You're my courage to go on (blogging)


... Sosincal. Your words mean to me a lot more than you know.

And now, some long awaited photos of Christmas, Jacky Cheung's concert and Reunion Dinner Night for the Tan juniors.

Christmas -

We had company on Christmas eve.



My mahjong kakis, Onn and Benny and their respective girlfriends. It's damn obvious what we were doing right before opening the wine Onn brought, isn't it?





Their defination of a screwed cork.



What the heck.



So we messed around for awhile until Benny's girlfriend had to go home, during which Onn's girlfriend became our temporary kaki until Benny came back.

So the next day was Christmas (obviously), and we spent a quiet evening together. We did present opening at home and then set out for a small little BBQ all by ourselves.

Lazy's gift.



See, it has little hearts in it.



What makes this so special? Because it was so sweet and totally unexpected. We were out shopping together with Cudas the weekend before, and I was swooning over this watch in one of the shops. I didn't even drop any hints.

Anyways, Cudas got me this fisheye camera she got from http://www.lomotion.com/. She's some sort of goddess there and has loads of free points.



Notice the cat on the cover. Cute.

It kind of disappeared after she took the camera and had the film developed. Methinks she wants to play with it herself.

These are 3 of the best shots I took with the fish-eye camera. Actually it's 2. The third one is to ka-jiao Cudas, cuz I know she'll chase after me to have it removed.

They are all unedited (except for resizing and the watermarks).

My favourite piece -







Hiak hiak. She is so going to have my blood for this. But I digress.

So after the present opening session, we had a two-person BBQ at (where else?) Fresh Air Cove. We went for a last minute shopping earlier on and got a mini disposible BBQ set at $5, slicked pork/chicken/beef/ham and had fun.





The food was yummy-ummy-ummy although we had trouble starting the fire with the puny piece of paper wax the box provided, and Lazy had to go borrow some firestarter from the family next to us.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The year of Jacky Cheung world tour 07' which we watched in '08 courtesy of tickets from Lazy's boss -

You know in every concert attended, people tend to do this :



Take pictures of the crowd and the people there. I mean, what's the excitement? It's just people. We already saw them at the Mayday concert. Anyway I'm also doing it, so don't feel bad. Hehe.

We got relatively good tickets, considering they're free, it wasn't as close as we were to MAYDAY!!! but the view was good. There was this dude in blue uniform in front of me the whole time, and his shifty eyes penetrating the entire row of audience where I was sitting. Or was it that he's watched the same concert for so many times that he's not interested anymore?



Lazy eating his $6 hotdog..



Proving that we were there..



Another obligatory picture of the crowd..



... and we're done.

Oh, and a picture of Jacky Cheung himself!

Are you ready?

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

Are you really?

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

TA-DA!!

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..




Oh he's there somewhere. Near where the arrow is pointing. I think.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CNY at both my grandmama's houses -

As usual we spent reunion dinner night with my paternal side of the family, and Chu Yi (初一) with my maternal side of the family.

Every year it's the same image of us "lao-ing" the yu-sheng, so Imma skip those. However, we have something new this year!

Presenting Kermit the frog on reunion night:



Why it is so important for us to have a Tan junior family photo this year?

...

PREGGOS! Haha. Two of them.



On the left with the oldest Tan junior is June, whom we should call Da-sao (big sister-in-law) because she married the eldest Tan junior, but we call Zhong-sao (middle sister-in-law) instead because the eldest Tan junior had a Zhong in his name.

We like to complicate things.

After having numerous photos taken with numerous parents camera phones, grandmama got waylaid on her way in to take something. Presenting the sweetest, most loving-in-her-special-way, most traditional and reliable and beautiful grandmama of the Tan clan -



She used to dye her hair black in an attempt to stave off the "old", but she absolutely refused to dye it black anymore on account that it is too inconvenient for her, even after numerous requests and pleas to dye it black by (who else) the Tan juniors.

In this next photo, something strange is going to happen. Something is not right. Look closely.



Need a hint?

There are three preggos in this photo.

