kimberle says that zebra fishies like lots of friends and lots of marbles.
if i were a zebra fishy, my friends would be myself and my marbles would be home organisation tools.

Saturdays are mostly my home-alone days. and my favourite day of the week for now.
yea, just a few years back Saturdays I won't be home, the whole day since I needed to travel all the way to church to 'fellowship' (according to them, but according me is waste my time) with kiddies.
but now i don't need to and i discovered this secret garden of time (:
Now Saturdays, i can sleep until 自然醒 - 我的精神粮食之一。
mainly cos by that time everybody else have left home to go about their own business...

today I couldn't help but started washing things that are so dirty... 家丑不可外扬。but, my home is full of people to busy to care and it is more dirty than hostels cos maybe sometimes they have cleaners to do the work.

I hung the clothes, and arranged the hangers in colours according to the rainbow. but apparently that didn't stop the rain from coming, so I had to keep the clothes I hung out.
I also 炖-ed some soup (:
My mom bought a new little China pot. That makes enough soup for one person..
I threw carrots and pork ribs, dried scallops and some gouqizi in. It boiled the whole day now, and its now in my nice little room of a world of my own, but its too hot to drink. :) It has not salt in it, but a sweet taste of carrots.

Today I took out the trash, in the little bin just near the sink... OMT. there were maggots.
not the first time but the most extensive infestations ever. I think it was always this extensive just that nobody bothered to flip over some things to discover them.
Saturdays I don't look at the clock, but I think I spent a good few hours getting rid of the maggots and where they have infested. I didn't have time to pack my OWN room after that... since the day was already well spent.
but i generally did some cleaning or i will die like the zebra fishies do.

Now my brain being nocturnal, I'm chilling in my rocking chair savouring my already cooled soup, and then embarking on another noctural adventure in the ocean of notes and redundant informations to memorise. not that the info is redundant. but its lame to memorise them.
I know my soup and cleaned room floor would be there to lift my spirits.

i wonder which fish am i most like - solitary, nocturnal, organisational, fastidious
maybe i should check out the facebook quizzes. or kim, go make one!

well, it was a great privilege. as it always is, to serve the people you love dearly.
it's like being recognised and loved back altogether in one action.

the person who has touched me so greatly, and been there through my nonsensical ramblings is moving on with her life. I guess I didn't feel much, through all the things I know I had to do... throughout the whole wedding, being there on time, doing up the tasks on the time line...
while she was preparing I thought I could have helped more...
while I was helping I feared I'd mess things up...
after all, it has been a great long while I did projectionist and with all the sophisticated instruments, of co-ordinating cameras, screens, views, timing, songs, videos all in synchrony.

it was her big day. and i really wanted the best for her...
I'm glad I had loads of help, and by God's grace, the rapport with people I met for the first time in my life today.... worked so well :)

it was when everybody left the church, and there was just uncle alvin eating since we were all busy hungry throughout the day... and when we gathered around them to just talk... that I understood perhaps why tears have a role on such joyous occasions.
I was a tinge of happyness, mixed with the reluctance to part.
Mummy was really pretty tonight, as she always have been. and will always be....

and even as i left the group and sat on the long journey home... i had time to even pause and think of the entire day past. i had not yet congratulated them, but i hope my actions did.

i have never followed through an entire wedding like this, the whole day before... and now that I have, i cease to think that it is really a bane of life, a relic of the past that women of this current age have to awkwardly fit into. and hearing the accolades heaped on the late Mrs LKY... it seems that there is a mystery i have yet to uncover... yet there's some tinge of sadness to see a loved one go on to this stage.

i wonder why. perhaps it is innate in human nature. that marriage is akin to leaving everything else as secondary compared to their partner now. and though it is desirable, maybe we humans cannot stomach being demoted in the hearts of the people we love.
maybe that is why. from ages past to present, marriages are splash of joy and tears. a myriad of chaos and order... because everyone battles within themselves.... in letting go and holding on.

i really question if we can love just any one person. forever.

