drench yourself in words unspoken

hmmm somehow the past two or so days have seemed a little longer than usual, but thankfully i had fun so that’s actually a good thing.
and i hope no one from handball or touch rugby reads this, but most of the fun actually came from ponning training. oops.

but at least i did go for handball training on thursday, which was actually quite a bad training for me. for one my right knee was feeling weird before the training but i just gritted my teeth and went on anyway. and to make matters worse while i wanted to put in 100% into training, for some reason the ball kept insanely bouncing off me. it happened like five or six times, and sometimes twice in a row. and i can’t figure out if it was because the ball wasn’t passed properly to me, or if my hands weren’t out enough, or what. in any case it did hurt and definitely chipped away at my already low confidence levels. gah.
then we had a game. in the rain. it was cold and exhausting and halfway through the game i felt so weak and tired i actually felt like collapsing, especially when i had to raise my hands up for defence. but somehow i just managed to hold out till the end of the game, thank goodness. the rain was relentless and we had to run to the bus stop in the rain. at least i had an umbrella… not that it was of much help, i still got wet. and well i was already wet so it didn’t matter very much, either.

i went back to my room to discover that CORS was down and was discussing module stuff and CORS with maryam and denise when vanessa called to ask if i wanted to lunch at fong seng, so off we went. on our way back to hall after our meal vanessa decided that she didn’t want to go for touch rugby training and that she wanted to buy her fish today, so we called yy to ask if we could go today.
“excitement” ensued when yy said she couldn’t get maryam on her phone and worried that maryam was already on the bus to vivocity, so me and vanessa rushed to kent ridge terminal and our hearts nearly stopped (or at least mine did) when maryam wasn’t there. thank goodness she picked up when i called, and that she was only on her way to the terminal. so we waited for her, and waited a bit more while vanessa was on the phone with jesselyn about touch training. we were on our way to my room when yy called so we had to go back to open the gate for yy, haha.

what happened next is a bit of a blur to me now, but basically we all had to hang out and hide in my room because vanessa had to make sure we weren’t seen by carmen and gang when we went out to buy the fish. i think i went to take a well-needed shower while the rest snacked and chatted in my room, and when i came back we played bridge, which was fun because i had some really good hands (though i had some downright horrible ones too. like only one or two picture cards) and some games were played to the wire.
then we wanted to move onto poker, but we had no chips. so the hunt for chip replacements began. clothes pegs, suggested someone, so i went to see how many i had, but unfortunately i didn’t have enough. frustratingly enough, i didn’t have paper clips or other small things either. then someone remembered the satay sticks leftover from the bbq and sitting at my topmost shelf, so we grabbed the open packet of sticks, counted and divided them, and proceeded to break the sticks into two so we could have more “chips”. we ended up with 46 half-sticks and our poker game then began.

from our games we can conclude that the luckiest spot is the one on my bed, closer to my pillow, because it yields good hands like nobody’s business. and poker as usual is always fun and hilarious, because i was playing really tightly and folding a lot while vanessa was the opposite because she just couldn’t quit and fold even if her hand wasn’t too good. yy played in a similar style and both games we played ended up with me and maryam facing off. i was there by virtue of my folding early and refusing to get sucked up in big bets, while maryam was there because of her being in the lucky spot. i can’t really remember who won in the end, though. i think it was always the person in the lucky spot, haha.

we finally wrapped up our poker games at 7pm, and thanks to vanessa we got to cab to clementi, because she wanted us to have another game so she could try and curb her tendencies to play poker with reckless abandon, haha. yy got her five fishes after a lot of choosing, and vanessa got her new fish and house after a while. and it was fun because we discovered lots of really cute fish, like the penguin ones which all stare in the same direction, hehe.
it was too crowded at the botak jones kopitiam so we went back to opposite clementi to eat, where we found a franchise branch of mad jack’s, so we ate there. unfortunately we were rather ripped off because for six bucks we got two rather small pieces of fish, a tiny splotch of salad and not very many fries, a stark contrast to the huge serving from botak jones, and at a cheaper price of $5.50, at that. the others will beg to differ but i actually really rather like the fish there, despite it being a tad oily and according to the rest, tasteless. but the fish was fresh and it didn’t taste bad, which is actually quite enough for me.

and if you recall, vanessa has been hiding from carmen and friends because she had kind of ponned touch training. since it was already so late we didn’t think we would bump into them, but hilariously enough, we did. we were on our way to cross the overhead bridge so we could take 189 back to hall, but on the way there i spied the familiar yellow-and-black of a eusoff tshirt. then i recognised xintian to the right of said wearer of eusoff tshirt, and then realised that the person on the left was carmen! maryam and yy were already walking ahead so we had to hurriedly call them back without carmen spotting us. and vanessa didn’t want to take the risk of having them spot us (and feeling rich, i suppose) so she sponsored the cab fare back to hall. ah, the perils of ponning training.

after putting in vanessa’s new fish and house into her tank we went over to my room to pick up drinks and snacks and dvds to possibly watch, before heading for sheares. yy put her new fishes in her tank and after quite a bit of oohing and aahing at them i think we got to playing a bit of poker. then i think we just talked until about 2 plus am, when we decided to turn in for the night. we all slept along the width of the bed. i was in the top third of the bed, vanessa was in the middle and yy slept at the foot of the bed. it wasn’t uncomfortable but not wholly comfortable, either, because my feet kept slipping off from yy’s swivel chair and because my right hip was kinda hurting. but at least i did get sleep, though i also did wake up a few times in the night. the funny moments of the night was when both yy and vanessa started sniffing. yy was first so i passed the tissue box to her, and a couple of minutes later vanessa started to feel around for the tissue box too, haha. and at one point of time vanessa also managed to hog the entire blanket to herself, while she was using yy’s pillow as a bolster. amazingly enough we managed to sleep until about 11am in the morning, haha.

which means yes, me and vanessa ponned handball training… we were lazy and peiluan wasn’t going to be there, so… but in truth my right hip really was damn wonky anyway. so we woke up and started talking some more, while we kind of breakfasted on things like twisties and satay broad beans. at one point of time carmen called me to ask if i wanted to get back on the touch rugby team because one of the seniors had to withdraw, and i said okay because well, i need the points? which unfortunately also meant that i had to go for the friendly on saturday (meaning, today. but more on that later.) which was rather bumming but oh well i just didn’t really care at that point of time.

since open bidding was going to close soon we also went to place our bids for next sem’s modules. after hearing not so nice stuff about econs and my wanting to take SEA instead of japanese studies, i decided to reshuffle my modules for next sem. i dropped wheel to web in favour of european studies since the rest were taking it, and since i would no longer have an exam clash, i went for SEA. which just left one last module, and i decided to go for this history of modern china module since it slotted in nicely with my timetable and vanessa was also taking it. in fact i had wanted to take it before, but couldn’t because the lecture clashed with japanese studies.
so yup, i’m pleased with the modules i’m taking next sem since they’re all rather interesting, and that there’s someone i know in every module’s a nice bonus :)

and back to what happened on friday. after bidding we discovered that there was a bit of excitment in yy’s tank, because for some reason yy’s ethereal-looking fish kept attacking the leopard-y fish, which yy named alain. and it wasn’t even just the ethereal fish that was attacking alain, one of the black and orange tailed fishes (yy hasn’t named any of her fish except for prince charming and alain) attacked alain, too. but they only occasionally attacked alain so we thought it was safe to leave them alone while we went out for lunch.

