It's New Year's Eve! There's about half an hour more to the year 2006... Oh well I guess it'll be the start of another year. Okie I'll provide the analysis for 2005 later... More about today first.

Went out for lunch with my parents, then I hopped over to Jericho for the Annual General Meeting for all Jericho committee members and associate members. It turned out to be quite structural and technical, and Jericho had a net income of $713.58. And I didn't know that the total expenses for one year alone amounted to so much! The meeting was a bit adult-ish too, maybe that's what it'll be like when I enter the working arena? Haiz. I hate growing up and facing the reality of things. I wish I'll remain happily in my teenage years, those years where the guys go for the toys and the girls go for the boys. Hee hee!

Then I came home for a while, before going out again back to Jericho for the youth leaders' prayer meeting. Sarah and Amelia Yeo joined us too, cos they're likely to be in the youth leaders team next year. Or should I say, this coming year in less than 20 minutes time. It was great! Worship was really moving, and God had so much to say to all of us. Erm, I really really want to be a tree, to just soak up the water, anchor my roots and bask in the sun, and let all the squirrels climb up and the birds rest on my branches. Whoo! What a life!

After prayer meeting ended, Yurong was trying to drag me out to Esplanade with her for the countdown. Biru and Clarissa are already heading there to meet their friends, but Yurong didn't want to go with them cos they'll be with their friends... And so we stayed back in Jericho to play table soccer. First time ever when I won her three times in a row!! Then watched Aaron and Daniel smacking their way through on table tennis, before we all headed out. Me and Yurong decided to be "lights of the world" and followed Kat and Daniel to the bus-stop, cos we had nothing to do and didn't want to go home either. All the time the two of us were expressing our fears about being left unmarried by 30 and whether we should consider a "serious" relationship and commenting on why couples hold hands by their pinkies and whatever rubbish. Seriously, if I'm still single by 27, I'll just about find any girl and marry her. Haha... THERE'S STILL TAMMY!! Okie there's hope!

Five more minutes to the new year. Let's see, in 2005 I became a Salvation Army soldier, and that decision changed my life. I got elected for NJ Green Link presidency, and that got me so busy and in touch with the green scene in Singapore. I took up Fellowship Committee leadership, and now I'm getting encouraged by all the thanks and acknowledgements of my work. I committed myself to Jericho's new youth committee, and I'm not looking back.

And on top of that, I still have my awesome cell group, who never fails to inspire me whenever I feel like crap. And I got to know two awesome classes, 05A01 in first three months and 05A01 now. I remember at this time last year, I was fretting what to bring or do on first day of school. Now, I'm an Orientation Group Leader and I've got this bunch of kids that I need to call to tell them what to bring. How time flies...

And I got to know so many people better. Some of whom I've been friends for so many years but we don't hang out much, and now we share our experiences together. And I've made so many new friends this year that I can't possibly keep up with the identification of all of them.

I know I'm so much closer to all my female friends. Well it's not my fault. What can I do if the girls just keep piling themselves onto me?? HEE HEE!! But seriously, I've got very very good girl friends... JIA MEIN!!! ATIQAH!!! CHIEW YEE!!! ELEANOR!!! YURONG!!! BIRU!!! SHUFFLE!!! SIEW!!! TAMMY!!! List in no particular order, you girls were great friends. Shopping, going for movies, screaming, eating, doing everything together... Thanks for treating me like a girl, and thanks for allowing me to treat you like a guy. Haha!!

And to Cheryn, thanks for everything.

Gosh, it was one busy year for me. Next year's going to be even worse, with A'Levels looming. And I've got a Local Officers Commisioning in one week's time because I'm going to be an Assistant Recruiting Sergeant. And Green Link projects. And I might be teaching Hai How tuition! Oh gosh it looks like another busy year.

And this is it. 2005 is gone, 2006 is now here. Time for me to move on... Happy New Year all you people.

Today was full-dress rehearsal for walk-in and skit for NJ Orientation 2006! All of us Aerius OGLs met in the morning to do up all our costumes and props. The girls wore black tank-tops and black pants, then complete with purple cloth tied around them to make a toga, while the guys were in black cloaks. And our walk-in is gonna look real groovy! We're holding purple light-sticks, walking mysteriously in swinging figures-of-8, then the girls will do their umbrella dance. After we settled all the movements and costumes, we headed up to the hall for our technical slot. I broke one umbrella during one of the fight scenes. Blooiee it wasn't my fault.

I'm supposed to provide a synopsis about the skit in this entry, cos some people demanded to know (you know who you buggers are)... Okie the setting is in the Arellites' School of Talent, there's one king, queen and two princesses who's in charge of the school, and there's this bunch of kids who takes lessons from the princesses. Arellites are supposed to be fast runners and accurate archers, with superb agility and blah blah... Then Davion (my role) is this prodigy who's able to master all these skills to perfection, but he felt that no one notices him so he left the school. Then Davion meets Briberry in this fall-and-catch love scene, and he meets Corruptio (who is Briberry's sister) and the B.A.D. (Bold, Admirable, Dashing) guys. Corruptio is after this Arellite mirror which is a treasure to the Arella clan. And Davion falls in love with Briberry, Corruptio brings Davion to steal the mirror. But Davion has integrity and remembers his origins, so he defeats the B.A.D. guys and Corruptio in this dramatic sword-fight, then breaks up with Briberry and restores order in Arella.

The storyline's cool right?? I like the Davion-Briberry scene! The music transition is funky. And the scene when Corruptio offers money to the guards protecting the mirror, and the mirror (played by Haikel) gets tempted by the money and tries to get them but the princesses stop him instead. AND THE FIGHTING SCENES!! But the revised version has Davion ditching Briberry at the end. I WANT BRIBERRYYY!!! Blooiee.

But the Briberry role was so uncertain!! At first it was Angela, then it became Ruth, then for today Ruth was sick I think, so Khairi was a substitute for the fall-and-catch, while Mer did the shopping scene with me. Lastly, Jo Lynn took up the substitute role for the last rehearsal, so I had to work with her our falling and catching and whatever all over again. Gosh... How many girls (and a guy) do I need to fall into my arms?? And all the different girls develop different falling styles!! Mer just fell straight and hit my knee!

Then it was the final full-dress, actual rehearsal for the day. So all 6 houses gathered in the hall, we all did our walk-ins first. I think Solaris' and Ignis' walk-ins were cool! Then it was skits, Terra's skit was like some kindergarten play, but their acting was good. And Aqua had this really cheesy plot, and couldn't make sense of Solaris' skit.

And it was our turn. Everything went smoothly until my scene with Briberry. Jo Lynn came skipping out, fell dramatically, I held her, and the music Unchained Melody was supposed to be played, but it never came. So me and Jo Lynn were there on stage looking into each other's eyes, and my arms around her and being awkward with a hundred pairs of eyes on us. Eeks. Then she started giggling and doing her ditsy-cutesy whatever and we just stayed there stupidly until Corruptio came in, still without music. And the music just kept screwing up later on.

But it was good! For the first time our entire skit went smoothly without any pauses, minus the lag due to the music. After the rehearsal ended, I rushed down to Corps as I was down for back-up singing today. I reached just in time for leaders' prayer... Then we watched Left Behind the Movie! Loads of new people this week too. The movie was good, although the general reaction to people disappearing was a bit unnatural. Why don't they show the actual people disappearing? Imagine the shock and chaos! And the Antichrist was pure evil.

And yesterday was Day 2 of OGL camp. It was much much more draggy, but still it was very very fun and fruitful. We finished both the mass dance songs! Yup I'm still dancing with Nani, and we still forget to high-10. Worse, whenever the high-10 for Car Wash comes on, Nani wants to thrust her hips like that of in the Upside Down song. But whoo! We finished mass dancing!

Then it was finalising the skit and the walk-in details. We did a technical run on stage, and we realised that the stage was much bigger than we thought and we had to utilise it fully. And Briberry is now played by Ruth instead of Angela, because they think she's more cutesy-bimbotic. And the guys had one big headache cos we couldn't decide how our walk-in should be like.

And station games! Boy it was fun, but it's kinda tiring and draggy too. Most of the games had flour and water, so by the time we ended we didn't mind getting dirty and soaked with water. We got to slide on soapy wet benches, dip our hands into banana-mushroom-soy sauce mixture, balloons stomping, tug of war, watermelon slurping... There's more of course, but I shaldn't mention them. We lost the watermelon slurping contest, so Rudy had to run one round around the track with two watermelon shells stuck inside his shirt in front of his chest, while Zhirong and Yu Liang had theirs on their heads. Now we all know why girls need sports bras... Haha.

And we ended camp! We stayed back a while to do props and costumes, and the orientation package is way cool!

Well for today all the Aerius OGLs met in the afternoon to have a final skit and walk-in rehearsal. I went all the way to Beach Road, Concourse, to get all the light-sticks needed for the walk-in. And there was no stopping then. For walk-in, we scrapped the idea of the poles-banging, and Haikel came out with a cool dance step waving light-sticks, to the tune of the X-Files opening music. And for the first time, I took serious notice of the girls and their umbrella dance. GROOVY!! And we had a revised skit. I realised that they made Davion into this angsty guy who is facing peer pressure and going through puberty.

And I'm so glad Ruth is now Briberry... Haha, at least I got to know her through Project Work and all, so it's not so bad doing the love scenes together. With Angela I was so unsure of what to do... Haha... And Davion (that's my character) gets to try out a new swordplay on stage! Davion also finally gets more backbone, rather than being a blurred-out sycophant.

I'm tired. School is starting soon. And tomorrow I've got a full-dress reahearsal for walk-in and skit.

Crappy. I'm extremely tired out now. Today was one long, draggy, tiring, mad-rushing, energy-draining, busy and drudgery day. And today is a rainy day. Normally I would be happy if it's a rainy day cos I'll get to snuggle and be cosy and sleep or something, but today the rain affected everything. RAH.

In the morning I had to wake up at 6am just to get ready for OGL camp. Okie it's not really a camp it's just a two day activity with no stayover. But I'm never fully awake in the morning, so I took such a long time preparing my stuff. I forgot to feed Nutseed!! And I happily left house without remembering to bring a towel along. And I wished I brought an umbrella along too. RAH.

So anyway, I reached school at 7:48am. And the reporting time was 7:45am. Met Rhoda along the way to the amphitheatre, and Shawn Tan was like "it's 7:49am now", just as we were about to take our places. And Hui Ling asked (serious tone) "why are you late?". Oh crap. The day's barely started and you get the president and vice-president of Council breathing fire on your barbequed butt. RAH.

