When we were told to smile
To be honest, Chinese New Year this year had been kind of disappointing, but it was this disappointment that made me remember certain things.

Ever since I started the habit of buying clothes whenever I felt like it instead of buying them right before Chinese New Year, this festival had lost some of its magic. When I was in secondary school, and actually, even in primary school, I would always look forward to wearing new clothes, because they would be lying in the cupboard, untouched, until the first day. The same went for CNY cookies and the sweet drinks. We would bug my mother when we could open them up and she would make us wait till the reunion dinner. Now, we've lost all these "rules". It's just different.

I also miss eating reunion dinner with my family at home without the relatives. When my grandparents were alive, that would be what we do. Now, we always head to some restaurant that my uncle really likes and eat with all my uncles and aunties and cousins. I guess it's nice in its own way, but I miss the older days.

The worst is the attitude we now have. At least till last year, I think I actually looked forward to meeting my cousins and going to Hougang Green or the neighbourhood with them doing nothing in particular. As years pass, we start deeming those things as pointless and boring, which they are. This year, I felt nothing.

To me, Chinese New Year used to be magical, and I can't wait for it to be magical again. It's funny how I realise that I miss my family when my family is right here with me. And when we're physically together, we're still apart.

On a brighter note, Wei Jian returned from Brunei for these two weeks, and on the day of his arrival, we met up because we wanted to throw him a surprise, which he already suspected. I dug out my PS4 box, Joshua and Jessica got some vegetables and luncheon meat and stuff, and then we filled the box with those things as a present for him.

Obviously, he didn't believe it when we showed him the box.

Then on Saturday, we met to go to Wei Jian's house, and I'm glad we did because this was the only day I felt like it was Chinese New Year.

It was the usuals: Cards, mahjong, steamboat, watching Youtube videos, watching embarrassing videos some of us made during secondary school (such as Joshua's singing and a crappy vlog we did during a chalet), and chatting with Wei Jian's mum.

Today, I took half a day off because I did duty on Sunday, and for some reason, I just miss home. Sometimes I have days like this.

Labels: emo, family, mehmeh, reliving those days, things that happened

December 2015
I didn't write a December 2015 post because I was in camp before the year ended and when I did book out and free up, it was already the night of New Year's Eve, when it's time for me to head to Guang Yi's house to celebrate the end of the year and the start of another.

In general, the first week of December was spent in camp preparing and executing support company's open house. To be honest, at that point, I kind of hated being there, but I'm actually quite proud of the kind of things we do. We didn't have to, but we did a demonstration skit of the prowess of our company, complete with vehicles, music and all that. Even I was rather impressed.

The following weekend, my Alpha recruits and the rest of the battalion's recruits POP-ed. A number of us did marshalling duty on that day. That's where I took the picture at the top of this post.

Following POP, it was a week's break, and then we kick off the new phase two weeks before 2016. New troopers came into 4SIR and most of them entered support company. It's a really boring phase so let's not talk about it. But 4SIR did a Christmas celebration together, and each company was challenged to do up decorations and a Christmas tree. My company did a 2D, 4-storey tree using camo net. It was beautiful.

The rest of Christmas was nice as well. My poly friends and I sort of celebrated it at my house with a logcake and some card games and boardgames at my house one week prior. Then, the following week, Jt, Zi Xing, Joshua, and I celebrated it at Jt's house with Popeyes, Texas, KFC, Michael Buble's songs, and the Steam game Brawlhalla.

We did a gift exchange during New Year's Eve.

Amended resolutions
After living in 2016 for eight days, I'm so glad to say that my resolutions mostly seem natural. It's not a "I shall force myself to do this thing that I really don't want to do", but more of a "this will take some effort but it's becoming a habit and it feels good" kind of thing. But there are exceptions, so I told myself that perhaps I'll cut down on the unnatural ones, namely the unconditional positive regard and the context thing, which is so random.

Feng Shui and Ba Zi
Jt's dad helped some of us read our ba zi, but mostly Ru Wen, because she started the first day of the year on a really bad note and she felt that she'd been unlucky for so long. Also, I've been reading Feng Shui for Dummies. After reading a few chapters, so many things clicked together. Let's not elaborate on that here.

University
My parents have convinced me that I should give university a go after all, even if what I do next time isn't related, because we all know studying is my thing and it's a good investment to spend those years and money studying rather than taking leaps of faith leading possibly nowhere. I came up with the last part.

For One More Day
I also read Mitch Albom's 'For One More Day' and I cried and cried while reading it in bunk, because I can relate to it so much. It's also perspective-changing. This book is one of the factors convincing me to get into university.

Anyway, the book is a simple story revolving around how a man's life is ruined because he had daddy issues and couldn't handle the death of his mother, someone he took for granted because of his daddy issues. At the start of the story, he tried to commit suicide because his grief destroyed him and his family, so much that his wife left him and his daughter did not invite him to her own wedding. His suicide attempt failed. In place of death, his mother visited him and they spent time together for one more day.

An abrupt ending
That's all I have to share so far in this year. Looking forward to Chinese New Year!

Labels: future, mehmeh, NS, things that happened

My poly friends and me at the start of the month
I'm looking forward to December because it's filled with holidays and a block leave. Christmas seems like it's going to be pretty merry. Hopefully it is.

But this month:

1 Nov - MJ's birthday
We celebrated MJ's birthday in Whisk & Paddle, which is somewhere beside Punggol Promenade. It was a peaceful day, with a nice atmosphere filled with dogs and children and people eating - a simple time spent catching up and filling ourselves up with overly sweetened desserts. We had a walk in Punggol Promenade itself after eating, taking pretentious photos on the way because that's how we roll.

6-7 Nov - Field Camp
By right, field camp for the recruits was from the 5 - 9 November, but I only went for two days because I had duties and miscellaneous appointments here and there. The only night I stayed over, it poured, but I've already talked about that so let's move on.

