completely missing the point

New interface?

2011-12-03T01:14:00.001+08:00

You don't write for more than a year, and Google/Blogger/YouTube starts changing everything to look exactly like Google+. This huge white space for writing is a little intimidating. What if people didn't have that much to say? And guess what, Chrome told me that "Youtube" should be spelt as "YouTube". And I'm not sure why "spelt" is incorrect?

The years pass by so fast, and everyone's going "Wow! It's December!". I knew the years were going to whiz by, so I'm not surprised it's December again. There are only three months in the year that I dislike, and they are April, September and December. April, because you're a third through the year, there are too many things to do, and the rest of the year looks like it's never going to happen. September, because it's memory month and growing older month, and wake me up when September ends, okay? December, because it marks the end of yet another disappointing year with no one to spend the holidays with, and there is no work to lose myself into.

And I am awake at the alarming hour of 1am because I slept too much during the day. Fat, and fatter I will grow, if all I do is cook lousy meals (read: instant noodles) and read books and fall asleep in the middle of them. Actually, I do have work to do, just that I've declared a personal, away-from-work holiday for these four days (yesterday, today, tomorrow, the day after). Haven't left the house in two days, except to feed the cat and dinner last night with company that brought me home in 45 minutes.

Guess what, too many weddings to go to, once again. When will this horrible cycle end!! Weddings -> Baby showers -> Weddings -> ad nauseum. There's nothing like weddings to make you feel hyper-single. I've decided that I will not go for weddings unless there's someone I know.

I wonder who reads this, anyway?

imagine that!

2010-10-03T13:31:00.003+08:00

Imagine that, she is actually correct! Met up with her earlier this year over lunch and chatted about her marriage and my lack of one. She reassured me that I'm going to find someone who's like me, someone who works too much and has no time to do anything else (and all the time in the world to wander around aimlessly). I apologise now, because I pooh-poohed her insistence that there's gotta be someone out there too and that it's just a matter of time.

Well, imagine that, she's actually right.

There are only two phrases for this situation: "already attached" and "emotionally unavailable".

Imagine that!

so what?

2010-06-17T22:16:00.003+08:00

If you're gonna trip, then you better make sure the fall is worth it. After weeks of tripping, I finally stumbled today. Not too much harm done, considering how I've learnt to be a little bit more careful about tripping.

Silly! Always, always know what you are tripping over!

And then there are people, whom you think are friends, but really, aren't. For example, it was a simple piece of information about the trip. Large, vague question, but as it turns out, either said friend didn't want to help, or just didn't understand why it was important. Would it kill you? Maybe friend just didn't care. Well, so be it. I guess it makes a lot of sense now why I stayed away when said friend had issues.

There's gotta be a point when you've gotta stop talking and start listening.

And so it goes, and so it goes, and so will you soon too, I suppose.

living vs. existing

2009-09-20T16:20:00.003+08:00

As I was whining about going for training on Friday (haha what's new?), my beloved and most esteemed Der said to me, "Why don't you do something that you like??" That was a tough question to answer, because as you know there are times when you love something very much but still have no desire for it. Such as training. I was whining because I was so tired from lack of good proper rest (MSN is a curse sometimes, I tell ya) and that I was out like a light for a good forty-five minutes that same afternoon.

I do not remember my witty reply to her, but I'm sure it was witty anyway. She responded, "BABE," she said forcefully, "You need to do something that you WANT to do, not something just to fill up your time." Then she reiterated something about happiness and satisfaction in life.

Sometimes I think Der has really good insights about me. I'm just passing time, for...? I don't know what for, but I know that I need my time filled up so that I don't have spare/free time to do/think/act nonsensically. Does that even make sense?

Anyway.

Item of interest: can of potato chips I bought a while back. Der asked if she could have some, and being my usual selfish self, I replied, "Not in a million years." She took it anyway (annoying!) and peered at the label. "What is this? Extreme Cheddar." She paused as she took a bite, then glanced over at me. "I bet you bought it cos it looks different, right?!"

Guilty as charged.

Facebook is a great stalking platform. Just have to repeat what millions of other more astute users have concluded already.

And what's a blog post without a youtube video??

I'm checking in to rehab cos everything that we had didn't mean a thing to you.

lots of youtube videos - go crazy!

2009-08-08T23:49:00.005+08:00

Some songs that I won't be able listen to again for a very long time:

1.

There's a cover by the Pussycat Dolls. Do you call it a cover version? Or is it just another version of the song? Anyway.

2.

FloRiDa is such a punk name k. I always thought it was Flow Rider. The lyrics are damn funky though. I don't really think it's the 'offical lyrics' as it claims.

3.

I think Der knows this song quite well now, considering how I kept looping it. Hehe.

And these two songs keep looping in my head. Am trying to pick out Therapy on the piano now. Haha. Obviously I'll get bored with it after a while.

Arrogant boy, love yourself so no one has to;
They're better off without you.
Arrogant boy, cause a scene like you're supposed to;
They'll fall asleep without you.
You're lucky if your memory remains.

Honestly, I have yet to sit down and watch the mtv for this song:

I can live without you, but without you I'll be miserable at best.

And that's all, folks.

taylor swift - breathe

2009-06-26T01:23:00.003+08:00

To quote Taylor Swift at the start of the following video, this is a "sad break-up song".

I see your face in my mind as I drive away,
Cos none of us thought it was gonna end that way.
People are people and sometimes we change our minds,
But it's killing me to see you go after all this time.

Music starts playing like the end of a sad movie.
It's the kind of ending you don't really want to see,
Cos it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down,
And I don't know what to be without you around.

And we know it's never simple, never easy,
Never a clean break, no one here to save me.
You're the only thing I know,
Like the back of my hand.

And I can't breathe without you,
But I have to
Breathe without you,
But I have to.

Never wanted this, never wanted to see you hurt.
Every bump in the road I tried to swerve.
But people are people and sometimes it doesn't work out.
Nothing we say is going to save us from the fallout.

It's 2am, feeling like I just lost a friend,
Hope you know it's not easy,
Not easy for me.
It's 2am, feeling like I just lost a friend.
Hope you know this ain't easy,
Easy for me.

And we know it's never simple, never easy,
Never a clean break, no one here to save me...

Hmm how do you forget an entire country because of one person? How do you stop yourself from reacting whenever someone mentions a particular singer?

fml

2009-05-19T21:00:00.003+08:00

Recently got addicted to FML (psst: it means Fuck My Life), following in the footsteps of like a couple million others. Saw this one that totally made me LOL (psst: it means Laugh Out Loud):

Today, I was feeling rebellious, I decided to procrastinate instead of studying for my really important English test tomorrow. I was having a pretty good time until I realized my idea of procrastinating was cleaning my TI-83 graphing calculator with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips. FML

The funniest part is the comments that came after, some of the choice ones being:

"also, I have the same calculator as you. *hi-five*"

"HAHHAHA, same here. just not cleaning, but saddly worse, playing"

"same here!! and have you ever played block dude? sickest game ever... i have no life..."

"TI-84+ Silver Edition here, woopwoop."

"the 84 editions are the best so much so that I had two of mine stolen so I downgraded to the 83. They also now make a pink one in TI-84 *shudder* and it's about 10 dollars more"

"Well, it IS important to keep your calculator clean... those things have a ton of germs."

"TI-84 is the way to go, hombre. Just upgrade and get that shizz sorted out."

"You still have an 83? 84 plus is the lowest model I will clean with cutips, the rest aren't worth the trouble. If you get the chance, get an 89. Takes a while to learn some of its fancier functions, but it's a really awesome calculator."

"A clean calculator really brings my spirits up! An 83 though? what are you a cavebear?"

"You guys are nubs. It's all 'bout the TI-89 :P"

"Psh. TI-83? That shit's ancient. Damn. Go study for your next Calc test loser."

(psst: TI stands for Texas Instruments; the TI-8x stated above are graphic calculators)

Math geeks are all over the world.

I am anticipating a comment. Wait for it, waaaaaaaaaaaaaait for it.........................

when it all falls apart

2009-05-11T14:28:00.003+08:00

And because I'm such a crazed Sims fan...

And here ya go:

I'm having the day from hell,
It was all going so well before you came.
And you told me you needed space
With a kiss on the side my face (not again!)
Not to mention the tears I shed,
I should have kicked your ass instead.
I need intervention,
Attention to stop temptation to scream.

Cos baby,
Everything is f'ed up straight from the heart.
Tell me what do you do, when it all falls apart?
Gotta pick myself up; where do I start?
Cos I can't turn to you when it all falls apart,
No.

Don't know where I parked my car,
Don't know who my real friends are anymore.
I put my faith in you:
What a stupid thing to do! (When it rains, it pours)
And not to mention I drank too much.
I'm feeling hung over and out of touch.
I need intervention,
Attention to stop temptation to scream.

Cos baby,
Everything is f'ed up straight from the heart.
Tell me what do you do, when it all falls apart?
Gotta pick myself up; where do I start?
Cos I can't turn to you when it all falls apart,

Can it be easier?
Can I just change my life?
Cos it just seems to go bad every time.
Will I be mending?
Another one ending once again...

Would be quite funny to sing in Simlish. Then no one knows what the heck you're singing and no one will heckle you for singing such a wretched song.

hands

2009-02-01T20:51:00.004+08:00

“‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can’t hide. Every single successful love song of the past fifty years can be traced back to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding. Trust me. I’ve thought a lot about this.”

-Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

My thumb, under your thumb.

Der is going to declare my blog a dead zone again! But there's no time to blog when all the time is taken up by students needing help, by work that needs to be done, by friends who need waterbottles to be filled up with delicious chocolate.

Week 5! And the JC1 kids will finally be starting school tmr. I miss the feeling of being a JC student. Best years of my life!

And now it's back to work and exhaustion.

handphones & relationships

2008-12-21T01:06:00.004+08:00

Isn't this refreshing, two entries in a week!

Anyway.

After 8 months with my N81, I've exchanged it for an E66. If you know me, you'd know that I don't change phones easily. In fact, every phone that passes through my hands will be used for approximately two years. My first phone was the Nokia 3310, which lasted me throughout JC, until university, when I saw my Baobei using a very cute Nokia model (which number escaps me now). I asked my aunt to get it for me, and I used it for most of my uni days. Towards the end of uni, I got the flower phone (actually it's the Nokia 7630) because during my school experience, one of my colleagues was using it. It was very pretty, and I was sold.

Finally, around the beginning of this year, I started to look out for a new phone because the flower phone was coming to two years, held too many memories, plus I needed to upgrade/recontract anyway. One day I was at Great World City and walked into a Nokia store. I saw the N81, started playing around with the model, and... I fell in love. I was quite taken by it, and I decided, okay, that shall be my next phone.

But not everything was smooth sailing with the N81. Within the first week of our time together, it got cranky and my SMSes in my memory card were eaten up. Went to Nokia Care, told me they couldn't do a thing about it (why would they?), so I thought, it's okay, it's just a one-off incident. Fast forward a couple of months. One day in school, my phone ran out of batt/it hung/it SOMETHING-ed. When I switched it on, 300+ SMSes, not inclusive of the sent messages (btw, I'm a pack rat, I keep everything) were all gone. I'll be frank: I screamed in the staffroom. But there was nothing I could do about it. Off to Nokia Care for another futile trip. This time, they upgraded my software (of course, nothing was wrong with my phone).

So this time, I saved my SMSes in my phone memory instead. Twice bitten, thrice shy, you know. Then a couple of nights ago, I was transferring my SMSes over to my PC when the usual message popped up, "Memory full. Close some applications and try again." So I did. Normally, the phone starts up as usual, the stuff are all there, it's fine. Abnormally, the phone seemed to start up in factory mode. It seemed like my personalisations were gone. My first instinct was, "Oh, shit." Then when I checked, my songs and images from the gallery were all gone. Basically, the info on my memory card was wiped out. Again.

Time for another futile Nokia Care visit! I shall not describe it in detail because they say the same thing over and over again, "It's not our fault, it must be *insert random reason here*" It never is. Anyway, I sent it away for repair, and got it back with a software upgrade. Since I didn't want to deal with the N81's unpredictability anymore, I swapped phones with my mother, cos according to her, she under-utilises hers.

This phone fiasco is like a relationship. You find someone you really like. You do all sorts of things for this person. Yes, you do occasionally treat him badly (like drop it on the floor), but generally you really love the person. But there are issues of compatability; obviously there will be conflicts that cannot be fully resolved, there's always going to be a part of you that will remember the sad things and conflicts. Then finally, there's a huge conflict. While you still love him, you don't want to deal with the unpredictability and vague unease anymore, so you make a decision to remove him from your life.

You find someone new, someone who is much better in all aspects. You know he's a good man, someone you can rely on to make good memories with. You're impressed by what he can do. He's really quite something. But you can't quite form an attachment with him. There are some things that you find lacking in him, but since it's not critical, you shouldn't really make a huge fuss. Deep down, you miss your first love, the excitement of it all. The new person is just functional, someone you know will be good for you, but the love for him must be gathered rather than something you already possess.

"You'll quietly revise your definition of love and try to be happy."

workaholic.

2008-12-14T23:55:00.005+08:00

KL was a good trip, a much needed break from work. Though, honestly speaking, work kept sneaking into my mind. In fact, by the time we were on our way back, work was already banging at doors in my head.

Hi, I am a workaholic. Nice to meet you!

I've learnt that once I completely relax myself, I'll end up falling sick. Case in point: had slight cold/flu thingie on the second day of the trip. =\ Went out with my beloved Wensy last night and this morning I couldn't even pull myself out of bed cos my throat hurt so badly and the room was spinning. How to drive when I can't even sit up in bed? So I ended up sleeping until 5.30pm.

All work and no play keeps me healthy.

I'm not sure how this will work out in the near future, considering how I'm going to hit a quarter of a century old next year. Bah! I still have many things I want to do before I can even consider finding someone and settling down before I'm 30. E.g. I want to do my Masters in Education. I've been calculating and making plans, and it's with some regret that I've decided to postpone my masters by a couple of years. I don't even know if I'm capable of it! But one can always hope.

Here are a couple of pictures I took on the trip:

Reliving our childhood days.

A shoe that I nearly bought. They didn't have my size. But oh, so pretty!

Nando's was one of the highlights of the trip, because it's something that Singapore doesn't have.

And it's gonna be back to the grind in exactly 2 weeks.

Pretty song that I found because I read part of the lyrics that someone posted:

Guster - Either Way
You were almost kind, you were almost true
Don't let me see that other side of you
You have learned in time that you must be cruel
I'll have to wait to get the best of you

Another nice song that I heard while blog-hopping:

Strangely though, my version of this song goes, "Four years later..." as opposed to this version's "Eight years later..." *shrugs*

Anyway, it's time for me to go to bed, again, even though I just crawled out of it seven hours ago.

days of my life

2008-10-19T17:18:00.012+08:00

It's quite exciting to have a phone with a camera function, because now whenever I see something interesting, I take a picture of it. The only problem is that my phone's camera has a clarity of only 2.0megapixels. Oh well, better a pixelated interesting picture than nothing at all, right?

Yesterday, I walked my usual way home from the lift, and then from one end of the corridor, I saw this:

At first, I thought it was a piano, cos it really looked like one. Then I went closer and realised it was a desk. And what was funnier was that there was a sign on it that said:

Hilarious! Status update: When I walked by again this afternoon, it was still there.

*

Couple of days ago, when I was at Giant with my brother, I saw these humongous salmon.

I am wondering, who actually buys this??

*

Last Sunday, I went to Lot 1 to have dinner. Actually, wanted to go to this place called Farmart, where there's a collection of various types of farms. But parking was a headache, and it looked like a place from a random part of ulu neighbouring country, so it was Lot 1 ("Somewhere with air-con," says my mother).

In the end, we went to New York, New York!. I couldn't resist taking pictures at all.

My lemonade, which was quite good.

Our starter, prawn fritters or something like that. My mother loved it, I don't really know why.

Meat platter for 2. More like, for 3 instead. The knife is there for comparison. The plate was damn big! Bigger than two of my faces put together. Okay, bad imagery. There was lamb, chicken, chicken (again) and nice sauces.

*

Have you been to Raffles City Shopping Centre lately? I used to go there quite often, esp when I was still mingling with the masses on the MRT. It has changed quite a fair bit, and one of the changes was the toilet. That's right, folks. When Wensy told us the toilet was all modern and stuff, the 01S16 momoks decided to take a walk on the wild side.

The female toilet. Nice design!

The toilet. Okay I know there are many of these in Japan, but considering I've never really travelled much, humour me, okay?

A closer look at the controls.

And just in case you're totally confused by the cheem words, here are instructions!

And as always, when a bunch of 01S16 momoks flock into a toilet (esp if it's a nice one), we'll inevitably take a picture.

BTW! I didn't mention that only Momok Cheah actually used the controls. The rest of us only toe the line on the wild side, but Momok Cheah goes ALL THE WAY. HAhaha.

Memories:

PS toilet, circa. 2002. Was taken after a class outing to watch Lilo and Stitch.

Taken after a huge dinner at Hard Rock Cafe last June.

Okay, back to work.

ARGHHH!!!!

2008-09-17T23:07:00.004+08:00

Sometimes things just conspire to make you so irritated. I had this premonition that I was going to have to a lousy Sept, and so far I'm right!

Actually it started just slightly before Sept, but as you know, Teachers' Day usually falls in the middle of the one-week break, so we'll usually celebrate it last day of the school term. Not A Good Day for reasons that cannot be mentioned. Let's just say it was an accumulation of many things that resulted in a lousy day. By the time I was alone enough to let it sink it, it was too late. You know how there are some things that has to be sorted out, or else you just become numb to it?

Then something happened during the one-week break which left me quite devastated. Not A Good Week for reasons that cannot be mentioned also. (Are you getting a sense of how this entry's gonna turn out?)

AND THEN the coup de grace happened last Friday. I went to the canteen with Der, took my purse with my phone, and as I slid open my phone... Nothing happened. So I thought, oh dear, battery flat. I didn't bring along my charger, so went around looking for one. Had to go for invigilation, so only starting charging my phone a whole hour and a half later. THEN I had to go around finding an available socket as the bloody socket at my table is irritating low and the charger couldn't fit into the space. So anyway, switched on phone, and first thing I do, always, is to look at my messages.

THEY.
WERE.
ALL.
GONE.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had quite a fit and I was hoping against hope my messages will return. BUT NO!!!!! And you know what, this isn't the first time my phone pulled this trick. It DOESN'T hang. The first and only time it hung, it was about two weeks old, and the same stupid problem occurred. ARGH ARGH ARGH!!! In the end I was so frustrated that I went to sit at Crystal's table together with the Malay & Der and had lovely durian mooncake until 5plus.

AND THEN at the end of the day when I was doing up a worksheet and saving my work, I closed some extraneous MS Word windows. A message popped out, "Do you want to save the changes in Document(1)?" Thinking that it was a file I opened to copy something from, I clicked, "No." And then I looked for my worksheet. AND THEN I REALISED I CLOSED A WINDOW CONTAINING FIFTEEN MINUTES WORTH OF WORK. ARGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

My colleague next to me looked over and said, "It's not your day. Go home."

So I did.

Went to Nokia Care on Sunday, and they said it's a software problem. So they recommended upgrading it, which resulted in my phone being reverted to factory settngs. SIGH! And I still doesn't know if it solves the prob of my messages being completely wiped out cos of a hanging of a phone. I lost ALL my drafts on my Melbourne trip, which is why I don't really feel like blogging about it anymore, cos I CANNOT REMEMBER.

