even through it all, i’m always on your side

what did not make my day: my rather terrible (if expected) exam results for the sem, and the corresponding plunge in my CAP.

what did make my day was getting phone calls from cambodia and malaysia. the special occasion? exam results, of course. but obviously it was nice to hear from vanessa, maryam and yy, even if it only makes me mildly envious of all the fun they’re having, and also look forward to their return so i can see photos and listen to their accounts of all the exciting things which i am sadly not experiencing. oh well, someone has to be in singapore to help them settle their exam admin stuff, right? haha.

also, getting two new episodes of forensic heroes ii (which i readily devoured in quick succession) was another nice bonus. the only problem is waiting till next week for new episodes. darn.

i’ve also started watching the l word, which i think is pretty good, if not a lot more explicit than i expected. it’s not quite as compelling and must-watch-next-episode-NOW as heroes or maybe even grey’s anatomy, but it does make for good watching. i like the quirkiness of the characters (my favourite is alice, and maybe shane), and the way they’re such good friends? oh gosh, come to think of it, they’re really funny, when i think about their various “missions”. and i’m still only on season 1, thankfully. four more seasons for me to enjoy. woohoo.

so yes, my days are passing in a most mundane way these days. but i must say that i do kind of enjoy my slacker’s life. where all i really do is eat, play/watch and sleep. and i’ve been sleeping a LOT these days, to the point where i scare myself with the massive amounts of sleep i’ve been getting. at least 8 hours every day. which is normal for most people, but that’s almost twice what i usually get. plus i think i’m starting to average close to 10 hours? terrible, really.

i know i must drag myself out to settle the annoying driving stuff and get my useless wrist/elbow/shoulder + heel fixed so i have one less excuse to not exercise, but as usual, i’m just too lazy. sheesh. sometimes i wish i wasn’t so gutless and un-motivated. yes, it’s all in my mind and if i wanted to, i could do this and that. but well… let’s just say that out of the seven sins, sloth is my worst enemy. or best friend, depending on how you look at it.

in any case i can’t quite go exercise (yes, another excuse) because i’ve managed to get myself a cough, which as usual, won’t quite go away. and the drowsiness-inducing medicine is also partially why i keep sleeping so much, maybe.

okay, nothing much to blog about for the moment. oh, except that i got myself another timbuk2! yay. i was thinking of getting a small classic messenger, and i saw it on offer ($89 instead of $139) at funan the other day. i didn’t buy it then, but i couldn’t resist the temptation for long so i went back to buy it while meeting up with aiping for lunch. it’s black/slate/silver-gray, small and cute and i love it. no more lugging around my gigantic green one when i only actually only need to bring out my wallet, earphones, PSP and DS lite! and well i just like the nice, new feeling of it. hehe.

i shall end off with… a song! haha. it’s quite strange, really. when i first heard the shery crow only version of this song, i thought it was nice but it didn’t leave that much of an impression on me. but somehow the version with sting is a lot nicer, and it keeps getting stuck in my head. to the point that 9 out of 10 times i play a new song on my phone or itunes, it’s this song. as usual, click to listen, and download it, if you like :)

My yesterdays are all boxed up and neatly put away
Every now and then you come to mind
‘Cause you were always waiting to be picked to play the game
But when your name was called, you found a place to hide
When you knew that I was always on your side

Well everything was easy then, so sweet and innocent
But my demons and my angels reappeared
Leavin’ only traces of the man you thought I’d be
Too afraid to hear the words I’d always feared
Leavin’ you with only questions all these years

But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
This isn’t how it’s really meant to be
No it isn’t how it’s really meant to be

Well they say that love is in the air, never is it clear,
Try to pull it close and make it stay
Butterflies are free to fly, and so they fly away
And I’m left to carry on and wonder why
Even through it all, I’m always on your side

But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
When this isn’t how it’s really meant to be
No it isn’t how it’s really meant to be

