It's another 10 minutes till the end of the year. How odd it is that this year is ending! 2007 has been very memorable, to say the least. The liberation from A's, the swell time at CLEO, the holidaying before school, the school term (though it was tiring to live through, there are still memorable times), and the holidays. Amazing things happened this year that I'm very grateful for. I think many of us probably grew up this year, especially during the time when we had to decide where we wanted to go, why, and deciding the path we'll take in future.

On an entirely separate note, I was just wondering why some of us chinese in the new generation don't exactly embrace our traditions very much. I personally find that there are many traditions or customs that parents and grandparents insist on continuing, without actually knowing the significance behind it. During my cousin's wedding recently, I asked my mum about the reason behind certain customs or acts (like why must the girls avoid the bride during the tea ceremony?!) and she didn't know. Isnt it odd that people just do things without knowing what it's for? And whether it serves any purpose at all? I'm probably being a bit too anti-tradition here, getting tsk-tsks from the adults, but I personally would like to understand the reasons behind things and why I should be made to continue it, which is why sometimes i feel that the western culture is much more appealing.

Anyway, Happy New Year!!

back from KL!! it's been great fun and especially shiok cos we stayed right in the shopping district. I think we walked and shopped so much we probably shed some weight haha. It was such a focussed shopping trip that we really don't have much photos, besides those of nice xmas decorations in the mall.



the results of our conquer!!

i am absolutely hooked on HEROES. it's super nice and i absolutely love that chubby japanese guy. He's so cute and funny lah! but i don't like the future him where he becomes all serious and straight-faced, with an american slang. he's actually been living in US since he was young so that means he imitated the japanese slang very very well. his other jap friend is in actual fact, a korean! Man, they really do that jap accent thing so well lah.

today i took the bus and there were some jc students who had just finished their last A level paper. and man, that hit me - gosh, it's been one whole year

somehow i don't feel like i am one year older than those people..though i have experienced lots of new and wonderful things in this one year, it seems so fleeting. and man can i remember those library mugging days in jc clearly (and i miss those days compared to now!!)

this is exactly why i say xmas always makes me feel melancholic cos its the time of the year when u sit down and think and reflect about the year that has passed and make some kind of judgment about how much / well you have lived through this year.

gosh..havent blogged in a gazillion years even my tagboard got deleted. but since attempts at trying to study maths for econs failed terribly..i shall blog a bit abt school. one word - BUSY. the exams are in one week's time and i am still in the process of consolidating projects. one term in school has really made me 1) more vulgar 2) more sleep-deprived 3) more prone to succumbing to retail therapy

i cant wait for the holidays to come!! and xmas is back again!! one year has passed so quickly. soon its gonna be graduating from school and working :(. i think xmas always makes me feel melancholic..somehow. the thought of how another year has passed, how things of changed etc. oh well.

i watched the movie lakehouse on cable and it was really nice! of cos keanu reeves made it even better. but anyway, yah, it was just really bitter-sweet how they actually met and missed each other so many times. and the part when she realised he died was so heart-wrenching. but its really cool that she could change his fate.

do u think that time really exists simultaneously? like if u could find the break in the fabric of time u can actually travel back in time. haha, think its really cool if it does

school has been really overwhelming for the past 2 months and times passes so quickly that it's been 2 months!! and i've been a hermit for 2 whole months, even though i pass by town everyday, i've never really been there. sigh. how sad.

and now it's the mid term break, and half of it is gone already!! :( there's still not much of a break though, with assignments and projects going on. now everything that i want to do is being pushed back to the agenda for the nice long break next year. i miss having lots of time to do what i want to do! like read, swim, play the piano, watch a movie, or just slack, really.

and doing the AS essay is killing me! plus i still have 2 to 3 projects and more assignments coming up. help :(

my i havent blogged in ages. school has been qt busy, esp cos there's a lot of self studying and it takes a lot of self discipline to do all the work, readings and revision on you own cos there're no more teachers to guide and nag. and i hate this having to download the notes ourselves thing. irritating.

when i finally got down to placing a bid for my lesson it was a heavy load off my chest. its just really complex how there are so many factors to consider. Like which classes have the least competition from seniors (who are very rich and can outbid us poors lads), which classes are not too heavy, how much money to bid, how many vacancies left in that class. sigh. and i'm totally dreading class participation, cos since it's a grading criteria there're definitely ppl who'd grab every chance to talk (regardless of importance and whether its meaningful). I shall just hope that there arent too many of such irritants in my class (though i highly doubt so!)

