sore.

gosh, i’m feeling so terribly sore and achy all over. just another indicator of my rapidly degenerating body. sigh.

and unfortunately for myself, yesterday’s high and euphoria wore off by the time i woke up this morning, because i could have sworn there was someone knocking on my door (the maid? don’t know, didn’t ask.) and preventing me from falling back to sleep.

waited over two hours just to see the sinseh for like 15 very painful minutes. and i was informed that it would be horribly painful if i were to treat my hip problems. great. and yes the sinseh’s policy is no pain, no gain. i’m actually surprised that people don’t actually faint from all the pain that’s supposedly being released from our nerves and joints, it’s so bloody painful. gosh.

signed up for driving at the comfort driving centre branch at kovan. on hindsight i’m not sure if that really was a good idea, considering that i’d have to trek down to their main centre near eunos to take my basic theory tests and all. and i think the ang mo kio one has everything there. but oh well in the long run it’s less travel time for me, so i guess it evens out in the end?

and as i was overly impatient to get started on driving, i’ll be taking my basic theory test next week on wednesday, at 10.30am. and yes, that’s the morning after prom. but it’s either that, or wait till the 23rd (on which i can’t really make it either, since that’s the day of the 3404 christmas party) to take the test. if i pass the test next week i’ll be on my way to driving. yayness.

also found out that my aunt’s country club offers the deep water running/workout course i’m interested in. with some luck i’ll be trying it out the week after prom, and god knows i badly need the exercise. in fact i feel like playing more basketball, the only things stopping me are my terrible aches and the fact that prom’s coming and i don’t want to be any more burnt than i already am. oh well.

and mahjong at denise’s tomorrow! i can’t wait. and if we ever actually get sick of it there’s always bridge. whee.

i love my slippers!

i’ve already gotten most of my prom stuff, and i must say that i’m quite happy with my haul. and very especially my slippers. i can’t help gushing about them, i love them SO MUCH. and if you know me you know that i’ve never been one to gush over things like that. but the more i look at them, the more i like them. and that’s even when i didn’t get the black ones, like i originally wanted. but the brown one is still lovely anyway. help, i can’t stop gushing over my slippers! haha i’m mad.

got the black version of the gorgeous blue dorothy perkins top to go with an equally gorgeous black skirt that i really really like. and a small black bag for me to carry on that day itself. and as i spent so much at dorothy perkins, i got a giftcard with a $10 credit usable at dorothy perkins, topshop and topman, which as yy and maryam hinted to me, makes a great christmas gift. haha.

and we had nice coffee at starbucks after dorothy perkins, charles and keith and hunting at spotlight for rhinestones (or, tana’s bedazzlers. if you’ve watched the apprentice you know what i mean.) to make my small black bag look nicer. am also looking for a pair of faux diamond E’s to attach to the bag and make it truly my own. if you know where to get them (cheap, dorothy perkins has them, but at like 13 bucks for one letter) please tell me!

and starbucks has lots of nice christmas-y things! like mugs and those coffee container things… i can’t recall their names offhand. and they have cute bearista bears! haha. it makes for great christmas presents eh :D

basketball was fun today, even though it was more tiring, which gave me these pains in my chest that reminded me of my pathetic lack of stamina and my too-old, creaky and generally faulty body. and the weather was great for basketball, even if the sun was a mite too hot. i forgot my sunblock again and now have a terribly sunburnt face to show for it. gah. but who cares. i haven’t played such fun basketball for a long time (:

after basketball we sat down and played bridge. since there were like 7 of us (6, after dwayne left for his job interviews) we took turns to play. and bridge, as always, was fun. but the funniest and most defining moment was when me and vanessa were partners and it appeared that we had lost, until yy put down a diamond jack and vanessa triumphantly put down the queen of diamonds, while making a most hilarious sound which i can only describe as her going “deng deng deng”? that doesn’t do it justice la. but it just totally tickled me. haha.

