I feel good

I think my cheeks were nearly flushing when Kaka's Mum told me that he likes me. 

Never thought that I'd be able to change a young child's point of view the way I did. I've probably never said this from the time I got into NIE, so yeh, I'm sticking to teaching. For now at least. And I'm looking forward to standing in front of a class of forty, addressing them on the first day of class. Really. I'm trembling with excitment. Or maybe it's the fan blowing in my direction and making me shiver.

Just kidding bout the fan part. I really am excited bout my job-to-be now, you should be for me too yeh?

Good times are here to stay.

Life and its highs and lows; just like a y= sin x graph. The going gets tough sometimes, but you get to take the backseat and enjoy whatever comes into your path when you hit the peaks.

I hit a high note this afternoon, Mumsy's not angry with me anymore! My little girl could recognize all the words I went through with her this afternoon; I am so proud of her it doesn't matter if other 6 year olds can do it too, if not better than what she's been doing. Let's hope this'll keep up!

This last few hours, I'll spend them trying to complete whatever I can before I set off for my short getaway. Say whee!

ps. my brain's cluttered but I can't be bothered to put whatever I have to say into words. argh?!

pps. I need to go catch some movies before the theatres stop screening them!

it's just not my day

I holland-ed while trying to find my way to Noel's place for our mahjong session, lost $20+ in it, after tuition with Kaka, I holland-ed super big time (again) trying to get to Jinrong's place at Tamarind Road from Tanjong Rhu, think I almost caused a road accident (I'd apologize to that taxi uncle if I had a chance), arrived at the place a little too late and ended up having little for dinner, and I'm super guilty about making mummy have dinner all by herself every night this week (double sigh).

I don't want to be generalizing on something as baseless as this, BUT, why do all bad things come together? Makes me feel like hurling the most unpleasant expletives at the next unsuspecting victim who walks into my path, speaking of which, I haven't been cursing and swearing for the past 2 days at least. I can imagine where all that pent-up angst is coming from now. 

fmylife. It's time to de-stress!

killer week

It's recess week.

&......................

I've got shitloads of stuff to complete.

poof, how i wish they'd all be gone! In other news, I'm so excited about the dive trip this coming weekend!

Transition; yet another state of change

The hockey skates that Luwei's helped me to order from US are finally here! Was taking quite a bit of a gamble since I didn't know what size I should be ordering; thank goodness it fits perfectly (US 4 okay I know I've got small feet)!

you can imagine my excitment

these new babies cost me S$245

seeing green hm.

Tried them twice and I'm still trying really hard to get used to them; there's a lot of difference, especially around the ankle area. And I'm lacing up this time round, instead of buckle-up! They're really light though, compared to my bumble bee. Got myself 2 

I spent the entire day bumming today. I'm not exactly exhausted (from yesterday's training), just thought I'd like to do nothing today. Okay not exactly nothing, I wiped and vacuumed the interior of the car a little, got rid of all the dried leaves stuck along the grooves of the boot, cooked myself a nice bowl of mee goreng with meatballs and taiwan sausages (now don't you go wtf).

So much for doing nothing hur.

Anyway, the south-west monsoon's here! That's what everyone was saying yesterday at the sea sports centre. It wasn't too strong, and I'm thankful once more since both Siying & I decided to pick up the 5 square metres sail instead of our usual 4m2. Uphauling wasn't too difficult as I'd make it out to be (must be the light winds), and we were able to move even in the lightest of winds! 5 is just so fun please!

4 of us headed down to Katong Shopping Centre for some chicken cutlet rice at the food court for dinner; not bad at all. Thanks for the recommendation SK! Walked back to our cars and decided to have some dessert along the way... ...

mine mine mine mine! black sesame shaved ice + oreo

sk's peanut ice shaving + almond flakes

yinghui's champagne grape ice shavings + kiwi

and david's milk shaved ice + mango

Yums for everything!

Apparently it's from the very same vendor we have in Canteen 2. They actually have a dine-in outlet. The name of the place's夏日霜if you're keen, and it's just along East Coast Road, before the 2 Katong laksa places.

