21st photos!

the love notes i wrote for all my guests!


mei!


sarah and mel!


the two early birds!


cherry and zuhua!


mel and farah!


guanghao and the t-shirt that i received!
it says, "i am 21 years old like many girls my age"
the back says, "i got this for my 21st"
the sleeve says "ame"


softballers! thank you for keeping to the theme! i miss wearing caps!=)


dennis! pity he had to leave early.


bro! cum emcee for the night.=)


my longest friend with her bf!


6h! see the girl-guy segregation? tsk.


25ths! where are the girls! too bad xinling arrived late.


BUDDY!!=)


softballers!


RGS/405! mel kept complaining about me saying i dun have rgs friends.=X


bizad! man so many on exchange.


BLACK ROSE!=) so touched that so many turned up! without kenny and dennis though!


and of cos not forgetting my family!


xinling! who was the latest-comer. heh.


mel kian and raheem before they left!


clar and mel!=D


the 162 gang. cai keeps pushing me down so he can appear taller. childish!


part of BR before they left!


BR!=D


cai siew and ming who kept complaining i ignore them.=X


i love this photo! WHERE IS CYNLI!!!=P


i love this photo too! hahahha! my two bodyguards! in red somemore.


rj council plus amy. =)


and the gossip gang during As period.=)

the last day of my 20th is so well-spent cos of the above friends who made their way to the ulu pasir ris chalet. thank you to everyone who was there!=)

lets hope my wish come true!=D

running tap, itching throat

i know i have to post photos of my party, but that will come slightly later when i actually have time to do so. now i'm rushing to even finish this post so that i can move on to START on my projects.

i'm sooo sick right now. sneezing non-stop (it feels quite horrible when you have the sensation to sneeze but after a while it goes away...=( ), coughing with super dry throat, and then having water running down the human tap the whole day. and i think my body's in a perpectual borderline fever, which explains lethergy, but not sufficient to stop me from actually doing work and moving around.

once every year, i'll fall sick with such symptoms, and then take like ages to recover. this is the time this year i guess. (why does it have to fall during recess week!)

21st feb 2009: spent my actual birthday sleeping the afternoon away after reaching home from the chalet, and then treating my family to some dinner at joo chiat. simple but yeah nice day spent, cos at least i spent it with my family who put in so much effort for my party.

(i actually drove on my own too! although it's only to send cherry from the chalet to the bus stop outside.=P but i felt quite proud of myself! without anyone beside me to observe how i drive. heh.)

22nd feb 2009: went out early in the morning to get charles' present. met mum at marina square and ate with her at billy bombers! so seldom do we actually dine together at such places. glad she loved the food! but we ate so much we almost exploded.

then charles party at night! good thing lizhan picked me up! if not i really wonder how i could actually end up at that ulu place. party was good, even though i felt quite lonely cos didnt really have anyone to talk to over there. hope charles like the present i got him!

but somehow i didn't enjoy myself that much cos of one thing. xiu wen msged me and said that dylan's mum is trying to look for a new tutor to replace me. i mean yes, i know i can't really click well with him and he's not exactly showing improvement and i wanted to quit quite long ago too, but somehow i felt quite bad about it. like, it's my third year teaching him and seems like i didn't help him at all. and i'm just letting my source of income fly away just like that.

that's why for the entire night i was in a daze. i felt so useless, and yet i can't even do anything about it. ah well. maybe the mum will break the news to me tmr when i go for tuition. jun was saying that it's not my fault that our personalities clash, perhaps i should think of it that way.

and today was spent doing bizcomm. met xuhan at tampines early in the morning at 10am, then went over to jocelin's place at 1pm cos we felt we needed to discuss with the other two. on the way there, it started raining sooo heavily and even xuhan's umbrella can't keep both of us dry. by the time we reached joce's place (luckily i still remember how to get there), we were drenched!

and yes, it was my first time riding pillion on a bike. vincent offered a ride to the east and it was so tempting not to accept the offer cos well i could reach home so much earlier! and so, even though i had my mum's words "dun ever ride on a bike" deeply entrenched at the back of my mind, i still got onto the bike and had my first experience riding pillion. it actually isn't as scary as i thought it'd be, though i felt really quite vulnerable cos there's like no metal to surround you and you're exposed to any kind of danger!