after that we parted ways on the mrt, leaving just me, maryam, yy and yijun to try out the fried mars bars at far east plaza. and fried mars bars wasn’t all the chippy’s place or whatever it’s called has. they also had calamari rings, beer-battered fish&chips, cheesy curry chicken chunks and a cheesy hotdog with mashed potato thing. we tried all of them, and gosh, they were all good. the calamari rings were really really good. and they were even better with the mayonnaise. the batter they used was just fantastic, really. and the fish&chips were really good too. i loved the slightly salty flavour of the seasoning, along with the batter which perfectly complemented the fish which didn’t have an overly fishy flavour. and don’t let the name fool you, there’s no taste or smell of beer at all. it’s just really good. and so was the cheesy curry chicken chunks. i couldn’t really taste the curry, but i liked it a lot, especially with the cheese dip. the cheesy sausage wasn’t really worth it, and not really much to rave about, although i did like the cheesy flavour in the mashed potato. and the fried mars bars! i don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s just good, though only in small quantities, cos it’s so rich that too much would be overkill. the way the crispy batter gives way to a deliciously melted mars bars is just good. i didn’t try it with the ice cream, but i’m sure the contrast of the cool ice cream and piping hot mars bars bits would definitely be delicious. it’s all just very highly recommended, if you go to far east be sure to try them out. be sure to bring friends along to share the portions with, though. they’re quite large and it’s all so sinful (they’re all deep-fried) so be sure to not like eat too much of it.

then it rained and we were bored in far east so we walked over to the dutyfree shop. and it was quite interesting to walk into all those shops with luxury items that i probably will not be able to afford for the next ten years and see the attitude of the salespeople towards four students clad in their pe uniforms. most of the staff there were friendly and did call out welcome’s and goodbye’s as we entered and left, but some of them were plain rude. like the people in cartier who totally ignored our existence as we wandered around their shop. fine, they didn’t greet us, but the worst was when they removed some stuff from their display while we were looking at them, without so much as an ‘excuse me’ or ’sorry’? talk about service, man. i just think salespeople should treat all potential customers the same, regardless of whether we look like we’re going to buy anything, or if we have the ability to afford any of the stuff they’re selling, right? it’s not like they can afford the stuff they handle either, if you think about it…

and to be totally off-topic, you’re looking at a very pleased and proud owner of a most gorgeously green crumpler bag. it’s like someone up there saw me lusting over the bag whenever i walked past the 77th street in compasspoint, and decided to be nice to me for once. my (rich) aunt decided to splurge on her nieces and nephews, and bought crumpler bags for me, my sister and my cousin. when my sister called me to ask what colour bag i wanted, i could scarcely believe my ears. after lusting over them so much and trying to figure out how i should save for a bag or persuade my mum to get it for me, i was going to get a bag, just like that? unbelievable. perhaps it is not a big deal for some, but i just looove my bag to bits. the green is just so nice. i just feel like carrying and hugging my bag all day long. haha. i’m mad. even my mum said i looked extraordinarily happy about getting the bag. and i am! and it looks like this!

and i realise what a ridiculously long entry this is. but i’m just so exhilarated and high now. people adjective of the moment is mad. or it’s just me that’s mad, maybe. object adjective of the moment is GORGEOUS. gorgeous slippers, gorgeous skirt, gorgeously green crumpler. i feel so high and happy now. i hope i’ll feel this way for a long long time. haha.

and i still need to save lots of money. to buy the upgrades for my poor chugging com. head to borders and hope they have imports of blessid union of souls so i can get my hands on the lyrics. and try not to be tempted to buy butch walker and better than ezra albums since i technically already have them.

happy happy happy :D am mad and possibly insane, but happy :D

some anodyne would be nice.

am on a high following man u’s win over west ham despite trailing by 1-0 for most of the game after west ham scored in the very first minute. which was a little too eerily like the middlesbrough game for my taste. but thankfully rooney equalised with a nice goal, and followed that up by providing the corner john o’shea scored from. so that’s a close win for man u, but a win, nevertheless.

it was pretty fun at maryam’s house today. the food was good and so was the company (denise aiping yy gideon yijun mark dwayne). and quite surprisingly carolyn made an appearance! no one really expected it, considering the number of appearances she’s made in school since her pregnancy (three, as far as i know). but apparently she’s been going back to school again. well i do hope her pregnancy goes well. can’t wait to see her cute baby :D

i think i burnt quite a big hole in my mum’s pockets yesterday… two tshirts and two sports bras from nike. and if i had bought that new bra for prom too, i must have cost my mum a few hundred bucks in one shopping trip. like i’ve said before, i’m a rather expensive child. but hey, i’m keeping my expenses in check. sorta.

