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date/time Wednesday, November 03, 2010,12:26 AM
GE Women's 10k Run
Spinning: The Wombats - Tokyo Well I'm supposed to be writing my paper now but I'm completely uninspired... So here I am to blog about my experience with my first ever 10km run. Or first ever run at a mass run event anyways. The Great Eastern Women 10k run. A lot of friends thought me crazy and said I was already a bamboo stick HAHA but seriously, I signed up because it was a personal challenge. I've never been the athletic sort - well I wasn't that bad either but it just doesn't run through my veins I guess, that athletic streak. So I signed up to prove to myself that I could run 10km without stopping. I was just kinda curious whether my body and mind had the tenacity to do it. The initial plan was to go for once-a-week trainings to make the actual experience less painful; to start from a measly 2km and bump it up every week until it reached 10km. Legendary plan, right? Of course it never worked out. Well, to give myself some credit it did for awhile, I was running 5km at one point for 2-3 weeks consecutively. But work kicked in, and (insert all sorts of excuses here), I dropped training regularly. And boy did i regret it a few weeks before the race day. I started trying to train desperately, but I still couldn't reach 10km. So did I survive the actual day? Yes I did. At the start point, all was well, I was pumped up with adrenalin and raring to go; looking all chipper with friends:
By 3km I was starting to feel a little tired, I had started lagging behind my friends. But the worst has got to be the 5-7 km stretch. You're neither here nor there - not at the beginning where you can tell yourself, "Come on, it's just the beginning, you can't drop so fast", not at the end where you can tell yourself, "Come on, it's almost the end. You've come so far, so keep going".
In the middle, all I thought about was "Shit. I just did 5km - that was torture, and I have to repeat that all over again". As evidenced in a photo:
I was smiling, but I was dying inside! It was more mental than anything else I think, to keep telling yourself to not allow yourself to start walking...
But by 8-10km it got a little easier thanks to strategically placed cheer teams, and angels sent from above in the form of Yu Chen who somehow appeared magically again after meeting briefly in the 5-7k stretch. We ran together for most of the 8-10km stretch, both of us kinda silent but knowing we were in it together!
And finalllyyyyy
Seeing the finishing line looming ahead had to be one of the BEST feelings ever. EVER! Celebrated with me friends.
Aaaaaand, a big shoutout to a big prawn who swam his way earrrrly in the morning to the start line and helped me prepare for the race! And swam around the race course as I ran and ran, and swam to the finish line and revelled with me after I crossed the finish line! :)
And maybe... just maybe, I might do this again next year. Yeah, I'm crazy.
Labels: friends, leisure, personal, photolog
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date/time Tuesday, September 21, 2010,12:21 PM
A Short Note
Friend,
I find it so hard to connect with you these days. It's left me feeling sad and puzzled about our friendship.
Love, Your Friend. Labels: friends, personal
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date/time Wednesday, September 08, 2010,3:42 AM
for this too shall pass
Darling you are a bright ball of sunshine on the outside, but under that blinding facade you are a dark bubbling mass (or should I say mess) of emotions. Sometimes I wish I could rescue you, but who am I to do that?
Don't burn out, or implode please? Hang in there for the confusions of youth will surely pass.
P.S., 'darling' here is used in the context of friends only. Labels: friends, random thoughts
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date/time Saturday, October 24, 2009,1:07 PM
and one day I too will grow old
So during soci lecture a few days back, the topic was aging, and it was a little boring compared to the rest of the topics but there was one part which was too true and relevant to ourselves to ignore.
I've never thought about old age, because it seems so far away somehow to me. But when the statistics about Singapore's demographics (and predicted demographics) were presented to me, I kind of realized how real growing old is. At that moment I felt exactly as John Mayer sings, "How do I stop myself / From being just a number" in Vultures.
