Heart of the Lioness

2008-12-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

"Lasts" are so hard.

This is the last night I'll be at this house. Tomorrow, the last time I'll wake up in this room.
I guess the hardest will be the last look I have at this room, this house that I've lived in for the past three years.
Lasts are so hard.
The pain goes away; I think it's the hardest at during the time leading up to the moment, the moment itself, and then a short time after it. It soon fades, usually quicker that you expected.
But it's still hard, right now.

Like when Little Women was going to end.
The last time I would wear that cape, or that dress, or say those lines, or be that character...
So many lasts.

The new house has none of the memories that this one holds.
And yet, in a year and a half, I know I will be leaving that house to go to college, and thinking of lasts again. And at that time, I will be missing that house and the memories there, more than I'll remember this apartment.
But for now, I suddenly see details in this place that I never cared to see before.

You start noticing things when something's about to end.

Torn between wanting to go on a rant and say everything about how I love this place, but maybe I shouldn't. I should let these last few hours here be happy, productive ones. I should rejoice in the good times I've had here, and the fact that I have been so blessed to live in this awesome place for three years. I will miss it, but it's only because it has been a good time. If it was bad, I wouldn't be sad to leave.

And everything is temporal, anyway. There're other things I've left behind, and slowly the memories have faded, receded into the distance. This will, too. Eventually.
But it's hard now.
My last blog entry typed at this desk, this room, this apartment. With this weather, these sounds, this feel.
The last time I'll get to live as I've been used to for the last three years, with the murmur of the tv coming from dad's room, the whoosh of airplanes over head, these sounds, this view from my window... the last time I'll get to see these lights, the airport, the highway... the last time I'll fall asleep and wake up to these familiar surroundings... It's too hard.

I pray God give me strength to not be too upset and overly-sentimental, as I have to tendency to be. I pray that I can smile and quiet fondness as I look around the room and let my eyes take in these sights for the last few times, let this cold wind blow nostalgically around me for a few more hours, let the memories reply and bound throughout the house, echoing down through my mind...

And I pray that I will be thankful for it all, and God will see me through till tomorrow when I will take my one

last

look.

2008-12-19T04:49:00.000-08:00

This, and the past 2 Fridays have all been significant points in my life.

Two weekends ago, starting Thursday, was probably the closest I have ever come to depression. But when I let go of God and told Him that I had given up the will to fight and stand back up, He held on to me, and pulled me back. It was by absolutely no work or will of my own; He is just 100% faithful.

And I thought that maybe I was going through that so that I could use it to relate to someone else in the near future. Just the Tuesday after that, I was able to use it to help Boss.

Wednesday was a holiday, and our old folks' home community service trip.

That Friday, the Harkins had their annual Christmas party. There's just something about that place... it must have the peace and blessing of God on it, because it feels like such a haven. When I shared what I had just gone through (the bad bad weekend), it felt like such release that I had friends around whom I was safe and loved.

Today was the last day of semester exams. =) Exams went pretty well, I think. God's been blessing me, because I don't feel like I studied very very much, and yet things were still good. Stayed over at Kestrel's house yesterday to try and study for Physics. X) Ended up reading so much of Tsubasa and stuff. :D

We went in 2nd exam period, then had the Christmas banquet, then went to Central with a bunch of people. 21 of us, or smth like that.

But anyway, today was a day of acceptance and encouragement. Nice to know that there are the guys who don't only like the cute, giggly, pretty girls. Someone today actually said that he preferred that I was more... well, "me". Thanks. =] I'm not going to put here the specific things that were said, because it might sound like I'm bashing all other girls, which is absolutely not the case. It's just that those two of my friends today have helped me feel encouraged to just go on being myself.

Anyway, Christmas-break goals!

Move house
Student Council: work out the kinks in some of our project proposals, then get them started so we can transition smoothly into the new semester
Master (or at least learn well) the Tsubasa Chronicles style of drawing, which probably means about 2 or more hours of copying per day

Make my lesson plans for art classes
Read at least 2 books
Draw the last round for the comic fighting competition

I have learned that I need to keep busy, otherwise I become SUPER unproductive. XP I've also realized that my creativity comes very alive when I'm busy, like this past week during exams. If I had a spare moment and put pencil to paper, I could just draw. But if I have a ton of free time, nothing flows. Hah, so now that I know that, I'm gonna make myself busy, so that my time gets optimized and my art gets to live.

Christmas holidays, here I come!

2008-11-27T20:28:00.001-08:00

School's closed!! O_O

On Tuesday evening when we were sending Rachel off to the airport, we got stuck in the traffic that was there due to the protests and barricades. We really got to see the beginning of what has now dragged out into a ridiculous stalemate between the government and the PAD. The airport's been shut down, no flights in, no flights out... there're gonna be huge repercussions in the near future. They closed the airport just a few hours after Rachel's flight!! Lol. If only your flight had been on Wed, Rach, if only. X) Oh well, at least we should be grateful you didn't go to the airport a few hours later and then get stuck like all the other people. You were so close to that.

It's funny though, how while the foreigners who were stranded in the airport were so mad, the Thai protestors outside were effectively having a big party. =P The entertainment provided for the thousands of protestors included free food, drinks, bands, party music... (not to mention those clappers. Someone must be making a fortune from selling those!)

It's weird to be able to see the airport just a few km from my room window, and at the same time watch the news on tv, and see what's going on just over there, and not be able to do anything about it. Anyway, there's been some violence, and some other schools have been closed since Wed or yesterday. Our school's got better discretion tho. They've only closed today because the government declared a state of emergency. No violence, no bloodshed, please. I don't know how this is gonna be resolved, but I don't want people to get hurt or killed.

But what a good day to not have school. Last night I was up until 1 trying to finish my homework (all the makeup work and tests from last week), and I couldn't. I was gonna have to just apologize to my teachers, and bomb my test. Just about a minute after the alarm clock rang at 5.40 and I got up knowing that I was gonna have to suffer through the day, my mom came into the room with the good tidings! Not trying to sound selfish, though. I don't like what's going on with the political situation, and I really hope and pray that it won't become some horrific thing. But since school is closed, I am grateful to have today off.

And what great weather to accompany it.

If you read this, please pray for Thailand. The economy's gonna be really bad soon: they approximate that the country's losing about 500 million baht for every day that the airport's closed, just from the tourism industry alone. Other losses chalk it up to about 1 billion baht a day. Also pray for a peaceful resolution, that Thai's won't start fighting Thai's, that other innocents won't get caught in the crossfire.

At the same time, let's also all remember that everything is in God's hands, in His control, and nothing happens outside of His will. For that, we can praise Him, be thankful, and have peace. =)

2008-11-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 22 November 2008
In Memory of a Beautiful, Spectacular, Wonderful, Emotional Day

Praise God for all He has done, all He has brought us through, for the joy, the laughter, the love, and today: the tears, as we bade our play goodbye...

It's over. I'd better not think of that too much otherwise I'll start crying again. I've already cried all my makeup off. I started bawling right from when we reached the foyer after marching up the auditorium. Hugging everyone, taking teary-eyed, teary-faced pictures, all the celebration, all the cheers...

I'll never forget this play, especially these last 3 days. There're no words to describe the whole experience in its entirety. I can only keep these feelings close to my heart; one of the most precious times in my life. It wasn't all smooth, wasn't all easy, but the hard, hard work we did, and all the glitches that we managed to overcome made it just so much more memorable. I only wish I had said "Just throw it in the fire" to Meg, about Brooke's satchel. :]

I can't tell of all the things that happened in the play here, because there would be far too much to write. But here, just so you know how special it was, and always will be to me, I'll tell you this: to commemorate the play, tomorrow to church, I will wear the skirt the mom made for me. Also because Rachel, my best friend, is here to see it. Plus I'm in an emotional state, and therefore not thinking clearly, because if I was, there'd be no way I'd wear a skirt. Besides, it's black, and I shall be mourning for the play.

Glory to God in the highest!!!

2008-11-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

Here it is.

A moment that used to seem so far away; something I thought would take it's own sweet time to get here, with me impatiently awaiting its arrival. But no, it has come faster than I realized. It's tomorrow, the play.

All the way back in 8th grade, when I first came to ICS and was a pickpocket in the Oliver musical, I thought I saw such a long, 4-year acting career before me. So many opportunities. So much to do, wow, imagine when I'm like that someday, in 11th grade, 12th grade. Will I get a main role? What must it feel like? Those older kids are so awesome, I hope to be like them someday.

And, well...

Look. It's here.

Already. I can't believe it. It feels so different when the moment's actually here, than when it's some where far off in the ambiguous distance. When you're envisioning something for the future, you can imagine all the glory, and the storybook-like drama to it. But when time has actually brought it right to you, it becomes your reality, part of your day-to-day life, no longer a castle in the air. I don't feel like a "great, awesome older kid", like the ones I used to look up to so much a few years ago. This doesn't feel like some great, glorious, fantastically glamorous thing that I'm doing. I'm just me, and this is just what I'm doing.

But oh, no, don't be mistaken and think that I'm complaining and saying that my dreams of past haven't turned out to be what I thought they would. Not in the least! This reality is beautiful, and is so heart-wrenchingly close to me, that it's gonna be hard to let go of the play after these last few days are over.

I just pray that God will be glorified in the way we use the talents he's given us, in the friendships that have been forged, tested and strengthened both on and off-stage, and also in the morals and lessons that the story will impart to the audience. I pray that He'll be delighted with us, and let His hand be on this play, and honor all the work and heart that has gone into it.

It's been a good 13 or 14 weeks of work, and I've enjoyed every. single. step. (I'm so gonna cry when this is over.)
May these next three days be the most fulfilling of them all!!

(and Rachel is here from Singapore tonight! She says hi~ ^^ Just the same way that I can't believe that the play is here, she can't believe she's here either, hahaha. =D)

2008-11-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

It's a big week coming up for me!

If the play hadn't been postponed for the Princess's cremation, it's be all finished by now. Think of that. O_O

Thank goodness for the cremation. I don't want the play to end. =]

So, the drama that we've put so much time, heart, and effort into over the last 12 weeks or more is about to come to a head. The character that I've waited for 2 years to be, that I've slowly been bringing to life these last few months, is about to be shown off in just a few more days. And then... she'll be gone.

Wow.

This week's gonna be insane, I anticipate. Rehearsals are meant to be until 7 pm, but we're told to "be prepared to stay till 9". My grades are gonna drop some... but it's okay, I'll put them back up after the play. How fun, tho! Staying at school till that late with people I love. ^^

Sorry, Rach. Wish I'd seen earlier that next Tues is a holiday, then you could've stayed till Wednesday. Sigh. Guess we'll just have to cram all our yakking into the few days that we do have, then. =P

Since Friday, I've resolved to watch at least parts of the Little Women movie, everyday, for the benefit of my character. Lol, yes, I am that dedicated to the play.

DRAMA, HERE I COME!

2008-11-15T04:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm learning that the only one who'll never let you down, and the one that you can always trust to be consistent in personality and character, is God.

There's a tendency to build up an image of someone in your mind, only to be disappointed later when, simply by the default of imperfect human nature, they don't live up to your grand assumptions and impossible expectations.

Wish I hadn't had such expectations.

In the paraphrased words of Miss Jo March, "I wish I didn't have a heart."
Because then I wouldn't have to fight so hard to keep it safe.

Wish my feelings wouldn't go running off so easily. It's tiring to be always chasing after them to stop them. And it's so hard to stop them.

I suppose that, since energy and will are- to my observation- more finite and limited than emotions and thoughts, there will come a point when one can no longer bridle his or her waking dreams, but may only sit back and watch, helpless to stop the heart from running whichever way it pleases.

That's where, then, the infinite power of God must intervene, else the fallible human soul would soon stumble and be shattered.

Let that grace be on me.

2008-11-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

Cold weather is here!!

Really, this is such perfect weather. If Bangkok was like this all the time, it'd be like some kinda Paradise City. I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world to be right here right now where it's cool and constantly windy, not too cold, but just enough to give you a slight shiver and a huge smile. =D

Man, it's been busy. The play is 1 week away! Time flies, insanely. Time should get a ticket for speeding.

So things are getting hectic. So much work to do, coinciding with test season, plus the play. Well I guess part of the stress could've been avoided if I hadn't gone to MBK with ppl after last Sat's morning rehearsal. We hung out and watched Quantum of Solace, which was fine, but then it took us more than 2 hours to get home. Stuck on the (non-aircon) bus in the sticky, humid, drizzle, with jussst enough space around my head to breathe comfortably. But that made for good chatting/bonding time between Becky, Tim, and I.

Yesterday's drama rehearsal was interesting. XD The stage floor has just been painted (to cover over the paint splats from all the set work that's been going on), and it's sticky, though it's dry. If you keep walking, it's no problem. But if you stand still for too long, your shoes get pretty darn stuck. Like when I was doing my serious, moody scene with Laurie, and I couldn't move when I needed to. Or when (same scene) I had to jump and hug him, I couldn't do that either. Had to awkwardly take a few seconds to un-stick, and then fly at him.

Plus yesterday, Marmee and Meg tried on their hoop skirts! HORRENDOUS CONTRAPTIONS. Don't know why they were ever "the fashion". All sorts of trouble, ranging from getting stuck in the doorway, to getting each others' hoops somehow linked together, to having them push out backwards high in the air when you hug someone.... hahahahahha. Hoops are funny when they're on other people. I'm not finding it so funny now, though, because I'm gonna have to wear the hoops too, soon. T_T

I'm off to bed now, since I have the chance to sleep early. =) Nite!

2008-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON!

Last Friday we had smth interesting happen...

Two people in our drama cast got dropped from the play because they chalked up too many strikes for missing practices. The rest of us were mortified, stressed out, fearful, very sad, because those two are really good actors, and we knew our play would near cave-in if we didn't have them. It was fair to drop them, I'm not arguing against it. There was a line that they knew was there, and they crossed it. It has happened before in past plays, and I know our director is not one to go back on his word.
But dad talked to him, and got him to at least be open to hear what the rest of us had to say.
After last Friday, I respect our team a lot more, from hearing their responses to the situation.
No one said it wasn't fair. Everyone was mature is their response, to cut it short. Mr Philip, the fair and very reasonable person that he is, eventually decided that since we'd all learned the lesson there to be learnt, he could let those 2 back in. Man, I love these people! :)

This past Wednesday were basketball tryouts. Didn't make the team.
But I can say it here, because I've come far enough in my "dealing-with-it", that it's no longer too sore a spot, or too sharp a barb. Wednesday night after seeing the list of ppl who made it, on the school website, I had about 15 minutes of emo-ness, then I thought I was over it. Turns out that yesterday, Thursday, it was even harder.
Cuz I had to face all the people who did get in.
And even though I know that none of my friends would think any less of me for not making the team, the hardest part was hearing the voice whispering in my ear, "Failure, failure. Who's the loser? You couldn't make it. You weren't good enough, you aren't good enough." I cried a few times, in sch alone. Not to mention all the times I came close to tears when I saw the people who made it in. Yeah, it was a tough day. Even some teachers noticed!

But I've had people praying for me, and dad's been helping me with it. Both as a counsellor and as a father.
Putting things in perspective:
The level of what you can achieve doesn't determine your worth. They're totally seperate things.
There were more people trying out this year than last, there were more "naturals", and there were less spots to be filled.I'm not that into basketball. It's not something I pour my life's essence into, or even spend any significant amount of time on.
It's just basketball.

So that's my latest testimony; it's been hard, painful, humiliating to my own mind, but I've drawn closer to God because of it.
Also, I know God's closing this door to me because He has better, more fulfilling, more important things for me to do. =) Now I can probably start teaching art lessons!

Today I got hair extentions down to my waist. For the play. I feel a bit more like Mulan now. X)

2008-10-28T07:03:00.001-07:00

RACHEL SEAH, IF YOU SEE THIS BEFORE I GET TO TALK TO YOU ON MSN, PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR PLAY HAS BEEN POSTPONED BY ONE WEEK. So you have to change your airticket. Sorry ah! Just found out. On the weekend we originally planned it, the Princess of Thailand is going to be cremated, so the authorities are not allowing any activities then. Sozzz. Pls tag if you read this.

But I don't mind it, personally. :) Gives me more time to enjoy our rehearsals. I do so love the people I work with. Today we had a pretty productive practice. It was also quite a lot more comfortable than I thought it would be. Less awkward than I anticipated. ^^^ And a lot of fun! By God's grace, I'm starting to feel that my friendship with Caleb is finally going back to what it was. Or even better, I'd say. Hallelujah. ^^

Man, I was sleepy in sch. We ended anatomy class 8 minutes early so I put my head down to rest. I thought I was still at least half-awake, and was listening out for the bell, but the next thing I knew, Lani was trying to wake me up. "ARIEL! The bell rang already dude!" I'd been out.

Dad was giving me some good ideas for what Student Council can do. Ideas like a prayer corner, or a buddy (mentor) system. Honestly, it's quite pathetic that all we're expected to do is raise funds, organize pep rallies, and the like. There's SO MUCH more we can and should do, and we're gonna do it. Prayerfully, of course. Because unless God wills it, we're gonna be working to create something that'll just fall through.

It's been a good day. Seriously, my life picks up, feels more... alive, when I'm closer to God. I love Him. I just do things better, I'm more optimistic; my words and my thoughts, my actions and my feelings are better guarded against things that could hurt me... yeah. Is it no wonder that when people drift away from God, their lives start becoming less joyful; there's a strange, uncomfortable, fidgety sense of discontentment that's there, and they (including me, as I've done before) go off in other directions, searching for what makes them happy. And when you've drifted a bit too far, then only by God's mercy will you keep your relationship with Him, because once there's that gap between you and Him, the Devil will stick his hands in the gap and try to push you further from the God that loves you and only wants what's best for you. Come back to Him. It's the best you can have.

2008-10-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

Schooool again. =)

Took me about 2 hours (counting from when bell rang) to adjust back to being in an international environment. Same's how I took some time to go from being international to Singaporean at the beginning of my Oct break trip. It's having to change my grammar usage, vocabulary, accent, getting used to seeing a whole different type/group of people around, etc. Always an interesting feeling when I go through that transition stage. :P

Drama was great today; Laurie was... very Laurie. He's so funny like that. ^^ Keep it uppppp.
The printed drama posters also came in today. Looks good! If I can get the jpeg file I'll post it here.

I've been watching weird Japanese game show clips on youtube. Go here for a good laugh!! :D (There're many more but I'm too lazy to put all the urls up at once.)

Time to sleep. Man, I wanna use my awesome whopper of an external hard drive. Isn't 320 such a nice chunky number? ^^ Still haven't had time to use it. =( It's feeling neglected.

Tmoz, we'll be working on the LAST SCENE OF OUR PLAY. Whoooooo..... fast, man. Fast. And it's kinda an awkward scene for me... I'll try to find time to blog about what happens then. =P Nite!

2008-10-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

My excuse (reason) for not blogging during school days is that I have work to do.

Apparently when I'm on holiday, I'm still too busy to blog neways. :p

I'm back in Bangkok now... Had a wonderful send-off at the airport after church today...
Sarah and Rachel were there, as they always are, if they can make it. (And just because you're always there doesn't mean I appreciate it any less okay? =])
I left church to go airport at around 1 pm. All the youths had been hanging out in church (plus moving boxes out of the room tt's gonna be renovated), and a bunch of them decided to go to the airport as well. I do suppose that some went because their friends were going, and/or they needed somewhere to go makan anyway, but still.
It really was sooo nice to have them there at the airport, getting to chat with them one last time before I left.

