leadership is about influence
and i concede that i have none. all appreciation to my vice capt jiatian for convincing ruifen and sock to go for tj friendly. :)
5 more days to school, and unlike the norm, i have work yet to be done. usually i'm almost done by this time of the holidays. but i guess this will be one memorable december for me. and i'm so looking forward to school. i mean it. looking forward to our juniors, orientation (though i wont be part of it in any way), lectures, tutorials, nationals, a'lvls... and then after that we'll go on a trip, out of singapore. :) getting all excited about the year ahead.
hope you gals are too!
boxing day
hello fellow lcians. hope u all had a good xmas! mine was ok. i spent it abit loserly tho. u see, after lunch when i relatives all went back, my sis went out with her fren to watch ocean's 12(don watch it, they din even noe wad the plot was!) and my bro went out w his fren to play lan. and where did i go? to my bed. then my parents went out to dunno where. my mom told me but i was half asleep so i quickly forgot. so that left poor me all alone. the only one with no plans for myself. boohoo. so i just continued sleeping. (yes wt i always sleep during the day). aren't u all proud to have me as pres? anw, at nite i watched back2back comedies- that 70's show, friends, the kumars at no.42, coupling. and i must say, coupling is one of the funniest shows i've ever watched!!! well maybe it was onli that episode, i've nv watched the others b4. it was so so so so funny. i wish i could paste a clip of it here. so here's wad happened(i wun seem v funny when i explain but trust me it was). this guy broke up w his gf one yr ago and then bumped into her at his shop. the gf is now w someone else and is pregnant but he doesn;t noe. then the gf leaves her bag in it in his shop. while she's gone, her phone rings so he answers it. it's some fren from the pregnancy clinic. the guys bluffs that he is his ex's current bf and the girl on the other line says congrats and bye. then the guys starts wondering wad the congrats was for, wonder wonder wonder.. and then he decides to call the girl back. so he calls, says he's the bf, and asks wad the congrats was for. the girl then asks "aren't u the bf?". so he noes hes supposed to noe sth but doesn;t so and doesn;t wanna get into trouble pretending hes the bf anymore and says that his ex is back already. so he pretends to be his ex in this high squeaky voice and the stupid girl on the other line believes. " e ex" then asks stupidly if she brought anyone w her in the aft cos she forgot. so lame rite. then dunno wad happened but i think somehow the girl on the other lines says tells "the ex" that the ex was pregnant. so that guy says"i'm pregnant?!?" in an even squeakier and higher voice. then he starts a conv w himself- he's on the fone pretending to be his ex, and then he puts the phone away from him pretending to be the bf. now the girl on the other line stops talking. she just listens to the 'conversation' gg on. the guy, shocked and confused, asks why he wasn't infromed and if the baby is his-"is it mine??" BUT he accidentally said it using the "e ex's" voice. so funny!! so he replies himself that of course it's her's cos she's the mom. then he used the bf's voice to ask if its his and answers himself that it couldn't be cos they haven;t been tgt for a yr. then dono wad they argue abt calling each other stupid and suddenly he says using his ex's voice(so now the ex is scolding him as him, not her current bf) that he is so stupid that he's on the phone pretending to be her. yup. so thats how that part ended. hope u understand the plot. haha. hai its really v funny la. so that was my xmas. how were urs? dun get lazy ppl- start blogging! while i stop for now. oh and btw. dun mind the title. i justused it cos the previous 2 were xmas already. haha.
christmas
hey lcia-ers! it's christmas!! merry christmas to all of you. :) definitely a season to be jolly cos Jesus Christ is the reason all behind it. and it's not only this one day -- Christmas, or this one month -- December, but the whole year round. keep your spirits up cos there's a living hope!
guess what's the first thing i did this morning after waking up, using the toilet etc etc! i made myself breakfast, not like i don't usually do that, but this time round, i made my own milo. every other normal day, it's either my mom making milo for me (that's for school days!), or me being too lazy (during the holidays!) and making do with nice plain water. what a start to the day!
