A time to be thankful

It's true that there's really no incentive to blog when next to nobody knows that this place actually exists. But I'd rather have things this way, though - too many people I know dismiss the idea of blogs as ~overtly sentimental~ (much to the internal shrugging of my head in sheer dismay), and I'd love to be spared of the uncomfortable feelings that come when my friends who don't exactly understand why I'm so writing-inclined (or ~artsy~, for that matter) question my ways of doing things... simply because they don't see the need to. But as for me, writing remains an important part of my life, despite the fact that now, I only do it occasionally. My future self will ponder this in retrospection and be thankful that I wrote whatever I wrote now, no matter how trivial, hahaha. And as for those who see things the way I do, in an attempt to be subtle and intuitive, I've definitely left more than enough footprints that lead to this place. So all is well. :)

Life has been pretty... stable? lately. This period has been one of collecting and organising my thoughts, and making sense of them. We're back to the quiet, idyllic stage of the army lifestyle, and it's good, but of course, too much of a good thing (I'm three weeks into this stage) is always bad. Recently, I've begun to feel unproductive yet again, and apart from making a couple of tentative plans for December and the upcoming year, I've been trying to get those creative juices running again. Am embarking on quite a major yet personal end-year project, so let's see how it goes when it finally comes to fruition. :)

Some of the weekends while I was away from here was spent cafe-hopping around Jalan Besar which was quite enjoyable for an activity that isn't exactly very stimulating, haha. In my opinion, the hype over these sorts of independent cafes in Singapore has started to die down, following a personal observation that the number of pretty/well-considered Instagram photos of the food and interiors of such places has kinda reached the tipping point. Nevertheless, I'll still jump on the bandwagon if I can, because I'm pretty much a sucker for good iPhone photography myself. But from the foodie point of view, I'll always go for hawker/coffee-shop dishes or meals from traditionally acclaimed/popular restaurants any time, because most cafes here continue to bank on their aesthetic. Though I have to say that the Pancakes Stack you see above from The Bravery really quite hits the spot. It's served with ricotta cheese, bananas, chopped pistachios and a dose of honey that's just right. I'm not a very great fan of cheese in general, but the flavour of the ricotta cheese did not stand distinguished from the rest; in fact, it blended in really well with the overall sweetness of the stack, contributing a pleasant, mildly milky taste. And with the bananas that smelled REALLY good, it goes into the (rather short) list of cafe food which I enjoy.

(feat. terrible enlistment day selfie at BMTC Cookhouse 3 which isn't supposed to exist lol)

Also, 12 Dec marked my anniversary as a soldier, and that will leave me with exactly 365 days left. One year on, I see how NS has changed me, both for better (and worse). Working with my platoon as a scout has made clear the values I should hold on to. I did things I never thought I was capable of doing, yet I was always humbled. Most importantly, I learned a lot about gratitude, and to make the best of whatever decisions I make, good or (mostly) bad. And despite having written my fair share of all that in all the previous posts leading up to this, I still won't say that I'm definitely where I'm supposed to be, but yeah, I'm learning. And when the time comes for me to leave... BYE HAHA, but I'll definitely know enough to keep improving as a person. :) 

In other news, church has been really exciting lately, which is a given since it's Thanksgiving/Christmas period. However, I spent the Sunday just past as well as last Sunday with the bunch of church mates closest to me and celebrated Sheryl's and Hui Yen's birthdays with them. Celebrated Sheryl's day with a picnic in the park... and in the rain, but that didn't really manage to dampen our spirits, as being with them was already interesting enough. It's funny yet great how our silly antics never get old, and they're really a bunch I can spend a lot of time with without having to put in much effort into thinking out productive conversations or fun things to do.