but yeah he is a safe rider and i got a safe lift to somewhere near my home in like 20 mins. that's like 1/4 the amount of time i'd have taken if i took a bus home. only bad thing was that cos the wind kept blowing, everytime i opened my mouth, wind would get in and it really made my already dry throat even dryer. but gosh, hopefully i dun get addicted to riding pillion sia. if there's a first, there's bound to be the next and so on. just hope my mum won't find out and kill me.

and yes concludes the entry for the first three days of me being 21. now, i shall really move on to my projects. i'm scarily occupied by projects this recess week.

monday - bizcomm draft proposal discussion

tuesday - presentation discussion, intro to comp website designing

wednesday - financial market project discussion, pmm project discussion

thursday - bizcomm editing of draft proposal

saturday - deadline for bizcomm draft proposal

sunday - deadline for uploading of website

what kind of recess week is this sia. sick also cannot rest to recover.=(

21

i think i should have a birthday entry!

i'm officially TWENTY-ONE! (i dunno if i'm supposed to be happy or sad!)

the party ytd was fun. only regret was i wasn't able to talk to everyone as i wished to.

and i actually fell sick right after the party. had a terrible sore throat, and now started coughing and i think a fever's coming up. blame it on the lack of food plus the abundance of unhealthy food plus the lack of sleep. and my calf is aching so much i can't walk without a limp.

well i would say the party was quite a success. everything ran smoothly, no huge surprises, no huge disappointments (although some people didn't even turn up without saying why!)

the traffic was so slow at first. party was supposed to start at 6pm. most of the crowd only arrived at 8pm. am so glad people mixed around as much as they could. if not i'd feel so horrible.

and i think i should really thank my brother for helping out. never knew he was that good with networking. HAHA!

and so, when everything ended, only cherry and zuhua stayed over, and of cos bro's friends. played mahjong till 3am plus, went to sleep, only to realise that my bro and his friends told my mattress away. so i could only sleep on the super hard bed frame. PLUS i didnt even have blanket and there were hell lot of mosquitoes. so effectively, i didn't sleep at all.

was so tired when i got home. slept for the entire afternoon, after tagging the photos that darren uploaded. must really thank darren for helping me take photos with the professional camera when i didn't even ask him to help!=D

ok here's my ultra long thank you list!

in advance: vivien (for the card from copenhagen!), jasmine

people who came for my party!
khs: cherry, zuhua

rgs: christie, clarissa

6h: amy, ben cai, ja, jess, joshua, kim, pong, mel, siew, yabbie, ming, joel

25ths: charles, guanghao, lizhan, wesley, xinling, darren, daryl + buddy derrick!

softballers: yen ling, zhi xian, jocelyn

nus: raheem, doreen and her bf, farah, jocelin

black rose: mel, val, brent, daryk, dennis, ellen, emily, hsien, johnson, kelly, kenneth, kian, luther, sarah, sherlyn, yuan yi, kenny, liting

smses wishes!
ming ming (who called!), rinus (by calling too), nicholas (thru sarah), su kee (thru val), jun, ethel, cynli, marcus soo, marcus phua, yen ling, zhi xian, doreen, raheem, jocelin, xiu wen, joshua, darren, brent, tubby, nadjad, christie, farah, yowie, boon, chork, amanda ng, lizhan, mingjie (by calling!), hu-lin

msn:
ben cai, louis

facebook:
david, bryon, titus, sadikin, randy, john lee, patricia, marcus goh, yu shan, charles, heather, germaine, sruthi, joshua lee, dawn, kenneth, kang, zhizhong, jianrong, esther, andy, charmine, sim yee, peishan, vania, bonkie, winfred, karmen, kwan, wei qi, jun, val tan, francine, jasper, jialing, may, xinyee, jon foo, janny, gilbert, chinghui, yi lin, kenny, johnson, shiaw-yan

i hope i didn't miss out anyone!!

love all my presents too!=D

shall upload photos another time. too tired to do so!

now i shall rack my brain on what to give charles for his birthday tmr.=X

and lets hope i recover soon! falling sick during recess week is a big no-no!

bad + good news = neutral

today didn't seem to be a good day for my family.

firstly, my braces was denied of being removed before my birthday (i thought there was a chance of doing so).

then, my mum's finger got splashed by burning oil so well it's quite painful for her. at least she's on two days mc now.

lastly, i suffered from possibly one of the worst bout of gastric just now. and it happened right after i ate. you know i never imagined how my (mild) eating disorder in jc could lead to such consequences now. i can't even have my dinner 1 hr later than the normal time! at this rate ah, sooner or later i'm gonna get stomach ulcer sia. (choy) and that means i'll never get to diet cos i have to keep eating!

