new year resolutions

okay so there's only a little more than an hour left of 2008, plus an extra second of course, and i've made decisions for the coming year.

it'll be another major year like last year, yes, a's.

so, in 2009, steph will:

study hard.
play hard.
取之社会，用之社会。

and i'll be ready for yog, olympic syllabus or not.

shadow of the day

omg i just realised linkin park was filling up the void during my time in germany. minutes to midnight, almost the entire album.

alena always played this particular cd while driving, sometimes she'll skip songs cuz she knows i don't like screamo, and it turns out the rest of the tracks i've been listening to was those songs.

and the radio station has been bombarding those songs too. whoah.

now "shadow of the day" brings me back to the dark roads of biebertal. not because there're no streetlamps (though there really aren't), but because the day's really short and we always go out in the dark and return home in the dark.

where everybody keeps right and the road has no markings and sometimes we'll see animals at the side of the road (alive, of course), and alot of times i'll look out and see snowy land(: and christel would have to keep switching her fog lights on and off because they're on only when there are no cars coming the opposite direction.

merry christmas!

here's a
very merry christmas to everyone!

You Are Merry and Spontaneous

You approach the holidays with joy and playfulness. You refuse to let the holidays be stressful. They should only be about fun. The holidays truly make you feel like a kid again. And you believe it's your job to make everyone else feel like a kid too! Of all the types, you're the most likely to give someone a gift early... because you can't wait. You're also the most likely to wrap your presents quickly - or not at all.

The Wrapping Paper Test

xmas quizzes

You Can Say "Merry Christmas" in 11 Languages

You can say "Merry Christmas" in: English Spanish Japanese Arabic German Italian Swedish Portuguese Dutch Korean Esperanto

How Many Languages Can You Say "Merry Christmas" In?

Your Elf Name Is: Buddy Sugar Butt

Son of a nutcracker!

What's Your Elf Name?

You Are Comet

A total daredevil, you're the reindeer with an edge! Why You're Naughty: You almost gave Santa a heart attack when you took him sky diving Why You're Nice: You always make sure the sleigh is going warp speed

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

You Are a Shortbread Cookie

You are very realistic about yourself and the world. You aren't much for dreaming or fantasizing... you're happy with your life as is. More than most people, you appreciate the value of hard work. And when the work day is done, you're all about simple pleasures.

What Holiday Cookie Are You?

You Will Get Three French Fries

Twelve babies drumming Eleven snowmen a-melting Ten reindeer a-leaping Nine ladies baking cookies Eight llamas a-milking Seven fruitcakes a-festering Six drunks a-drinking Five golden toe rings Four calling telemarketers Three French fries Two stale fruit cakes And a owl in a pine tree

What Will You Get for the 12 Days of Christmas?

so many things, so little words.

todayyyyyy.

sebas and i went out and saw this guy with a ridiculous shirt. it had "The Blue Sky" in german, printed in big fonts, front and back. A big photo of the sky with clouds was printed in front, and both front and back had a scientific description of the sky. in german.

i bet if it was in english the guy won't buy that shirt. and a clever guess tells me he doesn't understand german.

we had a three-hour lunch at seoul garden. i'm lucky my boyfriend's a rubbish dump. like my dad, whatever food we can't finish/don't like, just give him.

ehh my boyfriend cooked for me okay, you have anot. lol.

we headed to ikea after lunch cuz my mom wants me to get ice cream scoops. the thing you use to scoop ice cream, not scoops of ice cream.

and i went home to hear stories collected from my mom from her trip to ntuc today. (:

):

i don't want to be j2 yet.

fllllllllllll. is coming soon.

haven't been blogging regularly since i returned. facebook's unveiling more and more interesting stuff.

my beedle bard from u.s. is arriving soon.

completed my giessen austausch thingo. i bought a postcard from each place i went to, and if i couldn't then at least i'll have the tickets/coasters. so i put them altogether in an ikea frame that i went to buy with sebas. now i'll just have to wait for my dad to borrow a power drill so that it can be nicely displayed on my darker pink wall.

weien just forwarded me the youth partner activity schedule. the police wants us to do work on 31 dec. idk, my ultra huge yp shirt makes me not want to draw any connection with those people in navy blue uniform. there's an exhibition on tomorrow, i havn't decided whether or not i should turn up.

and...for those of you who are waiting to know my progress in holiday homework. i swear i'm telling the truth. i haven't even completed my chem bonding worksheet. i gave up on math. memorising organic chem equations hasn't gone past the first two.

one last thing. i'm already got clothes for cny.

schokolade.

so erm. i haven't got down to posting my germany pictures and alot of people have. including alena. i'll do it tomorrow. unless i die in my sleep or a terrorist bombs my block later.

i'm still happily diminishing my supply of germany chocs after every meal. and during random times of the day.

and my mom found my grapefruit labello while washing my fleece jacket. (:

sggggggg.

i'm back. but i left my pink grapefruit labello in the plane.

deutschland, tage 13

day eleven. we were supposed to attend regular lessons with our hosts but alena and sören and tabea had they're first hour off, so i was allowed to sleep in. then we visited aliceschule, a berufschule. it's a kind of school where they teach you specific trades, so after you grad you can go to work straightaway. kinda like ite and poly mixed.

we went to bake plätzchen. a kind of cookies. and we almost literally only did the baking part. oh wait. no. we din't even put it into the oven.

the dough was already made for us, one part sugar two parts butter three parts flour, and all we had to do was cut them into shapes and put onto baking trays, then take them to the baking room where a teacher would take over and put them into the oven.

and when everthing was done, we decorated the cookies. and ate them.

i was grouped with chuyun and shiru with an aliceschule student michelle, and we backed 90 cookies altogether. but just before everything was packed into small plastic bags for us to bring back, i think only half were left.

michelle was very funny. when we first started i wanted to roll one third of the dough. as in, flatten with a rolling pin. so i broke off one third of the dough, and she said, no, if you want to do, you have to do everything.

then i divided the rest among chuyun and shiru and we did everything together.

the cookies we made were two layered ones. the first layer is a full circle, and you put another donut shaped one on it after jam is put on the bottom piece. so in total we cut 180 little dough circles.

we had to put icing sugar on top, and i put alot on one to make it look nice, then michelle came over and tapped the cookie on the tray sideways, emptying the sugar. and she said, no, too much. this is enough.

lol.

then we copied a recipe for a kind of cookie than was "invented" by one of the teacher's mom. it's like fruitcake, but in cookie for. not nice, imo. but alena's mom liked it.

and for lunch us sg students had "authentic" german food. we were given knödel, which i don't like, and a kind of meat we couldn't tell was what (but tasted like duck but was too big to be duck)

and herderschule kids were given schnitzel and fries. envy much.

after everything christel drove me to get chocolates for you hungry singapore people. now my hand carry luggage is full of food.

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

day twelve. we drove 2 hours to wiesbaden to get to the ministry of culture of hessen, supposedly to meet the minister.

we had to dress formally, so i borrowed alena's shirt and trousers. i had to stuff the trousers into my boots cuz they were too long. and i wore my own blazer.

so after 120 minutes of torture in the bus and a very long muddy route to the ministry, the people who talked to us (i have no idea who they really are) told us that the minister was out station.

so we listened to them talk, exchanged presents and got a file with stuff each, and we left.

and all these were done in 15 minutes. wunderbar. wonderful.

then we went to their parliament house. half of the place, okay maybe 90% of it, was kept in the olden state, with nice wall and ceiling paintings and nice floors and furniture. and when you step out of the music room, you enter the present. everything is modern. so one side of the door is the old kind, and the otherside is white and modern.

okay i confess. this trip i haven't been taking alot of photos. i left the job to the people who have nice cameras and can upload them onto facebook. so i can kope them.

and anyway we ate our lunch at the parliament house, where we had bratwurst. with a dessert, a salad, a soup and a drink. i think we were only entitled to the main and a drink, but no big person said anything. not even the dudes at the cashier. (we didn't have to pay)

yep then we visited the opel car factory, where i slept through the video introduction and took a picture with a bicycle taller than me. you know those old ones with the big wheel in front and the small one behind? yeah that.

and i answered a question correctly and got gummy cars.

during breaktime, even though the employees spen their time in the factory, they smoke. so chu yun and i were dying inside, and the tour guide said, "oh yes the smell of oil is quite strong here." and we were trying to explain to him that it's the smoke and not the oil, but he didn'e quite get it. chu yun says maybe he smokes too.

but almost everbody does over here.

and back at home we ate spaghetti that's one metre long. i helped cook the sauce.

and for desserts, we tried making crepes. the first two didn't turn out too well, but we got the hang of it and the rest were okay. ate it with haägen daz macadamia nut brittle.

