twenty-eight hours to go.

so here i am, at the twenty-eighth hour countdown mark before my departure from lovely sunny singapore: at ernest's place, singing out loud from his "dan coates' easy piano collection - pop, country, movie and tv hits" scorebook, passing the time by blogging about how depressing life is on the day before one leaves the country one has lived in for practically one's entire life.

i finally finished packing [sort of] this morning, and i couldn't help but feel a strange sense of resignation as i stuffed pictures of everything and everyone i held dear into an envelope and zipped up my now-overstuffed suitcase. i really have to go. there'll be no more "well, maybe i could just wait and re-apply to NUS next year..", which, admittedly, was a distinctly unbrilliant idea brought on by temporary insanity. but this is really it. in about twenty-eight hours, i'm going to have to kiss my boyfriend [and my bolster] goodbye, get on a plane filled with people i don't know, and head off to a country and a place i know virtually nothing about.

if you tell me you wouldn't be just a wee bit daunted by the prospect, i'd bet you a million dollars that you're lying.

goodbyes are always the most horrible part about any truly significant changes in a person's life, and i'm hoping to leave all of that to tomorrow. hopefully i don't burst into tears at the airport and become entirely incoherent. it's not a particularly probable event, actually, despite my self-proclaimed emotional instability. i have never been much of a "oh no, i'm not going to see you for three months! [cue loud sobbing noises]" kind of girl. but still.. i haven't been quite myself these few days, and if anyone does happen to catch sight of that unfortunate occurrence, please turn away.

anyway, i shall cease to be maudlin now because ernest has just emerged from the shower dressed in a HAPPY shirt [he has been having this thing for bright colours recently] and i'm going to smile at him and tell him that he smells like a flower, because he honestly does, and we're going to go back to my house where my relatives are going to throw me a huge buffet party with all sorts of chinese food junk.

so yes, if you're coming tomorrow, i'll be there at like.. nine thirty-something?

i'll see you.

ciao.

i love parties!

just came home from one of david charles tay's legendary lamb parties, held in honour of geoffrey ho who will be leaving for london in three days. [with me.] needless to say, i couldn't eat the lamb, despite the sounds of ecstacy that were coming from everyone else seated at the table. but maaaan. david's helper really cooks amazing, amazing, amazing food.

the beef was.. unspeakably good.

after stuffing our faces with more food than i usually would eat over a week, we then proceeded to sit around in groups, playing with david's dog, SHIRO, who is absolutely the most adorable dog i have ever encountered in my living, breathing lifetime. i know that technically i'm supposed to stoically defend sisqo's honour, but honestly, you haven't seen a cute dog if you haven't seen shiro. a

nyway, most of the guys eventually broke off and started playing winning eleven, and the rest of us crowded around david's piano [which, admittedly, is much more well-maintained than mine is. :P] and sang. [again.]

in short, it was great fun.

i still haven't packed, btw. :P

people have been asking me OVER and OVER and OVER again where on earth York is, so here it is! it is NOT in the US, it is NOT in london, it is NOT at the border of scotland, and it is NOT near to the ocean in any way.


so there you have it. the city of York, below Middlesbrough, above Castleford, beside Leeds. :)

three more days!

ciao.

the story of my utterly inane life.

here is a little re-enactment of my every morning:

11.00 a.m.
"rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiing."
jo: w..what? huh..? [picks up phone] yeah?
nest: jo, you just woke up?
jo: mmm.
nest: hey i need to ask you about... [voice trails off in jo's head as she falls back asleep] JOOOO!!!
jo: huh? what? what? i'm listening lah.
nest: you're half-asleep lah! i'll call you later.
jo: mmm. [hangs up and goes back to sleep]

11.30 a.m.
"deedee, deedee, deedeedeedee, deedeedeedee, DEEDEEDEEDEE, DEEDEEDEEDEE, DEEDEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
jo: b..bloody hell. [reaches out, turns off alarm clock and goes back to sleep.]

