Today's topic of the day (night, whichever) is S T U D Y C A M P !
Because I've been reduced to cooping up in my little apartment, staking my study spot (the dining table) and poring through dull, thick, inanimate books, ALL BY MY LONESOME SELF.
Talk about dogged hibernation without the long luxurious sleep.

But yes, so pre-exam study time is always pre-exam study time and which pre-exam study period stretches over a period of months other than the ominous but now long-past Alevels?
And when else did we manage to combine such staggered fun and copious study in the most memorable of ways?
None other than studycamp at Sooz's house in 2005 :)

Hardworking Girls and the Sleepers!



Sooz's Stress-relieving Drinks and Late Night Adventures of the FantasticFour!




And who can forget MUFFIN!!


And Pre-Studycamp Sleepovers!

Holed up all by myself makes me miss those good times :(
And the ACJC times.
I was reading through Sooz's old blog and it was truly a sweet nostalgic HA HA moment because I really sat there in front of the screen smiling and giggling to myself.
If I hadn't read Sue's old entries I would have totally forgotten about this

"Basically all of us were feeling a bit pissed with the whole SATURDAY morning thing becos suddenly three diff subject teachers wanted to book us. Lit revision lecture, Econs mock exam and for the Geog pple, geog lecture and for me art. SO we told tancc about the clash and she started going all psycho about how she booked us first and we should tell Mr Prince and that we should make a CHOICE between the three. So she ended up going to Al:
TanCC: it's just like what haaaahhpens if your wiifeee and your guy friend's birthday is on the same day? are you gonnnna saayyh to your wifeee that you can't celebrate your birthday with her because of your friend? you have to make a choooiiice!
Al (totally missing the point): But madam, your comparison is totally wrong man. It should be your best friend
TanCC: ok fiiinnnee.. if it'syour beSttt friend and your wifeee.. what will you doooouu?
Al: hmm.. but it also depends on whos your best friend right. And anyway i don't take Lit so i only have a wife.. no best friend..
HAHAHAHAHA then when tan cc sed "ok fiinne"and moved on to something elseAl sat there looking up at the ceiling and sed softly " hmm it's gonna be a big party, man......""

HAHAHAHA, ok I'm sorry but when I read that I actually remember that happening and it was soooooooo. damn. funny.
And also, this

"While everyone is frantically copying GP package answers heree's what our table convo kinda sounded like
Me: page 33.. from second last-
Shumin: Eh suddenly i am alone at the table... why?
Me: paragraph
Laura: second lastt..
Shumin: You know-
Me: paragraph
Shumin: suddenly everyone left me!!
Laura: wait where?
Shumin: I think i'm very glad for the aagirls. i know u're all not listening to me becosyouallaretoobusywithyourgppackagesoishalljust shutup
Me: page 34.. yah next page from
shumin: Hmm i wonder where the squashgirls are
Jame: What was that?
Rage: here here (points to the answer)
Shumin: Hmm... im so bored.*silence*
shumin: I wonder iff...
Laura: page 34....
Shumin: HmmMM.."

OOKAY, I so remember that as well and I really sat there giggling to myself thinking about how we were on that hot humid day at the void deck where none of you were listening to me!
Stoops.
Okay I know there are heaps more incidents and stupid convos that we had but those days were honestly one of the best I ever had and the AAgirls are undoubtedly the best part of my AC life.

Thinking back to the days of studycamps, we used to talk wistfully about where we wanted to go to study, which universities we wanted to apply to and we'd sit and share our big and trepidacious dreams.
Everything was caked with uncertainty and we all had sugar-coated university dreams for ourselves; the lush green lawns, the backpack-toting diligence, the impeccable dream borne out of prestige and tv shows.
Then slightly over a year on, look at us now, scattered in various parts of the world, studying different fields, some of us in different places from where we dreamed we would be, some in the places we knew we would go.
Didn't seem so long ago that we were filling up university applications and badgering teachers for predicted grades and testimonials.

Ohwell, but whatever it is, it was truly one of the bestest times I've had with the bestest friends.
And I know we talked about it before, how we all knew we'd end up in different parts of the world, but how we'd make the conscientious effort to keep in touch and remain close.
So having been gone for almost two semesters, I just wanna thank all of you for being the friends I know I can come home to, for still understanding me the way you used to, and making up one of the biggest parts of my life that I would never, ever, ever want to lose.

:)

Another satisfying weekend to bag; this time without the flagrant going out, but instead us holing it up with a deceptively innocent deck of cards, mahjong and our secret stash of comfort food.

