Nice Day

I watched <<墨攻.Battle of the Wits>> today and i thought it was a really nice movie! As true as the title can suggest, i was amazed by the wisdom of Mozi. The idea of pacifism and universal love which Mozi embraced was also quite moving. Go watch it and you'll know what i'm talking abt :)

Today's a great day cos (1)i did not touch a single bit of work [no lecture! yay!!] (2) Finally got to see Weixiang's green wall. [people who like green are rare...] (3)Watched <<墨攻>> [good show!] (4)Took train for 19 stops and alighted at Kathib for the first time (5) Enjoyed the best view an Mrt ride can offer - Lower Seletar reservoir (6)Learnt abit about Computer assembling:) (7)Went to Northpoint for the first time (8)Enjoyed my 854 bus ride (9)Enjoyed the surroundings of a new neighbourhood (10)Tried New York Pizza for the first time. I'm sure there's many more reasons, but 10 should be enough to convince you :)

I like days when i do a lot of things for the first time. Now, when was the last time you did sth for the first time? :)

Wilson greenbeans & Butterflies

My wilson greenbeans. Why wilson greenbeans? Cos these kept me going through the weekend while i studied for my CAs! Very much like how the wilson volleyball kept Tom Hanks alive in the movie Cast Away. I was truly amazed by the speed of their growth. Each time i stopped to take a break, there's bound to be changes :)
I also grew soybeans! 2 of them. One's on the right and one at the back without the leaves. Did u realise tt we were only given greenbeans to grow in kindergarten or primary sch? i didnt know how a soy bean sprout looks like, so i grew 2 to find out.
Interestingly, their seedleaves are really big. Now measuring 1.9 cm :)

I only found out recently that Wenhui is quite an expert with dogs and he knows the breeds of dogs very well! Talking abt dog breeds tt day reminded me of how i used to look through my butterfly book to try to single out my favourite butterfly family / species and remember their names. Come to think of it, it was really quite like microB. Now that i cant rmbr them, i prob wont rmbr my microB 10 years down the road.. Quite a bad sign isnt it?

Anyway, i used to like this butterfly commonly known as blue morpho. Elegant and unique i thought. But now i just like butterflies in general. Too many are equally pretty :)

Cranberries*

In the News...
Scientists are lauding cranberries for their many health benefits. Research has shown that drinking cranberry juice can block urinary infections, increase HDL and reduce LDL, and kill H. pylori bacteria, which can cause stomach cancer and ulcers. In addition, a compound in cranberries prevents plaque formation on teeth, and extracts of chemicals in cranberries also appear to prevent breast cancer cells from multiplying in a test tube.

Rmbr the adverts of sunrasia cranberry juice and post morning cereal with lots and lots of cranberries floating in the water like this as shown in the pic?



Amazing isnt it?
Maybe i should try cranberry juice some day :)
I'm just hoping it wont be too sour :)

Red Meat Linked to Breast Ca

On wikipedia today...
A study of pre-menopausal women found that those who ate more than 1½ servings of red meat a day were 97% more likely to have a hormone receptor positive breast cancer than those who ate 3 or fewer servings a week. Reasons for this may include the treatment of American beef cattle with hormones, carcinogens created when meat is cooked at high temperatures, and the presence of a certain form of iron in meat.

BBQ beef sounds bad now doesn't it? Carcinogens are everywhere!

Respite.

I had a restful weekend but it's so painful to know that i have to start work again soon for the next 2 papers!

On a more optimistic note, 4 out of 6 papers are over!! YAY!!

Anyway, most of us went to vivocity after Immunology and microbiology paper on Friday. We were "xiong" (as Eugene put it) enough to dine at cyrstal jade dining!

We really opened a table for 10! Food was ok, but i should say the experience was priceless. :)


As u can see, there's GODIVA at vivocity! Though it got me excited (it's chocolate afterall!) i seriously think they're not actually worth buying in Singapore :) Look at the box of chocolate that cost $105. I'd feel that i'm eating money!!

