freedom lost

tmr is the start of one month of gruelling weekdays, precious weekends and dull black and whites.

oh gosh. im gonna start working. god help me, esp with my pathetic black court shoes. ugliest pair i've ever owned, worst buy of my life.

neurasthenia

I hope this old train breaks down
Then I could take a walk around
See what there is to see
Time is just a melody
With all the people in the street
Walking as fast as their feet can take them
I just roll through town
And though my window's got a view
Well the frame I'm looking through
Seems to have no concern for now so for now I

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown

Well this engine screams out loud
Centipede gonna crawl westbound
So I don't even make a sound
Because it's gonna sting me when I leave this town
And all the people in the street
That I'll never get to meet
If these tracks don't bend somehow
And I got no time that I got to get
To where I don't need to be so I

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown

I want to break on down
But I can't stop now
Let me break on down

But you can't stop nothing if you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind that you kept and you know
That you don't know nothing but you don't need to know
The wisdom's in the trees not the glass windows
You can't stop wishing if you don't let go
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know
You keep on rolling, put the moment on hold
Because the frame's too bright, so put the blinds down low

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please breakdown

I got to break on down
But I can't stop now

these 2 days

were gd. the stayover was great, tho i slept too much. had good fun, good food, good rest and sweet memories. went shopping this afternoon. tho i was still super tired, i just cldnt stop shopping till i bought smth. and that thing turned out to be a simple dress from.... 37degrees! haha im young again, or trying to be.

then it was off to the movies at night - pirates! with rich, elspeth and ryan. nice! duh. johnny depp leh. next up... yu pian tang. what else? heh.

i dread next tues.

burnt

supposed to head out for wild wild wet today. got my gear ready, dressed in bikini and sarong, arrived at the entrance of www only to realise its closed on every tues - of all days. anyway headed down to tampines instead and swam and tanned and got burnt.

on the way there, i was still complaining tt it was already 2plus and the sun's not gonna have any effect on the colour of my skin anymore. and now my face is burning. urgh. but i had fun in the pools, swimming, going on the children's slides and hanging out on the sun deck.

went down to tampines mall after tt and i was impressed by the variety of shops in that neighbourhood mall. when will hougang mall or junction8 or northpoint be like tampines? sigh.

then it was time for maggi & me! oh rich totally impressed us again with his very natural acting, didnt he? well, at least one TNP tv critic agrees with me. turn to pg32 of today's (tues) TNP and u'll know what am i talking abt. briefly, he/she (cant rem the gender) complimented adrian and fiona for their acting skills but in the last paragraph, he/she stated that the best find was still RICHMOND with his rubber face and great acting. basically, he/she thought that rich was hilarious. well done chicken little! *pat pat*

ok time for a bath.

MY dinner.

i absolutely love the feeling when ppl tell me they love my cooking. a few hrs ago, i prepared a sumptous meal for my family - stir-fried garlic pepper prawns, grilled salmon with sambal, boiled chicken with sesame oil, stir-fried cabbage with minced meat and mushrooms, and carrot-potato-onion soup. everyone loved it, i think, even my sister's bf. cos i only received positive feedback.

oh and rich came to join us awhile later. he didnt believe i prepared all those dishes. i made him ask my mum then he shockingly accepted the truth. somehow he kept thinking my mum must have taught or helped me in some ways. hello? the only one time my mum stepped into the kitchen while i was at work was to ask when will dinner be ready. she was more than happy that she didnt have to prepare dinner for a day so she made use of the chance fully by staying beside my dad the whole time watching tv while i slogged away. anyway rich loved the food, tts why he didnt believe they were prepared by me. oh well.

im not complaining cos i actually love cooking, without the washing. realised im quite creative when im in the kitchen cos i didnt actually use the cookbook except for the prawns. cos seafood is super expensive in uk so i dont have much experience cooking them. but hey, it turned out super delicious. all the plates were cleaned up by the very appreciative ppl, including my maid. and i mean by eating everything off the plates. sweet.

oh and thank u chicken little for bringing over those satays. my family loves it.

thinking about what i should cook next... hmm

my weekend.

