So I’m now officially an aunt.
Here’s a picture of the day-old precious 
I haven’t blogged for a long time…. So far, I’ve managed to become a porcupine from all the arrows at work, found out what it’s like to be the one to switch off the lights at the office, discovered afresh what it means to have no life… I’ve also given pet names to tons of people at work. so the last 4 lines have been about the very consuming thing in my life now, called work.
work stress has also made me do crazy things like go jogging. At night. After work. At 10.30pm. Did I mention I am going bonkers.
Yay, am looking forward to my niece being born, so fun. Will have a cute baby to play with, I’m already thinking up all the fun games I can play with a baby/toddler.
this post is boring me as I write it…..sigh….
I need a holiday, no not really. I just need a day when someone’s not asking me to do something or asking me to get others to do something. I need a day to think.
Grrr. my laptop battery has a lifespan of about 1 hour and a little more left and ipod is on its way to the bin. Everything is breaking down, which is extremely frustrating.
Played tennis today, the sun was scorching, ah bian my cousin turned from brown to brown black, I just turned a darker shade of pale, David got the sunburn strip across his face. When the sun hid for a little while, the tennis was great. I’m glad we played today.
I need to get back into worship and having a close-knit bible study group. I’m worrying me with my apathy.
A baby smiled at me when I was at the clinic on Saturday. She’s so pretty. I’m getting excited about my new niece. So fun to think about it: she’s in the midst of becoming a person. How interesting is that.
I got nice presents and some cooked pasta (student memories flooding back), homebaked desserts and many birthday wishes on FB. Also got dinner treats and a song request and a really sweet card. I remember spending birthdays studying and wishing that it would snow so that I could just stare at the snowflakes instead of the cold cold winter nights.
The cemetery is devoid of life. Hardly. I went yesterday after not having been for a long while. There was life, the birds flying around, the flowers swaying in the wind, the people who came to reminisce about their departed loved ones. The cemetery has always been a sort of magnifying glass, a solitary person standing over a gravestone seems like the loneliest person in the world, the quietness of the cemetery seems like the loudest sound you could ever hear. It’s a place of irony. The place conveys fear, sadness but yet there’s more there. I saw a child giggle as she tried to skip over a mud puddle. I also realised yesterday that I had encountered a life which had endured life twice over. I wondered if some decisions made were due to an inability to cope with loneliness, I wondered about how difficult it was to cope, twice over. I wondered if the pain was worth the “better to have loved and lost”.
I looked over at the neat rows of headstones and felt thankful that I never had to see death like those who saw death in war, like those who had to stand over graves piled one atop the other….
Droplets of rain fell from the sky, and mum remarked that it always rained whenever we came. It started pouring, like one of those movies with people standing at a grave dressed in their darkest suits. Then after a little while, the sunlight broke through the dense grey, a reminder perhaps, of hope.
I remember why I don’t like big organisations.
I remember why getting annoyed at people doesn’t make them do things any faster.
I remember once having a great imagination.
I remember only one line in the song…. “Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, ooonanoko…..
I remember weighing less than I do now….
I remember myself being less annoying….
I remember the snow atop the Tatra mountains…
I remember the scorching heat in the boat towards the Cambodian border..
I remember the 10cts sugared coloured water drinks in Primary school…
I remember loving the fawning attention when I was ill…
I remember my terry cloth rabbit (wahhhhh)….
I remember being taller than my friends, only now my body seems to have forgotten =_=
I still get fascinated by the beautiful sunsets and sunrises even though I hated having to wake up before the sun got up and leaving class after sun had disappeared….
Christmas has come and gone. I invited Miss Wong for Christmas service which she gamely came for despite the pounding headache she was having. I cannot quite remember Christmas services before I went to the UK. I remember 3 Christmases ago. I was in Geneva on Christmas eve freezing my butt off with other similarly frozen-butt friends and I remember walking around town and finding a church. I asked if the carol service was going to be in English and it was (Church of England ministers summore) and the nice man at the door invited us to stay. We did. Got seats and sat through the service. The church filling up until the back was filled with standing people and spilling out through the doors into the freezing December winter. Last last Christmas was spent in Prague, which was beautiful and FREEZING (-10 deg C or something like that). Last Christmas (ie 2 days ago), it was a cool Christmas morning, the air moistened by an earlier shower. Met Miss Wong and went to the upper level to get a seat. REALLY packed and it was great worshipping, listening to the words of the choir, listening to Pastor Yap’s exhorting the congregation to have a Christmas beyond the “me”.
December has really been quite hectic and I almost cannot believe 2008 is going to be over. I spent today at work, milling around and doing nothing really (I think most colleagues were doing nothing in particular as well), which felt like a waste of time and resources (think many air-conditioning units and lights switched on). December went rather like this: preparations for the musical, interview for job, interview for school, musical, re-affirmation, start job, Christmas. To think a couple of months ago I was stressing about my project being behind and hating the statistics for not working out and not showing some statistical significance, mega-stressing about post-uni life. Since January 2008, I have grown a year older, learnt to trust God a little more, sat through an earthquake, left unscathed through some near misses, sat in a police station (really not what you think), messed up and made up friendships, wrote a 10k word paper, said goodbye to friends at university, witnessed weddings, graduated from university, wondered about life (I also wondered if pondering long enough could make my hair turn white), bummed around, watched my ibook baby go suicidal, applied for jobs, took tests, went for a beautiful break in Aussieland, anticipated a little niece (still anticipating, EXCITING!! ), gotten re-affirmed, managed another tick off my “hope to do at some point in my life” list, squeezed my brain and life to adjust bk to the little red dot, played quite a bit of tennis, sang too many sessions of ktv and saw the most beautiful places and spent a lot of time with friends and managed a few firsts in my life…oh I could go on…. It’s been a pretty good year, a very blessed one.