10-15 Nov - Out of camp
This period, there was Deepavali, followed by offs-in-lieu. I spent this time watching shows, working on my novel, and kickstarting Muchilludes (my new blog, hosted in my own domain, which I have further plans for). It's about time I actually start doing stuff instead of planning or intending to do them. There's a technical aspect of it that I haven't got around yet, so it's not quite done. Went to help Ru Wen with photoshop one of the days, and then just walked around and made some plans for Christmas.

16-25 Nov - In camp
I didn't book out during this period, which isn't much, but still. This is because I strategically placed all my duties for month in one week, so it was just one duty after another, followed by live firing, and then a normal day, and then 16km route march. Because I'm from support company, I got assigned to be a marshaller for the march. Me being me, I took the opportunity to laugh at encourage the recruits.

26-30 Nov - Recent
I like to cluster these days together and think of it as one long weekend with a random work day inside, but it's actually a poorly placed off day (Thursday), followed by a Friday, followed by a weekend and a well-placed off (Monday).

On Friday, I did not eat dinner in camp because I assumed (never assume) we were booking out on time. But we didn't, and by the time we did, most food stalls were closed, so my dad accompanied me to my neighbourhood prata shop for supper instead.

Saturday
Saturday was a long day in a good way. Woke up early in the morning to meet with Guang Yi for breakfast before heading over to Suntec to meet Jessica and attend the Anime Fest Asia (AFA). To be honest, I never expect too much from AFA, so this year was pretty okay for me. Unlike previous years, there's no dominating anime. They had Tokyo Ghoul last year, Shingeki no Kyojin two years ago, etc. I expected this year's theme to be One-Punch Man. I guess it just didn't happen.

But, I'm very satisfied with the stuff I got: An overpriced One-Punch Man fan, a set of Koro-sensei (from Assassination Classroom) stickers which I pasted on my laptop, and a highly-adorable Charmander-crossover-Vivi (from Pokemon & FF9) shirt (at least I like to think of it that way). There was this nice Going Merry (from One Piece) drawing which I really like, but it costed $40. Every year, I drift a little further from animes, but it's still fun to geek out once in a while.

Following AFA, we returned to Bishan and meet with Jt and Joshua because I wanted to support Mr Unbelievable, which is having a promo event at Junction 8. Got to meet Jocelyn and Ding Dang, but didn't really talk to Guo Shen the director because he was backstage. It does look like the movie is going to be good. Coincidentally met one of the recruits, Brandon, as well. It did seem like the day wanted me to bump into/intentionally meet as many people as possible.

Jess went off, then the rest of us spent the next few hours lying on Guang Yi's house's sofa. They cooked an Indo Maggi Mee, which Jess got for Guang Yi when she went to Indonesia.

After that, I went to meet Mj, Cx, Stefanie, and Afiq at Tampines CC to support DTVM's documentary screening of Pasar People. It's about wet market and the kind of relationships that are forged because of these markets. There were three groups of profiles: Friendship, love, and work relationship. The first one was the most impressive to me because it's kind of hopeful to just see how Singaporean neighbours became close friends and would go to the wet market together. I'd thought everyone would just go get their stuff and interact as little as possible, which is kind of depressing. The film proved me wrong.

Caught up with Mr Chee Teng after that. It was getting quite late, so we all had to go off. What a long day.

Sunday
Cx, Stefanie, Mj, Joey, Avelin, and I met up to celebrate Cx's birthday with lunch at a restaurant called 'Saveur'. I find that we tend to gravitate towards expensive choices. The food was really good; the serving looked small but it was filling. Listened to Joey about what kind of stuff she had been learning in school, chatted, and cued Zi Wei's late entrance.

Intentionally stood in a circle indecisively because we wouldn't be DTVM otherwise.

Sat in a circle in Coffee Bean indecisively before choosing to go play some board games.

Which was really fun. We played a total of four games. The first one was my favourite: Betrayal at House on the Hill. We were supposed to explore a haunted house room by room, but somehow, I managed to trap myself in a Pentagram Room. By the gameplay, Mj freed me out of goodwill, and I ended up becoming the "betrayal", who has to kill everyone. They were mocking us on how Mj should've just kept me locked up. I accidentally committed suicide after that, but still won the game because I was a mastermind who somehow managed to trap one of the keyholders to victory while trapping myself.

I went home for dinner before meeting Zi Xing to chat and have coffee. That wraps up the day.

And the month. I'll say it was a great month. I honestly believe I've developed some newfound attitude that benefits my life and my psyche, but I shall not elaborate on that till my end-of-year reflection. I'm so prepared for next year, such that I even came up with some New Year resolutions already, which I shall, for now, dub as 'December resolutions'.

These are my December resolutions: To be honest with myself, stop rejecting circumstances, and stop lingering on things. I'll elaborate on them next time.

Labels: future, mehmeh, NS, things that happened

Group shot before Wei Jian leaves for Brunei
This month had been a little different because the recruits came in for their PTP phase and it's a whole new experience altogether. Before I get to that, there are things closer to home I would share about.

Let's start with the fact that today is a Friday and I'm booking in later. Basically, I've been clearing my two days of off yesterday and today. I met Zi Xing this morning because he happened to be clearing his off too. He has so many. We met for breakfast. Originally, we wanted to have Ya Kun, but then there was too many people, so we ended up going for Nasi Lemak. Basically, hanged out a while.

Yesterday, I did a bunch of things that I haven't done alone for a long time already, such as going for a swim, having breakfast in my neighbourhood, and attempting to binge-watch 'Tyrant' while eating cheese fries. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although today felt a little lonely. I get lonely too easily. It sucks.

Let's now return to the beginning of the month.

National day was actually good because I went back to look through some NDP songs and it brought back some memories as well as sparked some patriotism in me. Even "oooh~oooh" wasn't that bad.

