It’s been a decade

(wordy post ahead) The New York Times calls the past decade the Big Zero- where we achieved nothing and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true. I think all that happened was that I grew from 8-18.

2000: eight years old; primary 2. i liked attending school then, walked to and back from school with friends from the childcare centre everyday. and on the way back, we would spend whatever leftover allowance for the day to buy tidbits from the mama shop. didn’t like chinese lessons. never once completed my chinese homework on time. my chinese teacher was a funny looking old man who smelled funny. even so, i still did pretty well in my exams. p2 was still the year when my scores were all above 80 and surprisingly, chinese was my best subject. art was my favourite subject. took chinese calligraphy and chinese painting lessons. quitted chinese calligraphy and chinese painting lessons. stole my mother’s 10 bucks to buy myself a gum-watch. witnessed a funeral send off together with friends while walking back from school. stood there and watched till it left. the year my grandmother passed away.

2001,2002,2003,2004: nine; i still liked attending school because i still had my childcare centre friends to walk to school with. and my form teacher was a very funny and nice person. left the childcare and peiying primary at the end of p3 because i had to move from khatib to woodlands to stay nearer to my relatives. remember being very sad because i had to leave my friends behind and khatib was a place with many childhood memories. 

ten; studied in woodlands ring primary, new school, new uniform, new people. i was put in the last class because i enrolled late. didn’t like it at first, but i made some friends. spent alot of time at the cousin’s because my mum had to work, so i was put under the care of my aunt. listened to o-town, liquid dreams was my favourite song haha(of cos i didnt know what the lyrics meant…until much later). did well in school and was first in class.

eleven, twelve; promoted to a better class. made new friends. had an idiosyncratic form teacher. always blowing up and then walking out of the classroom over petty matters like forgetting to get some consent form signed. so she thinks we are uninterested and unmotivated individuals who doesn’t give two hoots about school…crazy woman. and poor us had to deal with her irregular mood swings. learnt that dna stands for deoxyribonucleic acid and could spell it by heart. saw a human cheek cell and a plant cell for the first time under the microscope. homework, homework. tests, tests, tests. fertilized corn plants for a hybridization project to produce coloured maize. favourite subject was science. primary 6. did five-year-series. played badminton under the void deck. had the same crazy form teacher. played soccer with the boys for the first time. liked my art teacher alot because she was the first art teacher who went beyond just asking us to draw whatever we wanted on a piece of drawing paper. remember getting very worried about my psle score. dreamt that i only had a score of 180. had two best friends then whom i don’t even talk to now. i did somersaults and handdstands and threw punches and kicks.

2005,2006: thirteen, fourteen;

And I thought that was it…

Woah, I really didn’t expect any more birthday celebrations. Thanks guys, thank you for the half-surprise. Haha. I was still surprised, so it was still a successful surprise okay. Birthdays are really a reminder to you of the awesome friends that you have.

Thank you nat, crystal, ming hui, deon and russell for meeting earlier to get the cake. Even though I know somebody overslept…haha

Thank you for getting me a log cake, because I really do love log cakes, especially hazelnut ones. And I feel lucky to be able to eat 2 log cakes for my birthday this year.

Thank you the rest of the class who actually waited for me to come to school just to sing me a birthday song. (I know I’m hopeless when it comes to punctuality…)

Thank you yuhao for keeping mum about this surprise even though I was with you all along on the bus to school. You were probably itching to tell me.

Thank you cheryl wang for the handmade card and the geisha tofu toy. Haha it made me laugh.

Thank you for the disposable camera. For letting me use it to document “my day”.

Thank you nat and ming hui for the diamond shaped card. It’s very pretty. Haha, “Shine like Diamonds”

Thank you for the MOLESKINE NOTEBOOK!!! Like OMG, WAAOOOOO, WAOOOOO. Yea that’s all I can say, really, am speechless… and thank you ming hui for taking time to wrap it with like a million layers of newspapers just to create “suspense”. Haha. I was unwrapping it and it was like, gold wrapping paper, newspaper, newspaper, newspaper, newspaper, newspaper, and then I thought, FINALLY, christmas wrapping paper. And I unwrapped it…newspaper…and then newspaper, and a few more layers of newspapers later…I see a black wrapping paper and I tore it open carefully and see a moleskine notebook staring back at me. WAAOOOO, WAAOOOO. Haha, okay I should stop waaooo-ing. But really, THANK YOU GUYS.