Then we were split up into 10 different OGL groups. I don't feel like reciting names, but I do know some of the people in the group already, which was a good thing. Sometimes being Green Link president brings you unknown fame that you never knew you had. And today, about 5 people heard my name and "oh you're the Green Link prez right?". Yea. I'm so popular in school. Cheerio. RAH.

Our group number is Group 1, we're the CHILLI PADI. And our cheer was modelled after the game "chop chilli chop". Got to know each other, I kept mixing up Yun Bing and Bingxin. And after that was mass dancing for 3 hours! Whoo! Nani was my dance partner, and boy she picked up the dance steps real fast. We always can't remember when to high-10. RAH.

And the first mass dance song was Upside Down by A*Teens, second was Car Wash by Christina Aguilera. The first song was quite easy to pick up! We finished that in about 2 hours? But the second song was quite a killer. The footwork was simply but you've gotta remember your sides. And the tempo is fast!! RAH.

After mass dance was cheers and songs. Then it was lunch, then committees briefing. I'm in Logistics, and all of us pretended to be Direct School Admission applicants. I got in through Green Link!! And another house cheering/preparation session. RAH.

War Games time! Unfortunately it started raining heavily, but we still went ahead with the preparation for it. Logistics people were supposed to fill up the big blue tub in the centre of the field, so we did one long human chain, while the rest were busy preparing colour-dyed water bombs. And we found out that Yi Ting was the only girl in Logistics! RAH.

Thunderstorm. The rain got heavier. So we threw some water bombs, 5 minutes of getting wet in the rain and not by the water bombs, then we headed for shelter. All of us were soaking wet. RAH.

Cleanup, debrief, discussing some more skit/walk-in ideas. Lent Rhoda my slippers (gift from Eleanor) cos she didn't bring extra footwear. Then I had to rush off to be in time for Grant's dinner date. But I wasn't. RAH.

The best thing was, I took 145 from Toa Payoh and I got down from the bus too early! So I was stranded at North Bridge Road, when I'm supposed to get to Tanjong Pagar. And in the rain. And I took a taxi just to rush there in time. RAH.

Dinner was great though! Steamboat at this new place that just opened, near the GVN office. Talking rot, trying to get the water to boil, burning charcoal drama... And everytime I hang out with Grant, WHY THE HELL DOES ALL THE ADULTS START OFFERING ME BEER?? Do I look as if I'm 18 already? And even so, do I want to drink it?? RAH.

It started raining again as I was going home, walking towards Tanjong Pagar MRT. And heavier when I was walking home from the bus-stop. RAH.

And my legs are wobbly. I got another long day at school tomorrow. RAH.

It's Christmas!! WHEE! Yup the time has just turned from a Christmas Eve to the actual Christmas day now! Hooray! Today's quite an exciting day. Or rather, I realised that I'm easily excited these few days... You see, this morning I woke up and found an eagle perched on Salvation Army rooftop! As you might have already known, my house is just directly behind Corps, and I stay on 9th floor, so I had a direct view of the Corps rooftop. And imagine seeing an eagle in Bishan!! I don't think that has ever happened before. So my parents were trying to entice it with a piece of raw meat while I was having breakfast. And only after my breakfast did the eagle glide away to another tree. So I grabbed my notebook and the field guide of Singapore birds borrowed from the library, got out of house and followed the bird!! Yep it flew to the adjacent block on the rooftop, then it flew to the multi-storey carpark, then it flew to David Chan's block, then it flew to Andre's block. And I was this hapless kid trying to take notes of the eagle and running after it. I think the eagle spotted me... Cos I was wearing a blue shirt that was so darn obvious to the bird. GARRGH. Anyway, I was so excited that I demanded Junying to come down to Bishan straight away to witness it! But too bad he was busy, and I identified it as a Steppe Eagle. Okie the descriptions fit. I figured it was probably a migrant bird who got lost, and the size and colour of the eagle fitted the descriptions in the field guide. And besides, while chasing the eagle I got nice views from all angles of the bird, and all I needed was a camera...

In the afternoon I was supposed to meet Luke at town, but we cancelled it. So I spent the rest of the day sending Christmas messages via MSN, phone, blog and writing Christmas cards. Haha, in the end it's just one standardized message for everyone. Well, some people are even more lazy they wait for people to send them a Christmas message then they just forward it on... Ha! At least I used my brains a bit more! Even though my message was cheesy like hell and so random that it made no sense. Something like "MERRY CHRISTMAS!! SEND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE TO YOUR TRUE LOVE!! CHESTNUTS ARE ROASTING IN THE FIREPLACE! GET YOUR TWO FRONT TEETH BACK!! BASK IN THE YULETIDE GLORY!!". As for Christmas cards, I just crapped whatever rubbishy thought that came into my mind and just scribbled it down.

And who wants to hear my Evil Santa Theory?? You see, I figured that ol' Santa is a terrorist in disguise. He grew a beard somewhat similar to Grant's, and he's actually a freedom fighter from Afghanistan. He has his own flying sleigh to escape the airport authorities, who'll demand his true identity and scan for bombs, whatever, if he takes the aeroplanes. So Santa decides to fly around under the guise of a jolly old bloke giving presents, when actually his main aim is to fly to Africa to poach all the deers. Then back at Alaska, he'll convert all the deer into reindeer. Then he'll ill-treat them by starving them so that they learn how to fly. And every year, he collaborates with the global postal service. You see, each year loads of ignorant kids will write Santa letters about "how good I've been and I deserve that whatever for Christmas and that fight with Tommy/Sarah a few weeks back was just an accident"... And each year the postal service makes a bomb out of these stupid kids, mainly because the Arctics is not exactly a very cheap place to mail a letter, so these stupid kids spend DOLLARS on postage stamps to Santa. And Santa schemes with all the postal services in the world, and he negotiates a fixed percentage of whatever the postal service earns so that he gets to keep the money, while the postal services continue to deceive idiotic kids that their letters actually reach Santa. And on Christmas Day Santa will sit by the fireplace roasting his toes, reading all the letters and getting a kick out of all the lies that are told about how good the kid has been and blah blah. Oh did I mention? Santa is an avid stamp collector too. And he's smart. He never ever reply to those letters, and the kids don't get what they want for Christmas too. But the postal services will ensure that Santa maintains his image and namesake. And once in a while he'll appear in shopping centres and beckon kids to sit on his lap. Well he's a paedophile too. And the dumb kids don't know and they still treat Santa as Father Christmas.

Eleanor says I should channel my theories into better areas. Priscilla thinks that Santa is against ducks so that's why I'm against Santa. Shuffle finds me weird today.

And I'm not doing anything for Christmas other than attend the Christmas morning service. No parties, no celebrations. Cos I decided to just keep a low profile of things on Christmas from now on. The Saviour of the world, borned on this day. Father in heaven you are awesome, totally fantastic. If I need a more convincing gift, I'll turn to you anytime. BUT I STILL MISS HER I MISS HER I MISS HER. A lot.

When I've found my true love I'll send her a partridge in a pear tree.

It might be Tammy. HAHAHA. Insider's joke, Tammy shhhhhhh!!

But till then, I'll remain in deep reminiscence.

Okie no more sentence-by-sentence format. Hee hee I hear a sigh of relief from Alison! Now I find it difficult to construct my sentences because I'm so used to the previous format. Haha.

Anyway, I just reached home. I was at GVN office cos today is their open day. Or rather, open night. Whichever. Met loads of people as usual... It's like everytime I go down to office for some gathering, I end up knowing more people than I can remember. Grant and Grace bought loads of food, and people just kept coming and going and coming and going. After a while you become desensitized to so many people... There were so many adults and so many names to remember. Blah. Caught up with Ngee Ann Poly's Environmental Rangers people... Last I saw some of them at river-keeping 2 weeks ago, and I met the president of their club too! Her name is Shiya. Then I met Kumaran, this guy from Temasek JC who is with the Integrated Programme now, and Alvin from Singapore Poly green club. And I met Priscilla again! So all of us were talking about rubbish, listened to Grant deliver his Christmas message, talked to the adults, eat, talk rubbish to Grant... And he just keeps drinking cans of beer after beer... Got a headache from the nightclubs old-fashioned music. Went home with Alvin, Kumaran and Priscilla, then stopped by Biru's house to pick up my Christmas presents from my cell group. And now I'm home.

This morning was OGL meeting! I met Joel on the bus, and we got caught in a massive traffic jam so we reached school half an hour late. Oh I composed an Aerius house song! At first I thought it sounded cheesy, especially the "united we stand, divided we still stand" part. But they liked it, so whatever! It makes no difference! Hee hee... And apparently I had no idea that it sounded much better when about 20 voices start singing it, rather than my solo voice. Then we discussed the walk-in. For the guys we just have to do a mini stomp, while the girls have to do a umbrella dance. Then we did the skit, I'm Davion! I'm supposed to be the good guy turned bad and repented. And I'm the best student of the Arellites training school! Hee hee! Love scene with Briberry (Angela) was extremely awkward... EEKS. then we did some more cheers, did the song again before I rushed home to bathe and change and go down to GVN office.

And I found out that the mysterious person is KAREN!! AAHHH!! I'm very very surprised. Okie who would have thought that it was her? Not me. And what a weird "I'm busy" message!! Seriously Karen, you should just "Sorry I'm busy right now. Call me later", or something equivalent! What's with splitting people into categories?? What if I belong in category 1 and 3?? Do I get to call you on your home phone??

Talking nonsense to everyone online now. I just love talking nonsense, simply because they don't make sense and you don't have to try making sense out of them! Whee hee!

Okie I'm tired.

Oh... it's my second entry in 2 hours. Except that now it's quite late into the night. I've decided to deviate from the one-line-per-sentence format because I've got some very exciting news!!

Firstly, thank you Keesha for everything!! Thanks for enduring my whines and groans even though you can't stand them. But thanks thanks thanks!! I just realised (in retrospect) that what you said was quite true. Haha, read on and you'll find out... Thanks for trying to encourage me on even though I'm not being cooperative. Birds flap their wings they don't swat the air around them!!

And secondly, I JUST GOT A MESSAGE!! Actually I got the message at 12.25am. Okay the message goes something like this:~

Guan you, this is to thank you. The musical you invited me to really ministered to me, and helped me to return to God. It kickstarted my new journey, and today I discovered tongues. So I really want you to know that Christ HAS been moving in my life, and it all started with you as God's messenger. Thx!

So cool right??? Oh man I was so depressed and discouraged after talking to Keesha, and the message just appeared!! It was really a very very strong encouragement... But the only problem was, I don't know who sent that!!!

