Providence

well i never thought i'd get a relaxing night tonight! i was all prepared to work all night long since our pitch is tomorrow and we are still seriously lacking in ideas but God has really been good! firstly, class ended early today and i could go home and take a nap before dinner. and before i dozed off i was praying that God would make a way and help us finish our campaign in time and do it well, too. then halfway through my nap hehe i got a call from juan to say that tomorrow's pitch was postponed!! wow, really, what a relief. but i thought we still had to get 90% of the work done, so i was like ok we still gotta work tonight, but at least i was in a lighter mood already. (seriously, brainstorming is such a draining process, especially when your brain pool of ideas is already so small...hehe. but i'm contented and thank God for His providence every time.) THEN...i read the announcement on mel that class has been totally cancelled!! that means we have seven days MORE to work on our campaign!!! total joy. BUT...that's coz my lecturer has got some family emergency, which i HOPE is not serious! so anyway i shall try my very best not to take this respite for granted and waste it because this is really by God's grace and mercy! He works in amazing ways and once again I'm touched by His love. and there is indeed a time for everything...play and rest will come on thursday, when we have no school. so back to work! :)

"i love yuan ching!"

haha what fun it has been mentoring a group of sec 4 students for the pitch (advertising/PR) competition. such good kids and super funny too. will miss them!

this was the night before the competition, when we worked until 10:30pm. they're very creative posers hor? haha just look at the next pic.

them and their supporters. hilarious bunch. i almost got into trouble when i called them "kids". it was a slip of the tongue! and they went, "KIDS? who are you talking about?" like in a half-bewildered and half-threatening way. i knew i was in the danger zone then.

blessed new year

it's so surreal. i'm working on my imc tiger beer assignment and i just heard the sound of cars and kids. then it occurred to me that today's the first day of school! think of those cute little primary 1 kids who have to wake up so early for their first day of school... aww. i remember last year kai-lin and i were saying we could feel the national gloom descending upon the first day of school for everybody else, but not for us lah coz we were already in the middle of the term, just like this year. but somehow i lost track of time during the past two weeks so i also don't really feel like i'm stepping into a new year hehe. anyhow i'm really really looking forward to tonight when i can come home from school, watch some tv, relax, and catch up on the sleep i just lost. i'm gonna miss the holidays so much!

the low foundation

my mum's family gathered for dinner on Christmas and what i always enjoy about our gatherings are the singing sessions we have. this family is cool haha. we always sing the same old songs and always forget the lyrics at the same part and always only come in the loudest at the choruses but that's where the fun is. the music's always good too, courtesy of my brother and cousin. and up-and-coming cousin 2 on the piano. plus our all-time favourite singer, my cousin-in-law, the best male singer ever!!! (yes i'm his fan haha)

anyway, this is one of those catchy songs that we like to sing and clap along to. eric moo 巫启贤 sang it
it sort of represents me a little too, haha so yeah i can relate to it and i like it!
(and now that i've found the lyrics i realise we've been singing a rather different version! haha probably unknowingly modified over the sessions...but the meaning's still there hehe)

小人物的心声

也许我自己 不能发出万丈光和亮
但我能为斗室带来足够的光芒
也许我一个人 不能成就一番大事业
让我尽力贡献一份微薄的力量
我从来就不在乎 自己不是一个大人物
因为平凡也是一种幸福
看到名人总是忙忙碌碌
我的时间由我控制
平凡日子一样会充实

funny thai ads

thanks to our funny lecturers, we've discovered that thailand has a really cool advertising industry. its tv commercials are simply hilarious and extremely creative. i hope you'll enjoy them as much as i have.

Thai Health Promotion Board
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCtPFmA5soI

Cheers Beer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0fy-9NWFg

Thai 7-11 E-Payment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRijjmvUEpw

Black Up Coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La_VZOxTiYs

Good Salesman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DE2yciFh-I

Lizard Love Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PHZZhdkk-c

let's fly

eight minutes more to my current favourite show, triumph in the skies. yay!!! i'm sooo glad it's the hols now and i can watch it in a more relaxed state of mind and follow it like a guilt-free tv addict. hong kong tv dramas are still the best!!!

pics!

the 向左走，向右走 effect was totally unplanned....

obviously somebody didn't understand "let's take a nice pic" in time...hehe.

i like this.

nice colours!