So anyway, September's not shaping up well at all. Plus something sparked me off again today, and that's why I'm ranting away. I keep telling myself, think positive! But a bit hard ah, esp when it seems like the fingers of fate are being wiggled in your face and going HAHA at you. Sigh.

Okay although there's one good thing that I can see from my mishaps of the last couple of months. Remember my accident in March? (Well, now you do.) AIG refused to reinsure me about two months ago, so my mother had no choice but to go source for another insurance company who would be willing to insure my car. Seems like AIG is in trouble now. Actually the whole world's in trouble, so tighten those wallets and chin up.

Apologize - Just for you, Der. I know it's your favourite song. Now it's one of my favourites, too!

Cover of Gregory & the Hawk - Boats and Birds
Something about this song just gets to me.

you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your star dust to remember you by

book list

2008-08-20T22:09:00.002+08:00

Lazy to update Melbourne pics! So here's something I koped from my friend.

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. Well, let’s see.”

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ. (mine not LJ ah.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [Read it too long ago. Plus I just watched a play on it, so gotta refresh my memory.]
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens [I've only read the abridged version...]
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [Want to buy it!]
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [I still can't believe I read this book.]
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [Read the entire series just before the first movie came out. Still can't believe I missed Prince Caspian!!]
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis [Um... isn't this a repeat?]
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ["For you, a thousand times over.]
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres [Should have totally bought a dirt-cheap copy of it a while back... "Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Saddest ending ever - the futility of living.]
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [Nice one!]
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon [One of my favourites! Have two copies of it, and I bought neither of them.]
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Draggiest book ever.]
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [Just finished re-reading it the other night.]
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett [Even did this for a book report when I was in sec sch.]
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker [I can't seem to find my copy.]
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro [I can't believe I actually read this.
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom [Just read it, and I cried BUCKETS.]
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [I actually have the entire anthology.]
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton [Name the book, I've read it. Really.]
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery [Classic.]
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So! I've read about 27 books. How many have you read?

Melbourne Day 1

2008-06-29T20:19:00.008+08:00

Yes, the long awaited entry.

01: 6.30am (Melbourne time) at the airport, waiting for the rest of the tour group to clear customs.

02: Something familiar.

003: My favourite food! I had Subway there, just one evening, at the outlet near my hotel. However, the guy who was serving us had a poor attitude. Maybe he wanted to go home and relax on his couch, but that didn't meant he could wrap my sandwich badly.

04: First stop on our city tour of Melbourne - St. Patrick's church. It was closed cos that day was the Queen's Birthday, which was a holiday. Too bad, I'd have liked to go in and see the interior. Heard there's pretty stained glass.

05: Closer look at the front of the church.

06: Another view of the church.

Okay, so we just took lots of pictures, breathed in the cold air, and then bundled up the bus to our next destination.

07: Fitzroy Garden. I was wondering why there were descriptions in Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Not that I saw a lot of Chinese, Korean and Japanese people around Melbourne.

08: I wouldn't mind going to this park every morning for a stroll.

09: James Cook's cottage in the background.

10: And then I saw this. !!!

11: I can't resist. MUST take picture with pretty tree.

12: Leaves changing colour.

13: Another view of James Cook's cottage. Wasn't open as well.

14: My sharp eyes spotted these banners! I wish the musical would come to Singapore. )= I am a Great Fan

Didn't get down the bus after Fitzroy Garden. Was so tired, cos I didn't sleep much on the plane. I tried to sleep at 12, but it was too cramped, and I had interrupted sleep, so I got up at 2am, which also happened to be breakfast time. Hence, I just couldn't stay up anymore.

15: Passed by the Yarra River. Yes, it was rainy. It was raining on another night when I went to the Crown Casino, so I didn't get a chance to walk along it this time.

16: I thought this was a pretty strange ad. I asked a friend who lives in Melbourne about it, and I was told this was an advert for the late night trams or something. Cos after a certain hour, all trams stop running, and if you're stranded in the outskirts, there's no way you're gonna get home, cos the cabs don't travel that far out.

17: Saw this sign when walking back from the restaurant we ate at (Shark's Fin Inn - and no, we didn't eat any shark's fin. I guess it's just the name of the place). And to think that we complain parking in Singapore is expensive!

One other thing about parking in Melbourne is this: There are plenty of signs telling you that you can't park at a certain spot. However, every sign tells you that under certain exceptions, you may park there. For example, the sign will say, "No parking from 10am to 7pm | Buses parking for less than 2 hours excepted". My friend said that it makes parking in the city area very hard, cos you never know when you can park, and when you can get a ticket.

To be continued...

Someone was asking me how to pronounce a certain word, and when I was told how the majority pronounced it, I thought, It really makes no difference. Then I thought of the song, "You say to-mah-to, I say to-meh-to..." So I went to trawl Youtube and found this:

I kinda like old American movies. I started liking them after taking a film module back in NUS. Ahh, the good old days...

funny things

2008-06-17T18:37:00.003+08:00

Today I went to see a polyclinic doctor, despite my morbid fear of people in white coats. Actually, I'm not that worried about them; I just don't like to take time to go somewhere and get asked weird questions that I don't really have the answers to, like, "What is the matter? How long have you been feeling this way? You sure?"

So anyway, the reason I was at the doctor's is because I acquired a bruise that would not go away. The bruise is named Kang Ryung Bo, after the guy who kindly gave it to me. It looked somewhat like this:

The bruise is officially nine days old as of today, and it is still lurking around and hurting, so I thought I'd better go visit the good ole people in white coats. My mother was pretty smart, she said, "They close at 4.30pm. You go at 3pm. They'll rush everything, cos they want you out by 4.30pm." And I was right! Queues were amazingly short. Or maybe it's just my really good luck.

So anyway, the doctor was this Chinese guy with a thick Hong Kong accent. I complained about the bruise, and then he decided to send me for an X-ray. Now, you know how pregnant women aren't supposed to go for X-rays cos of the radiation and what not, so when the screen on his computer popped up asking whether the patient (i.e. me) was pregnant, he asked me politely when was the last time I menstruated. After I told him, he actually looked a little stunned, and he contemplated for a while before asking the Most Ridiculous Question in the Universe: "Are you very sure you are not pregnant??"

All together now, what the...?!

Do I even look PREGNANT?! Maybe he mistook my healthy glow to be an expectant mother's glow. But still. This is ridiculous. I told him, "Yes, I'm pretty sure." I could hear my mother's sharp intake of breath. And then the worst thing happened.

I got an attack of the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of the question. I covered my mouth to hide my laughter, and thought of sad things and unrelated things to make me stop laughing. BUT I COULDN'T! I kept thinking, How can the doctor think I'm pregnant just because my period was three weeks ago? It's only three weeks! Are pregnancy test kits able to detect at three weeks?! Plus I am single!

So I kept giggling and trying to hide my laughter. The moment I stepped out of the room, I started laughing like a maniac. The patients at the polyclinic must have thought I'd gone mad. Who comes out of a consultation room laughing like an idiot?! I laughed all the way to the X-ray room, and I laughed so much, tears came out of my eyes.

"Are you very sure you're not pregnant??"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Okay I know my Melbourne trip pictures are due. Next entry, promise!

yet another one from a musical

2008-05-27T00:19:00.004+08:00

Came across this when I was going through my usual LiveJournal stuff. Actually it was the lyrics I came across first. So anyway, I was also taking some time to pick photos to put into my FaceBook, and I came across some old photos. I wondered for a while whether to put it up, but then I thought, Nah, no need to tell the whole world. So I wouldn't.

It started out like a song.
We started quiet and slow,
With no surprise,
And then one morning
I woke to realize
We had a good thing going.
It's not that nothing went wrong,
Some angry moments, of course,
But just a few,
And only moments, no more,
Because we knew
We had this good thing going.
And if I wanted too much,
Was that such a mistake at the time?
You never wanted enough,
All right, tough, I don't make that a crime.
And while it's going along,
You take for granted some love,
Will wear away.
We took for granted a lot,
And still I say
It could have kept on growing,
Instead of just kept on.
We had a good thing going, going, gone.

-"Good Thing Going" from Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along

Also!!! My plans have been finalised, and I am proud to say that travel-phobic me will be going to Melbourne during the third week of the school holidays for a short trip to recharge and refresh myself. Do you know, I have to go back to school tmr, but I don't remember what time? Anyway, I have to meet parents in the afternoon, so I guess that's how I'll be spending my Tuesday: in school for lessons and meeting parents.

Don't you just love my life?

new developments

2008-04-14T00:04:00.003+08:00

Okay I have got exciting news, but I won't divulge it until I get things confirmed. No point getting all hyped up and then it doesn't materialise, right? But as things stand, 99% confirmed! Left that 1% possibility of hopes being dashed.

Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice balance in my bank account last night. I was going to go online to check what exactly contributed to the nice balance, but was unfortunately logged out of i-banking cos the lousy website didn't accept a) my user-id; b) PIN; c) IB secure code; d) all of the above. )= I haven't been logging in for quite a while; I'm not one of those crazy people who check their bank account balance fervently everyday praying for a sudden influx of money.

Which reminds me, I still owe my mother money.

School-wise, it's a mad rush for time to complete the required syllabus before the exams. Losing two periods earlier this week due to a learning journey that the kids had to go on really pushed my plans way back. And the kids are all so busy! So Saturday lessons it is.

The five-day week is a myth.

I plan to take some time off for myself next week on one of the afternoons. The headaches are coming back, especially on really long days of talking non-stop to students who stare back at you blankly. Otherwise, they make so much noise until it gets to you. Maybe it's the air in the staffroom that's causing my headaches hmm.

Okay it's late and I must finish preparing my lessons before sleeping. Thank goodness for light Mondays!

Quotes

2008-04-04T21:57:00.005+08:00

I think it'll be quite weird if Ju posted the following quote on her blog, saying that it's one of my favourites, and yet I've never posted it.

I like it because I read it at an appropriate time in my life, and it just described exactly how I felt. Maybe in a couple of years, or maybe even a couple of months, I won't think the quote is that true any more (as with some of my favourite quotes in the past), or that gut-wrenchingly true.

*

"We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy.

But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable.

You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real--but you create the context. And the context is everything.

The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."

-Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live

*

And this is something I got off Facebook, of all places, and off an application called Bumper Stickers, of all things!

But very true. And it is currently my guiding principle.

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it." -Norman Schwarzkopf

*

I went to the library today. Yay to books!

sad song

2008-03-14T23:04:00.003+08:00

Because my car was unfortunately sitting in the workshop awaiting repairs from my latest careless act of driving, I was listening to a Chinese radio station late yesterday. Then this song played on the radio, and I found it to be really sad.

至少走得比你早 by 卢巧音

你没有想过我会说分手
也许太习惯我在你左右
虽然离开你有很多理由
可看见你这样惊讶
也足够

我想得比你多
陪你一起更寂寞
我性格比你强
怎能做你的绵羊
我年纪比你小
不信快乐找不到
抬起头开了口
最后我比你骄傲

从此不坐你的牢
想不到你的好
记得和你的争吵
想到老可到老
可是和你做不到
如果你爱得比我少
至少我走得比你早

你没有想过我会说分手
除非以为我什么都忍受
就算你这时候努力挽留
不过是你不能接受
我先走

幸好我走得还早

啦~~~啦~~~啦~~~

轰轰烈烈的开口
最后我比你骄傲

从此不坐你的牢
想不到你的好
记得和你的争吵
想到老可到老
可是和你做不到
如果你爱得比我少
至少我走得比你早

And I've also been listening to the Cantonese/Chinese duet, cos the lyrics are a little bit different (even though I don't understand a word of Cantonese).

funny things

2008-03-03T22:48:00.004+08:00

I swear, the things that my kids say are the funniest things ever. Like today, one of my kids came into the class, came right up to me, and said in Chinese, "Ms T**, I am very scared." ??? So I asked him quizzically, "Why are you scared?" He replied, "I scared the JI guy come and bomb me." Haha! I think it's quite adorable. And he's in Sec 3! Then one of his classmates overhead him, and said proudly, "I got that guy's face as my handphone wallpaper! Then when I see him I can recognise him." Things like that just make your day. Underneath their jokes, you can see that they are doing their part to help their country, better than some who just delete the mms that the police sent.

Anyway, here's what was transported to my place the other day:

After more than a year, my piano is finally here! One of the reasons why the piano wasn't moved from my old place is because we thought we might eventually move off somewhere else. But my mother likes our current place so much, that we finally decided that we're going to be staying here indefinitely. So! My piano! I'm going to start learning up all the old pieces that I used to play. I love my piano!

I met up with Baobei and Darling last Saturday. The place is situated across from Plaza Singapura, and the waiters/waitresses are all dressed in some type of really casual wear. Think khaki berms and sandals. Anyway, the waiters were so-so eye-candy, though they didn't really come around. The food was okay, had something called Seafood Laksa Spaghetti, which wasn't too bad, but got pretty sweet towards the end. Had a drink which wasn't very nice, and the ginger ale came in cans rather than the bottles we were expecting.

Food: 3***
Ambience: 4****

So anyway, IT fair on Thursday, barring any last minute incidents. I want to get my headphones! Sigh, my 1.5 year old Creative ones have finally sounded their last. It was good while it lasted.

Before I go, here's a really interesting song. The video is kinda addictive too, you just keep watching to see what other strange movements the guy will do. Frankly speaking, I stopped watching about midway through. Haha!

David Jordan - Sun Goes Down

work

2008-02-25T00:07:00.003+08:00

This is quite sad. I work all week, and then I sleep all weekend. And despite all my talk about going for training... Well, it's just talk.

1/ I need to cut down on the amount of time I spend in school. But it's so hard when you know that there are a thousand and one things to do (and a thousand and one questions to mark), and that you don't really want to bring them home.

2/ I need to get my ass back into training. But it's hard when all I want to do is to sleep in on Sundays cos my Saturdays are often spent in school. Which is linked to the first point about cutting down amount of time I spend in school. But if I don't go to school on Saturdays, I'd feel like I'm not doing much work! It is a vicious cycle, I tell you.

3/ I need to get out more and meet people other than my colleagues. I mean, I love my friends at school, but I need to meet more people! I'd like to meet new people also. But the opportunity doesn't seem to arise that often. And I don't seem to even meet up with people from my school days.

4/ I need to stop procrastinating about training. I even missed the visit by my first sensei cos I'm too damn lazy. )= Actually, it's also due to other reasons, which shall remain privy to only myself.

5/ I need to move away from the past.I need to stop drowning in my work to escape from reality. The reality is that I no longer know what to do on endless Saturdays, so I try to occupy myself with school so that I don't need to think about how free I am and how there's no one I can possibly go out with at the drop of a hat. The reality is that I miss you and I don't know how I can ever stop missing you whenever something triggers my memory. When I walk by your old block sometimes, I remember you. Which is why I hate to walk about my neighbourhood because there are some places I don't particularly like to go without recalling you. I hardly go to the National Library, not only because of the ERP charges and the insanely expensive parking fees, but because we went there often. I don't like to go to Marina Square cos we spent so much time there. You see, you are on my mind, and I don't want you to be there. So I kill myself with work so that I can forget about you.

I keep hearing this on the radio! I heard it three to four times on Saturday.

i'm alive!

2008-02-11T21:29:00.000+08:00

It's been a hectic few weeks since school started. And there's still four more weeks to go! Towards the end of the 5th, 6th week, I started feeling like I couldn't teach, couldn't make lessons interesting, couldn't get the facts across. It started from Chap 7, when I realised my kids were BORED. They looked bored, they sounded bored. I guess it's because half of them have tuition, and their tuition teachers have gone ahead already.

But anyway, I was tired, I wasn't finding any joy from my lessons, followed by a unexpected change in classes. I thought I was the only one who was feeling this way, until I shared with Der, and realised that she was feeling washed-out too. So she told me that we all need a good break, and that is why I relaxed for most of the CNY break. Only picked up work to do on Sunday, and I did work all day!

Okay, I just wanted to update so that you know that I'm alive, that's all. Haha. It's back to the grind, and I've to face two new classes of kids. Thankfully it's not the full class, just half of them. But it's still uncomfortable cos it's Feb and I still don't know most of their names. Nvm, I'll give myself till the third week of Feb to remember all their names.

Here's a song that I heard on the radio the other day. I heard another song, but I can't remember the lyrics now! Something about "when heaven and hell can compromise" or something like that. Anyway.

Cover of the song Always the Last to Know, originally sung by Del Amitri.

so you're in love with someone else
someone who burns within your soul
it looks like i'm the last to know

phew!

2008-01-26T22:06:00.001+08:00

School has been crazy busy! But on the bright side, we still have time to sit down and have beloved Der blow out candles on her birthday cake. Happy quarter of a century! Next year's my turn. )=

Lessons are going well, I like my kids except for a minority who still don't know the seriousness of streaming. Wake up!

I went to the library the other day, hoping that the copy of Daywatch will be on the shelves, but no! It wasn't! And I refuse to pay $1.55 to reserve a book that is supposed to be 'available'. So I'm going to try my luck on Monday.

I didn't go back to school today, so while after dinner with my parents, I was thinking, "What must I prepare for tmr?" And then it hit me that tmr's only Sunday, and today's only Saturday. )=! My mother commented, "Occupational hazard."

I went for a haircut today. =D Basically, I can't tie my hair now, cos there's not enough hair to tie. Haha! The last time I had hair this short, I was in JC. Ahh... the good ole days.

Great changes ahead, looking forward to them!

excessive book rant

2007-12-25T19:55:00.000+08:00

Forget about the third day's pictures of the KL trip. Nothing exciting. If you wanna see pictures of the same big toy soldier repeated ad infinitum... You're not gonna find it here.

Actually it's because I'm really tired of putting up so many pictures. And also because I have other more fulfilling activities to occupy my time. Such as reading! I have been reading and reading. In fact, I spent the last two days reading novels. I can never understand why people don't like to read, and prefer to play computer games or watch TV. I mean, I do other things too, but my main form of leisure is reading. Reading is the best form of relaxation, ever. I was so pleased when the signs for doubling of loan quota was put up at all the libraries. I have been maxing my loan ever since. Haha.

Anyway, I've been reading lots of Margaret Atwood, a Canadian author/poet. I'm still wary of wading into her novels. I bought one of her novels, cheap - The Blind Assassin. It'll take a while for me to build up the courage to read it. Yep, it takes courage to tackle a book that's probably filled with so many images that it'll take ages to seive through. Her short stories are enough to make one swoon with the rich descriptions.

I've been reading Neil Gaiman (yes, of Stardust and Sandman comics fame) as well. Actually, I was pretty lucky to get hold of a copy of American Gods the last time I was at the National Library. I don't really go there often, so it was quite a decent haul. I feel like rereading Anansi Boys just so I can link some of the back stories. Because of the deluge of Gaiman writing, I am suddenly quite interested in Northic mythology. I have a weakness for myths. It's like, how I like to read alternative versions of fairy tales (think: Gregory Maguire's Wicked, or Donna Jo Napoli if you read YA fiction). I even bought a book on Greek mythology. I just haven't opened it to read yet. It's been about two or three years since I bought it. Oops? But I like the fact that I have a book on Greek mythology on hand, so that I can refer to it when possible. Another nice one on Greek myth that I've read is Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, which is a very short book on Penelope's side of the story when Odysseus goes on his decade long journey after the Trojan War.