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

day thirteen. which is today. we were supposed to reach the radio station at 9.30. but it was snowing so badly there was a horribly stau, traffic jam, on the highways. so we couldn't take the highways at all.

we were meant to leave for frankfurt at eleven, but that was the time we reached the radio station.

and it wasn't anything special. only that they know we come from moelc. (the culture ministry didn't) i guess radio stations are pretty much the same all over.

and at the end i went to the toilet, and when i was out i saw nobody else there. then i saw nicole in her neon jackjet around 100m away from me, outside. so i walked damn fast and caught up with them. had to run the last 50m though, else the bus would have drove off without me. and herr spindler only did head counting when the bus drove off.

so we finally drove to frankfurt. we were given 7 euros each for lunch. i went with wu yang, shanni, xiwen, warren, diana and anusha, and nathalie, and we had bratwurst. in a bun, not like lunch the previous day. then i had a hot chocolate with cream. it had rainbow sprinkles on it, and shiru thought it was cute so she took pictures.

then we took a very short look at the paulskirche, church of paul, and we left. cuy there wasn't much to see.

we were meant to go to the kaisersaal, the king's room, but it was closed for today so we had the rest of the time at the weihnachtsmarkt.

bought presents, then we left frankfurt. with our stuff and us all wet cuy it was raining the whole time.

i left my umbrella in the umbrella bin of a shop. but we got onto the bus early and i was reminded of it by the empty umbrella case that fell out of my bag, so i dragged anusha with me back to the shop. the shopkeeper recognised us.

on the bus, wuyang needed a seat and he didn't want to sit with diana so i talked terms with him. he can sit beside me, but will have to take my bag and not talk. because once he opens his mouth chu yun will walk away and go sit somewhere else. she sits infront of me.

and when we got off the bus i was searching for alena again, and out of the dark she jumped at me from behind, with leau.

now we're leaving the house to go for dinner in a restaurant. tschüs!

deutschland, tage zehn.

well so today's day ten. i skipped two days, and i can't exactly remember what we did.

okay so on friday (it's still sunday here) we went to goethe's house. the area where the events in the book "the sorrows of young werther" took place. and in charlotte's house, which has become a museum, we were only allowed to take three photos each. but nobody cared luh.

oh i rmb which state alr. wetzlar.

and at the weihnachsmarkt there herr spindler saw zucker watter (candy floss) and he was damn excited. turns out he didn't know it existed in sg. he should visit pasar malams. he got a large one for 1.50 euro. the same amt, dom bought in chengdu for 2 rmb.

we baked gingerbread at home. finally i know gingerbread doesn't have ginger content.

and then we cooked chicken rice with the paste thing we bought from the asian supermarket. the chicken was overcooked because everybody was busy with the gingerbread, but the rice turned out quite nice. we didn't have sesame oil, so i substituted with another sort of oil that was green. it tasted a little similar, but the colour was sort of scary. they liked it nevertheless.

then yesterday was the weihnachtsbazar in herderschule. if you're wondering why i keep using that weihnachts word, that's because it means christmas. and christmas is a great deal here.

we had three hours to advertise sg to the students/parents in herderschule. no students came though, at least not the ones we were targetting. 10th graders.

fri evening i told alena's mother, christel, that my duty was from 11-12, but i have t be tehre at ten still. apparently she didn't hear that second part, so went i arrived at the breakfast table the next morning, everything was still and the table was empty. everyone was still in bed.

and alena only reached home at 4.15 that morning after a birthday party that i was invited to go but couldn't cuz i'm under eighteen.

but luckily the grandma was up alr, so she woke the mom. and she looked very flustered as she asked me if i wanted a tea, then explained to me that we won't eat breakfast at home because the weihnachtsbazar sells alot of food, so that's where we'll settle breakfast. i had a donut nevertheless.

the sg video they were showing in the room was dated 2001. the resolution was lousy. herr spindler got it from stb, and they said it was the latest.

halfway through we sang a birthday song for herr spindler. chu yun and her host maria baked a cake for him. so herr spindler's only one year younger than my mom.

after my duty time we went to the gießen weihnachtsmarkt. we had original thüringer there. it's a brötchen with a super long grilled sausage. damn nice, 2.50 euro.

then we walked around but didn't really get anything because even according to alena, the weihnachtsmarkt things are quite ex.

but we went to the fußgangerzone to buy clothes.

and a while after we reached home, we had to leave again for alena's grandaunt's birthday party. she is seventy years old and has hearing aids in both ears. but she looks much younger.

the food was okay, and fried stuff, like in all buffets, turned a little soggy. my schintzel was quite hard to cut. pork cutlet.

and i tried malt beer. didn't like it. it's supposed to be kids beer, cuz it's alkoholfrei.

then alena and i went home first cuz we were both very tired. i heard papa and mama come home though.

this morning i had one crossiant with five fillings. i discovered a really nice ham.

and at noon we left for the atta-höln. where there are very nice rock formations underground. but the trip there was like, one and a half hours.

we had lunch there, and i ordered herringsfilet. i thought it would be at least steamed, otherwise fried. it came somewhat raw, like sashimi. cold. and very salty. and there were three of them.

but i liked the bratkartoffel that came with it. that was the only reason why i chose that particular item anyway. i only ate one filet, but i cleared the potato.

while waiting for the tour to start, we went to the shop. i was looking ard thinking of what to get for people after we come out. but when we did, the shop was closed. but christel said she'll bring me there another day. and the trip to and fro used half of the car's gas.

regarding what's in the cave. it's wet. beause the rock formations are made from rainwater that seep underground to leave behind small particles, which form rock over time. every ten years, one mm of rock is formed. so what's in the cave is millions of years old. stones and crystals. we spotted a rabbit, a polar bear, a bird and a castle.

go google atta-höln if you want to see pictures. that's where i will get them anyway.

then we went home and alena suddenly realised she was late for her dance class. so we drove over, and her dad was at a speed of 186km/h on the autobahn. expressway. we dropped tabea off at leau's house, then went over to the dance school.

dad was the dance partner. they did stuff like cha cha, foxtrot, waltz...yeah. and i watched for one and a half hours. it was quite interesting actually, and the teacher's quite nice. and the other students don't dao you like people in sg will. they smiled at me everytime they danced past me, and one even spoke to me.

then we went to pick tabea up and home we went, to dinner of baked potato. there were two sauces, one was cream with chilli, cucumber, onions and garlic, and the other one was yoghurt sauce. i liked the one with the chilli, but the garlic scares me.

maybe christel will drive me to the atta höln tmr, cuz we'll be driving to get chocolates. for you people in sg.

amd günter, the dad, drove specially to a friend's house to get me the newspaper cutting of sg students' visit to gießen.

deutschland, tage sieben.

apparently alot of germans don't know what exactly sg is. a few thought that sg was bigger than germany itself.

if sg was as big as germany, going to the airport would be a nightmare.

and alena's mom only knew last night that sg is not under the brits anymore. when she read that sg gained independence in 1965, her face was filled with enlightenment.

i just came back from the shisha bar that alena worked at. three of her six friends were smoking. one was shisha-ing. sebas knows how much i can't stand smoke. but i didn't say anything. i guess it'll be quite rude, since it's like the norm to smoke here. so i was rather relieved when after food, alena asked if i wanted to go home. she drove me home, and went back to the bar.

this morning we had an almost 2-hour journey, by bus from gießen to köln. it was very windy when we got off the bus, and inside the kölner dom wasn't very much better. and the place has a weird atmosphere. i mean like, well it's a church, and i generally don't mind churches, but i just felt weird inside there. elizabetkirche was okay though. the one ytd.

at 11.45 all the tourguiding had to stop, because it was the service time. so we went out to wait for the exchange students from france. they were on the bus with us, but they had a different itenary.

and it was bloody cold. there were joker buskers all dressed up outside the church. cold, yo.

so the young french boy and girls finally arrived and we walked to the restaurant we were supposed to have lunch together. it was fried pork cutlet with your choice of sauce, with soup, salad and ice cream. and a 200ml drink.

i chose this sauce that reminded me totally of roti prata. andrew had his soup bowl 5/6 filled, and mine was only half filled. unfairness, people. and my chocolate ice cream didn't have chocolate chips but his did. but then i had a second helping of chocolate ice cream because somebody didn't want it, and it had chocolate chips! haha. and they thought it was amusing when i scooped the icream out of the cup onto the plate. i did that so i could reach the chocolate one before finishing the strawberry.

then we went to the roman-germanien museum. idk how it's spelt in english. the guide there was the first guide i could understand in germany.

halfway through grace, nicole and i had to go to the toilet, and grace had constipation because the vegetables we get here are not that plentiful. and when she was finally done, the cleaner went into the cubicle, idk why, and made a very disgusted sound. lol so we went off. without leaving money in the plate.

about that. here they don't explicitly charge you for toilets. but the shopping centre i went to a few days back had this guy outside the toilets with a small plate. most people who came out of the toilet would put a coin on the plate, and only after that will he say goodbye to you. well i didn't know that, so while i was outisde waiting for alena i was wondering if i should just drop some money in. but i only had notes, and the smallest denomination is five, so i thought, forget it. alena came out and dropped a coin in.

and everytime after somebody puts money onto the plate, the guy would take it out and put it under the plate so that there is always only two coins seen.

and in the museum they had the same plate at the sink area. it only had one coin. 50 cents. somebody paid 1 sgd for toilet. the smallest denomination i had today was 20 cents, and i didn't even want to put it there.

oh wow i was so engrossed in blogging i totally forgot about my gems swap at facebook.