school starts for me tmr! oh well..bye bye couch potato life, hello homework

omg...school is starting in 2 wks time!! i know i shouldnt be complaining cos the other schools have officially started today. BUT BUT BUT my brain's still like mush and it cant absorb any thing serious, only trash from tv programmes. and the manual on how to bid for lessons is so mind boggling it's like an econs lesson in itself ("students need to manage their available resources..." "students will need to make their choice by carefully considering the demand and supply of courses..."). i sincerely hope i can successfully meet the course requirement because i still cant figure it out. (would love to hire a personal course-bidder. salary being one bowl of ice kacang a month. any takers?)

ok pictures from UK!































the town we used to live in. it was pretty cold (18 to 20 plus) though it's the summer. but the weather's just nice i think. over our blazing heat anytime.
















pretty flowers! every house had pretty gardens

that's my teacher at playgroup! my mum could recognise her but i couldnt haha


we took a roadtrip one of the days, and it was pretty cool cos summer means long daylight hours (cue miss law's globe slanted 23 deg and sun at tropic of cancer) so the sun rises at 5am and sets at 9.30pm. which means we had a lot of time to sightsee. was a bit rainy though. we were lucky to escape the floods, which started the day after we got back!

Oxford (before flood)! ok this building is just some part of Oxford uni, dun even know what college it is but yeah it's just these nice old buildings around (that i really like) and i envy esther and jasmine cos they'll be walking to school with nice views like this in nice cool weather while i'll have to walk to mine in 32 deg heat.


this is a place called Bourton-on-the-Water. It's in this district called Cotswold where the houses are those traditional english cottages. very pretty!

doesnt this look like a house from some xmas card picture?



the city of bath.

and that's the bath (which is a hot spring) that the ppl used to bathe in. there was a cool pool in another section also, like those japanese onsen.


last stop of our roadtrip was stonehenge. was a little disappointed cos i thot it'd be bigger. anyway, if you wanted to get in you'd have to pay so we just cheapskate stand outside the fence and my dad took this picture by holding the camera up haha. but its good enough anyway.



last day in london! finally acted more like tourists and did some sightseeing instead of just shopping.


the royal albert hall


i really <<33 this building. the museum of natural history. i love it cos it's soo pretty and check out the windows. it's like some palace but nooo it's just a museum. and the building is really long by the way.

there're much more pictures but i dun have the camera now. so till then, ta!

as the start of school draws near, i grow sadder! knowing that i havent done quite a lot of things that i'd wanted to do during this long 8 month break. like taking up a language, or a sewing course. and each day of free time gets more and more precious! and there's still a looong list of to-reads (and the list is growing!!) so i hope to finish 2 books before school starts (i read qt slowly). it'd be utterly nice if i had a nice pool to chill by and read books. but no i don't have that. haha.

and i also have a big clean-up plan in mind, and i want to become a neat freak and bag-and-tag everything i have because i'm too tired of having no space to put my new stuff!!

am back from the UK! i really love the place. there's just something about those old buildings, some having been around for centuries, that attracts me. i guess the mix of new and old is something that makes london so unique. we went for a roadtrip to various places such as Oxford and Stonehenge. My dad was using this GPS guide thing to drive and by choosing the "shortest route" option it brought us through small narrow roads along farmlands and plains. It took a little more time but the view was gorgeous! It looked as if it came right out of the pride and prejudice set.

i cant stand this freaking hot weather. i cant walk out to the bus stop without sweating from every pore of my body. and it was so hot to sleep with a blanket (in aircon) that i spent half of last night not having a blanket. and now i'm having the fan blowing full blast right at me. it's sooo hot. i'd be sweating by the buckets if i'd gone to egypt.

ok ok. i succumbed to facebook. I just needed to find out what's so great about it! haha, but i think it's definitely easier to search for ppl than in friendster.

only about 1 and a half months of couch potato life (which i'm totally loving) after working for a few months, i really cherish my couch potato time. i wake up late and slack and watch movies on cable for the whole afternoon and i watch more tv from dinner onwards. really rocks. damn, im dreading working in future!!

singaporeans are ugly. esp a certain group called the aunties. we had a roadshow for this magazine with the target grp being mums/middle-aged women, and i tell u..the aunties are very good for business. (of cos the goodie bag's very worth it). if the booth's empty, noone would come. if there are ppl arnd, the queue would be tttttttthhhhhhiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssss long. and they'll peek into other ppl's goodie bags, and ask to change flavour, change this change that. or they would buy 3 or 4 copies just for the goodie bag!?! (of cos it's business for us haha)

then there are those who board relatively empty mrt trains and they sweep like vultures to a carcass to the empty seats, and yelling to their buddies across the carriage to snatch a nearby empty seat (slaps forehead). i mean of cos, everybody wants a damn seat, but if someone gets there before me, then fine, i'll just stand. no need to shout across to your friend and let the whole world know that u want that seat, so noone else can take it.