I love holed up weekends with great company and freeflow of food.
Especially when one day of a weekend slides seamlessly into the other and the weekend becomes a long string of fun, laughter and comfort.
Weekends like these don't roll around too often; like how our Friday game night slipped into another on Saturday night and Sunday wrapped itself up nicely with pizza, Simpsons, Ribena and a great conversation with Ruth.

But whatever it is, when I open my eyes in a couple of hours, it'll be Monday and it's hellooooo to a whole grilling week of relentless study and airtight schedules :(
It's time to pull my socks up and get into the groooooooove.

Anyway, pictures from Ruth's birthday!

SHRUTH!

I had a whole tumultuous torrent of thoughts that came in waves over the weekend but now that I'm sitting here with keyboard under fingers, I seem to have forgotten every ebb and flow .
Like how you make notes to yourself absent-mindedly and over the due course of unchecked everyday dealings, these little scraps lie scattered everywhere and you can't piece them together to form a coherent line.
How... irritating.

But ohwell, I guess one thing I do remember out of the multitude of rip-ragged and disconnected thoughts and that is my favourite word of three years ago: idyllic.
Don't really know why it came to mind unannounced and unwarranted last Friday as I was walking along the pavement, but I guess its the overarching umbrella of every niggle of a thought, every whim and fancy, every muse and every epiphany I had over this short weekend.

Hmm.. what a pretty word for such a pretty thought but like most pretty things, it is pretty damned unattainable, much to my (petty) chagrin.
HAHA ohwell.

-

And to everybody who asked if I was okay/sent me sweet emails and smses/called me over my childish, whimsical whinge of a blogpost earlier, THANK YOOOOUUU :) I'm really okay now, was just caving in to a bout of petulant moodiness due to errr.. both internal and external factors.

But whatever it is, I felt very very loved and cared for and awww... thank you :)

I have reached an epiphany...

I am an awful, horrible, wasteful, ungrateful person.
I am sad.
I have two phantom scratches (I think I scratched myself in my sleep) and a brand new throbbing zit, both lying on various parts of my face.
I am sad.
My hair has been in a current state of... ugh. I fear its permanency.
I am sad.
Most of my clothes are too tight for me now.
I am (very) sad.
I can't seem to kick my sorry behind into gear and start S T U D Y I N G.
I am sad.
I have a stupid, useless assignment which has left me in a blundering state of cluelessness.
I am sad (and annoyed).
I miss my family (although they are currently very pissed at me).
I am (very, very) sad.
I miss the AAgirls.
I am sad.
I miss my friends.
I am sad.
I miss Smokey.
I am sad.
I have a sudden urge to start belting out the poem that Adrian Mole wrote for Pandora:
Pandora!
I adore ya
I implore ye
Don't ignore me
I am (a very) sad (person).

Yup.

Like a giant in a land of scuttling Lilliputan leaves,

Take the brown and to green.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUTH BOEY YONGXI!! Y


My dearest Miss Harriet, on this ultra spesh day of yours, I just wanna tell you that I couldn't have asked for a better neighbour, a better churchmate and most of all a better friend.
Thanks for everything you've been to me in these (relatively) short months that I've known you and I really, honestly cannot imagine life in Brisbane without you.
For all our shrieks of laughter, pensive heart to hearts and choo-choo-train conversations, dinners, walks home, the way you always seem to empathise and understand every other little thing, I just want to say a GREAT, BIG, HUMONGOUS, DELICIOUS, THANK YOU and also, MERRY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Love you!

-

It's been an exhaustingly looooooooong day today and I don't believe I've ever maximised the use of my daily bus ticket before.
A long story for another day where my brain can actually piece parts of a story together in a somewhat lucid and coherent manner.
It was also Ruth's birthday dinner tonight at Cafe21 at the casino and so, thanks Ruth for the very lovely dinner and dessert :)
Again, that's another event to be told when the brain can function properly and also when I've successfully leached all the photos off other people.

At Contracts lecture today, while I was happily plugged into Angie's ipod, it dawned upon me how certain songs trigger off an emotion as dejavu envelops us.
Like an embedded memory touching the tip of the surface, and in that short span of time, we suspend like drifting molecules, slipping into a slide of a memory, like a photograph in shades of yellow and sepia.
It's not so much like a story where we remember an event strung together by pivotal details and chronology, but more of a moment; a moment of colour and noise hazed over by memory's fuzz.

