if i could just see you, everything will be alright

as much as i would like to say something like whew, i finally have some free time to catch my breath and blog, the truth is that i don’t have any. my to-do list at todoist has a whopping 34 items for EHOC (though not all are urgent, thankfully) and i still have yet to touch anything for the research project. at least i managed to grab some books from the library earlier today, just before it closed. close shave, that was. and okay, fasten your seatbelts people, this is going to be pretty long entry…

and so the past week has definitely been very eventful. and busy. and very very tiring. it all started with a meeting handy and allan had with me and esther to clarify our roles and duties as chief programmers. it was a rather nebulous concept before and i have to admit that i am partially at fault for not clearing things up, and as a result, i obviously had not been doing my job for most of the time spent in EHOC so far. but better late than never, and i’m glad handy and allan cleared things up in time for me to wake up from my stupor of laziness and irresponsibility. i don’t have the confidence to say that i will be able to be a great chief programmer, but at least i’m motivated now. and once i’m sold on something, you can be assured of my undying devotion/loyalty, and that i’ll put in maximum effort (not counting procrastination, sorry) for it. for examples, please look at how i am inexplicably unable to abandon harry/hermione, or how i rush home to watch man u matches during the exam period, at the near-expense of my grades…

and i suppose this time my sacrifice is the money i would have made if i had devoted more time to the research project… i was initially very troubled by how i was going to reconcile having to work practically full-time for EHOC while clocking in the 20 hours a week, but then i realised that i don’t actually have to clock in that 20 hours unless i really really wanted the money. and when i really thought about it, i decided that at this point of time, making sure that orientation is going to be a successful one and fulfilling the duties of my position as chief programmer to the best of my abilities is more important than the money. in any case, the project lasts till next year so i can still earn some cash during term time. money can always be earned in the future, but things like the experience of planning orientation and making new friends in the process is something that doesn’t always come your way. okay, i didn’t exactly think of this before, it’s just something that occurred to me when i think about the past week.

i can’t really remember what happened on monday – nothing much apart from morning meetings and dance in the afternoon, i think. tuesday, however, was far more exciting. for example, we started our day with a run in the morning. no, i’m not kidding. it wasn’t actually very far – it was just from eusoff to YIH and back, but my word were the slopes killer. and when you think about, they are actually the gentlest of inclines compared to the other monsters around campus, so i dread to think of the EHOC run and the eusoff challenge… but i’m pretty pleased with myself for not stopping at all from eusoff to YIH despite my abject lack of stamina (as evidenced by my poor lungs and heart being seriously overloaded as i approached the central library) and the fact that for the first time (or as far as i can remember) my left heel was hurting when i was running, as opposed to it only hurting after running, like before.

but i guess that might be one of the good things about running with other people, i just bit my lip, told myself to not stop at any cost and somehow managed to do it. i think it’s the longest i’ve run without stopping in a long time. yup, i’m pretty proud of myself. the run back was actually rather relaxing since it was mostly downhill or flat (you only appreciate the goodness of flat surfaces after running up slopes) and i was looking forward to ending my run on a high, but i didn’t. i don’t know if i had pushed myself too hard without knowing it, if i shouldn’t have drank the mouthful of green tea in the morning or if it was just the gross combination of weird smells around campus (try gross grass with someone’s strong perfume), but i ended up puking when i reached the bus stop opposite LT13. i wasn’t so tired that i couldn’t run back to eusoff, but i felt like crap after throwing up so i walked back instead of completing the run… damn.

the morning’s meeting ended on time (well, almost), probably because we started to set schedules for the day, instead of aimlessly discussing stuff till the cows came home. so handy let us off until a “chill out session” at 4pm. well, i knew it wasn’t going to be that and i wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but i wasn’t going to let that stop me from meeting up with maryam and yy for a rare lunch date, since i hadn’t seen them in quite a while (relatively so, mind you. when you’re kind of used to seeing them like almost every other day, not seeing them for about two weeks will feel like a long time, even if you don’t really miss them :P) we went to vivo, had burger king, looked at bags at gap and stopped over at giant before i had to go back for the “chill out session”.

i was panicking because i was late, but thankfully it hadn’t started because they were celebrating allan’s birthday first. but everyone knew something was up when he said something along the lines of having to spoil everyone’s mood later… as me, esther, handy and allan already knew, it wasn’t going to be a chill out session, but rather, a thrashing out session, because of some of the problems in the programme team that was undermining our productivity. suggestions were thrown up, things were pointed out, things were said… and as it happened, it was eventually decided that we had to really thrash things out, meaning to point out each other’s flaws and problems that we felt were impeding progress. even deciding on how to go about it took ages, but we eventually came to an agreement.

and i admit that i was very apprehensive about it. dreading it, even. or rather, i was dreading the things that people might say about me. it’s not like i’ll hate them for saying it or that i wouldn’t try to work on improving it, but it’s just hard to hear someone say you suck at this or that in front of everyone else. and actually, i didn’t mind that people would have things to say about me, because i’ve had worse things happen and i’ve survived, but when i thought about it, i could hardly think of anything to say about anyone else. but as it turned out, we didn’t just say all the bad things. praises and compliments also flew about, and as unlikely as it might have seemed in the beginning, there was quite a general sense of good humour and understanding all around. and anything remotely negative pointed out was things like, you know you did something this way but it didn’t work so well, maybe you could try doing it this way instead, etc…

i was expecting people to tell me that how i sucked in a hundred and one ways, but instead i was let off with being informed that i could be a little long-winded at times, that i should stick with an argument to the end instead of giving up midway, that i need to step up as a leader, and as the chief programmer i need to be motivated in order to motivate everyone else and the strangest thing was that i sometimes look like i close my eyes when i speak? haha. prior to this, everyone was worried that the session might get too personal, but i think you can see from this that it was really quite far from personal. like allan said, we really were tackling the problems, and not the person.

and even though we had three people who couldn’t make it for the session, the changes in the dynamics of the programme team was remarkable. for one, i think everyone’s attitudes towards their work improved and for another, there were changes in opinions of each other, at least for me. and it’s for the better, not worse. and if people were a bit reluctant to approach each other for help or advice before, they were much more willing to do so now. everyone was much more friendlier to each other, but we remained strictly professional with regards to deadlines and the like… i think we can quite safely say that from that session onwards, EHOC programme really and truly became a team.

and if you were wondering what inspired my 360 degree change from whining about not wanting to be in EHOC to being like some rabid fangirl of it, this is why. over the week i’ve spent a lot of time discussing with the entire team or with a few members about how to improve the orientation, and we’ve come up with completely new ideas and things to focus on and now you really get the sense that everyone in the programme room is burning with the desire (sorry if it sounds too sheares-like, can’t think of any other expression) to make the upcoming orientation one hell of an orientation – one that the freshmen will remember, one where they will bond with each other, one which will instill “eusoff spirit” in them… it’s going to be lots of hard work, but i think it’s also going to be worth it. totally.

