Happy Birthday to

ShiWen!!!

hey gal, so fast your birthday again. haha... all the best for the new year and be happy always k. looking forward to more outings together!

first week of school and the lectures are all so disgusting! had 7 hours straight of lecture in the same lecture theatre. today's lecture was more like a secondary school lesson. the lecturer taught on the whiteboard without giving notes. but the worst was that his handwriting was barely legible. couldn't understand much of the lecture. many people went straight to change to take traditional chinese medicine after that. should i change too? hai...
went shopping with mz and finally bought some things! happy~ haha...

(this post was written one week ago but only posted now due to problems with the blogger site...)

my first post of the new year! new year, new blogskin. i know i'm abit laggy to be posting now but too many things have been happening the past week. year 2006 was quite a good year for me, except for the less than ideal end.
year 2006...a year of new friendships and renewed friendships. i stayed in hostel for most of the year. the times at hall 16 were most enjoyable. being able to stay with hui and yu, and also know the rest of the gals. i also got closer to many coursemates last year. i was lucky to know so many 'en ren' in helping me with my studies.
last year was also the year when most of my friends turned 21. so many parties to attend and also turned broke from buying presents. all the birthday parties were actually a great chance to catch up with friends, especially those from primary school.
as for my own birthday, i had a celebration at the chalet in pasir ris. thanks to all my friends who came and all the presents. had a really great time. though the chalet couldnt turn out as happy as i wanted, i'm no longer upset. i will not cry anymore. as iz says, this shall be a test of our friendship. though i'm sad that things can no longer go back to the way they were before, i believe our friendship will still remain always. you guys are my most cherished friends and it would hurt me very much if our friendship is lost. everything will be alright... through this birthday, i really feel lucky, to know that i'm loved by so many people and that i have many great friends. i'm very touched by what my family and friends have done for me. i have gained alot in friendships and relationships.
the one month holidays have come to an end. it has been my busiest and most happening holidays of my life. had alot of fun going out with friends. now a new semester is starting and so is a new chapter of my life. and now i have you to walk this journey with me... :)

happy new year!

celebrated this year's christmas with hui and the rest at marina bay's steamboat. same place but different group from last year. i didnt eat much that night. the chicken all tasted the same and my appetite still hasnt regained. the prawns were nice though it was kinda cruel seeing some of them wriggle on the bbq plate. (sorry sw if this grossed you out.) first time spending the night outas a 'liu lang han' but it wasnt quite as fun as expected. we took photos at esplanade and sat around at starbucks to avoid getting 'snowed' by the crowd at midnight. the kids next to us were so full of energy chasing cockroaches, of all things.
this is my 3rd day working in dmn bookshop selling sec 1 books. the auntie was very nice. and its a very slack job except for the first 2 hrs last friday. the rest of the time i was just so bored. but its refreshing to work and earn some money again. and i havent been back to dunman for so long. nothing seems to have changed much though. see so many familiar corners where i used to hang out with my friends...nostalgic!

*results out on 28th...
**pray hard it doesnt rain on sat!!

me and suyun were supposed to help with flyer distribution for impressario at orchard today. but just as we were about to go out, kaixiang messaged to say our help was no longer needed. happy that we dont have to stand all day but i was all ready to go out! and hong is singing today. hope she gets in~
had a belated birthday celebration for suyun yesterday. went to the soup restaurant for dinner. realised that its the same group of 10 of us minus a certain someone. lol...havent seen most of them since our last paper and we had a great time. the pork rib soup was so delicious! but of cos it has to be nice, if not they can close down already.
the weather this week has been depressing. bouts of heavy rain the whole day on mon and tues. but i still managed to go shopping with mz on tues and i finally bought something! realised i got a few things to buy actually. but why arn't they selling shorts? weather too cold huh..