this time for real

ever since PR pitch ended two weeks ago, i've been thinking of blogging about how i'm so excited about being slack finally, etc etc. but it didn't happen simply because IT didn't happen haha. ended up being busy again until TODAY. yes this time for real. our holidays have arrived, dear friends. took lots of pics using photo booth which did me proud by not lagging finally, hehe. go mac! well this sem has been wonderful because of friends like lirong, sam, jenny, wanjun and yiling. on long and busy days, we're practically together the whole day in school and then the whole night online. so i'll really miss them and this camaraderie we share. :)

i'm really looking forward to taking a break from what has been my most stressful and busiest semester. though we still have work to do and all, at least we can have a little nice break, hehe. i can finally watch the 10pm HK pilot show on ch U without school nagging at the back of my mind. i can even continue to watch 出路/stepping out which is a re-run but still a very good drama serial. i can also go shopping at IMM again! imagine what went through me a few days ago when i saw that it has esprit factory outlet. basically "!!!" would be an apt description. i'll be happy just to have giordano and esprit factory outlet for the rest of my life. :D having said that, i shall try not to wear polo t-shirts all the time, haha.

indeed, praise God for He is faithful, slow to anger and rich in love. He has carried me through tough times and given me much to be thankful for. all glory and honour and praise be unto Him!

在主里有平安...

night life

sigh i take it back!! i take it back!! the 早睡早起 plan hasn't been working at all this week... :( we've been working till 4+am for the past three nights. my mum, at 12+ last night, asked, "what do you mean the night is still young?" haha. BUT tonight we're having an early night!! yay!! it feels so good. imc presentation today went ok. i'm really glad it's finally over! hehe.

it's the rainy season again! time to wear flip flops to school. ahh, love-hate relationship. cool nights, wet days. nice to sleep, scary to slip. :)

memories

you know how sometimes listening to a particular song or watching a show or something else just brings you back to another time, another place, another feeling? yeah that's how i'm feeling right now listening to mayday. the last time i listened to their songs was back in yew tee, sitting on a stool doing my work on my small little white table. then i moved house, reformatted my hard disk, changed my laptop, and this morning i've decided to import all my songs into itunes.

life in yew tee was very memorable. four of us cramped in a two-room apartment filled with boxes, living so close to the mrt station that each time a train passed by we couldn't hear ourselves, the tiny kitchen only had space for one person at any one time, the dining table was covered with stuff all the time, and we'd move everything away to make space for meals, then it was back to its original state again... but it was really a nice time! we still managed to lead a normal family life, be as crazy as ever, just making do whenever needed... come to think of it i even hosted my thai friend for a week!

i think wherever we are, whatever we do, it's just good enough to be contented and then we'll really enjoy our lives and feel blessed :) God loves you!!

IMC fun (aka rare) times

the result of me suddenly remembering i had an in-built camera... :) the three daring ones slacking away in imc class... too tired to think of our campaign... haha love ya sam and lirong!
and yes i cut my hair again!

breakfast in 7 hours' time

i've taken to slacking the first part of the night away and starting work at around 10pm. i think that's when most of us mass comm people are ready to be productive anyway heh. then i'll wake up early in the morning and get some more work done. 早睡早起精神好! this arrangement is working out pretty well for me i must say... i can think more clearly in the morning, once i've happily eaten my breakfast*. and i really need that bit of R & R at night after a hard day in school. yesterday was especially tough, which translated into "I MUST WATCH A MOVIE!" at night. so muriel's wedding it was.

*i have so many thoughts about breakfast! it's sometimes the first thought that comes to my mind the moment i wake up, probably because 1) i'm really hungry, 2) i can eat as much as i want since it's the first meal of the day, 3) there's something i like for breakfast today. so i usually wake up feeling happy. and i feel extra happy when my handphone alarm doesn't irriate me. i usually have post cereal with milo/milk. sometimes it's a peanut butter sandwich, tiong bahru bao or a bowl of oats. a couple of days ago, i had char siew soh and egg tart. it was a happy and yummy breakfast. :)

hey michelle!!! great to hear from you!!! i've been silently reading your blog too actually hehe. now's my turn to tell you not to be scared haha. yeah which brand of instant noodles do you like? mine's myojo! i don't know why but nowadays when i see girls in school with curly hair they ALWAYS remind me of instant noodles! doesn't help that it keeps raining and the weather's so cool... ahh... haha miss ya! i really do!

the week DEPARTED

aha i'm back! and it's been more than a month since i last posted... school is tough! :( so much research and brainstorming to do. it has been work, work and more work from the word "go". actually, it started even before the word "go". i mean, one of our classes had already started two weeks before school...!!

haha well just two days ago people were complaining to our lecturer about having no life, and she replied, "who says you're supposed to have a life?" and we all went "WHOA" and started a fresh round of whining... but she still extended our deadlines lah. it's like the norm now to bring your laptop everyday and stay in school from 8am to 6pm or even later. sian man (haha this one's for sam and lirong).

