and so the day to leave draws nearer again.

you'd think that by now i would be used to the fact that i am sad about leaving behind all things awesome and wonderful but i'm not. quite the contrary, i feel more she bu de maybe cos the last trip opened by eyes and heart to the preciousness of my friends around me. being back allowed me to soak up the meaning of what true friendship meant, made me realise which friends will last and which won't.

still, i'm quite sad that i didn't get to do all that i envisioned myself doing, like cycling at east coast, eating my roast duck, pork and char siew, my xin min hokkien mee and my sushi buffet :( oh well. wait another year before i get to do so. hahaha.

went out with the brudders to shukodu where they "surprised" me with a late-as-usual birthday celebration. haha this year not bad already la. celebrate twice. cos they celebrated my 2007 birthday on 1 jan 2008. lol. places like shukodu and marche are not nice if u go with money restrictions. i hate/love the fact that they display the food so you know what to eat but yet at teh same time everything looks so good that u want to eat everything. grrrr. at least i've started to step out of my comfort zone to try the other food rather than sticking to my same safe order :) that's what i need to start doing in my life. i keep staying within the same zone. i didn't even explore savannah. haha. i stayed within my sch zone. dang. i must go and watch some school sports and feel the american school spirit with school football or smth. have some new experiences.

anyhows, back to the brudders. we were all sad that su hui wasn't around cos she's far away in UK but the weirdest part was it didn't feel as if any of us were ever separated yet. like i came back, we got together, everything went on like we did before. we talked, we laughed, we ate...alot, pushed the cake to one another and teased/bully novita. haha. man. i'll miss doing that. debby, denise, pls add on ur bullying/teasing for my sake when i am not around to do so. haha

celebrated new years with a sleepover and countdown with the pacies - cheryl, chrystal and my pacey bobo at cheryl's hse. we arranged to eat roast duck at amy's hse but sadly when we got there nothing was left :( so in the end we had to resort to going to our usual thai express. haha. sadly due to the limited festive menu i stuck to my pat thai talay (seafood pat thai) before heading over to cheryl's hse. we slet in her puny room and we amazingly managed to squeeze in there with chrystal and i sharing cheryl's bed. awkward cos chrystal is a blanket stealer and the whole night i was left with a mini corner of the blanket to cover my thighs for security. like those jungle girls. didn't really sleep well cos i felt exposed most of the time with chrystal rolled up in the blanket and every turn she made exposed my naked thighs and i felt very very naked :S

anyway, pardon my horrible un-chronological writing of events. the countdown show was bloody lame and we found ourselves laughing at the ridiculousness/horrors of singapore's countdown party rather than the jokes and "entertainment" provided by the actors and actresses. there was those sms messages on the tv and surprisingly there weren't many "i lub chew beri muchx muackz" kind of messages. but there was one that left all of us laughing - "Gabriel Q. Hope you enjoy yourself. don;t come back too late. see you next year. Dad" smth along those lines. haha. spent the usual time talking about the horrors of us ageing. it is very scary. like HELLO. i do not look/appear/behave/feel like i'm 20 :S so bloody old and by the time bobo graduates from med sch, i bet one of us would be married by then.

AND AND AND AND AND... i took one step closer to being more adultish by drinking some alcoholic drinks with cheryl and bobo today at liquid kitchen. we were intending to go to wala wala at holland v, but cos chrystal couldn't make it and only she knew where it was, we had to scrape it and resort to something more familiar. which in a sense was a good thing cos i didn;t have time to get ready into something "nice" for pubbing. so yay. i got to slip into my comfy cargos and tees. ho ho.

