i've not slept for 21.5 hours, since 11am yesterday. had a girls night out last night with the vj clarinet section girls - weiting, huixian, agnes, youwen, and me...weiting and i were late by 2 hours! we were supposed to meet in town at 630, but due to bad traffic and bad timing, we reached long john's at 830pm. had a good time catching up with them esp agnes and youwen since it's been slightly more than half a year since we last sat down like that talking. afterthat, agnes insisted that we take some photos, sigh. we walked from far east to taka and back to far east after that, took some photos on the way, sent huixian to the mrt since she wasn't feeling well, and took 54 to ms rd. can't wait for agnes to send us the photos!! yay!
that was my first time to ms rd. nv been there. youwen brought us to this pub
where thurs night = free drinks. we had 3 rounds of drinks - vodka lime, vodka ribena, whisky dry, gin tonic, gin coke, brandy coke, cranberry vodka, screwdriver, rum coke. never drank so much before. my head was pounding like nuts, pulse was 115/minute (compared to theirs which were abt 85/minute!), couldn't stop yawning, face was unbelievably red, haha! lousy drinker, but hey, good blood circulation! ok, out of point.
we made our way to dbl-o at 1230am. the music was awwlllrriight....not that fantastic, same goes for the crowd. mummy said she could fetch us at 230, which was perfectly fine with all of us, since that meant that we could haf more fun :) while waiting for our ride home, agnes thot of a brilliant idea: she would use her digicam to record a short video of each of us sending huixian a new year greeting since hx wasn't there with us! she also made each of record an individual video where we sent our greetings to the other clarinetists! we're all gonna be online on sat
(1st jan) at noon, and she'll send the video to us yay! we were up the whole night, sitting downstairs at the dining table just chatting bout everything from ntu to nus to results to camps, to fright-nights....just back from sending the girls out to the bus stop, that sure was a great 2nd last night and last morning of 2004!!
Tuesday 28th dec - Wednesday 29th dec
jiahe, marcus and i organised the birthday chalet to celebrate the bdays of those born in nov and dec in bizcom. the turnout was exceptionally good, there were 30+ pple who came. we played cards in the afternoon, went for dinner at the ecp hawker centre, came back to cut the cake and do gift exchange and erm, speed dating (marcus's idea!) which turned out to be mass chit chat session haha. most of us(except those who were already playing mahjong downstairs) headed to macs since it was kinda crowded in the chalet. talked quite abit to a particular senior, guess this chalet allowed for more friendships to be forged, and for existing friendships (or should i say acquaintance-ships) to be strengthened.
it was yet another night to test and see who wud succumb to the pull of the bed and the pillow and the sandman first, jiahe won hands down haha! followed by ym and ron. the rst of us were up the whole night, playing mahjong, or bridge, or cards, or just talking and talking and talking. hmmm thats quite abit of talking i've done this week actually. left the place abt 630 with ron, sha, marcus, jiahe, wenhan for the vj bus stop where 55 brought me home...wanna say thanks trevor for offering to stay till 8+ (when the check out counter opens) to return the key and check out for us while the rest of us went home.
think i'll go get some sleep now, if not i wun be able to tahan till tonight....we're having a gathering at james's place, yay new year countdown!!
erin 8:27 AM
Monday, December 27, 2004
heard the news about the earthquake and tsunami attacks in the region, in particular phuket, thailand today. it's a horrible thing to happen, all those lives that haf been innocently taken away like that, the lives that haf been destroyed in one way or another, the areas that haf been damaged. :(
was quite upset to hear from daddy that Cabana was completely destroyed by the tsunamis. our favourite resort in Phuket.....Uncle Fabian's daughter was staying there at the time of the disaster, but good thing she's safe. the lady boss of cabana who's daddy's good friend is safe too. lucky for her, she decided to reach the office late and hence was not affected at all. Phew. but for those who were not so lucky, i pray that God will watch over them.
erin 1:18 AM
Saturday, December 25, 2004
oops, forgot to mention the womba outing on tuesday. met jiahe and 2 other bizcommers at city hall starbucks at 1245pm to discuss the nov/dec babies bday celebration. we're having a chalet yay!! on 28th dec (next tuesday) at costa sands east coast. its a stayover thingy and we're hoping that potluck would be possible.
met ym at cini cos he wanted to eat sushi buffet. that was my first time to suki sushi on cini 4th floor. $16++ per person for buffet, well, we did eat quite a lot, he, especially ate alot alot alot. that was his long-awaited treat from me, ok, finally paid back the treat. after that, we went shopping at taka. rather, i went shopping at taka for my exchange present, while he was hanging around the linen department where there was visibly more and fresher air available. the crowd in town and especially taka was unbelievably horrible, it was packed worse than sardines and oh goodness, i can't wait for the normal orchard to be back in place. we walked from taka to pacific plaza where he wanted to look for board shorts, in particular those from quiksilver....picky picky.
as a result, we were 1 hour late in meeting womba in town for dinner, not that we could possibly stomach anything more after that simply wonderful lunch haha. they were all at marche suntec. sha and trevor were later than us. after dinner was pool at poolitics @ selegie, except that a few of us (me sha jerene clarise zhenchang michelle stanley) did not play pool but scrabble instead!
had fun that day, been quite a while since womba met up like that. we should do this sometime again. trevor mentioned something bout a quiet gathering during new year's day....?