well last night we ordered kfc! i tried the new fish and chips buddy meal - alone. it's supposed to be for two people but neither of them wanted to buddy me :P!! not that i finished everything by myself lah. they helped with the chicken and whipped potato. apparently sam can live on potatoes alone. the delivery time was 45 mins so we were almost ready to die by then... but the food was worth it, coz we were so hungry already. and we still couldn't stop talking about other food while eating.

this sem, i'm discovering new things about np!
1) canteen 3 and 5
2) curry chicken doughnut and lemonade at campus deli
3) factiva

i never realised our school had so many good research resources... the library is probably going to kill me coz i know they've been trying to tell us that ever since year 1 but i just never realised...

well thank God for the weekend!! today's the first day after so so long that i could sleep in and not be woken up by my handphone alarm. i can't stand the beeping tone but it works.

my last semester

the timetable's out! that's really early, considering that i was expecting it to be out only early next month. as far as i can see, everyday ends at either 5pm or 6pm, which can't be helped as we are taking seven modules this coming semester. :( my electives are advanced pr, integrated marketing communications and presentation skills in chinese. i have nice classmates. thank God for everything. :) i'm sure the last chapter of school will be memorable.

so my parents are away this entire week, and it has been quite eventful at home. i learnt how to use the washing machine, and it's my favourite household chore now, after vacuuming the floor. i mean, there's such a sense of satisfaction when you see the clothes all washed and spun, ready to be dried. you'd understand if you'd witnessed all my boo-boos. heh heh. now my first thought every morning is, "how to catch the sun?" - very aunty, but never mind. i think i should have learnt how to help out way before this anyway.

dreaming about...sudoku

the latest craze to hit my family is SUDOKU.

my brother bought the book and taught us all on monday night (after i came back from sending whui off at the airport *MISS YA WHUI!!!*). when we were all doing it together it seemed so quick and easy, but the next morning when i attempted to conquer level one i was so frustrated!!! it's also really addictive. and last night when i tried to sleep, i kept seeing the sudoku grid and all the numbers floating around in my head...

maybe they helped to reprogramme my brain, because...

i moved on to level two today! =) suddenly i could just solve it within ten minutes. i think sudoku teaches us two things: one, patience, and two, humility. you really need loads of patience to solve the puzzle, and once you hit a breakthrough and the numbers start coming to you, you need to stay humble and not lose focus. coz i was like, oh man i'm so excited, i'm going to solve it soon, and, and, oh dear, i can't think anymore. haha! sudoku is a good game, yes.

golden sudoku quote
my mum: my sudoku is very hua (worth it)... one puzzle i can do for one day and one night.

thank God from whom all blessings flow!

week four of holidays comes to an end... and in random order:

1) i've gotten hooked onto singapore idol. i watch it every week. but that's where it stops ok. anyway, it's very unlike me i know but such things can't be rationalised anyway. go hady!! heh heh. and jonathan... and well, jasmine. she has really really improved a lot.

2) i've been catching up on movies, making my membership worth... since last month, i've watched le grand voyage, harry potter and the goblet of fire, batman begins, rouge (starring leslie cheung & anita mui), i do, i do, sympathy for lady vengeance, king kong, forever fever, the manchurian candidate, runaway jury, mystic river, election 2 and the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. all were pretty good except that sympathy and election 2 were kinda disturbing too. oh well.

3) i just joined borders' mailing list a couple of days ago when i was at the store. it's pretty cool; they email you info on the latest stuff they have, their recommendations, newsletter and DISCOUNT COUPONS. :)

4) i bought a macbook from my school coz it was a good deal and should be able to last me for a long time. that's the most important thing. quality + durability + reliability. edit: ha! i almost forgot to add that the price has to be ultra reasonable too. it hasn't come yet though. i'm excited yet a bit apprehensive about going over to the other side. what if i become an apple fanatic like mr tann (who was the one who told me about the deal in the first place of course)?

5) i visited my friend in johor bahru and stayed with her from sunday to tuesday. it was a nice little holiday, i had kaya toast for breakfast every morning :D and i also learnt a lot about Christian living from her.