But despite the faded lines, at that particular song playing on her ipod, I could feel the former emotions building up inside as I struggled to identify them and put a feeling to a moment.
And slowly it came where I remembered a night I was sitting in my room in Singapore facing my laptop with that song on repeat as it droned low and mellow in my head.
It was one of those nights where you feel low and blue, where words knot themselves into an indecipherable coil and the song sings exactly what you cannot say.
For some odd reason, I could remember the exact smell of that particular night; it wasn't just the smell of my room, but also the smell of new clothes I'd bought to uselessly impress, the smell of a humid night where I struggled with myself and the faint aroma of food.

As the pieces slowly fitted together, I saw myself at that very minute: a girl sitting in front of her computer with her arms hugging her legs and head to her knees; I remember the smells, I remember the song and most of all, I remember the feeling.
And as I sat in that lecture theatre with the all too familiar but almost forgotten feeling welling up inside, for that moment, I didn't know what to do, to laugh or cry, to continue the memory or to brush it away.

And I don't know why I feel compelled to write all this down.
Maybe I'm afraid if I don't it'll choke me inside.
And maybe I'm afraid to forget; because forgetting means when it rolls around again one day, you wouldn't know and wouldn't be ready for it.
And I would never, ever want to feel like how I did that day.

-

Anonymous: Thanks so much! You honestly have no idea how much that comment means to me :)

Clara: Oh hello! I asked Angie if she knew who you were and she said she did. Ha ha, nice to meet you! Or erm.. 'meet' you more like but thanks for commenting :)

I finished Flowers for Algernon today and it has brusquely and proudly brushed past my whole array of read-and-liked books to nab one of the top few spots because I really, really loved it.
I can't seem to stop buying, thumbing or browsing through books lately; an ESCAPISM MECHANISM - to runaway from the dreary grind of uni and the impending exams thats glaringly... near.

Ohwell, I was watching my all-time favourite Friends episode some days ago, the one where Rachel is rushing to Ross's wedding in London to tell Ross that she still loves him and when she arrives and sees him face to face, she stretches out her arms and says in that choked, effusive voice, "Ross! I just wanted to tell you... CONGRATULATIONS!" (or something along those lines) and for some reason, my heart went all out to Rachel.
Rachel, who mustered up so much courage and hope, only to have it die on her lips with a smile plastered over her face, doing the right thing.

And it just got me thinking what it would be like to throw ourselves out with abandon, to unleash the truth our emotions, to say exactly what we mean to say, exactly how we feel with every iota of our being.
It must be incredibly liberating but precarious at the same time to speak with such reckless abandon and I just wonder how it feels.
I guess as we grow up, we become aware of social perimeters, experience rears up the walls around us and our defense mechanism kicks in, and words flow from our mouth through a filter.
We grow layer after layer of unspoken thoughts and feelings and it grows so thick that we even forget what was at the bottom in the first place.
I guess that's why songwriters, poets, authors, musicians, artists and bloggers exist; to bring some tangible form to the string of emotions within us, the strings that will knot and tangle up inside if we don't let them out.

Sometimes I really feel like peeling people out.
Layer by layer until I get to the core.
That's why I like rose petals so much more than the rose itself; sweet delicate and fragile petals, so much more thoughtful and precious in it's vulnerable and precarious way :)

The weekend always brings about a brief but delightful respite from the gritty and hectic grind of this thing I am currently very, very sick of, called university.
It's the time of the semester where I'm dragging my feet (and my long and extremely heavy trail of unrevised work), shuffling my timetables, all in a bid to figure out a way to stretch time and efficiency.
But despite the unproductivity, the occasional bouts of the terrible three letters (P! M! S!) and the languid, tepid nature of my state of mind, I had to say the weekend was grrrreat!

It began with utter exhaustion, having clocked a few measly hours of sleep thanks to a caffeinated bottle of coke. Then the weekend rolled by in methodical succession: shepherding, CCM AGM, (late) lunch, mahjong and badminton (yay! ENDORPHINS!). I've always liked the choppiness of such a day, hopping from one activity to another seamlessly. Makes me feel like I'd made decent use of my time.

Met Ruth today for lunch and unintended shopping which was the bestest, most effective cure for a pmsey week! Plus, I always have an absolutely brill time when I'm out with Ruth because there's always loud shows of unbridled laughter, those little heart to hearts, and our endless meandering chitchat about absolutely nothing and everything.
So yay for girlfriends (food and books), Y

Anyway, our day in P I C T U R E S !
(I realised I haven't posted new pictures in a very long time)

So that's us spending a good amount of time in Borders; pointing at favourite books and must-read books, fingering pretty paper and staking our corner at the cards section drinking bubble tea and err.. taking embarrassing photos.
And eating lunch at that taiwanese place where we were floored by mandarin speaking waitresses followed by the requisite Errrrrr... and finally (HA HA!), Ruth's completely unauthentic yi-hui-er which still cracks me up thinking about it. Heehee!