spent friday night with gorilla and momo, with rich being the intruder - again. haha he's supposed to be with his friends at MOS tt night but one of them was not feeling well, so both went back and left him alone. anyway the music sucked at phut tt night. guess the dj was trying smth new but apparently, it was not working, at least not for us. so to my surprise, gorilla suggested going for supper at 1plus! of cos, i did not complain, how cld i? it's food.

so the 4 of us went to have our favourite supper - yu pian tang at amk. heh. the night was made lively again by the heated debate between the ever-irritating rich and our dear momo who never fails to tickle us with her random and incoherent answers to rich's qns. and with gorilla grinning away the whole night, ecstatic over e fact tt rich was changing his target from her to poor momo. kekeke. i was just busy with my sliced fish as usual.

oh and once again, a big thank you to my dear babes - momo, gorilla and fanchoy, for the beautiful bikini from surfer girls. momo actually remembered me saying tt yellow piece was so pretty but unfortunately, the price was even more beautiful so i walked out of the shop empty-handed. but my dear babes made me the proud owner of it now. ;)

hmm sat afternoon was spent at IMH with our best buddies. sadly, rich's 'bro' - the big indian guy with an even bigger tummy who murmurs, fancied me over rich. heh heh. met some of the female patients too and they are just as adorable, perhaps even livelier than the males. oh and some of the volunteers kept calling me the ambassador for IMH. *scratches head* Can't wait till the next session, but it's another fortnight away. SIGH.

then it was down to the hosp to visit rich's mum. we received a great news - she shld be able to get discharged on monday if nothing goes wrong. yippee! finally!

had pastamania at cine for supper and rich bought me a nice off-shoulders top. thank you!

today is family day. and guess what? i'll be cooking for my dearest ones. kekeke. hmm hopefully, it'll be a spread. baked salmon with butter and belachan, cabbage with minced meat, chicken soup and chicken rice. ok off i go to NTUC now.

till then.

harsh reality

yup 2 hrs before our flight took off, we called to cancel our bangkok trip. now we have to appeal to get at least one small part of our money back. hopefully those ppl out there will be able to empathise with our situation.

the past few days we witnessed some things we have never seen or heard in our lives. there were certain ups and downs but for most of the time, everything seemed solemn and bleak, except the occassional forced laughters. it seemed that no one else had gone through what we were going through - the insanity, the pain, the silence, the pandemonium, the inertia, the stillnes and the tears. but well, we'll never know eh. afterall, it is almost impossible to be happy in that sort of place. behind every face around us, i guess there's bound to be a sad story.

when will this tragedy finally come to an end? is there really light at the end of the tunnel?

if so, how long more do we have to travel?

sitting, waiting, wishing.

its 4 hours before we are set to fly. and we may be forfeiting our trip afterall, prob not able to get any money back.

oh well, if we have to stay, we'll stay. sometimes fate can be so cruel huh.

MOS-ing

MOS on wed was fun. well i never knew i cld have great fun in MOS. we hopped from hiphop to electro to retro. and everywhere we go, we had one hell of a time. guess it was partly cos of e alcohol at work. me and daph were drinking nonstop but still, we only got just a little high. damn.

jit keng and me made a pact not to drive there cos all of us agreed to get high tt night. but damn, the alcohol was just not strong enough. and i actually ordered long island tea for most part of the night. all of us went back goddamn sober. but thank god i didnt drive cos just like 500m away from MOS, there was a roadblock. phew.

ryan was spinning electro in pure for an hr so we had to be there to support him. i've never danced to electro before this but man was that crazy. we were trying to move to that robotic-tune and it was just pure fun.

hiphop was sexy, with all that grooving and grinding. heh. man can my uk friends dance, and so can rich. cheers to them!

retro was funny. gerald was trying hard to teach us the mambo moves. and we were trying to adopt them with a little polishing to make them our style. we had a great time clowning around.

rich intro-ed me to one of his artistes, howard. hm thats e 1st guy that i've met who's actually an artiste and yet seems smaller than rich. heh. but he's a cool guy, very friendly. oh and thanks rich for bringing all my guy friends in for free. they were happy being VIPs for a night. cheap thrill. ;)

well that kinda sums up wed night. and it's not gonna stop there, is it?