okay so after the museum we went to the christmas market. the stuff there was quite interesting, but most are really expensive. if you convert it to sgd, especially.

then we spent another nearly two hours on the bus and we returned to herderschule.

i was so lookig forward to homecooked dinner, then after we reached home alena told me, "we go to play billard with my friends."

and i was like, "now?" and she said, "yes! in five minutes!"

ach so. okay then. so we drove over with the friend, arick's car in front. and at a bend alena drove her car into his car. luckily it hit the bumper and there wasn't visible damage done.

i had nachos at the bar. because grace tols me they were nice. and i didn't know it would be my dinner. they taste like sg's dorritos. only with cheese on top and with two dips. salsa and sourcream.

so now to make myself feel more dinner-ish, i'm eating yoghurt. it was from my lunchbox, i get one every day, but i usually don't clear everything.

now i've got coasters from three places. haha.

tomorrow the mayor of giessen is going to visit us in herderschule. i wonder if he has bodyguards like mr president does.

and sebas, my host doesn't read your blog unless i show it to her.

oh and alena has near twenty piercings all over her body. but the parents only know of four.

deutschland tage sechs

yesterday...i forgot what we did yesterday.

oh. first i went with sören to german class, where we watched a movie called der prozess. the trisl, in english. apparently it's an english movie originally, but they had it translated.

we left halfway, because all the sg students were supposed to leave at nine.

pan didn't arrive, and nobody knew where to find brigitta (his partner) so we left without him. halfway through, andrew, i tzhink, received a message from pan. "where are you?"

then herr spindler gave him a call and asked him to meet us at the elizabetkirche in marburg. the church of elizabeth.

and brigitta drove him there at a speed of 180km/h. pan said it was damn fun.

the church was...nosso interesting. elizabeth is a lady that sounded like mother theresa. but she's actually a princess and devoted her life to helping the poor and sick. so they built a church in her name.

the brick walls are pink and the cement filling the gaps between bricks is white.

then we walked around marburg. it was rather early and we weren't allowed to shop, so i think everybody was wondering why did they even bring us there in the first place. but wells. we heard the marburg clock tower strike twelve. i have a video of it. the rooster flapped its wings, the trumpeter trumpeted, the bell rang...yeah.

then we went to the marburg university for lunch. we were allowed to have one main and three sides. they paid 5.50 euro each, for us. and the three sides include drink/soup. i didn't know that, so i took three sides and a drink, and the chef came out and sort of scolded me. i think now he thinks that singaporeans are greedy.

but still the food was quite nice. and i eavesdropped on herr spindler's conversation with a herderschule teahcer. he's forty two years old. back in sg he refused to tell us his age.

oh sebas. don't worry about me getting a german boyfriend. i let my host read your blog post, and she said that she'll take away all the guys before i can do anything. haha. just so you can sleep better.

after lunch we visited the liebig museum. if you think this name is familiar, here's why: liebig condenser. the original one was made out of wood. the cold water in and hot water out thing. the guy there (no not the liebig person definitely) was carrying out alot of experiments there, trying to make us think he's damn good. but when we see blue colouring, we'll go, "copper two sulphate." but he poured liquid nitrogen in his palm and "slit" his wrist. the blood was iron something. but he friggin used a breadknife. maybe it was blunt.

then we walked around and they made raspberry ice cream with liquid nitrogen for us. i took an extra serving for whoever picks me up. i thought it was going to be alena's father, but it was the mom instead. but, no diff. she liked the ice cream. i just thought the cream taste was too overpowering. the same with the cakes in germany. it's just...the feeling of fatness.

then we went grocery shopping again. the orange juice that we buy are freshly squeezed, so every two or three days we have to replenish the supply. and we got baking stuff, and some more food, and the total bill was 60+ euro. my mom goes to the market once a week, and i don't think she even spends 60 sgd per trip.

so either this family is damn rich, or the stuff in germany are really that expensive.

and you know, after staying here for six days, i've made up my mind to stay in sg for good. winter. is. not. good. for me, at least. i know chu yun definitely likes winter here. and she only knew today that i was from nh. cuz i asked if she knew jeslyn since they're both in western dance in nj. all the while she thought i was from nan chiau.

oh don't all nanhuarians hate how people mistaken us for them.

okay so we got groceries, then we went home to bake. i made walnut and hazelnut cookies.

then was dinner. we had this ham that had a picture/silhouette of a mouse on every piece, and tebea said, "kill the mouse before you eat it!" then proceeds to slit the neck of the mouse.

i'm still getting used to them saying, "i have to learn math. i have a test tomorrow." because "study" is reserved for university students. only they study, the younger ones learn. and only they are called students, the rest are just "school goers". in german context.

and shannon if you're reading this. i asked, they start learning el at ten years old too. i told them my dutch friend asked.

i told my host family that i have a boyfriend, and the father asked if he was in china or singapore. lol. i think it's because a chengdu student smsed me ytd and i replied him, then after that i told him i messaged my friend in china. and in german, fruend=boyfriend.

today the mom packed all the cookies i baked and asked me to share them with the other sg students. i thought it was mission impossible. when we first reached herderschule, almost everyone was too full to eat. them halfway through our lesson about romans in germany, i took out the box and passed it around. herr spindler took four. it was passed one and a half rounds, and an empty box returned. chu yun passed it to me and said, "you succeeded."

after that lesson we carried on lessons with our host. alena had english and chem. for english they were doing something like lit. read texts and compare their setting, tone, characters, first impression...and in the end they were to vote for two books they liked best, and the one with the most votes, everybody would have to buy the book to read. i was sad that the handmaid's tale only got three votes. they are to get the clockwork orange in the end, at 6.20 euro.

their chem lesson is like our econs lesson. the teacher only teaches abit, and the rest of the time is spent talking and joking. only the teacher doesn't laugh like winnie does. they were doing chem equilibrium, and i had one rj guy and one hc girl saying, "this is so easy!"

apparently chem o is tmr. but fll skirmish is also tmr. if i didn't have this german trip, i'll be caught between the two. if i had taken the chem o test and qualified, of course. but this trip pwns everything else.

oh the envelopes here are white outside and grey inside. but still can see through. and they sell toilet paper that have english lessons printed. in a resaurant there was tissue with advertisements printed on. very clever.

after chem we went home to eat. fried fish fillet and potato salad. then wall's chocolate ice cream. i think wall's is sort of a high end brand here. somewhat on paar with haägen daz, i think. and even here, haägen daz is not something every family can afford.

then alena painted my nails. they're purple now. sebas was supposed to paint them for me before i left for germany, but we didn't get a chance to meet. so, hah. nail virginity taken.

after that we went to visit the graves. alena's mom's dad, and alena's dad's mom. i didn't dare to ask about the dad's dad. the mom's mom stay with us, so that old man can't possibly be staying alone, and i didn't want to bring sad moments by asking where he is. just in case.

then we went to see the gate where the germans used to fight with the romans. photos when i'm back.

and then we drove to another state, wetzlar, just to have coffee. but it's alena's mom's favourite state, other than gießen i suppose, and the cafe we went to was her favourite cafe.

then we drove back and now i'm here. i drooled while sleeping in the car.

deutschland, tage vier

this morning we sat through a presentation of the education system in germany, a brief intro of giessen (the province i'm in) and propaganda about herderschule. the school that collaborated with moelc to come up with this exchange programme, aka my host's school.

i think i could't understand 90% of it. and the leftover 10% was random words i couldn't form sentences with.

but anyway.

after that we went for a tour around giessen.

we climbed a very tall tower, it had 84 stone steps and i didn't count the metal steps. and the stone steps made up a super long spiral staircase. the metal steps definitely made it more than 120 steps.

it felt like derailment during cssp, only colder, darker and a longer distance.

yep and then we went to the elefantekol. the elephant bridge. named as such because it has the largest toilet in the whole europe. our tourguide for the tour was bloody sacarstic i didn't really listen to him. everytime he wanted our attention, he'll go, 'HELLOOOOOOO!!!'

then was lunch. buffet lunch.we were entitled to one drink which, anything else we'll have to pay for it. but food was freeflow and us being quite typical singaporeans, we took a number of servings. and my plates always had leftovers, because there are stuff i don't exactly like. for example, knödel. it's supposed to be potato dumpling, but it tasted plastiky and like powdery sponge.

but still i ate so much that i'm still full. i finished my meal at around 1.30pm, and it's 7.33pm right now.

after that we went to the mathematikum, which is a math museum. it's really fun. i think more info can be found online. just google that long word above.

digressing, alena is george yeo's friend. on facebook.

there was this exhibit in the museum where you can search your birthdate in the pi value. and everybody's birthday can be found.

and i was in a bubble(:

at 4pm alena's mom came to pick me up. she said we have to go to the city for awhile, because she had to get two presents for her relatives' birthdays.

but she went to collect her already reserved boots, for me. they're white and shiny. we have the same shoe size, and i don't think i'll need the boots anytime soon (they're really warm), and i feel bad about her having to spend money on me (though it's just 19.99 euro), so think when i leave i'll just return them to her. or leave them in the room.