11.35 a.m.
ruth: eh, miss chong! [whacks jo's rear with jo's extremely hard "God is watching over me" pillow.]
jo: h..huh? whaaaaaat?!
ruth: eh you eating lunch here or not? then i go buy.
jo: mmmm.
ruth: yes or no?
jo: mmmm.
ruth: aiyah you so lazy. lazy girl. [whacks jo again for good measure and leaves the room.]

12.20 a.m.
jo: [stirring.] waah, it's so cold. [tries to get warm under blanket.]
clearly, this fails because jo's blanket is ten years old and honestly provides no warmth whatsoever
jo: [gets up, stretches] what time is it? [looks at the clock]
jo: damn, i just wasted my whole morning.

and that's the story of jo's life.

sorry for the extremely uninspiring entry, but hey, i'm sure you can understand why.

ciao.

here are a couple of photos i took last night:

usfour minus one.

this is my favourite picture of the night. haha. hilarious.

jamie, me, huis, ju and pam.

we were supposed to be standing in order of height.

nest!

my best friends in the world, no matter where i am. [minus one.]

everyone who came, gathered around my dining table.

ju, sihui, pam and i.

meeting old friends.

it really is amazing how time flies when you spend good, quality time with people you've known and loved for so long.

yesterday was my somewhat-farewell-ish barbeque, where twenty [or what was supposed to be twenty] of my closest friends from every part of my life gathered together to have an evening of great [or what was supposed to be great] food and conversation!

thank you to everyone who came and contributed in some way or another.. :) it was really great. and of course, thank you to my very own personal event organiser and house husband, ernest xue ren kai. all credit goes to you! [honestly, it does. he cooked most of the food himself, did all the organising and calling up and got stressed about everything under the sun.]

anyway, it was an especially good day for me; choir in the morning was great. man, i really love early music. reminds me of the times when people played everything on the harpsichord and women walked around in big hoop skirts. [i have a victorian-era fetish] so i was already in an amazing mood by the time the afternoon rolled around. then we went back to my place and played OUTRAGE! while david entertained us on the piano [which he really couldn't stop complaining about].

i won, naturally, due to my greater intelligence and excellent strategy, but then again, that's no surprise.

when pam and luke arrived, they decided it would be a great lark to write my surprise farewell letter RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, so they sat there for half an hour musing about what they could say as we finished playing outrage, and then we all sat down and did nothing for a little bit more before we started playing around with the food. then JU CAME!!! and after a while, HUIS came!! so there were introductions all around, while david continued to vigilantly play the piano. [one really has to respect him.] i'll have to fast-forward, because this entry's getting a bit tedious, so ANYWAY. qing and rugrat eventually came, but only after pam and luke left, so that was a bit.. strange. but i [who, face it, is the most important character in this little recounting, haha!] had a GREAT time, because well, it's a gathering of my best friends.

and what can beat one whole night with your best friends?

anyway, then ju, nest, joshua he [because of nest] and i went for prata. it's the strangest thing, because i've never actually seen joshua outside of a school context, so it was particularly interesting to find out that HEY, he's actually a pretty nice guy. haha. :) we ended up going home at one plus, after a couple of teas and milo dinosaurs, and i ended up sleeping at three because i was talking to ju.

so today, i met up with another group of people, my lovely altos! krys, limmy, esther, jolene, pam po, and enci, who rushed down just to spend fifteen minutes with us and rush off. haha. and of course, the honourable mindy tan, who has been my alto companion for two whole blooming years. went to fish and co at glasshouse for dinner, and ended up ordering SO MUCH FOOD [how typical, eh]. had a good evening talking and catching up, with plenty of laughs, especially when esther started speaking in this EXTREMELY condescending tone to the waitress about how you must "press the button and HOLD when you're taking digital photographs".. it was amazing, i swear. then limmy, esther, mindy and i headed off to ben and jerry's where i bought us a merlionster [six scoops of yummy, fatty goodness with toppings] and talked the night away about ponds and sharks and br****n. :P

it's been a good weekend.