Thank you again everyone for wishing me and for wishing me again today.

Thank you the five of you, crystal, nat, ming hui, russell and deon for planning this surprise for me. 

I couldn’t stop smiling to myself in the bus on the way back home. You people have made me feel special and feel like the past 17 years of my life was worthwhile. Thank you. 

Today was actually a very epic day for me. I feel very loved and extremely blessed that I’m surrounded by awesome friends. Friends that have stood by me when I needed and when I didn’t. Knowing you guys is the best gift ever. Love you people veh veh much:)

I’ll post pictures once I get them back and if I have the time:)

Hanging High

Thank You all for your birthday wishes. All the messages at midnight, on fb wall and via email. Thank You.

And esther, I’ve read your e-mail too. Thank you very much. You are very sweet too:) Good to know that latte is fine…haha

Heart is warm.

Frankly, it doesn’t feel different being seventeen or sixteen. And if anything, I’d wish that I can skip turning seventeen and go straight to being eighteen instead. Because seventeen is really such a “useless” age. I mean it’s neither here nor there. If you get what I mean…

……

Anyway, school’s starting tomorrow already. And I see the days creep by, and realise that 2009 is coming to an end.

I really don’t want holidays to end because pcomdi sounds like a very daunting module. Actually it is a very daunting module. And I know it. But I’m going to stare at it right in the face and laugh a sinister laugh and I’m going to laugh as hard as I can. Like HAHAHAHA…But my laughter will subside and then I’ll remain silent and maybe walk to a little corner to cry because I’ll probably recede in defeat…

And I don’t want 2009 to end because it just doesn’t feel epic enough. You look back and you just know that it doesn’t deserve all the celebrations and fireworks to bring it to an end. But on a brighter note, 2010 should be a year to look forward to. And it’s also a crucial year, where majors have to be chosen.

It’s going to be a major photo spam after the cut.

Swimming in the flood

christmas was(and still is) never a big deal for me. i think to me these “special occasions” are just a tiny celebration of a significant event that happened. just like birthdays, it’s just a tiny celebration of the day you were born, nothing else. everything else is pretty much arbitrary. and throwing birthday parties was never customary in my family. so yea…

and i just realised that the snow that falls on the wordpress home page actually falls in the direction that your cursor is pointed at! that sounds like a MLIA entry. haha my life IS average.

spent almost the whole of christmas eve and christmas reading depressing poetry and stories while everyone else is probably celebrating and basking in the joy of the festive season. no i’m not emo… anyway i think christmas this year isn’t as high spirited as the past few years. received less christmas greetings this year. or is it that i’m losing friends… i’m being paranoid. and i have no idea how people can stand last minute christmas shopping. you see the mass of people in the mall…it’s so smothering i almost died. i think it’s smothering enough just thinking about it.

Dance dance dance

hello people. (yea i’m getting lazy to type with caps again)

stayed over at the cousin’s for the past three days. you know everytime i have a sleepover with my cousin, i go home with my itunes loaded with a whole lot of new songs. like right now i have 227 songs under the recently added playlist. i can tell you 200 is probably from cheryl…i’m listening to them one by one now. haha love you charly chai lat.

anyways, lots of walking done these past 2 days. looking for stuff. buying stuff. printing stuff. went all the way back to sunshine plaza yesterday just to look for my thumbdrive. yea second time i left it there. managed to get it back though. not going to be so lucky the next time…

……

HELLO NATKAS, AGAIN. I RECEIVED YOUR LETTER, AM VERY TOUCHED. THANKEW VEH VEH MUCH:)

you’re one of the sincerest friend I’ve ever known.

……

it’s one more day till christmas. happy x’mas eve people!!

I feel misanthropic again… it’s one of those inevitable days where I’m easily irked and will prefer not to be around people. The irony is that I’m alone in the room and I’m feeling this way now. Or I’m probably just tired. Drained and dizzy. I should sleep.

Too lazy to name this

Today(or rather yesterday..), went to crystal’s house(sans nat and deon cos nat’s in jakarta and deon was busy), slacked, watched cable TV, skyped nat, ate botak jones, watched wipe out australia and laughed like crazy, watched the channel 8 9pm drama serial with russell consistently making sarcastic remarks about it haha, went home.

There, that pretty much sums up the day. Little things make me happy.