wednesday’s meeting was good, especially after the session the night before. i had barely two hours of sleep but i was somehow still managing to function. in fact, i was hardly even tired. strange. we finished on time so we got a break before dance, so i went to take a nap. but half an hour later, i was awake, feeling totally refreshed and unable to go back to sleep. strange. dance was pretty tiring, because we learnt a lot of new steps and my brain just doesn’t do well with coordinating my body, let alone when it’s sleep-deprived. and it was either stress, PMS or both, but towards the end i felt so frustrated at my inability to keep up and the fact that i was hurting and aching everywhere that i wanted to cry. and i did tear a bit, actually. it took a lot for me to not break down there and then, and i only really calmed down when i realised that it was probably just hormones wreaking havoc on my emotional state of mind.

since there were less things to do, handy decided to start thursday’s meeting at 10am isntead of the usual 9am, and i can’t tell you how good it felt to wake up on my own before the alarm, feeling totally refreshed. the meeting itself was less solid compared to the previous few meetings, but we had pretty good ideas thrown up, like the renaming of the station games and cluedo. we also had a cheering session to practise the cheers, which was quite fun though i just couldn’t get over the fact that the rally thing is really quite screwed up. i’m still hoping that we get to change it…

and it being a less busy day didn’t mean that we got to take a break from running. we ran to west coast macs and back, and i don’t know if it was PMS at play again, but this run came very close to breaking my spirit. yes, i’ve never been a big fan of running but it was always more frustrating and tiring than anything else and once i start i always try not to stop, unless i’m on my own. and unlike the run on tuesday morning, this run hurt. like hell. every step i took sent a stab of pain through my left heel, and as if that wasn’t enough, a monster of a stitch developed in my right side. when my lower back and waist start to also feel strained, i wanted to cry. yes, again. i was in a great deal of pain, but stopping wasn’t an option because i didn’t want to. would i be weak if i stopped, or was i weak for not stopping when i needed to? i didn’t know, and that was what ate at me as i forced my body to make it back to hall without stopping.

maybe two runs is not enough to decide or come to a conclusion, but i’m really doubting my ability to complete the EHOC run or eusoff challenge. or at least, to complete it while jogging or running the whole way. or i could, but it would come with a great deal of pain and i don’t know if i can handle it. i really do want to do the run, or at least complete the eusoff challenge firstly because i’m part of the programme team and everyone has to do it, and secondly, as a leader in the team and in the whole orientation, i would all the more have to lead by example. and if i could, i really would. but i don’t know if i can, and if i should do it at the expense of my body. i know running is only aggravating my heel pain, but i can’t bring myself to sit out the running sessions, either. god, sometimes i’m so weak and indecisive it’s really pathetic. alright, i’ll see how the next week of running goes…

and okay, i don’t particularly want to bitch about someone else on my blog so i shall refrain from writing about what totally pissed me off yesterday. i don’t think i’m one who easily gets mad at people (family doesn’t count), let alone friends, so i’ll let you be the judge of how pissed off i was. yes, i’ve always known that the person was rather like that, but i suppose i didn’t realise the full extent of it until i experienced it firsthand. and i’m sorry if it seems like i keep harping on this, i’m just finding it a little hard to believe that someone i consider a friend could be so inconsiderate, and dare i say, thoughtless. and okay, it seems like i’m really making a mountain out of a molehill now, so i shall just stop here. at least i don’t have to deal with that person very often.

time for some random thoughts. i found out that two of my friends are also quite crazy about the peach juice from cold storage. i should go get a small alarm clock so i will stop forgetting to put my laundry in the dryer or to take it out when it’s done. i wish my nails would stop growing so i wouldn’t have to cut them. i should stop sleeping at weird times. i am going to be complaining/whining a little in the next paragraph.

migraines feel doubly painful after you’ve not had them for some time. i’m feel bad about making my mum fork out money for more medicine, but it’s either that or popping lots of ponstan to try and stave off barely tolerable pain. i’m becoming worried/annoyed at how my weight has stagnated for two weeks. which means that i am effectively still only back at the weight i was before my inexplicable weight gain. and this is after swimming last week and either dancing or running every day this week except yesterday and today. unless i’ve gained muscle or it’s water retention, this is pretty crappy. especially since i need to lose weight asap to make the EHOC run/eusoff challenge marginally less stressful for my legs. argh, i really just have nothing to say if taking appetite suppressants and halving my usual food intake and exercise doesn’t work…

and oh yes, i think my ipod has finally kicked the bucket. or rather, it’s about to. if it were a human, it’ll be brain dead, because i can switch it on and itunes will ask me if i want to restore it, and one of two things will happen when i click yes: 1) the ipod supposedly restores, before asking me again if i want to restore. repeat if you select the affirmative option 2) itunes tells me that it can’t restore the ipod. if that’s not a dying (if not already dead) ipod, i don’t know what is. which means, i have to burn a huge hole in my pocket to get a new one (vanessa, please return me my $135!!!) but the question is whether i should go for a refurbished one ($288) or a new one ($428 but might be as low as $350 at sim lim). the refurbished one would be exactly what i have now, but the new one is of a slightly newer generation, has longer video playback, a brighter screen and a search engine thing built in. someone decide for me please :( or maybe i should figure out a way to mention my conked out ipod in front of my aunt during the upcoming family bbq… mwahaha.

alright, it’s getting rather late (or early, actually) so i guess i shall turn in soon. it’s been a terribly unproductive day, though. can’t allow this to happen tomorrow. thank goodness tomorrow’s a sunday. and it’s really funny how getting our first free day on friday keeps making me feel like yesterday was saturday and today’s sunday. okay, technically that is true considering that it’s already 6am on sunday, but you know what i mean.

am rambling already, so i shall end here with birthday wishes to allan, maria and jasper :)

how long have i been in this storm?
so overwhelmed by the ocean’s shapeless form
the water’s getting harder to tread
with these waves crashing over my head

if i could just see you
everything will be alright
if i’d see you, this darkness will turn to light
and i will walk on water and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and know everything will be alright
and know everything is over

i know you didn’t bring me out here to drown
so why am i ten feet under and upside down
barely surviving has become my purpose
cos i’m so used to living underneath the surface

if i could just see you everything will be alright
if i’d see you, this darkness will turn to light
and i will walk on water
and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and know everything will be alright

and i will walk on water and you will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into your eyes
and know everything will be alright
and know everything is alright
everything’s alright
everything’s alright

lifehouse, storm.

this was the only slow song on the new album so it caught my attention, but i didn’t realise that they sang it before, albeit while they were known as blyss and with slightly different lyrics. which explains why it sounds very classic lifehouse, because it is. why oh why won’t lifehouse come to singapore???

i’m losing myself just to find a place in your mind

well, i suppose i should apologise (to my blog and whatever faithful readers i may actually have) about the tardiness of this update. i probably should have done it over the weekend, but i was just quite unable to escape from the iron grip of procrastination. but well, better late than never, right?

