Sat and sun and mon

when it's the holidays, there's so many activities that i think i will be blogging almost everyday. i do this for memory's sake.

i dunno why im going to talk about sat, since it was so ordinary save from ck. ummmmm............ okay, i finally rmb why it's special! it was cheryl's birthday! how could i forget! lol, i better recap everything before they slip off my mind. 14 nov could mark my and cheryl's 3rd week as best friends. haha. i rmb she encouraging me at the youth conference, we had a good talk together and i found her a very nice girl to be best friends with. :) lol, we have much in common. our lameness or rather, subtle sense of humour, love for sports and singing (more accurately, her singing and my guitar playing). hehheh. i baked cookies for her (very very predictable), hoped she like them cos there were walnuts in them! haha, they're brain food, good for her exams. haha.

yup, so on sat, dad fetched er jie, nat and i there. i rmb being really late cos of the ondeh ondeh. mom was so stressed out cos the ondeh ondeh dough wasn't pliable. she even asked God to forgive her of any wrongdoing she could have had committed, all in sheer desperation! lol, later i meshed the dough further and all the sweet potatoes were smooth, not lumpy. tada! that was it, the dough became more pliable. :) we reached parc palais at 2. sang the birthday song, i played a little of frisbee to appease cheryl. haiz, but i yet to be really good at frisbee.

ck started at 3. we had bs on the second point of TULIP, unconditional election. it's a topic that is hard to accept, especially the fact that God is not an all loving Father, instead one who loves only His elect and reprobates the rest. however, it is a comfort for christians to know that they are a part of God's eternal plan. after ck, i played tennis with josiah and boaz. haha, dunno why jonah and josiah both think i super zai in tennis (must be er jie who exaggerate!). personally, im only an amateur. it started to drizzle a little and we left for dinner at subway. i ordered cold cut. and we yet again celebrated cheryl's birthday with apple strudel, her favourite apparently. :) after dinner, er jie and i came home by bus. the journey took 1h 15min. wow, that i think is the longest i have travelled by bus, but i dont mind at all. lol.

on sunday morning, rev koole preached about eglon and ehud. okay, the story's really interesting. okay i noe i must remember in the spiritual insight of the story, not just the story itself, but later that night, i had great fun cos of the story.

that evening, daniel tang's and my family congregated at vera's house to accomodate the kooles for dinner. vera's peranakan house is really cool. i had been there last year for caroling, it still had the exotic feel. my family was there first. while waiting for daniel's family, da jie, mum and i helped out in the kitchen. then i taught vera guitar chords. shes a fast learner. :)

soon, daniel's family came. we had a dinner of lots of uniquely singapore food. the men (including daniel) dined in the living room while the ladies ate in the dining room. the ladies learned that auntie pat (mrs koole) has 2 sons and 2 daughters, and grandchildren! that was what i remembered best. other than that, the older women were chatting about the geography of usa, what colorado to michigan etc. i didn't bother listening. upon finishing our food, the youths, namely vera, daniel, joanna, da jie, er jie and i used msn for a while. lol, we teased ivan a little about his small eyes and him and hui qi being a couple in his msn dp and bernice about her lack of peseverance to guess our identities.

next joanna, daniel, vera and i went to vera's bedroom. we had a mini pillow fight. i felt soooooooooooo immature! but i also felt very very free. so burdenless! so carefree! so happy! daniel of course took pictures while the girls hurled pillows at each other. then we daniel, vera and i played a little game of hide and seek with joanna. lol, we managed to slip away from her while she went down to get her camera. so clever!

after that came the highlight of the evening. er jie and da jie joined us to do a production of the ehud and eglon play! lol, rev koole must never know of this! on first take, i was ehud, 2 sticks of satay made a very competent double edged sword, daniel propped up a pillow and a panda very effectively as eglon he also controled eglon's shit (vera had a brown soft toy that could well represent eglon's' shit - "and the dirt came out".) er jie and vera were the guards, each holding satay sticks and da jie gave the introduction. we did one take but joanna, the camera woman stopped videoing too early, and i, in my eagerness actually stabbed the pillow, (lol, i was too giddy to forget that this was all acting, that i had to pretend to stab the pillow without stabbing it!). at second take, i exchanged roles with er jie. lol, on this take, eglon shit did not just "come out", but it flew out, it torpedoed out! all of us were in a delirious state of laughter. after that, we took a few 'production cast and crew pictures'. then proceeded downstairs to take a picture with the adults.

