无花果

My day has been progressing quite badly due to the following events:

1. Woke up feeling groggy as of the previous few days. My mind is getting kind of sluggish for some reason. I really hope it gets better soon!

2. As I was trying to start reading, a very disturbing drilling noise came from the apartment 2 floors down. How am I supposed to concentrate? Thankfully it has stopped now. According to the person doing the drilling work (yes I went down to ask when the drilling will end), today is supposed to be the only drilling day. There will be no more loud construction on the subsequent days, which will be GREAT.

3. Kept making the same mistakes! I am going to practice one more question and move on to the next topic. Let's get this right Inggrid!! :)

I was eating some preserved fruits by the name of the above title. I thought it is quite apt for this post and kind of describes how unproductive my day is.

I was about to leave this out but I guess I shall type it out. Okay maybe it is kind of silly to be hoping for something to happen despite the slim chance of it happening. I guess it is my fault for letting myself have that bit of hope for Shaun enrolling this year. It is quite a selfish hope, I know. So anyway it seems like he is advised to defer his enrolment for another year. Of course I couldn't help myself and felt sad. It's a natural (selfish) first reaction right? But I guess there's really no point lingering on this issue until there is a final decision. If it is really meant to be, then things will work out. Be it LDR or finding a job here or some other route that is still not in sight... it really comes down to effort (and maybe fate?). All I need to work towards now are good grades and a good degree because everything else is beyond my control.

One step at a time :)

Sent from my iPhone

the wolf is here for real and crying wolf ain't gna help at all

My eyelids are heavy. My ears are blocked. My thoughts are foggy. Of all the weeks, I have to fall sick at the end of week 9/start of week 10. How great! With 1-2 overdue + 3 soon-to-be-due assignments on hand, it's definitely not ideal. What a total bummer. I was planning to make asparagus and pesto risotto as well! I guess that has to wait until my (ab)normal appetite comes back. It would be nice to have a warm bowl of soup/ reaaally thick porridge with meatballs right now though.

Meanwhile my Microeconomics lecturer is being absolutely cute. "Hello? Can you hear me... is the microphone working?" in a british-american slang hehehe. I'm officially going nuts urgh

Back to the lecture sigh :(

three sins

Too bored.

so the past week was great

I enjoyed last week. It was eventful, crazy, pretty spontaneous, out of the ordinary, fresh, tiring, sleep-deprived, delicious, fun, fattening, the list goes on!

Today was bad. Went out of control during lecture and scored an F for accounting assignment. But a couple of macarons made it a little better :)

the H word

Boooooooo! (as in jeering boo not jump-in-and-try-to-scare-people kind of boo or the o-m-g-cuteness-overload boo) I have no will, none at all, to pick up any notes/reading materials/assignments AND IT'S JUST A FEW MONTHS AWAY FROM THE MAJOR EXAMS! Does it spell out d-e-a-d for you? It sure does for me. Especially when I spent the whole of winter break doing nothing productive other than reading something that I absolutely have no idea what it was. Hang on. Oh yes, it was Microeconomics and there were lines and words on the paper. Either way, d-e-a-d it is.

I have been feeling mighty lazy lately and today is the worst ever since Lent started. At least I paid attention during my make up Accounting class (skipped yesterday's class because of the recent disease), took notes for Corporate Law (it was painfully boring trust me) and ??? for Microecons. To be fair today was quite hectic because I just had to schedule the make up class before 3 hours worth of lectures, which adds up to a grand total of 4 hours straight. I thought I did quite well when I paid attention to most of the Law lecture and first 20 minutes or less of Microecons. *beams* I Spent the later quarter of Law imagining my lecturer as a blonde lawyer (legally blonde) and how fashionable she must have been because she wore this patent black coat/raincoat today plus her hair is styled in quite a glamorous way. She is probably older than 60.

