the end of another weekend

I'm drowning out the sound of raindrops on my window by catching up with the latest episodes of Gossip Girl, listening to new Christian songs, and (going to) listen to the new CD produced by City Harvest Church entitled "Light of the City" I bought yesterday.

It's still odd going to church on a Saturday instead of Sunday, and I'm finding this free time very... surprisingly satisfying. =)

Joy Williams has always been one of my favourite Christian pop artists for the past few years. I started listening to her songs about 2 or 3 years ago, found the songs "nice" but soon found my new love with Nichole Nordeman songs. But now, I randomly stumbled upon her latest series of demos- WOW you've got to listen to her song "Lose myself" (track 4).




Lose Myself
written by:
Joy Williams and Steve Wilson

About the song:

"I find it curious that songs written nebulously in an
afternoon can somehow mean more to me retroactively over time. This is one of those tunes. I wrote this as a cathartic experience a few months ago, not really seeing the outline I'd drawn in the dark. Looking at it now, I see a confession about both fear that traps me and also strength that calls from The Deep...as an acknowledgement of my past, and as a declaration to keep learning to live without fear in the future."

Lyrics:

I'm so sick of hiding myself in everybody else
I'm singing in a burning building and no one can help
Stuck in my own room holding the key
It's just me

I know I've got a long way to go
It's too easy to lose, lose myself
I need another way to find me
It's too easy to lose, lose myself

I can't count the lines I crossed
The little gray mistakes
So busy kissing fears that only suffocate
I'd turn this ship around if I knew where I was
But it's filling up

I know I've got a long way to go
It's too easy to lose, lose myself
I need another way to find me
It's too easy to lose, lose myself

Unpacking all the years
Too close to the fireworks
Watch out
Too close to the fireworks

I know I've got a long way to go
It's too easy to lose, lose myself
I need another way to find me
It's too easy to lose, lose myself

Tourguides for a night

It's officially my 35th day in Singapore.

And today is officially one of the best nights YET.

Sharon T (my flattie huneeeeeey winks) and family came to SG for a SHORT visit- arrived yesterday night and leaving tomorrow afternoon. Met her and cousin at Chinatown mrt for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, had bubble tea at Koi cafe, brought them "touring" around the Esplanade, the malls around City Hall, and the Fountain of Wealth. All those places in about 3 hours, haha!

Chinatown. It's not even Christmas yet, and the lanterns are out already

crispy skin chicken YUM
look at all those chopsticks TSK TSK! cannot even wait for me to take a photo

cousin & sharon
gosh u guys look alike eh!

building @ Chinatown

Koi cafe @ Chinatown, most authentic Taiwanese bubble tea in SG
where we had our "small" bubble tea
absolutely yum that Sharon's cousin bought extra 2 more for their parents

flatmates!

a philharmonic quintet performing Christmas carols @ Esplanade
they're super talented: the lady in the middle arranged the songs- she's an engineer by day and a saxophonist by night, so cool!

walked out of Esplanade and saw another group singing carols
gosh the atmosphere =)

cousins enjoying the pretty night view

On our way to see the SG flyer, a lady stopped us and asked if we would like to write down our new year vision on little diamond-shaped tags, which were then hanged on the deco outside the Esplanade. See pic - Ron did it coz we're all too short =P

I love it when the wind blows and all the little pieces of paper with everyone's new year visions just swayed along with it =) So symbolic & meaningful!

home is where the heart is

A few pictures of my new home (for the next 2 months) here in SG as requested.

desk & chair with my new laptop

single bed (& extra mattress for mum when she gets here next week yay!)

the wardrobe (for once) is bigger than I need =P
I brought only a few sets of clothes thinking that I'd go crazy with shopping here
the other side of the wardrobe is practically empty

the kitchen (which we seldom use) & living room
there's even a dead cockroach in one of the cupboards under the sink...

1 of the 2 toilets we share (among 4)
there's even a magazine rack with a few fashion mags to read while doing your business, how convenient! ;)

"original" (ice OUTSIDE) milk tea @ a Shanghainese restaurant at Bugis area
according to them, the "fake" one has ice inside the drink haha

especially for Janice: Mr Mak & Chyi =P
according to the guy: they divorced coz Chyi demanded his fortune
according to Chyi: they divorced due to long distance r/ship. awwww

Chyi with her friends and sisters

jOSs & Chyi

chyi being chyi...

Met up with Chyi & friends/sisters after work at Bugis area. Finally got to see her (used to be blonde) now golden/brunette-ish hair. And her famous friends I always read in her blog. Lucky her, just came back from Hong Kong/Macau trip, going back to Brunei to wreck havoc there soon. Wish I have the time and money to go travelling all I want too.

