Picking myself up.

 Windsurfing's been pretty demoralizing ever since I got back from the travelling. I can't remember if I'd took so much effort to deal with my sail prior to exchange but it's so fucking tiring to get it out of the water these days. Everyone's been really nice about it, telling me that it's only cause' I haven't been sailing much recently and the wind's really strong for the past few times that I've been down but, deep down, I know those are just really lousy excuses for my poor performance and it only makes me feel much worse.

I confided in Chubs today and asked him to give me a no-nonsense 'prep talk' of sorts to get me going, and that he did - no sarcasm (one of the few rare occasions) and just telling me very plainly what is it that I need to do. I can't help but feel very appreciative of his words, even though he's probably said that a million times to people who felt like giving up windsurfing at one point or other.

It makes me feel terrible from inside out, the constant falling down, struggling with my heavy sail and what-not, but I'm going to do this. Come next week, I'll down-size to a slightly smaller and lighter sail and see if things pick up from there... and I'll probably have to keep telling myself that I can do that!

Okay - end of emo rant.

Time for something light-hearted that's in a more chronological order now.

Caught Horrible Bosses with Jenny and Mat on Monday and Jennifer Aniston's duper hot in it, even though she's already in her forties (seriously, you can't tell too right?). It was funny, but I didn't think it was that good like what so many people said to me.

Celebrated Siao's birthday on 1st September with the primary school clique (the actual day - digressing, Teachers' Day now falls on the first Friday of every month woohoo to long weekends!) by having laksa steamboat at the row of shophouses between Serangoon Central and Kovan.

It was a great catch-up session, as usual, though I can't help but wish that we'd meet up a little more other than for birthday meals. There's just that little selfish part in me that hopes that everyone will be less involved with growing up so that there's more time to do silly things before we have to stop altogether. Anyway, I'm really glad that everyone's doing well now and glad to see all of them again (sans Aileng).

Happy birthday Siaos!

And just yesterday, I visited the national museum with Shiqi and David for some exhibition that I did not really pay much attention to :x It was nice to look at the permanent exhibits again (I really like the Food and Fashion halls), and we also checked out the works of Abbas (an Iranian photojournalist) who had some really powerful black/whites.

Following pictures taken by my new phone, the Galaxy S2 (loving it)! I used the app Pudding Camera but I really don't like how the pictures come out blurry more often than not bleargh, because it's not really doing justice to the 8-megapixel built-in camera.

 

#1 Faceless. One of the twelve faceless figures holding on to strings that are tied to 12 bright-red helium-filled ballons.

#2 Salted egg yolks

#3 Large pebbles

#4 Tok tok bike

#5 Ribbon Tea

#6 Tok tok noodles

#7 Tabao

 

#8 Vintage poster

#9 Same same, but different

#10 Feel it

#11 Remnants of WWII

No more excuses for self from tomorrow onwards.

Happy 22nd, dear girls...

this is bad (ii) + some food pictures from penang + a rainbow cake!

I can't believe I'm having dreams of the same people time and time again. I find it annoying that it's always about the same insignificant issues in life. I suppose you guys are sick of hearing me go on about my dreams again so... no more. Zilch.

Onto some other bad-but-in-a-good-way things, I got back from Penang a day later than scheduled due to some last-minute rescheduling by Tiger Airways last night. While in Penang, my aunt's (actually all my relatives) been more than eager to bring me around the island to try the different hawker delicacies; curry mee in particular. I've been trying to control my food intake whenever I visit these days, and I think I am doing much better than before; every Penang trip is a get-fat-trip (for me, at least). Anyway, here's some of what I've been eating for the past 3 days!

hokkien mee; pulau tikus

banana pancake at pulau tikus; chewy and slightly burnt yum

sio bak and char siew at Sky Hotel along Chulia Street; big yum!

yao choi from the same place as above; choy sum boiled in water before oil/meat juices from the roasted meats are added to it and stirred. 

chendol that was not very awesome; some place opposite Komtar

not-so-awesome ais kachang; also from opposite Komtar

Oh, and I tried Nyonya food for the first time in my life on this trip too! The dishes that we ordered were mostly spicy, but I really enjoyed the meal. I wonder if the Nyonya food here in Singapore are going to be as spicy...

Oh and almost immediately after I touched down at the budget terminal and came home for a quick shower, I met up with the primary school clique to have a belated birthday dinner with Siaos! This time round, Siaos requested for the XLB Steamboat buffet at Holland Village. We were there for the third seating (10.30 pm -12.30 am if I'm not wrong), and I realized there's a price difference in all three seatings. Free-flow yummay XLBs and fresh prawns made a wonderful dinner.

