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Happy Holidays friends, hope all of you'll be able to make a good break out of anything, whether it's spent on vacation, shopping for prom, slogging away for Orientation or Internship, quality time with family, or just pure unproductive rotting. :)

This is late but to all the J2 seniors out there, ALL THE BEST FOR A LEVELS! :)

Promos have come and gone and I completely bombed Math, which was an utter and unmitigatable disaster (and left me feeling quite traumatised for a bit) but managed to pull through the rest of the papers with God's Grace. :) I'm thankful it's over and I'm thankful it didn't bring out the worst in me, or any of the people around me; the camaraderie my class affords is very, very heartening and the idea of one more year (only? : O ) with them is both sweet and frightening at the same time - something to be dearly treasured and eventually, sorely missed.

I also love you, Goh Ruo Ting.

My birthday this year was really quite special! Hehheh this is for posterity's sake. Right before school, I was tricked by Sally who pretended to have lost a 2000-dollar check and me being me, I believed her and followed her to Manna Cafe where a surprise was awaiting me, complete with a shi shang zhi you ma ma hao song lol. (Thank you Lisa) The class gave this shoebox containing some really sweet notes and memorabilia. After school, the nongs+Tq+Rich blindfolded me and took me on a long MRT ride from Marymount to Bedok (I created quite a fuss when I had to enter the ticketing machines...blind). Then we ate and talked and played at the playground. I got a cute card and an even cuter clock ("Are you superstitious, Jingyi?"). Nicchee and his best friend (hahaha) gave a pink bunny that they claim looks like me, Cat's card was really sweet and Ruots gave me the most wonderful book containing nearly all our memories dating back to when we were sec 3. And all the sms-es and facebook messages completed the lovely day; thank you.

Right now, I'm aching all over because my classmates were teaching me how to ride the bike today and I proved Zhixuan's theory right, that you have to fall at least once before you can successfully master cycling. Well, I have yet to master it but I have cycled a long stretch along ECP (thanks to the amazing Matty/Shanzhi/Cheriel/Renyan/Zhixuan/Sally/Theo's patient and painstaking efforts) and that counts as a pretty good start, I think. :D

Yesterday, I tried ice-skating for the first time in my life and ended up being a penguin for about an hour. If you ask me to describe the experience, I would say that ice-skating is like doing math - you think you've got it and then the next thing you know, you're out of control and flailing futilely. 

( & this )

Enjoy your post-promos break, friends! :D Or if you're J2, all the best for the A Levels!! Issy, all the best for your multiple tests and papers! Miao, go go go you can do it! Yingjie, enjoy life? xD

I know I'm supposed to be studying but I really want this!! It's so cute and it's actually affordable (S-A-L-E!!) but it's also out of my size.



And ok on hindsight, it looks like a nurse/matron's uniform. And given my skin tone, I'd probably blend in with the dress.

Back to the world of Aung San and Ngoh Diem Dien (does anyone else think that he reminds you of ngor hiang??)

All the best for promos, friends!

And I had a lovely birthday :)

Ruoting and I were just talking about our wedding plans today and she has very adorable but strange themes :D

1. Lion King - where Ruots will be dressed up as a cross between a lioness and Pocahantas and the guy will have to be topless and wear a ridiculous tribal headdress; the bridesmaid gets to pick from being a.a zebra b.the talking bird or c.the baboon
2. Titanic - where Ruots will wear what Rose wore in the first scene and her hubby will be clad in the typical poor-boy outfit that Jack wears; the bridesmaid will be A SHIP
3. Up - Ruots will be Ellie and her guy will be Mr Frederickson, complete with the glasses and the stodgy outfit; the bridesmaid would have to be/carry a balloon
4. Disney Princess - This is the only normal one but Ruoting insists on wearing a real princess dress with pouffy sleeves and scratchy material too, I bet; I think the bridesmaid'll be dressed as a servant

I have a few things to say: I am friends with an OM-er! I'm not so sure I want to be her bridesmaid anymore. That position is now up for grabs - bribe me with Yoguru (whose one-for-one is ending soon, btw guys! And Yoguberry is really not as yummy as Yogubliss... acai berries can go and die)!

Like I told her, her potential husband's receptiveness to those plans would be a true measure of how much he loves her. In fact, such plans would be a true measure of love for any couple...I think one day I'd spring those plans on a guy just to see how much he really loves me.