Currently, I'm reading Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch. It's good! I mean, it's translated, which means some things were lost in translation. The essence of some things will always be lost when translated, but there's no way in hell I will ever be able to master enough Russian to read the original text. Just like how I'll never master Spanish and read Love in the Time of Cholera. Maybe there's a reason why some books, while widely acclaimed, don't really resonate with us. It's because the original intention and meaning has been lost due to translation. Don't you agree with me that sometimes English is a poor substitute for some words in Chinese? Like, I still don't really know how to translate 幸福 into English. Any suggestions?

So yeah, Night Watch is better than I expected, so tmr I'm going to go to the library and borrow the other two books in the trilogy. Actually, I really shouldn't be reading so much. I still need to prepare lessons. It'll take me probably two or three days? (I'm just being really really optimistic here.) But I think most of my lesson planning will be done during school time. I only can get to work when I'm in school. Which is why I don't really bring work back home. Can't really concentrate at home, actually. But now with a nice new clean table, that might just change. Haha. As though I'm not working from 7 to 7 every day already!

I have waxed lyrical about books for far too long.

What could you possibly want for your birthday? It's in four days.

KL Trip Dec 2007 - Day 2 (city tour)

2007-12-16T23:18:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the extreme lag in updating my KL trip. Blogger refuses to cooperate with my internet connection. What can I do? *shrug*

It's time to continue the next series of pictures. I hope it'll take me less than ten years this time.

We checked into the hotel quite late, about 11 or just slightly earlier. Got the rooms settled, gave the kids their room keys, and then did room checks once they were settled down. Sigh! They couldn't settle down! I guess it was the excitement of being in an unfamiliar place with friends. I get that kind of excitement too, but it's hell when you're a teacher and have to get them to settle in. I bet the kids hated me and my colleague hahaha!

We passed by this mosque, very big and beautiful, the Blue Mosque, I think? The hotel is right next to it, which is why our hotel is called The Grand BlueWave. Or at least I think that's why it's called Grand BlueWave. Sari was lamenting on the lack of view from our window. She said wistfully, "It'd be so nice if we could see the mosque..." Well, certain wishes do come true:

Pic 532: The view from our window as the sun is rising. This is the mosque! It's even more beautiful at night when it's lit up. I don't have a picture of it, though.

We set off pretty early, but the loading up was very slow cos everyone didn't do their P&P (Poo and Pee) before falling in. So after that, the instruments were loaded up, and off we went on a city tour of KL!

First stop, the national palace. Or at least, that's what I think it's called. I'm so terrible with the names!

Pic 533: Two of these guards on either side of the main gate. That is a Real Horse, k. Everyone was trying to take a picture with the guard and the horse. There was this yellow semi-circle drawn on the ground in front of the guard, probably to demarcate how close you can stand to the horse. But of course, none of the visitors gave the yellow line any respect. Haha.

Pic 534: Right next to the guards on horses, there was a pair of guards wearing a different uniform standing in the little guard houses flanking the main gate. They are closer to the main gate than the guards on horses.

The students took a group photo, and then suddenly we were told to clear the driveway, and the gates were opened. We were wondering what's going on, then the guide told us that probably there were some foreign dignitaries coming out, and that we're really lucky to see the main gate open.

Pic 535: Expectedly, people started crowding the driveway again to take pictures of the view of the palace up the long driveway.

Pic 536: The guards standing on the inside.

Pic 537: The people quickly dispersed as two police motorcycles came out first...

Pic 538: ...Followed by a long black limo containing some country's ambassador.

There was nothing much to see after that, so we went off to the next destination. Some war memorial place. I tell you, I'm really bad at remembering foreign places.

Pic 539: At the entrance of the place, the kids were all taking pictures of it for some reason, so I took also. Haha. I'm such a sheep.

Pic 540: A monument dedicated to the war dead. Was made by an angmoh.

Pic 541: We walked towards this structure to see a sculpture (also done by an angmoh) of seven men.

Pic 542: The back side of the seven men. Apparently each man means something, but I don't quite remember what.

Pic 543: The sculpture of seven men. There's an almost identical structure somewhere in USA, cos they are both sculpted by the same guy. Mahatir (I hope I got the right prime minister) liked it so much when he saw it overseas that he commissioned the sculptor to install one in KL. It arrived on Mahatir's birthday, so
he was very pleased.

Pic 544: Me and Sari in front of the sculpture. The sun was so hot, I got so tanned. Well, as tan as I can get, that is. I'm squinting at the camera actually, and I think I was probably muttering under my breath, "LIONEL CAN YOU QUICKLY TAKE THE PICTURE PLEASE."

After that we took a walk in this garden. I shan't bore you with pictures of flowers. However!

Pic 545: This is a information sheet describing what can be found in the garden. Yep, more sculptures. Wanted to take a picture of all the different ones representing the ASEAN countries, but kinda got bored after the third one cos they all looked the same.

Pic 546: I know, I said no scenery pics, but water lotuses are too pretty!

The next stop was the National Museum. We went to one, but it was closed for renovations, and the exhibits were moved somewhere else. So we hung around the compound for a bit before heading over.

Pic 547: The exterior of the closed musuem.

Pic 548: M'sians love fountains. There are SO MANY.

Pic 549: One of those rare shots. Can you see the aeroplane flying by, and the visible half-moon?

Pic 550: See! Another one of those things with water spouting out. This was seen on the way to the museum.

After the museum, we headed off to the chocolate factory before going for lunch.

Pic 551: An ornamental pineapple. It can fit nicely into the palm of your hand. Even if your hands are quite small. Cos this pineapple is really small. It's not meant for eating, but for display.

Pic 552: I shall end off with a picture of the National Library. For a book-lover like me, a library is always a must-go! But I think I won't be able to read most of the books, cos they would be in Malay. )=

Next up will be the band performance at 1utama and day 3. No pics on day 4 cos camera batt died!

KL Trip Dec 2007 - Day 1

2007-12-09T00:31:00.000+08:00

I'm going to take like, ten years to finish this entry.

Left on the morning of 3rd Dec. Woke up at an ungodly hour of 4.30am cos of last minute packing and travel time. Loading the bus was a nightmare cos the students were slow and barang barang plentiful. But! We managed to load up and head to Second Link.

When we reached the checkpoint, it seemed like half of Singapore decided to go on holiday at the exact same time. Customs at Singapore side was a nightmare to clear. I also found out that I can use the computers to clear customs using my passport. =D Next time at Second Link, I'll use that to clear customs rather than stand in front of an unsmiling customs officer and let him/her scrutinise my really ugly passport photo.

Had an unpleasant incident at the M'sian customs because of the bus driver. To cut a long story short, he used vulgarities in front of the students, which got me and the conductor very upset. Other than that, the M'sian customs was actually easier and faster to clear, contrary to popular belief. Because it was so late, we stopped over at a small coffee shop for breakfast.

Pic 510: The inside of the coffeeshop.

Pic 511: ...And the outside. I have two more pictures of the surroundings, but if I put up every picture, I'd probably take twenty years to finish this entry.

Then we were off! The bus ride was long, and luckily most of the kids fell asleep. So did I! Woke up along to way to take a few pictures before plonking back into bed.

Pic 512: One of those random road trip pictures. Took this cos the kid sitting in the seat next to aisle next to me (did that make sense?) was called Jasmine. She was quite excited when she saw the sign. She said, "That's my name!" Yes, sweetie, that's your name.

Pic 513: Blurry picture of above-mentioned kid's shoes. Nice, hor? I want a pair like that to walk about in.

Pic 514: Another one of those random road trip pics that you simply have to take cos at that time it seemed vaguely interesting and suitable to be put on your blog.

We stopped over at Malacca to have lunch, cos we were too late to head to KL to eat. It was at a nice golf club called Orna. I think it's called Orna Something-Or-Another Club. The food wasn't too bad, quite nice. I went around to check on the kids' progress, and they ate their veggies! They ate up almost everything, which is good. Don't waste food!

Pic 515: Entering Malacca.

Pic 516: I know this is something interesting, cos the guide said so. But I don't remember exactly what it is.

Pic 517: A view of the golf course from the restaurant's window. I didn't manage to capture the entire view, so you'll just have to be satisfied with a restricted view.

Pic 518: FOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOOOooOOOD!

Pic 519: Heading towards KL.

More specifically, we headed towards Putrajaya, which is the administrative capital of Malaysia. See! I do remember some things that the guide said. She also mentioned that different parts of Putrajaya have different street-lamp designs. I took a thousand and one pictures of buildings in Putrajaya. Here are some samples:

Pic 520: First sighting of Putrajaya. The name means Prince something. I forgot already!

Pic 521: The istana.

Pic 522: Another view of the istana, with the flags all in front. Taken from a moving bus!

Pic 523: I'm going to lump them all together as one picture. I don't remember what these buildings are, but I'm sure I can find out in some brochure or whatnot. We were on a moving bus as these pictures were taken, so I don't quite really remember what the guide said.

Pic 524: The Prime Minister's office. It's right at the end of a long road. They sure know how to create suspense. It's like, you can see it, but you gotta travel down the longest, straightest road ever to reach it. What a tease!

Pic 525: Another nice picture of architecture.

Pic 526: I quite like this bridge. I thought it was pretty unique until we passed by another bridge of the same design. Then I realised the same type of design was everywhere in Putrajaya. -_-

Pic 527: Me and Sari!!! It was so freaking hot, we were squinting at the camera and muttering under our breaths, "So hot, hurry up larh, Lionel!"

Pic 528: Okay, I just had to take this picture. I was very amused by the 'nudle', and also the 'nando'. OKAY so I am easily amused, can???

After taking some group pictures with the prime minister's office as the background, in the blazing sun, where I got a tan (I tan really easily), and nearly ruined my eyes cos of the bright sun, we zoomed off to Kuala Selangor to see fireflies! But before that, dinner first. (=

Pic 529: The seafood place we ate at.

Pic 530: Can you believe it? We had crabs! (The crustacean, not the disease.) Only the teachers' table though. Not really a good choice, actually, cos it wasn't a good setting to have crabs in. Crabs should be eaten when you have plenty of time to sit around and get your hands dirty.

After dinner, we took a short drive down to the jetty to see the fireflies. There were some people selling lightsticks for RM1, and our kids, being kids, were suckers for it. I bet these people earn a lot from groups of students visiting and buying lightsticks at a whim. Actually, I got one also, but I didn't buy it. The conductor gave one to me. =D

Pic 531: This is the fireflies place. You can go visit if you want to.

Since no photography nor video was allowed, I have no pictures of the fireflies to show you. But actually, all you need to do is close your eyes, and imagine the Christmas lights along Orchard Road. Those twinkles when the lights catch the sun, that's how the fireflies looked like. Of course, there's no boat ride and absolute quiet to enhance the experience, but that's about it.

Okay I'm going to stop here and continue Day 2 another time. This entry took me a good two days to write, cos blogger died on me last night. (=

time is short

2007-11-26T13:41:00.000+08:00

I'm not supposed to be at an age where people my age are either dying or dead. I saw his name in the papers and I was completely taken aback. I thought, Maybe it's not him, but how many people in Singapore have his name?

It's too tragic. I'm not supposed to be thinking of going to wakes of people around my age. It's just not right.

i feel like...

2007-11-20T00:50:00.000+08:00

As I sat on the toilet bowl earlier today, I felt comnpletely and very much like a sewer. Whereby my intestines are sewer pipes. And my poo, the sewage.

I'm sorry if the graphic image has caused you to lose your appetite. Actually, I highly recommend food poisoning for a crash diet. Because throughout the entire week, I kept running to the toilet every couple of minutes or so (luckily my bed is almost right next to the toilet), I kept sleeping, and I *gasp* completely lost all appetite. My brother cooked some watery porridge with some ham, and I threw it up. So I'm a bit off ham for the time being (Subway's Cold Cut Trio... NooOooOoOO...).

Anyway, I finally went to see yet another doctor for the 'sewage problem', and he gave me charcoal tablets and some medicine for "symptomatic treatment", i.e. only stops the sewage from spewing ever so often, but does not cure the virus or whatever it is that's causing the sewage to become... sewage. I was so sick, even the clerks at the clinic seemed worried that I'd spew all over their floor. Thanks for putting up with me. Really appreciate the warm water too.

Oh, I woke up on Monday feeling really warm. So I took out my trusty thermometer (with me since the days of SARS! Everyone should have a thermometer of their own in their homes, you never know when you'll need it). Put it in my mouth, waited for the beep. I wasn't surprised that it started beeping the 'fever' beep. I was more... stunned? amused? worried? perplexed? at the temperature shown. I've never seen such a high temperature recorded on my thermometer, btw. The last time it was this high was some time back in 2004, when I was on my way home feeling tired and giddy, and it was only 38.4.

My thermometer showed me a temperature of 39.8.

I don't know how I got through the rest of the day. I think I just took a wash cloth, tried to cool myself down, tried to take some paracetemol from the UBER expensive doctor I went to last Sunday, but it didn't work. For all her fancy medicine (the commercial name of the medicine was printed on the pills, fancy huh?), they were pretty useless. And of course, I always get prescribed anti-biotics, which I always refuse to take. I stopped taking anti-biotics after one time I took it on an empty stomach, and promptly threw it all up. So no more anti-biotics for me.

Anyway, I'm here typing this cos I'm still psyching myself up for staff retreat. Gotta sleep soon! Have to be fresh and alert for the activities tmr! =D

something to watch

2007-11-09T00:31:00.001+08:00

I can never sleep early the night before the start of a new school week, or after a day's break away from school. Actually it's a recent thing. I just can't sleep early. I think it's work stress. Maybe. But really, it's sometimes a bit annoying, cos that means I don't get a good rest and hence I am not out in full force on Mondays. But I guess that's the price one's gotta pay.

Also, two parents called me over the past two days. I try very hard not to give out my hp number unless neccessary, or unless I feel a need to. However, I don't give my hp number to parents, because it just opens up a whole can of worms. "Hello? Can I ask you something about my daughter/son?" is a perfectly fine question. WHEN I AM IN THE OFFICE. It's almost like I'm working 24/7, when I get a call at 10.50pm. When I get a call on a public holiday. It's just very wrong. I don't get my rest. I don't get my time off. I keep thinking about work and end up not getting enough rest.

Anyhow, I was talking about not being able to sleep early the night before.

So I was thinking about Neil Gaiman's Stardust, which was made into a movie, and was recently released in Singapore. I was reading the book today, and there are some parts of the movie that I liked more, and some parts of the book I liked more. All in all, the book and movie complement each other perfectly. If you haven't watched Stardust, do go watch it!

Here's the 'official' song for the movie, which played at the end of show:

I can't wait for the DVD.

food

2007-11-05T00:41:00.000+08:00

Everyone has food! Except me! Why!

Okay, I know why. Cos I didn't want to cook instant mee again, and I also refused to go downstairs to buy food. I never did like buying food from downstairs and eating at home. In fact, I dislike eating at home. That's why I always look for people to have dinner with. But I've to slowly learn to eat meals on my own.

In fact, everyone is eating! Earlier in the evening, my beloved Motobabe suddenly smsed me: "I'd just like to let u know i just ate a strawberry sundae. It was very very good. And now i have a cup of honey milk tea." I HATE YOU!!!

One time, a while back, I think I smsed my brother, asking him to get food or something, and he replied, "Ur outside and have a car, buy anything u want -_-" "

)=

I think no one understands my need to have dinners together with someone. It's my last form of social contact! I do everything else alone. Well, almost. Anyone for Stardust? Or else I'm going to watch it one of these days. SOON. I've been waiting for it for quite a while. The book is nice, very lyrical, the way I like my books.

Speaking of books, I read two books today! Not including the one I stayed up till 2am to finish reading. I love books. And I love the NLB for always doubling the loan quota every holiday period. Love love love books.

And now I'm going to sulk cos I don't have food to eat.

wasteland

2007-10-29T19:41:00.000+08:00

It's a cold, cold night! Perfect to snuggle under the covers.

Celebrations

2007-10-29T00:28:00.000+08:00

It's late, but I'm in a bloggy mood! The family celebrated my father's fiftieth birthday earlier tonight. I was doing some calculating: When my father is sixty, my sister will be in Sec 2. When my father is seventy, my sister will be almost my age. Scary thought.

Had dinner at Jumbo Seafood Restaurant, and I had like, the most cholesterol-laden (it's spelt with an 'e', I remember cos I spelt it as 'cholestrol' in a Sec 2 home-econs test, and I've never forgotten since) dinner ever. There was this terrible dish known as LOBSTER:

Pic 500: The orange-ish stuff is some salted egg paste.

Then there was PEPPER CRAB (no pictures) and PEKING DUCK (also no pictures). The peking duck was nice. They cooked the duck, then a waitress stood behind me and carved up the skin of the duck onto a plate. Then we wrapped up the duck skin in some egg roll thingie with cucumber and celery. Not forgetting the sweet paste. Nice! But fattening. The crab was nice. I haven't eaten pepper crab in a long time. It was my favourite food when I was a kid. I like black pepper crab better than chilli crab, probably cos my father only ordered black pepper crab, and I just followed.

Pic 501: My father, the birthday boy, blowing out his candles.

Pic 502: My father and my sister.

Pic 503: My stepmom and my sister. She has this strange way of smiling these days. My sister, not my stepmom.

Pic 504: My sister and I! I'm going to ask that perennial question, Does my sister look like me??? My father's eldest sister (my aunt) says that she looks more and more like me when I was younger. Haha. Okay, I'll stop.

Pic 505: My sister taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

Then we also had cake. Bye bye diet, hello fats.

Then there was a colleague's wedding earlier in the week! Congratulations to the happy bride! She was super pretty, as is befitting a bride. =D

Pic 506: Blurry pic of me and Motobabe. I refused to take off my shawl all night, so I was all wrapped up like an Arabian princess. My excuse is that it's cold. Actually I just didn't want people to see my flabby arms. And also because it's a tube dress and I didn't want anything to accidentally fall off.

Pic 507: Two of my favourite people in the WORLD.

Pic 508: Handiwork of the person who appeared the most in the above two pictures. That's her fingers, too!

Pic 509: The three stooges. No larh. The only reason why I'm putting up this pic is because they are all single and extremely available. Interested parties, please leave a message and I'll arrange a meet-up. Only female parties welcomed! I am such a match-maker.

Enjoy the pictures. I need to play around with the settings a bit more. Maybe it's time to take out the manual and figure out what cool functions my camera has.

what i did on a public holiday

2007-10-14T20:27:00.000+08:00

It was an action-packed day yesterday. My band performed at the Istana! Not my band, as in 'I play in it' type of band, but my school band.

Pic 492: The conductor, taking a moment.

Pic 493: The conductor, in action.

Pic 494: I took a picture of this baby cos he was too cute for words. His father was holding him, and they were enjoying the performance. =D

Pic 495: Look! We had a CNA videoman videoing my kids. =D

I'd post more pictures of my band, cos I'm proud of them, but someone once told me that I shouldn't post pictures of students on my own personal blog, so I shan't.

We went for a little walk walk in the Istana office building. I really have no idea what it's called, actually. Then afterwards, the conductor arranged the kids into rows, and we took a picture with the President and his wife! A couple of the kids were quite cute, they were all, "Wahhh you shake hands with the President...!" Haha. Someone else asked me, "How wrinkly were they?" Pretty wrinkly, but in great shape for 80-year-olds, I'd say.

