The Christmas and week after has been a wonderful whirlwind of activity! My life in peektures for now :)
On Christmas day, my family and I went for the healing service and it was an amazing service. Managed to pray for two ladies with different needs and I was greatly encouraged by their courage and faith in the face of illness. After that, my family and I celebrated my youngest sister's birthday at Soup Restaurant and chilled out at McCafe for a bit while my sisters went shopping! At night, went to watch The Hobbit 2 with UU at Tampines! I have to say that the movie was pleasant only because of him :p otherwise the show was wayyy too draggy, a bit sad that my treasured LOTR series has turned out like that :(
Went to attend a church wedding with UU on Saturday as his colleague was getting married! The wedding was held at Wesley Methodist Church, opposite the YMCA at Dhoby Ghaut. It was my first time at this church even though I have friends attending services there. And I got to say that the church is a wonderful mix of past and present, with vintage red brick sitting right next to a new glass wing. The only downside is that the church seems to only have a speaker at the front so that sound gets quite muffled at the back. But in any case, it was a lovely lovely wedding! Felt a bit sad that riverlife church has two center aisles, unlike the old churches which have one center aisle, so it won't be as picture perfect if couples get married at my church. But oh wells, like UU said, it's the relationship and history of the couple with the church that matters haha.
On our way down from Wesley Methodist (which sits on a hill), we spotted a huge traffic mirror and managed to snap a selfie! Haha as we were going down the steps, I realised the afternoon lighting was perfect and we took another pic! Singapore's weather has been quite lovely this past week, all cool and windy and not too sunny!
Cos we were supposed to meet the rest for teo heng around 4pm, we decided to hang around plaza sing for a while. I felt a bit bloated after lunch and my stomach wasn't that comfortable so UU suggested we get yakult drinks. Apparently, according to him, it really helps with wind in the stomach. Haha I was quite disbelieving at first cos I thought it was gonna give me stomach upsets, but surprisingly it did help a lot with the bloatedness! But I really felt like a kid again drinking Yakult! Can still remember all the times I had to beg my grandma for a yakult after meals cos it felt like such a dessert treat at that time!
Went to celebrate Ben's birthday with the SMU cell after church today and it was so sooo much fun! I've forgotten how much I love to hang out with this gang of people, with all their different crazy personalities! And we've set up a teo heng appointment for next week wheeee!
To round off the week, I got a haircut after Ben's birthday celebration! My fringe was toooo long and kept getting in the way and I felt like my hair was getting too thick so decided to trim it before CNY and my hairdresser starts inflating her prices! After the trim, my hair did feel a lotttt lighter but my mom complained that it didn't look like I had cut it -.- ahh whatever, I felt like I could have gone out onto the streets immediately after my haircut, which to me shows that it's definitely a good haircut!
"No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike. Times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us."
//Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Blithdale Romance
Things were a little bit different this year after exams. We had one day of rest, one day of a movie in a parallel universe about childhood dreams, friendship and love lost; then we had four straight days of sitting inside a room facing a computer from morning until night to come up with ten pages of arguments for moots. But after the awfulness, we had breakfasts, phonecalls, MAMA, KBOXing, SJ fun, shopping, planning for SS4, SJ fantasies and as always, hope for the year after this. I like that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
Because the people who stay the same work through the change and grow stronger.
"Another turning point; a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist; directs you where to go. So make the best of this test and don't ask why. It's not a question but a lesson learned in time. It's something unpredictable; but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life.
//Green Day; Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
I learnt one important lesson from Eps and Bang that followed me through this whole December at all the places that I stopped at: Favour, What is favour? It is when you receive something that you don't deserve. And when I sit back and think through all the amazing experiences I've had this past month, I can only say it was all by your favour. Thank you for the lessons, the hand-holding and the growing. Thank you for the tears, the laughs, the goodbyes. Thank you most of all for the people I met along the way, for Dan, Oli, Eps, Bang, YH, Koh, Chew, Ange, Carolyn, Christina, Deep, Prof and everyone else in between.
