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.

A day documented with Instagram

As mentioned in the previous post, today was supposed to be a hectic day, and it definitely was, though I woke up in the morning feeling really lazy — swear all I wanted to do then was just camp in my room and watch episode after episode of 'Heartstrings' until I was done with it, hahaha. And I did indeed watch 'Heartstrings', though what I actually did was halfway between being a punctual boy and turning up at Paya Lebar station at 1.20pm sharp and being an utterly lazy pig and not leaving the house at all — I watched one more episode of the drama series and told the rest I'd be going down with Rashid & Li Ting, the two people who already planned to turn up late beforehand. The ones who went ahead first are so going to kill me once they read this, lol...

Met Rashid & Li Ting at Tampines station at around 2pm anyway, after which we went to the food court upon Li Ting's request to have her lunch. Because I took my lunch before I left home, I spent the time there fooling around with the Instagram app on my iPod touch, which later became brutally abused (will be made apparent by the upcoming picspams). While I was busy snapping away, Rashid & Li Ting had their lunch — two kaya toast & egg breakfast sets. If their appetites aren't weird, then I don't know what is.

After lunch, we went down to Bras Basah station in search of The Mind Cafe along Prinsep Street, where the rest were. Was a little bewildered initially, but with a little dose of common sense, we managed to get to the place pretty quickly in the end.

The Mind Cafe wasn't exactly what I envisioned it to be; the place was noisy and cramped, but of course, there was a generous selection of games. But shortly after we met the rest at the cafe, Rashid, Li Ting & I decided to leave the place, as since we reached so late, it'd be unprofitable if we were to stay and be charged the same rates as everyone else. And so we headed to the public area in LaSalle College of the Arts to... well, lepak.

We then caught up with the rest shortly after they left the cafe to walk to Liang Seah Street together.

Once we got there, we scouted around for a suitable steamboat restaurant, and quickly landed on our final decision. While waiting for more friends to arrive, we went to prepare the food and got the soup bases ready.

After I had my fill, I rushed off to Marine Parade for the E391 thanksgiving party at Faith's place, but by the time I got there, most of the activities were already over; but well, at least I didn't give it a complete miss, hahaha.

The journey home today was a rather different, or should I say special, one. For one, it made me realise my stupidity in all its glory, lol. Hui Yen & I hopped on a bus from the Mandarin Gardens stop which took us to Little India station via the city, i.e. Bugis. So that means I could've just boarded the same bus to Faith's place when I was leaving Liang Seah Street earlier, instead of hopping on a packed, half-hour train ride to Bedok... LE SIGH.

It was also special in the sense that today, Hui Yen made her maiden trip to Little India station. It's hard to believe, and especially so because she's Singaporean! But that's not really the point — when we were at the platform waiting for the train, she completely lost it, and it was hilarious. Made a fool of ourselves by taking some retarded photos, and we even documented it on Twitter, hahaha.

Also realised that nowadays, whenever it comes to going home with her, we'll stop at Punggol station. And I don't mind it at all actually; I really enjoy bus rides along expressways at night. And I'm guessing it's also a form of payback for all the times she was the last one to leave the bus when the few of us went home together after school. :P

Well, to sum it all up, I had a surprisingly blissful & enjoyable day. And it's definitely a good way to end the year. :)

Finally a slower-paced day

Did a lot of useless things today, lol, but like what John Lennon said, time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. :P

Was on Facebook when my PRC friend from secondary school posted that he's 已婚 on the secondary school class page. Initially I was kinda chua tio, but I almost forgot he's 3 years older than the rest of us, haha. But as of now I'm still not sure if what he said was true. It'd be cool if it was, though; people living in modern Singapore rarely tie the knot at the young age of 20... with the exception of some Malay communities I guess.

Yesterday was spent catching up with Janet & Hui Jie at Bedok. Initially, we planned to do a little bit of homework in the library but we ended up doing everything else instead, including using Facebook to introduce pretty girls from our campuses (lmao), and talking about people from secondary school. The conversations we had were very shallow, but they were still entertaining nonetheless. :P

Had lunch at this economical Japanese restaurant, and it was good because we went during the lunch hour yet there weren't many people around. The servings were extremely generous considering the prices, and we were even offered a student special which was an on-the-house snack. Furthermore, there was also a free flow of Japanese green tea. You can say that it was the perfect lunch, heh. :)

Went back to the library to do a bit more work after lunch before we headed out to walk around the town centre. Got ice cream before settling down at the open area outside KFC when we stumbled upon a weird, half-naked man lol. Like every random weird person, he was busy mumbling to himself. After a while, though, he stood up and walked towards Hui Jie and told her that she was gorgeous and that it was an honour to be able to sit near her. L-O-L. Obviously, we were freaked out.