she got me pullovers also, but i'm going to give them to alena/tabea when i have to go. but if they insist i take them, i'll just take one. it was 6 euro only anyway.then i can wear them during lectures and match xueni's jacket. they're both grey.

yes and only after getting those stuff did we go get presents for the relatives.

she got two vases from a furniture shop that's like ikea but not ikea becaue ikea's 80km away. then we went to a florist to have her put flower arrangements inside. they'll be ready by wed afternoon.

we drove past the bar where alena worked. it doesn't look very menacing. so if i'm invited to go this coming weekend, maybe i will.

then we drove back home. the thermometer showed temperatures dropping from 18 degrees to -2 degrees. but i think i'm getting used to the cold. but not the lack of humidity. i think my lips face is cracking. and my ears may break off anytime soon.

and just fyi, in germany schools they can have a maximum of three tests in a week. i rmb in nh last year we ever had three in a day.

oh yeah, last night, after i posted that entry, we went to build a snowman. sören made a snow rabbit too. then we had a snowfight. then i was a happy girl.

our dinner last night was nice too. everybody gets a little pan, we put whatever food we like on it, e.g. cauliflower, ham, potato, corn, capsicum, shrimps... and then you put a piece of cheese on top, and stick it into the grill thing. after maybe ten minutes, it can be eaten. it's like diy pizza without the bread.

okay that's making me hungry already. bye bye people, i hope you all are sleeping well.

deutschland tage drei

i didn't blog ytd weil ich sehr müde war. sorry i'm getting quite used to the german-speaking environment.

i was too tired.

we shopped for groceries, then we went to the mall to get christmas presents, then we went for coffee and finally we went home. alena went for work, and after dinner tabea (alena's younger sister), lio (tabea's bf) and sören (alena's best friend) went to the bar that alena worked at to play pool. i was supposed to tag along, but i was really tired so i stayed at home and slept.

the supermarket we went to's called REWE. it's very much bigger than our ntucs, and the refrigerator section is huge. we purchased ard 124 euro worth of grocery. for sgd, please times two.

then we went to the getrankemarkt. this is where we get all the stuff we drink. so the difference from sg is that rewe has two buildings instead of one, one for food and one for the drinks. the drinks building is also quite huge. because they have to sell drinking water too, since tap water here isn't potable. the toilet bowl water is yellow and cloudy.

we got i think 60 enros worth of drinks. they had to get still water especially for me, because they only drink sparkling water. which is cheaper, surprise surprise. i thought the added carbon dioxide would make it more ex. but well, they don't like still water.

and after we got the water home, i finished a 1.5 litre bottle within 4 hours. i don't even drink that much water in sg.

okay so after groceries, alena's mom drove us to the mall. we went to their open air market, and outdoors it was so cold i shivered all the way. now the area around my lips are dry and peeling. i need dollops of moisturiser.

and near the open air market, there was this asian supermarket. thexý asked me to recommend them stuff to try, so we got laksa paste, chicken rice paste/powder (i couldn't tell what was in the packaging), curry paste, 5kg rice (at 15+ euro omg), bean sprouts (mental note: rmb to tell them these can't keep for long) and lemon grass. because we got tom yum paste also.

yep then we walked back in the cold to the mall and had lunch. it's like our hawker centre, the dining area. but of course it had air con. the similarity is that you have to chope seats. and snatch seats.

-----i went to shit and apply moisturiser and change clothes and now it's snowing outside-----

okay back to ytd's lunch.alena and i had turkish food. something like kebab. with coke. then alena's mom had chinese food. the springrolls here have meat. and their fried noodles are nice, only it's abit on the salty side. and their one serving can feed me, my brother and my mom.

lunch here is around two to three in the afternoon, and dinner is between eight and nine.

so after lunch we walked around the fussgangerzone. which is like our orchard road. during winter here, it gets dark before five pm. so it got dark in a while, and we met sören because we got stuff and the car wasn't big enough we had to use his car.

then we went for coffee. i had hot chocolate. alena had cherry-banana tea. she loves tea.

and after that, we went home for dinner. they have poppy seed bread, and i didn't dare to try it. poppy makes marijuana right? idk, i was scared that i may get drugged. then there was this dish that's sliced tomatoes with pieces of mozerella cheese and basil leaves, drenched in a vinegar sauce. it's quite appetising i must say, only i'm not a big fan of tomatoes.

and after dinner i went to sleep.

today we went sleighing. it was negative two degrees and after an hour or so outside and three rounds of sleighing, i couldn't stand it so i went back to the car. alena's father was really nice, he changed gloves with me twice so that my hands won't freeze. i took a couple of photos, i'll post them up after i return.

snowfight was nice. we should build a snowman in the garden.

it is now 6.01pm, which is like what, 1.01 am in sg? haha.

deutschland, tage eins.

okay i'm in the same room where alena's studying, so i'll keep this short.

i forgot to bring the wire that connects the camera to the comp, nor the phone to the comp, so i can't post pictures up till i'm back in singapore.

so far it's been really fun here, except the very long travelling (13 hours 20 minutes) from sg to amsterdam, and the very long waiting time at amsterdam to get our plane to frankfurt.

about the latter. our plane was supposed to take off at 8.45 am, but the announcement said the air traffic was too congested, so we were delayed to 9.15. at around ninem another announcement came, saying that our flight has been delayed yet again, because the crew members were missing.

and to compensate our waiting time, klm gave us each a free bottle of.....




water.

yeah. i took two anyway, second one courtesy of herr spindler. but the water costs 2.50 euro, which is like, 5 sgd. so it's still okay, not like giving you 50 cents sgd new mountain water, but still not like sia that gives sgd 50 voucher.

it's hard to type with a curvy keyboard and having the y below the a. because they have to put in the dotted letters too.

oh yeah. i saw snow for the first time in my life. it was snowing outside alena's house and we bore the cold to go play. i hope it snows some more.

tomorrow we're going grocery shopping, i'm supposed to cook a chinese meal/dish for them. when it's a more sane hour in sg time, i'll sms home for ideas. i think most likely i'm cooking fried rice. only when it's done with german sausage it'll totally not be chinese anymore.

almost one day down, around two weeks left, hopefully by the end of everything i'll be able to at least understand a german dialogue properly.

take care people, i love you.

19 nov, yo.

alena chatted with me on facebook last night/this morning. she said that the german way of life is drinking, taking drugs and having sex.

which means i'll have alot of stories to tell when i'm back. i hope she can lend me her comp so i'll be able to post pictures up everyday(:

i'm not done packing my luggage yet, but gifts are all prepared. tommorrow at this time, i'll still be at home, only i guess more nervous about the trip. alena works at a bar.

rantings of a person leaving sg in a week.

time's passing very fast. in a week, i'll be heading off to germany.

and throughout this week, there are alot of things i have to do.

like:
pack my room
read up ref guide
pack my luggage
get as much homework done as possible
understand more about alena
get well
go shop for stuff for alena and family
attend ref training
babysit my brother

i should be in school studying, to clock my 24 hours a week, but after three days, i really felt that it was better to study at home. at least i don't feel pressured like i do in the school environment. yes i can study on my bed, actually i can study pretty much everywhere at home. i don't usually study at my table because most of the time it's cluttered (like now) and i'm too lazy to clear it up (like now).

my table still has a tcc booklet from a historic pw meeting, my promo timetable, my german oral stuff and calendar pages from months ago because i don't want to forget those important dates that have passed.

oh yeah. can somebody help me find out if i can bring bak kua overseas? either check-in or hand luggage, doesn't matter. i called up the airport person, i think he doesn't know what bak kua is.

referee steph.

sooooo. the postitions for fll are out. i am a referee.

there are alot of documents i have to get into my head, and it's like going back to primary school days, staring at the playfield with its different components.

only this time i'm really in, really playing a part in the competition. i wasn't even a competitor the four years i was in robotics when i was in primary school.

and this time the sponsors are definitely more generous than njrcs. the playfields have colour.

i am looking forward to the tournament. but, the training this friday first. i hope they'll print out the referee guide for us. cuz it's 22 pages long, excluding the q&a which is very important, as emphasised in the guide.