erin 1:06 AM
Friday, December 24, 2004
the party was a BLAST!!! our Dolus party at Melissa's poolside (or as she calls it - 'pond'side) was incredible, and i'm not only talking about the food! the company was great, the peals of laughter we shared, the post-party fun @ ecp and in mel's bedroom, the scary agar-agar (no offence markie..and rochelle!), whoa!
i was late again. sheesh. how many times haf i written this in my blog already! wanted to bring ngoh hiang for the potluck, but the stall wasn't opened yest! yowryowryowr as jas would say it. in the end i decided on satay, the only thing was that the satay had to be cooked over the charcoal grill and that made me even later. many thanks to clement who called and 'saved' me from making a grand entrance at mel's place. i took a cab down to hougang mall, picked up debz, ernie and clement and zoomed off to upper east coast road.
what a spread we had at the poolside! for a recap:
tea eggs - xuan
chicken - melissa
sotong balls - clement
drinks - ivan
blueberry wine (6% alcohol) - debbie
apple pie - melvin
agar agar in festive colours - markie
potato salad - marchelle
chicken stew - nana
chocolate fondue - xuan
satay - me
blueberry sponge cake with deers - ernie
baked rice - jasmine
yummylicious food! of course it was way toooo much to finish during dinner, but we polished off more cake and all the agar-agar at night! was sorta rushing like mad yest afternoon because i din know what to wear, that wud be considered "retro-classy aka smart casual"!
it was a time of surprises: everyone looked fabulous, with the guys in shirts and pants, and the girls whoo-hoo! jasmine was in a black tube top with an attached translucent scarf and flower and blue denim mini skirt; roch was elegant with her pulled-back hair and sleek black number; nana looked great in her black calf-length flowy tube dress; xuan was in a blue denim knee-length tube dress; mel wore jeans and a black studded A/X tee; Debbie was in jeans and a black retro top; and i wore a pink tube with off-white 3/4 pants. i think all of us (girls and guys) looked smart!!
for present exchange, clement Made us pick names Randomly, ernie got my present and i got roch's present - 2 bottles of perky fruity refreshing shower gel from the body shop! thanks rochelle!! that night, rochelle markie jasmine ivan and myself stayed over at mel's place. before that, the 6 of us plus nana drove down to ecp where we sat at a table and completed 3 rounds of 'interrogation' per person, haha. we sent nana home and got back to mel's place at bout 230am.
from 230 till 6am, it was zong ji mi ma and electric current that occupied us and erm, kept out minds awake, sort of! i broke a record: lost 8 times in zong ji mi ma (never before!!) and prob ate about half (or slightly lesser) the tub of red agar-agar!! whoa, not touching that dessert for at least the next 6 months! it was just laughter and more of that the whole night, thanks guys for making the morning of christmas eve so enjoyable! it was lights out at 6am, all the way till 1245pm, when we awoke from a night (morning?) of deep slumber despite the freezing aircon. ivan left early to catch his flight to hong kong, bet he must be enjoying himself over there right now!
mark rochelle jas and i had wanton noodles at everitt road near jas's place. afterwhich, markie sent jas home and sent me to compass point. sorry markie for making u explore sengkang and punggol at one go just to find compass point!
just came back from my 'dinner'-movie trip with shalynn james and larry. they had dinner at swensens j8 and i joined them for earthquake, regular size. they're funny pple, james and larry and james's laughter is really really loud haha! jung fu hustle is a rather funny show, funny in a lame way, the effects were interesting and def entertaining...we took a cab from j8 to james's place, from there he drove me home then larry and sha i guess.
erin 6:19 PM
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
i met up with an old friend today. not exactly the kind of old friend most of u would be thinking of, but more of someone i've not met for quite a while. we've only known each other for 11 months actually. He's been back from melbourne for almost a month already, but he was busy preparing for his church mission trip to thailand and i was busy with...well, stuff and people and going out. sounds different in comparison. we met at the 167 bus-stop and i was late again. sigh. but he was nice about it, good-natured guy, Jem.
we ate in town, he had his favourite beef-noodles from Scotts food court. afterthat, it was shopping..not exactly leisure because i had a mission - to get christmas presents for my parents! it was tough buying for daddy, and equally tough getting something for mummy. managed it in the end, with a little help from him, and practically no help from my dear bro. thanks man. we went to ya-kun toast at far east because both of us were just dehydrating inside. we talked about his thailand trip, and how his brother became the hot favourite with the thai youths there, especially the girls. haha. occassionally the topic was linkable to what happened in the first half of the year when we were both working, at hsbc and ernstandyoung. but of course, it never reached there. miraculously, that entire portion was completely cut off from our conversation today. phew actually, because the weird feelings and all would def be too much to handle.
anyway, he promised that when my sch term starts, if he came to sch to visit his friends, we'd meet up too. :)
erin 10:33 PM
Classic Story of Boy Meets Girl
She was taking her usual morning stroll to the bus stop, the first half of her leisure time with nature, simultaneously wishing that her timing coincided with that of the bus driver. It was a Monday. As she approached the orange sheltered stop, something within clicked and told her that there was something unusual about the usual morning-bus-stop-crowd. Her eyes scanned all 3 rows of seats and rested on the 2nd row. A new young guy going to work, she thought.