i've been out of touch with the newspapers for weeks. all the way since holidays started and i got caught up with squash trainings, meeting friends, camps, etc. and when i got back from obs about a week ago, right in front of me was a pile of overdued newsweek that i used to finish up so fervently only to cast it behind my desk. i think there were 5 different issues, and when i tore open the plastic wrapper, i was shocked to find out there were double issues in two of them. and just to let my mom be assured that all the money plunged into this investment (2 years newsweek subscription!!!) was necessary, i began my hike into the unfamiliar terrains of words (after 5 weeks of brain inactivity). and i'm beginning to see the light at the end of this seemingly impenetrable jungle, which is a good sign i suppose.
okies, some good stuff to share with you. now, let's turn with me to pg 19 of your issues 2005 special edition if you have it with you. yar i know i don't sound like a teacher. but i've put teaching as a career back on track, after some enlightenment from higher orders. anyway, back to what i have: "greatness comes, it seems to me, when leaders make real a vision of the world as they wish it to be without losing touch with the reality of the world as it is... ... there was no ambivalence, no fear, no reservation. it was a courageous clarity, however, matched by patience, candor and a healthy respect for the vicissitudes of history. churchill, the student of war, knew triumph would not come overnight; reagan, the old union president, understood the art of negotiation; bush senior, the seasoned diplomat, grasped that force had to be matched by assiduous alliance-building". this reminds me of my obs experience, when we had to conduct the commitment activity. we were to climb up this high structure, and at the top, we had to remind ourselves of the commitment that we wrote down the night before, and brace ourselves for the worst as we leap forward to grab hold of a bar dangling about 1.5m before us. at the moment when we leapt forward, i'm pretty sure there was no ambivalence, no fear, no reservation, but in place a courageous clarity of what we want to commit ourselves to. and i respect everyone there for embracing that courageous moment.
did you realise that my paragraphs keep getting longer? time for me to end it off short and sweet. yup, off to church. have a merry christmas! a good time to start pondering the reason for christmas, and the reason for living. :)
christmas.
So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young
merry christmas.
happy birthday britt
hey britt!
it's been a year! everything's moving really quick here for me. i dont know about you. but i hope you're enjoying yourself, making new friends, and taking opportunities to discover more of yourself as they come. i think this year has been a rather eventful year for me, having to step into a new environment, making new friends, trying out new sports (i'm in squash now, you know!!), balancing studies and play on an even thinner piece of tightrope, taking on a new subject (econs!), and so much more. this year has been more trying for us all at lcia (if you dont already know, it's the club that our dear meryl and robs founded back in sc) cos we were all put in different schools (well, almost all), and our schedules did not fit nicely. but we learnt, and we accomodated, and we still met up at the start of the year, for dinners at scotts (our favourite hangout then). we met up during the holidays i guess, but i went to maldives with my school in march, clara to bali with hers in june (a coincidence that she met smo there on holiday), robs to cambodia for missions in june, so there was only the faintest, vaguest memory of us meeting during the march and june holidays. and sept holidays was the worst, cos everyone's busy with promos, pw, rushing to finish one year's work in a matter of one week. isn't it amazing that everyone managed to pull through in the end? one year just came and went like that. but you know what? it isn't the activities that left the greatest impression, but more so the experience that we survived the year together, the acknowledgement that we've grown closer despite being physically apart. i dont know what went on for you this year. but i certainly hope that there was at least one thing that really made this year a different one from all the seventeen that you've gone through. happy 17th birthday britt! miss you lots.
your ex-desk partner,
wai teng
yo yo yo!
v dead here hor...
think this place is gonna be the next crissxcross.
haha...
started off enthusiatic....passion dies off and gets shelved into the archives....
lol...
luckily there wont be cobwebs for us to clear ya? :)
neways...
thanx for the presents...
tootz, the candy is from who? neway, itis v nice...long long time since i last eate palatable candies....hahaha....
yeappie...have fun for xmas. ya...im going to buy ur presents tml! :P
cya soon. i believe all of u will want ur presents before xmas rite?
must put my present under ur xmas tree hor! i'll try to get a nice wrapping paper...
maybe i'll put some glitters and LEDs on it...such that it stands out ya! :D
lol....
take carezz...
neway...
bad news for fel! but too bad shez gone to korea...
im still addicted to the rudolf the red nose reindeer song!
and i only can sing the first sentence...