Well they say that love is in the air, never is it clear
How to pull it close and make it stay
Butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away
Leavin’ me to carry on and wonder why
Was it you that kept me wandering through this life
When you know that I was always on your side

sheryl crow and sting, always on your side.

cos you’ll always be my baby

just thought i’ll update to get rid of the previous, none-too-happy entry.

i am so very happy that we won the double! it was absolutely nerve-wrecking. i thought we had it in the bag when ronaldo scored, but a mixture of bad luck and carelessness saw lampard equalise. plus it didn’t help that we were playing quite crappily for the second half… but then again i felt that fortune was favouring us ever so slightly. you know luck is slightly on your side when chelsea dominates the second half, only to hit the post twice…

it was then down to a dreaded penalty shootout. cue bad memories of our bad luck at these things… mainly the FA cup from dunno when, where we dominated the entire game, only to agonisingly lose out through penalties. and of all people to miss penalties, ronaldo had to do it… and yes, i did have that horrible feeling that he was going to miss, somehow. when terry stepped up for the last, supposed-to-be-winning penalty, i thought it was gone. we were going to lose to chelsea on penalties. i scarcely dared to look.

i looked away, and looked back just in time to see terry slip and the ball go wide. cue crazy cheering and reaction from me and my brother. i think we both just went mad. i couldn’t believe our luck. of all people, terry slipped up, at the most crucial moment ever. when van der sar saved anelka’s penalty, it took a moment for me to realise that we’d done it – we’d won the double!

for once, my prediction was right! during the liverpool-chelsea semis for the champions league, i was quite undecided over who i wanted us to face in the finals. i liked liverpool better, but i also said that i wanted us to face off against chelsea – just so we could avenge our defeat at stamford bridge, while winning the double over them to really rub it in their faces. and it really happened! woohoo!

as for american idol, the results were also what i wanted – david cook won! which i actually think was a bit unexpected because as much as i don’t like archuleta’s face when he sings, i have to admit that he definitely sang better in the final. but then again, maybe david cook’s poor performance worried all his fans, which made them vote more? i suppose all the archuleta fans (e.g. vanessa) will be devastated, though.

ironically, i’d actually dreamt that archuleta had won american idol. and in my dream, i was spoiled while reading an article about man u winning the champions league. i really do dream of the weirdest stuff, eh?

and also, forensic heroes ii is finally out! i can’t wait to watch it because charmaine sheh looks sooo good as a “madam” in it. but i’m also reluctant to watch it because i know that waiting for a new episode each day is just… agonising. as it is, time is unfortunately crawling for me, and anxiously waiting for and downloading an episode each day probably won’t help make time pass faster. i’ll finish watching forensic heroes i first and see if i can withstand the temptation. maybe i should also finish watching angels of mission again first.

and oh yes, another happy thing is finding GOOD yoghurt. very very good. went out to holland v with shanta for lunch, and frolick yoghurt afterwards. i don’t really know how to describe it, but it was just very good. and if the plain yoghurt is already so good, i can’t imagine how good the peach one (they didn’t have it then) would be. i’ll probably be in peach heaven (if such a place exists) and yami yoghurt will probably never give me the same amount of satisfaction again. whether or not that’s a good thing, i’m not sure. can’t wait for the rest of the gang to come back (not that maryam and yy have left yet) so we can all go eat it together. i’m sure they’ll love it.

geez, i have a poor memory… big news. i’d wanted to blog about monday for a while, but was just always too lazy to. anyway, met up with the other three musketeers at what is appearing to be our favourite meet-up-to-eat-and-chill place, namely “island cremery”. we had the usual nutella and burnt caramel (as if we can go there and not order nutella) as well as bandung and chendol. bandung was good, chendol not so. in any case we were meeting up because well, we wouldn’t get to do that for quite some time since vanessa will be gone for expedition until 7th june and yy and maryam will leave this saturday for their archaeological dig until 17th june. yes, poor lonely me in singapore, lol.

