sunny yellow banana day

finally dragged myself out of bed after like 2hours of slothing around doing nothing. idek why i am so tired!!! 

anyway staycation was............ good sorry i know my vocab is terrible. but yeah it was a nice break from mainland singapore! went to poulet for lunch and it is not bad!! the chicken sauce is really nice and the mushroom soup is nice and creamy it's a must try. food is nice and photogenic but lighting was horrible so yeah no photo :( then we walked around and f21 had sale so i bought a few things hehe. then we checked in and walked around and actually a lot of things happened during the check in time there were a lot of problems but i'm lazy to type them all out so yeah. anyway W hotel is classy and pretty and filled with western tourists!! hardly saw any asian tourists around. went for a swim and ordered some potato wedges with sour cream!!! they taste heavenly omg what is more satisfying than some hot and crispy wedges that are fried so nicely that you don't feel oil spilling out of the wedge with each bite??? and sour cream and SWEET CHILLI perfect for spicy suckers like me. omg as i type this i am craving for the wedges omg pig much. 

anyway after swimming we went for dinner at quayside at this Plcotin it's some italian restaurant which serves really good food too. the food tastes way better than it looks!! and it looks quite good already so yeah it's damn good omg i'd go back again if it wasn't so inaccessible. anyway the ambience was peaceful and atas HAHA totally not a place i'd go to on a normal basis. anyway quayside is really very atas because the people there are either rich tourists or businessmen and stuff. we are probably the only non rich people there, only going there because we have some free nights stay LOL. 

okay and yesterday night for the first time this season i watched X factor!!! ok this is very irrelevant but yeah i just realised how much i was missing out on so yeah :( shall start following from now on!! 

sigh was supposed to meet zy and huishi for dinner but huishi cannot so i am stuck at home now :( miss two of them and really wanted to meet to catch up!!! :( 

church tomorrow :> was supposed to go fetch the isle people from airport but now there's the gl/agl thingy oh well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :( 

not-so-small smallies

i just realised how useful blogging in the holidays is, because with so many activities i cannot remember what i do everyday. was trying to think of what i did on monday and i couldn't even remember?!?! ok as i type this i still cannot remember but yeah that's how fast time passes by i can't even remember stuff from less than a week ago. at least my blog helps me remember now hahahha. 

anyway today i met bim and pop for lunch!! had lunch at marche because rich ariel tan kept insisting on it. but i don't regret anyway hehe we shared a rosti and a crepe and added up to about $11 each so it didn't really exceed my budget. anyway, i shall try to share food more often from now on!! it's happier and you get to eat a bit of everything. bumped into jon boh and estee and the mum HAHAH. then pop came later and we went to smoothie king!! finally got to redeem my free smoothie from the time we downloaded a 313 app HAHA. smoothie king my new love i shall try to drink more of this instead of starbucks since it's about the same price (or in fact slightly cheaper) and has 1/5 the calories hehe healthy healthy :> then we walked around and went to far east and i tried egg waffles for the first time!!! they are so good omg as i write this i crave for them omg cheese egg waffles are my second new love!!!11!! hehe then slacked at krispy kreme for a while before going home! 

hehe so glad i met these two today we laughed so hard i missed laughing like this!! first time my diaphragm hurt from laughing in a long long while hehe i like how comfortable we are around each other!! some of the lamest moments happen with them too hehehe today reminded me so much of the sec3 days when we went out every weekend/month hehehe they're one of my only constants hehehe. hope ariel tan does well enough to come to rj :>>>>> 

anyway today i finally did some (council) work hahaha not academic related at all but yeah at least i got something done!!! hate how everything else is so fuzzy so i can't rly do anything more than what i've done oh well!!! just felt like completing some stuff before the crazy week next week starts. actually tried reading halogenoalkanes yesterday but i realised my notes aren't even filled sigh ok gotta start borrowing to copy. consequences of ponning an entire week of lecture owell. 

it's a beautiful day and i can't stop myself from smiling

heheh stayed home all day today! haven't done so in a long while and it felt good :) hahaha only because it's my grandma's birthday today so my bro and i decided to stay home and keep her company. shiokz life today!! woke up at 11, strummed for a while then went to play piano with sean after my fingers got pain from pressing strings. hehehe i didn't know his music preferences were so similar to mine hahaha. yeah then after lunch we made durian puffs!!!! i am so surprised they turned out well. was confused about the consistency and stuff and how the dough was supposed to look like. but yeah they turned out nice and i love the pastry so yay to a successful sibling baking session!! and after dinner idk why but my whole family started playing phone games together in the living room. played dots for a whole hour ahhaha. so yup that basically sums up my day. 