You see, I invited about 20 people to the musical. I sent out about 20 postcards, mostly to the newcomers and visitors of my youth service, and also some to my old/new classmates. And I included my contact number on every postcard that I sent, so that people can contact me if they want to. Well, I wasn't expecting a very good response, but Rhoda came for the musical! And I thought it'll end there, until I received this message!!

So I replied back to ask who the person is. But the person didn't reply me! And I decided to wait in agony for half an hour until it reaches 1am. And talking to Erica and Tammy and Shuffle about this, and telling how encouraged and how excited I was. Then I told Erica that I couldn't stand it anymore and the person still haven't replied. So I called the person!

Okie I reached her voice mailbox. And yesh it's a female. Guess what she put as her "I'm busy right now" message? Here goes:~

Hello. Sorry I'm not available now, for three reasons: One, I am very busy; two, I can't feel the vibrations of my phone; or three, I am very angry with you. If you belong in the first 2 categories you may call my home phone. Thank you for your attention.

Hee hee hee!! That's so shuffle and cute and lame and hee hee hee!! Oh gosh. I'm still excited to find out who that person is. I shall wait till tomorrow morning to call again. Hee hee! Now I can't stop laughing.

Keesha, you don't need to try and encourage me any further. Cos this in itself speaks volumes... Thanks thanks thanks again!!

And God, you work in mysterious ways...

Okie!
The inevitable has arrived!
I've typed like this for 4 blog entries already.
It's been 2 entries left-aligned.
2 entries centre-aligned.
So this entry will be right-aligned!
I love doing ridiculous things like this.
I dunno, I guess it keeps me entertained.
Anyway, had a long long workshop yesterday.
Okay maybe more of a meeting than a workshop.
It was a Jericho youth committee brainstorming session.
We did a SWOT analysis.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
It lasted the whole day.
From 9am to 6pm.
Though there was a 3 hour break in between due to carolling.
Bah.
Tired out.
I just realised what I'm in for.
More work than what I anticipated.
I don't wanna lead a busy, hectic, stressed out life.
Meetings after meetings.
Appointments after appointments.
Deadlines to meet.
Paperwork.
Ugh, enough of that.
And for today, I went out with Yurong.
We went town to do some Christmas shopping.
And it was kinda dumb.
Both of us were out-of-cash, broke, need-to-rob-a-bank.
But I had $10 Kinokuniya vouchers.
Yurong had $10 HMV vouchers.
So it was not too bad.
Got cards, presents, a free musical box.
Glam and unglam plastic bags.
Haha, we met Ruijun, Lydia and Debra at Orchard MRT.
And I'm left with 50 cents for the next three days.
I just finished writing Christmas cards for all the visitors to my church.
It's kinda the same for everyone.
And I'll sign off with:~
Guan You
Salvation Army-Central Corps
Youth Fellowship Committee
guanyou@gmail.com/91252613
Imagine writing that for more than ten times.
Haha.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day.
OGL meeting in the morning.
Might be meeting some friends in the afternoon.
GVN open day at evening.
Whoo!

Yep this is still gonna be centralised!
I spent my whole day today at Toa Payoh.
There was this Singapore Pools charity bazaar.
Some Christmas thingy to tie into the season of giving.
Children Society was beside us.
Society for the Physically Disabled was there too.
And some other organisations were there too.
Nature Society (Singapore) was beside us.
And Green Volunteers Network occupied the centre.
YEA!
GVN is at the center of attraction.
The total area given is about the size of the back of a bus.
Maybe smaller.
Or bigger.
And we had 7 or 8 organisations squeezed into that small space?
But there were space to display all our merchandise.
I was there since 10am.
Then stayed at Toa Payoh till 6pm.
If only I got paid.
Hee hee.
Grant should start paying all volunteers.
But if that's the case, we'll be workers, not volunteers.
Anyway, lunch was paid by GVN.
And drinks too.
So we did enjoy some welfare.
Made more new friends!
I met the "other" Joe Lim at NSS.
Met this girl named Masha.
I think she's younger than me.
But she seems involved with NSS activities for a long long time.
Long long time = many years.
Me, Jun Ying and Grace did the morning hours.
Then Jun Ying left home for a while.
So there was me and Grace.
Then Jun Ying came back.
So there were me, Grace and Jun Ying.
Then Peiling dropped by.
Then Grant, Mindy and Jerrold dropped by too.
Then Jun Ying left.
And Grant, Grace, Mindy and Jerrold went back to GVN office.
So left me alone.
So Peiling joined me.
And later on, Ken came along.
Yup, business was quite good.
We focused more on elephants this time.
And Toa Payoh hub is one busy place.
This lady bought $30 worth of keychains.
We sold out most of our bookmarks.
Partly because I got 10 myself.
Children Society beside us were even better.
They had such good business that they needed 3 additional kids to help out.
They sold loads of toys and kiddy stuff.
And at really cheap prices.
And loads of people just crowded round their tables.
The lady from Children Society was nice too!
I saw Rick and Yan Peng!
They walked by the booth.
I saw Fong Kay too!
Called at her but she didn't hear me.
Sheesh.
And I spent my slacking time reading NSS publications.
Or talking to Joe (NSS).
Or playing with Ken and Peiling.
Or secretly peeking at Masha's tallied list of merchandise sold.
To see if NSS is making more money than us GVN.
Bought two penguin badges for Shuffle.
And got one stack of used stamps.
And one sheet of birds stickers.
Before I went home I went to buy Mushroom Chicken buns.
They were in the midst of baking them.
So I waited.
And was talking to the auntie.
I said I'm buying those buns for my mum and family.
She keeps saying that I'm a filial son.
Okieee.
And I felt generous.
So I gave a dollar to the kettlers outside Toa Payoh Interchange.
Don't know the people who were doing the kettling.
And I came home.
The end.

I thought of something marvellous...
I shall centralise all my sentences!
This is cool!!
Now now, Alison you grasshopper.
What have you got to say?
It's not one big chunk of sentencese anymore.
There's a distinct formation in the sentence stack.
And it looks so much elegant.
Erm.
In my opinion, that is.
Anyway, loads of things happened over the weekend.
Saturday I was at National Library.
Oh I mentioned that already.
Okie.
Saturday night I was at Bishan Heights.
I went for the musical again.
I've already watched it.
I don't know why I would want to go again.
Maybe because Hong Bin said he's coming again.
And maybe because Yicheng says he's coming too.
But they backed out at the last minute.
Then Yurong requested that I meet her friends on her behalf.
So I agreed.
At 7.08pm, I met Dora and Joel at Junction 8.
We went to buy flowers.
At 7.18pm, I met Uma and Rui Min at Bishan MRT.
Yurong's classmates.
Hmm.
And we all headed down to Bishan Heights.
Musical was more or less the same.
And loads of technical breakdowns.
Rain spoilt the equipment.
I was kinda restless too.
I think it's because I already know what's happening next.
I could remember what scene presedes next.
What the cast is going to do/say.
Aargh.
Okie, time for more uplifting accounts.
Yesterday I had to wake up early.
6am!!
It was the earliest time I've woken up for the whole holidays.
Went for breakfast with my parents.
Then I took an hour on the bus to reach Pasir Ris.
There's this production company that's doing some filming.
They're doing a series titled Generation Next.
And they selected Peiling as one of their focus.
Because she won the HSBC/NYAA Youth Environmental Award.
So me, Jun Ying, Guan Zhi, Rong Yao and Ken came along.
We did a mock river-keeping.
Okie actually it was quite real.
We really did pick litter.
But I did it half-heartedly.
And all the time the cameras were centered on Peiling.
After the river-keeping, they interviewed me.
"What do you think of Peiling?"
"Is she a team player or a leader to you?"
"What does she do to motivate you?"
All of us went to White Sands for lunch.
Then we headed down to Macritchie Reservoir.
They wanted to do filming of the boardwalk trails.
So I gave them a nature guided walk.
Prunus Trail.
My territory.
Hee hee.
And the camera just followed me and Peiling.
Gosh.
So pretentious.
And I was sleepy and grumpy.
I think I'm going to look goofy on TV.
Then they went to film Peiling and Ken kayaking.
They wanted to go to the tree-top trail.
But I didn't feel like joining them.
So I left and went home.
Then came out barely 45 minutes later.
Turned out that I'm going to Changi Corps.
Yesh, for the musical.
Again.
For the third time.
AT CHANGI.
Met Joel, Shermin and Yurong at Jericho.
We blew all our money on flowers.
Shermin didn't even have enough to travel there.
We're severe spendthrifts.
Took us an hour fifteen minutes to get there.
Me and Yurong explored Changi Corps' toilet.
The musical was somewhat better this time.
I don't know why.
Changi Corps looked more cosy.
And Yurong was just predicting the lines of the actors.
But somehow the acting was more convincing.
And it was extremely moving.
After the musical, hung around.
Met the cast again for the third night.
Didn't have money to buy flowers for everyone.
Yvonne:~ It's the thought that counts!
Zarrah:~ I travelled all the way to Changi!
Ben Wong:~ Go pluck the flowers from the stage!
And we took a long time debating how to get home.
Before we settled on "sharing" a taxi.
Although most of us were broke.
And in the end, Charmaine and Amelia paid for the fare.
Blooiee.

Oh whee.
I decided to continue typing my posts in this manner.
This is soo fun!
It sort of gives my blog a face-lift.
A new dimension of seeing things.
Sentence structure is kept short.
Form is unique.
One sentence precedes after another.
Much more organised.
And I have to keep pressing "Enter".
Alison says I must paragraph my sentences.
She says it's unsightly to see one chunk of sentences.
But it's not in one chunk of sentences!
It's sentences that are dislocated.
Ah ha...
Anyway, Games Week is over.
I spent all 5 days at Jericho.
Facilitating, teaching the tricks and nuances of the games.
Oh boy.
What a week.
Hong Bin and Jean came down yesterday.
Played Ticket to Ride with them.
Hong Bin won.
Peiyu and Ze Yun came down too.
Played Modern Art with them.
It's a bidding game with some funny bidding methods.
I won.
Then the carolling people came.
Then me, Dora, Joel, Ben and Yurong went for dinner.
Rabbit shit with noodles.
EEK.
Christmas musical was on yesterday night at Corps.
Just for the clarity, Central Corps.
Caught up with Hong Bin at the bus-stop.
Karen, Charmaine and Rhoda came by taxi.
And we had a big meet-up at the foyer.
Blooiee.
Then Captain Hary whisked me to his office.
I am now a Assistant Recruiting Sergeant.
Gosh.
I don't even know my duties.
He just gave me a list of job description of an ARS.
Okie it's quite detailed.
But I have no idea how to do it.
And who is Norman??
Okie back to the musical.
The seating arrangement goes:~
Karen, Charmaine, Rhoda, me, Hong Bin, Joel......
Err, I don't know why I included that.
Okay.
The musical was good.
Still don't know why the dancers are there for.
And I like the Money Money scene.
Ben Ng says the Material Girl scene was good too.
After musical, hung around with people.
Met all SA Corps youths who went for Dale Carnegie course:~
Luke, Joshua, Yvonne and Chengli.
Caught up with Zarrah and Deidre too.
Is that how you spell their names??
Ah yesh, and Ben Wong too.
Gosh there are too many Bens floating around.
For today, met up with Rhoda and Kai Jie.
Think it's the first time I saw Rhoda in two days consecutively.
On a non-school day.
In a short space of 12 hours.
Went to National Library to do Geography project.
Spent 3 hours there?
After that went to Suntec City with Kai Jie.
We were trying to search for Christmas gifts.
But I had no money.
That's so dumb.
I BUMPED INTO MAY EE!!
She's got a new hairdo.
Haha, I know I'm slow.
But it's the first time I'm seeing her after so many months??
She looks funky now.
Fell asleep on the long way home on the bus.
And that's that.