Then he talked about senior citizens having networks that shrank either because they lost contact with their friends or because the friends around them all started dying. It's kinda scary when you think about it; having friends around you die one by one. And I also wondered about losing contact with my friends; how does that even happen? But then I realize how possible that is. I've met a number of friends, and I've lost contact with some of them along the way. Or even if I haven't lost contact - which is pretty hard to do since now we have Facebook and the like - I've stopped talking to them, or somehow things aren't the same anymore as back then, which is really sad but is something I have to accept. So I won't be surprised if the same thing happens at old age. I just hope I still have people then to grow old with.
So when TPP started talking about migration, my heart grew really heavy, because I know a good number of my closest friends have plans to migrate.
Labels: friends, musings, random thoughts
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date/time Tuesday, October 20, 2009,12:32 AM
a little bit of everything
Spinning: Starfield - Unashamed
I'm taking a break from the excel spreadsheets that face me, though I gotta slug it out with them again later. I just found out today that I got a C+ for accounting. Frankly, I'm not surprised; I kinda anticipated it because I didn't study some chapters. But even with the anticipation, it was still a downer. . . . On a brighter note! I was doing some work on the laptop on Friday when suddenly, I receive a call in the middle of the night. Middle of the night calls freak me out like hell because you never know; it could swing two ways - it could be good news or bad news - I've received both before. But it turned out to be Elke, and she told me, quite anxiously, that she had made the boo-boo of buying movie tickets online for a 1.50 a.m. movie that very night (or morning), instead of the 1.50 p.m. slot the following afternoon! So she asked me to go with her, or else the tickets would go to waste. So we call along TPP who, obviously, hadn't slept yet.
And that was how I ended up watching My Sister's Keeper (or My Sister's Helper according to TPP HAHA!) at 1.50 a.m. Elks, TPP and I hopped into Sophie Swift, vroomed to Park Mall only to find the stupid carpark closed, and vroomed again to the Cathay which has a most confusing carpark layout. Anyhow, My Sister's Keeper - quite a heart wrenching tale about love and loss. A certain TPP was overflowing with emotions and tears; she makes me feel like a robot.
Like Elke says, that wasn't the most eventful thing of the day though. After the movie we headed down to Geylang (near Elk's place) to eat some dimsum for supper; it is the most awesome dimsum place I tell you. And it helps that it's always abuzz with activity - so that means there's always a chance to people-watch. And people-watch we did; there were all types of people there. In one night, we saw... a band decked in black, various other tattoo-ed characters, and the most amusing of all, a band of prostitutes whom I suspect are not locals. They stumbled in, cakey make-up, outrageous eye-shadow and all, quite visibly drunk. This particular lady had her arms around 2 other ladies, and she was teetering, on the verge of falling onto Elke and TPP. Minutes later, a bunch of middle-aged men followed through, I suspect they were local, and started their hooligan-ish antics. Lots of touching, staring, and basically being idiots. Urgh, I still have that mental image of this particular guy who was draping himself over a girl.
But it was interesting. :) The most spontaneous thing I've done since... exchange?! . . . . . Every day, I lose a little more faith - I am not talking about God, I am talking about people. This is why I rarely let my emotions get the better of me, it's dangerous. I suppose mystery is always enticing, but once the veil is lifted, that's it. Labels: friends, movies, musings, school
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date/time Tuesday, September 01, 2009,10:51 PM
Hungry?
Mucho! Especially when you have awesome people for company.
Well, this is weird, but this is a continuation from the weird post I left off, cos now I'm wide awake!
Some pictures from the fantastique picnic we had the other day:
Labels: 3505, food, friends, photography, photolog
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date/time 7:26 PM
Random Schnandom
Wow, I feel really sleepy. The weather is fantastic for curling up in bed, so I shall do just that, once I get this post up.
Had a real fun picnic thingy with some 35 peeps last Friday :) I know it's going to be difficult to find a time where we can do that again though, 'cos school is finally swinging into full motion. one of my project meetings is going to be on a Saturday, sigh. Aren't weekends supposed to be sacred!
Anyway I love this:
HEADS!
