Moments of 2011

I was pondering how I should do an end of year round up post. Browsed through my old journal and felt that 2011 has been a really great year. So before I forget, below is my month to month summary of my favourite moments of the year!

So here we gooooooooo!

January - I spent the whole month reminiscing the time spent in China last December. It was my longest travel. Fun-filled, snow-filled, and experienced filled :) I would want to go there again. Missing the street food! Other than that, I started school

February and March - Months filled with projects in my Sophomore year

April - Go India! India was a wonderful experience. I heard so many 'eeeks' or 'huh' when they know I am heading there. Of course, I have my reservations about that developing country. My parents were worried about my safety but I felt it would be safe as long as we are in a group. Furthermore, it was heavily subsidised so why should I not go right? :p So, one of the most prominent thing about India I recalled was colors - the country is vibrant. Food is not as awful as I thought, smell is not as bad as we think. I enjoyed walking down the streets though a lil' dirty because I get to see what I don't see in Singapore... Kinda like traveling to such countries because it makes me appreciate my homeland more :)

May - Aug - 

1. My first internship (haha yes, we don't have one in RP) I gained a whole new experience working in a hospital. I think understanding the 24/7 process of a hospital is something cool. Grateful to my sups and colleagues for all the endless sharing.

2. Batam trip with bi :)

September - cheers to many many years of our girly-friendshipssssssssss

October - November - many many many insane moments in school. and many feasting with beloved friends and more cafe sourcing with the boyf <3

December - 5 days in Perth :D, broke my record for SC10km run, Wisdom Tooth Surgery, first home Xmas party with friends, S100 surprisey!

End. 

The last few days of 2011 was extremely well-spent..... :) I'm so ever grateful and blessed with all the friends I have, Jack, my mum n brother. Love you guys loads!!!!!!! (even though I felt like I've lost something once dear to me... ) and all the travel opportunities, perspective, just can't be more thankful for all these.

Can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for me :) Maybe I should make plans!

Till then.. :) Have a happy new year!

I ♥ instant pictures

i love my instax mini. click and ta-dang! the photo appears. being bored, I decided to scan in these babies and did some color editing to it using photoshop. Wanted to get some vintage feeling so I google-d for that.

but anyway, these are the end results - doesn't look very vintage-y to me but darken. (some too dark opps)  need to figure the red, blue and green color for the best vintage effect. anybody knows how photoshop works? :( I wanna learnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have a whole load of Polaroids on my wall. love how dreamy and pretty they always turn out to be. hee

Seize the day

It's been a long while since I walked down the streets of Orchard alone, at least 8 months? I can't recall... So after my tuition, I headed town and to fep.. to ion.. to wisma.. to taka (got a beard papa's cream puff! hehe).. to cini.. to Orchard Central. I was stucked at Urban Write since it was raining. 

Very much decided to sit down at a random place and get a cup of coffee. Was so sleepy and tired from all the walking and then found out that tingyun was alone too! so we had a 1-2 hour tea break before meeting the boyfs. hehe. Life like this I like...:)

Orchard in fish eye view!

So many people at Typo.

I very much wanted to get this!!!!!!!!!!!! but there was no carrier :(((((( and I thought I had a long day to go. Should I get it? ahhhhh, love it!

 

 heheh craving for some chocolate. they ran out of Tiramisu so I got the cocoa cream puff!

 

Lovin' the nostalgic effects of my camera

and meet the girlfriend! coffee+artease :D

I was craving for Or Jian.......

I figured shopping alone can be a tranquil yet boring moment. I can stay in a shop forever and stare at some things over and over again.. thinking if I should get it, if it's worth the price. and then if I would use it.

Take this photo frame for example. so cute right!!!!!!! I wonder where I get it from (cheaply :p)

good moments like this are short-lived.... want to do this again before school stars!

2 more days before a brand New year! any thoughts or feelins'? :)

Boxing day // Ippudo @ Mandarin Gallery

Finally brought the boy to try Ippudo @ Mandarin Gallery. It was my second visit

Settled down after our 30 minutes long queue and got our Ramen!!! We were both famished

My delicious looking ramen with Japanese flavored egg. We selected the medium noodle and it was to our liking, not too hard or soft but.... I find the soup a little too salty for my taste buds. The pan-fried dumplings in my opinion was so-so only. 