Games Week, still on at Jericho.
For this whole week.
The response is very very good!
Learnt a new game today, named Acquire.
Ticket to Ride! Ticket to Ride!
Miami-Montreal costal train line.
Toronto's mine too.
And how I wish Charlotte was 5 years older.
Haha.
I'm hooked on Blokus.
Give me a good game anytime.
Minus Joel.
Unless he's on my opposite corner.
I'm playing Blokus online too.
I've won so many times!
But the stupid system didn't update my ranking.
Gosh.
I don't know why I'm typing like this.
I know some girls post blog entries in this way.
In this format.
Charmaine.
Ruijun.
Annie.
SO GIRLY.
But I don't do this all the time.
In fact, it's the first time I'm doing this.
It's going to be hard to read this.
You'll have to keep scrolling down.
I've been trying to bird-watch.
Borrowed some field guides of birds.
Why did God create so many birds??
I can't identify all of them.
And it's a pity.
Seen loads of birds I've never seen before.
But I have no idea what they are.
The pictures all show one brown brown bird.
And all the birds I saw are brown.
And they all look identical.
RAAHH!!
I shall try and be as good as Andrew Tay.
Been trying to study King Lear in depth too.
Shakespeare must be going through tough times.
Humanity and suffering.
No wonder Nahum Tate did a happier ending.
But King Lear is awesome.
Magnificent word-play.
Vivid imagery.
Thought-provoking themes.
Now I know why the critics lapped it up.
"... Shakespeare's most profound tragedy"
"... a giant among masterpieces of art"
I'm taking a break.
15 minutes.
As if it makes a difference to this post.
Okie I'm back.
Gonna check my emails.
Just won another Blokus game online.
No change in ranks.
Sigh.
Oh.
Weng Yin has got a nice story.
She posted it on her blog.
Go read it.
Fong Kay sent me a nice story too.
It's in my email inbox.
I'll post it here the next time.
Gotta get Christmas presents soon.
Shuffle's being shuffle again.
She just "booohooooo"-ed me.
For nothing.
Oh crap.
Look at the time.
Maybe I should go sleep now.

Today was the first day of Jericho Games Week!! In the morning I saw the advertisement in the Life section, one whole load of oddball details but I think it was quite accurate. Got down to Jericho, Kat gave us a last minute briefing and we kicked off the Games Week... The response for the whole day was good!! There was this Mrs Hoe, who brought down her three children cos she saw the advertisement in the newspapers. Her youngest daughter Charlotte was cute!! Haha... Then I spent the rest of the day either playing or facilitating games. Chris, Andre, Jonathan and Felix played Ticket To Ride in slightly more than an hour. Boomtown was interesting, Saboteur was quite dry with Charmaine and Amelia, Villa Palleti is still my least favourite game. No no let me cancel that: Café International is my least favourite game. Whee... Towards the evening another parent brought her two sons and her son's friends down too. So there were four kids playing all the easy games, and one of them, Daniel I think, completed all his blocks for Blokus!! WOW. It was a first, cos it was never done before in Settlers Cafe also... And the parent, whatever her name was (cos I didn't ask), she was quite impressed with the way Jericho was ran and the concept of helping youths and the healthy interaction with the teens... Then we ordered Pelican Pizza, played somemore Blokus before we called it a day. Great day!

Whee... The past few days were extremely eventful and fun. Thursday was supposed to go kayaking with Adriel, Joel and Yurong at Changi. But we didn't know that you need qualifications (minimum One Star) to kayak, as me and Yurong have not got any certificates to our name. So we went Pulau Ubin instead, cycled, bummed around, had lunch there. Haha it was fun, partly because I haven't stepped onto Ubin soil for more than half a year. I want my own little shop there!! And on the way back on the bum-boat we saw a White-Bellied Sea Eagle swooping down into the sea grabbing its prey. MAJESTIC. On Friday I went out with friends from the Dale Carnegie course. There were 10 of us, including 2 of our GAs (Group Assistant) Hong Bin and Grace. Went to watch Chicken Little, us guys were doing loads of crazy stuff. And the movie was super cheesy! Haha, but the spoofs were funny. Then had lunch at Scotts food court, before walking all the way to Plaza Singapura. The guys hung out at the arcade to watch Hong Bin play the drums machine thingy, boy he was GOOD! The girls went to some bookshop to read... I think Weijin is groovy, and Grace is pretty (Haha cos she was slightly curly hair)!! Evening, I backed-up sung during worship with Tammy and Lurong. I think Tam's nuts, cos she exchanged our left slippers and I was standing on uneven footwear. Then my cell and Lurong's and Clarissa's went to Bishan Heights to distribute flyers for Christmas musical. Took one block with Ben, Jonathan and Coleman. They left all the Chinese-looking houses to me cos they did'nt want to speak Chinese!! Yesterday I brought my cousin all the way down to Pasir Ris Park for river keeping. Yep, we invited NTU Earth Link, and they invited Ngee Ann Poly too! So we had like 25 people collecting rubbish, screaming along the way cos there were loads of ants. And we did 27 bags of rubbish! After that we went into the mangroves boardwalk, then brought my cousin to the beach, then went to eat and library at White Sands. And today, went for service in the morning, then ate at Shunfu Market with one big bunch of church mates, squeezed into the corps van, played board games for the rest of the afternoon at Jericho... Whew long long days everyday.

Okie pictures time! All these pics are taken by Joe at the Endau Rompin trip; he took like 400++ pictures!! I can only be selective and showcase some of them here... Enjoy!



Keppel train station in Singapore, just before we departed.



Me and Wei De sleeping on the way there



Oil palm plantations! There were loads of them on the way there.



Bekok town! It hadn't changed at all since the last time I went there 5 months ago.



This ice box was extremely important to Grant, cos it contained all his beer!



Eagerly waiting for lunch at one of Bekok's eateries



Jun Ying, me, Shin Min and Pei Ling on the back of a lorry. We're all going to get sore bums later cos the bumpy road trip into the base camp was an hour long.



The stream at our base camp.



Forest trekking, some fallen tree branch.



Flatworms on a dead plant.



Taman Negara National Park!



Suspension bridge.



River by the forest that came from the waterfall.



Who's this cute guy?? SOOOO CUTE!!



Shin Min and Jerrold



Grant's testing the water...



Joe and one of our orang asli guides



Adeline doing a "Vilma" under a hollow, fallen tree trunk.



The 120m waterfall! Of course it looks more majestic than this.



Grant trying to make his way up the slope from the waterfall.



Fungi! There were loads of them in the forest.



Spot the worm. Bright orange!!



On the lorry again, this time getting out of base camp. Shin Min lost her specs, and I'm the king of the forest.



At Grant's school for his orang asli kids, this school was painted by Ken and Peiling.

Oh wow it's a fun fun day for me today. I decided to be a pig and sleep late today, even though my cousin tried to wake me up at 9am, so I only woke up at 11am. But I was also tired from the Endau Rompin trip. Ah ha... It was my turn to take care of my cousin today, cos my sis went out with her friends or something. We made cherry Jell-O together! She kept dropping the spoon into the mixture while stirring it, made a big mess, but the Jell-O turned out great after refrigeration.

After that I brought my cousin out of house to Jericho. Heh it's table soccer tournament today. I thrashed Joel 9-0 in the first game, then lost to Aaron and Adriel, before winning the rest of my games. Eh but that wasn't enough to take me to the semi-finals, so eventually Yurong won the table soccer singles. Then for the doubles, I was paired up randomly with Yurong's friend Keren. Boy she was so good that we won the doubles!! YAY YAY. I retained the doubles title! Or at least for me la... Haha that proves that I'm an indispensable player and I can slot into any doubles partnership and still win!! Eh heh Yurong's jealous... Lalala...

So my cousin entertained herself by playing Pinball and Paint on the computer. And trying to sneak up from behind me to poke me. Blooiee. I brought her home after the table soccer ended, then went back to Jericho to go down to Settler's Cafe with Kat, Adriel, Yurong and Joel. Clarence and Daniel joined us later. The games we played were fun! We tried out Management Material & Marriage Material first, the aim is to NOT get promoted and NOT get married, but Yurong lost in both games. Then we tried Saboteur, some dwarf mining game to prevent people from getting the gold. And Villa Paletti which was this building game, and then Ticket to Ride, a long long train game that linked up the entire North America. It stretched us all the way to 11.30pm, I won cos I had the longest train connection, whee hee. Then took a taxi back with Clarence.

I've got loads of insect bites!! Yikes I didn't bother bringing insect repellant to Endau Rompin, so all the sandflies and mosquitoes bit me. And I've got cuts, rope burns, bruises, so I'm probably going to lie low for the next few days.

EXPERIENCES IN THE LAST 5 DAYS

1. Had loads of meetings/engagements. Loads and loads, some back-to-back, though most are spaced just nice enough for me to make my way there. Busy busy... I need a representative. Or an ambassador. Haha. Funny.
2. I helped clean up Grant's office! In my opinion it's a tremendous achievement. His office store room was not much bigger than Grace, but it had stuff in there that can rival a karang guni's secret stash. Me, Grace and Jun Ying spent 2 hours sorting out the thrash, walked up and down the SEC office stairs so many times that we started gettting dizzy.
3. Graduated from Dale Carnegie Training, Youth EQ & Leadership Program. Whee! 6 lessons, 21 hours in total. I've got a nice certificate and a class photo to keep as well. And for last lesson, Jeff and Major Andy came along for the parent's invitation, but I had to leave early. And everyone exchanged contacts and all...
4. Prayer and praise was quite good. I led worship, was quite a nail-biting experience. I think the musicians were awesome, even though I didn't tell them exactly how I wanted the sequence to be. Prayer was good, devotion was meaningful.
5. Was away at Endau Rompin National Park for 3 days /2 nights, just came back today. More about that later.