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

alena wants to bring me swimming in germany. when the temperature is max. 13 deg. celsius at this time of the year. haha. but i'd guess it'll be fun. and she's bringing me to berlin too!(:

qwerty.

i'd rather you never made that promise. because now it's so hard for me to imagine, that i've been kept from the truth the past few months. i know you meant good. but if you knew i didn't like it, why did you still do it? why didn't you even give us a chance to discuss it?

this should be deemed unsuitable on my blog. but, heck.

flying down five storeys.

yukiko
hello ziqi! haha. thanks for dropping by(:
jiabin
yeah, then maybe nobody would have to fail ever again huh.
weien
idk how it's like to be late for op. i wasn't late for mine what.

hello people. i'm leaving the house soon, not run away from house sort of leaving house, but going out. xueni's church friends organised some activity for us, at paya lebar.

ytd was 10-hour first-aid duty at the personal leadership workshop. it opened my eyes to alot of stuff, and i requested to try flying fox while i was at the rooftop tending to edmund's injury.

i spent alot of time at the edge of the wall after my harness was tied up thinking whether i should go down at all. because the distance looked scary. and after prolly half an hour, mr ang just pushed me down all of a sudden.

so off i went. the first half of it was scarier compared to the later half cuz i guess it's steeper and therefore faster. but still, thanks to all who were there, razak, xianghui, mr ang, mr choo, ms ng, wei en, and the trolley crew downstairs who waited so patiently for me, and wei ming who climbed up five storeys threatening to push me down though it was mr ang that did it in the end.

i think this is the most fun first aid duty that i've ever done.

ministry of education language centre (bishan)

well i'm sure we all have a list of stuff we hope to experience before we die. i was conjuring up mine some time back, and on my list was "get into a car accident (but without getting harmed)".
i mean like, i sure want to experience a car crash, but getting hurt just for that won't be worth it.

after my first race in sec 4 i aimed to run my first marathon by 18, but since my mom banned be from racing, i've lost all motivation to run. hence, i've postponed, not cancelled, my aim to after i'm married. then i can make my own choice and maybe my husband can run the 42.195km with me.

i don't think many of us have experienced being late for major exams, and i've always wondered what it's like for latecomers.

and for once, i tried it. i was late for my german listening yesterday.

basically, i just underestimated the time i would need to reach moelc from my house. so, i woke up at 5.30am. the exam, as stated in my entry proof, was to begin at 8am, but as all other exams, we have to report fifteen minutes earlier, which would be, in this case, 7.45am.

after getting dressed, i looked at my air-con controller clock. 6.35am. i thought i should have enough time.

then i meddled with my hair, tied it up, clipped my fringe up, redid everything because it looked horrible, and by the time i was satisfied, it was 6.43am. so i went to wear my shoes and everything, and got out of the house at 6.50-ish.

i wanted to take a bus to boon lay interchange because i was lazy to walk. luckily i had that thought. because when i saw the bus arriving and i wanted to take out my ez-link card, i realised it wasn't with me. and i needed it not only to grant me entry to public transport, it was also my identification pass for the exam.

so i went home to get it back. much more time saved then if i were to walk to boon lay and back home, then back to boon lay again.

in the end i think i still walked to the mrt station. damn fast.

the train began leaving the platform at 7.08am. i remember up to nearly every minute of every milestone of my journey, i.e. the train stations between boon lay and bishan.

it was only at 7.40 that i managed to reach raffles place to transfer to the red line. the clock in the train showed time much earlier, such that when i reached bishan at 8.03am, the clock read 7.40-ish. i was already late. i made sure that by checking everybody elses's watches on the train.

so i walked (damn fast, again) towards moelc since there wasn't any 410 in sight. i was imagining the scene when i step into the gates. i pictured the security guards chasing me out of the centre since i was late for the exam. i imagined my teacher saying, "stephanie, you were late for listening so you could not take the exam. and because of this your german paper is incomplete, so you have to take it again next year."

and the worse i thought about, the faster i walked.

i was passing by the bus stop at the mosque just next to moelc when i saw stella alight. i was delighted, that i wasn't late, alone. its always better to have somebody accompany you, whether in good times or bad.

"do you want to run to moelc?" i asked.

"ok."

then we started running. i think it was the first time that i ran to the centre in the five years that i've gone there twice a week.

we burst into the main gate, and the security guards looked quite surprised. i was bloody scared my imagination would become reality and they would chase us out.

but they didn't, they just asked us to check our classrooms to make sure we got it right. then we ran up the stairs (first time i did that as well) and there was a lady there waiting for us. an external examiner.

she directed us to the comp lab next to the one the rest were having their listening. under her instructions, we brought out our entry proofs, ic and stationery. she said, "bring in the stationery you need. no pencil cases." i thought she didn't know what pencil cases mean, since it's just normal that we bring in our stationery in them.

so i fished out, from my roxy bag, my billabong pencilcase with an aeroplane collar pin on it.

then she repeated, "no pencilcase for the exam."

i was puzzled. "but we have always brought in our pencilcases for exams!" i recalled my o level, as well as my german a's at nj.

"no, who told you?"

fine. so i took out the stuff i thought i would need and we went into the lab.

normally there will be stickers announcing our names stuck onto the table, but another lady inside just ushered us to the first two seats in the front row despite the table not being labelled with our names.

we began the exam, but they penalised us by only letting us listen to the first passage once, when we were supposed to hear it twice. thankfully that part wasn't so difficult.

but throughout the exam, at least for the first part of the exam which consisted of two different passages, i could hear stella's and my panting.

and the teacher was less than a metre away from me.

the 11th to 20th questions were open ended, and it took me up to all the three times the passage was read to answer the first question. and the last, i think. the middle questions were fine, but i thought the way i spelt "french" in german was weird.

there was a five minute pause at the end to compil our answers, and i battled through so many thoughts before deciding to change my answers for one of the questions. i was halfway throught writing my new answer, then the recorder went, "this is the end of the listening examination." and the examiner demanded that we put our pens down. so i cancelled the half of the new answer that i managed to write down.

we indicated our names and centre/index numbers on the cover of the answer booklet, and packed our stuff. stella and i were brought to the chief exminer at the conference room at the moelc staffroom (first time i've ever been there), and we were asked the reasons why we were late. both of us said we left home late.

after the chief exminer recorded everything necessary down (he had to refer to our entry proofs and ics as well), i asked him, "will anything happen to us?"

"no."

so i think both of us felt super relieved. we were given the permission to leave, then we went to the exam venue of the rest to wait for them.

boy were they surprised when they saw us outside. we shared our experience with them and walked, for the last time ever, together out of moelc. we went our separate ways. stella went home, hiren had to go back to school, christine had her h1 bio paper, darren badly needed more sleep, and the rest went to subway for breakfast while i went to wait for sebas.

my last official trip to moelc. how memorable.

pre-op illness.

i'm not feeling well. and that's not something to rejoice about when i have german a's listening tomorrow, and pw op on thursday.

listening may sound easy, but not when your cold gives you blocked ears.

and op's not good when you sound weird. and have a red nose resembling rudolf's.

deutsche welle's talking about how people have different opinions about work.

i want to watch hsm3.

department for appropriate behaviour.

i would think almost everybody has seen this "public notice" before. in the papers, at bus stops, it has infiltrated into almost every kind of mass media available in singapore. except the tv, i think.


i read it, got quite interested since there wasn't any signature of anybody, so i went online to search for (oh not for fx) the department for appropriate behaviour.

it doesn't exist. not even in wikipedia.

haha. that explains the fine print reading "advertisement" right at the bottom. clever people.

so you horny people who own cable, don't worry about ripping the moral fabric of sg apart. just go enjoy yourself. undergo californication, meet the mad men and earn the riches.

but remember, mind your morals.

HAHA.

HAHA.

today was gek poh ville cc's open house, and that's where i learn guitar, so my class had to perform an item. no wait i don't think it was compulsory. let's say, we were invited to perform.

and since my brother and i share the same guitar teacher (but he learns at another cc), the teacher invited him over to perform as well.

but he fell sick like, two days ago and today he was running a fever so he couldn't go on stage.

but that's not the point of this post. i want to share with you the on-stage experience.

so we went up on stage, around eight of us people. the environment was quite/very noisy. there was this bunch of people drumming outisde the hall, and games were held n the hall itself. our audience number was rahter measly, and they were seated like a planet away.

the first time we played (yes there is a second time), the base-player forgot which set he was supposed to play. so he tried like, three sets before he found the right one.

and since the surroundings were bloody noisy, we couldn't hear him well so it took some time for us to actually play.

and when we did start to play, we realised nothing was coming out of the speakers.

we were like, more than halfway through the first song, and i think it was then that the emcees actually realised we already started playing. she requested for us to stop and wait for the pa crew to adjust the mikes and asked us to start all over.

so men came up armed with big mikes (they were using small ones in the beginning). they added it the big mikes, and pushed the small ones nearer to us. the small mikes are for instruments amplification.

but even with maximum volume, they couldn't hear us. we continued anyway, since they've already expanded all their resources on us.

so we replayed the first song, and continued with the other two.

at the beginning of the second song, i got like, the second note wrong. and everybody stopped. but the base-player didn't know nobody was playing and he carried on doing his thing.

so i turned around and told him nobody's playing.

apparently his mike caught my voice. my mom heard me. haha.

but we replayed and got it done with then we went downstage.

our teacher wasn't very happy with the performance conditions. he was quite pissed i think.

i just thought the whole process was very funny. though there were claps at the end, i don't even think those people were listening to us. because i don't think they could hear us even. like what we do during assembly performances huh.

even my mom gave up trying to hear what we were playing and focussed on looking after my brother.

haha. i would expect the teacher to be complaining alot about the organisers the next lesson.

h3 econs reject.

ms law sms-ed me this afternnon to say that i wasn't selected for h3 econs because they were looking for students with a-c grade in econs and doing well in other subjects. haha.

i kind of expected it luh. i mean like, i'm a d-grader for econs, and with my sucky grades for the other subs, if im pitted against a straight a student, regardless the school, no matter now deep my passion is, smu will still offer the vacancy to that ohter sudent right. because if i'm deciding, i won't give a shit about that d-scorer in jjc.

