Hollow

I tried to write an entry earlier, but it was scrapped because I realised that the words were just sliding down a slippery slope of depression, unhappiness, emptiness, among other unpleasant feelings. I wouldn't deny that I haven't been feeling very good about living the past few months, but once it dawned on me that my words could aggravate all these lousy emotions depending on how I chose and strung them, I stopped simply out of the shocking potential within me to build my own catastrophe. And of course, out of the need to practice some moderation.

Shafts of morning light in its warm, glorious mild orange glow are pouring into the room from between the window panes, as I'm typing this right now. 7:03 am, and I'm not sure how long more this will take, but I know that lately, I've been holding on to these simple, fleeting moments, because it feels like they're all I have left to remind me to keep going. If anything, being here has only intensified my longing to go back to humble beginnings, to the places of my childhood where the world was my own personal kingdom – places that now cease to exist anywhere else other than in the haziness of a distant memory. Only when reality not only catches up with you, but laps you by several miles, will you realise that you once held your own world in your hands and did great things with it. And you'll hate it, too, because castles are built only to be torn down time and time again. Because that's how you remember.

I like to believe that I'm a person that, occasionally, writes too cryptically and acts too artsy for own good. Let's add this in to the list of the things that I am. Sensitive, quiet, withdrawn, aloof, awkward, pseudo-artistic maybe, introverted. For a guy, I'm probably 'great in a different way' for the affirmers, those who talk about making the society a 'better place', like some vacuum of rainbows sprouting out from every direction or something. I don't mean to sound caustic, but there are just phases in your life when you're too disempowered to even give a damn. I dare not say that everyone has them, but it's good if they do. Because if I'm lucky enough, they'd at least be able to relate to how I feel right now. A person with all the 'qualities' mentioned above, in an institution that hardly ever values any of them. Physically fit, yes, but not fit for leadership or command because that's just how I am. Getting thrown in somewhere to deal with the whims of the higher-ups, to maneuver through their personal agendas and to give them the 'face' they 'need'. Where respect is earned through authority and rarely through relationship. Yeah, I won't say anything, because I too understand how they need to do their jobs as much as we do. But sometimes, just sometimes, I'm tired and beaten from not being able to unlock whatever potential I have within me, to the point where I have begun to doubt if I even have it inside. Even now, I'm still not sure (ha...).

If I'm coming off as somebody who's whiny and too weak to face things by myself, then I guess you're either horribly wrong or too clouded by your own judgment. Maybe that's my fault too for being an unreliable narrator, but right now I can really do without people who can't or don't bother to understand. I've come to the point where I don't care what others would think about me anymore, at least not even in a place like this, where I'm probably the only one reading whatever I write. It's more of a case of keeping things in for too long, such that I would lose sense of everything I'm feeling if I don't express it a bit. Anyway, I believe I did an adequate job this time. Hopefully it doesn't sound too self-deprecating.

I guess this is the part where I heave a huge, breathy sigh and get up again.

Pain, being kind and uni rants, among others

Glad that I at least have my weekends to myself. :)

For starters, I completely take back that casual remark I made about the past week being 'lazy' (refer to previous post). From the day right after I said that, everything began to spiral downwards into some whirlpool of internal chaos as we got on to the physically taxing 'meat' of the week's schedule. That's the thing about physical pain, I guess – I wouldn't dare say it was unimaginably tough, because no matter how much it may seem to be draining from you in that moment, I'll know it myself that everything I went through in that week will have to end at some point, and that everything will have to settle again, especially those wars waged between my head and my flesh. I've been through that enough times to not know about this simple fact, and I don't expect this to end soon.

And I guess the same goes for pain in general. I've always kinda believed that one of the things which makes us proud to be humans would be the ability to consciously draw capacity from within ourselves to add purpose to whatever pain we're going through, no matter how harsh that pain may be. And we can do that retrospectively, concurrently, or prospectively, as long as we're willing to. To turn it into a memory embraced, or a hope that the unknown will yield something sweet, or even something worth anticipating, because somehow you'll know that it'll lead you to better places. In a sense, although we're just as fragile now as we were one moment ago in our skin and bones, there's immense strength within each and every one of us. Yet it's all about making that conscious decision between from the start – "as much as our light belongs to us, so too does our darkness". And this entire human race is really but an ensemble cast, with each person equally important in bringing the best out of someone else, or at least, in letting that someone else know even the simplest love. Just what I realised after reflecting upon this as of late – NS just grants so much time for reflection (and I hope it really did come out as eloquently as possible in here, haha).

