bangbanggobbledygook

yawn. 2009 is near! and hordes of people are going crazy and having fun celebrating the end and the beginning, or pretending to at least i suppose. my ma and amelia are at punggol plaza with the rest of the punggol counting down people. my ma was like, "so how? ..you don't like crowds right. ... you're going to sleep into 2009 right."

and yeaaaaa yes but i'm abit bored now. and sleepy. but too full to sleep. though i think i'll yes probably sleep into 2009. and maybe wake up to catch jackie chan at 4? i kinda miss LDG, but at least i have N&P for now :) there are some mother-kid moments which make me tear,but not cry, yet, i'm not sure why because it's not like i really know know because i'm only eighteen and teenage and childless but those parts just sortof go bam at you not those kind of explosive BAM more like those cushioned blow feeling soundless not really painful or anything but then later wondering why i've got water in my eyes and my nose feels sour. er..aiya read the book! i'm reading it so fast i'm halfway through already i keep stopping to check the thickness of the stack on my left in comparison to the one on my right and i feel abit dismayed that i'm already halfway through haha. OKAY so uhm before i go off to sleep,

things i found out i really dislike this year:
x eating with people who chew with their mouth open and hence loudly
x hearing people laugh fake-ly. there's a difference between polite laughter and fake(loud)laughter youknow.
x having people say things, get my hopes high and then changing their minds and deflating my bubble of happy possibilities

i've got NEEDLES & PEARLS! :D:D:D:D:D and another title by the same author too YAYEZZ back to my spot by the door

and shitty, karen cheng's boys are really cute!! i think her 5.5 looks like her. ohh reading gil mcneil and kc makes me want some of my own toooo

Photo from the cruise, leaving Phuket in the evening. looks better when you click on it.

hello frenzzz yesterday i talked to a 32 year old korean lady on the bus home who looked like she was at most 26.

and all my christmas cards, or rather all YOUR christmas cards will be late because i just mailed them out today HAHA. except for those i got to meet pre-today. sorry! i left the writing till sunday afternoon and i thought i could finish twenty odd cards in a day, so i'm wrong and i'm late but i promise that your cards will be overflowing with <3333 because i never do see the point in mere customary greetings and well-wishes

and everybody DON'T buy muji cookies, they're the most horrible tasting cookies ever. even mine taste better. luckily i didn't give it away among the other presents. i hope the colourful candies are not as bad..!!

i am surfing food blogs now yum yum
and i'm so going to miss tammie :( :( :( one month is quite a long time!
and feeling abit bored because there's still at least 8 hours before The Bed.
and i would like to have some of those inspiring self-help books from borders!

i would like to warn in advance, my friends dining with me on monday that my days now end at 8pm and start at 3am. so, pardon my sporadic lack of vocal participation, slitty eyes, gaping mouth, and the LOOK of general disinterest, if any.

:)

ANYWAYS i am enjoying Divas Don't Knit SO MUCH!! i'm already looking forward to the sequel YAYZZZZ.
4 year old Archie calls his mom the GRUMPYPOTAMUS. isn't that the cutest!! my kids can call me that and i think i'd be so happy! :D

i went on friendster to look at old photos to see what beep i can get for beep for christmas.then i revisited all my testimonials. croak croak we were so full of crap last time i'm quite happy i grew out of it. and they all say i am nice. nice. nice.

... so boring.

i was sitting by the front door, reading Divas don't knit with the very nice breeze and not-too-harsh-not-too-dim sunlight from the corridor in the silence of the house because only one sister is at home hearing the trees and branches and leaves move thirteen floors down and purple m&ms a bottle of water and tissue by my side in case of mucus, and feeling generally quite happy and pleased with life.
so easy.a good book, nice breeze, lazy afternoon placidity.
and uhh haha i just tossed out an m&m that dropped on the floor out of the door onto my neighbour's front door rug.accidentally. still am sitting in the same spot if you've been to my house it should be easy to picture. funny how randomly picking this book, which i am enjoying, is like an affirmation. ok back to my wool and yummysounding colours

yawn.