Then then then! Then I was too lazy to go all the way home, so I went straight to Marina Square for a gathering of my JC classmates. I had about an hour to spare, so I went walking around Marina Square on my own. I should not go walking around alone, cos all I had in mind was to buy a hair clip, to replace the very pretty one that I lost. In the end I wandered into a video shop and bought two VCDs. One was the most bimbotic, feel-good movie EVER: Bring It On. Hey, I like it k. I watched it so many times for the cheer routines that I can remember almost every part of the movie. The only part I forgot was how cute the male lead was. Haha. I guess this was the movie that introduced competitive cheer-leading in Singapore. But we can't compare, man, cannot at all.

Then I wandered into The Wallet Shop, and ended up buying a new pencilbox for myself. -_-" I really shouldn't be let loose into shopping malls on my own. Damage to my wallet was $26 (inclusive of VCDs). Sheesh. I'm just as bad as MotoBabe. Luckily I'm not a clothes person; I just have huge weakness for useable things like wallets and VCDs and makeup.

I saw my eye doctor when I was on the phone with Linda! Dang it! I would have said hi, but the window of opportunity slammed shut on me before I could even react. )= I'll only be seeing him in like, 2 months time. )= I better write it down somewhere before I forget.

So! I haven't gotten the pics from the other people, but here's what I got:

Pic 496: The girls! My Darling flew our kites last minute cos she had some family stuff to deal with.

Pic 497: Baobei and Dr. Ng, with the hugest Momok ever at the side. Dr. Ng isn't really Dr. Ng yet, but almost. Almost!

Pic 498: Me and my Baobei! She put on a little bit of weight. Keep it up, Baobei!

Pic 499: And this is Lewis, who had the misfortune of sitting next to JillJill and got teased by her (and us) all night long. It was so funny to see him get exasperated. We are mean ahhaahha. We were mean then, and we are still mean now. Hehe.

I had a slightly heated discussion with one of the guys regarding some educational issues. I'd like to state for the record that although sometimes I do not like my employer's policies, I am committed to what I believe in, and I'll do what I can within the narrow confines I've been put into. It just annoys me that some people have such great views about how the system can be changed, but I am not able to see these people effecting these changes.

Can I just state for the record that I don't agree that 'discriminatory' equals to 'segregation' which, in my classmate's opinion, also equates to 'streaming/banding system'? One of the reasons I got annoyed was is because of his tone of voice that was so cock-sure. Another reason was how he insisted that the current S/E/N/T system is 'discriminatory'. I just simply don't like the way he was approaching it. I guess if it were anyone else, I'd have listened and voiced my opinions in a calm, cool, collected manner.

Oh who am I kidding? When it comes to something I am passionate about, there is no calmness, nor coolness, nor collectiveness about me. In the end, since he is so fixed in his view, and because I also have not much to substantiate (that's why I'll never be a good debator), I ended up off with, "Okay." Then I turned to my poor melted marshmellow mudpie, which wasn't really all that fantastic in the first place anyway.

Who wants to go NYDC with me and grab a nicer mudpie?

if only some things were that easy to wait for

2007-09-30T21:27:00.000+08:00

Hello, hello! I just had Pizza Hut for dinner, but because I am SUCH A Bum on Sundays, me and my brother ordered in! =D I think I had too much sugar cos now I'm feeling super high! There are No Lessons tmr cos it's the start of Hell Week for students, otherwise known as You-Don't-Pass-You-Might-Get-Retained Exams, otherwise known officially as EOY Exams 2007. I am feeling HIGH because there's nothing like sugar and oily food and eating until you want to barf. For the record, I forgot to eat dinner yesterday and only slept at 3am because I was surfing YouTube for classical songs! So when I woke up bright and early at 12pm, I decided that I should just cook myself some instant mee to fill my stomach which wasn't hungry. Then I did loads of marking! Now I only have about one-third of Ex14.1+14.2+14.3 to finish marking.

You've heard of 'road rage', yes? Where you get so pissed off by other people's shitty driving that you get angry? Do you know that there's something called 'marking rage'? It is the condition where you get so pissed off by student's work that you want to tear it up and throw it back and them. But you cannot, cos it has to go into their files (which reminds me, I must get them to do their filing one day after exams), and so you write big angry words such as, "UNITS???? STATEMENTS, PLEASE."

I wanted to go queue for donuts to satisfy my insatiable appetite for oily food that will make me fat because I feel like bingeing (how to spell?), but MotoBabe went to bake cookies with her mother instead BAH! So this is why donuts was compensated by pizza so cheesy it's simply a sin. I am going to get so fat!!! Like I'm not fat enough. But training, training! Now that I don't have to do so much teaching anymore, I will go back to training!

(If you're feeling really bored, you can go count the number of exclamation marks in this entry! Including this one! And this one, too!)

It is such an indescrible feeling when you click click around the internet in your extreme boredom (or extreme kaypoh-ness, whichever you want to term it) and find something that you wish you didn't need to see. Let me put it in another way, it's something that you kinda knew already but you didn't really want to know for sure. Actually I don't know for sure yet, but it's really incriminating, and really (u) (oh, go type that on MSN) to see.

What to do when the holidays come??? I won't have the tedium of staying in school from 7am to 7pm to kill time. And then have exhausted sleep, and then rinse and repeat. How how how? It is So Boring to sit at home and do nothing, because there's no one around to say, "Eh let's go out." I used to have that, then I decided that I didn't want it anymore.

Actually, the whole point of this entry is just to kill time because I don't really want to go back to my marking and go into marking rage again. Actually, the other point of this entry is that after waiting for someone for months, and then finally realising people change faster than the weather, that there's really nothing to look foward to, or to wait for, at all. At the end, you only have yourself to depend on, and that's how I am going to live! What revelation!

I should go pick up something else to learn, because I have such an addictive nature I will just throw myself into it.

Aiyah I ran out of steam liao. I will blog about my birthday the next time. Got pictures, k! But not a lot, and I look fat in most, so even less pictures for show and tell. Haha!

I'll leave you with a piano concerto by Rachmaninoff. ("Oh, that Russian dood!" -MotoBabe)

Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 1, Moderato

Part Uno

Part Deux

another quote

2007-09-20T23:27:00.000+08:00

I'm dead tired. My feet hurt, and I've been wearing flats for the last week or so, ever since I was coerced by Motobabe into buying that pretty pair of flats from Novo two Saturdays ago. Motobabe is bad for my wallet. She convinced me to buy a dress the same day I blew *undisclosed amount* (cos I'm too embarrassed to mention it) on a Kurt Halsey hoodie.

I am absolutely ashamed of myself. I have no self-control. )=

It's already past the middle of September. Woe! Every September, something astonishingly bad happens. At least better than one of my friends who has some serious shit hitting him on his birthday. So much for cake and happy birthday songs.

The replacement car I'm driving now is an oldish Nissan Sunny. It is SUCH A MALE CAR. When I drive it, I feel like some lao ah lian trying to act tough, or an auntie housewife who has to drive her husband's love machine.

It's time for me to get my rest. TGIF, everyone!!!

"Lonely people, in talking to each other can make each other lonelier."
-Lillian Hellman

Check out my Slide Show!

2007-09-16T00:43:00.001+08:00

scrubs

2007-09-10T23:37:00.000+08:00

I've been watching lots of Scrubs lately. Yes, I know it's passe, but it's still funny, nonetheless.

I like Dr. Cox's rants. He just goes on and on without breathing, and it's really funny.

J.D. is endearing, so cute!

Elliot is neurotic. I saw her in later seasons, and when she's made up, she's actually really pretty.

I like how sarcastic Jordan is, esp during the scene when she rats out everyone's secret.

Anyhow, here's a quote from Season 1 of Scrubs:

Relationships don't work the way they do on television and in the movies. Will they, won't they, and then they finally do and they are happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren't right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I'm telling you right now through all these stuff, I have not become a cynic. I haven't. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate-covered candies and, you know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don't care. Because I do. Believe in it. Bottomline, the couples who are right for each other went through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is that they don't let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship everytime if it's right and they're real lucky. One of them will say something.
-Dr. Cox, Scrubs, ep1x15 My Bed Banter & Beyond

LASIK

2007-09-07T19:54:00.000+08:00

Contrary to popular belief, you can actually see right after you get up from the 'operating table'. It was kinda cute, a miniature operating table, where all the lights are shone directly at your face. But it's not so cute when you're lying there with this shower cap and white scrubs staring at a little blinking red light.

At least the doctor was cute. I am not so pa jiao that I couldn't tell how cute the doctor was.

For the uninitated, LASIK is an acronym for Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis. And I went for this small surgery on my eyeballs yesterday. (ironic!) When I got up from the machine, the doctor asked me, "Now, can you look at the clock and tell the time?" And I could. I mean, it's blurry, but if I still had my original set of eyeballs, I wouldn't be able to see a thing. On hindsight, the doctor must have a good reason for putting that clock there, cos at the counter, the lady asked me what time my operation ended. There. I knew my doctor's smart as a whip.

And good-looking, too!

A contact lens was inserted into my eye yesterday to keep the flap, that the machine cut up, in place. So today I went back to get the lenses out. The doctor touched my eyeball! And commented on my eyelashes, along the lines of, "Do your eyelashes grow inwards like that?" Yes, doc, they do. Anyway, before seeing the doctor, my eyesight was checked by his pretty consultants. Apparently, I now have 6/9 vision. I'll have 6/6 vision pretty soon, according to my doctor. Man, 6/9 vision without visual aids of any sort was a DREAM. Now it's actually reality.

Plus I have a handsome doctor to look forward to for my follow-up checkups.

I also got a 'little souvenir'. They apparently took pictures of me on the table. Quite alarming, and a little bit odd. My mother said they took a few pictures. Bleargh. I'm fat fat fat. Once one week is over, I'll start some kind of exercise and diet routine. Fatness be gone!

Anyway, the important thing is that I can see pretty much clearly without any visual aids. The $3k++ (going to be around 4k) is worth it. Every single bit.

Especially with the extremely shuai doctor attending to my eye needs.

long weekend!

2007-08-10T22:21:00.000+08:00

Last week I went to watch Corinne May's concert with two friends... Needless to say, I was so tired out that I fell asleep during her concert. I mean, her singing's great and all, but school really takes a toll on you. My friend said that I looked like I was enjoying my nap so much that she couldn't bear to wake me up. Haha.

Pic 462: My ticket, with the stage in the background.

Pic 463: The inverse view... I love playing around with the settings on my camera. Haha.

Pic 464: A close-up of the stage during the intermission. Look at my earlier pics... Yes, I was quite far away from the stage. Appreciate this picture! It took me many tries to get it right.

There was a nice scene during the second half (when I woke up for a bit) where little balls dropped from the stage ceiling. But I was too humji to take pictures. I am a very good girl; I won't take recordings of concerts illegally, unlike this guy sitting a couple of rows in front of me, who was blatantly recording some songs on his hp. Thing is, I know that guy too. Tsk!

X-country on Wednesday! That is why I have a long weekend... Five days, to be exact. Shortest teaching week ever! You know how cross country distance for guys is 4.8km, and for girls, 3.2km, right? Well, I don't know whether it's due to lack of space or what, but everyone only ran 2.88km. Yes, folks, so everyone finished running in about twenty minutes or so. Except for a group of my kids who strolled through the 2.88km in forty minutes. I have no idea how they managed to take so long to walk 2.88km.

Pic 465: Me and MotoBabe, who got third in the Open category! Her mother asked her, "Is it got four people run, then you got third?" MotoBabe answered, "No larh, it is got three people run, then I got third."

Pic 466: Two male teachers, both unattached. Please contact me for more details.

Pic 467: Two babes, both attached. Please set your sights elsewhere.

I spent National Day having steamboat at Marina South. BrokenArm jio-ed the kendo people and two of his friends, so I went. After all, I just needed to go out somewhere instead of staying at home and thinking wistfully about the fireworks. Actually I went because of the fireworks, that's all. Haha.

Pic 468: Our table! This was about three-quarters of the way through the dinner. We actually sat there from about 5.30pm to 9.30pm. BEST!

Pic 469: Two young 'uns.

You know how when you start frying stuff, then you don't put enough butter, or you don't look after it, like how BrokenArm came back from taking food and realised no one looked after his pig liver, and the foil gets all black and sooty? Well, BrokenArm's friend decided that he can DIY change it, which resulted in...

Pic 470: ...the foil caught fire cos of the butter. Haha. Well, the up-side is that it alerts the people to come help us change, though I think they were a bit pek chek, cos it kept happening. One girl from some other table got singed by the burning foil from some other table, and two groups of teens nearly came to blows.

Pic 471: The peanut gallery.

I couldn't eat much though. I had this funny feeling in my stomach (no, not a tummy upset), so I ended up not eating much. Not very hungry either. So I went to the small field next to the steamboat place and found myself a nice vantage point to wait for the fireworks.

Here goes!

There's one up there that looks like the galaxy exploded. Lovely fireworks! Everybody loves fireworks. =D

But now for most part, the holiday is coming to an end... Time to get back into the tiresome groove of things.

How have you been? It's going to be a year soon, and I don't look forward to it. I feel like hiding away for the entire month, but it's pretty much impossible. I'll be doing something really big on that day, it seems somewhat poetic, new eyes and all. I don't know what else to say.

updates!

2007-07-21T22:14:00.000+08:00

My MotoBabe ticked me off the other day. She said I'm very naughty for not updating my blog. BLEARGH. So here I am. Hahaha. Actually it's time for an update too, I have loads of photos!

I fell really ill last week, but thankfully nothing as bad as last year's little episode. This time I got a fever that Would Not Go Away. I ended up sleeping away my Friday afternoon, after sitting in the office for the longest time, sniffling away and finally giving up and going to see the doctor. I also missed out on the fun ExcelFest and a chance to see my Math CT. )= I rested all day at home on Saturday, and my mother scolded me for not seeing a doctor the first chance I could. So I've decided to take things easy and not put too much stress on myself. Now I know why teachers get all kinds of funny stress-related illnesses... It's all psychological! On Monday, I was sitting at my desk thinking of how overwhelming my marking was, and I felt a familiar panic rising and giving me a headache. So I decided to relax... and that's how I have five piles of marking waiting for me. d=

1/ NIE Convocation

I absolutely swear that this is the last convocation I'm ever going to go for. I hate convocations, there is nothing fun about them at all.

Pic 453: Strawberry Girl and me! I really like this picture, maybe because it's one of the few pictures in which I don't look like I'm going to drop dead at any second.

Pic 454: My beloved babes, the ones I hung out with most often in NIE.

Pic 455: Part of my Math class in NIE!

2/ Racial Harmony Day

We commemorated RHD on Friday, and I wore a pretty purple punjabi suit! I bought it the day before, so Saizou, I ended up not wearing yours. d= A picture speaks a thousand words, so here goes:

Pic 456: The Monstress and me. Her last day in the school, cos she's done with her ESE and off to the life of an NIE student. Lucky her! (Slight edit: the second pic is from her camera, and I'm putting it up cos it shows off the actual colour of my suit. Nice, right?!)

Pic 457: MotoBabe and me!! I like this picture! Please ignore my pink slippers. I wear them around the staffroom... and sometimes around school after school hours. Hehe.

Pic 458: Mei Nǚ and Sareeeee. That stupid babe not looking at the camera, so dao!

Pic 459: Haha that's much better.

Pic 460: MotoBabe scolded me for not acting hiao. But I can't act hiao! I am absolutely not hiao at all. I am so young and innocent.

Pic 461: Sari does not appreciate MotoBabe's affections.

Actually there's a picture that is really great to caption, but unfortunately it is not work safe, so I'm not going to post it up. Too bad!!!

3/ Invisible City

I watched an indie arty film on Friday. It is Invisible City by Tan Pin Pin, director of Singapore GaGa. I got nice posters to put up on my cubicle (if I can find the wall space for it)! It is really nice, and if you have the time, please do go watch it. I really enjoyed it!

And it's a wrap!

convocations and mutiliated pooh bears

2007-07-11T21:28:00.000+08:00

Hehe, I keep thinking of my colleague's description of her kids and I keep smirking to myself. Anyway, today she brought back a little 'souvenir' from her class. She said, "EH, show you all ah!" Me and Sari were like, "What's that????" The siao zha bor said, "It's a mutiliated pooh bear." SICK SHIT CAN. But I laughed cos the way she said it deadpan was very funny.

Pic 437: Basically her kids ripped off the head of the pooh bear, then stuffed a broken pen through the center of the stuffed toy's body. The kids are damn sick.

Pic 438: Sari and MotoBabe with the mutiliated pooh bear. They stuck it up on their divider, but it kept dropping down, so they threw it away. )=

Pic 439: MotoBabe's desk. Messy, hor.

Pic 440: Sari pretending to be busy at her desk. She so cute larh, I was taking the picture and the silly babe kept moving her head from left to right to left to right, acting busy.

Pic 441: My fellow co-teacher for one of my Math classes, also pretending to be busy.

Pic 442: This one didn't even know I was taking a picture of him.

I forgot to take a picture of my desk!!! But it has so many books on it, it's scary. Chris walked over, saw my table, asked me which stack I've finished marking, and I said, "I haven't marked any of them. The one stack I've marked is already outside." I can't find things on my desk most of the time. I can't find my DESK most of the time. Haha.

Attended two convocations! I was there cos I could make the timing (in the afternoon), and also because I know it's damn shitty to be all alone while everyone else around you is taking pictures like crazy.

Pic 443: First, there was my Meimei! SMSed her to tell her I was on my way down, and she replied that she was still inside the auditorium, and "scared cos of all the balloons". Haha it amused me greatly until I got to NUS and got un-amused cos I parked very far away, and had to walk a great distance to UCC. >:(

Pic 444: Then I found a momok! The momok forgot to charge her camera batt properly the night before, so I ended up being her 'official photographer' for the rest of the afternoon.

Pic 445: Found an old classmate! She sat next to me all through sec 3 and sec 4, I think.

Pic 446: Then we were graced by the presence of a monkey and an Ah Loy, back from the cold harsh climate of Russia.

Pic 447: And I took my favouritest picture of the day. I Was Here!

Then yesterday, I went for the Chen Zhao's convocation. Almost couldn't make it down, cos I had so much work piled on me, I wanted to die. (I say that a million times a day, and I'm still not dead yet.)

Pic 448: Only when I was searching for the Zhao did I remember that 6/6 Vision's commencement was on the same day too! Luckily he was standing near where Zhao was, together with his zha bor.

Pic 449: I always think it's damn weird when Kendo and the other parts of my life collide. I can never get used to the fact that kendo and non-kendo people know each other.

Pic 450: TimToh trying to make Zhao feel better.

Pic 451: Boon and Wen not trying to make Zhao feel better. I'm sorry, but Wen really looks like a strung out junkie.

Pic 452: A nice one with the guys being nice to Zhao.

I found another friend, and old secondary school classmate whom I used to affectionately call Piglette cos she could snort like Drew Barrymore in the credits of the first Charlie's Angels movie. But because I look like shit in the photos (only had 4 hours of sleep the night before, and 5 hours the night before that), I'm not going to destroy the aesthetics of my blog by putting up nightmarish crap.

More pics soon, cos I'm graduating again tmr. Lonely convocation x 2!!!

loads of pictures, be happy!

