Post-celebratory

Today marks the end of the first Chinese New Year week, and the end of pretty much all the festive hype. Every year, my family & I would have completed our rounds of visitations by the second day of the festive season. When I was younger we used to go around visiting relatives all the way till the fourth day, but I guess times have changed. This year's Chinese New Year was like any other recent year's; it didn't give me anything special to remember. Everyone was pretty much celebrating for the sake of celebration. But although it was true that none of us saw Chinese New Year in the light it was supposed to be seen in, I don't feel that we abandoned the core purpose of the festive season at all. Guess the very act of making the effort to meet your relatives, some of who you may only see once a year, and wishing them well, is more than enough. A simple congratulation for having made it through the year, and an assurance that everyone is moving on with life along with you — powerful encouragements disguised as simple, seemingly meaningless thoughts and actions. :) Of course, a very heartwarming, enthusiastic celebration would be perfect. But a quiet, more reserved Chinese New Year isn't at all bad either.

I'll let some random snapshots do the talking from here:

Wednesday spelled back to school for all students (unfortunately). Had a mini lohei session with my class during our Civics period:

The funny thing was that I didn't manage to snap everyone tossing the vegetables and crackers in the usual sticky sweet sauce, the focal point of every lohei photo. Guess that effectively makes the photos above random shots of people getting excited in crowds over seemingly nothing, rofl.

On to something non-CNY related (not really): I fell sick shortly after the festive season, around the time when school reopened again. Gave a couple of training sessions a miss this week as a result, but the good thing was that I wasn't sick to the point that I couldn't leave my bed. I still did go to school, and as much as I hate that place, I don't really want to miss out on anything important. Though it's not like I even get half of what's going on during lectures (not so tutorials to be honest, so all is fairly well I guess).

Next week will be a hectic one, because the juniors will be informed of the tertiary institution they've been posted to on Monday. Which means I'll be expecting a new batch of students coming to school as J1s. Which marks the start of a horribly busy Orientation week. Hope things'll unfold just fine, I'm even planning to join the Mass Dance @ Suntec on one of the last few nights of Orientation. :) But then again, there's still tests to think about...

Let's just see if I can strike a balance between work and play this upcoming week, then (as much as I'm not confident of rising up to the challenge at all).

Start of a Dragon year

Right now I'm just here, wondering if I should continue keeping this. I used to do really well back in the days when I was still on LiveJournal. I wouldn't hesitate spending hours polishing my entries at all, let alone update my online journal regularly. Is it because of the change in the blogging environment? But I gave up on diligently documenting my life while I was using LiveJournal, sometime last year. I guess I'm really losing my interest. :/

Didn't mean to start this entry on such a low note, given that I do actually have quite a lot of cheerful things to update you (nonexistent) readers about! So my apologies for that.

I'm currently celebrating the Lunar New Year, which began about an hour ago, and I have to say: I've been soaking up the festivities pretty well! Had a reunion dinner with my maternal family yesterday evening (actually, just a few hours ago), and the food was amazing as usual. Had a more-than-generous serving of the steamboat soup and ingredients, as well as Grandma's homemade ngoh hiang, which speaks of awesomeness on so many levels.

Before I left for the reunion dinner with my family, I configured the Instagram app I installed on my mom's iPhone a few days ago, and got her phone all geared up to remember Chinese New Year in beautifully edited snapshots. For starters, we took a few self-portraits, as well as photos of the festive ornaments in our home:

I have to say, for a couple of point-and-shoot photographs, they turned out better than expected. Heheheh :)

Guess by now you're probably wondering about what I've been up to the few days I haven't been in this place, so here goes a lousy attempt at keeping you updated.

On Friday, my school held its Chinese New Year celebrations, and well, all of us pretty much went through the motions. But before the performance, my class had a break which stretched across two periods, so I decided to have my lunch then, and it was really delicious! The nice lady working in the Japanese stall at the school canteen made a new addition to her menu: dumpling (gyoza) rice with enoki mushrooms, and of course, I had to get a bowl for myself. I'm a fan of her cooking, it's always very good. Here's a picture of the dish (which I genuinely hope will set your mouth watering, hahaha):

Lol come to think of it, it doesn't really look that delicious from the photo, but at least I've tasted it in all its glory for myself.