Worth a try though! It's at level 4 of Mandarin Gallery

And after a few hours of walking and failed shopping, we went to one of our favorite Cafe again! :D

 Ordered same old Chamomile Dream tea to go with my Red Velvet Cupcake and Americano coffee for the boy with his cookie!

It's been a long time since we last dated like this hehe.

Pleasantly surprised at 12am. ilu

Emotional Intelligence

I'm sometimes confused by the above term with sensitivity with words or openness or straight forward......

There are many times I don't get why and how people can say things out from their mouth that can pierce right through one's heart. And here, I mean to your friends or families member. These are also lines my mum will tell me that "ni/ta shou hua hen 毒".

I think it's important for one to learn how to manage their words, moods and behaviors according to situation, and tone. When we were younger, we may have the tendency to be rude or rebellious. We say things to hurt people on purpose or to show people that "eh, I'm cool k". But as we grow, don't you begin to think that such words/actions are unnecessary? It's probably okay or better to say for fun, in a jokingly manner instead of a harsh and aggressive tone. There's a huge difference. 

I can quote an example easily... Person A likes to emphasize/scold that I'm a stupid university student because I don't know this certain news/happenings or whatever I did to make him unhappy in a harsh tone. While it may be because he felt that I don't know enough, or I'm pissing him off, what he doesn't know about it is that his words hurts. I was angry and mad at him of course. These are things/actions I wouldn't learn from him because it's rude and unkind. Why would you want to say things like that to hurt your loved ones or friends? Is it beneficial to you? Does it makes you feel better about yourself?

What I want to stress here is don't say things to people that is plain equivalent to the feelings of telling a blind person to watch how he walk. Not only it's insensitive and makes people think twice about the relationship, it's hurtful.

I guess courtesy, consideration and respect are some important factors that over the years I've learned that it's important for us to keep in mind. Nobody's perfect, I am not, but as long as you try, it will make you a better person :)

This is one of my best takeaway in 2011.

The joys and wonders of Christmas

Finally experienced my first Christmas with home-cooked food in a fake fine dining style, proper gifts exchange and pretty decorated Christmas tree (by me and sulai :p)! After all these years, I think I still enjoy celebrating this festive season by staying at home with some good food, movies, and friends or families. It definitely beats squeezing with the crowds in Town :)

and next, I can't deny the excitement of gifts exchange. Because I wasn't there to help choose the gifts, I was equally excited for all others who's opening their presents! hahaha :) No doubt it's the season of giving

We had a good laugh, gathering and toast at the table in the night, with all the familiar faces back from overseas. Went round the table and talked about something memorable about 2011, the girls surely did a better job at this. 

Time flies, in another 1 week's time.... It's New Year's eve. What have you achieved this year?

Two more celebrations to go :) 

Have a Merry merry Christmas!!!!!!!!

snippets of JB

 

Enjoyed our 2nd girl's JB trip. Finally get to sing after 4 months. City square has got really cheap rates - SGD7+ inclusive of 3.5 hours singing, buffet and drinks. Had tomyum and macaroons after K. Sushi King for dinner and secret recipe for desserts! :) and of cause, shopping! That pretty much sums up our day. Gonna miss Kay when she leaves for Finland in 3 weeks time. have fun there!

Wisdom Teeth Surgery

I've been dragging my wisdom teeth surgery for as long as possible and after more than a year, I finally got it done - one side though. Right now, I'm biting on a gauze and swallowing blood and saliva from my mouth. Gross I know. But my dentist say I'm not supposed to spit it out for 6-8 hours after my operation.

Had local anesthesia, it wasn't that painful and lasted me for a good 6 hours. I'm beginning to feel the pain now... especially after J called me, maybe I 'exercised' the jaws too much whilst talking to him. haha.

Anyway, it was a very rushed decision to do this. I've been lazy to call the National Dental... and I chanced upon Smile Division at CCK one day. Did a filling and decided to go ahead with my surgery there (since it was Medisave claimable too!) Cost my mum $900! :/ (xray, 1 surgery, 1 extraction and medicine inclusive). I didn't feel any pain at all during the process, I think the dentist is pretty good at it. She had to slice my gum, break the teeth, pull it out and sew it back yucks. The thought of it again makes me shivers.