2007-06-24T21:44:00.000+08:00

Tmr's the first day of term, so I gotta blog before I lose all time to do so.

Decided on a last minute Sakae Sushi buffet during Thursday's supper. I turned to my Little Unwashed Body, "LUB! Do you want to eat Sakae buffet tmr???" Her face lit up and I knew I got my first victim. Then I asked around the table, and managed to confirm one more. We decided on Wheelock cos I thought it'd be easy for ZACH. The Dumpling kept asking, "Who's he??? I don't know who he is! I want to see him!"

I found a new place to park in Orchard! It's this little public carpark right next to Wheelock, very old-school, need to tear coupon. I managed to get a lot within 5 minutes of entering the carpark. Steady or not! I just have good parking lot karma. d=

The Dumpling was there super early, and got a huge table for us. For some reason, she seems really keen on collecting those plastic covers for the food.

Pic 419: The Dumpling with her little stack. It was kinda creepy when LUB took a plate off the conveyor belt, and even before setting it down on the table, the Dumpling snatched it away. The Dumpling is just... weird.

Pic 420: The Dumpling forgetting that the fried scallops are Very Hot. I made her pose for it, and she was trying very hard to keep it in her mouth. "Very hot!!! Ow!" You must suffer for art, my dear.

Pic 421: Look who dropped by!

Pic 422: My Little Unwashed Body, before her haircut.

Pic 423: No larh, he didn't eat all of the plates by himself. Though at 5pm, he went for a 'second round'. There are exactly 30 plates there!

In the end, ZACH didn't turn up, the bloody bastard pang seh us! He got too caught up catching up with other people, in the process breaking poor Dumpling's heart. Guess she'll never see him, huh.

Had a JC class outing last night to Hard Rock Cafe. I've only been there once, and only once. I remember having a hard time finishing my food, and back then, I could Eat. Now I just eat.

Anyway, it was basically a papparazzi session, where QueenMich will try her best to capture all sorts of scandalous pictures and sabo-ing everyone along the way. No one is spared from the viciousness!Most of my pictures turned out orange cos of the lighting, and I don't particularly like using flash. It makes people look washed-out. So anyway, here are the best of the lot:

Pic 424: My favourite picture of the night, and it wasn't even taken by me!

Pic 425: My seafood linguine. So-so.

Pic 426: My Darling and Lufi's dish. No, they didn't share, they just ordered the same thing. Mac and cheese with grilled chicken.

Pic 427: Cher attacking her food with great fervour.

Pic 428: The Doctor fiddling with his phone, and JLo digging into his food.

Pic 429: The three birthdays we were celebrating. The Doctor, the Cow, and my Darling.

Pic 430: The same three with their complimentary dessert. It was a little bit of ice cream and plenty of whipped cream. Plenty of it.

Pic 431: Taking a photo with Cow and Darling, with the intention of moving out of the frame. Obviously I didn't succeed in doing it for this one. d=

Pic 432: The Cow realised what I was doing. Haha. I have a few pictures of the exact same poses, and I kept trying to move away but unsuccessful every time. I move too slow!!!

Then, me and Cher started feeding each other the dessert. We took two pictures, but I'm too embarrassed to put them up here. Haha. Eh, students find my blog then how?

Pic 433: The polariod that the Hard Rock Cafe people took for the birthday people. Looks nice, doesn't it?

Pic 434: Four of us. The Monkey took this picture for us. For some reason, we just couldn't get a nice group photo. This is one of the better ones, taken at the Starbucks near the cafe.

Pic 435: Hehe I like how QueenMich is just looking saucily at the camera. Gotcha!

Pic 436: Final picture of the night, taken in some hotel's toilet. Mirror reflection! Which is why we all look kinda funny. It's strange how a reflected picture just doesn't quite seem like you, even though we look at ourselves in the mirror all the time. I guess for people with symmetrical faces and centre parts, it doesn't make much of a difference.

The Doctor talked to me and the Cow at one point during dinner, and the first thing I said to him was, "Hey! You speak with an accent!" The Cow disagreed, saying that Doctor has always been talking that way. Then I realised something. Throughout the entire time in VJ, I hardly spoke to the Doctor, or hear him speak. So... it was startling to hear him suddenly speak so much. But he's a doctor, or at least, going to graduate next year and be a trained doctor, so gotta practice his bedside manners, no?

First day of school tmr! Can't wait.

and so it is...

2007-06-18T23:51:00.000+08:00

...just like the way it should be. (Damien Rice)

So! I have an aching jaw now cos I stupidly stood next to someone swinging a shinai. Four years in Kendo and I still make stupid mistakes like that?! I ought to get hit!

Went out for lunch after grading, and I brought the Dumpling on a roundabout way just to find cheap (read: free) parking. Paiseh! Ended up being the last ones at TM's Ajisen.

Pic 411: People to my right side of the table, all full and happily chatting away. They ended up throwing wadded pieces of tissue at each other. -_-"

Pic 412: My Little Unwashed Body came back from China with pressies! Okay, so the drum thing isn't mine, but I think this picture looks cute. I forgot to take a picture of my bendy zebra, and I'm too lazy to take out my camera, etc. so no pictures of my pressie!

Pic 413: The Dumpling strangely enthralled by the drum. It goes 'tok tok tok', and according to my LUB, Dumpling loves things that repeat. Slight case of autism, maybe?? Just kiddng!!! d=

Pic 414: My bad LUB smirking at the Dumpling, who has just woken up from her trance.

Pic 415: See that look??? You just know she is up to no good!! And guess what she did next!

Pic 416: MUAHAHAHHAHA, then Enginger is disturbed!

Pic 417: This picture here is mainly for black-mailing purposes. Watch out, Lightning Thunder Wind! I have the blessings of your zha bor to beat you up if you do anything wrong to her!

Pic 418: My right knee. All that pain and nothing to show for! This was a result of kata 7. I don't feel like going to youtube and find a link right now. You are all technologically advanced people, go find it yourself!

And in case you haven't been entertained enough for the better part of the entry (shame on you!), here's a cover of Damien Rice's Cannonball. I like this singer; her new album is not bad, lots of really nice songs, unlike her last one, which was too jazzy for my taste. Just listen to the song, the video is just bunch of images someone put together painstakingly.

and it's not hard to fall, when you float like a cannonball.

Brother's Graduation

2007-06-12T23:13:00.000+08:00

Today, my brother finally graduated from his poly. And I have a bunch of pics! My camera finally ran out of batt during the very last part of photo-taking. The reception wasn't very good. Very salty and very fried. The spread reminded me of all the tea-breaks that NIE saw fit to give us over the past week. I have enough of mini-sandwiches and fruit punch!!!

And what's a graduation ceremony without pictures?

Pic 405: The book filled with the names of the graduates.

Pic 406: The stage. It was kinda long, and I was seated to the left. Weird way of arranging the seats, I thought.

I got into the hall even without the invitation card haha. All I did was say, "Oh... The card is with my father..." And the usher just said, "Oh, would you like to go in first?" Hehe. There were plenty of seats anyway. The graduation was held school by school, and diploma by diploma, so there were only 217 graduates during the particular ceremony I attended.

Pic 407: Trying to pose nicely...

Pic 408: ...But this is more fun!!! My favourite picture of the day!!! I like how my brother is all like, "Geesh!"

Pic 409: Another pic that I like.

Pic 410: The happy graduate. All that's missing is the mortar. Don't worry, next time larh. Congratulations, bro! Glad you finally got your diploma. We're all proud of you!

I'm going to graduate again next month! Now, who's gonna come this time? All you little @#$%! pang seh me last time lor! Haha. Okay I'm going to go to bed soon, long day ahead.

200

2007-06-10T01:08:00.000+08:00

The 200th post on this blog! Because I so sporadically update, I have only written 200 posts in three years. This isn't my only outlet. (=

FINALLY the long week has ended. One more day of hard training, and then it's back to talks, and Tuas Naval Base, and ITE Simei. And Boon's coming back! And then it's reporting to my new school. Sigh, other people already know what they're gonna teach, but I don't! It's annoying cos I really want to know what I'll be teaching so that I can prepare. =\

Anyway, since I got nothing much to talk about, other than the fact that I realise I need to know kata 6 and 7 for grading, and I don't know 7 AT ALL... I'm screwed larh. Maybe I shouldn't take grading. )=

Here are some links:

1/ The Perils of Indifference, by Elie Wiesel. You know, the guy who survived Auschwitz and wrote a lot of books about his experience. Actually, I was looking for the speech only for the part about indifference. I quote, "Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair."

2/ Stay hungry. Stay Foolish. Commencement speech by Steve Jobs in 2005. I remember liking it a lot. I still like it. The newspapers carried a brief mention of it, and I went to search for the full speech. It's quite good to read, really.

Okay I should be going to bed soon.

And congrats on your licence.

do you feel better now?

2007-05-30T13:36:00.000+08:00

I'm sleepy now. Bleah. It is, as Ju said, lunchtime, and I haven't had lunch yet. Woke up so early this morning, the earliest I've been up in three weeks! I went to bed at 1am, woke up at 4am with a start, then went back to sleep until 6.30am. So now I'm sleepy.

Had breakfast with my mother, then I went off for a drive down the expressway. There's nothing like aimless driving to take your mind of unpleasant things. I drove all the way till the exit before Tuas Checkpoint, then looped back to Toh Guan Road via the PIE to get my car washed. I gave up washing the car myself; I'm simply too lazy!!! I would do another round of aimless driving, but there are things to be done, like the laundry amongst other things.

I have too much time, and too little activities to fill up my day. I'm a sadist, I want to go back to school. I want to be lost in the routine, mind-aching, back-breaking lesson planning and marking. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO, ANYTHING TO DO. Bah. I don't want to go out, that is leisure. I need WORK. I have to satisfy myself with things like tuition to keep my brain working. I read newspapers until my mind's numb.

Some URLs for your reading pleasure:

1/ No place in local universities. I particularly like the comment by crunchy_cucumbers, which basically sums up what I thought as I read the article. But actually the daughter quite poor thing larh, being born in the Dragon Year, always a downside to everything.

2/ A Theory on ABC's Lost. Got this off cowboy caleb's RSS feed thing (whatever it's called, I'm not familiar with the geek speak). Pretty well thought out! And satisfies my Lost craving. Cannot wait for Season 4!

3/ The Gender Genie. Do you blog? You might like to test whether you sound male or female based on your entries. Quite cool. Got it off huckerby's blog a long time back.

4/ Zanshin. I quite like this article, because it isn't really about Kendo zanshin, but zanshin in general.

Aaaaaand that's all for today, because I'm sleepy and I think I should go nap. Oh, and here's a song that I've been addicted to (read: playing non-stop) for the last few days. This is the 'original' version though, the version usually played on radios is the acoustic version, which is much more pleasant sounding. Though I'm sure if you listen to the following version a few times, it'll grow on you.

some random stuff

2007-05-19T16:02:00.000+08:00

Before I start preparing for the dinner later, I shall write a quick entry. This entry will be quick for you to read cos it's mostly pictures. But I'm expecting this entry to take about ten minutes to blog. So!

First: Congrats to Godspeed for getting attached! Don't be crazy, I don't have sour grapes like Enginger. d= Your entry too sweet liao, I need to tell the rest of the world so that the sweetness will be diluted. LOL. And how can you not have told me!!! You idiot!!! I think I'll call you 6/6 Vision from now on.

Second: Had a JC class outing the other day. Uh, wasn't much of a 'class' effort. Six little momoks turned up! The rest were MIA. I heard Monkey was in Australia having some life-saving competition. As Ju said, "That is so JOCK!"

Pic 381: The four girls.

Pic 382: Me and my Baobei!! Haven't seen her since the last time we went to Holland V's Coffee Club. =D I love my Baobei!

Pic 383: Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Hehe.

Pic 384: A close-up of our own Peter Parker.

Third: Had a Bio field trip to MacRitchie the other day. Not that I don't like going on field trips, but I'm honestly not interested in looking at primary and secondary forests. Honestly. Like the tutor who brought us there, "I think this is just NIE's ploy to keep you hostage."

I fully agree.

Pic 385: An interesting adapation. The bio terms fail me.

Fourth: My class had the CME workshop thing yesterday. I only enjoyed myself at one point, which was to make a collage depicting youths of today. I felt like a damn nerd going around the classroom taking the pictures, so you better appreciate it!!!

Pic 386: My group's work. I quite like it. I collected the material, and my groupmates did the rest.

Pic 387: Like a flowchart.

Pic 388: Many many pictures.

Pic 389: The entire collage is mainly pictures of celebrities/models. The group was made up of all males and one female, I think. That's why!

Pic 399: Clean and simple.

Pic 400: I don't get the 'almost raped' part though. Something about relationships.

One of my classmates was browsing through the magazines the facilitator gave us during the second half of the lesson. Something on Reiki. Haha. I just thought it was amusing.

And now I'm running late. Oops!

visual dna

2007-05-15T23:08:00.000+08:00

Ju did this a while back, and told me to do it. Well, I did one, but I didn't post it up cos I didn't like it. So I did another one just now. I'll put the two down just to compare.

Last time:

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Tonight:

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Practicum's over. Gotta move on.

Better Than Me

2007-05-06T13:07:00.000+08:00

Latest single from Hinder. Sounds almost exactly like their last one. Haha. But I like it. Take a listen, please.

Yay one more week to go. Let's hope the application gets through and I end up somewhere I want to be. Now gotta think about what to get my girls. And my bio CT. And other people.

$$ fly away...

2007-04-30T00:33:00.000+08:00

Just because I'm getting a bonus next month doesn't mean I can spend like I've been spending lately... I need to save money already. Bleah. Here's what I bought over the last few weeks:

Pic 376: Nike bag. My first one, I think. I usually don't buy bags like these, but it was too pretty to resist. And my colleague egged me to buy it. Thanks, T³. Haha.

Last Friday, I met up with some of the girls from my NIE class... Was great to catch up with them! Later walked around with Dawn, and I saw Estee Lauder products on sale. I've been planning to buy something from the label for quite a while now, so I got sucked in, and here's what I bought:

Pic 377: Non-descript Isetan bag.

Pic 378: Yep, this is what I bought. Perfume larh, in case you don't know by now.

Pic 379: Comes with a nice orange cosmetic pouch. I think it's a cosmetic pouch. Heck, it's a bag, let's move on.

Pic 380: Here is it, a 50ml bottle of Estee Lauder Pleasures and body lotion to go along with it.

I need to sleep now, I need to have energy to block my bio ct's murderous looks tmr.

Piggy Fren's Birthday

2007-04-22T23:08:00.000+08:00

So, I went out at 11plus last night to meet up with Piggy Fren and Bear to kinda celebrate her birthday. So here goes:

Pic 368: The setting: Starbucks @ One Fullerton. It's one of those shots that you try to make artistic because it's black and white, and then failing miserably because you aren't really the arty type.

Pic 369: The birthday cake that Bear bought from the Bakerzin counter at Taka. (I know, the irony is not lost on me.)

Pic 370: The cake itself. Only one big candle, not because Piggy Fren is only ten years old, but because a woman's age beyond twenty-one is a well-kept secret.

Pic 371: The birthday girl and her cake.

Pic 372: Bear said it felt like he was giving Piggy Fren a prize, so they shook hands.

Pic 373: Then they posed for a nice picture.

Pic 374: And then it's my turn to pose with the cake and birthday girl.

Pic 375: Acting silly.

Okay, I realised that a 6-hour nap isn't called a nap. It's called A Night's Worth of Sleep. In fact, it's even more sleep than I usually get. Maybe because plans for dinner got cancelled last minute, so I decided to sleep in. I also need to stop going out with T³. I went out with her on Friday after Sports Day and bought a cardigan. Argh! You make me impulse-buy!

I need to go watch a movie soon. I almost watched a movie at The Cathay (cos I was in the neighbourhood), but luckily none of the movies interest me.

Then then then, went to Hyundai showroom at Leng Kee, where my step-dad bought himself a Hyundai Avante. Nice car. I can't wait to drive it when it arrives. =D It's got a huge boot too. But nothing beats the Rav4. I'll miss it... )=

Now I need to go think about what I can do for my bio girls on Thursday.

phantom of the opera

2007-04-08T00:44:00.000+08:00

Remember this???

Image circa November 2006

Now look at this:

Collected the tickets about 3 weeks ago at PS. Loved the little ticket-holder that they put the tickets in.

So while photography was Not Allowed, I still managed to sneak some shots, like these:

Pic 364: Starting scene.

Pic 365: The chandelier, after it 'fell'.

Pic 366: Before the start of the second act.

And while I wasn't feeling generous enough to spend $25 on the programme booklet, Saizou did, so I took a photo of it, too:

Pic 367: $25 Phantom of the Opera Programme Booklet.

I also didn't realise that the tickets cost $162 EACH, and not $2 booking overall. Bloody sistic.

I'm sleepy and I need to do lots of work tmr to prepare for next week's lessons. I keep postponing training. This is not good. Haha. I'm also thinking how to talk to my bio ct. I'm scared of him. Haha.

I'm sleepy, and I will sleep now.

lousy male driver

2007-03-25T22:02:00.000+08:00

I know, I know. People always say women are terrible drivers. I don't disagree, but I guess there are times when a male driver comes along and really makes you slam your body weight into the car horn.

So this is what happened: I was driving in lane, with a Right Turn Only lane on my right. The light turned green, so as I moved off, I suddenly noticed a car on my right side trying to overtake me. Okaaay. This car came from my blind spot, so luckily I usually don't (read: cannot) accelerate fast, so I let this Chevrolet overtake me. So this car is in front of me, speeding up considerably, leaving me in the dust. Haha. Just kidding. I travelled at a leisurely 60km/h and then I see this car at another junction ahead of me. It had its right signal on, but then I saw it trying to cut out. Since I was going to slow down anyway, I let it out. Then. Then then then. It turned right at the same junction as me. There were two turning lanes, so I was on the left one, while it took the inner one. There was this big IMM bus in front of me, so I was pretty slow. Then the IMM bus sped up, leaving a gap between us. As I was about to accelerate, this same bloody Chevrolet turned on its left signal, wanting to cut in. I tapped my horn, warning it that I'm travelling fast, so it better not cut in. Then I stopped accelerating, cos this car look like it was going to head into the expressway on the left. So this nice little weekend Chevrolet cut into my lane, and looked like it was heading into the expressway, so I sped up, and LO AND BEHOLD: IT SWERVED OUT OF THE FILTER LANE RIGHT BACK INTO MY LANE.

Let me just say that I horned it loud and long. I got horned by another car cos I was eating too much to my right. I was trying to avoid the damn Chevrolet, cos I had no idea whether it was still going to turn left at the next junction, or cut out into right lane. Like, what the hell, its left signal was still on, can or not. And then, just before we reached the traffic junction, it filtered to the right to make a U-turn. I caught a glimpse of the driver: MALE. LOOKING LIKE HE'S LOOKING FOR SOMETHING.

Hello, if you don't know the place, if you're searching for something, don't bloody drive in the right most lane. And for the love of god, drive SLOWLY. It won't kill you to drive at 50km/h. When I'm in a new place, or lost, I try to stick to the left most lane (the slow lane) so that I don't accidentally hog lanes or crash into something. After all my accidents, I'm quite careful now. I have no major accidents for three months!

Anyway, bloody weekend car. P-plate some more. I know, I know, I just took off my P-plate about 3.5 months ago, but I drive every single day, manual car some more, so don't come and tell me my driving skills suck. They are passable, at any rate.