but wells. no h3 means there're not excuses i can give to not work hard in my other subjects. besides, there's no more german next year. i foresee that i'll feel empty every tuesday and thursday. and maybe i'll die from deprivation of the mrt/moelc.

it's been half a decade.

outings. thank you deepavali hols.

friday was learning journey to peranakan museum cum class dinner at thai express. pictures will say all the words, therefore please visit my photoblog.

saturday i brought my brother to shiva's house, where we saw cows and goats and dogs. again, photoblog please.

yesterday, my family and i went to ecp. i'm sort of burnt now. i'll see what photos i can post, then you all can see them at my photoblog. if you were thinking of skin, sorry, i was decked in chingay shirt and home shorts.

today we were supposed to go visit the istana, but all of us were too tired so now we're all at home.

btw, photo blog's at http://snapsnapsnap.blogspot.com. have a nice deepavali.

school's later.

here are my heartfelt apologies for not blogging for a week.

facebook has swept me off my feet and i'm happily swimming in the fake virtual world enjoying all the fame i can get and thinking i'm super popular just because people keep adding me as their friend. truth is, some of them don't even know me. but well. fame's my best friend. at least in facebook.

oh and, good morning world.

whoops.

i'm sorry.

blabber blubber.

sore left fingers):

i've been dreading to go to school after promos. i really hope that lessons stop, at least for maybe a week, after promos, just to let us feel accomplished about finishing those papers. lecturers have been acting like nothing happened before, which is super irritating.

i'm glad to know that i'm a friend whom people think they can count on when they meet problems. even if it's a simple one like what's tested for o levels practical, or a super serious case like theft. and it greatly lifts my spirit that there are teachers actually really concerned about me.

shit. german a's coming soon.

leaders' camp is even sooner, and packing list's up to us to decide. bring food! sounds very much like cssp. i rmb vividly that caiqin/sharine brought SPARKLING JUICE. lol. i brought wang wang and gave ck the free stickers.

no real-life cpr please.

year-ends have never been as tough as this. some of us caught a peek and was hit by the undeniable truth, which we're supposed to face only three weeks later.

maybe it's better like that anyway, compared to leaving us hanging on nooses.

it's just, how to continue with life when we all know what the future brings for us.

mel informed me that i'm down for first aid duty for leaders' camp, i'm needed from fri 3.15pm to sat 7am. so while i'm attending the camp myself, i'm allowed to multi task and perform my duties altogether. haha. i thought of the wonderfulness of getting cip hours. not that it's what i'm after.

i'm quite looking forward to first aid duty. i just hope it won't cause me to lose out alot on leaders' camp. flying fox!!

post mortem

i only realised that my promo results were quite bad when i told them all to my mom today.

chem: S
econs: D
math: D
bio: B
gp: C

gahh. to do list during the hols: mug, and lose weight.

when you're bored...

Starting time: 10.07pm

Name: steph

What are you wearing right now?
shirt and shorts

Where do you live?
in my (parents') house.

Favorite Number/s
23

Favorite Drinks:
depends on mood, juice/milo/bandung/(peppermint)milk tea

Favorite Months:
january, september, december

***********Have You Ever***********
Been in a bath tub:
mmhmm

Swam in the ocean:
yep

Fallen asleep in school:
yes.

Broken someone's heart:
i think.

Fell off your chair:
probably.

Saved e-mails:
i never deleted my emails every since hotmail began having huge amounts of memory space.

***********What is************
Your room like:
something i don't want to grow old with.

What's right beside you?
air.

What is the last thing you ate?
cucumber

------------Ever Had-------------
Chicken pox:
no. i had the jab okay!

Sore throat:
yes and it's a common symptom of stds.

Stitches:
i think so. stitches are the funny feelings you have when you run too hard right.

Broken nose:
on myself, i think not. but i had a cut on my nose and had to put a plaster over it to school during pri sch days.

-----------Do You-----------
Believe in love at first sight?
yes

Like picnics?
depends on company

----------Who----------
Who was the last person you danced with?
ermmmmm. judith i think. one of the mass dances.

Who last made you smile?
my parents i think. i've learnt to smile alot, whether i mean it or not.

Who did you last yell at?
my younger cousin. who is less than two years old.

----------Final Questions-------------
Hate someone in your family?
no

Diamond or pearl?
diamond's carbon and pearl's oyster spit. pearl ba. oysters are nice to eat. carbon dioxide causes global warming.

Are you the Eldest?
like, in a church? no. OH WAIT THAT'S ELDER. i am the eldest child in
the family. the eldest real grandchild of my grandfather too.

-------Today did you-----------
1. Talk to people you like?
yes and in the process.

2. Kiss anyone?
almost, but no.

3. Get sick?
no.

5. Talked to an ex:
no, haven't in a long while and don't think will want to.

6. Miss someone:
mmhmm.

---------Last person who----------
You talked to on the phone?
my phone says weien but i don't remember talking to her on the phone yesterday.

Have a crush on someone?
i'm not heavy enough to crush people.

What books are you reading right now?
just finished 12 storey.

Best feeling in the world:
pure bliss.

Future kids names?
wait till i have kids.

Do you Sleep with stuffed animals?
no. they're always on the floor. if they're on my bad they'll land up on the floor in the middle of the night anyway.

What's under your bed?
drawers

Favorite locations:
heartware office
mr foo's office
311/411 classroom
nh canteen
in my bed

Danced a slow dance with someone you didn't even like?
slow dance? no.

Who do you really hate?
thou shall not bear hatred.

Ever liked someone you didn't have a chance with?
don't think so.

You lonely right now?
abit.

What time is it now?
10.22pm

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

What is one fact about the last person who texted you?
his surname is not chen.

Can you use chopsticks?
yeah. learnt it from a mickey mouse magazine that's no longer in print.

Last time you were on the phone?
yeasterday.

Rooting for Obama?
no, only because he won't be my president.

How many email addresses do you have?
one, two, three.

Last time you washed your hair?
after dinner.

Who will you be sleeping with tonight?
my bolster.

Do you like Oreos?
depends.

Do you send out thank you cards?
no. i send chinese new year and christmas cards.

Can you ice skate?
no.

Do you have a brother?
yep.

Do you know how to change a diaper?
yeah. EH NOT JUST THOSE HUGGIES PULL UPS OKAY. give me a cloth diaper anytime. i'll change them, but you'll wash them.

Do you like to grocery shop?
neutral.

What kind of mood are you in?
i can't place that in words.

Do you do your own laundry?
essentially no,

Has someone close to you passed away this year?
this yearrrrrr. no.

Showers or baths?
showers on normal days, baths when indulgence steps in. and lots of bubble.

Do you take out the trash?
no. my dad saw a suspicious lady at the trash corner before. and it was at night. he forgot to notice if she was wearing shoes.

Do you watch "The Hills"?
what's that.

Last CD you played?
do vcds count? cars, just a few hours ago.

What did you do Saturday night?
that's tonight. i...breathed.

What are you thinking about right now?
the vast amount of stuff waiting for me tomorrow.

Wearing any bracelets?
no. ever since mr koh "sacked" that guy for "practising religion", by black bracelet has stayed in my bag.

Last thing someone bought for you?
my aunt got me a shirt from hong kong disneyland. she always gets me shirts from there.

What are you doing right now?
this.

Has a boy put their arm around you in the past five days?
five daysssss...yeah.

Last thing you drank?
ice blended coke because it was left in the freezer.

What were you doing at midnight last night?
sleeping.

What was the first thing you did when you woke up?
check phone.

Are you taller than your mom?
no.

Have you ever kissed anyone whose name starts with an L?
no

Do you want to get married and have children one day?
married yes, children idk.

Any plans today?
yeah. had plans, but hopes crashed and now the only task i can fulfil is to sleep.

Whats your favorite number?
23

What did you eat last?
cucumber. why both quizzes have the same two questions.

How is the weather right now?
the normal night weather.

Have you ever cried for no reason?
yeah. sometimes tears fall and i find myself searching for reasons why.

How many pillows do you sleep with?
one under my head and one on the floor.

Is your bathroom clean?
i suppose. my mom is a good housewife.

How are you feeling today?
okay-ly happy.

Dog or cat person?
i'm kind to animals.

Have you ever gone to a beach?
yep.

What are you doing tomorrow?
homework. chem, math.

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
if this was a multiple choice question it'll be easier.

Favorite place to shop?
shopping centre.

Do you have any bruises?
i don't fight.

How long does it take you to get ready?
for school, more than an hour.

What are you wearing?
shirt and shorts.

If you had to eliminate a single type of animal forever more, which would you?
the funny round black little bug that stinks when you crush it.

Ever open a bag of chips in the grocery store and eat them before paying?
no but seen people doing that.