So that's that for those hopefully-leading-to-self-discovery ramblings. In other news, I've been keeping myself occupied with MORE university applications this weekend, but I shall aim to quickly wrap it up and hopefully send in my final application next week. I'm also surprised at how these days, writing personal essays actually tire me more than I thought it would. Perhaps it has to do with everything I've done in the past 2 years leading up to now. It just occurred to me that I've been way too involved in society to think about doing something productive in my own terms. Even then, all these applications to educational institutions expect some inclination towards success and accomplishment in society's terms. To be very, very honest, I'm already quite worn down by all the pondering about my leadership experiences, my engagements with sport and intellect, etc. As if all this would necessarily suggest my character and potential. It's really inefficient, now that I think about it. And it's always about working around inefficiencies, because there's just so much unknown out there. So many ideals to measure and concretise. So many applicants to govern. Sometimes I can't help but feel that I take the shorter end of the stick, but then again, with everything this arbitrary, one can probably turn the whole situation around by spending some effort blowing something seemingly substantial out of nothing at all. And this goes back to the reason behind why personal essays tire me so much.

So... blabla, and I shall just cross my fingers now and hope that my time later will be spent well enough.

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.

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. :)

An idle festive season

Lately my life's been a mess, but it's a good season for my life to be in the state it is now, thankfully. Sleeping at 4am every single night and waking up dizzy and lightheaded the next day definitely isn't something that should happen during the middle of a school semester.

Other than being like a person with no direction in life whatsoever (still contemplating if I should remove the 'like'), Christmas week was spent on brief meetings with different groups of friends, and well, rotting away at home.

On Boxing Day, I headed to Orchard Road with Rashid, Jasper & Jun Jie to accompany Rashid to get a gift for his parents' anniversary. He got his gift faster than we thought he would, and so for the next 3 hours or so we walked around the area leisurely and at our own pace. It was a good day to spend in town, because the weather was clear and the Christmas crowds have more or less cleared. Got the book that I've always wanted to get at the huge Kinokuniya there (favourite haunt forever), as well as accompanied Jasper to Fourum at Ngee Ann City and waited for him to get his art supplies, and he took a really long time deciding on the colours for his origami papers. Though it's not like we didn't have time to waste.

For the last leg of the roam around Orchard Road, we went to TANGS, where I bought my maiden cup of Chatime milk tea. Tried 日出紅豆奶茶, and I thought it was really good! But well, bubble tea in Singapore'll continue to be awesome (at the expense of thick wallets) so long as the Taiwanese chains continue to run. Went upstairs to the department store as well to check out the daypacks they had on the shelves, and man, were they expensive or what? I just can't fathom how daypacks with plain designs can cost up to S$150 these days. Things just keep getting more expensive. :/ I'll still have to get one with a plain design in neutral/monochrome colours though, I just find daypacks with fancy/elaborate/colourful designs or graphic prints... excessively ugly. Haha, the pains of a thrifty person with an expensive taste.

Before we left the place, we dropped by the Toys "R" Us at Paragon to find Atika. She's currently there on a holiday job as a gift wrapper, and I have to say, that job's anything but relaxing. Personally I wouldn't work as one, especially during the Christmas season... the pressure's just way too huge for me to handle, hahaha.

The next 2 days or so (including today) were, well, spent at home, and whenever I spent the day at home this week, I would be staring squarely into the laptop screen... coding. I sound like such a geek here, but I can't deny that I enjoy coding, especially when it's from scratch. Gives me a sense of control, and it kinda enables me to express my inner... sophistication. Not kidding, hahaha. So far I've cleaned up my Tumblr blog as well as submitted a couple of designs to the BlogSkins portal; there's most probably more works to come.