there was this girls out loud episode i watched about people queuing up even though they dunno what it's for. they set up a covered booth (with nothing inside, but you'll just get a free pen) and said there'll be free gifts and the queue started forming. and they interviewed ppl queuing and they don't even know what it's for!!

so, moral of the story. please don't develop the auntie-complex. i'd die to find out that one day, a few decades from now, i've become an auntie myself..haha.

met a friend today after almost half a yr! and it was great just doing a short catch-up, asking what we are and will be doing. it's intriguing how our lives diverge from this point on. people take their own paths and it makes me wonder how differently we'll end up. i'm procrastinating the acceptance of offers because i don't exactly like the finality of it, how it closes off all other options and puts an end to the overseas dream.

oh well, wonder how life's gonna be like for me without work. gonna swing back to the slack life before!! but this time it'll be filled with shopping at GSS! cant wait already!!!

have been too tired to blog!

anyway, who'd think that matriculating would be such a hassle! there seems to be a lot of things to do, a lot of dates to remember (more dates to consider when planning THE holiday!)

oh, i just cant wait till i'm free from work, then i can shop till i drop at GSS!!! the thought of it excites me haha

there's this show on ch 8 called mars vs venus and it's pretty hilarious. there's this part saying how wives love to nag and guys just have to turn off and let them hit their daily quota of 6000 words. reminds me of my parents. i think my dad has mastered the art of tuning out cos my mum really nags a lot when she starts on certain topics. she just doesnt know when to stop! i mean if i were my dad i'd be angry/impatient myself. i think that's what staying at home does to u.
don't u think that generally hsewives are the ones who possess auntie characteristics? than say, working mums? firstly, i think it's cos if u stay at home all day, all u care about are the nitty gritty stuff and u go nagging abt those. but if u're working u've been burnt out at work and all u want to do when u reach home is relax.

i hope i don't morph into an auntie in future :S

went to watch spidey today and must say it was so-so lah. though i didnt watch 2. but i think it's cos there were too many funny characters around lah, that it just sort of loses focus. anyway, this is like my first movie since...since...night at the museum? damn sad. AND pirates 3 is coming! whee, i wanna catch that!

finally went to watch phantom on tue and i must say it was great. how wrong can you go with that wonderful plot and music. the stage was lovely, with gold statuettes and all.
i absolutely loved
-the props and backdrops! so sophisticated!!
-the opera managers. very very funny
-the swinging chandelier!
- the part where the phantom descended on a...thing...after their song on the roof - cool!
- the boat! curious how it actually works
- the masquerade scene! majestic

but i didn't like raoul's quacky voice. (after that i found out that it was the aussie cast actually. thot it was the original london cast. hmm, wonder if the london props are the same..)and i also prefer the point of no return set on the movie though, with the bridge and all. but all in all, nice!

my precious weekends have flown by once again. and all i've done was eat, sleep and watch tv. i think it's cos i know my work now isnt going to permanent that's why im not making the effort to try to make full use of my wkends or trying to achieve a balanced lifestyle. i won't survive this way in the long haul cos im gonna end up a big fat pig. so, conclusion? not looking forward to full time working in future! i prefer being a student, simply because there IS time to do things i want to do. like pick up a bk (and finish it), swim, play the piano, etc.

besides the fact that it stops me from having a life, work has been pretty good. and i must say i am really lucky to be here at the right time. it's qt an experience for me, with fun events to boot. i think work has allowed me to meet ppl beyond my community and see that there are actually a lot of people out there who take different paths from us and makes me see that we are really a lucky bunch. i mean, within our circle of friends, we're more or less the same, we've more or less been through the same paths, going to be taking the same paths. so it's pretty nice to jump out of our own little circle to know of different people and circumstances.

i really don't have a life. i had wanted to watch so many movies and just never did, and now they're not running anymore. my last movie was..uh...night at the museum? and the thing is i choose not to watch wkend movies cos they are just too pricey.