This weekend, i also baked! Baked sth which most people would think is not exciting at all - Buttermilk scones. Have i mentioned before that i really love scones? Used to love cranberry scone at Cedele till i realise they're not equally fresh and nice at every branch. Stimes i give it a miss :)

Pardon the poor picture quality, cos i used my lousy phone camera!


A revelation this weekend: X'MAS IS NEAR! They had stalls selling Xmas decorations and gifts at vivo and the Xmas tree at Citylink is also up!

Haha.. coincidentally, there's another GODIVA in the pic if u look close enough :)

I had a great day walking around my fave part of Singapore today. I thought abt this
许多人会在人多的时候失去自己
我却喜欢在人群中找寻自己
许多人害怕孤独
我却在独立时最了解自己

什么是快乐？什么是悲伤？
许多人希望能够快快乐乐地度过这一生
但你是否想过悲给予乐的价值?
没难过的经历就不懂得开心的可贵
不是吗？

每样东西、每一个人都有好的一面
每个人、每一个东西都有他存在的意义
我们如果尝试先从好的一方面看起
世界会自然变得完美

Such a Dreamer

While taking my nap today, i dreamt of Europe AGAIN! I think i'm the only one of the group who thinks of Europe and misses Europe so consistently. Hmm.. i'm thinking tt it has to do with my counsellor puting up his Europe trip picture in his MSN display pic last night.

Anyway, till i visit Europe again, may the memories i have there stay as beautiful and pleasant :)

My right arm is hurting from all the scribblings. Edwin told me that he finds it sad that we're often limited by or writing speed and time. It's so true that stimes there's so much more we want to say! Hope my arm recovers soon. 2 hr of writing is surprisingly worse than squash! :)

Trolley / Ikea day!

My CAs are just 5 days away but i cant resist the urge to type what happened today down!

For many reasons, my mom wanted to go IKEA today. How could i say no to IKEA when some of my friends say IKEA is like ivy's second home. Haa..

The funny part of the day began when my mom wasnt sure where the science bustop is and wanted to pick me up at KE7. Then she couldnt find KE7 and she circled the entire NUS and called my dad for help when she found herself at the satellite carpark which is very near KE!

Then at IKEA, my mom had a craving for chicken wings and made me buy 6 chicken wings cos she was so sure 2 wont be enough. I had to give my meatballs a miss cos i was so sure she wont be able to finish too! Though i'm not a fan of chicken wing, i was real happy to see my mom so happy with her meal :) She said 好久没吃得那么痛快咯！Quite cute right? Haha..

We made various purchases at KE and we realised in the Car tt we probably have to make 3,4 trips to carry everything home cos the table was heavy, the swivel chair came in 2 parts, the mirror was fragile and we both had bags etc. Then God answered our prayer...

We saw a supermarket trolley by the roadside as i made a turn.
Here's the slope...

My mom had this idea to use the trolley but cos she felt tt it was an embarrassing thing to push the trolley across the main road home, she made me pull over and she took over the wheel so I could go fetch the trolley.

To my surprise, when i was back at the slope, the trolley was in a very precarious position. Only one wheel was in a pothole and it could roll down any moment! The trolley belonged to Giant tt is quite far from my home.. Makes me wonder who left the trolley there to obstruct traffic...

Anyway, i got really excited with the whole trolley idea. It was quite a thrilling thing to wheel the trolley across the main road and many people were staring and had the question mark-question mark faces especially those at the nearby kopitiam!! SO FUNNY! I took some pictures in the lift. It was quite cramp, so i could barely capture the trolley.




As u can see, the trolley is quite full. And we made only ONE trip! YAY!!

My mom and i were laughing so hard.. explains the poor picture quality from my shaky hands.

IKEA day was good for me cos my family bought a new table tt was on sale!
This is my table in the living room after muscle-aching turning of the screw driver for the countless screws!


This is a fabulous table because it's so compact when not in used!

Note the width.. it only occupies 15 cm!

I felt that this slideshow i showed kendrick has the impact of justifying our purchase.




You probably can tell i'm really happy :) Like wenyang always says,"today is a happy day!"

Going back to the trolleyy...

My mom felt that she ought to be a good citizen especially after the trolley has served us well. She called up Giant to make a report of the trolley we found!