which we realised was a big mistake, when we went back to eusoff and stopped by vanessa’s room to look at her fish. and we found that the newcomer, incidentally also an alain look-alike, was dead. and the poor thing was still unnamed, too. then we started to get worried about all the fishes because yy had a bit of her tail gone, and except for maryam we were all looking really off-colour. yy was considerably paler while me and vanessa had become so translucent we could see their vertebrate. poor fishes :(

and unlike vanessa who (tsk tsk) hadn’t even showered since after handball the day before, i went back to my room to take a shower while the rest remained in vanessa’s room to look at the fish. and when i came back maryam told me that they’d speculated that i was actually female because i was starting to look a bit big in the stomach, and it seemed that maryam and vanessa were fighting over me. and of course i’m referring to our fishy alter-egos, not literally us.
and i didn’t know it till i did a bit of research online, but i really am a female. oops. i just wonder who the father is, haha.

so after some fussing over the fish we finally went off to botak jones for lunch. ironically, all of us except for maryam since botak jones is not halal had fish and chips, haha. and the coleslaw was particularly good that day so i ate all of my coleslaw and ended up not finishing my fish and having a lot of fries left. i always feel kinda guilty about not finishing my food but the servings are really too huge, even for me and my usually huge appetite.

being our now fish-obsessed selves, after lunch we walked over to the shop where we got our fish from to ask about the strange behaviour of the fish towards alain, and why the unnamed alain look-alike died such a premature death. but they weren’t very helpful so we left the shop not feeling very happy… oh well. then i realised that the shop wasn’t the one i’d originally googled, so we walked along the rest of the shops and realised that there are actually like two or three more aquariums there. oops. but it’s not like me and yy would have known, we just saw an aquarium and assumed it was the only one. while walking at one of the other shops we saw this carrier box thing so vanessa bought it, just in case.

which turned out to be rather useful, because she put the fish into the new carrier so i could bring them over to my room and look after them for the night since they were looking so sickly. i ended up getting a huge scare from the fish because they started shitting red stuff and from reading up online i suspected that they were worms. though i guess it’s just red shit and not worms. i hope. but i got really panicky and refused to go to sleep until one of the fishes (vanessa, i think) finished shitting out whatever it was. unfortunately i did fall asleep and ended up waking up in the morning at around 7 or 8. at least the fish were still alive and looked alright… so i went back to sleep and only woke up at nearly 12, i think.
by then the fish were somehow really skittish, so i worriedly messaged yy and maryam. maryam helped by asking dr emmanuel about the fish, and according to him red shit is bad and said we should paper up three of the sides because guppies don’t like wide open spaces. i can only hope that it’ll solve the problem, i’m so afraid that we’ll die very soon :(

i’m fearing so much for the lives of our fishy alter-egos i called vanessa up to ask if i could bring her fish home. which meant i didn’t go for the touch friendly, which i wriggled out of by saying i had diarrhoea. which was partially true, and my hip is still delightfully sore, in any case. i just don’t really know how i’m going to bring them back to hall because my parents won’t be in singapore until the 4th. i suppose i just have to cab back, sigh. and i hope that the trips to and from hall won’t shock the fish too much. the ride home feels so much more bumpy when you’re worried about a tank of fishes, and i was initially kind of thinking of taking 151 all the way back
to hall but i remember the horribly bumpy and jerky ride i had before, and i definitely don’t want to put the poor fish through that or they’ll be half-dead by the time i reach hall…

but at least they’re looking alright now and i haven’t seen them shit red stuff again yet. i’m now crossing my fingers for our recovery and longevity… and yes i must say that i really am rather into fish now, having read so much about it recently. but i’m also reluctant to take it up considering how perfectionist i am, because i’d want every tiny little detail to be right and i’m not sure if i can devote so much time and effort to the fish during term time. and it’ll be heartbreaking if anything happened to them, too. but i really do feel like a pet now, sigh. but i guess i should first take care of my money plant before thinking about a pet…

and oh, i must say that happily enough i’ve gotten all my modules in one round of bidding, and spent only 1 point for all of them. yipee. it’ll be good to save up points for future semesters, considering that we will no longer be protected then. and so i don’t have to bother about bidding for anything until sem starts again and i have to ballot for tutorials. and please let me get the tutorials i want, so i can get my ideal timetable. even mondays and every wednesday free is a rather nice timetable, even if i don’t end early like in last sem and only have 2 hours for lunch every day… let’s just hope i get lucky like last sem, eh?

and some thoughts on a certain matter. maybe i’ve finally seen the light and am coming to terms with a fact that i probably blinded myself to. and strangely enough my attitude towards it is more accepting that i would have ever expected of myself. maybe deep down i’ve actually felt like that for a long time, and having cold hard evidence catalysed the process. but i really am feeling rather happy now so i shall just leave this matter be for the moment, and hopefully it will take care of itself. my favourite mantra comes in handy here – go with the flow, yeah?

okay, this has been a super damn long entry and i’m definitely quite sleepy so i’m going to sleep now. and hopefully the fishes will still be well and alive when i wake up…

i am unwritten,
can’t read my mind
i’m undefined
i’m just beginning
the pen’s in my hand
ending unplanned

it’s a mad life that we know

yawn. i can’t believe i was sleepy at like 9pm, and managed to sleep so soundly from then until nearly 3am i didn’t even hear my phone ring. and that’s a lot harder to do than it sounds, considering that my message tone alone usually rouses me from my slumber. and i don’t even know who was calling, because i don’t have the number on my phone. and it’s way too late to call back now…

and so, the exam results are out. i’m in two minds about my results. on one hand i’m glad that i did better than i’d expected for cultural studies and sociology of food and that i did as well as i would have liked for history, but on the other hand i’m only okay with what i got for CNM and not very happy with what i got for PS. it’s not that bad of a grade but it just irks me that it’s such a relatively bad grade when i know my PS better than cultural studies, of which i was still completely clueless right up to the exam. but then again i think it’s just me being never satisfied, as usual. okay, to be honest i’m actually finding it a little hard to be happy for myself when not everyone else around me is feeling the same. and i keep getting twinges of guilt because the fleeting thought that i don’t actually deserve the grades that i’ve gotten keeps appearing in my head. argh.
but okay that’s all in the last sem, and the new sem is already snapping at our heels. new sem, new slate. and i definitely have to work my head off if i want to even maintain my grades, let alone improve it. but let’s not get ahead of myself, because first i actually have to get the modules i’m bidding for, or i’m quite screwed because everything else would be hard to squash into my timetable.

like how i was thinking of going for SEA studies now instead of japanese studies, but the exam date clashes with HY2251 (from the wheel to the web) and it’ll mean i have three lectures on friday. which really is just nuts. so no SEA for me, even though it really does appear to be a lot easier than japanese studies… oh well. i just hope that one sem from now i won’t be trying to bang my head on the wall because i got some super low grade for japanese studies…

and man it’s hard to remember what to do for CORS anymore. took me a while to realise i had to do my major declaration first before i could even bid… they should honestly remind you when you first log in, how’s a student to remember exactly what to do when you only access this system like twice a year? looking at the bidding i don’t think i’ll have problems getting my history modules, but i’m a little worried about the exposures, especially econs, because the number of bidders is already close to filling the vacancy and there’s still a long way to go in open bidding… and i really need to get this, or like i said, my timetable will be rather screwed.

so today was supposed to be this games day with NTU, but it turns out that they were all saying that just to make everyone go, because they were going to bring us to sentosa. i guess i can only have myself to blame for being slow because auguste had accidentally let that slip earlier, but i just didn’t get what he meant. but i wasn’t keen on going because in the first place i’m not a very very beach person and secondly wouldn’t the beach be rather crappy now considering the rain we’ve been having? as if to rescue me from my dilemma of whether i should go or not, it started pouring so i just hid in my room after that, haha.