BUT!!! despite all those, i received my first birthday card! from VIVIEN all the way from copenhagen! THANK YOU SO MUCH VIVIEN (i know you'll read this.=P) ! yes it was definitely in time for my birthday.=D


her note on the postcard!


the front of the card.=)

and sadly, cynli and jess can't make it for my party...=( hopefully i won't receive any more bad news from the rest!

somehow i dun feel as busy as i should preparing for my birthday party. or maybe it's cos i'm underestimating the scale of it. (at least mel's helping me with the decor! thanks so much man.) can't believe it's just less than 3 days away!!

i'm getting old!

a financial lesson

had quite a long chat with mum and bro last night over investing and other related financial stuff. i think bro and i are at the age when we're quite interested in putting what we learn in school to better use. but i suppose with our available 'funds' currently, the most we can afford for smaller stocks now is just one or two lots, so nothing significant would probably come out of it.

but somehow it led me to think about our financial situation at home. we're probably at the 'average' level of the economy. enough to afford a decent house and car, but constantly running on limited liquidity. so if there's anything that requires any huge amount of money, we're possibly not able to finance it unless my parents start selling their illiquid assets.

i guess this applies to why my mum is so hesitant about letting me go on an exchange, or even finance my birthday party, cos they're probably not able to foot the bill without doing anything to any of their investments. somehow, everything seems to be tied up somewhere. now i finally get it why even though we belong to the average income level, my parents are somehow so caught up with the idea of being thrifty and so fussy over who foots the bill and all.

i think i used to be a really horrible money manager, and i am possibly one too now, which led to why i was running on terrible debts especially during the entire A levels period. now that i'm teaching tuition and had gone for several rounds of temporary jobs, i realised how making money is actually quite difficult, and i should always try to save some of these hard-earned money for rainy days.

you know i never tasted the feel of having excess cash in my wallet until i started giving tuition. like i felt as if i didn't need to withdraw my allowance and simply use the money i earn for my daily expenses. but of cos there are times when more cash is required that i have to tap into my bank account. i guess now i just appreciate money more and so trying not to anyhow spend so well at least i can finance my own stuff like my birthday party and my summer program.

now i know why my parents wanted us to be financially-independent since we were so young. we had to pay for our own overseas holidays, clothes we buy, handphone, laptop, camera and everything else that we demanded from them.

i suppose it's time when i stop comparing how come i dun have this and that when others possess them. every family has their own set of problems, and i suppose money is just one of the very common topics brought up in our family discussions.

bro and i were also thinking of sponsoring a child from one of the poor countries. went to do some research on it and realised it's about $45 a month. it's rather tight on us i suppose. haven't decided if we should but i think it's a really good cause and i'll definitely take it up once i start working!

flashback

all the memories started to flash back once again.

最熟悉的陌生人

i guess that's no longer the case anymore, after all, it has been so long ago.

kept looking through my past entries for this particular post that at least presented some kind of a closure.

"I guess we didn't talk as much as the year went by and sometimes some part of me still regrets it. "

oh well i've moved on since then and i suppose i shouldn't look back anymore, cos well, i believe the other party won't look back. what's the point of making myself so miserable then. shall learn to be forward-looking.

it sucks when you spend vday alone at home with your family, but i guess i shall hold on to the view that there's value in waiting.=)

learn to grab opportunities

another week has just passed. i was thinking this week would probably be a really long week in school especially without jocelin, but somehow, it passed equally quickly.