& I learnt that Hanabi's at Katong Mall; I'm so going there for the next Japanese food buffet! Who wants to join!

98 makes a whole lot of difference!

It's just 3 days to one month since I've gotten my license. I am fairly sick of going through ERP gantries for now; that 'beep' that the card reader makes, a deduction from the cash card value, it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I had better luck on the roads today; missed a few turns here and there, but I managed to find my way to the destinations.

On an unrelated note, I believe in karma. Whatever that's happened today must be due to all that bad karma points I've accumulated. If not how is it possible that everything bad's happening on the same day?!

The Warlock's Hairy Heart in Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling

The main character is a handsome, skilled and rich young warlock who sees emotions as a weakness, and decides to prevent himself from ever falling in love by using the Dark Arts. The Warlock is deluded and he believes himself to be envied for his splendid and perfect Solitude. This makes him all the more upset when he overhears two Servants talking about him. One Servant is taking pity on him, and the other Servant is making fun of him for never having a wife. The Warlock decides to find a beautiful, talented and wealthy woman, so that he is envied by all.

The Warlock meets this woman the very next day. The women is fascinated as well as repelled by the Warlock, but agrees to attend a feast at his castle. The Warlock attempts to flatter the young woman, but she confronts him saying that she would only believe these lovely words if she thought he had a heart. So the Warlock takes her down to the dungeon of the castle and shows her a magic crystal casket, within which lies his own beating heart.

Due to the fact that the heart has been parted from its owners body for so long, it has become shriveled and hairy. The women ask him to put the heart back inside his chest and so he does. The women is so pleased that she runs forwards and embraces him. The heart however has become horrible in the long time that it has been separated from the body, and the smell of her hair as well as the beauty of her skin pierced it.

Other guests who had been attending the feast, were beginning to wonder where their host was. So they searched the Castle and eventually found him in the dungeon. The Warlock was sitting crouched over the woman, caressing and licking her heart, while she lay dead with her chest cut open. He was trying to swap her heart with his, however his heart was strong and would not allow it. The Warlock did not want to be controlled by his heart so he cut open his chest and ripped it out.

For a brief moment the Warlock was victorious as he held a heart in each hand, before he fell over the woman and died.

I am the warlock who's decided to lock his heart away.

It's clear, isn't it?

Some of us give new meaning to these words: 意思意思. 

Thanks for leaving me out, seriously! :)

I don't give a flying fuck

Fmylife.

Daily shitty moments from random people all over. Think your day's screwed? Think again, there's bound to be people worse off than you. Most of them made me burst out reading as I read them. 

Just to share a few:

Today, I complimented my mom with "Hey, I think you lost some weight." She replied with "Yeah, I think you found it.

Today, I saw my friend across campus, and I decided that I wanted to play a trick on her and scare her from behind. Turns out, I scared a complete stranger with really bad panic induced asthma. 

Today, in the middle of dinner, I went to rest my chin on my hand, missed, and stuck the straw from my drink straight up my nose. My nose bled all over the table. He hasn't called me since.

My day.

Language in Context lectures leave me flabbergasted every single time; I never knew texts could be analyzed from THAT many aspects, and it just adds on with each passing week. I walk out of LT8 feeling a sense of relief every Tuesday evening; thank goodness the information overload for the week's over. On the other hand, the tutorial sessions are really enjoyable. I like engaging in the kind of discussions that we do (even though most of my group members end up talking about other unrelated topics half the time), breaking texts down into their smallest units and reading between lines, looking at how the words we use will affect how our texts are being read or perceived; the smallest and most unnoticeable word may change the tone of the entire text.

Today's session with Kaka, we talked bout family issues half the time. It felt more like a counselling session than anything else. At one point in time, I was a little annoyed that he just refused to be more cordial towards his family members. And then Ed Psych occurred to me; his refusal may just be a result of his inability to see beyond his own point of view. I want to help him, but I don't know how. I tried everything I could think of.

