whineaholics

2010-02-20T18:55:00.002+08:00

I can't fight this feeling any longer. The more i ignore it, the stronger it becomes. The more i try to laugh it off, the more upset i become.

I really want to confront the person and tell her how much her simple act has really hurt me. Yet, i'm scared that it will affect the friendship (though im begining to wonder whether she really regards me as a friend). Afterall, it is her prerogative to do what she likes.

To be honest, i'm starting to feel frustrated with life. Why am i always the one who tries to get everyone to meet up? And because of events such as people backing out at the last minute, i never really enjoy the meet ups in the end. I sometimes feel like a pathetic loser because people are always too busy to meet up. It really sucks to be rejected. And the recent events have made me realise that no matter what i do, i really mean nothing to them.

Enough is enough. I've done all i can. Though admittedly whiny, this is not some random oh-pity-me blogpost. I have realised that social networking tools on the net have the huge capacity to hurt people. I no longer want to be hurt nor hurt others. Hence, i will no longer read blog posts, twitter, facebook and this blog will go on permanent hiatus. To faithful readers, thanks for the memories. It's been a good run.

2010-02-10T01:11:00.002+08:00

CNY deco is up but i feel the urge to buy more decorations... I must resist!

I'm getting a bit tired of meeting up with people and then realising that i have nothing to update about my life. Hence! In a vain effort to spice life up, i have decided that if no one determines any travel plans for the next few months.. i will embark on a trip by myself in April.

2010-01-17T22:01:00.002+08:00

Three important random facts

1) The Awesome BSB are holding a concert in Feb!1 Dear Claryce's mom, please please please PUHHLLLEEEZZE don't break my heart so.. It would be really awesome if you let her go to the concert with me!

2) i found out how fun it can be to eavesdrop on other people's conversations while riding the public transport. While riding the MRT, i listened to how 2 guys discussed how this girl called Candy will not be able to take it if she broke up with her boyfriend. However, Candy's boyfriend will not be able to take it if they didnt break up. i was very interested in hearing about how Candy's boyfriend would break the news to Candy but unfortunately, they (the 2 guys talkin abt them.. not Candy and her boyfriend) got off at the stop before mine.

3) Also, i have realised that life is cruel without black soya sauce.

2009-12-19T21:30:00.002+08:00

Sequel to Jing Xian's wishlist
3. earrings (stud)
4. wallet (must have coin section)
5. Loreal derma genesis pore minimising

Welcome back Claryce!

2009-12-06T23:29:00.000+08:00

Jing Xian's wishlist:

- a pair of earphones
- rest is up to the angel

2009-12-05T16:29:00.002+08:00

Adel's wishlist:

Santa baby, shimmy down the chimney and bring me ...

1) A nice pouch to put my money in (has to be small to be put inside a another pouch)

2) A pouch which i can bring out of the office for lunch (able to include item 1 plus phone)

3) A nerf gun!

4) Bright blue or yellow FBT shorts (size M or L)

5) Something to decorate my office cubicle with (preferably a nice colourful poster)

6) a gym bag

7) Colourful nail polish

8) Nice necklaces or earrings

2009-12-05T00:35:00.005+08:00

Huili's wishlist

- Royal Sporting house voucher
- crabtree and evelyn hand therapy (summerhill scent)
- nike voucher

I will be going shopping for my secret mortal's present next tuesday so wish lists have to be up up up!

2009-10-12T21:50:00.002+08:00

After much thought, I have made a momentous decision.

I will write a fanmail to my absolute favourite author in the world. And because it's Jeffrey Deaver, it has to be perfect. Oh.. What a thrill it will be if he were to read my humble letter!!

2009-09-28T20:13:00.020+08:00

and soooo the curtain draws over the end of an era. Here's hoping the next era would be better!

A BIG heartfelt thanks to all who attended my sis's wedding on 26th sept :D

I'm seriously touched that some came all the way from Tampines / Pasir Ris / Eunos/ Farrer Park when the mass was held so early :D And i know that the QSes had to set aside time for the wedding as well so im really grateful that you girls were able to make.. you girls totally rock!

Here are some behind the scenes pics :

Putting up the red banner:

Aunt Pacita making the flowers for the bridesmaids to put in their hair:

started playing ard with props and the camera and got this shot :D

Making of flower baskets to put at the pews:

Before we started taking pics, we had to soak the sponges in water for a day, cut the sponges according to shape and wrap them in aluminium foil and the results are here..

Had to cut the ribbons...

to tie bows on the baskets...

in order to turn them into this!

we then proceeded to flower arranging..

and presto!!

Because we did them two nights before, we had to hang all 30 baskets in an air conditioned room.. what we didnt manage to take was tt we had to constantly pour water into the sponges to keep the flowers fresh

On friday night, we had to to go to the church to place the flowers.. check out the altar flowers! :D my uncle and dad carried it up to church by hand as it was too precious to place in the car ( for fear of crushing it)

Tying the flower baskets to the pew..

the flower decorating committee ;D

were our efforts worth it?? i sure hope so! :D

tune in next time to find more photos of the actual day wedding!

2009-09-21T02:04:00.002+08:00

Annnnd the big day draws nearer...

Here are a few insider infobites to make the wedding more interesting/ personalised...

a) Try to get a good look at my dad's cufflinks.
b) The flowers in the church are done by my mother and aunts. The main person in charge of the flowers is the bride's godmother.
c) The smaller flowergirl in the procession is the bride's goddaughter.
d) Try to see if you can see the bride's shoes. She is very proud of them. :D
e) The singer is one of my mom's students.
f) The altar servers (person helpin the priest) are also my mom's students.
g) All the bridesmaids in the procession are the bride's relatives. There are 9 of them altogether so pls dun boo at me when im the last one to come out before my sister!
h) After mass, the family will stay back to take photos in the church. Friends can proceed to the canteen to start eating first. The buffet is Halal so no worries there :D

Unfortunately, i can't mingle around so.... if you wanna find me for anything.. look out for the bride, i will be standing around her :D

Btw.. just to prepare you. the bride's gown has bright pink designs.

2009-09-13T00:08:00.001+08:00

while doing some research, i showed Audrey Backstreet Boy's Get Down music video and immediately regretted it. Was Nick Carter's hair that bad??! LOL!

2009-08-22T23:22:00.001+08:00

Edited to add...

Okay.. i had good think bout it and here are a few items for my wish list to help the birthday

1) A black vest that goes with work wear and tee shirts! (Something like what i got for Xian)

2) A grey blazer (sleeves can be rolled up to reveal stripes) - think u can find this in online shops or in zara.. :D

3) Dresses for work ( those that do not cling to the body)

4) Tops and skirts for work

5) Earrings for work

6) A Nice Bag - i need a bag to match my purple bridesmaid dress for my sis's wedding as i have to carry quite a bit of stuff on that day so it wud be fantastic to get a bag which is large enough to carry her stuff ard on tt day and yet allow me to use it for other purposes after the wedding..

7) Heels for work My one pair of black heels is dying on me and im too lazy to buy a new pair of shoes! Remember.. my feet are flat and fat in front so pls dun get those squeezy-in-front shoes.. im a size 38 for shoes from novo .. size varies from 38 to 39 for shoes from charles and keith etc.

8) A Hammock plus the hammock stand!! :D

9) A music player.. my phone's headphones function died on me so no more music for me :(

That's all i can think of for now.. good luck birthday fairies!

PS: Last i tried stuff, im a topshop size 10/12 for tops and size 12/14 for bottoms..

2009-08-19T23:14:00.000+08:00

Did blogger's log in page change again because it looks really weird right now.. everything is in black and white.

so.. its been more than 2 weeks since Shanghai.. Have been celebrating Earth Day via dancing in the dark with glowsticks and friends, been to London and more recently Bali. Proved Vinna's father right when i proceeded to be the weak spot in my travelling party and fell prey to the evil EVIL H1N1 stupid chickenshit of a virus. Kudos to Xian for putting up with this hot mess of snot and tissues for 2 nights! Will put up photos when i feel like it bah..

Anyways Claryce made my day by reminding me to put up my wish list.. it was either sms (which Claryce said that she might delete) or blog... In the midst of work and trying to get my act together to remember to do stuff, i kinda forgot that it was my bday month (save for tt time at Bubba Gump Restaurant where they helped to celebrate both Asilah and my birthday!)... Sure doesnt feel like it with more work piling in...

SO!! i wanna have a reallly good think abt my wishlist and come up with a fun and relatively easy list for you girls :D

Basically, the whole point of all this rambling is that the BLOG'S ALIVE! or will be once i remember the random "oooh!! pretty!" thots i have had in this past year :D

one thing is for sure.. NO MORE Oversized bras and underwear with scribbling on them please!!! LOL!

2009-03-15T00:35:00.043+08:00

So it's been around 2 weeks since my Shanghai trip and i still miss every minute of it! :( :(

Here are a few snapshots of Shanghai.. Enjoy!

St Ignatius Cathedral at Xujiahui (We went to Chinese Mass on the first day! :D)

PS! Many thanks to Asilah for the loan of her awesome winter coat! If not for it, i would have frozen to death!

Also! Kudos to Sherlin who has always been a star in lending me her sweaters and scarves :D She's seriously a star! :D

Ahhhs... I love the Korean BBQ there!

Check out the amount of pork they gave us!

What we bought on the first day:

Yuyuan Gardens during the day:

Wedding Street:

When we went to the famous tourist attraction "The Bund", we got a bit bored of viewing the the city landscape.. and it was there we saw the most awesome sight ever!

TADA!

Note the footwear he is wearing.. For safety, he is only wearing one harness slung ard the pole.

These photos really leave me amazed..

There were 3 men climbing 3 different poles altogether. Couldnt get them all in one pic. Here's 2 of them!

If you look closely at the last pic, you can see tt one of them is taking photos of the Bund! hahaha!

The other guy was like the Master of all pole climbers.. Check out his pole...

All in all, a truly great sight! Was one of the highlights of my trip! :D

What we bought on the second day:

Walkin ard Dad's residence (It was super cold!)

I love this pic! Laugh every time i see it!

What we bought on the third day:

Shanghai Science and Technology Museum:

Animal world:

Artificial Rainforest (if our winter clothes didnt give a hint!):

Slanted room:

This was seriously the most disorientating room in the whole museum! The concept behind it was tt we have been conditioned to walk at a 90 degrees angle to the floor. so once they tilt the floor, we lose our balance and hav difficulty walkin ard as these photos would attest to!

Christine demostrates the correct way to walk :

Playing virtual volleyball (PS: I WON!) hahaha!

We had a machine draw our portraits. First u get your picture taken by the machine, and then it sketches it out for you.. Cool huh?

So whaddya say? Did the machine do a good job??

Punching bag to test the number of punches you can throw:

This machine tests the centripetal force.. you have to shoot as many balls as you at the target while the machine rotates really really fast.

The 360 degrees ride: Really spins you all ard!

Yuyuan Gardens at night:

Lift Lobby at Dad's residence:

Heh.. i tink that these photos really represent what a great companionship we had during this trip! I must confess that i was worried that both of us would strangle each other by the end of the trip. But i loved every minute of Christine's wonderful company! This China trip would not have been the same without her!

Went to the tailor to collect the clothes on the 4th day:

Other photos are in my camera so im just gonna skip ahead to our luggages! Guess how many luggages we had to haul back?

Answer: 4 big luggages (one which was carefully taped up by Christine "in case it burst") PLUS

4 boxes!!

Ahhhs! all in all, it was a fantastic trip! Wish i could go back again!

Sidenote: i miss my family already and wish tt they would come back asap!

2009-03-06T01:22:00.003+08:00

I should have done this a long time ago.

Check out the latest addition to the Ng family: Joshua Ng!

Not only is he cute, he's fashionable! Check out those pants he's rocking!

2009-02-21T02:02:00.001+08:00

i should have known
i'm not a princess
this is not a fairy tale.

:( :( :(

2009-02-14T10:43:00.009+08:00

Because Neela Complained.. LOL!

Hahaha better update fast! I was planning to photoshop and put the CNY gathering pics in nice photo collages but i dun have photoshop in this comp so im just gonna use paint (a la perez hilton) for this update!!

Chinese New Year visiting was a blast! We decided to celebrate Dayah's birthday then too. I'm gonna dedicate one post to CNY visiting and another to Dayah's celebration cause the posts would be too long and Miss Janet Jackson deserves one entry to herself! LOL!

So! Here we go!

The meeting time was 11 a.m but remembering how some people arrived 2 hours late for the Xmas celebration, I nagged and nagged endlessly about punctuality.. I was so desperate that i threaten feeding latecomers to Shadow, Josh's rottweiler. So here are the Early birds who are rank #1 and #2 in Most Scared of Shadow!

Early Birds

Notice the fabulous legs someone is showing off?? hahaha! But wait! there's more!! Self proclaimed Janet Jackson upped the sexy meter with her top! Lucky Mr Shrimp wasnt there sia.. or else his nose would have bled out.. HAHAHAHA!

Candid shots: Took them while the rest thought that i was setting up the camera for a self-timer shot.. heeeheehee!

For the shot below, i decided to try to push the rest away ala Xena in Hari Raya visiting.. ALAS! Sexy-legs Vinna managed to hold up long enough for the shot to be taken.. Save for a very unnaturally high squeaking sound emitted from Vinna, you wouldnt know that she wasnt being pushed!

And then! Meanie #1 Vinna and Meanie #2 Xian asked me if we could take another shot that was "zoomed in" and i was like prob can la.. so i zoomed it in and when i ran to take my place... the meanies tried to push me out!! Look at that Claryce! Her stance shows how passionate she was in pushing me out!!! HMPH.

We finished off at Josh's pad for Hidayah's birthday celebration and well.. let's play spot the missing person!

LOL!!

ok la..For the sake of not getting pounded by Xena, the Adeline lecture ends here!

All in all, it was a fantastic meet up and really made my chinese new year. Love you girls!

So when's our next meet up?? :D

2009-01-11T22:59:00.002+08:00

I can't put a video on my blog but check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwdXnlvUe3I

This was the video which made me fall in love with Lady Gaga.. I went to see the dance version of it and man! is it different!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDRbp1ZPp8&feature=related

So.. You can understand why i had to listen to the song during work on Friday right?? I didnt want to disturb anyone so i put on my earphones to listen to the song.. I didnt tink that anyone would come to my desk as work was winding down.. it was nearing closing hours.

And that! my friends, is the story of how i came to be caught dancing in my cubicle by my boss.

2009-01-07T00:43:00.000+08:00

So! After declaring that i would "not spend new year's eve at home this year round! 2008 shall end with a BANG!"... i got lazy. In the end, i just danced around the room in my awesome neon day-glow underwear (Thanks Christine!) and went to sleep at 11.40 p.m.

and with that...

Welcome to 2009!

Got my purple organiser, desktop calender and A5 calender (Somehow the Virgo in me needs them calenders to order to feel the start of a new year)... Bring it on 2009! It's gonna be a good year.. I can just feel it in my bones!

Just bought myself this really awesome calender at 50% off!! Feel immensely satisfied ...

....

.....

Okay i cant shut up abt my calender! It's pics of pple from ard the world... Pics of them playing or dreaming with very appropriate quotes printed on them.. i LOVE it!! The exclamation marks shud provide a clue as to how excited i am to get to my office tml to pin! it! up!!

"Not a shred of evidence exists ... for the idea that life is serious"
-my awesome calender's quote for April!

2008-12-31T00:43:00.004+08:00

2008 meme

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Visit Ting in Aussie.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

No. I was supposed to be more patient. But i broke it before you could say "stupid people rule the earth".

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yeah.. Relatives were popping out babies like rabbits. Last count was 3.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. Thank goodness. May it stay this way.

5. What countries did you visit this year?

"The States" (San Francisco), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney), China (Shanghai)

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A life.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

I can't remember a specific date. It was a pretty good year all around.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Passing Measurement III... No.. it's a tie with actually going ahead with the waxing!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Can't think of any at the moment.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The one day i fell sick.. was on a weekend. blurrrgh!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A wallet for my dad.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mine!!

12.1 Who kept you sane the most?

Christine and Ting :D

12.2 Who made you laugh the most?

Oh man.. Every outing has its laughter..

13. Where did most of your money go?

Food, presents, clothes and stage shows

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Guitar Hero heh! My inner drummer just burst out!

15. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Livin on a Prayer by Bon Jovi.

16. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Err.. I can't remember how i felt last year. Just enjoyed each day so prob equally happy for both years.

ii. Thinner or fatter?

Fatter. Have accepted the inevitable course.

iii. Richer or poorer?

Richer. Getting a job does tt.

17. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Exercise?? :D

18. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Eat chocolate??

19. What were your favorite TV program(s)?

Gossip Girl, Dexter S3, TAR13

20. How did you spend Christmas?

It'll always be with family :D

21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No.

22. What was the best book you read?
i would like to say some really chim book but i didnt read much this year. so i'll just go with Jeffrey Deaver's Coffin Dancer (or was tt last year??)

23. What was your greatest musical discovery?

i'm a born drummer! heeheehee!

24. What did you want and get?

A camera !!(Thanks Jie Jie and Dan!!), a wallet (Thanks Jie Jie and Dan), Tennis racket (thanks to the parents), belt, shoe bag, water bottle (Thanks Vinna!), notebook, a grad trip and many more! :D

25. What did you want and not get?

Enough money for retirement.