had loads of project meetings this week, and it's amazing how everything seems to be going on fine. monday: intro to comp
tuesday: bizcomm online meeting
thurs: bizcomm mini lecture meeting
friday: apb meeting

i'm actually rather pleased with myself for attempting to read up before each lesson, especially for apb. at least i could understand the lecturers much better. or probably it's the lack of company that forced me to concentrate. whatever it is, it's already week 5 and i suppose it's time for me to really get down to work.

and i'm actually feeling rather lucky cos i feel some opportunities seem to come to me when i least expect it. a few months back, prof sum actually came to ask me if i wanted to help him with some projects and of cos get paid for it while doing some hands-on learning. everything wasn't finalised then. he saw me today again and he told me that within 2 weeks, most stuff shud be firmed up and must probably start doing stuff already.

you know i actually feel quite excited over it. i know it'll be a challenge, after all it's probably just like a part-time job. but from what prof sum said, it's probably gonna be a really good experience. and i really think prof sum is a very good teacher to learn from. i guess such opportunities do not come that often and i should really take the chance to learn from it. time to stop slacking!!

somehow i'm glad i rejected the tuition recommended by sarah. i mean as much as i'd like to make more money especially since my copenhagen is more or less confirmed, i still have to take into account time factor and whether i'll be able to handle.

sometimes it's weird when you only realised why you make a certain decision AFTER you've made that decision. especially for me since i'm one who makes decisions not based on actual logical thinking but more on intuition and on-the-spot evaluation.

anw, sent yowie off at the airport on wed. it's possibly one of the least emotional farewells i've ever been to, but somehow it's good to see how well their friendships are maintained and all. sometimes i really envy people who have such a close group of friends to hang out with everytime, cos it's really very sian when you feel like going out and somehow you just can't find anyone to go out with.


one of the two photos that i took at the airport. charles was photo-whoring too so somehow i didnt feel the need to take that many. and i think this is prob the better of the two!

it's quite hilarious when bro and i were talking about how lonely our vdays are. we were like discussing about the need to go sdu should we be single 5 years down the road. but somehow it feels rather reassuring cos he was saying that it's actually ok to be single and all blah blah. ah well.

anyhow, HAPPY VDAY EVERYONE!!=D

time for a change

finally decided to heck about going with strangers and accepted the offer to go to copenhagen. of cos mum was having some issues financially, kept asking about the price of everything, but bro was totally encouraging me to go, saying i shouldn't waste the chance and i should just go overseas when i can. what's more i spoke to jessie (the bba office person) about this and she said only 4-6 people selected, it's SUPER competitive and there's a long waiting list. so i shouldn't give up this chance rite? just HOPE that the people going are nice yeah.

i must start learning to be independent!! i guess travelling to such a far part of the world will allow me to see the world more and stop being such a frog in the well. it's good! i must train myself!

just hope i get to travel around and meet my friends! i want to go over to london to meet jun!!=)

i've been broke these days though. paid off my taiwan credit card debts, bought all my textbooks, booked tickets to mayday's concert, and then booked tickets for mum and dad to go for zhou hua jian's concert. at the rate i'm spending, my account is going to be wiped out even before i go copenhagen. just hope the school subsidizes some of the amount!

had wanted to be a good girl on sunday and prepare before going to lessons, like reading the readings and textbook etc. BUT somehow i got distracted after coming back from mum's 55th bday celebration and started looking for old photos to come up with an album for my party (it's NEXT WEEK. OMG!). never knew i had THAT many photos taken when i was younger. and i seriously think i was so cute when i was young. heh. somehow there was a break in between and i couldn't even find any photos from p5 to sec 2.

but anyhow it was still fun flipping thru all the old albums searching for good photos to place in my album. went to buy a guestbook (well it isn't exactly a guestbook lar, small but spacious enough for everyone's wishes i guess) and also some of the necessary stuff for the party too. gosh i still have some stuff yet to buy but i'm gonna be soooo busy with projects these two weeks. nvm i shall try to make my first birthday party a success.=)

like i said, i'm flooded with project meetings this week. and with jocelin in hong kong, i'm going for every lesson and project meeting alone. ah well. must learn to be independent! and i shall be a good girl and do all my work and stop procrastinating.

vday is coming and i think i'm gonna stay at home yet again and bury my head in work. thought of how jun and i would always celebrate together in the past (prob not from this year onwards) and thought of how miserable i am. ah well. thank goodness it isn't a school day for me to see all the couples holding hands and doing sweet stuff for each other.