most of thursday, save the night, was not very memorable. just dry runs, i suppose. though ah yes, there was the night walk dry run, which was rather interesting because some of us were led around hall blindfolded, with the rest gleefully tickling us with feathers and splashing us with cold water. and there was a station where we had to guess a riddle and draw what we thought was the answer, while we were still blindfolded. and knowing me, my drawing isn’t fantastic when i can see, let alone when i cannot, so my interpretation of a pot lid became an indistinguishable scrawl which everyone chuckled at. hmph. yeah yeah i guess i just can’t draw for nuts now…

and so yes, i did go for the bash after all. my first clubbing experience (at the wonderfully tender age of twenty) didn’t end very well (read: hangover) but i guess it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. or maybe that was just what the alcohol made me think, haha.

the programmers decided to load up on drinks before heading to butter factory to “save some money”, so we all piled into the lounge to play this drinking game first. i didn’t care very much for it at first, until the existing stock of alcohol was exhausted and yee kiat ran down to get his bottle of… absolut apeach :D by then i’d also gotten the hang of the game, plus it was peach mixed with sprite and i didn’t mind really mind drinking it so i got a bit more daring, hehe. at least my face didn’t go red immediately like the last time i had alcohol, i think. but it did turn red, and i didn’t know how much i had to drink until we were about to go off to butter factory and i stood up to find that i was mildly disorientated…

and apparently, i was also a little high, not exactly walking in straight lines and as the cab neared mohammed sultan road i was also starting to slur a bit. and well, i actually hadn’t really drunk that much. talk about a low alcohol tolerance. but i suppose the high, sort of happy happy feeling from the alcohol was kinda fun la. and without the alcohol to loosen me up and relax me a bit, i probably would not have joined the rest on the dance floor. butter factory was rather empty, by the way, due to rather poor ticket sales. so it was more like a private little bash, but even then the music was deafeningly loud and quite intolerable.

and i suppose the alcohol running amok in my blood told me to just heck everything since i was already there, so i just let myself go and move to the music, especially during the songs i actually recognised, like some remix of beyonce’s crazy and the dirty version of akon’s i wanna love you (substitute “love” for the f-word). i have to admit that it was actually kind of fun, if not a bit tiring.

but unfortunately for myself, my fun got spoiled by my ridiculously low alcohol tolerance, because the lower half of my head started to throb viciously. yes, people have their hangovers the next day, i have mine hours after drinking… when the throbbing seemed far from subsiding even after some rest outside of the main club area, i decided that there was little point in staying, so i decided to just leave early. i cabbed home, showered and just fell asleep. and when i woke up, the throbbing was mercifully gone and the previous night’s activities felt more like memory than reality.

so in conclusion, drinking and clubbing are… alright. though i’m not so sure if i want to do either too soon again. and it seems that until i build up my alcohol tolerance, i should only drink or club, but not do both at the same time. but the thing is, if i’m not at least a bit high from alcohol (or anything, but i’m not going to smoke or take drugs) i don’t think i would hit the dance floor with as reckless abandon as i did that time. but if i drink too much and hangover too quickly, that would just really suck, too. gah, how irksome. but oh well. i guess it’s not something i have to think or worry about until the next time. which will not be soon, thankfully.

and actually, that’s all that i really have to blog about. saturday and sunday were just blurs of procrastination. but well, if you really must know, i’ve been rather strangely addicted to facebook. at first it was the click a friend to see if there are more friends to add thing, then it was to look for funny groups to join like “No, I can’t hang out with you on July 21st. HOW DARE YOU ASK?”, “All I Want for Christmas is Wentworth Miller”, “Nutella Addicts Anonymous”, etc etc and now it’s the apps, which are like little programmes or add-ons you can well, add to your facebook profile and everything. i’m inexplicable hooked onto leveling up pet rabbits on this pets apps… argh don’t ask me why but i just can’t seem to tear myself from doing it.

and yes, if you might want to say that it’s rather trend-following or whatnot to do the facebook thing, but i suppose that the fun and addictiveness of it makes me a bit past caring. well, it’s not lke the greatest invention on earth or anything, but you have to admit that whoever thought of it was rather clever, no?

and oh yeah i just remembered how i procrastinated my weekend away when i was supposed to be doing my research work. i can’t remember why, but i just became preoccupied with tricking out my firefox. first it was using stylish (a very useful firefox extension) to turn google and youtube into very cool dark gray sites, and then i became a bit obsessed about reinstalling windowblinds and finding a perfect new skin to go with it. and now my laptop rocks because i have a gorgeous windows theme, and google and youtube now totally matches it. whee!

alright, time to go behind and grab myself some dinner and get back to work after that. i am up to my arms in work (and obviously it doesn’t help that i keep procrastinating), i am and will be getting very tired out by dance practice and training runs… help. i can hardly wait for my respite in july, i NEED a holiday.

and oh, lifehouse has a new album! erh, not yet released in stores, i think. but well, i have it, hehe. there’s no radio-friendly, you and me-like song on the album, but i still rather like the album on the whole, because it’s very lifehouse. but very lifehouse in the from their last album sense, because their sound is quite different from their no name face days. and some other favourites of the moment are emerson hart (lead singer of tonic!), william tell, tyler hilton and brandi carlile. yay for nice music!

i’m losing myself just to find a place in your mind
in your mind
changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
in your eyes
pull me in, take me out, make me over

today melts to yesterday’s memories

EHOC programme started late yesterday, from 1pm onwards, but it turned out to be one of the most tiring days so far. after discussing some stuff in the programme room, we headed for the pool. yes, the swimming pool. we were to do the “dry” run for the wet and wild games and handy decided that we would swim for our physical training instead, so off we went…

and boy do i suck at swimming now. i had to stop by the side before i was even halfway through a lap, because my arms were so tired and i was actually so breathless by then that i was panting. you would think that i’d be a mite fitter now, considering my weight loss, IHG and everything, but no, i’m actually loads worse because i could definitely swim a lap without stopping in the past. gahhh. i suck! and weirdly enough this only makes me want to go and swim some more, so i will suck less. strange, huh? but first i need to either find my goggles, or somehow persuade my mum to get me new ones. mine seem to have vanished into thin air, and i only got to swim because mei ling swims without goggles and lent me hers.

i was already quite wiped out by the swimming, even though i only did a paltry five laps, but there was to be no rest because we had to dry run the treasure hunt around campus. and when i say around, i really mean “a round”. like make a loop around campus until we returned to eusoff again, all the while looking out for clues and things like that. which is a lot to walk, let along after a tiring session of swimming. and it didn’t help that the right side was rebelling against me. first my hip hurt, then my knee, and then my foot before starting at my hip again. thanks a lot huh. the hip was the worst, especially when it decided to make an appearance at the biz/kent ridge slope, as we were walking back from biz. i practically had to limp up the path? grrr.