I've already mentioned that Wei Jian left for Brunei for a year; we sent him to the airport - we being his family, Jessica, Jt, Zi Xing, and I. That night, Jt and I went to Bishan Park to chat. It had, once again, been so long since I went to Bishan Park. A quarter of a year just flew past miserably.

I didn't manage to watch NDP with my family or friends this year because I was doing guard duty in camp. After that was meant to be three weeks of confinement because the recruits would be coming in on the following Friday.

Taking recruits is kind of fun, especially during PTP phase, when the annoying stuffs haven't kicked in yet. I am attached to platoon two of Alpha company, and all is well so far. It's kind of good life for now, with the amount of freedom as compared to our recruit days, cadet days, and UIP days to some extent. I'm also kind of impressed with the platoon's recruits, although no group is perfect. Still.

I haven't yet mentioned that I met up with someone I met online for once, but I fell sick on that day so I didn't have the capacity to be enthusiastic. Just felt it was worth a mention.

So... That's it for August. Bye.

Labels: mehmeh, NS, solidarity, things that happened

In chronological order:

Started the Unit Induction Programme
Nothing worth elaborating about. Just briefings, lessons, and stuff.

Visited the ArtScience Museum
Met up with the usual people and went for two exhibitions: The Deep and Dreamworks Exhibition. The former is about the underwater life while the latter is pretty self-explanatory. On that day, I had to book in again later that night for guard duty the following day, unfortunately. After the exhibition, we went to Telok Ayer to have Korean dinner. I'm not at all into Korean food but I guess I liked the kimchi chicken enough.

Went for a course in Clementi Camp
It was a relatively relaxing week, but naturally, it got ruined with the bad news which came in the form of our guard duty schedule.

"Trespassed" an abandoned mansion
It technically still belonged to some royal family in Johor, but many Singaporeans just went in to take pictures and marvel at how cool the place is. Istana Woodneuk is located in a patch of forested land beside the Botanic Gardens. It was rusty, vegetated, polluted, broken apart, and vandalised. That is one of the values of this place now. I kind of got attacked by a hornet. It poked my forehead but somehow it didn't sting me. Lucky for me.

Me being me, I took a few pretentious photos and we climbed to the roof and Elijah walked on top of walls, which I tried but went into panic mode and gave up. It was a mini adventure.

Revamped our company in camp
Did some painting, a lot of shifting, arranging, carrying, and stuff. Of course, also did guard duty again.

Went for an overseas university exhibition
On this day, I realised that I absolutely have no proper reason to attend university anymore, since I'm sure of what I want in life, and university plays no part in it.

Stayed over at Wei Jian's house
This would most likely be the last time we hang out before he fly to Brunei for a year. On that day itself, I got dismissed from camp late, so by the time I headed over, it was close to midnight. We watched Dark Water, which is actually a pretty good horror film. Usually, I don't enjoy horror shows for their story, but this was pretty okay, because it was more than a 'this house is haunted but my husband doesn't believe it' plot. I fell asleep as they played Fifa after that, and then woke up again when they started to play Fatal Frame, which is a horror PS2 game. It was simple but good time spent.

Hanged out in general
There's not really a need to elaborate.

Attended an exercise involving several countries
Went to PLC to attend this exercise, since we were done revamping what we could revamp in camp. Of course, also did guard duty again.

Met up with Man Kit
Went to buy something with him at Chinatown. Talking to him reminded me of how ignorant I was about the army and I would rather continue being ignorant and not be in here but let's persevere for another 13 months.

Celebrated Zi Wei's birthday in his party
Birthdays are always a reason to get together, and our dear gay boy has turned 21. It was nice, meeting up with the DTVM people again, witnessing Joey and Hira being ridiculously protective of Nam Nam, talking about holes, and trying (once again) to walk really slowly so that everyone else could catch up but failing anyway. In the party itself, it was a lot of alcohol, though we didn't drink much at all, and Cards Against Humanity. 'Yeast' is officially the funniest answer to me, and everyone now thinks I'm some sick dude who enjoys putting 'children on leashes'. Didn't get to hang much with Zi Wei himself, though, because there was so many people.

That's it for the month (+1 day). I guess this month was pretty good, but I still wish this month (and every other month) could've been a lot more joyful. There's so much to be grateful for this month. I should be.

Labels: dtvm, future, mehmeh, places, things that happened

I get the feeling that this post might just be the most honest yet because I'm writing this in what I think is emotional instability; it's going to be highly mushy, but I promise myself that I won't delete it, because ever since this year, I've vowed to myself not to take back what I say. I don't want to get the sense that there are no consequences to the things I let people see and hear. I don't want to filter myself because I want to live a more open-hearted life. But that's out of point.

Here goes:

If you read my previous post (which you probably haven't because I only wrote it, like, three days ago?), you might remember this part where I mentioned about this Facebook group that my secondary school clique used to post in, and how no one uses it anymore. If you've known me for long enough, you'll know that this group of friends is close to the most important thing I have in my life. I wouldn't say this too often, because it's embarrassing, but what triggered me to do so is the fact that I feel safe admitting it.

The previous time I revisited the page, I only scanned through. Today, for some reason, I missed them - it doesn't make sense because I spent so much time with them nowadays, especially this weekend - so I went to read some of the posts. I realise how much things have changed, and how life had made us better people, at the expense of some sort of soul in what we had.

You know how I'm pretty open about letting people know I value this friendship? This is nothing compared to what we used to say to one another. There was a period of time when all of us had a blog each. They would write posts that would later on (aka now) bring tears to my eyes because it was about how important the friendship was to them. I quote one of them here: "Our relationship may seem normal but to me it is 100% magical."

And then as time passed, we cross boundaries in life. We went from lingering individuals to poly, where each of us went through a bunch of things that make us more mature people, and then we went on to internship, then to work, then to university or army. Each step of the way distanced us from the past. In the midst of it all, we got into fights, some of us got tired and many of us made mistakes. Things changed. Changes are not always bad, but in this case, they were.

