Eye on ion (more photos, courtesy of diane) :)

today, prelim's officially over. but it's just the start of the bigger thing. the os. but before thinking about it, my clique decided to go out n have fun first. today, we went orchard, ion orchard area. watched the proposal at shaw house, the we walked around in ion and wheelock. the good thing was that it was such a rare occassion that we go out. okay la, not that rare, we have one out about 2 times this year? the bad thing was that i was suffering from a flu and a little headache, but i still enjoyed myself.

The pics!


at the xin wang hong kong cafe. note, all of us are wearing our clique shirt. so cute right!


further evidence. haha,

me and my mui fan. it was great! pork floss and mui fan make an interesting combo.

elyssa and her favourtie drink of all time - lemon tea

diane with her horlicks and her meal, forgot what it is

elyssa, sam with their chicken congee

janice, chicken congee too with milk tea

best friends in school

after the movie, photo shoot time.

can u see it, it's ion in the background! oooo

elyssa took this. no reason

partial view of ion. how fitting a place to be at after chem paper 1

hah, elyssa cam whoring...

sam!

what's this fruit? esplanade's the durian, ion's the

with the fruit.

jumpshot. diane's cam has the better ones. i have to put this up cos the others jumped so nice, yeah, i spoiled it, but im not selfish!

sam's idea of taylor swift. im doing it with elyssa!

from dear diane's cam

doing the taylor swift, forword motion this time

jumpshot #1

using a surface that has total internal reflection. physics! :P

jumshot#2

jumpshot#3

our renditions of taylor swift

i like this pic :)

Whee

yay, i only have 3 more papers for prelims. which are chem p1, a math p2 and e math p2, and im not scared of them AT ALL! im alr rejoicing for a while, but will get down to serious work soon. o levels.. i dun feel scared of it, in fact im waiting for it to come, so that it will end as quickly.
yesterday, i baked golden oatmeal muffin from a recipe book mum borrowed from the library. it sounds delectable enough, but it was a failure for me. haha, i think the muffin wasn't fully done before i took it out, even though it was pretty much golden. well, it's a good lesson for me to learn, not to have golden muffins but wait for it to turn a little tarnished gold then take out. alright, crabbing here,

today morning, i played tennis with nat for a while, then she felt like she didn't want to play any more, then we started talking about our crushes while waiting for dad to come and play with me. lol, she said that it's normal to have crushes, i think that is true! after that, dad came and we played a competitive game. we drew 5-5 then the sun was up in the sky already and it was torrid, so we decided to leave the game hanging.

plus, i like a new song. it's not new to me, i learnt in school around 3 years ago, but now then i discovered that i like it, thus it is new in a way to me. i like it now cos maybe it's the way the singer sings it.

Christ Alone - Brian Littrell

and yes, it is another song, not the same in Christ alone song i had introduced.

UP

this movie is basically LOL, then sniff sniff, but by large it was rofl. it is soooo funny. plus 3D was interesting. haha, i watched it with mum and da jie. er jie had driving. so sad.

i would really recommend this to someone who needs something to keep his/her mind off from stress, worries, even exams. the surreal plot makes your mind wander, and wonder. do catch it if u can! :)

btw, russel's (the cute lil boy) ethnicity is asian! only asians, i like! :)

In Christ Alone!

i wanna share a fantastic song. how often i forget to depend on Christ. this song is so impactful, the last time i heard it was last year, but when i recently replayed it, it made me feel soooo touched.

In Christ alone - Stuart Townend

In Christ alone my hope is found,

He is my light, my strength, my song;

this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,

firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My Comforter, my All in All,

here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh

Fulness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness

Scorned by the ones he came to save:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied -

For every sin on Him was laid;

Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious Day

Up from the grave he rose again!

And as He stands in victory

Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,

For I am His and He is mine -

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,

This is the power of Christ in me;

From life's first cry to final breath.

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home,

Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

it's so meaningful. i can't seem to have enough of it. :)

You minimus of hindering knotgrass made!

you must be wondering what on earth im saying in the heading, it is a quote from midsummers night dream. shakespear's language's pretty cool. the meaning's actually just a simple 2 words. 'you shortie!' haha, i hope that i can use this on someone in the future, but i have to grow taller before i can do that! oh, but i bet she/he will catch no ball, all the better!

this past week has been the same, study a bit, use com a bit and most importantly, play guitar! however, now's a little different, cos dad sings along with the guitar. heh, i dun usually sing along when i play a song, so dad does the vocals. n boy, he's real good. and cos if his powerful voice, im tempted to sing along too, so i sing.. rare moments in the life of lisa ong! we sing songs ranging from christian tunes to some oldies like tears in heaven and michael learns to rock (my all time FAVOURITE!). playing the guitar (plus singing) helps me lifts my spirits, it's pretty therapeutic for study blues. on tues night, i played guitar for two and a half hours straight! thank God my fingers didn't ache or worse, break! and this activity is so addictive that i usually plan to do it only for 15 mins, then it drags to 30 mins, then soon it will be an hour... that's how i ended up playin two and a half hours long of guitar. ADDICTION, the culprit.