Does the future make you more nervous or excited?
excited.

three in one, like coffee.

save me from myself.

i think nyaa means quite alot to me, which is why i've been really hoping to join next year's chingay as an exco member. that'll complete my whole journey in getting the award.

but now, the winds said that pa's having some problem with heartware, so we're left with only 100 volunteers needed and NO EXCO. so hwn has become a platform for pa to rope in people? ahhhhh!! i want to put in something put that'll be politically wrong so i'm saving it for pen and paper.

so, to chingay or not to chingay? there's no point going if i can't achieve my aim and when i'm not sure if i'm even going to like it.

on the other hand, the fll sounds quite appealing. i actually had two classmates who were interested too.

it'll be a whole new experience, a project nature of which i've never worked in.when i was in the robotics club in pri sch, i think the teacher didn't like me or smthn, she never put my name in for any competitions. so for even the much covetted njrc i was just a reserve and never really got to see how the thing was like. fll would answer all the doubts i've held since half a decade ago.

i think i'll have to settle for cssp exco for my community project. it's in june, which poses a big problem since i'll be j2 next year, but i really hope it'll work out. since i won't have german next year taking up my time.

yeah i'll be in j2 next year. i got my 2h2 and 2 h1 passes. but the situation i'm facing's quite depressing.

idk, i still think jj's rather student-unfriendly. we can't talk to authorities about what we think are unfair policies and the teachers seem quite...being held by the nose. like, they are very restricted in the actions they can take and apparently they can't voice it out too. it's quite sad actually.

i changed my ambition. i want to be the future nh principal and a minister of foreign affairs. agnes suggested that i could be a translator, maybe i can do all three at the same time(:

we're living on abbreviations.

rahh.

let's see. it's october the ninth, eleven days to german a's. and please, i can't write a compo properly.

which means additional homework. aufsatz schrieben.

post promos suck in jj, when we're carrying on with the syllabus, i.e. math and econs and chem. sucks pretty much to me, cuz obviously nobody's in really much mood to care about what's being projected onto the screen.

i'm thinking of taking h3 econs. idk, i want to give it a try. even though i got a d for promo and that's prolly going to make the professors at smu laugh like mad. yeah, imagine, a d-scorer from jj doing h3 econs with a-scorers from rj.

but i want to do a h3 sub luh. i thought chem would be possible. i wasn't on the eligible list, but i thought of speaking to mdm goh. then i got back my promo paper two and decided against even trying. cuz i failed that paper, 31/80. chem hasn't exactly been nice to be ever since i attempted chem o. and math h3? somebody suggested that to me. pam, i think. but math? steph and math don't match. i know i passed promo, but hell no i don't want to be competing with those math geniuses from bishan/bukit timah jcs. or all the other jcs for that matter.

i should start on my i&r soon. maybe tonight. actually that was my motive of coming online, but you know how it feels when you've been mia from the www for more than 24 hours.

hmm. wth?

if you think being a jj leader is easy, go carry on dreaming. if you think it's about filling in forms and going for interviews and sucking up in the meantime, go fly a kite. or more kites if you want to.

it's about commitment. you need not be good, for that can be developed. you need to understand that you can't just enter and leave when you want to. it's an imperfect market structure out there.

after the councillors, many j1s have been vying for a spot, to be named a jj leader. so what if they have the shirts that display the much coveted title of "TEAM JJ LEADER"? it's just an empty shell. wearing a shirt that says "leader" doesn't automatically make you one. it's what's in you. do you see lee kuan yew wearing shirts saying "Minister Mentor of Singapore"?

we've had many events which we thought after attending, we'll officially be leaders. let's start from the national day leaders' investiture. then the sudden giving out of leaders tie pins and taking them back. and most recently, the "leaders' camp".

apparently even all these were not able to secure the hearts of some students. even after they have been pronounced official leaders, that is belonging to firstly the house council, secondly the cca leaders, thirdly the csls, fourth the class reps and fifth the slos, some volunteered to eave the family of leaders during today's meeting.

it was a very simple line. "if you are not interested, please leave. those interested, move to the right." and how many people did we see leave the grandstand?

our camps facilitators were a part of us today. some of them stayed, some of them left. they weren't in the five (previously) official groups of leaders. yet the simple action of staying back by some of them goes to show that there are students out there who actually have the leader substance. so what if you've been invested a leader?

what appalled me most was that my house vice-captain actually told me she doesn't want to continue. then, may i ask, why did you even fill in the application form in the first place?

i didn't leave because i know i am capable of leading. and i think i deserve to be called a jj leader. i once fell into the category of jj leaders, and i do not want that to be taken away from me.

the thing with jjc is that we obviously are not able to produce top-end results. hence the next best alternative is to work on character development, which involves largely student leadership. so if a school that sucks in academics cannot produce students with the ability to lead, it might as well close down.

conviction. leading in jj is like getting into jail. you are sentenced to around a year in there, but you get the opportunity to make it what you want. if you're good, you're rewarded. if you suck, you'll suffer in your own hands.

yes i agree it's quite stupid to be deciding who exactly are the school leaders at this time of the year, when most of us are progressing into the second of our two years of junior college education. but would you rather they give leadership rights to people who can't lead and call it a job done, than spend the time to filter out those gems and finally hand them the student leaders pin?

i would like to be one of the gems. i would like to receive my tie pin with pride. because i know that to achieve that piece of metal, i have gone through tests which ensure that i am worthy of my name.

but i was just wondering. after they sent off the people who weren't interested, my vice-cap for example, who will take their place? are we going to reconstruct the committees we've had for the past few months so allow true leaders to replace those puppets?

unconquered.

Invictus
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

mr chua shared this during the leaders' camp, and i thought it would be good to remember this poem.

invictus is "unconquered" in latin.

from wikipedia:
At the age of 12 Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. In spite of this, in 1867 (when he was 18) he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. His diseased foot had to be amputated directly below the knee; physicians announced the only way to save his life was to amputate the other. Henley persevered and survived with one foot intact. He was discharged in 1875 (when he was 26), and was able to lead an active life for nearly 30 years despite his disability. With an artificial foot, he lived until the age of 54. "Invictus" was written from a hospital bed and first published in 1875.

not voldemort.

grace ong called me at 2.51pm and screamed into my ears, "i die already la!!!"

by that, my instincts told me german oral won't be an easy feat tomorrow. frau heng and frau quynh. i never got the spelling wrong okay. if i'm right she's vietnamese.

female teachers don't usually give female students high marks. idk why, either they don't like them, or they expect a higher standard from the same gender.

there was much crapping after civics with shiva. i think the ability to conduct lame conversations shows how a person is a quick thinker. the ability to crack lame jokes but not laugh exhibits one's tolerance level.

i think my tolerance level has increased thanks to a few teachers, they who shall not be named.

random paragraphing.

sebas
SINGLISH!!!
shannon
it's okay luh. vacuum cleaner huh. from best denki somemore.
weien
you try typing at my speed then you tell me why so many errors. when i'm high i type very fast. haha.
yangping
thank you bodyguard!(:

megan and shannon says i studied too much for bio. well maybe i should have done the blog revision for math too huh, then my math grade will be better. i'm glad i passed math though.

the next hurdle: german oral. this friday. early leave forms are becoming a good friend of mine.

muslims got half the day off today cuz it's hari raya puasa tomorrow. at times like this i wish i could give up pork. but like somebody kindly pointed out, i get hungry too easily so i cannot fast.

which reminds me. i'm hungry now.

thank you girls for sharing the pencil case and ear phones. yeah if you read shannon's tag reply, that girl told me this morning, "your birthday present will be sent to your house by best denki. it's a vacuum cleaner."

and i totally believed her luh. cuz it's on my wishlist what. so i was imagining my mom opening the door to a best denki delivery man and all. then during pw they decided to hand me my real present.

but i thought a home delivery would be cool. -pictures my mom's stunned face-

oh yeah. need to do op powerpoint.

i'm tall. you're taller.

SEE I'M SO SO SOOO MUCH TALLER THAN WEIEN.

we're like do re mi with pam.

i shall let you in on a secret. i tiptoed.

else i'll be blocked by agnes' camera, you see. HAHA.

|:

thank you everybody who made my 17th birthday so nice(:

thank you georgina and carol for organising the party at grace's house and almost the whole of s25 for being present (thoughit was meant to be a post-promo party, not my birthday party)

oh, and ms law too, who came after most of the girls left.

thank you for the zoo trip and the furry slippers,

thank you liwen for the sms,

and thank you my fmaily for the dinner and cake last night.

i was wondering, after bring told by a few friends, why doesn't my mom cook mee sua with egg for me on my birthday?

rahh econs.

determinants of demand:

1. prices of related goods
2. level of income
3. distribution of income
4. taste of consumers
5. size of population
6. structure of population
7. climate/weather/season/festival
8. government policy
9. interest rate/ availability of credit
10. expectation of future prices and income
11. new products
12. exchange rates.

NOTE TO SELF: PRICE OF THE GOOD ITSELF AFFECTS QUANTITY DEMANDED

-downward sloping demand curve ensures a price increase does not equate to lost of all customers.

-remember ceteris paribus.

