of new bonds and broken ties
chinese new year used to be so different, esp when i was still in primary school, and sis was barely a teenager. we would stay over for 3 or 4 days at my late grandpa's mega huge house in jb, stuff our faces with goodies without having to worry about putting on weight, wake up in the wee hours of the morning to cycle around the spacious frontyard, and on a few occasions drive up to penang to visit our godma/eldest aunt and have steamboat/ laksa together.
times have changed. instead of playing hide-and-seek, meddling with firecrackers and any sort of furniture we can find in the house, i watch my little cousins work their little fingers at bullet-train speed on their PSPs (yea they have one EACH). instead of eating at the same restaurant where the maternal side of the family has patronised for the past 20 years, my little family of four would either take a short getaway trip somewhere, or have our own mini reunion dinner without the relatives. uncles and aunties would have their "own plans" as well.
i miss my grandpa. a lot. he was like the glue that held everyone together. i always thought it's really heartwarming to belong to a huge extended family that spans over 4 generations. but things happen and people drift apart. and somehow i believed that if grandpa was still around he would keep things in order and draw us together. everyone has utmost respect for our surviving grandma but i can see, from the persistent empty look in her eyes and the way she talks about grandpa today, that she also knows without grandpa it would always seem like something's missing, something's lacking somewhere. the way it has been for the past 3 years.
but i cherish the new bonds that came and are coming my way.
thank you for being family :)
and so it says
Your rainbow is shaded
green.What is says about you: You are an intelligent person. You feel strong ties to nature and your mood changes with its cycles. Those around you admire your fresh outlook and vitality.
Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.got this from duan's blog. this is rather.. spiritually uplifting :D coincidentally green is tim's favourite colour haha!
have an awesome chinese new year everyone! looooooong weekends couldn't have arrived at a better time.
down and out
all that snacking on cny goodies are finally getting to me. i've been down with throat inflammation for 2 days and am feeling miiiiiiiiiserable. went to help out with spring-cleaning over at tim's and just as i expected, the dust and dirt got to me as well and my nose has been blocked since last night. but i'm glad the place is finally clean and tidied up! we found the most unbelievable things (nono nothing dodgy) tucked away in the obscure corners of his room - merci chocolates, molten snickers, candy bars, GREEN-rimmed shades, ancient-looking coins (which he insisted on cleaning too), a brand-new keyboard... it's like having his own little museum all the while!
off to grab another of those lozenges. looks like i've gotta kiss my favourite love letters/ pineapple tarts/ prawn rolls/ kueh bangkit goodbye for the time being =/
someone's gotta try
just like an accelerating car with a malfunctioning foot brake, i skidded off track, crashed and burnt. sadly i wasn't the only victim.
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the generosity and kind-heartedness of some can drive me to tears at times.
first week down!
with all due respect, after dealing with the french and korean, today was an attempt to comprehend the mainland chinese. well i know that i'm gona learn about 'buns' (bonds) and the 'riskiniss' (risk allocation) in the 'burriburriburri porterfolio' (??? portfolio), and that the rates of return in risk-free portfolios has 'ze-ze-ze-zero' standard deviation. oh and 'itch' (H) stands for High level of risk. amusing accent aside, the prof does seem like someone who really enjoys what he does- almost always beaming even when everyone was chattering amongst themselves. overall i think we are in good hands :) hmm with regard to sw1101e, i'm actually looking forward to the tutorials after hearing interesting stories from es last year. as for the first lecture, urm i just didn't think it was necessary to spend an hour or so going through all the steps and mods required to major in the subject. i mean, such things can be read during free time can't they?
and that rounds up week 1! tutorial balloting underway :) once again praying very hard for a 4-day week.
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almost fainted after taking a first glimpse at the financial economics notes. it's NOWHERE near what i imagined. ohgosh. different lecturer, different style, different emphasis. im in for a rough ride.
second home
technically half of my first week back at school is already over (: absolutely draining. my mondays are gona be jam-packed from 9am to 6pm - i can feel it in my fingers. so far i've had exciting law seminars, and encountered a bizarre (but cute) french lecturer as well as an incredibly comical korean professor. ah well, still feeling hung-over from all the holiday adventures. waiting to play some netball now! highly inspired by captain marvel's (haha ziying don't kill me) heart-stopping IVP semi-final match :D volleyball next week OKAY!
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i can't be so self-centred anymore.
never a bed of roses
I can't recite lengthy bible verses smoothly or decipher them the way sunday school teachers do. But till this day there are principles i hold close to heart. I know it's pointless to pray to God just hoping something good, anything good, will befall upon me. You work for it. You take action, you know? Ever wondered why people always say 'do your best and let God do the rest', instead of 'sit down relax and let God do it all'? I admit i have the hell of a temper. Awful, fiery one. Enough to scare people who don't know me out of their wits. But i'm learning to control it, to at least hold it back in sticky situations.
Mom yells at me for no reason; I shut up and watch Russell Peters. Everyone has his/her own "skyscrapper of shit" hovering above their heads, but hey you have two options: Throw your temper and get angrier as more shit befalls upon you, or do something to hold up that chunk so that you don't get buried in it. Simple as that. It's so easy to find reasons to be angry, so much tougher to find reasons not to. Oh and mind you, i said 'reasons not to be angry'-- i'm not even at the part that says 'reasons to be happy' yet.Who ever said that life is a bed of roses?
challenging combination
Finalised modules for this coming sem!
Microeconomic Analysis IILabour Economics IFinancial Economics IIntroduction to Social WorkLabour Law in Singaporei really
really don't know what to expect (x but this is such an exotic mix of modules it'd hopefully make a nice end to my sophomore year haha.
"it's 09, you should do it!"
that's ziying's tagline for the year :D very inspiring one i must say! ties in nicely with my new year resolution haha.
i'm in the process of making some major changes to module options, primarily cos i won't wana kill myself the next 4 mths. i still need a life yo? and if some things have to wait, they will wait.
anyway, do try to catch
Seven Pounds. simple theme but makes your imagination run wild along the lines of the supernatural, and of cos stunning performance by will smith once again. this guy is a genius. i wonder if anyone actually notices, but i like how his lips twitch in various ways to express different emotions, intentionally or otherwise. oh speaking of geniuses, i simply looove adam sandler in
Bedtime Stories. he makes people laugh just by looking dumb, or trying to look dumb. that's an art! also, the adorable little boy with blond curls in the show will probably grow up to be the next jack black or vince vaughn (: hmm, but then again we can't forgot the hot men in hollywood haha, like hugh jackman! there was a scene in
Australia in which he was clean shaven for once and dressed in sexy white tux, as his face broke into a smile, omg everyone in the cinema - mostly fellow ladies i presumed - went 'wooooaaaaaahhhhhhh' in unison :D tim still thinks he looks best unshaven and i must agree with that!
at this point i realised that in the past week i've visited the cinemas more often than i thought (x ah well, that's a movie buff for you!