Hawaiian Cousin Lindsey!

About 3 weeks ago, my aunty who lives in Hawaii came to visit...We celebrated her 60th birthday here in Singapore and were pleasantly surprised when her daughter came down to celebrate with us...It was quite funny cos Lindsey pretended to call her mum from back home in Hawaii when she was actually in Singapore and told her to open the door of my grandma's place (where she was staying)...It was then that she was supposed to appear at the doorstop and surprise my aunt but when my aunt opened the door, there was no one there...Turned out Lindsey was on the wrong floor so she had to call my aunt to tell her to close the door and reopen it again while she dashed up to the 4th floor...




Anyways, above and below are some peektures of her stay here...The cousins brought her to Settler's cafe and on the last nite they were in Singapore, we played Cranium at my Grandma's place...Cranium has many versions and we played the family one which requires teams to perform some stunts every now and then...The one you see below required 2 team mates to pass 6 cubes held between the fore-fingers above their heads and below their waists making for a good laugh...



Also, above, you can see my cuz Darren trying to act out a vampire...He looks more like a crazed wascalli wabbit though hahaha...All in all it was great that they came to visit...It was a good excuse for all the cousins to mit up and hang-out especially since we probably wouldn't by ourselves...We aren't exactly close so it was great to just take this time to get to know each other better...

Results!!!

Check it out:

1. English as a World Language: A
2. Gender and Text: A-
3. Evaluating Health Claims: A-
4. Cinematic Discourse: B+
5. Social Psychology: B+

This brings my total CAP up from 4.21 to a final CAP of 4.24. I am totally psyched! Hard work has realli paid off...My goal was also to see that my CAP improves with each semester, and it did without fail for my entire 4 years at NUS!

Sem 1: 3.8
Sem 2: 3.95
Sem 3: 4
Sem 4: 4.05
Sem 5: 4.16
Sem 6: 4.16
Sem 7: 4.21
Sem 8: 4.24

For this particular sem, the surprise was Evaluating Health Claims...My original intention was to S/U it cos i put in minimal effort for my essay and studied only 1 day before the exam...So getting an A- was realli sweet! But i was realli interested in the module so i guess passion and interest must have helped...However, was abit disappointed with Social Psych cos i realli studied like crap for it and even got an A on the group project...But oh well...All is good in the end!!!

Thanks once again to all my family and frens who have been so supportive all these years...Finally, thank GOD!!! All glory and praise be to YOU!!! Some of you mite be thinking "What God? You worked hard so you reap what you sow!" NOT TRUE...Hard work doesn't gurantee success so i really want to acknowledge His hand in this part of my life...Yeah!!!

Gonna celebrate and enjoy life now!

Lasik

Just went for my lasik surgery in the morning and it was a success!!! I have been wanting to do it for a couple of years now but my mum advised me to wait till all the exams were over just in case my degree went up while studying...So finally, after four years in NUS, the time had finally come for a life without contact lenses and glasses...I was so excited that there were times during the pre-evaluation where i would smile or chuckle to myself because i was so freakin happy...I hate wearing glasses! Hate it when my glasses fog up when coming out of an air-conditioned place into the open, when they jump up and down on my nose bridge when i jog and slip off when i look down...Plus, u cant wear contacts all day too such that when i'm out all day i have to worry about my contacts drying up and my eyes turning red...And they usually do within 6 hours of wearing...That totally sux! My main reason however is simply that i m very vain. I think i look awful in glasses cos it accentuates my already big nose that needs no further accentuation...So rather than go for cosmetic surgery, I'll just do the eyes instead and restore it to what God had originally given to me.

As some of you already know, i chose to go to Parkway eye centre (at Gleneagles) as opposed to the Singapore National Eye Centre (at SGH) becos the former was offering a package that was a whopping $1.1k less than the latter. Also research on Dr. Lee Hung Ming, showed him to be a really reputable guy with a great track record...

Initially however, i was really impressed with SGH cos within 2 days of my booking an appointment, i received a letter from them with a CD containing a video on lasik to watch. Parkway din send anything. They even told me that i could do lasik within 3 days of not wearing lenses when the actual stay-off period whould be about a week...This made them seem hard-up for customers and i din take to that too well...Also the front-desk pple at SGH seemed much friendlier than the ones at Parkway...But because it was cheaper and given Dr. Lee's reputation, i decided to give it a shot...