Yep. And my cousin is over at my house! She's staying over for this week, so I've gotta babysit her. Nahh it's not that bad, she was highly mischievious in the past, but now that she's older (7 years old), she's more sensible... Love her! She's cute!


ENDAU ROMPIN

Okie one long long entry about the trip. Met on Saturday at GVN office, then we headed over to Keppel train station. 21 people in total. Me, Jun Ying, Wei De and Huimin from the current NJC Green Link members, Ken and Peiling the love-birds who were our senior, and Shin Min who's our senior's senior who is now studying vet science in Australia (she's on break now, so she's back in Singapore for a few months). Jerrold and Mindy were there too, Joe and his girlfriend, and Grant invited Andrew Tay, Vilma D'Roz and Celine from Nature Society (Singapore) along too. So off we went, 4 hour ride on the train to Bekok. Peiling challenged me to a 10-game Reversi match, but we played one only. Upon reaching, we had lunch, went to shop around in the town for ponchos and leech socks. Then a few of us got onto the back of a lorry with all the bags, food, old clothes, drove down to Grant's rented house to dump all the old clothes. And we withstood an hour long ride down to Selai Endau Rompin base camp. The rest got to sit in jeeps, but the 5 of us had wind in our hair!! And it was super uber bumpy and there were stray stalks of plants by the roadside, so we got whipped quite a lot. And with Andrew on board, we had a nature appreciation of all the forest trees and birds. We reached the camp site with sore bums, got our rooms and headed straight for the stream! Whee!! Waist length deep, icy cold. And the rocks were smooth and unforgiving. I got my first cut from slipping on one of them, shivering like crazy, but had loads of fun. Dinner, wash-up, then the NSS people led a small group of people on a night walk, while the rest of us stayed back to play Taboo. Mindy actually brought her entire box of Taboo for the camp! We split into two teams, we had Grant and he was hilarious!! Played a few rounds, bummed around, went to sleep after that. There was this huge Meranti tree next to our (me, Wei De and Ken) log house. Next morning first bird I saw was a bulbul, breakfast, then we prepared our stuff to go trekking in the forest. We did close to 10km worth, the terrain was tough but because the trail was quite well-defined with loads of natural / man-made steps, so it wasn't too difficult. And for all the hype about leeches, there were surprisingly very little of them. I didn't put on any leech socks, so along the way there were 2 leeches trying to crawl up my ankles but I flicked them away before they bit me. We reached the waterfall after 2 hours of trekking, and boy was it huge! About 120 metres tall and 50 metres wide. I didn't feel like swimming, so I just gaped at the waterfall for half an hour? And watching the fishes. We had lunch there, started feeding the fishes with bread, then later bread with cheese spread, and then baked beans, crackers, peanuts... About a hundred and fifty fishes, all swarming for food once we throw in a piece of bread. Shin Min said they're all Westernised. After that we trekked back to camp site, took us another 2 hours. Oh well, Joe lost his spectacles in the stream on the first day, then it was Shin Min's turn when she lost hers in the jungle while going back to the base camp. Loads of biodiversity in the forest!! We reached back in time to see this fuy from the National University of Malaysia doing a pin-up of frogs. A few of them were up in the camp doing some animal research project, so the night before they caught some frogs in the forest. First he drowned the frog in ethanol, took out its liver, then pinned it on a board, then sprayed formalin on it to preserve it. By the time he finished, there were 7 frogs looking as though they were about to jump out onto the table. Dinner, then listened to Grant and his stories. And at some point of time, all the adults started drinking beer and sprouting nonsense. ESPECIALLY GRANT. Totally full of crap and sadistic humour. I played cards with Green Link mates, seniors and senior senior. Haha, three-generation bonding. Then we had a barbeque, bummed around somemore before going to bed. The next day, we packed up, bought souvenirs from the orang asli... Most of them got the orang asli games (those kind made of rattan and you have to get the string out), while me and Wei De got a bracelet each made from resam. The guy just took out wrist measurements, then started weaving it into a bracelet within 10 minutes. Awesome! Andrew got one that was wrist-hugging, while me and Wei De's ones were removable. So we left, all of us happy, got onto the vehicles. The 5 of us who came by lorry got unto the back of a lorry again, only this time I was elevated on some tumbler while the rest of them got much lower bum seats on the back of the lorry. For most of the journey back, I had to keep ducking from all the overhanging leaves. And it was bumpy as usual, though we stopped by Grant's house to view the school that Ken and Peiling helped painted. And here's when the trouble began: the train was bound to leave at 1153 hours, but at that time we were still about a kilometre away from Bekok train station. So we sped in the car like hell, reached the train station with the train just pulling in. Fortunately for us the train was late, then we grabbed our bags and just rushed up before the train took off. Another minute, and we'll be forced to spend another night at Bekok. And another 4 hours later, back in Singapore! A few of us went for lunch at Tanjong Pagar Plaza, then I went back to GVN office for a while to pick some posters up, then went to Jericho to play Taboo and table soccer and whatever, before going home.

I'm tired. Extremely. If this entry doesn't make sense somewhere, it's my headache. And my fingers are tired of typing. Oh well going to bed. Tomorrow's table soccer tournament at Jericho. I might bring my cousin along to Jericho... Haha. We'll see tomorrow.

Let's try and organise my shuffle thoughts.

My hamster Nutseed is not fat. She's a dusty furball. Everything given to her is chewed up instantly. Drinks like 3 gallons of water and pees 4 gallons out each day. Eats so selectively that anything that is not nuts or seeds she won't eat. Goes crazy when she hears my computer starts up. When exposed to a new surroundings, she becomes an adventurer. Loves to cuddle on my hand.

My table is messy. King Lear is lost somewhere in there so I can't do my Literature assignment. Maths holiday package is somewhere in the pile. My drawers are either blocked or stuck. Blu-Tack everywhere. Thousands of can tabs all over the table. Pieces of paper stuck on every corner. But my desk is neat when compared to Grant's office.

I need a permanent secretary. Shuffle you're doing great, but I need a general administrative secretary. He/she should be able to remind me of all important meetings, birthdays, things to do. And help me settle all trivial stuff on his/her own. Maybe he/she can help me follow-up on all the newcomers to my church too, and attend meetings on my behalf, help me send emails, source for information etc.

Prayer & Praise this Friday. Me and Lurong leading worship sessions, Clarissa and Joel Lee doing prayer pointers, Joel Tan doing Bible devotion. I'm at helm. Theme is "Eyes on God, Heart for Him". Realistically speaking, I want to quiet myself down, seek God and at least prepare myself for that night, but I can't quiet myself.

I need a thumb-drive. Christmas is coming. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

On second thoughts, lemme cancel that "subtle" hint. I'm not going to spend time sourcing unique gifts for everyone for Christmas. I realised that what I get for people are not what they want (mainly cos I can't afford what they want), and what people give me are not what I want either (mainly cos they can't afford what I want). So this year I'm going to get generic, identical gifts for everyone I know.

Christmas Eve looms... I realised how much I've missed Shannon. A lot a lot. At least I can talk about it now, without the pain. It's almost 2 years now... Maybe I should have said yes to her at that time. I still wish it was a nightmare, but let's be pragmatic: Doornails stay firmly in their positions. No point regretting what's done or NOT done.

Dale Carnegie leadership course is ending on Friday. I think I got something out of it, although my thoughts echo that of Luke Ong's (Balestier Corp)... The people there are highly interesting, and even though the activities are immature for my age, you can't help but realise that it helps you in a certain way. "I know of people in the ranks who will rise up in the ranks. Do you know why? Because they use their abilities to get things done!"

Can tabs. Mangrove cleanup. New butterfly garden. Lotus award. Endau Rompin, Malaysia this weekend.

I've got Jell-O in my fridge, cherry.

Found $2 while walking over the overhead bridge today.

New flip-flops from Eleanor. We got it changed to a different size.

It's windy now.

Light the Fire Again is playing now, by Brian Doerksen. "Don't let my love grow cold, I'm calling out, light the fire again"...

Trying to make sense out of Wikipedia's entry about Catholic High School.

Gosh this entry sounds extremely melancholic.

Photo Marathon @ Jericho today! Had to drag myself out of bed just to make it in time. I was grouped together with Darren and Cedric, the first theme was "My World". Haha, it sounds dubiously like the theme that Kat participated last year... Anyway, my group, together with Jeremy and Felix, decided to go town to see if we can get any nice pictures. Went for breakfast first, then we went to see the Yann Arthus Bertrand photo exhibitions which lined up the side of Orchard Road. Then we went to Toys'R'Us to horse around with masks, pogo sticks and whatever kiddy stuff.

Left them at around 12 noon, went down to GVN office to pick up elephant photos from Grace. Close to 2pm I walked from Duxton Road to Cecil Street which took 10 minutes. Dale Carnegie today, it was kinda "errr... okieeee...", cos we had to jump through (literally) our breakthroughs, then we shared about our achievements and I talked about getting the Green Lotus. Then we shouted out some war declaration to make us more confident...

Walked with Wei Jin, Benedict and Amsyar to Raffles Place MRT after the course, then I turned back and walked back to Tanjong Pagar MRT, so effectively I travelled the entire Cecil Street twice today. Met Ken at Tanjong Pagar MRT, but he shooed me away cos he was waiting for someone. Went back to GVN office again to talk to Grant, bummed around listening to Grant's stories, then Ken and Pei Ling appeared at office TOGETHER. Haha, we chatted a bit, then left together.

I rushed out to meet Eleanor at Toa Payoh MRT, cos she wanted to give me my belated birthday presents. Turned out to be slippers, just the thing I need! Haha I broke my sandals a few days ago. But the thing is, silly Eleanor got me shoe size 6 when I think I'm a 8 or 9, so I've got to meet her again to exchange the slippers into a bigger size.

Went down to Junction 8 to get cheese fries from KFC, then took a bus to Jericho to be just in time for the judging of the Photo Marathon. I'm one of the judges!! And I'm totally unbiased, no matter what Biru may say... The photos submitted were quite good! And we had a double category winner in Amelia, Cheryn and Tammy.