and thank goodness handy decided to be merciful and allow the meeting to start later today. but it didn’t matter in the end for me, because i woke up with a monstrous headache, plus an accompanying sidekick neck ache. at first i was thinking damn, the topamax isn’t working and i’ll need to increase the dosage as recommended (am still taking it once a night to save money) but then i realised that it wasn’t a migraine, and that the pain seemed to be radiating from my neck. sheesh. so i called in sick, downed some ponstan and went back to sleep…

when i woke up i was feeling a bit better, but it was still annoyingly there, sheesh. i took a shower, had breakfast/lunch, took more ponstan and slapped on a salonpas before deciding to head down to the programmes room to see if i could help out with anything. which turned out to be nothing. but after a while of slacking, it was time to go and dry run some of the items in the war games.

and oh yeah, i forgot to mention, shanta’s in hall! she’s staying in valerie’s room for a week, which is really cool cos i haven’t seen her in ages. it was fun catching up with her again and i’m glad she’s going to help out for the counselors’ camp. hopefully she’ll be able to convince more people, like the D block people maybe, to come cos we really need all the help we can get.
and yes, this is a blatant hint for any eusoffian who might be reading this. the camp will be from 10 to 13 july and we’ll be testing most of our games. it’ll be lots of fun and you’ll get the very nice orientation tshirt (many times nicer than last year’s, i can assure you. no, i didn’t design it so it’s not really shameless self-promotion.) and rest assured that you don’t have to be an OGL unless you want to. people should be calling you up soon, or if you need more details go look for aik and maria.

the first game we tested was a variation of captain’s ball – the actual game would be played with water bombs and coffee filter socks, but for today we made do with a small plastic ball and the coffee filter socks. it was girls versus guys, and it was quite difficult because every dropped ball resulted in a turnover and the ball was so small… but still, it was lots of fun, if not also very tiring. we then played a bit of asshole daidee (where i managed to be president, vice-president and then president again, hehe.) before playing finding aces, but without the soapy stuff. and my group beat the other group cos we very quickly picked up the biggest suit – royal flush in spades, hehe.

after showering i went to see if i could help out esther with the food. i didn’t do very much, but some contribution was better than none, yeah? and the food was really good. we had our usual herbal soup (she cooks it for us everyday! i’d move to D block if she does that everyday during term time!), sambal prawns, egg with long beans, kailan with bean sprouts, lightly fried tofu, what i think was a braised pork leg with taupok, and japanese fried chicken (from a packet, cooked by chun pin, haha.) and unfortunately the rice got a bit screwed up and hard so we had to convert it to fried rice instead. at least it was good! so we had a most sumptuous dinner, yum. i think we’ll be totally spoiled by esther’s cooking and are going to find it terribly hard to adjust back to hall dinner when it returns…

after dinner me, shanta and eva went over to dr emmanuel’s place to look at the baby. unfortunately for us, the baby was asleep. awww. so we just saw down and chit-chatted with the emmanuels, until the baby woke up. and he was just as cute as usual :D i took some photos of him, but they didn’t turn out very well because he looked a bit shocked with the flash on, but the picture was too dark without the flash. in any case i am strictly forbidden to post them up, and i dare not risk their wrath or they may never let me anywhere near their sons again, which would be a serious tragedy.

alright, time to go sleep now. am not particularly looking forward to tomorrow, because of the bash. i’m not a clubbing person. never was and quite possibly might never be, but i have to go because the entire programme team has to… yes our tickets will be subsidised from our welfare fund but another problem is that i have no clothes to wear there? oh well, i shall just heck it and go with jeans and tshirt, ha. and if anyone decides at the last minute to go, you are very welcome to come okay! the more people at the bash, the merrier, right?

and blah i’m such a lazy bum. i wish my clothes would go into the wardrobe themselves, that my nails would cut themselves, that my work would do itself, yada yada… okay fine the nails really need to be cut, they’re atrociously long. and they will be done… NOW.

fantasise
of initiatives not mine
of a closeness undefined
reminiscence.

hard to believe that

hmmm, i probably shouldn’t be blogging now seeing that i’m way behind for my research work (number of words written about education: zero) but an update is way overdue and between working and procrastinating, it is rather obvious as to which i would choose, no?

thursday turned out to be a rather fun, if not longer than expected day. me, mei yi and dr. emmanuel were to go to west mall to buy the digital recorder we needed for our interviews and to have lunch. which was supposed to be straightforward and i expected us to only be out for an hour or two at the most. but then we found out that the model we had been approved to buy did not have the basic functionality of being able to transfer the recordings to the computer, which would just defeat the purpose of buying it. so dr. emmanuel thought of popping by the apple shop to look at the ipod accessories that could do recordings, and also decided to bring his family out, so it became a family outing. seriously.

but it was lots of fun – joanna’s very nice, jared/jerrod/gerald (geesh i don’t know how his name is spelled!) is very mischievous but also very intelligent and cieran is ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. i swear, all he needs to do is look at you with those large, wonderfully bright eyes and you’ll be instantly charmed. and when he smiles or gurgles with laughter at you? sorry, but there’s just no way out of falling hopelessly in love with this baby. he’s only four months old and he’s such a ladykiller already. and probably a everyone-killer, actually, everyone, including grown men were looking at him when dr. emmanuel was wheeling him around in the pram. and the amazing thing is that he’s such a nice, quiet and good-natured baby. he hardly ever cries, and when he does, he stops almost immediately when his mum slips him the pacifier. and yes i miss him already. i should just be thick-skinned and go visit when i can, because playing with him just makes me so so happy :D

okay, so we all had chicken rice at far east for lunch. and it was pretty good, and not very expensive too, i think. come to think of it, i haven’t had good chicken rice for a long time, actually. we then went over to wheelock, and found three different types of recording accessories for the ipod before deciding that it wasn’t a good idea to get an add-on, because we would need dr. emmanuel’s ipod and my ipod’s too unreliable. so it was off to funan to look for another recorder…

and we found it, while joanna was feeding cieran at ya kun. and as you might know, feeding babies takes a fair amount of time, so dr. emmanuel went to look at dvds while me and mei yi contented ourselves with looking at and playing with cieran, hehe. joanna then decided to go grocery shopping and we accompanied her (so we could look at cieran some more, hehe) before dr. emmanuel had to go for a meeting at republic plaza. and so joanna had to drive back, which was a bit scary because she didn’t really know the way back and it’s not like i’m a big help when it comes to navigation…

so our short trip out turned out to be a whole afternoon adventure, which i of course didn’t mind since i got a free lunch and i got to play with cieran :D i came back quite tired and would have gone to sleep if i hadn’t bumped into anitha on my way to the loo and discovered that the rest of the programmers were still having dance practice. so i (reluctantly) made my way down to the dance studio to join the rest of them. and yes, i totally suck. but i think it was quite a good workout though, especially the cool down at the end, which involved quite a bit of crunches and the like. and i don’t know if i’m doing it wrongly or what, but towards the end my tailbone started to hurt. blah. think i need to go strengthen my back or something.