"...Taking crazy things seriously is-- a serious waste of time." "A very wise conclusion. There's that saying. 'Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all."
//Haruki Murakami; Kafka on the Shore via ayecandy
Hahaha, the first thing that Deming said was, "Omg, I too long never study with girls already! First time in so long I see people doing this during mugging!" Haha, whatever, when you're mugging 7 days a week with no end in sight yet, you're entitled to take a break, see lah Rachel don't want to join in. Still, I love this season of my life (the complaining, the worries, the mugging, the notes, the teas, the late nights, the heart-to-hearts, the joy of just being) and I will probably never experience anything like it once we leave school. It's kinda like I want to grab everything and say, make time slower, make it stop. Take what's good, leave out all the rest.
"What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.""
//Haruki Murakami; Kafka on the Shore
If moving my fringe half an inch more to the left can generate so many responses, I wonder what would happen if I changed the parting of my fringe? Okayy, random. But seriously, I can't believe the difference that comes from simply moving a few strands of hair from the right to the left. Haha, now that we've got the chance to go for Vis East, super excited. Like Jo said, we'll try to be big fish in small ponds. Little Davids swinging stones at Goliaths. Still should have googled the meaning of IHL and Vis East before realising that we signed ourselves up for commercial arbitration and SOGA. Adeline Chong would have a good laugh if she knew that I chucked all my SOGA notes into the recycling bin after Contract II exams.
"Meet me where the sea touches the sky; Meet me where the world begins."
//Jennifer Donnelly; The Winter Rose
Strictly speaking, false dilemmas arise in situations in which only two alternatives are considered when in fact, there's a whole wide range of alternatives awaiting consideration. Of these, the kind most commonly engaged in would be black-and-white thinking. And a good and super realistic example would be me experiencing boundless optimism when things are going swimmingly and falling into utter despair at the first sight of a bloody setback. Haha, what else can it arise from other than our endless need to categorise everything and anything into extremes? Oh well, at the very least, I've been at both ends of the spectrum this week haha. In all still, I'm so glad that moots is over, so excited that we all went for law musical, so over the moon that things are back on track.
"Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape."
//Harper Lee; To Kill a Mockingbird
Our trip to Marina barrage! We really went at the right time cos there were dark clouds and it looked like it was going to rain but in the end it didn't. Haha, so it was really cool and windy and was no sun!
Our nicest photo taken! Haha, before Weilin's camera ran out of battery hahaha.
My greedy face! Only because the pancakes I make are nice okay, for proof see Shiyi's extremely happy face!
Haha, and we saw the cutest bunch of boys kicking an apple around. They were super super excited about the apple lah that they were trying to throw it at the girls haha. The mom who packed it for her son's lunch must be super sad that her apple became a football in the end.
And see our super artistic shots haha! Mine looks like some movie poster for the day after tomorrow right! Haha, Shiyi and Weilin look like they're doing modelling for a blogshop, the dress makes Weilin super tall next to longlegsshiyi!
14 January 2010
;22:43 "You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that." //Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
ohmytian, I'm taking my BTT for the third time tomorrow and I'm practising questions on some dodgy website cos the lady who took down my BTT registration apparently forgot to sign me up for the e-trial test. oh well, I suppose it will all work out especially seeing how hilarious some of the comments are on this dodgy website.
Q) What should you do while waiting at a red traffic light? A) Of course wait for the light to turn green la, what else you want to do?
Q) If the brakelights of your vehicle are not functioning: you should a) you can still drive if in good weather; b) you should not drive at all; c) drive it to the workshop for repairs immediately. A) B. Then how am I supposed to repair the lights? Call a truck to tow my car to the repair centre? Yes, that's a really pertinent comment cos I was thinking that too! Q) Upon seeing a green B light, you should a) proceed if your vehicle is not an omnibus; b) proceed if your vehicle is an omnibus; c) give way to vehicles behind. A) What is an omnibus?