i havent blogged in ages. work really deprives me of the time for any other kind of activities (including exercising *feels flabs*). anyway, i'm officially employed. yippee. i can see the glorious numbers in my account alrdy (ka-ching!)
anyway, supposedly the tremors could be felt from my hse!! (haha, my mum thought she was giddy or sth till she heard the news) but i was probably on a bus or sth so i didn't feel it. usually the tremors only affect the east so i was qt surprised that the west was affected.
i feel like im having a fever cos im like emitting heat and having a headache..but my temperature's normal! im sorta hoping im sick so i can sleep in...haha.

anyway i really miss school :( tehpings, and squeezing into lifts, GEOG, and i even miss lessons lah. so, it felt qt surreal that last friday was the final fullstop to the rj chapter of my life. 2 years were too fleeting. i could have more geog lessons for the rest of my life, (my dad actually asked if i wanted to do geog in uni, but when we were talking abt career options and reached teaching, we both "haha-ed")

i finally finished pride and prejudice. and i think i'm prepared for more jane austen after managing to get arnd the language and all. it really makes it much easier to read after watching the movie cos at least i know what's going on even though sometimes i get lost among their arguments. but it gets better along the way. anyway, it's a really nice bk and mr darcy is so sweet.

my drama serial just ended :( its a really nice show man, it's not like some of those cheesy taiwan period dramas with act cute actresses, this (hk one) is really different, and the ending was damn sad, but somehow, the best ending possible for the characters too.
once i start a show, i must watch it till the end. so i better don't start a new one.

anyway, i watched turn left turn right yest (with who else but the bloody hot takeshi). though i think the ending is a bit uh...anti-climax (an earthqk breaks down the wall between them), i think it's a very touching film! and it makes you sort of wonder if there's someone who's really in such close proximity to you but you've never noticed/cross paths. anyway, takeshi looks as if he really could play the violin (i like! +1000 points). at least if he doesnt know he LOOKED like he could. not like cheesy mediacorp actors (in the show the peak, which just ended recently) -this 2 guys were supposed to know how to play violin but they didnt even bother to move their freaking left hands! now tell me how does the music come out. damn fake can!! i couldn't stand to watch that scene (which was unnecessarily long btw). yes, so now we know why sg dramas are not that successful. and i cant begin to describe how hot takeshi is. period.

i am looking for tuition kids in bukit timah! if you have any lobang PLEEEAASSSEE tell me. Prrmary school all subs, sec sch geog and maths. PLEASE tell me if you have lobang thanks

i rmb i didnt have things i really wished for for my last bday, but now, though my nxt bday is like 8 months away, i have a long list alrdy ahha, mainly scents!

i want
-D&G Light Blue <3<3
-Kenzo Flower (or summer? cant decide)
-Lanvin Eclat D'Arpege
-Elizabeth Arden 5th Ave
-Gucci Envy Me
-Jin Zhi Yu Nie vcd set (its worth re-watching man. i cant miss a single minute of it i tell u)
-da chang jin vcd set? (haha, feel like rewatching it for some parts that i've missed)
-Silence Shen Qing Mi Ma OST (oh...my favourite chinese idol drama by far. so so nice. i rmb those days when i spent most of my day watching it from youtube!!!!)
-Gu Lian Hua OST
-A nice bossa nova cd
-a nice waltz/tango music cd

im blogging from work and am extremely free. most of the people are out on appointments and the rest here are rather free and openly slacking in a way...me and the other intern at least ahha. many ppl chat on msn, except those who sit right in front in full view of the director's office (though she's really nice too). its only 4.40 and i've already started slacking since 4. checked my mails, tried to book a driving slot (but the horror the horror! all feb slots are BOOKED!!!) and i guess i can only start driving again in march...or when someone drops a slot. and i just had to change to the new version of blogger since they forced me to. and i had to spend an extra 3 sec trying to rmb my new gmail acct.

and just now there was a rush to look at the new march issue hot off the press! haha, why the hoo-ha? eligible bachelors. hot and single ahhah.

so. i've been working for the past 10 hrs, in a fuschia white and orange tent which i believe not many ppl spotted or bothered to look at anyway. the crowd was qt small i must say and the cleo booth sold a grand total of *drumrolls* 3 copies today. its prob the only event at work this month (nxt month got cleo eligible bachelor at st jame's power station!! i wanna go!) anyway, this rdshow is the launch of this new kenzo fragrance ( i can memorise the ingredients alrdy. blah blah, a journey through asia, blah blah, thai rice, jap cherry blossom, indon frangipani)

anyway, i think i broke my personal record of patience and perseverance cos i survived the hours of boredom. in the morn esp, i read my bk (thankfully i was smart enough to bring one) and then stoned, talked to the promoters (very nice ppl), stared arnd and read in DETAIL cleo for three times. i can memorize it alrdy. the nice thing abt it (despite the boredom) was mtg new ppl, and having my fortune read. (pretty interesting and accurate!)