The evening was spent deliberating with myself whether I should get a couple of things from ASOS. My very considerate and caring housemate decided to bring my attention to the fact that NUS 20% discount is back. My reaction started off with my excitement escalating uncontrollably followed by a very brisk crash as I brought myself back to reality. As of yesterday, I decided to curb my spending by leaving only £20 in my wallet. January Challenge: £20 for the rest of the month. It took me quite a bit of courage to give it a pass but I'm glad I did myself that favour. :)

I shall now do myself another favour by getting some work done! Woohoo~

raspberry

Yesterday my housemate and I hosted part one of our house-warming party. We had a terribly busy time preparing the food. She decided to prepare soup and the main while I prepared the appetiser and dessert. It felt like my share of preparation is not as heavy as her's but that's definitely not the case. It would have been so if I decided to be practical... but no, I just had to do it the hard way. At least for the dessert part because I took the effort to make faux macarons! It was funny because it was totally spontaneous. Initially I just wanted to make red velvet cake but I thought it'll be a hassle to serve it so the idea evolved to "red velvet burgers" (creativity at its worst). It eventually became faux macarons because it looked like macarons and I had no intention to make the aforementioned red velvet burgers (with cream cheese frosting as the "patty"??). It's just that I had the idea of 2 little round red velvets with cream cheese frosting in the middle but had a major failure in generating the right name for it. Faux macarons it is! :)

Thank goodness a senior (he's from CTC) came by really early (and unexpected, causing us to burst into a frantic duo rushing around and changing out of our home clothes while he waited outside in the cold...) and helped us both with the preparation. It would have been quite unmanageable. There were about 6 other guests or so. We ate, talked and played cards. After they left, we took about at least an hour cleaning up. There were A LOT of dishes to wash and the floor was in a mess. The bag in the food bin decided to make way (it was pathetically thin but to be fair we didn't know about it) and it was quite a gross moment. By the time I finished the cleaning up it was already 1/2AM. The dark circles are definitely going to enlarge its radius. :(

First week of Lent felt quite long. I actually thought that this is already the end of week 2 but unfortunately it's not. I can't wait for the month to end! My bank account is screaming out loud as it approaches ground zero and (hopefully not) below.

pre-Lent depression

Being back in London feels kind of weird this time round. Travelling from Heathrow to Chancery Lane felt lonely as my sister, who would always pick me up previously, wasn't there to do so. I was convinced to take a cab back, which I am sort of glad that I did so (1 heavy luggage and 2 hand-carries). I have no idea how I would have managed if I were to travel back by underground (which would have saved me enough to replace my favourite cardigan which shrunk).

Egawd, today is passing by so slowly! Due to the slight jetlag I'm having, I woke up at 9am (the norm is after 11am) and cleaned my room + kitchen floor and toilet. So glad I managed to finish by around noon. I don't know if it's OCD or what, but I must get the cleaning done before I start studying or I can't study. Yesterday passed by considerably slowly as well. I can't remember what I did yesterday. It must have been on the internet because I can never remember events that happened on the net. It's like a blackout period. Excessive internet surfing is bad :( it makes my days feel so meaningless (skype is an exception). Anyway, the past 2 days felt like as if I never left. It's the same feeling I had when I flew back to Singapore.

Lent term starts tomorrow. MAJOR DEPRESSING! The thought of it completely drains out my inspiration. Not that I have any for this post. Boohoo hope the constant brain freeze goes away soon :(

day x+n of packing

Packing never seems to end. Especially when I have this ever-growing idea of mine to spruce up a warm and comfortable room. It's difficult to stop it at an idea because, unfortunately for this case, inspiration keeps coming! Either that or something doesn't go right, hence the need to think of a replacement. Safely to say I'm more or less done with thinking of what goes where. The things that I am left to do: wait for fitted sheet and pillow cases to come, wash my new duvet sheet (which is so soft!!), install the sheets and new pillows (boohoo for hollowfibres), place the drawer liners to the specified (lucky) shelves in first wardrobe, arrange my second wardrobe, get curtains, ect. Yep, there's still a whole lot of actions to be carried out. I can't believe I'm spending so much time into this. It better be worth it!

