back to basics.

today was reunion day of sorts.
met up with lovely Linnet my cousin from Brisbane, and my primary school classmates to attend Wei Cheng's wake.

breakfast and shopping with my cousin was very nice. i now know that i've another real friend who won't sugarcoat her words: " this dress does nothing for you." =) i'm a hem-and-haw, never-gonna-tell-you-the-awful-truth kinda girl. and i need people like that to balance me out. linnet, i went to dig deep into my archives (haha not really. my blog's not that old) and found your message. thank you for that! will see you real soon, but until then, the continental/time/seasonal differences shall not keep us apart.

my primary school friends didn't really change appearance-wise. nor did mr.ng. wei cheng was our classmate and yes, the rest of you might know him as one of the 5 tragically-departed dragon boaters. as we all sat and talked, bringing ourselves back to 8 years ago, i was suddenly reminded that wei cheng and i sat beside each other in class. i will not spin a beautiful tale of harmony for the sake of my blog, but honestly say that sometimes we were on good terms but sometimes out of competitiveness, we wld childishly bicker. i think i tried to copy his ting xie on numerous occasions but he wouldn't let me and i complained madly! i don't rmb him very well, but it is my absolute privilege to have known him. he who turned out to be mature, independent and filial. these values mean NOTHING to us in this generation, but we can't deny they shape the character of a person.

people feel pity that the 5 men left us young and full of promise. but i feel that we should be comforted by the fact that they had strived and worked hard to build dreams. the future only holds promise for us, i think, only when we make a start by our own efforts. and very honestly? not everyone has promising futures. some people just like to idle, waste away. i don't have friends like those.

i think it is timely, then, to be reminded that we should cherish our youth, build meaningful and lasting relationships with a few good people, make decisions with a good head on our shoulders, be joyful, and arm ourselves with a certain amount of ambition in life. most importantly, we should love selflessly. and then life will kinda sort itself out.

being with my primary school classmates after a long time made me happy. it was so wonderful seeing them. people know that i'm not one who loves to hang out in big groups. conversations become superficial then, and to me that is wasting my time. BUT. i felt at home. i felt like i was with childhood friends who would always innately understand and accept me. i can't describe it. i suppose that being kids together at a point in our lives made me let my guard down, made me comfortable. we grew up as a group, tainted already but not tarnished by adulthood and all the vices it brings: cynicism, reality, responsibility. childhood friendships are unpretentious.

i'm so happy i met my old friends today.

staying alive in paris

found an excerpt wedged in between an old foolscap pad whilst packing my room.

from Dead Poet's Society:

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

when i read the bolded line, i was reminded of paris. i was reminded of terence and i sprinting from the underground train station like mad people, hoping to reach the LV store on Champs-Elysees before closing, in the hopes of getting an elusive bag.

i was reminded of terence and i trying to emulate the parisians' openness. we had witnessed so many parisian lovers displaying their affections for one another and decided to test it out for ourselves. if no one objected, it meant that it was a way of life. so we stopped to kiss for like, half a minute on the crowded Champs-Elysees. and no one bothered abt us. so we were right =)

i was reminded of the L'arc de Triomphe, the architecture in the photo above, constructed to commemorate Napoleon's victory. it is my idea of THE paris icon, beating the likes of the eiffel tower.

previously beauty only meant superficial, skin-deep beauty to me. that was the only beauty i had understood. but when i travelled to london & paris and beheld Westminster Abbey and the Arc, i was so stunned. that kind of architecture is completely foreign to asia. and you have to really see it for yourself in order to feel the kind of awe that i did. imagine how spectacular they must have been to stun me into silence. i just stood there both times, taking it all in, while Terence snapped away, capturing our precious moments. THIS is the kind of beauty we should be staying alive for. beauty that takes our breath away, beauty that enlarges our minds.

rock on, stella

current designer i am absolutely adoring: stella Mccartney (ok, not sure if this is spelt correctly).
anyhow, i am a fan of her's not because of her creativity, but because i read in 8 days yesterday that she designed a one-legged necklace for her spring '08 collection.
for those of you who don't have the free time that i do (don't worry, your exams will be over in NO time i assure you), this is the general idea behind what's gg on:
sir paul (of the beatles. i really shouldn't be needing to tell you this!) remarried heather mills after his wife passed away from cancer. there was rumour stella hated her stepmom. so now, as time has proven (haha. wonderful time. that sheds light on the true colours of ppl), sir paul and heather are embroiled in a bitter divorce. there was no prenup signed. and so.. she demands tons of money.. and plays out the role of victim to her best ability. she accused stella of having a part to play in the falling apart of the marriage, and in retaliation, stella designed the one-legged necklace.
question: WHY one-legged?
answer: as a result of some accident, heather had one leg amputated. she uses a prosthetic.