6) the4ofus had a successful sleepover at my place from wed to thurs. we hardly slept though. first we watched singapore idol (yes, my idea), then CSI: miami (cool show!), then we started work on our scrapbook, which was inspired by the movie divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood which we watched together some years back, plus we had a belated birthday celebration for yi lin (i'm sure we won't run out of ideas for surprises, guys!). all through the night we were printing, cutting and pasting pictures of us, from our cute geeky sec one days to present time. many pages left for more things to come! uni, marriage, kids... ha ha. thank God for such wonderful friends.

life after internship

listening to... greenwave 106.5 fm, a thai radio station (online)
i'm determined to brush up my thai, haha. i just randomly picked a station from somewhere. though i don't know what they're talking about, i'm pretty sure it's family-friendly content??? incidentally, my favourite radio station in singapore is gold 90.5 fm. HAHA. every morning on the way to work i used to tune in to the harvey norman game. and i like most of the music they play.

reading... mark haddon's the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
i'm finally reading something other than 8 Days again! this book was a farewell gift from three rgs teachers, one of whom was my sec four form teacher, and she was also my literature teacher. there's just something special about receiving a book from your teacher somehow... i actually tried reading this book some time back but didn't really enjoy it. this time round, it seems better.

i had sort of meant to blog about my last day at rgs a few weeks back. my colleagues ordered canadian pizza for lunch, and then i treated them to the best muffins in the world (from shunfu mart, near rjc). after work, my french manager and i were supposed to go for dinner together. that turned out to be really something very memorable. i didn't ask where we were going, and she also sort of got lost along orchard road, hehe. when we finally reached, i was firstly very surprised that she chose sakura, the international buffet place at orchard shopping centre. (normally she eats very little and very healthily too!) but the real surprise was seeing a bunch of other colleagues there as well. i seriously did not expect it at all, and was flattered, amused, shocked and impressed all at the same time. i honestly thought it'd just be a simple dinner with my manager. they were so convincing the entire day, i didn't suspect a thing at all. it was such a great send off that i had withdrawal symptoms the next day when i woke up haha. i'll miss working there!

anyway, my two-month break has started. been doing data entry and phone surveys... i've also been going to the airport, as aug/sept is the time when everybody leaves for uni. i don't like goodbyes very much!

the holidays beckon!!

david tao has a new album coming out again. it's called beautiful or 太美丽 in chinese. but somehow i read it as 大美鹿 (big beautiful deer... big beautiful deer??!?!) when i first saw it. yeah it was fantizi but still... ah there's something wrong with my chinese!!

but nevermind, maybe it'll improve if i get to take presentation skills in chinese as one of my final semester modules. i did the ranking tonight:
1. advanced public relations
2. integrated marketing communications
3. presentation skills in chinese
4. conventions & exhibitions
5. documentary production
6. advanced advertising

no journalism for me! :P hope that i'll get three decent modules and nice classmates! :) seriously, time has FLOWN by...it'll be my last week of internship next week! and then it'll be my FINAL semester in poly. where did year 1 and year 2 go?

but really, looking back, i can only say that it was by the grace of God that i have come this far. i can't imagine how i would have gone through everything without Him by my side. He is faithful and His mercies are new every morning!

yup and so, even though i've been really blessed in my internship, i'm also looking foward to my two months of holidays!! :D whee...

hey i've just been looking at my old blog posts and those times when i had long hair... it seems like eons ago! was that me?? how ironic coz i've had long hair for more than half my life and now i feel weird when i see it. how really weird!

ok and last thing right, i have one more hawker centre to add to my favourites list - adam road! in the past i only ate its prawn mee but now i've discovered the bbq stingray! and i must try the famous nasi lemak one day.

dvds i've watched: pride & prejudice, le grand voyage, hinokio, chocolat (johnny depp!) pirates of the carribean 2 (in the cinema! johnny depp!!), whale rider

the chain effect

the plan tonight is, my parents are going to a wedding dinner so i'm going to cook instant noodles for myself. like everybody else i get this craving for instant noodles once in a while, especially on cold nights. speaking of which, the weather hasn't exactly been fantastic lately has it? there's hardly any wind, and it's so humid. ok anyway back to the instant noodles... my mother just came into the room and told me something funny. last week i actually ate instant noodles too. in fact, now that i remember it, it was the BEST instant noodles i've ever cooked. i'm serious. it's the most common thing i cook, but it always doesn't turn out as nice as my mum's. but somehow that night it was great! hehe. so my brother came back, and apparently he saw what i was eating...the next day, as he was on MC, he told my mother he wanted instant noodles because it had looked nice the night before. and then the day after that happened, my mum was sick at home too, and she decided to cook herself instant noodles as it had looked nice when my brother had eaten it. isn't that a funny/cute story!! heehee.

so i can draw three conclusions from this story:
1) there might not be any instant noodles left for me later.
2) my family goes crazy over instant noodles once in a while.
3) typing this whole post on instant noodles has really whetted my appetite and i'm all set to cook my dinner! (*unless no. 1 turns out to be true)

but before i do that, how is everybody doing? :-)

dvds i've watched lately: election, cinderella man, tim burton's corspe bride, simon birch
other: jewel in the palace (it was a long and arduous journey, but i liked it)

call me the weatherman

the rainy season is officially back!! it rained the ENTIRE week and yesterday was the worst, i couldn't even cross the road to take a bus. so in the end i stayed at the bus stop on my side and took 190 to choa chu kang, then a train to clementi, then a bus home. :( and i cannot hold an umbrella for nuts so i hope the rainy season doesn't last for too long. :P

i watched wallace and gromit last week and it was really good!! the british are so witty!! and when you watch the behind-the-scenes you'll be amazed at how they made the whole movie! so incredible, those plasticine figures and miniature sets. plus you get a good understanding of all the people who're involved and what they do. and there're A LOT of people invovled. heh.