my sister' nocturnal habits kept me sleeping and from the tv this morning i am so annoyed i can't have my daily dose of LDG for today and i ended up with 6 more hours of sleep than i intended and now i wonder if i can fall asleep twelve hours from now to catch my next daily dose for tomorrow! ughhh. why can't she go to sleep EARLIER.she's ruining my plans :(

when i went to junior college i lost a friend.
i think it was a conscious choice. today i read and i feel like she's changed, though she still sounds like her. clenching my heart. the older the friend, the scarier it is. i walked away because i wanted to be happier.
AHHHHHUGHGHHHGHYURRRGHHH

i just unearthed my baking books, those i got for my birthday..after being topped by The Writing On the Wall, TGG, HOD, Othello, Pride&Prejudice etc, they're finally seeing the light. hehe looking at all the yummylicious pictures i feel like baking again
hm..we'll see!

Hello everybody. I am currently reading Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. and still pinning over Change of Heart that i should've bought over at the penang Borders which was about $2 cheaper.

i am still bobbing (!!!) after 4 days, though to a largely lesser extent, i still hate the light and woozy feeling.which usually means i want to sleep already.i know i should never stay out past 9 with people also because the night makes me say things i will consciously choose not to on an ordinary day.

oh ha ha ha i just realised my finger is bleeding.!
and so many of my friends are going/have gone/will go on luxurious holidays to amazing places and i am jealous at this time of the year once again.which sucks, being jealous of people you actually like you wanto jump out and defend them against yourself.
HO. sounds like Jamie, no?

the cruise was okay la. not disastrous but not terribly exciting either. it would be nice to hang out and chill~~ by oneself with the fantastic view, great air, great wind, but it was kindof difficult with 5 other family members and 2 pesky kids. Because my dad was quite blur, and my mother stressing over dining reservations and whatnot, the big S and i spent half of our time playing nanny. the other half of the time was spent eating. we had a grand total of 6 buffet meals a day..you can wake up any moment of the day and locate a spread anywhere on board. on the first day we even went for supper from 12-1am but by the second night i was already in bed by 11..i was tired and quite sick of eating already!

anyway i think the highlights of my cruise trip were 3 boys and a bruise. you must be thinking wth??? hahah i am quite amused myself but it was really quite boring with nothing much to do except eat non-stop, that i had to find myself something to look out for for the 4 days there. there was this pair of cute brothers whom i met only 3 times. the first time i did, i was herding my sisters into the arcade while they were leaving it (SIGH). the second time, my family had just seated ourselves at the table when i saw them leaving the restaurant (SIGH). so that was twice in the first day. the second day no luck at all! on the third night i only glimpsed their fronts for two seconds before seeing the back of their heads in the theatre for the rest of the time (SIGH). by the fourth day i was like, okay whatever i'm never going to meet them again!BUT i made one last effort walking down the stairs from deck 12 to 5 in an attempt to bumb into them at the lift lobbies. FAIL. haha anyway it was all my own creation of suspense and excitment to amuse and entertain myself due to the lack of any.

oh and the last boy-this rj boy, and recognisable only because his shirt said Raffles Soccer No. X and that instead of the cute brothers, i kept seeing him on the last two days.

the bruise-i have a humongous bruise on my knee from trying to put on my jeans in the toilet that is sooooo tiny.i think, half the size of my (already quite small) toilet at home! i hit my knee against the door knob ysee. AND all my friends know i never bruise even from kicks throws or jabs, which just demonstrates how small the toilet was and how huge the impact was for me to actually obtain a huge one.

SO other than that, i ate alot, walked alot (the ship very big), visited penang for the first time, played alot of daytona (and lost to little boys half my age), retreated to the library, made a christmas stocking with my name on it at an A&C class with my sisters, attempted line dancing with the big S, watched a fruit carving demo, attended an origami class, watched people, smiled alot (because all the staff were so friendly!) and am supremely impressed by the management under the Cruise Director. HAHAH supremely! that's new it just popped into my head.