When he was still eyeing us after quite a while, we left the place in a hurry for Bedok Point. Headed to this bookstore at the basement which sold a ton of cheap stationery from mainland China. And when I said cheap, I mean filthy cheap. I got myself a decent-looking pencil which costs a mere 50 cents, and the place also sold pens priced at no more than $1. Really not sure where else in Singapore one will be able to find such neat deals, haha. Really should stop by the place more often when walking to the station from school next time.

Went home after we browsed enough of the place because Hui Jie had to rush off for tuition class. Switched on the TV the minute I got home for MAMA 2011, and it was really awesome. I didn't really think much of the fact that Singapore's the host this year, but after watching the event in its full glory, I was really impressed. Was in Macau during MAMA 2010 last year, but I believe Singapore did a way better job at hosting, heh. :)

On to the meat of MAMA. My favourite performances of the night were that of 2NE1 and Girls' Generation; they were really amazing. I still can't comprehend how SNSD was able to nail their dance so smoothly with uncomfortable high heel shoes (respect!). I also enjoyed the visual theme of the awards ceremony, it adopted an unconventional (in a good way) method of introducing the nominees for each category and all, haha. Overall I enjoyed the ceremony very much (probably also because I managed to see Choi Sooyoung & Han Hyo Joo!). :D

Hmm, guess that's all I have to write for today. Tomorrow'll be another hectic day, with water training and meet-ups with some friends. Hope it'll be good. :)

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. :)

Not TGIF, but rather, for the weekend

Woke up at 1.30pm today! Feels so awesome. :) Thank God for the weekend!

The past week has simply been craaaazy. Yesterday was yet another one of those long Fridays again. And seriously, I doubt I've ever had a free Friday when I can just go home after school even once this year. My life's that sad.

Had to bring training attire, my very, very heavy laptop and the usual books and notes to school yesterday because 1. I had PE in the morning, 2. I had yet another PW presentation in the noon and 3. I was (supposed) to have OBI training and then land training after school, after which I would make my way down to Daryl's place for cell group meeting. Can you imagine how refreshing my schedule was?!

I really, really loathe school now because of all the presentation sessions; it just means that I'll have to always carry a heavy laptop to school because right now, I'm the only person in the group who has one. Actually, someone else used to do the bringing, but apparently he lost his charger in the school we conducted our project's pilot test in. =_=' He didn't show up yesterday anyway, so it made no difference... I'd still have to bring it.

After school, Ms Quek called Fransisca and told her that our PW report has been graded. So in the end, I went for an impromptu meeting with Ms Quek to discuss the report, and it didn't end until about 7pm. And that's how I completely missed all the training sessions I was supposed to go for after school. I would so rather train, though. :S

Michelle & Amira waited in the room for us to finish, after which we went down to Mac's together with Cally. Kai Yuan joined us a while later.

Were happily munching on our fries and talking over the meal, when Michelle started noticing this woman who kept looking at our direction and smiling whenever one of us glanced at her. We feared that she'd approach us sooner or later, but she really did in the end, and she got Kai Yuan to help her set up Internet on her iPhone. As expected of weird people (sorry but, yeah =_='), she didn't even have Internet access in the first place, so Kai Yuan had to let her use the Internet provided by his iPhone. After he fixed the Internet, she walked away, so he went all, "I think she's gonna come back soon because my Internet can only reach that far". And after he said that, everyone on the table gave this why-the-heck-did-you-just-let-her-use-your-Internet kind of face. HAHA.

After a short while, this plump man who looked almost exactly like the weird woman came in and sat near us. When I first saw him I thought the woman really returned, and Michelle went all "I know right?!". We didn't notice him walking back to buy his food, so when we were discussing about whether the woman will return, we saw him walk back to his seat again and once again, everyone of us had a mini heart-attack, hahaha. But the weirdness didn't stop there; shortly after, Cally went, "She's back again. I'm serious". And voila, we saw her again, and she even approached us once more. And as expected, she was rambling about how her connection broke, and tried to get everyone of us to fix it back. =_=' We made her leave our table in the end.

Seriously can't take weird people... and that's precisely the reason why I started disliking Bedok since yesterday.

Went down to Daryl's place after dinner for cell group meeting with Tina. It was great! :) Been really long ever since I sat for such an insightful message, though I don't mean it's bad that usually, we would gather and share our experiences and revelations. I couldn't really concentrate during P&W though, probably because I was just too tired. There's only so much I can take, and this week had drained me completely.

Reached home around 11, and that marked the end to a really, really long Friday. Gonna rest all I can... before starting on my revision for Chinese. :(