-

And, look what came up in the mail from Mr Anonymous!

Hooray for airmail :)
Sunny day sweeping the clouds away...

-

Anyway, just some pictures from the past week which I haven't had time to upload.
Too many unfettered random thoughts at large from the past week for me to have a proper update.

From Suzy's birthday


And TEAM LAW after a tiring day of err.. law.


-

So another week has blown by, exams and holidays are nearing.
Another week closer to the dreaded exams, but also another week closer to me going home.
I was lying in bed last night and I realised I have a thing for hands.
Especially hands with long fingers, a large slightly calloused palm, and a gentle touch.
Maybe to me, hands symbolise security and strength, gentleness and love; because hands work to survive and protect, hands write beautiful words and music, hands wipe away tears and more importantly, hands hold hands.
Ohwell ha ha, point is, I LIKE HANDS.

Somehow, it's all starting to make sense and I don't like it one bit, not one bit at all.
I'm glad at how it turned out, but yet it's left this acrid after-scent of doubt and cynicism; the two things that I've never quite been accustomed to but seems to creep up on me with age and experience.
Talk is so cheap that sometimes it scares me, how words flow so easily and loosely from the mouth without any real meaning; that after everything has been said, you wonder what has been done.
You wonder about the people around you, the words they've said, the person you've come to believe they are, and whether they'd really meant every single word they'd said or was it an amalgam of truths and half-truths and lies, and all this wondering plants that seed of doubt in your head.
People begin to flicker and lose form, and the belief and trust you had in a person and their intentions becomes elusive and fleeting.

Maybe it's the old-fashioned romantic idealist in me, because I've always had a penchant for the promise of old, yellowed letters and tokens (musical boxes and lockets are my favourite!), where every small thing built the foundations of trust and the undying wait of neverending hope.
And while I do quite like today's newfangled displays affection and sweet talk, I can't help but feel despite all these great shows, it's merely a flimsy piece of paper which I can easily poke through and find to my disappointment that there's nothing beneath the pretty surface.

Ohwell, I suppose it's nothing quite to do with either the old or the new because I find things I hate and love in both, but it's more to do with the weight of words and the power of a promise which is a timeless quality we seek in everyone and ourselves.
Of being a real person that I can know, see, touch, hear, feel and believe in; and it won't be for mere practical purposes or self-gratification but for the strange yet lovely mishmash of mutual affection, sharing, giving and taking, gaining and losing, love, laughter, tears, trust and support; that funny but most wonderful thing we call friendship :)

Did you really mean everything you said to me?

Hmmm... Ohwell.

I was walking out of my apartment today and I saw a dead bird lying on the grass next to the swimming pool.
I thought it was really cute, though admittedly, that's a rather perverse and callous thought.
But it looked really cute, because it wasn't lying in typical deadbird/roadkill fashion with semi-squashed body and matted feathers, but instead, it was lying flat on its back with its beak open and toothpick legs sticking up in the air.
Just like the birds in cartoons when they've knocked into a tree and come plummeting down to the bottom with flying birds squacking above them.
Except, this bird looked like it had been baked in the sun for too long and had died from dehydration.
Which was another really cute thing, I found this dead sunbathing-looking bird by the poolside.
I really wanted to take a picture of it but I didn't have my camera.
So if it's still there tomorrow morning, I'll take a picture of it to show all of you.

I've also discovered that animal-karma is making its rounds.
Because today, I maliciously intentionally stepped over an ant, and immediately after I tripped on a crevice in the concrete.
Then as I was climbing the stairs, again I maliciously intentionally stepped over another ant, and immediately after I tripped on the steps.
Twice in a row with such immediate action after that is too much of a coincidence isn't it?

So as of now, I will try to be nice to all animals.
Emphasis on the 'all', because until today, I'd always thought I'd been nice to animals but I realised that the word animals extends even to ants and birds and does not just consist of dogs and cats and hamsters and turtles.
Also, I was watching Over the Hedge and what I've learnt is that animal exterminators and people who hate animals will suffer a horrible end with a semi-bald head and get locked up in jail.

