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.