Baby bought me two books today as a belated Christmas present.

Weird books, I know. But she knew I liked them and bought them for me despite their (and my) weirdness. She even tried looking up the zombie book on the net while I was away! -pats head-

Been hanging out with her nearly everyday. Today, I got her a Fred Perry shirt. =) In my totally unbiased opinion, I think she looks rather nice in it. The sales lady tried to get her to buy this bright yellow shirt instead, but it was decidedly too chirpy for my totally somber and stoic partner. The same partner who later tried to force me to study today, while playing Wii in front of me. =\ SO DISTRACTING!

We later met up with her friend and went to play some Left 4 Dead 2 at some dubious LAN shop overflowing with testosterone and overgrown boys yelling “BURN THE WITCH” at their computer screens. Overall, it was a nice day. =)

I was reminded today that exactly a year ago, we were out someplace fishing! Time passes so quickly.

Well, so much for waiting a couple of weeks.

Today, after my rather odd interview with KK hospital, I met up with my parents for lunch before my mom suggested we go take a look at the Netbooks again. I already more or less had my heart set on a Samsung N120 if I were to get a netbook, mostly due to it’s weight, size, matte finish, speed, and battery life. The sound system on the N120 is also pretty good for its size and range. All in all, this is pretty much what I need to pick up, chuck in my bag, and walk off to and from lectures.

This 160GB 1.66GHz 10″ little wonder set me back about $700 with an upgrade to 2G RAM and a small pile of free gifts. I think the freebies took up more space than the netbook. We have here a USB keyboard vacuum, earphones, two microstatic cloths, one Toshiba retractable mouse, and one of those ball things you attach to the bottom to help it cool down.

Since I paid for my own computer, mom bought me something as well to bring to Melbourne. This little digital photo frame. We actually got it pretty cheap since the store owners gave us a discount. The plan is to load it full of photos of me my family and friends, then display it on my desk for extra motivation to study. =)

I might be heading down to Melbourne again in early December to do a little recce work, find an apartment, and hopefully get to make a trip down to Monash to attend the FOBS (Foundation in Biomedical Science) day. It’s supposed to be one where we get to mingle with staff, faculty and students, as well as get a short tutorial on FOBS to prepare us for the test on week 2 or 3. Apparently, we need an 80% to pass, otherwise we’ll need to retake it. =\

Not looking forward to the test.

I have always put off going to Orchard Central since it isn’t exactly in the heart of orchard road and at least a good 10 minutes walk in the sun from anywhere I would usually park my car. But after my dad watched a short introduction of the place on tv, it was only a matter of hours before we would all be hauled over there to nose-poke about.

Orchard Central is one of the new malls on the far end of Orchard Road, designed and constructed in collaboration with the National Arts Council. As such, the place is reeking with design, artistic whims, and installations of all sorts. We even got a little Art Trail map from this helpful girl on the first floor which takes you around all the 7 art pieces scattered on the different floors of the building. There are also performances going on, with a three person band playing the evening we were there.

One of the outstanding features of the place is the long convoys of escalators running on the outside of the building, reminiscent of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, just with no protective shell around you. It’s actually pretty terrifying. We couldn’t go all the way up, and some of us discovered our fears of heights on the journey.

This escalator was found on level 5 or 6 i think. It goes up to maybe the roof…

We headed to the bit of the building choc-a-block with food. One of them was this cute little Ben and Jerry’s place with a giant peace sign made from a metal frame and lots of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tub lids. I thought it looked yummy…

This is the view from our restaurant. The grey jagged wall directly opposite us is in actual fact the rock climbing facility in the place. It’s TERRIFYING.

As you can see, the rock climbing place actually starts on level 3 or something. Adds to the whole freak out factor.

The wall outside Ben and Jerry’s was constructed from old VCR players stacked on top of one anther and spray painted in gold or silver. really really cool.

The lift doors were glass so you can see everything as the lift went up or down. Also made it possible for the people outside to see your fear stricken expression as the lift travels downwards at a freakish speed.

A really cool map of the place.

This is one of the art pieces in the mall. Functioning as an escalator from the outside to the second floor of the building, the piece was formed from a series of 294 pictures taken of the Istana gardens and composited on glass panels. Really pretty.

I like this shop. It’s got lots of cute little soft toys and sells alot of interesting nonsense. I like the little giraffes and hippos at the back of the store sewn from bits of patterned cloth…

They also sell poker chips, which led me to the discovery that I really want a set of those.