Last weekend was completely... devoured? engulfed? by church, but in a good way despite the extreme verbs, lol. The highlights were candlelight service and the E391 Thanksgiving party; as usual, candlelight service was all prettied-up and photogenic, but it was especially heartwarming because of the great Christmas mood and Presence. :) On Sunday we kicked off our tradition of Thanksgiving parties at Costa Sands, and it was great to see everyone so involved in the celebrations one way or another. Helped out with the preparation of the cooked food before going down (which was a rather impromptu decision, but I guess it did help hone my poorly developed cooking instincts), and the BBQ was awesome as well. It was also an opportunity for all of us to get together and look back in 2013 with clarity, conviction and maturity, and hearing the testimonies as well as seeing the efforts of fellow CG members get acknowledged is definitely something to keep in memory for the years to come.

As the year's drawing to a close, there's gonna be a couple more good changes to anticipate, what with an awesomely long block leave from 20 Dec all the way through 5 Jan. I'll definitely get as many things done by the end of this year as I can, and personally draw the willpower from within me to water my own grass green in preparation for the year to come. As I'm writing this, it feels like I'm on the verge of gulping back words and promises, but note to self: it'll never hurt to try. Never 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! :)

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.

Superman only for a Saturday

(via noobsaucedelight.tumblr.com)

Found this while browsing Tumblr and thought it was rather... exquisite, haha. It's a banana popsicle modelled after a real banana, and I'm guessing the peel's jelly. Want to try it so badly, but unfortunately, it's only found in Taiwan.

Speaking of Taiwan, I've been crazy over the island nation lately, probably because I've been exposing myself to a lot more Mandarin pop music and Taiwanese drama serials compared to last time. And the fact that a lot of my friends are in Taiwan right now either on my school's immersion programme or a simple family getaway doesn't make it better at all. Either way, I'm terribly envious... but hey, at least I stand a chance of looking forward to souvenirs when they return. Heh.

Guess I should get started on the meat of this entry: what I've been up to the past few days. First off, there was the swim camp, which I guess I'll elaborate next time in greater detail... provided I don't put it off (which I probably will). But if I were to provide a short overview... I guess it was alright? Wasn't that enjoyable, but I shouldn't ask for more, being the wallflower in the team and all.

Yesterday was eventful as well, though it didn't start on a high note. Due to the fact that I returned from camp only at midnight, I woke up late that morning... much to my despair. And that got me jumping out of bed in horror and hurrying to switch on my laptop, at the same time praying I would be able to complete Christon's birthday card design on time. But I managed to with some time to spare in the end, which was a huge relief.

Met Rashid at Changi City Point after printing the final design to pass him some construction paper so he could make his card as well. But shortly after meeting him I had to rush off to Kembangan to meet Christon, Cliff & Yi Ren and go down to Jurong West for service with them. So basically the whole while I was running from place to place. :/

On a side note, it didn't occur to me that Christon's wrist fracture was that bad until I noticed that he wasn't only 'flaunting' an arm cast; the cast had to be supported by cloth tied around his neck as well. Praying for his quick healing!

Back to topic — throughout the entire train ride from Kembangan all the way to Pioneer, we were engaged in a game of Risk on Cliff's iPad (it was my first attempt at that game). As usual, I'm always the slowest when it comes to picking up new things... so I ended up losing the game very terribly. :S

Moving on to service. In hindsight, it was OK. Phil Pringle was being a little incoherent as usual, but I took home some cool knowledge from his sharing. Like how the Bible had this numerical significance to it. It's really amazing though. Dan Brown can probably employ the knowledge in his future novels or something, heh.

After service, we celebrated Christon's birthday and while the rest left first, I hurried to prepare his birthday card before joining them a little later at Jurong Point. Had dinner at the 家香面 shop there, delicious as expected. :) Also got to know that Shanggei's sister did very well for the PSLE over our meal, and it didn't occur to me as a surprise. She'll most probably be up for Cedar Girls' Secondary School's IP culminating in Victoria JC. And speaking of VJ, the school's been opening up more and more affiliations lately... won't be surprised if its cut-off L1R5 aggregate for future JAEs drops to 2. :S TJ should really have affiliations of its own as well, it ain't that bad as it's made out to be. :P

Anyway, headed straight home after dinner with a few church mates after much indecision and dilly-dallying on the cell group's part (as usual). And with that, my Saturday was concluded.