After the celebrations I stayed back in school to settle some Orientation matters. I'm going to be a Station Master for this Amazing Race game during this year's Orientation; hope it'll be fun. But most importantly, I'll be able to skip a couple of classes, heheh. Went down to Eastpoint with Eveline, this ridiculously smart Indonesian scholar who'll be in-charge of the same station as me, and we did a short recce of the place, after which we waited (and waited) for the Orientation Group Leaders to collect our envelopes with the clues in them. Overall the whole affair was very dry, but at least I got to know someone new. And coincidentally, Eveline goes to the same church as I do. ;)

After we got dismissed, I went home to freshen up and take a quick nap before leaving the house again for cell group meeting at Faith's place. It was heartwarming to be back in E391 again, and after the meeting, I followed a couple of friends to the nearby playground for a few rounds of Blind Mice (a game I suck terribly in, hahaha). Also, the playground was where I realised Hui Yen was a monkey in her previous life (not meant to be offensive)! She's unbelievably good at that game. And it was so thrilling to watch her try to escape Faith (who was the catcher). If only I had a bag of popcorn then.

Anyway, tomorrow (later today, actually) will mark the first round of Chinese New Year visitations! Hopefully it'll be a fruitful one, in terms of both relationships and finances, if you get what I mean.

Wishing all my (nonexistent) readers a prosperous and bountiful Year of the Dragon! 恭喜發財, 萬事如意, 年年有餘, 心想事成! :)

Untitled

Last Saturday, I went for 'Go Green Day', an annual charity event hosted by my school. Along with the rest of the student body, I was tasked to go around the neighbourhood collecting used newspapers and old clothes residents' home, and proceeds from the collections were donated to two organizations for the underprivileged.

To be very honest, I felt that the whole event was a waste of time; a touch-and-go affair. It was a nightmare, having to simultaneously carry stacks of old newspapers and bags stuffed with old clothing (though actually it wouldn't really be that bad a nightmare if it wasn't for the fact that it was Saturday), and to make things worse, my class was assigned the old-type HDB flats, where the lifts only brought us to certain floors. As a result, we found ourselves toiling while repeatedly climbing up and down the stairs to reach floors not served by the lifts.

I really believed that I couldn't get any more crankier then, because the week before really made me both mentally and physically exhausted. I really didn't see a purpose in slogging during a day when I could've gotten some rest. But at least the efforts I put in didn't really go to waste; after all, what I did was for a cause. And I wouldn't deny that I was kept rather entertained by the classmates I worked with, hahaha.

My class got off work at around 1pm, so we decided to head to a nearby hawker centre for lunch. Mrs Chua treated all of us to a cup of bubble tea each, and honestly I didn't expect her to be so nice. After all, she was always holding us back for an extra period whenever her Chemistry classes with us fell before a break. :/ But regardless of whether she's been nice or not, I'll still have to get to appreciating her anyway (she's the form teacher for my class this year), for my final year in TJ to be smoother one.

On another note, the Economics test on Tuesday was, in the end, cancelled!! :) Which was a good thing for me because I didn't study much, heh. I didn't have training on that day too, so I decided to stay back in school after classes ended to catch up on my work. The session wasn't very productive, but I strongly believe that I wouldn't have done as much work as I did if I went straight home after school. While studying, I also played around with the Instagram on Michelle's new iPhone 4S, and came up with some pretty nice (LOL in my opinion at least) shots:

We left school at around 6pm to meet Sheryl at the station before heading home together. I still remember how I still had the Permutations & Combinations tutorial to complete when I got home (it was already around 8 then)... it was just terrible. Turned in very late that night. :/

The next day, I went to the swimming pool at ITE College East to train after school. Admittedly, ever since the teachers-in-charge of the swim team got serious and hired a new coach, the trainings have become more intense. I was really bushed at the end of training that day, and at a certain point when I was still swimming, I even faced difficulties breathing. Kinda over exerted myself I guess. So that day, to put it in short, was demoralising. But at least I bothered to make an effort to go down and train... that itself to me is already an accomplishment.