We, who used to laugh at everything, grew up and jokes that used to be funny were no longer cracked. I remember we used to meet almost everyday. We would cycle, explore the new park together, buy stuff for one another, celebrate birthdays, bake cakes, make cards, and do all sorts of stupid things. We were ~ thee 9 mehmehs ~. That was our soul.

The best part of the whole thing was our immaturity. It was our inexperience and the fact that we didn't know better. Most of us didn't know what we want to do for our future, neither did we really understand how people outside our circle, our neighbourhood, our school, and our perceptions were like. At least for most of us. It was a journey. We explored. We learned. We had a metaphorical growing-up-quick crash course. That wasn't much. I wanted more and better, but I didn't know that what I had is magic.

I try to recreate that feeling in life, but I can't. I try to move on, but days like this get to me. I know. I need to get a grip, but sometimes it's not the sad memories that stun you - it's the good ones. This bunch of people is family to me, more so than anyone else emotionally. It makes me guilty to think like that, but that's the truth. It had always been the truth.

Labels: emo, mehmeh, reflection, reliving those days

Chinese New Year this year has been great.

Tuesday
It started with an off in lieu, of which the previous night I was doing duty along with some of my platoon mates. Then when I finally reached home, I had to work on my university applications. For now, I've applied for NTU's Art, Design & Media, which was troublesome like hell because they required a lot of stuff on top of portfolio, and I've also applied for NIE, bachelor in education. The idea of being a teacher is quite exciting, so I figured - why not give it a shot? Just like that, the entire of my Tuesday was gone.

Wednesday
I've been wasting time in the morning because I haven't had the luxury to that for a long time. Then in the evening, my family went to Grassroots Club for reunion dinner with my extended family. It was decent food, but honestly, it was more of a physical reunion for some of us, not a mental/emotional one. Headed to grandma's house after that and chatted with my cousin and brother about the dreaded national service, university, and ridiculously successful teenagers. That night, when we returned home, my brother, father, and I just sat down and had some wine and chatted.

Thursday
This day was Chu 1, meaning the first day of the lunar new year. In the morning, my paternal uncle came to visit. He also read our fortunes for us. Went to my grandma's house again after that, where all my maternal relatives gathered. Taught my brother and cousins how to play mahjong and played with them. It was quite fun.

Friday
On this day, Guang Yi and I visited Ru Wen's house. Naturally, played mahjong, but this is the first time I tried 3-people mahjong, so it was quite interesting. Ru Wen's mum cooked, made dessert, and brewed tea for us. It was quite awesome. Over lunch, talked about Ru Wen's birthday party plans, and chatted in general with her mum as well.

After completing mahjong, just chilled for awhile before Guang Yi and I went off as Ru Wen would have to work soon (yes, during CNY).  The two of us chilled and chatted in Bishan for awhile. Then, walked around a little bit and then headed off.

Saturday
I invited Guang Yi, Ru Wen, Jt, Wei Jian, Jessica, Joshua, and Zi Xing over to my house to visit as well as throw Zi Xing a surprise birthday celebration in advance, since his birthday would be on next Tuesday. Met up 2.5 hours in advance (of which most of them were late by an hour) to prepare a stack of cards for him. Ru Wen went to get the cake, and when Zi Xing came, we just executed the usual 'a cake appears' drill (argh, how I hate this word). I guess he was a little surprised. Maybe.

I enjoyed the visit because these are my close friends and we chatted over pizza and cake and snacks that my mum made and sweet drinks. It's kind of a simple pleasure, although things like this hasn't been simple nowadays. It's quite depressing to think that.

Proceeded to Wei Jian's house for visit straight after, but Ru Wen had to leave for work again. Wei Jian's house is a tradition; We would visit his house every year to have steamboat and mahjong and the typical CNY stuff, regardless of where he lived.

Half-cooked salmon was awesome. The typical CNY stuffs were good. Finally learned to play poker. Just chilling and spending time like that was the best.

Sunday
So I don't think I can handle leaving these days behind and going back to camp. I still feel really trapped here and I hope that life gets better and that this struggle ends somehow. Sigh.

Hope you guys had a great CNY!

Labels: family, mehmeh, things that happened

Packed books in boxes to shift office
Right after production for 'Scrum!' ended, Threesixzero was going to move the office to a different unit, so we had to do a lot of packing. So, this above picture is just one small portion of the amount of stuff we packed. These boxes contain less than half the amount of books there are in the office.

Packing books make me realise how frustrating it must be for librarians. Books are generally so compact that we tend to underestimate how hard it is to account for them. Don't get me started on the props room :(

Being in production, we seriously have all kinds of stuff. Like Mian (my department boss) said, we can go and open a stall already. I say we can open another Mustafa. We had plenty of leftover sponsored drinks, props, wardrobe (which they are really going to sell), tissue papers, sunblocks, furnitures, and so on. It's quite amusing.

Anyway, for two weeks after production, we alternated between breaks and packing office.

And then as a form of celebration/break, the wardrobe department plus Pearline and I went to Karaoke World to sing. Everyone is either so good at singing or so amusing. Good time spent.

After that, the "real work" began. So far, all I've done was transcribing one episode of a new documentary for, I think CNA, Business Warriors. So tedious. I think I'm being kind of inefficient. But I spent one day on NS Medical checkup, spent another day unpacking the new office, and spent yet another day running errands, so I guess or I hope it's understandable.

In the meantime, as I've mentioned, there was the NS medical checkup, which was really fast except for an IQ test which took 2 gazillion years to finish. And then Joshua, Jt, Ru Wen, Guang Yi, and I went to have an Oktoberfest dinner thing at some dining bar whose name I shall not mention because I'm about to defame it.


