Yesterday, school was a breath of fresh air for the first time since the new semester began. You know how sometimes in life you've good and bad days? Well, yesterday was one of the best days i've had so far. it broke the spell of lousy days. It started with the much dreaded Cinema Studies tutorial. For the past 2 weeks i've been wondering if i've made a bad decision because i couldn't quite seem to find my bearings in class. everyone's like from comm. studies and i couldn't really tune into a frequency of thought similar to theirs so everything my tutorial mates shared sounded like greek to me. because i felt very much like an odd-ball coming from some far-flung continent of study such as chemistry. Like, what is a CHEMISTRY student doing in a Cinema studies class?? so for 2 weeks i carried this self-imposed stigma. it didn't help that we are studying silent films now which, if i may add, are absolutely mind-deteriorating things because they do not stimulate any mental activity. But yesterday's tutorial sort of made me see the much needed light and i sort of found my footing after treading in unfamiliar waters for a while. i hope i don't lose this footing in the days to come. we watched snippets from Johnnie To's Breaking News and Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love to study the techniques of long shot and jump cut. i actually understood everything that was discussed so now i feel less intimidated and insecure. stepping out of your comfort zone is not the most comfortable feeling. DUH.


Lunch was a non-exciting meal of vegetarian food sans mock meat, of course. I have nothing against vegetarian food except the mock meat concept. Why do they want to disguise veggie as meat when the nature of their product is non-meat? You're vegetarian so just SELL VEGETABLES AS THEY ARE. not vegetabled char siew.

Ensuite was the most intellectually stimulating class I've had for a long time. Media in America. For some unfathomable reason (which i suspect is purely psychological) it turned out to be entirely different from the lecture i attended of the same course 2 sems back which left me in a state of confusion and made me promptly drop the course that very night. Maybe it's the lecture theatre, maybe the lecturer taught in a totally different way, maybe it's because my friends are here now. whatever it is, the course and i clicked in ways that surpassed my (biasedly influenced to be low based on previous bad impression) expectations. We watched an immensely moving video called Dying to Tell the Story. It's about a photojournalist named Dan Eldon who literally gave his life to tell of the plight of the people in the war-torn country of Somalia through his lenses. There's just something about the intensity of the passion of journalists like him and something about the core of their very being that resonates through our hearts and minds in ways that we sometimes cannot even begin to find the words to explain. It's incredibly revelational to know that God made people like Dan Eldon.


to end off this really great day, i didn't for a second feel sleepy in 311 which is a significant breakthrough because i've been struggling to fight it for some time now. it's proof that my prayers have been answered. Thank God for being God. after that, steph and i hanged out with the cbc freshies and the phrase "heart to heart" is now lodged in my mind. they are truly a great bunch of people to be around. they're very real and it's not so easy to find people like them these days.if i were in harry potter, it'd be like drinking a vial of Felix Felicis.


IT's GOING TO BE ANOTHER MEGA WEEKEND this sat and sun! Heart Of God Church's 10th anniversary from 5-8pm then Pastor How's birthday celebration from 8.15 till dunno when. i so look forward to the WONDERBOYS performing Nobody But You HAHAHA i wonder whether Pastor will laugh or be immensely worried or both. :P on sunday we're having Dr. Phil Pringle come preach! his name always makes me think of pringles potato chips. i'm really excited! now to think of what to wear...

♥ 11:43 PM

i missed g zone and i am feeling guilty. :( joyce chua came all the way to our house on sunday to give me a box of polar tarts (the 6 in a box set with different fruit on top of every tart) after service and i was stunned into a state of surrealism by her appearance. THANK YOU JOYCE YOU MADE MY DAY (AND NIGHT :P)!!!

note to self: sleep EARLY. it sounds so easy but it is so freaking difficult to do. RARRR! why is it that the night never seems long enough and the day can't be any shorter.

♥ 9:45 PM

And the best day of the week goes to....



OHMYGOODNESS what a day man! i woke up at freaking 5.30am (first time in years ok...years!) then met sabrina and went for prayer meeting. i was so glad i went seriously... it's been a long time since i felt so empowered by prayer and so blessed by God's presence. Pastor erm... Tan ( i think cos he's not from our church) is really right when he said we need to find joy in doing all the things that have grown mundane and routine to us over time again... like reading the Bible and praying. true to our trademark weirdness, our cg just started talking about gossip girls right after prayer meeting ended. i think it was sabrina's bag that started it haha.

we had cg breakfast at subway and that was when the physical tiredness came in. we were all like urrgghhh and yawning everywhere while reminiscing about what radio progs we grew up with. cos subway was playing songs like N'sync (how long was that man! primary school?) and 98 degrees. so i got down to bugis with sab and went off to meet my aunt. bugis village at pre-opening hours is unbelievably lacking in life. such a rare sight. to walk in one straight line without weaving in and out between throngs of people is a pleasure. iluma is sadly lacking in everything. atmosphere, excitement, life, customers. but the jap restaurant we ate at was quite good. interesting ordering concpet with the fat ordering pen that recites your order and its quantity. feels a bit like harry potter... but without the magic. ok i dunno what i'm typing really i need to sleep soon.

so anyway, my aunt went to bugis village for the first time in her life as a singaporean living for a few (age is sensitive) decades here already. we walked so much my feet hurt and stank. i bought jeans for 20 bucks! highlight of the day. my aunt didn't buy anything though she now knows that bugis village is not as horrendous as she imagined it to be...i mean, its cha tu chak but with wider lanes and better ventilation. then i headed to store and just when i thought i could sit down and rest my almost shrivelled feet (having stood all the way on the train ride) people had to come in and purchase things blah blah blah. then after that i got to sit down but had to do some other stuff for ramesh and 2 hours just flew and finally i headed back to bugis again to meet sab for dinner at the temporary albert something hawker. cheap and good food.