On to more cheerful things — Chinese New Year's finally round the corner (:D!), and I thought it'd be good if I considered doing some major priority reshuffling to mark some sort of 'new beginning' for myself. After the festive season ends, I will be expected to go full steam ahead in terms of academics, and I really need to prepare for that. Right now I'm still approaching my work half-heartedly, and succumbing to numerous, "lethal" distractions. I still haven't grasped good time management, and this really sucks, because 2012's a really important school year. Therefore, I really, really need to set my priorities straight, so that everything will fall nicely together, each in their own rightful place. So that I can finally start being productive, as well as start inching closer and closer to my ultimate goal for this year, which is to do exceedingly well for the A-Level exams.

So, hope you'll wish me luck, to whoever's reading this right now. :)

A purposeless mess

A new week's just begun, and life's cruel, like always. To be honest, no amount of rest will ever make up for a school day. Realised that despite a generous and well-deserved break, I still can't stand the suppression I'll always feel the moment I step into the campus. I'll always find myself moving from lecture to lecture and class to class feeling like a hollow, empty shell, and as if that wasn't enough, circumstances will always try their best to drain out the very little bit of life left inside me. It feels terrible. Really, if I don't find a reason to love what I'm doing now, a way to cope, I don't think I'll make it through the year as gloriously as I want, and am expected, to. And frankly, I don't think I'll find a direction anytime soon.

Right now, I'm trying to cram for a ridiculously demanding Economics test... obviously to no avail. And I guess you can say that I gave up completely on revising for it the moment I decided to update this space. I mean, is it even humanly possible to cover a year's worth of topics in a single night? :/

But on a brighter note, my GP tutor e-mailed me over the weekend, and she encouraged me to participate in this competition called the Stanford Book Prize. Initially I was interested, but after realising how packed this week was... I started having second thoughts. There's only 2 more days left to the deadline, and I haven't really drafted anything yet... but I think it's still possible for me to think of something within the time frame. Guess I'll see how things go for now. But regardless of whether I manage to participate in the end, I'm still very grateful for the opportunity.

Guess tomorrow'll be yet another crazy day. But at the very least, there's something to look forward to — dinner with a couple of friends at NEX. Hope the rest of the week will give me something to anticipate as well.

Some leftover pictures from last week finish off this entry:

Birthday highs (and lows)

The past few days have been really tiring for me; I barely had the time to even catch my breath. But hopefully tomorrow will mark an unofficial end to a really long week. Training this week's pushed forward from Friday, and after taking a quick look at my timetable, I also realised that school ends early that day. :) So I'm really grateful for this (although extremely rare) plan-free, leisurely (hopefully!) Friday that I'll soon be enjoying.

So, today was Rashid's birthday, and I'm really honoured to be part of the celebrations for his special day, which I thought went pretty well; better than I expected it to, at least. :) Along with a group of friends from secondary school, we had a delightfully sumptuous, but extremely sinful dinner at East Coast Lagoon Food Village. Pigged out on a lot of barbecued and grilled food, of which included satay, barbecued chicken wings, oyster omelette and the grilled sambal stingray. It truly was a feast to die for! Caught up quite a bit with the ex-schoolmates I haven't met up for a while as well, so all was great. And I really have them to thank for coming down despite their immense workload from school, and the fact that they haven't really finished studying for their various class tests.

Planning for this day did stretch me quite a bit, but I guess in the end it was all worthwhile. Furthermore, it was also my fault for assuming tasks only when deadlines started drawing really near. But I guess the whole experience was a blessing in disguise; managed to really talk to a couple of friends whom I would usually not hold conversations with. Met up with Liting & Edenuis at MOS Burger Bedok Point yesterday, after which I engaged Yiren, Junjie & Kristine at the McDonald's opposite our secondary school. Also, though there were some things that didn't exactly work out quite right, with the help of people who care, I managed to let unpleasant issues go surprisingly quickly. And I'm really grateful for that! Feeling so blessed right now. :)

Apart from my miscellaneous plans, school has also been doing great at keeping me really busy. For one, I now know the importance of really leaving holiday homework for the holidays, though I still can't see myself rectifying my "vice" of procrastinating homework till after school reopens. But school is, after all, still a bitch. And nothing will ever change that fact, at least not until the day I graduate.