I am a happy girl! (:
I have been so busy so tired but so fulfilled.
I am such a nerd but thank God for I believe He is putting the joy back in my life, after a saga of many other issues in the past few years. :p I start to feel I have a life!
even though I am in year 4 now, not doing FYP...
I have so much more electives and stuff to do this semester but I am excited about learning new things! It's this curiousity all over again. I can't believe I requested a closed stack book on Lupus just because I found it on google doing a little assignment, and was really dying to read the pages not shown on googlebooks! :P

I want to be a shinny pharmacist! yeah. shinnyy~ for God.
I hope I can still be happy in the gruelling dungeons of pre-registration training in the Singapore's closest thing to hell for fresh graduates. ok, i may be exaggerating.. but who knows. and with my pre-existing anxiety issues, I believe God will show Himself faithful through it all, despite hearing from my seniors about stress-related health issues arising from the job requirements!

anyway. It seems like I signed up for a bit too much this semester. Every week since the first week of school, I have been super busy on mondays, to the extent of sleeping at 4to6am! and then 8am to 6pm lectures on Tuesdays! thank God for the mid-week Wednesday breaks! I so need them! Assignments and projects never end! :S
but I feel that there is this light-ness. like everything is coming but I decided I still wanna have a balanced life, I still take time to relax and find myself so much happier (: I guess I am a human affter all, contrary to my past-personal belief. ha.
even teaching tuition seems easier, and my students seem to be able to understand better. I hope they improve! they are going to be my last two darlings :)

Only thing I need to work on is being more positive!
I have taken a new langauge - Bahasa Melayu. It's been such a drag I hope I can rid myself of such negativity :( I miss my Thai whenever I sit and learn all over again the basics of another language, and find the similarities of Thai and Malay, words that I can write in Thai script, now in Melayu~ O, endure! for the sake of being a good pharmacist to the Malay patients! Thank God I have a unexpected partner for Malay lectures! :) It was such a pleasant surprise seeing Joycelyn at the first lecture.. God is good all the time! heh.
last lecture I missed half of the malay lecture cos I saw aacaan weenaa outside during the break and spoke thai with her gaogao. so terrible to know i have forgotten so much of my beloved thai language! maybe one day I can have a job that involves shuttling between thailand and singapore, doing pharmacy work!

I love my life now, but I gotta sleep cos my head's splitting.
I'm going to bed in weariness and in joy... with my God watching over me and blessing me in everything!
to God be the glory (:

I've been home everyday for the past 5 weeks. with less than ten days going out of home excluding buying food from the hawker ten minutes away, and church. and most hours i'm just in my room and nobody's at home.
i'm a hermit! i love my room its so self sufficient!

maybe people will think i'm such a loner with no life, but i think i have been going many places in fantastical shinobi worlds and the land of Narnia, within reach of a cuppa hot tea & the comfort of my rocking chair (:

today i decided to get some food at 9pm.
i walked to the hawker, ordered some mee pok, sat down to eat staring outwards to the row of shop houses through a curtain of light drizzle.
it was closing time and the shops i have seen everyday since i was 3 years old were doing their intricate labour of shifting the shelves of shoes and hooks full of bags into the shop.
it's like clockwork, like a jigsaw puzzle, squeezing everything back into the shop....while some customers rushed in for a last minute purchase. they were all middle aged, the men with alopecia & the ladies kindda lil haggard...speaking little to each other, and working hard. then i noticed in the shadows, between me and the shop, there was a quiet old figure.

this elderly man was wearing a warm beige jacket, seating on a wheelchair all alone. his back was towards me and i couldn't see his face. i wonder, had his family went in to buy something? person after person walked out of the shop, passing by him like he was part of the pavement. ocassionally someone stopped in front of him, and i had hopes it was his family, done with purchasing. but aye, it never turned out to be. they were just checking out the things on display, that was placed so near to him.

i felt so sick, my mee pok wasn't quiet as delicious tonight.
though i was hungry at first, i almost didn't have the appetite to finish my meal.

probably the family who runs this shop was his, i thought. but they went on packing the shop, not seeming to know him or be bothered by such a unusual presence of an old man on a wheelchair.
i told myself i was going to at least push him under the shelter after i finished my meal, if nobody was 'claiming' him by then.

the shop was still packing and the uncles & aunties were still busy. then i saw among them, a silver headed ahmah. she was in the typical-est ah ma clothes. the sleeveless shirt and three quarter pants, that had mini flowers on it that u never could make them out until u were really close up. purplish outfit that is common for them. and she was carrying a black pouch as any local vendor does. she was packing too, but she stopped to talk to the ahgong.