I've also decided that if/when (hopefully it's more "when" than "if") I do get married I'll stay away from grand weddings a la Bride Wars and have a really small and simple one somewhere far, far away with only my closest friends and relatives (and maybe 13A since I promised to invite them hoho). Far, far away because I'd use "Sorry AH air tickets very expensive lehhh...you sure you want to waste your money??" to avoid inviting those I don't want to invite and also because I really cannot imagine holding my wedding anywhere in Singapore. Maybe RJC, with "The Canteen" as my wedding arch and the biodiversity pond as my wedding photo backdrop, and catering from Bishan Cooked Food hahaha. Where could people have their weddings other than churches, Sentosa, Botanic Gardens and the typical hotels/restaurants?  

Oh but come on the only plan I need to be thinking about is my STUDY PLAN not my WEDDING PLAN!!

I chanced upon this article and suddenly had a lot to say. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


( Excerpts from the article )

( What I have to say; here goes! )

And unrelatedly, please CLICK HERE
Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks :)

Today I traveled all the way to Joo Khoon - where, on a silly day, I could totally imagine myself being kidnapped and dumped in one of the containers - to collect my mum's shoes that I left behind on a bus during AYC (I always seem to be leaving my mum's shoes around ah! I'm such a horrible girl). It's the first time I've actually been to Joo Khoon, rather than gape at it like when it first started appearing on MRT signs, so I was very lost and very scared. I cabbed to the transport company but it was expensive so I just asked very casually how to get out of the place by public transport (if it was even possible) and the lovely ladies there very eagerly asked me to go along on their company shuttle bus, like they really cared even though they had absolutely no obligation to. I was like, wow that's really nice of them :) And then at night, I had dinner alone at a food court and had to face this huge tray containing a lot of food (because I was hungry and greedy, as always), while carrying my schoolbag, my file and my pouch. I had to gingerly balance everything and try and get a seat and I swear I was gonna drop something when one of the cleaner uncles swooped over and helped me carry my tray and find me a seat. And he was so friendly and completely un-naggy about it.

And this morning, where we finally managed to interview this American bigshot for PW - we called him on Skype and it felt like we were trying to communicate with an alien from Mars (or at least I felt like that) and he was so warm and friendly and the best thing was, he accomodated his schedule to be able to talk to us.

It's these ordinary little things that keep me in awe of how nice people are, and can be. They teach me to be kind, that there is always a choice available to be kind regardless of how easy or convenient it is to act otherwise. :)

Oh I just realised I actually kinda miss AYC, even though I'll never publicly detail it on facebook or things like that because somehow, that would feel very trite. It's just me; what some of my little juniors and some of my not so little non-juniors have written is really quite sweet and reminds me of the days back when you were all exuberant and excited from attending conventions. Well, so I did start off feeling very grouchy and very sore about having to miss another week of school and not being able to see certain people, and I did get very little fulfilment out of the entire thing, but I also met some pretty awesome people (whom I'll probably never again seen in my life but that's not the point...a fleeting friendship is still a friendship, just a different sort) and had the chance to know some of my classmates so much better. Memories: Charm and I making ourselves redundant at the appropriate junctures using a camera+our qt faces hehheh; doing very well at Flood It!; all of us being stressed with Leon on The Day Murphy's Law Struck; stayovers with lisa, yongy, sally, claire, robyn, matthias, nghi; B&B; being The Sexies; laughing at, and with, zhong ming; secretly thinking that nicyeo is very pretty; being Hubie's ahma; being entertained by Lisa & her truths; hugging Lisa and being there for each other; appreciating the core comm; appreciating the foreign delegates for their earnestness and humility, which some sporeans can really do well to emulate; being updated on that polygon; having a secret slight (perhaps unresolved - I dunno!) identity crisis and feeling like an extrovert-turned-introvert during odd moments; having a simple life that involves no math at allll!   

You know that article about signing onto a bond ignorant of the change that's going to rise up deep inside you and then having to commit to it with blatant but compelled disregard for your changed self and thus eventually having a lot of thoughts on regret and the wasted time of your youth, yeah that one that everyone's been talking about and raising as a caveat to potential scholarship applicants. Well, if that sort of change could happen within less than a quartre of a year, surely it could happen in more than just a few years. I have realised that enthusiasm can't be cultivated: you either are excited for something or you aren't; it's pointless and quite self-delusional to be thinking oh I am bored to pieces now and I am dreading it but when it happens I will love it y/y! Oh gosh yes I have learnt I have learnt I will remember this lesson for a long while to come.