my dad' real happy too, he wants my family to perform for anniversary. LOL. but not bad, he and mom can sing, da jie the keyboardist, er jie the violinist and i the guitarist. the instrumental range is a little weird, but actually, they still combine strangely well enough. btw, my dad wants to do a chinese song. oh horrors! but i just realised, im not going to open my mouth, just strum the guitar, that's it! :)

Mama's birhtday celebration

since im done with chinese listening comprehension exam, i have the time to blog a little. though i dun think i would do really well for o level chinese, however, the process itself helped me to be more interested and passionate about the language. and that's something new for me.

now, to mama's birthday celebration on 17th july! her birthday is in fact on 18th july, same as nat and isaac. anyway, i shall just let the pictures do the talking. :)


before dinner. mama's osteoporosis has really taken its toll on her, she used to be taller than me. :(


dinner at nakorn kitchen ( i almost said chicken.. lol) the food's very flavoursome.



my beloved cousie samuel! he likes to raise his hand while taking pics, for no reason.

again hand raised. i decided to do a fleming. no reason too.

playing happy family. old past time, but it makes u think hard!

samuel was attracted to the exercise trampoline

on the way up!

landed. sheer jubilation. he sure is one active little man.

the marble cake! i helped mum bake the cake, and i did all the decorations, with a little help from samuel. hehe, i realised i do very very complicated decorations. maybe i was trying to use up all the choc. haha.

mama so chio! hair so black, teeth all naturally white. lol, i joked that if one said the above phrase too quickly before thinking, it would be hair so white, teeth naturally black.

ohana (extended).

grandma and her grandkids. er jie not around cos she went night cycling. so naughty.

mama looks so happy, like a queen who has it all!

mama, mum and auntie hannah.

Birthday picnic + ck on 11 july

yay! saturday was indubitably fun! well, more accurately, the fun really started on friday night. when i baked the banana choc cake with mom. btw, the cake was done from scratch, even the template for the words were cut out by me. heh, just goes to show how passionate i am about baking. anw, much must be credited to mom, she led the reigns in the baking process, she's so experienced, i feel so priveleged for her to be my mom. :) this is how the cake turned out:



notice the 'holes' for the letters B,D,R,A they are circular, that's cos i overlooked this when i did my template, so mom ingeniously came up with inserting chopsticks. the only imperfection about that is the chopstick sinking in (cos the choc is still soft and warm, hmmm... :) ), yep, so it looked a little uneven there. plus when i was removing the template, which was strewn with chopped pistachio nuts, from the cake, i couldn't stop laughing at the way mom was meticulously holding the chopsticks, trying as hard as she could to prevent them from sinking too much. that sent specks of pistachios glittering the forbidden areas. but that couldn't be helped. wow, i really went to this detail to describe the small imperfections of the cake. i guess the theory that women are more concerned about the details is certainly true after all. :)

now to the main content of this entry. on sat morning, nat came to my house to laze. i did not want to touch my work cos i knew i wouldn't be able to concentrate. so we ate up my unfinished breakfast and started viewing childhood pictures. heh, we were so amused but how happy carefree we looked, and remembering how close our families were, my fav pic is all of us girls (excluding nichelle) jumping on a king sized bed at one church camp. i was only 5 then! boy, i silky hair then... hehe. btw, we saw hui qi too, on the 'log' pic. she was so chubby. :)

by then, dad had come to fetch us. i rmb lying to huiqi and joanne that we were on the way there when we were actually snugly viewing photos. LOL. just couldn't resist the lure of memories.

we reach changi beach at about 12.45. joanne and josiah were there alr, picnic stuff all set up. okay, to cut to the main point, we ate, drank, fellowshipped, played frisbe, volleyball, bridge, bang, sang songs with guitar accompaniment, took pics to our hearts content. time passed too slowly, cos we were using it too quickly.

at 3.45, ck finally started, we sang ck songs while waiting for the july babies to come. we they were all finally here, we sang the song, and they blew the candles. we all did our part, everything went smoothly. i received feedback that the cake was great. well, thank God. :) and mommy! :)

exhortation followed. josiah was trying to drive the points about unity and meaningfulness home. heh, can't help but fondly remember the part when his expression changed upon seeing a pair of otters (silly me, i kept thinking it was oysters, until mom corrected me at home). then everyone suddenly jumped up in curiosity, but the otters were scared away by this sudden movement and padded back the waters.

subsequently, we played 3 games that were related to the exhortation. i like the 2nd one most. it was most challenging, although my team faced the embarrassment of singing with our mouths full of water. i cheated. :)

after a little while of rest time, hui qi gave out presents to the july babies. then we ended ck the most regular way - captains ball. and the game ended in the same disturbing way, noelene's leg had a wound from carelessly banging into a dustbin during the game. to me, i felt that this uncannily parallels what happeded last week. this is pretty disconcerting. :(

last but not least, we headed for dinner and changi village. i didn't eat cos uncle beng young came to fetch us. :) i wasn't hungry anyway.

yep that sums up ck last sat. i decided to talk about it here cos it is an exceptional case. :) plus huiqi wants me to blog. i've done a loooooooong post here, maybe you could read one word at a time so that i wouldn't have to blog again before my o's. haha!