Was great catching up with you, crazy hair lady. All the best for your internship thing at Brunei! Will definitely go find you if the family decide to go there during Feb next year.

Feels a little weird going back to Buona Vista mrt at night since for the past month I've been going there only for work. So proud of myself for not getting lost walking back from the mrt station back home just now, haha! (it's about a 15-min walk based on my walking speed)

Again, happy graduation to all you graduants! especially to my dearest Jacqie-huney who got her 1st class honours (no surprise there) and all the pharmacy gang! =)

The day I became a millionaire

I'm now typing from my new room! =D

It's a 4-bedroom HDB flat at Holland Drive, just minutes away from where I work (the Biopolis). Super convenient with many food courts, restaurants, and supermarkets just a few blocks away. The place is more expensive as it's where all the expats working at biopolis lives. So there's actually a lot of angmohs walking around here that I feel like I'm back in NZ, haha!

My flatmates are nice nice people! Have not seen one of them yet, but gosh they are all professionals. Like REAL professionals: one which I spent 2 hours talking to just now waiting for the key from landlady is a doctor working at the general hospital, my colleague at GIS, and another girl (have not met yet) is a nurse. Makes me feel so UNprofessional, being a student and all, hehe. They're all Malaysian girls, and the doctor is even from Kuching. The place is nice and cozy, would need to buy more things though, for example bedroom slippers coz the floor gets dusty easily.

So I went to Batam yesterday. We missed the 11am ferry ride intended to take, so arrived there only at past 1pm. Unfortunately due to lack of planning and being too dependent on the visitor info centres (which they don't have there at Batam -__- ), and also as there's not much to do there, we started off feeling very disappointed with the trip. The ferry ride costed $40 per person for a return trip, thankfully the exchange rate made everything seem cheap in Indo.

BTW 1 SGD = 7,000 Rupiahs
or RM1 = 3,000 Rupiahs

So when I went to cash out some money to spend there, I became an instant millionaire. =P

on the ferry ride to Batam

I thought it's short of Batam Fried Chicken.
But it's actually short for BEST Fried Chicken. ooOOoooOoo

at Nagoya Hill SC.
I think the fake santa looks creepy- his face looks deformed somehow.

mocha fudge sundae at the megamall.
1. the mall is anything but mega.
2. the sundae is OK-ish, but anyone could have made it.
3. the waffles I ordered as well tasted so bad.
4. I don't like those preserved cherries, meh.

Nagoya Hill shopping mall.
only the ceiling was nice =P

After walking around feeling so depressed looking at the sad sad shopping malls (imitation goods everywhere), we caught a taxi to another mall (Nagoya Hill shopping centre) and tried looking for a (non-dodgy looking) massage centre. The most non dodgy-looking massage centre we chose to go into was called "Isabella" =) Price for 1 and a half hours of traditional Thai massage (supposedly very relaxing) was 100,000Rps (try converting, it's so cheap).

We hesitated- very long- before finally going in. Didn't take photos of the place. But upstairs, the place was divided by curtains (like the general hospital curtain dividers) into separate makeshift rooms, each "room" comes with a mattress on the floor and hooks to hang clothes.

When I first went in there, I saw the shorts and towel provided and didn't know what to do. haha! I never had a "real" full body massage before. The massage lady (most probably an Indon girl) peeked into my room and told me to change. I felt so paiseh the whole time with only a short towel and shorts on. =P (How would YOU feel if someone pulled down your pants and massaged your butt?)

Me: "tukar baju kah" (change clothes issit?) (pointing to the towel and shorts on the bed)
Indon massage girl: Ya (nods head, looks amused)
Me: (pause) (looks back at the towel) "baju dalam juga?" *gulps*
Indon massage girl: (nods again, looking at me as if I couldn't have NOT known that)

Tried to relax but GOSH it was painful. She's really good at massaging the pressure points though. So even though throughout the whole thing I was cringing and trying not to say "ouch" too many times, the end result was good. I never felt so energised and MASSAGED my whole life. haha! My muscles still hurt a little now, but yes it is worth the money.

Amazingly, Ron fell asleep during the massage session. Don't ask me how. Ask him. haha!