26. What was your favorite film of this year?

Madagascar 2

27. What did you do on your birthday?

A lap dance on the stage which exposed my hidden talent to the entire audience. It's nice to know tt i have a backup career shud i ever fail in my present one! LOL!

28. What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?

Instant financial freedom!

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

same old things over and over again. LOL! but ever since i started working, it's been black and white.

30. What kept you sane?

Family

31. Which celebrity did you fancy the most?

Ed Westwick

32. What political issue stirred you the most?

US presidential elections.

33. Who did you miss?
Ting who i will miss more come 13th Jan 09. DON'T GO!

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

You do what you've gotta do. /

Everyone's piece of career advice would be "Don't join my profession".

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up 2008.

(chorus)
I know we’ve come so far,
but we’ve got so far to go.
I know the road seems long,
but it won’t be long ‘til it’s time to go.
So Most days we’ll take it fast,
but some nights we’ll take it slow.
I know we’ve come so far, but baby!
Baby! We’ve got so far to go!

Hey, your friends are together,
side by side and year by year!

The road was filled with twists and turns.
Oh, but that’s the road that got us here.

Let’s move past the bad times.
But before those memories fade…
Let’s forgive, but not forget the love from all the mistakes we made.
Cuz it’s so clear!
Every year, we get stronger.
So don’t give up and don’t say when.
And just get back on the road again cuz. .. (chorus)

2008-12-31T00:13:00.001+08:00

OBS camp!

I loved loved it! :D

For the first part of the first day, we were split into two groups.

These pics were taken when we were waiting for the other team to finish a task (No peeping was allowed to see how the other team did the task)..

First grp:

Second Grp:

Doesn't this exercise equipment look like it belongs in the singapore zoo's monkey enclosure??

Our Grp's Flag for the Raft:

We had to contact Vinna for lyrics to "Livin on a Prayer" at 11 a.m. at night! So thanks Vinna!

What guys do in their dorms at night:

LOL!

Quite enjoyed it because the pple in my grp were pretty gung-ho.. More pics will be coming up soon.. Still waiting for the photos from the instructor.. Then you guys can see the raft tt i was "captain" of (short pple sit in front)! All i did was hold the flag and tell pple to row hard! ha! ha! ha!

Anyways.. here is the grp pic.. Can u spot the chocolate guy? :D

2008-12-08T00:06:00.002+08:00

TADA! finally an update! Met up with Ting, Mel and Peio to catch up.. and that's when i fell in love with Mel's Samsung camera! It's so pretty and takes such great phots (well.. not as great as ting's super pro camera but great for pple like me!)

Love Mel's funky 'do!!

I know the meetup happened ages ago but tt just means that it's time for another meetup yes?? :D Korean BBQ anyone?

2008-12-07T00:26:00.002+08:00

Today, i got the awesome-est surprise ever from Jie Jie and Dan!! :D :D

It's the best christmas present ever!!!!! :D :D :D

Thanks loads Dan and Jie Jie!!

2008-12-06T00:00:00.002+08:00

Hidayah's Wishlist
a) Bag
b) Shoe/ shoe vouchers
c) Tops for work

Jing Xian's Wishlist
a) A Surprise!
b) Bag for work
c) Watch
d) Tennis skirt with pocket

Huili's Wishlist
a) Nice Crystal Hairclip
b) Any nice big watch
c) Anything pinky

okok several pple (fine.. one person) has told me that im being very cruel to my Santa. LOL! So i've decided to spare her the agony.. for now!

Adeline's Wishlist
a) Posters for my cubicle (preferably colourful and funky)
b) Elastic waist belt
c) Shoe bag for gym
d) Warm colourful biker gloves (those which do not cover fingers)
e) Tops for work
f) Bag for work
g) Bag to go out (those tt can sling kind..)

Now see? So many choices! Who's being cruel?? :D

Update: During my course, i watched in horror and disgust as one guy took my last piece of chocolate from me. What kind of world is this where guys take a girl's last piece of chocolate???!! That bastard.

2008-12-01T22:18:00.002+08:00

So after coming back from work, i buy dinner, wash up, clean the kitchen, put away the clothes, feed the dog, pack their room and finally take a breather while waiting for the rice to cool... and my mother comes and tells me"since you are waiting, why can't you re arrange the kitchen stuff?"

the hell!!

it's not enough that i feel really shitty coming back from work and actually try my best to make life easier for them, it's not enough that everytime i nag at my sisters to do housework, i get to feel like some sort of nazi villian. It's always always not enough. and i have had enough.

i dun understand why i'm always the one who has to nag at pple to do housework, bear the brunt of getting "you're so mummy la" or "wah lau so virgo" and while i dun even get a word of thanks of appreciation, and get to be painted to be a villian while i iron, pack, walk the dog and generally make sure they are in a good mood so that everyone benefits,im supposed to do more.

HOW MUCH MORE DO THEY WANT??!!!!!!!!!!!

i hate my life.

Disney channel is an investment for the easily frazzled.

So dear Secret Santa, to cheer me up, get me a nice waist belt for work (preferably with elastic).

2008-12-01T00:10:00.002+08:00

I realised that this blogskin's text is really really tiny but i love the pic so squint away people!! ;D

Sounds crazy but i'm getting worried about my blog posts because i have not one but two teachers reading my blog now so... I'm sure they would be mentally correcting every one of my grammar mistakes so the pressure.. It is ON!

...

ahhhhh.. Wine helps a lot in killing the very brain cells invested in sense and dignity.

correct away, teachers!

Just attended a wedding dinner and was seriously debating whether i would ever wanna get married.. It's like all the nice ideas have been done to death and no matter what, people are just gonna be bored at the diner so what's really the point? Bored Adel = Bitchy Adel. So. I got caught saying a bitchy remark on video. Wonderful. The videographer had better edit!

But finally finally finally the much talked about wedding has been put to rest..

Another thing i have realised.. my body is not in tune with my desires. While some fall sick during a weekday, i fall sick on a friday night and recover on Sunday night. Wonderful. Stupid body.. I mean, who's in charge? Me or me?

So the only new thing that's been happening to me is that i've been driven to chocolate and beyond by my clients.

ohohoh! and i have to make a wishlist.

To make things extra hard for my secret santa (because i can.. heeheehee!), i shall update my list one item at a time.. Good Luck Santa! :D

For the first day of Christmas, my santa gave to me....

A funky poster for my cubicle. It can be up to 36 inches for both breath and length. Would love it to be colourful but im just gonna trust your taste! :D

HO HO HO!

2008-11-12T00:01:00.002+08:00

It was inevitable that i would experience a bad day at work.. I'm actually quite surprised that it took so long to come. From uncooperative customers who couldnt cooperate and wasted 2 days to bloody british subjects who wanted sonnets dedicated to them, i could feel the root of one strand of hair turn white.

So at the end of an awful day, it was fantastic to have an impromptu dinner with Claryce. Nothing like sinful food to wash down a hard day's worth of work!! But here's a huge shout out to CLARYCE! Thanks so much for letting me bitch it all out to you! :D You were the perfect way to cheer up my day!

We also discovered that
1) I do not know how to work my GPS
2) We can go on a road trip to Malaysia!!

After fiddling with the GPS and calling Sherlin for directions, we decided to do it old school and... i drove Claryce home!!

of course, without Claryce in the front seat with a map, i got a bit lost on the way home. But it was just a teensy weensy wrong turn... into the expressway. LOL! But i got home eventually.

PS: Please bear with the long wait... i cant acess net at work and by the time i get home, im so sick of the computer screen that i stay away from it! I need time to photoshop the photos...

2008-11-09T23:20:00.002+08:00

Happy Birthday Ting!! :D

Thanks for being so wonderful!

2008-10-22T22:51:00.002+08:00

watch this space for updates!

a preview of what's to come...

when i smsed "wear green" i shud have specified "something green on your being".. something along the lines of scarf, earrings, socks... How was i to know tt my friends wud be so enthu as to wear really green clothes???!

plus! if you squint ur eyes and tilt ur head a little, my dress looks a tad green! :D

Anyways i love this photo because while everyone else is getting into "look at the non-green person", Vinna is happily oblivious to what's going on.. wonder what she was thinking.. something along the lines of "must pose nicely so that my guitarist can see me looking all sweet and pretty on facebook!"perhaps? hahaha!

2008-10-13T23:15:00.003+08:00

People!!! I live for ur emails during work hours! Do ur part for charity and prevent me from languishing in my work cubicle...

In retrospect, work has allowed me discover more about myself.

"Hi! I'm adel and i have a small bladder" I hate to think abt what im gonna be like when im old.

And to top it off, i accidentally zipped my hair into a dress zip today. blluurrrgh.

2008-10-12T23:21:00.004+08:00

In order to battle the Monday Blues, here are some posters i had previously created for a temp assignment! Was tasked to create posters to encourage people to visit the zoo then..

Anyways, thought that it was rather fitting to post them here in anticipation of our Halloween outing!

Even though it was a nightmare to create, i loved this monkey business one!

What do y'all think? Did i manage to succeed in enticing you to go to the zoo? :D

2008-10-11T15:04:00.002+08:00

How often do you get a song dedicated to you by your idol?? :D :D :D and to have ur name inserted inside Bon Jovi's "Always"? Such are the perks of knowing the lead singer! *heart melts* For the uneducated, check out J Bar's band on friday nights.. or Timbre@ Art House on Mondays or Tuesday! Once the dude starts singing in his deeep velvety voice, your entire being would just melt into a mere puddle on the ground! <3 You'll just wanna squeeeze him into a tiny being and put him into your mp3 player! And i say that as the best compliment ever :D

So, i had a great time yesterday! My cheekbones still hurt from all the laughing! What with experienced waiters from Bangkok, Pri(s)cilla, Nicholas (Young and Old), getting to be introduced to my idol (inner groupie:*SQUEAL!*) and pimping Alvinna to the guitarist... :D Yes you heard me... Alvinna made a new friend last night! I'll leave her to fill you in on all the scintillating details.. preferably on Hari Raya Visting Day... Say something like "Hey Vinna, heard you picked up the guitarist of the featured band on Friday!" in front of her dad... LOL!

As for work, i have my own NAME TAG! and then after i came down from cloud nine, i realised tt beyond the name tag was the biggest! baddest! cubicle i have ever seen! while i was pretending to be outwardly professional and aloof, inner me was dancing around and throwing up my hands like (you just don't care) as the person was explaining to me the details of the office.. Ohhhh who am i kidding? I had the hugest goofy smile on my face when i had to meet the boss (i was still in aftershock) and started waxing lyrical on how fantastic my cubicle is...

Everyone is allowed to decorate their cubicle to their fancy and I have big plans for my cubicle! By the time im done, it will be on MTV's My Crib (Office version)! :D Can't wait!

Ahem. and im still waiting for the photos from the JC meetup *coughmelcough*!

2008-10-08T00:57:00.002+08:00

We're not the same, dear, as we used to be
The seasons have changed and so have we.
There was little we could say, and even less we could do,
To stop the ice from getting thinner under me and you.

We bury our love in the windsory grave.
Along came the snow, that was all that remained,
But we stayed by its side as the days turned to weeks,
And the ice kept getting thinner with every word that we'd speak.

And when spring arrived,
We were taken by surprise when the flows under our feet,
Led into the sea.
Nothing was left for you and me.

We're not the same, dear.
And it seems to me,
There's more where we can go,
With nothing underneath.
And it saddens me to say,
But we both know, well, it's true.
That the ice was getting thinner,
Under me and you.
The ice was getting thinner,
Under me and you.

- "The Ice is getting Thinner" by Death cab by Cutie

2008-09-22T01:52:00.002+08:00

Taken from christine's blog... Love it and agree with every single word he says! :D

Life and How to Survive It

Below is a speech to the graduating class of 2008 at NTU convocation ceremony last week by Adrian Tan, a litigation lawyer and the author of The Teenage Textbook. Read it! It's hilarious but very meaningful.

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

2008-09-18T22:37:00.002+08:00

In very exciting news...

I can whistle!

Dayah and i went for fishspa yest and she refused to let me video her! What a pity because her reaction is the loudest and funniest i have seen yet! lol! But! after she got used to the sensation, she started laughin at this poor dude who was experiencing it for the first time la! Also.. guess who we bumped into at Chinatown with her gf? Starts with J and rhymes with "lui"..

In not so exciting news, i'm now gainfully employed. Hey! Dayah realised that our group is (mostly) working in pairs. Claryce & Jiahui, Asilah and Alvinna, Sherlin and Huili, Jing Xian and me and well.. Dayah at S. Sure am looking forward to being lunch buddies with Jing Xian again! :D

And in the most exciting news! i managed to park in a very very difficult parking lot in bishan! Yes, i know. I'm awesome. Seriously though. Every passenger in my car applauds after i finish driving. Such is the finesse of my driving skill. :D

Adel's rules for her passenger(s):

#1 This car shall not wait for any passenger(s).

#2 Front seat of the car shall always be occupied if there are passengers.

#3 Upon exiting the car, passenger(s) should thank the driver.

#4 At the end of every ride, passenger(s) are to applaud the driver on her driving skills.

2008-09-08T00:43:00.002+08:00

And soo... This is what 23 feels like.. Pretty.Darn.Good. :D

I have always loved birthday celebrations because they are a wonderful way to make known to the birthday baby how much we treasure him/her. But my 23rd birthday celebrations made me realise tt i got it wrong. Of course i realised how much i am loved. But in actual fact, looking up from gleefully tearing off the birthday wrappers/ in the midst of everyone singing "Happy Birthday", i felt an overwhelming surge of love for my family and friends. Up to now, I'm struck speechless whenever i think of the thought, effort and sincerity they put into planning my birthday celebrations..

Jie Jie and Audrey kicked off the celebrations with a treasure hunt in which we found out tt my mind thinks very differently from theirs. for eg. the clue read as "I will direct you" and i immediately went to my confused mom and asked for the present. lol! hahaha! turns out the clue was referring to this super ex GPS they bought for me and placed in the car! I'm so conquering the world now! I love love love the wallet, bag, book (which i bought and then ask the staff to gift wrap for me) and most of all, the GPS! :D

Now, i was rather excited about the NUS gang celebration for the August babies. Because for every one of their birthdays, we have managed to put in a surprise factor in their celebrations. It all started with the very memorable incident of giving Alvinna a faux birthday present and watching her cover up any disappointed look. Well.. sometimes the surprise would fail because the birthday baby would cancel out at the last minute *looks pointedly at Claryce* but we succeeded more often than not..

Being 8 working adults + 1 unemployed bum (aka me), we don't really meet up often and hence Asilah and i knew that they would have to celebrate our birthdays during the one meet up in August. Hence, i was wondering how can they ever incorporate a surprise element. Which would lead to our smug confidence that we wouldnt be surprised at all. the feeling was more of a "BRING IT ON!"

Alvinna tried to pretned tt she could not make it for the whole celebration by saying that she had a Teachers' Day dinner then. i was smugly thinking "is this all she can come up with? HA!" I tried catching her out by asking her many questions and even wondering out loud whether we should postpone the dinner which made her go into a tizzy! hahahha! That was fun! And when Jiahui and Sherlin said tt they had to work late, i was happily and graciously accepting their excuses as i thought tt they were all tryingh to deceive me/ needed more time to prepare my present! (Turns out tt while Jiahui was trying to lie, Sherlin really had work to do before joining us!)

Met up with Hidayah, Jing Xian, Sherlin, Asilah first to eat at the Turkish restaurant before proceeding to minds cafe where the others would join us. Throughout the whole time, whenever Sherlin or Hidayah had to talk on the phone, Asilah and i would ask them whether the rest would pop up with the cake then! lol! We then proceeded to freak them out by detailing what we wanted on our cupcakes ("A tiara... perhaps a wand..." LOL! From the Turkish restaurant to Minds cafe, we were asking "is the cake coming now?" or wondering what the surprise element was. But when plans changed with Sherlin running out to make more calls at minds cafe and then dragging us out.. we started asking "is the cake coming out now?" everytime we stopped!

At Raffles city, they asked us to go the loos but we refused and then for a few minutes we stood there "admiring the view" together. lol! Excited by this development, we started keeping a look out for the rest to appear with the cake! At one point, we all cracked up when i suggested that the cake was gonna float down with helium balloons. Sherlin's incredulous expression was to die for! hahahahaha!

So, on the way, Sherlin kept on asking us whether we had a cardigan which made us suspicious ("is she gonna do a magic trick? like hold it up and TA DA! the cake appears??").. Finally at Orchard Mrt station, we stopped and.... sherlin revealed why she needed the cardigan. they were gonna blindfold us! on a busy friday night! at orchard road!! *cue horror music*

After lots of "omigawd! nooooo!"s, we were too weak from laughin so hard and had to surrender peacefully to them.. *thoughtful pause* have you ever tried walkin blindfolded.. in heels?? It beats any camp games. Along the way, i had Hidayah and Jing Xian guiding me while Sherlin guided Asilah. Hidayah kept up a running commentary (HAHAHAHA! this lady just did a double-take when she saw asilah!) while JIng Xian was the trustworthy guide when Hidayah answered her calls.

We walked all the way to ORCHARD TOWERS! tt's one whole stretch of road! we even had to jaywalk across! We whipped off our blindfolds to be greeted by the lovely sight of Alvinna and Jiahui grinning in anticipation! I knew they were bluffing! LOL! Anyhoos.. to cut the long story short, we celebrated at the 3 Monkeys Cafe. where the surprise element was ... to participate in the Kumar Show!