When i went for the pre-evaluation, my eyes were assessed twice to ascertain my degree...There were also some tests to check if my eyes are suitable for lasik or not...This was done very professionally and i was quite impressed by the optometrist there...(Yep...It helped that she was quite pretty) Then finally, i got to meet the doctor himself...He was very smiley, friendly and assuring...Told me that he had done some 10000 pairs of eyes or so and said all turned out well...Then he told me not to break his record...By then, i was totally psyched and confident that he would do a good job but what realli sealed the deal for me was when he told me to just do the conventional lasik instead of the much more expensive intralase method...That is good! It shows that he wasn't trying to hard-sell me a more expensive procedure and has my interests at heart...So i confirmed my op with him and left...

The next day i woke up at 8am and cudnt sleep cos i was so excited...We eventually arrived half an hour earlier than the alloted time and i went for a final eye assessment...Long story short, I was very nervous by the time i lay down on the op table...The doc kept telling me to look at this blinking red light and i could see them forcing my eyelids open with some device before using some other instrument to open my cornea flap...Although there was supposed to be no pain, it was a little painful at these parts...Other than that however, it was okay...Everything happened so fast that before i knew it he was painting my eyeball with some antibiotics i think and moving on to the next eye...There were times on the 2nd eye however, when i was not so sure where i was looking anymore...Could no longer see the blinking red lite and cud hear him telling me to look straight...This worried me cos a straying eye could be disastrous...Somehow, it turned out okay eventually and everything was over in like 10 minutes...

Now, my eyesight is still a little blurry and it would take about a while more for it to stabilize...No regrets gg for lasik...Its probably one of the best things that i did for myself....Thnks everyone for all your prayers and concern...From Christine's mum to my neighbours and cell group mates...Thanks!

Dinner at Tapas Tree

Had a great time last nite...Went to Tapas Tree at Clarke Quay with Moo moo (Karina), Stel and Cai and though we had to sit outside in the freakin hot weather (Cos there was some function gg on inside), we could enjoy the live band that was playing and some Spanish dance performances that went on through the nite...The food was not 2 bad though a little on the ex side...We tried Pellas (check spelling...i'm quite sure it's not spelt that way) or what we joked was Spanish fried rice, and this Spanish omelette with potato inside, which we joked was Spanish egg fu yong dan...

There were a couple of times when we tried to dislodge ourselves from our seats to make for another place for dessert but failed cos we cudnt stop talking...This is what truly makes for a great evening i guess...Just enjoying each other's company and getting to know each other better in a really relaxed manner...We should do this again soon!

Then when we finally left the restaurant we had some of those cheap but good ice-cream from those uncles that sell them from their bicycles...I was very touched by this particular uncle though, who said he was donating all his earnings to the China earthquake victims...Such altruism to me is especially admirable cos clearly he doesn't earn much and yet he was willing to make such a sacrifice...Puts me to shame...

Then we sat on the steps at the entrance of Central mall and continued talking...I wanted to sit the reverse bungee ride but Cai said he mite rain vomit and pee all over the people below so i immediately changed my mind...Guess i'll just wait for Christine to return...Ok Chris?!

The "Started-Out-Shitty-Turned-Out-Great" Day

Y'day, I suddenly felt like gg swimming so I called Chris to ask if she wanted to go downtown east. We've been toying with the idea for some time and since y'day was so freakin hot i thot it would be a great idea...Then when i met her at the MRT, i noticed that she was dressed in a blouse and a jumper and carrying a really tiny bag...That was when i knew something wasnt right...So I asked her if she was wearing her bikini inside and she was like "OOOHHHHH! I thot u said we were gg downtown east?" The thing is, both Wild Wild Wet and Escape Theme Park are in Downtown East so i guess we both made the wrong assumptions...That said, i suspect she may have known that i was referring to WWW all along but purposely dressed that way in order to force me to go to Escape theme park with her cos she doesnt want to go to WWW and get tanned hahaha...I tried to hide my disappointment and she tried to get me psyched up about Escape theme park by force-feeding me green apple tea and telling me how fun escape is...

I guessed that worked cos i was soon very excited about gg to Escape, adrenaline junkie that i am...But when we walked all the way to Escape, we saw that the shutters were down and that it was closed...Just our freakin luck! So we tried to make our trip down to Pasir Ris worthwhile by gg to the newly opened shopping centre there to catch a movie...But guess what? Two out of the three movies showing were Ayak Ayak Cinta and Congak and the timings for the shows were absolutely horrible so we ended up gg back to Tampines...