Then played table soccer with Yurong. Got whooped 9-3. I demanded a rematch, and I still got whipped with the same result. How long since I last touched a soccer table?? Then I tried table tennis with Shermin and Yurong, it felt weird cos the last time I played table tennis was 4 years ago. Haha...

I'm tired right now. But it's a day well spent. Or at least I think... Haha...

Well, early morning I had to travel all the way to King Albert Park McDonald's for yet another Geography meeting with my lovely group mates Kai Jie and Rhoda. I wonder why they call it King Albert Park. Who the hell is King Albert? Albert is a horrible name. And there was a bad traffic at Lornie Road, so I was 20 minutes late. And we met up just to tell each other we're alive, cos there wasn't much constructive work to be done. After that I was debating whether to go somewhere else or go home. Called Jaslyn, Biru, Atiqah, Yurong... All of them weren't free to go out with me, so I went home.

And I stayed inactive at home till about 1.30pm? Then it hit me that I had leadership course today, so I rushed out of house, reached Tanjong Pagar at 2.30pm, so for the second time today, I was late, this time by 30 minutes. Didn't do much today. We had to present our childhood memories that taught us a lesson, and strengthening relationships with one of our friends. The room was awfully cold.

I feel courteous and helpful today. In the morning it was raining slightly, so at the bus stop I sheltered this young guy (who looks my age) with my pink umbrella, all the way to KAP Mac's... He commented on my choice of a pink umbrella! He offered me a Fisherman's Friend... APPLE & CINNAMON! Haha my favourite... And in the evening, I was at Bishan bus terminal on my way home, boarded bus 410. As you might know, once any bus reaches Prime Supermart, the whole bus practically empties itself of people. So all that was left on the bus was me, this girl (slightly younger than me, I think... ) and some other people left behind. And the girl just asked me randomly if I knew how to get to Thomson Plaza, and whether she was on the correct bus. Oh okie I said yes, and offered to accompany her all the way to Thomson P even though my bus stop will be earlier than that. Haha she was cute and rather good-looking!! So in her seat she sat, before she started hugging her shoe box, looking around so frantically as if I was out to mislead her, peered at me from the corner of her eye, pretending to watch TV Mobile while she's actually not (Jamie Oliver was on), messaged on her phone, shuffle her feet etc etc... Even though Thomson P was only 6 or 7 stops away?? Gosh I've never met a more fidgety girl. And once the bus pulled into the bus stop, she stood up, shuffled her legs again, hugged her shoe box, said a cheerful "thanks!" and sprinted over the overhead bridge in extreme hurry...

Ben did a Bible study on Revelations at cell group today. It was good! But Revelations is scary and a bit too information-overloaded. Too many things going on in chronological order, so it sounded like a History timeline.

There's a Jericho stayover meeting now. It's over MSN, so that's it for now... HAPPY BIRTHDAY YURONG!! Lazy to type out an entry for you... =P

OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!! SOMEONE PINCH ME TO MAKE SURE THIS IS REAL!! OH BOY OH BOY!! WHEE HEE!!! THIS IS EXCELLENT!!! SUPERB AND SPLENDID!! YIPPEEE!!!

Anyway, here's the news that I just received: NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE HAS JUST BEEN AWARDED THE GREEN LOTUS AWARD FOR THE SECOND YEAR RUNNING!! And what has that got to do with me? COS I'M IN GREEN LINK AND WE'RE THE PEOPLE HELPING THE SCHOOL ATTAIN THIS AWARD!! This is just awesome!! Oh sorry you're likely going to see a lot of BLOCK LETTERS in this entry, cos my Caps Lock button is firmly locked on.

GREEN LOTUS!! GREEN LOTUS!! That means NJ has received the highest form of recognition for being an environmentally-aware college!! That means too that NJ Green Link is among the most green and most active clubs of all the green clubs in Singapore!! AH HA!

I'M SO PROUD OF MY GREEN LINK EXCO AND MEMBERS!! You guys are totally awesome! Being president is one thing, but this couldn't have been achieved without all your contributions. And it qualifies all the female toilet trips during the Green Audit... Hee hee!! =P

I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE IT. CANNOT CANNOT BELIEVE IT. GREEN LINK RAWKS!!

Oh another thing. I got a new guitar!! FINALLY... After the last one had its neck snapped off. Went out with Biru, Ming Hui, Charmaine and Amelia Soh to Bras Basah to get the guitar...

I'm absolutely jubilant now. Nothing's going to upset me or ruffle my hair.

It's going to be a great weekend... WHEE HEE!! =D

I'm in a Good Mood Day today! Yep I realise my Good Mood Days are kinda limited and rarefied now. The norm for me is to drag my feet, be pragmatic and uncompromising. But if it's a Good Mood Day, I can be totally shuffle without any inhibitions, be rubbishy, lame and trashy... So it's a Good Mood Day today! Let's hope it lasts till tomorrow.

Anyway today at Dale Carnegie was slightly better. My sandals gave way on me! I was walking to the bus-stop when the strap broke, so I had to return home to change to my shoes. And at Bishan MRT, I bumped into Benedict! He's this guy I met on Monday at DC, two years younger than me, but way taller... So we travelled together to the DC office, couldn't remember which storey it was on, but we managed to guess it correctly. And first thing we did today was play Blow Wind Blow!! I didn't get to blow people at all! All the kids were running everywhere and I'm just crossing from one end to the other effortlessly... Oh and I finally talked to the rest of the youths from the other Salvation Army Corps! There's Luke from Balestier Corps, Yvonne and Chengli from William Booth Corps and Joshua from Changi Corps... Came back to Bishan with Joshua and Yvonne, then met some more SA people, before I headed to Jericho to catch a bit of Kungfu Hustle (it was movie marathon today).

OH OH I met Joanne today! Was with Joshua and Yvonne at Junction 8, then suddenly outside the Giordano shop I heard someone called out "Guan You!", so I turned, and there she was!! Gosh I think I last saw her during Christmas two years ago?? And the first thing she said to me was "I bet you forgot who I am already!!" BAHH!! I never ever forget people that I meet! It's just a matter of whether I can remember names or not. (Anyway I learnt at DC today that "a person's name is the sweetest and the most important sound in any language to the person") And yup, I grabbed her number so I can catch up with her some other time. And she was rushing off for prom night, so she's all dolled up in some pink gown with make-up... =D

Okie Sara! Since you had the honour of giving me my first birthday greeting this year, well here's one entry for you... It's 40 minutes into your 17th VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You should stop being so prim and proper! And you should stop asking so many questions! And you should stop being so horribly punctual! And you should stop saying "I think we should go"! And you should wear your contacts more cos you're more weird-looking that way! And you should stop questioning my every action, including my hee hee hees!! And you should...... Bahh I've ran out of things to say. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! =P

Ah ha! I'm 17 now anyone that's younger than me will automatically qualify as a kiddo. MUAHA.

Anyway, yesterday was quite a peaceful day... As in no crazy celebrations, no let-your-hair-down parties. Morning I met Rhoda and Kai Jie to meet Ms Ting for our river management proposal. I wanted to drop her the bombshell that it was my birthday, but nahh, it was a rainy day and I felt like being discreet. So after that, I met Sarah, Adriel, Biru and Yurong at Junction 8 for lunch, we went to eat Swensens. And after we ordered the ice creams and they were singing Happy Birthday, then the waitress came and told us that birthday person gets a free Firehouse Birthday Special!! Sheesh so we had too much ice cream to spare...

After that we went to see some Superstar auditions, for students only. Some of them can't sing to even sound like noise la! But there were a few good students who sang well... Then I rushed off to Tanjong Pagar for my first lesson of the leadership course. Oh well I'm more inclined to think it's for ages 12-15. And I didn't tell anyone there that it was my birthday, cos I wanted to be discreet and mysterious. But the only other people who were as old as me were this guy who was also from NJ, don't know what's his name, and Luke Ong from Salvation Army also, but different Corps. Oh well I hung out together with Roshin (secondary one) and Wei Jin (secondary four). The rest of the class were secondary school KIDS!! Yesh Sarah you're a qualified KID too!! The course was okay I guess, except it was kinda Adam Khoo-styled motivation, and it was probably too young/irrelevant for me. Ahh, but that's just my initial impression. I still got 5 more sessions to go, and it costed $950 to sponsor me there! I better take something useful out of it... HAHA!

Today, I spent my time at National Library, it was freezing! I was at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, stuck somewhere on the Literature and Geography section. I can't find the books I wanted!! Oh well, then I headed down to Jericho to meet Uncle Vince and the people from Settler's Cafe. Then at night me and Yurong were debating whether we should go for prayer meeting, well we went eventually. And we ended later than usual, and now I'm sitting here freezing in the cold...

OH OH thanks to Peiying and Ming Hui for writing fabulous entries for me in their blogs!! They're the only 2 people (I wonder why... hee hee!) who wrote birthday entries for me!! THANKS!! I'm super uber sexy and cute!! And 17's not that old. And thanks too to all the people who sent me birthday messages, and Linus for the birthday email, and Shuffle for the birthday e-card, and all those people who tagged on the tagboard! And thanks too for all the birthday presents! Bahh I haven't even got to open them yet so I shall not go into detail... =D

Yep, 21 November 2005 has finally arrived. I'm officially 17 now.

It crept past me. At 11.52pm I was telling myself that once 12 midnight reached, I'll give myself a pat on the back and say a prayer of thanksgiving to God. But no... Was talking to Sara on MSN, and it was her who announced the first HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me at exactly 12 midnight. I forgot to keep track of the time.

And that was that. My birthday has arrived. Just like that. I didn't even notice that I'm 17.

Next year I'm having fireworks and sparklers to announce my coming of age.

After that, Yurong asked if I felt any different now that I'm 17. What can I say? I've got more dead skin cells, my teeth are tougher, my mind slightly more laggy...

And then came the slew of messages. Peiying was first at 12.08am, and shortly after I replied her I had two more messages, then another and another... So I've got 8 or 9 messages by now, about half an hour after the first greeting has passed.

Prayer of thanksgiving came at 12.23am. Thank God for my maturity in His guidance, for my faith and trust in Him, for allowing my bones to grow for 17 years (though I don't seem to be growing any taller)... And a year older means I've gotta be more worldly-wiser, taking on more responsibilities and assuming more authority. But that doesn't mean I can't be lame! (Atiqah this is for you. THBBPPT!!)

Birthday wishes to Luke, Mark, Jun Hao and Royston too, all happy babies borned on the exact same day and year as me.