It's so bad we had to get cup noodles
Yeah. Basically, to make a long rant short, it really sucked. There were issues right down to their choice of glass. People actually head out of the place saying "this place sucks", while others, like us, had to supplement the food with cup noodles. It costed $20+.

But it was good time spent with my friends, just insulting the place and amusing ourselves a little. Now whenever we cook NTUC hotdogs, we just call it 'Oktoberfest', because, yeah.

We also went for my family chalet, which was in Treetop/Treehouse at Changi. It was really beautiful, although there's nothing much to do. Chilled and wasted most of the time away. Guang Yi, Wei Jian, Zi Xing, Jt, and Joshua came over and we barbequed and went night cycling and stuffs.

Super enthusiastically waited for the bicycle shop to open the next morning so that we can return our bikes ASAP.


"Hi, we're bicycles and we're waiting to be returned."
So, other things that happened in the chalet:

• My sister's boyfriend attempted cooking salted-egg-prawn, which turned out to be a failure.
• Went night walking with my brother and heard stories about NS and production and stuffs.
• Went to some cafe with my sister and her boyfriend; I totally wasn't being a lightbulb.
• Slept, like, the whole time.

Labels: internship, mehmeh, things that happened

These two weeks were so happy and sad and stressful and satisfying and filled up with all sorts of emotions. There were a lot of final stuffs going on because of our last lecture, last presentation, last assignment, last gathering and stuffs. So, let's go at it one by one.

Final Year Project
Lol, the keyword is FINAL. Because it indeed is final. And, just last Monday, we were so relaxed and thought that our FYP was more or less settled. And then, BAM. During our mock-pitch to our lecturers, we learned that our trailer sucked, our concept sucked, our treatment did not work, and our pitch did not work. And because of that, our transmedia content needed adjustments as well.

So, for the remaining time, we had to put our FYP through a major overhaul. Our heart was slowly cracking and the pieces were slowly falling out as we cut and cut our trailer, break down and rework on our concept, and redid our powerpoint slides.

Finally, on that day itself (Saturday), our pitch went fine. The judges were super nice (if they weren't, we would be chopped to pieces already), and our super under-developed so-called "new concept" helped us through. And once it was over, we were throwing our hands into the air, and all our worries flew away as we rejoiced and feel sad at the same time (because, well, it is over).

I've got to say that I really liked two of my coursemates' concepts: 'The Girl Who Grants Wishes' and 'Unit 13-44'. Their trailer were really good too.

Popping into Unit 13-44's celebration
Okay, I know I was freaking extra, but I joined their team's celebration in Adventure Cove. It was really great and really fun. Went through a super long lazy river, and everyone got stuck at one point, just watching stingrays fly by. Queued up for super long for lots of variations of slides, all of which were fun. Drowned Floated in the wave pool. Et cetera. A pity they didn't have 6-people rides.

Ate at Malaysian Food Street, and then tried to catch a bus back to Habour Front. Tried. Funny thing is, there was a crowd going up the bus. Annzy randomly told me not to worry because I would be able to get on the bus, and the exact opposite happens. After Annzy, Pascal, and Stefanie got on, the bus driver shut the door and left me outside. And no matter how much the three of them asked the uncle to open it, he completely ignored them, leaving me abandoned by the bus stop like a lost and homeless dog.

In the end, I caught another emptier bus with seats while they waited for me at Habour Front.

PCAP Potluck
Kind of a final gathering for our PCAP at Marina Barrage. Everybody brought so much food @_@ And we could not finish. I learned that there are two new couples in my class (so sudden and random), and it kind of became the theme of the night, I guess. Played cards, and then decided to play Murderer, since we were a large group. Somehow, the two murderers or the police and a murderer always end up sitting side by side.

It was quite fun and funny that we were actually picnicking on the floor instead of the grass because of the threatening rain. While heading home, had some guy talk with some of them and listened to people emo about relationships and the lack thereof. I don't know about other people, but sometimes I like to pointlessly think about these stuffs to balance out my emotions. If I'm too happy, these things give me a reason to emo a little. Lol.

Meeting up with secondary school friends
Met up with Guang Yi, Wei Jian, and Zi Xing yesterday for Ramen Play, bowling, and PS3. As usual, I'm not a big fan of Japanese food, although sometimes my actions contradict that fact. Bowling was quite funny. We were trying to challenge one another on who can roll the ball the slowest. And mine was pretty epic, in the sense that it rolled at 2 miles per hour (think of the speed a cat strolling), exactly at the centre of the lane, until it eventually knocked onto the pins at such low force.

And then we tried again, and this time it was so slow that the ball fell into the drain and rolled back onto the start of the lane.

Motor Stormed, Dead or Alived, and Last of Us-ed at Guang Yi's house after that. They were all pretty amazing, and now I definitely want to play The Last of Us.

Chiso Zanmai!
Went with Yvette, Zhao Yi, and Wai Meng this time. The food was great and affordable as usual. Learned to eat sashimi, but avoided eating more because my stomach doesn't like raw food. Nice, chill time spent till it was time to go to school.

Last day of school
Started by watching some of our OLP videos, but I guess we couldn't watch them all due to a lack of time, so we went through a super long briefing about our internship stuffs as well as FYP feedback. Mj drew the whole of 02 in chibi form! So cute, haha.

Finally, got to know of our internship posting. I'm probably getting posted to Threesixzero Productions, and my job was to assist in a Chinese drama series (trying to make my role sound nice here, lol). Mary said that it's going to be super tough, but it sounds so exciting! And to get to work in such an established place is such a privilege. So near my house some more, haha. Really, really hope I get in.