anyway i like today and cherish today because it was spent with the people i love most. as much as i love my friends my family still takes a large portion of my heart. ok rather they have a different compartment of my heart hehe. glad i got to spend time with sean baking and talking. got to talk to nainai too and i could tell she was very very very happy that we made time for her. she looked very touched to see us baking for her hehe i'm glad we made her day. and even at the end of the day, sitting down together and playing phone games. it's like social but antisocial idk haahahaha even though we all did our own things on our phones i like how we sat down together in the living room and not go up to our own rooms. much needed family time that was lost after we moved here. 

sometimes i miss our old house because there we spent more time as a family. our house was smaller then and sean and i shared a room, so most of our stuff were downstairs. we ended up spending most of our time downstairs, and all i did in my room was sleep or do work. other than that i'd spend my time at home on my orange sofa (i really miss my orange sofa :( ) and sean would be on the denim sofa and nainai on her chair and everyone else on random chairs. though all we did was watch tv and use the com the presence mattered. after we moved everyone just automatically goes back to their own rooms and does their own stuff. i can go days without seeing some people because i come home too late to catch them during dinner time. which is why i should come home for dinner more often because at least during dinner everyone is around. sometimes i wish my parents would spend more time downstairs though, and watch tv downstairs rather than in their own room. oh well!! starts with me i guess. i don't think one hour is too much to spend downstairs keeping nainai company. even if i were to whatsapp the hour away at least i am there. sometimes it's just the gesture of going down that makes a difference. 

but all in all, today was a good day because i built more on the relationships that matter most to me :) 

happy birthday

i know it's past midnight but HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLINTON!!! i'm quite sure you'll read this so this is for you :) thanks for being such a great friend all this while everything else is said in the card so i shan't repeat it but yeah thanks for being someone i can call a true friend so yes u deserve this mention :)))) 

anyway today was fun!!! met the class in the morning for clinton's running man birthday celebration!!! omg it was really fun like seriously damn fun running all over 313 and catching clinton within 10 minutes to winning second round 8) yay me HAHAH i am indestructible :> had to leave early to meet jaety though. really wished i could stay on and continue 3rd round + playnation and all :( but yes at least i got to spend a few hours with them!!! times like these i really love 6G and the people who put in effort to make things happen :) special thanks to fui and rose for planning this whole thing and everyone else who came - ryan safa chingwai zen jiahe and i think yiming nf and yiyin who came after i left hehe i'm glad for a class which bothers about class hahaha if u get what i mean 

anyway met jaety after that and slacked at mos and omg when i reached i was greeted with a scrapbook!!!11!!!1!!! late birthday present from them hehehe i was so touched :') i thought the cupcake surprise that day was it and was grateful for it already and now there's something else??? hehehe i love it a lot because it has 2 of my favourite stuff combined : photos and letters!!! plus they commented on the photos like they had little captions here and there and there was this find the cloud duck mission in the book :> very thoughtful and sweet hehehe :') i still keep flipping through to look at how we've grown since sec1 :))) anw took the train back with jiaying just like good old times :') i miss going home with her. we'd always talk and talk and talk and i think that's how we became close. was really nice catching up with her :)))) 

and a very very impromptu dinner with jeremiah lim which i really enjoyed :) had bcm and udders!! wasn't supposed to eat ice cream but he wanted so i decided to be a sacrificial friend and eat it with him HAHA. the whole dinner was non stop talking and omg i really love this friendship it is no doubt one of my favourite friendships. we talk and talk and never run out of things to talk about. when we use our phones it's just comfortable silence. there is never a time when we have to pause to use our phones because we have nothing to say, and when we are quiet it's just peaceful quiet, not awkward at all. and we even had to walk from udders to marymount mrt so we could talk more??? heheh thank God so much for a friend like u n00b. sian going to miss him when he goes into army/police force tsk. 

(had my second dinner when i got home hehe dad's attempt at oxtail was really not bad!!!)

///

anyway today made me realise the importance of being nice on people's birthdays. i realised that receiving stuff from the people important to you on your birthday really means a lot. could be seen from clinton's celebration today + the stuff jaety gave me today, which kinda reminded me of my own birthday too. was very touched when my closest rj friends, class, jaety and church friends did stuff for me for my birthday. even people i'm not very close to did stuff which made me feel appreciated and thankful. like chorale's birthday song, card and cake on the parade square though i never ever turn up for other people's parade square celebrations (maybe because i can never make it in time to). and the cell's individual cards to me hehe thanks to kit who asked them to but yeah i appreciate that they remembered and really did write! sometimes birthdays are a reminder of how much people appreciate you. normally, if people appreciate you, they'd make time to make/give/write you something, no matter how small it is. it's just a gesture to show that you care enough for the person to remember his/her birthday. recently i haven't been putting in as much effort as i used to for birthdays so i guess i shall start treating them more seriously from now on! hehe i shall start to source for thoughtful presents for my friends. shan't buy stuff for the sake of giving a present but give a present they will appreciate and use, and most of all feel like i put in thought into buying their present :) heheh tomorrow (or today) is my grandma's birthday and i think i am going to attempt durian puffs since she loves durian hehe i really hope they succeed because i know it will make her very very happy. told her i am staying home tomorrow because it's her birthday and she suddenly seemed so much happier. should spend more time with her this holiday since it's about the last of my free time and it's sure to make her very happy. 

