Monday, May 3, 2004 09:32 p.m.

to face mrs soh is to face a double-edged sword.
she's an enigma to me.
one minute she's shooting her head off...
and the next, she's flashing comic strips and prayers on the projector.

here's what she got for us today before the chinese prelims. :)

Lord, grant me a quiet heart,
before exams start.
Lead me to use my leisure hours,
to invigorate my powers.
My mind from daydreams liberate,
give me the will to concentrate.
From all distractions set me free;
that in my studies I may be
a student with a sole fulfilment,
to make my work a sacrament.

From my faint heart in love expel,
all failures fears that therein dwell.
And from my pillow drive away,
all dark foreboding of the day.
Help me in faith to rest so deep,
that I may have untroubled sleep.
While notes and lectures I prepare,
may I not lose my zest for prayer.

And may I not forget to look,
for guidance in Thy Book.
And may I ever grateful be,
to all who daily pray for me.
While for myself I intercede,
for other students too I plead;
so may exams find
each one alert in heart and mind.

Thus inward joy and peace possessing,
May exams prove a source of blessing.
Amen.

i couldn't find the exact prayer, but this came in a close second.
awesome stuff. :)

Sunday, May 2, 2004 09:42 p.m.

the tham family went shopping today, and what a fruitful trip. :D

our fridge is stocked, my wardrobe's updated, i've new stuff to put in my hair, there's chocolate in my system, and my tummy's satiated. :)

we had lunch at the canteen in shaw, and what a disappointment.
the menu is miniscule.
not literally, but gosh.
their selection of dishes is quite pathetic.
haha...
i need those never-ending menus that get me spoilt for choie.
half of the canteen's menu was dedicated to wine and champagne solely.
tsk.

u have no idea how underprepared i am for tmr's chinese paper.
oh well, i'll just do my best. :)

oh yes, pls remember to bring dictionaries!
i remember going round the staff room before my chinese exams last year trying to borrow a dictionary, because my dear chen laoshi refused to lend me hers.
only shandong laoshi came to my rescure. :)
too bad he's gone now.
ho hum.
and bring a sweater too.
cos we're getting an air-conditioned classroom. :)

Thursday, April 29, 2004 11:57 p.m.

yesterday was fantastic. :D

it was perfect from midnight right through the next 24 hours.
haha...
my cheeks were hurting by the end of the day cos i was grinning so much. :)
and also because i was high on chocolate.

i got woken up at 6.10 in the morning by my bridge gang. :)
i first heard charm's loud whispering, then suddenly the lights came on and they started singing the birthday song.
haha!
i was so groggy, and it really jolted me up. :)
very pleasant surprise.
now i know why my sis was making conversation on the house phone yesterday with yes and no, monosyllabic answers. :)

so after washing up, i cut the cake and we (swei, charm, chow, jan, stacy) sat around gobbling down the very rich chocolate cake lynette had bought. :)
lynette couldn't make it yesterday morning, so i brought the cake for her today.
it's a huge yum!

anyway, we cabbed down to school by 7am and went straight for assembly.
a great big boost was the fact that mrs soh was absent. :)
she's been having this split-personality recently...
making her a very grouchy little lady. xP

we had our 2.4km run during pe, and i'm very disappointed about my timing.
i got my A, but still, the timing's deteriorated a lot.
anyway, my class sang me a birthday song at the track after our run.
ms oh was being incredibly lame...
cracking all kinds of birthday jokes.
i had to forcibly laugh...
very pain-inducing. xP
but she's nice i guess!
despite the fact that she teased me a lot.

during recess, valen passed me the first clue of a treasure hunt.
i got stumped at the 4charity classroom though, because the door was locked and the next clue was stuck inside.
luckily the gungho grace helped me climb into the classroom and unlock the backdoor. :)
the final stop was at this secluded toilet near the computer labs.
reaching there, i saw a note and 2 tubs of tiramisu and mango gelato on a chair...
so i excitedly started picking at it.
then, from the ground before me, i saw flickering shadows...
and when i turned around, sab, mitch, trish and sarah went, "surprise!"
haha...
i love love love gelato. :)
last year, i got a popiah cake from them...
and this year, gelato. :)
i have fickle palates.

anyhow, the gelato was shared by a lot of people so we managed to finish it all.
it melted pretty fast though...
but was really yummy. :)
thanks guys!