wahhaha....teach me? :P
this is the journey
this is the journey. after days of planning, failed attempts to convince everyone to turn up, and routes marked visually on maps, this was it. five of us got down to executing the plan. shujun, elsa, ian and richard picked me up at the marine parade cc busstop after i rushed down from church in the rain after some theme talk conducted during wesley camp. thank God for the umbrella that the security guards at brmc offered. :) thank God again that when i finally found my way to meet the rest, after missing the last 196 for the day, it wasn't raining anymore. we cycled to east coast park, and all the way to the end, where naturally being ambitious, we decided to probe on to kallang, then the esplanade, followed by orchard. in 4 hours' time, we were at taka, the x-box station, where elsa and richard battled it out, while the rest of us took a break and replenished our supplies at the 7-eleven. it was all stop, rest, cycle, "careful of the drain!", "don't cycle on the road", "i think we should walk now, cos the road's a little too narrow", "where are we now?" on our quest to conquer orchard, but after we got there, it was pretty smooth sailing all the way back to east coast park, with hardly any rest. we tried to catch the sunrise at bedok jetty, which was quite a distance at the other end of east coast park, but the clouds were just there to disappoint us. in the end, we settled for some sighting of fishes and jellyfishes in the murky sea, taking a group photo to mark the end of our journey before dishing out whatever snacks we had left at some empty spot as our breakfast while playing a new version of asshole daidee. cool. i learnt an enhanced version of the game. everyone's ass was hurting from the 7 hour ride, and we were so tired, that we could only drag our bikes to the bike shop to return. tired. tired. tired. that was the journey of 5 people, where in fact, it should have been that of 25 people. where did the rest go, i wonder.
lo and behold
heya lcia-ers! what's up with all of you? haven't seen you all ard at all!!! all mia-ing. except robs. at least i noe she's off to cambodia for missions. just got back from church camp at the singapore's one and only sports school. wonder how tight the security is over there? think 10 times nj. cards here, keys there. maybe they should consider using biometrics, a term i came to know of only when christina's group did that subject for pw. think i'm getting old -- my group leaders for this year and last year were younger than me!! i guess we have to praise God for raising such a generation that no one's too young to serve Him. :) even the games and worship and so many more stuff were undertaken by youths! and all these for His kingdom and glory. amen.
came home on tuesday afternoon, with half-tank energy. thought i could last through the night, but was like a dead log on bed till 9 the next morning. that's when all the smses came flowing in!! scary stuff. sji friendly on thursday at 10am, rgs friendly on friday -- haven't trained for a week or so, haven't informed the rest of the team (and it's wednesday when i got the news!!). glad that some of them could make it despite the super last-minute message. then it was gift-wrapping cip with ros and des at funan. super boring! but ros did fairly well entertaining us with her stories. met up with my family for dinner after that and shopped a bit at taka. quite glad to spend some time with them after being busy all throughout this holiday. take that as some comfort. :)
ok so the next day began with me getting up early and actually being at nj on time for training before the sji friendly. jiatian was early too. haha. cat came in a bit late (consider it early according to her standards). i think we talked more than we trained then we walked out the long way and took a bus to sji, the one and only 156. jiatian came up with a theory that if we didn't think of 156, it'll come faster. so we tried to do it her way, not exactly, but 156 came pretty soon after that. but still we were late. the guys were not at the bus stop, went in without us. if it were the other way, i'm sure the girls would have waited for them. anyway, we played with the sji guys, ben's juniors. the sji guys were good, most of them, relative to our standard. one of the sec 1s could even beat zhinvee! hmph. says a lot about our training. i played with this sec1 guy called joel. he's quite short, quite handsome, but has some attitude. haha. his serves always go out of court, and when his friends give him advice, he'll have the 'i know, but i can't correct it' look. the coach was quite funny. and he used to coach nj a few years back, but now we've got zainal, which is cool too, except that he's not as funny. haha. played a bit of queen before we packed up and left for town.
had lunch at pastamania with jiatian, cat, ben and weesiang, after which jiatian and cat joined huiming, pam and i roaming around orchard, particularly cine and heeren. took neoprints with huiming and pam at heeren, while jiatian and cat patronised the mix&match store, which proved to be pretty handy when jiatian, cat and i went over to cine to catch national treasure. didn't know what was the fuss with national treasure until we watched it. it was good. kind of boring initially, or maybe i was just tired after squash in the morning. cat and jiatian were hilarious! both of them were like covering their eyes at crucial moments of the movie, and it wasn't anything close to a horror flick! haha. then it was home sweet home. rgs friendly postponed to next tuesday, and some of us gathering back at sji tomorrow for another round of friendlies, this time with jjc as well. :)
so what's up with the rest of you? update la.