If I'm not outside, coding, reading, stalking people on Facebook, listening to music on YouTube or spamming Tumblr with pictures & text, then I'm either doing my homework (WHOA) or, more probably, watching a drama series on the computer. Just last night, I downloaded an episode of 'Heartstrings', a Korean drama featuring Park Shin Hye & Jung Yong Hwa (from CNBlue):

And so far, it's good! I really, really like the setting of the series, it makes me feel as if I jumped right into a school life manga. Let's hope it won't disappoint; will be starting on Episode 2 later.

Yesterday was also spent outside, but this time, at my usual haunt during the exam period — the National Library at Bugis. :/ Because school's gonna reopen real soon and I have a whole shitload to do, I figured it'd only be right to hit the books now, lol. But definitely, I will not get everything done by the 9th of Jan.

Left the library a little earlier than usual for Braddell. After Michelle got off work at SPH, her, Sheryl & I went down to Toa Payoh to catch up over dinner. Had roast duck noodle at the Food Alley there, and I have to say, Toa Payoh's preserved its charm so well! Haven't been there in ages yet the homely atmosphere's still as strong as ever. :) It's hard to believe 12 years just flew by like that, that place gave my childhood so much to remember.

Decided to go to Junction 8 at Bishan afterwards because there wasn't really anything there anyway, besides food and KOI, lol. Walked around aimlessly for a bit, and I also spent the time checking out daypacks. Still haven't decided on which brand to get though.

Headed home early because Sheryl had to meet her curfew (as usual). Got home via the bus from Hougang Interchange; a routine whenever I go home from a night out with my JC friends, I realised. And then I didn't sleep until the it's-4am-and-it's-not-natural-for-me-to-not-already-be-in-bed feeling struck, like all the other days this week.

On another note, LE SIGH. Tomorrow, I'll be busy, busy, busy all over again. It's like some sort of cycle; with every day of rest comes a day of jam-packed madness. But you know, I'd really rather my life be like this. Compared to the daily madness school brings, my life now's a bed of roses.

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. :)

Want to be lazy, need to be otherwise

It's 5 days into the (real) December break already, but life's still terribly busy. But I find myself not even able to just go with the flow, let alone stay ahead of it. This entire year has tired me out, so much to the extent where I don't even feel like doing anything already. How I wish that things would just come to a standstill for just one month, and not come to affect anything. :/

Woke up at 5am on Sunday morning to send some of my MJ friends off to Cambodia at the airport. It wasn't a teary affair; rather, it was a chilly one, because the sun was nowhere near up, moreover the air-conditioning in the place was up and on at full might. But of course, though there wasn't any soap drama being filmed there, that doesn't mean I won't miss them... they'll be returning the day after I leave for India, so I won't be seeing them until the 15th. But then again I ain't really looking forward to that day, since it'd mean the December break will end very soon, sigh. :S

Went for OBI training yesterday morning. It was alright I guess, I wouldn't say it was tiring since it's a given. The regime for that day was to carry bags 10kg in laden weight and walk from TJ to East Coast Park and back, then do 3 sets of 15 push-ups and 10 dips. It was honestly quite fun when I think about now, but I sure didn't feel the same when I was actually doing it, hahaha. But the training really pumped up my excitement for the upcoming India expedition (which I hope will be great). :)

Spent yesterday night clearing up my room, which was a huge, huge pain. Right now my desk's still rather messy, but I guess the clutter's improved, lol. I really hate how school keeps shoving documents that will eventually be thrown away in our faces... sigh. I've always wanted to keep my room neat & clean, but the circumstances I live under just don't permit that. And being the lazy person I am, I always put off clearing my room; rather, dreadful to-dos that require a lot of effort to get over (and unsurprisingly, these to-dos always come in one after another... argh).

Speaking of neat & clean living spaces, I've stumbled upon some model examples while on Tumblr:

(via beanfield)


(via theblackworkshop)


(via fromscandinaviawithlove)

I'm guessing a lot of effort has been put into realising such beautiful minimalist spaces. Notice how complicated it is to be simple? Yet it's so simple to be complicated. Irony's just everywhere.

Guess I should stop writing here... need wake up at 8am tomorrow to be in time for OBI training in school. Hope the abruptness isn't too awkward. :S

Is it even the holidays, really?