-market: a system that cordinates the independent decisions of buyers and sellers.

determinants of supply:

1. technology
2. price of factor inputs (capital--interest, entre--profits, land--rent, labour--wages)
3. governmeny policy
4. expectation of future prices
5. prices of related goods (joint supply)
6. number of sellers
7. firm's objectives

-market forces regulate market demand and supply, don't need goverment intervention

-price elastic demand, lower price (sale). price inelastic demand, increase price.

determinants of PED:

1. close substitutes
2. proportion of income spent on good
3. time period (changes tastes)
4. habiutally consumed
5. necessity/luxury
6. number of uses

-CED: high positive=close subs. high negative=close complements

-YED: positive=normal negative=inferior

factors influencing PES:

1. time period (SR all factors fixed, unable to change qty supplied)
2. factor mobility
3. nature of products (manufacture elastic, agri inelastic)

-normal profits: AR=AC
-supernomal: AR more than AR
-subnormal: AR less than AC

allswell, that doesn't end well.

you know that allswell advertisement? the one with bloody bad enounciation?



yeah, this one. it was on sunday times yesterday, with critics talking about the singlish "tay peng" (iced milk tea) and the quite cliched plot.

but what they failed to observe was how the girl went, "driinnnng kiit!" and that's exactly what makes the ad, in my opinion, quite bad. and, "ungke dohneed dohneed!" and and! "because i luff you."

the article criticised the guy saying "ey, what is thiis?", but i don't hear the double i.

well i appreciate the company getting inspiration for the plot from a worker, as mentioned by the sunday times report, and i appreciate them trying to embrace the singapore culture, but there are other ways to capture local audience. and one way, is to make sure words are properly pronnounced. like, rochor road shouldn't be pronnounced as "rocker road". read the gps article from the paper too.

auditions.

weien
i think i'll post 5 colours next. haha.
aaron
if i take cll it's going to be a bigger mistake. will you be my bff? haha.
megan
well then let's hope it's not the same one marking your promo essay.

i think i'm going crazy. econs is one data response and one essay, which totally de-motivates me to study. i mean like, it'll be more worth it to mug for a full paper, no?

math. there's nothing wrong with my concepts. i just need to step out of my failure shadow. and learn how to complete the square.

i need a study mate. for chem. any volunteers? no minimum qualification required. okay, perhaps an o level. and please don't be a stranger.

hello blog. i'm back from my bio paper, which i hope i didn't screw up. my blog revision proved to be somewhat useful, because i found myself having a mental image of the notes i posted up this afternoon. haha.

signed up to be a volunteer for yog. technically i'm not allowed to register myself like that, because students are supposed to register through schools, but i figured out it'll be faster this way. yog's on 14-26 aug 2010, i hope it won't affect my uni too much. if i go to a uni, that is. trainings begin somewhere 2009, i hope that won't affect my a's too. if i can promoted, that is.

times have changed, now everything comes with terms and conditions.

bio.

why do i love thee? let me count the ways:

1. prokaryotic cells have no distinct nucleus and no nuclear membrane and have circular strands of dna. eukaryotic cells, on the other hand, have distinct, membrane-bound nuclei and their dna-s are packed into chromosomes.
2. chromatin are dispersed and entangled in non-dividing cells, but chromosomes as chromatin starts condensing and becoming thick to appear as separated structures when dividing.
3. the rER (network of sheets) is the site of protein synthesis and helps in the intracellular transport system. the sER(network of tubules) synthesises lipids and steriods, detoxifies drugs and other poisons and is involved in carbohydrate metabolism.
4. protein synthesised on ribosomes on rER enters lumen of rER, where carbohydrate component may be added. transport vesicles move protein to cis face of GA, in which it is further modifies. vesicles transports proteins from trans face of GA to the plasma membrane, where the contents are released from the cell.
5. lysosomes contain hydrolytic enzymes so that material that cell consumes from the environment can be digested.
6. the endosymbiotic hypothesis talks about how the mitochondria and chloroplast may have been prokaryotes and have been engulfed by eukaryotic cells, becuse they possess prokaryotic properties.
7. centrioles produce spindle fibres radiating towards equator of cell during cell division.
8. homogenization allows study of cell organelles, freeze-fracturing allows study of cell surface membrane.
9. cell membrane is a fluid mosaic model. phospholipids are ehld together by weak hydrophobis interactions, allowing them to move by diffusion in their own layers. peripheral proteins flaot about the bilayer in an irregular pattern.
10. cholesterol acts as a plug, reducing the escape or entry of polar molecules across the membrane. it increases flexibility and stability of membranes. at relatively warm temperature, cholesterol make membrane less fluid by restraining phospholipid movement and at low temperatures hinders close packing of phospholipids, therefore lowering freezing point.
11. five functions of membranes: compartmentalisation (separates), selective barrier (regulates movement of materials across), enzyme activity (by proteins embedded on membrane), intracellular joining (membrance proteins hook together), cell-cell recognition (glycoproteins serve as identification tags)
12. triglycerides have large amount of energy-storing C-H bonds, hydrogen atoms yield metabolic water on oxidation, are poor conductors of heat, posses low mass so much can be stored in small volumes, are large and uncharged therefore insoluble and are less dense than water.
13. triglycerides contain molecules on glycerol attached to three fatty acid tails each via ester linkages, which are saponised in respiration.
14. starch is unbranched and straight, consists of many a-glucose residues joined by 1,4-glycosidic bonds, whose angles causes chain to coiul helically to be compact. -OH groups projected into interior of helix, therefore starch is insoluble.
15. glycogen has backbone of a-glucose residues joined by 1,4-gb, branches formed by 1,6-gb. highly branched, hence hydrolysis by enzymes is efficient.
16. cellulose made up of long chains of b-glucose joined by b-1,4 gb, which makes the chain straight. parallel chains form hydrogen bonds between -OH groups of neighbouring chains, cross linking results in micro and macrofibrils, conferring high tensile strength for stability and support.
17. reduction of Cu(II) to Cu(I) is by oxidation of carbonyl group in reducing sugars. in sucrose, aldehyde group at C1 in glucose and ketone group at C2 of fructose involved in formation of gb, hence sucrose cannot be oxidised and therefore is not a reducing sugar.
18. collagen consists of three polypeptide chains wound around each other to from a triple helix. each polypeptide chain is a loosely wound helix because high proportion of proline prevents intramolecular hydrogen bonding. three chains bound together by intermolecular hydrogen bonds. cross-linking give collagen greater strength. many helices=fibrils, many fibrils=fibres, therefore structure is stable, high tensile strength and able to withstand large pulling forces.
19. denaturation does not affect primary structures.
20. stroma contains enzymes for Calvin Cycle reactions, where CO2 accepted by RuBP to form 6C unstable compound which gives rise to 2 glycerate phosphate. GP phosphorylated to triose phosphate, converted to hexose sugar.
21. thylakoid is site of conversion of light energy to chemical energy, chlorophyll present in grana absorb light energy from sunlight and emit electron after light absorbtion by chlorophyll. ATP produced, electron and H+ reduce NADP+ to NADPH.
22. ATP serves as energy source for light independent reaction, is needed to phosphorylate GP to form 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate and is needed for regeneration of RuBP
23. NADPH provides reducing power for light independent reaction and is needed to reduce 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate to form TP, which is required for synthesis of sugars.
24. in photolysis, H2O is split into 2H+ and 2e-. e- used to replcace lost e- from special chl a in P680 and protons combine with e- from PS1 to form H atoms which reduce carrier NADP+ to NADPH for use in light independent reaction.
25. photosynthetic pigments such as chl a and b and carotenoid embedded on thylakoid membranes and arranged in photosystems. PS1 (P700) and PSII (P680) absorbs wavelengths of 700nm and 680nm respectively. photon of light absorbed by both PS will excite electrons in special chl a in reaction centres to higher energy levels. excited e- accepted by primary electron acceptors which pass them on to electron carriers on the electron transport chain. electron carriers on the ETC are of progressively lower energy levels so energy is released as electrons move down the ETC. energy released used to pump H+ from stroma into thylakoid lumen and the accumulation of H+ generates potential energy. when H+ return to the stroma by diffusing down concentration gradient through H+ channels, energy released to couple phosporylation of ADP + Pi o produce ATP, catalysed by ATPase.
26. non-cyclic phosphorylation, lost electron in PSII replaces that lost in PS1. electron lost in PS1 reduces NADP+ to NADPH. electrons from phoyolysis of water replaces lost electon in PSII.
27. cyclic phosorylation, lost electron in PS1 passed down ETC betwwen PS1 and PSII and returns to PS1.

respiration is a complicated topic and structure of dna requires less attention. my bio promos begin in 110 minutes' time, all the best to me.

operation promos.

weien
dowan luh. all the mass dance songs here then you all dance in front of the computer meh. lol.
megan
got special teacher mark your essay? idk, i'm losing touch with gp. and all the other subjects. wonderful thing to say when promos start at 8.15am tomorrow huh.
niaoci
yeahhh tmrrrrr. die. aq. i refuse to study anything from the content book alr.

so yes as you can see from the above tag replies, perhaps except the first, i'm quite disturbed by the upcoming promotional examinations. and them starting in less than ten hours' time isn't very comforting. neither is having a phone that receives the wrong sms-es.

gp tomorrow morning, bio friday afternoon, math monday morning, econs tuesday morning, chem thursday morning, my birthday when the clock strikes twelve at midnight for friday.

i heard someone say we were going to the zoo next friday.