at liquid kitchen, cheryl had sex on the beach and bobo ordered a pina colada and they ordered a peach margarita for me. i dun even know the difference between all that so i just left it to them. the irony was that when it all came, the thing that they ordered for the alcohol virgin was the strongest alcohol thing. it was damn gross la. like medicine. EW. so bobo offered to swop with me. thanks bobo!! so this was the first time i was happy with an alcoholic drink cos it tasted more like some punch than alcohol. u can't taste the alcohol at all. wheeepeeeee :D

oh oh oh and and and. cheryl saw this coaster that is specifically designed for me.
it says: The HANDBAG of GLORY
Such was the POWER of the Handbag of Glory that ladies WEPT when they saw it and those who TOUCHED it went straight to HEAVEN

lol. and guess wad?!?! it was designed/made by the same guy who made the friendship keychains that bobo and i have. hahaha. i must find this edward monkton guy. perhaps he is my ONE TRUE LOVE and he is using his art to search for me. based on his creations....i think we are pretty made for one another. LOL.

oh gosh. i realised i have packed alot of things to bring to savannah. DIE MAN. SO MUCH STUFF :S yeeks. i think i'm gonna die trying to drag it off the conveyor belt when i get it from the baggage claim. summore got no one to help me. SOBZ. and pls pls pray that my connecting flight from houston to savannah opens us cos i'm on waiting list. i don't want to rot in the airport and lug the many things around!!! *PRAYS HARD*

i've been going through some sort of emotional roller coaster up and down and up and down it's driving me crazy. This is why i'm staying in the states for the next few years to adjust and change and start anew. to be where no one really knows me or my past, to at least try and experiment and not worry about reactions and all that.

When chrystal commented that i was a closed book, it made me reflect and wonder. I have so many insecurities within me that makes me put on masks of all sorts that even i wonder who i really am and what is truly me. Perhaps i'm not a closed book or a book that is hard to read. maybe my book is full of jumbled up letters that no one, including myself can read, cos the author herself can't make it out herself. I see others and I wish within me that i could be someone else. I want to change, but i dunno where to start and how to do it. so i stay the same.

i wonder whether it was the right decision to go to art school, one overseas at that. I'm happy that it is a form of escape, to start anew, to escape from all things bad like family and its events and dramas. I feel more like a stranger among them, unable to express myself, having to put up a false front and all that jazz. it's like broadway, but with no chance for mistakes and NGs. it's a live telecast show. yet on the other hand, you can't help but face with the siblings' jealousy of being overseas, the constant guilt and burden from the financial issues. you know you can't turn back and say i quit. and to top it off the emotional rollercoaster, i'm faced with the onslaught of the awkwardness of puberty of my brain and i suddenly realised certain stuff and the world around me. i feel stupid asking my friends such questions. questions that they had asked in lower sec. why am i so retarded???

anyhows. time to return draws nearer. and sadly, i received the news from jill herself that she is not returning to scad. i have no idea what is going to happen to the dorm. will it just be nicole and i or rather, mainly just me since nicole is hardly in the room anyway. at least i dun have to worry about blender noises in the morning when i dun have classes at 8, nor do i have anyone to make me feel competitive, i can work at my own pace, even late into the night cos jill used to sleep so early. still. it's gonna be weird not having her around after all these while. I'm more afraid of the new roommate shud i get one :S ho hum....life will be interesting.

on a happier note, caught snow white and the seven dwarfs with sarah on saturday before cg. it wasn't mind blowing fantastic. i guess it's also cos after watching those on broadway...singapore productions are really...local stuff. with your typical jokes on MM, SM and all that...and of course, the sexual innuendos.

still, it felt good watching a production :) makes me think about the past training at lasalle with nicole stinton. makes me want to turn to minoring in theatre once again. I AM SUCH A FICKLE IDIOT. hahaha. i'll just take theatre as an elective and then decide. lol.