Unknown to her, as she walked past the 2nd row, the exact same thing was fleeting through this young fella's mind: a new young girl. She sat on the seat in the 3rd row, and realised how 'strategically' positioned she was, such that it allowed her full view of his side profile. He was (and still is) a youthful looking chap, lean built, dressed in a blue working shirt, black tailored pants and carrying a Nike sling bag. A Nike sling bag? That's odd for a working adult. Her long-awaited bus finally arrived, and to her surprise, both of them took the same bus...alighted at the same stop, walked to the same train station, took the train going in the same direction and got into the same train carriage. He was standing beside her all the while.
Judging from the way she was dressed, he reckoned that she probably worked in town or the working district, and hence would only alight at those few stations, or maybe, just maybe, even the same station as him. But we all know how things go - that things do not usually turn out the way you want them to - yes, she alighted at his station, but did not turn to the escalator as he did. Instead, she walked straight to the other platform where her next train was due to arrive. He moved up the escalator, turning back a little, not too much, that would not be polite, but from the corner of his alluring almond-shaped eyes, he thought he saw her looking straight at him. The new commuter was a delightfully refreshing surprise for her, a break away from the deadly mundane routines of working life, or maybe just her working life, at least.
The entire day in the office, her mind danced uncontrollably to that morning, as did his. On her way home, she did not meet him. But her optimistic outlook twisted the situation and told her that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow morning might be another surprise for her. The next morning, as she awoke, her mind danced again, to what might be in store for her that day, preferably at the bus-stop. Ah...her optimistic thinking did not fail her, he was there again, dressed in blue (again), with his head bent down, concentrating on his mobile. History repeated itself as they exchanged looks while she walked past, and everything was repeated just like the morning before. They stood together on the train again, but this time, close enough for her to notice the not-so-prominent 'V' symbol on his shirt pocket. Ooh, Valentino. His floppy hair flopped floppily on his head, enough to look smart-casual, yet not enough to look sloppy.
This scene replayed itself 2 more times on Wednesday and Thursday. Each time, something abit more happened between them, especially on the train. The closest they got to breaking the silence (that had become awkward somehow) was when the train jerked, and she accidentally hit his arm, only to have to apologise afterward.
Surprise surprise, Friday morning was different. She walked past him as usual to the 3rd row. But he did not just sit in his 2nd row waiting for the bus. He got his already-numb legs moving towards the 3rd row and sat politely beside her, politely leaving a considerate amount of space between them. Throwing away his regard for the heart-pounding, mind-numbing sensation he was experiencing at that moment, he mustered up the courage to get these words out of his mouth: "What time is the next bus coming?". You could call that a pick-up line, because they started talking after that, albeit in a mildly awkward fashion.
Her heart was beating so loudly she felt almost afraid to speak louder than the slight 'whisper' that she could utter, for fear of sounding too loud, which is most ironic actually. He mentioned that he was back for his summer hols, after which he would be flying back down to continue his studies. Her face fell a little, but not to the extent of having him see it, although he did feel a small difference in her expression. She was a student the year before and would not be attending school till later that year. His mood lightened up as he realised that she was just like him - they were the same age. As fate would have it, they lived in the same estate, and technically, have been neighbours for the past 8 years. Somehow from the back of her mind, she recalled how in the major exam period 2 years ago, they actually met before, and now they're meeting again! Another astonishing fact: his family almost bought the house opposite hers 8 years ago, but did not eventually and shifted instead to another house in another lane in the same estate. So this was how he got to know her. He chose Friday to make his move because that was his last day at work, and possibly the last time he would meet her at the bus-stop.
They met up everyday after that Friday. She was still working, he was enjoying his last week of holidays before flying off. They met up at night, after she came back from work, and spent many nights walking and walking and just walking around their neighbourhood. She thought of how her estate never seemed more wonderful than those moments.
But all good things come to an end, whether or not you like it. It was barely a week before his last night in their estate came. That night, they walked till 1am. She asked if he wanted her to send him off at the airport the next day. Half of him wanted so much for her to be there, the other half did not want her to see him off, for fear of the sadness that parting so often brings.
Before they parted that night, he did something on impulse - he hugged her, a long, tight, sad hug. She was so small, compared to him, he did not dare to use too much force, what if she crumbled to pieces? She hugged him back. It was an experience for them both, especially for her. A short-lived, but nonetheless beautiful memory.
Without care, she made her way to the airport the next day after work, paying over 20 bucks to the cab driver. She told him that she would be there. He told his parents (who drove him to the airport) to make a move first. Jokingly, his parents wondered aloud why they could not stay while she could. She was there with her friend who made herself scarce as soon as he came into view. They strolled along the widely lit compounds of the airport, till they came to the departure gate. He had never felt so down before, not in front of the departure gate and the pair of security figures. Neither had she. To lessen it for everyone, he made it short: 1 hug, and he was gone, behind the uncrossable lines of the airport system, with the daunting glass panals separating them. That's it, he was on his way back down, and she, well, she was just there.
erin 9:20 PM
Monday, December 20, 2004
i've finally unpacked my new stuff!!! just a list of what i brought and bought back:
white tank top with glittering print, Lee
pink racerback
dark orange racerback
red racerback with black collar
white racerback with black collar
yellow tank top
black spag top
yellow tube with red white orange print and silver stars
black tube with print
blue tee with glittering print, Levi's
off-white tee with print, Levi's
black v-neck tee with white print, AIIZ
white tee with blue glittering print, AIIZ
white cotton top with knitted collar in pink, red, orange
pale green cotton top with knitted collar in grey, blue, white
turquoise cotton top with white shirt collar
pink-black vertically striped mini skirt
low-waist jeans, Miss Sixty
baby-blue 3/4 cotton pants
khaki 3/4 pants
army green 3/4 pants
white belt with little punched out stars
dark blue swimsuit with light blue vertical stripes at the sides, Adidas
yellow retro earrings
silver earrings of a girl and boy made of wire
not really alot alot, but....i'm happy!! just calculated, spent a total of 9,598 Baht = S$406.69........oops. ok, no buying of new stuff for a looooong time.....