Managed to get me a pair of dancing heels today, they look almost the colour of my legs. Tried to get Mumsy to salsa with me, but she was soooooooo lazy to stand up and do it. Urgh? Urgh. 

I'm usually one to mince my words, giving more than I take because I hate conflicts and I try my best to avoid any. However, of late, I'm feeling rather provocative. A teeny weeny bit of disagreement we may have and I'm all set to kick ass (or get my ass kicked instead) and I'm not going to feel sorry for you (not expecting the other party to as well).

ps. I've been coming home as much as I can for the past few days, the weather's been nothing but disgusting of late; I need the air con. & there are ladybugs in my room! hehe.

pps. You know I love you babe, we all do. I'm here, only a phonecall away yep? *hugs*

Confessions

There were 2, to be exact. 

But they were both about 2 different girls, 

on 2 different nights.

I chuckle to myself thinking bout it.

Ohwell, the same old thing. "Single's good"

And another

Mum and I, we were in a pool.

The big and clear pool was bare; there was just the 2 of us.

She held on to my hands as I kicked about in the water.

I was really happy in all that artificial blueness, the tiled bottom and the ripples formed as the wind gently carressed the surface of it.

And I really liked the feeling as I emerge head first from under,

all that water draining off my body,

at the ears especially, what liberation.

I was three, or at least I knew I was in the dream.

Dreams

Dreams come to me rather naturally. I've had a number of interesting conversations with friends about dreams and you guys probably have heard some of them before; it is said that dreams that take place in colour are less likely to come true than those that happen in black and white (definitely don't sound like there's any scientific backing behind it, but what the heck, anything goes in here okay), 日有所思，夜有所梦 (i wonder how true this is too), and of course, the 'theory' that you probably haven't worked your mind to exhaustion if you're having dreams all the time (hello me).

When dreams do come true, I often pause in my steps to think about when did I have that particular dream. Deja Vu's pretty freaky in some instances, but in others, it seems like things are being put into place by some great force from up above, don't you think? 

The most prominent dream in my memory must've been the one I had in Primary 4. Back at the old place, it was a Sunday morning and I was lying on mum and dad's bed. I still remembered how warm and nice it was, the sunlight spilled nicely onto the bed and I could feel the rays on my body as I laid in the most comfortable position. You'd probably end up laughing at what I have to say, but yeh, my family came under some evil spell/curse or whatever idea you may have along that line, and they turned to stone. Mum & Dad wouldn't respond to me no matter how hard I shook them and Yf too, their eyes remained closed on their cold, rocky faces. I was overwhelmed with grief and my mum made me wake up from it and asked, "why are you crying in your sleep?" Thank goodness I had the dream once and only once (some of my dreams repeat themselves, and some go on like drama serials for days, do yours?).

In other dreams, I'd be flying, or leaping off flights of steps when people (some bad egg) started chasing after me, there'd be dinosaurs, hopping vampires (think old-school chinese movies), secret gardens, missions and expeditions with friends, crushes or celebrities. I once dreamt that I was stuck on an island with Chen Xiao Dong (if you know who that is), and just to clarify, I wasn't a fan or anything like that, I don't even know how he could've ended up in there.

Last night, it was a dream about someone confessing to me. The evening sun looked peachy and the breeze felt just right on our skins, we were really far away from everyone, alone on a beach. It couldn't have got any more honest, the way things were put across by the other party. I was touched by the words, made a decision as I took a few steps towards that person with arms stretched out and...................... I forgot the ending.

Dad at 13?

Don't know if you guys have seen this yet, but here goes...

He doesn't even look like he's hit puberty.

Pretty unbelieveable at first, but then you realize again just about anything's possible these days.

Crazy nots!

So the few of us decided to give windsurf training a skip today (the past 2 weekends have been filled with competitions) and headed down to Sembawang for a mini sailing expedition instead. I am so thankful that everyone with me on the trip were competent sailors because I know I'm bound to garang gabok on my own. 

We headed towards the Seletar Islands, dragged our dinghies up the shore and had lunch there while we basked in the glorious sunshine. I put my newly bought rashguard to good use today!