As mentioned earlier, hopefully tomorrow will be the final busy day of this week. Really need some time to take a breather and really just rest. It's just crazy, how I've been coming home after dark every day the past few days and all. After training tomorrow, I shall burn the midnight oil in preparation for Friday's "much anticipated" Chemistry test. And that should be all for the hellish week already. No, actually, it must be all.

Penultimate

So today's been a really long day, and just the thought of blogging about today makes me feel really lazy. But after some consideration, I figured that if I just let the tomorrows pile up, I'll have to write even longer entries in the future, and waste even more time trying to recall what happened for each day I put off writing (come to think of it, this might just be the next motivation for me to blog regularly).

Yesterday night, or more aptly, this morning, I turned in at the usual ungodly hour of 4am, despite being perfectly aware that I would have to wake up at 9am in time for TJCarnival 2012 (my school's open house). I woke up half an hour late in the end, and although it was very demoralising, I still dragged myself to school in the end — a result of an extremely difficult struggle against my bed.

Another reason why I would so rather stay in bed then was because my school's notorious for its mediocre open house programmes, and before anyone starts pointing fingers, I'm sure that at least a dozen other TJC Year 1 students from 2011 will agree. But in hindsight, I guess my trip to Bedok's hellhole today wasn't really a wasted one. This year's TJCarnival adopted a similar format to last year's, but I saw some improvements here and there, which was great. :) For one, the stage performances this year were much better (really enjoyed the rendition of 'Pumped Up Kicks'), and I think this year's open house was the first to see cheerleading performances... if I'm not ignorant at least.

But the irony was that I was supposed to promote the swim team at the open house, not to watch the performances. I did contribute something, though — I took up the job of the TJ Ambassador, which was to show the visitors around the school (it's such a pity I don't have the shirt, just sayin'). But being an 'ambassador', at the very least, enriched my sense of (twisted) humour. Seeing how all those students, fresh from secondary school, didn't have a single clue whatsoever of the hell which awaited them if they chose to enroll into a JC... I just couldn't help but find entertainment out of that. But karma's already bitten me long ago, for I already know that ahead of me lies a predicament that's much worse (sigh).

During the open house, Atika dropped by to pay us (more specifically, Rashid) a visit as well, and when we brought her to Janet, she went nuts... literally. But actually, what really happened was that she started exclaiming and jumping in joy. But before she could do anything else, the kacang putih cones she held toppled and the nuts sprawled all over the floor. It was an embarrassing scene, but well, it's not like she had any shame to begin with, HAHA.

Got off my duties at 2pm anyway, after which I headed to the hawker centre opposite school to have lunch with Rashid & Janet. Headed home immediately after lunch, only to go out again shortly after taking a shower. Initially I was just gonna head straight to church, but I made an impromptu decision to meet Rashid & Janet yet again, this time at Old Airport Road. Wanted to be there to witness their "Lao Ban moment", hahaha. Singaporeans will get what I mean perfectly. :)

Was half an hour late for church in the end, but the service was a long one, so I guess I didn't miss out on a lot. Got really drowsy halfway through, but for some weird reason, I became wide awake all of a sudden after a period of time, lol. I'm guessing it's probably due to a burst of energy.

And admittedly, service today wasn't a very fruitful one. And to make things worse, I'm starting to harbour some doubts... but I guess it's still better if I hung on for a while more so as to catch a clearer picture of the entire situation.

Oh well, guess that's all for my day today. Tomorrow's gonna be the last day of the November/December holidays (LE SIGH)... I'd better treasure it while it lasts.