Yes. My heart stopped when i realised that. Yes. My face turned white when i heard that. Yes. I wanted to sink to the floor when Asilah squealed that! And Alvinna turned on her innocent expression and insisted tt it wasn't so! Even under the threat that they would have to go on the reverse bungee jump blindfolded if it was so! (OOOOoooh just you girls wait!)

Anyways it was there where my friends discovered our brillant talents at dancing. What can i say? August Babies just rock. :D It would have been better if the guy was actually cute though! lol!

The cake came out when we least expected it and they gave us so many presents. Through these presents, i discovered the image that i have been projected to my friends.

1. My boobs are equivalent to maternity boobs and i have a huge ass.

HAHAHHAA! and on the bra and the biggest darn undies i have ever seen, they actually wrote stuff all over it. This is what i call a personalised touch!

Anyways, i love the clarins spray and clutch! They wrapped the clutch up in 23 layers and with each layer came a post it note to tell me why they love me. altogether now.. AWWWWWW! It makes me teary just thinking about it!

Turns out that Jiahui and Claryce (QSes who are really really really busy) had to wrap it during their lunch hour. AWWWWW! I'm really touched!

All in all, it was a great birthday celebration and i loved every minute of it! Thank you so much for everything.. can you feel the overwhelming love pouring out of this blog entry??

And i have to come to the end of this post because i am showing emotion and i am chinese. we are stoic people who will not show emotion. but even so.. I LOVE YOU GIRLS!!

So a HUGE THANK YOU to

Jie Jie & Audrey for planning the birthday treasure hunt

Jie Jie & Dan for the awesome present of GPS, wallet and bag i love them!

Audrey for Stone Monkey hahaha!

Hidayah and Alvinna for buying the presents

Jiahui and Claryce for wrapping the presents and coming up with the 23 things we love abt adel during their lunch hour! I get all choked up when i think of how you two managed to squeeze time out of your very very very busy schedule to sacrifice your lunch hour for me! And i'm so very sorry for Claryce's paper cut! They bled for me! How much more can you ask for?? :D

Alvinna for managing to surpass the "surprise" quotient!

Sherlin for planning the whole thing.. down to the blindfold detail (yes i know it was you!). She looked so worried at first!

Jing Xian, Hidayah and Sherlin for patiently enduring our endless teasing (is the cake gonna come out here??) and leading us on a tour ard city hall for an hour!

Jing Xian for not leaving me alone when i was blindfolded!

Hidayah and Jing Xian for accomplishin the task of leading me to jaywalk while i was blindfolded!

Claryce, Huili, Sherlin, Alvinna, Hidayah, Jiahui & Jing Xian for taking time out to meet up, plan and celebrate our birthdays! :D

everyone who played a part in making me deliriously happy with all the birthday smses! :D

2008-08-26T19:30:00.002+08:00

I got my new phone!!!!! <3

It's Sony Ericsson so my sms replies will be slower than the usual but still!! New! Phone! So far, (as expected, heehee!) im so rocking the rollercoaster game.

Been feeling rather gross these past few days. When i have managed to sucessfully kill one pimple off, another huge one surfaces. Honestly! It's like one of those arcade games, whack-a-zit or something. And another side effect from the Olympics is the weight gain! *shakes fist in general direction of tv* Because of the desire to watch the finest athletes compete, i forgo any physical activity... well save for walking to the remote. So weight gain + pimple outbreak (I'm not even stressed damnit.) = sigh! I forbid any photo taking at my "surprise" birthday celebration!

PS: a HUGE Thank You to ting for all her smses to cheer me up after the nightmarish interview! Hope you are enjoying freddos in aussie!! Eat more for me! :D

2008-08-24T23:26:00.003+08:00

Been melting into the couch for the last few days. Didnt realise how obsessed i had become with the Beijing Olympics.. but! i can pinpoint my fav moment! I was on the bus on the way home when the mobile tv showed the end of a soccer game. and you know how the footballers tend to swap jerseys at the end of the game?? well. several of them took off their jerseys and shorts!! leaving them walkin ard the field in just tight whiteys!! PHWROAARR! i tink i may have been salivating then.

Went to the fish spa where you put ur feet into the pond and let the fishes nibble at the dead skin. It really does work! But it's not for the faint hearted though. When i was there, there was this girl who couldnt put her feet in (granted, the fishes were really HUGE) and her bf got quite fed up with her. Anyways! it really does work! I was quite pleased with my baby pink feet after tt! No more cracks! how awesome is tt? :D :D :D i would love to immerse my whole body in it! Put my hand into the pond and i was shocked to see so many fishes swarming up! Seems like my hands have a lot of dead skin!

I've been so bored at hme tt when Audrey brought back Twilight, i was so excited that i kept on hovering around her so that she could finish the book faster! Hooray! Everyone has been giving great reviews abt the book that i was really curious about the story. The movie is coming up this year.. Here's hoping it won't turn into a Harry Potter *scoffs!*/ Sex and the City *SCOFFS!* (No matter what claryce says!)! Hmmm Twilight is okay. Did not really live up to my expectations but i hope tt the 3rd book (my gut feeling tells me that the 2nd book will be a bit too depressing for me!) will be more interesting as the the ground work has been laid out.

Here's the movie trailer of Twilight. I wanna see Rosalie!!

When you can live forever.. What do you live for?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBvOhfL4mYw

2008-08-14T23:11:00.002+08:00

Happy Birthday Asilah!!

August babies rock! May many wonderful things happen to you this year :D The first of which is the totally amazing surprise party we're gonna get on the 29th! Can't hardly wait!! :D :D :D

Dad came back on Tues and he bought Wii(!!) for! my! birthday!! With the whole works! Dance mat, wheel, gun.. you name it. So far we have played bowling (jie jie is crazy ass super good in this game), boxing (audrey wins this every single time), golf (Dan is damn pro), dance anddddd tennis! which i totally rock! I'm like the virtual williams sister! hahaha!

After everyone had gone to sleep, i continued playing tennis and won the computer yo!

Adel = Rock on!

Of course the ceiling fan was a minor casualty of my enthusiasism but daddy fixed it liao.

In other news, I helped Christine to move into PGPR. Turns out that her room is in the same block and on the same floor i used to stay in! :D In fact, her room is only next to the one i got! Heh. In a way, im super envious of her. She gets to be a student in uni! the best position to be! Grown up enough to do her own thing yet still a child in not having to worry abt jobs!

Speaking about job hunting.. it is the most demoralising thing ever to be rejected.. even by a system. Even a machine doesnt want me! :( I really really hope that my only hope will not rest on a job based very far away.. Sigh. We'll see. Que sera sera.

2008-08-12T00:54:00.003+08:00

At which point does one just gives in?
How do you know what's the right decision?
If only the heart, mind and pocket were aligned...

2008-08-06T01:21:00.002+08:00

Happy Birthday Peio!

Some moments are worth celebrating over and over again. This.. is one of them. :D

2008-08-01T11:42:00.002+08:00

11.oo am wake up to eat nutella

11.15 am make bed

11.17 am wander out to computer to do some job hunting

11. 19 am dad calls on skype so surrender computer to mom

11.20 open fridge to examine contents

11.21 make sister's bed

11.22 try to call for dash to play with him but the lousy dog is sleeping and refuses to heed my calls.

11.24 try to entice dash with some yogurt

11.24 succeeded

11.28 dash goes back to sleep

11.30 go back to bed

11.35 gets kicked out of bed

11.40 regains use of computer

11.45 decides to blog.

Now... aren't you glad you're working?? bah. i need a job asap. if not because of boredom then because my mom wants to paint the whole house!

2008-07-31T17:26:00.004+08:00

For someone who pesters others to put up their birthday wishlists, i didn't really like the idea of telling people what to get for me. I felt that it kinda took the surprise element out of it.. But! I changed my mind after shopping for the other birthday babies. Present hunting is hard.. esp if you don't really know what the birthday baby wants! Also, the expressions of glee on the jun-jul babies' face helped to convince me that a bit of the surprise is still retained (in the sense that they don't know which items of their wishlist we would pick!).

Hence, for the convenience of those working out there, i have made out a wishlist in excruciating detail so that you can just pop in and out of the store! :D Enjoy!

Adel's wishlist

- Sigh.. my dream job??

- For my ipod to miraculously start working.

- I need another pair of aviators to put in the car to wear while driving. Dayah bought a really nice pair from bugis for only $10!

- A bag for interviews/ work

- wallet (the coin compartment shud preferably be on the outside.. See Jing Xian's wallet for reference!)

- earrings for work

- pouch tt is big enough to put my hp and cash inside. Need it for lunch hour/ gg out for chomp chomp nights etc.

- Seamless or pretty lace bra. I'm 70b.

- Books! Preferably mystery/crime novels (but not lee child, sidney sheldon or ian rankin). I love the lincoln rhyme series of Jeffrey Deaver! *hint hint* The Jeffrey Deaver books i have read include Twisted, More Twisted, The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Empty Chair, Garden of Beasts, The Vanished Man, Speaking in Tongues, The Lesson of her death, The Coffin Dancer. Please dun get Bone Collector too. Angelina Jolie kinda spoilt tt image for me. The only prob with this option is that there may be a risk that i get 2 copies of the same book which happened during Christmas.

edit: Audrey says that she'll get me "The Stone monkey" so don't get tt too! Yay! I can't wait to read it!!!!

- you can't go wrong with beauty products! :D Here are the names of products im itching to try out! :D
"Clarins Fix' Make-Up Refreshing Mist $25.00"
" Paul and Joe eye make up palette Summer Shimmer"
"Palmer's skin success spider vein cream"
"Shiseido white lucent brightening eye treatment"

Also, following in the steps of Vinna, here's my "Please do not get me these items" list
- cups / mug
- perfume
- decorative items like figurines, pictures, vases etc.
- flowers
- chocolates
- balloons
- Store vouchers as they mean tt i have to get out of the house and go to the store. heh!
- urm clothes. Often people give me really lovely clothes in a much smaller size which just serves to depress make me! lol! Height does not equal width!

So there you have it! Adel's very easy and convenient birthday wishlist and non-wishlist!

By the way, for the "surprise" bday celebration, dayah was wondering whether we could go minds cafe. lol! We discussed it and we agreed that the city hall's one would be the best location. What do you think? Do let her know!

2008-07-26T00:47:00.002+08:00

Yesterday, I conquered CTE.

Today, the PIE and BKE.

Tomorrow... the world! :D :D :D

This feeling of control is amazing.. Imagine what i could do with GPS!

2008-07-25T02:08:00.003+08:00

Do i hear a cry for updates?? lol!

Sorry but it seems like i'll have great witty ideas for a blog entry which would immediately disappear as soon as i log on to blogger! gah! But. i'l try my best to fill up a few paragraphs about what's happening in my non-existent life..

Update #1:

The much anticipated BBQ got rained on. To give you an idea of how last minute it was, i was anxiously waiting on the patio for Sherlin to come pick me up when Claryce called to say tt it was raining at Tampines. Man! At that very moment, i felt like throwing bricks at the sky and whatnot. Yes, that "NOOOOOOooooo" sound you heard on sat was me.

But my family proved to be a absolute lifesaver! As soon as i asked my parents for permission to use the house and BBQ, they said yes and sprang into action. Within minutes, my dad had the BBQ pit set and Jie Jie and Mummy were busy heating up the charcoal for the fire. Within half and hour, we had a fire going. And this is despite the fact that it was my dad's last day of his July Singapore's visit and Jie Jie having to go off to pick Dan up from the airport in a matter of time! What can i say? My family is fabulous!

I havent gotten the pics of the BBQ from the rest yet, hence i shall post the pics another time. But was really glad that the birthday babies enjoyed their celebration and presents!! They deserve the best and i'm glad that they liked the cupcakes. Kudos esp to Asilah for the cupcakes and picking out such fine presents! Hidayah and Jing Xian played essential roles in present hunting too!

Update #2:

Well.. I've finally passed my driving! As Claryce said, "Driver in the house yo!" One baby step into adult hood! :D Hooray! As soon as i could get out of the centre, i called my mom to pick me up and fixed the plates so that i could start driving asap! Celebrated by driving straight to Novena which meant taking the CTE. Talk about baptism by fire! Fetched Audrey from school and then later, Jie Jie from Bishan. It was nerve wrecking trying to drive in the rain in the dark. To make it worse, my car's wipers were a tad old so whenever it wiped away the raindrops, i would be left peering through a blurred window. And then there's the issue of parking the car in my house's garage. I think i gave my mum quite a fright a few times when i tried parking it!

BUT FEAR NOT! I will practise and practise and practise! This license is so expensive and difficult to get, i must make full use of it! Also, I told my parents that they do not have to worry about me getting reckless on the road because this license is just too precious to lose! Am resolved to being a safe and careful driver! :D Will practise in time for Hari Raya & CNY visiting! ho ho ho!

Update #3:
Mum has been sick all week long so i've been busy juggling all the housework with everything else. While the laundry, ironing and cleaning are okay, nothing else would make me take up cooking. All week long, i've been dancing around in the kitchen, squealing and squealing when the stupid oil splatters onto me. I swear, the food is evil. It's out to get me for cooking it. The other day, this drop of hot oil jumped out of the kwali to miss my eye by an inch. An inch! I wanted to show it the middle finger. After the first day, i realised tt i couldnt do it on my own so i have roped in Audrey to assist me... together with the guidance of Jie Jie thru email, i have made it thru the first week of cooking :D Hooray!

Anyhoos, housework, driving, job hunting and dash's ear infection have kept me pretty busy for the past week. I promise that once things settle down next week, i'll sit down and properly do the presents accounts. Up to today, im still scratching my head over the remaning $20!

Also on the promise list, my very first birthday wishlist! :D
For now, the hint is NO clothes!

2008-07-01T23:43:00.003+08:00

What's happened to me?

I used to love interviews! With the arrogance only youth can provide, i would swagger in to interviews, confident that i would ace it. But now the thought of having to go in and answer questions like "describe a difficult situation which you got out of." or "describe why you think that you would be perfect for this job" makes me quake in my shoes. This is just plain crazyyy. I can foresee a downward spiral into batshit crazy lady who is fearful of everything.

Which is pretty stupid considering the people have to pick you for the interview and they can't do that if you havent sent your resume for them to look thru. So logic goes to reason that i should start finishing the damn resume already!

heeeelp!

2008-07-01T12:11:00.002+08:00

got it from peio's blog.

Wanna know what's ur personality type? Take the free test!

I'm a Social Realist (SR)

Social Realists are popular persons full of energy. They are reliable, well organized and helpful. Traditional values are important to them. Founding a family also plays a central role in their life. (<--wrong) Social Realists have a marked social streak. They are always ready to listen to the worries and problems of others and spare no effort when they are asked for help. With empathy and understanding, they can sense what other people need. Social Realists are always willing to highly regard the strong points of the other person and to excuse that person’s weaknesses. They are the most sociable of all personality types. Social contacts are very important to them.

Social Realists find it very difficult to cope with conflicts and criticism - harmony is their elixir of life. Acknowledgement and esteem are very important to this type. Differentiation on the other hand is not necessarily one of their strong points. At work and in partnerships, they are loyal, committed and always there when needed. They find it easy to make friends due to their open, warm manner and they have a large circle of friends. In love, they are faithful and attentive and care for their partners with a great deal of imagination and sensitivity. Social Realists show their feelings openly and honestly. Should a relationship break up, they tend to blame themselves. That is why they find it very difficult to end a partnership even if it has not fulfilled their requirements for some time.

Social Realists are more conservative types. They have a set system of values and rules which is orientated to the prevailing traditions. They prefer clear, structured surroundings and work processes; they find too much change und unrest unpleasant. Their strong points are carefulness and reliability and not so much flexibility and spontaneity. Social Realists are open-minded towards anything new only to a limited extent. But, should one be looking for someone to fulfil a task reliably and exactly, they are the right persons.

2008-06-30T12:57:00.002+08:00

So! Last thursday, we went to eat nasi bryani and collect our gowns from school. It was really great seeing the girls again.. Really missed them like hell! Especially when you consider how often we would see each other in school and how we weren't able to meet up for a month because of everyone's busy schedule! Even though Hidayah, Claryce, Jiahui and Huili were sorely missed, we had a great natter, especially when it came to being updated on recent events! heeeheeehee!

Collection of the gowns were surprisingly painless. There were a few vendors there hard selling their products such as plaques (for our certificates) and photoshoots. I remembered that Jie Jie and Dan had a reaallly bad experience with one photo studio and they did mention that they chose the photostudio because the photostudio had been at NUS at the time of gown collection. Now, Jie Jie and Dan are like the sweetest, most forgiving couple that i know of. They are more apt at being amused and letting horrid customer service incidents go so when they got really upset about this photostudio, i knew that this photostudio was reaaaaally bad.

So! If you are really interested in knowing which photostudio this is, it's.... wait for it... Serangoon Studio!!! They do not do touch ups on the photos, Jie Jie and Dan had a really shitty photographer and the person at the counter was very very rude to them when they were dissatisfied with the photos. In fact, the experience was so terrible that when i asked Jie Jie which photo studio it was, she said it with such a look of horror that i had to laugh! So, i've done my part as a friend... Be forewarned!