OK time to sleep. Labels: 3505, friends, random thoughts
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date/time Sunday, August 16, 2009,11:13 PM
Falling Back to Earth
You don't actually feel how different the pace of life in Singapore is from Sweden's until you sit in a lecture theatre for real. For the first time in 7 months, I was trying oh so very hard to keep up with the lecturer.
Alas the time has come to bring myself down to earth. School has commenced in Singapore!!!
Back in Sweden it was very chill. Drag myself to school, have discussions in class, then go back to my hostel (and fly off the following day!) Here, it's completely different.
Friends make it better of course. I had supper @ Bedok 85 with Aman (finally pollo!), Elks, Ivan, Pam, and Sister (finally! Sister!). Stuffed myself full with Bak Chor Mee, Stingray, Orh Luak and BBQ chicken wings, then we headed to my place (minus aman and sister :( ) to play Bridge, Poker, Bluff, and Mahjong. I totally sucked at Bluff because my body language gave me away all the time, and the tiles just didnt' like me in Mahjong. My tiles kept facing the wrong way and they slipped out of my hands all the time, hmmph! (and neither did they like a certain pam teo) haha.
And then of course there was mel's 21st party, which was awesome good fun where people came dressed in retro dresses and suits, and it was just a very comfortable party in general! That was also when I discovered the magic of helium (and what it does to your voice, hahahahah). I'll posts the photos/videos soon :)
Till then, i'm going to have to haul my ass to school tomorrow. Labels: friends, school
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date/time Monday, August 03, 2009,1:19 PM
Way overdue! (aka what i've been up to)
Unemployed and bumming around.
Well, that's just the half of it. The other half - hanging out with my dear friends! Been lugging around my brother's camera trying to capture some of these moments, so those who want to download them at a better resolution than the one FB provides, just click on the slideshow. By the way, some of these photos can't be found on FB :)
KohiTen and HK Cafe Amande, Elks, Ivan, Pam, Pam
Zen Tea Zhu, XT
Sek Wai Sin Amande, Elks, Ivan, Jean, Nessa, Pam T
The Picnic without the Mat Elks, Ivan, Pam T
Labels: 3505, friends, photolog
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date/time Saturday, August 01, 2009,4:52 AM
Supper again!
Lifestyles of the rich and famous; so not for me. I'm a coffeeshop kinda girl, and I can see myself remaining that way for awhile.
Which reminds me, I just came back from Simpang Bedok 2 hours ago, had lots of cheese-onion-egg prata which IMO is tasty tasty! And had my first milo dinosaur (I know right, what a yokel), together with Elks Ivan and Pam, the usual supper gang.
Elks Pam and I then retired to play mono-poker, a cross breed between Monopoly and Poker. It's really fun actually; you kinda see the point behind combining these 2 games. And as the Japanese would say, omoshiroii!
Bahhhh it's back to school soon, help!
Labels: 3505, food, friends, random thoughts
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date/time Wednesday, July 29, 2009,5:28 AM
Supper at the other end of the earth.
Yay. No more hunger pangs at night, at the rate we're going.
35ers and I went for supper at some ulu place @ Jln Kayu. I kept getting lost and scaring the shit out of TPP on the road haha. Not that I am sorry for that because she jumped on my 'cornels' mistake (I was distracted! I was driving round and round the parkway carpark!). I really had fun. I really had fun with Nessa and her BF, Elke, Ivan and TPP. And I'm gonna miss the freedom we're having now when school finally starts.
We then went to ECP with Lucky 'Lala' 'Booboo' Tang, who was really well behaved for the whole thing. And played bridge, uno, poker till 4a.m. ish? And then we went home, and guess what? I Bet all of them are still awake now. HAHA.
We're all gonna have problems waking up for school at this rate!!! Labels: 3505, dogs, friends, random thoughts
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date/time Thursday, July 02, 2009,4:25 PM
Swedish Meatballllssss
I think I've posted some slice-of-life photos in Sweden before... but I never got around to finishing it up. So dish of the day: VALBORG. Spring Fest in Sweden. And no prizes for guessing where the celebrations are centred in Sweden, judging by the crowds thronging the streets in Uppsala!