I like to end off with this quote, though. It keeps things in perspective:

"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers." -Dave Barry

i love my baobei

2007-03-21T22:25:00.000+08:00

Even though I had work to do, I still went out with my beloved Baobei until 8plus. I picked her up from near my place, then headed down to Holland V's Coffee Club. Too bad I forgot to bring my camera... Baobei was dressed really nicely! AND in HEELS. =D The waiter at Coffee Club was very smiley and nice. I think because it's a slack weekday evening, so he can relax and chat away in the kitchen. Haha must be larh. Or maybe see Baobei too pretty liao.

We headed off to VivoCity after that. I bought a pair of heels on impulse again. Ugh. I wanted to spend less today, but apparently that's not possible. This pair of heels looks nice when worn with pants. Really looks nice! But a little pricey for U.R.S. Bleah. Next week I'm going to eat instant noodles for dinner. =\

Last evening, I was at VivoCity with Enginger, Uncle Brown Nut, and Godspeed. We had dinner at Marche. Oh, my pocket, I'm sorry for burning a hole in you... Then we wandered to Pet Safari to look at animals. I'm still fascinated by the little hamsters. Walking meatballs, as you once called them. Love those dwarf hamsters. Too bad I don't have a place to keep them. Then I wandered into the comic shop across, and the lady there tried to sell me the whole set of Deathnote manga. I already have it, so I'm not going to spend $55 on it. The only thing that caught my interest was Vol. 13, which is the How To Read volume. Ah well. I'm sure I can get it from someone.

Anyway, me and Baobei were eating dinner at Coffee Club, and we started to talk about JC days. Very soon, we realised how bloody childish we were, and started to laugh and laugh and laugh. But as adults now *ahem*, we stifled our laughter, but we laughed so hard that tears came to our eyes. I'm serious!!!!!! We laughed SO HARD. The waiters must think we're a couple of retards.

Things that we recalled:
-Class story, which Ju mentions once every few months.
-Those damn ugly Teletubbies stickers that Michelle Teo terrorised us with. I remember during lectures, we will try to sit far away from Michelle. If that fails, we make sure she doesn't sit behind us. HAHAHAA.
-How Michelle kept stealing the little labels from our bio lab (cos we label many test-tubes during practicals) until Miss Oon said, "How come no more already?"
-How Cher took a bus down to Parkway Parade and back to school before realising that Michelle had stuck an ugly Teletubby sticker on her back. SHE WAS WALKING AROUND PARKWAY WITH THAT STICKER ON HER.
-Roberty and Marie France. 'Nuff said.
-Laughing like a bunch of siao zha bors whenever Zhao appeared in our field of vision. Seriously, he should have been pretty flattered. I mean, which guy gets so much attention from four girls, consistently, every single day?! He even gets girls SMSing in the middle of lecture just to see him jerk awake when his hp vibrates.
-Also, how we laughed so much that Zhao called us 'the four siao zha bors'. I bet he's secretly flattered ba.
-How a particular councillor from Zhao's class would sit in the very first row in the LT just to stare at Miss Oon.
-How four of us will sit in the first row in tutorials and start laughing throughout the tutorial. Baobei said, "Supposed to be first row all the guai guai kind, but we sit front row and laugh! All the guai ones sit behind!"

Laughed till tears came to our eyes. Damn childish, larh.

pictures once again!

2007-03-14T23:00:00.000+08:00

It is BLOODY HARD to upload photos now. I don't know what made Blogger/Google kill Bloggerbot. Who in their right mind will replace something that's convenient with something that's obviously NOT?!

Pic 358: This is the place we went to. Shin Kushiya @ VivoCity. (In case you haven't guessed from the name, it serves Japanese food.)

Pic 359: Our 'starter', I guess. Raw vegetables and some dip. It's like those dou jiang kind of dip? Know what I'm talking about? Nvm. Moving on!

Pic 360: First dish! It's fried sotong. Excuse me, fried cuttlefish. I don't know what's the difference between a sotong and a cuttlefish.

Pic 361: Sashimi! The sweet prawn was nice, the salmon was nice, the other piece of meat that's not tuna was also nice.

Pic 362: The grilled stuff that this place is apparently good for. The whitish one on the left is ika (now, is it sotong or cuttlefish?), and the one on the right is shiitake mushroom, asparagus wrapped in bacon (!), and some piece of meat. Probably beef. which is why I didn't eat it. Joke of the meal, "Is it okay if I use my chopsticks?"

Pic 363: Black pepper yakitori. Not too bad.

Pic 364: Bear's curry rice. What was it called, toru katsu. Aiyah whatever, CHICKEN CURRY RICE.

Pic 365: Piggy Fren's giant prawn rice thing.

Pic 363: Last but not least, my favourite meal: salmon don!

And I read your sms the other day. Don't know how to respond, so I didn't. But I guess you knew I wouldn't respond anyway. The feeling's mutual, honestly. I'd be heartless if I didn't.

there's just some things we must live without

2007-03-13T19:56:00.000+08:00

By its very nature, there's gonna be some sacrifices in every war. Sometimes you gotta figure out if you want to lose a battle and win the war, or win a battle and lose the war. I chose to win one battle, but I lost so much more. But I know there's no use crying over spilt milk because there are some things that I simply cannot change. I am not large enough (or significant enough, or charismatic enough, or ______ enough) to change the world. I think it's hard, too, to change something. So like the coward I was, and like the coward I still am, I chose to raise the white flag and quietly fade away without telling many people.

Sometimes in the quiet of the night, those moments before you fall asleep, you think of what was, and what could have been. Then you wonder why it came to this. And right before your eyes close and you drift off into blessed sleep, you see the answer: It's all like this because you chose it.

This afternoon this unknown number SMSed me, "Dear [my name], have you taken XXX module in NUS before?" My first thought was, hmm, could this be one of those online people whom I've met but deleted the number already? And of course, I replied. I mean, this stranger used my name! Well, to cut a long story short, this person realised that he/she got the wrong person. There's another girl with the same name as me in NUS, you see, and he thought I was that one he was looking for. How do I know the unknown person is a guy? Cos when I tried to call the number, the person didn't pick up. So Piggy Fren missed called him, and he called back, so I know it's a guy.

And why the heck would I want to call this stranger? Because this guy suddenly said he's a teacher and asked me how was my practicum school. So you'd either get freaked out, or really suspicious, right? Like, is one of my friends playing a prank on me? So well, this strange person did not pick up my call, and also refused to tell me his name, but just said that as a teacher he has ways and means of finding people. So I guess some idiot told him there's someone by my name in NIE and then gave him my number. If I find that idiot I'm going to skin him/her alive.

I am NOT that girl from ACJC. Get this clear!!! If you're looking for this girl from NUS, and from Sheares Hall, YOU'VE COME TO THE WRONG PLACE. GO LOOK FOR HER ON MOBLOG.

Sigh. I really hate it when people mistake me for her, because like some other people said, we're completely different people, and she's prettier.

Not Ready To Make Nice

2007-03-08T23:48:00.000+08:00

My friend introduced this song on her blog, and I got hooked. I can play this song on repeat for hours. Just a weird quirk of mine.

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget? I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything but I'm still waiting.

bimbo moment

2007-03-06T08:57:00.000+08:00

I did the most bimbotic thing yesterday: I rubbed my eye.

Nothing wrong with that, just that as I was happily rubbing my eye, I suddenly remembered, "SHIT! I have mascara on!!!" Too late. I already rubbed out the mascara, and had to borrow a mirror from a colleague to make sure I don't get spectacular dark eye rings. What a waste of good Estée Lauder mascara. So I went back to using my cheapo (read: free) Maybelline mascara today. Bimbo moment. We all have our bimbo moments.

I inherited (read: found) a whole bunch of eye shadow from my mother. It was hers, then she stopped putting on makeup, so now they're all mine. Muahahhaah. But the thing is, it makes no sense to put on much makeup in school. Like a nice prof who briefed us about practicum, "The classroom is quite warm, so your makeup will all melt." Excellent advice!

Gonna teach my first lesson soon. Argh argh. It's gonna be a mad mad rush! =D I spent half of the night dreaming about my girls not having their notes, because before I went to bed, I suddenly recalled that the girls have not received their notes yet, so was my CT's parting advice ("Must photocopy by today ah!") about my Activity ONLY or was it about the notes too? I stressed over it all night long, leading to me waking up 10 minutes later than usual (it's a lot of time to slack around or to drive slower if you think about it). When I finally met up with my CT, I realised my fears were unfounded: the notes have already been printed, but not distributed to the girls. -_-"

I FINALLY finished the tub of pineapple tarts that I brought to school. One tub down, many many more at home to go! =D Who wants new year goodies? I have so many at home, eat until June also cannot finish.

Back to lesson planning!!!

one more day

2007-02-25T12:24:00.000+08:00

It starts tmr.

TOMORROW!

I'm not prepared! I have a Lam Peng Kuan textbook to finish before tmr! And a guidebook I got from my ex-tutee. I forgot to get my textbooks back from Bear!!! SHIT!

And I haven't duplicated the forms needed for tmr. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

...

Actually I'm not all that nervous, just that I get the feeling I'm going to forget something important, or be late, or something equally devastating on my first day.

Recently, I've been watching this particular Japanese drama, Nodame Cantabile. Super good! Thanks to Saizou for getting me hooked. This is a thousand and one times better than Hana Kimi. Firstly, the male lead is just the kind of guy I like, and secondly, the female lead is CUTE, not overbearingly stupid like the character Ella plays. And best of all, it's about music! Though I don't know the names of half the pieces, lots of them are familiar. One of my long-term goals is to go back to learning the piano, but it can't be too long-term, cos I want to go back to my old teacher. I haven't contacted her since I stopped lessons in 2002. She kinda watched me grow up, really. I started learning from her when I was about 6? 7? and only stopped after not passing my ATCL(Recital) when I was 18.

I feel like making something else a regular activity besides Kendo. WORK???? Haha.

心动

2007-02-14T00:53:00.000+08:00

I finally heard the lyrics after skipping over the song since the first time you sent it to me. Thanks.

Happy Valentine's Day to all the lucky ones!

有多久没见你
以为你在那里
原来就住在我的心底
陪伴着我的呼吸

有多远的距离
以为闻不到你的气息
谁知道你背影这么长
回头就看到你

过去让它过去
来不及
从头喜欢你
白云缠绕着蓝天
如果
不能够永远都在一起
也至少给我们
怀念的勇气
拥抱的权利
好让你明白
我心动的痕迹

过去让它过去
来不及
从头喜欢你
白云缠绕着蓝天
如果
不能够永远都在一起
也至少给我们
怀念的勇气
拥抱的权利
好让你明白
我心动的痕迹
总是想再见你
还试着打探你的消息
原来
你就住在我的身体
守护我的回忆

Hate Me

2007-02-11T20:30:00.000+08:00

i have to block out thoughts of you so i don't lose my head;
they're crawling like a cockroach, leaving babies in my bed.

hate me today, hate me tomorrow,
hate me for all the things i didn't do for you.

so i'll drive so fucking far away that i'll never cross your mind,
and do whatever it takes in your heart to leave me behind.

and with a sad heart i say bye to you and wave...

i need time away from you again. sorry.

Billy

2007-02-04T22:29:00.000+08:00

My mother, when I called her handphone from my old place, asked me, "Where are you now?" Hi, Mother, what's the point of having caller-id? Sometimes my mother asks the darndest things.

I was browsing at PageOne at VivoCity just now. (Sidetrack: I think can spend hours in there just looking at books, and wandering about. I just love books. One day, I'm going to have a room just filled with books and all my notes. Hoarder!)

So I was at PageOne just now. I caught sight of my mother out of the corner of my eye, and I walked towards her. However, when I reached the spot, she was gone. Thought she went up to the elevated area (Chinese books and Architecture), so I went up. And then I saw him. I actually stood there for a full minute, wondering if I should call my mother, or approach him. After internally debating, I walked up to him.

"Mr. M---!" He looked up, and smiled. "Heeeey! Oh my god, how long has it been! How are you??"

This is the man who tutored me for a good six years of my life, so you can say he saw me through adolescence. Then again, I was a good kid. Go to school, excited to go to tuition, then go home. Rinse and repeat.

This is the man whose opinion I trusted quite a fair bit, so when he said, "Go to VJC! You'll like it there!" I listened. You can say that without him, I wouldn't be here now. He managed to convince me to go to VJ, and that's quite a mean feat, cos back then I only wanted to go somewhere I was familiar with. I wanted to go to AJ cos half my classmates were going there. Like, seriously, almost the whole school wanted to go there. At that time, that was the best we could hope for. But he convinced me otherwise, and it's because of him that I went to VJ, and learnt for the first time that even though I know no one in a new place, I'll always make new friends. That's why I majored in Mathematics at NUS even though no one I knew was crazy/stupid/insane enough to.

I think without him, I wouldn't be where I am today. I'd have stuck with people I know, my world growing smaller and smaller because I'm too scared to step away from familiar things.

He's still a technology idiot, but he finally has a phone. He will never read this post, because he detests the internet and all other forms of modern tech, but still I need to say this, because I've never really realised this before.

Thanks so much for being my teacher, for guiding me through those years, and being a friend while maintaining the teacher-student relationship. Thanks for unknowingly nudging me towards the person I am today, and the teacher I will hopefully be some day. Thank you so much!!!

searching for me?

2007-01-31T16:55:00.000+08:00

The number of hits per day has suddenly gone back up to 20+. Sorry hor, if you're looking for Youth Tournament analysis, you won't find it here. Another interesting thing is that someone has been looking for me. Again. I mean, when the search string is my name + kendo... You know. So. Hi. Whoever it is that's looking for me.

Tiring week, and it's not even half over. Why! At least micro-teaching is over... thank goodness I managed to crap something out even though I hardly prepared for it. I like reading the comments on the feedback form. Who cares about whether you Strongly Agree or Agree? I just wanna see the Strengths/Weaknesses part.

Something funny that I found out by reading my feedback forms: Almost the whole class think that I am quite fierce. HAHAHAHAH. Okay there's this line in my feedback form that says, "Was I warm and enthusiastic about teaching?" Almost all my classmates ticked Agree rather than Strongly Agree. And there were a few who actually said that I should "smile more!", "quite fierce in the beginning", etc.

I fierce meh? Hehe. Lousy Kohai told me the other day that some people are scared of me. Why scared! I'm so harmless. I'm so harmless that people can do all kinds of shit to me and still get away with it. (=!

Remembering the old times:

If we can do it once, we can do it again. Don't go for team one liao larh, go for individual!!! Cheer up!

Bloggerbot is dead.

2007-01-26T16:01:00.000+08:00

So, well. I was bored yesterday and wanted to upload pictures of my second day in Chiangmai. But guess what! Bloggerbot is dead, which means Hello! is also dead. Which also means I can't post large amounts of pictures easily at one shot. I think this is the one thing about the new blogger that I will miss the most. So. I shall be concise and slowly, sloooooooooowly upload the few photos that matter.

Chiangmai Day 2:

.
Picture 345: At some smallish orchid garden. The flowers were really pretty!

Picture 346: My sister. (=

Picture 347: An elephant drawing. We visited this elephant camp place, and this was part of the elephant show.

Picture 348: The completed works of various elephants. The one at the far right was the most expensive even though it has the least number of strokes. I guess they think that it's amazing for an elephant to draw its self-portrait.

Picture 349: Me and an elephant! I like this photo only because I was wandering around alone, after voluntarily separating from the rest of my family. I liked the feeling... Some day I'd like to go overseas alone, or with just one companion.

Picture 350: My stepmom, sister, and father coming back from their ride on an elephant. My father kept raving about it, and told me and my brother that we were missing out on something really spectacular. Next time lor. Haha.

Picture 351: And that's the name of the elephant camp. The Thai people really love their King. My da gu says that it's almost freaky, the way they hang up his picture everywhere, as though he's some kind of deity.

Picture 352: Next, we visited some silk factory. Owned by the former Thai president's family or something. Wanted to post a picture that I took on the walls, but I don't want to be seen as a Thaksin sympathiser. (And I am not one.)

Picture 353: Following that, we visited a place that made paper umbrellas.

Picture 354: One of the umbrellas on display.

Picture 355: Pretty handicraft! Think this was a lamp. Pretty larh, but man, where to put in the house?? My place doesn't even have enough table space to put my printer, much less a pretty lamp.

Picture 356: More pretty shiny things.

Picture 357: And finally, my favourite shape. I was looking at my broken star necklace and thinking, It's time to start searching for a new one.

Man, it took me forever to upload those photos. Wonder if Blogger/Google will bring Bloggerbot back. =\ I thought the whole point of Bloggerbot was to make uploading pictures simpler and less tedious. Seems that they have decided that they are going to make people work to put pictures up. So much for technological advancement and New Blogger. =\

I guess you all can expect less pictures from me from now on. Oh, and finally...

Since I've spent so much time uploading all of these, APPRECIATE, K?

HAHA

2007-01-20T16:16:00.000+08:00

I just figured out the ultimate rejection line!

"Shall we go buy a HDB together?"
"Nope! I already own one!"

Teehee. That'd teach any guy who wants to propose the Singaporean way.

I'm just bored on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I have nothing planned today after tuition. Thinking about it, I should have planned something for the afternoon. Which I tried! But fell through.

Piggy Fren and I at VivoCity on Tuesday. She joked that she thought she was buying a phone with a camera function, not a camera with a phone function. Yeah, this is taken with her new phone, I don't know what model cos anything outside of Nokia... I'm just clueless.

Lawrence and Bear. I don't know what nickname to give Lawrence. I think I'm running out of nicknames to give people. This was taken with the same phone at Settlers' Cafe last night. Found another nice game to play! It's called Ugly Dolls.

Okay that's it, I don't want to ramble any more.

Chiangmai Trip - Day One

2007-01-14T19:33:00.000+08:00

At the start of the year, about two weeks ago, I went to Chiangmai. It seems that everyone's going to Chiangmai these days. Haha. I think it's cos of the flower show, which I didn't go to. We went to see elephants and went to Laos though.

One thing I learnt from the trip: I cannot be away from Singapore for more than three days and two nights without the internet or friends. I can't stand being with family any more than I have to. Sometimes it's a good thing to have family, sometimes it's not. So the next time I go overseas, and with family, I won't make it more than three days/two nights. Haha, it's just me. I don't particularly like travelling.

The pictures!

Picture 332: View from my seat, at Changi Airport.

Picture 333: I was fooling around with the camera. My brother and I on the plane.

Picture 334: View of the airport from the air.

Picture 335: My breakfast. Chicken noodles. It was... not really nice.

Picture 336: More cam-whoring. Me and my stepmom.

Picture 337: First destination of the day. Some Buddhist temple on top of a hill. We took an elevator up, cos none of us wanted to climb the flight of long long steps. Haha.

Picture 338: Another picture of the same place. It's really golden. Too bad I forgot what the name of the place is. I could google it, but I don't quite feel like it.

Picture 339: Stepmom, father, and my little sister.

Picture 340: View from the top. According to the guide, you can see the whole of Chiangmai from here. The view was pretty.

Picture 341: Random shrubbery.

Picture 342: Eldest aunt (on my father's side) and my father. I like the tree with the blossoms in the background.

Picture 343: My father and I. People say I look like him. What do you think?