went to vivocity for a late lunch/early dinner with yy, and to shop for groceries later in the afternoon. i decided to try the u-mian at the kopitiam but it was unfortunately quite disappointing. and i nearly spent 10 bucks on lousy u-mian because i’d somehow forgotten to take my change. sheesh. what’s wrong with me these days?
after finishing our grocery shopping (more meiji milk, yoghurt and some toblerone for me) we were about to head back to hall but our plans were foiled by the rain that had started pouring outside. and we were stranded with nothing to do because we had no books to read or ipods to listen to. so we went to toastbox and got some toast (milo thick toast for me, peanut butter for yy) and i must say that the peanut butter toast really is very good. the milo toast isn’t too shabby, either. i think they put honey on the toast and scatter milo powder over it, so it’s not overly sweet. though i kinda want like more milo powder on it. haha. thankfully the rain was gone by the time we finished our toast so we went back “home”.

where i did laundry and proceeded to fall asleep at an unusually early hour for myself. and incredibly enough i’m starting to feel sleepy again. oh well, i suppose i should rest up. handball tomorrow, and i might be going down for the touch rugby friendly.
and i realise that i can’t wait for the IHGs to be over. it’s not that i really hate training because i do enjoy it at times, but i just want a rest from all this training, which unfortunately forces me to use and reuse the parts of my body that aren’t feeling particularly good. i think my feet are already a lost cause but i’m just really worried about my thumb. and my whole right hand and arm in general, actually. ever since that stupid sprained thumb my entire right arm has been feeling rather wonky. my wrist mildly hurts from time to time and i don’t know if it’s just because of overuse during handball but i keep getting these bad muscle strains on my shoulder and arm after training. sigh. it will all be over soon, i just have to keep telling myself that…

right now i’m strangely enough not feeling angry or down in the dumps about a situation that would usually render me rather upset. i can’t tell if i’ve just become immune to it or if deep down i just somehow know that it’s not as bad as i think. but what wishful thinking, ha. sigh. i’m starting to feel a bit resigned but i really don’t know what i should do about this huge mystery. it feels like a lost cause but i just can’t drop it because of the huge hole it would leave in my life once it’s gone. so i guess i will just keep going on, until the case is completely closed.

and oh just ignore that bit of random cryptic-ness from me, you know me, i’m a little insane (though i prefer the term eccentric) at times. sleep is calling me again, so i bid you adieu.

hold me up
when i try to give
and all i get is hurt
its okay, that i feel faded today
lord i know that i can find some peace
in this world, in this world

it’s a mad life that we know
and i try to see the beauty all around
its a mad life that we know
will we give it all away?

every little thing you wanted

it’s been raining non-stop since about 2 or 3am last night, which makes it perfect weather for sleeping in, especially in hall. but unfortunately for me i had to wake up at like 6.45am to get ready for handball practice. though i eventually only got up at 7am because i decided that i didn’t need a shower. i was halfway through breakfast (dunkin’ donut, what else?) when hannah messaged to say training was pushed back to 9.30am. yipee. so i went back to sleep.

when i woke up again it was still raining. but since there was no further message from hannah i started to get ready, and was about to go out when she msned to say that training is put on hold and that we might train after the guys later. i wish the rain would stop, actually, because we really do need that training session. but if the powers that be don’t want us to train, i’ll happily curl up under my quilt and go back to sleep… i’m such a pig, hehe.

and for some reason i’m always kind of unwell on christmas and i always dream of weird stuff. this year’s special was an exceptionally monstrous headache, which had the intensity of a migraine but the pain was all over my head, instead of being centralised at one side of my head. ugh. i ended up sleeping close to 12 hours because i’d slept at 3am, woke up at 12pm to discover the headache, took medicine, went back to sleep and only woke up at 4 plus. scary.
and maybe i was having such a terrible headache because of the bad dream i had. which was another exam dream. there were actually two dreams, but i only remember the one where i was quite sure i had written mostly correct answers for the paper, only to have them disqualified because i’d written them in pencil. gah i hate this kinda dreams. especially when we’re so close to receiving our exam results. bah, i shall not think about this anymore.

and i was so pissed off to come back to hall and find that the cooler outside my room was gone. i’d thought it was stolen, but apparently some people borrowed it, presumably for a party. i’m very annoyed because the least they could do was to leave a note telling me they’d borrowed it. and when i checked it just now it was crawling with ants, they didn’t even have the courtesy to clean it up. thanks a lot man. i’m going to leave the cooler in my room now, i just hope the ants don’t come again since i’ve already washed it. grrr, don’t let me find out who borrowed it.

well, that’s about all i guess. and gah i keep craving “good food” when i really should STOP EATING SO MUCH. grrr. if i keep asking you out for botak jones, carl’s jnr, dinner at vivocity, etc, please remind me of my expanding waistline and the fact that i’m quite broke. and right now i’m craving the campbell’s chicken and vegetable soup, thanks to the cold weather. incidentally i’m also craving botak jones’ chicken gumbo because it sounds good for cold weather, never mind the fact that i’ve never tasted it, haha.

okay i shall go read a book, watch a tvb drama or maybe just go back to sleep. just to take my mind off food. and it doesn’t help that all the remaining tidbits from the bbq are all stowed in my room, to the point that my shelves are overflowing. helppp!

when your imagination
feels more real than reality

all i want for christmas is you

hmmm for some reason my desire to blog has dwindled rather considerably these few days, and i don’t know if i should attribute it to a lack of inspiration, or well, pure laziness. but then i’ve also been rather busy since returning from bangkok so it’s not like i really had the time and luxury of sitting down to blog, either.

bangkok was okay, i suppose it kind of loses its appeal if you go there too many times. you can hardly go wrong with cheap good food and cheap(er) stuff to buy so i was materially quite satisfied with bangkok but spiritually… nah. but since that wasn’t the point of the trip to bangkok, it doesn’t really matter, does it?

and as if i didn’t have enough things on my mind before i left for bangkok, i came back to get bombarded with more stuff.
the first was my not making it to the touch rugby team. i’d expected it, but to have it really happen is still admittedly rather crushing. but the dilemma lies in whether i should continue going for training, as carmen has encouraged me to do so. i should be going, and want to go so i can pick up the game better, but i’m also wondering if i should also be getting as much rest as i can get, given that my plantar fasciitis is as bad as ever and that the condition of my thumb is far from improving. oh well, i suppose i’ll go as long as i’m not too tired, though this will definitely be quite a challenge on fridays…

and then i found out that USP was offering me a place in their programme. which was nice to know but it also means i have to make a decision about it and boy do i hate making decisions. especially decisions of this nature. ugh. i’m tempted to just try it out for a semester, but i hate to give up on stuff halfway through and like vanessa said, i’m actually depriving someone of a place in USP if i do that… and to be honest i really am not sure if i can handle the increased workload (no one seems to know how i will end up doing an additional 40 credits by the time i graduate) and i must admit that the more i look at their science modules, the more turned off i get by them. i’ve said that i never ever want to do modules that remotely have science in them (except for intro to computing, and things like that) so why do i want to kill myself by having to do them in USP? i don’t know. i guess i’ll sleep on this, although i already have done this for a few days… and i will have to follow this decision up with the bidding for modules following the release of results on the 27th… sigh. am not exactly looking forward to it.