and then headed to church again for writing ministry. we're given a very interesting topic to write- LOVE. it's the one word sort of thing. and then things got even more interesting during building maintenance cos we girls got to go to the male toilets which hasn't happened since probably our very young and very much missed childhood days when our fathers had to bring us to pee and we would catch a glimpse of the opposite gender's relief retreat and wonder in our curious little minds what those white basin-like things stuck on the walls are for and where is the hole that the pee should go into. and the most mind-boggling thing being why the guys don't have to take off their pants and they can pee and not dirty their pants in any way. it was the greatest mystery. to me, at least.

anyway where was i... oh cleaning toilets. yeah so i found out that male toilets are MUCH cleaner than female toilets but its so ironic that we females are much more anal about cleanliness than our male counterparts. the toilets are surprisingly the most crowded with eager volunteers... but for some reason the heat was sweltering inside. imagine having to do your business and sweat at the same time.

so the day ended with a very short debrief and finally home sweet home. its like coming full circle today and even though i am tired like you cannot believe i'm also happy like you (maybe) don't understand. all right. discipleship class tomorrow! wonder who's sharing ((: and we're singing Free by Hillsong for service! good night world.

♥ 12:27 AM

I wake up in the morning, put on my face. The one that's gonna get me through another (school) day.



1.school has started. what else is new?


2. first lecture and first "crime" committed- i fell asleep (for 5-10 mins but it still counts)


3. old, familiar boredom has evolved into new numbness


4. surprise of the day- attending a maths module willingly, understanding the content and sitting through it till the end (but still with one inevitable dozing off episode).


5. shopping for a new phone with a suffocating budget is no fun.

♥ 11:14 PM

Feelings in question



There's a heavy feeling in my heart

The cause and reason of which unknown

Like a sack of rice or flour

Out of nothingness it seems to have grown



Perhaps it's because from tomorrow on

The holidays are undeniably over

It's time to move on to the next part of life

Much to my reluctance i discover



Been sitting around in comfort too long, i suppose

Now it's hard to get up and move

The unpredictability of the days to come

It's like seeing a rabbit grow hooves



I can't decide whether to be excited and pumped

Or be completely anxious with worrisome gloom

These crazy feelings are brewing in a pot

Just waiting to explode with an almighty boom



3 months feel like 3 years and yet somehow

They also feel like 3 weeks

I don't know why i wrote this poem at all

Nor do the questions to which the answers i seek.

♥ 9:27 PM

If you want something you've never had before, you gotta do something you've never done before.

♥ 7:12 PM

We will not grow old.



another long overdue update... school in a few days' time and so begins the next cycle. whee. all right SPMS FOC 09. interesting and memorable experience to say the least. met a lot of unique characters. this is one of the few things i'll bring along when i leave ntu. countless little stories and incidences here and there, some hilarious, some disturbing (but still stomach-achingly hilarious) and some not so pleasant. one thing's for sure- it was fun (: except the food. i'm not going to eat chai-fan for ages. don't know how i'd have survived without Stephanie- the ultimate camp guru to any noob female camper out there. she'll one day publish a book called- The Camp Survival Guide for GIRLS. in it there will be wonderful tips on how not to embarrass yourself by dropping a piece or two of underwear on the way to shower and how to make your seemingly stuffed bag expand miraculously. i learnt so much from steph it's a pity i didn't write everything down in a notebook. precious knowledge man. amazing race was...amazing. because the guys seemed to have ever-expandable lungs that can somehow do gaseous exchange at alarming rates. i admit- it's the best exercise i did this entire holiday. but i ate it all back already :( had a real impromptu day at sentosa when steph and i took an unplanned tour around the island. we met a french old couple with their adorable granddaughter, ate ben and jerry's (part of the weight-gain contribution) and went to play LUGE. exhilarating experience for us luge noobs. steph was unduly worried on the sky-train ride up, paranoid that we looked like lesbos and pissed at a staff who called her Sebastian because of her t-shirt bearing her bro's name. our OG is surprisingly united and somehow the mix of people seemed good together though there're a few quiet ones. they're a funny bunch. being a nanny to a group of boisterous, energetic and enthusiastic freshies just makes me feel... old. haha. but in a good way. the luge noobs!





had a great time at our all time favourite Coca restaurant eating steamboat on a nice rainy day with Terri and Grace (: ion orchard is... overrated? a little messy and confusing too. but oooh the toilets are lovely. posh and classy and they make a good photoshoot environment. i like that the shops are arranged in order of class and affordability in ascending order from the ground level. so we know our locus and can dwell in the undergrowth of the building. the 3 of us did some serious but happy digging at zara. 70%!!! it's really fun to shop with friends and go in and out of the dressing room showing each other our outfits haha. then we nua-ed a bit at coffee bean. it was such a pleasurable and decadent afternoon man. i wonder if this is how tai-tais live. only up the shopping bit by a few notches with bills having a few more zeroes before the decimal place.





school is starting and i'm not looking forward to it at all. boo. but on the brighter side, i can see my friends again! smart sze, sherm and deqi, steph plus liping! and i get to go back to work at the store which frankly speaking, i enjoy doing a lot haha. it gives an insider's view to things. ok so school may not be so bad after all wow i'm great at psychoing myself.

♥ 11:50 PM