Q) The traffic light has turned red but the pedestrian is still crossing. What should you do? A) Bang the bastard down. This goes toward proving my point that the logic behind BTT questions is flawed! Some of the questions are downright hilarious can!
21 December 2009
;17:31"Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out; where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs." //Margaret Atwood
so because our parents decided that we were not going overseas this year, they decided to bring us on a local day-tour instead. hahaha, ohmy I haven't been on a day-tour in years and years lah, I think the last time was in secondary school when we went to a chinese exhibition about tea? my parents having our breakfast before we get onto the bus and my bus mate for the day, my second sister! I think we were already the oldest kids on the bus lah, everyone else was like in primary school or kindergarten haha.
first stop was tassler's salmon factory and warehouse somewhere in woodlands! the salmon here is really cheap apparently and it's fresh! there's a really strong fish smell the moment you get off the bus and go near the factory.
defrosting, deboning, slicing and breading to make breaded salmon! racks of salmon! it wasn't as much fun as I thought at the salmon factory since their main job is to defrost salmon that was caught overseas. I thought there would be some real life salmon swimming around in a pond for us to see :(
us outside tassler's!
then the next stop was the bird nest's warehouse! unfortunately, we couldn't go into the factory because of H1N1 precautions. but the guy giving the bird's nest presentation was quite interesting haha.
blood's bird nest! the reason that the bird's nest is dark red in colour is because of the swiftlet's diet that causes its saliva to be red. apparently, there's a story that the bird's nest is red because the bird worked so hard to build the nest that it vomitted blood haha!
after lunch, we headed to the organic farm!
they sell edible cactuses at the organic farm market!
mushroooooms!
us inside the mushroom tent! the only thing that wasn't so great about the day tour was that most of the time was spent buying the things they offer at each stop instead of the actual touring of the location can.
last stop was the gardenia bread factory! this was actually the best part of the tour because we got to tour the factory and they gave us loads of free bread at the end! but sadly, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the factory. they have a damn cool bread cooler that can cool up to 8,000 loaves of bread at one time! haha, I didn't know day-tours can be so much fun lah!
The Christmas and week after has been a wonderful whirlwind of activity! My life in peektures for now :)
On Christmas day, my family and I went for the healing service and it was an amazing service. Managed to pray for two ladies with different needs and I was greatly encouraged by their courage and faith in the face of illness. After that, my family and I celebrated my youngest sister's birthday at Soup Restaurant and chilled out at McCafe for a bit while my sisters went shopping! At night, went to watch The Hobbit 2 with UU at Tampines! I have to say that the movie was pleasant only because of him :p otherwise the show was wayyy too draggy, a bit sad that my treasured LOTR series has turned out like that :(
Went to attend a church wedding with UU on Saturday as his colleague was getting married! The wedding was held at Wesley Methodist Church, opposite the YMCA at Dhoby Ghaut. It was my first time at this church even though I have friends attending services there. And I got to say that the church is a wonderful mix of past and present, with vintage red brick sitting right next to a new glass wing. The only downside is that the church seems to only have a speaker at the front so that sound gets quite muffled at the back. But in any case, it was a lovely lovely wedding! Felt a bit sad that riverlife church has two center aisles, unlike the old churches which have one center aisle, so it won't be as picture perfect if couples get married at my church. But oh wells, like UU said, it's the relationship and history of the couple with the church that matters haha.
On our way down from Wesley Methodist (which sits on a hill), we spotted a huge traffic mirror and managed to snap a selfie! Haha as we were going down the steps, I realised the afternoon lighting was perfect and we took another pic! Singapore's weather has been quite lovely this past week, all cool and windy and not too sunny!
Cos we were supposed to meet the rest for teo heng around 4pm, we decided to hang around plaza sing for a while. I felt a bit bloated after lunch and my stomach wasn't that comfortable so UU suggested we get yakult drinks. Apparently, according to him, it really helps with wind in the stomach. Haha I was quite disbelieving at first cos I thought it was gonna give me stomach upsets, but surprisingly it did help a lot with the bloatedness! But I really felt like a kid again drinking Yakult! Can still remember all the times I had to beg my grandma for a yakult after meals cos it felt like such a dessert treat at that time!
