah. anyway, he's so cute. my mum missed all his nonsense. we didn't really lah. hahaha. she taped all the episodes of 三十风雨路 for him you know. so funny... she'd be so kan cheong, like "ehh!! start already!! press record!! press record!!" lol. oh last night the ah pa died!!! SO SAD. BUT!!! i didn't cry ok!! heh. i was calm and collected. haha yeah right. i was bawling my eyes out. haha NO LAH... so anyway, this week i've had the luxury of getting fetched around...really grateful!!! to my mum and my brother lah. heh. but i can take public transport ok! i am independent! hehehe. i love 151... going to school and coming home hasn't been this convenient. next time in yew tee or even blue horizon, it won't be the same anymore. sigh sigh sigh.

i long... to travel... all those budget airlines are really calling out to me man!

ok updating... :) i have decided to take leave from cats. :) not that i'm proud of it, but cats is really, sigh, it's really one module that is so worth ponning. anyway, i'm now at home trying to get the great big essay on third culture kids done. it was supposed to be due yesterday but thank God it got extended to friday. yesterday night i almost had a panic attack when i looked at my calendar and realised how much work i have. it's gonna be one tough month man...sigh. siannn. haha. that's like the most often word we use on msn nowadays. mingen's away in australia now...my editor is happily in japan...and i am going to yew tee in two months' time. hehehe. oh well. i'm still going to school later for jap though. there's a reading test next week. oh, surprisingly, though i thought i had really killed myself (and my partner) at the last test (oral), i actually did quite well! i still don't know why, but nevermind, still thank God. :)

friday was a busy busy day. had school till 3, then Bible study, then went to watch my cousin and his SCDF combo band, then went to the airport to send sarah off. tried to see if the lost and found office had my handphone but too bad they didn't. then left the airport at about 11 pm... then my brother picked me up halfway. my cousin's band was not bad, they played all those nice songs like this love, smooth, angel, ... i don't know what was the occasion, but the police band also played. think it's some kind of army/government thing. it was near wheelock place. on the way to the concert actually, my auntie was telling me the story about zhang wuji. you know the ch 8 show on weekends? okay even though this is like the fourth version of zhang wuji so far (according to her), i still have no idea what the story is about what. hehe. i was just concerned about who he ends up with. coz you know how many girls like him now?!?!?! yeah but i was disappointed to find out that he ends up with zhao min. eee... why... haha. :p

on monday, we had a 3hr break so lirong and i came home for lunch. it was a good time just relaxing and talking...laughed quite a bit too, as usual. :) but the poor girl has craters in her mouth. ouch!! very scary. the ulcers are so deep! can imagine the kind of pain she's going through. paiseh to make terence send us home, then after that still ask him to pick us up to go back to school... but actually, since lirong wasn't feeling good, then if he can give us a lift also good lor. but in the end we took a cab back coz too late already and they were still at jurong lib so i didn't want them to be even later if they came to pick us up. heard that jlo (marketing teacher) asked them why they were late, the car too slow ah? hahaha.

then had lunch at jurong point on tuesday. i like the foodcourt there. the claypot chicken rice was good. :) after eating, lirong and i walked around, and of course i couldn't resist checking out sembawang and TS again, just in case they had more good deals. hehehe. actually, they do. TS has lin junjie and nan quan mama for $9.90. but it's not like i really really like them. i just heard they're good, that's all. but if i walk past the shop a few more times, i think i'll really buy. haha. jurong point is like the place to be at man. it has ALL the fast food restaurants (macs, kfc, burger king, pizza hut, long john's silver), plus delifrance, famous amos, liberty market, seoul garden, espirit, bum equipment, this fashion, bossini, giordano, popular, SEMBAWANG, TS, music junction, coffee bean, levi's, and many more. and the post office and the cinema. hahaha. but it's in boon lay. and next time when i'm in yew tee i'll be closest to lot 1 shoppers' mall, which is also not bad at all. :) coz it has SEMBAWANG. hahaha. :p

last night i got into some sort of meh lang mood and my poor friend kena-ed all the caps from me online. hehe. all terence's fault. oh well. my brother's going to army at the end of the month. i seriously think that army is the saddest time of a singaporean boy's life. they become psychologically scarred. heh. ok lah not really lah. but it would be the MOST TRAGIC time of a girl's life if they ever make us go army too. :p

san shi feng yu lu is the saddest show ever. there's rarely a happy incident in an episode, not to mention a totally happy episode. i cry almost every night. such a depressing show... sigh. but now huang biren is going to have a new show on weekends so that means we have to see her all seven days of the week?! and the new show is a weepy one also. OH NOOOOOOOOOO... haha. back to the essay. end of update.

of all times, i'm blogging now! i was all ready to go to bed already. but the inspiration came so i thought that i should not waste it. but now i think it has left me. thanks a lot ah. haha.

well anyway, seems like there's a trend... tuesday lunches are always such big adventures! very reality tv material. haha the week before school closed, fel got intoxicated right in the middle of clementi central. what an experience. she went into the dreamy stage for about one hour in mcdonald's, declared that their water was toilet water, but good thing she didn't fall into their toilet bowl. next up she started laughing in the pumpkin for no reason at all. then she ran up the stairs to the classroom with sam chasing after her. and finally she woke up halfway through writcomm tut with no idea what she had done. :) this week was abit scarier. had to find a doctor during lunchtime for her, and terence punctured his tyre in his haste. haha he was so comical, valiantly trying to change his tyre... his clothes got so greasy and his hands...oh my... finally managed to get a kind doc from clementi, thanks to my youth pastor. haha think up till now terence still has no idea what was wrong with fel... :p but she's better now, right? heh. really thank auntie lee luang for her help. and thank God too! i was praying so hard that there would be a doctor available... really thank You for answering my prayers. :)

just realised that i haven't exactly eaten chicken or eggs for many meals now. by the way, is it too much chicken makes the teeth become yellow? i mean like, too much chicken and no vegetables? hehehe. i feel like setting aside one meal a day dedicated to vegetables. think it's time i started introducing veggies to my body. hey, meet kailan... and kangkong... hahaha.

ronald susilo popped the question to li jiawei and she agreed! he's getting married!!!

wednesdays are the most excruciating days ever!! why do we have to go through stuff like cats and iac... creativity can't be taught!

okok shall sleep now. tomorrow morning i gotta churn out my essay outline.