i can’t remember what i did on thursday night, but friday was a very long, tiring day. it was an EHOC outing – or bonding session, as they also called it. we were split into different groups, with each group having people from each of the three EHOC comms – programme, flag and rag. we were to go on a treasure hunt set by handy and allan that would send us all over town and raffles city/marina square. i was in group two – my fellow programmer was chun pin, the flaggers were siqian and a “year zero” called jerm, and the raggers were sopphia and shazi (it’s funny, i always thought to spell her nickname as shazzy until i saw someone’s blog). and actually i already kinda knew everyone except for jerm and shazi so there wasn’t that much bonding for me…

but it was still kind of fun, i suppose. though some of the clues were so headbang-inducing. like when we walked through the whole of robinsons’ to find some stupid duck brand, until i found it on some promotional poster. sheesh. chun pin helped us to exchange some answers so we got to take it a bit easier, and we soon headed back to vivo.

we were supposed to find elfie, and i thought that was going to be the end of it. and i was so wrong. but well, our group got really lucky, actually. i think we were the first to find him – we were just walking around when we just suddenly spotted allan and consequently elfie sitting at long john’s. but no, that’s wasn’t it. we had to go find a snowman and a snowflake structure, and to take photos with it… we wasted quite a bit of time because we had no idea where either structure was. and all the while the other groups were still trying to find elfie and we were pretending that we hadn’t found him, lol.

anyway, we found the snowman after much effort, but were clueless about the snowflake. nevertheless we tried our luck with elfie… only to be turned away. in desperation we went to the information counter, and fortunately the person knew exactly what we were looking for. we quickly took the lift up, found the snowflake and took that picture. kim ong’s group arrived on the scene as we were leaving, but they couldn’t find the snowflake, so they asked us where it was. we didn’t want to just give them the answer, so we just told them it was “outside’ but they refused to believe us, haha. but it was the truth! it was perched right at the top of the building, haha.

with our snowflake photo in hand, we rushed back to long john’s… only to find allan and elfie gone. i decided to just call allan and ask him where they were, and thankfully just told me (without bluffing me, this time) so we scooted over as fast as we could, thinking that the end was near… NOT! our next task was to go and find shu fang and michelle on the first floor. cue more groans from everyone and silent cries from our poor feet… so i called michelle up, hoping that she would tell us where she was, or at least give us a hint. but she refused to (or rather, couldn’t) and even tried to trick me by saying that she was on her way home! haha. she only left us with the cryptic clue of having to think like a flagger, and we were left with no choice but to comb through the first floor in search of the two vice-heads. we eventually found shu fang walking around with jit vern, but there wasn’t it; we needed to find michelle. SIGH. finally we managed to figure out that it was near citibank, and made our way there.

and yes, we had more things to do. we had to go and take more photos of the other structures around vivocity… and i swear i’ve never hated vivocity more than that day. so we trudged our way to the various places, bent the rules as far as we could and finally completed our tasks. i thought we were the last group to return, but apparently we were one of the only two groups that actually went to do the last task, because the rest weren’t given the task due to time constraints.

so we all went back, gathered, communicated and had dinner together in blue oyster. i proceeded to spend the rest of the night watching dance of passion, until i finished it. and boy was it good. the ending was still in the typical tvb cannot-in-a-conventional-manner style, but the last episode on a whole was pretty good. and i don’t know why, but i just found it so touching and sad i was well, crying? and yeah i even cried until my nose and ears got blocked. must have been pent-up emotion or something. but then again i always find it strangely fun in a totally weird way to cry over books, tv shows and movies. sometimes it’s not even that sad but i don’t know, the crying just feels… good? okay yes i know i’m weird. but you knew that already, didn’t you?

but seriously, dance of passion really was quite good. better than war and beauty, in my opinion. the front part was a bit slow and boring, but it really picked up after that. lots of drama and intrigue, and for me the best parts were the actresses. ada choi here was the best i’ve ever seen her, and while charmaine sheh didn’t put up an extraordinarily spectacular performance, it was still very good acting, especially her crying. and yeah i just like her more and more :D i’ve never really liked gigi lai, but i think i like her a bit better because of this show. bowie lam and moses chan were also pretty good, but i don’t know, i kind of didn’t like the chemistry between charmaine and moses. it just didn’t really cut it for me. maybe i was subconsciously comparing it with the chemistry charmaine and joe ma had in maidens’ vows (which was damn good) and maybe with bobby, who seriously has this uncanny ability to have chemistry with all the young and pretty actresses, even though he’s balding and a bit on the plump side. he’s very far from hot, but he’s definitely my favourite tvb actor :D

and oh yeah, i got seriously re-infatuated with timbuk2 when i was at wheelock on thursday, because i saw how spacious the medium was, and i just knew that i had to get my timbuk2 soon. i let yy check out the website, and she fell in love with the tote there so she agreed to go to queensway with me the next day to see if they had it, haha. unfortunately for her, they didn’t have the tote, but they did have the messengers. fortunately i discovered after a bit of googling that another shop in queensway itself was selling timbuk2s, and i eventually got my timbuk2 from that shop because the uncle was friendlier and because the other shop (which was pretty far out from the shopping centre) smelled a bit weird. i also bought a new basketball because my old one was really falling apart, and we discovered that by some strange coincidence i had bought it from the cheapest store.

and so yes, i currently have two loves at the moment – my timbuk2 and a certain baby named cieran emmanuel. hehe. and just in case you were wondering what colour my timbuk2 is, it’s olive/chartreuse/light green. meaning, it’s kinda green. again. but it’s really nice, and even yy said she was feeling rather tempted even though she doesn’t even like messengers. haha.

sunday was a day of good food for me. first there was lunch at marmalade pantry with my cousins edwin and stella, and with my sister. i had an ultimate beef burger – it was nothing really fancy, just a huge beef patty with pickles and bread, but it was very good. the patty was very evenly grounded, and medium well was just perfect for me. the fries were also better than the usual run of the mill ones, but unfortunately for me just the patty and lower half of the bun was enough to make me more full than i’d been in a long time, so i couldn’t eat very much.

my sister had fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, which do not taste as oily or unhealthy as they sound. it was a very unique and sinfully good taste, though. too bad i had no room for anything more than a bite of it. i also tried stella’s eggs benedict, and now that i know what it is, i should probably go try it sometime, because it’s really quite good. dessert was a sticky date toffee pudding shared by all of us since i was so stuffed i could hardly even bear the thought of dessert, despite the wonderful offerings on the menu. it was very nice and sweet without being cloying, and it felt close to sinful but sinful wasn’t the right word to describe it… and they had pretty nice looking muffins, too. the nutella one looked good, too bad i have such a puny appetite now…

dinner was also really good. we went down to boon tong kee, and i simply love the veggies there. i don’t know how they do it or what gravy they use, but it’s just so wondefully flavourful i could barely stop eating the kailan, until the broccoli and cauliflower came along, then i couldn’t stop eating those. halfway through my bowl of rice i was starting to feel like i couldn’t eat anymore, so i slowed down and focused on just the wonderful veggies. and the deep fried tofu was heavenly. it seemed to me that the cooking had improved – the veggies were better, of course, and the tofu was so fresh i might not have minded turning vegetarian if i could have such fresh tofu and delicious veggies everyday. i can only dream about how their hor fun would taste like, especially the slightly charred bits… i think i would be in cze char heaven, or something.