cbs!

i got selected for the copenhagen summer program! but thing is, none of my other friends who applied got it! and somehow i really dun feel like going with strangers. i know it's time to step out of my comfort zone and explore the world, but somehow i dun feel comfortable going with people i dunno. and the modules mapping everything will be done myself. ah well.

i guess i shouldn't give up this opportunity to go over there, if not i'll probably never get the chance again, at least in the near future. but financially, it seems really taxing. dunno how many tuition sessions i have to give just to go over there for 6 weeks. sigh. hopefully it won't be so bad lar...

i do hope someone i know is going for it too. i think i'll be very much comforted if a friend is going with me. ah well...

anw! this week has been rather dull and uneventful except ytd. my bizcomm group went to bus interchanges ytd to survey bus captains. had to sneak around cos didn't want their spervisors to see us and get the bus captains into trouble. but it was quite good cos we managed to get quite a lot of info from them!

then, went over to vivo and ate at some restaurant which i can't rmb what it's called. was seriously quite hilarious cos of the topics that we (johnson luther kelly and i) talked about and how we were attempting to eat the chicken and all. the other table (dennis kenneth hsien and daryk) looked quite serious though.

anyhow, our first successful bday surprise for sherlyn! we brought her all around and somehow she still didn't suspect anything at all. and of cos no one would spill the beans if she's the one who's supposed to be surprised. heh. glad she was happy and surprised though.=)


our only group photo for the day!with the black rose at the back. heh.

love black rose! even though we haven't exactly been meeting often cos everyone's just so busy. and oh gosh br is seriously secretly happening. shan't elaborate on this but well slept at 5am this morning finding out about stuff! gosh.=P

i hope i'm fine

thanks ja and cynli for the tags! i guess sometimes it's just the feelings at those points of times that make me so overwhelmed with emotions, but i'll be much better after a while. perhaps this is called immunity.

and it's not that i dun want to talk to my family about such stuff, i just dunno how to open my mouth. i guess in a way i'm also expecting them to realise what i'm feeling, but i dun think that's ever possible. we aren't those families that can just sit down and talk calmly. too often we just end up quarrelling because i feel my parents just dun see things from my perspective. which is why i feel the imposition of parents' expectations on their kids can be really detrimental especially if they just want their kids to do things their way.

somehow i feel like describing them as enzymes, the lock-and-key concept. if it's the wrong key to a particular lock, the key will be rejected. it's like parents seem to have this particular model in their head, possibly influenced by how they were brought up. and if their kids do not fit into this model or slightly deviate from it, punishments will follow. up to this moment, i still do not understand why my parents think that studying MORE will result in better grades. they assume that when i dun study in quantity, my quality will also be affected. and problem is, you can't force me to change my studying style just to SHOW that i'm studying hard isn't it. isn't that being very hypocritical?

i guess it's also my pride at work, and my stubbornness. i dunno. when it comes to my family, there's just a certain sense of helplessness, possibly due to the inferiority. ah sigh.

ok i shall change topic. i'm actually quite glad that my project groups this sem, although most are totally new combinations other than jocelin and myself, are quite sane and normal. or at least it seems like i can work with them properly. do hope things will carry on in this manner, if not i predict a really miserable sem with SOOO many projects.

can't beat the BR freshies though. they seem to be pulling their hair off these days. or should i say for the next few months too. i really see the reflection of myself one year ago.

and i was so pissed off with this guy in the bus when i was going home today. throughout the entire journey, he was leaning against my arm cos he was sleeping. and not like he's small-sized can. there were just countless times i hinted by sudden jerks of my arm, but somehow he didn't get it and would just wake up and then fall back asleep again. for goodness sake, if you're sitting beside a total stranger and you know you're falling sleep and leaning everywhere, at least have the courtesy to stop doing so when the person has already retaliated, especially if you're a guy.

i'm getting so tired of everything around me. i'm getting so sick of myself. i'm getting so restless in school.

inferiority

i seriously wonder why parents like to compare their kids. for improvement? for motivation? dun they realise that at our age, such comparison will never work again?