Year 2 started out pretty mundanely, sadly. Currently it feels like it'll just be another year in uni, but we shall see. It's still too fast to judge. My timetable issn't too bad. My Mondays are INtEnsiVe: 9am to 6pm. What say you? However I'm still in the middle of course selection, which is a total bummer since I've been bugged with the indecisive disease. Microeconomics or Macroeconomics? I started off thinking "definitely Micro" but now that term has started, I've decided to go with Macro and is sort of enjoying it. But! It's just the first week. Lectures always start off, for the most of them, nicely and make you go "ooh this issn't so bad after all". But when I look at the exam paper for Macro it is quite intimidating as it is mainly essay-based questions. Micro is more of proving equations and applying them to the question. It does look challenging because it means that if you don't get the equation right, then that's the end of it. Haih. I shall reserve some time before bed thinking about this.

Back to packing...

Im so boring

New haircut! Not much difference ey? It's the pose.

Another lousy morning. HAIH. Being a good daughter is so difficult. At the same time, I'm positive that being a good mother is an even more challenging feat.

Anyway. Not many people is in the office right now! I'm enjoying the "tranquility" and the slice of sea view from here. Beautiful fluffy bunch of clouds + gentle sun + listening to MP3 = calming. Oh darns. I just jinxed it. My senior is here :(

Lunch and Kino with Mila later!! Hehehehehe~

it's the immigration headache again

I had an unbelievably lousy morning to start with. Completely spoilt the rest of my day. Firstly, having to wake up at 7AM is no longer an acceptable thing considering the amount of rest I had for the last couple of weeks. Secondly, being grumbled at is not appeasing at all. Thirdly, not controlling my anger makes everything worse. What happened to my ability of active listening? I reckon I've thrown it out of the window a month back. Recent development of spontaneously immense angst really sucks. For me, I get swallowed by an overwhelming sense of guilt after throwing a (stupid) tantrum at my poor victim. Right away. Irritated --> Anger --> Guilt. Sigh. Is this what I have to through during my teenage hood? Is this like to test whether I will turn out to be a refined, wise and cool-headed adult?

Managed to cool off some steam with my beloved, who chivalrously opened his doors to me. Though we marginally missed McDonald's breakfast (5 minutes), which I have been craving for since forever, quick brunch was pretty satisfying! Unfortunately I have to continue my rush that began since the morning...

As for now, I'm beat. I'm really super sleepy. & hungry. I won't be surprised to see my weight being pulled up by at least 5kg by the end of this Summer. Ahhh demoralising! I shall call Gymbox as my therapist from October onwards. :D

It's actually time to get off work but I'm actually staying on. This is amazing. Normally I'll be getting off asap but I'm actually staying on to try and finish a new task that is due tomorrow. & blogging. New love for the office perhaps?

Alright one more research and I'm out of this place! Sleepybug is pulling me home.

washing my hands off things

I'm not liking this feeling of something brewing inside me... think peppermint leaf brew with pepper. It's likely that one will only be able to comprehend how I feel based on experience. Bitter sweet but it's not exactly that. Never mind this doesn't make much sense to anyone except one or two.

Finally got my dental appointment fixed. I forced myself to book with 3 dentists, just in case. One is for a general check-up (old dentist who I think is likely to rip me off) and the other two are for the actual extraction (obviously I'll only be going for one). A senior was sharing his experience at wisdom extraction. The range of words he used to describe was quite terrifying. I'm definitely not looking forward to be (literally) sawed, drilled and hammered!

Picture post up soon! I haven't been able to pull myself to upload photos... or even get myself seated in front of my laptop once I get home. It's that bad. The first thing that I do is to plop myself down onto the sofa and watch TV for the next xx hours. This may not be a lifestyle that I'm proud of but I love it. Secret potato couch in the making!