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.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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

---

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. :)

School makes you do the craziest things

It's past midnight already, and I'm at McDonald's @ Elias Mall. On a Monday night.

Explanation? Sheer misfortune. I reached home at 7.30pm to a whole pile of PW deadlines to meet, and when I turned on my modem, I had a terrible surprise. Turns out the Internet access at home was completely cut off, because the phone line ran into some problems. And the best part? There wasn't any immediate way to fix it. So I had to jolly well do my designing for PW void of any form of online interaction (oh the pain), which took me four whole hours, and then make my way down to the nearest free Internet access zone.

Sigh, I should really stop grousing over this unfortunate situation, lest I run into similar ones in the near future. :/ But I have to say, what happened today was really untimely. The WR's due for submission in 4 days' time, so now's the busiest period ever for PW. And for the Internet to conk out on me during this time... that's really something. Seriously life... :(

Anyway, school today was yet another mundane whirl of events. The most interesting part of today was probably (I think) the training with my OBI teammates. After which I walked to the station with Michelle, Sheryl & Kai Yuan. Got KOI there before travelling back to Pasir Ris with Michelle and Kai Yuan. Really enjoy walking to the station/going home with them because we have the most interesting conversations, hahaha. :)

So, yup. That's all for today. Gotta go back home soon and knock out for yet another long day in school, and a long night of PW, tomorrow. Thank God Deepavali's on Wednesday, tsk. If not I believe I'll just collapse.

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. :(

Rare days like these end fast

Today was, for me, a day dedicated to self-indulgence. Didn't go out, nor did I get myself involved in school activities or PW (not until later I guess?).

I spent this day nua-ing on the basis that I was tired from a really long week and not feeling very well too, so I hope I don't come off as some lazy bum, haha. Although I admit to being one most of the time.

So, what did I do in school today? Well, I spent the time rushing through Kai Yuan's birthday calendar as well as collecting more exam results. I didn't manage to take pictures of the calendar I made with Michelle & Sheryl though, but I have to say the cover page looks freaking awesome. :) Precisely because I was the one who designed it, haha!

The whole process was extremely impromptu and called for a lot of improvisations... including last-minute printing of another picture of Kai Yuan in the school's Zap shop due to some oversight in our intended calendar design. Because Kai Yuan wasn't with us the whole day due to CCA duties, we had the entire day to do up the calendar, but we could only do it during interstitial time between lectures so it was still a rather rushed job. He was supposed to be dismissed at 12.30pm, so at 12pm we started going frantic. We managed to finish designing by 12.20pm; immediately after that, we rushed down to Bedok Point to prepare his cake, but little did we know that he wasn't released until 2pm, so we spent an entire hour walking around aimlessly and waiting for him to be done. Tsk, =_='.

"Surprised" (failed attempt) him when he came down to Bedok Central with the second row classmates, after which he went to have lunch with them at Tampines Swensen's. I was initially supposed to catch 'Real Steel' with Michelle & Sheryl at E!hub and have Kai Yuan join us after his lunch, but I decided against going in the end and headed home to sleep.

And I really did. Now I'm here, refreshed. But I feel so reluctant to start on I&R, OP slides, WR... PW in general. :( And there's also Chemistry & Chinese tutorials!

How about I go back to sleep and wake up when November ends?

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.

Sleep, a luxury that's always traded off

I have been sleep-deprived for the past few days and tonight, there will still be no signs of redemption for I will not be sleeping until 3am again. I guess this is the cost for not editing my Written Report for PW now, but there's just so many things to do and so little time. Factor in the time I need to really just get myself composed again after one bout of madness and voila, I don't get enough sleep at all.

Yesterday was an exceptionally tiring day as I turned in at 1am and had to wake up at 6.30am for school only to run 3km during the first period. I was refreshed after the run, like I always felt after any, but gradually, as the day proceeded, my vitality (as if there was even any in the first place, haha) began to show signs of faltering. And the lectures and tutorials didn't help at all.