Okay! time for "how to meaninglessly fritter time away"

How I Met Your Mother has been on my tv radar for quite some time but season 3 is reaally much better. As soon as they put in this one little twist, i was quite simply stunned by the possibility. How could i not have thought about it?? Also, this show is the best in acknowledging that there is such a thing as "awesomeness" and the fact that it keeps on usng the term "awesome" shows you how great the writers are. :D

Just finished watching season 3 of Criminal Minds and i swear, their crimes are getting more horrific. I spend more time hiding behind the huge pillow than watching the crime scenes.
Criminal Minds is about how this FBI team tries to profile criminals (predict the personality of the person who does the crime in each episode). Catch it if you miss CSI (which btw.. las vegas is soo going downhill.)

CSI:NY season 4 made me wanna throw popcorn or something really cheap and unbreakable at the screen everytime one character appears on the screen. Check out The Closer instead.

And last but not least, on a totally unrelated note, ting has asked me to write my crazy rantings about the Sex and the City movie. But because Sherlin has not watched it yet, i'm gonna wait. For now, let's just say that SaTC Movie has become my new Harry Potter Movie. Oh.. Poor Chuhui, Yuanjing and Jiahui know what that means. I had to sit on Jie Jie and tell her my exact opinion of the movie before she bowed down to my awesome supreme power of logic and reasoning and agreed with what i said.

Now, if you excuse me, i'm gonna try to break this cycle of procrastination and figure out a way to write an impressive letter and resume to show all employers in the world what a wonderful employee i'll be. (Like Hello? My pic as "Employee of the Month" would loook waay better than any one of their present employees)

Sigh. I wish we could be as they do in Futurama. A program settles your job and pring! you got the job you are perfect for!

2008-06-27T00:00:00.007+08:00

I'm back!!!

First things first...

Happy Birthday dear Alvinna!

Here's a toast to the girl who

- gets to ogle hot Japanese guys in Bali!!!!!!!!!!

- and is bringing us with her the next time!

- introduces us to the most delectable K-dramas :D

- has the best "hot guy" radar around!

- will soon be "Miss Alphonso" to our future generation!

May you have the best time celebrating your Birthmonth!! :D :D

Psstt.. i wanted to write your bday wishes in Malay but Babelfish doesn't translate to Malay. Darn!

Second thing on the agenda...
Those who said yes to my proposal, please view and vote for the pic you would like to be on the ez link card! ;D

Pic A

Pic B

Pic C

Or are there any other suggested better photoshopped to get rid of the cracks on the wall and whatnot! Choose wisely! :D

we can buy the cards in batches of 1,2 or 3. See below website for more info! :D

http://www.singaporemint.com/default.php?cPath=2_18_110

2008-06-18T11:46:00.002+08:00

白人读不懂。

大家好！我正在上海旅游，玩地很开心。上海真有趣，有好多事做，好多东西买（我买的衣服全部是黑还是白！男人也挺帅但我还是比较喜欢汉国男人！哈哈哈！因为我在中国，所以用华语写了这登录！你觉得惊喜吗？如果是的话，我也不能怪你。好久没有写了一篇华文的文章！

今天来写博客是因为是 Sherlin 的生日！(对不起，不知道怎么写您的华文名)

祝您生日快乐，身体建康，越长越漂亮，步步高升，多福多寿! 希望您的 fashionstaples 可以有很好的反应! 知道您正在香港。。等您回来让我们和您一起庆祝！快去快回喔！！ :D

就再祝您生日快乐！

The rough translation:

Hello! Right now, i'm having a lovely time in Shanghai. Shanghai rocks socks off! There are plenty of things to do and buy (Most of the clothes i bought are either black or white.. typical me huh?) Chinese guys are pretty cute too, but i'll still prefer Korean guys! hahaha! Thought that since i'm in China, it would be wholly approriate to blog in Chinese. Are you surprised? I wouldn't blame you if you are. After all, i have not written a Chinese paragraph for ages!

The main reason for my blog post today is because it's Sherlin's Birthday! (Don't really know how to write her chinese name)

So here' wishing Sherlin a Happy Birthday!! May you be healthy and pretty always, climb the ladder of success and live a long life to enjoy loads of prosperity! Here's hoping that Fashion Staples will soon hve a great response! Know that you are celebrating your birthday in Hong Kong so we're waiting for you come back to celebrate it with you.. So hurry back kies? :D

Here's wishing you a Happy Birthday once again! :D

2008-06-12T00:04:00.002+08:00

Happy Birthday Neela!

Sorry about the late wishes but my hp ran out of batt and my dad's MSN doesnt work. Hence this loud proclaimation on my blog! ;D

Happy Birthday to the Goddess of Wisdom, and the next Domestic Goddess! May the following year be the best year of your life yet. Learn more at school so that we can all hang out at ur cafe when we are old! :D :D

2008-06-08T23:56:00.009+08:00

Firstmost.. Happy Birth Week to Jiahui where ever she might be in Japan! :D

The last week has been pretty crazy, what with all the dumpling wrapping and new furniture arriving (i still can't get over the fact that my mom and i rearranged the hall's furniture thrice). Add doing my dad's errands and trying to cram stuff into an overflowin suitcase.. Suffice to say i needed a bit of escapism... And herein enters the all important role of Korean drama!

"9 end 2 outs" is about the love lives of 30 yr olds. While there have been many raves about it, i was kinda meh on the story development. Ended up fast forwarding thru semi-plots i deemed useless to the main story. Got a bit lost about the writers' objectives (like why is this person coming in now?). Certain parts of the story seemed a bit disjointed. Perhaps it was lost in translation... Gah now i really do wanna learn Korean! Admittedly, during certain bouts of the show, i had unreasonable urges to reach through the screen and slap the female lead on the other end. Either she was really over analysing too much, talking too much or being really whiney/stupid.

But then again! I perserved!

Because "9 end 2 outs" has several redeeming qualities..

Top reasons one should watch 9 End 2 Outs

The Male lead Smiling

The Male lead looking wistful with puppy dog eyes

The Male Lead being Sad

The Male Lead looking stoned/ emotional/ shocked/ confused /caring ( basically i forgot the scene)

The Male Lead lookin angry ( i love this shot!! The most expression shown!)

The Male Lead in the shower.... wet ( inner adolescent girl in me: heeheeehee!)

Male Lead thinking

Male Lead being cheeky :D :D :D

And the TOP reason for one to watch "9 end 2 outs":

Male Lead's half naked scene!!!!

risque by korean drama's standards..

Here's hoping more directors would follow suit and show more man chest!!!

PS: Male lead is Lee Jung Jin (courtesy of Drama wiki)

2008-06-07T14:56:00.023+08:00

Daddy's Surprise

Taking a break from making my dad's Father's Day Present to blog about the surprise we threw for him before he went to Shanghai.

Sigh! Because he was so busy in the last few days, the only day we could throw the surprise was on the very day of the planned post-exams BBQ. So it was with a heavy heart that i regretably informed the NUS peeps that i couldnt make it to the BBQ. They were really lovely, being understanding and trying to move the date around. But turns out that they are all very busy people! It was too tough trying to get a date when everyone was free that the BBQ was postponed indefinately. I'm so so sorry about that! Tried to collate all our schedules to see when we can meet up again.. but it will be after 25th June. Shall we make it 5th July (sat)? Please do let me know kies?

So after making the difficult decision, we had to plan everything quickly. We decided that we would pretend tt it would only be my family going out to try a new restaurant but when we get there, the rest of the extended family would be there, hence giving daddy a surprise! :D

Jie Jie was in charge of finding us a new restaurant to try (She's the best person to ask about where to get good food. Every food outlet she brings us to will be guranteed repeated returns!) I had to co-ordinate with the various uncles and aunties about the venue and time. My dad is very very particular about arriving at places early so i had to make sure that everyone would be there before him. Not an easy task if you ask me! On the actual day, Daddy wanted to leave half an hour early!

I went into frantic mode as the rest of the relatives had not arrived at the restaurant! Was sending out SOS smses to all to hurry to the venue! Jie jie called to pretend that the reservation was pushed back, Christine (being the main liasion) was smsing back frantically to report who had arrived, I had to pretend to be doing make up (eliciting a "why you need to put on so much makeup? No one going to be there la!" from an impatient Daddy) ... Luckily, Audrey pretended to be finishing up her maths homework so we could stall Daddy a bit!

Even so, Daddy still managed to get us all out of the house pretty early. -_- lll
The whole way there, we were praying for red lights! lol!

Anyways! we managed to reach later than the rest so Daddy got a huge shock when he saw them there. :D His first reaction was "eh??? who is also here leh!" lol! When he entered, the cousins immediately stood up clapping and cheering for him and the whole restaurant turned to look! lol! No pictures of a surprised daddy though.. cause they were all so engrossed in cheering for him that they completely forgot to get a photo of his shocked look!

We ate at Hooked on Heads (located at Thomson). Jie Jie wanted to eat a chinese restaurant which i was vehemently against as i thought Daddy ought to eat his favourite spicy dishes. Dad's fav dish is fish head curry and yet Mum didn't want to eat at "somewhere non-air con.. hot la" so Jie jie had a pretty difficult time finding one restautant tt fit all our requirements. But being Jie jie.. she did manage to find Hooked on Heads, which met all our expectations (foodwise) and more! :D

They are famous for their Fish Head Curry
and mee siam...
But being us, we went and ordered loads more!
Here's the fish..

And some of the food.. After a while the phtographer started tucking in and photos were soon forgotten!

After eating dinner, we decided to go back to gee ku's house to cut the cake. Claryce had raved about a durian cake before and remembering how my dad loves durians, i made note of it. So this was a perfect occasion to try her recommendation!

The durian cake

Everyone LOVED it! Thanks Claryce! :D

Now, 2 days before, Christine suggested making a farewell present for my dad so i had to go thru all my family albums to find pics of my dad with the cousins (NOT an easy task, seeing how my dad is always taking pics of other people!). The day before the celebration, christine and i met up to buy art materials (without even having a clue as to what we should make!). We settled on making a coffeetable book and then rushed back to her house to make it. By the time we reached her house, it was around 6 pm. Soon, we roped in her sisters, Pauline, Angeline and Celine to help out. Audrey had told my dad tt she was helping Angel with her work and was also present. By 7 pm, stress levels were high as we were still pondering as to how to decorate the pages. Also, we discovered that the Leong's household was seriously lacking in art supplies (no coloured paper? No glue??) We had to be very innovative when it came to decorating with whatever was available!

Thankfully, Jie jie and Dan arrived and soon Jie Jie efficiently took ahold of the operation and we started working on it.. By 8 pm,Sarah and Penny had arrived to contribute to the mass of people scrawled out all over the hall! This is what you call 'Cousins united!" lol! Typical of the Ng family.. last minute and in spite of the fact tt the younger ones had exams looming, they took time off to help out :D

We worked on it till some people fell asleep (*cough* audrey *cough*).

So the very next day, Christine (who, despite her busy schedule, did most of the touch ups the next day) had the honours of presenting our hard work. Needless to say.. my dad was super surprised and touched.

In fact, my dad was so happy with the present, he refused to let anyone carry it! Even when his hands were full, he was still balancing it with one hand! :D

Here's the present we all worked so hard on! ;D

Cover Page:

I love the Bible bit because it's such a representative of my dad "THE Godfather". It's an ongoing joke that my parents are "THE Godparents" as they are very religious and take their responsibilities as Godparents very seriously.

Pauline made the aeroplane out of aluminium foil and pages from a magazine.

I love the buttons on this page! All credits go to Christine. Jie Jie did the cutting of the photos and coloured outlines.

3rd page

Credits go to Jie Jie for the layout of this page. Used an old skirt of Pauline's to make the background :D

4th Page

5th Page:

Last Page:

Penny, Sarah and Pauline were entrusted with the task of making the bicycle (cause my dad loves cycling) and car (cause my dad is often the one who fetches us around). And they did it with just aluminium foil and pages from a magazine! Aren't they amazing? ;D

So all in all... Mission Surprise Godpa SUCCESS! :D :D :D

Leaving you with a snapshot i found of my dad and us when we were young. I don't know what it is that gets me. It could be the happy expressions my sis and i have on, showing clearly how we were enjoying in that very moment, or how my dad's expression and pose reminds me of how he has been tenderly loving and protecting us since young.. whatever it is, i love the simplicity in this spontaneous shot.. :D

2008-06-06T22:39:00.002+08:00

SLURP!

That's all i can say. :D :D

Drama is "9 end 2 outs". Find it at http://mysoju.com/9-end-2-outs/

2008-05-31T20:43:00.002+08:00

I leapt for joy and now my ankle hurts.

So! The other day, i was dog sitting and happened to turn on the TV. And what i saw made my blood boil. Save for one show about detectives (and that was only because Huili and Jing Xian highly recommended it), i have not watched a Channel 8 show since the start of JC. After viewing the current show for ten minutes, i realised that i have not missed much at all.

What i saw made me feel sick to my stomach. In the show, the mother in law told her daughter-in-law that the reason for her interference in the daughter-in-law's sex life was because she wanted a grandson (the daughter-in-law had a daughter). I can't remember the exact wording of the whole conversation but here's the essence of it.

daughter-in-law : What's wrong with having only daughters? My father never had sons and he's perfectly okay.

Mother-in-law: If your father had any sons, he wouldn't need his married daughter to come home to celebrate his birthday with him.

daughter-in-law: what's wrong with daughters going back to celebrate their father's birthday?

Mother-in-law: A married daughter is like "splashed water"... (and i turned off the tv at this point)

I couldn't bear to watch it any longer. So what the drama is essentially telling the public is that sons are always preferred and that married daughters should never go back to their own family?

what kind of bullshit is this? Yes, i do understand that some people still feel this way and sons are good (better if more good lookin guys are produced. heeheehee!) but if there is always so much talk about how the media tries to educate the public, isn't such a conversation going against the goal of influencing the public's opinion for better? And i do not accept the excuse that this is just entertainment.

I remember why i stopped watching was because the dramas would insert government ideals into their shows like "we should try for a baby cause of the baby bonus!" If such ridiculous lines can be inserted into the show, why can't they stop promoting the ideals of "carrying on the family lines" and "married daughters should not go back to their families"? Please lah. I personally feel that the whole "carryin on the family line" is a whole bunch of crap. There are so many "Tan"s, "Tay"s, "Chan"s, "Li"s, "Lim"s in the whole world. There is no risk of the name dying out liao. And what's wrong with married daughters going back to celebrate their parents' birthdays? It is after all their parents who raised them, who gave them their love, money and support.

A woman marries the man. She does not owe her life to her in-laws. Her in-laws did not invest in her education, did not bring her to the doctor when she was sick, did not dry her tears, did not share her joys... All they did was produce their son who she married for being himself. Yes, she would respect them, be nice to them and try to love them. But, the son should also do the same to his own in-laws. I don't see any shit being given to the sons about not treating his in-laws properly.

Media has an important role in influencing the public. Should such ideals continue to be promoted in local shows, this horrid mentality will be passed on to the next generation. When will this stupid cycle stop? If our media has the power to stop it, why aren't they?

Perhaps in the past, the woman would be dependent on the man's family but that is no longer the case so why can't local media embrace this change in mentality?? Woman are already being given loads of shit in the world today.

This is part of the reason why not many are proud to be Singaporeans. Why be proud when ur local media sprouts such ridiculous ideals? I'm very very sure (and i really really really hope that i'm wrong) that in the end, the daughter-in-law will bear a son. sigh.

We do not need this whole "Married woman" and "carrying on the family line" to add to our worries.

ah wells. back to boycotting channel 8 dramas and turning to other countries' entertainment products for my dose of escapism.

2008-05-26T23:49:00.025+08:00

Gosh. I really miss aussie. What wouldnt i give for another day in Aussie!!

Well.. that means that i'm prob gonna recap my trip in excruciating (Thanks vinna!) detail so be warned!

Before i can recap anything though, i must thank two incredible people who were the very reason for my trip to down under in the first place. A huge "Thank you" to Ting and Neela! No amount of "thank you"s can adequately express my gratitude to them for making aussie such a wonderful experience! It was precisely because of them that this trip was more special and heart warming than most! :D

Ting and Neela during dinner

I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Neela for taking time off her busy schedule, managing to tear herself away from her love, and travel 3 hours to join us in Sydney. Sydney would not been half as fun without her at all! She was my sole rock to cling to when we would devise ways to leave the lovey dovey couple to themselves! lol! Also, the poor girl had to endure us pausing every once in a while to snap photos, or forcing her to take a photo! At the Sydney Opera House, Ting was going all out for her love of photography by lying on the floor to get the perfect angle while Neela looked on disbelievingly / disapprovingly..

An incredulous Neela watching Ting demostrate what she would do for her art. The picture is a tad blurred cause i was laughing so hard

We even ran out of the car to take photos of a lovely sunset while she missed Nathan... heh!

The beautiful sunset Ting and i were scrambling to take photos of while Neela goes "wtf?" in the car! Neela was also a very crucial participant of Mission Hot. So heaps of love and thanks go out to the Goddess of Wisdom!

Neela missing her Nathan..

This trip was a super relaxed one because i didnt have to plan anything for the
travel itinerary (thanks vinna!). In fact, ting was cheering me up during the exams by telling me what she had planned! Here's the lovely angel!

The flurry of emails during my exam period was, indeed, a guide towards the light at the end of the tunnel! Instead of dreading to come online to read more notes, i knew i count on checking my email inbox to see that i've got new mail from them.