So moral of the story today is, boys and girls, be kind to animals.

And my brain is also currently fried from five hours straight of uni that all I can babble on about is birds and ants.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL CHIA MY LHP!!



















You are NINETEEN and almost two decades old, mister!
Even though you always bully me, make fun of me, irritate me (on purpose!), and agreed with the anonymous person who said I looked like a maid, I still forgive you and give you valuable space on my blog to wish you happy birthday because you're my LHP.
I don't quite remember how we became good friends, or how we even became friends for that matter, but here's to the squabbly, zoned-out, stoning friendship of ours.
And remember, you're now nineteen, a year older and (hopefully) wiser, so remember to choose wisely (with your girls especially), make wise decisions and quit inhaling hazardous material for good.
See you when I get back in the hols!

(and I can't believe that's the ONLY picture I could find of you in my entire Pictures folder)

-

Too much work, so little time, too much procrastination!
I even resorted to drawing out little timetables for the weeks before exams (and my awful MGTS1201 assignment which I'm clueless about) so I can be a good steward of my time.
Because reviewing my sloth-like days, I am becoming increasingly horrified at my late nights, late mornings and the copious number of hours I waste merely sitting on my arse doing absolutely... nothing.

So.. GO ME! Because geek is the new cool I tell you...

You know what absolutely irritates me on this pms-ey night?
Unplugged oven toasters.

In my hungered state at 1am, all I wanted was a hot, crispy plate of nuggets to satisfy that itchy niggle I had.
So imagine my utter dismay when the oven toaster pinged and I opened the toaster oven door expecting to see a tray of healthily(hah! what an irony!)-brown nuggets crackling joyfully, but was greeted by the lifeless array of nuggets glaring coldly at me with ice-frosted.. err.. frozen-ness.

Stupid oven toaster.
Stupid me.

So I plugged that cunning little black oven toaster which has now become indispensable to me and waited another 11 long minutes for my plate of hot, crispy, healthily(still an irony)-browned nuggets.
Pah!

And you know what's another thing that annoys me on this pms-ey night?
Pretty pictures

Especially those with
1. Breathtaking backdrops.
You know, cotton candy skies, diamond seas, lush foliage (the kind where you can practically see the dewdrop on each tender green leaf), etc
2. Saliva-inducing food.
Anything from artfully positioned parsley on a coiled mound of pasta with really delicious sauce coating each strand to a bowl of laksa with the spotted soup of yellow and orange and the little pieces of succulent cockles floating around.
It makes me so hungry I can practically taste it in my mouth and smell the aroma wafting up my nostrils.
3. Glamourous (and skinny) pretty girls in gorgeous outfits.
You know, perfect hair, where even the mussed up ones look strategically mussed up, perfect makeup (eyeliner, glossy peach lips) and all the clothes which make me feel like a complete frump in comparison.

Because while people are glamming it up, relaxing it up, eating it up (whichever floats your boat), I am holing it up in my apartment, trying to study with little inspiration other than the window to the world (my laptop screen and that's only with internet access).
I am also suddenly bestowed with a larger-than-usual voracious appetite that hasn't been put to any good use other than to consume junk, junk and more junk (KFC, chicken nuggets, instant mac&cheese...) and I've also upgraded to not only one supper a night, but TWOOOOO!
I am growing (sideways) steadily and surely, so I am sad :(

Okay, sleep beckons.
Goodnight everyone.

Let's dream of tangerine trees and marmalade skies and a bridge by a fountain where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies tonight :)

3am nights are perilous to my health and not just for the sole reason of clocking late hours.
It wreaks havoc in my head as I mindlessly surf the web and come across fancy schmancy lives which stirs the more whimsical part in me and I wish I resided in a more fancy schmancy place, lived a more fancy schmancy life and was everything pretty and glittered pictures made it all out to be.

It's also the time where I talk to my bestest friends whom I haven't seen in the longest time (and miss dearly) and start to bemoan the woes and trifles of life, recount funny stories, conjure up memories, be a living testimony for our supreme retardness and of course, cook up schemes like Project Butterfly (HA HA, in action come December!)

It's also the time where my stomach decides that all the silent reverie and multitude of thoughts has awakened the churning of its juices, and that's when I start hunting through the kitchen for food.
So last night, while idly clicking through stuff, I'd managed to demolish half a bag of potato chips, a bowl of chicken soup and the absolutely evil, sinful, fattening, ENTIRE MOONCAKE ...