so then after school, we cabbed down to orchard, met tanny, and sat down at the coffee bean in wheelock having drinks.
the guy took many wrong orders, so we ended up with 3 extra drinks. :)
incredible luck.
haha...

pretty soon, it was nearing 5pm (the time of my reservation) so we headed down to bigO for the dinner.
at first many people told me they couldn't come!
but it was all a conspiracy...
haha, and i was so glad when they walked into the restaurant. :)
we were starving like crazy...
so when everyone was seated, we started the long process of ordering.

gosh, i think the waiter was quite lost.
but at least he got all 18 orders right. :)
i loved the food!
i wanted it to be a small intimate dinner, and i guess it was...
spent in the wonderful company of my dearest bestfriends, bridge gang, and church friends! :)

yay, and i got a really yummy cake from bigO too.
compliments of the restaurant.
it's called indecent obsession...
but by that time, i had seriously too much chocolate in my system, so i didn't eat it.
i've tried it before though (my mum's favourite cake), so i know it's good. :)

oh yes, i must mention the most irritating (but very sweet) gift from the church people.
of all the presents, it's got to be the most frustrating!
haha...but i love it!
it was those box-within-a-box kinda things, except i had to get though about 12 of them scotch-taped boxes.
it was very nice though...
and i loved the note inside.
sam led me next-door to collect my present, and i think her plan failed!
haha...
they wanted to act like they were gonna steal a bag!
the shopkeepers kept grinning...
i think they conspired the previous day.
great plan though. :D

after dinner, we all took lotsa funny photos, then left the place.
it was raining elephants out there!
we all split up, and i made my way home with louisa, charm and chow.

i took unbelievably long to get home, because the 3 of them had so many things to get.
like chocolate from the supermarket, chinese handbooks from popular...etc.
terrible.
i got home at 9pm, plopped infront of the tv, and totally unwound.
after that i unwrapped a few presents with my sis...
but she kept taking phonecalls from the house phone.
and she persistently wanted me to get my marker pens for her (even though she knows where they're located in my room).
but me being me, the lazy bum, i didn't wanna budge from the couch outside.
my body ached from the run and carrying stuff home.
i was just...pulp.

after about 45mins from when i reached home, swei called and said she left her wallet in my bedroom in the morning.
so i went into the room and...
"surprise!"
i saw my bestfriends in the whole wide world!
haha...
and there was mitch's construction paper all over the place with things like "you're sixteen sweetie!" everywhere.
it's all still up there in my room.
i'm lazy to take them down. :)

at about 10pm, sab, trish, sarah and tanny then left my house...
and by then i was dead exhausted.

it was a long day...
and this is an equally long entry.

anyhow, i wanna thank everyone for everything. :)
for the warm wishes, the smses, the hugs, the phonecalls, the pats-on-the-backs, the presents, the handshakes, the cards, the cakes, and most importantly, for remembering. :)

it's really amusing now to listen to what went on behind-the-scenes. :D
so many spoilers!
and i didn't really suspect much...
haha.
but all those covered-mouth-whispers, phonecalls to my family, note-passing during lesson, trips to the toilet, and sending of people to stall me/divert attention - it all takes greater significance now.
i never really noticed it before, and looking back, i should have seen that something was up. xP

a huge thank u for everything!
u've all totally made my day - my week - my year - my birthday - the best ever. :)

16, and loving it. :)

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 07:30 p.m.

i'm totally dreading tomorrow's 2.4km run.
just hope to hit a sub-13mins.
it'll be a great start to the day if that were to happen. :)

yowza...
i think i've got the runs!
had a bad tummyache and diarrhoea just now.
i fully blame the 5-day-old water i drank in the morning. :(

no menses or diarrhoea tomorrow, please.
i'll just cripple and roll my way to a near-death.

not the best of ways to spend my first day at 16. :)

Sunday, April 25, 2004 09:27 p.m.

10 of my absolutely favourite things to do are...

1) standing in borders reading magazines for free (me being the cheapo that i am).

2) attending french lesson.
we're learning comparisons now, and i'm always used as the example.
i'm officially the youngest, the puniest, and the female with the shortest hair.
"Karina est plus jeune que Karen...Shiv est plus grand que Karina...Karina est moin grand est Shiv...".
blah blah.

3) drinking smoothies and eating caesar salad. :D

4) meeting up with my bestfriends!