we went to cold storage at cluny court after ice cream, finding a sort of furniture shop on the second floor with this very comfy sofa chair, as well as tempting ourselves with the food at gastronomia. we also finally solved the conundrum of where to get food – adam road food centre, of course. and when we reached there, we had the usual headache of trying to figure out which was the “correct” roti john and mutton chop, because we can never remember which stall we order from. i think we ordered everything right the first time we went there together (after phantom of the opera and yy’s birthday surprise) but the second time we were there after exchanging christmas presents last (or rather, this) year we ordered the wrong roti john. at least the mutton chop was good. and this time the roti john was better (but still not as good as the first time we went there) but the mutton chop was wrong. darnnn. we’ll figure it out again next time. haha.

i know sometimes it’s a bit silly to blog about mundane stuff like this, but i realise that my memory is sometimes be so terrible that if i don’t have some kind of record of things, i’ll eventually forget. and funny, random, happy times and things like these are precisely what i want to keep in my memories. in fact, i’m sort of regretting not blogging more often… maybe it’s not exactly necessary, and some might opine that always looking back at the past shouldn’t be the point of life, but hey, i’m a historian, the past is everything, isn’t it? no, i’m just kidding… sort of. i mean, aren’t we who we are because of all these experiences, happenings and memories? and i just think it’s kinda a waste that unless we happen to all be endowed with eidetic memory, there’s just no way we can remember everything. oh well, as long as we keep the cliffnotes, summary versions of our lives in our heads?

went to send off vanessa at the airport, after all. i didn’t think i’d go at first because i had anniversary book stuff to settle, plus no one to go with, but i finished it earlier than expected, and also found out that meiyi was going, so i decided to go after all. well, nothing special to mention, i guess. apart from my incredulity that chicken essence is listed as an example of liquids to not bring on planes… erm, who brings chicken essence on flights, again? i also tried popeyes with meiyi and allan, and i guess it’s pretty good. the chicken strips were not bad, though i probably should try the fried chicken itself next time. another “thing to do” in our neverending list, maybe?

here are the things we really should and must do during the hols this time:

• eat ramly burger at yishun
• go to marina square to watch a movie and eat at pasta de waraku
• eat frolick yoghurt
• have at least one more movie-and-MJ session at yy’s (MJ the bunny, not mahjong)

okay, can’t think of anything else at the moment. and then again we might not even get to do all four items on the list despite the long holidays. no idea why, even.

alrighty, time for me to go catch some zzz’s while it’s still quite cool and the sun is not up yet… haha.

with sisters like these, who needs enemies?

and the sister does it, again. i’m much calmer now, but i was so pissed and upset just now i don’t know what i might have done.

i can’t believe i have such an asshole of a sister. i’m not saying that i’m entirely blameless or that i’m a saint, but the things she does and says are just so mind-bogglingly horrible it borders on unbelievable.

i’d already gone out of the room because i couldn’t sleep without the fan on, and i just found out that she apparently can’t feel the aircon when the fan is turned on. firstly, wtf right? but even so, hadn’t i already given way to her

but as usual, nothing short of my not being in the room at all satisfies her. and oh, did i mention that she likes to be spitefully subtle? when i came back in the room to sleep at like 7am, i naturally turned the fan on since she was asleep. and since that somehow woke her up, she decided to also pay me back.. by turning off the aircon. yes, wtf again right?

when i naturally wtf-are-you-doing at her, she fed me the fan-and-aircon thing, which obviously didn’t go down very well with me. i can’t remember who really started it first, but well, i think it was her? she let fly her usual insults at me – stupid, fat, ugly, etc, and being already somewhat immune to her usual barrage of verbal assault, i just sarcastically went like oh yeah, i’m ugly and stupid and you’re how clever and pretty.