the youths then did a few jumpshots and headed for the railway track and playground. we took more pictures.... learnt that dick lee is vera's neighbour just a few houses down. cool

with that, we had a very fun and exciting sunday night! :)

just yesterday, on mon, i went to nat's house to play sims. oops, i made my characters commit fornication! lol, very very naughty!!!! dun worry, wouldn't do that again! nat then invited me to play badminton with the j1s. afraid that i would be gate-crashing, i was a little reluctant to go. but nat dismissed it by her 'nevermind lah.....' so i decided to go, anyway, i prefered to get active instead of sitting idle at home.

since we thought we were late, nat and i took taxi there. when we reached, we played badminton with marcus. haiz, i played as a single against them. then ivan came, he partnered me for doubles. i forgot which side won. :( after that, we taught nat bridge and then hui qi came. then it was bridge - table soccer - bridge - some memory game - table soccer - table tennis - animal chase - table soccer. that pretty much sums up what happened, the order more or less in that way. though we played the same things over and over again, it was very very very fun nevertheless.

table soccer was guys vs gals. i was 'condemned' to be both the goalie and defenders, with the exception of one game. we played about 10 games in total, i think the gals won majority! :) table tennis was fun for me, im not sure about the rest. haha, tried coaching nat how to spin + smash, she's got the basics, but needs a lot of practise.

after that all, we went for dinner at .... subway. yeah, my 2nd time in 3 days. and guess what i ate! cold cut! haha, it's not only the cheapest, but the nicest, to me.

okay, i have done quite a detailed recounting of the events these past 3 days. im now suffering from aches. i deserve them cos i never warm up before playing sports, very rarely would i be patient enough to warm up. i guess i better rid this impatience in me before i become injured or something! :)

Barbie Cue

friday 13 november was a day to remember for 2 reasons:

- im finally free from severe exam stress, at least for a year and a half. i can finally go out without having to worry what work was waiting for me at home. oh crap, i forgot that i have piano practical and theory exams on march next year! that means grueling practise and many theory papers to do!!!! argh! but i shall consider that different from the norm (academic).

- it was the first time i had BBQ with church friends without any parental interference. well, that's fun cos it is something out of the norm!

okay, let me side track a little, i am so hairpee cos i finally can chuck my stuff away! my table was getting really messy and dusty, i couldn't stand it any longer. so i cleared my table (surprisingly, i did this before my Os ended!!!), i found out that i had a mountain worth of notes, textbooks and it was only for this year! yeah, i noe go jc will be worse! here's the picture story



looks like a lot of stuff hor...



haha, must always see the FULL STORY! the books even have to lean on a table (not mine) for support, books are spewing onto the table even!

okay, back the point... i shall recap the BBQ. it was a little rushed in planning cos all of us (tze yan and me specifically) were too excited, so we decided to have one asap. haha, this was too the extent of leaving elias out. tze yan pointed out that he should be consuming enough food in China, yeah, i totally agree. in China, u go with school, they stuff u with food, u will never starve. good for someone who ever said that he would enjoy food even when he's full, all the best to him shedding kilos!

why do i keep talking about other unimportant things???? bringing me back to Singapore, the sec 3 n 4s had a really humourous meeting on the previous sunday. thanks to bernice, lol, she and her bangla... we allocated the food. i ended up doing satay and barley.

fast forward to friday the 13th. oh, btw, isn't it the unlucky day for supersitious people? what a coincidence... well it doesn't apply to me! i met jemima and bernice at the latter's house. there we prepared ingredients for beehoon. auntie kim neo cooked it of course, but jemima and i cleaned up. bernice was too busy showering to help out much. that's so predictable of her. it started raining when we departed

we arrived at uncle gim theng's condo by 3. daniel, joanna, elena, samantha, noelene, tze yan were already there, marcus joined us. we checked out the badminton court and it was available! though marcus told me that it was alr booked. i hopped from table tennis with tze yan to badminton with noelene, daniel and jemima to table soccer with jemima to badminton with joanna, daniel and noelene again. i wanted to play more table tennis no one was as enthu as me about it. tsk. by then, it was 5, hui qi and hui yi came. it was still drizzling so i hurried to the house, trying my best to keep my hearing aids dry. then joshua rang the door bell, i was quite surprised, but his presence also made the event more special. :)

while i was kept dry under the shelter of the roof, bailey sure licked my legs even wetter than they already were. i didn't mind, since i was soooooo dirty and sweaty anyway. lol, planned to shower but got too lazy. we played a few card games. now im not a particular fan of card games after what cheryl told me. i realised that playing card games should be the last resort for christian gatherings as it is not very edifying. i mean, u won't get to noe each other much better just by card games! i totally agree with her about play sports or singing together would be much better options.