met gwen for a run today, finally doing some exercise yay...! we ran at bishan park, bout 3k according to her, after that we had mac breakfast with her upstairs neighbour - Leslie. sigh~ think the hotcakes put back whatever was lost during running :(
jianwei msged last night - din manage to talk to him on sat in sch, think we're gonna meet up soon, he suggested movie, sounds good. time is really zooming past like nobody's business: can still picture the first time we met - Nov 2002 in the vjcsb bandroom, he was just part of the sec 4s who came for tune-in, and one of the many VSCB guys who came to try out. by luck, he became my band SP, and hence one of my closest juniors in band. now his A's are over and NS is just next month for him, time flies.
realised one thing today: u see / meet people who catch your attention in the most unlikely places, such as a hardware shop. haha.
erin 10:08 PM
Sunday, December 19, 2004
i woke up at 11.25am today, u may say i'm getting piggy, but no...that's because i slept at 6am. was online after i got home last night till 2+ almost 3. remembered at 2am that it's nicholas's birthday, that's today. youngest in 02S32. so i called him, thot he might be awake. and yup, he was awake and watching 'Friends', for the millionth time already haha. it's been a while, no in fact, make that a very very long while, since we last talked so much like that. it was fun.
we talked about prob Everything under the sun, Everything that could possibly mentioned and talked about, from band pple to our class pple to a tentative class bbq (hopefully!!) to the lack of the opp sex in his camp to uni life to food (glorious food!).....our conversation lasted till 5.50am. thats 3 hours and 50 minutes, merely 10 minutes short of 4 hours. we ended the call cos both of us were getting hunger pangs from talking about so much food. thats the second longest running record so far. hehe. its so weird how the longest record was 4.75 hours (from 1.45am to 6.30am), and that was set 1 year and 11 days ago, yup on 8 Dec 2003.
we were just thinking back to the old jc days - when we skipped lectures and he skipped almost all of Ms Ding's and Mr Foo's fmath analysis and mechanics lectures to go out with us for lunch at parkway or in town, pizza, swensens etc...haha. the most memorable eating occassion was the one where we had swensen's ice cream buffet after a huge bowl of parkway foodcourt's ban-mian. the record so far is 15 scoops by yiwei, followed by 14 by nic, 11 by peishan, 6 by me and 5 by gwen. we were such hungry pple goodness! yea, come to think of it, S32 ate alot alot alot, we had so so so many eating trips... oh, how i miss those days!
tentative schedule for the hols (or what's left of it):
Tue: meeting at 12 @ city hall with the dec/jan bizcom babies to discuss our chalet on 28th Dec
meeting at 6 @ city hall with Womba for dinner
Thurs: Christmas Party @ Melissa's place with Dolus!!
Weekend: 02S32 class gathering before the new year!
28th Dec: Bizcom Chalet
erin 2:51 PM
just came back from parkway. watched NSSN at the performance theatre in sch. miss band so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!argh! haha. we were sitting near the back of the first level, saw sirong, then daniel, james, jianwei. then i saw nicholas, siewkien, arnold, jenheng, choonhui. sigh~ thot today wud be a gd chance to see my old classmates, but then (!!!) i onli saw them from afar! onli classmate i saw up close was edmund who played for the concert. haven't seen daniel and nic for soooooo long already!!! saw the juniors too: maymay yingying jiting marietta shiying qinghong sinyee...there's still more. sigh~ not onli did i not get to talk to my classmates, i din exactly see or talk to jianwei either...
about the band: the clarinet section is strong!!! wow :) the first clarinetists were impressive (somehow i haf a very strong feeling that the really good ones playing 1st are from vs...), honestly, their high notes were in perfect pitch, not flat or sharp, just perfect. perfectly round and smooth and soothing. wow. my notes were never that impressive sigh haha. the trumpets were a little rough, trombones were a little messy, euphos were..ok. the oboeist was good-great high notes in perfect tune too! flautists were alright. saxes were ok, but a teeny bit flat, esp the solo w the trumpet. saw lao shi too! he looked smart (as usual, he always does during performances) in his white tuxedo...they played el camino real. interesting piece. heard of it, but nv had the chance to play it. heard from veronica that vjcsb is using el-cam as their choice piece for syf next year....sounds good! hope the results turn out excellent!! the best wud be if they get into top 5 yay!!!
which makes me start thinking of syf last year. our 13 minutes on vch's stage were the most anxious and nerve-wrecking minutes imaginable. but that performance was one of clarinet section's best. still remember the comments: "clarinets were neat....very good" xiaowen agnes huixian weiting youwen maymay sinyee and i were just jumping for joy at that. it was such a mixture of feelings that day, a few of us even bought tix to watch x-men-2 at bugis after our morning performance. i din watch it in the end, i've still not watched it till now. nic and i went back to vch in the afternoon to hear the results, when they announced that vj was one of the 7 jcs that did gold, we were elated. but they left out vj in the top 5, everybody's mood sank to the lowest. the dunman girls were crying their hearts and eyes out, the juniors were super sad, the president went missing the whole night, most of us teared quite abit. sigh, it was a really sad afternoon. i wun forget that, ever. every scene-from the side of the stage where we were eavesdropping on the results, to the happy faces of the nj pple, to each and every disappointed victorian, to those sobbing on the phone, in the arms of their friends... flashbulb memories.