Went for my first water training after a long break yesterday as well. At the start the sets were quite manageable but all hell broke loose when I started on the breaststroke pulling, haha. Could only finish half that set because the paddles made treading water a lot more difficult. Really ought to hone my arm strength so that I can go faster next time. Overall I guess I'm glad to be back in the water, although in time, I'll definitely feel nauseous at the smell of chlorine once more.

Had a team dinner at Simei Banquet after training. As usual all the members were really entertaining, but I didn't really contribute much to the conversation. Zi Qin freaked all the girls out over the dinner table once again, this time by demonstrating the elasticity of his skin. It was quite cool but gross at the same time. He was even able to twist and turn his ear so that it folded into a ball, haha!

Anyway, here's a continuation to my entry on Thursday — after much consideration, I went for the Seoul Garden dinner after all. And I didn't regret it because it was thoroughly enjoyable, what with the free flow of ice cream and all. Treated myself generously with peppered & barbecued beef, fried dumplings, tom yum soup, etc. And of course, I had a lion's share of yam ice cream as well.

Right now I'm preparing to leave the house for Suntec City to attend service. Will update about today when I get home before I start on my WR. Look forward to that. ;)

Temporary shelter from the storm

Long time no see — so long such that I believe that I'm currently writing this entry for no reader.

As promised, I'm here resuming blogging after an extremely long break of 2 months, and after the indescribably tumultuous Promotional Exams. You should have assumed that while I was away, I was busy cramming facts and reciting essays, right? Well, I wasn't, although of course, I did study, though not to the point where I could just drop dead. I guess I'll always be the kind who can't give my best for something I don't even have sub-optimal interest in. And I'm proudly admitting to this as I've also bore the consequences of always not preparing enough for the papers, haha. My results were, unfortunately, terrible. I'm not even certain if I can be promoted to JC2 with the scores I have so far.

Anyway, as with any long break, it's only natural for me to say that a lot of events have happened over the past two months, both good and bad, though not many have been significant enough to leave a lasting impression in my memory. In between the studying was play and my commitment to Project Work (I really can't be bothered with elaborating on this pain in the ass so I'll just leave it as it is). Although life has been difficult for me most of the time, there has always been reasons, although subtle, for me to continue to find meaning in my days.

In case you were wondering, I'm currently not at home, comfortable on my swivel chair and typing away after a nice, warm shower. And I'm definitely not anywhere close to that, as I'm still in school, in a claustrophobia-inducing room, drained and sleepy after a long, long day of exam paper collection, tutorials, lectures and presentations. But I wouldn't deny that the situation I'm in now is the very reason why I decided to take out my laptop and blog, hahaha. Too boring you see. Right now, I'm currently waiting for my friends to wrap up their PW discussion and the reason why I'm so (kindly) waiting is because I'm contemplating if I should go down to Farrer Park to have Seoul Garden for dinner with my friends. Honestly, I'm kinda reluctant to go for the latter, since I'll probably have a lot of PW stuff to do tonight. But it's Seoul Garden!

Sigh, this year, or rather, JC, really forced me to deal with numerous trade-off situations. And more often than not, I always end up doing the things I would rather not do, haha. Guess that's why I feel that my life sucks so much right now. But, as I've mentioned before, I shall always try to look at my circumstances through rose-tinted glasses... as far as possible, at least.

Can't wait for my freedom to come.

The beginning of an end...?

I've been away from LiveJournal for too long — close to a month already, to be exact. And when I returned today I wasn't pleased with what I saw. Apparently LiveJournal forced ads into every Plus account journal in their server, so right now my journal over there is a major eyesore. So I resorted to this place, haha.

But that isn't the main point. The point is that I know I haven't been writing as often as I used to, and I'm not going to make any more empty promises to update my journal on a regular basis... in fact, I'm just going to post one last entry (which is this) before I sink into a 30-day studying break in prep for the promotional exams near the end of this year... which, unfortunately, has the ability of making or breaking my future... although indirectly, I guess.

Well... it's amazing to realise that today marks the end of the second-last week of Term 3, and that means I've survived close to half of the torturous tertiary education in Singapore. I'm still going to have to stay strong, though, for greater hurdles await. But I'll leave that for when they really come. 2011's been great at driving me insane, and sadly the year hasn't even ended yet.