Simple days

Went to Tampines Regional Library again today to hit the books with Rashid & Yiren. Only managed to cover Cellular Respiration though, so my time there wasn't very productive. But well, at least that's better than nothing.

Left the place at around 7.30pm with Rashid for the Popeyes at Tampines Mall, where I satiated my craving for fast food (or more specifically, fried chicken). Thoroughly enjoyed the meal (well definitely!) and of course, the company. :)

And I guess that was all for my day today. Will be up for dinner with E391 tomorrow at the Just Acia at Dhoby Ghaut Xchange; hope it'll end the break on a high note!

Mundane beginnings

On New Year's Day, I spent time with my classmates in a chalet at Aloha Changi. Practically, it was a failure, because less than half the class showed up, leaving the organisers unable to cover the expenses. But the good thing was that since the costs were too huge to be completely absorbed by the people who went, the class will be claiming payments even from those who decided to give the chalet a miss once school reopens. Though I can't help but feel that it was such a pity everyone checked out by the second day because there just weren't enough people willing/able to stay over. To make things worse, the chalet was really spacious! Bigger than my flat, at the very least.

Thankfully, the chalet only remained a logistical failure. Genuinely enjoyed everyone's company during the time I was there, and the fact that we got just enough food for the barbecue's really comforting... at least for a person like me who simply loathes wasting food. The food was good too, and the best part was that they were spicy! There was sambal... everything, including stingray & sotong, of course. Although I had sambal stingray and chicken satay earlier that day for lunch with my family at the Changi Village food centre nearby (très delicious, by the way!), I still claimed my share of the barbecue food. Heheheh

The next day, Michelle, Cally, Amira, Hannah & I had a meeting for our Economics project at my place, but we didn't actually get much work done. Cally brought along the souvenirs she bought for us from the Taiwan though, including the I♥TW shirt I asked for:

Personally I find it weird to take pictures of a shirt and even weirder — to make the pictures look deep & artistic lol, but the urge to snap some photos just hit me when I took it out of the closet. Which is still weird, but since when have I been normal, really.

Lol anyway, the following day was yet another mundane whirl of events; the only difference was the company. Went to Tampines Regional Library to catch up on my work with Rashid & Atika, though I didn't get much done lol. That day was also a bad one for me. I was already late in setting off to start with, and the weather that afternoon was terribly hot. Despite that, I just had to make a trip all the way to the IKEA bus stop only to realise that I left my file at home. And the best part was that I didn't even touch that file the whole time I was at the library.

Stopped studying earlier than usual because all of us acknowledged that it wasn't a productive session at all, after which I had dinner with Rashid before hopping on a bus home from the interchange.

In hindsight, I guess the first few days of 2012 played out rather mundanely for me. Though I shouldn't say it's a bad thing. Once school starts in 4 days (gasp), I'd probably do anything to get my mundane life back.

Yet another year

First off,

Happy New Year 2012!

And as much as I'd love to word a long, thoughtful entry to reflect on the past year and to shed some light on my hopes and expectations for 2012... I'm just not in the optimal state of mind to do that now. So I thought I'd let a set of questions I stumbled upon while browsing a blog lend their guidance, and well, I hope my answers will suffice, both for myself and for anyone who's reading this. Here goes nothing!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Pursued my own personal hell by enrolling into JC as a Science student, swam competitively, got myself tanned so badly such that I could easily pass off as a Muslim, let my temper and emotions run wild and free because I just couldn't care less for the constant pressures and stresses of school anymore, became more indifferent to my relationships and less possessive towards the people I care for.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I like to believe that I'm a spontaneous person who easily forgets (for 2011, especially) issues that are more long-sighted in nature... and that includes new year's resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
It'd be shocking if it happened, hahaha.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Fortunately, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
Incredible India! Or more specifically, the Indian Himalayan Region.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
I genuinely want to become better at keeping relationships, but I can foresee it being a difficult task because next year's just going to be so, so tiring. And considering how I'm much better company in face-to-face situations, I'll just grow further apart from the close friends whom I will not be seeing very often anymore.
I would also like to gain back some lost optimism towards my life; lost, due to all the numbing circumstances of the past year, as well as strive to believe that everything I do has meaning and purpose.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
October 27: the day my group and I printed our report for Project Work.
December 4: the night I set off for the Himalayan expedition.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Completed 100m breaststroke at a time way faster than expected during the Nationals, topped my class for General Paper during both exams, passed all subjects and got promoted to J2 cleanly, conquered the Himalayan expedition.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Allowed ulterior motives to dictate my thoughts and actions, did not let go of some suspicions and assumptions towards the people around me, did not draw a distinction between doing something out of passion and doing something out of discipline.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Apart from some food poisoning during the middle of the year, no (thankfully!).