Too lazy to continue with writing about today... lol. Forever procrastinating. Tomorrow, perhaps? :)

A week worthy of remembrance

你说我傻　傻在爱上没有感情的分身
我说你傻　傻在爱他就固执的奋不顾身
我们都傻　傻在宁愿被牺牲也不愿放弃天真
还在期待会有奇迹出现

So... what have I been up to lately, you may ask. Well, recently I've been watching this Taiwanese drama series titled '醉后决定爱上你'. It's an enjoyable catch, but not the best I'd say. It's really humourous though (one of the selling points of the drama). Also, the leads act really well. Rainie Yang 杨丞琳 and Joseph Chang 张孝全 (seen in the MV above) already make an amazing pair to begin with. :) The cheesiness of the show is also at a threshold that is tolerable, and I assume it's because of its Mandarin nature. For some reason, love expressed in Chinese comes off as more of appropriately romantic — artistic, even — rather than mushy and goosebump-inducing. That's fortunate I guess, because I only watch Asian dramas. :P

Besides catching up on TV, for the past few days I've also been meeting up with people who matter. :) And that definitely gave me a pleasant sense of fulfillment!

On Friday, I went out with Rashid, Janet & Sylvia to visit BookFest 2011 at Suntec City (the book fair I worked for last December). Didn't get anything, or rather, didn't dare to get anything, because the BookFest's forever packed like a can of sardines, and this makes the queues at the cashier counters snake on and on and on. Would've stayed there till maybe 9pm if we decided to get something, haha.

Walked to Marina Square after we've browsed the place enough, where I headed to the MUJI store to get a 2012 schedule. I didn't in the end, because no matter how much I was tempted to, I still convinced myself in the end that buying a schedule from the store simply equals daylight robbery, heh. I'm just terribly thrifty like that.

Left the store shortly after we entered to browse even more within the vicinity. While browsing, we stumbled upon a number of interesting gift stores. Even chanced upon a store selling African- & Indian American-themed stuff, and personally I was fascinated by them, especially the dreamcatchers. They bore an exquisite charm, far beyond that in the photos with random models I usually see reblogged all over Tumblr, haha.

But despite all the heavy window-shopping we did, I fulfilled my mission in the end, which was to get a new pair of jeans. Guess you can say I'm a happy child now. :D

Had dinner at the food court with the breathtaking view of the Singapore skyline after all the walking around. The fact that it was during the evening made everything a whole lot better. :)

Saturday night was spent with my church mates. Was initially running late for church, but thankfully my dad offered to drive me to Bartley station to make my journey a little quicker. :) Got to Jurong West a little late in the end still, but not late enough to miss anything major.

Hate how recently services have always been like that lor... I even realised that I was dragging myself to church and cell group meetings at times, probably because of my own entanglements with some people there. But not to worry, if one of you readers is currently a cell group mate of mine, I don't plan on leaving church or anything of that sort. It's just... I probably need to get over certain problems on my part, and fortunately I'm currently doing a good job. :) God's really been answering my prayers faithfully. SO... not to worry.

The process of finding a place for dinner that night was spontaneous in a good way. :) And I really liked it. Initially we had planned to go all the way to Clementi, but we chose to drop off halfway at some random place within a HDB jungle in the end. Apparently the place is Gek Poh Shopping Centre, just another one of those neighbourhood centres.

Went home with Hui Yen after dinner, and it's becoming more and more of a routine. I'd prefer it that way, though. It's never awkward when I'm with her, and that applies with the friends whom I find very dear to me. :)

Sunday night was spent catching up with Hui Jie & Yu Yun at Tampines. Had dinner at Manpuku, where we talked about people, events, our schools, aspirations, plans, ideas... everything under the sun for that matter. Really enjoy how they're always able to enrich my way of thinking from every angle. And how our conversations can just go on and on and on. I still remember the brief period before the O-Levels — we were always studying together at White Sands, and always ending up chatting away non-stop, hahaha.