anyway today was a really good day i mean it. felt so happy throughout the day hehe i feel so blessed with all these people in my life :) everything else made my day too hehe thank God for helpful friends who are willing to help u look out for stuff when they're overseas :))) i hope i get my kanken hehehe

remembering sunday

hehehe today is a happy day!!! sundays are always happy hehe church makes me happy :) hehe ever since young i've loved coming to church hehe church is like a much needed break from all the school stuff :)))) first time leading cell after a million years today but after a while kit ended up leading as usual hehe i am perfectly fine with that :> but yeah it felt a bit funny. but it felt more of like how the j2s are gonna leave soon esp with their last paper this week. too fast, too fast.

anyway eyelene came for service today!!! hehehe glad she finally got to come to church since she's been wanting to go for so long :> and i was so glad to see her again!!! missed my little eye. hehe was supposed to go for lunch with her alone, but we ended up going with kit tay ben and matthew tan. hehe nice lunch i'm glad my friends got to make friends with each other :>>>>> hehe then we went to novena for blackball!! and walked around and went to toys r us and bought some nice felt stickers hehe. then we went to orchard for i can't rmb what. oh oh to buy a planner for next year!! and we passed by factorie and it opened so we got our floral headbands!! hehehe today is a good buys day but i still can't wear the headband properly :( shall try again tmr when my hair is (hopefully) in a better state :> 

came back to a nice dinner of homemade beer battered fish with crispy baked potatoes and portobello with cheese hehehe unhealthy but nice homemade dinner :> thank God for an adventurous dad who keeps trying new recipes :))) though i realised most of the time he just cooks and we eat everything up :( 

ok that kinda sums up my day hehe. not rly in the mood for a deep/reflecty post because i am waiting for my nails to dry and it is not very easy to type without my nails touching the keyboard. but then again i am too impatient to sit down and wait for them to dry lol. omg i sound so incoherent now. 

clinton's birthday tomorrow and grandma's birthday the next day!!! birthdays galore hahaha happy birthday to all thanks for being such important characters in my life i appreciate u guys clinton i know u will see this but grandma u will never but just know that i love u enough to attempt making durian puffs for u :> may they turn out fine!!

pretty calories

went to carpenter and cook for the first time today with gisella :) was quite shocked that we were actually going out because we haven't spoken much to each other before, except over twitter and some casual talk irl. despite that we talked for 3 hours non stop!! without any instances or awkward silence or anything :))))) hehehe i like gis she's nice to talk to and funny yay :> 

anyway about the food : the meringue tart is sooooo good omg ok maybe just because i like meringues and like tarts but yes it was a great combi and the tart looks pretty!! actually carpenter and cook is very pretty in general hahaha. plates and table all very nice. the chocolate tart was not bad too, tasted a bit like salted daim which i like hehe. carrot cake was not bad too!! we took the last piece hehe. so yeah we just talked and talked and went over to alfero for pistachio gelato and talked again hehe. the 3 hours flew by i'm still amazed at how we met up for the first time and could just comfortably talk :) 

anyway had to leave for dinner and sean's baptism. dtf hahaha omg today was such a good food day!! but more importantly, i'm so proud of my brother and thankful that he finally has a proper relationship with God. he may not look it but i can sense that he is quite close to God. he even signed up for baptism alone without any of his friends going. i remember how long i hesitated to go for my baptism because i was scared of this scared of that. but he just went ahead with it and when i asked if anyone else was going with him, he even said that baptism is his own decision and he will not let his friends affect his decision :') i used to always worry that he'd grow up going to church but not knowing God. common problems of second (or rather, 4th) generation christians. more often than not they end up leaving by the time they grow old enough to make a decision for themselves because God has always been the God of their parents but not God of themselves. i'm glad this isn't the case for my family, for i can quite safely say that we all have our own relationship with God now :) hope sean keeps growing and seeking God :))))) 

hehehe half excited but half dreading tomorrow. dreading because i have to lead cell and i haven't done so for like what, a year?! horribly rusty plus expectations are so much higher now and kit's shoes are too big for small me to fill. figuratively and literally ahhaha. but ilene is coming for service and i miss her!!! haven't seen her for an entire week hahaha seems short but it feels very long :( 

