and so a friend has left for Melbourne and another has left for New Zealand, both embarking on the adventures of their lives.... i'm so glad for and envious of them and inspired at the same time, and hopeful. that one day i will be able to live out my dream, too.
a photo a post....
this hearty looking breakfast was whipped up with tender loving care by dominic and gang during our Australia grad trip - they left earlier in the morning that day in Melbourne i think to Victoria Queen Market but jon and i decided to sleep in abit more. and when we woke up, this sinfully delicious breakfast greeted us :) it must have been one of my best breakfast to date - piping hot bacon, sausage and egg in cold weather prepared by good friends and shared with the boyfriend. ahhh just thinking about it feels me with warmth now. lol. and sigh, i really miss Australia.
now 2011 is here, and really it's just another day, the moving of the clock hands; but the end of one thing can only mean a fresh new start for something else and the looking forward to the betterment of things. and even though last night we didn't get to see fireworks, but the spending of the eve of the new year with the boyfriend and our friends was good enough for me.
i'm also finally gainfully employed, and i'm looking forward to what this new year and new start would bring. talking to friends yesterday, as long as i know the intentions behind my actions and hold on to my dreams, i can try to fight the settling for second best and settling down for mediocrity and mundane-ness. as long as i know that sometimes the practical needs to come before the ideal, and as long as i know my purpose in doing the things i do, and as long as i know what i want to be doing in the next few years and not lose sight.... hopefully, prayerfully things can and will be better. i can only move one step at a time, but i'm trusting that God holds everything perfect in His hands.
happy 2011 my friends! have a great year filled with laughter, love and warmth because you know you deserve it ♥
but anyhow. Rapunzel is a must-watch for everyone whether or not you grew up with Disney films or not! it tells you to follow your heart, chase your dreams, step out of your comfort zone and venture into the unknown, and when one dream is over, have another dream...i could really relate to that. i'm having all these fanciful ideas and dreams right now but i also know i gotta be practical and look at my financial constraints. but well at least December is turning out to be a good month, from the looks of it :) wishing everyone an amazing and magical December xx.
snapshots:
a friend's cat. cute, but grumpy ;)
on the way to a simple lunch from his place.
life's simple pleasure.
the pattern of the seats' cushions at the coffeehouse. i love prints and patterns.
at a friend's fyp art exhibition.
her art piece. the paint was specially made to trickle down constantly, providing movement.
xx
the group dynamics was incredible - no one was trying to hoard the limelight and everyone was genuinely interested in what each other was saying. there was no qualms sharing snippets and interesting anecdotes for the benefit of one another. the topics discussed were plentiful and rich, from serious and meaningful topics such as whether a husband should offer his female colleague a lift back home in his car to fun facts like a duck having a penis shaped like a helix.
we were there courtesy of dom, who invited us over to his friend's place to just chill and have some (non-alcholic) drinks after his church service. usually in a group setting if i don't get to talk much or if i remain silent for too long, i will get sulky and uncomfortable. but in this particular setting, even though i didn't really get to talk or voice my opinions much because we were visitors and not part of their close-knit group of friends; i thoroughly enjoyed myself just sitting there listening to their conversation where i really learnt alot. it was an eye-opener and it definitely widened my horizon.
it was a really interesting way to spend the night, the experience was almost orgasmic, it's mind-blowingly good ;) jon felt the same way too. it's true, sometimes all you need is good company and good conversation; no need for music, good food or alcohol ;)
xx
so last week my little sis dated me out to this cafe called Around De World, located at liang seah street. it was also my belated birthday treat ;)
joyce had bolognaise fries as part of her starters. it's pretty appetizing, but i didn't try much though, my starters was Caesar salad heh. i'll definitely have the fries the next time i go!
my love for marinara never dies - i almost always try marinara at any pasta place. the one at Around De World took some getting used to though...maybe i'm more used to the garlicky taste of pastamania's. sis says this tastes of abit of wine hmm.
her chicky pesto, which was... another taste to be acquired. but it was pretty decent.
the desserts was pretty good. it was vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and oreo chocolate bits.... yummy.
xx
on saturday, dom invited jon and i to this TEDx seminar... basically it's this platform for the sharing of ideas pertaining to anything at all as well as a bit of a networking session. it was a pretty insightful and enlightening time for us.
that's dom and i preparing to throw our paper planes with our dreams and hopes for the future written inside..... now at first i was kinda skeptical about this whole seminar thing. i'm always skeptical about such organied group structures - "maybe they're trying to sell us something!" "maybe it's a cult" "maybe it's MLM" or "maybe it's some form of propoganda for something else" etc. but i was proven wrong.
at the end of the thing, nobody got my email or contact number for anything, and we weren't sold anything or made to buy anything. it was purely a platform for the sharing and exchanging of ideas. pretty neat, i say.
one of the speakers was Adrianna Tan, a pretty famous travel blogger (you can check out her blog here) and below is an illustrated summary of her talk that day.
work hard to travel? just travel! it was really inspiring :)
at the end of the seminar, Charles Stitch Wong (of Singapore idol fame) was on stage to sing and do some beatboxing. i actually knew him many years ago back in church, and it was funny 'cos he was teaching the audience how to beatbox when he suddenly saw me in the audience and said, "oh hello" in the mike. lol.