oh lun is back and pek will be back in 3 days' time. we're gonna have more fun then eh? and they are gonna bring my bday pressies back. keke. sweet.

leicesterians

met up with daph, mon, gerald gn and xy for singsoc meeting last night. glad that we were quite productive and got most work done though we got chased out of the new lib and out of orchard lib. ;)

then daph, mon, gerald goh, jit keng, rich and me went to catch Thank You for Smoking. Not a bad show but mon hated it cos it was 90% talking, not much action. It's a clever movie with pretty intelligent jokes though the movie's a little meaningless. but if u're not those who will get the not-in-your-face jokes, you'll probably hate it.

after which rich went back home to rest and the rest of us went up to marina south for 2 games of bowling. i was the top scorer for both games! ;D heh jk cldnt get over losing to a girl. anyway jk was driving recklessly la. haiya im still the safest yet efficient driver.

just came back from tutoring the underprivileged kids. hmm interesting experience. shant elaborate much. it's a learning experience for me but a tiring one though. then tonight, it'll be MOS-ing again. rich bringing the male leicesterians in for free and the girls will just stroll in on this ladies night.

tmr's not gonna be another happening day for me. im gonna visit my grandpa in the morning then it's time to be a gd girl and stay home to acc my family before i fly off to bangkok on sat. wheet.

IMH

spent a day at IMH with rich and other Achievers volunteers. prior to my virgin day there, i've been receiving feedback about how insane tt place is. but to the contrary, me and rich felt so comfortable there.

well, firstly, the place is decorated like a huge, beautiful chalet with mini gardens everywhere. and when i say huge, i mean huge. if anyone ever plays hide-and-seek there, you can spend at least a month seeking the hiders. and though the sun was unmerciful in the afternoon, surprisingly, it's pretty windy over there.

secondly, the patients are well, not like anyone i have known in my entire life. duh. they are special but they are not harmful. in fact, some of them are so simple-minded we felt so at ease interacting with them. they played games with us, talked to us, one even danced with rich. but they have no ulterior motives, except to get those sweets off our hands. so we use the sweets as 'carrots' to encourage them to open up and interact with us.

they dont know whats jealousy (except when they see one patient having more sweets than them), they dont know how to do evil (other than to steal sweets when we're not looking). in fact when rich told one volunteer that "IMH spells sanity, the world outside is the place tts insane", i fully agree with him.

ok enough of the serious stuff, lets talk abt the patients. well, some of them behave quite normally actually. one volunteer told us that in fact, a handful of them may long have been in a stable condition but because they have no relatives and friends, they cant be let out in case something outside triggers the worst in them again. tts such a sad thing to hear.

these patients here do not see the world outside IMH except once in a blue moon when the volunteers organise a day out with them to a park or something. yes 'once in a blue moon' is the phrase. still, there are only a selected few who can actually be let out with the volunteers.

hmm we interacted with quite a number of them during their interaction time. some are really talented at chess, table-tennis, basketball and what not. some prefer to sit down and talk abt their family and probs. one big indian guy with this super huge round belly is rich's best friend. he seems to tickle rich alot. the whole time, rich just kept going back to talk to him cos apparently, he mumbles alot and nobody can understand him which tickles rich. and rich just mumbled back. and rich loves to punch his belly and lure him with sweets cos he has this i-dont-care-bout-the-world attitude which changes immediately when u offer him a sweet, and only when u offer him one. aiya tt rich ah, just loves to disturb tt poor guy.

another guy seems to have a crush on me. haha. i spent quite some time talking to him and suddenly, his conversation turned cheeky. then he kept asking why im not angry when rich patted my back cos a male cannot touch a female. then the whole time after, his eyes just kept following me ard the room. heh. kinda freaky but he's actually quite a nice guy.