Lighter burden!

oh man! i was so dying for today's school to end. cos it's really tedious! 6 subjects packed together in a day is just too much for me to handle. and furthermore, the fun prospect of tmr made it worse, i couldn't concentrate much in class. my last lesson was lit, and mrs dhaliwal was finishing up on the funnyman bottom, but i still couldn't wait. when it was all over, i scooted home, yeah, im that excited!

tonight, im going to bake the cake. i pray to God that nothing goes wrong! unfortunately, it will not be a creamed cake, for 2 reasons. 1. cream will not hold out without refrigeration, so the logistics is a problem. 2. my mom does not wanted us to indulge in any less than proper behaviour - hazing. however hard i persuaded her, she just did not buy the cream. so sorry folks. anyway, i have suggested to bake an equally cool cake, that is banana chocolate cake! it is one of my all time favs, especially when mom bakes it. :) plus i'll make sure that there's superabundant choc for everyone to enjoy, if everything goes well with my health crazed mom.

im looking forward to having a blast tmr! :) thanks be to huiqi and joanne for organizing the event. plus ck will be great too! i presume...

National pride

wow, i can't believe i am back at it - blogging. anyway i can't help but feel a huge sense of pride for my country singapore. we have done so well in the current AYG! heh, 9 gold's really unbeliveable, but definitely possible. apart from our country, i find south korea the next country to watch. they have fantastic soccer players as well as swimmers. not to forget the female sprinter sunae, they are so charming. :)

okay, i shall follow what my heart says and deviate off topic. i have a fatal attraction. or is it curiosity? i can't take it anymore. tsk tsk..

im getting worse at writing. i dun understand what im writing! duh!

Randomness

i realise i have become super lazy when it comes to blogging... tsk tsk. even the church camp post can't be bothered to finish. cos i tend to go so much into detail that i find it a little redundant. then i get upset with myself and stop. whenever i go online, i would rather watch the korean drama the man who can't get married..

well, these past few weeks have had a few highlights, but i shall limit myself talk about the more relevant stuff. and i have decided to blog for ppl who faithfully read my blog. i hope seeing a myraid of words will appease them...

night cycling at east of singapore.
first time i ever cycled a good 40km. i was not alone, about 30 others from ck + cks accomplished the same feat. haha, it was supposed to be a good bonding session for me with everyone, but it turned out that i got too kiasu and cycled in front most of the time. and nat was likewise, so i ended up bonding even more with her. lol, i quite had enough her alr.. anw, nat and i became a little nuts and started singing our favourite songs together. our favourites for that night were do re mi and how you solve a problem like maria. we kept singing the part

'How do you solve a problem like Maria?How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?How do you find a word that means Maria?A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!'

and then we will burst out in hysterical laughter. you may think it old fashioned, but it was pretty fun in the circumstances, it took the tiredness off us.

okay, i think i shall just talk about this. ck is really much a part of me now. or is it just nat.. church is getting more and more great. with friends and all. :)

Church camp 2009!

yays!! here's the recount on the most anticipated and most fulfilling church camp i ever had in my life. i must say that im getting more comfortable in ce. cos the people are really nice and very closely knit. haha, i remember being so crazy about camp at least a month before it even kicked off. i had planned my to-bring list before my mid years, that was in mid may... and i pestered my dad for updates daily (he was the comm. member remember..) i pretty much knew almost everything and every game that would be played in camp before the camp itself. LOL..



my family was part of the advance party with uncle kian lye's family. i was super excited cos advance party's always fun, just the thought of 'i knew the campsite before you' makes me feel like having a 'edge' over others. no, im not competitive, just over excited about church camps. uncle kian lye's the camp master, my dad was the rooming ic, so we went up first to handle admin matters, oh, it's only the two of them involved. it was leisure for the rest of us, auntie siew loong and mum, three of us sisters and jonah (uncle kian lye's son) i was still sick on the way up, clogged nose and cough, i felt little terrible.