Besides taking over the travel itinerary, ting was an amazing food guide. Not once did we waste our calories on bad food! Every eating experience was a delight and made me regret not bringing maternity clothes to aussie! I fell head over heels in love with freddo's, developed a strong crush on grecco's cakes and more...

And have i mentioned how grateful i am to ting for accompanying me to places tt she has already been to? Even though she had been to the Great Ocean Road, Philip Island and shopping, she still made the time and effort to bring me to all these wonderful places. What can i say? She's seriously the best Melbourne guide ever! :D

Ting is also one excellent photographer with her big ass camera! If i post any nice photos, chances are they were taken by ting. For example, the photos of the animals posted in my previous entry were taken by ting. For some reason, all the animals looked directly at her while she happily snapped away. hmmmph!

Ting's huge ass pro camera

And of course there was the self-love photos tt she is seriously good at taking! Not to mention how patient she was as i would closely scrutinise every photo and if i was dissastisfied, she would just roll her eyes and take one more photo.

More examples of Ting's excellent self-love!

Then.. she found the self timer mode on my camera and nothing could stop us!

Setting the camera's timer

Needless to say, ting soon became the person who was running from the camera after setting it. And yet again, the photos she did the self timer for always turned out better than the ones i did! That girl has a midas touch with cameras!

Another memorable example of how awesome ting is the when we were freezing our asses off at the Great Ocean Road.

I learned how Ting deals with the very very cold... she kneels down!

We were viewing London's Bridge and ting was about to go back when i asked her whether she wanted to take a self-love photo together. The incredulous look she gave me was a moment i would always remember! then our tour guide came along and asked us whether we wanted a shot.. LOL! Poor ting's look was simply priceless! Here's the resulting shot!

So to Neela and Ting, THANK YOU for all the fun, laughter, talks, guides, photos and memories... You have truly made my aussie adventure the best one yet! :D

2008-05-21T15:54:00.072+08:00

Now that im fully rested and unpacked, and almost used to the sweltering heat here (by that i mean, in an air conditioned room), i can start summarising my little aussie adventure :D

i ..
- had this air steward for eye candy on the way there :D :D a very good start to my holiday. He was attentive and even attempted to strike up a conversation with me! But, being the incompetent social idiot that i am, i spluttered and stuttered and so, good bye cute air steward.

-discovered that ting's place has no lift. *horror music please* i had to lug 19kg up the staircase twice (once when arriving from spore, once when coming back from sydney) and then down twice! What's the point of a fireman pole's in such scenarios?

the enclosed fireman's pole (the building used to be a fireman's place)

the many steps i had to lug my luggage up! I'm mighty mouse!

- got scratched by a bloody kangaroo!! I was feeding it in the proper way mind you!

ting helpfully took the exact moment it scratched me. Yes, i am howling in pain in the pic.

- decided that kangaroos are the EVIL-EST of all! evil-er than dolphins. i literally was scuttling away from the kangaroos.

the sight i was fleeing away from

-got match made. Yes, he was cute (im putting him into mission hot if he agrees). No, i'm not his type. I drank lots of alcohol to escape from reality. They told me that Jon's friend, Jenny, would join us for dinner and i was half thinkin of all the topics i could talk to her about.. (my worst case scenario was to talk about tampons). and then Jenny turned out to be a guy.

- was attacked by a poncho. And my dear friend, ting, helpfully took a photo. le sigh. JUST because i took photos when she broke her slipper and when neela and her were figuring out directions, doesn't mean tt ting is entitled to point, laugh and then gleefully capture the moment on film. especially when you considered how she was a conspirator of Plan "Jenny"!

Attack of the poncho!

- realised that aussie has a weird fixation with animals and their naughty bits. In Canberra where Neela lives, the main highlight of the town is a.. wait for it.. a sheep sitting up with its naughty bits for all the world to see. In Sydney, we discovered this very very virile bull where one cannot help but notice his.. ahem virile-ness. Then, there's a pig in a very seductive pose. Melbourne, on the other hand, gets a cow up in a tree. hmmm. ah wells. Singapore does have a confused lion/fish so i suppose i'm not one who can laugh very hard.

the virile bull in sydney

The seductive pig

Melbourne's famous "The cow in the tree"

- put on loads of weight. Ting is the best foodie guide ever. Not once did we waste our calories on bad food! The problem was that we almost always over ordered and didnt learn out lesson till day 9. Every meal, i would dread hearing the worst five words coming out of Ting's mouth "You can have the rest". She would utter it with such finality that i wouldnt dare to argue! I kept on mewing for help and the signature catchphrase of every meal was "We're in trouble".. normally said after warily reviewing the huge portions of the food!

Fish at Sydney Fish Market (This fish made me smart enough to provide witty comebacks to Neela and Ting!)

Neela squeaked in delight when she saw the green seaweed.

Crab Noodles.. yum!

Sofia's garlic bread with cheese

Stalactite's wrap and chips

Pancake on the rocks' ribs

Pancake on the rocks' desserts

Hurricane (Bondi Beach)'s ribs

Mcbrenna's waffles

Grecco's cakes

Spicy Spciy Ramen!

We agreed tt we would detox right after the trip but so far, my plans to detox and diets have fallen flat on their faces. Day one : Diet smashed to bits as soon as i got home from the airport resutling in gulping down Curry and Lo ark (duck) Day two : Renewed diet lasted till approximately 10 am when i started stuffing my face with Macs Hotcakes and then with Prawn Noodles.

- realised how fast i can strip and jump into the shower. Brrrr... almost as good as Sherlin's shuttle run. Hahaha!

-discovered the world's greatest ice cream. When i ate it, i realised how empty my life had been until that point of time. Freddo's!! marry me!

- met mr wenting, jon.

-suck at self love (aka taking photos of oneself)

i always always cut myself out.

... whilst ting is very good at it!

- fell in love with aussie

2008-05-20T21:29:00.002+08:00

I'm baccck!

did ya miss me?

oh who am i kidding? you know you did.

:D :D :D

2008-05-14T01:08:00.006+08:00

Cheers from Aussie!

Just got back from Sydney where we managed to meet up with Neela and Ting's bf, Jon (spelt with one "n" and not 3 "n"s). It was really great catching up with Neela. I must admit though, when she got on the bus back to Canberra, i really felt like rushing to buy a ticket so tt i could go back to Canberra with her! I wanna see the perverted sheep! LOL!
anyhoos.. didnt take many grp pics. Jon helped to take a few pics so here's one to remember the Sydney weekend by!

I tried taking photos of hot guys but its a bit difficult. Most of my shots are of their backs. arrrghh! Here's one which i roped Neela in to help me take though! ;D

And here's one esp for ryce whose taste leans slightly towards... younger men.. LOL!

hahahaha! Hope you enjoyed the delicious sampling of what Aussie has to offer!

Cheers!

2008-05-07T00:40:00.002+08:00

9 more hours!! ... i hope!

I think that its only fitting that i spend the last part of being a uni student with the very person who was there with me at the beginning :D

We chose to stay in PGP and even had rooms next to each other. Everytime i felt like talking, i would go back and place my feet near her door to see if she was in (aircon mah)! As PGP neighbours, we brought sara lee's chocolate cake to cheer each other up, had a pact to deal with any cockroaches and lizards unfortunate enough to cross our paths, studied together and even moved into the rooms on the same day!

She may have gone to Australia after that. But she kept me company thru the worst of projects (i'm sorry but i'll never forget the trying time when she had to step in and help me with the report after my project members ditched me), and provided support through exams. She has always been there thruout my uni life and i really appreciate it!

Hence, im super duper excited to go see her in her natural habitat!! :D :D WENTING!!!!!!!!!! i cannot sleep due to anxiety (whether ican get on the flight.... arrghh) and excitement (i'm reading your itinerary over and over again)!! omigosh! i!cannot! wait! lol!

anyhoos in case, we wanna set a date for June Babies sitting the reverse bungee(heeheehee!)/ BBQ/ zoo/ visiting sherlin/ kbox / chomp chomp or market night, here are the dates i won't be free. Just in case you need them!

7th - 18th May Aussie
28th - 31st May Bintan
3rd - 16th June Shanghai

But other than that, im pretty free so just tell me the date and i'll be there!

Kies, i'm off to test my theory abt global warming affecting the good looks of guys! Though a cute guy showed up right after i shared my theory. sigh! But since he looked like Lee Dong Wook (Claryce's words not mine!), i'll forgive him! Kicking myself for not continuing the conversation but he took us by surprise! Ah wells, we'll always have lonely planet....or not. LOL!

i promise to bring back photos of hot guys! if i can find any... since u know.. global warming... hole in ozone layer...

the best reward is a holiday

2008-05-04T13:02:00.001+08:00

I think i ate an ant during my breakfast.

Kies... Part 2 of San Francisco!!

Walking around the city

I saw this and immediately thought of "sustainability" for IP!

Alcatraz from a distance

I was filled with consuming envy when i saw this picturesque scene. I wanna do this! Hang out at parks and do absolutely nothing! Pity Singapore is too hot and humid (not to mention the amt of insects)... Arrrgh!

Eating at Denny's

Denny's is my ab fav eating outlet! Every time we go to US, we'll make sure that we get ourselves to Denny's! The staff is always super friendly, the portions generous and the food good value for money.

Once, when i was young, we ordered their oreo chip cookies sundae. My sister ordered one and i wanted one too. I thought that their sundaes would be in the same size as MacDonald's hot fudge sundae so i stubbornly refused to share an order with my sister. And then the sundaes came out. I swear, my jaws seriously dropped caused the glass was super big! By the time i got through a third of it, i was sick of ice cream! In the end, my dad told us to give up on finishing both the ice cream and try to finish one glass. Yet! We couldn't mange to finish any! That's how big the serving is!

So if you do see this sign, STOP and eat there!

Daddy started eating his "Moons over my Hammy" before i could snap a pic of the dish. gah!

Mummy wasn't hungry and asked for a bowl of soup, and got a HUGE surprise when the soup came because the portion was just too generous!

i forgot what audrey ordered.

The size of jie jie's pancakes. Look at how thick the pancakes are! They gave at least 3 pancakes (it only occured to me to snap a pic of it after we ate a bit of it!) And the pancakes were just the side dish!

My meat lover special

Fisherman's Wharf

On me: Sherlin's blue jacket. On Jie jie: Bag bought from Yiqi's online shop. On Audrey: Claryce's black jacket.

couldnt resist taking a pic of this cute girl

A seasoned traveller advised us to try the Dungeness Crab. He said that it will be a waste if we did not try it. He even went back to San Fran just to eat it again!! So off we trooped to get a taste!

They sell dungeness crabs by itself..

or in sandwiches or in cups (together with shrimps)

Simply delicious!!

It costs more to eat it in the resturant. So we decided to "da pao" it to eat near the sign!

The only prob with eating it there were the many many gulls flying around trying to get close to us in order to get the crumbs. That was quite nerve-wrecking actually.

Along Fisherman's Wharf is the famous bread shop "Boudin":

Clam Chowder Soup (if you walk to the stores we bought the Dungeness crab from, you can buy the same thing for a much cheaper price!)

Spring is coming

Pier 39 (Along Fisherman's Wharf)

The famous sealions

And the people watching them:

View of Alcatraz from Pier 39:

View of Golden Gate Bridge from Pier 39:

Fair grounds at Pier 39:

ANNNnnnnd! im pleased to say that i caught a cute guy at Pier 39!! Check out the many shots of the guy in green! Cute???? Im mighty pleased to have been able to capture so many shots of him!! Enjoy!!

psst: In case you're wondering, the entertainer roped in 4 guys to do a trick. One that leaves them all lying on each other without any chairs under to support them!

Look Ma! No Chairs!

Went to this huge candy store and got myself the KING sized candy necklace! Missed those days when i had to beg and beg for this pretty necklace! Also bought novelty candy..

Audrey's braces get in the way of her sugar fix!

Awwww! Lean on me: when a couple supports each other... literally.

I am very very proud of this shot! Used the glass to reflect a bird standing somewhere else and caught the boat, the flag and the bird! Pity abt te bird shit though... ah wells.. NOT the photographer's fault!

Leaving you with a parting shot of this gull. eh! I had to jump ard and make all sorts of clicking noises in order to get the damn thing to look at me!

2008-05-03T16:31:00.002+08:00

Happy Anniversary Mr and Mrs Wenting!!

:D :D

Love actually is all around.

2008-05-01T21:40:00.001+08:00

I'm really sorry. :(

2008-04-30T00:08:00.003+08:00

so!
who is the "everyone" who said that the blue book is coming out? i went into a panic attack this morning, shoving all the boxes to one side in order to find a box that contained my year 1 stuff. And when it wasn't in any of the boxes i looked into, i went into full blown freak-out mode! and who is the "everyone" who said BIM was coming out??? On the way to school, i felt as if i was on my way to execution grounds and was really trembling as i waited to go in to the hall. turns out that the "everyone" didn't include the lecutere so heng ah. Not so heng is that i didnt know how to do the question either.

well well well... Never mind that i bombed all 3 papers. It's over. :D :D :D... well at least i hope so? Oh please let it be the case!

Finally had the Aston's meal that Jiahui was raving about. It's pretty damn good. Spend the entire meal in silence. Yes, it was that good!! I just wished that it was halal so that Vinna didnt have to sit there and watch us eat. Felt pretty bad about it. She was really nice and kept on reassuring us that she was okay with it but still...

Went home and spent some lovely quality time with the dogs. It's been 3 weeks since i properly sat down on the patio to play with them, and to be able to just play with them for as long as i liked was a pretty good feeling. :D

Of course, there is always AUSSSSSSIEEEEE!! i cannot wait! Ting told me the itinerary and i was seriously melting at every activity she described. icannotwaiticannotwaiticannotwait! oooooh.. the tingles of anticipation! i really hope that i will be able to get on that flight. As Claryce said, "once bitten forever shy". But if i do get on that flight, it'll be paradise-bound! :D

I'm loving my new to-do list.

Instead of
- study topic 1- 18
- re do measurement plans
- do IP
- dissertation

it's
- do mask
-foot scrub?
- throw away building notes
- search for the fish eatin dead skin thingy
- watch ep 4 to 6 of "which star are you from"
- watch newest ep of "ugly betty"

Life's pretty damn good now if you ask me. :D :D :D

2008-04-28T14:24:00.002+08:00

2 and a half hours till my animal behaviour paper.

helphelphelphelphelp.

i just learned that there is such a bird called the "great tits". teeheeheehee!

though for some reason, i keep on remembering it as "fat tits". Mamahamtits comes to mind.

So if i do break out in juvenile giggles during the paper, you'll know why.

one will look for anything to cling to in dire circumstances.

2008-04-26T23:44:00.003+08:00

So!

My econs paper took "difficulty" and "hellish nightmare" to the next level. Sitting next to Asilah was the highlight of my day because it all went downhill from there. When i first saw the questions, i felt as if i got shot. It left me scratching my head for at least 15 minutes and the whole time i was writing, i had this little voice inside my heard screaming "what are you doing???!"

The more i think about how i answered the questions... the more i worry because i went totally off track in answering the questions which is the cardinal sin in her module. sigh! i was pretty upset after the paper. Then i heard everyone saying "die la die la" and i knew tt i wasn't the only one who got shocked by the paper. Misery loves company after all. But still.. i cant help thinkin about how i bombed the paper. sigh.

Anyways! Jia hui (note the spacing!) kindly drove us back to serangoon and i tried getting a head start on animal behaviour.... but was soon distracted to planning for Aussie and then excitedly describing to Jing Xian what she can do in America. and then cursing myself as i succumb to the korean drama, Which Star are you from. Both Sherlin and Claryce reccommended this to me and Sherlin is going to lend me the dvd on Monday!! Good bye measurement!

But i digress! As i was taking a break from animal behaviour, i went to fill my cup with water and right at my eye level.... were two insects mating!! I do not know what kind of insects they were (small, thin with spots) but i initially thought that it was one insect with 4 feelers.. then i realised that the 4 feelers were twitching in pleasure and that their backsides were joined together! In the words of Claryce, "It's like animal planet at ur place!"

So, i got irritated that couplehood is every where i go. Even the bloody insects are getting some! And i took a thick magazine and whacked them to death. HEY! at least they died in the throes of pleasure.

Hopefully, this will serve inspiration for me to get to the mating topic in animal behaviour. which at the rate i'm going, will be sometime on monday. SIGH.

2008-04-22T19:21:00.029+08:00

Le sigh. Exams have taken their toll on me.. And Econs has driven me to blog abt my Frisco trip! Here are a few photos for those who have gotten sick of their econ notes!!
Because i borrowed so many clothes from different people, i'm going to mention them everytime one of us is pictured wearing their clothes. Thanks loads to all these lovely peeps for being so generous!!

Sights ard the City

4 hearts were placed at the 4 different corners of the central park. I had to stand at this corner for the longest time just cause i wanted to capture the tram in the photo!

The other 3 hearts:

The Tram:

This is a must do in San Fran! It's their historic landmark and its really cool to ride such an unique form of transport that was built especially to overcome San Fran's steep slopes! We went early in the morning as i didnt want to queue for ages (a tour book i read said that one can queue up to 3 hours during the peak season!) .