which i guess just riled her up and she proceeded to say… hmmm, i can’t quite remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of looks being everything in the world, and that she was so happy that she wasn’t as fat and ugly as me? very pissifying stuff, yes, but like i said, i’m quite immune so i just laughed it off saying at least i have brains and if all else fails, there’s still plastic surgery? ha. but she had the cheek to say that at least she has a bit of both looks and brains, and what she said just totally left me speechless.

speechless in that i can’t believe that someone who can say and think such ugly thoughts could be related to me. forget how she looks on the outside, and the fact that we are related by blood, i really do think she’s ugly. ugly in terms of her thoughts and behaviour. i just don’t get it. we have the same parents, same upbringing, same background. so why the huge gulf in personality and mentality?

by that time i was already quite desperate for sleep, especially since i was feeling the beginnings of a migraine. but i didn’t want to verbally quarrel with her, so i hinted at what i really felt – by purposely playing damien rice’s rootless tree on my phone. mainly, i directed the chorus bit at her. ha. i guess she took the hint, and stormed out of the room?

call me mean, but i didn’t feel bad at what i was doing. after all, she’s already slept the whole night, i hadn’t. plus she was the one on the warpath, not me. and i was thinking then, this is why i prefer to stay in hall, this is why i can’t wait to get my own room.

then it struck me. why on earth are we giving way to her, and encouraging her behaviour, again? and it wasn’t the insults that made me truly angry, but the fact that she is the one with the intolerable behaviour, but i’m the one who has to leave the house or room because of that. it makes no sense – i’ve done nothing wrong, so why am i having to avoid or escape her? and it’s not just me, it’s the entire family who has to accomodate her. all the time. and that thought sparked a burning anger in me that really made me want to go out and slap some sense into her.

unfortunately, there’s no way i can do that because she’ll probably just blow everything up and i’ll just be making the whole family unhappy. over her. again.

some people might think, why am i airing my dirty laundry for all to see? well, i don’t know. i guess i need to vent my frustrations towards her, and i know that’s kind of what friends are for, but i don’t quite like to bother them by calling up or messaging them just to whine about her. i’m not trying to vindicate myself, because i did say some not very nice things too.

well, i don’t quite know what to think or do. it’s already afternoon and i’ve obviously calmed down, after managing to fall asleep, after all. i feel like i should tell/complain to my parents, because her behaviour is just uncalled for, and completely intolerable. but then again, like i said, it’ll just make everyone unhappy.

originally i was thinking of only heading back to hall tomorrow evening. but in light of this, and the fact that i can’t use my laptop, maybe i should just go back tonight. to get some peace and quiet and to be able to sleep comfortably. on one hand i feel like i shouldn’t just run away, but on the other hand i can’t help thinking, why do i want to torture myself? i could just save myself the headache (and i really do have one, now) but a part of me also wants to stay on as planned, just to show that i’m not going to just let her get her way all the time.

to end off, i know i’m not a fantastic older sister. but then again, i can’t be a worse sister or daughter than my sister is, can i?

if it kills me

and this is why i hang out at hall all day and don’t quite like to come home. because i find it so hard to fall asleep sometimes. like when the weather is it’s annoying, muggy self and the aircon is also not cooperating. it wouldn’t actually matter since well, there is a fan in the room. except that the room also comes with the sister. the sister who will decide to turn the fan off because it doesn’t quite suit her. even when the fan is only directly facing me.

as it was, i was already finding it hard to fall asleep with the fan turned on. i think i was about 50% asleep when she turned it off. it felt so warm after that i had to throw off my quilt. and it was still too warm. after about five or ten minutes i decided that enough was enough, and decided to take refuge in my brother’s cooler room.