before we went to parkway we went to bugis junction so my mum could enquire at sunny holidays. i wandered around and found the black version of the dorothy perkins top i’d earmarked as a possibility for prom, and i guess i’ve more or less decided on what i want to wear. and i bought a new wallet! it looks a bit guyish but i can’t be bothered with that. i just like it because it feels very me. hell, it looks like something i might have designed. haha. and i also saw a pair of lovely slippers at charles&keith. they’d better have it in my size at other outlets, or i’ll be really devastated.

and more dreams again. i dreamt of jy working at haagen dazs, and of lots of 4u classmates. and there was the dream of the 30-dollar chicken burger meal at carl’s jr. my dreams are getting decidedly weirder. maybe it’s because i’m sleeping too much these days.

well this is getting awfully mundane, isn’t it. i guess i shall just go and sleep. and see if i can rouse my lazybones enough tomorrow morning to go for a swim.

why can’t i shake off this feeling? thisfeelingthati’llwon’tbeabletoseeyouforalongtime.

irritated.

is “irritating” a very harsh or strong word to use?

apparently it is, according to my mum. i was asking my mum exactly where we were going for the holidays, and expressed my annoyance at the fact that they’ve shuttled from bangkok to korea, before deciding on bangkok again.

i honestly don’t see what is wrong with me being annoyed by the way they can’t seem to make up their minds, and expressing it with the use of the word “irritating”. but parents being parents, my mum exploded and did the whole why-are-you-so-rude etc etc blah blah blah thing. which did nothing except to make me want to lose my temper at the way my parents do things.

yes i know i shouldn’t complain, but just because they feed and clothe me doesn’t mean that i give up my rights to express displeasure at some of the things they do, right? my father would have an exceedingly long list, so i’m obviously not going to list out everything.

but for now my pet peeve is the way my mum makes up lame excuses when she doesn’t want to help me do some things. like the other day when she was going to the library with my brother. i asked her to just check with the librarian why my card couldn’t borrow books, and she said she didn’t want to do it because she wasn’t feeling well. if that was the case, then why was she still going out? i’m not an unfeeling daughter, but it was just such an obvious lie that it just made me really mad. for one it was not like i was asking her to go out of her way to do me a favour, and for another, she could have just said no outright, but decided to go with a flimsy excuse instead. and that just pissed me off.

as you might have already ascertained from the above my relationship with my parents aren’t exactly very warm. i admit that i’m not close to my parents. i’d blame it on our generational differences (although my mum is just over twenty years older than me) but i realise it’s just the way they’ve brought us up. they were always busy working, and i cannot really recall moments of my parents expressing love for me and my sister, either verbally or through actions that do not involve money. and of course i’m jealous. jealous of the fact that my dad favours my sister the most, while my mum does that for my brother. i’m just the bossy and naggy older sister who unreasonably loses her temper every once in a while and achieves the decent grades necessary for my parents should they need to show off the academic achievements of our family.

but oh wait, my mum can’t even remember whether i got 253 or 261 for my PSLE. or that i took triple sciences in st nicks. or which subject i dropped towards the end of the JC1 year. i suspect that on the other hand, my dad is quite completely clueless about my whole education, apart from where my schools are since he drives me sometimes (and never fails to bring up the fact that we allegedly treat him like a chauffeur whenever we argue).

and there are of course the good things, but how can you try and recall the positive aspect of things when you’re still inwardly seething with anger at what you perceive to be an unjustified tongue-lashing?

and i’ve had odd dreams again. i dreamt that i was back in stnicks, and that julia yeo was teaching me again. we (no idea who the “we” constitutes, though) had to do some physics experiment consisting of linking up a recharging station for rechargeable batteries to goodness knows what, we had a maths test and/or a chinese ting xie, our timetable was a monday timetable instead of the friday one which would have allowed us (including julia yeo)to watch some tv show because we had more breaks on friday… it was all so odd, and yet so realistic and believable in the dream. and when i woke up, it did take me a couple of seconds to realise that i no longer took maths and that i hadn’t taken chinese for ages and hell, i’m not even studying at the moment. so why am i dreaming stuff like that? beats me.