It's also the time where I start talking to fellow late-nighters (like Grinning Gab) and have these long reminiscent heart to hearts and we sit and remember snippets of the past which slip through our head like loose pages.
So as I sat there last night, and we talked the night away about the golden days of our past and the way we laughed and cried, it was the time for funny smiles and torrential thoughts and emotions; and everything little inkling of a feeling I had bloomed out in full as Chantal Kreviazuk sang soft and wistful in the background.

And thinking and talking about those glorious days, it just reminds me so much of how happiness is such a relative, elusive thing.
That even though I can safely say I'm happy now, I don't believe I was ever as happy as I was two years ago.
That through the short almost 19 years of my life, the period of December 2004 running through January 2005, would undisputedly be the best and happiest time of my life.
It wasn't a fancy schmancy life, but it was truly my holiday snow-globe of a dream, of snow-white perfection, fairy lights and specks of magical glitter.

A window breaks, down a long, dark street
And a siren wails in the night
But I'm alright, 'cause I have you here with me
And I can almost see, through the dark there is light

Well, if you knew how much this moment means to me
And how long I've waited for your touch
And if you knew how happy you are making me
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way the back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

I am sitting in the E-zone section of the library at uni waiting for my class at 6 and I'm feeling like a piece of bread lying stale on the table; dry, greyed out, forgotten and inutile.
I'm in the midst of coffee smells, indistinguishable murmur of general chatter and a noisy, rumbling water cooler at the corner which on normal days would grate annoyingly into my head. But today's not a normal day and I'm finding that low guttering rumble a cold, soothing comfort.

On days like these, I hate the middle road and would choose either utter anonymity or the warm, comfortable presence of everything and anything familiar.
The middle road, today, represents everything wrongfully presumptious, pretentious and a whole load of hogwash bunkum; that includes everything from bitch talk to common pleasantries to an oppressive, hovering sensation of wariness.

And since there is nothing remotely familiar which is my top pick for a cure to a trepidacious day, I choose utter anonymity.
And that guttering, rumbling water cooler feels like it's slowly becoming a friend because firstly, it's a useful, harmless water cooler, and secondly, that grumbling drone is battering itself familiar into my head.

I'm starting to think people are like walking, talking nuclear bombs.
You know, one eruption that burns a few things, but the aftermath and repercussions continue to seep into our lives in the time to come, and we grapple with the disfigurement.
Or topedoes.
Torpedoes zipping beneath the water's surface while everything looks calm and suddenly, boom, goes a ship up in flames and flying shrapnel.
Just like people surreptitiously shooting their mouth off and in the same way, boom, goes a perfectly good day, friendship or situation, and we're left flaming, broken and picking up the pieces.

I miss the warm, fuzzy comfort of friends who I know, no matter what, will always be there, always be on my side, building me up and supporting me when I grow weak.
I can say whatever I want, they can say whatever they want and we can say whatever we want, do whatever we want and just bask in the glow of loving friendships.
Whyyyyyyyyy do all of you have to be so faraway?!?
Ohwell, but what's that cheesy line I love to recite, Oceans and seas and miles apart, Far in distance but never in heart!

It hasn't been a good day for some weird, indecipherable reason.
And oh, that water cooler has stopped rumbling!
I feel sad and lonely now :(

Been in a pathetic state of a virtual cripple because our capricious internet has been pulling disappearing stunts on us all week and I'm left desperately tapping into someone else's wireless (just for abit, I'm not that much of a leech).
But being an internet recluse has left much room for various catch-ups of sorts, like catching up on sleep, catching up on my lovely new books, catching up on movies and catching up with friends.

It's been a severe fiasco of a week and I can quite safely say I was left reeling in its wake, resulting in many calls back home, simply to surround myself with the people who know and understand me best, and know who I am for who I really am.
And for all those who listened to my weary week, THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU!

But despite that little fiasco which I will now blithely call a blip, the weekend gas more than made up for it with the greatest company.
A drive down to the coast; girls night in over a bubbling pot of minestrone, cups of peaches&cream and jelly, soft reflective conversations and a wonderful movie (Radio); and not forgetting the happy picnickers who ended up not having a picnic despite my (self) applauded cooking efforts, unless you count lounging by my balcony with the incongruent laundry idly flapping in the breeze a picnic; and that phonecall from Eric where we had our first proper catchup in ages.