Oh yeah. People from all over Sweden, gee, people from all over EUROPE come to the sleepy town of Uppsala just for this! So the highlights...
 They come to watch man-made floats survive the treacherous currents of the Fyris river! Okay. Maybe it's not as simple as that. These people are from various different institutions in Uppsala. Like maybe a certain faculty in the University, etc etc. So this Valborg thing is a chance to show off their boat-building skills (and also design, definitely, the Scandinavians have these thing about combining form and function :)) You could call it the dragon boat race of the west, except there are no dragons. OK, actually there was one, the Asian Cultural Club or something? I spotted one dragon like boat floating past, I think. Well, you get my drift.
 And this is where the participants go 'ahhhhhhhh my boat's not made for this!'. This is the supposed climax of the boat race. Seeing whether your man-made boat made of scrap materials can withstand the sheer strength of the rapids in the Fyris river. Heh heh. Most boats break into pieces by this point, and the ones who get through usually get to the finish line.
And they have this really strange ceremony. The chancellor of the University is somewhere amongst this crowd. Current and previous grads of Uppsala University are supposed to wave their caps at people at a certain hour. It's all very strange actually. But it's cool to see the really old students come back with their own caps and waving for all their energy's worth!
So here are all the Uppsalite Singaporeans, with the addition of people from other parts of Europe who came to visit (yes, just for the festival). The guy in the front is someone who randomly decided to hijack our photo.
What's spring without a picnic under the long anticipated sunlight? I love picnics in Europe. Or actually, picnics that are held in places that aren't anywhere near the equator and during Spring and Summer are amazing. It's sunny, yet its also really cooling!
And on this day only, the Uppsalites love to celebrate in a really unique, close to decadent, way. They call it the champagne gallop. And what is done there? Basically, student clubs bust out their best champagne and people pay to get in - and get this - buy a bottle of champagne, shake it really really vigorously, pop the cork, and start spraying at random strangers (who paid to participate of course). To lots of trance music, of course. hahahahha. Here you see the aftermath of us having the cheaper version of the champagne gallop - the BEER gallop. We bought cans of beer, shook it up a lot, and started spraying at each other. I know, such cheapskates we are. But we did have fun and that's what matters!
 Can't call it Valborg if you don't check out what's going on in Uppsala at night. We were at Saluhallen, apparently one of the clubs catering to the more mature, working crowd. And it was obvious it was more high end - the stupid cover fee and alcohol were at least 1.5X the usual price charged by the rest of the student clubs. Anyway. Saluhallen is Swedish for 'Market Hall'. And this place is pretty interesting in that in the day, it really is a market hall selling meat, fish, and what not. But at night, it turns into a nightspot. So one of my friends was joking that Saluhallen was apt indeed, 'cos it was Uppsala's 'Meat Market'.
 And we were all dancing happily in the R&B cramped room (with lots of making out going on around us but by now we were allllll numb to it. We kinda just elbow them out of the way somehow.) Then suddenly, the fire alarm goes off. So we were all shooed outta the club and we were standing there in the freezing Spring air. The girls all grabbed a smelly blanket and wrapped ourselves up in them!
So that was Valborg, in a nutshell. Exciting stuff :) And now that I look back on these photos, there's a part of me which misses my long hair. Heh. Labels: events, exchange, friends, photolog, sweden, travel
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date/time Thursday, February 26, 2009,10:42 PM
Delirious!
I'm turning into a domestic goddess. Yesterday, banana cake. Today, BAKED PASTA. And I didn't use any one of those instant-microwavable chunks of things.
HAHA. Oh and recently we've been going out with some friends from the Netherlands, I find it so comfortable to talk to them! No awkward silences, just conversation as smooth as wine.