i called my friend in thailand last night and the kids were watching jurassic park 3 and getting scared out of their wits haha. i miss them.

the thing about working at the general office is that there seems to be always a lot of food. when visitors come, we get to eat the leftovers. there was even a food tasting session for speech day. the caterer came and laid out all his food, but too bad i had lunch already. well just this week alone, i've eaten two pieces of apple crumble (from hans, very yummy), one kueh, some haw flakes kind of thing, and got offered polar sugar rolls. i had to say no because my pants was suffocating me already. but when i was talking about it with my colleague, she said that over there when it's harvest, it's really a lot of harvest, but when it's famine (i.e. school holidays) then it's really famine. hahaha i see.

p/s: lirong, i'm doing a good job of updating huh? ;)

stall 2 has nice noodles

work has been pretty good to me... plus it's great to see everybody again. just that things are SO different now, i'm so lost and trying to keep up with all the changes that have been made since i left. my boss is new too so we're both lost sometimes! haha.

we're doing the prospectus and history book right now. i think one of the areas i'm gonna consider next time is publishing. yeah always had that interest and glad that now i get to experience and learn more about it.

so i'm beginning to see that what we learnt in school can be really quite relevant, hahaha. sometimes it just hits me, like oh yeah i learnt that in school. and oh it's really done like that in the real world?? haha so blur right.

today i had to write an email to the HODs and i spent ages agonising over it. like is my grammer correct? is this polite enough? but then is this too stiff? we're all in the same office so i don't want them to laugh at my email you know... hahaha no lah. i still feel like a student when i'm with them. it's so weird being their colleague now!

oh yeah about my title. i really like stall no. 2 in the canteen!! at first people were like, canteen food's really bad. but then i tried it out and i discovered stall no. 2!! don't think i patronised it much last time, or maybe it's new. but i'm gonna stick with it from now on. yay! plus the couple who runs it are really super duper nice smiling uncle and auntie kind of people. :)

of course the not so good part is having to dress up for work... i really miss my birks and havaianas. i don't think i'm cut out for office work at all man. i'll just faint if i have to dress up even more, like wear makeup and high heels... hahaha. which, thankfully, is not the case right now.

think the rainy season is coming back. it's been raining and gloomy every day of the week.

html is from mars

html is an alien!! who invented this?? where did this whole 'computer language' come from???

i spent ages last night tinkering with the template of this blog, made TWO skin changes, and at the end of it all, it's as good as not having done anything at all. i even valiantly tried again this morning. but i am hopeless when it comes to html...sniff... mingen save me...sniff... i'd wanted to change the fonts and comments and stuff like that, but in the end i just decided to leave everything the way it originally was. i am amused and frustrated at the same time. and i think it'll be awhile before i try to do anything to my template again.

(edit)
i've just CHANGED something!!! from "comments" to "comment(s)"!! did you see that?? i've managed to unlock 0.0001% of the mystery that is html...

i'm back!!

ok i was actually back from chiangmai a long time ago... right after i touched down we went straight to bedok 85!! whoo!! BUT my favourite ah poh bar chor mee and the bbq chicken wings stall were CLOSED. or just finished selling everything. they didn't wait for me. i was so disappointed because this was the SECOND time they did that to me (the first being the night my brother came back). but it's ok, coz in this hawker centre there're a few stalls that sell the same thing. and they're usually related, as in stall A and stall B are run by brothers-turned-rivals or the sister-in-law or something...a lot of history there. worthy of a channel 8 drama serial.

so after all this gushing, you know what i feel like having right now? yes, bar chor mee and chicken wings. even the weather is complimenting my craving...it's drizzling...it's a cold, cold day. but i have no idea when we'll next make a trip down to bedok to eat. even though people say singapore is small, travelling from the west to the east still takes considerable effort.

my stay in chiangmai was really nice. it was soooo good to see everyone again. i think i consider it my second home. the kids were great. ok they're all teens now, so not really kids anymore. i ate all sorts of things that i usually won't eat back home, like vegetables. yes, i think i ate enough vegetables to last me for the rest of the year. and it was my first time travelling to another country all by myself, and basically being on my own there...hmm i learnt a lot of things, such as growing up. but over there it was really good in the sense that i had no distractions at all (aka TV, laptop, blah blah) so most of the time i read my Bible or a book, talked to God, interacted with the people there... right now back home see what i'm doing? haha i need more discipline man. i need to learn to always put God first.