Rachel, Sarah, Jia En, Lydia, De Qi, Daphne, Qiu Fang, Ryan, Daniel, Jonathan, Yan Jun, and Alvin. =)

Some other ppl said they wanted to go but couldn't make it. Nvm, I still really appreciate the thought. ^^
Missed some of the J's that weren't there... Jeremy, James, Jason. Heheh. And quite a lot of other ppl whom I didn't get to hang out with during this short trip. Cya guys next time, yeah? :)

Courtesy of Lydia (who, unknowingly... but I guess now she'll know... showed me how to use the macro function, for the first time. Uh.. yeah. I didn't even know that was on there.)

Ryannnn, why you disappear from group photo..... = =

This morning's sermon was good... it was what I needed to hear; been feeling pretty distant from God lately. But the speaker today invited us to open up to God again, and now, after weeks of spiritual dryness, I feel like I've come back to living actively in God's grace again. =)
Interesting incident at the airport: I had a bottle of more than 100ml liquid tt I forgot to put in my luggage, and I only realized when we were abt to go through the hand-carry check. Wanting to exercise my refreshed faith, I prayed, "Dear Lord, um, I'd like to not have to throw it away.. kinda expensive.. I know that if they make me toss it, then yeah it's not a big deal, and it actually is my fault... but still, I'd rather not... I've heard of times when you blinded customs officers to things that missionaries were bringing into countries for Your work... I mean, I know this is nothing like that, but yeah..."
And the scanning-machine person didn't even see it! (And just behind me, my dad kenna his waterbottle thrown away. =P) Talk about direct answers to prayer.

Here's a brief summary of what I did the last few days (Ariel's-blog-style summary ok? Means actually quite long):

Tuesday: Went to Borders bookstore, excited to get this particular book I've been waiting for... got there, looked arnd, finally asked the information counter ppl... said dun have. X_X Haha.
From there I went out with Aarti and Kruti (2 friends who graduated from my highschool last yr and are now in SMU and Laselle.) Pasta Mania for dinner, then also visited Aarti's dorm.

Wednesday: Went, with Mom and Sarah, to our HDB apartment that we're gonna rent out. Set up the cupboards and curtains. In the evening we went to East Coast Beach for a seafood dinner with my godparents. Shiok only man! All the crab... with the huuUUuuuuuge claws, then got the cereal prawn, and otah, etc etc etc. :D

Thursday: Did some homework in the afternoon (AP World Hist, half of JCHL.... ), went to Ikea with mom to pick up furniture for the aparment (had the Swedish meatballs for dinner!), then spent a few solid hours cleaning the apt, assembling furniture, etc.

Friday: Spend the day with Sarah. Accidentally took the VERY LONG route to her house, in the morning. Sigh. = = Went to Tampines for lunch (BURGERKING! :D), went to Funan (met dad there and he bought me a 320GB external harddrive at his friend's shop. Thanks dad!), went to Brahs Basah (Tecman Christian bookstore, and Art Friend). Picked up my new glasses, then went for a talk on Conversational Evangelism. Learned a lot of useful things there.

Saturday: First part of the day, cooked with Sarah. Some fudge-biscuit thingos, as well as Thai-style mango n sticky rice. (And we brought all the food to church with us today for the other ppl to eat.)

Later, went to Orchard to meet 2 friends, David Shim and Jecolia Tong, whom I'm haven't seen in 10 years!! Our parents were all friends at church last time, but since abt P1, none of us 3 have been in contact. (After dinner and stuff around Orchard, we Guitar-Hero-ed at Jeco's house) ^^^^^ Pretty awesome. Hopefully we can hang out again then next time I'm in Sg! (Oh yeah, and bumped into Jeremy too. :))

Which brings us back to today, with it's awesome send-off and everything. I'm so touched. Humbled. =)
Plus it was funny to see you all standing out there waving and waving and waving, while we were in the queue for the passport check.

2008-10-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Yep, what a great day. :) This morning I went out with mom, Ah Tun (our maid), and 3 kiddos (Jana, Ben, Xin Yuan). Went to HouKang to run some errands, including make new specs for Jana and I. As usuallllllll, I took forever to choose which frames I wanted! Tried on at least 20 pairs, hahah.

Came home and did half my JCHL reading homework, and started doing the quiz that Sarah tagged me with, but before I finished, it was time to leave the house again (so I'll post the quiz tmr)~. I went out to City Hall station to meet with two friends, Valerie and Kenneth, whom I met during my 2-wk June internship. So great to see them again! :D Had dinner at some Japanese/Italian place... Japanesey pasta. Oh, Kestrel, the whole time I was at the restaurant, TVXQ! music was playing, hahahahah. Later on we had dessert at the food court, but we sat at the outside area, where there was a great view of the Sg skyline and the CBD all lit up. =) No mosquitoes too! (A rare opportunity for me, coming from Thailand.)

At the Japanese restaurant. Waiter helped us take this pic. ^^

Val always prepared each forkful of food with a sprinkling of chilli, then cheese, then that smth spice that they had in the shaker. EVERY mouthful, haha!

Kenneth had this huge bag, I still dunno what was inside it...

Can't see the city in the bg cuz of the flash, =(. Without flash, the pic would've been blurry tho.

Kenneth and Valerie, just randomly pointing.... =)

Oh, and I must mention what happened on the MRT when I was going to City Hall. Nothing big or monumental, but anyway, I saw this guy, might've been Japanese or Korean or smth, dressed somewhat in the typical J-/K-pop clothes, with an emo-ish hairstyle, and very insecure body language. The first time I saw him, I just thought, "Oh hey, look, J-pop clothes." But a minute or so later, I started to feel more like, "=S He's one of those 'cool on the outside, hiding a lot on the inside' people." This whole time his back was to me, tho, he was leaning against the corner of the wall with his head down. And then at one point when he turned just enough so that I could see part of his face, a wave of sadness hit me.

He was around 18 or 19, I'd guess, with a slight frame and nice facial features... the typical bishouen ("bishie")? But the pain, the silent fear in his eyes, the emptiness I could sense coming off of him, that just seemed to fill his whole being... and he looked so lost, like a 3 year old kid. Scared, and trying to cover it up with clothes and accessories that would be accepted as "cool". You could see that he's been trying to improve his life, fill the gap, by buying into the comforts that the world had held out to him, but it was just making him feel more and more lost. I'm not a softie, you know that, but today when I saw that guy, I could've just cried right there in the MRT.

I don't often have these experiences, but on the few times when I have (especially today), it's made me realize the magnitude of our duty and our call as Christians. I think God let me experience this today to give me a bit of an idea of the ache He feels for His lost people. I wanted so bad to go up to that guy and take away whatever pain he was holding, see him freed from whatever was weighing down so heavily on him. And you know like when in Matthew 23:37 it says God longs to gather us up like a hen gathers her chicks? It was like that. I wanted to go up to him, give him a hug, and let God's love just touch and heal him 100%.

I don't know who he is, but today was something special, and I'm gonna pray for that guy. As complete strangers now, I wouldn't die for him, but God knows him and loves him so much that God came down and made that sacrifice, longing for their relationship to be restored, so that he won't have to be hurting anymore. I'll pray that even though I may never cross paths with that guy again, his life will take a radical turn at some point, and that awful, oppressive misery I saw today will be gone.

2008-10-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

I'M BACK!

Back to blogging, back to Singapore. Oh blessed holidays~! ^^

I've been gone a loong loooong time... no, not meaning all this time on that church camp that I mentioned in my last post. Just been way too busy with school and drama and SC. And during what free time I had, I was too tired to put together a coherent blog entry.

But finally, here I am, and I just wanna note 2 things that have happened, so next time I can read this post and rmb.

-Basketball/sleepover with Joanna, RA, and Becky~
-(14th Oct '08) Drama prac ended early, had a good chat with *. :)

Right now I'm in Singapore~~~~ We arrived on Saturday night, after I took the PSAT back in school on Sat morning. Stayed over at the Seahs' house... had an awesome time (as always!), chatting and catching up, being stupid, being serious, youtube-ing...

ah, and then I realized that I'd forgotten to pack my sleeping clothes. I mean, not just to the Seahs' place. I mean that I completely forgot to bring sleeping clothes with me from Bangkok to Sg. Yup, that's right. ALL HAIL THE SOTONG QUEEN!

But as it goes, with such good friends, retarded things that one does only serve to provide laughter and a chance to strengthen friendship, as one humbly, contritely begs to borrow clothes, and the friends extend a much-needed, but undeserved hand of grace. And let one rummage through their wardrobe.

Today, I had a FANTASTIC Sunday with a bunch of crazy church ppl. ^^^^^ It was really really nice to see everyone again, esp with all the smiles, the "HI-IIIIII"s, and "HEY, you're back!"s. ^^ Had Poiema cell groups, then their music lessons, then badminton, then some of us went to Tampines and hung out at the food court. Laughed until it hurt, and made noise until some old person on his/her (yeah, we couldn't decide if it was a man or a woman) way out, told us that our (laughing) volume level was inappropriate. :P Oooops, really didn't mean to. ^^'

And other stuff, and other stuff. There're a lot of people who contributed to my day, and they're too many to name. But to all of you who did (and even if you think you didn't you probably did in some way or other tt you don't realize), I thank you for an awesome day!! =D

Tiong Wei ah :), I know you're reading this, and I already said it to you in church, but I'm just gonna mention this here so other ppl can see, and so I don't forget it, hahah:
TW, one of the Poiemians at ASE, brought 2 friends with him to church today (and another one last week, so I heard?). He himself just recently accepted Christ, and it's so inspiring to see him active in reaching out to others. Embarassing too, because we long-time-already Christians are hardly that active. We're too passive, too lazy, too afraid, too daunted, too busy, too.... whatever. Oh, for, shame. We can't rely on missionaries, pastors, and the like, to spread the word. It WE who have to go out there and take responsibility. STOP, think about it. Take it seriously.

So, Tiong! Don't ever become like that, don't get complacent, don't let this passion for Christ that you have now get worn down and bridled by time. Be... like Joel. Who invited you to church in the first place. ^^

Ok now, time to sleep. And it's gonna be another great day tomorrow. :)

2008-09-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a tiring week, and though today was just as (or even more) tiring than the past few days, it was still a really good one. =) Some reasons shall not be stated here (ahahaha), but I'm just writing this bit here so that some time in the far future when I come back and read my old blog posts, I'll remember today.

(Just for myself: [-Swapped chapel day-] ^^)

Tomorrow after school, we're going on a church camp at the beach. It'll be nice to get away and let my brain recuperate. I feel like it's been fried by all the tests and everything else I've had. Oh, but you know what? Somehow, really, it's true that when we are weak, God is strong. Today I was feeling like X_@ when I went in to school. During devotions, Mrs Lisa prayed that "may all that we do today honor and glorify You." And I was thinking like, Man, I'm so not-with-it today, I dunno how I'm gonna be a regularly functioning person... all the more someone who's a good friend and through whom God can shine. But, very surprisingly, today it seemed like I was able to talk to, relate to, be friendly, and be friends with more people than I usually do. I guess when our human strength is faded, that's when God's power can really kick in. =)

I'm kinda losing my voice now, from yelling so much in drama class, because today we did the scene where Jo gets mad at Amy. Poor Rissa, had to get shaken and whacked so many times. :P

I've made probably around or over 30000 neopoints for Jana in the last few days! :D Lolll.

Okayz, I'm about to unceremoniously fall asleep here at the desk, so I'd better go. Ciao~

PRAY, MOVE, get WORKING!

2008-09-22T08:12:00.001-07:00

Talk about revival. I'm seeing new doors being opened, more people questioning, more hearts searching. More believers moving, more workers reaping.

I'm glad that people on both sides are starting to reach out more. Reach those that have been put within your range. Pray not just for "the world", but the immediate people around you, in whose lives YOU can be a catalyst of change. Show love to those who walk by you in the halls everyday; those people who can be touched by just a simple smile or a word of encouragement. Reach them.

I'm praying for a specific few, because I feel that God is opening those doors, and whatever He opens CANNOT BE CLOSED. May it not be that when I stand before Him, He will say that I missed those opportunities He placed before me, that I didn't take the paths He placed there for me to follow. These people are my friends, people I care for. Their hearts are being prepared, their eyes are being unveiled. Do I care for their friendship and their "hi"s and "hello"s, but not care enough that- unless I take the careful initiative to talk to them about Christ- their souls are bound for eternal suffering? What kind of a friend takes the good times, but doesn't care for what happens to people after that? What if I said "I'll talk to her about it tomorrow", but then tonight she was killed?

God, provide the time, the patience, and all the other resources I need to do Your work.

May it be that we will see a revival in this land, and that we may do our part to get it started in this school. Amen.

2008-09-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, just a short post to catch up on all the highlights of the past few days. I've got like, 20 minutes before I'd better go to sleep. Our first AP World test is tomorrow... 3 essay questions, in 70 minutes, over 8000 years of history. Hehehe. :] WoOp.

Last Wednesday was a holiday for us. Verity and I went to hang out at Central, and then we went to the spa. Her bday present to me. ^^ We had roughly a good 6 hours of talk. Sorry, yes, I'm afraid even I only serve to strengthen the belief that girls like to yak and chit-chat. Verity and I have some good, in-depth convo tho.

On Friday after school, Becky, Ruthanne, Joanna, Rissa, and I had the photo shoot for the Little Women poster! Full makeup, hair, costumes. I've got some pictures, and hopefully I'll get around to posting them when I have a little more time. We started dressing up during last period, and when the dismissal bell rang, some of us went and stood outside the green room and waved and yelled at our friends, telling them to come watch the show in Nov. They all had a good stare and a good laugh over seeing us in big poofy dresses. For publicity's sake. ^^

Also on Friday (well, we'd planned this last week, and we set it up on Thursday after school), Ruthanne, Joanna, and I made it Caleb's birthday. Yup, made it. His real birthday's in June, but we wanted an excuse to do smth nice for him. So we'd set up his locker with presents inside, and a big greeting card that opened up when you opened the locker door. We got random people to wish him happy birthday (and when our "plants" wished him, other people who weren't in on it also believed that it was his real bday, so it snowballed). Mr Philip brought the audition choir to sing to Caleb during one class, and even Mr Bob had the class sing later on in their Spanish 2 class! XD

Actually, we 3 culprits were getting kinda worried that maybe dear Laurie was mad about what we'd set up, but later on he said that he did have a good day. Even if it had been really really weird to have a non-birthday with the whole highschool involved. Hehehehe. ^^''

Yesterday was youth Sunday. When we went out for lunch together after that, I just remember Tim (British dude) getting insulted over the fish and chips and he ordered, saying, "Oh c'mon, they call this fish and chips?" We didn't know any better, but I suppose he IS British, so. =] Yeah.

This week we have 4 tests. (Schedueled so far. Some teacher may decide to add another one.) Why do all the teachers somehow always end up giving tests in the same week?? And they say they "aren't conspiring against us". XD Oh, oh, and they always say that they're keeping within the rule of "no more than 2 tests on the same day". Which is reasonable and true, but, technically that could mean up to 10 tests in a week.

Anyway, now's not a good time for me to start playing Jana's neopets account. X) YES, GO AHEAD, LAUGH. I had a spare moment a few days ago and decided to revisit neopets just for old times's sake, and make some money for Jana's account in the process. Oh deary. I've ended up spending for too much time on it. Juussssst becaaaaauuse we've growwwwn a few years doesn't mean that what once used to have us so addicted to neopets has entirely lost its appeal.

So time for bed now. Thanks to everyone who's been helping me with the AP World Hist test. ^^ All the best to us tomorrow!

2008-09-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

Oh wow. Exhausted. Crying over and over again, and over and over again is no joke. I have such a headache now. :P Phewwwww....

But I think Mr Philip's glad of it, that we can really cry on stage. Really funny though, in rehearsal, when during the crying part, someone'd crack a joke, or Ruthanne would sneeze, or I would have to blow my nose really hard and then we'd all start laughing. XD Emotional yo-yo... I think my tear ducts have now temporarily gone on strike. *rubs head*

Here's the poem I wrote for American Lit class. (14 lines max.) It's a love poem, yes. It had to be either this, or an "extended metaphor", which didn't sound as charming. So.
I present:

My Adoration

Hear now, my love, what praise I speak of thee:

When you are near, there's nothing else I see.

Your spirit's pure, a treasure sweet and rare,

Perfection-wise, none other can compare.

Ten thousand other smiles could not trump yours;

Beyond all else, your radiance endures.

Speak now, that voice of hea'enly angels' song,

All else is silence; it's for your voice I long!

Silent strength, a warrior's fortitude,

At every glance, my wonder is renewed.

Yet kind and gentle, loving deep within,

Your soul, to peacefulness itself, akin.

With you, no mortal being can contend...

Of you, my adoration knows no end.

Heheh. =) ;)

Tomorrow's teacher in-service day, so NO SCHOOL FOR USSSSSS. :D I almost think we should instate Wednesdays as day-offs, like Saturdays and Sundays are. But nahh. I mean, if all our lives, we went to school from Monday through Saturday, then having a two-day weekend would seem wonderful. If we always had 3-day weekends, we'd want 4-day weekends. Let's be glad we at least have 2 days. ^^

(Wednesday's off are nice though.)

Btw, did you know that if your Achilles tendon was severed, not only would you not be able to walk, but...

Your calf muscle would pretty much "roll up"? (As beautifully and graphically described by our anatomy teacher today XD) Cuz the tendon is what keeps the muscle attached to your heel bone. So without it doing that, your calf muscle would- I say it again- ROLL UP. Like a projector screen! :D

Grossssssss. Hahahahahahah.

You're welcome, Jeremy! ^^

2008-09-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Another good Monday. =) In drama class we worked on Beth's death scene, and it was quite emotionally taxing to go from the serene solemnity at the beginning of the scene, to the pain and tears (yup, real crying) of feeling your dearest sister slipping away, her struggling to say her last few precious words, and then-

"Okay, we'll stop there. Go back and do it again." (Mr Philip. XD)

SO-ooooo, back to the start of the scene. The family's gathered, it's peaceful, close, but sad, all at the same time. Then getting sadder, sadder... start crying with Beth...

"Alright, good. One more time."

And again and again and again and again and again. XD

Also, tomorrow after school we have a 2-and-a-half hour practice for that scene again! WHOOP, I'm gonna get to cry myself to the point of dehydration! :D

Funny funny funny. ^^ "We have jolly times together." ^^

In American Literature class, we wrote love poems... heheheh. Ruthanne's was hilarious! That same innocence of dear little Beth (her character in the Little Women play).... Oh man. =D

After school we had worship practice for this week's Youth Sunday. Ya know, I'd just told Mrs Sheila that I didn't wanna participate in this week's one at all, cuz I already have a lot of other stuff going on. She was fine with that; really supportive and understanding, in fact. I was relieved to not be in it this time. But thennnn, Laurie comes along and gets Jo back in the worship team.