So, that was the end of our trip to Orchard Central yesterday. But…

Today, my mom and I both decided we didn’t have enough time to see all the shops yesterday and went back right after lunch. Shopping was horrendous fun! I bought 3 new blouses and a pair of jeans. All really really pretty. =D I LIKE THEM LOTS.

After lots and lots of shopping and viewing all the shops in the mall in 3.5 hours, we headed to this place on the 5th floor which seemed to sell some derivative of fruit. I assumed this was fruit juice and offered to treat ma to some watermelon juice to fuel our shopping weary limbs. However, we found out it was actually a fruit tart place. So we ended up with a pot of tea (with which came a little pink tea cosy) and a banana and chocolate tart. The tart was DELICIOUS. The tea was really fragrant.

food tends to taste better after a hearty day of shopping. =D

Finally, I’m home! After a good 3 and a half weeks down under, I’ve decided that Australia is a very very very windy and cold place right now. =\

This post will be extremely image-heavy. So click only if your connection can handle lots and lots of garbage from me and wonderfully large pictures.

This wasn’t actually from the trip, but the dinner we had at the airport before leaving. Yuan tried making this bit of parsley stand up on that smudge of red bean paste left on the table but Long kept blowing at it from across the table.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful. We landed sometime in the early morning, proceeded to rent a car, only to find out Hua had mustered some friends, hauled them out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to come pick me up! Awwww…

Little did she know that Ma had come along! Actually, she found out mid way when she called home and Dinah let the cat out of the bag. She even offloaded one poor soul from the small Mazda to make way for Ma.

Our hotel was the Duxton along that road in Perth that’s pretty big and has all the banks on it. And opposite our hotel was a lovely Dome Cafe. =D

Very different from their counterparts in Singapore, this Dome Cafe actually feels like a cafe. I can tell why my parents love coming to Dome when they’re in Perth. Look at the cute little marshmellows they give with their hot chocolate!

Hua had something healthy looking. Muesli and banana and fruit and yogurt. =\ Not exactly my cup of tea… But she seems to enjoy it enough. I might have a try at it one day if I’m beyond my rational self and trapped in an underground muesli cave for a month.

Shopping was the order of the trip! I even got me a lip balm/gloss! I was expecting to just get one from the drug store (preferably something strawberry flavored) but David Jones (or Myers.. I can never tell which is which) was selling these cute little lip balm/gloss things in a terribly ornate tube. =\ Mommy bought one for Hua and I, suddenly upgrading my little bag to “contains traces of femininity”.

Hua brought us to this fantastic little Italian restaurant along Mills something something Road called Ciao Italia. Parking was atrocious, the queue was appalling, and when we managed to get a seat, it was tucked away in a corner next to the drinks fridge, and accessible only via a short romp through the kitchen.

Seating (or lack thereof) was just about the only negative about this place. The ambiance felt rather awesome and the food was otherworldly. Absolutely a must try if you’re in the Perth area.

One of our shopping escapades led us to the frilly hats section of Myers/David Jones. With the spring whatchamacallits coming up, Aussie ladies set out and purchase themselves one of these filly hats to doll up and go watch the horse races. We just wanted to parade in front of the mirror.

Somewhere along the line, I bought myself some new shoes! My Vans bought from Paris, regrettably, has begun its slow but inevitable march to oblivion and cracked soles. Not to mention the black and white checkers are now greyish green and black checkers. My new Onitsuka Tiger sneakers didn’t cost as much as they would have back home, are terribly comfy, and supposedly rather atas. Feel like a cheapo when I can get atas things cheap… But I love it anyhow.

Ma and Hua spent a whole lot of time in Ferrangamo looking for new shoes! I just got new shoes, and am pretty set with my two pairs of heels back home, so I got a new little baggy! It’s shiny…

This is one of those strange streets in which you feel compelled to snap a photo and buy Ugg boots for Lulu.

We also took time out to visit Hua’s university – The University of Western Australia. Supposedly one of the oldest universities in the country. I even got myself a hoodie there which was really nice and warm and pretty. =D The lady at the store gave me a free postcard with it too.

I think the UWA campus is gorgeous. Sans the bird droppings everywhere. We were too busy looking at the cute little ducklings to notice the cute little ducklings’ leavings all over the damn floor. =(

The campus seems a tad like a bird park actually… We walked about a bit to find these three peacocks sitting here. Here being a railing surrounding a courtyard full of peacock poop.