:) she placed her hand on his shoulder and talked in the most loving manner as i would imagine. now the ahgong's face turned to the side to reply. my vision was blur as of nowadays, and i couldn't see but only guess he was all at home. and that would be his lovely wife.

then as the closing got more labourious, requiring more strength for the largest racks to be pushed in, the ahma took a good old wooden stool and sat beside the ahgong.
OH! it wasn't drizzling anymore! I realised that i had kept checking if it was drizzling by judging a pool of water by the pavement. and the roof immediately above was dripping what was left of the rain just not too long ago.

they sat in silence, watching what i suppose to be their children closing the shop.
i can't fully describe it, but i felt tears welling up in my heart - not eyes. it was silly to cry eating meepok. it wasn't really that delicious...

i wish i was that ahma.
and i can't help but think... all these mundane troubles of life actually do make us much humane. than thinking of great lofty ideas without keeping my feet on the ground. about earning the biggest bucks about proving that poor grades doesn't equate low intelligence.

as i was finishing my meal, a lady interrupted my thoughts, to ask if she could sit at the same table as i was. she was busy, rushing off somewhere else after this quick meal, i could tell... and no sooner than she had sat down, she started staring at the store to see if her meal was going to be delivered to her (it was a self-service stall by the way).

so i laughed at the great contrast. of busy-er people in the stall with calmer state of mind.
and quickly finished every morsel in my bowl.

i took a detour to have a look at the sweet old couple from the front.
to my amazement i misunderstood so much of that scene!
that old man was not at all waiting in the drizzle, alone in the dark! he had a similar wooden stool that ahma was sitting on, placed in front of his wheelchair.
and wah seh.. he kiao kah (propped his legs up) on them until very shiok!

i was most foolish all this time. probably all my life up till recent years.

i wish i had a disposition of an old wise man. never ever jumping to conclusions and never ever reacting. yet having the capabilites of a smart ass. and the energy of a young person.
or maybe, i can begin to see the mundane things that i already have, just like this old couple has.

well, if growing up or growing old is about finding happiness in old boring things, i certainly have grown up.

yesterday was Sunday service, i hanged around and did whatever I was told to...
planned to chill out a few hours in starbucks before heading to the Tertiary ministry's annual BBQ

a little friend of mine didn't understand why i wouldn't be eating lunch with him.
so i ended up eating with him & my lunch date instead of just my lunch date & i.
and he couldn't wait till his dad bought him his lunch and feasted from my plate.

then chilling at starbucks, wasn't really as formal & structured as what i initially envisioned the conversation to be. I guess I was digressing a bit because the main topic was really rather awkward & painful to confront sometimes.
But I guess things went well enough.

then we spent more than an hour getting from Parkway Parade to Mountbatten Road. which would usually take a 10min walk. We almost reached the initial venue of the BBQ but it was changed to church back again because of the rain. So we had a little tour of east singapore within that hour, thankfully without a cost.

Tertiary ministry's dinner was pretty much an old man's game. Networking & getting to now people... being nice and relaxed. not anything exciting and not anything glamorous.


Its funny how I recount all as a uneventful, matter-of-fact, state of mind.
Indeed the day was actually much messy & disorganised...
with me being late for my duty on sunday, the little friend feasting of my plate NON-STOP. and eating my favourite peanuts, finding my way around parkway parade to find friends to head to the BBQ together.

But I went home happy.
some sort like that saturday i spent the entire day in church.

come August, with workload and tight schedules, I wonder if I'd be able to enjoy things that don't go my way on my weekends or not. and finding such simple happyness in events that don't give me any practical benefits.
hmmmm


oh. and my heater's got killed and a new heater is at his place.
ITS FREAKING SHIOK!
warm water on my back keeping me all warm and relaxing all my skeletal muscles when I got back home cured all the nausea i had from travelling excessively within a day. :) instant magic.

i am a very aloof person but i hate to be cold.
i wear jackets in temperatures most singaporeans find 'normal' & rush into full blast of UV radiation when singaporeans head for the shelters.

& my heater refused to work for the past few days already, close to a week.
i have been bathing at night, when i return, and freezing cold i didn't even have time to condition my hair. BrRrRrR.

today was so scorching hot up till 6pm.
no more rainy rainy days :) wee~
so i finally got time to use my face exfoliant, then slowly shampoo, condition my hair, lather soap and maybe later i shall put on face mask.

simple happyness!
it's when u temporarily lose something u already have & learn how to appreciate it more (:

yes. temporarily. it better start working soon.

i started this blog because i wanted to make it a point to stop being emo.
i wanted to focuss on the happyness in life we so often lose sight of...
i thought i would be updating the happy things here, and the unhappy bouts of emo-ness in the other.
but somehow, i feel that i should post this entry here..

this uncle in my church just passed away. he just. fell. dead. just like that.
so it is quite a shock to his family and everybody in church.
he's the uncle that comes every week, and waits for the church to open... thats like 7plus am.
and he sits on the staircase of the old building, sometimes filthy due to residues left behind by pub-goers the night before.
he is usually earlier than us who are scheduled to open the church...
and when we are late... he doesn't care. he is just happy we are there to open the church.

