hello from london!

i can't believe my hall is so efficient! i got almost instant internet access once i checked into my room. i haven't met my roomie as of yet; she'll be moving in tomorrow! anyway my room is really nice and cosy! orangey cheerful-looking bedsheets and curtains. will post photos and update properly soon! this is just a note to say that im safe and sound in london! take care everyone :)

sunday is family day!

may this be forever.

needless to say, my last sunday here was spent wholly with my family! in the morning we went to west coast for our usual sunday brunch. i had my wanton mee, the rest ate their porridge and carrot cake. it was so ordinary i felt as though we will continue eating like this coming sunday, next sunday, the sunday after next, and for all the sundays of my life. after that we went to visit the monkey tree at jurong west. it's quite amazing how the contours of the bark form the image of two monkeys basking side by side. my dajie believes it has to be some spirits at work, but i guess im still skeptical about it. perhaps it's all just a coincidence made sense of by human perception? my mama is the funniest. she thinks there might be people who secretly carved them out in the middle of the night. well it isn't all that impossible.. anyway, we went home after that so that i could finally start on my packing. i managed to settle the clothes, yes! im done with the most bulky and tricky part of packing! had lunch at home with dajie and bro. my parents da bao-ed so many curry potatoes because they know i love eating them. in the evening we went to this family ktv place called "the one" next to cineleisure! juncheng and bernie kor were there with all of us too. everyone sang quite a bit, then erjie and bernie kor kept forcing me to drink glass after glass of beer so that i'll get drunk. i can't even remember how many glasses of beer i downed. after my parents, dajie and bro left, i was dragged to this pub to drink some more! craziness. my erjie claimed she was trying to prepare me for the wild side of london. hahaha. in the midst of drinking, erjie said she'll miss me so much, and she said she'll take care of papa mama. in my hazy state of mind, i couldn't respond normally. at that point in time, i was sober enough to register what she said, yet not sober enough to let the tears fall. what a strange feeling, to feel the comfort and sadness all entwined together.

i have parents who sing karaoke ever so adorably; the thought of them clasping their mikes and singing "十五的月亮" never fails to make me smile. i have a father who taught me how to live life with a "don't worry, be happy" attitude. countless times, i was able to shoo my blues away, because i know that with papa around, i will be fine, and everything will be okay. i have a mother who bought an incredible number of packets of "essentials" for me to bring over to london. i have no idea why she bought so many. those are more than enough to last me for 2 whole years overseas, but the sight of that big plastic bag instantly makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. i have a dajie whom i squabble with daily over matters so trivial i can't even bear to list them down here. but she is also the one who treats me to movies and good food, the one who helped me get my laptop, who vacuum-compressed my clothes for packing, who attempted to carry me when i had leg cramps while running, and who keeps telling me she'll miss me when i go. i have an erjie who made me drunk to make sure i learn how to keep myself safe in london. i seldom see her around at home, because she's always so busy with work, but she has never stopped caring for me. how can i forget the sense of loss i felt when she left for canada for one year, and that happiness in the air when we received letters from her. i have a bro who taught me how to watch tennis; even im surprised by how much ive learnt from him. he gushes on and on about arsenal, he hogs the tv when he plays winning eleven, he hogs the computer when he's obsessed with maplestory/online football manager. most of the time, i listen to him talk about soccer and i can't recall anything from our conversations. what adebayor, what jose mourinho. i listen to him talk about school, his classmates, his teachers, and the funny things that happen. he always bugs me on how to do this physics question, how to solve that maths question, and he threatens me that he will eat takopachi in front of the webcam to gek me. so annoying, but so indispensable he'll always be my lovable bro.

family = father and mother (and dajie erjie bro) i love you

lowly's quote from the movie Annie says it best:
how lucky i am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

blues

yesterday i sent two of my best friends off, and i couldn't help crying when they left. among everyone there, i had the least reason to cry, but the sadness i felt was so overwhelming it was quite inexplicable. perhaps it was because i have this feeling it wouldn't be as easy to meet them in uk, especially since twinnie will be in nottingham! maybe i should be thankful that the two of them are in uk instead. we're afterall still in the same place. and hopefully, near enough!

i had the shock of my life when someone asked me whether i'm flying next friday. while talking to my erjie yesterday night i realized i only have one last saturday and sunday here. and while pouring milk to drink, i noticed the expiry date stated on the carton is oct 12. what? i wouldn't even be here long enough for the milk to go bad. :(

quote zhuxuan

月球 没有好朋友
但我愿为你 私奔到月球

byousoku 5 centimeter

i watched this anime movie entitled "byousoku 5 centimeter" online today. it means "5cm per second" and it's the rate at which cherry blossoms fall. i love the graphics, love the music, but hate the plot because it was so hopelessly realistic. overall, the movie was simply romantically bittersweet. well, maybe more bitter than sweet because it didn't end like all fairytales do. it felt quite depressing watching it, especially when im leaving soon, because it revolved around people and distance, and how people end up drifting apart.

but at least, at the very end of it, they had never forgotten each other.

