sweet nostalgia


noi ning and i..of ning nong as i so affectionately call her :)

i'm a happy happy girl :))

went shopping with mummy and she got me a new phone, a new epilator, and a new set of guess fragrance :))

woohoo!

i'm too happy to blog so....heh...ciao :)

SABAIDI!!!

i'm back!
and yes, in one piece.
but i'm sick. yet again. have been since last friday =/

i miss laos like madness already!

and i've only been back for like what...4 hours?
during the short nap i had on the plane i dreamt of the kids again. and i woke up crying.
i miss them so much.
and i can't believe i misplaced the stuff they gave me.
the gorgeous blue and red plasticine flower some girl gave me.
the drawing kaisone gave me...a picture of me.
the PERFECT polaroid mel took for me when i left my camera at the school, of me with the kids when we swam in the mekong river.
if i continue thinking about it i'll cry again :(

all i can say is that i've learnt A LOT during this trip.
i grew up.
yes. i grew up.
as wen jie said, one year down the road we'll probably forget the kids and they'll probably forget us, no matter how much we miss them now.
but if there is one thing i know for sure, it's that i will never forget the life lessons i've learnt.
lessons that were taught by the kids.
lessons that may perhaps seem cliche.
lessons that may be insignificant to others.
i've learnt them.
i really have.

i'll update more along with pictures when i upload them.


my 17th was fun...would have been better if it wasn't the 2nd day of the trip and 1st night at luang prabang and that we didn't know each other that well yet.
i'm really touched that people i knew for like less than a month would remember my birthday and set alarms to wish me and sing a song at 12am singapore time even though we were on a tortureous bus ride.
and another song later in the day, and another at dinner.
and that yummilicious cake mrs ting bought from Joma bakery :)
they really did make the 17th a good one.
you would think that someone closer would have done more. it didn't even come close.

12 november 2007. it really was different this year.
different. better or worse. whatever that means.
it really was different. i thought wrong. i'm really disappointed. now i know.
they weren't worth it. all of it.
i feel stupid still clinging on to some hope now.
stupid. stupid. stupid.
empty promises. oh wait. what promises?

i came home today to find an envelope sitting on my table.
a birthday card from tree...i miss that girl truckloads.


it was a different world. a different life.
the smiles that came straight from the heart. the touches that touched my heart.

the memories will be engraved in my heart for life.
OCIP 2007.

if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

so i was procrastinating again, after i came home from lunch with val at fish and co - well i still am now.
she was sweet..she gave me a birthday treat :)
and anyways...you basically don't have much to do when you're procrastinating right?
yes. i'm too lazy to pack.

was going through my shelf and looking at old stuff when i came across my hymn book :)
i loved this story in there and i have no idea how many times i've read it.
some sacians probably never saw it in the hymn book.
it's really really nice. i'll put it up :)


On Nov 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at the Avery Fisher Hall at Lincon Center in New York City.

If you've ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage was no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like a gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyesand then signalled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. Iknow that, you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refuse to know that.

You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the string to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he had finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appriciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists, but for all of us. Here's a man who has prepared all his life to make music on four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live, is to make music; at first with all that we have, and then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.


You've got to sing like you don't need the money.
Love like you'll never get hurt.
You've got to dance like nobody's watching.
You've got to come form the heart if you want it to work.

she thought wrong. i thought wrong too.

val thought i was leaving next sunday. like on the 18.
well, she thought wrong.

silly girl...if i was leaving on the 18, i won't be spending my birthday in laos would i?
and she planned to celebrate my birthday on the day itself.

she called me and as soon as i answered the call she yelled "YOU'RE LEAVING THIS SUNDAY?! SANDRA SAID THIS SUNDAY! YOU TOLD ME NEXT SUNDAY!"

see...i when i said next sunday on monday i thought it meant the next sunday that was approaching.
i thought wrong.

but sandra knew...i wasn't wrong was i?
i told her last week that if she was the one planning we can forget about celebrating it already.
oh wells.

another year not celebrating my birthday :(
next year we'll be having As so it'd be another year.
it'd be 4 years.








i thought they'd remember. i thought wrong.
they forgot. yet again.
7.

kicking with your hind foot whilst licking with your tongue.

hypocrites. what can i say? some people are just not as nice as they appear to be.
gleaming on the surface, but debauched within.
what a sleazeball.

"oh...no problem. just pass us ANYTHING. ANYTHING and we'll do it."
yeah right sucker. don't think i can't see past that supposedly angelic face. not that it's a pretty one to start off with.
excuses excuses.
fancy taking up a leadership position and not exercising qualities of a leader. please...I CAN DO BETTER.
all talk no action. empty vassels make the most noise. that's right. cliches become cliches because people have learnt the true meaning about them.
fucking annoying. you piss the shit out of me.

whatever happened to responsibility and initiative? oh wait...i doubt those words exist in your vocabulary.
and don't give me that smiley face of yours sucker.
IT'S REVOLTING.

busy? busy? with what?! farting peas at the moon?
please...here we are with REAL work to do and there you are immersed in your own world with WORK to do. get real.
don't just talk the talk young man. it's time to WALK the talk.