he comes every week. to just arrange chairs and do what he can.
he is only on duty once a month. he is sixty eight years old.
but he carries stacks of chairs with joy and is quick to do it before we lazy youngsters get to the job.

i even despise my duty.
lamenting the need to wake up so freaking early and being on duty almost every week of the month.
sometimes i can't wake up and say to my team leader "aiyah, uncle ZC will be there to help you"

i'm ashamed. i took him for granted.

last sunday was the last time i saw him.
i don't see/ talk to everyone on every sunday.
and rarely i have any common topics with him.

i'm thankful. that i managed to speak to him last sunday. for the last time.
i wonder if i am good enough to be able to keep the salvation God has bestowed upon me.
whether at the end of my life, i would have fulfilled the high calling in my life and see uncle ZC in heaven.

he's illiterate. and he has only came to church for two years.
i'm freaking smart compared to him. and i have been in church for five years now.

but he is far wiser. he has spent much time, asking people to read to him the Bible and has memorised more of the Bible than I have.
my friends, you know how much i can memorise....
but it is not that he can memorise so much more than i can.
but he did memorise more than i was willing to.

i thank God for his passing. for it was quick and painless..
probably a milisecond of angina... when his heart stopped.
but he is now, safely away from the troubles of this world.
he has ended his life well, with a close relationship with God.


and i seriously doubt my own perseverence in this path of faith.
for it is so contrary to the world. and my mind just evaluates many options and condemn them to be silly and impossible in this time and age. scorning in my heart the very suggestion of the paths of righteousness.
knowing not that i am blinded by my pride and formal education.

today at his cremation. i learnt that he knew he had only a little time left. and that's why he was so focussed on serving God and learning the ways of Christ.
perhaps, i think i have so much time.
that the abundance of the time i have to live has ironically steered me away from living life as it should be.
death, on the contrary, kept him on the path to everlasting life.


to us of all religions and beliefs,
keeping in view the certainty of death, probably helps us to hold on to the very essence of life.

because we won't be wasting our time facebooking and playing DOTA or watching dramas and plain achieving grades.
we would be doing that which matters most - which we have to find out ourselves

haven't updated for a while cos i'm super busy and tired.
but although i have a presentation due tomorrow, let me just update this space.

i thank God for all these happyness in my life right now.
i am so dead beat everyday i go home from my internship, yet i still arrive early and leave late on some days so that i can complete more of the workload assigned to me.

well, i thank God that i got the institution and the timing of internship i desired.
and so did He do the same thing last year.
but such things are often disputable... it can be reasoned out and hard to see that God is truly in it all..

However, the pharmacist supervising me is really a blessing from God.
of so many years of chui-ness in my course, I hardly feel qualified to go and learn the really cool stuff... because i'm always struggling with memorising basics.
I thought of lost my "i can memorise all things" attitude I had up until JC.

sadist, or not, I do love to memorise things... knowledge at its purest form.. puts joy in my heart.
and the kinder side of me is fulfilled when I see that I have helped someone out.
I now see my internal constituents and the external situations I am in, a deliberate alignment by God. who has brought me to a course I never considered until a few weeks before matriculation.

oh my supervising pharmacist is the exact kind of person that I learn well from. very systematic, easy to follow and have high standards. Although, i may not be as competent as others, or what I desire myself to be... but I know I learn best in such situations. Where I get to learn things on the job :)

ayes, this post is such an understatement of the dilemna i face everyday - joyful for the big new world i am exposed to and dread of the moutains of workload pushing me into my grave, inch by inch.
but trust me, the NPCC sadist staff sergeant in me, i enjoy this torture.
i belive i am going to be a better pharamcist and student!

with regards to my previous post, i decided that if I were 20 years younger.
I would be playing with the coolest toys in the world.
and not playing around with fonts to squeeze a 1.5" thick legislation into an A4 sized paper for the pseudo-open book examination.

today i spent 11am to 8pm studying and covering a lot of grounds in the drug world (:
i am happy.
but the best thing is talking to dear小妹. though we all have grievances with the current system~
But increasingly, I feel like I am on a treasure hunt.
to find Truth, according to the Bible, BUT applicable & logical for my generation.

nope, not the youthy hippy "i-am-cool" generation.
i am so past that for those who still thinks they need to be cool and youth-ful to talk to me...

but i mean, for the "we-are-seeking-relevance" generation of mine.
somehow, Christians or non-Christians alike, don't you think the world is spinning in a queer way we can't understand? and working hard and obeying doesn't seem to fully work anymore?
I do. Do you??