So far so good. The pain is still bearable, just that I get a lil' slower when it comes to eating and drinking. The porridge mum cooked was so so so delicious that I feel so upset I can't eat properly because moving the jaws up and down really hurts.. It took me 35 minutes!

Just hope the pain will remain and subside for the next 2-3 days. Somehow biting on the gauze is less painful than without it, maybe I should get more since I'm running out of it. Been losing blood since 12pm!!!!

my disgusting teeth

amount of medicine I have to consume

Guess it would be rest days for the next few days before Xmas gathering with my friends!!!! :)

Dinner at Porn's

Finally dinner at Porn's with the boyf :) The first time I went there was with the girlfriends. But because I was late, I didn't really get to eat much of the food. So this time we did :D Over ordered for 2 pax though :/ Very filling!

 

Our seafood pak thai

Pineapple rice

On top of that, we had tomyum soup and thai green mango salad! Costs us about $47, a lil' overpriced :/

Outfit:
LB Basic Taffie Top in Forest
Shorts - Valley Girl Perth

A walk around Bugis - then to Shaw's tower to get Tom's Palette :) Tom Palatte's is one of my favourite ice-cream parlors. I love cheap and homemade ice-cream. This medium cup costs only $3.60 after less! We had Chocolate sorbet and apple pie flavours. The boyf decides after a few mouthful that he's too full for it... so well.. I.. love ice-cream :)

short and fruitful day

I wanted to take a quick nap before I head for work but I had the urge to type something into this space...

So yeah, the grandma would be staying over at my place for the next 1 week or so because of her eye's surgery. I do hope she recover soon. We've been making frequent trips to the hospital recently.

Anyway, I woke up at 11am, bathed, went to pack lunch for her, had my breakfast and then headed to the gym with cherbok :) didn't really do much - ran 3km and did some sit-up. That costs us $4/pax by the way -__- but I love that the gym is so clean! That aside, we headed for lunch and discussed about our xmas dinner this Saturday. hehehe now I can't wait! :D

Was browsing through blogs and Facebook and I slowly realized that there are so many girls out there becoming air stewardess!! like really quite alot..... It seems like a job with great benefits (pay-wise, you get to travel to lots of countries) especially if you like to travel but of course I guess it comes with a price. I've never once thought of being an air stewardess even though I enjoy looking at pictures of countries/friend's travelogue post/random space. Probably because I'm short and fat hahaha and Jack would be too sad if I leave the country too often lol.

Days seem to pass too quickly. I used to be 4 years away from graduation and now 1.5 years and actually 1 if I squeeze and do summer mods. At times, I do sit and think about what I want to do in the future. A business analyst? HR manager? A teacher? Or take on any job that I can grab? Somehow, the future looks bleak. I am not a smart person by nature but I work hard and put in effort for what I want do. There are so many choices out there I don't know which one to choose. But I hope to have a job where I can run about because I really dislike the idea of sitting in the office 7 hours a day looking at the computer. I think I fidget quite abit, I cannot even sit still in theater for 2 hours not moving. Let's hope something inspires/come to me naturally asap though.

Alot of people questioned why I want to do ISM. Truth to be told, I'm not very good at coding and stuff but I find it more interesting as compared to fields like accounting, finance, etc. I had a chance to do commerce in MI but I chose RP, I had a chance to do business in SIM but I chose SMU. I'm not very good at it still but I'm learning alot from my surrounding people and friends. I have classmates who are really smart and I'm awed by their IT talents. hahahaha. Sometimes I wished I have half of their brains :p But anyway, I'm really thankful for the people I met these 2 years.. :)

Well, I guess I still have about another year to decide what I want to do and what's best for the future..

Every holiday, I'd come up with alot of things that I want to do and go for.

I hope this would be the one.

Now I'm running late for workkkkkkkkk!!

✈ Perth - Day 3

Brunch at one of the cafes in the city!

Beautiful streets :)

Never thought I'll be able to get many cheap buys there!!! hehehe

my daily cup of bbt there omgzxfat

Domino's Pizza & chocolate lava cake for dinner/supper!