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A nice pair of Nike canvas shoes (sorry for being superficial, haha)!

12. Where did most of your money go?
Food, notes, transport, clothes, books.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Nothing happened such that I got extremely excited, but because 2011 was a year where I had to just grit my teeth and dive headfirst into various difficult circumstances, I really learnt how to cherish, revel in and look forward to even the littlest bit of happiness in life whenever I had the chance to.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
倪安東 - 散場的擁抱, 胡夏 - 那些年, MP魔幻力量 - 放了自己, 田馥甄 - 還是要幸福, Birdy - Skinny Love, Wakey!Wakey! - Light Outside, Adele - Make You Feel My Love, Dear Cloud - 늦은 혼자말, Loveholic - Rainy Day.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder?
Sadder.

Older or wiser?
Both.

Thinner or fatter?
Very unfortunately, thinner. Ever since junior college made a wreck out of my life, haha.

Richer or poorer?
Poorer I think! I bought a lot of stuff this year as compared to previous years; also, I had my classmates come over to my place for project meetings very frequently this year, so my parents, being over-generous people, stuffed them with so much of (my precious) food, hahaha.

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading, designing, playing the guitar, watching films. I wish I got my creative juices flowing more often; I felt like an empty shell too many times last year.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on social networking sites, especially Facebook and (I hate to admit it) Tumblr, spending time socialising and having meals outside instead of at home.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
Spent it at church as audience to a pleasant drama production, as well as over a delightful dinner. Also made greeting cards for the first time in my life.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
Korean dramas.

20. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
From experience... it's just tiring to hate and spend time thinking bad thoughts toward a person.

21. What was the best book you read?
Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood.

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
胡夏 & 田馥甄 (Mandarin), As Tall As Lions & Katie Costello (English), Tablo (Korean), Do As Infinity (Japanese), Coeur de Pirate (French), The Album Leaf (Instrumental)

23. What did you want and get?
Material possessions including books, a smartphone, a daypack (just), nice clothes.

24. What did you want and not get?
More fulfilling relationships with friends I thought highly of.

25. What was your favorite film of this year?
Harry Potter.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Powerpoint slides for PW OP, meet-ups with friends at random places in school for them to pass me their gifts, a nice seafood dinner with my family at East Coast Park.

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Really, there wasn't anything that could have made 2011 better... I'm just glad I survived the year.

28. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
It's definitely become more... westernised. I pay much more detail to colours now than I ever did before, and I find it good that I'm starting to be more conscious about my dressing.

29. What kept you sane?
Weekly meet-ups with people who matter, good food from hawker centres, trips to new and lesser-travelled places, Chinese radio during late nights I would spend on Project Work.

30. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
J.K. Rowling, Emma Watson, 倪安東, 楊丞琳, Choi Sooyoung, IU.

31. What issue stirred you the most?
March 11 Japanese earthquake & tsunami, 16th Singapore General Elections, 10th anniversary of 9/11, Arab Spring.

32. Who did you miss?
How I used to be with many of my close friends today, but still, that's already history.

33. Who was the best new person you met?
Ms Angeline Quek, Ms Ivonne Awyong, and 17/11, especially Michelle, Sheryl, Cally, Kai Yuan, Teck Wee, and my PW group, for giving me so much to remember.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
There are no regrets in life; the good experiences make pleasant memories, and the mistakes, lessons learnt.