OH i forgot to mention that we took the train down to harbourfront centre! instead of cabbing. which is HAHAH exciting and novel! because with all our luggages :D everybody should try it some day.

HELLO. i am still awake now at 12.21am because i am waiting for my hair to dry. and i am still uncharacteristically chirpy (relatively) because the class gathering was better than i expected..we played 3 games that included everybody present, an achievement! and then of course when things got abit slow, splitting into groups of bridge and blackjack (?) was inevitable which worked out quite well because i got to share with someone who appreciates what i think about.

to me it seems like everybody can have the big things, but it is the seemingly trivial, insignificant and ordinary little things that make or break the relationship.

and i suppose going home with (not bad) company is a nice change too, although i am used to going myself.

to X who said it was cool that i decided on things based on my being happy or not.. i think sometimes it isn't always cool because then i leave other people out of my life's equations, which can be pretty selfish at times.

and my dad's touching down at 3am! maybe i'll watch tv and see if i can stay awake till 4 when he comes home.oh no! there is no more okto :( OH haha i've found a show to watch..Super Match (taiwanese) and this couple they're interviewing is so..interesting. like the boy said that he was uncertain about their relationship because she was like an energizer 100W battery but he is just a normal 50W battery (not in exact words, but that is what he implied) and that he is not always as enthusiastic and responsive as he is in the short period of time they've been interacting on the show, and he isn't sure that their relationship will last in the long-run.

OK TV!

/edit: and his confession letter is so sweet! he says that the tortoise may never catch up with the rabbit, but the tortoise really likes the rabbit.
his is the most warm&fuzzy and real out of all the boys' confession letters. the rest SO LOUYA and fake and cliche, like it doesn't come deep from the heart.
ah but the game quite cruel, one of the girls got 3 confession letters while one of the girls got none!!!:(

Why do people put up 300+ of their personal photos up for show on FB?
even if i see alot of you, it isn't the way i would like to know you leh
maybe i'm just weird..but i don't think so
i think FB is abit scary.

i desire being motionless
instead of seemingly continuously fulfilling my commitments.

i am reading this book Forbidden Love by Norma Khori. It is about the love and secret rendezvous between a Muslim Jordanian woman and a Catholic man, that results in her death. Despite rationalising that centuries-old cultures and beliefs cannot be easily eradicated, it does not stop me from feeling angry at the injustice, the restrictions, and inequality that the women are subjected to, especially of the most ridiculously cruel and senseless concept of an honour killing by her own father, her own brothers. What happened to familial love? It is such a scary and chilling thought. How can you just kill your own flesh and blood? How can you bear to stick a knife into the sister who has been so much part of your life? yknow they didn't even do anything all they shared were TWO kisses, which i suspect were nothing but innocent pecks, nothing else! If I were her and knowing that I would eventually still come to such an end, I would have just gone and done it first. Terrible terrible terrible. i know you must be thinking: why can't she just run away from home and leave the country? The thing is, for Jordanian women to leave the country legitimately she has to obtain a passport which requires her to produce together with her I/C and birth cert, the family record which is only in the hands of the male head of the family and hence a representative of his approval of her departure from the country. The law supports the extreme patriarchal system.

Even though Norma Khouri does not have the elaborate and detailed style of famous authors of thrillers and horror novels, the reality and the awareness that whatever she is writing about is still happening even today affects me as much as a conscientiously crafted murder fiction.

As i read i feel indignation, yet acutely aware that much of what i am feeling is very little; my indignation is but minor and oh so mild, because what i can know from her book is but a tiny fraction of what those women are truly really facing every day of their lives. I can feel indignation but readers like me will never understand.

Ironically, and i don't mean to be sadistic, but i like this book, because i learnt something from reading it. A different culture, a different life, one so much disparate from mine where i take nail polish (blue, red, yellow and every single gaudy colour i experiment with), shorts, swimsuits and the excuse from housework for granted. Besides of course the more commonly realised (though not less pertinent) ones -- independence, freedom, education.

here here here here here

anyway, i think Queen Rania of Jordan is super pretty.
Queen Rania