Wii-ed at Carpenter Street after and we sang the birthday songs there too. Aileng made an awesome rainbow cake for her (brought it to The Icing Room for decoration though), and everyone was just so amazed by the colours and how she managed to do it so nicely. 

cake: courtesy of Aileng.

belated birthday girl with a slice of a rainbow (cake)

brilliant, brilliant colours.

Happy 22nd lub! Be happy always.

Oh... And before I end this entry, look at what I did to my wall! 

better late than never

I know I turned 22 some time back, and I'd almost forgotten about these pictures that we took... But I didn't; should've posted them a little earlier but I just started watching The Big Bang Theory and now it's just about all that I want to do online :x

from my zhu peng gou yous.

<3 and thanks for the great time!

Everyone agreed to indian food (even Siao who can't take spicy food) when I suggested it so we had dinner at Big Splash. That was my first Indian buffet and we had a good time; the ambience was nice, and we had free-flow yummy naans and butter chicken! Looking at this picture makes me realize (again) that we've come such a long way from our Cedar Primary days, and it makes me wonder how many more birthdays will we be celebrating together. I'm sure not that many people are still in such close contact with their primary school mates but I'm really glad we've only become closer over the years as we grow. As much as we'd like it to go on infinitely and as much as we hate to admit, friends and their priorities change and there's possibly just going to be one point in time when these things finally come to an end huh? Until then (and hopefully nowhere in the near future), I guess I'll just continue to enjoy their company and loveeeeee. Lub all of you deep deep.

And while we're on the topic of Indian food, I just want to share a place that serves great and cheap Indian vegetarian food at Suntec (and post some pictures from a meet-up :p). It's on the same level as Kushin Bo, and right opposite Toys R Us and it's called Pangaat Indian Cuisine. My new friend who loves eating (too) recommended this place when I asked him where should I go for cheap and yummy indian food. So far, I've been here twice; once during dinner and the other lunch.

Lunch's what you see up here; it comes in a set of 2 chepatis/parathas/can't-remember-what's-the-last-one and you get to choose three different dishes from a set of pre-cooked ones (like the chinese chap chai png or malay biryani). Dessert comes in the set too; the fried little colourful balls that you see in the bottom-left in the picture above, they're sweet, but not overly and still rather pleasant. And as for dinner, it's a la carte. I tried the vegetable wadas (aka vadai/vada) and they were yums. 

Indian food ftw!

my friend shows his affection for this vintage (is it old enough to qualify?) camera by calling it his laopo. but I shall not make fun of him any further because he was nice enough to let me try it and it was just so cool to see the aperture ring moving in the viewfinder!

teeny checking the vintage cam out

Anyway, I've come to observe/realize that my friends sometimes hold my camera more than me when I bring it out. Everyone loves "little red" like it's their own toy so I'm really hoping that they wouldn't mind me posting pictures that they've taken using my camera; ownership of pictures does get a little blurry here sometimes, so just drop me a text if you want me to take anything down okay.

And you might/might not have seen these pictures that I've posted on Facebook, but I think I'm just going to leave what I have to say about my practicum this time round in another entry because it's late and I have tutoring later!

 

Yes, I know my pupils are sweet.

The good people.

I met up with some of the most wonderful people in my life over the past week. This is going to be mostly pictures with short captions; no time to type long paragraphs these days! Paiseh for that, not that my readership of 10 will mind. :p

With KTOWY:

This is Bob; we were playing Big Taboo at Play Nation (beside Mind Cafe, Prinsep Street!)

Pictionary part in the game; they concluded that I was not very good at Art. FYI, this page doesn't show any one of my drawings hur hur.

A slice of Lychee Rose at 1Caramel, we had the Red Miso Souffle too and it was gooooood.

And with Bun & G at Cafe Iguana:

chips. I've sort of been coming here for at least once a week for the past 3 weeks :x

... and 've also been sort of ordering the same food over; deep fried yummy calamari.

nachos sans jalepeno; okay this is totally irrelevant but I've been chuckling to myself everytime I hear people say fajitas wrongly.

pork tacos; that tasted and looked suspiciously like lamb

partners-in-crime; for making me believe their story........

it got dark, and my cake and present appeared out of nowhere

heehee tyvm i lub you both soooooooo much!

uh... double trouble

i have a new obsession with cakes :x

from TCC. yums

trying to take a successful "diu diu" multi-exposure shot

so cool ah G :pppppp

hehehe

So, I've just turned 22. To be dead honest, the year ahead didn't come to a fantastic start. I was a little troubled over some matters last night, but I think things'll get better in time to come. But despite all that emo bullcrap, I still think I'm really lucky to have you guys with me. *big hug*