I've been MIAing the past few days becos i was with 3 other wonderful people in not too far away hong kong where china pandas can be found :) uber cute greedy pandas. ATE AND ATE AND ATE. i wish i were a panda in an enclosure with all my good friends and have no worries and just eat all day long and dun care about dresses and skirts and being fat becos i look cuter fat if i'm a panda anyway.


this trip was an uber budget one. we lived a total budget travellor's life and the only thing we lacked to fit that image was those backpacker's backpacks. for one...we lived in an uber shabby building - the uber old hong kong HDB flat that is falling apart. check it out!!!

hahaha. but seriously. the usa hostel that we stayed in was pretty good with proper beds and toilet and aircon and all. the only thing unhotel-ish is the toilet door which is kinda like the one we had in portugal. frosted glass window at the door and no lock. except this is worse cos the toilet is so small the bathing space is the only standing space and the moment the door open u are exposed. so we had to use a chair to block off the thing to protect all our privacy. not that i think the other girls cared. haha. nonetheless, the hostel room was sufficient for the bare necessities of shitting, bathing, resting and chilling. it was the place we spent every night just playing games and having "heart to heart" talks. rather. it was more of digging out dirty secrets and hidden opinions even though to put it nicely, it was getting to know one another better.

we managed to do all that we needed to do - shopping, buying winter jacket for the cold winter in savannah, eating local food, our egg tarts, dim sum and steamed milk, ocean park, victoria peak etc etc. the typical stuff u do in hong kong anyway. i'm quite proud of myself at riding some of the rides in ocean park. i think going with friends give you more guts and for the first time i am seen smiling. not ducking in the photos of rides. perhaps taking plane rides have trained my system to the feeling of free falling as felt during turbulence. SPEAKING OF TURBULENCE, i fear for my life flying in a plane with cheryl and bobo who have their phones turned on despite reminders from the air crew to have all electronic devices, especially phones to be turned off throughout the entire duration of the flight. secret terrorists.

there was a whole load of walking during this trip. even with comfortable sport shoes my feet still hurted. hong kong is too bloody crowded for me to live there without stress. i will never forget that scary pushing and shoving into the train during peak hour. no doubt people were really orderly when it came to waiting for the train, but by the time we missed 4-5 trains no one could care less about being patient and courteous and just shoved and pushed to get on. and then there's the language barrier. my chinese has deproved so much so that i have problems even trying to order food from the chinese menu and i was stuck ordering wanton mee most of the time cos it was the only thing i recognised on the menu. saddd.

many thanks to chrystal for being our main translator for everything. i feel quite bad but ya. thanks for all the help. she's been such a mummy on this trip, dragging me around to make sure i won't get lost. helping me to settle my winter shopping otherwise i'll come back with nothing at all, and helping us to find the places we need to go. chrystal we love u!

and then there's also cheryl who was the one who planned everything. and my pacey who i love dearly. (but yet have hardly any pictures with cos cheryl kept u all to herself and i had many photos with chrystal even though she denies the fact that we have proper photos together)

and last but not least, to me, for being the epic failure and a great entertainment at the expanse of my deflating ego.

girls. what would i do without u all??? let's gather every year even though we're far apart in different corners of the world. let us never let this friendship die.

I AM OOOOLLLLDDD NOWWWWW :( i can't believe that i'm reaching the big 2 in a years time. oh my mummy. that is terrible. on the brighter side. at least i have less candles to blow out.

a big thanks to the many friends and loved ones that wished me happy birthday and it once again reminds me of the great many of you who has shown that i matter to you guys enough for you to remember my birthday (and of course many thanks to facebook who has helped many of us, including myself)

celebration for my 19th was a simple affair. i realised that as you grow older, birthdays don't really matter much (or perhaps we are just in denial of the fact that we are getting older and OLDER). no longer is there the excitement that we had when we were mere lil ones (must have been that desperate desire to grow out of school and start earning money in the workforce) perhaps also cos there's a decreased desire for parties and cakes (desire for presents still remains, though what kind has changed drastically i think). yet one desire still remains - for friends to remember and be there to celebrate with you.

anyhows, it felt like an ordinary day, apart from the constant in flood of sms wishes and the yummy meal that my family had at some zi char coffeeshop where i feasted on chilli crab all by myself and cereal prawns. YUM. gone are the days of having western food. i stick by my asian roots when it comes to food. haha.