the day then ended with me getting to know this lawyer and a girl who works at terrappin and knows jane; before proceeding to dom's youth church service, dinner at ikea (oh meatballs and salmon and potatoes! xx) and the aforementioned amazing group conversation at dom's friend's rooftop on the fifth level under the cooling night sky. xx
these past few coupla days have not been the best for me emotionally - it was as if i was on a wild roller-coaster ride that only kept going lower and lower, and i know i only have myself to blame. bad judgment, terrible mistakes, regrets, hurt and tears... but i'm glad things are getting better and whether or not things ultimately work out in the end, i would be glad that we were given this second chance.
p.s. i've taken down my previous post as it reeked of too much negativity and i don't want to risk offending anyone. but elizabeth, i got your message. thanks for the concern! like you said i should learn to rise up above myself and not be too affected :)
happy hari raya and happy public holiday my working friends! xx
sometime ago i posted an excerpt from Kent Nerburn's Letters to My Son on travelling. today i'm going to post another excerpt from his book on working and i hope that this will inspire and benefit at least one person out there the way it has inspired me, as well as serving as a reminder to myself as i search for a job, and in years to come:
"...So few take the time when they are young to explore the real meaning of the jobs they take or to consider the real implications of the occupations to which they commit their lives.
Some have no choice. Without money, without training, with the pressures of life building around them, they choose the best alternative that offers itself. But many others just fail to see clearly. They chase false dreams, and fall into traps they could have avoided if they had listened more closely to their hearts when choosing their life's work.
But even if you listen closely to your heart, making the right choice is difficult. You can't really know what you want to do by thinking about it. You have to do it and see how it fits. You have to let the work take you over until it becomes you and you become it; then you have to decide whether to embrace it or to abandon it. And few have the courage to abandon something that defines their security and prosperity.
Yet there is no reason why a person cannot have two, three or more careers in the course of a life. There is no reason why a person can't abandon a job that does not fit anymore and strike out into the unknown for something that lies closer to the heart. There is risk, there is loss, and there likely will be privation. If you have allowed your job to define your sense of self-worth, there may even be a crisis of identity. But no amount of security is worth the suffering of a life lived chained to a routine that has killed all your dreams....
...I once had a professor who dreamed of being a concert pianist. Fearing the possibility of failure, he went into academics, where the work was secure and the money was predictable. One day, when I was talking to him about my unhappiness in my graduate studies, he walked over and sat down at his piano. He played a beautiful glissando and then, abruptly, stopped. "Do what is in your heart," he said. "I really only wanted to be a concert pianist. Now I spend every day wondering how good I might have been."
Don't let this be your epitaph at the end of your working life. Find what burns in your heart and do it. Choose a vocation, not a job, and you will be at peace. Take a job instead of finding a vocation, and eventually you will find yourself saying, "I've only got thirteen more years to retirement," or "I spend every day wondering how good I might have been."
We all owe ourselves better than that."
and hopefully all i need.
i need to hold on and believe that i will see
the light at the end of the tunnel soon.
because when all else fails,
and i feel rejected,
i know there is the One who will
never forsake nor abandon me.
cooking is my newfound love.
i figured, since i love to eat and i've plenty of time to spare these days, why not? ;) of course prawning the other day with jon in a simple dress-down affair to celebrate my birthday also provided a further boost.
we caught (only) five prawns in three hours (boohoo but not too bad for beginners i say) and on the way back in the car i was excitedly thinking of what to do with the prawns now resting snugly in the plastic bag at the backseat.
without a doubt really, i had to cook butter garlic prawns since i love both butter and garlic. so i went onto google to search for some recipies, bought the necessary ingredients and got down to business.
it was simple, really. there were a variety of recipies online but i picked the gist and did my own. the basic ingredients were butter, garlic, parsley and lemon juice but parsley was unavailable in the few grocery marts i went to so i had to make do without it. oh and of course i had to buy more prawns since cooking just five prawns would be quite pathetic ;)
ready to serve!i put extra butter so it could be used as a dip for bread and ah, i think my first attempt at butter garlic prawns went pretty well if i could say so myself! i let my family and jon had some and the comments were pretty positive (of course i hope they weren't just trying to make me feel good about myself lol).
i'm now lemming to try out other recipies and cook other food and stuff my loved ones with some homecooked food cooked with TLC hahaha.
the guys and i went over to dom's house to make pancakes from the mix we received from a friendly local when we were visiting Hillsong church in sydney.
jon and justin mixing water with the mix.
the guys fooling around.
i placed the mixing bowl a tad too close the fire :x
i was trying to be funny.
the end product. okay i know it doesn't really look great here, but it tasted okay and we had fun while at it. heh.random picture of chilli crab and mantous from my birthday celebration dinner with my family:
it was damn good can? :D even right now my sis and i are salivating at the thought of the crabs... oh and there were complimentary fruits from the coffeeshop after dinner too, not bad.some pictures from kelvin's 10.10.10 wedding:
helped out as a jiemei early in the morning preparing the items for the groom's gatecrash.
after the tea ceremony and all, we adjourned to Hotel Royal to prepare for the night's event, but not before taking a much-needed nap lol.
the groom and the bride :)
jon and his twin brother on stage entertaing the crowd with their lame jokes (what's new lol).
it was pretty fun to be the emcee for the night, i gotta say. i wouldn't mind being an emcee again, i can only get better, yes? any friends getting married soon can ask me to be your emcee ok hahaha
my family was invited too, a table group shot to end off the night! it was pretty fun to be involved in a wedding for an entire day, now that i've got more experience, i can only be a better help for my friends' weddings in time to come hehe. saw this on Postsecret and it really resonates with me (well, minus the Ph.D part of course).
i guess this is my motto and my mantra right now, or rather has been all along. i'm in my 20s, i'm only young once and i wanna enjoy the simple pleasures of life and be young and crazy before i regret!