*happy happy holidays~*

went for impressario's canvassing event today. had to listen to a talk on investments given by NGA, linked to Prudential. all the speakers were so well trained and full of confidence. and all of them are 'mei nu's! they talked about their company's culture and tried to advertise their career as financial advisors. it seems very dynamic and fun. they go on several company trips to all around the world in a year. but..it sounds too good to be true. they painted a beautiful picture that if you help 1 client per week to save a certain amount, increasing each year, you can earn your first million in 10 years. a 25 years old girl there already earned 0.75 million after 3 years. but how many people have that capability? even their savings plan sounds so good.
christmas spirit is in the air~ love walking down orchard road with the lights. dont like squeezing through the crowd though. went to vivocity for the third time this week. didnt shop there though. so many people there today. but i need to get clothes soon! the view outside on the third floor was very nice. good place to take photos and enjoy the breeze.
Deja vu is a really nice movie. highly recommended!

yay~exams finally over! its been over for a week and i've been busy everyday. life has never been more happening for me. i had fun but my wallet is also emptying at a very fast rate!
went for cns bbq gathering at mabel's house on thursday. she had these two little cousins aged 7 and 11. they claim themselves as 7-11. lol...they are so cute and smart. the younger boy was more chatty and they spoke very fluent english and with clear articulation. he could talk with us for hours. so impressed by their knowledge of cars. they actually know the model numbers of all the cars, their cc or engine power and a whole lot of other stuff which most of us dont even understand. and they got this knowledge by reading car magazines! impressed..mabel lives in the bukit timah, where no buses go in. every house has at least 1 car there. we had to walk out at night to go home and we took about half an hour just to get to the main road. each house we walked past justs get bigger and bigger in size. all so beautiful with full length glass windows and gardens big enough to play football. but the houses are so big, i wonder if they even get to see their family inside.
this is the month of christmas and birthdays! christmas lightings at orchard are about the same every year. but i'm still looking forward. hope to have more fun this month!

thursday, after exam, a group of friends were shopping in the minimart.

Gal 1: *looks at instant noodles*

ok, this shall be my lunch tml!

Gal 2: why eat instant noodles? no gd...

Gal 1: cos tml got afternoon exam, save time

Gal 2: tml where got exam??

Gal 1: *stunned and looks at gal 2* tml got genetics leh. right? *turns to another fren*

Gal 2: huh? thot got another day?

Gal 1: tml is friday le...

*stunned silence from everyone...*

how can anyone not know their exam schedule?? study too much le lah...

in the wee hours of saturday morning, my grandma's heartbeat stopped. her health wasnt in a good condition for quite some time and was recently aggrevated by many factors. no use talking about them now. just hope the person involved will really repent. she had an asthma attack on thursday night. she and my grandfather went to his batik shop as usual that day and she reached home feeling breathless. my relatives called for an ambulance which arrived a freaking 25 minutes later. while waiting for the ambulance, she stopped breathing for 5 to 10 minutes and her heart stopped later. 4 minutes without oxygen to the brain causes irreversible brain damage... the ambulance system is so ridiculous. my relatives called 4 times. they said that the 2 ambulances in the serangoon area were occupied and couldnt come. they called tao payoh which had to check that nobody in tao payoh needed an ambulance before they could send it over. they even wanted to activate the ambulance from paya lebar. hello~ this is an emergency! what kind of system is this? first come first serve?? see if you're lucky enough that nobody is using the ambulance in your area. the medical worker who arrived performed cpr immediately, saying sorry each time he pressed down on my grandma's chest. but he wasnt at fault. they managed to revive her heartbeat and maintain it with drugs, but she was already brain dead. they put her on the life support system so that other relatives could visit her for the last time, finally removing her from it late friday afternoon.
what if the ambulance arrived earlier? what if someone knew cpr and could administer it immediately? would my grandma have lived?
for concerned friends, i'm alright. i must say that i wasnt that close to my grandma but seeing my grandpa really breaks my heart. he was crying non-stop, saying he also doesnt wanna live anymore. life has no more meaning for him... they have been married for almost 60 years, i cant even imagine the anguish he's going through. i hope he can go on with life positively.. i cannot attend the cremation this tuesday cos of my exam. if i am there, i think i'll be crying my eyes out. its too heart-breaking for me to bear.

cherish your loved ones...(v)
/

there's less than 2 weeks to the first paper...and i dont think i can study finish. how how?? there's so much to study for each module. i dont have confidence in this sem at all. the only module that i think everybody will pass is the research seminars since its like GP. i still have 2 more reports to do. next week is the last week of school and yet i still have lab sessions. so stupid...still have to do report after that. and the report is 30% of the final grade. haiz...i'm worried. but somehow i dont feel the urgency to study this sem. maybe cos there's just too much and i just keep putting everything off. excuses i know.
talking about assignments, i finally finished my essay on monday. i was quite impressed with myself cos i managed to finish it within a few hours. then i made a big stupid mistake. i accidentally deleted my final completed assignment from my thumb drive!! argh~every student's nightmare. it was the only copy i have and it couldnt be retrieved. luckily i still had 1/3 of the essay which i had written the day before stored in my computer. if not i tink i'll just break down and cry. expensive lesson to learn..must keep backup copies next time!