haha. and it can only get better!!

meeting with flops to go back to ac on tuesday morning; meeting qing and her boyfriend for lunch on weds afternoon; meeting ju again for dinner and to chill on weds night; maybe meeting jy, layhoon and ruth on thursday; meeting nest, josh and ju again to go out on thursday night and meeting ben next monday before i head off the next day for york.

i've missed everyone so much.

and looking at my schedule, one almost wonders where i'm going to find the time to pack. hmm.

ciao.

so.

so.

i've been sick, and busy, and hence i haven't been blogging and/or venturing out of my house. but i feel much better now, and my suitcase is fully packed [sadly, only with the bare minimum of jackets, towels and books so i'm just going to have to venture to york without any clothing, toiletries and electrical appliances whatsoever.] so i'm back here to blog!

unfortunately, i have nothing to blog about.

i missed the alumni welcome tea. BAH. i missed saturday's church service when clement led worship. BAH. i missed one driving lesson. BAH.

what a wonderful way to spend my third-last week in singapore.

anyway, if you've read my little post entitled "who's afraid of the big, bad happy ending?" [yes, the one advocating 'trashy', 'lurid' novels], i've recently found this author who wrote a newsletter regarding the anti-romantic bias! yes! love-starved voyeurs of the world unite! if you're interested, you can find it here: http://www.jennycrusie.com/essays/defeatingthecritics.php

i personally think it's fantastic.

there was another article which i read that was so stunningly funny and amazingly sarcastic that i forgot who actually wrote it. but there was a line in it that went like this, "romance is for uneducated, sexually repressed voyeurs. yes. just as crime novels are for repressed murderers and psychopaths with a taste for necrophilia."

in my humble opinion, we uneducated, sexually repressed voyeurs are bloody brilliant creatures.

ciao.

monster house. GRR!!!

so, i have reached this absolutely pathetic point in my life where my only company is that of my darling, DARLING younger siblings [one of which is reading this post from over my shoulder while she pretends to do her cizi.] therefore, today, i decided that i HAD to get my lazy arse out of my house, right? so i decided to treat my little siblings to a MOVIE! my younger brother staunchly refused to watch something as inane as "lovewrecked", so we eventually decided on MONSTER HOUSE.

disclaimer: if you are going to laugh at me, please leave my blog before that happens, or i may have to disembowel you.

in essence, it's a show where two precocious, albeit adorable, little boys go into a frenzy after 'killing' their abrasive next door neighbour who has a rather freakish tendency to speak to his house. they believe that the house is haunted by their dead neighbour and feels a need to exorcise the ghost that has possessed the house to prevent others from being consumed by the house that has suddenly sprouted a mouth and begun eating people. throw in a strangely rafflesian-ish young girl in pigtails who likes to take charge of the situation and you have a "house-killing" escapade of the greatest proportions.

surprisingly, the show was better than i originally thought it would be. but go in hoping to laugh and be entertained and you will be sadly disappointed.

why?

because it is absolutely the MOST SCARY ANIMATED FILM I HAVE EVER WATCHED.

well, those who know me will probably scoff and say, "yeah sure, but you're scared of everything." which is TRUE, i'd have to admit, but only because i am in possession of a very active imagination. so yes, i am slightly wary of houses coming to life in my neighbourhood at the moment. truth be told, as the story unfolds it gets less and less frightening, but there are a few positively creepy moments at the beginning of the movie.

but yet again, i got chills watching corpse bride, so you probably shouldn't take my word for it. my sister and i were holding hands throughout the movie, though. and using our twisties to shield our eyes. and we both resolved never to watch the sequel if they decide to launch one. so yes, there you have it. another individual who agrees that it is a BLOODY SCARY MOVIE.

