We celebrated Mandark's 19th that day.

meow.

(Sorry yanny-san, you know how we are when we are balls of mess,
but I'm sure your friends gave you an awesome birthday!)
*

My luck with mobile phones this year has been worse than bad.
My hands only got happy with qwerty e71 for 2 weeks before it suddenly dies, and Nokia cannot do anything about it, but repeat the same facts to me more than five times,
and keep on trying to refer me to their superior one level higher than whoever I was speaking to.
After 5 years of being non-Nokia, I think I should remain non-Nokia.
...

(insert illustration of khong guan square sugar crackers and a cup of milo)

I just had breakfast, it's time for bed soon.

;

If I don't live by it,
I don't think Enough will happen.
Oh Voice in my head, you need some talking to.

*

"We forest girls should never try to be jungle girls"

Do you let what you can do determine who you are?

F
i
v
e
。

It's been five years.
That's half a decade,

(random imagery from kiappy!)

since I bounded down the now-familiar carpeted steps,
with Qiao next to me, said the prayer,
had Peter acting as God during the briefing, and finished LTTF in 2 weeks thinking it was daily bread.

How deep an understanding have these five years given me?
How can I go deeper?

I wouldn't have chosen to do these five another way-
the silly sessions at Rix's,
the running madly catching curfew timings after meetings,
the immense joy and amazing changes witnessed- be it good, be it bad.

My God is a personal God.

*

Today, for the first time in 5 years, I saw the Nexus Projector down, or perhaps I simply don't remember another time. At that point I also saw what it means to be a body of Christ and working together, the Lights people worked extra hard, and it was so cute the lights were in rhythm with the music (or has it always been so?), the stage people gave their best and the leaders led, and it was still wonderful.

*

You know how at the end of every few levels or even the final level of games you meet with a "Boss", like that dragon in Mario, Akuma in Puzzle Fighter... (yes I play cute games)..
The previous 'O's boss nearly killed me actually.

And now we have Boss FYP,
Bring it on!
Nothing is impossible! *sings Praise*

Faith Lim and I just dipped wonderful ba kut into black sauce sitting in the cap of my white chocolate mocha. Weird Combi? Yeh.

'Cause Cong, Gwen and Ian sent us love- aka food,
Balestier Ba Kut Teh! to the doors of the 24hours NP's Starbucks,
while our fingers are on campbooklet.indd

We shocked but we fought.

Did you realise, each new crossroad is hitting us faster than the previous?
We had 6 years of innocence before we flipped through that thick booklet and made some choices based on 3 digits that haunt our lives forever, poof sec sch. 4 years before emotions run high and we tore open result slips and then JC/Poly, 2/3 flying! years to Uni/Work.



Have your decision-making factors changed along the way?

It was dreams & aspirations, then it was money and survival.
It was doing what you love, then it was loving what you do.

What will you lose to gain?

Today, while listening to the staff at FoodforThought sing Chris Tomlin's My Deliverer and chomping on my chocolate banana malteaser, I wanted to type "Mighty Deliverer" and instead, I typed, Mighty Deliverable.

(& I did it again while typing this entry!)

"I'm beginning to think chasing dreams is only for the rich"


ah, tell me about it.

Mass blogging, please breathe and count 2 seconds at every *, haha!

2 weeks ago, when I was waiting at the airport conveyor belt for my luggage, I got a call from Xin to get out of the glass doors first, and these are the first friends I saw after three months- 3 of my favourite people!



They sang me a birthday song, gave me a huge cake that has wax everywhere from waiting for me, and I had to leave in 5 minutes :X but I really appreciate you guys for turning up in the East for me.

And lucky lays, the surprise didn't stop there.
They gave me the best birthday present anyone had given for so long- they packed up my room!



(this is my living room, my room is a vast improvement from last time! but i refuse to post photos of my room online HAHA)

It really touched me so, because my sty houses countless dust bunnies, and they were all sniffing away while packing. These 7 years we have come make me comfortable enough to not feel paiseh about them rummaging through all my nonsense! I can really breathe in here now, & yes friends, I'm trying to keep it in that state ya, *pushes stack of fancy papers under sofa and table discreetly.
Thank you so much. ='D

*

10 days late still didn't stop the caregroup from making my 19th memorable.



I was told that there's something really important we need to discuss after MinOps meeting, so I went along with everyone and found ourselves at Cafe Cartel nibbling on half-priced cakes. Then came this platter of sushi surrounding a cheese cake with super cute candles. And I got forced to wear cute handband with pompom ends sticking out and a shiny metallic mask.



For every affirmation they say that starts with "I like Lays because...", I have a little hot pink smiley on my face > : ) and I ended up like that. There was even a guest star Vampire who happened to be there with his guys and came to share the fun of sticking stuff on me.

I appreciate every single one of your words. Yes, my top love language is words and I will have this dazed paiseh look when I get affirmed publicly, but all your words really made me happy.