i went to book a chalet for my birthday just now. i was really lucky cos only that weekend has available rooms. its gonna be at costa sands pasir ris on 30th dec. not the one at downtown east. dear friends, please be there k. i hope we can all have fun to mark the end of this year!
for now, have to finish my assignment. how am i going to type a 2000 word essay?? cant even hit the 500 word limit in jc. hai...
jia you for exams!

how should i celebrate my 21st birthday? aloha is fully booked and aranda is so damn ex. $838 for 3D2N! i might as well go overseas. go hongkong 1 week also still have leftover money for shopping. too bad my birthday is in the triple peak period. my mum gave me many choices actually. can have chalet at downtown east or dinner with friends at sizzlers or book a hotel room. must really thank her. but i dont really like to organise such things. so many things to take care of. and now is the exam period. not a good time for planning. but i do want to celebrate with my friends.

so what shall it be? hmm...

friday was the Mid-Autumn festival. how did you celebrate it? as for me, i had a chain celebration from wednesday to saturday!
the first was when i crashed hall 3's celebration to see ny and wil's performances.

on thursday, i celebrated with my coursemates. we gathered at the rooftop of 16B, my previous hall. too bad it was very hazy and we couldnt see the moon clearly. the haze was so bad these few days, i can only smell smoke in the air. what are those people thinking? burning forests every year... sick of the polluted air. dunno how some people can still smoke in this weather. k, back to the topic. that night was so fun. it was like we were back to being kids again. we ate mooncakes, drank chinese tea out of mugs, played with sparklers and took a whole lot of photos! we went into such a frenzy when 7 of us tried to light the sparklers at the same time, making so much noise. and for the first time since primary school, we carried lanterns around the school. ntu people should find a chance to go up the grass slope of the arts building at night. its so pretty.


friday was the celebration with my family. saw my little cousin who's so cute! she's only 1 years old but she is so full of expressions. and she can imitate animals like snake, monkey and cow. but of course she does all these so that she can drink the cold drinks that they adults were tempting her with. babies are so greedy for food. but they are also smart. after the drink was finished, she stopped entertaining us.

on saturday, i went to the chinese garden for the first time to see those big lanterns. surprisingly, i had alot of fun. walking down the long road from the mrt station, hui commented that it feels like we are walking down 'yin-yang road', especially with the haze. there was a cai shen ye along the way. we thought that he was giving out candy in hongbaos but he told us to 'shui bian gei. $1 or $2 also can.' isnt the god of fortune supposed to give out fortune?
we 'travelled' around the world in 2 hours. haha...cos this year's theme was the 7 wonders of the world. our first stop, the 7 story pagoda, already left us aching and sweating. and instead of fresh air at the top, the haze greeted us. luckily we went after the actual day of the festival, so there were not so many people. but there were still alot of people to hinder our photo-taking. i went crazy with the camera on hand. though my photo-taking skills were not so good. we ended up as shadows in many of the photos. half the place was filled with indian tourists. an early celebration of the festival of lights? after we finshed walking around, we rested at the second story of an initially empty building. but after we came and opened the balcony doors, people started coming too and filled up the place. saw another side to my friend today. didnt know he could have so many crazy ideas for taking photos.
after all the fun, we were hungry and went blk 85 in bedok for supper. so tired when i got back home. and another weekend is gone without much studying done. oops...

my two dear friends have been complaining that i havent been updating my blog. 'nothing happening in your hall life?',they ask. something 'happening' happened today alright. something to mock my own stupidity.
ny asked me to join him for running today. friends who know me will know that i hate running. but i actually agreed cos i wanted to complete the round that i didnt get to finish. which in the end,i still didnt finish.
while up the last slope towards hall 16, i was feeling damn tired. i thought, close my eyes for a few seconds. big stupid mistake! i didnt run straight and fell off the pavement. so diu lian! hai...thought my clumsy days were over. now i cant get the dirt out of the wound. help~ and my roomie's first comment was 'your blood very red leh'. of cos my blood is red! duh...

