The Place to be (Part II)

It has been a CRAZEE week.

A REALLY CRAZEE CRAZEE week.

A week which consisted of uncomprehendable chim-ness, sleepy heads, pleasant surprises, sweet desserts, multi-dollar ferrari-costing laboratory instruments, austin power-secret underground animal laboratories, getting flowers, and acquiring insane exam results which earns its rights to be bragged about forever and ever amen.

Let me take you through it slowly.

P.S. I know I have said it was boring and superficial to talk about our daily lives on these so-called 'blogs' but heyyy, you have NO IDEA how interesting my life is ok!

Ok lets see. My first day of work, i.e. Monday. It was pretty boring, had orientation talks, IT briefings, a little tour of the property. Met the new colleagues who are all really nice people. Had a little trouble deciding what to wear, settled with casual slacks, but the shoes were a mistake, gave me hellish blisters. Its funny how the WORK shoes (see previous entry) give me blisters but the PLAY shoes are entirely fine.. kind of a parallel irony doncha think? Anyway, met up with the girls for dinner after. Oh OH, before that I went solo shopping and bagged a great deal at ESPRIT, pants at 50% off! With accompanying belt! *pats self on the back* Anyway, we had sakae sushi, which I agree with the bf, kinda sucks. Ain't that fresh, and ain't fantastic. Dris' bf came along for the ride but got off when we went for desserts. Desserts were fantastic.. had the bakerzin cheesecake coupe (a fav) and here are the lovely pics of the lovely girls, a squishy octopus and penguin shoes.



Thanks girls for the isetan voucher... it's sure gonna come in handy this weekend :D Well the next day was actually my birthday. Its funny though, I didn't really feel excited about it this year. On the contrary I felt a kind of disdain for it cos I was hit with the reality of finally getting older and being a dowdy adult. So I was fully prepared to go through the day without fanfare and much ado. Work sent me to this boring symposium where I had to sit through a 2-day torture of head-swaying, jargon-filled, dowdy old men on podium pointing lasers at minute glowing stuff aka cells, lectures and talks about THE BRAIN. Neuroscience is probably going to be a very very hard topic for me which I have to study cos I have no choice. Its a pity I didn't take neuroscience in school, but probably a blessing in disguise :P You'll find out later. Anyway, the boyfriend totally surprised me at dinner on my birthday by inviting the whole jin gang over for some californy-an pizza. Hehe, thanks all you guys for coming.. we should have more parties next time ;) WITH ALCOHOL. Sorry if I deprived you guys of magaritas that night, hehe, so much so the joclam duo had to order heini's to quench their alcoholic desires. Well here's more pics~



And thanks for the bag, the awesome card and the manicure/pedicure voucher.. I can't wait to get my nails done! :D

Well wed to fri was just work work work. Visited their animal holding labs. And man it was like a secret austin power's underground laboratory with an airjet room and maze-like corridors of rooms and all. But it was an awful trouble to get in. Had to change out of our clothes and don SCRUBS! And wear special shoes and shower caps. Haha. And the airjet room was fun. Its this metal room where a maximum of 3 ppl can enter at a time. There are airjets positioned along the walls which blast air at you for a full minute to ensure you are dust- (and hopefully pathogen-) free so that you don't infect the animals. Its weird though cos it only operates when you go in and not when you come out. So I guess its alright for the rats to infect humans. :\ You cannot imagine the technology in there. There's this machine which homogenizes tissue for you in like a split second! And its entirely robotized and all. Back in school I had to use a manual pestle and pure arm-strength to ground my tissue up into a homogenized milk-shake-like solution. Geez. Oh and I also had to operate this humongous machine. Its called a mass spectrometer and apparently it costs as much as a ferrari :S So yea, I hope I don't walk into it and knock a chunk out of it or something. No pics of the lab cos its TOP SECRET.. hiak hiak :P

Haha and can you imagine my cute UK boss being such a dear and giving me a bouquet of orchids for my birthday! What a sweetie! I was actually supposed to come 'talk' to him on thurs but I put it off till friday cos I was really too busy. And I thought it was gonna be about work anyway.. and oh that can wait :P Hahah, so the flowers were sitting in a beaker by his window when he finally told me he got them for me. hehe.


Pweety flowers.

But you know what's the luckiest news of all this week? This:



How can u beat THAT?! UPPER class honours by 0.01 pt!! This is what makes life great. The fact that you can scrape through stuff and do the bare minimum and get Exactly what you want. hahaha. Ok.. so maybe I piahed pretty hard the last semester. It still earns me bragging rights cos I didn't piah as hard for the previous sems as compared to ppl who piahed damn hard and got like 4.49 (0.01pt short of a first class honours)! Muhahahahaha. :x Allow me to be mean and happy lar. *grin*

Alright. That's the end of the week. Its a friday night. WOOT! Going to play tennis with the boyfriend tomorrow, its his birthday next week and I have no idea what to get him :| Good luck to me! Goodnight ppl~!