Because the night looks like the stars will fall, I cannot lie to myself.

:) >>>>> :(

the happy :)

1. my dad got his medical checkup results yesterday and he is okay! my dad is fit and healthy! my entire family was really worried for quite a few days after his first checkup. the doc said his red blood cell count was abnormally high and there might be problems with his kidney or bone marrow. oh my goodness i was so scared when mum called yesterday to tell us the results. i kept asking her whether she was lying to us before i dared to hang up. thank goodness my dad is fine! yay i am super happy. im over the moon, the sun, and every celestial object that exists! and i was probably on cloud nine billion when i burst into my dajie's room to tell her the great news. ahh! so relieved that my dad is fine!

2. i had time to play with my tutee's hamsters yesterday because the maid left the house before i arrived! so while i was locked out for that 10 minutes, brandon pushed his hamster cage over to the door to let me play with them! i struggled to hold those furry little things from the holes in the door grilles but never did manage to succeed. i took photos of them though! these lightspeed hamsters kept running so quickly it was so difficult to capture them nicely on my camera.


so sneaky but adorable!

3. i did something ultra stupid yesterday which left me laughing uncontrollably to myself on my way home from bpp! all thanks to twinnie, i asked some shopowner whether the memory card he sells is fake. hahahaha. the whole scenario was so funny i feel like laughing all over again now that i recall how twinnie burst into laughter right in my ears while i interrogated the shopowner. sigh! ben si le! but how am i supposed to know that there isn't such a thing known as an m1 memory card? if there's m2 there should be m1 right?

4. these days i've been meeting up with people whom i know i'll miss a lot when i go overseas. hopefully it'll be vice versa? :)

5. i've watched quite a few movies! in chronological order: simpsons, paprika, 881, the secret, the bourne ultimatum! simpsons was the funniest movie i've watched (so far). paprika was really intriguing with its haunting graphics and cool music. i liked 881 it was so moving. the secret was incredibly sweet; i melted when xiao yu explained the 108 steps. bourne was really exciting but all the guys look the same to me and huixuan and i were cringing during most of the fighting scenes (which effectively translates to half the movie).

6. i finally found another imperial fresher who is going to the same hall as me! :D

7. i actually got down to ticking some things off my to-do list! i tried sorting out erjie's winter clothings yesterday and started picking out the stuff that i would be bringing over to london. but this is about all that i've done. let's hope i won't end up like my erjie who packed her luggage just the night before she went to canada! and she was on a 1-year exchange program!

the not-so-happy :(

1. pam has gone to faraway toronto! it was quite sad seeing her leave. but we all know she's really brave and independent so she'll be doing great in canada! jiayou and take care bam bam pam :)

2. i have 10 thousand things to do on my to-do list! i haven't started packing yet, i haven't opened my bank account, haven't got my biochem textbooks, haven't done my medical checkup, and it's 22 more days to fly-away day? okay! maybe i should be thinking that at least i've already got my visa done, my accommodations settled, my vaccinations done.. hahaha oh no why do i have this dull sinking feeling that sometimes thinking positively will only cause me to procrastinate further!

mushroom madness!

i was really bored just now so i went to check out the number of mushroomy things i have. every morning i wake up and i see so many mushrooms smiling back at me. i feel as if i've become one of them. haha! i shall try to bring all of them over to london! then when i get homesick, they'll be my new family members and make me happy while i relish the sweet memories of those i love.

happy donuts day!

today i went to
at raffles city! i never thought i would ever find myself queuing for hours just to taste those donuts. especially during this period of time, since donuts are everywhere in london and i shouldn't be wasting my time like this? the funny thing is, both yahting and i thought the same way but we (somehow) just ended up queuing for the donuts too! and the best part is, we only queued for 1 hour when we were actually mentally prepared to stand for 3 hours! before we knew it we were already discussing which flavours to buy and making our orders. hurray and all the donuts are so yummy :D even the spicy cheese one which tasted like pizza!

my dozen of donuts! didn't get the green kaya and the red strawberry one so it's not that colourful and nice. but never mind. food is meant to be eaten anyway!

we are happy people!

wouldn't it be nice if the world were donuts?
we can play hide-and-seek in a world of rings.
if i can't find my way to you,
you can poke your head through the hole and say hi!
wouldn't it be nice?

bbo with yiwen

happiness is.. playing bridge on bbo for the first time in a million years with your bestest partner, even when she is 15 hours away.

i still enjoy dummy-ing! :)