erin 1:07 AM
Saturday, December 18, 2004
i doubt i'll be gg to J8 for a pretty looooong time, not in the near future at least, i think.
i spent 3 hours in J8 today walking and walking and walking, every single level, practically every single shop that does not sell edible stuff, some shops even twice or ...thrice! sigh, and all because my fren was 3 hours late!!! so far, thats my record for waiting for others. first he had to babysit his 3 (or 4) yr old nephew while his mum was out, then he came to j8 but his hp batt died, so he went home to get another batt but his mum wanted him to eat nasi lemak...so he did then he came out, 3 hours later.........!!!
nvm, i've finally bought mummy's birthday present, 1 month and 1 day late!!! we walked a couple of rounds around Taka's cosmetic dept, smelling slips and slips of scented white paper, i couldn't really smell that well, my nose is blocked..in the end, i settled for Gucci's Envy Me. can't remember the smell very well now, its light, slightly sweet, tinge of fruity smell...nice! hope mummy likes it.
we had dinner at this thai chinese halal place at far east (its a really really long walk from taka to far east...). after that, we went to his fren's pub (or cafe as he calls it) in bukit timah. its called "Busk". nice cosy place. we were watching soccer on this huge glass panal from the ceiling to the ground, it wasn't a plasma tv, just a projection of some sort, but it's really cool, very clean and simple yet sophisticated in a way. wow. took a new bus today--74, from bukit timah to upp thomson. reached home bout 12.15, good thing mummy din say anything, again.
yay! tmr gg back to vj for NSSN...! think daniel they all gg back..the juniors will be there too... haven seen them for quite a while, except those i saw during open house this year. but anyway, its another opportunity to hang out w the girls again yay!
erin 2:13 AM
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
i'm back!!!!
had an awesome time in bangkok doing well...shopping! yep, we took the 8am flight on sunday and started shopping immediately after lunch at 12pm.
Day 1: we spent the whole day at MBK, combing its entire erm, 7 floors? it seemed like 7 to me. haven't unpacked the newly acquired stuff from the bags yet, so i can't quite remember what i bought there. but i finally got a belt - white base with little punched out stars on it! dinner was at Somboon (always go there when we're in bangkok...), excellent food, absolutely delicious tom yum soup (just thinking of it is making me hungry...). we came home with 7 big plastic bags..
Day 2: daddy brought us to this gigantically huge shopping centre near the airport, think its called future park or something. there were sooo many shops in there! hee, we bought lots of things again. this time there were 8 bags of stuff! wanted to get a cap there, but couldn't find any that i liked, at least not as much as the white adidas one with 3 blue stripes in front, that was the one i was wearing...dinner at somboon again - but we ordered what we did not the previous night. think the waiter recognised us...
Day 3: we were at the world trade centre shopping area..bought quite abit of things too. but def lesser than the previous 2 days, for chuan and i at least, cos we kind of ran out of money.... bought a yellow tube with orange and white designs on the front and abit of shimmer on it, and a black tube that i really like. still couldn't find my cap, sigh. called my fren to see how much he paid for his cap (the white adidas one i was wearing), and decided that i'll get my cap in singapore since its cheaper than over there. finally got a swim suit yay!! after sooo long... and its way cheaper than over here too :)
Day 4: thats today. we had breakfast at the shopping centre opp the apartment then we went walking again..much to daddy's erm, dismay. haha. but thanks daddy..for bringing and following us around while we shopped and shopped, and for patiently waiting at macs and starbucks and swensens when u got tired of walking with us while waiting for us to be done!! we returned to the apartment (it was a service apartment that is really pretty and big and comfy!) for last minute packing, rather, it was last minute squeezing in of stuff bought last minute this morning. the cab driver tried cheating us - he wanted a fare way more than what it wud actually cost to get us to the airport, that really pissed daddy off so badly.
so here i am now, still unbathed, and stuff still unpacked, but thot i'd want to blog first..mel msged saying that the Dolus christmas party is on 23rd dec, that's nex thurs! looking forward to it yay!!!!!
hmmm wonder whether my fren remembered to exchange the tshirt at giordano, sure hope he did.
erin 9:47 PM
Sunday, December 12, 2004
yesterday was a fun fun fun day!!! i met sha bing xuan for lunch at nydc wheelock. we arranged to meet at 12, but hehe, as expected, everyone was late anyway. they had a lot of surprise planning behind the scenes. in their words: "it was a good plan, but the pple screwed it up". haha. its ok girls! i still love u!!! and i really appreciate the planning and i love the present and the cake too :)
we learnt something bout nydc yesterday, that they will NOT allow u to consume anything that u did not buy from nydc itself, no allowances whatsoever for whatsoever reasons, not even if u are celebrating ur fren's bday there and u bought her a cake and u are still gonna be eating there anyway. talk about being inflexible...