i didn’t have very much time to think about all those though, because friday was occupied by handball and basketball training. when i decided not to go for touch rugby i was having a headache which mercifully disappeared during basketball, and it was just as well that i didn’t go for touch rugby because i was completely exhausted after basketball, where we had to play 4-on-4 on a full court. and i really need to squeeze out some time and extra energy to do things like practise layups and jumping shots for handball, both of which i have difficulty with because it involves coordinating my feet and hands and well, guess who has virtually zero coordination? i need to make up for my lack of aptitude with diligence, but it’s a little hard when you’re already pooped out by normal training…

showered and rested up for a bit before going for dinner at botak jones with yy. i had a medium-well steak which was really nice and juicy, and i liked it best with HP sauce. man, my gastric juices are going on overdrive just thinking about that steak, haha. the fish and chips looked really good and they’re only $5.50! and they have fuzhou noodles there too, and they looked good too… but argh i really have to curb my eating habits, i’m putting on a helluva weight, argh.

me and yy then went to buy my christmas present for vanessa which was going to be a surprise so it was a magnificent stroke of luck when we were on our way back to my room when we met alina who told us that vanessa had just gone to my room. which was really funny especially since prior to that yy was like what if she suddenly appears at your room eh. so yy waited and hid in the working area while i went up, and vanessa was indeed there to return me my boots. what a close shave.

then it was present preparation time, which meant writing cards and wrapping stuff. and as usual my wrapping sucked but then again, it’s the present that counts, not the wrapping, right? haha. went to sleep after that, on my favourite hall bed :D how i’ve missed my dear pillow and my comfy quilt!

woke up a little early the next morning to meet maryam, and there was a bit of miscommunication because i thought we were supposed to meet at harbourfront, but she was actually going to eusoff to drop off some stuff first, and i only found out after i’d just gotten on the bus. so i had to drop at the next stop and walk back. maryam then arrived and we finally set off for vivocity. one minute into walking around giant yy called to ask maryam about the transportation of my christmas present, haha. then vanessa called to ask if we were out buying stuff for the bbq, and it turned out that she was going to vivocity to buy last-minute christmas presents for us, haha. she met us for a bit before rushing off to do her shopping and we went back to hall. and on the bus we realised we’d forgotten to withdraw cash before heading back to hall, so we had to trek to central library, and i also took the opportunity to return my many very overdue books. and we had pretty good timing because the delivery from the bbq wholesaler came soon after we were back in my room.

we’d just finished hauling and storing all the stuff in my room when to my horror, there was a knock on my door and that could only be one person – vanessa. me and maryam were mortified because her present was in plain view so we shooed her out and i hid the present before inviting her back in, haha. we ended up watching high school musical until vanessa had to go off, so me and maryam continued until yijun and hsienjun arrived, followed by aiping and jieyi. and yy.

we then started to get the fire going for the bbq – the boys, maryam and yy did most of the work while i entertained aiping and jieyi in my room, haha. but unfortunately the bbq was quite a flop, thanks to the completely irresponsible five other guys who had promised to come, but didn’t. yy has already succinctly explained it in her blog, but it really was damn annoying because of all the food wasted, and the fact that none of them even bothered to call or message to say that they wouldn’t be coming – even after the bbq was over. thanks a lot, guys.

but the company of the rest of us who were responsible adults was great, though the fun only mostly came after the bbq was over and we went to my room. but more on that later, and onto christmas presents :D

i got a beautiful journal with a nice message in it from georgia, and was very pleasantly surprised with the money plant and watering can i got from maryam and yy, and while i already had a mini prelude of what vanessa had gotten (the bag of gummies from m&s), the pen and memo/journal set vanessa had gotten was still a nice surprise and it actually is quite perfect because you can’t go wrong buying green stuff for me :D so this year’s christmas presents were nice, but i must say that i prefer picking out stuff for people.

and tricking them, too. hehe me and yy evilly conceived plans to “punk” like all the christmas presents i got for everyone. so when we first exchanged presents, maryam got a pirated daniel craig dvd and a kaka poster, yy got a $2 chelsea calender (with thailand public holidays highlighted inside) and a lampard poster, denise got a necklace that was supposed to be ugly (although she did say that she liked it, am still not sure if she was just trying to be polite) and vanessa got a bag of ikan bilis, because she’d asked for small fish that didn’t fight each other and i’d jokingly mentioned ikan bilis…

with the exception of denise, everyone got their real presents back in my room. i somehow managed to not burst into my hyperventilating laughter when i announced that they had all been punked, even yy, who wasn’t really expecting it. maryam got freakonomics, yy got a mini french dictionary and vanessa got a small tank of four fishes, all of which were named after us. and just in case she had no idea how to go about taking care of her fish, with the help of yy i came up with FH1101E, a mini module with instructions, haha. yup, i hope everyone liked their presents, and i promise, no more “punked” presents next year.

and oh i must say that looking at vanessa’s fish has actually made me very tempted to get my own. i’ve never had any real love for fish but they’re inexplicably really fun to watch, especially when you name the fish after yourself and your friends, and i could just watch the fish for like… forever. the only thing that puts me off is the hassle of changing the water, and there not being much space i can spare in my room. and i might never ever study if i have the fish, just ask yy and maryam how much time i spent gazing at the fish. but bah i miss the fish already! oh well i could always go over to vanessa’s room to look at them, and she’s the one who has to feed them and clean their tank… haha. and oh hilariously enough, after we named the fish after ourselves, our namesakes seemed to take on our characteristics. like when we fed the fish for the first time, “vanessa” was the greediest one who also ate the fastest… does that sound familiar? and “yy” didn’t want to eat when all the food was still floating, choosing to only scavenge among the oxygen beads much later, haha.

and then the fun started, after i had a nice shower. first we played scrabble, which was quite funny because we were all a bit brain-dead and towards the end we kept wanting to make singlish words with the letters we had left. we later tried to play a singlish-only game, but it proved to be way too difficult and we abandoned our scrabble game for cards.
we played a bit of bridge before moving to poker, but since we had no chips we used scrabble tiles instead. vanessa proved to be the big winner, winning one round and accumulating a good number of chips in the second round, only to lose to maryam because she went all in, haha. poker’s really fun, and even more so when you’re playing with friends :D
we then put on borat to watch, but it was a bit weird so we decided to just go to sleep, at about 6am. the three of them occupied my bed while i had to make do with my chair, with my feet just hanging onto a bit of the bed. the quilt was a bit too short so i had to make do without it, but when i woke up for a bit later i realised how cold my legs were, and thankfully yy gave up her bit of the quilt so i greedily tucked my legs into the quilt. mmm, bliss. it’s not quite the same position i assume when i sleep on my chair, but it was comfortable enough and i drifted off to sleep again…

i was the last to wake up and when i did, yy was already gone, haha. we cleared up the stuff in my room, the ashes in the bbq pit, helped vanessa move her fish into her room and distributed the leftover food between myself and maryam… then i just waited for my parents to pick me up, had lunch at tiong bahru and then it was back home.

so well, that’s about all my christmas will be like. to be honest i have no real idea as to what christmas is supposed to be like, growing up in a family that doesn’t celebrate christmas at all. it’s just another holiday to me really, and usually signals the end of december holidays… at least last year and this year was slightly different thanks to the 3404 parties on the 23rd. and to me, having friends around and having fun with them is enough, isn’t it?

man, this has been a mighty long entry so i shall end here.

merry christmas, everyone! :)

i wish i could be

the dark cloud that has settled over singapore and is showering it with sporadic torrents of rain seems to have also taken residence over me, somehow.

i really don’t know what to say, and this is the first time in a long time that i’ve struggled to capture my thoughts and put them down in words. no matter how i feel or felt, i was always able to at least blog or write about whatever was weighing in my mind but this time, there’s just… nothing.