"You get everything you want out of people. I don't know how you do it, but you are a born wheedler." (Quote Jo)

I was kinda = =' after practice, but then after talking to Mrs Kris (Laurie's [Caleb's] mom) about the youth sunday stuff and coming up with a workable solution, I felt a lot better. Still though, those are changes that will be applied from the next time on. I'll still have to follow through with this Sunday. Must pray for patience.

But all in all, it was a good day. Well really, with God on my side, I don't quite have bad days. =) Praise God, thank You, Father.

Mark this day, Ariel. 15th Sept 2008. Remember that whammy you felt, that split second of a moment in frozen time when, like a bright spark, a cosmic blast, it hit you, and you realized.

2008-09-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well.

I've had an interesting day.

At 8.30 am dad and I left the house to go to school (drama practice), on motorcycle. We were going under the bridge, and its always hard to maneuver in there cuz you have to keep your head down, and the path is only a meter wide or less. Off the path just means sand and dirt and stone, but you still don't wanna bump down there. I mean, this isn't an overhead bridge. More like where the road was built over a canal, and motorcycles go under the road, next to the canal, to cut to the other side of the highway. We've gone under that bridge many times, and we've always been fine.

Today, however, there was a lot of water down there because of the rain we've been having. Even parts of the path were submerged. Anyway, I was keeping my head down as usual, so I couldn't really tell what was going on. There are bumpy sections where it feels like we're gonna fall, but we never do. But today when we were nearly at the end, I just remember feeling like dad was struggling with the bike for a split second, and then suddenly we were both off the bike, lying in about 4 inches of water. Yup. As of today, I can say that I've been in a "motorcycle accident". :P

Apparently, the light reflecting off the water had made it tough to see where the path was or wasn't. The bike's front wheel had gone off the path and hit into a chunk of cement somwhere down in the murk. At least we only fell of from nearly zero speed. Dad scratched up his elbow pretty bad, and tore some muscles in his shoulder. Me, I was completely unhurt. Well, I did get a small nick on my elbow and wrist, but there wasn't any blood at all. Just a few skin cells fell off. X) Nor did my leg get pinned or crushed by the bike, like I'd expected it to. Not even a bruise, goodness. Maybe just cuz the pillion usually sustains less damage than the rider. Maybe because I was lucky. Maybe because I'd been praying just a minute before that. Whatever it was, I sure thank and praise God for keeping me so incredibly safe.

Two other motorcyclists who were passing helped us get the bike up, and out to where we wouldn't be blocking that narrow way. I called mom to pick us up, cuz dad couldn't ride. Called Joanna and asked her to tell Mr Philip I'd be late for practice. I only had to go home and change because I'd gotten pretty wet (and so did the stuff in my bag... had to lay that all out to dry as well, lol), but dad had to go to the hospital. We thought maybe he'd fractured something, but thankfully not.

On the way to the hospital, mom dropped me off at the Nation Tower, and I took the overhead bridge and went in to school. I was feeling pretty okay, no probz. Felt like I was ready to jump straight into drama prac, since I was nearly an hour late already. But when I saw my friends and Mr Philip, and they were all concerned and stuff, I nearly cried. I guess that's when I realized how stunned and scared I'd been. Not for myself; I was totally okay, physically. Just that I didn't like seeing dad hurt and in pain.

Ah, and now I understand why, in one scene from our play when Jo is feeling sad, Laurie invites her to "run down this hill with me". Cuz I was having trouble settling down to act. Like, I couldn't talk without my voice shaking. But then Mr Philip asked us all to go take a run around the soccer field, and it felt like a miracle. Within the next few minutes, I was back to being me, and laughing and fooling around and being crazy with my drama people.

We went through our scenes. I think I'm doing pretty well in terms of memorizing; I didn't have to ask for my lines much. It was amazing how great drama made me feel again after the unfortunate, un-routine event that had taken place earlier. Love you guys. =)

The rest of the day, in light of this morning, seem pretty normal and not worth reporting, so I shall end off here. Once again I praise God for His protection. Phew. =}

2008-09-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't updated for a couple of days. There's been a serious amount of work, plus I've been kinda ill. I've been holding out quite well, actually, in terms of not getting sick. For the past few weeks a lot of my friends were down, but I managed to keep un-sick. Guess it finally caught up with me, during this hectic week. Still not as bad as it could be tho, thanks to prayer, rest, sleep, lotsa water, and drama. Yes, drama class, I do believe. How so? Because it keeps me happy, even when my head feels all stuffed up. =3

You know how it feels when you wanna sneeze, you're gonna sneeze, you're aboouuuuuut to sneeze... and then it goes back in? Well today, I've had that happen at least 20 times. It's TORTURE, I tell you. Not just "no shiok" okayyyyy. It's an almighty, I-could-kill-myself-right-now-if-this-sneeze-doesn't-come-out feeling. Terrible terrible terrible.

Anyway, I don't think I'll be getting much less busy over the next few days or next week. I haven't even been on msn for a couple of days. So I may not blog often, but I'll try to. (Keep checking tho, in case I do. =))

I'd better get to sleep now. Tomorrow, from 9-12am is our first drama "run", meaning we go through all the scenes we've practiced thus far, but without scripts. Kinda feels like a test. :P But I'm quite excited for it, because since we're forced to not have our scripts, it's gonna free up our actions and stuff, and therefore hopefully give more life to the characters and play. Oh, this week we were trying on some costumes and stuff... I'll see if I can get pictures of that in the future. Costumes are fun, fun, very fun. Esp when we all look at each other and laugh, fluffing those huge skirts around, and try to be all lady-like. ^^^^

Ta~!

2008-09-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

Let's start the post with a smiley face!

Cuz there're awesome weather- cool (cold, actually) and windy because it just rained- and I've had a real good day.

So far, the last few weeks since school started, Monday's have always kinda been my longest days. Aside from the fact that they're Mondays, I mean. Just something to do with the way my Monday's classes are arranged or smth, perhaps. But today, it felt faster than a normal day. And as the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun.

First and second period weren't too heavy, but they didn't drag either. So very quickly, I was on to break, and then drama after that. 4th period was Mandarin, and even that was a little faster than usual. Plus now I'm getting to know Minjee more cuz I sit next to her. =)

Then lunch! Mr Philip and Mr Jim got our student council to tell us our prayer requests, and they prayed for us. Then down in the cafeteria, I had a good long conversation with Nat about his Buddhism, and Christianity. He really is such a nice guy. Gonna keep praying for him. I'm so glad that he's open to conversation and discussion.

Fifth period was Jchl2, and as usual, Mr Robert had funny stories to crack us up with.

After school we had drama practice again. This is what had happened before, tho: The original schedule says that Mon after-sch prac was for a scene involving a lot of people (2.6), and Wed in-sch prac was just a scene (3.8) with me and one other actor. We swapped those two, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, that guy in 3.8 wasn't around when we made the announcement for the swap. So today he suddenly told us he had sports practice. Since it would've been pretty weird (and an inefficient use of time) to let me practice a scene alone (lollll :P), we decided to practice 3.1 instead [the REJECTION SCENE, dun dun dun dunnnnn]. That meant making Caleb stay back for practice after he'd been told he didn't need to stay back today, but oh well.

With just the two of us, practice went so well and Mr Philip was so happy with it that our 1-hr practice (Monday's are 1 hr, Tues and Thurs are 2 and a half) ended in half an hour! :D Not to say I'm happy about cutting practice short, but I'm just real happy that our teacher/director thought we did that well. Much encouraged. =)

Then I was about to go home with dad, but when I walked to the elementary building to get Jana, I saw Ruthanne, Joanna, Becky, and Caleb all playing bball, and I had to join in. ^^^^^^^^^ It felt like what the drama should be, with Laurie laughing and horsing around with the March family. ^^^^^^^

I'm in terrible shape though. I played for 8 minutes (that's just one quarter of a game), and then I was glad that it was time to go home. XD Better buck up on my fitness before bball season comes around. Even my dear skinny little Sarah Seah can run 10 km! (And I'm very proud of you. A li'l jealous, and put to shame as well, but yeah. Hehehhe. :))

Came home, did homework, yadda yadda, so on and so forth, and am now going to sleep and enjoy this beautiful, amazing weather. :D Ciao~

2008-09-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

Didn't go to church today, but I heard this from dad, who did go-->

Aunty Janice went up there as the mc, making BCF history as the first woman to mc. And her opening line is: "In case you're all wondering why I'm up here mc-ing, it's because last week I signed up to be an usher, but I signed the wrong slot."

HAHAHA. XD

And then later on, "As the worship team comes up, I'd like to read a passage from scripture... *opens Bible*... Oh shoot, I forgot my glasses."

Lol!!!! XD

So yeah, stayed at home the whole day. Partly cuz of this cold that's been coming on, and I need to rest it away before it gets worse, because I can't afford to be sick this next week. Partly cuz I had things to do, and partly cuz after church dad had a church leaders' meeting that lasted for a long time. Did homework (AP WORLD HISTORY TAKES FOREVERRR TO DOO >.O), finally got to work on Aunty Gwen's sheep pen logo thingamajig, watched part of the Emperor's March (that penguin thing).... I love emperor penguins! I mean, I've always thought penguins were hilarious, but MAAn, you gotta watch that documentary. They're funnier than I ever imagined! :D

This morning Jana was wallowing in bed. She's so tiny. Srsly one little ball when she curls up.

Not much to say today. Oh, apart from that it REALLY IS GOOD to make Sunday a day of rest. =) Not chionging to finish homework and stuff. Cram on Saturday, chillax on Sunday. Okies, time to sleep, buhbye~ ^^

2008-09-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

I'm getting better. =) Rest, water, more rest, more water, and the insipid, impending cold soon fades back to nothing. Well, almost gone... still gotta go easy for the next day or so.

Though I didn't exactly go easy after school on Friday. I had planned to go home and rest, but then Ruthanne, Joanna, and Becky were going to Central, I just had to hang out with them. They all live really far away, and hardly ever EVER stay around this area after school. We didn't do much, just a bunch of us (the 3 aforementioned, Jonathan, Caleb, Tim, Marsha, Joei, Naveed, and myself) went to McDonalds and ate and chatted for nearly 2 hours. Near the end Tim wanted to go look for hair dye so I went with him... when we got back to Macs, the others were just walking out. Ruthanne and Joanne had left already... I didn't say bye to them. Oops. :P

This morning I was woken up at 7.20 by Jana playing the piano. = = She had come and considerately closed my door before that, but both she and my mom (whom I think was giving her a piano lesson at that time of the morning X_X ) forgot that the sound comes in from my window too. I would've gone back to sleep, but hearing kiddie songs being played multiple times doesn't permit such luxuries.

So I had to get up. I got a good amount of homework done, before I took a nap at about 11.30 to reclaim the 2 hours of sleep that were rightfully mine. At 1 p.m. Jana came and woke me up to say it was lunch time. Mom and dad were out house hunting, so Jana and I were supposed to make sandwiches.

Mumbling, "Yeah okay... go start... I'm coming," into my pillow, I promptly went back to sleep. And when I woke up again about 20 minutes later, Jana had gone and made her lunch, and started eating, and finished eating. Heh. I'm a really good sister. =/

(Home)worked, worked, through most of the day. Did a bit of cooking, played piano, memorized lines for drama, tried to play flute again... Not much excitement, but I liked it. =) The peace, the lull of familiarity and routine... ^^ Cuz I have a feeling that next week is going to get pretty busy. Esp since 5 big scenes that Jo's in have to be memorized by next Saturday. Maybe we'll have another political-unrest-stay-at-home day...

We had a nice dinner that mom threw together pretty quick. Pumpkin soup and pork ribs.. for the amount of prep time, it sure was good. :) We add whipping cream to the soup. Mom splattered/dripped/poured it in or wtv, and I took a picture cuz I liked how it had this abstract, artsy look. The colors were nice too, but that's kinda lost in the pic cuz of the orange light in the dining room.

There was a real nice sunrise on Friday:

And now for a change of scenery...

Jana has this huge blister on her big toe.

She's been limping around all day and calling the blister names. XD Guess it really does hurt tho.

=) Heheheheheh.

2008-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's holiday was a timely break for me, cuz I was getting swamped by work. =) We went house hunting for the first half of the day. The highlights of the outing for me were:

1) At one of the houses, a FAT, FLUFFY, ORANGE CAT that looked like Garfield. And in the kitchen of that house, an OLD THAI CAT which, according to the owner, is 22 YEARS OLD. And "don't go anywhere. Just sit there." XD And there were a few chickens and rabbits running around in the yard too. Funneh. ^^

Wish I could've taken pictures, but I'd left my camera in the car.

2) At another house, there was a BIG, FAT, FLUFFY DOG that looked like... a. Well, big dog I guess. It's most impressive view was from the front, when it was laying down. Unfortunately I couldn't get a pic from that angle cuz it got up and came to the gate to see us. Here're some less impressive pics, but he still looks plush. =3

We went in to see the house, and it was really big, really spacious inside... I liked it a lot. My fav out of all the houses we saw. Took some pictures, but I'm not gonna post them cuz I think it'd be a bit rude to the owners, for them to have some stranger post pics of the inside of their house, when we're not even sure we're gonna move in. However, the next pic won't do much harm. Jana in the staircase banister, hahaha.

3) While we were in the car by the side of the road waiting for smth, this guy walked by, and stopped near us, all the while BLATANTLY PICKING HIS NOSE. Like, gross can! XD Thkfully the windows of dad's car are tinted, cuz we were all laughing like nuts and falling about. I mean, srsly, he just stood there and picked for a good 2 minutes, if not longer. Mom said at one point he hit pay dirt, and the booger that came out was so big she could see it fall from his hand to the ground, even from the distance we were at. I dunno, I was alrd laughing like crazy so I didn't see.

Super ah beng loh. Just stand in the middle of the road and dig. Mouth hanging open, dun even bother to cover, just dig dig dig... laughed until I cried n my lungs almost burst sia. XD

Today we were all back to school. I think half the highschool population must've been up late last night on the school website clicking "refreshrefreshrefreshrefreshrefresh", hoping that a new announcement would pop up and say school was cancelled for today too. School was pretty mediocre today, nothing too special. Did a bit of student council stuff for the clothing drive. After school, mom and dad went to look at houses again around Bangna Villa, so I was at Verity's house for a few hours chatting and doing homework. =) Thanks Verity! ^^

And now I am at home, feeling like I've got a flu coming on, so I'd better get to sleep. At least it's Friday tomorrow, so I can rest it off before it develops. Hehe. The week feels a lot shorter when we have a Wednesday off... =P

We missed after sch prac on Tues (all after school activities were cancelled for this week), class on Wed, after sch prac today... but finally, there is drama tomorrow!!

2008-09-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

A lot of stuff to report today!

1) Rainbow
Yesterday Jana saw a part-rainbow, and mused out loud that she had never seen a full half-circle one before. This morning, after last night's heavy rain, there was a HUUGE full rainbow! Right next to it was another complete one, which must've been it's reflection, because the colors were in reverse order (red on the bottom, purples on the top). =) I guess you could kinda use that as an example of how God cares about out little thoughts and wants, even when we don't even think them big enough to be prayed for. And when He answers prayer, He gives not just what you hoped for, but He gives it in abundance.

I got a picture of it but I'll put that up another time. ^^

2) Political unrest! (Again. = =)
There've been some protests quietly going for the last 100 days or so, apparently. I think I may have mentioned a time, in one of my earlier posts, that there were demonstrations and the like going on. So yeah, it's been going since around/before then, the protestors all gathered outside the government house and refusing to leave. But in the last few days, the situation has gotten increasingly tense. Today (Tuesday) at about 2 am, there was a clash, and someone actually got killed. So Thailand is now officially in a "state of emergency".

The first we heard of it in school was when there was an announcement to cancel all of today's after-school sports practices/games. Then we heard that they were all cancelled for the week, including aany other after-sch activites. So no drama for me. =(

But anyway, at 4th period, we were told that a lot of other schools (both Thai and international) were closing for a few days, because we don't want the students who live downtown to get caught in any potential violence on their way to and from school. By lunch time, we were all making bets on whether our school'd close or not. XD Fifth (last) period, we all received letters home to our parents saying that YES, school would be closed on Wednesday. And if the situation did not improve, we'd close for Thursday, taking it a day at a time.

Some of the things I've heard are that the public buses have all been cancelled; there're only "800 cream-colored buses" left... and they're the ones providing free transport to the rally. (HAHA! XP) The protest party is going to cut electricity and water to the government buildings, and politicians' homes... yadda yadda.

If you're in Singapore or anywhere else, concerned for the safety of my family, myself, or my friends, I don't think there's need for that. If anything, pray that not more violence will break out down where the protests are. We're all safe at home, and where I live is nowhere near the protest site. Hopefully none of us are dumb enough to go downtown for "shopping" during tmr's day off.

Some of the protest stories are pretty funny though! Like the one where the protestors (like the leaders, or whoever) were asking for donations of lingerie (= =, yes I know), because it had rained, and all the protestors got wet but didn't wanna go home and change. [Some live pretty far away, maybe in a different province.] And they asked for large sizes because "some of our protestors are older, larger ladies". And then they told the protestors to NOT throw away their old underclothes, because they plan to collect them all and send them to the prime minister. =3

3) Storm warnings
Here's something else to laugh at. Big storms and heavy flooding are expected soon, and apparently, measurements that the authorities have taken to deal with it arrRRRE?

Sending out a group of religious leaders to pray, so they storm won't come. :)))) Heeheeeeeeee.

4) MOVING HOUSE
It hasn't come as a big surprise, but I can't say I'm terribly pleased about it either. =( =| =\ Someone has bought this apartment from our landlord, and the reduced rent that we're paying right now is not what he'd like. I mean, not like we're being kicked out or anything. We did agree to move if someone else came along and offered our landlord a better deal. So yeah, tomorrow we're gonna see a house, dee da dee da. I hope we move only AFTER Rachel comes in Nov. :S Hahaha. The Seahs keep just-missing being able to see our apartment.

--

I guess I'm kinda glad for this impromptu holiday. Work's been heavy, and even though it's only the middle of the week, I really can use this bit of rest. =) Well, still a lot of homework to do, but yeah. Although we're missing some important drama practices... hahahah.

Nitez!~ <3

2008-08-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

I'm am blogging now because the upper-frontal quadrant of my cranium hurts too much from note-taking off paragraphs and pages of tiny font in a history textbook, to do any more work for the moment.

It's the end of August!! The month that only comes around once a year! My month!! My country's month. It's over already. o_o At the end of July I was saying how fast time had gone by since I'd come back to Thailand at the end of June. Now it's the end of August already. Oh boy.

Today I'm not too sure why my "xin qing" (mood; state of mind) was as bad as it was. Maybe just a series of small disappointments, each on their own utterly insignificant, but adding up to be quite a force to be reckoned with. Maybe? Maybe just a mood swing. Maybe, if I may make a slightly more dramatic guess here, spiritual oppression? Cuz the last time I felt this (two weeks ago) was on Sunday too. Even though on Sundays I get to fellowship with wonderful people with big hugs and smiles and lots of encouragement. So I dunno. I'm just glad tomorrow's back to school. No-... check that. Back to drama practice. =)

After church we were at Seacon Square. I only had to follow mom window shopping for a little while, but because I was feeling kinda grouchy (though trying to hide it), I was pushed to the deciding point of a decision I've been considering for some time now. That being, To my future husband: I PROMISE TO TRY MY BEST TO NEVER DRAG YOU ALONG ON SHOPPING TRIPS BECAUSE I KNOW HOW TERRIBLE IT FEELS.