STARHUB
i desperately need some sales...
and...ya, here i am.
using this tiny lil hope, trying to regain the very minuscule self confidence.
my second consecutive day of zero sales!
and today is my third time.
how demoralising la!
okay...i shouldnt ramble here....
neway....
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busy business
everyone seems to be busy with something somehow. song has some cip going on, plus some three day thing next week, can't even afford some time to hold a meet-and-greet session with fellow lc member zhiqi and me. fluff has her changi airport attachment on. so cool right? working at the airport. i'm sure it's 10 times better than my raffles hotel stint in sec 3. robs has her commitment to church camp comm and missions comm, she'll be flying off soon in dec. pray for her and the team yar? ra is busy with.. er cip? air rifle trainings? photog meetings? dunno what she's up to, but she'll find stuff to do anyhow. smo, hmph, not sure what she's up to these days too. think she's finding stuff to do as well, learning new things and all. i've got church camp this sat till next tue, want to hold a squash friendly and have the class night biking trip on soon after i'm back from camp, then off for obs, then really have to start work (as in studying for next year)! it seems packed, my holidays. yet i know that i can make time to do work. that's when guilt comes in, when you know you can but you don't.
anw, something short from my squash camp experience on 29th. coach training in the morning, with all the girls present, and only two guys. or was it three? waited a bit more, while coach talked about training, about warming up, or about something. haha he always does that (and gets carried away). so instead of waiting a bit more, we waited a lot more, but still only the few of us were there. then we moved on to the track to start warm-ups first. one round. cool. stretching, and d guys trickled in. yar, over the span of 20 minutes stretching. cos coach was emphasising on how we cant do without being properly stretched. and then he dropped the bomb. 6 rounds! ok. sounds... good. under 130. so it was 145 rest 145 rest 145 rest 153 rest 156 long rest (jiatian and i spoke to coach about something really serious! realised that we catered non-halal food!!! and coach is a muslim. argh. but he was fine with it, said he'll take a drink or two. jt got her mum to get some food for him in the end.) 143. i wonder how people picked up their speed nearing the end of their lap. i can't seem to master that skill. then it was courts for us. super slack. played games with one another. then zhinvee was up against coach. haha. it was like cartoon network live! so funny the way the two played. ben's turn next. serious stuff. and mine after! serious trouble. my strokes were everywhere, stamina wasn't anywhere near. haha but survived it nevertheless. coach left to drive his daughter to school. the seniors came. played soccer, badminton, table tennis, tennis. all but squash. haha. nah. we played squash too. coach came back and we had lunch. catered. but horrible. i'm not doing catering ever again. should get the experts to do it next time. more games, while sock ruifen and i waited for d van to pick the trays up. and in the meantime we combed the school for any living soul around to help gobble up the food. yay! and we managed to finish all the food! :) bridge, daidee up next. girls' game. d guys played squash, sat around. bath time. sock ruifen and adri left before dinner. kat jiatian and i went to lt5 toilet. and both of them took super duper long, and when we got back, d guys were like "eh, we played squash and sat around for one hour to talk, then bathe, and still faster than you all". planned to have dinner at suntec, then under elisa's recommendation we headed for the new pizza place near nj, but we missed our stop, so ended up at old reliable pizzahut at bukit timah plaza. waited for michelle and minping to travel all the way from suntec, cos they got d place wrong. haha all jiatian's fault! d seniors are really a close bunch, from the way they talk and laugh. wonder if the present squashers will ever get there. i mean the guys talk to the guys, the girls to the girls. and that's all. haha. after dinner, d girl seniors left first. then it was jiatian me zhinvee ben weesiang alwyn and hoiwang. then d guys took ultra long to decide if they want to catch a late night movie, and when they finally said no, zhinvee ben alwyn jiatian and i went in the same direction, while sneaky weesiang lured hoiwang to play pool!!! without us. haha. ended up eating ice-cream with jiatian at westmall and then at her house at the computer playing.. you guessed it! hexic! haha. d squash seniors are a great bunch. a pity we only got to meet them not very often during the year. and 29th may have been the very last time. :( anw, hope things go well for them in the future, and maybe keep in touch?