SPOILER ALERT:
DO NOT READ ON IF YOU'VE NOT WATCHED LADDER 49
last night i watched ladder 49 on dvd with my whole family (a record) and there were so many fires the guys had to fight, my mum kept asking, "oh no is he (joaquin phoenix) going to die this time??" and i said, "no lah this is hollywood." but he died in the end!! in a hollywood movie!! the hero died!! and so i bawled my eyes out. ok it was not that bad, just a one-tissue cry. i have devoted more tissues to other movies before.

the blog revival

i was tagged by sam to do those four things/people/etc kinda list? but i gave up halfway coz it was too difficult haha. very hard to summon all my brain power and come up with my favourite four movies or songs or TV shows... i don't think i have many favourites. ok, maybe i can make it up to her by listing my four favourite hawker centres?

- bedok blk 85
- longhouse
- oh no i can't remember the other two... sigh... see...

i think i'll do much better if i just have to list two. for example,

my two favourite events:
- shopping sales
- family dinners
- school holidays

ok now that i just needed to list two, i come up with three! ...

then there are things that i don't really like, such as:
- goodbyes
- flying insects

there, kept it at two. =)

alright now, this has been a very happening blog revival post. i'll be going to chiangmai from 5-10 mar to visit the friends that i'd made during my mission trips! so i'll catch u all when i get back!

take care, luv ya

crystal jade dim sum

we had a very good lunch on Christmas eve at the holland v crystal jade restaurant. not our usual fashion, but since my oldest brother was back, we decided to do something special. i only recently started eating dim sum, can you believe it?! haha... a few months ago it wasn't top on my list. i mean, i liked the various things such as char siew sou and porridge, but i never thought of having dim sum as in dim sum. ok anyway the crystal jade porridge is yummy. actually, so is everything else! but only for special treats lah, or else too pricey. heh.

refresh and recharge

these last few hours of a friday feel wonderfully relaxing... i decided to give myself a treat today and only resume proper work tomorrow heh.

last weekend i went to a conference about relationships and i learnt a lot about being a friend. i hope i can remember all that and be a better friend.

kramer vs kramer is a very good movie!! so is all the president's men. i will never think of old movies as boring again! haha. i must have watched the wrong ones last time. these are really well done.

wed - met up with the4ofus. it was fantastic! we talked and laughed at food republic and took some wacky pictures. it's really great to have a bunch of friends like this.

queen of overdose

You Are Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream

You just don't know when you've had enough (or too much)!

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

haha this sounds true... currently on my overdose list are ferrero rocher and redcurrant puffs. maybe yakult too. oh, and chicken wings.

i'm that bored!

You Have a Melancholic Temperament

Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything. You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life. You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you. Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace. You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life. Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times. At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you. You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others. You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult.

What Temperment Are You?

new look new year

i like my new look so much i'm going to do something unprecedented and blog for the second time in two days! heh. i've always liked green. and i guess it's timely for a change since a new year is round the corner.

oh i've been stuffing myself with the marks and spencer's redcurrant puffs which we bought yesterday. they're fantastic! but i'm heading for an overdose. haha.

happy new year everybody!

God's grace is amazing

how precious this week's holiday is! though rather short, but still a much-needed break from school and i'm more than happy to keep out all school-related thoughts for at least 7 days! ok, not all of them, still had some stuff to do and think about, but generally this is as good a holiday as we can get, right?

it's been 2 days but i'm still feeling surreal about it...that i actually passed my driving test! it was truly by God's grace, because i definitely was a shaky driver (still am) and didn't have much chance of passing on my first try. i guess i was just ok-prepared but not that confident. anyway, things didn't go so well during my warm-up but God gave me a kind tester (he was Ming'en's tester too! during the ballot when i knew i got him i felt so encouraged and hopeful) who actually let me pass!

throughout this whole thing i just thought about how good it was to have God by my side, calming me, encouraging me, helping me... it was so comforting. it wasn't nerve-wrecking anymore. i was just praying really hard about it the whole time and i was like, ok just hand everything over to God, all my worries and insecurities and nerves, and... drive like a snail! haha yes i really did. my tester even gave an audible sigh. he had to minus my points for driving too slowly. heehee! but it was worthwhile coz it kept me away from all the possible mistakes and trouble. so now i think the strategy is to drive slowly so that you don't chalk up too many points for all the mistakes but rather you earn lesser points for driving too slowly. yes...haha. and i was so touched by all the other drivers around me! they gave way to me! they let me change lanes smoothly! for so many days i was fretting about this coz i can't change lanes for nuts, but on that day everyone was so nice to me!