Yup. Hehe.

Hm, not much to say today. Well, more that there's not much time to say all that could be said, if I was willing to say it. Hope I'm not as down and "bleargh" tomorrow as I have been today. Apologies for the non-positive post. There're enough emo-blogs out there, but I guess it's also unrealistic to be smiling everday, all the time, at everything.

Back to work now, woooot. ^^

Of course, it could be a certain "bug" that I've caught, so says the self-doctor. One I've had before, one that you'll never become immune to, especially not in these years of volatile teenage emotions. Sigh. And just when I thought I'd recovered from the last one, too.

2008-08-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well I had a terrific birthday on Thursday!!! =D

Just too bad I didn't have time to blog about it straight after, but yeah. ^^ I brought some of mom's awesome brownies to school to give out, and I'm sure that had something to do with the extra number of smiling faces around the hallways, but apart from that, I was really moved by how many people wished me happy bday, and would have whether the brownies were there or not. Throughout the day I think I must've received at least a hundred good wishes from people... pretty incredible.

When the first bell rang in the morning for us to go to our lockers, my Little Women mom, and two out of three sisters were waiting at my locker to tackle me with a great group hug. Then in first period, Mr Philip (drama/choir teacher) brought the choir in to my Physics class to sing happy birthday (actually this one is owed more to Lily and Wanissa, cuz they're the ones who told Mr Philip). I was shocked. Stunned. Open-mouth-flabberghasted. Like, WOW.

At lunch, we had our student council meeting. Suddenly Joanne's phone rang, and it was Mr Mark calling from the States: Mrs Malia was having their baby! Yeah, so their kid and I now have the same birthday, hahahah.

Last period, I was surprised again when Mr Robert had the class sing some funny happy birthday "remix" that he learned when he was a waiter back in the US. Apparently, it was Alliya who had told him it was my bday. =}

My dearest Beth and Meg (actually Ruthanne and Joanna), during their studyhall period, had gone and made a big "Happy Birthday Jo!" poster and stuck it on the green room mirror, where I saw it when I went for drama practice after school. Thanks, you two, really. Thank you. :D :D

So yeah, it was a wonderful day, and I LOVE YOU GUYS A LOT!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not to mention the blog tags, and the people who also wished me on msn and facebook. =) =) =) Quote Bobin Lee, "You're halfway done through your teen's.. and over to your twenties." Lol! Wowz...

-------

Yesterday, Friday, school was good too. After I got the second period AP Calc test out of the way, my day felt light as a feather. They showed some funny videos in chapel... in drama class I had a good laugh as dad worked with Jay on his German accent as Professor Bhaer.. after school I hung out with Becky D, had a really good talk, both jokey and serious. After that I went to Central with my family. I bought a book with some of the bday money mom gave me. ^^ It the World Atlas of Birds, and NO, before you call me a nerd, it's NOT for studying purposes. I got it because now I'm interested in drawing birds, creating my own, especially since I learned how wings and feathers worked. When I was at Asia Books, I saw this:

And had to take a picture, cuz "John Brooke" is the name of one of the Little Woman characters. ^^

We went to Pizza Company for diner, and saw Mr Robert there. We invited him to join us at our table, though he was pretty much done with his meal already. We all yaked for awhile, then he left. Then a bunch of my school friends showed up, around the time when my family was just done eating. Mom and Dad and Jana went of shopping for awhile, so I stayed with my friends. Met a new person named Danny there, a former ICS student who went away after 5th grade. He's back to Thailand on vacation, but is leaving soon. He's the one in the white shirt, bottom left. Continuing clockwise: david kim, Meeka (you can't quite see her tho), Richelle, Tim, Adam, May, Nathan.

Back home, dad wanted to watch Meet Dave. (Pirated dvd :P) So we all gather in the room, load the thing, go to language setup... and we're offered audio in two languages: Thai and RUSSIAN. XD XD XD XD And the English subtitles were so messed up too, and we decided to watch another movie. This time, dad chooses Mutant Chronicles. "Nah, it's not violent," he says. HAHAHHA, it's as bad as the Saving Private Ryan opening battle scene, except that it lasts a lot longer. XD After 20 minutes of the blood and gore and pretty language, mom made him press the stop button.

So we watched Little Women instead. ^^ Very interesting.. it helped me form a more 3D, realistic world in my head for which to base my acting on. Next week I'm gonna invite our drama cast to come over and watch it all together, cuz it'll do us good. Wheee~

Today, early morning, 5 am, I woke and and was trying to get ready for school. And then I realized it was Saturday. WHAT A FEELING to flop down on the pillow again and go back to sleep!! :D I woke up properly at around 10, had breakfast, did some hw.. then ended having a nap again just because the weather today is so nice. :)

And now, back to work. Hehe. ^^

2008-08-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

My last day as a 15 year old! DOES TIME FLY OR WHAT. I rmb, with rather a laugh, back when I read the book, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 and 3/4, and thought, "Wow... it must be so grand to be 13 and 3/4 years old..." Lo and behold, 13.75 came and went, as did 14, as did 15, and tmr will be 16's turn.

As usual, I'm feeling that I don't want to leave this year, because it has been such a good one... I don't want to be called a sixteen-year-old, now that I've finally gotten used to being called a 15-year-old.. after I'd had to move on from my previous comfort zone of being called a 14-year-old... and before that I had so detested having to cross from being a 12-year-old, to being a thirTEEN-year-old. Because I didn't want to be a TEEN.

Yeah.

But you know what? Life goes on, and on hindsight, ever year has been as good as, or even better than the last. It therefore logically follows that next year will be even better than this one. I guess we're all just a bit edgy about crossing over into something unknown, something new. Cuz stepping from this year of being 15, into the next 12 calendar months of being 16... well yeah, it feels like I'm moving from my nice comfortable (albeit slightly cluttered) room, into a new empty one.

It's really cool tho, and nice, and comforting... and uplifting and encouraging... the number of people who somehow have been wishing me happy birthday the last few days. "Happy birthday Ariel! In case I forget on Thursday. =)" or, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY I'M GONNA WISH YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYDAY FROM NOW UNTIL YOUR REAL BIRTHDAY! :D:D" XD Funny, dear, wonderful friends.

Today we finished the drama read-throughs. Tomorrow we start working more specifically, more intensely on individual scenes. :D Woop! This is gonna be 12 weeks of drama, almost everyday, hard work, tiring hours, but I'm gonna LOVE EVERY MOMENT OF IT. Ah, and then of course, when it's over... I'll probably cry about it for the next 12 years.

Yesterday (and then continued today), after we finished our first read/walk-through of the entire script, we were told to do the whole thing again from the beginning, but this time at hyper speed. Literally, like on fast-forward. Sooo funny! :D Apparently, my speech is still very clear even when we're all going that fast.... "because that's how she always speaks at home" - quote, my loving father. XD

And now, I shall get back to my homework... history... lots of it.... =S

So. I conclude this last blog post of my 15th year. I praise my God for bringing me this far, teaching me, helping me grow up right and well... thanks to all my friends, all the pals who stand by me... I'll miss you, 15, :P. You were a good year. I don't think 16 will sound quite as cool as you, but it's time to let you go. (Ah, I think I like 15 because that's Ichigo's age.) Dad just came in to say a prayer for me... reminding me and also thanking God for, all these years, honoring my parents' prayer for me before I was born: That I would love God, love people, and have a peaceful spirit. May that continue on into my 16th year. =)

Luv ya'll! :D

2008-08-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

40th post! Hahaha. I think this is my longest-standing blog so far. If not, then at least far more frequently updated than the old Xanga I had, which may still have more posts, I dunno.

Right. Today was such a joy! I do love drama, I don't know how I get on without it. Mercy on us, I'm even starting to write like a regular March girl, here online. (Imagine the accent as you read this.) If I have ever said that I love drama, all the more I do so love it now. It's a peculiar thing that although we actors and actresses spend the most of our time relating to each other as our characters, there seems to form this bond that transcends the acting and stage dialogue, to become true friendship. It's perfectly splendid, how we all do get along so.

Ah, okay it's weird to talk like tt... one paragraph's enough. Back to normal now. So yea, even outside of drama class, we still call each other by our characters' names, treat each other accordingly, and so on. All the fun, all the laughs... Love it love it love it. Today we had 2 practices, one in class at 3rd period, and then for an hour after school. Those 2 periods between practices felt too long to have to wait through. =P We're right now still doing read-throughs, but it's already so fun. Instead of sitting around and just reading, we're already "walking through" the scenes, and get to throw in as much action and expression as we like.

One complaint only tho: the character that my Jo falls in love with at the end of the drama, is played by a freshie. Yes, a 9th grader. Yes, 2 years younger than me. *does the awkward turtle sign* I have a good mind to change the play... just go ahead and say "YESS!!" when Laurie confesses his feelings for Jo. Run off with him, then I don't have to go romance a freshie. XD =\

Practice was funny though, cuz there're a couple of scenes where- although Jo doesn't like Laurie as he likes her- they do hug or hold hands when he comforts her over her sister's illness. When Caleb (Laurie) and I read to that part of the script where it gave such directions, we were both like, "... ..." *look at Mr Philip* "We, uh... do we have to do this... now..?"

What Mr Philip then said to that was right, "The sooner you get comfortable, the better." And I agree! But... all Caleb and I managed to do was the holding hands part, which we made look more like a friendly high five than an emotional gesture. As for the hug, (the "flinging herself at Laurie, throwing her arms around his neck")... well we got as far as standing within a few inches of each other. Bravo, bravoooo~ *applause*

Maan, if I'm so awkward with Caleb, whom I'd actually say I'm relatively comfortable with... then WHAT ON EARTH AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE FRESHIE?! >=X And it's doubly weird. The character he plays is like, 20 years older than my character. That's already icky. And on the actor-actress plane, he's 2 years younger than me. Ohhhh boy.

But that's what makes drama all the more interesting. XP School life, and life here in general feels like it has suddenly gone to a whole new level of intrigue and happiness (not that I wasn't happy before or anything!) No matter what comes, no matter what awkward situations befall me, no matter how the combined work load of drama and homework increases and drive me to the point of tears as it might... well. Call me Jo. =)

2008-08-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday:

Did most of my homework in the earlier part of the day, and after lunch wanted my help with going somewhere to pick up a plastic toy house for the little kiddiegarteners.

Then we went to Central to get some stationary supplies and groceries.. ah, moving around in the grocery store (TOPS Supermarket) is like driving, but walking. There're so many trolleys around, and when coming out of a lane, you gotta indicate which way you're gonna turn, then you gotta slowly nudge your way out until there's a safe opening for you to take.

In the bathroom at Central, they had these advertising things... if you're standing in front of it, which the sensor will detect, the light switches off, so the panel serves as a mirror. When the coast is clear, the light comes on and you can see the advert.

The grass on our school soccer field's lookin' good!!

We came home pretty late, and I was doing some other stuff like preparing for yth worship, wrapping my textbooks, etc. If I'd blogged yesterday about yesterday, I would've had quite a lot more to say. But since today has come, with surprises of it's own, yesterday is but a rather short list of consecutive events, easily encapsulated in a few sentences.
--
Today:

Church tiimme. The youth service (worship, in particular... the part I was in charge of) went surprisingly well even though I felt we hadn't had enough practice time. Sorta like what my dad likes to say: "Looking at all our mess-ups, God has more built His church despite us, rather than through us." Glory to God, oh definitely, today.

Here're pictures, picturess~

Some of the "youthfuler-youth", as Nathan referred to them.

My Little-Woman-youngest-sister, Amy. Rissa. =)

Practicing the skit

Elliot turned around right as the shutter closed. Brill! Hahahah. XD

Tim and Ben Talbot. It still goofs me up to see both of them together, when I've been used to seeing only one. It's like there's suddenly two of the same person.

Tim and Caleb, who'll be playing the part of Laurie in the drama

The youthfuler youth performing their special music item during offering

Peace!

Another group of youths did a skit, but I'll post that vid tmr cuz I gotta sleep now.

After church all the youths (and some of the parents) went out for lunch together. It was like what we did last month, same place, but this time there were a lot more people, I think almost 50 people? =)

Haha, yes, Jeremy Tan. A lot of ang mohs.

Today I discovered that I can now make myself cry for the sake of acting, hahahah. :D At last week's auditions for Little Women, I was surprised that I was starting to cry a little at one emotional scene we had to read. This afternoon, I was again caught off guard by how easily I started to tear when I read Beth's death scene in my script. I decided to see how far I could take those acting emotions... and pretty much ended up bawling over my "dead sister". :) This is coooooool.

Tomorrow's my real sister's bday tho. Jana's turning 9! Already, wow. It's her last few hours as an 8 year ollllld....

2008-08-22T06:26:00.000-07:00

Welp, IT'S THE WEEKEND! :D

Yesterday we had auditions. They were as fun as- well, more fun than- I thought they'd be. Had some seriously good laughs watching each other! For those of you who don't know, here's how our auditions go. Pretty standard procedure, tho this is also more specific to just yesterday:

(School ended at 2.17, and then auditions were to start in the auditorium at 2.30)

At 2.30, we, the drama class, are all in there chattering away, trying to calm our nerves. After some warmups and prayer, we started. Most of the people stay in their seats, and a few are called to go backstage and prepare to come out one by one. The first person goes, the second person goes, and another person from the audience (seated auditioners) is called to go and wait backstage. Then the next person goes, and another one's called up. Always 2 people backstage while one person's out there performing.

The performance: you deliver the monologue you've prepared. The judges may cut you off early, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Then they'll ask you to do some other things. For me, first I had to "do your monologue again, but this time act like you're climbing a ladder while saying it." And then, "okay, once more, and this time be REALLY ANGRY throughout the whole thing."

Some of my friends had to do stuff like pretend they were a baby giraffe that had just been born (HAHA =D), or pretend they were a bird n flapping their wings while talking, or improvise the "other person's" side of the conversation (opposite of their monologue). About 25 ppl or sooo....

After everyone had gone, we had a 10 minute break.

Next, is the script reading part of the auditions. The judges send us up on stage, like, "Okay... I want Joanna as Beth, RuthAnne as Meg, and Sam as Laurie." Some excerpts from the script are provided, and those people go up there, and perform the scene. Then the judges will call different people to read that scene, swapping them around, swapping them on or off stage, etc etc. This is to see things such as how naturally an actor gets into a particular character, to judge who interacts best with who, and lotsa other stuff. This part took quiiiiite a long time.

Auditions ended at 6.10. 3 and a half hours (plus break). Wheww.

Anyway, the outcome is, Yes, I am Jo. =) I'm very happy with that, though at the same time I feel bad for my good friend who wanted the same part. (Cuz we're both of the same tomboy breed. XD) Yeah... that's the part of auditions I don't like. All the mixed emotions.. having to see your friends [trying not to show that they're] sad if they didn't get their desired role... sigh. But I've just been praying that such things will not drive us (not just my tt friend and I, but other disappointed ppl also) apart, but instead be an opportunity for us to show each other understanding, sympathy, and acceptance that will bring us closer together.

I've wanted this Jo role for 2 years... ever since sometime back in 8th or 9th grade when Mrs Sheila (drama teacher's wife) said to me, "Do you know the story called Little Women? No? Oh, you've heard of it? Oh okay, well, if we ever do that play here in ICS, there's this character called Jo, that I think you're a lot like and would do well as."

That idea has grown on me ever since. And now that I've got the part, I'm going to work SO hard, and be this character SO WELL, that I will do those 2 years of anticipation full justice, and I won't let Mrs Sheila, or Mr Philip, or myself, or my parents, or anyone who'll watch the play, down. LET'S DO THIS! :D

Since dad started helping out with drama class, offering feedback and extra acting tips... I've found that WHOA, he knows a LOT about drama! I'm so surprised! O_O Well anywho anyhow, THAT'S GREAT FOR US, cuz he'll help us take our drama one (or a few) steps further than we have been doing. Woop!

Today, school was pretty regular. I spend the whole day looking forward to drama at last period. It was the COMMENCEMENT OF MY 2 YEAR DREAM. =D This class, and the next few practice sessions was/will be read-throughs... just reading through the script. But today what made it fun was that instead of us just sitting in a circle and reading, we were made to walk through the scene as well, so we got to gesticulate and exaggerate and jump about all we wanted. ^^ Suits me fiiiiine~.

After school we had band prac for this week's yth sunday in church. Having finished with that (tho we still gonna have to meet at church way early this Sun to prac more, cuz Nate and Peace had to leave early for vball practice), I came home. We watched Iron Man! Usually I'm decidedly more into drawing human characters, creating personalities, making up strange creatures... more "alive" stuff. But once in awhile, after watching things like Iron Man... or Transformers... I feel that there's a spark of interest for the mecha genre, that could be fanned into flame. :] Mb I'll be exploring that next. ^^

This weekend doesn't seem to have much homework, so I feel a lot... lighter. WooooOOoooOooOooo. ^^ Almost like a physical weight is off my shoulders. But now with the Little Women play started, I'm looking really forward to each day, each week of school. Cuz M, W, and F we have drama class, while M, Tu, Th, we have after school prac. So that more or less means:

EVERYDAY DRAMA!
SHIOK ONLY SIAAAAAAAAA! :D

2008-08-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

ToDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY....

was a fun day. =)

After school, Verity, Becky D, Sam, RuthAnne, Joanna, and I hung out together and practiced our monologues. Because there are AUDITIONS TOMORROWWW!

When we're together, that full TCS star, Channel 5 drama queen side of me emerges. :D And it's so fun. We all act together, go nuts, be totally uninhibited in whatever role we feel like playing for that one instant.

After all the others left, Becky and I were still around, so we strolled, chatted, continued acting, but also had some good talk. Thx. =)

At home, when we were still sitting at the table after just having finished dinner, Dad gave me some great tips and pointers on my monologue. By this time tmr, it will have been decided who gets what role. I shall try my best for Jo. :]

2008-08-18T06:30:00.001-07:00

Peng san.

Just now a friend asked me on msn, "How was your weekend?" And I was like... *thoughts taking some time to start up*... ... ... HUH, oh yeah hor, it was Sunday just yesterday... O_o =S

It's been a long day. A long two days. In fact, I'm gonna sleep now even though it's only 8.30. I think even if I'd slept at 5 or 6, I would still only wake up tmr when my phone alarm rings. Just now at dinner I was sitting there, stoning every few mouthfuls. At one point I announced that I was gonna sleep at 8, to which Jana gave me a bewildered look and said, "You can't do that! MY bedtime's at eight-thirty!"

Welp, it's 8.30 now, half an hour past my declared bedtime. See ya tmoz, I'm off to go sleep like the dead now. =)

2008-08-17T01:09:00.001-07:00

This is me at my limit.

It's too much to take on, I'm NOT handling it. I'm not some crazy immortal who can do everything all at once and do it all perfectly. I have expectation, I have obligations, but I have a maximum. Don't expect me to do everything, cuz I won't. She's a leader, you say. Call her up whenever you need any darn thing done. Sure, fine. Leader says, leave me alone.