Picture 344: My brother being camera-shy.

last pics of 2006

2007-01-11T01:10:00.000+08:00

The Kendo people had a small gathering at Twinny's house on the eve of Christmas eve. We didn't do much, just ate a lot of stuff, and played this game called "Dirty Minds". I remember being very tickled by some descriptions, but obviously I don't remember any of them now. So well, here's what I do best:

Pic 327: The unruly scene.

Pic 328: Introducing the Lousy Kohai! We actually took another photo with her camera, but some idiot accidentally deleted it. Oh well.

Pic 329: Wai and Precious, with a beginner in the background.

Pic 330: Precious and Lawyer.

Pic 331: Me and Twinny, who refuses to stay still for a shot.

And so, that kinda wraps up 2006 in pictures.

A blog I read summed up 2006 in a very cryptic way. Like, the things that happened all throughout 2006. I am not going to do that cos I can't write as well as her.

I know I haven't been exactly the best person to hang around with over the whole of the year. I know I throw pissy fits, I shout, and I get angry, and then I also get depressed. I shut people off, and I'm glad that sometimes they let me back in.

So 2007 is going to be a better year. I'll MAKE it a better year. I won't drink so much, I won't complain so much, I will keep my temper, I'll be a better person, basically. Thank you to all my friends who stood by me and listened during my shitty times, and to all the people who still love me deep deep even after so long.

Thanks, Godspeed, Precious, Baobei, Darling, Piggy Fren, Jane, and all the others whom I can't really recall at the moment because I'm not thinking too clearly now. this is what one mug of vodka + rootbeer does to you.

SMS

2006-12-29T19:51:00.000+08:00

One of the sweetest SMSes I've seen in a long time:

"This is a toast to us ladies for 2007! For the men who have us, the losers who had us, and the lucky guys who will still meet us! Send this to all the beautiful women you know. I just did. Don't break the chain. You can make someone feel real special. Have a wonderful year ahead. To all my special pals."

This is the best New Year message one can receive, in my opinion.

KL Trip Dec 2006

2006-12-28T14:42:00.000+08:00

Went to KL for the first time the few days before the Christmas weekend. The journey up wasn't bad, they upgraded us for free to a nicer bus with nice big plush seats. Too bad I didn't get to sleep much cos I was chatting with Piggy Fren. When we reached KL, she started to play with my seat. Okay, see, our seats are controlled by pressing some buttons, so yes, she pressed my buttons. It got her so amused, I do not know why.

Our first destination after putting our stuff in our hotel was to go to KLCC. We took a taxi there. I don't know if taxi is the right word. But it was a nice big cab. Bear decided to try out his (brand-new) camera in the cab.

Pic 315: Bear and Chris. I really like this photo.

Pic 316: Piggy Fren and me. I think this was the only pic we took together in KL.

Pic 316: I think Bear was trying out the flash or something. Me and Snowflake. bear took a thousand and one photos of us, with the excuse that he's 'testing his camera'. I think he just wants to see my pretty face. *blush*

Then we reached our destination.

Pic 317: Petronas Twin Towers. I hope I got the name right.

Pic 318: A closer view.

Pic 319: Getting tired of all these shots yet?

Pic 320: A picture of us. I don't really understand why when people are tasked to take pictures for other people, they always assume we want a full body shot. And you know what, they NEVER ASK. The other day I was at Vivocity and someone asked me to help them take a picture. I asked them, "Full body? Half-body?" Turns out they only wanted half-body shot, so if I had been idiotic, I'd have taken pictures like these. Grrr. Okay rant over.

Pic 321: Another picture of us, missing the Bear (cos he was the one who took this pic) with the ACTUAL THING (huge-ass Christmas Tree) we wanted to take in the first place.

Pic 322: More scenery pics! This was taken from where we were sitting at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf inside KLCC. Before that, I bought a book from Kinokuniya, Kamila Shamsie's Broken Verses.

Pic 323: And yes, we did sit there until it turned dark.

We took a cab back as well, and Chris had great fun bargaining with one of the cabbies. We got a cab back at a slightly cheaper price than when we went. Just for the kicks larh, yah?

We ate at some place which name escapes me already with not very good food. )= We didn't wander about much cos I think we were all tired. We ended up playing bridge till quite late, then went to bed. Piggy Fren and I slept even later, cos we were gossiping under the covers.

The next day, Midvalley! Took public transport for the first time in four months. Haha.

Pic 324: Piggy Fren and Chris in the train. Got fu qi xiang k. Don't play play.

Pic 325: I think this was at Midvalley. Chris was trying on a pink shirt in a shop, and the changing room has TRANSLUCENT DOORS. I won't want to change in a room like that.

We had a much nicer dinner that night, and was even cheaper larh. Then we went to a shopping complex near our hotel. Wandered around before returning to the hotel, then playing bridge again until 3.30am. Even though we agreed not to sleep, we all ended up sleeping except for Piggy Fren and Chris.

Pic 326: On the last day in the coach. I didn't sleep much the night before, so I just wanted to sleep. That's why I'm not smiling.

What I've learnt from the trip: I look good in every photo I was in. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. No, I'm just kidding. Whatever I learnt, it's between myself and the last few people I've talked to.

Next post, pictures of the NUSKK pre-Christmas party at Twinny's house.

1st kyu

2006-12-17T16:49:00.000+08:00

I know I promised pictures, but I am an incorrigible liar.

Grading is finally over, and even though my grade was waiting for me, I don't feel like I did my best to take it. But it's okay, if the grading panel gave me the grade, it means that they think I am capable of being that grade, training up to that grade, and then training beyond that grade. I'm just glad that the grading panel sees it fit to give me the grade.

That being said, I will always feel inadequate about my ability. I will never be as good as my opponent in shiai, in training. I firmly believe that as long as I think that I'm better than my partner, I will never be as good as someone who is of a lower rank, but more humble.

Congrats to all those who passed grading, and all the people who got what they want.

And Godspeed, you cannot jump grade from ni-kyu to shodan larh.

pictures coming soon

2006-12-07T21:40:00.000+08:00

I got tons of pictures from my GESL project. But I'm lazy to upload them. (= So next entry.

I learnt something new today. I learnt that being blue = being happy. Haha. Original context: "Went training yesterday. Arms almost came off towards the end. Woke up today with an aching body. But I like my new gi and hakama haha. I'm blue again!"

I had to babysit my sister today, and again on Saturday. So today I brought her to the playground near my new place. There was an old auntie there with her two-year-old grandson who thought I was my sister's mother. (Does that make sense?) She asked me in Mandarin, "Only one? Why not have more?" I was wondering if I should tell her that she is not my daughter, but nah, the truth requires a bit more explanation and more lies. So I just said I didn't want more. Help, I think I've reached that stage in my life where people think I'm a very young mother. I don't think it's supposed to be flattering, because it means I look plump enough to have given birth. Ugh.

Brought her swimming at my beloved Piggy Fren's condo, but my idiot sister refused to let Piggy Fren in. So bo bian, I just 'swam' (in the loosest sense of the word) with my sister. Then we headed off to IMM to have lunch (Happy Meal!). This sister is expensive... I spent $4.50 on her Happy Meal, $3.85 on her Pringles, and $9.90 on a VCD that she picked out. Since she was being okay (read: not needing me to carry her so much), I bought it for her.

I also learnt today that carrying a three-year-old is more tiring on the arms than swinging a shinai way over my head. I finally went back to training yesterday, after a month off. All I will say is that I lost focus in the last few months, especially during the May to September period when I was quite depressed (-squish-, as someone said). I woke up this morning with no aches. But now my arms are aching all because I carried a kid around.

I'm babysitting her again next week argh. But this time I'm bringing her to the beach with my NIE friends. I still haven't figured out what nicknames to give them. One of them is Strawberry, cos of an inside joke about painting her first car like a strawberry. The other one... (=

Pictures next entry!

a lot of stuff.

2006-11-26T17:32:00.000+08:00

The next house I buy, I will set aside one room with plenty and plenty of bookcases/shelves. Because I realised that I have way, way, WAY too many books. Not just fiction books or textbooks, but Notes. Lots and lots of Notes. And Files filled with Notes. I am a pack rat; I keep all notes that I think are useful, which are usually too many. For example, I have all my JC Mathematics and Biology notes. I also have my Sec 1 through 4 E. Maths textbooks, and two copies of the A. Math textbook. I also have all my maths tuition notes from Sec 3 to JC2. I also have six semesters worth of NUS notes.

Well, now. I thought this bookshelf that I bought would be enough, but it isn't, sadly so. So! Next house I buy will have one room specially for all my books/notes.

While packing, I also realised something horrifying. I always thought that I have very little clothes, as in, not a whole lot. But today as I was packing, I realised that I actually have a lot of clothes. A Lot. )= So much for thinking I'm low maintainence. I have always firmly believed that I don't have anything wear most of the time. I shall stop buying so many tops. I just bought a new one from Espirit some more.

Okay it's time to do more packing whee!

prods idlely

2006-11-17T19:29:00.000+08:00

Actually, there's nothing that I really want to write about. I know, I know... If you don't feel like blogging, then don't blog. But I feel a compulsion to fill in the empty space.

I like this section from one of mrbrown's latest podcast: *After passing under an ERP gentry* "Another dollar down the drain. Why you drive this way? Why you want to go to town? For what? In fact, why are you even driving? Petrol very cheap ah? Road tax cheap ah? Your car is father buy for you one ah?"

But I'll repeat what one of my classmates asked me the other day, "Have you ever regretted buying your car?" No. Absolutely, positively, definitely not. Public transport? Heheheheheheheheheheh. It's a phrase alien to me. Once you get a car, you'll never go back, I swear. The ERP. The season parking. The road tax. The carpark coupons. The annoyingly expensive shopping centre carparks. It is worth every. single. dollar.

Of course, I must learn to look after my car larh. I think I will take it to a carwash tmr. I have finally succumbed... I have no time and no energy to wash my car by hand anymore. Boohoo. And I got a lesson plan due on Monday.

(This is a completely inane entry, you should know what's best for you.)

Sometimes I wonder why people ask me, "Are you okay?" What do they want me to answer? Of course the answer is, "Yeah, I'm okay. Why leh?" What makes them think that I'll say anything else? Psschh. I'm fine. I'm okay. Like that lor. Can larh. So-so. Do you really wanna hear about every single detail of my mundane little life?

Also, I'm wondering who's the boliao person who's searching for me using Yahoo!'s search engine. C'mon, Yahoo! is of the past. People use Google Blog Search now. Keep up with the times, man! Anyway, I tested out the phrase on the search engine, and lo and behold, my blog url was the first url displayed. I don't understand it! I am so nice that I don't even use people's real names on my blog. Well, almost.

Yesterday I had lunch with Valedictorian, then I went to have lunch at NUS with Les (I have no nickname for you). Then I stoned in Central Library for a good three hours before throwing in the towel and going home for a shower. Twinny called me lazy when I refused to walk to my car and drive back to get my laptop. But my car was so far awaaaaaaay. *whines*

Oh, would you just look at that? I spent ten minutes typing this inane entry, and you just spent three minutes of your life (if you read fast) on absolutely nothing worthwhile. Yay, life!

guess what???

2006-11-07T21:05:00.000+08:00

Guess who's going to watch Phantom of the Opera next year???

I got these five seats the first time round, then for some inexplicable reason, my internet suddenly conked out on me. I was annoyed! I quickly connected, and tried to rebook, but I got lousy seats, so I tried again. This time I got a bunch of seats to the left, 17-22. I was thinking, mai hiam buay pai larh. So I proceeded to purchase those seats, and guess what! When SISTIC says DBS CREDIT card, they really mean CREDIT CARD HOLDERS. So I argh-ed and went back to re-do the booking.

And this must really be Fate, cos on my final try, I got back the exact same five seats the system allocated me the first time round! Is this Fate or is it Fate!!! In case you can't see the tiny words, these are Cat 1 tickets, meaning, just a notch below the VIP seats. Hell, I only get to go for these things once in a blue moon, might as well spend since I can right? However, now I have to get money back from Root Plant, Lawyer and Little Unwashed Body cos $810 is a damn siong amount to be suddenly gone from one's bank account. After all, I got a car to pay for.

The last person who's going is my beloved Precious. So! Five of us. Too bad, Godspeed... Don't be cheapo larh.

confession

2006-11-06T23:13:00.000+08:00

Actually, the main reason there is a lack of photos these days is because... I kinda lost interest in my camera. Cos it's old, and it's crappy, and I'm too lazy to charge the batteries. So it's either I get a new camera, or I make do with my current one. You know, I don't really spend a lot of money on stuff like that. The only money I spend recklessly on is Kurt Halsey's stuff. Go google him, I'm a little lazy to do a link. I just recklessly spent money on his new journal which I might not even use. But! Like Precious said, "Disposable income, disposable time." That was actually a response to my sudden, last minute question, "Eh, anyone wants to watch movie tmr?? (where tmr = friday)"

Actually, that's not quite true. I just spend when I want to, not like a certain Root Plant who compares his bank account balance to other people's and get miserable. The only bank account balance I compare with is my Past Bank Account Balance. Like that I'll always be happy. (=

I completely forgot that I had this window open. I shall stop blabbering and go to bed because I have to head out to Bukit Timah Hill tmr at the ungodly hour of 7.30am. )=

I miss having someone to talk to.

this is so funny

2006-10-21T21:37:00.000+08:00

Words cannot express my amusement.

Or maybe they can.

HAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAH
AHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH
AHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!!

teamNUS sports awards

2006-10-14T22:48:00.000+08:00

Went back to NUS for the teamNUS Sports Awards ceremony. Thanks to Twinny who nominated four of us, I am now the proud owner of a little glass thing with my name on it. I'll post pictures when I can find the batteries for my camera. I think it's time to get myself a nice new digicam. Anyway, it was a simple award, a Honorary Award. Nothing special like the team awards and what not. All the people there looked like sports people. You know, tan and fit.

My Desperate Housewives is taking a very long time to be done... No new episode by the weekend. Bleah.

it's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere i go
but i'm doing it
it's hard to force that smile when i see your old friends and i'm alone

I'm not ready yet. I don't know if I'll ever be ready.

Better Not

2006-10-14T00:31:00.000+08:00

Life
would perhaps
be easier
if I had
never met you

Less sadness
each time
when we must part
less fear
of the next parting
and the next after that

And not so much either
of this powerless longing
when you're not there

which wants only the impossible
and that right away
next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult

Life
would perhaps be
simpler
If I hadn't met you
Only it wouldn't be
my life

-Erich Fried (1921-88)
Austrian poet

everybody hurts

2006-10-09T23:07:00.000+08:00

when your day is long, and the night,
and the night is yours alone,
when you think you've had enough of this life,
hang on.

don't let yourself go,
cos everybody cries.
and everybody hurts sometimes.

Had lunch with a friend today and she said something that's really quite true. It's something that everyone should do, I believe. She said that when someone's upset, and they talk to you, they are not looking for you to tell them the truth. All they want is to hear positive things, like, it's going to be okay, you will be fine, rather than things like, you're disappointing, you need to wake up your idea.

Truth is overrated, at any rate.

Stop thinking, live your life. Find a goal, find someone to love, just forget that I ever existed. You're not irrelevant, I'm just trying to make sure you're not significant any more.

Will you let me go?

Rascal Flatts - What Hurts The Most

2006-10-04T00:51:00.000+08:00

Heard this song on radio for the last few days, finally found out the artiste and song title.

Here ya go.

in other news

2006-09-30T23:32:00.000+08:00

I realised I made a big big booboo in my ICT essay. Damnit! And now I got randomly paired up with a classmate for another assignment, and I don't really know what to do. I should have read up on the assignment earlier and found myself a partner, rather than be... randomly assigned one. =
Almost completely forgot that I have an essay due next Friday. Luckily, someone reminded me. I forgot whom, but someone did. And also... a lot more deadlines. That's why I say I forget what day/date it is, because all I can remember are deadlines (and sometimes I don't even remember the deadlines).

I got a haircut today! Now my hair falls just below my shoulders. And I have decided to keep a fringe of sorts from now on. Pictures next time, perhaps.

~~(You know this is the only way I'm willing to communicate with you. Will you do the same?)~~

click

quick updates

2006-09-23T11:42:00.001+08:00

- i don't like hospitals. who does? first time sleeping in one of those beds with railings and clean white sheets for two hours. never do i want to be there again. there's nothing to do except sleep. and sleep. and stare at the ceiling. and there's nothing except whiteness and people moving in and out. at least i didn't need to pay a thing; i'm fully insured by my employers.

- good luck.

- please stop waiting. i take back what i said. move on. i'm sorry, but this is the way it has to be.

- i hope you're doing fine out there without me
cos i'm not doing so good without you
the things i thought you never knew about me
were the things i guess you always understood
so how could i have been so blind for all these years

venn diagram

2006-09-16T23:25:00.000+08:00

More here.

snip

2006-09-08T21:26:00.000+08:00

i don't wanna do this anymore
i don't wanna be the reason why
everytime i walk out the door
i see him die a little more inside
i don't wanna hurt him anymore
i don't wanna take away his life
i don't wanna be a murderer.

i am sorry. one day we'll know the reasons why. you and i knew it would come sooner or later. i am sorry for everything. i am still glad that i met you.

i love you. goodbye.

funny stuffs

2006-09-06T00:45:00.000+08:00

Some gems from mrbrown. I especially like the Pluto one. Trust these talented people to come up with stuff that is so... relevant.

The talented mrbrown and mrmiyagi presenting Sian.

Are you feeling sian?
the weather cannot change,
and neither can my life,
i am siiiaaaaaaaaan...

how did i get so sian?

Where have you been, if you haven't heard that Pluto has been downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet?
Pruto has been downgraded.

"no wonder! last time ask you to run about the sun, you run all over the prace! ask you to run in a circle, you run oval. some more you out of shape. everybody here is round, you don't know what irregurar shape. you should be in obese pratoon!"

"you chao keeeeeng. you downgraaaade. you no prride! you call yourself a pranet! lousy piece of rock. ahh you go downgrade and you go service side larh you! no prride. go and do your area cleaning now! your orbit there got a lot of small object."

Coldplay - Fix You

2006-09-01T01:50:00.000+08:00

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face
Cos you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream, down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I..

Tears stream, down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I..

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

don't fix me. it's always in sept, isn't it?

stuff

2006-08-19T12:32:00.000+08:00

Got this off Squirt's blog. It's Time's 100 Greatest Novels. There are plenty of such lists around, and there's always some fault with each of them. Everyone's got their own list of 100 greatest novels. So I'm going through the list just to see if I've read some of the novels that some people call the 'greatest'.

The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
~~Animal Farm - George Orwell~~
Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
The Assistant - Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Beloved - Toni Morrison (have the book, haven't read it)
The Berlin Stories - Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (have the book, haven't read it)
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep - Henry Roth
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather
A Death in the Family - James Agee
The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance - James Dickey
Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone
Falconer - John Cheever
~~The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles~~ (yes, I've actually read this book.)
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (only an abridged version)
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (picked it up, never finished it)
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
Herzog - Saul Bellow
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison (on my list of books to read)
Light in August - William Faulkner
~~The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis~~ (the whole series too)
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Loving - Henry Green
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Money - Martin Amis
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
Native Son - Richard Wright
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 - George Orwell
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
Possession - A.S. Byatt (maybe the book will be better than the movie)
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions - William Gaddis
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor - John Barth
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise - Don DeLillo (on my personal reading list)
~~White Teeth - Zadie Smith~~
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (bought the book, haven't read it)

In other news, my car got a flat tyre yesterday. The short story is that it's now changed FOC.