See the wooden circle behind Audrey and me? The tram would go onto it and then the circle would rotate it ard.. giving everyone perfect opportunities to snap away! On me: Sherlin's jacket, On Audrey: Claryce's black jacket beneath her outer jacket.

The steep slopes of San Fran... the tram's route

All the tour books i've read recommended us to stand and hang outside the tram so at the gripper's encouragement, we tentatively stood on the platform outside the tram and clung onto the handrails.. It was super duper fun!!

Here's a pic of our very friendly gripper. They dun call the drivers of the tram "drivers" but "grippers" as they handle a very different technology. Oh dear, he looks really fierce here but he was really nice and friendly... Had the impression tt he quite enjoyed his job!

His "Steering Wheel"

Along the way, we saw mini yellow go cars!! These cars are for anyone (with a valid driving license) who wants to tour the city by themselves. They fit only two but look super fun! What's really cool abt these cars is tt there is voice telling you where you are and whats the main attraction ard you / what's the significance of place you are at etc. You ca even turn it off and then back on and its GPS system would be able to tell you where are!

Lourve Road

Supposed to be the "crookedest shortest street in San Francisco". But info has it that there is another road that is more crooked and shorter than this.. Nevertheless, we went to visit it!

Here's a view frm the top...

If you look down, you can see that it's quite steep!

Here's us tramping down the road, heedlessly ignoring the signs asking us to walk down the straight staircase located at the sides! Who would do that? BORING!!

But seriously, many tourists try to drive down this road and since we weren't driving, we'll bloody walk ard the curves! By hook or by crook!

We were able to do this as we went there waaay earlier in the morning (Thanks jet lag!). But soon, the cars started coming in...

A pic of Lourve Road from the bottom.

It looks pretty meh here as we went at the end of winter. beginning of spring. But during spring, Lourve Road looks pretty lovely as the bare brown patches in between the roads would burst into beautiful flowers.

Okay.i'll admit it.. once i saw the sign "No noise", i immediately thought back to all my Singaporean Friends who would totally break this rule! lol!

Walking around the Residential Area

Oh dear... Blogger keeps on telling me that it can't upload my pics! Gah! Maybe its a sign.... Sigh...

Back to slay the bloody econs monster.

Who am i kidding? Its like fighting Cloverfield with a toothpick.

sigh!

Anywhere but here.

2008-04-19T23:36:00.002+08:00

Neela's back!!

:D and she finally smsed us instead of scooting off to malaysia immediately!

but crapballs.... my exams are in a week's time and peio is a trifle bit busy with work.. which means tt we prob wun get to meet up before neela flies back to aussie. arrrrgh! This is immensely frustrating! To have a great reason to go out but constrained by exams.

Everytime i think of exams, i get this sickening thud in my tummy. I have no idea what's going on in any of the modules and i have no mood to study whatsoever. Does not help that the modules are boring as hell.

Come to think about it, this entire last semester sucks hardcore. First we had dissertation which trust me, was a total nightmare. I think i gained a few wrinkles from that. Then there was econs project, IP, econs project again (thanks to someone-who-is-getting-very-bad-feedback. Did you know that she didn't even reference her lect notes properly?), animal behaviour proj with lousy TAs, dissertation amendments (and the lawyer had to mark mine... resulting in many love letters in mine) and now exams. It's like one big thing after another, leaving me breathless. Everyday, i wake up in a panic "What's due?" "Anything major coming up?" "Things to do:.." "Did i finish that?" crapballs. And ... to make things worse...If i want more rice in my indonesian food, i have to pay 20 cts more! The horror of it all!. And yes, the pple ard me are bored to tears with this complaint. From now, im eating with people who used to ask for less rice.

I can't wait for May!! If my plans work out well, i can get to, in ting's words, reunite with my loves, get to meet some *ahem* very important people, and explore a new area! :D Also, it'll be the time i can finally kick off my shoes and finally relax away from my worries! No more constantly worrying abt the Big D, or stupid econs project or animal behaviour project or bloody exams... Just sheer utter bliss and contentment! Of course, there is the teeny weeny bit abt being a lightbulb there but im just gonna be obtuse and thick skinned.

With May, comes the post-exams BBQ! Unfortunately, due to logistical problems, the location of the BBQ has been shifted to Sherlin's house. My house's patio ain't big enough for 12 people to get nice and comfy...bah. Feel pretty bad that Sherlin has to step in to host the BBQ. So sorry! I'm still gonna bring my spanking brand new sausage griller though! It's just begging to be used!

As i'm not hosting the BBQ, tink the blogging-abt-who-brings-what rights go to Sherlin.. I'll just blog about what i'm bringing. During our study session, we started discussing abt the BBQ and i'm bringing
a) Longan Jelly for desserts
b) 2 GOLDEN PILLOWs! ( 1 mutton and 1 chicken!) Are you tempted yet??
c) my sausage griller

I hope to make the chocolate frosties but tt's just KIV. :D
And i have a feeling that our favourite men, Ben & Jerry, are gonna make a special appearance at the BBQ. *hint hint!*

The question, my friend, is "Are you ready for twister?"

2008-04-15T16:29:00.004+08:00

Make yourself pretty on...

26th September - 9.00 a.m mass at St Francis Xavier

Cause that's when Jie Jie and Dan will be getting married! :D

Check out their wedding blog for any updates on the wedding preparations, the story of how they met and more details on the affair itself! :D

http://likearose.weddingannouncer.com/

Jie jie was already squealing with joy when she saw that she had 27 visitors.. So go ahead and make her float in the air!

2008-04-11T22:25:00.002+08:00

Oh sweet net.. How i have missed you!

The last week has been a bit of a torture of me when i had no internet. Amazing how one can think up of many things to do online once there is no net. I wanted to wikipedia all sorts of movies and shows. And of all times, the net had to go off when i had to do the powerpoint slides for my animal behaviour presentation! I literally went raving mad when i discovered that the net died on me just when i had finished the slides and wanted to send it to the other members in my team. It was 4 a.m. and i seriously wanted to throw the computer to the repair shop where the big bad maintenance dudes would open her up and look at her naughty bits!

Anyways! Animal Behaviour presentation was..... dare i say it? stupid.

For the project, we had to observe any animal for 3 - 5 hours and report on its behaviour. So, we brought Dash (my dog), Febbie (Sherlin's dog) and luemas (my cousin's dog) together to see how they would react to one another. We were mighty pleased with the result. Febbie was predicted to be the alpha male (which took Sherlin by surprise).

Dash? fell asleep during the interaction. -_-

lol! i do wonder... they say dogs ressemble their owners over time so now i can't help wondering whether i am as boh chap as dash! Everytime Febbie lunged at Dash and tried to bite him, Dash didn't even blink an eye... He was like "eh? No food?" .. But don't mess with Dash when it comes to food! With just a whiff of the beef jerky, placid dash turned so aggressive!!

Anyways, for the presentation's Q & A session, the 6 teaching assistants starting shooting all sorts of rubbish question tt at one point i didn't wanna answer any of their questions. Sherlin got so mad... I never heard her utter so many f-words before. This is the exchange tt got her hopping mad!

Some stupid grad student: I noticed that the owners were around the dogs to control
their behaviour during the fights.

Sherlin: Yes, we didn't want things to get bloody.

some dumb teaching assistant: but things are bloody in the wild what

*insert a moment of incredulous silence where all 4 of us mentally pictured ourselves beating her with a dog paddle*

Asilah: but they are... domesticated

Like, hello? Who on earth is gonna pay for Dash's vet bill when Febbie makes mincemeat out of him (cause let's face it, Dash ain't gonna win Febbie in a fight!) ? And i will end up with a traumatised dog.. just so tt i could do a school project. And it was clear from the start that we were talking about domesticated dogs! Gosh... some people just take stupidity to a whole new level.

Recently, Guo An asked us whether any of us would be leaving the industry once we graduated. When i said that i would be leaving it, he gave me a short interview to do. Since Alvinna posted her replies up, i guess i'll just post some of mine here.

Question:
Understanding the course, to a large extent, cater to the manpower needs in construction industry/ sector (though not limited to it), so during your course of study, have the thought of quitting this industry (i.e working something unrelated to course of study) came across your mind? (If so, when was that?)Tell me the reasons behind… thanks

Yes. Every single day of the couse. LOL! Just kidding. Since I didn’t really have the intention to join the industry, i looked upon the school course as a way to enrich my way of thinking, learn more about the world (thru electives), broaden my horizons etc. To me, university, always and has been, a way where I could expand my learning horizons. So, during the uni course, I didn’t really specifically think about whether I should really quit the industry. It was more of fleeting thoughts like “I have to do this for life?”.

You could also say that, deep down, I knew I was not suited for the industry when I found that I was more interested in and doing better in electives or courses which had nothing to do with the construction industry (for eg. Human resource, geography)

Did internship further confirm your intention? if so, how?
Yes. I joined the internship program with the intention of checking out whether I could work in the construction industry. Alas! It just confirmed that my personality just clashes with what the industry requires. I was horrified when I saw and heard how they can loudly berate the sub contractors (I worked in a Main contractor’s office) for hours. Every time they scolded one, I would be demoralized for the rest of the day.

Also, I saw the QS department and was very disheartened. Some of them had worked for years, doing the same thing over and over again, and yet, not having the faintest idea about the whole picture ( as in they concentrated only on the one element they were doing). Very few advanced to the next level, reinforcing my belief that there may be few career opportunities for a women in the construction industry.

Gender Bias
The course does reinforce that the construction industry should look at the overseas market. However, not many of these countries are as receptive to female construction players (Case in example: Saudi Arabia).

In Singapore, few women become project managers. Most are often in the QS section.

Unsure about my skills
Perhaps due to my intention of leaving the industry, I never was able to do well in construction-related courses. I am not sure whether I can contribute much to a company who expects a NUS grad with a certain degree of knowledge. I have heard from friends who have started working that joining as a full-time staff is different from being an intern. The company expects more. Hence, i hesitate to join a company in which I might let it down by not fulfilling their expectations.

Profile of Construction Industry’s workers
It is my personal belief that the people who cannot succeed elsewhere due to their low EQ can excel well in the construction industry. This seems to be the only industry in which one can encounter many people who do not censor their thoughts before blurting it out.

While others may argue that one will inevitably encounter many of such people in real life, I did an internship in an unrelated sector (banking) before we entered our internship program and it was a pretty good experience. I did encounter some unpleasant people there but it was not as bad as the extent and the quantity I encountered in the construction industry. Needless to say, it was a rude shock to hear and witness many people being downright insensitive and rude in the construction industry.

Personality differences
You may be hearing the phrase “Personality clashes with the industry” quite often. Perhaps I can better explain what I mean by that. As explained, the industry does require one to be thick skinned in order to withstand the insensitivity, the scoldings and the environment. It took me a day to get over some scoldings (and they weren’t even directed at me!) and my productivity level just dropped every time that happened.

Besides, I do want a challenging job in which I look forward to going to everyday. I do not mind staying back for overtime as long as there is something new to do. Something new also means being able to increase my learning curve. Being stuck in one project means measuring the same thing over and over again. Everyday, one is faced with diagrams and numbers. (Like I said, very few advance to dealing with the law aspect). There is also the danger of falling into the trap where I’m too focused on my job to understand the big picture and learn more.

Also, one should be able to communicate with people from all walks of life. Communication can be improved if one can speak dialect ( as some sub contractors can speak more fluently in dialect). I cannot speak dialect and may not be able to find common ground with them, which leads to inability to build up a rapport and might even lead to strained relationships with them.

Hence, I feel that while the construction industry is an enriching one, one needs to have the necessary character qualities before one can excel in it. If one does excel (which I’m very sure my friends, especially Guo An will), the rewards will be tremendous. Alas! I am not suited for it and would have to trot elsewhere to find another industry.

Sigh. I do feel sad that after 4 years, i'm still not suitable for the construction industry. Going to find a job in another industry is going to be really difficult and i have to start from scratch. But the upside is wondering what i'll become... just like being a kid all over again!

When i was young, i wanted to be

a) a vet (shot to death when i realised i had to put my hand up their butts)
b) reporter ( shot to death because i need to go to a poly course for it)
c) in drama ( shot to death because singapore's drama scene is meh)
d) an air stewardess.. which girl hasn't dreamt of this (shot to death because well.. you know)

Sigh. I do hate growing up.

2008-03-29T22:09:00.003+08:00

While anxiously waiting for my beloved shows to reappear, i've discovered a new show: The Tudors!

I don't know if it's because he's such a good actor but oh jeez,i wanted to smack Jonathan Rhys Meyers within 3 episodes! He's the epitome of what would happen once a spoilt child realises he cant always get what he wants. The girl is pretty qian bian too... good thing she's gonna get beheaded soon!

Check out their opening credits!

2008-03-29T21:38:00.002+08:00

Your fingertips across my skin,
the palm trees swaying in the wind
images
You sang me spanish lullabies,
the sweetest sadness in your eyes
clever trick

I'd never want to see you unhappy,
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye my almost lover
Goodbye my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should have known you'd bring me heartache,
almost lovers always do

We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
images
And when you left you kissed my lips
you told me you would never ever forget these images, no

I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning without you on my mind
So you're gone and i'm haunted
and i'll bet you are just fine,
Did i make it that easy to walk right in and out of my life?

Goodbye my almost lover
Goodbye my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should have known you'd bring me heartache,
almost lovers always do

- Almost Lover by Fine Frenzy-

To my dearest friend, Que sera sera!

2008-03-26T21:55:00.002+08:00

i give up trying to put a youtube video here..

Been youtubing recently and discovered this snarky show called "The Soup". check some of their videos out!

for grey's anatomy fans turned haters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9ZEzGG8ySk&feature=related

for american idol fans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv_TQhe-cKU

for Harry Potter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dMkLR4q9jU&feature=related

for those sick of boring, act chim oscar movies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXd88rIPeLg&feature=related

and just for laughs

abt Dr Phil:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc_1Ob07Wow

spoofing American express: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-GnfEiTe4E&feature=related

Viva Laughin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83OplPT2lE&feature=related

ooooh i love the soup!

2008-03-24T23:52:00.002+08:00

Attended my cousin's wedding ceremony today.

The bride was really really beautiful and you could see how lovin the groom was to the bride. Was a nice indication of how jie jie's wedding would be like. I must admit though, when the rites were performed, i tried imagining jie jie doing it next year, and i got a little teary around the eyes!! I do hope that, come that day, i wouldnt be busy using her train to blow my nose or something!

Pic of the couple and their fathers:

The bride and her father (my uncle):

In other news, i went to see the teacher today and she refused to budge an inch. On the way there, i got all hyped up.. Like a knight on the way to slay the dragon, i prepared a petition with all my group members signing it, all the emails i had sent out during the prep work, and re read thru the presentation stuff... only to get rejected. To know that any contribution i did will not be acknowledged. What can i say? Sometimes, the dragon just wins. i was very disappointed but even my tears couldnt budge her. And she still could ask me what i was so upset about. ^%$@!

And the thing about me is that i do not cry prettily. It's full fledged honkin my red nose with blotchy patches al lover my face. egad. Thankfully, Asilah and Hidayah were there to console me and accompany till my dad's car came (i called as i did not wan to be in public transport with my face looking like that!). I remember that when i came out of the teacher's office, through my tears, i was wondering "why on earth are Asilah and Hidayah standing against the wall like that???" lol!

Also, im really grateful tt Vinna, Claryce and Sherlin have kindly allowed me to join their group. If not, i have to work with.... D boy. gah.

Jie Jie advises me to go and talk to the HOD abotu this matter as Dan is sure that ther is no such system tt states tt a student's marks are wiped out the minute she is absent. The most is tt they penalise me for being absent. But le sigh, i still don't know whehter i can hype myself up fo another meeting with a teacher only to risk getting rejected again.

It's so frustrating. But frustration is nothing to waht the teacher is gona feel when she sees my feedback. I kinda poured all my feelings into my Word document so tt come feedback, the exact feelings of hurt, disappointment, anger and frustration are loud and clear in my feedback!

2008-03-23T22:09:00.003+08:00

Happy Holy Easter yo!

Sigh. Try as might, i cant seem to muster up any excitement about this easter. Maybe cause im really really not looking forward to tomorrow.

For those not in the know, while i was away, i missed this presentation (which, for goodness sake, not everyone was supposed to present). And, the teacher refuses to give me any marks for that group presentation even though i really did try my best to contribute to it before i left.

The very thought of it makes me wan to burst into tears. The project is worth 20%. And now, looking through the presentation again, i just feel so .... slighted. And the thing is.. the excuse she gives for not giving me the marks is cause she doesnt know "the extent of your contribution". Does that mean that someone who is present is deemed to have contributed fairly? Doesn't it make more sense that someone who was not present would have done more in order to make up for her absence? I jsut feel that, if she really wanted to be fair, then all she can do is ask me to give hard evidence of what i have done for the group project. Maybe, even give a penalty for me missing the presentation. but to just sweep away what i have done is just....... i dunnoe.. just feel super upset and demoralised by this whole incident and its not even done yet.

I just wish this whole mess didnt have to happen. I dun understand why the Head of Department was okay with my absence but she cant.... i have do another question. Now, under normal circumstances, i would just suck it up and deal with it. But the exams are 4 weeks away. Plus i have one project and 2 tests to do. I don't think i can do a good job of this extra load of work.

arrrghh. im just really not looking forward to tml. I've never been good with teachers. seriously, i can, off the bat, name at least 3 teachers who were very mean to me and picked on me relentlessly all the time in sec school. What is it about me that screams out "if you are a teacher, please pick on me"?

oh geezzz. i have a feeling that whatever i say to her, it's not gonna work. What a mess i cant get out of. ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. no amount of words can describe the amount of despair, frustration, demoralisation i feel now. It's like wrapping up all the horrible emotions and then swallowing it.