Anyway, the past few weeks were simply CRAZY. Project Work nightmares, perpetually growing stacks of tutorials, lightning-fast syllabus coverage, far-from-adequate amounts of sleep, and merciless training schedules chained me down with steadfast strength. Life in JC is so terrible it makes me want to just drop everything and escape, and sometimes I really did. But of course, I wouldn't be so ignorant as to completely drift off-track. Let's just say I indulge in occasional breaks, haha. Up till last week, to be exact — will definitely be moving full steam ahead from today onwards!

Last weekend: my "official" final weekend of socialising.

Friday was spent with my PW group members out of school, in a mission to carry out pilot-testing for our project. TKSS kindly hosted us by providing us with a computer lab and a class of 24 students. Overall the pilot-testing went smoothly, despite a couple of technical glitches at the start which wasted quite a bit of time. We managed to get the results we wanted anyway, so heck those mishaps, haha.

Had a mini celebratory lunch with Jeanette, Hannah & Sean after the pilot test at Domino's. Ain't a very great fan of cheese and the smell of their pizzas was initially extremely cheesy to me... but after a while I got used to the taste, haha. Because of our "extravagant" lunch, we ended up skipping quite a number of classes... but that just makes that a worthy trade-off. ;)

At night, I went to East Coast Park for a short barbecue session with my cell group. Didn't exactly have much to talk about, but I guess it was nice to be able to meet them again, after what felt like an eternity, haha. Really love each and every member a lot, though sometimes I get so preoccupied with my own situations that I forget to show the slightest bit of appreciation towards all they have done for me.

Went home with Hui Yen using her route, and ended up reaching my house at 11pm, haha. In retrospect... Friday was nice. :)

Saturday afternoon was spent with my PW group in my house in preparation for our next Written Report draft, and the night was spent in church. Had dinner at Marina Square with a couple of my friends after that, then went off on my own to do some gift-shopping at Raffles City. That reminds me — I haven't even wrapped them... and it's been a week already, hahaha!

Sunday was spent on a... should I say, grandiose? birthday surprise plan for Michelle. Met Amira, Sheryl & Teck Wee in Compass Point at 9am to settle the picnic food and cake, while Kai Yuan escorted Michelle around without her knowing what we were doing, haha. There was a little bit of miscommunication though. We were supposed to surprise her at Compass Point, but instead we went all the way to the picnicking place. Kai Yuan then had to throw in tons of excuses without coming off as suspicious as he had to drag Michelle to Compass Point and then take her on some random LRT ride to a field, when at first he told Michelle that they were going to have a PW meeting, HAHA.

When they reached the fields where we were, we surprised Michelle at the LRT station with a super chocolatey cake that kinda almost melted immediately under the hot sun. We then proceeded to have the picnic. Flew kites, ate stuff, listened to music, played a little bit of games... it was quite enjoyable I guess. ;)

During lunchtime, Sheryl left and we went back to Compass Point with her. Bought takeaway and then headed to Kai Yuan's place to watch some movies and have lunch. Strictly speaking, though, we were actually doing some homework with X-Men on the TV, haha.

And that basically summed up my simple, easy-going Sunday afternoon. :)

Woke up on Monday to yet another school week. Tuesday evening was spent in the school canteen studying with Michelle, Cally, Sheryl & Kai Yuan. The 'A' Level Chem SPA was on Wednesday and truthfully I'm not confident in my performance at all, considering how I've screwed most of the previous mocks. Thursday was an extremely sleepy day and this led to me embarrassing myself in front of the whole class during PW lesson... don't want to elaborate on that. Went home on Thursday to a pile of PW assignments to complete because the WR draft was due the next day. Everyone in class stayed up beyond midnight in an attempt to finish up their group drafts, with some crazy enough to remain awake through the whole night, all the way till 6am. As a result they didn't come to school the next day, except the group leaders who had to submit the drafts. PW is definitely the exemplification of sleep deprivation.

And finally, the present me, on Saturday. A me who's on my toes, worrying if I'll pass the upcoming exams. Because I really need to. But there'll only be one way out, and that is to study hard.

On a way lighter note, I've finally done my part here (not that it's an obligation for me to blog or anything). Until then, readers. ;)