Office days have been productive, except for today. Quite a number of workers are not around. Monday blues! I have to admit I nearly succumbed to it. So far all I have done is do leisure research. The next research I am going to be doing will be a fun one! :D

Last week was quite a busy one with the good and the horrendous. Bloomberg is still entertaining but the lack of vibrant colours is killing my love for it. This week shouldn't be as busy since my dental check up will take up the whole of tomorrow and extraction should be either before or after the weekend. Eep! I'm getting the jitters again. Sawing, drilling and hammering...

Blogging does help. The peppermint and pepper soup is simmering! :)

inconvenience of an Indonesian passport

ICA rejected my application for visit pass extension. I was slapped with the result today morning and was feeling dejected ever since. I thought I would get their approval, even though the chance is getting slimmer as I have been applying for extension for the previous few stays in Singapore. As many times as my mom has been saying it, I'm to blame for overlooking this whole event and assuming that I'll get their approval. She didn't mention this, but it's really a big mistake that I didn't apply for PR while studying in Singapore. Or at least do more research than just (self) think and talk.

Nonetheless, no point brooding over this! Everything happens for a reason. Maybe a short break will be good to clear my mind off things :D

Summer Intern

That's the title of my two-month stint at this company. The first day was pretty decent: introduction to the office people, office environment and Corporate Finance. It was a good day and I thought it went by quickly! At first I thought 9 to 5 jobs will be a total drag, but so far it's not true. Fortunately, from what I have experienced so far, the environment here is very relaxed. The office people report to work at about 9.30am and leave after 5pm. I'm currently in the middle of my 3rd day of work. I was supposed to do some reading up but... ehhehehhehhe I guess I got distracted. As always!

Anyhoo, a colleague needed my workspace. Oh yes. My workspace is so interesting! It has a Bloomberg computer which is full of news of all sorts! The rate of which new news are produced is really amazing. Honestly, I have never given much thought about it before so I was in awe when I witnessed it. Literally like O.O (imagine enlarged eyes and lips forming a small "O"). My senior is cool and responsible! He gives me tasks everyday, even when he's out of office. I was just checking my e-mail and guess what's in there? NEW TASK! I wish I can get moving with it but I can't since the colleague is still using my workspace... oh well.

Lunch-hour is becoming quite a lonely time, like today. Yesterday Rachel and Mila (lovelettes!!) came to join me for lunch and we had Thai (t. After which we visited the arcade, got very excited because there's House of the Dead 4 and Silent Hill but we ended up disappointed. I tried House of the Dead 4 with Rachel but it was a bad mistake. The guns were screwed up and we burnt $2 in less than a minute (Rachel decided to skip the introduction). She then moved on with Silent Hill along with Mila. Too bad I had to rush off because I still have yet to complete yesterday's task. Based of their experienced, it wasn't too bad! Met them again after work. They were thinking about getting masks and in the end I got tempted by one of the products. It's said to reduce dark circles! Mila said the brand is good, so I really hope it will work. I can't wait to try it! :D

My cramps are giving me quite a hard time trying to settle down a comfortable position. Workspace is backkkkkkk time to complete me task!! :D

this one is quite long too

I just realised my camera either doesn't have an outlet for a wire to connect it to laptop/computer/tv or it's very well disguised. I've got this mega disgusting photo of a flattened bug on the envelope of my bank statement. It's all fat and squished, totally grotesque! I accidentally snapped it using the internal memory of the camera and I have no clue of how to transfer it over. It's such a disgusting photo that I really want to share. :(

Anyway, I suppose that's a sign to spare anyone (oh unlucky people!) from seeing it. Henceforth, only nice(r) ones will be on show today! Yesterday, my plan to bake cookies was postponed due to... personal reasons. But I've got them done today. In fact, I just baked them! My virgin try at baking cookies turned out to be just alright. The last batch didn't turn out nice due to over-baking. Le sob.

Sorry for delaying you for ages.

I haven't camwhored for ages.

Yummo!

It's really simple: mix butter and egg and then stir in the cookie mix. Then we're ready to go!

First batch, ready to be baked.

They looked so fluffy and nice while in the oven.