it's like you're my mirror

hehe nice day today met hilary crapples the wife after like 6 months of not meeting!!! hahaha we are so indecisive. went to dhoby then realised she had to redeem some uniqlo thing she won so we went to ion where i bought a new pair of slippers (ok this pair of slippers has another story which i shall elaborate on later) then after that went back to dhoby for lunch (manhattan which we could easily have eaten at orchard...) then went off to mbs for the chanel exhibition!! got a complimentary poster which is quite pretty but i have totally no use for oh well. then we went to gardens by the bay hahahaha it was so hot omg i died. took some photos and felt like tourists hehehe. then it got too hot so we went back to dhoby again intending to get a drink but we suddenly wanted froyo so we went to cine for frolick HAHAH. went to scape to get phone covers for the family and then we went home. hehehe. today was a nice touristy day! went to places i normally wouldn't go to and finally got to catch up with lilang. i like how we only see each other twice a year but still feel like nothing's changed :)))) good friends are like stars, you don't always see them, but you know they're there :)))))) 

ok anyway about the slipper : ytd when after i went to kiseki with charles and windy i wanted to buy this slipper from rubi. but no one wanted to buy it with me (cos it's 2 for $30 hahaha sorry cheapo me is unwilling to pay the individual price) so i didn't buy it. today i wore this platform shoe out, and it kinda gave me blisters. plus my plaster came off so my feet started to really hurt. then we passed by rubi so i went in and decided now would be a good time to buy the slipper!! and the first stranger i asked to combine with immediately agreed!! ok sounds lame but you have to understand the whole sequence of events to be able to feel the joy i did. hehehe. things were yet again nicely planned out :) sometimes we have to wait, things may not happen immediately because there is a more timely opportunity for things to be given to you.

anyway, just now i was thinking about the phrase 'good day'. what really defines a good day? the people i meet? the amount/quality of work i do? the food i eat? the places i go to? i guess it's a mix of all, but i can only truly call a day a good day if i feel genuinely joyful after the day. not just happy, but joyful. there's a difference. you can be joyful without being happy and you can be happy without being joyful. i guess being happy just means being happy, but joy is a deeper level of happiness. it transcends daily happenings and is more about contentment. i may not have the best of everything, but i am happy with what i have, thus i am joyful. and i guess a day can only be called good if i am contented with the happenings of the day. today is a good day because i am contented with the time i got to spend with hilary and the short hour i got to spend with my grandma. even if we were just watching tv, i believe the act of going down to her room with my brother to watch tv together made her feel like we care and bother about her, which probably made her happy :) 

each morning when i wake up

hehe today was a eat non stop day omg.

woke up late (as usual) so met charlene and windy late at somerset. when we reached kiseki the queue was quite long alr so we ended up queuing for more than an hour oh well. but worth the wait HAHA sashimi chicken and pork spam!! then we walked around and charles bought her shoes and stuff and the saddest part about today is that h&m no longer has the get your second hoodie at 70% off thing :( sigh i finally decided to buy it today and now it's gone :((((((((((((((((( then to cheer ourselves (or rather, me) up we went to wheelock bux to try toffee nut frappe!!! it's good but i still prefer my white choc moch with java chip HAHA. saw lotsa j2s studying there hahaha oh my that will be me next year. and dinner at home was good too!!! prawn paste chicken wings and then durian and mangosteen for fruits!!!!!! spammed food like mad omg today was such a mad food day.... 

anyway, the best part of today was that i found an instax i really really really like!!! hahah it's just an instax mini 8 but in a certain colour ;) shan't show it until i get it hehe. was just browsing through carousell and i saw mini 8s at $82!!! was quite happy already until i saw a photo of a _________ instax mini 8 but it was double the price :( ok actually more than double. so i went to search for other sellers and bam, i found one slightly cheaper!!! asked around and everyone said it wasn't worth it :(

anyway, today i was thinking about money, especially after the whole instax incident. even during tawg God spoke to me about money. as of late i've been spending money like water, eating nice food and splurging on random stuff. midnight online shopping adds on to it too, especially when stuff are just clicks away. my expenditure has exponentially increased within the past year, and it's not exactly very good. my parents work so hard to give me a good life, so the least i can do is be a good steward of the money God has blessed us with and spend it wisely. daddy learnt the value of money the hard way so i cannot waste his money like this. gotta start saving up and spending less on food omg. 

so by right after this whole lesson about money i should have chosen the normal instax over the special instax but no, i chose the special one and even ordered it already :> i know i'll regret it if i don't, so i just decided to get it. and so to compensate for this i shall limit myself to 2 nice meals a week. doesn't sound that bad but trust me it really is, in this holiday season when everyone wants to meet up and eat nice food at cafes and all. :( but yes i will survive muahahaha