Went back to school yesterday, and I have to say, it's really pointless now. Headed home after lunch with the second row to catch some zzz's before training at ITE Simei, after which I met up with Yi Ren, Jia Yu, Cliff & Terence at Bedok to prepare for Hing Cheung's birthday surprise outside his Kembangan terrace, heh. It was pretty successful!

Took the train home after everything with Jocelyn. And she told me about how she knows that I keep a blog, lol. Now that really freaked me out... in a good way, I guess? :) It's always nice to know that I have readers, after all, I dedicate a lot of time to blogging whenever I decide to do it. So if you're a reader, please drop a message or even leave a comment... I really won't mind. With your name of course. I really don't bite. :)

Anyway, I just returned home from dinner with Michelle & Sheryl at Old Airport Road. Initially planned to go down to Parkway after for some book sale Sheryl was interested in going... but didn't in the end, due to their curfews (tsk). Chatted with Michelle on the way home about the usual (hahaha), as well as about some struggles on my part. But I believe at the end of the day all of us'll be just fine. :)

Well, guess I've blogged enough... time to sleep. School tomorrow and swim camp the day after, and no, I'm not looking forward to it.

Every November should be like this year's

Kinda thought that I should make better use out of my time spent on the computer, so instead of the usual stalking on Facebook and the browsing through of a never-ending queue of posts on my Tumblr dashboard, I'm here.

To be honest, blogging has become more and more of an obligation, because it kinda seems as if no one reads my entries, or rather, there isn't much interaction from blogging now, compared to last time. And that has really made this place boring as hell. But I figured that I had a lot to write about anyway.

I shall start with my egg-crack day: Thursday, November 3. It wasn't as big a deal as it was supposed to be (lol) and I was really quite disappointed, but in hindsight, I guess it was okay. Probably a reason behind why I was rather down then is because I'm used to being around people and having friends do all sorts of nice stuff for me, so used such that, unknowingly, I've started harbouring greater expectations from everyone.

The morning of my birthday was spent finishing up my PW OP slides during free periods in school. Dry, isn't it? But I just had to do it being the perfectionist I was. Just couldn't leave the job to someone else and be assured that everything'll sail smoothly. :S

Jasper went to find me after the Economics lecture to pass me my gift — a very beautiful tumbler with a photo collage. I was also given a birthday surprise after school by a couple of my closer classmates. On top of that, Rashid & Janet came to find me to pass me a huge plastic board they made complete with birthday greetings. :D

Went for dinner at East Coast Park with my parents after school. Had it at Jumbo restaurant, was pretty good. :) Went home shortly after, where Hui Yen met me to pass me her gift, haha. Was really sweet of her to come down and all!

Shared another birthday cake with my family, and when the candles went out, my birthday more or less ended.

November 4 was slightly better, but it just went downhill towards the end. Don't really want to remember that night; took me quite some of effort and self-encouragement to get over it.

After school that day, I went down to Parkway Parade with some secondary school friends to hang out for a bit and have a celebratory lunch together at Pastamania. I left them early to meet some of my classmates and head over to Somerset to catch 'Footloose'. The movie was okay, but I expected much more emphasis on dance, hahaha. The country soundtrack was good though.

November 5 all the way till November 10, which was the last day of PW for me, was spent with my PW group on OP, the final component. Hosted one of the meetings, and brought them to the McDonald's nearby for lunch, where we bumped into Jun Jie's PW group, haha. Because the final lap is usually the busiest, I compromised quite a lot of trainings, but it's not like compromises have never been made before then; I really did a lot of work for the damned subject.