Some appliance in my house short circuited the entire flat. And my grandmother waited 2 hours in the dark, and would have just spent the rest of the night like that if I hadn't come home and decided that something should be done.

Bunch of pictures

2006-08-14T23:01:00.000+08:00

Took a few pictures over the last few weeks, but just didn't feel like updating. So here goes:

Celebrated my Baobei's birthday a few weeks ago. Went to Settler's Cafe at Katong, then headed to Hong Kong Cafe? I think that's the name, to have dinner/supper. My lovely girls waited with me for my bus before crossing the road to head home.

Picture 306: My Darling being coy.

Picture 307: Baobei being cute.

Picture 308: Me and the birthday girl.

Went for the Fireworks Festival on Friday. Parked at Esplanade. Omg, please don't park at Esplande unless you got lots of cash to spare, like those rich people who can spend a few hundred on drama productions. It's $4 an hour. I didn't get a lot of nice pictures, but I got a nice video. Too bad there's a tree right smack across my line of vision. Bo bian. Only got there around 8plus.

Picture 309: Fireworks...

Picture 310: Fireworks...

Picture 311: And more fireworks.

And finally, the pictures that some of you have been waiting for...

Picture 312: My new car. It's not second-hand.

Picture 313: I put two stuffed toys on each side. I used to get stuffed toys for my birthday, and I never knew what to do with them. So the other day, I threw them all into the washing machine, and then threw them into my car. The rabbit is from Jaime-san, the giraffe from someone I don't talk to anymore. On the other side are two bears, one Tatty Bear from Stas, and the blue one is the Science fac bear. Yes larh, I bought it larh. Support support ma.

Picture 314: Side view of my car. Btw, it's a Hyundai Getz 1.1M.

Btw, before you start saying, "Wah!! So rich ah! Buy car ah! Father-mother sponsership, right?" Let me tell you that although my mother encouraged me to get a car (because the journey to and from school is quite far), I am paying for the car myself. Petrol, road tax, season parking, cashcard top-ups, insurance, the whole works, I'm paying for it. And before you say, "Wah, earning so much ah!" Let me tell you that I'm not using the car for leisure. After paying for all of the above, where got money to go chiong?! Also, only one person actually intuitively got the intention of the car. I am quite surprised actually, that someone could actually understand the rationale of the car.

Graduation - More Pictures (the only way I know)

2006-07-16T19:35:00.000+08:00

Picture 290: Me and my brother.

Picture 291: Piggy Fren and her little soft toy.

Picture 292: Don't really recall why I was posing with this.

Picture 293: Me and the huge banner outside UCC.

Picture 294: Obligatory picture with the cardboard pieces the school set up behind UCC.

Picture 295: Acting hiao.

Picture 296: Moving on to the smaller board...

Picture 297: Ready? One... Two...

Picture 298: Three! Obligatory picture of graduate throwing mortar into the air. Cannot lose it in a crowd k; it's rented.

Picture 299: Moving back to the big board with a couple of balloons we filched from the ground.

Picture 300: Acting hiao again, posing on the steps. I say "acting", because we are really sweet people who aren't hiao in the least.

Picture 302: This is where we studied for a couple of maths exams, specifically MA2213 (I think).

Picture 303: Bachelor of Science (Mathematics).

Picture 304: A picture with Uncle, where I am not doing anything funny to him.

Picture 305: Bye bye, NUS.

If you're wondering why all the pictures have the same few people in them... Well, it's because they were the only people around to take so many pictures with.

Graduation - Pictures

2006-07-10T01:20:00.000+08:00

Pic 369: Piggy Fren and me, and her little MashiMaro thingie.

Pic 270: Alex and me! Haven't seen him in a long long time.

Pic 271: Me and Daniel, also known as Piggy Fren's official photographer for the day.

Pic 272: Piggy Fren no have steady hands.

Pic 273: Kang and me. He flew back specially (not for me) from I-don't-know-where to be around for the after-ceremony.

Pic 274: Piggy Fren and me waving our scrolls about.

Pic 275: How come she no smile bright bright like me???

Pic 276: My bestest secondary school friend. Quick, she's still unattached, who wants her number?

Pic 277: Victor "High On Coffee" Cheng. I think he smiled so much that his face is permanently stuck on bug-eyed mode. He abandoned his gf for so long larh, the poor girl was just hanging around waiting for him. Lousy bf! *wags finger*

Pic 278: Another one of those silly Maths major/English Studies minor person. d= Met her in Sem1, and just kept ending up taking same modules with her.

Pic 279: Me and Uncle Brown Nut!!!! He looks constipated, as usual.

Picture 280: Me and the smartest girl I know. She is like, so smart. I like this picture, the lighting was just right.

Picture 281: The funny part about this photo is that we were both muttering under our breaths in Chinese, "Eh, hurry up can. Very hot, very hot!!! The sun shining on us, can hurry up or not!!!"

Picture 282: Bullying Uncle again.

Pic 283: And again. *jabs his stomach*

Pic 284: My beloved Baobei.

Pic 285: Both of us in our gowns!!! I completely forgot that we took a picture in our gowns!

Pic 286: I love this picture. Love you, Baobei!!!

Pic 287: Must bao bao!

Pic 288: Cannot forget to take picture of Uncle in his gown.

Pic 289: Class of 2006.

Graduation

2006-07-09T19:16:00.000+08:00

Sometimes when you hit a rough patch, you really want to just lie down and yell at the world. And the thing about it, no matter how many kind-hearted souls are out there, you'll just keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing them away. Sooner or later, they'll go away, and you'll say, "They never really cared anyway." Do these people who go away know that if they go, you'll really have no one left?

I am deeply grateful for Uncle Brown Nut who came all the way down early, even though his convocation was only at 2plus, and he even hung around helping me take pictures and holding my cameras and a whole lot of other boring shit. Out of all the people who said they would turn up, he's the only friend who actually bothered. Thanks, Uncle, you're always the best.

I am also thankful for my Baobei who came to school in a taxi because she didn't want to be late to meet me. She could have easily said that she'd be late, and take the mrt or bus down to save money, but she took a taxi down instead. Thank you for being the one other friend who came and took of picture with me in my gown.

Pictures to follow.

Wedding Pictures

2006-06-21T15:58:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, I attended the wedding/s of one of my Kendo seniors. Was quite a packed weekend! Here are some pictures, cos I wasn't really in camera-whoring mode.

Pic 360: The church.

Pic 361: The hamsum bridegroom, looking smart in his No. 1.

Pic 362: Twinny and me.

Pic 363: Godspeed and me. Either he is taller than I thought, or my heels aren't as tall as I hoped.

Pic 364: Enginger and me, him being the melodramatic person that he is. He is about to attack a small cube of oreo cheesecake.

Pic 365: I love capturing people at awkward times. Enginger's drinking punch while Godspeed's chewing something.

That's all for the church wedding. After that, I went home to take my ez-link card, cos I forgot to bring it out, then went out with some friends. No pictures from there! I got like, the most terrible chafs from my new wedges. I'd take a picture of them, but I'm too lazy to walk out to the living room. Those shoes are KILLERS. And to think that I may potentially have to wear them and walk ten minutes to the school I'm posted to... *dies*

Had grading the next morning. After I was done, I asked Michael for permission to leave, and then rushed to Saizou's place with help from Enginger. Saizou's dog is really lazy, and so nuah. And it wants to be sayang so much... Tsk. Spoilt dog! But very cute larh. d= Got the results of my grading when I was at the wedding lunch, and I kaypoh-ed about people's results.

Pic 366: Peepee's ocifers. It's blurry cos the zoom on my camera is shit lousy.

After the lunch, me and Saizou went down to Borders to meet some of the Kendo people to walk walk. I bought a book, then we went to Taka to walk around. Had Mos Burger for dinner, and... I don't really remember what else we did.

Pic 368: Saizou and me! She has yet to send me her pictures. I taught her how to change exposure in her camera, and I would bet she's eternally grateful.

what's the deal?

2006-06-19T15:55:00.000+08:00

Read this! I came across it while surfing/gestapo-ing/whatever you want to call it. I think it's quite well-written. Here are some bits:

"If you've ever wondered about rank in kendo, the general bottom line is that rank doesn't matter. In my experience, no one really cares too much about it. Everyone's goal really is just to get better at kendo and perhaps you've noticed that no one in kendo wears anything special to denote their rank."

"...rank (and achieving rank) can be a positive thing in kendo. It can give us a sense of where we are (in terms of kendo ability/knowledge) and where we're headed or what we can look forward to. In our goal-driven society, rank can be a source of encouragement as well."

"So... should you worry about testing? The first testing can be a bit stressful because you want to do well. You know what the judges expect you to be able to do, but you may not know how well the judges expect you to do it! In the end, it's nothing to get worked up over. In my past as taekwondo student, I went through several testings which lasted anywhere from one to three hours. This is simply not the case with kendo. At best, you may be on the floor in front of the panel for 5 or 10 minutes. This obviously may add to your stress as you feel you don't have enough time to fully demonstrate what you can do. Promotional panels have a lot of experience, though, and are very able to see potential even when you're not "picture perfect". So, when you go in for testing, simply do what you know how to do and let the judges do their thing. No sense in worrying about it! Whether you hold a rank of 4.kyu or shodan, you'll always find yourself practicing and sparring people with more experience and higher rank and anyone, of any rank, can score a point or win a match against anyone else on any given day.

Regardless of rank, kendo is an ongoing learning experience. You might consider using promotionals as an encouragement to better your kendo, but ultimately, rank is not the end-all/be-all of kendo.

Something to keep in mind...."

Pictures from PeePee's wedding(s) will be coming soon. Congratulations to PeePee and his lovely wife, Joanne!

Ju's Index.

2006-06-17T23:38:00.000+08:00

Took the following off one of my pals. I miss her so much! When are you coming home! Meanwhile, I'm also missing my Baobei lots. When are YOU coming home? )=

INDEX OF GUYS FOR GIRLS NOT TO DATE (Can be reversed for the vice versa)

1. High-profile guys
Because girls are attracted to them like flies to food and if they take an interest in you, you should be wary. If you don't fall at their feet like all the rest do, you become a challenge, a commodity they want to obtain. After which you will be dropped like a hot potato.

2. Flirts
They want to charm the pants off girls and they develop crushes easily. They can’t be trusted with your heart. Who wants a boyfriend who pays more attention to other girls than to you?

3. Sweet Talkers
I’ll pick the moon from the sky for you, I’ll catch you the stars, I’ll give you the world. Really? Go ahead and show me. I love you. Liar. They never live up to all the sweet talk. The sweeter the tongue, the less trustworthy the person.

4. Half Assers
This breed has the distinction of being particularly half assed about relationships. They give up at the first roadblock because they’re too lazy to put in effort.

5. Guys whose exes hate them (and guys who lie about it)
There must be a good reason all these girls hate his guts, no?

6. Shy introverts
Instead of them standing up for you, you have to stand up for them. Extroverted girls should never date introverted guys. Severe inequality = severe discontent.

7. Arrogant/Cocky/Egoistic/Testosterone-laden males
Arrogant guys think they’re right all the time, they don’t give a prick about your opinions. It’s always me me me me me I’m the man I’m the bronzed god of fertility yada yada yada look at me check me out am I cool or what am I God’s gift to women or what. Eff off buggers.

8. Horny Guys
Horny guys just want to bang as many girls as they can; they will do anything to get you in the sack. And who knows what assortment of STDs they have

9. Guys who want to cheat with you
Because if they’ll do it to other girls, they’ll do it to you. Never ever date a cheating boyfriend (not yours and not some other girl’s either).

10. Guys who fall in love with you at first sight
You can’t. How do you fall in love without knowing a person? A face tells you nothing. It’s only one of many faces and you can’t be sure it’s the one she wears most often. Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are. So it is only reasonable to suggest that if you're prone to falling in love at first sight then you must be fairly superficial.

11. MCPs
Because they are insensitive pigs who place their values, opinions and needs above yours. Because they think women should do all the cooking and the cleaning, and that we're stupid broads who are only good for sex.

12. Guys who don’t make you feel alive
Only one life to live girls. Don’t waste it on corpses.

RECOGNIZE THE BAIT
(The bait that gives you hope. Dangles juicily but when you try to grab onto it, you get a hook through the roof of your mouth)

Baiting generally abides by three important rules.

1) Charm her and make her laugh, then delve into a sadder, lesser known aspect of your life and make her feel like she's the only one you confide in because she understands you

2) Tell her what she wants to hear (or hint it) so she feels special eg. you miss her/need her/like her/could love her/you've only done this with her

3) When she's vulnerable, play catch and release or hot and cold or caring then aloof

Okay ladies. Once you recognize the bait, you won't fall for it. But you ask, how do you know that the guy isn't serious? Some of them do actually go about it that way if they really like a girl.

The answer is, I don't know. lol. Just use your head, isn't that what it's for? Oh, don't lie to yourself. That never works out well.

Isn't this like, da bomb?

Last time in JC, my class started writing this epic story. When I mean epic, I mean really epic. It started off one day in class when a girl or two was bored. So they wrote a little story about gorillas and I forgot what else. Basically, it eventually evolved to the point where everyone in the class was included, and we all had our own little nicknames. It was damn funny. There were like, little scandals here and there. Unfortunately, I can only remember one particular nickname: Sir Vadid. Then there was some really long funny name for Ju, but I can't remember what.

I got my own little role too. I was... SeeNeek. Now, say it out loud and figure out what word that is. Go on.

I really want to be seventeen again. I want to be that little cynical girl who didn't need to deal with things like romance and flowers, who only needed a bunch of good pals around, who faked cramps to get out of P.E., who looked at cute guys in the class next door, and also laughed at a guy in the class next door.

Damn, I miss being seventeen.

Savage Garden - To The Moon And Back

2006-06-13T19:42:00.000+08:00

I remember hearing this song for the first time somewhere around the age of 17 or 18. Actually, I saw the lyrics for it first, and I kinda liked the chorus. I was on my way home from tuition when my Zen played this song, and I'm like, wow nostalgia. I still like the lyrics.

She's taking her time making up the reasons
To justify all the hurt inside.
Guess she knows from the smiles and the look in their eyes,
Everyone's got a theory about the bitter one
They're saying, "Mama never loved her much,"
And, "Daddy never keeps in touch,
That's why she shies away from human affection."
But somewhere in a private place
She packs her bags for outer space,
And now she's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come.
And she'll say to him:

She's sayin,
I would fly up to the moon and back if you'll be,
If you'll be my baby.
I've got a ticket for a world where we belong,
So would you be my baby?

She can't remember a time when she felt needed.
If love was red then she was color blind.
All her friends, well they've been tried for treason
And crimes that were never defined.
She's saying, "Love is like a barren place,
And reaching out for human faith
It's like a journey I just don't have a map for."
So baby's gonna take a dive and
Push the shift to overdrive,
Send a signal that she's hanging all her hopes on the stars.
What a pleasant dream...

Chorus

Mama never loved her much,
And Daddy never keeps in touch,
That's why she shies away from human affection.
But somewhere in a private place
She packs her bags for outer space,
And now she's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come.
And she'll say to him:

Chorus x2

Beach Outing

2006-06-09T02:20:00.000+08:00

My father suddenly decided to bring the family for a picnic at Changi beach on Sunday. Since I had nothing better to do than to sit at home and watch Buffy, I decided that I should spend some quality time with my sister.

So I got picked up around 12plus, and I drove instead. Apparently my father has some problems these days with driving, so I took over. My stepmom had to look after my sister in the back seat, so it had to be me. On the bright side, my father said that my driving is more steady now. Of course! After driving for six months, almost at least once a week, it SHOULD improve, else I'd be really upset.

So, pictures, after a huge drought.

Pic 352: My stepmother and me.

Pic 353: My sister and my father, waving to me. It was my father's turn to bring her into the water. I went into the sea with her first and got my shorts wet.

Pic 354: My sister!

Pic 355: Sister running across the sand towards my father. There was this huge ship that was being tugged along.

Pic 356: Sand angels, anyone?

Pic 357: Another one. The good thing now is that she actually understands the concept of staying still for a picture.

Pic 358: Playing with sand.

Pic 359:Hehe, stepmother's turn to go into the water. I forgot what my sister was looking at.

benchmark

2006-06-04T01:55:00.000+08:00

As of 3rd June 2006 at 11am, I signed away four years of my life. Why four? One year training, three years bond. Well, two more things to get settled by 20th June, and then I'm all set for the rest of my life.

Too bad the only secondary school within walking distance is now currently undergoing some major uber renovations. Don't know when it'll be back, hopefully by the time I graduate from that ulu campus in Boon Lay. Meanwhile... please don't let me go to some school in Katong... *crosses fingers*

Quote

2006-06-03T02:41:00.000+08:00

All your life you are told the things you cannot do.
All your life they will say you're not good enough
or strong enough
or talented enough;
they will say you're the wrong height
or the wrong weight
or the wrong type
to play this or be this or achieve this.
THEY WILL TELL YOU NO,
a thousand times no,
until all the no's become meaningless.
All your life they will tell you no,
quite firmly and very quickly.

AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES.

-Nike advertisement

something funny

2006-05-25T12:40:00.000+08:00

Ten Top Trivia Tips about St!

If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn into st!
Olive oil was used for washing st in the ancient Mediterranean world.
It takes 17 muscles to smile, and 43 to frown at st.
St has little need for water and is capable of going for months without drinking at all.
Contrary to popular belief, st is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases she may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.
It's bad luck to put st on a bed.
St is the smallest of Jupiter's many moons.
St is actually a vegetable, not a fruit.
A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are individually known as st.
St is the only king without a moustache on the standard pack of cards!

Got this off vickypoo. I didn't do this, Bix did it! It wasn't me!

I have a bunch of photos from a recent birthday party, but I'm too lazy to do it now, cos I just wanna wait for my exam results.

completely missing the point

New interface?

imagine that!

so what?

living vs. existing

lots of youtube videos - go crazy!

taylor swift - breathe

fml

when it all falls apart

hands

handphones & relationships

workaholic.

days of my life

ARGHHH!!!!

book list

Melbourne Day 1

funny things

yet another one from a musical

new developments

Quotes

sad song

funny things

work

i'm alive!

phew!

excessive book rant

KL Trip Dec 2007 - Day 2 (city tour)

KL Trip Dec 2007 - Day 1

time is short

i feel like...

something to watch

food

wasteland

Celebrations

what i did on a public holiday

if only some things were that easy to wait for

another quote

Check out my Slide Show!

scrubs

LASIK

long weekend!

updates!

convocations and mutiliated pooh bears

loads of pictures, be happy!

and so it is...

Brother's Graduation

200

do you feel better now?

some random stuff

visual dna

Better Than Me

$$ fly away...

Piggy Fren's Birthday

phantom of the opera

lousy male driver

i love my baobei

pictures once again!

there's just some things we must live without

Not Ready To Make Nice

bimbo moment

one more day

心动

Hate Me

Billy

searching for me?

Bloggerbot is dead.

HAHA

Chiangmai Trip - Day One

last pics of 2006

SMS

KL Trip Dec 2006

1st kyu

pictures coming soon

a lot of stuff.

*prods idlely*

guess what???

confession

this is so funny

teamNUS sports awards

Better Not

prods idlely