And you know what's the worse part?

I have to attend a wedding tomorrow morning. Which means i cant cry my heart out now , or i'll look like shit in the photos.

oh fuck it. i already feel shitty.

2008-03-22T14:28:00.001+08:00

i've been doing research for the bintan trip and guess what?

there's Karaoke in Bintan!!

2008-03-21T22:13:00.025+08:00

Lourdes, France

Seeing how it's Good Friday today, thought it might be fitting to show a few pictures from Lourdes. The church itself is beautiful. It reminded us of a Holy Disneyland and the backdrop is just stunning.

Here are a few pics as an introduction.

If you look closely at the above picture, you can see several statues. These are of different saints. Managed to get several shots of them...

Lourdes is considered a holy place as it was at that very spot Mother Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette. An eternal spring sprung up at that very grotto and has been credited for several miraculous recovery. Here's a pic of the grotto. The statue marks the spot where Mother Mary appeared.

The beautiful church was built because during one of the apparitations, Mother Mary told Saint Bernadette to build a church at that spot. And they did that. I don't know about you but i was really awed by how the rock foundation could support the weight of the church. I mean, in building, we often learn about the importance of a strong foundation so it's kinda awe inspiring when you see a building which defies what you have been taught.

Church built over grotto:

On the church grounds are the most exquisite Stations of the cross i have ever seen. Stations of the Cross detail the journey Jesus took to his crucifixion. Seeing how it is Good Friday, thought it would be a good time to put up the pictures i took.

First Station of the Cross: Jesus is condemned to Death

Second Station of the Cross: Jesus Accepts his Cross

Third Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the first time

Fourth Station of the Cross : Jesus meets his Mother Mary

Fifth Station of the Cross: Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus

Sixth Station of the Cross: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

Saint Veronica stepped forward to wipe away the blood and sweat from Jesus face. As a result, the towel she used has the image of Jesus permanently imprinted into it (hence the 2nd picture). If i am not wrong, the towel is hung above the resting place of Saint Veronica now.

Seventh Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the Second Time

Eighth Station of the Cross: Jesus meets the Woman of Jerusalem

Ninth Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the Third Time

Tenth Station of the Cross: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

Eleventh Station of the Cross: Jesus is nailed to the Cross

Twelfth Station of the Cross: Jesus Dies on the Cross

I especially loved how they made use of trees to create a natural spotlight on Jesus's cross.

Thirteenth Station of the Cross: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

Fourteenth Station of the Cross: Jesus is Placed in the Tomb

They are beautiful aren't they? The expressions just blew me away. For example, several statues had teardrops at the corners of their eyes. In the sun light, this made the teardrops glisten and help bring a lifelike feel.

Lourdes truly is a beautiful place. No other words come to mind when i remember it (which explains the repetitions!)

2008-03-15T20:08:00.003+08:00

Happy Birthday Huili!!

i was thinking of you in san francisco!! was supposed to write this on ur birthday but we lost our internet connection shortly after i told you to check back at my blog later. im so sorry!

Anyways. better late than never right?? :D

Here's to the girl who ...

laughs every time we relate the story about how scared i was of her/ jing xian/ jiahui during the first 2 uni years

been my fellow car fate rider! rides would really not have been fun without her

is so easy to talk to that the mrt rides back to serangoon just fly by

loves pink!

i go to for girly make up tips talk!

looks damn good with short and long hair

i can talk to endlessly abt the shallow pool of guys in singapore

my fellow chomp chomp mate (and soon-to-be market/timbre mate!)

is gonna take a grad trip with us riiiighhtt?? (*ahem* july)

yes. i'm still on mission grad trip! though the plane ride back was.... let's not go into that now. mission grad trip! yes.

so anyhoos! i hope you had a fabby lunch with ur friends on ur bday.. but pleeeassee... u know our celebration for you will be way awesome too right?? :D :D

it has to be... to be worthy of our dearest ah li!

2008-03-06T00:45:00.010+08:00

Claryce's 18th Birthday

When my sister viewed my photos, she asked me "How did you come to know this friend?" She was confused that Claryce was attending the same classes as me and yet, was still 18. lol!

So! We were planning to surprise Claryce during the Chinese New Year Visiting. Plans were gleefully made. I had told her that we would celebrate it on the 19th (tues) but we decided to throw a surprise party for her on the 17th (sun), the day we had put aside for CNY visiting.
Asilah, Alvinna and Sherlin had only the 16th to shop for her present (as our dissertations were keeping us holed in till the 15th. Jiahui had offered her house to be the surprise party venue and we were planning to visit it as the last house and from there surprise her! Jiahui, Jing Xian, Sherlin and i were planning to decorate the house so had to dig out party decorations from my storeroom and man! i was having fond memories of all the party decorations. When was the last time we wore party hats?? :D we deffo shud have a birthday party complete with decorations one day!

Anyhoos, ard midnight, claryce smsed to say tt she couldnt make it for CNY visiting. Booooo! Major Bummer! everyone was like whaaat?? lol! After many delays (ranging from being rejected for a sofa and fridge to dissertation delays), we finally celebrated Claryce's birthday!!

Here's the birthday girl!

Forever 18 (Credits go to Asilah for sourcing these lovely candles!)

Claryce turns 18!

The ice cream cake from Swensen's! Can you guess who's who here?

Now, we are good old fashioned folks who do not need alcohol to get high. Many occasions have proven that mere sugar allows us to soar sky high. So, finishing the entire cake.... could be the reason for our resulting escapades in arab street later on in the day!

We shopped at Arab and Hajib Street. At one point, Claryce and Sherlin were walkin ahead of us. Hidayah was wondering whether she wanted to enter a shop and sheer spontaneity (starting with Asilah's mischievous face) made us push a protesting and blur hidayah ("never mind la! Don't need to go in ....whhhaatt??" "go in go in GO!!") into the shop.

And once Hidayah got the idea, she locked the door behind us! So there we were, 3 giggling girls in a shop. The dude behind the counter didnt even care about us.. He just continued flipping his magazines while we laughed and screamt while peering thru the store windows to see Sherlin's and Claryce's reaction! In the end, our laughter gave us away. Rah. Nothing gets past Claryce's FBI eyes!

Love this random shot. Sherlin gave us 5 seconds to pose and here's the result. :D

Jiahui joined us later on (because she had just finished her dissertation WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!)

While waiting, Hidayah takes some time to freshen up with the help of a bike parked nearby.

lol.

Anyways.. it is worth noting that as of date.. everyone has FINISHED DISSERTATION!!!!

:D :D :D

2008-03-03T23:07:00.014+08:00

The interior of Sagrada Familia

side door:

Windows:

Information provided about the church:

There were blocks of the materials they used for us to touch..

which made Daddy very excited to start preaching about his geography knowledge while Audrey pretends to look all intellectual with her new red glasses (which we picked out for her!)

Info regarding how nature influenced the design of the church's elements:

Plaster model of the church's interior:

what we saw:

this statue represents where the altar will be in future:

im sorry for such a rushed post. supposed to be doing resarch for IP and econs.. plus i wanna find the book we bought so tt i can tell you what the different elements mean. there wasnt much in the interior but wait till my next post!! :D the details at the back are amazing!

2008-02-25T23:46:00.002+08:00

i hereby declare this thursday to be

Happy Adeline Day!

Go forth and spread the news! :D :D :D

pssst: and because adel would not be happy without ting.. it will be

Happy Adel & Ting day!

can't hardly wait!

2008-02-25T01:06:00.006+08:00

So.

Over the last few days, i've been re establishing an important relationship and im happy to report that i was fairly successful. Me and my tv? We're pretty tight now. Countless viewings of the k drama "my girl", sex and the city ( i need to be prepared for the movie!) etc have gone a long way in addressing that issue.

Thanks to Asilah, i finally completed the viewing of "Amelie" and i loved it! It's quirky in a nice sweet way. I liked how everything could be random and yet play a part in the story later on.

The best part about the last few days? Is being able to hang out with ting! :D :D

Stupid D left me with only 1 week plus to plan outings with her. Bah. But still, we make the best of it! :) Had a lovely stress-free shopping trip and a DVD marathon complete with junk food and our 2 favourite guys, Ben & Jerry. :) :) :)

Anyways, she pointedly reminded me that i have yet to upload the rest of my europe trip photos! eeeeks! i was hoping no one wud notice that i got a wee bit lax abt tt matter! heh. but for my lovely ting who helped me so much in my dissertation.. (she helped me take photos in HK, Japan and Australia.. plus tried finding articles for me despite her slow internet.. if that doesnt show love, i don't know what else does!) , im gonna post them up!

Thus! It is my new year's resolution to post them asap! :D

Here are some refreshers and previews of the posts coming soon!

Remember this??

We are going to the back next!

And then BRACE yourselves! Cause we're taking a road trip ...

to where Heaven touched Earth: Lourdes! :D

2008-02-20T00:44:00.006+08:00

So, i did some photoshopping today. :D

These pics will be sent to John as well. So, if you do not like them, speak now or forever hold your peace!

2008-02-18T02:51:00.002+08:00

So, im still trying to get down from the sugar rush i got from greedily popping many delicious pineapple tarts into my mouth.

We laughed till we cried, drooled over hot ninja guys who turned out to be gays, got many generous red packets, got frightened and awed by a huge dog who would deffo castrate Dash should they ever meet, helped xian's family polish off half a jar of her small spring rolls... It was, in one word, fun. :D

*ahem* this post is for 2 birthday girls.
Here's a

Happy Belated Birthday to Yuanjing! Many happy returns!

im so glad you had the sweetest birthday ever! But wait till u see my awesome present! (it'll deffo be awesome. i know it will be ! lol)

Happy 18th Birthday Claryce!

Thanks for all the laughter you have brought into my life.
for all the late MSN conversations
for encouraging me when i wanted to give up on dissertation
for the V day sms! It was my first pic sms not sent from M1! lol!
for always bringing the fun to any outing!
for being my fellow braces sufferer!
for being patient when we start teasing you
for all the earrings you have made for us!
for telling us where to get great bargains
for providing a white umbrella (which wud give anyone a glow) on the way back from the prata store.
for all your tupperware advertisements
for all the facebook pokes and drinks! :D
for saving our dissertations with your helpful information/ photos!
for being such a wonderful friend

Thank you for being you. We love you loads!

this is all we'll ever need. :D

2008-02-16T03:15:00.001+08:00

the writers' strike is finally over!!!!

2008-02-11T22:36:00.000+08:00

Man, these things are addictive when your only other option is to face a blank Word document.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:

You have high extroversion.
You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends.
You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation.
Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!"

Conscientiousness:

You have medium conscientiousness.
You're generally good at balancing work and play.
When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done.
But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it.

Agreeableness:

You have low agreeableness.
Your self interest comes first, and others come later, if at all.
In general, you feel that people are not to be trusted.
And you're skeptical that anyone else really feels differently.

Neuroticism:

You have low neuroticism.
You are very emotionally stable and mentally together.
Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly.
Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure.

Openness to experience:

Your openness to new experiences is medium.
You are generally broad minded when it come to new things.
But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it.You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

2008-02-11T02:02:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Vinna's friend, we have been lapsing into substandard English. We discussed the most common English errors we hear and i loved Sherlin's example of "i very boring". Other examples are

i got saw you the other day <-- winner!

cher.... you leally don't know meh?

Oreadi

Oorlenge (orange)

Lol. I hope that such conversations do not affect our big D!

In other news, Hallmark's beloved occasion, V day has descended upon us again. I can foresee myself furiously typing away on my laptop come v day so im just gonna post this V day post a leeetle earlier. A few years back, i posted some lovely stories about couples. This year, i shall just post one. One that is being passed around via sms. One that reflects the present times we live in.

You ready for the greatest love story of this decade?

Here goes! (typed out word for word. english errors are not the fault of this blogger!)

A sparrow was in love wif a White rose. One day he proposed to her.

She told him dat if she turn red she'll love him.

So Sparrow tear his body n slowly spread his blood on her n she turn red n fell in love wif him but he's dead. Thts love.

HAHAHAHA! That's just so wrong on so many levels! HAHAHAHA! To say i collapsed laughing upon hearing this is an understatement. LOL!

2008-02-10T04:07:00.000+08:00

wow. Amazing what one does in order to procrastinate longer.

The Recipe For adel

3 parts Devilry
2 parts Vitality
1 part Uniqueness

Splash of Sweetness

Finish off with a little umbrella and straw

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

You Are the Middle Finger

A bit fragile and dependent on your friends, you're not nearly as hostile as you seem.
You are balanced, easy to get along with, and quite serious.
However, you can get angry and fed up with those around you. And you aren't afraid to show it!

You get along well with: The Index Finger

Stay away from: The Pinky

What Finger Are You?

You Are a Green Crayon

Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors.
While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around.
Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease.
You're very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows!

Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

2008-02-08T19:18:00.000+08:00

oh empress. let me count the ways i detest thee.

Dear Empress,
i would like to express my sincere thanks. Thanks for ruining every chinese new year. Ever since you came to this household, the heartache and tears have been never ending. If not for you, i would not have known how the ungrateful and cunning behave.

And wow! May i just show my amazement how you can continually wreck your own family? Gossiping about your own grand daughters to other grand daughters! I never knew anyone who would stoop that low but i guess i know one now! :D

of course, there is ur unwavering determination to cause this household pain as well! Not content to just wreck our lives through your malicious lies, you continually think up of devious ways to split this family apart.

And thanks! Thanks for not telling us that your favourite grand daughters wer coming ard dinner time! Thanks for not telling us that there would be 7 families coming and expecting dinner! It served as an unpleasant shock to us all and i hope you did not mind all the stony evil glares i have been shooting at you and your guests.

Thanks for ruining my plans, for dumping your guests on us all when you knew i had work to do. Even now as i shut myself up in the room to try to do work, i can hear the delightful sound of your stupid nasty squeaking.

Thanks empress! You are the ultimate! Only you would be able to make a whole family's blood boil.

xoxo

You miserable fuckwit. what have you done to cny?

2008-02-05T03:44:00.000+08:00

.

It has been a dizzying whirl of activities.

Bad news comes on the heels of good news. In the midst of troubled times, snatching moments of laughter or enjoyment feels so wrong.

Sometimes, it feels like this month has been the worst of months. As if everything, bad or good, was bundled up into a huge ball and then WHAM!

sigh. fast forward to play, please.

and the shit hit the fan.

2008-02-03T15:22:00.000+08:00

Wedding in the Tay house!

Congratulations to Karen & Dan!

He proposed and she said "Yes!"

So my dear friends, you are cordially invited to the church wedding in 2010! Start shopping now! :D

Audrey can be head flower girl! lol!

I'm maid of honour yo!

2008-02-02T04:10:00.000+08:00

....

I know we have the D blues right now. So here's a little something for you to hang on to! :D

Recognise him?

Here's a reminder of the days gone by!

And *ahem*, this one is for me. heehee!

Awwww... come on. I know he's not tanned! but still...heeheehee!

So my dear friends, always remember... Fighting! Let's kick some ass out of this D kies?

2008-02-02T00:35:00.000+08:00

...

Spread the hate.

You know you want to.

Picture credits to Claryce.

2008-01-26T01:44:00.000+08:00

Hey old friend, let's look back

Met up with the 6 flags astroworld pple on fri. It's been so long since i've last seen them..almost 3 years since i have met up with some of them.

It was a bit weird at first because i was the only student there (im the youngest of them all) and they were speaking in grown up language (business stuff) and i was freaking out over how i wud be joining them soon. Anyhoos.. we soon started lookin back at the past and really, what better way to relax than to rehash old happy memories?

Here's the couple who met during our trip. Altogether now.. AAWWWWW. Their chemistry was pretty instantaneous. By the end of our trip, we were already wondering whether they were together (for the record, they got together only months after our trip ended.)

Yujen & Shiang lin sitting in a tree.. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

Yujen actually brought along his laptop to show us the movie he made of a whole set of our pics. It lasted 30 mins la! hahaha.. but i really appreciated his effort. The memories were a little hazy because i was trying to push all memories of deranged rabbit out of my mind and this slideshow brought back many fond memories! Yes, it was hard to sit through photos showing deranged rabbit and me with arms slung over each other, smiling widely at the camera... but that didnt hurt as much as i thought it would. Maybe cause i had my "kaki" next to me the whole time! :D

For the record, i have no idea why Jinyu was beside the laptop when i took this!

So for the record...

This was us (Yujen, Cheeyen/kaki, me) then....

This is us now.

I joined this program (to work for 6 flags) by my lonesome self and i was really frightened at the prospect of not knowing anyone in the same program as me. Hence, from the mass emails the company sent, i copied their email adds and emailed them a hello note. Thank goodness several of them replied. 2 of them were Yujen and Cheeyen. I'll forever be grateful to them for befriending me despite not knowing who i was! We had to sit together for 33 hours to get to houston, so in that time, we got to know each other more!

Im not sure when the nickname started.. but Cheeyen and i soon started calling each other "kaki" and it has stuck till today.