After knowing our posting, our parents came and it was time for dinner. Also got back our bag of memories which everyone wrote for one another in Penang. So touching :'D

So yeah, that's about it. Hope all goes well :)

Labels: dtvm, mehmeh, pcap, things that happened

It felt like at least 500 billion years since my last entry to me. Nowadays when I open up Blogger, I just feel lost and wordless. Probably writer's blog? Haha. Regrettably, I'm still going to be talking about my not-very-interesting life, since that's the only thing that doesn't give me a block.

Labels: dtvm, health, mehmeh, pcap, things that happened

Okay, an update of my life. Things were a little bit crazy and really positive ever since I went to talk to Mr Ng, my dip-plus lecturer. Along with the whole "getting a grip" thing, there were also lots of assignments and some fun moments of celebrations.

The day I quit tuition (last Saturday)
It was some kind of farewell to my tutee whom I had been badmouthing and complaining about for a long time. Honestly, he's an okay kid as like any other kid. Teaching kids is just not my thing. The money I get for tuition is great, but I didn't want to waste their money anymore because I felt like every week was a waste of time for all of us. Plus, I really need Saturday mornings off for rest.

On Saturday, my dip-plus group also met up to discuss our next facilitation. Turned out to be quite funny when we tried to do our own activity.

The day we thanked our mothers (last Sunday)
Celebrated Mother's Day with the mothers and the grandmother in a Tze Char stall. Super nice and relatively cozy. Cereal sotongs are the best. Can tell my grandma really enjoyed the big family gathering. Unfortunately, my uncle was also suffering from heart attack and was hospitalised, so his immediate family could not come. Something to worry about, too.

Random days of a healthy lifestyle (family)
So apparently, my sister suddenly became quite enthusiastic about exercising, so we started exercising together. Jogging at Bishan Park with siblings, gymming in the early morning in the unproductive Bishan gym, and listening to my brother train my sister to build abs. It's actually quite funny.

The days when we submit our assignments (school)
Basically, school was the big flow of assignments. Finished our Media Entrepreneurship presentation/report and extremely tedious Filmmaking research essay. For the Filmmaking, I analysed The Hunger Games. Chee Teng's folder for submission is pretty cool/cute. It said "I hereby declare that by submitting my document, I agree that Mr Chee Teng is the coolest lecturer". Well, we had to submit our assignments, so the coolest lecturer he is.

For the Media Entrepreneurship, I interviewed Wei Jian's girlfriend, Jessica, and researched on her blogshop, RackSpaceProject. (rackspaceproject.blogspot.sg) I kind of screwed up in the Q&A segment for the presentation. You must be thinking that Q&A is something that you can't screw up; Apparently, you can screw it up if you answer "I don't know" more than once.

And then there's the iBook project and FYP, both which I'm really enthusiastic about. I mean, come on, we are publishing our own eBook! :D And creating a TV show.

The day when "you like it?" becomes sexual (Thursday)
Spent the morning lazing around even though I hate wasting time. Afternoon was FYP tutorial, in which we had to give feedback for one another's ideas. This stage never fails to drain all my energy and positive emotions away. Rejections and rejections.

Then, met up with the bros + sis to have Chisozanmai! Unfortunately, Wai Min, Joshua, and Ru Wen could not make it, so it was Jt, Guang Yi, Zi Xing, Wei Jian, and me. Chisozanmai was great. Orgasmic food, nice environment, nice window seat, good variety of food. Best buffet I've had so far. Threw away all my gastric-caused restrictions and just went crazy on the food. I'm not regretting it, and it was awesommme. By the way, it was meant to celebrate Jt's birthday. Got her a 'The Hobbit' book - glad she liked it :)

And also finally bought 'Dishonored'. Why was everything just so right? Maybe I went a little crazy. Due to Zi Xing's story about his classmate poking people's armpits gayly and asking "you like it?", we went a little weird with the whole poking at random holes and asking "you like it?" thing.

And we created a Wong Zi Xing fan club.

The day when I became Asier Sai Han Don (Friday)
Due to drinking mocha + teh tarik at night, plus my sensitivity towards caffeine, I couldn't sleep at night actually, and only finally collapsed at 6am. Woke up early to gym with my sister. Spent the rest of the afternoon doing CNG. Rushed out all the colouring so that I don't have to worry about my part anymore. Now I can gloat over that fact that it's my groupmates' turns to be busy, before I step in and help up wherever.

Met up with Jeanette and Jt in the evening. Caught up, learned that someone can procrastinate in the middle of exam, and I got a new name. I was wearing my "Easier said than done" shirt and a cardigan over it, so certain letters were blocked, which formed the words "Asier sai han don". And that became my name. I kind of like Asier as an English name, honestly.

And because I love sharing stories and Jt and Jeanette listen to my stories, I just had to get their input in my FYP concepts. Which helped so much. Went a little overboard with snacking - pizzas, cream puffs, and cakes. I feel like a prisoner who just released himself. Now I can eat all sorts of food, and I'm feeling really high about it.

After 2 hours, Syahindah and Li Yuan (Indah and Jean's JC friend) finally reached. After going back and forth, and long waits, we finally got into Swensens for our desperately-needed dinner. Also spammed ice cream. Celebrated Jt's birthday again, and chatted. It was generally a great day.

So, that's it for the week. Throughout this week, I had also been reading Percy Jackson (Lightning Thief). It was a fun read, though it was meant for children. Can't wait for Sea of Monsters to come out in the theatres. And I actually like both the book and the movie in different ways.

Yeah, I don't know how to end this post, so let's put an abrupt end to -

Labels: dtvm, family, mehmeh, pcap, teaching, things that happened

And, just like that, school reopened on a rather lazy note. I probably spent the last day of my holiday at home or something, and then attended the first day of school on Wednesday. Up till now, there were only two school days. Due to open house and e-learning week, the rest of the days were so-called holidays.

School
Wednesday's class was mostly a recap on stuffs that we learnt in documentary, plus stuff about pitching. Watched a number of short films. Then Thursday's class was once again time to discuss for our assignment. We were mostly stuck with no profile, until today, when we decided to try for some candidate for the Punggol East by-election. Also did a short practice profile piece on Zi Wei for our e-learning assignment.