The 3 batches. 12 fat cookies and 6 mini ones.

Did I mention that my OPI nail polish arrived yesterday? I guess I didn't! I was excited as Mad As A Hatter was part my order. It's such a quirky and delightful colour! Oh and it's sold out at some stores so YES! I'VE GOT ONE IN MY HAND! Whoohoo! I just can't decide which one to use first. Oh bummer! ;)

Order came and I quickly ripped open whatever wrapping it had.

:D !! The one in the middle is Mad As A Hatter while the ones next to it (which looks similar but they are not) are Lincoln After Dark and Light My Sapphire. Love the names but love the colour even more!

:O !!

Right.

This came in the package. Cute isn't it!

My trip to NatWest turned out to be a useless one. For some reason a Cashcard and a debit card is the same. & I will not be getting a cheque book according to the bank dude. It's quite confusing as according to internet banking, I have a new option which says "order a cheque book". I have yet to try requesting for one though... whatever it is, I am seriously going to wash my hands off this annoying business.

I came back and did a bit of bag spring cleaning. Cleared out quite a bit of thrash that I've kept for ages such as...

Wts?

My scientific name.

DOESN'T IT LOOK FAMILIAR (for some)?! It's the name-order card from Serene's birthday dinner a year + ago! It seems ages doesn't it. I guess I kept it because it's somewhat meaningful. Yes, ultra sentimental I know. It's to make up for the fact that I have short term memory.

Omg. I even have the picture of me posing with the name-order card! (I'm starting to see a generic pose... hmm)

Good memories! :)

light

Second post of the day; I have nothing better to do. The weather is awesome beyond awesome outside but I'm inside. Aww, what a waste. Apart from experiencing the unfortunate Bank event, all I've been doing is chat and do little errands here and there. I will be baking my cookies in a moment (sister volunteered to buy my baking sheets for me yey!). My back is starting to ache from sitting all day. I'm glad I will be doing something more productive and yummy! :D

Sister's room, which is a current messy land (justified since she's preparing for exams). I love how the sunlight always pour into the room, making it all bright and cheerful.

The scene from the window of my room.

Spring ♥

totally pigged day 2

I only had an agenda for today: play Sims 3. It's quite sad to be wasting my life away like this! I sort of lost track with my days. Initially I thought today is Sunday but it's Monday. Le sigh. This is bad! I shall start exploring the streets from tomorrow onwards. Or start doing more domestic/educational activities e.g. read books, bake cookies or clean the apartment, the lot.

Finally opened Mila's box of cookies a while ago. It was a souvenir from HK Disneyland and I couldn't bear to open it until the moment is right (OCD much?). I love the box, it's so cute! But when I opened the box, it's even more adorable than expected...

The cute box.

AWW!! Looking at it makes me want to learn how to make cute cookies like that :)

Sigh! ♥

Oh my Lord, save me.

• just had French paper 6 hours ago. C'était très terrible.
• my head hurts.
• I have 2 days to cram 3 modules of accounting. Not funny.
• mega depressed + super unmotivated.
• my phone is lapsing again. URGH.
• there is not a single word I can use to describe how much I miss you.

:(

How can I possibly forget the degree of agony I have to go through during exam period? COME BACK TO EARTH! This is war.

I'm down with 4 chapters of Macroeconomics

Another day spent attempting to be studious. I'm proud to say that my productivity has gone up by a couple of notches in the company of my 2 lovelettes who gave me glares to stop me from being distracted with the random-est things e.g. my hair (bad hair day), this little girl who's studying (her spirit amazes me), the air... if you get what I mean. Ahh, reminds me of the good old times of working over the same assignment together in class/school/old haunts of ours. This is especially relevant to Mila because we've been irregularly close to one another and we both (along with Hosanna) used to have study outings which, at the end of the day, often lose its main purpose.