i wish i had a pensieve.

mahjong madness.

i’m addicted to mahjong! played mahjong (or as mahjong as you can get with three players) with denise and jasper and denise’s place. mark was supposed to join us but couldn’t make it in the end. oh well. but it was still fun, anyhow. it let me brush up on some of the details i hadn’t known before, and experience what it was like to “wash” the tiles. hehe.

today’s weather was bad for basketball, because it was almost constantly drizzling. it stopped when we were done, though… murphy’s law at work again, bah. i had to wait a quite a bit before gideon turned up, followed by mark and an umbrella-toting jasper. denise overslept and joined us later. a sad turnout, yes, but better some basketball than none at all. i’ve been so sedentary my shoulders are already aching from just the little bit of basketball today. gosh.

am feeling awfully sleepy now. i guess all the basketball and mahjong tired me out a lot more than i thought, considering that i’m feeling far more exhausted that i’ve been in ages.

i thought my saturday was going to be free, but i forgot about our planned trip to parkway parade. the main purpose is to shop at the nike women shop and spend $150 there so we can “save” 20 bucks. my mum’s just that kind of a person… haha. but hey, i’m not complaining. who would?

am looking forward to sunday and seeing the whole class (or most of it, anyway) again. it’s only been a while but i miss the class already :( it’s not like i’m not seeing the class people, but going out with a couple of people at one time is different, isn’t it? but gosh i’ve seen denise so much these few days it’s almost like school all over again. haha.

and holiday plans for this hols is still a big question mark. my parents (or rather, just my mum) has vacillated between bangkok and korea. it seems like korea now, but it’s still not confirmed? now you know where i got all my indecisive genes from.

i think i shall go take a short nap, before waking up to… erh. slack some more. heh.

imaginary mindless yaw.

indigested.

hmmm no long potter review, after all. i’m far too lazy. basically i didn’t really like the editing, because it made the story a bit too disjointed and disorientating, at least in my opinion. and i didn’t like their characterisation, either. but some parts were good, especially cedric’s death. MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD, don’t say i didn’t warn ya. when harry returned to hogwarts via the portkey, crying over cedric’s body while everyone was cheering because they hadn’t realised that cedric was dead, i just felt tears forming in my eyes, which really surprised me considering that i hadn’t even cried for cedric’s nor even sirius’ death in the books. so kudos to the director for being able to bring out the raw emotions in that particular scene. otherwise, on the whole it was a little too much like a teen movie, and not enough of a harry potter movie, in my humble opinion.

i watched just like heaven with gayle and denise today, and it was quite a good movie, despite being way too predictable for my taste. but it was sweet, sappy and funny, which means it basically did fulfil the criteria of being a romantic comedy. and lesson learnt today: don’t smuggle bottled soft drinks into the cinema, cos the bottle’s liable to spritz all over you when its contents have been shaken from being stuffed in your bag.

then we walked around taka and wisma for prom stuff, and a present for denise’s friend. it was quite fun… hehe. then we had a marvellous lunch at the new foodcourt in wisma. the hokkien mee stall had a really long queue, and seeing other people tuck heartily into it at the food court really made us drool and left us with little choice but to join the long queue and just see how good the hokkien mee was. and boy, was it GOOD. i seldom heap praise (actually, i’ve never ever!) on hokkien mee apart from the one at chomp chomp, but this one was just really good, in my opinion. and their oyster omelette looked damned good too. the oysters looked really fresh and tempting, and i’m not even one for downing oysters. it’s a pity we couldn’t get that, cos we had already ordered chicken murtabak to go with our hokkien mee. i need to go back there and eat it again. it’s sooo good.