bing went back to hall at bout 230, xuan went home bout 330. sha and i walked around town looking for stuff to buy for mummy....her belated bday present which i've not gotten! we walked from isetan to taka...all the way till 630 or 7 when we sat out tired butts and legs in cini, while waiting for yewmun and junxian. the 2 of them were suuuuuuper late. it was almost 8 when they finally arrived from sch...we had dinner at the xiao long bao place at paragon basement, the one where u haf to take a queue number (ahem, yes a queue number) and wait together with the hoardes of humgry pple outside the restaurant before ur number (it was 167 when we got there, our number was 216) starts flashing on the digital number thingy. by their mistake, we ate a free plate of fried rice...the xiao long bao there is quite yummy!!
initially, we thot it'd be great if we cud catch a movie, sigh~ there were no suitable movies at suitable timings at cini, lido, ps golden vilage. end up, the 4 of us were at cini talking and slacking from 940pm till 1110pm. haha. we had a good laugh last night. it's been quite a while since we laughed like that, till my stomach ached from laughing too much! feels good to be laughing like that with them :) we missed 162 from the bus-stop outside phoenix hotel, so it was a long and wet wait for the last 167 back home. can remember the last time we took 167 back, it was the first bus (or so we think) of the day and we waited all night for the bus haha. talk about the good old times..... reached home at 12.30am, lucky mummy din say anything altho she was still awake.
went to sch for a singtel meeting today. reached there 45 mins late, sigh the traffic was bad! found out today that ym and jiahe are prob gonna be account managers for singtel, so cool! good for them...stanley, ym, jx, jh, sha, trevor, i had lunch at clementi then sha me trevor and ym went to sha's home for mahjong session. wah!!!!! i lost terribly. i was the major contributor to their wins..oops. betta practise my mahjong alot before playing with them. but trevor din wanna take the money, think i owe him a treat... thanks trevor!
1 thing i've learnt so far is to control my temper (it's quite bad actually), and to tolerate having words thrown ur way esp when things are already not gg your way. REN!!! that was what i was doing the whole night actually...someone was being such a bugger..but not nice to show black face la..was trying hard not to make it look black haha. he said i just looked sian haha. its a skill, a difficult skill, not to gif the world a full display of whatever's seething (or boiling? or steaming?) inside u. not many pple can master it. many pple still can't master it. i need lots of improvement on that. but well, it was still fun playing with them. i think mahjong gives u a rush of endorphins when u know that 1 tile is all u need to win, and...win Big (ok, maybe not sooo big in my case). the sort of heart-pumping, blood rushing feeling is something i nv associated with the game, until just now.
had a long long walk from the bus-stop to home just now. walked down thomson view, to the park, thru the park, past st. nics, down to macdonalds at amk, then all the way up again...talking all the way bout various stuff..sensitive and not-so-sensitive stuff. he thot something was troubling me. well, not exactly, i dun really know too. but when i find the root, i'll call u. but still, i'm happy.
haven't found anything that's really been exciting for a long long while. why? there's this tinge of sian feeling inside. why? wats the root? i shall find out why soon.
does it happen to u sometimes that u feel u might want something altho u're not too sure. yet u tell urself that u cannot want that something cos it wun be good or whatever. talk about internal conflict.
gg to bangkok tmr morning.....shopping!!!
erin 1:54 AM
Friday, December 10, 2004
had a pretty fun day today. not the whole day, just the second half of today cos the first half was spent sleeping, reading newspapers, bringing in the dried clothes hanging outside, ironing (!) a few pieces of clothes...yawnz...
was late (again) for music lesson @ thomson plaza. sigh, always late, good thing ms saedah just put on her pretend-i'm-annoyed expression haha. quite surprised-->she bought me a bday prezzie-->4 individually packed choc pieces carefully placed in an oval metal tin that was brightly decorated and had an embossed bear in a tutu on the cover! so cute!!! the chocs are in the fridge now, after melting in my bag for a few hours. but think it'll be a while before i can bear to eat them. thot i was gg to be late for my appointment with the girls, but no! cos ms saedah generously offered to drive me to city hall to meet the girls.
met weiting, huixian and veronica at the mrt. haven't seen these girls for quite some time, miss them so much! so glad i met up with them today! after much deliberation, we decided on cafe cartel (i just had this last night, but it's ok). we had a great time filling each other up on whats happened so far the last 6 months, continuing our stories from where we stopped the last time. weiting and zx, huixian and zn, veronica and her date with whats-his-name, the band pple, the band juniors, ntu pple, nus pple.....we talked so so much, but still not enough haha. we were discussing whether or not to go for NSSN on 18th dec, nex saturday at vj performance theatre...in the end, its still undecided haha. after that, we walked thru citylink to suntec and talked and talked and talked on the way. they passed me my bday present-->secret garden cd (nice!!), purple dangling earrings (love it!!), card and candy socks (?) that apparently onli weiting knows about haha. looking forward to meeting them again before sch starts for us...again.
just visited edmund's blog...wonder how's he, haven't seen him for a very very long time. din even see him the past 2 times i went back to sch. he's complaining alot about army from what i heard. wondering how's nicholas too. we wanted to meet up when i was still working, that's like 6 months ago, but until now, i've still not seen him. veron said that daniel choo has changed abit, seems as if he's getting interested in girls now. haha finally got past taking his trumpet as the love of his life. wonder how's he too! daniel tan msged today, he asked if we (me him eddy gwen) wanted to meet up this weekend, but sigh, eddy's meeting his gf and gwen's not free. so dan suggested that we go shopping anyway on sat. i'll msg him tmr.
