sobriety

when i move to my new house next year january, the one place i'm going to miss the most in my current condo is no doubt the swimming pool at night.
behind the gentle trickling of fountain water, comfortable beach chairs and round tables with the ginormous umbrellas lay memories of birthday celebrations & respective dunkings, drinking sessions with lide, & with josh, mac + jeremy's gin gang just yesterday night, gatherings for midnight chats - stories of friendship, love; written under the watchful dim light.

but for now, mr booze and i are going to keep a distance - we finished joshua's bottle of peach schnaps ytd night, all one liter of it, with mixers from the dispensing machine nearby. it got us high enough not only to last the night, but also to develop zero inhibitions in massacring songs of the old, and howling love ballads with the help of my dad's trusty old guitar - lucky for us, josh's fingers remain sober even amidst rising BAC levels in its owner (though i cant say the same for the neighbors)

these few weeks have been just about friends and family; suddenly there isnt enough time to do alot of things originally planned, or meet all the people that are loved and treasured. but i did make time for a nice chilli crab dinner with the family @ esplanade No Signboard Seafood, lunch with my FASS mentor/banker & aijia, lunch with rachael before she flew, badminton + dinner with family friends & extended family, supper with jeremy, lunch @ holland v's ipoh horfun stall with mac, and also a trip to the old fort factory



for $2.50 worth of student ticket price, it was quite a worthwhile trip for an educational tour that featured everything you've learnt in social studies textbooks, except more realistic because they had either a physical representation or the real antique present within the museum

i also gave another vice a go, puffing down some shisha @ baghdad st with a few friends


im really glad i went for my first shisha; cuz its gonna be my last time
smoking's so not cool man.

shalala

the past 2 weeks of reso rehearsals culminated to today's gig at lyndley's church - church of st mary's and angels, for their 50th anniversary celebration, or more specifically, the "Golden Jubilee celebration" with a kampong night theme
we reached his church in the early afternoon for a sound check, only to find ourselves with nothing to do, and 6 hours to kill before our performance
on group consensus we adjourned to westmall for lunch and arcade, before "pictionary-ing" the aftn away back in church


the winning team - team JEREMY


and 1st runner up(and also the last) - team JOY (minus lyndley)

and then some camwhore moments before our performance, which jeremy directed



the performance itself wasnt all too good - there were at least a thousand people surrounding the openair stage, which made singing and hitting the right not alot more challenging than it shld be because we couldnt hear ourselves, and the crowd banter wasnt very helpful
there were a number of popular acts at the carnival as well - straight after us was a performance by may & choi, the durian sisters, doing techno versions of hokkien "881" songs
then there was sylvester, carrie (idk who she is tho), and a few others whose names elude me
but the act that stole the limelight was actually the LIVE CHICKEN that was brought in to dance with may&choi for the 881 song

it's apparently a chicken given by the sultan of Brunei

lastly, pictures (from facebook) of acachamps night @ esplanade



the night we reigned champions (:

together, again.

"you will never walk alone, as long as you have faith
Jesus will be right beside you all the way"

i went back to school for lunch with yihong today, and the scene that greeted me was one that was familiar and warm, yet at the same time new and odd.
gone were the days of pin-drop-silent libraries (acc to a friend), luxurious empty seats at the deck, the soothing sounds of nature that resonates the corners of YIH, crowdless hallways, things i've been so used to in the past 3 months of summer break
the end of summer just hasnt really hit me largely due to the fact that i'll be whisked off to another extended holiday at UCLA in a week or two's time
but the "odd" part comes in play when i see the boys from JC starting their journey as freshmen strutting around with laptops and bagpacks, eager and freshfaced as was I two whole years ago
its pretty good to greet that flurry of familiar faces (now the deck feels like a mini AC), yet at the same time scary cuz it means 2 years have gone by, and i'm still standing at the same spot where i was, feeling no more different than 2 years ago (except for a few more wrinkles & white hairs)

the past few weeks have been pretty insane, preparing for the exchange not just logistically, but also physically, emotioanlly, and socially.
the days were spent with friends from all over - lunch with seok&cherie, dinners & movies with mac, farewell dinner with family & friends for benedict, acachamps @ esplanade (we won overall champion!!), supper & night drives/adventures with jeremy & his friends (till 5am?!), movie&dinner with lide, suppers at sheares with the reso people, and then more reso rehearasals @ YIH which are huge bundles of fun in itself.

today, yingfen derek and i had supper at white coffee @ chuntin after reso prac
our initial intention of suppering at alameen changed when we saw the new supper place that replaced the original mazda shop

derek played with the camera..





the food was pretty good, but i guess we had to pay a little more for the airconditioned supper environment
anw, to end off, cuteness at its very best:

suck it

i'll be flying off in exactly 18 days, and the thought of saying goodbye inevitably causes a mixture of anxiety coupled with excitement, and also a tinge of fear perhaps
while i rly look forward to the 4 months of independence and new experiences, there's a sense of inertia thats tying me down, this voice that tells me im comfortable where i am and should want no more
its the whole "stepping outta ur comfort zone", or being "outward bound", that involves breaking the bonds of the inertia to be able to truly learn, grow, and challenge yourself
18 days - i hope thats enough for me to do just that.

meanwhile, i've stopped work officially last friday, and work ended with a bang because of the corporate house party that was organized.
it was a party organized for AXA members, which saw the CEO himself coming down to grace the occassion.
it was an amazing party - cat hosted and organized the entire thing by herself, going down to the nitty gritty of arranging the napkins in an arty manner on the plates, to buying and designing corporate gifts for the clients, giving the party a really "atas" feel



Liming & i helping out

in other news, i've been delighting and rejoicing in the fact that mac's started sch
because "school" is of relatively (extremely) close proximity to my home
for the past week i've been meeting him for lunch (and some dinners), including a visit to a fish therapy session today
my mom received a couple of vouchers to spa/therapy sessions, and one of them was to Kampong Fish Therapy (its in Novena) for a hand/feet session
so after school i picked mac up and we went to let our feet get eaten by fishes
i forgot to bring my camera, so here're a few lousy phone cam pictures:




mac's got alot of fishes eating him
(he has NEVER exfoliated his skin apparently)


my feet

it was a REALLY interesting experience, aside from the initial mild tickle torture by them suckers
we sat there for a ticklish 40min watching them suck our skin out, and the entire time was surprisingly refreshing and enlightening
tis a pleasant experience, one that i'll definitely try again, esp since both our feet/calves/knees were really smooth and shiny after those suckers were done with us
(apparently they dont just suck you; they inject enzymes into your skin or smth)

also, there've been reso rehearsals that never cease to end because im always in some gig or another
but i guess it's all good cuz you learn as you sing, and its really fun while we're at it