5) spending ridiculous amounts of money on shopping.

6) giving presents and celebrating birthdays. :)

7) watching planet food on central.

8) sitting on bus 162.
it's my favourite bus service...it takes me everywhere. :)

9) irritating people with my handwriting.
i reserved a few pieces of clothing at this boutique, so i had to write down my contact number.
the lady couldn't read my handwriting so she rewrote my name in clear, block letters right beside my scribble.
tsk.

10) discovering a new, and now my favourite, shop. :)
the way i found it writes like a fairytale.
i was napping in the bus 162 when i suddenly woke up to a jerk, looked out of the window, and spotted this store.
i did the craziest thing by alighting and running straight toward the shop, in a part of singapore i have never been to.
well, yes.
that's how i chanced upon my favourite shop. :)

the best part is...
i've completed all these 10 things i absolutely love in one weekend. :)
haha...
i'm feeling positively paradisiacal. :D

(even my :) has grown into :D)

Saturday, April 24, 2004 12:42 a.m.

dead beat.
just got home about half an hour ago.
sam, jan, charm and i attended the grand finals of the julia gabriel debate competition at acjc earlier today...
and yes, st nicks did great. :)

we got the best speaker and runner-up position, only behind united world college.
awesome stuff. :)

i was seated really close to the uwc contingent, and i could tell they were impressed by the standing ovation we gave them. :)
eavesdropping on the parents of the uwc students pays off!
they're so supportive of their kids...
especially the dad behind me.
very sweet. :)

after the entire thing ended at 10pm, sam, charm and i took bus 74 with the intention of going towards hougang.
but, as always, i led them in the wrong direction...
and so we ended up at some desolate holland drive area instead.

anyhow, we made the best of our situation and went for supper at a seafood place where the bus dropped us.
the 3 of us shared an expensive supper of stingray and xo crab beehoon.
beat that.
we're such pigs.
haha...
but the food was yummy. :)

after that huge (albeit exorbitant) meal, we managed to catch the last bus 74 of the day...
and tada, i'm home. :)

anyhow, i'm mighty shagged and raring for a bath.
gosh, i'm dreading tuition tomorrow morning.
lots of incomplete (or in other words, untouched) homework.

kablooey.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:01 a.m.

i was fumbling with the huge new roll of mahjong paper (think karina on all fours tearing at the brown wrapping) at ms jeya's desk today when from the table behind, i heard mrs tian go, "poor karina," empathetically.
then smile at me.

how amazing, coming from a teacher whose reputation for being fierce (and sometimes insensitive) far surpasses that of any other.

she totally made my day. :)

Sunday, April 18, 2004 10:19 p.m.

seriously, i never thought sports day would be that emotional for us.
but i suppose we've come out of it stronger and more bonded?
yes.
so it's just a reaffirmation of our boundless friendship and kindred spirits (did i just pick that up from zhen qin?!).

anyhow, this sports day has been the most impactful one for me to date.
and we had a fantastic supper at serangoon gardens, no?
great stuff. :)

i was so glad stacy could join us!
cos she isn't usually free...
and it's just amazing seeing her out till midnight. :)

we got home pretty late last night though...
close to 12.30am.
but anyhow, i woke up in a mess this morning.
puffy eyes and wobbly voice...
the hours leading up to intercessory prayer were very tense, because i was so afraid my voice would start getting pitchy one moment and hitting alto the next.
aftereffects of screaming.
i'm just glad things went smoothly. :)

post-confirmation (i hope we decide on a more original youth group name soon) feels very different now than how it was in the beginning.
that's good, in a way.

met up with swei, jan, charm and tanny for lunch then tuition.
awesome session, except that we were all tired and very irritating/irritable.
haha...
accomplishments today include grasping indices and making it to sunset mass. :)

quite clearly, i'm speaking very incoherently today; in drips and draps.
i shall just snuggle up to my magazines now.

and i do do do hope mrs soh comes tomorrow.
math isn't math without her.

Friday, April 16, 2004 04:56 p.m.

yowza...
it sucks being sick.
just got home from the apple service centre...
dad sent me there to get my ipod repaired.
he took half-day leave because of me!
(and also to fix the computers, but that's beside the point.)

anyhow, i've slept for more than 12 hours today.
which technically makes me feel almost like a walking zombie.
argh...

tomorrow is our sports day.
and the for the first time in 10 years, i wish blue would win.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 11:53 a.m.

i'm in the computer lab now with silly janice-who-has-dropped-elit studying chinese right beside me( discriminated by everybody) and chow-who-is-so cute-and-sweet sitting beside me. i love her loads.