OK I'm sorry I'm feeling full to the brim cos I just ate so much carbo, and all that energy had to go somewhere. I'm off to destroy other things! Labels: exchange, food, friends, sweden, travel
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date/time Wednesday, January 07, 2009,9:27 PM
Goodbyes
I went for a coupla 'short-term' farewell dinners with my friends, and at the same time jumped at the opportunity to embark on an Asian-Food-Only Sabbatical. No remotely Western food for the next few days because that's probably what I'm going to be eating for a while...
I went to chompchomp with Cheryl, Marilyn, GY, XY and PN, and basically we stuffed ourselves with carrot cake, char kway teow, orh luah, sambal kangkong, BBQ Belachan Stingray and BBQ chicken. Not forgetting the gargantuan mug of sugar cane and lime juice that we shared amongst ourselves ;)
 Said gargantuan sugar cane juice is on the right. it's huuuuge.
After which we went to Cheryl's clubhouse to chill. It was a pretty nice place since it was by the pool and we were just talking and being crazy as usual.
_________________________
Then MXYZ went for a small gathering at Crystal Jade Xiaolongbao. I decided to eat the ma-la (ultra spicy) soup noodles, taking into account the fact that chilli's really hard to find there :).
The Scarf that all of them bought + a card from Zhu :) so sweet of them
 Heh. In the midst of bitching about an admin staff member I had to put up with. Xiaoting listens sympathetically. Haha  And the four of us. Blurred, but you get the idea. So that's all for now, another one coming up tomorrow evening. It's RAMEN this time around! Labels: friends, personal, photolog, sweden
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date/time Monday, October 13, 2008,6:37 PM
Because I'm Loco Over Lomo
UPDATE: 3505 pictures from a while back, and random shots of Italy.
For ages I've been trawling the web to find out more about how to achieve a certain vintage effect on photos. I've finally found out how to do it. 2 ways - the real way involves buying a cute little camera called the Holga, and the fake way involves, well, faking the effect. In any case, this style of photography is called ' Lomo Photography'. And it's so fun, because it involves shooting from the hip (quite literally!), taking spontaneous portraits of people, and just random bizarre snapshots of the things or people you encounter in your life.
Because the holga film is so expensive, I had to take the cheapskate route and create these effects digitally. I only had a few minutes to tinker around with it though; my projects are kinda waiting for me to complete. So here goes, a special little 'ta-da' picture as a taste of things to come.
From this:  To this:  I plan to embark on a 'Loco For Lomo' project, finding interesting shots of places, objects, and people I know, and creating that effect :) Such photos will be filed under this post/tag. I intend to bring this idea over to Sweden as well; one photo snapped a day will keep the boredom away.
Labels: 3505, friends, hong kong, lomo, photography, photolog, projects
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date/time Friday, July 18, 2008,9:42 PM
1,2,3,4
Spinning: Jason Mraz - Lucky I was thumbing through a CD sleeve jacket of a singer ( I can't remember what her name is ), and something caught my eye. And I thought it best described the state of my mind now. "There's so much more to see, I don't believe this is how the world should be" Couldn't have phrased it better myself. ______________ TCC with the 3505 fellas was greattttt. I can't believe I did the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 posing thing though. Definitely wouldn't be caught dead doing it if it weren't for them. Heh.  Much Love Peeps.