I'm NOT perfect. I have finite time, finite patience, finite strength, emotional, physical, mental. And you just think that because I can do things, means I can do everything. All perfect. WELL SURPRISE, NO I CAN'T. I'm telling you there only so much I can do, and that so much has been pushed past.

And sure, it's an act is it? I'm acting, pretending to be nice, am I? Everything I try to do well, oh, it's just an act she's putting up, is that right? Call me an idiot, did you? Say that again and I'll SHOW you I can be an idiot. If that's the expectation you have of me, great, that's easier to live up to than the other extreme. Not impressed? After all I've tried and done you're not impressed? Then very good, you'll never be impressed by anything.

So this is my limit, this is the edge. If you say jump, I will.

2008-08-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Quick post, quick post, gotta sleep in a few minutes, still haven't showered.

Today I got all my school work done by 3.30. Feel very accomplished. :) :) But then I got distracted by msn and chatting with pplz and catching up with David Shim -whom I haven't seen in roughly 10 years but recently got into contact with on fb- so I lagged on the other work I was planning to do today. Also, today my dad's classmate from ACS who's a fantastic musician, is staying with us. After lunch, he and two other musicians from church came over and jammed for hours. I eventually joined them, thus eliminating any possiblity of completing the other tasks I had set before me today.

We breaked for dinner, then went back to jamming. In fact, we just ended half an hour ago... 11+pm. Which is why I gotta rush this. But it was fantastic fun! :D

To make up for such a short post, here's a funny smth I koped from De Qi's blog. Thanks DQ, hehe. ^^

'Learn Chinese in 5 Minutes' directions:
read these out loud

(English Phrase) I think you need a facelift

(Chinese Phrase) Chin Tu Fat

(English Phrase) Are you hiding a fugitive?

(Chinese Phrase) Hu Yu Hai Ding?

(English Phrase) See me A.S.A.P.

(Chinese Phrase) Kum Hia Nao

(English Phrase) Stupid Man

(Chinese Phrase) Dum Gai

(English Phrase) Small Horse

(Chinese Phrase) Tai Ni Po Ni

(English Phrase) Did you go to the beach?

(Chinese Phrase) Wai Yu So Tan?

(English Phrase) I bumped into a coffee table

(Chinese Phrase) Ai Bang Mai Ni

(English Phrase) It's very dark in here

(Chinese Phrase) Wai So Dim

(English Phrase) This is a tow away zone

(Chinese Phrase) No Pah King

(English Phrase) You are not very bright

(Chinese Phrase) Yu So Dum

(English Phrase) I got this for free

(Chinese Phrase) Ai No Pei

(English Phrase) I am not guilty!

(Chinese Phrase) Wai Hang Mi?

(English Phrase) Please stay a while longer

(Chinese Phrase) Wai Go Nao?

(English Phrase) They have arrived

(Chinese Phrase) Hai Dei Kum.

(English Phrase) Stay out of sight

(Chinese Phrase) Lei Lo

(English Phrase) He's cleaning his automobile

(Chinese Phrase) Wa Sing Ka.

(English Phrase) Your body odor is offensive

(Chinese Phrase) Yu Stin Ki

(English Phrase) I thought you were on a diet?

(Chinese Phrase) Wai Yu Mun Ching?

If you didn't get it, you won't get it. If you did, hopefully you had as good a laugh as I did. ^^ ~Night!

2008-08-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's what happened. You see that first "Edit: " line in my last post? Well yeah, I made it to 3 a.m., and that's when my mom- who HAD been asleep- woke up for some reason and realized I was still up. She was SOOO mad... she switched off the internet and chased me (rather scarily) to bed. PLUS, while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, she confiscated my laptop and hid it. Hence, my lack of blog updates the last few days, and the absence of my presence on MSN. =P

On the first day that the comp was gone, it felt like... Whoa, something's seriously missing. Felt like I hadn't used a computer for a week or more, because during the holidays I'd gotten used to going online a few times a day. I think I must've gone through some kinda computer-withdrawal. Symptoms like randomly "hearing" the MSN alert sound... feeling as if not using the computer those "multiple times in a day" was like not having all 3 meals... going about my day with a constant blog-style commentary chattering on in my head... yeah.

But I guess it was sorta a good thing that "temptation was removed from my path", because school started on Wednesday, and it has NOT been a relaxed, chill-out-ish first (half) week of school. For some reason, my classes feel loaded. Like, period after period, bam, bam, bam. Like, some classes aren't hard, per se, but I'm trying to discipline myself to not let my mind wander so much, and that extra amount of focus can be tiring. But I'm enjoying the challenge of it, and with all the work I have to do (outside-school stuff too), actually having more to do makes me manage my time better. These are my classes for this semester:

AP Calculus
AP World History
Mandarin 4
American Literature
Physics
Drama (auditions/play coming up!!)
Judeo-Christian History & Literature 2
Anatomy

The AP classes (Advanced Placement- they give you college credit) are... whew. Like on the first day of AP Calc, we got and hour and a half of homework. But in the two classes we've had, Mr Jeremy's done a good job so far. I won't report everything in every class, cuz that would just waste your time reading here. Generally commenting on these first 3 school days, I would say... it feels good to be getting back into gear. Now let's just see how this first school weekend goes- if I can hold true to my resolution to be not slack off and leave work until too late.

Dad's been helping out around school. Apparently today he taught the jazz band some stuff. He sat in on our drama class as well. Don't know what else he's been doing around school, but it's a good start. His reputation of "Ariel's cool dad" is spreading. HAhahaha.

Um... I'll have a lot to post here if I choose to start talking more specifically about school. But with me being sleepy right now, it'd become rambling, so I shall refrain. :D Oh, we've been preparing for the next youth Sunday, the 24th. Yesterday we had band practice. It was fun with Rissa and Nathan and Peace. Peace is really quite good on the drums. =) Very flexible with his rhythms and tempos.

I guess I'll end here... I'm sorta grasping for things to say already. I know there's a lot more I wanna talk about but my brain's gone on strike for tonight. :D And I think I should get to sleep soon otherwise I'll kenna my comp confiscated again. I just got it back like, 2 hours ago. ^^^

2008-08-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Edit: I just realized that this is the last night of the summer that I can stay up late!! O_O Ok, gonna stay up laaaaaaaaaaaaate now. Hmph. ^^
----------------

I am so amped for the drama now. :D

"Amped", as Tim- my British classmate- would say. Hahahahaha.

I want the part of Jo. (Um... not the "Jo", who's my friend, whom I've mentioned in posts before.) Right now I think there are some people who could play that part better than I, and from a director's point of view, I'd say give the role to them. SO. I am going to start work now, and make sure I become the best Jo the ICS stage can have. Well, even though I don't naturally look the part, what with Jo being an American character, but I can't help that much. And that's what costumes and makeup are for. :)

That means, reading or re-reading the books (Little Women/Good Wives). Watching the film. Picking up an American accent and making it sound natural. I suppose... that means no Singlish even in blogs? Hm... maybe it doesn't have to do that far. But well, whatever it takes. I WANT THAT ROLE.
---
Right. =) Today was open house. Sorry, I didn't take pictures... mom had the camera with her. It wasn't very much anyway. Just seeing friends, then going to the auditorium for awhile (which I missed, because we student council people spent that time in the front foyer pointing the way for the late-comers. Then off to homeroom classes to get our schedules, after which we visit our various classes and pick up our course syllabuses, chat with the teachers, etc...

My schedule is the messiest and most uncertain that I've ever had it. Out of 8 blocks (modules), I only know 4 for sure. There are soo many variables. I feel like it's one of those grid puzzles with the pieces sliding around, and you have to push then here and there to get everything in the right place.

Going further back through my day~ this morning I went to Liz Ketcham's house, and Rose went over too. We did beading for awhile, talked a lot, and then went to Central for lunch and to buy school supplies. We had Au Bon Pain for lunch. "This (sandwich) is too good to be mere mortal food..." "I think they eat stuff like this on Mount Olympus."

I got an SAT review book... man, I feel privileged to not have to take O and A levels. Just the SATs. Dumb as they are. = =

Not much else to report on today. Wow... not using Singlish and shortcuts sure makes a post feel a lot longer...

Oh, here's a picture and the dance video from out youth sunday 3 weeks ago. Another one coming up the week after next.

From left to right: Rose (the one I went out with today), Shaina, Liz (her too), me, Karrell (who has since gone to the US for university.

Here, vid! :)
(Hey you Sg peeps, I still wanna see YOUR dance vid!!)

2008-08-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

POIEMA.

Miss you.

The more I try and get involved back with my life here, the more I miss and long for the ppl there.

That's not good.

I must... live everyday, knowing that each is special. I must cherish my friends and relationships and responsibilities wherever I am.

But it's just hard.

Anyway, today our family all wore red tops and white pants to church, for ytd's Sg National Day. =) Yes, we make it quite known that we are Singaporeans, and PROUD OF IT. Ahahaha. I guess we're all a little more patriotic (esp me, haha) , now that we're not living there any more. Like, "you don't know what you have, till it's gone", and "absence makes the heart grow fonder". That sorta thing.

At home dad was all like, "Take picture, take picture." But then he had some difficulty figuring out the timer on his cam, so we ended up with dunno how many candid shots of us half- , or not-at-all-posing for the picture, because the shutter would go off at the wrong time and dunno wad. Finally got 2 good ones, haha. Jana's proudly holding the Sg flag she colored in Sunday school- because of the Olympics, all the kids got to color their own country's flag. (As mom said, "It would have been a lot easier for us in primary school if they just printed out flags for us to color, like that. Not make us draw all the starsss and the moon by ourselves..." Rmb those days? Haha.)

Ah, and now I've finally gotten all the pics I want from dad's camera, so I'll be able to post pics from the beach trip, and put up the Give Us Clean Hands video from youth sunday. =)
Short post tonight, it's late, and tmr's an early day.

Daphne, Jia En, Lydia, Jocylyn.... :D *piang eh* ^^

2008-08-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

HAPPY 43RD BIRTHDAY, DEAR!

:D:D:D SINGAPORE NATIONAL DAY! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Next year I'll try to be around to celebrate with you. :)

Ok obviously I'm not in love with some random piece of land. It's the friends, the places, the homey feel of the place, and the memories which make up the Singapore that I know. I was planning to rant, but I guess you all hear me talk about Sg enough, so I won't. =P On Sarah's blog there's this link to the national day page where they have all the songs written for Sg's birthday in past years. I was listening to some of my old faves, like "Home", "Where I Belong", "We Are Singapore"... omgosh, soo nice. I haven't been around the last 5 years, so I don't know the more recent ones. But other ppl in Sg apparently agree with me that the older ones just somehow felt more... special. Evoked more feeling, more nationalistic fervor... maybe's it's cuz we were all in primary school at that time, and so those songs are part of our dear memories, whereas now we're grown up and have our focus on other things. I dunno. But I really do miss those old ones. =)

...ok... guess it ended up as a rant after all.

So, apart from it being national day, and me missing Sg, today was pretty ordinary. In fact, Jana and I both were bored enough to start taking weird photos. First I was playing with the salamander, David Kim. (HAHA :D)

And Jana's little turtle.

(It's not slimy... just the flash made it look that way.)

Then this other little creature in pink came crawling up.

It climbed up the doorframe...

Then came down and started being psycho with a pair of snippers....

This creature has a very weird face... very elastic. Can be pulled into many shapes and sizes.

It likes hanging upside down from unlikely places, like armchairs,

And sleeps with it's limbs hanging off its perch.

It like high places (as seen in the doorframe shot just now), and swings down to land behind unsuspecting prey.

It may look small and cute and innocent,

but beware-

It has great leaping abilities...

and will POUNCE

GRAAH, GOTCHA!

...causing a disproportionately large amount of damage.

Hahaha. Had fun taking all those. We only sorta planned the pouncing sequence. The rest of it just came into my head as I was captioning.

I'm writing a song... sounds good so far, and I'm gonna make sure I finish it. I have a terrible tendency to leave songs half-done. Very sad. So ok, back to writing it now. ^^

2008-08-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

I don't think all those fireworks are helping Beijing's air pollution problems...

Just watched the opening ceremony of the 080808 Olympics. VERY, VERY COOL. Well, some parts were a bit draggy, but I think on the whole it was really quite awesome. I was only planning to watch the first 20 mins or so but ended up watching the whole thing... dunno how long it was. 2, 3 hours +? The beginning dances and choreography and al of it was astounding. Mom and I were like, gawking at the tv. Then when they paraded all the countries' athletes, I was just waiting for Singapore to come out. Had no idea that that section of the ceremony would take so long...

I fell asleep twice during the thing... it got to a point where mom and I started (jokingly) saying things like:

"Do you think Sg even has anyone participating...?"
"Uh, well.. I think we usually just send in some ppl and hope lor..."
"Maybe our group is so small we missed it during one of the 30-second commercial breaks...."
"Or maybe they're hidden in between some bigger countries somewhere in there and they forgot to announce..."
"Oh, oh, I know. They're gonna keep Sg until the end, and then when the audience is falling asleep, Sg will come in with just ONE PERSON carrying the flag himself. Then everybody can laugh and wake up."

So... we were pleasantly surprised to see a fairly large group for Singapore enter. =)
---
Rewind~

This morning I went to school early with mom again, to help with some classroom decorations (little kiddies must have pretty classrooms :D), and then go for my Student Council meeting at 2 pm. I slept on the beanbag again for a few hours, and again had various dreams, hehehe. Also, I got to yak and catch up with Ms Perla (mom's teacher aide) while we were both working. She's sooo much fun to talk to. A lot of the time we say things in indirect ways, things that can be interpreted in more than one way, testing our diplomacy skills. Haha =3. You know. Like, word play and stuff. "It's not what you said... it's what you didn't say that I heard loud and clear." That kind of thing. Very interesting. :P

Hm... the last day or so I feel like I can't control my temper and my words as well as I know I can. Today there were numerous occasions where I "lost my cool". =( Better start praying over this.

But today I got to see Patreeya, really for the last time, I think. We took some random pictures~ I'd put more of them here but I don't think she wants me to... Actually she didn't want me to put any up. :D

Going to Pat's house to pick something up

Stuck in the fishtank~

Yeah, Pat, I bet you could just step right over that, you tall person. XD

Kadilyn and Ms Jennifer Norton, we saw them on our way out

Random shot just before going into her apartment

Our SC meeting wasn't too eventful, just an overview of what the year will be like, and what we have to do at open house on Monday... but at least we all seem to be getting along well, which is very nice. ^^

Taxi-ed home with Jana, mom went for her dentist follow-up appointment. Practiced on drums, and played some of those nice songs on piano... Like "Memory" from CATS; "(Can't Help) Falling in Love"... the earliest time I can rmb hearing that song was in Lilo n' Stitch =P; Classical Gas, etc. Then mom came home, we had dinner, and then I watched the Olympics. So yup, back to the beginning of this post.

I miss youuu, my country. ...oh. Omgosh, it's past midnight. Happy birthday! :D Will write a proper rant about you "tomorrow".

2008-08-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hehe. Today I had to get up early to follow mom to school... apparently some photographers were gonna be there to take pictures for the visa stuff, and in the end they weren't so I got dragged out of bed at 6 for nothing. (Same thing happened on Tues, actually. Had to dress nicely for photograph, then in the end mom had gotten the day wrong.) Then cuz I'd only gotten about 5 hours of sleep, I went and conked out in mom's classroom on the bean bag.

Slept from arnd 7.30 to 11, which is the regular time I wake up during the hols. :P Every so often I'd wake up and change to sleep on my other side so I wouldn't end up with a cramp or crick or smth. And every time I slept, I dreamt. Kinda cool, cuz usually it takes awhile for the body to descend into the dreaming phase of sleep. So in those 3+ hours, I had about 5 or 6 different dreams. One of them was about being in Sg with my friends... at one point I could feel myself starting to wake up and I was like "nononononono stay asleep, keep dreaming, plssssss....." and managed to do it. =D

Gosh. Haven't been this attached to Singapore since I first moved away. I think everything I do here now has some thought of Sg behind it. Well, open house is on Monday and school starts on Wed... I'll see if things revert or not... I doubt it. Like when I first returned from the June trip, I thought that once I started seeing my friends and teachers from here, the Sg life would once again feel distant. But au contraire, everything I've done and everyone I've seen till now has reminded me more of Sg.

Ok enough of that. So today, after I'd rendered myself VERY useful by sleeping in the classroom for 3 hours (mom actually wanted me to help her decorate the place ^^''''), we went for lunch at KFC. Mom went back to school to work some more, and Jana and I cabbed home. We played chess, and it lasted an hour and a half or thereabouts. This set we've got now has colored glass pieces... quite nice to look at. We've been playing a lot of boardgames lately. Chess, mastermind, othello, Sorry [<-- rmb this one, Sarah and Rach?] , chinese checkers... She's pretty good at these thinking, strategy games. =) Good job, Jana.

The wonders of Facebook:
I got in contact with two guys (twins) who were my classmates.... back in nursery. Tung Ling Kindergarten. I mean like, wow, after nearly 13 years. :D Leyon, the guy I bit on the cheek cuz he took my seat while I'd gone to ask the teacher something... hahah. He still rmbs it too. Oh funny memories~ ^^ Sooooo cool sia.

I've been playing a lot of the old songs lately... nice melodies, poetic words...
Not like some of the trash lyrics or today that are screamed into mics with the music blasting away and half sounding like static....
Yeah. =)

Okay, tmr gonna have to get up early again. To follow mom to school... and have a student council meeting, da dee da. Part of me's like, omgosh, lemme sleep in the rest of my holidays. But at the same time, it's good for me to start getting back into my school-day sleeping routine. 'Nite! ^^

2008-08-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

Last night I slept real late, and had to wake up early this morning so even though it's like only 9 pm now, I'm srsly falling asleep and cnt type properly..

Yesterday I didn't do much, but one thing that was really nice was a word of encouragement my dad passed to me from one of my teachers (last year's bball coach). Won't say what it is, in case it ends up sounding like I'm bragging, but yeah, it was very uplifting. =)

Today the waking up early was to accompany mom to school to continue helping her with her classroom. It's nearly ready, I think.

I was sorting through a big box of things the kids use for play and dressup, and found some old stuff: the pouch was mine from way back when, the mat was Jana's, and the phone (with the broken antenna) looked so much like the phone we had when we lived in Mandarin Gardens... and I'd also broken the antenna. This pic's just for sentimentality's sake. =P

Patreeya was babysitting and happened to bring the kid, Win (5 years old), to the elementary building where we were, so he ended up playing with Jana in mom's kid-paradise classroom, while Pat and I chatted away. From the back, Win looks a lot like Aunty Yee Peng's Caleb... haha.

For lunch, Pat, Win, and I went to Central. Brought him to play some games at the arcade... and some of THOSE reminded me of my earlier childhood too. Then we went into Toys 'R Us and played with the legos... yeah, more memories. What a day. :)

We came back at 3, and at 3.45 mom and dad went off to the airport to catch their flight to Sg, cuz they need to sign some papers there. Dad's also staying a bit longer to see some friends, but mom's just signing the stuff, then coming back tmr night. It's funny how she's sooo concerned about leaving Jana and I home for just one day. Giving me the bank card in case anything happens on their flight... giving me instructions and cautions over and over again as if she was going away for a month... etc etc etc. sigh. XD

I've been browsing quizzes again. Today I was on blogthings.com. Check it out for fun, if you don't have much else better to do. =) And it'll be added to the links list in case next time you wanna find the site again.