yay!!! meeting bing shalynn, xuan(?), fe(?) tmr for lunch!!! bing and sha quarreled over the phone that day. sigh~i dun want them to quarrel, tho i know that happens to me sometimes too. think its the stress and all...bing's been really bz lately, with her GE module, cheerleading + swimming + netball practices and matches...that was what started the mini-explosion between both of them. hai. meeting yewmun junxian and shalynn for dinner!!! yay, finally the 4 of us are gonna meet up to eat again, the last time was quite long ago. i still remember--it was at biz canteen. the atmosphere was abit awkward and tense, sigh. i hope everything goes smoothly tmr, like what a-lee said.
trevor msged happy bday yesterday. surprise surprise. i was really quite surprised that he knew. he said he makes it a point to remember all his frens' bdays plus the fact that yaowen told him...orh.
erin 12:42 AM
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
this is a delayed entry. i meant to do this on sunday night, then monday then tuesday night, but i didn't. so i'm gonna write this now.
thank you sooo soooo soooooo much Dolus! met clement, melvin, ernie, david, jas, nana, ivan for dinner at chomp chomp at gardens on sunday night. ivan, jas, ernie and i shared a hokkien mee, carrot cake, stingray and satay. yummy! xuan joined us later. it was so nice having a dolus dinner tho it wasn't full attendance. but the warm feeling of having friends like them really makes one feel really blessed. after dinner we all went for a long walk thru the gardens estate...it was a really long walk. at first i had no idea whatsoever as to why we were walking thru but because everyone was walking so i just followed. talked abit to jas bout stuff.
we walked to this beautiful park (i know its beautiful cos i've been there before), and to this pavillion. saw david there with a warm yellow glow flickering beside him...it was a cake. i din expect that at all...honestly thot it was just a dinner outing with dolus..haha. they bought me this sleeveless v-necked top with blue leaves on a white base, i like it!! thanks so much u guys! melvin drove me nana and jas home afterthat. jas had a sudden craving for prata, and she passed that craving to me, so yea we had this sudden craving for prata (unhealthy and fattening as it can be haha) so melvin drove to casuarina. but sigh, they were closing for the day already..in the end, our supper was fried mee-swa or birthday noodles as they call it.
got home really late, bout 1 plus i think not too sure. thanks melvin for the ride! was online till bout 3. y'know how they say that u should always talk to someone about stuff thats bugging u? (no not really bugging, but just around u). yea, its true and its rather effective actually. u get a new perspective from the other person's viewpoint on the situation. u learn to see things differently. u get to know stuff that u prob would nv haf known if u din talk to anyone. but basically it feels good talking to others.
oh ya, happy birthday to me!
erin 1:51 PM
ivan brought xuan, nana, ernie and i to safra yishun. we spent almost the whole day there, (ok, it was just 6 hours from 11.15 to 5.15 actually). there was tennis, badminton, bowling, eating, swimming, arcade-ing. tennis and badminton were courtesy of nana who brought her 4 rackets along, thanks nana! ivan and her are pretty good at tennis, swift long-distance serves, compared to that of xuan's and mine haha. but we all had a good time yay! thanks ivan!
met missy for dinner, she bought me a birthday prezzie, thanks missy! i din expect her to gif me anything at all, but it was real sweet of her to remember....we had ma lan la mian at this building near chinatown mrt, after that we walked around abit for her to get a present for her bf. its been 11 months since i knew missy on my first day at EY. i can still remember vividly the settings: she was sitting at the table directly facing the pantry of the tax dept on the 26th floor. pann brought us th new interns there to intro missy to us (and vice versa), when i moved to sit behind denise, missy followed and we sat in the same row. i'm so glad she moved over, if not we might not haf had the opportunity to develop a friendship like this :)
on the way home i was listening to my mp3. ok its not mine, it was my bro's birthday present from my dad, but he was told to share it haha... somehow the songs that played had connections, directly and indirectly, with certain events, and hence, a certain somebody. that got me thinking back to how everything started, how we met, the fun we had, the times when we were so close, the times when we were so far, the times of conflict, the times of anti-______ness, the lectures and tuts we shared, the sms-es between us, the 'cold war' and post cold war, and how now we're meeting up and hopefully all there would be more fun times ahead! flashbulb memories? i think so. 5 months may not haf been v long ago, or it may haf been depending on what i'm talking about next, but some details just dun decay over time, as yet at least.
was talking to junxian on sunday. he said that yew mun was suggesting dinner on tuesday. dunno why but my reply to him appeared very shocked. a-lee was wondering why i seemed so shocked. i guess its cos of the sudden (or maybe not so sudden) change in attitude and all, of course its a change for the better to be nicer now. but think mostly its cos since the beginning of the sem, our meeting-up-s with sha jx ym were organised by sha and i 90% of the time, so to haf him actually suggest meeting up and organising something is abit well, odd. nvm, at least sha and i are not the onli ones putting in effort to keep this friendship knitted. yay! in the afternoon, sha msged me. she was suggesting dinner tmr with ym and a-lee. i thought it was her idea. apparrently not. so the whole picture is clear now. i thought ym wanted dinner just for us 4 to meet up after the exams, but no, he suggested dinner cos of my bday :) i'm surprised somehow, that he remembers my bday, albeit the wrong date (he thot it's the 10th), but glad anyhow that he did. he was talking to sha last week, again, its surprise at some of the things he noticed, cos i thot i was the onli one who noticed the changes in colour. apparently not. they talked about my *ahem* black faces...apparently, there were 2 incidents when that happened and erm, he didn't know wat to do or something like that...i can't remember that already but his rxn sure is unexpected.