On the way to the bus-stop, Chris's 6-inch platforms came loose and she had to shuffle her way to Tampines...She was so desperate she wanted to buy those white flip flops with blue straps from the mama shop that those old uncles in the kopitiam wear but in the end her vanity prevailed and she persevered all the way til she reached Charles and Keith in Tampines Mall...

Then, because we were thinking of gg to The Night Safari, we decided to catch Accuracy of Death even though she wanted to catch Made of Honour instead, simply cos the timing for the former was better...The movie was weird but watchable and we went for dinner after that...But by the time we finished it was 1930 and it was too late to go to the night safari so we ended up at the Siglap HK cafe instead...In the words of Chris's sister, "tian bu rang wo men qu" so we ended up not doing any of the things we intended to do that day...But all in all it was actually great fun just being together and not knowing exactly what to do next...As i always tell her, it's not what we do but the people we are with that matters...

(Above: Christine's face is like a Kua-li...She uses at least two blotter sheets each time)

Needless to say, the day ended great...In fact i think i had a better time than the past two days when everything went according to plan...I will realli miss you when you're gone.

IT'S OVER!!!

GRADUATE LOH! I am very very happy that my exams and academic days in Singapore are finally over!!! Student life in Singapore was an absolute nightmare and i'm realli glad to be rid of it...Whatsmore i ended on a really high note today cos i think i did well on this final paper...

There are a few people i want to thank for seeing me through my final sem...1st i realli want to acknowledge God...I could not have done it without Him and thinking back on today's paper, i realli believe that He gave me things to write as i am realli bad at this kind of exam...U know the need-think-on-the-spot kind...Anyway, i wanna thank Him for seeing me through the shitty times...Secondly, i wanna thank my parents for supporting me though they were also a big source of all my pressures hahaha...U know my parents never directly say it but they always harbour hopes that i will get at least a second upper class...Thanks mum for making all those cups of fruit juice and for understanding when i act like a total ass around the house...Thanks Char for buying me gifts and supporting me by feeling my joy and pain throughout those 4 years...

Then for this sem specifically, i wanna thank Christine...You have been incredibly supportive and i am very thankful to have you in my life...Thanks for buying me apple pies, ah-balling (my FAV!) and making me almond jellies and little notes here and there to encourage me...Thanks for always being so sympathetic when i whine and complain and for always providing a listening ear...I am very fortunate to have you...

Thanks to my fellow EL sufferers? hahaha, for enriching my NUS days and for making them that much more memorable and enjoyable...Thanks especially to Mandy and Delia (and Matt?) for making the EL musical and the CODA banner and flower cards and coming all the way back to school after the exams to cheer the rest of us on and share in our joy! You girls are great and i am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to know both of you in lexi...

Finally, thanks to my other frens like Qian Ling and my cell group who i know have been praying for me and dropping me encouraging smses along the way...It was greatly appreciated...

And now it's time to PAAAAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Exam shell-shock

I got this feeling on my last two papers...The dun-know-wat-to-feel kind of feeling...That is actually quite worrying cos it usually means i churned out mediocre stuff that isnt good or bad...Or if 2 questions are involved that i did well on one and not so well on the other...But its realli quite hard to say cos u know how it is...life can be realli ironic and when u think u do well it turns out that u din or the other way round...

Today's paper was extremely frustrating...It was easy but cos Talib din gif proper instructions alot of us ended up rushing through 2 short essays in the first half-hour of the exam..What happened was that he told us to write the essay from 1 to 1:30 and then he will commence on the MCQ portion at 1:30...So alot of us assumed that we only had 1/2 an hr to write the 2 short essays and ended up rushing like mad...What he din tell us was that we could continue after the MCQ was done...And the MCQ was done real fast...We ended up hafing a good 1 hr to continue writing and it was very frustrating cos most of us had by then already churned out mediocre "i-wrote-this-in-15-minutes" kind of essays which had to be either reworked or rewritten...I tried to re-write the 1st essay for a good half-hr and eventually gave up...So yeah...I wasted 1/2 an hr and ended up not writing so well for my 2nd essay as well...It was a classic too much time to spare turned into not enough time scenario...

But i guess its over...So that's 2 down and 3 more to go...I just hope everything turns out alright...