Looking at all the photos on facebook, I MISS SCHOOL ):

Sometimes all I want to do is to find a cave uninhabited by insects and bring all my favourite people and favourite things into it and then stay there for a really long time. Ok it's not ALL that I want to do but I certainly want to do that very, very much.

Wow omg I can't believe it (not that I actually have the choice of suspending myself in disbelief and thereby suspending All Things in freezeframe mode until I am ready to finally stop rejecting the next phase, whereupon I can re-kick things into motion with the press of a button); it's August already. This time last year, I was trying to study for eoys and had a whole season of frivolous things like fun, food and frolicking around to look forward to. Right now, I'm not doing anything remotely productive or useful although the looming mountain of doom work says I am supposed to and I can't even lull myself with the promise of freedom!!! at the end of everything. Because, at the end of everything, it would be the start of A Levels. And from there onwards, the end of something would almost always mark the start of something else, with no allowance for a break or a pause, no regard to the value of doing nothing. All RJ seems to be preparing us for is a life without rest (unless you fall sick) and we're taught to love it, embrace it. 

I have been sick and stuck at home for the past 5 days and I miss school! Specifically, I miss 13A!!! (and other lovely, lovely friends) Argawawa )< I also miss intensely flavoured juicy juicy meat, which is apparently not part of a Sick Person's Diet and which I happen to have insane cravings for, along with baked goodies and frozen cheese desserts and ROTI PRATA ahhh.

And an update wrt the previous post: I couldn't have been more wrong or ignorant; I didn't know what I was doing and I still don't but I guess sometimes, it's okay to not know although sometimes it isn't. I need to stop overappreciating the value of doing nothing though...everything to be practiced in moderation, my friend!

Sometimes, all I ask for is a little less drama in my life. As Andrea has very kindly reaffirmed me, "yes your [my] life is a joke". Argh nevermind I will sabotage the punchline and resolve this properly. Except that whenever I attempt to hog the steering wheel, I always end up doing really stupid things. So this time, I'll be trying my best to listen out for God's voice on the entire matter. Very beautifully put by Mary Oliver in that poem, prayer is but "a silence in which another voice may speak". :) Of course, it's always the decisions one has to make after praying that're hard. GRUNT.

Anyway, school has been wonderful, not absolutely perfect but always promising lots of joy and character-building hoho. The first quartre of my jc life has been filled with all the things that matter: great friends, great company, very enjoyable lessons (I insist Math lectures don't count) and all these diverse experiences that really mean something beyond their novelty factor. Although maybe I do have one tiny... or huge (depending on how/when I look at it)... regret of not having put effort into my academic work. I really don't want to go on and on ad nauseum about how I need to stop taking my education opportunities for granted, about how my current role is fundamentally that of a student, about how much I dislike the slacker that I've become. I guess the reason why I'm always making the same old rants about how behind I am in my work is that I really don't know how to deal with this slacking problem that stealthily snuck into my life post-psle and never went away eversince. It is really... quite bad, for lack of a more powerful and more accurate description. And it is going to become worse because jc work isn't easy and definitely requires studying. Truthfully, I know that my choice to fill up a large portion of my time with what my mum calls "useless things" does place a cap on the extent to which I can realise my potential academically and I wouldn't want to have it any other way because if there was one goal I was determined to keep to at the start of the year, it was to not go through jc as a mugging machine. At the same time, I don't want to swing to the other extreme either (read: screw up a levels and cry) and I ought to treat my position as a student with some respect. It all boils down to self-discipline and yes I have gone through this rhetoric before but this June I am really going to work on recovering some sort of intellectual passion and I will not waste my holidays. I need to get used to the idea of having exams AFTER the holidays. I'll go into Term 3 having metamorphosed from an Ugly Little Slacker to a Beautiful Mugger. Pinky Promise. (I am a little bit scared)

Also, I realise, in very sharp contrast to the last quartre of last year where I had so much time and so little to do, all this while I've been living life without really pausing to do any serious introspection. I've just been doing things in the now and not really thinking (or more like, over-worrying) about why or how or what might happen in the future. Counter-intuitively speaking, it's good because dabbling in existentialist angst and all that can really make a person unnecessarily unhappy. Yeah I know what I am doing and I'm quite happy. :)

( Because Facebook hates my photos! )