9 years
Friday, February 03, 2012 - 9:10 AM
hey blog.
today i made the decision to skip a lecture for the sake of meeting a few friends of mine - including one who had returned from aussieland (and was going back soon). it was a nice reunion sans a few people who couldn't make it. at first i was not going to skip the lecture but i hadn't seen them for a long time, and i had school till 8.30, so a break in the middle for the sake of old chums was a no-brainer.
it's nice to see that everyone's coping well with life. everybody's changed but we are still the same. grown up yet immature. everyone has their own set of problems, but we all deal with it in our own way. so sometimes, when i get overwhelmed by the horrible things life throws at me, i know i'm not alone. it's been 9 years and counting, and although we all rarely meet, every time we do it's as if we never left bpghs.
next year will mark a decade of friendship...wow. siti said that we should celebrate it by going on a trip...an awesome idea!
bunch of random stuff
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 6:53 AM
i look fat in recent pictures...time to lose the flab.
i'm pretty bummed out because intro to advertising has group work. i thought it would be group-work free because the course consists of only 3hr weekly lectures.
my amp (or my cable) is not working.
dede suryana is pretty damn cute.
there's astronomy tomorrow. i am such a geek.
the reposts on 9gag are annoying.
i need a schedule book for 2012.
i need money.
my dream is to migrate to some coastal indonesian place and get married to some hot enterpreneur who surfs.
last night, i killed my first ever adult cockroach. with my mom's weapon of destruction: the broom. i left it lying on its back in its death throes. or so i thought. the next morning my mom picked its seemingly dead body and threw itinto the bin only to have it scuttle back out. but she killed it, again.
yeah.
Rollercoaster
Monday, January 23, 2012 - 5:10 AM
The beginning of the year was so horrible for me. Stressed over school and friends. Went through a rollercoaster ride of emotions long enough to last a year. In a few weeks. I'm so glad both issues have been sorted out. I'm quite proud of myself.
About school:
This is going to sound pathetic, but yes. I was stressing about my modules. The module that I wanted badly, astronomy, was oversubscribed to the point that it was ridiculous. Since my first semester it had always clashed with something else. Everything about this module was beautiful. The content. The exam format. The lecture theater. And this time it clashed with nothing. And maybe it could pull my gpa up cos my core modules are...HAHAHAHAH. So i HAD to secure this module this semester. So i camped. Hunched over the laptop, left index finger on the left click button, right ring finger on 'enter'. Click load. Dialog box with "load plan 1?" Ring finger presses enter for ok. Repeat. Load. Ok. Load. Ok. Load. Ok. Load. Ok. 1 vacancy. Minds goes into overdrive, heart beats as twice the normal rate. Click 'add to stars'. Option for add as prescribed or unrestricted appears. Mind goes blank for a split second. But that split second in the universe of course registration in ntu equals to ten years. Click on unrestricted. The page goes white, and appears again, with the dreaded red text 'no vaancy bla bla bla'. Mind bursts into fire, urge to smash fist/face into keyboard is too overwhelming. Cool down. Lather, rinse, repeat.
This stealing of vacancy happened for a few times a day. However, i had already sent in an appeal. But i didn't have my hopes up, so i camped. On the 2nd day of camping (i didn't have any classes), i camped the whole duration stars was open. A few times i smashed my fist into the keyboard. Stopped camping for meals. The next day I had class, but stayed home to camp. At 10.30, i saw a vacancy, an clicked add to stars. But it said 'no course was selected'. I was furious. What the hell do you mean by no course selected. I fucking selected astronomy. Then i checked my registered courses. And lo and behold, astronomy was there. I burst into tears. Hahaha. I checked my email. And there it was, nestled in my inbox. "your appeal has been successful". I couldn't believe it. Haha.
And yesterday, i decided to forgo my plan of retaking business finance. All this while i thought all business modules had tutorials (which i disliked, cos lecture + tutorial is too much effort for me, who will be s/u-ing the business module) but last week i was casually window shopping for business modules and saw a couple of modules that were just 3-hr lectures! And yesterday, even with a splitting, nauseating headache, i camped for it, and secured a vacancy for intro to advertising! And one for my friend too! So proud of myself. Hehe. In the process, i dropped vietnamese. The 2 lessons i attended were sooooo foreign to me. I came in without knowing a single thing about vietnam. Not even how they say hello, or yes or no, or where exactly it is on the map. Except that the national dish is pho and spring rolls are from there. Haha. It is a tonal language (which is frightening for me); six tones in all. And 12 vowels.
So, my final semester studying in school would see me taking 6 modules, unless i take a special semester, which would leave me with 5 modules. Maybe i'll take thai. Then i could blend in in thailand. Hah.
So yeah, yet another entry about school.
Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 7:23 AM
mentally and physically exhausting day.
first was tuition. 1st session. things went smoothly.
then it was off to jb for the usual restocking of inventory. and good food.
and then it was home for a while then...
labrador park! i've been there loads of times but this time we walked around the newly opened boardwalk! beautiful. when you walk past the condos by the marina, it really doesn't look or feel like singapore. it felt like some coastal mediterranean town. gorgeous. for your information, the 3 'canals' in the estate used to be dry docks where ships were maintained! my dad used to work there...as a commercial diver. diving in those 'canals' and making sure the ships were aligned properly, maintaining the gates, etc. i find it really cool! it was so nostalgic for him.
we walked quite a distance...the ending point was this beautiful boardwalk overlooking really clean and blue part of the sea. there were bushes of flowers by the pavement, and overlooking all this was the gorgeous burj-inspired condominium. this whole area is now one of my favourite places in singapore. and then it was the long way back to the car. hehe.
then it was a stopover at ayer rajah for more good food and then home, where i tried to clear things up. hopefully there are no more bad feelings between us.
i shall sleep now. legs feel tired, in a good way.
Monday, January 09, 2012 - 6:01 AM
why am i so useless? unwanted, ignored, left out by my friends. what's wrong with me? :'(
The day before
Saturday, January 07, 2012 - 10:00 PM
Hi blog. So it's me again, and I'm gonna rant about guess what...school.
Tomorrow's the first day of school of Year 3 Sem 2. Am I looking forward to it? Not really. I'll whine on the first few days...then I'll get used to it like every start of a new school semester. Back to the lab again, but I'm comforted by the fact that this would be my last lab module. I know I'll probably have be stuck in a lab during internship...but for now, I'm just happy that this would be the last time I'm graded for a lab module which only ever pulled my gpa down.
Then it would be back to learning Japanese again too. Looking forward to that. Then, before you know it, it'll be the summer vacation again. Like the previous semesters. Especially the last one, which passed by in a whirlwind.
I'm gonna pool my hard-earned money this time for a vacation. In June. I wanna go on two vacations in the summer holidays. One with my friends with my hard-earned money, and another all-expenses paid one with my family. Maybe i'll chip in for accomodation costs. Hehe. See, there i go again, babbling about the summer vacation when the semester hasn't even stared. With my money I'm gonna send my cat for a proper sterilization. This previous one was botched and although she can't get pregnant, she still goes in heat from time to time. Then maybe, i'll get a good camera. And then maybe, maybe, maybe....argh so many things to do and buy with so little money! Such is life...
So tomorrow's the big day...start of school, and for my ex-students! They'll be receiving their O level results. It hasnt't hit me yet but I'm gonna be soooo nervous for them tomorrow!
2012
Sunday, January 01, 2012 - 7:12 PM
so it's 2012 already huh...
the year i turn 22! i know i'd just turned 21 but still...22 sounds old to me.
this may sound pathetic to you, but i've been counting the years since 2009. like when it was 2010, i was like "it's been 1 year since 2009" and when it was 2011, "it's been 2 years since 2009." this year, it'll be 3 years since the best year of my life (so far). why? because i did a lot of new things. the first time i went on a flight, and visited the beautiful island of bali (speaking of which, i have something to say about bali, but i'll explain later), picked up this wonderful thing called scubadiving, started university, went on adults-free trip to kl...the list goes on.
i hope this year would trump 2009. i plan to take up advanced open water certification, then maybe go on a trip to sipadan. hopefully. 2012 would be the year i enter my final year of university too. that was fast. seriously. my four years in secondary school crawled by agonizingly in comparison to this. university was so full of ups and downs, and of course the 3 month vacations made the semesters short too. and honestly, although i was sad to say goodbye to 2011 because it meant saying goodbye to being forever 21, 2011 was pretty uneventful for me. unlike some of my friends who had a blast going on exchange, seeing the world, all i got was a short trip to kl. but i'm thankful for 2011 because it was the best academic year for me (so far). no complaining about that.
so...about bali...
i was waiting for my mum to pick me up from the toa payoh hdb hub when i heard this minahrep talking to her friends...
"anywhere...phuket la, ko phi phi la, krabi la..anywhere but bali! i don't get why people like that place so much."
i have so much to say about this. yeah, you have to admit, the places that most tourists go, like kuta beach are really crowded and have 'tourist trap' written all over. and compared to phuket, the water at kuta beach (the only water that most tourists see) is nowehere near as spectacular and blue and clear as phuket, phi phi etc. but as someone who dives, i know that bali is an amazing place for diving. but the sites are nowhere near the tourist centre which is in southern bali. to get to the sites, you have to set aside a day just to get there. so, non-divers, don't usually see these amazing places.
just google 'tulamben', 'nusa penida', and 'menjangan' to see what bali's about. kuta beach has rough waves and is more suitable for surfing. so people who come to bali thinking it's a snorkeler's paradise get really disappointed when they snorkel at the horrible nusa dua (in the south). that place is chaotic, more suitable for sea sports like jetskiing, parasailing etc. for snorkelling/diving? NO. the coral's dead, the visibility is poor.
but the divemasters are cute. so yes, i'm definitely visiting bali again, but i'm not gonna spend much time in kuta. god willing, i'll visit tulamben!
yeah i might have sounded macam paham there...but that's just my two cents.