Go to the quizzes on the sides there, or in the middle. And if you click refresh, those lists give you different quizzes. Most of the (many) ones that I took today had pretty accurate results. :) Of course, when you do a quiz, don't just take the results as you get them... think for yourself how true they are.

---
Just a thought:
In the dance movie "How She Move", there's a line-

"... how just one moment affects a million after it."

Which led me to also think, "...how one moment has been affected by a million before it."
Think about it. =)
---

Be still my heart.
It gets tougher, these ups and downs of teenage emotions...
Trying to find words to express thoughts that are as amorphous as the wind,
Too wide, extravagant, and overflowing to be contained by language
One moment soaring, your spirit in the sky
And then
Shutting your eyes tight
Trying to forget yourself in the darkness behind closed eyelids
One moment to another
From the heights, to the depths
From the joys, to the sickening pits of fear
Insecurities...
Ramblings that tell you you're not good enough
Tears that threaten, but never spill
A volatile thing, the heart.
Reaching out, hoping...
Wishing you could stay on the highs
Wishing the lows wouldn't be as extreme and jagged as they are...
Wishing that if, there was no other way
You could just
Leave it to float away on the breeze
Let it go, forget about it
Let it go, forget about him.

2008-08-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I didn't have time to blog ytd because there would've been an emo rant in it. :) You see,

*flashback flashback* hahaha

Yesterday

Woke up feeling pretty bad. The msn prank pulled on me on Friday brought back a lotta pain and confusion. I wasn't insulted by the prank itself, no, not at all. It's actually the kind of thing I myself would do (and have done before, heh). And like when Deqi asked whether I was offended by it, I said nope. ... but I was also wondering to myself why I wasn't laughing at it, like I thought I would be.

Certain feelings and issues tt I'd not really noticed before got stirred up by the prank, I guess. Like a glass of water with stuff settled at the bottom, ya know. And throughout the day, I could distract myself with the other things I did, but if there was a quiet moment and I got back to thinking about it, then it was like disturbing that water and bringing all the dirt to the surface. Which is why I was going to emo-rant when I got back home.

BUT

I'm glad I didn't. Cuz by bringing up some of that stuff, I was forced to face those issues (even though I was sooo confused and getting frustrated with it ytd). And then today by the time church came around, I'd thought about it enough and was prepared to give it to the Lord, and He helped me through worship, through the sermon, through friends. I guess pain is good, when it's because of the refining work that God's doing in your life. =)

So yeah, Johnny. Good one. XD

Alriiiight, this is what I did ytd (emo-ing excluded, haha ^^)

Went to school with mom at arnd 9.30 am, helped her move all the stuff from her last year classroom to the new one. GOT A LOT OF STUFF TO MOVE AH. Cuz it's the K1 class, so it has the most toys, books, posters, etc etc. Carried shelves and shelves and drawers and cubbyholes and cupboards worth of stuff to the new room. After mb 4 hours of tt, I thought mb I was done so I asked mom if got nething else to do. And she said, "Yeah, take the posters off the walls." I stood in the doorway of the classroom and looked arnd.

No posters. Hm, ok, easy job.

I look to my left. Also no posters. Cool.

Then I turned around and saw the wall where the doorway was, and-
Oh boy.... ._.'''' (Got quite a lot more than what you can see in the pic)

Taking down the posters and all is not the hard part.. it's scratching all the tape off of the posters and the walls after that. XD

But all in all it was quite rewarding lah, seeing one classroom empty into another. =)

(See the little kiddies' chairs~ ^^ All got tennis balls on the bottom so they not noisy when pushed across the floor, haha.)

Also, one of the worker's kids was running around. She quite cute, reminded me a bit of Nel-chan in Bleach, the little girl hollow.

Oh btw, ICS people, there's now a stationary shop in the commercial building. How nice. ^^ Now dun have to run into Central Bangna everytime we need like, new pencil lead or smth. = =

And see what they've done to our foyer...

Look like fish tank ahhh...

Not "open" and free feeling nemore. Oh well, it's for good reason, so okay.
They're also putting more plants around, and re-doing the soccer field.

At about 4, Mom and I were supposed to drive out and meet Nathan and Peace just nearby outside school. Mom pulled up to the curb and punctured her tyre. HAHAHAH.

Took maybe 40 mins to get it fixed, then we went to Paragon. We parked the car somewhere else and took the underground BTS (not called the BTS tho, I think). The regular above-ground BTS is quite "erm...", but surprisingly, the underground one could almost have been a Sg MRT station! :D Made me feel quite nice, quite at home, hahahahaha.

We had dinner at Dairy Queen, which has apparently expanded into a burger joint, no longer just ice cream. Dairy Queen, which is also often abbreviated as DQ.

Deqi. =) Queen.

We walked around Paragon for awhile, saw a live jazz band performing.

Then we went to the Siam City hotel for what we had all origianlly met up for: the Harvard's Din & Tonics acappella (guys) choir.

They BLEW. US. AWAY.

It was SO cool! I mean, I'm in choir, and I can critique singing. But critique away all you want... these guys are GOOD. And they're not just good at singing, they're very funny and entertaining too. :D

They also have this funny tradition that they all wear lime green socks. XD

The 4 of us (now including Joanne who joined us at the hotel) were pretty much the youngest in the audience, everyone else being probably 25 to 75 or something. And after the show, and ppl shaking hands with them in the lobby, we got around to chit chatting with some of them. Very cool. :)

(Haha, oops, Jo got left out of the photo... she was next to Peace. XD XD)

They're on tour, and I asked if they'd been to Sg. And AS IT TURNS OUT, THEY'RE GOING TO SG NEXT. Go watch them if you can! It's very worth it. :) See here, they're performing at Esplanade.

Here are some pictures we took on the way back.

(Jo and Nate)

Some Quotes from ytd:

Jo: Are you calling me fat again? Last time you said I'm as fat as the universe!
Nate: The universe isn't fat. It's just... *gestures*... constantly expanding.

"I'm a good drummer... I can keep beat with the rhythm of your heart... <3" style="text-align: right;">

(The following are from dinner time, where we were discussing generation differences.)

You know you're that generation [my mom's], when you:

- Type paragraphs on msn

- Correct all your grammatical and spelling mistakes in the paragraph before sending it

- After you finish typing/checking your paragraph, you use the mouse to click "send" instead of pressing the Enter key

- Don't know what 'ttyl' means, but know 'ttfn' is. ("ta-ta for now"- Tigger, from Winnie the Pooh)

- Think that "lol" is new, and cool, and in, and hip. Or some other 80's word like that.

- End sms's with "love, Mom" every time even though your kid has your number saved on his/her phone.

Hahaha. So it was a fun day!

And today I got to hang out with Karrell before she leaves tonight to the States for college. =) Had a really nice time with ya, girl! Hope you have fun and be safe!

Today's sermon was about "Don't Worry (be happy)". This post is long enough so I shall just share with you one line that I think sums most of it up.

Concern is not wrong; it's what makes you take action and so what should be done. But WORRY is wrong. Worrying is saying that God is not all-powerful, and that He doesn't care for you as much as He really does.

Ok? :D
-------
If you've read all the way through this long post, good job and thank you. Hahaha. ^^

2008-08-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

JONATHAN KONG. = =

AND DEQI AND DAPH.

YOU KNOW YOUR CRIMES.

...

I seriously kenna. = =

But, well...

It was dam hilarious lah, I gotta admit. XD Good job, good job. I had a pretty strong feeling it was you, Johnny. Smth lidat, suuure got you behind it somewhere.

Ok anywayy,

Didn't do much today until about 4, when we went to the dentist. Mom dropped me at the hospital first (here in Thailand, we go to hospitals even for regular checkups and stuff. Not as many private clinics and stuff as in Sg), and then sent Jana's friend home after ytd's sleepover. Mom and Jana were gonna come for their checkups too after that. So I was at the hospital 20 mins before my appoinment at 5. No prob. But then after 5 came and went, I still waited for another nearly 40 mins.

And you know how they say things like "it never rains except the day you don't have an umbrella", and that kinda thing? Well yea, I wanted to use the bathroom but it was around 5 oclock and I wasn't sure if they were gonna call me soon. Then waited all the way until 5.40, finally decided to go, and when I came back the assistant nurses were all looking for me. Right then, right in the 2 minutes that I chose to leave the waiting room. = = A bit embrassing.
After my checkup was finished, I waited for Mom and Jana to finish theirs. Found a pen & some scrap paper so I doodled. Here's one I think is okay enough to show, hahah. I dunno what the top creature is... sth between a boar and an alligator. I think I'll redraw it, make it more reptillian.

As an aside, you CAN so draw with pen. It actually gives a nice interesting effect, different from pencil all the time.

Came home, had Sg style curry chicken for dinner. After that went to bball with Jessica downstairs. I went down, and in the first 1 min I was there, it started to rain. We continued playing awhile but then it got heavier so we went under the sheltered part of my block. The rain eased up and we went back to play, but then her dad made her go home. I was enjoying being out in the rain, and played for another few minutes, then it got REALLY heavy so had to leave. Fun man, don't mind playing bball in the rain again. =D

Btw, go try this brain teaser. =)

---
You 3, stop messing with my mind... = = hahahahaha.

2008-07-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

Edit: I've just looked at the classes I have next year.. the schedule's not confirmed yet, but apparently if I wanna take AP Calculus, I have to drop either Drama or Audition Choir. Makes me sad. =( Hope I can work something out... but I trust that God has better plans (and being honest, I know I don't need both fine arts classes, so yeah..) I'm looking forward to school tho! ^^

Today I finished drawing this, trying out a few tutorials. Glad I'm getting a bit further with my graphics work now.. =P

Random, I know.. just one wing there, right? XD

Today we had a welcoming party for new ICS teachers. Some of them just flew in to Thailand a week ago. It was a lot of fun, and nice to get to know them first outside of a school setting. It sets a friendlier tone for the rest of the year. ^^

Jana's got 3 friends staying over tonight. Went swimming with them earlier. They're a lot of fun, those little ones. X) And just now we lost the snake.. Pi crawled out sometime while the teachers were here. Gave me a scare, cuz after looking around in many many places, the terrible thought that maybe it went on the balcony and dropped down 15 floors occurred to us. I felt sick, man. Like, it's the same kind of feeling when you hear that someone you care about got hurt. And I can understand a bit more now what the Bible means when it said that when just ONE is saved, all of Heaven rejoices. Or like that parable about the woman and the 10 coins, and she was so happy when she found the one she lost.

Very glad to say Pi's safe, it had just gone into the old tv cardboard box that we didn't think it could get into. :P

This is Pi (as in 3.14), my ball python. He/she/it is about 4 and a half feet, alrd full grown. Very fat, very slow, very shy. =) Cute. ("cute" is subjective, ok? haha.)

Man, this month went by really fast... Cn't believe I left Sg on the last day of June and now it's alrd the last day of July. Hope October comes around quickly too. ^^

Hm... I know there were some other things I wanted to say, but cnt think of them now, so ok~ byeee~

2008-07-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Wow, I actually forgot to blog ytd. I had full intention to, but I was so sleepy tt a lot of things which had been on my to-do list just slipped off my mind.

I drew this in photoshop, was trying out some new techniques. It's a bit messy, but still an improvement over what I've been doing until this point.

At this point in time, I feel I must lament and mourn my father's aging. More specifically, the memory loss that accompanies aging. Ytd I showed him a picture of May, Jo, Lani, and I at the beach. He pointed at May and said, "Oh, is that Ann?"

I don't even have any friends called Ann.

And then later on, over some meal or other he asked, "Yesterday you were playing basketball with Daniel, right?"

".... (What?) ....Dad, his name is Robin."

Sigh. Dadddddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....

Oh, more pictures! A bit belated, but at least they're here. (Jo's camera)

Dinnering on the first evening

Dinnering in greyscale :P

Cnt rmb what I was doing, trying to look emo or not, or mb just a candid shot~

Sparklers! =D

The first time we tried l.o.v.e, and Lani got the L the wrong way around XD

M for May, J for Joanne, A for.. Me

=) Glow sticks!

Small jelly (abt 5 inches). There were a LOT of these. You got see the big one in my earlier post?

Heart! ^^ Surprisingly easy to make

Dun wanna get up..

Chillaxing man... wooo~

Didn't do all too much today, just suffered in pain from bballing after weeks of inactivity... worked on more photoshop, baked cheesecake/ butterscotch crumble with mom, played bridge with the family... yeah. =) Tomorrow we're having the new ICS teachers come over to our house for a welcoming party. ^^ Fun fun~

2008-07-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Joanne's camera mem card's not working properly. O_O She gonna get it fixed tomm, seriously hope it works. Had so many good pics on there!

But oh, in the meantime, here're another 3 from Lani's cam. Hehe. Soooo funny all together. Like a picture flip-book thingy that makes a picture look like its moving. ^^

(Tt's Lani, btw.)

Today I... what did I do?

Oh yea, I drummed, piano-ed, draw-ed, bballed with a neighbor. ^^ And met another neighbor while I was down at the court. They're both from different schools from me, and it made me think. Like, in school we have our school pride and stuff, and then we tend to go "ugh.." at the mention of other schools' names. But shooting baskets around with them just now helped me realize that hey, we're all the same, and interschool sports/competition isn't a reason to say "ehh, look at those ___ people. *roll eyes*".

Ya know?

Oh then after bball I happened to watch this movie on tv. The Lost Room or the Hidden Room or sth like that. It was VERY good. Really interesting, made you go like, "Ooh, COOL...."

And then it ended. Without resolution. Without conclusion. Without any form of closure whatsoever. It felt so bad. It felt like a sneeze that went back in. Argh.

Tmr or sometime I'm gonna change the music on here. Dad's got an instrumental CD called Sea Dreams and it's awesome. Listen for it~ ^^

2008-07-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

Today we had our church youth service. It went well, including the dance! =D Nathan did a great job on MCing, made the congregation laugh a lot. After church most of the youth went out for lunch together and had a great time bonding. Dunno how the younger ones (grade 6, 7) can play catching right after eating. :S

I wanna post the video and any other pics, but somehow my computer can't read dad's camera card... promise I'll put them up asap.

Ytd we got back from the beach, May, Joanne, Lani, and I. We got out of the car when we reached home and were all like, "Duuuuuuude, it's sunnier here than at the beach.......... ............." = = Hahaha. The beach was kinda rainy, overcast, and there were a lotta jellyfish washed up. Like seriously a lot, and we found a huge one, at least 14, 15 inches across.

The hotel (Regent) was very very nice. The bathrooms even had conditioner, how rare is that? ^^ We ended up spending most of our time in the rooms watching TV (Cartoon Network summore XD), movies on the comp, chatting chatting, playing sparklers, and card games. I taught them bridge! :D Yet another thing from Sg that I've brought back here. Cultural diffusion, heheheheh.

The bathroom had a big glass window (that's May inside)... and the shutters were on the outside. Great for pranks.

Enjoying the chill-out atmosphere~

Card games at night! Playing bullshit. Or bluff, if that's more polite. :D

Lani and Joanne conspiring during bridge, I think. Not supposed to look at your partner's cards yo!

Lani hiding, cuz Joanne kept looking at her cards even when she's NOT SUPPOSED TO. Ain't Lani cuuuuute~..? HAHA.
Jo always somehow managed to see at least one of Lani's cards and then call that card as her partner. Poor Lani. More than 6 rounds being stuck with Joanne.

On the second night I accidentally fell asleep and locked Joanne out of our room, so she had to sleep in Lani and May's room. Sorry Jo! :P Ooops~

These pics were from Lani's cam. I'll put up more when Jo send me the pics from hers. =)

2008-07-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, beach trip tmr, will be away till Saturday.

I watched Hellboy 2 today! :D Was actually supposed to meet up with friends to watch Batman, the Dark Knight, but there was some miscommunication (long story), and so I went to watch Hellboy with my family. The first Helboy was a waste of time in my opinion, but THIS one was really good! The creatures in it were sooo cool, and animation was awesome... great stuff~!

Got a nice pair of jeans for 199B (about S$8), dark shade with orange zips on back pockets. We went to 3 diff shopping malls... now I understand why Sgporeans like coming to Bkk to shop. I mean, I still don't buy much, but my "eyes have been opened" since my last Sg trip, hahaha. :P Rach and Salaaaahhhhh, you must come agaiiinnneeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Well, better keep it short, it's 1 am and I gotta wake up at 8 tmr. ^^

2008-07-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

I feel accomplished: I tidied my table today! XD

The mess that was sitting and growing on it has been all cleared. It wasn't easy, and it did take considerable time... but using the age-old, time-tested "divide and conquer" battle strategy, I eventually won. :P Cleeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnn now.

But still have a mess of papers and old worksheets on the floor in another corner of my room. And I shall... sort that out... another day.

Today we had practice for yth sunday again. The dance is looking really good! If any of you dancers read this, honestly, you guys looked great today. ;D And some really nice songs have been chosen for worship, including From the Inside Out, and Oceans Will Rise. I love those two~~~~ =) Oh oh, and I get to play the intro for Inside Out. Just cuz it happened to be in that one key which I am able to play the intro in, hehe. :D

From Thurs to Sat I'm going to the beach again. XD Yeah, like last week. This time with May, Joanne, and Lani, wooooooooooooooooop! ^^

Excerpts from today's dinner conversation:

"The Incredible Hulk is irrefutable proof that denim is a stretchy material..."

" 'Denim! by Spandex~' " :D

Mom: "I have onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne mission I need to accomplish- get you new shoes."
Me: "Mission impossible."

Someone to dad: "Your car is dark and gloomy and smells too strongly of the air freshener thing..."
Someone else: "Uh, I think you just did the equivalent of insulting his... well, you just insulted what a guy prides himself on second-most... = ="

Hehehe. :P

Fun Stuff

2008-07-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

RACHEL! Today I taught the "Give us clean hands" dance to a bunch of the youth here, for our monthly youth-led worship coming up this Sun. :D
And we were discussing about forming a proper yth group here. Hehe. For a moment I felt like I was re-creating Poiema here... =P

I found this site full of funny stuff (pages and pages of it), some of which made me laugh till I cried. Here's some of my favs, and the link to the site is in the links list on left (M I Stupid.com). The page number is so you can go read more from those categories if you wanna. :D

---------------------------

Bad Metaphors from student essays (Page 27)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Every minute without you feels like 60 seconds.

The horizon swallowed the setting sun like a dog sucking an egg, but not quite.

Lost In Translation (29)

In a Paris hotel elevator: "Please leave your values at the front desk."

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: "Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: "Ladies may have a fit upstairs."

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: "Drop your trousers here for best results."

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: "We take your bags and send them in all directions."

In an Acapulco hotel: "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

In the office of a Roman doctor: "Specialist in women and other diseases."

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: "Take on of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages."

In a Tokyo bar: "Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts."

Bad History from student essays (17)

The inhabitants of Ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve, were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Technical Support (32)

Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Enter Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the Any Key is.

True story from a Novell NetWare Sysop:
Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech: "Please excuse me. If I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder?
Caller: It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a promotion. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller because he couldn't stand it. He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and snapped it off the drive.