We had dinner with Hua and her friends that evening at the Indian restaurant opposite the hotel (yes… Everything is happening directly across from the hotel). We were offered some strange banquet thing meant for large numbers of people. Our experience was less than satisfactory, to be honest. The food wasn’t bad, but it would have helped if they didn’t consistently get our orders wrong, forget what was on the menu, had massive gaps in their knowledge of the meal we were supposed to get, and generally didn’t listen to the customers. The only guy who seemed to know what was going on was the manager guy.

But other than all that, the food wasn’t too bad. And her friends are really nice people to hang out with. =) Glad she’s made such awesome friends with such awesome people.

Pa arrived over the weekend to surprise Hua as well. He appeared in the hotel in the morning, all ready to go shock the socks off Hua just as we had masterminded all along!

Part of this masterful plan was for Pa to hide behind the bushes and surprise Hua when Ma tells her to “go look at that squirrel’s nest in the bush”. I never know squirrels had nests…

We made a trip down to Fremantle as well over the weekend with Deborah. I have a feeling I’ve been to Fremantle market. The sounds, the sights, the lack of a distinguishing smell…

Before I could dwell on it too long, we headed to lunch that was across this railway crossing.

Cicerello’s! Known for their horrifically fresh fish and chips. We were given this little digital disk to set upon our tables. When our order’s up, the little disk would flash and jiggle annoyingly on the table till you head to the pick up counter to get your food. Rather cool actually…

After a really sumptuous meal of fish, chips, vinegar and chili mussels, we headed to Baskin Robbins for ice cream! Hua couldn’t decide if she wanted her ice cream in a cup or a cone and this was the result. =\

I never knew that Baskin Robbins had over 50 flavors of ice cream! We even set out to count them all, coming up short only because one of the freezers weren’t working properly. Deborah and Hua knew how to sniff out the flavors hidden at the back and asked for green tea ice cream.

Towards the end of our stay, Pa, Ma and I took a short drive to Burswood entertainment thingy. It’s much like Crown in Melbourne with a hotel and attached casino (or visa versa). We headed there for lunch where we found Pa looks grumpy when he’s hungry.

We spotted this strange architecture on the way to the shopping streets. A little too little facade to be keeping isn’t it?

Perth is also home to some really odd looking vehicles. For instance this small car with disproportionately large wheels.

Or this really long limo. Apparently, kids there would rent a limo over the weekends, dress up, and take joy rides about town while simmering in alcohol in the back seats.

This instrumental duo were totally awesome. I believe this place is called Forrest Chase, and so far, every single busker playing here has been nothing less than world class. Just a couple of days before this was an awesome opera singer belting out tunes I partially know.

Waiting for food at Tiamo’s.

On the way back to the hotel was a large green empty field. Empty until this one day when hundreds of motorbikes sprouted from the ground and filled the entire space! What was going on? No idea! But it was wicked cool!

Perth also has their own ferris wheel. But on a much much much smaller scale. After looking at the Singapore Flyer and the Eye of London, you begin to forget that ferris wheels are mean to be small little things in carnivals…

Our last meal in Perth was at Makan Makan at Victoria Park. It is a small Malaysian restaurant which recently organized a national day get together for Singaporeans there. The food was rather authentic, and the teh tarik was as close to home as you can get there.

And yes… We were waiting for food in this shot.

So after a week in Perth, Hua’s week break came to an end, Pa and Ma flew back to Singapore, and I boarded a domestic JetStar flight bound for Melbourne. The rickety little engines plus a hefty load of tail wind found me in Melbourne a good half hour faster than scheduled.

The main purpose of my trip to Melbourne was to meet up with my newfound friend from the Paging Doctor forums, a current Monash GMS medical student. She offered to show me around (that lovely person) so I picked a date to visit the freakishly far away campus after the completion of the local interviews.

Speaking of Monash, Monash just called me! But not with regards to the GMS. Rather, it had to do with my recently received conditional offer for Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences. They also had on file that I had applied for the MBBS course and were completely befuddled with why I would do such a daft thing. (I added the last bit in myself. I would be totally befuddled with why I would do such a daft thing if I weren’t me). With that sorted out, it’s only another 3 more weeks before the results of the applications come out. I’m not entirely certain what to expect, though I’m adapting the pragmatic, hoping for the best and anticipating the worst.