Then there was the note-worthy sunday night where Ruth and I decided to delve in a little food-loving, money-depleting indulgence and had dinner at Michael's at Riverside.
A pishposh yuppie-fied restaurant overlooking the river filled with couples who seemed to only speak in inaudible whispers while we sputtered with unabashed laughter made us appear young, puerile and terribly unsophisticated in comparison, but... who cares really :)



Especially when we were having such a ball tearing at our bread with our bare hands, having my virgin (raw) oyster experience (Ruth, I have been devirginised okay!!), wolfing our pastas and oohing and ahhing at our delectable dessert platter which I must MUST mention.
On that lovely plate was the artfully (this word reminds me eerily of.. whasshername who taught us E1 some two years ago and loved to use this word on Iago ha ha) positioned mini creme brulee and pistachio biscotti, raspberry cheesecake (my favourite one on the plate), apricot cream nougat (Ruth's favourite of the lot) and a dark and white chocolate mousse with blood oranges which Ruth and I ate with a flourish.
And at the end of it, we felt very very pleased, indeed :)



So cheers to great night full of heart-to-hearts, food and prices which made us feel like little children playing grown-ups, table pickings (remember the table with the flowers!), laughter, price tags dangling from shoes and coats and not forgetting our deep-love and rip-edged PAPER HEARTS!

-

On another note,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 18th TRACY LAU!! (7th October)



















You're finally 18 our little baby!
I haven't known you for long but we've had a great ball of a time as our little Learned Stepsister group with the incessant mahjong playing, dinners and note-passing and bingo-playing during lectures.
Thanks for being such a sweetie and always providing a listening ear and making me crack up with your funny little code names for people.
Here's to many more years of hollering Happy Birthday at you!

and...


HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY JOANUS POANUS!



















Poanie Chan, you've been my dearest sweetest friend since primary school (I'll always remember you giving me that tissue holder on 3rd January 2000 and saying Happy Belated Birthday Shumin, I still have it!) and it's been one hell of a friendship!
From all the church camps where we connected so well, running to each other's classroom during the MG days, going nut-crazy over a certain K-actor and making stupid animalistic snorting noises.
I'll always keep all those memories close to my heart because you're my samewavelength tweenie and nothing can ever replace that special place you have in my heart :)
LOVEYOU!

-

I was just thinking that there are some things in life that happen to you that are so infinitely small and seemingly insignificant, but yet so important to you that writing it all down in detail seems to prick that bubble of preciousness.
That somehow when you try to note everything down and capture every feeling and action of that moment in words, it just seems woefully inadequate and doesn't do the poetic moment any justice.
No matter how well recorded, it is merely reduced to a poorly worded event on paper and that somehow mars the beauty of it.
I much rather keep it close to my heart and remember it in all its bittersweet poignancy.

I have this urge to record it all down lest I forget but every word I conjure up doesn't quite seem to rightly describe the maelstrom of emotions I had, and the fullness of that perfect bubble of feelings, moments and words; and I'm so afraid that my inadequacy will just spoil it all.
But maybe I don't need to write it down in its chronological detail, because some things will always have a special place in my heart and mean a whole lot to me; and it's something I will always, always remember.

This is one heck of a long entry.

The perilous effects of not having internet and not blogging!!!!!!

We all headed to Southbank last night to catch An Inconvenient Truth which was in all honesty very good and enjoyable, but much too wordy with too few images for a late-night show. It was a throwback to the project work days where all of us would diligently research on the sustainable environment, calling, emailing and interviewing people and the little greenbean in me poked its little head up and I felt the need to not waste electricity, water or paper.


When I headed home, I spent most of my night awake and pottering around my room in a semi-crabby state of unspoken words and sticky dilemmas.
I put my current favourite songs on repeat, talked to a couple of people on MSN and made a half-hearted attempt to finish my disgustingly salty sausage stew.
Then I crawled into bed and under the dim light of my bedside lamp reading my new book: A biography of James Dean; who I think is quite possibly the sexiest, most iconic actor in history with his varying polarities of brooding masculinity and vulnerable feminity and looks like Jude Law and Johnny Depp all rolled in one.

That's the thing I like about books.
They're a lot less complicated than people; they'll never hurt you nor leave you; your actions would never hurt or matter to a book; if you don't like what you're seeing, you can always slam the book shut and chuck it in one corner; and if you ever feel lonely, you can open up a book and it will suck you into a fairytale life and make it all better.