HAHAHA. stepmoms are evil. i always thot so. and in this case, ZERO pity for heather. i think stella won the battle between stepmom and stepchild. i like what she did. i hope the public LAPS up the necklace. hope it whips up a frenzy surpassing the lameass i-am-not-a-plastic-bag craze.

a stellar performance by stella. it rates ten out of ten on my scale.

friends, believe me. christmas is as much about sharing love with family and friends, as it is about deciding who to severe ties with. no one wants to go into a brand new year with all these negativity from the past attached. i never let myself be associated with people with bad reps for long. do that for yourself too. trust me, a few true and trusted friends are all you need to get by.

this is cher and i.

cher, happy belated birthday.

your birthday fell on the day of my french paper.

very interestingly, i was thinking of you.

because out of 20 helping words given for letter-writing, the only word i didn't recognise nor use was " cher".

i just checked it up. cher means a lot in french.

haha. so i left it word out, even though it was compulsory to use ALL the helping words.

cher my friend, means ALOT of love, alot of kindness, alot of bravery (because she went to town and snapped cute little boys holding up letters that spelt I-heart-REBECCA for my birthday last year. cuteass!), alot of heart.

have a wonderful time, before the big 20 hits you!

monday, blah day

2 lit papers down, 1 lit and 1 french to go.
over the weekend i barely touched my books.
and now, i've lost quite abit of my will to study.
ok well, most of it.
i cannot imagine gg through that whole sitting-down-for-two-hrs-and-a-half-and-writing scenario again tmr. it's like a bad memory that's on repeat.
well maybe i feel like that because i don't like lit theory.
interesting, but nth very tangible to study.
which is not my kind of study.
my kind of study involves texts, notes, and LOTS to cram in my mind.
this is kind of disconcerting.
got a weird feeling in my stomach.
ARGH. EXAM BLUES+ PMS= LETHAL COMBINATION.
ok. but this is way better than studying for any lameass early childhood paper.
i shall shut up now.
talk when i'm in a much better mood on wed.

Rainbow nation

i took this picture of my baby today. he is my favourite person in the world by far =) merry christmas everyone!

celebrate good times

i'm not really a cynic/pessimist.
you see, i found this out abt myself when after my first paper yesterday, I realised that the very natural state of mind should be STRESSED. stress over the papers to come. all my friends are.
but i am not stressed. i am fantasizing about all the things i can do once this ordeal passes. i am gg to run and get myself in the best shape possible for christmas. i am gg to tan myself evenly to get the most complementing skin tone i can ever have. i will get my ugly toenails sorted. i will go to orchard as and when i feel like it just so. no reason. just because. i will get down to a cosmetics hall to stock up on wonderful christmas limited edition palettes of cheek/lip colours. not because i wear makeup frequently. just because i am a sucker for packaging and love pretty things. i will have much better skin as i foresee that the medication the dermatologist prescribed will work. after 2 days i alr am seeing the redness go down. i really am very very excited abt the holiday season. i love the sickening crowds at the shopping centres. and i am a REAL pusher. if you're gg to bump into me, i will definitely shove you back. and if you look at me with shock, i will glare at you. if you're gg to start making some comment to yourself, i will make a loud comment abt you. so watch your bags. i may be small but i am super strong. haha. there was once terence pretended to lose to me at arm wrestling and i spent some time being so pleased with myself. until he came clean. and i was so dashed while he laughed madly. but i mean. when it comes to girl vs. girl don't underestimate me. HAHA. oh gosh!! ok. my heart rate is gg up. i am excited. i need to excuse myself now. back to the books.

lovin the muggin.

it's superultrafabulous that exams are approaching and i'm lagging behind in my readings. beowulf, paradise lost, chaucer.. you know, the great classics that no one will ever know abt until hollywood does completely sexed-up 'adaptations' to draw audiences.

it's also superultrafabulous that studying = snacking during self-imposed breaks. isn't it great? as we feed the brain with knowledge, we feed our mouths with junk. as our brains are enlarged, so our waist size increases. everything adds up, you know. we never have to worry abt our actions not tallying with consequences. i am gg to hit the gym tmr. i refuse to be a victim of exam-induced weight gain.

it's superultrafabulous to study in a public place, preferably one where retail therapy is available when the stress gets too much to bear. i mean, isn't it completely logical to stock up on plastic files just cos they are so brilliantly coloured and floral notebooks? it makes sense right? even when considering the fact that after exams means that we're on break? and we won't be using them? duh it makes sense. it's therapy you geddit? not practicality.

it's superultrafabulous, this life!