Back to the trip.

First order of business once landing? DINNER WITH SARA TAN!!!!

Sara you’ve grown taller!

We had dinner at this Korean place opposite Melbourne Central (more about this later). It’s actually not bad a restaurant to have BBQ at. The kimchi soup was pretty awesome too!

Spent much of the first few days hunting for ribbons for Ma. I was introduced to this awesome little chinese place in one of the malls where I can pay 7 bucks for a tiny little party plate and they set me loose to stuff whatever I want/can on it.

I would think Singaporeans would be really good at this, but as I quickly found out, I’m not a very ideal Singaporean. I managed to squash an extra drumstick, fried crab sticks, sweet and sour meat things, and keropok on my bed of fried rice. Awesomely filling and a much better buy than alot of the food in Melbourne city.

Melbourne Central seems to be the main heart of the city area. You can tell how central a place is by looking at the size of their cupcakes.

The supermarkets there are fascinating. They sell so many things! I’ve never seen an entire aisle full of just tea and coffee! And dubious things like Fresh Lemons that looked less fresh than the plasticky metal tray it was sitting in.

One weekend, we all headed to Chapel Street to hunt for Evisu jeans. Apparently, they are all the rage now, though in all honesty they look like any other pair of jeans sans the squiggly mark on either butt cheek. I hear they’re setting up a store in Singapore. Have to go check it out when I get the time.

In this picture, I’m supposed to be pointing at a sign that says the train is headed towards Flinders Station. But the shutter snapped the moment the sign changed, making me look a little less cool and a little more retarded pointing at a nonsensical sign.

Ah yes. Why were we at the train station? We were headed towards Chapel Street! Which was at Iforgetthename station. We began walking out of the station and in the complete wrong direction, taking a tram and walking a block to get to the wrong place. While waiting for directions in a store, I decided to harass this bunch of balloons outside the store.

Before they began harassing me instead.

I don’t recall what I was trying to accomplish by looking at this map, except to come to the conclusion that, yes, we are at the wrong place.

Once we reached Chapel Street and found that elusive store, we hunted down the Boost juice bar across the street and ordered what Sara recommended! Something… Erm… Hmmm…. I can’t remember the name anymore, but it had watermelon in it. =D Very light and easy to drink.

We also got to see this mickey mouse busting a move with strange skinny jeans boy. Sometimes… It’s better to be in a weird suit to avoid odd sounding names.

The Melbourne Show was on the week I visited. Given the schedules of my host and Miss Tan, we settled on Friday to take the dedicated train service from Flinders to the Melbourne Showgrounds. Unfortunately, the skies took this very day to rain and blow bone-chilling winds, leading to very gloomy looking pictures. But rest assured, we were far from gloomy.

None of us actually knew what the Melbourne Show had, other than ponies for us to pet. So when we got there and saw the giant rides and massive carnival games, we (or at least I) almost freaked.

Whee!!

The Melbourne Show has dozens of booths and an entire exhibition hall full of stalls selling things called “Showbags”. At first I thought these were just free goodie bags until I noticed the stuff in them. You pay a small price for a big bag of goodies ranging from sweets, chocos, chips, toys, clothing, speakers, etc etc. TOTALLY AWESOME.

I got a showbag from this skate company called Pipeline. $22 for a standard sized and rather pretty skateboard, a wallet, a bumper sticker, a lanyard and a cap. Pretty good deal!

We tried out hand at playing lots of carnival games! Two games of darts won us the cuddly panda bear! And sara’s partially successful attempt at basketball (she only missed one!) won us one little soft toy each. Kwann and I got drugged up looking doggies and Sara got a strangely perverted looking frog with a scarf. LOL.

The exhibition hall you see us in was the won we randomly ran into when it began to pour. As luck would have it, the huge tent we ducked into was the food hall! The entire place was filled with booths showcasing fare from all manner of local food producing people. First stop was this one with STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM!!! Some were a tad sour, admittedly, but I felt so awesome eating it, it didn’t matter!

They even had a massive corn on a cob dripping with butter and salt. URGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I LOVE………..

The rain eventually died down a bit and we ran about looking for more games to play since we’re such suckers for cuddly things (or at least, I am). This duck game looked so cute and easy… But we didn’t like the prizes. =\ So we skipped it over.

This was actually one we didn’t expect to win at. $3 for one and $5 for two tickets, each one with 6 numbers on them. If you had one number match any one one this board, you’d win any soft toy from the giant wall of cuteness!