unfortunately for myself, i managed to forget to bring my laptop’s power supply back home with me. so i’m using my brother’s… i mean, the family desktop at the moment. i quite like it, actually. gotta love the giant, brilliantly bright screen and the never-ending amounts of RAM. the only things i can’t stand is the keyboard, which is slightly weirdly positioned such that i keep pressing on the wrong keys. and how my brother has “polluted” the desktop with his utter lack of organisation… which very obviously disturbs the obsessive-compulsive in me. like it’s such a nice, gorgeous desktop and what does my brother do? spoil it with messy icons everywhere… ugh. i think the only thing stopping me from obsessively cleaning everything up is that i don’t use the computer enough for me to really care. maybe when the desktop passes into my hands…

hmmm. went to yy’s place today, to look at MJ. and oh boy is she HUGE now. well, not really, but just a whole lot bigger than when we first saw her cute, utterly adorable self. but well i guess she’s still rather cute. and a lot less shy now, considering how she was going around sniffing at us, maryam’s bag and trying to bite holes in my tshirt and cargoes. okay la she’s still cute. haha. it’s kinda sad that i’ll only get to see her again when maryam and yy get back, eh. which is like, a whole month from now. goodness. can’t quite believe maryam and yy will be gone for so long! oh well, at least they’ll enjoy themselves, i think. we said today, i’ll just make up the sleep they’re lacking and they’ll settle the excitement bit for me. haha.

and honestly, i think i should really just coop myself up in my hall room. not so much because i want to be anti-social, but because i spend so much when i get out. grocery shopping alone on thursday saw me spend a lot… mainly because i didn’t just spend the money on groceries. ahem. and meeting maria for lunch also saw me spending lots of money… doh. i have like no self-control over my spending habits now. so yes, i really should not let myself out too much until i can get a grip on my spending again…

bah. i’m a little bit sleepy, but definitely not sleepy enough to fall asleep. i think it’s all the sleep i’ve had recently. had another bout of indigestion/heartburn yesterday evening, and for some reason that also made me extremely tired and sleepy. i think i slept early for once, before waking up at around 4am to find that my gastrointestinal discomfort was still there… fortunately some cup-a-soup and more medicine got rid of that. and i was for some reason, STILL sleepy so off to sleep i went again… and i slept so much i arrived at macs later than yy, who had incidentally also overslept and had cabbed to school. oops.

the mcgriddle was okay. i think the sausage wasn’t quite salty enough, so there was no real sweet/salty combination. the weirdest thing was how our hashbrowns tasted like apple pie? i put ketchup on my hashbrown as usual, and then i was struck by how much it tasted like apple pie. and after i mentioned it to the other two, they couldn’t get the apple pie feeling/taste off their minds, haha.

okay, i think that’s quite enough rambling for now. shall entertain myself with some game on the desktop…

anyway, for all those going on trips and whatnot, have a safe journey! and don’t forget to get me stuff! hahaha. :D

we are the champions

just a quick post to say, whee! picture says it all.

on a less bright note, have to deal with moving to vacation room tomorrow. which i really really abhor doing. i suppose i only have myself to blame for having so much stuff, but still…

sigh. at the moment, my holidays are looking like a giant yawn. still trying to figure out how to make it more… exciting? fulfilling? don’t quite know what word to use.

apart from settling driving, maybe learning how to cycle, fixing my faulty body parts at the chiropractor and the anniversary book project, i don’t have very much at the moment. maybe i should go do special sem. if only there were more interesting mods… the only acceptable one at the moment seems to be understanding the universe. no living with maths or genes and society for me… i’ll just die at both. too bad intellectual property in cyberspace is a GEM, or i wouldn’t mind doing it as a breadth… oh well. still have quite some time to think about it.

alright, time to go sleep in preparation of a less-than-fun day moving from E302 to D215…

pictures of you, pictures of me

some things that make me happy / smile / my day better :)

1. red psp. ’nuff said.
2. scholes scoring the winner against barca!
3. blonde pole dancer. haha :)
4. a younger, mind-blowingly adorable flocke
5. a bit older, coat-is-not-so-white but still very adorable flocke
6. i really should study for this instead of you know, blogging.

actually, there are also quite a few don’t-make-me-happy things. but well… always look on the bright side of life? just for this entry, at least.

if you still have paper(s) left, good luck and hang in there okay! the holidays are so very nearly almost here.