so all praise and glory be to God! i was wondering what was His will for me, whether i should pass or fail, but in the end i figured that even if i failed i'd be ok coz it's His will and i'm more than happy to do His will... coz even if the answer is 'no' right now, it just means that God has a better plan for us! Praise the Lord!

happy headache

hello all! thanks for your concern. i'm doing well, under my trusty painkillers and antibiotics and what not. the pills have a really yucky taste. i'd drink bitter cough mixture anyday. hehe. and my face started getting quite swollen last night! now i look like a pancake sigh. anyway, i'm removing the stitches on tuesday. so hopefully things will get better from then on... tonight i drank homemade blended grape juice! it was surprisingly nice! :) coz i wanted to eat grapes but it was too painful to chew them, so my mum suggested blending them into a juice and it turned out to be sweet and yummy. yay. so i shall drink fruit juices more often from now on.

the happy thing about tonight is that i finally heard from my korean penpal!! yes i'm really happy that we've renewed contact.

ok happy weekend guys! :)

i made a connection

suddenly my internet is working again today. part of me feels happy to be connected to the world once again, with the ability to check my email, my school stuff, read my favourite blogs, and do research online. another part of me is horrified at how dependent i've become on the internet. so the question is, do i or do i not want to be connected? i think i just like the IDEA of knowing that i can be connected if i want to. it does provide convenience when i need it. but when the internet is not working, i end up feeling a little helpless, especially when i'm running to and fro between two computers with no thumbdrive to help.

anyway, the SEA Games is in full swing! i'm enjoying it so much. singapore is doing really well! :) can't wait for the day when we host it, i'll be even more excited! haha. but because school is very very hectic right now, i can't follow the games on TV so i just read the newspapers.

i'm going to extract my 4 wisdom teeth on wed. i met the anesthetist and he was very funny. he was measuring my blood pressure, and checking my heartbeat, and then he wrote down my weight as 58kg. i was like, huh you mean i'm 58kg??! how did you know??? (of course the crazy thought that my bp or hb could tell him that flashed past my mind...) turned out that he THOUGHT he heard me say my weight was that. well, i almost got a heart attack when i saw it anyway.

i like the national library very much! we were all like country bumpkins there yesterday because of all the new features haha...they were fascinated by the hand dryer in the toilet?!? lol. and the screen at the bookdrop that lets you see your books arriving safely at the book bin. but it's a good place to be at. plus the reference library occupies seven levels. so cool! i'm such a nerd. haha. ok i'd better get back to work... cannot waste time!!

monsoon wedding and be with you

technically this is the second week of school, but since last week consisted of two public holidays, there wasn't really much school. hmm i definitely miss the laidback holidays. school is getting progressively tougher by the semester. but i'll try to take it easy and focus on God yeah...

i watched monsoon wedding (the indian movie) and be with you (the jap tearjerker) this week on dvd. i loved them both! MW was so much fun and it was really well done. my dad kinda got inspired to do his own song-and-dance routine after that haha. and wah i cried my heart out for BWY last night... it was so so sad. but still very good.

have also been thinking of and praying for my poor o level and a level friends... hope everyone will stay strong!!

lazy afternoon

holidays are ending in a week's time! hmm not sure how to feel about going back to school...sometimes i dread it (naturally), but sometimes i go to MeL to check if the course documents have been uploaded??? hahaha. but thank God for a pretty decent timetable. oh i've been going down to the driving centre almost every day this month. the licence is halfway in sight. may have more hope after this week. but i'm not very confident yet lah...and even if i get my licence, i think i'll be a road hazard. :( hehe...

spellbound

yeah i watched the documentary about the national spelling bee in america. aiyoh it was so painful watching it sometimes. seriously it is like another form of child abuse (that's what somebody in the film said). i can't imagine how anyone, and what more a child, can go through such an intense competition like that... and now i'm so afraid of spelling a word wrongly! (incidentally i spelled "afraid" as "afriad" at first.)

exam results are coming out on thursday, if i'm not wrong. doing some part-time work this week as well...going with A.Hospital staff to a company in ang mo kio to do health check-ups. my job...should be registration.

hmm i had a bad driving lesson today but i guess things will get better... btw, ming'en's taking her test tomorrow! ALL THE BEST, MING'EN! she'll be the first of us to get her licence. :)

i am so full

just came back from dinner with my parents and their friends at yacht club. they're still there...singing karaoke maybe haha. wow that place is so cool... i never knew there was such a beautiful place in singapore. lovely sea breeze, seafood, and outdoor dining experience. and this place is in west coast, not east coast! aha, so i do have some nice sea-related thing in west coast haha. over dinner, one of the aunties told me about her friend's son (who was from mcm) who did a short film about his mother dying, and his mum acted as herself! haha it's funny and interesting at the same time. not that his mother was really dying, it was just the storyline.