I’m praying 2009 will be a better year, that I will learn to trust the Lord even more, that my life will have more semblance of direction, that I’ll be nicer to my family and be a better friend, that I’ll start to exercise a little more (I’m starting to not believe that I majored in sport with the ridiculously sedentary life I’m leading now) and hopefully get to tick off another item.
Pictures of my 2008….
Looking through all the pictures, it’s been more than a good year. It’s been a great year!
This post was previously entitled post-road trip blues but it’s been a bit crazy with choir and general rehearsals for the outreach musical that I’ll get into the blues a little later…
Had the first night today, everything went well save for very minor glitches. Everyone had a great time but I am really praying that they got the message. Speaker was succinct and quite to the point but the message was a lot shorter than I expected, not that that’s bad. It’s great seeing the stage ppl, sound ppl, lights ppl, choir, cast, dancers really enjoying themselves. What I appreciated even more was the prayer session we had together hours before the actual getting on-stage. When one person prays, sometimes you feel alone but when a whole group of people pray, and not a small group either, it’s really powerful.
It was so cute to see these really enthusiastic people raise their hands and jump to their feet when asked “who’s a newcomer to this church”, made me smile…. I’m glad that most of the gang are turning up for the outreach, which makes me smile a lot more and I wish the girls were here to turn up for the outreach….
Am praying for more people to come tomorrow, we had quite a big turnout today. Am praying for seeds to be sown. Am praying hard so please pray with me…..
The world is too small. Or rather, the fact that my little red dot is a little dot is always magnified. Today in bible study, Rach mentioned something Nol said and I discover that Nol is the JC classmate of a friend (Miss E) who is in my bible study group. Miss E is also the ex-classmates and good friend of Ms K. Miss K is my primary school and JC classmate who has always been telling me I should know Miss E cos we’re in the same church but I never knew who Miss E was. HELLO SMALL DOT!!!
and since I’m bored, I came up with a map of our relationships!!
and since I am still very bored, I shall stick a random pict of hyunbinnnnnn below
He looks so skinny here.
Gosh I sound so frivolous. My friends are worrying about the existence of their jobs every day and I’m drawing silly maps and sticking nice pictures of ppl….
Some postcards and pictures collected from my travels.
Picture of postcard from Krakow. I got coerced into buying this. Somewhat…. This polish priest was sitting in his little booth in the information and souvenir section of the cathedral and I gestured and asked about the bell tower. And got me to buy a postcard on top of paying for entry into the bell tower. Climbing up the stair I was wondering what I just did buying that postcard but …. how to reject a genial looking old priest. Aiyoh…..
Pretty picture of Warsaw
I meant to write more about travelling. I cleared my room for the nth time in like 4 months and it’s still a mess to be honest and found my stuff from travelling. I have everything from ticket stubs to newpapers. Ooo but the next picture is nice, since I never throw away anything, these are the letters/cards from my time at uni. Thanks to friends who thought of me. I feel loved
Mind Your Language Mind Your Language is on TV now! Today’s episode is
| 04 | “All Through The Night“ | January 20, 1978 |
| The students’ English is not improving, so Mr. Brown keeps them for the night, but they get locked in after hours. | ||
1978 leh! It’s first launched back in 1977 about students of different nationalities learning english. It’s uber hilarious, the stereotypical students. I love it to bits. It’s hilarious. You also get the prim and proper principal and the school janitor with a cockney accent (I can hardly understand him sometimes)
Brillant dialogues in class:
Teacher: We’re going to talk about shopping today
Student: I love him. The polonaise! (and goes on to attempt sounds from the Polonaise)
Teacher: No, that’s Chopin (Sho-pan)
Irritating headmistress/principal of school: What do you call a pig after it’s been killed
Student: Dead pig
Teacher: Where do you get milk from?
Student: From the milkman!
Teacher (holding up packet of flour): What is this?
Russian female student: a paper bag
Teacher: no, what’s in it?
Russian female student: I don’t know. I cannot see inside.
Teacher: It’s flour (pronounced flower)
Russian female student: oh. Vhat you Vear on your head at Vedding
Today proved to be an interesting day. It started off quite ho hum, then I met aud to get a present for the Kings. Which landed us both in Chinatown ( who else thinks it’s weird that a country with many many sporean chinese has a chinatown). Aud brought me to this shopping centre that was cool and kitsch at the same time and it has the greatest variety of instant noodles muahahaha. So I walked out from that level with 2 packets of instant noodles =_=.
There was a level selling everything that would constitute chinese art, from chinese paintings to tiny beaded boxes to mega expensive musical instruments. Impressive…..
We bought our gift and headed to the mrt station. This girl dropped to the ground in front of us. LITERALLY DROPPED. and landed face down. Major ouch. She completely passed out. Aud and me and some staff from the control station scrambled to pick her up. And after getting her on the wheelchair she started shaking (think fits) for a few seconds. I held her head in the room (there’s like a cool tunnel of rooms in the mrt station, like open this metallic looking panel there’s a series of rooms. haha, very potter-esque), she was still in and out of consciousness and I thought, WA human heads are really quite heavy…. Nurses must be really strong…..
Anyway she recovered in the secret room (wahaha, secret room) and today’s her birthday. What a way to remember your 18th. Happy Birthday to you!
Now who would think that a day which started off quite ho-hum would allow me to see many many interesting things…