why isnt there jin zhi yu nie on youtube. i wanna watch the ep i missed yest :( actually i saw the cd set at some bugis fair was so tempted to buy it! anyway, im not enjoying working life one bit. cos u go out early and come back late, after watching my 9 and 10pm dramas there can only be a 15min quick email check. no blog hopping, no surfing no chatting :( give me sch over work anytime!

i had the funniest dream last night, where my dear little aminah was getting married in the school hall or sth like that. and she was 19 and i asked her is she sure she wants to see the same guy for the next 70 years. but anyway, her 'husband' was some rich indon kid whose family owns a petrol company. haha

i suspect my mum has some cleanliness OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), which i shall call the CNY syndrome. she loves to hover around my table, i know her hands are itching to stack my things up in her way of (perceived) neatness. and she tells me that i should get a bigger box to put my smaller boxes in. which makes no sense and serves no practical purpose cos ultimately the small boxes are still there. and she loves to nag and tell me that this is her hse, she can clean it her way. yah, go ahead, i dun care what she does to the rest of the hse just leave my table alone!

so, it was chris and my first ballrm dancing lesson on friday and i must say it was pretty fun. it was quite physically straining though, with lots of tiptoe-ing. it felt like aerobics lesson to me cos by the end we had sore calfs and sore arms haha, but i enjoyed it.
i finally got down to reading pride and prejudice. finally i could get past the first chapter. the prev times i tried to read it, i always get lost esp when they argue with each other. but after watching the movie, at least ive an idea of what's going on. i also had a sudden urge one day to read chinese classics like hong lou meng. oh my, my dad would be so proud of me. haha

i went to the mega ikea at tampines with my family today and i must say it is really successful. the food is nice and cheap, the furniture are pretty, simple and affordable, and ikea always makes me feel like buying cute little things (which may be qt useless) such as their very pretty boxes, nice drinking glasses, candles, beautiful black photo frames and pictures, on impulse. see, it really works. this mega store is really big and makes me all giddy looking at the piles of things. i'd really love to decorate my own hse someday. i can picture it with nice dark wood and dark-ish walls, lots of glass, pictures in black frames. i also have this thing for drinking glasses so i'd stock up on all sorts of wine, champagne, martini glasses. i can already hear my mum complaining how difficult it is to clean. haha

i REALLY cant believe that A's are over. i mean when u think about it, it wasnt too long ago at all when we were slogging our asses off. but (admit it) our brains have probably degenerated to mush already. actually i miss having my brain in tiptop, exam- ready form. its qt depressing to flip through the math and cant rmb how to do things when they used to be 2nd nature! and im sooo bored of slacking, mainly because i really end up doing nothing without a routine. and my original intention to do lots of reading failed terribly. except reading some old magazines and 2nd hand $1 nancy drew bks from thomson plaza (i solved the case before she did HAH!).

went for the inter-jc prom pageant with chris and grace yest. it was pretty interesting and vivien told me that the winners were both ex-ph ppl! interesting. and colin is a giant. he's the tallest person i've seen thus far. maybe mr q. is that tall. saw qt a few old friends arnd, wasnt too bad! didnt stay for long though :(

my days are just endless youtube-ing and mooching around, which im starting to get sick of. so i better get my ass of my chair and do sth soon

so, its 2007. feels really weird cos it wasnt too long ago when we were slogging our asses off in the library. anyway, i was at the airport when 2006 was over. so disappointing! there weren't any special celebration for both xmas and new yr. i'm sort of having a post trips blue, cos one week is really short! i actually survived korea without being able to read a single signboard or read any menu (besides hotel restaurants). there were some really really cold days like when we were skiing and our fingers and toes froze but it was really fun. i'd rather have cold than hot actually..hahah. and we did some nice shopping there, though the accessories there are expensive! ( i wonder why! since some sg stuff are korean imports) we also made friends with this 2 kids super adorable!! they called our room to ask if they could come over and play. and they are planning to come to our hse this wkend. very cute! one thing abt korea is that they have very few international cuisines. only the occassional chinese or jap restaurants. so the koreans live on korea food everyday! which will get boring right? i mean, hotpot/bibimbak/bbq everyday gets a bit dull..spking of which, korean airlines serves bibimbak. quite special haha

so now its back to the boring life in sg :( hope to catch a takeshi movie soon and go msia for some shopping!! my table is in a mess once again and i dun feel like doing anything abt it.