*ahem*
the above text has been entirely edited by chow charlene.
anyhow, we're supposed to be doing our king of the castle essay but it's killing me!
stupid jan's still studying chinese.
making us feel bad...
okae, back to the essay. but i must conclude that i still love chow (=

Monday, April 12, 2004 07:21 p.m.

from a book i read last year...
the bell jar by sylvia plath. :)

"The day I went into physics class it was death...(The teacher) stood in front of the class...holding a wooden ball. He put the ball on a steep grooved slide and let it run down to the bottom. Then he started talking about let 'a' equal acceleration and let 't' equal time and suddenly he was scribbling letters and numbers and equal signs all over the blackboard and my mind went dead.

I may have made a straight A in physics, but I was panic-struck. Physics made me sick the whole time I learned it. Instead of leaf shapes and enlarged diagrams of the holes the leaves breathe through and fascinating words like carotene and xanthophyll on the blackboard, there were these hideous, cramped, scorpion-lettered formulas in Mr. Manzi's special red chalk.

I knew chemistry would be worse, because I'd seen a big chart of the ninety-odd elements hung up in the chemistry lab, and all the perfectly good words like gold and silver and cobalt and aluminum were shortened to ugly abbreviations with different decimal numbers after them. If I had to strain my brain with any more of that stuff I would go mad. I would outright fail. It was only by a horrible effort of will that I had dragged myself through the first half of the year."

pretty much sums up my feelings toward science.
yeesh.

swei's back in singapore. :)
thanks for the purse and towel set!
our official bridge purse. :)

Sunday, April 11, 2004 11:53 p.m.

fantastic children's easter day mass this morning.
the songs were jived up, and everyone was in great spirits. :)

went for mass with kim, tiff and my family.
the church gave out free chocolate easter eggs, and kim went to get a packet of them.
tsk tsk...
terrible girl, depriving the kids. :)

went down to uncle ben's after that for the potluck...
and wow.
i didn't think there'd be that much food.
all great stuff though. :)
so we just sat around eating, chatting, and watching a movie that no one was really following.

i got seriously stuffed with food...
and that got me feeling sleepy, so i took a nap on the couch for a while. :)
the pizza was yummilicious. :)
and i totally forgot about the bottle of sparkling apple juice i brought...
anyway, dad fetched me home around 6pm.

okae, i've got to complete my english essay now.
i realise i've not been posting anything else besides entries like these nowadays, so i'll post an essay or poem once i find something. :)
just posted a reply to a few people in my guestbook btw.
oh yes, (uncle) colin said he'd grant brendan, christian and me internships at his law firm on a turn by turn basis after the o's!
funky. :)
can't wait.

Saturday, April 10, 2004 07:13 p.m.

wow okae where do i start...
i've got so much to say!
i think i'm just gonna plunge into a long, incoherent essay to take down the past few days, so bear with me while i rant and rave. :)

wednesday was a whole bunch of jittery fits for me.
i kept irritating vaune by shaking (like a polaroid picture) the whole day.
haha...
shaking helps to loosen and release some tension.
try it. :)
i'm a highly stressed person. :)
oh, the lies i tell.

anyway, the debate went a little awry, and i was quite worried because we were relatively unprepared.
but i guess things turned out fine. :)

thursday was a mix of jubilation and franctic nerves, partly because of 2 major common tests and the impending weekend.
school went on fine, and we had the easiest chinese comprehension in all our tests yet...
despite the fact that i totally misinterpreted one of the quetions, and thought they were asking for what i would have done if i were a wasp.
sheesh. :)
after school, i got home, packed and changed, then rushed downtown to meet tanny.

we went shopping for birthday presents (albeit digressing here and there), and finally settled on mambo stuff for jan and a tiffany and co. necklace for mitch. :)
whew.
shopping for people is way more difficult than shopping for oneself.
u won't believe how fickle we were...
anyway, i took a cab down to st mary's church after that to meet the ihm people for our church visiting activity.
because i was early, i went round the place checking out the architecture, and it's seriously drop-dead gorgeous.
an article about it is in the straits times life! section today, but it looks much better up-close.
awesome. :)
anyhow, i went to meet the ihm group once they arrived, and we travelled to different churches the rest of the night.
it was pretty fun on the bus, with magic card tricks (haha) and a lot of other silly stuff. :)
we got back to ihm just before midnight, so sam and i rushed to take public transport before they terminated at 12.
she was going down to pasir ris, and i was rushing to mitch's house to surprise her for her birthday. :)