I've got 24 hours to accomplish all my mischiefs, and people can't complain because I'M THE BIRTHDAY BOY.

Maybe I'll go do something wild tomorrow to celebrate.

Should I irritate Ms Ting tomorrow? HAHA, well I could. Or maybe I'll make a horrible first impression at the leadership course.

Meeting Rhoda, Kai Jie and Ms Ting at 9am tomorrow, then Yurong and Biru at 11am for lunch, then be down at Cecil Street for the course.

What a day.

What a birthday.

=)

Just finished watching I Am Sam on television... I don't know why I watched it. I mean, I don't usually watch TV anyway, but somehow this show just tugged at my heart. The movie focused on the relationship between a mentally retarded father with the intelligence of a 7-year-old, and his daughter who was just turning seven. So being typical American-ish, the social workers felt that Lucy (the daughter) was deliberately holding back her intelligence so as not to appear smarter than her father, and that he was unable to provide her the parental support that she'll need in future. So father and daughter were separated, with Lucy sent to a foster home for adoption. And along came this female lawyer, with her own family/child problems as well, took on this case pro bono and after long court-room dramas, the strong bond shared between Lucy and her father eventually prevailed, and they lived happily ever after and blah blah... Well I liked the raw and tender love that was portrayed, and the scenes where father and daughter were reading bedtime stories to each other; reunited during foster visits; well, they were exceptional (that Green Eggs and Ham scene was very very good). But what I thought would be more appropriate, is to showcase the true difficulties of the father raising the kid alone, such as make them go through intellectual stumbling blocks or discussing puberty and menstrual cycles... Haha, something like that, but too bad Lucy's too young for puberty... But instead they focused more on the adults facing troubles from parenting. And Lucy is given so little airtime! Yup it's Dakota Fanning, and everytime she appears onscreen she goes cutesy.

Yar I know most of my other friends are providing Harry Potter criticisms on their blog, and Jaslyn's got Zathura analysis on her blog. Bahh... I've got no money at all to watch movies, cos I just spent all my money printing the RJ Small books for my Geography class ($132 in total!!) and I'm waiting for them to pay me back. Ah well, I shall just stick to TVs and DVDs for this holiday... I wanna watch Chicken Little though!

Ms Teo showed us King Lear, video-version, on Thursday. I thought the intepretation was good! I liked the love test and the Dover cliffs scene. The Fool was good-looking! But King Lear should have appeared more authoritative and stubborn, Cordelia should be more pretty and I'm still highly dissatisfied with Goneril (WHY KILL HERSELF??) and Edgar (WHAT'S WITH THE DISGUISES?).

OGL briefing was quite okay too, fighting over mass dance songs and a draggy storyline, but the house session was kinda redeeming cos we were quite enthu-ed, even though I felt a bit out of place. I'm in Logistics, and I've got Rhoda, Ruth and Joel in my OG. Yep Joel Chan who used to be in Catholic High too, or better known as Jordan from Living with Lydia...

Last night at cell group I was trying to learn all of their Chinese names! Charmaine and Rachel Tan refuses to believe that I'm sexy. And Biru's friend Shuyu joined us.

I'm turning 17 in another 23 hours! Gosh I feel old and young at the same time, cos I just realised that even Erica is turning 18 next January, while I'm still 16. And Rhoda gave me my first birthday present for the year: a little chick (that looks like a duck) that can hop around!! YAY! Thankew!! =P

We finally finished King Lear today!! HOORAY! Ms Teo was like dragging the last 50 lines of the last act of the last scene by doing a word-by-word analysis, but I switched off already. I did Practical Criticism myself, closed the book and covered my ears and refused to listen to her. After Literature, Cheryl, Siew Peng and me went down to Black Canyon Coffee for lunch. And we had a hearty-heartfelt talk... Cheryl went to her church, Siew went town while I took the same bus with her to Suntec City. And yep, I helped out at the School's Carnival for the rest of the afternoon. AND I MET NEW FRIENDS AGAIN! Okay Lynn and Zan were there at the GVN booth, Zhen Rong stopped by. There's Siti from Meridien Junior College, Khairul from GVN... loads more I just can't remember their names (and soon, their faces). I met my Catholic High Primary school science teacher (Mrs Goh) too! Gosh I really am meeting all kinds of people this whole month. Shu Fen dropped by, so we went to see her juniors (Nanyang Girls'), then I saw the Naval Base Secondary girl at her booth again, and she recognised me! Haha... Back at GVN booth, sales was very very good. We sold $200 worth of merchandise, including TWO BIOLOGIC DVDS!! I thought no one would buy them... Zan scooted off first, then Lynn ran off, then Siti disappeared as well. So there's me, Joe, Eric and Leonard who helped bring stuff back to GVN office, with the help of Khairul's pick-up.

Everybody's finding work to earn some cash. I want to go work as well!! But I've got no time for that. Maybe for tuition only... ANYBODY NEEDS TUITION?? Oh well I'm having leadership courses next 2 weeks, and first week of December I'll be at Endau Rompin (Malaysia), not to mention all the GVN volunteer tasks... I suppose my holidays won't be like my friends who are working, but at least I'm volunteering!! HEH... 21 November 2005 looms... =P =P =P

And it's Literature lessons for the whole week! From 8.30am all the way to 1pm in the afternoon each day, packed full of Ms Teo's comments on Shakespeare and King Lear!! AARGH it's not as if it's agony, but it's not exactly enjoyable either... Normally I'll be most attentive and alert in the first hour, but as the time drags on, my scribbled notes become more and more incoherent. Haha and I got to read Edgar today, and I realised that Ms Teo didn't know my name! She called me Terence la! Then she went on her rubbishy "How come I've never got to know that cute guy's name for so long?" HAHA!! I'm cute I'm cute!! WHEEEEE!!

Anyway, I went Suntec Convention Hall with Kai Jie and Janvin after Lit today. Yup, for the Clean & Green Week School's Carnival... I had to persuade Kai Jie to go with me, then after I succeeded we saw Janvin walking out of the school gate so we dragged him along. And we squeezed into bus 171 which was packed full of Methodist Girls' School girls. They were on a student leaders camp, and the whole bus was just MGS territory. When we reached Suntec, I regreted reading Student's Sketchpad... Bahh... Anyway, I gave permission to Kai Jie and Janvin to act as if they were from Greenlink, cos our initial idea was to go to the carnival and try and make friends with other schools' students. But then the two of them backed out! And I was left alone trying to strike conversations with this Naval Base Secondary School girl... I was quite impressed with her delivery skills, then later Janvin said I was flirting with her. OH GOSH!! So we went around trying to look for interesting booths, then I told them that if they saw any cute girls, they can pretend to be Greenlink members and try and chat with the people there... BUT THEY DIDN'T!! And in the end it was me scooting around from booth to booth trying to find out if that booth's school had any green clubs which we can collaborate with. EEKS.

Then we went window shopping around Suntec, but I had to go back to the exhibitions to help out. Saw Lynn at the GVN booth, hung around there talking to Grace and Grant, then I met my primary school Chinese teacher!! Yup Catholic High Primary had a booth, and she was there supervising the boys. So we chatted, and I realised I can't construct a proper sentence in Chinese without struggling. Gosh it's one full year since I last attended a Chinese lesson. Anyway, I brought her to the GVN booth to talk about our elephants (she loves elephants), then we talked about future prospects of setting up a green club in Catholic High, or some green camp or something... And eventually we talked about can tabs, and she said that she had three 1.5l bottles full of can tabs! GOSH!! So I travelled back to Cat High with them, and true enough, there were two bottles full of can tabs. Estimate them to be 3000 can tabs in total... WHOO! And I met Mrs Chaillan and Mr Wang at Kopitiam while walking back...

I'm turning 17 soon!! Was talking to Chiew Yee, and she said she's turning 18 soon... Her birthday's in January, so she's got 2 more months till 18. And I can't believe that I'm not even 17 yet!! Still stuck at "sweet" 16!! Actually it's not too bad I guess. Yurong says she doesn't want to get older, and I think I don't want to either...

My weekend for this week was spent fully at Bishan Park. Yup, it's Clean & Green Week, and the administrative has decided to set up a green fair at Bishan Park and Bedok and some other places as well. So I was at Bishan Park to help out with the SEC/GVN booth there... Quite a nice working place actually, cos it's so darn near my house!! Haha... Mubin volunteered too, he's Jun Ying's classmate and my fellow Literature student, and Shufen came down today.

Working hours sooo flexible there! Anyone can come and go at anytime, and I got to know more GVN volunteers/personnel! I met Waye today, have no idea who she is even though she looks sooo familiar! Anyway she's with SEC. Then I met Mindy and Jerrald again, last I saw them was K3 camp. And Grace and Grant too... I think Grant's cute! HAHA!! My new friends include Zhen Rong, he's at National Technological University Earth Link, and he's vice-president there; Wei Jian, 2 years my senior who was also from NJC Green Link, he's now serving the nation; Priscilla and Lynn from Cedar Girls', they're GVN volunteers; Zan and Dion, who are sisters and Zan is in Raffles Girls' while Dion is very very shuffle... Haha they've got quite unique names! Oh I met some people from the Bhavan's Indian International School, but I can't remember their names (or I wasn't told what their names were). The most ironic thing was there was this stall selling SHARK'S FIN SOUP for $2 at a stall opposite us. AND THIS IS A ENVIRONMENTALLY GREEN FAIR. Highly dumb. Oh I'm most probably going to see Zan and Dion and Jerrald and Mindy and all the gang again this week at Suntec City. CGW School's Carnival, 15th and 16th November, Suntec City Conventionm, whole day event.

I went for Captain's Ball yesterday... After that me, Clarissa and Yurong sat under the void deck and talked a lot... Then we walked to Junction 8 and me and Yurong ate there. And today, I ordered KFC Delivery for lunch. My family will be back tomorrow, so that means no more cooking on my own and settling dinner outside...

And SHUFFLE!! YOU'RE SUPER UBER SWEET LA!! Gosh your entry was long, while mine only lasted 3 lines! Yup yup thanks for the long long entry... And I didn't realise so much events happened in our friendship. I think it's because you're too shuffle. Everything is so shuffle that even shuffles can't keep track of the shuffle-ness... Yep I remember when we went to get the tree to replace the one that Mrs V Cheng 'killed'. And we've got our secret code which I had to decipher your messages and I had trouble forming those messages. And we'll always argue whose side of the canteen is nicer. And blackmailing each other. And all those late-night MSN chats. And the president-secretary working relationship. And the Rooftop Rendezvous! HAHA hiding from your classmates even though we were supposed to be scandalous (by feeding Shufen with juicy news), shouting "SHUFFLE" even when you're so far away... THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!! =P

All of a sudden my mind is never clearer than before. My time and commitments, I just realised that God unclogged my brain and now I see things in such a fresh perspective. So fresh, you can almost taste it...