then there's this another guy who came to me and said, "there are alot of tigers outside, alot alot. you better be careful." to which i said, "yea. so its better if we stay inside huh." another guy went up to rich and ask him to look out for a lieutenant in e room. then there's this indian guy who asked rich if he can dance like michael jackson. rich said yes, followed by a brief performance. but the guy shook his head after rich's performance, muttered nooooo... and walked away. tt was hilarious. this same indian guy came up to me and told me tt his bro is fat and he's fit. then he asked if i like his brother or him. to which i obviously said him. then he proudly told me he has 5 girlfriends, 2 of which are his wives.

the conversations with them are just so different, in a gd way. cos somehow, i enjoyed them. some of them never failed to make me laugh. i just love them all, and im happy to know tt rich feels exactly the same way as me. in fact, we r already missing them. too bad the next session is a fortnight away.

anybody interested?

hairy business

i cut my hair! freaking short but not short enough.

its like too short to tie or do anything nice yet too long to look tidy. so well, its just like a bomb, exploded bomb, when im wearing no gel. oh crap. what have i done?

other than the bad haircut, mummy brought me shopping for corporate wear today to prepare for my internship. i took pains choosing and trying those bright, smart and pretty shirts only to find out from my senior that the colour code for staff at the law firm is usually the ever-so-boring black and white. well, technically there's no strict colour code but just that most ppl play safe by wearing those dull colours. ok looks like i have to go exchange my great buys. urgh

but its been a nice day out with my family. ended the day with dinner at amk ave 10 with dad, mum and sis. had fried oyster, bbq chicken wings, sliced fish beehoon soup, froglegs and bbq stingray! yummylicious. my parents just spoil me with food when im back. im not complaining though. ;)

oh btw my mum's complaining tt im fat and cant stop nagging at me over my food intake. gosh. then agn im really growing a tummy now, gotta start learning how to use the Uzap tt my sis bought. zap away all u dirty oily thing in my tummy!

an inspiration at last

have been pondering if i shld find a part-time job in UK while studying cos obviously, the money is gd. but then i'll be struggling with my studies, cos knowing me, i'll be tired out easily and will probably skip lessons agn. hmm...

and then an inspiration came. as i'll be going bangkok on the 15th, i'll source for gd buys and sell them off in UK's ebay. heh heh. anyway UK's fashion is one season behind SG so i can 'import' SG's trend into UK. mostly, i'll be focusing on accessories, so there will be alot of sourcing for chains, beads, hooks, belts, bags etc cos it's supposedly dirt-cheap in thai. moreover, take the exchange rate for baht-pounds. sweeeeet.

so happy! my mum even mentioned tt she'll help me with the accessories part. well my mum has goosd fashion taste and she's good with handicraft, so well.. bingo!

anyway the past wk had been pretty eventful. so eventful my mum cldnt stop nagging this morning. but i must admit tt she had a reason to nag la.

monday - hung out with rich watching soccer
tues - went for mala with fel and shups. as usual, i ate much more than them. heh but it was nice just catching up on old times.
wed - rich passed his driving test! yay! and we went shopping to celebrate. shopped for MY things. heh
thurs - met up with uk frens - daph, mon and gerald. had a satisfying dinner at Holland V's CJ la-mian xiaolongbao and then down to acid bar and had a ball of a time drinking, singing and grooving away. it was the band's last night so it was fun.
fri - met up with rich for mala agn. hehe. and shopped ard with the gorilla. she had a long list of stuff to buy but in e end, i bought more stuff than her. sigh. then it's down to zoukie. gorilla was brainwashed by me the whole day and night & she eventually went down to zouk with me to meet up with shi, mel and rach seet. after tt was supper, hmm didnt really like e food there though.
sat - went to travel agency to book the bangkok trip and shopped ard at marina sq n suntec with rich but didnt get anything. then it was down to Butter Factory with rich to meet up with my poly frens - laura's last night in SG before she flies off to Melbourne for studies. i like the club though, so much better than phuture cos i had more room to dance and the crowd was more mature. wld definitely recommend the club. had fun with rich on the dancefloor - he's still the best dance partner so far. he just stands out on the danceflr with his grooves and tt cocky attitude. ;)
today - going for a sumptous dinner with my family. they're hollering at me now so i gtg.

life has been good so far.