i can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing. it’s good because it at least means that i’m not thinking of stuff that i shouldn’t be thinking about. but it’s also bad, because it means that there’s a huge wad of feelings and thoughts stuck in my head and i don’t like to think of the consequences if too much of those accumulate…

so i guess the trip to bangkok couldn’t be more timely, because what would cheer one up better than eating, shopping and bargaining? and being in a sense disconnected from everything else might just help, too. and there’s the bbq on saturday to look forward to, although the day before that will prove to be rather hectic, with the triple training, getting ready for the bbq and preparing some of the christmas presents… and once christmas is over we can hopefully and finally head to casuarina curry for some good prata, maybe?

i did go to compasspoint today to satisfy my fried fish soup craving, although i could almost swear that the one at vivocity was a teeny bit tastier… but scarily enough at 2 plus pm on a monday the food court was relatively full, and the fish soup stall had a perpetual queue. at least the wait was worth it. i went around buying some stuff for christmas, but wanted to smack myself on the head when i was walking back home and realised that i’d forgotten to look for a certain something which will not be very feasible to buy in bangkok and bring back here, and i’m not sure if i’ll have enough time to get it when i return. oh well, we’ll see.

and boo i’m annoyed that i can’t get the jersey numbers i really want for my basketball and handball jerseys. i wanted 2, 9 or 11 for handball but they were all taken by seniors, and i was supposed to settle for 20 and i said okay, except that i realised that i should have picked 14 since it’s alan smith’s number. but i didn’t want to bother hannah so i kept my mouth shut. but later she messaged to say that 20 was also taken, and could i take 14? hehe it all worked out in the end so i just took 14 :D
then later chialing messaged to say that a senior wanted my already chope-d 11, and i had little choice but to acquiesce and settle for 14 again… oh well, i guess all my jerseys this time will be 14. which means i will by hook or by crook be a senior playing next year, just so i can get nice jersey numbers. i want my 11. or 9. and i wouldn’t mind 10 actually, since it sounds like my name if the numbers are read individually in chinese, haha.

it’s getting rather late so i suppose i should pack (my crumpler, not my luggage) and catch a bit of sleep before we head out early in the morning tomorrow (or rather, later), because my parents are as usual being kiasu… but oh well, the earlier we are the earlier we can start our shopping, anyway. ah wait it’s too late for me to sleep now. i guess i shall just stay awake until it’s time to go off…

i’ll only be gone for a few days, don’t miss me kids!

let me in
to see you in the morning light
to get me on and all along the tears they come
see all come,
i want you to believe in life
but i get the strangest feeling that you’ve gone away
will you find out who you are too late to change?

i wish i could be
every little thing you wanted
all the time
i wish i could be
every little thing you wanted
all the time
some times

take a breath, make it deep

man, i’m such a lazy bum. it’s not like i don’t have stuff to do for my committees, i’m just too lazy to do them. but hmmm i’ll better start working or my 8 points might become a measly 6. and whether or not it actually is true, i should try and present myself as the picture of diligence, so i might just get the bonus 2 points instead… every point is precious to me, considering that with the exception of basketball, i think i’m going to be dropped from my other sports :(

but then again i have to admit that i’m really enjoying the freedom of not having to train almost everyday, and of course, not having to deal with the various aches and pains that invariably follow after too much training. that the condition of my thumb seems to be deteriorating despite the copious amounts of leukoplast i tape it up with is definitely not a good thing, especially since my wrist is affected and all my sports happen to involve the use of my hands. maybe i shouldn’t have dropped soccer, after all. but then again it’s not like my legs and feet are all that marvellous, either…

and as if worrying about my thumb and heel isn’t enough, i now have my right hip and perhaps my thigh adding to my already long list of problems, argh. it was barely one hour into handball when this cold, dull ache materialised in my right thigh and my right hip also started to feel a bit strange. the feeling in my thigh was reminiscent of rheumatism, except that it wasn’t my joints? odd. i then stopped to stretch my thigh but the strange ache wouldn’t let up so i tried applying counterpain. which might actually have worsened my condition, because my thigh started to really burn and it even turned red? i usually need to apply a lot of counterpain before i feel anything but this time i only applied a little and it felt like my thigh was on fire. that was definitely quite scary and unfortunately it didn’t really help. i wanted to go back to training but discovering that my hip was so bad it hurt when i tried to do groin stretches scared me enough to not go back… which really was annoying because they were training positions and set plays that day, argh. and of course you feel bad when everyone else is training like mad and all you’re doing is watch them suffer under the blazing sun…

so yeah, i didn’t have the seven hours of non-stop training, after all. i hung around for basketball but decided not to go for touch rugby because i was getting quite tired and needed food, too. met with maryam and we went to vivocity. again. which meant i’ve gone there three days in a row and yes, i’m getting rather bored of the whole place but it is still the most convenient place for somewhat good food so i don’t have much of a choice.
maryam tapowed char kway teow from banquet into kopitiam, while i had hokkien mee again. i’m just kidding, i was walking around and i discovered that the fish soup stall there is the same as the one at compasspoint, so i immediately got a bowl of fried fish beehoon and gosh the fish really rocked. i don’t know how they do it but the fish meat is just so deliciously sweet i could probably eat it for a long long time and never get sick of it. damn, i’m really craving it now. maybe i should venture out to compasspoint tomorrow and have that for lunch.

me and maryam then decided that we wanted dessert, very preferably something with a lot of chocolate… i was dreaming of the fantastic dessert at project shop cafe but there was no such thing in vivocity except for bakerzin which was a bit out of budget so we went to like all the different places in vivocity that sold dessert to see if they had anything that would satisfy our dessert craving. and we finally found decent dessert at coffee bean, but it was not meant to be because there were no seats. so we though, let’s venture to harbourfront centre and see if they have anything there. and in a startling bit of coincidence we bumped into yy! so she joined us and we eventually ended up at starbucks due to a lack of other alternatives. i had a warm chocolate cake, which was okay but really really dry, and an iced caramel macchiato which was good, both for the taste and the coffee kick.

we went back to home/hall after that, and i had to stay in hall for the night because my parents couldn’t pick me up. which actually is quite a good thing since i love my bed in hall so much and being in hall means i get to sleep as much as i want without worrying about the electricity bill. which is also why i’m fighting to stay in hall, sleeping in hall somehow feels so much nicer than sleeping at home now, haha.

and i love being slack and lazy. i spent the morning and early afternoon in hall watching the pillow show, played ffxii when i reached home and had another marathon watching the pillow show all the way till today morning. the show is not bad but i still prefer forensic heroes, because the cases there are more memorable and the characters in there are also less irritating… haha. or maybe it’s just my preference for modern series at the moment.

yeah, i guess there’s nothing much i could blog about now, except that i can’t wait for the bbq and i hope that it turns out great. and that christmas shopping is both fun and not fun. it’s fun when you know what you want to get for someone, less fun when you don’t. and hmmm i think i should go buy some christmas cards so i can give one to everyone during the party. and so it won’t look so bad when most of the girls get presents but the guys don’t… haha.

and oh, i’m totally digging dishwalla now. i still haven’t gotten sick of angels or devils and it still evokes undefinable emotions in me, and i’ve discovered at least two more songs (somewhere in the middle and every little thing) that i really like. man, at this moment i’ll kill for tickets to a dishwalla concert, if they were to come here. but that’s so not happening in the near or far future, i suspect. oh well. i shall just put them on repeat and enjoy the raw vocals of jr richards. i should probably stop listening to the same old bands and songs but oh well, i’m just such a sucker for NON-change. i like status quos, uneasy balances, looking back at things long gone and pondering the what if’s… yeah, i admit that i really am a total abraham (the protagonist in abraham’s promise, my upper sec lit book, not a real person!) sometimes.