*Sorry, inside joke of Tan juniors*

Anyways, the next day was spent at my maternal grandmama's house. Once again, she wow-ed us with the delicacies and food. It went along smoothly until some lady wearing a curtain and her family turned up and plopped down on one of the seats and started eating. Eurgh.

The most memorable thing?

Lizard eggs.



In here.



Remind me never to play mahjong at my grandmama's house again.

....


I have been unhappy. For awhile now. Which explains the missing posts. Which is also not an excuse for the missing posts. I'm just lazy. Millions of photos to edit. But I don't want to. So all you're gonna get. Is some defragmentated crap of an excuse. Telling you why I don't post anymore.

I know this is awfully horrid of me, but I look at the starving kids in Ethiopia. The forced marriages of India. And then I don't feel so bad. Hehe.

Hello?

Is anybody still there, I wonder.

A bad case of Late-Night-Cannot-Sleep-Looking-For-Hilarious-Videos-To-Entertain-Myself-Til-The-Sun-Rises


This is hilarious. I almost peed myself laughing at Jimmy Kimmel's reply.

Sarah Silverman's message to Jimmy Kimmel.



And this is Jimmy Kimmel's hilarious reply.



OH MY FREAKING GAWD IT'S JOSH GROBAN!! And Robin Williams! And Cameron Diaz! And That nerd from the superbad!

Dramatic Tarsier


The very defination of a drama queen. Despite the title in the video, it's a tarsier, not a lemur.

You


You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust. Anyone else, it wouldn't have been so painful.

It was wrong of me to believe in you.

You.

We've been torn apart


.. and I don't understand. We were leading our perfect lives, or maybe it was too perfect and people got jealous.

Maybe they're so sick of their own bleak lives that they have to pry into someone else's life, and when they see an almost perfect one, they wedge themselves firmly right in the middle and drive them apart. Maybe they lead secretly sad lives and it infuriates them to see someone else having a better one, that they force others to conform to what they feel is conventional.

Maybe.

I still don't understand why we must be driven apart.

Yet another beautiful soul on the rainbow bridge




"Birth and death contain between them the earthly experience that you perceive as happening within a given period of time, through various seasons, and involving unique perceptions within areas of space-encountered with other human beings, all to one extent or another sharing with you events caused by the intersection of the self and time and space.

In the entire fabric of Ah Meng’s existence, her life is a brilliant, eternally unique and precious portion, but only a portion, from which she emerged with joy and understanding of her great contributions to Singapore.

A death is just a night to her soul.She had lived before, and will again, and in her new life, in your terms, springs out of the old, and is growing in the old and contained within it as the seed is already contained within the flower."

- multidmid

It's too late to apologize


.. it's too late....


We were living in deception, pretending the problems didn't exist. Or maybe I was the only one.

You don't know what I give up for a life like this


Where I'm spending most of my money nowadays.





This is the only thing I could find to take pictures of. Because my rectifier was a second hand DIY one bought at 30 bucks, it obviously couldn't perform to its peak. So it kind of overcharged my NEW battery until it exploded, leaving my rpm meter staring pointedly at the big ZERO for at least 3 months. Without fixing the rpm meter problem, I already had to fork out a friggin' $480 to get my bike up and going.

While I was there, I saw Sub_Zero's poor bike.



Aawww..

And elsewhere, I'm not a giao gwee (gambling addict) but it's all in the name of friendship and fun.

I Just Like This Song




I heard he sang a lullaby
I heard he sang it from his heart
When I found out thought I would die
Because that lullaby was mine
I heard he sealed it with a kiss
He gently kissed her cherry lips
I found that so hard to believe
Because his kiss belonged to me

How could an angel break my heart
Why didn't he catch my falling star
I wish I didn't wish so hard
Maybe I wished our love apart
How could an angel break my heart

I heard here face was white as rain
Soft as a rose that blooms in May
He keeps her picture in a frame
And when he sleeps he calls her name
I wonder if she makes him smile
The way he used to smile at me
I hope she doesn't make him laugh
Because his laugh belongs to me

How could an angel break my heart
Why didn't he catch my falling star
I wish I didn't wish so hard
Maybe I wish our love apart
How could an angel break my heart

Oh my soul is dying, it's crying
I'm trying to understand
Please help me

How could an angel break my heart
Why didn't he catch my falling star
I wish I didn't wish so hard
Maybe I wished our love apart
How could an angel break my heart

Happy 21st Birthday To Me


Thanks guys for turning up at the chalet. And special thanks to my mahjong kakis who worked like coolies for me that day. Onn, Benny and PS, THANK YOU! Dinner on me before mahjong coming Friday!