and oh, my brother did okay for his psle – 242. 1A*, 3A’s. which really annoys me, in the sense that i only have 1 more A* than him, and yet my aggregate was 261. practically 20 marks higher. and people like GAYLE got 3A*’s and one A1 when she got like… 253 or 255. and i am lamenting over my lack of A*’s because i badly wanted to try the gifted programme test, just to see where i stood. and you can just see how screwed up MOE can be sometimes, just from this alone.

we went out for dinner at yu jia zhuang at suntec city to celebrate my brother’s good results, and i was quite surprised to meet shawn loh there. or rather, he saw me and tried to say hi while i was being my typical oblivious self (ask denise how many times she has noticed my ex-classmates before i do) . well, that was interesting…

dinner was good. for some odd reason chefs in restaurants can stirfry their vegetables in such a way that it becomes completely palatable to me, while i never ever touch vegetables at home unless it’s cabbage or broccoli. and their scallops were really fresh too. my only regret is that i developed a bad case of indigestion halfway through the meal. bah.

and while walking around, i made the discovery of the day – carl’s jnr at suntec city!!! like, wow. that makes it even more convenient to get our future carl’s jnr fixes. although i think we’ll still go to the marina square outlet for our maiden carl’s jnr outing, just so we can visit candy empire. whee. and suntec has ben and jerry’s too!

gosh. all these sinful food makes me forget how i really need to lose weight. it sucks to see lots of nice clothes, but know that you can’t fit in them, or you’ll look positively dreadful in them. bah. but there’s always good old dorothy perkins. where i pounced on a skirt that i really liked, and will very possibly wear for prom… unless gayle voices very very violent objections. i also saw a rather nice possible prom top, but without any prom consultants at hand i had no idea if it was suitable from prom. but i think it’s quite nice. but anyway i persuaded my mum to buy the skirt for me, even if i might not wear it for prom. just because i really like it, and because it looked like a clearance item. god knows if i can ever get it again if i don’t buy it now, right?

and i’ve discovered that i might actually be able to reuse the top i wore for grad in sec 4, because in my opinion and very warped fashion sense i think they match. material-wise, at least. colour-wise, i’m not so sure. unfortunately for myself i have next to zero confidence in my taste in clothes, thus the need for me to consult someone before i make any decisions, on top of me being a total indecisive freak. geez.

and oh yes. just in case no one reads their emails, i’ve compiled the ultimate 3404 contact list, complete with updated phone numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses. pop me a message if you didn’t get it in the mail, or whatever. am not putting the link here just in case some spammer or weirdo gets a hold of it and makes prank calls or sends spam mail.

and bah. my indigestion is killing me. let’s hope it’ll be gone by the time i wake up and make my way to school to clear the locker and play me some basketball.

and to end off… get well soon, vanessa! aiping, if you’re reading this, TELL ME when you’re flying off! if not, i’ll just find out anyway. somehow! so there.

odd.

it feels funny to say this but i do actually sort of miss studying. or at least, it feels awfully weird to be just slacking around, putting in time into those many ps2 games i’ve bought but never played, sleeping late and waking up even later… and horror of horrors, i actually miss doing maths! i guess i’m just missing the mental workout that studying provides. and if you think about it, studying’s actually sorta fun. it’s just tests and exams that kills it off.

and i’m blogging at 4am because it’s half-time for the man u versus villarreal game. and being a man u fan (not solely because i am a keen admirer of alan smith!) and having the luxury of being able to wake up only when my body has decided it has adequate rest means i have got to catch a crucial game like this.

i’d wanted to blog about the movie, but i guess that it’ll have to wait till tomorrow, since the second half has started. man u has had some great chances, with rooney being positively magical but still no goals. sigh.

freed!

gosh. this is so inconceivable and almost unbelievable.

i’m free. liberated. unshackled.

except that it doesn’t really feel like it. like, huh, it’s over already? after studying so much and for so long, it’s over, just like that? unbelievable.

in fact i felt more like the a’s was over after thursday’s paper. hell, i was slacking off and playing already. and i hate how slacking off doesn’t feel as fun and as inviting when you can slack. haha.

today’s paper wasn’t very good… i like the cold war paper better. for one the source-based was about the obscure 1962 referendum on merger. when i flipped through it to check the printed pages and caught a glimpse of “lee kuan yew cried” i was like YES it’s separation! but it was like what the hell? after i read through all the sources.