Kaki and me... then

Kaki and me now

And then of course there was Jinyu.. who travelled to New York with us. I like this photo very much. It was taken during the first week within meeting each other and yet this photo manages to capture the chemistry between us!

So Us then..

Us Now..

After working in the program, 7 of us took off to visit Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco etc together. Here's one of us in Disneyland then..

Here's one of us now.

They were saying that none of us have changed very much. I tink i prob wud win "The one who changed the most". Just because of my braces and hair colour.

It was fun meeting up. These past few months, i have been regretting my 1st 2 years in NUS. This get-together was a nice reminder of how i had the time of my life then!

All those nights together

Are a special memory

And I can't wait for tomorrow

Just as long as you're dancing next to me

Well.. i figured tt since i was lookin into my archives, i might as well post the memories here. (plus i dont wanna do dissertation!)

We stayed at Holly Hall, a cluster of apartments.

Beautiful place isn't it? :D

I stayed with the guys and Kaki in apartment 603.

Here's the living room with yujen comfortably in one sofa (as you can tell.. we re arranged the furniture quite a bit). Guys arent really very messy at all. They were picking up after me more than i picked up after them!

Can you see the dining room near yujen? (Yes i was trying to take photos while rotating ard.)

The dining area was the community area where we would sit down to a nice meal after a hard's day work... and then spend the next few mins complaining abt the workload/ talking abt the day's events/ planning the next outing.

In this photo, you can see that Cheeyen is wearing blue while Ian and Jinyu are wearing green shirts. Cheeyen was in retail while Ian, Jinyu and i were in food service (there wasnt enough places for retail when we arrived!). Hence the different uniforms. Food service had to wear a cap too, which would explain why Jinyu is wearing one in this photo.

This photo is to show how cute i am! :D haha! Nah.. im just kidding. It's to show the kitchen behind me!

in which Cheeyen would cook lovely meals for us! hahahah! wonderful, delicious food! On our off days, we would travel to the nearest grocery market to lug back bags of groceries while cheeyen would plan the meals! It was a huge pity when she moved out for a bit. I have to confess tt when she moved out, i was a bit aprehensive.. esp when i wondered whether the guys were expecting me to cook for them! hahaha!

Okay.. from the dining area, you can see this corridor.. The door you see leads to a bathroom.

If you turn left at the bathroom, you'll see the room Richard and Yujen share (which has a walk in wardrobe and its own bathroom).

If you turn right at the bathroom, it'll be the room where Ian, Jinyu, Hanwei and i shared! And no, the yellow and blue one is not my bed.. Mine is comfortably enclosed by the two beds.. See the mattress in the middle??? :D tt's mine! Every day, Jinyu and Ian would wake up first while i begged for more sleep (the 3 of us worked the 8am - 11 pm shift so there was very little sleep). And to wake me up, Jinyu would have to stand at the foot of my bed going "Adeline.. adeline... we are gonna be late...." upon which i would shriek and rush to get ready! Meanwhile, they would prepare breakfast for us to eat before we set out for work.

And here's our 603 family! Houston wouldnt have been so fun if not for them! :D :D Seriously, besides being such awesome company, they would look after me, look out for me and do all kinds of sweet things (like not letting me do any housework, mark my page when i had fallen asleep while reading a book)... we had really good times there!

What was amazing about these guys was that they can cook! :D After Cheeyen left, i had the pleasure of having 5 guys cook for me while i happily relaxed... in short, i was indeed the pampered princess! hahaha!

Besides having my breakfast and dinner cooked for me by 5 wonderful guys, Hanwei helped to cook my lunch! He wanted to pack his own lunch to work when he realised tt the portions wud always be too big (cause the chicken thighs they sell over there are huge!). Hence i would help him cook (by "help" i mean "mostly hanging ard the kitchen chit chatting to him till he finished or washing up the dishes after he did the preparation work") and then during my work shift the next day, i wud grab my lunch set from him. :D :D

Ahhh.. Good times indeed. My lunch provider!

As i said, we went off to work early. We had to report at 8 so by 7.30 we were out of the house on our bikes!

We would ride to the nearest subway and then ride into the subway train to the next stop.. Something we'll never do in Singapore! haha!

Hey! It was a pretty long walk from holly hall to the station (min 20 mins) and then from the subway station to the amusement park staff entrance(at least 25 mins)!

I worked in the restaurant with the theme of the Medieval English, "Sword and Crown".

Duties varied from attending the cashier..

To tending another store by your lonesome self (I loved this duty because there wasnt any supervisor ard to look over ur shoulder and you could slack off when there werent any customers. And no one else liked it so i started doing it more after a while! :D)

The duty i loathed the most was this one. The cart duty. We had to take heavy boxes filled with soda bottles out from the cold freezer, load it up in the cart, pour ice into it and then stand in the hot sun (with nothing but one measly umbrella) for 6 hours straight selling drinks. The worse part was the heat, followed by having to plunge your hand repeatedly into the cold ice to get the drink customers want.. and of course there was no calculator so if the customers ordered 4 different drinks of different prices( which were irritatingly priced at $2.75 etc), you're basically screwed. That was the only time in my life my brain worked so fast with numbers!

There was 2 other duties but im too lazy to upload the photos. One was preparing the food which i disliked for many reasons. I got scalded twice doing tt, once in the face and once on the arms. The other was selling ice cream which i loved because... 1) air con.. 2) ICE CREAM!!! and the prices were easy to work with ($2.50, $3.00, $4.00) so my brain didnt have to work as hard!

Cart Duty

The worst part of the day was closing shift. Because i had to wash the dishes most of the time. And by dishes, i mean these.

It was terrible because i kept on getting cuts on my hands from the stupid metal corners. And the water and sink were pretty disgusting. I tink my whining abt my job duties was one of the reasons why the 603 guys were really nice to me (During one discussion, we realised tt i had the worst job duties!).

Here's one photo with my colleagues there. Also, one of the rare times im caught on film wearing a cap. Most days, i would wear tt cap when i was just about to enter the restaurant. Once we were off work, the cap wud be whipped off asap!

Work was admittedly tough. But we had loads of fun to make up for it. For starters, we were allowed to enter 6 flags free on our off days! So we managed to ride most of the rides.. 6 flags is known for their rollercoasters. All of their rollercoasters have a turn to make you go upside down. I was a scary cat when i went there.. afraid of rollercoasters (ever since the Viking).. But after one ride, i was happily rushing to experience more! Here's a sample of 6 flags astroworld used to look like (it closed down)

Being cheapo chinese, we took photos of the tvs showing our photos whcih was snapped when we came down the terrifying part of the rollercoasters. Haha!Only asians would tink of this method!

And here's a random pic of a hot(?) guy to reward you for looking thru this post! I forgot his name but he was a friend of Cheeyen's. He was working as a lifeguard whcih explains his wet hair.

There were the house parties the other staff organised. Like us, they were foreigners in USA. There were Thais, Columbians, French, Slovakians and i tink one was from Czech Republic. Cant remember them all.

6 flags also organised excursions for us to enjoy. We went to NASA (as we were in Houston, Texas).

We didnt understand the hype for it. Well.. if you are befuddled by the info, what else can you do but start posing for photos?

6 flags also brought us to Kebah where the sea was amazingly blue. I loved the whole boardwalk idea.

This is the only photo i have of David! He's the one in Red. He's a Singaporean too but somehow our paths never really did meet.

Here's another hot guy whose name i kinda forgot. Everyone said he was cute but i dunnoe.. He seemed a bit skinny. Well, you can be the judge.

We had the fortune to be in San Antonio for the NBA Finals game. It was deffo the coolest day of my life. There were spurs posters everywhere.. with people proclaimin their loyalty to them everywhere!

Every moment was simply.. fantastic. It was an emotional ride because they were neck to neck the whole time. Once the game started, i was out of my seat and screaming my support all the way! Here's the starting of the ceremony.

They had screens every where.. When the opposing team had the ball, they would flash funny animated messages encouraging us to chant "defense". If im not wrong, the "Make noise" message was for the time when a player from the opposing team had to concentrate.

Unfortunately, despite my heart and soul being poured into supporting them, the spurs lost by a few points! Here's one of us after the game... Hanwei is obviously heart broken over the loss.

We managed to catch the Houston's baseball team playing. I had to have Jinyu explain to me how the game works.

On another day, we went back to San Antonio where support for the Spurs were still very evident( By then, the Spurs had already won the NBA).

We went to San Antonio's waterwalk where it felt like everything was out of a storybook.

Our preview of San Francisco's Golden Bridge

More evidence of how shamelessly unabashed we were to make fools of ourselves in public.

We ate a lot of Fast Food. Besides the discounted meals we had at 6 flags, we went to BK.. (psst.. can u see the star wars ads on the cups? heh. we managed to catch tt movie there too!)

There was Denny's which remains my absolute fav fast food outlet!

After 6 flags, 7 of us left on a tour. First stop: LA

Jinyu at the Sunset Boulevard

Mann's Chinese Theatre

Disneyland's Small world

It was their 50th Anniversary then so they had many collages such as the following one all ard the themepark.

Can you believe that this collage was made up of photos of pple who took them in disneyland? Simply Amazing.

More hamming it up for the cam

Disney's Castle of Dreams

Can you see how crowded the place was? Thank goodness i remembered some info from some guidebook my dad had borrowed for our previous trip here! Thanks to those tips, we managed to get onto most of the rides..

I like the closeness seen in this pic.

San Diego's Seaworld. We were quite tired at this stage.

Las Vegas was another place we toured. By the time we could tour The Strip, we were pretty exhausted. Someone in the grp made a strong case for us to finish walking The Strip so by the time we reached the end, exhaustion was evident in everyone. Here's some pics from the start of The Strip!

Grand Canyon

San Francisco.

Herst's Castle

Golden Bridge Gate

On the tour boat that would bring us to the under the Golden Bridge, Liyu got so cold, she was literally shivering and her teeth were chattering. We got so worried tt we wrapped her with our jackets!

Fisherman's Wharf

Museum of Fine Arts

Lourve Road. claims to be the shortest road in the world.

San Francisco has super steep slopes. No wonder all the residents have nice shapely legs!

A jump shot. And honestly, it's so unfair tt Yujen is always the highest one in any shot! Look at the show off with his 2 legs obviously in the air. No fair!

Oh dear..the order of pics are in a mess.. but among other places, we went to Universal Studios.

Love this shot.

Im supposed to be pretending tt im gonna fall off the bike but Jinyu is smiling as if he is willing me to fall off. hmph.

After touring other places (whcih im too lazy to post all the pics up here), Jinyu, Cheeyen and i parted ways from them to fly to New York. We went to Buffalo without a single plan. Where we would put our bags while we went to see the falls (we would only be there for less than a day so a hotel room was out of the question), how to get to the falls.. etc. We didnt even have a map when we landed in New York!

We had the shock of our lives when we were told tt they didnt keep luggage in the airports anymore due to the terrorist attack. So there we were, totting ard with our suitcase and bags.. Thankfully the bus station people took pity on us and helped us to safekeep our bags (after checking thru our luggage first of course).

First, we went to Buffalo to see the Niagara Falls which was pretty spectacular.. Made Yosemite Park's waterfall look so small in comparison!

It was so windy up there! Here's a pic of Jinyu holding his jacket to show you how strong the wind was!

We went down to have a closer look at the falls. The raincoat they give..... is no protection against the water. As shown by this pic.

Next stop was New York, New York! By this time, i was dead broke. Seriously, my budget was Us$20 per day! Hence, we had to walk ard the whole of New York City. Not once did we take the subway. Gosh! I tink we lost quite a lot of weight then!

This bull is the most abused statue i have ever seen.

Because we were on a tight budget, we ended up eating the same old meal every day. We would go to Wendy's where we would each order one baked potato with a free cup of water.

Here's a pic of our meal. Sometimes i got so hungry, i would even eat up the potato skin! I distinctly remember the moment of sheer desperation where i tore salt packets to eat the grains of salt inside!

Here are our cups of water. Thank goodness for Mcdonald's free cups of water. If we could not finish drinking them, we would pour them into Jinyu's water bottle in order to ensure that there wud always be water for later.

I remember tt after tt trip, we made a pact.. we would go back to New York City again.. this time.. with money!

wow. recapping tt hols sure took longer than i anticpated.. well it was fun lookin back at the times we had. Wish i cud experience it all over again. Went into this adventure by myself and somehow, i must have done something right because i got myself more friends and a memory of a fantastic summer holiday. :D

Cause it's so clear

Every year

We get stronger

What's gone is gone

The past is the past

Turn the radio up

And then hit the gas

Cause . . .I know we've Come So Far

But we've Got So Far To Go

I know the road seems long

But it won't be long 'till it's time to go

So, most days we'll take it fast

And some nights lets take it slow

I know we've Come So Far

But babyWe've Got So Far To Go

Hey old friend, together

Side by side and year by year

The road was filled with twists and turns

Oh but that's the road that got us here

Let's move past the bad times

But before those memories fade

Let's forgive but not forget

And learn from the mistakes we made

Cause it's so clear

Every year

We get stronger

So shine that light

Take my hand

And let's dance into tomorrow land

-Hairspray's Come so Far-

2008-01-25T13:06:00.000+08:00

Another reason why having Karen Tay as a Jie jie rocks.

She bought us comfy pjs from La Senza! Love them!

Unfortunately, the cashier didnt take out the shoplifting tags from hers, so there were only the two of us mucking it up for the camera.

Can you tell that we are spelling the word "WOW" in the next 2 pictures? heh!

Im not gonna post up the ones where we are spelling "cool" coz i look extra stupid in them.

Speaking of lookin stupid in photos, i was browsing thru claryce's photos the other day, and i have come to the sad conclusion tt i really dun look good in photos. Esp next to my gorgeously tall and lean friends.

I look like someone squished me vertically!

On a brighter note, im volunteering to be the one to submit the photos to John. No worries, i'll post them up here before i send it to him so tt it's subject to everyone's approval! :D

2008-01-22T21:32:00.000+08:00

i hate this. i fucking hate this.

2008-01-17T09:50:00.000+08:00

Tsk!

Woke up early this morning for no reason whatsoever and couldnt get back to sleep. Normally, i would wait patiently for Jie jie to go to work before i dive into her bed. But I couldnt wait this morning so i woke her up ten minutes before her alarm so that i could sleep on her bed.

Tsk!

You would think that she would appreciate the wake up call right? Noooooooooo.... Somebody had to try to continue sleeping at the foot of the bed/ squeak and squeak about her loss of ten mins of sleep/ procceed to jump on me when she was awake/ order me to stop "twirling around on my bed". Tsk!

And if that wasn't enough, just as i had made myself snug and warm in her bed, she managed to tear away her pillows and bolsters away from me... and throw them onto Audrey's bunk bed! TSK! laughin with glee while she did it! tsk! See la? Now i cant go back to sleep and its all your fault jie jie! LOL. is this the way you treat the very person who helped you to decorate your cupcakes??? I expect doughnuts!

Well anyways, so i was surfing through blogs and i remembered Audrey's story. Came home last night to be met with a mournful Audrey. She told me that she witnessed the murder of a bird yesterday. Without further probing, she elaborated on the story. Turns out that St Nicks wanted to celebrate their Birthday with the release of 2 pretty birds. The birds were super pretty.. White ones with a dash of blue.

In front of an entire school assembly (both pri and sec school), they let the birds go free and then the whole school watched in horror as within the next 2 mins, a black crow swooped down and caught one bird. The crow then flew to a nearby point where the school could only watch helplessly as it proceeded to eat the white bird. The other white bird soon fell into a lokang where the teachers hurried to pick it up and bring it back to the school.

Okay, when you put it like that, it's quite sad. But the way Audrey related it was hilarious! At the very end, she wailed plaintively "And the birds were supposed to represent our schooollll!" LOL! It was at that point my sympathetic face gave way to a full blown HAHAHAHA! i can just imagine the open mouths and horrified gasps of the entire school population.. And the poor person who went and organised the event! All the efforts .... only to get a traumatised school population!

Anyhoos.. Now Audrey has homework where she has to write in Chinese her reflections of the incident. hahaha! I wonder what the primary school section had to do.

And before i forget, one last post abt the temp job i did during the hols! No one believes me whenever i say that out of sheer boredom, we made more than 100 boxes! We were so bored that we starting takin pictures!

Here's a candid one of my colleagues/ chit chat buddies! (The one on the left is Olivia, my sister's friend's sister) and one in the foreground is Corinna. During the last few days, we didnt have anything to do (Everytime we asked the co ordinator for work to do, she would clutch her head in despair.), so we sat where Corinna is posed in the photo, amongst the boxes and talked.

Because we were in each other's company 24/7, we talked so much that we ran out of stuff to say! I remember during one lunch, i wanted to ask Corinna something but then told her that i would talk to her during work so that we would have something to do later!

In a mere 5 days, our friendship had progressed from strangers to friends who were able to sit comfortably in contemplative silence... among boxes. Still it was loads of fun due to their company! :D

We had so much time on our hands that we double scotch taped up the bottom of the boxes.. Till the point that i realised that with the 100 boxes that we made, they might not have enough masking tape to seal the top of the boxes! oops!

After making all these, we went to the office downstairs to help them make more boxes!

Adel, Olivia and Corinna: Professional Box Masters/ Box Whisperers

And here's one last shot of me posing with the boxes! I'd would like to tink it's my best shot. Heh!

What do you think? :D