i decided not to head back to hall last night so i could watch the french open, which was quite exciting in the middle, though it did fizzle out towards the end… oh well, i’ll support roger federer over rafael nadal anyday, simply because of the elegance and finesse of his playing style and strokes. and there’s always still the wimbledon to look forward to…

and as if eating all that good food yesterday wasn’t enough, lunch today was at fish and co, while we were interviewing two of the alumni/committee members for the anniverary book. i didn’t want to have fish and chips again, and was actually kind of craving the seafood platter, but it was a bit too expensive plus there was no way i could finish it. although maybe i should have just gone ahead, the bill would be picked up by the hall, anyway, hehe.

alright, i’m super sleepy so i guess i shall head to bed now. but before that, an advertisement…

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whine and cheese.

dang, time really flies when you’re doing nothing in particular. meaning, randomly blog-hopping and seeing if there’s anything interesting on digg or livejournal. i should have gone to shower and do my laundry over an hour ago, but i just got sucked into the cycle of clicking link after link… and the scary thing is, this would take even more time if i didn’t have the rss feeds of some blogs and websites sent to google reader. so well, now you know how i procrastinate.

i found out today from mei yi (the year 4 history major i’m working with for the eusoff anniversary book project) that you don’t actually need to be in EHOC to apply for vacation stay. in fact, it’s supposedly quite easy to get a room. and i’m like ABCDEFG if i had known then i wouldn’t have joined EHOC. i could be like waking up at 10am every morning and still be getting a fair amount of work done for the research project (definitely more than 20 hours a week). and i could be watching my tvb dramas and playing my ps2 games in my free time. which would have been exponentially larger than the amount i have right now.

in short, my three months would feel more like a holiday, instead of three months of hectic work. sigh, not another one of my badly made decisions. oh well, lesson learnt. and at least i won’t have to use any of the silly reasons me and maryam came up with yesterday on our way to 7-11. we had things ranging from renovation at home, stormy relations with family, my parents disowning me and even death of a family member making it too painful to return home. yes, we’re nuts.

but oh well, since i’m already in, i will just have to make the best of things. and i’ll be getting hall points anyway, which will hopefully mean that i will be less busy with hall stuff next sem/year, especially since the research project will continue well into next year and i would definitely like to work on it as far as possible – the more money the merrier, right? and as usual studies are still my #1 priority. i think it will be absolutely crucial and imperative that i try and get a really really good sem in my second year so i can at least still harbour the faint hope of attaining the (seemingly?) unattainable CAP…

and as crazy as it sounds, i’ve actually more or less decided on what modules i’ll be taking next sem. i’m just crossing my fingers and hoping that there will be no timetable or exam clashes, because my tentative modules all sound pretty good.

i’d already decided on intro to world history and total war ages ago, and finding out more about some of the lecturers from mei yi only reinforced my choice. apparently borschberg is very good at the 2000 level, and i know for myself what dubois is like, so intro to world history is looking pretty good for now. i’m taking a bit of a risk with brian farrell, who’s a bit of a “slave driver” and strict marker but also a very fair one who will teach not just content but also skills, so i’m going for this even if i’m really quite unsure as to how i will do.

i had a bit of trouble deciding on my third history module, but i think i will do US from settlement to superpower, after hearing from mei yi that it’s good, though dr quek also does a bit of slave driving. oh well, i need to be whipped into shape anyway. and prior to doing eu (and thereby spawning an increased fascination with europe) this was one of the modules i was quite interested in taking before, probably because of the cold war connection and the realisation of how little i know of the country i regularly deride and think of as effed-up apart from its gifts to humanity, like movies and music.

and since maria is also interested, i think i will be doing intro to computing next sem as a breadth module. i’m screwing all noble notions and intentions of learning for its sake, i want good grades. okay, i’m not guaranteed a good grade for IT1001 but given that i’ve practically lived and breathed computer for more than half of my life and that the module is geared for those with little or no knowledge of computing, i should do fine. and while there is some stuff that i don’t know, i’m pretty sure my ability to comprehend and absorb new things will not fail me. and besides, the exam is mostly mcqs AND open book. i can foresee myself cackling endlessly in lecture with maria already. if we even go for lecture, that is. i bet it’ll be webcast.

and as per my original intentions since the exams, my last module will be a soci one. unfortunately for me, some of the soci modules i’m interested in, like sociology of deviance and emotions and social life are only available in sem 2. but there are some others that don’t seem too bad… well i suppose most of them are quite interesting, anyhow. i haven’t 100% decided but i suppose gender studies sounds good for the moment. mass media and culture and sociology of popular culture don’t sound half-bad too, but i am a bit reluctant to venture into culture again, after the near-disaster that was cultural studies. well, i guess it’ll all depend on whether i have any clashing modules, i suppose… and please please please no, because i think these modules are just perfect for me next sem.

hmmm, i admit that the purpose of this entry was only to announce my possibly premature choice of modules. and i know how totally chao mugger toad it is to choose my modules even before the list is released, but heck it, i can’t wait for school to start. and just in case anyone thinks i’m crazy, i’m only saying this because i’m stuck with EHOC. i think. okay fine even if i was free for the hols i would still be saying it because i would probably be bored, but as much as it is stressful and tiring and sian and all to study, i have to admit that i do derive a certain amount of (perverse) satisfaction in doing totally last minute term papers and studying for exams only the day(s) before it. and no matter how many times i say that i will change my ways, i don’t think i ever will, at least not in the foreseeable future. i just find it hard to sit down and work without feeling the doom of a looming deadline. and it was rather funny when me and mei yi were talking about this and the both of us were fervently agreeing about no matter how we resolve to do readings on time or start studying earlier, we always end up studying right before the exams.

and already i’m beginning to see the contradictions in what i’m saying. i want a 4.5 but just can’t bring myself to put in the extra effort to try and get it… i guess that i might most of the time i just subconsciously concede defeat by believing that i really am just not good enough for 4.5, and putting in more work isn’t going to change things. i know you never know before you try, but well… i don’t know la. i can never tell what is my best and what isn’t. when i feel that i’ve worked hard for something, the result more often than not seems to turn out unfavourable. and yet most of the better results i get always, always feel thoroughly undeserved. oh well. if fortune decides to favour me for now, who am i to complain?