I don't remember ever being in such a complicated mess before.
I never had to deal with more than one interlinked issue at a time.
I feel as though everything's my fault when I don't recall having done anything which caused it.
:(



"The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour - from violent men you save me. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies."
2 Samuel 22: 2-4

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargggggh.
Yoooooooooou knooooooooooooooowwwww, I reeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllllly dooooooooon't knoooooooooowwwwwwwww whaaaaaaaaaaat isssssssssssss wrrrrrrrroooooonggggggggg wiiiiiiiiiith meeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Sooooooooooomeeeeeeeeebodyyyyyyyyy, heeeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeee pleeeeeeeease?

Things are NOT peachy.
I need to have a long think over things and decide QA or LTW.
Words are bereft of me, thoughts in a jumble and I just cooked the lousiest dinner on the planet simply because I didn't know sausages generated their own oil with all that crap stuffed into sausage skins.

:(
:(

:(

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABRIEL TAN AIK HOONG!



















I know it's slightly lately cause your birthday is on SECOND OCTOBER (I haven't forgotten, just haven't blogged)!
Anyway, this is one great big shoutout to you my favourite Lentorian, favourite neighbour of all time; the one whom I'll share a cab home with, the one who always very generously provides his house, food, alcohol and mahjong table!
It seems like ages ago where I first met you in 2004 but it's been all good all the way, from our humble beginnings in the mahjong gang (aye aye captain!!) to fellow ngflcorpers to team zoo; and not forgetting all the times we'd go to your house and play the night away and have a ball of a time.
Thanks for being such a grrrrrrrrrreat friend and happy, happy birthday :)
I hope it was a great one!

-

My body clock has been kicked into a serious funk and I just hope it somehow kicks itself back to the normal routine so I can start sleeping and eating like a normal person.
And I was doing my laundry and packing my wardrobe today and I've concluded that there's gonna be NO MORE SHOPPING until I get back to Singapore.
I was just folding piles and piles of clothes, found some with the tags still hanging from the labels, found heaps which I haven't worn in aeons and as I folded piece after piece of clothing, I was thinking how on earth did I manage to accumulate so many clothes and many of which I don't wear?!
And all that guilt crept up on me, as I sat feeling forlorn and absolutely wasteful.

So no more shopping.
The only shopping I'll be doing is for other people and if I ever feel the need to browse through racks, I'll drag someone along with me and pick clothes for... them :)
And it all works out very neatly I reckon; I still get to look at clothes and in the process I make other people happy by picking out nice clothes for them AND not spend money.

I seriously have to make up for all that moola I've wasted.

In about an hour or so, the sunlight will come streaming in through my windows and I'd have officially pulled my first all-nighter doing an assignment.
And I don't quite know why I've logged onto blogger, typing out a useless blog entry that will serve no purpose other than unleashing the whole torrent of pointless thoughts and maybe cure your boredom or bore you to death, when I haven't quite finished my assignment.
I'm tired and drained out and there are lumpy shadows hanging beneath my eyes which ache from severe lack of sleep and also because for some funny reason I feel like crying.

I drag in and out of my days in a macro-micro lull where in the day, my perception seems to zoom in and all my little memorable moments are captured and lived to the fullest; but in the night my perceptions retract like camera lens and I see things broadly, garnering the past, present and future and all of a sudden everything doesn't seem quite so picture-perfect or right.
All this inconsistency is flapping on the insides of my head, blinding my mind's eye, and now I don't trust my instincts, don't trust myself and all I want is for everything to be in black and white and ticked out like a mental checklist.

I talk to people I haven't talked to in ages and I feel all that suppressed emotion welling up, soft and liquid, threatening to overflow.
And I feel so lonely knowing that they are far, far away; then I listen to them tell me how they feel so lonely and suspended in time, and I feel even lonelier and melancholy because they're sad and lonely, and this whole emo tirade passes on from one to another in a vicious cycle.
I miss everyone.

I wonder about first impressions and the even more dangerous first phase of getting to know people and I wonder are people really who they seem to be.
I wonder what people think of me and I wonder what they think I think of them and all this thinking is going round and round in my head, like a little computer game character zipping in and out of a maze.
I become doubtful and wary and a little scared inside.

I just want to hop into a bed, be done with my assignment, be done with uni, live a life that revolves around nothing but food, friends, family and fun, the proverbial four Fs (I'm making this up) of quality of life.
I want to kick back on a couch, watch a feel-good chick flick with a kickass soundtrack and happy ending, eat all the food that I feel like eating and then calling my nearest and dearest to be right next to me in the flesh.
I want to be rid of all contemptuous feelings of trepidation and know each step I take is the right one.

And I just want to tell those that are feeling just that little bit low, just that little bit discouraged, just that little bit confused that "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, hwo have been called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37)