Went to celebrate Ben's birthday with the SMU cell after church today and it was so sooo much fun! I've forgotten how much I love to hang out with this gang of people, with all their different crazy personalities! And we've set up a teo heng appointment for next week wheeee!
To round off the week, I got a haircut after Ben's birthday celebration! My fringe was toooo long and kept getting in the way and I felt like my hair was getting too thick so decided to trim it before CNY and my hairdresser starts inflating her prices! After the trim, my hair did feel a lotttt lighter but my mom complained that it didn't look like I had cut it -.- ahh whatever, I felt like I could have gone out onto the streets immediately after my haircut, which to me shows that it's definitely a good haircut!
"No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike. Times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us."
//Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Blithdale Romance
Things were a little bit different this year after exams. We had one day of rest, one day of a movie in a parallel universe about childhood dreams, friendship and love lost; then we had four straight days of sitting inside a room facing a computer from morning until night to come up with ten pages of arguments for moots. But after the awfulness, we had breakfasts, phonecalls, MAMA, KBOXing, SJ fun, shopping, planning for SS4, SJ fantasies and as always, hope for the year after this. I like that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
Because the people who stay the same work through the change and grow stronger.
"Another turning point; a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist; directs you where to go. So make the best of this test and don't ask why. It's not a question but a lesson learned in time. It's something unpredictable; but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life.
//Green Day; Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
I learnt one important lesson from Eps and Bang that followed me through this whole December at all the places that I stopped at: Favour, What is favour? It is when you receive something that you don't deserve. And when I sit back and think through all the amazing experiences I've had this past month, I can only say it was all by your favour. Thank you for the lessons, the hand-holding and the growing. Thank you for the tears, the laughs, the goodbyes. Thank you most of all for the people I met along the way, for Dan, Oli, Eps, Bang, YH, Koh, Chew, Ange, Carolyn, Christina, Deep, Prof and everyone else in between.
"...Taking crazy things seriously is-- a serious waste of time." "A very wise conclusion. There's that saying. 'Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all."
//Haruki Murakami; Kafka on the Shore via ayecandy
Hahaha, the first thing that Deming said was, "Omg, I too long never study with girls already! First time in so long I see people doing this during mugging!" Haha, whatever, when you're mugging 7 days a week with no end in sight yet, you're entitled to take a break, see lah Rachel don't want to join in. Still, I love this season of my life (the complaining, the worries, the mugging, the notes, the teas, the late nights, the heart-to-hearts, the joy of just being) and I will probably never experience anything like it once we leave school. It's kinda like I want to grab everything and say, make time slower, make it stop. Take what's good, leave out all the rest.
"What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.""
//Haruki Murakami; Kafka on the Shore
If moving my fringe half an inch more to the left can generate so many responses, I wonder what would happen if I changed the parting of my fringe? Okayy, random. But seriously, I can't believe the difference that comes from simply moving a few strands of hair from the right to the left. Haha, now that we've got the chance to go for Vis East, super excited. Like Jo said, we'll try to be big fish in small ponds. Little Davids swinging stones at Goliaths. Still should have googled the meaning of IHL and Vis East before realising that we signed ourselves up for commercial arbitration and SOGA. Adeline Chong would have a good laugh if she knew that I chucked all my SOGA notes into the recycling bin after Contract II exams.
"Meet me where the sea touches the sky; Meet me where the world begins."
//Jennifer Donnelly; The Winter Rose
Strictly speaking, false dilemmas arise in situations in which only two alternatives are considered when in fact, there's a whole wide range of alternatives awaiting consideration. Of these, the kind most commonly engaged in would be black-and-white thinking. And a good and super realistic example would be me experiencing boundless optimism when things are going swimmingly and falling into utter despair at the first sight of a bloody setback. Haha, what else can it arise from other than our endless need to categorise everything and anything into extremes? Oh well, at the very least, I've been at both ends of the spectrum this week haha. In all still, I'm so glad that moots is over, so excited that we all went for law musical, so over the moon that things are back on track.
"Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape."
//Harper Lee; To Kill a Mockingbird
Our trip to Marina barrage! We really went at the right time cos there were dark clouds and it looked like it was going to rain but in the end it didn't. Haha, so it was really cool and windy and was no sun!
Our nicest photo taken! Haha, before Weilin's camera ran out of battery hahaha.
My greedy face! Only because the pancakes I make are nice okay, for proof see Shiyi's extremely happy face!
Haha, and we saw the cutest bunch of boys kicking an apple around. They were super super excited about the apple lah that they were trying to throw it at the girls haha. The mom who packed it for her son's lunch must be super sad that her apple became a football in the end.
And see our super artistic shots haha! Mine looks like some movie poster for the day after tomorrow right! Haha, Shiyi and Weilin look like they're doing modelling for a blogshop, the dress makes Weilin super tall next to longlegsshiyi!
"You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that." //Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
ohmytian, I'm taking my BTT for the third time tomorrow and I'm practising questions on some dodgy website cos the lady who took down my BTT registration apparently forgot to sign me up for the e-trial test. oh well, I suppose it will all work out especially seeing how hilarious some of the comments are on this dodgy website.
Q) What should you do while waiting at a red traffic light? A) Of course wait for the light to turn green la, what else you want to do?
Q) If the brakelights of your vehicle are not functioning: you should a) you can still drive if in good weather; b) you should not drive at all; c) drive it to the workshop for repairs immediately. A) B. Then how am I supposed to repair the lights? Call a truck to tow my car to the repair centre? Yes, that's a really pertinent comment cos I was thinking that too! Q) Upon seeing a green B light, you should a) proceed if your vehicle is not an omnibus; b) proceed if your vehicle is an omnibus; c) give way to vehicles behind. A) What is an omnibus?
Q) The traffic light has turned red but the pedestrian is still crossing. What should you do? A) Bang the bastard down. This goes toward proving my point that the logic behind BTT questions is flawed! Some of the questions are downright hilarious can!
"Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out; where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs." //Margaret Atwood
so because our parents decided that we were not going overseas this year, they decided to bring us on a local day-tour instead. hahaha, ohmy I haven't been on a day-tour in years and years lah, I think the last time was in secondary school when we went to a chinese exhibition about tea? my parents having our breakfast before we get onto the bus and my bus mate for the day, my second sister! I think we were already the oldest kids on the bus lah, everyone else was like in primary school or kindergarten haha.
first stop was tassler's salmon factory and warehouse somewhere in woodlands! the salmon here is really cheap apparently and it's fresh! there's a really strong fish smell the moment you get off the bus and go near the factory.
defrosting, deboning, slicing and breading to make breaded salmon! racks of salmon! it wasn't as much fun as I thought at the salmon factory since their main job is to defrost salmon that was caught overseas. I thought there would be some real life salmon swimming around in a pond for us to see :(
us outside tassler's!
then the next stop was the bird nest's warehouse! unfortunately, we couldn't go into the factory because of H1N1 precautions. but the guy giving the bird's nest presentation was quite interesting haha.
blood's bird nest! the reason that the bird's nest is dark red in colour is because of the swiftlet's diet that causes its saliva to be red. apparently, there's a story that the bird's nest is red because the bird worked so hard to build the nest that it vomitted blood haha!
after lunch, we headed to the organic farm!
they sell edible cactuses at the organic farm market!
mushroooooms!
us inside the mushroom tent! the only thing that wasn't so great about the day tour was that most of the time was spent buying the things they offer at each stop instead of the actual touring of the location can.
last stop was the gardenia bread factory! this was actually the best part of the tour because we got to tour the factory and they gave us loads of free bread at the end! but sadly, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the factory. they have a damn cool bread cooler that can cool up to 8,000 loaves of bread at one time! haha, I didn't know day-tours can be so much fun lah!
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