I'm still waiting for the pictures from the other cameras, so am unable to upload anything. Have patience ya?

You're a little late..





I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm, he came around and he was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry
Well you couldn't be that man I adored
You don't seem to know, don't seem to care what your heart is for
But I don't know him anymore
There's nothing where he used to lie
My conversation has run dry
That's whats going on, nothing's fine I'm torn

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
Youre a little late, I'm already torn

So I guess the fortune teller's right
Should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
To crawl beneath my veins and now
I don't care, I have no luck, I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things that I can't touch, I'm torn

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late, I'm already torn.
Torn.

There's nothing where he used to lie
My inspiration has run dry
That's what's going on, nothing's right I'm torn

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I'm ashamed bound and broken on the floor
You're a little late, I'm already torn..
Torn..

Random memories



I'm turning 21 in 2 day's time. I will officially be an adult, not that I'm not already one. 21 years in this lifetime isn't long, but I managed to squeeze a million memories into these 21 years. Theyre kind of random, just images popping up in my head, and varies from age to age, but they're all a part of me.


The List.

- Playing hide and seek at ah ma's house with my cousin with ah ma helping me by locking me into the store room.

- Ah Yang korkor throwing me over his shoulders and running around the house, both of us giggling like mad.

- Walking along the nursery at Yishun block 850 at aged 3, thinking how lucky it is to be 3 years old and that I'm going to be 3 years old only once in a lifetime and I should enjoy it. Believe me, I shocked my older self when I thought back.

- Holding Kalai's hands and spinning madly around during our primary school's post-PSLE celebrations in the hall.

- The smell of Far East Square in the morning.

- Crying in the storeroom of the restaurant I worked at,Kampong Kitchen, at age 17, after I accidently spilled hot tea all over a customer.

- Ah Yang korkor's magic fingers. He had long slender fingers, as opposed to his portly stature (post-army) and they were stretchable into twisted angles. I've always admired his fingers and for some reason, mine are stretchable like his. He loved to play with his fingers and show how stretchy they were, and I could remember.. staring at them when I was just a small little girl at the coffeeshop eating lunch with him and Leeling jiejie.. staring at them when he pillon-ed me out for a drink when I was 17.. staring at them when they were loading his body into the coffin.. and I can still picture them in my mind. Magicky fingers are in heaven now.

- I remember my first love's name. His name was Squarren. I was 12. He was 13. It was a long and complicated affair which ended too soon with the interference of teachers and parents.

- Playing with water at home with Jack, Amos and my sister. With full disregard for the furniture, we flung water at each other and made a total mess, which was later cleaned up before mom came home.

- Drawing on the walls at our old house at 800+ when both me and my sister were young girls. No spot was left un-drawn. There was even a kiss mark when we played with mummy's lipstick and I kissed the wall, and then drew a face around it.

- Mummy sits me on top of the washing machine to feed me cough medicine. When I grew older and heavier, I couldn't understand why I couldn't sit on the washing machine anymore. One day the cover on top broke into two and I was very, very sad.

- A picture in nursery at 850 that the teacher showed us; A boy about to eat an apple and shaking a pepper bottle on top of it. So.. putting pepper on apples are nice?

- Preschool at Ang Mo Kio: We were forced to sleep for awhile everyday. And if we didn't, we'd get a scolding. And the teacher would sleep with her favourite student. I remember crying like mad once because it was my birthday and I didn't want to go to the nursery.

- I changed my chinese name to "Jackal" for awhile when I was 14. The chinese teacher freaked out when she found out my real name after one whole year.