and if i were to give in,
i’ll give it up and then
take a breath, make it deep
cos it might be the last one you get

ironically, this bit always plays in my head when i don’t want to give up, like during training. hmmm.

sad, but true.

sigh, i’m definitely not looking forward to tomorrow, because i’m kind of supposed to train almost non-stop from 11am to 6pm. yipee. my schedule is something like 11am to 2pm (handball), 2pm to 4pm (basketball) and 4pm to 6pm (touch rugby). and i’m technically supposed to be at the eusoff bus stop at 3.45pm. at least i’ll get a bit of rest on the bus and at least we don’t have to walk all the way to that horribly distant field at west coast…

which was what happened on wednesday, and it really is damn far. we took about 20 plus minutes alone to walk there (which was more than 2 bus-stops away and nearly at the west coast macs, to my horror.) and i ended up only training for about 30 plus minutes because i had to leave for basketball. which meant we spent another 20 or so minutes (maybe more, because we got a bit lost) walking back to eusoff and i had to spend more time running to my room to get my shoes because i was wearing slippers and only had boots with me.

and wednesday was a little like slack training day, which was good for me, because i was still aching from monday. i had to apply counterpain to my thighs before i could walk normally and to my shoulders so i could actually lift my arm before going for training, it was that bad.
for touch rugby we first had this drill where we were divided up into two teams and the attacking team had to try and run through the defending team without being touched, and it was hilarious because there was this one time when the defending team thought they were attacking so we both just run through each other, haha. next we had this netball-ish passing exercise where two people run to the centre of a square and pass the ball, instead of catching it. then it was this kind of fun drill where you had to pass two balls in a zigzag fashion between two rows facing each other, so you had to communicate with your team members and let the person with the ball know who to pass to. unfortunately (or fortunately, maybe?) i had to go back for basketball after that.
and basketball was also slack because when i got back, chialing was slamming us for our poor defense, so she drilled us on the basics of defense. which meant all i did was to assume defensive postures for a while, before we did a bit of shooting and the rain really started to pour. so maybe i was lucky that i wasn’t at touch rugby the whole time? but gosh my shooting really really sucks. am i too out of practice, is it because of my thumb and aching shoulder, or is it a combination of both factors, i don’t know. but if i don’t improve pronto, i’ll lose my only remotely redeeming factor in basketball, seeing that i’m short and have nothing much to afford in terms of stamina or speed… yeah, i’m quite sadly useless in basketball. and probably every other sport that i’m in. why am i still trying to keep afloat in all those, i have no idea.

went for dinner at vivocity with yy after training, and man we really pigged out. we shared a plate of $6 hokkien mee (which was good but not as good as before because it was a bit dry) then chilli cheese fries from superdog while we were planning the bbq party (and gosh the superdog fries really rock. throwing in the cheese and chilli only makes it better.) and then toast from the toast box place. i had peanut butter on thick toast and it’s good, as was yy’s kaya on traditional toast. yeah i probably undid all my hard work during training but oh well. it’s a vicious cycle la. i train damn hard so i think i need to reward myself which in the end means i just have to train harder… haha.
we then went to giant to check out the prices of the stuff we wanted to buy, stocking up on milk and some drinks in the process. and oh haha this is funny but when we got on bus 10 home i realised that it was the very same bus we took to get to harbourfront! how coincidental. and as i was debating over whether i should go home today, i hit upon the idea of my not going home just in case i have basketball today, and having a mini tvb marathon today, hehe.

and i’m such a pig. i fell asleep at around 2 plus am last night/this morning, woke up at 4am to brush my teeth and go back to sleep, woke up at around 8 plus am, went back to sleep, woke up at 10.17am because yy messaged to ask if i was still sleeping, messaged to tell her i wanted to sleep some more, went back to sleep before finally waking up at like 11.30am. yeah, just call me miss piggy, haha.

yy then came over and after some hurried directions from denise we managed to find our way to botak jones. which had a rather scary 45 minute wait for our food, but at least the food was good. really good. watching the servers zip by with plates of fish and chips and sausages only served to whet our appetites, and yy got her botak burger with bacon and egg served first, while poor me had to wait a good while for my cajun chicken.
but the wait was worth it, the chicken was damn good. there was a glob of super spicy sauce on it but it was okay once i scraped it away. the chicken was very mildly spicy, and the claims of being a tender and juicy chicken breast on the menu was not unfounded, it really was very tender for breast meat. and if you know me, i’m a sucker for chicken breast so it was like erhhh chicken breast heaven for me? hahaha. there was also this delicious layer of mozzarella melted over half the chicken breast, which actually was so humongous i couldn’t help wondering how gigantic the chicken would have to be to sport such a huge breast. i must sound like some dirty old man, going on and on about breasts… but what can i do, i just looove my chicken breasts :D

we then went back to my room to watch a pillow case of mystery, and it’s quite funny cos bobby is sooo useless in this show, a 360 degree change from his turn as the walking encyclopedia, super clever and confident tim sir in forensic heroes. which just kind of goes to show how versatile an actor he is. whatever the case i really want to watch armed reaction again! i think i think i have too much free time…

when dinner time came i was erm, craving hokkien mee again so we went to vivocity again… and it was kinda freaky because when i got on the bus and checked to see what the license plate number was so i could sms yy, i realised that it was 2626H again! and if we got that bus again we really would have to buy that number for 4D, haha. but nah it wasn’t to be, oh well. i just hope i don’t kill myself if that number really comes up on saturday or sunday…

so i got back to my room after yet another evening at vivocity, and started blogging and msning to make plans for the bbq party. we’re probably getting most of the stuff from this bbq wholesale place, for convenience’s sake. but i think it’s coming along nicely and i can’t wait for it :D

okay, i guess i should turn in early tonight, in preparation for my seven or so hours of training tomorrow… i really hope i survive tomorrow man. at least i’ve stopped aching in most places, except for the area around my right shoulder, which is still feeling mightily sore. maybe i really should go lefty for handball… okay okay go to sleep. and no watching tvb dramas or playing reflexive games, you know you need that rest.

i hold onto the fallacy
because without it,
i am nothing.

i’m going back to the start

i’m feeling marginally better now, but my word, did i ache like mad yesterday, after nearly six hours of training on monday. perhaps it is a sheer lack of stamina on my part coupled with the high intensity of training after not training for so long, but by 6pm yesterday i felt like a hollow shell of exhaustion and decided to go home instead of staying to attend the DP PnP meeting. terrible of me, i know, but even if i’d stayed in hall i wouldn’t have been able to walk to the meeting because my heel was hurting very very badly and every step i took was pure agony. hell, it hurt even when i was sitting down, let alone walking around…

handball was all basics that day, but the killing point was the scorching weather, long period of training (3 hours) with very few water breaks in between. and the sit-ups and push-ups we had to do at the end of training, because i unfortunately was stuck in a spot where the ground was more road than ground, and it hurt my hands to even be in a push-up position, let alone do the push-ups… sigh. and despite training for handball before the exams, i don’t seem to be making much progress in way of shooting and things like that, and it’s hard to not feel totally inadequate and start to question if i really am cut out for all these games, seeing how i’m not just unfit, but also harbouring injuries left and right.