It was tiring crewing for my pico leh (don't smack me cos you think it's easy okayy lol), and I have to go back and complete the dreaded assignment (that's due in 12 hours) now.

I just agreed to a Bali trip in July with some hockey friends. Whee? Say whee!

Wild child

No more secrets; the feeling's awesome. I love you girls. Guess we just levelled up last night. hehe. I garnered over some time; I'm young and stupid, now is the best time for me to be making mistakes all over.

Please upload pictures of last night's dinner at Wahiro soon, prettys!

On a totally unrelated note, I never talked about how much I enjoy making fun of Mumsy when she speaks English at (really) random points in time. 

While driving two weeks ago, she thought that I my brakes rather late.

mums: 你要早一点踩blake吗！

me: huh? 踩什么? (okay I admit I was trying to be funny with her)

mums: blake ah, blake.

me: rofl

Today, I got us some pancakes for lunch (cheese + sugar and corn + peanut, the latter's kinda weird).

mums: 他们有几种favlour?

me: 几种flavour啦! rofl

mums: rofl with me too

And Mumsy pronounces the word 'tsunami' as 'surami'; always makes me think of the word 'tiramisu'. Okay, I know I'm such an ass, but this is what makes her cute at times. Love you mummy!

Yet another first.

worked out quite a sweat today

I never felt so tired from hockey training; I could feel all that lactic acid burning in my thigh muscles while struggling to get the puck.

It's going to be a busy week, so, updates when there's time yeh!

In other news, Ludwig was super funny at lecture today; impersonation of SPGs and his jokes. Why are kidneys female? Because they go to toilets in pairs. Tell me you are not speechless if your lecturer cracks such a joke. Ha. I love phonetics lectures!

Cheers people!

A long weekend

I had a glorious, glorious weekend. Friday evening was spent at Stadium's Long Beach Seafood Restaurant with KTOWY. Everyone was present (cept' for ZZ who's in Toronto right now), and we had a mini feast and catch-up session. The prawns and crabs were fresh and really good; and they were nice enough to let me have one of the crab claws. It was juicy and just felt so good to sink my teeth into it like a drumstick. Ups ups.

blurred lights 2. 

chilli crab; and I really love dunking the mantous into that thick gooey gravy!

black pepper crab; first time I truly enjoyed black pepper crabs.

The group came over to my place after and we played a few rounds of poker, texas poker, in-between, blackjack, etc etc. Wenyun's the really experienced one who'd tell us what game to play next and so on, what a gambler! Ha! I guess I got pretty lucky that night; probably won a few dollars?

Stayed on till around 3 plus in the morning and I sent the east-side boys back before catching a few winks before day broke. ITWC to follow right after! In the competition this time round, we had to use boards (big, fat mommas) and sails that were different from our usual training ones. It got a teeny bit of getting used to, but it wasn't all that hard cause the boards were stable as floating platforms and we could dance on them (in sk's words).

I gained a hell lot of experience this time round; two days of races, boom came off at the start-line after I got knocked off (can you feel my dulan-ness!), contact lens fell out from my right eye and got blown away, fell on the starboard side of the board right in front of the buoy (when it's supposed to be port rounding), had to go back to port-round the buoy, 2nd place dropped to last as a result in one of the races, used new boards and sails, not overlaying/underlaying enough, which side is supposed to give you a better start, port/starboard starts, and so on. There's probably a lot more of experience that I've yet to gain, but still, I'm thankful for all these experiences. I can now say with confidence that I am much more aware of what's going on out at sea.

It's difficult to find a sport that I truly enjoy doing, or feel so much about. Can you believe I'd hoped there were more races to go on the 2nd day?! When I joined biathlon back in TP, it was mainly due to DJ's influence (sad to say, I was doing things not for myself). I met a lot of great people in there, and I did feel a sense of accomplishment whenever I was able to complete those races. But I never cried or wanted to achieve something so badly as compared to now. & lifesaving, I was roped in for one of the events because I was with Doug. There was Xiyun, Vonday, Huileng and of course, dearest Ham who made trainings a hell lot of fun. But seriously? I just don't feel that sense of belonging that I probably should have.