we reached mersing at about 5. went into a seafood restaurant, the boss told us that they were only ready at 530, so our families decided to jalan jalan as well as shop a little. that was when i discovered that the dried guava i bought from singapore was sold twice the price there, i felt a little twinge of regret, but who knew they would sell it there. anyway, it started to drizzle and it was 530, so we made our way to the restaurant. we had a good dinner, and the badminton finals for the singapore open was being broadcasted. i mistook bonsak ponsana's name as pornsak, then jonah was so cute, he called the guy pornsak too, by then i had realised my mistake, but er jie n i couldn't help but giggle a little. in the end, this little misunderstanding cleared. after dinner, we took another 1h plus to get to the camp site. da jie was going all crazy about the sun setting in the backdrop of a pink sky.



we reached about 7.30. the first impression was good.... :) the chalets were cool, and more spacious than last years. jonah and the three of us went around the camp site, he was becoming more and more of a nice brother to us (he's er jie age). later that night, we played bridge and made the ice bags for the games. after all that tying of the bags, da jie said we are potential tao hwey and fishball sellers. lol.



the next morning, we went out to do more shopping for camp necessities. when we got back, our fathers had some meeting with the resort management and the rest of us congregated at jonah's room. we were going to teach our moms how to play bridge. it was an overall amusing experience, cos it was so interesting to watch our moms bemused expressions when we explained the game to them. they didn't really get it, but we still had fun! after that, we proceeded to do a factory chain for the goodie bags. we were super efficient, n i felt the sense of accomplishment when we finished, we had packed 130 bags!



we then made our way to the main hall. on the way, i saw joanne's family arriving. er jie and i went to greet them. after that, it was pretty much ping pong with josiah for me. haha. soon, nat, marcus and isaac chan arrived, so we played together. very fun!










anybody cares for kung fu ping pong? marcus on the left, isaac chan the hilarious guy on the right. his name sounds familiar? he was one of the people who made my group such a comical one.




isaac chan - auntie pat - uncle ishu. auntie pat's the master mind behind the painting, i just helped her. :) and uncle ishu, my group's beloved leader. such a funny guy too.






my group presentation! i will forever remember it! i was the guitarist, not in the pic, and the women of the group + isaac chan were off stage singing the song did you ever talk to God above. isaac played dual roles of providing the cue for the actions as well as the sole male singer. haha






my group discussion room, also uncle ishu's room. he gave us a lot of camp momentos, and it was volunteery on his part, i doubt any other group leader was as generous as him, and as enthu. haha

camp shot. the faces too small la. but what to do, it's has to be...

at tioman, the fishes are cool

the singers! they are great and great and great! i love their singing, and the guys are really good guitarists. they could entertain u with any song u wanted. including somewhere over the rainbow, sha lalala, im yours, can't take my eyes off you and most importantly, the michael learns to rock song: paint my love!

snorkelers! no such word... but we were really hairpee!

upon arrival at tioman. note: jonah's the guy on the extreme left, :)

the ceramic tile, the brain child of auntie pat. nicole and i helped her. :) im so proud of it.

more fish. this fish came to say HIEEEEE.okay, the pics are totally not in order....

coral or what do you call this? anyway, they had a calming effect on u. very pretty

er jie playing a fool. heh

nat and i. i guess i have to teach nat that she has a backbone. lol, im so mean.

snorkel and co.

chalet style at tioman. super homely

the sub lobby, this lobby was for us only. so cool, it is beside the main lobby. just beside this is the private pool where we teens play pool captains' ball. so fun!

last look at tioman. how beautiful....

bah, shan't continue...

Church camp (not the recap)

Church camp + tioman trip was great!!! im suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms!!! argh! now i can say that i like malaysia more than singapore, not cos it's superior in any way, but cos it's the place where i have so much fun with church friends every year, and singapore's the place where i have to slog (supposedly, but i don't, but the thought of o's make me sick...)

the many things i liked about church camp were:
- the fellowship!!! (x 100)
- i have to admit i wasn't 100% attentive during the sermons, but i think pastor arie's pretty good, his sermons are short and SWEET
- ping pong and beach volleyball, great time for fellowship.
- my beloved group, i dare say that i had the best group cos we were sooo funny! thanks uncle ishu, uncle meng hsien and isaac chan! we had a real good time laughing!!!
- being able to enjoy myself despite being a little sick with cough. my voice even went wonky the first 2 days!
- the cool experience of the firefly cruise.

the many things i liked about tioman trip:
- the fellowship again, just that i found it a little too noisy, (especially with 'smelly tofu')
- the hotel was fabulous, international food that was fantastic, singers by table side (they sang paint my love by michael learns to rock plus other nice songs like shalalala! i was swooning!!! the ambience was just priceless) and the hotel room! i had adjorning room with isa, iva and tze yan. we were like one big family...
- the snorkeling was cool too! got underwater pics with my cam.

anyway, this is the vid of my group's presentation. it's hilarious.. if u understand it.. :)