nevertheless, it was a good afternoon spent with two kids determined to spend all my money on movie snacks, taxi fare and mosburger. in a way i'm glad about the seclusion that the schedules of NUS, SMU, NTU and the SAF have forced me into. i get to spend a lot more time with my family and re-visit old memories with old friends who i've forgotten mean the world to me. so yes, i'm glad. not to say that i don't miss people. i do. sorely. but it's just a strange feeling of contentment amongst the intense loneliness.

besides, it's preparing me for my life overseas, ain't it?

i'm going to talk to joshua online now.. he's devastated by steve irwin's passing, the poor bloke.

ciao.

check out my new picture!

isn't it NICE?! a bit cutesy; not my usual thing, i'd have to admit. but i SWEAR it was a totally candid shot. i was ACTUALLY musing something. REALLY. you HAVE TO BELIEVE ME.

all credit goes to SHANNON LIM HAO FA the brilliant brilliant brilliant boy genius. he took the photo, edited it, slapped on the font. EVERYTHING was done by HIM and HIM ALONE. [which also means you can ask him if you don't believe IT WAS A CANDID SHOT.]

he claims i'm very hard to photograph when i'm trying to smile in any case. -sighs in resignation-

yay! i like!

how great our Lord is.

church today was pretty edifying. pastor aow was sharing with us from ephesians 5:1-21, and somehow the sermon really spoke to me. sometimes we truly forget that we ought to be living as God intended us to live; we tend to take the easier way out, because, well, it's easier. i was caught between this feeling of extreme guilt and thankfulness for the reminder throughout the sermon. God really does prompt each and every one of us in the smallest of ways to reflect on what we've done.

one hymn that was stuck in my head after the service:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, Who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging,
Biddeth them cease, turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord, who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

one particular part of the song that really remained with me was: "what need or grief, ever hath failed of relief? wings of His mercy did shade thee." i keep forgetting how GOOD God has been to me. He's protected me from so many things that others have been susceptible to. i truly have led a blessed life, and sometimes i'm just too caught up in my own mini-melodramas that i forget how BLESSED a life i've been given.

today i watched two new lives being brought into the world. [don't ask how come, because i'm not allowed to tell you.] but man, it was miraculous. seeing little eyes opening, taking their first gander at the world they've been brought into. [even though i know they actually don't see anything until they're about five days old, it was still a very moving experience for me.] especially when a little baby girl's eyes flickered open for the first time and those black pupils fixed themselves [or seemed to fix them] on my face. there was this strange curdling in my stomach and an awesome new appreciation for the beauty of life. perfection in those little, fragile human beings. God's creations.

it overwhelms me.

ciao.

memories.

went to re-visit PLMC today.

i'd forgotten what it was like; why i loved it so much that once upon a time. seeing everyone made me a bit maudlin. i kept thinking, "what would have happened if...?", which is the stupidest and most fruitless mind game one can ever play with oneself. but of course, more than all that sentiment and vague sense of regret was this amazing.. joy.

i'd forgotten how much i missed them. it's like what happened with ju. haha. the funky-five! gad, it's been so long. seeing lukie [who i had seen the day before, so that really doesn't count], rugrat [who i see every week, so that really doesn't count], qing and pam was absolutely amazing. it's just.. having all the five of us back together again. we have to have some outrageous outing like we used to before i go.

and then there were the other people; people i'd almost forgot to miss. people like terence, the absolute cutest boy on this living, breathing planet, rachel [who looks EXACTLY THE SAME, how uncanny.], joshua [who looks pretty much the same aside from the fact he was wearing a nice jacket], PAULIE, who looks the same, zhengxian, who didn't actually talk to me [i'd returned his money already!!!], shan.. dang, i just realised there's nothing much to report about because they all look the same. but gad, seeing them again was like realising how much i'd missed their company over the years. missed playing bridge and having worship practice, playing captain's ball and hanging out in the small rooms NOT studying.

it almost feels like i've forgotten how to have fun.

anyway. i've missed them. gist of the post. i'm tired.

ciao.