This Monday, I had my dip-plus lesson as usual. It's one of the only classes I look forward to, the other being Writing for New Interactive Media. This week's lesson was about transactional analysis. We kind of analysed what is going on in our brains when we interact with others. It's so interesting. The uninteresting thing is that there's a test next week, right after this week's submission :/ 

Open House
First off, due to open house, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday's classes were cancelled for my course, since all the students and lecturers from my course are helping out. My duty was only on this Tuesday, which was pretty slack on my part. Basically, just camped in the Writer's Room and listen to Chee Teng repeat the exact same things about our course to people who entered. Our duties revolve around saying welcome and "beware of the low ceiling". People are mostly impressed by the room. There were some enthusiastic ones, but when Chee Teng asked who like writing, only one guy out of all other people raised up his hand. I guess writing is a rather niche passion.

Weird Dreams
I had some pretty weird dreams recently. One of them was about this magical plaster which gives muscle to wherever you paste it. In the dream, one of my friends used it on his face (I have no idea why). But someone should please invent something like this.

Another weird dream I had was about this terrapin my family used to have. It grew big, so the tank became too big for the terrapin. So, my brother decided to tie it up and hang it on the ceiling as decoration. I found the terrapin poor thing and took it down, but I couldn't find a tank big enough for the terrapin. Suddenly, we miraculously had two big fish tanks, but the sad thing was that there was a mini-crocodile in one of the tanks and a mini-shark in another. Unable to find a solution, I woke up.

There were some others weird dreams which I forgot. Me being the obsessed person that I am, I shall be doing some dream analysis.

Outdoors
As it was still "holiday", I kept bugging the mehmehs and asking them out. One of the days, we ate at Yishun's kopitiam foodcourt, and I bought this mixed vegetable rice. Guess how much it costed? Eight freaking dollars. I just can't rant enough. Eight dollars! I could buy half an old game with it. Speaking of which, I got myself a super old game trilogy - Prince of Persia. Only the third game belonging to me, so I must announce.

Some of us also randomly went to Ru Wen's stall to have dessert and help her fold boxes. Miss those days :D Somehow that day was a day of hope because all of us asked my Tarot app a question and got answers which we deem accurate. And my question, "when will I recover from my stomach issue?" got a reply of "completion, success, fulfillment" and such :) I have no idea when that means but it probably means it will happen.

Labels: dtvm, mehmeh, pcap, things that happened

Okay, it's been pretty long since I do a recount kind of post. 2 weeks is considered long because when there is school I do it every week. In fact, the last time I blogged was last year! #lamelastyearjokes #hashtagoutsideoftwitter #spamhashtags

I've been pretty much a no-lifer in the holidays, especially the last week. But let's just talk about the few times that I had some sort of life.

Christmas Night
Like most of the mehmehs, my family doesn't celebrate Christmas. So, Wai Min, Guang Yi, Joshua, and I met up to shop a little. Wei Jian joined us soon and then we headed to Ru Wen's mum's stall to have zi car again. It's been pretty long ever since the last time we went there. The usual drills of eating her food, chatting, and then desserts. Just minus the helping her fold boxes part.

Shopping Alone
For the most part, this doesn't deserve a mention, but I must mention it anyway because this was actually the first time I shopped alone. Decided that it was about time to do stuff alone and not depend on friends to bring me out of my rotting mode. But, it ended up killing very little time because I ended up shopping too quickly, since it was pretty boring. Shopkeepers like to talk to lone customers, I guess.

School Project
Headed to school last Friday to meet Zhao Yi and Mei Jun to do our web publishing assignment. Honestly, I like this group because it's a productive one that is not intense and boring. Did the mockup and document and chatted for a while. Time passed quite quickly and we headed home soon.

Weekends
I don't know why, but the amount of time I spend with Guang Yi is directly proportionate to the time I spend with Jt. Once again, I spent Saturday with Guang Yi and Sunday with Jt. On Saturday, accompanied him to cut his hair and walked around Junction 8. Wanted to watch either Les Miserables or Chinese Zodiac, but no one else was free. On Sunday, met up with Jt to have her super late lunch (at 4.30pm), shop a little, and have dinner. Caught up a while, but then I had to go because the next day demanded that I wake up super early.

New Year's Eve
Best day of the holiday for me, especially since the holiday had been pretty much wasted on a spiritual level. Went to Johor Bahru with Guang Yi and Wai Min. The mehmehs were all suppose to go together, but people backed out one by one and only us three remained. I'm glad we were stubborn enough to go anyway despite warnings that there would be a jam and stuff.

Met Guang Yi and Wai Min at 6am+ because we were expecting a great jam if we were to be later. Turned out that the jam was for the road towards Singapore, not the one towards JB. So, we reached super early. Decided to have breakfast, but because they were really hungry, we did not care about where to eat and ended up in KFC o.o As this was the first time we came to Johor Bahru ever since we could remember, we were shocked to see the price to be super cheap, almost half of Singapore's price. But the portion was also almost half of Singapore's portion. Wai Min went to ask this shopkeeper where CitySquare was, and she totally gave us that "What are you going there so early for??" look :S

Decided anyway to head to KSL first. Got a rather friendly taxi driver who was randomly talking to us about stuffs, like how there was a dish that cost $100+ in KL. He's quite funny.


Entrance to the mall
Got spoilt for choice once we reached, because all the restaurants there were so cheap. They looked nice too. Wai Min was already planning what to eat. Shopped a lot because their stuffs were cheap and they had things Singapore did not have. I'm quite glad that the cutting there is smaller than Singapore so shopping was so much easier for me. I wear M instead of S there.


