A Day Before the Exams

Time now 1700 Hr, Sunday 11 Nov 2007 - the eve of my 6th paper. The one I've been dreading. Very sure that I haven't studied everything yet already too saturated with information. I'm dead meat this time!!! Sighh...

Not sure if it is also PMS. Feeling restless, a bit depressed, unmotivated!! HELP!!! Or could it be an overdose of carbo? Argh... I seriously regretted gulping down that 3 pieces of pizza in the afternoon. Now I have one more thing to worry -- the numbers on the weighing scale. Will it increase again when I step onto it tomorrow morning? Looks like I'll have to skip dinner to compensate for the overindulgence...

Okie, Yoongie is back from his walk... Have to cook dinner now.. What's for dinner?

Set Dinner Menu for Today

Sides
Rice

Entrees
Steamed Minced with Egg
Crispy Baby Squids
Boiled Iceberg Lettuce with Oyster Sauce

Beverage
Tea - Refillable

Desserts
Dierberg's Waffles with 2 scoops of Blue Bunny French Vanilla Ice-cream

Sounds okie??

title-less

My oh my... I didn't realize I have not been writing for so long till logged in. The last post was in July...

Have been busy preparing for my exams last few weeks. Finally done with the 4th paper on Fri. Not wanting to let myself lax too much, I enrolled for the next 4 papers which I have to complete before flying back to Singapore in December. I am now wondering if I'm biting off more than I can chew and burning a damn big hole in my pocket. A rash decision I've made.

Anyway, just an update on the weather here. It's Fall now. Weather is turning cold. Funny thing the weather here. One minute it was scorching hot. So hot that I got a bad sunburnt 2 weeks ago. Then suddenly one day we woke up to find that it's cold outside. Sighh.. unpredictable is really the word.

We'll be choosing our HDB flat soon on Tuesday, after all these years of balloting and tens of dollars of application fees. Keeping my fingers crossed that there will be some good units to choose from.

I don't want to go into details about our previous application, which I was really Tu-Lan of. My favorite show starting in a few mins so am going to type as fast as I can now. Ha!! Will leave that story to my next post.

Okie.. show starting already..

A brief one..

Actually nothing much to update la... just trying to type something out of nothing for the sake of it.. haha..

It has been a "quick" month... passing by without me noticing it. I'm glad it's going to be August soon. I'm looking forward to my Japan trip and of course HOME TRIP! Miss my family and dog so much, and my laksa... missing Singapore stuff so much that I go goo-goo-ga whenever I see a product of Singapore... just over the past 2 weeks and weekends, we actually bought the "Singapore Swordfish". Not too bad, taste quite fresh when we had it steamed. At least I feel safe to be eating something from home. Have been avoiding products from China with the recent spate of reports on how unsafe their seafood are. And we also borrowed the DVD of "The Maid". Ermm... it's kinda spooky. Might take me a couple of month or years to really shake off the images from the show. But somehow, it feels good that we can relate to the show, all the customs and beliefs that we have. Come to think of it, the Seventh Month is nearing again. Not sure if there are gates of hell here in America. Anyway, will try not to stay out too late. Better to be safe.

Got to know from Ma that Wangwang's number came out again 2 weeks in a row... this has been the umpteenth time his number came out just this year alone. It has been a good choice of name afterall... hehe.. Ma said Pa "ate" up the $100 stake I sent to him. If not, I would have made quite a hefty sum of winnings.

Okie. Think that's about all. Having a bad tummy. Need to go do my business... ;p

The Canyon

Got back from the trip on Monday. Actually planned to do a daily update during the trip. But tiredness and laziness got me over.

It has been a great vacation in all, except our flight got cancelled on the day we were supposed to fly in to Las Vegas. The pilot resigned!! Ha.. Not sure if we count that as lucky. Somehow, we would rather that he resigned than to fly the plane unwillingly. I mean who knows what he will do out of reluctance right?! Have always been afraid of taking small planes anyway, especially when I know the planes are of retirement age. I prayed through the whole flight, bugging Yoong each time I heard the engine went louder or softer. Yeah, I'm paranoia. Anyway with a bit of hassle and de-tour, we managed to arrive at LV safe and sound.

Las Vegas is amazingly hot. Temperature ranging around 40 degrees C in summer (which is now!). Never expect the air to be so suffocating. LV is basically a desert lit up by lights. The hotels along the Strip are beautiful, each offering a unique theme. Didn't have time to explore the whole of LV. Just managed to catch a few of the hotel shows and the Mamma Mia musical. Oh, we got to know that late this month, Sammi Cheng is going to perform at one of the hotels there too. If it's Lee Hom, I'll sure go. Haha..