I guess even our parents, elders, and predecessors can never give us clear instructions & formulas to success anymore. maybe you already know.
maybe only now I feel the impact of this. maybe only now I find that even my own ways can't help me through life.
I'm still on my treasure hunt. to find Truth. and practical ways to live it out.

If I were 20 years younger,
I'd marry him who said

"jiejie Grace! I eat satay!"

what's life without randomness

sometimes it rains elephants and hippopotamuses in Singapore.
Simple happyness is not, being able to sleep at home and let the time slip past.
but simple happyness is letting God protect your laptop while you run under the ferocious onslaught of water for 300m home.

simple happyness is meeting up to relax before exams (:
RV-78 + Andy + simple food = simple happyness

as usual, china rocks and you tube doesn't have this video.
so the subtitles are in chinese.

Title: Citizen Dog (2004)
i like the colour composition of every scene in this movie.
and also the ridiculous things that added up to a meaningful movie (:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/9YSBUedsIlg/

trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn47ifAAOVw

simple happyness is taking the hectic tests and report schedules of this pharmacy course in my stride.
well, i'm done being bound by expectations and CAP scores and test grades.
and especially the every week one freaking scary test and the stresses of a singaporean life.

I guess it's great to take everything in my stride and just do my best.
even though it means being only ready on the morning of the test.

Chromatography theory test turned out quite great.
I'm pretty confident of my answers and could recall quite a lot of things which much clarity... like I did in secondary school.
Which is rare, and happy.
because I wanna learn to take things in my stride.


An enjoying random moments that make a person alive. Instead of chasing after deadlines. or beign chased by it!
Well, I haven't finished the lab reports AND thai homework I have due tomorrow.

But I decided that hanging out at a friend's place would make me more of a human than not... and if we live by deadlines and stick to them.
We'd fare well and great on paper..
But will citydwellers feel filled spiritually? Learning new skills and picking up new things seem like a new trend and pursuit. Learning something not just to "tan jia" but something you would be interested in?
or maybe we just need to hang around people more.

happyness. probably is that simple?

oh yah i still have to pia my lab reports till late today.
but if i didn't hang out, i'd be spending approximately the same amount of time convincing myself that i shouldn't be facebooking... while doing it.
and Pharmacy Law lecture tomorrow is going to be crap. so i'd have 2h to do my thai homework.
last minute. so what? it's mangeable...
and i feel more human.

Humans were not meant to face each other via written text more than face-to-face interactions.

今天我家上演了轻松愉快版的home alone (:
吃了早餐，吃了我的精神粮食...洗了澡，洗了衣服...
正等待着我的是一叠叠lab reports & thai homework.

每个星期都很感恩星期五的到来。
因为我的小组真的真的在简单平凡中无形成了我的精神支柱。
然后，星期六总是心情愉快轻松的面对着一大堆要处理的功课。

只是今天，虽然早起了...但是担心着我的好朋友。
他发高烧了 :( 如果我早点完成了我的lab reports...说不定今天就有空去照顾他。

今天不知明天事。
蹉跎的时候，是看不见未来所令你失去的机会或失去的是什么。

所以，别忘了！今天就要继续加油咯！

我要站在破口之中

在那里我寻见祢

simple happyness is enjoying cell group after a hectic week of school.
simple happyness is sleeping at waking up at 1:30pm on saturday afternoon.
simple happyness is waking up to a cool rainy afternoon and breakfast prepared on the table (:
simple happyness is doing the dishes in quietness and peace.

simple happyness is having the whole day alone, to yourself even though you have 1001 lectures to go through in the next 12h.

surely. usually. generally.

I was so tired when I was trying to squeese my Hypertensive medication into my brain, check out what i typed:

*Additional monitoring is required for patients with gout, as the drug may increase uric acid, precipitating a gouty attack. As the drug is potent on the kidney, we feel that Blood Urea Nitrogen may be expected to rise transiently due to temporal adaptations of the Sunday school teachers.

2 more days to pharmacotherapy test~

yo yo yo yo!
after 126230400 seconds of old layout at my past blog, i am starting on a new journey to document the simple things that keep me happy... or so lift my spirits even for a moment in this complicated urban jungle of Singapore. (:

many thanks many loves to Miss YYY, who braved the storm of endogenous radicals through the night of 15th March 2010 to labouriously create this new blog skin (:

with staying up late being increasingly common in our hectic urban society, i wish the random person reading this maximum distance from premature wrinkles and panda eyes.

making every day a masterpiece