Oh oh, one delightful thing that happened today was that Mila surprised Rachel and me with home-made bentos! Japanese curry rice yum yum! I loved the curry :D & the rice tasted really nice too since it's Japanese rice and as you know, the texture is just different. It's like more succulent due to it's fat and round nature compared to the other types of rice. Even though Mila claimed that it came out too hard/ powdery, I felt all loved inside - even though I didn't finish the bento *hides face* BUT YOU TELL ME, HAVE YOUR FRIEND EVER MADE YOU A BENTO? HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU? My friend did and I am truly touched that she actually went through the trouble of making it early in the morning! :D :D

One interesting thing that happened today was that... Rachel spilt hot coffee over herself and she was still high on air ever though it was scalding hot. Imagine the horror. I would have screamed my head off, especially if I were to be wearing such a cute, pure white lace-trimmed camisole! Like, my jaw will completely drop as I stare at the aftermath of the accident with my eyes popping out of the sockets... okay enough drama. Anyway, she had to continue walking around with her funkily dyed garments, carrying a nice aroma of coffee along with her. The funny thing is that the coffee actually managed to dye half of the shorts darker brown (she wore a pair of light brown shorts) so it looked quite acceptable.

C'est formidable que j'ai une amie à longtemps! Il y a beaucoup des choses et mémoires que je peux rapporter de temps à autre. Bien sûr, le même chose s'appliquer aux gens à qui on m'assortit étroitement. Et, Madamme Tay, merci pour des croissants délicieuse! Je pense sincèrement que c'est une charmante gâterie pour le soir. :)

A lot of things happened last week. In chronological order, my first niece's arrival to the world, lunch @ TNH with my green gay #2 (Grace!!) and Teng, my expensive haircut which only shows a fringe change (very short and highly temperamental) (all these on Wednesday, 14th) and Shaun's long awaited POP! I witnessed the touching moment of his graduation (his mom nearly teared up while putting his cap on for him) at the cost of getting a horrible and uneven tan. On. My. Face. Nevertheless, it was worth it and I thoroughly enjoyed being in the company of his mom and his grandfather. He's such a cute gentleman! Hehe, what are the odds of seeing your boyfriend graduating from BMT? Each recruit is only allowed 2 guests. :D

If I'm not wrong, her name is Charis Nadia. Skinny baby, weighing at only 2.185kg!

After the haircut, we decided to walk from PS to City Hall because SMU is in between the 2 locations. We came across Ah Teng's Bakery which we all found pretty amusing. I wonder if she still pops this blog now and then. :)

Here's Shaun's granddaddy with his daughter (obviously Shaun's mom, just in case my attempt in being fanciful turns out to be an embarrassing failure)

HOW CUTE IS THIS PICTURE! :D

Just a picture to feed the curious cats out there. Anyway, over to my beloved, he lost too much weight in the span of 9 weeks!! D:

I suppose this picture won't hurt. :P

Ok hang on, one last revelation before I close. I'm starting to find Timbaland attractive... no no no don't get me wrong. Not in that sense. ;)

to be or not to be

My 6 months worth of effort to get a fair skin-tone got wiped out within 3 days of being in Singapore. How sad can it be? C'est très triste. :'(

1st 2 days I spent it with Shaun, Monday I tried to get over my jetlag and today was pretty eventful. I met up with Raaaaachel for MOS (!!) and spent an atrocious amount of d'argent on maquillage which is something I'd never expect myself to do. I blame Watsons to carry quite an attractive range of beauty products. They are too joli to reject and I'm deprived of Asian products!! High tea with Auntie Pat and her bestie at Equinox followed suit. I love love love the view and freedom of making tea ourselves! It comes in pretty teapots too. Pity that I didn't take any shots of l'endroit.

I'm a boring person. I'm out.

p.s. italics are french words. Guilty guilty guilty

this is just how I am when I'm happy

hehehahahihihohohuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahhaahhahahahahehehehehehe

*cart wheels* hehehehehehhahahahihihiahahahoohhohohuhuhu

not breaking things down, not looking too far into the future but merely imagining the (im)possible joy... and of course, having fun in the current.

paper planes, paper planes :)