Okie this is slightly laggy, but anyway, PROJECT WORK IS OFFICIALLY OVER!! Hooray!! My Oral Presentation was on yesterday, and boy am I glad that PW is all over!! This whole week, I've been going to school for OP rehearsals at 8.30am in the morning, and we'll drag all the way to 3pm. We've made the discussion room in the library our official OP rehearsal venue, and I think out of all the many meetings that we had, the last two or three PW meetings were among the most fruitful. Bahh, actual OP was bad. I got a nervous fit at the worst time possible, so my hands trembled for most of the time, my voice quivering. And everytime I make it a point to make eye contact with the assessors, they're writing something. Then when I'm looking at my cue card, they decide to look at me. BLOOIEE. Q&A was slightly better, but worse. Better because I was more confident, worse because I rambled total nonsense. I talked about interviewing juvenile delinquents when we didn't!

But what the heck, PW is over! NO MORE NO MORE!! My beloved PW group went out after OP to town for lunch. And since OP is over, we ordered all the spicy food at some Thai restaurant. And we took neoprints! Hmm I think I'm beginning to miss working on PW with my wonderful PW group... NJ002!! -Burns the working file-

Post-PW: LOADS OF GREENLINK STUFF!! Today I was at EnviroAsia exhibition at Expo with some of my Greenlink members. But it was quite boring cos it was all corporate companies promoting products, so we went to the adjacent Food exhibition, then to some Asian Children festival. After that, all of us went down to Tampines Mall to meet NJ Student Council president Shawn for a meeting on can tabs world record. Nice working with them...

Post-PW: LOADS OF CHURCH/JERICHO COMMITMENTS!! I think there's probably a threshold point somewhere, but I'm either ignoring it or I'm not there yet. Too many too many commitments, even though I've tried to cut back on a lot. Yesh, I want to do a lot of things, and I want to be involved in so many things, but commitment levels permit. Time is not on my side, and studies is important too. BAHH... God give me the strength to persevere, to learn to let go, and to know what to pick up...

And my whole family went Hong Kong already, so I'm alone at home for the next 3 days. And a cat just ran into my house!! HAHA the door wasn't closed, and the cat walked all the way into my room and stared at me for 3 seconds before running out when I was about to go say hello to it.

Shuffle: Here's one entry for you! You shuffle waffle. I promise you after the BIG FIGHT, we'll go for ice-cream yar? And let's market our shuffle products and sell them and corner the market! Curly hair girls! Blur pok! Burst bubbles!

Jia Mein: YOU SCREAMED FIRST!! When you saw me that night, you opened your mouth and "AAAHHHHHH!!" for a good 5 seconds and I was just playing along by screaming together with you. I bet you'd really missed me!!

Amy: Let's hide in our email world and email here and there and forever!!

Chiew Yee: You owe me one, not the other way round!! I ditched my all-important meeting just to protect you! And I let you whack my head so many times (GREEN TREE!!) and I didn't even retaliate!! Worse still, I'm your fairy godmother and I don't even get paid!!

Biru: HEE HEE I WALKED YOU HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME!! After 11+ years of knowing you... And co-cell leader, you're doing lesson forever!! And buying all the birthday presents and cakes and Christmas presents!!

Just finished reading my classmates' blogs, and most of them posted entries about last night's band performance. No doubt, the class spirit was strengthened and friendships grew stronger. I've got my own things to say too, and I know repeating their sentiments will sound cliched, but the truth must be told. I THINK I'M IN THE BEST CLASS IN NJ. Nahh 05A02 is cool too, but A01 is better. Ha! =D

I think the song item made me appreciate some of my classmates even more... People like DOra Tan! Haha at the start of this year I didn't even dare to talk to her cos I thought that she had this hostile face and she's bound to hate me. NAHH!! She's part of the 3 guitarists too, and 2 days before the actual night we even went to Thomson Plaza to get guitar strings! Nope she's not as hostile as I thought her to be...

Face it: 2 weeks worth of practice only, yet we managed to put up a convincing enough, technically good, crowd-warming performance. Somehow there's just something magical about yesterday's night. Right when the curtains were drawn people started shouting our names (I heard "Taufik!" and "A01 is hot!" and "Guan Youuuuuu") and for 3 seconds I had a snap of celebrity fame. And the rest of the performance was just great! I could only remember us playing our instruments and singing way better than during our practices. I think after the performance I left the stage in a state of euphoria. PIBROCH YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!

And my Project Work group mates, I think we get closer and closer with each meeting! Ehrr! We are totally unprepared for our Oral Presentation la, but who cares? I love you guys just the way you are! Okie Chiew Yee is making noises that I should write a better testimonial for her... Fussy woman, well here's the revised one. Khairi:~ I think PW brought us closer... Haha thanks for enduring us when we all start to speak in Chinese. Nice butt you've got there! Ruth:~ GUANCHAPATI!! Oh gosh who would've thought of such a name?? Loofe your wacky ideas and your crazy innocence! I think we'll be super dull without you... Jin Jen:~ Don't think you won 4 awards then you can lord over all of us eh! Haha you still refuse to laugh at our lame jokes la! But we laugh at your lame jokes, so that's unfair!! Chiew Yee:~ STILL whacking my head, STILL impossibly impossible. Your mood swings like a pendulum, and I'm your fairy godmother!!

Oh pictures of the performance night! Amy sent them to me, but I'm going to be selective and pick those with the whole group only. The rest of the photos, visit Qiling's or Jaslyn's blog...


=> On stage... Band-it!


=> Before the performance, PIBROCH THE RAWK BAND!!


=> After the performance, with Ginny and Terence...

WHAT A LONG LONG LONG DAY. Had to be in school by 0830h for King Lear criticism lecture, but it got delayed till 0900h. Darn. It was raining and the conditions were perfect for sleeping! But stupid King Lear got me out of bed. I ended fidgeting too much during the lecture, so I sneaked out to CA6 duriong the break. Then sat in as audience for Janvin's group Oral Presentation dry run.

At 1230h, I rushed for my first meeting for the day. Well, second actually, cos first was King Lear. A01 rock band met at band room for a final rehearsal before our performance, and I think it was one of the best sessions that we had. At 1400h, I rushed out of school for my third meeting of the day with Luke and Yicheng. We hung around at J8, then walked over back to Catholic High to visit our school/teachers. OH GOSH the school changed a lot! There's a new rock-wall, ponds, study corners, giant marbles, statues... No no the most interesting was the scoreboard that says "Zero latecomer days". Mr Lee HB is indeed ingenious! The primary side was even better. They have their own spice/herb garden, ponds, aquariums... Why do all the good facilities come in after we leave the school?? Gosh I want to be a CHS boy again.

At 1600h I rushed to Jericho for a meeting to discuss the Jericho activities, I scooted after half an hour, went home to bathe, then rushed back to school to report for final preparations for the NJ Symphonic Band concert. My class was appointed ushering duties. Guest performers include Kexin and Steph who were part of a 5-girl-dance-group called Funk'd, our A01 rock band was named Pibroch, Western Dance people, and Roman & Christine as lead singers for two of the Band's songs. Kexin had gravity-defying hair!! And they were so hot on stage that I think they sizzled. Roman & Christine were absolutely stunning!! Roman has superb voice tones while Christine sang fantastic. When it was our turn to perform, we were trying to do group hugs and taking photos and cheering and screaming... AND THE PERFORMANCE WAS AWESOME!! I don't think we ever achieved such standards in our practices. And Cheryl and Khairi (our lead vocals) did such a wonderful job with "Last Thing on My Mind", Annie looked like a rock star, Shu-zie was great on the drums, Siew's keyboard dazzled... The only bad point was the audience didn't hear our band name clearly, like some thought Igloo and some thought Workshop. HA!

I LOVE A01. Both the current one and the old one. The unity and happiness that resulted from this song performance really strengthened all of us. We totally blew the audience away! Okay maybe not... But I felt like we did. And I just thank God for such wonderful people in the class. JIA MEIN AND EDWIN CAME FOR THE CONCERT TOO!! Oh my when I saw Jia Mein both of us just screamed for a good five seconds!! And everyone was staring at us haha! Then Weng Yin gave me a pink rose at the end of the concert!! THANKS! I think it's the first time that I've received a pink flower from someone... And I got 5 hugs from different people and 20 "you rawk!" (Yea I counted... Haha!)

After that I rushed down to corps for the remainder of cell group time... By then I'm totally zonked, but they still had energy to think up of a cell group name... Gellenuanua!! I think it's spelt like that I'm not sure...

Sometimes I think guys have it going for us. Look, we guys don't have to go through periods and cramps each month. Heck, even when I get a small cut, I'm unsettled by the loss of blood and worried whether my cut would clot and whatever. Can you imagine losing blood on a monthly basis?? The last time the blood bank came to my school, I really wanted to donate blood but they had stupid protocols and paperwork that required parent's signature and I didn't have that.

Ugh that's not the point. What I've got to mention is something else. This past week has been kinda "bloody" for most girls that I know of. Pardon my language, I can't speak in euphemisms like Rhoda does... Anyway, I made the stupid mistake of asking two girls (I'm not naming anyone) something that I shouldn't have asked. They were whining and complaining that they've got horrible pimples on their face, so being considerate I asked them why. And their answer? "I'm having my MENSES!! I've got BLOOD GUSHING OUT OF ME!!" Sheesh. I don't need to know that.

And all of a sudden a lot of girls are warning me that if they get moody or angry or upset, it's due to PMS and mood swings. Oh yea I still can understand this. Mood swings are okay. Pre-empting me of your mood swings are good too, cos I have mood swings sometimes too. The worst is when you're stuck in a meeting with 5 other girls and you're the only guy. Yep, me and a group of girls are planning a overnight camp, and while we were deciding which day to put the camp on, all of them started going about their periods clashing with the dates of the camp... And the subject remained on their periods for the next five minutes?? Gosh what can I say, I just sat there and stared into the fascinating wall. Don't get me involved. Don't.

Two months ago I was caught in this conversation with two girls, and invariably the subject twisted to whether they preferred tampons or sanitary pads. And they started discussing which brand was good and whatever details that goes into choosing a good sanitary pad. AARGGH...

No don't get me wrong. The next time I see a pale girl suffering from menstrual cramps, I'm going to give her a nice pat on the head and tell her to get better soon.