- I remember when Bob Saget still hosted the America's Funniest Home Videos segment. Which came right after Tom&Jerry's, and right before the Wheel of Fortune. That was after school when I was in lower primary.

- Some kids spoilt the curtains at kindergarden, and the entire class was punished. One kid even cried and grabbed the teacher's legs.

- Sitting on the lap of a friend at SSC when I worked there as a barmaid, and got caught by my manager. Not only did she not mind, the whole world then thought that we were a couple.

- Ice-skating with Darryl, losing contact with him, then going shopping with him later on at Far East plaza after we found each other again.

- BBQ session with the Hurricanes. We learnt the phrase "Ham-Cheese" there.

- Daidee at 346. It's a basketball court, and there was a period of time when everybody got addicted to daidee, and stopped playing basketball just to play daidee.

- The smell of K, and the look in his eyes. Loved, hated, lost, hated, regretted, remorse, loved, hated somemore. It's complicated. It's ongoing. It's gone. He's gone.

- Throwing a half-eaten burger down the rubbish chute after watching a documentary on the emiciated people in Ethiopia, who were living on rubbish and leftovers. I was still hungry, but decided that they needed the burger more than I did.

- Drawing parrots and trees on the wooden construction board at mummy's old canteen.

- Playing daidee with my cousins at ah Yang korkor's funeral. Winner stays dry, first loser drinks one whole packet of water and the 2 other losers drink 2 whole packets each. Zhizhong korkor kept throwing up water. It was funny as hell and we laughed like mad.

- Hokkien songs in daddy's car. He used to have a few cassettes and we'd listen to them over and over and over again.

- Falling down the flight of stairs at my primary school porch during recess time when I was in primay 1. A primary 5 malay prefect girl came along, pick me up and dusted me off and fussed over me, telling me I was such a good girl for not crying. What, I was supposed to cry?

- Punggol camp in secondary school. Sleeping on Dev's lap on the first night because the tents were full of mosquitoes and everybody shifted to the log area and there wasn't enough space for all of us.

- Some guy (I forgot who) sang to me from my carpark at 2am in the morning. 2am.. and the rain is falling....

- Pushing the gearshift lever of Daddy's car at the lentor intersection, causing the car to jump forwards. Got slapped for that.

- Nightmares. When I was young, I'd alway dream of someone close to me, or myself dying. I still remember some of the more horrible ones.

- Watching some of the places of childhood go one by one as we grew up. The school building. The fast food restaurant. The playground.

- Hugging mummy in the dark and crying after our electricity got cut for the umpteenth time and we had no money to pay for it. I had to go borrow some from my friend, WY, and cried in front of him when I did so.

- Almost drowning in Batam when ah Yang korkor dunked me into the swimming pool because he thought it was funny.

Memories. Not all of them are here, but it comes back bit by bit at a time. Where are your memories?

More pictures of Mandy






















































Mandy then...



Mandy recently.

Pretty Babies




.. Won't ever lie to mummy or make mummy sad sad right? Won't ever betray mummy's trust right? Pretty babies will at most make mummy cry when they ruin mummy's favourite bag that she waited for months to get, but pretty babies won't ever break mummy's heart right?

I love my pretty babies.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I Don't Want To Go Back To Work


You know how sometimes one horrible day can cause three months worth of the buildup of love for work to go kapeesh?

Let me list out the horrible things : -

- Woke up late and had to rush for work.
- Saw that some bitch stole a company with a HUGE headcount from my industry that I have been following up for some time and I can't do anything about it.
- Lost a company with big headcount due to the anger at that bitch.
- Crap appointments that will probably fall off.
- Got knocked out of the top two presenters slot, of which I was originally on top of.
- Got my integrity questioned by my boss due to the fault of the freaking taxi driver who chose to go one big round around the island back to my office.
- Colossal jam on the way back home due to an accident at Lentor.
- Late for class due to the Lentor accident, decided not to go at all, then found out it was the second last lesson already.
- Boyfriend came home near midnight after work.

Urgh. And all I can do is to shut the hell up and rant here because some of my colleagues have already brought up the same problem to our small boss, only to be called petty.

No morale. No morale. No morale.

Don't want to work anymore la.