The day of my PW group's OP was November 10, and it was really dramatic one (in a bad way of course). Was up for the afternoon session along with TJ082, Teck Wee's group. In summary, one of my group members got into trouble with the examiners, and this worked well as a major morale destroyer, after which we met with technical difficulties once at the start, once in the middle and once at the end of the presentation. The outcome? Two of my members breaking into tears after OP, when all of us were supposed to celebrate the end to a whole year's worth of hell. But they're really not to blame, though. But overall, the OP was still alright.

Our group was also not the only one that met with a whirlwind of... interesting, events. Teck Wee's group saw a rather awful spat between two members after OP, which left one storming out of the school. But of course, we did still take some celebratory photos after everyone calmed down and all. At least.

My 11/11/11 was spent with my class and E391. Met Michelle, Amira, Hannah & Cally in the late morning for lunch at Tampines Swensen's, after which we went down to the Udders at Siglap for the class gathering to spend the $200 worth of ice cream vouchers we won from various school events. It was a pretty successful gathering I guess. :)

Headed home for dinner after the gathering and left the house again in the evening for CGM. It was kinda ridiculous because the venue was at Opera Estate, somewhere near Siglap. So essentially I went from Siglap to Pasir Ris and back again, tsk.

Compared to the previous session, CGM that night was much better. Everything was great, from the worship, to the testimony and finally the word. Hui Jie & Yu Yun came along as well, so I had a good time of catching up with some friends I haven't met in a while too. We arranged for dinner next Sunday; can't wait. :)

The morning of November 12 was spent at the Outward Bound campus over at East Coast Park. Came totally unprepared for the gear check for the upcoming India expedition, and as a form of reflection (I already made plans to go shopping actually), I met my parents and we headed down to Queensway Shopping Centre to get my track pants, track shoes as well as a pair of fashionable Nike shoes (which I didn't intend to get initially), haha.

Dropped off at Suntec City after the shopping session for church service. Rev. John Bevere was up that week, and he was powerful and charismatic as usual. Rarely do I ever come across such outgoing and engaging speakers! Thoroughly enjoyed my time with him. And the word he shared was one in season, too. :)

After service, I headed down to Old Airport Road with E391 for a time of fellowship over dinner. Had good chicken chop and I finally got more of my friends to try the amazingly delicious tauhuey there! As expected, they claimed that flew up to heaven the moment the beancurd melted in their mouths. :P

November 13 was spent with my family in the morning over a dimsum meal at Paramount Shopping Centre followed by '那些年,我們一起追的女孩 (You Are the Apple of My Eye)' in the afternoon at Cathay E!hub with a bunch of friends from secondary school. Save the coarse language (though it's mild-sounding, probably because I'm not used to Taiwan's conversational Mandarin) and the many sexual references, '那些年' was a quality catch! The entire story was well-linked with a fluent flow, and the ending was made stellar by the beautiful flashbacks which tied everything together tightly. Lovely settings were used as well — a given for Taiwanese films, and they evoked in me a pleasant sense of wanderlust. :)

Headed to the new McDonald's at Pasir Ris Sports Complex after the movie to have some ice-cream and catch up for a bit. Jun Jie passed me his birthday gift there as well, and it was a cool USB modelled after a Canon DSLR camera. :D

Yesterday, being Ms Awyong's birthday, the class made an elaborate plan to surprise her at her house. We met in school and went down together to Parkway Parade to get a birthday cake, after which we headed to our ultimate destination nearby. As planned, she had a pleasant surprise, and even invited us into her quaint and cozy flat. Had a quick celebration, after which we engaged in mahjong and Taboo together.

We left Ms Awyong's place together with her at around 1. Went back to Parkway Parade with some classmates to have lunch, where I bumped into Hui Jie and saw Huang Jun Xiong filming for an upcoming television drama. It was such a pleasant coincidence! The story didn't end there — on the way back to TJ, I not only saw Rui En, but did so at close proximity, haha. That afternoon, Marine Parade was truly a district of stars.

Guess in essence, those were the highlights of the past week. If I feel like it, I'll update this blog again later with what happened today. Stay tuned. :)

Fulfillment beyond description

As I stare at this 'New Post' page, the inertia increases exponentially. It's so true that when you've put something off long enough, it gets harder and harder to pick it up again. That applies for both blogging and swimming, hahaha.