okay, i have no idea why i’ve ended up blogging about grades and things like that in the middle of the hols, when i should be talking about relaxing (yeah right, only in my dreams) or lamenting/complaining about EHOC. alright, i really need to do my laundry… although maybe i shouldn’t, it’s so freaking late already. blah, the perils of procrastination.

these dreams will bring you back to me

okay, i haven’t blogged in a long time (a week, i just realised) and i unabashedly make the same old excuses – too busy, lazy, tired, etc. i actually have had wanted to blog quite some time ago, but procrastination got in the way. and since i am motivated to chronicle my dull, dreary life for memory’s sake rather than because my fingers have been inspired to fly over the keyboard, i shall very briefly recap the more mundane days.

like last wednesday, for example. it was the usual EHOC in the morning, then i went to the library in the afternoon. and unfortunately my memory fails me as to what happened in the evening and at night.

thursday was a nice day of doing nothing but watching the dance of passion and playing some digital devil saga. and sleeping as much as i liked, of course. what i really don’t like about EHOC is that i actually have to wake up a lot earlier than i do on normal school days. and pay whopping fines if i’m late. fifty cents a minute, which is madness. if you’re late for twenty minutes, that’s 10 bucks. ouch wouldn’t even begin to describe the pain my wallet and heart would feel if i were to be fined. thankfully, i haven’t been.

but i nearly was, when i completely overslept on friday. scarily enough even the ringing of my phone did not rouse me one bit. it was presentation of proposals then, and we ran into quite a bit of extra time, ruining the plan me maryam and yy had to go surprise vanessa at her mother’s shop at the picture house.

oh well, at least the FASS girls got to meet up again :D i’ve been seeing yy and maryam around of course, but i think we haven’t seen vanessa since exams ended? we were a bit early and vanessa was a bit late, but when she finally arrived, it was off to fish & co at paragon. which really was quite disappointing because the decor was rather unlike the usual fish & co style. it felt more like we were in some ikea kitchen showroom, and it didn’t really help that we were kind of shoved into a tiny corner of the restaurant. the food was alright – no new york fish & chips, but there was a philadelphia version which i thought was not bad, and the fries tasted a bit different, but in a good way. the kola tonic was definitely nowhere as good as the one at glass house, though. and so we decided that if we ever go to fish & co again, it will have to be at the glass house. but no matter the ambience or the food, at least the company was good.

we then felt like dessert and decided to head somewhere else for that since the dessert at fish & co were neither very varied nor value for money. we got the bill and were in the midst of splitting it (which was fairly easy since the three of us, with the exception of maryam, had ordered the same things. more evidence that we should never eat at such places with the guys.) when disaster struck. despite turning her whole bag inside out, yy just couldn’t find her wallet. we all didn’t have enough extra cash to pay for yy’s share but thankfully i had my uob debit card so i used that, and that was one problem solved. the other problem being the mysteriously missing wallet, of course.

we retraced our steps to orchard mrt and the toilet there, but to no avail. in the end yy decided to just give up looking for it, and go back to the original plan of dessert instead. as usual we had problems deciding where to go, and maryam demonstrated the slowness of her responses to “chopes” when even vanessa managed to “chope” before her, haha. we were originally thinking of going to nydc or the big o, but had to change plans when vanessa found that she didn’t have any money to withdraw because the transfer for her allowance had not been cleared thanks to the vesak day holiday, haha. so it was off to starbucks at liat towers, instead.

which was as noisy as ever, but at least there weren’t sore eye inducing too-short skirts around this time. technically maryam and yy shared a citron tart while me and vanessa shared a raspberry swirl cheesecake, but practically we just shared it all. and it was really strange because the citron tart tasted of strange things like pork and chicken rice. especially chicken rice. when vanessa mentioned it i was rather disbelieving because i had eaten the tart before at other places and they didn’t taste like pork or chicken rice, but it really did taste and smell rather funny then. i refused to take more than a few bites of the tart, and sought refuge in the cheesecake instead.

and so we chattered away and laughed as usual, including one particularly funny moment where i totally embarrassed myself by saying some sentence with the word “quiet” in it. the embarrassing part was, i said QUIET very loudly, and it was well, very noisy there. haha. the other three couldn’t stop laughing at me and i don’t blame them, i couldn’t stop laughing at myself, either. and oh another hilarious moment was when we were telling vanessa about how me and yy were wondering about the technicalities of kissing if maryam were to date a non-muslim guy, and maryam’s totally unexpected answer. and i don’t know why, but it just totally cracked the both of us up.

but one of the best parts of the night was when yy’s mum called to say that some (somewhat?) kind soul had picked up the wallet and taken a cab to the address on the IC to return the wallet, which was a huge relief. sure, there was some loss of money (for the cabfare) but at least yy didn’t have to go and make all the various cards again. too bad she had already reported the loss of her silver atm card by then, though.

and it was getting a bit late at ten plus so we all went off, after deciding to go over to vanessa’s house on sunday to watch dvds since her family were holidaying in phuket. all in all, it was a nice FASS girls gathering which was thankfully not marred by the loss of yy’s wallet, in the end. hmmm, maybe we should have a full 3404 gathering soon… but i can’t be bothered to organise one, and it’s not like i really really want to see absolutely everyone again, if you get my drift. maybe just a 3404 girls’ gathering, then. hehe.

saturday was spent sleeping and slacking. ’nuff said.

i woke up on sunday with a migraine, because i had stupidly not gone to take napan/ponstan to ward off a possible migraine when i felt a little twinge in my head as i lay in bed. big, terrible mistake. i did feel a bit better after a shower and the usual meds so i decided to just head for the dvd marathon at vanessa’s, anyway. unfortunately, a number of factors played a part in worsening it. first, the unrelentingly HOT weather and blazing sun bearing down on us, which would be enough to give me a migraine if i didn’t already have one. and then i ran for the traffic crossing at ang mo kio station because i thought i was going to be late, undoing all the hard work i had done on the bus trying to abate the throbbing in the left side of my head. the crowded train didn’t help matters, either.

and as it turned out, i was a bit early. so i went to get some peach yami yoghurt, hoping that its goodness might dispel my migraine somewhat. and it did help a little, though only while i was eating the yoghurt itself… i was the first to arrive at united square, and was about to message vanessa and yy when vanessa appeared. and when i was about to message yy, yy messaged. haha. so we headed for the rental store when yy came, to start picking out the dvds while waiting for maryam. she finally arrived, and after some time we eventually managed to choose three dvds – adaptation, scary movie 4 and this chinese (or was it japanese?) horror movie called the office.