Tech Support: "O.K. Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."
Tech: "On your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"

Stupid Quotes (36)

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,"
-Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it,"
- A congressional candidate in Texas.

"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
- Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
- Al Gore, VP

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
- Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

Church Announcements (37)

(These announcements actually appeared in a church bulletin or were announced verbally in a church service.)

Miss Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa will be speaking tonight at Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water"; the sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."

Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Potluck Supper Sunday at 5PM -- prayer and medication to follow.

Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High."

Announcement in the church bulletin for National Prayer and Fasting conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals."

Ambiguous Employee Recommendations (40)

(One day you might be asked to give a recommendation for someone that doesn't really deserve it. If you can't say something nice, say something ambiguous.)

To describe an ex-employee who had problems getting along with fellow workers:
"I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine."

To describe a candidate who is so unproductive that the job would be better left unfilled:
"I can assure you that no person would be better for the job."

To describe a job applicant who is not worth further consideration:
"I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of employment."

Stupid Moments in History (45)

The professor asked Barbara, a blonde in her fourth year as an ASU freshman, if she knew what Roe v. Wade was about.

Barbara pondered the question, then finally said, "That was the decision George Washington had to make before he crossed the Delaware."

More Tech Support (47)

A man attempting to set up his new printer called the printer's tech support number, complaining about the error message: "Can't find the printer." On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the screen, but the computer still couldn't find it.

Stupid People (53)

1) When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at its intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

2) The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine out and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

3) A mother took her daughter to the doctor and asked him to give her an examination to determine the cause of her daughters swollen abdomen. It only took the doctor about 2 seconds to say "Your daughter is pregnant."

The mother turned red with fury and she argued with the doctor that her daughter was a good girl and would not compromise her reputation by having sex with a boy. The doctor faced the window and silently watched the horizon.

The mother became enraged and screamed, "Quit looking out the window! Aren't you paying attention to me?"

"Yes, of course I am paying attention ma'am. It's just that the last time this happened, a star appeared in the East, and three wise men came. I was hoping that they would show up again."

Kids Look At Things Differently (21)

POLICE

It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. "Is that a dog you got back there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, "What'd he do?"

BIBLE
A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the ages. "Mama, look what I found," the boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered, "I think it's Adam's underwear."

~And there's a LOT more stuff on the site, but I shall finish off with this one here:

Words Per Day (Page 56)

A husband looking through the paper came upon a study that said women use more words than men.

Excited to prove to his wife that he had been right all along when he accused her of talking too much, he showed her the study results. It read "Men use about 15,000 words per day, but women use 30,000".

The wife thought for a while, then finally she said to her husband "It's because we have to repeat everything we say."

The husband said "What?"

Catching Up

2008-07-19T23:56:00.001-07:00

Awright! Long post, here we go. 5 days worth of stuff. Gonna keep it as un-wordy as I can. =P Was gonna blog on Friday when we got back but was too tired, and ytd was busy helping dad with some stuff (see further down).

On Wed, we went to Dolphin Bay at Hua Hin, not Pattaya. Beach was really nice, quiet, peaceful, my kinda thing. Not tourist-saturated. At the hotel there was free wireless internet so I could've blogged and stuff but I decided to stay unplugged. The first morning we got up real early, drove up along the beach and then walked all the way back (dad drove). We saw a lotta interesting stuff cuz the tide was way out.

Saw cuttlefish eggs, anemones, a dead stingray, fishermen bringing in their night's catch, we rescued beached jellyfish, etc etc. Would've taken pictures if mom had brought her camera (but alas, her camera is never around when there actually ARE intesting things to photograph). Dad had his, but I don't dare touch his camera.
Later I'll post wtv photos he did take. That afternoon we used the hotel's free bicycles and went the other way down the beach. Got caught in the rain, super fun! ^^ Stopped at a little drink hut and waited there until the rain slowed. There, we chatted and made friends with the Thai guy and his family. That evening he helped set us up for a fishing trip. :D

Hired one of the local fishermen and his boat, went out and dropped anchor near Monkey Island. There's this comparison that goes: The part of the universe that we can see with the naked eye is like one drop of water in the ocean, compared to all that's out there; and God holds the universe in His hand. So when I was sitting on the boat heading out to the island, in the dark, but with a full moon overhead, I suddenly felt very very small. To think that God personally cares for one, who is one of 6 billion other people in a drop of water in the ocean. Yeah, wow.

Anyway, back to the fishing. We didn't catch much by the usual fishing line way, but got some good stuff using the net. Mostly pike fish, and then some other fish, a prawn, a cuttlefish (which squirted a lot of ink and made the water in the bucket go black), an octopus which was so cool that mom made us let it go instead of taking it back to eat... hahaha. [~Dad got pics of that, will get them later.] I wanted to get the jellyfish that kept floating by but the fisherman said no. Hehe. :P

Next day, mom and Jana and I went clamming. :D I nearly got sunburnt during then. A lot of clams ah! Brought them home to eat. It all reminds me of Sarah and Rach somehow. Did we ever go clamming tgt??? Lol.

The people at the drink hut from the previous day helped us fry the stuff we'd caught at night. After a super shiok lunch, by a peaceful beach, under the trees with just the right balance of shade and sunlight, we drove home. Well, made a stop by the factory outlet on the way back. RACHEE, when you come I bring you go there! All discount super a lot. XD See if mb lidat you'll buy anything or not.

Okay, so that's our Hua Hin trip, in short. ^^ Now I have like a stained glass kind of pattern on my back, from tanning in diff spots at diff times, depending on what I was wearing. XD Got like, 5 shades of skin.

Yesterday I was gonna blog, but then dad asked me to illustrate a bit for his sermon, which I was very happy to do. Fun stuff! The story of Gideon. The Midianites were oppressing the Israelites, and Gideon tried to summon an army. He got 32 thousand men to assemble, but God said "You have too many men." And Gideon would've been like "uh, God? Too many? ... Have you even seen the quality of these 'soldiers', compared to the Midianites?" So yeah, that was what I had to draw.

Midianite

Israelites

Drawn by hand, scanned, converted to vectors in Illustrator, and then colored using live paint/Photoshop.

Today was church. The lesson from the story of Gideon is that God can use you even if you're doubt-filled, weak, and don't see yourself as much. Because when He looks at us, He doesn't see us as what we think we are-- He sees the potential that He placed in us even before we were born. And also, if you think you're the most unlikely person that God would ever want to choose to do His work, then, well... that makes you a prime candidate to be chosen. ;) Like Moses, who tried making all sorts of excuses. Like Abraham, who was waaay old and didn't have kids. Like Joseph, the youngest brother who got sold into slavery. Like David, who couldn't even carry the battle armor.

So gambatte, people. =] It's not about "how" you can do something God's set before you. It's about "whether" you will or not. Leave the -how- up to God, because He is everything. If He has a task for you to do, be assured that He won't send you in without backup.

2008-07-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

AAack. o_O Sugar overdose. Eating way too much candy and other snacks while chilling and slacking around at Patreeya's house. You know, these.

Like any other candies, "just one" becomes two, then three, and four, and then suddenly half the jar's gone. But these are even harder to stop eating cuz they're so pretty. =3

We had funnnn~ =) Nice to finally get to chill with her before she goes off to the States for uni. (Jeremy, don't get jealous now...) Today we did a lot of nothing. Played guitar, read stuff, watched vids and a movie online, took quizzes (and I've added 2 to the list of links on the left, they're marked with [quiz]. And from there go ahead and try the site's other quizzes. Fun stuff. :D), talked, ordered in pizza for dinner... yeah. Thanks for having me over, Pat! ^^

edit: We watched -How She Move- over lunch. Pat had left her comp on all night to let it stream. :P It's about step dancing. The Af Americans are sooooo cool! I wanna dance like that. :D Go to http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/howshemove/trailer/
to see the trailer. If that gets your attention, then you can go watch it at tudou.com or whichever movie site you use. (Youtube wouldn't be a good idea cuz you'd have to watch it at 10 minute bits at a time.)

We also looked at some Pon and Zi comics (yesterday, actually). Very cute. Here're some-

Anw, tmr our family's going to Pattaya (or Hua Hin) for a few days, so I won't be blogging. Or be on msn either. Well, good for me to get away from the comp screen a bit. =P Go to the beach, shake off my dormancy. Soak up some sunlight, go borderline sunburn, laugh at sunburnt ang mohs. I'll tell you more when I get back~ :) Byebye!

2008-07-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

(~Please tag once in awhile if you read, thanks a lot! ^^~)

Woke up late, had some of mom's cheesecake for breakfast. In the afternoon, came over here to Patreeya's house where I am now, using her computer. =3 Her keyboard's easier to type with than my mac's, with it expensive-but-lao-ya protective covering.

We went to Central just now. I bought some bday presents, blew my money. XD Well, better spent on other people than myself. =) And then we had Au Bon Pain for dinner. The steak one is like seriously shiok.

Oh, ytd I found my old blog on Xanga.

... It was not good. Not a very pleasant experience overall. If it had been someone else's blog I was reading, I would have said "Uh.. strange,weird, slightly odd kid. Emo, conceited. How terrible for her to be like that, poor thing. One of those people who needs help but doesn't see it."

Yea-aahh. =S But I guess it's good that I can look back and say that, cuz it means I've changed. To think that people still liked me even back then. Whew, that's mercy for ya. I didn't realize I was being like that. Maybe I wasn't all that bad. Perhaps it just sounds that way cuz my blog captured my darker moments, my rants, and well... whatever else makes a person sound bad.

But it wasn't allllllllllll bad. It gave me some interesting things and times to remember. I even found the lyrics to a song I'd been writing. When I read it I was like "No way, I never wrote this...." until I came to the last line of the chorus, then it suddenly clicked. And all of last night I was trying to rmb the tune. It came back in bits and pieces, agonizingly slowly, and I only finally remembered the whole thing this morning when I woke up... Heh, makes me feel like someone recovering her memory after a car accident.

Ok, better get back to Patreeya. She's sitting here playing guitar, singing. She's got a nice voice. Go Pat! *thumbs up* =) And then later we have cheesecake (mom's, yes) and brownie to eat. Woop~ ^^

Nitez!

2008-07-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

HAHA! Dad's on facebook now. Funny ah, when these old peoplez do these younger generation things. Like MSN oso. XD

Ok first off, I would like to ask anyone who visits my blog, to tag. :) I know you guys read, cuz the imeem number of plays keeps going up. So thanks for reading! And I would just much appreciate it if you'd drop even a little "hihi!" on the tagboard. So I can see who, and we can chat and joke arnd, yeah? Oh, then rmb to check back for replies too. Thx! ^^

Last night I spent 2 hrs tossing and turning trying to sleep but couldn't. What was cool tho was that I had some nice melodies and words suddenly pop into my head arnd 1.45 am (goodness), and I got out of bed to write it down. Am now working to turn them into a song or two. ^^

Church today was normal, meaning nice. But I miss the nonsense stuff from Poiema peeps! Hahaha.

Today we had our first (but unofficial) student council meeting. Top, Joanne, Boss, Rahul, and I. Cuz I'd asked him to, dad taught us abt the 4 personality types (sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy). [VERY INTERESTING, AND SUPER USEFUL! If you wanna know more come ask me on msn! ^^] And we all took turns saying which traits from which categories we saw in ourselves, and then had the others tell us what they saw in us too. It was all very positive, even when it came to mentioning each others' weaknesses. =) We really have an exceptional team for the SC, and I pray that we will not waste what we have been given.

Hm. Dunno why I feel like I got a lot to say, but when I put my hands to the keyboard then like I realize got really not much to write here... Oh, maybe it's just an overflow of emotionzzzzz~~*#^!~~**:>-). HAHA XD But, well, I'll be keeping that to myself for now. ;)

2008-07-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Slept badly last night but today was good! :D Had my first proper drum lesson. The guy's reeeeeeally quite smth on the set. I think when school re-opens dad plans to let me take a full course with him, 12 lessons. Ooyeaaaa.... ^^

Came home, practiced the drum patterns I'd learned, then went to take a nap. I have long suspected that naps can help to "solidify", in your brain, any information that you recently learned. Like, it gives your mind time to process the stuff and commit it to more secure memory space. The other day I read an article in the newspapers that confirmed this. So yes! I now have, not an excuse, but rather a REASON to nap. =D It's like painting. Give one layer (one set of info) to dry and become permanent before you add on more. Good studying technique, too: REIVISE! Nap. WAKE UP AND REVISE AGAIN! Sleep for the night. NEXT DAY GO TO SCHOOL! Come home and nap. Yes, I think I like this napping business. =3

Nap was interesting too. Shan't say, but Rachel and Sarah will know what I dreamt about even without me telling them. ;) Don'tcha! ^^ Hahahah. Dear friends, you two.

Then went to the Harkins' house. Played a fun game there... will show you guys in Sg the next time I visit. Had a lot of laughs. Then we had worship and sharing time, which was very pleasant. As it always is over there. =) We got to talking about next year's drama production (since Mr Philip is the drama teacher and I'm in drama class nx yr), and now I'm all hyped up about it. We're gonna do Little Women. Hopefully I'll get to be Jo. That would be a lotta lotta work, but would also be an unimaginably fun character to play. Woot~ Now I'm sorta looking forward to school starting again.

RACHEL, COME IN MID NOVEMBER AND WATCH THE PLAY! :D

Ok, luv ya'll, goodnight! ^^

EDIT: Forgot to mention. Today when we were down at the mall after the drum lessons, mom tried to get me to buy new shoes. Wah seh. I thought last time shoe shopping was tough just cuz I was so close-minded. This time I open mind, STILL cannot find anything to my precise liking.

Going for more of the Converse-ish look now. Yet another influence brought back from my Sg trip! XD Hahahhaha. Like Jason, Jeremy... all wearing those canvas type shoes. Now I also wan. Yes, I realize I'm being "affected by surrounding influences". But I think it's good tt now I'm more adventurous, so, yep. (But still cannot find anything to buy! Sia.)

Debunk the old legend that Ariel is very good at saving money. The truth of it is: Ariel only doesn't buy stuff cuz she's way too picky when it comes to shopping. RIGHT, Rach, Sarah? XD No la no la... I can consciously save money la. But the pickyness does help. ;)

2008-07-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

Had an afternoon nap today. Weird dream! =] But fun. Dreamt I was back in All Saints for regular church... goodness, I'm still thinking of you all! Hahahha. I usually don't think of Sg this long after I've left. Anyway, in my dream, Rachel lead another dance thing, looked good looked good... Sarah had a Miss Swan haircut that I was laughing like mad over... everyone who was supposed to be there was there, as far as I can remember... (even Joei and Joanne... dunno what you guys were even doing in Singapore XD)... there was also the usual teasing abt... that, yeah. And then some other stuff I dun wanna say here, hahah. Oh, then we somehow all ended up at the beach together. Super pretty place... couldn't have been a Singapore beach, I guess. Hehe. No way are Sg seas that blue. But then I was abt to go in the water then I woke up.

Cooked dinner! Our maid has gone again. Some family stuff she has to tend to, up country. We made burgers. Turned out very well! :D We didn't have minced meat so we had to manually mince 3 big slabs of meat. The knives weren't very sharp so we called dad over from where he was happily sitting and enjoying his sound system, to sharpen for us.

"Huh? Now??" He didn't wanna get up.

"Yes, now." (Mom)

"..."

"... If the knives aren't sharp it's gonna take twice as long to cut the meat and you're not gonna get your dinner until late."

And then he came over right away! He walked over with a = = face while mom and I stood there and giggled. Funny how the food thing works on guys. XD

And then a bit later when he'd returned to his music and mom and I had moved on to chopping other stuff, he suddenly goes "Hey, if you two are gonna make so much noise with the chopping, at least chop in rhythm la." (With the music.) So we did! For awhile. Tiring to keep a steady 4/4 beat with a chopper. We did some other rhythms but then got more concerned abt accidentally cutting ourselves so we stopped.

At dinner Jana mixed lime juice with 7Up or Sprite. Oh boy... reminded me of you, Sarah!! Wahhhh.. Heh. Next time I go back we gonna cook, girl. =}

Eh, I've been trying to get my hair to part from the side (cuz not good to keep one parting too long). Have kept it side-parted for abt 4 weeks now... thought tt's long enough to overcome my natural center parting. Been purposely clipping it to the side and all. And then! = = Ytd I just tossed my hair back ONCE, and whoomp. It goes back to an almost perfectly straight line down the middle. Aiyar.

Ok, not much else. Mb later dad might decide to have a family jam. =)

2008-07-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm like, SUPER sleepy so this's gonna be a 2 min post.

Drums! I'm loving it, oh yeaah. :D Can just sit there for 2 hours and whack away at the set. Hehe.

I think our maid has to go away again. Hopefully tt means I get to cook. But mom and dad are more thinking of going to the beach for a few days, in which case, oh well.

Bought some comics, in Thai as usual and I cnt read them, but it's Batman. Hahah. The drawings are good, quite close to the original Marvel style but at the same time slightly different so it's interesting. =) Now I shld just learn to read Thai so I can read all these comics I have....

Well hey. Hello! They're back, the feelings. Hahahha. Dunno why. ATM I'm not too enthusiastic, but tt's just cuz I'm abt to fall aslp at the comp. But yea! Just wish he'd TALK a bit more tho... X)

Ok, gonna sleep! First time in quite awhile tt I'll be sleeping before midnight. Been averaging arnd 1.30am the past few weeks (even in Sg when I was interning and had church and stuff, hehe). Nite!

2008-07-09T11:33:00.001-07:00

Alriiiiight~ 1.33 am by my clock (wtv the blog time says). =) Love being up late, blogging abt the yesterday... hehe.

Progress with cooking and drumming again today. Hahah. Made a simple but pretty successful lunch, by my records. Prac-ed a lot on the drums, and after dinner we had a family jam session. First time I've played drums with other ppl arnd playing proper songs (as opposed to just practicing on my own). Feels real nice now that I've gotten to a stage where I'm quite confident and "free" on the set! I mean, yep, I'm still in the early stages and I'm in no way assuming to be some pro drummer, but at least I'm well beyond that awkward beginner's phase where you're concentrating on every single stroke you make. I just gotta make sure that I keep progressing tho, and not get too content too fast.

Um um... what else..? Not much else, really. O yah.. now our maid's back from a few day trip she took to go see her family. Guess that means no more cooking for awhile? Maybe I'll still try stuff. The kitchen has been becoming increasingly interesting for me lately. Weirdly enough, even the things like cleaning up n washing the dishes can be enjoyable. To a certain extent. I think it's cuz today I had full charge of the whole kitchen. The washing up wasn't smth that mom had to tell me to do. The kitchen had become my own little world of responsibility, and that's why it was fun to take care of it. My conjecture. =]

I've been thinking about it (like I always do, heh, and again I see that it's really nothing serious. It'll become neither a wonderful adventure, nor a terrible heartache. For that I can be grateful. It's just something to make life interesting, someone for me to muse about. And yet... "I don't know how I feel...
tomorrow, tomorrow is a different day...."
This line from an Avril Lavigne song comes to mind. Whoop. Yes, life is fun. :) Always smth new tmr.

2008-07-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

It's raining. Man, I love this weather.