This is my last week of total freedom from the restraints of employment and studenthood. I am presently free from the obligations of most adult responsibilities and am determined to make full use of this period to have as much fun as possible.

What I did this week

Monday: I slacked at home.

Tuesday: I slacked at home.

Afterwhich, I had enough of slacking at home. It was fun though. I woke up around lunch time, mum's always around now so I usually have lunch readily made for me. Then I read the newspapers, or watched cable, surfed the net, basically being a bum. But too much of slacking, although enjoyable may get boring as well. So..

Wednesday: I went out with jo! We cut our hair at Far East and did quite a bit of shopping. I had 200 dollars worth of Robinson's vouchers to spend (a gift from my uncle) and good thing there was a Robinson's sale going on too! Bought tonnes of make-up and those all-important lady garments which I was in desperate need of, namely bras. Tangs Studio was also having a sale with all their shoes going at 50% off! I went crazy and bought myself 2 pairs :D (only $64 in total!) Check them out..



Aren't they pretty? Can ya tell which one's for work and which one's for play? :P

Poor jo was claustraphobic from the Robinson auntie crowd, heh. We then found ourselves eating banmian at an ulu foodcourt which I bet no one knows exists in the depths of centrepoint. Then we went to Iguana's.. haha. And drowned ourselves in magaritas and tortilla chips. Woot!


Me and Jo and our new haircuts :D

Thursday: Went roller-blading with Suling! I now know its a 30 min walk from my house to East Coast. I didn't realise it was that far, heh. Anyway, we started off the day with a full (and cholesterol-rich) meal of sausage mcmuffins and hash browns before blading till the end of the seafood centre side. Apparently, age is taking its toll and our limbs were getting achy, so we had a nice cool drink at the hawker centre before surrendering my skates up 15 min early. Took a bus down to check out SMU grounds. Su says the TCC cafe there is very romantic in the evenings. Haha. Walau, SMU is like a freaking shopping centre. Got Watsons, Killeny Kopitiam, UOB, Macdonalds, Mr Bean and dunno what else. And its right smack in the middle of town. Going to school there is probably like a damned shopping expedition, those SMU brats (who have everything)! Shopped a bit at Plaza Sing before heading home for dinner. Parents were on the way out to Parkway, caught them in time and tagged along. Was pretty exhausted though. No pics of this day cause I travelled light with no bag, only money, hp and a few cards. I even refused to carry socks and Su ended up with my smelly socks given by the blading auntie in her bag and its probably now being hung above her bed at home so that she remembers the lovely time we spent together *smirk*.

Friday: Went down to Spdwing to ask them why my US taxes are so screwed up. I was supposed to get 400 back but the US tax federation sent me a cheque mind you for 9 US dollars. What a great souveneir they must think they're giving me. Brings back memories of their innate quality of being hopelessly inefficient. I can just imagine them in the office typing out the cheque for 9 dollars and thinking 'this must be ALOT of money for them poor Asians in Singapore... where is that anyway? Oh yea its part of China!'. Anyway, the lady at Spdwing wasn't in so they say she'll get back to me on monday, which I highly suspect cos they're not very efficient either. Must be because of their association with the USians. Hah.

Met up with Gigi and Shan for dinner at Marina Square. Ate at some Jap restaurant which I can't recall the name of now.. starts with a W. It wasn't too bad. The place was pretty crowded so service was rather lacking but they were trying I guess. Dessert was pretty nice tho. Green tea ice cream, red bean paste and some mini-tangyuans. Had some beef and rice. I think I must have been pretty hungry cos I ate so fast and had to wait awhile for Gi and Shan to finish. hah. Anyway, being a teacher must be hard these days cos they were lamenting about the stress of lesson-planing, dealing with their CTs and being graded upon and stuff. I can imagine how it must be, being so strictly supervised and graded and having to follow some tedious protocol set by those old fogey teachers who probably take great joy in seeing the young ones try so hard. I doubt the old teachers had THAT much work to do when they were starting out. It didn't occur to me that my teachers led such busy lives, they never seemed really stressed out or anything. Maybe its cos after you've done it for years it becomes second nature. Anyway here's some pics of us at dinner.









After dinner drinks ensued again. We wanted to go to New Asia Bar, but a necessary cover charge of 22 bucks led us instead to the bar beside it called City Jazz (I think its called that :\). I ordered The After Nine (ironically, it was after nine! hah), a mix of bailey's, kahlua, creme de cacao.. absolutely yummy. Gi had a Malibu mix with pineapple, and Shan had a mocktail cos of her alcohol allergy (the poor thing). We nuahed on the couch and munched on really good roasted cashew nuts. It was good catching up with them, felt just like the good old times where we could stone in one person's room and talk cock till morning.


Doesn't my hair look crazy? Haha, I assue you there was no wind in that place.