just like how i feel really lousy at touch rugby, even though i really like the game and think i still passable drills. but the moment we’re deep in the middle of the game my brain seems to blank and i don’t remember what loops and splits are, or how to even do three-punch-up’s… if my performance continues to be so poor i’m sure that i will be dropped from touch rugby, which really is a sad prospect because like i said, i really do enjoy the game, even if i do suck. oh well, there’s nothing i can do apart from trying to step up my performances and hope for the best.

though it’s hard to see how i will be able to do that on friday, after handball AND basketball. i know i should be dropping a sport but the thing is i have to see which sports drop me first, and not the other way round. i don’t want to be caught in a situation where i only have one or two sports left, though this is a very real situation seeing that i suck at virtually everything and i won’t even be able to attend the first two netball sessions next week because of my bangkok trip, argh. truth be told, i wouldn’t actually mind dropping all my sports so i can actually get some rest for my heel, but i do like some of the games a lot and it’s not like i have a choice when hall points are concerned…

so i woke up yesterday feeling everlastingly grateful that the awful pain in my heel was gone for the moment, but when i tried to get out of bed, i realised to my horror that the pain in the heel was replaced by really bad muscle aches all over my body. my thighs felt like blocks of wood, my back was sore beyond belief and the worst casualty might have been my right arm/shoulder, which was so tight and aching so badly i could barely even lift my arm :(
as usual movement became a chore and i spent the entire morning trying to figure out if i should go for netball… in the end i decided not to since i really was in no condition to train, and i think there was no netball training anyway, so thank goodness i didn’t make a wasted trip.

as i started out saying, i’m a little better now, meaning i can walk around with less pain and lift my right arm a bit more so i hope i can hold out for touch rugby and basketball, which actually clashes with touch rugby. i’ll have to go ask jiaxi what she’s going to do about this, because basketball really keeps clashing with touch rugby, like two sessions out of three in a week?

and oh yeah, maybe it’s all the stress about training but i’m having weird dreams again. like i dreamt that i got A+ for a module… sociology of food i think. but the paper was an MCQ one and somehow vanessa was also taking the same module? and then there was some conspiracy about the marking of the papers and goodness knows what… gah i don’t like weird dreams, though i can only hope that i do get an A+ for one of my papers… wishful thinking, haha!

okay time for lunch before i head back to hall. let’s hope i survive today’s training to have a nice dinner with yy where we will also start planning the bbq party. it’s back on the 23rd and denise can make it! yay :D

nobody said it was easy
no one ever said it would be so hard

it’s been too long

argh. stupid firefox had to hang on me while i was typing my blog entry, and i’d already typed a sizable chunk of text before that… argh. why don’t i ever learn my lesson and not surf the net while blogging??? i hate it when this happens because i have to spend time typing it all out again, and secondly, it’s never the same when you do it again. sigh. and why doesn’t blogger have a draft autosave function like in gmail? you would think that would be a given, since blogger’s now under google… sheesh. ah crap. just saw the “recover post” function and by the time i saw it i’d already typed quite a bit, so when i tried to recover my post all i got was whatever i’d just typed. gah!

in any case, procrastination is striking back. i was supposed to work on coming up with at least one design for the stuff DP PnP has to do after i finish blogging but here’s more procrastination since i have to re-blog… so it’s not really my fault that firefox had to hang and that i’m still completely uninspired and out of ideas. and i’ll work on it… eventually.

so i came back to hall on friday night, with tentative plans for sheares supper and a mini tvb marathon with yy, but i took such a long time cleaning my room and putting on my bedsheet and the quilt in its cover that it was nearly midnight when i was done and i was supposed to sleep early since i would have to meet for touch rugby at 8am. except that i somehow managed to spend my time doing nothing, until about 3am when i turned in since i had to get up really early the next morning.

i probably should have slept earlier, because i ended up oversleeping. i wanted to wake up at 6.30am so i had ample time to get ready and maybe tape my heel, but i only woke up at 7am and had to rush a little so i wouldn’t be late in meeting the touch rugby people at kent ridge terminal so we could bus to harbourfront and NEL down to little india. which illogically is nearer to farrer park field than farrer park station? and the field was annoyingly inaccesible because we had to walk one big round just to get to the field area, where jesselyn and vanessa were already waiting for us. some other people (mostly from IVP touch) arrived in drips and drabs but training commenced the moment we booted (or shoe-ed, for those who didn’t have boots) up.
first the newbies like me learnt three-punch-up’s, a basic strategy for gaining ground when attacking and i later saw for myself in the friendly the effectiveness of this strategy when carried out properly. in comparison to the previous training, this one was actually kind of light because we only did lateral passing and loops before taking a break so those who were going for the hockey friendly could go, before the friendly match with nyp/sa. i didn’t play very much in the friendly but it was a good thing since i was sadly still rather confused on the field. getting my thumb whacked by a hard pass and having to stomp and run all over the muddy field didn’t help, either.

we (me jesselyn xintian jiaxi pegan) went to vanessa’s house after training to wash up, and to get our grubby hands on krispy kreme doughnuts. it was definitely within walkable distance but nowhere near “one bus stop away” as claimed by vanessa… her parents were still home, so i can only imagine what they were thinking when their daughter came back home all muddy, with five equally (if not more) muddy friends in tow, haha.
and the krispy kreme doughtnut was good, in the overly-sweet doughnut kinda way. and if their original glazed doughnut is so good, i can only imagine what their other varieties (especially those with chocolate!) would taste like. damn, i’m really craving good doughnuts now. oh yeah, i must remember to bring back loads of dunkin’ donuts back from bangkok. like maybe half a dozen boston kremes, haha.

and we’re such terrible people, because the moment our numbers hit the magic cab number (i.e. four) we immediately went to get a cab. pegan had bade us farewell just outside velocity while xintian was going in the opposite direction since she was heading home, and i think it was jesselyn who happily pointed out that there was only four of us left. so it was off to get a cab, despite the fact that we were already in the mrt station and that our(severely overcrowded) train had arrived… haha. and it really was worth it, cos the fare worked out to be only $2.50 each, which in my opinion is a paltry sum to pay for the fast trip and our getting to sit down for the whole journey.

vanessa was hungry and i was craving teh peng/bandung-cino so together with jesselyn and joofee, we went to niqqi’s for a quick and well-deserved bite. before that we stopped by the pet store where vanessa introduced us to “her” rabbit. i didn’t think it was that cute at first since it didn’t match my usual idea of a rabbit, but on second look i guess it is rather cute. though i guess i still prefer dogs/puppies and kittens. we also went to say hi and pet the golden retriever in the shop, which for some reason looked really sad, the poor thing.

i’d originally only wanted to get a drink, but ended up eating some prata because i was just too hungry. but damn i really need some good prata, the ones at niqqi’s (except for the cheese prata, maybe) just don’t cut it. i’m dreaming of the prata at casuarina curry, and just the thought of their plaster prata is enough to make me drool. darn, i really should stop craving for all these food, not after all the weight i’ve gained from the long periods of inactivity i’ve had over the exam period…

had to rush through the cleaning of my boots and my shower after our food at niqqi’s, because i was running late for my movie date with denise at vivocity. we watched flags of our fathers, which i guess was an okay movie leaning towards the good side. though it was also a bit graphic, as evidenced by denise gagging at some points… haha. and well it was a good enough movie to make me want to watch letters from iwo jima, to well, see the other side of the story.