JK san, your programme was great. gambatte yo~

a friend once told me not to be too trusting towards people, even those that may seem like your good friends. but if you cant even trust your good friends or even your family, then what meaning does this relationship have? i always thought that the people around me are nice people who will not harm or lie to me in any way. and i want to keep on believing that.
nothing has happened to me but recently alot of things have been happening to the people around me. think its even more exciting than those mediacorp dramas. even though i'm not affected directly, seeing people around me get hurt and i cant do anything is not a nice feeling at all. why must people lie? people who love them trust them so much, only to get their hearts broken. such disappointment when they find their trust betrayed, and promises made are broken. and in the end? they just apologize for what they have done, without a proper explaination. what's the use of an apology. and i wouldnt be surprised that there's no explaination. cos if he is even thinking for the people who cared about him, he wouldnt have lied in the first place.

but i believe you all are strong and can get through this. the worst has already happened and things can only get better. ming tian bu yi ding hui geng hao, dan yi ding hui you geng hao de ming tian...

moved into hall this weekend. couldnt sleep at all the first night. i'm glad my roomie isnt hard to get along with. but i still wanna be with my friends. its gonna be difficult for me to study this sem. must force myself!

i miss staying in hall 16 with my 2 roomies! and with the rest of the gals there. now so bored in hall. sigh...dont like to go back to my room now.

dark circles are starting to appear under my eyes...sleep deprived!

we had a field trip to bukit timah hill for plant biology today. reminds me of all the fun excursions i had in primary school. we used to have so many excursions, making regular trips to places like the zoo and sentosa. however, i found today's field trip to be rather unfruitful. maybe cos i dont have an observant eye like sharon. the plants look all the same to me--green! there were no flowers at all. seldom did we see any moving organisms either. we saw very cute monkeys at the entrance though. they have grown to be unafraid of humans, chasing after some gals when they see food. back to the hill, i was actually looking at the path more than the plants. cos we had to climb up and down and i was afraid of tripping over. the summit was only 164m but the stairs up seem never-ending. we are so unfit compared to the retirees walking effortlessly. some aunties even found us too slow and we were obstructing their path!
i also got a place in hostel today. hall 8...i dont like that cluster. all my friends are in the other cluster. sigh...is there any way to transfer??
this period seems to be a difficult period for many of my friends. so many people having relationship problems. feel so helpless cos i dont know what to say or do to help them. all i can say is be strong k! i'll always be willing to listen.

saw something interesting in my email that day...

Count every 'F' in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

This is not a trick question. Look and count carefully!!!!
.
..
...
....
.....
....
...
..
.
The answer is...
.
..
...
....
.....
....
...
..
.
6!! Look again. Cos our brain cant process the word 'of'. Amazing right? Tell me if you managed to get it right.

we went to the settler's cafe in clarke quay last night. there were 12 of us and we made so much noise. going in big groups is more fun though everyone cant play together. i preferred the ambience at mind's cafe but the people at settler's were super helpful. we kept getting them to change games for us. 'Poison' is a very good short strategy game. 'pits' on the other hand, is a messy heart attack game. is one word of advice, dont play action games with long nails! haha...hui will know what i mean.

jap results are finally out! so happy to get my A. i think by the end of their university education, most people would have aquired at least a third language. so many people are aiming to learn jap.

school has started! and so has the cycle of buying textbooks and rushing to print notes. i hate this period of the semester. buying textbooks are so expensive and so we photocopy instead. but most of the time, i find that i dont use these notes. just following the crowd in case i need them. haha... the guys my age are also starting their uni life this year. everywhere i go, i find myself scanning the crowd for anyone that looks familiar. havent seen many people though.
this semester's timetable is filled with long breaks, meaning i have long days. wasted my 5 hours today talking to secondary school friends. crashed hui's strtegic management lecture. i actually found it interesting. guess its the first lecture so i could understand what was being taught. the lecturer spoke clearly and loudly unlike many of the foreign lecturers i have encountered. it feels good to learn something i dont have exams for.
i wanna stay in my beloved hall 16! tired of travelling. *sobz*