I managed to draw a winner! And won a big yellow fluffy duck! It’s right there on the picture below on the left.

Look at the cute doggies!!!

I love museums in Melbourne.

I had the awesome opportunity to see Salvador Dali’s work in the NGV, along with a screening of Un Chien Andalou (which was actually quite funny, thinking about the cuts made). I even got in on concession! It was a bit disappointing that some of his more prominent work weren’t there, such as the Persistence of Memory. Daddy Longlegs in the Evening. Hope! was there though. And looks so much better in real life.

On my second last day, we headed to the Melbourne Museum. Now, I love the Melbourne Museum. I love all natural history museums. I love looking at fossils, bones, and pickled remains of deep sea fish in glass jars.

On the way there, we encountered the telephone wires with strange decorations…

The last time I saw them, there was only one pair of shoes there! Some of these shoes are pretty pricey too… =\

You’ve got to love the humor of the transportation people here…

The way home was an adventure all on its own. Kwann booked the airport shuttle for me the day before. The shuttle would cost only $17 where a taxi ride would cost me $45.

1. The shuttle bus didn’t come. =\ We ended up standing by the side of the road for a good 15 minutes panicking until we hailed a cab.

2. My flight back to Perth was delayed by one hour. Making it impossible to catch my international flight which was now only 1 hour after landing. And seeing how the domestic and international airports were separate in Perth, it made things so much worse.

3. I ran to ask the JetStar service desk what can be done to remedy this situation. The lady goes into the back office, has a chat with the supervisor before coming out and simply telling me I couldn’t get a refund.

4. I run to the SIA office in the international area of the airport and ask when the next flight leaving Perth is. And that would be a good 15 hours after the flight I’m booked on.

That’s when things started to slowly look up.

A really nice lady at SIA gave me the option to fly direct from Melbourne to Singapore and take my points back from the unused Perth trip. Then the harrowing calls back and forth from Singapore to secure a seat in the flight after the one I’m trying to get onto. Then the run back to JetStar to get my flights off the plane. Then the run back to SIA to try to get a seat, which I eventually do in economy.

Finally boarding the plane, I go through the gate and almost enter the plane when a ground staff runs down the bridge calling my name. I follow her back to the gate where she says “I don’t know what happened but…” and hands me a ticket for Business class.

O.O

The rest was just awesome.

LOOK AT THAT. LINEN TO WIPE YOUR FACE IN THE BATHROOM.

Which is a good 1.5 times the size of the normal aircraft bathroom. There were even flowers in the corner. o.o

So. That was my trip! Will blog more if I remember anything after this post-flight haze lingering about my head.

And so, the NTU ADM class of 2009 has finally convocated.

Well, we did so on Thursday. I’m a tad slow on the updates. Hence today’s photo-ridden monstrosity of a post. It’s been a long journey to this point. Admittedly, little did I know 7 years ago, sitting outside the office in St Nicholas that I would amount to anything of value at all. Now here I am today. With a completed honors degree in fine arts. We never know where the path we walk on will take us. All we know is, sotong prices will increase within the next 15 years.

I don’t regret coming to ADM, though my path ahead might take me far from these people I have grown to trust and adore. I’ve forged many friendships, weathered many storms, survived tumultuous deadlines and events to come to this one point when it all ends, and another path begins.

Convocation was over in a blur of brown and aquamarine, which, when worn in large numbers and after several weeks of hanging dismally by my cupboard, suddenly doesn’t look too bad. We had the lovely honor of being part of the first ceremony of the year, and had our convocation graced by President SR Nathan and the 100,000 dollar mace which doesn’t have any foreseeable purpose other than fend off pouncing undergrads.

I beside Jieying, Sufang, and Firdy on the other side during the convocation!

And Denise for a while. Lol. Lots of these photos come from Facebook. Kudos to those who took, uploaded and tagged the photos!

The Fwah group posing with our Suprematism showing.

The graduation gift from the NTU Alumni Office this year was a universal power adapter. =\ Poignant gift, upon some thinking. Thinking about it, most of their gifts this year have to do with traveling. Might be a little nudge for us to venture overseas and away from the rather frosty job market here.

Didn’t take many photos during the convo. But dear came down after the ceremony to give me flowers! My favorite flowers too! Even if it was a lil bit late.