Couple cover (Luffy & Nami from One Piece)
Malaysia seems to be a really big fan of One Piece because it's full of One Piece stuff and One Piece phone covers. I found the one above particularly nice.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch, so we headed to the Tea Garden to have our food.


It was fine food. We planned to eat quickly and then rush to the cinema to catch Les Miserables, but we ended up finishing late. So, we quickly rushed to get Shi Lin before heading in for the movie.


It was a musical, but what I must say is the three of us were pretty bored. I heard that it was great, but I guess it's just not our type.

Shopped more before having our dinner at Season, which was actually Swensens.


Delicious fries that I could not eat
And then we headed back to City Square to shop, but the stuffs there were mostly similar to Singapore. Not cheap too. So, we tried to cross the custom (keyword: tried). Unfortunately, we somehow ended up on the side we were suppose to enter Malaysia from. When we asked lots of people, got laughed at by security guards, and finally found the way, we felt so stupid o.o

There was a jam on our way back, but we reached Singapore in time. Headed home awhile, then met up with the rest of the mehmehs in Bradell station to celebrate New Year. Guang Yi's house. Eyes were so tired, going to shut. Anyway, mahjonged and Ru Wen and Wai Min taught us how to play it with money. The rest played with cards. Soon later, Wei Jian's girlfriend and Ru Wen's sister came too.

Half-watched Channel 8's new year celebration and laughed like mad at Mediacorp actors/actresses' attempts to cover songs and such. Then it was 12am and we could see a bit of the fireworks from Guang Yi's house.

Continued our mahjong. As it was late, people started going home one by one. Joshua, Zi Xing, and I decided to stay over at his house. They played ps3 while I slept because I was so tired. Managed to catch the first train in zombie and half-asleep mode to return home too.

And with this, it's happy new year! :D

Labels: mehmeh, overseas, things that happened

This week had been more holiday-ish. At least I got to go out more often.

On Monday, my parents decided to accompany me to Ang Moh Kio Polyclinic to get a doctor to refer me to do a scope as my family doctor had instructed. It was a long wait but the doctor seemed to know very clearly what he was doing. So apparently, I can't eat oily, milky, spicy, acidic, and unhealthy foods, which somehow included chocolates and fruits (they are acidic). No fruit juice, coffee, tea, milo, and gassy drinks. Basically, I can only drink water. But I shall look at the bright side, because this experience will teach me to manage my diet, a skill I really need. After I recover, I shall control what I eat and go for protein-rich foods and stuffs. And I get to train myself to not drink coffee, appreciate non-exhausting activities (my stomach will hurt when I exercise), and I'll probably get used to it before I recover. So my next medical appointment is halfway through January, and only then will the final decision be made as to whether I get "scope" or not. In the meantime, I'm mostly a healthy person.

On Tuesday, I went to Guang Yi's house to play because I was bored and no one else was free. Brought games and played with his newly-bought PS3. Naruto-ed and played games like Prototype 2 and Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil has changed so much since the older installments, such as 1 or 2 or 3. I kind of miss those.

Wednesday
Went out with the mehmehs. This time, only Wei Jian was not there because he went to Bangkok. According to them, recently many people they know are going to Bangkok. I didn't agree yesterday, but I agree today because Yvette just came back from Bangkok too :/ But anyway, it's quite rare that even the legendary Wai Min came.

Wanted to have our dinner at Sauce Bar and they wanted to drink. I obviously can't because of my stomach, so I was just intending to have dinner there. But, the promotion we were all expecting them to have was for another day, so we changed to Secret Recipe instead. Had a healthy-enough meal, grilled chicken with mushroom sauce (it's the healthiest there is) along with Shepherd's pie. Apparently, Ru Wen was stuck playing Mahjong with her friends and ended up super late.

Watched The Hobbit after that. It was much nicer than I expected. I think it's better than Lord of The Rings. Surprised Guang Yi with a cake (his birthday was two weeks ago). Ru Wen, Wai Min, and Jt wanted to "walk around" in Avalon since Ru Wen hadn't been to a club and it's Lady's Night anyway, meaning they get to enter for free. They ended up drinking while the guys waited outside. They rushed out soon, and we rushed to take a rather fail group photo, before rushing to the MRT to catch the last train.

Thursday
Woke up early and headed to school early to meet Zhao Yi and Yvette to hang out before heading for the YMAC event to report. It's for our Total Journalism assignment. 5 of us in class had to cover an event, as in write an article about it. Chatted for a while and then headed to T1A to get our media tags from Ms Gamar (I feel like we are real reporters :D even though we're fake ones D:). Covering an event is pretty confusing. I feel lost 30% of the time. Luckily I know some people there, so I could "join in the fun". Zi Wei came shortly after.

Anyway, lots of familiar faces. Xun Quan was there too. He's in the organising committee. Xun Quan was my secondary 2 best friend, so it was quite interesting to see him there. In fact, I actually expected him to be there because I saw his face in the background of one of Matin's photos. Naturally, we caught up a bit.

So the event was about what the students taking part of the event want Singapore to become in 2030. It's a Youth-ASEAN thing in which they take part in the discussion of ASEAN issues and Singaporean issues. So, they did this "design thinking" kind of thing and then presented their discussion to Minister Lawrence Wong. There was this guy who was trying so hard to fake that "confident politician" accent -.-

They had a discussion forum in which people voiced their opinions on Singapore issues and policies. Issues like foreign workers (once again), polytechnic transport fees, and some others were brought up. People got agitated, especially that "confident politician accent" guy. Honestly, some were quite rude and kept questioning Mr Wong in a loud and rude manner. Some were calm and cool.

Anyway, back to the topic of my article, today is information overload. I'm probably going to be stuck for a while before any words come out :/

On a random note, today is the day when I finally get why my course lent us the iPad. It really helped tons in today's event. And on another random note, the game Wimp finally updated and there's a new world :D

Labels: dtvm, family, health, mehmeh, things that happened