and they were plenty evil with the essay questions. there were two general questions, and i felt that the nationalism questions were pretty crappy. especially for the question about whether world war ii changed the character of nationalism. my mind drew lots of blanks and it was my shortest essay of the whole a-levels period (just three pages, and with big scrawly handwriting… damn.) and now i’m wondering if i did the wrong essay. but at least it gave me a bit more time to complete my last essay, since i took about 5 minutes longer for my source-based, and another 5 minutes longer for the general essay.

but hey what the hell. it’s over! why should i give a damn about it anyway? the only thing i can do now is worry about the results when it comes. and figure out how the hell i’m supposed to convince SMU to let me in. but that’s a matter for another time, isn’t it?

went for lunch with denise at taka, with gideon accompanying us. we both had jap food, which was okay. then we walked around a bit before we parted ways. i went to the library and got myself four books. god emperor of dune, the andromeda strain, the lost world and seizure by robin cook. i actually wanted to read some chick lit, but i couldn’t find any book that looked interesting. blah.

then i walked around the puma store and decided to try on something. and that was when i did the stupidest thing ever. i left my wallet in the changing room!!! and i didn’t even realise it until i was at the mrt station and realised that my wallet wasn’t in my pocket. or my bag. i practically ran all the way back, all the time crossing my fingers and hoping that it was still there. to my horror it wasn’t in the changing room, and the person at the counter only made it worse when she was like “huh, there’s a lost wallet?” thank goodness her colleague did pick it up. i would have killed myself if i’d lost my wallet, considering the amount of money (i decline to say how much) and some irreplaceable stuff inside. gosh i feel like a big idiot. this is the closest i’ve ever come to losing my wallet, and it’s not something i want to ever do again. going to need to do more double-checks of whether my three essentials (wallet phone ipod) are with me all the time next time.

and well i have a rather long list of things i want and need to do. i can’t be bothered to put it down though. and i’m almost too lazy to do some stuff. like dig through my stuff for the gp notes i’m supposed to sell, sign for the SATs, find out about driving lessons and deep water running… i’m so lazy. as always.

and hmmm. i wonder if it’s just my imagination.

i’m vanilla.

My angst tastes like…

Vanilla

Simple and true, your angst is just the amount of any normal person. What’s more, you exercise an extremely honest and healthy way of dealing with it. Many people could use maturity and wisdom like yours. Your angst may be that you don’t get along with your boss or a family member is having health problems, but either way it’s always something transient and survivable that you cope with and use as a step on your way to becoming a better person. If there’s one problem with your angsting, it’s that you may tend to take this matter-of-fact, dutiful approach to all things. Maybe you should cut loose a little now and then so you can have some wild fun and adventure to balance out your angst. Remember that life needs its up as well as its downs and treat yourself to a little reward for your work.

Find the flavour of your angst

eh it’s not true la. i like to think that i’m a very angsty person and that i have problems dealing with all my angst. haha. and yes that’s why i like reading angsty fics – because i think i’m angsty. i’m mad.

evil movies.

actually, movies aren’t evil. the only evil thing is the game called the movies that makes me want to do evil things like play it when i’m supposed to be diligently committing my SEA notes to memory.

but i only have myself to blame for downloading it, and allowing myself to be so annoyed by my brother’s persistent bugging that i installed it. geesh.

but otherwise, it’s a really fun and addictive sim-type/tycoon-type game that i’ll recommend fans of the genre (or even if you’re not a fan, actually.) to get. unfortunately i can’t erhhh… share my joy because it comes in the form of a dvd and my com has some problems with burning/reading dvds. oh well.

and speaking of movies… i definitely want to watch these movies:
- harry potter and the goblet of fire (like, duh.)
- sky high
- exorcism of emily rose
- memoirs of a geisha
- brokeback mountain (eh they’d better show this in singapore!!! and not with like a R21 rating please.)

and maybe pride and prejudice, just because it has keira knightley. hoho.

and goodness. it’s taking like 200% of my willpower to not double-click on the icon labelled the movies on my desktop. HELP.

must be diligent, must be diligent, must be diligent…