so it was off to cold storage to get our tidbits after that. and this time, we learnt our lesson from the prison break marathon to not buy too much stuff. we got a bag of twisties, some coated peas, a can of sour cream and onion mister potato, nutritea and a tub of ice cream (can’t remember the flavour). and since we were hungry, the three of us excluding vanessa also got the sesame chicken noodles. apparently maryam and yy are rather hooked on it now, thanks to me. and again, can’t blame them, the noodles are really quite nice for instant noodles, and very convenient to eat while watching tv or studying. the preparation is another matter, though…

so anyway we settled down in the so-called tv room of vanessa’s house, and for a while i thought my migraine might be gone because it faded while i was eating my sesame chicken noodles. unfortunately, it came back with a vengeance after i finished eating, blah. learning from our lesson of not being able to watch the last king of scotland after watching she’s the man and harold and kumar go to white castle at maryam’s place the last time, we decided to watch adaptation first. it was actually quite funny, but eventually my migraine got the better of me and i had to migrate from the seat beside maryam to the tatami mat on the floor, so i could get some sleep which would hopefully banish the migraine.

i slept until the movie was nearly over, and i initially felt a bit better, but as usual the migraine just refused to really go away. i decided to just ignore it and watch scary movie 4 anyway. which was completely plotless, and was basically just lots of parodies stuck together in a vaguely coherent manner. but some parts were really quite funny, like the parody of bush reacting to the news of 9/11, and there was even a million dollar baby parody, with a ear-biting female mike tyson thrown in. i think my favourite was when the woman and the ju-on kid spoke “japanese” entirely in brand names, though. okay, it’s probably not that funny to anyone else, it just was to me. in short, it was quite a pointless movie, but good for a few laughs, i suppose.

maryam had to go off after that, and our brains were a bit too fried to watch the office (i suspect yy and vanessa were just too scared, ha) so we watched thank you for smoking instead. it was rather interesting and i would have liked to watch it all, but my throbbing head said no. i’d borrowed a pillow and quilt from vanessa by then, and it was rather comfortable so i curled up and went to sleep on the tatami. and when i woke up, the migraine was finally, almost completely gone. and yy was also sleeping, and vanessa was also nowhere to be found. okay well, she was in the loo. so we finished watching the movie, and i am really ruing the fact that i didn’t watch the whole thing because it really does seem rather interesting. oh well. it was getting a bit late by then, so as much as i wanted to just curl up and sleep some more on the tatami wrapped up in the very comfortable quilt, it was time to go home.

me and yy stopped by the kopitiam at novena square (or rather, square2) for dinner, and we saw that almost everyone there was eating this square hotplate thing which looked quite good, so we decided to try that. and while yy was buying her food, i realised that i had somehow managed to lose at least 20 bucks. no, make that 40 bucks because i realise that i forgot to take the money yy returned to me in my previous calculations. ARGH. i don’t know how i lost it, but i think it was when we were at cold storage, and i was struggling with my wallet when i was paying for our stuff, to the point of dropping it. and before that i had quite a few 10-dollar notes, even after paying for our tidbits. so i was totally shocked when i opened my wallet and realised that i didn’t have a single 10-dollar note inside. argh.

oh fuckit, i was already mad enough when i thought i’d lost 20 bucks, now that i know that i’ve actually lost 40 bucks, i feel like banging my head on the wall. i will now never say stupid things like “that’s why i don’t like having too much cash” and i am so getting a new wallet now, this is really the last straw. anyone who wants to take pity on me and get me a new one is welcome to do so. very thick-skinned of me i know, but looking at things i doubt i have the time to go out and get a new one, anyway, considering how i am certainly not going to venture into town during the weekends while the GSS is still on. gahhh misfortunes never come singly indeed, who knew paying for the fish & co dinner with my uob card would leave me with a loss of 40 bucks :( :( :(

and okay unhappy things aside, the food was really good. and well worth the price, too. yy had th pork with onion and i had the same, but with beef. and i thought the beef was pretty good, until i tried the pork, which was really quite heavenly. i don’t know how to describe it, but it was just cooked to near perfection, and the onions and gravy were all really really good. me and yy were so enamoured of it we immediately began to start planning our next opportunity to eat it – we were thinking of watching dvds at vanessa’s again the next weekend, but maryam said she’ll need to rest after her model united nations thing and vanessa for some reason has not replied to my two smses (is her phone wonky again?) so i guess our pork and onion will just have to wait…

alright, i’m really sleepy so i shall just go and sleep now. and try not to think of my $40 loss :( :( :( thank goodness i’m working, or i would have to starve myself (not a bad thing, actually) to make up for that loss. but boy, $40 is a lot of starving to do… at least 4 days of food, to be exact. and it’s not like i’m not already losing weight. the good thing about the reductil i’m taking is that i hardly have any urge to snack now, the bad thing is that it totally screws up my appetite and eating habits. i’d be really really hungry, and when i actually go and buy my food, i’ll either be full just looking at the food or after taking a few mouthfuls of it. i wouldn’t mind not eating, if not for the fact that i’m wasting my money. sheesh.

okay i shall really seriously eat less for the next few days. cereal and banana bread for breakfast lunch dinner, here i come.

the years flash by, today melts to yesterday’s memories
time’s holding us tight
i’m looking back to remember the days we said we’d never say goodbye

sometimes i feel like we’ve been running too far from the truth
you know i’m tired of hearing “another day, another time”
all this senseless waiting won’t fill these dark empty rooms
why won’t you come home?

and now you’re gone, my hands melt to yesterday’s melodies
time’s pushing along
still looking back to hold on to the days we said we’d never say goodbye

sometimes i feel like we’ve been running too far from the truth
you know i’m tired of hearing “another day, another time”
all this senseless waiting won’t fill these dark empty rooms
you know i hate to say it, but since you’ve gone i know that

even though i’m feeling low, i guess i’m feeling free
we can live our own existence cos i know these
dreams will bring you back to me

i’m dreaming a world with you, i wish the night was longer
i’m chasing the way we were, i wish that i could catch us
i’m feeling your hand in mine, i wish i’d held it closer
i know that i will soon find, i know that she can hear me say

she’ll hear you, these dreams will bring you back to me
she’ll hear you, these dreams will bring you back to me
she’ll hear you, these dreams will bring you back to me

you said we’d never say goodbye
you said we’d never say goodbye
you said we’d never say goodbye

ben jelen, she’ll hear you.

a somewhat cool quiz.

Get to know yourself better

Your view on yourself:

You are intelligent, honest and sweet. You are friendly to everybody and don’t like conflict. Because you’re so cheerful and fun people are naturally attracted to you and like to talk to you.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You are a true romantic. When you are in love, you will do anything and everything to keep your love true.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:

Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.

Your views on education

You may not like to study but you have many practical ideas. You listen to your own instincts and tend to follow your heart, so you will probably end up with an unusual job.

The right job for you:

You have many goals and want to achieve as much as you can. The jobs you enjoy are those that let you burn off your considerable excess energy.

How do you view success:

You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don’t succeed. Don’t give up when you haven’t yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:

You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don’t ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.

Who is your true self:

You are full of energy and confidence. You are unpredictable, with moods changing as quickly as an ocean. You might occasionally be calm and still, but never for long.

http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx