Friends

haha, you know you're old, when you ask your student how old he was during the September 11 attacks, and he said '4'

and you know you're old when you use the fact you're 8 years older than your student to teach algebra.

so i decided that since it's the start of the new year i should at least try to revive my blog by writing the obligatory new years post (: wanted to do one of the quizzes and i did start..but got carried away by the first question and was too lazy to continue haha x.x so here's my answer (:

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

Wow loads!! Started going to church regularly and truly having a personal relationship with God, worked at a kids playground and received pay (had to clean up pee and vomit in the process and try to host birthday parties for quiet one year olds to rowdy 10 year olds), went on holidays with friends alone (Gold Coast/Cairns - white water rafting, scuba diving, Florence/Venice/Pisa), learnt how to drive, played mini golf, went tandem biking, lived alone in london, did my own laundry, cooked my own rice, danced at a boat party down River Thames, wore a spag top, mooted in a mock legal trial, shared a classroom with people from all over the world, tried wing chun, went for a christian union retreat in the english countryside, skyped!!, repaired a broken friendship, received truly heartrending letters, and..started feeling for someone like i've never felt before ((:

this question got me into a very contemplative mood haha. then i started to reflect on all that had happened in 2009 and i realised how it had been a veryvery good year (: especially in comparison with 2008 (my archives are super emo haha) and i feel very blessed! think i'd have to agree with my friend and say..i'm filled with hope for the new year ((: let's hope it doesn't disappoint!

oh and here's a reminder to study hard, become more independent, travel more, be more filial, keep in touch with everyone back home, keep a good balance between love and life (haha), and most importantly..put God first in my heart and in the center of my life (: have a great new year everyone and take careeee <3

1.05km swim this morning! but yes, i'm super tired, and NEVER go to cut ur hair, the day before school reopens, at a cheapskate 2.80 salon. ITS SWAMPED WITH KIDS! i had to take queue number like 41, and they were cutting 23 then. i am back at home to use the computer before heading down to try later. BOO. but yes i'm cheapskate too.

resolution #1:
"i want
to think again of dangerous and noble things
i want to be light and frolicksome.
i want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing
as though i had wings"

-Mary Oliver, from Starlings in Winter

resolution #2:
"When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say; all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

-Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

( incoherence!! )

011010 - it marked the ninth month since we got back together. and it felt great to be able to dance in the year with the boy. though i never believed in festivals (birthdays, christmas, new year's etc weren't really significant for me), to down ghastly port wine that burns your stomach, doing a DUI (dancing under influence), dozing off on the boy's stomach, and be all sleepy and grouchy before the sun rose was fun.

my first day of the year wasn't really great. I got sorely disappointed and almost cried (looks like i won't be getting a car until ..ever). it was as if i used up all my luck last year. last year flew back really quickly. a lot of things happened, bad and good. while i chose not to dwell on the bad, i celebrated the good. going to Hong Kong alone with my sister in January, getting back love on 010309, my 'A' level results on 070309, getting into the university and course i've wanted since i was 13 in June, going to Taiwan with my boyfriend and lovely good friends in July, then Batam with the boy and his friends, getting my driver's license on my first attempt (Class 3, no less) on 110809, meeting great classmates, having great friends, truly enjoying life, surprising having lost a total of 4kg in the year (woo boy, i lost, gained, lost, gained x10231232 weight non-stop). I cried a lot in that year than i remember in my life. cried away the first three months of the year, cried again every month, and cried my way through my exams. 'crying' seems to have defined my 2009.

this year, i'm planning to do a lot of big things. to improve my grades, go on an exchange programme, go on a trip to US after my semester's exams, and move back into my family's sorely missed house (yes, finally! we're moving back in March after the good 8 months of renovations). no resolutions for me, cos i don't believe in them. keeping them, that is. and i'm no longer going to be in my teens anymore. so i guess, it's time to really grow up. but to be able to do that alongside people who support me as i stumble and wait for me to pick myself up, will be the greatest present you can ever give me this year.

and in 8 days, it'll be the fourth year since i decided to drown myself in love. we had a rough year. I flared up a lot at him for the tiniest of reasons, while he took it all it and held me as i cried. many times i questioned if we really were meant to be together, but one burrow into his embrace, it feels like nothing will ever go wrong. of course, the truth can't be further. but to have found a little portable space where i can feel like all is right again.. (:

i spent new years in the most uneventful way ever, no thanks to the recurrence of my allergy. but other than that, life in sg has been good :D

i can't believe 2009 passed in such a flash, but i guess time passes quickly when you're having fun. 2009 probably was one of the best years ever. even without school, i kept close to those who matter and made some awesome new friends too.

fulfilled my dream of being an ice cream girl heh and while at it, met some ppl that i know i'll keep close for the rest of my life :D

grew up a lot, learnt a lot too. going overseas forces you to mature all too quickly, but it also teaches you how to live and let live, and more aptly when you go overseas, you let go of certain things that were so hard to forget before. i've learn to look on the bright side of things, and at the silver lining of every dark cloud.

keeping in touch, with effort, isn't that hard after all. technology really does wonders!

so here's to 2010. school might get tougher, but i'm going to make the best of it. i'm not going to let 'keep in touch' be an empty promise, and i'm going to learn how to be contented. all thIS while, i used to think: grass is greener on the other side, and i never learn to appreciate what i already have until it's gone. (hehe to which angel just said: when you're single, you want a bf. when you're attached, you want a gf HAHA) so 2010, bring it on!

i just swam 2.1 km to start of the new year. awesome, this year is gonna be a fit year! and awesomez, i'm finally packing my room, so OCD finally kicking in, (:

2009 is so yesterday. it's one hour into 2010!

aw man i can't believe one year just passed like that. ns has made time go by alot faster (surprisingly). though it strangely does not feel like one year has passed and another has come. nothing's going to change come monday anyway.

just like how 2008 ended up okay (very well actually) even though i initially dreaded a whole year of mugging to come etc., 2009 has turned out alright after all, even though i thought it would be a long and painful year. it has been a year of great change. from the sheltered school environment i entered another entirely foreign world, not knowing what to expect. but even in ns, there have been so many changes that i never foresaw. but after 6 phases, i've gotten used to alot of things, and find myself even comfortable in a setting where things are neatly planned out for you. makes me a little apprehensive about what will happen when i actually ord.

and now life goes on.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

i'll be a civilian the next time i say this.

the world ought to slow down sometimes. countdown last year seemed pretty recent and tonight it's time to countdown to 2010 already! can't believe 2009 just passed in a flash. but it was a great year at least!

my connection to the rest of the world is subject to the temperament of lse wireless and currently she's not in a very good mood, very on and off, so i decided to do ( this ) while waiting for facebook to load and my pending skype messages to send. 

i miss home, and i miss kuro!

So tonight, while I was about to go brush my teeth and whatever and get ready for bed, my little brother came into my room and handed me an envelope. It was the resolutions we'd written in Youth last year, at about this time. A whole year ago. Naturally, I was interested to know what I wrote. I mean, I'd forgotten the thing even existed, let alone what was inside. So I opened it. I wrote some normal stuff of course, stuff like "I want to learn to bake" (haven't done) and "Do uni work properly" - well, to some extent I guess.

But it was the last paragraph, scribbled at the bottom, that made me stop, and stare.
And here it is.

"I hope that GOD will keep me safe and sound for the operation and the recovery period. Help the time pass quickly and make me well soon. Maybe by the time I see this again, I will have almost forgotten."

...and the funny thing is. I HAVE almost forgotten. Save a very slight sort of tightness/ache in my chest at time when I take too deep a breath... the pain and the trauma, everything that happened on 2nd February and that affected me for so many months...

I've almost all but forgotten.

Sure, there are scars there, but... I can't even remember how I looked like before. It's just a dim, distant memory now, some distant remembrance of looking horribly disfigured in the chest area, and being so afraid to wear anything lower than a tee-shirt or turtleneck.

It's probably the biggest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. I don't know if I should be glad or not that I've forgotten. Surely something so momentous should be remembered, just for the sake of knowing that I came through it, I survived...

But on the other hand, it is so good to go on, and live, and go into the future without trying so hard to remember what was in the past. The pain and the agony of the past.

(This is so Hiroshima Mon Amour, like, seriously.)

But I just felt so touched, and happy, that GOD had really helped me go through it, and see me all the way over, and even taken away the memory of the pain. Not only the pain itself, but the memory of the pain. I can't even remember how it felt like, though the more extreme bits do still linger at the edges of my consciousness.

I'm just glad. Glad that it's over, and through it all, I had friends who came to see me, friends who didn't need to, but who took time out of their schedules. And even friends who came twice, even on the day when I was going to go home, when they really didn't need to, when they could only see me for awhile and watch me be pushed on that stupid wheelchair out to the carpark, tube hanging and all.

Heh.

Whoosh. So sappy.

Driving test on Saturday. Scared. Don't wanna tell too many people though, in case I fail and have to tell people I failed. XD Heh. I'm just weird like that!

I took the test at www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp and it seems i am now INFJ.. I can see how I am becoming less of an E over the years (or at least that's what I think..) but it seems I have remained a NFJ since... forever! 

So they say that I am inclined towards becoming a social worker, an educator, librarian, lawyer, early childhood educator, psychologist/psychotherapist, counsellor, designer, or scientist. It appears to me that I have chosen the wrong degree 0.0 

Oh wells. Life's like that. 

Oh and (very, very randomly) I was reminded of something that was mentioned to me a long time ago...