But windsurfing? Okay, it's true that Doug made me sign up for the course with him. But I'm glad that he signed me up. Our group may be really small (compared to NUS/SIM), but we're still a lot of fun! Joining the club's probably one of the best decisions I've made in NTU, for myself.

competitors, helpers, and Uncle Tan!

flat-footed windsurfer.

and a really cute boy to end the entry with. he was so chubby please!

I didn't do especially well this time round; slight improvement from the last race, last to the second-last position. But I've decided that I'm staying, for good! I'm sure all these experiences that I've gained will help me in upcoming competitions, at least I know how to deal with them now. Of course, it might be too early to say, but I'm determined to win something for the club before I'm not eligible for the novice category any longer! 

NUS Opens, here I come!

明天会更好！

or so I hope.

Tabby Visits

Lunched with the girls before Aileng hopped onto the flight back to Aussieland; we made wonderful plans to visit at the end of the year, and now, I know what I'm saving for. Sky-dives, dive the Great Barrier Reef, horseback riding and farmstays! Start saving hor girls :p

Dropped by NSRCC to take a look at the equipment we're supposed to be using the coming weekend, and Uncle Tan was there too! Sigh.

So I lost my way around Tanjong Pagar and ended up late for salsa class. Thank goodness it was just the warm-up exercises I missed. Were introduced the cross-body leads today and it was fun! No elbow accidents today, but I stepped on the instructor's toes (oops).

Headed down to Taman Jurong (or wherever that was) with Song, Jaime and Bernice for supper. They had a whale poking fun at my driving, and I had a second lesson on where the engine and batteries are located. Gee. Bimbotic yes, but I really dislike those technical terms.

Wang Cai (the ginger-coloured tabby) and Mei Mei (male lor apparently) paid us a visit tonight. WC roamed about the room; went round sniffing my shoes, under the bed and looked ready to jump into my giant duffel bag whereas MM found a favourite spot under Rachie's table.

Please let tomorrow be another day of safe driving.

8. Not letting any in

even though we are only a door away.

Don't cross the boundaries.

The Awkward Silence

Can't wait to get out of these situations. 

More than a semester already, I guess we just don't click. & I'm sorry I haven't been trying hard enough; there's always a clash of events.

Laugh it off lor

please laugh if you can spot me, courtesy of kh.

All that emo-ing in the previous two entries, I blame it on the dreaded PMS. I've been down on luck recently (today especially); having forgotten to bring my mobile phone out with me, the tutor sending me on a guilt-trip early in the morning, no more wantons for add-on to my minced meat noodles because the person queueing right in front of me bought the last piece, I wanted meepok but that was not enough left so the noodle stall unker had to mix it with meekia. And to end the day off, I slammed the car door on my left thumb (yeh so smart) and now it's swollen.

I almost wanted to laugh out loud at myself at the carpark when the door hit my thumb; the clumsy remnants of me. Brought back lots of fond memories of the leeward islands where Uncle Sam (everyone, in fact) teased me onboard Four Friends; memories where my legs were filled with bruises all over, an unsightly sight. But who cares, we were merry as can be, without a worry (or maybe just the Captain's worry bout running out of beer).

All I want to say in this particular entry is, despite all these unlucky happenings taking place, I'm thankful as can be. For the roof over my head, the wheel that I stayed behind today, my free education, a stable wireless network, friends who laugh at and with me, people who cheer me up so effortlessly (I promise to do the same for anyone who needs it in future), the approved claim for my hard-disk, my comfy bed (with new, funky pink bedsheets), family that I know is always there for me, and all the experiences (good and bad) that've made me who I am today. 

I truly am thankful. 

Life is still wonderful, despite the unfairness of it all.

Thank you

You'll never know, but thank you anyway. 

I'll remember what you said at times like these.

I wish...

the swell at the right ankle will go away.

i did not slam the car door on my thumb.

i knew what's wrong.