But anyway, I'm here. Straining my brain juices trying to recall what I did over the past week.

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Last Wednesday was complete hell for me. Had a PW meeting in my house from 11am to 9pm. Initially, when I fetched Jeanette & Sean from the station, I told them to end the meeting by 2pm so I could go down to East Coast Park for Terence's birthday BBQ in the evening, and I was even optimistic about us being able to finish on time and all. But as we started working and finding even more mistakes, my plan became nothing but a cruel joke, LOL. But I guess that was expected. We even thought that we could print our report that afternoon; how hilarious can we possibly get!

Of course, we didn't just work, work and work. In between all the PW was pizza, telling Sean to stop walking around the living room again and again (a habit of his), and distraction from my cousins' running about from room to room (thank goodness they left by 4pm). But we were still rather efficient; by the time we finished editing the WR, it was still quite early. But because we spent three freaking hours slashing 565 words off the report... yeah.

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The next day wasn't any better. Just when I thought the report we so painstakingly edited yesterday was the final copy, Jeanette had to look through it one last time when she got home last night, and come to school with a copy full of yellow highlighting over some points we had to look into again. I was really, really annoyed, but at the end of the day, I guess what she did was still for the good of our report. :/

Because of that, we spent the entire day editing the WR again. We wrapped up at around 6pm, after which we headed to the AVA room to find Kai Yuan's group. Helped the group cut a couple of words off their report, after which all of us left school and headed for Katong Shopping Centre. The whole process of leaving school was a complete frenzy; Kai Yuan's group was still busy cutting words while walking to the turnstiles and my group, on the other hand, did some last-minute laptop plugging in the canteen because we forgot to convert our report to PDF. By that time it was already nearing 7pm so we completely freaked out because we thought the printing shop was already closed, haha.

When we stepped out of school, we started running around frantically trying to hail a cab from the main road. It was hilarious, because initially there were no available cabs at all, then all of a sudden, two cabs simultaneously stopped in front of us. Guess God saw our desperation. :O

When we got to the printing shop, we bumped into Teck Wee. Then together, we started working the magic — printing the reports. Seeing half a year's worth of hard work finally take shape gave me such great fulfillment. Not that the effort will definitely pay off, though, but still.

All of us finished the printing at around 8, after which Kai Yuan, Michelle, Sheryl, Zhong Kai & I went to celebrate with dinner at Old Airport Road. Treated myself to the savoury tauhuey there before cabbing home with Michelle & Kai Yuan, tired but very satisfied from having lived through the most memorable night of my J1 life.

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Saturday night's after-service fellowship was a little different. Scooted off with Hui Yen, Daniel & Andy to nex @ Serangoon for dinner while the rest headed to Jurong Point, because most of the people we would usually eat with went home. It was still good though, because small groups travel fast.

After dinner, I went to get Drink Tea with Hui Yen & Daniel. We then walked around nex for a bit before going home. Saw this really attractive adidas Liverpool backpack; a pity I don't subscribe to any football team. xD

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Monday was the day of my GCE A-Level MT exam. To sum it up in three words: 死定了. But I'm still hoping, wishing and praying for an 'A' grade.

Went for lunch at Long John Silver's with the class, before heading home to do a bit of PW and then going for training @ ITE. Training's becoming more and more manageable for me now; hope that's a good sign. But it never fails to worsen my sinusitis condition, sigh.

Collected my laptop from Fransisca & Jeanette at Tanah Merah before heading off to meet my secondary school friends at Eighteen Chefs for dinner after training. Had a really fun time catching up with them! :) Missed them so much, especially the ones from MJ whom I don't really mingle with nowadays, and the VJ peeps.