then went for cg where they surprised/stunned me after prayer whereby i looked up and there was my cake held by kelvin. tsk. to think i thought it was normal for my grp to be the last to start praying and finish. sneaky liz chay and loke. i didn't even suspect. oh the warmth of my cee gee :D thanks everyone. they made me blow out my candles almost fish & co style - from a distance. now blowing out 10 candles in one breath is no easy feat at a distance. i wanted to kill the last 3 candles that would go out while i blew and flickered back to life the moment i went out of breath. it was frustrating to the point of fainting and with great embarassment yet amusement.

my elder bro winnie was really sweet as well to have gotten me an art book for my birthday from page one. it's entitled "all men are brothers" -__-zzz are you trying to say something??? anyhows..before you wonder what on earth is that book all about, it's really and purely a graphic design collection of works from various male artists with interviews. while i thank my brother for being so sweet and making me so touched to the verge of tears with his awesome love for me, he tries to deny his brotherly love by saying that he bought it during a sale and it was cheap cos it was printed in singapore. hahaha. oh brother.....**RUFFLES HAIR**

and now...to my quest of art supplies hunting for the next quarter. oh gosh. even while saving on what materials i have left...i will be spending a total of 120 USD on color theory stuff and partial drawing materials. oh woe....and now i know i will have a short life. my new professor doesn't want us to get rubber cement. especially when using indoors for the fumes are toxic. i wonder how much of my life i have shortened during the previous quarter at scad :S no wonder all of us can't do maths for shit.

i am so sleeppppyyy...probably becos of the huge amount of flour in my stomach from this afternoon's mee hoon kuay and from the exercise of kneading the dough to make the mee hoon kuay.

had a bit of trouble waking up this morning to go to bobo's house cos i stayed up late watching all the tuesday crime night shows of crimminal minds and some drama about missing people and whoooshh..it was 1am or smth spent alot of time yesterday playing scrabble. haha. i think now that i'm back i'm expanding my vocab. well...not much. just knowing that the word exists, but not knowing its meaning. haha. i think it's time my family invested in a scrabble dictionary :D

anyhows. back to the mee hoon kuay. i finall managed to drag myself out of bed to head to bobo's hse and when i got onto the bus i got the pleasant surprise of a new bus with beautiful and hip red and black seats :) yay. it feels good to go into the nice buses. i love the fact that there are some special buses in Singapore that are planned differently from the normal buses like the limousine bus and the bar bus. quite cool to have velvet seats/leather seats :D anyway. the weirdest thing on the bus was how they used the mrt warning signals about the closing doors and it was quite strange to be on the bus and yet here the sounds of being on hte train..that kinda threw me off and made me confused -___-

soooo....mee hoon kuay turned out pretty good, even if it required alot of work mixing and kneading, but we had fun. we even decided to not cut mee hoon kuay the usual way and made it a happy meal/mee hoon kuay by using the cookie cutters and having flower/star/christmas tree/moon shaped mee hoon kuays :D hee hee oh yumminess and happiness :)

i think the stuff we need to improve on is to not use egg yolk the next time cos the dough came out strangely yellow and to make the mee hoon kuay thinner cos it was quite tiring to chew. hahaha. and and and...WE MUST LEARN TO MAKE GOOD STOCK FOR THE SOUP. very important. but other than that....i reckon we are so good we can open a shop :) hahaha. man it was good to eat fried shallots and fried ikan billis.

and once we were full and happy we lumbered around and played with bam bam and salt and pepper. hahha. BAM IS TERRIBLE. she is so sneaky...she will be nice and gentle and cute, licking ur hands with her minute tongue and then SUDDENLY BITE YOU. damn annoying. GRRRRR...and she is sooo fussy. she only eats the sunflower seeds. horrible hamster. haha. so in the end we fed the cooler hamster food to salt and pepper the guinea pigs :) oh...i get to take care of bam for a few days while pacey is away in malaysia :D

ham ham bam bam