Labels: 3505, friends, personal, random thoughts
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date/time Wednesday, August 22, 2007,1:21 AM
She loves her puns
Spinning: Kings of Convenience - Little Kids WOMAD 2007 is here! And for the record, Pam T/Amande, it stands for World of Music, Arts & Dance. Not Week of Music and Drama, but good try. Heh. I had a grrrreat time with Pam T, Amande, Elke, Sister, and Rachel. They wiped out all my troubles... Amande was, as usual, terrorizing me. She was at her punning best as she made a total of 2 successful puns in a night. No easy feat. Let's see, she blurted 'Hiroshima cost a bomb', in reference to her Literature Book (titled something something Hiroshima) costing a lot. Then, she declared that she, along with Pam T and Elke were my 'exposure modules'. And the last, I did not count because it was absolutely ridiculous. Our bus whizzed past a very interesting looking all-white temple (it was somewhere near Bukit Merah), and when I pinched the bridge of my nose, she continued - or tried to - her punning spree, asking me if I was 'pinching my temples'. No, Amande, it's called the bridge of the nose. There's only so many puns you can use in one evening :) Completely lame/nonsensical to others, but the involved parties/witnesses will understand all right. Labels: friends, random thoughts, recommendations
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date/time Friday, July 27, 2007,2:10 AM
Potluck Friday
Spinning: Maroon 5 - Little of Your Time
EDIT: I added some lovely, lovely photos from Raf. Go visit her blog for more! I also pushed the date up 'cos I know there are lazy bums out there who don't like to scroll to the bottom :)
OK. I should be sleeping in a bid to reset my body clock; but I couldn't resist. Here are the photos which tell one heck of a story of what happened on July 20. Amazing day, that was.
So Amande, XT and Zhu came over to cook up a real storm. We made Amande's Potato Salad,and my Deep Fried Chicken, and there were the fruits and hotdogs that XT and Zhu pre-made, respectively.
And so, we were all ready to go; armed with big, metal trays filled up to the brim with delish food. Yes, I am praising our own culinary skills, ha!
No prizes for guessing what we did there. We played board games:
Card games (the usual Bridge and Dai Dee, what else. Oh, and Asshole Dai Dee, very Medieval, if you ask me):
Very proud of being a bona fide Bridge player, she is:
And, psst, we are all closet Mahjong Aunties!
I wasn't really one of them (I'm more a card person), but I heard the sounds of the tiles being 'washed' (shuffled) on the table, and some random exclamations of "Peng!", "Hu!" and whatnot. Yes, we were very noisy. Like how true blue Mahjong maestros should be.
OK so RJ's house was a mini gambling den (sans the money actually. We were playing more than gambling) But apart from that we also photowhored as USUAL:
Yes, those are polaroids. Amande brought her talking Polaroid camera which was a hoot. The resulting photos looked nostalgic, really. I'd like to develop that photo and look back on it again, 10/20 years on.
Hooray, more camwhoring.
I'm a supporter, too! And I end up looking like one of those pseudo-cute tweens. Hehe. It was meant to be a "I'm so insane my eyes refuse to look at the camera" pose. Bah.
Raf brought her humongous monster of a camera. And we all were soooo fascinated with it. Here she is teaching us how to use her fantabulous camera. It was really fun, and a lot of us took it and rushed around clicking away frenetically.
A good part of the evening was spent chilling, and catching up:
At some point of time our eyes were glued to the telly. This is my personal favourite, for some reason:
The power of the telly does not hold for long. We soon turn back to whatever it is we were doing. Mahjong, Bridge, and Dai Dee. Our class is a real winner.
The evening soon passed, and a whole lot of people made their way back. The remaining people, however, were game for a round of Twister. And twist we did, to the sounds of Earth Wind and Fire...
I was giggling away at poor Zhu's plight. I was out of the tangle by then and was happily snapping away at the poor sods. Haha!
Sister and her butt ruled the Twister mat, they did.
RJ declares some lurve for the Twister game. Of course she loved it, that perv. Heh.
OK, I don't know exactly what Elks is smiling at, but I assume it's cos she's happy about NOT being in a tangle, for once.
And here I have some really random pictures of us having fun. I'm not done with this post yet, though, cos I await some really great photos from Raf and Pam T. EDIT: First two photos from here are Raf's.
This was completely candid. That's what I love about it:
 OK RJ's really fond of sticking cards to her face. And Raf loves to eat... money?! 
Here's one going out to Milkshake, RJ's pooch. Gotta love that snow white fur!
Labels: 3505, events, friends, photolog
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Profile
21 year old student still trying to find her way around the world; like any other :)
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