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After school on Tuesday, I took a new route home with Michelle & Kai Yuan, which was bus 87 from Bedok Interchange to Hougang. The journey was long and winding, but that gave us time to really catch up with one another, and I enjoyed it thoroughly despite my tiredness. Talked about our childhood, and our elaborate and never-ending list of plans to do after PW formally ends, which includes a food hunt all over Singapore, but Michelle's probably gonna miss out on a lot, since she's going to be away most of the time on an SPH internship (which I was supposed to go for as well, but couldn't even sign up for because I was already accepted into OBI), haha. But don't worry, we aren't so evil so as to leave you out. :P

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There's still much more I'd love to write about, but I guess I'll stop here and post another part tomorrow.

p.s. Really glad I've been living life to the fullest every day lately. Am infinitely grateful for the ones who were always by my side; they're the ones who really made it happen. :)

Still chasing my breath

I wanted to put blogging off to a couple of tomorrows, but I ended up here anyway since I'll never start if I keep procrastinating, haha.

So today wasn't a lazy Sunday at all, like how every Sunday's supposed to be. In fact, it was one of the craziest Sundays ever. Probably because I had a PW meeting in my house. No, wait. Precisely because.

Tried to read a little bit of Chemistry in the morning but I had to go down to the station to pick Fransisca up before I could get started on any tutorial, so in the end I didn't really do anything at all. Ran some errands before I met her, including getting myself a new pair of earpieces when I told her I was still buying ink cartridges to print the WR; little did I know that I made her wait for nearly half an hour in the end, haha.

Started with some research to support some new claims we made in our report when we got back. Jeanette came down after a while, and from then on we just went full steam ahead. It was awesome, because for this entire year, we've never had a single productive meeting. Managed to complete editing and printing the report at 9.30pm, with a lot of laughter, jokes and mini antics in between. The objective of the day was bleak, but the process was, well... different. In a good way of course. ;)

My parents were, as usual, extremely amicable and helped me be a good host to my friends. And I really can't thank them enough for that. Looking back at everything they've done today, including encouraging us as we racked our brains over the report and sending Fransisca & Jeanette home, I really have to say that they're the best parents I could ever ask for. Although it's quite annoying how they're way too generous sometimes, haha.

Chilled a little after I got back from sending them home with my dad, before Michelle started a conference call with Sheryl & I to plot a birthday wish for Kai Yuan. Basically she got us to keep quiet, after which she included Kai Yuan into the conference to supposedly discuss PW with him. And then all of a sudden, when the clock struck twelve, we started singing a birthday song for him. It was quite the failure, but at least we did it with sincerity, haha!

Yesterday was a long day as well. In the morning/early afternoon before service, I was over at the Outward Bound Singapore campus at East Coast Park. Had breakfast at Changi Airport McDonald's with Adam, Chu Bin & Alvin before boarding a bus down to the place, where we attended an important briefing about the India trip I'll be going for at the end of this year. Had an ice-breaking session after that, particularly with the Catholic JC students who'll be joining us for the expedition. From the looks of everything, I guess the India expedition's gonna be quite amazing. Though I can't say this so soon. But I should choose to be positive, right?

Got really tired during service because I spent an entire morning out. But the second half really kept me awake, haha. It was basically a really touching display of testimonies from ordinary people who, by the grace of God, overcame their obstacles.

The church screened the live soccer match between Liverpool and Manchester United right after service because Pastor, being the considerate him, knew that they wouldn't get home in time to catch it in its full glory. Since I wasn't that hardcore a fan of either team, I decided to go for dinner before going back to the hall. Had it at Banquet along Esplanade Xchange, but it wasn't exactly that pleasant due to a mishap which ended up with a bag stained by teriyaki sauce, shoes glazed with mayonnaise and chicken sprawled all over the table. And quite a lot of frustration that followed. The situation was overall quite awkward, but I guess everything's been cleared and all.

Despite all the sticky situations, I have to say that I spent this weekend quite fruitfully. And I believe it wouldn't be fruitful if not for the lows and all. Cliched, I know, so I'll stop. :P

Ah... time to face yet another week.