X pronounced 'clarke quay' as "clarke KOAY"
so Y said, it's 'clarke KEE' 
X responded 'oh sorry! clarkee koay' 

I can't remember who X is!! Must have been some funny rg teacher. Good times! 

2010 is coming hmm. 

yijun; says:
:D :D
ehhh but im going back next fri ):
too sooon omg
angel says:
huh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG
I FORGOT
I JUST TOTALLY ASSUMED YOU'RE HERE FOREVER!!!
AMAGAD


haha i wish angel, i wish

I worked hard to get my grades. don't discredit me and say i got them because i'm smart and/or from RJ. what's with people and comparing grades? and getting flamed for being happy about your grade? is it really that hard to feel happy for someone who got higher than you even though s/he put in more effort than you did? and why is it that people like to go 'eh you study so much already, why study somemore', and then go study more themselves? or compare the hours you study? or refuse to share notes? or inflate/deflate their grades? OR CHASE YOU FOR YOUR GRADES?!?! (i got okay grades, please stop asking. thanks.) in addition, if there are people not sharing their grades, they're obviously uncomfortable with sharing them, don't get me to ask for you -.- if you want to share your grades, yay, good for you. I don't wanna share mine because if i do, you'll start labelling me with my grade.

while there are benefits, this is an evident failure of the Singapore educational system.
the day school results come out - a mark of the system's failure.

It's flown by in a blur. My parents have come back from Taipei already, I've been to EOY and back, and Christmas has passed by. Oh, and I had my first ever hangover, courtesy of a couple of glasses of wine too many at the family gathering at our house. Let me tell you it is not a pretty thing to have. No headache. But I felt as though I was floating in the air for most of today. I just spent the entire afternoon sleeping. And trying to wake up, but being unable to.

I hate those dreams, y'know? Those dreams where you keep dreaming that you're waking up. And your body tries to move, to get off the bed, by any means possible, including rolling off it, but somehow it's all in your head, and you're dreaming you're fighting to wake up. I wonder what the significance of it is. Ugh. But I'm really awake now, I think I am, anyway.

The irony is that I had my first interview for baptism earlier in church. Way to go! There must be something hopelessly and symbolically ironic about having a hangover during such an interview. In church. Lol.

I went out with my little brother to see Avatar this week. It was really good. It made me feel ashamed to be human. But oh well, that's what we are - forest-hacking animal-killing pervertedly-proud organisms. I'm still not proud of it. But anyway. Had a good time, went to Bakerzin and shared some food. Note to self: Vivocity is very crowded during the Christmas week.

EOY was pretty cool too. Didn't see THAT many doll people, but the nice thing about the doll people in general is that people will just walk up to you with their dolls and you can... well, talk. Least, there is the possibility of conversation. And most of them are very nice and friendly. Cadell made new friends, and so did I.

...I think I'm not quite level-headed yet. I feel as though I can't write eloquent sentences.
...Damn. Time to start worrying about next semester's classes. @_@

i figured i better get down to starting on posting photos on eurotrip #1, before the year ends, it's time to go back, and school starts again.

we caught the eurostar to paris the day after school ended, and it was pretty surreal having shoo from sg joining us on the trip, but it was cool and damn awesome!! (:



( paris je t'aime?  )

im at home :D
okay so although my christmas has been stolen (yes my time now is not really mine anymore blahblahblah), at least i'll have 23.5hrs of christmas eve though shucks im 2hrs 10mins into it already D:

can't believe the year is coming to a close. it's really been so fast, maybe even a little too fast. (no omg can't believe i just said that. time should pass faster until next november.) and it has really been a year of many changes. but im still alive :O

finished IRIS and grrr it ended so inconclusively :@ opened up seven firefox tabs to load the seven parts of a new drama (city hall) which i intended to watch. but just closed all of them untouched :x

merry christmas!

after our flight from venice being delayed for 3 hours cos of a snow storm, reaching back to hall at 6.30 am, sleeping at 8am, waking up at 11am, lunch, and then going to the airport- i'm finally home.

the first thing i'm going to say is: boy, it is damn hot here! i got off the plane into changi airport and i was like omg it's damn hot and started peeling off layers haha. then i saw my family outside the arrival gates and i hugged baby for a good five minutes.

eurotrip was mostly awesome, and even the less awesome bits made for good experience. the company was awesome, and i think it made for a great first eurotrip experience! hopefully i'll get photos up soon (: and give it the proper blog entry it deserves too


sometimes i feel that it's like i lead two different lives- one in singapore, and one in london. i alternate between them and they dont seem to reconcile perfectly, but i'm comfortable with both nonetheless.

but it does feel good to be back. after recuperating with a foot massage tmr (we walked EVERYWHERE) i'll be up and about and ready to go come christmas onwards!