sha called first then bing. paul msged first then ernie, then philifer then jinfu then yewmun then wei ting, there's still some more but i wun type it here...there's so much more i wanna write tonight but i'll leave that for tmr, my bro needs the com.
erin 1:26 AM
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Received a call from an unknown mobile number this afternoon: “hi, erin? This is Kevin here….” Kevin? That name rang a bell somewhere in my head, and then it struck something…Kevin Wong! Ah…my fellow Arakis mate (kind of forgot how to spell my OG name already). Wow. I was really shocked, cos I’ve not heard or seen him for soooo long, since after A’s I think, that’s a whole year. And to receive a call from him was a real pleasant surprise J apparently, he saw some girl in town who looked like me, (but with a butterfly tattoo…) and he lost my number, so he called sha for it, then he called me. Oh well, at least he remembers how I look! Haha.
Went dancing with mummy again this afternoon, practiced the steps they taught me during my first lesson. Hope there was a little improvement…. For the 6th time in 8 days, I was told that I look like 13/14/15 years old. That’s 6/5/4 years lesser than the actual. Sheesh.
I’m looking forward to our Dolus dinner tmr evening @ chomp chomp!!! Hope I dun turn up late, so pai seh everytime late..then pple haf to wait for me, aiyo… bad habit.
erin 11:58 PM
Friday, December 03, 2004
this is my third attempt at blogging this particular entry, the other 2 were mysteriously deleted from the system, think my com doesn't like me too much...
i love those babes for just being.....babes!!! i admit, it was my hare-brained-idea to go chiong on wednesday, cos its after the exams, so thought it'd be great to have an all-girls night out, relax and rub shoulders with one another (literally, it turned out hehe). afterall, it's been quite a while since we went out together like that. wanna thank them for going along with the crazy idea..crazy cos all of us are soooo not the clubbing type. yup, so shalynn, bing, xuan, i had a great time that night with u girls!!!
met xuan at 6 at boon lay, from there we took 179 to ntu, where bing was supposed to come bring us to her hall. she was late...again haha. xuan and I, bing and her hall mates were all in bing’s room watching Singapore idol when it started at 7.45. our eyes were practically glued to the screen (to taufik actually), and our ears were glued to hearing them voice their pieces (more to taufik actually..). we all went down after the first half of the show to watch bing they all practice their cheerleading stuff. Xuan and I had fun watching the guys lift the girls by their feet only. Cheerleading is a painful exercise, the girls lost their balance a lot of times, they could haf twisted their body parts a lot of times! At 10pm, xuan and I ran up the stairs to catch the second half of Singapore idol…the 11 finalists sang "that’s what friends are for"—our dolus song!!! Felt great watching them perform that song while sitting with xuan, think we both had that warm fuzzy feeling J.
We met shalynn and james at zouk at 1.30am. it was packed to pieces inside!! The most crowded I’ve encountered so far. Junxian msged me "you coming...mambo?". sha said she saw him earlier, he was there with his army frens. Apparently a-lee was on the dancefloor in front of the dj, so that’s where we squeezed our way through. Just that we din see him. Instead, we saw yewmun, gary, weijie there!! Small world indeed. Saw more familiar faces that night: arts pple, Stanley, auston, pak loon, union camp/bizcom pple, chris yeo, zhao bin, youwen…such a coincidence! There was pretty good music that night..nice songs. Think bing drank a wee bit too much, she kept holding our hands and waving them in the air haha! we left bout 3am, reached back at ntu bout 3.30am, by the time the 3 of us finished bumming around and went to bed it was bout 4.30am I think…anyway, that night, all of us had fun although we were all yawning away before and after that haha. jas said we could go on the 15th, but I wun be in Singapore!!
I was late in meeting dolus this morning, very late in fact. I was at amk and yewmun msged me..asking if I was at home cos he saw this SMALL girl with an orange bag and her hair let down (finally he said haha), and yea, well, that small girl was me. So qiao again J
Today dolus went to sentosa. Not the whole of dolus though – weixuan, Melvin, david, ivan din go. Xuan was down with a slight fever and Melvin was having a sumptuous dim sum buffet lunch with his fren. We played a few rounds of volley ball, captains ball under the sun...had fun with all of them! I saw this person who looked abit like paul. Which is really a compliment, cos paul is really well, way above average. Cute. ;p he was in black boardshorts, well-tanned great colour, nicely gelled up hair J.
The girls haf plans for a Christmas party prob 22nd/23rd yay!! Sounds exciting!!
While I was traveling alone today, somehow I just kept thinking bout stuff that happened in the past, in jc, at the beginning of the sem. Kept thinking of certain pple, and how fun things were then.. haha thinking of jc now makes me wanna laugh, can’t believe how silly I was then, practically my whole class knew about it, eddy or derui or gwen would msg me when certain pple (or person rather haha) were around. Those hours I spent in the library…within that 1 year in J1, I spent more hours in the library than I haf in all my 10 years in sch since primary 1. how many times gwen or my classmates or shalynn or siting accompanied me to the lib to just sit there and look like we’re doing work? Haha, countless. Bet gwen and eddy wun forget those moments with me when we were in the school lib, or mp lib, or the canteen or on bus 55 or around in school, and just because they (or he) were there. Sigh~ those were the fun times!!!!
erin 9:57 PM