The Grand Canyon is in Arizona, which is a desert area as well. Therefore we drove from one desert to another. ;p A 5 hour journey. Not much of a scenery therefore made the ride boring. A big contrast between NZ where everywhere is a beautiful sight. We went "Ooh Ahh.." along the way in NZ. But here, basically it's just... desert. *yawn*

But the view at the Canyon is beyond words. It's just awesome!! Countless of millions of years back, the sea was at the level where we were standing (over 4000 ft above the current sea level). There were residue of sharks and squids found on the rocks there. And we learned that the great sculptor which made the canyon the way it is now is none other than the Colorado River, which is still continuously doing its work on the canyon...

Very fortunately for us, we got to see both the sun set and the moon rise at the same time. To our right, the sun was there giving the canyon and the nearby skies different shades of red and orange. To our left, the full moon rose over the plateau of the canyon. I've never seen the moon so big and near before. It's as if we were closer to heaven. It's a superb wonderful feeling!

In all, throughout the whole trip, be it the heat of LV; the vastness of the Canyon; strength of the "mild-looking" Colorado River; or witnessing of the exchange of day and night, I can't help but to admit that Nature is indeed the most beautiful and powerful.

Favourite Pic

Spent the whole day trying to beautify my Friendster account. Managed to add a slideshow and some music to it. Quite amazed by myself.. haha.. always thought I could never do such "high-tech" stuff.

Anyway, found 2 photos which I really like, starring my cousins and my rose. The more I look at them, the happier I get. So decided to share them with friends like you who reads my blog. Hope they make you happy as well.

Have a good good week ahead!!

National Service

Was reading Beng's blog on the NS guys and young police officers. Reminded me of an experience I had with an NS guy couple of years back. No no.. it wasn't some lovey dopey thing.. it was very much the opposite..

I was waiting for the bus at the interchange outside Seletar Camp in the morning. The sun was glaring as usual. There were no seats at the bus stop so I had to stand. Had been waiting for quite some time before I turned to glance around the bus stop to "check out" the people. I do that out of boredom all the time.. people-looking. It was then that I noticed this guy in army uniform sitting in a crouching position on the seat behind me. It did not take me long to realise that he was in fact sitting in the "shade" of my shadow!

I was flabbergasted. I was stunned for moments. Then a feeling of nausea just overcame me. The act of that guy made me so physically sick with disgust.

How could a soldier, supposedly to protect the women and children and the nation, hide behind me - a woman, and from of all things, the sun??!!!

I was not offended that he took me as a shade becos probably I'm big. I'm more angry over the fact that a person with duties and responsibilities toward the country actually cannot even stand such mere heat and have to seek "protection & shelter" from the people they are suppose to protect. How unbelievable! I only see cowardice in him. I'd probably take it better if he is a fragile-looking, bespectacled office worker (you know, the typical nerd look). But what I saw was a muscled, toned young man in his uniform. I couldn't believe my eyes and so I stared at him. And he did look sheepish, which confirmed my suspicion. He was indeed taking shade behind me. I shifted away almost immediately. He had the better sense not to follow suit as I would have smacked him on the head & lectured him if he did. Believe me, the urge to knock some sense into him was almost unbearable already.

I'm not going to stereotype all NS guys just becos of one incident like that. But seriously, I think people in uniform have to give more thought to their actions and behaviour as there is an image they have to uphold. If this is the image they are going to portray, then how can the public get confidence and assurance that we can sleep peacefully at night (recall the police advert) ?

36 degrees

Weather has turned warm - extremely warm. It is averaging at about 36 degree C nowadays. With low humidity, the air is just like that of an oven. A huge turnoff for any intended outing. I would rather laze in my couch with the AC full blast. Needless to say, we spent the weekend relaxing at home, surfing net, watching tv programs after programs. Total relaxation of the MBS (okie okie, that stands for mind, body and soul.)

"Socializing can be tiring as well" - that was what my doctor used to tell me.

Hmmm... uneventful past week. Not much worth mentioning except that I came across this Chinese phrase in an email -

“前世的五百次回眸才换来今生的擦肩而过”

"Qian Shi De Wu Bai Ci Hui Mou Cai Huan Lai Jin Sheng De Ca Jian Er Guo"

Literal Translation : It takes 500 instances of eye contact in the previous lives to exchange for the fate to cross each other's paths this present life.

In Buddhism, we learned that the people we meet this life, we would have known them in our previous lives. We had worked hard to acquire this amount of closeness with them, accumulating our fate with them through each life till we reach this stage. And yes, it will continue onto our next lives.

Just imagine, if the above saying holds true, we need to have like 500 times of so-called eye contact previously just to become "passers-by" today?

Think of it, our parents, our loved ones, our friends, what a long way we have come...

It just makes me want to cherish all those around me even more, for all these relationship don't come easy.

So to all my loved ones and friends, I cherish my relationship with you, and I'm glad to have known you. If we are not so close this time round, we will be next life, it will just get better. Please stay healthy and happy this life, next life, and next next next lives...