Good progress with drumming today. =) Feeling more free with the both the main beats and the fillers. Woop~ ^^ And I know it's because I prayed before I started... "God, You've given me a love for rhythm, and now this desire to develop it into something more useful. Help me learn smth new today, and let me be able to play the rhythms I imagine..." etc. And wow, He honored that. Soooooo fun man!

In the late afternoon our family went to have a look at a house for rent. DUDE, it is painted a BRIGHT STRONG PINK. Really, what a color. I guess if you're living in it then the outside doesn't matter much... but I think if I had to come back to a house like that everyday after school... yeah. It just can't be psychologically healthy. No no. Lol.

Oh, there's smth I forgot to mention a few days ago when it happened, so I'll say it here. There was one night when I was having trouble getting to sleep cuz I had a lotta stuff on my mind... kinda troubled, ya know. And I was trying to pray myself to sleep... and all of a sudden I had this sensation that God was sitting right next to me and patting me on the head. The peace and security I felt was quite amazing even though I was, by then, partially asleep. It was only for a few moments, then I remember mouthing a few more words before I slipped off. =) So nice. God really is like a very loving parent.

I dunno where my feelings are going! Haha. I guess it was nth serious in the first place, so no worries, but still. If anything, I would miss it just because... it's fun to have someone preoccupy your thoughts. Oh well. We seem to be becoming better friends, but that could go 2 ways... one is that we end up exactly that: friends. The other is that we're getting closer "like that"... but that'd lead nowhere in the near future anyway. Ah, he's a nice guy at any rate. =)

2008-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yay I've got music up on this bloggie now. ^^ More than one song, so feel free to go browse.

And that list on the sidebar, of links to some fun, interesting reads... they're good time-passers if you have nothing else to do. And grab some helpful knowledge on the way. I'll add more whenver I come across good stuff. Of course, don't read without deciding for yourself what things in there are true or not. But read!! I liked them. And check out other articles linked from those pages. =}

Today didn't do much... some art stuff... I still haven't quite gotten the hang of doing art digitally. Really need to get that figured out. Should take lessons or smth. It's frustating cuz I know I can do good work, but the digital medium and I don't exactly sync so what I picture, I can't produce on the screen. But I'll get it! Someday. Hehehe.

I cooked dinner. Bwahah. Was originally supposed to just help mom season the chicken wings, but when she went out halfway to pick Jana up from tuition, I ended up doing everything. And I had fun with it! Still not gourmet level, but getting better. Hahahah. Glad to find that my sense of intuition is pretty sharp around the kitchen. =)

I had to do it as restitution for the lemon cake that Sarah and I tried to make. Which turned out nice, I guess, but really sweet. XD Oh boy, Sarah. Good memories. Hahahah. Guess I'm better with the chopping and the frying than the baking, as of right now. (Today's dinner vs the cake) I'm finding cooking more and more fun. And quite rewarding when you do smth well. ^^

Not much else to say... oh. I've been dlding/ripping new songs into the comp... some of them are getting stuck in my head. Like "Kiss From A Rose" by Seal, for one of the Batman movies. Hence "Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey... The more I get of you, stranger it feels, yeah" as my msn name. In case you were wondering, heheh. But also some other songs like "Testify to Love" (Avalon) and "From the Inside Out" (Hillsongs). They're all there in the imeem thing for you to heeearrrr!! ^^

Oh here's a thought on infatuation (from another online article) that I've found to be very true:

Nothing is more powerfully convincing/seductive than a person’s own imagination.

This meaning that when you first find someone interesting. Then attractive. Then you go "hmmm.."... then you start liking them... then you find yourself really liking them... then you begin to go nuts... Well, a lot of it probably has to do what how you're building up that perfect image of them in your head. So don't. And stop indulging thoughts of them while listening to all those mushy songs that get your emotions going.

...

Like I've been doing! Hahahahaha. X) Ah, I should stop, I should.

Forgiveness

2008-07-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

Had church today! And gosh, the whole time I was looking at my watch, mentally converting to Sg time, and imagining what my buddies there must be doing. =) Have to say tho, it's not unpleasant to come back. What with all the big, hearty greetings and welcome-backs from the americans, all their huge hugs and stuff... hahaha. Today was kinda empty cuz a lot of people are away on summer vacation, but goodness! There are so many kiddies now! :D So funny, they all are. And there's this 3 month old little guy who has the most wide-eyed, inquisitive expression, and with that very cute "V" upper lip that most babies have... and a moehawk. What a 'do for a kid. It's cute and funny like wad sia! XD

We had holy communion today, and dad (leading the communion) gave us smth interesting to think abt. He said that the Last Supper took place before what would be the:

Greatest injustice
Greatest torture
Greatest insult
and Greatest betrayal

Of all time. And while we may think that forgiveness is something that is meant to come after a wrong has been committed... another way to look at the Last Supper is that Jesus knew what was going to befall him, and what Judas and everyone was going to do. And the thing is... he purposely instituted this practice of forgiveness prior to the deed that would require forgiving. So, the two main things I learnt from that is- one, if Jesus could forgive the greatest betrayal, pain, insult, and injustice ever done, then surely we can learn to forgive all the smaller trespasses that people (intentionally or not) commit against us. Two, when you're anticipating a tough situation, then pray and ask God to fill you/increase your capacity for forgiveness so that you'll go into the fray well prepared.

And yeah, I have a couple of friends who are in a spat right now. I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I think forgiveness always has a place.

You guys, you might be seriously pissed at each other, but please, stop. It's hurting me to see you like that. Trust me, I'm no stranger to these kinds of things. But that just all the more means that I really want you to stop cuz I know how bad it can get. Anger outpoured hurts the other person. But the resentment eats at you inside. Friendships are damaged- and I believe that out of all things.. good, strong friendships are one of the top things that God wants us to have. Especially with our fellow believers. Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another (John 13:35). And so on.

Certainly, someone may be to blame for the start of all this. But whether you were wronged or in the wrong, well... let it go. If you're at fault, be honest with yourself and accept it, and make up for it. Humble yourself. If you were on the receiving end of the wrong... you're probably hurting yourself more by holding on to the resentment. It's subtle. And the anger blinds you to it. But that's what the devil wants: for us to be broken up because we can't forgive and help each other back up. Please, buddies, I wouldn't go through the trouble of writing all this if I didn't really care for you, and your friendship with each other.

If starting on forgiveness feels too hard, then just try this prayer: "God help me forgive." It might be really hard to say cuz you don't wanna let go of the hurt. Just rush the words out if you have to. But hey, good relationships are what God wants for all of us, so if you can even take that first step, He'll surely honor you. Let Him heal. He's good at that, you know.

Love you guys a ton.

2008-07-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm scaring myself. Too many things are changing. I'm wondering if it's just the holiday mood, meaning that things'll go back to normal when school starts... of if it's otherwise. Like for one, I'm enjoying shopping too much. Suddenly I'm seeing stuff to buy everywhere. I used to be like "Nup, nothing to buy, not interested." Now... uh oh. Close that door, Ariel, close it. You've taken one step too far in, so now back out, slam it shut, put a padlock on it and throw the key away. Quick, before that sucking vortex pulls you all the way in!

[[It's cuz of a few things. One, the 2 week internship I had in Sg. Cuz I had to dress quite nicely everyday, so now I've gotten used to it + I've come across a few new "looks" that seem to work for me. Two, I kept trying to shop in Sg but things were pretty expensive. In comparison, bkk seems really cheap, and it feels easier to spend. (This is NOT a good thing.) Third, will be mentioned a bit further down.]]

My attitude towards studies and good grades is also getting a bit too 'laxed. =S Well this one, I'm thinking it really just might be the holiday mood. But I'd just better make sure that I shift back up into gear when school re-opens. I take my grades for granted, really. I mustn't. Cuz I don't wanna, before I know it, become a slacker. Hopefully this one won't turn out to be a big deal. Well at least my next school year is gonna be busy for sure, with the courses I'm taking, plus the student council stuff. That oughta shake off any apathy. =)

Next... *frowns* what's up with this infatuation thing? Gawsh. I mean, infatuation isn't a new-comer to my life. But still, everytime a new case comes up, I get a bit shaken. Welp, let's look at it, the pros and cons.

Cons: You all know it. The rollercoaster of ups and downs and switching between cloud-nine hopefulness and overly-dramatic despair. And so on and so forth. I'm sure you're all familiar.

Pros: You'll know most of this too, though for me there's an added plus- each time I've liked someone new, a bit of the old tomboy fades away. I mean, I'll always be me. Ya know ya know. Ariel's always gonna be Ariel. But at least I'm no longer a tomboy bent on the destruction of femininity and womanhood. XD HOWEVER, this pro has a con too. *points back up to the first paragraph* Yep. The bane of shopping. Trying to look nice for a guy who isn't even around to see the effort I put in to the way I dress.

I shan't complain though! These things are what make life interesting and characterize these very exciting teen years. Hehehehhe. ^^

Today I watched Hancock. It was good! I recommend it. :D Good for laughs, action, and had a pretty interesting plot.

Anyway, tmr is the youth service for All Saints. All the best, ya'll, for the dance and the band! You can be sure my thoughts and best wishes are there with ya.

Oh, and as an afterthought... today I went out with one of my school friends... and I still don't seem to have reverted to my Thailand self. Yet another disconcerting change.

Hahahaha. But stay tuned in! Life is being amusing... =) More updates probably to come.

2008-07-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

"Today" was technically over 23 minutes ago. But oh well, I'm gonna blog about "today" newaez. =3 (Friday July 4th)

Today my parents decided we were gonna do smth different for a change, so they made us all get up at 6.30 and we went to one of the local parks. It was nice! ... after I'd gotten over my morning grouchiness. :P At the park we rented 2 rowboats, me with my dad, and my sister with mom. Dad's good with that kinda thing, and he taught me how to row. It's really not as easy as it looks! o.o Mom and Jana, trying to row with one oar each, couldn't coordinate. They went in circles. XD

After that we just took a slow walk around the place... it's really pretty, and wasn't too hot either. I kept imagining being with my Sg pplz there. Salah and Rachie! Come visit!!!

We'd spent just over an hour in the park, and then we drove over to one of the malls for breakfast. When we got there we found out that the mall would only open in another 2 hours. X_X We went over to the more local-ish, markety side of the mall and had breakfast there, then walked to the next mall down the road. Even at that one, we still had to wait awhile before it opened. But anyway, when it did, we went shopping. Well, dad went off on his own to look for electronic stuff. X) The rest of us looked at clothes and shoes. And you know what? I didn't half mind it. =} I thought of Rachel with me, like we were last Saturday (OH MAN RACHIE WE ARE HOPELESS AT SHOPPING) , and suddenly shopping was a lot more fun.

I didn't bring my phone and wallet and stuff cuz I'd thought we were only gonna go to the park then go home. So during the shopping, mom and Jana went to get Jana new shoes, and I was browsing for clothes alone. As we parted ways I realized we hadn't made any arrangements on how and when and where we were gonna meet up later on. But oh well, I figuered we'd eventually work it out somehow.

And indeed, we did work it out "somehow". This is the "somehow": I was in the fitting room for the second or third time, gleefully about to try on a new bunch of clothes. I was taking the stuff off their hangers, etc etc, when I heard the announcement- "Attention please, will miss Ariel please report to the information counter at ground level, thank you."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooppps.

And then they repeated the announcement. ><

Had to change back into my clothes, dump all the ones I had been trying on, onto the attendant, and then dash down to the counter. Sigh. Ariel ariel ariel.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful- apart from that we got to meet this really good drummer and he gave us a demo- so I shan't bore you with the little things. Ciao!

But oh P.S., Rach and Sarah: I have a skirt now. The one mom made. Be happy. XD

2008-07-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

New day new post! I ended up chatting with people until late last night instead of blogging like I thought I would, heheh. Stayed up late and then woke up way late again today. =S I'd set my watch alarm but I think the battery's dying or smth. So then, same morning routine as yesterday... sat on the beanbag with a little smth to eat while I waited for lunch, and stared out the window, thinking about stuff, about people, and enjoyed the glorious weather. I guess you wouldn't normally call cloudy and rainy glorious, but I really do like that kinda thing. ^^ I'd woken up with the "you'll come back when it's over, no need to say goodbye" song from Narnia 2 playing in my head... I only know some random bits of the song here and there, and I kept hearing them played like a ipod on shuffle. And repeat. Oh, plus I split my lip at the side of my mouth cuz I yawned and my lips were dry. Ow. I really gotta be more careful about that... it's not the first time that's happened. X)

Wow, this time it's pretty hard to shift back into my Thailand-life state of mind. Not surprisingly, though. When you don't have much in one place, it's not hard to leave it... but now that I've formed new friendships, new bonds, and had a lotta new great experiences and memories in Sg... boy, yeah, it's hard to just push that all aside. The more heartstrings you have attatched to smth, the harder it is to move away from it, naturally. =)

But hey, hey! I'm not complaining, not griping. I just had a pretty exceptional time in Sg this trip, 's all. ^^ And soon, yeah, with the student council meeting coming up, and me getting to see the people of "this" life again, then I'll become the Thailand Ariel again. Hahahah. It's weird man! Thailand and Singapore feel like two separate existences. It's not just "home" and "holiday destination". It's seriously a "this life" and "that life" type of feeling. So right now I'm somewhere in between!! :D Straaaaaaaange sensation.

Abt 2 wks ago I was told that mom and dad are going back to Sg for a few days in early August for some HDB thingo. But only this morning then I realized that their trip will still be during my holidays! Argh! Wanna go too! =P At least if they went during my school days, then I couldn't do anything about it. But since it'll still be holiday time, and even though I wouldn't just go for 3 or 4 days... ya know. Still.

Ok enough about Singapore. Hahahha. Jeremy's gonna be like "MOVE ON", if I talk about it anymore. ;D K, so what've I been doing today? Practicing drums, mostly. We are one of the over-privileged families that owns an electic drumset, and I've hardly used it since we got the thing. =( Bad girl, bad girl. But things are gonna change 'round here. *nod* Before, it was lack of inspiration, but that's been sorted out. After hearing some of the ppl in church in Sg drum- either during worship, band prac, or just jamming- yeaahh. :D Ariel's back into it.

I practiced for probably a good two hours or thereabouts. I think I would've gone longer, but mom came and asked me to try on a skirt that she was sewing. XD Dear mom. Still trying to get me to wear that stuff. Heheh. I've told her before, "waaaaaaaaaaaaiiiittt, save your efforts." Gawsh. XD I'll like it when I like it! In a year, maybe. Or more. Or less. I dunno! Mom's funny. ^^

Jana's little terapin is dead. Or dying. I dunno. A few days ago we thought it was dead, but when we plonked it into the toilet bowl to flush away, it started moving. Then the next day it dieded again. Then started moving again. I've no idea what's going on with it! I guess when you're moving that slow, it's hard to tell when you've stopped. ._.?

Anyway, here's a thought to leave with you. I came across it onlin ytd. It's funny, maybe sad, but true. Girls can be very picky. XD hahahaha.

"I just do not know what women like so I try to be different with each woman. My progress so far has taught me that women do not like nice guys cause they appear weak, the tough guy is an asshole, the funny guy can be too wierd at times or take nothing seriously; the shy guy is weak or unstable inside, the passionate guy is clingy, the romantic guy is pushing the relationship thing too hard, the geeky guy is only here to be made fun of and boost others self-esteem and ego, the smart guy thinks he's all that, the dumb guy is not smart enough, and the perfect guy seems too good to be true."

Tough, huh?

Muses about chasing boys

2008-07-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, okay. That old familiar feeling of blogging is coming back. The feeling that I'm talking to everybody, but nobody at the same time. :P

This morning started out late... woke up 10 minutes before noon, and only because dad came in to wake me up. Not good, not good. Guess it was cuz I was enjoying staying up till 2am ytd. Seriously, there aren't enough hours in a day for you to stay up late but then sleep in as well! So then I skipped breakfast... just took a cup of water and sat on the beanbag downstairs and stared out the window. And started thinking. About Singapore. =) And then the grey clouds started rolling in (literally), and it rained for a little bit. And I thought and I thought and I thought. No I'm not emo. Just sentimental. Hehehe. My sister came by and peered at me. "Whatcha doin', sis?" "Thinking." "About?" "Everything." "..." Then she sat there and watched me for a minute, but apparently decided that my stoning wasn't very exciting, so she left.

But of course, that's only cuz she couldn't hear my thoughts.

I miss you, Sg peeps.

When we were told to sit on the stairs for a group photo, the girls and guys automatically sat on different sides of the banister. Hahahahahaha.

These 2 pics are more for the bkk people to see. :) Not everyone who attended the camp is in these photos, tho. There were quite a few more.

Oh yeah, gotta tell you about this one~ On the first day of that Poeima camp in Sg (12th June) we played a round of ice and water. Or freeze and melt, if you like. Though that was 20 days ago (dude... that was so not 20 days ago. Time isn't supposed to go that fast...), I just gotta mention it here cuz it's so funny how there were some serious life lessons to be learnt from that game. =D

This is how it went: We had about... I dunno. 20+ people? When you got caught, you stayed where you were until one of your teammates tapped you, then you were free to run again.
And it was all the girls, vs all the guys. (Quite equally divided)

So! After the game, this is some of what I learned:

Chasing guys is fun.
Don't try to chase too many guys at the same time. You'll only end up losing them all.
Pursure one guy, run him down. Much higher chance of getting him.
Unfortunately, even after you've got him (tagged him), he's likely to CHEAT ON YOU and go running away again. X)
If he cheated on you once, he's likely to cheat on you again, if you're able to catch him a second, third, or fourth time.
Those who cheat do so for the sake of their egos.
But some guys were good and honest, and didn't run after they'd been caught. Cheers to you guys!! XD Hahahahha.
Usually, when two girls go after the same guy, he gets even more desperate to escape, and then neither of the girls will get him. (Not always)
Both guys and girls get hurt.

And so on and so on. ^^ All of the above quite true, no?

'Kay, I might blog later on. This evening, when I have nothing else to do. Or am just not doing the other more productive things that are available for me to do. Oh wellz, it's the holidays. ^^

First Up

2008-07-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

ATM: Eating mee goreng (shiok man), and writing this first entry. I just had a shower, am now enjoying the cool post-rain breeze, silence, yummy food, and starting out on smth fun and new. This is what holiday nights should be, yes yes. :)

Ok so! Here are the 5 W's and H.

Who:
Me, Ariel

What:
Starting a new blog

Where:
On blogspot.com. Cuz Jeremy Tan said so. :D

When:
1st July 2008, shortly before midnight, Bkk time.

Why:
Cuz I have the time to do so; holidays until early August
Cuz when I was in Sg everyone was blogging and I do kinda miss it
Cuz I have things to say, thoughts to share... esp after this latest Sg trip

Hope ;D :
That this blog will last a little longer than my previous two. At least until the end of the summer holidays! XD For those of you who know me... I don't keep up with this online stuff for very long. I think I've become a little more diligent and capable of maintaining a blog, though. We shall see how this one goes.

Ah, and I shall try custom skins this time. ^^ Not that I even know how to begin. Hahahahah. Anyone good at that kinda thing? I'd like your help! =]

And rmb, I do like this stuff to be read. It's not meant to be a secret journal. The more you read the more I'll write. =)

Oh man. Mee goreng very salty sia. Need water now.