Alright, that's enough cam-whoring for the week. Oh wait, going out with the boyfriend tomorrow. Haha, ok, more cam-whoring next time then. Goodnite ppl.

Hellooo all!

I'm back! Bronzed, slightly burnt and chocked-full of picture-perfect memories of the beautiful island.




Just pretend this is one big pic will ya? hah, needs much editing but I have zero photoshop skills.

Have you ever seen clearer bluer waters than that? And the weather was pretty well-behaved too, bathing the island with bright warm sunshine with only one night of heavy rain. Scuba-diving rawks. I went there a bit worried of what was to come, but all my fears were unfounded. The aaron kwok-lookalike diving coach, Ah-best, was a wonderful instructor and took great care of us two fragile little ladies. Haha. It's a whole different world under all that ocean. Great expanses of giant and intricately-shaped corals coated the seabed, schools of yellow-tailed silver fishes swimming past you, carefully avoiding you but giving you the eyeball as they go by. I saw Nemo! He was in his anemone enclosure peeking out through the waving filaments as we swam past. Saw a fish with colours of the rainbow, called a parrot fish, enthusiastically eating bits off the corals. Saw a huge stingray resting under a rock, blinking at us probably in amusement as it watched Ah-best turn upside-down while staring at it. Also saw Trevally fishes, a big yellow and black batfish, and a whole lot of others which I would never know the name of. Sea cucumbers were numerous, and Ah-best never failed to provoke them, inducing a spurt of white sticky stringy stuff which glued your fingers together when you touched it. It was one fun beachy holiday, woot!


Which fish have you seen?


The diving gang.


My pink booties!


And not forgetting the yummylicious diving coach, hah. :P

My ears are still rather blocked though from diving 16m below sea level. Hope it unblocks naturally soon. The boyfriend is trying to scare me again, saying it may be infected :| Man, staying on an island really takes you away from every little scant of reality. Everyday its just waking up to the beautiful view of the hill, the clear skies, the blue sparkling waters. Eating breakfast, then getting ready to dive, then bathing, relaxing, eating dinner, tai tee, darts, a bailey's irish and bed, then its the next morning again, with the same idyllic view. No clamouring of politics or news, or the sound of cars, or the smell of pollution, or crowded streets. Just the sound of waves lapping on the beach, the soft cool sand running between your toes and the moonlight bouncing off the sand and water. Definitely worth going back again.


I wuv Perhentian!

And now.. its one week of relaxing, hopefully shopping.. anyone? Monday shopping for work clothes? Before I start work on the 22nd. Yup, work work work. Alrighty, blog more later, the comfort of a cooled air-conditioned bed awaits.

Here's a new look to spruce things up a bit here. Heh, I'm no html expert so I hope it turns out fine on your comps folks, drop me a comment if it doesn't. I'll be heading off for a week of scuba diving in some exotic island off the Malaysian coast tomorrow! Hope I can handle carrying a tank heavier than me and diving deep where the pressure makes your ears pop. The things we do to visit the fishies. I just watched Finding Nemo on the Disney channel though, so that's my inspiration. Nemo's so darn cute. Anyway, it should be fun, haha, I can't deny the boyfriend has instilled some rather scary precarious scenarios in my mind. I don't know why he likes torturing me like that. God knows we can all do without worrying about sharks sniffing out the blood that may emnate from the human feminine parts, although I did think about that before. :
The holidays have been great so far. A rather drastic change from having so much to do and now having absolutely nothing to do. Well besides preparing for trips and going out and getting tipsy and looking after puking individuals. I'm sorry once again for the dancefloor trauma girls, hehe. Hope it hasn't scared you guys off from potential future alcohol-drinking events. How about taking the canoe one-star course and going Brewerks after that for 8.99 per jug beer? :D Woot! And of course there's always iguana's... will wait for dear Ally to get back, hope you have fun in Koh Samui girl.

Time flies though, soon I'll be in the workforce. I need new clothes. The elections were as expected I suppose. I have no comments about that. I do however, have to comment on the poor organisation of journalistic reporting. Sheesh, it felt pretty frustrating watching that Hiak girl drilling her poor interviewees (who didn't seem to know much anyway), and seeing Melvin get up and down from his seat upteen times to present the same old figures on a cannot-make-it powerpoint presentation. I tell ya it was used just because it has pretty pictures... you would think they could come up with a better way of looking at the overall picture. And the uncertainties of whether the results 'are really coming in', the 'erms and the errs', and the poor interviewing skills of the Mr Potato Head-look alike, made the whole reporting crew look pathetic when compared with overseas counterparts. Ah well, it was entertaining poking fun at them with the family tho, made for a great family-bonding session. Hah, ok, sorry if I'm being mean. :P

Ok time to sleep. Nitey nites people, seeya when I get back! Pray for me hor (I dun wanna drown)... ...