are you always this hypocritical? or are you making special effort today?

to think i'm getting so worked up over you and your pathetic little ways.
know what?
YOU'RE NOT EVEN WORTH IT.





i'm miffed. call be petty.
i just hate hate hate people like him.
living proof that manure can grow legs and walk.

now, if the members see this, i'm gonna be labelled bitch.
but i come in only a package. take it or leave it.
dont mess with me. especially not when the time of the month is approaching.
PMS's a bitch.

rude awakening.

i woke up with a jolt this morning.
subconsciously, i ran my fingers through my hair and -
wait. whatthehellhappenedtomyhair?!
yes. i forgot that the long locks have henceforth been sawed away by the hairdresser, leaving me naked now.
no more running my fingers through my hair.
no more fiddling with random strands when i'm bored.
no more "i never knew your hair was that long" from random people.

my love affair with my once long and nicely coloured hair is over.
it was fun while it lasted.

now my short hair doesn't look that coloured anymore.
and the back sucks.
so does my sidde profile now.
please slap me the next time i say i feel like chopping my hair off.
not that there's any left to chop now.

to make matters worse, my clothes don't suit me now.
they look damn weird on me with short hair :(
i'm gonna turn into a butch.


oh ooh ooh! i just found out that it's my birthday today.
according to the chinese calander that is...
heh...keep that dates coming in bitches :)

12 november.
right. looking at the intinary for ocip i don't even know which part of the world i'd be in.
thailand? laos?
one thing i know for sure though...there's a tavel time of a whooping 6 hours.
yep. no kidding. 6 hours of nothingness.
the only thing we'll be doing that day is a 2 hour tour to temples and museums.
right.
i'm all hyped up.
sounds like great fun doesn't it?
whoopeedoo...

new skin :)

i like it a lot...BUT i can't change the colour of my tagboard :(

it's only when you're desperate that time developes characteristics like that of a sloth.




i feel like a klutz.
my hair is SHORT now. and i mean SHORT. i can't even tie it.
yes. THAT short.

and the hairdresser gave me WISPY bangs despite me telling her specifically not to.
rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........
=(

i look awful =(
and it has to be during this period.
this is the time for pictures!birthday, laos, holiday, chalet, christmas, new year, chinese new year.
thanks. thankyouverymuch.

and it doesn't help that i have to wear specs constantly now.
i look like a freaking primary school kid =(

the following were not 100% before, but they were at least 65% and above average no doubt?
now? NON-EXISTANT.
elegance: -NIL-
glamour: -NIL-
femininity: -NIL-
sophistication: -NIL-

plain jane factor: PLENTY

shoot me please.
i look like a primary school kid for some neighbourhood school =(



even this little guy here looks better than me.



i would never have thought so before my haircut.
doesn't this tree kangaroo look like a soft toy? :)






zoo today.
i nearly died.
my head just wouldn't stop pounding.
annoying kids didn't help.
but the animals were readdy active today.
butterflies galore too :))



and i HATE the kids from china that i met today.
stupid kids ought to be sent back to china in a slow bump boat.
damn kids kept traumatising and scaring the lemur and her 3 weeks old twins.
and when she was feeding (they breast feed ya?) no less.
and if that's not enough, they kicked her.

how uncouth. sheesh...the kind of upbringing they receive.
to make matters worse, their entire family was just standing there watching them.
and noooooooo they do NOT listen when you ask them not to do it.

emotional freaks of nature.

this is what the kind perople of the zoo get in return for letting animals run frees o that people can supposedly INTERACT and learn about conservation.
yeah...sure they're INTERACTING.

ought to be sent back to their firing squad back in chinkyland.




on a lighter note, oral presentation is over :))
though i totally screwed up the fluency and clarity of speech criterior.
i was so nervous being the 1st speaker.
and waiting for the 2 moderators who were LATE was nerve-wreaking.
my face was flamed and i was sitting so straight the accessors noticed and asked me to relax while waiting.

and the 2 additional moderators my group had didn't help much.
oh wells...how unfortunate.
and how unexpected...me? screwing up that criterior?
pffft....i was even expecting full marks for myself after dry run and that presentation we gave to some random class and random teacher.

anyways...shit happens.
touching up of i&r and we're done for the year :))




and i'll get shipped off to laos to blend in with the kids with my cuckoo hairstyle =(

that voice that whispered. i should have listened.



i lost my wallet.













i seriously hope it's not the crew at macs.
because the really nice SA girl said the table was cleared before anyone actually occupied it.

there goes my wallet.



i'll hear no end from the mother.








anyways...luckily i lost it only when i went for breakie at macs with the rest.
AFTER i collected gissy's present.
if you actually see this,


happy birthday babe :)
hope you like the cuppies!
it's a bit plain but yea....there were supposed to be kittens instead of butterflies!
hohum...you've been wonderful girl :)
mornings are fun though sometimes all we do is stone.
lol!
hope your wish of having a fantastic day came true :)

the cuppies :)

they were cheaper than the ones i ordered the last time...and so much prettier :)

oral presentation tomorrow. i just pray i don't screw up=(

i don't want things to get worse than they already are.