Mommy bought me a graduation bear too! He’s wearing my faculty’s colors. =) Adorable little thing. I’ve been getting lots of soft toys lately…

Grad Bear (working name) and gerbera bouquet! They made me smile long after the convo ended. =) Thanks dear.

Friday night was then the ADM graduation bash. It was held at Velvet Underground. It was my first time at velvet and quite an experience. Pretty cosy for a party really.

Made up for the lack of pictures taken during convo with a plethora of ones taken during the grad party. We’re going back to ADM to take photos with our gowns sometime in late August. =) Must toss hats!

Today, dear and I went to Suntec today for lunch at Sundanese and to play the kiap kiap thing at the arcade again. Lol… Sudanese wasn’t too bad I guess. Tasty. The kang kong was really tasty. Though her preference for purple things was a bit unsettling (eggplants!)

So we headed to the arcade after that, spending a little over 30 dollars on the Candy Land sth sth machine. Basically, you time a scooping thingy to scoop sweets from a rotating track below. The scooping thing will then retract above a small platform where you dump the sweets. The platform retracts and extends repeatedly, pushing sweets over the edge of the platform and into the awaiting hole below where you can grab them with your grubby hands. A small lever just below the platform can be triggered by falling sweets, spinning this jackpot thing, slowly building up to the point where you get the jackpot prize.

Understand?

Lol. Anyway, seems to be dear and my favorite arcade game at the moment. During our last encounter with this machine of money robbery, we won Flappy the elephant. This time, dear won me a HUGE Tigger!

And as usual, Tigger has be to welcomed by the slightly larger welcoming committee.

Who then have to routinely check him for flu like symptoms and trample on him for luck and some strange initiation rite.

Today was a day of gifts too! Bear got a new shirt! Kinda new anyway. It’s dear’s shirt. Now I can hug Bear to sleep and he’ll still smell like you. =)

Bear looking at his shirt.

A little bit of struggle…

Tada!

SO CUTE. And smells yummy. =)

Sigh… DEAR… I MISS YOU. =( Call me or I’ll bite you.

The past couple of days have been exhausting.

Xuan’s birthday was tonight (or yesterday) and the rush to get all the games ready as well as the video and buying the present… Woot… Glad it’s finally done and everyone’s happy. I hope. =)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY XUANY!!!!

We had to distract Xuany today before his big party. So we headed to PS to play arcade and have some lunch.

Lunch was teppanyaki at that Sakae place in the basement. I didn’t really have much of an appetite today (coming to think about it). But we still guzzled down lots of food.

Dear came along too! And went nuts playing the funny sweet-scooping game in the arcade. She ended up scooping up a big bag of sweets as well as a couple of toys…

And the jackpot prize! Lol… She won me a big fluffy grey elephant. =) So cute…

Flappy the Elephant on the way to dinner! Squished between the seats of the car.

And mesmerized by the sights and sounds of the world outside of the storeroom he was kept in for ages and ages.

Flappy comes home!

His welcoming party arrives.

And gives him a big welcome hug… As well as a check for flu-like symptoms.

When all’s clear, it’s bed time!

Yeap… Today was really long… Glad everyone had fun. =) Will blog more tomorrow. Tomorrow is another long long long day.

Thank you dear. =) For Flappy, for coming today, for supporting me when things got tiring and for being with me through it all.

So we’ve made it. The half year mark.

There’s still that crazy flurry of excitement. There’s still the tingly buzz that lingers after every kiss. There’s still that soft ache whenever you leave. I still love you.

Happy half anniversary dear. =)

Been pretty busy these couple of days. I expected our 6th month to be a little more extravagant than just a quick and slightly late dinner. But I was recently hired by Double Negative as an anything and everything assistant.

The people in the office are great. My little room consisting of 5 desks and my single chair has a great view. The food isn’t too bad. The company is amazing. But…

The job, not as emotionally fulfilling as I thought it would be.

Will blog more about it come end of the week.

I’m on a one week trial to see how I like the job and how they like me. It’s only been two days and I’m already exhausted. And miss my girlfriend to bits.

Have been trying to squeeze in some time to look up graduate diploma courses as a backup if I don’t get into med school this year. A grad dip would give me the year’s worth of sciences that I need to apply to anywhere in the world, freeing up my options horrifically. And also, gives me better grounding for the GAMSAT and MCAT.