we went to forever21 so denise could try on clothes while we waited for yy to come and have dinner with us. i’d wanted to try the kolo mee, but the $8.90 price tag put us all off and we went to carl’s jr instead, since i was craving the pastrami burger anyway… hmmm, i can’t really remember what we did but i guess we all headed home after our nice carl’s jr meal. i grabbed a lift from denise, originally intending to take a bus home from her place but she very nicely sent me home in the end :D yay for my fated friend with a car to drive, hehe. so yup, that was a nice evening out and i really did enjoy catching up with my fated friend :) now, if only i could meet up with gayle and aiping…

i spent the rest of my weekend slacking and resting up, before heading back to hall tonight since i had that IHG web reporting meeting. and on the way my parents detoured a bit to buy me kolo mee for dinner, and it really is good. the noodles are a little reminiscent of maggi mee, but with a firmer and more springy texture and the sauce they were doused in only made it tastier. two thumbs up for this, even though it’s on the expensive side, i can’t wait to eat this again!

but annoyingly enough it kind of turned out that i’ve come back to hall early for nothing, because only two other people turned up for the meeting and it basically was just the dissemination of information that the head just ended up emailing everybody, anyway. darn. at least i know i will have a good night’s rest tonight, since i don’t have my sister deliberately disturbing me while i’m trying to sleep, like she did on saturday night… i could rant on and on about that but i’d rather save my breath.

oh well, time to sleep. many many hours of training awaits me tomorrow, i hope i survive.

maybe i’m just looking
at the shadow
of something long gone

no es amor

sigh, my december hols feels like it’s ending just as it’s beginning, thanks to all the trainings and committee work that i’ll have to go through. and while i love my bed and the freedom i have in my own room in hall, settling all my meals will prove to be quite a pain. and boohoo, i suspect i’ll also be rather lonely in hall… haha.

so anyway, an update on what’s happened in the past few days. the prison break marathon at vanessa’s place was good – plenty of nice snacks, and droolworthy material (aka wentworth miller) on screen. i think we watched what.. eight episodes? i kind of know what’s happening at the end of the season but knowing the process leading up to that is still rather exciting. too bad vanessa missed out on all the action and the hotness that is wentworth miller because she went to sleep on her tatami mat thing, complete with quilt and pillows and proved to be impossible to wake up, except for a wake-up snack and when we were leaving, haha.

and before that we were shopping at the united square cold storage, which somehow just has a larger variety of stuff than the other outlets. and just so you get an idea of how crazy we went over junk food, we got pretzels, sour cream and a dip mix to go with that and plain ruffles, cool ranch doritos, cheetos, sour cream & onion cheez-its (which was like half price because it was on quick sale), a giant bag of mamee vegetable crackers, bread, ham, laughing cow cream cheese and these biscuits meant for eating with cheese, and orange squash for drinks. crazy of us, eh? and no, we didn’t even manage to finish all of that junk food. in fact i don’t even think we finished any one packet of food, haha. and we kept seeing pita bread things in there so we couldn’t help joking about buying and making vanessa eat it, haha. i still can’t believe we spent like 50 bucks on junk food, though…

and it was like deja vu the next day, when my mum brought me to her chinese sinseh of the moment (they finally realised that the one in malaysia sucks. which is so very true because who the hell sticks acupuncture needles in your sole to treat heel pain???) because as it turned out, the clinic is just a stone’s throw away from vanessa’s place, in between the pau shop and the shop that sells rattan stuff. funny, i never noticed that there was a traditional chinese medicine clinic there.

i went through tui na, acupuncture and what i think is tui na again in my three or so hours there, and while the pain isn’t actually as bad as at the heartland mall sinseh, it still hurt and definitely didn’t feel good when i had needles stuck in my neck, right arm and legs and couldn’t move them
because they felt weird and numb whenever i tried to do that.
but the massage did help to clear a lot of the tension in my back and shoulders, especially in my right shoulder which has been feeling damn crappy these days. my right shoulder is kinda hurting again but at least it’s still better than before the tui na. the best part was probably the massaging of the acupoints or whatever on my neck, which was painful but also kind of relaxing towards the end, and what the guy did to my thumb was good too, because it felt a lot less painful when he was done. though hmmm, it’s kinda starting to hurt again, blah.
i guess on the whole it was not too bad, i think i’ll go back every two or so weeks, just so i can release all the tension in my (according to them) slightly inflamed muscles that will probably come back thanks to all the IHG trainings…

went to velocity (not to be confused with vivocity) to look for my boots because i couldn’t be bothered to trek all the way down to queensway. there was sadly very little variety there but i found a nice adidas pair and it’s a little bit on the expensive side but oh well, it’s my early christmas present from my mum so i didn’t burn a huge hole in my own pocket. on hindsight i maybe should have looked around more, but then the more i look at my boots now, the more i like them. it’s comfy and the dark synthetic material means i don’t have to spend too much time cleaning them… haha. ah, i managed to find a picture of them online :D

yay, i like my boots :D

didn’t do much for the rest of the day, apart from putting in more hours into ffxii… yes, i’m obsessed with that game. incredibly enough i got a little bored of it by the time evening rolled round, so i started watching forensic heroes again, which spontaneously became a marathon because i couldn’t stop watching it. i ended up not sleeping for the whole night, though at around 8am i started to nod off, haha.
the plotlines are a bit predictable and a bit copied from CSI (the last case where tim sir was kidnapped was suspiciously similar to the case in CSI where some guy gets buried in a coffin and the CSI team has to find him before he dies) but i kinda liked the chemistry between bobby auyeung and yoyo mung. their onscreen kiss actually caught me offguard because i was like whoa, since when did tvb have such hot kissing scenes? and it was from bobby, at that! i didn’t like their pairing in armed reaction iv (because i preferred bobby with ada choi, haha.) but i liked them better here, especially their awkwardness after the bobby-was-drugged resulting in a one-night stand plotline. and the parts where their fathers try to matchmake them are quite funny, too.
damn, i need to watch more shows with bobby! i think he’s my favourite tvb actor, despite not looking as good as say, joe ma but he more than makes up for it with his acting, be it in humorous or serious roles. gonna bring the pillow show back to hall with me so i can get my bobby fix, haha.

finally went out to stock up on instant/microwaveable food after finishing my marathon (i watched fifteen 45-minute episodes continuously, except for when i fell asleep) and ended up spending more money than my mum gave me… oops. but then again i stocked up enough to provide like 10 meals for myself in hall, and i might as well just get everything at one go, instead of having to continually restock, right? didn’t get tidbits or chocolate, though. oh well i guess it’s a good chance to keep off them after eating so much on the pretext of mugging for the exams…

and god i think IHG trainings are going to kill me. there’s touch rugby early in the morning tomorrow, and we also have a friendly with NYP. handball is a still manageable twice-a-week affair, but soccer and basketball trainings are thrice a week, and on the same days too! thank god i quit soccer. but i still have way too many trainings on my plate, i think. oh well maybe i’ll get kicked out of one or two trainings so that’s less for me? physically i don’t think i can keep up, but oh well, i’ll see…

and ah i got a bit sidetracked. wanted to talk about spontaneity, which resulted in a nice forensic heroes marathon, and will result in a movie with denise tomorrow, yay. haven’t really seen or hung out with her in ages, and it’ll be nice to do so with her tomorrow, after touch rugby. can’t wait to hang out with my fated friend :D

okay why aren’t my parents back? at this rate i’ll reach hall damn late and there won’t be time for supper and a tvb marathon with yy. argh. and i haven’t even had dinner. can’t, actually, the maid cleverly cooked only vegetable dishes, and all of them happen to be vegetables i don’t like. gah. call me picky but i just won’t eat what i don’t like…

sigh, i wish i had a REAL holiday.

amor, no es amor
then what am i feeling?
what am i doing wrong?
amor, no es amor
it’s just an illusion
that i have in my heart