……

Holidays has been quite a blur again. I’ve gotten some things on my to-do list done, but there are probably still like a million more to go…

Anyway, next year’s really a year of music extravagance. So many bands and artistes are coming to perform. I’m already going for Andrew Bird. And then Imogen Heap’s coming too(yay!). And I just got introduced to St Vincent(tks nat), which btw sounds awesome, so I can’t miss her live. I have to miss some other concerts though, due to financial constraints, but I guess 3 live concerts in a year is enough to make 2010 a good year. Now all I need is to rob the bank, who’s with me?

On Ho

I wanna wake up to a nice and simple breakfast like that. Marmalade on toast, yummm.

……

It’s 8 more days to christmas. I don’t even celebrate christmas, why am I keeping track…

It feels kinda weird staying at home everyday(or at least for the past 3 days), but I’m liking it though. But I miss my homies too. Haha I’m calling you people homies now.

……

Don’t you think it’s sad that people start treating you differently just because you excel in your work. Like as if it’s your fault that you’re doing well and they’re not. And friends, or people you once called friends starts becoming your rivals and it all becomes a competition. What’s the point really, what’s the point of competing and doing well just for the sake of beating someone. I think sometimes we’ve become so obsessed with achieving high grades, setting benchmarks, etc., that we lose sight of the purpose of education.

Was talking to ang, made me think and recollected some points from a lecture.

……

Tell me if it’s worth it? Cos I don’t want to deal with all the pride issues again

I feel a headache coming on. I hate it when that happens. Cos it’s like my body’s retaliation to me not allowing myself to sleep. Okay maybe I should sleep, these headaches visit too often, even though I’ve never really said or complained about it, it’s present most of the time. And it’s probably not a good sign.

Back

Can’t say it was a most enjoyable trip, but can’t say it was a bad one either. It was a rather satisfactory experience, walking along streets rich in culture and heritage and good nyonya kueh. I can see why many artists/designers chose to base their galleries and shops there. Yea it’s gotta be the kueh. 

……

Now that I’m back, I have much to do- tidy the work desk, clean my room, bathe the dog, make greeting cards, clear my emails(a check of the inbox showed almost an entire page of fb notification mails…), and I just remembered I still owe someone a restaurant menu, oh and that class reflection thing…

Slept away almost the whole of today. Tried exercising again, which was a really bad idea. You should never exert yourself physically unless you feel you’re fit or rested enough to do so. Today after swimming, felt the nausea coming on. Saw me running to the toilet in an attempt to make it to the toilet cubicle before allowing myself to vomit. Barely made it. It was a most embarrassing situation. Went home and slept till dinner time. I’m such a weakling I know.

Okay shall get back to being productive tomorrow.

When you were young

School ended yesterday after photography presentation. This past block hasn’t been very kind to us. Things that we used to enjoy doing actually became tiresome and dreadful tasks. I don’t know bout the rest, but that was how it was for me. Is it life or is it work that’s starting to take a toll on us? Time seems to be shorter nowadays and we’re always trying to achieve more than time allows. Or is it that our expectations of ourselves have risen and we are always unsatisfied with what we achieve. Like we’re unable to give ourselves the credit we deserve for our work and we aren’t proud of what we’ve done anymore.

……

Anyway, yesterday, we sat in this hollow mangosteen at this playground-sort-of place. And I thought it was funny how we were just sitting inside talking and then joel suggested to watch a movie on someone’s laptop. And we ended up watching Zombieland inside the mangosteen. Haha Like everyone was just seated around one side of the mangosteen and the laptop was placed in the middle. It was budget cinema experience. I like how we can be so random at times.

And then just now, deon, russell, nat, ming hui and I sat at east coast park for a picnic.(altho I didn’t think it was much of a picnic, but the company was good enough) Then russell left and then the four of us decided to play card games, and we played indian poker, 

deon: Eh ming hui I think you should change your card la

three of us(nat, deon, me): Ya change change

ming hui: *looking at us suspiciously* Sure anot…okok I change

*places down his card- a 3 of something(can’t remember) and held up another card to his forehead- a 2 of something*

us: HAHAHAHAHA

ming hui: Walaooooo

Hahaha, twas fun, we should play it more often, such a simple, mindless game that kills time.

Am headed for Malacca tomorrow morning for a 2 day 1 night trip. Be back saturday. Got to go pack nao, bai.

-edit-

Hi natkas, you’re such an awesome friend. Thank you thank you thank you:) 

Know that there were tears welling up in my eyes, I’m not kidding.