I think it’s a pretty good next step. But the trick now is finding a course which will take me, someone from a non-science background. The only courses which would let me do something as outrageous as this is in Monash, but it’s closed to international students… Need to check with them if begging helps..

Sigh…

Not entirely sure why this post is entitled as such. The words just kept wafting about in my head while the cursor lingered over the title field.

So…

Despite being school-free and jobless, I still find myself rather and surprisingly busy. Juggling between giving tuition, preparing for tuition, looking through video archives, compiling videos, job-hunting, panicking over universities, panicking over jobs, and acting like a generally school-free and jobless person kinda takes up most of my waking hours.

Next week will be exciting, I envision.

The word exciting teetering between that and utterly depressing.

If I get word from the Universities, I would start hearing from them next week. Next week also marks the end of the June holidays for most kids in Singapore and hence one of two things:

1. The malls will be suddenly quieter and more peaceful
2. I’m going to start work

I’m starting up my revision on the GAMSAT material as well. Whether I get in or not, always good to have that all down to a pat.

I more or less am pretty confident that I won’t get a shot a medical school this year. Or ever, for that matter. Sometimes, really really really really really wanting something, doesn’t make it so.

The worst is probably the wait to find out.

Some photos from last week’s Father’s Day.

We headed to China Club for some good ole chinese food. The place itself was over 50 floors above the ground, making for some great views shrouded in a blanket of haze.

A running theme in the restaurant was this red communist star. I should have worn my Vietnam shirt here!

DBS is so short from here…

Strange scallopy, egg rowy, brownish, whitish thing we ate. =\ Some liked it, others didn’t. I think it tasted overall kinda funky. Strange… Strange thing.

Giving papa his present! Not sure why his mouth was open during this shot. Hahahaha… We got him a mini golf bag thing with wheels to put on his desk (need to remember to give him the astroturf that comes with it too) and a set of pajamas.

This is upstairs! It’s a different decor from the rest, sporting a more oldish, Shanghai-ish kinda feel. It also smells like old lanterns.

Unfortunately, China Club (according to mama) isn’t open to the public. Need to check that out again though. The meal left us with a rather hefty pricetag and not too satisfied tummies.

Right then. Enough updates. Time to get ready for tuition.

Some photos from the wedding. Not sure what I can or cannot put up, so it’s mostly not related to the couple.

The bridal car going to the bride’s house in the morning! And trailing photographer cars. (yes, all three at the back are part of the train. plus one more already at the bride’s house)

Ian kor kor in the shot we took in the high speed car chase down the PIE.

Horde of photographers

More of the horde.

The Grand Ballroom at Hyatt.

Macs in action! All of us rushing to import, edit and sort thousands of images in a couple of hours.

Family photo!

The family now twice as big!

So we just got back from Ian’s wedding.

Despite it being a totally tiring day lasting over 16 hours non-stop since 7.30am, it turned out great anyway.

First things first though.

Today (or rather, yesterday now), marked our fifth month!

=D

Sorry we didn’t get to do anything special. We both had horrifically busy days respectively. But the half year mark will be awesome. lol..

Hopefully I’ll get to put some photos up tomorrow. Pretty funned out now.

Wore my red dress! Shall let you see some pictures in a bit (though I never figured out what you found so fascinating about a kong long in a dress) once I get to hunting down my iPod wire which has miraculously gone missing again.

I was put in charge of creating two videos, scanning through literally thousands of photographs, hundreds of video clips, and coming up with a 6 minute presentation within 2 hours. Stress. Not to mention the song they chose was only 3 minutes-ish so I had to set aside time to cut the song so it would last 6 minutes (with some nifty fiddling with waveforms and such).

Now with my two older cousin’s married, I’ve already begun getting the “Oh you’re next” comment from the previous generation. I still have another 6 or 7 years to go before getting around to their age. Plenty of time. To earn enough money and move to somewhere where I’m not an illegal being.

Weddings make me sad sometimes.

Knowing I would probably never have something like that makes me sad. I’ll probably never have all my family and relatives around me, supporting me and the one I love. I’ll probably never wear a white gown and cut a styrofoam wedding cake. I never dreamt of being a bride when I was growing up. But I guess, seeing people close to me getting married, the smiles on the faces of others, kind of makes me wonder.

Of course I wish I could make my parents happy. I just wish what made me happy and what made them happy were the same thing. But they aren’t. And probably never will be.

I’m happy now. Having you to love and love me back. I just wish I could share this happiness.