{at this point, i'd like to mention that i'm eating very yummy ski mixed berry yoghurt that looks as fantastic as it is to eat. i love eating out of a glass because the marbled effect of the purple berry mixture with its huge berries against its natural white yoghurt counterpart is very pretty. :)}

talking about taking public transport...
i can't stand it.
sam and i took the bus down to kovan mrt, but the trains had terminated at midnight.
so i took a bus, hoping it'd drop me anywhere near town, but no...
i'd taken the wrong direction.
just as i realised i was going in the opposite way, the bus driver informed me that no more buses were operating anymore.
just then, sab called to hurry me...
so i started whining to her about how i was lost and had gone the wrong direction.
a very nice gentleman came up to me then, and told me that i should just take a cab to wherever i wanted to go.
he even told me which road to take, what i should tell the cab driver, and where i should hail a cab.
at this point, i was freaking out because i was late (we were supposed to surprise mitch at midnight), and i had serious transportation problems.
so i just franctically stuck my arm out for all its worth and waved at every car that came by.
as if things couldn't get worser, i got a rookie cab driver who didn't know our singapore roads for nuts.
i told him to bring me to raffles girls' school, but he took me to raffles institution instead.
then, he told me he didn't know where raffles girls' school was, so he spent the next 15 minutes trying to contact and comprehend the instructions this other guy across the line was giving him as to how to get there.
by then, the taxi fare was rising as fast as my heart rate was.
i wanted to scream and run out of the cab in frustration...
but anyway, he finally got me to mitch's place by 1am.

i suppose the surprise sab, sarah, tanny and i gave her went pretty well. :)
and i bet she was ecstatic!
haha...
so then we sat in the kitchen and pigged out on blueberry cheesecake. :)
the whole night whizzed by with a lot a lot of fun, and before we knew it, it was 6am and we were zonked out.
slept till noon, afterwhich we ordered lunch from pizza hut. :)
but i had to run, so i grabbed my things and ran out to the busstop to catch 132...
but it never came.
i waited well over 20 minutes, and by then i couldn't wait anymore so i just hailed a cab...
which brought my total travelling costs to a whooping 30 bucks, including the cab rides the previous night.

anyhow, i reached st ignatius in time for the 3pm good friday service with my family, so it was all good. :)
i was glad we attended it with most of the family, including my grandparents too. :)
had a good long service while chatting with my cousins and playing silly games with them. :)
sadly, i had to miss having the seafood dinner with them. :(

dad sent me down to mitch's place again for her birthday bash...
and yes, i think everyone had lotsa fun. :)
we played many rounds of bridge...
and now, more people have learnt to play it. :)
yay. :)
sab and i had 3 servings of the haagen daz chocolate cake each...
terrible huh.
but it was so so so very yummy. :)

after everyone left, the group of us went up to mitch's room and watched her open her presents.
i really believe u can tell how a person is from the presents she gets. :)
haha...inside joke.

anyway, our collage of photos is finally done!
although i ruined it, still, it's nice. :)
we're gonna use that huge digital collage for our blog background...
yes, very funky.
can't wait to do it up soon. :)
anyhow, i reached home around 11pm to get my much needed sleep.
zzZzzZzz...
then woke up early this morning for math tuition with sab.
gosh...we were an hour early for tuition.
ma choo was so shocked...haha.
but sab and i were practically falling alseep on the table, so she let us go out for a little breakfast and caffeine before going back for tuition.
i tried the spanish omelette bagel at macs...
it's not too bad i guess.
just maybe a little nauseating.
but not bad. :)

after a long lesson of transformations (i don't like shear), i went off for french!
had a great lesson...
i really wish we wouldn't have to change classes at the end of each term. :(
i do like my teacher a lot!

anyhow, this entry has been absurdly long.
haha...
basically, the past 4 days have been bittersweet...
with a healthy mixture of the good and fair share of mishaps.
i think i've used more :) than
:( in this entry though! :)

to end off, here's a very happy easter to everyone!

christ is risen!