Here's my mom placing the trolley in a conspicuous position as she has described to the giant staff.


The good trolley. This trolley day i hope is a gd study break for me :)

So Cute!

Not sure if i'm going to get killed for putting this up. But dont u think this pic is so cute?! :)

Evidence of Distraction

Ha.. actually not really.. I was reading my monochromic notes when i thought of colour-fying them to make them a little more interesting to look at with colour pencils.

You may be wondering why i'm not using highlighter:) those who know me will know tt i'm very particular with my highlighter colour and it must be very subtle so it wont make everything look impt. Then why highlight in the first place? Cos i need some colours to invite my attention. I'm so such a troublesome person.

Anyway, i'm taking time off to post this cos i really like this set of colour pencils! Take a closer look, it's from MUJI! Jaymie bought them for me all the way from london some years back and i've been rationing them ever since. They're very pretty dont u think? BUT.. i'm afraid tt i wont be able to reach for these pencils once they've become shorter than the cylinder. So i try to use them at the same rate.

There u go again.. i'm always so particular abt such small things. haha

Vivocity

Vivocity is so huge! I would have taken more photos if i wasnt occupied with the new things around myself!
Anyway, it's an ivy thing to make it a point to go to the supermarket. I was looking forward to see it cos they claimed that it's a "new concept" hypermart. Unfortunately, it turned out to be Giant which reminded me a lot of carrefour at suntec, nothing that was worth all my excitement!

But fortunately... these nutella made my visit worthwhile.

Europe people would know why! :)



Looking at these bottles reminded me of how we lugged our nutella everywhere and had novel ways of eating nutella.

These were our nutella days!



Another photo i took at vivocity at their supposed 300m long food promonade...

Kendrick thinks that their marketing quite successful considering they have successfully stopped me to take a second look at what they were selling.

damn cool!

A4 Paper Cut.


See them here

Bila Billa?

I've been thinking abt europe trip a lot lately after looking thru the europe dvd. And everything seems to spark bits and pieces of memory of the trip.

During malay class, bila - meaning where- instantaneously reminded me of the Billa supermarket we often see in europe! I still rmbr the Billa in salzburg i got a stack of Milka chocolate from! :)

While searching for the Billa logo, i found this pic of the Billa from Venice. It never occured to me when i was there that the Billa logo wasnt its usual Red words on yellow background. Interestingly, as stated on the webpage, Venice, in general, is wary of these food giants, as they threaten a way of life that prefers to pluck earthly necessities from 5 stores in 2 hours rather than 1 store in 15 minutes. Somehow the italians think that it's good to know your butcher, cheese man, and baker personally. Dont u think that there's ritualistic beauty and soulfulness of this radical inefficiency?

I wonder if the rest will still think of brand products that were always so affordable. Haa.. the stack of 20 slices cheese and the integrali biscuits? Yum!

Just found their usual logo on their website.

Last Day of Mid-Sem Break

My mom's cactus bloomed!


Found new song by Jeff Chang :) His usual love ballads make u think of him as the perfect man to be with.. haha..

张信哲-做你的男人
东京纽约每个地点
带你去坐幸福的地下铁
散步逛街找电影院
累了我就帮你提高跟鞋
塞车停电哪怕下雪
每天都要和你过情人节
星光音乐一杯热咖啡
只想给你所有浪漫情节
让我做你的男人
24个小时不睡觉
小心翼翼的保持
这种热情不退烧
不管世界多纷挠
我们俩紧紧的拥抱
隐隐约约我感觉有微笑
藏在你嘴角
让胆小的你在黑夜中
也会有个依靠
就算有一天爱会变少
人会变老
就算没告诉过你也知道
下辈子还要和你遇到

Still remember the primary school days when he was immensely popular among my friends :)

Mooncake Day

Though i'm feeling extremely guilty for not doing work today, my efforts in my first batch of mooncakes paid off!



I'm sure those who have tried mooncakes by harbour city will find my mooncakes looking familier :) I'm not 100% there yet.. But i will try again, maybe next year :)


Also, kendrick got to pack my palmier home :) This holidays have been quite fruitful in terms of my baking.