Thank you,



*

Went to catch Coraline with T0.25 (a quarter of the class) one day when we skipped school, whoops.
I was so sad when I landed in HK 3 months ago and it has finished showing there.
I didn't regret one bit watching it on the big screen!






photos courtesy of tribute.ca & google

Go catch it, we felt that we paid too little for the movie when it was already 10 bucks for 3D.
It's wonderful, engaging, and made a bunch of graphic students depressed.
In other words, a wonderful visual feast, especially if you appreciate stop motion.
Watch the making of video!
They had to create the characters, move them frame by frame, shoot and string it all into that hour long wonderfilm.



This is one show you cannot download, please!

*

The little photoshloop was a whole lot of fun too.





though mostly, allan was the one working,
while we stood by him in hope of full morale boost.





The most wonderful part is that we get to have all the food after that! hehehehe.

*



Halloween @ night safari didn't work out because of the super heavy rain,
and we ended up playing Monopoly at the cousin's, because I refuse to play daidee hahaha.
It's fun besides the fact I keep going to jail and landing on the first GO! box and I have no chance to buy anything T_T Tough luck.

*

The last time I headed out with this woman



Raffles City just had their mega Xmas tree on,
and this time round they were just putting it on, meaning is has been almost a year, my friend.



We had Out Of the Pan's crepes.
Peking duck wraps/anything any day for me!

Walked about the place, she updated me with her uni life but I think I will need a mindmap to keep track of all the names.

*

Little Isaac had a performance at the CC with his other playschool/kindergarten schoolmates, and I went to catch it with the god-aunt, Ber, who loves my nephew so.



This is some new biz stunt where a photo studio takes photos of the little kids in their costume, good lighting and simple props and sell it printed and framed to parents who ahhh at it like my sis for like over twenty bucks. tsk! I thought some of the photos look like the perfect print Ad for child labour/trafficking awareness, hehehehe.



It's super scary how all the parents swarmed to the stage with their dslrs and videocams once the emcee started her first line.



That's my cute nephew with his mouth O-ing.



There were cute smiley kids,



& those who sob and reach out to their mums offstage.



This photo really reminds me of the one I took... 15 years ago? HAHA.
I was the first one to walk out onto stage for DANCE performance back then.
Why? 'cause short. Runs in the family.

My sis took a photo with me back then and the bro-in-law has been threatening to put it on FB.
Ah and now she is watching her kid perform at the CC.



Spot the minnie mouse?

This reminds me of Army's POP and how such events really make me feel Singapore is such a nice little island with happy people that engage in such cute little "important" events enthusiastically haha.

*

& a few days ago, celebrated Puay's 22nd.
(I really hate FB grainy photos)



A combined effort and hard work resulted in her giant handmade penguin mascot (when da-gwen asked if it was live-size, I was going to say yes when I rmb no, penguins are a lot smaller!), and they accompanied her down the streets of Orchard with it and got many stares (it's like belated Halloween), till they ended up at Ion's Swensens, where Faith and I are sitting calmly.



These three shared a banana crumble because "soh easier to ****!!!" and caught Michael Jackson's This Is It as an impromptu affair with huax & zyann.
MJ, you're a legend. It was mind blowing, the making-ofs of the MTVs that were to be shown during the concert. It would've have been so amazing. Is he rocking it out in heaven?


Yes, Lays, continue to have a life during FYP,
just don't flunk it.

The Somnambulist by artandghosts on Etsy
I love this print very much.
I should adopt that tinge of indifference she has with that nose held high and skipping steps.

I survived crit one.
Not really victoriously, but at least I didn't get whack to the ground with their words with spears. Thank God for friendly lecturers in my group.

*

"What are you impressed by?"
I think this is an important question. It determines your aspirations and who/what you can be.
"You know it's like a gorgeous swimming pool but when you jump in, you hit the floor so quickly."
There's always a desire to change, to create betterment in all of us.
Problems that will never be fixed, till the end of time.

*

I was suddenly reminded by the voice in my head about the girl I was last time, before I knew.
I think knowledge bounds one's creativity somehow.
I used to doodle everywhere and draw rather frequently, because pencil/zig markers forming amazing things on paper intrigues me more than Maria Hertogh riots, the human reproductive system (which I can never label correctly -_-) and logarithms. I flipped through the '06 diary I made solely in Microsoft Word and laughed at the horrible pixelated handphone photos I have proudly laid out and printed. That little notebook of words I strung together and sms Pang from time to time is still lying in the drawer.

I used to create fearlessly, without judgment and enjoyed so much from the process.
Stepping foot into a Design school and learning more each day (not necessarily from the school) drowns that artist in the designer, and suddenly, my eyes can judge "good" from a kind of "bad", suddenly my mind tells my hand what to do, and the heart grows more silent day by day.

Lays, you spend too much time trying to be someone else.
Let me find that courage again.

*

Many wonderful things have happened back in the familiar SG,
(so comfortable it feels like I haven't gone for 3 months at all),
and they will be on the blog, really soon.

It's always things you think you understand & know & have grown used to doing,
that one day you realise...
hey, maybe i don't understand it, very much.

Give me a chance again,
Create.

They say designers solve problems.
They teach us how to solve problems visually, all the time.

Now, now, when it comes to the time to identify a problem.
It's like I have been living in a cave for a really long time.