i guess they will never understand how my poor performance at As totally shattered my confidence in my studies. do they think they are the only ones who are disappointed? i could perhaps term it as the turning point of my life, the point which totally brought me downhill. dun they know that the more they are so concerned over my results at As, i'll prob feel 10 times worse than them?

this must be the umpteenth time i'm crying over my results. and it has already been 2 years.

and it totally hurts, when they make comments like, you see your bro is always studying, you leh, forever watching shows and not doing anything. you know i totally felt like jumping out of the car when my mum said that just now. there are just too many times that i've said never to compare my studying style with my bro's, cos we are so different.

i hate it when they do that. i hate it when i feel that i'm nothing in their eyes.

i can only pretend to be defensive, like a porcupine, rebuting every single sentence, and thereafter shed tears in my own room.

if they like, i can jolly well stay out of home the entire day. rather than being scolded for slacking at home. one year ago, i was scolded for taking part in every single thing i could get my hands on. one year on, i get scolded for slacking too much. nothing i do seems to please them. nothing i do seems to be sufficient.

it hurts, when you feel like disappearing in your own home. perhaps i should never have existed before.

on a boring tuesday...

decided to remove the wishlist cos well, i feel rather bhb doing so. =X

and sigh my braces can't be removed before my bday....

should be taking up another tuition soon. need enough money to go overseas man! really hope will be able to go for the summer program. want to get away from s'pore! at least for a while.

harsh

just saw the report banning the two top triathletes from competitions. i really think they're quite poor thing, having their photos published like that. i dunno the reasons behind banning one from going into the room of another of the opposite gender during the competition season, perhaps it is the fear that something will happen. but isn't it too harsh to impose such a ban on the two triathletes? it's not as if they were doing anything wrong when they were caught.

perhaps this is supposed to act as a warning to the rest not to do the same thing. but by fussing over this matter, do they realise how much harm they have done to the two of them? and being the only two triathletes in the competition from s'pore, isn't it natural for them to want to confide in each other?

i guess there may be many more reasons for imposing the ban, but i just think it's only a very small matter and there's no need for a ban and for the media to publish it. these athletes spend their whole lives training and training. have seen him running around nus a couple of times, and even though he is just an acquaintance, one can easily see the effort put in. as an athlete, you may not even have that many friends cos of the amount of time you put into your training, it's totally not helping by imposing such a ridiculous ban on them.

ah well. probably it's cos i know one of them that i'm getting slightly worked up over the issue. i just thought it's really unreasonable.

anw, decided to apply for the summer program at copenhagen from end june to early aug, possibly to make up for not applying for sep. was talking to jocelin about it and we decided to apply for it together since our modules are around the same and mapping might be easier. i suppose it's really gonna be expensive and we're possibly gonna spend thousands of dollars there, but i really think it'd be a really good experience. maybe we can even go earlier so that we're able to tour the region first.=) really hope both of us get to go.

i'm just slightly worried that should i be able to get a shanghai internship which i applied eons ago, which one should i choose? international exposure is important, but i dun have a single internship so far. and summer program is about spending, internship is about earning. ah well. if that really happens, at least it's a good problem. i haven been this enthusiastic about all these stuff.

mayday concert again! oh my i HAVE TO go for this one man. missed so many of their concerts already. but it's sooo far away (29th august!) and it's already the presale already. gosh.

am really happy that the foc gm is being pushed to another date. must really thank luther and dennis for doing so, cos i can't imagine what will my party be like without so many of the black roses! esp like what luther said, 'you only turn 21 once but your gm can be on so many other dates' or something to that effect. awww.....

i still have no idea what i can do for my party. it's like my family dun want to plan the programs all that, but i really can't think of anything special. and somehow, without planning to invite so many people (my target was about 30 people), now the number of positive replies amounts to 53. and somehow, with my mum constantly nagging about the amount of money that she has to spend, i really dunno what other excess programs we can have.

and if you dunno yet, the theme is hats/caps! but well, i really have no idea how many people will follow that theme. it's less than three weeks to my party! and i really hope my braces could be removed by then, but judging by the progress, i really think it's highly unlikely. sigh...

you know i haven't even done ANY SINGLE PIECE OF WORK for this sem! goodness. how lazy can i get. and it's already the 4th week of school...