If only i could be as passionate abt studying :P

New Love

I saw some wombats on tv and i thought they look really cute!

Happy-fying Break

I thought that it's most important to rest well this break and i'm quite glad to be able to do a few things i've always wanted to do without having work at the back of mind mind (haa.. at least for a while!)




Well, as usual... i baked!
(1) Chocolate truffle cake
(2) Chocolate Hazelnut Palmiers

Aren't palmiers cute? Kendrick says they look like smiley faces. Haa.. My palmiers needs a lot of improvement. The texture of the flaky pastry was ok, but they dont look as neat as those in my recipe. Will try again next time and Kendrick suggested Chocolate red bean Palmiers :)

I'm also glad that i got to tea at the famous cheesecafe cafe withn kezheng my council grandbuddy who's returning to cambridge soon, joined a group of friends at KTV for a while, rollar bladed for the first time, played squash and played tennis with my newly strung tennis racket so far.

Kezheng had a gd laugh at my europe photos and commented that wenyang is a real joker and entertainer and weixiang takes damn pro photos :) haha.. He'll be in prague this Friday and he thought it was unbelivable to be looking at pictures of places he'll be there himself in a few days time! I hope he'll enjoy Prague better than i did, hopefully better weather too :)

My friends wanted to blade on Monday and i thought that since i have a pair of skates tt i've only used twice, i should skate instead of blade. I bladed in the end despite lugging my heavy skates all the way to ecp because weixiang was evil enough to convince me to try blading so that he wont be the only beginner. Ha, fortunately my first time was actually quite gd :) Quite happy-fying there :)

Tennis wasnt too good ystdy cos the feel of my racket has changed totally aft i restrung it. I couldnt even sustain a few shots and i was far from playing a decent game. Hope i'll get used to the racket soon.

Later this week.. mooncake party tonight, fishing with dad?, cheesecake cafe with table tennis coach and captain, meet up with kor?

I love this week :)

Miss Those Times

Sometimes unexpected happiness can be found by just look through photos and let each photo bring u to the very moment it captured.
I was so happy looking through my europe photos and i had a gd time laughing thru some of the videos.

i miss europe.

i miss those times :(

Surprise of the Day

As duh as it may sound, a surprise is best a surprise when u least expect it. It's so true today as i was expecting a very bad training today cos my arm is still aching from squash 2 days ago. I cant quite put it into words, but i felt training today was quite fruitful. Not in the sense that i improved by leaps and bounds (which is quite impossible) but i felt that being able to see sth differently and let learning be a by-product is exceptionally rewarding.
I really miss days when wenjun, baiwei were closer. Perhaps it's inevitable that we drift when baiwei's not physically around and wenjun and i have piles of work to clear. Hope come mid sem break, we'd be able to catch up :)
Thinking of the holidays make me happy. More and more plans are being made and i certainly hope this break will be another fruitful and well rested one.
Meanwhile, just hang in there. One day to go..

|Hang In There|

忽然之间

忽然之间天昏地暗
世界可以忽然什么都没有
我想起了你再想到自己
我为什么总在非常脆弱的时候怀念你
我明白太放不开你的爱太熟悉你的关怀
分不开想你算是安慰还是悲哀
而现在就算时针都停摆就算生命像尘埃
分不开我们也许反而更相信爱

如果这天地最终会消失
不想一路走来珍惜的回忆没有你

sleep deprived

My page is getting pretty boring without the pictures which usually accompany each entry. Anyway, I'm so deprived of sleep this weekend tt i can anticipate this weekend to be another unproductive one. I've been up early for a past few mornings. I had to rise today at 5 to send daddy to work cos he's on standby for IMF. It wouldnt have taken a toll on me if it was just sending him there and back. My mom had this craving for balam rd market breakfast and after which she did some marketing for grandma and we had to make a delivery to her house. Actually i dont mean to complain, but really.. it's been a while since i survive on 2 hrs of sleep.

Anyway, on a happier note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENDRICK! Hope time & effort spent on the truffle cake was worth it :)