After that, the super kind taukeh offered to take us to a nearby seafood restaurant to have dinner, then took us back to the ferry terminal in his flashy sports car. He's like our guardian angel for the day =)

Seafood was super cheap. Ordered butter prawns and sweet & sour chicken, the bill came to 71000 rupiahs- which is just a little over SGD7!!! I'm amazed. If there's one reason I'd go back to Batam for (which I won't), it's for the cheap seafood. =P

So the first ever "escapade"/adventure- very ahem interesting and a real eye-opener. Will definitely plan more thoroughly for the next trip- be it Melaka, JB, KK and/or Macau (just maybe).

Hello long, well-deserved weekend!

It's the long weekend! (silly happy face here)

Monday's a public holiday, so a lot of things are happening this weekend. Which is good. =)

First and foremost: the most boring part of my "report"/blogpost, work-related. I'm glad that my new mentor (not the Indian dude) actually showed me new things, made sure I understood terms, and even let me know it's still not too late for me to switch to another department (i.e. infectious diseases) in the institute that's more related to what I'd been studying if I want to. He told me to think through it during the weekend, but I'm still deciding to stick to his project and the current (though boring, computational) project that he's assigned me to do- since it's already been a month of me reading and studying this particular field of confusing population genetics. Not to say that it's totally unrelated to microbiology, but switching to another supervisor would (most certainly) involve more readings and more admin stuff which I can't be bothered right now.

So yeah, I'm just trusting in God that this is will be beneficial to my studies (somehow) and that I will have something to do during these next 2 months, and also something to write about in the report after this attachment/work.

Met up with Greg and Janice before they went back for graduation. On Wednesday night, went to the Max Brenner cafe again at the Esplanade. Then just before we left, Ron secretly bought a small slice of cake for the Gns to celebrate their graduation. AFTER they made their wish, blew the candle, and we started eating the cake, then the manager (I think) of the cafe suddenly came up to us and said in exact words "You're not allowed to eat the cake here". Basically he went on about how outside food is not allowed in the cafe as they sell cakes as well. Long story short, we were quite upset (Greg particularly) about how he could have mentioned it to us earlier (before we started eating) and especially when we asked for extra forks, and he could have said it in a NICER, more polite way. Was glad Greg actually challenged the manager: "so what do you want us to do now?" he told us he had also wanted to say "spit it out from our mouths or shall we just carry on eating the cake?"

That would really embarrass the manager. We had noticed he wasn't too happy taking photos for us at the first place. Thing is, we weren't unhappy that we can't eat the cake in the cafe (or that we were told off), but to only get that "You're not allowed to eat that here" comment WHILE we're already eating, and it's not like we didn't order anything from the cafe either, plus he was being very unprofessional and lacks any customer service skills whatsoever. Too bad that the cafe offers good drinks/food, and we'd love to go back, but now- super bad impression especially if he's still working there. So much for a good reputation.

Finally met up with Julianna (from my group of good friends back in secondary school) who's been studying here at NUS after so long (2 years, wasn't it?) Had left my camera at home as initial plan was to watch movie. But we ended up in a nice restaurant at VivoCity and talked quite a bit, shopped around as well so decided to skip the movie. Feels great catching up with old friends. =)

Speaking of which, I caught up with John aka bunny (from SFEC, church back home in Kuching) and Uncle Voon and family this morning. Woke up super early, went to some malls (Vivocity, Queensway, IKEA) and spent time with them till 4pm-ish. Went to church after that, had dinner with church friends, and finally came home after more than 14 hours been out.

So accommodation has been confirmed! =D I'd signed the rental contract for 2 months, starting on the 8th of December, so most probably will move in on Monday since it's a public holiday. Exciting- would meet my other flatmates as I only know one of them, my colleague. And no more waking up super early to catch mrts and buses anymore yay! The new place I'll be staying will be about 10 to 15 mins walk away from work, maybe even closer with the free shuttle service.

before the unpleasant encounter with the manager @ Max Brenner
Janice & I were wearing the same t shirt- Illuminate! =)

nice Christmas deco outside the Esplanade

Uncle Voon and John @ Sky Park, VivoCity

guess what we found at the harbour? MV DOULOS!!!
haha, again. Saw it at Auckland around June/July this year, bought many books; didn't expect to see it here in SG to be honest. The Voon family: Aunty Roselind, Uncle Voon, Vyner, & Kevin.

"MushaBelly" talking toy @ Toys R Us, buy 1 get 1 free!
haha didn't buy it of course, John got it for his nieces.
May: it actually looks like the one you gave me, right? or your piggy one too

Tommorow Ron and I will be going to Batam (Indo) for a one day trip! haha only time I heard about Batam before I came here 1 month ago was during the Phua Chu Kang shows. =P Jaslin mentioned about the nice spas there, so maybe will go have a try hehe!