after a game of animal chase, i diluted the barley concentrate and served ppl. then tze yan and i marinated the stingray. tried out my chopping skills. i guess chopping coconuts are not so much the same as chopping stingrays. i guess i just don't have that chops. while we did that, a few others went down to start up the fire. the drizzle almost put a damper on our spirits but amazingly, noelene could start the flames! she certainly could eat no lean, but can start fire very well. (okay, i shall stop being soooo lame) heh, i still remember smelling the smoke from the barbecue from 8th floor and knowing from that instant that their quest was successful.

yup, so we ate food. um, there's nothing much to describe here....

midway, nat came. she requested for games, so i wrecked my brains for a game. charade came to my mind. jemima and i decided to do it off the bat. lol, we thought we were being very tricky. some of phrases were idioms, some were songs titles and even phua chu kang. haiz, but we underestimated these bunch of people. the game ended by 30 mins, and we eventually had time for auntie pat to do several encores on demand. hehe, i think i loved the one beauty and the beast most. LOL, nat's expression as beauty is worth more than priceless. bernice even gave herself away by saying that she peed on her pants... not very smart! haha.

after that, we cleaned up again. i got a little fright by that sly cat lurking around. it was rummaging through the rubbish nat and i left on the ground, cos the bag was too big to go into the hole. this is why i still prefer dogs.

upstairs, our plan to go for midnight movie was screwed. nat told me later that it was just cos our parents worried about our transport home.. haiz, what a horrible reason... but its quite true cos its unsafe. but i was quite disappointed. :( next, we, the gals played twister. i needed this badly, i wanted a real work out on my stamina! it was reduced to me vs hui yi. it was tough competition! i was combating my willpower, i wanted to push myself to the extreme. the game resolved as a draw after hui qi started making us do the humanly impossible stunts. she commented that i was very flexible, thanks ya, but i think it was because of my stamina.

at last it was time to go home. after a few pictures taken, uncle seow thong kindly fetched us home. i still had the energy to watch survivor. harhar. i think john's so cute.

whoa, it's past 12 already! i needa wake up tmr at 7 to practise piano and complete theory homework! gah, will talk about sat and sun another time!

A book review: A view from saturday

it's holiday time and everyone's wondering what to do with their time. so that best thing is to be hooked to a book. actually, fact is that i read this while my Os were still on, not during hols. anw da jie recommended it to me, so i shall recommend others, to return da jie a BIG favour. :) (she will be so happy that more people agree with her what is a good book!)

title: a view from saturday (AVFS)

author: Elaine Lobl Konigsburg

genre: general (everyone can read this)

plot: find out how 4 six grade children get to know each other through incidents of coincidence and how these incidents make them learn something very essential for acquiring certain knowledge. how they are eventually being selected to represent their state in the academic bowl championship ( a general knowledge quiz competition) and fully utilise the various knowledge they have.

rating: **** (very good alr, given that nothing can be perfect)

why 4 stars: i felt that this book gave me a sense of deja vu of slumdog millionaire, though this book was written way before slumdog even came about. there are several parallels.

- content is almost similar

- their storylines are feel good. slumdog's poor boy becomes rich. AVFS's 4 six graders beating eight graders

- both have very good resolutions. you could say that they are comedies, in the way that they end happily. (their stories were never sad anyway)

so if you enjoyed slumdog, you will love this.

again, the story is very interesting and the author's several play of words here and there makes it a light hearted content. there are some things that students (like me) would definitely be something that students can relate to. eg bullying etc.. oh, not that i have been bullied, but have witnessed bullying.

plus, it is an award winning book, surely it is of good standard (yeah it absolutely is!)

why one star less from perfect: the story is a little short, so you may finish it in 1h-2h, so it defeats the purpose of having a sustainable read to eat up days of your holiday. but it would be very suitable for impatient people who hate suspense (like me!)

in short: this book is a must read! :)