tonight is one of the times i miss having my oldest brother around. never knew what good company he could provide, until he came home this summer. in him i have an exercise/movie/tv partner, and just having him around is nice.

yes so i'm very full now... but i really rather be full spiritually than physically. this holiday is a good time for me to reflect on the person i have been and what i really ought to be, as a disciple of Jesus Christ. please forgive me if i haven't been as LOVING, CARING, FORGIVING, SHARING, THOUGHTFUL, HUMBLE, PATIENT, and SELF-CONTROLLED as i should be.

and for all that i have in my life right now, i want to give all the credit to God. i know i don't show this openly, but truly, my source of strength, my source of hope, is Christ alone. and i really yearn for all my friends and relatives to believe in God, so that they may have PEACE and JOY that are out of this world! really, being in God's family is the BEST thing in your life. i love you all because God loves me. and He loves you too!!! really, really.

smells like freedom

last paper tomorrow! and i'm already semi-planning my shopping route for tomorrow afternoon heh. haven't been to town for close to 2 months *beams* but who knows, i might just come home and sleep after all. since i don't think i'll meet any sales at this time of the year.

sigh, can't seem to study. and sigh, i've become a one-paper person. wonder what will i do if i had gone to JC? i'd be mugging for like ten papers now... so, my friends, i salute you!

i watched marie full of grace on DVD two nights ago, and it was a great movie. really well-made, and not the standard hollywood fare which you all know i'm so sick of heh. oh, and i just got a really NICE and witty email from my ex-piano teacher... ah, miss those days.

ok, i had a brainwave in the shower some days ago, hehehe. imagine if every car had a signboard at the back, like those electronic ones they place along the roads to warn you of traffic jams and give you the occasional "Happy New Year... and drive safely"? then let's say you happen to cut into somebody's lane coz you couldn't help it, or people are horning you because they can't see there's an accident in front, how do you communicate with them? aha, so if you have that electronic signboard at the back, you can just key in your message, like "Sorry!" or "Accident in front LAH" and flash it to the driver!

ok this doesn't sound so great now, and i can think of many ways drivers might misuse this. ok back to studying.

one more post

haha sam, this is for you :) one more post -

just had supper! my mum and brother bought back bedok 85 bar chor mee and grilled chicken wings. it was yum yum just now but now i'm like eew...die...and can't go to sleep. all my hard work at the gym (haha just kidding, what hard work) gone down the drain just like that *poof* (click mouse once now for poof effect).

so the trip to bmtc was this afternoon. endured the long and arduous journey from the west to the east, whereupon we arrived at the depressing ferry terminal with grey walls. somebody should make it more colourful so that the poor army boys won't have to suffer EVERY. STEP. OF. THE. WAY! even just before boarding the ferry, there's this billboard above us showing an ah bing ge (army boy) holding his girlfriend's face and the tagline goes something to the effect of "it's not what you lose, but how much you'll gain in the future". that's not very comforting. :p

anyway, term's ending once again, which essentially means nothing but... DEADLINES. four major projects, one pr assignment, and a radio test... i know i can do nothing without the strength that God gives me!! ok so it's very late now, so even though i'm still very full i think i'll just crash into bed. head's spinning already. was there wine in the bar chor mee? don't think so. haha.

hey, holiday

went to the metro 20% off storewide sale yesterday with huang shan, my friend all the way from primary school. it was pretty good, since i kinda like metro hehe. and paragon was having sales in a lot of shops too, but there was no time. turned out that most of orchard road was having national day sales!!! but glad i didn't shop everywhere or else i'd have bought more than i should. went home with a cooee skirt ($24.95) and a bossini top ($10).

BUT -- our outing wasn't just about shopping, of course! we had lunch at kobayashi (not very nice, unfortunately), brownies for dessert (and to make up for the sad lunch) at cafe cartel. btw, np students have 15% discount there! ok, and we talked and had a good time catching up. thanks shan :) it was a very good outing!

the only thing was that cineleisure was PACKED with students dressed in red. we turned claustrophobic and fled the place as soon as we could. :p but the place also made me feel like watching a movie. ah, charlie and the chocolate factory came out last week. bewitched's out today. well i signed up for hollywoodclicks.com last night (yeah, finally) so i think i won't be going to the cinemas for a long while actually. then again, this is a good chance for inviting friends over and watching (non-pirated) dvds!

happy birthday, singapore :)

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!